Two for One: Crows (1985) by Charles Dickinson and Mad Mabel (2026) by Sally Hepworth

 Since I'm about to leave on a two-week wander, with my grandson, around the mid-and-northwest states for a couple of weeks, it's getting to be a now-or-never situation for some of the book reviews that I've fallen behind on in recent weeks. I'm now seven books behind, and I hope to catch up a bit by doing some combination reviews like this one: 

Charles Dickinson's novels have always reminded me of those of another favorite writer of mine Anne Tyler. Their characters are usually numerous and so quirky that they turn out to be as much, or more, fun as the plots of the stories themselves. Crows is no exception.

The main character in Crows is a marginally successful local sportswriter who burns out at the ripe old age of twenty-seven. Perhaps the sheer boredom of Robert Cigar's life explains why he becomes obsessed with the sudden disappearance of his former biology professor, and friend, in a bizarre boating accident on a local lake. To everyone's surprise, including his own, Robert manages to move into his friend's family home and begins to spend most of his time searching the depths of Oblong Lake for the man's body. Over the ensuing months, while the search goes on and on, Robert becomes more and more a real part of the Ladysmith family - even though he is always just on the verge of being kicked out of the house by the missing professor's wife Ethel. 

I've now read Crows twice (some 34 years apart), and both times I began the novel thinking that I was about to read a mystery. And I was wrong both times. Crows is really a novel about grieving and the kind of distorted memories and impressions that can result in the unjustified idealization of those suddenly taken from us. Even though Robert, the main character, is twenty-seven years old, for him this is a coming-of-age novel in which he finally grows up enough to see his own parents through the eyes of a young adult. He even learns to see himself for what he himself really is, and he learns to live with that.

Charles Dickinson is a really good storyteller who hides a lot wisdom amidst the comings and goings of his unusual characters. His books are fun to read, but by the end of them it becomes obvious that producing just another "fun read" is not what Charles Dickinson is all about. I recommend this one.

Sally Hepworth's Mad Mabel tells a much more complicated story than it appears to tackle at first glance, so if you decide to read this one (and I hope you do), pay attention from the very first page. It's peppered with all the clues you need to figure things out well before the end of the novel - and it's fun to see your hunches be confirmed when you're all done.

"Mad" Mabel is one Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, and 81-year-old woman who has lived quietly on the same Melbourne street for several decades. She's purposely never been easy to get along with, a trait she exploits to keep any of the neighbors from prying into her past. That works well for Mabel until an elderly neighbor is found dead under somewhat suspicious circumstances, and someone discovers that Elsie is actually Mabel Waller, who at just fifteen years old became the youngest person in Australian history to be convicted of murder. 

"At six feet tall with broad shoulders and a sturdy backbone, no one would ever accuse me of being birdlike - unless the bird in question was an ostrich. My hair is reddish-grey, and I call people "dipshit" with far more regularity than "dear."

Suddenly Mad Mabel is once again a national celebrity who can't leave her own home without being harassed by the press, the public, and one or two of her own neighbors. Now she is ready to tell her story - her way and in her own good time.

Hepworth uses two timelines for Elsie's story, alternating the present with episodes from her childhood. Mad Mabel is more a character study than it is a mystery, an exploration of how easily a person's life and future can be carelessly ruined by the adults around her - either through sheer inattentiveness or by purely evil intentions. This is a story about the difference between legal justice and real justice, a distinction that can sometimes make it almost impossible for a jury to make a decision that will satisfy anyone, much less everyone.

Mad Mabel is both funny and poignant at times, but most of all it's fun. And do watch out for my favorite character in the whole book, Persephone, a very precocious seven-year-old girl who refuses to take no for an answer when she decides that she and Elsie are going to be best friends forever.