ABC: A Novel
by: David Plante
Published by: Anchor Books
Buy From Amazon.com
Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart
When I mentor new writers, I always tell them to write what interests them–that’s the only way readers will find their topics interesting. Well, that sage bit of council was blown to smithereens when I read the first two-thirds of David Plante’s new novel, ABC.
The novel opens on a family outing where Harry, the six-year-old son of Gerard and Peggy, is killed. Gerard is also critically injured, but the text doesn’t really specify if the injury is to his legs or back or both. Moments before the accident, Gerard finds a piece of paper upon which is written the Sanskrit alphabet.
As Gerard begins to heal, he becomes obsessed with two things—why did Harry die and, based on his interest in the Sanskrit, about the origins of our alphabet. Why does our alphabet “start with A B C and not F D Q?” As Gerard becomes more mobile, he begins to look for books on the origins of our alphabet. On his book shelf is a book that belonged to his grandfather, Webster’s International Dictionary.
When author Plante starts listing entries from the dictionary, I began to lose interest. By page 86 when Gerard buys a copy of Histoire de L’Ecriture and has a discussion with a girl in a bookstore about the Bhagavad Gita, I gave up. Plante never defined what the Bhagavad Gita is.
Not being one to give up easily, I read until about page 125 when Gerard goes to London with a Chinese woman who had also lost a child.
ABC didn’t make any sense to me, and I happily abandoned it.
Armchair Interviews says: Heed this reviewer’s comments.
From our armchair to yours...
