Rattle Bone

Pieces of a Novel Puzzle “A novel or a collection of short stories?” may be a question that a critic asks about Rattlebone. Maxine Clair portrays both arguments with her energetic writing style. A blend of random comments and many unique phrases intermix with the intense plot. Writing like this gives the reader a more relaxed state and the book seems more alive and real. In answer to the critique question, Maxine Clair is writing …

…do experience age, experience change, and experience life together. Maxine Clair wrote this novel, Rattlebone to let a reader enjoy the life of this small town without knowing the future. She reveals just a piece of it at a time, and until that last piece makes it into the puzzle, no one can decipher it. Rattlebone is definitely a novel, exhibiting all the qualities, not of a compilation of short stories, but of a novel.