Book Review: The Stone Pony, by Patricia Calvert

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I've just finished reading this book, and I think it has a lot of charm and style.  There are lots of references to horse riding and museums; and teens who have wide interests --or at least interests in those areas-- will enjoy it.

The book starts out slow.  In an attempt to convey the complex feelings of the main protagonist and her family environment, the author packs the beginning of the book with just a little too much density.  I can't quite figure out whether the reader just gets accustomed to the darkness of the writing, or whether the author actually lightens up slightly, to convey the changing mood of the main character.  But the character has a lot of charm, which eventually spreads its fragrance through the whole book.

The dialog could be better, and some of the minor characters could do with a little more dimensionality; even in a book written for teenagers, an adult mind at work would be welcome.  But the entire thing (a very short story, but not really too short for what it sets out to do) is presented from the point of view of a single character, as teen novelettes tend to be, and I couldn't help thinking that if the dialog were stronger, the whole book would have been stronger.  This book could easily earn itself a sort of cult following; I suppose it could already have done so, and I wouldn't know!

[These one-point-of-view pieces bring up an interesting problem: should the dialogue be filtered through the voice of the narrator, or should the dialogue be presented in an objective way, and not as the character (of the principal voice) would have reported the conversation?  I'm sure the experts have technical terms for such issues, but being an outsider I don't know what they are!]

So, I'd say four stars!

P.S.  Mano Singham's analysis of the lightning strike that destroyed Touchdown Jesus is excellent.  In more religious times (e.g. Old Testament times, when people were figuring out what Yahweh liked and disliked) a lightning strike would establish something as repugnant to the Almighty.  In these more enlightened times, a lightning strike is not seen as an act of god, but rather a purely physical coincidence.  It is interesting how Christians tend to choose what things are considered god acting in nature, and what things are to be considered random.  Even more interesting is how they reconcile depictions of Jesus as being exempt from the proscription on idols.

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