Pulse, by Julian Barnes, is a collection of 14 short stories about "longing and loss, [and] friendship and love". Barnes is a quintessential British writer who has been short-listed for the Man Booker prize three times.
This collection of short stories starts with a terrific opener, "East Wind", in which an Englishman courts a Eastern European waitress and tries to uncover the root of her unusual behavior. Suddenly, the Englishman and the reader are jarred with the waitress's story. Four of the stories, entitled "At Phil and Joanna's", form a single narrative in parts. It is essentially a drunken conversation among four friends ranging from sex to politics (very left wing) to loss. One story, "Sleeping with John Updike" is a funny (and sad) story about the relationship between two female writers who did not quite make it to the top of the literary world. Two of the stories are set a few centuries ago. A few of the stories read more like essays than short stories.
Barnes captures conversation beautifully. For example, the "At Phil and Joanna's" cycle of stories is just a long conversation between four characters. There are few indications of who is actually speaking but it feels very real. While the writing was magnificent, the point of that cycle of stories was lost on me.
Some of the stories were simply amazing. Others, such as Phil and Joanna's and one or two of the essays, were well written but didn't capture me. Based on the reviews I've read of his other works, this is not his strongest book. Barnes is obviously an excellent writer but this is not his finest piece. If you want to give him a try, I would start with one of his Man Booker finalists: Flaubert's Parrot, England, England or Arthur & George (a fictional story about Sherlock Holmes' creator). The last one is on my "to be read" list.
22 Britannia Road, by Amanda Hodgkinson, is a first novel about the struggle of two-Polish ex-patriots readjusting to life after WWII in England. In this ambitious novel, Janusz, Silvana and their son Aurek are split up during the war while Janusz goes to fight and Silvana and Aurek try to survive. It is a good (not great), readable, sentimental novel.
The novel proceeds with three story lines -- Janusz's experience fighting against the Nazis; Silvana's struggle to take care of her infant; and their attempt to reconstruct a family and rebuild a life in England after the war. At the outset, Janusz goes to battle and ends up joining the English military. He has difficult war experiences. Silvana and Aurek flee Warsaw and survive in the forests and on the benevolence of peasants. When the family is reunited in England after the war, Aurek, who grew up in the forest, must learn to cope in civilization (a slight hint of Room by Emma Donaghue here). Silvana, who is fiercely protective of her son, must rebuild a relationship with her husband across the chasm of horrific experiences and choices they each have made.
Hodgkinson develops the main characters reasonably well (the supporting characters are very stereotypical) and delivers a few interesting plot twists. That said, Silvana's development is a bit predictable and while Janusz has hard experiences, he does not make hard choices. While the novel is a very good debut, the story does not hit it out of the park.
There have been several highly favorable reviews. Waterstones (the Barnes & Noble of Britain) picked this as one of their favorites of 2011. Amazon picked it as a Best of the Month Selection. Several bloggers have gotten behind this book (see Lemuria Bookstore Blog here, Gillian Hamer here and Burton Books here).
If you liked Major Petrigrew's Last Stand (my review here), The Invisible Bridge, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society or other similar books, you probably will enjoy this one. If those are not quite for you, you should pass on it.
Seth Fried's short story collection, The Great Frustration, is funny, well-written and extremely difficult to put down. With this collection, Fried displays his imagination and skill.
In the first story, “Loeka Discovered,” a group of scientists discover a prehistoric man, whose release from a deep freeze unfreezes emotions among the scientists. As the narrative of the prehistoric man's life changes based on further discoveries, the scientists' moods swing wildly, creating entertaining results. If you want to read this story on the web and get a flavor of Fried's writing, click here. In the second story, my favorite, “Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre,” a town wonders aloud why everyone attends an annual picnic that year after year ends with a massacre. In a third story, "Life in the Harem," an unattractive male clerk shares his tale of living in a sultan's harem. (A preview clip for this story is below).
Each story is creative, credible and engaging. This book (under 200 pages) is difficult to put down and will make you laugh out loud.
Fried has been published in several prominent literary journals (McSweeney's, Tin House etc.) and is the selection this month for the online book club, http://www.andrewsbookclub.com/. You can get a taste of Fried's humor on his blog http://sethfried.blogspot.com/.
Read The Great Frustration, laugh and enjoy.
"Interview" with Seth Fried:
Preview for one of the short stories, "Life in the Harem":
Sometime in the not too distant future, New York has suffered from another terrorist attack, 2/14 as it is called, and a total collapse. The protagonist, Dewey Decimal, has taken up residence in the New York City Public Library. He is a germ freak, is obsessed with Purell TM, has a "system" (he must travel according to specific algorithms), appears to be a former soldier (his memory seems to have been erased) and lives "off the grid." Decimal is assigned by the New York District Attorney to hunt down a man. Rapidly, Decimal finds himself caught in a violent conflict between the DA, the FBI and former Eastern European thugs. Alliances shift, people die and Decimal tries to stay faithful to his internal ethical compass. Throughout, Decimal whirls through post-apocalyptic New York
The narration is strong, allowing Decimal to come across clearly. The narrative style reminded me of Ken Bruen's mystery series. While it is clear that "bad things" happened in New York, Larson never conveys exactly what happened. It is effective to keep the reader engaged and avoids the author from artificially entering the story with an explanation. Larson has a firm grasp of New York City, which ends up being one of the key supporting characters in the story. My only critique is that Decimal has a significant surgery early in the book and has a miraculous (and not plausible) recovery. Aside from this slip, the book worked.
I came across this novel because my friends at the Mysterious Bookshop got behind this author and printed a special edition of the book. If you are looking for something light and engaging, this is a good choice. Be aware, like books of this genre, it is appropriately violent.
I couldn't find an author interview video but came across Cookie Monster in the Library and it made me smile.
Bright Before Us is a first novel by Katie Arnold-Ratliff, published by the literary house, Tin House. With this novel, Arnold-Ratliff, an assistant editor at O, The Oprah Magazine, forcefully enters the literary world.
The novel's narrator, Francis Mason, is a twenty-something, progressive second grade teacher in San Francisco. On a field trip to the beach with his class, Mason discovers the body of a suicide victim. The trauma of the experience unravels Mason, who becomes lost in memories of his childhood love, Nora, who lost her parents in a car accident, and forces him to contend with marital unhappiness and anxieties about his wife's pregnancy. Mason rapidly unhinges and becomes slightly paranoid, mixing reality and fantasy, while he contends with choices and understandings about love and loss. Mason ends up on a road trip (see a cool map documenting the trip that Arnold-Ratliff put together here) and addresses his fears.
While Arnold-Ratliff uses simple and approachable language, there is nothing simplistic about this novel. Arnold-Ratliff paints a vivid and believable portrait of San Francisco (an excellent choice of back drop for this novel) and paranoia. At one point, Mason's paranoia becomes so intense that the novel begins to feel more like a murder mystery than a literary novel. Arnold-Ratliff effectively switches narrational approaches in each chapter as a way of marking two separate but interlinked story lines. The risk with a novel that explore the inner-psyche of its characters is that the plot stagnates (if there is one at all). Throughout the novel, Arnold-Ratliff maintains authorial command and convincingly propels the narrative forward.
I approached this novel with an open mind, was immediately engaged and could not put it down. I was pleasantly surprised by how caught up in Mason's character I was. Bright Before Us is a thoughtful and worthwhile book, which I would recommend reading.
If you happen to collect books (and not just read them), Powell's terrific IndieSpensable program is featuring this title in a special printing as its current installment. Click here for details. (No promotional consideration received for this endorsement).
If you like Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policemen's Union) or Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction (see clip below) among others), you'll enjoy the debut novel by Ned Beauman, Boxer Beetle (available in the US in August 2011; available from the UK now at this link). It is a fun, eccentric and well-executed novel with a wild cast of characters.
First, there is Kevin "Fishy" Broom, a modern day dealer in Nazi memorabilia, who suffers from from trimethylaminuria: a rare condition that means he smells of rotting fish. Fishy stays at home and traffics in Nazi items over the internet. Then, there is Philip Erksine, a 1930s fascist and entomologist, who is trying to apply eugenics first to his study of beetles and then to humans. There is also Sinner Roach, a five foot tall, nine-toed, Jewish, homosexual boxer, who Eriskine determines is a perfect subject for his studies.
The novel moves between two story lines. The first plot line leads Fishy to a crime-scene and then a hunt for rare Nazi items and a murderer. The second plot line is in the 1930s (the bulk of the book), in which Erksine pursues his eugenics experiments and Roach.
The book is witty, fun and well written. Like Chabon's works, the book has a comic book feel but is excellent and well-paced literature. Beauman was recently selected by the Guardian newspaper as one of Britain's 12 best new novelists.
If there was ever a compelling story to be told with authority, this should have been it. David Grossman, one of Israel's premier literary writers, suffered the horrific tragedy of losing his 20 year-old son who was serving in the Israeli army during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. At that time, Grossman was engaged in writing his latest novel, To The End Of The Land, which explored the psyche of an Israeli mother, Ora, whose son reenlisted to serve in the army for a major offensive action just as he completed his three years of service. This should have been a great book. It was a disappointment.
Ora had planned a celebratory hike with her son to mark his return to civilian life. She was shattered by his decision to reenlist and could not keep it together. After leaving her son, Ora fled her home so the "notifiers" (i.e., the military officials charged with notifying families of deaths) will not be able to let her know if her son dies, thus prolonging his life. She forces her former lover, Avram, a psychologically damaged war veteran, to go on the hike she was to have taken with her son. While Ora and Avram are hiking, we learn about Avram, Ora's estranged husband, Ora's family and Ora.
I could not finish the book. It is nearly 600 pages, and it was just too much. I knew of Grossman's reputation and loss before reading the book and was eager to read it. The book became too difficult to wade through, and I set it aside. Grossman needed a more aggressive editor to hack away at the surplus, which made the beautifully written prose cumbersome and difficult to tackle. I have no doubt that Grossman was pouring out his own grief in these pages, which makes not liking this novel difficult. As a work of literature, I did not enjoy the novel.
After writing this review, I attended a discussion about this book led by an outstanding presenter. She identified some of the significant themes Grossman tackles: immortality, the effect of a constant war on the psyche of the warrior and shifting reality, to name a few. She also shared some of the significant plot developments that happened deep into the book. While she agreed that the book needed a lot of editing, the themes of the book she identified may make tackling this book worthwhile for the truly persistent, dogged and determined. For me, I was just satisfied with a great discussion and moving on to another book.
While I was away on vacation (excuse the break in posting), the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was announced -- the winner was Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad. It is now available in softcover (click here). I picked this as one of my favorite books for 2010. The NYT's picked it as one of the five best fiction works of the year. If you have not read this book, I would highly recommend it.
Egan talks about winning the Pulitzer Prize below.
If you want to see the technically interesting PowerPoint chapter Egan created as a chapter in the book, Amazon has a cool presentation of it here, including musical interludes.
The finalists for the fiction prize were:
The Privileges by Jonathan Dee, a contemporary, wide ranging tale about an elite Manhattan family, moral bankruptcy and the long reach of wealth.
The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee, a haunting and often heartbreaking epic whose characters explore the deep reverberations of love, devotion and war.
The Tiger's Wife justifies the pre-release attention Obreht garnered. The novel is a stunning debut and is the launching point of a career to watch. While the book is not perfect (I'm not sure of one that is), it is a sensuous read and worthy of staying up to read.
The story revolves around Natlia and her grandfather both before and after the disintegration of Yugoslavia (although the country is unnamed in the book). Natlia's grandfather passes away far from home while Natlia, a doctor, is on a humanitarian mission to provide services to orphans. Natlia tries to find answers about her grandfather's death while keeping secrets from her grandmother about what she knew and when she knew it.
In parallel, Obreht takes us back to the grandfather's childhood in the 1940s. During the war, a tiger escapes from the zoo and seemingly develops a relationship with a deaf-mute woman, who has abused by her butcher-husband. During the grandfather's life, he meets the "deathless man," a symbol for death, who crosses paths with the grandfather and Natalia over the years. The tiger's wife and the deathless man are fables that intersect with life and test the characters.
The first pages of the novel lulled me into thinking this would be a literary book that develops slowly. Suddenly, Obreht throws in rapid action; and the novel unfolds. My critiques, minor as they are: the book has multiple plot lines that have to be tracked carefully. After the dramatic opening, the novel slows down a bit and takes a while for it to pick up again.
Obreht's writing is rich and breathtaking. She juxtaposes beauty with devastation and companionship with loss. Obreht draws on her formative years in Belgrade and uses the novel to cope with her loss of her grandfather. It is a magnificent work.
Read Obreht. She deserves the accolades. I would be surprised if this is not the winner of a prize or two this year. The reviews have been deservedly glowing.
After World War II, Adolf Eichmann, the chief operating officer of the destruction of millions of Jews, fled to Argentina where he hid for several years. In the late 1950s, the Israeli security forces became aware of his whereabouts but did not act on the information. Before the capture was authorized, Ben-Gurion, the Prime Minister of Israel at the time, made a critical decision: rather than simply killing Eichmann in Argentina and leaving him in a ditch, he was brought to Israel and put on trial. In 1960, the Israelis captured Eichmann and transported him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes. Ben-Gurion walked into the Knesset (the Israeli legislature) and announced, "Eichmann bi'yadenu," Eichmann is in our hands. It was a dramatic and powerful moment.
Immediately, the Israelis were questioned by the world, including by American Jews: how could a state that did not exist during the Holocaust try Eichmann? Could the Israelis conduct a fair trial? Wasn't Eichmann illegally abducted? Would the victims and survivors have a voice in the trial (they had none at Nuremberg)? Where would the trial be held (no court house at the time was equipped for such a trial)? Who would defend Eichmann?
To fully appreciate the magnitude of the trial, Lipstadt reminds us that in the 1950s and 1960s, there were no Holocaust memorials and while the fact of the Holocaust was known, people were still focused on returning to life and fighting the Cold War. Also, Israel was still in its relative infancy. Although it miraculously defended itself in two wars, it had not as powerful as it would become in 1967. Without this context, it is hard to fully appreciate the importance of this trial. Lipstadt expertly sets the context and walks through the critical decisions (and mistakes) made in conducting the trial. Having sat through a highly publicized trial herself, Lipstadt adds an extra dimension to her recounting of the tale.
The Jewish Encounters series, of which this is the most recent addition, is intended to present Jewish subjects "in a lively, intelligent and popular manner." The Eichmann Trail is not an academic piece, yet, it is written by a woman with impeccable credentials on the subject. Lipstadt masterly narrates the story. But, the story does not end with the trial. After the trial, the New Yorker ran a series of articles by Hannah Ardent, a Jew who fled Germany. She argued that the trial was unfairly conducted and that Eichmann essentially followed orders and was not an anti-Semite. Who better than Lipstadt to examine this?
The only thing that I did not love about the book was the author's interruption of the narrative with references to her own trial. The comparison of Eichmann's trial and Lipstadt's trial should have been in an epilogue. That distraction is easily overcome.
The book is short (200 pages) and reads like a well written New Yorker or New York Times Magazine piece. It is easily accessible and requires no background. In reading this book, you will understand how this trial became precedent for how many future trials would be conducted.
Many books have been written about the immigrant experience: the need to leave a land, the difficulty of assimilating into a new culture and the challenge of preserving identity. David Bezmogis, a New Yorker 20 Under 40, uses his new and first novel, The Free World, to tackle the story of the Soviet Jews.
The Soviet Jews that were released in the 1960s and 1970s could not travel directly to Israel or the US. Often, they stopped over in Vienna or Rome en route to the free world. The stop over could take days, weeks and even months. (For a fantastic non-fiction book on Soviet Jewry, click here.)
Bezmozgis' story opens in 1978 with the arrival of the Krasnansky family in Rome. The familial patriarch, Samuil, is an old Communist and Red Army veteran, who reluctantly leaves his home and life. His wife, Emma, reconnected with her spiritual heritage in the Soviet Union. Although she is only a supporting character, she displays a sharp understanding of her family and their problems. Their eldest and pragmatic son, Karl, arrives with his wife and two boys. His muscled physique and opportunistic outlook lead him into the underworld of Rome. The younger son, Alec, a bon vivant and womanizer, arrives in Rome, with his new, scandalously acquired bride, Polina.
The family tries to find its way through the maddening bureaucratic maze of Rome, while struggling to survive and understand why they left. On the way, they find other former Soviet Jews and develop interesting connections. Throughout the novel, Bezmozgis takes us back into the characters' colorful histories, developing who they are and why they left.
Bezmozgis was born in Latvia. Like Gary Shteyngart (Super Sad True Love Story and Absuridstan), Bezmozgis's writing is biting and sharp witted. His use of the English language is shaped by the rhythm of the English as it translates into Russian. As he said in an interview:
I usually thought about what the conversation would be like in Russian and then would translate it into English. If there was something ungainly about it, then I’d try to correct for it. There are certain words where, if I had a choice between that and some other English synonym, I’d consciously use the one that’s more Russian. My belief is that it will be transparent enough for an English speaker, but if you’re a Russian–speaking reader and you can translate backwards, there are certain nuances that will come through. Full Paris Review interview here.
The novel has a great rhythm and pace to it. Bezmogis intersperses humor and tragedy through the book, while meaningfully and thoughtfully exploring his characters. It is a beautifully written book. My only critique is that he drops in several dialogues in Italian, which are distracting. Otherwise, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it. If you liked Shteyngart, you should read Bezmozgis. Both deserved their New Yorker 20 Under 40 status.
In 1987, I travelled with about 250,000 others to Washington DC for the rally to demand that Gorbachev release the Jews held in the Soviet Union, the Refuseniks. For decades, Jews in the USSR were not permitted to practice their religion or to leave the country. The process of obtaining an exit visa was expensive, oppressive and often a dead end. Instead, when Jews asked for the right to leave, they often lost their jobs immediately and cut off from society. Within the Soviet Union, they formed an underground community of Refuseniks, protesting their oppression.
In the 1980s, my brother, like many Jewish kids at the time, had a "twin" for his bar mitzvah, a Refusenik who became part of the ceremony that day. Many of us wore metal bands on our wrists with the name of a Refusenik. It was all an effort to raise awareness about these prisoners of conscience.
Until I read Gal Beckerman's new book, When They Come For Us We'll Be Gone, I had no idea about the depth of the history of this important movement. The Soviet Jewry movement was in many ways a response by American Jews to their failure to act in the face of the German atrocities of the 1930s and 1940s. It was the embodiment of "Never Again." Starting in the 1960s, a small group of activists in Cleveland began raising awareness about the plight of the Soviet Jews. It was the first time American Jews flexed their political muscle in the United States. And, it was a very difficult issue because it was intertwined with the foreign policy issue of the day -- the Soviet Union, the United State's opponent in the Cold War. Different forces within the Jewish community fought to find a way -- quiet diplomacy, peaceful protests, attacks on Soviet targets. Beckerman's study addresses many of the key moments and players in the history of the movement, from Rabbi Meir Kahane to Natan Sharansky to Senator Jackson. The efforts of the Jewish community ultimately found key supporters in the US governement and for the first time in US foreign policy history, the Cold War politics of detente bent to address a question of human rights.
Gal Beckerman, a writer for the Forward, has written a carefully researched, detail laden book, which is beautifully narrated and highly readable. For his efforts, Beckerman won the 2010 National Jewish Book Award. This is an important study and well worth reading.
In a very close final match up, Goon Squad upset Freedom in a 9-8 decision to win this year's Tournament of Books' crown. As those of you that have followed the tournament, in an earlier match up, these two titans faced off and Franzen's Freedom won. Congratulations, Jennifer Egan!
These were the two titans of the tournament and, in my opinion, two of the very best books of 2010. Both Egan and Franzen have produced memorable and worthwhile books. If you haven't read them, I highly recommend both.
The Tournament restarts in March 2012. Meanwhile, find a great book and enjoy it.
In the first knock down semifinal match, Freedom defeated Goon Squad., my pick to win the whole tournament. I thought my many NCAA bracket losses exemplified my lack of basketball knowledge. It seems that I'm just not good at tournament picks (or else I don't know as much about books as I thought I did). So it goes. Franzen's Freedom is a formidable foe and a worthy opponent.
In the second semifinal match up, Lemon Cake beat Next. While I thought Lemon Cake was a fine book, there was no way it could withstand the blows Freedom has been dealing out to its foes.
Then came the Zombie round. In the zombie round, the winner of each semi-final round squares off with another contestant that lost earlier in the contest. The zombies were Room and Goon Squad. Freedom dealt a decisive blow to Room to enter the finals and Good Squad squarely defeated Lemon Cake. My pick is back!
On Monday, the finals are played out with a rematch of Freedom and Goon Squad. I'm still hoping for Goon Squad to pull off an upset of the seemingly unstoppable Freedom. What makes this round different than the earlier match up between these titans is that every judge votes in the finals. In earlier rounds, it is a single judge making the call. While I enjoyed Freedom a lot, I'm sticking with Egan's Goon Squad to win it all. Stay tuned.
Round 2 is now complete. In the biggest match up of the Tournament so far, Freedom beat Room. Although I enjoyed both books, I thought Room was far more compelling and original. The judge disagreed, finding Room's five year old narrator confining and narrow. That was the point of the book, wasn't it? The story is about confinement and creating a world within that tight space. I guess we disagree.
In the other three quarterfinal rounds, Goon Squad beat Finkler, Next beat Nox and Lemon Cake beat Model Home. I'm surprised Lemon Cake made it this far. It was a very good book but was not as strong as Super Sad True Love Story or Lord of Misrule. Perhaps one of those books (or Skippy Dies) will make a run for it in the zombie round. (For those unfamiliar with the Tournament, the winners of the semifinal rounds must face off the two most popular books that were eliminated in the Tournament before advancing to the finals.)
The semifinals are set -- Freedom versus Goon Squad and Next versus Lemon Cake. I'm sticking with Goon Squad to win the whole Tournament. While I enjoyed Freedom, Goon Squad is original, diverse and beautifully executed. The semifinal and the zombie rounds start on Monday. Stay tuned!
Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle, by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, attempts to answer the question: how did a small, besieged country without natural resources or local trading partners become a world player in high-tech? Israel is a country of about 7 million people and just over 60 years old; yet, it produces more start-up companies than countries like Japan, China and India. It attracts, per capita, more than twice the venture capital investments than the US and thirty times more than Europe. Aside from the US, Israel has more companies listed on NASDAQ than any other country. What explains Israel's success?
Senor and Singer argue that the Israeli military is one key to Israel's success. In Israel, military service is mandatory. Young conscripted soldiers are empowered quickly to make hard decisions and improvise in difficult, unpredictable situations. The soldiers that stand out are selected by the elite military units for intensive training. The military also demands thoughtful and thorough debriefings of failed and successful missions alike. Outcomes alone are not sufficient. Every exercise and engagement is treated as a learning opportunity. In the debriefs, senior soldiers challenge junior soldiers and vice-versa. Hierarchy, tradition and the status quo are not accepted as roadblocks to finding the best solution.
The military's values help create a culture that empowers and nurtures entrepreneurism. A failed venture is not a failure; it is an opportunity to learn for the next one. Challenging existing technologies and business models is endorsed.
Israel also creates breeding grounds for ideas--tight clusters of universities, firms and start-ups, coupled with strategic government support. Together, these clusters foster innovation. (See Steven Johnson's book, Where Good Ideas Come From for why clusters matter--video clip below.)
The strength of the book is the examples Senor and Singer share. Whether it is the story of Shimon Peres and a young entrepreneur approaching senior auto executives about the electric grid for cars or the story of the unwillingness of one plant to allow the 1991 Persian Gulf War to interfere with its on-time shipments, it becomes clear why Israel is a unique story.
Recommendation: For the business person, there are lessons to be learned about how to run an organization successfully. For the supporters of Israel, the book generates a sense of pride that Warren Buffet (who never buys non-US companies), Google, Cisco, Intel and many other high-tech companies look to Israel for innovative development.
I didn't read Model Home but I'm really surprised that it beat Super Sad, which was a fantastic book and one of my favorites for 2010.
I went five for eight on correct calls. The next round, which starts next week, should be fun. The left bracket (Freedom vs Room and Finkler vs Goon) are huge battles. The right bracket has a lot of wild cards (Nox, Next, Model Home and Lemon Cake).
I'm sticking with my original call that Room beats Freedom and Goon beats Finkler and then wins the whole thing. The left half of my bracket is in disarray.
Heresy, An Historical Thriller, by S.J. Parris, is the first novel in a new mystery series set in 1583 in Oxford, England. At the center of the novel is Giordano Bruno, an Italian monk excommunicated by the Roman Catholic church. Bruno, a street smart philosopher, finds his way to England and seeks refuge there to spread his more tolerant religious thinking. Bruno is invited to speak at Oxford. En route, he is recruited as a spy by Protestant Queen Elizabeth's secretary of state to report on underground Catholic activities in Oxford. As an excommunicated Catholic, the Queen can trust him; but as a Catholic, he has access to people and meetings that Protestants will never manage. At Oxford, several people die and Bruno, the outsider, is thrust into the role of detective. Parris loosely bases her protagonist on the real monk and philosopher, Giordano Bruno.
The historical novelist faces two challenges: creating a believable setting and telling a good story in that setting. Parris succeeded at creating a realistic and detailed back drop with characters that have real flaws. Although the story shows terrific promise and generates intrigue and tension, it ends a too melodramatically and fizzes out by the end.
Recommendation: If you want the very best in historical thrillers, I'd first recommend CJ Sansom and David Liss. Parris is an up-and-comer with good potential. Her newest novel, Prophecy, is due out in the U.S. in early May.
Three match ups left this week to close out the opening round. My calls for those are So Much For That beats out Next; Super Sad True Love Story defeats Model Home and even odds on Lemon Cake versus Bloodroot.
Hannah Pittard's first novel, The Fates Will Find Their Way, is a fascinating concept novel. Pittard is an accomplished short story writer. In this novel, she creates a well-paced narrative and effectively uses interesting storytelling techniques.
On Halloween night in a mid-Atlantic state, sixteen-year-old Nora Lindell disappears. This is how the novel assertively opens: "Some things were certain; they were undeniable, inarguable. Nora Lindell was gone, for one thing. There was no doubt about it."
The story then develops into a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, spinning out possible narratives of what might have happened to Nora. (She probably did this, she might have done that.) The possibilities of what might have happened to Nora are told and then retold, carrying the novel forward. While the grammatical form is a little unfamiliar in a novel, Pittard manages it very well. In parallel, Pittard tells the story of what actually did happen to Nora's sister and father and the community in which they all lived.
What makes the novel even more interesting is that it is written in the first person plural. The narrator is a group of boys who were Nora's classmates. The "we" are intrigued by Nora's teenage sexuality and, for the rest of their lives, the boys wander aimlessly through marriages, divorces, crimes and death still in the clutches of Nora and what might have been. Pittard nailed the group voice. If the first person plural is of interest to you, you should also read Joshua Ferris' hysterical (and yet sad) examination of office life in Then We Came to the End.
Recommendation: The mix of the first person plural voice and the choose-your-own-adventure approach to the novel makes it a refreshing and inventive book. Pittard expertly develops the story like a carefully crafted kaleidoscope.
The series is set in 1950 in an ancient manor house on the English countryside. The stories are told by an eleven year old narrator, Flavia de Luce, a precocious, chatty child, who is an accomplished chemist and a fantastic story teller. Flavia lives with her emotionally vacant father, her two teenage sisters (Feely and Daffy), the cook, Mrs. Mullet, Dogger, a war veteran/gardener/handyman, and Gladys, her bicycle. Flavia also lives with the memory of her ancestors, particularly her deceased mother. The cast is further supported by the local librarian, the inspector, the vicar and others.
In A Red Herring Without Mustard, a gypsy fortune-teller is savagely attacked, a local thief is murdered, a baby is missing and there is a fishy smell in the air. Flavia sets out to solve it all, matching her skills against the local constabulary.
What makes this series enjoyable is Flavia. Bradley, a 70 year old Sherlock Holmes scholar (in his book Ms. Holmes of Baker Street, he argued that Sherlock Holmes was really a woman), creates a fun and intelligent character. She is a mix of the sharp brilliance of Sherlock Holmes, the tenacity of Colombo and the cuteness of Punky Brewster.
Some have categorized this series as one for young adults. The violence aside, Harry Potter was supposed to be for young adults too and millions of adults read and enjoyed him.
Recommendation: The Flavia series is fun and entertaining and will be enjoyed by Agatha Christie lovers. Of the three books, Sweetness is the best. It is hard to beat a great first encounter with such a memorable character.
The book trailer for Sweetness:
An interview with Bradley:
No wonder. Lord of Misrule is a gem. It follows five characters through one year and four races at a rundown West Virginia racetrack. The main characters are memorable. Tommy Hansel is the "young fool", who has a scheme to run unknown horses quickly at long odds, make his money and get out. Tommy's advance team and girlfriend, Maddie Koderer is the "frizzy haired girl" who is swept up by Tommy and, unbeknown to Maddie, is protected by her gangster uncle, Two-Tie. Deucey Gifford is the old lady gypsy. Finally, there is my favorite, Medicine Ed, the old horse groom.
Gordon paints a beautiful portrait of the grittiness of a low stakes racetrack. Her characters are stuck in a soulless track, looking for escape. The first few sentences vividly describe what is to come:
"Inside the back gate of Indian Mound Downs, a hot-walking machine creaked round and round. In the judgment of Medicine Ed, walking a horse himself on the shedrow of Barn Z, the going-nowhere contraption must be the lost soul of this cheap racetrack where he been ended up at. It was stuck there in the gate, so you couldn't get out."
The writing is convincing and graphic. Gordon carefully constructs each sentence. This is a book to be read slowly and absorbed, not flipped through. Two minor complaints about the novel : the shifts in perspective are a bit distracting and hard to follow and as someone who knows nothing about horse racing, I felt like I missed a few things.
The grittiness of the book reminded me of The Natural and the beauty and intensity of the writing brought to mind Tinkers by Paul Harding (the surprise 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction).
Recommendation: It was great to see a small press outsider win one of the most prestigious literary awards in the United States. Lord of Misrule is a beautifully written book that you should move up to the top of your literary reads.
•The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender
•Nox, by Anne Carson
•Bad Marie, by Marcy Dermansky
•Room, by Emma Donoghue
•A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
•Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
•Lord of Misrule, by Jaimy Gordon
•Bloodroot, by Amy Greene
•Next, by James Hynes
•The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson
•Skippy Dies, by Paul Murray
•Model Home, by Eric Puchner
•So Much for That, by Lionel Shriver
•Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart
•Kapitoil, by Teddy Wayne
•Savages, by Don Winslow
My call is that Goon Squad takes on Room in the semifinals (Room has to beat Freedom, not an easy feat) and Lord of Misrule takes Super Sad True Love Story in the other semifinal match up. Goon Squad wins it all.
Winston Churchill was the greatest statesman of the twentieth century and certainly belongs in the pantheon of the greatest leaders of all time. His leadership saved England and the free world.
One of the lesser known facts about Churchill is that he suffered from depression. He called his depression his "Black Dog" and often wrote about visits from the Black Dog. In the new novel, Mr. Chartwell, first time novelist Rebecca Hunt presents the intriguing idea of incarnating Churchill's depression as a black dog named Black Pat
The novel is set in July 1964 on the eve of Churchill's retirement from Parliament. Black Pat, a six foot black dog, visits Churchill, lays across him literally to weigh him down, chews rocks to annoy Churchill and engages in other assorted slobberingly doggish and childish behavior. Black Pat also attacks a young widow, Esther, who rents a room in her home to him. She too must battle with Black Pat.
Part of what made Churchill so famous was his use of language. He was famous for his sharp quips (Lady Astor: "If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your coffee." Churchill: "If I were married to you, I'd drink it."), his inspiring speeches (see below) and his mastery of language (see forthcoming post on Churchill works and bios). Take away the cigars, the house (named Chartwell), and several other details about setting, and Hunt's Churchill is no more than a cantankerous old man.
Recommendation: I'd recommend passing on this novel. While the writing is good and the concept was interesting, the execution lacked. Embodying depression as an annoying dog did not work. Also, without Churchill's distinct and powerful voice, the novel missed the mark.
Disclaimer: I did not vote for George W. Bush in 2000 or 2004. When he ran for office in 2000, I was concerned about his proposed tax cuts, social policies and seeming lack of understanding of foreign policy. Immediately after 9/11, I rallied around the leader. Bush acted with decisive resolve, which I thought was needed. Then, he lost me with his push for us to "go shop in the malls" and then the push into Iraq based on faulty intelligence. As the commander in chief, he was responsible for Abu Ghraib and torture, devastating blows to America's moral purpose.
That's the perspective from which I approached Bush's memoirs. Why read it? Between 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the financial meltdown of 2008, Bush presided over the most important and defining period of my lifetime. His decisions will have a lasting impact on the direction of the US. I wanted to hear what he had to say.
Decision Points is not history and it does not pretend to be. It is Bush's view of the significant decisions he faced as president. I didn't expect to like it, and I was wrong.
Bush begins the narrative with his recovery from alcoholism and his religious faith. Like his religious faith, many of his political principles are based on faith rather than reasoning -- stem cells (embryonic stem cells represent life); free markets (the markets should simply self correct); and freedom. That is how he presents them. Nonetheless, Bush showed a willingness to bend to confront the issues of the day. When the credit market seized up and the economy was toppling, Bush backed TARP and the nationalization of several banks. He supported massive AIDS relief in Africa through not only abstinence but the use of condoms.
As a war leader, I don't think I appreciated the need for him to maintain his public resolve as steadfastly as he did. I was very happy to hear that he had private doubts and fears. He discusses his concerns about success in Afghanistan and Iraq. But, as Winston Churchill recognized, to win a war, a leader must have steel like resolve. Any doubt from above corrodes the will to win. Was Bush oblivious to reality as the press sometimes argued? After reading Decision Points, I don't think so. I think he did what was needed--once the decision was made to go to war, he stuck with the battle plan, trusting his commanders and adjusting and challenging the military as needed.
What was comforting to see was that Bush was candid on several occasions when he declared unequivocally that he made the wrong decision or could have done better. He also was busy in the book proving his toughness (see the exchange with Putin) and intellect (he read 17 books on Lincoln and was in a famous reading contest with Karl Rove).
What disappointed me about the the memoir was that Bush avoids responsibility for Abu Ghraib and the faulty Iraq intelligence. While admitting to being sickened by what happened in Abu Ghraib, Bush fails to take responsibility ("I am the decider and I decide what is best."). In addressing the intelligence failure, he claims that everyone had the same information and made the same mistake, so how could more be expected from him. I expected more and was disappointed.
Recommendation: These memoirs should be read. They document the president's view of what happened during a critical time in US history. For the most part, Bush comes across as forthright and candid. You may not agree with Bush but his book is worth your time.
Additional note: There are other administration officials who have written books. From what I have gleaned, the Rumsfeld memoir is not worth reading, the Rice memoir addresses her family and not her time working for Bush and the Paul O'Neill memoir is thin on content and quite bitter. Dick Cheney is publishing his later this year (excerpt here), which could be quite interesting if he reveals anything. Of all of them, Bush is the one to read.
Swamplandia! is the much anticipated first novel by Karen Russell. This is one of the big literary entries for the year. The story is the outgrowth of one of Russell's short stories from her collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. She is a 29 year old writer and was selected in 2010 as one of the New Yorker's 20 Under 40 and previously by Granta, a British literary journal, as one of the Best Young American Novelists.
Swamplandia! is the name of the Florida Everglades alligator theme park, which is owned and run by the Bigtree family. Chief Bigtree, the patriarch of the family, poses as a Native American tribesman and creates a history and corresponding museum based on it. The family consists of the Chief and his wife, Hilola Bigtree, and their children, Kiwi, Osceola and Ava.
As the novel opens, we watch Hilola Bigtree, a renowned alligator wrestler, perform her legendary act: diving into and swimming through a pit of crocodiles. Hilola transforms from a doting mother into a larger than life performer. Several pages later, Hilola dies from ovarian cancer, and without its headline act, Swamplandia! must compete with a new corporate theme park, World of Darkness.
The family silently struggles with Hilola's death, ever mounting debt and the shattering of their mythic existence. The Chief escapes to the mainland to search for investors to reinvent the park. Kiwi, the eldest son, flees the swamp to earn a high school degree and take a low wage job to save the park. His struggle to integrate into mainland teenage life, having grown up in the cloistered swamp, provides a welcome diversion. Osceola is carried away on a spiritualistic journey, falling in love with the spirit of a deceased depression-era swamp dredger. Ava, with an interloper known as Bird Man, tries to rescue her sister from the underworld, where Osceola has gone with her spirit boyfriend.
The narration alternates between Ava (in the first person) and Kiwi (in the third person), but this is Ava's show. Although she is only thirteen, Russell presents Ava in a highly sophisticated and developed manner, not simply in the voice of a young teenager.
Russell's writing and word choice are powerful, precise and vivid. ("Ghosts silked into our bedroom like cold water." "...a hog-necked man with a high Sunday collar, his eyes a colorless sizzle like grease in a pan, half his face erased by the dark barn.") She has a sophisticated mastery of language and successfully paints a magical and mythical picture of the Bigtrees and the Everglades
Recommendation: Russell's use of words and sentence construction are worth reading by themselves. It is high impact writing. She is a writer to watch, and her accolades are well deserved. If you want a book that moves or is plot driven, pass on this. This is neither an easy book to read nor one that moves quickly.
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is a delightful first novel by Helen Simonson. Major Ernest Pettigrew is the quintessential Englishman, stodgy, prudent, understated and, above all, proper. The death of his brother sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, a Pakistani shopkeeper in the Major's English countryside village. Their relationship grows from their shared love of literature and the loss of each of their spouses. The Major, a respected and deeply rooted member of village life, must deal with the small-mindedness of the villagers. Ms. Ali struggles with the religious shackles of her family and the villagers' treatment of her as an outsider. The Major also must confront his relationship with his superficial and materialistic son, the London banker, who has left village life and the values of his father.
The novel is loaded with conflicts: intergenerational, cultural, religious, societal and modernization. Simonson beautifully sets the story in the quiet village and paints a convincing portrait of life in the village without becoming farcical or contrived.
What I love about the Major is his strugle. He is firmly grounded in "old fashion" values ("In my day, respect was something to strive for. Something to be given, not taken."), yet he is impulsive and irreverent. Simonson has fun showing us how he reconciles his dualing sides.
The major themes of the novel are not new – does love conquer all and can people get beyond their own cultural shackles? What’s fun is the setting and how the characters develop in this timeless novel. It is an optimistic and worthwhile read.
Recommendation: This is a great book club book and an otherwise fun, easy read. The themes and issues are universal and relevant. The story is accessible and worth the read.
Below, the author discusses her book.
On a separate note, I want to welcome the blog's many new readers. I'm very excited to have the opportunity to share my thoughts with you and would love to hear any feedback. Thank you for coming on this adventure with me.
