The Grammar Architect

by Chris Eaton

In Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), a man is hired to restore an old church tower and falls for a woman with a disapproving father. What's worse, she also falls for the man's best friend, and the ensuing love triangle inevitably leads to her death.
Enter the literary cover! Like its musical counterpart, Eaton begins with Hardy's basics and transforms it into something entirely his own. In Eaton's version, the man begins to believe he can erect a new tower made entirely of words. And the woman's father - a personified version of the tragedy that hangs over all Hardy novels - develops a taste for destruction and decides to stick it to everyone.
But in Eaton's magical realist version, like a pop culture Gabriel Garcia Marquez's work, it is the poet Burke who must try to make sense of it all, in hopes of somehow finding an explanation for his own confused life. But when the detective is more concerned with metaphorical implications than any sort of quantitative reality, does his version of the events trap them in Hardy's melodramatic consequences forever?

287 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2005

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

i've been thoroughly impressed with the music by chris eaton and his band, rock plaza central, and i purchased this book at one of his shows. having never read thomas hardy's version, i cannot draw comparisons between the two.

the plethora of interesting characters, bizarre circumstances, and humor will likely lead me to peruse eaton's other works.

[Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't like it.