Emotional, powerful and imaginative story of a tragedy
‘Once upon a time there was a boy who fell through a crack in time but he didn’t fall all the way.’
Following the momentous events at his school’s annual dance, Oliver lies in a coma – neither here nor gone but ‘suspended’ somewhere in between. ‘By your twentieth birthday, you had become a dimming hive of neurological data, a mute oracle, an obsession, a regret, a prayer, a vegetative patient in Bed Four at Crockett State Care Facility; the last hope your mother lived inside.’
In a way, the people around Oliver are suspended too, unable to move on from the fateful evening of the Bliss County Day School’s annual dance. More than anything, they are obsessed by the question: Why? Why was Rebekkah unharmed? Why was Oliver at the dance? What motivated a troubled young man, Hector Espina, to do what he did? They cling to the belief that Oliver will someday, somehow, be able to answer those questions; that he is the only one who can provide the answers. But is that actually the case?
The reader benefits from the gradual recounting of Oliver’s memories leading up to the evening of the dance, during which Oliver is always addressed in the second person. Interspersed are sections told from the point of view of Oliver’s mother (Eve), his father (Jed), his brother (Charlie) and Rebekkah (the object of Oliver’s affection). It becomes clear that they also have secrets and are weighed down by guilt: about the things they did or didn’t do; the things they did or didn’t say. Maybe if they’d acted or spoken, things would have turned out differently.
All the characters are convincing, with human flaws, and not always likeable. In Eve, Oliver’s mother, the reader gets an overwhelming sense of someone who wants to believe in miracles so much that it blinds her to reason, interpreting signs that others don’t see as indications of Oliver’s lucidity. However, does her steadfastness just disguise an inability to face up to the truth and take the right decision? Jed, Oliver’s father, is a failed artist, a disappointed man and a drunk unable to face up to what his son has become. Oliver’s brother, Charlie, dreams of being a writer and of writing his family’s story – Oliver’s story – but is unable to start the book, to find a way into it. ‘Like unstable plutonium, he had thought he could take the annihilating power of it and transform it into an astonishing source of energy. But at last he knew better, that he was just like the rest of his family, still pounding at the walls of an instant, now many years past.’
Then there’s Rebekkah Sterling, a rather elusive figure for much of the book, always hovering off stage but seeming to exercise a sort of gravitational pull on other characters. Oliver is enchanted by her from the first time he sees her and Charlie becomes convinced she has the answers to what happened that night. And others who came into her orbit prove significant as well. Talking of orbits and gravitational pulls, the book frequently alludes to astronomy, wormholes and even parallel universes. Does Oliver merely inhabit some ‘impassable otherworld of your memory, that place where you were still the same wholly whole Oliver’.
The tragic events at the Bliss County Day School dance have wider repercussions than just for Oliver’s family. The tragedy and the racial background of the person involved are usurped for political capital (now why does that sound familiar?), exploiting existing tensions over immigration from Mexico, informal segregation between the Hispanic and white population of Bliss and concerns about drugs being brought across the border. ‘It wouldn’t matter that Hector Espina had been an American-born citizen or that an Ecuadorian named Ernesto Ruiz stopped the kid that night. The fact was that Hector was a Latino…He was a demon of white imaginings let loose.’
And it’s as if the town died the day of the tragedy as well. The author conjures up an evocative picture of a rundown West Texas town with its abandoned houses and closed down businesses. In fact there is wonderful descriptive writing and use of quirky metaphors throughout the book. As Charlie reflects on what the tragedy has done to his family: ‘Ma – the immutable icon, the implacable white colossus that had stood guard over his childhood – had been badly fissuring, and Charlie had known that only he could fill the gaps. After all, Pa had already crumbled.’
Oliver Loving is both an examination of the impact of a tragedy on a family and a community, and an exploration of the ‘locked in’ state. It’s also about needing answers and about clinging on to hope. It is also a fantastic read
Following the momentous events at his school’s annual dance, Oliver lies in a coma – neither here nor gone but ‘suspended’ somewhere in between. ‘By your twentieth birthday, you had become a dimming hive of neurological data, a mute oracle, an obsession, a regret, a prayer, a vegetative patient in Bed Four at Crockett State Care Facility; the last hope your mother lived inside.’
In a way, the people around Oliver are suspended too, unable to move on from the fateful evening of the Bliss County Day School’s annual dance. More than anything, they are obsessed by the question: Why? Why was Rebekkah unharmed? Why was Oliver at the dance? What motivated a troubled young man, Hector Espina, to do what he did? They cling to the belief that Oliver will someday, somehow, be able to answer those questions; that he is the only one who can provide the answers. But is that actually the case?
The reader benefits from the gradual recounting of Oliver’s memories leading up to the evening of the dance, during which Oliver is always addressed in the second person. Interspersed are sections told from the point of view of Oliver’s mother (Eve), his father (Jed), his brother (Charlie) and Rebekkah (the object of Oliver’s affection). It becomes clear that they also have secrets and are weighed down by guilt: about the things they did or didn’t do; the things they did or didn’t say. Maybe if they’d acted or spoken, things would have turned out differently.
All the characters are convincing, with human flaws, and not always likeable. In Eve, Oliver’s mother, the reader gets an overwhelming sense of someone who wants to believe in miracles so much that it blinds her to reason, interpreting signs that others don’t see as indications of Oliver’s lucidity. However, does her steadfastness just disguise an inability to face up to the truth and take the right decision? Jed, Oliver’s father, is a failed artist, a disappointed man and a drunk unable to face up to what his son has become. Oliver’s brother, Charlie, dreams of being a writer and of writing his family’s story – Oliver’s story – but is unable to start the book, to find a way into it. ‘Like unstable plutonium, he had thought he could take the annihilating power of it and transform it into an astonishing source of energy. But at last he knew better, that he was just like the rest of his family, still pounding at the walls of an instant, now many years past.’
Then there’s Rebekkah Sterling, a rather elusive figure for much of the book, always hovering off stage but seeming to exercise a sort of gravitational pull on other characters. Oliver is enchanted by her from the first time he sees her and Charlie becomes convinced she has the answers to what happened that night. And others who came into her orbit prove significant as well. Talking of orbits and gravitational pulls, the book frequently alludes to astronomy, wormholes and even parallel universes. Does Oliver merely inhabit some ‘impassable otherworld of your memory, that place where you were still the same wholly whole Oliver’.
The tragic events at the Bliss County Day School dance have wider repercussions than just for Oliver’s family. The tragedy and the racial background of the person involved are usurped for political capital (now why does that sound familiar?), exploiting existing tensions over immigration from Mexico, informal segregation between the Hispanic and white population of Bliss and concerns about drugs being brought across the border. ‘It wouldn’t matter that Hector Espina had been an American-born citizen or that an Ecuadorian named Ernesto Ruiz stopped the kid that night. The fact was that Hector was a Latino…He was a demon of white imaginings let loose.’
And it’s as if the town died the day of the tragedy as well. The author conjures up an evocative picture of a rundown West Texas town with its abandoned houses and closed down businesses. In fact there is wonderful descriptive writing and use of quirky metaphors throughout the book. As Charlie reflects on what the tragedy has done to his family: ‘Ma – the immutable icon, the implacable white colossus that had stood guard over his childhood – had been badly fissuring, and Charlie had known that only he could fill the gaps. After all, Pa had already crumbled.’
Oliver Loving is both an examination of the impact of a tragedy on a family and a community, and an exploration of the ‘locked in’ state. It’s also about needing answers and about clinging on to hope. It is also a fantastic read