The Train of Small Mercies

August 29, 2011
Set in June 1968, Rowell’s first novel revolves around the solemn train journey that brought the body of slain Sen. Robert Kennedy from Penn Station to Washington, D.C., for burial. Of the many people who gathered along the way to watch the train pass (famously captured by photographer Paul Fusco), Rowell focuses on a handful of stories. Following long tradition and in his father’s footsteps, Lionel Chase reports for his first day’s work as a Pullman porter on the funeral train itself; Irish nanny Maeve McDerdon has come to D.C. to interview for a position with Ethel Kennedy, and with the loss of that opportunity finds herself adrift; Delores King is determined to see the train pass, but to do so she must deceive Arch, her disapproving husband; fifth-grader Michael Colvert is coping with a private trauma of his own; while veteran Jamie West, who recently returned from Vietnam minus a leg, waits for a newspaper reporter who will write a story that may help Jamie heal, or add insult to injury. Though Rowell is a respected journalist, he has a novelist’s eye for the crucial, telling detail. In clean, elegant prose he recreates the lives of individuals mired in one of the most turbulent years of the century.

September 1, 2011

Washington Post editor Rowell locates his journalistic first novel at the intersection between private lives and national events, in this case Robert Kennedy's death.

As the train carries Kennedy's body from New York to D.C., Rowell cuts in and out among a cross section of Americans who live along the route, or in one case are visiting the area. The weakest stories are those about the black characters: a porter assigned to the Kennedy train his first day on the job and a concierge at a quality D.C. hotel who walks the generational line between dignity and servility. Both threads strive for complexity but bear too heavy a stamp of white liberal sympathy. Similarly, the story of an Irish born young woman up for a job as the Kennedys' new nanny is a little too full of charm and blarney to feel realistic. On the other hand, fully believable is the disabled Vietnam vet being interviewed as a hero by a former high-school classmate (never a friend) for the local paper. As tensions and disappointments roil together along with miscommunications, the vet's increasing isolation from his supportive but clueless family is gut-wrenching without being sentimental. So are the ill-fated adventures of a well-meaning middle-class woman sneaking off with her little girl to see the funeral train despite her husband's rabid conservatism. Tension rises as she makes one poor choice after another until tragedy strikes, when readers are sucker-punched by her husband's surprising emotional sensitivity. A more quietly painful plotline concerns a young boy recently "kidnapped" by his divorced father. Forcibly returned to his mother, whom he also loves, the boy plays out his emotional confusion while horsing around with his friends on the train tracks. In contrast, Rowell takes a detached, minimalist approach to depict pot-smoking, angst-ridden suburbanites celebrating their new swimming pool. 

The Kennedy train is a weak link here between plot segments that are stylistically disjointed and lack any deeper thematic connection.

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May 15, 2011

An editor at the Washington Post Magazine, Rowell has an affecting idea for his first novel: he follows six characters whose lives are profoundly touched by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Not surprisingly, this book was inspired by Paul Fusco's moving photo-essay, RFK Funeral Train, and a book trailer will use images from that book. Likely to attract attention; watch.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2011
Journalist Rowell turns to fiction in this closely observed novel that recalls a more innocent time, when a grieving nation put aside politics to collectively mourn fallen senator Robert F. Kennedy. As Kennedy's funeral train makes its way from Penn Station to Washington, D.C., Lionel Chase finds that the first assignment of his summer job as a Pullman porter is on that very train. Vietnam veteran Jamie West, who is dealing with a rough transition from high-school athletic star to amputee, nervously awaits an interview with a local reporter. Irish nanny Maeve McDerdon, in D.C. for an interview with Ethel Kennedy, finds herself contemplating new directions, while fifth-grader Michael Colvert, recently traumatized by an encounter with his estranged father, is intent on seeing Kennedy's coffin. Other arcs in the narrative follow Delores King, who tells one lie after another to her husband so she may slip away to see the train, and the Rupps, whose frivolous attempts to enjoy a pool party give way to more somber moments as the day progresses. An evocative debut that depicts disparate people united by a solemn event.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)