Have you ever read a book where you know what the ending will be from the very beginning? I just finished reading one. The book entitled Charming Billy was one of Oprah's book club picks a couple of years ago. I came across my copy at a library sale and thought it might be a charming read.
Charming Billy
The beginning of the book has you sitting at the reception after the funeral of Billy. Billy is a normal guy like any other nothing extraordinary about him, he was married, he was a vet, and he was a hard worker. But what took him over and eventually ended his life was alcohol. Yes Billy was an alcoholic. So now you know why you already know the ending to this book, Billy dies, there is no mystery there. But what causes Billy to succumb to the life of an alcoholic? That is what I think the story is about.
The book starts in the present and goes back in time to when Billy was a young man. Some friends and family thought that it may have been a broken heart over the death of Billy's true love Eva, but those people never knew the truth about Eva, and what actually became of her. Others had their thoughts as well, but as Billy's life story is played out we begin to learn more about him.
We do not only learn about Billy though we learn about all of the important players in his life. Not only is Billy's life story played out but parts of the lives of the people closest to him were played out as well. Most of the story is told by a younger relative of Billy but a lot of it comes from stories being told by her father Dennis, who was Billy's cousin, and seemingly best friend. Therefore we get to learn quite a bit about Dennis, and of his family especially about his Mother and Father, and about his Mother's second husband Mr. Holtzman who also happened to be Billy's boss at his part time job.
The book goes into how Billy met his wife Mauve and how and when the drinking began to become a problem and how Mauve the daughter of an alcoholic dealt with her husband's drinking problem the same way that she dealt with her fathers.
Thoughts
This is not an exciting book by any stretch of the imagination. The people in the book are ordinary people. Their work lives and their relationships all rather ordinary. This in my opinion was fine and dandy.
While I enjoy learning a bit about characters in books, I must say that this book took it a little too much to the extreme. We did not just learn a few details about these side characters we learned a lot about them at particular times in their lives and I really had to ask my self a few times, what it all had to do with Billy. The book was a slow progression of Billy's life that could have come to its conclusion way sooner had we not had to stop and go back in time and learn about other people's lives. This also made for very difficult shifts in time, and the time periods in the book seemed to bounce around way to much. This just seemed to lengthen the book and really did not add a whole lot of interest to the story. I of course understand that in order to tell Billy's life story you have to go back in time, but if the book had just stuck to Billy's life story it would have been a lot easier to follow. I personally feel that in a book such as this one where you already know the ending and you are not rushing to find the conclusion the story has to be that much more interesting to hold the readers interest.
The book was well written in the fact that you could vividly imagine the scenes, and the people in them. The scenes were very descriptive, and when the author describes a home or an ocean scene you can actually envision it in your head. You also get a good sense of Billy and how people actually felt about the charming and charismatic man who let drinking take him over.
Although the book was vivid and detailed I have to admit that I found it difficult to get through. I would pick it up every day and read a page or two, but was never really caught up in it enough to read beyond that on any given day. With this being said the book took me nearly 3 months to finish, and I finished reading several other books in the mean time. Only some kind of un-known charm kept me returning to faithfully finish this book.
I have mixed feelings about weather or not I recommend this book. I can not give it an excellent rating because it frankly did not draw me in all that well, and did not make me want to fly through the pages to find out what would happen next. Also the time jumping was very annoying to me. However, I can not say that I would not recommend this book either, the characters although ordinary are endearing, and you get to know quite a bit about many of them. When I picked up the book I felt I knew certain characters really well and they were for the most part likable people. The book had kind of a comfortable old shoe feeling about it. Although it was not terribly exciting there was a certain comfort level about it, and it had a certain understanding of the disease of alcoholism, that I am sure many people can relate to somewhere along their family tree or among friends.
Weather this book is for you or not is your decision to make, I am not going to recommend it nor am I going to tell you to not read it. The book is charming, but lacks excitement, and has too many time shifts.
This book is another entry in to the: Resurrecting the Oldies Book Write Off. There is still plenty of time to join in. Please see my profile page for more details.
http://www.epinions.com/user-msmorvay/show_~View_Profile
If you have time take a moment to read the other wonderful entries in this write off.
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http://www.epinions.com/content_156899643012
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ed_grover
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