Author: gr4c5

I write. I read. I cook. I run. That's me, in a nutshell.

I Know This Much Is True

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Lamb, Wally. I Know This Much Is True. HarperCollins, 1998.

Reason read: March is considered Family Month. Brothers are family. Read in honor of brothers everywhere.

Thomas and Dominic. Identical twins.
Dominic’s life reminded me of a country song. You know the ones where anything that could go wrong eventually does. Consider: Dominic spent his entire life worrying about three things. One, who was his father? By not knowing his father Dominic feels he does not know himself. As a child he dreamed of his biological father and fantasized about the day this mystery man would swoop in and save him and Thomas from their abusive stepfather, Ray. Two, Dominic was convinced his mother loved his brother more. Maybe she really did because of Thomas’s mental illness. On her deathbed she makes Dominic promise to look after Thomas, all the while refusing to reveal the true identity of their father. Three, Thomas’s mental illness could be hereditary and sooner or later Dominic would inherit his brother’s schizophrenia. Was he just as crazy as his brother and just not know it? All of these worries weigh on Dominic as he tries to cope. In giving up his own life to fulfill the promise he made to his mother his marriage falls apart and he quit his job as a history teacher (ironically, it is history that sets him free).
In order for this story to be successful the reader needed to be grounded in the current events of the time, otherwise Thomas’s internal angst doesn’t make sense. Eric Clapton’s son falling from a window. Desert Storm. The beating of Rodney King. The world on fire. In addition to these unsettling times, Lamb throws in some equally difficult subjects like racism, AIDS, post traumatic stress suffered by veterans, diabetes, and of course, the complicated system of treating mental health.
I deeply love flawed characters; ones who find a way to change just enough that by the end of the book they are going to be okay, even if it is only somewhat okay. They haven’t gone from devil to angel but their lives are not the disaster they once were.

As another aside, the next time I am feeling threatened by anyone I think I want to try Dominic’s trick of protection – look your tormentor directly in the eye without flinching.

Author fact: Lamb also wrote She’s Come Undone, another fantastic book.

Book trivia: this is a reread for me. I remember being intimidated by the number of pages. Some things never change.

Playlist: Aerosmith, “Age of Aquarius”, Beatles, “Beautiful Dreamer”, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley’s “One Love”, “Cool Jerk”, “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Hunka Hunka Burning Love” by Elvis, Eric Clapton, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”, “Good Lovin'”, “Happy Birthday”, “Hot Diggity Dog Diggity”, “I Shot the Sherriff”, Indigo Girls, John Lennon’s “Instant Karma”, “Marzy Doats” The Monkees, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”, “Night Moves”, “Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown”, Olivia Newton-John, Question Mark and the Mysterians’s “Ninety-Six Tears”, Rolling Stones, Sam the Sham and the Pharaoh’s “Wooly Bully”, “The Boys are Back in Town”, “Three blind Mice”, Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It?”, Verdi, “Wild Thing”, Willie Nelson’s “Heartland”, and Yanni.

Nancy said: Pearl called I Know This Much Is True an interesting portrait of therapists. She said more than that but you should check out Book Lust or More Book Lust for more.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Shrinks and Shrinkees” (p 221). Also from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Oh! Brother” (p 180).

Learning to Swim

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Dugan, Shayla. Learning to Swim. Egret Lake Books, 2024.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, I get to read some pretty cool books. This is one of them.

Coming off of reading It Was Her New York by Moen, I thought Learning to Swim would be a hard act to follow. The premises appeared to be similar: daughters taking care of their mothers. But that is where the similarities end. Whereas Moen’s story is gritty nonfiction, Dugan’s Learning to Swim tells the fictionalized story of the “sandwich” generation – a woman taking care of her child at the same time as taking care of her parent. Gabrielle moved back home to care for former Olympic swimmer mother, Ida, who needs bypass surgery. In stereotypical fashion the two have never really gotten along. At the same time Gabrielle has thoughtlessly dragged her thirteen year old daughter, Juniper, along completely uprooting her life as well. I don’t think it is a spoiler alert to say through learning to swim, grandmother, mother and daughter learn to accept each other. The ending of the book was very appropriate.
My only complaint is that Learning to Swim could have been a longer book. Dugan does such a great job sketching the characters and making them come alive. By giving them histories she creates depth, but she could have gone further with them. Here is an example: Gabrielle doesn’t know how she likes her eggs. It totally reminded me of a scene right out of Runaway Bride starring Julia Roberts. She didn’t know how she liked her eggs because she was too busy trying to please others. Here is a better example: Gabrielle’s half-brother Chad refused to step up to take care of his mother despite living closer. When he does finally enter the picture it is out of greed and exaggerated indifference to Gabrielle’s grief. Nothing explained the disconnect except to say that the half-siblings were not close growing up.

Character question – Ida’s mother died and wasn’t found for three days because Ida and her father were at an out of state swim meet. Were there no phones? Neither daughter nor husband thought to check in with the woman? At the very least wouldn’t they want to tell her how the meet was going?

As an aside, there was one line that had me scratching my head. Gabrielle said her patience gauge was at “437”. What exactly does that number mean? Have you ever read the poem by Shel Silverstein about the number of teeth in a wild boar’s mouth? The narrator calmly tells someone he will not be impressed by any number thrown at him because he doesn’t know anything about the number of teeth in a wild boar’s mouth. Same with the patience gauge at 437.

As another aside, I loved that someone ate a peanut butter and pickle sandwich. That is my all time favorite.

Book trivia: this was my first book with a AI disclaimer on training.

Living to Tell the Tale

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Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. Living to Tell the Tale. Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.

Reason read: Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born in March. Read in his honor.

If you like Gabriel Garcia Marquez as a writer, you are going to love his autobiography. What a different world Gabriel Garcia Marquez lived in. From an early age he was exposed to unheard of violence. Imagine! It was common for men (and women) to swagger around with a revolver in their waistbands. The headless horseman still rides through my dreams. Marquez writes with such honesty and clarity it is if you are standing beside him when he is so poor he cannot pay for a copy of his first published story. He needs to ask a reader if he is done with his copy. Time and time again Marquez pulls back the curtain on some of his childhood secrets. Imagine the embarrassment he felt in boarding school knowing he would talk in his sleep.
Living to Tell the Tale is not only a first installment of a man’s autobiography, but it is also a peek into the mind of a budding writer; tales about Marquez’s mother and how she was his first character and her life, his first plot; the starting of a cultural weekly to combine sports with literature. Crawl inside the mind of this extraordinary writer’s mind and you will find a man who cared deeply for perfection. Example: the difference between Madrilenian and Caribbean dialects can alter the text’s meaning considerably. Marquez had copies of such an incorrect edit destroyed.
Living to Tell the Tale only takes the reader up to Marquez’s life in the 1950s when he proposes to his wife, but there are glimpses into his future such as in 1962 when In Evil Hour won a novel competition and he celebrated the birth of his second son.

Questions I wanted to ask – did Marquez grow up to be sexist because, in his culture, women were not allowed in offices and workshops? Or because he learned about sex in an unconventional way (according to him)?

One of the most beautiful phrases in Living to Tell the Tale was when Marquez was building a character in one of his novels. He used a lover from his past saying, “I rescued her from my memory…” (p 234). Here is another phrase I loved, “…I took off the strait jacket of my shyness” (p 337).

Author fact: Marquez was misdiagnosed as having pneumonia when it was actually lymphatic cancer. He later died of pneumonia.

Book trivia: Living to Tell the Tale was supposed to be the first in a three-volume set. the rest of the story never got published.

Setlist: “After the Ball is Over”, “Anapola”, Angel Maria Camacho y Cano, Bach, “Hard Days Night” by the Beatles, Beethoven, Bela Bartok’s “The Autumn of the Patriarch”, Brahms, Carlos Gardel’s “Cuesta abajo”, Chopin, Corelli, Daniel Santos, “El cisne”, Haydn, Joaquin Vega, Maurico Anaias, Migelito Valdes, Mozart, Preludes of Debussy, Schoenberg, Sonora Matancera, Tona lea Negra, Vivaldi, and “When the Ball is Over”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Hail, Columbia!” (p 90).

Turtle Moon

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Hoffman, Alice. Turtle Moon. Berkley Trade, 1997.

Reason read: Alice Hoffman was born in the month of March. Read in her honor.

In a nutshell: a woman runs away from her abusive husband, taking her infant daughter to Florida. It is not a spoiler alert to say she doesn’t stay hidden for long and winds up dead. The daughter goes missing. Another woman in the same apartment complex has a surly son who has also gone missing. Police think this is not a coincidence. Now mom needs to find the identity of the murdered woman, find the missing baby, and clear her son’s name in the process. The magical realism in this story is an angel sitting up in a tree. This other-worldly figure of bright light doesn’t factor into the story all that much. As an aside (albeit a snarky one), another element of magical realism could be the jetlag Lucy claims to experience traveling from Florida to New York…which are in the same time zone.

Confessional: I am a stickler for human nature that makes sense. I didn’t get Julian Cash at all. I got Lucy Rosen even less. I’ll tackle Julian first. As a former foster kid, Julian is riddled by guilt over a car accident he survived, but his cousin did not. Hence the angel in the tree. Julian is now a K9 cop with very little to say. The chip on his shoulder is the size of a boulder. He has so many issues that he is described like an exaggerated caricature. As mentioned before, a young mother has been murdered and her under-two-year-old baby has gone missing. It’s up to Julian and his vicious dogs to find the infant. Except, Julian falls for Lucy and decides he needs to drive her car from Florida to New York. And speaking of Lucy. Her angsty son has been fingered for the crime so she figures the only way to clear his name is to find the real killer. She doesn’t know the baby-mama’s name but what a coincidence! She was married to someone Lucy went to high school with in upstate New York! The story really started to fall apart when Lucy traced her Florida neighbor back to her hometown because I didn’t care for Lucy’s treatment of her ex-husband, Evan. Evan has moved on and is even dating someone new, yet Lucy doesn’t see anything wrong with 1) staying with Evan, 2) borrowing his car (because remember, she left hers in Florida), 3) making Evan take her to their high school reunion (?!) even though he had plans to take the girlfriend), and 4) inviting Julian into Evan’s home to take a shower and have breakfast.

Lines I liked: none. I cannot quote without permission.

Author fact: I have officially finished the Hoffman collection within the Challenge: Blue Diary, Illumination Night, White Horses, and The Drowning Season join Turtle Moon on the finished shelf.

Playlist: Guns N’ Roses, and Vic Damone.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “A…is For Alice” (p 1).

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

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Gurganus, Allan. Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. Ivy Books, 1989.

Reason read: There is a day in March called “Hug a G.I. Day”. I don’t remember where I read that, but that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

Do not be intimidated by the length of this book. Miss Lucille Marsden will keep you entertained through every single page. Even when she is telling you about the horrors of war, she will keep you riveted every paragraph. Even when the story is not from her point of view, she will have you glued to the sentences. Within Lucy’s monologue Gurganus lays out the entire southern society from before the Civil War up to the mid-1980s when Lucy is almost one hundred years old. History breathes in and out with every colorful sentence; from the recognition of Baby Africa and every aspect of owning another human being to life in a nursing home.
Lucy herself is a treat. Married at a mere fifteen years old, she saw the world with a sensitivity and sweetness. She cared about where people came from (Castalia from Africa) or how displaced a foreigner can feel (Wong Chow from China). Even though her husband was in his fifties when they married, Lucy became a baby factory having nine children in eleven years. Her marriage was painful as her husband could be very abusive. Sleeping with a hatchet was not out of the question for Lucy. But I digress. Take your time with Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. Know that every character serves a purpose at the moment of introduction but may not need remembering a hundred pages later.
Confessional: I was not sure I knew what to make of William Marsden. His story jumped around quite a bit. In the beginning I thought it was poignant how Captain Marsden mourned the loss of a childhood friend more than his love for his own children. Death has a funny way of elevating one’s stature to martyrdom.

As an aside, Lucille never says the word clock. She always refers to Seth Thomas like it is an unspoken prized possession.

Line I liked, “We all need to stay a little mad” (p 15). Amen. Here’s another, “You force exposed words to spell what you want” (p 133). And another, “Fear can be the start of the truest love” (p 468).

Author fact: the only other book I am reading by Mr. Gurgangus is Plays Well with Others.

Book trivia: each chapter of The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All begins with a quote from the Bible.

Playlist: “Aida”, Bizet, Debussy, “Dixie”, “Frozen Charlotte”, Gounod, Handel, “He was Despised”, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”, “Last Rose of Summer”, “A mighty Fortress is Our God”, “The Old Reb”, “Royal Fireworks”, “Sheep May Safely Graze”, “Sherman’s Barbequeing Mother”, “The Shoe Fits”, Stephen Foster, the Supremes, “The Tailor and the Leg”, Wagner, “When the Colors Change” “Who’s Sorry Now”, “Work for the night is Coming”, and “Yankee Doodle Dandy”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All “pure gold” (Book Lust p 12).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “And the Award for Best Title Goes To…” (p 12). Pearl could have included Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All in the chapter called “Men Channeling Women” as well.

Ballad of the Sad Cafe

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McCullers, Carson. The Complete Novels: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. Literary Classics of the United States, 2001.

Reason read: the infamous fight between Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy occurred on Groundhog Day, my birthday.

The question of nurture versus nature. Every major character with The Ballad of the Sad Cafe has a tendency to instigate and agitate. Everyone stirs up trouble in one way or another. Did the impulse to do this come from something nefarious in childhood or were they born to rattle cages from the very beginning? Miss Amelia Evans is a person who, if she didn’t completely understand a situation well enough to have an opinion about it, ignored it completely. Cousin Lymon is a southern Iago, prone to stirring things up with cruel intentions. When Marvin Macy comes to town it is like two criminals recognizing themselves in total strangers; they are kindred spirits, born to raise hell as a team.
Confessional: Everything about the story was sad. I think that was because you didn’t really know why everyone was so uncaring and cruel.

Author fact: McCullers was always in poor health. She ended up passing away at the age of fifty.

Book trivia: Ballad of the Sad Café was reimagined an a film in 1991 starring Vanessa Redgrave.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the simple chapter called “Southern Fiction” (p 222).

Long Finish

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Dibdin, Michael. A Long Finish. Pantheon Books, 1998.

Reason read: Dibdin was born in March. Read in his honor.

Do you like wine or truffles? This is a murder mystery centered around both delicacies in Alba, a small hill town in northern Italy. Aurelio Zen has been sent from the big city of Rome to aid in an unusual case. Instead of finding the real killer, he is to clear the name of a winemaker accused of (and jailed for) killing his father. Only when Zen gets to Alba, the murder case of Also Vincenzo is “solved” without his contribution or nosey interference. Strange. When the authorities try to rush him out of town he grows even more suspicious and decides to stick around. The town intrigues him and he is no hurry to leave. It becomes even more mysterious when subsequently two more people die. One by suicide and one by accident…or so it seems.
The more I read about Zen the more I remembered his character from Cosi Fan Tutti. He is still a very complicated man. He is prone to sleepwalking to the point of serious injury. When he starts receiving strange calls he doesn’t know about phone devices that can disguise voices. As a police officer, this detail surprised me. He has the ability to become unglued at a moment’s notice. An act or truth, I could not tell. He might have fathered a child out of wedlock. He doesn’t always have the best intentions but other times he will surprise you.

What exactly is a “powerful but lazy wind” (p 155)?

Author fact: Dibdin passed away in 2007.

Book trivia: Long Finish is the sixth book in the Aurelio Zen series.

Playlist: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ciao, Italia!” (p 46).

Big Heart Little Stove

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French, Erin. Big Heart Little Stove: Bringing Home Meals and Moments From the Lost Kitchen. Celadon Press, 2024.

Reason read: the obsession continues! Actually, in all fairness I needed a book that fit into two genres for the Portland Public Reading Challenge and this fits the bill. Part memoir and all cookbook, I think it fits.

In a word, gorgeous. There is very little else I can say about Big Heart Little Stove without trying the recipes and telling you how they turn out. The food looks delicious. The memoir portion of the book, disguised as longer then usual introductions to each chapter and recipe, are heart-warming. The photography is stunning. My favorite is the one of French sitting with her mother at an outdoor table. French goes a step further and offers advice about setting the table, making the meal special, bringing nature to the plate… And then there is Maine. What is not to love about Big Heart Little Stove?
While the television show never focuses on the alcohol served with meals (except to say French’s mother is the ad hoc sommelier), it was interesting to see beer in some of the the photographs. The coolest shot was of the Maine Beer Company’s best seller, “Lunch”, which also happens to be a favorite of my husband’s.

Mr. Darwin’s Shooter

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McDonald, Roger. Mr. Darwin’s Shooter. Random House, 1998.

Reason read: Charles Darwin was born in February. Read in his honor.

Meet Syms Covington. Raised in Bedford and by the age of thirteen, left home and went to sea. This is no ordinary boy. Grown to reach six feet tall, Syms looked like a man. By fifteen years of age he was in the service of Charles Darwin as his hunter and collector about the HMS Beagle. In later years, Covington grapples with his religious beliefs which are in direct conflict with Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
Confessional: reading Mr. Darwin’s Shooter was like walking down a gravel road barefoot. Much of my effort was spent gingerly picking through the sentences, hoping to land on ones more comfortable and less complicated. McDonald chose to cram a lot of sharp edges into his short book. The running commentary on 19th century culture and society was important to keep the reader grounded in the time period, but ended up ensnaring and slogging the plot. Here is how I know I book will not hold my interest – I can’t remember what was happening when I left off reading. I don’t remember the last character on the page or what they did or said. Darwin isn’t even introduced until nearly 150 pages in.

Here is the most perfect line to describe anticipation, “A story tingled his arms to the fingertips and shook his shanks down to his toes with anxiety and restlessness” (p 8). Brilliant.

Author fact: Other reviewers have hinted at comparisons between McDonald and Stevenson, Melville, and Doctorow.

Playlist: Barley Mow, To Be a Pilgrim, A View to a Kill, Old Greensleeves, and A-Hunting We Will Go.

Nancy said: Pearl thinks Mr. Darwin’s Shooter is remarkable.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Galloping Through the Galapagos” (p 88).

Sugaring Off

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French, Gillian. Sugaring Off. Algonquin, 2022.

Reason read: I needed a book for the Portland Public Library 2024 Reading Challenge and was struggling to find something from the North Star Award nominee list. I am nowhere near being a young adult. Sometimes I wonder if I ever qualify as adult, but that is a whole other story. I found this book and decided it fit.

The backstory: Joel Dotrice was arrested ten years ago for fracturing his daughter’s skull when she was seven years old. Imagine this – he threw her down the stairs. On purpose. Partially deaf ever since, Rochelle “Owl” Dotrice has lived with her uncle and his wife. They own a maple sugaring farm in the mountains of northern New Hampshire and life seems pretty routine…until the Dotrice family gets notice that dad has made parole and Seth hires a teen named Cody to help with the sugaring.
Whether French was intentional or not, in the beginning of Sugaring Off I felt the story of Owl moved slowly, like cold sap moving through the trunk of a maple tree. As the story heated up, like sap to syrup, it began to flow faster with more flavor and intensity. Having said that, I am not a fan of overly dramatic descriptions of characters or plots. I feel they are ploys to get the reader crack open the book. The inside cover of Sugaring Off describes Cody as “magnetic and dangerous.” Spoiler alert! For the first two thirds of the book Cody is a sullen and silent cigarette-smoking teen who wants nothing more than to stay away from adults and maybe take Owl’s virginity. Oh yeah, she’s attracted to him, too. The real threat seemed to be daddy making parole. Would he come back for revenge? It was Owl’s testimony that put him away.
As an aside, I understand why the parole of Owl’s father was pivotal to the plot, but I felt it was unnecessary trickery in the face of Cody’s mystique. More could have been done to build up Cody’s “dangerous” character because Seth’s outrage about Owl’s relationship with the teen was misplaced. If Seth thought Cody was such a threat, why did he let Owl work so closely with him? What happened to big bad dad? He drifted out of the story as more of Cody’s dark past was revealed. This was written for teens and so I thought like a teen and questioned everything.

It Was Her New York

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Moed, C.O. It Was Her New York. Rootstock Publishing, 2024.

Reason read: this was an Early Review from LibraryThing.

Not even fifty years old, Moen is taking care of a mother who rarely recognizes them. Dementia is a cruel disease. Each chapter, each page of It was Her New York reminded me of the tiny whirlpools you see in rivers when the water swirls around jagged rocks and half submerged rotting tree limbs. The vortex of water only hints at what is happening below the surface. The obvious story is Moed’s juggling of taking care of their mother, Florence. The biting humor and loving sarcasm as if the woman was another item on an ever-growing chore list. The subtext is a keen sense of observation and a valiant effort to keep Moen’s sense of self. Around the edges is a portrait of society and sexuality, religion and relationships in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Every page is painted with loving care and uses all the colors. Although there are no traditional chapters and very few proper paragraphs, It Was Her New York packs a punch, especially anyone taking care a parent in the last stages of life. Does it make sense to say there is a warmth to their bite?
As a stubborn librarian who traditionally only borrows books the highest compliment I can pay a writer is to go out and buy their book. When it comes to It Was Her New York, I bought two.

Author fact: I loved Moed’s style of writing so much I want to chase down everything they have ever written.

Book trivia: reading It Was Her New York on my phone was almost a crime. The photographs are not big or bold and some are not even in focus. Instead they are gritty, soul-baring, and brutally honest.

Playlist: “Rock Steady” by Aretha Franklin, Bach, Basie, Beethoven, “Begin the Beguine”, Brahms, Chopin, Cole Porter’s “You’re the Top”, Coltrane, “Too Hot to Trot” by the Commodores, Debussy’s “Clair de Lune”, Duke, Ella, Getz, Linszt, Mozart, Sinatra, and Torme.

Darkest England

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Hope, Christopher. Darkest England. MacMillan, 1996.

Reason read: Hope was born in February. Read in his honor.

In the darkness of the great unknown lies the expectancy of necessary exploration; the desire to fill the void with answers to questions not yet asked. This is the mystery of David Mungo Booi, the orphan child who survived a fire as an infant. He has gone to seek help from the Queen of England to find suitable land for his tribe’s expansion. Booi has subsequently disappeared. His journals are all that is left. They are returned to the tribe in a brown suitcase carried by a white woman in a blue hat.
What became of the boy after his entire family was burned to death? Where can one find the King of Bongo-Bongo-Land? What is the true color of ostrich bile? Could a settlement in England be established? Can Humpty-Bloody-Dumpty be put back together again? What is the answer to cultural identity if there is only muscular gloom? The belief that if you had been to Cape Town you knew the ways of the world. What is the Great Paper? Does Old Auntie with Diamonds in Her Hair know the truth? Speaking of truth, I wanted to laugh more when reading Darkest England. I wanted the satire to be bitingly funny. Instead I found it to be more dark than snark. In hindsight, the prison scene was kind of funny. Steel bracelets around ones wrist, being taken from one place to another in a “courtesy” vehicle, the stark “apartment”, having a toilet next to the bed was a luxury, and best of all, the devotion to privacy – all doors locked behind us.
The ability to speak English was a well-treasured accomplishment of our narrator, Booi. He repeats often that he is the only English speaking individual among the tribe and he is self-taught.

Maybe if I had bonded with any character it would have made a difference. I’m not sure I liked anyone even a little bit.
Phrases I loved, “for crying in a bucket”,

Author fact: While Hope has written a bunch of other stuff, this is the only thing I am reading for the Challenge.

Book trivia: I am not allowed to quote paragraphs from Darkest England.

Nancy said: Pearl called Darkest England a lighthearted satire. See if you agree.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “South African Fiction” (p 216).

City Room

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Gelb, Arthur. City Room. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2003.

Reason read: a long time ago I read somewhere that February was scholastic journalism month. This is journalism in February.

City Room takes place in a time in America’s history when you could jot down your resume on the back of an index card while racing to an interview in a sputtering New York City taxi cab. There is an innocence to the era in which Gelb got his start. As the story of City Room goes on, Gelb reveals so many interesting behind-the-scenes details about life at the Times. For example, the strategic military censorship came back to haunt the paper when the American public belatedly learned of the true atrocities of World War II; especially the genocide in the German concentration camps of Buchenwald. Or how he scooped the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executions. His front row seat to the Papp/Moses battle over the free Shakespeare theater in Central Park made for fascinating reading. His interest in the arts brought Gelb and John F. Kennedy together. And speaking of Kennedy, here is something I did not know. The New York Times was in the practice of writing obituaries for people before they died. Although The Times did not have an advance obituary for President Kennedy because he was so young when he was assassinated. Everyone collectively thought they had more time. Didn’t we all? Other scoops of The Times: the Transit-Authority strike, the first Pope’s visit to the United States, the largest power outage in history, the obtaining possession of Pentagon papers regarding the Vietnam War, and pervasive police and city hall corruption. When you put in forty-five years at one paper you can accumulate a lot of stories.
Gelb was grateful for early mentors. Enough so that he included a short biography of Mr. Fairbanks, a man who gave Gelb a chance at The Times. Gelb also reveals a wicked sense of humor. The story about sending the same pound cake back and forth between couples was hilarious.

Quote to quote, “Abe and I knew that every once in a while, the story of a single individual came along that symbolized a deep, sometimes disturbing truth about human nature and life in New York” (p 376).

As an aside, I thought it was cool to see the inclusion of Myrna Loy. You don’t hear much about her. Another aside, on Grover Loud’s advice to Arthur Gelb, I want to visit Sebasticook Lake in Maine. Nope. Never been there.

Author fact: Gelb’s opinions are dated. Plumbers, don’t take offense when he implies people in your profession are dim witted. Gelb was ninety when he passed in 2014. Another interesting fact: Gelb spent 45 years with The New York Times. He never worked anywhere else.

Book trivia: there are no photographs, no illustrations in City Room. This was such a disappointment because there is a fantastic description of a photograph taken during the blackout but it is not included. It would have been cool to see.

Playlist: “Auld Lang Syne”, Barbra Streisand, The Beatles, Benny Goodman, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, Bob Dylan, Bud Freeman, Burl Ives, Cab Calloway, Canned Heat, Creedence Clearwater Rival, Country Joe and the Fish, “Deres a Man Goin’ Roun’ Takin’ Names”, “Dixie”, Ethel Waters, Frank Sinatra, George Harrison, “Hail to the Chief”, Janis Joplin, Jascha Heifetz, Jimi Hendrix, John and Lucy Allison, John Coltrane, Joseph Marais, Josh White, Ledbetter, Leopold Godowsky, Lena Horne’s “When It’s Sleepytime Down South”, Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, “Marseillaise”, Meat Loaf, Mick Jagger, Miff Mole, Miles Davis, Mischa Elman, Mugsy Spanier, the National Anthem, Nina Simone, Odetta, Paul Robeson’s “Mandy”, Pee Wee Russell, Pete Seeger, Rolling Stones, “Shenandoah”, Sly and the Family Stone, Stan Keaton, Stepin Fetchit, Tchaikovsky, Theodore Bikel, Woody Guthrie’s “Talkin’ Dust Bowl Blues”, Vladimir Horowitz playing Chopin’s Polonaise Fantaisie, and “You Are My Sunshine”.

Nancy said: Pearl called City Room interesting.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Fourth Estate” (p 93).

World at Night

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Furst, Alan. World at Night. Random House, 1996.

Reason read: Furst was born in February. Read in his honor.

We begin The World at Night on the 10th of May in 1940 before dawn. Jean-Claude Casson, film producer of forty-two years of age, is in bed with his assistant, Gabriella Vico. The phone rings…it’s Casson’s wife. Marie-Claire wants to talk about the dinner party she and Jean-Claude are throwing that night. Does this not sound like the start to a torrid romance novel? Far from it (although there is passion within the pages)! By the end of the first chapter Casson has received a telegram recalling him back to active duty. The Germans are on the move and will occupy France shortly. Without warning Corporal Casson is pulled into a completely different life and, after three months when he returns home to Paris, the old life he left behind has completely vanished. As a movie producer he needs a way to stay useful in the eyes of the enemy. What can he do to earn a living during the German occupation? Somehow, in some way, this line of work makes him the perfect recruit for espionage. The only convincing he would need would be political. Which side are you on, boy? This question becomes pertinent when a simple lie traps Jean-Claude. He realizes no one is one hundred percent evil or one hundred percent good which makes the danger all that more a stark reality. You don’t know of whom you should stay clear or who you can trust.
If you are looking for a spy thriller with lots of violence, The World at Night is not for you. The dangers are subtle and barely suggested. Instead, Furst is a master of detail. From fashion and the automobiles to the food and drink and music, the culture of Paris lives and breathes alongside its society. Furst’s imagery is perfection: what do you picture when he describes a young woman as having “hen-strangler hands”? Furst takes you into 1940s Paris with love. A commentary on authenticity. I believe authenticity comes from the ability to faithfully mimic primary sources; the ability to take first-hand accounts and recreate them exactly. Once you see faithful details repeated you assume a truthful interpretation. Such is The World at Night.
Speaking of characters and love, I could not help but fall in love with Jean-Claude Casson. His mature passion for beautiful women and the way he makes each one feel as though she were the only one in his life…sigh. When he finally settles on one particular woman you root for them to be together.

As an aside, when Casson had to turn in his automobile I needed to look up the Simca 302. I found it is a sexy looking car. Perfect for Casson. Then there was the German Horch 853. Can you imagine that thing bombing down the road today? What about the Citroen Traction Avant?
Another aside, did Furst name his book after Christopher Isherwood’s The World in the Evening?

Line I loved, “It was like being hugged by a wine-soaked onion” (p 161).

Author fact: Furst has been compared to Graham Greene, John le Carre, Somerset Maugham, Flaubert, and Balzac.

Book trivia: my copy of World at Night included a segment on the research Furst conducted to write an accurate account of Paris during the early stages of World War II. It also included a list of suggested reading. I found it curious that even though I am reading some of the same authors Furst recommended (Isherwood and Gilbert), I am not reading the exact titles.

Setlist: Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber, Beethoven, “Begin the Beguine” (as an aside, I can remember my father telling me this was my grandmother’s favorite song), “Body and Soul”. Johnny Hess, “Marseillaise”, “Mood Indigo”, Stephane Grappelli, and “Time on My Hands”.

Nancy said: Pearl describes the plot better than some reviews I have read.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “We’ll Always Have Paris” (p 255).

Little Liar

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Albom, Mitch. Little Liar. Harper, 2023.

Reason read: I needed a book for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge in the category of a book currently on the New York Times bestseller list. Little Liar was on that list when I was looking for something to read.

Where do I begin with this little book about a liar? From start to finish it was amazing. I couldn’t read for hours at a time due to the subject matter of the Holocaust, but in small doses it was fantastic. I do not want to describe the plot at all except to say the angel of truth is the first person narrator which lends an air of fairytale, but it is far from being a magical imagining from Albom’s mind. The setting is World War II. Real people like actress Katalin Karady and real events like the rescue of families waiting to be shot by Arrow Cross are faithfully reproduced in Little Liar. The magic comes from Albom bringing all characters and events, factual and fictional, to life. The characters’ human emotions come across loud and crystal clear and yet, like glass, there is a delicacy, a subtle nuance that haunts. Take, for example, how easily the small misunderstandings during childhood can quickly blossom into full blown adulthood hate. Lifelong passionate jealousies carried behind a vengeful ice cold exterior. It reminded me of the cold and heavy chains of Jacob Marley.
As an aside, what an interesting locale for Little Liar. When people speak of World War II and the Nazi regime not many people think of how the island of Greece weathered the atrocities.

As another aside, the last person to read my copy of Little Liar must have smoked like a fiend because the book reeked of old cigarette smoke. So gross. I put it in the freezer for a little while with some lavender sprigs. That seemed to do the trick.

Line I loved the most, “By the time you share what a loved one longs to hear, they often no longer need it” (p 142). I am living that truth every single day.

Author fact: I was first introduced to Albom when he published Tuesdays with Morrie. While I haven’t read everything he has ever written, I can say I have enjoyed everything I have.

Book trivia: this should be a movie.

Playlist: Lucinda Williams