Review: The Black Butterfly Woman: The Tunnel Rat’s Story by Philip Atlas Clausen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I’ve always liked getting to explore characters’ personal journeys while reading. Sometimes, I’ve found certain stories dealing with ideas that have pleasantly surprised me, and I still look back on them fondly. Other times, I’m not as happy with how a narrative turns out, but I can still find things to appreciate about it.
With Philip Atlas Clausen’s The Black Butterfly Woman, it took me a long time to understand the situation being set up. And once I did, the story went in a different direction than I expected, which affected my overall experience with it. That said, there are still things I think are worth talking about in further detail.
Before I go into anything else, let’s discuss the narrative itself.
Summary
The story opens with a soldier named Billy Bascom serving in Vietnam. When he is sent on a solo mission, he meets a woman who forces him to consider the implications of the war and his place in it.
When he returns home, Billy finds himself struggling to adapt to civilian life. But when someone from his past comes back to haunt him, Billy finds himself challenged in a different way than his time in service.
Thoughts
I wanted to like this more than I did, but I struggled to understand the overall message. While a lot of the story’s subjects are clear and easy to get behind, I had trouble with understanding the plot progression because so much is tackled, and the plot didn’t come together in a way I hoped for. I think if the story had kept to Billy’s emotional journey and highlighted that more, I would have had an easier time with it.
That said, I love how the story blends the past and the present together and establishes why Billy is where he is at the start. I think the balancing of the two timelines was executed incredibly well and it made me want to know more about Billy and his journey. I especially adored his relationship with his school’s custodian, as it showed the significance of his career choices as an adult while including some heartwarming moments that made me feel for both characters.
All in all, I found myself really enjoying how Billy’s journey was conveyed in the beginning, because the setup was interesting and had heartwarming moments to go along with his story.
Now that I’ve gotten those random thoughts out of the way, let’s move on to the structure.
Structure
The way this story is set up is also interesting. While I didn’t expect it at first, jumping back to Billy’s childhood provided a twist that tied into the present-day timeline in a way that was intriguing! Seeing the progression of his present-day journey along with his childhood being shown helped me understand more about his character and his decisions. The story itself is split into two parts. What I like about this is that it’s clear where the two split, with Part II progressing the story from the buildup in Part I pretty well. The only issue I see with this comes down to the pacing, which I’ll discuss further in the writing section.
Besides the different parts, I think plot progression is worth talking about. As I hinted before, the story went in a different direction than I expected. While there is buildup to what happens, there is one thing about the situation that I am confused by. I have questions about Billy’s character arc, and I think if the reasons for what happens later in the story had been clearer, I would feel better about the overall narrative.
That said, I still appreciate a lot of how the structure comes together because I found myself interested in where Billy’s story would go next.
And with that out of the way, let’s move on to the writing!
Writing
So, I think the prose is great when it comes to Billy’s arc. It shows his present mindset clearly and has enough vibrancy to keep me engaged with his character. There is color to it that kept me asking questions and wondering what he would do next. I also like that, with the dialogue, each character is clear in their speech and the mood and tone are set well for each scene.
All that said, the pacing is an issue. While the narrative is playing with several interesting ideas, it didn’t move fast enough to keep me hooked for long periods of time. I think the pacing is especially prevalent in the second half of the story, where unfortunately the direction for Billy’s character is less clear than in Part I. Without that sense of where the story was headed, the speed slowed down significantly. This is also why I don’t feel as enthusiastic about the ending, because too much is tackled at once.
All in all, I saw several things about the prose that worked, but I think the pacing needed to speed up for it all to come together.
Well, I think that’s everything I was aiming to discuss. Let’s wrap this review up.
Conclusion
I have some mixed feelings, because I see several aspects of this story that are effective, and I found myself understanding the main character’s arc more and more as time went on. But the issue for me is that the narrative’s direction isn’t as clear in the latter half, and I have a lot of questions about certain events and character motivations.
Overall, this story gave me many things to consider, but didn’t provide enough answers to keep me on board with the entire plot. For that reason, I will be giving this story two stars.
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