Title: Ophelia’s Room
Author: Michael Scott Garvin
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 349 Pages
Category: Psychological Thriller
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: Ophelia’s Room is at times a turbulent story while, in jarring contradiction, it lulls readers into a false sense of serenity in its everyday folksiness. There are so many things in which this author excels: his gift for characterization, his ability to draw me into the lives of his characters, the way he turns a phrase to garner its maximum impact, but chief among them is the multitude of ways he engages my emotions while exposing and upending the lives of his characters.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Parsons, Kansas
Winter – 1968
A brutal murder has taken place. The God-fearing citizens of the sleepy midwestern town are convinced evil has taken root.
A young married couple, Charlie and Delia Mull are left to pick up the pieces of shattered lives after the unspeakable tragedy. Townsfolk whisper from church pews that pretty Delia Mull has brought the misfortune upon herself – a cursed family legacy. Others believe the horrific crime is merely another sign of a violent and godless age.
A mysterious woman has rented the house six doors down. Betty Malcomb is the new teacher hired at the high school. Locals are suspicious of the reclusive outsider. Why has she traveled to their peeling little town? What reasons would make her stay?
Located in the remote Kansas prairie sits the state penitentiary. Imprisoned in a concrete cell, a lone madman silently awaits his opportunity to complete his unholy calling.
Review: Michael Scott Garvin is a deeply insightful author in command of a distinct talent for blending homespun humor with quaint pearls of wisdom and then integrating that with some of our most profoundly human flaws. His novel A Faithful Son remains unique in its place among the most gorgeous books I’ve ever read. With Ophelia’s Room, a book exceedingly different in subject, he’s penned what is best described as a psychological thriller with shocking touches of horror, all wrapped up within a story of love surviving the search for answers to the often unanswerable question: Why?
And, in fact, it’s the pursuit of “Why?” and its lack of definitive answers in which some of the horrors in this book reside.
Garvin has a knack for setting his novels in what some might reminisce about as “simpler times”, and then proceeds to peel back the shiny veneer of idyllic sublimity to expose the unvarnished truth: the times were nothing like simpler because humans have never been simple, let alone perfect. “God fearing” folk could quote the bible chapter and verse, sin a blue streak, and yet profess their deep and abiding faith in and devotion to the Almighty, and friends and neighbors were judged in the court of public opinion. Crimes were committed; parents didn’t spare the rod overmuch for fear of spoiling the child; “real men” swallowed their feelings and picked themselves up by the bootstraps; and women conceivably “knew their place”.
And amongst all this, a man perpetrates an unspeakable crime against an innocent while the townsfolk callously whisper over fence-lines and hedgerows that the blame for his actions can be placed squarely upon his daughter’s shoulders.
The cruelty in this book is both overt and covert, at times occurring in plain sight while at others disguised like the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing beneath the concepts of fellowship and community. Ophelia’s Room begins in a way I didn’t expect, could never have predicted, and it was purely disturbing and horrifying and entirely effective. The display of what can only be deemed a serene, insane, grossly pious sort of violence in the opening chapter gives way to the author gathering various threads from seemingly unconnected sources and then commencing to weave them into a full and compelling story—a young couple enduring an unfathomable tragedy; a daughter hopelessly searching for answers; a husband unable to understand why his wife needs to search for those answers; an older married couple who, from the outside looking in, seem to loathe each other desperately; a young, single woman who moves to the small town carrying her own secrets and burdens, and almost immediately becomes the subject of rumor and speculation and outright scorn.
Then there’s the serial killer who incongruously garners sympathy while, at the same time, appalls with his every deed.
Ophelia’s Room is at times a turbulent story while, in jarring contradiction, it lulls readers into a false sense of serenity in its everyday folksiness. The eventual knotting of all these threads is heart-pounding in its danger, and heartrending in its fallout. As always, Michael Scott Garvin managed to wring more than a few tears from me, especially as he follows Charlie and Delia Mull through the years following the crime that haunted them and the madman who threatened them. There are so many things in which this author excels: his gift for characterization, his ability to draw me into the lives of his characters, the way he turns a phrase to garner its maximum impact, but chief among them is the multitude of ways he engages my emotions while exposing and upending the lives of his characters.
You can buy Ophelia’s Room here:
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