 "Oh
what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." |
Summer
2003 |
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| Lisa Polisar is a writer and a musician from New Mexico. Her debut thriller, Blackwater Tango, was published in hardcover in November of 2002, and her second mystery, Knee Deep, will be published in December of 2003. Currently a staff writer with Crosswinds Weekly, and a fiction editor of the 12 Gauge Review, she also writes a monthly mystery-spoof article in New Mystery Reader magazine. Direct correspondence
to Lisa Polisar
or Editor.
Ms. Polisar's website is lisapolisar.com.
The Resurrectionists, A Review |
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Frank Cassidy inhabits the most dysfunctional family since Lizzie Borden. His parents died in a fire when he was five. His family is held hostage by their 15-year-old son. His uncle, murdered by a man who has been dead for 27 years, continues to haunt him from the grave. In an episode of The Simpson's, it would all be hilarious. But in the milieu of dark literary fiction, this edgy tale cuts with a velvet knife. With the restlessness of The Shipping News and the tragic poverty of Angela's Ashes, Collins' thwarted protagonist is searching not for his roots or even his birthright, but for a terrifying secret buried in the bloody folds of his own heart.
When he hears that his father/uncle has been murdered on the family farm, Frank Cassidy quits his job at Big Boy Burgers. The lure of an inheritance, to a destitute family, is worth the price of lawlessness. So a chain of insane antics (impersonating Jesus to con a dying man out of his life savings, multiple auto theft) finance the family's trip north to claim the estate. "I followed a brand-new '98 Cadillac in my rusting Pinto, watched the gleaming car in the late-afternoon light, and decided the requiem of my uncle's death would begin in this black Cadillac." And thus begins a gypsy hoard's pilgrimage north and a journey to the center of madness — which lives at the heart of every family secret. The "family" here consists of misguided drifter, Frank Cassidy, his wife Honey whose murdering first husband is about to be executed by the state, her derelict teenaged son, Robert Lee, and their communal son, Ernie — the singular, untarnished, solid piece of hope for them all.
Following his parents' death as a child, Frank endured hypnosis and, later, shock treatment for his mental breakdown. And the way all secrets rise to the surface, the insidious truth that he and his uncle were involved in these deaths eventually changes his life and his consciousness. Returning to his Michigan roots, Frank starts digging into the past and disrupting the complacent veil of silence in a small, rural town. Copper, Michigan's uninhabitable Upper Peninsula welcomes the roving travelers with unfriendliness and closed doors. "It's so far north, winter's breath holds life in abeyance for nearly eight months of the year. It is a town that exists between America and Canada, inhospitable and dreary in what I've always felt was a netherworld not compatible with human life or sanity. To hold onto anything up there takes a savagery the likes of which only animals possess."
In this legendary work, one irreconcilable distraction persists, in that Frank Cassidy is far too great an intellectual to be the occupational loser that Collins presents. But this, too, adds to the elegant incongruities rampant within every character's core. Like most modern mysteries, the reader is presented with a flood of intersecting storylines. And in a dialect of both apathy and sarcasm, Collins handles these meanderings with skillful devices, including interwoven transcripts of Frank's early hypnosis sessions and the Watergate scandal.
Most novels fall into at least one established sub-category, which means authors are forced to include the typical accoutrements of each genre. But once in a while, you come across an artistic voice bold and polished enough to immerse the reader in the cloak of pure "story." In a novel that defies every real definition of genre, Collins presents a mainstream novel set in a suspenseful atmosphere with elements of romance, horror, mystery and, most of all, complete lunacy. As the title suggests, death and resurrection are rampant themes -- involving not only characters and storylines, but also secrets, demons, and dreams.
People are reading this book for many reasons — its twisted plot, poignant mesh of comedic tragedy, and walking-wounded medley of spectacular misfits. But mostly it symbolizes the universal struggle of every man, every woman, every family as we chase our proverbial tails waiting for a soft shudder of hope.
Copyright 2003 by Lisa Polisar
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