Melissa, by Dr. Jonathan Taylor
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Melissa, by Dr. Jonathan Taylor
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Shortlisted for the 2016 East Midland Book Awards Melissa is set in 1999-2000. At roughly 2pm on 9th June 1999, on a small street in Hanford, Stoke-on-Trent, a young girl dies of leukaemia; at almost the same moment, everyone on the street experiences the same musical hallucination. The novel is about this death and accompanying phenomenon - and about their after-effects, as the girl's family gradually disintegrates over the following year.
Melissa, by Dr. Jonathan Taylor- Amazon Sales Rank: #8499922 in Books
- Published on: 2015-09-15
- Original language: English
- Dimensions: 7.80" h x .75" w x .67" l, .84 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 272 pages
Review Melissa avoids the sensational, sentimental, and over-emotional traps and offers an unblinkered view of a family trying to make sense of tragedy. So far, it's rather like Carys Bray's A Song For Issy Bradley, but whereas the Bradleys for all their differing opinions behave as a family, the Combs lack that cohesion and act as individuals, each filled with frustration, anger and grief. Melissa is definitely a darker yet quirkier read. Our Book Reviews This is an impressive novel, which successfully captures a wide range of themes and ideas. To me, while reading Melissa, I imagined the central story of the hallucination as the trunk of a tree while the aftermath on individual characters were like branches, heading off in different directions but always coming back to the central idea. One of the reviews from the back cover of the book calls Melissa 'an intricate kaleidoscope of a novel' and I totally agree. This really is a must read, and deserves lots of readers. Writer's Little Helper I thought Melissa was an intriguing, at times heartbreaking, read. It was at times scathing about modern life, at times brave about the human condition. It's well worth a read, enjoyable and engaging. Books from Basford Jonathan Taylor's important novel Melissa explores what happens when these stages do not succeed one another in a linear fashion, and when some stages (particularly acceptance) do not occur at all. Adopting an intricate structure inspired by the theme and variation technique in classical music composition, and apparently inspired by true events surrounding a collective musical hallucination, Melissa rejects the standard Hollywood narrative of adversity leading to joy. -- Conor Farrington The Lancet
About the Author Jonathan Taylor is author of the novel Entertaining Strangers (Salt, 2012), and the memoir Take Me Home (Granta Books, 2007). He is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at De Montfort University, and co-director of arts organisation and small publisher Crystal Clear Creators (www.crystalclearcreators.org.uk). He is editor of Overheard, an anthology of short stories for reading aloud (Salt, 2012).
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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Enthralling Drama Circling Music, Death, Physics and More! By Glenda According to the author, this book is based on true events...perhaps... There are other reportings of strange noises coming out of the sky around the world. However I didn't take the time to research further...Whether based upon true events or not, the story presented is quite extraordinary--even strange. Yet what happens following the phenomenon is not unique--sad, but true.You see, a young girl, Melissa, died after a long, terrible fight against the cancer that had invaded her tiny 7-year-old body. Immediately after she died, neighbors heard strange noises coming from what seemed to be outside, coming from the sky. There were all types of descriptions--whether each heard something different or whether they used different words to try to describe it--there were no neighbors in the community who did not hear the noises and were compelled to go outside. That screeching noise evolved into some soothing music that nobody could identify...All of the neighbors said they felt a peace, good feelings when the music started--some even hugging each other, smiling and loving the people in the community, who were previously not close friends. Everybody at home that day had left their homes and joined others outside. All except the Comb family, who heard nothing, and who stayed in their home, grieving, during the entire time period.As with many individuals who are caught in some sort of celebrity, soon all types of spectators and news staff were crowding into the neighborhood. I'm not going to go into that except to say that it was very hard on the grieving family to have that kind of turmoil that not even the police could eliminate. So it was natural that the grieving period of the family continued much longer than could normally be expected...perhaps... Readers do not really learn that from the book.Those who came wanted, of course, to understand the phenomenon and learn what caused it. Me? I thought it was supernatural. You know, the heavens crying out over the pain of the child... Perhaps...but that's really not what the book is about...The parents and a step-sister to Melissa are the survivors. What happens to them is really the story.... Initially, they could not help but be caught up in the search for an explanation. Finally, they were trying to identify the music..While that investigation was going on, there were unsettling happenings in the Comb's household. Mr. Comb had felt that some of Melissa's favorite music should be played during her funeral... Finally he decided he should be the one... A little past history is important at this time. Mr. Comb had been called a musical child prodigy when he was very young, but when he arrived in his teens and his skills were not expanding, he was no longer called a genius. His interest in practicing fell as he grew older and soon all he did was listen to his daughter play for he and Melissa... On the day of the funeral, after not even opening the piano and playing over the selections after not having played for many years, he was struck "dumb" and unable to move his hands beyond the beginning notes nor to speak...Thereafter he kept the piano locked and refused to have Serena play... He also quit his job and sat in front of the television, sometimes even when it was not turned on.Serena was having her own grieving problems. She and Melissa had spent hours together, especially with Melissa listening to her playing the piano. Now being cut off from the piano intensified her loss and memories of Melissa. Especially when she received a note about Melissa's death, stating that her death was Serena's fault.An interesting side plot was Serena's time in school and with her best friend, together with Serena's crush on the Physics teacher... which leads readers into a Physics lesson on entrophy. Later Serena brings the possible relationship of music to the laws of thermodynamics... There is a depth of intellectual stimulation you do not normally find in fiction. Let me assure you, however, that the author has expertly incorporated both principles from physics together with music appreciation in a totally understandable and exciting fashion. It did not, however, explain the phenomena of the music that suddenly came out of the sky in Spark Close. It remained a mystery, but one unsolved that didn't bother me.From this reader's perspective, it is amazing to say, that the phenomena was secondary to the drama that erupted because of it. There is much to ponder and consider over and over as a result of reading the book. Do humans need something startling to happen to us in order to find the person we really are? Or, like those who came and stared at the places, the homes, where the phenomena occurred, are we willing to sit on the sidelines and watch to see what happens? A perplexing, thought-providing book that, I think, won't be for everybody. Classical music, in particular, plays a significant role in the novel. On the other hand, if you'd like to learn more about classical, this is an exciting way to do it by merging the words with the music itself...which I did with many of the pieces...If this review sounds the least bit intriguing, I urge you to check this quite extraordinary novel out! I was enthralled with the unique circumstances and characters! Highly recommended...GABixlerReviewsPaperback provided for Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Stunning By Welsh Annie Every now and then, I sit at my keyboard to write a review and feel as if it's something I've never done before. To match a book that has swept me away and moved me deeply, I feel like I have to step things up a little, make my insights more meaningful, my language a little more carefully chosen, and I become incapable of writing anything at all. So I'm going to keep things simple - I found this book absolutely stunning, and I'm going to concentrate on how it made me feel.There are moments within this book - often linked with intense grief - that I think will remain with me for ever, wonderful moments that moved me to tears. There's a vividly described scene at Melissa's funeral where her father Harold sits with his hands poised over the piano - Melissa's mother Rose trying to understand a specialist's complex explanation of Melissa's illness and the prognosis - another where an argument takes place over the appropriate person to be given the leg of the turkey at dinner - and yet another where two sit side-by-side on a piano stool. In fact, this book overflows with wonderful images - spiders, an illuminated planetarium, the cascade of a spilled bag of oranges, a blank television screen, the shared smile of two co-workers.This is a book with a vast cast of characters in the many and varied residents of Spark Close, every one detailed to an amazing degree, every one entirely real, living and breathing. The phenomenon with which the book opens introduces them all, as they congregate in the street, driven there by their shared experience - everyone, that is, except Melissa's family, who at the moment of her death are isolated by their grief. But I don't want to over-emphasise that grief - although it's the emotion on which the story turns, there are also moments of fun, of real joy, of incidents at which you smile and cringe, and other points where I actually laughed out loud. I said I wasn't going to describe the many characters, but I must mention Kirsten, an absolute tour-de-force - perfectly drawn, probably the one resident you really wouldn't want living next door, but totally mesmerising, both desperately sad and very funny.The way this book is constructed is complex and fascinating - the central part a series of vignettes ("variations" in a musical context) focusing on members of Melissa's immediate family, each one with a musical ebb and flow of its own. The sense of music is so strong that you feel the changes in tempo, volume and mood - the passages that reflect and repeat a theme, the key changes that startle you a little, the occasional pieces played fortissimo, the moments of diminuendo. There are whole chunks of this book that really shouldn't work - the documentary style at its start, the long passages explaining the impact of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, the explanation of entropy in thermodynamics - but they most emphatically do.I won't pretend that I didn't find this book a challenge at times - it's not the easiest of reads for a whole range of reasons, both intellectual and emotional - but once I found myself caught up in its rhythm I just couldn't set it aside. And when I finished reading the simply wonderful coda - the "afterwards" - I had an immense smile on my face and a feeling of absolute satisfaction. Do give it a try.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A lot of the story actually read like a documentary more than a novel which certainly gave ... By sarah hardy Melissa is very different to the usual sort of books I would normally go for but the book description sounded really intriguing.A lot of the story actually read like a documentary more than a novel which certainly gave the whole novel a unique feel to it.Knowing the story was based round the death of a child, I didn't know if I would find some parts quite upsetting. There are some heart wrenching moments, especially where Harry, Melissa's dad is concerned.Harry is really knocked sideways by his daughters death and it certainly seems to affect him more than the rest of the family. I don't think anyone knows how they would cope with the loss of a loved one, especially a child, but Harry literally seems to be unravelling the further into the novel the reader gets.Melissa's death doesn't just affect the immediate family, due to the abnormalities that seem to occur when Melissa dies, the whole street is affected in one way or another.Melissa is certainly not your straight forward novel. The author has created something that looks more into the complexity of what occurs after death. Bordering on the comic side in parts, Melissa is certainly not your everyday type of read but one that will certainly open your mind.
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