Robert Clark (1)Rezensionen

Murder Mystery, 1920's St. Paul, man w/ mental disability

Where I found this book:
In a neighborhood "free little library" book box.
What I thought of this book:
What a fantastic, enthralling read that kept my interest piqued from the first page to the last. I must find out about other works this author has written! No wonder this book was an award winner - deep, engaging, twisting and turning - a satisfying read. Five stars.

I enjoyed the historical references, and the nod to the restoration effort, but found that the book didn't meet my expectations of more information about the flood, and the effect of the flood on Florence. That isn't the fault of the book, but more my own expectations.
The book is jam packed full of references to the damaged art, and its history prior to the flood, so if art is more your thing, then you will love the beautiful descriptions contained within these pages.
This book isn't so much about the flood of 1966, its more about the art, and the art history. Bear that in mind if you are going to read it.
Having said all that, it is a beautiful read. Almost more a story than a non fiction narrative.

It must have occurred to Emanuele Casamassima that he should be facing a labor shortage; that in a city without food, power, or transport, people should be too busy fending for themselves to be mucking about in his library. Yet they were, dozens of them, and he hadn't even asked them to come. Nor, it seemed, had they asked for instructions or equipment: the books just kept surfacing, bubbling up as from an inexhaustible spring. These workers weren't organized; they didn't have a party or a manifesto like the Casa del Popolo; it wasn't clear what they were against or what they were for, except perhaps books. You could call them volunteers, except they hadn't volunteered or been recruited: they'd simply appeared as though from thin air and set to work. Maybe they'd been sent by Francis or the Madonna; maybe they'd been thrown up by inevitable historical forces, by the dialectic operating at light speed. But they were some sort of miracle. Florentines came to call them angeli del fango, “mud angels.”

Ten years ago I had the good fortune to visit Florence with my sister-in-law, who had lived there for several years and who speaks fluent Italian. The last evening of my visit, we were invited out to dinner by my sister-in-law's elderly friend. In the course of our conversation that evening, he wanted to make sure that I knew about the 1966 flood the covered much of the city and endangered many of the famous art works housed in Florence's churches and museums. Although 40 years had passed, the flood didn't seem like a distant memory to this man. It seemed to me as if he could still see the water in the city streets.

After reading Robert Clark's book, I now understand why the 1966 flood was a definitive event in the lives of everyone who survived it. Clark first summarizes the history of Florence and its relationship to the always flood-prone Arno. At the heart of the book, the 1966 flood is described from the perspective of several survivors, most of whom Clark interviewed during his research for this book. The rest of the book describes the aftermath of the flood and the efforts to restore the art works, books, and manuscripts that were damaged in the flood.

The pre-flood section of the book was longer than I expected. I was already familiar with much of this history from other reading I've done, and I became impatient to get to the flood story. I was also surprised by the extent to which the author inserted himself into the history of this event. He wasn't in Florence when the Arno flooded in 1966, yet he contemplates its meaning with himself as the reference point. It wasn't his tragedy. I was expecting history, not memoir.

On the positive side, this is a well-researched book. The bibliography added a few more books to my reading list, as well as a hard-to-find documentary by Franco Zeffirelli. Histories of the flood written shortly after the event addressed the human tragedy. It takes much longer to evaluate the cultural tragedy, since art restoration requires time and patience. The 40th anniversary of the flood and a reunion of the “mud angels”, who were young adults in 1966, made the time ripe for this analysis of the flood's impact on Florence's cultural heritage.

In the deep midwinter by Robert Clark
Mystery audio book about bonds between people. 1949, st. paul. MIN loses his brother in a hunting accident
Richard finds some secrets come out from the women of the family and he investigates his brothers letters to find out his own wife became involved with another.
Also a niece has led astray also. Details of the abortion and afterward are a bit graphic.
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).

This is a hard book to review. I didn't really like it, but I enjoyed Clark's use of language. For this particular story line though, I felt that his style gave the book an emotional distance that ultimately lessened its impact on the reader. The tale is about a high school age couple in 1968, who decide to run away together to the wilderness of nearby Canada. I look forward to reading Clark's earlier psychological mysteries and see how their style holds up.

Great read for anyone who has spent more than a few days in Firenze and loves Florence.

This was interesting...mainly delving into the corruption of the police in the 1940s era and it develops a story of murder and intelligence both. I think it's well crafted with a likable victim who has a hidden eloquence despite his limited life experience in many areas. At the same time, it's not the kind of novel that is life changing..just an enjoyable read overall. I especially loved the parts about photography and the protagonist is a very likable photographer...you can't help feeling sorry for what befalls him. He is gentle, sad and beautiful and throughout time those type of humans have been drastically misused and under-appreciated.

Truly, this novel is about injustice and, though times have changed quite a bit, I'm sure that there are those still mistreated and wrongly imprisoned throughout all of the states in our country...

This is also a work of fiction and yet one can see how it could easily happen during this or any time since.


pg. 23 "I mixed chemicals for the darkroom in the kitchen in order to prepare the last roll I took of Ruby from The Aragon...working with the lights off-or rather with only the red safe light on-is a strange sensation, like what I imagine being deep underwater must be like. And I must say I have imagined that this is what death must be like., or the passage into death, a kind of blind trudge into the dark."

pg 26 "Maybe the future world is wishing for is a rather dangerous time, and that is part of the hollowness one feels."

pg 83 "I always think Sunday's sort of the saddest day...like the world's empty. Like nobody's home."

pg. 323 "Maybe I was only looking at the world. It was just a photograph. But perhaps now in my poverty, in my solitude, perhaps I'm in the world truly, at last. I can feel it in my flesh. I can see it and smell it and I have no other course but to love it."

Just finished In the Deep Midwinter by Robert Clark this morning. It...wasn't bad. And a pretty quick read, even with the most stereotypical title that simply had no relationship to the text that I could see beyond pretentiousness. Let's talk about it not as in a literary review, but as I would any genre book or online fic.

It takes place in the late forties, and cyclically follows the story of a family. Richard [Somebody] is off to identify the body of his brother James, who was shot during a hunting expedition. He cleans and sorts his brother's things, finding porn and a mysterious letter from the fancy hotel where his brother and Mrs. [Somebody] whose name begins with "S" were over-charged for a room. But his brother didn't have a wife. Richard's wife, however, is named *gasp* Sarah. Then we switch to Richard and Sarah's daughter, Anna, who currently is divorced and dating an only-almost-divorced man named Charles. Anna also has a toddler son named Douglas, who eventually grows up to have stringy hair and be creepy--but that isn't really relevant to the story.

Back to Richard, who found a letter in his brother's things, addressed in his wife's hand. Then he goes home to said wife, and obsesses over what he doesn't know (because he won't read the letter). Sarah notices his distraction, and angsts. She notices this even though they still, like all decent people, have separate beds--which I admit I never believed happened, but apparently in those days decency and procreation trumped comfort--and this is a subject actually clarified in-text.

Oh, and in looking for any "S" who is not his wife, Richard goes looking for his brother's old girlfriends and finds a Susan. Yay! Only not, because she's a forty-year-old graduate student, she knew better than to stay with James, who was a flake. Richard, of course, finds himself lusting after her, because he wasn't disturbed enough by the idea of his wife's contemplation of infidelity.

Charles and Anna meanwhile are so in love, even though according to Anna's mother it's practically infidelity. Charles gets word from his boss it's a good idea to get married, but Anna just stopped her period. These are not the days or classes for shotgun weddings so there's panic, and not so much love. Anna wants Charles to take care of it.

*Spoilers!*

Charles finds Anna an abortionist in the back of a taxi from a Catholic driver on the advice of feckless Henry, poor James' hanger-on. She goes to the poor old man who has to work in the chiropractor's office and is oh so comforting even though her fetus is a little old for this procedure, but let's do it anyway. And then he gives her pills. Charles takes her home--and leaves her alone, because he's a social-climbing jerk, and gets stuck in a snowdrift and looses his power and can't make it back until Anna is in the hospital. Where it gets all philosophical, and I'll talk about later. Anna thinks she died, and that's a metaphor.

The second half of the novel ties everything up pretty much how you'd expect: Anna is too principled to stay with Charles, and he's still a jerk; Sarah really did know what was going on this whole time, including the abortion that all the men thought she'd be too spastic to handle (because she had her own, and this is her only plot line I liked) and she didn't go to the hotel with James? (I turned the book in this afternoon and have forgotten); Richard didn't actually sleep with Susan because coming close freaked him out and left him discombobulated for hours, and I wish it was that easy to articulate everyone's thoughts in such heightened emotions (Richard: my favorite character by so very far); and by the way, everyone's entire life is summarized in the epilogue, like after an ensemble true-story movie when they tell you what happens to each character in a freeze-frame on their face as the credits go by. Before I forget--Sarah's mother had dementia, so Anna has it in 2000 or so. I'm not sure why.

Of all things, I would say it was very--lyrically sterile. The language was beautiful, but it left me cold. To a certain extent that may have been the point. But mostly, I don't really care. The different threads of the story and character intersections simply felt too scattered for me to connect to the themes. Which were: 1) abortion should be legal and 2) and 3) were (distantly) generations and secrets, etc.

Mostly, the first bothered me. Not because of the subject or political stance, but because, unlike the others, it was simply overwrought. As soon as the issue came up the 'characters' spouted the most over the top philosophy and metaphors I simply had to stop skimming. It wasn't all bad though. In the aftermath of the illegal abortion (which was of course awful) the reactions of the parents, the doctor initially , and even Charles were all sincere and moving. Then Charles starts thinking "oh gosh I can't love her anymore" blah blah, but philosophizing being a misogynist, and totally over the top. And then at the end he tells Anna he got his dream job, and she resents him for not asking her to go with him, though she hasn't liked him since the abortion--fair enough. And anyway, he's punished by his son dying in a car accident and his daughter not speaking to him. Anna apparently, could never land another man (which was all I could think after all the monologuing going on about her throwing herself into love earlier).

Richard! Richard was so awesome. In a reminiscence, his wife calls him a "shy moon-calf" paraphrased, and he was sort of like that. The upright, old-fashioned, affectionate father-figure type--appropriate--and I loved when he conspired with Anna and gives her advice, which is all pretty good. And he's a worrier, and he actually goes to see his brother's body in the morgue because he worked as an ambulance driver in WW1 (not really creepy actually, it worked). and he cries going through his brother's things, and he holds it all together, and he has vague ideas of killing the doctor who hurt his baby even though he's never understood the inclination to murder at all before, and really, overall, he's just a sweet old man (odd conclusion after that last bit, I imagine, but, you'd have to read it--and think like me).

But James' whole story felt odd to me, because it's right at the beginning, and then it does eventually come up again, but only somuchas Henry can tell Richard it was really suicide. So-yeah. In between, Anna's and Charles' relationship was so entwined and unified that by the time it came up again I really didn't care, and didn't know what do do with it.

To back up a little bit, the abortion bit drove me up the wall for wordiness and soapboxing (well, okay, compared to *bad* fiction, it, well, wasn't bad. But it felt very over-the-top and there really wasn't a lot of room for subtly. Even the generations thing tended to be blatant--though I thought Sarah's abortion was handled much more deftly than her daughter's, and in comparison to the dementia thing that was more like, really? I liked the thread of secrets though. It felt much more natural that they talked around the secrets, didn't really think of them until there was a catalyst, but their lives were affected nonetheless. And the secrets weren't just spilled all at once, and there weren't wrenching confessions, and things weren't necessarily changed--very nicely handled, and mostly felt real.

Not a bad book of fiction all-in-all, it's 'literature'. I don't know that it was a classic, but I did enjoy most of the reading, and it didn't take too long. Wordy, maybe, but great atmosphere. There isn't one of my friends I'd actually recommend it to, but only because their reading lists are all entirely too long for anything but the next Greatest Thing Ever.

From my blog.

This beautifully written novel tells the story of Emily and William. They fall in love and run away from home to a campsite in northern Minnesota. Their story ends in tragedy. But, the sweetness of their love, and the intensity of their feelings is powerfully told by the author. The story takes place during 1968 and references the death of Bobby Kennedy and the violence at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Emily's parents and William's mother also figure in this thoughtful novel.

I picked this book up because it was an Edgar Award winner. I enjoyed its original format, its unusual story line, and its quirky characters. That said, the book was occasionally annoying--the author's metaphors, for example, became cloying after awhile because there were so many of them, and every now and again the plot line just didn't work.

Two dance hall girls are murdered in the Minneapolis of the late 1930s, and a slightly retarded man is falsely accused of the crimes. The story alternates between the diary entries of the suspect, Mr. White, and the life of the police detective charged with solving the crime. This contemporary mystery set in the noir world of the past is an engaging story that leaves the reader with a bittersweet feeling.

The entire time I was reading this book, I kept wondering why I'd picked it up. I have a huge to be read pile and everything in it is there because it's either on the Syllabus of a writer / professor I admire, because it's by a favorite writer of mine or it was recommended by a friend. I knew this fell into none of those categories. It turns out I'd actually ordered the wrong book.

Luckily for me it ended up being a bit of a treat.

Love Among the Ruins begins the day Robert Kennedy was shot and ends the day Nixon was inaugurated. For the most part it is the story of high school lovers, Emily and William. Emily is a bit shy and a good sweater-wearing Catholic girl. William is the son of a politically active single mother. When William becomes terrified of being drafted, he convinces Emily to run away with him. They pack up Williams camping gear and set off for a local island.

The writing is very melancholy and romantic, without being trite or sentimental. This ends up being a very dark and politically charged book, which I was not expecting. All in all, it was a pleasant surprise and I'm glad I made the mistake, because I never would have discovered it otherwise.

I gave it 3/5 because the writing is a pretty simplistic. I think it accomplishes everything it sets out to, but the characters are occasionally a bit one dimensional and their motives are a bit too neat and orderly. The focus was clearly on telling the story and not the prose style, though there were enough problems with the plot that I couldn't completely forgive the lack of depth of characters.

In summation : I would recommend this to a person who wanted an easy, yet emotionally charged read.

good book but so much nastiness, when the killer took the girlfriend i had to stop reading for a while. the characters except for white were all so lonely. i thought the book ended too suddenly, we knew what happened to white but not the cop.

I started reading Robert Clark a few years ago, beginning with LOVE AMONG THE RUINS, an absolutely exquisite and tragic novel of young love in the turmoil of the late sixties. I was hooked. Then I read IN THE DEEP MIDWINTER which kept me firmly in the fold of Clark followers. With MR. WHITE'S CONFESSION I am a confirmed believer. Clark is perhaps the consumate voice of fiction for the St. Paul region. While reading his stuff I wondered if he knew Patricia Hampl or had read her mesmerizing St. Paul memoir, THE FLORIST'S DAUGHTER. Because the same locales and streets come up in all of the books. I've never visited St. Paul, but after reading Clark and Hampl, I feel like I know the place.

MR. WHITE'S CONFESSION is a slightly different kinda animal from Clark's other two novels in that it is set mostly in the year 1939 with lots of historical and cultural references from that year, and, perhaps most significantly, it is a "crime novel." A cover blurb from Greil Marcus likens the book to "Dashiel Hammett or James Crumley - at their best." That's damn good company Mr. Clark is keeping, and I couldn't agree more. But this is so much more than just a murder mystery; it is a dual character study in the best literary tradition: of the suspected murderer, or the "Dime-a-Dance Monster," Herbert White; and the homicide detective, Wesley Horner.

Herbert White is a fascinating creation, a gentle giant kind of character, described as a tall, shambling man with a round Humpty-Dumpty head (and look) and huge hands. Orphaned at an early age, White was apparently home schooled (and well) by his devoted grandmother. There is something altogether odd, perhaps even Asperger-ian, about White, who suffers from a fractured, defective memory. So he has kept scrapbooks and Proustian journals for years to make up for this defect. His looks, however, cannot be helped. People are often afraid of him, so his life since the death of his grandmother has been a solitary one of very regular routines and habits. He has worked for years as a clerk and spends his free time with his scrapbooks and journals, going to the movies weekly, and frequenting the local dance hall and making photographic 'studies' of the girls who work there. Two of these girls turn up dead and therein lies the tale upon which the novel turns.

I spent a little time researching Robert Clark after I discovered his work and found he'd written a biography of the famous cook/chef, James Beard. I know almost nothing about Beard, but in reading a bit about him and studying some photos of him, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps there weren't a bit of Beard in Clark's character of Herbert White - certainly in the physical description, and perhaps in the sensibilities too. Because White seems at heart a gentle, lonely soul, who has studied the classics and writes in a very Victorian style, and whose sexual identity seems unformed and innocent. But whether there is anything of Beard in him, Herbert White is a totally unique fictional creation - one I will remember for a long time.

The other central character, detective Wesley Horner, is equally fascinating, if a bit more conventional. A tragic figure in that he has lost his wife to cancer and his only daughter simply disappeared, Horner finds a kind of brief salvation in a relationship with Maggie, a sixteen year-old girl he rescues from the street. Since the relationship becomes sexual, some might take issue with it (Horner is in his forties), but Clark manages to make it seem sweetly redemptive, for both parties involved, as indeed it is.

There is evil incarnate in this tale, however, make no mistake. But I'm not a spoiler, so I'll mention no names, although astute readers will have their suspicions early on. Bad things happen, to be sure, but there are some wonderfully kind and sweet things that occur here too, and even some "off stage" intimations of nearly "happily-ever-after" kinda stuff - bittersweet perhaps, but still ... The thing is this is simply a terrifically told story, with wonderful, fully developed characters and a real period feel for the mean streets of pre-war St. Paul. Clark is a master at what he does. I may have already asked this in reviewing his other books, but I'll ask it again. How come this guy is not a nationally bestselling author? Where have all the discerning readers of quality fiction gone? Ah, well ... This is a highly recommended read from a confirmed and compulsive booklover.

excellent, wonderful writing. Extrordinary descriptions of emotions

The story is set in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the late 1930s. Lieutenant Wesley Horner is investigating the strangulation death of a young 'dime-a-dance' girl. Suspicion soon settles on Herbert White, an amateur photographer who takes cheesecake photos of the dance-hall girls. White has a peculiar problem--he can remember his distant past and the immediate past, but what's in between is a mystery to him. He keeps extensive notebooks, writing about his days and pasting in newspaper clippings, as an aid to memory.

The story goes back and forth between Horner, a lonely man who unexpectedly finds love, and Herbert White, a gentle romantic who is confused by his malady. Herbert is also a very big man, and his relentless honesty in admitting he doesn't know whether he committed the crimes he's charged with leads to his arrest.

The author varies his style for the two main characters, with Horner's sections reflecting the tough, straightforward cop who eventually becomes convinced to pursue the murder inquiry when everyone else considers it solved. Herbert's sections reflect his longing for a normal life and love, an interest in nature and the beauties of life, and his fond reflections of his early life with his grandmother. He describes his growing relationship with a young girl thus: 'It is as though I were standing on my doorstep on a winter's evening with my hat and gloves and scarf, preparing to set off on a journey, holding my hat before me absentmindedly, and into it, with a little sizzle like a firework, fell a shooting star.'

Although the mystery is sufficiently explained, the real interest in this book lies in the characters, especially that of Herbert White. I'm sure I'll remember him long after I've forgotten dozens or hundreds of others. This book is highly recommended.

I ordered IN THE DEEP MIDWINTER shortly after reading and being deeply impressed with another Robert Clark novel, LOVE AMONG THE RUINS, which was a tale of teenage love in northern Minnesota in 1968, during the Vietnam war and the summer of the Chicago democratic convention disorders. This novel deals not with teenage love in the sixties, but with love (and all its repercussions) in the winter of 1949-1950 as it affected a 50-ish long-married couple and their 30-ish divorced daughter, who has an affair with a married man. The mores and moral beliefs of 1950 were quite different from those of the late 60s, which becomes quickly evident here. The principal character, Richard MacEwan - a lawyer who seems very buttoned-down, conservative and staid in his ways - is soon revealed as a man whose emotions run deep, and the death of his more profligate younger brother causes Richard's feelings to rise to the surface and even to endanger his marriage. Family secrets also rise to the surface, endangering the MacEwans marriage. There is so much here to engage your mind and emotions - love, death, infidelity, abortion, medical and legal ethics. But there is also demonstrated a firm belief in what is simply right and just. There's something very uplifting about this tale in the end, something very hard to describe. But, as was the case with Love Among the Ruins, this book is marked by some of the finest writing that fiction has to offer. I don't understand why Clark isn't famous, because he writes as well as first-tier writers like Updike, Malamud and Roth. Although the story takes place in a later time, Clark's book brings to mind Evan S. Connell's MR BRIDGE and MRS BRIDGE, or James Agee's A DEATH IN THE FAMILY. I believe Clark has another novel or two out there. I'll go looking for them. I recommend this novel highly.

My taste in crime novels usually doesn't run to noir, but I picked this one up because of its St. Paul setting. The narrative alternates between Wesley Horner, a lonely, middle-aged St. Paul policeman, and Herbert White, an oversized amateur photographer of dance hall girls who becomes the chief suspect in the murder of two of the girls. The police in the novel don't appear to care about individual guilt or innocence. All they want is to expend the minimum amount of effort required to pin the crime on someone and close the case. Horner compromises his career when, through a series of events, he begins to care more about the truth than about closing a case.

This was a difficult book for me to read, and parts of it were disturbing. (That's why I normally don't read noir.) The best parts of the book for me were the excerpts from Herbert White's journals, his musings on the nature of memory (his is impaired), and on God's nature.

I frequently pass a Tennessee Bureau of Investigations building that was recently built in my local area. When the building was new, I noticed a motto in very large letters on the front of the building: That Guilt Shall Not Escape Nor Innocence Suffer. Now I look for the motto every time I pass the building. I think what I found the most troubling about this book is that innocence suffered, and it was painful to bear.

This book is everything a good film Noir is, a story of crime and guilt of all involved. Nobody really comes out as the shining hero (The "bad guy" has memory loss, and the police go about rousing and arresting drifters). And everything seems just a little darker because of it. I hope the author continues writing this well. He can be assured I'll be buying all his future releases.

Must be my week for family sagas.No sooner had I finished TheseGranite Islands than I began Inthe Deep Midwinter. Very powerfulstory of family dynamics, familysecrets. Recommended.

It's been quite a while since I've read a novel that packs the kind of emotional punch that Clark's book delivers. Deeply affecting and beautifully and eloquently crafted, this book will simply knock you on your ass. Both as a moving story of young love and innocence lost, and as a portrait of the sixties, this book succeeds admirably. William and Emily will stay with you long after you've finished this book. I wondered if "Emily Elizabeth" Byrne was purposely named, but then decided, well, hell, of course she was. Because references to Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (and her lover, Robert B) abound here, foreshadowing the tragic turn this story of young love takes, perhaps inevitably. Indeed, the title of Clark's book comes from a Browning poem. It is perhaps important to note that the year of the book's setting, 1968, was the year after the famous "summer of love." In fact because of the violence of the protests and riots of the Chicago Democratic convention, it was even called the "time of rage." The parents of the ill-starred lovers also get their due, in portraits every bit as finely drawn. I loved this book; didn't want it to end. I found the book in a discount bookstore remainder bin. What a tragedy. It is an absolutely beautiful book. Bravo, Robert Clark. I will have to look for your other (probably equally neglected) books.

Black, grey...Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark is anything but white. The story of the double-murder of two dancing girls in the 1930s, and of one detective's hunt to pin the crime of Mr. White, a strange recluse whose memory loss provides either a guilty shield or a convenient alibi, straddles a fine line between its base content and its more highbrow literary aspirations. Clark writes with an eye toward character as opposed to grisly plot points, and the outcomes is a nice, balanced crime thriller that may have you guessing the identity of the murderer before its revelation at the end, but the journey is good enough that you don't care.

Mr. White’s Confession is a mystery—a 1930s detective is trying to overcome corruption and petty competition to solve a string of murders of a dime-a-dance girls—but it attempts to expand beyond the genre by exploring variations in writing style, perception, and motivation. However, it doesn’t quite do any of those themes justice and, in throwing aside mystery's conventions and tools, it falls short of a satisfying mystery.

In theory, the author has a good concept, and he writes very well. The book was good, and perhaps if the author had been a bit more certain in focus, it could have been excellent.

I would recommend this book simply because of the way that it is written. The book changes from the POV of the Detective, and then alternates to the POV of the suspect. You can tell the difference because the author puts both in a different font.

Very easy to read, and makes you want to keep reading. The ending was a bit bizarre, and I still cannot tell if it gave me what I wanted or not.