Twelve Years Later

In John Burnham Schwartz's 1998 novel “Reservation Road” a fatal hit-and-run accident has occurred and the story revolves around two fathers – the father of the victim and the driver of the car. Schwartz's new book Northwest Corner picks up the story twelve years later. I didn't read the first novel, and although I started to watch the movie (I'm a big Mark Ruffalo fan), the death of a child and its aftermath was just too dark for me and I bailed.

But when I started reading the sequel I was immediately drawn in. The short (sometimes less than a page) chapters jump between the points of view of five characters: Dwight Arno, the hit-and-run driver who has served prison time and moved to California, his college age son Sam, who was in the car when the crime was committed but was lied to by his father about what had happened, Dwight's ex-wife Ruth, his quasi girlfriend Penny, and Emma, a classmate of Sam's and sister of the accident victim. The most powerful chapters deal with Dwight and Sam. Both father and son are still reeling from the accident and its aftermath. Their emotions are raw, their judgments are flawed, and they are capable of doing to damage to each other. It can be painful to watch as they struggle with their demons, but I couldn't look away.

For me Dwight Arno belongs to Flawed But Decent Male school of Updike's Rabbit Angstrom and Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe. If you didn't find much sympathy for those characters you might want to skip this book. But I was drawn to Schwartz's minimalist style and his ability reveal the humanity in all his characters.

Fragments of Music

"Time's a goon, right?" says a character in Jennifer Egan's remarkable book A Visit From The Goon Squad.  Time is one of many elements that Egan plays with, fragments, flips, turns back on itself.  I could describe this as a series of linked short stories, a common form in today's fiction, as in "The Imperfectionists" (Reporting From Rome) or "Great House" (Loss and Memory), but Egan's attempt is more ambitious. 

The book's thirteen chapters, divided into Part A and Part B like sides on an LP (showing my age with that reference), follow characters from the punk rock scene of San Francisco in the 70s, through the New York suburbs of the 90s, to a post-modern Manhattan, with side trips to Africa and Naples.  In each chapter the tone, the voice and the point of view change, as the stories move forward and backward in time in a discontinuous but not confusing flow.  Music, both the creative and business side, is an element in many of the stories, and I can easily imagine that someone could create a CD with a track for each chapter.  Characters appear as their young and older selves, overlapping with each other in unexpected ways.

Occasionally I thought that Egan tried to be a little too clever, but overall I was fascinated by the the complicated, interwoven lives of her characters. 

Note to e-readers:  There is a wonderful chapter created by a teenage girl as a Power Point slide show which you will need a magnifying glass to read.  But it's worth it.

Everyman in Hitler's Berlin

"In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin"

by Erik Larson

This is the tale of William E. Dodd, the U.S. ambassador to Germany in 1933-37, a somewhat naive academic appointed by Roosevelt after the post had been declined by four others. Dodd, Chair of the history department at University of Chicago and author of Woodrow Wilson's biography, desired nothing more than an undemanding position which would allow him time to write his master work "Rise and Fall of the Old South".

The Dodd family, including 2 adult children (Martha, age 24, is a key figure here, partly due to the detailed diaries she kept) was determined to live in Berlin modestly, in deference to Americans suffering during the depression. This included shipping their beat-up Chevrolet to use abroad, at a time when Hitler's men flaunted their power in giant black touring cars.

Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in Jan 1933 was followed immediately by a brutal spasm of state-condoned violence, as storm troopers rampaged, beating, arresting and sometimes murdering tens of thousands of communists, socialists and Jews. Dodd and other diplomats watched these events, imagining that they couldn't continue, that Hitler could not possibly maintain power, and seizing on any sign that he was moderating. We see infatuation with the regime, fruitless efforts to work with it, and either gradual or quick realization of the significance of what was happening.

Eventually it was clear to all those posted in Germany that whatever Hitler said or didn't say about wanting peace, Germany was actively re-militarizing in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

We have the benefit of hindsight, so it's a fascinating challenge to put oneself in the place of these diplomats. They naturally socialized with high Nazi officials such as Goebbels and Goring. Daughter Martha, always a fun girl, had affairs with the head of the Gestapo and the future head of the KGB simultaneously.

This is an excellent book, a slice of time containing maybe a few too many diplomatic communiques, but compelling all the while.

Unbroken but maybe bent a bit

What are the limits of human endurance? And what gives people the strength to persevere? "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption" opens with a riveting glimpse of men adrift for weeks on a bathtub-sized raft in the Pacific, stalked by sharks hurling themselves onto the raft, then strafed by a Japanese plane. I was hooked immediately. Author Laura Hillenbrand (Sea Biscuit) next takes us back to the beginning, tracing the life of Louis Zamporini, troublemaker kid, thief, Olympic miler and WW II airman missing in the Pacific. As his ordeal unfolds, one cannot imagine what will come next. Readers learn about competitive running, the war in the Pacific, human endurance, frailty and redemption. We see yet again what men in war are subjected to, how they rise to the occasion, and the price they pay. Tough, headstrong Louie Zamporini in particular was well equipped to persevere. This biography is a great read.