Local author J.D. Barker’s latest a thriller influenced by Dickens
Author J.D. Barker swings for the fences in his newest novel, “She Has a Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be.” He strives to create an epic tale that spans decades and crisscrosses the United States, all while paying homage to Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” the acknowledged inspiration for the story.
From its opening paragraph, this book promises a lot: “Her name was Stella, and I loved her from the first moment I saw her. Even after watching her kill a man who looked a lot like me, I couldn’t help but love her.” And there’s more to this story than love and murder. Suspense, crime solving, elements of fantasy and touches of horror interweave the lives of the young protagonists.
The impoverished orphan Jack, aka Pip, and the unattainable wealthy Stella meet, as they do in the Dickens novel, as orphaned children. However, the setting is Pittsburgh, not London.
For Western Pennsylvania readers, the references are entertaining. Local mainstays such as Giant Eagle, Mineo’s Pizza and the city’s ubiquitous gray-sky days have their moment in the literary sun. There are a few errors (there were no owner-operated liquor stores in Pennsylvania in the latter half of the 20th century; Penn State is not ever referred to as Penn unless it is seeking a cease-anddesist letter from the university by that name in Philadelphia), but far more spoton and familiar references give this novel a plausible Pittsburgh feel.
The two orphans do not simply play the eternal game of will-they-or-won’t-they fall in love. Eight-year-old Jack is immediately smitten, but aloof black-gloved Stella radiates danger and mystery. Worse, she is accompanied by a mysterious surveillance team, who watches not only her and Jack’s every move but also the occurrences of the unknown D’s life. Who is D, and how is he significant? Jack doesn’t know, and if Stella does, she certainly is not telling.
The novel is peppered with mayhem, murders and heroes and villains with superpowers. Mr. Barker is wise enough to provide his readers with just enough information to let them guess at what evil is afoot, but not so much that they are ever more than a step or two ahead of the protagonists. And, as always, this author is at his best when he lets his crime solvers puzzle out what crimes are being committed and who is doing the committing. By setting the novel in the last two decades of the plast century, the investigators are forced to rely primarily on their wits, not computers, to solve the mysteries that abound.
But the first quarter of this 763-page book is little more than an account of the annual meetings between Jack and Stella, always on Aug. 8, the anniversary of Jack’s parents’ death, at the cemetery where they are buried. The children first meet in 1984, which may be ominous or may be nothing more than a jumping-off point to establish ambiance by sprinkling a multiplicity of pop cultural references — rock ’n’ roll songs, video games, television shows — into the story. This is repeated each year, providing readers with a recitation of popular songs ranging from Rick Springfield in the 1980s to Alanis Morissette in the 1990s. Other, more nuanced depictions of the period, such as references to economic, political or social occurrences, are nonexistent but could have provided a more vivid evocation of the time period.
The first quarter of the novel could have been condensed into a few set-thescene-type chapters before moving on to the meat of the story, which begins when Jack and Stella are old enough to rebel against their keepers and circumstances. Once the novel makes this transition it catches fire and delivers the fast-paced romance/suspense/crimesolving story originally promised on the opening page. Jack and Stella have mysteries and murders to solve, and the police are hot on their trail. Plausibility is sometimes at risk, as when scores of people are murdered with apparently no consequences, but as the novel progresses and the various elements intertwine, the pace quickens, and readers will obsessively turn pages to find out how it all ends.