I have a friend who has taste in books very similar to my own, so when she makes a recommendation, I tend to listen. Granted, I don’t always follow through on her suggestions (I have a very large unread book pile), but I do listen. If she recommends someone more than once, I am even more inclined to give the author a shot, and such is the case with Seanan McGuire. My friend said a lot of good things about McGuire’s work, so I decided to look her up.
Imagine my surprise when I realized I had already read two of McGuire’s books under her occasional pen name of Mira Grant. Yes, I read the first two books of her post-zombie-world series Newsflesh about what journalism and political campaigns could become in a world where any mammal over 35 pounds could turn into a flesh-eating monster upon death. I remembered liking the first book in that series more than the second, so why not give a shot to the first of McGuire’s Ghost Stories books a shot with Sparrow Hill Road.
Sparrow Hill Road, it should be noted, may not be what most people would call a novel. As the series title suggests, each chapter operates as more or less a separate short story, all involving hitchhiking ghost Rose Marshall. Rose died at the age of 16 on her prom night driving to her boyfriend’s house. That was back in the 50s in the Midwestern town of Buckley, and since then, Rose travels all over the country. She may have to. Her afterlife duty is to escort people who die in road accidents to whatever comes next. She doesn’t cause these deaths. She just knows they’re coming and can only occasionally prevent them despite her own best efforts.
There’s more to Rose than that, of course. Over the course of the stories that span decades from her death to the present day, McGuire explains the rules on how Rose’s new existence works. Certain things have to happen for Rose to become temporarily solid, there are many other types of ghosts and other supernatural beings out there, and the man who killed her is still haunting her dreams, or they would if Rose could still fall asleep. Urban legends have spawned all over about Rose, a fact she may find annoying or amusing depending on how far off these tales are from the actual truth. She picks up friends, maybe an enemy or two, and that’s more or less the book.
Yes, anyone wanting a singular narrative may be a wee bit disappointed. Rose has no huge, overarching goal, or at least not one she fulfills within this book. She does set a goal that maybe is met in a future volume, but she does seem better off at the end than she did in the beginning. She knows a bit more about why she died, she has some friends, and even a hangout in the twilight world where she can enjoy a malted and a cheeseburger. McGuire put together some nice stories. She paces each story well, sets up a mini-objective in each one, and in the end there’s a nice new tale about Rose Marshall there for the reader.
But that “no overarching goal” thing may be a bit of a problem. It sure looks like Rose has a goal, but she never really completes it, making the overall book feel like a nice introduction and nothing more. McGuire may have created Rose as a character in a roleplaying game she was involved in, so that makes a certain amount of sense. If Rose did fulfill her quest, she’d probably have to move on to whatever comes next, and that would be that. So, be aware these are not so much a single, coherent novel and more of a series of short stories that all seem to be going in the same general direction with a likable protagonist living in an interesting world, and you should be fine.
Grade: A-
0 Comments