Labor Day by Joyce Maynard

I have always liked Joyce Maynard's books. Baby Love and To Die For, both of which I read several years ago, are still pretty fresh in my mind as books I really enjoyed. More recently I read The Usual Rules, a young adult novel dealing with 9/11. Although the subject matter in all of these books is disturbing, they are terrific and interesting reads and approach difficult subjects with frankness, honestly and sensitivity.

Maynard's a good writer - and has an interesting story.  She dropped out of Yale to live with J.D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye) when he was in his 50's and she just barely 20.  She wrote about that relationship in her memoir, At Home in the World, which I have not read, but plan to at some point.  

Like her other novels I have read, Labor Day deals with disturbing subject matter - a description of "what happens" in the book sounds implausible, but in Maynard's talented hands, the story is  believeable, very touching and poignant. She really develops these characters so skillfully for the reader that you feel you know and understand them and what they do and how they react to the situations described.

This is really a coming of age story - the story of Henry, a 13 year old boy living with his agoraphobic mother in a small town in New Hampshire (where Maynard grew up, by the way). When they venture out into the world right before Labor Day to buy new school clothes for Henry, they meet and are "abducted" by an escpaped convict. He turns out to be very different from what you would expect.

This is a page-turner, for sure, but also a very touching story about love.

Highly recommended!

One more interesting thing- for me anyway - is the fact that Danielle, my son's fiance, went to school with Maynard's children!

Strangers by Anita Brookner

One of my favorite authors....

But I found this kind of slow....tedious.....

The writing is incredible. I cannot undermine the writing. But I did find the story a bit ponderous.

The female characters are interesting....I enjoyed hearing about Vicky, who the main protagonist meets on a plane to Venice, but the other female characters....

Not so sure

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

A beautifully written and very disturbing novel that takes place in India in the mid-1980's amidst terrorist violence. The novel is pre 9/11 but "feels" very much like a post 9/11 novel.
There are four major characters: Sai, the judge, the cook and his son. Sai is the granddaughter of the judge and the cook is the judge's cook. Biju, the cook's son, manages to get to America to find the "charmed life," only to find it alienating, difficult and degrading.
Injustice is a major theme of the novel and we are exposed, again and again, on how the west exploited the east and how even within India, people exploit each other in so many ways every day.
This was a powerful book; at times, it was lyrical and "light" and at other times, dark and quite disturbing. Her writing is really incredible. Not an easy read, but an enlightening tale of lives and settings that are unfamiliar to me.

March by Geraldine Brooks

I think this book is going to be one of those few that is a "favorite," one I will mention when people ask, "What have you read lately?" or "What have you liked?" I have put Geraldine Brooks' other novels on the "Want to Read List" People of the Book has been there and I have a copy waiting for me.

March is an historical novel that takes place during the Civil War and is told from the point of view (primarily) of Mr. March, the absent father from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. If you read Little Women, you'll recall that the father and husband is absent throughout most of the novel. Ms. Brooks' novel tells us HIS story and what he experienced while away from his family. As a chaplain, he ventures South to aid the Union, with idealistic dreams of liberating slaves and helping the Northern cause. He is stunned and dismayed to find prejudice, greed, cruelty and racism on both sides. The descriptions of battles are stunningly portrayed, in grisly detail. Mr. March befriends many slaves and becomes involved with one in particular, a literate slave, Grace, who has her own interesting story, that I won't give away.

It was very interesting to read his portrayal of Marmee, the mother of the Little Women as a headstrong and idealistic young woman, involved in the Underground Railroad movement. I only recalled her as the loving mother of Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth. Reading this book makes me want to revisit Little Women.

The writing is really beautiful and the passages resonate. There is so much to learn from this book and so many comments on war, racism, forgiveness, idealism, love and betrayal. As soon as I finished the book, I was tempted to turn to the beginning and start all over again.

The Last Secret by Mary McGarry Morris

This is a favorite author of mine, so I was really excited to read another of her books. "Songs in Ordinary Time," "A Dangerous Woman," "The Lost Woman," and "Vanished" - I read them all. She's a great writer, a favorite of mine.

It took me way too long to read this book. Not sure why - just too busy I guess. I think it would have been much better if I had read it in a week, instead of three weeks. It was a good and compelling story but the drama was lost because I took too long to read it. I did read the conclusion in one setting and it was unsettling.

The book deals with secrets and deception and the consequences therein. The ending was very unsettling. At times I did not know if I liked or hated the main character, Nora. Did she do the right thing? Should she have "fessed up" earlier?

Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg

OK book. Not great. I thought it started out strong, got weak in the middle and ended strong.

I was expecting something else from this book. It is really a book about writers and writer's block and that is interesting, but the main character did not really grab my attention or even respect. At one point, I thought it was going to turn into a book about Alzheimer's.

Anyway, I read some of Elizabeth Berg's early novels and then got uninterested. Thought I'd give her a try again.....

Tall Grass by Sandra Dallas

I was really looking forward to this book and I can't say that I didn't like it, but it was a bit predictable.

Tells the story of a Japanese Internment Camp in Colorado during WWII. Interesting to learn about how the Japanese were transported to these camps and how they were regarded there. Still, I felt that a lot of the story was a bit cliche and predictable.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

This was an interesting book that switched back and forth between the early 1990's and the 1690's during the Salem Witch Trials. The author is actually a descendent of Elizabeth Proctor and Elizabeth Howe, both accused of witchcraft. One survived and one didn't!

The main character, Connie, is asked to put her grandmother's old house in order to sell it. She is a doctoral student at Harvard. She gets drawn into the mystery surrounding the house, and her family, when she finds a key in a bible and a yellow piece of paper with the name Deliverance Dane on it. She needs to find out the meaning.

Along the way she meets an interesting steeplejack, also a scholar who enjoys restoration work, and together they try to unlock the secrets of the house and the key.

The passages that take place during the Salem Witch Trials are interesting and historically correct. The author is a scholar herself and did much research to write the book.

It's quite interesting and captivating and was a fast read. I recommend!

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

A quiet and poignant coming of age novel set in the 1950's.

This is the story of a young Irish girl and her journey to America (Brooklyn). She does not go by choice, but once there, finds herself with new choices and new experiences and after a heart breaking homesickness, enjoys her life and looks forward to the opportunities it presents.

An unfortunate experience calls her home and she then settles back into that life in Ireland, and she could easily stay back there again, except for a tie that has "wed" her to America. I won't give anything away but will say that I really loved this story and the writing.

The Servants' Quarters by Lynn Freed

Touching and delicate story....very different kind of story that has the Holocaust as a focus. That theme is there, but not front and center like so many other books dealing with the aftermath and after effects of the war. It's behind the scenes, under the surface, but very much there all the same.

The fact that the protagonist is Jewish is rarely mentioned and there is no religion being practiced in the house at all. Only once, in reference to her friend, Ruth, do holidays and traditions get mentioned at all.

But Cressida's nightmares and the scars on the face and body of Mr. Harding are the vestiges of the war and the death and destruction even if the war is not described at all. Even those who did not fight or experience the war are affected.

The story takes place in South Africa, but the setting plays little role in the story. Only the servant Phineas reminds the reader that the setting is in Africa.

I highly recommend this book. It is quite short, but the author packs a lot into those 220 pages.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

This book was captivating! A bit long, in the end, I felt, but I read it really fast. It was a compelling and intriguing story with intelligence and real storytelling. There were lots of characters to keep track of, but the author provided diagrams to make it easy.

The characters were great, especially Lisbeth Salander. I wanted to get to know her better. Apparently, she was based on the story Pippi Longstocking, but she is quite modernized, as a punkster who is also an amazing hacker and investigator.

Unfortunately, the author died in 2004 right before delivering the manuscripts for his novels. So there will be no more after the next novel, that was just released.

A great summer read!

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

This Holocaust novel is quite different from others I have read. It is difficult because of its almost sympathetic view of an SS officer who saves a young woman and her daughter (born out of wedlock - and the father was Jewish). He is a brute - that is quite clear, but there are passages that paint a human picture of him and his fears, insecurities, and frailties. But at the heart of the novel are the two women, Anna, the mother, and her daughter Trudie, who live because the SS officer takes Anna as his mistress and rather than fight it, Anna accepts the situation to save her daughter. She also aids the Resistance, through her association with a baker woman, who supplies the Nazis with baked goods and bread, while gaining access to the camps in order to assist the prisoners. Both women, mother and daughter, are so damaged and the novel charts their journey from Weimer to Minneapolis and the course their lives take and their quest to make sense of it. Anna, tries to obliterate her past and shield her daughter from the trauma, while Trudie needs to understand what happened in order to make sense of who she is.

Trudie is a history professor and takes on a Rememberance Project, wherein she interviews Germans who lived during the war. she gives them the opportunity to talk about what happened and in a way, relieve themselves of the guilt associated with the Holocaust. Through these interviews she meets Ranier, a Jew, who tricks her in a way, by responding to her quest to find Germans willing to tell their stories, and then he tells his tragic and heart wrenching story. This devastates Trudie but she seeks his forgiveness and he and she get involved in a brief, but deep relationship.

The story wraps up in a neat way - almost too neat - but I enjoyed the ending and the ultimate "resolution" of the mother-daughter conflict.

Books Started and Put Down

I hate to do this but sometimes you just have to. I started two books - both good - but put them down before I finished and started something else. One of them was The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murikami. I really really like it and I will finish it but it just was taking too long and I wasn't sure it was going anywhere.

The other is the Age of Shiva by Manil Suri and I like that. too, but wanted something different. So, I am now nearly done with Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum, an historical novel about the Holocaust and the German women who abetted the Nazis to save themselves and their families. It's a fast read and very gripping.

I am in California on vacation right now and reading a lot.

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

This was just the book I have been itching to read: fast, thrilling, compelling, intriguing, and with a backdrop of Stalinist Russia and the Gulags. Right up my alley!

The book gets the reader hooked immediately with a powerful encounter between two young boys (brothers) in Stalinist Russia in 1933. The scene almost immediately fast forwards twenty years to a murder investigation in Moscow. The story unfolds quickly and with lurid details of what it was like to be one of the higher-ups, Leo, in the MGB, State Security Force, which under Lenin was the NKVD (secret police).

Leo is brought into the story to investigate the death of a young boy on the local train tracks. He is convinced that the boy was murdered, although he cannot persue this line of thought because there is no crime in the perfect Soviet society. Everyone is equal, taken care of and has no reason to be anything but happy and content. Murder is not possible in such a society.

I am not going to tell the whole plot line, but suffice it to say that this book gives a vivid portrait of life in Stalinist Russia and the fear, paranoia and violence that was rampant.

Sometimes it seemed overdone, overstated, but being a Russian major and having studied Solzhenitsyn and others, I was aware of the atrocities that took place and the repression that was part of everyday life. Some of the action is a bit far fetched, but I recall real life stories of what people can do and accomplish when under duress and when facing death.

The loose ends are all tied up neatly (too neatly?) in the end and pave the way for more thrillers from this new author.

The German Bride by Joanna Hershon

This is a very different book - a Jewish woman's journey in the westward movement of the mid 1800's. The story is interesting and fast-paced and deals with a subject area not usually depicted in "Jewish" themed books.

Eva marries, not out of love, a German Jew who went to America to seek his fortune. She is escaping a past and memories that haunt her in her native Germany. An affair with a gentile painter and the death of her sister (for which she blames herself) leads to shame and guilt and she needs to get away. Abraham Shein provides the means.

He turns out to be a gambler and womanizer and she is still haunted by her past and her guilt.

She suffers miscarriages and still births before finally giving birth to a baby girl, who she names after her sister.

She escapes finally, from her past and her husband and finds redemption in San Francisco.

A good read.

Buffalo Lockjaw by Greg Ames

Heard this author interviewed on middle of the night radio (Joey Reynolds, also a Buffalonian) and was interested for a couple reasons. He teaches at Brooklyn College, where Scott Lindenbaum went and now teaches. Figured they might know each other. Second, of course, the Buffalo connection. So, when I walked into the library, looking for something else, and found this book, I grabbed it. And it grabbed me from the start.

Deals with a young man's grappling with his mom's early dementia. She is only 56 and in a home, no longer able to live in the world. She was a bright, successful and independent woman, a nurse, who started slipping. As a nurse, she wrote about her advocacy for euthanasia in cases like hers, but no one documented or talked about it with her when SHE became the one in question.

Anyway, it's a very touching and personal story; I couldn't help wondering how much was based on truth. The writing is great.

Here are a couple passages I love:

"Four twenty-one a.m. I don't think I'll ever get to sleep tonight.

But at four thirty or so, I drift off to sleep and remain free of torment, free of suffering for almost an hour. Yet just before the sun rises, I hear them gathering again in my mind, those immaculate words spooling out...trailing multicolored threads. Mother, euthanasia, death, Brooklyn, snow."

And another:

"An old philosophy teacher of mine used to say: 'If you've got one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you're pissing on the present.' He was often drunk, but his message was sound. He stressed learning how to experience a moment. He talked about being present. Sounds easy until you actually try to do it."

Anyway, this book made me sad, and it made me think and it made me want to make my feelings very clear for my children so they don't ever have to go through what the main character in this book did. I need to make my living will. 

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

When I first started reading this book, I was sucked right into the story line and the amazing writing style. But about half way through, I lost the same level of interest that I first had. I think because the book should have been read quickly, within a day or two. I recognize that it was an amazing piece of writing, but I think I just did not relate enough to the character and to the cricket theme. At first, I thought I understood why the author chose cricket as a focus. The book dealt with coming to terms with being unAmerican in America. And cricket is a "second class" sport in America, but not in so many other parts of the world. Anyway, I am glad that I read the book, but would like to have someone who has read it to discuss it with. Maybe it's time for me to join a book club.....

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Captivating book. I felt so ignorant about India reading this book; I felt like one of the villians, actually, that my vision is so narrow ... that I am so wrapped up in my "easy" life that I deflect thoughts of how most of the world lives. This is really an Indian's scathing indictment of India - despite the gains the country has made economically, it still remains corrupt and backward. This book is a social commentary that was met with derision by many in India.
The journey for the main character from servitude to entrepreneurship was accomplished, unfortunately, through the same corrupt means that his boss employed to attain and keep his position. So Balrain escapes from "the Darkness" but at a cost. He does not, however, treat his drivers the same way that his boss treated him.
This is a very cynical look at society and doesn't offer up much hope that those who want to elevate themselves from "the Darkness" can do so without becoming like those that that have enslaved them. I was unaware that the lower caste Indian people are much like the serfs in Russia; their servitude seems to be part of their persona and freeing themselves from servititude is something that they are not comfortable with.

For me, it was enlightening and of course, disturbing, and helped me understand the Indian and the caste system better.

Testimony by Anita Shreve

Quite interesting book about ONE single incident at a private high school where the lives of people are changed dramatically. Really shows how one single event, done in a moment of passion, stupidity and recklessness, can change your life forever. I was really moved by the book, although I don't think it was great literature. I needed a "good, fast read" and this fit the bill. But I will admit that the characters, especially Noelle and the mom of Silas, Anne, really touched my heart.

Sashenka by Simon Montefiore

This book had issues, but I loved it anyway, because of my interest in everything Russian. I was sucked into the story immediately, even though some of it was like a Russian soap opera. The plot twists and turns pulled me in, however improbable, and the way the story comes together in the end is a bit like a formula book.
But nevertheless, I loved reading this book. I loved having fictional characters intermingled with historical figures (like in "Forever," another book I had issues with but loved reading anyway!) The portrayal of Stalin was interesting, but I would have liked more in Part I in St. Petersburg at the onset of the revolution. Rasputin plays a role, but I am so fascinated with that part of the history that I would have liked more. I have to find another book now, on this era. I spent half of a day finishing the book - something that hasn't happened to me in a long time....wanting to do nothing but finish and find out the outcome.

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee

The story of a British woman, Claire, who marries a dull British government man who gets a position in post-war Hong Kong. She takes on a job as a piano teacher to a very wealthy Chinese family, the Chens. She gets entangled in the mystery and drama revolving around the Chens and their driver, Will. The story goes back and forth between the past and present (present in the book is early 1950's).

Very entertaining.

Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

This is actually a collection of related short stories, written from the point of view of a teacher. I read the first two right after seeing the movie, "The Class" and it was quite fitting. Teachers should ALL read these first two stories.
A very talented writer.

The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant

This book captivated me from the start. The way she develops the plot and story line, pull the reader in from the first chapter. The beginning takes place in the present, when Vivien meets her dead uncle's former girlfriend and fiance and there's an iciness and story to be told. The reader senses the tension between the two and wants to learn the story.
The author then goes back to tell Vivien's (and her family's story). Her own folks tell her nothing of their past - they only poison her with stories of her evil uncle. Her parents really don't live. They exist. They feel so fortunate to have escaped thier native Hungary and to find "shelter" in London that they turn their back on the past and don't share it with their daughter. She has a thirst for knowledge, for the truth, for an identity and she learns all of this from her uncle Sandor.
She was told he was an evil and bad man, but in truth, he was just a survivor and a person who wants to live, savor life and is not the bad slum landlord he was made out to be (and served in prison for his crimes).
People choose different outfits to change them on the outside. Here's a great quote from the book:

"The clothes you wear are a metamorphosis. They change you from the outside in. We are all trapped with these thick calves or pendulous breasts, our sunken chests, our dropping jowls. A million imperfections mar us. There are deep flaws we are not at liberty to do anything about except under the surgeon's knife. So the most you can do is put on a new dress, a different tie. We are foreven turning into someone else, and shoud never forget that someone else is always looking."

Reading Short Stories

For quite a while I have resisted reading short stories. Not sure why. I guess I like the experience of a novel....the build up of plot, the thrill of getting to the climax, and to reaching the finish.
Well, with the advent of a favorite author, Jumpha Lahiri, coming out with a critically acclaimed collection of short stories, I am now a convert. I've read about half of them so far, but can combine that with another novel...which provides a very rich reading experience.
So, right now I am reading "Unaccustomed Earth" by Lahiri and "The Clothes on their Backs" by Linda Grant. Love them both!

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond

This is an amazing book. A difficult topic - losing a child - but written with such beauty and sensitivity. There are so many deep and thoughtful passages about memory, about how the mind works, and how we see. The protagonist is a photographer and the author brings the theme of photography into the mix with such relevance to the story. there were passages that I wanted to read over and over again.
"We take pictures because we can't accept that everything passes, we can't accept that the repetition of a moment is an impossibility. We wage monotonous war against our own impending deaths, against time that turns children into that other lesser species: adults. We take pictures because we know we will forget. We will forget the week, the day, the hour. We will forget when we were happiest. We take pictures out of pride, a desire to have the best of ourselves preserved. We fear hat we will die and others will not know that we lived."
This is just one passage dealing with how photography reflects life.
The book seemed a little long because I wanted SO much to know the outcome. Will she find Emma? But the fact that it went on so long was just the point that the author was making. When something like this happens, every day must seem like an eternity. I kept thinking....she will find Emma, or else the book would have been 100 pages shorter. But then I would think.....NO, she will NOT find Emma and that IS the point. Every day there is the same pain, but different feelings. She is capturing this so realistically.
Anyway, I am not giving away the end. It is worth reading this book. I LOVE the author's website too. Here is a link:
http://michellerichmond.com/

The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III

Interesting premise.... Takes place in the days prior to 9/11 and has many characters whose lives are touched in strange ways. The stripper who "entertains" one of the hijackers in Florida before the hijackings - true situation, I hear. And all of the other people who are involved with her. Her daughter, Franny, who she takes to the strip club that night because the babysitter is hospitalized with a panic attack (that is interesting, in retrospect!) AJ, the client who is thrown out of the club for touching one of the strippers and who finds the crying child and takes her away from that den of iniquity, saving her from a rotten mother. His wife, Deena, his mother, who was raped in a hotel room, where she is employed as one of the cleaning staff.
A whole motley crew of characters, not sympathetic when you consider them and their lives, what they do, how they act, etc. but Dubus manages to make them all human and nearly likeable, or at least gives us a glimpse into their heads, into their motives for what they do, their dreams, ideals, etc.
A lot like his other book "House of Sand and Fog," which I liked a lot better
But this was good and thought provoking and exciting. Glad that I read it.

Goldengrove by Francine Prose

Prose....what a perfect name for this author. The writing is impeccable. I loved this book about a family of four, who becomes a family of three when the oldest daughter dies tragically after diving into a lake and never resurfacing. Seems she had a heart ailment that went untreated. How the family copes with this tragedy is a beautiful journey - mostly told through the eyes of the younger daughter, Nico, who gets involved with her sister's boyfriend after the tragic death. Very well written and subtle story with a truly beautiful ending. Read each word.

Goldengrove

Went to the library today and got three books from my "Want to Read" list. There were more of them there as well! I have to read quickly! Really excited about Goldengrove. Started it and am sucked in already! Suberb writing!

"Forever" - Finally Done!

Glad that I finished the book, but I was a bit disappointed in the ending. Very Hollywood and NOT what I expected. Overall, an interesting book but not on my list of "faves."

AFTERWORD: Now that much time has passed since I read this book, I do want to say that much of it still resonates with me, so it WAS a good book, better than I indicate above. That is a litmus test for me: what I remember of the book months after finishing. Forever was epic, historic and grand in scale. A bit preposterous for me - who likes realism. The underlying premise, that the main character lives forever, was hard for me to swallow, but if you can treat reading as "escape," then I should be more forgiving.

Nearing the End of "Forever"

Now I know why it's called "Forever." It is taking a long time to read, but now I am in the beginning of what I know is the climax...and I can predict it, I think. We'll see if I am right.
I am liking the book more now. There was a point in the middle where I nearly gave up, but moved on and ahead and am looking forward to finishing this weekend. Need to get something to read in Florida.

Forever by Pete Hamill

Heard about this book on the radio. Heard that you "have to read it; the best book I ever read." I will not go that far. I am about half way through. The beginning was mesmerizing....but it has gotten a bit slower since then. I am finding the history very interesting. Takes place in NYC from about 1740 to the present.
Very long book, however. Still have almost 300 pages to go.