August 17th, 2009
The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha
The Crying Tree
by Naseem Rakha
Nate Stanley is offered a job as a deputy sheriff in Oregon and accepts it against his wife, Irene’s, opinion. He drags his family 2,000 miles to their new home and then soon after their arrival, the Stanley’s son, Shep, is murdered. The next part of the book is about anger and forgiveness as we watch the young man found guilty of this crime prepare for his execution. This is by far the best part of the book as we watch each member of the Stanley family (but mostly Irene) learn to live with the death of Shep. I will admit that the characters are a bit overdone in this section, Shep is made out be an angel on Earth, but the writing flows well and the story holds together very well.
But it is the last 1/3 of the book that ruins the story. If the author had simply followed through with the story without trying to add a crazy twist, this would have been a very good story. Instead she adds an absurdity to the story. I don’t want to give it away but imagine if you were reading a story about a man trapped on a 20th floor balcony in a fire. Smoke is billowing out of the windows. Will he somehow survive? Can he be rescued? Suddenly an expert on fires appears and explains that the smoke actually isn’t smoke but steam from a leaky steam pipe. But there is still nothing that can be done and the person might as well jump. And everyone agrees. Huh? That is absurd! And yet that is the kind of absurdity that happens in the story.
The worst part is that the book was so good before the final part. The characters felt real and I felt like I could understand them. I was interested to see how the story would play out. But then the author created an unbelievable situation that ruined the story for me. Reading some of these reviews, it appears that some people were able to accept the absurdity that I could not but I can’t recommend this book.
