A Fair Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates

One of my favorite authors, but not one of my favorite books by this author...

Joyce Carol Oates is such a prolific author that she can't possibly publish masterpieces all of the time. She writes and writes and writes, as an author should. Sometimes they are hits and sometimes misses.

This one is a miss, but it is a good read and a captivating story in spite of that fact. Sometimes we just need to read to be entertained, and I was. The book does lack the depth of her masterpieces, like, "We Were the Mulvaneys."

This short novel tells the story of a young girl, Katya, who is a nanny for a well to do couple on the Jersey shore during a summer. She meets up with an elderly gentleman who befriends her. The reader is not quite sure why, nor is Katya.

The story progresses through their friendship and offers glimpses into Katya's childhood and past which may help the reader to understand why she is attracted to, and repelled by Marcus Kidder.

The gripping ending is a page-turner, but ultimately, not really satisfying.

The Heights by Peter Hedges

Peter Hedges wrote both the book and the screenplay "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." which is one of my favorite movies of all time. And he was the writer/director of "Pieces of April" and "Dan in Real Life." So I knew he would offer a novel that was quirky, clever, funny and poignant. And I was not disappointed.
The novel is about marriage, family, temptation, infidelity, and trust.  The story shifts back and forth between Tim, the husband, and Kate, the wife, telling the story. It amazed me how well Mr. Hedges could "speak" as Kate so realistically....tell the story from the woman's point of view and sound just like a woman.
The life he describes, even though it takes place in Brooklyn Heights, is much like suburbia or a small town. Everyone knows everyone else's business. The women gossip and get together at the local Starbucks or other coffee shop. They are especially gossipy when the new rich family moves to "the Heights" and the wife is not only rich but beautiful.
Tim and Kate have the perfect ordinary marriage. The author puts them through a test that turns everything they have upside down. Do they survivie? You'll have to read the book to find out.
It's a quick and enjoyable read. Now I hear it's being made into a movie and the author is adapting the screenplay, producing and directing. I look forward to it. Now I am speculating.....who will play Kate? Tim and most important - Anna?

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

This is an interesting memoir/novel that tells the story of the author's grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. She was born in 1901 in a one-room dugout in the western part of Texas. The beginning of the book describes her life their as a child and opens with her saving her siblings from one of the flash flood that come out of no where and can sweep people and animals away in an instant. She grabs her younger siblings and climbs up a tree with them where the stay overnight. She has to keep prodding them, and engaging them with singing and other activities because if they fell asleep, they'd lose their grip on the tree, fall and be drowned. You get a sense early on just what kind of strong, self-reliant woman this young girl will become.
The book takes place over many decades and follows Lily through her stints as a horse and cattle rancher, wife (twice - her first marriage is a disaster, but life-changing) a maid, a teacher, aviator, and eventually a mother to Rose Mary, a daughter who possesses many of the same characteristics as her mother, but not the common sense. The author, Jeannette is the daughter of Rose Mary and Rex. Lily was not in favor of Rose Mary's marriage to Rex. As Lily says to Rex, “My daughter needs an anchor,”  Rex retorts, “The problem with being attached to an anchor, is that it makes it 'hard to fly.' ”
Now that I have read this book, I need to read the author's other book, Glass Castles, which the young woman in the Library recommended when she checked me out with this book.

The Privileges by Jonathan Dee

I had never heard of this author but tuned into the second part of an interview with him on NPR in one of my many drives around the district from building to building. I wanted to be late for my appointment because I wanted to finish listening to him speak about this book. And then, the New Yorker came a few days later and there was a review of the same book. So, I put it on my "Want to Read" list and even logged into the Westchester Library System's website and put it on hold so I would have it when it came in to my local Library.
The book starts at Cynthia and Adam's wedding and you get a sense early on about these characters and their lack of moral tether. Their relationships to their families are strained and distant. Neither one really seems to care much for anyone but each other. (The one constant in the book is their love for each other. You half expect the success and money to tempt them into infidelity, as it often does. Money can buy anything - but they remain faithful to each other and to their quest for more.)
The book is written in sections that jump in years and covers their early marriage and birth of their two children when they are very young. They are always the youngest parents at Dalton School functions and the other older parents look at them with a bit of jealousy. We then witness the children at various stages of their lives. The daughter goes the route of bored and spoiled rich girl who gets involved with the club scene in NY and drugs and a near-death overdoses. The son, Jonas, is the odd one in the family. He is not smitten with money and what it can bring, but instead chooses to live, as a student at the U of Chicago, quite simply.
There is so much to this book about greed, immorality, insider trading, unscrupulous "deals" and the quest for more, not so much for what it can bring, but instead for the "thrill" that it gives Adam to be able to pull it all off.
At one point, I felt that it would become a story of the rise and fall of Adam, but he doesn't fall; he gets away with his schemes. He and Cynthia have no guilt because they start huge foundations and give away millions of dollars to all kinds of great causes. This launders their misdeeds.
The ending of the book was very strange. I read the last page a few times. I want to hear the author talk about that conclusion and how he ended the book. I won't give it away. Just read it!

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Oh, what an amazing book. You start out and get familiar with these interesting characters and then the next chapter starts and you see no relationship, until BAM! These characters are related (not necessarily by genetic relationships) to each other.
I must say that I was really into this book but was most captivated at the end when I got to know Gloria. What an amazing chapter. I can say no more other than
YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!!!

Invisible by Paul Auster

I loved this book until the ending and then I was like, "WHAT?"

My favorite Paul Auster book is the first one I read, Leviathan. I have read many others since then.  I am really not sure how I feel about this book. I will leave it at that.

Maybe I didn't get it?

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

I so looked forward to reading this book after the accolades bestowed upon it in the New York Times. I did enjoy its amazing prose, the clever and amusing writing and the story line. But I was not overwhelmed. And, of course, the fact that the author is a professor at my alma mater, U of Wisconsin, Madison made the book appealing. 

This is a coming of age story and a poignant and sad one. The main character, Tassie, is the daughter of a farmer. She is a student at the university in Troy, but I couldn't help but think it was really Madison. She gets a job as a nanny for a couple who is adopting a biracial baby. The story takes place very soon after 9/11, but the author does not really get around to that until late in the story, although it is alluded to earlier.

Her brother enlists in the army. His tragic end is crucial to the story. Tassie gets involved with a "Brazilian" who turns out to be not what she thought he was. There is a lot of that in this story. I won't give away more, but will just say that it's an engaging and very poignant story with long passages of beautiful prose, sometimes difficult to get through.