Quarter Finalist
Assessment:
Plot: Buchanan's ‘David’ trilogy promises to dramatize all the seasons of the life of the most famous king of Israel. This first volume dashes through David's earliest years, including his showdown with Goliath, his marriage to the daughter of King Saul, and Saul's later efforts to kill the young hero anointed to wear the crown. Buchanan retells the stories with swiftness, clarity, and a poetic sensibility befitting a novel about the author of the Psalms. Supplementing these exciting chapters about David's youth are first-person reflections, from much later in life, from David and other key figures. These speculative glimpses into the minds of biblical figures are compelling, surprising, and revealing. The story of David's rise is one of heroics, violence, and outsize artistic brilliance; Buchanan's first-person chapters persuasively argue that it's also deeply, relatably human.
Prose/Style: Overall, the prose in ‘David: Rise’ is both fleet and arrestingly fragmented, with memorable details and descriptions broken up in short, staccato sentences. There are confusing grammatical patterns, a technique that creates an effect of focused intensity, where every line seems to be about David, even when the character is not actually in a scene. Buchanan is adept at quickly nailing a poetic image and then moving on to another, though once in a while they pile up and clash with each other.
Originality: The story of David has been the basis for countless books, from inspirational fiction to works from writers as renowned as Robert Pinsky and Joseph Heller. Buchanan's re-imagining is thoughtful, literary, and vivid in its retelling, honoring the complexity and the fundamental unknowability of its subject. He invigorates familiar material.
Character Development: In a foreword, Buchanan acknowledges to readers that his novel imagines the specifics of David's character. The book has been written in a spirit of novelistic inquiry; rather than declarative, it's humble in its speculations, imbuing a distant, fascinating figure with a touching humanity.
Blurb: With rare poetic power, Mark Buchanan's ‘David: Rise,’ the start of a trilogy, immerses readers in the world and mind of King David, not just retelling the familiar story but daring to summon the psalmist's very presence.
Date Submitted: April 15, 2020
