Christine was twelve years old when
her mom, Eve Moran, shot her current boyfriend, Jerry Santini, dead in their
apartment. It wasn’t long afterwards before Christine once again took care
of her mom by claiming to have killed Jerry Santini. After all, cleaning up
after her mom was a job Christine had really gotten really good at by then thanks
to the fact she had lots of practice over the years.
Told in flashbacks of various lengths
through the book, Concrete Angel by Patti Abbott details eighteen years of
Christine’s life. From 1964 to approximately1982 in various locations in the Philadelphia
area Christine dealt with a life of quiet family chaos. While the book opens
with the shooting that in some ways did change things in other ways it was a
minor blip on a long and wide ranging continuum of the family dysfunction.
Such issues are frequent topics of
the author’s shorter fiction. While multiple crimes are present in the book,
the psychological relationships are the heart of Concrete Angel. Hence the
labeling of the book as “domestic suspense” in this age of making everything
fit a nice neat designation. Makes sense if you also believe that Faulkner is
domestic suspense as there is definitely a tone of Faulkner throughout the
read. Granted the book is set in the Northeast but the characters could have
easily come out of the Deep South. Right down to the neat freak bigoted
Grandmother who is all about appearances over everything and anyone else.
The relationship between Christine
and her mother takes precedence for a variety of reasons, but there are other familial
relationships at work here that don’t always have Christine’s best interests at
heart. The aforementioned Grandmother an obvious case in point, but there are
others just as guilty. This is not one of those families you wish to be born
into if your goal is a safe and nurturing environment. A mighty good book that
defies easy labeling, Concrete Angel is a complex read
that pulls you in deep and will haunt you long after the read is finished.
Concrete Angel
Patti Abbott
Polis Books
June 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1940610382
Paperback
(also available in audio and e-book formats)
320
Pages
$14.95
Kevin
R. Tipple ©2015
Posts
4 comments:
Thanks so much, Kevin. What an insightful review. I am glad you saw the grandmother so clearly. There were no good relationships for Christine.
Thanks for this review, Kevin. I've waited to read Patti's book because I've been down in the dumps for awhile and I'm the sort of person that has to be out of the dumps before I read books with disturbing stories - well, that hardly makes me unique, I know. But I've got CONCRETE ANGEL on my TBR pile for sure.
As I said on FB the book struck a real cord with me, Patti. Reminded me of folks I grew up with. Enjoyed it, but it was not an easy read.
Yvette you want to be in a decent mood at the bare minimum before reading this. It is good. It also disturbed me in places because some of he characters were far more than folks on a page to me.
Made the review tough to write as well as there was a tendency to put too much of me into the review.
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