Susan X Meagher

Vanity Fair by Wm. Makepeace Thackeray

2011-12-06T10:36:00.001-05:00

It took me a month, but I finally finished!

I'm not sure if I was distracted when I began the book, or if it was just hard to get into, but the first 50-75 pages were very slow going. I got through them, then put the book aside, assuming I'd not return.

To my surprise, we were sent to London for a month and I decided to pull it up on my Kindle during the flight over. The next 50 pages were a little slow, too, but once I got into it I was always in a hurry to get back to the hotel room and chew on it a little more.

According to my Kindle numbers, the book was about 850 pages. Yes, it would have been more palatable to modern tastes if it was half that size. But if you look at it as a very long look at everyday life of upper and upper middle class Londoners of the early 19th century, it's a perfect length.

I suppose I just gave away the plot! Actually, the plot is very simple and classic. We follow two young women, one good and wealthy, the other bad and poor. We meet their immediate and extended families, and quickly come to know the men they love and their families as well. We learn that being good and kind is better than being avaricious and manipulative. But we also learn that the ride is more fun when the bad girl is driving.

By the time we're really into the book we've met at least 75 people, and most of them show up again and again. Some are caricatures, most are stereotypes, and a few are more complexly drawn. But Thackeray was writing at the beginning of the creation of the novel, and many of the stereotypes were fresh when he used them.

He's most interested and fond of the bad girl and her badish husband. Because it's obvious he's more interested in her, we are as well. But he dutifully tries to make the good girl interesting for us too. I suppose he was one of the early novelists who realized that bad boys and bad girls hold our interest more. There's more to them and their wily motives and that's been true since people have tried to tell stories.

Aside from the main plot, the book, as I said earlier, is a good way to immerse yourself in 19th century London and its environs. The characters are for the most part middle class, which was pretty nice at the time. They all have maids and butlers and cooks and various other servants. Labor at the time was almost free. I've read the typical household servant made two or three pounds a year, plus room and board. Given that they didn't spend much at all on the board part, servants were affordable if you had any income at all.

How money was spent probably took up 20% of the book. Fortunes rose and fell quickly, often with little warning. It seemed that you could live well on a very small income, but most of our characters aren't interested in that. They want to live very well, and that takes a bit more scratch. Getting that scratch takes a lot of time and trickery, and that was the most interesting part of the book for me.

I wouldn't want to read novels like this very often, but I'm glad I read this one. I feel like I have a much better understanding of how England functioned at the time. Given this was the high point of colonialism, it was a very important time in world history. If you have a free month, give it a whirl.

BTW, if you want some background, read "What Jane Austen ate and Charles Dickens Knew," or "Behind Closed Doors:Life in Georgian England."Then you'll have a much better idea of money, food, social habits, etc.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

2011-09-20T14:23:00.002-04:00

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm sure there are zillions of things wrong with Franzen and this book, but I don't care if it's trying to be the great American novel or not. I enjoyed it thoroughly and recommend it highly. However, if you hate Franzen, why torture yourself? Just acknowledge that you hate the book and don't bother reading it.

I'd hate to be the guy people put so much heat on. I think he's just a writer who tries to express himself. But he doesn't need my approval to keep writing. At least I hope he doesn't!

I liked Freedom because I cared about the characters. They were all flawed, but he spent enough time to make us care about them as we'd care about anyone we knew that much about. I think that's what Franzen does best, and it's a skill I don't think you can pick up. Either you care enough to deeply observe and report what you think makes people tick--or you don't. If more writers could follow his lead, I'd be a happier reader.

There are plenty of reviews detailing the plot of the book, but I'll give it a quick summary. The main characters are Walter and Patty Berglund, who meet in Minnesota during college. Their friends and family and co-workers get drawn into the book as time passes, and by the end almost 30 years have zipped by.

I thought the book was pretty light hearted in some ways, even though a lot of bad things happen. But the characters have some inner gumption that keeps them going for the most part. Maybe that's why people tag it as the great American novel. We have a tendency to keep striving and trying to better ourselves and the world. At least we used to, but that's a topic for another day.

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The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

2011-09-20T13:54:00.000-04:00

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

i would probably have liked the book better if I hadn't chosen it because of its humor. If you're looking for a story of self-sabotaging workaholics who, for the most part, can only be trusted to put out a good paper, this is your book.

I think the point of the book is that we tend to work hard at our jobs to the exclusion of personal satisfaction. We do this just either because we're stuck in a rut or we think we can use the job as a stepping stone for our ambition. But no matter how hard we work, or how many things we give up, our work matters little over the long run. We're on earth for just a moment or two and we and everything we stand for will soon be forgotten.

Now, that's probably true, but I wanted to have a bit of humor along with the pathos, and I sure didn't find it. The characters were, for the most part, losers or louses. There was only one guy who seemed to have it together out of the whole bunch. I don't generally mind having a bunch of misfits in a book, but these people were kind of pathetic. I know a bit of depth about them, but I can't say I cared about most of them. They're just too flawed.

I also chose the book because of it's setting. I'm going to Rome in a couple of days and wanted to put myself in the proper frame of mind. But it could have been set in St. Louis. Both cities are placed on a river and that's about all I know about Rome from this book.

The writer worked at newspapers and he must have hated the experience. I didn't detect one shred of love for the process or the art of reporting or writing.

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Thanksgiving

2010-11-24T15:35:00.000-05:00

My Gf and I aren't big celebrators of the holiday. Neither of us has relatives close by, and it's not quite the same experience to tag along to friends' family events. Thanksgiving, for me, has been about being with your relatives, so since we're not doing that we like to do something different. This year we're going to have oysters, stone crab and a wicked cheese course. If it's nice out we'll go watch thousands of people try to find their proper bus after marching in the parade.

I think it's a nice day to be thankful for all that we have, but I think it's a mistake if you only do that once a year. Maybe it's my news sources, or my region of the world, but people seem so grouchy and petulant this year. I understand there's a recession and that things are hard for many people. But the poor in America would be relatively rich in most parts of the world.

We have been so blessed to be born at this time, in this place, through no efforts on our own. Just by the happenstance of birth we have it better than people a hundred years ago could have dreamed of. If nothing else we have antibiotics, for goodness' sake!

There is a lot one can't control, but one has a great deal of power over their world view. If you want to do it you can see the good that surrounds you. The inverse is also true. Give that a thought this Thanksgiving and see if you can summon up a dozen things you're thankful for. If you can't, maybe it's time to give your life a good, long assessment. The world is as beautiful as you'll let yourself see.

Election Fatigue

2010-11-03T12:08:00.000-04:00

It seems a long time ago, but two years ago I was as happy as a voter could be. I'm still happy with the president, and I'm proud to have him represent our country on the international stage. I'm not happy about having lost Democratic control over the Congress, but part of the reason for the loss was self-inflicted.

I'm old enough to have seen voters move a little to the right, then a little to the left. So it has been, so shall it ever be. We're mostly in the middle, with very vocal minorities on either end. If the economy is bad, the ruling part gets kicked out. If we're at war, the ruling party generally stays in. Unless the economy is REALLY bad, then no one cares about war. I still don't understand how Al Gore lost, given we were at peace and the economy was cruising along. But don't get me started on that! It's water under the bridge that I'd like to push certain members of the Supreme Court off.

Having a divided Congress isn't usually a bad thing. The Republicans can't just say "no," since they're now in charge of getting the legislative ball rolling. I assume they'll spend time proposing bills Democrats will never, ever vote for and launching investigations into the president's malfeasances, but a girl can hope.

The good news is that we'll have almost a year with no political ads suffocating us. That alone is cause for celebration! So, congratulations if your man or woman won, and my condolences if he or she didn't.

A longish post by a well-respected editor

2010-11-02T10:30:00.002-04:00

The people who tend to the words are the most endangered contributors to the publishing process, Stephen Guise writes

At the end of March 2008 I left Little, Brown, where I had worked as an editor and then a commissioning editor for some six and a half years. There were a number of reasons for my leaving, but quite significant was Hachette’s decidedly cautious approach to serious non-fiction, in which I had come to specialise. That caution was, it is now clear, quite justified. This article, however, is not a contribution to the endlessly rehearsed literary-commercial debate (on which my views are relatively straightforward: yes, it’s always been like this; and, no, it’s never been as bad as this), but about some of the implications for the career prospects of editors.

Which is one thing to be said for freelance work - especially when you haven’t got any: it leaves time for reflection. And so, speaking to a prominent publisher-editor at a launch party towards the end of last year, I commented on the number of commissioning positions that were going to people with marketing or publicity backgrounds.

One recentish example is that of Colin Midson, a publicity director at Bloomsbury who is now a commissioning editor at Simon & Schuster. Another example: Matt Phillips, who is now editorial director at Yellow Jersey and was, says the Bookseller, a creative manager at CCV. (The names thing is invidious, and I hope it goes without saying that this isn’t ad hominem, and that it will become clear that this isn’t about the non-editors who are promoted into commissioning roles, but about the editors who aren’t.)

From the press release: "During his years spent working in marketing Matt has learnt the important skills of how to sell books." Not: how to edit books. But: how to sell books. So what do non-editors say when author and agent ask them about books they've previously edited and presumably improved in doing so? There must be a pregnant pause (note to author: avoid cliché), I suppose. Another glib-seeming question: if the commissioning editor is busy dreaming up angles, what are the marketing and publicity departments employed to do? The obvious implication - in fact, it’s rather more blatant than an implication - is that editorial nous is secondary to sales nous.

A side issue here, but not to be ignored, is the belief that anyone can edit. Well, yes, up to a point. In fact, precisely the point up to which "Anyone can write a book" is true. That is to say, not very true at all, as any editor who has ever had to wade through slush piles of unreadable prose and heart-rendingly bad poetry will be able to tell you. Editing and writing are linked in more significant ways too. Most obviously, good writing and good editing are rooted in the same two things: reading and doing. Leaving aside the question of how comparatively well read editors and non-editors are likely to be, we are on less contentious ground when we assert that it is only editors who, day in, day out, year after year, bring their full attention to bear on questions of style and structure, of what it is – however imprecisely it can be articulated – that makes a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter, a book work. Regardless of the greyness of these arguments, and while you would rather be in the hands of an eager but inexperienced editor than heart surgeon, let’s cling to the belief that a publishing house has a responsibility, which manifests itself in the person of a commissioning editor (no one else further down the line will have nearly as much influence on the text), to ensure that its authors’ books are as good as they possibly can be. Because, if not lives, authors’ careers are at stake here (while for the commissioning editor another exciting proposal will be along shortly).

However - and here side issue becomes main issue - this tendency for non-editors to move across into commissioning roles (just you, editor, try going the other way) cannot be attacked on commercial grounds. Not anecdotally, because it has been done successfully in the past, and not least because a former colleague of mine, who came from TV, scored a great success with almost the first book he commissioned. Not in principle either, because the buying ("shopping") and editing ("cooking") of books are two different things entirely.

And so we turn to Ebury’s advertisement of what is now last year for a commissioning editor. It began, "Amy, Lily or Cheryl – who would you choose?" To quote selectively (but not unrepresentatively): "Whilst experience within a book publishing environment would be an advantage, it is not essential as full support will be given." And "[Answer] the following questions in less than 100 words each: 1) Why are you the right person for this job? 2) Who you believe is the most influential pop culture figure of 2009? and 3) What do you think is the next big thing?" To the uninitiated, this may well seem to be an advertisement for an internship at Teen magazine. (For another time: are there really so few people already in publishing, who know how the business works, who can answer these questions?)

But at least the advertisement offers some insight into the point of editors. To begin with, the question should be, "whom [not "who"] would you choose?" As for "whilst" - why not just "while"? It’s like saying "dost thou" when you could say "do you". And of course it should be "fewer than 100 words". Question 2) is in fact, and quite obviously, not a question at all, but do away with the redundant "you believe" and it becomes one. And that should probably be "pop-culture figure", shouldn’t it, though the intention is clear enough that the omission of the hyphen is venial. And don’t kid yourself that the majority of authors don’t need saving from themselves just as much as the writer of this advertisement did; need saving, that is, from being wrong. As for the mistakes in this piece ...

No doubt this all seems somewhat, well, trivial - who (or is it "whom"?) cares? Of course it is trivial, in commercial terms at least: it doesn’t matter to the people who matter. Proposals are rarely argued through acquisitions meetings on the grounds of quality alone (far less punctilious grammar): track records are adduced, and angles, and the likelihood of TV and radio interest, of contacts, of precedents, and so on. If a book "needs work" (real work, not justi-dotting), all well and good, let the editor go off and do it; it is unlikely to be much remembered, a sentence in the acknowledgements perhaps if the author sees fit. And even if how well a book is edited affects how well that book goes on to sell - and let’s assume that it does - it isn't likely to be decisive (how could we possibly know? A problem, for editors, in itself), and, more significantly here, it will never make a book more saleable: it will not be mentioned on the AI or in the jacket copy, and "The New Martina Cole: Brilliantly Edited" is not coming soon to a Tube platform near you. Hidden work, lonely, dull at times, fraught with uncertainty, and undervalued - oh, poor editor, boo hoo. But even if this trend can’t be attacked on the grounds that it makes no commercial sense (though I’d like to see someone lay out the reasons exactly why a non-editor is more likely to buy books that will sell), here’s what it says to anyone embarking on an editorial career…

Appointment as a commissioning editor will typically represent the third or fourth promotion in an editor’s career: editorial assistant; assistant editor; editor; commissioning editor - something like that, give or take the nomenclature. The promotion to commissioning editor is by far the most significant, because now you’re buying books, or trying to. It might take an editor three years to make the leap, it might take 10 years, it might take for ever - most editors won’t commission, though it’s what brought them into publishing in the first place. Today, it’s more likely to take an editor for ever, because today editors compete against not only their editorial colleagues, but also their colleagues in other departments, and, increasingly, against people who wouldn’t know their arse from a verso. It would take a certain masochism for an editor to want to slog away for a decade on poor pay (some perspective please: people get paid far less to get killed in Afghanistan, and with far fewer opportunities for lunch at Joe Allen) to find that, in their early 30s, say, they’ve been leap-frogged by an 18-year-old with a subscription to Heat. (If you think this is only a joke, however unfunny, please see if you can find the Ebury advertisement - and, no, Ebury aren’t the first and they won’t be the last - and tell me why the job couldn’t go to an 18-year-old with a subscription to Heat.)

Let’s say this applies only to commercial publishing. And let’s not get sniffy either, because it’s commercial publishing that paid for much of my Xmas bonuses while I was at Little, Brown. Surely literary publishing is different? Yes and no. The commissioning on serious imprints will almost certainly continue to be undertaken by people who have done the reading and the editing. But how many of these people do we think there are going to be in five years' time? Is there a corporate publisher that has done anything other than lay off serious (and, for the most part, senior, presumably high-salaried) commissioning editors over the last 12 remarkable months? And you can get short odds about there not being many corporate publishers who take on serious commissioning editors after the recession either.

But if neither commercial nor literary publishing looks very promising for editors who want to advance, there is, for the sake of balance, another way forward: the managing editor route. It’s not for everyone though, and second best by some way if what you hoped to do was commission; more practically, there aren’t that many managing editors, and it’s a career path with a shallow upward curve. Failing that, well, it’s not as though editors are owed a career any more than midlist authors are - go freelance, young man. This, it seems to me, is what will happen in the future, one way or another. How many, for example, of those editors recently made redundant from Penguin’s Ed2 department are now freelancers? Again, Penguin’s decision cannot be attacked on commercial grounds. Many of the editors made redundant at Penguin and elsewhere - if they have not been fortunate enough to be welcomed by other publishers - will go back to their previous employers for freelance work. These editors’ skills and experience are at publishers’ disposal sans pension contributions, sans holiday pay, sans overheads, sans just about everything. In the short term at least.

What about the long term? If this piece is not too disconnected from reality, in the future there’ll be fewer editors in-house, and less editorial experience further up the greasy pole. Not only must this have an effect on the quality of books published today (disagree as you see fit, but don’t argue that fewer and less-experienced editors is likely to mean better books), it also suggests the question: to whom will the editors of the future turn for advice? I know how fortunate I was to be prodded in the right direction by Liz Faber, Anthea Snow and Alison Starling when I started at Mitchell Beazley some 12 years ago. You can go on as many editorial courses at the Publishing Training Centre as your HR department is willing to pay for, it isn’t the same as working alongside fellow editors who know what they are doing, and know because they care about knowing. There is some irony in the fact that Trevor Dolby wrote, laudably, to advocate the development of editorial talent in the same week that the Ebury advertisement appeared (although he might have been talking about shoppers rather than cooks).

My "solution" earns its quote marks by being so fantastical that I won’t waste much time on it. But here goes: the next time you parachute a non-editor into a commissioning role, take your best real editor and promote them to - let’s call it - Structural Editor and pay them most of what you are going to pay the commissioning editor in lieu of the kudos (and the rest of the salary); let them work hand in hand with the commissioning editor and take care of the editorial work that the commissioning editor isn’t really qualified to do. That is, open up a new way forward for editors who aren’t going to be able to commission and don’t want to manage. If you’re going to reward someone fornot bringing editorial skills to the commissioning role, at least try to find some way of recognising those who do have these skills. God knows, many commissioning editors, whatever their provenance, will be grateful for a more legitimate way of sharing the heavy editorial work that they barely have the time to do between meetings.

No? I didn’t think so.

Anyway, to end, another quiz. 1) Can you imagine a large corporate publisher without a sales department? 2) Without a marketing department? 3) Without a publicity department? 4) Without an editorial department (other than a few editors to check catalogue copy and that sort of thing and send typescripts out to freelancers)? No. No. No. Yes. It seems, inescapably, a paradox that while - with apologies to illustrated publishing - books are words, the people who tend to those words are in danger of becoming the most disposable part of the process. It will get worse for editors before it gets better. And don’t hold your breath.

What editors and spouses do

2010-11-02T10:19:00.000-04:00

I snipped this from Bookhugger in the U.K.

"Sometimes, when people talk to me, and they find out I’ve written a couple of books, they ask me what editors do.

Also, I just read Stephen Guise’s interesting article about the problems facing editors. The gist of the piece is that skilled editors are being overlooked for commissioning editor positions (commissioning editors choose which books to publish as well as editing them) in favour of applicants with sales and marketing skills who might bring in a big celebrity book, but don’t have experience of actual editing. My editor at Simon and Schuster, Francesca Main, is very much a commissioning ed. who works with words, and I just wanted to talk about the editing process, in order to shed some light on the value of this work.

I submitted the ‘first’ draft (actually the ninth) of my second novel, The Hunger Trace, to Francesca in December 2009. We’re in the final stages of editing now. I hope. So, for a start, that’s nine months of graft. Back in December, I’d got as far as I could. I couldn’t really see the novel any more, and it was giving me gastric flu. It was the best I could make it at that moment. I needed new input.

In March, Francesca sent me a thoroughly marked-up manuscript (I’d say 4 or 5 comments per page) dealing with sentence level things, and an in-depth report on the major issues with the novel. This report broke down into sections including: Plot, Structure, Character, etc. So, fairly big stuff. We’re not talking about shifting commas.

Some writers might balk at this. Some don’t want that kind of comment, and I understand. I met a writer once who said they made sure their work was perfect before it went to an editor, and so there were few changes. This was an experienced writer, and a far superior craftsperson to me. I’m very much into collaborating with a small group of readers I trust (starting with the missus). I want people to like the book (at the root of it, I want people to like me) and so I value reader input. I’m okay at creating characters, writing decent sentences about the sky, and doing dialogue, but I’m still learning about what works in terms of plot and structure – getting folk to turn the page. I’m interested in it, I study it, and I hope to get better."

His article resonated with me, perhaps because I write in the same way. I like a small group of readers I trust (starting with the missus) to read my work before I send it to my editor. But you have to be careful of what you wish for! Last night the missus told me she wasn't loving the first draft of my latest. She had a surprisingly long list of things she thought it lacked, and I felt thoroughly defeated. It takes me a day or even two to step back and really hear criticism about something I work on so hard, but I eventually come around.

I'm thinking about her comments this morning and realizing she's completely right. I've got a lot of work to do to get a second draft up to snuff but I'd rather hear complaints from her than hear them after the book's in print. It's too late at that point! Way too late.

A New Beginning

2010-10-25T12:40:00.000-04:00

As some of you know, I've been using this blog to write about some of the books I've read in the past couple of years. I'll still do that, but I want to start using it to provide updates on my writing. For those of you who find me (as opposed to my work) interesting, you can follow me on Twitter as SusanX and/or Facebook as Susan X Meagher.

I've been writing for over 10 years now, and it's taken me this long to finally accept that the kind of feedback I'd love to get is not practical. I'd love to have a group of people who want to talk about writing and discuss why certain characters do certain things, etc., but that's not the readers' role. Readers (for the most part) want to be entertained or moved or thrilled or frightened. They don't want to spend time wondering why Callie agreed to such a one-sided relationship with Marina. And if they do wonder about it, they don't want to spend time writing to ask me. And, let's be honest, if every reader asked every question that occurred to her, I wouldn't have time to write new material.

So I'm going to try to update whenever I have something to say. I'll keep you in the loop about what I'm working on so you don't forget about me. You can leave comments any time you want, but I'm not going to publish them. I know many people are shy about making their thoughts public, so you can rest assured that only I will see them.

So, let's have an update, shall we?

I've got a book, "Smooth Sailing," just about ready for editing, and another, "How To Wrangle A Woman," about three quarters finished. When I've got a good first draft of HTWAW finished I'm going to get back to IFMHISF.

I have a lot of work to do on the series, between revising past books and marching forward on new ones. Since I don't have any other stand-alone books in the incubation stage, I'm going to get in the IFMHISF mind-frame and stay there for a while.

"Smooth Sailing" is set in Los Angeles, St. Maarten in the Caribbean, Amsterdam and Osaka. That has to be the oddest assemblage of cities for a book that's NOT about a pilot. Oops. I forgot there's a short trip to Cincinnati. That clinches it!

The book is about a woman (Laurie) who's working insane hours to finish a major work project. She's been doing this for six years and is almost finished. She's forced to take a 2 week vacation, where she meets a woman (Kaatje) who makes her reassess every part of her life. But that reassessment comes in fits and starts and none of it comes naturally for her. She's a very focused woman who can easily lose herself in her job. Now she has to decide if a job can be enough to satisfy her. Especially when someone so desirable is waiting for her in a tropical paradise. Sounds like a no-brainer, but not for Laurie!

"How To Wrangle A Woman" is set right here in NYC. It's about a woman who's hired to "babysit" for a comedian/political commentator who's having a tough time getting her schedule in order. One woman is calm, mindful, active, and who treats her body like a temple. The other is antsy, oblivious, passive, and treats her body like a depository for sugar, fat and alcohol. But they have a few important things in common, mostly a growing attraction for one another. And that's enough for a good start!

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

2010-08-03T10:01:00.002-04:00

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

2010-08-03T10:01:00.001-04:00

Middlemarch by George Elliott

2010-08-03T09:59:00.000-04:00

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

2010-07-28T12:00:00.000-04:00

"Pride and Prejudice" wasn't the first romance novel written, but it was at the beginning of the genre. Why is P&P still being avidly read, while most of its contemporaries have fallen into the dustbin of history? Having read none of the others, I can only offer my uninformed opinion. My guess is that Austen just had the knack of connecting with human emotion. Things that don't go out of style. Her characters are throughly human and frail, but also charming. That makes for longevity!

I truly enjoyed the book, and was very impressed by Austen's gifts. I don't think I need go into many details, since I'm probably one of the few people in the English speaking world who hadn't read it before now. If you've not read it, give it a whirl. It's light, funny, clever and satisfying.

I wonder how the book would be received if it were written today--in a contemporary style, of course. I fear it would be lumped into genre fiction and be just another light romance novel. Our need to categorize all forms of entertainment haven't done us any good, IMO. P&P is considered literary fiction, but I'm fairly confident that wouldn't be so if it were written now. I'm not sure how I'd categorize fiction if I were in charge of the world, but I think I'd like to have quality matter more than genre.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

2010-07-28T11:16:00.001-04:00

This summer I embarked on a plan to make up for the massive deficiencies of my literary education. I was a double major in political science and finance in college and somehow got a degree without reading one significant literary work.

In retrospect, it was a mistake to major in finance, but my employer paid for business courses and I love to save a buck or ten thousand. I should have majored in liberal arts and gotten an overview of all of the disciplines.

In high school I know I read Dickens and Dostoyevsky, and Salinger, but that was about it. Given my high school, I'm surprised we had to read anything.

After college I got into history, biography and science. I rarely read a piece of fiction, and when I did it was something popular, like Kurt Vonnegut. Nothing wrong with that, but I've spent the last X number of years nodding when someone speaks of "War and Peace" or "Pride and Prejudice."

I started reading fiction again around 20 years ago. I've pretty much stuck with current fiction, wedging in a book when I wasn't writing one. But summer is a great time for me to read, so I decided to make a dent in the pile of unread great books. I started with "Anna Karenina," mostly because I so enjoyed "War and Peace" last summer.

I'm officially a Tolstoy fan, since I liked Anna just a bit less than "War and Peace." Strangely, the war story in the latter really held me spellbound. I found that strange since I'm not normally a fan of action and adventure. But Tolstoy's war was more about how war changes people and their notions. Much better than outlandish tales of bravery and derring-do...at least for me.

Even though it wasn't of the scale of "War and Peace," "Anna Karenina" was a lovely book. Anyone who thinks it would be charming to live in those days should read this book to see how stultifying it could be to live in such tight social strictures. If I were in that society I wouldn't be able to see most of my friends!

Tolstoy really had the gift, as I'm sure one or two others have noted. He could take a long period of fairly ordinary life and give it real drama. Not sure how he did it, but I've like to have a little of his skill.

"Anna Karenina" is about a woman who has her head turned by a charming young man. The thing I liked about the book is that you never really get into Anna's head. At the end I didn't know if she was open to overtures or was even looking for one. I could also never tell how much she loved her husband or his replacement. She was an enigma, and having that mystery is, I think, one of the things has kept this book at the top of the "great books" list for so long. Most readers, whether they know it or not, like to have to work a bit to figure things out for themselves. You clearly have to do that with Anna. Every other character is presented more transparently, but Tolstoy held back on Anna, with great effect.

It's clearly a tragedy, but there are hundreds of pages of insight into the quotidian lives of the upper class of late 19th Century Russia.

One thing I've been surprised by is how accessible these great books are. Because they're so big I assumed they'd be really dense and difficult. Not in the least. Anyone who likes a good story and deep character development would enjoy this as well as "War and Peace." Since you can get either of them from Kindle on your PC for free or 99 cents, it's the best bargain in town. That's a lot of pages for the dough!

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

2010-04-06T18:17:00.000-04:00

I've had a few days of writer's block, so I decided to read a real book instead of the huge numbers of RSS feeds I subscribe to. I like to read to help stoke my creative fire, and I usually choose literary fiction. I like to read something that challenges me and makes me consider the ways good writers structure their books.

The problem with this is that it can be darned depressing when I realize how good these folks are and how much I'd have to improve to even plagiarize properly from them .

Middlesex reminded me a bit of Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow. Both books try to look at critical times in US history through fictional families. Both are very well done. But Middlesex is a more intimate book, and one that spoke to me more emotionally.

The book tells of a Greek-American family, their immigration to the US in the 1920s, their slow assimilation to Detroit, their eventual love of America and the fate of their daughter, Calliope. Calliope was born with a mutation on one gene, an abnormality that we learn goes back many generations, but manifests itself in Calliope's intersexed body. She doesn't realize she's different until close to puberty, when the signals of her male genotype become too obvious to ignore.

It's the way her parents handle the situation that I found most touching. Books like this let me imagine how hard it must be to make choices for your kids that can have lasting effects for all of you. The book is also a nice reminder that you can be a very good parent and still make mistakes that might reverberate for many years.

If I make it sound like a depressing novel I'd like to make it clear that it's not. Calliope is the narrator, and through her voice we have a lot of empathy for the whole crew. There's hardly a bad guy in the group, even though some of them made bad choices. But the narrator has affection for her whole family, so we do too.

Eugenides understands young women so well I have a hard time believing he isn't one. He has a wonderful gift for getting into the heads of all of his characters and making each of them distinct. I'm still thinking about the family he created and wishing I could hear just a few more pages about them. There's nothing he left out...no holes that need to be filled. I just loved being with them and would like more time.

Bonk by Mary Roach

2009-10-03T18:20:00.000-04:00
I've read all of Roach's single-word titled books, and she just keeps getting better. This one is about the science of sex. It would be hard to go wrong with this, as it merges two of my favorite topics.

Roach has a delightful sense of humor, and she's very diligent in her research. She traveled to a number of unexpected places during the writing of the book, including a mostly wasted trip to Egypt. Not really a country you'd expect to have pioneering sex research going on, and you'd be right. One determined guy was trying to prove a theory but the government frightened his subjects into not speaking with Roach. Nonetheless, that folly gives you an idea of how hard she works to find people on the margins who might add something to the body of research.

I learned a lot from the book; including a further confirmation of my belief that most of us try to make sex and sexual response seem simple. It can be, of course, but it can also be very difficult to fix certain sexual problems. The whole system is incredibly complex, and those of us who have systems that work reliably should be very, very grateful for them.

The final chapter was my favorite, and it surprised me a little. I won't reveal what she found, but I recommend you read the book and discover it for yourself. Don't let the science part intimidate you. It's science-light, and you'll understand it even if you didn't do well in biology.

Home by Marilynne Robinson

2009-07-31T17:41:00.000-04:00
This companion to "Gilead" took me a while to get into. But once I hit my stride I was obsessed. The book centers on two of the characters of "Gilead," and takes place simultaneously. If you've read "Gilead" you will definitely want to check this one out. If you haven't--you should!

The Sealed Letter by Emma Donaghue

2009-07-31T17:24:00.000-04:00
I must admit I don't know what's in the sealed letter. I got through the first 50 pages, then decided this was the day I was going to follow through with my recent decision to stop at 50 if I wasn't enthralled. To be honest, there are too many books out there to spend a day reading something that doesn't really grab me.

I was surprised I didn't like this one. Donaghue can usually be counted on to present a well-researched, fact-based tale that transports the reader to the time of the action. But this time it felt like she was saying, "look how much I know about Victorian England." Not that there's anything wrong with knowing a lot about anything. But her facts weren't integral to the story and that left me cold.

Donaghue can tend to write more like an academic than a novelist, and this one seemed devoid of emotion. But her writing is crisp and clear and her facts are always presented well. So you might like this if you crave Victorian tales even when they're on the dry side.

The Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

2009-07-30T19:53:00.000-04:00
I admit I'm a huge fan of Chabon's, so you may want to take my view with a grain of salt. I'm afraid I can't be entirely objective.

The Wonder Boys is his second novel; written after he'd wasted several years (and spent a big advance) writing a bloated opus that he finally abandoned. One day he sat down and started The Wonder Boys and found he could focus and get somewhere again. Improbably, The Wonder Boys is the story of a semi-famous author who can't finish a bloated novel for which he's been paid a large advance.

As someone who writes, I identify with his inability to write what he's supposed to write when he's supposed to write it. So I was fascinated by this tale with such a big true-life thread. It's the old "when life gives you lemons"...

The story is pretty dark and the characters are, for the most part, not terribly appealing. But the plot carried me along and made me not really care that most of the people were self-involved jerks. Chabon has the ability to make me care about people I'd never care about in real life, and I find that a phenomenal gift.

The plot has some twists and turns that I won't give away. Suffice to say that he tells a slightly odd but compelling tale about a writer and his friend/agent. He skewers literary types, academics, novelists and their sycophants and still manages to be tender at times. I haven't read the novel for which he won the Pulitzer since I'm a delayed gratification kinda girl. But I'm sure I'll give in before too long.

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

2009-07-30T19:44:00.000-04:00
I've read all of Carrie's other books, so when I saw this at the library I picked it up immediately.

She's had a tough adult life; and her childhood wasn't a whole lot easier. I know most people believe that being wealthy, not to mention famous, is the key to happiness. I happen to think it's harder to be happy when you're both.

Carrie's had some intense shock therapy and it has seriously affected her memory, but her sense of humor is pretty intact. This book is a very quick read; mostly full of anecdotes about her family--many of which she doesn't recall. She says her life is more like a movie to her than her life, and I find that rather sad.

She's had a very tough time with depression and being bipolar. But she's trying her best to be a good mother to her daughter and to make sure she sees her grow up. The book is wry and funny; but there's an undercurrent of sadness that runs through it. I recommend it if you're a fan of Carrie's or a fan of old Hollywood. And since it will only take a couple of hours to read it, it's a great book for an afternoon by the pool or the beach.

Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman

2009-07-17T18:38:00.000-04:00
The subtitle of this book is "A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace." While reading it I considered that the subtitle is actually quite accurate. Waldman is one of those moms who doesn't find each moment of raising a child to be filled with joy and delight. As a matter of fact, when she says "moments" of grace she's deadly serious. But you get a real feel for how incredibly important her kids are to her--even though having them and raising them is a hell of a lot of work.

The new crop of "bad mother" books have shone a light on a phenomena many women haven't been comfortable saying aloud. Women raised in the 60s and 70s, that is. They were the women who were going to have it all and when they had kids they were going to do it right. Waldman recounts how there is no "right." Any way you choose is filled with compromises and disappointments. If every woman read and believed this book fewer of them would voluntarily have kids. I think that's a very good thing, since at least 25% of kids in America seem vaguely unwanted. Of course, that's not a scientific sample. Just observations from the mall.

I enjoyed the book and found it funny and poignant at times. Waldman and her husband have money, they live in a great town, they have supportive families and can afford to hire help. And still they struggle to be good parents. I think being a good parent is the hardest job in the world and wish people would only undertake it when they truly have the calling. But I have a felling my wishes are for naught, even with Ayelet Waldman's stern warnings.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

2009-07-17T18:15:00.000-04:00
I put off reading this book for quite a few years. It received rave reviews when it first came out but I was put off by the subject matter and didn't think it would resonate. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Great writing resonates with anyone who's open to it, and I'm going to remind myself of that the next time a book comes out that doesn't seem up my alley.

In Gilead the narrator, John Ames, begins to write an epistle to his young son. The boy is only 6, but the father is in his 70s and his heart has begun to fail. He knows he won't live to tell his boy all of the tales that he'd like to convey, so he decides to write his "begats."

Ames is a minister, as were his father and grandfather. Both men play central roles in the book, based on their massive influence on John as a boy and a man.

I read the book while sitting outdoors on my deck on a lovely summer day. That was the perfect setting because the book forces you to slow down and adapt to its pace--not your own. It's slow and careful and precise; but always enthralling. That's due to Robinson's prose, which is world-class. She describes a house or a church or a road in Kansas so compellingly that I was utterly transported to the places I read about.

The characters are so lovable, so earnest, and yet so fallible that they seem more real than many people you actually think you know.

I could recount the plot of the book but there's actually very little of that. The story doesn't actually go anywhere. But it goes deeply into the history, motivations, joys and sorrows of one small family in a small town in Iowa in the middle of the 20th century.

I was very touched by this work and I feel a little silly for having avoided it. I've got to learn to trust a good writer, and Robinson is truly good.

Nursery Crimes by Ayalet Waldman

2009-07-06T00:41:00.000-04:00
I'll admit I picked this up at the library because Waldman is Michael Chabon's wife and he's one of my favorite authors.

The book is entertaining and provides a nice glimpse into the life of a mother with small children who isn't fulfilled by only rearing her kids. I think that's a perspective that we don't acknowledge often enough, so I'm glad she included it so prominently.

"Nursery Crimes" is a mystery, but real mystery fans will be able to figure out who done it fairly early. That's not the book's main lure. I'd say that's the main character and her family. This is a good start to a series where the characters are as interesting as the crime...and that's my kind of series. I'll read another for sure.

The Fire Gospel by Michel Faber

2009-07-06T00:20:00.000-04:00
"The Crimson Petal and the White" is one of the most memorable books I've read in a long while. Faber wrote that about 5 years ago, and it was a big seller that merited a lot of critical acclaim.

I believe my puzzlement and slight disappointment with "The Fire Gospel" is because I was expecting another "Crimson Petal." That's clearly not fair to the author, and I should know better.

This book was fairly funny and was a very quick read. I'd say it was about 175 pages if they'd printed it in a more standard format. But I'm not usually looking for fast in a book. I'd rather have character development, and that's where Faber really let me down. I know almost nothing about his main character and the secondary characters are just there to have the protagonist have someone to talk to.

Nonetheless, the book was funny, particularly if you like reading about a man unintentionally destroying most of what Christians believe about the actual life of Christ. I'd think there isn't a huge market for that, but if that's your interest this is the perfect book for you.

The Fires of Vesuvius by Mary Beard

2009-07-02T10:36:00.000-04:00
Fascinating book if you're interested in Pompei and Roman life in the first century CE.

Beard is an academician, but she writes in a fashion that a layperson can easily understand. For people who like answers about the period she's probably not your girl. But if you want to read about a historian's conjectures about what the various finds mean, you'll enjoy it.

She writes with a heavy dose of skepticism about everything a tour guide will tell you is a fact, but she supports all of her conjecture with ample evidence.

The book is separated into sections dealing with work, play, bathing, etc., and all are nice peeks into life in a very old city at the time of its destruction. Given its depth and the scholarship involved it's a strangely light read. I attribute that not to the content but to Beard's style. She has a plain, direct manner that makes it seem like an excellent college-level lecture by a fascinating professor.

Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

2009-06-23T12:19:00.000-04:00
This oddly compelling novel merely cements my view that Michael Chabon can write anything he darned well chooses and continue to entertain me.

This short novel tells the tale of a few highwaymen in the 10th century. It's a tale of adventure, cunning, and loyalty; and I can't believe I read it. I'm no fan of adventure tales. I generally like stories that take place in current time. And this book is light on character development and heavy on action--not my thing.

But I started reading it this past rainy Sunday and I didn't put it down until I'd finished, some 5 hours later.

Chabon is such a stylist that he can make things that don't interest me interest me. That's my view of an excellent writer.

I don't want to give away any of the surprises, so I'll leave it at this. If you want to read a short novel that could have been a fantastic script for Xena:Warrior Princess--look no further. That might not sound like a huge compliment, but it is.

Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman

2009-06-04T21:21:00.000-04:00
I can't believe I haven't read a book since December, but I fear that's true. I've been on a very good writing spree, and when that's so I tend to read magazines and blogs. I'm taking a writing break of a couple of weeks so I'm going to buzz through a few books.

First up is Kaaterskill Falls. Last year I read Intuition by Allegra Goodman and I was stunned by how good it was. It was one of those books that made you want to go to that place and live with those people for a while. I mean, you know them all so well that you'd slip right in with just a nod and an extra spot at the dinner table.

Kaaterskill Falls was Goodman's first novel, and in many ways that shows. She doesn't have the surety of her voice in this novel, and her prose isn't as poetic as I know it can be. She also doesn't use her descriptive powers as well as she can. But those are fairly small quibbles.
Goodman has a wonderful talent for storytelling, and even in this, her first novel, that aptitude shines through.

Kaaterskill Falls is a bucolic spot near the Catskills in New York where many sects of devout Jews began to summer sometime after the Second World War. It's a very small town which had been back on its heels when the Jewish families started to rent or buy their summer homes. It's a very modest place and many of the families are orthodox. Oddly, there are no stores for them to shop at. Each husband stops on the way up on Friday night and buys the family provisions for the week.

The group we meet are followers of Rav Kirschner, a rebbe from Frankfurt whose male followers wear modern fedoras and black suits. The women cover their hair once they're married and they dress very modestly, even in the summer heat. Many of the people we come to know are devout followers of the rav, but, as in all groups, some are more devout than others.

I'm a bit surprised that The Dial Press agreed to publish the book. Not that it isn't worthy of publication. But its style is fairly unique and very challenging, even for an established writer. Goodman tries to show us the town and its inhabitants as a whole, never fully concentrating on any character. We get into their heads, but their are so many heads that we don't know any of the characters well. She also "tells" us a fair amount about the people, rather than letting us "see" for ourselves what their motivations are. This is the type of thing that beginning creative writing teachers always warn against, but Goodman breaks every rule. She jumps from one character's thoughts to the next in the space of a sentence. She explains a complex set of emotions in just a few words. Largely, she succeeds, but I wouldn't have wanted to take the chance if I were her publisher. Just shows what I know.

I had a hard time getting into the flow of the book, but once I realized that nothing was really going to happen I let myself settle into the rhythm and enjoy the seasons with the families. In that way the book is hyper-real. There's no driving plot; actually, there's barely any plot at all. Just people living their relatively simple lives in a relatively simple time-the mid 1970s.

For those of you who lived in the 70s you might recognize it as a time of great tumult, but if you were a member of the Kirshner sect you'd hardly see a difference between then and 1950. No TV, no New York Times, no theater or movies; in short, just the small joys and sorrows of daily life centered around God.

For me, the book showed how clans are both comforting and binding; satisfying and constraining. Most of the members of the sect have made bargains with themselves to be able to stay and be happy; in the end, the least happy are those who are outside. I think that's probably true for most humans. We love to belong, but we don't want anyone to hold on too tightly.

The book offers a quick peek into a life that most of us will never know, and I'm glad I got to visit. I don't feel like I could go there and join in, but I think that's part of the story. It's not the type of group an outsider would ever feel comfortable in, but for those who are members of the sect belonging can seem like a warm, maternal embrace--or a noose.

The Gathering by Anne Enright

2008-12-22T20:39:00.000-05:00
Just the thing for a cheery Christmas read. A homeless alcoholic brother is washed away by the tide and his large, Irish family gathers for his funeral. Very upbeat!

Even though it isn't a "feel good" book, The Gathering is well worth the read. Winner of the Man Booker prize in 2007, it is beautifully written and not as gloomy as the short description intimates. It's often funny and always witty. Enright's prose is lovely and her characters are brutally honest, if not with themselves, then to each other.

Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris

2008-12-22T18:25:00.000-05:00
I loved this book! I loved everything about it. The style, the wit, the style, the pathos, the style, the pace, the style. Can you tell I loved the style? It's told in first person plural, and how Ferris managed to do this so seamlessly was, to me, a marvel.

The people in the novel are copywriters and editors at a firm in Chicago. He uses the plural because they act like a herd at their cube farm. Every minor thing that happens affects all of them in disproportionate amounts. Every look, every encounter with their manager, every compliment, every slight is amplified by bouncing off each and every one of them.

If you've worked in an office and suffered through the little indignities that corporate life foists upon you, you'll empathize with these people. Especially if the office is in your past. If it's not, this might cut too close to the bone.

Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo

2008-12-22T17:50:00.000-05:00
I've read all of Russo's novels, and have enjoyed the lot. Oddly, this wasn't my favorite. I find that odd because this is by far his biggest book and delves very deeply into a smaller ensemble than usual. Maybe that's why I didn't enjoy this one as much. Russo's previous books skirted along the surface of his wide-ranging characters; showing us just enough to care about them but not so much that we felt we knew them better than their therapists did.

In Bridge of Sighs he wants us to understand every major event that has happened to his 3 main characters; no matter that the events are, in fact, often fairly minor. That's not to say that their lives are without strife or grief. But he's trying to make a few events give us the keys to the psyches of these people, and, when we get inside we see there's not a hell of a lot going on. They're just relatively normal people who lead, for the most part, very simple lives.

I don't think there's anything wrong with writing novels about simple people leading simple lives, and, as I said previously, I've read and liked all of Russo's previous works. This one just seems a bit of a reach.

I read the book over two days and I was up until 3 a.m. reading it the first night. I would have stayed up all night reading but I couldn't manage it. But I cooled on it the second day. Not enough to put it down, but I was hoping for a bigger payoff. I could guess the resolution of all of the story lines, and that's always a bit disappointing. And the few things I couldn't guess seemed out of character, which is also a letdown.

Russo won the Pulitzer for his previous work, Empire Falls. I'd heartily recommend that book, as well as his previous novels. Bridge of Sighs isn't without merit, but for me Russo's reach didn't meet his grasp.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

2008-06-23T13:13:00.000-04:00
This book got a lot of publicity when it was first issued in 2000. Eggers owns McSweeney's, the publishing house, and publishes a monthly literary magazine. He's one of the young writers who came of age at the millennium, and his work has a unique style.

I found the book on a shelf of a house I was staying in, and decided to read it mainly to see how it read 8 years after its debut. I've often thought that many books that stand out for their unique style get dated very quickly, but I didn't find that to be true for this one.

The narrative line for the book is Eggers struggle to raise his young brother after their parents both die. Eggers was just finishing college, and his brother was eight at the time, and, even though Eggers wasn't truly ready to take on the responsibility, the brothers' other two siblings were in even less ideal circumstances.

If he'd written this as a standard "I did something remarkable" kind of memoir I'm sure it would have sold a few thousand copies and gone into the returns bin. But this is a long way from a standard memoir.

His style is unique, and that's probably best. Not because it's not entertaining, but because it's so unique that it would be trite and silly to try to replicate it. It's hard to describe, but the book has a stream-of-consciousness feel to it. Actually, it feels like he's talking to you in real time in a few spots. It also seems a bit like a diary, where the diarist is often kicking himself in the ass. At times it has a "let's write a novel!" energy, like a Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney movie where the characters have no business putting on a play in dad's barn but manage to present a polished work.

The paperback version, which I read, has a large addendum of the mistakes made in the book that's printed upside-down at the back of the book. Eggers is also a cartoonish/artist, and he includes all sorts of little drawings and schema.

In many ways it's very amateurish, but that's part of its charm. He's trying to write this book while getting his little brother to school, having water-balloon fights, sliding on their socks through the house, and not cleaning their apartment. The writing is so unselfconscious that it wouldn't surprise me to learn that his young brother had written it. That's not to say it's immature. It's just that childlike.

I definitely recommend the book, but only for those who are amenable to something callow and wide-eyed.

Fare thee well, New York. I hope to return soon.

2008-06-04T20:27:00.000-04:00
My partner and I have sold our co-op to take refuge in New Jersey while waiting for the real estate market to settle down. I hate to leave New York, but we had the opportunity to capture a gain, and we try to use our analytical minds in decisions like these, rather than our hearts. Not that there's anything wrong with New Jersey, of course. We really enjoy being down the shore. But we both like a more lively night life, so New York is much more in sync with our needs.

I saw the following on the subway last night and it seemed so perfect that I wanted to share it. It's by one of my favorite New Yorkers, E.B. White.

There are roughly three New Yorks.

There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable.

Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night.

Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something.

Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.

Susan from Jersey

Two Lives by Vikram Seth

2008-05-25T16:57:00.000-04:00
I've been so remiss in adding blurbs about the books I've been reading that I've started to purposefully avoid posting. Yes, that's dumb, and it must stop!

I have a long list of things I've read recently, but I'll start with the latest. "Two Lives" is a big book that wouldn't necessarily grab me. But I'm staying in a house where it was the only title that caught my interest, so I picked it up and took it for a test drive.

It's the story of an unusual marriage of two unusual people. Shanti is an India-born, German-educated dentist. Henny is his German-born Jewish wife. They meet when Shanti goes to Germany in the 1930s to obtain his training as a dentist. It's not abundantly clear why he chose Germany as his training ground, since he didn't speak German, nor know anyone in the country. But choose it he did.

He wound up living with Henny's family after her family had some financial reverses. They become friends, but nothing more and Shanti leaves Germany for London well before the 3rd Reich comes to power. But he and Henny and their circle of friends stay close.

Eventually, Henny is able to emigrate to England, but her sister and mother can't get a visa.

The story is told from the present day, with Shanti's nephew Vickram slowly learning the full story of his uncle and aunt, who house him when he comes to London to study economics. By the time he figures out all of the permutations of their lives and their love both Shanti and Henny are dead. But as is so often the case, it's not until those close to us die that our interest in their early lives gets piqued.

Seth does a great job of making all of the impossible choices faced by German Jews during WWII seem as complex and murky as I can only imagine they were really. Henny was one of those remarkable people who can survive great loss and seem unfazed by it. I'm sure that wasn't the case, but the fact that she could even seem that way was fairly remarkable. And Shanti, who made his way alone to two alien countries, served with the British during the war and lost an arm during fighting in Italy is equally remarkable.

Essentially, "Two Lives" is just that--the story of a single couple. But their circumstances and their brave and sometimes short-sighted choices gives an insight into their time that's moving and enlightening.

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

2008-02-07T15:18:00.000-05:00
This compelling book could serve as a cautionary tale on the havoc mental illness can create in a family.

The protagonist reflects on killing her mother in the first sentence and that remarkably honest viewpoint continues throughout the book. Given that her mother was elderly, had begun to fail to recognize familiar people, was no longer able to live on her own but was terrified of leaving the house one could call this a mercy killing. But make no mistake, this woman was murdered.

The time-line switches frequently and without a lot of warning. But the style wasn't as disorineting as it could have been. Sebold is a very adept writer, and the reader should be able to orient herself in a sentence or two.

As I said, the book focuses on mental illness. The narrator seems to think that her mother was the main victim of this illness, but it attacks every member of the family either directly or indirectly. By the time I was finished I was filled with empathy for the 3 generations we meet, as well as the people who came before and will come after. Mental illness is the awful gift that keeps on giving.

I wish I could say the novel wasn't all grim, but it was. Sebold doesn't try to soften her message with humor. This novel doesn't flinch in being brutally honest and graphic. The kinds of things that make most people turn away don't phase Sebold. She plods right through them, making the reader descend into the hell the narrator is plunging into.

Sebold's first novel, The Lovely Bones, was a huge success, while this book hasn't been nearly as well received. I can see why, but I think people are missing out on a brave work if they miss this one. Sebold is an incredibly strong writer, and just because she isn't afraid to show the horrors of life is no reason to diminish her accomplishment.

Many reviewers have said the situation was unrealistic. I can only assume those people have never been a caregiver for a desperately ill, difficult person--or a colicky baby. Caregiving can make the most well-adjusted person consider murder, and Helen, the narrator, is a long way from well-adjusted.

I'd recommend it highly to people who are interested in a fast-paced tale of family dynamics-no matter how dark they may be.

Susan

The Book of Dave by Will Self

2008-01-14T09:22:00.000-05:00
Self has written a strange, often funny post-apocalyptic novel with a unique conceit.

Dave Rudman is a London cabbie. Divorced from his wife, refused permission to see his young son, he writes his thoughts down and, in an act of quiet insolence, buries them in his wife's backyard.

500 years later, England is an isolated archipelago, and the only text the villagers of Ham have to guide their lives is the Book of Dave. It's their bible, their Koran, their Pentateuch, and their guide to daily life.

But Dave wasn't a happy guy when he wrote his epistles, and the parts of the book that show how this civilization blunders about trying to follow his precepts are terrifically clever. They use his "London cabbie speak" to name the elements of their world. The sun is the headlamp, the sky is the dashboard, etc. It's fun to figure out some of the nomenclature, and troubling to see how they deal with the only animal they have for food--a cross between a cow, a pig and a 2 year old child. Odd? Oh, yes!

I didn't enjoy the parts of the book which dealt with Dave and his family. He's a very bitter guy, and he's made a wreck of his life. But for fans of quirky futuristic fiction, and people who like to see a writer use his creative juices on something fairly different--this one is worth a read.

The Echo Maker

2007-12-11T13:54:00.000-05:00
Here's a picture of Santa that I find almost scary. There's a nabe in Brooklyn called Dyker Heights and the Christmas decorations are remarkably excessive.

Richard Powers would be my favorite writer if only he wouldn't stray into fantasy/sci fi. Luckily for me, The Echo Maker is firmly set in the current day, and, even though the main character doesn't know it, the world is as normal as it gets.

Obtuse enough? Probably more than enough, so I'll get to it.

The book opens with a 30ish woman being called to her childhood home to care for her brother, who has been in a horrific accident. He gets better faster than anyone expects, but his brain isn't wired the way it used to be.

He develops a fairly rare disorder known as Capgras Syndrome, in which the people closest to you seem like strangers. He sees that his sister looks just like his sister, but his amygdala has been damaged and he's lost his emotional attachment to her. So his brain tries to explain this by assuming she's someone who has been sent to spy on him or keep track of him--for reasons he can't figure out.

Clearly, his sister is devastated by this development. Their parents are dead, and she's always taken care of him through his troubled youth and adulthood. She knows she'll have to shoulder the burden alone, and she's determined to hang in and face whatever comes.

One of the most frustrating things for her is that he's very antagonistic to her, but he's desperate to see his sister. He thinks someone has kept his sister from visiting him, and this breaks her heart. One very small benefit is that she sees how much she means to him, but, as I said, that's a very small benefit.

Powers writes about the scientific and medical issues behind this syndrome so seamlessly. His skills are extraordinary. The story carries you along, and you barely notice that you've learned so much about the brain, and how it's organized.

Supporting characters include the neuropsychiatrist who's in charge of the case, and a former boyfriend who lends a much needed hand.

The book is a powerful reminder of how fragile our brains are, and how we rely on those closest to us. It's a beautiful portrait of family and duty and determination. I recommend it highly.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union

2007-12-07T11:12:00.000-05:00
Here's a picture of my favorite elf carrying the Christmas tree home. We don't have a chimney, so she has to bring it in through the front door.

On to a book that takes place in the cold, but Christmas is not celebrated.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union is the kind of book that earns you odd looks when you read it on the train.

The title is a bit odd, but the cover is very attention grabbing. It's very evocative of the book, which is an interesting amalgam of Jewish and Tlingit totems.

Michael Chabon is a master at delving into the lives of his characters, and, in this book, he's succeeded wonderfully. The story is part noir-detective novel, part mystery, part social commentary and, above all, fully engaging.

It's a little hard to get past the first few pages if you're not exposed to a lot of Yiddish speakers, but once you get the rhythm, it's a snap.

The story concerns his vision of how the world would be different if Israel fell to a disorganized mass of Arabs, Persians, and Palestinians in 1948 and all of the Jewish inhabitants dispersed. Many of them moved to Alaska when the US government allowed them temporary status in that territory, thinking the tumult in Israel would be solved in a year or two.

It's now been 60 years, and certain factions of the US government have decided the Jews must leave at the end of the year. The fact that they've turned Sitka, Alaska into a booming megapolis of 3 million isn't taken into consideration.

A seemingly inconsequential murder makes several balls start to roll and our heroes, members of the Yiddish Policeman's Union, start to unearth the real tale behind "reversion" and many other dark secrets.

Given the topic, it sounds as though the book would be maudlin, or at least somber. But it's actually light-hearted and strangely optimistic.

Chabon is clearly a gentle soul, and many of his characters have a soft center that lurks just behind their sometimes hard shells. His writing style is clever and he forms so many interesting metaphors and similes that you'll have to stop just to admire them.

While reading the book, I tried to convince everyone I encountered that they should read it. Most refused. But I'm going to keep banging the drum for this fascinating book.

On Chesil Beach

2007-11-30T11:12:00.000-05:00
No, this isn't a picture of Chesil Beach. It's from our fall trip to Provincetown, a destination I urge you all to consider. We had a lot of fun, and it was also relaxing. I've heard from others that they didn't have the chance to sleep the whole time they were there. That wasn't my experience, but the nice thing about Women's Week is that you can craft the sort of experience that appeals to you.

I just finished a book by Ian McEwan, titled On Chesil Beach. It's a novella, I suppose, since it's quite short. It actually takes place almost entirely in the space of maybe 2 hours. If you've read my IFMHISF series you probably won't be surprised that I was drawn to a book where time moves slowly.

Anyway, I love McEwan's style. He loves words and his descriptions of the seaside are remarkably evocative.

The book is about a young couple on their honeymoon in the early 1960s. I found it interesting because it dealt with the rules and expectations of that time in upper middle class England that were on their way out. But these characters don't know they're at the end of a period. They're just trying to get through their first night together.

I think I enjoyed the book as much as I did because it focused on my primary interest. Human interaction and communication. The characters aren't gifted in this area, and I found myself rooting for them to break out of their narrow boundaries and really speak to each other.

But they have a very hard time doing that, which is really the point of the book.

As I say, it's a short book, but it was very satisfying. I'd get it from the library, but I get most of my books from the library, so that's always my recommendation. Well, except for enticing lesbian relationship novels. Those I'd buy from Brisk Press.