A novel that does too much telling what it's about rather than revealing what it's about (or letting the story tell itself). The theme of the novel is the way in which memory affects us, particularly our memories about family. There is too much discussion of memory itself, however, and the memories (the characters stories) are not compelling enough to support a novl-length piece of fiction.

Book: Hieroglyphics
Author: Jill McCorkle
Rating: 2 Out of 5 Stars

I would like to thank the publisher, Algonquin Books, for providing me with an ARC.

I think this book could have been good, but there was something about it that just didn’t sit well for me. It was hard to follow and there was really no clear concept of time. I normally do enjoy books that follow characters throughout their lives, but the way this one was presented, it was kind of confusing. Plus, it felt like there was a deep disconnect between what was actually happening in the book. It felt like everything was just going through the motions.

Let’s talk about characters. This book follows four point of views: Frank, Shelly, Harvey, and Lil. All of them dealt with some kind of trauma and are struggling to heal from it. We get to experience their fears, concerns, and grief. This should have been a very moving book, but it wasn’t. The characters were all flat and felt repetitive. I honestly had a heard time connecting with them and keeping them straight. With only four characters, remembering everyone should have been a breeze, but it wasn’t. There needs to be more character development and, I don’t know, there just needs to be a reason as to why I should care about them and their troubles. I mean, all of them have had something awful happen to them and, yet, this pain and grief just did not come off the page-which means there was a problem with the plot.

It should come as no surprise that I had a really hard time connecting with the plot. I honestly can’t even tell you what the plot was. It was so messy and confusing. I thought that it was about a couple moving into a house and looking at all of the changes, but I’m not sure. The time jumps made it so difficult to actually keep track of just what was going on. There needs to be a clear understanding of time to the reader or the reader will not be able to connect wit this book.

I guess that what I’m getting at is that I had a hard time connecting with the book. I really wanted to enjoy it, but if I can’t make a connection with a book, then it is going to be a miss for me. I just read Prairie Fever by Michael Parker. Both books are very similar, but I felt like I was able to connect better that Prairie Fever. It’s all about the connection, guys, and if I can’t make that connection, then I’m not going to have a good time reading the book.

So, this book comes out on July 28, 2020. While this wasn’t for me, it may be for you.

Three POVs in this beautifully done story about past, present and the connections they have. I loved how the different POVs went along with the story and how it made everything unfold. I loved the characters and the writing it was so well done. The bonds of family come alive in this one!!

A well researched, empathetically imagined story defeated by its own structure - not the differing points of. view but the devotion to a flashback scheme that almost never gives way to forward momentum. The characters become suffocatingly interior in their reminiscences, and the parallel experiences of young Lil and her husband confusing. I became exhausted by the memory baggage I had to carry as a reader, and ached for an event or two to enliven the backwardness of the narration.

I wish I could have enjoyed this book more but it did not resonate with me. Each character seemed to repeat themselves and their inner narratives offered nothing new or substantive after a while.

The four main protagonists are Lil, Frank, Shelly and Harvey. Lil and Frank are in their 80's and have just moved to Carolina from Massachusetts to be nearer to their daughter Becca. Both were initially united by common tragedy, each having traumatically lost a parent when they were young. Shelly is a single mother and court reporter. Her husband left her and she is raising her seven year old son Harvey alone. She has an older son who is in college. Both Harvey and Shelly are very fearful, especially at night when they think they hear sounds of intruders or, at least for Harvey, ghosts.

Frank used to live in the house that Shelly rents and he is very anxious to look inside and see how much has changed. He also spends a lot of time going to the railroad tracks where his father was killed in a freak accident and meditating on his loss. Lil carefully writes down the events of her daily life in a journal that she has kept for years. She also keeps trinkets, pictures, and notes. She thinks about her mother's awful death in a dance hall fire and wonders what her mother was doing there. Shelly is fearful of losing her job because she inadvertently handed in some doodles and her shopping list along with the court reporting. Jason has filled Harvey's head with ghost tales of headless people, monsters, and even Lizzy Borden.

All of the characters are immersed in their inner dialogues which are often focused on the before and after events that have characterized their lives. While I found this interesting, it was too repetitive. Ms. McCorkle writes beautifully and perhaps this just wasn't the right time for me to be reading this book.

Losing a parent in childhood affects the rest of your life.

Lil has spent her life trying to be the mother that her mother never had time to become. After his father's death, Frank never found anyone to make him the center of attention he always wanted to be. Their losses brought them together and they spent their lives trying to understand them.

Could Jill McCorkle have written this book during the Covid 19 pandemic? Reading it during then was a challenge, but worth it in the end.

Lil and Frank bonded over the fact that they both lost a parent in tragic accidents when they were children. Over the course of their 50 years together, both have lived acutely aware of the holes left by their missing parents and grieve life milestones missed.

“Lil liked to say maybe it was match made in tragedy, but they had built a beautiful and happy life on top of it. The knowledge and experience of tragedy groaned and heaved like an old furnace in the basement— and ultimately, sent waves of warmth that radiated and lit the good parts.” *

After living in Boston for many years, Lil and Frank retire close to their daughter in North Carolina, near the neighborhood where Frank lived when his father was alive.
Frank is focused on his childhood home and the things he left behind in the root cellar that connect him to the past.
Meanwhile, Lil spends her time gathering letters and diary entries from all the decades of her life to share her story with complete honesty, including things her children don’t know, much to Frank’s chagrin.
Frank visits his childhood home where a single mother named Shelley now lives with her son Harvey. He returns several times to ask if he can see inside his former home, leading Shelley to confront memories about her own family, which are far less fond.
Hieroglyphics examines every aspect of family, as a child and then as a parent: the mystery, the familiarity, the legacy we hope to leave, the wisdom we collect.

“As parents we pack your bags and strap them to your little backs before you are even old enough to carry them, and then you have to spend the rest of your life unpacking and figuring it all out. Sometimes, I feel I can see it all spread out in front of me—dates and patterns, a clear path emerging, the design, the words that might define me, carved in stone.” *

The writing is fantastic and the characters are fully realized, each with a unique voice that adds another layer to examine.
I recommend this book to readers who appreciate literary fiction that explores the complicated bonds of family.

Thanks to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Hieroglyphics is scheduled for release on July 28, 2020.

I'm finding it hard to describe this book. It moved me, not by its particular characters or their stories, but by pointing out to me the threads of our lives and our own memories. Beautiful writing, of course, as expected from McCorkle. I was moved in the direction, (being of a like age) of setting my own hieroglyphics down, imagining how others might interpret these memories as close to their own.
It leaves you thinking for sure, and having read most of Jill McCorkle's work over the years, I'd say this is in a vein with her other superb observations from coming-of-age to getting-on-with-it, to looking at the past and resolving it. Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy.

I was excited to receive this as I haven’t read Jill McCorkle before; I found myself struggling to get through this one. Just not for me.

I was hopeful for this one but it fell flat. I’ve loved her other novels so maybe this one is just not fir me.

It is always a treat to read a book by Jill McCorkle. She writes poetically, and her words and sentences resonate with me. One of the most special writers of our time.

Hieroglyphics beautifully examines connections of the past and their effect on the present through three seemingly different perspectives. Frank and Lil, married for over fifty years, have relocated in their "golden years" to North Carolina ostensibly to be near their daughter, moving to the same facility Jill McCorkle used in Life After Life, her previous novel. Over 70 years before, Frank at age 10 had been uprooted and relocated to the very same town as a result of a fatal train crash, one based in history. Obsessed with gaining access to the house he lived in during that time, he makes haunting visits, upsetting for various reasons Shelley and Harvey, a single mother and her imaginative son, the house's current occupants. As with her previous book, McCorkle fleshes out the past of the two elder characters in ways that are truly original, and meanwhile has set a course for Shelley, proving that similarities abound in the human condition that spans decades. The plot, spun out via combinations of first and third person narratives, contains surprises and unexpected revelations. Highly recommended.

Family and memory are shaped and reshaped by each other in this warm, attentive, and ultimately hopeful exploration of childhood and parenthood, through the pasts and presents of Lil, Frank, and Shelley.

Jill McCorkle's books have always left me feeling as though I have been given a gift by a very wise woman. This book struck many chords and has left me with much to ponder

I am having a problem expressing my feelings about this novel. It is beautifully written, a study in memory, and the return to those fragile ephemeral wisps before one dies. It is a study of the connections between the past and the present.

The book explores the past memories of Frank and Lil, and the present of Shelly. What memories do we leave our children? Do they care? What happens when your life is changed by an event that has become an icon of destruction?

I’m thinking, exploring my own memories and finding that this was a trigger for personal exploration. .

Thank you Netgalley for this fascinating exercise in memory.