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Mysterious Ways
Orphaned at sixteen, Karl Russel keeps a journal of his inner life during the chaotic sixties in the United States, and on to the political terrorism of Rio de Janeiro and its "invisible" population of the disfigured.
Paperback
First published August 31, 1984
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About the author
Terry Davis
81 books20 followersTerry Davis is an American novelist who lives near Spokane, Washington, and is a professor emeritus of English at Minnesota State University, Mankato (MSU Mankato), where he taught Creative writing – fiction and screenwriting – as well as adolescent literature. Davis, who has been a high school English teacher and a wrestling coach, is the author of three novels for young adults: Vision Quest (1979), Mysterious Ways (1984), and If Rock & Roll Were a Machine (1992). He has also written Presenting Chris Crutcher, a biography of the respected young-adult author.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 24, 2015
I read this book in 1986 and it burned its way into my memory. A year later I wanted to read it again and found to my shock that I could remember neither the name of the book nor the name of the author. So began a twenty-five year search and finally, FINALLY in 2012 the Web helped me find it. I ordered it and reread it and found it every bit as good as I remembered. More than any other piece of fiction, this story has illustrated for me the depths of horror of being trapped in a body that has betrayed you. I read a great many books but keep copies of only a very few. This is one of them. It's a novel about a young man's first year in college and his subsequent trip to Rio and what happens to him there. Trust me - unforgettable!
April 7, 2011
Terry is a master of the craft. His descriptions are tight and powerful; they knock out you on your ass with detail and all you can do is sit there dumbfounded by his ability to turn a phrase. Mysterious ways is a powerful story and necessary examination of the human condition.
August 4, 2009
Ok, I'm angry. Just a little but...yep....definitely angry. I just finished a well-written coming of age novel with a unique storytelling perspective, a lot of integrity, and a first person narrator I really enjoyed traveling through some hard country with...and not only is it not on Goodreads but its publisher is Eastern Washington University Press, which makes me guess Davis couldn't get New York interested. It came out in 02. My guess is I'd be even angrier if I knew how few copies it has sold.
Two of my favorite things about reading this book...
A well-placed scatter of picture perfect moments:
"It had rained late in the night, and as I walked through the grass to the garden patch I watched the wet blades leave shiny stripes on the toes of my tennis shoes."
"The dream is just like life. The sky is as blue as it is in life, and the clouds are as white and gentle looking, and the gravel stings the palms of my hands exactly as it does in real life so that when I bring my hands up to my face I see little pieces of gravel sticking in them and the red indentations where other pieces fell out."
And once I got used to it, the narrative approach itself. The story is told partly through a series of college compositions our narrator has written. Luckily for us he's a gifted writer and a thinker with a lot to think about: his parents and baby brother were killed in a car wreck when he was still in high school. The pain and the aloneness don't keep him from enjoying his life, but they make him question -- acutely, angrily --all of life's assumptions.
The story is also conveyed is through the young narrator's journal. We learn about his life as he reflects on it, not as it happens. This choice by Davis allows the creation of suspense (with entries that begin, say, "I'm about out of my head with this. I've got to see a doctor and find out what the fuck is happening to me") which pull you into the entry by your nose. You read that opening to an entry and want to know "what the fuck is happening" just as much as the narrator does.
The journal entries also allow the young narrator to struggle and argue with his life in ways that would be irritating if they took place inside events but are not at all in his journal entries.
After he is arrested by Brazilian police, released, realizes that the local girl he was arrested with has probably not been released and is probably not all right, and then finds that a bizarre physical malady he has just gotten worse, he can say in his journal: "There's a problem with being courageous about this, and it's the gigantic question WHY? banging around in my head every second. It's hard not to think I'm being punished. I don't believe that's not [sic:] how the world works, but that doesn't make the question go away. I'm twenty-one years old; I haven't had time to be bad enough for this to be my justice."
Two of my favorite things about reading this book...
A well-placed scatter of picture perfect moments:
"It had rained late in the night, and as I walked through the grass to the garden patch I watched the wet blades leave shiny stripes on the toes of my tennis shoes."
"The dream is just like life. The sky is as blue as it is in life, and the clouds are as white and gentle looking, and the gravel stings the palms of my hands exactly as it does in real life so that when I bring my hands up to my face I see little pieces of gravel sticking in them and the red indentations where other pieces fell out."
And once I got used to it, the narrative approach itself. The story is told partly through a series of college compositions our narrator has written. Luckily for us he's a gifted writer and a thinker with a lot to think about: his parents and baby brother were killed in a car wreck when he was still in high school. The pain and the aloneness don't keep him from enjoying his life, but they make him question -- acutely, angrily --all of life's assumptions.
The story is also conveyed is through the young narrator's journal. We learn about his life as he reflects on it, not as it happens. This choice by Davis allows the creation of suspense (with entries that begin, say, "I'm about out of my head with this. I've got to see a doctor and find out what the fuck is happening to me") which pull you into the entry by your nose. You read that opening to an entry and want to know "what the fuck is happening" just as much as the narrator does.
The journal entries also allow the young narrator to struggle and argue with his life in ways that would be irritating if they took place inside events but are not at all in his journal entries.
After he is arrested by Brazilian police, released, realizes that the local girl he was arrested with has probably not been released and is probably not all right, and then finds that a bizarre physical malady he has just gotten worse, he can say in his journal: "There's a problem with being courageous about this, and it's the gigantic question WHY? banging around in my head every second. It's hard not to think I'm being punished. I don't believe that's not [sic:] how the world works, but that doesn't make the question go away. I'm twenty-one years old; I haven't had time to be bad enough for this to be my justice."
March 14, 2011
Terry is a master of the craft. His descriptions are tight and powerful; they knock out you on your ass with detail and all you can do is sit there dumbfounded by his ability to turn a phrase. Mysterious ways is a powerful story and necessary examination of the human condition.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews