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Hexensturm.
Elena Beauchamp used magic the way other people used credit cards, and now that she's dead, her daughters Toni and Candy have a debt to pay. Set in modern-day Houston, Texas, this is a funny and moving novel of voodoo, pregnancy, and family ties. While Toni sorts out the mess that Elena left behind, she must also come to terms with her childhood and with the supernatural and dangerous gift that she has inherited from her mother.
315 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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819 people want to read
About the author
Sean Stewart
36 books148 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Sean Stewart (born June 2, 1965) is a U.S.-Canadian science fiction and fantasy author.
Born in Lubbock, Texas, Sean Stewart moved to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1968. After stints in Houston, Texas, Vancouver, British Columbia, Irvine, California and Monterey, California, he now lives in Davis, California, with his wife and two daughters.
He received an Honors degree in English from University of Alberta in 1987, following which he spent many years writing novels. He gradually moved from writing novels to interactive fiction, first as lead writer on the Web based Alternate Reality Game The Beast.
He served as a consultant on several computer games, and was on the management team of the 4orty2wo Entertainment experiential marketing and entertainment company, where he was lead writer for Haunted Apiary aka ilovebees and Last Call Poker. His newest novel Cathy's Book seems to represent the melding of his two careers, as it crosses the alternate reality game format with a teen novel. In 2007, he and several 4orty2wo co-founders left that company to start Fourth Wall Studios.
Awards:
* Arthur Ellis Award Best First Novel winner (1993): Passion Play
* World Fantasy Award Best Novel winner (2001): Galveston
Sean Stewart (born June 2, 1965) is a U.S.-Canadian science fiction and fantasy author.
Born in Lubbock, Texas, Sean Stewart moved to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1968. After stints in Houston, Texas, Vancouver, British Columbia, Irvine, California and Monterey, California, he now lives in Davis, California, with his wife and two daughters.
He received an Honors degree in English from University of Alberta in 1987, following which he spent many years writing novels. He gradually moved from writing novels to interactive fiction, first as lead writer on the Web based Alternate Reality Game The Beast.
He served as a consultant on several computer games, and was on the management team of the 4orty2wo Entertainment experiential marketing and entertainment company, where he was lead writer for Haunted Apiary aka ilovebees and Last Call Poker. His newest novel Cathy's Book seems to represent the melding of his two careers, as it crosses the alternate reality game format with a teen novel. In 2007, he and several 4orty2wo co-founders left that company to start Fourth Wall Studios.
Awards:
* Arthur Ellis Award Best First Novel winner (1993): Passion Play
* World Fantasy Award Best Novel winner (2001): Galveston
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
October 22, 2015
This book was infuriating. I wish I could mark it as "flung down in disgust." Two stars for the prose, which was very, very good--and part of what made it such a frustrating read.
May 31, 2011
This book didn't end as well as it started out, which is just as well, because if it did, it would have ripped a hole in the universe due to pure awesomeness. I picked it up because I so much enjoyed Stewart's other book PERFECT CIRCLE, and this promised to be just as good.
It starts out with two daughters dealing with their mother's death. Their dead mother is such a huge figure in everyone's lives that even after she's dead she still scares most of the people she touched. She has a chiffarobe full of the fetish dolls that embody the "Riders," the gods which would sometimes take over her body completely in exchange for favors. I loved the description of the fetish dolls, which felt so creepy, and so real.
Toni and Candy are Elena Beauchamp's (the voodooist) daughters. They have their own conflicted relationship due to the roles they've played in the family. Toni is the smart but troublesome daughter, and Candy is the pretty but flaky one. They reminded me quite a bit of the sisters in Jennifer Weiners' IN HER SHOES, though not as exaggerated.
The strength and weakness of this book is in how much and how well it deals with the relationships between the characters, in particular, the female characters. Men feel kind of secondary in this book, overshadowed by Elena, her daughters, Mary Jo, and the enigmatic "Little Lost Girl." It's a strength because the characters are fantastic.
It's a weakness, because it made me lose sight of what sort of a book I was really reading. I get a sense of how a book will end based on what kind of a genre it is. Mocking bird starts out as a delicious urban fantasy about a family who has an arrangement/relationship with some gods of dubious morals. This is one of my favorite subjects to explore in my own fiction, and Stewart does it even better. If it had continued entirely on this vein, the plot would have centered around the conflict of Toni's conflicted relationship to her mother's magic. I'm not saying it wasn't dealt with, but it was dealt with in what felt to me an offhand way, a ruby slippers kind of way, like "we could have done this at any time, but we chose to do it now because the story has played out as long as the writer wanted" kind of way.
Because the relationships between Toni and Candy are so central, both their familial relationships and their romantic ones, this novel felt like a women's fiction novel. It even ended like one, sort of, where the women empower each other to solve their financial problems, learn to rely on their own strength, and find a place for men and children that is secondary to their own. It's not a bad women's fiction novel--I felt particularly amused by her pregnancy issues--but since I hadn't really expected to be reading a women's fiction novel going in, it felt a little like a bait-and-switch. The main external conflicts (the gods, the hurricane) are dealt with early and in what felt like an offhand way, leaving the internal conflicts (who is the "Little Lost Girl", Toni's search for the courage to start her own business) dominant.
Mockingbird starts out as a creepy urban fantasy and ends as a women's fiction novel, but in the middle it felt a little more literary to me. By literary, I mean that there were elements which fit thematically, but did not seem to forward the plot. For example, in one scene, Candy talks about her sex life, and her opinions as to what men find sexy, and how they compare to the view of sex forwarded by one of their family gods. There's also a scene where Mary Jo gives Toni a check, and I really did not understand why that money was changing hands, why it was a gift, why a gift was necessitated. I'm sure these elements will give a graduate level literature class much fuel for discussion, but I'm a simpler reader, and I found them distracting.
This book is probably best for people with eclectic reading tastes, especially if they're warned in advance that it, like Elena's gods, will not bend to your puny mortal expectations. I'd recommend it for book clubs, for literature classes, and for people who think creepy dolls are awesome.
It starts out with two daughters dealing with their mother's death. Their dead mother is such a huge figure in everyone's lives that even after she's dead she still scares most of the people she touched. She has a chiffarobe full of the fetish dolls that embody the "Riders," the gods which would sometimes take over her body completely in exchange for favors. I loved the description of the fetish dolls, which felt so creepy, and so real.
Toni and Candy are Elena Beauchamp's (the voodooist) daughters. They have their own conflicted relationship due to the roles they've played in the family. Toni is the smart but troublesome daughter, and Candy is the pretty but flaky one. They reminded me quite a bit of the sisters in Jennifer Weiners' IN HER SHOES, though not as exaggerated.
The strength and weakness of this book is in how much and how well it deals with the relationships between the characters, in particular, the female characters. Men feel kind of secondary in this book, overshadowed by Elena, her daughters, Mary Jo, and the enigmatic "Little Lost Girl." It's a strength because the characters are fantastic.
It's a weakness, because it made me lose sight of what sort of a book I was really reading. I get a sense of how a book will end based on what kind of a genre it is. Mocking bird starts out as a delicious urban fantasy about a family who has an arrangement/relationship with some gods of dubious morals. This is one of my favorite subjects to explore in my own fiction, and Stewart does it even better. If it had continued entirely on this vein, the plot would have centered around the conflict of Toni's conflicted relationship to her mother's magic. I'm not saying it wasn't dealt with, but it was dealt with in what felt to me an offhand way, a ruby slippers kind of way, like "we could have done this at any time, but we chose to do it now because the story has played out as long as the writer wanted" kind of way.
Because the relationships between Toni and Candy are so central, both their familial relationships and their romantic ones, this novel felt like a women's fiction novel. It even ended like one, sort of, where the women empower each other to solve their financial problems, learn to rely on their own strength, and find a place for men and children that is secondary to their own. It's not a bad women's fiction novel--I felt particularly amused by her pregnancy issues--but since I hadn't really expected to be reading a women's fiction novel going in, it felt a little like a bait-and-switch. The main external conflicts (the gods, the hurricane) are dealt with early and in what felt like an offhand way, leaving the internal conflicts (who is the "Little Lost Girl", Toni's search for the courage to start her own business) dominant.
Mockingbird starts out as a creepy urban fantasy and ends as a women's fiction novel, but in the middle it felt a little more literary to me. By literary, I mean that there were elements which fit thematically, but did not seem to forward the plot. For example, in one scene, Candy talks about her sex life, and her opinions as to what men find sexy, and how they compare to the view of sex forwarded by one of their family gods. There's also a scene where Mary Jo gives Toni a check, and I really did not understand why that money was changing hands, why it was a gift, why a gift was necessitated. I'm sure these elements will give a graduate level literature class much fuel for discussion, but I'm a simpler reader, and I found them distracting.
This book is probably best for people with eclectic reading tastes, especially if they're warned in advance that it, like Elena's gods, will not bend to your puny mortal expectations. I'd recommend it for book clubs, for literature classes, and for people who think creepy dolls are awesome.
February 21, 2008
Unlike other readers, apparently, I found the writing about women (especially the main character's pregnancy and the sister's discussion of sex) inauthentic. My other problem with the book was that some of the (nonmagical) details were unbelievable, like the main character's never having considered buying an air conditioner for her house in Houston. (I live in Houston, and I just can't buy that.) A lot of the description of Houston is very realistic, but some of the regional voices sound inaccurate to my ear (or out of place, maybe better suited to the Southeast). If you're going to try to sell magic in an otherwise realistic story, the nonmagical details should be pretty believable. Otherwise, the reader gets distracted and has trouble suspending disbelief.
The imaginative plot is nicely paced and enjoyable. I love the fact that the daughter of the voodoo woman turned out to be an actuary (and then a futures trader).
The imaginative plot is nicely paced and enjoyable. I love the fact that the daughter of the voodoo woman turned out to be an actuary (and then a futures trader).
April 14, 2022
Elena Beauchamp is a hard woman to love, and her daughters know this better than anyone. Throughout their childhoods they've been subject to the whims of their mother's possessions by Gods called The Riders, who take control of their mother as payment for the magic she borrows from them.
But Elena dies and finally Toni and Candy are freed from the shackles her beliefs had inflicted upon their lives. Toni runs out and get artificially inseminated before her mother is even cold in the ground, and sets out to find a Mr. Right to help her raise her soon-to-be new addition. But Elena isn't done with her daughters just yet, and she reaches out from beyond the grave to trick her oldest daughter into taking up her debts, both magical and financial.
And that's where the book started to go off the rails for me: right after the Toni gets tricked into welcoming the Gods into her. The idea was so cool, six demon-things that possess a person's body and use it like a skin suit until they tire of it, with no warning, no concern for consequences, and sometimes no reason. The idea of Toni having to deal with and maybe make peace with the household Gods would be pretty damn amazing, but instead most of the book is about Toni's pregnancy symptoms and her panic of motherhood. She rarely ever shuts up about the statistics of horrible things that can happen at each stage of the pregnancy, or to young children, or within relationships, or yadda yadda, get back to the damn Voodoo. The six household Gods whom Toni is both defiant and terrified of become occasional annoyances at worst, and the plot becomes all about Toni's fetus and her and her sister Candy's dating adventures. They shop for nice clothes, and talk about their boyfriends, and gossip about babies and weddings, and to paraphrase a fellow Goodreads reviewer the book starts as urban fantasy but suddenly becomes chick-lit.
Aside from all the quoted statistics, there's also way to much stock market number crunching, financial talk, and baseball in general. It's great that the author clearly did his research in all of these things, but they take up a lot of room in the book and left me completely clueless. While they solidify Toni's character and her relationship with her father, it's way too technical and there's way too much of it. By the end of the book I'd started skipping ahead anytime Toni started up, since I knew I wouldn't understand any of it and it would have no bearing on the plot.
The magic being practised is suggested by some of the book's summaries (different editions, including the one I read, avoided using the actual word) to be Voodoo. It doesn’t seem to have much in common with the practices I’d researched for a story a while back, though. It’s either a region-specific offshoot or Elena took aspects of one or more belief systems and created something personal, since the word ‘Voodoo’ is never actually used in the book itself one way or another.
Finally, while most of the relationships between the women were well-written, every so often, despite the nearly all-female cast, you'll be reminded that a man wrote this book. I speak specifically about 'the sex chapter'. I don't care how close sisters are (and Toni and Candy aren't this close), we don't tend to curl up in each other's bedrooms looking at men's porn magazines taking about bondage and checking out pictures of lesbians in schoolgirl costumes, and discussing what men really want from a wife (anal, apparently). Candy goes on about her sex life (actually her whole sexual history) for the entire, awkward, creepy chapter. It's horrible and adds absolutely nothing to advance the plot, advance her and Toni's relationship, or develop their characters. The chapter ends with Candy getting offended when Toni asks an obvious question and telling her to stay out of her sex life, when she's the one who'd brought it up in the first place and Toni'd been trying to escape from the conversation for nearly the entire scene. Then the next chapter opens and everything's back to the status quo and the event is never mentioned again, making this the first time I've seen a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment used in literature.
CHARACTERS:
The characters were decent, but none stood out for me and our main character wasted way too much of her dialogue, internal and verbal, on statistics, baseball, and pregnancy worries to be anything but an annoyance. I didn't want to reach in and strangle her, but I sure as hell wouldn't read a sequel.
SETTING/WORLD BUILDING
There're a lot of fascinating religious aspects, both from the Beauchamp family and with Candy's boyfriend (a spirit-talking priest of some sort). But much of the world building comes from the story's location in Houston, Texas. The area is a melting pot of cultures and I loved every moment used to show it off. I have to deduct a star for the ham-fisted way the Little Lost Girl stories are stuck into the book, though. The Little Lost Girl is a ghost/spirit looking for her home and who runs into the Gods on occasion. Something that should have opened up and enhanced the mythos of Elena Beauchamp's religion and her own personal history instead was just a silly waste of time. To compare it to My Grandmother Sends Her Regards for a moment, the stories in both books were clearly meant to be used the same way, to tell the storyteller's history without making clear to the audience that she's talking about herself until an ending revelation. But when Toni figures it out she doesn't care and just shrugs it off, and we don't care because we weren't given a reason to care. Nothing was gained by including the stories, and nothing would have been cut by leaving them out (except about six pages).
PLOT/SOLUTION:
The plot was Toni trying to repair the damage her mother's behavior had caused to her life in time for her baby's arrival, but that's pretty lame plot. The Gods were great but they amount to very little, and they were the only interesting and original aspect of the book. The ending was a letdown, too. Nothing is resolved; Toni just gives up and decides to live with it.
OTHER ASPECTS:
The bait-and-switch of urban fantasy to chick-lit deserves this. I didn't pick up a book with Voodoo and possessions to read about babies and dating.
THE VERDICT?
A good-enough book with decent characters and a very interesting premise, but a plotline that failed to satisfy.
But Elena dies and finally Toni and Candy are freed from the shackles her beliefs had inflicted upon their lives. Toni runs out and get artificially inseminated before her mother is even cold in the ground, and sets out to find a Mr. Right to help her raise her soon-to-be new addition. But Elena isn't done with her daughters just yet, and she reaches out from beyond the grave to trick her oldest daughter into taking up her debts, both magical and financial.
And that's where the book started to go off the rails for me: right after the Toni gets tricked into welcoming the Gods into her. The idea was so cool, six demon-things that possess a person's body and use it like a skin suit until they tire of it, with no warning, no concern for consequences, and sometimes no reason. The idea of Toni having to deal with and maybe make peace with the household Gods would be pretty damn amazing, but instead most of the book is about Toni's pregnancy symptoms and her panic of motherhood. She rarely ever shuts up about the statistics of horrible things that can happen at each stage of the pregnancy, or to young children, or within relationships, or yadda yadda, get back to the damn Voodoo. The six household Gods whom Toni is both defiant and terrified of become occasional annoyances at worst, and the plot becomes all about Toni's fetus and her and her sister Candy's dating adventures. They shop for nice clothes, and talk about their boyfriends, and gossip about babies and weddings, and to paraphrase a fellow Goodreads reviewer the book starts as urban fantasy but suddenly becomes chick-lit.
Aside from all the quoted statistics, there's also way to much stock market number crunching, financial talk, and baseball in general. It's great that the author clearly did his research in all of these things, but they take up a lot of room in the book and left me completely clueless. While they solidify Toni's character and her relationship with her father, it's way too technical and there's way too much of it. By the end of the book I'd started skipping ahead anytime Toni started up, since I knew I wouldn't understand any of it and it would have no bearing on the plot.
The magic being practised is suggested by some of the book's summaries (different editions, including the one I read, avoided using the actual word) to be Voodoo. It doesn’t seem to have much in common with the practices I’d researched for a story a while back, though. It’s either a region-specific offshoot or Elena took aspects of one or more belief systems and created something personal, since the word ‘Voodoo’ is never actually used in the book itself one way or another.
Finally, while most of the relationships between the women were well-written, every so often, despite the nearly all-female cast, you'll be reminded that a man wrote this book. I speak specifically about 'the sex chapter'. I don't care how close sisters are (and Toni and Candy aren't this close), we don't tend to curl up in each other's bedrooms looking at men's porn magazines taking about bondage and checking out pictures of lesbians in schoolgirl costumes, and discussing what men really want from a wife (anal, apparently). Candy goes on about her sex life (actually her whole sexual history) for the entire, awkward, creepy chapter. It's horrible and adds absolutely nothing to advance the plot, advance her and Toni's relationship, or develop their characters. The chapter ends with Candy getting offended when Toni asks an obvious question and telling her to stay out of her sex life, when she's the one who'd brought it up in the first place and Toni'd been trying to escape from the conversation for nearly the entire scene. Then the next chapter opens and everything's back to the status quo and the event is never mentioned again, making this the first time I've seen a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment used in literature.
CHARACTERS:
The characters were decent, but none stood out for me and our main character wasted way too much of her dialogue, internal and verbal, on statistics, baseball, and pregnancy worries to be anything but an annoyance. I didn't want to reach in and strangle her, but I sure as hell wouldn't read a sequel.
SETTING/WORLD BUILDING
There're a lot of fascinating religious aspects, both from the Beauchamp family and with Candy's boyfriend (a spirit-talking priest of some sort). But much of the world building comes from the story's location in Houston, Texas. The area is a melting pot of cultures and I loved every moment used to show it off. I have to deduct a star for the ham-fisted way the Little Lost Girl stories are stuck into the book, though. The Little Lost Girl is a ghost/spirit looking for her home and who runs into the Gods on occasion. Something that should have opened up and enhanced the mythos of Elena Beauchamp's religion and her own personal history instead was just a silly waste of time. To compare it to My Grandmother Sends Her Regards for a moment, the stories in both books were clearly meant to be used the same way, to tell the storyteller's history without making clear to the audience that she's talking about herself until an ending revelation. But when Toni figures it out she doesn't care and just shrugs it off, and we don't care because we weren't given a reason to care. Nothing was gained by including the stories, and nothing would have been cut by leaving them out (except about six pages).
PLOT/SOLUTION:
The plot was Toni trying to repair the damage her mother's behavior had caused to her life in time for her baby's arrival, but that's pretty lame plot. The Gods were great but they amount to very little, and they were the only interesting and original aspect of the book. The ending was a letdown, too. Nothing is resolved; Toni just gives up and decides to live with it.
OTHER ASPECTS:
The bait-and-switch of urban fantasy to chick-lit deserves this. I didn't pick up a book with Voodoo and possessions to read about babies and dating.
THE VERDICT?
A good-enough book with decent characters and a very interesting premise, but a plotline that failed to satisfy.
June 6, 2014
Mockingbird was one of my favorite novels when I was in college, and yet this past week was the first time that I had read it in a decade or so. In fact, it's one of three novels by Sean Stewart (including GALVESTON and THE PERFECT CIRCLE) that used to mean a lot to me--all set in a fantasy version of Texas where magic and real life blend together very seamlessly. Stewart's version of modern fantasy is richer and more ambitious than the standard Dresden-Files model; like other great fantasy writers like Felix Gilman or George R. R. Martin, there is evident thought about what the magic means, not just how it works.
All three novels deal fundamentally with characters who need to let go of familiar resentments and take a step back to see their real place in the world (an idea that I wish I had taken more to heart when reading this for the first time, to be honest); MOCKINGBIRD opens with heroine Toni Beauchamp burying her mother Elena, a witch prone to flagrant magical excess and frequent possession by the local household gods, after a long bout with cancer. The death is a origin story for Toni, who has been in her mother's orbit for her entire life, but she can't escape her mother's debts (magical and otherwise).
There are elements to this novel that now strike me as undercooked. Stewart was not terribly well-versed in the Latino culture, and so the Latino characters felt a little sketchy and stereotypical. And while his concern with male entitlement would bear a lot of fruit in his next two novels, here (perhaps because the characters are largely female) he struggles to dramatize it in an interesting way.
Reading MOCKINGBIRD for a second time, I still think that there's something profound in how Stewart looks at what gets handed down from generation to generation. I also think I appreciate now, more than I did at 20, the idea that being an adult doesn't mean 'being yourself' so much as it means realizing that you're multitude of people without losing yourself in the process, and that there's good and bad in all these different facets. There is something in this novel that continues to mean a lot of me, and that was nice to see.
All three novels deal fundamentally with characters who need to let go of familiar resentments and take a step back to see their real place in the world (an idea that I wish I had taken more to heart when reading this for the first time, to be honest); MOCKINGBIRD opens with heroine Toni Beauchamp burying her mother Elena, a witch prone to flagrant magical excess and frequent possession by the local household gods, after a long bout with cancer. The death is a origin story for Toni, who has been in her mother's orbit for her entire life, but she can't escape her mother's debts (magical and otherwise).
There are elements to this novel that now strike me as undercooked. Stewart was not terribly well-versed in the Latino culture, and so the Latino characters felt a little sketchy and stereotypical. And while his concern with male entitlement would bear a lot of fruit in his next two novels, here (perhaps because the characters are largely female) he struggles to dramatize it in an interesting way.
Reading MOCKINGBIRD for a second time, I still think that there's something profound in how Stewart looks at what gets handed down from generation to generation. I also think I appreciate now, more than I did at 20, the idea that being an adult doesn't mean 'being yourself' so much as it means realizing that you're multitude of people without losing yourself in the process, and that there's good and bad in all these different facets. There is something in this novel that continues to mean a lot of me, and that was nice to see.
July 13, 2012
I really enjoyed this magical realistic novel set in Houston, where Toni’s mother and Toni are voudoun practitioners, though that word is never used. Toni and her sister Candy’s mother has just died. Toni, for one, is sick of taking care of her and her six Riders or gods that can take over her body without notice. Then they start taking Toni’s body. What’s fun about all of this is that Toni trained and worked as a actuary and is not just skeptical, but downright dismissive and rational when confronted by the woowoo.
I’m not entirely sure what exactly makes this magical realism and Charles de Lint and Neil Gaiman urban fantasy, but I know it’s so.
I’m not entirely sure what exactly makes this magical realism and Charles de Lint and Neil Gaiman urban fantasy, but I know it’s so.
March 2, 2009
I liked this book mostly because it was set in Houston and the author used a lot of local places and streets which was fun. The story was interesting but the relationship between the sisters was a bit hard to follow. I wasn't as connected to them as maybe I should have been. I also had a hard time buying into "los duendes" and their mother's brand of "crazy".... Still a strange yet entertaining read.
October 21, 2014
Re-reading as of 10/20/14. Had forgotten how good it is!
December 26, 2017
A book with an interesting premise that ultimately goes nowhere interesting with it. The narrator is irritating, and some of the conversations are unconvincing. The prose isn't bad and I might have given it three stars based on that and the premise were it not for a scene where the protagonist threatens someone with a false sexual harassment accusation. As well as being a poor choice on the author's part, it was difficult for me to care anything at all about the character after that, and it's a fairly early scene in the book.
July 23, 2017
Magical realism in the sweltering Houston sun. A practically minded daughter inherits her mother's spirit guests and has to adapt to the very impractical consequences of being mounted by these "riders" at their whim. I loved everything about it. It is such a quietly funny, moving tale, beautifully told.
April 20, 2020
Quite good. Definitely not incredible but its agreeable.
May 14, 2020
Good: excellent prose style, sense of local specificity, effective integration of fantasy with modern life. Bad: not much plot, main character lacks agency, Latinx characters are stereotypical.
July 25, 2022
Completely original and fascinating story
August 30, 2019
This book is actually awesome.
August 26, 2019
The book is really awesome.
March 7, 2017
Had to read for Book Club. Liked more than ok
April 9, 2012
The premise: ganked from the publisher: Sometimes you have to go back home.
Elena Beauchamp used magic the way other people used credit cards, and now that she’s dead, her daughters Toni and Candy have a debt to pay. Set in modern-day Houston, Texas, this is a funny and moving novel of voodoo, pregnancy, and family ties. While Toni sorts out the mess that Elena left behind, she must also come to terms with her childhood and with the supernatural and dangerous gift that she has inherited from her mother.
Mockingbird: A novel of voodoo, pregnancy, and Houston.
My Rating: Couldn't Put It Down
I loved this so much that I promptly ordered two more Sean Stewart books off of Paperback Swap before remembering that I have a monthly cap on the number of books I can get in a month! Oooops… old habits, they die hard. Oh well, it'll be well worth it, though I suspect I will space the reading of those books out so as to not glut myself entirely on his fiction. Be that as it may, this book had me from the first page, and it's what I crave from so much small-town and/or Appalachian fiction that I simply don't get. Not that Mockingbird is in any way small town or Appalachian fiction: it's set in Houston, Texas, for goodness' sakes! But what this book does: fuse character, setting, and place in such a way to create a unique atmosphere is what I want and crave from those aforementioned styles of fiction, but that I never quite seem to get. Toni was a character I immediately related to, and her rather magical-realist journey is one I can see myself reading again and again. This was very, very close to getting the top rating of "My Precious," and only a few things held me back from awarding it said top rating. But no matter. It's rare that a book other than a YA or other serial book gets the "couldn't put it down" rating, but when it does, you know just how damn happy I am with it.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Vague-ish spoilers, because this is the kind of book you really don't spoil, you know? The full review is in my blog, which I've linked to below, and as always, comments and discussion are most welcome!
REVIEW: Sean Stewart's MOCKINGBIRD
Happy Reading!
Elena Beauchamp used magic the way other people used credit cards, and now that she’s dead, her daughters Toni and Candy have a debt to pay. Set in modern-day Houston, Texas, this is a funny and moving novel of voodoo, pregnancy, and family ties. While Toni sorts out the mess that Elena left behind, she must also come to terms with her childhood and with the supernatural and dangerous gift that she has inherited from her mother.
Mockingbird: A novel of voodoo, pregnancy, and Houston.
My Rating: Couldn't Put It Down
I loved this so much that I promptly ordered two more Sean Stewart books off of Paperback Swap before remembering that I have a monthly cap on the number of books I can get in a month! Oooops… old habits, they die hard. Oh well, it'll be well worth it, though I suspect I will space the reading of those books out so as to not glut myself entirely on his fiction. Be that as it may, this book had me from the first page, and it's what I crave from so much small-town and/or Appalachian fiction that I simply don't get. Not that Mockingbird is in any way small town or Appalachian fiction: it's set in Houston, Texas, for goodness' sakes! But what this book does: fuse character, setting, and place in such a way to create a unique atmosphere is what I want and crave from those aforementioned styles of fiction, but that I never quite seem to get. Toni was a character I immediately related to, and her rather magical-realist journey is one I can see myself reading again and again. This was very, very close to getting the top rating of "My Precious," and only a few things held me back from awarding it said top rating. But no matter. It's rare that a book other than a YA or other serial book gets the "couldn't put it down" rating, but when it does, you know just how damn happy I am with it.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Vague-ish spoilers, because this is the kind of book you really don't spoil, you know? The full review is in my blog, which I've linked to below, and as always, comments and discussion are most welcome!
REVIEW: Sean Stewart's MOCKINGBIRD
Happy Reading!
May 14, 2012
I was blown away by the writing on this book. Most male writers don't write many female protagonists. This female protagonist stacks up to the "Memoirs of a Geisha" main character for me as far as women written by men go. That's a compliment as far as I'm concerned!
This is a book about voodoo, about Houston, about motherhood, about identity. We have a non-bombshell female narrator who's an actuary who had a hell of a mother. Mom also had six different "Riders", spirits who possess her in payment for favors done, who scare the hell out of her family. They scared the hell out of me, too. This is a creepy book, but it's also a book about the power of love (nonromantic, for a change) and family. It's atmospheric, funny, thoughtful, and rich. We have a bombshell younger sister dating a Latino spirit-talker priest. One of the "Riders" thinks the two of them should get married, but he's not sure she's appropriate family material, despite the fact that he rides around in a Muertomobile covered in cow skulls and pictures of dead family members.
The book opens just after the mother's funeral. Our heroine finds out that she's her mother's heir in a way she never wanted or intended. I don't want to say too much because I read this book unspoiled, and I think you should do that too- it's wonderful.
I've read two of Stewart's books now, this one and Galveston, and I love how he does what's now known as urban fantasy but was then just fantasy because the UF movement hadn't exploded yet. This book is not typical. It's not formula. It's well worth the read.
Both books I've read have had hurricanes in them. Got to go with a good metaphor, I guess. This book didn't have a strong climax, which was strange after all the excellent tension building that went on. There's also a Canadian character introduced who struck me strangely as more Southern than the Texan characters were. Maybe it's just me. So, small nit-picks, but don't let that stop you from reading!!
This is a book about voodoo, about Houston, about motherhood, about identity. We have a non-bombshell female narrator who's an actuary who had a hell of a mother. Mom also had six different "Riders", spirits who possess her in payment for favors done, who scare the hell out of her family. They scared the hell out of me, too. This is a creepy book, but it's also a book about the power of love (nonromantic, for a change) and family. It's atmospheric, funny, thoughtful, and rich. We have a bombshell younger sister dating a Latino spirit-talker priest. One of the "Riders" thinks the two of them should get married, but he's not sure she's appropriate family material, despite the fact that he rides around in a Muertomobile covered in cow skulls and pictures of dead family members.
The book opens just after the mother's funeral. Our heroine finds out that she's her mother's heir in a way she never wanted or intended. I don't want to say too much because I read this book unspoiled, and I think you should do that too- it's wonderful.
I've read two of Stewart's books now, this one and Galveston, and I love how he does what's now known as urban fantasy but was then just fantasy because the UF movement hadn't exploded yet. This book is not typical. It's not formula. It's well worth the read.
Both books I've read have had hurricanes in them. Got to go with a good metaphor, I guess. This book didn't have a strong climax, which was strange after all the excellent tension building that went on. There's also a Canadian character introduced who struck me strangely as more Southern than the Texan characters were. Maybe it's just me. So, small nit-picks, but don't let that stop you from reading!!
December 5, 2014
If you grew up in a dysfunctional family—and have developed a gallows humor about it—you should find something to relate to in this novel. Even if you did manage to escape the dysfunction dance while growing up, Stewart's characters are so true to life and the magic is woven through the story in such an easygoing and natural way that the novel is very entertaining and believable.
Toni Beauchamp lives in present day Houston and has always been the responsible one in her family, taking care of everyone, and cleaning up the family's dirty laundry when her troubled mother is periodically possessed by one of the voodoo gods who inhabit the household. But when Momma dies, Toni's responsibility takes on new, unwelcome, and magical dimensions. It couldn't come at a worse time, as Toni has just gotten pregnant. She is forced to confront a range of emotions and a whole new set of experiences.
Most of the major characters in this novel are women and Sean Stewart did not hit a false note, in my opinion, in the portrayal of these very different feminine psyches. Stewart manages to make you laugh at the wreckage without downplaying the pain, to lament without getting maudlin, and, without lapsing into melodrama, portrays the razor's edge between love and hate which exists in many families. Strangely enough, this novel is a kind of loving tribute of the messiness of families, showing how surviving the source of our weakness and terrible pain is also the source of our individuality and our ultimate strength. It is an admirable tightrope walk, sometimes profound, sometimes laughable, very human—and fun.
Toni Beauchamp lives in present day Houston and has always been the responsible one in her family, taking care of everyone, and cleaning up the family's dirty laundry when her troubled mother is periodically possessed by one of the voodoo gods who inhabit the household. But when Momma dies, Toni's responsibility takes on new, unwelcome, and magical dimensions. It couldn't come at a worse time, as Toni has just gotten pregnant. She is forced to confront a range of emotions and a whole new set of experiences.
Most of the major characters in this novel are women and Sean Stewart did not hit a false note, in my opinion, in the portrayal of these very different feminine psyches. Stewart manages to make you laugh at the wreckage without downplaying the pain, to lament without getting maudlin, and, without lapsing into melodrama, portrays the razor's edge between love and hate which exists in many families. Strangely enough, this novel is a kind of loving tribute of the messiness of families, showing how surviving the source of our weakness and terrible pain is also the source of our individuality and our ultimate strength. It is an admirable tightrope walk, sometimes profound, sometimes laughable, very human—and fun.
January 26, 2015
Really, really enjoyed this one. One of the deftest combinations of magic + family drama stories I've ever read, and I'd say this is more a family drama with magical realism elements than a speculative fiction work.
The magic and the integration of magic into the semi-tropical setting of Houston, TX (would never have thought it!) was very well done. It was both familiar, with intimations of voodoo, and original, with the cabinet of Riders (or if this is an established thing, I unsurprisingly hadn't heard of it). The twist on the reluctant magic practitioner was well done too, with the magic being an unwanted but crucial part of the main character's childhood.
The family drama was well done: engaging and emotional without being too frustrating. I have a low tolerance for excessive family drama, and I thought this story was just on the tolerable side of that line. The device of having the book open (this isn't a spoiler because, as I said, it happens at the beginning) with the death of the mother was interesting and set up an interesting parallel between the main character's childhood and this new phase of her adult life.
Highly recommend. I think the author could have stuck the landing a bit firmer, but I can't complain when the rest of the book was fantastic, and the ending itself by no means terrible. Very close to five stars but not sure it'll stick with me in the long term the way five star stories do (or maybe it will and then this rating will be unjust).
The magic and the integration of magic into the semi-tropical setting of Houston, TX (would never have thought it!) was very well done. It was both familiar, with intimations of voodoo, and original, with the cabinet of Riders (or if this is an established thing, I unsurprisingly hadn't heard of it). The twist on the reluctant magic practitioner was well done too, with the magic being an unwanted but crucial part of the main character's childhood.
The family drama was well done: engaging and emotional without being too frustrating. I have a low tolerance for excessive family drama, and I thought this story was just on the tolerable side of that line. The device of having the book open (this isn't a spoiler because, as I said, it happens at the beginning) with the death of the mother was interesting and set up an interesting parallel between the main character's childhood and this new phase of her adult life.
Highly recommend. I think the author could have stuck the landing a bit firmer, but I can't complain when the rest of the book was fantastic, and the ending itself by no means terrible. Very close to five stars but not sure it'll stick with me in the long term the way five star stories do (or maybe it will and then this rating will be unjust).
August 31, 2014
I thought I would like Mockingbird more than I did. I expected to read a fantasy novel about a woman who unwillingly inherits her mother's ability to talk to strange spirits. And that is exactly what I did read, but it still left me slightly unsatisfied.
The protagonist is Toni Beauchamp of Houston, TX, whose mother, a mercurial folk magician/witch has just passed away. Toni thinks that she can finally progress with her life, and proceeds to get artificially inseminated and then try to spiffy herself up so she can attract a father figure for her unborn. But her sister tricks her into drinking her mother's "mockingbird cordial," which leaves her open to the world of the spirits.
Now, I will admit that Mockingbird is not poorly written, and I can definitely see an audience for it. Fans of Alice Hoffman, for example, would probably love it. But I personally do not care for girly-style magical realism, and that is what this book is. Why girly? Well, Toni's pregnancy symptoms take up a large part of the novel, along with feelings, a shopping scene, and a rather bizarre scene with Toni and her sister looking at porn magazines and discussing "what men really want" from a woman. Yes, the book was written by a man, but it was still one make-up tip from being chick lit, and I'm sorry, but that is really not my thing.
The protagonist is Toni Beauchamp of Houston, TX, whose mother, a mercurial folk magician/witch has just passed away. Toni thinks that she can finally progress with her life, and proceeds to get artificially inseminated and then try to spiffy herself up so she can attract a father figure for her unborn. But her sister tricks her into drinking her mother's "mockingbird cordial," which leaves her open to the world of the spirits.
Now, I will admit that Mockingbird is not poorly written, and I can definitely see an audience for it. Fans of Alice Hoffman, for example, would probably love it. But I personally do not care for girly-style magical realism, and that is what this book is. Why girly? Well, Toni's pregnancy symptoms take up a large part of the novel, along with feelings, a shopping scene, and a rather bizarre scene with Toni and her sister looking at porn magazines and discussing "what men really want" from a woman. Yes, the book was written by a man, but it was still one make-up tip from being chick lit, and I'm sorry, but that is really not my thing.
March 18, 2011
This one is just as anchored in the Houston area as Galveston is on the island. But, at the same time, the story really could have been set anywhere. There's nothing in particular that forces it to be in Houston other than the author's note at the end that said that Houston being so green and growing inspired him to write about living.
While it's fun to have characters driving around on the streets I live on and the trees, plants and animals I see on a constant basis incorporated into the setting, it seemed a bit off with the local dialect. Stewart's version of speech seems more countrified, where Houston is rather cosmopolitan. The only person around here I ever hear saying "fixin' to" is from Louisiana, and I don't think I've ever heard the phrase "I reckon" within city limits.
I'd noticed the same problem in his novel Galveston but that's an alternate future where Galveston is rather isolated, and I could see the dialect changing, especially with trading with towns in east Texas and Houston non-existent. Here, though, that excuse doesn't exist.
Other than that, though, I did enjoy the book quite a bit.
While it's fun to have characters driving around on the streets I live on and the trees, plants and animals I see on a constant basis incorporated into the setting, it seemed a bit off with the local dialect. Stewart's version of speech seems more countrified, where Houston is rather cosmopolitan. The only person around here I ever hear saying "fixin' to" is from Louisiana, and I don't think I've ever heard the phrase "I reckon" within city limits.
I'd noticed the same problem in his novel Galveston but that's an alternate future where Galveston is rather isolated, and I could see the dialect changing, especially with trading with towns in east Texas and Houston non-existent. Here, though, that excuse doesn't exist.
Other than that, though, I did enjoy the book quite a bit.
January 17, 2023
A reread for the first time since 2006, and I’m dropping a star from my rating this time around. It’s certainly an interesting concept, with a decent execution, and combining that with a matter-of-fact depiction of the supernatural that I think Stewart does particularly well, I can see what led me to rate it four stars previously. It’s also a very “Texan” book - much more so to me than Galveston (despite the name) - and that aspect may have intrigued me more then than now..
But this time I wasn’t as drawn in to the story, and in particular, protagonist Toni seemed a bit less sympathetic than I’d remembered - the impulsive decisions and sudden changes in the trajectory of her character came across as somewhat jarring.
I suppose I’m also not the target audience for extended musings on mother-daughter-sister relationships, not to mention more problematic family drama.
Anyway it was worth a reread, and still a solid effort, just didn’t impress me as much as it apparently did before.
But this time I wasn’t as drawn in to the story, and in particular, protagonist Toni seemed a bit less sympathetic than I’d remembered - the impulsive decisions and sudden changes in the trajectory of her character came across as somewhat jarring.
I suppose I’m also not the target audience for extended musings on mother-daughter-sister relationships, not to mention more problematic family drama.
Anyway it was worth a reread, and still a solid effort, just didn’t impress me as much as it apparently did before.
September 25, 2012
This was an awesome story. The most amazing part, besides the vernacular, is that the writer is male writing as a female. It is not a priority of mine to notice the sex of the author, but sometimes it tis obvious, you know, writing style, subject, etc. I did not realize the difference between the author and the heroine until my wife read the back cover mentioning it.
It is a simple story: a woman telling of her pregnancy and all that went through her head during that time. Her family is strange. Her sister dreams of the future (only good things), her Mom had 'Gods' who would change her to being one them, like she had multiple personalities, only her Mom could control and access these 'Gods' for her own needs. Her Father was a steadfast, normal guy. He accepted his wife for who she was and what she did. He became the example of a loving spouse for the heroine.
This story is about the bird, the mockingbird. I read the story and until the last few pages I was looking for some wild and crazy situation to pop up. There was no such thing happening, and that has made this story a bit more exceptional than the normal.
It is a simple story: a woman telling of her pregnancy and all that went through her head during that time. Her family is strange. Her sister dreams of the future (only good things), her Mom had 'Gods' who would change her to being one them, like she had multiple personalities, only her Mom could control and access these 'Gods' for her own needs. Her Father was a steadfast, normal guy. He accepted his wife for who she was and what she did. He became the example of a loving spouse for the heroine.
This story is about the bird, the mockingbird. I read the story and until the last few pages I was looking for some wild and crazy situation to pop up. There was no such thing happening, and that has made this story a bit more exceptional than the normal.
January 2, 2009
My favorite genre is magic realism. I love reading and writing about how life would be if our world got blended with fantastical things. This story, reads very much like a diary from the blender. It is the story of Tori and what happens when her mother leaves her a voodoun legacy, debt and how she deals with bringing her life together. She must reconcile her love/hate relationship with the magicks, god and adapt to her own abilities while being pregnant. As a first novel, and written from a female perspective from a male author, Stewart does a good job of painting scenes and throwing the reader into his world where magic and reality collide. I was impressed with his ability to pull off writing from the point of view of a pregnant 30-something woman who's terrified and exicted to lead a life without her mother or the dark legacy that she left her. This novel has tight writing and some witty dialog (not to mention some interesting situations) and is a quick and fun read. It fits into my goals by being, yet another fiction book.
June 4, 2012
I found myself all over the place reading this book. I had high hopes for it at first then got disgusted with the protagonist for not asserting herself, didn't want to pick up the book again, alternately liked/disliked other characters, then finally appreciated the final wrap-up.
I guess I found the idea of people blindly following the gods' wishes kind of stomach churning in this read. I won't include any spoilers, but the way in which Candy doesn't even question what's being asked of her or even why just disgusts me. Even at the end, I still saw no rhyme or reason for it. As for Toni, every instinct in me said to burn the chifforobe at the beginning but I guess there'd be no story then, would there? I also had a hard time with the baseball analogies and the overlong sex/magazine scene. I didn't see a reason for any of that, it seemed like filler to me.
The prose was beautiful, but I sort of felt like I was languishing in this book. Not a completely enjoyable read for me, but not terrible.
I guess I found the idea of people blindly following the gods' wishes kind of stomach churning in this read. I won't include any spoilers, but the way in which Candy doesn't even question what's being asked of her or even why just disgusts me. Even at the end, I still saw no rhyme or reason for it. As for Toni, every instinct in me said to burn the chifforobe at the beginning but I guess there'd be no story then, would there? I also had a hard time with the baseball analogies and the overlong sex/magazine scene. I didn't see a reason for any of that, it seemed like filler to me.
The prose was beautiful, but I sort of felt like I was languishing in this book. Not a completely enjoyable read for me, but not terrible.
August 1, 2012
As with most of Stewart's books, I didn't know exactly what to expect from the plot, but I knew I'd enjoy his always excellent writing. I won't got into detail on the premise, as others have done it very well already, so I'll just say that I loved this book, despite not being a woman or a person living in the southern US that would understand some of the little nuances he puts into the narrative.
This is a just a superbly told story about a very real family that happens to live with magical things in their lives. The characters are more real than many you read about in non-fantasy fiction and the humour and tone Stewart brings to the characters is light and refreshing to read. You care about what happens to these people, and that, regardless of genre, is what makes an excellent book. Highly recommended!
This is a just a superbly told story about a very real family that happens to live with magical things in their lives. The characters are more real than many you read about in non-fantasy fiction and the humour and tone Stewart brings to the characters is light and refreshing to read. You care about what happens to these people, and that, regardless of genre, is what makes an excellent book. Highly recommended!
June 13, 2015
Mockingbird is more of a character-driven story of female relationships and identity than a fantasy, though magic does play a seemingly natural role in the characters’ lives. It is a slow-paced novel that follows Toni Beauchamp’s life in the wake of her mother’s death, as she passes through the journey “from being a daughter to having one”. Toni plans for her future to be organized and stable, in contrast to her mother’s magic and unreliability, but life has other plans. I think the novel relies heavily on a reader’s investment in the characters, and I was very easily emotionally invested in Toni. This is not my usual style of novel, but I’m glad I decided to read it.
Full Review on my Blog!
Full Review on my Blog!
August 6, 2016
As this story began the mother(witch) passes away, and you are brought into the world of the voodoo dolls (Riders), stashed in the chiffarobe, that would, at times occupy the mothers body, and carrying on as they pleased, while the mother was in a state of sleep. This was then passed on to Toni the senior daughter, and started off good but just seemed to trickle away until they came up with some silly way of stifling the Riders into submission. Then the long lost sister comes along, the youngest sister gets married, Toni gets artificially inseminated and the whole story gets very girly, not that that's bad but it didn't cut it for me. I would like to have seen more of the Riders and the little lost girl.
March 14, 2009
When Toni's mother Elena dies she leaves behind the one legacy Toni didn't want, her gods. Elena had been ridden by some very capricious gods and now it was Toni's turn. The concepts behind the story were very interesting but the book was written by a man and all the main characters were women and it felt just a little out of sync with reality. I never believed Toni's emotions quite fit the picture. The second half of the book was better than the first half because Toni stopped railing at fate and starting living her life. It was too short to fully explore all the mother/daughter issues that were raised but the ending was satisfying.
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