Dear Life: Stories
By Alice Munro
(Knopf Doubleday, $26.95, 336 pages)
Who is this author?
Alice Munro, who lives in Ontario, near Lake Huron, is one of Canada’s – and the world’s — finest writers, with a novel, 12 short story collections and two compilations of selected stories to her credit. Her work frequently appears in the best literary magazines, such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine and Granta, and she has won a staggering collection of major awards, including three of Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Awards and two Giller Prizes, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Lannan Literary Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker International Prize. Now in her early 80s, Munro used a typewriter for many years and still doesn’t use a microwave, calling herself a “late convert to every technological offering” in an interview.
What is this book about?
Munro shows in this collection of 14 stories that lives can change at a moment’s notice, from chance encounters or twists in what seemed like an endless smooth and steady path. A discontent young mother who is also a budding poet meets a newspaper columnist and prepares, almost without realizing it, to up-end her familiar life. A soldier on his way home from WWII gets off his train one stop early and thereby ends his engagement and begins a wandering life. A wealthy woman in a clandestine affair with a lawyer painfully discovers a brilliant solution to blackmail. A young teacher at a tuberculosis sanitarium in the Canadian hinterland falls into a strange and ultimately sad affair with the imperious head doctor. A similarly misogynistic and overbearing doctor gets his comeuppance when his long-submissive wife finally has had enough. A young woman is haunted by her older sister’s death as a child, fearing she was complicit. Ten of the stories are pure fiction, while the final four are fiction inspired by Munro’s own experiences. As she says in a brief introduction: “They form a separate unit, one that is autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact. I believe they are the first and last – and the closest – things I have to say about my own life.”
Why you’ll like it:
Reading Munro is to put yourself in the hands of a master storyteller. She has a no-nonsense style, sparked by an often wry sense of humor and an ability to sketch her settings in a vivid way without overwriting. In this, it seems to me, she is a quintessentially Canadian voice, and one that is wonderful to hear. Here is what she told an interviewer about her writing:
“I want to tell a story, in the old-fashioned way — what happens to somebody — but I want that ‘what happens’ to be delivered with quite a bit of interruption, turnarounds, and strangeness,” she explained to Random House.com. “I want the reader to feel something is astonishing — not the ‘what happens’ but the way everything happens. These long short story fictions do that best, for me.”
What others are saying:
Says Publishers Weekly: Munro … can depict key moments without obscuring the reality of a life filled with countless other moments—told or untold…she continues charting the shifts in norms that occur as WWII ends, the horses kept for emergencies go out of use, small towns are less isolated, and then gradually or suddenly, nothing is quite the same. There are no clunkers here. … While many of these pieces appeared in the New Yorker, they read differently here; not only has Munro made changes, but more importantly, read together, the stories accrete, deepen, and speak to each other.”
Every new collection from the incomparable Munro, winner of the Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work, is cause for celebration. This new volume offers all the more reason to celebrate as it ends with four stories the author claims are the most autobiographical she has written. As she has moved through the decades, so have her characters, whose stories are mostly set in small-town Ontario in an earlier time or who are looking back from the present with some earned perspective. …In every story, there is a slow revelation that changes everything we thought we understood about the characters. VERDICT : Read this collection and cherish it for dear life,” says Library Journal.
“A revelation, from the most accomplished and acclaimed of contemporary short story writers. It’s no surprise that every story in the latest collection by Canada’s Munro … is rewarding and that the best are stunning. They leave the reader wondering how the writer manages to invoke the deepest, most difficult truths of human existence in the most plainspoken language. But the real bombshell, typically understated and matter-of-fact, comes before the last pieces, which the author has labeled “Finale” … When a writer in her early ’80s declares that these are the last things she has to say about her life, they put both the life and the stories in fresh perspective. Almost all of them have an older character remembering her perspective from decades earlier, sometimes amused, more often baffled, at what happened and how things turned out. …The author knows what matters, and the stories pay attention to it,” says Kirkus Reviews.
Booklist, in a starred review, says: “Munro’s latest collection brings to mind the expression, “What is old is new again.” As curiously trite and hardly complimentary as that statement may sound, it is offered as unreserved praise for the continued wonderment provided by arguably the best short-story writer in English today.”
When is it available?
“Dear Life” can be borrowed from 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!
Before we get started, let me congratulate author Louise Erdrich for winning the 2012 National Book Award for Fiction for her novel, “The Round House.” You can see my blog post on this book if you search for the entry for Oct. 23.
We now return to our usual programming.
Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans
By David Niose
(Palgrave Macmillan, $27, 272 pages)
Who is this author?
David Niose, who was born in Concord, Mass., is an attorney and spokesperson for secular Americans in court cases and in the media and has appeared on networks as diverse as Fox and MSNBC. He also writes the “Our Humanity, Naturally“ blog for Psychology Today. He is president of the Washington-based American Humanist Association and vice president of the Secular Coalition for America, a Washington-based lobbying group.
What is this book about?
You may think the conservative Religious Right is a permanent powerhouse in political America, but David Niose begs to differ. In “Nonbeliever Nation,” he cites polls and studies that show that in the U.S., un-churched, non-observant, lapsed, secular and humanist citizens are a growing force and are also more and more willing to state their own belief in non-belief. Current estimates have this group at more than 20 percent of the population, and thinkers like Niose assume it is larger, because many are still unwilling to acknowledge their views, even in anonymous surveys. To be sure, church v. state battles, with all their hot-button hysteria, are still common: look at the ongoing controversies over contraception, abortion, Christmas trees on public property, high school graduations held in churches and many more. While these battles are not likely to be resolved any time soon, Niose’s book gives an in-depth analysis of where we are now and where we may be going in this regard.
Why you’ll like it:
While some reviews, notably one by Kirkus, say Niose didn’t give religious Americans a fair shake in this book, it also calls the book “A thorough examination of modern secular movements in America,” and most reviewers expressed similar sentiments. Whether you find the rise of non-believers an appealing or an appalling development, you will find the history of the movement, as painstakingly described in this book, to be a valuable look at the way American culture is changing and how it affects our politics. Niose says non-believers should take a lesson from the gay and lesbian community, which has continued to increase its acceptance as its members became more willing to come out. We don’t kinow whether speaking out encourages more members of a suppressed minority to identify themselves or whether growing ranks naturally lead to more speaking out, but either way, secular views are growing more common – as shown by the recent election – and this books helps us to understand why that is so.
What others are saying:
“America’s secular demographic—those who report “none” when asked for religious identity—is growing faster than any other religious identification, especially among 18-to-29-year-olds. …Niose explores secularism’s extraordinary rise and shows how it offers hope for more rational, inquiry-based public policy and discussion….he notes that the U.S. has never been a Christian nation, though modern secular activism only emerged in the last 10 years in opposition to the Religious Right, whose rise, over the past three decades, remained virtually unchecked. Careful to note that it’s not Christianity that’s problematic, but the alliance of Christian and political conservatism that has attacked climate science, evolution, contraception, and the separation of church and state, he highlights the ways secularism is gaining traction against the fundamentalist agenda ….he makes a passionately strong, though at times repetitive, case for why secularism is so beneficial for the U.S.,” says Publishers Weekly.
“Covering a wide range of territory in a reasonably condensed space, attorney Niose looks at the culture wars from the perspective of secular America. While confronting numerous commonly held misconceptions by believers about secularism (e.g., the religious Right implying that religious faith is part of patriotism), Niose admirably refrains from antireligious hostility, striving for equality rather than proving the superiority of his perspective. . . . This is a calm, informative, and positive portrait of the rapidly growing secular segment of the American population. Highly recommended for politically oriented readers of all religious persuasions,” says Library Journal.
“Using solid research, David Niose reminds us that the United States is by no means a religious nation let alone a Christian one— nor was it ever intended to be. Citing dozens of compelling examples, he lays bare the stunning hypocrisy of religious leaders in the United States. …He shows that saying you’re religious– and claiming to know absolutely what is good and what is not– is bad for all of us,” says Bill Nye, The Science Guy®, CEO of the The Planetary Society, and Humanist of the Year 2010.
“An excellent overview…Niose communicates a sizable amount of complex information without overloading readers…The good news: secular Americans are emerging. Activism is on the rise, people are identifying and organizing in order to influence sound policy, and student activism especially is growing by leaps and bounds,” says Skeptic magazine.
When is it available?
Believe it when I tell you this book is available 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 Bartender’s Tale
By Ivan Doig
(Riverhead, $27.95, 400 pages)
Who is this author?
Though he lives in Seattle now, Ivan Doig was born in White Sulphur Springs, Montana, into a family of homesteaders and ranch hands that has lived in that state for three generations, and Montana’s craggy beauty informs his beautiful prose. He has written 14 books, including the memoir “House of Sky,” has won the Wallace Stegner Award and has been a finalist for a National Book Award. Now in his 70s, he is still writing and is considered by many critics to be “the dean” of Western literature.
What is this book about?
Today is Thanksgiving, a time for giving thought to all that we have to be grateful for, and also, for many people, it’s a time for wondering if any other families are nearly as odd as their own.
One such unusual family is the subject of “The Bartender’s Tale.” Tom, a crusty bartender who owns The Medicine Hole, a scruffy bar–and-pawn shop in northern Montana, has a 12-year-old son, Rusty, conceived accidently with a woman who is long gone. Dad and son get by and get along well, and Rusty’s got a budding relationship with a new girl in town, Zoe. Then out of Tom’s past comes another former partner, Proxy, a taxi dancer with a wild daughter, Francine, who may be another of Tom’s love children. Rusty has to cope with these bewildering adults and a past that has invaded his present and may change his future, in this story of how complex life becomes when you pass from the simplicities of childhood to the uncertainties of adulthood.
Why you’ll like it:
Writing about another of Doig’s novels, O, The Oprah Magazine, said: “Doig is in the best sense an old-fashioned novelist: You feel as if you’re in the hands of an absolute expert at story-making, a hard-hewn frontier version of Walter Scott or early Dickens.” That analysis could also easily describe “The Bartender’s Tale,” in which Doig crafts a wonderful family story that is heartfelt but not sentimental. Few things are nicer on a long winter’s day than curling up with a well-written book that warms your heart. “The Bartender’s Tale” may be just that book.
What others are saying:
“Doig cranks into motion a dense valentine of a novel about a father and a small town at the start of the 1960s…Doig writes the tenderness between Rusty and his father vividly, and his facility with natural, vernacular dialogue is often hypnotizing….”The Bartender’s Tale” is thoroughly engaging, and the book’s soft focus of nostalgia is in itself a kind of pleasure,” says NPR.
“With this expert novel, [Doig] sets himself a larger canvas and fills it with a diverse cast… Fact and fiction are skillfully fused to document a boy’s last days of youth and a history his father can’t leave behind…Rusty’s youthful adventures are enchanting, but Doig does something more — he punctuates them with the colorful local idiom of his father’s grizzled punters,” says Newsweek/Daily Beast.
“The year is 1960, and the protagonist at the center of this “bartender’s tale” is Tom Harry, a beloved, no-nonsense bartender in Gros Ventre, MT, a sleepy town in remote northern sheep country. Tom is also a single father working long hours, trying to raise his 12-year-old son, Rusty, in this enjoyable, old-fashioned, warmhearted story about fathers and sons, growing up, and big life changes. Rusty is the narrator of the novel, and Doig … brings the young man’s voice and perspective skillfully to life here. Rusty is puzzled by most of what he sees in the adult world, and there is little he can be sure of, except the love of his father. Doig poignantly captures the charm and pathos of Rusty’s efforts to understand this complicated and often baffling adult world. Doig is famous for celebrating the American West, and he also beautifully captures the cadences and details of daily life in this Montana town. VERDICT Recommended for fans of generous, feel-good novels,” says Patrick Sullivan of Manchester Community College for Library Journal.
“His father’s past both unsettles and entices Rusty Harry in Doig’s latest loving portrait of Montana and its crusty inhabitants… Doig expertly spins out these various narrative threads with his usual gift for bringing history alive in the odysseys of marvelously thorny characters. Possibly the best novel yet by one of America’s premier storytellers, says Kirkus Reviews.
“…the rewards of The Bartender’s Tale — a subtle and engaging narrative, characters who behave the way real people behave, the joys of careful and loving observation — remain very great and extremely rare. We live in a marketplace where the loudest and the lowest generally triumph, and Doig’s new book is neither. Be glad there’s still room for it, at least for now,” writes novelist Jon Clinch in The Washington Post.
When is it available?
Look for this one at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Camp Field 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 Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns
By Margaret Dilloway
(Penguin, $25.95, 368 pages)
Who is this author?
Margaret Dilloway lives in San Diego, California (where she grew up), with her husband, a former Army Ranger whom she calls Cadillac in her blog, and their three young children. Her mother is Japanese; her father is an American of Irish-Welsh heritage. Her blog, American Housewife – Embracing the Chaos, can be found at www.margaretdilloway.com. She has a degree in studio art and has been a journalist and a mystery shopper. “Roses” is her second novel.
What is this book about?
Gal (short for Galilee) Garner is only 36, but her kidneys are shot and she’s already had two failed transplants. While she hopes for another, she must carefully divide her time between teaching biology at a private Catholic high school and undergoing dialysis. Her real passion is breeding and growing Hulthemia roses in her garden, experimenting with cross-pollination and hoping to create a new variety of such beauty that it could win Queen of Show at a major competition and be marketed. Then, into this highly controlled and compartmented life comes the unexpected: her teenage niece, Riley, child of Gal’s estranged sister, shows up in need of a place to live while her mother is out of the country. It is an event that will profoundly change both of their lives.
Why you’ll like it:
This is a tale of how love can redeem us. Gal’s life, by her choice, is like a tightly closed flower surrounded by formidable thorns; Riley’s surprise appearance forces it to bloom. It is a touching tale about emotional needs, and as a bonus Dilloway folds in a lot of fascinating information about breeding roses.
Here is some of what Dilloway says on her blog about her beginnings as a writer, which gives you a good idea of her style:
“I wrote a series called MR FLAGS when I was in 3rd grade. It was about a tap dancing man who lived in a tree. His wife’s name was Maurice, because I thought it was too pretty to be a girl’s name. This was the first book I got props for, because my teacher read it aloud to the class when I was out of the room and my brother doubled over laughing when he read them. It was my first time writing for an audience.”
“I wrote my first full-length novel when I was in 8th grade. It was called THE LIST and was about three friends and the boys they liked. The girls used code names for the boys in various categories, including dogs, food, and colors, so no matter what the topic of conversation was, they could talk about the boys. I wrote it like a serial for my friends, who of course it was based upon. It was my most productive summer ever. My English teacher’s TA suggested improvements, which I ignored but should not have.”
What others are saying:
Publishers Weekly says: “The title is apt to describe Galilee Garner, the prickly protagonist of Dilloway’s second novel (after “How to Be an American Housewife”). “Gal” has been on dialysis since she was diagnosed with kidney disease as a child and, by her own choosing, has distanced herself from others…. Gal’s autonomy is challenged when her teenage niece Riley arrives unannounced when Riley’s flighty mom, Gal’s sister, goes to Hong Kong on business. Having Riley around slowly softens Gal, drawing her focus away from herself. There’s no mystery that Dilloway’s metaphor, the care needed to keep a rose thriving, is meant to evoke the needs of a child, a friendship, or someone suffering a chronic illness…”
“Galilee Garner is a no-nonsense 36-year-old biology teacher and rose enthusiast… thorny, difficult Gal functions well within this regimented structure until her estranged 15-year-old niece enters her life. Needy Riley… has lived an unstructured life. So Gal’s ordered existence is turned topsy-turvy as she is forced to become a substitute parent. VERDICT Believable situations with well-drawn characters make this novel as lovely as the roses Gal tends. Dilloway’s second novel (after her acclaimed and decidedly different debut, “How To Be an American Housewife”) is a captivating study of how love and understanding nurture our lives. Engaging, enlightening, thoughtful, this is a winner,” says Library Journal.
Kirkus Reviews
The life of a high school biology teacher parallels her cultivation of roses in Dilloway’s exquisitely written novel about love and redemption. Thirty-six-year-old Galilee Garner suffers from kidney failure…She is insular, obstinate and regimented in her private life, and these attributes have spilled over into her professional life, making her unpopular with many students and their parents. Gal sets the bar high and refuses to cut anyone, including herself, any slack, and she has trouble viewing issues from anyone else’s perspective. But as Riley helps Gal with her roses and they begin to form a bond, she changes in slow but subtle ways. No longer as inflexible as she once was, even when she discovers a disturbing secret about her students, Gal reaches out to a fellow dialysis patient, a new colleague at school and her older sister. A witty and compassionate lesson about the importance of empathy, friendship and family,” says Kirkus Reviews.
“A richly textured diversion from standard treatments of family angst, Dilloway’s new novel expresses a graceful understanding of the virtues of mercy,” says Booklist.
When is it available?
“The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns” is planted 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!
Elsewhere
By Richard Russo
(Knopf, $25.95, 256 pages)
Who is this author?
Richard Russo is our contemporary bard of working class folks trying to hang on in small American towns that have lost the industries that sustained them. In novels such as “Mohawk,” “Empire Falls,” “Nobody’s Fool” and “The Bridge of Sighs,” he has created small worlds that are microcosms of American values in a time when manufacturing was losing its value. A fomer teacher of writing at Colby College, Russo still lives in Camden, Me., and in Boston. In 2002, “Empire Falls” won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He now writes screenplays as well as novels.
What is this book about?
In his fiction, Russo beautifully details the slow fading of Northeastern burgs very much like the one he grew up in, Gloversville, N.Y., once the dress-glove capital of the country, before the desire for such goods petered out and cheap imports cornered the market that was left. Here, in a heartfelt memoir, Russo returns to his roots via non-fiction, centering his tale on his mother, a complex woman who tagged along when he left upstate New York for college in Arizona and who remained a nearby presence in his life until dementia, in the form of a severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, took over. He depicts a strong, proud woman, married to a rather feckless gambler, who urged her son to uproot himself and find success “elsewhere.” That he did, but while he abandoned Gloversville, he never abandoned his erratic, difficult yet compelling woman whose determination pushed him into his successful life as a best-selling American author.
Why you’ll like it:
Russo is a born storyteller, and one who tells his stories straight, without a lot of fancy-schmancy literary devices. This down-to-earthiness serves him very well in “Elsewhere,” in which he gives us his personal history and also clearly and tenderly presents his mother, with all her contradictions, as the driving force in his life. This is a story from the heart that is not cheapened by sentimentality.
What others are saying:
“…Richard Russo is known for the unblinking honesty of his portrayals and the clarity of his writing. Those attributes figure decisively in his memoir about growing up in economically vulnerable upstate New York. Russo’s nostalgic recreations of his parents, especially his mother, are leavened by comic stories and generous swaths of local color. A candid look back by a talented writer; easy to recommend,” says the Barnes & Noble review.
Says Publishers Weekly: “[Russo] fashions a gracious memoir about his tenacious mother, a fiercely independent GE employee who nonetheless relied on her only son to manage her long life. Separated from her gambler husband, Russo’s mother, Jean, resolved that she and her son were a “team,” occupying the top floor of Russo’s grandparents’ modest house in a once-thriving factory town where “nine out of ten dress gloves in the United States were manufactured,” the author notes proudly. …the town by the late 1960s was depressed and hollowed out; Russo’s intrepid, if erratic mother encouraged Russo to break out of the “dimwitted ethos of the ugly little mill town” and attend college at the University of Arizona, in Tucson. Except she came, too, on a hilariously delineated road trip in the 1960 Ford Galaxie Russo purchased and nicknamed the Gray Death. Despite the promise of a new job and new life, however, Jean was never content…Russo’s memoir is heavy on logistical detail—people moving around, houses packed and unpacked—and by turns rueful and funny, emotionally opaque and narratively rich.”
“…Russo describes how his life decisions were often limited by the need to accommodate his mother’s particular needs and, later, debilitating illness: One of the book’s most powerful chapters describes the author’s mother as her dementia begins to set in, fussing over a clock as if the device itself had the power to control time. (What his extended family and estranged father called “nerves” was likely a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder.) Though she routinely made her son’s life more difficult, this book isn’t borne out of bitterness, yet he doesn’t place his mother in soft focus either. What Russo strives to do is place his mother’s life in a social, cultural and personal context. He explores how her options were limited as a single mother in the ’60s, as a product of a manufacturing culture that collapsed before her eyes, and as a woman who needed to define herself through other men. That Russo found the time and emotional space to write novels is somewhat miraculous given her demands, but he acknowledges he couldn’t have written them without her…,” says Kirkus Reviews.
“Pulitzer Prize–winning author Russo brings the same clear-eyed humanism that marks his fiction to this by turns funny and moving portrait of his high-strung mother and her never-ending quest to escape the provincial confines of their hometown of Gloversville, New York. All of her life, she clung to the notion that she was an independent woman, despite the fact that she couldn’t drive, lived upstairs from her parents, and readily accepted their money to keep her household afloat. She finally escaped her deteriorating hometown, which went bust when the local tannery shut down, by moving to Arizona with her 18-year-old son when he left for college and following him across the country right up until her death. His comical litany of her long list of anxieties, from the smell of cooking oil to her fruitless quest for the perfect apartment, is a testament to his forbearance but also to his ability to make her such a vivid presence in these pages. Part of what makes this such a profound tribute to her is precisely because he sees her so clearly, flaws and all…” says Joanne Wilkinson for Booklist.
When is it available?
Don’t look elsewhere. You’ll find it on the new book shelves of 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!
May We Be Forgiven
By A.M. Homes
(Penguin, $27.95, 496 pages)
Who is this author?
A.M. Homes (the “A” is for Amy) has taught creative writing at such universities as Columbia and Princeton, lives in New York City and is an author of novels and short stories as well as a journalist. She is also, it seems, quite the provocateur, as shown by the outraged response to her very controversial 1996 novel, “The End of Alice,” whose narrator was a convicted child molester and murderer: a voice many readers found tough to take. She also has written the memoir “The Mistress’s Daughter,” and her other works include “This Book Will Change Your Life,” “Music For Torching,” and “The Safety of Objects.” Her latest novel, which is her first work of fiction in six years, is “May We Be Forgiven,” about an unhappy family unlike any you have ever encountered. And she will give a free talk about her book tonight, Nov. 13, at 6:30 p.m. at the Center for Contemporary Culture at the Downtown Hartford Public Library, 500 Main St., Hartford.
What is this book about?
Brotherly love, or more accurately, brotherly hate. Harry is the elder of the two, a historian whose specialty is the life of President Richard Nixon. George is the younger, handsomer, richer, more successful sibling – he’s a TV exec — and also the possessor of a violent, often out-of-control temper, which gets the better of him and destroys the entire family, at least at first. It’s left to Harry to pick up the pieces, make a home with George’s pre-teenage kids in his brother’s mansion, get involved with women via the Internet, deal with the aging parents of one of his cyber-lovers, befriend the owners of a Chinese restaurant and a deli and discover fiction written by the disgraced president, all while creating a new and unlikely kind of family. And you think you’ve had stress in your life!
Why you’ll like it:
If words such as “unnerving” signal to you that a book is intriguing, then Homes’ latest should pique your curiosity. Although she delves into deeply disturbing territory, she does this with considerable humor, which makes the grimness palatable. Here’s what author Salman Rushdie has said about “May We Be Forgiven: “This novel starts at maximum force — and then it really gets going. I can’t remember when I last read a novel of such narrative intensity; an unflinching account of a catastrophic, violent, black-comic, transformative year in the history of one broken American family. Flat-out amazing.” That’s enough to get me reaching for this book.
What others are saying:
“An entertaining, old-fashioned American story about second chances…A.M. Homes is a writer I’ll pretty much follow anywhere because she’s indeed so smart, it’s scary; yet she’s not without heart…”May We Be Forgiven” [is] deeply imbued with the kind of “It’s A Wonderful Life”-type belief in redemption that we Americans will always be suckers for, and rightly so,” says Maureen Corrigan on “Fresh Air.”
“Cheever country with a black comedy upgrade…Homes crams a tremendous amount of ambition into “May We Be Forgiven”, with its dark humor, its careening plot, its sex-strewn suburb and a massive cast of memorable characters…its riskiest content, however, is something different: sentiment. This is a Tin Man story, in which the zoned-out Harry slowly grows a heart,” says Carolyn Kellogg in The Los Angeles Times.
“Darkly funny…the moments shared between this ad hoc family are the novel’s most endearing…Homes’ signature trait is a fearless inclination to torment her characters and render their failures, believing that the reader is sophisticated enough – and forgiving enough – to tag along,” says Katie Arnold-Ratliff, Time Magazine.
“At once tender and uproariously funny…one of the strangest, most miraculous journeys in recent fiction, not unlike a man swimming home to his lonely house, one swimming pool at a time: it is an act of desperation turned into one of grace,” says John Freeman in The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
“Heartfelt, and hilarious…Although Homes weaves in piercing satire on subjects like healthcare, education, and the prison system, her tone never veers into the overly arch, mostly thanks to Harold – a loveably earnest guy who creates his own kind of oddball, 21st century family,” says Leigh Newman in O The Oprah Magazine
When is it available?
Homes’ latest is now 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!
Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories
By Sherman Alexie
(Grove, $27, 480 pages)
Who is this author?
Last week I wrote about the latest novel by Louise Erdrich, our incomparable bard of Native American America. Well, perhaps not so incomparable, because there is also Sherman Alexie, who has been writing brilliantly in poems, stories and novels over the past 20 years about similar literary territory, this time set in the Pacific Northwest, where he lives. His many honors include a Pen/Faulkner Award, Stranger Genius Award in Literature, Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature and the Malamud Award. The starred reviews are already piling up for this collection, marking it as one to which attention must be paid.
What is this book about?
Story collections, by their very nature, are about many things, and Alexie is a master of the form. Included in this book are 15 of his very best tales, such as “What You Pawn I Will Redeem,” “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” “The Toughest Indian in the World” and “War Dances,” along with 15 new ones. Here you will discover a son who sees a very tiny version of his dad’s corpse in his omelet, an insomniac and a manicurist who hook up, two flirty evangelists at a dinner party and a do-gooder who doesn’t do so well among the indelible characters he has invented. In this book, Alexie expands his world from brilliant depictions of contemporary life on the reservation to universal truths about the human condition.
Why you’ll like it:
In “Blasphemy,” you will read about racism, alcoholism, the loss of a culture and the persistence of stereotypes, but you won’t think of the subjects in that clinical way, because Alexie creates such vivid characters that the social messages he is transmitting go down easy. Have I mentioned how screamingly funny he can be? How bawdy? He’s all of that and more.
What others are saying:
“A poet and fiction writer for adults of all ages, National Book Award winner Alexie is a virtuoso of the short story. His first two blazing collections, “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” and “The Toughest Indian in the World,” established him as an essential American voice. Now, many books later, best-selling Alexie has created a substantial, big-hearted, and potent collection that combines an equal number of new and selected stories to profound effect…. Questions of authenticity and identity abound. . . . Alexie writes with arresting perception in praise of marriage, in mockery of hypocrisy, and with concern for endangered truths and imperiled nature. He is mischievously and mordantly funny, scathingly forthright, deeply and universally compassionate, and wholly magnetizing. This is a must-have collection,” says Booklist in a starred review.
“[A] sterling collection of short stories by Alexie, a master of the form. . . . . The newer pieces are full of surprises. . . . . These pieces show Alexie at his best: as an interpreter and observer, always funny if sometimes angry, and someone, as a cop says of one of his characters, who doesn’t ‘fit the profile of the neighborhood.’ “ says Kirkus Reviews in its starred review.
“The National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award-winner’s latest work combines 15 classics (“The Toughest Indian in the World”; “Salt”; “Indian Education”) with 15 recent stories of varying length and tenor, and the result should attract new converts and invite back longtime fans. Heralded for his candid depictions of life on a reservation in the Pacific Northwest, versatile Alexie traverses familiar territory while also branching out….Alexie hammers away at ever-simmering issues, like racism, addiction, and infidelity, using a no-holds-barred approach and seamlessly shattering the boundary between character and reader. But while these glimpses into a harried and conflicted humanity prod our consciousness, there’s plenty of bawdiness and Alexie’s signature wicked humor throughout to balance out the weight,” says Publishers Weekly in another starred review.
“The combination of Alexie’s classic stories and new offerings make Blasphemy the perfect book for first-time and devoted readers alike. Reading it from beginning to end makes it plain to see why the voices in Alexie’s work have struck a chord with readers for the past twenty years: they occupy that honest place between warmth and sorrow,” says the Barnes & Noble Review.
When is it available?
“Blasphemy” is at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Barbour 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!
Goodbye For Now
By Laurie Frankel
(Knopf Doubleday, $25.95, 304 pages)
Who is this author?
Laurie Frankel lives in Seattle, which may help explain the quirkiness of her second novel, after “The Atlas of Love.” BookPage has named her to its “10 Women to Watch in 2012” list. She’s writing fulltime now, after teaching college-level writing, literature and gender studies. Her new book has been optioned for a film, so perhaps we will get to watch her, or at least, the complex story she tells.
What is this book about?
Get ready to wrap your mind around this one. What if a brilliant computer programmer comes up with the perfect online dating algorithm, one so accurate that it would put the match-up company he works for out of business? And what if he gets fired after falling in love with a co-worker whose beloved grandma has just died? And what if he comes up with a program that uses their previous online communications and video chats to create what feels like genuine new conversations with Grandma? And what if this catches on and becomes a hot new phenomenon called RePose? And then what if something happens that…..OK, I have to stop here lest I give away a major spoiler.
Why you’ll like it:
This book combines a clever premise with fascinating ethical questions, charming characters, a heart-wrenching love story and easy-to-understand information about computer technology, no mean feat. It’s above all a love story, but one with twists and turns that make it far from the ordinary boy loses job, boy finds girl, girl loses Grandma, couple finds fame, fate finds couple story.
What others are saying:
Like the film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Frankel’s clever and well-considered second novel extends the reach of technology just beyond our fingertips, where it feels possible. In this slightly magical world, her characters remain simple, which allows her to lavish attention on RePose and its implications. Can we assuage our grief or complete unfinished business by interacting with a computer simulation? What happens when that simulation learns and changes, even though the original loved one stopped developing at death?” says the New York Times.
TheStar.com says: “… Seattle-based author Laurie Frankel has written a love story featuring loveable characters and a premise so intriguing you hope someone will actually invent the computer program at the heart of this tale…. The strength of Frankel’s story is that she tackles big questions surrounding grief. Is there one right way to grieve? How important is it to say a final goodbye? If you could “preserve” your loved ones and continue to talk with them, could you move on?”
“Frankel tells a touching story of how this young couple deals with a new love in a world full of loss and sadness. Her first novel, The Atlas of Love, was a wonderful, heartfelt read, and while this book has a completely different story line, it retains that emotional core. Frankel is an author to watch,” says Library Journal.
The Seattle Times says: “…complications ensue, and then unimagined, poleaxing tragedy…. The book’s promotional copy hints at the nature of this tragedy; let it just be said that the events unleash enough tears to rival Seattle’s annual rainfall. And yet, “Goodbye for Now” is still hopeful and thoughtful and securely rooted in a belief in the essential goodness of which people are capable. It’s a book that will grip you, make you laugh and possibly cry, and make you think.”
“Frankel’s (The Atlas of Love, 2010) inviting second novel comes with a cyber plot twist that demands significant suspension of disbelief. For readers who can, their reward is a cute romance …. RePose is born, a controversial business that offers the bereaved the opportunity to stay in computer dialogue with their lost loved ones, provided they have left an electronic memory. The value of this comes home to roost when the plot takes a dark turn, leaving one half of the couple struggling, with RePose’s assistance, to live, love and let go. An excess of ethics overshadows the simple love story, but there’s no denying Frankel’s warmth, wit and ingenuity in this cleverly conceived charmer,” says Kirkus Reviews.
“This entertaining novel, delivers a charming and bittersweet romance as well as a lump in the throat exploration of the nature of love, loss and life (both real and computer simulated). Maybe nothing was meant to last forever, but then again, sometimes love takes on a life of its own,” says BookReporter.
When is it available?
Say hello to “Goodbye For Now” at the Albany or Blue Hills branches of the Hartford Public Library or request it for pickup at the Downtown 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!
Telegraph Avenue
By Michael Chabon
(HarperCollins, $27.99, 480 pages)
Who is this author?
With a Pulitzer Prize to his credit, and an envied reputation for writing novels in a vivid voice, Michael Chabon is one of our best (and best-selling) contemporary authors. His books include the novels “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” “Wonder Boys,” “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” (the Pulitzer winner) “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” and more, the short story collections “A Model World” and “Werewolves in Their Youth” and the essay collections “Maps and Legends” and “Manhood for Amateurs.” Based in Berkeley, Calif., he is married to the novelist Ayelet Waldman.
What is this book about?
Race, pop culture, women’s issues, love in its many varieties and the fate of a used record store in a changing world are the ingredients of “Telegraph Avenue.” Set on the borderline between African American Oakland and Yuppie/hippie/lefty Berkeley, it’s about the friendship and business partnerships of a black and a Jewish couple: the men, Archy and Nat, own Brokeland Records, a vinyl haven and de facto community center whose existence is threatened by a soon-to-be-built megastore owned by a wealthy black former football star, which would offer jobs to a needy neighborhood but will also change its nature, probably for the worst. The women, Gwen and Aviva, are sought-after midwives whose practice falls into jeopardy after an ill-fated birth. Their sons, Nat’s Julie and Archy’s previously unknown Titus, have a relationship, too, and Archy is on the outs with his former blaxpoitation film star dad, Luther, who has a Black Panther past. Chabon sets this melange of characters and clashes in the time of the Kerry-Bush election, shakes it up and lets it rip.
Why you’ll like it:
This man can write. He proved that to me with his delicious and delirious “Yiddish Policeman’s Union,” set in a Jewish outpost in Alaska (don’t ask, just read it), and he does it again here. He’s got one sentence that goes on for 12 pages, among other virtuoso feats, an encyclopedic knowledge of music on vinyl and Marvel comics and a way with words and dialogue that leaves readers astounded. Chabon is one of the most creative and inventive authors writing today, and some – albeit not all — reviewers are already murmuring “great American novel” in their assessments of “Telegraph Avenue.”
What others are saying:
Michiko Kakutani, writing in The New York Times, says: “ …an amazingly rich, emotionally detailed story that addresses [Chabon's] perennial themes—about fathers and sons, husbands and wives, and the consolations of art—while reaching outward to explore the relationship between time past and time present, the weight (or lightness, as the case may be) of history, and the possibility of redemption and forgiveness…Mr. Chabon can write about just about anything…And write about it not as an author regurgitating copious amounts of research, but with a real, lived-in sense of empathy and passion…for the most part he does such a graceful job of ventriloquism with his characters that the reader forgets they are fictional creations. [Chabon's] people become so real to us, their problems so palpably netted in the author’s buoyant, expressionistic prose, that the novel gradually becomes a genuinely immersive experience—something increasingly rare in our ADD age.”
“A genuinely moving story about race and class, parenting and marriage…Chabon is inarguably one of the greatest prose stylists of all time, powering out sentences that are the equivalent of executing a triple back flip on a bucking bull while juggling chain saws and making love to three women,” says Esquire.
Library Journal says: “If any novelist can pack the entire American zeitgeist into 500 pages, it’s Chabon. Here, he deftly treads race, class, gender, and generation lines, showing how they continue to define us even as they’re crossed. …VERDICT: Ambitious, densely written, sometimes very funny, and fabulously over the top, here’s a rare book that really could be the great American novel. Highly recommended.”
“An end-of-an-era epic celebrating the bygone glories of vinyl records, comic-book heroes and blaxploitation flicks in a world gone digital. The novelist, his characters and the readers who will most love this book all share a passion for popular culture and an obsession with period detail. …the plot involves generational relationships between two families, with parallels that are more thematically resonant than realistic…The plot encompasses a birth and a death against the backdrop of the encroachment of a chain superstore…Yet the warmth Chabon feels toward his characters trumps the intricacies and implausibilities of the plot, as the novel straddles and blurs all sorts of borders: black and white, funk and jazz, Oakland and Berkeley, gay and straight….” says Kirkus Reviews.
When is it available?
You can find “Telegraph Avenue” at the Downtown Hartford Public Library or at its Albany, Camp Field 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!
Recent Comments