Book Review: The Raising

Title: The Raising
Author: Laura Kasischke
Format: Trade Paper
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Pub Date: Mar 2011
Read: May 2011
Source: Housing Works Bookstore
Why: the synopsis sounded really intriguing and I actually own another book by the author, The Life Before Her Eyes, which I ended up not reading because I saw the film first…and it’s got a pretty important twist.
Fulfills Challenge? Yes.
Notes: n/a

Review/Thoughts:
So, let’s get this out of the way now: I was sorely disappointed by this book, so much so that I was actually a bit angry about it, perhaps because I had such high hopes, perhaps because I believe Kasischke can do better than this. She is clearly a capable writer: the novel started off strong, the premise was great, the characters were well developed, and the pacing was excellent…until the end. I keep thinking she didn’t quite know how to write a mystery (or rather, the conclusion to a mystery) and that it ultimately led to the downfall of this novel. There were some issues throughout (which I’ll get to below), but the main problems presented themselves toward the end.

Let’s talk about the issues with the narrative structure. The novel is written in third person and flits among several characters. This, isn’t unusual or even a problem in and of itself; however, she also jumps between past and present. Sometimes there’s a flashback within a present scene, and sometimes the entire chapter is just scene from the past. You can imagine that this can get a little confusing at times, especially when you’re juggling different character perspectives. Furthermore, the past scenes aren’t exactly linear… I’ve read enough mysteries to be used to this technique but I don’t think Kasischke quite pulled it off. Closer to the end, there was one scene that I was genuinely confused about, wondering well, did that happen before or after that other scene? It didn’t seem to make sense in either position. I would have forgiven all this, however, if not for some of the other problems with the novel.

The novel is ultimately a mystery. What really happened the night Nicole died? Did she even die? Is she a ghost now? Is this all a cover up? etc. The problem of course is that there are a lot of questions, and not a whole lot of answers. If it were just the supernatural elements that went unanswered, I could live with that. Given the way death and the supernatural are presented in the course one of the characters is taking, I would argue that these unanswered questions add to the overall point of the novel, or at least pay homage to the class that character was taking. But it’s more than that. We know what (probably) happened that night without really knowing how it happened, without knowing how this was all really possible. To quote Life With Books, “I would go so far as to call the plot as I understood it ridiculously ludicrous and unbelievable.” I feel that Kasischke doesn’t explain how this all happened not because sometimes it’s good to have readers draw their own conclusions but because she can’t… because the story doesn’t actually work.

To add insult to injury, the mystery is solved in the short final section of the novel which takes place 17 years later… and by solved I mean we’re offered the “most likely” explanation through some information dumped on us via a character who had nothing to do with the rest of the plot, who wasn’t even in the book until this point, who probably wasn’t even born when the original events took place. There is no catharsis, no satisfaction, and as stated before, if I’m understanding the story correctly, it’s actually implausible. I’d argue that the last 50-60 pages of the book were actually quite rushed, with characters suddenly drawing the right conclusions much too quickly, with a few too many coincidences happening. I wish I could speak in specifics, but of course that would ruin the novel for those who want to take a stab at it.

I also found the character of Karess to be extraneous, and her inclusion in the final segment of the novel seemed sort of laughable. She’s not introduced early enough in the novel for me to really form a bond with her, we never get her perspective until this last segment (all scenes with her in them are basically from Perry’s perspective), and I still don’t know what purpose she served. I think the character of Deb might have been unnecessary as well, but I do feel we got a better sense of her as a real person, and she did seem to have a purpose, albeit minor.

Finally one sort of miscellaneous complaint that makes me feel really nitpicky, but here goes: Kasischke draws attention to cliches three or four times, with several characters noting how apt a certain cliche is for describing things. This is something that can be kind of…tongue in cheek for a writer I suppose, and that’s how I read it the first time. Like hey, I know this phrase is cliche, but it’s close third person and this is how the character would probably think, and I’ll play with the reader/writer relationship a bit by drawing attention to the fact that I’m using a cliche. Unfortunately it kept happening, with the characters thinking the same thing… I mean, really? It just seemed lazy after a while, as though Kasischke actually couldn’t think of a fresh way to describe what she was talking about and so she thought it would be alright to use this same technique over and over.

Ultimately, a book that was in the running for a 5 star rating (even with the sometimes confusing narrative structure), ends up with 3 star rating…and with some major reservations at that.

Final Verdict: