Woke Up Scratching Our Heads

Title: Woke Up Lonely
Author: Fiona Maazel
Host: Liz

Ours is a tough group, so it's not surprising that reactions were mixed to our June read -- Woke Up Lonely by Fiona Maazel. When the first to speak admitted to not having finished the book, three others owned up, too. Now, we are serious finishers as a rule. So, getting to the bottom of this was a road we had to go down.

Insights and Opinions

+ Maazel has attempted something very brave and creative here. Take a cult, throw in some hostages, a charismatic leader, an ex-wife leading a double life, and U.S. intelligence organizations, and you have the stuff of a page-turning potboiler. But then combine that with well-crafted prose, multi-dimensional characters, and a literary sensibility, and you have something new that is not a tidy fit for any genre. Ultimately, it doesn't work, at least from our point of view. But Maazel is clearly a talented writer with guts.

Roses and peonies

+ Margy characterized Maazel's work as "too odd, both in plot and in language," while Joanne said she was captured right away by the prose and humor, but ultimately "I couldn't like any of the people."
+ Perhaps to avoid the "potboiler pitfall," Maazel has much of her action take place off-screen. Major plot points occur off the page. We return to a character, only to discover some critical event has already happened.

+ The key theme in this book -- and the cult's reason for being -- is loneliness. Maazel heightens this by writing right up to the point where we might learn the "why" of a particular character, and then backing off. Ultimately, we never know why these characters choose what they choose or act the way they act. As a result, there is no one to root for.

The aftermath

+ Everyone agreed that the hostages were characters introduced too late in the game to make us care about them. Some felt that the book starts to come alive when we meet the hostages, but by then it may be too late.
+ The cult itself, an L. Ron Hubbard-type organization named The Helix -- is not well-developed. We don't really know why it exists, what the attraction is, or why followers flock to its leader, Thurlow Dan. We need more about Dan so we understand the attraction and the conflict. Otherwise, he's just repellent.
+ Many of us were excited when we started reading. This book is original, clever, creative, wild and unpredictable. But ultimately, it falls apart. We all agree she is a fine writer, and we expect many more good things from her in the future.

Oddments and Telling Details

+ There were no barred owl sightings. Sorry, all.