Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez
“The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships”
By Ali Bryan
Henry Holt Books $27.99 304 pages
The acoustics in your car aren’t the best there is, but they’ll do.
Who need fancy equipment, a stage, or even a microphone when you’re belting out songs for an audience of a few passengers or for just yourself? Who even needs to know the right words? In your car, you’re singing for fun or for joy, you’re not, as in the new novel “The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships” by Ali Bryan, singing for your sanity.
Dale Jepson should’ve been there.
This was supposed to be his year. He was supposed to sing his heart out and win the karaoke contest in the small town of Crow Valley, but that would never happen. Dale was a firefighter and he died last year, helping someone else.
Roxanne, Dale’s widow, couldn’t shake the idea that Dale was coming back. She couldn’t raise her boys alone. She couldn’t fix the deck or mow the lawn. In the meantime, she kept Dale’s ashes in a thermos, and she talked to them all the time.
Molly Chivers felt responsible for Dale’s death, but she didn’t dare say it out loud. She said she ran out of gas and he died bringing her more – but she lied. She didn’t run out of gas, she just said she did and she wasn’t sure why. Mothering four rambunctious boys was more than she could take. Motherhood sucked her life away.
Over at the Crow Valley Correctional Institution, Officer Val Blanchard wondered how the karaoke competition was going. Her husband, Brett, was supposed to sing and Val wasn’t sure if she cared or not. He had an affair awhile back, and Val wasn’t sure if she wanted her marriage anymore, either. What she really cared about was finding another drink.
She also thought too much about Marcel, one of the inmates at the Institution. He knew it, too, but he was more interested in watching his captors, because the minute Val or someone else looked away, he was going to run…
Here’s the best advice you could get, regarding the story inside “The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships”: don’t overthink it. Enjoy the characters and the situations in which they’ve found themselves. Fall in love with one or two of them. Look for the spit-out-your-drink, clever bon mots that author Ali Bryan sneaks into random scenes. Just don’t overthink the plot.
If you do, you might find yourself a bit overwhelmed. There’s a lot going on inside this novel and while that’s not an unpleasant thing, it can make you wonder if there’s ever going to be a point to this tornado-like madness. There is, and it arrives, but in bits and pieces until everything comes into focus. This is a book that takes patience.
You won’t be sorry if you give it that. The loose-ends tie up nicely, eventually, and don’t be surprised if at least one of them takes your breath away. Don’t be surprised, either, if you end up loving “The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships, or that you’ll sing its praises.
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