On May 29, 2009, I posted reviews of Charlotte Carter’s novels featuring her
smart, beautiful, Black amateur detective Nanette Hayes. I had not, at the time,
read her three other novels: Walking Bones, Jackson Park, and Trip
Wire. Starting with Walking Bones, I’ll be reviewing the
novels in my next three post.
Carter is a writer of detective
stories. Walking Bones is a significant departure from her detective
novels. Although one character is a detective, and a crime is committed, it
doesn’t drive the plot. Lecherous sexual behavior does. It is as though Carter
decided to experiment with a different genre, writing an erotic thriller to
test her talent. The experiment, if it is that, is unsuccessful. I admire her
for taking the risk, and I have to accept that doing so means she produced a
very disappointing novel. No matter how good a novelist is, not all that she
writes will be of a quality that matches her talent.
The
action in this awful erotic thriller opens with a black woman slapping a
middle-aged white man in the face with a glass after he makes the crude remark
that he likes black cunt. His crude remark and her response ignites a chain of
events that will set three people on a deadly collision course: the protagonist
Nettie Rogers, her gay friend Rufe Beard, and the alcoholic, sexual deviant
White man Albert Press.
Six
Foot tall, light-skinned Nettie Rogers came to New York to be a model, but when
she started to gain weight, her modeling career went down the drain and she
into deep depression. Her friend Rufe decided that sleeping with strange men
whom he procured for her would cure the depression. Nettie quits having
unsatisfying sex with strangers because it increases rather than cures her
depression. She finds satisfaction and ease of mind in making and selling
handbags from which occupation she makes a modest living.
Albert,
on the other hand, becomes obessessed with Nettie and lies to the investigating
detective about what happened to him in the bar, alleging he doesn’t remember. He
tracks her down through Rufe and begins showering her with gifts. We see how
dangerous he is through his past relationship with a young White woman he hired
and mentored in his publishing company. The relationship reveals his sexually
deviant dark side.
Rufe
suspects Albert of being a sexual deviate and believes he will harm Nettie. His
big brother-type protective instinct toward her takes over. He must save her
from herself and Albert. This creates rising tension and suspenseful
anticipation: What is going to happen when the paths of the three characters,
Nettie, Albert, and Rufe collide? Any further discussion of the plot of this
highly disappointing novel would be a spoiler.
Walking Bones is not “exhilarating, funky,
sensuous,” as the blurb on the front cover from the Cleveland Plain Dealer
claims, but it is “downright vulgar.” I couldn’t make up my mind as to whether
it is literary erotica or literary pornography. Since I don’t think Carter
wrote the novel to satisfy readers’ possible prurient desires, I tried to see
some social or culture significance. Possibility: Expose White men’s perverse
hunger for Black women, which is speculation on my part.
Walking Bones is not up to Carter’s talent.
