A Parliament of Crows | Alan M. Clark
The Dirty South?
Check.
Civil War times?
Oh I love me some historical fiction!
Check!
Three murderous (yet resourceful) sisters?
Vertiline,
Carolee,
Mary.
Check, check, and check!
The Mortlow Sisters story starts with the three of them in their later years being hauled off to jail on murder charges. From this point, you hop between perspectives of each sister as they reflect on their lives growing up during the civil war.
The good and decent part of me listened to the story being told and knew something was a little bit wrong between them. All with a propensity for violence and manipulation from the get go but the devil’s advocate in me saw their circumstance and found excuses and not surprisingly, something I could relate to.
The story wasn’t about three demented villainous sisters, (even if that's what I was secretly wishing for) it was about doing anything for family, for yourself, in order to survive.
These sisters had a lot to survive. I could get behind that...couldn't you?
As much as I enjoyed my time with this audio book - reading it would have come with its advantages.
I’m neither here nor there when it comes to a preference on the unreliable narrator, but in this case, without having that point of reference I can’t be sure if I went back in time and came forward in a chronological order (I don't think I did) or when I went back in time with one sister and then came back to present – without the page break, or something to let me know I was back in a jail cell - I would have to take a second to process.
Can anyone blame me for wanting to hold a book? Probably not.
All in all, I enjoyed it, even wanted more.
