Back in July, I read Waiting for Normal,
a novel by Leslie Connor, an author with whom I had no prior
familiarity. I found myself unable to put the book down and hoped that
she had written other books as well. My search yielded two results: the
picture book Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel and Dead on Town Line, a novel in verse. I have limited familiarity with this unusual form, the best other example I can give being Love That Dog,
a lovely reflection on the power of poetry to shape young lives and aid
in the grieving process. But while that explores some similar themes,
it aims at a much younger audience.
Dead on Town Line is
the story of a 16-year-old girl who is murdered. Just how, and by whom,
we gradually discover as she reveals the details one poem at a time.
Like Susie in The Lovely Bones, Cassie Devlin speaks to us from
beyond the grave, but instead of inhabiting some celestial almost-heaven
while she awaits closure, she remains at the scene of the crime,
occasionally feeling a tug leading her to "the next" but unable to
follow while those who loved her search for her in vain.
Through
Connor's carefully crafted free verse, we get to know Cassie, a girl
similar in some ways to Addie, the 11-year-old narrator of Waiting for Normal.
Both girls are compassionate, eager to extend kindness to the
marginalized. Both live alone with their mothers, though unlike Addie,
Cassie enjoys a tranquil home life with a mom who is entirely capable
and devoted. Perhaps most of all, Cassie and Addie are united by their
love of music. While Addie plays the flute, Cassie is a pianist, and a
composer to boot. Her most precious possession is Morning of the Moths, a work in progress and the object at the heart of her untimely demise.
Cassie's
poems are short, generally one or two pages long with terse titles
printed in all capital letters. Connor is quite as successful at
capturing a teenager's voice as an 11-year-old's. We also hear another
young woman speak frequently. Waiting with Cassie is Birdie, a Southern,
dark-skinned mother-to-be who was also buried nearby, more than sixty
years earlier. Murdered by the man who impregnated her, she is dour from
years of abuse and neglect and merely wants solitude in her afterlife.
But
Cassie is curious, and eventually Birdie begins to open up as together,
they explore the possibility of manipulating the matter around them,
reminding me of Sam and the spooky longtime subway dweller in Ghost.
There's nothing quite so dramatic as avalanches of paperwork or
invisible fingers on a keyboard, but they find that a gentle,
well-directed breeze can have a powerful impact.
Other
characters come to light as well. Kyle, the gentle boyfriend upon whom
suspicion rests. Abel Sorrenson, the music teacher and mentor who
searches most diligently. Gail Sherman, the problem student Cassie took
into her Composer's Workshop. Jory, her cowed brother. Mrs. Devlin,
whose life is empty without the daughter who defined it. And from many
years before, the corrupt preacher who kept Birdie in a state of
near-slavery and the unborn infant who vanished while her mother stayed.
The decision to include Birdie adds considerable depth to the
story. It gives Cassie someone to converse with; it presents two girls
who have been burned by previous relationships slowly building a
friendship with one another. Learning to trust again, which is
particularly difficult for Birdie, who has not had love in her life for a
very long time, if ever. It's a gruesome tale in some ways, with two
murders described and frequent discussion of bones and blood and death.
But for all that, the reflections, often tinged with the extended
metaphor of music, have beauty.
"Death's hard to explain,"
Cassie tells us early in the book. "Even now, / When I should know. / It
reminds me of / A dog bite..." She goes on to recall her experience of
being bitten and watching the resulting bruise grow ever darker. "I was
almost relieved / To find out: / Okay. / So this is a / Dog bite. / And
okay, / So this is / Death. / But like the bruising, / More seems to be
coming. / Being dead / Isn't being done."
I don't know whether Connor was influenced at all by The Lovely Bones,
but despite slightly different approaches, the two books cover enough
of the same territory with similarly lyrical writing for me to suspect
that those who like one will enjoy the other. Dead on Town Line
is much shorter at just over 130 pages, with empty spaces, full-page
illustrations in stark black-and-white and lines scarcely more than a
few words long. I read it in little more than an hour, but it again
cemented in my mind the fact that Connor is a writer of great talent and
heart whose name I intend to seek out on library shelves for years to
come.
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