Growing Up with Secrets

Roy Jacobsen, the Norwegian author of "ChildWonder" tells us that this is a story about an Oslo of "rather rough experimentation. Before oil. Before anybody had any money at all. " The award winning author grew up in this era. The story takes place on an "estate" (we may recognize it as a sprawling group of apartment buildings) in a working class area outside of Oslo. The narrator is Finn, a boy of about nine years old. He lives in a two bedroom apartment with his divorced mother. When his mother suddenly decides to advertise for a tenant to live in the second bedroom, Finn's life undergoes radical changes. The story, from Finn's perspective, is riveting. Because Finn is nine years old, he is unable to really understand what is happening around him (aka the unreliable narrator). His mother is no help at all. Similar to parents, world wide, in the 60s, she makes life altering decisions without consulting with Finn. And then she mysteriously disappears with no explanation, for weeks. The reader is often left as much in the dark as poor Finn.  A tenant arrives who has his own secrets. And most perplexing is the arrival of Finn's half-sister, Linda. But something is seriously wrong with Linda. It becomes the job of Finn's mother and then Finn himself to help Linda.  The ensuing events of the story lead the reader to question what really happened that year and the extremes people will go in the attempt to "make things right".  The conclusion comes abruptly without warning. And then the last chapter advances about ten years  and allows Finn to explain some of the choices that were made, but it does not explain the complicated history that led to those choices. It seems that many of the answers will stay Finn's mother and the people who grew up in the 50s and 60s protecting their secrets. This is a beautifully written story about Norway in the 1960s told by an author who may have lived this story more intimately than he has led us to believe.

Jungle Sci-Fi

Ann Patchett’s latest novel, "State of Wonder" opens in a small town in Minnesota in the dead of winter. But it quickly takes the reader to the depths of the Amazon jungle. Marina Singh is a pharmacologist working for a major drug company. Marina learns that her lab partner and dear friend, Anders Eckman, has died of a sudden fever in the Amazon Jungle. Anders was sent by their employer, Vogel Pharmaceutical Company, to Brazil to bring back information about the progress another employee, Dr. Annick Swenson, was making on a miracle fertility drug.

Marina’s boss and lover, “Mr. Fox”, convinces Marina she has to go to Brazil to find Dr. Swenson and bring the miracle drug to Vogel. Ander’s wife believes Marina can find out what happened to her husband.

So begins Marina’s journey to the depths of the jungle where she confronts her past and finds answers she never imagined. She becomes part of Dr. Swenson’s world among the wonderful Lakashi Tribe. She sees and learns things that her scientific mind cannot grasp and she learns to trust the jungle and its inhabitants, strange as they are. But ultimately Ann Patchett is presenting the question of medical and moral ethics that surround the need to preserve natural resources and the habitats of the native people who live and thrive on these resources, which can be and (more often than not) are, more important than scientific discovery.

Ann Patchett has written a scientific thriller with an ending that is as unexpected as it is touching and sad.

Chance Encounters

Who knew that George Washington wrote a small book/pamphlet entitled “100 Rules of Civility”, to instruct young men in the rules of accepted social behavior? Apparently Amor Towles did and based his first novel on the “Rules of Civility”.

The Prologue to the novel is narrated by a middle aged woman who is at an art gallery with her husband viewing photographs taken of people in New York City in the 1930’s. She recognizes the subject of two contrasting photos and is taken back three decades in her memory.

The story begins on a snowy New Year’s Eve night in 1937. The narrator is Katey (Katya) Kontent. She and her roommate, Eve (Evelyn) Ross, from a boarding house for young women, are headed to a Greenwich Village jazz bar with three dollars between them to ring in the New Year. Enters, Tinker (Theodore) Grey. (Everyone has a nickname.) His eyes are royal blue, he is dressed in a tuxedo with a cashmere coat over his arm. The girls are intrigued. He buys them drinks and leaves, to instantly return, with a bottle of champagne. The three make New Year’s resolutions and plans to see each other before the week is over. But by the end of the first week of 1938 a tragic accident occurs and the lives of the three new friends are changed forever.

Our narrator/protagonist, Katey, enters the fast lane of the late 1930’s with glitzy New York and Long Island parties and a new glamorous job. Eve and Tinker are on their own glamorous, disastrous journey. Their journeys take us through the best of New York City in the late 1930’s. It is almost as if the city itself is a character.

We watch as these three characters evolve, disintegrate and reinvent themselves. And what we see is not always what really is. Why does the charming, rich, successful Tinker carry a worn, underlined copy of George Washington’s “100 Rules of Civility”? Why does Eve rebuke all offers of financial help from her well meaning father? Why does Katey try not to talk about her parents?

Amor Towles has written a wonderful period piece with relatable characters and a strong, witty and reliable narrator who relates an intriguing, dramatic story.

Expatriates in Paris

There is something about the life of Ernest Hemingway that never fails to intrigue an audience. He was always bigger than life. Paula McLain has written a bestseller about Hemingway’s life in Paris in the 1920’s. McLain’s novel, “The Paris Wife”, is the story of this time through the eyes of Hadley Richardson, Hemingway’s first wife.

Hadley and Ernest meet in Chicago in October of 1920. She was a twenty eight year old “spinster” living with her sister and her husband in St. Louis. He was a twenty one year old dashing, war hero who wanted to write a great novel.

He proposed, they married. After one wonderful evening with Sherwood Anderson (the author of “Winesburg, Ohio) Ernest is convinced that everyone and everything interesting in the world of writing is in Paris. And so begins the story of Ernest and Hadley in Paris, where Hadley attempts to be the perfect wife to the talented, moody, complex Ernest.

This novel falls into the category of historical fiction as the author will admit that she mined Hemingway’s posthumously published memoir, “A Moveable Feast”, about his life in Paris. But in “The Paris Wife” the narrator is Hadley. The story tells of the intricate relationships that Ernest had with John Dos Passos, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Gerald and Sara Murphy, and other people who made Paris in the 1920’s the exciting, hard drinking, self indulgent haven for American expatriates. The group made wild trips to Pamplona, Spain to see violent bullfights, where Ernest set his famous novel, “The Sun Also Rises”. Their life was a maze of drinking, traveling around Europe and finding the right setting for Ernest to write.

I found Hadley to be a strong, interesting character who tries to remain dignified when her world begins to fall apart. Perhaps she took on more than she could handle but she, most likely, had no choice once she became part of Hemingway’s world. “The Paris Wife” is a great story about a special time in the history of American literature through the eyes of a woman who tried to hold her own as she was carried away by a strong, uncontrollable force-----Ernest Hemingway.

Jersey Girl

“There is just something about New Jersey that breeds a certain type of life and by extension, a certain type of person.” This is the opening line of Kristen Buckley’s coming of age memoir, “Tramps Like Us”. Kristen Buckley is a musician, a screen writer and a novelist. She has written a very funny, rather quirky memoir about how she got from the suburbs of New Jersey to the streets of Los Angelus, via New York City.

Kristen Buckley begins the story with the tragic-comedy event of her physician father announcing to his six year old daughter, “Now that that you’re six you don’t need a dad anymore.” Kristen promptly went home to her surviving parent and climbed into bed with her mother and her Korean brother and sister who had been adopted two months earlier.

And so began the odyssey of surviving in New Jersey in “70’s Divorce Hell”. From the exploding septic tank on the sprawling front lawn to the long lost Korean sibling who is rescued by Kristen’s mother, but whose knowledge of English is limited to profane four letter words.

For readers growing up in the seventies and eighties this story will have a certain resonance. But for those of us who didn’t grow up in that era or in New Jersey, this story is just plain fun. Buckley has a wry sense of humor, not to mention what a precocious, wise child she was. It is fun to laugh and commiserate with her and this crazy family as that make their way through a difficult time with a great sense of humor and determination.

By the end of this charming, laugh out loud story you are really routing for a girl who really didn’t care what anybody else thought as she tried to make sense of her wacky life. I love the section where she lists (the) 66 famous people who are from New Jersey. With this story, and Kristen Buckley’s accomplishments, there are now 67!

Life Without a True Compass

My bother sends me many books both novels and non fiction because he is a true book lover. He has a special enthusiasm for coming of age novels by first time authors. I don’t always get to read them all before they are claimed by family members or friends. But in his is latest group I found Alison Espach’s debut novel “The Adults”.

This story begins on a summer night in the Connecticut suburb of Fairfield. The protagonist, Emily Marie Vidal, is describing her father’s fiftieth birthday party and the rather bizarre group of party goers. “I disapprove of this party, this whole at-home affair that would mark the last of its kind”, muses Emily. And so begins the unraveling of a family. Fourteen year old Emily is your basic spoiled adolescent, the only child of two disconnected adults. The morning of the party Emily’s parents announce that they are going to divorce and Emily’s father is moving to Prague. That is only the beginning for Emily. She unknowingly witnesses a shocking sight in the trees behind her house that night. Then, a few weeks later, she is the only eye witness to a suicide of a neighbor, the father of her would be boyfriend.

The best part of this novel is the voice of Emily. It is witty, but not obnoxious and she is very aware of the world she lives in and the adults who shape that world.
The events that “happen” to Emily lead her to begin a strange, inappropriate affair. Did the events that preceded the affair make Emily take this path, or has she encountered just one more adult in her life who is without a compass?

The story goes on into Emily’s adulthood. Things get complicated and we can’t help rooting for Emily to find her way, mostly because the author makes Emily seem so authentic. The ending is a bit convoluted but it is a good story, told with a voice that is smart, witty and sympathetic.

Friends For Life

The cover of “The Girls from Ames: A story of Women & a Forty-Year Friendship” shows a group a smiling attractive teen aged girls. Jeffrey Zaslow (who is the coauthor of “The Last Lecture”) is the author telling the story of eleven girls from the town of Ames, Iowa who were born in 1963 and have maintained a unique friendship that has spanned forty years. The girls met at different times in the small city that is home to Iowa State University. Some were friends from infancy because their parents were friends, some met in grammar school but by middle school almost all of the eleven were friends. By the time they reached Ames High School they were an established group (clique) of eleven girls.

The book begins as they are meeting for one of their many reunions over the years. Using pictures taken over the years, and memories, their stories take shape. In the beginning of the book it was difficult to keep track of who was who. But in the front of the book there are pictures taken of the girls, one was a grade school photo in the second or third grade and one which appears to be a high school yearbook portrait. I would flip back and forth from the story to the pictures to figure out exactly who was speaking. By the end of the book I had become very familiar with these women.

The book is a part sociology, with many cultural references during that time frame and part biography, as each girl tells her story. It is a microcosm of American culture, “white, middle class females from the mid West during the years 1963 to the present”.

Their stories, especially in the early years, are funny and charming; keggers in the cornfields of Iowa, husking corn in the summer, proms and sleepovers. Over the forty years of friendship the girls have lived through the deaths of their parents, the strange death of one of them, marriages, children, divorce, cancer and coping with Alzheimer’s. There is joy and great sadness in their stories. But mostly this is a story of friendship and how these women rely on one another and have nurtured this bond for over forty years. This story, as a whole and each individual story, showed how important female friendships can be and how friendships can not only shape and sustain us but keep us sane and healthy!

An American Dream

Jonathan Frazen has become a very well known writer. His first novel “Corrections” was published just prior to Sept. 11th, 2001 and has become the beacon of authentic “American Humanism”. His next novel took nine years to write and was highly anticipated. That novel,“Freedom”, is a story that speaks to personal liberty and how we (the American public) can find our own paths to “freedom”. Jonathan Franzen tell us that since most of us begin life as part of a “family”, it is there that we will hone our skills for finding freedom.

Jonathan Frazen's novel “Freedom” is about a Midwestern family, the Berglunds. The story begins in the up and coming (or newly gentrified) St. Paul neighborhood, called Ramsey Hill. Patty Berglund is our story’s protagonist. She was a college basketball star and now is married to the very “worthy”, do good lawyer, Walter and they have two "great" kids. How Patty and Walter got together should have been the red flag. This marriage was in for trouble from the get go. We follow Patty and Walter through their travails and those of their children, especially their strangely precocious son, Joey. Patty and Walter (but mostly Patty) continually clash with neighbors, college roommates, friends and family members. Frazen's characters are very well developed. You may not like these characters but you get to know them very well.

What these characters are all seeking is their personal freedom and the way Jonathan Franzan takes them to freedom is through everyday realism. This can be tricky for a reader. Jonathan Frazen is a very good writer, that is to say he knows his craft. But for me, the tedium of living through 562 pages of Walter and Patty Berglund’s life unraveling so they could find freedom was too much!

However, I know that this novel was very well received and acclaimed. For many “Freedom” epitomized middle class America struggling in the aftermath of 9/11 searching for a path to “freedom”. The novel explores life and a family in all its messiness, its emotions, its conflicts and its ability to forgive. He is making a broad statement on the status of the well being of this country. Some people think he has written the great American novel for this century.

This was not an easy book for me to read. Jonathan Frazen escapes me. I think he is too wordy. He put every cliché and nuance of this decade into this story. Too much was attempted. (Where was his editor??) But I am glad I read it. It may (or may not) prove to be the one of the important novels of the century.

2010 Favorites

As we conclude three years of blogging I look at the books I have blogged for 2010 and I realize that some of my favorites are the books that have been chosen by our amazing book group of eleven like minded but diverse readers.

I really enjoyed “Let The Great World Spin”, by Colum McCann. It is a story that revolves around the real life feat, performed by Philippe Petit, of walking a tightrope between the World Trade Center buildings. Colum McCann uses this event to pivot an incredible story about twelve characters who lived in New York on that day.

“Cutting For Stone” by Abraham Verghese, is an ambitious, family epic that spans over forty years and two continents with characters that are difficult to forget.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has written a novel about the Nigeria-Biafran War, “Half of a Yellow Sun”, that is mesmerizing. Her research into this forgotten war is enlightning and her characters are so strong and memorable.

On my own I have attempted to read some non fiction. One of my favorites, although a difficult book to read, was “Lucky” by Alice Sebold. This incredible story is a memoir of the author’s rape at the age of eighteen on the last day of her freshman year, in a park tunnel, at Syracuse University in New York. How this courageous girl deals with this life altering ordeal is inspiring.

To balance out my list I want to include a book that made me laugh out loud, “This Is Where I Leave You” by Jonathan Tropper. It is the very amusing story of a complicated Jewish family gathering together, after being apart for sometime, to sit Shiva for their father.

It is great to move from very serious and/or enlightening books to ones that are just plain fun. That is the joy of reading and I happily look forward to a year of more inspiring and wonderful reads!

A Writer's Right to Privacy

I found J.M. Coetzee’s latest novel, “Summertime” to be very interesting. The reason I use the word interesting is that the premise is so unusual. The story evolves as the rough draft of a biography of the late John Coetzee, a South African writer, written by an Englishman referred to as Mr. Vincent. The “biography” takes the form of five interviews by Mr. Vincent with people who had known Coetzee in the 1970’s when he was living in a suburb of Capetown with his elderly father. Four of the five interviewees were women who had had a “relationship” with John Coetzee. The fifth, Martin, was a colleague from Coetzee’s teaching days.

The interviews are intriguing and often very amusing. The women often describe Coetzee with the most unflattering and demoralizing rhetoric. The stories the interviewees relate of their own lives are often far more interesting than the life of the J.M. Coetzee, before he became a famous writer.

One might ask, “Why would J.M. Coetzee, the novelist, (who is very much alive in 2010) want to write about a J.M. Coetzee who is somewhat similar to himself but who is dead? and why, in such a strange and unflattering way? It seems that this author, who has received many prestigious awards including the Nobel Prize for Literature, wants to make a statement: “Why are people so interested in a man just because he is a famous writer?” But only J.M. Coetzee could present this question to his readers in such a creative and beautifully written form.

Sitting Shiva

Jonathan Tropper’s 2009 novel “This Is Where I Leave You” is described as “A magnificently funny family saga…”, and “often side splitting”. It is the story of the Foxman family. Judd Foxman, our narrator, is one of four children, the third born and the second son, in a basically dysfunctional Jewish family. The Foxman children, now adults, have been summoned to their childhood home to sit Shiva for their father, Mort Foxman. Shiva is the weeklong ritual of sitting in your home and welcoming the friends and family who want to pay respects to the person who has died. The kids find the idea somewhat strange because as far as they knew their father was an atheist. What is making it even harder is that the rabbi, who is directing the Shiva, is a childhood friend of the Foxmans who had a few strange behaviors as a boy and who they nicknamed Boner.

The Foxman clan is an interesting group. Judd, the morose narrator, has recently walked in on his wife and his obnoxious boss having sex in his bed. Paul, Judd’s older brother by sixteen months, and his wife are trying desperately to have a baby. One afternoon the family gets to listen to them having sex over the baby monitor which their sister, Wendy, had accidentally left turned on in the baby’s room. Wendy has three children and a husband who spends the entire week on his cell phone
orchestrating million dollar deals. The youngest Foxman brother, Phillip, is a lovable fellow, who is a mystery to his family, which is fine with them because he just lies whenever anyone questions him. He appears with his “life coach” who is also his girlfriend and fifteen years older than he is. But the best character is Mrs. Foxman, the outspoken celebrity author of, “Cradle and All: A Mother’s Guide To Enlightened Parenting”. She has silicone breasts, which she loves to display, and wears miniskirts and stiletto heels. Her children cannot understand why she just can’t dress appropriately for a 63 year old woman who has just lost her husband.

A week of sitting Shiva is more than this family can take as old wounds and grudges
resurface and irreverent wisecracks and put me downs are relentlessly thrown back and forth. But in spite of themselves and their wacky relationships with each other, they learn more about their father (and their mother) in this week than all the years growing up in that house on Knob’s End.

Jonathan Tropper’s characters are funny and endearing. His one liners can be hilarious and the story and the intricate family history make for a very good novel that seems to be heading toward a movie. I definitely agree that this is a book that will make you smile if not laugh out loud!

Native American Comic Tragedy

Choosing a new book to read can be a challenge. I was rushing to catch a train when I stopped into a book store to get a book to read on the train. For some strange reason I didn’t see a familiar title or author. So I picked up a book with a gold seal that stated “Winner Pen Faulkner Award”.I had no idea who the author was or what the book was about. But I was in a hurry.

The book I inadvertently chose was “War Dances”, a collection of short stories and poems by the Native American writer, Sherman Alexie. The stories are written in a captivating, in your face style that makes them seem autobiographical. And although they may have their origins in Alexie’s own life, they are fiction. In the first story “Breaking and Entering” the narrator is a film editor working at home. Sherman Alexie has written two screen plays. The story progresses in a chatty, self deprecating style. But the reader slowly realizes that something is wrong, even before the narrator lets us know. What happened wasn’t “his” fault, but maybe he could have avoided it, all the signs were there. It is a very powerful story.

Before each story, Sherman Alexie, has written a poem. They are short, straight forward, poignant poems about contemporary issues and they relate in some way to the story that follows each poem. In “War Dances” the narrator is in the hospital with his aging, alcoholic, diabetic father. All he wants to do is find a blanket for his father. Before the story is a poem Alexie has written about playing legos with his sons.

The stories revolve around family, love, the problems of love, how American Indians are stereotyped in our society, and how race issues enter into everyday life whether we choose it to or not.

Sherman Alexie is a strong new voice who has a lot to say about life. The best part is that he can tell a great story that is sad and true, but he has that special talent that can make you laugh through the sadness, because he has been there and he knows that humor is the only way out.

What is True?

Paul Auster has written fifteen novels, six non-fiction works, two screen plays and a collection of poems. I have read one of his novels “The Brooklyn Follies” and I didn’t really like it, although most of our book club did. When I saw his latest novel “Invisible” I was intrigued. The description on the book itself, sounded very interesting. The New York Times critic, Clancy Martin, states that “Invisible” is Paul Auster’s finest novel. I would like to agree because I really enjoyed this novel, but I haven’t read enough of Paul Auster to make that claim.

The story begins in 1967, in New York City. The protagonist, Adam Walker, is a second year student at Columbia University, majoring in poetry. Adam finds himself at a party in Manhattan, not sure why he is there. At the party Adam meets, Rodolf Born, a Swiss citizen teaching at Columbia and his beautiful French girlfriend, Margot. This chance encounter sets off a series of events that lead to an act of violence that changes Adam’s life.

The novel is presented in four parts, Spring, Summer, Fall and Cecile‘s diary. The first section is narrated by Adam. The second section jumps to 2007 as Jim Freeman, a college friend of Adam, tells us that he has received a letter and a manuscript from Adam. Adam fills him in on what has happened to him over the past forty years and asks him to read the manuscript he has written. The manuscript is entitled Summer, and it took place the summer after Adam’s encounter with Born. This section is a difficult read for the Jim and for the reader because it is about incest. It is the natural, beautiful prose of Auster that makes this section work for the reader. But it is in this section that the reader begins to question the reliability of Adam as a narrator.

In the next section, Fall of 1967, Adam finds himself in Paris on a mission. A mission that reunites Adam with Born and introduces him to Born’s fiancée, Helene Juin, and Helene’s daughter Cecile. Adam’s mission in Paris fails and he finds himself back in the United States. The final section of the book is entitled, Cecile Juin’s Diary, and takes place in 2007. This section tells the reader what ultimately happens to the characters but doesn’t end the story in a true sense.

The story has tree different narrators and as many perspectives on what really happened during the year of 1967. It is a story of love and how difficult it is to define love because it is invisible. Paul Auster’s writing is so good, so brisk, that you glide through the pages, but his sentences are filled with innuendo and he is a master of intrigue. “Invisible” is a wonderful novel and although it may be his best, I am tempted to try another.

Centenarians

Dan Buettner is a National Geographic explorer, a writer and the founder of Quest Network Inc. His story for “National Geographic”, “Secrets for Living Longer”, was a finalist for the National Magazine Award. When he first set out to investigate the mysteries of human longevity he teamed up with demographers and scientists at the National Institute on Aging to identify pockets around the world where people live the longest, healthiest lives.

Dan Buettner’s book, “The Blue Zone: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who Lived the Longest”, is a great read for people who are interested in the question of longevity and the realities of aging. Mr. Buettner and his team identified pockets, or Blue Zones, “where people reach the age of 100 at rates significantly higher, and on average, live longer, healthier lives than Americans do.” The group traveled with interpreters to the four chosen Blue Zones: the Barbagia region of Sardinia in Italy, Okinawa in Japan, the Seventh Day Adventists community of Loma Linda, California and the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica.

In each of these Blue Zones the team met with and talked to wonderful centenarians, trying to find out how they lived, what they ate and why they thought they had lived so long. Each one of these pockets had a different diet and way of life, but there were overall similarities between the groups. A strong community and family support was important. Some of these people lived alone but most of them were living with their extended families. They all had a plant based diet where meat was secondary or not part of their diet. A sense of purpose in life and spirituality was a common thread and most important the centenarians were never sedentary, they were always busy doing something.

In final chapter of the book Dan Buettner shows the reader how to put the information learned in the Blue Zones to work in our busy twenty first century lives. This is a very interesting book that may change your view of aging and give you some good ideas to incorporate into your life as you do.

Do No Harm

Abraham Verghese had written two highly acclaimed memoirs before he wrote his first novel,“Cutting For Stone”. This novel is an ambitious, family epic that spans over forty years and two continents.

The narrator and protagonist of this story is Marion Stone. The story opens in 1954 as Marion describes the dramatic, frightening, haphazard sequence of events that transpired as he and his twin brother, Shiva, were born at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. “Missing was really Mission Hospital, a word that on the Ethiopian tongue came out with a hiss so it sounded like Missing.”

Marion and Shiva Stone were born to an Indian nun, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, and an English doctor, Thomas Stone, who worked together at Missing. At birth the twins were joined at the head by a short, fleshy tube that passed from the crown of one to the other. The drama that surrounded their birth and the split second decisions made by Dr. Kalpana Hemlatha, as she worked to save the lives of these infants, is compelling to read. What transpired after the birth is sad and difficult to understand.

The boys grow up in the comforting surroundings of Missing raised by Dr. Hemlatha (Hema) and the compassionate man she finally marries, Dr. Abhi Ghosh. They are surrounded by love and the political turmoil of Ethiopia, quietly learning how to be doctors from their adopted parents and all the wonderful characters who care for them at Missing.

The author describes medical procedures and operations in minute detail that may not appeal to all readers. I found it fascinating. Verghese’s writing is clear and detailed, making the reader feel like you are right there in the operating room with these passionate, skilled doctors.

The story takes Marion to Nairobi, as he flees the Ethiopian secret police, and finally to New York where he finishes his medical training. Shiva remains in Ethiopia in his own self styled world. The appearance in New York of Marion's childhood love, Genet, brings this epic story to a sad, complicated end. This end also brings Dr. Thomas Stone back into Marion and Shiva’s lives.

In some ways Verghese has been too ambitious. He has a wonderful story to tell with fascinating characters, exciting medical procedures and important historical events. But the end seems somewhat contrived. Abraham Verghese is an author and a physician. He has attempted to give the reader a wonderful combination of both worlds. He is a great storyteller and his characters are strong, believable and memorable. Abraham Verghese has written a powerful, epic story entwining medicine, family and country that may have some flaws, but is a wonderful read.

The Joy of Flying

Jonathon Miles’ first novel “Dear American Airlines” began as an enraged letter of complaint to American Airlines for stranding him in O’Hare airport. Jonathan Miles was a free lance writer flying on American Airlines from Memphis to New York City. Due to “bad weather” the plane landed in Peoria, Illinois and the passengers were all bused to Chicago's O’Hare Airport. As Mr. Miles attempted to sleep on the floor of the airport he began a letter of complaint to American Airlines for the discomfort, inconvenience, interruptions, etc. etc. As he wrote the letter it changed in his mind from a letter about himself to a letter from someone who really could have significant, immediate issues with American Airlines.

Jonathan Miles’ protagonist becomes Benjamin “Bennie” Ford, a translator of Polish fiction who is on his way to his daughter’s wedding/commitment ceremony. The letter becomes Bennie’s lament of his life but not until he has demanded his money back in no uncertain or polite terms. But as Bennie settles into the duration of his stay at O’Hare airport he begins to relate how he got to O’Hare airport on this day. Bennie is living in New York with his mother, a stroke victim who communicates via “Post-its“. And yes there is a great deal of humor and pathos involved in Bennie’s lament. Bennie’s father was a Polish seminarian who ended up in a concentration camp. He came to America, changed his name from Henryk Gniech to Henry Ford, and became an exterminator. He met Bennie’s mom as he was exterminating a possum from her family’s attic. Bennie grows up and becomes a poet, a bartender and an alcoholic. Then he meets Stella a published poet and they try to fall in love. On the way, beautifully retold by Bennie, they beget young Stella whose wedding Bennie in on the way to when he gets derailed by American Airlines. The fact that Bennie has not seen young Stella since she was an infant adds to the humor and sadness of Bennie’s story. The fact that he might miss his chance to finally connect with young Stella adds a tremendous amount of fuel to Bennie’s lament.

Along with this very involved life story Bennie is telling, is the added dimension of the novel that Bennie is translating from Polish to English. Jonathan Miles is drawing a comparison between the protagonist in the story he is translating and Bennie’s life story. It is very interesting how the author is able to compare the two men and lead the reader to a satisfactory conclusion for both men, but not without many digressions. These digressions make for a wonderful, amusing, insightful story.

Jonathan Miles has written a short novel (180 pages) that is entertaining, poignant and well written. It is a story that gives the reader many issues to contemplate and maybe by chance will give readers a chance to “enjoy” an unanticipated layover in a random airport.

Hiding to Survive

Whenever I find a book by Anna Quindlen, whether in the library or at a bookstore, I start reading an excerpt and the next thing I know I am checking it out or buying it. Her writing draws me in because it is often presented like a mystery but it isn’t a mystery in the true sense. My latest find, “Black and Blue”, was published in 1998. It is a story of domestic abuse and violence, and the people in this country who are finding ways to escape it. Anna Quindlen was a columnist and this story reads like non fiction mainly because it is written in the first person.

Frances Flynn, the protagonist and heroine, met Bobby Benedetto in a bar in Brooklyn when she was nineteen years old. She was a student nurse and Bobby was a New York City policeman. The first episode of abuse happened before they were married. But they did marry, they had a son, Robert, the abuse continued and became more and more violent. The novel opens with Fran relating how she and Robert were running away from Bobby Benedetto, as far and as fast as they could.

Fran Benedetto found someone who would help her escape. A woman came to the hospital where Fran worked to talk about domestic abuse. Patty Bancroft gave Fran what she needed to get away from her husband------a new identity and a place to hide and start a new life.

Fran, now Beth Crenshaw, and Robert began their new life in a nondescript town in Florida. Beth was constantly comparing all that she left behind with her new life, one without fear. But Fran/Beth was ever watchful, trying to keep herself and her son from doing anything that would give her husband a chance to find them. And when there were slip ups Fran refused to give in and relocate again, a mistake she would soon regret. This story is a page turner. Anna Quindlen has an important, heartfelt message for the reader which she portrays with strong, descriptive language. The way it is written Fran Benedetto seems like a real person, someone you might know. Anna Quindlen said, “ I have a soft spot for every character I’ve created, but perhaps none has lived inside me so completely, and so happily, as the nurse from Brooklyn who had the guts to take her son and run from her policeman husband. I still miss being with her, all these years after I first lived inside her skin.”

“Black and Blue” is an engrossing story with a heroine you will not easily forget.

Memories of a War

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has written a novel to honor her grandfathers and her uncles who fought in the Nigeria-Biafran War. She listened to the memories and the stories they told and she did expansive research. The war which took place from 1967 to 1970 between the Muslims and the Christian Igbo is largely forgotten. What we remember are the photographs of Biafran children, with spindly arms and legs and swollen stomachs. These photos became a symbol to the world of starvation.

Adicie’s second novel “Half of a Yellow Sun” begins with a narrative by Ugwu, a thirteen year old village boy who is beginning his life as a houseboy for “Master”. Master is Odenigbo, a professor at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. There are laugh out loud parts of this chapter…… “(Ugwu) wanted to do more, wanted to give Master every reason to keep him so one morning he ironed Master’s socks.” The author has chosen to begin on a light note, but as endearing as Ugwu is throughout the novel even he succumbs to the horrors that war brings.

Master’s mistress is the beautiful, privileged, educated Olanna, daughter of a nouveau riche Igbo businessman. Her twin sister Kainene is sarcastic, sharp, impenetrable-----the opposite of Olanna. Kainene’s lover is Richard, a white, British writer who is obsessed with Nigeria and Kainene.

Adichie tells the story of this war through the eyes of these four characters. Olanna goes to visit her relatives in the village and witnesses unspeakable horror. Ugwu, Odenigbo, and Olanna must evacuate Nsukka. They eventually find themselves in a refugee camp lining up to receive, or not receive, meager amounts of food. Kainene and Richard run from planes dropping bombs and watch as a piece of shrapnel takes off the head of Kainene’s houseboy, as he ran for cover.

Adichie does not spare the reader. As we read Adichie’s clear, straight forward prose we understand exactly what happened to these people as this war raged for three years. Her story stresses the meaning of country, family, and love. Her themes of loyalty and betrayal are entwined with the actions and reactions of each character as she emphasizes the power of love to overcome pain.

“Half of a Yellow Sun” is a story that will help the world remember what happened in that war, over forty years ago, and it is an amazing tribute to her family members who died and those who survived the Biafran War.

Journey to America

Lisa See has a great-grandfather who was Chinese and came to California in 1871. And although she is Caucasian on her maternal side, she feels that she is “Chinese in my heart”. Her latest novel “Shanghai Girls” opens in 1937. Pearl and May Chin live in Shanghai and spend their days primping and dressing for their nights as “Beautiful Girls”. Their job is to pose for magazines and advertisements. They are oblivious to the poverty surrounding Shanghai. But their privileged life comes to an abrupt end as the girls learn that their father has sold them as brides to settle his gambling debts. The buyer is “Old Man Louie”. Mr. Louie is a Chinese man who has immigrated to America and wants Chinese brides for his two sons.

As the girls plot to escape their fate, the Japanese invade Shanghai. The girls and their mother flee Shanghai. What they encounter as they flee will change their lives forever. They eventually find themselves on Angel Island (the Ellis Island of the West) for months, waiting for clearance by the immigration authorities. When they finally join their husbands in Los Angeles, they are shocked by what they find. Their father in-law is involved with the building of China Town in Los Angeles, but his family lives in a small, crowded apartment. They work in the souvenier shops and the restaurants that will become China Town. When World War II begins they witness Chinese Americans struggling to prove their allegiance to the US. Lisa See describes the changes that overtake China and the relatives left behind as Mao’s communist regime takes over. “Shanghai Girls” is largely an historical fiction novel. See poignantly relates the difficult experience of being a Chinese immigrant to the United States just prior to and after World War II. Pearl and May Chin are strong characters who fight for independence and freedom in a world dominated by men.

“Shanghai Girls” is a story that incorporates the fall of Shanghai and the Chinese immigration to Los Angeles in the 1930s, with a very interesting, well written story about the survival of two strong willed, irrepressible sisters.

The New South

Bobbie Ann Mason became well known twenty years ago when she wrote “Shiloh and Other Stories”. She wrote a best selling novel, “In Country”, and her memoir, “Clear Springs” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. But she is best known for the strong characters and descriptive details of her short stories.
“Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail” was published in 2001. These stories have a distinct southern flavor but they roam the world from England to Alaska and even to Saudi Arabia. They are about people who are searching the world for meaning in their lives and many of them find themselves back in Kentucky, the place they began their quest.

The first story, “With Jazz”, finds a middle aged woman who has been divorced twice and finds herself visiting her son who lives alone in the woods. She sits down on his bed and felt strange, “as though all my life I had be zigzagging down a wild trail to this particular place.”

In “Tobrah” a single, forty five year old woman goes to her father’s funeral in Oklahoma and finds herself home in Kentucky the caretaker of her father’s four year old daughter. In “Rolling into Atlanta”, Annie Rhodes finds herself working as a sort of undercover agent for the owner of a chain of restaurants. But she finds herself strangely attracted to the people she should be investigating.

Sandra, who has escaped from a small town in Kentucky and found an exciting life in Alaska, now returns home to care for her ailing father. She tries to tell her father about her wonderful life in Alaska, but she realizes that what is important is to be there for her father.

All of Ms. Mason’s characters are strong, independent and striving to understand their world. But in the end they find what they need by zigzagging back to the world they came from.

“Zigzagging Down A wild Trail” is a great collection of short stories by a writer who uses drama, humor and wonderful language to present a clear picture of the South and how it has been changing over the past few decades.