| | | | Compelling Landscapes, Endearing Characters
BY SHELLY BRYANT I February 26, 2009
Bob Rogers. The Return of No. 44. BookSurge Publishing. 378 pages.
ISBN-10: 1439223483
Two elements that can always combine to create a good fiction are compelling landscapes and endearing characters. Bob Rogers creates both, and puts them into play on the pages of The Return of No. 44.
The book opens strong, jumping right in with a cast of characters who each quickly establish a distinctive voice. They are put onto a stage made up of scenery that is breathtaking, even in written form, and there they are allowed to play out their various dramas. It is a formula that works.
The book is, for the most part, nicely paced. The only rough patch I found came somewhere after the halfway point, probably within the final third. The story unfolded in such a way that the two women at the center of the story had to open up their lives to a whole new group of friends (actually, the focal point of this group is Kathy, a "cleaned up" version of a character we've met earlier), and this necessitates bringing those new friends into the already crowded space of the reader's attention. The story itself demands this opening up, and the only difficulty seemed to come with the new idiom introduced in the speech and lifestyle of the new circle of friends. The new way of speaking and interacting, while quite authentic, seems to create something of a bump in the otherwise smooth-flowing narrative. It is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a noticeable disruption in the reading process.
The strength of employing such disparate idioms for the two groups represented in the novel is its effectiveness in highlighting the polarization that is frustratingly real and alive in American discourse today. This problem is explored in the novel, and the rhetoric of both poles receives equal disdain. The Return of No. 44 calls for some moderation, and a ton of cooperation. And it does so in the context of a good story.
Along with these memorable characters with such distinctive, memorable voices, the land in which they move about commands the reader's attention. One particular locale stands out as memorable, the natural hot pools where the characters stop on at least three occasions in the novel (one of which is featured in the excerpt recently published in Sloth Jockey). This pool is easily visible to the mind's eye in each of these scenes, and the storm that takes place there at one point is spectacularly described.
The Return of No. 44 builds up to a wonderfully complex climax, with an oddly varied assortment of characters on stage to see its resolution. The novel is engaging, often funny, and certainly has something worth saying within the context in which it speaks. Perhaps at least some people standing at the poles will take the time to consider No. 44. But even if it never quite gets through, I am glad to hear a voice speaking out for moderation and cooperation.
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