Monthly Archives: August 2013

Return to Oakpine: A Novel

By Ron Carlson

(Viking Adult, $25.95, 272 pages)

Who is this author?

Ron Carlson, who directs the writing program at the University of California at Irvine, has five story collections and four novels to his credit, including “The Signal” and “Five Skies.” His storied have found homes in Harper’s, The New Yorker, Playboy, GQ, Best American Short Stories, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. Born in Utah, he graduated from the University of Utah and then moved east to teach here in Connecticut at The Hotchkiss School. Highly regarded as a writer of contemporary fiction, Carlson has won several prestigious awards for his work.

What is this book about?

We’re none of us getting any younger, and Carlson explores the wistful and often discomfiting process of growing older while still attempting to grow up in this novel of four men from Wyoming getting back together after many years after following different  paths. In high school, Jimmy, Craig, Mason and Frank played in the same band, called Life on Earth, and Jimmy fled the West for New York City after his brother died tragically. In 1999, now a novelist and fatally ill, he goes home. Mason, a Denver lawyer, comes back to settle his parents’ estate. Craig and Frank are there because they never left. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll get the band back together.

Why you’ll like it:

If you liked the (sadly) cancelled TV series, “Men of a Certain Age,” you’ll like this book. It’s a tender and thoughtful look at how life happens when you’ve been making other plans, how the decisions made in youth reverberate down the years and how the bonds forged in those days can sustain you decades later. Summer is ending, and this is a book with autumnal warmth and sadness both.

What others are saying:

“In this novel by an American master, four middle-aged friends, once members of the same high school band, reunite in their Wyoming hometown thirty years later, reconciling the people they’ve become with the kids they used to be.,” says O, The Oprah Magazine.

Publishers Weekly says: “The smalltown homecoming featured in the fourth novel from Carlson… proves a bittersweet and nostalgic one. Jimmy Brand, following a 30-year absence from his hometown and a successful career in New York City as a novelist, returns to Oakpine, Wyo., in 1999, broke and deathly ill from AIDS. His father Edgar, still wrongly blaming Jimmy for his oldest son Matt’s fatal boating accident and struggling to accept Jimmy’s homosexuality, banishes him to the family’s garage-converted apartment. Jimmy’s old friend Craig Ralston, the town hardware store owner, comes by with his teenage son, Larry, to fix up the garage, sparking Craig’s fond memories of their high school band, Life on Earth. Craig, along with fellow bandmates Mason Kirby, who left Oakpine to pursue a lucrative law career in Denver, and Frank Gunderson, a local bar owner, decide to resurrect Life on Earth, a welcomed diversion from their divorces and unsatisfying jobs, while Jimmy seeks to repair the long-term rift with his father. Carlson warmly evokes small town life, such as when he describes Larry’s senior high school prom, and this sometimes-melancholy tale reaches a satisfying conclusion with the reunited rock group’s entry into a local battle-of-the-bands contest. “

Says Kirkus Reviews: “…Jimmy, a gay New York writer stricken by AIDS, has come home to die. While his mom is tenderly welcoming, his dad doesn’t want him in the house, so Jimmy bunks in the garage… This is the story of that once tightknit group. The erstwhile drummer, Mason, a successful lawyer with his own firm in Denver, has returned to sell his childhood home. The visit leads to soul-searching by this unhappy, driven man. He feels better refurbishing his house; he’s joined by Craig, the hardware store owner, who’d rather spackle and paint than make nice to his customers. The pleasure of physical exertion is a major theme. The fourth member of the quartet, saloon owner Frank, rejuvenated by his second marriage, has no worries. Also featured prominently are Craig’s 17-year-old son, Larry, who loves his town but is ready to move on, and his wife, Marci, tempted to leave him for her boss. Jimmy has just enough strength to help Larry’s eventual girlfriend find her identity through her story writing and to sing along with the guys, who have re-formed the band and entered a talent contest. Sentimentality is the obvious trap, but Carlson avoids it. …”

When is it available?

It’s available 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!

Blood Oranges (A Siobhan Quinn Novel)

By Caitlin R. Kiernan, writing as Kathleen Tierney

(Roc trade, $16, 288 pages)

Who is this author?

First, let’s get the name thing straight: Caitlin R. Kiernan, who has written many novels, including “Daughter of Hounds,” “The Red Tree” and the presumed semi-autobiographical “The Drowning Girl: A Memoir,” set in Providence and narrated by an unreliable, fascinating, schizophrenic character named Imp, sometimes uses the pen name  Kathleen Tierney. Kiernan has been nominated four times for nominee for the World Fantasy Award and a twice for the Shirley Jackson Award and is known for her dark science fiction and fantasy works, which include her novels, comic books, short stories, novellas – and she has published scientific papers on paleontology.

According to Wikipedia, Kiernan is an unusual woman: she is a transsexual, a lesbian and atheist pagan. Born in Dublin in 1964, she grew up in Alabama and now lives in Providence, with her partner: photographer and doll maker Kathryn A. Pollnac. She also has a blog: Dear Sweet Filthy World: The Online Journal of a Construct Sometimes Known as Caitlín R. Kiernan.

What is this book about?

Think writers have exhausted the vampire/werewolf genres? Think the “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games” series had the most interesting female characters? Well, think again, and meet Siobhan Quinn, a nasty-talking but funny high-school dropout who prefers to go by her last name. Despite being a formerly homeless smack addict, Quinn is pretty darn handy at killing supernatural monsters that happen to be roaming around Providence, perhaps hoping to watch the WaterFire shows on the river. But oops – Quinn gets bitten one night not only by a vampire but also by a werewolf, and that turns her into one of the demons she’s been hunting down. That raises questions and problems for Quinn to solve and for the reader to puzzle out along with her.

Why you’ll like it:

Kiernan/Tierney writes with a brash, sardonic and original voice quite unlike the standard stuff you’ll find in most paranormal romances, and in this book, she manages to both mock and manipulate a certain kind of fiction. You have to be good to do that successfully, and she is: she has partnered with the likes of Neil Gaiman on some projects and has carved out a top spot among those who write contemporary weird fiction. If dark and imaginative writing is to your taste, bite into “Blood Oranges.”

Here is how she defined herself as a writer in a blog entry: “I’m getting tired of telling people that I’m not a ‘horror’ writer. I’m getting tired of them not listening, or not believing. Most of them seem suspicious of my motives.”… “I’ve never tried to fool anyone. I’ve said I don’t write genre ‘horror.’ A million, billion times have I said that.”… “It’s not that there are not strong elements of horror present in a lot of my writing. It’s that horror never predominates those works. You may as well call it psychological fiction or awe fiction. I don’t think of horror as a genre. I think of it – to paraphrase Doug Winter – as an emotion, and no one emotion will ever characterize my fiction.”

What others are saying:

Publishers Weekly says: The first urban fantasy title (and first publication under the Tierney name) for Caitlín R. Kiernan … brings an engagingly fresh perspective to well-trod territory. A gory whirl through numerous graveyards and the seamier parts of contemporary Providence, R.I., introduces readers to narrator Siobhan Quinn. Though Quinn is quick to denounce “Young Plucky Vampire Hunters” and “those trashy ParaRom paperbacks,” readers could be forgiven for putting her in the same category at first: she hunts “nasties,” supernatural creatures like ghouls, vampires, and werewolves. Then a werewolf and a vampire both bite her in the same night and she becomes a “nasty” herself, forcing her to adapt, improvise, and reconsider her allies as she searches for answers and vengeance. Quinn is queer, foul-mouthed, a formerly homeless ex-junkie, and a well-read high school dropout, and her idiosyncratic and thoroughly compelling voice will hook urban fantasy readers right away. Colorful side characters and a fully realized setting make this fast-paced series opener well worth checking out.

Says Kirkus Reviews: “First of a wisecracking supernatural horror series, from an author who’s better known as Caitlín R. Kiernan. … Narrator Siobhan Quinn–she insists, fiercely, on Quinn–a street-dwelling heroin addict, became a monster-slayer after killing a ghoul (though, as she finally admits, it was by accident). She has a steady supply of good dope and an apartment thanks to her benefactor, the mysterious fixer and manipulator she calls Mean Mr. B (he uses different names, all beginning with B, depending on circumstance and whim), since he considers it useful to have a monster-slayer in his debt. Having come to believe in her own notoriety, she goes werewolf hunting in Rhode Island. Instead of staying alert, however, Quinn shoots up and gets bitten by the werewolf–just as a vampire shows up! When she regains consciousness, astonished to have survived either antagonist, let alone both, she finds she’s now a werewolf and a vampire. At least she’s no longer an addict, and when Mr. B shows his pleasure at her new condition, she begins to suspect she’s now somebody’s weapon–but whose, and aimed at what? Clearly, she’d better find out–and fast. The New England setting is colorful and convincing, and Tierney populates it with a weird and splendid set of supernatural beings. Quinn isn’t the most reliable of narrators, though eventually she’ll stumble out with the truth; nor, as an investigator, does she prove the sharpest of wits, but she gets there. Add in the downbeat tone that somehow manages to be uplifting and the sort of gratuitously gory action that used to be called splatterpunk and readers are in for a memorably exhilarating and engaging experience. Sly, sardonically nasty and amusingly clever.”

Brit Mandelo, writing for Tor.com, says: “As someone who has spent quite a lot of time in their life reading urban fantasy—across all of its definitions, and yes, even a little of the paranormal romance stuff—I can safely say that Kiernan has her finger jammed firmly on the pulse-point of all the silly, weird, idiosyncratic things that make the genre so very popular (and, as Blood Oranges makes clear, laughable). …. while Quinn’s voice is concrete and entirely believable (though she herself is entirely un-believable, as she makes clear to the reader repeatedly), the control required to manage it, knowing what a familiar reader knows of Kiernan’s style, is impressive.”

When is it available?

It’s waiting for you at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Ropkins 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!

Visitation Street

By Ivy Pochoda

(Ecco/Dennis Lehane, $25.99, 320 pages)

Who is this author?

Ivy Pochoda, who once was a professional squash player, now lives in Los Angeles with her husband, but she grew up in the Cobble Hill neighhorhood of  Brooklyn and also lived in Red Hook, the setting for her second novel, “Visitation Street.  She also is the author of “The Art of Disappearing.”

Best-selling author Dennis Lehane selected “Visitation Street” to be the second book published under his new HarperCollins imprint.  Here is what he has to say about it:

“Visitation Street is urban opera writ large. Gritty and magical, filled with mystery, poetry and pain, Ivy Pochoda’s voice recalls Richard Price, Junot Diaz, and even Alice Sebold, yet it’s indelibly her own.”

What is this book about?

Red Hook, like so much of Brooklyn, N.Y., is a working-class place undergoing massive cultural change as gentrification takes hold and hordes of hipsters move in and begin to crowd against the housing projects. In this book, it is summer in Red Hook and two bored teenage girls seek some excitement one night by taking a raft out into the bay. But something goes terribly wrong: they disappear and then one, Val, turns up hurt and unconscious on the shore. Her friend June is apparently gone forever. The book shows how this affects various neighbors, like Fadi, a Lebanese man who owns a bodega that he hopes will become information central about June; Cree, the son of a murdered man who unwittingly brings suspicion on himself; and Jonathan, a drunk who dropped out of the Juilliard school and harbors a difficult  past. Val, of course, has issues of her own and a secret she can’t reveal.

Why you’ll like it:

Nothing satisfies a reader like a well-told story with compelling characters, a plot that grabs her interest and a voice that is beautifully expressive. Pochoda gives us all of that and more, making, through her powers of descriptive writing, Red Hook itself stand out as a character in itself. Reviewers are gushing over this literary thriller’s vividness and puzzle of a plot, and the way Pochoda peels back the layers of the story. This is one of those satisfying book in which the way it is written is just as important and powerful as the story it tells.

What others are saying:

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, July 2013 review says: A crowd gathers on the corner of Visitation Street after the disappearance of two local girls–one of whom has washed up on shore, barely alive–and our narrator teases: “The story develops slowly.” The same can be said of Ivy Pochoda’s atmospheric debut, which is as much an ode to the ragged neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn as it is a slow-burning mystery. At times I felt I was reading of some foreign or forgotten city, a moody and crumbling place in the shadow of Manhattan. While the damaged-goods characters are quite memorable–a woman spends her days “speaking” to her dead husband; a music teacher drinks to oblivion, haunted by his dead mother; an immigrant shop owner dreams of a better Red Hook–the star here is “the Hook.” One character describes it as “a neighborhood of ghosts,” where trash rolls like tumbleweed–hazy, smelly, noisy, blue collar, crime-ridden, yet full of heart and hope. Says one character, who wants to flee Red Hook in the boat his murdered father left him: “It’s not such a bad place … if you look under the surface.” The same can be said of Visitation Street, a deceptively literary tale that brings to mind its benefactor, Denis Lehane, who published the book under his new imprint.

Says Kirkus Reviews: “A mystery about a missing girl and the ghosts she leaves behind. One summer evening, teenagers Val and June float on a rubber raft out into the bay off Brooklyn’s Red Hook section. Only Val returns, her near-dead body washed upon the shore. But Val can’t seem to tell anyone what happened to them or why June disappeared without a trace. For weeks afterward, the Lebanese shopkeeper Fadi tries to keep his customers informed about developments and neighborhood rumors in the case. Meanwhile, Jonathan, an ex-Julliard student turned jingle writer and music teacher, may be getting too emotionally close to Val. The novel’s focus isn’t on the police investigation, but on the missing girl’s effect on her neighbors and friends. Who saw Val and June take the boat out? Can June possibly be alive? Can young Cree tell what he knows without being automatically accused of a crime since he’s a black man? The book is rich with characters and mood and will make readers feel like they’ve walked the streets of Red Hook. Everyone in the story deserves a measure of sympathy, from the girls on the raft to the shoplifting teenager to the pathetic uncle who won’t tell anyone anything for free. Red Hook itself feels like a character–hard-worn, isolated from the rest of New York, left behind and forgotten. A terrific story in the vein of Dennis Lehane’s fiction.”

“Exquisitely written, Pochoda’s poignant second novel examines how residents of Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood deal with grief, urban development, loss, and teenage angst. In a fit of boredom, 15-year-old best friends Val Marino and June Giatto take a raft out on the bay one July evening, but only Val returns, her unconscious body washed up on the shore. June’s disappearance and what might have happened on the raft become the linchpin for Fadi, a Lebanese native who wants his bodega to be the pulse of neighborhood news; Jonathan Sprouse, a Julliard dropout with dark secrets; and 18-year-old Cree James, a kid from the projects who longs for a better life but remains stymied by his father’s murder. Pochoda (The Art of Disappearing) couples a raw-edged, lyrical look at characters’ innermost fears with an evocative view of Red Hook, a traditionally working-class area of Brooklyn undergoing gentrification that still struggles with racism and the aftermath of drug violence. By the end, the gap between “the front” of Red Hook with its well-tended streets near the waterfront and “the back” with its housing projects remains wide,” says  Publishers Weekly.

Library Journal says: “Pochoda’s second novel …is the second book from Dennis Lehane’s eponymous imprint at Ecco …and it’s easy to see why he’s throwing his significant weight behind her work. Set in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, the novel opens on a warm summer evening when 15-year-old Val and June push a small pink raft onto the bay and set sail. Only Val makes it back to shore, and as the resulting drama unspools as readers meet a full cast of utterly believable characters including Fadi, a shopkeeper-turned-newsman; Cree, a local boy who winds up targeted by the police; and Jonathan, a music teacher who gets entangled in the mystery of June’s disappearance. It’s an opera set in one small community, and as Val struggles to cope with the loss of her friend and the neighborhood characters play their parts, large and small, Pochoda’s riveting prose will keep readers enthralled until the final page. VERDICT The prose is so lyrical and detailed that readers will easily imagine themselves in Red Hook. A great read for those who enjoy urban mysteries and thrillers with a literary flair.”

In The New York Times, Alexander Nazaryan writes: “Fans of Richard Price will immediately recognize his New York here, with its barely concealed ethnic tensions played out on a landscape of grit sprinkled with flecks of beauty…despite the perfunctory presence of two detectives, this is not a paint-by-numbers thriller. As June’s disappearance grows longer, and the flowers on her dockside memorial begin to wilt, it becomes clear that “Visitation Street” is less about the one who is missing than the ones who remain…Teenage girls are always going missing in mystery novels; something about their mixture of youthful innocence and nascent sexuality must make them ripe subjects for mystery writers. So while they are often convenient plot devices, they are rarely conceived as fully as Ms. Pochoda’s Val…”

When is it available?

You can visit “Visitation Street” 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!

Lexicon

By Max Barry

(Penguin, $26.95, 400 pages)

Who is this author?

Max Barry, an Australian writer with a taste for satire and a love of dark, dark comedy, displays his talents in his fifth novel, “Lexicon.” His earlier books are “Syrup” (1999), “Jennifer Government” (2003), “Company” (2006), and “Machine Man” (2011). His ability to spin tales that make caustic cultural commentaries through absurd situations has earned him comparisons with such authors as Robert Sheckley, William Tenn, Kurt Vonnegut, Will Self, Christopher Moore and George Saunders – company any writer would be proud to keep.

What is this book about?

They call them “poets.” But these graduates of an elite private school in Virginia aren’t writing verse. Instead, they are taught to hone their ability to persuade others, using words as though they were weapons and bending the minds of those who hear them.  By figuring out their listeners’ personality types, they can “unlock” their minds and manipulate their thinking.

In Barry’s new thriller, a mysterious organization runs the school and is grooming a powerfully talented student, Emily, who is a runaway and street grafter. She is their star and is taught to never let anyone else into her own mind, for fear of being “persuaded” herself, against her will. That works, until Emily does the unthinkable: she falls in love. Meanwhile, another character, Wil, is introduced. Kidnapped in an airport by two men, he is told he is a player in a secret war and that he has a mind that cannot be “unlocked.” The story then gest weirder and more dangerous, as the existence of  secret of a word that can kill is revealed.

  Why you’ll like it:

We’ve heard a lot this year about privacy, identity and the uses – some good, some dangerous – of data-collection, and this book delves deep into these issues. Is our culture brainwashing us through marketing, “false flag” manipulation of events and other forms of deceit? What explains why people vote against their best interests, willingly buy shoddy goods or follow demagogues who eventually implode? Can a shadowy paranormal conspiracy actually fool most of the people most of the time? Barry, in this far-from-ordinary thriller, says yes, they really can. And he presents this chilling idea with his typical pitch-black wit.

What others are saying:

The Washington Post says:  “Once you accept the premise of Lexicon…this is an extremely slick and readable thriller…The conspiracy thriller is, of course, a common genre these days. In some ways it’s an attractive notion that there might be a secret society nestling within the visible world, perceptible only to initiates…Barry’s particular addition to the genre is a corrosive wit. “

Says Publishers Weekly: “The fate of humanity is at stake in this ambitious satirical thriller from Australian author Barry. Picked off the streets of San Francisco after displaying a “natural aptitude” for persuasion, 16-year-old magician/hustler Emily Ruff joins a group of prodigies at “the Academy,” where “poets” learn the magic of controlling others’ minds with words. Meanwhile, hapless Wil Parke, the key player in an internal war between highly trained poets called Eliot and Woolf, is the only person known to survive the infamous “bareword” Woolf set loose in Broken Hill, Australia, two years before—an event that killed thousands and wiped Wil’s memory clean. Eliot believes Wil to be the only one capable of stopping this word that “can persist… like an echo,” and is determined to use Wil in his quest to elucidate the word’s elemental code. Emily’s story and Wil’s story converge in a violent denouement that amuses as much as it shocks.”

 “…An absolutely first-rate, suspenseful thriller with convincing characters who invite readers’ empathy and keep them turning pages until the satisfying conclusion,” says Booklist.

Says Kirkus Reviews: “Modern-day sorcerers fight a war of words in this intensely analytical yet bombastic thriller. … In a deft narrative move, Barry parallels two distinct storylines before bringing them together with jaw-dropping surprises. In the first, a carpenter named Wil is jumped in an airport bathroom by a pair of brutal agents who kill his girlfriend and kidnap him for reasons unknown. In a storyline a few years back, we meet a smart, homeless grifter named Emily Ruff on the streets of San Francisco. …Emily is invited to train under the auspices of a mysterious international syndicate known as “The Poets.” The shady peddlers of influence and power force Emily to study words as if they were a source of incredible power–and in the hands of gifted prodigies like Emily, they are. What could have been a sly attempt to satirize postmodern marketing and social media becomes something of a dark fantasy as couplets intended merely to influence become spell-like incantations with the power to kill. …An up-all-night thriller for freaks and geeks who want to see their wizards all grown up in the real world and armed to the teeth in a bloody story.”

“What if there was a word that could compel anyone to do anything? That’s the premise of Barry’s new novel… which posits a secret society of “poets” who collect and wield special words to control others. Emily Ruff, a teenager living on the street, has been recruited by the organization but leaves in seeming disgrace. Years later, Wil Parke is caught in a firefight between the factions—over him. He is the only survivor of a horrifying event unleashed by an ultimate word of power. But there is a deeper connection between Wil and Emily and the organization that comes between them. While that link isn’t hard to figure out, Barry keeps the tension high as another poet, Eliot, tries to stop the unfolding destruction. Barry’s fear of conspiracies and the corporatization of society are in play here, along with a new focus on his exploration of power and corruption—religion. VERDICT Lexicon isn’t as satirical as Barry’s other works, but it is a scary and satisfying blend of thriller, dystopia, and horror,” says Library Journal

When is it available?

Feeling persuaded to read “Lexicon?” it’s at the Downtown Hartford Public Library, and its Barbour, Dwight and Mark Twain branches.

Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!

Fin & Lady

By Cathleen Schine

(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26, 288 pages)

Who is this author?

Cathleen Schine, who was born in Bridgeport and grew up in Westport, has written some internationally best-selling novels:  “The Love Letter” (1995), adapted as a movie starring Kate Capshaw, and “Rameau’s Niece” (1993), which also became  movie (“The Misadventures of Margaret” with Parker Posey.)  Schine also wrote “Alice in Bed” (1983), “To the Bird House” (1990), “The Evolution of Jane” (1999), “She Is Me” (2003), “The New Yorkers” (2006), and “The Three Weissmanns of Westport” (2010), a contemporary take on Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility.” She also has written for such publications as The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Times Book Review.

Here’s what Schine told an interviewer about her career path: “I tried to be a medieval historian, but I have no memory for facts, dates, or abstract ideas, so that was a bust. When I came back to New York, I tried to be a buyer at Bloomingdale’s because I loved shopping. I had an interview, but they never called me back. I really had no choice. I had to be a writer. I could not get a job. After doing some bits of freelance journalism at The Village Voice, I did finally get a job as a copy editor at Newsweek. My grammar was good, but I can’t spell, so it was a challenge. My boss was very nice and indulgent, though, and I wrote “Alice in Bed” on scraps of paper during slow hours. I didn’t have a regular job again until I wrote “The Love Letter.”

What is this book about?

It’s the ‘60s, and two step-siblings, Fin and Lady, have lost their parents. He’s 11 and she’s 24. He’s a typical kid living on a Connecticut dairy farm ,and she’s a freedom-obsessed sophisticate living in swinging Greenwich Village. After not seeing one another for six years, she’s taking him in, but he’s taking care of the madcap Lady in other important ways.  The Vietnam War and civil rights movement are causing ferment, and are the background to this personal drama, a story of what it takes to make a family, told with bittersweet humor.

Why you’ll like it:

Schine has created two characters here who will draw readers in, and having a young but sensible boy take on the responsibility of keeping his wild-child older sister out of real trouble is a nifty plot idea. The author is good at dialogue and character development, and also manages to infuse this story with enough humor to keep it lively and enough poignancy to keep it sympathetic. It’s a coming of age story in which the younger protagonist seems older, wiser and less naïve than the older one, a nice twist.

What others are saying:

The Washington Post says: “Wonderfully funny though they often are, Cathleen Schine’s novels are steeped in sadness…Schine knows that laughter isn’t just an escape from life’s sorrows, but also a recognition of them…[“Fin & Lady”] is, in essence, a novel about the choices we make in creating a family and about the inevitable limits of freedom…There are good wisecracks in the Capri chapters, but Schine’s wit is muted in favor of unabashed sentiment…her sincerity here suits both her protagonists’ youth and the impassioned era of their joint odyssey. The 1960s seem a less than ideal setting for a comedy of manners, and indeed this is not really a comedy. But Schine conveys the rapidly shifting mores of the ’60s, as well as the slowly unfolding understanding of these appealingly vulnerable characters.”

Says Publishers Weekly:  “Schine’s new novel …is an entertaining, sometimes perplexing exploration of family bonds and bondage. When Fin is orphaned at the age of 11, Lady, his half-sister, takes him in, pulling him away from the dairy farm in rural Connecticut to the Greenwich Village of the mid-1960s. Lady has always been a shining figure to Fin, who was too young to understand the falling-out she had with their father. Now, Fin and Lady form an unconventional family, set against a tumultuous political and social climate. At times the novel has echoes of “Auntie Mame;” at others, Dawn Powell. The narrator’s voice is used so sparingly as to intrude when it is used, and the reader gets ahead of the story in figuring out who this shadowy figure is in the tale. The bond between Fin and Lady is strong, but the story itself breaks little new ground and doesn’t reveal anything new about the era or the longings of those experiencing it. Schine writes lively dialogue and excels at sensory detail, especially early on, before the plot becomes predictable, as the novel wavers precariously between satiric comedy-of-manners and something more serious.”

“In her newest, about a young boy raised by his madcap half-sister, Schine … joins the spate of recent authors attempting to capture the zeitgeist of the 1960s. In 1964, after 11-year-old Fin’s mother dies, he leaves the Connecticut farm where he’s lived since his father’s death to live in Manhattan with his new guardian, his father’s daughter from his first marriage. Although she is Fin’s only living relative, the last time they were together was six years earlier, when he went with his parents to Capri, where Lady had run away to avoid a socially acceptable marriage. Now 24, Lady is a mix of Auntie Mame and Holly Golightly–beautiful, effervescent and emotionally wounded. Whether carefree or careless, she is luckily extremely rich. She moves Fin into a hip but far from shabby Greenwich Village brownstone and enrolls him in a progressive school without desks or grading. She throws wild parties, drives a convertible, roots for the Mets and dabbles in leftist politics… Loved by … three men, she’s unable to love anyone except Fin and their black housekeeper, Mable, a character who defies conventional stereotypes and thus personifies the upheavals in the decade’s civil rights movement. …Schine offers up a bittersweet lemon soufflé of family love and romantic passion,” says Kirkus Reviews.

Library Journal says: “The tale of an unprepared relative thrust into parenting a newly orphaned child usually takes a comedic bent and wraps up with a newfound romance and emotional maturity. Eleven-year-old Fin and his stepsister Lady twist that arc. They haven’t seen each other in six years, not since Fin accompanied his parents to Europe to pull a runaway Lady back home. Lady, unrepentant and defiantly unconventional (though enjoying the ease her family’s wealth provides) is as beautiful as she is unstable. Raising Fin doesn’t help resolve her relationships with a trio of suitors, and Fin finds himself reenacting a European pursuit. Readers whose interest may begin to flag over Fin’s adoration of Lady should hang on for a final plot twist. VERDICT: A good summer read for those who like their family dramas with more bite than sweetness.”

When is it available?

“Fin & Lady” is on the shelves now 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!

Ready For a Brand New Beat: How “Dancing in the Street” Became the Anthem for a Changing America

by Mark Kurlansky

(Penguin/Riverhead, $27.95, 288 pages)

Who is this author?

With many books to his credit, it’s likely that you know who Mark Kurlansky is. But you may not know that he was born in Hartford in 1948 and went on to work for the Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the International Herald Tribune in Paris before concentrating on writing books, many of which were best-sellers. He’s well-known for books such as “Cod” and “Salt,” which explore one culinary subject about as deeply as can be done, and his other books include “1968: The Year That Rocked the World,” “The Big Oyster,” “The Last Fish Tale, The Food of a Younger Land,” “The Eastern Stars” and “Edible Stories.”  Kurlansky lives in New York City.

What is this book about?

In this book, Mark Kurlansky tries, and pretty much succeeds, in proving that one song could have the power to change the country, or at least, change the way people think about what America is really all about. In deep detail, he gives us the history of the “Dancing in the Street,” written in 1964 by Marvin Gaye, William “Mickey” Stevenson and Ivy Jo Hunter and recorded for Motown, in two takes, by Martha and the Vandellas. Released in mid-summer, it was meant to be an infectious dance tune, but, due to the burgeoning cultural and political changes of the ‘60s, it became that and much more. With such iconic events as the arrival of the Beatles, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, the growing Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Act, the country was changing in 1964, and Kurlansky makes the case that the song became an anthem of the need for different ways of defining what America was and could be.

Why you’ll like it:

Summer’s here, and the time is right for reading about “Dancing in the Street,” and I defy you to read about this book without humming along to that tune. But this is a serious book about what was intended to be a light-hearted song, and while reviewers aren’t all singing the same tune about whether Kurlansky draws the correct conclusions, they agree that his research is impressive. Reading this book now, during another summer of discontent and arguments over whether more radical change is needed and if so, just what kind and led by whom, will give you some valuable historical perspective. At the very least, it just may make you want to get up and dance.

What others are saying:

Publishers Weekly says: “In 1964, Motown, a little record label from Detroit, grew into a voice for a generation, releasing, according to Kurlansky, “60 singles, of which 70% hit the Top 100 chart and 19 were #1 hits.” Kurlansky deftly chronicles the story of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street, ”a Motown song that made the transition from the early to late 1960s—from hope and idealism to urban riots and the escalation of war in Vietnam. In meticulous detail, he tells the story of the song itself Released in August 1964, “Dancing in the Street” climbed up the Billboard charts to reach the #2 spot by October. The song’s lyrics had different meanings for different audiences—many white listeners heard it as a party song, while many black listeners embraced it as a song of liberation and revolution. Enduringly popular, “Dancing in the Street” has been covered at least 35 times, by musicians from the Grateful Dead and Van Halen to Ramsey Lewis and Laura Nyro, and its opening riffs inspired the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”

Says Library Journal: “….”Dancing in the Street” had an infectiousness that really did make you want to dance. (I can sing every word.) But upon its release in 1964, with Mississippi Freedom Summer, the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, and the Civil Rights Act in the forefront and escalation of the Vietnam War in the offing, it took on deeper meaning and became a true American icon. So argues Kurlansky, who can give real dimension to things like cod and salt and also wrote “1968: The Year That Rocked the World.”

“Fascinating but flawed, the latest from Kurlansky suggests that not only was the Martha and the Vandellas’ hit the anthem for a time of profound change, but a call to arms for rioting militants in its “invitation across the nation.” The author is on solid ground when he keeps a tight focus on Motown, Berry Gordy and the hit machine the mogul established in Detroit along the lines of the city’s automobile industry: “A bare frame of a street singer could go through the Motown plant and come out a Cadillac of a performer.” He shows how Gordy got rich, his artists got famous, and his studio musicians and some of his songwriters got shafted. He explains how Motown’s changes reflected a changing America, as dreams of integration shattered with the King assassination, the rise of Black Power and the rioting in the streets. “It was also suggested that the popularity of the song ‘Dancing in the Street’ had encouraged people to take to the streets,” writes Kurlansky in an oddly passive construction that proceeds to cite a “rumor” that the hit was banned from the airwaves. Plainly, change was in the air, and to overload this one hit with too much revolutionary significance in a 1964 that also gave the world “The Times They Are A-Changin” and “A Change Is Gonna Come” blurs cause and effect. …An ambitious thematic arc, but the devil’s in the details,” says Kirkus Reviews.

 “Fascinating stuff . . . [Kurlansky] has a keen eye for odd facts and natural detail…. there is a tiny but significant detail that does make a political reading of “Dancing in the Street” more plausible. The word “street” is singular in the title and in Ms. Reeves’s lines, but when the Vandellas respond, they say “dancing in the streets,” which is different: “Street” describes a block party, whereas “streets” suggests a whole city erupting. So the song can be taken either way, even though clearly the emphasis is on joy and, well, dancing. This is the kind of thing that drives academic theoreticians wild with joy, and Mr. Kurlansky is right to call attention to it,” says The Wall Street Journal.

“Brilliant… Journalistic skills might be part of a writer’s survival kit, but they infrequently prove to be the foundation for literary success, as they have here. …. Kurlansky has a wonderful ear for the syntax and rhythm of the vernacular… For all the seriousness of Kurlansky’s cultural entanglements, it is nevertheless a delight to experience his sophisticated sense of play and, at times, his outright wicked sense of humor,” says The New York Times Book Review.

When is it available?

Dance over to the Downtown Hartford Public Library or its Blue Hills branch to borrow this book.

Do you have something to say about this book, this author or books in general? Please post your comments here and I will respond. Let’s get a good books conversation going!

Amy Falls Down
By Jincy Willett
(St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne, $24.99, 336 pages)

Who is this author?

It takes a clever author to title a book “Winner of the National Book Award,” and Jincy Willett certainly is one savvy scribe. Author of “Jenny and the Jaws of Life,”  “The Writing Class” and the aforementioned “Winner of the National Book Award: A Novel of Fame, Honor, and Really Bad Weather,” she also has published short stories in Cosmopolitan, McSweeney’s Quarterly and other magazines, and she frequently reviews for The New York Times Book Review. Willett lives in San Diego, teaches writing workshops in person and online, and has a very amusing, if occasionally rude and raunchy, website: www.jincywillet.com. Go there at your own peril.

What is this book about?

Amy Gallup, at 22, was named as a promising young writer. Some 40 years later, alas, that promise has not been kept. Somewhat of a hermit, Amy lives with her basset hound, Alphonse, in California, and one morning, some hours before she is due to sit for an interview with a clueless young reporter, Amy falls down in her garden and whacks her head. A concussion results, but Amy doesn’t realize that. And so she gives the interview with her censoring filter not operating, and what she says is so incendiary about writing and other authors that the interview goes viral, and whaddya know, Amy is suddenly and unintentionally famous. Soon she’s the center of a media circus, traveling here and there and speaking her mind, damn the torpedoes. It seems that one misstep has profoundly changed her life. This delightful premise gives Willett, who first created Amy in her mystery, “The Writing Class,” another chance to skewer the pretensions of writers and critics, a big fat target if there ever was one. Happily for readers, Amy’s aim is true.

Why you’ll like it:

It’s happened to us all, I am sure. One little mistake or inadvertent word or action, and a domino-effect of unexpected, uncontrollable consequences ensues. As Amy says in this novel:

“You turn a corner and beasts break into arias, gunfire erupts, waking a hundred families, starting a hundred different conversations. You crack your head open and three thousand miles away a stranger with Asperger’s jump-starts your career.”  This book is a fascinating exploration of accidents and aftermaths, peppered pleasantly by an acerbic look at the excesses of literary suckup-itude. “Amy Falls Down” will perk up your summer reading.

What others are saying:

Publishers Weekly says: “Willett’s hilarious follow-up to “The Writing Class” pulls no punches when it comes to current literary trends. Amy Gallup was once heralded as a fresh voice in fiction, but with her novels now long out of print, she’s content with a quiet, anonymous life of leading workshops, keeping lists of great-sounding titles for stories she’ll never write, and maintaining her sporadically updated blog. … while working in her garden, Amy trips and cold-cocks herself on a birdbath. Still reeling from the head injury hours later, she gives a loopy interview to a reporter working on a series of local author profiles. The result goes viral, and suddenly Amy is a hot commodity on the literary pundit trail. She couldn’t care less about being relevant or famous, which lends a refreshingly brutal honesty to her commentary on the radio, television, and lecture circuit. But her newfound notoriety also pushes Amy out of her comfort zone, forcing her to confront years of neuroses and an unexamined postwriting life. Willett uses her charmingly filterless heroine as a mouthpiece to slam a parade of thinly veiled literati and media personalities with riotous accuracy, but she balances the snark with moments of poignancy.

Says Library Journal: “Willett’s previous book, “The Writing Class,” introduced readers to the wonderfully acerbic author/creative writing teacher Amy Gallup. That novel was a regular whodunit, but this sequel is not in the mystery genre at all. Rather, it is a lovingly gentle but thorough skewering of the current literary world, the media surrounding it, and the “authors-as-brands” who often populate it. The novel opens with Amy falling and hitting her head on a birdbath. Long afraid of doctors and hospitals, she doesn’t immediately seek treatment but instead gives an interview to a local newspaper journalist—a young woman who’s featuring Amy in a “whatever happened to” article. (Amy’s debut novel at 22 was a tremendous success, but nothing in the resulting 40 years quite lived up to the potential promised by it.) Amy’s incoherent ramblings set off a chain of events featuring her as a straight talker surrounded by pretentiousness. Verdict:  Funny and whip-smart about the modern book world, Willett’s novel is also profound and touching on relationships, aging, and self-reflection. Absolutely recommended, whether or not you read “The Writing Class,” and especially if you’re a voracious reader or a writer, a publisher, a critic, or a book blogger.

“The endearingly bitter writer, Amy Gallup has happily isolated herself from the world spending the last two decades teaching and reviewing – she’s done a lot of thinking … but very little writing. On an unassuming morning, in her slippers, Amy trips in her backyard, goes head-over-heels, and into the side of a birdbath. The hospital clears her of head injury – so Amy returns home. When a local reporter shows up for a scheduled interview – Amy is not quite herself.  The article paints Amy as  the zen-goddess of writing, publishing … and life. Her bizarre interview was interpreted as the rambling of a true genius. But all that really happened was: Amy fell down! The next thing she knows, friends and fans are coming out of the woodwork. Suddenly Amy is on radio shows, keynoting a major publishing event, and guiding a local writers’ retreat.  But the strangest thing of all:  Amy starts to write.

“Readers witness Amy confront her past and present, and choose to take down the walls she so carefully wrote up around her.  “Amy Falls Down” is a novel both surprisingly heartwarming and a witty mirror into today’s publishing world – as only Jincy Willett could write.  A scathingly funny and wickedly humorous roman-a-clef by one of our most acclaimed literary humorists – about a bitterly uninspired writer who decides to change her life after a freak accident,” says Bookbrowse.com.

When is it available?

If you don’t fall down, you can pick this one up at the Downtown Hartford Public Library or 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 Light in the Ruins

By Chris Bohjalian

(Doubleday, $26.95, 320 pages)

Who is this author?

Chris Bohjalian, a Vermont-based, best-selling and multiple award-winning author, has spoken in Connecticut several times in recent years about his books, which range from historical novels to contemporary examinations of family and relationships. His first best-seller was “Midwives,” an Oprah’s Book Club selection that became a film, and his 16 books include the New York Times bestsellers “The Sandcastle Girls,” inspired by his Armenian ancestors’ lives, “Skeletons at the Feast,” set in Germany as World War II grinds to a close and  “The Double Bind,” which played off F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” Bohjalian is fascinated by Fitzgerald’s work and owns more than 42 different editions of books by or about Fitzgerald.

A graduate of Amherst College, he also is the longtime “Idyll Banter” columnist for the Burlington Free Press and has written for Cosmopolitan, Reader’s Digest and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.

What is this book about?

“The Light in the Ruins” is both a historical novel with romantic overtones and a murder mystery, and it is set in Tuscany during World War II and in the mid-1950s. During the war, the Rosatis, a noble family, keep to their ancient estate that holds an Etruscan burial ground, but their wish to avoid the war and its consequences ends when Nazi soldiers demand sanctuary there and one of them begins a romance with teenage Cristina. Some 20 years later, Serafina Bettini, a police inspector in Florence who was a partisan fighter for the Allies during the war, begins investigating deaths that soon reveal a serial killer is targeting remaining members of the Rosati family, perhaps under the mistaken impression that they willingly collaborated with the Germans. What Serafina discovers uncovers twists and turmoil in the past lives of the Rosatis and her own personal history.

Why you’ll like it:

Bohjalian is a born storyteller with a knack for interweaving carefully researched historical detail with compelling fictional stories. His characters serve as representatives of the past in this novel, as in so many of his books, but also are fully rounded people who stand on their own and capture the reader’s interest. Bohjalian has had quite a string of hits in recent years – “The Double Bind,” “The Night Strangers,” Secrets of Eden”, “Skeletons at the Feast” and “The Sandcastle Girls” among them, and “Light in the Ruins” is yet another in this list of literary as well as popular successes.

What others are saying:

Says Publishers Weekly: “An exploration of post-WWII Italy doubles as a murder mystery in this well-crafted novel from Bohjalian. In 1952 Florence, Francesca Rosati, a dress-shop worker, is brutally murdered by a killer who carves out her heart, and Detective Serafina Bettini is assigned to solve the homicide. She discovers Francesca had married into the once wealthy and powerful Rosati family, who owned a large estate in the same hills near Florence where Serafina fought as a partisan. The Rosatis, headed by matriarch Beatrice, hosted Nazi officers on their property during the war, breeding deep animosity among the local populace. Serafina’s belief that Francesca’s murder is linked to this lingering resentment of the family is strengthened after another Rosati is found dead. The investigation leads Serafina back to the former Rosati estate, and she learns that the family’s wartime record was more complicated than it appears. Meanwhile, in a series of short chapters, the vengeful serial killer vows to destroy the surviving Rosatis. Bohjalian tips his hand too early as to the killer’s identity, but otherwise delivers an entertaining historical whodunit.”

Kirkus Reviews says: “In post–World War II Tuscany, a serial killer targets the remnants of a noble family. In Bohjalian’s literary thriller, the ruin of the aristocratic Rosati family is triggered by Nazi interest in an Etruscan tomb on their estate, Villa Chimera. The action ricochets between the war years, when the Rosatis …were unwilling hosts to Nazis and Fascists, and 1955, when Francesca, widow of Marco [Rosati] (her children also perished during the war) is found brutally murdered. …The murderer’s grisly MO entails extracting the heart of his victim, presumably with a surgical saw. …Florentine detective Serafina Bettini, scarred by burns sustained while fighting as a partisan against the Germans, is baffled. …When [Rosati matriarch} Beatrice is murdered in the same manner …Serafina divines that the Rosatis are the killer’s targets, but why? Because they allowed Germans to extract artifacts from the tomb and artwork from their mansion during the war, and because Cristina was in love with a German lieutenant, the clan were seen as collaborators by some, but Serafina’s patchy memory eventually discloses that the Rosatis sheltered her and fellow partisans on the estate. …As Serafina struggles with her own postwar nightmares, she must learn why the killer hates the Rosatis–only then can she identify him before the next Rosati dies. A soulful why-done-it.

“In 1955 Florence, Italy, a serial killer is carefully, gruesomely killing off members of the Rosati family. Tearing out each victim’s heart and leaving it on display, the murderer has something important to say about this family of noble blood, and Det. Serafina Bettini suspects it may have something to do with their activities during World War II. …Weaving pieces back and forth through the two time periods, best-selling author Bohjalian illuminates the ruination of family, trust, and community in crisis in time of war. VERDICT Thoroughly gripping, beautiful, and astonishingly vengeful, this novel is a heartbreaker. Bohjalian’s latest turn to historical fiction is immensely rewarding,” says Library Journal.

When is it available?

You can find this book now at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Camp Field, Dwight, Goodwin 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!

Big Brother

By Lionel Shriver

(HarperCollins, $26.99, 373 pages)

Who is this author?

First things first: despite her masculine-sounding name, Lionel Shriver is a woman, and a powerful writer with a knack for choosing timely subjects. Born Margaret Ann to a Presbyterian minister in North Carolina, she changed her name to Lionel, feeling it better suited her personality. She has lived in Nairobi, Bangkok and Northern Ireland and now has homes in London and Brooklyn. She has acquired British citizenship. Shriver once taught metalsmithing at Buck’s Rock Performing and Creative Arts Camp in New Milford, Connecticut.

Her novels include the National Book Award finalist “So Much for That,” which explored the convoluted – some might say insane – world of American health insurance. Her eighth novel, “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” (2003) was a prescient, horrifying novel about a teenage killer involved in Columbine-like murders. It won the prestigious British literary award, the Orange Prize.We can only wish Adam Lanza’s parents had read it, in time.

She also is a journalist, whose features, columns, op-ed pieces and book reviews appear in the Guardian, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, the Economist, Marie Claire, and other publications.

More to know about Shriver:

“I read every article I can find that commends the nutritional benefits of red wine — since if they’re right, I will live to 110.”

“Though raised by Aldai Stevenson Democrats, I have a violent, retrograde right-wing streak that alarms and horrifies my acquaintances in New York. And I have been told more than once that I am ‘extreme.’ ”

“As I run down the list of my preferences, I like dark roast coffee, dark sesame oil, dark chocolate, dark-meat chicken, even dark chili beans — a pattern emerges that, while it may not put me on the outer edges of human experience, does exude a faint whiff of the unsavory.”

What is this book about?

Pandora lives in Iowa, makes custom-designed dolls and loves to cook. Her husband Fletcher, a woodworker and obsessive exerciser, loves to fuss about what he eats. When Pandora’s jazz pianist big brother, Edison, arrives for a visit after a four-year absence, she fails to recognize him at the airport because he has grown hugely, morbidly, outrageously fat, having been using food to comfort himself when his marriage and career go bad.

Edison moves in and  wreaks havoc on Pandora’s world. He’s so big he breaks the handmade furniture Fletcher has made, cooks huge meals and talks her son into dropping out of high school. Not surprisingly, Fletcher gives Pandora the “it’s him or me” speech.  Very surprisingly, Pandora opts to move in with Edison to make a last-ditch, heroic effort to help him lose weight and regain control over his life. She is willing to try to be her brother’s keeper, in the literal sense, but is that possible or even probable? Shriver makes us care in this provocative and prickly book.

Why you’ll like it:

Anyone who has ever struggled with weight issues or has been close to someone who has will appreciate this story. But it is not an inspirational, feel-good, eat-this-but-don’t-eat-that novel. Instead, it delves deep into the complex relationships we have with loved ones and the many ways we use food to assuage pain we can’t otherwise deal with. This novel asks disturbing questions: Are we all addicted to something? Can we rescue a loved one who is not seeking help? Can we ever fully understand our own motivations or, for that matter, anyone else’s? This is not a comforting book, but it is an intriguing one.

What others are saying:

In The Washington Post, Jeff Turrentine says: “As a writer, Shriver’s talents are many: She’s especially skilled at playing with readers’ reflexes for sympathy and revulsion, never letting us get too comfortable with whatever firm understanding we think we have of a character.”

Publishers Weekly says: “Shriver returns to the family in this intelligent meditation on food, guilt, and the real (and imagined) debts we owe the ones we love. Ex-caterer Pandora has made it big with a custom doll company that creates personal likenesses with pull-string, sometimes crude, catch phrases. The dolls speak to the condition of these characters—all trapped in destructive relationships with food (and each other): Pandora cooks to show love, to the delight of her compulsively fit husband Fletcher, whose refusal to eat dairy or vary from his biking routine are the outward manifestation of his remove. Pandora’s brother Edison eats to ease the pain of a stalled music career and broken marriage. And both live somewhat uncomfortably in the shadow of their father’s TV fame. In “Big Brother,” nothing reveals character more scathingly than food. Early in the book, the nearly 400-pound Edison arrives—waddling through an Iowa airport with a “ground eating galumph”—a man transformed in the four years since his sister last saw him. He brings the novel energy as well as an occasionally unpalatable maudlin drama. But Pandora will risk everything, including her own health, to save him. If this devotion and Pandora’s increasing success with Edison’s diet plan sometimes seem chirpily false, a late reveal provides devastating justification.”

Says author Jincy Willett in The New York Times Book Review:  “Shriver understands that hunger is one thing for those who are literally starving and a very different thing for the rest of us. No matter how much we have, we’re never content…”Big Brother” is about “the baffling lassitude of affluence” — the hard truth that “however gnawing a deficiency, satiety is worse.”

“A woman is at a loss to control her morbidly obese brother in the latest feat of unflinching social observation from Shriver. …Pandora, the narrator of this smartly turned novel, is a happily settled 40-something living in a just-so Iowa home with her husband and two stepchildren and running a successful business manufacturing custom dolls that parrot the recipient’s pet phrases. Her brother, Edison, is a New York jazz pianist who’s hit the skids, and when he calls hoping to visit for a while, she’s happy to assist. But she’s aghast to discover he’s ballooned from a trim 163 to nearly 400 pounds. Edison can be a pretentious blowhard to start with, and his weight makes him an even more exasperating houseguest, clearing out the pantry, breaking furniture and driving a wedge in Pandora’s marriage. So Pandora concocts a scheme: She’ll move out to live with Edison while monitoring his crash diet of protein-powder drinks. The book is largely about weight and America’s obesity epidemic; Shriver writes thoughtfully about our diets and how our struggle to find an identity tends to lead us toward the fridge, and she describes our fleshy flaws with a candor that marks much of her fiction. But the book truly shines as a study of family relationships. As Pandora spends a year as Edison’s cheerleader, drill sergeant and caregiver, Shriver reveals the complex push and pull between siblings and has some wise and troubling things to say about guilt, responsibility and how what can seem like tough love is actually overindulgence. The story’s arc flirts with a cheeriness that’s unusual for her, but a twist ending reassures us this is indeed a Shriver novel and that our certitude is just another human foible. A masterful, page-turning study of complex relationships among our bodies, our minds and our families,” says  Kirkus Reviews.

When is it available?

Shriver’s book is at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Ropkins 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!