Go Set a Watchman
By Harper Lee
(HarperCollins, $27.99, 288 pages)
Who is this author?
Harper Lee, who is now 89, won a Pulitzer Prize for her iconic 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, which also won her a permanent place in the hearts of American readers and various lists of classic American books. A 1999 poll by Library Journal named it the Best Novel of the Century and her work earned Lee (whose first name is Nelle) a Presidential Medal of Freedom. As a child, she was a close friend of writer Truman Capote, who was the inspiration for the character Dill in Mockingbird. A descendant of Robert E. Lee and daughter of a lawyer, newspaper editor and state senator in Alabama, Harper Lee wrote one of the most influential novels on race relations in the past century and her book shaped the understanding of its complexities for readers of the Baby Boom generation. Always one to shun publicity, and for years a resident of a nursing home, Lee was thrust back into the literary spotlight this year with the publication of Go Set a Watchman, written in the mid-1950s, before Mockingbird, and never published. It portrays the heretofore-considered saintly Atticus Finch in a much harsher light, and some maintain it was published against her will and ought never to have been.
What is this book about?
Go Set a Watchman, written in the mid-1950s, was Harper Lee’s first attempt at telling the saga of Scout and Jem Finch and their father, Atticus, a small-town Southern lawyer who unexpectedly defends a falsely accused black man. But this manuscript was rejected by her publisher, and Lee later reworked the material to produce Mockingbird. In Watchman, Scout, now using her given name Jean Louise, is in her 20s and returns from New York to Maycomb, Alabama, to visit Atticus, at a time when the civil rights movement was beginning to alter America’s beliefs and behavior concerning racial disparities. Jean Louise must confront unpleasant revelations about her father and his political views and question her own values in this troubling but intriguing tale.
Why you’ll like it:
In all honesty, you may not like it at all, if you feel it spoils your affection for To Kill a Mockingbird. And you may be troubled by news reports of the machinations of Lee’s lawyer, who brought the old manuscript to light, perhaps without Lee’s explicit approval, and troubled further by being forced to see the saintly Atticus in a new light. Reviewers are split, but some praise the book for its exploration of the fraught issues of race relations in America, as well as for its wit and graceful writing. If you loved Mockingbird, curiosity alone should propel you to read this prequel that has become a sequel.
What others are saying:
The San Francisco Chronicle says: “Go Set a Watchman’s greatest asset may be its role in sparking frank discussion about America’s woeful track record when it comes to racial equality.”
Says Publishers Weekly: “The editor who rejected Lee’s first effort had the right idea. The novel the world has been waiting for is clearly the work of a novice, with poor characterization (how did the beloved Scout grow up to be such a preachy bore, even as she serves as the book’s moral compass?), lengthy exposition, and ultimately not much story, unless you consider Scout thinking she’s pregnant because she was French-kissed or her losing her falsies at the school dance compelling. The book opens in the 1950s with Jean Louise, a grown-up 26-year-old Scout, returning to Maycomb from New York, where she’s been living as an independent woman. Jean Louise is there to see Atticus, now in his seventies and debilitated by arthritis. She arrives in a town bristling from the NAACP’s actions to desegregate the schools. Her aunt Zandra, the classic Southern gentlewoman, berates Jean Louise for wearing slacks and for considering her longtime friend and Atticus protégé Henry Clinton as a potential husband—Zandra dubs him trash. But the crux of the book is that Atticus and Henry are racist, as is everyone else in Jean Louise’s old life (even her childhood caretaker, Calpurnia, sees the white folks as the enemy). The presentation of the South pushing back against the dictates of the Federal government, utilizing characters from a book that was about justice prevailing in the South through the efforts of an unambiguous hero, is a worthy endeavor. Lee just doesn’t do the job with any aplomb. The theme of the book is basically about not being able to go home again, as Jean Louise sums it up in her confrontation with Atticus: “there’s no place for me anymore in Maycomb, and I’ll never be entirely at home anywhere else.” As a picture of the desegregating South, the novel is interesting but heavy-handed, with harsh language and rough sentiments: “Do you want them in our world?” Atticus asks his daughter. The temptation to publish another Lee novel was undoubtedly great, but it’s a little like finding out there’s no Santa Claus.
Library Journal says: “As every reader knows, Lee’s second novel, from which her iconic To Kill a Mockingbird was spun 55 years ago, has just been published by Harper with considerable excitement and some still-shifting uncertainty, as reported by the New York Times, about how the manuscript was rediscovered. Lee’s original work has feisty 26-year-old Jean Louise Finch, nicknamed Scout as a child and the basis for Mockingbird’s beloved heroine, returning home from New York to Maycomb Junction, AL, post-Brown v. Board of Education and encountering strongly resistant states’-rights, anti-integrationist forces that include boyfriend Henry and, significantly, her father, Atticus Finch, Mockingbird’s moral center. Readers shocked by that revelation must remember that there are now two Atticus Finches; the work in hand is not a sequel but served as source material for Lee’s eventual Pulitzer Prize winner, with such reworked characters a natural part of the writing and editing processes. Even if one can imagine that the seeds of the older Atticus are there in the younger Atticus—and that’s possible—these are different characters and different books. More significantly, the current work stands as you-are-there documentation of a specific time and place, contextualizing both Mockingbird and the very beginnings of the civil rights movement, and for that reason alone it’s invaluable and recommended reading. Mockingbird’s Atticus was right for 1960, just after the Little Rock integration crisis, with his defense of a wrongly accused African American making him a moral beacon and a lesson for all. Yet for many readers, even those who love and admire Mockingbird, it also smacked of white self-congratulation, and the current book is a rawer, more authentic representation of Southern sentiment at a tumultuous time, years removed from the solidly (and safely) segregationist era of Mockingbird. If Watchman is occasionally digressive or a bit much of a lecture, it’s good enough to make one wish that Lee had written a dozen works. It’s also a breathtaking read that will have the reader actively engaged and arguing with every character, including Jean Louise. In the end, despite Jean Louise’s powerful articulation that the court had to rule as it did, that “we [whites] deserve everything we’ve gotten from the NAACP,” and that Negroes (as the novel says) will rise and should rise, it’s unsettling and, yes, disappointing that the confrontation between Jean Louise and Atticus is ultimately an engineered effort to make her stand up for herself and stop worshipping her father. That’s not quite believable, and what’s right gets a little lost in states’ rights, which Jean Louise herself supports. At least she doesn’t run back to New York, but did she really win her argument? The ugly things she hears around her are still being said today. VERDICT Disturbing, important, and not to be compared with Mockingbird; this book is its own signal work.”
Kirkus Reviews says: “The long-awaited, much-discussed sequel that might have been a prequel—and that makes tolerably good company for its classic predecessor. It’s not To Kill a Mockingbird, and it too often reads like a first draft, but Lee’s story nonetheless has weight and gravity. Scout—that is, Miss Jean Louise Finch—has been living in New York for years. As the story opens, she’s on the way back to Maycomb, Alabama, wearing “gray slacks, a black sleeveless blouse, white socks, and loafers,” an outfit calculated to offend her prim and proper aunt. The time is pre-Kennedy; in an early sighting, Atticus Finch, square-jawed crusader for justice, is glaring at a book about Alger Hiss. But is Atticus really on the side of justice? As Scout wanders from porch to porch and parlor to parlor on both the black and white sides of the tracks, she hears stories that complicate her—and our—understanding of her father. To modern eyes, Atticus harbors racist sentiments: “Jean Louise,” he says in one exchange, “Have you ever considered that you can’t have a set of backward people living among people advanced in one kind of civilization and have a social Arcadia?” Though Scout is shocked by Atticus’ pronouncements that African-Americans are not yet prepared to enjoy full civil rights, her father is far less a Strom Thurmond-school segregationist than an old-school conservative of evolving views, “a healthy old man with a constitutional mistrust of paternalism and government in large doses,” as her uncle puts it. Perhaps the real revelation is that Scout is sometimes unpleasant and often unpleasantly confrontational, as a young person among oldsters can be. Lee, who is plainly on the side of equality, writes of class, religion, and race, but most affectingly of the clash of generations and traditions, with an Atticus tolerant and approving of Scout’s reformist ways: “I certainly hoped a daughter of mine’d hold her ground for what she thinks is right—stand up to me first of all.” It’s not To Kill a Mockingbird, yes, but it’s very much worth reading.”
Says the Los Angeles Times: “Don’t let ‘Go Set a Watchman’ change the way you think about Atticus Finch…the hard truth is that a man such as Atticus, born barely a decade after Reconstruction to a family of Southern gentry, would have had a complicated and tortuous history with race.”
Says the Washington Post:
“A significant aspect of this novel is that it asks us to see Atticus now not merely as a hero, a god, but as a flesh-and-blood man with shortcomings and moral failing, enabling us to see ourselves for all our complexities and contradictions.”
When is it available?
This controversial novel is on the shelves at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Camp Field, Dwight, Mark Twain and Park branches.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Head of State
By Andrew Marr
(Overlook, $27.95, 384 pages)
Who is this author?
Andrew Marr is one of England’s most respected political journalists: a former editor of the Independent and BBC political editor as well as creator of several popular TV documentary series, including Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain and Andrew Marr’s The Making of Modern Britain. He also has published many nonfiction books. Head of State is his fiction debut.
What is this book about?
If you crossed the plots of the movies Wag the Dog and Weekend At Bernie’s, and let a highly intelligent and brilliantly satirical writer run with it, you’d have something approaching Head of State.
What if, this book asks, Great Britain is about to decide by referendum in 2017 whether to stay in the European Union or drop out? And what if, just a few days before the crucial vote that has divided the country, the Prime Minister suddenly – and secretly – drops dead? And what if a powerful group within the government does not want this crucial bit of information to be made public? And what if a prominent political reporter also dies? What sort of skullduggery might ensue, and to what end? Marr provides the answers to these questions and many more in this lively and alarming novel.
Why you’ll like it:
Marr is an insider’s insider, whose many years as a top-notch journalist has made him extraordinarily well-versed in the complex world of British politics. Here he takes that real-world knowledge and spins it into a very witty and wry novel that offers readers insights that might be lost in a dry and ponderous nonfiction book. Could something like the plot of this book ever actually happen? Has it already happened? Readers will find it rewarding to absorb this sardonic, satiric, intriguing tale and wonder about its provenance.
What others are saying:
Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, says: “Former BBC political editor Marr makes his fiction debut with a terrific satirical thriller reminiscent of the movie Wag the Dog. In 2017, the U.K. anxiously awaits the results of a referendum to determine whether it will leave the European Union. Prime Minister Bill Stevenson has made a vote to stay in the union the most important priority of his career, but as the election nears, the outcome is very much in doubt. He’s opposed by his former home secretary, Olivia Kite, who promises the “gift of freedom” if the country votes to leave. Three days before the referendum, investigative reporter Lucien McBryde dies from a fall, ending up in the morgue next to a man’s corpse that lacks hands and a head. Marr gradually reveals the circumstances of both deaths, and how they connect with a nuclear bomb of a conspiracy whose disclosure would all but cinch the vote for one side. Clever dark humor, witty prose, and a rigorously constructed plot add up to a thought-provoking read.
Kirkus Reviews, its starred review, says: “Now that the Scottish independence brouhaha has been settled, the question of the U.K.’s European Union membership is next on the agenda. Marr’s wickedly funny first novel, set in 2017, takes up the battle.The prime minister sees the U.K.’s economic future tied to Europe. Opponents, opposition and ruling party alike, feel Britain must no longer be subject to overweaning continental bureaucracies. The prime minister—once “an intense, wiry-haired young politician” who became a “larger-than-life, principled yet unscrupulous figure” of notoriously “louche private behavior”—is opposed by his former Home Secretary, Olivia Kite, “red hair, pale face and vivid crimson lips” (picture Cate Blanchet as Elizabeth I with the heart of Cromwell). The battle’s followed by pols, pundits and once-grand newspapers where “wise old sacks of human indolence order the young and stupid about.” Some characters are stock: reporter Lucien McBryde, an “an arrogant little sod” running on “marching powder”; and others are sociopathic: “that foul little splodge,” Alois Haydn, regarded as the “notorious Svengali of Number 10.” Marr flashes urbanely sardonic British humor (or humour)—”One of the great things about first-class air travel is that it puts all the crooks together”—and then explodes the narrative with an election-swaying death days prior to the vote. Enter Professional Logistical Services, a coven of former intelligence officers, military types and financial wizards, brought in to apply “advanced research techniques” to the crisis. Peripheral characters like the prime minister’s staff members; government functionaries; a Polish assassin; Myfanwy Davies-Jones, a novelist “with a cloud of yellow hair and a scarlet reputation”; and Lord Briskett, a noted historian from Oxford, “that crowded, clucking duckpond of vanity and ruffled feathers,” run amok while Mr. Haydn traipses about London with a human head in a “Waitrose ‘bag for life.’ ” Witty. Imaginative. Irreverent.”
“The tantalizing sense that the important actions of politics take place just out of sight, hidden from all but a tiny circle of insiders, pervades this novel and is perhaps its true subject. The author, Andrew Marr, is well placed to deliver such a story, being one of his country’s most prominent political journalists,” says The New York Times.”
When is it available?
The Downtown Hartford Public Library has this very funny book.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Dark Rooms
By Lili Anolik
(HarperCollins, $25.99, 336 pages)
Who is this author?
Lili Anolik is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair who also has written for Harper’s, Elle, and The Believer. She lives in New York City with her husband and two sons. Dark Rooms is being touted as a fine debut novel, but readers should know that Anolik, writing as Lili Peloquin, has also published several YA novels in her Innocents series.
What is this book about?
Local readers take note: this thriller/mystery/coming of age story is set at a ritzy private school in Hartford. When 16-year-old Nica Baker, a beautiful wild child type, is murdered, initial signs point to a rejected classmate who apparently confesses in a suicide note. But Nica’s older sister, Grace, does not believe this all-too-neat resolution and keeps imagining that she sees, hears and talks with Nica after her death. Grace drops out of college to work at the school, where her parents also teach, and not so coincidentally, to search out the real killer. What she finds is more than she, or the reader, bargained for.
Why you’ll like it:
Reviewers are praising Anolik’s use of believable dialogue and complex plotting in this novel, which goes beyond the mystery genre to present a gripping story of a teenage girl coming of age and finding herself as she sets out to discover the truth about who murdered her little sister. Hartford area readers, of course, will enjoy the setting and the opportunity to decide how well Anolik has captured local color and local culture.
What others are saying:
Publishers Weekly’s starred review says: “The bullet that snuffs out the life of 16-year-old wild child Nica Baker hits her family like a hollow-point, especially psychologically enmeshed big sister Grace, in this suspenseful, sad, and shattering first novel from Vanity Fair contributing editor Anolik. Only a year older, and the yang to Nica’s yin, good girl Grace had been relying on her sister’s charisma and cool to smooth Grace’s way through the emotional minefields of Chandler Academy, the precious Hartford, Conn., private school where their parents both teach. In fact, Grace just can’t let Nica go, repeatedly seeing, hearing, and talking with her during the grief-swamped, drug-muddled months that follow. When a fellow student’s suicide-confession officially closes the case, Grace doesn’t buy it. Deferring her enrollment at Williams, she sifts through the wreckage of their lives, ostensibly to figure out who really killed Nica, but, even more crucially, to find herself. As she starts to penetrate the myriad lies and secrets, the picture that emerges is far from pretty, with a lengthy list of suspects. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, Anolik’s debut will haunt you.
In its starred review, Library Journal says: “Gregarious, fun-loving, and athletic Nica, the younger of two sisters, is murdered near their home on the grounds of a New England private school. The crime is quickly solved, but Grace, who has always lived in Nica’s shadow, is not satisfied with the police’s findings and grows obsessed with catching the true killer. However, the story line just scratches the surface of this insightful, complex novel, which is all about angst: broken relationships, class and social issues, the human psyche. The author skillfully develops Grace as a complicated character, using her perspective to get readers to empathize with her reactions to events around her. The other adolescent characters are equally well drawn. Anolik excels in capturing the nonplussed attitudes of teenagers not fully aware of the ramifications of their actions. VERDICT Despite an ambiguous ending that left this crime fiction fan somewhat dissatisfied, Anolik’s haunting debut is tough to put down and will stay with you for a long time.
Says Kirkus Reviews: “A young woman becomes obsessed with finding the truth behind her sister’s death in Anolik’s thrilling debut. The idyll of a posh Connecticut boarding school is shattered when 16-year-old Nica Baker—gorgeous, wild and effortlessly cool—is found murdered in the graveyard behind her parents’ house. When another student commits suicide, leaving behind a guilty note and an apology, the police consider the case solved: It was unrequited love gone wrong, the tragedy of the loner boy who killed the beautiful faculty-brat girl who didn’t reciprocate his feelings. For Nica’s older sister Grace, though, something doesn’t quite sit right. Too grief-stricken and drugged to start her freshman year at Williams, Grace is shaken from her haze when she stumbles on some information that calls the official story into question. And so Grace—Grace, who’s always been in Nica’s shadow, Grace, who’s always been high-achieving and risk-averse—finds herself consumed with a murder investigation of her own. What had Nica been doing in the weeks before she died, and more importantly, with whom? Why did she break up with her longtime boyfriend without explanation? Where did the tiny tattoo in her armpit come from? Slowly, Grace begins to untangle a web of secrets and betrayals deeper than she could have possibly imagined. In the process, she begins to find her own identity, an identity that is—for the first time—separate from her sister’s. As much as this is a crime drama, it’s also a coming-of-age novel. The plot is high-suspense, but it’s the strength of the characters—and the strength of Anolik’s hypnotic, unfussy prose—that gives the book its lasting force. Wholly absorbing and emotionally rich, this novel dodges Law & Order: Special Victims Unit clichés to deliver something deeply satisfying.”
When is it available?
It’s not hidden in a dark room. It’s on the shelves at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Barbour, Dwight and Mark Twain branches.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
The Bookseller
By Cynthia Swanson
(HarperCollins, $25.99, 352 pages)
Who is this author?
Debut novelist Cynthia Swanson is both a writer and a designer who workis in the mid-century modern style. Her short stories have appeared in such journals as 13th Moon, Kalliope, and Sojourner. Like her protagonist in The Bookseller, Kitty/Katharyn, Swanson lives in Denver.
What is this book about?
If you read my Sept. 8 blog entry on Thomas Pierce – and of course you did! – you’ll recall that one of his short stories involves a woman who lives a double life: with a real-world boyfriend by day and with a totally imaginary dream-world husband by night. Cynthia Swanson’s debut novel plays with the same idea. Her heroine, Kitty Miller, 38, is living in Denver in 1962, happily running a bookstore with her pal Frieda and enjoying single life, but occasionally regretting that things never worked out with a doctor named Kevin or Lars, the guy who responded to her personal ad but never showed up for their date. Then Kitty begins a series of unusual adventures, in which she is now Katharyn Andersson in 1963 Denver, ecstatically married to a man named Lars, mother of three wonderful kids, living in a dream house: in fact living an actual dream life, as this parallel existence only happens when she is asleep each night. It’s the life she has always dreamed of, but can she – should she?—make it her real life?
Why you’ll like it:
Who has not experienced one of those startlingly true-to-life dreams in which hopes become what seems like reality – until you wake up. What if it were possible to turn that nighttime fantasy into daytime reality? That’s an intriguing premise for a novel, and Swanson takes this clever idea and runs with it. This is a romantic novel with an unusual what-if quality; sure to engage readers who have ever wondered what life would be like if they had embarked on the road not taken and what it would cost to finally take that path.
What others are saying:
Publishers Weekly says: “In 1962, Kitty wakes in Katharyn’s bed next to Katharyn’s husband, Lars. Down the hall are Katharyn’s children: Missy, Mitch, and Michael. In the mirror, Katharyn’s reflection looks exactly like Kitty’s, and Kitty is able to recall specific memories and behaviors of Katharyn’s with disturbing accuracy. But Kitty and Katharyn are not the same—Katharyn is just the woman Kitty becomes in her dreams. In reality, Kitty is single, childless, and owns a floundering bookstore with her best friend, Frieda. She has pursuits and interests that Katharyn’s life has no room for. Initially believing that Katharyn is a figment of her imagination, a pleasant dream showing what married life could have been like, Kitty identifies the one moment that prevented her life from becoming Katharyn’s. Kitty’s uncertainty about which woman’s reality is real consumes her. Swanson masterfully crafts both Kitty’s and Katharyn’s worlds, leaving open the question of which of them is real until the final pages. Swanson’s evocative novel freshly considers the timeless question, “What if?”
Library Journal’s starred review says: “With her freshly painted sunny yellow bedroom in 1962 Denver, Kitty Miller leads a content if solitary life. Running a bookshop with her best friend, Frieda, is a welcome break from teaching school. Everything about Kitty’s life seems benignly commonplace until she begins waking up in another bedroom, in another life: a life in which she is another version of herself. She wakes up as Katharyn Andersson in 1963 Denver, married to Lars, a man who had answered a personal ad 1962 Kitty Miller had placed—but 1962 Lars never showed up for their date. Katharyn and Lars have three children and move in a sphere Kitty doesn’t know about. As Kitty investigates the two worlds of Katharyn and Kitty, she sees parallels and choices, trade-offs and sacrifices. VERDICT This is a stunner of a debut novel, astonishingly tight and fast paced. The 1960s tone is elegant and even, and Kitty/Katharyn’s journey is intriguing, redolent with issues of family, independence, friendship, and free will. This will especially resonate with fans of the movie Sliding Doors and the authors Anna Quindlen and Anita Shreve.”
USA Today says: “. . . In what seems to be her “real” life, Kitty is fairly content. She and Frieda agree that as unmarried women, they have “an element of freedom and quirkiness that other women our age do not have.” They have no desire to have children and have all but given up pursuing romantic relationships.
But as Kitty experiences more of her strange dreams, she realizes that Lars is a familiar figure from her waking life. “I feel as if I have been kissing him daily for years,” she says. She recalls that eight years earlier, a man named Lars responded to a personal ad she placed in the local newspaper. They bonded over the telephone, and he seemed eager to meet her — but he failed to show up for their date and she never heard from him again.
To make sense of her increasingly vivid dream life, Kitty digs into newspaper archives, doing research to learn what happened to Lars, her almost-date, and to figure out why they are married in her dreams. Each night, she can’t wait to fall asleep to find out what happens next. (Among other things, she discovers that she’s a decent mother and good at tennis.) By day, though, the “nighttime visions,” as she calls them, begin to torment her: “They are confusing and pathetic,” she says, “and they do me no good whatsoever.”
Of course, as the novel progresses, Kitty’s two lives merge, until one subsumes the other. Both options present her with sacrifices and traumas that she must come to terms with. . . .”
When is it available?
The Bookseller is in the collections of the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Mark Twain branch.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Hall of Small Mammals
By Thomas Pierce
(Penguin, $27.95, 304 pages)
Who is this author?
Thomas Pierce, who hails from South Carolina and now lives in Virginia, is a graduate of the University of Virginia’s creative writing program. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Oxford American, and other prestigious magazines, and now he has published his debut collection, Hall of Small Mammals.
What is this book about?
So: You are the host of a reality TV show that features tiny cloned versions of extinct beasts, and you park a recently resurrected woolly mini-mammoth in your mama’s laundry room to hide it and have it benefit from her warm Southern hospitality. Will mama be flummoxed by her new, unruly house pet, or does she have the faith it takes to handle this decidedly unusual task? That is the kind of question Thomas Pierce poses in “Shirley Temple Three,” the first in his debut collection of a dozen brain-tickling stories. In another, a physicist seeks a mysterious particle and enjoys life with her boyfriend – and also with her totally imaginary husband. Another involves the skull of a dead possum that haunts a couple. Yet another sets up the dilemma of a man whose quarantined brother’s body gets caught up in international intrigue and tests his ideas about the soul. What happens when a father takes his son to a cultish summer camp? Should dinosaur bones become a circus exhibit? Good questions all, and Pierce provides answers that will amuse and amaze.
Why you’ll like it:
All the stories in Hall of Small Mammals raise interesting and provocative questions about belief of all sorts, but the witty and wildly imaginative Pierce is never preachy. The stories’ premises are often quirky, but the final impact of each one is powerful and thought-provoking. It’s always thrilling to encounter a new and promising talent, and this strong debut, set in the American South, offers readers entry into an unusual mind and considerable literary talent.
What others are saying:
Says Bookslut: “Hall of Small Mammals is a skilled collection of explorations on what it means to believe. Pierce teases faith and science out into myriad scenarios, and highlights our principal desire to put our belief into worldviews that make sense of what we see. Each story is a journey into a different kind of observation. Hall of Small Mammals shows us that it might be our need to explain which makes us most human.”
“This arresting debut collection of short fiction from a gifted new writer gracefully renders the textures of the American South and the indefatigable people who live there…. Thomas Pierce’s debut collection, Hall of Small Mammals, taps the aquifer of Southern literature but blends in supernatural elements with a light, deft touch, echoes of García Márquez among the biscuits and magnolias…. Pierce knows his people well, connecting their conflicts to a deeper narrative about the human condition…. With its elegant prose and revelatory insights, Hall of Small Mammals announces a vivid and engaging new voice,” says the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
In The New York Times , Janet Maslin says: “Ridiculously good…These stories never drift vaguely off into the ether. They are beautifully built, and [Pierce] has an especially deft way of finding just the right final flourish. He also has, without exactly linking the stories, let characters and places overlap…These references strengthen the feeling of being inside a bubble while reading Mr. Pierce, and it is a bubble you won’t want to leave. This is such a fine collection that there’s not a stinker in the bunch…Mr. Pierce’s originality, inventiveness, questing spiritual intelligence and animal fixation aren’t easy to do justice to in the limited space here. But they’re irrefutably good reasons to discover him for yourself.”
In its starred review, Publishers Weekly says: “Pierce’s first short story collection is full of compulsively addictive and delightfully strange fare. Some of the 12 offerings are new, others are culled from the New Yorker, the Oxford American, and elsewhere; each takes a mundane experience and adds an element of the extra weird. In “Shirley Temple Three,” the opening, a mother begrudgingly agrees to hide a cloned prehistoric miniature woolly mammoth in her laundry room as a favor to her son, who is a reality show host. The protagonist of “The Real Alan Gass” becomes jealous when his girlfriend reveals that she’s happily married to another man in her dreams. “Videos of People Falling Down,” which is about just that, is a funny, yet quietly poignant interconnected series of vignettes that showcase characters at their most vulnerable. Echoing an old ghost story, the wicked “Saint Possy” shuttles a couple to their wits end as the skull of a dead possum (maybe) simultaneously haunts and taunts them. In “More Soon,” a dead man, quarantined and shipped around the world on a barge following a highly contagious infection, prompts his brother to contemplate where the soul resides. Pierce’s menagerie of colorful characters equally inspires and amuses. The book is expertly paced (there isn’t a dud in this eclectic bunch) and many of the stories’ endings—some sinister, some melancholic, others heartfelt—prompt momentary reflection, though thankfully not always in ways that are expected.”
Says Library Journal: “Pierce, whose stories have appeared in The New Yorker and the Atlantic, offers a particularly satisfying first collection, with each story not just a glimpse but a fully developed idea often ending on a somewhat puzzled tone—appropriately, as life doesn’t always easily resolve. A woman cares for the miniature mammoth her feckless TV scientist son has helped clone; a man tries to help his son emerge from his shell by taking him to the cultish Grasshoppers Camp, with uncertain results. VERDICT Quirky but real; for all readers.’
Kirkus Reviews says: “People get uncomfortably close to their primal tendencies in this debut story collection that highlights the quirky and uncanny. Pierce’s stories feel like they’re set within spitting distance of George Saundersville and occupied by residents whose need for normalcy is complicated by the inescapable strangeness of our natures. In “Shirley Temple Three,” the host of a TV show dedicated to reviving extinct animals deposits a surreptitiously freed “dwarf mammoth” with his mother. When the host goes AWOL, his mother is forced to see how well her maternal instincts will work with the creature, and the story becomes funny but surprisingly touching as well. Pierce persistently tests the ways that creatures shed light on our own inscrutability: In “Saint Possy,” an animal skull of unknown provenance unsettles a relationship; in the title story, a zoo exhibit is supposed to help the narrator connect with his girlfriend’s son but does the opposite; and “We of the Present Age” is a historical tale about a naturalist who’s propositioned to present his discovery of dinosaur bones as a lurid and highly unscientific circus attraction. But Pierce can stick with Homo sapiens to convey his perspective on humanity. In “More Soon,” the collection’s strongest story, a man awaits the delivery of his dead brother’s body, which has become entangled in the bureaucracy of an international crisis; Pierce finds the dark humor in officialese (“R has been declared a biological weapon. Will call with more after Thanksgiving”) while exploring the more sober tension of seeking closure after loss. Not every story is successfully provocative—”Felix Not Arriving” is a relatively conventional squabble-during-a-family-visit tale, while “Videos of People Falling Down” is an overly loose set of sketches questioning our urge to mock others’ online foibles. But Pierce clearly has talent to burn. A promising debut that studies hard-luck types from new and provocative perspectives.”
“A debut collection that reads like the work of a much older, established fiction master. The stories in Pierce’s book explore the ordinary in the otherworldly, the surreal in the mundane, and the results are stunning and unexpected….There isn’t a weak story in Hall of Small Mammals, and Pierce is an endlessly incisive and engaging writer. It’s a book full of wisdom and emotion, with stories that explore what it means to live and die in a world filled with invisible things,” says NPR.org
When is it available?
Pierce’s intriguing book is at the Downtown Hartford Public Library.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Crazy Love You
By Lisa Unger
(Touchstone, $25.99, 352 pages)
Who is this author?
Lisa Unger, who was born in New Haven and grew up in New Jersey, where her mother was a librarian, now lives in Florida . She is an award-winning New York Times and internationally bestselling author. Whose 13 novels have so far sold more than two million copies and have been translated into 26 languages. Her psychological thrillers have won critical praise for their literary qualities as well as commercial success for their gripping plots and memorable characters.
What is this book about?
As a boy growing up in The Hollows in upstate New York, Ian is the fat kid whom his peers torment, and his unhappy life is made worse by his murderous mother’s mental illness. Then Priss moves to town and becomes Ian’s avenger and confidant. Ian grows up to become a successful graphic novelist, whose Fatboy and Priss books hark back to his miserable childhood. Ian, now an adult, maintains a relationship with Priss, who continues to manipulate his life, leading him into a world of drinking, drugs and kinky sex. It’s a dark path, and when Ian meets the sweet and lovely Megan, he sees a better life awaiting him. But will the obsessive and dominating Priss let him go? Can he let her go? And by the way, is Priss at all what she seems? On that question hangs the resolution of this chilling tale.
Why you’ll like it:
Unger knows how to create compelling characters caught up in frightening relationships and dangerous behaviors, as well as stories that engage the reader and offer complex, twisty endings.
Here is some of what she told a Big Thrill Magazine interviewer :
“At its core, CRAZY LOVE YOU is about obsessive love, the twisting nature of reality and fiction, and going down the rabbit hole of addiction . . .”
And here is what she has said about The Hollows, the setting for several of her novels:
“The Hollows is a very interesting and unique place. It started out simply as the setting, a fictional town I created, for my novel Fragile. But, over the years, it has become much more. . . .The Hollows is, in some sense, how I see life. It has an endless number of shades and layers, and it shows various parts of itself to everyone. The Hollows is someplace different for Jones Cooper than it is for Eloise Montgomery than it is for Ian Paine. They all see what they want to see in the place, and they all take away a unique experience. Jones, who is a very practical, feet-on-the-ground type of guy, views The Hollows as he would view any other place. Eloise sees — and hears — a totally other perspective, something beyond the buildings and trees. Someone like Ian — troubled, addicted, sensitive — is having another experience yet again. They are all acting upon and being acted upon by The Hollows in different ways. Like life, The Hollows is exactly what you expect it to be, exactly what you put into it — and yet there are many elements that are totally out of your control.”
What others are saying:
The Providence Journal says: “A simmering tale of romantic obsession and angst in the tradition of Body Heat or Fatal Attraction, laced with the noirish spirit of James M. Cain. Wonderfully crafted and beautifully executed.”
Booklist’s starred review says: “Ian is an overweight, very unhappy little boy growing up in the Hollows, a small town in upstate New York that is as creepy as it sounds. His mother has killed his baby sister during a severe bout of postpartum depression and is confined to an institution. Ian grows up bullied and prone to bouts of explosive anger; his only solace is a young girl named Priss, who shows up in his yard one day and befriends him—and later defends him. Fast-forward to Ian’s successful life as a graphic artist in New York City, where he is struggling with drugs and alcohol and a toxic relationship with Priss. Then he meets Megan, a young woman from a fine family, and they fall in love. Ian wants to be a better person for Megan, and he decides to stop using drugs. Megan wants to meet Priss, but Ian can’t let that happen. Priss is very jealous and keeps moving in and out of his life, leaving all sorts of damage in her wake. As the narrative weaves back and forth between Ian’s childhood and his adulthood, and his relationships with Megan and with Priss, the story becomes more entangled and more riveting. Is Priss real, imaginary, or a ghost? Does Ian have anger issues, or is it Priss doing all the damage? This is a complex, intricate story, yet the pages fly by as Ian, the most unreliable narrator since Nick Dunne in Gone Girl, leads us on a wild ride in this superb psychological thriller. Unger is at the top of her game here.”
“Sharply drawn characters and occasional rest breaks of humor . . . Unger is adept at evoking the eerie, but she’s also capable of droll sociological commentary on the urban scene. . . . After reading Unger’s sinister thriller, anyone cavalier enough to think they can easily put the past to rest (and even live companionably with the dead) will think again,” says Maureen Corrigan in The Washington Post.
Publishers Weekly says: “Bestseller Unger’s suspenseful fourth Hollows thriller (after 2014’s In the Blood) focuses on Ian Paine, a graphic novelist in New York City, who draws on his unhappy childhood growing up in the Hollows, N.Y., for his successful series Fatboy and Priss. Fatboy was the name Ian was called by the schoolmates who viciously tormented him; Priss was his only friend, a girl who wrought revenge on anyone who hurt Ian. When Ian begins a relationship with Megan, a beautiful, caring woman, the resentful Priss sets out to lure Ian back into the destructive patterns he developed before meeting Megan—patterns that included long work sessions followed by heavy drinking and drug use. Ian is soon keeping company with inappropriate companions and engaging in promiscuous sex and various crimes. The tug-of-war between the two women to gain control of Ian will keep readers hooked, but some will find the lengthy ending unsatisfying.”
In its starred review, Library Journal says: “Ian Paine is a successful graphic novelist, but as a child, his life was filled with heartbreak and turmoil. From his beloved mother’s descent into madness to the merciless bullying he endured at the hands of his classmates, life dealt Ian a difficult hand. But when a young girl named Priss arrived in town, she became his loyal defender and his close friend. Now an adult, Ian can’t turn his back on Priss, even though his friendship with her has taken a destructive turn, drawing him into a life of drinking and pill popping. When he falls in love with the kind and caring Megan, Ian resolves to free himself of his drug habit, but Priss makes it clear that she isn’t going to let go. VERDICT Unger’s skillful portrayal of complex and traumatized characters make her latest psychological thriller one that will keep readers engaged from start to finish. Fans of mystery and suspense, along with Unger aficionados, will enjoy this imaginative tale, which may be the author’s best work yet.”
“Unger takes her loyal readers back to The Hollows, a creepy town about 100 miles from New York City, in this tale of love gone awry. Ian Paine writes and illustrates graphic novels and has become quite a success. His series—Fatboy and Priss—chronicles the adventures of a nerdy outcast and his gorgeous, red-haired avenger, the amoral Priss, who makes certain that no slight to Fatboy goes unpunished. Originally from The Hollows, where otherworldly events are common, Ian was the original Fatboy. He led a miserable life after his mother lost her grip on reality and smothered his baby sister, then led him to the bathtub, perhaps planning to drown him. Escaping from his mom, Ian ran into the woods, where he met Priss, a strange child with red hair; as time passed, she became his only friend. Ian was the school joke, but with weight loss and artistic success, he eventually made a new life for himself in the city. Now he’s fallen in love with a woman named Megan, and she’s accepted his proposal of marriage. But when his editor tells him it’s time to kill off Fatboy and Priss and start another series, he finds that Priss, who has both haunted and defended him, isn’t going to go without a fight, and that fight can get very, very ugly. Though fans may wonder why, given its history, anyone would live in The Hollows, the big question for readers will be whether or not Priss is real or simply a manifestation of a disturbed young man’s imagination. Unger’s complex novel can at times get a little confusing, with the action constantly shifting from place to place and back and forth in time, but Unger knows what her fans like and scores another bull’s eye with this one. Classic Unger and a surefire hit with her followers,” says Kirkus Reviews.
When is it available?
You can find this thriller at the Goodwin and Mark Twain branches of the Hartford Public Library.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Unrivaled: UConn, Tennessee, and the Twelve Years that Transcended Women’s Basketball
By Jeff Goldberg
(University of Nebraska Press, $27.95, 234 pages)
Who is this author?
Jeff Goldberg (and if you are curious, yes, he is my son) was The Courant’s UConn women’s basketball beat writer from 2001 to 2006, a period that included championship seasons in 2002, 2003 and 2004. He also wrote three championship commemorative sections, including a commemorative book, “Excellence 3″ in 2004, and earlier, was The Courant’s UConn basketball on-line columnist from 1997 to 2001. Unrivaled is his second book on UConn women’s basketball. In 2001, he published Bird at the Buzzer: UConn, Notre Dame, and a Women’s Basketball Classic, a narrative of what many think was the single best women’s college basketball game ever played. From 2006 to 2008, he was the paper’s Red Sox beat writer. Since leaving The Courant in 2008, Jeff has been an editorial producer for MLB.com and general manager of editorial content for Football Nation, LLC, as well as a sports freelancer in the Boston area. In August, he and his wife relocated to San Diego.
What is this book about?
Fans of UConn’s women’s basketball team – and for that matter, of women’s college basketball in general — know that the rivalry between UConn and Tennessee was something special: a continuing source of great games, along with arguments and ill feelings. The teams began playing one another some 20 years ago and continued until 2007, when Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt abruptly canceled the series with no explanation from her or from UConn coach Geno Auriemma. Unrivaled takes a deep dive into that history and all the controversies it generated while helping to make the women’s game a national phenomenon. The two coaches respected each other, but apparently did not like each other. The book offers intriguing theories on what happened to cause the end of their competition, from serious issues involving recruitment to misunderstood attempts at humor. Now that Summitt is sadly suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s Disease, her version will never be known, but this book offers the most detailed explanation so far of what went wrong and why.
Why you’ll like it:
Goldberg writes with insight, clarity, insider knowledge, humor and empathy about this complex interaction of coaches, players and fans. He uses his extensive background in daily sports journalism and his personal connections to coaches and players to give authority and authenticity to this compelling story. The book also offers two other voices that will be of great interest to UConn fans: Rebecca Lobo, a basketball analyst for ESPN who played for the UConn team and on three WNBA teams, wrote its foreword, and Auriemma’s daughter Alyssa, who wrote a touching and widely read blog post about Summitt in 2012, wrote the book’s afterword.
What others are saying:
“There were many memorable moments in the UConn–Tennessee rivalry. The author captures them all in exquisite detail, plus many more. This is a must-read for any women’s basketball fan, let alone those who follow the Huskies and Lady Vols,” says Mel Greenberg, Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductee former women’s basketball writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and creator of the weekly Associated Press women’s basketball poll.
Says Library Journal: “Goldberg (Bird at the Buzzer) delivers the story of one of sports’ greatest rivalries, the 12-year feud between the University of Connecticut (UConn) and University of Tennessee women’s basketball teams. This title gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the drama on and off the court as the two teams ushered women’s basketball into the mainstream, as well as the highly publicized conflicts between coaches Geno Auriemma and Pat Summitt. While the author has an obvious connection to Connecticut through his former role as the women’s basketball writer at the Hartford Courant and his published book on UConn player Sue Bird, he uses game summaries and quotes from parties on both sides of the battle line to present an unbiased account, a quality especially pertinent as the rivalry turned ugly toward the end. The volume expands upon Richard Kent’s Lady Vols and UConn, chronicling the competition to its controversial end and beyond to Tennessee’s legendary Coach Summitt’s retirement. VERDICT Because Goldberg includes detailed game summaries and basketball jargon, readers unfamiliar with the sport may find the book challenging, but it is highly recommended for basketball and collegiate sports fans as well as readers interested in learning about this important era in women’s history.”
When is it available?
It’s a slam dunk that you’ll find this book at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Camp Field, Mark Twain and Park branches.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Loitering: New and Collected Essays
By Charles D’Ambrosio
(Tin House, $15.95, 368 pages)
Who is this author?
Charles D’Ambrosio, a great writer who teaches aspiring writers about good writing, has published two short story collections, The Point and The Dead Fish Museum, which was a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist, and the essay collection Orphans. His literary honors include a Whiting Writer’s Award and a Lannan Fellowship, and his work frequently appears in The New Yorker, Tin House, The Paris Review, Zoetrope All-Story and A Public Space. D’Ambrosio grew up in Seattle and now teaches at the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop.
What is this book about?
Loitering, which was published last fall, made NPR’s 2014 Best of the Year list and the Pacific Northwest Bestseller List, and it was named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by Time Out New York. While D’Ambrosio is known as an excellent writer of short stories, he also wins generous praise as an essayist, writing in a genre that combines the personal with serious reportage. Loitering combines 11 original essays from his collection Orphans, a book that earned him a cult-like following, with new and uncollected essays. His subject matter is nothing if not eclectic: hunting whales with Native Americans; J.D. Salinger’s writing; a Pentecostal “hell house;” Mary Kay Letourneau (the teacher who fell in love with her 13-year-old student) and his own family. What binds these disparate subjects together is his original voice and perspective: clever, compassionate, compelling.
Why you’ll like it:
D’Ambrosio has been credited with the rare ability to write “understated realism.” He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, and in an interview with him written for that magazine by essayist Leslie Jamison, she says:
“In these essays he is hard on easy answers and false resolution because he believes in what lies beyond them. With this book, I felt like shaking strangers in the street and saying, Read these essays; they will move you.”
Here are some of his thoughts on writing essays, from that interview:
“. . . that figure on the threshold seems to be standing around in quite a few of these essays. It’s a little spooky to realize how porous the personality is in writing, porous or just plain incontinent, leaking out everywhere, so that things get revealed even when—or especially when—you haven’t given them much conscious thought. It’s a good reminder that you don’t have to indulge in a goopy confessional mode to write a personal essay—you’re more mysterious than you know, more naked than you imagine, and whether you intend it or not you’re going to be exposed.
“I don’t deliberately seek out that threshold or the ambivalence it offers, but the fact that I return to it over and over suggests that it isn’t entirely innocent, either. I mean, I must go there for a reason, but why? I was a vigilant kid, and vigilance as a perspective on life depends on distance, a certain remove. You’re always kind of there and not there, sitting in the room but also watching the room, alert to some other, less innocent possibility. That distance feels safe, but it also stirs up the most intense feelings of loss and longing, the dream of making the distance go away, of ditching the divided self and all its tensions and simply being there—you know, just crossing that threshold and coming inside, coming home. But it’s hard to do, hard for me to do, anyway. . .
“I can’t imagine absenting myself from the story. It’s not possible, so I don’t waste my time. I’m there, I’m witnessing, I’m thinking, I’m struggling to understand, I’m making connections or failing to make connections, I’m excited by errors that then, somehow, usher in a little truth, and all of that influences, distorts, and colors the material.
“Sometimes my role in the essay is simply presented as it happens—the narrative action is just the random intersection of my life, whatever that’s about at the time, with the story, whatever that may be.”
What others are saying:
In The New York Times Book Review , author Phillip Lopate says: “D’Ambrosio has also published two fine collections of short stories, but it is his essays, appearing in literary magazines and previously in an obscure small-press edition, that have been garnering a cult reputation. Now that they are gathered in such a generous collection, we can see he is one of the strongest, smartest and most literate essayists practicing today…These are highly polished, finished, exemplary performances.”
Publishers Weekly’s starred review says: “This powerful collection (11 essays from Ophans, plus new and uncollected work) highlights D’Ambrosio’s ability to mine his personal history for painful truths about the frailty of family and the strange quest to understand oneself, and in turn, be understood. In his strongest essays, including an account of a trip to a Russian orphanage, a reminiscence of hopping freight trains, and wrenching family stories, he avoids pathos and uses telling detail to get at some larger truths. In an essay on J.D. Salinger’s short stories, D’Ambrosio (also known for his fiction) writes about the suicide of his youngest brother. In a Russian orphanage, he talks with children who will have a hard road ahead, and conveys that he, too, is making his way in a world full of holes, gaps, and scars. In his graceful essay on poet Richard Hugo’s “Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg,” he observes that in a life that’s been broken “we know these things happen, and we don’t… know why.” Without an easy solution, he observes that “answers are as foolish and transient as we are” and challenges writers and readers to “approach the unanswerable,” which he himself does here, to great effect. “
Kirkus Reviews says: “An essayist and short story writer returns with a collection of pieces ranging in subject from whaling to a Russian orphanage to J.D. Salinger. D’Ambrosio begins with some thoughts about what an essay is (he views it as a way to figure out what he thinks) and then launches into his thoughtful and provocative essays, revealing a hungry mind and a pervasive, constitutional sadness. In the first essay, the author deals with his attempts as a young man to leave his boyhood home of Seattle, and he introduces some of the darkness (geographical and personal) that inhabits the other essays. Among the topics that he revisits throughout: suicide (attempts in his family, a leaper from a tower on 9/11), the puzzling aspects of experience (just about everything—from decrepit buildings to empty streets; the view from a boxcar he hopped), the fragility of family (his father appears continually), and the abuse of language. He goes off on the prosecutor and the press coverage of the 1998 case of Mary Kay Letourneau, a 35-year-old teacher convicted of having sexual relations with a 13-year-old boy (a former student). D’Ambrosio closely examines the language of the courtroom and the useless indignation that infused much of the press coverage. He considers the vastness of love, and he explores the language of Richard Brautigan, whose prose he does not admire. The author ends with a long disquisition on a poem by Richard Hugo (which and whom he admires). A couple of cavils: It would help curious readers to have publication dates on the pieces somewhere, and although the author chides one of his interview subjects for excessively inflated diction, D’Ambrosio, using words like “emunctory,” “gallionic” and “prodromal,” will send many readers to the dictionary apps on their smart phones. Erudite essays that plumb the hearts of many contemporary darknesses.”
When is it available?
Don’t loiter. Borrow this book from the Downtown Hartford Public Library soon.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Born With Teeth
By Kate Mulgrew
Little, Brown and Company, $28, 320 pages)
Who is this author?
Maybe you know her as Captain Kathryn Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager, Mary Ryan on Ryan’s Hope, or Galina “Red” Reznikov on Orange Is the New Black. Or as Mrs. Columbo. Or as Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, a role she played to great reviews in a Hartford Stage production. Or you may know her from one of her other many roles on stage, TV or film or as a fund-raiser in the fight against Alzheimer’s Disease, which afflicted her mother. But Kate Mulgrew, now 60, also is an accomplished writer, as shown by her memoir, Born With Teeth, which is garnering enthusiastic reviews.
What is this book about?
Mulgrew writes that she grew up in an unconventional Irish Catholic family in the Midwest, raised by parents who knew “how to drink, how to dance, how to talk, and how to stir up the devil,” which seems like great training for an actress-to-be. She headed to New York at age 18, studied with the famous Stella Adler and then had an unplanned pregnancy and gave her daughter up for adoption, a decision that haunted her for decades even as she enjoyed considerable professional success. There were other serious problems, including a rape, that she had to overcome. Known for her roles as strong women who handle challenges well, Mulgrew the writer proves that she can reflect on her life’s ups and downs with candor, humor, sadness and wisdom.
Why you’ll like it:
Mulgrew, unsurprisingly, pulls no punches in this very frank memoir about her personal and professional life. It’s always fascinating to read the back story of a star that you may think you know; it’s doubly delightful when that back story is presented by a talented writer. Not many actors have the kind of insight and literary skills to create a memorable book, as Mulgrew has so ably done.
What others are saying:
Publishers Weekly’s starred review says: “In Mulgrew’s assured gem of a memoir, fans of the actress will delight in discovering her writing chops are as accomplished as her award-winning acting. Growing up, she lived in Derby Grange, a massive 1850s house in Dubuque, Iowa, where Mulgrew and her seven siblings enjoyed magical childhoods. Her eccentric artist mother, whose best friend was Jean Kennedy Smith, sent the budding actress to New York at 18, where she studied with the legendary Stella Adler. Mulgrew’s career took off quickly when she landed the lead in the soap Ryan’s Hope in 1975. Her unplanned pregnancy during that time was written into the script, although only a handful knew the baby girl was placed for adoption at birth. The events devastated Mulgrew, as did the early deaths of two beloved siblings and a rape she survived near her Manhattan apartment. But she kept moving forward, powerfully devoted to her life through broken romantic relationships, the joy of getting the lucrative starring role in Star Trek: Voyager, and finding her daughter at last in 2007. Mulgrew’s mother was her muse and true confidante, until the first signs of Alzheimer’s appeared. Readers will savor Mulgrew’s gift for erudite, honest writing and want to read more about her mesmerizing life.”
Mulgrew swaggers endearingly across its pages, her ‘able and hardy constitution’ ever on display as she powers through the many challenges—both personal and professional—that life has tossed her way. Eloquent and impassioned, the book reaches beyond the standard Hollywood memoir to something more affecting and enduring…Throughout, she narrates with the grandeur of a stage diva holding court: ‘Actresses. What a bunch of sad saps, we are,’ she intones. ‘Madly in love with the child. Madly in love with the craft. Trying desperately to forge an alliance with the two, and constantly failing.’ Mulgrew can be proud that this memoir, her defining monologue, proves otherwise,” says the Washington Post.
Says Library Journal: “Actress Mulgrew’s autobiography is an intriguing look at a very interesting life. She left her home in Iowa at 18 in the Seventies and studied with Stella Adler in New York, determined to become an actress. She quickly earned stardom on the TV soap opera Ryan’s Hope and her life changed forever. Despite her public success with acting, behind the scenes Mulgrew went through many emotional traumas with her children and in her personal life. She describes her deep sorrow when she gave a daughter up for adoption and how she eventually reconciled with her. This well-written book has great stories, as Mulgrew is a fantastic storyteller. It also is a very honest recollection of some of the experiences she has had and how, through it all, acting has remained her passion. VERDICT Mulgrew’s enjoyable narrative is compelling as she portrays her decades of acting work, personal triumphs and heartbreaks, and her mesmerizing life.”
Born with Teeth jumps spectacularly from tale to trial, each approached with abandon and honesty. Reading it feels like joining a friend on a spontaneous adventure that extends to another day, another party, another trip, leaving you breathless and unable to do anything but follow,” says The Miami Herald.
When is it available?
Mulgrew’s memoir is on the shelf at the Downtown Hartford Public Library.
Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!
Amnesia
By Peter Carey
(Knopf Doubleday, $25.95, 320 pages)
Who is this author?
Peter Carey, who was once an advertising copywriter, was born in Australia and has now lived in New York City for more than 20 years. He has published 13 novels and four works of nonfiction and has won the prestigious Booker Prize twice, the Miles Franklin Literary Award five times and a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and has been executive director of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Hunter College, which is part of the City University of New York.
What is this book about?
Novels don’t get much timelier than this one, which deals with radical Internet hackers, cyberwars, a computer virus that frees prisoners in Australia and the U.S. from incarceration and complex international power wars involving the CIA. Mixed in are actual historical clashes between America and Australia, largely forgotten now. Into this mess steps Felix Moore, the self-styled “Australia’s last serving left-wing journalist,” who hopes to make sense of it all by writing the biography of the woman who released the “Angel Worm” virus that unlocked the prison doors. His first task: getting her to cooperate with his plans to explain her and then to save her and perhaps save his country as well.
Why you’ll like it:
Peter Carey has produced many highly imaginative novels, and this is his latest. He writes with verve and humor, which help make the often complex political and scientific material that inform his books go down easier. You may not have had much interest in recent Australian history – you may in fact have absolutely no interest in it – but if you are curious about the ever-increasing reality of cyberhacking and ecoterrorism, and are open to learning some esoteric history in the process, then this book is for you.
What others are saying:
Publishers Weekly says: “From two-time Booker winner Carey comes this complex new novel, focusing on the author’s native Australia, but exploring themes of journalistic freedom and Internet ethics. At the center of the book is the young Australian Gabrielle Baillieux, who releases a virus called the Angel Worm in the computer system that controls the Australian prison system, releasing thousands of prisoners throughout Australia and, inadvertently, in the U.S. The move could be construed as an act of terrorism, a bold stroke in the fight for human rights, or just a geeky plan gone awry. Journalist Felix Moore is hired to write Gabrielle’s story sympathetically, to avoid her extradition. In the process, he spends time with her mother, the actress Celine Baillieux, whom he had previously known in college. Looking back through the two women’s lives, Felix also explores Australia’s history since WWII, confusing himself but also educating readers about the Land Down Under. Throughout the book, Carey’s cartwheeling prose and dazzling intellect can be challenging to keep up with, but the book is worth the effort.”
Says Library Journal: “Delving into political activism and ecoterrorism, this literary mystery by two-time Man Booker Prize winner Carey starts off with the unleashing of a computer virus that opens prison doors in Australia and the United States. Gaby, the daughter of a politician and his actress wife, is identified as a suspect in the viral attack, and soon Felix Moore (a writer with his own political past) is commissioned by wealthy shadow figure Woody Townes to produce a book about her. Felix is promptly abducted and taken to a remote location, where he transcribes tape recordings of reminiscences by Gaby and her mother, which comprise the bulk of the novel. His efforts result in a work bearing the same title as the present novel, which when released on the Internet has far-reaching consequences. Looming large over all these events is the Australian Constitutional Crisis of 1975. VERDICT Intricate and well told, with compelling details of Australian political and social history, this book is nevertheless slow paced, with shifts in time and perspective complicating matters. In the end, the characters never really command the reader’s sympathy enough to move beyond the political and environmental into human drama.”
Kirkus Reviews says: “Carey returns to his native Australia, the setting of his two Booker-winning novels (Oscar and Lucinda, 1988; True History of the Kelly Gang, 2001), for this busy, history-soaked study of politics, family and computer hacking. Felix, the hero and occasional narrator of Carey’s 13th novel, is a legendary journalist who’s recently been disgraced in a libel trial. To redeem himself (and pay off his fines), he falls back into the orbit of a wealthy and politically powerful friend, who has a job for him: Write the life story of Gaby, a young woman accused of releasing a computer virus that freed inmates in almost 5000 U.S. prisons and jails. Felix was college friends with Gaby’s mother, Celine, and he’s being steered to find Gaby innocent, quite forcefully so—over time he’ll be sequestered in a remote hut and motel room with nothing but a typewriter and tapes of Gaby and Celine’s conversations to keep him company. That’s the novel’s spine, but it’s forced to bear the weight of a lot of back story, including musings on the CIA’s involvement in the disruption of Australia’s scandal-ridden government in 1975; the U.S. soldier and serial rapist who impregnated Celine’s mother; and Gaby’s awkward adolescence in the late ’80s, when she fell for a young man who taught her the ways of hacking, which led to some muckraking of a local polluter. As the title suggests, Carey is interested in the ways that we forget about the darker but influential moments in our lives, often deliberately. It’s a provocative theme, and Felix’s seen-it-all tone gives the political scenes an appealingly hard-nosed, jagged mood. But the novel overall is baggy, shifting from coder-speak to blunt dialogue to reportage. History is a complicated web, Carey reminds us, but this one is particularly sticky. A relatively forgettable entry in a top-shelf novelist’s oeuvre.”
“A novel about the new American empire and its repercussions around the world, about technology and, most movingly, about family. It is slippery and compelling, written with the vivid precision that marks Mr. Carey’s best work. It appears at first as though he might, like Thomas Pynchon in Bleeding Edge or Dave Eggers in The Circle, be attempting to recreate the constantly shifting virtual world in the fixed text of a novel. But humanity, not machinery, lies at the book’s heart. . . . Mr. Carey, who has already won the Man Booker prize twice should be in with a chance for a third prize next year,” says The Economist.
“The story of WikiLeaks as if transmogrified by Dickens and turned into a thrilling fable for our post-Edward Snowden era. Written with forensic precision . . . Australian fauna and flora are done in glorious technicolour: kookaburras, butcherbirds, killer magpies,” says The Guardian.”
When is it available?
Don’t forget that Amnesia is now at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Blue Hills branch.
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