Books : CandleMoth

Rating: - A Gem
For the whole of Candlemoth - the first of Roger Ellory's novels I've read - I lost entirely the sense of "reading", I was in the novel with the characters, watching them from a distance. It's a measure of the authenticity of the writing that sometimes - during the prison scenes especially - that became distinctly uncomfortable and unsettling. I wanted to look away, and couldn't. Meet Mr West. I haven't forgotten him yet. He'll probably haunt the next three novels I read.

And sometimes too, I felt like an intruder. Young Danny's fleeting love affair with Caroline is one highlight of the book for me, there's a delicacy and fragility about the writing which reflects perfectly an adult's reminiscence of first love. Everything was perfect, every detail is still in Danny's mind, like the pattern on the candlemoth's wings. He remembers the sound of ice in the lemonade glass, and that she smelt of "juniper and toothpaste and a sweet sense of beauty". Another highlight is a beautifully observed friendship between Danny and the widow Eve Chantry, who has her own tragic story to tell, one that shapes Danny's life and haunts his memory. And that gifts the novel its title.

Candlemoth drew me in from the first page. I stayed up very late to finish it, because I couldn't bear to leave Danny where he was, not knowing. Sometimes when I'm near to finishing a book, I "save the end" to postpone finishing it for one more day. Not this one. Doing that to Danny would have felt like a betrayal. I had to stay with him. When I start to feel protective of the characters, I know that's when a book has hooked me.

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Rating: - Ellory fan.
If you have been hooked by Ellory, this in my opinion, is his best.
I thought it was very well written and the main character's story absorbing.

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Rating: - Oooh...this guy's good...
Just finished this and I can't believe this guy's work isn't more widely known. R J Ellory is a quality act. It's great to see "A Quiet Belief in Angels" in the bestsellers and anyone who enjoyed that isn't going to be disappointed with his back catalogue either. "Candle Moth" was his first published novel (there are apparently 22 unpublished sitting around) and I can't for the life of me see how it took so long for him to make the big time.
The prose here isn't as refined as his new novels and at times the historical exposition is a little obvious, but this is a great read. The only reason I dock it a star is that he's subsequently proven he can write even better.

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Rating: - Dead Man Talking
Roger Jon Ellory made his big breakthrough in 2007 with A Quiet Belief in Angels which has gone on to become one of the best-selling books in the nation. There's a lot more to this Brummie lad than just that one novel though, and most people going through his back-catalogue as a response to his blockbuster success are finding that his outstanding writing skills are evident here in his debut, which again spans most of the lifetime of a single man in the south-eastern USA through the 1950s, 1960s and beyond. It is altogether different in its style, however, and in the emotions it engenders in its readers.

Most stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This one is a curiosity because in effect the reader knows the end before opening the first page; 36-year-old Daniel Ford is on death row in a South Carolina prison, having been tried and found guilty of the murder of his best friend some twelve years earlier. For most of the tale, then, the key questions are how, where, and above all why did he kill Nathan Verney? A singular oddity for me was that the story is told from a first-person perspective, making me constantly wonder how a dead man could be recounting the events of his life between 1952 - when at 6 years old he met Nathan - and 1982, with just a few hours to go before going to the electric chair. It turns out that although the end appears to be almost a foregone conclusion, the telling of that end is vivid, powerful and consummately makes up for the relatively genteel nature of most that had gone before, prior to Daniel's arrest around Christmas of 1969. Ellory succeeds in making you feel what it must be like to be weeks, days and finally just hours away from death.

While some of the political backdrops are too long drawn out in detail, there is no question that politics and racial prejudice lie right at the heart of the tale. Most relevant of all is the Vietnam conflict, and how Daniel and Nathan face up to the probability of being drafted into a war they both have no desire to be involved in. The other key issue is that Nathan is black, and in a part of the country with strong associations with the Ku Klux Klan, he faces harmful consequences when he simply goes out to a bar with his white friend, and takes even higher risks by having a white girlfriend - especially one with a father reputed to be a Klan king-pin. Yet another political topic central to all that goes on is the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, and when all is said and done at the conclusion, it becomes apparent that all of the main characters, including Daniel's girlfriends, and most if not all of the political narrative are absolutely relevant to the story as a whole, even if some of the people and background events seem to have no bearing at the time of their mention.

The prose will be regarded as merely average by anyone who has read Ellory's most recent work, but the imagery of both the tranquillity of Greenleaf South Carolina, and the intimidating inmates and warders on death row make for gripping reading. There are, throughout this tale, emotive portrayals of love, lust, envy, betrayal, guilt, fear, joy, anger and utter hopelessness. For those familiar with Ellory's other novels this one does take a while before it really takes hold, and patience might be needed at times, but the pay-off is absolute and uncompromising, with an ending that few others can hope to match. Ultimately an intense, moving and memorable story.

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Rating: - Dead Man Talking
Roger Jon Ellory made his big breakthrough in 2007 with A Quiet Belief in Angels which has gone on to become one of the best-selling books in the nation. There's a lot more to this Brummie lad than just that one novel though, and most people going through his back-catalogue as a response to his blockbuster success are finding that his outstanding writing skills are evident here in his debut, which again spans most of the lifetime of a single man in the south-eastern USA through the 1950s, 1960s and beyond. It is altogether different in its style, however, and in the emotions it engenders in its readers.

Most stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This one is a curiosity because in effect the reader knows the end before opening the first page; 36-year-old Daniel Ford is on death row in a South Carolina prison, having been tried and found guilty of the murder of his best friend some twelve years earlier. For most of the tale, then, the key questions are how, where, and above all why did he kill Nathan Verney? A singular oddity for me was that the story is told from a first-person perspective, making me constantly wonder how a dead man could be recounting the events of his life between 1952 - when at 6 years old he met Nathan - and 1982, with just a few hours to go before going to the electric chair. It turns out that although the end appears to be almost a foregone conclusion, the telling of that end is vivid, powerful and consummately makes up for the relatively genteel nature of most that had gone before, prior to Daniel's arrest around Christmas of 1969. Ellory succeeds in making you feel what it must be like to be weeks, days and finally just hours away from death.

While some of the political backdrops are too long drawn out in detail, there is no question that politics and racial prejudice lie right at the heart of the tale. Most relevant of all is the Vietnam conflict, and how Daniel and Nathan face up to the probability of being drafted into a war they both have no desire to be involved in. The other key issue is that Nathan is black, and in a part of the country with strong associations with the Ku Klux Klan, he faces harmful consequences when he simply goes out to a bar with his white friend, and takes even higher risks by having a white girlfriend - especially one with a father reputed to be a Klan king-pin. Yet another political topic central to all that goes on is the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, and when all is said and done at the conclusion, it becomes apparent that all of the main characters, including Daniel's girlfriends, and most if not all of the political narrative are absolutely relevant to the story as a whole, even if some of the people and background events seem to have no bearing at the time of their mention.

The prose will be regarded as merely average by anyone who has read Ellory's most recent work, but the imagery of both the tranquillity of Greenleaf South Carolina, and the intimidating inmates and warders on death row make for gripping reading. There are, throughout this tale, emotive portrayals of love, lust, envy, betrayal, guilt, fear, joy, anger and utter hopelessness. For those familiar with Ellory's other novels this one does take a while before it really takes hold, and patience might be needed at times, but the pay-off is absolute and uncompromising, with an ending that few others can hope to match. Ultimately an intense, moving and memorable story.