Review by: Dwight Garner
Novalee Nation, the headstrong protagonist of Billie Letts's eccentric, happy-go-lucky first novel, is "17, 7 months pregnant, 37 pounds overweight" when she flees her dead-end life in a Tennessee trailer park -- only to have her boyfriend abandon her outside a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Okla. Bewildered and lost, Novalee hides out in the store at night, sleeping behind the hot water heater and surviving on canned goods. Two months later, she delivers what becomes known as the "Wal-Mart baby" and turns into a local celebrity. Ms. Letts unspools this lightweight story with a fair amount of charm, and for a while "Where the Heart Is" reads like a Fannie Flagg novel freshened up by Molly Ivins. But the story falters in its second half. Ms. Letts has a harder time evoking the less manic rhythms of Novalee's improvised life in Sequoyah, where she works at the Wal-Mart, raises her daughter and cultivates a host of would-be-wacky friends. As the pace slackens, the prose grows thick with Robert James Waller-esque dialogue. ("Novalee, I know a little something about algebra and I can make a cherry cheesecake. I'm a pretty fair bowler and I used to be able to twirl a baton. But love? I just don't understand it.") Ms. Letts also resorts to narrative stunts that can seem desperate. Her novel seems to have its heart in the right place; its head is another matter. DWIGHT GARNER
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Brooklyn's comment: I do agree with what Dwight said about how the novel "falters in it's second half" because its quite true. Although this book was amazing, there was a period o time where I was really bored with it. In the beginning of the second half of the novel there is no excitement. Nothing crazy or memorable happens. Maybe it was important to the author that she add that, but the reader finds it too slwo paced. Although Dwight had some good points, I do not agree with everything he said. Dwight says that "Ms. Letts also resorts to narritive stunts that can seem desperate". I do not agree with this at all. I found that the quality of the narations in this novel were flawless. There were no "desperate narritave stunts" in my opinion. After reading this review, i found myself rethinking many parts of the book. For instance, I never noticed while I was reading the book how the mood changed from light and happy to thick and all about the love between Novalee and Forney. But I realized after reading this review that the author did change the mood really quickly near the end of the novel. In the end, this review is accurate and I agree with it for the most part. It also made me open my eyes to some flaws in the book, but that won't change how much I loved the book.
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ReplyDeleteKatie's comment: I also agree with Dwight, when he says that the novel "falters in it's second half" because the book had many boring parts. The book was great and started off great. In the beginning of the second half the book was building for its epic end. Doing this, the author lost my attention because it was quite boring. There was no action or romance it was very flat. I do not agree with Dwight when he says "unspools this lightweight story with a fair amount of charm". I found that this story was not lightweight and easy because of the sudden intensity of it. At times the book was very dark like when Lexie's children were all molested. To me in a lightweight story It does not get so upsetting. I also felt awful for Novalee for a big portion of this book. I was very upset for the characters in this story many times. I also did agree with Dwight when he said there were "desperate narrative stunts." It seemed like Mrs. Letts was being desperate at times like when she killed off Sister out of no where. Instead of doing what a normal person would have when there was a tornado warning Sister had to return a dish to the neighbors and died. I feel like this was desperate because after that incident Novalee got all of Sister's money which felt like an easy way out. Overall I loved this book and would only do minor changes to it because it was great!
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