Best of Summer: The Call by Yannick Murphy

Don't tell me everything is dandy in book publishing. Throwaway thrillers get the full hardcover treatment in prime months and enduring literary fiction is released as tissue-grade paperbacks in the off season. Two marvelous, midlist, mid-career straight novelists who ought to be poised for major breakouts, Martha Southgate and Yannick Murphy, both coming off wonderful recent hardcovers, are seeing their new work relegated to paperback originals. This robs them of the proper build-up of stellar reviews and great word of mouth in hardcover that can burst into a huge success when the book is reinvented as a paperback a year later. The gold standard in this model is Bel Canto, a fourth novel that underperformed in hardcover then made Ann Patchett's career in paperback when most of the reading world wondered, How did I miss this? Without that two-tiered strategy, the time for Southgate's The Taste of Salt [[Kindle]] and Murphy's The Call [[Kindle]] is now or never. Choose now.

Yannick Murphy's The Call [[Kindle]] is the best novel of the summer. The story of a rural New England veterinarian, his wife, three kids, and a county of animals is touching, tense, funny, and true. Spiritually, the book belongs on the same shelf as Wendell Berry, Kent Haruf, Barbara Kingsolver, and Wallace Stegner. Indicative of Murphy's immense talent and gripping storytelling is that very soon into the novel you will no longer notice it is told entirely in the form of call reports from David's vet visits. It isn't a gimmick, it's the perfect distillation of the way he thinks. And of how he tackles problems, the worst of which are severely dwindling business, mounting bills, and two domestic crises. The first is a hunting accident that leaves the family and the reader in suspended anxiety. Yet that awfulness also, inevitably, heightens his perceptions of everyday life. David is a keen observer of creature habits, nature, mechanics, personality quirks, language (English, German, cussing), food, familial bonds, swimming, and substitute teaching. Unlike the overwritten State of Wonder which sledgehammers home its allusions by having Marina point out how similar she is to the mythic heroine she is watching on stage, The Call thrives on subtlety. A looming decision of vital importance is given a pair of doppelgangers -- scar and cheetah -- gracefully woven into one natural paragraph.

What Video We Rented From the Library: How we love the library and leave it with armloads of books and movies, even if the service at the library is slow, and the librarian who has been there for years always looks at the scanner gun for a few moments first before he uses it on our books' labels as if he's never seen the scanner gun before. And I know this librarian and he is also on the masters swim team and I have seen him in his swim trunks, and there is a huge scar on his belly that even pulling up the waistband of his trunks way up past his navel does not hide and I wondered what part of him was surgically removed or rearranged. He is a very slow swimmer, and it seems as if he goes backward instead of forward in the water, or that he goes nowhere at all. It was the librarian who recommended the video to Mia. The video was about mammals and Mia watched it first and then wanted me to watch it with her. The cheetah, I learned, will let one of her offspring share her kill with her even years later, even when the offspring is an adult she will remember it, but she will never let any other adult share with her. Isn't that amazing? Mia said.

What I Said: Yes, it really is amazing, and I hugged Mia on my lap while I said it and I smelled her hair that smelled faintly like our house when we walk into it after we've been away for a few days.

Although in its final pages the story stumbles with a too-tidy resolution, nothing should deter you from this beautiful and powerful ode to gentle, modest lives lived with integrity.

Comments

[aw]

I know this librarian and he is also on the experts go swimming group and I have seen him in his go swimming Yannick trunks, and there is a enormous scratch on his tummy that even taking up the waist of his trunks way up previous his tummy button does not cover and I considered what aspect of him was imperatively eliminated.