2014 Favorites

It's time once again for me to pick my three favorite books of 2014, and once again I have had trouble narrowing down my list. But I have to go with the ones that really knocked my socks off, each for a very different reason.

The Son by Phillipp Meyer (Texas Saga), a multi- generational story that held me in its grip from the very first chapter, which ended with this foreboding line from the family patriarch: “The only problem was keeping your scalp attached.”

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant by Roz Chast (The Graphic Truth), a graphic memoir that is hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (A Girl and a Boy), the haunting story of two young lives that cross amidst the chaos of war.

My books are already stacking up.  I'm looking forward to hours of great reading in 2015.  Happy New Year to all!

A Year-end Present to Yourself

Run, don't walk, to the nearest library, bookstore, computer or e-reader and get a copy of Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher.  Then set aside an afternoon or evening (it's a small book) for a joyride.  But be sure it is in a place where you will not be embarrassed to laugh out loud (really out loud, not just a smile) again...and again...and again on almost every page.

The structure of this novel is a series of LORs (letters of recommendation) written by a college English professor for his students, his faculty colleagues and a few fellow students from his graduate school days.  These are unlike any recommendation letters that you might imagine.  It makes me wonder what those letters are really like.

Julie Schumacher herself is a faculty member in the Department of English at the University of Minnesota and admits to writing "more letters of recommendation that she cares to recall."  Included in the letters are large doses of college politics, driven by the increasing tensions between the arts and sciences resulting from the pervasive budget constraints affecting most colleges these days.  But it is her arguments supporting the study of English and writing that will stay with you long after the laughter ends.

And if you are familiar with Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener then so much the better (but not necessary.)

I am desperate to talk with someone who has read this book.  If that is you, please leave a Comment below.

Family Bonds

I can't really blame Eileen Tumulty, the main character in Matthew Thomas's debut novel We Are Not Ourselves. Growing up in the 50's in a blue collar Queens apartment with alcoholic parents whose marriage is fragile, it's only natural that she is determined to do better. So when she meets Ed Leary - intelligent, serious, reliable, a talented scientist - he seems the perfect choice. She envisions a bright and prosperous future with a home in her version of Shangri-La – Bronxville. Perhaps she misses some early clues that his seriousness might be tinged with rigidity, or that his idealism might conflict with her ambitions. When reality finally sets in, her desperation to get out of Queens causes her to commit an act of betrayal.

But she has little time to enjoy her Bronxville fixer-upper with Ed and son Connell before she is hit with a stark truth. Her fifty-two-year-old husband has Alzheimer's disease. As anyone who has dealt with it knows, the course of this disease is relentless, and Thomas's description is unsparing (his own father died from it in 2002). Connell stumbles badly in his attempts to face his father's illness and his mother's need for his help, and Eileen is no saint, but Thomas makes them sympathetic even in their failings. I have to admire Eileen's grit and determination in the face of the crushing obstacles she must tackle.

Thomas paints on a small canvas – his characters lead ordinary lives in a circumscribed world (he reminds me of Alice McDermott, who was once his teacher). But his characters have a resonance beyond their own small stage, and the title, taken from King Lear, expresses this well.

We are not ourselves

When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind

To suffer with the body.

Sour Grapes

Count me among the avid fans of Edward St. Aubyn's semi-autobiographical series of Patrick Melrose novels (see my blog). These five books swing wildly from harrowing to hilarious on virtually every page. So when the fifth novel, “At Last”, was ignored by the Booker prize committee in 2011, perhaps St. Aubyn felt a twinge of annoyance, although he has steadfastly denied this.

But you know the old adage “Don't get mad, get even”? Well, clearly St. Aubyn knows it too. In his latest novel Lost for Words he imagines the Elysian prize, funded by a chemicals manufacturer, and proceeds to satirize everyone connected with it in any way. The judges, some of whom are identifiable to those tuned in to the London literary scene, for the most part don't bother to read the books and use their own idiosyncratic agendas to make their choices. The books themselves range from wot u starin at, a portrait of Scottish drug addicts written by an Edinburgh academic, to “The Palace Cookbook”, an actual cookbook mistakenly submitted as a postmodern novel. The character of Sam Black, who seems to be a stand-in for St. Aubyn himself, loses the prize but gets the girl.

St. Aubyn writes elegant prose and can be wickedly funny and insightful, but the plot meanders and it's all just a little too snarky for me. Better to stick with Patrick Melrose.