Author: Alan Nayes
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Rating: WARTY!
This was a prime example of where a book blurb led me to expect one thing from a novel which delivered something completely different, and not in a pleasant Monty Python sort of a way! The blurb suggests that the dead witch is coming back to life - that this is a warped Pygmalion, and that we will have standing before us, at some point, a witch of stone made flesh - at least that was what I was expecting and looking forward to. It's not like that at all. The story is really a tale of a delusional man with a brain tumor, who's seeing things which are not there. I was disappointed to say the least. I felt cheated with this bait and switch.
Jeremy Copper is a skilled and successful sculptor. He has a Glioblastoma Multiforme, and is about to embark - when his headaches will let him - upon what he believes is his last work of art before the tumor takes his life. He has a massive block of azul pegaso granite in his studio and is starting to work on sketches and models, trying to see what’s inside the rock.
Be warned that Girl Blue is a long novel and that it moved at a very leisurely pace. Normally I don't like novels that take too long to get where I want them to go(!), but in this case, this wasn't too bad to begin with. It became more and more tedious as I read further and further into the novel for me. What kept me going was a pay-off I was expecting which never arrived.
I had a problem with this when trying to read it in the Kindle, which was the random line spacing. You can see in the image here that there are gaps (marked with a red rectangle here) between lines that should not be there. I don't know what it is, but Kindle seems to get short shrift quite often when it comes to book releases. This line spacing isn't the only problem I've seen. Amazon needs to get this quality control problem under control!
One thing which did annoy me was the constant focus on the female form, especially where it was associated with sexuality. It came perilously close to pure objectification, but then what is the sculpting of, and the drawing and painting of nude females if not the ultimate in objectification? As I said, since this was a novel very much about art (notwithstanding the other factors), I did make allowances for this, and tried not to let it divert my attention from the main story, but Jeremy's refusal to see women as anything more than flesh to ogle and sexual gratification to be had was seriously off-putting. I did not like Jeremy, nor any of the females with whom he interacted.
The thing which bothered me the most was Jeremy's profligacy with regard to affairs with women. There was no indication whatsoever that any disease precautions were taken in any of his encounters, neither by Jeremy nor by the women with whom he had sex - and there were three such encounters which were described here (and many more which were hinted at). Yes, there are people like that in real life, so the problem isn't so much that a story depicts characters behaving in this selfish and clueless fashion, but that there's neither censure nor penalty.
From a very callous PoV I could see how Jeremy might not care - he believed he was dying, so why would he worry about contracting a venereal disease? But for him to behave that way and not spare a single thought for the sexual health of the women with whom he dove into physical relations with such abandon, was completely irresponsible and did not endear him to me at all. I found myself wondering quite often if his just desserts were coming to him at some point down the road! I am sure many guys fantasize about having unprotected sex with a bevy of beautiful women (however they conceive 'beautiful' to be), but that's not the real world. Neither is this of course: it’s fiction, but it is supposed to be a representation of some sort of real world, and if brain tumors can exist, what is it which prevents bacterial and viral infections also existing? I had to wonder if there might have been some authorial wish fulfillment going on here, but then all fiction probably represents some variety of that, doesn't it?!
Though the novel was technically well written (I came across only one error, where "sharp's" had been used when it should have been "sharps"), the story was in the end disappointing. It dissolved in the end into incoherence form which I could only conclude that Jeremy had imaged all that had come before, and that there was no witch and no supernatural activity going on; that everything was nothing more than a result of the brain tumor which was slowly eating away at his cognitive faculties. This isn't what I expected, and for me it did not make for a satisfying story. On the contrary, I felt let down and cheated. I can't recommend this.
