The Body of Jonah Boyd [Paperback]

Where he is very adept is in detailing the nuances of human relationships - particularly but not exclusively within the confines of the family.

One of the most enticing novels I read in my early adulthood was Leavitt's "Lost Language of Cranes" - the impact of which lives with me to this day. Now "Jonah Boyd" comes along and in a similar way has moved me incredibly.

He writes wonderful prose - and hidden within it are major elements of plot which you can skate over if you aren't careful...casually referring to someone's death in the middle of a narrative would be one example.

In the first quarter of this book I was marvelling at the writing and reminded of the mood in his short stories collection "Family Dancing" but wondering where it was going - then all of a sudden I was reeled in and taken on a journey which feels simple and touching - but in fact contains some strong twists and revelations which make you increasingly focused. I haven't been able to put this one down - and suspect I will read it again shortly, something I rarely have the patience to do these days.

On second thoughts............ I must revisit some of his others as well

Denny is an astonishingly perceptive character – she'd deeply flawed with a low self-esteem, but from the beginning there's a sharp contrast between the family's perception of Denny and her sharp view of what's really going on. The Wrights see her as "sexless spinster, or short of that, a lesbian" when, in fact, she has no trouble at all embarking on sexual escapades with men, including Ernest. Denny is always watching the family: she witnesses Ernest and Nancy's arguments, she offers support when their older son, Mark, flees to Canada to avoid the draft, and colludes with their daughter, Daphne, when she sneaks out of the house to meet her lover. Denny thinks the Wrights have invited her to into their family to make her the subject of some strange social experiment. Yet their motives for embracing her are far more individual: Nancy needs her to be a failure, Ernest needs her as an alternative to Nancy, and Daphne seems to need her as a confidante.

On the Thanksgiving of 1969, Nancy's old friend Anne comes for a visit, bringing along her new husband, the novelist Jonah Boyd. After dinner Anne proceeds to get drunk while, Boyd reads from the first chapter of his new novel, which he's writing in a series of beautiful notebooks. He has no other copy, and he's forever misplacing the notebooks. After Boyd dazzles everyone with his reading, the Wrights' younger son, Ben, shares a sample of his own work, a distinctly anticlimactic poem. Boyd takes Ben under his wing, even reading to him from the prized notebooks. But when it's time to leave, the manuscript is nowhere to be found. Boyd's masterwork is lost.

The second half of the novel is full of surprises and revelations that gradually reveal the secret of what actually happened to the notebooks. The story, full of ingenious plot twists, is interwoven with that of the Wrights' house, which itself emerges as an important character. According to Nancy the house "can be more than an assemblage of bricks and cement and shingles and it is not so different from believing in a guardian angel." The Body of Jonah Boyd remains a quite astonishing and compulsively readable tour de force. Leavitt has a slow-paced, richly descriptive, almost acerbic tone, which is perfection to read. And his subtly differentiated characters attach themselves to us and won't let go. This is a sweet, funny, almost melancholy novel, afloat in whimsy and affection, while also talking in mysterious ways about sex, frustration, the home, and the various shapes and sizes of unquenchable longing. Mike Leonard August 04.