The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta

[lightreads]

The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I have finally figured out who Melina Marchetta reminds me of. It took me a while because it’s weird, but she reminds me of Sugar. No, really. I don’t read advice columns, but I often read that one. Which is fitting, since I don’t read many non-speculative young adult books, but I will read anything and everything Marchetta decides to write about. I think the commonality is – it’s hard to explain. My enduring image of them both is of two opened, waiting hands.



This book is relentlessly humane. It starts with Tom, drunk and stoned, taking a dive off a table and landing in the hospital, and also homeless. And then it’s about him and his family and the shattering loss they’re grieving. And trying to rebuild a relationship after an old betrayal. And a group of friends coming back together. It’s a healing book, you know? Where all the very worst things happened before the book started.



And it’s just so relentless. That’s how I felt, reading it, like it was coming through me in this gentle, unstoppable way. This book believes in every word that . . . the big stuff. That we’re all going to be okay. That we deserve to be, every one of us. That it takes time, and it’s hard work, but there is, you know. Hope.



That isn’t something I’ve managed to believe much for the past twelve months. Evidence to the contrary has been somewhat overwhelming. But this book made me. I had no choice about it.



It set me up for a couple hundred pages. And then it gave me a little tap, just the gentlest push, and tipped me over to tears with five words. And I am not what you’d call a crier.



I kind of want to punch her a little, you know? That hurt.



The words were “Yes. A thousand times yes,” by the way.





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Comments

[jadelennox]

Man, I need to read this book already. And I need to sit down with you and talk about Marchetta books.

/me goes to ILL to order it

[lightreads]

Have you read Saving Francesca?

Frankie is in the background of this one, and there's some tiny bits about her and her Depression and how she handles it and how it plays into her relationship with Will and it's just. So sane, and careful, and thoughtful. I love them all. I want twenty books about these people.

[jadelennox]

Yes, I adored Saving Francesca. It wasn't as good as Jellicoe Road, but only because Jellicoe Road was astonishing.

[lightreads]

Yeah, I think I'm going to parcel these out slowly over the next few months, though gulping down her entire catalog is very tempting.

[cahn]

I blame you for the fact that I spent all afternoon reading Dear Sugar columns and have therefore amassed a huge overload of work that I should have been doing in that time period. So clearly I should read Marchetta. Any thoughts as to what I should start with? My library doesn't seem to have Piper, yet.

[lightreads]

Well, this one is actually a sequel to Saving Francesca, which I enjoyed a lot. I haven't read her other stuff yet, but I hear it's all great, with the possible exception of her one actual fantasy -- something of the Rock.

[cahn]

Okay, I think my library has that one.

(Man. Sugar can write. And she's got such wisdom and compassion. I wish I knew who she was in real life so I could buy her books. Opened, waiting hands... that's about right.)

[lightreads]

Yeah, every week she pops up on my rss feed and I think "wait, why do I have an advice columnist in here again?" And then five minutes later I'm like "...oh. Right. Er." Also possibly sniffling.

[eagle]

I ran across this while reading through all of your older reviews and picked it up to read on vacation. Thank you. This was wonderful, and I never would have found it otherwise.

The book ended before I was done with it and I still haven't entirely forgiven it for doing that because I need my denouement to unwind when a book is going to do that to me, but it was rather amazing in a bunch of different ways. I was particularly impressed by how Tom is so very bad at communication, and he gets better, but he gets better in a very Tom sort of way where he still has all sorts of problems saying emotions in words. But he has that moment where he realizes he's been an ass to a whole bunch of people, and then he figures out how to stop being an ass, and I really needed that.

The best thing I read on my recent vacation. Thank you.