An autumn storm has pounded Cambridge all day and is set to play a violent encore into the night. Lightning sears and thunder startles as Winston Garano (Win or Geronimo most people call him) strides through the dusk along the eastern border of Harvard Yard.
With such a beginning, it was obvious that I would have to read the remainder of the first installment of Patricia Cornwell's At Risk, serialized in the Sunday edition of the New York Times. I was afraid that the Cambridge mentioned in the title of this week's chapter would refer to that other Cambridge, and that I was about to be exposed to a tale about English college life.
Even more disappointingly, the writing in the piece was annoying. It might be because I advocate a concise writing style ala Hemingway, but I felt Cornwell's writing was far too wordy. I thought it unneccessary for every noun to have one or two adjectives, and that her long descriptions of locations and clothing were tedious.
# At 17:19 on January 31, 2006, Christopher C wrote:
Yo, Tay -
First of all, by "ala" I think that you meant to write "à la." You should use a spell-checker, or only use foreign languages when you understand them.
What a bad piece of writing that excerpt was. Ever read something so bad that you just keep reading because it reminds you how much better you are than the person writing it? Maybe that's what you'll feel as you read this post. It's OK.
I like how the "Preview" develops in real time as I write.
C
# At 1:39 on May 30, 2006, Patsy wrote:
As a huge fan of PC's Scarpetta novels, I have been sorely disappointed by her last three novels, the latest being "At Risk". I feel she has really lost her way somewhere with these last books, and suspect that she must have a publisher who is pushing her to pump out more books, regardless of the quality. In "Risk" she has adopted a style of narration that is very irritating. All of her characters have the same habit in their speech of beginning sentences without benefit of "I's" or "you's" or "they's", etc. They simply begin their sentences like, "Should've seen that one coming", or "Never thought that much of him". Every damn person in the book talks like that. If it were only one character, that'd be one thing, but it is everybody. Yuck. Irritating as hell to read, with a very thin plot and unfleshed-out characters as well. PC, what were you thinking when you wrote this? Re-read your old Scarpetta books and see if you can recapture what made them so great to read!
# At 9:29 on June 14, 2006, Trish wrote:
Hey, anyone got chapters 3, 7-13, and 15 of the 'At Risk' instalments from the NY Times?
# At 9:42 on June 25, 2006, fox vaughan wrote:
christopher, thankyou for that rebuttle of that god-awful, misspelled review that was presented! I laughed my head off reading that and i hope that Ms. Cornwell has had the opportunity to see it, as I think she would get a laugh out of it herself.
I'm not sure what book this certain reviewer was reading, but i really dont think it was "at risk". Although, not her finest work, i think that patricia has served up another forensically-charged (can i coin that term?) novel that once again proves that she is indeed the top of her field. I would die, no pun intended, to write like Cornwell!
# At 16:04 on June 25, 2006, Maribeth wrote:
Trish, try your local library. That's where I got the back issues of The New York Times Magazine. Unfortunately, someone at my local library had thrown out the regular February 12 issue and kept the All Sports Issue instead (Olympics.) I'm missing Chapter 6.
The good news (unless you agree with the previous reviewers) is that the book is out.
Good Luck in your search.
# At 23:08 on June 25, 2006, Martey wrote:
There is lots I could say here ("rebuttle?" "forensically-charged?"), but I guess I should be happy that the disorganized thoughts I write in the early morning make people laugh.
If I had realized that this entry would become so popular, I would have fleshed out my thoughts more and explained just why Cornwell's writing is so repugnant to me.
# At 17:01 on February 8, 2007, Judith wrote:
Well - i am more than 50% through the book (which i awaited with eager anticipation!) and i could easily put it back on the library shelf and never lose sleep that i never discovered what happened to Geronimo or the DA (what's er name)what a load of political garbage - it might appeal to americans who understand the beauracracy in the US legal system but it certainly leaves me cold.......signed a very disappointe aussie!
# At 18:52 on April 11, 2007, Tina wrote:
I just finished "At Risk", and I am so very disappointed In Ms. Cornwell. Can someone tell me what the heck happened to her? My major complaint is 287 pages of quadruple-spaced type, with up to 4 blank pages between chapters. The style of writing was ameteurish compared to her Kay Scqarpetta novels. Very sad.
# At 19:16 on April 11, 2007, Mitra wrote:
I was happy with this, not happy with the recent Patricia Cornwell novels. Got slightly muddled about some details but there's something about "At Risk" that's really very good. The use of the present tense in narration is slightly disturbing but somehow it works. And narration style, as Patsy says, often reduced to partial sentences, is a bit jerky but seems to get it moving, somehow. There's a brevity in it. It's a short novel, something that could be read in one sitting. Maybe it's a change in direction - away from the early Scarpetta and on to a more immediate, fast moving story telling. I'm optimistic.
# At 23:36 on April 14, 2007, Marna wrote:
I'm only into the fourth chapter but I too, am so dissappointed. I find it hard to believe that Patricia Cormwell actually wrote this. It reads more like a draft or outline than an actual finished work. It's rather difficult to read, not at all smooth but kind of choppy. I think there's more blank space to this book than actual text too. Very strange.
# At 23:16 on July 20, 2007, Kathi wrote:
Thank you for confirming that I am not crazy. I am a little surprise that I actually read it to the end. I thought it was like reading a high school student's attempt at writing a murder mystery and not quite thinking through the story line before writing the book. Wow...that was bad....
# At 23:13 on August 7, 2007, Marie wrote:
I agree 100% with Patsy. I have read, I think, all of Ms. Cornwell's novels, and I have never seen her use this annoying writing style. It's one thing to use run-on sentences (as does William Deverell), but ... to have everyone speaking in run-ons without subjects is so unlike Ms. Cornwell. Why has she done this? I found this style very disturbing and distracting. And, I did not like the ending of the story. In fact, I didn't really like the story at all!