“This is the blood-lust of brothers, the vengeful rage of the father, all of it born out and somehow flawless in its wickedness, like some depraved reenactment of Genesis staged solely for the amusement of reprobates.”That one sentence from Bruce Machart’s The Wake of Forgiveness encapsulates the book but does not do justice to the strange beauty of this book. When Karel was born, the fourth son of Vaclav Skala a Czech imigrant to Texas, his mother died and that seemed to twist his father’s Skala’s soul. Skala sought land and horses, for racing not drawing the plow, for this he used his boys. Which warped them, with their heads and necks permanently tilting right or left depending on the side they were harassed on.One would expect them to be close relying on each other to fight against their father and the injustice of their existence, but a fateful bet was to render that asunder and Karel the jockey comes down on the side opposite his brothers who see a way of escaping their father.The book moves back and forth between the past 1895 to 1910 and before and the present the 1920’s, helping to maintain an air of mystery of what happened. There are times when the movement can be a bit disconcerting to the reader, even though this reader is fond of books which shift between times.I love the title of the book The Wake of Forgiveness. One thinks of the verb wake, to emerge from sleep or the noun as it is used in the title a vigil for the dead or the trail of water from a ship. Shall we lay to rest forgiveness or arise from the water following the great vessel of forgiveness? The answer can be found in this book, with its wonderful twisted characters. There’s a lot of spit, hawking, and swilling going on in Bruce Machart’s debut novel The Wake of Forgiveness. Machart has been compared to Cormac McCarthy, Faulkner, and Hemingway in the same breath and the book has won several awards. It’s been described as a man’s book, down right gritty, but this woman liked it just fine. It’s a family story without a lot of direct female presence but the ramifications of a woman’s role are key to the story. The story begins in 1895 in what the author thought was a fictitious town, Dalton, Texas. The labor to bear the fourth son of Vaclav Skala, opens the book and sets the tone for what's to come. Karel lives, his mother, yet more importantly, Vaclav’s wife, dies. Left with 4 boys to raise, it’s clear that Klara’s death has changed things irreparably but not quite as clear how things might have been if she had lived. How much of Vaclav’s character is set by this event is not certain Would he have been the same cruel, violent man if Klara had lived? The four brothers grow; their father acquires land, often by pitting Karel and his prized horse Whiskey against other landowners in a race for acreage. Mexican land owner, Guillermo Villasenor, challenges Skala to a race that will net the winner either land (win-Skala) or 3 husbands for his beautiful daughters (win-Villasenor). Skala and Villasenor are formidable opponents and the clash of their cultures is damning and damaging. One reviewer notes Skala takes pride only in his wealth and land, not his children unlike Villasenor who takes great pride in his daughters. I disagree. Villasenor's pride is self-serving. He treats his daughters as possessions and earns no respect from me. Machart writes lengthy, tense descriptive passages which grab my attention. horseflesh has never been so vibrantly alive in any other book I've read. The violence is hard to read but suits the story well. I never feel it is gratuitous but it is brutal and could be hard to read. I believe I saw this book first mentioned in Reading Group Choices and thought it sounded interesting. The title led me to believe that after riding the storm that there would be created an ebb of forgiveness. This resolution is subtle and may not be the same to each reader. All in all, an excellent read. A huge thanks goes out to Trish, Paul and the librarians at BEA Librarian Shout Out for recommending this also!
What do You think about Le Sillage De L'oubli (2010)?
Can't finish this. It's very old-school sexist with nary a woman in sight.
—sk8rgurl
