Book Review – The Book of Speculations

The Book of Speculation

Author: Erika Swyler

STATS
Genre:	Drama; Family Saga; Magical Realism	Amazon Rating:	4.1
Publication Date:	2015	Goodread Rating:	3.6
Point of View:	Dual Timeline 1st Person Present 3rd Person Limited Past	Pages:	350

DISCLAIMER:  

1. Trigger Warnings.  Should you desire trigger warnings, please seek them out.  If you do not know where to look for said warnings, I found this article from Book Riot to be a helpful starting place.  
2. Spoilers.  I apologize in advance, but there will probably be some small spoilers.  I try to limit anything too specific to the first 25% of the book, preferably the first 10%.  Tiny spoilers may also arise during discussions of theme.  If you are sensitive to spoilers, you may want to stick to my Recommendation Blogs.

SETUP.

Simon, a reference librarian at a small seaside town, lives in the rapidly deteriorating home he grew up in on the Long Island Sound.  His only living relative, his younger sister, Enola, ran off years ago to join the circus.  On June 20th, Simon receives a book of mysterious origins from a mysterious man.  The book contains an accounting of an old traveling carnival from the 1700s and he recognizes his grandmother’s name.  Simon discovers his mother’s death may not have been a simple suicide, but part of a family curse causing all the women to die on July 24th by drowning.  Could Enola be the next victim?  Can the book help him find an answer to save his sister before time runs out? 

MY WHY; or, What I Thought I’d Like About This Book.

I love books about old carnival and circus life.  I love old, mysterious books and journals.  I love books that seem to have a gothic atmosphere to them.  I love multi-generational stories about women who don’t quite fit in with social norms.  I love books that contain sketches and drawings.  Finally, the cover with the old leather bound books, the simple, but slightly off dress the woman is wearing and the overexposed ghosts of handwriting coupled with the deckled edging just screams that I’m diving into an old book.  Yes, please to all of it!

NOTEWORTHY ELEMENTS.  (You decide if they are Pros or Cons.)

1. Messy, but real characters.  I thought Swyler did a wonderful job getting inside everyone’s headspace and providing motivation, rationalizing said motivation for each character into an action, and juxtaposing the action against other characters’ interpretations of the action.  Basically, a character would believe he/she needed to do something for a very important reason, do that thing, and then Swyler would show how other characters interpreted that thing that was done in a very different light, which calls into question what is “real,” what is true.  Is there a truth, or only interpretations of truth?

2. There was no “right” or “wrong,” there were just actions and decisions made.  I love this in any book.  There was no “right way to do something” or “wrong way,” only the decisions and actions that were taken at the time in response to the circumstances.  Though this book was themed, Swyler was not heavy handed with the message.  She was able to present a story and create space for the reader to consider events for themselves. 

3. It was a good mystery, aka the plot.  In the current timeline, Simone is trying to figure out if there is a family curse.  If there is a curse, what is it exactly and can he save his sister before July 24th?  You’re really not 100% sure until the end.  And in the past timeline, there is the mystery of the carnival and how it links into the present.

4. Carnival quirkiness and tarot.  Did I mention there was tarot, divination, fortune telling, and mermaids.  That’s right.  Step right up.  I love it.  I’m here for it.   

5. Our main point of view for a multi-generational female story is a male.  At first, I was disappointed that the story would be told through the eyes of a man, but as the story unfolds and especially by the end, I better understood Swyler’s choice.  I thought it was a clever way to play with gender expectations.  The final chapter is told through a female perspective and Swyler utilized this new perspective to shift narrative and ground her themes.

6. There is a mute, “Wild Boy” in the carnival who is a main character in the past timeline.  I’ll just say it stuck out to me and I can imagine it may have caused some people to close the book.  It could be a controversial issue.  Carnival life in the 1700s was not sunshine and roses and sometimes the line between love and business profit and safety and restraint was blurry. 

7. The book opens with landscape description and Simon reminiscing of his childhood.  I understand that Swyler is setting the scene.  This is an atmospheric book and the description of the water trauma to the shoreline and how that affects Simon’s house ties into the theme of the book, but it is a little slower opening.  

C. CHARACTER DYNAMICS.  As I mentioned above, the characters are messy, which I appreciated.  

D. PLOT.  As mentioned above, the plot of this novel or the engine driving this book is really the mystery.  Yes, it’s a drama or family saga, but you want to know if there is a family curse, maybe it is something else.  Maybe Simon is descending into madness; it is a gothic tale afterall.  Maybe there is something larger and sinister at play.  Why did Enola come back now?  She’s been away for years.  And how does this carnival connect with the people in the present?  How did the book end up with the bookseller?  Should we trust the bookseller?  

All of these questions keep flowing as the book progresses.  Swyler provides answers, but also more questions.  

E. THEME.  Theme can be interpreted many different ways by many different people.  However, for me reading this book, the idea of familiar legacy and what does that really mean, stood out.  The idea of inherited family trauma emerged, as part of said legacy.  And then, finally,  does the family legacy really matter anyway, do we all just return to the earth, the elements.  These were interesting ideas to play with and, again, these were themes that emerged for me.  Instead of discussing these points further, I’ll leave you with Swyler’s words.

On the idea of inherited family trauma and legacy:

In this passage, Simon is contemplating legacy, discussing the tarot cards being passed from woman to woman, mother to daughter and likening it to his determination to stay in his childhood home, yet another tangible familial legacy.  How it provides a connection to our past and lineage.  But is this connection always a good thing?  Is it something we should hold on to? 

On the idea of legacies and endings:

And finally, I”ll leave you with this beautiful passage wherein Swyler sums up her view of family.  Family is an innate part of who we are and it can both lift us up or drag us under.

F. IMAGERY.  As in any gothic novel, imagery and symbolism help set the mood and tone as a novel.  Where would Wuthering Heights be without the moors?  I just wanted to list the images and symbols that stood out to me, but I’d be interested to know if you noted others.  I also won’t discuss my interpretations of the said imagery, because I’d like to know your thoughts on the matter.  The following images stood out to me:

• The House,
• The Weather (water, rain, storms),
• The Horseshoe Crabs, 
• Doyle’s Tattoos,
• The Tarot Cards, and 
• The Book.

I could probably write a whole other blog on the imagery in this story, but I won’t bore you.  

RELEVANT RESEARCH, RANDOMNESS, OR RECOMMENDATIONS

I’ve mentioned how beautiful I thought the cover was, so of course I noticed Sara Gruen’s blurb on the front cover and this sent me down the carnival/circus rabbit hole of books, movies, and tv shows released around and prior to The Book of Speculation in 2015.  Just in case you are curious, see below.

• 1989 (republished 2002) – Geek Love (Katherine Dunn)
• 1998 – Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury)
• 1998 (republished 2003) – Big Fish (Daniel Wallace)
• 2003 – Big Fish movie adaptation (Tim Burton)
• 2006 – Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen)
• 2011 – Water for Elephants movie adaptation (Francis Lawrence)
• 2011 – The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)
• 2013 – Joyland (Stephen King)
• 2014 – The Museum of Extraordinary Things (Alice Hoffman)
• 2014 – 2015 – American Horror Story: Freak Show (TV miniseries)

Also, let’s talk about horseshoe crabs for a minute.  They tend to swarm at important moments in this story.  I couldn’t figure out why this creature, but then toward the end (and no I didn’t mark it, sorry) Simon comments on the creature, musing that the crustacean sweeps away its footprints leaving no trace of its existence. Interesting. Interesting, because this is a family saga with inherent questions of lineage, genetics, and environment.  This imagery, coupled with some things I won’t spoil, begs the questions, are we fighting a losing battle trying to “leave a legacy”?  Does all of our effort just get wiped away in the end?  One of the thematic questions I feel Swyler raised.

SUMMARY (Potential Spoilers)

In closing, I enjoyed Erika Swyler’s The Book of Speculation and the more I sit with it and think about it, the more I appreciate its nuance.  I own the physical book, but I listened to the audiobook version and getting into the flow of Swyler’s writing took some getting used to.  Also, at times the switch between timelines was jarring in audio form. However, I did not let these early hiccups keep me from carnival goodness.  

If pushed to describe this book in one word, it would be atmospheric.  In true gothic fashion, Swyler used the landscape and weather to reflect the themes in this story.  Swyler wove the threads of theme throughout her story, deftly pulling it all together in the end.  I could probably write a whole other review on her imagery alone.  How the deteriorating house mirrored Simon’s descent into obsession with his book and saving his sister.  How the damaging rain and storms during each woman’s birth acted as a portent of their lives, but I digress.  

I think, if you love carnival/circus stories, you’ll enjoy this.  It skews slightly toward the literary side of things, so if you find yourself asking if you like carnival stories, this one may not be for you.  While the story isn’t inaccessible, it may not be the best entry point into this niche. You may want to peruse the list above.  Water for Elephants and The Museum of Extraordinary Things may be better entry points.  However, if you enjoy books with a literary skew, that are atmosphere, have intrigue and interesting characters, this is a good pick.  Basically, if you found yourself saying, “Hey, I like those things, too,” while reading the MY WHY section, then I think you’ll like this book.

I’ll leave you with this passage– in case you missed it up in the Theme section due to unresolved trauma in high school English. 

Thus concludes my in-depth book review of Erika Swyler’s The Book of Speculations. Hope you enjoyed and I’ll catch you in another book.