I picked this book off the bargain table (when will I ever learn?). From the jacket, it seemed the author had been well reviewed for previous books and the theme of the book certainly looked promising. Other books with higher priority (book club, loaned books) pushed this one aside for quite a while. I finally had time to pick it up and put it my read list. The book starts off with seven characters in the first two paragraphs. None are explained or described until later on. Even the first sentence, "May sat on the first row of the bleachers, watching the boys warm up" created confusion. It took some reading before I figured out these were her boys and they were teenagers. Characters are introduced rapidly and the reader is left floundering to figure out relationships. Names are thrown out like "Sawtooth Point" and the "Wedding Cake" as if it were common knowledge. I assume, in retrospect, that the author assumed the front jacket gave enough explanation (and that everyone would carefully read the jacket before starting in to read). By chapter 17, I gave up in frustration.I couldn't remove this book from my list so it got moved to "want-to-read." It bugged me seeing an unread book on my list. Some time later, when I again had a free spell, I picked up "Compose Rose" and tried again. This time I had a better idea of relationships and made better progress through the first section. However, that is not to say my frustration lessened. I still had serious issues with the author's lack of description. May and Dick are married and Dick has had an affair. How old are these two? What do they look like? Did they start their family when they were barely out of high school? Or was May older, so that by the time of the affair this become an issue of Dick being attracted to a younger woman, a better-looking woman? We don't know because we don't really know what May looked like.We cannot form a clear picture of any character in the book. The author only gives occasional clues of "long, red hair," or "slender legs." Because his characters are so difficult to imagine, many of the relationships remain hard to follow. The fact that one is stable and mature (Mary) does not tell us if she is young or middle-aged . . . and yes, it does make a difference in understanding the plot and her relationship to other characters.The jacket claims: "With uncanny ability to plunge confidently and unwaveringly into the thoughts and desires of women--mothers, daughters, wives, lovers--John Casey astonishes us again with the power of a family sage." I've read male writers who can do this and I'm always amazed and thrilled when a male writer can understand and communicate so completely the thoughts and emotions of women. I don't see this is "Compose Rose." Casey might have talked to a lot of women and maybe even run parts past women friends, but I found his female characters annoying. It sounded just like a man writing what he "thought" women might think. A male fantasy. Certainly the logic and personalities of the main characters don't fit anyone I've ever met or heard of. A good author would give enough background to make us understand why and how characters made their unusual choices. None of the women's motivations made sense to me and had to be accepted "on faith." Dick was supposed to be the true love of Elsie's life? I never got the impression she was in love. She was in lust. Constantly. She went after any male who looked like a good lay and it was always out to prove something to herself. She used men and then tossed them overboard. Dick might have been appealing because he was married and "unavailable," or because he was trying to be honorable, but nowhere did I see any signs of genuine love and concern by Elsie for Dick's welfare. Nor was there ever a really believable explanation of why Elsie herself considered Dick the love of her life. Until the end of the book (unless you read the jacket) there isn't a clue that Dick meant anything more than someone who ended up being the father of her child.In a town this small and interconnected, when everyone knows everyone else's business, it seems strange that Elsie's promiscuous sex life had not long ago labelled her as the village tramp, family money or not. The little description we have of Dick makes me wonder why he would be vulnerable to someone with a such an undesirable reputation. And no, taking care of Mrs. Perry does not change my mind about Elsie's desirability as a love object. Quick roll in the hay. Maybe. I was disappointed by the jacket's hype, ". . .it is Rose, the unofficial adopted daughter and little sister of half the town, who magnetically steers everyone in her orbit toward unexpected---and unbelievable---relationships." So misleading. I expected from that description that Rose would grow up with the ability to reach out and bring people together, to mend broken bridges, to forge new understandings. No. Rose does her own thing. Everyone else focuses their attention on darling Rose. She laps up the attention. Not a bad person. But as self-centered as her mother. I'm never convinced why people even take to her so passionately. That half the town loves her seems a stretch, since she is never shown to have more than a singing voice to win over people, to keep from being labeled the bastard child of the town's harlot. The shallowness of characters turned this into a TV reality show. I hate reality shows because they are so far removed from actual reality. By the end, I stayed up late to finish the book, not because I had to learn about the ending, or because I cared about what happened to any of the characters. I just wanted the damn ordeal to be over so I could get rid of the book, once and for all. A followup to Spartina, 20 more years, about, in the lives of the small community in South County Rhode Island next to Sawtooth Point, which is now developed into a club and marina for yachts, right next to Dick and May's property--he is still fishing for whatever he can bring in, with his hand-bult boat, Spartina. But this is the women's story, May's, and Elsie's, and Mary's, and Rose's, the women who orbit around Dick. May reconciles herself to the fact that Dick is Rose's daughter by Elsie, accepts her, helps raise her. Elsie continues to be a free spirit, screwing the young lawyer in the back of a car, impulsively seducing Dick again after all these years. They all fight Jack's ambitions to expand the Sawtooth Club, and after shipwrecks and strokes and Miss Perry's long decline, it all comes to a fruitful resolution. Sort of an odd read, in that in Part I Rose is an infant, and in Part II, a chubby preteen, justlikethat--a dozen years skipped over, and everyone pretty much as they were, but then the story picks up steam. A satisfying novel.
What do You think about Compass Rose (2010)?
Didn't much like Compass Rose although it was saved by having taken place in South County, RI.
—charlesstirman
Although this was recommended highly, I just did not like the writing style.
—xxFORGOTTENJxx
1.5 stars. I disliked all the characters and could not finish the book.
—Jor
Quickly lost interest in this book. Never finished the first 100 pages.
—Roop
