Virginia Reeves

"We are born with some things in our veins, coal for my father and farming for Marie's and a deep electrical current for me."

Work Like Any Other is a quiet novel which tells the story of Roscoe T. Martin, a talented man in 1920's Alabama whose passion and calling was working as an electrician for Alabama Power. When Martin's father-in-law dies, his wife, Marie, presses him to move to her childhood farm. Having neither the skills nor interest for farming, Martin is adrift until he decides to bring electricity to the farm -- resulting in tragedy (the reader is purposefully left to decide how much Martin is actually to blame).

The first 2/3ds of the novel was deeply moving. I found myself asking questions about one's purpose in life, what we owe our family members, and the nature of crime and punishment. Unfortunately, after that point, for me the book just started to fizzle. While this is certainly a book that is more on the "introspective" side of the scale than "action packed" I kept waiting for *something* more to happen. Frankly, I just started to lose interest.

3 stars.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.… (altro)

This is a work of historical fiction, set in the south in the mid 1920s Before the story has begun we are already aware there will be a death on this land and that Roscoe Martin will be jailed for it. The story flashes back and forth between the time leading up to that death and jail sentence, to the time Roscoe is currently serving out his sentence and then continues past his eventual release. He and his wife Marie were not exactly the happiest married couple you will ever encounter though they did both try to make things work in their own way up until his jail time when Marie totally abandoned him. Roscoe had never actually wanted to be a farmer and his resentment of that was often felt by his wife and son. This was a tragic story of the breakdown of not only a marriage but ultimately a family.
I enjoyed the story but I could have done without the excessive descriptions of wires, coils transformers and how electricity works.

I received an advance copy for review… (altro)

The core of this novel is Roscoe's time in prison and how he handles it - the inner struggle with guilt and loss as well a the outward struggle with the prison regime and its characters. We're also given some insight into Martin's life before prison interwoven with his prison life, but not that much and mainly as a supporting narrative cum commentary. We also have a short but emotionally powerful redemption story folllowing his release but we know too little of the main characters involved, Martin apart, for it to be truly insightful. Reeves tells her tale well but ultimately it doesn't quite deliver. March 2020… (altro)