by Pa Rock
Reader
S.F.X. Dean was the pseudonym of Francis Smith, a college professor and novelist who was a founder of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and served as that school's first dean of the humanities faculty. He wrote one novel, "Harry Vernon at Prep" in 1959 as Franc Smith, and six mystery novels in the 1980's as S.F.X. Dean. Professor Smith retired from writing novels in 1986, upon completion of "Nantucket Soap Opera."
Francis "Frank" Smith passed away in 2017, just three years after the death of his wife of sixty-four years, Margaret. They were the parents of eight children. He wrote his own obituary during his final year of life, an accounting that mentioned, among other interesting facts, that he had graduated Cum Laude from Harvard and "all that classical jazz," survived Iwo Jima, and spent his entire life never having owned or operated an automobile.
Not surprisingly, Professor Neil Kelly, the amateur sleuth in the six mystery novels of S.F.X. Dean, uses a bicycle for his personal transportation and appears to bear a strong resemblance to Professor Francis Smith.
"Nantucket Soap Opera" opens in the fall of the year just as the tourist season on Nantucket is beginning to draw to a close. Professor Neil Kelly who teaches at a small college elsewhere in Massachusetts has just arrived on the island and unpacked into a rented house where he expects to spend a couple of months in quiet solitude writing a biography of Ben Jonson. As he struggles with getting started on the project, he is also pining for Dolly, a woman whom he met and fell in love with on a prior sabbatical to England several years before when he was writing a biography of John Donne. Neil suspects that Dolly is becoming infatuated with someone else.
The professor, who has developed a reputation as someone skilled at solving murders, has a second mission while on Nantucket - and that is to make contact with Liam O'Farrell, an Irish poet and stand-up comic who is the step-son of one of Dolly's closest friends. Liam lives in an artist's commune and performs at local clubs.
But before Neil Kelly can get organized for his winter of writing, something unexpected rocks the local serenity when a crew from Hollywood shows up to film a movie on the historic island. The troupe is headed by William "Billy" Olds, a fading major star, with an entourage that includes his adult daughter, Panda, a couple of actors - one of whom is Billy's girlfriend, a cinematographer, and a driver/sailor who is also an actor. This crew turns the normally quiet off-season Nantucket into a somewhat neurotic state as the locals begin angling for access to the celebrities and perhaps a chance of being in a movie.
Neil Kelly is prepared to ignore the commotion of the Hollywood intruders, but, unfortunately for him, they are fully aware of his presence on the island and become increasingly insistent in securing his services as a screenwriter for the project. And even though money is no object, Kelly remains steadfastly opposed to using any of his valuable time to help on the project.
As Billy Olds personally tries to lure Neil Kelly into writing for him, he reveals that the proposed movie - one dealing with the Great Bank Robbery of Nantucket in 1795 - is really a subterfuge. Olds explains how the bank robbery tore Nantucket society apart and created divisions between individuals and families that lasted for decades. What he really aims to do is to produce a study of Nantucket through these divisions and rivalries and turn them into a quality television soap opera on the order of "Dallas."
When the focus shifts to a television soap opera, Neil Kelly, the scholar, becomes cemented into his opposition of working for the Hollywood crew.
As the story develops, the author essentially explores two soap operas that are unfolding in the Nantucket world of Neil Kelly - the struggling lives of the people in the artists' commune and the colorful lives of the Hollywood imports - as well as the increasing interactions between the two groups. The tale unfolds slowly, with lots of intriguing character descriptions and literary allusions, and it is not until nearly three-quarters of the way through the volume that the first murder actually occurs - time enough for readers to develop emotional ties and sympathies toward many of the characters.
And although this novel was written by a college professor with a college professor as the pivotal character, there is nothing "stodgy" or overly academic about the finished product. The writing is beautiful, the characters engaging, and the situations and language boldly real. The author presents sexual encounters in a straight-forward manner, and he incorporates topics into his tale that others might prefer to avoid - things like child sexual abuse and incest.
The author also presents a captivating overview of Nantucket in the 1980's.
I read a lot of mysteries, and this is one of the more literary and intriguing ones that I have come across. Neil Kelly had six adventures in homicide before his creator decided to pack it in and retire from writing - thirty years before his death. I was so impressed with Neil Kelly's final appearance in print that I plan to go back read the preceding five - though finding them all may prove to be a challenge.
This isn't one of those traditional style murder mysteries that produces a body in the first chapter and then litters the landscape with clues and red herrings for the remainder of the volume. The author sets the scene, carefully introduces the characters, explores motivations and sub-plots, and then turns homicidal. That style works well - at least for this reader.
I highly recommend "Nantucket Soap Opera" by S.F.X. Dean.
Reader
S.F.X. Dean was the pseudonym of Francis Smith, a college professor and novelist who was a founder of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and served as that school's first dean of the humanities faculty. He wrote one novel, "Harry Vernon at Prep" in 1959 as Franc Smith, and six mystery novels in the 1980's as S.F.X. Dean. Professor Smith retired from writing novels in 1986, upon completion of "Nantucket Soap Opera."
Francis "Frank" Smith passed away in 2017, just three years after the death of his wife of sixty-four years, Margaret. They were the parents of eight children. He wrote his own obituary during his final year of life, an accounting that mentioned, among other interesting facts, that he had graduated Cum Laude from Harvard and "all that classical jazz," survived Iwo Jima, and spent his entire life never having owned or operated an automobile.
Not surprisingly, Professor Neil Kelly, the amateur sleuth in the six mystery novels of S.F.X. Dean, uses a bicycle for his personal transportation and appears to bear a strong resemblance to Professor Francis Smith.
"Nantucket Soap Opera" opens in the fall of the year just as the tourist season on Nantucket is beginning to draw to a close. Professor Neil Kelly who teaches at a small college elsewhere in Massachusetts has just arrived on the island and unpacked into a rented house where he expects to spend a couple of months in quiet solitude writing a biography of Ben Jonson. As he struggles with getting started on the project, he is also pining for Dolly, a woman whom he met and fell in love with on a prior sabbatical to England several years before when he was writing a biography of John Donne. Neil suspects that Dolly is becoming infatuated with someone else.
The professor, who has developed a reputation as someone skilled at solving murders, has a second mission while on Nantucket - and that is to make contact with Liam O'Farrell, an Irish poet and stand-up comic who is the step-son of one of Dolly's closest friends. Liam lives in an artist's commune and performs at local clubs.
But before Neil Kelly can get organized for his winter of writing, something unexpected rocks the local serenity when a crew from Hollywood shows up to film a movie on the historic island. The troupe is headed by William "Billy" Olds, a fading major star, with an entourage that includes his adult daughter, Panda, a couple of actors - one of whom is Billy's girlfriend, a cinematographer, and a driver/sailor who is also an actor. This crew turns the normally quiet off-season Nantucket into a somewhat neurotic state as the locals begin angling for access to the celebrities and perhaps a chance of being in a movie.
Neil Kelly is prepared to ignore the commotion of the Hollywood intruders, but, unfortunately for him, they are fully aware of his presence on the island and become increasingly insistent in securing his services as a screenwriter for the project. And even though money is no object, Kelly remains steadfastly opposed to using any of his valuable time to help on the project.
As Billy Olds personally tries to lure Neil Kelly into writing for him, he reveals that the proposed movie - one dealing with the Great Bank Robbery of Nantucket in 1795 - is really a subterfuge. Olds explains how the bank robbery tore Nantucket society apart and created divisions between individuals and families that lasted for decades. What he really aims to do is to produce a study of Nantucket through these divisions and rivalries and turn them into a quality television soap opera on the order of "Dallas."
When the focus shifts to a television soap opera, Neil Kelly, the scholar, becomes cemented into his opposition of working for the Hollywood crew.
As the story develops, the author essentially explores two soap operas that are unfolding in the Nantucket world of Neil Kelly - the struggling lives of the people in the artists' commune and the colorful lives of the Hollywood imports - as well as the increasing interactions between the two groups. The tale unfolds slowly, with lots of intriguing character descriptions and literary allusions, and it is not until nearly three-quarters of the way through the volume that the first murder actually occurs - time enough for readers to develop emotional ties and sympathies toward many of the characters.
And although this novel was written by a college professor with a college professor as the pivotal character, there is nothing "stodgy" or overly academic about the finished product. The writing is beautiful, the characters engaging, and the situations and language boldly real. The author presents sexual encounters in a straight-forward manner, and he incorporates topics into his tale that others might prefer to avoid - things like child sexual abuse and incest.
The author also presents a captivating overview of Nantucket in the 1980's.
I read a lot of mysteries, and this is one of the more literary and intriguing ones that I have come across. Neil Kelly had six adventures in homicide before his creator decided to pack it in and retire from writing - thirty years before his death. I was so impressed with Neil Kelly's final appearance in print that I plan to go back read the preceding five - though finding them all may prove to be a challenge.
This isn't one of those traditional style murder mysteries that produces a body in the first chapter and then litters the landscape with clues and red herrings for the remainder of the volume. The author sets the scene, carefully introduces the characters, explores motivations and sub-plots, and then turns homicidal. That style works well - at least for this reader.
I highly recommend "Nantucket Soap Opera" by S.F.X. Dean.
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