- Newbery Honor Award Winner
- 256 pages
- Review based on audiobook:
+ read by Michal Friedman
+ 7 hrs, 57 min
". . . but dreams are shapeshifters. Get close and before you can lay a hand on them they change."
Before I say anything else about this book, I'm going to say this: do yourself a favor, and listen to the audiobook. Though I chose this format based on convenience (I've got a daily 2 hour commute), Michal Friedman's reading of Three Times Lucky brings heroine Moses ("Mo") LoBeau to life in a way I simply cannot imagine would have happened had I read the print version of the book. Don't get me wrong- author Sheila Turnage's writing is lively and engaging and does 95% of the work in terms of giving Mo an incredibly unique voice. However, it's a voice that begs to be read aloud, and Friedman does an absolutely brilliant job.
[As a disclaimer, quotes used in this review will be exact but will not include page numbers because, well, audiobooks do not have pages.]
Rising sixth-grader Mo LoBeau has a lot going for her: devoted adopted parents, a stalwart best friend, a community that supports her, and even an arch-enemy to keep things interesting. She's clever and funny and perceptive, and any reader who things that eleven year-olds "just don't talk like that!" hasn't ever met my youngest sister, Maggie.
The story kicks off with a local murder, which in Mo's small town of busybodies is much more than a newspaper headline. It's an event that causes waves throughout the entire town of Tupelo Landing. Distrustful of the newcomer detective that is put on the case, Mo and her best friend, Dale Earnhardt Johnson III, decide to form their own detective agency, the "Desperado Detectives" (Lost Pets Found for Free). They set off to solve the murder case on their own, and plenty of hijinks ensue.
There are reviewers who have been confused by the style of Three Times Lucky, pointing out that for a story revolving around a murder, there isn't much creepy or murder-esque about the book. It doesn't feel like a mystery. Instead, it's wacky and a bit off kilter, more concerned with character development than in the careful placement of clues that lead to a satisfying final reveal.
This is a valid point, as is the observation that there are many plot threads in Three Times Lucky that are left unresolved (and in some cases barely even addressed!) by the book's end. However, I'd argue this is more a function of the type of story Turnage is telling, rather than poor writing.
Hint: I don't believe she wasn't actually trying to write a traditional mystery.
I would classify Three Times Lucky as southern gothic literature for young readers. I'm dubbing it "Southern Gothic Lite". Goodreads defines southern gothic as that which "relies on supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to guide the plot." Furthermore, it uses said events "to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South." (Goodreads)
Let's consider the following plot drivers from Three Times Lucky:
+ Mo's Journey to Tupelo Landing: during a great flood eleven years prior to the events of the novel, Mo's mother supposedly placed an infant Mo on a floating sign, sending the baby adrift downstream to be discovered by strangers who name her Moses (get it?) and raise her as their own.
+ Mr. Jesse's Murder: the grumpy old man that no one particularly likes (or is particularly sad to see go, beyond the worry that his killing suggests there is a murderer on the prowl) turns up dead. In his own boat. A boat which Dale Earnhardt Johnson III had just returned to him.
+ The Colonel's Lack of Memory: the man who discovered an infant Mo floating downstream eleven years earlier cannot remember anything before that date.
I think it's fair to say that all qualify as unusual, with the first two qualifying as ironic. However, what is key is that these events are not simply used for comedic effect, but to introduce social issues and cultural character unique to the American South; in particular, the small-town, poor American South. Mo's journey to Tupelo Landing sets up Mo's very real struggle with what it means to be raised by people other than one's birth parents. Mr. Jesse's murder trigger's an exploration of small-town culture and interconnectedness. The Colonel's lack of memory allows the characters of the Colonel and Miss Lana to, for the majority of the novel, be defined wholly by their position within the community and position as town "newcomers". Turnage's larger-than-life characters, rather than simply reflecting southern stereotypes, are actually being used to reflect very real, and often hard, truths.
Perhaps the best example of this is Dale's older brother, Lavender. Lavender is a nineteen year-old race car driver, who walked out of his parents' house on his eighteenth birthday as a result of his father's drinking and violence. Mo adores Lavender, and he is indulgent of this adoration, and a protective and present big brother for Dale. In his availability to help Mo and Dale, Lavender can at times seem almost too conveniently mature for his age, unless one thinks about the southern social issue his character represents.
Lavender is the eldest in a poor, rural family with an abusive, alcoholic father. The sad truth is that children in these situations are forced to grow up at a very early age. They often shoulder an increasing emotional responsibility at home, and end up trapped by the very circumstances they dream of overcoming. Lavender's "career" as a race car driver and his subsequent abandonment of it isn't just a nod to the South's preoccupation with watching motorized vehicles drive in circles, it's a statement about the limited opportunities many of these kids face in the American South: being a driver made Lavender something of a local celebrity; it was a career that both Lavender and the reader could see taking him out of Tupelo Landing. And yet, by deciding build cars rather than drive them, Lavender essentially consigns himself to never leaving the small town, and family, into which he was born.
 |
| The tiny town that Lavender will likely never leave. |
Now, Southern Gothic literature typically uses grotesque characters and focuses primarily on thoroughly unpleasant aspects of Southern culture. Turnage instead uses humorously over-the-top characters and focuses on those difficult realities of Southern culture with which a child can relate. This is appropriate for the upper elementary age she is targeting. Nevertheless, there is plenty of sharp, sad, adult humor in it as well, such as when eleven-year old Dale reveals that nineteen year-old Lavender told him he was "too pretty to do hard time" in prison. Children may simply laugh about a boy being described as "pretty" but adults will wince over children having the knowledge and experience to make that kind of statement.
Which is why I'm calling it Southern Gothic Lite. In tone, Three Times Lucky is closer to the David Altman comedy film "Cookie's Fortune" than it is the much darker work of Flannery O'Connor. And yet the image of an infant Mo floating down a Southern river, along with the biblical connection to the story of Moses, makes me suspect that Turnage is not unfamiliar with O'Connor's short story "The River".
Which is all to say that Three Times Lucky is a novel that must be taken on it's own terms. It is a comedic, dramatic, Southern Gothic mystery that is at once all and none of those things. Try to pin it down and you end up compromising (or, as I did, qualifying your label with "lite" as an easy out).
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