Historical, but Obscure

Flesh and Grass
Libby Cone
Available In various e-book formats,
Published by the author
Rated 3 stars of 5 possible.

Flesh and Grass is loosely based on an ill-fated Dutch colony in late 17th century Deleware. The tale is told from the perspective of a young blind man. I like this perspective and I like that the story is told as if it had been written in a journal. The old-fashioned spelling and sentence structure give an authentic feel to the story as well. Despite the good premise and unusual subject matter, this story has a few problems... thus my three star rating of a potentially five star subject.

The capitalization in unexpected places makes for awkward reading. Even if this inconsistent capitalization would have been authentic late 17th century style, the capitalization of the words should be consistent with today's English.

The mostly unexplained useage of Dutch words makes the story a bit difficult to comprehend in places for someone who only speaks and reads English - or for that matter, any language other than Dutch. Footnotes or, even better, a dedicated glossary at the end would add value to the book and provide the needed explanations without interruption of the story.

The blind protagonist gives the author a tricky plot device. Since the young man telling the story can't see, the author cannot use visual data in most of the story... but many blind persons have their other senses compensate by becoming more intense. The author uses smells to provide some of the detail, but taste, touch and hearing could be used to help bring more detail into the story.

One other thing that I didn't quite notice until the end... I was so wrapped up in the story that most of the dates went by without me taking notice, but at the end, the final chapter is dated about six years before the previous chapter.  I'm not certain why the dates aren't all chronological. For me, reading the events in chronological order makes more sense.

In all, the story is intriguing and I was rather hoping for a longer tale... perhaps 200 pages. I'll recommend this as a good story, but only to those who don't mind dealing with the problems. This review has been simultaneously posted on Amazon.com, Dragon Views and LibraryThing. I received a 96 page PDF format document free from the author in exchange for this review.