Tag: september

World According to Garp

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Irving, John. The World According to Garp. New York: Pocket Books, 1976.

I must have first read this in high school. The only reason why I say that is because I wrote “Ben is weird” on the inside cover. The language suggests I was young and bratty but more telling is the name Ben. I only know one Ben well enough to call him weird and he was a classmate in high school. I also drew my interpretation of Monhegan Island, complete with a lobster trap and buoy. I wonder what my teenage self thought of The World According to Garp? Here’s what I thought of it over 20 years later:

The World According to Garp is a best seller written by John Irving and first published in the mid 1970s. I found it to be extremely entertaining and at times downright disturbing.
The story spans the life of T.S. Garp and the people around him. There are three reoccurring themes throughout the book: sex, writing, and tragic relationships. From the very beginning sex is very prominent. Garp’s mother impregnates herself with the help of a brain-dead, dying soldier only known as Technical Sergeant Garp. She has always wanted to be a mother but not a wife. Her child, named T.S. Garp after the soldier, grows up to be very preoccupied with sex and as a result adultery also becomes a strong theme later in the book. As Garp comes of age his mother becomes a literary feminist, writing a best selling autobiography about her life called A Sexual Suspect. This influences Garp to become a writer with some success as well. He marries his childhood crush and goes on to have three children with her. Throughout the entire plot the dynamics of awkward yet tragic relationships is prominent. Among the most interesting characters are Ellen, Robert(a), and Michaal. Ellen James is a young girl who was raped and had her tongue removed. Her tragedy prompted other women to cut out their own tongues and call themselves “Ellen Jamesians.” Roberta Muldoon is a transsexual who used to be a football player for the Philadelphia Eagles. Michael Milton is a love interest of Garp’s wife who has an unfortunate accident when his car meets Garp’s Volvo at a high rate of speed.

Favorite lines: “They were involved in that awkward procedure of getting to know each other” (p 4), “If she is to be a whore, let her at least be clean and well shod” (p 14), and “Children…have some instinct for separating their parents when the parents ought to be separated” (p 359).

Author Fact: The World According to Garp has autobiographical elements. Irving grew up on an all-boys school campus and his father was a soldier killed in battle.

Book Trivia: The World According to Garp was made into a movie in 1982 starring Robin Williams, John Lithgow and Glenn Close. It has a Hollywood ending, happier than the book…of course.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Growing Writers” (p 107).

September ’11 is…

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September 2011 will be a mess. I guarantee it.  A complete and utter debacle. For starters, the data migration I blathered about back in June didn’t happen on schedule. In fact, it hasn’t happened at all. Fingers crossed, though. It is set for October. But! But. but, that just means I continue to be without borrowing capabilities because I still to refuse to get a public library card. At least I can admit that it’s because I’m lazy. I don’t feel like driving to the public branch when many ( I need to stress many, many) of the books on my challenge list are either in my own workplace library OR sitting on my shelves at home. I don’t need to reach outside of my resources to find a read. But what this does mean (in terms of planning a list of books to read each month) is that it hasn’t been easy. I let my state of mind dictate what comes next or not. It’s chaotic and more than a little crappy. If I don’t feel like reading The Trial I won’t. It’s as simple as that.

So to spend a long time explaining a very simple thing, I don’t have an expected read list for September 2011. There. I said it. I know this much is true: I want to read something nonfiction since I neglected the didactic last month. I do know that I want to reread The World According to Garp by John Irving. I plan to Let Go of some titles I have been meaning to read; to just admit I don’t want to read them at all (The Compleat Angler being one of them). I have been selected to receive another Early Review book from LibraryThing. If it arrives in September I’ll add it to the list. I’m kind of excited because it’s about football. It would be great to read it in honor of the NFL’s 2011 season opening, but we’ll have to wait and see…

What else can I tell you about September? Hurricane season. Start of the Fall Semester for academics. Nights getting cooler. September is my suspicious month. I’m leery of perfect blue skies. I don’t trust the beauty of the day to not turn into something ugly. Fall means dying – this close to death. It means taking dares with yes and losing. The silver lining (as I must find one) is that September is also a chance to remember falling in love among the falling leaves. A chance to celebrate that love, if for only one day.

Report From Ground Zero

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This should have been posted sometime in September – sorry!

Smith, Dennis. Report From Ground Zero. New York: Viking, 2002.

I chose to squeeze this onto my September reading list because it matched my mood, my New York State of Mind, if you will. When you are embraced by sadness additional tragedies are easier to handle. It’s as if someone wants to throw a bucket of water on a man standing in the pouring rain. What’s a little more precipitation to an already drowning man? Bring it on.

The first thing you notice about Report From Ground Zero is how stark it is. My copy didn’t have publisher or copyright information. It was if my version was a rough draft, a real report from bowels of hell. It disturbed me and I can’t tell you why.

Dennis Smith asks the question everyone can answer even nine years later, “where were you on September 11, 2001?” In Report From Ground Zero Smith asks key rescue personnel to recount the moments directly after seeing, hearing, or learning of the attack on the World Trade Center towers in Lower Manhattan. He calls each story a testimony. Smith starts by giving his own account which amounts to a litany of questions surrounding logistics and survival. As a retired New York City firefighter he anticipates the magnitude of destruction and ponders the challenges surrounding survival with great concern. As each rescue worker recounts that fateful, awful day a pattern starts to emerge. Initial disbelief turns into a sense of determination as the magnitude of destruction is fully realized. Every single response was to roll up the shirts sleeves, harden the jaw and with single minded pure grit get to work. After the dust has literally and figuratively settled other shared memories come to mind – how deathly quiet and dark everything became after the towers fell; how surreal the landscape. Like nothing they had even seen before or since.
While the first half of the book contains the powerful testimony of others around him, the second half of Report From Ground Zero is Smith’s diary of the aftermath of 9/11. It isn’t as emotional as the first half of the book, but sheds critical light on one man’s determination to document just how tireless and faithful those rescue personnel searched to rescue fellow officers and even family.

Favorite lines: “I am attached to the television as if every friend I had is about to cross the screen” (p 6). I think we were all that way, for days to come.
Another one: “There is no reason why I’m alive and anyone else is dead” (p 32). Words remembered by Deputy Chief Pete Hayden.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, simply ” 9/11″ (p 171).

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).

View From Pompey’s Head

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Basso, Hamilton. View From Pompey’s Head. New York: Doubleday, 1954.

For the longest time I pictured someone standing on someone else’s head whenever I read the title of this book. I figured whoever Pompey was he must have had one hell of a headache. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Pompey’s Head as a place, but southernly speaking that makes sense. South Carolina has Hilton Head. Georgia has Pompey’s Head or so Hamilton Basso has created it.

View From Pompey’s Head was a best seller and made into a movie the year after it was published. It’s smart and sexy with enough drama to make it interesting on the big screen. Anson is a stuck-in-a-rut lawyer in New York City. Married with a family he is trying to make his way in the big city despite being a small-town southern boy who hasn’t been home in 15 years. It’s not that he was running away from Old Pompey, Georgia – but trying to outgrow it. That’s his story on the surface, anyway.
Through a series of coincidences Anson has a work assignment that returns him to his old stomping grounds. A client of his law firm is being sued for embezzlement. Royalties from an author have gone missing. It looks bad for the firm because the client is dead and can’t defend himself and what is worse, all evidence points to his guilt. Anson, having ties to the author’s remote hometown, is picked to try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

I think it’s important to mention first that View from Pompey’s Head was a best seller and was made into a now hard-to-find movie.

BookLust Twist: In Book Lust twice. Once in the chapter called, “Hamilton Basso: Too Good to Miss” (p 33 & 34), and once in “Southern Fiction” (p 222). Yes, I read two from this category. Sue me.

Native Son

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I don’t know what my problem is. As if September isn’t hard enough I have to go and read a series of really depressing books. First I read Out of the Blue by Richard Bernstein – about the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Then I read The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough- about the tragedy of May 31, 1889. Then I read Off Balance by Suzanne Gordon – about the tragedy of the world of ballet. Now I have read Native Son by Richard Wright – and even though it is fiction (unlike the other books) it is still a tragedy. I just couldn’t believe the trouble main character Bigger gets himself into.

I realize the point Richard Wright is trying to make is one of social injustice and how racism can lead innocent people down the wrong path. I realize there is a sociological lesson to be learned from Native Son. Bigger Thomas is portrayed as a 21 year old African American sent out to work for the white man so that his mother and younger siblings have a place to live. With the 1930s as the backdrop it is portrayed that the African American man of that era has a choice – either be a church-going, loyal and submissive type, or a jaded, violent, hardened criminal type. There is no chance for anything in between. Yet, Bigger tries. He is constantly trying. Unfortunately, he is haunted by a paranoid hatred of white people. His fear that they are always out to “get him” gets him in touble time and time again. He is constantly thinking the worst of everyone around him and that causes him to make terrible decisions. There is rape, murder and the death penalty in this book.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “100 Good Reads by Decade: 1940s” (p 177).

Student of Weather

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Hay, Elizabeth. A Student of Weather. Washington D.C.: Counterpoint, 2000.

A Student of Weather is a car without brakes. No. A Student of Weather is a car without brakes set at the top of a very tall hill. No. A Student of Weather is a car without brakes set at the top of a very tall hill…and someone gives it a push. This is what is was like to read Elizabeth Hay’s first novel. It started off easy enough, slow enough, gentle enough, harmless enough. Then, without any warning at all it is careening crazily almost out of control. Impossible to stop. Stopping the read proved impossible, too. I seriously couldn’t put it down.

As mentioned before, the story starts out simply. Maurice Dove is a researcher, come to study the weather of Saskatchewan. He stays with the Hardy family – Ernest and his two daughters Lucinda and Norma-Joyce. Both daughters, despite being very young, fall in love with Mr. Dove. From there, simplicity comes to a halt.  A Student of Weather is a novel full of contrasting themes. While Lucinda is fair-haired, beautiful and virtuous Norma-Joyce is dark-haired, impulsive and outspoken. While both sisters find ways to fall in love with their visitor, both also find ways to hate each other. Even the landscapes within the story are contrasting. Norma-Joyce’s childhood prairie home cannot compare to the bustling city of her adulthood, New York City. As time progresses and Norma-Jean grows to be a woman with a child of her own, even her child is a conflicted in personality – both shy and loud simultaneously.

On the surface this seems like a love story – two sisters vying for the affections of a traveling man who loves neither of them. Digging deeper it is a story of betrayal and survival. It is the story of pain and loss and the idea that not every broken heart gets mended.

There were many, many, many favorite lines. Here are some of the best:
“Had she been able to , she would have kept the water he washed in, the skin that flaked away, the warm breath that hovered in the cold air above his head, his footprints in the snow” (p 96). I love how each item becomes something less obtainable. Had I written the line I would have reversed the order of the last two items.
“Maybe that’s all anyone wants in the end, to be remembered rather than overlooked’ (p 112). Simple line, but I loved it.
“She understood that you can pass from summer to winter in someone’s mind without even leaving the room” (p 172). Tragically beautiful. Been there, but who hasn’t?
“But returning is never easy, and nor is September” (p 283). Since I can add a car accident and a death to September sadness, I agree. Completely.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in two different chapters. In ” Canadian Fiction” (p 50) and again in “First Novels” (p88).

Sarah Canary

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Fowler, Karen Joy. Sarah Canary. New York: Plume Book, 2004.

In a word – fascinating. On the first day reading this book I got 50 pages in before I realized I had only wanted to read the first chapter. I wanted to get my toes wet – not jump all the way in. From the moment Sarah Canary begins there is nonstop action in the most surreal way. The entire book is written like a mystery. For starters, there are the poems of Emily Dickinson at the beginning of each chapter. They are not there for show. Each poem serves as a clue to the storyline. Then, there is the structure of the story itself. Fowler writes in such a lyrical manner that it was easy to want to quote the entire book: “Chin was a small ant, picking his way over the melodic body of the world” (p 12), for example. Another aspect of Sarah Canary I enjoyed is the idea that every main character is an outcast of sorts. It is interesting to try to discover the peculiarity of each character. It becomes easy to do because character development throughout the story is strong. Sarah Canary is not without humor, as well: “Dr. Carr would have liked to see the insane on horseback, too…but he tried to deal in realities” (p 38).
It all begins when a strange woman wanders into Chin Ah Kin’s railroad camp. She is dirty and wild-looking and speaking in a series of chirps, clicks, grunts and sighs. As a white woman she is an unwelcome sight in a Chinese labor camp. Chin unwillingly becomes responsible for taking her back, but back to where is unknown. Along the way Chin and the wild woman (nicknamed Sarah Canary because of her sing-song noises) encounter different people who, in their own inexplicable way, are drawn to Sarah and develop an overwhelming desire to become attached to her for one reason or another.

Some of the many, many quotes I enjoyed: “His heart refused to  return to his chest” (p 15), “If you let go for an instant, your soul would fly to it. If you could walk inside that combination of light and ice, its beauty would blind you” (p 32), and “Chin was stabbed with the sharp edges of homesickness” (p 245).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Real Characters” (p 197). Pearl called this a book people either loved or hated…sorta like cilantro.

ps ~ I enjoyed Sarah Canary so much that I added Karen Joy Fowler as a favorite author on LibraryThing.