Category: BookLust I

Roughing It

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Twain, Mark. Roughing It: a personal narrative. Harper and Row, 1913.

Reason read: to celebrate Twain’s birth month.

Originally published in 1872, Roughing It is most commonly presented as a two-volume travel adventure. Twain, ever the storyteller of exaggerated fact and humorous fiction, takes us on a epic journey across the country; an exercise that he called “variegated vagabondizing.” This would seem to be a nonfiction, but you really cannot trust Twain with his stories of Slade, the Rocky Mountain desperado and the outrageous shootouts Twain supposedly witnessed. My personal eye roll story was when Twain and a companion rowed 12-15 miles to an island…in the middle of a storm. I am from an island ten miles out to sea and I can tell you it takes 70-75 minutes to go that far with an engine-powered boat in flat calm weather. My favorite moment was a Winnie-the-Pooh situation when Twain and his companions were thinking they are being stalked by a growing group of men when really it was their own footprints multiplying as they wandered around in circles. Did Milne get the idea from Twain?
But. I digress. Back to Twain’s western adventure. Beyond California, Twain journeyed to Utah, Nevada and Hawaii. [As an aside, when Twain described the scorpions and the centipedes (with forty-two legs on each side), I found myself lifting my feet high off the floor.]

Quotes to quote, “Three months of camp life on Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor, and give him an appetite like an alligator” (p 158). Does the tourism board of Lake Tahoe know that Twain said this? What a great endorsement! Here is another line that made me laugh. This one on the subject of polygamy: “Take my word for it, ten or eleven wives is all you need – never go over it” (p 109).

Author fact: We know Twain was born Samuel Clemens and that he worked as a steamboat captain. he also married Olivia Langdon and became filthy rich.

Book trivia: Twain spends an entire chapter discussing the Mormon bible.

Playlist: “Shining Shire”, “Coronation”, “Praise God From Whom All Blessings”,

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Western Memoirs” (p 241).

Cold Case

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Barnes, Linda. Cold Case. Delacorte Press, 1997.

Reason read: Cold Case takes place in Boston. Massachusetts is beautiful this time of year. Read in honor of the leaves turning.

Carlotta Carlyle is a private detective and part time cab driver. A case comes to her that is as confusing as an overgrown corn maze. Thea Janis disappeared twenty-four years ago when she was only fifteen years old. After much digging Carlotta discovered Thea was a precocious and promiscuous teenager who published a book of poetry to wild success when she was fourteen. In the span of two weeks of working on the case, Carlotta uncovers a tangle of family secrets. Thea’s name was actually Dorothy Cameron, a gardener from the Cameron family employee also went missing at the same time as Thea, Thea’s sister is a schizophrenic, Thea’s brother is a politician running for office while his marriage falls apart, and more than one murder has taken place.
Maybe this is a premise I have seen too many times, but the wealth of the Cameron family bored me. Rich woman with an icy demeanor and impeccably dress code has a stranglehold on her adult son, who does nothing but disappoint her. Her beloved daughter went missing twenty-four years ago and has been presumed dead ever since a serial killer confessed to her murder. Her second daughter is in a mental facility battling with schizophrenia. What secrets are hidden beneath the cover of wealth?
On top of all this is a subplot involving Carlotta’s little sister and the mafia. Because Cold Case is the seventh Carlotta Carlyle mystery but my first, maybe I’ve missed some key details outlined in an earlier mystery.

As an aside, throughout the entire book I found myself asking does Carlotta ever drive a cab in Cold Case? Answer is yes, but not for hire.
As another aside, Liberty Café was a real place. Too bad it closed. I’m sure fans of Linda Barnes and Carlotta Carlyle would continue to see it out.
Third aside, and I would need an expert to weigh in on this but, when you open a casket after twenty four years, would the smell of death still be so strong that you would need a rag soaked in turpentine to mask the stench? Just curious.

Quotes to quote: there were a few really thought-provoking lines I would love to share, but due to the copyright language, I cannot. Too bad because they were really good.

Author fact: Linda Barnes, not to be confused with the character on Criminal Minds, has written other mysteries series.

Book trivia: as I mentioned before, Cold Case is actually the seventh book in the series. I am reading seven, eight, and nine for the Challenge.

Playlist: “Aint No More Cane on the Brazos”, Beatles, Blind Blake, Black Velvet Band, Chris Smither’s “Up on the Lowdown”, “Hard Times Blues”, Mississippi John hurt, Mozart, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and Rory Block’s “Terraplane Blues”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 117). Also from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Boston: Beans, Bird, and the Red Sox” (p 40).

Lonesome Dove

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McMurtry, Larry. Lonesome Dove. Pocket Books, 1985.

Reason read: to continue the series started in June in honor of McMurtry’s birth month.

This time, it is all about the characters in Lonesome Dove. Romantic entanglings and broken hearts. Unlike Dead Man’s Walk and Comanche Moon, the action moves at a gentler pace from Texas to Montana. Noticeably, there is less violence in Lonesome Dove (the town and the book) from the very beginning. McMurtry brings his characters alive whether they are important to the story or not. People like Dillard Brawley, Lonesome Dove’s barber, is missing a leg due to a centipede bite. Hopping around on one leg while he cuts hair doesn’t bother him one bit. True, he is a minor character but he is developed as if he will be impactful throughout the entire story (which he isn’t, but do not forget about him.)
Back to the people who are important. Call and Gus are now retired from being captains with the Texas Rangers. Bored without wives, children, or families of any kind, they take a journey to the unknown land of Wyoming to start a cattle ranch. Gone are the violent Indian scalpings that were so prevalent in The Long Walk and Comanche Moon. The buffalo herds have all but vanished. Revenge is doled out on a much smaller scale. The first real violence comes when an former prostitute named Lorena is kidnapped by Blue Duck (remember him?). Lorena is sold to the Kiowas who rape and torture her repeatedly. Rest assured, this is nothing compared to the violence in the previous novels.
For fans of Clare, she is back! Her life has changed quite a bit since she ran the general store in Austin, but rest assured, she is still as feisty. She still remains one of my favorite characters.

As an aside, I will not lie. It was tough to lose some characters. Hangings are within the letter of the law.

Quote I liked, “My ears sort of get empty” (p 512).

Author fact: a young Larry McMurtry reminds me of Woody Allen for some reason.

Book trivia: Lonesome Dove is McMurtry’s most famous book.

Setlist: “My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean”, “Buffalo Gal”, and “Lorena”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Western Fiction (p 240) and again in Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Texas Two-Step (After a Bob Wills Song)” (p 220).

Hearts in Atlantis

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King, Stephen. Hearts in Atlantis. Scribner, 1999.

Reason read: Stephen King’s face should be in the dictionary next to the word ‘scary.’ Read in honor of Halloween.

Critics have cited King’s first novel, Carrie, when reviewing Hearts in Atlantis. Like Carrie, Hearts in Atlantis carries a running theme of the Vietnam War and psychological breakdowns. Like a television on in the background where no one is watching, the conflict begins as a faint constant presence, a hum, until it becomes a deafening roar by the end of the book. Despite having five separate narratives Hearts in Atlantis reads like a fragmented novel. The character narratives are sequential in nature, allowing the reading to stay connected to particular characters from beginning to end, even though the locations and stories change.
In the 254 page short novella that kicks off Hearts in Atlantis, “Low Men in Yellow Coats,” eleven year old Bobby Garfield just wants to buy a bicycle. It is his birthday and all his mother can afford is an adult library card. This is when Bobby is introduced to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and the weird upstairs neighbor, Ted. Suddenly, adults are no longer the protectors he has always trusted. Predators lurk behind faces he has known all his life. Bobby was a good kid who slowly soured on doing the right thing. He sank lower into a life of crime – breaking windows, drinking, theft.
In the next short story, “Hearts in Atlantis,” we leave Bobby and follow Pete who ends up dating Bobby’s childhood girlfriend, Carol. Carol is now college-aged and she is the one who ties “Low Men in Yellow Coats” and “Hearts in Atlantis” together. In fact, she, together with the Vietnam war, are the linchpins that hold all of the stories together.

Lines I loved, “Put a glass of water next to Nate Hoppenstand and it was the water that looked vivacious” (p 262) and “In Orono, Maine, buying a Rolling Stones record passes for a revolutionary act” (p 395). Truth.

Author fact: Stephen King is known for taking ordinary situations and making them scary as hell. In Hearts there are no monsters. Only what war can do to a person; how human nature can turn ugly and sinister.

Book trivia: I loved how the genesis of the peace symbol is explained in “Hearts in Atlantis.” I never knew it was the British Navy’s semaphore letters for nuclear disarmament.

Setlist: Andy Williams Singers, Animals, “Angel of the Morning”, Al Jolson’s “Mammy”, Allman Brothers, Beatles, Benny Goodman Orchestra, Bob Dylan, “Boom Boom”, “Bad Moon Rising”, Bobby Darin, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B Good”, Carpenters, Dave Clark Five, the Doors’ “Break On Through”, Dean Martin, Diane Renay’s “Navy Blue”, “Do You Know What I know?”, “Don’t You Just Know It” by Hury “Piano” Smith and the Clowns”, Danny and the Juniors, Donovan Leitch’s “Atlantis”, Dovells, “Dance to the Music”, Doors, Donna Summer’s “Bad Girl”, Elvis Presley, Four Seasons, Frank Sinatra, Freddie “Boom Boom” Cannon, “Gimme Some Lovin'”, Gerry Miller, “Goin’ Up the Country”, “Hang on Sloopy”, Hare Krishna Chorale, Herman and the Hermits, “Insta Karma”, Jack Scott, Jo Stafford, Jimmy Gilmer’s “Sugar Shack”, “Let’s Work Together”, Little Richard, “Light My Fire”, Liz Phair, “Love is Strange”, “Louie, Louie”, Miracles, Mitch Miller, “Mack the Knife”, Mysterians’ “96 Tears”, “My Girl”, Neil Diamond, “Night and Day”, “Oh! Carol” by Neil Sedaka, Offspring, “The Old Rugged Cross”, “One O’Clock Jump”, “One Tin Soldier”, Paul Anka, Petula Clark, Peter Frampton, Platters, Phil Och’s “I Aint Marching Anymore”, “Queen of the Hop”, “The Rainbows”, Rare Earth, “Red River Valley” Rolling Stones, Royal Teen’s “Short Shorts”, “Silent Night”, Sly and the Family Stone, Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Strawberry Alarm Clock’s “Incense and Peppermints”, “Tequila” by the Champs, Tro Shondell’s “This Time”, William Ackerman, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, “Where the Boys Are”, and the Youngbloods.

Confessional: whenever I think of “Mack the Knife, “I think of a time when I was in my early twenties. The guy I was dating called a radio station to request a song. No one had a person phone back then. My true love had to run out to a payphone up a hill and around a building. I thought for sure he was going to request something romantic; something just for me. Nope. He requested “Mack the Knife.” When I asked him why Mack he said he just liked the song.
More connections to my life: I went to UMaine and dated a guy named Soucie. His twin was named AnneMarie. I also worked in the Bear’s Den.

BookLust Twist: Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).

About Looking

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Berger, John. About Looking. Pantheon Books, 1980.

Reason read: October is Art Appreciation month.

Right away About Looking opens up with a dismal commentary of the relatively modern practice of keeping pets for the sake of companionship. Berger points out that humans sterilize their companions while not allowing them to roam free, socialize with other animals, or eat the foods natural to their diets. I will never look at animals at the zoo in the same way. From the very first essay Berger has found a way to illustrate the title of his book. Berger then moves on to describe the artwork of painters and photographers and the idea of looking at art from the perspective of time and of aging. Similar to reading the same book every ten years, how does the art change with aging? Bergen ends the book with an essay on nature. More specifically, he describes an open field of which your perspective changes depending on who or what is in it. The overarching message is how altered reality can reflect your own life.

As an aside, thank you, John Berger, for introducing me to the art of J.J. Grandville. He, Grandville, is the epitome of the phrase wondrous strange. I also want to thank Berger for introducing me to places I have never heard before, like the Valley of the Loue, to the west of the Jura Mountains.

Lines I liked, “hope is a marvelous focusing lens” (p 128),Author fact: John Bergen also wrote film scripts.

Book trivia: About Looking includes twenty-three black and white photographs. Some of them are explained while others are not.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Art Appreciation” (p 25).

Jungle

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Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Robert Bentley Inc., 1946.

Reason read: Sinclair celebrated a birthday in September. Read in his honor. I also needed a book set in the Midwest for the Portland Public Library’s 2024 Reading Challenge.

In my version of The Jungle (Robert Bentley, Inc., 1946), Sinclair provides an introduction and in that introduction he describes how he came to Chicago at twenty-six years old and started visiting the meat packing district. The living and working conditions of the mostly immigrant workers prompted him to interview them at home, where conversations inevitably turn confessional. Sinclair even crashed a Lithuanian wedding and used the experience in the opening scene of The Jungle.
I will not lie. Reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was painful. Jurgis, with his haunting mantra, “I will work hard. I will work faster. I will work longer” was heartbreaking. The desperation for employment – children lying about their ages to get work, women giving out their bodies to find work and bringing bribes of their bodies to stay employed. Look up misery in the dictionary and you should find Sinclair’s The Jungle.
As an aside, pay attention to the words used in the socialist sermon. Monster. Exhaustion. Beaten. Starvation. Horror. Darkness. Obstacles. Threatening. Hostile. Destroy. Fury. Prison. Oppression. Grim. Toiling. Agony. Suffering. Difficulties. Trapped. Hideous. Pain. Wretched. Curse. Misery.
In the end, Jurgis fades into the background as the sermon on socialism, morality, the word of God, and the future of Chicago takes over.

Book trivia: Jack London endorsed The Jungle saying it will run away with you. He was right.

Quote to quote, “They trick you and then they eat you alive” (p 69).

Confessional: I would like to think everyone has read this best selling classic. However, until now I was not one of those people. I never had to read it in grade school, high school, college, or graduate school. It was not on any supplemental list supplied by my teachers.

Natalie connection: 10,000 Maniacs performs a song called “My Sister Rose” which depicts a family wedding. Natalie sings about “dollar dances with the bride” much like the dancing described in the early pages of The Jungle. Music can take you back to your homeland.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “One Hundred Good Reads, Decade By Decade: 1900s” (p 175).

Well of Loneliness

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Hall, Radclyffe. The Well of Loneliness. Anchor Books, 1928.

Reason read: Hall’s birth month is in August. Read in her honor.

When her parents were disappointed that their newborn had not been the boy they expected, they went ahead with the name they had picked out pre-birth: Stephen. For 1928 that was pretty progressive, especially since no one in their society circles really questioned it, not even Stephen herself. Her full name was Stephen Mary Olivia Gertrude Gordon. It was a name that seemed to overshadow her true identity and caused her some confusion as she navigated her way through childhood. Living in an environment where societal norms and expectations were rigid, Stephen often found herself clashing with the traditional gender roles.
Hall uses all the clichés to make obvious Stephen’s sexual orientation even as a young child: Stephen developed a strong romantic attachment to her nanny, she wanted to hunt, climb trees, and ride horses like a boy. She instinctively needed to change her appearance by cutting her hair and building her muscles and wearing pants and ties. She thought dresses were ridiculous, girlish emotions even more so. These feelings and desires were contrary to what was expected of a girl in her society, leading to a sense of internal conflict and confusion as she tried to understand and accept herself. She knew she was different but could not articulate why. As a teenager, Stephen was thrilled to make the acquaintance of a boy with whom she seemed to have so much in common. Here was a person with whom she could be her true self…until he admitted he was falling in love with her. Of course she could not love him back in the same way, as her own feelings did not align with his blossoming romantic affection. All through her formative years, Stephen’s father could not tell her the truth about her “strangeness” and yet he knew. As a result, he was overprotective and sheltering. There is a naivete to Stephen throughout The Well of Loneliness. Even when she found reciprocated love with Mary, a young woman she met during the war, she was never secure in her feelings, often plagued by a persistent fear of rejection and misunderstanding.

Quotes to quote, “My God, child, you’ll have worse things than this to face later – life’s not all beer and skittles, I do assure you” (p 113) and “This will happen sometimes, we instinctively feel in sympathy with certain dwellings” (p 249).

Book trivia: Well of Loneliness includes a note from the author which assures the reader that even though a motor ambulance unit of British women existed in World War II, the particular unit Hall wrote about only existed in her head.

Author fact: Hall led the life described in Well of Loneliness. It is thought that many of Stephen’s experiences were actually Hall’s memories.

Music: “Ole Sole Mio”.

Nancy said: Pearl pointed out that Well of Loneliness could be the first novel to address homophobia.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Gay and Lesbian Fiction: Out of the Closet” (p 94).

Pride

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Cary, Lorene. Pride: a Novel. Nan A. Talese Publisher, 1998.

Reason read: Pride is what some would call “chick lit” which I also call “beach reads” and since August is the last good month to visit the shore…

The friendship of four women. Each one of them has issues, both public and private. Roz (Rozzie) is the wife of a successful politician who has now set his sights on a higher office. At the same time as battling cancer, Roz is trying to be a mother to a difficult teenager and supportive of her husband’s ambitions. What she can’t get behind is the fact he has been having an affair with one of her best friends. Arneatha is an Episcopal priest locked in grief after losing her husband. She struggles to find herself in a world without him. Tam is the equivalent of Steve Martin’s wild and crazy guy. She does not take her sex life or career seriously. Audrey is a recovering alcoholic is struggles everyday with lure of addiction. And speaking of Audrey, Lorene Cary painted a fuller picture of Audrey with more colorful detail than any of the other women. It was if Cary knew Audrey best.
Pride is a testament to friendship. Like a pride of African lions, the women of Cary’s novel need to stick together in order to survive.

Quote to quote, “And the drums kept pounding like I love them” (p 318). Amen.

Author fact: Cary also wrote The Price of a Child which is on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: this should be a movie.

Playlist: “You Are So Beautiful to Me”, “My Funny Valentine”, “America the Beautiful”, “Maple Leaf Rag”, Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Boyz II Men, James Brown, LL Cool J, “Zip-A-Dee Doo Dah”, Piaf, Mahalia Jackson, Lena Horne, Michael Jackson, “Four O Clock Blues”, James Brown, Bong Crosby, “Only the Lonely”, Duke Ellington, “His Eye is on the Sparrow”, Peggy Lee’s “Is That All That There Is?”, Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”, “Getting to Know You”, Rachmaninoff, the theme from Family Matters, the theme from Magic Flute, and “Claire de Lune”.

Nancy said: Pearl includes Pride in a list of books to consider.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “African American Fiction: She Say” (p 13).

Comanche Moon

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McMurtry, Larry. Comanche Moon. Simon and Schuster Audio, 1997.

Reason read: to continue the saga of Gus and Call. confessional: the book was written after Lonesome Dove but I wanted to read the series in chronological order so that there would be no surprises (people dying, relationships initiated, that sort of thing). For example, in Dead Man’s Walk Gus was smitten with Clara, but in Comanche Moon she marries someone else.

When we join the Texas Rangers in Austin, this time they do not have a particular mission. Their main objective appears to be keeping the Comanche tribe from interrupting the travel of whites headed west across their land. They spend more time burying the dead than they do protecting them when alive. Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call are growing up and developing deeper relationships with women. Like Dead Man’s Walk, Comanche Moon is full of torture and death, but it is the characters that make it the epic tale that it is.
This might be a spoiler alert, but I found myself liking McMurtry for not having the happy endings we all think we need. Maggie and Clara find different men to love. Blue Duck exacts his revenge on his father. Good men die. Despicable men somehow thrive.

As an aside, I think I would have liked to be friends with Clara. She is outspoken, straightforward and intimidating. Cool.
According to various places on the web, a Comanche moon in Texas history is a full moon in autumn. Okay.

Interesting fact: if you want to catch a horse or kill a man, wait until they are relieving themselves. Neither horse nor man can react quickly when they are taking a piss.

Book Audio trivia: Frank Muller was the narrator.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Western Fiction” (p 240).

What Just Happened

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Gleick, James. What Just Happened?: a Chronicle from the Information Frontier. Pantheon Books, 2002.

Reason read: Gleick celebrates a birthday in August. Read in his honor.

Gleick needs a time machine. He wants his reader to put him or herself back in the 1990s as much as possible when reading What Just Happened. We need to remember the internet as it was just starting out. Portable phones. Pagers. ATMs. The essays cover bugs in Microsoft (essays written in August 1992 and again in June of 1997), the transformation of cellphone communication, the question of caller ID and ethics, the Y2K Crisis (for which Gleick apologizes for reporting impending doom four years prior), the idea of anonymous spending is only possible with cash (Think about it. No other form of money is without identifiers of some sort.), humorous password creations – all with a snarky tone that is just delightful.
Gleick’s opinion of internet pornography and its future is laughable. My favorite section was when Gleick unpacked an alert sent by MSN, pointing out vague language, half truths, cloudy communication, deliberate mis-directions, down playing failures, all with skillful ambiguity and clever concealment of the truth. Humor aside, Gleick makes you think about how far we have come.

Quotes to quote, “We have to learn the odd skill of speaking freely to someone who won’t hear us until later” (p 38). I wish I could teach my mother that skill. She will talk and talk on someone’s answering machine until she is cut off.

Author fact: At the time of publication, Gleick lived in the Hudson Valley. I wonder if Natalie Merchant was a neighbor?

Book trivia: What Just Happened isn’t Gleick’s only book. I am reading Chaos and Faster for the Challenge.

Playlist: “Stop in the Name of Love”, Supremes, Dolly Parton, Nat King Cole, “Naughty Angeline”, Crash Test Dummies, T-Bone Walker, Jim Fyhrie, 10,000 Maniacs (!), “Hail to the Chief”, Beastie Boys, Adiemus, Frank Sinatra, Harvey Danger, Dave Matthews Band, the Beatles, Scott Joplin, Mozart, and Madonna.

Nancy said: Pearl said What Just Happened is one of Gleick’s more accessible books. I agree 100%.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Books (for the Interested But Apprehensive Layperson)” (p 211).

“The Adventure at Wisteria Lodge”

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes. “The Adventure at Wisteria Lodge.” Doubleday and Company, 1930.

Doyle loves words. Case in point: John Scott Eccles, the man who comes to Sherlock for help describes his experience as incredible, grotesque, singular, unpleasant, improper, outrageous, queer and bizarre. All that really happened was that he spent the night at some place called Wisteria Lodge as the guest of Aloysius Garcia, but upon waking found that everyone had disappeared, including the host. As he was sharing this incredible, grotesque, singular, unpleasant, improper, outrageous, queer, bizarre news with Sherlock and Watson, the inspector from Scotland Yard arrives to say Aloysius was found murdered. Through a series of tips and clues, Sherlock is led to the home of Mr. Henderson. He is actually Don Juan Murillo. How he is connected to the disappearance of Aloysius Garcia, I am not sure. Of course, there is a mysterious woman who isn’t as she seems.

Story trivia: Holmes looks back at mysteries solved in other stories.

Burning Marguerite

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Inness-Brown, Elizabeth. Burning Marguerite: a Novel. Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.

Reason read: part of Burning Marguerite takes place in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in the month of August.

Marguerite Ann Bernadette-Marie Deo, otherwise known as Tante, has passed away. Burning Marguerite starts with James Jack’s third person perspective, and at first, you think it’s going to be his story. However, Marguerite, in her own voice, tells the genesis of her nearly one hundred years and how the orphan James Jack came into her life. The reader gets to know Tante more James, which, in my opinion, is a missed opportunity. James Jack is a character ripe for exploration. As it stands, he is a thirty-plus-year-old man who has never strayed too far from his sheltered island home somewhere in Vermont. He rarely has romantic relationships. The reader does not hear of friendships. His only mission is to take care of Tante. She is all he has ever known since his parents died in a tragic accident when he was just a baby. Meanwhile, Marguerite has lived a colorful life, experiencing great loves and losses from turn-of-the-century Vermont to 1920s New Orleans and back to the island of her childhood to live out the rest of her days as a hermit. A word of caution: Marguerite’s history is harsh. The more I read, the more I wept for her. A third character is the island as it lives and breathes, influencing the townspeople as if it had a personality of its own. Its harsh winters and small-town gossip do well to feed a sense of unease.

Confessional: I had a little trouble with chronology. I’ve tried to make sense of it a few times. Because Inness-Brown moves the timeline around I am not sure of the order of events after Marguerite’s death. She and James Jack argue about a married woman, Faith, on a Sunday night. Faith is leaving the island Monday morning and Tante wants James to go to her. Because of Faith’s marriage James refuses and out of anger sleeps in a secondary cabin, away from Tante. In the morning he finds Tante dead. At first James Jack feels the need to report the death and goes to the sheriff’s office. He changes his mind after he’s sitting across from the sheriff. Tante would not want the law involved with her remains. Meanwhile, Faith had a flight to catch sometime on Monday but she would have to go the mainland first. So when does James Jack catch up to her and ask her for help with Tante?

Line I loved, “I wanted to interpret your look, to read that gaze, but I had not yet learned the language in which your eyes wrote their message” (p 41). Stunning.

Author fact: According to the back flap of Burning Marguerite Inness-Brown lives on an island in Lake Champlain, Vermont. I have to wonder if Grain Island is modeled after South Hero.

Book trivia: Burning Marguerite is Inness-Brown’s first novel.

Setlist: “It Was Just One of Those Things”, and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “First Novels” (p 88) and again in the chapter called “New Orleans” (p 168).

Valley of Fear

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. “Valley of Fear.” The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Doubleday and Company, 1930.

Reason read: I am still slogging through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s complete works. He died in July so I am picking it back up.

I took a break from Sherlock Holmes because I was getting bored of the formulaic storytelling. Even though the plot of Valley of Fear follows a scheme we are all familiar with, my hiatus was long enough that I did not mind. I could stomach the repetition of gimmicks used in previous stories. (Sherlock being condescending and Watson’s all-forgiving attitude bothered me the most.) Additionally, the second half of the story was so different from the first that I forgot I was reading a Sherlock Holmes mystery. The refreshing shift in the narrative in the second half of the story kept me engaged, as it provided a deeper understanding of the characters and their motivations in part one. Part One finds Sherlock investigating a murder at a remote location, complete with a moat and drawbridge. Meanwhile, Part Two delves into the backstory of McMurdo, weaving and unraveling and weaving again a tangled web of secrecy and deceit that extends beyond what initially seemed obvious. His involvement in the clandestine society steeped in blackmail and murder not only adds depth to the storyline but also sheds light on the darker side of the era (the start of the Chicago mafia family?).

As an aside, the final solution to the mystery reminded me of the first episode of The Closer, a television show starring Kyra Sedgewick. Everyone assumed the wrong identity of the victim which made the ending interesting.

Author fact: Many people believe Doyle was trying to get away from Sherlock Holmes stories when he wrote Valley of Fear as Holmes does not appear in the second half of the story.

Book trivia: Valley of Fear is the last novel in the collection. From here on out I am reading short stories.

Playlist: “I’m Sitting on the Stile, Mary” and “On the Banks of Allan Water.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 117).

Year of Lesser

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Bergen, David. A Year of Lesser. Harper Collins Publishers, 1996.

Reason read: Canada Day is in July. A Year of Lesser takes place outside Winnipeg in a small town called Lesser.

Orbital relationships. At the center is Johnny. What is it about this man that has women lining up to act the fool for him? His wife, Charlene, is never on the same page about wanting or not wanting children. His mistress is already a mother with a teenaged son. Both slobber over him despite the fact he is a man-child who can’t decide between love and lust. He works for a feed store and runs a drop-in center for teens. It’s complicated.
No question Johnny worships women. He observes them through a detailed and hungry lens. He notices the soles of their feet, their popped-pregnant belly buttons, the curve of an upturned nose. Yet, Johnny is a God-fearing, born again and again, Bible reading religious man. It’s complicated.
I felt bad for Charlene. What is she supposed to do about a husband who admits he is having a child with another woman? The whole town knows about Johnny and Loraine. Then I felt bad for Loraine. Pregnant with Johnny’s child and yet, he stops coming around. Rumors like smoke from a fire start to swirl about Johnny and a teenaged girl. It’s complicated.

Detail I had trouble with: Johnny is trying to quit smoking. You don’t readily carry cigarettes if you are trying to quit. How then can Johnny so easily offer Loraine a smoke?

Author fact: Bergen has written a bunch and Nancy said he is one of her favorites, but I’m only reading The Year of Lesser for the Challenge.

Line I liked, “He’s trying to weigh time and desire” (p 7).

Playlist: Led Zeppelin, Peter Tosh, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and the Rankin Family,

Nancy said: Pearl said the author was a favorite of hers.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Canadian Fiction” (p 51).

Charms for the Easy Life

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Gibbons, Kaye. Charms for the Easy Life. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1993.

Reason read: Mary Lee Settle celebrates a birthday in the month of July. Nancy Pearl suggested Charms for the Easy Life be read with Settle’s memoir, Addie.

Three generations of southern women. The relationships between mother (Charlie Kate), daughter (Sophia), and granddaughter (Margaret) are tangled and complicated. Like all relationships, they are rich in drama, tough-love, grace, and unspoken courage. Complicated by pride and fierce independence. Only these are no ordinary women. Granddaughter Margaret is no exception. She assists her grandmother with unconventional medical practices on military patients and encourages her mother’s second-time-around love life. The three generations can read the same book and discuss and argue like best friends and yet, they can also carry dark secrets strategically kept from one another, hold on to old grudges like a mean snapping turtle, and parse out the silent treatment to one another like professionals. Strong without menfolk to provide for them, the Birch women support each other through everything. This is an age when grandmothers could orchestrate the love lives of their granddaughters. Wise beyond her years, Margaret listens to her grandmother’s advice. As an aside, my favorite was when Charlie Kate gave Margaret her easy-life charm, telling Margaret that it worked…depending on the definition of easy.
Confessional: I couldn’t help but be reminded of Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris.

As an aside, the method of quilling a pregnancy was a new one for me.

Favorite line, “She had said all that she needed to say, and so there were no secret longings, no secret wishes and desires that had never been spoken” (p 254).

Author fact: Gibbons wrote her first novel when she was in her twenties.

Book trivia: Charms for the Easy Life is Kaye Gibbons’ fourth book and other editions include “Christina’s World”, a painting by Andrew Wyeth, as the cover art.

Playlist: Benny Good man, Nelson Eddy’s “Sweet Mystery of Life”, Johnny Mercer’s “Deep in the Heart of Texas”, Hazel Scott’s “Minute Waltz”, Frank Sinatra, “White Christmas”, “I’ll Be Seeing You”, “You Made Me Love You”, Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols”, Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude, Grieg’s E Minor Piano Sonata, Bach’s Minuet in G, Ravel’s Le Tom beau de Couperin, and Sarah Bernhardt.

Nancy said: Pearl was generously vague when describing why Charms for the Easy Life was paired with Addie. The multitude of complimentary themes was a joy to discover on my own.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Companion Reads” (p 62) and again in the chapter called “Mothers and Daughters” (p 159), and a third time in the chapter called “Southern Fiction” (p 222).