Category: Fiction

“Lukudi”

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Harun, Adrienne. “Lukudi.” The King of Limbo and Other Stories. New York: Overlook Press, 2001.

Natife is from Nigeria and knows the ways of lukudi, otherwise known as “wealthmagic” or black magic. Ever since Natife cured Carena’s skin ailment she knew he would be the perfect peer counselor for suicidal Ally Reisch. The key to getting close to Ally is to befriend her favorite horse, Denali and to protect her from the abusive Ciggy. Interestingly enough, Natife acquires a magical lighter from a man trying to get his brother to quit smoking. The lighter proves to be important in the relationship between Ally and Ciggy. Harun’s storytelling is magical.

Favorite line, “Some people have memory in their bones and will not die for many lives” (p 24).

Reason read: June is short story month.

Author fact: Harun has her own website here.

Book trivia: The King of Limbo and Other Stories is Harun’s first compilation of short stories.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter “Good Things Come in Small Packages” (p 103).

 

 

 

Down There

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Goodis, David. Down There. Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s. New York: Library of America, 1999.

David Goodis is a great storyteller. The story opens with a man, bloodied and dazed, running from two unknown men. Throughout most of the plot you don’t know who is who. Is the running man a good guy or is he bad? Why do the men chasing him want him so badly? They are relentless in their pursuit. You don’t know who to root for. But, the story isn’t really about the man being pursued. When he escapes into a seedy bar where his brother is playing piano, the attention shifts to the piano player. Now, caught in the middle of the pursuit is younger brother, Eddie. Growing up, Eddie had very little to do with his rough and violent brothers. While they followed a life of crime, Eddie became a Carnegie Hall pianist. For the past three years he has been just a simple piano player in a bar called Harriet’s Hut. Out of family loyalty, Eddie helps his brother escape and plunges headlong into the trouble is he has been trying to avoid for years. There is a reason he no longer plays Carnegie and that ugly truth comes back to haunt him. Throughout the story there isn’t enough character development to care about Eddie or his family. You don’t know if they are the good guys or not. Enough bad things have happened to Eddie to make the reader sympathetic to his plight, but not enough to sit on the edge of a seat, hoping and praying for his survival. I rooted for the plucky waitress, Lena, who attaches herself to Eddie and refuses to take no for an answer. She was gutsy and valiant and never wavered from her character.

Reason read: June is National Short Story month and even though this isn’t exactly a short story, it’s brief enough to throw on the list.

Author fact: One of the most fascinating things about Goodis (according to Wikipedia (yes, I’m quoting Wikipedia), is that most people didn’t know Goodis had been married for a brief time. It wasn’t until a divorce document was found that people really believed it.

Book trivia: Down There is also known as Shoot the Piano Player which was made into a movie.

BookLust Twist: from Crime Novels: American Noir listed in Book Lust in the chapter called “Les Crime Noir” (p 65).

Birdsong

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Faulks, Sebastian. Birdsong. Read by Peter Firth. New Hampshire: Chivers North America Audio Books, 2000.

Birdsong is broken into seven different sections covering three different periods of main character Stephen Wraysford’s life, 1910, 1916 – 1918, and 1978 – 1979 (the last being through the eyes of his granddaughter, Elizabeth). When we first meet Stephen in 1910 he is a young Englishman sent to France to observe operations at a textile mill in Amiens. It is there that he meets the beautiful and lonely Mrs. Isabelle Azaire. From the moment they meet, their attraction to one another is instantaneous and unavoidable. Even an innocent activity like pruning in the garden speaks volumes of what is to come. It isn’t long before the two give in to their carnal desires and commit adultery. If you are shy about sex scenes, there are a few you may want to skip. The second encounter in the library is pretty racy! The attraction between the lovers is so strong that Isabelle runs away with Stephen, only to be wracked by guilt causing her to leave him a short time later. We don’t know what happens to this couple after Isabelle’s leaving. This is a mystery that hangs over the next section of Stephen’s life.
When we meet up again with Stephen it is six years later and he is a soldier, sent to work in the tunnels below enemy lines. This section of the book, covering World War I, is incredibly graphic and haunting. Faulk’s portrayals of battle are as realistic as they are heartbreaking, especially in the claustrophobic tunnels. Interspersed between Stephen’s World War I experiences is the life of his granddaughter, Elizabeth. When she becomes curious about his life she sets out to learn all that she can. She ends up learning more about herself in the process. History repeats itself and comes full circle for Wraysford’s legacy.

PS ~ I like the way Peter Firth reads. His voice is really pleasant. But, unlike Kirsten Potter, who read The Locust Eaters, Firth doesn’t even attempt a French accent! He does an Australian one pretty well, though.

Reason read: Austria started World War I on June 28, 1914.

Author fact: Faulks is also a journalist.

Book trivia: Birdsong is actually the second book in a trilogy. I didn’t find that out until I entered it into LibraryThing. Bad news and good news. The bad news is that the first book is not on my list. However, the good news is that the third book, Charlotte Gray, is…so I’ll read two-thirds of the trilogy. Pearl makes no mention of these two books being connected.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “World War I (fiction)” (p 250).

As an aside, I always think of the Grateful Dead when I hear the word “birdsong” and I am filled with nostalgia. When my husband and I were first dating I took him home to Monhegan. He brought along a video camera and made a music video of the island with Birdsong playing in the background. The video starts with me sitting on the floor in the old apartment trying to pack. So long ago!

“Birdland”

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Knight, Michael. “Birdland.” Goodnight, Nobody. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003.

Raymond, the protagonist of “Birdland,” knows how to capitalize on the African parrots that migrant every fall to his tiny town of Elbow, Alabama. The parrots have brought Ludmilla Haggarsdottir (aka The Blond), an ornithologist from New Hampshire. Having nowhere to stay, The Blond rents a room with Raymond and becomes his girlfriend. His second source of income is wood carvings of the parrots for all the tourists who “flock” to Elbow (pun totally intended). Elbow in and of itself is an interesting little community of less than 12 souls, all fixated on the game of college football. I fell in love with Raymond and his band of misfit neighbors. They live the simple life without telephones or tvs. The Blond is the most colorful thing he’s seen since the arrival of the parrots.

Quotes I loved, “The African parrot can live up to eighty years…and often mates for life, though our local birds have apparently adopted a more swinging sexual culture due to an instinctive understanding of the rigors of perpetuation in a non-indigenous environment” (p 5) and “I want to tell her that the past is not only for forgetting” (p 14).

Reason read: June is national short story month. Are you tired of me saying that?

Author fact: In 2003 Knight taught at the University of Tennessee. The sad thing is, when you do a Google search for “Michael Knight” the first thing that pops up is the television show “Knight Rider.”

Book trivia: I’m going to sound like a broken record saying this but most of Knight’s short stories appeared in magazines (like Playboy) before they were published as a collection.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the very simple chapter called “Parrots” (p 104).

Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home

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Winegardner, Mark. “Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home.” That’s True of Everybody.New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2002.

How often do you think about bowling? If you aren’t a member of a league, probably not very often. So, when I read “The average American home, Harry had read in a magazine, no longer contained a bowling ball” (p 3) I thought to myself, I’m sure he’s right. No home of mine has ever had a bowling ball. But, in “Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home” Harry has a reason for being worried about bowling balls. As the owner of a bowling alley in Cuyahoga, Ohio if he wants to stay in business, he needs to care. He has two daughters, one is an artist in New York who only paints phalluses and is married to a man with whom Harry has a passive aggressive relationship. His second daughter, Jane, helps with the bowling alley. The real meat of the story centers around the disappearance of Harry’s new hire after two weeks on the job. It becomes his private obsession. “Thirty Year Old Women” is a slightly depressing story. You can’t help but feel sorry for Harry. He is an overcompensating wimp who couldn’t be more accommodating to the people in his life.

Funny line to remember, “The penis, Harry thought, truly is a sad, slouchy little guy. (p 7).

Reason read: June is short story month.

Author fact: Winegardner is the director of the creative writing program at Florida State University (or, at least he was, in 2002).

Book trivia: Like most short story complications, some of the short stories have been published elsewhere.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Good Things Come in Small Packages” (p 104).

Dancer with Bruised Knees

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McFall, Lynne. Dancer with Bruised Knees. San Fransisco: Chronicle Books, 1994.

This is an extremely difficult book to read and I can see why Nancy included it in her chapter, “Families in Trouble” (Book Lust, page 83). Sarah Blight is a middle aged photographer getting over a bad breakup. You, too, would call it a bad breakup if your ex’s new lover puts out your eye with a pool stick. But, it gets worse. Sarah’s coming of age and childhood weren’t that kind either. A mentally ill mother, brother accused of a gruesome murder, an uncle who committed suicide…the list goes on. Even the farm cats weren’t safe from abuse. What happened to the cats, by the way, was one of the worst parts about the story. If you are an animal lover it’s tough to take. Oddly enough, despite all the drama I was in love with Lynne McFall’s writing. The Blight family (aptly named) is every family you have ever known. Dancer with Bruised Knees is a short book, around 215 pages, but one that will stick with you long after you finish the final page.
One of the things I loved about McFall’s book is that she likes music. You can tell by the way she references songs. I counted over 15 songs and that wasn’t counting the hymns. I would love to make a mixed tape of all the music she references.

I was finding passages to quote left and right. I loved McFall’s writing that much. Here are just a few, “Now that there’s no choice I am stupid with grief” (p 1), “He was involuntarily retired” (p 3), ” I was raised an atheist with a sympathy for religious ritual” (p 5) and “But even those who are difficult need to be loved, and in that I am no exception” (p 17). I could go on and on with all the passages I loved but I said that already.

Reason read: June is National Family Month so go spend time with that brother, even if he is suspected of murdering his third ex-wife and stuffing her body in a garbage can!

Author fact: At the time of Dancer’s publication McFall was a philosophy teacher at Syracuse.

Book trivia: Parts of Dancer appeared in Story magazine.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Families in Trouble” (p 83).

Sound of Thunder

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Bradbury, Ray. “A Sound of Thunder.” R is For Rocket. New York: Doubleday, 1952.

This is an incredibly short story that packs a punch. It’s one of those simple as hell stories that makes you think for hours afterwards. Take Concept #1: At the heart of the story is a travel/safari company that advertizes, “Safaris to Any Year in the Past. You Name the Animal. We Take You There. You Kill It.” Let that digest. That alone is definitely something to ponder. Concept #2: The main character of the story, Eckles, wants to kill a dinosaur. Not just any dinosaur, but the king of all prehistoric lizards – the tyrannosaurus rex. Contemplate that. What would it take to kill such a beast? Concept #3: the safari can only kill an animal predestined to die or else the future will hang in the balance. Kill the wrong thing and you might upset the whole apple cart of life as you know it. And guess what, Eckles accidentally kills a butterfly, upsetting the path to the present. Concept #4: before leaving present day Eckles learns that a benevolent leader has just beaten out a tyrannical dictator for President. You can see where this is going.

Reason read: June is National Short Story Month

Author fact: Ray Bradbury’s site is here. I’m sure it’s not the only one dedicated to the writer.

Story trivia: “A Sound of Thunder” was first published in magazines like Playboy (1956).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Time Travel” (p 220).

Earthly Possessions

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Tyler, Anne. Earthly Possessions. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1977.

This is a super quick read. The fact that it was a made-for-television movie back in the 90s should tell you something: really good but without prolonged drama; couldn’t make it to the big screen. Here’s the quick and dirty of the plot: Charlotte Emory is at the bank, waiting to clean out her savings so she can run away from her married life. She’s the bored housewife of a boring preacher. While waiting to change her whole life, suddenly it is changed for her. She gets caught up in a robbery and is taken hostage. Since her captor is practically half her age she isn’t exactly afraid of him, or the gun he waves in her face. Almost willingly Charlotte finds herself on a road trip with Jake Simms, Jr – demolition derby racer, escapee from jail, and father to his teenage girlfriend’s unborn child. The three make an interesting pair. Tyler’s writing is sharp and funny. She gives us alternating time frames, bouncing between Charlotte’s escape in present day and the past – as if to explain how Charlotte’s life ended up so complicated.

Lines I liked, “I tripped over a mustard jar big enough to pickle a baby” (p 6). Who thinks like that? Another one, “That prodding black nubbin in the hand of a victim of impulse” (p 49).

Reason read: June is the most popular month to get married in…and divorced in, too. I have no idea why.

Author fact: Tyler graduated from Duke University at the age of nineteen. Are you doing the math? If there were four years spent at Duke she would have entered college at the age of fifteen.

Book trivia: Earthly Possessions was made into a television movie in 1999 and starred Susan Sarandon as the bored housewife. I can picture that completely.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Marriage Blues” (p 161).

“How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life”

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Tinti, Hannah. Animal Crackers. “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life.”New York: Dial Press, 2004.

Holy cow does this short story creep up on you! I so want to spill the beans and spoil the ending, but I can’t! I must not! Suffice it to say this story will punch you in the gut and you will like it. Our protagonist is an unnamed former medical student who starts a wayward relationship with an edgy artist. You know from the first two sentences of the story that her relationship is doomed but what you don’t realize (until it’s way too late) is that this same woman has serious issues. There is a reason why she is a former medical student. When aforementioned edgy artist abruptly vanishes from her life he leaves behind a red tailed boa constrictor in her apartment and for awhile things are good. Until they aren’t. Like medical school, there is a reason why Fred says “don’t let the snake out of the cage.” I’ll leave it at that, except to say when Fred returns for his snake three months later, things are decidedly different at the former medical student’s apartment.

A shade of warning, “Then she turned and quietly fainted” (p 134).

Reason read: June is short story month

Author fact: Animal Crackers is Tinti’s debut.

Book trivia: the short story, “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life” is not mentioned on the inside flap so everything about the story was a complete surprise.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Good Things Come in Small Packages” (p 103).

“Huckabuck Family”

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Sandburg, Carl. The Huckabuck Family and How They Raised Popcorn in Nebraska and Quit and Came Back. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999.

Super cute short story that was pulled from the Rootabaga Stories and made into a book for children with fabulous illustrations! This was a joy to read (and a little odd). The Huckabuck family grew corn for popping. Maybe they were the Reddenbocker family, I don’t know. The first name of each member of the family is repeated because if daughter “Pony” doesn’t answer when called she might answer to “Pony Pony.” Interesting concept. But, here’s the thing about the Huckabuck family, besides the double name thing, one year they had a fire and all the popping corn popped and there was too much popcorn. They had to leave town for three years! Hence the title of the book, they raised popcorn in Nebraska, quit because they grew too much and then came back when they thought all the popcorn was gone.

Reason read: June is National Short Story month.

Author fact: Carl Sandburg is known for his poetry.

Book trivia: Two things. The Huckabuck Family story (children’s version) was illustrated by David Small. The original Huckabuck Family story came from a compilation called The Rootabaga Stories published in 1922.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Great Plains (Nebraska)” (p 155).

Who’s You Daddy June List

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I’m posting this early because June 1st is on a Sunday and guess what I’ll be doing on that Sunday? Finishing up a 60 mile cancer walk. I sincerely doubt I will have time (much less remember) to post this!

June is known as short story month. I have a separate list of all the shorties I want to read and each June, in honor of the genre, I try to blow through as many as I can. This year I am actually revisiting some shorts I should have read last year. Here’s the list:

  • Killer Inside Me
  • Down There
  • The Huckabuck Family
  • How to Revitalize the Snake
  • Crossing the Craton

Then, there are the real books:

  1. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks*
  2. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall
  3. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler
  4. First Man by Albert Camus
  5. Inside Passage by Michael Modselewski
  6. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart
  7. ADDED: Zero Days by Barbara Egbert

*Audio book

Here is how the rest of year eight should go. Of course I will be adding more books to this list:

  1. Andorra by Peter Cameron (November)
  2. Any Four Women Can Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen (November)
  3. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (July)
  4. Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman (September)
  5. Beaufort by Ron Leshem* (November)
  6. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh (August)
  7. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (July)
  8. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall (September)
  9. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (October)
  10. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams (August)
  11. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney (November)
  12. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (October)
  13. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (July)
  14. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan* (October)
  15. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam* (July)
  16. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin (August)
  17. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee (August)
  18. Grass Dancer by Susan Power (November)
  19. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (September)
  20. In a Strange City by Laura Lippman (October)
  21. Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (August)
  22. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch (August)
  23. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway (September)
  24. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro* (August)
  25. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (September)
  26. You Get What You Pay For by Larry Beinhart (November)

*Planned as audio books

FINISHED:

  1. After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
  2. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow*
  3. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin*
  4. Angels Weep by Wilbur Smith
  5. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  6. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
  7. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  8. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  9. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
  10. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  11. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink
  12. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  13. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  14. Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  15. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  16. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  17. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  18. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  19. French Revolutions* by Tim Moore.
  20. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley
  21. Herzog by Saul Bellow
  22. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  23. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – attempted
  24. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  25. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  26. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  27. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  28. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  29. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  30. Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  31. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  32. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  33. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  34. Oedipus by Sophocles
  35. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  36. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  37. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  38. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  39. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
  40. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
  41. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
  42. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  43. Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  44. Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland
  45. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  46. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley

Poetry:

  • “Aftermath” ~ a poem by Siegfried Sassoon
  • “Romance” ~ a poem by W.J. Turner
  • “Kubla Khan” ~ a poem by Samuel T. Coleridge

For another year (because I screwed up):

  • Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith. This is a huge embarrassment. For starters, this is a sequel. I have to read Travels with Tangerine first. Secondly, I don’t even know when I’m reading Tangerine.

 

 

 

 

Art Student’s War

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Leithauser, Brad. The Art Student’s War. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2009.

Right off the bat I have to mention the author’s note. If you are someone who normally skims or even completely skips this part, in a word: Don’t. It’s touching. For starters, I don’t know many men who have a decent relationship with their mothers-in-law much less those who find inspiration in them, but Leithauser has done those guys one better. He goes on to say that The Art Student’s War “must serve as a tribute…” to his mother-in-law. Classy. Seriously.

I didn’t think I would like The Art Student’s War because I’m not a big fan of the overly dramatic. Within the first fifty pages Bianca Paradiso’s family is rocked by scandal: her aunt accidentally reveals a breast when her bathing suit slips. The dynamics between the two families is never the same after that. Yes, I know the times are different now and you can almost expect to see a bare breast on a beach these days, but the amount of anguish the entire family suffers at the hands of this one mistake seems a little exaggerated…until I read on. First of all, mental illness plays a part here. And. And! And, I should have known better. Bianca’s character has been melodramatic from the start. Once, she was moved to anxious tears because she regretted not talking to a soldier on a bus. She lamented he didn’t hear her say thank you.
As the story deepens, and you get to know the characters better, Bianca rounds out to be a steadfast good girl with all the dreams and aspirations of becoming a worthy artist. Those dreams are first realized when she is asked to help with the war effort: to use her talents to draw portraits of wounded soldiers in the local hospital, the very hospital where she was born. It is here that she meets Henry. The relationship that blooms is complex and sets Bianca’s Coming of age in motion.
Halfway through the book there is a weird break that is told from the perspective of Bea’s uncle. It’s a glimpse into the future and doesn’t quite fit with the flow of the story. If you are paying attention, it gives away the plot and reveals more than it should. When we come back to Bea, she is a married woman with twin six year old sons. She has remained close to a few childhood friends, but is not the artist she used to be. Life goes on. Detroit is like another character in the book, growing along with Bea.

An added benefit of the Art Student’s War is the art history lesson you get along the way.

Reason read: Coleman Young, Detroit’s first black mayor, was born in the month of May.

Author fact: Leithauser is a Detroit native who studied at Harvard. That should tell you something – street smarts and book smarts!

Book trivia: scattered throughout The Art Student’s War are illustrations. These are the illustrations his mother-in-law drew that inspired the book. Leithauser also includes a photograph of Lormina Paradise. Very nice.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Definitely Detroit” (p 74). As an aside, Pearl calls Leithauser’s writing “magical” and I couldn’t agree more.

Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg

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Keating, H.R.F. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg. New York: Doubleday, 1971.

You know you are in for an interesting ride when one of the first sentences of the book reads like this, “From the moment that he had been landed with the business only the afternoon before he had raged at the lack of anything he could get his teeth into, and now that the chance was near he was going to let nothing delay him” (p 1). In a word, delicious.
It has been fifteen years since the wife of a prominent local official unexpectedly passed away. At the time, it was ruled an accident, the ingestion of bad lime pickles or something. But, suspicions have arisen about her death and Inspector Ghote is ordered to look into it a bit more closely. Only, no one wants him there. Even the local Swami is fasting until Ghote leaves town. This is a comedy in every sense of the word. Ghote arrives in town under the guise of a salesman of a new chicken feed product. He carries a carton of eggs on the back of his bicycle to “assist” with his disguise. Problem is, no one is buying it and Ghote doesn’t stick to his story all that well. Ghote comes across as a bumbling idiot at times, believing everything a suspect says, confronting the wrong witness, always one step behind his quarry. A whole lot of nothing seems to happen. Until it does. His life is threatened. He can’t trust anyone, including the people who hired him because no one is who they seem to be.

Reason read: this is going to sound strange, but I had too many titles to read for National Mystery Month (which is in January), so I searched for other reasons to read some of them. May is Egg Month. Don’t ask me how I know that. Since “egg” is in the title, I’m reading this in May.

Author fact: Keating has a website here. It’s a very clean site. Not much below the fold. I like that.

Book trivia: According to the website I am reading the sixth Ghote book.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called ” I Love a Mystery” (p 120).

Oedipus the King

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Sophocles. Oedipus the King. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1954.

Okay. Raise your hands. Who had to read Oedipus in high school? Who had the name come up in at least one college psychology course? Better yet, who acted out the play at any time in their life? I’m guessing most people are not strangers to the story: Mythological king is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. End. Of. Story. That’s the gist of it anyway. There are many different versions out there, depending on which translation you read. MY take-away is this, if it was meant to happen, it will happen. There is no getting out of it. You can twist fate by taking someone else’s fortune cookie, but the right words are destined to find you. So, even though everyone knew the prophesy and tried to avoid the disaster, Oedipus still managed to come across his father, have an altercation, kill him and end up marrying the widow…his own mother. Like I said, you can’t sidestep what will be.

Confessional: Freud ruined this for me. Whenever I hear the name Oedipus I think “complex” and not “ancient Greek trilogy.”

Reason read: May is the best time to visit Greece.

Author fact: Sophocles was one of three Greek tragedians.

Book Play trivia: There’s a lot of music in Oedipus.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Alpha, Beta, Gammas of Greece” (p 11).

Herzog

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Bellow, Saul. Herzog. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1964.

Moses Alkanan Herzog is a man experiencing a midlife crisis. His coping mechanism is to write letters in his head; if they make do it to paper, they are letters he most often does not mail. With each letter comes a flashback to a particular monumental time in Herzog’s memory. Most of his reminiscing centers on his two failed marriages and all the relationships to which he cannot commit. He is a well intentioned, extremely intelligent yet sad man. An example: sometime after the divorce from his second wife Herzog visits a friend and her husband on Martha’s Vineyard. Soon after arriving he realizes his friends are way too happy for his state of mind. He decides, moments after arriving, he he must leave immediately. Instead of facing his well-intentioned friends to explain the mistake, Herzog writes a note and slips away unnoticed. There is a singular self-satisfaction in the fact that he makes it back to New York City by 11pm. Herzog has a heart and deeply cares, despite the fact he is so misunderstood. When he suspects his daughter is being abused he travels to his ex-wife’s home to confront the abuser. His motives are good even though the end is not what he intended.

Confessional: I have this friend who passed away over a year ago. I don’t know why, but at times, Herzog reminded me of him. Maybe it was the multiple marriages and all the exotic relationships with women?

Favorite lines, “A person of irregular tendencies, he practiced the art of circling among random facts to swoop down on the essentials” (p 18), and “A free foot on a summer night eases the heart” (p 194). This last line totally made me think of my husband.

Reason read (April 20th – May 4th): Mr. Bellow passed away in April of 2005 and May is National Jewish American month. In this (rare) instance I am reading one book in two different months. It just worked out that way.

Author fact: Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize for literature.

Book trivia: Herzog won the National Book Award for fiction and was a New York Times best seller (also named top 100 of all “Time” by Time Magazine).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Jewish American Experience” (p 132).