3 out of 4 stars
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Southern Fried Fiction by Stuart Hotchkiss is an exceptionally transparent and personal work enabling the reader an open, wide window into the author's life. In this sense, there is a uniqueness to the work that is both profound and sobering. By the end of this story, the reader will most certainly have a deep and lasting respect for the sincerity and openness in which this book is composed.
Fitting well within the memoir genre, this tale centers around the life and times of Stuart Hotchkiss. Being born into the refined southern culture of Richmond VA, the author spends his adolescent years on the estate of Halsnoch – the family residence established under his grandfather. The early portions of this story revolve around the boyhood trials and adventures of young Stuart, which culminate in a climax of immense personal tragedy. The setting quickly moves towards an extended stay in Iceland as Stuart, now a young man, sets about trekking across the frozen tundra. This season of life concludes in heartbreak and Stuart returns to the States to finish his undergraduate and to meet his first wife – Patty. As the memoir progresses, the reader journeys with Stuart across an extremely wide range of trials and crises: ongoing marital issues and divorce, reoccurring personal loss, extended legal troubles, and agonizing professional turmoil. Ultimately, this is a work that invites the reader to walk with the author on an ongoing sojourn through sorrow and difficulty that eventually leads to the horizon of potential new beginnings.
The primary highlight of this book is its capacity to be open and accessible to the reader. Certainly there is a degree of honesty and forthrightness that must be present when engaging a work such as this, but also there must be a skillful and precise use of language to allow the reader to actually entire the life of the author; herein this is exceptionally accomplished. The openness of this tale is exhibited in the content as well as the style, the author supplies enough details to be interesting and inviting without weighing the reader down with superfluous information. In writing a work such as this, there is always the temptation to bog the telling down with overly sentimental and exaggerated language; this is not at all the case within this story. The author shares his thoughts and feelings with the reader in an exact and definite sort of way, and as such the reader is able to venture on full of clarity and attachment. The supreme value of this book is the degree and exactness to which one can be connected with the life of Stuart Hotchkiss.
The biggest shortcoming of this work, is that the author, at times, drifts into a state of telling rather than showing. Instead of allowing the reader to witness the weight and import of certain experiences and have these develop full force within the reader's own imagination, the author expounds in such a way as to leave little room for experiential engaging. Certain events are set forth in such a fashion as to be more didactic and propositional rather than relational in bearing. This is certainly challenging to do within this genre but essential nonetheless. Coupled with this is the reality that the reader is not given the chance to be shown the author's steady descent into depression that the subtitle of this work rather explicitly mentions. There are certainly snapshots and seasons of melancholy that are exhibited, but nothing in the way of an ongoing, steady presentation that would justify the “onset” described within the subtitle.
I rate this book at a 3 out of 4 stars. Despite having moments where the author propounds more than displays, this is an accessible and profoundly sincere work that affords the reader much in the way of personal connection. In having an exact and disciplined use of language, the author succeeds in providing the reader with an accurate window that is not over-tinted with sentimental diction. In the end, one receives a very pronounced and sustained view of the Stuart Hotchkiss.
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Southern Fried Fiction
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