Where’d You Go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple

A 2013 Alex Award winner (meaning its a book in the adult section found to be highly appealing to teen readers), Where’d You Go, Bernadette is a laughable and adventurous satire packed with hilarious characterization and witty dialogue mostly in the epistolary fashion using email correspondence, letters, police reports, report cards, and other documents.  Modest readers might find some strong language offensive yet very in-character when utilized.

You’ll find hilarious characters, some to love, some to hate, and some to drive everyone crazy!  Semple pokes fun at Seattle’s subcultures of anti-fashionable, pro-geek, tech-talking, community-oriented, hyper-diverse, ultra-green, alternative-lifestyle embracing citizens.  Semple herself is a transplant to the Seattle region from Los Angeles, as is the character Bernadette, where she wrote screenplays for “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “Ellen,” “Mad About You” and “Arrested Development.”

Caution, spoilers (because the events are revealed asynchronously and non-chronologically): Bernadette Fox has escaped her failed career as a genius architect by isolating herself in a crumbling fortress of a home where she can’t sleep and torments herself with self-pity.  She’s become so anti-social that she’s hired a virtual assistant to handle even the most mundane logistics of her life.  For years, her precious 15-year old daughter Bee has been Bernadette’s only reason for living.  Bee’s been promised this trip to Antarctica as an award for her perfect report card (Her Microsoft-guru dad can afford it).  Now, she’s having a panic attack brought on by the prospect of accompanying Bee through the sea-sickening Drake passage, “the roughest and most feared water in the world,”  and this leads to a series of outrageous circumstances that culminate in a final resolution that just might restore Bernadette’s artistic passion.

The narration, and actual singing, by actress Kathleen Wilhoite, is extraordinarily energetic and adds much to the listening experience of the audiobook version, which I was whizzed through completely enraptured with joyous laughter.  When hearing her voicing the hysterics of the ‘gnats’ (aka the condescending moms of Bee’s classmates at Galer Street School), I was reminded of Tea Leoni’s over-the-top character in the movie Spanglish.

Check the WRL catalog for the print or large print versions, too.

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Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

A vicious intergalactic war rages on in this epic fantasy vs. sci-fi standoff. The inhabitants of Landfall, the largest planet in the galaxy, bear vestigial wings and are technologically advanced. They have forever been in conflict with the population of Wreath, Landfall’s moon, who have horns like sheep and a mastery of magic. Each side recruits other planets and races to join their side in the battle, constantly expanding the battlefield throughout the universe.

Alana was a Landfall soldier, sent to guard prisoners on the distant planet of Cleave. Marko was a foot solider for Wreath, but surrendered as a conscientious objector and was sent to Cleave. Within twelve hours of meeting each other, Alana and Marko flee together. Their union produces a daughter named Hazel, who serves as occasional narrator to the story, and has both wings and horns.

Treachery such as theirs can’t go unpunished, and soon both sides are tracking the new parents, who want nothing more than a peaceful place to raise their child. The fragility of the new life they have created strengthens their resolve to, somehow, survive. Landfall sends Prince Robot IV, a humanoid with a television set for a head, to bring them to justice while the Wreath military hires a freelance bounty hunter named The Will. For reasons yet unknown, the Wreath side wants Hazel brought back alive. Another bounty hunter, a former lover of The Will, is also sent by the Wreath forces to track down Alana and Marco. Prince Robot IV and The Will are soon at odds, with The Will swearing to destroy his blue-blooded nemesis.

The writing and the artwork for this series successfully contrast the tenderness and intimacy between the parents against the violence of the worlds around them. There are a lot of ideas introduced in this first volume, which can be tricky to maintain, but Brian K. Vaughan is an experienced writer and this volume is a promising beginning. Fiona Staples’s artwork is simple yet striking, and she manages to make several different, distinct alien worlds, bathing the images in contrasting teals and oranges and greens. Recommended for fantasy and science fiction readers, and anyone who enjoys an against-the-odds romance.

Check the WRL catalog for Saga.

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The Good House, by Ann Leary

Of all the villains in modern literature, Daisy Buchanan has always been one I love to hate. As F. Scott Fitzgerald describes her, she’s so insulated from the world and from the consequences of her actions that she has no sense of right and wrong, and there’s no one willing to hold her to account. And that’s when she was surrounded by her social peers. Imagine if she lived in an ordinary place with ordinary people.

Hildy Good is (or was) the top-selling real estate broker in her seaside town. The town has been discovered by Boston’s wealthy, land and house prices have skyrocketed, and the quirky old-time residents are trying to hang on in the face of the invasion. The McAllisters, one of the newcomer families, have profited enormously by Brian’s management of a hedge fund (and other money-making silent partnerships), but they’re regular folks and Hildy is glad to sell them a property and introduce them around the town. She and Rebecca are on their way to becoming friends, sharing the occasional glass of wine and conversation. Rebecca even takes Hildy into her confidence on private family matters.

Problem is, Hildy has recently done a stint in rehab for her drinking, and while the old townies pretend not to know, Hildy doesn’t imbibe in front of them. They remember, even if she doesn’t, the conviviality that turned sour, the caution they used when she got in the car, the reason her valued associate departed for a competitor brokerage. But, while she’s on her best behavior in public, that case of wine in her trunk calls to her every night and she’s answering.

Hildy tries to do the right thing—or at least avoid causing herself trouble, which for some people amounts to the same thing.  She’s also on the lookout for the main chance, the big, profitable sale that’s going to put her brokerage back on top. As she travels through the town and interacts with the residents, she provides us with commentary on their quirks and problems in an acerbic and darkly comic voice. But the booze affects her judgment, and we begin to wonder how much of her commentary could be called accurate, and how much is self-protection.

One of her targets is next-door neighbor Frankie Getchell, a one-time boyfriend, and owner of a large and desirable property that Hildy keeps pressing him to sell. Frankie wants to hold on to it, mostly to store the variety of junk equipment he uses in his various jack-of-all-trades businesses.  A convenient man to know, Frankie’s the guy to go to if you need your trash picked up, driveway plowed, house painted or remodeled,or stuff delivered. He isn’t socially acceptable, but under the influence of a couple of stiff drinks, Hildy decides he’s just enough to sleep with.

The story keeps coming back to Rebecca, though, and the influence she begins to have on Hildy and on other people in the town.  Far from the vulnerable lonely woman she presents to the rest of the town, Rebecca has a cold core that gradually shows through in her treatment of others. Oddly enough, Frank is the first to spot it, but no one, including Hildy, will listen to him.  By the time Hildy recognizes the trouble Rebecca’s causing, she’s embroiled in a crisis of her own.

I can imagine comparisons to Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, but The Good House also reminded me of another book I recently read—Tiffany Baker’s The Gilly Salt Sisters. Also set in a New England town, also dealing with the poisonous power of money, the manipulation of others, and long-held secrets coming to the fore, The Gilly Salt Sisters has a small taste of magic not found in The Good House, but I think the two might interest the same readers.

Check the WRL catalog for The Good House

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Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

I was surprised to find that no one here at Blogging for a Good Book had written about Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn’s runaway bestseller. After all, a tight suspenseful mystery surrounding a ripped-from-the-headlines event should have caught our attention.

Well, I finally got my copy, and in trying to write about it without giving the whole thing away I’ve learned why no one else touched it. After all, it’s a runaway bestseller about a ripped-from-the-headlines event reconstructed as a tight suspenseful mystery, which means plot twists and surprises, and if you read any further you might just find out why, and then Gillian Flynn and Crown Publishers will be mad at me for spoiling the book, but I’m on the hook because I’ve already written this much. So, there’s this guy and this girl, and she’s gone.  Stop here if you don’t want me to give anything away.

Actually, the guy is Nick, and the girl is his wife, Amy. Nick is storybook handsome, with enough boyish charm to attract plenty of women. Amy is “Amazing Amy,” the inspiration for a long-running and successful series of children’s books that made her parents a fortune, gave her a huge trust fund, and got her lots of attention everywhere she went. Their meet-cute storybook romance and wedding have given way to the realities and compromises of marriage, but Amy is determined to press forward and recapture the excitement and intimacy of their early days together. At least, that’s according to her diary. Seriously, don’t read any further.

Nick, on the other hand, is a passive, self-centered guy whose failures in New York gave him an excuse to drag the cosmopolitan Amy to his Missouri hometown. His saintly mom is dying of cancer, his nasty father has Alzheimer’s, and his beloved twin sister has retreated home from her own losses. Their hometown is quickly dying in the turbulence of the Great Recession and the signs of collapse are all around.  Then comes the fateful day, which is detailed through Nick’s eyes.  I’m warning you—don’t go on!

On their fifth anniversary, Amy disappears, leaving behind signs of a struggle. The initial investigation and all-out search proceeds as if she’s been kidnapped, but the deeper the investigation gets, the more Nick tells us that he’s lying to the police. He has no alibi for the time surrounding her loss, he misleads them about the nature of his and Amy’s relationship, and he can’t explain why the evidence of a struggle appears to have been manufactured. And the culture of infamy begins. Unfortunate photographs,  inconsistencies in his story, and the natural inclination to look to the remaining spouse as the likely guilty party trigger the interest of a scandal-mongering true-crime TV show. Shocking revelations trickle out at the worst possible times, and Nick’s efforts to steer his public image are doomed in the face of the unrelenting spotlight. OK, you’ve made your choice—let the consequences be on your head.

By this time, the reader is lost in a maze of mirrors. Do we believe the writings of the best wife a man can want, or the admissions of the worst kind of husband a woman can have? Do we trust his self-confessed failings, or his efforts to find out if someone from Amy’s past has surfaced to harm her? Does he deserve the belief that his family (and Amy’s) have in him, or are the police right to focus on him? Flynn constructs these uncertainties in a way that continually pulls the readers’ feet off what little firm ground they have to stand on.  Spoiler alert!

Keep in mind that this all happens in the first third of the book. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

By deconstructing Amy and Nick’s marriage (with Amy’s disappearance looming in the background), Flynn also asks readers to examine the fool’s paradise that most of us construct when we try to deceive others. (And it was Sir Walter Scott, not Shakespeare, who famously reminds us of that.) There are some, though, who can construct elaborate structures to hang their lies on, and who can manipulate others by observing and anticipating normal behavior. When the lie is big enough, its sheer improbability gives it credence—who could go to such lengths to create a falsehood? Flynn finds a way to show us, even as she gradually introduces the idea that their victims sometimes can’t find a way to escape the destruction.

Neil’s comprehensive list of 2012′s Best Books shows that Gone Girl was the best reviewed mystery of the year. Based on all the stuff I can’t or won’t tell you, I have to agree with the reviewers.

Check the WRL catalog for Gone Girl

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The Odds, by Stewart O’Nan

What are the odds that one author could capture two important elements of American life in two books, each of which is under two hundred pages? If you’re Stewart O’Nan, they are 1 in 1.  The first is Last Night at the Lobster (blogged here by Connie), a 147-page story of a restaurant manager whose life and identity are invested in his job, despite the way he’s casually dismissed by both customers and corporate hatchetmen. The second is 2012′s The Odds, in which a long-married couple makes a last-gasp getaway before divorcing and declaring bankruptcy. Its 179 pages encompass the silent recriminations, miscommunications, deceptions, and uncomfortable blend of inside jokes and familiarity-bred contempt of a man and woman who may have been mismatched from the start.

Marion and Art Fowler are retracing their honeymoon on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, but this time packing thousands of dollars in a canvas bag. Right from the start we know that they are going to be divorced when this weekend is over, but Art thinks it’s only a maneuver to protect their few remaining assets.  He is full of other schemes to minimize the damage from their certain bankruptcy: planning to default on the credit card bill for their extravagant weekend, buying Marion jewelry that is just under the asset level for seizure, and above all, using a solid system to beat the roulette wheel in the hotel casino then smuggle his cash winnings back into the US.

What he doesn’t know is that Marion intends their divorce to be more than a legal fiction. As Art has struggled with their finances, Marion has found a life of her own.  She’s impatient with his neediness, practices maneuvers to deflect his affections, and withholds an enormous secret from him. That’s not to say Art is a saint—he can be indecisive, a poor planner (who doesn’t think a Valentine’s Day weekend in Niagara Falls would be crowded?), blind to her tastes, and overly optimistic about the risky venture they’re on.

For all the lows that are finally weighing their marriage down, there are some bright points, especially centered on their children as they begin to make lives of their own. There are moments of intimacy springing from thirty years of living together, familiar rhythms and mutual memories that knit them together and that will never fray. Those moments, small as they sometimes are, lend the story a sweetness that offsets the soured relationship and the desperation of their finances.  Like the Ripley’s 3-D movie Art and Marion see, O’Nan puts his readers in a barrel, has them pass jagged rocks and beautiful scenery on their inexorable way to the fall—but he ends the story just as the barrel launches into the mist, leaving us to create our own landing.

(And, ahem, Pulitzer people:  you may not be able to make a decision, but I hope dismissing O’Nan’s polished works as novellas isn’t in your catalogue of other sins.)

Check the WRL catalogue for The Odds

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The Last Good Kiss, by James Crumley

What is it about California that makes it so attractive to writers of hardboiled fiction?  Is it the tension between the gorgeous weather and the darkness of the human soul?  Is it the quintessential Land of Opportunity trashed by intimidation and competition?  Just as the fertile coast is divided from the desert interior, California divides the survivors from the victims and it takes a brutally clear voice to describe that social Darwinism.  James Crumley was such a voice.

That’s not to say that The Last Good Kiss is strictly a California book, because it covers a good bit of the West, carrying the reader on a booze- and speed-filled journey with stops in Sonoma, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, Elko, Montana, Washington, and Oregon.  In fact, so much time takes place in cars that the two main characters— investigator C. W. Sughrue and his quarry-cum-road partner Abraham Trahearne—come to that place of friendship and hatred that can only be created on road trips through desolate country.

After finding Trahearne on behalf of Trahearne’s wealthy ex-wife, Sughrue accepts a quixotic assignment to find the daughter of the owner of the bar where they meet.  For $87, Sughrue agrees to look for Betty Sue Flowers, who disappeared in San Francisco ten years before. Betty Sue is a legend to all who knew her, exuding a premature sexuality that haunted the men and alienated her from the women around her.  The trail has all but disappeared, but Sughrue, accompanied by Trahearne, still gives it his best shot and turns up some inconsistencies.

But his first client demands the return of her ex-husband to the compound where she lives with Trahearne, his second wife, and his domineering mother.  Back to Montana they go, and Sughrue steps into a snakepit of relationships and barely stifled violence.  The ex-wife is sexy, the second wife is interesting, and the booze is free, so Sughrue sticks around until his conscience puts him back on Betty Sue’s trail.  And that trail leads to death and destruction for many—some who deserve it and some who don’t.

Like all good hardboiled heroes, C. W. Sughrue is a philosopher (with a Master’s in English Lit) hidden behind a scarred body and bashed-in face, with an incredible tolerance for booze and a certain (though ill-defined) quality that draws beautiful women.  He retreats to his Montana home from the ugliness he has seen in his life, but doesn’t hesitate to go out and confront more ugliness.  And while he isn’t a romantic, he is just idealistic enough to believe that he can make a difference, even when we, the readers, know he’s heading for another fall.

Check the WRL catalog for The Last Good Kiss

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Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett

The building of cathedrals in Europe was often a multi-generational task, a labor of love and worship that illustrates the tenor of those times.  Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth is its own labor of love and worship, although in a different way.  As he explains in his introduction, the book was a huge departure for him.  Known as an author of thriller— including Eye of the Needle, one of my favorites —Follett took a risk writing this book, but based on the way readers have embraced it, his risk paid off.

Pillars is the story of one cathedral and the events of the nearly forty years it took to build.  It centers around five people: a cleric, two artisans, and two from the ranks of the nobility.  (An additional character from the peasantry probably would have made the plot unwieldy, but Follett deals with that problem early on.)  During the period he writes about—1123 to 1174—there was an international struggle to determine whether kings ruled with the blessing of the church, or whether the church existed under the protection of the kings.  That struggle trickled down to the local level, where philosophy yields to the daily fight for land and money.  At the same time, guilds were exercising their economic power by restricting membership, enforcing apprenticeships, and setting fees for specific jobs.  Both church and nobility feared the repercussions of a wealthy educated class, but the guilds were also limited by the need for armed protection and desire for religious approval.  At various times power shifted among the three, but no single one emerged victorious.  But struggles were not limited to the competing factions:  clergy maneuvered amongst themselves for power and income, nobles conspired against each other to increase their holdings, and the guilds evolved through trial and error that produced losers and winners.

Follett’s span of the 12th century begins with the tribulations of Tom Builder, a mason whose job is unexpectedly terminated, forcing him to take to the roads with his family, searching for work.  Like the peasants of his time, he is helpless in the face of lawlessness and misfortune, until every day becomes a quest for survival against the slow starvation overtaking his family.  After his wife dies in childbirth, Tom becomes involved with Ellen, a mysterious woman who lives in the forest with her son Jack.  When Tom’s path crosses that of the newly-elected Prior Philip of the Kingsbridge monastery, both their fortunes begin to rise.

Philip is a motivated, intelligent, and inspired man whose dedication to the church manifests itself in his desire to revive the fallen fortunes of the monastery with a plan to eventually build a cathedral.  But the opportunity presents itself sooner rather than later, and the project is underway. Philip is an innocent in many ways, but no more so than in his belief that his sincere efforts on God’s behalf are respected and shared by other clergy, including the driven and ambitious Waleran Bigod, who is destined to become his bishop.  However, he becomes adept at his own kind of politicking and makes several enemies along the way.

One of them is William Hamleigh, the would-be Earl of Shiring, which encompasses Bishop Bigod’s diocese and Prior Philip’s growing town.  Hamleigh’s family rose to the earldom during the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud.  William is a brute who does not hesitate to use force and treachery, even cold-blooded murder, to achieve his aims.  But his inability to think beyond the short term hampers him, and he is easily manipulated by the bishop for his own ends.  He’s not a subtle character, but William also serves a valuable role in the story, demonstrating the effort and expense it took to maintain the military force that an earl was required to bring to the king.

When the story begins, William’s anticipated marriage to the Lady Aliena, daughter of the current Earl, is broken off.  Her father did not want to force her into a political marriage, and the humiliation leads the Hamleighs to denounce the Earl and seize his holdings. When William gains the upper hand, he rapes Aliena, kills her protector, and scars her younger brother.  But Aliena will not accept that as the last word, and her determination, cleverness, and willingness to take risks give her opportunities to rise above the merely social standing she would have had as a noblewoman.  Her success also illustrates the power that the trade associations— both among merchants and among skilled craftsmen—could wield.

Finally, there’s Jack, the unusual son of the outlaw woman Ellen, adopted by Tom Builder and put to work on the cathedral site.  His intelligence and insight not only make him a valued craftsman, but allow him to develop a friendship with Aliena.  They also bring him to the attention of Prior Philip, who is determined to bring Jack into the monastery, but at a high cost to Jack.  Jack is also a vehicle for Follett to explore Continental culture from pilgrimages to Moorish influence in Spain to the revolutionary design of French cathedrals.  The vision he brings back puts the crowning touch on what ends as a glorious building.

Follett’s description of the various styles and the engineering feats it took to build these enormous buildings is done lovingly and with a real sense of awe. It makes the reader long to turn to an illustrated source that captures in images what Follett has described for us.  And my next entry will talk about that very thing.

Check the WRL catalog for Pillars of the Earth in regular print, as well as audio, a television mini-series, and e-book.

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Harvest, by Tess Gerritsen

The psychologically disturbing horrors of the evil-doers in this medical thriller made my spine tingle. Even though I found it hard to believe some of the sticky situations these characters found themselves in, I found myself believing that such corruption, immorality, and greed might indeed be possible in the medical community and I now possess a new suspicion of doctors and hospital systems.

Gerritsen’s adrenaline-charged thrillers followed her earlier career in romantic suspense, but her focus on the medical settings in these crime thrillers is what got my attention. That, and the constantly moving plot of this intricately layered story about a very promising medical resident-cum-amateur detective, Dr. Abby DiMatteo, who finds herself uncovering clues to the disturbing possibility that extremely wealthy heart transplant recipients may be jumping to the head of the non-discriminating transplant list while other patients with a legitimate place lose their lives. Even more disturbing is the possible source of the ”donated” organs. From the very first chapter, fascinating characters are introduced in separate plotlines such that the reader suspects but doesn’t know for sure how each of the characters will be connected later on. This was a great stand-alone read with a very satisfying ending. It’s not the entry into a series and it’s one of her early thrillers, but I didn’t find anything about it out of place in time. A romantic plot is threaded into the story as well.

The knowledge that the author was a real-life doctor before she turned to full-time writing gives me confidence in her ability to accurately portray medical students, residents, and practicing physicians. Lovers of suspense and mystery will love Harvest, and the themes are so disturbingly chilling that even horror fans might enjoy Tess Gerritsen, who also incorporates the supernatural into some of her novels.

Look for Harvest in the WRL catalog.

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Postmortem, by Patricia Cornwell

Postmortem is Patricia Cornwell’s first medical thriller featuring Dr. Kay Scarpetta and homicide detective Pete Marino, set in Richmond, Virginia. I tried to keep my reading confined to the audiobook in my car, but I found myself taking it to bed with me every night and not falling asleep until I’d listened through at least two CDs per night. I hadn’t read a “coroner” story or watched very many TV shows (no more than a few CSI episodes) on this topic of forensic pathology since one of my old favorites, Quincy, M.E., starring Jack Klugman, in the late 70s to early 80s, so I’m delighted to rekindle my odd fascination with the gory details of autopsies and forensic investigation. I don’t feel bad about this considering that Cornwell’s tales seem to have taken up permanent residence on the bestseller lists. I’m pretty stoked that I’ll now be able to read or listen to more than 20 books in the Kay Scarpetta series, and I’ve also now discovered a number of other writers of suspense-filled medical thrillers to add to my reading list.

Scarpetta is a strong, female leading character (Quince was quite the chauvinist, as I recall). In this first novel, she’s obviously up against male characters who think she does not belong in her position as Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia. She also has to gain the confidence and respect of her sidekick, detective Pete Marino, who reappears throughout the series. The pairing of a medical expert with a legal or police professional seems to be a very effective device in this style of literature, one that has proven successful in a number of series and TV shows. I really enjoyed the character development in Postmortem. Pete and Kay don’t get along well at first, but over time they recognize each other’s unique talents and slowly develop an awkward rapport tinged with sarcasm and a bit of humor that promises to develop further into the series. The ending was unpredictable and the inevitable dangerous situation the characters get themselves into could not have been resolved without their loyalty to each other and teamwork.

The medically fascinating details in these books showcase some of the latest technological advancements in forensic pathology through the years. Some might find it odd to deal with Cornwell’s older books and the now-obsolete computer technologies and medical practices, but others may enjoy it, sort of like opening a time capsule. Her latest novels continue to incorporate modern techniques and equipment being used in the real world of medicine, virtual autopsies for example.

This review is not for those who are already loyal fans of Patricia Cornwell. It’s to alert readers newly interested in fast-paced medical thrillers that we have her series of books in the library just waiting for your discovery! Check the WRL catalog for Postmortem, in print or in audiobook on CD.

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Losing Clementine, by Ashley Ream

Each chapter in this entertaining, dark yet humorous debut novel counts down the 30 days pop-artist Clementine Pritchard has given herself to set her affairs in order before her suicide. She starts by crashing into the annoying car that blocks her driveway daily, tossing a teapot she never wanted anyway out of her apartment window, and flushing her medications for various psychoses–freeing her body from the numerous side effects she’s suffered from most of her life. The complex details of Clementine’s troubled history are revealed slowly with each day. I don’t want to reveal too much that will spoil the suspense for potential readers, but I quickly became fascinated with this flawed but loveable protagonist’s compelling story. I was not able to assume what had happened to her in the past or predict what she might do next, so the pages just kept turning.

It was uncomfortable but also quite funny watching her live her last days on the edge without the usual fear of consequences for her rash actions, eating her lovingly described extravagant last meals, and fearlessly speaking her mind. I found myself fearing for how she might pick up the pieces if for any reason she were not to have the courage to go through with her planned death. It all seems very considerate, how carefully she prepares so that no one will be terribly inconvenienced or have to go to any expense for her loss, yet she has falsely assumed that her death would cause no harm.  Clementine may have gravely underestimated her worth to significant others in her life. In the course of her last month, it turns out that some are not who they had seemed, and new people have entered her life unexpectedly.

I found this to be a very touching story and a quick read that was well worth my time. Anyone who’s ever contemplated suicide, even for just a moment, can relate to Clementine’s state of mind and the fact that suicidal thinking creates distance in relationships. Older teens may find appeal in this book’s emotionally intense themes of childhood abandonment, but recommenders should be aware that it contains adult sexual and drug-related content. I look forward to more contemporary fiction titles from Ashley Ream.

Look for Losing Clementine in the WRL catalog.

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Still Midnight, by Denise Mina

Tartan Noir.  That’s probably the greatest name for a body of crime fiction set in one location.  In this case it’s Scotland, where it seems the rain and clouds obscure more than the sky.  With the exception of Alexander McCall Smith, I can’t think of a single Scottish crime writer who couldn’t raise goosebumps on a tropical beach.

Denise Mina is a principal member of the clan, with her Garnethill Trilogy, the first three of her books featuring young journalist Paddy Meehan, and now her Alex Morrow stories, of which Still Midnight is the first.  All feature damaged but strong women struggling in a world where men have an explicit hold on the power to control their lives.

Alex Morrow is immersed in perhaps the single most male-dominated profession—the police department.  Worse still, she’s from the lower classes.  Worst of all, she’s hiding her family background: Alex’s dad was a major player in Glasgow’s underworld, and now her half-brother Danny has inherited his position.  Alex is able to conceal her connections, but her accent and attitude can’t be hidden.

Alex is called to the scene of a home invasion that ended with the wounding of a teenaged girl and the kidnapping of her father.  Although the father keeps a hole-in-the-wall shop, the kidnappers demand ₤2 million—an impossible and suspicious ransom.  Plus, there’s a ticklish angle:  the family is Muslim, and the first thought of the investigators is that the money may be connected to extremists.  Politics rears its ugly head when Alex’s co-worker and competitor is catapulted past her to lead the high-profile case.  Despite that, Alex works the overlooked angles, and her basic police procedure starts turning up loose threads.

Morrow’s investigation is punctuated by two other stories.  The first, which opens the book, is told from the viewpoint of Pat, the hapless gunman.  Although he and his partner Eddy have been hard guys in the past, the home invasion is a far cry from their other crimes.  Pat even fancies himself in love with the girl and has visions of meeting and courting her.  At the same time, he fears that Eddy’s pent-up rage over the loss of his family will make him commit further violence.  The second story is that of Aamir, the kidnapped shopkeeper.  A survivor who escaped Idi Amin’s Uganda, Aamir has plenty of time to remember those brutal days, the effort of integrating himself into Scottish society, of raising two boys and a willful girl.  He too fears the potential of Eddy’s violence and the reader senses that he is close to resigning himself to die.

Family dominates Still Midnight.  Besides Alex’s birth family, a strained relationship with her husband keeps her away from their home.  Aamir has withheld the story of his life from his wife and children, but they are keeping secrets from the old man.  One is even keeping a secret with Aamir’s help.  Pat’s family is deeply involved with the kidnapping, and of course Eddy’s family looms in the background.  Alex’s co-worker is well-connected through his father’s own police career, making him a golden boy in the department.  The way Mina weaves these family stories together creates the foundation of the mystery, but also deepens the connections between the characters.

Glasgow is also a major character in this story, much as Edinburgh is in Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus stories.  The dirty little convenience store, the shooting galleries for heroin addicts, the abandoned industrial buildings, and the natural elements where all of these are haphazardly scattered make an appropriate setting for the story.  Mina also indulges herself in creating an almost ludicrous hideaway where Eddy and Pat stash Aamir.  The place offers a level of comic relief from the rest of the story, while still ringing true.  (Trust me, I’ve been in places like the one she describes.)  Alex Morrow is like a hardy plant in this atmosphere— deeply rooted but surviving and even thriving.  She makes me look forward to reading The End of Wasp Season, the second Alex Morrow mystery.

Check the WRL catalog for Still Midnight

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Faith, by Jennifer Haigh

Two years ago, all my siblings were gathered together for the first time since 1989.  Those old easy ways quickly fell into place and we were soon laughing and arguing about who was going to do the dishes.  We also reminisced about past gatherings, trips, and our frequent knock-down-drag-out fights over the TV program we were going to watch. Then other memories started cropping up. A conversation with the daughter of slaves during a trip to Colorado. The road trip when the youngest got left behind and we didn’t discover it until we were 90 minutes away. The ski trip to West Virginia where one brother slipped and knocked down Gerald Ford.  In other words, the stuff that never happened. At least, I know they never happened, though some of my siblings swear that they did.  It just goes to show that no two people grow up in the same family.

That’s the way it is with Sheila McGann.  Her brother Arthur Breen (their mother’s first child) is several years older but she and Father Art, a Catholic priest in Boston, talk frequently and know each other’s secrets.  Her younger brother Mike never really knew Art, but he and Sheila are close enough that they can still finish each other’s sentences.  Art grew up in a single-parent urban household, Sheila and Mike in a working-class suburban home ruled by their devout mother and alcoholic father.  Art was a devout boy who left for seminary when Sheila was still very young;  Mike and Sheila did the Catholic school thing, but she’s now agnostic and he’s not a particularly observant churchgoer.

Then a seismic shift tests the bonds between them.  Art is accused of molesting Aidan Conlon, the son of a recovering addict he’s been helping.  Caught in the midst of the rising tide of priest-abuse accusations and lawsuits, he is summarily removed from his parish (on Good Friday, no less).   He is exiled to a generic apartment complex, and blocked from contact with his friends.  He can’t even speak with Church officials to defend himself against the charges.  His parish is divided between those loyal to him and those who retroactively remember something odd about him.  All Father Art has left is his family.

Sheila flies to Art’s defense, returning to Boston from her Philadelphia home.  But she finds that Art’s last refuge is compromised. His mother is ashamed of the accusations and deals with it by withdrawing.  His stepfather, memory stripped by his alcoholism, is no help.  And Mike immediately accepts the truth of the accusation, egged on by his wife.

As the story progresses, though, the characters slowly begin to shift places.  The more Sheila learns the more doubt she begins to feel.  And Mike, driven by a need for a definitive answer, begins insinuating himself into Aidan’s mother Kath’s life.  He succeeds in coaxing Kath to tell the story of her relationship with Art, but at high cost to himself.  And when he knows the truth, his faith in Art is complete.

Sheila is looking back as the sequence of events unfolds, foreshadowing, guessing, stitching together the facts she knows and filling in the blank spaces to recount this story.  In doing so, she keeps the child abuse scandal in the background and focuses on the McGanns as they try to come to grips with—or avoid—dealing with the enormity of the situation.  She also keeps the reader wondering whether or not to sympathize with Art as Sheila releases details through the narrative the family is constructing even as events transpire.  This is not, however, a story that will be shared over the dinner table.  It’s more likely that it will join the deeply hidden secrets that have governed this family from the first.

Check the WRL catalog for Faith

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Micro, by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston

From watching Jurassic Park it seems plausible that Michael Crichton thought, “Hey, what if dinosaurs and people had been around at the same time? People are so helpless. We are small, with no claws and teensy teeth.  We’d just get eaten!”  Which made an exciting (albeit gory) story.  I am guessing that the idea for Micro started in a similar way.  Michael Crichton thought, “What if people were as small as insects? We’re just soft and squishy.  No exoskeleton and only two legs.  We’d just get eaten!”

And sadly for the characters, that is exactly what happens in Micro.  Not for the faint hearted or the weak stomached, Micro is extremely violent and extremely gross. Have you ever seen a nature documentary where the parasitic wasps lay their eggs in the caterpillars, then the larvae hatch and eat the caterpillar from the inside out?  Yuk!  You can’t get much grosser than that.  But imagine the victim isn’t a caterpillar, but a person?  My stomach is uneasy just typing this.  But it doesn’t stop there, the many other nasty ways that insects have of killing and eating each other are explored in exciting, but grisly, detail in Micro.

Michael Crichton died in 2008 before Micro was finished.  To complete the book they selected Richard Preston, whose best books are non-fiction books about diseases and science, try The Hot Zone or Wild Trees.  I think this was an inspired combination.  The book has Michael Crichton’s thrilling pace and Richard Preston’s eye for plausible biological detail.

Micro was an exciting, escapist read that I consumed in one weekend.  Perhaps it is not great literature, and it didn’t receive very good reviews, but when you add an evil corporation, a mad scientist, an exotic tropical location, and a budding love affair, it kept me reading.

Check the WRL catalog for Micro.

 

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Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie

Confession time?  I never read anything by Salman Rushdie until I picked up Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002.  I found his essays on everything from “Being Photographed” to “Going to Electoral College” to be funny, pointed, and written in approachable, engaging language.  So what was holding me back?  Perhaps it was that intimidating glare, which makes him look as if you’re going to disappoint him no matter how hard you try.  (Of course, looking for the picture I was thinking of yielded only photos of a smiling, avuncular wiseman.  Strange.)

On a whim, I picked up Haroun and the Sea of Stories and began reading it aloud to my wife.  It quickly became a standing date–9pm each night we’d sit down and I’d dive into The Sea.  Rushdie’s enchanting story drew us along right to the wonderfully satisfying end.  It practically defines what I love to see in totally escapist reading, but with a punch that few writers can pull off.

Haroun is the son of Rashid, a famous storyteller who lives in his own imagination and sometimes visits the “real” world to perform the pieces he finds in his fancy.  Haroun’s mother Soraya sometimes frets over money, but is largely happy until a nasty neighbor poisons her image of Rashid, and the two run off together.  Haroun rejects his father’s fantastic view of the world, and Rashid loses his storytelling facility.

Unfortunately, it’s election time in the country Alifbay, where Rashid has been hired to enchant voters so the politicians can tell equally large whoppers to earn votes.  Without his skill Rashid cannot perform, and only professional pride makes him go to his last gig in the isolated Valley of K to entertain provincial voters.  Haroun talks them onto a wild bus ride with a driver named Butt, who delivers them to their putative employer Snooty Buttoo and his fantastic houseboat.  But aboard the houseboat, Haroun finds himself flown away to an invisible moon that houses the Sea of Stories.  An immense ocean whose currents of standard storylines flow together to create new tales, the Sea is also being poisoned by “popular romances” which have turned into “long lists of shopping expeditions, and “talking helicopter anecdotes” that are spoiling the rich imaginative source that has nourished both tellers and listeners for all of human history.  The poison leads back to the enemy of storytelling, “Prince of Silence and the Foe of Speech” Khattam-Shud, whose name means “The End.”

With Haroun’s assistance, the good Guppees, the Plentimaw fish, and the people of P2C2E (Processes Too Complicated to Explain) defeat Khattam-Shud and his Chupwalas, and balance returns to the moon.  With the Sea of Stories saved, the world undergoes a transformation that ensures the defeat of the colorless and the victory of the whimsical.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is called a children’s story, but it would be an exceptional child (indeed an exceptional reader of any age) to catch all the puns, literary allusions, political caricature, and meaningful verbal tics Rushdie gives his magical characters.  Haroun is a marvelous stand-in for readers living in the dull world.  His sudden gift of a wildly psychedelic experience reminds of what we set aside as we “grow up.”  It must have been a Chupwala who decided it belonged outside the realm of those who need it most.

Check the WRL catalog for Haroun and the Sea of Stories

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The Inverted Forest, by John Dalton

Summer camp, notwithstanding Bill Murray’s view of it, is supposed to be a quintessentially formative experience, both for the campers and the counselors.  How then to deal with a summer camp that begins with the hasty dispatch of the trained counselors and ends with a murder?  No, it isn’t Friday the 13th, but a well-drawn, sensitive, and shocking novel by John Dalton.

Three characters dominate the story of Kindermann Forest Summer Camp: owner Schuller Kindermann, camp nurse Harriet Foster, and counselor Wyatt Huddy.  Kindermann has been in charge of the slowly-failing camp since its founding, but always at a slight remove from the daily operation.  A narrow and judgmental man, his ideal is the manufactured and manageable world of model railroads and paper sculpture.  Harriet Foster and her five-year old son James are the only African-Americans in camp.  An outsider by virtue of color, age, and professional background, Harriet is the person with perhaps the clearest view overall of the camp’s operations.  She does have a serious blind spot–she continually second-guesses her understanding of white people.

Wyatt Huddy, along with most of the other counselors, is a last-minute hire.  Born with Apert’s Syndrome, Wyatt hides himself away from people as much as he can.  When the camp job comes up, he and his friend/employer, Salvation Army Captain Throckmorton think working with non-judgmental children is the best way to build Wyatt’s self-confidence.  So off he goes.

Little does he, or any of the new counselors, know what is in store for them.  For the first two weeks of their season, Kindermann Forest hosts the residents of the Missouri state institution for profoundly mentally disabled people.  Even before he’s unpacked his few things, Wyatt is given charge of four men whose need for individual attention would try a saint.

Not that these counselors are saints–some are ordinary teenagers, some have serious troubles of their own, and some just don’t think they can deal with the 24-hour responsibility of these campers.  But as the summer begins shaking out and everyone adapts to the routine, Kindermann Forest looks like it might just turn out to be, if not idyllic, at least a good place.  But trouble lurks, and when it strikes, one character will die, two others will have their ordered lives upended, and Kindermann Forest will be forever changed.  The story doesn’t end there, but to say more would be to reveal the most wonderful section of Dalton’s novel – a sequence of sacrifice and redemption that closes the story.

Dalton used a line from a fictitious poet created by JD Salinger in a 1947 novella -

Not a wasteland, but a great inverted forest with all the foliage underground

for his title, and the novel is filled with those reverses of perception.  It seems obvious in two principal characters, but his deeper reading of all the characters shows each of them presenting one face to the world and another hidden underground.

Check the WRL catalog for The Inverted Forest

The Inverted Forest will be added as a Gab Bag in Fall 2012, and I’ll update the catalog link then.

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This Beautiful Life, by Helen Schulman

My recent post on the immortality of your online presence offered a consoling, even redemptive, view of the digital world.  This Beautiful Life offers a searing look at the other side of that coin.  And even though the conceit centers on the Web, the impact of events illuminates a web of fissures within one family and hints at a network of flaws that will inform the direction of our society.

The Bergamot family recently relocated to Manhattan from a comfortable life in Ithaca, New York.  As the public face of Columbia University’s program to build a new campus in an area of urban blight, Richard capably dances the fine line between vision and community politics with delight. That leaves his wife Liz, with her Ph.D. in Art History and sporadic history of teaching as an adjunct at Cornell, managing their Upper West Side apartment and preparing for the move to a faculty home provided by the University.  In other words, the slightly bored housewife is watching her professional dreams fading in the rear-view mirror, with little to occupy her but the endless cycle of dropping off and picking up her daughter at school.

And what a school it is.   One of the perks of Richard’s position of power and prestige is that his children have a tuition-free guaranteed spot at Wildwood, a premier academy for the 1%.  Jake, the fifteen-year old, is at the Upper School with bored, sophisticated, seemingly self-confident kids already immune to the ravages of the outer world but still struggling with the fears of adolescence.  Coco, their six-year old Chinese adopted daughter, is at the Lower School, enjoying sleepovers at the Plaza Hotel, round-the-island birthday cruises, and other events created by wealthy and competitive moms for the City’s princesses.

Then Jake makes a mistake.  Or rather he takes someone else’s mistake and compounds it.  After a bored Saturday night spent trolling through the City for something to do, they wander up to a schoolmate’s party.  The girl is in eighth grade, home alone in her family’s mansion (her parents are on Cyprus, dodging taxes), a place with lots of beer and bedrooms.  A drunken Jake winds up making out with her, but pushes her away when his classmates mock him for robbing the cradle.  When Jake wakes up hungover the next morning, he opens a message from the girl on his cell phone, and discovers that she’s filmed herself in an explicit video.  Without thinking, he forwards it to a friend.  And from there…you can imagine.

The ensuing scandal gets Jake and the guys who forwarded the video suspended from school.  Richard is also invited to take a step back from his project–his name has been connected to the video, making him toxic for a project that requires a squeaky clean leader.  Liz finds herself searching the Web, appalled and fascinated by the quantity and variety of porn she sees.  And Coco is influenced in ways no one expects.  Trapped in their small apartment, with no friends to support them, and advice bombarding them from every direction, the pressure builds until their underlying issues burst forth and the family’s defining moment looks like it’s going to be their dividing moment.

While the topic might be sensational, Schulman digs past the surface muck to the real heart of the story, which is a family’s response to the high profile screw-up by one of its members.  Schulman leads the reader to think about parental involvement, the use and misuse of technology, and the early sexualization of both boys and girls, but doesn’t apportion blame–the mirror she holds up to us is enough to show us the fools whose knowledge will always exceed their wisdom.

Check the WRL catalog for This Beautiful Life

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The Family Fang, by Kevin Wilson

Psychologists call it “family of origin“.  Really, they’re the people on whom you imprinted: those who gave you your adult world view or against whom you rebelled.  But if you believe there’s such a thing as a “happy family“, you were born in a test tube and raised in a cave by wolves.  Some families are less weird than others, that’s all.

Setting aside all physically abusive families, the Fang family is perhaps the weirdest one I’ve ever read about.  Caleb and Camille are artists, MacArthur Geniuses, grant winners, gallery darlings.  Their medium? Human confusion and anger.  Their canvas–any place they can set people against one another or cause distress.  Like Sasha Baron-Cohen, they find the outer limit of what people will tolerate, then push them past it.  Unfortunately, they decide to use their children to create the chaos they engender.

Annie and Buster, or “Child A” and “Child B” as they were known in the art world, are now grown.  Annie is a successful actor on the verge of her breakthrough into Oscar contention when a director calls for an unexpected topless scene.  Annie’s response puts her on the Web and into the tabloids, and her response to that causes her to flee Hollywood.  Buster is an unsuccessful novelist working as a freelance writer.  When he’s severely injured in the course of writing an article, he reverts to a Fang-style escape and runs for cover.  Both wind up at their parents’ home, the one place they swore they’d never return.  But.

Well, Camille and Caleb have a project on their calendar, so they take off to the big city.  And on the way they…disappear.  Their bloodstained car is found at a rest area, but no sign of them.  Bitter and suspicious, Annie spots it as another panic-inducing art piece.  Buster wavers between Annie’s view and believing that Camille and Caleb are dead,  Together, brother and sister grope their way through the following days, uncertain how to continue their own lives.

Interspersed in the current-day stories are titled pieces from the Fang family’s career, giving the reader a picture of their methods and results.  The projects become stranger the deeper the story goes, and as A and B become more integral to the work, the projects become more manipulative of them, to the point that Caleb and Camille become passive bystanders in the situations they force the children into.  With each revelation, Annie’s fierce independence and Buster’s uncertainty become more understandable.

Kevin Wilson is scarily creative when it comes to envisioning the Fang art, perhaps even more so in developing his storyline.  He also raises a lot of questions that make excellent fodder for contemplation and discussion.  What is Art?  What is an Artist?  What is a family?  What is child abuse?  At what point can a person be described as “grown up”?  So much packed into a beautifully written, imaginative book that it’s no wonder it made so many “Best Book of the Year” lists.

Check the WRL catalog for The Family Fang

Also coming soon as a Gab Bag for reading groups

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The Descendants, by Kaui Hart Hemmings

I haven’t yet seen the movie based upon The Descendants but the Audiobook version narrated by Jonathan Davis clearly indicates why George Clooney played the protagonist Matthew King. Davis’ speaking mannerisms are similar to Clooney’s and as I listened I could almost picture Clooney doing that little forward yet sideways cock of his head with a raised eyebrow that he does so well.

Matt King, descended from a Hawaiian princess who had married a missionary, inherited the largest percentage of his royal family’s landholdings making him the largest landholder in the Hawaiian islands.  He holds all the cards as his shareholding cousins await his decision as to whose bid package will be accepted–each proposes the development of pristine land into shopping malls, golf resorts, and exclusive subdivisions with million-dollar views, but Matt is dealing with much larger issues.  With his risk-taking wife in a coma due to a boating accident, parenting is suddenly required of him to manage his teenage daughters, and he suspects his wife had been having an affair.

The narrative clips along at a fast pace as we join Matt on an interisland quest with troubled 10-year old Scottie who keeps acting out in a baffling way, beautiful 17-year old Alex who is furious with her dying mother, and an oddly charming character named Sid who becomes increasingly important to the story.  Matt drags them along from Oahu to the Big Island and Kauai as he processes the realization that he’s suddenly a single parent, seeks information about his wife’s affair, notifies close friends and family about Joanie’s fate, and attempts to connect with his daughters. Meanwhile, he must decide what to do about the land, and his decision is tied to the tragic events in his family life.

A focused plot allows insightful dialogue to reveal relationship issues between the characters.  I like and respect the character of Matt King a lot even though he owns up to some major flaws as a husband and father.  His endearing journey of self-discovery promises to heal the rift between him and his daughters.  The content does include profanity, sexuality, and drugs so it’s not a gentle read, realized when my kids were in the car listening to the CD!  I read that the movie is rated R primarily for the language, drug and sexual references.

I found this to be an excellent audiobook even though I suspect that a few Hawaiian place names were mis-pronounced.  The content accurately depicts many aspects of Hawaiian and Pacific island life that are familiar to me. Short chapters and engaging dialogue really kept me awake and I’m one of those people that uses recorded stories as a very effective sleep aid.  I look forward to the critically acclaimed DVD for which I’m currently #38 of 69 on the waiting list at the library.  I hope that the movie’s popularity will cause many viewers to read Kaui Hart Hemmings’ exciting book.

Check the WRL Catalog for The Descendants in Audiobook format on CD.  The book is also available in print.

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