Review of July, July by Tim O'Brien
A Poignant, Yet Suspenseful Page-Turner About a Class Reunion
Oct 14, 2009
At first glance, July, July might appear to be little more than a rehash of the movie The Big Chill. From the start, you know the characters have gathered for a college reunion of the class of 1969, and one of them (a woman named Karen) has been murdered. The resemblance is uncanny. However, such a comparison would do the book a huge disservice.
The Set Up
Like The Big Chill, this book is an ensemble piece. None of the characters truly seem to dominate it, although the story starts off with Amy Robinson and Jan Huebner – two women, both divorced, both alone and both getting drunk and looking to get laid. The women provide a somewhat detached perspective on the reunion (although the reader gets to hear their individual stories and personal problems, too). Their comments about the others help set the stage for what's to come.
Those others – at least seven, along with some minor (but still significant) characters – have various relationships with one another, harbor old secrets and grudges, and suffer broken hopes and dreams, as well as unrequited love. Although this sounds cliched, the story gives a fresh spin on the old reunion formula by telling the story in shifting perspectives and time frames, showing how the characters' lives have intersected and delving deeply into their personalities and situations, thus compelling one to find out how each makes out in the end.
Diverse Cast of Characters
The cast of characters include: a wounded Vietnam war veteran; a relentlessly free-spirited woman with two husbands (at the same time); a repressed breast cancer survivor; a draft dodger; a disgraced preacher; a woman bearing the weight of a terrible secret; and a dispirited mop and broom manufacturer with a heart condition. Each person's story unfolds in vivid (and often heartbreaking) detail and is presented in a way that builds suspense, so one is gripped by the words and simply must keep reading.
True to form, author Tim O'Brien, known for his previous books about the Vietnam war (e.g., The Things They Carried, Going After Caccioto), writes with particular authority and feeling about both the soldier and the draft dodger. All the characters are well-delineated, but O'Brien really captures the horrors of war and survivor guilt from the soldier's perspective, as well as the mixed relief, shame and loneliness of the draft dodger who runs to Canada (without the girl he loves – one of the other characters, of course). The soldier's story introduces an omniscient character who calls himself Johnny Ever – he foretells the soldier's future (or warns him about it, actually, before giving him the choice of life or death) and seems to turn up in various guises in some of the other characters' lives.
Kaleidoscopic Narrative Builds Tension and Suspense
The narrative jumps back and forth in time, between the college years, the reunion and in between. The writing also varies between lyrical, flowing prose and staccato bursts of sentences. The kaleidoscopic presentation of viewpoints and the changing rhythm of words help build tension and suspense and give the story an almost cinematic feel. Yet, it is unmistakably a literary work, in which you get inside the characters and experience their thoughts and feelings through O'Brien's powerful language skills.
Once the reader is hooked, the writing is so well-crafted and the story so fascinating, one can easily overlook an implausible plot development or two (specifically, about the mop and broom maker's second marriage and the circumstances of Karen's death). And, as the story winds up to its big finish, the alternating perspectives get shorter and switch with increasing speed, giving one the feeling of a breathless rush toward an inevitable climax and conclusion – one in which the characters resolve their issues in various ways that may or may not involve the words "happily ever after."
July, July, Tim O'Brien, Houghton, Mifflin and Co. (January 1, 2002), ISBN: 978-1-4025-6381-2
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