Book review: "Doc" by Mary Doria Russell
May. 1st, 2011 03:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhu"Doc" by Mary Doria Russell is a fictionalized account of the time spent by Doc Holliday in Dodge City, where he first met and befriended Wyatt Earp. I found this book deeply disappointing.
Russell's subtitle is "A Novel" and she asserts that this is historical fiction. But it doesn't read like a novel; it reads like a biography, except that she has used the liberty of calling this "fiction" to invent dialog and scenes that suit the narrative she wants to tell. Unfortunately, she doesn't have the skill at writing biography that Walter Issacson brought to his biography of Franklin, or Erik Larson applied to "The Devil in the White City." As a result, the chronological jumping around (of the style such-and-such was doubtless due to an incident when he was a child or some years later, he would recount in a letter to his sister that) gets in the way of the story, confusing what a better author would have made straight. And Russell succumbs to the second-rate biographer's compulsion to include seemingly every detail and anecdote that she found in her research, no matter how jejune or irrelevant to the larger biographical tale.
Furthermore, Russell assumes that we already know the actual history that she's embellishing. I know that there was a gunfight at the OK Corral, and I knew that Holliday and Earp were involved, but honestly I couldn't have told you if they were even on the same side. (The only other thing I remember is that in an alternate timeline Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were involved.) Yet she alludes to it as being destined, and then has an epilogue that refers to its aftermath, without ever telling us what actually happened.
Similarly, the game Faro is critical at several points in the narrative. All I could tell from the book is that it's a card game played against the house, and that a skillful dealer could cheat undetected. If this had been one of Russell's SF novels, an unusual native game might have been explained, or the play of a particularly exciting hand could have been narrated, but instead, she just assumes that we have the cultural knowledge. I know more about the rules of Quidditch than the rules of Faro.
A horseracing scene is similarly disappointing. A horserace, and especially one that's been built up as much as this one in the preceding narrative, is a chance to get the reader's blood pounding in suspense and excitement. But no, the race here is disposed of in a few short sentences. Ho-hum.
What does get a lot of play, over and over and over, is how normal prostitution was. How essentially moral the madams and bordello owners were. Which is all well and good, but after a while it becomes repetitive and boring, and surely that axe has been ground to the sharpest possible edge.
I soon tired of the characters, tired of the writing, and gave up on hoping that the book would illuminate a chapter of American history. In fact, the only reason I stuck with it was because I had a duty to write this review.
Mary Doria Russell can write better than this. Doc Holliday's story can be told better than this. It is a disappointment and a shame that this fictionalized biography -- excuse me, this novel -- lets down both author and subject so badly.
Disclaimer: This review is based on an advance reader copy provided gratis by Random House through LibraryThing's "Early Reviewers" program.
Russell's subtitle is "A Novel" and she asserts that this is historical fiction. But it doesn't read like a novel; it reads like a biography, except that she has used the liberty of calling this "fiction" to invent dialog and scenes that suit the narrative she wants to tell. Unfortunately, she doesn't have the skill at writing biography that Walter Issacson brought to his biography of Franklin, or Erik Larson applied to "The Devil in the White City." As a result, the chronological jumping around (of the style such-and-such was doubtless due to an incident when he was a child or some years later, he would recount in a letter to his sister that) gets in the way of the story, confusing what a better author would have made straight. And Russell succumbs to the second-rate biographer's compulsion to include seemingly every detail and anecdote that she found in her research, no matter how jejune or irrelevant to the larger biographical tale.
Furthermore, Russell assumes that we already know the actual history that she's embellishing. I know that there was a gunfight at the OK Corral, and I knew that Holliday and Earp were involved, but honestly I couldn't have told you if they were even on the same side. (The only other thing I remember is that in an alternate timeline Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were involved.) Yet she alludes to it as being destined, and then has an epilogue that refers to its aftermath, without ever telling us what actually happened.
Similarly, the game Faro is critical at several points in the narrative. All I could tell from the book is that it's a card game played against the house, and that a skillful dealer could cheat undetected. If this had been one of Russell's SF novels, an unusual native game might have been explained, or the play of a particularly exciting hand could have been narrated, but instead, she just assumes that we have the cultural knowledge. I know more about the rules of Quidditch than the rules of Faro.
A horseracing scene is similarly disappointing. A horserace, and especially one that's been built up as much as this one in the preceding narrative, is a chance to get the reader's blood pounding in suspense and excitement. But no, the race here is disposed of in a few short sentences. Ho-hum.
What does get a lot of play, over and over and over, is how normal prostitution was. How essentially moral the madams and bordello owners were. Which is all well and good, but after a while it becomes repetitive and boring, and surely that axe has been ground to the sharpest possible edge.
I soon tired of the characters, tired of the writing, and gave up on hoping that the book would illuminate a chapter of American history. In fact, the only reason I stuck with it was because I had a duty to write this review.
Mary Doria Russell can write better than this. Doc Holliday's story can be told better than this. It is a disappointment and a shame that this fictionalized biography -- excuse me, this novel -- lets down both author and subject so badly.
Disclaimer: This review is based on an advance reader copy provided gratis by Random House through LibraryThing's "Early Reviewers" program.