Ship Made of Paper.....what paper? First of all let me say, I have no idea why this book is titled as such. I assume it was just a name the author liked because nothing about this book what so ever has to do with paper, ships or ships made of paper. This.. is a serious character study involving obsession, lies, lust, confusion, stereotypes, misconstrued judgement, guilt, misdirected anger and racism, all simultaneously played out coincidentally in a small town outside of New York city during the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial. Daniel is a big time lawyer gone small time by moving back to the small town where he grew up after a series of events cause him to fear the big city. Daniel brings his live in girlfriend Kate and her daughter Ruby, whom he treats as his own daughter and cares for very much. Kate is an author, slash so/so mother, slash divorce, slash drunken lush, smug sarcastic woman with stereotypical racist tendencies. Daniels, is in obsession/stalker love with Iris. Iris is an African American mother of Nelson, who is Ruby's best friend at the daycare that they attend together. Iris is in graduate school and is married to Hampton, who works in the city during the week and comes home on the weekend to be with Iris and Nelson. Kate doesn't spend much time with Ruby so it falls upon Daniel to take care of the drop offs and pick ups of Ruby which causes him to interact with Iris a lot. During the course of this interaction, for the kids sake, Daniel falls for Iris and Iris has silent feelings for Daniel. Kate suspects. Hampton sort of does too. And life suddenly turns into a whirlwind one unexpected October day when a storm blankets the entire town and brings it to a stand still. Or maybe, a beginning. After getting a few pages into this book I realized that I had previously read it some years ago. Maybe when it was brand new. There were some parts that I remembered but I really must not have previously been present for this book because I observe more now than I think I did then. Maybe I didn't finish it and put it down. It's possible. Maybe it's maturity in the skill of my comprehension and observation. If I did read this all the way through, I don't know why I don't remember the feeling of annoyance at the stereotypical race misrepresentations. I believe the author attempted to make such a show of the fact that Daniel was white and Iris was African American that at times it was just ridiculous for lack of any other way to say it. The differences were attempted to be shown between the different families. The people. Just the stereotypes were over the top and so was the racism. It was to me the kind of racism that is less in the face more under the cover. The type when people say things like "Yes, I have a black friend and I don't even notice he/she is black." If you really didn't why would you call out their race? Why not say your friend. There were so many racism and stereotypes. I just don't feel it was all dealt with properly. I wasn't offended to the point of putting the book down but I was annoyed by the stupidity of it. Some things were true to form but others.. I was glad to finish. It did linger after a while. There is much more that could be said but these things stood out to me. I will say the author is a good writer, despite my grievances. You could feel the real mood of the book. When it was fear, you felt the fear. When it was lust and obsession, you felt that coming from those characters. Heartache, hatred, it was conveyed well. It wasn't a bad book. I assume I had a difference of opinion or again was really peeved with the above mentioned thoughts. I'll give it a 3 1/2 stars. The characters were memorable for what they did. (I remembered them with a little refreshing immediately the second time.) I would recommend it to readers who like those character studies, drama, relationship fiction. I think it really should have ended worse than it was allowed to end. I think author's should not be afraid of sad endings. In real life, SO MUCH of that would have happened differently and it would have ended badly. It would have made it more realistic.
It seems that when Spencer started this book, he sat down and told himself, "I want to write a story about the complexities of race relations in America." He succeeds in writing a story about race, but since he obviously lets his agenda trump his storytelling, the interactions among all the characters become contrived and silly, making the complexity nonexistent. Every minor character serves as a device to get the major characters to discuss race, and since the minor characters are plentiful, scene after scene is devoted to the explicit discussion of the topic. This gets very tedious very quickly. None of the characters ever change their views on race, so what occurs is a tiresome repetition of ideas. Think sociology 101. Then add some infidelity. Spencer also makes every white resident of Leyden, New York (except, of course, the main character Daniel, who is in love with a black woman) villainous and stupid. After an armed robbery occurs in a local bar, all the patrons of the bar immediately discuss the color of the robbers' skin. They're all hateful and contemptuous, ready to lynch the next black male they see, and it's only Daniel who says that everyone is rushing to conclusions, that nobody actually SAW the color of their skin. Of course everyone ignores him. He's obviously biased. He's seeing a black woman. Enraging! Daniel's longing for this black woman,Iris, is so overdone that it becomes uninteresting within the first third of the novel, and Iris's surprise over the whiteness of Daniel's skin and the hair on his chest is, well, laughable. A small thing, but irritating nonetheless: Everyone has cell phones, but the OJ trial is happening, so it's 1994. Another thing: What search party doesn't bring flashlights with them when searching for a lost person in a forest at night? In short, this book fails to provide insightful commentary on race relations because the commentary is so ridiculously explicit. Spencer is trying too hard to present a point. The thematic ideas of a story should present themselves organically in a text. Everything in this book is forced.
What do You think about A Ship Made Of Paper (2004)?
After a shattering incident of violence is perpetrated against him, lawyer Daniel Emerson leaves New York City and returns to the Hudson River town where he grew up. There, along with his partner Kate Ellis and her young daughter, Ruby, Daniel settles into the kind of secure and comfortable family life he always longed for during his emotionally barren childhood. However, he ultimately cannot control his desire for Iris Davenport, an African-American woman whose son is Ruby's best friend.During a freak October blizzard, Daniel is stranded at Iris' house, and they spend the night together - beginning a sexual liaison that eventually imperils all their relationships, Daniel's profession, their children's well-being, their own race-blindness, and their view of themselves as essentially good people. The emotional stakes are raised even higher when Iris' husband, Hampton, suffers a devastating accidental injury at Daniel's hands.Scott Spencer is a new author to me and this actually is the first book by this author that I've read. Reading this story was quite complex for me; there were many layers to it that caused me to read this book slowly - savoring it until I had reached the last page. Ultimately, I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Ship Made of Paper: A Novel from beginning to end. I give this book a definite A+! and have already put three more books by Scott Spencer on my Wish List.
—Mary
This is a story about an interracial relationship, racism, adultery, guilt, familial love, and the dire consequences of letting your heart rule your actions. There are so many problems in this book I don't know where to begin. If you want to read about a man whose obsession with his love for a woman is both endearing and stalkerish, pick up this book. Daniel is a tortured soul, whose love for Iris and all things black is juxtaposed against the fact that he abandoned a successful law practice in NY because of a beating he took at the hands of blacks. Part of me wanted to give it four stars b/c it's so well-written. Even the dialogue, which I sometimes found stilted and unnatural, could sometimes express the most beautiful sentiments. Take for instance what Daniel (white male) says to the woman with whom he's having an affair, Iris (black female): "What difference does it make? I would go anywhere. And I'd do anything. I'd crawl through broken glass if I could just be sure that at the end of the day, I'd be getting into bed next to you." The romantic in me smiles, but he has no idea how foreshadowing those words are, because by the end of the novel, his life has been reduced to the symbolic pain and melodrama expressed in those sentences. The pace of this book was better than Man in the Woods, but I feel so much was left unresolved, and there were periods in which Spencer dangled the carrot, daring me to step over the precipice, but when I did, I found myself on solid ground. It's this kind of see-sawing, anti-climactic teasing that I both loved and hated. I liked and disliked the cast of characters. Kate, with her sharp tongue and cutting wit, who with all her intelligence couldn't figure out that trying to salvage a dead relationship with a man who no longer loves you is downright pitiful. Daniel, who's been desperate for love, affection, and acceptance since he was a child, and once he thinks he's found that warmth with Iris, refuses to let it go--no matter what. Iris can't make up her mind about anything. Iris has stopped loving her husband, but I'm not so sure of her love for Daniel. I think part of her wants so desperately to be colorless, to blend in, that she's attracted to Daniel and men of other races and completely ignores the fact that although he's not perfect, her husband Hampton adores her. Hampton, who is clearly paranoid because of his blackness, and despite his dislike of and displeasure with whites, his success and constant bragging is a means by which to gain acceptance by them and to differentiate himself from other blacks. The cast of secondary characters are interesting and complex, too, but too many to name. Overall, a good read. It's reminiscent of Wharton's Ethan Frome or a modern adaptation of some great Shakespearan tragedy, where you read, you hope, you struggle with the moral implications of what's taking place, and in the end, you know no good will come of it.
—Delaney Diamond
This book needs an editor or the author needs to listen to the editor.It is entirely possible that there is gold in this authors work. However, what was published is very difficult to read. The sentences were often awkwardly constructed and the story lacked flow. It was conceptually puzzling and plodded to a conclusion that seemed to occur three chapters before the words stopped. I honestly think the editor as well as the author needs to be held accountable here.I stand by the above and offer the third sentence of the book as representative of prose to follow.“But Daniel’s girlfriend or partner or whatever he was supposed to call her, Kate, Kate went home to relieve the baby-sitter who was minding her daughter, and Hampton’s wife, there was no ambiguity there, his wife, Iris, with whom Daniel was fiercely in love, had gone home to look after their son.”
—Hawkeye
