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Polar
In their search for a missing toddler, Deputy Ray Tatum and his sometime girlfriend, Kit Carson, deal with an array of small-town foibles, follies, and characters in a story that stretches from Virginia to Antarctica. By the author of Blue Ridge. Reprint.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 14, 2002
38 people are currently reading
290 people want to read
About the author
T.R. Pearson
34 books273 followersThomas Reid Pearson is an American novelist born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He is the author of seventeen novels and four works of non-fiction under his own name, including A Short History of a Small Place, Cry Me A River, Jerusalem Gap, and Seaworthy, and has written three additional novels -- Ranchero, Beluga, and Nowhere Nice -- under the pseudonym Rick Gavin. Pearson has also ghostwritten several other books, both fiction and nonfiction, and has written or co-written various feature film and TV scripts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
June 7, 2022
Every computer programmer learns about the "stack" data structure in Computer Science 101. If you have a stack, you can stick a piece of information onto it (we geeks say you've "pushed" the information). Then you can push something else, and so forth, as many times as you like, or until your computer runs out of memory. If you want to get a piece of information back from the stack ("pop"), it better be the last one you pushed, because that's the only piece of information that is accessible on a stack. I could re-state this whole paragraph more economically:
Stacks are referred to as LIFO data structures--last in, first out. The analogy is to--and the name comes from--a stack of dishes.
In a way, reading T.R. Pearson's work is like reading a stack. You start reading a story, but before it's finished, another story gets pushed, and sometimes, another, then maybe another. The stories in this book, like most of the others by Mr. Pearson that I've read so far, pour out, gush out onto the pages. They tumble over each other in their rush to get told. Some of them are short and some are long. Sometimes they get overlaid on each other so that, by the time all of those stories unwind--get popped off the stack--you've almost forgotten the story that started that particular stack! That's part of the fun of reading these books; if you need a strictly linear rendering of plot in your books, you might not like this style. This book is more about characterization and local color and, of course, storytelling, than it is about plot.
I enjoy reading Mr. Pearson's work a lot. Polar seemed a little more diffuse than others of his. For whatever reason, I didn't find myself slowing down towards the end of the book, trying to delay the inevitable end, like I so often do with books I enjoy the most.
Recommended.
stack.pop(stack.push(x)) = x;
Stacks are referred to as LIFO data structures--last in, first out. The analogy is to--and the name comes from--a stack of dishes.
In a way, reading T.R. Pearson's work is like reading a stack. You start reading a story, but before it's finished, another story gets pushed, and sometimes, another, then maybe another. The stories in this book, like most of the others by Mr. Pearson that I've read so far, pour out, gush out onto the pages. They tumble over each other in their rush to get told. Some of them are short and some are long. Sometimes they get overlaid on each other so that, by the time all of those stories unwind--get popped off the stack--you've almost forgotten the story that started that particular stack! That's part of the fun of reading these books; if you need a strictly linear rendering of plot in your books, you might not like this style. This book is more about characterization and local color and, of course, storytelling, than it is about plot.
I enjoy reading Mr. Pearson's work a lot. Polar seemed a little more diffuse than others of his. For whatever reason, I didn't find myself slowing down towards the end of the book, trying to delay the inevitable end, like I so often do with books I enjoy the most.
Recommended.
November 26, 2024
Local police officer Ray Tatum is the ostensible main character of Polar, but it’s hard to tell at times, given the outsized (nameless) narrator who commands most of our attention. Yes, there’s a missing little girl and yes, there’s a weary local cop who is compelled for both professional and personal reasons to find out what happened to her, and yes, there are colorful local characters and side-stories galore. If you’ve read Pearson in the past, you know what you’re in for. For context, however, Polar follows Blue Ridge, the second novel that features Ray Tatum as well as his cousin Paul Tatum. In Blue Ridge, there are counterpoint narrators, a third-person who tells Ray’s story and Paul who tells his own, creating a balanced duality both in form and character that serves to both enrich each character and sustain the delicate architecture of the narrative. The details of the narration of Blue Ridge are relevant only in the fact that Polar offers a further departure in narrative form, in that our first-person narrator is nameless, a self-important and often mean-spirited auteur who tells the story, it seems, not for the details of the missing Dunn girl or for the insights he has to offer about Ray Tatum and the local color, but because he is directing his own creative vision. The result is a tapestry of transformation, with each of the major characters undergoing some deep and fundamental change, for better and worse, in the context of an indifferent and self-interested media-driven society more interested in exploiting the vulnerable and the foolish than in fully comprehending the implications of a missing little girl. As is typically the case with Pearson, there are plenty of laughs, but reader beware: Polar is dark, cynical, and biting. Indeed, there’s little redemption and even less warmth between these pages than you might otherwise expect. Aside from the narrator’s tentative attempt to tidy things up, the end offers little resolution. Polar is, nevertheless, wholly satisfying, shot through with melancholy and loss, tweaking, in the end, perhaps a little transformation if not redemption for the determined reader.
October 9, 2009
Pearson's command of 'upland' language makes this book entirely worth it, as do the moments which somehow contain every criticism I've ever had of ill-informed news anchors, a society which feeds on tragedy, and people who really shouldn't have guns. Somehow, Pearson gets all this in without being preachy, or losing sight of the book's (admittedly meandering) plot.
Speaking of the plot, meandering is perhaps not the right word. He doesn't so much get off track, as check out all the track's loops and forks and overlooks. That's half the fun, especially because we get all this incidental information in the slightly judgmental and very straight-forward voice of the collective town narrator. The one issue with this sort of narration, though, is that I don't quite believe this general-assembly sort of narrator could know all the details s/he does about the book's few main characters.
Really, that's a minor complaint, since it's easy to lose track of whether the characters themselves or the narratorial description of them is more engaging. My main complaint, that missing fifth star, arises from Pearson's reluctance to engage with a crucial decision made by a main character late in the book, that--while I understand arose from limited options--I still didn't quite get. Frankly, I just felt cheated on that score. No spoilers here, just a dissatisfaction with post-modern lack of resolution that's going around these days.
Speaking of the plot, meandering is perhaps not the right word. He doesn't so much get off track, as check out all the track's loops and forks and overlooks. That's half the fun, especially because we get all this incidental information in the slightly judgmental and very straight-forward voice of the collective town narrator. The one issue with this sort of narration, though, is that I don't quite believe this general-assembly sort of narrator could know all the details s/he does about the book's few main characters.
Really, that's a minor complaint, since it's easy to lose track of whether the characters themselves or the narratorial description of them is more engaging. My main complaint, that missing fifth star, arises from Pearson's reluctance to engage with a crucial decision made by a main character late in the book, that--while I understand arose from limited options--I still didn't quite get. Frankly, I just felt cheated on that score. No spoilers here, just a dissatisfaction with post-modern lack of resolution that's going around these days.
July 26, 2009
I went to an all-Texas MeetUp in Austin last weekend.
Texas BookCrossers came from all parts to eat lunch
together and swap book stories.
"What's your all-time must-read-before-you-die book?"
I asked.
Two different BookCrossers named books by T.R. Pearson.
Each was amazed to find there was another Pearson fan
in the immediate vicinity.
So, well, mercy, I had to read Polar, a book that's been
languishing in my TBR for months.
JennyO described this book perfectly at the MeetUp.
"It's the kind of book where the author rambles around
for forty pages and has actually written two pages of
plot." Moreover, JennyO went on, "T.R. Pearson writes
like your grandma sitting on the backporch in the
summertime talks."
Recommended.
Texas BookCrossers came from all parts to eat lunch
together and swap book stories.
"What's your all-time must-read-before-you-die book?"
I asked.
Two different BookCrossers named books by T.R. Pearson.
Each was amazed to find there was another Pearson fan
in the immediate vicinity.
So, well, mercy, I had to read Polar, a book that's been
languishing in my TBR for months.
JennyO described this book perfectly at the MeetUp.
"It's the kind of book where the author rambles around
for forty pages and has actually written two pages of
plot." Moreover, JennyO went on, "T.R. Pearson writes
like your grandma sitting on the backporch in the
summertime talks."
Recommended.
March 3, 2016
I could not get enough of this book. Mr. Pearson so captures the cadences of Appalachian rural storytelling that I would swear I could hear the narrator talking. I know these people. I'm related to these people. It sounded like conversations back on the farm when we sat around the parlor after supper and the older people traded stories. I wish I could have recorded those evenings. I sometimes think Mr. Pearson did record them. He knows these people.
I loved the run-on sentences and the veering tangents, some of which were important and some of which were not, but you don't know which until the end. Mr Pearson can write sentences that stop me in my tracks. They are so amazing that I have to stop and re-read them several times. I love a great sentence, and this book is chock full. I always love Ray Tatum, who is perpetually an outsider, a good person trying to navigate the culture and his personal tragedies, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. Good story. I was sorry it ended.
I loved the run-on sentences and the veering tangents, some of which were important and some of which were not, but you don't know which until the end. Mr Pearson can write sentences that stop me in my tracks. They are so amazing that I have to stop and re-read them several times. I love a great sentence, and this book is chock full. I always love Ray Tatum, who is perpetually an outsider, a good person trying to navigate the culture and his personal tragedies, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. Good story. I was sorry it ended.
October 8, 2013
What a find! Pearson's writing is excellent literature, brilliant observation and really funny.
TR Pearson's narrator, one of the locals from the unnamed Virginia town, weaves a story that is as much observation of human character as the story of Deputy Ray's search for a missing little girl, and unkempt and socially illiterate Clayton's transformation to cryptic prophet. His descriptions are magnificent . . . "They were the Sapps from down the pike. You can hardly hope to mistake a Sapp around here as they are, all of them, impossibly hairy and given to moles and chinlessness. The females have sideburns and brush mustaches. The men all sport eyebrows that meet."
I will definitely be reading more Pearson.
TR Pearson's narrator, one of the locals from the unnamed Virginia town, weaves a story that is as much observation of human character as the story of Deputy Ray's search for a missing little girl, and unkempt and socially illiterate Clayton's transformation to cryptic prophet. His descriptions are magnificent . . . "They were the Sapps from down the pike. You can hardly hope to mistake a Sapp around here as they are, all of them, impossibly hairy and given to moles and chinlessness. The females have sideburns and brush mustaches. The men all sport eyebrows that meet."
I will definitely be reading more Pearson.
August 5, 2008
Very believable storyline,The characters are what makes
you chuckle throughout the pages.Having grown up in a rural
town this is a favorite of mine.
you chuckle throughout the pages.Having grown up in a rural
town this is a favorite of mine.
November 16, 2008
I am such a huge fan of TR Pearson. He is hip and funny and a damn good writer. The literary descriptions of porn movie plots alone make this book a must-read.
December 19, 2009
I absolutely loved this book and so far I haven't been able to get anyone else I know to read it. Must read more by this author.
October 26, 2015
All I remember is laughing. All the way through it. That's good enough for my 5 stars.
September 23, 2022
Read this book after seeing recommended by the actor Peter Davidson of Doctor Who and All Creatures Great And Small fame on the TV show Between The Covers.
Curious book this one. On the surface, the plot is a simple one. A old redneck semi-pervert undergoes a sort of mental breakdown and develops a gift for prophesy that is an enigma to decipher. The local plod, laconic Ray Tatum, thinks that the backwoods nostradamus is dropping hints about a little girl that went missing a few years ago. And, well that's it. Our Gary Cooper/ James Stewart type hero doesn't go from clue to clue methodically unravelling a dastardly plot.
This book is more an examination of rust belt America and all the good and bad involved in it. It put the locals often comic lifestyles and attitudes up to a satirical mirror.
What the author does have is a style all of his own. He does use two methods I found annoying. Instead of using the phrase " a man named Jones" he uses "a Jones" or "that Jones" He uses this on numerous occasions for numerous people. Secondly he uses the word "evermore" in dialogue to mean anymore or forever. I would hazard a guess that these are colloquialisms from the area that he is writing about.
The storyline often wanders off on detours but never for too long before rejoining the narrative thread. Many of these sojourns are pointless but nonetheless often chuckle inducing. As I was reading along, due to the idiosyncratic writing I could not help myself. I just had to read in the style of the narrator voice over in the Dukes of Hazzard. Read the selected quotes and you'll see what I mean. It is very...American.
An interesting book but more for the unusual writing style rather than the story arc.
The style is laid back, verbose, socio-politically informed and darkly comic.
Glad I read it but don't know if I would be tempted to read another in the series.
Curious book this one. On the surface, the plot is a simple one. A old redneck semi-pervert undergoes a sort of mental breakdown and develops a gift for prophesy that is an enigma to decipher. The local plod, laconic Ray Tatum, thinks that the backwoods nostradamus is dropping hints about a little girl that went missing a few years ago. And, well that's it. Our Gary Cooper/ James Stewart type hero doesn't go from clue to clue methodically unravelling a dastardly plot.
This book is more an examination of rust belt America and all the good and bad involved in it. It put the locals often comic lifestyles and attitudes up to a satirical mirror.
What the author does have is a style all of his own. He does use two methods I found annoying. Instead of using the phrase " a man named Jones" he uses "a Jones" or "that Jones" He uses this on numerous occasions for numerous people. Secondly he uses the word "evermore" in dialogue to mean anymore or forever. I would hazard a guess that these are colloquialisms from the area that he is writing about.
The storyline often wanders off on detours but never for too long before rejoining the narrative thread. Many of these sojourns are pointless but nonetheless often chuckle inducing. As I was reading along, due to the idiosyncratic writing I could not help myself. I just had to read in the style of the narrator voice over in the Dukes of Hazzard. Read the selected quotes and you'll see what I mean. It is very...American.
An interesting book but more for the unusual writing style rather than the story arc.
The style is laid back, verbose, socio-politically informed and darkly comic.
Glad I read it but don't know if I would be tempted to read another in the series.
July 6, 2022
I read this after it was featured on the BBC's Between the Covers; it was lauded by actor, Peter Davison - and I can now see why!
Ray Tatum is a brilliant character. As the lawman he goes between a weary live-and-let-live approach to the misdemeanours committed by the 'trash' in the county, to the inevitable snap, where he's just had enough of 'em!
I didn't care that the story was completely sidetracked at every turn as the unamed narrator gives us yet another hilarious illustration of the behaviour of numerous characters, who he variously calls "that" - eg "that Dunn" or "that Clayton"
In fact, the storyline is secondary to the telling of it. That is Pearson's talent; being able to bring to life a community of which I have no experience, but thanks to him, I can imagine and hear them clearly - so enjoyable. I intend to read others because his style is pure entertainment.
Ray Tatum is a brilliant character. As the lawman he goes between a weary live-and-let-live approach to the misdemeanours committed by the 'trash' in the county, to the inevitable snap, where he's just had enough of 'em!
I didn't care that the story was completely sidetracked at every turn as the unamed narrator gives us yet another hilarious illustration of the behaviour of numerous characters, who he variously calls "that" - eg "that Dunn" or "that Clayton"
In fact, the storyline is secondary to the telling of it. That is Pearson's talent; being able to bring to life a community of which I have no experience, but thanks to him, I can imagine and hear them clearly - so enjoyable. I intend to read others because his style is pure entertainment.
September 19, 2022
This is an uncategorisable and somewhat bizarre novel which, very loosely, is about sheriff Ray Tatum's search for a missing girl in rural North Carolina. Ray is assisted in this task by white trash Clayton, mysteriously transformed one day in the checkout line from pornography devotee into a kind of seer who from time to time comes out with some cryptic utterance which turns out to relate to local goings-on. The narrative meanders all over the place, and Pearson has a unique prose style, with characters referred to by surname - "that Dunn", "that Akers" etc - and some unusual turns of phrase which create a wry comic effect, as the tale glances here and there at the hopeless lives of various lowlife white Americans. It didn't quite do it for me, but it's a style you could get into, and it's good to discover something really original.
February 11, 2024
The narrator’s use of language is outstanding: I understand it perfectly captures the local idiom, it feels like having a story read to you (even though I’m reading text) and is impossible to read quickly. Even the apparent digressions almost invariably come round to proving an essential pice of information. Overall that creates a real picture of the environment and brings the characters to life. Yes there’s a plot but it’s almost of secondary importance. Recommended., and thank you to BBC’s Between the Covers for highlighting this author.
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January 18, 2024I loved this novel. The white trash vibe is something to which I can relate, and never gets old. I just recently discovered T. R. Pearson, and am now on my sixth read. At first, I was a bit put off by the long, run-on sentences and paragraphs. After re-reading some, I get it. This is true literature. Pearson's writing is always poignant, topical, funny, and often ruthless.
I'll continue to read.
I'll continue to read.
April 23, 2023
Outstanding! Love everything about it!
The characters, the atmosphere... If you've ever been to the south, you'd know...poignant and touching. If you lost a child, you'd know. Highly recommend.
The characters, the atmosphere... If you've ever been to the south, you'd know...poignant and touching. If you lost a child, you'd know. Highly recommend.
June 14, 2021
I tried for a few chapters, but was unable to stay intrigued by this book.
February 7, 2010
This was different. A little girl goes missing in western Virginia, and Deputy Ray Tatum is haunted by her. That seems simple enough. But T.R. Pearson places his story amid the slow-witted, slack-jawed, shiftless, snuff-dipping, chain-smoking, hard-drinking residents of Nowheresville. The caricatures get tiring very quickly. I got the feeling Pearson was praised for quirky characters once upon a time and went overboard here as a result. The most spectacular character in the story is Clayton, who has an epiphany in a supermarket checkout line and becomes clairvoyant, if unintelligbly. Pearson's writing style demands a lot of work from the reader. He can't refer to a character as "Baker." It's always "that Baker." But the writing doesn't always make his context clear. It's tedious at times. The elements of magical realism are interesting and maybe the most subtle part of the story.
August 2, 2013
This is among my favorite books by T.R. Pearson (along with Gospel Hour and Off for the Sweet Hereafter). A straight forward plot about a little lost girl is ornamented by hilarious thumbnail sketches of various local characters and dead-on observations about many aspects of contemporary American life. As with other Pearson books, it is not the destination that matters, but rather the rollicking carnival ride it takes to get there. I read this book in hardcover when it was first published, and the current reading makes my third time through (this time an electronic edition). I still laugh out-loud at certain passages and no doubt make a pest of myself reading parts of it out loud to anyone who will listen. It's a classic (of its kind) and should be read by everyone.
November 28, 2009
I couldn't finish this and that is a great disappointment to me because Blue Ridge, the book that features the same main characters was superb. This one meandered and was told from the pov of a faceless character who told the story in a personal observation fashion that at first was quite arresting with some real laugh-out-loud moments but soon became tedious.
I really, really wanted to love this book and didn't.
I really, really wanted to love this book and didn't.
September 30, 2010
In Polar, T.R Pearson paints this fantastic picture of a township that puts the fun and funny in dysfunctional, well, most of the time. While some would call them hillbillies or simple folk, Pearson turns a very small story about a child's abduction into an epic of Homeric detail about every person and family that somehow sticks their head into the tale. Hard to put down, will probably incite some laugh out loud moments, if there wasn't a bit of drag near the end this would have been 5 stars.
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May 29, 2015Find it at JMRL: http://bit.ly/1J8eS7X
Cool off with this icy blue book while the summer blazes outside to complete the blue book challenge.
T.R. Pearson currently lives in Virginia and Brooklyn, NY, making him a Virginia author as well. Two challenges in one! http://authors.simonandschuster.com/T...
Cool off with this icy blue book while the summer blazes outside to complete the blue book challenge.
T.R. Pearson currently lives in Virginia and Brooklyn, NY, making him a Virginia author as well. Two challenges in one! http://authors.simonandschuster.com/T...
October 26, 2016
I am sorry to say that I did not like this book.It seemed that it would have a good mystery plot,but it seemed to ramble on and change subjects so quickly,including lewd sex and porn and it seemed most of all that did not involve the mystery,which seemed to take the back seat to a lot of rambling.I did not like the style of writing either.Sorry.
March 9, 2008
Best of the non-Neelys by far. I even coerced a reading group full of women to read this one. Without me - I ain't part of no womany book club. Except this site...
August 5, 2011
Sadly, I couldn't finish this book either... maybe I need to come back to it another time.
April 27, 2010
Very funny novel - the guy has amazing style of description. Can't read it fast to enjoy it. Very clever.
March 4, 2012
I loved this book. It's a completely different sytle of writing that some may not like. It was funny and gave a true look at the characters that exist in our rural neighborhoods.
August 22, 2013
I don't question. I just read T.R. Pearson's books.
October 6, 2015
What a strange one is this novel. Characters, for the most part, you will not necessarily empathize with but will still reeled into their drama and lack OF drama. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
January 15, 2008
Do not read this book.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews