Albert of Adelaide
By Howard L. Anderson
(Grand Central Publishing, $24.99, 240 pages)
Who is this author?
Few authors have a resume as diverse as Howard Anderson’s. In Vietnam, he flew helicopters; in Alaska, he worked on fishing boats; in Pittsburgh, he toiled in steel mills; in Houston he drove trucks and in Hollywood, he (like everyone else) wrote scripts. Then he chucked all that and got a law degree, went to work as a legal counsel for the New Mexico Organized Crime Commission and now is a defense attorney there, representing Mexicans charged with crimes in the United States. “Albert of Adelaide” is his debut novel. He’s 69 and has never been to Australia.
What is this book about?
You’ve probably been itching to read a good book about an orphaned platypus and marsupials on the march, and here’s your chance.
Albert, who is duck-billed, fur-clad, web-footed and alone in the world, busts out of a zoo in Adelaide and begins a quest for the fabled Old Australia, a place Down Under full of peace and liberty, where animals are still in charge … but sadly, may no longer exist. Stranded in the bone-dry desert, this water-dweller is facing calamity when a fire-setting, sardine-munching wombat rescues him, takes him to a marsupials-only bar run by a kangaroo and burns the joint down. And they’re off on a very unusual adventure, which also includes dingos, bandicoots and a prize-fighting Tasmanian devil. Crikey!
Whatever else you may think about the land its inhabitants call Oz, you’ve got to give them credit for coming up with great animal names.
Why you’ll like it:
This is not exactly “Charlotte’s Web” or “Watership Down,” but if you are into stories about animals who display human attributes, “Albert of Adelaide” may be just your cup of Foster’s. Some books of this nature are pretty grim: see “Animal Farm,” for example. But this one has the saving grace of being amusing. This is a novelty of a novel about friends and heroes of the furry persuasion, with plenty of lessons for human readers who have a taste for whimsy.
What others are saying:
“If Larry McMurtry had written “Wind in the Willows” he might have come up with something almost as wonderful and moving as Howard Anderson’s “Albert of Adelaide.” This is a novel that defies analysis and summaries. Trust me. Just read it,” says Mary Doria Russell, bestselling author of “The Sparrow and Doc.”
“This debut novel from a 69-year-old New Mexico lawyer is rich in commentary on weighty themes: power, fear, prejudice, and the fluid nature of good and evil. Most of all, Albert is a charming and compelling hero with the strength to honor his convictions while inventing a new life for himself. Readers who enjoy contemporary fiction with shades of social/political commentary will appreciate this,” says Library Journal.
“Memorable . . . lively . . . quick to satisfy with old-fashioned pleasures: action, adventure, fast friends, and unlikely heroes,” says Publishers Weekly.
“The novel reads like “Siddhartha” transplanted to the Australian outback. Or like “Lonesome Dove” recast for a platypus, wombats and dingoes. Or like the novelization of a Pixar animated feature with way more blood and alcohol than usual,” says Kirkus Reviews.
When is it available?
“Albert” is waiting to be discovered 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!
Interpretations of Real-Life Events: Stories
by Kevin Moffett
(Harper Perennial, $14.95, 240 pages)
Who is this author?
Kevin Moffett, a writer of short stories who lives in California, has been published in some of the best and most cutting-edge literary journals, such as McSweeney’s, Believer and Tin House, as well as in three editions of the “The Best American Short Stories” anthology. His efforts have won him a Nelson Algren Award, a Pushcart Prize and the 2010 National Magazine Award. His first collection, ”Permanent Visitors,” won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award, judged by author George Saunders, who knows a thing or two about writing brilliant and surrealistic fiction.
To give yourself a good idea of Moffett’s unique brand of humor, visit www.kevinmoffett.org and take a look at the “Store’ items, which include such useful devices as a naughty confessions holder, a canine curiosity extirpator and a secret meaning illuminator, none of which, as far as I can tell, actually exist….but should.
What is this book about?
Here is a collection of nine short stories that display a vivid imagination. The characters often are caught in terrible dilemmas: an immigrant theme park worker swallows a dental crown and must decide whether to let it pass through his system and retrieve unpleasantly or come up with the money for an expensive new one. A young, newly married couple find themselves stuck in the Arizona desert (and their relationship) as something – perhaps a snake – redolently decomposes in their stolen car’s exhaust system. An elderly woman in a nursing home receives a visit from a Civil War re-enactor….or does she? Many of the stories involve fathers and sons in twisted relationships where love and respect battle resentment and jealousy. All of them are quirky and memorable.
Why you’ll like it:
Reviewers agree that Moffett has mastered the neat trick of offering stories that are dryly humorous and very sad at the same time. As the above examples indicate, this author stretches his imagination – and yours – with ease. This is a book about transitions and the challenge of making decisions that perfectly captures the angst and absurdity of our times.
What others are saying:
Says Publishers Weekly:
“… Moffett’s work is melancholy and funny at the same time, with an uncanny knack for giving weighty topics (death especially, either imminent, remembered, or inevitable) a weightlessness that manages to make them graver rather than lighter. The best pieces, like the title story, about fathers and sons both biological and symbolic, touch on writing and memory and death. “One Dog Year” has John D. Rockefeller both too old to die and already dead and almost making it sky-ward… Language soars in unexpected directions: “On the brink of time, when he stands at last, he sings.” And strange happenings make perfect sense as people do what they have to do to metabolize grief and its bubbly sidekick, love. …This collection will leave readers grateful to have encountered characters who are as odd as they are, as sad as they may be, and as stupidly hopeful.”
“In the title piece of this fine new collection … a young writer who specializes in stories about fathers and sons is forced to reassess all of the assumptions he’s made about his past when his father begins writing stories that cover much the same territory. …”English Made Easy” deals with a young widow’s anguish as she attempts to deal with the aftermath of her husband’s unexpected death… Moffett’s stories brilliantly capture the uncertainty and emotional precariousness of those moments of becoming; for fans of his fiction and the short story form,” says Library Journal.
“A multi–award-winning short story leads this showcase of desert-dry tales of life’s rich pageant. For his second literary outing, Moffett continues in the desiccated vein of stories that find their protagonists at razor’s-edge crossroads in their sad, lonely lives. The widely available and praised title story has been published in both McSweeney’s and The Best American Short Stories 2010. It is the kind of story that short-story artists love, blending the art of writing and the disquiet of real life into meta-fiction that is clever without being coy,” says Kirkus Reviews.
“In nine deftly imagined stories, Moffett examines the boundaries between truth and memory, adulthood and parenthood, and aging and death. Moffett’s tales are by turns familiar and surprising, heartbreakingly honest and sincerely hilarious, a collection [that] readers are sure to return to time and again,” says Booklist.
When is it available?
Moffett’s collection is now on the new books 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!
The Drowning Girl
By Caitlin R. Kiernan
(Roc Trade, $16, 352 pages)
Who is this author?
Caitlin R. Kiernan is a vertebrate paleontologist who was born in Dublin and now lives Providence. She has taught biology at the college level, and her research has been published in scientific journals. But she is more widely known for her award-winning speculative fiction, including such novels as “Silk,” “Threshold,” “Low Red Moon,” “Murder of Angels,” “Daughter of Hounds” and “The Red Tree,” along with prize-winning short stories. And she also has published two books of erotica (with the least-erotic titles I have ever heard: “Frog Toes and Tentacles” and “Tales from the Woeful Platypus.”) In her latest novel, she combines science and the supernatural in stunning ways.
What is this book about?
A novel cast in the form of a memoir told by a highly and admittedly unreliable author, “The Drowning Girl” is about a schizophrenic young woman, India Morgan Phelps. “Imp,” as she is known, has a family tree heavily laden with insanity, and she is obsessed by encounters with a woman (or perhaps a ghost, or a mermaid, or a werewolf?) named Eva Canning. Also figuring prominently are two paintings, one of them titled “The Drowning Girl.” In this many-layered tale, Imp tries, despite (or perhaps because of) her schizophrenia and OCD, to sort out and make sense of these terrifying elements, and while her mental illnesses are profound, they also provide her with a brilliant voice and the ability to make startling connections between fantasy and reality.
Why you’ll like it:
Well-written stories that tease the reader about whether the narrator is mad or truly haunted – Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw” is a primal example — are always challenging. Kiernan does a masterful job of handling this kind of material. Imp is honest about lying and fearless about exploring the witches’ brew of her memories, both real and invented. Kiernan has created a tortured but tremendously compelling character in Imp, and readers will follow her convoluted path with excitement and dread alike.
What others are saying:
Says Publishers Weekly:
“Kiernan’s finely crafted stand-alone fantasy guides an artistic young woman through a maze of false memories and blurred realities. A diagnosis of schizophrenia is no surprise to India Morgan Phelps, aka Imp; her “family’s lunacy lines up tidy as boxcars” down the generations. Meds and psychiatry help keep her stable until she meets Eva Canning, who looks just like the woman in “The Drowning Girl, ‘an 1898 painting that has enthralled Imp since she was a child. Imp’s need to learn the truth about Eva brings on dreams and memories that can’t be real, and the obsession only gets worse when Eva abruptly disappears. Could Eva be the ghost of the woman who inspired the painter of ‘The Drowning Girl,’ or a priestess whose worshippers died in a mass drowning in 1991? The chiding voice in Imp’s head urges her to get her stories straight, but how can she when reality keeps changing? Kiernan evokes the gripping and resonant work of Shirley Jackson in a haunting story that’s half a mad artist’s diary and half fairy tale.”
“Caitlin R. Kiernan’s newest novel… meets all the criteria of a ghost story, even if it may not be one: “The Drowning Girl” is a memoir written by an insane young woman, and it is about her encounters with a mermaid, a werewolf, a siren, and a ghost — or perhaps none of these, or perhaps all of these at once….It is really hard to do justice to the novel in simple terms. It is a confusing jigsaw puzzle of ideas, events and history, and though in the end the pieces come together, they do so imperfectly. Just like Imp, we suspect we understand what happened but will never truly be sure. This is what makes the novel truly haunting….” says the blog Skulls In the Stars.
“India (“Imp”) Morgan Phelps attempts to write a memoir as a way of exorcising the ghosts of her past: her mother and grandmother, both suicides; the lover who left her; and, most important, a young woman named Eva who might be a mermaid or a feral woman raised by wolves. Struggling with her perceptions of the world as filtered through the lenses of her acute schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, Imp writes and rewrites her story, doubling back on herself, digressing to add a pair of her own short stories, and liberally quoting poets, philosophers, playwrights, and musicians. VERDICT This novel by dark fantasy’s most quixotically brilliant writer (“The Red Tree;” “Daughter of Hounds”) blends urban gothic with magical realism. The result is a haunting and eerie tale of ghosts and madness,” says Library Journal.
When is it available?
You can scare up a copy now at the Downtown Hartford Public Library or the Goodwin 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!
Helen Keller In Love
by Rosie Sultan
(Vking, $26.95, 256 pages)
Who is this author?
Rosie Sultan is perhaps not well-known to most readers, but this novel, based on true events from the life of the adult Helen Keller, is likely to change that. Sultan is a graduate of Goddard College and has won a PEN Discovery Award for fiction. She has taught writing at Boston University, the University of Massachusetts and Suffolk University and lives with her husband and son in Brookline, Mass.
What is this book about?
Say the name Helen Keller and most people think of the deaf, blind and silent child in “The Miracle Worker” who is taught by a passionate teacher to communicate through signing. But there is far, far more to her story. Using accounts of Keller’s life from biographies and drawing on her letters and speeches, Sultan gives us Keller in full, a woman who opposed World War I, supported full rights for women and was a Socialist. And she tells the story of Keller’s love for Peter Fagan, who succeeded her teacher Annie Sullivan, who had contracted tuberculosis. Fagan and Keller fell in love, much to the dismay of Sullivan and Keller’s family, who misguidedly wished to keep her as a kind of virginal icon. Keller herself rarely wrote or spoke about her affair with Fagan and the turmoil it created. In this novel, Sultan does it for her.
Why you’ll like it:
“The Miracle Worker” opened a door for us into Helen Keller’s life, much as Annie Sullivan opened her limited existence to a far wider world. Sultan’s novel takes us deeper into Keller’s personal history, presenting her not just as a heroine and role model but as a real woman, full of passion and sensuality and striving for as full a life as was possible. Sultan’s version of Keller’s story, supported by extensive research, may surprise casual admirers of this most unusual woman, but it is sure to captivate readers.
What others are saying:
“Ambitious,” says The Boston Globe. “Sultan’s sensibility is consistently contemporary, a wise choice given Keller’s distinctly modern views. An advocate for women’s rights, an unapologetic socialist and fierce opponent to World War I, Keller exposed and challenged oppression and prejudice in all its myriad forms. Her voice in this novel is evocative of any current celebrity’s. She feels imprisoned by her reputation and her fans’ expectations of her, weary of being the meal ticket for her family, and harassed by the press. As much as she loves and needs Annie, she also chafes at their interdependence. And above all, she is unashamed of her own sexuality, eager to express it, and resentful of her mother and sister’s determination to keep her pure and caged within the confines of propriety. . . . Sultan does a fine job of demonstrating how Keller navigates the world with just three senses.”
“Going well beyond Keller’s ‘Miracle Worker’ days . . . Sultan convincingly imagines that this much-admired if oversimplified icon wanted nothing more than to be treated like a woman,” says Booklist.
“Eye-opening and thoroughly involving . . . This well-written novel will appeal to those who enjoy women’s fiction as well as readers of historical and biographical fiction. A thoroughly enjoyable read that should entice many to seek out one of the biographies Sultan recommends in an afterword,” says Library Journal.
“Debut novelist Rosie Sultan’s “Helen Keller in Love” spins a tale of forbidden love, invoking scents, textures and tastes on every page to show how Helen ‘saw’ the world. She grounds the story in well-known incidents from Helen’s childhood, but draws on later biographies, speeches and letters to show Helen as a woman, intelligent and determined but forced by her handicaps to be dependent on her family and employees. . . . Sultan skillfully expresses Helen’s main frustrations: at the public for refusing to take her seriously when she speaks on political issues unrelated to blindness, and at her family and friends for refusing to see her as a grown woman, with a woman’s desires. “Helen Keller in Love” holds readers’ attention with a fresh depiction of a woman famous for overcoming her physical handicaps, forced to fight for her right to love,” says Katie Noah Gibson, author of “Shelf Awareness.”
When is it available?
The Downtown Hartford Public Library has it now on its new books shelf.
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!
New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families
By Colm Tóibín
(Scribner, $26, 352 pages)
Who is this author?
Colm Tóibín (pronounced CULLum ToeBEAN) is too serious a writer and critic to have a book with such a teaser of a title, but if it helps to get readers to pick it up, that’s all to the good.
Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy, Ireland in 1955, and now lives in Dublin and New York, where he is Mellon Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He has written six novels, among them “The Blackwater Lightship,” about a family reuniting as a son dies of AIDS, “The Master,” a fictional look at the emotional life of author Henry James that won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and “Brooklyn,” about an Irish immigrant to America in the 1950s, which won a Costa Book Award.
What is this book about?
Jane Austen’s mum. Tennessee Williams’ mentally ill sister. Thomas Mann’s deeply troubled children. They and many other relatives of famous writers appear in Tóibín s book, which explores how family members can affect a writer’s work and in turn, how a writer’s career (and fame) can impact his or her family. In tracing the often tragically bad relationships between these writers and others – John Cheever, Samuel Beckett, Henry James, J.M. Synge, Hart Crane, Roddy Doyle and more – Tóibín also gives us brilliant appreciations of their work.
Why you’ll like it:
Toibin’s essays of literary criticism are written in the same compelling and evocative prose as his novels, making them delightful journeys into the work of other writers that drier academics cannot hope to achieve. There are many stunning insights in this book that will help you to understand writers you may have admired for years without ever knowing what personal baggage they carried.
What others are saying:
“A consistently revealing look at how writers’ relationships with their families have influenced their work. …The result is a book that illuminates, startles and delights,” says The Telegraph.
“Unfailingly warm and compassionate,” says The Irish Times.
Says Publishers Weekly:
“Through a series of accessible essays, lectures, and reviews that rove from Jane Austen to Brian Moore—many of which appeared in either the London or New York Review of Books— Tóibín explores the ambivalent relationships that many writers of the past few centuries have had with their families…The book is divided into two sections: “Ireland,” containing chapters about Irish poets, playwrights, and novelists, such as John Synge and Sebastian Barry; and “Elsewhere,” which roves from Jorge Luis Borges to Tennessee Williams. With essays that prove more informative than argumentative, along with useful mini-biographies of important authors, Tóibín excels when discussing craft…chock-full of biographic detail that will interest ardent readers… overall, given their figurative patricidal, matricidal, fratricidal, and infanticidal tendencies, one ought to be thankful not to have a writer in the family.”
“Irish novelist and essayist Tóibín (Brooklyn, 2009, etc.) investigates how writers’ classic works were inspired by their families–and sometimes in spite of them. One line of critical thinking holds that a writer’s personal history is out of bounds when judging a poem, play or novel. …like all fine critics, Tóibín inspires readers to go back to the work, and he brings a human aspect to the works of seemingly deracinated authors like Beckett and Jorge Luis Borges. Though there’s no truly coherent thesis here, it’s a pleasure to watch Tóibín rove through 19th- and 20th-century literary history,” says Kirkus Reviews.
When is it available?
You can find this book at 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!
The Chemistry of Tears
By Peter Carey
(Knopf, $26, 240)
Who is this author?
Born in Australia and trained in advertising copywriting, Peter Carey has gone on to become one of today’s most admired writers, Now the executive director of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York, he has published 12 novels and four works of nonfiction. Much praised for his craftsmanship with words and his imaginative plots, he has won the Booker Prize in England twice and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and has won the Miles Franklin Literary Award five times.
What is this book about?
It’s about love, grief, time, memory and the reconstruction of a 19th-century automaton, an early precursor of today’s mechanical toys. If this sounds a bit reminiscent of the charming film, “Hugo,” it’s an apt comparison – to a point. For this is no children’s story. Rather, it follows Catherine, a female horologist at a British museum, one of only a few women in this exacting discipline that studies the science of time and the instruments that have been invented to measure it. When her secret (and married) lover dies, this distraught woman (who cannot express her grief publically) throws herself into a new project, researching the diaries of a 19th-century Englishman, Henry Brandling, who commissions a possibly mad, surely brilliant German inventor to build an automaton for his sickly son. Catherine begins to re-construct the device—a clockwork duck, of all things – a monumental task made harder by her difficult assistant and by what the diaries reveal.
Why you’ll like it:
Carey is known for his whimsical humor, plots that make bizarre situations plausible, lyrical style and strange but believable characters. All of these talents are on display in “The Chemistry of Tears.” This book links a present-day character, Catherine, with 19th-century Henry, both of whom are dealing with grief and working with unreliable people. Told in parts by each character, it is a fanciful yet profound exploration of love, grief and mortality.
What others are saying:
“Carey …is a bewitching storyteller preternaturally attuned to our endless struggles over love and eccentric obsessions. In this fairy tale within a fairy tale rife with historical and literary allusions, Catherine, a horologist (an expert in the science and instruments of measuring time) on the staff of a London museum, is mad with grief after the sudden death of her married lover and struggles to focus on the new restoration project her sympathetic boss hopes will comfort her….Set during the Gulf oil crisis and reminiscent of The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007) in its linkage of a rescued automaton and loneliness, Carey’s gripping, if at times overwrought, fable raises provocative questions about life, death, and memory and our power to create and destroy…” says Booklist.
“Carey is a writer I prize not only for his remarkable Dickensian plots but also for the brilliance of his style…. He is the most exuberant stylist at work in English today, “ says Edmund White in the Daily Telegraph.
“Few writers manage so consistently and delightfully as Peter Carey to conjure wondrous scenes populated with idiosyncratic yet credible characters. The Chemistry of Tears does not disappoint . . . Carey is one of the finest living writers in English. His best books satisfy both intellectually and emotionally; he is lyrical yet never forgets the imperative to entertain . . . A wholly enjoyable journey,” says The Economist.
“A powerful novel on the frailty of the human body and the emotional life we imbue in machines . . . Catherine and Henry, linked both by the automaton and by grief, ponder questions of life and death, questions that, as posed by Carey, are more fascinating than any solution,” says Publishers Weekly in a starred, pick of the week review.
When is it available?
“The Chemistry of Tears” can be found among the new books 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!
Wallflower in Bloom
By Claire Cook
(Touchstone, $24.99, 272 pages)
Who is this author?
Full disclosure: I know Claire Cook well and have enjoyed her books – and her friendship – for years. She’s one of those writers whose dynamic personality is perfectly reflected in her novels, and when you read them, you will feel as though you know her personally too.
Cook, then living in Scituate, MA, and the mother of two, wrote her first novel in longhand on a legal pad in her minivan when she was 45, waiting for her daughter to take an early morning swim class. But it was her funny and charming second novel, “Must Love Dogs,” that really took off, and was made into a major motion picture starring Diane Lane and (yes, gasp, really!) John Cusack. My review of that book in the Courant was picked up by papers across the country, which Cook graciously insists helped it find an audience. I am not so sure about that….I think that novel, a quintessentially enjoyable beach book, would have found its audience all by itself.
Since then, Cook has written six more, all bestselling, delightful reads, and she also gives inspiring talks on how you can re-invent yourself. She now lives in Atlanta, but still spends time near Boston and visits the Cape. You can learn more about her at www.clairecook.com.
What is this book about?
It’s about a woman who dances her way out of a depressing situation and into a bright new life. Hard-working but underappreciated Deirdre is overshadowed by her brother, Tag, a New Age guru whom she works for, serving as a kind of gate-keeper to his high-profile, high-maintenance life. Deirdre describes him as “Deepak Chopra meets Bono,” and he is driving her nuts. Finally fed up with her overbearing bro-and-boss, she quits. Then Deirdre’s boyfriend dumps her for another woman, and even worse, after all his claims of never wanting kids, he is having one with his new love. What’s underemployed, underloved Deirdre to do? How about using her famous brother’s database to solicit votes to get her a spot as a non-celebrity contestant on “Dancing With the Stars?” Readers will be saying “You go, girl!” as Dierdre twirls her way into the kind of fun future she has always deserved.
Why you’ll like it:
Cook “gets” women and their often contradictory emotions and desires. She’s also particularly wise about prickly relationships among siblings who are old enough to know better and among parents and children who have to learn when to step in helpfully and when to let go. And she has no trouble calling a cad a cad, or creating appealing and decent guys who can help the heroine pick up the pieces – but not do it for her. There are plenty of sweet moments in her books, but Cook never is saccharine. Most important of all, she’s very funny, and every one of her books will trigger laugh-out-loud moments for their readers.
What others are saying:
“Claire Cook gives us a witty, down-to-earth and likable main character readers will root for. As Deirdre faces an almost insurmountable physical challenge, she also must confront family and self-acceptance issues. This is a delightfully quirky and off-kilter story that is the epitome of the perfect beach read (or for escaping into while snuggled in front of a roaring fireplace, or any other reading situation one can imagine). Cook has a true gift for writing humorous situations, as well as delving into emotionally affecting situations with a light touch, making “Wallflower in Bloom” a very enjoyable and satisfying read,” says www.bookreporter.com.
“Cook’s newest novel… is a fun and inspiring read. Family wallflower Deirdre Griffin has played second fiddle her entire life to her siblings…With Deirdre working as Tag’s personal assistant and gatekeeper, her status doesn’t seem likely to change anytime soon, especially since Tag is on the cusp of becoming America’s “next big thing,” putting Deirdre in charge of managing his “brand” 24/7. During an event in Austin, Tex., the two have a heated exchange, and Deirdre impulsively quits, taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity to appear on Dancing with the Stars, a move that might help her come out of both her shell and her brother’s shadow. Cook’s humor and narrative execution is impeccable; Deirdre’s increasing self-consciousness elicits support for her to overcome insecurity and endure in her journey to find happiness and fulfillment on her own terms,” says Publishers Weekly.
“Filled with sweet humor and all the eye-rolling moments of jumbled yet ultimately loving family relations, romance, and coming into one’s own, this women’s fiction is a definite pleaser for devotees of the genre,” says Booklist.
When is it available?
“Wallflower in Bloom” is brightening the new books shelves at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and the 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!
In One Person
By John Irving
(Simon & Schuster, $28, 448 pages)
Who is this author?
With his 13th novel, John Irving, who now is 70, again turns to certain topics that have obsessed his writing career: prep school boys, wrestling, Northern New England, Vienna, absent fathers, angry mothers, cross-dressing and sex, sex, sex and more sex. Irving’s early blockbuster book and film, “The World According to Garp,” won him a huge and loyal following (and launched a million “World According to….” headlines and takeoffs). He cemented his standing as one of the more interesting contemporary American writers with “The Cider House Rules” and “A Prayer for Owen Meany,” among others.
Irving’s books are not strictly autobiographical, but his life experiences of attending prep school, competing in wrestling and searching for his biological father have all informed his work.
What is this book about?
“In One Person” explores the extremely complex emotional tangles of one bi-sexual man, Billy, whose many crushes and lovers include a straight woman, two transgender women, gay boys and gay men, all encountered in his quest for self-definition and acceptance – and played out against the all-too-real background of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. If this sounds complicated, it is. Irving swings back and forth in time and place (and you could say Billy swings back and forth as well), but readers along for the ride will enjoy the journey.
Why you’ll like it:
Irving is an original. He’s an admirer of Dickens who, like the English master, knows how to imagine vivid characters, the kind of people who keep you reading even if the plot grows melodramatic. And he’s not afraid of controversial topics. This exploration of the twists and turns of sexuality and how it shapes one’s identity is a challenging, revealing story, one that throws new light on the peculiar American tension between expressing oneself honestly and fully and fitting into the expectations of others. The world according to Billy (sorry, impossible to resist) may be an unfamiliar place, but you won’t be bored there.
What others are saying:
Says Publishers Weekly: “ [It] tells the oftentimes outrageous story of bisexual novelist Billy Abbott, who comes of age in the uptight 1950s and explores his sexuality through two decadent decades into the plague-ridden 1980s and finally to a more positive present day. Sexual confusion sets in early for Billy, simultaneously attracted to both the local female librarian and golden boy wrestler Jacques Kittredge, who treats Billy with the same disdain he shows Billy’s best friend (and occasional lover) Elaine. Faced with an unsympathetic mother and an absent father who might have been gay, Billy travels to Europe, where he has affairs with a transgendered female and an older male poet, an early AIDS activist. Irving’s take on the AIDS epidemic in New York is not totally persuasive (not enough confusion, terror, or anger), and his fractured time and place doesn’t allow him to generate the melodramatic string of incidents that his novels are famous for. In the end, sexual secrets abound in this novel, which intermittently touches the heart as it fitfully illuminates the mutability of human desire.”
“What is ‘normal’? Does it really matter? In Irving’s latest novel … nearly everyone has a secret, but the characters who embrace and accept their own differences and those of others are the most content. … This wonderful blend of thought-provoking, well-constructed, and meaningful writing is what one has come to expect of Irving, and it also makes for an enjoyable page-turner,” says Library Journal.
“Billy Dean (aka Billy Abbott) has a difficult time holding it together in one person, for his bisexuality pulls him in (obviously) two different directions. Billy comes of age in what is frequently, and erroneously, billed as a halcyon and more innocent age, the 1950s. … Woody Allen’s bon mot about bisexuality is that it doubled one’s chances for a date, but in this novel Irving explores in his usual discursive style some of the more serious and exhaustive consequences of Allen’s one-liner,” says Kirkus Reviews.
Says Ron Charles in The Washington Post: “…the sophisticated and garish elements of ‘In One Person’ are laced together in an act of literary transvestism…[the] wonderful first section of the novel shows what a ringmaster Irving can be. His looping chronology gives the impression of aimless digression only until we catch up and find him on the trail of some larger truth. The story swings confidently from the burlesque comedy of Billy’s dolled-up grandfather to the poignant anxiety of the boy’s sexual confusion. And it’s full of insights about classic theatre and novels, all gracefully integrated into Billy’s struggle to figure out what kind of person he is.”
When is it available?
If you want to wrestle with “In One Person,” it can be found at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and the Barbour, Dwight and Goodwin 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 Lifeboat
By Charlotte Rogan
(Little, Brown and Co., $24.99, 288 pages)
Who is this author?
Charlotte Rogan, a Princeton University graduate in architecture who lives in Westport and is the mother of triplets, grew up in a family that loved sailing. She’s lived for a time in South Africa and in Texas, and “The Lifeboat” is her debut novel.
What is this book about?
Set in 1914, and published this year, which is the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s demise, “The Lifeboat” imagines what it would be like to be adrift for three weeks in the Atlantic in an over-full, under-stocked boat following the terrifying sinking of an ocean liner. Grace Winter, just 22, has recently lost her father to suicide (and his fortune as well), has married a wealthy man on their trip to London and become a sudden widow when her husband Henry goes down with the ship, but not before finagling for her a place on a lifeboat. A crew member takes over, but is not universally admired, to say the least. Madness, deaths and drowning (some voluntary) ensue, and after the rescue, Grace and two other women are put on trial for what they did on the ill-fated lifeboat.
Why you’ll like it:
The details of the weeks on the lifeboat are vivid and compelling: you feel the thirst and hunger and become embroiled in the personal animosities of the band of would-be survivors. But the novel is as much about the complexities of right and wrong as it is about the desperate circumstances. Better still, Grace is an unreliable narrator – as readers we are never sure if she is telling the absolute factual truth, or even knows what that is. This leaves us with a lot of deciding to do about what actually happened, a task that involves us deeply in the book.
In an interview with Barnes & Noble, Rogan had this to say:
“In the past few weeks, readers and journalists have asked me what I would do if I were to find myself in Grace’s shoes. Would I kill another person in order to save my own life? My first answer is that I would find it very hard to hurt someone who had not first hurt me. Then the person ups the ante by asking me what I would do if my children were in the lifeboat with me. The bottom line is that I don’t know. The wonderful thing about fiction is that it allows us to enter a dilemma we will never face in life. It is also the perfect vehicle for asking philosophical questions, which are basically questions for which there are no answers. If I want answers, I read non-fiction. If I want to confront the edges of the known universe, fiction is my medium of choice.”
What others are saying:
“Safe at home in the U.S., Grace and two other survivors are put on trial for their actions aboard the under-built, overloaded lifeboat. At sea, as food and water ran out, and passengers realized that some among them would die, questions of sacrifice and duty arose. Rogan interweaves the trial with a harrowing day-by-day story of Grace’s time aboard the lifeboat, and circles around society’s ideas about what it means to be human, what responsibilities we have to each other, and whether we can be blamed for choices made in order to survive. Grace is a complex and calculating heroine, a middle-class girl who won her wealthy husband through smalltime subterfuge. Her actions on the boat are far from faultless, and her memory of them spotty. By refusing to judge her, Rogan leaves room for readers to decide for themselves. A complex and engrossing psychological drama,” says Publishers Weekly.
Says Kirkus Reviews: “First-time novelist Rogan’s architectural background shows in the precision with which she structures the edifice of moral ambiguity surrounding a young woman’s survival during three weeks in a crowded lifeboat adrift in the Atlantic in 1914. The novel begins with Grace back on American soil, on trial for her actions on the boat. Two other female survivors who are also charged, Hannah and Mrs. Grant, plead self-defense. Grace, guided by her lawyer Mr. Reichmann, who has had her write down her day-by-day account of events, pleads not guilty….[Was] she acting out of frail weakness, numbed by her ordeal, or are her survival instincts more coldblooded? Even she may not be sure; much of her conversation circles morality and religion. The lifeboat becomes a compelling, if almost overly crafted, microcosm of a dangerous larger world in which only the strong survive.”
“…impressive, harrowing…Rogan writes viscerally about the desperate condition of the castaway, of what it is like to be “surrounded on four sides by walls of black water” or to be so thirsty your tongue swells to the size of “a dried and hairless mouse.” But it’s her portrait of Grace, who is by turns astute, conniving, comic and affecting, that drives the book. Like her literary forebear Becky Sharp, Grace wants a great deal from this life and feels justified in using whatever wiles might be necessary to secure her own happy ending,” says The New York Times Book Review.
When is it available?
You can climb into “The Lifeboat” in the new book stacks at the Downtown Hartford Public Library or the 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!
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