Sinful Folk by Ned Hayes: What She Read Review

You can check out Goodreads reviews (it's doing quite well there), or purchase
Sinful Folk via these links:  Amazon, Indiebound, Audible.

When I was a senior in high school, Mr. Rapuano taught us Chaucer in Brit. Lit. class.  He fancied himself an amalgam of J. Alfred Prufrock and King Lear, with a dash of Marlow on the side.  Whenever a set of our essays displeased him, he would strike a pose in front of the class, wrist raised to forehead, chin tilted to the heavens, and moan, "Oh, people. The horror!  The horror!"  

He was an unforgettable character.  And one of the lasting blessings of a year spent in his class - aside from the witty commentary my friends and I wrought in the notes we passed under our desks - was his requirement that we all memorize the opening lines of The Canterbury Tales, pronounced as they were originally penned (or at least as he best could duplicate the speech of the day for us to copy).

Much whining accompanied this assignment, but I can recite those lines to this day, widening the wondering eyes of my students each year with my feats of memorization.  (The fact that I can sing the "Preamble to the Constitution of the United States" thanks to Schoolhouse Rock also delights them, but perhaps doesn't impress them so much.)

With Sinful Folk, I once again find myself thanking Mr. Rap, if only in my imagination.

What's Sinful Folk about?

  This historical mystery offers any and all Brit. Lit. students many a nod to well-known medieval works, and schools us in some particularly dark and dire customs and events of fourteenth century England as well.  It's also a novel of pilgrimage, and Nick Hayes borrows directly from Chaucer (and other period writers), especially toward the close of the book.  

  Our narrator and protagonist is Mear - once Miriam - a mute "man" living with his" ten year old son in the English village of Duns.  When Christian and four other boys are killed in a house fire during a particularly bleak mid-winter, Mear and the other fathers set off with the boys' bodies for Canterbury and London to seek court assistance in determining who has killed them.  On the journey, we learn something of the men's histories and experience the violent, often superstitious forces that appear to dominate popular culture in this time.  And we - with Mear - unearth clues as to who indeed killed the unfortunate young men.  

  Sinful Folk is based on a real mystery and Miriam's personal history loosely parallels that of some consorts to Prince Edward the Black as well.

My Response?

  Fans of historical fiction should absolutely pick this one up, as it is reach in period detail, but the story is never overwhelmed by it, as does happen with some regularity in this genre.  Miriam is a unique character as well, in my experience, and her story - albeit a mash-up of possibilities rather than a direct historical reference - fascinates.  Mr. Hayes does a solid job of conjuring up the settings as well, and of keeping the plot ticking until the last page is turned.

  I do wish that Mr. Hayes's editors and proofreaders had spent a bit more time on this novel, as a few continuity issues and more than a few oddly parsed sentences early in Sinful Folk made the opening quarter of the novel a pretty slow slog for me and almost turned me away from its pages.  Because I had made a commitment to review it here, I persisted, and in the end I was glad that I did, because by the last quarter of the novel I was thoroughly engrossed in both the plot and the prose.  
  It's good to see, once again, how abundantly my home state of Washington is blessed with fine writers.

Many thanks as always to the fine folks at TLC Book Tours for offering me opportunities to sample books I might otherwise not encounter.  You can find out how other book bloggers responded to Sinful Folk via links on its page at TLC too.

   MFB,

   L

FYI:     Mr. Hayes is on Twitter and Facebook and Pinterest, and he also has a website. There's also a separate website and Facebook page for SINFUL FOLK.

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 : Mom and Me Review

Find it via these links at Indiebound or Amazon,
(sample Prose's prose there too) or at your local bookseller.

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 is an historical fiction, based loosely around a single surprising bit of information that Prose stumbled upon at a museum exhibit:  the tuxedoed woman in the famous Brassai photo, “Lesbian Couple at Le Monocle, 1932”, is the French athlete Violette Morris who was an Olympic hopeful and auto racer in the ‘30’s yet later wound up working for the Nazis.  (More details would spoil some of the plot, but you will be surprised at the historical events she had a despicable hand in.)

My Take:

Told in a polyphony of voices, the novel explores how its characters attempt to shape others’ perceptions of them through written language and how biographers imperfectly impose their own agendas on their subjects, all in the context of artists and bohemians carousing in pre- and WWII Paris.  But Prose’s main thematic concerns appear to be how “evil” people are formed (and /or how a particular pairing of people exacerbates innate or learned personality traits to the point that they’re exhibited in choices most would consider to be “evil”) and how people justify their own action or inaction in the face of evil.  This is not new territory for her, but if it is for you then this book would be a good fit for your TBR list. 

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 would be a worthy read for:

·          Those who admire confident storytelling and clean, sometimes elegant or slyly humorous prose

·          Those tolerant of characters who have many flaws but are also unique and multifaceted

·           Those who relish WWII historical fiction

·           Those who wonder about good and evil, power and sexuality

·           Those who enjoy the interplay of fictional forms such as letters, newspaper articles, journal entries, chapters from fiction-within-a-fiction books, etc.

I happen to meet all the criteria above, so I did find this weighty new novel thought-provoking.  Personally, I adored Prose's earlier novel A Changed Man, which explored some similar issues in a different way and was, to my taste, more focused and compelling plot-wise.  Try either novel, and absolutely buy a copy of her excellent non-fiction Reading Like A Writer – it’s a resource you will use over and over again and delight in every time.  (Best reading list ever!)

Mom's Summary:
Lou Villars is an athlete, a cross-dresser, a spy: an individual who seems always to be moving through life without any plan. When her circumstances change, she moves on to whatever is in her path, her inevitable option. Each of these options leads to a more involved and dangerous life and ultimately to her death. The story develops slowly as it is told in many voices: those of a Hungarian photographer, of an American ex-patriot, of a biographer, of a baroness/patron of the photographer, of the photographer’s model/wife. Each sees Paris, their intertwined lives and the occupation by Hitler’s army in different ways.

Mom's Responses:
One voice I wished had been used was that of Lou Villars herself; sometimes it felt disconcerting not to see from her viewpoint rather than that of all her ‘observers’. But maybe that is one of Prose’s objectives—alerting the reader to how differently or for what reasons we humans view events in our lives as we do.

I was struck by an observation Lionel, the American ex-pat writer, makes as he ponders his relationship with Suzanne: “How much simpler life would be if we were wise enough to stop at the first blush of romance, the start of a business transaction or of a casual friendship. If we knew enough to pause and think: this is as good as it gets. Everything will go downhill from this moment on. So once again our instincts are the opposite of what they should be, propelling us forward exactly when they should be holding us back.” (36-37 in the ARC) Thought –provoking….

Not my favorite book at the start and still not my favorite when I finished it. However, there is much to appreciate about the achievement, sometimes with humor, of Francine Prose in developing a complex story that propels the reader onward toward finding the destiny of characters, like them or not.

Thanks as always to TLC Book Tours for offering us this opportunity to review such a thought-provoking book.  Check out their link to discover what other bloggers thought of it, and do offer your thoughts in the comments below.

MFB,

L

Francine Prose's author page at Harper Collins is here.

She's a prolific essayist and reviewer in addition to having penned scores of non-fiction, adult fiction, and YA fiction books.  Google her!

Incendiary Girls : A What She Read Review

Do get yourself a copy and then pass it around:
you won't be disappointed!
Find it at your local bookseller,
via this Amazon link (sample the stories there too)
or via this Indiebound link.

Let me begin by telling you that I've already recommended Incendiary Girls to friends who appreciate the particular gratification of reading a beautifully wrought short story, and that I have two in the queue to borrow my copy, if and when I choose to part with it.

And for those of you who favor a healthy dose of magic with your realism - as I do - Kodi Scheer's first collection is a must-read.

It's been a swell month for the contemporary American short story at my house, as my Dave and I listened to George Saunders read his collection Tenth of December late in March, then I picked up Karen Russell's Vampires in the Lemon Grove from our amazing "little library" branch's "Happy Go Lucky" shelf (all current best-selling or critically acclaimed paperbacks, two week loans, no holds, no renewals - just happy book luck), and then Incendiary Girls rose to the top of my TBR-for-book-tours pile.

Truth:  Kodi Scheer's stories stand up easily to the works of her two oft-lauded, more experienced, and certainly better-known contemporaries.  In fact, I thought that Incendiary Girls compared favorably to Russell's latest.  Why?  Scheer offers readers equally intriguing and imaginative premises but with consistent depth of character and humor to balance sometimes bleak scenarios. Russell, not so much, on both counts.

Specifics, you say?  Scheer writes in the tradition of contemporary magical realists:  we enter the entirely ordinary worlds of everyday people and occasionally "magical" occurrences simply slip in.  Protagonists generally accept such unusual events - a divorced doctor-mom suspects that her own mother has been  reincarnated into her daughter's horse ("Fundamental Laws of Nature") or a National Guardsman's obsessive-compulsive wife discovers his ear in their laundry hamper while he is still serving in the Gulf ("No Monsters Here") - and react to them as they would any more "realistic" unusual event. We readers stay closely aligned with these protagonists, and - exhibiting an artistic restraint that does this young author great credit - neither we nor they spend much time pondering why such events happen or even what they might mean symbolically.  Instead, we readers receive the gift of pondering for ourselves how the "magical" elements and characters' responses  resonate thematically and symbolically.  I love this sort of stuff, and detest writers who insist on over-explaining, so Scheer's work engaged me completely.

Eleven stories total offer diverse themes and levels of intensity; Ms. Scheer's fictional territory most- times includes anatomical and/or medical details that might be daunting for some readers, and she certainly doesn't shy away from the darker side of human nature, but - as I noted earlier - she nearly always balances intensity with lightness.  I'd especially recommend these stories to fans of Margaret Atwood's and Francine Prose's earlier magical-realistic collections, and to those who remember fondly Richard Selzer's work and the fictions or personal essays of other doctor-writers.

Two thumbs up from me for this new collection, with gratitude to the folks at TLC Book Tours for alerting me to the promise of Incendiary Girls.  Use the TLC link to sample other book lovers' responses to Incendiary Girls.

You can bet I'll be on the lookout for Kodi Scheer's future work as well.

MFB,
L

House of Miracles : What She Read Review

Find it at your neighborhood bookstore
via indiebound, Ms. Hume's website,
 or Amazon.

House of Miracles, Ulrica Hume's new collection of inter-related short stories, shepherds readers on the life journeys of two women - generations apart - whose paths intersect when they choose to inhabit two flats in the same San Francisco house. Each woman is, in her own way, perplexed by the everyday emptiness of her life and by her own inability to create meaning and satisfaction within her circumstances.  Each experiences moments of fleeting happiness, as when the elder, German-born Mrs.Van Meurs meets Albert Einstein at a hotel in Palm Springs or when the young executive Janet MacDonald shares a subtle gesture of conspiratorial condescension with her boyfriend Jack. And each dreams dreams of true love.

While most of the short stories are told from Janet's perspective or Mrs. Van Meurs', Janet's boyfriend Jack commands a few, as does her sexually abusive and reliably reckless father Jerry.  Through these characters, we readers explore the quotidian cruelties and failures of love that occur behind the closed doors of  neighbors and friends.

These stories are written in a realistic vein, but Hume punctuates her tales with surprising images that conjure a bittersweet, dreamily lyrical beauty.

Recommended for those wishing to explore the fleeting bliss and regular disappointment born of profoundly flawed "love"; to face the realities of old age, dementia, and death from within another person's perspective; or to muse upon how proximity and habit impact the formation of our friendships, familial relationships, and even our romantic partnerships.

MFB, with gratitude to Ms. Hume for sharing her stories with me,
L

My Mother's Funeral : A Mom and Me Review

Get it at Amazon (only $6 for Kindle, but
also available in the lovely print edition)
or order it from your local bookseller.

This month, "Mom and Me" enjoyed the chance to read Adriana Páramo's memoir, My Mother's Funeral, published with a fine eye for aesthetic elements by not-for-profit CavanKerry Press.

My Take:
Adriana Páramo's memoir tracing the history of her mother's life and their relationship is not for the faint of heart.  If you are a person who frequently quips "TMI!" and means it, this is not your cup of tea.  However, if you favor gritty realism and no-subject-too-private confessional memoirs written as poetic and lyrical creative non-fiction, then you won't soon forget My Mother's Funeral.  

Set in Colombia with occasional scenes in the U.S., the memoir chronicles Páramo's relationship with her feisty, doggedly diligent, and often irascible mother Carmen, regularly dipping back into Carmen's personal history, from her 1940's childhood in the tiny village of Mariquita to her whirlwind romance and marriage to "Mr. B" through her adult life as a tough-as-nails single mom to five girls and a boy in urban Medellín and Bogotá.  Páramo's father, a remorseless philanderer who deserts their family after one too many girls is born, commands Carmen's enduring love despite the hardships she and her children must endure.  Along the way, we see how Colombia's geography, culture, socioeconomic structures, and politics influence Carmen's life and shape her children's psyches.

So, if you are feeling brave and seeking a fiercely frank memoir, My Mother's Funeral would make a strong choice for you.

Mom's Thoughts:

This was a book that took me to a family and experience very unlike my own, either as a daughter or as a mother, since both of these were two-parent situations. It gave me a clear view of how a one-parent family might survive, in this case with a single mother who is also poor.  For me, the funeral issue was author Páramo's way to relate the rest of the story of Adriana and her mother, Carmen. In a way, the funeral itself, though deftly integrated, could have been unnecessary to what was the real essence of the book, which I see as the relationship of this youngest daughter with her mother. 

Páramo does a good job of helping us get into the mind of a family living in Colombia in our time. She also is able to convey the real, underlying love of her mother, despite the many ways she contradicts and defies her. Another issue well put here is distance, both physically (in Alaska) and emotionally, and how this plays on emotions when events at home (Colombia) occur. Regret is evident. Resolution does happen. 

I felt a strong relationship to the following paragraph, near the end of the book. It did take me back, in a way, to the experience of my own mother’s funeral. “Now no one knows me around here. It’s been almost twenty years since I left this place, and nearly everyone I knew is gone. The few who stayed remember the girl I once was; they don’t recognize the woman I have become. This is a place where I now get lost, where I have been forgotten. This is a place that will never be home again.”

FYI:  Both Mom & Me were reminded of Isabel Allende's work in terms of intensely emotional and conflicted female familial relationships and some aspects of culture, economics, and politics that Chile shares with Colombia.

Looking for a third opinion?  Try hopping by the other blog stops on the TLC Virtual Book Tour.

MFB, with gratitude to Ms. Páramo and her publishers as well as to the fine folks at TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to sample this one-of-a-kind memoir,
L

A Different Sun : What She Read Review

Find it at your local bookseller,
Indiebound, or Amazon.

Fancy an armchair trip to West Africa in the 1840's with the wife of a charismatic American missionary, do you?

Then do sit down with a warm cup of tea for a long, leisurely read:  A Different Sun by Elaine Neil Orr will more than satisfy your requirements.

And whether or not high interest, high style novels of Yorubaland in the 19th century are your daily fare (and they certainly aren't mine!), I recommend that you give A Different Sun by Elaine Neil Orr a try, especially if you can find the time to read it in one or two sittings. I'm pleased to have done so, as this novel had me recalling both Achebe's classic Things Fall Apart and Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible.  

Although I've recently read plenty of non-fiction set in late 20th century Africa, the last historical novel I read set there was probably Kingsolver's, fifteen years ago.  I'm quite certain that A Different Sun will be compared to that worthy work, but I feel that it holds its own against the popular Kingsolver book.  Both feature multiple narrators (although this one's written in third person perspective rather than first person), and both feature females whose fates are tied to charismatic ministers.  In both cases, the culture and landscape the missionaries land in seems to trigger and amplify mental illness in the men, with near-catastrophic repercussions for the women and the native people whom those missionaries intend to "save".

In A Different Sun, we see life not only through the eyes of Emma Davis Bowman, free-spirited and spiritually-seeking daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, but later through those of her husband, the mercenary-cum-Reverend Henry Bowman, and then his local assistant, Jacob.  The narrative "is inspired by the writings of Lurana Davis Bowen and Thomas Jefferson Bowen, the first Southern Baptist missionaries to Africa" and author Orr's research provides cultural and historical context that never feels oppressively detailed or shoe-horned in (as it does in some historical fictions).

Although this novel did not immediately grip me, after I accustomed myself to Emma's unusually associative and somewhat "choppy" internal experience early in the book, I found that I could immerse myself in her perspective - and later in those of the two male characters.  Perhaps not as ambitious as Kingsolver's earlier work, A Different Sun certainly succeeds on its own more modest but worthy terms.

MFB out of Africa,
L

p.s.  I extend my gratitude to the author and to all those at TLC Book Tours for allowing me to participate.  If you'd like to find out what other bloggers thought of A Different Sun, do hop by the tour hub now!

Undressing Mr. Darcy by Karen Doornebos : A What She Read Review

What a romp for fans of all things Austen!

Fast-paced prose?  Check.
Armchair-travel-worthy settings?  Check.
Racy moments of romance?  Check.
Savvy, sassy young heroine plus her wise-cracking sidekicks and patient mentor?  Check.
Dashing Darcy impersonator doing a Regency-era striptease? Twice?  Check.
Austen-echoes on nearly every page?  Check.

So what's not to like, whether you're a fan of Great Jane or a relative neophyte?

In fact, this novel (Karen Doornebos's second contribution to the modern Austen-referenced fan fiction genre) will make a lively diversion for anyone who enjoys a bit of lighthearted, fast-paced, Anglophilic, adult romance on occasion.

At home in Chicago and then "across the pond" in Bath and London, our protagonist Vanessa is a social media publicist who begins her journey by helping her aunt host a house-poor, English estate-owner-cum-Mr.-Darcy-impersonator for an American conference of Jane Austen fans.  When the devastatingly handsome "Darcy" arrives, the romance-wary and smartphone-obsessed thirty-something Vanessa softens by degrees, all the while oblivious to the attentions of the equally handsome but all too responsible - and available - Chase, who has admired her since high school.

Anyone hearing echoes of Austen already?

Whom will she choose and which man in this contemporary romantic comedy will choose her?  Thanks to Doornebos's skills, we're never entirely sure and we're happy to enjoy the journey, whatever the outcome.

Is Undressing Mr. Darcy perfect?  No.  Is it diverting?  Certainly.  And what's more welcome than a little lighthearted fun in this hectic season?

MFB,
L

True confessions:  I stumbled upon my perusal copy of Undressing Mr. Darcy via FB, where my friend Darcy is Ms. Doornebos's friend too.  I kid you not.

Chasing Chaos : A Mom & Me Review

Get it at indiebound.org, your local bookstore, or Amazon.

Mom's taking the lead on this review of Chasing Chaos, a fascinating memoir by humanitarian aid professional Jessica Alexander.

What Mom said...

It’s not only taking a journey through 10 years of work in the humanitarian aid profession but the ongoing observation of Jessica Alexander growing into a new person that made Chasing Chaos so appealing to me.

Jessica begins her work life in NY with a marketing agency, making good money but not feeling fulfilled or in the right place. Her life is turned around when her mother dies at age 50 from cancer. Jessica quits her job and goes to Central America alone. She observes the inequities and “returned home determined to pursue aid work.” (17) We follow her to Darfur, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, Sierra Leone, and  Haiti learning about the skill, hard work, and grittiness that are required to work in uncomfortable and dangerous physical, political, mental, and emotional  conditions.

Jessica points out the differences between working with constraints due to flagging international interest in  long-term dislocated populations of refugees in Darfur and other African countries and helping with more immediate needs - and the attendant mass influx of sometimes ill-conceived if well-intentioned donations - in a crisis mode when the tsunami struck in Indonesia. She also notes  the difficulties for the aid organizations when large amounts of money flow in in response to sudden emergencies: how do the agencies determine where the funds will do the most good, where it most needs to go, work with the local population to get their input, hire more staff to implement the plans. Experience helps, but each new crisis is different from the last, so adaptation occurs in every instance. 

Jessica no longer works in the field full time but she continues working with the humanitarian community in NY and is a professor at Columbia, Fordham and New York University while working on her PhD researching the subject of accountability to affected populations in humanitarian action. She wonders: “We will never be able to prove a counterfactual argument—what would people’s lives be like without aid? Would they be better, or worse off?—so in some ways it is a profession based more on belief than empirical evidence. And I stay with it because I believe in the purpose of aid: to alleviate suffering of people when they need help most.”

Me?  I'll be uncharacteristically brief.

I admired this memoir for its breezily conversational tone and thought-provoking content, and I will recommend it to my students and friends who want to change the world for the better.  The content here is thought-provoking on many levels and might help all of us world citizens better understand the challenges of attempting interventions in cultures not our own.

For me, revisiting many of the most heavily-publicized countries devastated by war and other human-created tragedies during the latter part of the 20th century became a painful yet important reminder of how intractable human tendencies toward violence truly are.  I fear that we will ever be imperfectly addressing the needs of those displaced by war.

 If you've ever wondered about serving those in need (especially those beyond your own country), this fast-paced and accessible memoir is a must-read.

With gratitude to the publishers and publicists at Broadway Books for offering us this worthwhile memoir for review.

MFB from Mom and Me,

L

Action Insight from Mom:

When you've contributed clothes or other items to an agency doing overseas relief have you ever wondered about the individuals who might be receiving them?  Alexander's observations of an onslaught of donations from well-intentioned by less-than-culturally-cognizant Westerners after the tsunami in Sri Lanka & Indonesia might cause you to ponder:  “People who had worn only sandals were being handed 4-inch heels…Shipments contained children’s books written in English, medicine bottles with labels printed in languages nobody in these communities could read…” 

Makes one think about our motivations and understanding when we send used clothing, toys, etc. to "needy" people elsewhere in the world...

Mrs. Queen Takes the Train : What She Read Review

Look inside and get it now at Amazon or,
 preferably, at your local independent bookseller.  

What a delight!

I was sorely in need of a swiftly-paced, edifying, amusing, and entirely engaging novel, and this one brought reliable smiles and lofty diversion just when I needed it.

Its plot, focused on a highly unusual day in the life of the current Queen Elizabeth II of England, keeps us guessing with twists and turns, while its wide cast of characters offers an "Upstairs/Downstairs"-esque soap opera loosely related to the current Queen's daily life.

Author William Kuhn (who provides book group questions and  photos from the book on his website) offers us a surprisingly intimate look into the world of the Queen and her staff in a novel that balances light social satire with detailed verisimilitude.  Yet he's not afraid to take on issues I (ever attempting to overcome my status as an ignorant American) wouldn't have considered otherwise, such as how constrained the queen's life might be by the very role from which she receives her power and fame or how the long tenures of her staff members - often of different social statuses - create entrenched rivalries and decades-long misunderstandings.

Paperback cover: Look for it at
your local independent bookseller.

The Bottom Line, plus my action step:   A warmhearted and lively yet well-researched read, highly recommended.  I will be purchasing copies for all my "Downton Abbey"-loving pals, and I will await author William Kuhn's next novel with eager anticipation.  I might even delve into his non-fiction works while I'm waiting.

Those of you who stop by What She Read regularly will likely raise an eyebrow at this glowing review; it's rare indeed that a novel enchants me so utterly that I find nothing to niggle at.   Yet this one offered such reliable diversion that today I offer only praise.

Mrs. Queen Takes The Train is a light romp with a dash or three of social commentary to spice up the story.  As the days darken, what could be more welcome?

MFB,
L

p.s. I offer my gratitude once again to the able professionals at TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to sample this lively new novel.

Telegraph Avenue : A Mom & Me Review

This is a novel that sticks with you.

I read Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue in the spring of 2012 and traveled to Oakland that summer, visiting many of the sites that form the backdrop for its plot.  It was a journey I relished, and many vivid scenes from this novel still leap easily to mind.  I reread Telegraph Avenue and enjoyed it perhaps more the second time around.

Mom, on the other hand, read the new paperback copy just this week. 

What's it about?
Essentially, Telegraph Avenue is the story of Archy Stallings, floundering part-owner of Brokeland Records on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, CA, and all those who contribute to the web of relationships in his life.  It's also the story of his teenage son, Titus, and his partner Nate's son, Julie.  And it's the story of their long-suffering and brilliant wives, Gwen and Aviva, who are partners in a progressive midwifing business.   Archie is black, Nate is white; Gwen is black, Aviva is white.  And, in the end, the issues of race and gender in the United States and how they continue to morph from generation to generation form the central themes of the novel.  Finally, motifs of jazz music, film, pop-culture, and the homogenization of all three weave their way through this story.  Oh, and then there's the nearly unavoidable motif (in any contemporary novel written about the U.S.) of The American Dream and its (lack of?) viability today.

How did our responses stack up? 

Mom:
And so it goes…Telegraph Avenue, that is. Life after life unfolding before our eyes (and ears, too, if we’re  reading Michael Chabon’s prose). Sentence after sentence explodes across the pages, drawing the reader into a world most likely don’t know or even realize they would like to know. Until one meets Archy and Gwen, Nate and Aviva, their families, friends and acquaintances.  These are lives lived in a gritty world that includes jazz, a small business in a world where change is inexorably moving into the neighborhood, midwifery,  issues of race and gender, family interactions—in all, a microcosm of life.

Michael Chabon has a distinctive way of putting words on paper, making his characters and their worlds “activate” for us. Those lengthy sentences portray a scene in a way that “normal” sentences cannot: it’s an event that unfolds itself into the mind.

There is a scene in which Nat reminisces about his father, Julius the First (Nat’s son is also Julius). Nat describes an event in his Dad’s life: “A high point in a life, lived at sea level, prone to flooding.” Have you ever felt  that your life was “prone to flooding”?

And how is this for description: “engine heat troubling the atmosphere above its hood.” Who of us hasn’t seen heat making the air waver over pavement or some other object? But did we think of it as “troubling the atmosphere”?

And here’s another language delight. Nat is frying eggs, reminding himself of how his stepmother worked in the kitchen, how she kept things clean with her Scotch Brite pad and “wiping down every surface to a laboratory shrine, leaving herself to contend at the end only with the baking sheets, the big cast-iron skillet and the blast radius of spat fat on the stovetop.”  That ‘spat fat’ drew a picture for me.

Finally, I point you to pages 193-195: one continuous sentence that describes the people and place and sets a scene that continues to unfurl as Chabon’s opus weaves its narrative magic for us.

Me:  I enjoyed this novel even more the second time around.
Setting plays a major role, as does pop culture from the '70's through today.  Here Chabon inhabits characters of many backgrounds and gender identifications, all from a pretty close third person perspective, which is quite ambitious for a writer and sometimes problematic to process for readers.  Chabon's flexing his style-muscles here too, so expect a hefty dose of simile and metaphor, plus leaps in narrative timeline within the multi-character third person narration.  Also - and this was a major plus for me - it's funny. Often.

Who would enjoy it?
* A major plus in this novel is Chabon's successful creation of a richly populated fictional world, so if you enjoy immersing yourself entirely in a novel, this one won't disappoint.
* Characterization drives plot, so if that's your cup of tea, this will be too.
* If you enjoy music, and particularly - though not necessarily - jazz, this book will hold particular appeal, as it will if you lived through the '70's and thus connect easily with many of Chabon's period details and pop culture references.
* If  you've pondered questions of race, father-son relationships, the viability of 'living the  dream' in the U.S.A. today, and what - exactly - love is, then this novel will offer you another chance to explore these issues.
* If you enjoy layered comedy, you'll appreciate this novel even more.

Any "cautions" with regard to content and/or style?
Telegraph Avenue requires a mature reader.  I'm not talking about age, but rather experience and sensibility.  Why, what do I mean?  I mean that you have to persist through the first chapter's exposition to get to "the good stuff" when the plot kicks in during chapter two.  You have to endure sometimes oddly incongruous yet interesting metaphors and similes and accept that pondering them will be part of the experience.  You must accept the gamut in terms of language and characters' behaviors, some of which you might not use or engage in yourself.  And if a good laugh is low on your interest barometer, well, maybe you should lighten up a bit and then pick up Telegraph Avenue.*

So, that's two thumbs up from Mom & Me.  We both feel lucky to have found so many worthy books through our feature here; unusually lucky, really.  Neither of us would have predicted that we'd both genuinely appreciate so many of the books we've chosen to review.

Many thanks, as ever, to all at TLC Book Tours and, this time, to Mr. Chabon and his publishers for allowing us both to enjoy his novel in exchange for this honest review.

MFB,
L

* Please note that some of my comments are simply revised from an earlier post.  I relied on my
copy from last year for the re-read, and did edit after my current read.

The Illusion of Separateness : A "What She Read" Review

Look inside at Amazon; find it at all the usual places.

What is it?
The richly textured and profoundly resonant new novel from Simon Van Booy.

Why is it unique?

Multiple voicings weave this novel of WWII Europe and contemporary America into a gorgeous chamber concert on the page, and its non-linear structure provides tension as we readers, invested in all its richly dimensional and concisely developed characters, solve the mystery of how they are all connected and how they've impacted each others' lives.  And for me, the fact that its title springs from the writings of Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh is just icing on the proverbial cake.

Do you recommend it?

Yes, I do.  I gave it ***** on Goodreads, which is rare for me.

Why?

There are plenty of thoughtfully wrought novels out there, but few address such a crucial issue in our world today:  the illusion of separateness.  Our culture in the U.S., and quite a few other cultures in the world, emphasizes individuality and competition rather than interconnection.  This novel offers us a clear, utterly believable reality, sprung from a true story, that subtly demonstrates how each of us influences others, often in unintended and surprising ways.  Van Booy also takes care to chronicle only the pivotal moments and revealing reflections of his dimensional, imperfect characters' lives.  Thankfully, he is an expert craftsman, so we readers discover the truth of the title for ourselves, no preachyness or heavy-handed theme-pounding necessary.

For whom?

Mature teens and up who care about their world and who require excellent storytelling and characterization will admire this slim but resonant novel.  I will be recommending it to WWII buffs particularly, but I speak from personal experience when I say that those of us who aren't particularly devoted to that period will likely share my enthusiasm for this novel; I read it in a day because the writing and characters were so engrossing, but I kept kicking myself because I knew that savoring it chapter by chapter was my true desire.

Where can I find a copy?

It's available at Indiebound, Amazon, or your local bookseller.  You can find a Kindle version at Amazon, and you can get it on iBooks for your Apple products.  Want a peek at the prose?  Try the Amazon "Look Inside" feature for a sample.

What action will you take in response to this book?

I will write a short fiction based on a photograph.  It's been years since I dipped into fiction writing, and this book has inspired me.  (A photo provides one point of information and potential connection in this story, and is linked to one central plot line.)

And, as you might guess, I'm going to put all of Simon Van Booy's past works into my TBR pile.  I might even suggest The Illusion of Separateness for my book group, which is chock full of teachers who will thoroughly appreciate both its content and Van Booy's craft.

Once again, I'm indebted to the fine folks at TLC Book Tours for introducing me to this novel.  For additional responses to The Illusion of Separateness, you might hop by the other blogs on this tour.

MFB,

L

This Is Paradise : What She Read Review

Pick it up at your local bookseller or Amazon.

What is it?

A new collection of realistic, contemporary short stories set in the islands of Hawaii.

Why is it unique?

As with many memorable and worthwhile short story collections, This Is Paradise offers readers the uniquely intimate internal experiences of its characters at pivotal moments in their lives.  And what this author provides that few others can is a glimpse into the psyches of native Hawaiians and Hawaiians returning from lives in the mainland U.S.  Ms. Kahakauwila consistently shows us that paradise for tourists is just like any other place for those who are born and raised there.  For me, this will be the enduring intellectual shift produced by Ms. Kahakauwila's well-crafted and solidly paced stories: the reminder that - even in paradise - betrayals, casual cruelties, tortured relationships, and deaths - both accidental and expected - sweep into our day-to-day lives as reliably as the waves rolling in at Diamond Head.

Do you recommend it?

Yes, I do.  I gave it **** on Goodreads, which is a high mark for me.

Why?

These stories achieve that fine balance between the utterly specific (one centers around the long-held grudges and loyalties among members of a local cock-fighting ring, another illuminates "The Old Pianola Way" of Hawaiian cowboys, while a third allows us into a funeral where we experience Christian religious ceremony mingled with Hawaiian familial and social traditions) and the broadly recognizable - yet often quite subtle - nuances of relationships.  Be it the ambivalent allegiances within girlfriend-groups or the tension between honoring one's parents or siding with one's lover, most readers will recall moments in their own lives in these stories and receive or revisit insights about the intricacies of these interactions.

For whom?

Fans of the short story genre and of the novelette will appreciate this collection, and certainly those of us we've been fortunate enough to visit any of the Hawaiian islands will find this "insider's tour" fascinating as well.

Where can I find a copy?

It's available at Indiebound, Amazon, or your local bookseller.   You can find a Kindle version at Amazon, and you can get it on iBooks for your Apple products.   Want a peek at the prose?  Try the Amazon "Look Inside" feature for a sample.

What action will you take in response to this book?

I will start planning for another trip to Hawaii.  I've visited Maui twice now, and keep dreaming that I will return "next spring", but never follow through.  Recently added - and often relatively inexpensive - local flights plus the potential for a free stay in a friend's timeshare make the Big Island a possibility and these stories made me yearn to view aspects of Hawaii beyond what a tourist would normally encounter, so I'm eager to visit an island with a more pronounced urban center.

Also, I might contact Ms. Kahakauwila, who is a professor at Western Washington University near me, to offer my congratulations on this collection and to find out whether she might be willing to visit my classes for a conversation or a guest lesson on incorporating local cultural and familial traditions into our writing.  Wish me luck!

Once again, I'm indebted to the fine folks at TLC Book Tours for introducing me to this collection.  For additional responses to This Is Paradise, you might hop by the other blogs on this tour.

MFB in Hawaii,

L