Work Like Any Other

by Virginia Reeves, Dan John Miller (Narrator)

Roscoe T. Martin, the son of an Alabama coal foreman, set his sights on a new type of power spreading at the start of the twentieth century: electricity. It became his training, his life's work. But when his wife Marie inherits her father's failing farm, Roscoe has to give it up, with great cost to his pride and sense of self, to rescue the farm for the sake of his marriage and his family. Realizing he might lose them all if he doesn't improve the place, he enlists the help of his black farmhand, Wilson, and begins to use his skills as an electrician to siphon energy from the state, ushering in a period of bounty and happiness on land that had been falling to ruin. Even the love of Marie and their child seems back within Roscoe's grasp.Then a young man working for the power company is electrocuted after stumbling on Roscoe's illegal lines, and everything changes: Roscoe is arrested for manslaughter, Wilson is leased to a coal mine, the farm once more starts to deteriorate without electricity, and Marie abandons her husband as he goes to trial, leaving him to face his twenty-year sentence alone. No longer an electrician or even a farmer, an unmoored Roscoe must now carve out his place in a violent new world. Climbing the ranks from dairy hand to librarian to "dog boy," an inmate who aids the guards track down escapees, he is ultimately forced to ask himself once more if his work is just work or if the price of his crimes-for him and his family-is greater than he ever let himself believe.Gorgeously spare and brilliantly insightful, Work like Any Other announces a major work from an incredible young talent-a deeply affecting story of dispossession, injustice, and redemption that explores the lengths to which the broken among us push forward.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Historical, Southern, Audiobook, Book Club

Audiobook

First published March 1, 2016

About the author

Virginia Reeves is a writer and a teacher. A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers, her debut novel, Work Like Any Other, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and the Man Booker Prize. Booklist named it to their Top 10 First Novels of 2016, and the French translation, Un travail comme un autre won the Page/America prize and the SensCritique prize for best American debut.

After seven years in Texas, Virginia recently returned to her home in Montana. She lives in Helena with her husband, two daughters, and three-legged pit bull.

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

A family on a farm in rural Alabama in the 1920's , a family torn apart by perhaps pride meant to bring them together, the misery and pain of prison life touched at times by friendship and moments of satisfaction - this story is about so much . It's about loss - loss of one's self , loss of dignity , of family , having to make peace with your past before you can move ahead , about not being able to forgive and about the capacity for forgiveness and about redemption.

There are alternating chapters in the third person narrative on what happened to get Roscoe in prison with chapters in the first person as Roscoe is in prison. You can read the description to get the details or read them in other reviews, so I won't go into those here . I can only tell you this was an introspective, emotional book that is well written and descriptive. It's a beautiful debut novel that brought me to tears when I could feel the despair and again with hope and goodness of people when I least expected it . Definitely recommended!

Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is the 1920's and electricity is spreading quickly, but not yet to rural areas. Roscoe, a young married man gives up a job he loves with Alabama power and light, to make his home with his wife and son on the farm left to his wife by her father. He, however, is not a farmer and their marriage is floundering because of his unhappiness until he gets an idea to wire the farm by tapping into the power lines servicing the town. A unfortunate death will send Roscoe to prison, it will also send the black man who helped him, the man who has run the farm for years, to a worse fate, that of the mines. But should one lose every because of one misstep? Is there no chance for forgiveness or redemption?

I sometimes check Kirkus after I have read a novel to see what they thought. Sometimes I agree with them, sometimes not, in this case not. They praised the elegant writing and this I agreed with, the writing was amazing. They then went on to say the novel had no heart, this I disagreed with. Yes, this is a quieter story, a moral journey, a novel where forgiveness is offered in an unexpected place, but it touched me. The beginning of electricity, the beginning of the prison reform movement, life in prison, and the questions of what would be waiting for him when he is released. This story is the journey of a man with good intentions, who finds his life derailed but must move forward and make a life with what is left.

Found this a most worthy read.

ARC from publisher.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this because it was on the long list for the Man Booker Prize in 2016 and my local public library had several copies (and a co-worker had already requested one of the other copies!)

This is not a sweeping, multigenerational novel or historical epic, nor is it an experimental or startling work. As such I am a bit surprised to see it on the Man Booker list, but recently they have had a few titles that are about smaller lives. This would be one of those instances. Roscoe is an electrician in the early years of the 20th century, and when he inherits his father-in-law's farm in Alabama, his life moves into a period where he loses his identity, his place, and the respect his wife had for him. So he uses his strengths and brings electricity to the farm and ends up in jail. The novel itself is more about the consequences of this brief period. I read it practically in one sitting because somehow, even though it doesn't sound like much, Virginia Reeves kept me reading until it was done.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This beautifully written historical novel -cum- morality tale was longlisted for the 2016 Booker, and at the time I was not trying to read the whole lists, so I have only just caught up with it. My only criticism is that the ending provides a rather too neat moral conclusion that seems pretty unlikely for 1920s Alabama.

The first part of the book alternates two parallel stories. An omniscient narrator introduces the main protagonists Roscoe and Marie, who are struggling to maintain the farm she has inherited from her father. Roscoe is a trained electrician and conceives a plan to electrify the farm illegally by linking his own network to a nearby power line. The scheme succeeds for a couple of years but is undone when an employee of the power company is electrocuted while investigating Roscoe's work.

This results in the imprisonment of both Roscoe and the loyal black farm servant Wilson. The alternate chapters are narrated by Roscoe himself and effectively tell his prison diary.

The shorter second part is a single long chapter that forms Roscoe's own account of what happened after his release, allowing what has been quite a dark story a partial note of redemption.

An enjoyable read and a promising debut novel.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

"No one gets paroled their second time. There doesn't seem much point to try"
I thought this was one of the most interesting sentences in this book...one worthy of discussion.

Roscoe T Martin, didn't get paroled his second time around as he imagined. "We are denying your parole. Your next hearing will be in two years". Will it??

The BLURP tells TOO MUCH!! It spoil things for me a little.
However, the side plot was additional enjoyment. Not being an electrician, I enjoyed the course teachings about copper wires, coil transformers and electricity. I thought the author actually described it terrific! That was my first electrical-training-experience! Kinda Fun!

Being more serious - about significant issues covered in this novel....
If a close friend said to me..."This is a thought-provoking powerful story dealing with moral dilemmas, misfortune, blame, punishment, sorrow, race, choice, failed dreams,
guilt, hope, compassion, family, forgiveness, and love".....Alabama in the 1920's, .....that would be enough for me to choose this book".
I hope it is for you too!

Great book club choice. Its my opinion that readers will enjoy this book even 'more' if they do not' read the BLURP...
To allow for more reading surprises! :)
3.5 rating

Thank You Scriber, Netgalley, Virginia Reeves

[Viv JM · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a real slow burn for me. For the first half, I was thinking it would be 3 stars at most. The premise was interesting, the writing felt competent, but I didn't really feel at all emotionally invested. After that, it definitely picked up and I found myself much more interested in what would become of the characters, Roscoe in particular. The last few chapters were rather poignant and raised a lot of questions about blame, responsibility and forgiveness. I struggled somewhat to understand Marie's perspective though - she just seemed cold beyond belief.

An interesting and well written debut that I feel deserves its place on the Man Booker longlist, though I would be surprised to see it win.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very moving and accomplished first novel set in Alabama in the 1920s. Roscoe T. Martin, his wife Marie and their young son Gerald are living on a farm inherited from Marie's father. Roscoe is a reluctant farmer, but he finds a way to use his former career as an electrician by illegally wiring their farm for electricity. This crime leads to a terrible accident resulting in Roscoe's imprisonment for manslaughter.

Roscoe is a good man who meant no harm, but he winds up paying for his actions in horrible ways that go way beyond his incarceration. Marie is a cold, hardened heap of resentment and selfishness and she's unpleasant to read about. Whatever his crimes, Roscoe did not deserve Marie and poor Gerald certainly didn't deserve her. While Roscoe tries to repay what he owes his family and friends, the constant source of comfort in his life is his work, whatever that might be at the time.

I found the first third of the book a little slow and disjointed, but after that it was very involving, and the last third, which I will not reveal, was my favorite part of the book.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

Roscoe T. Martin siphons off electricity of the power company's lines near his and his wife's farm. Electricity being the solution for the struggling farm, things are starting to look up and are finally going well, for the farm and his family. Until a company employee gets electrocuted when inspecting the illegal lines. Now Roscoe has been arrested and hauled to jail.

As someone with a technical background, I could imagine how he must've felt when everybody around him showed their mistrust and resistance against something so alien as electricity, while to him it was God's next miracle.

Set against the historical background of Alabama and the Kilby Correctional Facility, we get to see Roscoe's daily life in prison, working hard at whatever prison job comes his way. Roscoe's wife Marie is portrayed as this cold-hearted and resentful b*tch woman, you cannot but dislike.

Technical parts were well-written and interesting, and the characters well-fleshed out. From guilt to forgiveness, resentment to compassion, even racial issues, all are dealt with in this story. A wonderful debut by Virginia Reeves.


word gem
quoin: 1. an external solid angle of a wall or the like. 2. one of the stones forming it; cornerstone. 3. any of various bricks of standard shape for forming corners of brick walls or the like. 4. a wedge-shaped piece of wood, stone, or other material, used for any of various purposes.


Review copy supplied by publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a rating and/or review.

[Carol - Reading Writing and Riesling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elegant, beautiful, heart breaking.
My View:
I think what I loved most about this read was the quietness, the stillness. Despite so much tension, aggravation, violence and anger seeping through the pages of this novel, this was a particularly quiet and sensitive read, perhaps the considered responses by the protagonist contributed to the restful way I embraced this narrative; despite the harshness of the conditions, the punishment being served and the crime committed, Roscoe T Martin remains respected, valued and at ease with himself. His wife however is the opposite - full of bile and bitterness despite her freedoms, she is emotionally stunted and withered. Her identity is so closely tied up to her perception of what it is to be female (family/mother) that she is unable to love herself or anyone else – what a sad character. I disliked her immensely. The two main characters are so opposite – one open, one closed, on likable, one not – they are very well constructed.

This is a poignant exploration of relationships, power over, the importance of meaningful work in our lives, moral dilemmas, racism, redemption and forgiveness. A harsh penal system is pared back and dissected – the parts abhorrent and clearly showing the futility of the sentencing and worthless attempts at rehabilitation. The narrative is a classic tragedy; so much unfairness, ugliness and resentment in a small world. Good intentions have tragic outcomes, life choices effect all for many many years. Education is a panacea for everything.

A moving and thought provoking read.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Between the blurb and the first paragraph, you already know everything that’s going to happen. I admire books that can keep you reading with interest even though you know exactly what’s coming, but this isn’t really one of those. What Reeves’s strategy suggests is that the crime and its unintended consequences are not the important thing here, but rather Roscoe’s years in prison and what they do to his relationships, especially with his wife.

Ultimately I would have preferred for the whole novel, rather than just alternating chapters, to be in Roscoe’s first-person voice, set wholly in prison (where he helps out in the library and with the guard dogs) but with brief flashbacks to his electricity siphoning and the circumstances of his manslaughter conviction. I can’t rate this lower because the writing is entirely capable, but the structure made it so I felt the story wasn’t worth my time. (I was meant to review this for BookBrowse but couldn’t rate it highly enough.)

Favorite lines:

“The use of electricity is in the 600s, applied science. Religion is in the 200s. If there were any books on the death penalty, they’d be in the 300s—social sciences—but we don’t have any of those.”

“I fear we don’t grow, either, here in these walls. Instead, we go backward.”

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Alabama in the 1920s, Roscoe T. Martin enjoys working as an electrician at a time when electricity had not been run to many rural areas. He loves his work, but when his wife inherits fer father’s farm, he must leave his chosen field and focus on farming, which he dislikes. The farm starts going downhill, and with the help of his black farmhand Wilson, he siphons electricity from the State and runs it to his property. When a man is electrocuted, he is blamed, prosecuted, and sent to prison. Wilson is also arrested. We learn all of this in the first pages of the book. The rest of the storyline alternates between Roscoe’s story, told in first and third person, of his present life in prison and his past life with his wife and son.

Roscoe is portrayed as a flawed but basically decent person down deep. He struggles with guilt. He does not understand his wife’s reaction to what has happened. It portrays the racial attitudes of the time via the differences in treatment between Roscoe and Wilson. This book is a beautifully told story with realistic characters. It is a character-focused novel that packs an emotional punch. It examines the ripple effect of one decision, even one made without malicious intent. It raises questions of ethics. It explores the idea of whether actions that result in drastic consequences can ever be forgiven. It is an impressive debut.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

"We are born with some things in our veins, coal for my father and farming for Marie's and a deep electrical current for me."

Work Like Any Other is a quiet novel which tells the story of Roscoe T. Martin, a talented man in 1920's Alabama whose passion and calling was working as an electrician for Alabama Power. When Martin's father-in-law dies, his wife, Marie, presses him to move to her childhood farm. Having neither the skills nor interest for farming, Martin is adrift until he decides to bring electricity to the farm -- resulting in tragedy (the reader is purposefully left to decide how much Martin is actually to blame).

The first 2/3ds of the novel was deeply moving. I found myself asking questions about one's purpose in life, what we owe our family members, and the nature of crime and punishment. Unfortunately, after that point, for me the book just started to fizzle. While this is certainly a book that is more on the "introspective" side of the scale than "action packed" I kept waiting for *something* more to happen. Frankly, I just started to lose interest.

3 stars.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Elaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was too long. As many other reviewers have said, it seems like an overblown short story. And none of the motivating passions (electricity, the land, lost motherhood) really ring true or fit together - something sounds a consistently false note and that falseness makes it difficult to connect to any of the characters.

What makes Marie tick? Her character is domineering and cold, but what is her motivation? When we get the big reveal (a difficult delivery means she doesn't have any more children...after her first healthy boy) it feels forced - like we can see the author's brushstrokes too clearly. As for Roscoe, the endless disquisitions on electricity are dull, to me at least.

But the biggest false note, and one that stuck in my craw, is the theme of race relations. One of the central stories of the novel is about the black family that lives on Marie's land and that has worked it for generations (but not as slaves - we are explicitly told that Marie's grandfather did not own slaves). The novel thinks it has its hands on a historical tragedy - when both white Roscoe and black Wilson are accused of a crime, Roscoe is imprisoned while Wilson is leased as basically slave labor. This fundamental injustice is supposed to be this novel's painful truth.

The problem with this tragedy is that the story it tells is just the author's poorly researched fantasy. Not the injustice that Wilson suffers (although the fact that he gets out alive after only a few years is probably sugarcoating history somewhat), but the pre-lapsarian post-racial paradise we are meant to believe our protagonists, none with a drop of prejudice, created on their farm in Jim Crow Alabama. Indeed, I felt the novel's utter indifference to the realities of Jim Crow (apart from the little nuggets Reeves uncovers in the different treatment of prisoners) to be fairly insulting.

In this novel, in early 1920s Alabama, the two families - black and white -regularly sit down to dinner together. They hug. They express themselves freely. At one point, Roscoe and Wilson go to the town hardware store, and the white storekeeper welcomes them at the same time saying, "welcome gentlemen." At another point, Marie writes a will giving custody of her son to Wilson's family - and says in passing that her lawyers are "prepared to fight Jim Crow to do it", as if the adoption of a white boy by a black family is a cause that any 1920s Alabama lawyer would have routinely taken up (and without ensuing danger to the black family). The Wilsons end up prosperous land owners, socializing with Marie's son and dealing with town whites as equals.

Having recently read Warmth of Another Sun, all this (and there was so much more) was like nails grating on a chalkboard - but worse, because it denies (whitewashes) in the guise of "historical fiction" some pretty terrible facts. Were there whites in 1920s Alabama who defied Jim Crow and treated blacks like equal family members? I'm sure there were. Could those blacks and those whites farm, shop, drive, live together with impunity? Without fear of punishment, legal or extralegal? Without any sign of the ugly outside world intruding on this Edenic narrative? Could a white farming woman wield her modest economic power to create this little island of equality and not end up in hot water of her own? I wasn't buying it.

And Reeves' black characters aren't real - just another version of the stereotypical benign family retainer - here so angelic that they don't tell Marie that her insistence on sitting down to dinner with them and publicly treating them as equals is putting their lives in jeopardy. A better book, if it sought to create this world, would at least engage with the complexity and delicacy of having such an island of equality and togetherness blossom in a sea of violent inequality.

Ugh.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Roscoe T Martin siphoned electricity from his old company to the farm his wife Marie had inherited from her father, the farm had two prosperous years. Marie had no idea the electricity powering their farm had been acquired illegally, but when the Sheriff came to take Roscoe away, she and their son Gerald had no idea of the changes their future faced.

It was the 1920s in rural Alabama and Roscoe was charged with illegally using the electricity, and also of manslaughter – the fate of a young man working for the power company had unknowingly rested in Roscoe’s hands; therefore he was culpable of his death. Two ten year sentences to be served concurrently at the notorious Kilby Prison was to be Roscoe’s future – and Marie and Gerald would no longer feature in his life…

As Roscoe settled into the ways of the prison, he experienced anger, frustration, desperation and despair. He didn’t give up on his letters to Marie – but he never received one in reply. He worked in the dairy – a job he found extremely calming; the cows and the milking of them was therapeutic. He also worked in the prison library – a job he really enjoyed. He was one of the few literate prisoners, and many came to him for help with books. But Roscoe’s job as “dog boy” where he helped the guards track any escapees was one that gave him pause. Was this what Roscoe’s life would always be? Would he ever see his wife and son again? Or would the trauma of the prison system and all it entailed be the end of him?

Work Like Any Other is a debut novel by Virginia Reeves – the emotions throughout this novel are conflicted. Roscoe is a man of many faces; anger and resentment in the beginning; determination and happiness which then fell to guilt and despair - his overpowering love for Marie, and then his ultimate fight for peace and redemption. A powerful novel which is set in the early 1900s, the underlying events throughout the book are a mixture of heartbreak, anguish and uplifting hope. Highly recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this copy to read in exchange for my honest review.

[Britta Böhler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the elegant writing and the quiet style. I found the structure of the book sometimes a bit muddled, though, and I thought the novel wanted to do too much, tell too many strories, so some of the main characters (especially Marie, Roscoe's wife and Wilson, Roscoe's friend who helped with the illegal electricity lines) remained rather sketchy.
But, remembering this is a debut novel: 3.5*

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I usually err on the side of generosity when handing out stars unless it is so bad it's unreadable from the first. Let's give her 1.5 stars.

Starting with the most improbable of story lines -- someone (in the 1920s no less) taps into electrical transformers whose electrical current leakage eventually causes the electrocution of an innocent bystander -- the novel doesn't get any better from there in terms of inconceivable scenarios, unimaginable race relations reconciliations, and flimsy plots all around. The novel rests firmly between a slog-fest and a snooze-fest. (A sloozefest??? Could that be considered a word? It should be.)

Reeves writes well enough, but seems to have no imagination or ability to invent interesting probabilities/possibilities. Borrowing heavily from Shawshank, Gone With The Wind and The Roadrunner vs Wiley Coyote, we have a promenade of zombies parading their way through a story that fails to inspire anything but a big yawn. I've rarely met such lustreless, uninspired characters.

(I'm reminded of Wiley Coyote episodes only because everybody becomes a runner just for the hell of being chased by dogs, it seems; and of course, everybody gets caught and duly punished. They should be punished for stupidity, in my mind. Where the hell are they running to? And Why? Especially people who have terms which are barely 4 weeks in length.)

Oh, I could go on and on ... but ... why bother?

This was another Booker contender for 2016, which wormed its way onto the long list. A Roadrunner episode would have been more worthy.

[Ravi Gangwani · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Slowly this book saturates inside you and culminates in your blood.' I have thought to write this line after reading its 80-90 Pages and then a tumult and I am knocked off ...
Seriously this is nominated for Man Booker? I asked myself

How to quickly read this book:
(1) Read the blurb it will cover around 70% section of the story.
(2) Watch 'Shawshank Redemption' it will cover 20% part.
(3) Read last 30 pages that will give you an ample idea of what happened in last.
(4) Assemble all the above mentioned links in your mind.

Though at some place it will quite infiltrate you. A man Roscoe, who has strong penchant for electricity, goes too far for in 1920's setting of Alabama, siphoning electric power in illegal way for the workings of his Farm (His wife's farm). A man later unfortunately gets electrocuted in the mesh formed by Roscoe. Then Roscoe goes to jail and mulls his entire life in longing for his wife Marie who leaves him and there are long and dragged sequences of redemption and all and a very convincing end in most dramatic way.

A very very average book. But some parts do have some depth but what I did not like was irrelevant dragged out sequences. Especially the part telling about 'Maggie', 'Taylor','Dog-chasing'.

No chance for Man Booker 2016.

[Jessica Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Continuing with the #ManBooker nominees...

What defines a man? Is it his vocation? The worst thing he's ever done? His guilt? His redemption?

These are the questions at the heart of this somber, poignant little novel about Roscoe T Martin, an electrician at the turn of the 20th century who ends up in prison for his indirect involvement in the death of a man.

It should have been simple: Roscoe came up with a seemingly harmless way to steal negligible amounts of electricity from the nearby city to power his family's struggling farm. It should have salvaged his marriage and his relationship with his young son. But then a man stumbled upon Roscoe's illegal lines and was electrocuted, and Roscoe's life was forever changed.

Work Like Any Other is a quiet, understated story about a man who loses everything, about the consequences that can follow even the most well-intentioned actions. There's so much heart-breaking poignancy packed into this novel, but most powerful of all is the feeling of senselessness throughout.

At one point, Roscoe laments that all of this is happening simply "because George Haskins was ignorant enough to get himself killed on the transformers I'd so carefully built to run current to a dying farm."

In Work Like Any Other, Reeves confronts us with this sense of life's futility and unfairness, but she doesn't strand us there in the darkness. Instead, she offers a glimmer of hard-earned hope.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The electrical transformers that would one day kill George Haskin sat high on a pole about ten yards off the northeast corner of the farm where Roscoe T Martin lived with his family.”

With the first sentence of "Work Like Any Other" Virginia Reeves drops the reader right in, before she then retraces the steps of her story and takes her time to carefully, elegantly and quietly explore her theme. It's a story of guilt, redemption and forgiveness set in Alabama in the 1920's, a time when electricity is slowly beginning to spread through the area, changing routines in both daily and work life.

Roscoe T Martin isn't a happy man when we first meet him. An electrician by trade he's recently moved with his wife and son to the farm that his wife Marie inherited from her father, feeling a stranger in this environment. He feels unfit for farm life, the relationship to his wife has become defined by emotional distance, the relationship to his son tainted by jealousy.
His attempt to fix the broken is this: with the help of his farm manager Wilson, a black men who's worked the farm for most of his life, he decides to tap the power lines of Alabama Power and run his own power lines directly to the farm.
As a result the farm will temporarily flourish, his relationship to Marie will grow warmer and so will his relationship to his son. Most of all, Roscoe will rediscover a sense of self-worth. And then, just when things have finally picked up, a men dies as a result of his enterprise, and Roscoe and Wilson both stand trial. Their difference in colour leading to a severe difference in what their lives will look like from here on in and it will influence and challenge the forgiveness or the absence thereof for those who stay behind.

This novel has so much detail, it's surprising it never feels overwrought. Nothing seems superfluous, not the almost poetical meditations on electricity, not Marie's passion for birds, not the numerous little curves and bends of the story and the thorough exploration of it's characters psyche, their sense of moral, their ability to forgive or to reason themselves into the abandonment of a once loved one.

A beautiful book.

With many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I have to say that I think the book description here on Goodreads should have a spoiler alert: there's not a lot of plot left to discover after reading that!

I enjoyed reading this story of a family in rural Alabama in the earlier part of the 20th century. You only have to read the book blurb to know it's about a man who is an electrician, steals electricity for his farm and someone dies so he goes to prison. I suppose the interest of the story comes from his time in prison (reading that part is very much like watching The Shawshank Redemption) and then what happens when he leaves.

It's all OK, but I could not get excited about any of it. I didn't really engage with any of the characters and I think this book requires your sympathy circuits (pardon the pun) to be operational for you to appreciate it. If you are not rooting for Roscoe (or maybe Wilson), there's not much else to get hold of here.

All in all, a solid book for me, but nothing to write home about.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Until at least halfway through this debut novel, I was thinking it was at best a 3 star, and was wondering why it even got nominated for the Booker. The structure irritated me, alternating chapters in the third person with first person narration by the main character - this was interesting and innovative the first 8,473 times I'd encountered it, but it has become a hoary cliché of modern writing. The timing of certain events also seemed off (wait, isn't Gerald only 12 years old - what's he doing in college already?), until I realized the story wasn't being told chronologically, but moving backwards and forwards. Despite all that, and some languid sections, the book grew on me, evoking memories of the best of Faulkner in places, and by the end I realized I had really enjoyed it after all and that I had read it in less than a day.

[Alena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Alabama at the dawn of electricity, the story moves between a rural farm and a prison. It's interesting but didn't really move me emotionally. A lot of potential that stopped just short of great for me.

[Marjorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had a huge impact on me. I was completely spellbound by this story of a man who I felt was unjustly accused of manslaughter. Roscoe Martin was an electrician by trade but left his field to try to work on his wife’s family farm. The work didn’t suit him and caused difficulties in his marriage. So he did the only thing he knew how to do and that was to bring electricity to the farm. And his efforts were successful until an electric company worker is killed when he finds Roscoe’s illegal electrical connection. While there was nothing wrong with the connection that caused this death, all blame is placed on Roscoe since it was an illegal connection.

Not only is the death of the worker placed at Roscoe’s feet but everything that happened afterward is blamed on him, even what happens to his friend who helped him connect the electricity to the farm. Roscoe is sent to prison and his struggle with prison life, his wife’s abandonment and the loss of his son is one of the most heart wrenching and riveting stories I’ve ever read. Ms. Reeves is a brilliant author and has written a book that rivals the work of John Steinbach. I loved every word of it and suffered right along with Roscoe as all he worked for falls apart. It’s a tragic story beautifully and insightfully told. I’m very much looking forward to future work by this author and highly recommend this book.

This book was given to me by the publisher through Edleweiss in return for an honest review.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our shadow panel reviews are up I the blog. Check out how we rated this book:

https://thereadersroom.org/2016/08/24...

[Darryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This historical novel set in rural central Alabama in the 1920s and 1930s begins with tragedy, as the reader learns that a man has been killed close to a farm where Roscoe Martin lives with his wife Marie, who inherited the land after the death of her father, and their son Gerald. The farm is struggling, as the meager profits from the crops aren't enough to pay for farmhands to harvest it, and Roscoe, a trained electrician who dislikes farmwork, is embittered about the seemingly hopeless situation he finds himself in, and the relationship between he and Marie and Gerald becomes progressively more distant, although he loves her dearly.

Electricity had not yet come to homes and most businesses in rural Alabama in the early 1920s, and farming techniques have not changed much since the years preceding the Civil War. However, high voltage power lines were starting to be run through these areas by Alabama Power, and Roscoe comes up with a plan to provide the farm with electricity, which will allow the crops to be harvested more quickly and less costly. He enlists the help of Wilson Grice, the African American manager of the farm, who lives on the property in a shack with his family and has worked there since he was a boy, who reluctantly agrees to help Roscoe. The plan is initially successful, as the farm becomes very profitable and the relationship between Roscoe and Marie is reinvigorated, but tragedy results several years later, resulting in the arrest, conviction and imprisonment of Roscoe and Wilson.

The novel alternates between the past and shifting present, with Roscoe's first person accounts of his life before and during his sentence in Kilby Prison near the state capital of Montgomery interspersed between the third person stories about Marie, Gerald, and Wilson's wife Moa. Roscoe is disheartened by his fate, and to a lesser extent by what has happened to Wilson, who was a less than willing accomplice to the crime but, as a black man in 1920s Alabama, is certain to face a much more severe sentence in prison.

Roscoe's personal reflections and experiences form the backbone of the novel, which is supported by the stories and viewpoints of its main characters. Although he is vilified by Marie, Moa and their children, Roscoe is neither a fully despicable nor a heroic character, and the book's author likewise portrays the other characters as complex, flawed, and all too human.

Tension progressively builds throughout the book, as each character's secrets are uncovered and their fates are revealed, and I found the ending to be surprising and shattering.

Work Like Any Other is a remarkable novel, especially since it is Virginia Reeves' debut. I was completely engrossed in the story and its characters, who will stay with me for a long time to come. This book is the first one I've read so far that is completely worthy of inclusion in this year's Booker Prize longlist, and is one of the best American novels I've read this decade. I look forward to hearing more from this sensitive and talented author.

[Tara - runningnreading · Rating 2 out of 5]

As with the aforementioned title, I was excited by the premise behind this debut: a prideful electrician in 1920s rural Alabama struggles to overcome past sins and find peace after being sent to prison for manslaughter. This could easily have been a win for me because it includes several elements that I really love! I know, I know, I can be a really picky reader. There's nothing wrong with conversation back and forth between characters in a novel...as long as it propels the story forward. After reading along through 20% of this one, I was really trying to make it work; by 25%, I was done. When I'm only a fourth of the way through a novel, and I see no light at the end of the tunnel, it's tough for me to continue on if I have not experienced any connection to keep me interested. The issues covered in this novel are definitely significant and deserve more attention; hopefully, it will work out for other readers.

[a_reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this on so many different levels: the 1920's rural Alabama setting; the realistic portrayal of a flawed and damaged marriage; the prison scenes reminiscent of The Shawshank Redemption; and how electricity transformed society and those who resisted this change. Lately I feel like each time I pick up a debut novel it is a gamble to see if I will enjoy it but this was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed Virginia Reeve's writing style and look forward to her future works. Solid 4 stars.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well written book – which although far from exceptional, builds over time and is in its way quietly powerful leaving a moving impression of broken relationships, judgement and failed redemption, one which lingers and grows after the book is completed.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even with Wilson there, it was just work – work like any other, like milking and cleaning stalls, building pens and running dogs, rolling carts down narrow aisles, organizing cards, memorizing numbers. It was picking at coal veins on your side and breathing rushes of coal dust, awaiting explosions, lifting and loading. It was tamping and shoveling and pitching. And work is measured in time as much as it is measured in pay. I am uncertain how many hours of running equal a man's hand, his wrist, and forearm and elbow. How many books must be stacked in exchange for one finger? How much milk driven into a pail? How many holes dug, how many dogs pulled from the ground and then buried back even deeper? How many wives and sons? I am still unsure of my debts.

The first paragraph of Work Like Any Other contains these lines: The electrical transformers that would one day kill George Haskin sat high on a pole about ten yards off the northeast corner of the farm where Roscoe T Martin lived with his family...Roscoe built the transformers himself. He built the lines. He did not have permission. Because all of this is revealed immediately, I won't consider it a spoiler, and everything that follows is about what you might imagine would result from such misadventure. This is historical fiction – set in 1920s Alabama, the book not only deals with the central idea that a person had, for the first time, the freedom to choose his own vocation (coal mining, farming, the exciting new field of electricity; even a gentlewoman could go to university and become a teacher), but it also shines a light on the first reformatory prisons, the residual effects of institutional racism, and independent women demanding their own freedom. As I was reading this book, which has a dreamy and hallucinatory tone, I thought I was loving it, but it's funny that on reflection the plot doesn't seem to hold up. And I don't how much that matters in the end.

Here in this barn with my hands bloodied by meat scraps and dusted by bonemeal, my nose stuffed up with the stink of it – here I can see why he took so much comfort in those veins of coal. They were tangible, as were the coal cars and the mules and the men. They could be touched and moved, nothing like the slippery currents running through the wires I so admire. His coal was like the corn in the fields or the cows in the barn or the dogs in their pens – solid things we can feel with our hands and see with our eyes, smell and hear and taste. There's relief in that sort of integrity.

Author Virginia Reeves starts with a sly trick: by beginning with a scene of Roscoe manhandling his young son and storming out on his frightened wife Marie, the reader assumes he's a certain kind of nasty man. But in alternating sections – first person from Roscoe's perspective and third person to include everyone else – we learn that he's a thoughtful and educated man, feeling constrained by his wife's insistence that they return to her family farm after the death of her father; despite Roscoe being a trained electrician with a love for his work. Eventually it's revealed how weighted with irony this situation is – Roscoe's father was a coal mine foreman who thought farming was beneath him and his son, and Marie's (gentleman farmer) father fought for mining labour rights; both men thought electricity was a passing fad and Roscoe a dilettante for being fascinated by it. Only by illegally setting the farm up with electricity could Roscoe find his own way there, and as his improvements made the farm profitable for the first time ever, it led to the family happiness that was obviously his goal all along. But then a young man from Alabama Power was electrocuted while investigating a pirated line and Roscoe (and the Black farm manager, Wilson, who followed his orders) were sent off to prison.

The prison scenes were fascinating: with illiterate sadists acting as guards, the lofty goals of reformation through job training was, in practise, little more than the prisoners being used for slave labour (the situation was even worse for Wilson, who was “leased” to the coal mines like all the other Black prisoners). Roscoe was assigned to the dairy (so, more irony: he is condemned to farming while Wilson, who excelled at farm management, is sent down the mines), and because he could read, Roscoe also worked in the prison library once a week; eventually catching the notice of the bloodhounds trainer who needed someone to read books on dog training and summarise the information for him (because Taylor was “too busy” for reading himself). Roscoe has a tough time in prison and he's always having imaginary conversations and hallucinating comforting visits from his wife and the cellmate who went AWOL while out on furlough. As a reading experience, I really enjoyed the blend of grit and lyricism this allowed for. This is Roscoe, semiconscious, in the prison infirmary:

Now, Marie is standing. Her hand is leaving the bone of my arm. The muscles and veins close the gap, stitching themselves back together. I reach for her, trying to sit up, but she's so far away already, down there by the sad iron foot of my bed, and I am stopped by the desperate torment in my stomach. The pain guts me, scoops a voice I don't know I have from the depths of my lungs, shoots it dark and gruesome into the air, where it strikes Marie full in her nearly familiar face.

So, sentence-by-sentence, I liked the writing, I liked the structure, and I was fascinated by the historical detail. As I said earlier, in the moment, I was loving this read. But when it was over I began stewing on what a cartoonishly bad person Marie ended up being (and I never understood how she had all that money even after the Crash of '29: was she sitting on her moneybags while punishing Roscoe for being an incompetent farmer?) And while I understand that the idea of being able to choose your own profession (against a parent's wishes and better judgement) was revolutionary at the time, I'm not certain if it needed to be repeated so many times: yes, Roscoe is an electrician, not a miner or a farmer or a dog-handler, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do; a revelation he could have come to sooner. And here's my biggest complaint: in the end, this felt like a man's story being told by a woman; it has a feminine feel and I don't know if Reeves really got inside the male psyche – is this really how he would have reacted to prison life? To betrayal and breaking and losing those things that had made him a man? I don't know if I buy the whole thing, but I don't feel like downgrading this one because it didn't survive closer scrutiny. I'll give it four stars, but I don't think it should win the 2016 Man Booker Prize.

We are born with some things in our veins, coal for my father and farming for Marie’s and a deep electrical current for me. My father’s draw started from need, I suppose, and Marie’s father’s from land, and mine from glowing Birmingham streetlamps. I had stared at those bulbs the first time I saw them, the streets lit by a force greater than any I’d known – bigger than me, bigger than my father, bigger than his tunnels even.

[Carole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in rural Alabama in the 1920s, this novel examines one man's struggle to come to terms with ending up in prison when his ill judged attempt to provide for his family goes horribly wrong. Roscoe shouldn't be a likeable character but somehow he is, as he goes about the work allocated to him by the warden. At times he doesn't seem very smart and his marriage is obviously not as successful as it first appears. But as the novel progresses you get a sense that he is improving and working out his place in the world and what is important to him. I enjoyed how well written this novel is and liked the choices of symbolism and imagery.