Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Book Review: “Black Crow White Lie” by Candi Sary

Candi Sary’s debut novel, Black Crow White Lie, is a kind of metaphysical coming of age novel that doesn’t require a belief in the metaphysical, super natural or any other new age philosophy. Its beauty, much like Richard Bach’s early works; Jonathan Livingston Seagull, A Bridge Across Forever, Illusions, is in its revealing the universal strength and self-confidence to be found in the human spirit.

Black Crow

Told with the simple prose and narration of a thirteen year old, street smart boy – though that sounds a paradox, it is an apt description of Carson Calley and perhaps all of us – there is at once a naiveté and a native wisdom that is endearing and admirable. It’s to Sary’s credit that she draws characters who seem to stand way over the mainstream line, yet are readily identifiable and easy to empathize with. The author has penned an emotionally stirring tale of heartbreak, growth and acceptance that bodes well for her future.

Carson Calley is a young boy, entering his teen years, living a nonconventional life. He and his mother, ‘Juliette Bravo’ as she has legally changed her name to, live in a series of Hollywood motels. This is not the Hollywood of glamour, but the Hollywood of seedy characters, seedy bars and seedy motels. His mother makes her living telling fortunes. She spends her nights in bars and drinks too much and leaves Carson to raise himself. But she tells Carson stories and helps him understand just how special he is.

We were Indians – California Indians. This pale skin was once native brown. And these legs of yours were once big and strong so that you could run after deer and shoot them with your arrows, and then bring the meat back to me. You were destined to be a great medicine man, the great healer who would take away all the pain and disease of our people.

And now that their spirits are reunited, she tells Carson, he is once again destined to be the great healer of this generation. But for the time being, the only healing he does is to cure his mothers hangovers. When he puts his hand near her head he can feel the tiny stars emanate from his hands and they heel her in a way that he doesn’t fully understand. He doesn’t remember the first time he used the stars, but as his mother tells him, he just knew he had them in him.

Carson was ten when his mother first told him the above story, and though he sometimes wishes that he and his mother had a more conventional life, it is easier for him to accept and appreciate his life the way it is knowing the stories and knowing his destiny is to be a great healer, someone super special. In almost all other ways, Carson is just a normal boy. He’s skinny and a bit nerdy and takes a lot of bullying for this fact, along with his second hand cloths, his not having a father, the stories he relates about his life, told to him by his mother. He’s also got anger problems. When frustrated, he oft time breaks things, strikes out violently but he figures this must be the downside to his healing gift. He makes do with the flamboyant and funky people of Hollywood in place of a family. One of his favorite haunts is The House Of Freaks, a tattoo shop run by a scary-cool guy named Faris with a bald, but tattooed head, in fact every inch of Faris except his face is covered in tattoos. Faris listens with a practiced ear to Carson’s stories about his life, his mother and even his growing crush on Rose Lewis – the bitchiest girl in fourth grade. Faris becomes a father figure to Carson giving quiet advice and guiding him through Hollywood life. His other best friend is Casper, a tall, lanky albino that runs a head shop.

One day, after learning that Casper is deaf in one ear, the result of an odd encounter with a bush while high on mushrooms, Carson calls the stars from his hands and heals Casper. Casper is amazed and offers the use of a room in his head shop for Carson to heal people as a business. At first Carson is reluctant and doesn’t have faith in himself, but after healing colic in a baby that Rose is baby sitting for, Carson’s confidence grows and he goes into business with Casper. He eventually tells his mom and she encourages him to use his gift. She also hires another healer to guide Carson in the ways of healing. Pretty soon, Carson has a huge underground following and a Hollywood starlet comes to him and is healed from cancer and his reputation grows to the extent that he wants to save the money to visit his fathers grave in Washington D.C.

His mother has told him stories of his father too. Not only does he have the blood of his mother, a psychic in his veins, but his father was a great military hero and was a super spy for the government. He was such a finely trained killer that he could sit perfectly still for hours until a crow would land near him, taken in by his perfect stillness. Then his father would swiftly grab the crow and wring its neck before you could hardly see him move. As Carson learns the power and extent of his healing gift he dreams of going to Washington D.C. to the Cemetery Of Heroes and raising his father from the dead so that he can bring him back to Hollywood and have a normal life.

As Carson matures, he begins to think that all may not be as he thinks. He starts to see his mother as an alcoholic, instead of a tortured soul. She spends more and more time away from him and the motel rooms, and more time with her boy friend, Jackson. When she is hospitalized after a long drinking binge and Carson tries to heal her, and Faris doubts the truth, Carson’s confidence is further shaken.Then, after witnessing some of her fortunetelling he begins to think she is not always honest with her clients and that, perhaps, she makes things up to please them. When, to celebrate his thirteenth birthday, he gets a tattoo of a black crow on his arm, to honor his dead heroic father, and his mother doesn’t even notice his disillusionment grows deeper.

As his confidence is further shaken, and he begins to doubt that he even has a healing gift Carson sets out on a journey of discovery. To ultimately find the truth among the white lies. To see if he really is a special human being. He’ll also have to confront and ultimately atone for his anger and destructive actions.

What Candi Sary has penned in a short 160 pages is a modern parable. It lays bare the souls needs to find itself unique, it explores love even when lies exist and most of all, as Carson matures and grows, it shows us that inside of us all can exist a tiny seed, a gift that makes us special if only we’ll believe in it and let it take root.

Candi SaryCandi Sary is a graduate of UC Irvine and grew up in San Pedro, California. She’s been a finalist in several writing competitions and Black Crow White Lie was a top finalist in the 2009 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Writing Competition and a semi finalist for 2010 in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. This is her first novel, published by Casperian Books, and independent publisher out of Sacramento, Calif. who specialize in genre, main-stream, literary and experimental works.

  • Paperback: 162 pages Publisher: Casperian Books LLC (October 1, 2012)
  • Language: English ISBN-10: 193408137X ISBN-13: 978-1934081372

 

Article first published as Book Review: Black Crow White Lie by Candi Sary on Blogcritics.

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