Looking Back on a Life

When Enda’s husband dies, she makes a startling confession to the priest in her small Irish village.  And this confession leads her—as the two sit beside the body of her husband—to tell the story of her life.  To tell The All of It.  As the priest listens to Enda’s tale, he begins to feel the loneliness, the absence, in his own existence.

Jeannette Haien’s slim novel (at 145 pages, you could easily read the entire book in one sitting) is a quiet, beautiful, lyrical meditation on life.  Thanks, Ann Patchett, for the recommendation!

 

Growing Up with the Addams Family

I haven’t read a graphic text in quite a while, and I didn’t realize that Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic was a graphic text when I ordered it.  Given the subject matter—growing up in a funeral home with a closeted father who eventually commits suicide—I was surprised to discover the panels of drawings when I opened the book.

But it works.  It really works.

Alison Bechdel’s memoir is one of the most literate and literary memoirs that I have ever read.  Bechdel is the daughter of two English teachers, and she is a student of literature herself, and these things are evident in her text.  The Great Gatsby, The Importance of Being Earnest, and James Joyce’s Ulysses all figure prominently is Bechdel’s analysis of her childhood.

Though the tragic weighs heavily in Fun Home (the loveless marriage of Bechdel’s parents, the suicide of her father, the guilt that she feels for his death, the secrets that she discovers about his life), there are still many smile-worthy moments in the text.  It’s a thoughtful and thought-provoking memoir in an unexpected form.

 

I Must go in, the Fog is Rising

In a tone that is completely irreverent (some might say snarky), Alan W. Petrucelli examines the deaths of the famous and infamous in Morbid Curiosity.  The book includes chapters on celebrities from the Golden Age of Hollywood, modern actors and musicians, well-known authors, politicians and presidents, and even pets.  Each person gets two or three paragraphs—a little more than a page at most.

This certainly isn’t a vital book, but it does contain a few interesting nuggets.  If only the author (and his editor) had taken a little more time with the final galleys; the book is littered with errors in proofreading and punctuation.

 

Best Books of 2011

As I scroll through my reading from the past year, I’m having a hard time picking my favorite books.  Each time I think that I’ve settled on my favorite novel or my favorite book of non-fiction or my favorite collection of short stories, I see another title that I loved.  So—instead of choosing among them—I’m going to include a longer list of my favorite books from 2011.  (Not all of these books were published in the last year, but they’re books that I read in the last year.)

Favorite classics worth revisiting:

The Aeneid by Virgil (newly translated by Stanley Lombardo)

Dubliners by James Joyce

Favorite young adult novels:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Favorite short story collections:

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon

Favorite non-fiction books:

American Uprising by Daniel Rasmussen

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

Favorite novels:

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Room by Emma Donoghue

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Here’s hoping for more great books in 2012!

 

A Thriller in the Halls of NASA

Ben Mezrich’s Sex on the Moon is a riveting, can’t-put-it-down, wanna-read-it-in-one-sitting book.  It tells the story of Thad Roberts, a NASA intern who steals a small collection of moon rocks (potentially worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on the black market) from a secure government facility.

This fast-paced heist story could well become the source of another major movie.  (Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires was the source material for last year’s Oscar-nominated The Social Network.)

But here’s my concern about the book:  A well-researched non-fiction book (including a narrative non-fiction book, such as Lost in Shangri-La or The Devil in the White City or Seabiscuit) has 25 or 50 pages of citations and notes at the end, a meticulous record of the sources consulted and interviews conducted by the author in creating the text.  Sex on the Moon has one page of acknowledgements.  What does that mean about the facts in Mezrich’s book?  I’m not sure, but I feel that I have to ask the question.

 

Up the River

Because I loved Bonnie Jo Campbell’s most recent collection of short stories, American Salvage, I was excited by the release of her novel Once Upon a River.

Sixteen-year-old Margo Crane lives with her mother and father in rural Michigan, across a small river from her father’s extended family.  Growing up in this environment, Margo learns to hunt, fish, swim, and row at the feet of her beloved grandfather.  Within the first 25 pages of the novel, though, Margo’s idyllic existence is shattered. She soon finds herself on the run and at the mercy of a series of shady men.

The opening episodes of the novel—and the character of Margo Crane—represent a reworking of one of the short stories in American Salvage.  This made the start of the book really fascinating to me, as it was interesting to watch an author return to and redevelop an earlier idea.

As I kept reading, though, I realized that maybe I like Margo better as a character in a short story.  Yes, I liked Once Upon a River, but I didn’t love it the way I love Campbell’s shorter works.  Eventually, I think the book just became too much of the same—too much of abusive men, too much of solitary stays along the river, too much of skinning wild animals—for me.  (In the final third of the novel, Margo does finally form a relationship with a good man, a curmudgeon who—in some ways—fills the void left by her dead grandfather.)

Why does our literary culture demand that authors write novels?  Why can’t we just appreciate the perfect short story?

 

Some Kind of Wonderful

I have fond memories of reading Ann Patchett’s beautiful novel Bel Canto (I still use a small excerpt in one of my classes), so I was excited to hear about her latest book, State of Wonder.

The novel opens when Dr. Marina Singh, a medical researcher for a large pharmaceutical firm, receives a short letter from Brazil, a letter informing her that her research partner has died in the jungle of the Amazon.  What was this mild-mannered researcher doing in the Amazon?  He was sent there by the company to check on Dr. Anneck Swenson, who had been working for years in the remote jungle of Brazil to develop a fertility drug.

At the request of her boss, Marina reluctantly agrees to travel to Brazil to learn more about her partner’s death and to prod Dr. Swenson into finishing her work (something that, from the perspective of the company funding her research, is taking much too long). 

It takes Marina the first half of the novel to find Dr. Swenson (who was Marina’s professor and mentor during medical school) in the depths of the jungle.  But that doesn’t mean that the first part of the novel drags; when Marina arrives in Brazil, for example, she meets a couple employed by Dr. Swenson to keep outsiders—including representatives from the drug company—from locating her remote lab.

When Marina finally locates Dr. Swenson (and forces her way to the jungle lab), State of Wonder becomes even more fascinating.  From the flora and fauna of the jungle (at once beautiful and terrible) to the tribe of natives befriended by the team of researchers to the stern and uncompromising character of Dr. Swenson herself, Patchett creates a rich, textured novel that keeps unfolding in unexpected ways.

State of Wonder combines realistically complex characters, a well-paced plot, and plenty of ethical issues to consider.  Patchett’s book shows hints of Heart of Darkness and hints of Barbara Kingsolver, but ultimately it is entirely her own.  Days after finishing, I keep returning to this book in my mind (and looking for someone to discuss it with!), which is always the sign of a good read.

 

No, Skippy isn’t a Dog

Sometimes, it’s possible to appreciate what an author is doing in a book but not exactly love that book.  That’s often how I felt while reading Skippy Dies.

In the prologue to Paul Murray’s sprawling novel, the titular character—a boarding student at an Irish prep school named Seabrook—dies in a doughnut shop.  Fortunately for Skippy, the first chapter of the novel jumps back in time, and the next 400 pages or so detail the events leading up to his death.

The novel is populated by a broad cast of characters, but it tends to revolve around three strands—Skippy, his roommate Ruprecht (a brilliant student obsessed with the possibility of parallel dimensions), and their close circle of friends; Howard (a Seabrook graduate who now teaches history at his alma mater), his fellow teachers, his girlfriend, and the woman who causes him to question his choices in life; and Carl (a disenchanted, drug-dealing student), his friend Barry, and the girl he thinks he loves.

Murray really captures the voice of the adolescent male, he experiments with some interesting stylistic devices, he occasionally employs some nicely lyrical prose, and he ultimately brings the three strands of the novel together successfully.  But—had Skippy Dies not been a choice for my book club—I’m not sure that I would have made it through the entire book.  I really had to push myself to keep reading for at least the first half of the novel.  I guess I wasn’t always interested in all of the characters (the chapters about Skippy’s group tended to hold my interest, but many of the early chapters on Carl just didn’t), and the book (at almost 700 pages) moved a little too slowly for me for a long time. 

I suppose that I ultimately liked this book, but I can’t recommend it without some reservations.

 

We Were Infinite

Patrick started driving really fast, and just before we got to the tunnel, Sam stood up, and the wind turned her dress into ocean waves. When we hit the tunnel, all the sound got scooped up into a vaccuum, and it was replaced by a song on the tape player. A beautiful song called “Landslide.” When we got out of the tunnel, Sam screamed this really fun scream, and there it was. Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. Sam sat down and started laughing. Patrick started laughing. I started laughing. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.

I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower many years ago—probably not long after it was published.  (In fact, this novel by Stephen Chbosky was kind of a “cult classic” among many of my students for a number of years.)  One of my seniors recently finished it and said that it was the best book that he had ever read.  I thought that I should pick it up again.

It did not disappoint!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a series of letters written by Charlie, a high school freshman, to an unidentified reader.  Charlie is mixed up, lonely, withdrawn.  His English teacher—who takes Charlie under his wing, lending him a series of great and challenging books—tells him that he needs to participate in life.  And then Charlie meets Patrick.  Patrick is also an outsider, but he relishes that role.  (In a recurring scene, he performs as Frank-N-Furter in late-night showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.)  Patrick introduces Charlie to his sister, Sam, and to a whole group of friends.  With them, Charlie finally begins to experience life.

This coming-of-age novel is sweet, sad, and full of perfect passages like the one above.

 

Peculiar, Unexpected, Utterly Enjoyable

Miss Perigrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a book that I eagerly returned to each night, a book that I stayed up late (sometimes a little too late!) to read, a book that I praised to friends, a book that I passed along as soon as I finished.  Thumbs up!

As a child, Jacob is very close to his grandfather (who, as a Jewish boy from Poland, was sent to a boarding school in Wales at the start of World War II).  His grandfather regales him with stories of the children he knew at the school, “peculiar” children with remarkable abilities.  As Jacob grows older, he rejects his grandfather’s stories as mere fantasy.  But when his grandfather dies, Jacob feels compelled to visit the mysterious Welsh school where his beloved ancestor spent his teen-age years.

This book wasn’t at all what I expected—but the twists and surprises were part of the joy of this book.  (Ransom Riggs’s novel should appeal to a broad group of readers.)  And the eerie black-and-white photographs that accompany the text are a perfect touch.