![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Book Review: The Return
Dec. 25th, 2013 05:16 pmTHE RETURN
This is a book that's about the Mexican drug wars, but it's also about how out of place many of the veterans of the Vietnam War were after they came home. It's about redemption and how we fail to earn it, and it's the most unique revenge story I've read in a very long time. Possibly ever. I'm a sucker for revenge stories, but this one is a very different flavor from the black and white Hollywood vengeance flicks, and it's complex in a different direction than Count of Monte Cristo.
And it has some very diverse characters. My favorite was Statch, the main character's daughter. She's the most intelligent character in the book, easily as resourceful as Patrick Skelly--and he's an ex-Green Beret who has spent the past forty years working in "security contracts". What was satisfying was that she's resourceful in different ways, she's incredibly strong while still being well-rounded, which is something that I find a lot of authors miss the mark on when they write a character who could easily turn into a trope.
Skelly, for example, is not the same gruff and grizzled veteran you find in countless forms of media. He's broken by his experiences, but without suffering hallucinations or being incapable of holding genuine conversations. He's charming, even though he's damaged. And although he's hyper-masculine, a warrior's warrior who spends his time drinking or seducing women, he is also very likely in love with another man. Again: it would have been very easy to write him as a trope, and the plot would still have been entertaining, but that's not what Gruber did. Skelly shines in all the ways Gruber probably intended, and that can be tricky to do.
And then there's Richard Marder, the main character, the ex-Air Force Intelligence grunt who saw only one battle in Vietnam. He's fairly likable and easy to relate to despite his flaws, and reminded me mostly of a big Saint Bernard. He makes mistakes. He makes a lot of them, in fact, and handles them in a way I would probably find irritating in real life, but because the book is told in his point of view I found myself able to sympathize. In many parts I even cheered him on to pursue a perspective that I wouldn't take for myself.
The plot is engaging and a fresh take on revenge. Toward the end, I honestly didn't know what was going to happen next. There are a lot of cultural references and subtle nudges for American readers who will likely never experience the sort of life that people in rural Mexico have. There were small parts that didn't ring quite as authentically, and toward the end the dialogue felt much more scripted and less natural, but on the whole the book is highly recommended.
This is a book that's about the Mexican drug wars, but it's also about how out of place many of the veterans of the Vietnam War were after they came home. It's about redemption and how we fail to earn it, and it's the most unique revenge story I've read in a very long time. Possibly ever. I'm a sucker for revenge stories, but this one is a very different flavor from the black and white Hollywood vengeance flicks, and it's complex in a different direction than Count of Monte Cristo.
And it has some very diverse characters. My favorite was Statch, the main character's daughter. She's the most intelligent character in the book, easily as resourceful as Patrick Skelly--and he's an ex-Green Beret who has spent the past forty years working in "security contracts". What was satisfying was that she's resourceful in different ways, she's incredibly strong while still being well-rounded, which is something that I find a lot of authors miss the mark on when they write a character who could easily turn into a trope.
Skelly, for example, is not the same gruff and grizzled veteran you find in countless forms of media. He's broken by his experiences, but without suffering hallucinations or being incapable of holding genuine conversations. He's charming, even though he's damaged. And although he's hyper-masculine, a warrior's warrior who spends his time drinking or seducing women, he is also very likely in love with another man. Again: it would have been very easy to write him as a trope, and the plot would still have been entertaining, but that's not what Gruber did. Skelly shines in all the ways Gruber probably intended, and that can be tricky to do.
And then there's Richard Marder, the main character, the ex-Air Force Intelligence grunt who saw only one battle in Vietnam. He's fairly likable and easy to relate to despite his flaws, and reminded me mostly of a big Saint Bernard. He makes mistakes. He makes a lot of them, in fact, and handles them in a way I would probably find irritating in real life, but because the book is told in his point of view I found myself able to sympathize. In many parts I even cheered him on to pursue a perspective that I wouldn't take for myself.
The plot is engaging and a fresh take on revenge. Toward the end, I honestly didn't know what was going to happen next. There are a lot of cultural references and subtle nudges for American readers who will likely never experience the sort of life that people in rural Mexico have. There were small parts that didn't ring quite as authentically, and toward the end the dialogue felt much more scripted and less natural, but on the whole the book is highly recommended.
