5 Stars

Timeless tale set in today's time and place, March 28, 2016

By 

John L Murphy (Amazon Top 500 Reviewer)

This review is from: Murphy's Path (Kindle Edition)

While I am no relation to the protagonist, I admit some similarities. These sparked my interest in this tale of a vision quest, set not in the desert or among an indigenous tribe, but in everyday life, the fringes of academia as suffered through by a pair of young people trying to finish grad school. I enjoyed this steady, thoughtful narrative, and it's set in a time that is loosely enough placed to exist in a sort of timeless present. Smartphones and GPS play roles, but the main story line aims for a plot emphasizing character development and difficult decisions rather than action. However, adventure enters, and this takes readers to Oxford and Barcelona as well as the West Coast. Shifting allegiances keep the story fresh and febrile.

Not wanting to divulge too much of this novel's unfolding, I wanted to remark on stylistic choices and tonal shadings. Madeleyn Questman's approach treads carefully. She eschews cliche and she avoids platitudes. Her characters through alternating indirect first person voices connect with a reader seeking a reflective, if often unsettling, encounter with likeable people. All have their quirks, and in everyday but slightly elevated dialogue (as in the novels we often return to from the past, when prose took the writer great pains to craft), they reveal their folly and their idealism.

Questman includes, as her characters revolve around Patrick and Hero and their families, a perceptive exploration of motivations and loyalties. She explores the attraction and the danger within relationships, of the heart and of the hearth. Families expand the appeal of Hero and of certain other figures who must choose between their own alliances within their lineage and their wish to break free of such expectations. Questman provides a psychologically rich portrayal of how recognizable and genial people around you and me confront the challenges that they create within.

5 Stars for Murphy's Path -

Great first novel. The author relies on a straightforward language ...

5 days ago

Jrobx

Great first novel. The author relies on a straightforward language style that focuses on the relationships between the characters in a very realistic way. These aren’t perfect relationships; their interactions are full of drama and self-interest, disinterest and envy, longing and humor. The main characters have ranges of traits that make them accessible and likable, while the author makes sure that there aren’t any ‘perfect people;’ everyone has his or her own flaws which make them appealing – or not. Their emotions are tangible: they have their small daily triumphs and their huge disappointments, allowing us to feel what they feel and understand their joys and frustrations. We’ve all known a Patrick, or a Bianca, or a Dante, and the author strives to provide us with an understanding of their motivations. And having a glossary at the end helps.

TITLE INFORMATION
MURPHY'S PATH Madeleyn Questman Blurb (402 pp.) $12.95 paperback, $3.99 e-book ISBN: 978-0-9973041-9-0; June 24, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
In this love story, a chance encounter brings two doctoral candidates together just as they’re about to make the dumbest mistakes of their lives.
Patrick Murphy was considering becoming a priest when an awkward encounter with a so-called friend changed the course of his career. Now he’s engaged to Bianca Alfaro, a manipulative and demanding princess who is determined to drag him down the aisle at any cost. Their relationship devolves in both hilarious and heartbreaking ways as Patrick discovers that the way to his heart is through his head when he meets his intellectual match. Hero Delphinia Fairchild is working as an advice columnist while pursuing her doctorate in psychology when she and Patrick are paired on a class assignment. That the heroine of the story is named Hero is the first of many literary allusions and jokes about romance novels. Although the characters quote Wordsworth and visit museums, they’re not sensible enough to listen to their hearts. Scandal, misunderstandings, and bad decisions ensue as Patrick fights his lust for Hero while she grows dangerously attached to her needy boyfriend, Kamal. But Hero happily indulges Patrick’s wanderlust as they tour California, England, Spain, and Morocco while Bianca and Kamal jealously wait for them to call home. Throughout Questman’s (The Misadventures of Double Dog Darrenger & Gappy Jack Daniels, 2016) novel, the multilingual characters have lively snippets of conversations in Gaelic, Spanish, French, and, Arabic, with translations provided in a glossary at the end of the absorbing book. A variety of topics, including literature, opera, religion, psychology, history, and the couple’s mutual love for cats, makes their conversations all the more enjoyable, especially when shared with memorable minor characters like Hero’s artist mother, Lorena, and her protective brother, Dante. Although they are initially set up as adversaries, Hero and Patrick discover early on that they have more in common with each other than with their current partners, and this inspires them to actively pursue what they truly want instead of living to please others.

A provocative thesis that develops into a riveting dissertation on true love.