jrk's Full Review: Edward Mooney Jr. - The Pearls of the Stone Man
The jacket of Edward Mooney Jr.'s The Pearls of the Stone Man proudly announces, right at the top, "Pulitzer Prize Entry."
I was prepared, even before cracking the cover, to be wowed. Previous winners of that award include William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Harper Lee, John Kennedy Toole, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Jane Smiley, and the list goes on and on.
Now, while I don't absolutely adore the books every one of those winners wrote (Hemingway and Morrison just don't do it for me), I can see why their works were honored. But The Pearls of the Stone Man? No, you’ve got to be kidding!
Pulitzer Prize Entry Requirements
If I learned anything at all from The Pearls of the Stone Man, it has nothing at all to do with Edward Mooney, Jr.'s story itself. Nope. What I learned is all thanks to that claim on the cover announcing "Pulitzer Prize Entry." Seeing as how this novel is the undisputed, hands-down winner of my 2002 Worst Book I've Read This Year (Or Maybe Ever) Award, I just had to investigate what it takes to be a Pulitzer Prize entry.
Yes, I confess — prior to reading this book, I was entirely ignorant of exactly what it took to be a Pulitzer Prize entry. So, I did a bit of investigating.
Turns out that to be a Pulitzer Prize entry, the only requirements are:
(1) You must be an American author — Mooney fulfills that requirement, American born and bred.
(2) Preferably writing about American life — The story takes place in America. I can vouch for that. It takes place in an area I'm familiar with, not too far from where I live. And the characters are Americans, so I guess that Americans in America would qualify as dealing with American life.
(3) The book must be published within a certain time frame prior to adjudication for the award — I can't say with 100% certainty that Pearls satisfied this criterion, but I'm willing to accept on faith that it fell within the specified publication dates.
(4) You must supply the awards panel with four copies of the book — Again, I'll just rely on faith that the requisite four copies were forwarded to the Pulitzer committee. What really struck me in my investigation was that anyone — not just the publisher, not merely some panel of academics, not only the highly respected members of the committee itself — anyone at all, including the author, may submit an entry for consideration. OK. It's getting clearer.
(5) You must pay a $50 handling fee — Let's just assume that whoever submitted this novel for consideration wrote the check.
So there you have it. That's it. It's that simple. If you get past that initial hurdle of publisher rejection and actually make it into print, you, or anyone else, even Edward Mooney, Jr., can claim to be a Pulitzer Prize Entry.
But, being a Pulitzer Prize winner is a different kettle of fish. What a difference a noun makes! And I'll wager the farm: Edward Mooney, Jr. will never be able to slap a new jacket on his novel proclaiming himself a "Pulitzer Prize Winner." Nope. It won't happen.
Copy Editors of the World Unite — and Cringe!
You see, the Pulitzer committee awards the Letters prize to those who have written "distinguished fiction." And believe me, the only thing distinguished about The Pearls of the Stone Man is the sheer volume of errors that managed to make it into print. Never have I ever read a book with as many typographical errors as this slim volume contains.
I know I'm demanding. For gosh sakes, of course I am — I'm a copy editor, and I'd be a sorry excuse for a copy editor if mistakes didn't grate on my nerves. But even folks less anal than I could hardly fail to notice the sheer multitude of mistakes that permeate Mooney's text. Here's a short (I'm not that sadistic) example of what bothers me:
Joseph nodded. How had all these things that seemed a zillion years away come so close? he wondered. The wall would be done;the winter was settling in ;Annie was gone.
Or how about:
"Your flag. he has it. And some other stuff. I heard him bragging about it at the café."
"Really?" Joseph sat up.
"Really," she affirmed."Besides—I figured we all started this—we might as we will all finish it—together."
Those missing and extra spaces, the extra and missing words, the missing capitalization and screwball punctuation are exact renderings of Mooney's text, not my poor typing skills.
And I didn't have to search hard for examples — they're on pretty nearly every page of the book. Oh, it was painful. And, yes, I did cringe.
The Promise of Plot
After 53 years of marriage, Joseph and Anne Marino are still very much in love, two parts of a whole. But Anne is going to die, not some time in the distant future but soon, very soon.
As they struggle with their fears of mortality, both of them attempt to take care of unfinished business, heal old wounds and make some sense of a world they'll no longer be able to share with each other.
In the process of accepting the inevitable, they seek to unravel the mystery of what's truly important, not only for themselves but for other characters whose lives they touch.
Sounds like a promising premise, don't you think? I did. Yes, once again, I was swayed by a well-written online blurb I'd read praising a novel. What the blurb neglected to mention was that the premise was ruined by poor execution from start to finish.
How Do You Know That?
The prologue presents us with an annoying couple and their equally unappealing offspring in a minivan heading toward Pine Mountain. The wife is determined to find an answer to a question she has pondered for eleven years. She persuades her husband to make one last try to unravel the riddle of what the stone man said. They stop at the stone man's home, which is now being cleaned up in preparation for sale, and they ask the stone man's son if he knows what his father meant when he said, "Remember the stone."
Of course, the son doesn't have a clue what this ditsy woman is talking about, so Shannon (female half of the annoying couple), says:
"But there's something more, let me explain. ... It was eleven years ago, right here..." and Shannon began to strip away the varnish of time.
Now, if that hackneyed phrasing and corny setup isn't enough to make you gag, by all means, read on. And you'll experience Shannon's narrative of things she couldn't possibly have known because she wasn't there for the conversations that took place (and, since this novel just oozes dialogue, there were lots of conversations). Nor was she privy to the inner thoughts of the other characters. And, oddly enough, her own character, who figures into the tale, is one of the few characters whose inner thoughts are seldom even mentioned.
So, we have a ditsy narrator turned omniscient. And, as omniscient narrator, she manages to throw in all manner of hot topics like parents neglecting their children because they are more interested in pursuing material things than in nurturing their offspring; or parents abusing their children; or parents not understanding their children; or parents not spending quality time with their children; or kids being violent because they're unloved; or the importance of living for the moment and following your dreams. In short (and I know I haven't been short, so I'll cut to the finish very soon), Mooney regurgitates all the sappy stuff you tend (if you're as unfortunate as I) to receive in those annoying e-mails that try to guilt you into forwarding dreadful chain letters to people to prove that you care and that you've learned to live in the moment.
Gag me with a stick! It's bad enough in spam. I certainly can't recommend it in a novel. But don't just take my word for it, you can see what you think of this book yourself by logging onto http://www.championpress.com/readpearls.htm. There you'll find a few short reviews that lavish praise on the book.
You can also read the prologue – which is as far as I would have gotten had I not been determined to review the book.
If you're a real glutton for punishment, you can even read Chapter 1 on the site. Then, if for some reason you should decide to obtain a copy of the book to read through to its bitter end, you can even take advantage of the reading guide Champion Press' site offers. (Not surprisingly, there are typographical errors on the short reading guide, too.)
Champion Press, the publisher of The Pearls of the Stone Man, appears to focus primarily on lifestyle/parenting, cooking, and home schooling publications. I certainly hope for the sake of home schoolers everywhere that they do a better job of editing those materials than they did with The Pearls of the Stone Man.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.