Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch -- Book Review

I went to Cotillion Training School for the same reason my friends went: my mother wanted me to. This was important to her, the same way it was important to have a picture of her great-great-grandfather dressed in Confederate gray over the sideboard and for us not to be seen in Dad's truck when we were in town.

I was packing for Spring Break and trying to decide which books, out of my large TBR pile, I should carry home. I had four books started and needed to pick a few more, so I thought I would read the first page or two of the other books in the stack to decide.

Oh, the best laid plans...

I read the first 100 pages of Girls in Trucks before convincing myself to put it down and finish packing. The writing is wonderful. From the beginning I connect with Sarah. She's done the perfect daughter thing, now she wants to live her own life. The only problem is, she's not very good at it. She dates the wrong guys and can't seem to land that job she wants in New York. Life just isn't lining up like it's supposed to.

But when does life ever really go as planned, and do we want it to? I think that's what this book gets at. Everyone has goals, ideas of what their life will be like, but what happens when things don't work out? Do we change plans, or ourselves?

"Being unfaithful to yourself is not as hard as you'd think. I will never compromise myself for someone else, I always thought. I'll kill myself first. But it's so easy. It's like wearing earplugs. It's as if you've put your head under the pillow during a thunderstorm, so that all you can hear is the faint sound of muffled rain."

Girls in Trucks spans somewhere around three decades, I think, and is written more in pieces than as a novel. Sometimes I had to stop and reread to figure out how old Sarah was, which could be frustrating. The end frightened me as well, because I thought, for about 15 pages, that the author had written this great book and then was going to end it with a trite wrap-up, but she avoids that trap nicely.

This turned out to be a great read, up to all the hype I'd seen, and I can't wait for Crouch's next book.

On a sidenote: DON'T READ THE JACKET COPY. It gives too much away. Trust me, just start reading--you'll be a hundred pages in before you realize it.

Buy Girls in Trucks from amazon.com

Katie Crouch talks about her book and her experiences as a Southern gal living in New York City:



(Does she look a little like Debra Messing from Will and Grace to anyone else?)

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake -- Book Review

Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell."

This is a gem of a work I discovered while writing a paper for my class on British Romanticism. More a piece of art than a book, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is beautiful, confusing, thought-provoking and a bit insane. My favorite part of the book is the Proverbs of Hell. Blake writes that he wanted to explain what hell is like so he brought back its wise sayings, because a people's proverbs tell you what is important to them. The list is a mishmash of contradictions. Some of the sayings could have come straight out of the biblical proverbs, while others fly in the face of Christian teachings.

Here are the first few (Read slowly, let each one sink in before you move on to the next):

"In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.

He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence."

Blake is railing against a religious establishment he doesn't agree with, in a world that has been turned inside out by the French Revolution. If you haven't read this since it was assigned to you in Lit class, pick it up again, but make sure to find an edition with Blake original illustrated pages. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by how refreshingly beautiful Blake's writings and drawings are.

Buy William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books

Slow Hands by Leslie Kelly -- Book Review

“Don’t stop me,” he whispered hoarsely as he tugged her ponytail holder off and ran his fingers through that thick, dark hair, spreading it across her shoulders. He tasted her soft earlobe, moving slowly down the long line of her delicate neck, nibbling lightly, savoring the unique flavors of skin and woman.
“Stopping you isn’t even a consideration.”

This isn't the sort of book you read for it's literary merit. The plot was predictable, the characters were typical, and the gimmick--she thinks he's a gigolo, which he lets her believe until he has time to win her over--is tired. Romance novels follow a tried and true formula that can get old fast, and this one doesn't deviate far from the model. That said... the sex is great.

Some romance novels skimp on the sex, which is really the whole point of the book, right? Slow Hands really delivers on the good stuff. In fact, if you're short on time, read Chapter 1, then skip to Chapter 5 -- instant satisfaction.

Buy Slow Hands from amazon.com

Two decades in reading...

Today is my 20th birthday, which I suppose is a big deal--leaving my teenage years behind and all.

So to celebrate, I thought I would share the highlights of two decades in reading. These are the books that have stayed with me over the years, in semi-chronological order...

The Baby-sitter's Club by Ann M. Martin (the series)


The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (the series)


A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain


Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine


Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen


Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe


Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes


Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (the series)


1984 by George Orwell


By the Waters of Babylon by Stephen Vincent Benet


Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy


Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy


Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte


A Passage to India by E. M. Forester


Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell


Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

What stories and books have stuck with you over the years?

Signed, Mata Hari by Yannick Murphy -- Book Review

“It helps to be fluent in a number of languages if you want to become a spy. I spoke Dutch, German, Spanish, French and even Malay. If you have a studious mind, this helps you become a spy. If you do not have a studious mind, this too helps, because who would suspect you, being ignorant of how to break a code, of knowing how to concoct invisible ink from a number of vials? Anything helps if you want to become a spy, because everyone wants to believe you are a spy.”

How many wonderful things can I say about this book before you begin to roll your eyes?

Mata Hari, an exotic dancer and professional courtesan, was accused of being a double agent for the Germans during World War I and executed by the French in 1917. Whether or not she actually spied for the French is debated, and the records of her trial remain sealed until 2017.

Signed, Mata Hari shifts subtly between 1st person and 3rd throughout the book, even occasionally flirting with a 2nd person perspective, which creates a dreamy sort of voyeuristic feeling for the reader. The chapters are short, but luxuriously crafted--almost poetical in their cadence. I felt drawn in immediately, as Mata Hari begins her story by recalling when she "walked across the sea," a memory she calls on throughout her life as a source of strength and courage.

"When I walked back, I turned around and looked over my shoulder to watch the sea advancing. Try and catch me, I said out loud, and what answered back was the sky, at first in low rumbles, then louder as thunder rolled closer. But it never did catch me, and I outran the tide and lived."

The story alternates between Mata Hari's memories and the prison cell she occupies. I felt, as I was reading, that perhaps she was telling me only part of the story--that perhaps she was telling herself only part of the story, as she offers glimpses of her life leading up to her imprisonment.

Even not knowing that Mata Hari was an actual historical figure, I enjoyed this read. The last chapter tipped me off to the fact that this is a truth-based fiction, and now, having read a little of the history, I can see how thoroughly the author incorporated her research into the text. Signed, Mata Hari touches on subjects like parenthood, sex, abuse and desperation without the reader even realizing that this beautiful and enjoyable book is saying something deeper about our humanity.

Murphy has written a wonderful, simple, beautiful book.

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas -- Book Reivew

"Eh, gentlemen, let us reckon upon accidents! Life is a chaplet of little miseries which the philosopher counts with a smile. Be philosophers, as I am, gentlemen; sit down at the table and let us drink. Nothing makes the future look so bright as surveying it through a glass of chambertin"

My first introduction to The Three Musketeers was the 1993 Disney film version, which I would watch over and over, rewinding the fencing scenes to watch them again. (There's something so irresistibly romantic about sword fights.) I've always wanted to read the Dumas original, but thinking that I basically already knew the plot line, I never picked it up. Of course, that's the sort of clever-but-not-clever-enough thinking that gets kids in trouble on book reports and literature exams!

The movie and the novel might as well have been two different stories that happen to share a setting and several character names. Oh, and an amusing, ridiculous rivalry between the Cardinal's guards and the King's Musketeers.

Set in 17th century France, The Three Musketeers follows the adventures of D'Artagnan, a young Gascon who dreams of joining the King's Musketeers, and his three friends, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

I expected sword fights, romance, intrigue and adventure, but was pleasantly surprised to find a large helping of humor as well:

“This is the gentleman I am going to fight with,” said Athos, pointing to D’Artagnan with his hand and saluting him with the same gesture.
“Why, it is with him I am also going to fight,” said Porthos.
“But not before one o’clock,” replied D’Artagnan.
“And I also am to fight with this gentleman,” said Aramis, coming in his turn onto the place.
“But not until two o’clock,” said D’Artagnan, with the same calmness.
“But what are you going to fight about, Athos?” asked Aramis.
“Faith! I don’t very well know. He hurt my shoulder. And you, Porthos?”
“Faith! I am going to fight--because I am going to fight,” answered Porthos, reddening.
Athos, whose keen eye lost nothing, perceived a faintly sly smile pass over the lips of the young Gascon as he replied, “We had a short discussion upon dress.”

I actually listened to most of this story in the car. The entire book is on Librivox, and the fact that the story was read by amateur voice talent only increased the humor quotient (some of the readers were very good, others less so).

What makes this book a classic in my mind, however, are the dark moments. D'Artagnan is the main character, but in reality one of the least interesting. The real poignancy in the book comes from the portrayal of wise, yet haunted, Athos and the ruthlessly ambitious Milady. Whispered at in the movie but fleshed out in the book, these beautiful characters will stay with you long after you finish reading the final page.

Buy The Three Musketeers at amazon.com

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga -- Book Review

"Oh, I could go on and on about myself, sir. I could gloat that I am not just any murderer, but one who killed his own employer (who is a kind of second father), and also contributed to the probable death of all his family members. A virtual mass murderer.

But I don't want to go on and on about myself."

I buy very few books, but the library hold queue for this book was so long, and the reviews and discussions about it have been so compelling, that I broke down and bought a copy.

The basic premise of the story is that Balram (our murderer) has heard on the radio that the Premier of China is coming to India and wants to meet some of India's entrepreneurs. Balram, over the course of seven nights, writes to the Premier, explaining how he came from the "Darkness" of India's rural provinces to become a successful businessman in Bangalore.

The first hundred pages of this book are good, but not rave-worthy, which had me wondering what all the fuss was about. Then, there is a scene where Balram brushes his teeth for the first time:

"Brush. Brush. Spit.
Brush. Brush. Spit.
If only a man could spit his past out so easily."

For me, this was the turning point in the book, the place where the narrative went from interesting and mildly entertaining to if-I-put-the-book-down-I-still-won't-get-anything-else-done-because-I'll-be-thinking-about-the-book-so-I-might-as-well-sit-here-and-read-it-to-the-detriment-of-everything-else-I-should-be-doing. (Don't pretend that you don't know exactly what I mean.)

This book has been awarded the Man Booker Prize and provoked a slew of angry reactions from the Indian community. Adiga's The White Tiger is unapologetic, coarse, misinformed, bigotry-ridden and morally ambiguous. It has been accused of India-bashing and pandering to the West, and I can see their point. I don't, however, agree. The important thing to keep in mind when reading this is that it's one person's story and the narrative is told from his point of view.

As readers, we are not being asked to buy into Balram's view of the world, we're simply given the chance to see the world his way--a new perspective, and a provoking one.

Buy The White Tiger at amazon.com

The Keep by Jennifer Egan -- Book Review

How do you measure a book's success? Does an engaged audience equal a good book?
The Keep definitely engaged me:

• I groaned at the intentionally horrible writing on page 1 (It didn't improve from there).
• I scoffed at the ending when some of the loose ends find themselves tied up in neat little bows and some are never explained.
• I yelled WTF when Ray, the narrator, started butting in at random and when the baroness aged backward and forward and then backward again and when Danny started talking about "the worm" or "alto" or how he can just sense when there's a Wi-Fi connection nearby and...well, I don't want to reveal too much, but there were several WTF moments.
• Yet...I couldn't stop reading it.
  

So what can I tell you about Jennifer Egan's The Keep? I've stewed over this book and read other reviews, but I just don't know what to say about it. It's a modern-day Gothic romance written by a man in a maximum security prison. It's a story about how the past haunts us. It's a juxtaposition of modern technology with the supernatural. It's simultaneously intriguing and frustrating.

If you're looking for something immensely original to read, and you don't mind a few loose ends, you might enjoy The Keep. If you want to have your questions answered by the end of the book, I'm telling you, you won't. You have been warned.

I'm not sure whether or not The Keep was a good book, but I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it. If you would like to take a look at the first two chapters, they are posted online here.

Buy The Keep at amazon.com

Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong: Reopening The Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles by Pierre Bayard -- Book Review

"The main premise of detective criticism is this: many of the murders narrated in literature were not committed by the people accused by the text. In literature, as in life, the true criminals often elude the investigators and allow secondary characters to be accused and condemned. In its passion for justice, detective criticism commits itself to rediscovering the truth. If it is unable to arrest the guilty parties, it can at least clear the names of the innocent."

This is literary criticism like you've never read it. When I picked up this book, I thought it was a fan fiction approach to Sherlock Holmes. What I ended up reading was an entertaining, thought-provoking and convincing argument that Sherlock Holmes did not solve The Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles.


Summary:
Written in a casual, easy-to-read style, Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong is broken into 3 short sections. In the first, Bayard points out Holmes's mistakes and builds a case for Stapleton's innocence (Holmes concludes that Stapleton is guilty at the end of The Hound of the Baskervilles).

After convincing the reader that Stapleton is innocent, Bayard takes a detour for the second section into the history surrounding Arthur Conan Doyle and his character Sherlock Homes. He also talks about how literary characters pass in and out of the real world and argues that they can take on a form of autonomy and commit crimes which even the author doesn't know about. (It sounds a little kooky, I know, but it makes sense when you read it.)

In the third section, Bayard turns back to the case at hand and points a finger at the "real" murderer.

Review:
I started this book and couldn't put it down. There were some typos (it was translated out of the original French) and shameless self-promotion by the author, which bothered me, and the detour in the second section was slightly longer than I would have wished, but those are the sole objections I can make to this book. Part literary deconstruction, part imagination, and part pure genius, this book must be read by anyone who takes the slightest interest in criticism--you will never look at any book the same.

Besides, if you don't read it, you'll never know what really happened in The Hound of the Baskervilles; I'm certainly not going to tell you!

Buy on amazon.com


Sidenote: I talked about the PBS series Wishbone in a recent post, but wasn't able to find the clips I wanted, so for this post I have included the Wishbone re-telling of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles. Obviously, this is a more traditional interpretation of the story than Bayard presents. Enjoy!

The Wishbone version of The Hound of the Baskervilles:

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini -- Book Review

"Seasons had come and gone; presidents in Kabul had been inaugurated and murdered; an empire had been defeated; old wars had ended and new ones had broken out. But Mariam had hardly noticed, hardly cared. She had passed these years in a distant corner of her mind. A dry, barren field, out beyond wish and lament, beyond dream and disillusionment. There, the future did not matter. And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariam uprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them before they took hold."

I don't want to be presumptuous. I don't want project my own ignorance on whomever stumbles upon this post. So, I will only say that, as a well-read, well-informed citizen, I thought I knew, if not all the details, at least the gist of the situation in Afghanistan. I watch Anderson Cooper. I saw Charlie Wilson's War. But this book offers a timely perspective on a war that had been going on long before we got involved, a war many Americans don't realize we are still fighting.

Set primarily in Kabul, A Thousand Splendid Suns spans 30 years of Afghan history, following the unlikely friendship between two very different women, Mariam and Laila, brought together by mutual fear, grief and pure necessity.

What I found most striking about this book was the lack of sanctuary. Mariam and Laila live in an Islamic world, but even surrounded by prayer and mosques, they have no peace and no rest. Not only do they live in a war-torn country, where at any moment a bomb could fall on their home or a sniper could use them as target practice, the women are married to an abusive husband who takes out his anger, frustration, even boredom on his wives.

The story is at once foreign and familiar, as it explores not only how much one person can endure, but also the meaning of home when your country has been destroyed by decades of war.

Below, Hosseini talks about his inspiration for A Thousand Splendid Suns, and his journey to becoming a renowned author:


Have you read it? Do you plan to? Let me know what you think--leave a comment!

Buy A Thousand Splendid Suns on Amazon.com

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz -- Book Review

"You live as long as I did in the heart of fuku country, you hear these kinds of tales all the time. Everybody in Santo Domingo has a fuku story knocking around in their family. I have a twelve-daughter uncle in the Cibao who believed that he'd been cursed by an old lover never to have make children. Fuku. I have a tia who believed she'd been denied happiness because she'd laughed at a rival's funeral. Fuku. My parental abuelo believes that diaspora was Trujillo's payback to the pueblo that betrayed him. Fuku.

It's perfectly fine if you don't believe in these 'superstitions.' In fact, it's better than fine--it's perfect. Because no matter what you believe, fuku believes in you."


I don't know how to review this book without sounding like an echo of all the reviews that have come before. I absolutely loved the book, read passages of it to my mother and sister (I'm home for Christmas) and even read out loud to myself to feel the rhythm of it. The writing is like everyday poetry, written to feel bare and natural. The Spanglish didn't bother me, I speak a little Spanish so there were only a few points where I ran across a sentence I couldn't approximate the meaning of.

I have a little experience with Hispanic culture, although I don't know any Dominicans, and I think that is part of what drew me into this book. I am 1/4 Puerto Rican and have visited some of my family there. The writing really reminded me of the easy they switch back and forth between Spanish and English in a single conversation, substituting whenever one language or the other supplies the better word. There's something rich and enticing about mixing languages, especially for someone like me who never got beyond the basics of a second language despite several years of schooling.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao pretends to be about Oscar, a fat, geeky Dominican teenager living in New Jersey, but in reality, it's a story about family and legacy. The book, which is narrated by someone who was once a friend of Oscar and his sister, spends most of its time travelling back and forth through several generations of Oscar's family, which may be cursed by the fuku, or not, it's never entirely clear. The story is laced with references to the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and even the Sound of Music and contains footnotes on Dominican history and the rule of Trujillo (also known as El Jefe, the Failed Cattle Thief, and FuckFace).

The book doesn't offer a pretty picture of Dominican life and culture, but rather is laced with sex, violence, and misogyny. Most of the characters are hard to relate to or feel sympathy for and at points you wonder why you care what happens to them at all, but yet the book draws you in. Like a train crash, you know its headed for disaster, but you just can't pull yourself away.

"I'm not entirely sure Oscar would have liked this designation. Fuku story. He was a hardcore sci-fi and fantasy man, believed that that was the kind of story we were all living in. He'd ask: What more sci-fi than the Santo Domingo? What more fantasy than the Antilles?
But now that I know how it all turns out, I have to ask, in turn: What more fuku?"

If you need a more detailed review, check out the always excellent New York Times Review here.

Buy The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao on Amazon.com

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards -- Book Review

"In the silence David started talking again, trying to explain at first about the snow and the shock and the scalpel flashing in the harsh light. How he has stood outside himself and watched himself moving in the world. How he had woken up every morning of his life for eighteen years thinking maybe today, maybe this was the day he would put things right."

I actually bought this book as a Christmas present for my mother, but decided I had to read it before I wrapped it up and hid it under the tree. This book is about choices, secrets, moments that alter your life forever. We live everyday, wake up, go to work or school, eat lunch, meet people, but how much of what we do will be forgotten tomorrow? next week? a year from now? The vast majority of the moments we live are mundane. Yet, every once in a while, a day comes along that alters everything, that makes you look back and think:

What if he had gotten me pregnant when we were all hot and heavy back in high school?

What if I had applied to Harvard and Yale instead of playing it safe and staying in state?

What if I took that job in New York that paid crap instead of going into the family business?

What if I had said yes when he proposed? What if I had said no?

The choices that define our lives don't come along very often. For David, one moment, one (wrong?) decision sends his life into a tailspin that he never come to terms with. It weighs him down for over two decades and echoes in his death as his family deals with the aftermath. The Memory Keeper's Daughter explores the impact and unintended consequences a single decision can have. The prose is elegant, almost like poetry and for the first half of the book I was enchanted. The end seemed to drag where the beginning had flown smoothly, but overall I enjoyed the story and the gentle observations it made very much. Edwards offers a stark picture of why the question of "What if?" is never as simple as it seems.

This book has also been made into a Lifetime made-for-TV-movie, which I have not seen, but in looking for a video clip to go along with this post I saw a few scenes from the film. I did not feel that those I watched were an accurate portrayal of the tone or events in the novel, so I chose not to link to them here. If anyone has both read the book and seen the movie, I'd be interested to hear how they compare.

Buy The Memory Keeper's Daughter at Amazon.com

Away by Amy Bloom -- Book Review

"Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened."

This quote really embodies the soul of Lillian's story. It's as though we're skating on a frozen lake -- we see Lillian and the other characters as they move through the pages of the story and we hear some of their thoughts. The emotional turmoil and the thoughts too dark or tragic to be voiced, however, are left just under the surface, in the depths of the lake, to be inferred or guessed at by the reader, like looking through a sheet of ice. As in life, there's more to every story.

I read Bloom's short story collection Come to Me last year, and was looking forward to reading one of her novels. I ended up listening to this on audio book on my way home from school last week and fell in love with Bloom's descriptive and poignant writing style all over again.

Lillian immigrates to New York City in the 1920s from Turov, Russia after her family is murdered. She sets herself up as the mistress to a father/son pair and lives comfortably in New York. When she hears that her daughter, Sophie, may have survived and been taken to Siberia by another family, Lillian sets off to find her. Unable to afford the sea voyage home, she maps her route in the opposite direction and plans to cross from Alaska to Russia via the Bering Strait.

What I loved about this book, aside from the beautiful writing, was that as each character exits Lillian's story, we are offered a glimpse into their future. This book is about Lillian's journey, but the people that star in her story also have journeys of their own. Each character has a history and a depth. Bloom has created an entire world around her main character.

To hear Amy Bloom talk about her inspiration and read a passage from Away, play the video below:



I would also like to note that the ending can be interpreted in more than one direction. I have my thoughts, but I will keep them to myself--I don't want to spoil it for you. Overall, a beautiful story and a wonderful read.

Buy Away at Amazon.com