BiblioAddict The First Step on the Road to Recovery

On blog tours, lace reading, unstable narrators, and the unknowable future:

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to my very second blog tour.  The first time I did this was just a few months ago with David Ebershoff’s most excellent The 19^th Wife.  Shockingly, I managed not screw that up (after all – gasp! – I was asked to do another one of these things), but everyone knows the sophomore effort is never as good as the first.

Lucky for me, I had an easy book to review this second time around.  Tell me readers, have you heard of this little book called The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry?  Yeah, I kind of thought you had.

The Lace Reader first hit the shelves this time last year and, it seems, was an instant sensation.  It’s not hard to see why.  I mean, come on.  How could you not at least be intrigued by this very mysterious beginning:

My name is Towner Whitney.  No, that’s not exactly true.  My name is Sophya.  Never believe me.  I lie all the time.

I am a crazy woman… that last part is true.

That, my friends, is nothing less than a challenge.  With those opening lines, Barry dares her readers to parse truth from fiction.  Do you have what it takes to tell when Towner’s lying and when she isn’t?  I tried to do just that for the entire 390 pages, and I failed.  Miserably.

However, I’m getting ahead of myself.  First, a brief summary:  At the beginning of The Lace Reader, Towner’s (or Sophya’s) aunt Eva has gone missing.  Reluctantly, Towner returns home to Salem to help search for her.  To say this is a “reluctant” return home for Towner is an understatement for, though she loves her aunt, Towner vowed never to return to Salem after a tragedy left Towner’s twin sister dead and Towner, herself, briefly interned in an asylum.  When another Salem woman goes missing, Towner’s presence in Salem stirs up old family memories and lays other painful memories to rest.

Oh, and one other minor point: Towner, along with all of the other women in her family, can read lace.  Reading lace is the ability to gaze into a piece of lace and see a person’s past, present and, more importantly, their future.  As you might reasonably guess from the title of the book, this ability plays a fairly important role in the novel.

Also, I should point out that something in the summary above isn’t true.  Never believe me.  I lie all the time.  And I’m a crazy woman.  That last part is true… no, really.

So, The Lace Reader.  There are several themes at work in this atmospheric novel, the least of which, surprisingly, is lace reading.  The lace reading was certainly an interesting aspect of the novel, however Barry smartly and elegantly uses that ethereal and magical ability to talk about something very real to many families: abuse.

I won’t detail exactly what kind of abuse takes place in The Lace Reader because that would give away too much of the plot.  I will say that The Lace Reader explores the ways women, children, and families are affected by abuse.  It examines the ways family members relate to each other, understand each other, and ultimately forgive each other when something as violent as abuse affects their lives.

The Lace Reader also explores religion and its power to make us believe things about ourselves that may or may not be true.  It also asks us at what point does faith bleed over into madness?  I don’t think Barry at any point insinuates that the line between faith and madness is thin, but she does ask at what point does one know they’ve crossed that line?  In this way, Barry beautifully merges the history of the Salem witch trials with her present-day Salem story.

As I’ve said, the way Barry weaves these themes into the story is very elegantly done.  It’s very easy to get distracted by, not only the exotic inclusion of lace reading, but also the setting.  I mean, come on, it’s Salem, people!  The Salem setting lends The Lace Reader an eerie creepiness that hovers at the edges of every scene.  I swear, I wouldn’t have been surprised if a ghost appeared in a scene of two.  Oh, wait.  There is a ghost.

For the most part, I enjoyed The Lace Reader.  I struggled early on in the book, but somewhere around page 50 it took off and I couldn’t put it down.  My only quibble is that I had a difficult time developing a strong attatchment to any of the characters, particularly to Towner.  However, in hindsight, it’s easy to see how that might happen when one considers just how very little readers know about Towner until the very end.

Final analysis: If you haven’t read The Lace Reader yet, pick it up!  What are you waiting for?  You’ll enjoy yourself and you might even learn a thing or two, like how to read your future in the next piece of lace you come across.  Careful, though.  You might not always like what you see.

Still need convincing?  Check out this very nicely done trailer:

If you’re still not convinced, perhaps this brief documentary with Barry on Salem and lace reading will do the trick.  If it doesn’t, you my friend might just be hopeless:

In other Lace Reader news:

• Want a Lace Reader-inspired tee-shirt?  Soon, LaceReader.com will also have a downloadable t-shirt iron-on design.  Also, there will be printable signage for booksellers.

• How about a trip for two to Salem? (*waving hand* I do! I do! ) In the September issue of Book Page, there will be a sweepstakes in which the grand prize is a trip for two to Salem, two nights at The Hawthorne Hotel, and a guided Lace Reader tour of Salem with Brunonia.  A-w-e-s-o-m-e.
• Barry is headed back on book tour.  You might want to see if she’s headed to a bookstore near you:

• 9/14 – Los Angeles – Vroman’s Bookstore – Reading and Signing
• 9/15—Edwards, CO – VIP Customer Book Club Event
• 9/20—Andover, MA – Meet the Author Benefit for PATHS
• 10/12 Mequon, WI Next Chapter Bookshop
• 10/13 Dallas, TX Legacy Books
• 10/20 – Lexington, MA Library
• 10/22- Swampscott, MA Library
• 10/27- Destination Salem Lunch, Hampton Falls Library
• 11/18th 10 AM, Exeter Library, Exeter, NH.

Finally, I’m sure a lot of people are thanking their lucky stars that I’m not the only stop on this blog tour.  Here’s a list of folks who’ve already said everything I just said, but much better:

books i done read
Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?
Savvy Verse & Wit
Cindy’s Love of Books
Eclectic Book Lover
Shhh I’m Reading
Literate Housewife

And, the final two stops on this tour are:

Tuesday, September 15th – Trish’s Reading Nook

Thursday, September 17th – Books and Movies

Alright, ladies and gents, now that I’ve innundated you with all you need to know to make your fall season Lace Reader-happy, I’m signing off.  As per usual, happy reading!  Don’t hurt yourself, now.

*This post is part of the TLC Book Tours tour for The Lace Reader.

Popularity: 91% [?]