The Nobodies Album

Carolyn Parkhurst’s The Nobodies Album was the first full book I read while on vacation in Hawaii (yep, still haven’t caught up on what I read to finish our the year, but slowly making progress, I’m not even going to think about the 4 books I’ve already read this year). I had heard about it from Rebecca over at The Books Lady’s Blog either on her blog, on bookrageous (which if you haven’t checked out you need to, like now), or on twitter. It sounded interesting (that lady can sell a book) so when I saw it was available from my library in ebook form, I jumped at the chance to bring it with on vacation.

In the novel, our main character, Octavia Frost, author, is dropping off a manuscript of her new book-in which she has rewritten the last chapter of each of her previous books-when she hears the news that her estranged son-who is part of a well-known band-has been accused of murdering his girlfriend. Octavia decides, that despite the fact she hasn’t talked to Milo in years, she will fly out to San Francisco to see him and try to piece together the truth of what happened.

Interspersed between chapters of Octavia’s efforts in San Francisco, we also get the book jackets, original last chapter, and the alternate ending to all of Octavia’s novels. These often give the reader background information on Octavia’s life, her estrangement with her son Milo, and slowly tells the story of their lives’ tragedy in the past.

Weaving all these pieces of information and storylines into one coherent novel isn’t any easy task and I’d say that Parkhurst pulls it off quite well. Though I do often enjoy stories that are told from multiple perspectives so it’s not that surprising that this format worked for me since it was done well. I didn’t think it felt disjointed or jerky at all. Parkhurst also does an amazing job getting at the complex emotions and psychology of mother and son as well as the other couples in this story, and just the complexities of people in general. Now that I’ve finished this one, I’m interested to see what Parkhurst has written in the past, perhaps I’ll go back and read some of her previous works.