Carnival Songs by S.V. Brown
Publisher: Golden Storyline Books
Genre: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Historical, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

A small city in Indiana nestled along the banks of the Ohio River, Torrenceburg is a place holding onto archaic beliefs that shroud long-kept secrets. Beginning with the eradication of the native populations in the early 19th century, Carnival Songs explores the influence of the city’s founding family upon the next two centuries of politics, religion, and its transition into the new millennia. Told from the perspective of the last heir to the family wealth and privilege, fueled by his dying mother’s confessions, the narrator searches for the truth about his parents and ancestors but discovers events far too difficult to reconcile with his love of southeastern Indiana and pride in his family history.

Nuance is the name of the game here.

Is personal experience living in a small town that is grappling with a horrifically racist past strictly necessary to enjoy this tale? No, but there are some gems in here for readers who do know what that’s like. There’s something to be said for authors who know how to speak to multiple audiences at the same time, especially for a topic as sensitive as racism and rural life. I appreciated how much time was spent exploring how racism is expressed in both subtle and explicit ways.

This book included nearly four dozen characters, some of whom were occasionally referred to by nicknames that were not always clearly linked to the person in question by that portion of the storyline. At times I struggled to remember who everyone was and how they were related or connected to everyone else. Having such a large cast also meant that there wasn’t much space for character development in the vast majority of cases. As much as I wanted to give this a higher rating, my confusion over the often complex ties between so many characters prevented me from doing so.

Adjusting to change can be difficult for everyone sometimes. The mystery elements of the plot included this fact of life, and I was intrigued by how the various characters reacted to the idea of welcoming gaming boats to their city dock as a way to improve their economy. I’ll leave it up to other readers to discover what the positive and negative consequences of this decision were, but I thought it was interesting to see how inevitable change is in even the sleepiest villages that at first glance seem most immune to it.

Carnival Songs captured the complexities of small towns nicely.