Luckily, I placed an "autoship" order for this book on PaperbackSwap a few years ago, when I was taken by the interesting start of the TV series based on The Returned. The series, which began much like the novel, quickly became chaotic and unfocused, with plot twists even more ridiculous than the dead coming back to life, and a seemingly endless string of characters who kept coming back to wreak more havoc regardless of how many times they'd been killed. I stopped watching, but never removed the novel from my wish list.
A few weeks ago, the book arrived in the mail and I thought I'd give it a chance. Like most novels adapted for film or television, this was no palimpsest (nod to Umberto Eco and Jean-Jacques Annaud's careful film adaptation of The Name of the Rose), and the novel is far superior to that random, disorderly TV series of the same name.
A stellar debut novel by poet Jason Mott, the beautifully-crafted language of The Returned asks layers of questions:
Who killed the Wilson family?
Why are all of these people returning from the dead?
Why are the living so barbaric?
Must history always repeat itself?
Some of these questions are resolved within the narrative; others are not, not from any failing by the author, but because they simply cannot be answered. I was reminded, while reading The Returned, of a postwar German short story (or novella) that I read in college (possibly by Wolfgang Borchert, though a cursory Google search returned no promising leads among his body of work) in which the children who died in all the wars return in a ragtag parade of sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons lost to war. Instead of welcoming their loved ones back with joy and wonder, the living establish a "Bureau" to tag and process the children through unending reams of red tape until, finally, the children disappear.
The Returned highlights the same dynamic and addresses the same basic human fear of the unknown that has baffled humanitarians and vexed historians since -- quite possibly -- the beginning of time. And it's a timely novel, which unfortunately may be relevant for generations to come... at least until civilization learns collectively to live according to those tired old prescripts of faith, hope, and charity.
This is a gripping story, eminently readable, and while I'm happy that Jason Mott received the well-deserved attention that comes from a TV series, I wish that series had come close to the careful balance and perfect close to his extraordinary novel.
A few weeks ago, the book arrived in the mail and I thought I'd give it a chance. Like most novels adapted for film or television, this was no palimpsest (nod to Umberto Eco and Jean-Jacques Annaud's careful film adaptation of The Name of the Rose), and the novel is far superior to that random, disorderly TV series of the same name.
A stellar debut novel by poet Jason Mott, the beautifully-crafted language of The Returned asks layers of questions:
Who killed the Wilson family?
Why are all of these people returning from the dead?
Why are the living so barbaric?
Must history always repeat itself?
Some of these questions are resolved within the narrative; others are not, not from any failing by the author, but because they simply cannot be answered. I was reminded, while reading The Returned, of a postwar German short story (or novella) that I read in college (possibly by Wolfgang Borchert, though a cursory Google search returned no promising leads among his body of work) in which the children who died in all the wars return in a ragtag parade of sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons lost to war. Instead of welcoming their loved ones back with joy and wonder, the living establish a "Bureau" to tag and process the children through unending reams of red tape until, finally, the children disappear.
The Returned highlights the same dynamic and addresses the same basic human fear of the unknown that has baffled humanitarians and vexed historians since -- quite possibly -- the beginning of time. And it's a timely novel, which unfortunately may be relevant for generations to come... at least until civilization learns collectively to live according to those tired old prescripts of faith, hope, and charity.
This is a gripping story, eminently readable, and while I'm happy that Jason Mott received the well-deserved attention that comes from a TV series, I wish that series had come close to the careful balance and perfect close to his extraordinary novel.
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