Review: A surprising take...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 3, 2014
Kara's Song is a very interesting exploration by Patricia Lowell. It's a short story, but rather than starting with the heroine, as these things usually tend to go, instead we're introduced to the hero. Jamal is a 23-year-old millionaire who had the good luck to try to shake down a kindly, dying gentleman -- that gentleman saw something in Jamal and encouraged his love of English and, later, writing. The kid winds up a millionaire before he's even 20 years old, and he spends a good deal of his time paying it forward in honor of his kind-hearted benefactor.Jamal decides to take Chris Fagerberg under his wing, in the spirit of many of the other people and businesses he's helped in the past, and it has the positive side-effect of introducing Jamal to Chris's mother, Astrid. Much ado is made of the racial element of things, at least from Astrid's point of view, but the characters are well-written and come across as very human, with all the awkward social stuff that comes along with that. Astrid and Chris have had to deal with a very different life since Astrid's husband passed away -- they'd been quite wealthy, but after her husband's death and her father's subsequent death, the family's resources are all but gone. Astrid is turning to alcohol to numb the pain, but Jamal's sudden presence (and the attraction she feels for him) immediately have an effect on her.The only thing I can say about this one is that I wish Ms. Lowell would expand this one into a full-length novel - I'd be intrigued to see what she could do with the material.