Tally-Yaaaaaaaawwwnnnnnnn...
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Author: Rita Mae Brown
Title: The Hunt Ball Genre: mystery Rita Mae Brown burst on the scene some thirty years ago, her literary voice angry and strident. Rubyfruit Jungle, The Hand that Cradles the Rock, and A Plain Brown Rapper shouted loud her pride and frustration; giving her an honored place as one of America's leading voices for feminists in general and lesbians in specific. She followed those opening salvos with carefully-wrought fiction that continued to feature the themes of strong women - the Hunsenmeier trilogy (Six of One, Bingo, Loose Lips) for instance, as well as an insider's view of the professional women's tennis circuit in Sudden Death and a bittersweet memoir of fin de siecle New Orleans, Southern Discomfort. Brown fashioned a sterling reputation as a powerful voice for women and a talented, versatile author. So what's happened to Rita Mae Brown? Her recent fiction is mainly pet-detective novels in the Mrs. Murphy series that Brown "co-authors" with her cat, Sneaky Pie, a little soft-core porn (Alma Mater), and a second, watered-down "detective" series featuring a fox-hunting club. The Hunt Ball is the fourth book in that latter series, which features "Sister" Jane Arnold and the rest of her genteel friends and neighbors as they gallop across the fields and forests of central Virginia in the pursuit of Reynard. It's fall in central Virginia, and fox-hunting season is upon us. Apparently, protest season has arrived simultaneously, for the more "progressive" students of the exclusive Custis Hall, a local finishing school for wealthy young ladies, have picketed to raise awareness of the history of slavery in the area and specifically of the founders of the school. Oh, and it must be murder season, too - at a traditional Hallowe'en event, the head of development for Custis Hall is discovered murdered. Since the administration and several of the students are heavily involved in the local foxhunt scene, "Sister" Jane Arnold (master of the hunt) gets - natch - involved, if only peripherally. It's a small town, and everyone knows everyone anyway.
Another body turns up later, and a third person gets killed, and a conspiracy and multiple murders are uncovered by the last reel. But that's all apparently unimportant, for all the characters - human and non-human - spend precious little time wondering about the dead and an incredible amount of time galloping about the woods chasing dogs who are chasing a fox - sometimes two foxes. And then there's the end-of-season hunt ball to prepare for. Tally. Ho. As an astonishingly slim mystery tale unfolds,almost no one does a lick of detective work - including the local sheriff (a member of the hunt club himself). Instead, everyone spends beaucoup time braiding the horses' manes, giving candy to the foxes, and gossiping about the other members of the club. Readers are treated to long passages on the traditions and lore of fox-hunting, the responsibilities of the hunters and the hounds, and the etiquette of fox-hunting. Apparently, however, all the many rules of proper conduct are imparted by osmosis - or perhaps one inherits the knowledge by being born south of the Mason-Dixon line, for the clods who "spoil" every hunt are (of course) transplanted Yankees. In The Hunt Ball, Brown expends far more space and energy on explaining the wonders of fox hunting than on any other topic - the book often reads as if it were an extended press release from some organization called the American Fox Hunting Association. Brown also expends far more energy on her adopted role of southern apologist: large portions of the book read like a treatise contracted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, filled with veiled historical revisionism and thinly-disguised anti-Union vitriol (give up, will you? It was 140 years ago!) So little of the book is dedicated to the ostensible mystery that a reader could well be forgiven for forgetting that anyone was ever killed. More time and space are given to the mental processes of the foxes - we meet no fewer than five vulpine characters, all of whom have names - than are given to any investigation. In fact, the sheriff does not appear until the second half of the book, and has but a tiny role. Were the publisher to remove all the extraneous hunting lore and the shameless glorification of the vanished confederacy, this story could have been published using perhaps 10% of the paper and ink. It would have been a waste at that. Recommended only for southern fox hunting fans - all six of you. all content copyright © 2001 to prtesent by scmrak
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