Review: The Wake Of Forgiveness

The Wake Of Forgiveness by Bruce Machart

Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction
To Be Published: October, 2010
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Literary fiction fans will love Bruce Machart’s debut novel The Wake Of Forgiveness. The book is beautifully written with poetic prose and vivid, descriptive passages of the land, the people and the events in their lives. Set in early 20th century rural Texas, the novel centers around Karel Skala as he struggles to find the purpose in his life and to understand his connections with the land and his family.

The story begins with Karel’s birth and at the same time the death of his mother, Klara. His father, Vaclav, cannot accept losing the only woman he had ever been fond of. He turns back into the hard, bitter, man he was before he met her. He treats his horses and farm animals better than his sons and they never know the love of a family while they are growing up. Karel always longs for the touch of the mother he never knew. We follow Karel’s life as he becomes a man and learns about family through his own wife and children. Along the way he discovers what he has missed in life and eventually learns how to forgive both his brothers and his father.

This was a difficult read for me. It is not a book you can breeze through. I often needed to re-read passages to understand what happened. The sentences are lengthy and at times I felt they were too long going on for half a page. I would have to stop and parse the sentence to understand what the author meant. There was not a lot of dialog; this was a very descriptive novel. Most of the subject matter was dark and gritty. For example there were detailed passages describing a cow that had died giving birth, more than a few passages about chewing tobacco and other unpleasantries of the times. However, it was so skillfully and artfully presented that I could almost see and smell the images that were created in my mind. While I would prefer to read about the smell of spring flowers or a freshly mowed meadow, I will say the author has done his job when the reader feels something even if it’s something unpleasant.

The novel uses the technique of shifting back and forth in time. Occasionally I had to flip back to the beginning of the section to remember what time period I was in but overall I felt this enhanced the story. We read of events and consequences and eventually go back to an earlier time see how the pieces fit together like a puzzle in Karel’s life. It made the story more compelling than if it had been told in a linear fashion.

Overall I liked the book and would recommend it to fans of the genre, but it is not for everyone. Bruce Machart is an enormously talented writer. He definitely did his research on the language and history of the time period. My one disappointment was that the female characters were mostly relegated to the background. I would have liked to know more about them and their lives and history, especially Karel’s wife. They were portrayed as strong women but we never really got to know them.
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For more information see the author’s webpage brucemachart.com.
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Source: Review Copy provided by the publisher through Barnes & Noble