The Cutting Season

A Novel

By: Attica Locke

Narrated by: Quincy Tyler Bernstine

Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

In Black Water Rising, Attica Locke delivered one of the most stunning and sure-handed fiction debuts in recent memory, garnering effusive critical praise, several award nominations, and passionate reader response. Now Locke returns with The Cutting Season, a riveting thriller that intertwines two murders separated across more than a century.

Caren Gray manages Belle Vie, a sprawling antebellum plantation that sits between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where the past and the present coexist uneasily. The estate's owners have turned the place into an eerie tourist attraction, complete with full-dress re-enactments and carefully restored slave quarters. Outside the gates, a corporation with ambitious plans has been busy snapping up land from struggling families who have been growing sugar cane for generations, and now replacing local employees with illegal laborers. Tensions mount when the body of a female migrant worker is found in a shallow grave on the edge of the property, her throat cut clean.

As the investigation gets under way, the list of suspects grows. But when fresh evidence comes to light and the sheriff's department zeros in on a person of interest, Caren has a bad feeling that the police are chasing the wrong leads. Putting herself at risk, she ventures into dangerous territory as she unearths startling new facts about a very old mystery - the long-ago disappearance of a former slave - that has unsettling ties to the current murder. In pursuit of the truth about Belle Vie's history and her own, Caren discovers secrets about both cases - ones that an increasingly desperate killer will stop at nothing to keep buried.

Taut, hauntingly resonant, and beautifully written, The Cutting Season is at once a thoughtful meditation on how America reckons its past with its future, and a high-octane pause resister that unfolds with tremendous skill and vision. With her rare gift for depicting human nature in all its complexities, Attica Locke demonstrates once again that she is "destined for literary stardom" (Dallas Morning News).

©2012 Attica Locke (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers

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The summary of the book sounded good so I thought I would give this book a try. Honestly, I think the summary sounded more appealing than the story proved to be. There wasn't a whole lot of depth in the characters. I spent most of the time waiting for the climax and when that finally arrived...flat. That's the best word I can use to describe it. The mother/daughter bond didn't seem particularly strong. She tries to help one of her employees and although we know this person is important, I don't know if he was important to her, the historical property she takes care of or simply someone to save. Either way, I felt like I wasn't able to care about these people since the author doesn't give you enough to care about them.
And again, the climax was rather confusing. She has no phone, we assume she needs some help and when she was able to get to a phone, she starts talking about information! (I don't want to give away too much.) She doesn't say call 911, she doesn't say she is worried about her daughter and her ex-husband or boyfriend, I can't recall.

And unfortunately, the end of the book was frustrating! You think its going to go one way, you assume, hope it's going to go one way and yet again, this falls flat.

I'm aggravated with the author and the book. It was a true disappointment. I know everyone sees things differently and I'm sure there are others who will love the book. This is just my opinion which in the overall scheme of things, probably doesn't matter very much at all.

Kept me guessing

Any additional comments?

This is a great "who done it" by a relatively unknown author. The Cutting Season was so good I'm already reading Black Water Rising by the same author.

Talented Author & Narrator, But Missing Something

I’d Recommend to: Nola Céspedes (Joy Castro’s Hell or High Water), Lavinia (Kathleen Grissom’s The Kitchen House)

My Review:
I was more than a little disappointed with The Cutting Season. The description sounded like something I would love, and I really enjoyed The Kitchen House last year; I was expecting something a little more in that vein. The “secrets of its [Belle Vie's] past” seemed secondary to the mystery. The focal point was certainly on the murder, but I was hoping for more of a focus on a past historical mystery. It seemed to take a backseat and arose only when it would “dramatically” relate to current events. If it were going to be a subtle thread, I wished it had been used in a more delicate, less heavy-handed anvil of a way.

My other concern with the book was that Caren was just unlikeable. She came across as highly intelligent but completely selfish and socially inept. I’m sure this is my own interpretation of her and her choices, and I’m sure others read her as being complex instead. This is no fault of the narrator, who did an excellent reading to help build tension. The scenes in which Caren traverses Belle Vie are some of the most tense, even in daylight.

I enjoyed the overall sense of mystery, and Locke is a talented author – but personally, there were elements with which I did not connect.

The Bottom Line:
I could certainly see readers enjoying The Cutting Season, I just wasn’t one of them.

wonderful

great mystery(s), one in the present and one from 1872. I loved the setting and the characters, it made me feel Louisiana. But the narration!!!! It was perfect for this story, especially the way she voiced the 9 yr old girl, making her vulnerable but not babyish. The southern accents are melodious without being overdone. All loose ends tie up and it was marvelous.

Great Listen

If you could sum up The Cutting Season in three words, what would they be?

Authenic, gripping, well performed.

Any additional comments?

The story begins a little slow, but the listener is well rewarded for sticking with the story. One of the best audio books that I have listened to this year.

A MUST read

Full of suspense and history!
A clear picture is painted of the plantation by author.

Fabulous mystery, Excellent narrator

Can’t recommend this mystery by Attica Locke strongly enough. And the narrator is superb! A+++++

Entertaining

Rambled some but it was okay. I’ve didn’t think it was much of a mystery.

Mystery + Atmosphere = A Definite Winner!

"For a lot of people .... it's complicated," says Caren Grey, a Southern African-American woman who manages the sugar plantation in Louisiana where her ancestors were slaves and then free laborers. For years, the place has been a living-history museum, complete with slave quarters and school tours and Gone-with-the-Wind weddings.

The fields are still worked, mostly by Latinos (some illegal) employed by a giant agribusiness, and one of these laborers has been murdered in the sugarcane. There are family problems, racial realities, and political shenanigans (all with historical context) that Caren must deal with in trying to figure out the layers of this mystery in the present and another death (parallel in several ways) that emerges from the distant past.

The suspense is palpable -- sometimes even spooky -- as is the sense of geographical and historical atmosphere. The characters live and breathe, and I cared greatly about their outcomes. Despite a somewhat improbable ending to this puzzle, I think Locke is a very promising young author, and I look forward to more from her. The narrator is just perfect for this listen.

I found "The Cutting Season" to be an entertaining and often moving look into the main character's (and all of our) very complicated relationship with America's past and present and the changes which inevitably come.

Underwhelmed

The opening of the book was lush and held out much promise for an engrossing southern novel. However, the characters and the story didn’t live up to this beginning. I did enjoy the descriptions of a “living” plantation, Belle Vie, in this day and age. That part was fascinating. The main character, Caren, however, seemed unlikeable and I just didn’t care much about her. She makes some really stupid decisions. The relationship she has with her ex –husband just doesn’t ring true to me. In fact, all her relationships seem washed out or bland.

In the end, the solution to the mystery just seems to pop up out of nowhere. Or did I miss something?

Overall, I was underwhelmed.