Book Review – Perfume River by Robert Olen Butler

About the Book

Robert Quinlan and his wife Darla teach at Florida State University. Their marriage, forged in the fervor of anti-Vietnam-war protests, now bears the fractures of time, with the couple trapped in an existence of morning coffee, solitary jogging and separate offices.

For Robert and Darla, the cracks remain below the surface, whereas the divisions in Robert’s own family are more apparent: he has almost no relationship with his brother Jimmy, who became estranged from the family as the Vietnam War intensified.

William Quinlan, Robert and Jimmy’s father, a veteran of World War II, is coming to the end of his life, and aftershocks of war ripple across all their lives once again when Jimmy refuses to appear at his father’s bedside.

And a disturbed homeless man whom Robert at first takes to be a fellow Vietnam veteran turns out to have a devastating impact not just on Robert, but on his entire family.

Format: Paperback (256 pages) Publisher: No Exit Press
Publication date: 27th October 2016 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

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My Review

Perfume River is one of the books by Robert Olen Butler I’ve chosen to be part of my Backlist Burrow reading challenge in which I’m setting out to read two books from the backlists of six authors whose books I’ve enjoyed. The other book by Robert Olen Butler I plan to read is A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain.

The Vietnam War provides the backdrop to Perfume River and it has cast a shadow over the lives of all the book’s characters.

Robert signed up to serve in Vietnam, believing this was what his father, a veteran of World War II, wanted. The refusal of Robert’s brother, Jimmy, to do the same has caused a rift that has never been healed.

Although assigned a non-operational role in Vietnam, Robert’s part in an incident which brought him unexpectedly face-to-face with the human cost of war has haunted him. It’s a memory he’s tried to suppress but which periodically rises unbidden to the surface. ‘But he still thinks: I was not meant to be here. I was not meant to live this life I’ve led. I was meant to die long ago. Long long ago.’ It’s a secret he’s felt unable to share with anyone, including his wife, Darla, especially since she was violently opposed to the Vietnam War – and believed he was too. Unbeknownst to him, he has misinterpreted her feelings about his involvement.

The author deftly sketches a portrait of a marriage which has staled but not decayed beyond repair. Robert and Darla lead largely separate lives, each engrossed in their own area of academic interest, working in their separate studies on different floors of their house. Yet perhaps the emotional distance is not so great than it cannot be bridged.

Perfume River is a story of misunderstandings and of seeking to live up to the expectations of others – or rather what you believe are the expectations of others. There are no chapter breaks and the book moves seamlessly between different points of view, but I was drawn into the lives of the characters and the consequences of the choices they’ve made.

In three words: Perceptive, acutely-observed, eloquent
Try something similar: The Slowworm’s Song by Andew Miller

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About the Author

Robert Olen Butler is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, and sixteen other novels including Hell, A Small Hotel, Perfume River, and the Christopher Marlowe Cobb series. He is also the author of six short story collections and a book on the creative process, From Where You Dream. He has twice won a National Magazine Award in Fiction and received the 2013 F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. He teaches creative writing at Florida State University.

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