Paper Moon cover, Paper Moon

Paper Moon

Patricia Rice

This book has one of the handsomest covers I've ever seen on a paperback though unfortunately the scan doesn't do it justice; it depicts a silhouette of a cactus on the left, a photograph of the moon in the top center, set against a sky, printed in metallic inks that shade from tanzanite blue to an orangey brass, with the title and author embossed overall. Beautifully laid out, romantic without cloying sweetness---a real winner.

Pity the story isn't nearly as good.

Janice Harrison is an old fashioned ``schoolmarm'', having escaped grinding poverty and the sort of societal constraints that make it difficult for a woman back East to earn a living (a premise I'm not certain I accept, by the way, though my knowledge is sketchy enough not to get seriously upset about the assertion.) She has, by dint of working two and three jobs, finally made a little bit of a life for her and her delicate young sister. Fairness compels her to defend the dirty drifter accused by the town of burning down her schoolhouse (her major source of income) for no other reason than he works so hard to save her next door house.

Peter Mulloney, having had the idleness---and the cruelty exacted upon the factory workers whose efforts filled his family's coffers---of his wealthy lifestyle forcibly brought home to him by a previously unknown elder brother (this in another book in the series, presumeably) is determined once again to become wealthy, but this time by dint of his own efforts, which up to now have not been very successful. He and his partner believe they've found gold, but have run out of money to purchase the land; so, though unwilling to take money from his brother directly, he decides to pursue some of his family's banking contacts with the hopes of obtaining a loan.

His rotten luck continues to hold, for he's accused of arson at the first town where he hopes to get the loan. Sentenced to rebuild the schoolhouse by the man from whom he has hopes of additional funds, he finds the attractive schoolteacher cold and suspicious, and even less happy with him after a second arson puts her in such a compromising position with him that she loses her job. He offers her marriage and (future) wealth. Janice, having belonged to one of the families who worked in the dreadful Mulloney factories, is so desparate for financial security that she marries him anyway, though her feelings are ambivalent at best.

I thought the plotline had decent potential---in fact a scene towards the end of the book involving a circus showed real potential---but the writing was dreadful. For example:

``That was when he knew he had her. Peter didn't think he'd ever felt true elation before. He didn't know if he felt it now. He didn't see how it could be. It was too surrounded by doubt. But just for one wild moment, he felt the exultation of freedom.'' p. 102

Okay, which is it? This gorgeous woman he's been courting for the last 60 pages has finally agreed to marry him, and he can't tell, within the space of one paragraph, whether what he feels is elation? Exultation of freedom? Exultation I'm willing to grant, (though unwillingly within two sentences of a lack of elation, since elation ought to be very near to exultation, after all), but of freedom? Even in the happiest of marriages, in which the principals grant a great many benefits deriving therefrom, there is still the realization of attendant constrictions---a loss of freedom.

But the whole book is this way---short, simple sentences, making for prose so dead that its rocking horse rhythm was enough to send me screaming to Jane Austen for relief---and contradictory statements, if not within the same paragraph, as in the quote above, then within several paragraphs, that make for very confusing characters. Even their longterm (say, over chapters) behavior is erratic. Though Peter and Janice's relationship does progress, the propelling events certainly aren't logical, as when she contrasts on how steady and reliable he is, (even though she hasn't seen him for weeks) with a past lover, who also deserted her. Excuse me? At no other point in the book did the two men appear so similar in their flakey behavior.

Besides problems of this magnitude, it seems almost petty to complain about the occasional floods of undifferientiated minor characters I couldn't keep straight, the extreme unlikelihood of a household of mixed Black, Latina and Caucasions, all living on happy terms of equality, the lack of detail concerning the young sister's chronic illness---was it consumption, leukemia, what? Granted the child didn't have access to good medical care, but though people may have been ignorant back then, they still identified various conditions. The research seemed lacking in other ways as well---did anyone as poor as Janice buy sheets? I seem to recall my grandmother (who was not dirt poor) sewing them. Janice often didn't seem to know how to make---or make do---with the resources typical to a woman of her station and generation. In other words, she seemed to buy an awful lot of stuff I would have expected her to make.

Clearly I felt this book had a lot of problems, though the characters, what I could see of them anyway, had potential, and did mature throughout the book. However, the story was a very frustrating read. One and a half stars.

Sylvus Tarn

Last modified: Sun Sep 13 00:57:37 EDT 1998

Sylvus Tarn