REVIEW: *Boy, Snow, Bird* by Helen Oyeyemi

[Old Crow]

2. Thanks, Scarletwoman!

Last edited Sat Sep 13, 2014, 02:43 AM - Edit history (2)

I really appreciate the kind words.

This was an unusually difficult book to review and I worried a bit about putting it up as my first review here on DU. For one thing, it was a hard book to get through, a sometimes maddening agglomeration of strengths and weaknesses. I also felt a bit of an odd-man-out because so many reviewers elsewhere have praised Boy, Snow, Bird sky-high. (In fact, it came to my attention because it appeared on a "Best Books of 2014 So Far" list.)

My suspicion--which I didn't put in my review because it's only that, a suspicion--is that the publisher was reluctant to offend Oyeyemi because she's such a hot author right now. Not wanting to lose her as an author in their stable, I suspect they submitted the manuscript to only the lightest of editing when substantive, even developmental, editing was needed. Frankly, the book read like the first draft of a very talented writer. I cannot imagine that the book in its present form would have been accepted anywhere were it a first novel.

Oyeyemi may prove to be an important writer in the decade ahead, the key word being may. Judging from this latest novel, she appears to be coasting a bit and using her ability to pen the occasional bewitching sentence or paragraph as a subsitute for honing her skills in plot and characterization.

I do hope she improves because when she's good, she's very good. Many of the book's early passages regarding Boy and her rat-catcher father were superb. And I adored that paragraph of hers about the child who was convinced canned tuna fish is the flesh of mermaids.