With a high attention for mundane, Mary Miller´s Biloxi is the first person story as told by Louis McDonald: 63-year old, recently retired as he was expecting to inherit a ´fortune´ following the death of his father, divorced, after his 37-year wife left him. ´(...) I was afraid of women . I had been afraid of them my whole life´. It looked like women left him often but, Louis - his full name will be shared with us when 50 pages into the book - does not overthink. He may consider the thinking about the past as part of a simple narrative about himself. Those observations are just statements not leading to tremendous philosophical outcomes.
While waiting to clarify the situation of his heritage, he is given a dog from a man he randomly met. He fantasises about the men´s wife to end up in her house later in a couple of days, only to find out that her husband actually took gave away her dog. But there is no love story and even if the woman will make a stop in Louis´ house, there is no vengeful man hunting him. She even will leave him the dog, after she just ran away, not before taking away his blender and his favorite watch. In the end, the expected inheritance is a meagre sum that will not help him live comfortably. A mess, but this either is not experienced as a dramatic massive life failure. Louis will enjoy his life further, having a beer or two, a burger.
Although he was longing for connection, confessed that ´choices overwhelmed me´. ´I´d felt good when there was nothing on my plate even though I´d spent most of the time lonely and bored, wishing I had something to do´.
Set in the small Mississipi-city of Biloxi (but such characters can be found everywhere, in America or abroad), with 45,000 inhabitants only, the story has its own pace and voice and although I am usually not into this kind of average, simple lives - in books and real life - I dearly enjoyed Biloxi and even found a bit of empathy for the characters. After all, world is made mostly by average lives and characters and books help me to discover them and accept their uniqueness too.
Rating: 4 stars
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