Review: Brit Writing American - Sketchy
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 4, 2014
I generally like Ms. Scott's work. She's a top-notch writer.But I must admit that I was not all that taken by "A Reason To Stay".It's got good characters and a dramatic plot. Two men, Viktor, now a Navy Seal and Aiden, born wealthy, working as a deputy Sheriff, come together for a few weeks when Victor returns to town. They take up where they left off when Victor was 18 and Aiden 16 - teenagers in high school making out in stolen moments in the parking lot. ViKtor laughed when Aiden professed his love, and left to join the Navy. Now they're back together for just a few weeks before Viktor takes off again.He returns, two years later, when his 11-year-old nephew, Ben, is found, almost frozen, with a broken ankle and a head injury, buried in a mound of snow on a hiking path next to a dead body. Together (though fighting all the way), Viktor and Aiden set out to find the culprits and ensure that Ben is no longer in danger due to what he might or might not have seen.The climax takes place at the top of a 3800 foot mountain (hardly Everest) in a snowstorm and is, if nothing else, fast paced and dramatic. Sometimes, the author tended to dramatize the technical issues to the point of confusion. Early in the story, she mentions that even the Forest Ranger had never hiked "above the tree line" (the elevation above which trees no longer grow), but when the boys get to the peak, they're in a dense forest. Tree line? Forest? Which? Or weren't they really at the mountain peak?It didn't work for me, at all. Not the plotting or the characters (though they had their unbelievable moments), but the writing itself.Ms. Scott appears to be a Brit who, unfortunately, has a tin ear for American dialogue. That messed up a large portion of this book for me - trying to imagine very American characters, in Vermont, speaking the words she put in their mouths. I found it hard to deal with an 11-year-old who told his family that he "must have fallen unconscious", instead of "he must have passed out". Vermont place names were simply wrong, "Battlesboro" for Brattleboro, the particularly British made-up town of "Steepleshend", the "Center Green" instead of Village Green or Town Square. Even the military terminology was, apparently, British, such as "recuperation break" instead of disability leave, drinking coffee from a "flask" instead of a "thermos", "calling in to the office" instead of calling the office, "sign up to the Navy", instead of enlist and "fill in the" police report, as opposed to "fill out" or "file the police report. But the one that really made me realize that the author was not American and didn't really "get" American speech was this line:  ..."hunting on the other side of mainland US". An American would just say "hunting on the other side of the country". Do we ever refer to our land as "mainland" U.S. unless we're discussing Hawaii or Alaska? I've never heard it.There was also a structural issue that I really disliked, and that's not like me. I can enjoy unusual structure if it has a point and furthers the plot or development.The book opens with a full chapter on the first time Viktor came home, and he and Aiden got together, as adults.Then, the book continues on as though that chapter never happened, starting from what reads like page 1, including a brief recapitulation of their three weeks together before Viktor takes off, again. I'm probably wrong about this, but it really struck me that Ms. Scott got to the end of the book, decided she hadn't covered the back story well enough, and tacked it on the front of her otherwise completed book. Why else would the characters be introduced, all over again, from scratch, in the subsequent chapter?All in all, I found this a difficult read with the inauthentic dialogue and slow middle section, in which little happens to further either the plot or character development. I suppose if this book were aimed at the British reading public, who might be as unaware of American vernacular as Ms. Scott appears to be, this could be a five-star review. But, as an American reader, I couldn't get into quintessentially American characters who spoke British English.You might find otherwise. I just like a book about Americans having dialogue to have American dialogue. Maybe I'm being too picky.