Manipulation and Good Writing; a Review of ROCK ISLAND LINE by David Rhodes

The more skill a writer has, the better he/she is able to manipulate an intended audience. This is a given. Creating personality, place, time, and event are all tools to manipulate readers so they can believe the action of characters and the outcome of stories.

David Rhodes is a master of manipulation. His book Rock Island Line (http://milkweed.org/  2008) carefully pulls the reader into the sad world of his main character, July Montgomery, then moves us with a very believable story of survival and growth. His descriptions of place and time are beautiful – melodic in the telling and memorable in effect. One place contrasts with another as emotions build upon themselves. July, who is a young child in the country when we first meet him, first loses his grandmother to age, then his parents to a car accident. We know how important these people are in his life as they have been important to us. Rhodes carefully introduced each to his audience and provided full summaries of their lives. We then read with amazement when July, at age 10, runs away from his aunt who has come to take care of him, to the city of Philadelphia. He then lives beneath the subway tunnels, is befriended by a master crook, reads through his teenage years, meets an amazing young woman, then moves back to his original home in the country to settle down with her. Throughout it all we are kept in tune with July’s thoughts and we learn from them.

We learn what it means to lose everything, to be alone, to value beauty, to fear, to hunger, to trust and ultimately to love. We learn to believe July Montgomery will succeed despite having all the odds against him. And because of this belief, we also learn joy.

Unfortunately, it is exactly at this point that Rhodes’ skills of manipulation fail. He pushes the story too far.

It would be unfair for me to tell you the ending, but the unforeseen events that once again change July’s life are so contrived they take the book into a completely different genre and destroy the credibility of the very lessons that had been so masterfully taught. The events become so shocking that readers will want to throw the book across the room or give it a terrible review. But that would be too easy.

Rock Island Line is well worth reading. Writing that is so good that readers are drawn through a book page by page with baited breath is worth celebrating. Rhodes’ understanding of the power of manipulation and having the skill to use it in his writing is praiseworthy. Overusing it, like overusing so many other powers, runs the risk of turning something beautiful into something crass.