The premise that the dead have a role in the lives of the living dominates "Sing Them Home," Stephanie Kallos' second novel. "The dead," asserts Kallos, "are often called into service as ... outfielders, catching those disquieted souls who die unwillingly with rude, terrifying suddenness (victims of car accidents, gun blasts, natural disasters, and the like) and conveying them home."
Implausibility casts specter over melodrama
Three siblings reunite for the funeral of their Welsh father.
By KATHERINE BAILEY
Reminiscent of the works of John Irving and Anne Tyler, the novel features the three eccentric adult offspring of a dysfunctional family. Disappointingly, the characters of Larken, Gaelan and Bonnie Jones exceed the boundaries of plausibility, thus presenting obstacles for experienced readers in taking them seriously. Added to this shortcoming is the book's melodrama and pervasive sentimental undercurrent.
In 1978 when the Jones children were 7, 13 and 14, a tornado swept through rural Nebraska, whisking away their disabled mother and the 7-year-old, Bonnie. Their mother and her wheelchair were never found. Bonnie, still in her bicycle seat, was discovered nestled high in an uprooted tree.
Now, 25 years after the tragedy, Larken, Gaelan and Bonnie -- all still single -- return to the tiny town of Emlyn Springs, where they were raised, to attend their father's funeral. At the time of his death, Llewelyn was the town's mayor. Almost as theatrical as his wife's parting, his death occurs when he is struck by lightning as he tees off on the fifth hole of the local golf course. Kallos writes, "The mayor's heart is stunned into stillness by ten million volts of electrical current."
Through flashbacks we learn that following his wife's death, Llewelyn was a distracted, distant parent, too busy with his medical practice to have time for his children. Consequently, Larken was free to discover that being fat was no obstacle to getting male attention. Having sex with strangers led inevitably to her degrading experience with abortion. But belying her youthful behavior, Larken is now an articulate, tenured university professor of art history. She is, however, still a fat woman obsessed by her love of junk food.
Gaelan is the irrefutably handsome weatherman on KLAN TV. "He doesn't consider himself promiscuous," notes Kallos, "no matter how many women he's seeing concurrently." Bonnie, the most off-center of the three Joneses, lives in a converted garage and spends her days bicycling country lanes and picking up trash. Believing in the improbable, she is looking for debris from the tornado, specifically for artifacts that once belonged to her mother.
The highlight of the novel is its portrayal of the Welsh influence in the lives of the Jones family. For centuries Welsh immigrants and their descendants have dominated the area surrounding Emlyn Springs. The Welsh tradition dictates a moving funeral ritual that lasts a week. At Llewelyn's last rites, his family, friends and the townspeople "sing him home" with rapturous hymns in the mystifying Welsh language.
If we accept the book's contention about the dead's relationship to the living, we need not grieve for Llewelyn. According to Kallos, the dead are invaders. She states, "These are their portals: music and dreams, chiefly, but sometimes they get in by other means, through gestures, objects, symbols."
Katherine Bailey, who lives in Bloomington, is writing a book titled "With a Critical Eye: Essays on Fiction."