Bellweather Rhapsody - Kate Racculia
I thoroughly enjoyed “Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts”, so I looked up Racculia’s other books. This was her second novel. It is also really good, but in a very different way.
One of the things that really pulled me in to “Tuesday Mooney” was Racculia’s treatment of her characters. She changed the point-of-view character regularly, and in so doing, made them all deeply realized, fully human characters. She does that here too. Amazingly real characters. Somewhat distinctly from “Tuesday Mooney”, almost all of the viewpoint characters in “Bellweather Rhapsody” are a little bit crazy, and a couple are full-on, “where’s my straight-jacket”, crazy. That Racculia can portray their neuroses (or psychoses) with such seeming verisimilitude is simply amazing and definitely praiseworthy.
But what’s it about you ask. Well…
After serving as a reluctant bridesmaid, twelve-year-old Minnie witnesses a murder suicide in room 712 of the Bellweather Hotel. Fifteen years later, Alice Hatmaker and her twin brother Rabbit are attending the Statewide music conference at the Bellweather. Alice is in the chorus and is something of a diva. Rabbit plays bassoon in the orchestra and has a secret he wants to reveal to his sister. Alice is assigned to the dreaded room 712. Her roommate is teenage flute prodigy Jill. When Jill apparently hangs herself, things kind of go off the rails. Especially when Alice seeks help, only to find Jill’s body gone. WTF! Oh, and there’s a snowstorm coming, threatening to maroon all the guests at the hotel. As noted above, there are lots of characters, and everybody has baggage to work out. This is a mystery, a comedy, a coming of age novel. It is lots of things, but mostly it’s good. Compared to “Tuesday Mooney”, it is just as funny, although somewhat darker, and has a more melancholy ending. But it definitely rings true.
Full disclosure: There are parts in this book that made this grizzled, and frankly, sometimes fragile, old man cry.
Adventures in Emailing Authors, Part 2: There was a passage in which two of the characters meet for the first time. One of them has a badly damaged hand. The other hears in her head “Gimme your hands! You’re wonderful!” I immediately said to myself, “That’s ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’ by David Bowie”. So I emailed Racculia to ask. She replied in the affirmative. I think it is so cool that authors gladly interact with readers. But I guess unless you are one of those factory authors (like James Patterson) who “writes” a dozen or more books a year and they’re all on the bestseller lists, the most important thing you can do is generate goodwill with readers. Then mission accomplished!