High Plains Tango by Robert James Waller
March 24, 2008 by Jackie
Robert James Waller is best known for The Bridges of Madison County, which I don’t remember well enough to compare to this one, though I do recall it also dealt with the themes of not only Love and loss, but Fate and choice. …Tango is less about the past than that one, plus the characters feel stronger and more equal.
Losing his moral compass, Carlisle McMillan leaves the big city and travels around the U.S., eventually landing in a tiny town called Salamander, on the Great Plains out West. Using his skills as a master carpenter, he moves into an old cabin with a stray cat named Dumptruck and begins renovating the place. Two women catch his eye; Susanna, a fellow wanderer who is reputed to be a witch and Gally, a waitress who is resisting the despair of a dead-end life. When a proposed highway threatens to shatter his sanctuary, as well as the nesting site of endangered hawks and Indian burial ground, Carlisle must fight with all he has. The interplay of politicians, townspeople and protesters is well written and troubling. The issue is not one commonly explored in fiction to such a degree.
The book starts out wonderfully, full of poetry and humor: “The salad was iceberg lettuce with grated carrots sprinkled on top. And there was his lemon, looking at him coyly as if to say “You could’ve had Thousand island, yet you chose me.” ” But soon it shifts narration from third person to a strange first person style, with an old codger telling a story to someone using a tape recorder, we are never sure who. It’s a clumsy bit of artifice, since the old man sounds nearly identical to the original narrator. He’s supposed to be a plain speaking working-class type, but mixes his down home observations with some fancy language. For instance, instead of saying a woman has red hair, as that sort of person really would, he calls it auburn. For the rest of the book it veers between the 2 narrators and sometimes the reader isn’t sure who is actually speaking. It’s confusing. To top it off, about two thirds through the book, Waller begins channeling Ayn Rand with a lengthy section involving symbolic dreams and philosophy. While it is relevant to the story, it feels remote and out of place. Though to be honest, those are minor irritants to a well-crafted story with an important message that is told through strong characters that we soon care about. The lessons about ethics, progress and contentment are timeless, just like the red rocks of the Plains.
Random House 2005 446 pp. ISBN 0-375-43509-3
I wonder why he felt the need to do the tricksy bit with the narrator/s? It sounds a bit unnecessary and confusing from your description - and a bit of a discordant note?
Hard to resist a cat called Dumptruck, though.
Good, intriguing review as always.
It WAS confusing and definitely unnecessary. I thought Dumptruck was the perfect name for a big, yellow tomcat.
Great review, Jackie. I got a real sense of the thing. I’m not sure whether it sounds like one for me, but I enjoyed the lettuce description there.
Yes, interesting, but I was slightly put off by this:
“soon it shifts narration from third person to a strange first person style, with an old codger telling a story to someone using a tape recorder, we are never sure who. It’s a clumsy bit of artifice, since the old man sounds nearly identical to the original narrator.”
I always thought publishers/agents were adamant that all narrators should have distinct voices? Hmm.
I think Waller is now so successful, that his publishers just rubber stamps anything he writes without checking it much. Had an editor really paid attention to the manuscript, that weird change in narration wouldn’t have made the cut. Had someone told me about it before reading, I doubt I’d have started it.