FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1999. All Rights Reserved
| Books by Catherine Radimer BITE THE STARS Although the promo hysteria makes Bite the Stars sound like a tawdry bodice-ripper (the phrase "a mesmerizing story of the whirlwind forces of nature, ravages and glory of love" says it all), it's mother love rather than panting, 'take-me-please' love that forms the core of this book. And, it would seem, there is very little "glory" in that, particularly when your son turns out to be a socio-pathic killer. Young Cole is born two months early, rushed along by a tornado that destroys the church where his mother, Grace, and the congregation, is praying. A single mom without much confidence in her skills as a parent, Grace torments herself throughout the book for the way Cole behaves. Unable to give up on him, yet just as incapable of exerting any discipline or control, Grace can only watch as her life is battered by her son's steady march to a Texas court's sentence of death by lethal injection. Whether it's the chaos of the tornado internalized or the instability of his home life that warps Cole's life, Bite the Stars doesn't manage to shed any new light on the old nature/nurture argument. Nor does it generate much sympathy for the plight of its characters. Yet, oddly enough, all this is due more to a failure of subject matter than of writing. Eliza Clark's style is, at its worst, inoffensive, and, at its best, striking. Unfortunately, even its occasional brilliance is not enough to carry a story that belongs on an Oprah "Mothers of Murderers" special. Perhaps if we were not so accustomed to seeing this sort of tale splattered across the TV screen it would have the power to shock and move us. As it is, Cole and Grace's struggle drifts uncomfortably from melodrama to the banal. |
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