Author Archive
… is the title of the latest Kate Atkinson novel. And you may be asking yourself the above question as the book progresses.
Why? Mayhem, murder, kidnapping (maybe), train wreck, life threatening injuries: its all here in sort of a pile-on fashion. So why didn’t I find it to be grim? Its the tone of the main characters. They seem to just take it as it comes. Roll with it. Survive and thrive. Carry on. Even when their lives get more difficult. They’re both admirable and realistic.
Dr. Joanna Hunter is the lone survivor (at age eight) of a major act of violence that killed her siblings and mother. She’s married now, with a baby of her own. Her babysitter Reggie is a 16 year old smarty whose mother has recently died and who’s brother is a criminal. She’s plucky (and loves Dickens) and has found a way to get support via Dr. Hunter (’Call me Jo’), the Pakistani family that runs the corner store, and her former English teacher that’s prepping her for college. And neither Jo nor Reggie has told the other of their losses. They keep that to themselves, as it isn’t what either of them wants to be ‘known for.’
Add to that mix the duo of Louise and Jackson, an Inspector and a Private Eye, who’ve appeared in two previous Atkinson novels, and you’ve got a great cast of characters. When the dark forces listed above come after Jo and Reggie (separately), you feel quite sure Louise and Jackson will ultimately sort it all out.
Did I mention this book (and the others starring Louise and Jackson) are set in Scotland? I loved the culture references that are so different from our own (Tesco and Topshop stores), Paddington station, the Paki corner store. Another winner from this outstanding author.
November 10th, 2008
Liz - Central Library
The novel American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld just absolutely knocked 
my socks off. Seriously, it is SOOO GOOD that I’m considering writing her a fan letter.
American Wife is an account of a young Wisconsin woman who meets and marries a man very different from her. He’s rich, he’s a partier, he’s intellectually beneath her. But she loves him. She finds him fun. And she probably needs some fun.
By setting the book in Wisconsin and changing some details– Charlie Blackwell is part of the family’s meat business until he buys the Brewers baseball team — Sittenfeld is fictionalizing the lives of George Bush and his wife Laura. But…the way she describes him (George/Charlie) especially, lets you know this is absolutely the Bushes, just tweaked.
Why did I love this book so very much? Because it is really about Laura/Alice and their marriage. I didn’t really know, until I began reading, why a smart, quiet librarian who never wanted to give any speeches would marry a snarky, heavy drinking, not-intellectually-vigorous man. And here Sittenfeld imagines why. And how a marriage of very different people can work because, frankly, of the power of love and attraction.
Most of the novel takes place in the years before Bush/Blackwell was governor or president. Especially fun for our readers will be the accuracy with which Sittenfeld portrays Madison (where a BIG chunk of the book is set) and Wisconsin.
Love or hate the Bushes– surprisingly I don’t think it matters here. The deeper insights into marriage and partnership and the interior life of a woman who never ran for anything but ended up on the global stage is completely engrossing.
October 29th, 2008
Liz - Central Library
The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block is one such novel. It follows two threads, one an aging man stuck in his farmhouse homestead, which over the years has become surrounded by subdivision. He and his house are the last of a dying breed, and he stays and stays due to family unhappiness and tragedy.
The other story thread involves a young-ish mother experiencing early onset Alzheimer’s. Her husband stays in denial longer than her teenage son, and when they ultimately must put her in a care center, the son goes detective– searching for details on his mother’s mysterious past.
Between these two threads are fake ‘factual’ (and semi-factual) notes about the history of early onset Alzheimer’s and a bedtime story-like tale of an alternate world called Isidora.
That sounds like alot. And it is, especially for a slim book. But I’m always amazed when an author so young (still in his 20s) can chronicle heartbreak that takes years in real-life to process and learn from. His portrait of early onset Alzheimer’s certainly reads as emotionally true. If the bedtime story sections get a bit tedious, or the fake ‘factual’ sections too arcane, the two narratives that ultimately come together (don’t they always? And isn’t that why we like multiple thread narratives?) are so satisfying in their emotional impact that I have to recommend this book.
October 9th, 2008
Liz - Central Library
Were you a huge fan of The Wire on HBO? If so, then you’re probably aware that one of the great strengths of the show was the writing– done by authors such as George Pelecanos and Richard Price.
I’ve read Richard Price before, but this latest novel Lush Life gets closest to the style of The Wire. The book starts off strong, with a lengthy, manipulative interrogation of a homicide witness and probable suspect by detective Matty Clark and his partner Yolanda. Turns out [spoiler alert] they’ve gotten it all wrong, and now are a week into the investigation with no good leads.
The routes up and down the food chain within the NYPD are fascinating. The maneuvers to get extra manpower on the case and the ways in which they are deflected is classic Wire stuff. Perhaps if you’re reading this for plot-plot-plot you might be a bit dissapointed. But, if what you like is authentic dialogue and an insider’s view of a huge bureaucracy, you’ll adore this book.
September 5th, 2008
Liz - Central Library
The Facebook Book by Greg Atwan was designed, supposedly, as a humor book. But it actually had some real-life conundrums and their potential solutions. It was kinda funny too, but mostly useful.
If you have a Facebook profile, then you know that people want to be your ‘friend’, and that there’s a limit to the number of ‘friends’ you can have (something massive like 250) This can this get a bit like high school: some people are actually more interested in collecting quantities of friends than they are in your life (and those types you’re definitely not interested in yourself.) But…what to do? ‘Ignore’ them? Add them as a friend, but dial down the information you get from them?! It is the stuff of Dear Abby in a way, but also ridiculous and such small stuff to be concerned with in the grand scheme of things.
If you are on Facebook, you may want to check this out, merely to go ‘oh YEAH!’ to the etiquette dilemmas.
August 15th, 2008
Liz - Central Library
Oooh…what an unusual read. David Guterson’s new novel The Other follows two very different friends who first are introduced at a track meet. John William is from a wealthy family and an elite private school. Neil Countryman is being raised by a single dad, and leads a more ordinary life. Both graduate and move on to different colleges, and that’s when John William REALLY starts to change.
A rant-and-raver always, he starts to turn against society, and especially his privleged upbringing. He drops out of school and moves to a trailer in the woods. Neil visits him there, bringing supplies at each visit, and continues to make the trek even after John William moves to a cave deep in the woods.
I love this novel for its mega-outdoors angle (how refreshing) and its exploration of male friendship. Neil continues to really make an effort to support and provide camaraderie to a friend who seems to be really going off the rails. Guterson has structured the novel to shift back and forth in time, which gives it some suspense…as we know some of what happens to John William, but not why or when. Another outstanding novel from the author of Snow Falling on Cedars — another long-time fave of mine.
July 1st, 2008
Liz - Central Library
Our book group just finished reading and discussing The Devil’s Highway by Luis Urrea. It’s a book I’d checked out a couple of times, based on good reviews, but had never gotten around to reading until our book group met.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the Texas/Mexico border, visting each year for a week or so in October for about 8 years (for my hubby’s work.) So I was familiar with how different border life was, and how fluid the border was there in the late 90s and early 00s. The Devil’s Highway focuses on an actual event where 26 crossed the border into the desert of Arizona, and only 12 survived. And it is a miracle even they survived. This is Urrea’s fourth border book, and as a Mexican-American who was born in Tijuana, Baja California, you’d expect him to have a strong bias. Even he admits openly he expected to be very anti Border Patrol going into the book.
What I found so impressive about this book was his ability to present multiple points of view. He writes often in the first person, and uses the slang of the Border Patrol when writing about them/as them and in the style of the various demographics of the illegals when he’s channeling them– he sounds like a 50 year old sometimes, a teen other times.
Most of the illegals that crossed that day were middle aged men from Veracruz. He writes about them in a different style and vocabulary from the coyote that led them (who was a 19-year-old, hipster-type with a shock of rooster red hair.)
Nearly everyone in the book is given a detailed, nuanced portrait. There are no caricatures here. Not even any stereotypes, really, as he has worked so hard to research and present the nuances (down to the belt buckles each wore.)
May 20th, 2008
Liz - Central Library
Do you have a pile of back-up books at home? Books you’ve bought (or were given) that you haven’t gotten to because they haven’t got a due date? But books you really DO want to read one day? Ones that you are pretty sure will be great?
I just read one from that pile… and it was truly fabulous.
Patron Saint of Liars is Ann Patchett’s first novel. A young married woman from California has a general feeling of unsettledness in her life. Not unhappiness, exactly. Then she gets pregnant. So she leaves the most minimal note for her husband (nothing said about the pregnancy) and travels across the country to a home for pregnant girls (though she is not a girl at all.)
The what-happens-next is not the central issue of the book, but you’d rather have ALL the suspense, I’d bet. Naturally a book that takes place in a home for pregnant girls gets a reader thinking about mothers & daughters. And of course there is loss here, but not the kind you’d think, necessarily, or in the way you’d think, necessarily. Ann Patchett hasn’t written a bad book, I’d say, ever. But this is one shockingly good first novel.
April 18th, 2008
Liz - Central Library
So Dan Kennedy has written a truly funny (and witty, which isn’t the same) book about working for the now failing record industry. Which of course I devoured, as I am a former record store employee who moved on to greener library pastures just in the nick of time.
I tell ya: the corporate cluelessness and greed he presents is totally real, from my limited insider view as a record store manager and buyer in the 1990s. (His recounting of a label meeting about the band The Darkness is fall on the floor funny, if you’re familiar with the band.) Of course in the age of rampant illegal downloading, it isn’t hard to convince people that the record labels are protecting their own backsides, frankly at the expense of both artists and the artistic expression formerly known as a record album. But only Dan Kennedy can do so in such a gloriously self-deprecating and humorous way. The fact that he is affiliated with McSweeney’s and Dave Eggers comes as no surprise.
A warning: The cover art is horrid! Don’t let it dissuade you.
April 7th, 2008
Liz - Central Library
Now really: I have LOVED Richard Russo a very long time. I discovered him back when Four Star Books was open (and many people probably have no idea Four Star ever had books.) Back then, it was the late ’80s, Mohawk and Risk Pool were his only two novels, and they were 400ish pages. Both focused on run-down towns with struggling folks. His prize winner Empire Falls was another struggling town that had lost its industry. Ditto his new novel, Bridge of Sighs. But this time, the multi-generational sweep of family and connections seems to be more the driving force of the narrative. Really, its almost like an Ivan Doig novel set in upstate New York.
Generations have lived on the same street and one family has run the same corner grocery (albeit through many changes) for years. The friends and family that spin off Lou Lynch, the nicest young man you’ll ever meet, propel a narrative that shifts back and forth in time and location. I think we’ve all known a Lou– someone so nice that you look for the fakery (or assume they just have a low IQ.) Having his goodness at the heart of the book helps mitigate some of the gloom that usually permeates Russo’s dying-industrial town novels.
But… it was just too darn long. Too many characters, too much time to cover. Too much delving into the inner workings of nearly every character. Edited to 2/3rd’s its size, this would have been an excellent book. As is, only good. And I expected more.
March 11th, 2008
Liz - Central Library
Previous Posts
Why? Mayhem, murder, kidnapping (maybe), train wreck, life threatening injuries: its all here in sort of a pile-on fashion. So why didn’t I find it to be grim? Its the tone of the main characters. They seem to just take it as it comes. Roll with it. Survive and thrive. Carry on. Even when their lives get more difficult. They’re both admirable and realistic.
