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Melissa McShane's Reviews > The Road to Roswell
The Road to Roswell
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Melissa McShane's review
bookshelves: science-fiction, alien-encounters, romance, humor
Aug 03, 2023
bookshelves: science-fiction, alien-encounters, romance, humor
So, first things first:
This is not a science fiction novel. It is a screwball comedy. If the content isn't enough to prove it, there's the title--is anybody old enough, like me, to remember the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby "Road To..." movies? Those were a mad mixture of comedy and adventure and romance with a little music thrown in. (I admit I didn't get this at first, but the title was niggling at me for weeks.)
Connie Willis does some great screwball comedy. There's one in Impossible Things called "Spice Pogrom" that is just hilarious. But she doesn't do it often, and it usually takes a back seat to her more traditionally funny work (To Say Nothing of the Dog) or her serious stuff (Doomsday Book). I was surprised and pleased to discover she'd managed an entire novel in this tradition. There's misunderstandings, secret identities, lack of communication, and ridiculous set pieces. And it all mostly works.
The premise is simple, but contains all the right elements: Francie is set to be her best friend's bridesmaid, but is prepared to talk her out of her wedding because the woman has a long history of choosing weirdos and losers. (Bridesmaid as setup for romantic plot, possibly with a groomsman: check.) The wedding is going to be held at a museum dedicated to aliens and alien encounters. (Zany setting: check.) Francie begins the book with extreme difficulties in even getting a rental car to get to the venue. (Absurdity of real-life intrusions: check.). It all runs along as smoothly as any Willis novel, which is to say there are plenty of strange characters who believe they're normal and Francie herself is the lone spot of sanity in the book.
And then Francie is kidnapped by a real-live honest-to-goodness alien.
This is a major departure for Willis, maybe not so major after Crosstalk, which has a similar issue. In almost all her books and stories, anything strange or in violation of current knowledge is founded on realistic extrapolation. Aliens, though (I don't care what you read in the news these days, guys) are in the realm of speculation, as is the kind of telepathy featured in Crosstalk. To me, this departure fits with the book being screwball comedy. The existence of aliens is no more or less absurd than the fact that nobody in this book knows how to send text messages.
To me, Willis's great strength has always been her characterization, followed closely by how her characters fit into her creative and innovative settings. And here she is at the top of her game because the format of this type of story allows for the most extraordinary and ridiculous characters who nevertheless come across as real. The people Francie and Indy the alien accumulate through their progress through the Southwest, searching for something Indy can't communicate, are funny and odd and unexpected. Except for the alien true believer, who bugged me--but even that, I believe, is intentional.
The romance is a true whirlwind, and again, it only works because of the constraints of the story. Two people can fall believably in love in the course of 400 pages if it's comedy or a Mary Stewart novel. I was deeply impressed by Willis's ability to hit all the right emotional beats over such a short time frame, because I was invested in the romance even though it was, just like everything else about this book, completely unlikely.
The parts that didn't work for me mostly came down to things Willis has increasingly depended on in her writing, things that over the course of many books draw attention to themselves. I can't tell you the number of times people are cut off in the middle of saying something important or revealing a key fact. It started to feel weak rather than funny, as if Willis couldn't figure out a better way to spin the mystery out a few more pages. There are also some stretches of logic that push even my tolerance for screwball comedy: (view spoiler). I think the book rides close to the line in enough cases that it will probably be too much for some readers, but comedy is like that--it either works or it doesn't.
I enjoyed this more than I did Crosstalk, which I didn't hate--I don't think I've ever hated anything Willis wrote--and unlike that book, I anticipate reading this one again someday.
This is not a science fiction novel. It is a screwball comedy. If the content isn't enough to prove it, there's the title--is anybody old enough, like me, to remember the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby "Road To..." movies? Those were a mad mixture of comedy and adventure and romance with a little music thrown in. (I admit I didn't get this at first, but the title was niggling at me for weeks.)
Connie Willis does some great screwball comedy. There's one in Impossible Things called "Spice Pogrom" that is just hilarious. But she doesn't do it often, and it usually takes a back seat to her more traditionally funny work (To Say Nothing of the Dog) or her serious stuff (Doomsday Book). I was surprised and pleased to discover she'd managed an entire novel in this tradition. There's misunderstandings, secret identities, lack of communication, and ridiculous set pieces. And it all mostly works.
The premise is simple, but contains all the right elements: Francie is set to be her best friend's bridesmaid, but is prepared to talk her out of her wedding because the woman has a long history of choosing weirdos and losers. (Bridesmaid as setup for romantic plot, possibly with a groomsman: check.) The wedding is going to be held at a museum dedicated to aliens and alien encounters. (Zany setting: check.) Francie begins the book with extreme difficulties in even getting a rental car to get to the venue. (Absurdity of real-life intrusions: check.). It all runs along as smoothly as any Willis novel, which is to say there are plenty of strange characters who believe they're normal and Francie herself is the lone spot of sanity in the book.
And then Francie is kidnapped by a real-live honest-to-goodness alien.
This is a major departure for Willis, maybe not so major after Crosstalk, which has a similar issue. In almost all her books and stories, anything strange or in violation of current knowledge is founded on realistic extrapolation. Aliens, though (I don't care what you read in the news these days, guys) are in the realm of speculation, as is the kind of telepathy featured in Crosstalk. To me, this departure fits with the book being screwball comedy. The existence of aliens is no more or less absurd than the fact that nobody in this book knows how to send text messages.
To me, Willis's great strength has always been her characterization, followed closely by how her characters fit into her creative and innovative settings. And here she is at the top of her game because the format of this type of story allows for the most extraordinary and ridiculous characters who nevertheless come across as real. The people Francie and Indy the alien accumulate through their progress through the Southwest, searching for something Indy can't communicate, are funny and odd and unexpected. Except for the alien true believer, who bugged me--but even that, I believe, is intentional.
The romance is a true whirlwind, and again, it only works because of the constraints of the story. Two people can fall believably in love in the course of 400 pages if it's comedy or a Mary Stewart novel. I was deeply impressed by Willis's ability to hit all the right emotional beats over such a short time frame, because I was invested in the romance even though it was, just like everything else about this book, completely unlikely.
The parts that didn't work for me mostly came down to things Willis has increasingly depended on in her writing, things that over the course of many books draw attention to themselves. I can't tell you the number of times people are cut off in the middle of saying something important or revealing a key fact. It started to feel weak rather than funny, as if Willis couldn't figure out a better way to spin the mystery out a few more pages. There are also some stretches of logic that push even my tolerance for screwball comedy: (view spoiler). I think the book rides close to the line in enough cases that it will probably be too much for some readers, but comedy is like that--it either works or it doesn't.
I enjoyed this more than I did Crosstalk, which I didn't hate--I don't think I've ever hated anything Willis wrote--and unlike that book, I anticipate reading this one again someday.
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Started Reading
July 9, 2023
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Finished Reading
August 3, 2023
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I'm glad I made you laugh. I'm listening to Nine Coaches Waiting and the parallel was so apt.Beth wrote: "I can see the book you read from your review! But I did not read that book. Is it that screwball comedies don’t work for me, or do I not see this as a screwball comedy at all, but as a comedy resting on a premise which does not hold up to scrutiny - or to the barest glance, really - which means that its humor is unfounded and therefore irritating and not funny? (Is my refusal to grant the premise an indication that screwball comedies don’t work for me?)"
That you didn't read it as a screwball comedy is precisely why it didn't work for you--but that's not an indictment of you or your reading! It just means you read it in a way that totally failed you as a reader. And I don't think it's clearly coded one way or the other. Willis writes SF; this has an SF premise; why not read it as a SF novel? And I agree it fails as an SF novel.
My approach to reading is always that reading a book is shaped and informed by one's experiences with other books, with what one knows about reading, and about life. For example, my mother TOTALLY does not get my fantasy books. She has never read any fantasy and has no experience in her reading repertoire (that collection of reading knowledge that shapes understanding) that allows her to get it. She's only liked my contemporary fantasy, because it's set in our world and therefore has grounding for her. So she's an example of someone lacking the right touch points to get a genre.
But it's not always about lacking. Sometimes it's about how readers think a book ought to be read--how it's coded, or the way our repertoire interacts with the book. Prime example: Wuthering Heights. In my opinion, this is not a romance, and yet it gets held up as one often. Reading it as a romance pissed me off and made it impossible for me to enjoy it as, say, a character study or a gothic novel or whatever.
So, much as I say Roswell is a screwball comedy, in a way that's really just a method for reading it. (Personally, I feel confident this is what Willis was going for, but in the end it doesn't really matter what she wanted; she released it into the wild, and she can't stand over everyone telling them how to read.) Fortunately for me, that way makes this book enjoyable as reading it as SF may not (did not, for you). I'm not sure it means you don't like screwball comedies, because that would require you to read others knowing what they are and what the premise is. I think, rather, that it's a matter of reading mismatch. You went into it expecting something you didn't get (and, again, I don't think your expectations were unwarranted) and any time reader expectation is a mismatch with a book, the experience is unpleasant.
I'm glad the alien was mentioned in the cover copy, because I think, for me, knowing that was the premise helped me work out how I was going to read it. But I'm more interested in if Willis does more Oxford time travel novels, really.
And I don't think it's clearly coded one way or the other. Willis writes SF; this has an SF premise; why not read it as a SF novel? And I agree it fails as an SF novel.She has written other comedies that work for me! I’m thinking of that short story about the “cyclists�, for example.
Do you have other examples? Maybe I should try some.
I’m hoping she does do more Oxford novels� but I’m a little nervous, too.
Like I said, "Spice Pogrom" is another comedy (it's in Impossible Things) and I'd even call it a screwball comedy. But that's a novella--though I guess I'd say she's better at short form even than novels, so it's still a good example. (Also, aliens and communication issues... huh, maybe I want to see this book as a long-form version of that novella... I should go read it again before I have to leave my library behind.)I worry because she's been doing this so long and I think there's a danger of her getting worn out. I mean, I thought Crosstalk was pushing it, like it didn't feel as fresh as her earlier books. This, to me, felt more like her earlier work in that respect. But having said that, I wouldn't class it among her best. So... yeah, feeling nervous.
Terrific review, very insightful. I just finished reading two of this author's novels, including Crosstalk, and had very different levels of enjoyment between them.
Aliens, though (I don't care what you read in the news these days, guys)
omg
Two people can fall believably in love in the course of 400 pages if it's comedy or a Mary Stewart novel.
Lollll.
I can see the book you read from your review! But I did not read that book. Is it that screwball comedies don’t work for me, or do I not see this as a screwball comedy at all, but as a comedy resting on a premise which does not hold up to scrutiny - or to the barest glance, really - which means that its humor is unfounded and therefore irritating and not funny? (Is my refusal to grant the premise an indication that screwball comedies don’t work for me?)
I’d think about this more but I found the “aliens are real� premise so alienating (sorry) that I� don’t want to. I did find myself thinking that a book about aliens was oddly timely. A book about the FBI, maybe not so much?