COLUMN: Everybody's got a gimmick

By Tobin Barnes

The last two books I’ve read have been epistolatory novels.

Uh huh, go ahead and chew on that for a while. Maybe you can figure it out.

Yeah, it’s English teacher talk. Kind that kinda drives you nuts. But that’s okay. Plumbers, doctors, and mechanics like to dazzle me with their talk, too. Here I’m just dazzling back.

Everybody’s got to have his arcane terminology, even if he’s living on the street. There’s got to be something you know that others don’t, or what’s the point of conversational slight-of-hand?

Anyway, the point is that I really like the two epistolatory novels I just read, even though I’m admittedly dragging the explanation out a little bit. It’s another thing English teachers do, especially for those who don’t like English.

An epistolatory novel is one where the story progresses through letters written by some or most of the characters. (I can imagine some people thinking, “Okay, shoot me now.” Sounds about as attractive as getting your teeth pulled while the dentist peppers you with arcane tooth jargon, and there you are with his fingers in your mouth, hoping he shuts up and gets on with it.)

Yeah, an epistolatory novel is one of those novels. Everybody’s got a gimmick.

But in these two, the gimmick works; that is, if you graciously extend literary license, which you are supposed to do anyway--if things aren’t too farfetched--even with, and maybe especially for, the greats like Shakespeare.

The two novels are “Augustus” by John Williams and “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Annie Barrows.

If the titles seem a strange juxtaposition (another English teacher word) of length and taste, so be it. But the fact that the last two books I’ve read are both told in letters is totally coincidental. I’m not that pretentious to go out seeking, like some doctoral candidate researching an obscure thesis, epistolatory novels, specifically.

“Augustus” is--you guessed it--about Caesar Augustus, or as he was known before being elevated to godhood, Octavian.

I’ve always been a freak for stories about the Romans, and Augustus is, for me, the most interesting of them all. His canny and daring rise and then hold on ultimate power is about as Machiavellian (whoops, another one) as those stories get. And the letters shooting back and forth amongst prime participants lends an official immediacy to the proceedings.

Now, of course, Roman biography isn’t for everybody, but I think most readers would like “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.” It’s an enjoyable combination of light-hearted, typically over-friendly, letter-writing banter skillfully interspersed amongst serious, heart-wrenching, but still uplifting story-telling about the Nazi occupation of the English isle of Guernsey during World War II.

Wow, what a mouthful!

But it’s also about as close as I can come to accurately describing this minor marvel of a novel, and that, strangely enough, is a great compliment.

The intricate weaving of thoughts, opinions, and narration through the characters’ letters is mesmerizing. The story of a courageous and feisty young woman confronting adversity accumulates satisfyingly along with a nice rounding-out of the letter-writing characters.

Best thing, you don’t have to be an English major to like it.

By the way, Guernsey is one of the channel islands between England and France, but closer to France, though the people are English. And by the way, a potato peel pie is doubtful confection of sweetened potatoes covered with a potato-peel crust made in Guernsey during the hardscrabble Nazi occupation years.

Like a lot of things in the book, it was the best they could do.