Midget
Or Symphony of the Ocean
In the creative psychological novel Midget, a malicious conservator is pit against a disabled man who resists her abuse.
In Kate Valery’s suspenseful novel Midget, music and mystery reign among a group of mentally ill people.
Jim is a genius composer who’s short of stature. He lives in a group home, where he and the manager, Mona, are the only two unmedicated people in the house. But Jim suspects that there is something wrong with Mona. As he learns more, Jim realizes that he is not a tenant, but a captive.
Indeed, Mona pounces on Jim—in both literal and figurative manners. She’s eager to take everything she can from him, and she leverages Jim’s gifts and innocence against him. Nothing is beyond her grasp: Jim’s music, including a recent, brilliant composition, begins to disappear, one sheet at a time. Still, Jim finds secret reserves of strength. He resists Mona—as well as the other challenges he faces.
As a character, Jim feels like a prisoner, but still finds freedom through his acts of creative expression: “A mad stormy ocean reverberated in his ears. It was a vortex of huge sea-colored waves that foamed at the tops and fell down onto his head with a thunder.” His interior life is his refuge; his exterior life becomes more and more dangerous. Indeed, the stakes are high from the beginning, which meditates on Jim’s mysterious biological parents and introduces Mona’s predatory behavior. Jim and Mona are compelling adversaries whose attempts to outmaneuver one another are exciting.
While the book goes out of its way to describe Jim’s disability as a physical limitation that does not affect his brilliant mind, its repeated emphasis on Jim’s stature is distracting. Indeed, his disability is covered in ableist terms, and is often reduced to a plot device. His size is used to explain why he is a powerless orphan; from the outside, he seems like a pathetic figure, rather than a hero. But the novel also self-corrects at points, highlighting Jim’s strengths as he rises to the challenges that are thrown his way. He proves assertive and active, even while Mona and her cronies, who are constructed in melodramatic terms, find new ways to oppose him.
A malicious conservator is pit against a disabled man who resists her abuse in Midget, a claustrophobic but creative psychological novel.
Reviewed by
Claire Foster
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
