Tag: book review

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

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Franklin, Tom. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. New York: William Morrow, 2010.

Confession: I couldn’t put this down. A friend from Germany was in town, someone I hadn’t seen in almost three years and all I wanted to do was read Crooked Letter. I don’t normally want to ignore friends!

Crooked Letter takes place in rural Mississippi bouncing between the early 1970s and the late 2000s. From the very first sentence you are pulled into something sinister. Hints of evil lurk between the lines. Larry Ott has always been strange. A social outcast since grade school Larry pulls outrageous stunts, desperate to be noticed; bringing snakes to school, scaring girls with a grotesque Halloween mask. When a pretty high school classmate disappears Larry is suspected of murder. Unbelievably, he is the last person to be seen with her. While her body was never found and Larry’s guilt couldn’t be proven, he remained the town’s only suspect. Fast forward 25 years and another pretty young girl has gone missing. When she is found, raped and murdered, on Larry’s property it seems like an open and shut case. Except, Larry has a silent almost forgotten ally – Silas “32” Jones, a former classmate and one-time secret friend. Secret because in 1970s deep south Mississippi pockets of racism were more than alive and well. It wasn’t acceptable for white Larry to be seen with black Silas. As Chabot, Mississippi’s only constable Silas sets out to learn the truth, even if it means digging up the ugly past. Tom Franklin is very thorough with descriptions of each character’s personal life . You are pulled into Larry Ott’s mechanic shop and can smell the grease just as easily as riding along with Constable Silas Jones as he works his investigation. This is a story first and foremost about friendship and guilt and forgiveness. It is also a story about the harsh realities of racism and poverty and the scars that run deep.

I only found one bothersome discrepancy. Larry Ott is described as 41 years old. Miss Voncille is described as a woman in her “early 50s.”  That would mean at the very minimum there is a ten-year age difference between Larry and Voncille. But because they both attended the same high school Constable Silas asked Voncille if she knew Larry. Here’s the thing –  Larry would have been a toddler when Voncille started high school. If their ages had been reversed it would have allowed for the “legend” of Larry and his weirdness to be played up – Voncille could have heard stories of Larry despite the fact he graduated ten years ahead of Voncille.

In a way I could relate to Larry, especially his obsession with books. His father didn’t want him “wasting” the day by reading either.

Best line I hope is kept, “When he left, Larry lay amid his machines, thinking of Silas, how time packs new years over the old ones but how those old years are still in there, like the earliest, tightest rings centering a tree, the most hidden, enclosed in darkness and shielded from the weather” (p 251).

Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape

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De Waal, Frans. Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape. Berkley: University of California Press, 1997.

Not to be snide or anything but how can you forget the ape when you didn’t know the ape? Everyone lumped Bonobo apes with Chimpanzees because they seemed more similar than different. They weren’t forgotten, just misunderstood. de Waal goes to great lengths to compare and contrast the distinctions between the two primates.

From the very beginning you learn that Bonobo apes are different from any other kind of primate with the description, “female-centered, egalitarian primate species that substitutes sex for aggression” (p 4). The sexuality of this species is very much celebrated and discussed. So much so that the sexuality of Bonobos is argued to be a window to the aspects of human sexuality. But sex is not the only discussion worth having about Bonobos. There is social life, a political life, a family life worth exploring. But, what makes Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape so appealing is its photography. Big, glossy “coffee-table book” pages illustrate the allure of these primates. Their facial expressions, family values and even their sexuality is on display in eight different photo essays.

Favorite quote: isn’t really a quote at all. It’s an illustration of the hands and feet of primates and man (p 27).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Our Primates, Ourselves” (p 180). Bonobo was forgotten in the index yet de Waal’s name wasn’t. Interesting.

Last Time They Met

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Shreve, Anita. The Last Time They Met. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2001.

The story, divided into three parts, starts from the perspective of Linda Fallon at 52 years old. Widowed with two adult children Linda is a poet with a complicated past. Her tangled history is confronted when she encounters her former lover, Thomas Janes, at a literary festival. Thomas, also a poet, has gone on to become a legend of sorts after the drowning death of his young daughter drove him into seclusion. What the reader learns in Part I is that Linda and Thomas started a romance in highschool that ended badly.  Part II is from Thomas Janes’s perspective in Africa 25 years earlier than the festival. Linda, then 27, has married and is working for the Peace Corps when Thomas, also married, encounters her in an African marketplace. The fuzzy details of their teenage romance hinted at in Part I become a little more defined in Part II. The reader discovers a terrible accident allowed overly protective adults to separate the young highschool lovers and effectively dismantle their relationship by putting distance (and silence) between them. Part III is ten years prior to Africa. Thomas and Linda are 17 and in highschool. This final section brings the entire sage full circle. In all honesty my favorite way to read The Last Time They Met is front to back and then again, this time back to front. The tiniest of details become glittering and sharp when exposed by more supporting story.

Confession: this is a reread. As a rule, I have tried to read everything by Anita Shreve. She is definitely one of my favorite authors. Here’s the weird thing about rereading The Last Time They Met. I am remembering a scene that should have been in this book or at least I thought was in this book and there is another part to the story that sounds like something I read somewhere else. Confused? I know. I shouldn’t have said anything.

Favorite lines (and there are a few, bear with me), “The spirit sought and found the work, and discontent began when it could not” (p 5), “Thomas watched her walk away, all the blood in his veins following her” (p 125), and, “What’s imagined always worse than what is” (p 308).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Tricky, Tricky” (p 222). Pearl lists a few books that play tricks on you. In honor of Halloween I read The Last Time They Met.

Ways of Seeing

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Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972.

My copy of Ways of Seeing arrived battered and falling apart. That coupled with the fact it is clearly a product of the 1970s gave the book a tired, worn out appearance. I thought of it as cheap and flimsy as well, given it is only 154 pages long and mostly illustrations and photographs at that. So, my way of seeing the book was definitely influenced by age, condition and size. Interesting. That, in a nutshell, is the premise of Ways of Seeing. Coming from a Marxist way of thinking John Berger provokes thought with the art he has chosen for his book. For example one can either be offended or intrigued by his chapter on women depicted in art. Because the chapter is lacking text the reader is on his/her own to process what the art is (or isn’t) trying to convey.

Another interesting thing to note is this book is the first example of a book made from a television series. In my mind, when questioning the “which came first?” it is always the book before the screen no matter what the size – television or movie.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Art appreciation” (p 25).

Messiah

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Vidal, Gore. Messiah. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1954.

John Cave, as a professional embalmer, is intimate with death. While working on a client he has an epiphany of sorts. Suddenly he has deemed the act of dying a good thing. Cave is so taken with this revelation that he must share his idea with as many people as possible and without warning a new religion is born. His followers call it “Cave’s Word” or Cavesword. It’s strongest message is death is to be welcomed. As Cavesword spreads Cave establishes a following so large he needs a team to promote and protect him. Closest to him is Iris Mortimer, Paul Himmell, Clarissa Lessing, and Eugene Luther. Each individual has a different purpose for being part of Cave’s inner circle. It’s Eugene Luther who narrates the story of John Cave. With the help of Cave’s inner circle he develops and promotes a product to go with his message. Cavesway is a drug taken to make death even easier to initiate. As the world’s suicide rate rises, thanks to Cavesway, Luther’s perception of Cave and the cult-like message starts to distort and crumble. Messiah is prophetic and mesmerizing. I thought of it as “a hideous evil you can’t tear your eyes from.”

Favorite lines, “Stars fell to earth in a blaze of light, and where they fell, monsters were born, hideous and blind” (p 4). How’s that for a start? Other lines I liked, “The sky that day was like an idiot’s mind, wild with odd clouds, but lovely too, guileless, natural, elusive” (p 13), and, “We’ve finally made dying simply swell” (p 95), and finally, “Any direct statement of personal innocence has always made me feel completely criminal” (p 140). The last quote is probably my favorite.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Gore Vidal’s Historical Novels: Too Good To Miss” (p 237). Obviously, Messiah is not a historical novel like Burr or Lincoln. Pearl threw it in the chapter as a personal favorite.

Poison Oracle

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Dickinson, Peter. The Poison Oracle. New York: Pantheon Books, 1974.

What an easy premise: a murder is committed and only an animal witnessed the crime. The reader knows from the beginning, well in advance there will be murders. At least two of them. There are frequent reminders to these crimes throughout the book if only to keep the upcoming events in place and anticipated. The story centers around Dr. Wesley Naboth Morris. He is a zoo keeper who speaks Japanese; tutors his Oxford classmate’s son, an Arab prince in English and is, by trade, a psycholinguist. His side project is working with Dinah, a chimapanzee, to determine if primates can learn coherent sentences using plastic symbols. It is Dinah who witnesses the promised murders. The story begins with an interesting twist when a Japanese airliner is hijacked and makes an emergency landing at the Sultan’s palace. To further complicate The Poison Oracle the Sultan’s palace is surrounded by the Swampmen. Living in the swamps these tribes are outsiders to the palace. They are different from the community of Arabs that border their swamp – divided by skin color, culture, and most obvious of course, language. Some end up as servants in the palace but most are misunderstood and feared to be evil. The Poison Oracle is a story about language but it is also a story about oil. The Arabs believe there is oil in the marshland. A war with the marshmen would drive their tribes out. Dr. Morris has the thankless task of trying to solve the mystery of the murders, but also acting communicator with the marshmen.

Favorite line, “To connect cause with effect is to drive out fear” (p 117). It is funny how I connected with this line because cause and effect are the last three words of the book.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Animal Love” (p 14).

Heartbreak Hotel

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Siddons, Anne Rivers. Heartbreak Hotel. New York: Pocket Star Books, 2004.

Margaret Deloach (Maggie to her friends) is a good girl, a good, smart Southern girl who has everything going for her. She is popular and beautiful, a sister in the Kappa sorority and pinned to the ever handsome Boots Claiborne. Much is made of Maggie’s looks, her clothing, her sense of style. It isn’t until Maggie meets Hoyt Cunningham, a childhood friend of Boot’s, that Maggie’s moral compass and intelligence is exposed and challenged. Everything comes to a head when Maggie witnesses the brutal recapture of a black inmate from the county jail in Boot’s hometown. What makes this story so interesting is Heartbreak Hotel is a coming of age story set in the Civil Rights era South. It is lush with description, brimming with trouble. It is easy to see why it was a New York Times best seller.

While Maggie is admirable throughout the entire saga of Heartbreak Hotel I did have one small question. *Spoiler Alert* Maggie writes an opinion piece about segregation in Alabama. It coincides with the entrance of the state university’s first black student so racist tensions are already running high. Maggie’s piece strikes out at her finance’s family and the only way of life they had ever known for generations and generations. My question is this, how in the world did Maggie think she could write a front page article criticizing Boots and still have him as her husband? There is one scene that I find Maggie’s character to be completely unbelievable. Maggie’s column has made the front page only Boots hasn’t seen it yet. He has been away for a family funeral. When he returns they go to his fraternity for a party where Maggie is hopeful no one will mention the article to him. She even thinks she has a chance to tell him about it and “have a laugh over it.” I don’t know what she was thinking when everything up to that point indicates he will have a royal, violent meltdown.

Favorite lines: “And so reading remained one of Maggie’s small and constant rebellions” (p 11). I loved this line when I first read it and didn’t realize how much of a premonition it was to the tail end of the story. Another favorite line, “She passed a day in fitful, drugged sleep, in which deep snoring alternated with wild incoherent sobbings about guilt and blood and chewing gum and blonde whores and God” (138). That, my friends, is the epitome of a breakdown. Brilliant.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Southern-Fried Fiction: Alabama” (p 206). Alabama became a state in the month of December but I chose to read Heartbreak Hotel in September as another Back to School honor book. I had a few days left in the month and this book was lying around the house so I read it.

Clock Winder

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Tyler, Anne. The Clock Winder. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972.

The Clock Winder could be seen as a cautionary take about what it is like to get caught up in situations beyond one’s control. It’s about what happens when someone lets his or her guard down and becomes too involved. Elizabeth Abbott is a twenty year old drifter. Having left her North Carolina home the summer before her last year of college Elizabeth finds herself in Baltimore, Maryland where she becomes the handyman for an elderly woman. The meeting is purely by chance but everything beyond that is not. Mrs. Emerson is struggling to put away lawn furniture after firing her gardener of nearly 25 years when Elizabeth walks by and offers to help. The longer Elizabeth stays in Mrs. Emerson’s employment and becomes involved with her seven children the more complicated Elizabeth’s life becomes.The Clock Winder is what happens when people make lasting impressions. Just as Elizabeth has made an impression on the Emersons they have changed her life as well.

Favorite lines: “Oh, everything she said nowadays was attached to other things by long gluey strands, calling up other days, none of them good, touching off chords, opening doors” (p 61), and “He felt burdened by new sorrows that he regretted having invited (p 123).

My least favorite part of the book was the ending. *Spoiler alert* I was disappointed Tyler used Peter to tell the last part of the story. Peter hardly factors into the most important parts, yet it’s from his perspective that we learn Elizabeth has married Matthew, has had two children with him and is now living in Mrs. Emerson’s house. We also learn that Andrew and Elizabeth have kissed and made up despite Andrew’s previous belief that Elizabeth killed his brother…Confused yet?

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Real Characters” (p 197). Chosen for the eccentric characters within the Emerson family.

Where Bigfoot Walks

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Pyle, Robert Michael. Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995.

Where Bigfoot Walks is much more than a search for Bigfoot. It’s more than a need to discover the existence of a legend. Robert Michael Pyle was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to investigate the mesmerizing myths that bring Sasquatch to life in the minds of millions. The grant basically allowed Pyle to take a leave of absence from ordinary bill-paying work (other writing) to pursue Bigfoot’s legacy across the Dark Divide and beyond. In that time Pyle met a variety of individuals most of whom fervently believe. If you are looking for a recount of all the Bigfoot/Sasquatch/Yeti sightings in glorious detail, Where Bigfoot Walks is not the book for you. Pyle traverses the landscapes that hold the myths but his attention is more on what he can see rather than what he cannot. His lovingly vivid descriptions of birds, plants, flowers, rivers, mountains, animals, trees and grasses are tantalizing as is his equally scornful descriptions of bike tracks, logging scars, and other man-made abuses against nature. Only a couple of times were his attention to detail distracting – I didn’t need to know how many times he remarried nor did I care about his bodily functions along the trek(s).

But, there is no doubt Pyle is a skilled and entertaining author. Here are a few quotes that had my attention: “My tent was a hammock suspended between the sun and the moon, guarded by three volcanoes” (p 27), ” But unless I caught an arrow in the ass from some wannabe Robin Hood who mistook it for an elk’s rump, I was at little risk” (p 80), and “Anyone who sneers and never embraces a tree is missing out on one of the finer sensual compensations for life in a mortal body” (p 116).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Companion Reads” (p 63). I read this with Wild Life by Molly Gloss.

Optimist’s Daughter

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Welty, Eudora. The Optimist’s Daughter. New York: Random House, 1972.

Southern story broken into four distinct sections.
Part I – Laurel McKelva Hand comes from Chicago to care for her elderly father after eye surgery. Judge McKelva subsequently dies and Laurel is left to deal with her young, silly stepmother, Fay. Part I sets the tone for Laurel and Fay’s strained relationship.

Part II – Laurel and Fay bring Judge McKelva home for the wake and funeral where Laurel is heartily welcomed and supported by her friends and community. Fay’s family comes from Texas and brings out the worst in Fay. Part II illustrates southern charm and manners.

Part III – Laurel has to come to terms with her father’s new, young wife. As silly as she is, Laurel’s father adored her. Laurel also has to come to terms with the death of her mother ten years prior.

Part IV is all about Laurel’s introspective growth and acceptance of the future. The burning of her mother’s letters and the letting go of the breadboard are very significant.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in two different chapters. First, from “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade:1970s” (p 178), then in “Southern Fiction” (p 222).

PS ~ I liked knowing a little about the authors I read. It was fun to discover Welty had connections to Smith and was a Guggenheim fellow (just like Robert Michael Pyle).

Tinker Tailor

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Le Carre, John. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1975.

I have seen this book peering out at me from my parents bookcase for years and years. I was always fascinated by the title, but scared of the plot. As a teenager I could never get into spy books. I don’t think it had anything to do with being a girl because I read the Hardy Boys just as readily as Nancy Drew. I think it was the fear of spies in general. I mean, think about it – a spy is someone you think you know, but don’t. A spy is someone completely different than who they appear to be. That scares the crap out of me.

To be honest Tinker Tailor was one of the most confusing books I have ever tried to read. For starters, it’s one of those start-in-the-middle-of-the-plot books. The only successful way to catch the reader up on what has been missed is a series of flashbacks. I kept getting the flashbacks confused with the here and now. Another thing I kept getting confused was the language. le Carre has a whole series of secret words to describe the Cold War spy game. For example, a babysitter is really a bodyguard.The plot itself is really straightforward inasmuch as an espionage thriller could be. George Smiley is pulled out of retirement as a British Intelligence officer. He is recruited to uncover a Russian mole deep in the BIA’s ranks. Of course, that it the simplest, dumbed-down plot synopsis I could make. Many reviewers have called Tinker Tailor “complicated” and I would have to agree.

I did manage to find a favorite line in the 50 pages I did read, “Only food could otherwise move him so deeply” (p 23). Go figure.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Cold War Spy Fiction” (p 61).

Interesting sidenote: John le Carre is the pen name of David John Moore Cornwell.

Wild Life

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Gloss, Molly. Wild Life.New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.

I suppose I could make some wiseazz crack about my college days, but I will refrain 🙂 for your sake.

Wild Life takes place in the wilds of Oregon/Washington state in the early 1900s. Charlotte Bridger Drummond is a feisty, independent, feminist, single mother of five (all boys) who supports her children by writing dime store novels. She has a bit of an ego and flies the feminist flag a little too frequently, but has a good heart. When her housekeeper’s granddaughter goes missing in the logging hills of the Oregon/Washington border she bravely joins the search believing her strength and savvy will bring the child home. To her utter surprise Charlotte gets lost herself and must depend on a group of shy Big foot-like beasts for survival. While the overall premise of Wild Life is fascinating and the strength of Gloss’s writing is intoxicating, the mishmash of storytelling misses its mark. Interspersed between Charlotte’s tale (in the form of a diary) of her search for the missing child and her adventure with the wild ones is a third-party narrative about barely related characters, short literary quotes, science related newspaper and journal clippings, and substantial excerpts from CBD’s current in-the-works novel. Much like I wanted to see the Ya-Ya scrapbook in The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells I think Wild Life would have benefitted from a scrapbookish approach (think Nick Bantock).

I am in love with how Molly Gloss writes. Here are a few of my favorite one-liners. First, “They wrestled daily over important matters such as whose arrow came nearest to killing a particular Indian or slavering wolf, and trivial matters such as who wiped whose snot on whose trousers” (p 25). I instantly thought of Silas and Atticus. Here’s another, “There is something about a lighted room when you are standing outside it in the cold night” (p 32); and one more, “I’m a notoriously poor friend where tears are concerned” (p 54).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Companion Reads” (p 63). I’m reading Where Bigfoot Walks by Robert Michael Pyle as the companion to Wild Life.

Between Parent and Child

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Ginott, Dr. Haim G. Between Parent and Child: the Bestselling Classic That Revolutionized Parent-Child Communication. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1965.

This book starts off with the best introduction, “No parent wakes up in the morning planning to make a child’s life miserable” (p 1). As soon as I read that I knew I was in for a good read. Between Parent and Child is all about psychological perception and what you say (as a parent), how you say it, and even what you don’t say, can influence a child both at that moment and years down the road. What Dr. Ginott offers up is common sense advice about how to communicate with small children and even teenagers. His advice is no-nonsense and extremely practical. It is so straightforward it seems simple, a no-brainer, if you will. The ah-ha moment is not in what to say, it’s how to say it to avoid conveying a message you do not intend. Choosing tone as well as the right words are crucial to emotionally intelligent communication with a child. My one naysayer comment? Many, many times Dr. Ginott suggests mirroring the child’s emotion to illustrate understanding. The go-to catch phrases are “You wish you could play with Sam,” “You wish you could have ice cream for dinner,” and, “You’re angry about losing the game.” Here’s where I would get annoyed. I dislike anyone telling me how I feel. As a small child I probably would have connected with someone “understanding” me… but as a teenager I wouldn’t appreciate dad calmly regurgitated what I just angrily spit out.

I would recommend Between Parent and Child to anyone – parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers. In short, I would recommend this book to anyone who is around children of all ages. If I were planning to have a child I would also plan on reading Between Parent and Child several times over. Once while pregnant and definitely more often during my child’s formative years. Maybe even during labor just for good measure.

Favorite quote, “Often after getting angry at their parents for not listening to their argument, children will present their case in writing” (p 56). Yes, but what Dr. Ginott doesn’t mention is that after getting said missive parents often ignore it.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Babies: a Reader’s Guide” (p 30).

Moo

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Smiley, Jane. Moo. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1996.

Moo had its moments of being incredibly bogged down, sluggish even. I found myself getting bored with the wordiness of some of the chapters, as if there were too many subplots.

Moo is an agriculture university somewhere in the midwest (my guess would be Iowa). Characters range from four in-coming freshmen girls to administrative bigwigs and everyone in between. Moo is a satire that is incredibly silly in places. Superficial relationships collide and somehow become meaningful. What makes the story so interesting is the drama, the scandals, and mischief the campus seems to promote. Everyone has a secret. Everyone has someone they would either like to kill or screw. The word everyone uses to describe Moo is “wicked” and it fits.

Favorite lines: “Diane wondered if Mrs. Johnson had understood that was making her pregnant” (p 12), and Under her own version of Ivar’s signature, Mrs. Walker had, over the years, authorized the library to buy as many available databases as they could. She had actually transferred funds out of the athletic budget into the library from time to time…” (p140). Don’t I wish!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Academia: the Joke” (p 3) and again in the chapter called, “Growing Writers: (p 107).

Play Their Hearts Out

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Dohrmann, George. Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine. New York: Ballentine Books, 2010.

Play Their Hearts Out was a roller coaster of a read. Not because it had nonstop heart pounding excitement but more because some chapters moved faster than others. Like being pulled up to the crest of the ride, some moments in the book were bogged down with unnecessary detail making it long winded and rambling. Other moments, once released from over-worded detail, moved at a much faster pace and were quite enjoyable. Play Their Hearts Out is  everything you need to know (the good, the bad, and the ugliest of ugly) about AAU basketball. It is gritty and uncensored. Dohrmann had an all-access pass to the sidelines of Coach Joe Keller’s world for eight years. In that time he follows Coach Keller and his star recruit, Demetrius Walker, from middle school to major success. Orbiting the story are other key players who influence Keller like competing coaches, opposing teams, and ever present parents.

On a personal note, I found myself asking if the attitudes and actions of Coach Joe Keller seemed exaggerated because if they weren’t Dohrmann’s depiction of Mr. Keller irritated me. From Dohrmann’s writing Keller’s philosophy on recruitment and coaching seemed cutthroat and conniving – more appropriate for professional basketball than for anything considered “grassroots.” The portrayal of Joe Keller is the quintessential shark, hungry for the kill, unconventional and caustic to everyone around him. I guess greed can do that to a person, especially when there’s a big Nike or Adidas contract involved.