Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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.