Book Review/Discussion: The Prophet by Michael Koryta

This is one of the books I hastily pulled off the shelf as the library was closing. Just a few pages in, I realized that I was NOT in the target demographic. Even remotely. I am in a woman in her mid-twenties. I think this was written quite exclusively for middle-aged men who have at least a moderate interest in football. But, I will say that the plot kept me interested just enough to press on. 

For those who have not yet read The Prophet 

Koryta tells the story of two brothers whose lives were shattered due to the murder of their sixteen-year-old sister, Marie. Now around 40, both men have taken an extremely different path in life. Older brother Adam, a senior and star high school football player when Marie was killed, is now a bail bondsman living with a married woman whose husband is in prison. Younger brother Kent, who was a freshman at the time of Marie's murder, is head coach of the acclaimed Chambers High School Cardinals, who both he and his brother played for. Besides coaching, Kent is also involved in prison ministry and has a wife and two young children. The two brothers have not spoken in years. 

Everything they have settled into, however, is shaken by the murder of 17-year-old Rachel Bond, the girlfriend of one of Chambers' star players and a frequent babysitter of Kent's children. Both men are drawn into the case when they realise they both played an unwitting role in her murder. Driven by guilt, both due to Rachel's murder and Marie's, the brother have to reach a tentative truce--and maybe even rekindle a genuine relationship--to get to the bottom of things. 

Fair enough, right? I'll admit the description I wrote sounds interesting. The problem with the novel, though...is that it's really not. Interesting, I mean. It's not interesting. I think this is partly due to the fact that (and please please I hope he never googles this book and reads this and I'm super sorry in advance, Michael Koryta, but this is how I feel) Michael Koryta is not a particularly gifted novelist. His prose falls flat. The brothers seem like caricatures. The twist is dropped out of nowhere, built from nothing, just a sinister perversion of a deus ex machina out of the sky. One of the villains, a prison-hardened stalker, speaks in such an exaggerated erudite way that Koryta may as well given him a monocle and a mustache to twirl. I half expected him to skip off to the railroad tracks and tie a damsel to them. 

Listen, here's the deal. I love a well-plotted story. I love twists and turns. As much as it pains me, and it does pain me, I like thrillers. I don't want to be the type of reader who likes thrillers. But I do. However, I have standards. I want my thrillers to be beautifully written, as much a work of art with the prose as with the plot (for example, see anything written by Liz Jensen). This book did not give me beautiful writing, at all. And the plot wasn't really anything to write home about, either. So I felt that this book really didn't have much to offer me, and I'll leave it at that. Maybe it has something to offer to you. 

Recommended? 

Not really. But I'll say this; I admitted from go that I was NOT in this book's target audience. Maybe you are. I personally give it 2 out of 5 stars. So I do not recommend it to readers like me. I would give it a tentative recommendation to people who like James Patterson and football.

Tips

This is a library find so I'll repeat the advice I always give: check your library first! Be ready to skim or even skip several pages at at a time if football is not your thing or you are just a casual football viewer. 

For those who have read The Prophet

Warning! Warning! Spoilers ahead!

^Finding this awesome Twilight Zone spoiler alert 

picture totally made up for reading 

a crappy novel. I LOVE the Twilight Zone!!!^

Thoroughly warned? Okay, let's proceed.

I must admit I wouldn't feel too bad if someone somehow missed the spoiler alerts and got spoiled. I'm just not enthusiastic enough about the book to really care about that. Whereas with The Burning Air, for example, I'd have felt horrible! 

Am I being mean to this book? Did I miss something? It's a fair question. This is really the first book I've blogged about that I didn't care for. Let's try to get scientific here and go through Nikki's Good Book Checklist (TM).

1. The book is well written. Passages stand out as beautiful works of art. The whole books contains lovely, engaging prose. 
2. The book is well-plotted. It is an interesting, engaging story that keeps me turning the page. Any twists and turns are organic to the story, not dropped in our lap without any build-up. 
3. Characters are nuanced and believable. We as readers care about their fate, whether we are rooting for or against them. 
4. There is nothing that is extraneous or unnecessary, in other words, nothing feels like it should have been cut out in editing. 
5. There is NOT A PICTURE OF A CREEPY DEAD BIRD ON THE COVER. 

Okay, sorry, I might have added number 5 just for this book. But let's go through them as it relates to The Prophet, shall we? 

1. Koryta is an adept writer but not a great one. Maybe not even good. His bio blurb in the back of the book says he used to be a private detective and a newspaper reporter. I guess that explains a lot. 
2. The book did admittedly keep me turning pages, but I would NOT consider it well-plotted. Were there any hints at all, any foreshadowing in the slightest, about Grissom's true nature? If there were I sure missed them. That fell out of the nowhere. 
3. The only character I saw to be nuanced or believable was Colin Mears and maybe Chelsea Salinas. Everyone else I felt was a cardboard cutout, especially Kent. Speaking of Kent, I'd say he was pretty insufferable. More about that later. 
4. I think the football play-by-plays could have been cut out during editing, but hard-core football fans wouldn't agree!
5. There is TOTALLY a picture of a creepy dead bird on the cover!

So it seems that the books does NOT stand up to Nikki's Good Book Checklist (TM). As predicted. 

Let's talk about Kent for a moment. Did anyone else find him to be a bit of an uptight prude? I think what bothered me the most was the was he seemed to think he was too good for the assistant coaches. Did anybody else get that feeling? And the whole leading the prayer thing after practice. It bothered me. Not that he did it, because whatever, but that he seemed so proud of himself for doing it. As if it's really that hard or takes that much time or anyone was really going to fault him for it. Also his obsession with "it's just a game winning or losing doesn't matter." Clearly this was just what he wanted to think, because it was obvious that he cared very much about winning. And why shouldn't he? Why feel bad about wanting to win? Yes in a high school program it's important to build character and stuff. But he's also paid to deliver wins so hell yes he should care about that. If not, he's not doing his job. 

I found Adam to be a bit more interesting than his brother, but not by much. One of the first scenes with him pretty much tells it all: drinking by himself at a titty bar. That's pretty much the paint-by-numbers way to set the scene for a broken, somewhat seedy man ready for redemption, right? But Koryta didn't make me care enough about Adam to be sad when he died. Adam was asking for it. It was no different than if he'd swallowed the gun and pulled the trigger. I think Adam died the night Marie did. He just made it official going after Grissom. And if there's anything most interesting about his character, it's that fact right there. 

One more thing: I don't find vigilante justice interesting or heroic. I find it silly and dangerous. If we all ran around putting the law in our own hands, it'd be the wild west out there and everything would be dangerous chaos. So I don't commend Adam for his vigilantism or the others for condoning it. My only solace is the fact that, with Adam's death, maybe Koryta was making a subtle nod for the fact that vigilante justice cannot end well.

Well, I guess that's it for me. Time for discussion questions! As an ELA teacher I think this is my favorite part!

Questions to ponder (and to answer in the comments section with appropriate spoiler warnings, please!)

-First and foremost: did you think this was a good book? How does it hold up to the Nikki's Good Book Checklist (TM)? Or, more importantly, your own Good Book Checklist?

-Which brother were you more invested in? Why? Did they feel like real people to you? If not, what fell flat? 

-How were the brothers two sides of the same coin? 

-Did you lose or gain respect for Adam when he killed Sipes? 

-Did you skip through the football scenes or devour them eagerly? If you know a lot about football, can you tell us if these scenes were well-written or not? 

-How did guilt drive the plot? Did you think it was misplaced guilt, or fairly felt? 

- Would you read any of Koryta's other books? If you already have, were they any good? 

Thanks for checking out my blog...and happy reading!