Book Review: WHITE VESPA by Kevin Oderman
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White Vespa by Kevin Oderman |
| Etruscan Press, 2012 $16.00 |
Running from one’s problems doesn’t mean they are left behind and oftentimes there are new troubles waiting. In White Vespa, Myles travels to Greece to distance himself from the pain of his disintegrating family only to find himself mired in the complications of two siblings with a dark past.
Kevin Oderman begins his novel by introducing two characters in a state of transition. First, the reader sees main character Myles packing up the life he made for himself on the Greek island Symi. In the next section the story jumps back three months to delve into the thoughts of Anne, a woman crossing on a ferry to Symi, where she intends to face the man responsible for the trauma from her childhood. With the introduction of these two characters, Oderman begins the intertwining of two narratives taking place at different times until they conclude simultaneously.
Myles is a photographer taking pictures on the island as he works on a compilation of photos for a coffee-table book titled The Lesser Dodecanese. His heart isn’t in this work, though; he prefers to work on it lackadaisically as he busies himself with the island and the culture. Myles is trying desperately to forget but he is plagued with the inability to let go, which is why he cherishes his photographs: “Photos rise up out of reality, things forever fixed.” This is clear through his obsession with a photograph of a man on a White Vespa. It was this photograph that spurred his migration to Greece after the disappearance of his son and subsequent failed marriage. But his beliefs are challenged when, after becoming acquainted with Anne, he agrees to take portraits of her. These photos spark a change in Myles. “Even as illusions,” he thinks, “they had the feel of beginnings.” With this the two begin a relationship. But the love they find together is threatened by the revenge she seeks upon her sadistic brother, Paul, who traumatized Anne by forcing her to watch as he committed an appalling act of violence.
In White Vespa the point of view shifts so the reader can understand the motivations of a broad range of characters, starting with Myles and Anne and then broadening to others, including Paul. From inside Paul’s consciousness, the reader gets to see him prey upon women on the island. Paul is a constant threat to Anne and everyone in the community. Experiencing parts of the narrative from inside of the antagonist is both interesting and disturbing. Aside from the main characters, the book is told from the point of view of characters with much smaller parts, such as two local children that live on the island.
The novel is beautifully subtle. All of the characters are observant and perceptive, absorbing the landscape and culture around them and musing upon it in ways that relate to their own situations. Many of the secret wounds of the characters are not blatantly spilled across the page. Instead they are told through small bits of dialogue that give insight into how much these characters, especially Myles, are hurting:
“Just this much loss,” he said, “and no more.”
Jim looked at him quizzically from where he leaned against a wall, watching.
“Until we turn our backs and go,” Myles whispered.
Another of the striking qualities of White Vespa is how it plunges the reader into the Greek lifestyle, from Myles going through the process of making Greek coffee to the tiniest cultural details, such as a Greek waiter’s hesitation at presenting the bill. This familiarity with Greece paired with the attentive detail to the landscape, from the sea to the caldera, offers the reader full immersion into the characters’ world.
As the story climaxes with a character’s disappearance and then settles upon a quiet yet satisfying ending that doesn’t necessarily grant the characters what they set out to accomplish, the novel shows that when people come to terms with their past, it isn’t always in the way they expected. Towards the beginning of White Vespa, Myles says, “You can only keep a story from getting sad by cutting off the end.” While it may be true that White Vespa is a testament to this, the ending is not without hope.