This Must Be the Place: A Novel
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Product Description
A sudden death, a never-mailed postcard, and a long-buried secret set the stage for a luminous and heartbreakingly real novel about lost souls finding one another.
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When 32-year-ancient Arthur Rook’s wife Amy dies unexpectedly, he finds a box filled with her mementos and decides to connect with her through her past. He follows the take up on an unmailed postcard and arrives at the Darby-Jones boardinghouse in tiny Ruby Falls, New York, and there he meets the house’s owner/operator Mona Jones, her teenage daughter Oneida, and the boarders at the house.
From that main storyline hang accompanying tales, told through alternating points of view: Mona’s best-friendship with Amy in childhood; Oneida’s growing up and apart from Mona and her interest in classmate Eugene (“Wendy”) Wendell; and Wendy’s coming-of-age in an eclectic household.
It’s a tale of past events and current secrets, and persons past events are told mostly through backstory and interior rumination rather than unfolding in tale-time; it feels slow-moving and predictable. And while I’d looked forwards to the boardinghouse setting and some odd residents, neither felt very developed nor even made much of an appearance. Only the Wendy thread kept me reading — an appealing character and a fresh premise, well suited to development as its own book.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
“this must be the place” is a book well summed up by its title. It’s a tale about disparate people ending up somewhere as a replacement for of preparation on going somewhere. About characters that live their way through the day to day and only when smacked in the face by a major event do they lift their heads and look around.
Arthur Rook is one of these characters – unable to function upon the death of his wife, Amy.
“Did she have a will?” I don’t know, Arthur said. She liked grapefruit and coffee together for breakfast. “Did she want to be buried or cremated?” I don’t know, de said. She wore his ancient concert T-shirts to bed and sang him lullabies as Axl Rose (Excellent night to the jungle, baby!) and Mick Jagger (Hey! You! Get into my bed!).”
In an effort to make some sense of his life, of his wife’s past, in an effort to do anything at all, Arthur takes a trip to the town where his wife grew up, and encounters Mona and Oneida Jones, mother and daughter who are if not lost souls, certainly unsure souls.
These three characters come together to make a pleasant tale about trying to decipher the past, trying to choose on a future. About trying to make choices as a replacement for of having circumstances or time choose them for you.
“Had this all been the same day? Had everything that just happened occurred in the space of the same twenty-four hours? Some days expand, Mona though; their seams stretch and they hold more than a day’s worth of time. More than a day’s worth of memories ancient and new.”
Time seems to have overwhelmed Mona and Arthur, and the lines between the past and the future blur. Deciding to chart a course as a replacement for of drifting along that current, is the toughest choice they have to make.
“Arthur saw his futures shimmer before him, saw all the possible places he could go from here: all the houses he could live in, all the jobs he could have, all the people he’d never met but could know for the rest of his life.”
Once these three characters encounter one another, it seems pretty evident where the tale is headed, what the likely conclusion will be. But the details make it an appealing journey. Arthur, Mona, Oneida and a few others are just different enough to make the encounter an appealing one.
“He placed both palms flat on his side of the table and leaned forwards; as his dutiful reflection, Oneida followed suit. They met in the middle. He heard, reasonably clearly and nearly certainly only in his own head, the slow synth intro of a Foreigner song, sweet, warm, and sonorous, and not at all ironic.”
This tale is a bit like that. Not at all ironic, and very sweet.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Kate Raccula’s debut novel impressed me with its warm, loveable characters and unique storyline. As Oneida Jones comes of age in a sleepy town, she feels lonely and freakish. On the lookout for kindred spirits, we follow her through some of high school’s twists and turns. Not formulaic or trite, this thread is the most conventional of the novel’s natural fiber storyline.
Oneida’s mother Mona shows her own individuality and boldness by being a single mother in her hometown, running her family tree boarding house and baking tasty cakes as well. When a mysterious weirder shows up, she finds herself reliving some of her most delightful teenage moments and sharing parts of herself that have long been hidden.
The minor characters in the tale are lively and appealing, and I establish the book hard to place down. A levelheaded read because, while light, it still engages readers in some of life’s most fundamental questions. Warm and thought provoking is a rare, but needed combination.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
This Must Be The Place by Kate Raccullia is a tale that explores life’s intricacies that centers on an unsent postcard written sixteen years ago, August 18, 1993 by one of the main characters Amy Henderson and the lives that she affected. It is tale of relationships, traveling, and recollections as told through. The past is relived through the people that Amy left behind, best friend Mona Jones, spouse Arthur Rook, and Oneida. With the nucleus of all of these characters and the friends and acquaintances and the events that take place, complexities that will be clarified and come full circle by the end of the book.
The most fascinating part about this novel is the complex understanding of Amy’s life that only emerges after her death that evolves and clarifies why she ran away to Hollywood to pursue a career as a special effects film maker but happened to experience a bit of insecurities along the way, which was the driving force that pushed her to place her quaint life at the Darby-Jones boarding house in Ruby Falls, New York. This is a major element to the tale as well as life’s observations as it relates to the people that Amy met and befriended and the relationships that developed especially with Arthur who only discovers after Amy’s passing that he did not really know who she was or where she came from. It is only when he finds Amy’s personal personal effects, pink shoe box, the postcard, and his travels back to her past, Ruby Falls, where questions are answered; the fond memories and bitter memories that reflect upon how Amy appeared to be a lost soul who felt comfort and belonging within her work and interests in Sci-Fi movies, Jason and the Argonauts, The Thing, The Beast From 10,000 Fathoms that had major themes that involved conquering a monster or seeking one’s destiny, especially Clash of the Titans, and the creatures that were made by legendary special effects creator Ray Harryhausen, Amy and Arthur named their cat after Harryhausen.
In essence, the truth is unraveled in This Must Be The Place. A tale about like lost and establish and how each character attempts to connect and reach out towards one another to resolve past issues involving Amy, Mona, Oneida, and Arthur.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
This Must Be the Place, Kate Racculia’s debut novel, is the tale of a widower, a past friendship, a mother and daughter, first like, and what happens when all these different worlds collide. Really, it’s a hard novel to classify as it crosses genres. It’s a coming of age tale mixed with fundamentals of chic lit, but it is also a plot driven character study. And, after melding fundamentals from these different genres, it’s really reasonably excellent.
All the characters aren’t perfect so they feel realistic. (Arthur was annoying me at times, but he felt real.) The huge secret will not be a secret to the readers because it is clearly foreshadowed, but experiencing the character’s discovery as tiny details are revealed and clarified is masterfully handled by Racculia. (I don’t want to give any spoilers.) I appreciated hearing from the different character’s point of view, and loved how all the small details and plot twists were slowly clarified and revealed from each character’s point of view. Racculia doesn’t reasonably clarify a remorseless, cruel act at the center of the novel, but we certainly come close to some measure of understanding.
As I was reading This Must Be the Place that I kept learning small gems of writing that resonated with me – a sentence here, a turn of the axiom there. If I didn’t consciously show self-restraint, I could have flagged many quotes throughout the whole novel. There is some humor, some touching scenes, some absurd events, some conflicts. I’m going to be looking forwards to more from Kate Racculia in the future because I really delight in the way she expresses herself. Very Highly Recommended (4 1/2 stars)
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5