Customer Reviews

A Ship Made Of Paper: A Novel

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I would give it 4.5 stars if I could.

I've just finished reading this book and I've got to say that this is one of the best books I've read this year. Although this book is supposed to center around the complicated problems that an interracial affair may face, I think this book is more about the consequences of infidelity, regardless of race.

Scott Spencer is an excellent story teller and a extremely good writer who has the ability to give emotion through his words without being too wordy or stiff. Even the love scenes within the novel can be read without cringing. Usually I'm cautious when it comes to fiction about interracial/cross cultural relationships because they always seem to fall into the same stereotypical and unrealistic traps that plague most of these types of stories and even though some people felt this book to be stereotypial, I didn't think this was the case at all. I think the author's portrayals of certain characters were meant only for those characters and not meant to paint broad stereotypical images of every member of that character's race.

Black authors are usually the only ones who seem willing to write stories on interracial topics and I was curious to see a white male author's point of view. I thought Scott Spencer did a terrific job even though I wasn't really sure why Daniel loved/obsessed over Iris so much especially since he left New York because he was scared of black people (did he love her because she represented everything he wanted in a woman, or did he admire black culture so much and just wanted a part of it for himself, or did he just simply love her without explanation?). I found Scott Spencer's writing to be poetic, honest and open. The story was interesting and I am eager to read his other books because I liked this novel so much.

Hollywood has already turned two of his novels into movies (Endless Love and Walking the Dead) and I would love to see this novel on the big screen as well.

This is my first Spencer book and although I'm coming late to the hype, I just have to comment. I enjoyed this book if for no other reason than it kept me reading. I tried to be open-minded and constantly reminded myself that it was a work of fiction, however, as a black woman I couldn't help feeling at times like I got slapped. First, I was never convinced that Daniel was in love with Iris (this was not a love story). Second, there were so many stereotypes in this book I started to predict them before the passages appeared. And finally, black women are once again portrayed as empty, machine-like sexual beings.

What could have been an outstanding love story was instead a typical account of what most people probably believe a relationship between a white man and black woman would amount to.

I agree with many reviewers that the writing was good in part but wasted on unlikeable characters, a weak romance and unpleasant stereotypes (why are all the young black male characters violent, why doesn't the devoted mother get counseling for a 5 yr old who left a babysitter needing 20+ stitches and shot at another kid, why does the caring stepfather let these kids play together unsupervised?)

And I think there was a glaring error in the very first sentence that foreshadows a critical scene when it says Kate has to leave the party to relieve the daughter's babysitter because they took the daughter with them to the party.

A Ship Made of Paper works as kind of a riveting, emotional page-turner. This is rear for a piece of literary fiction, which can usually be easily put down, as much as I like the "genre." Some of the dealings with race are clumsy, and the plot turns push the boundries of plausibility, but Spencer also demonstrates real skill jumping in and out of his various characters' perspectives. Ultimately, it's just a terribly entertaining read.

PS
Don't read the Publisher's Weekly review. They give away too much.

A Ship Made of Paper is an excellent rendering of the deep morass two married people can sink into when they get involved in a love affair. Daniel isn't legally married, but he is in a committed relationship with another woman and her child. He is smitten with a black married woman, Iris, that he meets while taking the child to a day care center, and the relationship soon develops. Iris's husband, Hampton, is a cold, aloof banker who is consumed with feelings about race and discrimination.

Author Spencer does a good job of showing the difficulties of such a relationship, how they eventually cause anguish for those involved and those they live with. Can anything good come from infidelity? The question is asked not from a standpoint of morality, but from the reference point of psychological stress, and the effect such a relationship ultimately has on the physical, mental, social, and economic life of those touched by the event. Spencer deals with these issues. His characters are all decent people who perhaps have made unfortunate choices. Daniel's mate, Kate, can be shrewish, and Iris's husband is definitely not the romantic sort. Kate says frequently that Daniel is basically a decent man who has gone astray.

But perhaps we might question Spencer's characterization of this foursome. His attribution of flaws to the victimized spouses make it somewhat easier to elicit a few drops of sympathy for the wayward characters, who seem to really have no psychological deficits other than that they are unfaithful. Sure Daniel is passive, and lacks ambition, but Kate has no difficulty with this. How would this tale have spun out if the two victimized people had been a bit less flawed?

All in all SP does a good job of portraying the turmoil and destruction to relationships caused by an extramarital affair. Does everything work out in the end? That you will have to find out for yourself.

I gave this book a 2 because the writing is excellent. However, the characters are all unlikeable. They act irresponsibly and disrespectfully and none of them seems to learn anything. The whole race thing seems disassociated. Daniel and Iris are not torn apart because of color. They're torn apart because they are in committed relationships with other people and worse, kids are involved. I disagree with some of the other reviewers that the ending is unsatisfying; there is no ending. What about Hampton? Will their son improve or become a serial killer? Is Iris pregnant and why would that be a good thing at that point? Will Kate get on with her life and move back to NYC already? It doesn't have to be tied up in a neat little package, but give me something.

Not a word wasted, this is a brilliantly crafted novel from every aspect.Absolutely beautiful prose, deep, almost mystical character development and well plotted, but all in an effortless style that makes this book true literary art. I've just finished a number of best selling and well reviewed fiction books for 2004, and among all of them, this book is a standout because of not only the author's vast talent, but the maturity of his voice as a writer and observer of humanity. There is no neat ending, and there is no need for one, not because the author is aiming for tragedy as much as documenting a believable reality for the ficitonal world he has constructed. The beauty is that it all rings true and is a riveting read from start to finish.

I loved this book! I felt it was a magnificent exploration of race, gender, and forbidden love. I hated the character Kate from the first moment she appeared on the page and I felt sympathy for Daniel who had to raise her child and endure her drunken rages. His forbidden relationship with Iris grows out of their mutual emotional bankruptcy. His whiteness and her blackness seems to disappear after the first half of the novel as they grown closer. I would suggest this novel to anyone who love to read about the controversial and the forbidden.

The writing itself is concise. I never felt there were any useless sentences. I hope that he decides to write a sequel. I want to know what becomes of them.

A Ship Made of Paper is a stunning account of love, passion and disaster. The story beautifully and harshly depicts the complexity of relationships. My heart raced at each intimate snapshot of Iris and Daniel the night of the October storm. Facinating details, harsh realities and somber outcomes. This is the real thing. Spencer reaches places in your heart other writers rarely have, and exposes it's tender underbelly that breaks so easily.

The Tin Man once said "Now I know I have a heart, because it's breaking". A Ship Made of Paper makes you realize if you've never loved like this, then it's a waste of a heart. Brilliant.

After all the hype and praise I read about this book, I had high expectations. Generally speaking, Im a fan of Scott Spencer and have enjoyed his work immensly in the past. Its not that this is an awful book, so to speak, it has its merit and I made my way through it fairly quickly. The problem, I think, is that it never really connects with the audience...the characters are largely unlikable, unsympathetic, and unconvincing, and I never quite believed their all consuming "passion" for each other to the point that was needed to really get into the story. WHile I applaud Scott for addressing the issue of interracial romance, I agree that certain elements of the story and the characters felt uncomfortably like racism on the part of the author. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that this wasnt his intention, but in particular his portrayal of black males struck me as stereotypical and racist. Not only is Iris's husband an angry, distant jerk, but more disturbingly, her preschool age son is described as an emerging sociopath, beating up and brandishing guns in the faces of his white playmates with no remorse. And Iris is a confusing and undefined character herself, its almost impossible for the audience to get a handle on her. Additionally, her sense of discomfort with her race bothered me in terms of what the author was getting at. IN all fairness, the white characters do not fair that much better: Daniel is wimpy, selfish and unlikable, for the most part, and Kate is a bitter, acid-tongued lush (except that unlike most characters written in this style, she doesnt even at least have the attribute of getting any truly funny wisecracks in). Mostly, the Greek tragedy-styled ending annoyed me......Spencer was able to pull off such events in his earlier (better) novels Endless Love and Waking the Dead, but it was convincing in those cases because both novels had a trippy, dream like feel that lent itself better to improbable events, and contained characters the audience could connect with and care about. In his defense, Spencer hasnt lost his tremendous gift with metaphors and language, or his unique ability to write an exhilerating yet not trashy sex scene, its just a shame he didnt have stronger base material to work with here.