A bloated folktale

Aren't folktales supposed to be short? Diane Setterfield's Bellman & Black (2013) may not be a long novel, but it is still a novel, yet it has the flavor of a folktale. It should begin with, "Once upon a time ..." It all seems like too much for too little.

As a boy William Bellman kills a rook with a catapult. Rooks, Setterfield tells us, never forget such things, and they will eventually get their justice.

Bellman grows up to become an uncommonly successful businessman, first in the textile business and then in the funeral business. Like Midas, everything he touches turns to gold, even though he no longer has any use for that gold after most of his family dies in a fever plague. He lives in his office, working practically around the clock. His surviving daughter gives up expecting him to visit.

The story takes place in England during a time when formal mourning lasted a year or more, funerals were lavish, and the sale of black garments, flowers and other accessories was big business. Bellman succeeds not just because of his timing and his bard work, but also because of a mysterious Mr. Black, who seems somehow responsible for Bellman's one surviving family member. Bellman makes Black a partner, even though he doesn't know why or who Mr. Black is or even if that is really his name. He seems to run into the man only when a death occurs. So is Mr. Black the Devil, Death itself or perhaps a human representation of those rooks that never forget?

Bellman & Black may disappoint readers who enjoyed Setterfield's first novel, The Thirteenth Tale. It just reads like a swollen short story.