A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer duBois

A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer duBois

The Dial Press

Publication date:  March 20, 2012

Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

Irina Ellison, one of the main characters in A Partial History of Lost Causes, sees her father decline from Huntington’s disease when she’s a teenager, and, when she’s a college student, she’s diagnosed with the affliction as well.  The actions of this book are put in motion by Irina’s knowledge that she will start to decline most likely by the time she’s 32.  Irina’s father loved chess, first realized he was unwell when his young daughter beat him at chess, and wrote a letter to chess world champion Aleksandr Bezetov asking him how to cope with certain doom.  After her father dies and as she nears her thirty-second birthday, Irina travels to Russia to meet her dad’s chess hero and find out the answer to her father’s question.

Irina finds Bezetov running as an opposition party candidate for president.  The chapters alternate between Irina and Aleksandr, capturing both of their histories as young people:  Irina in college and graduate school, Aleksandr moving from eastern Russia to Leningrad to enroll in a chess academy and becoming world champion.  Aleksandr’s life is more overtly political than Irina’s:  he was a dissident during Soviet times and he’s highly critical of Putin’s regime.  She is a college lecturer during her twenties.

The book works because duBois’s writing is quite vivid:  Aleksandr’s train journey to Leningrad, his small room in a kommunalka, his lonely life in Leningrad are all memorable scenes and settings.  DuBois is also good at capturing the emotional life of Irina, who was diagnosed at such a young age and watched her father being robbed of his motor skills and the rest of his brain during his decline from Huntington’s.  I cut her slack with her wild, self-absorbed reactions to her life because Huntington’s is such a horrible disease.  Facing mortality when your college-aged, never mind facing a disease as debilitating as Huntington’s, is a horrible situation.

The stakes are high for both characters in this book:  Irina knows she will decline soon and will not be able to live as she had before.  Aleksandr is in danger because he’s running for president for the opposition party.  He keeps a box full of death threats he’s received.  His life becomes more and more managed in order to avoid assassination.  Their lives intersect as Irina travels to Russia, and they recognize themselves in each other.  She asks him how he lives with doom, which is the question her father asked him in his letter to him. 

The book deals with messy characters with messy lives living in quite difficult circumstances.  It's about the game of chess and being a world chess champion.  It's about political life in Russia in the last half-century.  It's a book about figuring out what sort of life to live.  It's a book about big ideas.

Highly recommended.

Lucia's Eyes by Marina Sonkina

Lucia’s Eyes by Marina Sonkina

Guernica Editions

Publication Date:  April 25, 2011

Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

Lucia’s Eyes features characters young and old living in a number of countries.  My favorite stories are “Tractorina’s Travels,” which is the story of an old woman looking back at her life growing up in Russia as she prepares to move out of her lifelong home in Moscow to be with her stepson, and “Runic Alphabet”, a briefer story about a man remembering a long-dead mistress as he buys and plants a Japanese snowbell tree that reminds him of her. 

These stories feel like they could all be expanded to full length novels:  “Carmelita” about an older man’s love affair with a younger woman painter he meets while visiting an oceanside Mexican village, as well as “Christmas Tango,” told by an unemployed Canadian man becomes obsessed with tango.  They feel like they could be expanded into novels because the characters are quite richly developed, which is quite a trick for a short story.

It’s a bit difficult to say much more about these stories without giving away the pleasures of reading them, that is, without giving away the details of the characters lives that they reveal as they look back at key scenes in their lives.  It’s a melancholy collection of stories, but somehow still hopeful.

An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer

An Available Man is my favorite kind of novel, and it’s my favorite novel I’ve read this year so far as well:  it’s a comedy of manners, it’s very astute about its characters and their interior lives, and it’s beautifully written.

The titular available man is Edward Schuyler, a recently widowed biology teacher in his early sixties.  His stepchildren and step-daughter-in-law place a personal ad for him in the New York Review of Books, and this book follows his adventures and misadventures in the dating world of a sixty-something man.  The story moves between suburban New Jersey and New York City (his home and work bases), and it covers the first three years of life without his beloved wife Bea.

The story draws you in from the beginning because it begins with Edward alone and remembering Bea’s struggle with pancreatic cancer as well as their relationship.  You  also feel sorry for him because he was left at the altar by his first serious partner, Laurel.  Wolitzer also draws you in with the details that make the characters feel very vivid:  Edward buries the letters responding to the personal ad in the kitchen’s crazy drawer, which is just how this character would describe what I would call a junk drawer.  He’s too buttoned-up to call it a junk drawer. 

There are several delicious set pieces in the story as well:  Edward at his first dinner party as a widower and Edward’s semi-disastrous dates with women who responded to his personal ad.  Wolitzer has a sense of humor.  None of the characters, including the women he meets along the way, are caricatures or flat:  Wolitzer clearly has affection for all of her characters, including his needy stepdaughter Julie, Edward’s mother-in-law Gladys, and even the dogwalker Mildred who’s interested in the occult.  The family life feels real, and the places Edward inhabits feel real. 

This is a story about grief, this is a story about the dating lives of widows and widowers, and this is a portrait of marriage.  Nothing is easy for these set of characters, but they are interesting and are striving to become more alive, which makes for an interesting read.

An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer

Ballantine
Publication date: January 24, 2012
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Megan Mayhew Bergman (Review)

This short story collection teems with birds and other animals, ranging from pet dogs to coyotes and bears, but tending to animals is not the only thread running through this collection.  From the opening story, “Housewifely Arts,” told by the adult daughter of a deceased mother to “Yesterday’s Whales,” told by a newly-pregnant mother, the narrators of these stories grapple with motherhood.  It has a firm grip on these characters’ lives, whatever their ages.  So what’s the connection between animals and motherhood?  Maybe it’s something about the urge to procreate being an animal urge? Maybe it’s  that caring for animals is close to caring for one’s family?  Whatever the connection, these stories circle around parent-child relationships and human-animal relationships in interesting ways.

Bergman is very astute about the emotional lives of her characters.  My favorite story in the collection is “Every Vein a Tooth,” the story of a very devoted animal-rescue volunteer with relationship problems.  The story is spot-on emotionally—not that I’m anywhere near as obsessed with rescuing animals as she is.  I also like the fact that this story, as well as most of the others in the collection, takes place in a small town.  The stories do not feel claustrophobic because they primarily take place in different small towns in the eastern half of the United States, from Maine to Florida.  Finally, this collection does not suffer from the “vague epiphany,” issue that I find in some short story endings.  The endings of these stories feel earned, but even so, I’d love to see some of these stories developed into novels.



Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Megan Mayhew Bergman
Scribner
Publication date: March 6, 2012
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

Bleed for Me by Michael Robotham

Bleed for Me features Joe O’Loughlin, a clinical psychologist suffering from the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, and he sounds an awful lot like other psychologist or detective protagonists:  he has marital troubles because he’s too involved in his work.  What makes this particular book stand out is that he’s not just interested in profiling criminals:  we see him analyzing a number of characters throughout the course of this book, notably a set of parents mourning the disappearance of their grown daughter.  Also, O’Loughlin’s story stands out in terms of the insight into parenting teenage and younger daughters.

The mystery revolves around the murder of Joe Hegarty, a retired detective.  His teenage daughter Sienna is accused of murdering him, and Joe O’Loughlin is assigned to do her psychological evaluation.  This plot point is a bit far-fetched because Sienna is his older daughter’s best friend:  it seems like a conflict of interest for him to assess a friend of the family.  The other threads of the story involve a school teacher who’s too close to his female students and a racially motivated firebombing trial.

The pacing of the book, after a slow start, is good:  I was very involved with the twists of the story and read the last half of the book in a very short time.  Once I step back and look at the story, though, I have a couple issues:  the sheer amount of tragedy that has befallen Joe’s family and the Hegarty family is a bit excessive.  O’Loughlin has a terminal illness and his older daughter was kidnapped two years before this book takes place.  Sienna’s father was murdered, her older sister was brutally attacked and is now paralyzed, and Sienna is accused of murder.  Finally, it’s unsettling that so much of the story centers on the violent response of men to the real or alleged rape or molestation of their female relatives.  It’s a gripping read, but the subject matter is extreme. 

I did enjoy reading the book because it’s refreshing to read a psychological thriller that’s not centered on profiling a serial killer.  Also, I liked the fact that Robotham spends time on O’Loughlin’s private life and how he’s coping with his Parkinson’s:  I can think of many crime novels that don’t spend much time with the protagonist’s loved ones.  I look forward to catching up on the earlier books in the series.   

Bleed for Me by Michael Robotham

Mulholland Books

U.S. Publication date:  February 27, 2012 (Originally published 2010)

Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

Heft by Liz Moore

Heft has been getting some buzz lately from Jennifer Weiner, and I decided to read and review it based on some glowing reviews I came across on Twitter and in Oprah.  It is a lovely book told from the perspective of two very lonely men:  severely obese Arthur Opp, a former English professor who’s been holed up in his family’s Brooklyn brownstone for twenty years, and eighteen-year-old Kel Keller, a high school senior who dreams of being a professional baseball player.  Their connection is Kel’s mother Charlene:  she was Arthur’s former girlfriend and student nearly twenty years before the story takes place.

What’s especially lovely about this book is all the details about the characters’ lives:  Arthur’s solitary existence and especially Kel’s life as a high school jock who lives in the run-down town of Yonkers and attends high school in a wealthier town of Pell’s Landing, where his mother worked as a secretary in the high school.  Kel is the most self-aware high school athlete I’ve come across in fiction, and I think it’s because he’s so hyperaware of people since he grew up with a mother who could not cope with her life:  she was depressed, solitary, and an alcoholic, all of which forced Kel to care for her from a very young age.  He notices so much about others because he’s trying to figure out how normal people function.

Moore is fabulous at making us feel empathy for her characters, even though I felt a little less for Charlene because her story is not completely obvious.  There are no chapters from Charlene’s perspective, which is a bit of a limitation, but I think it’s supposed to be there since both her son and her ex-boyfriend did not know her that well.  I have a soft spot for tales of loners, and I have an especially soft spot for teen angst tales.  Heft is an especially vivid teen angst tale for over half of the story.

I loved Heft because I was so wrapped up in the characters’ lives.  I wonder what’s next for both Arthur and Kel, which I consider a sign of a good book.

For an interview with the author and a more Arthur-centric review of the book, please see Jennifer Weiner's blog.

Heft by Liz Moore

W.W. Norton

Publication date:  January 23, 2012
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

Death of a Kingfisher by M.C. Beaton

This is the first Hamish Macbeth mystery I’ve read, though it’s number 28 in the series.  One reason I selected is to fulfill the   Criminal Plots II Challenge  requirement for a book written under a pseudonym.  Though I’m new to the series, I caught up on Macbeth’s work and love lives pretty quickly.  It seems to be a series with lots of recurring characters.

The story takes place in northern Scotland where Macbeth is content to be a village policeman though that does mean he cannot take the lead on the murder investigations in this book.  It’s a conflict, but it seems a very mild one compared to the murders that need to be solved.  The story revolves around a new, extremely popular tourist attraction, the Fairy Glen.  Very soon after the opening of the Fairy Glen, a bridge breaks due to sabotage, a kingfisher and its family is poisoned, and a string of murders occurs.  It’s a bit jarring to move from a story about a quiet set of villages with eccentric characters to the series of murders and its solution, and I’m not sure if that’s a hallmark of the series.

This book will appeal to readers of Scottish village mysteries.  There’s a dash of humor as well as a bit about Hamish’s personal life for those invested in the character this far in the series.  While I prefer more of a focus on the investigation in a crime novel, this will appeal to readers who prefer setting and atmosphere over the plot.

Death of a Kingfisher by M.C. Beaton

Grand Central Publishing

Publication date:  February 22, 2012

Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes by Scott Wallace

Scott Wallace went on an approximately three month expedition led by Sidney Posseulo, then head of the Department of Isolated Indians, part of FUNAI, Brazil’s National Indian Foundation.  His purpose was to write a profile for National Geographic about Posseulo and his work, and, thankfully, he had enough material to write this book about his expedition and the history and context of such expeditions on behalf of the Department of Isolated Indians.  The goal of the trip was to find the outer boundaries of the Arrow People log the coordinates by GPS, and then have that area deemed protected by the government.

Although I haven’t read many travel/expedition books, my husband has read the good parts of books like The Lost City of Z to me.  Also, I watch a ton of National Geographic specials.  What’s different about this book than a TV special or a National Geographic spread is the depth of coverage about previous expeditions, including Fawcett’s ill-fated trip, which was covered in The Lost City of Z, the anthropology, the biology, and the governmental efforts to protect the lands of wild Indians in the Amazon.  It’s a book that took me awhile to digest because there was so much for me to learn.  Rubber harvesting, drug trafficking, gold dredging, Brazilian federal agencies:  it’s all stuff about the Amazon I didn’t know that much about.

This is a harrowing read:  nearly three months in the jungle, either by motor boat, on foot, or by canoe is a tough go even in good conditions, and there were dangers outside (crocodiles) and inside (fatigue and insubordination).  Posseulo is an interesting figure, but I haven’t figured him out even from these detailed stories.  I know I’m not cut out for an expedition of this length of time and difficulty in the Amazon, that’s for sure.

The Unconquered by Scott Wallace

Crown

Publication date:  October 18, 2011
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

OPEN CITY by Teju Cole

Open City is the story of Julius, a psychiatry fellow in New York City who was raised by a German mother and a Nigerian father.  It’s not quite right to call the book his story:  it feels more like his diary, describing his evening walks throughout New York, his travels, his conversations with his friends and acquaintances, and, as well, memories of his past.

I’m typically drawn to books with rollicking plots, so this was a bit of a switch for me:  a switch back to the sorts of things I read in college.  So what can I say about Open City? I enjoyed the first half because I felt like I was listening in on Julius’s interesting conversations with Professor Saito, his college English professor, and his friends.  I was interested in the book through Julius’s month-long trip to Brussels, where he befriends a Moroccan graduate student named Farouq, and they have a number of discussions about identity and politics.

After the Brussels, episode, I grew a bit bored.  I wanted more than interesting conversations about music, politics, war, dying, history, and philosophy.  Julius made an interesting admission near the end of the book that everyone sees himself or herself as a hero of their life, never as a villain, which was an interesting direction for the book to take (a conversation with an old friend from home revealed a horrible accusation about his past), but nothing really happened after that thought.

My takeaway:  it’s fiction that reads like nonfiction, specifically takes on history, race, philosophy, and Mahler’s music.  I think it’s something best read in small doses and without expecting a narrative arc.  I, however, prefer my meditations on being a multi-racial New Yorker with a bit more plot.

Open City by Teju Cole is finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle award for fiction, and it was recently released as a trade paperback. 

OPEN CITY by Teju Cole

Random House Trade Paperbacks

Trade paperback release date:  January 17, 2012

Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

STAY AWAKE by Dan Chaon

Stay Awake by Dan Chaon is a collection of short stories that reminds me very much of his previous novel, Await Your Reply.  Both books talk a lot about identity and memory, both books have pivotal scenes that happen in abandoned Nebraska prairie towns, and both books feature twenty-something men who haven’t really grown up.  The only Chaon besides this book I’ve read is Await Your Reply is this one, so I can’t compare this to his other short stories.

I was bowled away by these stories, and especially by “Stay Awake,” told by the father of a young baby born with a parasitic head.  It reminded me very much of Lorrie Moore’s story, “People Like That Are the Only People Here,” which was told by a mother of a baby dying of cancer. I felt for lots o Chaon’s characters, but the father in this story sticks out.

Other stories are very good at capturing marriages, relationships dissolving, and reassessing one’s life at mid-life.  Chaon is very good at capturing the inner lives of his characters, from the young widower and father in “To the Psychic Underworld:” to the teenager whose infant son died in, “Thinking of You in Your Time of Sorrow.”

I wasn’t in love with the closing story, told by ghostly daughters of a father who tried to kill them, but that’s the only and biggest misstep I found in this collection.  Why did these stories resonate?  I live in the Midwest, and most of the stories in the collection take place around here.  Chaon gets sorrow.  His characters felt like real, suffering people.  Finally, Chaon also gets parenting right.

I have a few other Chaon books sitting on my shelf, and I can’t wait to delve into them as well.

STAY AWAKE by Dan Chaon

Ballantine

Publication date: February 7, 2012
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

ME AND YOU by Niccolo Ammaniti

Me and You by Niccolo Ammaniti is a short novel about fourteen-year-old Leonardo and his much older half-sister Olivia.  The story takes place in the basement storage area of his parent’s home, his hideout while his parents think he’s skiing with school friends for the week.  Olivia appears half way through the story, and this story captures their strange relationship.  It’s a short novel written in a spare style from the perspective of a loner fourteen-year-old boy, so it’s a good story for people like me who like teen angst.  I can’t say much more about the book because it’s such a short piece with such a small set of characters in such a narrow, circumscribed space. 

I chose this book in my quest to try out new authors from other countries.  I’ve read that Ammaniti’s previous works described as creepy (I’m Not Scared), and he’s written the crime novel As God Commands, which seemed like indications that this book would fit right with my fictional interests.  While this book is definitely creepy (Leonardo is a bit of an anti-social oddball at fourteen, but so are lots of fourteen-year-olds), it’s not overly so.  It was an enjoyable, well-written story, though.  I’m interested in reading his longer works.

ME & YOU  by Niccolo Ammaniti

Black Cat

Publication date:  February 1, 2012

Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

OUTSIDE THE LINES by Amy Hatvany

Outside the Lines is the story of Eden West, a professional chef, who searches for her mentally ill homeless father David whom she hasn’t seen since she was ten years old.  Her parents divorced shortly after his suicide attempt and institutionalization.  Eden has hit a plateau in her personal and professional lives:  she’s about thirty years old, she’s not in a serious relationship, and she’d like to leave her corporate catering job to open her own restaurant.  She decides she’d like to find her father in order to get some closure on their relationship so she can move forward in her life.  Helping her along the way are Jack, the director of a local homeless shelter where Eden volunteers; her mother, a reluctant supporter who’s been going through cancer treatment; and her best friend Georgia, who happens to be, helpfully enough, a life coach.  The story isn’t easy or pretty, much like Hatvany’s previous book, Best Kept Secret, but it is compelling.

The first thing that works about this novel is the plot.  The book begins with Eden visiting the morgue to see if a particular corpse is her father’s.  The stakes are high from the beginning of the story:  Eden wants to see her father as an adult and find out why he left, why he never got in touch with her, and to find out how he’s coping with his mental illness and homelessness.  Hatvany does a good job switching perspectives from Eden to David:  she captures their voices at different ages and at different stages in David’s illness well.  The narrative jumps between the present and the past, with the flashback sections leading up to David’s suicide attempt. 

Secondly, Hatvany is very good at depicting family relationships, particularly Eden and her dad when she was a child.  Also good is Eden’s relationship with her ailing mother.  It’s hard to talk about and pursue the father whom her mother never talks about.

Finally, I have some minor quibbles with the novel.  The character of Georgia is a bit flat: she feels like a sidekick in a movie more than a real character.  I have the same quibble with Jack, Eden’s love interest.  He’s a perfect, supportive partner with his own issues with his parents.  Hatvany tries to flesh them out, but they don’t have much to do besides support Eden in this story.  I think this is because the novel is about Eden’s all-consuming search for her father:  it’s Eden’s story, not Georgia’s or Jack’s. 

All in all, Outside the Lines is a good read that I found more satisfying than some memoirs I’ve read about growing up in dysfunctional families because I think novelists fill in more of a story than memoirists sometimes do.

Outside the Lines by Amy Hatvany

Atria Books
Publication Date:  February 7, 2012
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

TWICE by Lisa Unger writing as Lisa Miscione

Twice is the third Lydia Strong novel.  Lydia is a New York City private investigator and true crime writer who works with her partner, Jeffrey Mark, a former FBI agent turned private investigator.  Lydia and Jeff investigate the murder of famous painter Julian Ross’s second husband.  Ten years earlier, she was exonerated in the death of her first husband.  Their investigation takes them from New York City to the small upstate town of Haunted, which is the perfect name for the Gothic goings-on in the investigation.  Solving Julian’s husband’s murder involves digging into Julian’s family’s past, which is laden with secrets.  Helping them along the way are Dax Chicago, their mysterious and funny bodyguard, and Detective Ford McKirdy, a lonely 50-ish detective whose job is slowly killing him.  A large chunk of the book is also devoted to Jeffrey and Lydia’s hunt for Jed McIntyre, an escaped serial killer.  Lydia’s first true crime book was about Jed McIntyre, the man who murdered her mother when she was a teenager.

As you can tell from the first paragraph, this novel is heavy on plot:  there are many twists in the murder investigation, and there are many twists in Jed McIntyre’s hunt for Lydia.  Unger does a good job balancing both stories.  I preferred the murder investigation to the serial-killer-on-the-loose story, but that’s because I liked the Gothic, family-secret-laden story more than the obsessed-serial-killer story.  This might be because this is the first Lydia Strong book I’ve read, so I don’t quite have all the background about Jed McIntyre than I’d have if I’d read the previous books before.

I’d recommend this book to thriller fans that like a dash of Gothic horror, and to fans of tough heroines as well.

Twice by Lisa Unger writing as Lisa Miscione

Publisher:  Broadway Books
Publication date (reissue):  February 7, 2012
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

THE LOST SAINTS OF TENNESSEE

The Lost Saints of Tennessee by Amy Franklin-Willis surprised me in lots of good ways.  The book starts in a very tough place emotionally:  forty-two-year-old Ezekiel Cooper is divorced, depressed, has a bad relationship with his aging mother, and is not coping well with the upcoming tenth anniversary of his twin brother Carter’s drowning death.  So much about the premise could have made me run for the book:  (1) I’m not a big fan of men-having-a-midlife crisis books; (2) I’m not a fan of deeply depressed characters.  Despite my misgivings, I became very emotionally invested in these characters after a short time.

The novel takes place in the small town of Clayton, Tennessee, a town which Zeke’s mom is desperate to leave, and which she is desperate for her children to leave as well.  Zeke is the first of his five siblings to leave town: he moves to Virginia to live with cousins and attend the University of Virginia, but he returns to Clayton over the holidays and stays for the next twenty-five years.  The story moves physically between Virginia and Tennessee and temporally between 1960 and 1985, eventually revealing more and more of Zeke, his first wife Jackie, and their family members’ lives.

What makes the story work is Zeke and his mother’s messy interior lives.  The rest of the characters are not as well developed, but there are hints to the depths in the lives of Jackie, her children, and Zeke’s cousins Georgia and Osbourne, the elderly couple in Virginia who took him in during college.  This is the story of one man getting his life together as he deals with his twin brother’s death as well as his relationships with his mother and ex-wife.

I’d recommend this book to fans of stories of small towns in the south, to fans of stories about adults growing up and moving on past their past hurts, and to fans of stories about families.

THE LOST SAINTS OF TENNESSEE by Amy Franklin-Willis

Atlantic Monthly Press

Publication date:  February 1, 2012

Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

RAGNAROK by A.S. Byatt

I chose to review Ragnarok by A. S. Byatt because I loved her novel Possession, and I really liked some of her other novels and novellas that I have read.  For other fans of Byatt’s work, be warned that Ragnarok is not a novel, it’s a retelling of the Norse myth of the end of the world. 

My previous experience with Norse myths is minimal.  I’ve watched some of the operas in Wagner’s Ring Cycle, but it was many years ago.  I’ve come across some Norse stuff tangentially in my reading as an English and Spanish major in college.  My lack of background in Norse mythology is not a real hindrance in this case because Byatt’s writing is so clear.  Furthermore, the more I read of Ragnarok, the more I realized that I have heard these tales retold in other guises, or, at least, I’ve read books that are heavily influenced by Norse mythology, including the Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings books.

The framing device for Ragnarok is the story of the thin child, a stand-in for Byatt herself, who is evacuated from London to the country during World War II.  The thin child’s mother gives her a copy of Asgard and the Gods, which is a German retelling of Norse myths.  In the author’s note, Byatt acknowledges that she wrote her version of Ragnarok as a child discovering the myths, which explains the straightforward style she uses.  The framing device also works in a way that allows Byatt to talk about how she, as a child, developed her worldview.  She’s not into the Christian, redemptive ending:  she always expects a dark end, much as the dark end of the gods destroying each other in Ragnarok.

This is a slim volume that I could have read in an afternoon, but I spread it out over a couple days.  Because it is so slim, it’s hard to write a longer review.  This piece is a collection of stories of the end of the Norse gods written in an accessible style.  It also contains interesting discussions about the nature of myths versus the nature of fairy tales.  It’s about the stories as well as about the nature of storytelling.

Ragnarok:  The End of the Gods by A.S. Byatt

Grove Press
Publication Date:  February 1, 2012
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

DEFENDING JACOB by William Landay

Defending Jacob is the story of Jacob Barber, a fourteen year old from Newton, MA, accused of stabbing one of his classmates to death.  Andy Barber, Jacob’s father and an assistant district attorney narrates the tale, covering the roughly six month period between the murder, the trial, and its aftermath.  It’s a fast read if you’re in the mood for a courtroom saga with plenty of twists and turns.

Andy is pretty prickly and unlikable.  It was hard for me to empathize with him in the first 100 pages.  He seems so blinded to the possibility that his son may be guilty that he’s a bit hard to take.  He’s also a bit hard to take because he doesn’t seem to realize what’s going on with his wife Laurie or his son Jacob as they suffer through this ordeal.  Maybe the whole point is that he’s supposed to be so thoroughly unlikable and so thoroughly blind to the possibility that his son is a killer:  we the readers are in the same place his wife is in.

Another reason it’s hard to empathize with any of the characters in the book, most of all Andy, is that the book is driven by dialogue.  It feels very much like a screenplay:  lots of dialogue, lots of short scenes.  Of course any crime thriller involves a lot of conversations or interrogations with witnesses and suspects, but not every thriller contains mostly dialogue.  It’s harder to get a sense of the characters interior lives because there’s more dialogue than narration.

The main asset of this book is the plot, which is laden with twists.  I think the book definitely picks up once Jacob’s trial begins.  Landay doesn’t spend as much time delving into Laurie and Jacob’s minds, which I think is a disadvantage of the book.  Defending Jacob is more of a thriller than a psychological thriller.  For books that take on being the mother of an accused killer, I also recommend We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver and Before and After by Rosellen Brown.

DEFENDING JACOB by William Landay

Delacorte Press

Publication date:  January 31, 2012

Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

A GROWN-UP KIND OF PRETTY by Joshilyn Jackson

A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson is a story of mothers and daughters.  Ginny, also known as Big, had her daughter Liza when she was a teenager.  Liza, in turn, became a teenage mother to Mosey.  This story takes place in Mosey’s fifteenth year, the year her mother suffers a stroke, and the year in which a handyman uncovers Liza’s box with baby bones in their backyard.  It’s no mystery to Big and Mosey that Liza’s biological daughter died, but the mystery is who Mosey is.

Like just about every book I’ve read recently, this book alternates narration from character to character:  the supremely motherly Ginny, the recovering-addict-and-recovering-stroke-victim Liza, and the angst-ridden Mosey, who embarks on a search for her real parents.  Jackson captures the voices incredibly well, from the Big, the struggling Liza, and the confused Mosey.  What I very much appreciated about the characters is that they weren’t quirky for the sake of being quirky, which I sometimes feel when I read contemporary Southern novels. 

The actual plot or actual mystery is not the main draw of this book:  this book is not about suspense about Mosey’s actual parents or about Liza and her deceased daughter.  This book is about the characters, how they care for each other, and how they help each other through the incredibly rough patches they are going through.  Jackson is very good at capturing the voices of her three main characters, especially Big and Mosey.  The main villain is not so fleshed-out, but that’s not a hindrance to the story.  Another thing I loved about this story is that the side characters like Mosey’s friends were well-rounded characters, not just wisecracking sidekicks.  That’s not to say that this story or its characters are humorless:  there’s plenty of humor throughout the book that keeps it from being relentlessly bleak.

I’d recommend this book most to people who like smart, teen-angst-tinged stories, be they books, movies or TV shows. 

A GROWN-UP KIND OF PRETTY by Joshilyn Jackson

Grand Central Publishing

Publication date:  January 25, 2012

Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

THE BAKER'S DAUGHTER by Sarah McCoy

The Baker’s Daughter by Sarah McCoy is both historical fiction and contemporary fiction.  It’s the story of Elsie, the eponymous baker’s daughter, who emigrated to Texas after World War II, as well as the story of Reba, a contemporary journalist who meets Elsie while she’s on assignment for a magazine story about Christmas traditions from around the world.  Elsie’s story is the story of her family’s struggles to survive in Nazi Germany during World War II.  The book also takes on illegal immigration in the border town of El Paso through Reba’s boyfriend’s Riki’s story as well as Reba’s struggles to deal with the grief over her father’s death.  It’s not light subject matter at all, but it is an involving read.

First, I’d like to comment on the structure of the book.  Elsie and Reba become friends during the course of this book, but Elsie doesn’t tell Reba the story of her youth during World War II.  This feels right to me:  it was a pretty horrific time for her and her family, and she’d like to move on.  I think that Elsie and Reba connect because they are both non-native Texans who had rough childhoods, and in that sense, their stories echo each other. 

My favorite sections of the book are the Elsie sections:  she’s a feisty heroine, despite all the conflicts she faces.  She might strike some readers as too perfect, as in wise beyond her years.  I don’t want to give away the details of her story because I think it’s best to enter the novel with a blank slate.  The plot wasn’t necessarily the strongest point in this book because the woes that befall Elsie during and immediately after the war are quite extreme, but somehow, not necessarily unbelievable. 

The other aspect of the book that I enjoyed were the various relationships among the women:  Reba and Elsie’s daughter Jane, Reba and her sister DeeDee, Elsie and her mother, and Elsie and her sister.  Those sections felt spot-on psychologically.  This is a book about relationships among family members, friends, and with beloveds.  Also, the last section of the book made me very weepy.  If you’re looking for a book with good relationships, a gripping story about World War II told from the perspective of a German teenage girl, and a good, sad, ending, check out this book.

THE BAKER’S DAUGHTER by Sarah McCoy

Crown Publishing

Publication date:  January 24, 2012

Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

THE NIGHT SWIMMER by Matt Bondurant

           

The Night Swimmer is the story of Elly and Fred, a young couple from Vermont who win a pub in southwest Ireland in a contest.  This book is, in part, a story of the end of their marriage.  The rest of the story is the tale of being outsiders in a small Irish coastal town.  The pub itself is on the mainland, but Elly ends up spending most of her time on a nearby island in order to indulge her love of swimming in open water.

The opening of the book, which covers Elly and Fred’s early years (they meet as literature graduate students), sucked me in.  I was expecting the book to be the story of the train wreck of their marriage like Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, which Bondurant references early in the book.  The fireworks are minimal, though.  By the time the couple moves to Ireland, they essentially live apart:  Fred on land in the pub, trying to write a novel, and Elly staying on a nearby island and swimming. 

The book invokes Cheever in a number of ways.  Elly, the narrator, wrote her thesis on The Journals of John Cheever, excerpts of which begin every chapter of the book.  Instead of swimming in suburban swimming pools like the main character in “The Swimmer,” Elly swims in the sometime-treacherous open waters.  This also feels like Cheever in that the story is of an unhappy couple.  Elly and Fred fit the bill, and Fred may even be slightly mentally ill with his obsession with building his own gun, as the time-traveller in his novel will do. 

Finally, the last pleasure of the book is the evocative setting.  Elly describes the weather, the water, the land, and the people of the small town and small island beautifully.  There is a bit of a gothic aura to the story of the islanders too.

I finished the book slightly disappointed because I wanted a bit more of a plot or a more vicious showdown between Elly and Fred, but that’s not what this book is about.  It’s a mood piece of a faltering marriage and of the couple being shunned by the locals and of the wonders of swimming off the south Ireland coast

THE NIGHT SWIMMER by Matt Bondurant

Scribner
Publication Date:  January 10, 2012
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

SMUT: TWO UNSEEMLY STORIES by Alan Bennett

I haven’t read much by Alan Bennett.  I read The Uncommon Reader, which was sort of a comedy piece about the Queen of England becoming an avid reader, and I watched the film version of The History Boys.  This collection of paired stories, Smut, fits with what I know of Bennett:  the stories are funny, smart, and humane toward its main characters.  And, of course, given the title, these stories contain plenty of sex.

The first story, “The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson,” involves the sexual awakening of a fifty-five-year old widow who supports herself as an actor in medical student demonstrations and as a landlady.  The second story, “The Shielding of Mrs. Forbes,” involves two couples:  Graham and his wife Betty, and Graham’s parents.  This is the story that made me see the humane side of Bennett in the final pages.

Both stories deal with small town propriety:  basically every character has a bit of a tawdry sex life that they are intent on keeping from their neighbors.  These are, after all, stories of seemliness.  Bennett does poke fun at suburban mores, but these pieces are not straight satires.  He cares for his characters, even the snobby elder Mrs. Forbes.  I don’t want to give away much more about the details about these delightful stories.   They are witty stories about hidden sex lives.

Smut:  Two Unseemly Stories by Alan Bennett

Picador
Publication Date:  January 3, 2012
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley