A Master at Work

How can an author create a character who is completely unsympathetic but completely fascinating? Shouldn't I eventually have gotten fed up with an amoral, cold-blooded, manipulative conniver with the unlikely name of Undine Spragg? Not when the author is as talented as the inestimable Edith Wharton. Her heroine Lily Bart in “House of Mirth” paid dearly for her poor decisions, but in The Custom of the Country Wharton goes down another path.

The book opens with the exclamation “Undine Spragg – how can you?”, and there were many times while reading this book that I felt the same way. Undine has dragged her nouveau riche parents from the midwestern hinterlands of Apex City to New York City so she can advance into high society, and although she has her share of missteps she slowly climbs the ladder. But each time she achieves a new rung her horizon broadens, and she catches sight of her next goal. A woman's road to advancement in society was through an advantageous marriage, and Undine acquires and discards husbands in New York and Paris in much the same way as she does her expensive dresses and hats.

Each time I would think that Undine was about to get her comeuppance she would execute an unexpected pivot, leaving spouses, friends and even her own child foundering in her wake, and sail on to another success. Wharton has a keen eye for the foibles of the rich and for the customs of American and European society. She has created a character who is memorable, if not admirable, and thoroughly entertaining.

Word Nerds

Although I seldom read mysteries, I stumbled upon one (wish I could remember who recommended it) that seemed to be up my particular alley. In David Carkeet's Double Negative the murder takes place at the Wabash Institute, an Indiana linguistics think tank where socially inept academics study the babblings of toddlers in order to learn more about the formation of language. This hits three of my favorites – well-crafted plots, quirky and humorous characters, and my previously undisclosed love of linguistics.

Jeremy Cook is Carkeet's clueless hero, a star linguist caught up in the petty jealousies and feuds typical of academia. So when a colleague's dead body turns up in Jeremy's office, the cantankerous police detective, as well as some of his co-workers, suspect him. And in his bumbling way Jeremy continues to draw suspicion to himself even as he attempts to find the real killer.

Sometimes Carkeet's humor is a little broad (the murdered man's name is Stiph and a clumsy colleague's name is Woeps), but I enjoyed the clever sendup of academic life, the nerdy linguistic in jokes, and the twists and turns of the plot.

Going Home

Voyage and Return is one of the seven basic plots of literature. Odysseus, Gulliver, Alice in Wonderland, Orpheus, Dorothy Gale – the list goes on and on. But when I picture a hero/heroine returning home I don't normally imagine that home to be Detroit. But that's where Scott Lasser's characters wash ashore.

David returns to help his father deal with his mother as she slips into dementia. Carolyn comes back for the funeral of her older sister Natalie, David's high school flame. But they both also stumble towards the realization that they are looking for a way to restart their lives, and returning to their hometown seems to make that possible. But Detroit? It's a city of high crime rates and abandoned neighborhoods. Hardly the background conducive to a blooming romance. And David's attempt to 'save' thirteen year old drug dealer Marlon further complicates matters.

Lasser knowledge of the geography and psyche of Detroit makes the story feel grounded and authentic, even if the plot twists are sometimes a little forced. It's ultimately a story about second chances, for the characters and for the city itself.

The Travels of AIDS

As a health care professional who worked in San Francisco hospitals in the 1980's when gay men first were admitted with a mystery disease, I thought I knew something about AIDS. Daniel Halperin and Craig Timberg's book, Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It adds so much more.  They describe how genetic studies have traced the virus to equatorial forests in Cameroon, how and when the virus was likely transmitted to humans, and more importantly, how it was transported to the colonial city of Leopoldsville. There it was free to break out and spread widely, carried to Haiti by returning Haitian temporary workers and then to the US via the gay community which vacationed in Haiti.

The book's primary focus is Africa, however, where heterosexual AIDS has been overwhelmingly disastrous.  The West contributed by opening Africa to new colonial cities and blazing routes through areas which never before had been connected. Missionaries discouraged polygamy but instead new patterns of multiple sexual partners developed, which fostered rampant spread of the virus.

The authors then describe how Western AIDS groups have focused on preventions which proved ineffective while not supporting more accurately targeted homegrown efforts. Halperin is a very strong advocate of circumcision, which has been shown to decrease HIV transmission by 60%, but was not initially supported by the aid groups. Africans have been open to it, since it was and still is practiced by some tribes. Reading reviews of this book on Amazon, I was amazed to see vigorous attacks by anti-circumcision advocates. Just the facts, folks.

Because patterns of sexual contacts are so different in Western countries from those in Africa, heterosexual AIDS epidemics there never have been likely. This is clearly illustrated. And there's so much more.  It's a fascinating book, despite the undertone of West bashing and the sense of crusading by Halperin. Read it and learn.