Dancer

by Colum McCann

"I suppose one finally learns, after much searching, that we really only belong to ourselves."

I can't think of a better way to spend a sick day than covered in quilts, reading a great book.  I've been meaning to read McCann for a while now -- years, probably.  A friend from law school and I recently reconnected via Facebook, and then Goodreads, and when she told me that TransAtlantic was her favorite book from last year, I decided that it was time.  I'd planned to read TransAtlantic first, but as I was flipping through the first few pages of Dancer, I was hooked.

Now, here's the part where I admit that before yesterday at approximately 7:45 pm, I'd never heard of Rudolf Nureyev.  The first section of the book is a heavy and exhausting description of a Russian wartime winter.  It's mesmerizing, and disgusting and so beautifully written I nearly cried.  If it weren't for the title of the book and a few snippets of some Amazon reviews that I glanced through, I wouldn't have even known until quite a ways in that the plot centered on ballet, and if I hadn't recognized Margot Fonteyn's name about halfway through the book and then Googled, I probably wouldn't have realized at all that the central character is a real person, and that this novel (such as it is) is a fictionalized account of his life (it's not entirely fictional; I'd liken it more to a Capote-esque non-fiction novel).

It's difficult for me to articulate what McCann's strength is because I think he's good at everything.  He tells this story from multiple perspectives, sometimes first person and other times third person, and we hear from a variety of people -- sometimes an omniscient unknown narrator, but primarily the characters themselves:  Nureyev's teachers, his housekeeper, his lovers, even the man who makes his ballet shoes.  The chronology is clear, but it sometimes takes a few minutes to realize whose voice we're hearing, whose agenda or biases we're being expected to adopt.

We hear only once from Nureyev himself, and it's only in a group of carelessly written passages, mostly lists of tasks, practice schedules, reminders.  Sparse as it is, this section gives wonderful insight into how obsessive and driven he was about his craft.  Strangely, it's not from the artist himself but from those who surround him that we learn about his humanity, his kindness, his worries, and his greatest successes other than ballet.

I really loved this book, and yes, I then spent hours on YouTube watching Nureyev dance.  I know less than nothing about ballet, but when it comes to storytelling, McCann is definitely a master.

Sweet Tooth

by Ian McEwan

Finishing Sweet Tooth was my consolation accomplishment for never having finished Atonement. It's a difficult book to categorize, but I did really enjoy reading it.

From the Amazon.com synopsis: "Cambridge student Serena Frome’s beauty and intelligence make her the ideal recruit for MI5. The year is 1972. The Cold War is far from over. England’s legendary intelligence agency is determined to manipulate the cultural conversation by funding writers whose politics align with those of the government. The operation is code named “Sweet Tooth.”

Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is the perfect candidate to infiltrate the literary circle of a promising young writer named Tom Haley. At first, she loves his stories. Then she begins to love the man. How long can she conceal her undercover life? To answer that question, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage: trust no one.

Once again, Ian McEwan’s mastery dazzles us in this superbly deft and witty story of betrayal and intrigue, love and the invented self."

I have to assume that part of the reason I liked this book was because it combines so many of my favorite things:  it's set in England and during an interesting time historically, there are various literary allusions, and there's a bit of mystery to it.  There is, of course, a little bit of a love story thrown in for good measure, but I found that the book's plot is driven more by tension than anything else.  

Now, while I was entertained, I wouldn't go quite as far as the Amazon reviewer.  I didn't find it terribly dazzling or superb; I did, however, enjoy the internal dialogue about the extent to which a person can reinvent herself and then find that, rather than helping to avoid a dilemma, her duplicity has instead caused a worse problem.  At the risk of sounding flippant, I will admit that I was just relieved that something -- anything -- happened in this book because Atonement was a study in fictive inertia if ever there were such a thing.

The Goldfinch

by Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt's first novel, The Secret History, is one of my favorite books ever.  I've read it probably a dozen times, and as I type this, I realize that I am suddenly gripped by the urge to read it again.  I was sorely disappointed in her second attempt, The Little Friend, to the point where I didn't even finish reading it.  As such, I was somewhat guarded in my excitement leading up to the release of this, her third novel.

The Goldfinch is about the adolescence and early adulthood of a boy orphaned by an act of terrorism (I'm giving away some of the plot here, but not so much that it'll be any less devastating when you read it for yourself).  There are guardianship woes and frequent changes in setting, enough so that you don't get bored by the surroundings, so to speak.  His story becomes entwined with that of the title piece of artwork, and mayhem ensues.

On Goodreads, I rated it 3 stars, but as I said there (and the rest of this is taken directly from my Goodreads review), I think that if half stars could be awarded, I'd have rated this book 3.5, which is to say that it's very good but could have benefited from a more active editor.  There are pages upon pages upon pages that are so perfectly written that I want to read them again and again.  And then there are the last 100 pages, which I think could have been condensed into perhaps ten.

Tartt is gifted with description.  I felt the dampness and old money of New York just as vividly as I felt the glaring, blinding light and heat of Las Vegas.  I enjoy that that action is told from the perspective of someone whom we can't really trust because he has been, essentially, plastered since adolescence, first with grief, then culture shock, then drugs and alcohol.  I appreciate Tartt's indulgence of this perspective and that she's skilled at changing the facts just when I think I've grasped hold of them.

She's just as gifted with pacing and detail, self-indulgent allusions notwithstanding.  Tartt is well-read, exceedingly clever, and quite smart...and she really, really needs for her readers to know that, I think.  The novel is littered with quintessentially English exclamations like, "Well done, you!" and references to "tinned crabmeat" and "pyjamas," which reveal what I believe to be the author's embarrassment of or uneasiness with her Mississippi upbringing.  There were times when I wanted, truly, to throttle her and say, "Listen, Donna, we both know this isn't how Americans -- let alone Southerners -- speak or spell, regardless of their wealth, education, or social position."

More often, though, I felt a kinship borne primarily of our Southern-ness and apparently shared obsession with the BBC.  After all, how would I know that Brits use "tinned" in place of our more colloquial "canned" if I didn't spend a great deal of time reading P.G. Wodehouse, watching "Fawlty Towers," and inhaling everything Julian Fellowes produces, both on screen and in print.

In short, this novel falls somewhere between The Secret History and The Little Friend, though considerably closer to the former than the latter.

Nemesis

by Philip Roth

Alright. So I finished my second Roth novel, and I think the only logical conclusion at this point is that I’m just not as smart as all those people who love Roth. I say this because I just have to be missing something. I started reading Nemesis in January, and I found it to be a quick, albeit boring, read. I took about a two-month break in the middle of the second section, simply because I basically forgot about it until I was reviewing my Goodreads list and realized that I’d never finished it. After picking it back up again, it took about an hour to finish.

The plot is set in 1940s New Jersey in the midst of a summertime polio outbreak. In the first section, we meet Bucky, a phys ed teacher at a playground where the neighborhood children spend their days. World War II is in high gear, and Roth goes to great effort wanting us to understand just how dejected Bucky was to have been rejected from the military due to nearsightedness. One by one, many of the playground children contract polio, and Bucky’s relationship with God begins to deteriorate as he struggles to accept a God that would allow innocence to fall victim to pain and death. Eventually, Bucky gives in to the pleadings of his girlfriend, and he joins her at a summer camp in the mountains, which is where the second section takes place.

When Bucky arrives at Indian Hill, he immediately begins to feel guilty for leaving his job at the playground. This guilt intensifies when he learns that the epidemic spread throughout the neighborhood even more after he left to such an extent that city authorities were considering a quarantine. Bucky vacillates between feelings of relief and elation at having escaped the nightmare of the city to spend the summer with his love, and guilt and misgiving over what he views as his abandonment of the boys back in the city. He becomes particularly attached to one teenage boy, who days later begins to exhibit the first symptoms of polio and eventually requires hospitalization. Bucky shares with camp leadership his suspicion that he is the carrier of the virus, at which point he is sent for a spinal tap.

In the third section, we learn that the spinal tap was positive, and that after the initial symptoms began, Bucky then spent months and months recuperating from polio, ultimately losing the use of his left arm and recovering only partial use of his left leg.

For as much as I stubbornly refused to dislike Lucy in When She Was Good, I just could not bring myself to find anything appealing in Bucky. He’s a narcissist, completely convinced of his own importance. He ruins his own life by insisting that he is to blame for not only the polio outbreak at Indian Hill, but in his old neighborhood as well. He hems and haws about God, and his own martyrdom, and how his broken engagement was the only way to ensure that his almost-fiancée could lead a full life. By the end of the book, I was hoping that he would just die and get it over with. No such luck.

Are there really people like this? People who cannot process reality, who need someone to blame so badly that they will fault themselves when left with no alternative, and who end up in some emotional quagmire from decades before? I don’t know. I do know, however, that I didn’t particularly enjoy reading about Bucky, and I didn’t find him all that interesting or dynamic. In fact, I find him insipid, unintelligent, and very, very annoying.

Argo

Book by Antonio Mendez. Film directed by Ben Affleck.

A book review and a movie review, all at the same time!

I saw Argo (the movie) last October when I was visiting my friends Brandy and John in Colorado. Brandy and I had planned to go and visit some mountains and some snow, but it rained instead. Everybody knows that rainy mountains aren’t nearly as much fun as snowy mountains, so we opted for a movie day instead. I am embarrassed to admit that I knew little to nothing about the Iran hostages prior to seeing Argo, so it was even more of a learning experience for me than it might have been to a more knowledgeable viewer.

I agree with the reviewers who thought that the manufactured tension at the end of the movie was a little bit tiresome, but overall, I loved Argo. The casting was perfect – especially Alan Arkin and John Goodman – and I agree with all those people who were dumbfounded that Ben Affleck didn’t receive a Director nod at the Oscars. I’m not generally able to pinpoint good directing as the reason I enjoy a film, but Argo is an exception to that. I suppose that Best Picture is a pretty good consolation prize, but in all honesty, I thought Zero Dark Thirty deserved Best Picture just as much as Argo deserved Best Director. Oh, well – I’m not in charge of either decision.

My mom and I were in DC last weekend, and while we were there we visited the International Spy Museum, which is across the street from the National Portrait Gallery. We weren’t able to go when we were in the District last summer, but we’d been told that it was a fun museum. At some point during the lead-up to awards season, I read that Antonio Mendez and his wife, both former CIA operatives, were on the board of the museum, which further intrigued me. In all honesty, I can’t say that I was all that impressed with the museum itself; I chalk it up to an overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia, my absolute inability to figure out the preferred direction of travel inside the museum, and the fact that way too many people (and too many children, in particular) were there. I eventually started following every exit sign I found and made my way to the gift store (I do love a gift store, y’all), where I found autographed copies of Mendez’s book Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History. I bought one for myself and one for my dad, who loved the movie as much as I did.

This isn’t the book that the film is based on. That’s The Master of Disguise, which was written after the operation was declassified in 1997. Mendez wrote Argo in 2012, after the film had already been completed. As anticipated, the book fills in all the details that the film glosses over. It’s an easy read, albeit lengthier than necessary (I found myself wondering whether Mendez had an ineffective editor or a page number quota that he couldn’t reach without pages and pages and pages of backstory). In any case, I loved learning about how CIA operatives are trained in forgery and disguises; it’s like Mission Impossible, only real.

In a nutshell, here’s what we learn from both the book and the film versions of Argo: the CIA is crazy smart; you can’t hide from them, but they can very effectively hide from you.

Gone Girl

by Gillian Flynn

At this point, I think that just about everybody in the world – and most definitely anybody who might be reading this blog – has read a plot summary of Gone Girl. It’s been on just about every bestseller list there is, and if your reading habits are in any way similar to mine, then Amazon steadfastly shoved it down your throat until you finally gave in and ordered it. When I reviewed it on Goodreads, I said that I’d had more fun reading Gone Girl than I have reading any other book in recent memory. I stand by that statement. I read a lot of crime fiction. A lot. I’ve gotten to the point where formulaic who-dun-its just don’t hold my attention, so even though I thought for a minute that Gone Girl might be just such a book, I found out differently after I finished reading the first section.

Some people have trouble liking books when they don’t like the narrators, and some people have trouble liking books when they can’t trust the narrator. I don’t suffer from that, though, and I generally enjoy books more when their narrators are flawed, just like real people are flawed. People have their biases and their own agendas, and I’m not sure why we so often presume that those very human traits will not exist in even our most beloved characters in our most beloved novels. Even more to the point, we know that eyewitness testimony is often some of the most unreliable evidence that exists, especially when eyewitnesses are telling us about events they perceived as traumatic. Even if a person isn’t actually trying to mislead, he or she is just as likely to benignly misremember and give us bad information.

Anyway, the plot of Gone Girl relies almost exclusively on misinformation, incorrect assumptions, inaccurate perceptions, and quick judgments. It’s full of surprises, and even once the surprises are over, it was icky enough and creepy enough to hold my attention until the end. Loved it. LOVED.

When She Was Good

by Philip Roth

Philip Roth is one of those authors that people have been telling me for ages I should read. I was visiting with one of my favorite families over the holidays, and I was once again implored to pick up a Roth novel and give it a go. I think, however, that in my zeal to load up my new Kindle, I may have picked the wrong one to start with. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, because I did; it’s just that I didn’t finish it and have the irrepressible urge to read every single word he’s ever written.

From the inside book flap: “In this funny and chilling novel, the setting is a small town in the 1940s Midwest, and the subject is the heart of a wounded and ferociously moralistic young woman, one of those implacable American moralists whose "goodness" is a terrible disease. When she was still a child, Lucy Nelson had her alcoholic failure of a father thrown in jail. Ever since then she has been trying to reform the men around her, even if that ultimately means destroying herself in the process. With his unerring portraits of Lucy and her hapless, childlike husband, Roy, Roth has created an uncompromising work of fictional realism, a vision of provincial American piety, yearning, and discontent that is at once pitiless and compassionate.”

Here’s the thing. I get the distinct feeling from all the reviews I’ve read that I’m supposed to dislike Lucy. For example, she’s described variously as chilling, controlling, unforgiving, inflexible, unsympathetic, and deeply flawed. I completely disagree with most of those descriptions, and I can’t decide if it’s because I missed something, or if it’s because I started out liking her and just refused to stop, or if it’s because I’ve had a few of those same things said about me and believe that maybe they’re not altogether negative characteristics to have.

Mostly, I guess, I think they’re one-dimensional observations about a character who is decidedly three-dimensional, and if we’re going to crucify Lucy for having a little bit of a nervous breakdown, then she also deserves to be recognized for her intellect and strength. There’s a scene where she’s sitting at her kitchen table, pregnant with her first child, watching her mother fall apart – again – not because she was beaten by her persistently drunk and unemployed husband, but rather because he left the house after the beating and hasn’t come back home. When he finally raps at the door, Lucy meets him there and does what her mother has never had the backbone to do for herself: she tells her father to leave and not to return. I reread those pages several times, struck not only by Roth’s description of such an awful, debilitatingly moving moment, but also by his ability to make me feel it from multiple perspectives at once. I felt Lucy’s exhilaration and adrenaline, but I also felt her mother’s shame and her father’s humiliation. It’s magnificently written, really.

I suppose, if I try really hard, I can see how some people may think that Lucy’s mean or hard-hearted, but…well, not really. What choice does she have? Her grandparents are classic hands-off enablers, her mother is a co-dependent victim and apparently not willing or able to change that, and Lucy spent her childhood watching the chaos around her and hoping for the best. Yes, she’s puritanical, but we see that all the time when children are parented by neglectful substance abusers. It’s no small wonder that she takes some pretty drastic action once she finally realizes that she’s an adult and can exercise some control over all the lazy, complacent people who have raised her.

I wish I had read this book in college because there are so many facets and intriguing little details that would have made for a great term paper. At the same time, I’m also relieved that the term paper part of my life is over.

The Round House

by Louise Erdrich

Why did I read this book? My reasons are pretty simple, really. I am a woman, and therefore concerned about women’s issues in general, but especially crimes committed against women. I am a prosecutor, and my case load consists almost entirely of violent offenses and sex crimes. I work on an Indian reservation, so I’m woefully aware both of the brutality and injustice suffered by Indian women who are victims of violent crime, and of the technical stumbling blocks that often arise and sometimes prevent an offender from being held responsible.

I’ve read a couple reviews that compare this book to To Kill a Mockingbird, I suppose because it explains and embraces Native American culture in the same way that Mockingbird does for small-town Alabama. I can’t speak for how accurate that is because I didn’t grow up on a reservation, and in any event, I imagine that all reservations are different, the same way that all small Southern towns are different. I can tell you, though, that Erdrich knows her stuff. Her Indian Law assertions are right-on, and the way she describes tribal interaction with police officers and prosecutors who are “outsiders” is definitely consistent not only with what I’ve experienced, but also what has been shared with me by those who practice in other communities.

I am taking this plot synopsis from an Amazon.com review because I can never seem to synopsize without editorializing: “Our narrator - an Ojibwe lawyer named Joe Coutts - recalls his 13th summer from the perspective of time. Joe's position as the only child of tribal judge Bazil Coutts and tribal clerk Geraldine Coutts kept him feeling loved and secure until his mother is brutally and sadistically raped as she attempts to retrieve a potentially damning file. Although the rapist is rather quickly identified, the location of the rape--in the vicinity of a sacred round house - lies within that "no-man's land" where tribal courts are in charge and the neighboring Caucasians cannot be prosecuted, no matter how heinous the crime. Thrust into an adult world, Joe and his best friends Cappy, Zack and Angus are propelled to seek their own answers.”

I found this book to be both touching and uniquely effective in both entertaining and teaching. Moving, thoughtful, well-paced. The end is heartbreaking, and all too often absolutely within the realm of possibility.

Zero Dark Thirty

Forgive me if I take the long way around this film review.

I find that books are inextricably linked to my important life events. For example, I learned that I had been accepted to law school when I got home from the library at 1:30 a.m. and listened to a voice mail from the Dean. I was researching The Sound and the Fury and Absalom! Absalom! for my final paper in an English class.

And, I specifically remember that the semester I decided not to go to medical school, I was reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Maybe it seems odd, but it’s still one of my favorite books, and that’s probably because there’s this paragraph in which the narrator perfectly explains why she could never be a doctor. She’s looking at the Periodic Table – all symbols and abbreviations, impersonal and sanitized – and just sees, in that moment, that she can’t spend the rest of her life caring about it. I felt validated, inasmuch as I could feel validated by a fictional character in a book whose author committed suicide by sticking her head in the oven, I suppose.

The semester after that, I took five English classes, so thrilled with the prospect of being able to take classes that I actually wanted to take that I apparently forgot to consider what it would actually mean to read five books every single week for 16 weeks in a row. Now, admittedly, some of those books were just awful; in fact, I’m pretty sure that every book I read for my British Literature class was terrible, and made more so by the professor, an American man in his sixties who was educated at Vanderbilt, but who at some point spent like six months at Oxford and in that brief time, developed an affected British accent so thick that it barely diminished despite him spending the subsequent four decades teaching at Alabama. But I digress.

The World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks happened during my Shakespeare class in 2001. Literally, during. I left my classroom, walked out of Morgan Hall to my car, turned on the radio, and heard that One World Trade Center had collapsed. I remember that we were discussing Othello that day, which was notable because it is my most favorite of Shakespeare’s tragedies. I also remember that we were reading e.e. cummings in my Poetry class that met the next morning; I know because we were assigned to imitate a poem of our choosing every week, and I imitated a cummings poem when I wrote about 9/11.

A few weekends ago, I finally saw Zero Dark Thirty. I had put it off for a while, mostly because I just wasn’t really ready to deal with it. I finally had to bite the bullet because the Academy Awards were airing the next Sunday, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to watch a movie that long during the week. I think the reasons for my hesitance are pretty obvious, but at the same time that I worried about revisiting the trauma of that time, I was also a little bit anxious about the scenes depicting torture.

Those scenes in particular had gotten quite a bit of bad press and brought back all the conflicting feelings I had when the practices at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were exposed during the summer following my first year of law school. My guess is that Kathryn Bigelow anticipated that her audience may take issue with watching something that intensely graphic, but that she wouldn’t risk being called a hypocrite by making a film about the hunt for bin Laden but not addressing the systematic methodology of torture used to extract information about him. She’s smart. And because she’s smart, she starts her film with 9-1-1 recordings from the victims in the towers; she uses their words, their fear, the moments when they struggle to accept their own deaths, to help us accept (justify? rationalize?) what we will see later.

I can’t really say much else about Zero Dark Thirty that hasn’t been said someplace else. I enjoyed it, despite all the time I spent with my hands covering my mouth, and all the tears I cried – some in horror, some because I am so proud of those who serve our country. It is a fantastic film, and really, so much better than The Hurt Locker. I loved Silver Linings Playbook, and I think that Jennifer Lawrence is a fine young actress, but Jessica Chastain deserved the Oscar for Leading Actress.

Night

by Elie Wiesel

I scarcely have words to describe this book. It’s short – about 115 pages if you skip the introduction and the foreword (don’t skip them, or if you do, take the time to go back and read them). I think it took me about an hour and a half to get through it, mostly because I was rushing and just wanted it to be over. I’ve still got some guilt about that, actually.  Part of me feels obligated to read it every single day, as a reminder of what humans are capable of when we don’t honor and respect one another’s humanity.

As a child, Wiesel’s family was incarcerated in Auschwitz. I say incarcerated because really, what other verb works here? Wiesel could easily and justifiably have written a lengthy, melodramatic, lecturing tome, but instead “Night” is simple, straightforward, and easily one of the most heartbreaking, nauseating, soul-crushing pieces of literature I’ve ever read. Ever.

It would take me far more than 115 pages to describe how vividly Wiesel talks of torment, starvation, death, and human nature. I’ll skip all of that and settle on telling you all to read it. Right this minute.

“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”

“I am not so naïve as to believe that this slim volume will change the course of history or shake the conscience of the world. Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.”

The Language of Flowers

by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

I began this book first because it was recommended by a friend, and then because Goodreads reviews were pretty much universally positive. Disclaimer: If you’re looking for “literature,” you should probably look elsewhere. I think this probably best falls under the category of Women’s Fiction, but whatever.

Apparently, Victorian couples communicated through flowers, each species of which has a distinct meaning and message. Now, in all honesty, I have no idea how popular or widespread this communication technique was historically, and I don’t intend to do the research to find out. Nonetheless, I have to acknowledge that the idea of it is certainly romantic, and potentially secret enough for Victorians to find erotic. Ostensibly, this flower language is what the book is about, and if you’re into flowers or secret messages, you will probably enjoy the secondary romance plot. Maybe because I work directly with court wards and foster children, I found the flowers far less intriguing than the characters.

Victoria Jones is a young woman who’s recently aged out of foster care. That may not seem significant, really, except that it is, I promise you. The child dependency process and the foster care system are specifically designed to protect against the exact situation in which Victoria finds herself: suddenly adult and without a home, a family, or a livelihood. Ideally, children without parents find stability – permanence – within a couple years of entering the system, at most. Victoria never found permanence, and though she would blame herself – tell you it’s because she was a constant disappointment and repeatedly failed to meet the requirements of successive placements – that’s not altogether true. Victoria – and many real-life children like her – are failed by the system that is designed to protect them.

Reading this book made me think a lot about the children whose welfare is entrusted, in part, to me. As a guardian ad litem, what does it mean for me to advocate for their best interests? Chick lit or not, it’s not every book that makes me reassess the way I do my job. Diffenbaugh understands foster children. Somehow, she articulates the fear, doubt, aggravation, and deep affection between children and their foster parents. I’m familiar with the dynamic, but I don’t think anyone I know is capable of so effectively characterizing it at such a soulful level.

The Office of Desire

by Martha Moody

Plot (another one courtesy of amazon.com): “Moody stages this sharply observed tale of office relationships gone very wrong at a small Ohio medical practice. When Dr. Will Strub marries office nurse Alicia, he becomes increasingly involved in the local fundamentalist church. That puts him somewhat at odds with his fellow doctor and business partner, Dr. Hap Markowitz, who defines himself as a non-observant, God-fearing Jew. Meanwhile, middle aged office receptionist Caroline begins her own new relationship with a 72-year-old patient named Fred, while Hap devotes his spare time to his seriously ill wife, making office manager Brice literally the odd man out. The slow descent into insanity by one of the characters leads to a tragedy that affects all involved; gay relationships, evangelical fervor, amputation and infidelity all play in. There is a point where loyalty became a sickness, where faithfulness to someone else became a way to destroy yourself, Hap observes, and each of Moody's well-drawn characters embodies that statement in his or her own way. Hap and Caroline alternate with first person narration, which lends Upstairs Downstairs–like shifts in perspective, which can be distracting. Moody keeps things moving, though, and gets the details right, whether adding up emotional balances, Prozac samples or a patient's bill.”

I had a great time reading this book, in spite of its somewhat depressing and often wistful tone. Plots that rotate around personal relationships rather than defining, dramatic events always fascinate me because they so accurately reflect real life. There’s a lot of “drama” in this book for sure: life, death, marriage, divorce, illness, legal problems, etc. But the real heart of the story is the characters themselves and their evolving relationships with one another. The author strikes a solid balance between character development and plot.

Unlike the amazon.com reviewer, I didn’t find the teeter-tottering perspectives distracting at all. I enjoyed reading the different ways Hap and Caroline perceived the same events; Hap is a doctor while Caroline is a receptionist, so there is a wonderful upstairs-downstairs dynamic (reminiscent of Gosford Park and lots of Agatha Christie, actually). Good book.

To the Power of Three

by Laura Lippman

This is the second book of Lippman’s that I’ve read, and I’m thinking it may be the last. My gripe about this one is the same as last time. The book is excellent and kept me riveted right up until the end, and then, the ending sucked. Everything was tied up in a neat, pretty little package with a bow, by a single character who all of a sudden decided that she just had to tell the truth. As mystery novels go, this is, in my opinion, the worst ending possible. And let me tell you, it NEVER happens that way in real life. The killer (or the witness, or whoever) does not get a sudden attack of conscience and run to the cops to reveal “what really happened.”

Plot: Three teenage girls, who have been best friends since 3rd grade, are the center of a high-school shooting. One of them is implicated as the shooter while the other two are the supposed victims. All three are bright, popular, and have promising futures, so no one can grasp the motive behind the shooting. The action centers on the small town’s reaction to the shooting, the investigation by the detectives, and the families’ attempts to ferret out what really happened.

Most mystery novels end with a bang. Either the literal bang of a gun, or some really exciting, shocking surprise that the reader might have been piecing together but couldn’t quite get a handle on. Lippman, though, writes compelling, moving, perfectly paced novels that end with a dull thud. In the case of this novel, it’s also a little far-reaching and implausible, too. Yuck. I’d rather read a book that’s awful from the beginning (Lord Jim, anyone?) than enjoy one so thoroughly only to be this disappointed upon finishing.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

by Mary Ann Shaffer

I read this book while I was home over Christmas. I’m only just now blogging about it because…well, because that’s how my job has been lately.

The book is told through letters exchanged between the main characters (in my English-major days, I would have described it as “epistolary,” and I admit that I gleaned some enjoyment from having remembered that word). I bought the book before I was aware of this, and if I’m being honest, I probably wouldn’t have bought it if I’d realized that. I usually don’t care for reading letters within books, and again, in the interest of full disclosure, I generally skip over them if they’re inserted in the middle of a novel. I shouldn’t. This book taught me that reading letters reveals far more about the character than the mere contents of the letter itself; I grew fond (or not so fond, depending) of these characters as I learned their individual vernaculars, writing styles, vocabularies, and syntax.

If book awards were given out like the SAG awards, then this book would be in the “Outstanding Performance – Ensemble (Drama)” category. Although there is a “main character” in Juliet Ashton (by the by, how much do I love her name? VERY.) other characters are more developed than the usual supporting characters are, which makes the book more satisfying.

Brief plot synopsis (courtesy of amazon.com, who for once did a pretty decent job): “The letters comprising this small charming novel begin in 1946, when single, 30-something author Juliet Ashton (nom de plume Izzy Bickerstaff) writes to her publisher to say she is tired of covering the sunny side of war and its aftermath. When Guernsey farmer Dawsey Adams finds Juliet's name in a used book and invites articulate—and not-so-articulate—neighbors to write Juliet with their stories, the book's epistolary circle widens, putting Juliet back in the path of war stories. The occasionally contrived letters jump from incident to incident—including the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society while Guernsey was under German occupation—and person to person in a manner that feels disjointed. But Juliet's quips are so clever, the Guernsey inhabitants so enchanting and the small acts of heroism so vivid and moving that one forgives the authors (Shaffer died earlier this year) for not being able to settle on a single person or plot. Juliet finds in the letters not just inspiration for her next work, but also for her life—as will readers.”

This isn’t “literary fiction” at its most literary, but it’s often funny and heartwarming, and it was the perfect book to entertain me during my Christmastime illness. In case you're wondering: yes, the book does explain what a potato peel pie is.

The Help

by Kathryn Stockett

I admit that I bought this book because I was intrigued: the author graduated from the University of Alabama and majored in English. Sound familiar?

But, I was not disappointed. The book tells the story of three women, one white and two black, during 1960s, small-town Mississippi. Although it would be very easy for the author to rely on the same old formula here, and although she does take some liberties with her historical timeline, Stockett does a wonderful job of narrating a compelling, moving story through various first-and third-person voices. It's not a fast-paced book, and I think it's one that would lend itself to either a quick read or a more slow, lingering one.

Having grown up in a small Southern town, I can attest to the accuracy of how the town is portrayed, along with its biases and attitudes. It's fair and respectful where it should be, but doesn't hesitate to draw a distinction between acknowledging the reason for prejudice and accepting it. No, no. Though Stockett may help explain to us where the various characters' prejudices lie, and their origins, she never seeks to justify them, nor does she expect her reader to adopt them.

I loved this book; I actually feel affection for it. Perhaps it's because it's been so long since I've been home. That will be remedied, come next Thursday!

Young Hearts Crying

by Richard Yates

Some of you may recognize Mr Yates as the author of Revolutionary Road, which was recently made into a film starring Kate Winslet (love her) and Leonardo di Caprio (love him too now that Titanic and Gisele aren't the only topics that spring to mind whenever I think of him). I read RR ages ago and have now picked it up to reread; I saw the film back when it was still in theaters, and I was so impressed with the screenplay and the acting (and the set, and the clothes: wow, the 1950s were fabulous for fashion).

The setting of YHC is fairly similar to RR, and there's a similar theme in that it's basically a story of a young, hopeful couple who eventually come to face that reality isn't as romantic as they might have hoped. What Yates does very well is use the contrast of the city and the suburbs to make his points about people, and their nature, and their behavior.

This is not a page-turner. It's not a book that's meant to be read in a single sitting, I don't think, and I believe, actually, that it wouldn't be as good if you did read it quickly. The story develops over about 3 decades, so a slow reading allows you to know the characters and live with them for a while, and thus appreciate the book more. Even while you're reading, you know that this isn't going to be a book with a neat and tidy ending, but you know that it will be satisfying nonetheless.

I enjoyed reading YHC, and I'm enjoying rereading RR. Richard Yates is pretty amazing.

The Lace Reader

by Brunonia Barry

Perhaps some of you remember that I set out to read this book a few months back. What can I say? I lost track of time, and I forgot about it. Then, I was preparing for a child abuse trial, which took all of my time. And then I lost the trial on directed verdict, so I had to grieve for a while. And so finally, I picked it up again last week (which is interesting, since I’m again in the full throes of preparing for another child abuse trial).

About the book: all the reviews are right. The worst thing about this book is that I didn’t have time to read it all in one sitting. Now that I know how it ends, I’m anxious to reread it so that I can fully appreciate the author’s pacing and plot development. Speaking of the plot, you are perhaps wondering what a lace reader is. I’m not sure that they actually exist. At any rate, according to the author, lace reading is form of fortune-telling; the readers “read” Ipswich lace, or bobbin lace, and look for pictures or visions about a person’s future. The story is set in Salem, so the city’s history weighs heavily on the plot, but it’s not so overpowering that it becomes the same old witches-in-Salem story that we’ve all heard 100 times.

Towner Whitney, the main character, returns to Salem following her great-aunt’s death, which happened under somewhat suspicious circumstances. What follows is a series of strange events that awaken tragedies and mysteries from decades before. The pacing is perfect. The narrator begins the book by telling us her name, and then immediately tells us that she is a liar. So, from the get-go, we are wondering what is really happening. And, if something isn’t really happening, then is the narrator lying to us, or is there something affecting her perception?

After reading the book, I’m now really fascinated with the process of lace making, and I’m thinking of teaching myself how to do it. We’ll see how that goes. None of you better be rolling your eyes.

The Dawn Patrol

by Don Winslow

Another book that I'm reading for a book club. The guy at the bookstore described it as "surfing crime noir." I commented that that was possibly the most specific genre I'd ever heard of. Is there actually more than one book that would fall into this category?

The book was okay. Fairly fast-paced, and definitely an easy, quick read. I bought it on a whim, based entirely on the bookstore guy's recommendation, and the fact that because I'd just been to San Diego the weekend before, and I thought it would be intriguing to read about a place I'd just visited.

My main problem with Mr. Winslow is that he jerks back and forth between plot development and backstory and information-sharing. I appreciate his chapter-long, scientific explanations of how waves work, and his description of this specific section of the 101 highway in California, and the fact that he inserts chapters here and there to explain something that happened years before. All of these things help me understand the characters and the setting. Nothing wrong with including them.

Here's the thing: For some reason, he decided to insert these soliloquys right in the middle of the action. Literally, something big is about to happen, then there's 8 or 10 pages of blah-blah-blah, and then the next chapter starts and that big something happens. Only, I have forgotten by that point that something exciting is about to happen, and I have to go back and read the lead-up again so that I remember. It makes for herky-jerky reading, and it makes for a lot of flipping back and forth, is all I'm saying.

This is probably the crime version of chick-lit. Not challenging to read, doesn't require a lot of thought. A good summertime read; would have been perfect if I'd been lying on the sand instead of contemplating my return to work the next day.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

by David Wroblewski

I started this book last Wednesday night, and ever since then, I’ve been telling everyone I can think of – even casual acquaintances – to read it immediately. I finished it yesterday, and already I’m seriously thinking about starting over. I don’t know how to describe it, really, because it doesn’t fit neatly into one specific genre. It’s kind of a “boy and his dog” coming-of-age story, but also part adventure, part mystery, part ghost story.

The title character, Edgar, is a young boy whose family lives on a farm in Wisconsin during the mid-1950s. They breed Sawtelle Dogs, so named because they were rather much invented by Edgar’s grandfather to be perfect companion dogs. Instead of breeding for purity of bloodline, the Sawtelles breed for intelligence, and for some “je ne sais quoi” quality that will make the dogs choice makers, able to understand and respond to training and commands, but also develop a form of free will. Sort of. It’s hard to describe, really. The important part is that the dogs are a huge part of this book. The narrator is third-person omniscient, and usually he (she?) describes the action from Edgar’s point of view. But there are a few chapters that speak from a dog’s perspective, and they are some of the best parts of the book.

Interestingly, just like the dogs he cares for, Edgar is mute; he can hear, but he can’t speak. Very clever, also, then, that Edgar's surname is Sawtelle. Saw. Tell. Get it? ;-)

The plot has been billed as “Hamlet”…with dogs. I’m not sure about that. “Hamlet” was never my favorite Shakespeare tragedy (“Othello” is, in case you’re wondering). Actually, I never liked “Hamlet” much at all, so I tried to pay as little attention to it as possible while still making an A in my Shakespeare class in college. Still, though, perhaps you can rest assured, knowing that there is no moment where Edgar cradles a skull…human or canine.

I will not do you the disservice of telling you the tragic plot turn that happens about a third of the way through the book. Unfortunately, the writers of the book flap are not as kind as I, so if you don’t want to have your reading ruined, throw the flap into the garbage as soon as you buy it. I was disgusted at having read it, actually, because I’m convinced that I would have somehow enjoyed the book even more if I hadn’t known what was coming.

Honestly, I usually hate books that wander too heavily into detail or description. I had to stop reading “Les Miserables” for a while, and then skip 100 pages or so, because I was so tired of hearing about what Victor Hugo thought about the guillotine or the Battle of Waterloo. But, Wroblewski’s best writing shows itself in his descriptions of the dogs’ training, or the family farm, or the town itself and the people who inhabit it. He paints a childhood that is undoubtedly ideal and idyllic (at least in the beginning…not so much at the end), but I can’t even tell you how much I loved reading about it.

Love Stories in This Town

By Amanda Eyre Ward

I don’t normally like short stories, so I will admit to being a little disappointed when, after buying this book, I realized that it was, alas, a book of short stories. I shouldn’t have been. I read the whole thing in one sitting.

Faithful (or even semi-faithful) readers of my blog know my love for Amanda Eyre Ward. If possible, I think I love her more now. My problem with short stories is that just about the time I get to know the character and care what happens to him/her (in Eyre Ward, it’s almost always “her,” by the way), the story is over and I’m left wanting more. This author, though, is very good with endings that are both satisfying in the sense that they don’t feel forced or contrived, and open enough to allow me some leeway in figuring out just how these women spend the rest of their lives.

As you may anticipate, the stories center around the central characters’ love lives, but not in a stereotypical sense. The little towns and big cities where the women live and work, or where they’ve moved or traveled to, are more than backdrops; they influence the mood and the movement of the plot. For instance, the title comes from a quote at the end of one of the stories. A bartender says, “There are no love stories in this town.” In the reader’s guide at the end of the book, Eyre Ward admits that when she wrote that line, she was a sad graduate student, and it was the first of several stories she would eventually write about “Lola.” Initially, it was a statement about how the character had somehow resigned herself to a loveless life, because of where she lived. As the author wrote more stories about her, though, she realized that the actual commentary was that Lola would eventually leave that town, which she does, and find a better life elsewhere.

Needless to say, I enjoyed this book. Inhaled it, practically. I can’t wait for her next one.