|
"Jadine" is a chilling portrait of a young orphan making her way in a hostile world. Beginning in rural New Hampshire and leading to the back door of privileged Boston, Veazey explores with emotional precision, the complex, seductive contradictions of Jadine's life that is indelibly shaped by doings not her own. She is capable of violence without remorse, even as she gently cares for the elderly and yearns for her lost love, Billy-John, a Native American orphan. Resisting tidy resolutions, Veazey enlists our sympathy, shock, disapproval, and finally, compassion, in this insightful, stark tale.
Julie Bigg Veazey has an excellent story telling skill and style, as she picks up from the first page the reader’s interest in this seemingly ordinary character, Jadine Tomecelli. In a sequence of fast moving chapters laden with detail, Veazey begins to sculpt the character of Jadine by exposing her actions and packing an immense amount of depth into her personality. Being a victim of early abuse began to turn Jadine’s disposition ever so slightly into experimental violence, then ultimately escalating to fully fledged killings, as we are taken on a journey of events of Jadine’s deranged behavior. The book’s episodes become chilling as she grows up through her high school years, changing her name to Jade, and seeks comfort in her friend Billy-John; an Indian boy nicknamed “Bear.” It’s not the action of “pushing a person down the stairs” that is so fascinating a story element but the way in which Julie Bigg Veazey captures the thinking of Jadine and writes about her justification of violence which draws the reader into the very personal space within Jadine’s mind. The reader is taken through her life, inside her disconcerted mind of malice and mayhem, murder and mercy killings, vengeance and violence.
The plot’s setting can best be summed up in the Rochester High School’s report for Jadine’s personality profile: “She was an immature adolescent, battling conflicts resulting from a number of early traumas, including so many losses ranging from abandonment by her mother, the drowning of her stepsister, to the death of her stepmother and the estrangement (of) her father.” Furthermore, the report stated, “She suffers from a deep sense of rejection and resents the great sacrifices and kindness offered to her by the townspeople of Rochester.”
The book at times reminded me of having some of the key elements found in classics such as Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, with some of John Steinbeck’s character development of Lennie and George in Of Mice and Men. Her descriptive language is laced with “storyboard imagery” which would appeal to the director’s eye of someone like Quentin Taratino. However Julie Bigg Veazey has a unique written voice, and her snippets of chapters sew Jadine into a patchwork quilt of many descriptions, complex emotional levels and psychological twisting elements. The reader builds a bond with Jade, Jadine’s preferred new name, although she is an antithesis to society. Raising a masterful tide of suspense, the reader is challenged to guess at what the foreshadowing of the plot would ultimately reveal. It is a gripping and unforgettable tale based upon a little known true story of an anonymous person.
Jacketed in original cover art showing a portrait of a young lady looking into a box, you are drawn into the story before the book even begins. Julie Bigg Veazey has created a work in Jadine which no doubt will be applauded by fans loving psychological suspense thrillers of deep character development. I recommend this to the seasoned reader seeking originality of credible characters within a story having all of the elements of making indelible memories.
|
