Book Title: Salvage
Author:  Jane F. Kotapish
Publishing Company: McClelland & Stewart
Year:  2008
# of Pages:   290
ISBN:  978-0-7710-9579-5 

3 Stars 

Reviewed By:  Deborah Ground Buckner (Kansas City - USA)

In her first novel, Jane F. Kotapish exhibits a gift for imagery that any college creative writing professor would love.  More than a plot-driven story, Salvage is a collection of vignettes, told in a stream-of-consciousness fashion, as the narrator looks back on her life.   

The storyteller, never named within the book, grew up with a troubled relationship with her mother.  Her father abandoned the family, and later, after a short time in their lives, another man, Charlie, left with his collection of possessions taped up in cardboard boxes.  During Charlie's tenure with the family, the narrator's mother miscarried a baby.  While the mother takes to her room in isolation for several days, the narrator begins what becomes an ongoing dialogue with her "dead sister Nancy," although she truly does not know the gender of her lost sibling.

Growing up and witnessing a horrible accident in a New York City subway, the narrator moves to Virginia and a rundown Victorian house.  There, her memories overtake her.  The book jumps from past to present, from childhood to college age, from New York to Virginia and back and forth incessantly.  Through it all, the narrator provides glimpses of her ongoing relationship with her mother that, though difficult, was at least enduring.

Kotapish has a gift for phrasing that makes each small segment of her work more poetry than story.  The publisher suggests her writing calls "to mind Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones and the early fiction of Margaret Atwood."  I disagree with this assessment.  Beautiful writing, in and of itself, is not enough.  Sebold and Atwood are both tremendous storytellers as well, capable of keeping a plot moving while unfolding each segment with vivid imagery. 

Here, there is a lack of coherence and a rambling, almost self-indulgent style that makes a reader long for a narrator who can stay on track at least a bit.  This may be a tool of characterization to an extent, providing a clue to the mental state of the narrator.  Still, it can make the reading experience a frustrating one at times and raise questions as to just what story the author attempts to tell.

Kotapish's work is an impressive first novel, and I look forward to her future offerings.  When her flair for vivid writing becomes matched with a coherent, moving plot, then she will join ranks with the likes of Sebold and Atwood.