Author Archive
E.L. Doctorow returns to New York City in his latest book Homer and Langley. The title characters are based on New York’s eccentric siblings Homer and Langley Collyer who lived in their parent’s Fifth Avenue mansion for years while collecting and storing enough items to fill the several floors of the building.
Doctorow’s Homer and Langley started life as the privileged children of a physician and his socialite wife. However several profound events occurred in both brother’s lives as young men. Langley, a Columbia University student, joined the military during World War I and became a victim of mustard gas and shell shock. Meanwhile Homer, who had been gradually losing his sight for years, eventually became completely blind. Adding to the brothers’ misfortune, was the death of both their parents during the Spanish Influenza epidemic in 1918.
Soon after returning to his Fifth Avenue residence following the war, Langley began roaming the city streets daily looking for items to collect. In the meantime Homer, the narrator of the story, spent most of his time playing the family piano. Eventually their home contained a Model T Ford set up in the dining room, a Chinese bronze horse, machinery of all types and sizes as well as stacks of the many daily newspapers published in New York City. All that hoarding aside, Homer and Langley become witnesses to the changes in American society over the course of their lives.
While I enjoyed reading this book that was on my “don’t miss” list for the fall, I had problems with its basic structure. Homer (1881-1947) and Langley Collyer (1885-1947) were real brothers who did live in a Fifth Avenue mansion and became known as eccentric hoarders by the time of their deaths. While Doctorow’s novel used their real names and several basic facts, he moved their lives ahead almost 15 years and made other changes which I found distracting and difficult to reconcile with the real lives of his characters.
As a reader of historical novels, I would have preferred different names for the brothers while still following the general outline of their lives. That way, the author could have told the story and describe events during the 20th century without confusing the reader. In Doctorow’s book this confusion distracted from what was otherwise an interesting and entertaining view of two unique characters in history.
October 16th, 2009
Lesley - Central
A while ago Jane posted news about some hot titles coming out in the near future, which got me thinking. I find that as the summer season winds down in Madison, not only do I look forward to the many activities of a university town but also to the rush of books that come out in the fall by some of my favorites.
I’m looking forward to reading these new titles this fall and winter:
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow
Ford County: Stories by John Grisham
No Time to Wave Goodbye by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Hardball by Sara Paretsky
That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve
Encore Valentine by Adriana Trigiani
Noah’s Compass by Anne Tyler
Are there authors you follow from book to book no matter what? Any authors you’ve given up on?
September 18th, 2009
Lesley - Central
Los Angeles Times reporter Jack McEvoy, featured in Michael Connelly’s earlier novel The Poet, returns in his latest thriller, The Scarecrow. When Jack is laid off from the newspaper with only 14 days notice, he decides to go out with a bang with one final high profile story. What starts out as an investigation into the wrongful arrest of a young gangbanger for the brutal rape of an exotic dancer turns into a case involving the sinister nature of computer technology.
The actual villain in the story is an MIT graduate Wesley Carver known as the Scarecrow. Wesley overseas security at a top-secret data storage facility in Arizona used by many law firms and businesses. His below-the-radar existence gives Carver the ability to mine for victims which he has been doing successfully for years. The reader is introduced to the Scarecrow early in the story as the action switches between his secret work at the facility and McEvoy’s hunt for the killer during his final days as a reporter. Helping Jack in his investigation is the FBI agent featured in Connelly’s previous book, Rachel Walling. As Jack and Rachel uncover information about the killer, they realize that they are also among the hunted.
Michael Connelly, a former Los Angeles Times crime reporter, delves into the state of the newspaper industry while telling a thrilling story. And while not up to the level of his ever popular Harry Bosch series, I found The Scarecrow to be an entertaining summer read.
June 30th, 2009
Lesley - Central
C. Alan Bradley’s debut novel, Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, introduces readers to a charming new sleuth, Flavia de Luce, a precocious 11-year-old living in the English village of Bishop’s Lacey in the 1950s. Up until recently Flavia was preoccupied with retaliating against her two older sisters by using her interest and knowledge of chemistry.
Her life goals change when Flavia overhears her father and another man in a heated discussion. She learns that her father, a philatelic devote, may have been involved in the suicide of his schoolmaster many years ago and may have also had something to do with the theft of a rare stamp. When the stranger’s body is found a few hours later, dead in a cucumber bed on the property, Flavia is on the case. Her investigations turn up a rare snipe found on the back doorstep with a stamp embedded on its beak as well as a poisonous custard pie. In her quest, the indefatigable Flavia visits the library and interviews the village’s colorful inhabitants about her father’s mysterious past and how it ties to the victim.
Flavia’s is the type of one-of-a-kind character who charms and disarms at the same time. This well-drawn mystery is a tasty surprise from the 70-year-old, first time novelist Alan Bradley. Readers will be glad to hear that Bradley, winner of the British Crime Writer’s Association’s Debut Dagger Award based on a 15 page excerpt from this book, is busy with new adventures for the wickedly funny junior detective.
June 12th, 2009
Lesley - Central
Paulette Jiles‘ (Enemy Women) latest novel, Color of Lightning, is based on the life of a true figure in Texas history and legend. Freed slave Britt Johnson, his family and former master leave Kentucky toward the end of the Civil War. They move to North Texas and establish a small community at the edge of the Great Plains.
One morning in October of 1864, while Britt travels to a nearby town for supplies, a combined force of 700 Comanche and Kiowa Indians from their reservation north of the Red River travel south and attack the small village of Elm Creek, killing Britt’s oldest son and kidnapping his wife and two young children as well as another woman and child. The Plains Indians, instructed by a U.S. government treaty to stay north of the Red River, conduct several raids throughout Texas during this time returning with their captives to a life of hardship on their desolate land in North Texas.
In a parallel story line Quaker Samuel Hammond is sent to the reservation’s Indian Agency as the representative from the Office of Indian Affairs. His assignment is to ”improve” the lives of the Indians by giving them farming tools and other equipment to establish houses and farms on the Plains. Samuel’s biggest battle (often a losing one) is his attempt to stop the Indian raids and the taking of captives. The Plains Indian’s culture has included raids in neighboring lands for generations and illustrates the failure of the two cultures to understand each other.
Both Britt and Samuel struggle to understand the impact each side has on the other. This story, one of many little known events during the settling of the West, is brought to life by an excellent storyteller and researcher of the history of north Texas.
June 1st, 2009
Lesley - Central
Laura Lippman’s latest novel, Life Sentences, is a standalone story of growing up in 1960’s Baltimore. Writer Cassandra Fallows has achieved critical and financial success with her account of a Baltimore childhood and a follow-up covering her adult marriages and affairs. For her next book Cassandra sets out to write about a former grade school classmate, Calliope Jenkins. Jenkins was accused of murdering her son and spent seven years in prison, refusing to answer any questions about the child’s disappearance and presumed death.
Fallows, who is white, tries to reconnect with three former classmates, who are black, to compare memories of Calliope Jenkins. What Cassandra quickly discovers is that these childhood friends Donna, Tisha and Fatima no longer feel friendly toward her and often have radically different memories of those years. Cassandra’s research also includes information from a detective and two lawyers who worked the case. One of them was Reg Barr who is the younger brother of Tisha and is now married to Donna. This intertwining of life stories makes for a complicated mystery, but eventually the reader learns what happened to Callie’s son and gets a glimpse of her life after the jail term.
Lippman was inspired by a true story of the disappearance of the young boy whose mother also refused to make any statements and therefore spent seven years in jail for contempt of court. With that as a backdrop Life Sentences portrays a writer driven by ego and memories which often differ from her friends and family in this powerful novel.
April 10th, 2009
Lesley - Central
City of God: A Novel of Passion and Wonder in Old New York is author Beverly Swerling’s fourth installmentin the series that began with Shadowbrook and continued with City of Dreams and City of Glory. Each story can stand alone although I enjoyed revisiting characters from the previous novels and their descendants.
The latest book takes place in the decades leading up to the Civil War and again follows the rivalries of the Devrey and Turners families as the city of Manhattan expands “uptown.” Merchant Samuel Devrey spent many years in China eventually trading opium for the beautiful and young Mei-Hua whom he secretly marries. Three years after the Chinese wedding ceremony, which wasn’t recognized in New York, Samuel makes an advantageous marriage to the heiress Carolina Randolf. Devrey successfully keeps both of his families separate for years as he tries to retain control of Devrey Shipping (lost by his father) by building the world’s largest clipper ship while wrestling the China trade away from John Jacob Astor.
The other story line follows Dr. Nick Turner, Samuel’s cousin and a relative of physicians found in the earlier novels. Nick’s ideas of painless surgery and staff washing their hands before caring for patients puts him at odds with the corrupt director of Bellevue hospital as he tries to raise money for medical research.
Nick is eventually drawn into his cousin’s dual life when he saves Mei-Hua in a medical emergency. The Turners and Devrey’s lives intersect again when Nick and Carolina begin a relationship and move together uptown to the newly developed part of Manhattan. Carolina takes over Devrey shipping along with her son and realizes Samuel’s dream of a speedy and profitable clipper ship.
In addition to the stories of these two prominent families, City of God also includes historical information on New York City from the 1830’s until the Civil War. Sections on the various religious groups trying to gain a stronghold among the many new residents, the establishment of Manhattan’s grid systems as the city expanded northward as well as The Great Fire of 1835 make this novel another interesting read in an excellent series.
March 17th, 2009
Lesley - Central
Very Valentine, the first in a new trilogy from bestseller author Adriana Trigiani (Big Stone Gap), features the Roncalli/Angelini family of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. 33-year-old Valentine, the middle sister referred to as the “funny one” since childhood, finds herself living with her 80-year-old grandmother, Teodora Angelini, in an apartment above the family’s struggling wedding shoe business. Valentine’s engagement and career as a teacher ended in disappointment and she is ready to start over learning the family business.
The Angelini Shoe Company founded by her grandfather in 1903 is in financial trouble and Valentine needs a plan to keep her older brother Albert from selling the building for a quick profit. A solution presents itself in the form of a contest among area businesses to design wedding shoes for an upcoming window display at the Bergdorf-Goodman store on Fifth Ave. In the midst of Valentine’s busy life in the shop, she meets restaurateur Roman Falconi, whose many hours at the popular Ca’ d’Oro leave little room for romance.
Very Valentine is really a love story; not only romantic love but love of family, tradition and Old World craftsmanship in the 21st century. The many colorful characters made for a fun book and I’m glad to know that there are two more planned featuring the Roncalli/Angelini clan.
March 2nd, 2009
Lesley - Central
Madison author Rae Meadows’ second novel No One Tells Everything began as a real murder case between two college students. After reading of the case Meadows’ made it into a fictional account of a thirty-something copy editor who spends her evenings in Brooklyn getting drunk at a neighborhood bar and a college student who confesses to murder.
When Sarah Shafer, a student at Emeryville College on Long Island is reported missing and later found murdered, fellow student Charles Raggatt is arrested and confesses to the crime. The newspaper account draws the attention of Grace, a copy editor at a weekly news magazine, especially after she discovers that she and Raggatt both grew up in the suburban Cleveland area. Told through alternating points of view between the two characters it soon becomes clear that Charles is guilty of the crime.
Grace’s obsession with the case results in visits to the campus and interviews with people who knew both Charles and Sarah. She also starts writing letters to Charles while he’s in jail. When Grace’s father suffers a stroke, she takes a leave from her job, goes back to Cleveland and while there visits Charles’ childhood home and tracks down his high school classmates.
This is not your average mystery. This is actually a book of secrets. From the tragic death of Grace’s sister, to Charles, the son of wealthy parents used by his classmates for money and Sarah, the popular party girl with her own hidden life, everyone has them. Meadows uses that fact to good effect in this thoughtful novel.
February 12th, 2009
Lesley - Central
Heather Sharfeddin’s first novel Blackbelly follows the life of Chas McPherson, a rancher in contemporary Idaho who raises sheep which are bred for food rather than wool. The McPherson homestead in rural Sweetwater is badly in need of repair and Chas’s father’s Parkinson’s Disease has progressed to its final stages.
Mattie Holden, a home health-care nurse from Spokane, is hired to care for Chas’s father, Franklin. He is a former charismatic preacher whose disease has resulted in his immobility and an inability to speak. A romance blossoms between Mattie and Chas as they attempt to survive on the stark, remote ranch during the bitter winter months.
The story takes a major turn when Chas discovers that Sweetwater’s only Muslim family can’t afford a lamb for Eid, an Islamic religious feast day. He leaves them one in secret and later refuses to acknowledge the gift. Unfortunately the sight of the rancher’s truck at the Teleghani property close to the time of a fire implicates Chas in the crime. Because of past history the citizens of Sweetwater are quick to judge Chas guilty.
Heather Sharfeddon, a sheep rancher herself in Oregon, has written a new type of Western which I highly recommend, one full of secrets and contemporary issues set in the isolated world of sheep ranching in northern Idaho.
January 29th, 2009
Lesley - Central
Leif Enger’s second novel So Brave, Young and Handsome takes the reader back to Minnesota, the setting of his popular debut, Peace Like a River. Set in 1915, this new story features Monte Becket, a successful writer struggling for several years with his next book.
Monte’s life takes an abrupt turn one day when he meets a mysterious man rowing down the river near his house in a self-built boat. Glendon Hale plans to travel back to California where he abandoned his wife, Blue many years ago. Monte is intrigued and decides to accompany him on the journey. The mysterious Glendon turns out to be a former train robber who wants to apologize to Blue while still being pursued by a former Pinkerton’s detective. The story takes another unexpected turn when the robber dissappears and Monte is thrown together with the lawman until a final showdown in California.
While this new book pales in comparison to Peace Like a River with a plot that seems somewhat aimless at times, I did enjoy the descriptions and flavor of the “wild west” which was still present in the early years of the 20th century.
January 9th, 2009
Lesley - Central
Award-winning Welch poet Owen Sheers’ debut novel, Resistance, is an 
alternative history of the Second World War. The story opens in the fall of 1944 after the German invasion of Great Britain. While Nazi troups are spreading across southern England, after the failure of the Allies at Normandy, a long-planned British Resistance Organisation’s Auxiliary Units Special Duties Section, is set in motion.
One morning a group of women in the remote Olchon Valley on the Welch border awaken to find their husbands gone to join the Resistance. Left to manage the work of tending crops and animals alone as the winter sets in, the women soon encounter five German soldiers in the valley on a secret mission. English-speaking Captain Albrecht Wolfram has grown skeptical of the Nazi party teachings and views this location as a safe haven from the war. The soldiers and women soon face a severe blizzard , an event which isolates the valley from the outside world while bringing them closer together.
Eventually the War arrives in the valley but not before several friendships have formed between the Welch women and German soldiers. Based on little known events of the British resistance and the author’s extensive research, this novel also includes rich details of the beautiful Welch landscape and customs.
December 10th, 2008
Lesley - Central
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