Standup Teen Named Buddy Finds Himself in 'Finding Caruso'

Review of FINDING CARUSO (audiobook)
by guest blogger Star Lawrence
Author, Kim Barnes; reader, Scott Shina

As an animal lover, I almost didn’t review this because of the horrific opening scenes. So be warned. The images will haunt, but with her seamless, beautiful writing, Barnes will pull it together. Trust.

I don’t always love coming-of-age stories, but this one is special. Buddy and Lee Hope are brothers, seven years apart in age. They grew up on a hardscrabble farm in Oklahoma in the 1940s-50s, and when their mean-drunk father and long-suffering mother die in a car accident, they set off for Idaho and settle in Snake Junction. They live in The Stables, a bar where brother Lee sings in a band.

At 17, Buddy is sort of kicking around, not going to school, jabbering with Harvey, the bartender, and generally not going anywhere. Then Irene, a mysterious redhead twice his age, walks into the joint…and… Let’s just say, Mrs. Robinson had nothing on this gal.

The Caruso in the title is Enrico Caruso, a horse, not the famous singer. But the operatic reference evokes the wider world Buddy only begins to glimpse. I was almost in tears a couple of times over Buddy’s intelligence and how exposed he is to the horrors of the world. Even when you “come of age,” I guess those still come as a shock every time.

FINDING CARUSO is read by Scott Shina, a reader I have not heard before. He does the intonations and Oklahoma and then Idaho twangs perfectly. Often, it sounds like a “cast” is talking with each other.

This book reminded me of Hud, one of my favorite movies. Older brother Lee is a cynical womanizer like Hud, and Buddy is confused and tender like Hud’s brother.

But there are differences. Like in that movie (originally a Larry McMurtry book called HORSEMAN, PASS BY) Lee and Buddy eventually part ways, but it’s more like an inevitable drift to different agendas than a big moral lesson on “how to be” or “how to be a real man.” Buddy figures that out for himself.

Star Lawrence is owner of the health humor site, Health’s Ass, http://healthsass.blogspot.com