Monthly Archives: September 2013

The Smart One

By Jennifer Close

(Knopf, $24.95, 352 pages)

Who is this author?

Jennifer Close had a bestseller with her debut novel, “Girls in White Dresses.” She is a Midwesterner from Chicago with degrees from Boston College and the New School in New York City. After a career in New York writing for magazines, she now teaches creative writing at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

What is this book about?

It’s every older parent’s nightmare: their adult (well, chronologically, not necessarily emotionally) children move back into the family home, bringing their sibling rivalries, sloppy housekeeping, broken hearts and  burgeoning crises along with their dirty laundry, smartphones and yoga pants. Where’s the empty nest when you really need one?

That’s what happens to the Coffey family of suburban Philadelphia, when Claire (newly un-engaged and in deep debt), Martha (a failed nurse, now a J. Crew manager with a serious case of social awkwardness) and (Max college-age golden boy with his gorgeous but accidentally pregnant girlfriend, Cleo) descend on mid-50s Weezy and Will, whose marriage has grown a little frayed, as long-term relationships so often do.  Weezy has been entertaining herself by secretly continuing to plan Claire’s never-gonna-happen wedding. Cleo is a stunning young woman, but full of self-doubt planted by her very un-nurturing mother. It’s your typical pretty on the surface, turmoil underneath family situation.

Weezy’s a worrier, full of dread about what-if situations, and Will is pretty much detached from the family angst, but the return of their natives force them all to re-assess themselves and the way they relate to one another. The two 30-ish sisters and Max must find a way past their old antagonisms and begin their delayed process of growing up before they grow old. Their parents’ task is to get out of the way and let it happen. Over the course of a year, we find out whom, and in which ways, the smart ones are.

Why you’ll like it:

The premise of this book may not be new, but Close’s clever writing makes it fresh. There’s plenty of humor in this book, but it avoids authorial snark-ery while still making clear how unaware the Coffey siblings are about life. Close is particularly good at conveying those muttered moments when parent or child say (often to themselves, and just as well) what they really think about one another. All the characters have piquancy, but worrywart Weezy and muddled Martha, who seems to have inherited her mother’s obsession with what can go wrong and endlessly lectures others about their behavior, really stand out. Serious enough to be provocative but funny enough to make the seriousness go down smoothly, this was my favorite beach book of this summer.

Here’s what Close wrote about the moving back home phenomenon for The Blog on the Huffington Post website:

“Even with the complaints about living with parents, all the people I talked to were genuinely grateful that they were able to move back home. I don’t think it’s anyone’s first choice, but it helped a lot of people out. And I have to say, it is nice to know that there’s always a place you can go if things go bad. I should note that while discussing this, my husband said he’d rather live in a box than move back home. But if my husband and I found ourselves in a really bad spot, it’s comforting to think that we could move in with my parents or his parents and they wouldn’t turn us away–at least I don’t think they would. We’ve never actually asked them about it, and I hope we don’t need to. But I should mention here that they my parents and my in-laws are four of the finest and most generous people I’ve ever known. (What? I’m just keeping options open.)”

What others are saying:

Booklist says: “After watching her engagement fall apart, her job performance tank, and her credit-card balance rise into the stratosphere, Claire Coffey decides it’s time to move back home. An old romantic flame even resurfaces, though Claire believes that being home for any meaningful length of time forces a regression to teenage behavior. While Claire, older sister Martha, younger brother Max, and the rest of the Coffey family try to navigate the logistics of having adult children return to the previously empty nest, they realize that no right answers can be found in any parenting manual. “The Smart One” focuses on the intersections of self-discovery, independence, and reliance in the modern family, all enlivened by Close’s signature wit and warmth. Close does an admirable job of equally voicing the Coffey children, straining to reevaluate their priorities under a shared roof, and the Coffey parents, aching to provide guidance without wanting to seem heavy-handed. A touchingly tender, emotionally honest novel about shifting priorities and the nontraditional career paths so many find themselves on … “

“The Smart One” has such authentic, multifaceted characters. . . . Close does a great job of creating these protagonists. They had depth, they were distinct from each other, and their motivations were believable. . . . [Close] is a strong writer, and other people will connect with the well-drawn protagonists of this novel,” says Book Riot.

“If you’re looking for the literary equivalent of HBO’s “Girls”, then check out Jennifer Close’s debut novel, “Girls in White Dresses,” which charts the travails of flailing twenty-somethings. Her follow-up, “The Smart One,” feels the way “Girls” could circa season 6, when ‘almost getting it kind of together’ ceases to be cute. . . . This bighearted novel examines a generation of nonstarters with a mix of empathy and Close’s signature deadpan, pathos-driven humor,” Entertainment Weekly

Kirkus Reviews says: “Close, whose first novel (Girls in White Dresses, 2011) romped with recent college grads newly on their own, focuses here on two sisters on the cusp of 30, both torn between independent womanhood and lingering dependence on parents. . . . Martha, who has always been needy and socially off-kilter, steals the novel . . . The friction between the sisters is palpable and real. . . . The novel sings in the small moments when its women express uncomfortable truths, undercurrents of sibling resentment and parental disappointment, which usually remain unspoken. . . . Perfect for the beach or a long plane trip.”

When is it available?

You’d be a smart one to 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 Daughters of Mars

By Thomas Keneally

(Atria, $28, 528 pages)

Who is this author?

You may not recognize the name Thomas Keneally, but I am betting you know his work. Once a seminarian in Australia, he abandoned his plan to become a priest and instead began his writing career in 1964. Among his 31 novels, many of which have won awards, is “Schindler’s Ark,” which became the 1982 Booker Award- and Academy Award-winning (for Best Picture) “Schindler’s List.” His “The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith” also became a film. He is also the author of plays and nonfiction books. Now 77, Keneally has just published a new historical novel, set in the World War I era.

What is this book about?

War novels usually focus on male characters, but “The Daughters of Mars” tells its tale through two Australian sisters, Naomi and Sally Durance, who in 1915 become Army nurses. They are not strangers to death, having had a hand in helping their mother escape the ravages of incurable cancer, but they – and the readers – are understandably shocked by the horrors they encounter on a hospital ship near Gallipoli and then on the battlefield in France. Their courage is as remarkable as their experiences and yes, love as well as grief comes to these dedicated women. Keneally presents a compelling tale of the terrible pain and suffering war inflicts and the bravery and kindness that strive to alleviate it.

Why you’ll like it:

Keneally is one of those gifted authors who can capture the broad sweep of historic events through focusing on the individuals caught up in their power. He writes with great heart and humor, no matter how appalling the subject, and he stresses the humanity of his characters and their struggles to do the right thing in the midst of a maelstrom of evil. This is an inspiring book, made even more so by the horrific events in which his characters are caught.

What others are saying:

Publishers Weekly says: “The horrific butcher’s bill of WWI trench fighting, which took a toll not only on the wounded soldiers but on the doctors and nurses who tended to them, is at the heart of this moving epic novel from the author of “Schindler’s List.” The story is told through the experiences of two sisters, Sally and Naomi Durance, both nurses, who enter the morally complex area of treating the devastatingly injured with peacetime experience. Eight months before the call went out from the Australian government for military nurses, Naomi apparently used some extra morphine that Sally had procured to end their mother’s suffering from inoperable cervical cancer. The euthanasia both drew the siblings together in a conspiracy of silence and created a barrier between them. Their duties take them to Egypt and Europe, as they struggle to stay alive, and to stay mentally composed despite the awful situations they must confront. By again using individuals to humanize a larger story, Keneally succeeds in conveying the experience to his readers in a manageable way.”

Says Library Journal: “In this latest from Booker Prize-winning author Keneally (“Schindler’s List”), Australian sisters Naomi and Sally Durance volunteer as nurses at the beginning of World War I. Initially posted to a medical ship off the coast of Greece, they survive a shipwreck and are eventually transferred to the European front in France, Sally to a clearing station and Naomi to a hospital established by an eccentric viscountess. Though the sisters’ viewpoints are seemingly limited, their service is a testament to the scope of war, as the number and nature of casualties they treat range from shrapnel and bayonet wounds to gassing, trench foot, shell shock, and finally the Spanish flu. Along the way we meet an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, including the resolute Matron Mitchie, returning to the front with a prosthetic leg, and Quaker Ian Kiernan, who volunteers for medical service but refuses a transfer to combat. VERDICT Keneally must have done copious research, but historical details and information about wartime medical treatment are presented organically, without the weight of historical retrospection. His ambiguous ending helps the reader bear the unbearable. Highly recommended.”

Kirkus Reviews says: “Australian novelist Keneally (“Schindler’s List,” 1982, etc.) turns to his native country in a time of war. Anticipating the centennial of World War I by a shade, Keneally constructs a “Winds of War”–like epic concerning figures whom only Ernest Hemingway, among the first-tier writers, got to: military nurses. Naomi and Sally Durance are two sisters who join the Nursing Corps in 1915 and sail off to Gallipoli, where they witness terrible things and form bonds of attachment with the wounded soldiers who suffer them; no one with a sensitive stomach will want to read Keneally’s descriptions of their wounds. Crossing the Mediterranean, they experience the further terror of being torpedoed. Keneally’s set piece, which takes up nearly a tenth of this long but economical book, is extraordinarily moving, if often quite gruesome … Since Keneally has established soldiers and nurses alike as characters, the reader experiences their loss. Only on arriving at the Western Front do the sisters part, and there they discover “a dimension of barbarity that had not existed on Gallipoli and had been undreamed of in Archimedes,” namely the terror of gas warfare. There, too, each falls in love, which, this being a war story, cannot end well for the both; it is only the love-story element that does not entirely work in Keneally’s book, though it seems inevitable. For all that, Keneally is a master of character development and period detail, and there are no false notes there. Fans of “Downton Abbey” and “Gallipoli” alike will find much to admire in Keneally’s fast-moving, flawlessly written pages.”

The Canberra Times says: “Now, at last and triumphantly, there is a full-scale Keneally novel of the Great War…All of it is handled by Keneally with calm mastery. If epic is no longer a literary category that fits this world, “The Daughters of Mars” nonetheless has a tragic and humane span that few recent novels have attempted, let alone equalled.”

When is it available?

Keneally’s novel is on the new book shelf at the Downtown Hartford Public Library.

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

 

The Resurrectionist: A Novel

By Matthew Guinn

(Norton, $25.95, 304 pages)

Who is this author?

Born in Atlanta and educated in the South at the University of Georgia, the University of Mississippi, and the University of South Carolina, where he was personal assistant to the late author James Dickey, Matthew Guinn knows well the territory he writes about in his debut novel, “The Resurrectionist.” Guinn and his wife and two children lives in Jackson, Miss., and he has taught at the Universities of Mississippi and South Carolina and the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Tulane University’s School of Continuing Studies in Madison, Miss.

What is this book about?

Set in the 19th and 21st centuries, this is a gothic novel that explores yet another facet of America’s troubled past (and some would say present) when it comes to racial matters. In this story, it’s the world of medicine and its queasy history of treating black citizens like less-than-human subjects of research.

Bones are discovered buried beneath the campus of South Carolina Medical College. It turns out that they are a legacy of the mid-19th century, when a founder of the school bought a slave, Nemo, who was adept at “resurrecting” the dead from a slave cemetery, to be used to teach anatomy to white students. In the present day, a young doctor on probation for tranquilizer abuse and doing public relations work for the medical school is tasked with hushing up the deeds of the past.

Nemo himself, smart, savvy, tormented and considered almost supernatural by his peers, is the living heart of the book, and his rise to becoming a teacher at the school after the war is almost miraculous. It is fascinating to note that his story is based on the true story of Grandison Harris, a slave bought by the Medical College of Georgia before the Civil War.  He was its janitor, butler and resurrectionist, and bones from bodies he stole from Cedar Grove cemetery were found there in 1989. The book, “Bones in the Basement: Postmortem Racism in Nineteenth-Century Medical Training” (Smithsonian Institution, 1997), tells the true story that inspired Guinn’s novel.

Why you’ll like it:

Admittedly, you will need a taste for, or at least a tolerance of, the grisly to fully appreciate this book.  But the story is deeper than just a tale of body-snatching in the early days of medical research. It points out, as if more pointing out were really needed, that racism has sullied American history from its earliest days forward, and that while much was undoubtedly learned from studyng stolen bodies that later benefitted many patients, white and black, that outcome is stained by the way they were acquired and the secrets that were kept.  (The syphilis experiments conducted by the U.S. Health Service and the Tuskegee Institute on unwitting black men come uneasily to mind.)

In this impressive debut novel, Guinn takes this real life material and transmutes it into fiction that resonates with the powerful truth behind the artful story.

What others are saying:

Library Journal says: “The renovation of a South Carolina medical school unearths skeletons from the past…literally. The search for the origin of the bones leads Dr. Jacob Thacker, already suspended for Xanax abuse, into a historical thicket that could endanger both his career and the future of the school. Thacker attempts to mediate between the school’s gung-ho dean and the local African American community without derailing his reinstatement to practice. Guinn alternates deftly between this contemporary story and that of Nemo Johnston, the slave pressed into service as a resurrectionist at a time when the school could practice anatomy only on the cadavers of slaves. Nemo stays on after the Civil War, eventually rising precariously to the position of anatomy instructor. VERDICT Guinn makes good use of the rough—but fascinating—history of U.S. medical schools. Strong pacing, interesting lead characters, well-framed moral questions, and clever resolutions to both prongs of the story are the hallmarks of this winning debut that shows that in matters of race and American history, navigating to “truth” and “right” is almost always a complex journey.”

Kirkus Reviews says: “A stash of bones, found underneath a South Carolina medical school, links together two stories, one from the Civil War and one from the present, in first-time novelist Guinn’s Southern gothic. The Civil War story explains how the bones got there: Since the school is short on corpses, recently purchased slave Nemo Johnston is dispatched to “resurrect” bodies of recently deceased slaves for medical research. Nemo is a complex character, resigned to slavery though he’s clearly talented enough to be a surgeon. Yet he’s not entirely noble, as Nemo takes easily to the grisly job, even bringing back a body or two that he’s killed himself. He earns a financial success denied to most slaves, while being feared and despised by those in his community. Also new at the school, and also on the wrong side of history, is Sara Thacker, a midwife whose gender keeps her from training as a surgeon. In the present day, the bones of the slaves are discovered at the college, and the school panics over possible bad press and loss of donors when the history gets out. Jacob Thacker, a promising doctor who’s been demoted to public relations because of a former Xanax addiction, is enlisted to protect the college’s good name–but instead, he researches the archives and learns more of the details, including his own family connection. Nemo’s story is ultimately more compelling than Jacob’s, but Guinn provides a lot of twists and an effectively ominous mood, thanks partly to some not-for-the-squeamish medical scenes.

Booklist says: “…A historical novel (thanks to extended flashback chapters—the book’s strongest sections), a cursory look at medical ethics and race relations in the New South, a satire of PR in academia, all with a healthy dose of lurid southern gothic thrown in, Guinn’s book struggles to achieve a consistency of tone but will, nonetheless, appeal to the general reader with a taste for the macabre.

“Neatly juxtaposing the immense wealth and renown of the contemporary South Carolina Medical School against its avaricious origins, Guinn explores the broader issue of America’s avoidance of its complicated and troubled history of slavery and race relations,” says Shelf Awareness.

When is it available?

You can unearth this book now at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its 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!

Courting Greta

By Ramsey Hootman

(Gallery, $16, 374 pages)

Who is this author?

I was tempted to write: “That Ramsey, she’s a hoot, man,” but I don’t want you to stop reading. But then again, she is. Hootman says she spent her first five years on a sailboat, then grew up in Northern California. She’s got quite a resume: she has worked “as an assistant to the blind, sold used and rare books, taught English in mainland China, studied in London, provided end-of-life care for an elderly couple, assembled fairy merchandise, made optical parts for satellites, and toured Italian villas as a travel writer.” She’s married to a programmer and they are raising their child in the San Francisco area. She has also released two short Kindle books this summer: “His Father’s Son” and “Christmas in the Californios, 1833.”

What is this book about?

This is a funny, quirky, bitter and sweet novel about a guy named Samuel Cooke – no, not that Sam Cooke – who seems to have struck out in the love department. After all, he is unquestionably nerdy, being a computer whiz as well as the congenitally handicapped user of elbow crutches and ankle braces. Women are drawn to him, but maternally, not romantically. True, he’s made a pile of dough in the computer industry, but he’s more or less given up on finding his true love. But life can be funny, quirky, bitter and sweet as well, and when Samuel decides to teach programming skills at a high school, he crosses paths with the tomboyish, tart and apparently humor-impaired gym coach who is 12 years his senior, Greta Cassamajor, and totally unexpected sparks begin to fly. And so he begins courting Greta, which also means facing some tough truths about himself. If all romances were as fun as this one, well, what a wonderful world it would be.

Why you’ll like it:

Who doesn’t love a fresh take on love? With its unconventional characters, snappy geek meets girl plot and  not-at-all saccharine characters, this book is a fun read that also makes you marvel at how complicated, yet how simple, love can be.

What others are saying:

Publishers Weekly says: “Hootman’s terrific debut, a most unlikely romance, involves a 34-year-old crippled computer geek and a middle-aged Sue Sylvester–like gym teacher/basketball coach with a penchant for addressing him as “Mr. Cooke.” Samuel Cooke joins a Northern California high school’s faculty to teach programming classes after taking a 10% stake in the successful software firm that formerly employed him. Despite being warned against gym teacher Greta Cassamajor, a 46-year-old who towers over and outweighs him, he feels strangely attracted to her. Recognizing Greta’s prickly nature and uncompromising attitude, Samuel nonetheless sets out to navigate a relationship with her. He has the outward social graces she lacks, but hidden underneath is fear, anger, and self-pity, particularly over the congenital birth defect that forces him to use elbow crutches and ankle braces. While Samuel faces the school’s unprincipled principal, outdated computers, and difficult students, Greta proves remarkably perceptive and caring. By the end of this surprisingly sweet, if sometimes bitter, novel, Samuel has started to appreciate everyone else he has on his side, including his housekeeper, who helps him woo Greta, a nosy fellow teacher, and an old boss who advises him that “in real life, you spend a lot of time on your ass.”

Says Library Journal: “Samuel is a shy, withdrawn computer programmer in need of a change in his life. He thinks a new town and a teaching job will do the trick, but when he falls for Greta, the school’s imposing tomboy gym teacher, he discovers that change can come from unexpected places. In this charming, unconventional first novel, an unlikely pair stumbles down a rough road of romance and self-discovery with all the emotional and physical baggage that middle age—and disability—can bring. VERDICT Hootman gives readers a refreshing, original love story about two socially awkward yet utterly fascinating people….”

Internet Review of Books says: “I am a person—like the protagonist—who has a significant mobility impairment. I too married after becoming disabled, and so the story here—man with spina bifida meets, courts, and marries woman who sees him as a man rather than a man-disability—is too close for comfort, so close in fact that I tend to argue with the writer that every emotion, action, reaction doesn’t meld with my concept of how a crip lives in the real world.…but Ramsey makes it work, and despite any quibbles from the crip crowd that Samuel’s experience isn’t the experience of a real crip, the author has done an extraordinarily good job of creating a believable character with a disability….and anyone with a disability who is honest and introspective enough to confront the darker demons of their own personality will tell you that it is sometimes hard not to be angry, self-centered, self-pitying, and frustrated. It something every sophisticated person learns to recognize—we are shaped by outside forces sometimes out of our control, and if we’re strong enough and willing enough, we can sometimes will ourselves into being a better person. …

“ ‘Courting Greta’ is a damn fine read, especially considering the author is venturing into country generally left unexplored in literature and film.”

When is it available?

You can find this one at the Downtown Hartford Public Library and its Mark Twain and Goodwin branches.

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

Heart of Palm

By Laura Lee Smith

(Grove/Atlantic, $25, 496 pages)

Who is this author?

Laura Lee Smith’s talent was recognized a few years back when her short fiction was selected by guest editor Amy Hempel for the anthology, “New Stories from the South 2010.” She also has written for The Florida Review, Natural Bridge, Bayou and other journals. Smith lives in Florida, where she taught creative writing at Flagler College and works as an advertising copywriter. You can learn more about her at her website, www.lauraleesmith.com

What is this book about?

Small-town life in northeastern Florida – a mixture of inexorable decay and burgeoning development – is chronicled through the story of the Bravo family, which owns a restaurant and a falling-apart, Spanish moss-bedecked house. The family is undergoing changes, just like the town of Utina, their home. Utina was once the site of thriving businesses that fashioned Palm Sunday crosses and moonshine, but now it’s a backwater. Yet opportunity is about to come knocking —  and knocking things over — with a multi-million dollar offer for their property. How Frank Bravo and his quarreling mom and sister, both tall, both stubborn as mules and both redheaded, meet these new challenges and deal with unresolved old family problems is what makes this story fun to read.

Why you’ll like it:

Reviewers are comparing Smith’s style to those of Anne Tyler and Fannie Flagg, which signals good reading. Praised for her wit and good-natured creation of wacky characters, Smith makes this a family saga underpinned by genuine concerns about the pluses and perils of growth, a familiar dilemma to readers everywhere.

What others are saying:

Publishers Weekly says: “Independence Day is a turning point for the Bravo family of small-town Utina on Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway. It’s the day they must consider a multimillion-dollar offer for the formerly backwoods, now valuable, land surrounding the family restaurant and their adjacent home. For the contentious brood’s matriarch, 62–year-old Arla, the deal would mean ending the reclusive life she’s led since her feckless husband Dean decamped two decades ago. For her emotionally volatile daughter, Sofia, it would mean losing her home. For Carson, the eldest son, the windfall could cover the Ponzi scheme he’s been running out of his St. Augustine investment firm, while for middle son Frank, the restaurant manager, it might mean a new beginning with Carson’s wife, Elizabeth. For all of them, accepting the offer would involve leaving the place where the youngest brother, Will, died tragically 20 years ago on July 4, the victim of his father’s irresponsibility and his brothers’ jealousy. The Bravos, once notorious Utina badasses, find their adult ties of guilt and regret beginning to frazzle as long-dormant resentments emerge. Smith’s debut novel exudes authenticity ….Writing with agility and empathy, Smith ends this atmospheric family saga on a note of reconciliation and forgiveness.”

“[A] fine, funny first novel . . . about loss—breathtaking, harrowing loss and how it can be withstood—and the power of family to shoulder the burden and find forgiveness. . . . Smith . . . excels at bringing this north Florida hamlet to life. Her dialogue is pitch-perfect, her landscapes fragrant with jasmine and yellow pine, and she eloquently evokes the mixture of tenderness and callousness essential to small-town relationships. . . . In the end—which comes with a delightful twist—the guilty pleasure of Heart of Palm is its steadfast tangle of rage and grief and love, a heaping dose of Southern soul with a whole lot of chutzpah thrown in,” says Gina Webb in an Atlanta Journal Constitution review.

Library Journal says: “…Reminiscent of the works of John Irving, with its close-knit but oddball family, weird tragedy at regular intervals and its very dark sense of humor, this is an engrossing and rewarding read.”

Kirkus Reviews says:  “Amiable debut novel of life in the nonglitzy part of Florida, the swampy confines of the Georgia borderlands. Utina is a definitive backwater, literally. But it’s close enough to Jacksonville and the interstate to be attractive as the site for potential development, a prospect that makes some of its oddball mix of residents very, very happy. From the best family around, Arla Bolton–she of the mangled foot, wherein hangs a tale–went off years before and married Dean Bravo, proving that good girls love bad boys and that, as her mother archly observes, “[l]ove won’t be enough.” Sure enough, years later, shiftless Dean now smells money in the air. He and Arla, meanwhile, have begat a far-flung family that, as one member puts it, is a “frigging pack of oddballs and failures for whom he’d been wrestling with shame and ambivalence his entire life.” …In a slowly, gently unfolding comedy of manners, Smith skillfully sets multiple stories in motion, most, it seems, designed to showcase the vanity of human wishes. Smith is a kind and understanding creator, and even the most venal of her characters, we see, is just trying to get by–and usually not succeeding. In the end, Smith overlaps territory John Sayles explored in Sunshine State, but with a more generous sense of our foibles. It’s a promising start–and a lot of fun.”

When is it available?

The Downtown Hartford Public Library has a copy of “Heart of Palm” for you to borrow.

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!

 

Harvest

By Jim Crace

(Knopf Doubleday, $24.95, 244 pages)

Who is this author?

Jim Crace, a British novelist who lives in Birmingham, England, has harvested plenty of prestigious awards on both sides of the Atlantic. Among his 10 novels previous to “Harvest,”  “Being Dead” was on the short list for the 1999 Whitbread Fiction Prize and won the U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 2000. In 1997, “Quarantine” won Whitbread Novel of the Year and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Crace has also received the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the E. M. Forster Award, and the Guardian Fiction Prize.

What is this book about?

Set in pre-Industrial Revolution England, perhaps in the 18th century, perhaps even earlier, this slim novel packs an uncommon punch. To a too small to be named, a village where fewer than 60 souls make their home as farmers of barley and wheat and keepers of cattle, pigs and goats, suddenly is facing change – unwelcome change. Over just one week, at harvest time, a prank gone wrong sets off profound consequences, including fires, murders, punishment by pillory and the prospect of an end to village life. Walter, the narrator, has lived among the villagers for a dozen years, but when the troubles mount, he is treated like an outsider. This causes him pain, but also gives him a valuable perspective. The characters are piquant, and one of the most important is the land itself, portrayed exquisitely by Crace.

Why you’ll like it:

Crace has done a masterful job of creating story line, setting and characters, in a novel that feels almost like an allegory. His vivid description of the land and the villagers’ reverence for it, the ancient rituals of farming and husbandry and his expert understanding of the long-ago simplicities of rural life and the eternal complexities of human relationships make for a stunning whole. A fine book to read at any time of year, but especially as autumn begins and we feel the wheel of the year turning again and the chill lurking behind the golden days.

What others are saying:

The New York Times Book Review says: “….Crace asks large questions: How will ordinary people behave when ripped from their mundane routines, cut adrift from comforting old verities? What suppressed capacity for cruelty may surface? What untested gift for improvised survival?…By transposing contemporary anxieties onto distant times he allows us to feel them afresh…In his compassionate curiosity and his instincts for insurgent uncertainty, Crace surely ranks among our greatest novelists of radical upheaval, a perfect fit for our unstable, unforgiving age. “

Says Publishers Weekly: “In his previous 10 novels, the versatile Crace has been heralded for his firmly rooted, painstakingly detailed impressions of time and place, and his latest work is no exception. In fact, the setting—an isolated English farming village, in an unspecified past, with its “planched and thicketed” inhabitants—is so imaginatively described that it stands as the book’s richest character. Over the course of seven days following the harvest, the hamlet is alight with sudden change. A mysterious fire has set Master Kent’s manor stables and dovecote ablaze. Three newcomers—two men and an ominously alluring woman—who arrived that same night are hastily blamed for the fire. All three have their heads shaved as punishment, and the men are shackled for a week to a pillory. When one of them dies and the master’s favorite horse is later found bludgeoned to death, accusations of witchcraft erupt from within the townsfolk’s ranks and nothing, not even the secretive Master Kent’s halfhearted attempt at rooting out the truth and delivering justice, can quell the thirst for revenge that rattles the once principled town to its foundation. Walter Thirsk plays the perfect unreliable narrator; his deliberations about Master Kent’s true intentions, his neighbors’ guilt, and his own role in the events deepen an already resonant story. Crace’s signature measured delivery and deliberate focus create unforgettably poetic passages that quiver with beauty.”

Library Journal says: “Crace ….is a master at creating worlds at once familiar and startlingly sui generis. In a premodern English village, the biblical caution “As ye reap, so ye shall sow” proves true both literally and figuratively; with the hard work of planting and harvesting as backdrop, we see the villagers move inexorably toward a tragedy they’ve provoked. One morning, Master Kent’s stable is found burning, and strangers who have peaceably signaled their presence by sending up the customary smoke plume are blamed; their heads are shaved, and the two men are put in stocks. The only one to show them sympathy is odd Mr. Quill, hired to map the village lands. As suggested by the narrator, Walt—himself an outsider brought to the manor by Master Kent—that mapping heralds a foreboding shift in the village’s future that parallels its current troubles. VERDICT A quietly breathtaking work revealing how fate plays with us as we play with fate; highly recommended.”

“Rarely does language so plainspoken and elemental tell a story so richly open to interpretation on so many different levels. Is this a religious allegory? An apocalyptic fable? A mystery? A meditation on the human condition? With economy and grace, the award-winning Crace …gives his work a simplicity and symmetry that belie the disturbances beneath the consciousness of its narrator. It’s a narrative without specifics of time or place, in the countryside of the author’s native England, following a harvest that will prove different than any the villagers have ever experienced, in a locale where, explains the narrator, “We do not even have a title for the village. It is just The Village. And it’s surrounded by The Land.” In the beginning, the narrator speaks for the community, “bounded by common ditches and collective hopes,” yet one where “[t]heir suspicion of anyone who was not born within these boundaries is unwavering.” The “they” proves crucial, as the narrator who initially speaks for the collective “we” reveals that he is in fact an outsider, brought to the village 12 years earlier by the man who is the master of the manor, and that he is someone who has become a part of the community, yet remains apart from it. There has been a fire following the harvest, disrupting the seasonal cycle, and although evidence points to three young men within the community, blame falls on two men and a woman who have recently camped on the outskirts. There is also someone making charts of the land and an issue of succession of ownership. There is a sense that this harvest may be the last one for these people, that the land may be converted to different use. “[P]lowing is our sacrament, our solemn oath, the way we grace and consecrate our land,” yet that way of life may soon be over. “There isn’t one of us–no, them–who’s safe,” declares the narrator, who must ultimately come to terms with the depths of his solitude. Crace continues to occupy a singular place in contemporary literature,” says Kirkus Reviews.

When is it available?

You can reap this “Harvest” from the new book shelves of the Downtown Hartford Public Library or its Camp Field branch.

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

& Sons

By David Gilbert

(Random House, $27, 448 pages)

Who is this author?

David Gilbert has scored a solid hit with his second novel, variously titled “& Sons” or “And Sons.” His first novel was “The Normals,” and he also has published the story collection “Remote Feed.” His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, GQ, and Bomb. He lives in New York with his wife and three children.

What is this book about?

A. N. Dyer is not J.D. Salinger, but he’s the same sort of reclusive genius of a writer and at odds with his three sons. The acclaimed author of “Ampersand,” set at a snobby boarding school, Dyer attempts to deliver a eulogy for an old friend but breaks down and decides it is high time for making amends. In the whirlwind week that follows, we meet the Dyer sons: a screenwriter, a documentary filmmaker and a prep school virgin whose birth precipitated massive family angst. This last stab at reuniting a fractured family is described by the dead friend’s son, who is close enough but far away enough from the maelstrom to witness it for us, though he has an agenda of his own.

Why you’ll like it:

A New Yorker, Gilbert has appeared in The New Yorker – his recent story there, “From a Farther Room,” a surreal account of a father who may or may not have given birth to a monstrous yet appealing offspring, is dark and devasting – yet also quite funny – an example of how brilliant his writing can be. “& Sons is garnering enthusiastic reviews for its similar qualities: wrenching developments, wittily told. Gilbert can go to the dark side with amazing aplomb. If you have not yet read him, it’s time to discover one of our present-day masters.

What others are saying:

Kirkus Reviews says: “A charming, often funny, sophomore novel by Gilbert (The Normals, 2004). Novels about novelists run the risk of being too meta on the one hand and too cute on the other, though some occasionally work…Gilbert wisely places as much emphasis on the surrounding players as on paterfamilias A.N. Dyer, who has written one particularly well-received coming-of-age novel and a host of other works that have established him nicely in the oak-paneled Upper East Side literary stratosphere. Those surrounding players are, somewhat in order, the late friend whose funeral opens the novel, then offspring, his own and the deceased’s: thus the “& sons” of the title, suggesting that literature might be a family business but more pointedly, that, in a household run with distant dictatorial benevolence, as if in a company, there’s going to be trouble. So it is with Dyer’s boys, gathered as Dad feels his own mortality approaching, who are a hot mess of failure coupled with ambition (and, for the most part, willing to work to attain it); one is a former addict, the other a maker of documentaries no one sees, still another, the youngest, is fully aware that he is the agent of his father’s split from his older brothers’ mother. Much of the story is a (mostly) gentle sendup of the literary life and its practitioners of the fusty old school and the hipster new (“You know what would give the story extra kick,” says one of the latter, “if the other guy was Mark David Chapman.”); a highlight is a devastatingly accurate peek into a hoity-toity book party. In the main, the novel moves without a hitch, though a couple of elements don’t quite hang together, particularly the place of the narrator, at once respectful and not quite trustworthy, in the whole affair. Still, Gilbert tantalizes with a big question: Will Dad, before he kicks the bucket, share some of his fortunes in any sense other than the monetary and bring his sons into the fold? Read on for the answer, which takes its time, most enjoyably, to unfold.”

“When someone uses the term ‘instant classic,’ I typically want to grab him and ask, ‘So this is, what, like the new ‘Great Expectations’? You sure about that?’ But David Gilbert’s novel “& Sons,” seductive and ripe with both comedy and heartbreak, made me reconsider my stance. . . . This is the book I’d most like to lug from one beach to another for the rest of summer, if only I hadn’t torn through it in two very happy days this spring. . . . Gilbert’s portrait of [New York City] and its literary set is as smart and savage in its way as Tom Wolfe’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” half love letter, half indictment, and wholly irresistible,” says NPR.

In The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani writes:  “With “& Sons,” David Gilbert…has set out to write a big, ambitious book about fathers and sons, Oedipal envy and sibling rivalry, and the dynamics between art and life, talent and virtue. The novel is smart, funny, observant and occasionally moving. It does a wonderful job of conjuring up its characters’ memories of growing up in New York City in layered, almost Proustian detail, and it can be eloquent in its depiction of the weight of expectation—and resentment—that may fall upon the children of a legendary artist, especially if they aspire to follow in his footsteps. The novel also contains some razor-edge glimpses of literary life in Manhattan, and the rarefied latitudes inhabited by old Upper East Side money.”

“A marvel of uproarious and devastating missteps and reversals charged with lightning dialogue, Gilbert’s delectably mordant and incisive tragicomedy of fathers, sons, and brothers, privilege and betrayal, celebrity and obscurity, ingeniously and judiciously maps the interface between truth and fiction, life and art,” says Booklist in a starred review.

When is it available?

You can get this book now 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!

Flora

By Gail Godwin

(Bloomsbury, $26, 288 pages)

Who is this author?

Gail Godwin is by any measure a highly successful novelist, acclaimed by critics and appreciated by readers. She is has been a National Book Award finalist  three times and is  the bestselling author of a dozen novels, including “A Mother and Two Daughters,” “The Good Husband,” “Father Melancholy’s Daughter” and “Evensong.” Her nonfiction includes “The Making of a Writer: Journals, 1961—1963” and Godwin has written libretti for 10 musical works with composer Robert Starer. She lives in Woodstock, New York.

What is this book about?

It’s the waning days of World War II, and in Oak Ridge, Tenn., 10-year-old Helen’s father is doing secret research. But who will care for Helen in North Carolina, whose mother died when she was three and whose beloved grandmother has just passed away? Enter Helen’s mother’s first cousin, 22-year-old Flora, who comes to the family’s decaying mountaintop home to take charge of the little girl, but seems significantly under-qualified for the job. Flora is determined, but weepy, and it often seems that Helen is far more mature and capable of taking care of her caretaker. This novel is a brilliant examination of their relationship and how it affects Helen and Flora long after that summer is over.

Why you’ll like it:

Godwin is adept at layered stories with layered characters who are peeled back to their essence with the precise delicacy of a skilled surgeon. Here she gives us a difficult, bossy and very precocious child who is frightened by the deaths in her family and, despite her intelligence, does not understand how her behavior may hurt the child-like woman who has come to take care of her. Some have compared the tone of this book to Henry James’ classic “The Turn of the Screw,” high praise indeed.

What others are saying:

Says author John Irving:    “Helen’s story, which she tells us when she is an older woman, is focused on the summer when she was a precocious ten-year-old.  Her mother is dead, and the “haunted little girl” has more recently lost her grandmother.  Flora (the first cousin of Helen’s late mother) is looking after Helen for the summer.  Helen seems much smarter and more sophisticated than her unwanted, twenty-two-year-old companion from Alabama; Helen believes that Flora is the one who needs looking after. “ ‘Remorse is wired straight to the heart,’ the older Helen tells us.  Gail Godwin’s Flora is similarly wired — straight to the heart.  The events of Helen’s haunted and most formative summer are perfectly plotted to unhinge her; what happens to Helen and Flora will make Helen the woman (and the writer) she becomes. …Godwin has flawlessly depicted the kind of fatalistic situation we can encounter in our youth — one that utterly robs us of our childhood and steers the course for our adult lives. This is a luminously written, heartbreaking book.”

In The Washington Post, Ron Charles says: “…witty and moving…The incidents of this plot are daringly few: A boring summer during which nothing happens is a challenge most novelists should avoid. Godwin, though, has the psychological sensitivity to make these still, humid days seem fraught with impending consequence…The success of this trim novel rests entirely on Godwin’s ability to maintain the various chords of Helen’s voice, which are by degrees witty, superior, naive and rueful…Her recollection of that tragic summer, turned over and over in her mind for years, is something between a search for understanding and a mournful confession. But finally it’s a testament to the power of storytelling to bring solace when none other is possible.”

Says Publishers Weekly:  “Narrator Helen Anstruther, “going on eleven,” is the relentlessly charismatic and wry star of this stirring and wondrous novel from Godwin (Unfinished Desires). In the summer of 1945, in the mountains of North Carolina, Helen is trying to make sense of the world since her beloved grandmother’s death. When her father leaves to do “secret work for World War II” in neighboring Tennessee, this becomes much more challenging, and Helen, motherless for years, is left in the care of 22-year-old Flora, a delicate and, Helen might say, hopelessly effusive relative. Helen has grown up in a rambling old house that once served as a home for convalescent tubercular or inebriate “Recoverers” under the care of Helen’s physician grandfather. For a precocious girl who has lost everyone who’s ever loved and known her, the house becomes a mesmerizing and steadfast companion. Though Flora initially appears to Helen as little more than a country bumpkin, their time together profoundly transforms them both. Godwin’s thoughtful portrayal of their boredom, desires, and the eventual heartbreak of their summer underscores the impossible position of children, who are powerless against the world and yet inherit responsibility for its agonies.”

“Godwin, celebrated for her literary finesse, presents a classic southern tale galvanic with decorous yet stabbing sarcasm and jolting tragedy…. Godwin’s under-your-skin characters are perfectly realized, and the held-breath plot is consummately choreographed. But the wonder of this incisive novel of the endless repercussions of loss and remorse at the dawn of the atomic age is how subtly Godwin laces it with exquisite insights into secret family traumas, unspoken sexuality, class and racial divides, and the fallout of war while unveiling the incubating mind of a future writer, “says Booklist in a starred review.

When is it available?

You can borrow “Flora” from the Downtown Hartford Public Library or its Camp Field, Dwight or Park branches.

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