Thursday 9 April 2009

Memoirs Of A Fortune Teller: Gary Turcotte

SOMETIMES YOU'RE BETTER OFF NOT KNOWING YOUR FUTURE

Mary Ann was a traveling fortune teller. She knew everyone's future, but her own. She left this journal with many disturbing readings.


This novel has a central character who has the potential to be very interesting: she's a fortune-teller who can see a person's future when she touches their hands.

Sadly that character wasn't used to great advantage in the few pages that I managed to read. The writing was very wooden, confused and abrupt: while I do like a spare style I also like a book to read as though it's complete, and this one read as though it was no more than an extended synopsis for a larger piece—it's very staccato and bare. And from what I could tell by skimming through it (the back cover copy is quoted in full above, and as you can see it provided me with very little information) this book has very little in the way of plot: it appears to be nothing more than a collection of anecdotes which centre around this particular fortune-teller.

This was a very disappointing book, and I only read eight pages of its text before I'd found my full quota of problems with it.

2 comments:

Barb said...

That is a pity. There was a lot of potential in the idea. The world of this character could be so rich and full.

Jane Smith said...

You're right, Barb, it's a big shame.

Just remember: there's no copyright on ideas.