Tag: 2011

Night Soldiers

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Furst, Alan. Night Soldiers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988

I have to admit this took me a little time to get into. The story starts off in 1934 with a violent bang. Khristo Stoianev is a Bulgarian teenager who witnesses the brutal beating and subsequent killing of his younger brother, Nikko. Nikko, only 15 years old, was used as an example of a growing power. Using this tragedy as a vehicle for change, Khristo is drawn into the NKVD, the Soviet intelligence service. From there he is sent to serve in the Spanish Civil war (although it is curious to note during his training he was taught English and French, not Spanish). Meanwhile,the political arena is heating up. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia are arm wrestling over real estate in Eastern Europe. Stalin is starting to purge the undesirables and this is to include Khristo so he flees to France.
Furst paints a stunning picture of eleven years of Eastern European history complete with French underground guerrilla operations, lavish love affairs, the never ending quest for power and multidimensional aspects of war.

Most telling line, “But these were political times, and it was very important to think before you spoke. Nikko Stoianev spoke without thinking, and so he died” (p 3).
Favorite line, “The nasty scene at the Finnish embassy refused to leave his mind, and he and Andres had decided to drawn their war in a bottle of Spanish gin” (p 161).

Author fact: Alan Furst was born on February 20th, 1941. He has an ongoing love affair with Paris.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called  “World War II Fiction” (p 253) even though WWII isn’t the focal point of the the story.

Carry Me Home

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McWhorter, Diane. Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: the Climatic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

There is no doubt Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution is testimony to McWhorter’s nineteen year mission. Her conviction to expose the truth is on every page. What makes Carry Me Home so compelling in the unflinching examination of McWhorter’s own family’s beliefs and involvements in the tumultuous time of civil unrest. Interjecting personal biography give the book a unique drama. The detail with which McWhorter writes allows readers to not just walk in the footsteps of history but experience as if they are walking side by side in real time.

Interesting lines: “One did not need to know what was wrong in order to know something was wrong” (p 27), and “Over the two decades of solitary toil, my driving aim had been to “solve” the church bombing, to bring the murderers if not to justice then at least to truth” (p 589).

I have to point out that a friend didn’t like the title of this book. He felt that the use of the word “climatic” was incorrect. Climatic for the era, maybe, but certainly not climatic for all time.

Book Trivia: Carry Me Home was compared to Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch by author David Herbert Donald, and by writers for the Boston Globe and The Nation. Also, Carry Me Home won a Pulitzer.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Civil Rights and Wrongs” (p 49).

Ain’t Nobody’s Business

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Wesley, Valerie Wilson. Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.New York: Avon, 1999.

While Kisa drove from 42 8′ 55″ N/72 36′ 29″ W to 44 6′ 13″ N/69 6′ 33″ W I read Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do. Four straight hours until I ran out of daylight and I ran out of words. It was the kind of reading that had me asking what would happen next. Not because the story had me on the edge of my seat in suspense, but because I had grown to care about all the characters and truly wanted to know how all their lives worked out. The biggest emotion everyone had in common was the desperate need to find the true meaning of love. Then there was the telling of how they went about finding that love.

First, there is 44 year old Hutch who ups and leaves his wife Eva, at two in the morning. He has no idea why he has to leave but he also knows there is no way he can stay. As he says, he lost his joy. No one is more baffled by Hutch’s behavior than Hutch himself, but leave he must. Eva, his second wife of ten years, oscillates between sheer rage and utter despair as she copes with a huge house she hasn’t a clue for to maintain. Hutch runs to Donald, his best friend, who is constantly cheating on his seemingly perfect wife yet Donald’s seemingly perfect wife seems like a perfect match for Hutch, especially in his confused state of mind. Eva seems best suited for her own daughter’s ex-boyfriend. It’s a merry-go-round of emotions and relationships and no relationship combination is spared: mother-daughter, father-son, best friends, lovers, old married couples, newlyweds…Everyone is looking for something just out of reach and ignoring what’s right in front of them.

Favorite line, “Raye’s eyes could always shake loose his truth” (p 41).

Two observations: The story starts out with Eva’s aunt hoo-doo magic. There is mention of dried twigs and a Vick’s VapoRub smell. I would have liked that hoo-doo to be more present throughout the story. Also, Wesley always seemed to be one stop ahead of me. Eva works as a librarian. She started out as a volunteer then asked for a paying position and got it. I questioned where was library school and the formal degree. In the very next chapter Eva’s boss is urging Eva to go to library school. There is another scene where Eva’s car breaks down and she is left stranded on the side of the road. I immediately wanted to know where her car phone and/or AAA membership was. Wesley explained those details soon enough, as if she was reading my mind.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “African American Fiction: She Say” (p 13). The “She” in question being the authors.

Flaubert’s Parrot

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Barnes, Julian. Flaubert’s Parrot. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.

I chose Flaubert’s Parrot in honor of February being Bird Feeding Month but really, Flaubert’s Parrot doesn’t have a whole lot to do with parrots, per se. Goeffrey Braithwait is a retired doctor looking to solve a mystery. Two different museums claim to have Flaubert’s muse, a stuffed parrot that sat on Flaubert’s desk while he wrote ‘Un Coeur simple.’ Dr. Braithwait calls himself an amateur scholar of Flaubert and yet he knows the smallest of details about the writer’s life which indicate a growing obsession. While the mystery of the two parrots is the token premise of the tale it takes on much more than that. First, it is revealed Dr. Braithwait would like to be an author. He wonders what it would be like to publish. This is a theme that runs concurrent with the search for the correct parrot. In time Dr. Braithwait’s wife suicide is revealed. He searches for meaning to her demise. There are multiple personalities of writing styles at play in the telling of Flaubert’s Parrot. First, an most obviously, is the fictional/factual biography of Flaubert. Then there is a “Dear Diary” approach to a literacy criticism of Flaubert’s work. The writing is sparse and humorous.

Flaubert’s Parrot had a few zingers that I liked: “Why does the writing make us chase the writer?” (p 12), I warned him of the dangerous tendency in this species to posthumously parthenogenesis” (p 22), and “Some people have a tender heart and a tough mind” (p 34).

Author Fact: Julian Barnes has a FaceBook page. Of course he does.

Book Trivia: Flaubert’s Parrot had two Booker Prize nominations.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Parrots” (p 183). Go figure.

Another Song About the King

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Stern, Kathryn. Another Song About the King. New York: Random House, 2000.

Silvie Page has the kind of mother we all dread having. The kind of mother we probably already have memories of. The kind of mother that loves us to death. Outwardly appearing to have our best interests in mind but really are so caught up in themselves that their intentions are inwardly mean and controlling. Best friends forever as a way to minimize and manipulate. Silvie’s mother, Mimi, is just that woman. When Silvie was a child it was in the way Mimi wanted Silvie to be just like her, only just not as pretty or talented.  It’s in the way she phones an adult Silvie (with a calling code that meant she should pick up no matter what) only to say ‘wear red on your first day on the job.’ All of Silvie’s life her mother has kept her in emotional limbo – one minute loving and sweet, the next competitive and conniving. Silvie tries different tactics to “escape” her mother’s grasp, starting with changing how she addresses her mother from mom to Mimi, as a way to distance herself from a blood relation. Throughout Sylvie’s life there is another shadow that looms just as large. Elvis. Mimi has an ongoing obsession with a date she had with Elvis when she was 16. It is her worst kept secret, one that in times of stress, she hauls out and elaborates on until finally the lie is bigger than the truth. She even has blue suede shoes and a crimson cape to illustrate her never-wavering loyalty to the king.
There is so much more to Another Song About the King than meets the eye. Beyond a complicated mother-daughter relationship there is an element of self-discovery and forgiveness. I couldn’t put it down.

Lines that snagged me: “I was successful in the womb – obedient and nimble, turning somersaults in those jelly seas of color and sleep” (p 9), “I’d come to lose my mother and find myself, to put some distance between her dreams and mine” (p 24), and, “But, I was sure I would lose, and winning, I knew in my bones, would raise the stakes with my mother in a game I didn’t want to play” (p 81). There were many, many more tantalizing lines, but I’ll let you find them.

Author Fact: Another Song About the King is Kathryn Stern’s first novel.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Elvis On My Mind ” (p 78).

Citizen Soldiers

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Ambrose, Stephen E. Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army From the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 -May 7, 1945. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Stephen Ambrose has the uncanny ability to take you back in time. His words pick you up and carry you hook, line and sinker, back to June 7, 1944 and forward through the great and terrible World War II. However, Citizen Soldiers is not a dry account of strategic war maneuvers. It is not a blah blah blah play by play of how Germany’s armies moved along the western/eastern slope while the Allies pushed further north or south. Those things did happen but Citizen Solders is more than that. It’s as if you have been dropped in the middle of hand to hand skirmishes or have the ability to eavesdrop on Hitler’s frequent phone arguments with a subordinate. You get to know people, places and events as if you are talking to the soldiers themselves, dodging bullets in the snow-covered country side, and witnesses skirmishes first hand. For once, the photographs and maps included do not make the storytelling vivid, they only enhance the words.

The version I read included an afterword where Ambrose talks about the reactions he has received upon publishing Citizen Soldiers. To me, this afterword was humble and gracious and yet, had an air of protective authority.

Things that made me go hmmmm. Little reminders that WWI and WWII were not really that far off. For example,  “There [Stoob] discovered that he had been wounded in the same small French village as had his father in 1914 – also in the head and leg” (p 111). There were also moments of humor: “Cooper examined the wreckage in the train and was surprised to find that invaluable space had been taken up with women’s lingerie, lipstick, and perfume, instead of desperately needed ammunition and food. “The Germans apparently had done a good job of looting all the boutiques in Paris when they pulled out”” (p 112), and “In Paris the whores put away their English language phrase books and retrieved their German versions” (p 205).

Author fact: Stephen Ambrose was born in the month of January, hence the reading of this book at this time.

Book Trivia: Citizen Soldiers was a New York Times bestseller.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Nonfiction” (p 253).

I, Robot

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Asimov, Isaac. I, Robot. New York: Del Rey, 1950

I Robot is a series of science fiction short stories that are linked together by the introduction. Dr. Susan Calvin is being interviewed about her career with U.S. Robot and Mechanical Men, Inc. The short stories are her memories of different cases involving robots. For example, Gloria is an eight year old child who was brought up with a robot as a protector and playmate, until her mother decided the relationship wasn’t “normal” and had the robot sent away. A reoccurring theme in all stories is the “three laws of robotics: #1 – A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. #2 – A robot must obey orders given by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. #3 – A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second law.” My favorite story was a catch-22 of the laws. In the story ‘Liar’ a robot named Herbie could read human minds. In following the three laws of robotics he would tell people what they wanted to hear to avoid hurting their feelings. When cornered by the laws Herbie was trapped. He couldn’t answer questions that would lead to hurting the humans and yet he couldn’t avoid answering their questions because that would hurt them as well.

Favorite lines: “‘It’s about time you got the red tape out of your pants and went to work'” (p 65), and “He had once jumped out of the window of a burning house dressed only in shorts and the “Handbook.” In a pinch, he would have skipped the shorts” (p 66).

Author Fact: Asimov has published books in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal system – all but in the 100s (philosophy and psychology). But, here’s the interesting thing: Asimov wrote a forward in a book classified in the 100s so he really has published in all ten of the major categories of the Dewey Decimal system! Other facts about Asimov are he was born on January 2, 1920 and he was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University.

Book Trivia: I, Robot was the inspiration for two movies. One starring Robin Williams (‘Bicentennial Main’) and one of the same name starring Will Smith.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Mechanical Men, Robots, Automatons, and Deep Blue” (p 151). Obviously.

Two in the Far North

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Murie, Margaret E. Two in the Far North. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962.

Murie starts her first book, Two in the Far North with a look back at her first visit to Alaska when she was nine years old in the year 1911. The writing is full of exuberance and excitement. Her enthusiasm oozes from the pages and offers a unique perspective on the birth of an Alaskan frontier town from a child’s point of view. As she grows into an adult and returns from college the emphasis shifts to marriage (1924) and following her biologist husband as he does field research in the untamed parts of her beloved Alaska. On each expedition you can tell she never loses that joy from exploring everything that makes Alaska unique. (I can’t even tell you how many times she uses the word ‘happy’ to describe everyone and everything around her.) Murie’s chronicle of life in the Alaskan wilderness is honest and passionate from start to finish.

Favorite lines, “There was one wonderful spring when people had to move out of  their houses on Front Street, and rowboats were the thing, but this was fun only for the children” (p 54), “A rocking chair and a bed with springs are to be enjoyed whenever met” (p 210), and “If man does not destroy himself through his idolatry of the machine, he may learn one day tp step gently on his earth” (p 357).

Favorite Murie illustrations: p 167, p 195, and p201.

Author Fact: Margaret Murie had so many interesting facts about her I couldn’t chose just one. For starters, she lived to be 101! She studied at Simmons College in Boston for a short time (one year). There is a movie about her life called “Arctic Dance.”

Book Trivia: Two in the Far North is Murie’s first book and it is illustrated by her husband, Olaus.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Alaska” (p 17). Duh.

King of the World

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Remnick, David. King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. New York: Random House, 1998.

I realize David Remnick needed to set the scene, to establish the boxing backdrop in order for Cassius Clay’s story to be fully appreciated, but in my opinion three whole chapters equaling 68 pages was too much pre-story information. There was too much detail about the Floyd Patterson/Sonny Liston rivalry. To be fair, the long introduction established the dangerous culture of the mafia-driven boxing world before Cassius Clay entered it and how lucky he was to escape it. It clearly illustrated the mold Cassius Clay was about to break while simultaneously solidifying Liston and Clay’s animosity towards one another. I just wish it didn’t take three chapters to do it.

I think the entire story of Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali can be summed up by one sentence late in the prologue, “He hit people for a living, and yet by middle age he would be a symbol not merely of courage, but of love, of decency, even a kind of wisdom” (p xvi). It is true Ali started out as a loud-mouthed, egotistical, “pretty” kid who could back up his bravado with a mean left hook. He hid his emotions under constant chatter. But, by the time the heart of Remnick’s biography leaves the story of Cassius Clay, Clay had barely become Muhammad Ali, had just beaten Sonny Liston in a November 22, 1965 fight to defend his heavyweight title, and was on the cusp of being a cultural icon. He had yet to sway the country as a force to be reckoned with. He would not become the beloved everyone thinks of today. It’s as if Remnick needs to write a King of the World: Part II and tell the rest of the story.

Line I liked: “The doctors of Maine may have been accustomed to a relatively low level of fitness” (p 250).

One of the coolest things about King of the World was learning that Ali trained in Chicopee Falls, MA and that his second bout with Liston happened in Lewiston, Maine. I had fun researching the Schine family and the different hotels they owned (including one in Northampton that is still in operation today). An inside joke – Robert Goulet sang the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ before the Ali/Liston fight. He couldn’t remember the words nor could he hear the orchestra! Glouleeeet!

Author Fact: David Remnick is a member of the New York Public Library Board of Trustees. He was born in Hackensack, New Jersey (one of my old stomping grounds), is fluent in Russian and has won a Pulitzer Prize,

Book Trivia: One of the best things about King of the World is the photo layout. Instead of having the traditional group of photographs clumped in the middle of the book Remnick’s photos are spread throughout the book, making each section a little present.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Dewey Deconstruction: 700s” (p 74).

Cruddy

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Barry, Lynda. Cruddy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

From the very first pages you want to know what this Cruddy book is all about. First, you are introduced to sixteen year old Roberta Rohbeson via her bizarre suicide note. Then, hoping to shed some light on the situation, you read chapter one which is only seven sentences long which says nothing about anything. Then you encounter chapter two and read the word “Cruddy” nineteen times in the first paragraph. Funky, funky, funky was all I could say. I was not prepared for what happened next. Little did I know I would end up saying sick, sick, sick by the end of the book.

Cruddy is told from the perspective of Roberta Rohbeson at two different times in her life; as an eleven year old troubled little girl and as a sixteen year old angry teenager. Her story is tough and tragic and tinged with terrible humor. As an eleven year old she is thrust into the raging, alcohol-blurred world of her father who refuses to see her as his daughter. Instead, Roberta is not only his son, called Clyde, but his accomplice. When he discovers her in the backseat of his getaway car he takes her on a murderous journey across the desert fueled by hatred for his suicide-dead father who left him nothing.
As a sixteen year old Roberta is strung out on drugs and driven by abandonment. She befriends a group of outcast suicidal drug dealers who do nothing but fuel her craziness. One boy in particular, Turtle, gets Roberta to tell her sad tale.

This was a book I found myself wondering about long after I put it down. Was Roberta modeled after anyone Lynda knew? Where did she come up with such a violent, messed up plot? What was the acceptable age range for this book? Would parents cringe if they knew their kid was reading this under the covers late at night?

Lines that got me: Roberta’s father’s motto: “Expect the Unexpected and whenever possible BE the Unexpected!” (p 142), “He was explaining how perfect it would be because he could kill me right in the concrete ditch itself and when the water came it would gush me and all the evidence away” (p 163), and my personal favorite, “There is a certain spreading blankness that covers the mind after you kill someone” (p 273).

Author Fact: Lynda Barry was born on January 2nd, 1956 and is a cartoonist (among many other things).

Book Trivia: This was called a novel in illustration but only the start of each chapter has an illustration (creepy illustration).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lustand More Book Lust . From Book Lust in the chapter called “Graphic Novels” (p 104), even though Cruddy isn’t a graphic novel. Also in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Teenage Times” (p 217). What Pearl should have called the category for this book was “Fukced up Teenage Times.”
Book Lust trivia – Lynda Barry and Cruddy were not mentioned in the index to Book Lust. In fact, only One! Hundred! Demons! made it into Book Lust’s index.

Breath, Eyes, Memory

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Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1994.

Breath, Eyes, Memory is the  type of story that sucks you in deep. Like tar pit, quicksand deep. From the moment I started reading I didn’t want to put it down. It was the first book I picked up in the morning and the last book I put down at night for three days straight. I stood in line at the grocery store, pumping gas, and waiting in my doctor’s waiting room with Breath, Eyes, Memory in hand.
Edwidge Danticat does an amazing job blending the culture of Haiti with the culture of family with the dynamics of women intertwined. Breath, Eyes, Memory is the story of four generations of Haitian women. Sophie is at the center. As a new mother she is learning from her mother, grandmother and aunt what it means to be protective and watchful of her young daughter while daring to shrug off disturbing traditions that haunt all the women in her family. This is not a story for the faint of heart. While the harsh realities of Haiti’s Tonton Macoute are barely mentioned they are the root of Sophie’s mother’s nightmares. There is murder, cancer, mental illness, bulemia, abuse and even suicide to contend with within the pages of Breath, Eyes, Memory. In the end there is a certain kind of peace that only comes from a letting go.

One of the harder details to discern was Sophie’s age throughout the story. The timeline is a little abstract. She starts out as 12 years old but the reader only learns that after she has turned 18 and says she had been away from Haiti for six years. From there it becomes a little hazy again. Sophie admits it has been two years since she had last seen her mother, but how old she was when she left isn’t entirely clear. By the end of the story one can assume Sophie is 21-22 years old.

Favorite lines: “If I had the power then to shrink myself and slip into the envelope, I would have done it” (p 50), “He looked like the kind o fman who could buy a girl a meal without asking for her bra in return” (p 68), “You do not have to name something to make it yours” (p 136), and probably the most poignant line in the whole entire book, “It was up to me to make sure that my daughter never slept with ghosts, never lived with nightmares, and never had her name burnt in the flames” (203). For what Sophie means by that you will just have to read the book!

Author Fact: Ms. Danticat was born in Port-au-Prince and my birthday is exactly thirteen days later than Ms. Danticat’s.

Book Trivia: Oprah chose Breath, Eyes, Memory for her book club. I wonder just how much that boosted book sales.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “The Contradictory Caribbean: Paradise and Pain” ( p 55).