Book Reviews

 I've read three books since my last post.  One of these falls into the category of "superficial and implausible"; a second is in the category of "if this was not a famous author, the book would likely not have been published"; and the third is "close to brilliant."

I was in a library a few weeks back that I'd never visited before. It was right near the airport and I was picking up Donna later in the day.  Since I planned to go to a library near home and wait for her call, I figured I would find a library near the airport so that when I learned the plane landed, it would take me no time to get to the terminal. And that, for any Bostonians who are library people and who are scheduled to pick someone up at Logan, is the way to go.  Once I got the call I was at the gate before she retrieved her luggage.  While I was doing what I do in a library I saw a display of books that librarians had highlighted.  I can't recall now if these were "staff picks" or just books the librarians thought patrons might like. One was called, The Last Thing he Told Me. It is a page turner.  However, when you get done turning the pages, you're left holding something superficial and implausible, such that you (or at least I) figure that the value of the easy read is outweighed by the loss of time reading something that evaporates within moments of having completed the reading. In this, apparently very popular, novel a man disappears leaving his wife with a stepdaughter who is not crazy about the wife.  The wife attempts to find her sweetheart and earn the respect of the surly stepdaughter. Twists and turns like you wouldn't believe--literally--you would not believe them.  The husband, go figure, is not the guy he said he was.  His history is not the history he had described to his wife. How the stepdaughter and wife learn this is through a series of implausible, but readable, escapades.  In the end, guess what, the good wife earns the respect of the stepdaughter who seems, absolutely improbably, to be well adjusted despite what she has learned about her dad and her biological mother.  In short, if you are on a plane and have nothing to read, you could do worse, but don't expect Tolstoi.

I request books from the library when I read a review that makes the book seem interesting. From now on I will write down, when I make the request, where I saw the review and why I was intrigued. The Latecomer is one of these books. I received a notice from my library that the request was in, so I picked up this book that I'd forgotten I'd requested. Bottom line. Very well written book. Longish 430 plus pages, but the author is able to describe events and people in a way that is, literally, marvelous. (i.e. I marveled at her skill).   Basic plot line: a woman marries a man who she knew ahead of time was carrying a heavy heart and guilt. Nevertheless she wants to marry him and procreate. However, she can't conceive. Eventually through a doctor's intervention and modern science, she has triplets.  Much of the book describes the triplets, and the parents. While I am not sure the kids could be as described, they are described vividly.  I cannot relay who the latecomer is without giving something up that the author wishes the reader to figure out, or be surprised when it is revealed. With some pride I will comment that I predicted who the latecomer was after only about 100 pages. There is one event near the end however, that really was startling and again I marveled how the author prepared the reader for that revelation. In short: Highly recommended. Some tidy stuff at the end which I can't believe would have happened, but maybe. Snowed in for the weekend. You can do worse that settle in with this book.

I've been a fan of Scott Turow's since he wrote the magnificent, Presumed Innocent.  I read it about 30 years ago and I've yet to read a comparable legal thriller. Since then I've read nearly all, if not all, of his books. They are almost always engaging, though none compares favorably with his first novel.  I was in the library a week back and saw a STAFF PICKS section and there was a recent Scott Turow, called Suspect.  The first 200 pages of this was engaging and classic Turow. The main character is the granddaughter of the main character in Burden of Proof, Sandy Stern, who was also a very important character in Presumed Innocent.  Since I have read nearly all his books I recall many of the names, but not all of the details about characters who appeared in previous novels. I think he threw some characters from the past in the book to reward loyal readers as they are not all central to this book.  The granddaughter, however, is, central. And there are several references to Stern, now living in Assisted Living.  After the first two hundred pages, the rest of Suspect turns into high tech gratuitous gobblegook, and an ending that just could not and would not have happened in so many ways. The book read like half way through Turow said to his kid (I don't know if he has a kid) who kept nagging the dad saying "I can write better than you" to go knock himself out.  It's terrible.  Inclusion of completely irrelevant characters. Disappearance of central characters.  Characters that blur into each other. Just not good. One thing I liked is that he attempts to deal with gender inequities. The book is about a police chief who is accused of sexually harassing cops in exchange for promotion.  The thing is the chief is a woman and the allegedly harassed cops, men. The main character is a sexually active bisexual woman who discusses her amorous activities in a way that is not intended to make her seem promiscuous.  And I think Turow did this deliberately to try and put a dent (or question mark at least) on the very much lingering double standard--as well as the insidious puritanical attitudes our society still has about sex.   Still, even with these positives, the book disappoints. The plot does not pass the "is it ridickalus" sniff test.  I can't recommend Suspect and am surprised that a librarian staff member did.

Book Review: The Position

 I took The Position a book authored by Meg (not Hilma, her mother) Wolitzer, to Washington DC the week before Thanksgiving.  I started reading it at least three times and I could not get past the first page. It just did not grab me. Maybe I was tired because of my travels, maybe the museums were stimulating such that I could not get stimulated by a book. Who knows. I could not get to page two.

When I returned home, I thought I would give the book another shot.  I read a few pages, thumbed through to see how long the first chapter was, saw it was 20 pages, and almost gave the book the heave-ho.  Then I determined to plow through the first chapter and then make a decision.  

This experience is a good example of why one should give books a genuine chance.  The Position is a very good book; exceptionally and vividly written.  In brief (and this occurs on the first few pages) one of four siblings discovers a book the parents have written about sex. The book is called Pleasuring and it not only includes descriptions of sex acts, but also has pictures of the parents engaged in the activity.  The kids are stunned.  The rest of the book describes each of the four children's reaction to the book and their subsequent development. Also, the parents'--the authors of Pleasuring--evolution is described. In some cases, the partners of the characters are described as well.  

I think the author was not quite certain how the book was going to end or even how all the characters would evolve. This, if you have read my reviews before, is not to my liking.   However, in this book Wolitzer does such an extraordinary job of depicting each of the characters that I can still recommend the book enthusiastically.  I'm not sure if I buy how the children reacted, or that the publication of the book could have been as jarring as it apparently was to the kids. The saga of the oldest child seemed particularly unrealistic, and the ease with which some characters eased from one relationship to another was atypical at least to my experience.

Still, I recommend the book.  The title refers to a sexual position that the authors of Pleasuring claim to have "invented" The position itself is not described until the very end of the book. It's not a position that is likely to "work" at least for an extended period of time. About halfway through the book, before the reader knows what the position actually is, a woman friend of the female author of Pleasuring comments to the author that she tried "the position" and found it exciting, but the problem was "it kept popping out." Sexual and romantic connections are difficult to maintain and endure.  They are initially, and can even be in the long run, exciting and bonding, but the reality is we keep popping out.

I've read two other books by Meg Wolitzer. The Interestings and The Wife. Neither was as good as The Position.  Looking for a good read? Give this a chance.

An Available Man--Book Review

 This morning I had to make an early run to the grocery store.  My cat was out of treats and I was close to out of ketchup. An absence of either could result in grouchy behavior.  At just about 8 am I walked into the store and at nearly the same time I saw a man leaving holding a takeaway coffee in his right hand.   To compete I guess with a Starbucks nearby, in the grocery there is a takeout coffee station.  The entrance and exit doors to the grocery are automatic. The doors opened for him and me concurrently. I had a great view of the guy banging into the close to completely opened door, spilling coffee from the tiny sucking opening on the lid and shouting as he burned his ungloved fingers.  It's possible that he anticipated the door would open more and he would have space, but it seemed to me that he just wasn't paying attention.  He rammed into the door. He burned his hand, he lost some coffee. As I walked past I heard him mutter "fucking door"    Hey Mack, I thought, the door is inanimate. You walked right into it. Don't blame the door.

I finished An Available Man by Hilma (not Meg) Wolitzer yesterday morning. I was looking for a good novel and had enjoyed another book by her a few years back.  It was an easy, fast read and in that respect what I wanted.  As a drawback the novel reminded me of advice that Bird by Bird author Anne Lamott offered about plot.  Lamott suggested that authors allow characters to develop the story and not to have a definite idea about where the story would go until the writer "listens" to the characters.  As I mentioned in an earlier review, I don't agree with this advice.  In An Available Man  Wolitzer seemed to me as if she took Lamott's advice and was not really sure where the book was going to go when she started. She had the general idea.  A man is widowed, is out there and available. The book is about what happens subsequently. In addition to the widowed, now available, husband, the author probably had other parts of the story in place: he had loved his wife; he had two stepchildren; the mother of the deceased was still alive; there was a dog; the main character was a teacher; the main character's romantic history had a big bump in it-but beyond these facts, it did not seem to me as if she had specifics or maybe even an idea of how it all was going to wind up.  As it turned out, it wound up fine; interesting story--I don't believe some aspects of it are likely and without spilling the story I can't go into what, but I don't buy some of the plot.  Still the story got tied up if in an unlikely way with an unlikely set of connections,  but it was tied up and, in general, a good read.

A message in the book resonated with me even though it is not that profound.  We are responsible for our own happiness. We can make decisions that will allow us to be happy or we can choose to block the paths to joy.  I'm not necessarily the greatest at following that advice, but at least I know that we have, myself and everyone else, choices.  One of the peripheral characters in the novel is a psychic and she relays this "you have a choice" advice to a character.  A key is not to take the predictably bumpy roads when, even without a gps, you can see that there are routes that are likely to be far more exciting, salubrious, and relatively obstacle free.  And it follows as a corollary that, unlike the guy I saw this morning who burned his hand, don't blame hot coffee on your fingers on the fucking door when you, yourself, walked into it.

Do I recommend the book? Yes, it is an easy, well written read.  Do I suggest you rush right out and get it, no.  It is not grab your neighbor and say you must read it good.   But on a rainy day when you are looking for something to read in an easy chair, you could do much worse. 

Bird by Bird--A Review

These past six months I've been writing beyond blogs and textbooks.  Short stories, plays, essays. Some days have been more productive than others. Sometimes I write what seems brilliant to me, only to have it rejected by an editor who obviously does not have the wisdom to publish what is unequivocally brilliant.  In October I hit a bit of a wall in terms of motivation for writing.  The book Bird by Bird was highly recommended.  I read it. i second the recommendation.  

The author, Anne Lamott, is a successful writer who also--at least at the time when she wrote this book--taught writing classes. Bird by Bird is a collection of essays that each describes some message that she relays to her students.  In addition to the essays, there is an excellent introduction in the book that frames the essays. 

Some specific reactions.

There are parts of the book that have stuck with me in the ten days or so when I completed it--and I believe these will stay in my. head for the duration.  The most significant is the story that explains why the author titled the book as she did. The story: Her brother had procrastinated writing a paper in high school. The paper was about birds. At the 11th hour he was overwhelmed with the assignment. Lamott's father came over to the young man, put his arm around him, and said: Bird by Bird.  And that is a key thing in writing. Not that I always use the key, but the point is that when apparently overwhelmed, address the task (and the assorted factors that impede progress) bird by bird.  There are other parts that are valuable as well. So, one reason to read the book is that there are stick to you take-aways.

Second, she is funny. There are several parts that are very much laugh-out-funny.  Others that are good smile funny. Still others that are read the part to whoever is sitting in the living room funny or at least clever.

Third, she makes important points that are not wholly related to writing.  The Bird by Bird could be said to be one of them, but another is as significant to me.  In one essay she talks about how some of her students believe that once they publish they will feel better about themselves. Lamott contends that this sense of self worth if it is based on being published will not last. She relays a story of an Olympic coach who was working with bobsledders hoping to win a gold. The athletes felt that if they could medal, then they would feel great. The coach's comment went something like this--If you're not enough without the medal, you won't be enough with the medal.  As they say: in Spanish Es Verdad; in Hebrew, the Emmess; in English True Dat.

One part with which I will quibble. I don't agree with her essays about plot evolution and character development.And I believe she contradicts these recommendations in a subsequent chapter. Essentially, she writes that the act of writing will help you understand your own characters and that the plot will evolve if you listen to your characters. I don't buy that. In a subsequent essay she describes a book that was rejected by an editor and friend. When she railed against the decision, the editor/friend said that she needed to explain in writing what she had just expressed orally. Lamott then wrote out a chapter by chapter description of the book. That novel, according to her at the time of Bird by Bird, became her most successful. Personally I don't like novels that seem to be written with the author not knowing how the characters would evolve. Then the evolution seems fictional And too many times i read a book that ends as if the author had no clue how it would end and, after a spell decided, to stop and did not know how to conclude.

On balance however, Bird by Bird, is a very good read. Here I am in a hotel room having trouble sleeping. There are a dozen notions darting through my consciousness including several to dos. One to do was that I wanted to write this blog. Wrote it at 326 am. One down. Bird by Bird.

 

Death at the Fair-review

 Annually in October there is a book fair in Copley Square in Boston.  Because of COVID the fair did not take place, at least in real time, in 2020 and 2021. This year it was held and because it was a beautiful day the Fair was well attended and the atmosphere was festive.  

The Fair includes several concurrent sessions during which authors or reviewers or publishers speak on various subjects. I attended one session during which three book reviewers and the editor of a book review section opined on issues related to being a reviewer.  In a prior year I listened to three authors who had recently penned books on sports and social issues. When the panelists are authors there is typically a book selling/autographing session after the program.

In addition to the sessions, booths are set up in Copley Square itself--not far, in fact, from where the bombers took lives and limbs when trying to make some sort of irrational political point during the Boston Marathon in 2013.  At the booths, various publishers of magazines and books, display their wares. This year one booth was occupied by a group called The Mystery Writers of New England.  I visited it, as I visited most of the others.  A woman there told me she had written a series of historical novels featuring a young woman named Emily Cabot. I asked her about the first novel in the series. It was, Death at the Fair. I bought it and read it during the first week in November.

The plot is interesting.  A student, Emily Cabot, is visiting the 1893 Chicago fair.  Her mother and brother travel from Boston to attend, and some friends from the South also meet up with Emily to visit the Fair.  The friend from the South has brought along another friend, an acquaintance, to visit as well. Emily has been mentored and supported by a professor at the university.  (If you're interested in reading the book, you might want to skip to the next paragraph as some minor details of the plot are coming. I do think I leave enough out, so that a reader could enjoy the book even with this information. The minor details:)   At a gathering of all people identified, the professor is startled when he sees the acquaintance. Apparently, they had been sweethearts at one point. However, the woman married another man.  That man it turned out was a tyrant and virulent racist.  At one point he beat his wife, the acquaintance, and blamed the beating on a black servant. The servant was then lynched.   After the initial gathering, the racist husband joins the entourage.  Subsequently, he is murdered. That is the death at the Fair.  The professor is accused to be the killer because, it is alleged, he is jealous since the victim married the professor's former sweetheart. Emily is certain he did not do it, and attempts to learn the identity of the killer. 

This is an historical novel and several characters are real people--not the victim or Emily or professor--but others. At the Fair is Ida Wells and Ferdinand Barnett.  Students of history will probably recognize the name of Wells.  I'd heard of her, but could not have told anyone much about her contributions.  I can now. I did not know how she met her husband, Barnett, and who he was--and perhaps this reflects inappropriate ignorance--but now I know.  I'd read The Devil in White City which is also about the Chicago Fair. Now I know more about the Fair.  There are real Chicago politicians, miscreants and events in this novel.  One I'd heard of, others I'd not. So the book had some educational value.

However, it was not a gripping read. Some terrific sentences and paragraphs beautifully written, but overall, it could not hold my attention despite an interesting plot line.  Others who like historical fiction and writing that tries to capture the language of the late 1800s might feel differently.  I'll not read the other novels in the Emily Cabot series.  If anyone who reads this review does, I'd be interested in your perspective.

Lucy By The Sea--A Review

 I have read all the novels Elizabeth Strout has written. I've read them all because the first one I read, Olive Kitteridge, is a special book. If you've watched the tv series and not read the book, I suggest you take it out of your local library.  It is very very good.

Lucy By The Sea is Strout's fourth book about Lucy Barton. I liked the first one, My Name is Lucy Barton. This one, I write at the risk of being pilloried by Strout devotees, is not a very good book.  I've a number of reasons.

The first is, well, enough already with Lucy.  We know about her mother, her marriages, her upbringing, her siblings--there is very little that is new here.  This novel takes place during the pandemic. William, an ex husband and father of her two daughters, scoops Lucy up out of New York and drives her to Maine. Lucy is not a COVID denier, but she is not as concerned--at least initially-as William is about the dangers of the virus.  Nevertheless she travels with him to Maine and they live in a home near the coast.  They take separate bedrooms and try, like many of us did, to deal with the hours after the world closed up. Some of her observations are akin to those I, and I imagine most readers had during the pandemic. I'll not divulge plot details--such as they are.   Four books about Lucy--there's not enough more to discuss.

The book is also not engagingly written. Lucy Barton, the character, is supposedly a successful author who has been on television discussing her books, and been on book tours. She is also the narrator of this novel.  A popular author should be able to write better. Lucy often speaks like a child--like perhaps a senior who has been addled by some illness or severe emotional turbulence.  I typically like books with short sections, but here there are just too many of them. It is as if the book is written in three or four paragraph bites. Sometimes there is just a space between sections, sometimes some marker indicating more of a content break.  If Lucy Barton wrote for a living like Lucy Barton narrates the novel, I don't think she would have published many novels.

I will not, as mentioned previously, divulge much about the story line.  However, I don't find the issues she and William face and how they evolve, especially profound.  Their relationship with the daughters; William's relationship with an ex wife; Lucy's dreaming about a dead husband--well okay, but nothing especially novel about this novel's plot line.

Finally, there are characters in this book from other Strout books--not just the Lucy books.  Olive Kitteridge shows up, one of the Burgess boys from the novel The Burgess Boys. Isabelle from Amy and Isabelle.  Olive has such a small role--just referenced by another character--that it is not essential to remember the details of her life.  But the Burgess boy has a major part and there are allusions to his siblings and the story in that other novel. I only vaguely remember the other book and understanding Burgess in this book requires--for full appreciation--remembering Burgess from the other book.  I feel similarly about Isabelle. She does not have as big a part as Burgess. But there is a section when Isabelle recalls an incident that is not insignificant to this novel, but you would have to remember the other book to get it.  And I barely do.  If you haven't read the others I am not sure the reference to what Isabelle recalls would have much significance.

As I look through the Amazon reviews of the book, my take on the novel is in the minority.  Many like the book a lot. So, you may enjoy the novel. i didn't. Not the kind of book I carried along so that if I had a spare moment I could get lost in the story. It was a slog. And only 288 pages.  My recommendation to the author is to find another character to write about and jettison the Barton writing style.

Bad Sex--Review

Lately I have been attempting to publish pieces in varied literary magazines. One thing that recurred when reading the submission rules for these publications is that a blog post counts as a publication. That is, if one has published an artcle/opinion piece in a blog, and the magazine requires that any submission has not been published elsewhere--the existence of the blog post technically disqualifies the submission. Therefore, I have not been writing here.

However, I will begin again to post book reviews at least--unless I believe that I might want to publish the review elsewhere.

I've been reading, as is my wont.  It was family lore, and true, that when I was a kid my mother had to harass me to get me to read.  As long as she was alive she would marvel that I had become a reader since it had been pulling teeth to get me to read when I was a child. Lately, I've gone on an Ann Patchett tear. I've read now nearly all of her books and her two essay collections. (One of her lesser known books is called Taft and it is terrific. I inhaled it one week this past spring).  

But I am not writing about Taft or Ann Patchett with this blog entry.  I am writing about a book called Bad Sex written by Nona Willis-Aronowitz.  I should have known about her famous mother, but did not.  Ellen Willis, I learned, was a feminist in the early days of the 60s feminist movement.  Her daughter penned the book Bad Sex.

This, to me, was a startling book. Of course I was born during the Truman administration, and the author was born during Reagan.  I have more in common--in terms of generation--with her mother than with the author.  It will be interesting to learn how the author's contemporaries feel about the book.

My thoughts.

I did my share of frolicking when I was a young 'un. However compared to Ms. Aronowitz I was a monk. If she is the norm, I am in another world in terms of slow dancing.

Second, if this book had been written by a man he would have been pilloried mercilessly.  She discusses her affairs in detail. She does not boast so much as describe, but if a man were to describe the sundry activities that the author enjoyed, he would be dubbed a capricious and inconsiderate satyr.  

I liked her openness about sex because it,  implicitly and sometimes explicitly, criticizes the puritanical and counterproductive repressive attitudes about intimate activities that bring people joy and are, I'll opine, salubrious. 

She presented historical context in many of the chapters and I found that informative. I did not know much about Emma Goldman and knew nothing of the author's mother.  The author's discussion of the origins of the free love movement was unfamiliar to me and, I suppose, was left out of my high school history books.

Her discussion of the tension between polyamorous activity and jealousy was important to include. The part about how Goldman and Willis and Aronowitz herself had trouble reconciling their politics regarding non monogamy with how hurt they felt when their lovers took on other lovers--even when the dalliances had the partners' consent--made sense to me. 

If the book had as a goal moving the mainstream, forget it.  I thought about my parents reading the book and hurling it against the wall. And many of my contemporaries would be outraged at her, so what attitude about multiple lovers and "boning" (her word used often) this fellow or that. It can liberate those inclined to explore whether monogamy is a healthy social construct--but my guess is that 75% of the people in this establishment where I am typing the blog, would dismiss the book before the first twenty pages were up. And I live in one of the bluest of the blue states. 

My take away is that the politics of challenging the status quo in terms of sexual attitudes is important to consider and yet these politics run into a wall of natural human responses when people fear that their partners might leave them for more excitement or more whatever with another. 

While the book is called Bad Sex, there is a good deal of good or at least pleasurable sex described. 

Do I recommend the book? It was a slog at times. The book is 288 pages but I thought I had seen it was 281. When I got to 281 and there was more I was disappointed.  But if the author is anything like what is the prevailing norm of those born in the 80s, it exposed me to a culture and a set of attitudes far different to those of my generation.