Monthly Archives: March 2013

Married Love: And Other Stories

By Tessa Hadley

(HarperCollins, $14.99, 203 pages)

 

Who is this author?

Tessa Hadley, who lives in Wales and teaches literature and creative writing at Bath Spa University, has four much-praised novels to her credit. “Accidents in the Home,” “Everything Will Be All Right,” “The Master Bedroom” and “The London Train,” named a New York Times Notable Book. Her earlier collection, “Sunstroke,” also was an NYT Notable. You may be familiar with her work from reading The New Yorker, in which her stories frequently appear: six from this collection were published in the magazine.

What is this book about?

The thread that runs through Hadley’s work is class, that very British (but in fact, universal) determinant of where people stand in relation to one another. Speech, accents, dress, furnishings: all are signifiers, whether we acknowledge it or not. In this collection, Hadley gives us people – largely women – who make choices, often bad ones, without foreseeing the likely consequences. They are not always likeable, but are always fascinating.

Why you’ll like it:

Hadley writes with a sure hand; her characters are sharply drawn and their situations ring true. She gets inside their skin and brings her readers along. She is a quiet writer who tells her stories with subtle power, painting portraits with a pointillist’s skill at using tiny details to evoke the whole. These are stories about families that are domestic in nature but not at all blissful, yet they will haunt the discerning reader long after she finishes the book.

What others are saying:

Publishers Weekly says: “Every story in this very English collection by New Yorker contributor Hadley juxtaposes the promise, even magnificence, of a rich inner life against the disappointing banality of everyday existence. In the title story, the author allows a willful girl to fling herself headlong into an ill-advised marriage, then makes us watch as all her pluck, all her potential, slowly dries up. In other stories, the author gives her characters refuge—a fecund greenhouse, the city of Venice, a house remembered from childhood—but ensures that they are not happy there, that each place is dark or rainy or infested with off-putting people. …Disillusion is Hadley’s stock in trade. She is kind to the families she creates—mothers and fathers especially are respected, even revered. But when she dissects them with her sharp instruments of observation, she strikes nerves that can cause pain.”

Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2012, says: “Novels and stories being such different beasts, it’s rare to find a writer gifted at both: the quick sketches and implications of a short piece; the steady build and satisfying arc of an extended one. Four-time novelist Tessa Hadley deftly handles any length, as her outstanding new collection confirms. Despite the book’s title, “Married Love,” these dozen taut stories are decidedly unsentimental. In “Friendly Fire,” a middle-aged mother cleans toilets in a warehouse, reflecting on her hapless husband and soldier son; in “Post Production,” a film director dies suddenly in his kitchen, leaving a bizarre tangle of relationships behind. Hadley has a special talent for opening lines: “After the sex, he fell asleep,” reads one. Only a writer at the top of her game could make you care what happens next. You will.”

“These stories are rich in character and steeped in class consciousness. In the exquisite title story, a 19-year-old violin student shocks her family by announcing that she intends to marry her music teacher, a married man 45 years her senior. To no one’s surprise, things don’t go well: three babies come along in rapid succession, her music career is forgotten, and other young women catch her husband’s eye. Other stories capture familiar slice-of-life moments: a cleaning woman, diligently scrubbing toilets in an industrial work site, is preoccupied with her son’s safe return from Afghanistan; a rectory-raised college student visiting her boyfriend’s parents for the first time overhears his mother ridiculing her posh accent; and a schoolgirl’s new friendship with a girl from “the Homes” is a cause for concern to her mother. VERDICT … many small moments of everyday life made recognizable by an exceptional storyteller. Highly recommended,” says Library Journal “A subtly incisive vision and the ability to conjure full  fictional scenarios in limited spaces characterize the new collection by a noted British writer. In her second volume of stories, Hadley considers private fears, bad decisions, tipping points and unexpected assertions of free will, via 12 short fictions, six originally published in The New Yorker. …Shrewd, insightful, unpredictable, Hadley’s stories successfully plumb the complicated
daily deeps,” says Kirkus Reviews.

When is it available?

You can find this book at the Mark Twain Branch 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!

The Vatican Diaries: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Power, Personalities and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic Church

by John Thavis

(Viking Adult, $27.95, 336 pages)

Who is this author?

Popes come and popes go, but John Thavis had a longer tenure in Rome than many of them. Now retired, Thavis won prizes for his reportage, which began in 1983 when he became the Rome bureau chief of Catholic News Service. The Catholic Press Association awarded him the St. Francis de Sales Award, named for the patron saint of journalists, in 2007. It is the highest honor given by the Catholic press. He now lives in Bemidji, Minnesota.

What is this book about?

The Vatican is a city-state, an enterprise that employs thousands and influences the beliefs and politics of Catholics (and non-Catholics) the world over. Still, its rituals and intrigues remain a mystery to many. Thavis undertakes to explain it all to us, delving deep into his more than 25 years of covering the Vatican. This rich background enables him to be a sort of fly on the Sistine Chapel’s wall, bringing us stories both humorous and disturbing.

Why you’ll like it:

“I’m convinced that the backstage reality at the Vatican is infinitely more interesting than the caricature of power and authority that dominates the mainstream media,” writes Thavis, and he has the anecdotes to prove his point. His book is both amusing and serious, and it opens the door to one of the most magnificent and mystifying of organizations. Thavis can be irreverent without being insulting, revealing without being a gossip and wise in his interpretations. The ascendance of Pope Francis, after Pope Benedict’s surprising resignation, makes this book both timely and informative.

What others are saying:

Library Journal says: “Recently retired Rome bureau chief for the Catholic News Service, Thavis feels that the Vatican, while globally known, is misunderstood by many. His journalistic obligation to cover the city-state, as he did for more than 25 years, makes him the ideal author for this book. He dedicates the first few chapters to a discussion of the selection of Pope Benedict XVI, presenting the events and characters surrounding this important change with clarity and human detail. He addresses controversial topics in the Catholic Church, from sex—a chapter is devoted to nuances of private opinion on abstinence as compared to using condoms—to sainthood, with relative ease. VERDICT Thavis’s anecdotal presentation will appeal to readers seeking understanding of or connection with the Catholic Church’s heart. This book is recommended for anyone who would like to challenge their own notions and perceptions of the Vatican.”

 Kirkus Reviews

A seasoned reporter on the Vatican beat takes us for an irreverent and revealing visit. …His report, even without comment on the problematic events at the Vatican Bank, serves as a case study in management–and mismanagement–at a considerable worldwide enterprise with 400,000 priestly representatives. Though much history resonates throughout all church events, Thavis concentrates on the history he has witnessed firsthand, including the process of bell-ringing on the naming of a new pope and the work of various functionaries in the organization. We learn …how the matter of the Legion of Christ was bungled when its founder was revealed as a thieving predator and why His Holiness didn’t deal with an anti-Semitic bishop. Thavis also relates his time on the road with the pontiff and notes a futile visit by George W. Bush. He reviews the stalled drives to canonize the late John Paul or Pius XII, whose wartime role is still debated. Especially provocative are the chapters dealing with the mismanagement of diverse sex scandals and, finally, an appraisal of the opaque personality of Benedict, who seems, at least in public, detached, disengaged and often distracted. …Not only provocative, this report is illuminating and fully accessible to members of the faith and doubters alike.”

Says Publishers Weekly: “…entertaining and readable…. Focusing on the reigns of John Paul II and Benedict XVI (neither of whom come off well here), Thavis reveals a great deal about how the Vatican bumbles along. Each chapter focuses on a particular mishap, so readers are sure to be intrigued, whether by “Bones”-the story of how a priceless archeological find almost fell to the expansion of the Vatican’s parking spaces-or a profile of Father Reginald Foster, the Vatican’s rebellious, mouthy (and deeply gifted) chief Latinist. The controversies surrounding the sainthood of Pope Pius XII, the ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius X, and the Catholic church’s struggles with birth control, AIDS, homosexuality, and celibacy are also all included, revealing just how political the Vatican really is. Given such insight, readers may wish that Thavis had provided his own perspective on if, and how, he kept his own faith while working in such an environment.

 “In this highly readable memoir of being a journalist at the Vatican, John Thavis follows the conclaves, sex scandals, internal backstabbing and Olympian nature of the popes with a sense of comic relief at the caravan passing through his viewfinder,” says Jason Berry, author of “Render unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church.”

When is it available?

“The Vatican Diaries” is on the shelves at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Dwight 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!

Beluga

By Rick Gavin

(Minotaur, $24.99, 304 pages)

Who is this author?

Emerging authors always need something to fall back on. When he’s not writing one of his “Delta Noir” comic crime capers, Rick Gavin works as a carpenter and sheetrocker in Louisiana. His first novel, “Ranchero,” introduced the piquant Mississippi Delta characters Nick and Desmond, who re-appear in his latest, “Beluga,” and will be back this fall in “Druid City,” which is set far, far away… in Alabama. How did Gavin go from sheetrocker to author? Here is what he told crimefictionlover.com:

“I read a lot and hear plenty of stories from the people I work with, so I decided to try my hand at writing a few of them down and shaping them to suit me. It took several tries before I came up with anything worth reading. A friend of mine sent the manuscript to an agent who somehow managed to sell it. Just my luck to have started publishing books as the whole business is going under.

“I was born in Georgia and have lived all over the South. I got as far as junior college while working in construction. I helped a sheet rocker for a week while his buddy was out sick and picked up the trade. It lets me work when I want to and write when I don’t. I spent a few months working on a job in the Mississippi Delta, and that’s where I started thinking about Nick and Desmond.”

What is this book about?

If you, like Nick and Desmond, had grabbed a bunch of dirty money from a meth dealer, then you, like Nick and Desmond, would need to launder your stash, and you, like them,  might do that by investing it in various schemes. Such as one that Desmond’s ex-brother-in-law proposes, centering on a trailer stuffed with stolen tires. Soon they’re being threatened by a ninja schoolgirl and some Delta-based gangsters. They might have been better off investing with Fidelity, but then we readers would not gain the dividend of reading a very funny book.

Why you’ll like it:

Gavin knows funny. As he told crimefictionlover.com: “I read a few of Mark Twain’s travel books and couldn’t quite believe how funny they were. It’s easy to make people cry – on the page or in life. Making them laugh is a much taller order. I knew I could do it telling a story but wasn’t sure I could do it writing one, so I gave it a try. I enjoy writing my novels. If they’re only half as entertaining to read as they are to write, then I think I’ll be satisfied. Thanks for laughing out loud.”

Reviewers are laughing out loud, too, praising Gavin’s ability to create wacky characters and set them in improbable situations, counterbalancing the silliness with a very dry wit.

What others are saying:

In a starred review, Booklist says:

“Nick Reid and his massive African American friend Desmond are sitting on $200,000 liberated from a Louisiana meth dealer, and they want to put their money to work for them. Against their better judgment, they finance Desmond’s ex-brother-in-law Larry Carothers’ plan to hijack a truckload of Michelin tires and sell them in small lots across the Mississippi Delta. Their better judgment reminds them that Larry is an idiot who legally changed his name to Beluga LaMonte while in Mississippi’s infamous Parchman prison, but Desmond remains in thrall of Beluga’s ultravolatile ex, Shawnica. Beluga, of course, bungles his own heist. Soon, family clans of Delta ne’er-do-wells—possessed of “raging shiftlessness”—are hunting Beluga, Nick, and Desmond. So is a “ninja schoolgirl assassin” who is determined to see that their deaths are slow and very painful. Ranchero (2011), Gavin’s debut novel, was lauded by many reviewers, and Beluga is a worthy successor. It’s exciting, violent, gritty, and often very funny, and the knowing portrait of a region largely unknown to most readers is almost revelatory. Gavin also has a distinctive narrative voice that could be described as Delta baroque. It might take a page or two for some readers to adapt to his rhythm, but once they do, they’ll be under its spell.”

Publishers Weekly says: “In Gavin’s stellar second slapstick noir set in the Mississippi Delta (after 2011’s Ranchero), former cop Nick Reid and his humongous black buddy, Desmond, invest money in a lame-brained scheme to steal a truckload of tires, which turn out to be the hot property of Lucas Shambrough, a deviant offshoot of a proud local family. In revenge, Lucas promptly sics his cronies—including his psycho mistress, who dresses like a schoolgirl but enjoys pounding people to pieces with blunt instruments—on the thieves. Since one of the endangered hijackers is Desmond’s former brother-in-law, Larry “Beluga” LaMonte, Desmond and Nick intervene to stop the mayhem, though all Nick really wants to do is get better acquainted with an attractive by-the-book policewoman. Gavin clearly likes his dimwitted characters, and he appreciates how hard they struggle with their harsh existence in the Delta. …. this is a captivating and frequently hilarious series.”

 “…Gavin’s captivating style and colloquial voice add a wonderful dimension to Southern regional literature. This will certainly seal his growing reputation in the humorous crime genre,” says Library Journal.

Fifteen more rounds of violent farce for sometime–repo man Nick Reid. …Gavin updates the good-old-boy charm of the “Smokey and the Bandit” movie series but adds some sharp narration by a hero who’s still plenty dumb enough to get into some seriously funny trouble,” says Kirkus Reviews.

When is it available?

“Beluga” is waiting for you 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 History of Us

By Leah Stewart

(Touchstone, $24.99, 367 pages)

Who is this author?

Leah Stewart, whose previous novels are “Husband and Wife,” “The Myth of You and Me” and “Body of a Girl,” lives with her family in Cincinnati, where she teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Cincinnati. But she’s not an Ohio native: she was born at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, where her father was stationed, and later lived in New Mexico, where she went to high school, as well as in Virginia, Idaho, England, Kansas, and Virginia again. She earned degrees at Vanderbilt and the University of Michigan and worked at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. You can learn more about her at  www.LeahStewart.com .

What is this book about?

What’s that old line about man making plans and God laughing? Eloise Hempl thought her life was set on a promising path: at 28, she’s successfully pursuing an academic career at Harvard when she gets one of those life-changing phone calls. Her sister and brother-in-law have died in an accident, her mother (who is a difficult woman even when times are good) cannot cope and Eloise must drop everything to return to Cincinnati to raise her orphaned nieces and nephew in the sprawling family home. Unselfishly, she does, but as the three kids grow up – with problems and plans of their own – Eloise longs to refocus her life on her own needs. That’s understandable, but not easy, as Stewart shows in “The History of Us.”

Why you’ll like it:

Stewart has the knack for creating unusual yet believable characters and to enmesh them in circumstances that readers can readily understand. She gets the way family members can be loving and supporting one moment and selfish and frustrating the next and how difficult it can be for the person who finds herself in the center of it all to do some necessary taking after a lifetime of giving.

What others are saying:

Says Library Journal: “Stewart …has a knack for introducing characters in need of mending: they are not broken, just disjointed, needy, and, at times, without emotional support. Eloise Hempel is the de facto mother to three twenty-something siblings, having become their primary caregiver after their parents were killed in a car accident. Always planning to put her life back on track as a Harvard professor, Eloise has found herself rooted in Cincinnati for 20 years as she parented her sister’s children to adulthood. There’s Josh, her kind nephew, something of a negotiator and very much the middle child, a young man who has recently tossed away a life in music. The youngest, Claire, is a wispy, wily ballet dancer, and sensitive Theodora, the eldest, is nearly as sensible and strong as Eloise. Inextricably linked together, the three also have strong ties to their childhood home. Looking toward future domestic arrangements, Eloise slowly hedges toward momentous decisions, while the siblings dabble in their own decision making, sometimes with disastrous results. VERDICT Domestic fiction fans favoring strong, intelligent characters will be intrigued by Stewart’s introspective examination of a family.”

Kirkus Reviews says: A professor who raised her late sister’s three children grapples with the long-term consequences. … Seventeen years later, the makeshift family is at a turning point. In less-than-free-wheeling Cincinnati, Eloise is loath to come out as a lesbian, although her lover is pressuring her for a commitment. She’s had to settle for a less prestigious position at a local college in order to raise her nephew and nieces in their preferred domicile, Francine’s large, crumbling Cincinnati home. (The narcissistic oldster has long since departed for Sewanee, where she makes trouble from a distance.) ….Francine has complicated matters by reneging on her promise to sign the house over to Eloise. Now, the Machiavellian matriarch insists that she’ll give it to whoever marries first. This hook is not as gimmicky as it seems. Rather, it forces Eloise and her charges to fully examine their connection to each other and to the world. With a playwright’s precise, sometimes excoriating dialogue and an insightful novelist’s judicious use of interior monologue, Stewart crafts a tearful yet unsentimental family coming-of-age story.

“A sprawling novel with some of the off-kilter charm of Anne Tyler’s work, The History of Us glows with affection for its wounded,  familiar characters,” says the Boston Globe.

“Touching drama . . . Faced with urgent choices, Eloise and the grown kids react with varying degrees of wisdom and pigheadedness, but as Stewart tenderly demonstrates, they remain – for better or worse – a family,” says  People.

When is it available?

You can borrow it 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!

Drinking With Men

By Rosie Schaap

(Riverside, $26.95, 288 pages)

Who is this author?

If you read the “Drink” column in The New York Times, then you already know Rosie Schaap. If not, this book is a fine introduction to her work. Schaap, a born-and-bred New Yorker, contributes to “This American Life” and npr.org. She has also worked as a bartender (no surprise there) and asan English teacher and an editor (also unsurprising). But, as they say on TV infomercials, “That’s not all!” Schaap has also been a fortuneteller, a librarian at a paranormal society, a preacher/chaplain in response to 9/11 (not typical for a Jewish girl), a community organizer and a manager of homeless shelters. She comes from a family of writers: her late father, Dick, was the famous sportswriter, ESPN host and author; as is her brother Jeremy; her cousin, Phil Schaap, is a jazz historian and DJ.

What is this book about?

A girl walks into a bar…and into a lifelong love of the kind of watering hole where everybody does indeed know your name and is very glad you came. A high-school dropout who left to be a Deadhead, later a student at Bennington College and occasionally employed as a tender of bars, she came to love the peculiar intimacy of small, local drinking joints and the people who form a kind of family there. In her book, she chronicles bars she has known and loved in the U.S., Canada and Ireland and as she talks about these places, which include the Metro North bar car, she tells the story of her life.

Why you’ll like it:

Just as you can meet a total stranger in a bar and find yourself telling him or her your life story over a pint or martini or two, Schaap draws you in with her warmth and vividly descriptive writing. To give you an idea of her voice, here is what she told a Barnes & Noble interviewer:

“A bar is a funny kind of affinity group. If we fall in love with a bar, we don’t instantly know everybody else who loves it. We come together because of this place, so we’re not family, we’re not friends of longstanding, we’re not necessarily friends from any other part of our lives, but there’s something in all of us that responds to whatever that bar had to give us and we stay there and we come to love each other. There is this kind of real closeness, but a distance at the same time that can feel safe.…. You know, a bar is a strange kind of sanctified space where certain things don’t have to be let in. But you can make friends with someone at a bar and be surprised by how that friendship deepens.”

What others are saying:

“[Schaap] describes the unusual camaraderie among bar ‘regulars’ with poignant specificity. It’s a cozy, intimate pleasure to go belly-to-bar with her,” says Entertainment Weekly.

“With focused premise and expansive feeling… [and] very smart assessments of a mode of being that’s not given the credit it deserves. ‘Drinking With Men’ would pair very well this time of year with a well-aged whiskey and a handful of peanuts,” says The Boston Globe.

“A wonderfully funny and openhearted book from a generous, charismatic writer… [Schaap is] a born storyteller… There’s no substitute for the kind of community you can find in a good tavern. And no American writer can explain it better than Rosie Schaap,” says NPR.org.

“Witty…a vivid study of both Schaap’s life in bars, often as one of the few women regulars, and a gimlet-eyed exploration of modern bar culture,” says the Chicago Tribune.

Publishers Weekly says:  “Schaap … sought out an early kinship with adult company and alcohol, a lifelong pursuit she fondly chronicles as she recounts the homes and families she’s made in bars around the world. With an absentee father and a complicated relationship with her mother, she gets satisfaction from the interest other adults took in her, utilizing that dynamic when she briefly becomes a tarot card reader as a teen in the bar car of the Metro North commuter train, trading readings for beers. Feeling out of place at home and at school, she drops out at 16 to follow the Grateful Dead full-time, ending up on the West Coast. In college at 19, she goes to Dublin for a summer study abroad and it’s there, at a cozy, smoky bar frequented by writers and storytellers, that Schaap feels the sense of belonging and community she’s been thirsting for. Back in the U.S., she discovers bars near school in Vermont and later in New York that offer a “safe haven, my breathing space… where I figured out how to be myself.” Feeling like a regular matters to her, providing her with an anchor and a code of kindness and decency to live by learned from how patrons and bartenders treats one other. Schaap estimates she’s passed 13,000 hours in bars, and judging by the warmth and camaraderie she evokes, it clearly has been time well spent.”

Says Kirkus Reviews: The author extolls the pleasures of “bar regularhood,” focusing on those establishments with distinct atmospheres–sometimes evoking European cafe societies, other times fondly portraying out-of-the-way places with colorful owners–to demonstrate how they can serve as “relief from isolation,” a “refuge from the too-deep and too-personal,” and a means for broadening one’s ability to listen and empathize with others. Schaap briefly acknowledges the negative aspects, especially for women who frequent bars alone, but she paints a mostly romantic portrait of discovering friendship and conviviality that is gradually tempered over time. …The author only briefly touches on alcoholism, one possible explanation for the hundreds of hours spent in bars; what remains is a brisk, lucid account of finding a tenuous peace after a period of escapism. The conclusions reached are familiar, but Schaap’s talent for balancing self-revelation with humor, melancholy and wisdom turn an otherwise niche topic
into one with greater appeal.”

When is it available?

Cheers! “Drinking With Men” is on tap 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!

All This Talk of Love: A Novel

By Christopher Castellani

(Algonquin, $13.95, 320 pages)

Who is this author?

Like his characters, Christopher Castellani comes from a family of Italian immigrants who settled in Delaware. Educated at Swarthmore, Tufts and Boston University, he lives in Arlington, Mass., and is the artistic director of Grub Street, a creative writing center in Boston. He also is on the faculty of the Warren Wilson College Low-Residency MFA program and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Castellani has now written three novels about the Grasso family: “A Kiss from Maddalena,” which won a Massachusetts Book Award, “The Saint of Lost Things “ and “All This Talk of Love.” A fourth novel is in the works.

What is this book about?

When Maddalena met Antonio, it was 50 years ago in the village of Santa Cecilia in the old country. They fell in love and, hoping for a better future, emigrated to the U.S. Maddalena thought she would never see her parents or sisters or brothers again, nor would anyone bind up the family rifts she left behind. But her daughter, Prima, wants to bring them back to Italy to visit and perhaps heal long-simmering disagreements. Maddalena resists: there are secrets there she does not want to face.  But calamities — a devastating auto accident and the onset of Alzeimhers’ Disease — make the trip even more important, a journey to the past that demands to be taken.

Why you’ll like it:

Family stories, well-told, have strong appeal, and Castellani is a talented storyteller. Anyone, not just those of Italian ancestry, who has family that left their country of origin to come to America will relate to the Grassos. Castellani knows how to employ sentiment without slipping into soap opera, and the clan of passionate people he has invented will jump off the page for his readers. Some may want to begin by reading : “A Kiss from Maddalena” and “The Saint of Lost Things” to get the full family picture, but “All This Talk of Love” can stand alone as a fascinating tale.

What others are saying:

Library Journal says: “Some might consider the Grasso family co-dependent. Frankie, a PhD candidate who lives in Boston and is having an affair with his married dissertation adviser, still talks to his mom, Prima, on the phone every night. Prima is the “best friend” of her four sons, the last of whom will soon graduate high school and leave the nest. Trying to keep her family together and fill the pending void, she engineers a family trip to Santa Cecilia, Italy, the birthplace of her parents, Antonio and Maddalena. The trouble is, Maddalena refuses to go. The entire family is haunted by the long-ago death of Maddalena’s eldest son, Tony, and no one has the full story as to why he took his own life. VERDICT: At turns funny and tragic, Castellani’s third novel … recalls similar contemporary family sagas, such as Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections,” but is far less cynical. Literary scholar Frankie reviles sentimentality, and the author manages to stop short of it while still making the story emotionally resonant. This reviewer defies
anyone not to fall in love with the Grassos.”

Says Kirkus Reviews:  “You have to tend to family like you tend to a garden,” writes Castellani …in his third literary effort. Matriarch Maddalena, “reporting and worrying and complaining and negotiating,” needs more care than any other flower in the Grasso family garden. Maddalena is 70-something, still beautiful, still grieving over the death of her first-born son, Tony, and very much the axis of life for husband Antonio, daughter Prima and son Francesco. Antonio is semiretired from his successful restaurant. Prima is well-married to prosperous Tom Buckley and mother of four strapping sons. Much to Maddalena’s distress, Frankie, born after Tony’s death, is a grad student in faraway Boston, “building additions to the sprawling mansion of his dissertation with the zeal of Bob Vila.” There is a certain equilibrium, even though Tony’s death was a suicide that left behind guilty secrets in the hearts of Antonio and Prima. Then, Prima uses the celebration of her youngest son’s religious confirmation to announce she has bought tickets for the entire family for a sojourn to her parents’ ancestral village, Santa Cecilia in Italy. Maddalena angrily dismisses the gift. Refusing to voice her objection, she fears returning to see the beauty of her youth ripped away by reality and to again meet Vito, her first love. Layered over this family conflict are other, more serious catastrophes. Prima and her youngest are seriously injured in an auto accident, an incident that turns her from nurturing and devoted to bitter and angry. Then, Maddalena begins a rapid descent into “old timer’s.” Castellani writes movingly, affectingly of immigrant life, of the dichotomy of cultures, of the persistence of love across generations.

“Castellani juggles multiple stories and characters with remarkable deftness, never striking a false or forced note. His evocations of the love between parents and their adult children, the bittersweetness of age, and the ambivalence of immigrants toward their old and new homes is nuanced and original,” says the Boston Globe.

When is it available?

It’s at the Downtown Hartford Public Library now.

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!

Good Kids

By Benjamin Nugent

(Scribner, $23, 224 pages)

Who is this author?

Benjamin Nugent, who grew up in Amherst, Mass., is Director of Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University, where he teaches fiction and nonfiction in its MFA and undergraduate programs. He has contributed nonfiction pieces to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, and n+1, and the periodical Tin House has published his fiction. He was an Iowa Arts Fellow at the  prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

What is this book about?

A teenage boy and girl see something shocking in the natural foods store in their Massachusetts town. No, not highly processed junk food: what they see is his dad kissing her mom. And poof, there go two marriages down the drain. The devastated teens swear a vow: they’ll never ever cheat on someone they love. And they keep that vow – until temptation unexpectedly arises years later when they meet again at age 28 and chemistry kicks in, despite the fact that each of them is engaged.

Why you’ll like it:

Nugent has a good ear for the way kids who are part of Generation Y and their Baby-Boomer parents talk, and that lends weight to this tale. This novel explores the complexities of modern parenting, the powerful pull of infatuation, the difficulties of being loyal and other dilemmas of contemporary relationships, and satirizes some of the excesses of  the liberal pieties that flourish in an academic setting. You may not always like the characters he has created, but chances are you will recognize their types.

What others are saying:

Library Journal says: “At 15, Josh and Khadijah are “good kids,” eager to please their respective parents—until they discover that Josh’s dad is having an affair with Khadijah’s mother. They make an impulsive vow never to cheat on anyone. Fast-forward a decade or so: Josh is the underemployed former guitarist of a one-hit-wonder band, engaged to a successful television personality. Khadijah is the long-distance fiancée of one of Josh’s acquaintances. Their paths cross, and suddenly they must revisit their feelings for each other and their commitment to fidelity. The novel ends as a bittersweet rumination on accepting a parent’s shortcomings and not letting them define you. VERDICT: Nugent is a playful, stylish author with a flair for chapter titles, such as “I Don’t Even Try To Think of Anyone in Terms of Categories Like That.” … fans of the author’s memoir, American Nerd, will be curious about his fiction debut.”

“This dazzling first novel is many things at once: an incisive examination of class and politics, a richly comic portrayal of humiliation and self-loathing, and a guided tour of love in its varied forms. Benjamin Nugent’s writing is alive with intelligence, authenticity, and angst. Fans of Jonathan Franzen, you just may have found your new favorite writer,” says Curtis Sittenfeld, author of “Prep” and “American Wife.”

“Beware the God-like authorial power of fantasizing, runs the inescapable admonition throughout this novel, for it can damage your flexibility in real life, where you lack the ability to fashion people according to your whims. By the time we hit the denouement, “Good Kids” has emerged as a modest modern-day rebuttal of the fairy tale romance,” says the Boston Globe.

“Nearly every film adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” omits the latter parts of the novel, which show how the emotional failings of  one generation can wreak havoc on the next. Benjamin Nugent’s fiction debut, “Good Kids,” focuses on that second part, how the second generation responds to the emotional trauma and either fights against it or falls victim to it in the same way,” says Kevin McFarland for The A.V. Club.

When is it available?

It’s available now at the Albany 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!

Vampires In the Lemon Grove

By Karen Russell

(Knopf, $24.95, 256 pages)

Who is this author?

Karen Russell has a resume most writers would die for. She was named to The New Yorker’s list of the 20 best writers under the age of 40 and to Granta’s list of Best of Young American Novelists, and the National Book Foundation put her on its list of five best writers under the age of 35.  A native of Miami who now lives in Philadelphia, she won the 2012 National Magazine Award for fiction, and her first novel, “Swamplandia! “(2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is a graduate of the Columbia MFA program, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2012 Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. She also gives her books intriguing titles: besides “Vampires In the Lemon Grove” and “Swamplandia,” she published the story collection “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.”

What is this book about?

Russell’s stories are ostensibly about the ordinary world: a lonely teenager on a beach, a kid who suffers bullying, a war vet with an odd tattoo that mystifies his masseuse…but wait. There also are the creatures who give the book its title: two century-old vampires whose marriage is on the skids because one has developed a fear of flying…nothing mundane about that one. Nor is there anything ordinary about Japanese girls who exude strands of silk from their bodies or a group of former American presidents who now live in a barn because they have somehow been transmuted into horses. If all of this sounds too precious or odd, be reassured that in Russell’s gifted imagination, these whimsical premises are the solid underpinning of some very compelling fiction.

Why you’ll like it:

She’s very funny. She’s truly weird. She captures absurdity like a wily hunter and constructs fantasies that spring from the familiar world. She can scare her readers as well as entertain them. The eight stories in Russell’s latest collection are reinforcing her reputation for having a unique voice in contemporary fiction, albeit one influenced by writers as disparate as Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, George Saunders and Carson McCullers.

What others are saying:

“…. Russell deftly combines elements of the weird and supernatural with acute psychological realism; elements of the gothic with dry, contemporary humor. …she has fashioned a quirky, textured voice that is thoroughly her own: by turns lyrical and funny, fantastical and meditative. “Vampires in the Lemon Grove” shows Ms. Russell more in control of her craft than ever…In these tales [she] combines careful research (into, say, a legend, a historical episode or a tradecraft) with minutely imagined details and a wonderfully vital sleight of hand to create narratives that possess both the resonance of myth and the immediacy of something new,” says Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times.

“…”Vampires in the Lemon Grove” should cement [Russell's] reputation as one of the most remarkable fantasists writing today…Two of these tales are among the best and most chilling I’ve read in years…[the] exquisite precision and conflation of the commonplace with the marvelous is a hallmark of Russell’s prose style, infusing her work with a sense of the uncanny that keeps  a reader off balance right until the last sentence,” says The Washington Post .

Publishers Weekly says: “There are only eight stories in Russell’s new collection, but as readers of “Swamplandia!” know, Russell doesn’t work small. She’s a world builder, and the stranger the better. Not that she writes fantasy, exactly: the worlds she creates live within the one we know—but sometimes they operate by different rules. …. Russell’s great gift—along with her antic imagination—who else would give us a barn full of ex-presidents reincarnated as horses?—is her ability to create whole landscapes and lifetimes of strangeness within the confines of a short story.”

Kirkus Reviews says: “A consistently arresting, frequently stunning collection of eight stories. Though Russell enjoyed her breakthrough–both popular and critical–with her debut novel (“Swamplandia!,” 2011), she had earlier attracted notice with her short stories (“St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” 2006). Here, she returns to that format with startling effect, reinforcing the uniqueness of her fiction, employing situations that are implausible, even outlandish, to illuminate the human condition. Or the vampire condition, as she does in the opening title story, where the ostensibly unthreatening narrator comes to term with immortality, love and loss, and his essential nature. … With the concluding “The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis,” about a group of teenage bullies and an urban scarecrow, the fiction blurs all distinction between creative whimsy and moral imperative. Even more impressive than Russell’s critically acclaimed novel.”

When is it available?

“Vampires” can be found resting on the new book shelf 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!