OK. I think I've got a handle on McFarland now. Introspection, dreams, coping with death or loss, and some reference to music. So there's less variety in McFarland's novels than I had hoped but actually, it's alright. It's tropes on a common theme but he does it so well. I also doubt McFarland intended anyone to read all 5 of his novels in order one after another. But on to the actual book:

Singing Boy is about coping with a loss of purpose through introspection much like the other McFarland novels. School for the Blind -- Loss of purpose through the end of a career, Face at the Window -- Loss of purpose through the temporarity departure of sanity, The Music Room -- Loss of purpose through the death (loss) of Brother, and now Singing Boy -- Loss of purpose through the death (loss) of Father/Husband/Friend. There are also secondary characters in each of these novels who also walk their own paths to self (re)discovery. As always, McFarland's imagery and language is quite nice, in the original undiluted sense of the word. His language is pleasant and the images evoked by his language are both appropriate and eloquently synaesthesic (is that a word?). He almost never disappoints.

The only complaint I might have of McFarland is that the beauty and poignancy of his characters rely a bit too heavily on their introspection, to a point where I question the novels' connection to real thought. The dreams are and thoughts of McFarland's characters are too appropriately symbolic and meaningful. It is as if every main character we encounter is a closet philosopher. This complaint aside, the interactions of MacFarland's characters (and especially when they interact with themselves) makes for a great, albeit cerberally inclined, story. Were I forced to assign a numerical value to my enjoyment of Singing Boy, I'd probably say "eight".

Next is Prince Edward, after which I'll close my circular trek with another reading of The Music Room (which should be a very enjoyable and nostalgic day or two indeed). It hasn't escaped me that I've approached McFarland from an almost dialectical pedestal. I have basically experienced McFarland's novels in Sonata form.

Music Nerd Digression: Sonata form, as it is used in Western art music, is a one-movement form that includes an exposition, a development, and then a recapitulation. The exposition exposes the themes, which the development may take and manipulate (develop) in various ways. The recapitulation is then a restatement of the exposition. Although the form is musically symmetrical (ABA), it is philosophically teleological and very dramatic. The exposition is a presentation, the development a literal drama of the relationship of the themes to each other and to their tonal space, and the recpitulation is a re-presentation of the themes which are now transformed by the presence (from the audience standpoint) of their history. Thus the recapitulation isn't merely a restatement of the exposition but a synthesis of multiple views of the themes. Isn't it odd that I intuitively used one of the most dominant forms in classical music to inform my large-scale reading patterns? I guess it's not that odd considering what I am (a big music nerd).