North Beach by Miles Arceneaux
For me, reading this historical novel was like trying to walk through the knee-high waters of the Gulf of Mexico on a hot day. You trudge for what seems like hours until your calves ache but the shore seems to get hazier and further away the more you walk and you can't see your feet for all the murky, brown water. I'm not saying I disliked it but this was the longest 268 pages I've read in a long time.
Okay, the good stuff: the writing is rich with local color and redolent of the sights and aromas of Texas culture in 1962. I didn't get here until 1964 but I'm pretty sure not much changed (or has changed, in some cases). The author, "Miles Arceneaux," aka John T. Davis, Brent Douglass and James R. Dennis, infuses the story with historical markers like Karankawa Indian sites, Teddy Roosevelt's infamous javelina hunt in 1892 or the devastation of Hurricane Carla the year before. All fairly obscure references, unless one is a local or long-time resident of the area. Many of the descriptions of the area exist only in the memories of folks familiar with the nuances of the Gulf Coast circa early 1960's. The atmosphere jibes with my own memories of going to Galveston in the 1960's, driving onto the beach (you could do that back then) hanging a sheet over the open door of our 1968 Oldsmobile and spending the day in the fine sand and clear waters, searching for shells and sand dollars. Reading this book brought me back to those days but they are definitely gone. I loved the memory of Coke floats and crushed shell roads, though.
Inter-racial prejudices also are reflected in the relationships of the characters, as does the tension between the US and Cuba at the time. I thought the authors did a good job of expressing the fear and suspicion of the time accompanied by the frustration of citizens of both countries as they tried to support their families and earn a living while their governments duked it out on the world stage. The use of Spanish phrases and colloquialisms also lend a dose of reality to the story. The boxing subplot was predictable and of no interest to me so I felt like I had to wade around that to get to the murder story.
Pace-wise, the book reads like a Hardy Boys Mystery with Encyclopedia Brown dialogue, juvenile and often clumsy with that "Hey, let's go visit the girls," lack of sophistication. Not a terrible thing, if it wasn't also followed with some pretty rough language, derogatory racial epithets and sexual situations. In that sense, I'm not sure who the target readers are, hopefully young adult but even YA readers are used to more sophisticated writing. Even the personalities seem pulled from a bag that reads "Scooby-Doo Characters." Naive, impressionable Charlie and his older brother Johnny, charismatic with the gift of diplomacy. Uncle Flavio, aka "Riptide," who "coulda been a contender," the troubled, mentally challenged friend - gee, will he get blamed? - the Bad Guy, who couldn't be more obvious if he'd worn a tee-shirt proclaiming "Bad Guy" on the front and who, I half expected to say at the end, "And I would've gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for these pesky kids!!" Maybe my cynical perspective comes from too much plot exposure but I found it difficult to get into the story with so much cliché overload. Also, I realize the story takes place in the 1960's but I guess I could do without the female condescension of the era. The rape description, I thought, was gratuitously violent, not just for the target audience but unnecessary for the plot progression.
I started by saying that I didn't dislike the book (wow, what does she write about the books she hates?) because I did enjoy the memories of a bygone era and the historical references. I wish it had been better crafted with more faceted, more layered characters. Perhaps it's the result of three male authors collaborating on a macho-infused crime novel but I wish Carmen had been more than just the object of his first conquest. And I wish her mother was more than just a barrier to that goal. What's it like to live and work in a country where you are always the outsider and blamed first? Do you keep at it or just give up and go home? I guess I'll have to ask my relatives that because it wasn't addressed in this book, but maybe that's a different kind of book.
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