Lark & Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips

I know that this book was already reviewed, but it was a book I really wanted to read, and honestly, I need the credit. I have not been keeping up very well with my book a week, partly because I am also reading A Tale of Two Cities on Daily Lit, and listening to Anna Karenina at the office — finally catching up on my high school summer reading lists.

This book was a challenge at first. Like so many other books I’ve read lately the narrator shifts for each section or chapter. This technique can keep the story moving in an even flow; or it can add confusion, if the narrator returns to discuss an event the previous narrator covered. This seemed to happen a lot, and, to add to that, the narrators switched between the present and the past sometimes unexpectedly. Corporal Robert Leavitt’s story takes place in Korea in 1950, while the story of his son and family is told across the same span of calendar days nine years later in West Virginia. It sounds a little confusing, and it is, but not as confusing (chronology-wise) as The Time Traveler’s Wife.

In 1950, Corporal Robert Leavitt meets Lola, and, in the midst of their heated affair, she becomes pregnant. They marry, and he heads off to war. He is heading up a bedraggled battalion when he is shot by his own troops. His narration, which chronicles his final days, is moving, and filled with magic and even hope.

By 1959, Lola is just a strong memory in her sister Nonie’s house. Nonie has been left with two reminders of Lola, her children Lark and Termite. Lark is seventeen, but has taken on the responsibility of secretarial school so that she can provide her brother Termite with a permanent home. Termite cannot walk or talk, and can barely see. But his acute senses and unnerving ability to understand his circumstances make for the most moving and beautiful writing in the book. It was interesting to me that Lark and Nonie’s narration were both first person, while Corporal Leavitt and Termite’s stories are told in the third person. I guess the remove was intentional, but it may also explain why it took longer to warm up to their characters.

There are some truly magical moments in this book. Once I got into the story, I put it down if only to make it last a little longer. I could go on about the many parallels among the character’s lives and their very unique stories, but I won’t. Just read it, and if you stick with it until you get the hang of the telling, you won’t regret it.