Books I Gave Family Members for Christmas

As I have mentioned more than once here, I do most of my holiday gift shopping in bookstores. Here is a look at what I gave some of my family members for Christmas this year. To my mother, to whom I love to give books, as she now has more time to read, and I know her taste, I gave “Someone,” by Alice McDermott; “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage,” by Ann Patchett; “Longbourn,” by Jo Baker; and “The Lowland,” by Jhumpa Lahiri. (Regular readers of this blog will note that I have posted on all four of these books within the past two months.) To one brother I gave Khaled Hosseini’s “And the Mountains Echoed,” and a vegan cookbook (he is vegan). To another brother, whose wife is Chinese and who has visited China, I gave Amy Tan’s newest novel, “The Valley of Amazement,” and -- because, like me, he loves San Francisco so much -- photographer/journalist Gary Kamiya’s “Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco.” I loved this latter book so much that I also gave it to my daughter, who also dearly loves San Francisco and now lives in "The City" again. (I will very likely buy myself a copy as well). In addition, in a nod to her two years living in and thoroughly enjoying New York City, I gave my daughter “Humans of New York,” by photographer Brandon Stanton. I gave my daughter’s fiancé, who is a lawyer for a tech company, Dave Eggers’ novel “The Circle” (about a Facebook-type company) and Mark Binelli’s “The Afterlife of an American Metropolis,” about the city of Detroit (he spent part of his childhood and adolescence in a suburb of Detroit). This is a sampling of what I gave my family; I hope I chose well, and I hope my family members will enjoy these books. My mom tells me she has already started reading "Someone," and likes it very much.

"Crazy Rich Asians," by Kevin Kwan

“Crazy Rich Asians” (Doubleday, 2013), by Kevin Kwan, is an over-the-top immersion in the world of super-rich families of Chinese heritage in Singapore (and all the other places they live, vacation, and shop – from Paris to New York to Sydney to Shanghai and elsewhere). This novel is a compelling combination of glitz and glamor, soap opera, romance, and social commentary. My motivation for reading it was dual: part of me was drawn to the frou-frou fun of it all, and another part was interested in what the novel says about social class and privilege, something I research and write about in some of my academic publications. Although it is perhaps exaggerated (but maybe not?), it also rings true, and some of my own knowledge of wealthy Chinese students at U.S. universities, such as the one where I teach, corroborates at least some of the details of the portrait of extreme affluence. But the novel is not only about huge parties, private jets, and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on designer clothing. It is also about the power of the (relatively) old families who place strict expectations on their children and grandchildren about whom they may associate with and, especially, whom they may marry. When Nick, a young professor at an American university, invites his girlfriend, another young professor of Chinese heritage, to Singapore for the summer, she has no idea of the massive wealth he comes from there, nor of the strict traditions of his family. What follows, as we meet various members of the wealthy families, is a complicated dance of intrigue, pride, secrecy, and clashes between the old and the young, the old ways and the new. The novel is fascinating, and I can assure you that you will definitely not get bored reading it.

"The Casual Vacancy," by J. K. Rowling

I have to thank my friend S. for convincing me to read J.K. Rowling’s novel for adults, “The Casual Vacancy” (Little, Brown, 2012). She knew that I was not at all interested in Rowling’s Harry Potter books, as I do not read fantasy or science fiction. She and others have told me that the Harry Potter series is different, and I should give the books a try, but I never have. So when I heard Rowling had written this adult novel, I somehow, even though I knew it wasn’t fantasy, felt (unreasonably, I know) that I would not like it. Well, S. kindly sent it to me, I started reading it, and I couldn’t put it down! The set-up is perfect for my tastes: it is the story of a small town in England, the main characters in that town, and their relationships, interchanges, and secrets. The novel is expertly plotted; the characters and their relationships are compelling, and there is something new and surprising around every corner. Some of the characters are very unlikable; some are likable or admirable or both; best of all, most of them are the usual human mix of good and bad. The children and young adolescents are particularly believable in their unpredictability and poignant in their vulnerability. Some of the stories are heartbreaking. Much of what occurs has to do with human nature, pride, politics, and perhaps most especially, social class. I was impressed. Thank you, S., for getting me to read “The Casual Vacancy”!

The Fourteen Best Books I Read in 2013

As we near the end of 2013, I offer a list of fourteen books that I especially admired, loved, and enjoyed over the past year. They are all beautifully written. Eleven are novels and three are short story collections. Two were written by the same gifted author: Hester Kaplan. Two have the same title (“Life after Life”) but are very different novels by very different writers. Most but not all of them were published in 2013. They are listed in the order that I read and posted about them on this blog. After each title, I list the date that I posted on the book. Perhaps you will find ideas for last minute holiday gifts here! 1. “I Knew You’d Be Lovely: Stories,” by Alethea Black (1/18/13). 2. “The Edge of Marriage: Stories,” by Hester Kaplan (2/5/13). 3. “The Priory,” by Dorothy Whipple (2/22/13). 4. “Songs for the Missing,” by Stewart O’Nan (3/14/13). 5. “Life after Life,” by Jill McCorkle (4/20/13). 6. “Last Friends,” by Jane Gardam (6/22/13). 7. “The Tell,” by Hester Kaplan (6/29/13). 8. “The Gardens of Kyoto,” by Kate Walbert (7/13/13). 9. “Shakespeare’s Kitchen,” by Lore Segal (7/22/13). 10. “Life after Life,” by Kate Atkinson (8/6/13). 11. “The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox,” by Maggie O’Farrell (8/24/13). 12. “The Home Jar: Stories,” by Nancy Zafris (9/8/13). 13. “The Lowland,” by Jhumpa Lahiri (10/26/13). 14. “Someone,” by Alice McDermott (11/27/13).

Please Buy Holiday Gifts at Independent Bookstores!

For those of you doing holiday shopping, please consider doing so at independent bookstores. Books are such great gifts, and we need to support our independent bookstores, the numbers of which are shrinking. I have never republished one of my blogposts before, but today -- in order to summarize reasons to patronize independent bookstores -- I reprint below my post of 2/11/10. (Although I have to note an update: nowadays some of the chains have also gone out of business, and the main competition to independent bookstores is online sellers. But the reasons for sticking with independent bookstores remain the same.) "At the risk of preaching to the converted, I urge readers to spend their money at independent bookstores rather than at the large chains or online vendors. Some of the many reasons to do so are as follows: 1. Local, independent bookstores are more individualized, often more specialized. They are attuned to their local customers and their locales. They do their own buying, rather than having a national office make decisions for the whole country. 2. Booksellers at independent bookstores are usually more knowledgeable about books. 3. Independent bookstores often have great readings and classes. It is true that some chains do as well, but the local bookstores can focus on local authors and cater to local interests. 4. Independent bookstores are more community-oriented. They often have programs that benefit local schools and other community institutions. 5. Statistics show that a much higher percentage of profits of independent bookstores goes back into the local community; profits don't go to the national corporate offices as they do with the chains. 6. Chains are often predatory, moving in very nearby to existing independent bookstores, undercutting the prices of those bookstores (because they have the corporate resources to do so), driving them out, and then sometimes raising prices again. (I have seen this happen in the area where I live; a few years back we lost the beloved A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books, here in Marin County, this way.)"

"Living to Tell," by Antonya Nelson

Antonya Nelson’s novel “Living to Tell” (Scribner Paperback Fiction, 2000) is all about family, family, family. An older couple, their three grown children, and two grandchildren all live in the house in Kansas in which the children grew up. They are slightly aware of the oddity of the situation, yet proud of being a close family, taking care of each other. But there are big cracks in the closeness. The son, Winston, the golden boy, has just gotten out of jail for driving drunk and accidentally killing his much-loved grandmother; his father can’t seem to forgive him, although he does not show his feelings overtly. The older daughter, Emily, seemingly so calm and competent, has had her walks on the wild side, but now is taking care of her two children very well without the help of her immature ex-husband. Mona, the third adult child of the family, is emotionally unstable, has attempted suicide, had an affair with her brother-in-law and now is having another unsuitable affair with another married man. The father of the three adult children, “Professor Mabie” as the retired academic is always called, struggles with missing his sick and then deceased best friend from work, Betty, along with worrying about all of his children. His wife, Mrs. Mabie, tends her family fiercely, yet has withdrawn in recent years, sometimes seeming more connected to her garden than to anything or anyone else. There are other characters too, but the core of the story is the five adults in the Mabie house. The ambivalent connections among the family members are perhaps manifested in the family name Mabie (maybe?). This is a curious family story: the family sticks together, yet sometimes does not trust each other. And Nelson dares to make the five main characters not entirely likable. The reader feels torn between pulling for the family and pulling away from them. Nelson also dares to leave us with an ambiguous ending. This is an author I have come to count on as always writing something interesting, something different, and this novel does not disappoint.

"This is the Story of a Happy Marriage," by Ann Patchett

As I approached the counter to pay for some books a couple of days ago in one of my favorite independent bookstores, Books Inc., in Laurel Village, San Francisco (part of a very local mini-chain), I heard a customer ahead of me and a salesperson discussing Ann Patchett’s independent bookstore in Nashville. I said (horning in on their conversation, but they didn’t seem to mind), “Oh, I am reading her book ‘This is the Story of a Happy Marriage’ right now!” The customer enthusiastically replied, “Oh, me too! I love it!” So the three of us started talking about the book, and Patchett’s earlier books (including “Bel Canto” and “State of Wonder”), and her bookstore. We all are big fans. And we agreed that this latest book, “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage” (Harper, 2013), a collection of essays, is absolutely absorbing, and makes us feel we actually know Patchett. I think of this little episode (which is, by the way, the kind of thing that happens often in independent bookstores, one of the reasons I so love these centers of literature and community) as an example of how Patchett is not only a gifted writer, but an engaging one, and as the creator of an independent bookstore in Nashville when its other bookstores had closed, a heroine to those of us who are rooting for the survival of such local, special bookstores. I have now finished the book, and was absolutely caught up in it. Patchett writes about her childhood, her apprenticeship as a writer, her relationship with her grandmother, her childhood teacher (a nun) with whom she reconnects as an adult, her beloved dogs, her book tours, the controversy over her book about her late friend Lucy (the book was chosen as the assigned freshman book by Clemson University, and then protested by many conservative parents and others in the area), and much more. The title essay tells how, as the child of a family riven by multiple divorces over several generations, Patchett was reluctant to marry, and even when she found the right person, it took her eleven years to agree to marry; the couple is now -- as the title indicates -- very happy. In each essay, Patchett’s warm voice makes us feel we are actually in conversation with her. Of course the conversational style of the writing is deceptively simple, and is in fact extremely well-crafted…that is one of the marks of a true writer. I can’t help thinking, though, that no one could present such a seemingly candid and engaging self if she were not really like that. Is that naïve of me? In any case, for fans of Patchett, as well as for those who have not read her before, I strongly recommend this book.

"If I'd Known You Were Coming," by Kate Milliken

The short stories in Kate Milliken’s “If I’d Known You Were Coming” (University of Iowa Press, 2013) are full of quirks, hard edges, sharp angles, and surprises. The characters are often confused, and confusing, but still make witty remarks and offer sharp observations. The women characters in particular are very bright but sometimes make strange decisions, often about relationships. The narrator in “Man Down Below,” for example, moves away from her apartment in order to get away from a stalker neighbor, yet when she runs into him later, is strangely drawn to him. “No, no, no!” you want to exhort her, but being a mere reader, you are helpless to change the course of the story; you cannot sway her from her clearly unsuitable feelings and actions. Some characters appear in more than one story, allowing us to get to know them better on each appearance, yet still mysteriously changing and disappearing at will. The final story, “Inheritance,” starts off uneventfully, but after a while we see how sad and sick one of the main characters is, and must watch helplessly as she self destructs, but at least is supported by her new friend in his inherited house. And somehow, even in her self-destruction, this character manages to keep and display a flash of her personality, and make us wonder if she will perhaps survive after all.

"Someone," by Alice McDermott

I’ve just read a lovely novel: “Someone” (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013), by Alice McDermott. “Lovely” is a word not commonly found in book reviews, but that is my response to this beautifully written story of an “ordinary” woman, Marie Commeford. Marie’s life is extraordinarily ordinary; it is the gift of the author to make her character’s story utterly alive, utterly compelling in its ordinariness. Marie grows up in Brooklyn early in the 20th century, the child of an Irish Catholic immigrant family. In this first person narrative, Marie tells of her family, her neighborhood and neighbors, her adolescence, her work in a funeral home, her marriage, her motherhood, and her old age. Particularly strong characters, besides Marie herself, are her mother, her brother, and her husband. Throughout Marie’s life, there are happy times, worrying times, sad times, and inconclusive times. We are immersed in Marie’s life; we live and breathe with her. To me, this making an “ordinary” woman’s life so individual, so distinct, and so compelling is what literature is all about. I was impressed by McDermott’s earlier novels, such as “That Night” and “After This”; “Someone” reaches new heights of revelatory writing.

"Topaz," poems by Brian Komei Dempster

My colleague Brian Komei Dempster has edited two moving collections of the memories of Japanese-American internees in the United States during World War II, thus preserving this sad part of history and allowing the now-elderly survivors of this experience to tell their stories in their own words. (See my post of 6/7/11 about the second of these books). Dempster has now published a stunning collection of his own poetry, “Topaz” (Four Way Books, 2013). I started reading “Topaz” (the name of the internment camp where some of the poet’s own relatives were incarcerated) one recent evening, planning to just dip into the book for now and read it more thoroughly later, but found I could not put it down until I finished it. The poems are beautifully written and gripping. In fact, they are amazing poems, touching on so many elements of family, history, ethnicity, connection, sexuality, youth, aging, illness, spirituality, anger, reconciliation, and much more. The thread running through all these topics is a fierce commitment to family and to claiming and remembering history, both personal and cultural. Throughout the collection, there is striking and beautiful imagery and there are provocative connections made. Some of the poems are meditative, some mournful, some quietly angry; many portray love in its many varieties. All brim with the life force. The poems, and the book, are incandescent.

On Resisting Reading What We "Should" Read

Do you ever feel that you “should” read a certain book? Whether it is a classic that you somehow never got around to reading, or a current book that everyone is talking about, do you experience a nagging feeling that you are somehow negligent in not reading that book or those books? I have often felt this as well. In the past, especially during college, grad school, and the decade or so after that, I often read books because they were assigned, or because I felt that as an educated person, I should read them. And I am very glad I read all those books – classics, international literature, feminist theory and fiction, and much more. But there is no way to keep up. Although throughout my whole reading life, I have read about 100 books a year, there are of course thousands more out there -- older books and the constant onslaught of new ones. Once in a while someone will assume that I have read a certain book that is being much talked of, and express surprise that I have not. But it boils down to this: we all have to choose what we spend our reading time on. And we each have our own standards and reasons for choosing what we choose. And as I have gotten older, I have gained a certain freedom from the pressure of “I should read that book.” Now I read pretty much just what I want to read. Even when I feel small pangs of the “I should” feeling, I am increasingly adept at telling myself “but I just don’t feel like it,” and ignoring the book. There is never a shortage of books that I do want to read.

"Longbourn," by Jo Baker

Of COURSE no current writer can even touch the hem of Jane Austen’s gown. But writers keep trying to enter Austen’s world, with their prequels, sequels, and alternate versions of her novels. And some of us who love Austen’s novels keep reading these versions, hoping against hope that they will provide a new way to connect to Austen’s original work. They always, it goes without saying, disappoint. But there are degrees of disappointment. I have to say that English novelist Jo Baker’s new novel, “Longbourn” (Knopf, 2013) is a much-better-than-average Austen-related work. As Austen followers well know, Longbourn is the name of the house where the main characters in “Pride and Prejudice” live. The focus of this new novel is on the servants in this house, and their parallel lives during the course of the events described in “Pride and Prejudice.” This is no “Upstairs, Downstairs” or “Downton Abbey”; the house is far smaller, and the servants’ lives are much drabber and harder, or at least harder than the portrayals in those two television shows. The novel opens with the housemaid Sarah’s doing the laundry, with all the miserable details of scrubbing and cleaning the clothing for a family with five daughters. “Washday could not be avoided, but the weekly purification of the household’s linen was nonetheless a dismal prospect for Sarah. The air was sharp at four thirty in the morning, when she started work. The iron pump-handle was cold, and even with her mitts on, her chilblains flared as she heaved the water up from the underground dark and into her waiting pail. A long day to be got through, and this was just the very start of it” (p. 3). We learn of Sarah’s background and dreams, and of those of the other servants: Mr. and Mrs. Hill, the child Polly, and the mysterious Joseph Smith who is taken on as a footman, and who turns out to have a secret prior connection with the household. The Bennet family is generally kind to the servants, if occasionally thoughtless; there is love and support among the servants; and there are some happy events as well. But there is no getting around the drudgery of the work to be done. Meanwhile the events of the Bennets’ lives go on in the background, in this “inside out” version of the story. Interestingly, Elizabeth Bennet is portrayed as less lively and witty, and more worried and sometimes muted, than in the original novel. “Longbourn” is well written, and is a good reminder of the lives of the majority of the English people at the time, those who were not in the upper class. So, unlike in the case of some other Austen-connected novels, I am glad to have read “Longbourn.” But as with those other cases, the final impression we are left with is that no one can hold the proverbial candle to the real thing, the original masterpiece, “Pride and Prejudice.”

RIP, Doris Lessing

Most of us who were budding feminists in the late 1960s and early 1970s remember reading the amazing 1962 novel "The Golden Notebook." It was one of those breakthrough books of that time period that we eagerly read, hungry for the stories that laid bare the lives of women who wanted more in life than what they were then allowed. Its author, Doris Lessing, died two days ago, on November 17, 2013, at the age of 94. She was born in Iran to British subjects, lived in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and then moved to London, where she lived the rest of her life. Her work was widely recognized and praised, and she was awarded many prizes, culminating in the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007. She was only the 11th woman to win that honor. At the time of her Nobel Prize, the Swedish Academy praised her work and its impact, and in particular noted that "The Golden Notebook" was "a pioneering work" that "belongs to the handful of books that influenced the 20th Century view of the male-female relationship." Interestingly, Lessing herself, being a very individualistic writer who didn't want to be categorized, didn't necessarily agree with some feminist views, or with being labeled a feminist. But her work, once out in the world, has been vastly influential. She wrote some 30 novels, several volumes of short stories, countless essays and reviews, and more. In later years she wrote science fiction, and although -- as regular readers of this blog know -- I am not a fan of science fiction, I know that many readers are passionate about that work. Of course, as with all good science fiction, it goes far beyond entertainment into astute commentary on society. I will end by urging interested readers to read Lessing's Nobel Prize lecture (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2007/lessing-lecture_en.html)(if this link doesn't work,just Google it), in which she passionately and beautifully advocates for and speaks about the importance of books and reading, the hunger that even poor and uneducated people have for books, the great legacy of storytelling, and the power of literature to feed people's minds and to make a difference in this difficult, complicated world.

A Trivial Complaint

I have a trivial complaint about some matters that are small annoyances, but nonetheless annoyances. I love the magazine Vanity Fair, and have been subscribing to it for many years. But sometimes I take a while to get to my latest issues, because of the following: 1. The issues are so thick that the pages don't bend back and over easily, making them just a little bit awkward to read. I actually go through before I read an issue and rip out many of the ads, especially the ones on extra-thick paper. 2. The layout is cluttered. 3. Worst of all, in my view, lines of text are often printed over pictures or other colored backgrounds, making the print harder to read. OK, these are small things, but I do feel a pinprick of annoyance every time I read Vanity Fair. No, I won't switch over to reading it on an e-reader; I am still not quite converted to those. And no, I won't stop reading it -- Vanity Fair is way too much fun to read, with its irresistible combination of serious stories and high-toned gossip.

On Not Reading "The Goldfinch"

When I read Donna Tartt's first novel, "The Secret History," some years ago, I remember feeling it was a bit creepy and not terribly well-written; I did, however, keep reading to the end, and it did make an impression on me. When her second novel, "The Little Friend," came out some years later, I wasn't sure if I wanted to read it. The strange thing is that now I can't remember if I read it or not (my book list that I have kept since I was ten years old is all in notebooks, so not easily "searchable"); if I did, it obviously did not leave much of an impression. Fast forward to this year, when Tartt's new novel, "The Goldfinch," is receiving excellent reviews. Again I wavered -- should I read it or not? I put in my request for it at the local library, and in time it came in and I checked it out. I started it, but couldn't really get into it. And at 771 pages, it was going to require a real investment of time. Normally a book's length is not a negative for me; if I love a book, I am happy for it to be long (see the big Victorian novels of George Eliot and Charles Dickens, for example). But right now I am extremely busy, and my earlier ambivalence about Tartt's work is kicking in. So I made the decision to let it go. Back to the library it goes, unread (except for the first few pages). Maybe I will read it another time when I have more time, or when I am on a leisurely vacation. But I suspect not.

"Intuition," by Allegra Goodman

I have to admit (and I am not proud of this) that I am generally not particularly interested in reading about science topics. So I wasn’t sure if I would like Allegra Goodman’s novel “Intuition” (Random House/Books on Tape, 2006), but I was looking in the library for a novel on CD to listen to in my car, and this one looked promising. It tells the story of the researchers at a lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts who seem to be in the process of discovering a possible cure for some cancers. This potential breakthrough is of course very exciting, but soon becomes controversial, with accusations of irregularities by one researcher against another. The novel gives readers interesting insights into how such a lab works, the routines, the sometimes boring stretches, the excitement when it appears there might be a breakthrough, the competitiveness of the science research world, and the politics of funding research. Suspense builds throughout the novel, keeping the reader involved. The most interesting part though, for me, is the personalities and relationships of the researchers, and the insights into their private as well as work lives. This novel will not be on any of my “best” lists, but I did learn from it and enjoy it.

"Levels of Life," by Julian Barnes

The wonderful writer Julian Barnes, about whom I have written here several times, has written a wrenchingly sad new book, “Levels of Life” (Knopf, 2013). It consists of three essays, the first two of which provide a sort of historical/philosophical context for the third. The third is the one that many people will go directly to: the author’s description of his mourning for his wife, with whom he had been for 30 years, and who died about four years ago, suddenly (“thirty-seven days from diagnosis to death”) and too soon. He takes us through his feelings, struggles with various aspects of grief, and is unsparing in depicting the depth and unrelenting character of his loss. Grief, he tells us, is “unimaginable: not just its length and depth, but its tone and texture, its deceptions and false dawns, its recidivism” (p. 75). Apparently he and his wife Pat had a very close relationship, and after she dies, he cannot imagine going on without her. Barnes avoids sentimentality; instead, he cuts to the core of elemental feelings. Although his situation is particular to him, it speaks universally to the terrible truth of death and the unfathomable pain it leaves behind for those who have loved the one who died.

"Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy," by Helen Fielding

I have written about the problem of critics’ and some male authors’ using the term “chick lit” or similar terms about almost any novel written by a woman that deals with relationships, love, and family. But that is not my focus today. I have also written about the positive side of “chick lit” -- the pleasures of frankly chick-lit-oriented novels -- and how I occasionally indulge in such novels. I have just read the third novel in the British writer Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones series: “Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy” (Knopf, 2013). The two earlier ones (and the two movies based on them) were great fun to read (and see), and captured a certain time and atmosphere in many women’s lives with flair, humor, and sympathy. I, probably like other readers, wondered how a third book, telling of Bridget’s life at age 51, would be…I couldn’t quite imagine it. And it was a shock to learn (very early on, and in all the reviews, so this is not a spoiler) that she was now a widow. Yet I soon got caught up in the book and enjoyed it. Bridget’s distinctive voice is still the same, but of course a little older and (well, somewhat) wiser, and tempered by her grief and her trying to find a way to live and be happy again after the loss of her dear Darcy. She struggles, moves forward a bit, then relapses, then tries again. She continues to document her weight gain and loss and the amount she drinks, but in this new book now also documents her texts and her experiments with the new medium of Twitter. And of course meeting men and dating is, again, a focus. But now she is 51, has two children, and finds the world of dating has changed. Suffice it to say that she has adventures that are both hilarious and touching, learns a lot, and realizes that, five years after Darcy’s death, she should, can, and will have a happy life.

"The Lowland," by Jhumpa Lahiri

I have devoured each of Jhumpa Lahiri's three earlier works of fiction (one novel and two collections of short stories), so of course I did the same with her new novel,"The Lowland" (Knopf, 2013). Her focus on the lives of immigrants, in particular immigrants from India, is an important one in this land of immigrants, the United States. My own connection with India (growing up there) makes me even more interested in Lahiri's work. But I admire and like Lahiri's fiction not only because of its subject matter but also because the writing is so very good. Her understanding of character, of landscape, of longing, of loss, of the need for resilience in the face of troubles -- all are great features of her work. This latest fiction from Lahiri differs from the earlier books in that it takes place not only in the U.S. but also in India. (Earlier works referred to India but mainly took place in the U.S.). "The Lowland" is the moving, sometimes wrenching story of two brothers who grow up in Calcutta, brothers who are extremely close, but are different in their characters. Subhash, the older, is careful and rule-following; Udayan is impulsive and passionate. Udayan becomes involved in the underground Naxalite movement of the 1960s, while Subhash travels to Rhode Island in the U.S. for graduate studies. They write to each other, rarely see each other, yet through everything, the strong bond between them continues. Udayan marries, then dies as a direct result of his political beliefs and actions. Subhash returns to Calcutta to find his parents devastated, and has to decide what to do about Udayan's pregnant widow, Gauri. I won't give away the rest of the plot, but suffice it to say that it is compelling, heartbreaking, happy and sad in turns, and at the end, decades later, cautiously redemptive. Lahiri has, once again, written an impressive work of fiction, perhaps her best to date.

Letting a Magazine Subscription Go

As much as I love reading, and spend an inordinate amount of time doing so, I am sometimes overwhelmed by my piles of books, magazines, and academic journals waiting to be read. I periodically resolve to cut my magazine and journal subscriptions, but rarely succeed in doing so, as I always have a good reason to keep each one. Recently, after some agonizing, I reluctantly decided to let one of my magazine subscriptions lapse. I won't say which one, because it is one I respect and still enjoy, but of all my subscriptions, finally it seemed the most expendable. But unfortunately the decision wasn't a simple, one-time action. I have received several renewal notices and letters, all of which make me remember how much I like the magazine, and each time I get one of these letters, I hesitate, reconsider, and wonder if I made the right decision. I do want to support this particular magazine, as I want to support all the ones I subscribe to. But finally I decided to stand firm, and let the magazine go from my life. Sigh. (OK, I am exaggerating my angst about this decision a little, but only a little...)

Too Long Without Fiction

I haven't posted for a few days, mainly because I haven't read a novel or other book for pleasure for about ten days, an unusual length of time for this obsessive reader. It has been a busy time. But have I stopped reading during this time? Not at all. I've still been reading newspapers, magazines, news online, academic journal articles, a collection of essays about discrimination in academe (this for a study series at my university), student essays, manuscripts I am reviewing for academic journals, email, and Facebook posts, among other reading material. All of these are interesting and important to me. But fiction is my true love, and I miss novels and short stories. This evening I started Jhumpa Lahiri's new book, "The Lowland," and as I settled into it, I started to feel the comfort and enjoyment that only fiction gives me. I don't like going so long without my beloved fiction....

Alice Munro Wins the Nobel Prize!

As Julie Bosman of the New York Times writes today, Alice Munro, "the renowned Canadian short-story writer whose visceral work explores the tangled relationships between men and women, small-town existence and the fallibility of memory, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. Ms. Munro, 82, is the 13th woman to win the prize." Oh joy, oh joy, oh joy! I, along with legions of her other readers, and many of her fellow writers (according to what I have been reading online), am so very happy -- OK, ecstatic! -- to see Munro's work recognized in this way. I have often seen her labeled as the best living writer of short stories in the world, and I think that assessment is absolutely right; to have the Nobel Committee confirm that view is just fantastic! I have been reading, appreciating, enjoying, loving, learning from, savoring, and being awed by Munro's short stories and novels for 40 years, and am always excited when a new volume comes out. (See my post of 7/22/10, titled "Ode to Alice Munro."). Sadly, she said when her most recent book came out (see my post of 12/6/12 on "Dear Life") that it would be her last one. If she changes her mind, we readers will rejoice, but no matter what, we have more than 40 years worth of her amazing work to read and re-read (and they all bear re-reading and even re-re-reading). As a personal postscript, I have to say this: the fact that the newest winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature is both a woman and a Canadian (I am Canadian-born) is, for me, a bonus cause for joy.

"The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.," by Adelle Waldman

Adelle Waldman’s novel “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.” (Henry Holt, 2013) allows us to get into the head of a young male writer living in Brooklyn (the current headquarters for a huge number of young writers), just as he starts to become successful. The question is: Is his head a place we want to be? In my case, the answer is – not really. Although the novel is narrated in the third person, it is so closely tied to Nate’s every thought, feeling, and action that it might as well be told in the first person. Nate is not a bad guy, but he is extremely self-centered. Even when he is trying to be thoughtful and nice to, say, a girlfriend he is about to dump, he is examining his own behavior to see if he is being genuine or not, worthy or not, etc., etc. All this preening, self-conscious angst is so solipsistic that it becomes highly annoying. This aspect of Nate’s being annoying mixes with another aspect: he is constantly – and I mean constantly -- checking out and judging women. He judges their bodies, their clothes, their beauty (even using the dreaded 10-point scale at times), their voices, their brains, their emotional temperature, and more. To be fair, he realizes he is doing so, and occasionally scolds himself briefly for it, but we never get the sense that he is genuinely sorry, or truly intends to change, and it doesn’t take long for him to return to his old ways. He often comments on the advantages and disadvantages of being single as opposed to having a girlfriend. He is also very aware of his own status, and of how his increasing success allows him to aspire to what he considers a higher level of women to sleep with, date, and perhaps have as a girlfriend. I can’t tell if the author intends Nate to be a sympathetic character (which he is, but only sporadically) or an example of the worst of a particular kind of full-of-himself urban, artsy, preppy, status-conscious young man. Probably a combination of the two. There is of course the interest factor of a female author getting so deeply into a male psyche. And the novel is quite well written. But as I read it, I just couldn’t get over the annoyance factor.

"Memories of a Marriage," by Louis Begley

Well, there seems to be a theme in some of my recent posts: weddings and marriages (see, e.g., my posts of 8/29/13 and 9/28/13). Maybe marriages were on my mind (because of my daughter’s recent engagement) when I picked up Louis Begley’s ”Memories of a Marriage” (Doubleday, 2013), but I also like his novels and have read several of them over the years. Begley is a novelist of the old school; he writes about the lives of characters of the upper class, mostly in Manhattan, with side trips to other haunts of the wealthy. The narrator, Philip, is a writer in his later years; one day he runs into Lucy De Bourgh, a member of a prominent Upper East Coast family. They have not seen each other for many years, and reminisce about her ex-husband, now deceased, Thomas Snow, about whom Lucy has bitter memories. Philip has some sympathy for her, but also some for Thomas, and determines to find out more about what happened in their marriage. He meets with Lucy many times, as well as with others who knew both Lucy and Thomas, and gradually disentangles the various stories and perspectives about what “really” happened. The premise of the novel – that Philip would be interested enough to invest a fair amount of energy and time in this project (although he seems to have had a vague idea of writing a book about them – this book?) – seems a bit unlikely to me, but I was willing to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride. And an elegant, low-key, gentlemanly ride it is. It is not without its provocative sections, especially as Lucy prides herself on candor, including candor about her love and sex life when she was young. It becomes clear that Lucy was and is a troubled woman, and a not particularly likeable one. This novel is more of an intellectual exercise than one that readers – at least this reader – get emotionally involved with. And what is set up as a sort of mystery never really pays off – there are revelations but they are not particularly surprising or intriguing. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this novel, in a mild sort of way.

"Beautiful Day," by Elin Hilderbrand

A novel about a wedding on Nantucket (regular readers know I love Nantucket novels), with lots of family and romantic complications and crises that all get resolved by the last page…what’s not to like? I don’t remember which review or friend steered me toward Elin Hilderbrand’s “Beautiful Day” (Little, Brown, 2013) but I know my current interest in weddings (because, as I wrote on 8/29/13, my daughter is engaged and we are planning the wedding) was partly responsible for my putting this title on my library request list, and reading it. The novel describes a wedding weekend on Nantucket, where the bride’s family has long owned a second home, and where there is much family history. The plot hook is that the mother of the bride died several years before of cancer, and during her last few months, wrote down in “The Notebook” all her advice for her youngest daughter’s future wedding – everything from location to food to invitations to décor to…well, you get the idea. She did so not to be controlling, but so her daughter would feel she had her mother’s loving guidance. There are of course many sidetrips into the past, and we learn about several of the main characters’ romances, marriages, divorces, affairs, and other personal matters. Although only competently written, the novel offers plenty of reading pleasure. Does the dreaded term “chick lit” apply? Probably. And once in a while, that is just fine with me.

"The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells," by Andrew Sean Greer

I thought Andrew Sean Greer’s novel “The Story of a Marriage” was beautifully written (and the San Francisco setting was a bonus!). So when his new novel, “The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells” (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2013), came out, I planned to read it. Then the idea that it was about a character who, because of electroshock treatments given to her to treat her depression (because of her brother’s terrible death, and the breakup of her marriage) in 1985, finds herself living in three different time periods (1985, 1918, and 1941), made me reluctant to read it. As readers of this blog may remember, I generally shy away from anything that smacks of science fiction, even very literary science fiction. But on second thought, I realized that the book was still character- and history-driven, and the time travel conceit was only a way of getting at how we all have different possible (although here titled “impossible”) lives, so I decided to read it after all. Hearing, by chance, the tail end of an engaging talk by the author at one of my favorite local independent bookstores, Book Passage in Corte Madera, increased my interest in the novel. So I did read it, liked the novel, and found it intriguing. It was fascinating to see the same characters in three different time periods, all in New York City. But I can’t say I loved it, and I am not sure why. Perhaps it was too schematic as it cycled through the three time periods. At times it was a bit confusing as well. Sometimes it just dragged a little. And there was perhaps too much musing, mourning, wondering, philosophizing by Greta. I did like the characters (Greta, her twin brother Felix, her husband Nathan, Felix’s lover Alan, Greta’s lover Leo, and Greta’s Aunt Ruth), found them interesting, and felt for their often difficult lives. Their difficulties mainly arose from living in the disastrous times of two wars, World Wars I and II, as well as from the sadness of the closeted lives the gay characters had to lead (in 1918 and 1941) and then the tragedy of AIDS (in 1985). Finally we are left to ponder the question “Why is it so impossible to believe: that we are as many headed as monsters, as many armed as gods, as many hearted as angels?” Why indeed?

The Man Booker Prize Expands its Eligibility Rules

It was just announced that the very prestigious Man Booker prize, which has always been awarded annually to a book by a British or Commonwealth author, will, starting next year, make eligible any novel written in English and published in Britain. The reaction among the British, Australians, and others is consternation. Some say they fear that American novels will dominate the competition. In the past, the competition for the Booker, with its carefully spaced announcements of the long list, then the short list, and then the winner, has created audiences for many books from, for example, Indian authors whose books might otherwise receive little exposure. I don’t have strong feelings about this, but I do associate the Man Booker (formerly the Booker) Prize with the best of Britain and the Commonwealth, and I have been introduced to some books I wouldn’t know about otherwise by perusing the long and short lists and the prize winners.

Acceptance Letters

I have written here about how lovely it is to find personal letters in one’s mailbox. Lately I have been thinking about the importance of another kind of letter: acceptance letters. For example, each spring millions of young (and sometimes not so young) people receive, if they are fortunate, acceptance letters from schools, colleges, graduate schools, law schools, and medical schools. Other people receive acceptances for internships, clerkships, fellowships, project proposals, and jobs. Writers are thrilled to get letters of acceptance for their submitted books, stories, poems, and articles. For academics, one of the most prized types of letters is those from academic journals accepting their articles for publication. A few days ago I received one of these (well, in this case it was an email, but the genre and the excitement were the same!). An article that, although brief, I had been working on for some time, will go out into the world and be read by others! Although I have had many academic articles published over the years, acceptances are still far enough apart that each time it happens is a special occasion, a bit of a relief, and a pleasure.

"The Home Jar: Stories," by Nancy Zafris

Readers of “The Home Jar: Stories” (Switchgrass Books, 2013), by Nancy Zafris, are plunged into a dizzying variety of settings and strange stories. Although the stories are set in quiet, out of the way locales, there is always something unusual, a little bit dangerous, that simmers in the background and sometimes bursts into active menace. I have written here that I like stories that surprise me; these stories not only surprised but jolted me into an uneasy fascination. And yet the characters are understandable, and readers will feel concern and even compassion for them as they bravely, even stoically, get on with life, dealing with what has been dealt to them. And what characters! The sad, burnt-out chef with a secret. The small town mother haunted by the high-pitched sound she hears only in the town limits. The gifted wax museum artist who carries out a strange, sad task for a family. The curious, haunted flight attendant. The old woman who used to round up lepers and take them to a sanitarium for a living, and her long, vexed relationship with one of the patients. Yet no matter how removed the lives of these characters seem from those of the reader, there is a strong thread of connection, the thread of our shared humanity.

"A Dual Inheritance," by Joanna Hershon

“A Dual Inheritance” (Ballantine, 2013), by Joanna Hershon, is another “big” novel, not only in pages (almost 500) but also in scope and reach. It follows the three main characters, and then their two daughters, over the period from 1962-2010, depicting not only the intense drama of friends and family, but the larger intense drama of the events of the period. In these ways, the book reminds me somewhat of recent "big" novels by Jonathan Franzen (“The Corrections” and “Freedom”), Jeffrey Eugenides (“The Marriage Plot”), and Allan Hollinghurst (“The Stranger’s Child”), as well as of “big” Victorian novels. In general, I love these sweeping novels (although readers of this blog may remember that I really struggled with, and basically disliked, Franzen’s “Freedom”), and “A Dual Inheritance” is no exception. The main characters, Hugh Shipley and Ed Cantowitz, meet while about to graduate from Harvard, and begin an unlikely friendship; they are different in many ways related to family background, social class, ethnicity/religion, ambitions, and style, among others. Hugh has been in a relationship with Helen Ordway, the third main character and a member of a similar family and class background to his, and eventually marries her. Hugh somewhat rebels against the expectations for a young man of his class, is rather aimless for a while, but eventually finds his passion and has a career setting up medical clinics in Africa and Haiti, meanwhile becoming increasingly alcoholic. Ed, having come from a poor, rough background, fights for and achieves success in the financial world in New York. Both friends are successful on their own terms, but both eventually suffer various setbacks and comedowns. To complicate matters, Ed has long loved Helen as well, but goes on to marry Jill and, after their divorce, to have various relationships with other women. For many years the three friends are out of touch, due to Ed’s not wanting to be around Hugh and Helen as a couple, and due to another plot twist which I won’t reveal here. Years later, their two daughters meet and become friends at their boarding school, and eventually discover that their parents were old friends. Much of the later part of the book is about the lives of these two young women as much as about the parents, and about the various emotional entanglements among all of them, the members of both generations. It is an engaging novel that draws you into its world, and deftly interweaves the stories of the main characters with the stories of the larger world around them: poverty and disease around the world, financial excesses and eventually collapses on Wall Street, the war in Vietnam and its repercussions in the U.S., social class issues and those of inequity everywhere, and more. However, and I think this is important in a novel, the personal stories always predominate.

Courtship Letters

Looking through old files the other day, I ran across one containing letters between my husband and me in the first year of our relationship, especially from one summer when he was away for a couple of months visiting his family across the world. This was over 35 years ago, so reading the letters gave me that strange, unsettling but enjoyable “time travel” feeling. I have written here before (6/5/11) about my mom’s and my discovering old letters written to our parents by my brothers and me when we were in boarding school, and about how unfortunate it is that people seldom write letters any more. Yes, we email, and I love email, but it is not the same as receiving a handwritten letter in one’s mailbox, and then perhaps years later rediscovering the letter in one’s files or drawers. In any case, the letters between my husband and me from so long ago took me back to a time when we were young (our mid-twenties), and reminded me of the excitement, romance, and intensity of the early days of courtship. Since he and I have been together ever since, we haven’t had many occasions to write letters over the years, so these letters are very special to me.

Wedding Books on my To-Read Pile

Readers of this blog will not be surprised that one of my first instincts when a new situation comes into my life is to find a book or books about it. So when my daughter became engaged recently -- a happy event! -- I bought a few books on weddings. Now stacked on my to-read pile are books with titles such as “The Wedding Book,” “Wedding Etiquette,” and “The Mother of the Bride Book.” Even though my daughter and her fiancé are doing most of the planning, we are doing lots of consulting, and I feel I need to know what I/we should do. Strangely, it is kind of fun to read these books; it is like entering a new world. “New” because weddings are an odd mixture of tradition and new trends, and it is hard to know what the balance is these days. Also “new” because my husband and I -- many years ago -- had a very small wedding at my parents’ house, which was exactly how we wanted it, but it means I don’t have experience in planning a large wedding. I love that new experiences in life bring new areas to learn about (especially happy areas such as this one!), and what better way to learn than to read a pile of books about the topic?

"Amor and Psycho," by Carolyn Cooke

I read and very much liked Carolyn Cooke’s earlier two books (see my posts of 7/14/11 and 7/18/11). I have now read her latest book, a collection of short stories titled “Amor and Psycho” (Knopf, 2013). It is quirkier than the other two books, and has a slight feeling of a miscellaneous collection, in that the stories are very different from each other in subject and in style. Some are strong, some less so. There are a few themes running through the collection. One is serious illness, such as cancer and a brain tumor. Another is broken marriages or relationships. Still another -- an important one -- is the unassuming, matter-of-fact resilience shown by so many human beings in the face of tragedies and hardships. What I especially like about this collection is that so many of the stories surprise the reader. I love to be surprised, not just in the O. Henry “surprise twist ending” way, but in originality of plot, premise, character, and tone. There is a certain something that sometimes reaches out and grabs the reader in an “OH!” of suddenly perceiving the unexpected; it is very satisfying when this happens.

"The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox," by Maggie O'Farrell

Maggie O’Farrell’s novel “The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox” (Harcourt, 2006) is exquisite. Esme is an odd, dreamy girl and young woman, one who doesn't conform to society’s, or her mother’s, expectations. And, like many such young women, she is quietly put away in a mental institution, and never spoken of again. Sixty years later, the hospital is closing, and her only surviving relative, her great-niece Iris, is shocked to receive a call asking her to decide what should be done with Esme, whom Iris had never heard about. The rest of the book goes back and forth between what happens before Esme was institutionalized, and what happens in the present as Iris tries to absorb this shocking information and responsibility. Gradually the two strands are interwoven. The writing is beautiful. The events of the story also, of course, shed light on an important issue: that far too many women throughout history who have not conformed, have not behaved as expected or as told to behave, have been punished, hidden, treated as mentally ill or even evil. O’Farrell illuminates this issue in a powerful way, while never subordinating her art to being didactic. This is a sad but lovely book. Highly recommended.

"My Education," by Susan Choi

I truly disliked Susan Choi’s novel “My Education” (Viking, 2013). I understand that one shouldn’t have to like a novel’s characters to appreciate the novel, but it certainly influences me as a reader if I dislike the two main characters, and I did dislike these characters. Most of the action takes place when the main character and narrator, Regina, starts a graduate writing program at a campus that sounds like Cornell, although it is not named. She is immediately attracted to a famous writing professor, Nicholas, while sleeping with her roommate Dutra, with whom she has a sort of comradely relationship. But as soon as she meets Nicholas’ wife Martha, also a professor, she begins an off-the-charts intense sexual and romantic relationship with her. Much passion, intrigue, secrecy, and drama ensues. There is much egoism, much self-indulgence. There is also, I might note, an enormous amount of out-of-control drinking. I don’t want to give away more of the plot, except to say that the second half of the story happens about 15 years later, when much has changed in the lives of all four major characters. A new set of interactions ensues, and a reasonably satisfying -- if somewhat hurried and hard to completely believe -- resolution takes place. Regina, the most unlikeable character, becomes slightly more likeable at the end, as does Martha, the other unlikeable character (to me, at least). Nicholas and Dutra are no prizes either, but seem to have more sensitivity, more thoughtfulness than the other two. Aside from the likeability issue, the novel is well written and has its good points, but I had to force myself to keep reading it to the end. When I was partway into this novel, I remembered that I had tried to read Choi’s earlier novel, “American Woman,” a twist on a Patty Hearst type character and situation, and I couldn’t get very far into that book; I abandoned it after a few chapters. So for whatever reason, apparently Choi’s novels and my tastes do not match up well. However, I freely acknowledge that I can see why other readers might like her work.

"The Life All Around Me, by Ellen Foster," by Kaye Gibbons

Kaye Gibbons’ loosely autobiographical 1987 novel “Ellen Foster” was extremely well received. It told the very sad story of a young North Carolina girl, aged about nine to eleven during the course of the story, whose mother was ill and then died, and whose father was both alcoholic and abusive. Ellen was somehow, despite her difficult situation, smart and resourceful, and kept trying to find someone to give her a home. Various relatives and strangers did so temporarily, but she had mostly bad experiences with these substitute parents until she found a kind foster mother. I read that novel when it came out, and remember it as powerful. The voice of the young Ellen is unique. I have now just listened on CD to a sequel, “The Life All Around Me, by Ellen Foster,” published by Gibbons in 2006, and read by the author herself on the CD. Ellen is now 15 years old, and although she lives in a good home with a kind foster mother who has become almost like a “real” mother to her, she is still quite poor and still has problems. She is very precocious, works hard, wants to learn, and is bored in school. She writes to the President of Harvard, hoping to be able to study there. Meanwhile, she finds out some news about her mother’s property that may change her life. She is still loyal to her friend Starletta and to other friends, both adults and children, who have been there for her. This sequel allows readers to see Ellen’s life becoming better, which is a great gift from the author. By the end of the novel, we believe that Ellen has a bright future. This young woman continues to be a resourceful, kind, smart, and true-to-herself character. At the end of the CD, there is an interview with the author, in which she reveals that she plans to write further sequels about Ellen’s life. I look forward to those.

On Barbara Pym

As readers of this blog know, Barbara Pym is one of my all-time favorite authors. On 7/7/13, on the occasion of the recent centenary of her birth, I wrote about some of the reasons I so appreciate and enjoy her work, not to mention laugh out loud while I am reading it. Her novels are serious but also understatedly hilarious at times. I have read each of the novels at least twice over the years, but the centenary inspired me to decide to re-read all her novels yet again, this time in order of the year of publication in the UK (not necessarily in order of the years they were actually written, or of when they were published in the USA). I have re-read the first six so far: “Some Tame Gazelle” (1950); “Excellent Women” (1952); “Jane and Prudence” (1953); “Less Than Angels” (1955); “A Glass of Blessings” (1958); and “No Fond Return of Love” (1961). I will not be posting about each of these, and the ensuing novels, individually, as I have written about Pym's work before, and individual posts about each of a dozen novels might be too much. But I will point out a few more of the reasons I admire and savor Pym’s novels: She writes about the small events of everyday life, the things we actually spend most of our time on, and makes us care about them, as well as smile with recognition. She writes about a variety of love that is not often written about: the kind of innocent crushes most of us sometimes get, even when we are in relationships and even when the objects of our crushes are unsuitable; we don’t plan to do anything about them, but they add to the pleasures of life. She often has her characters quote a few lines of English poetry, which are often just slightly off-topic or misunderstood, but also demonstrate Pym’s deep knowledge of, and true love of, poetry. She writes a lot about what people eat and drink, including the ubiquitous, always-soothing cup of tea apparently so necessary to the English people (I happen to share this tea-loving characteristic with the English, and my love of tea is somehow bound up with my love of the British novel). Characters from one novel often make cameo appearances in later novels. And in a "meta" style and for fun, Pym sometimes indirectly refers to herself and her own work. For example, in one novel she refers to a novelist called Miss Pim; in another, she lists the books on someone’s bookshelf, and casually includes her own “Some Tame Gazelle.” I reiterate my urging that readers find and read one or more of her novels, so they can see why I recommend her fiction so highly. As I suggested in my 7/7/13 post, I recommend beginning with “Excellent Women.” And, incidentally, I may find I like this plan of re-reading a favorite author’s works in order, and might decide to do the same with some of my other most-cherished authors’ works. On another note: This post is my 800th on this blog.

Playing the Card Game "Authors"

Did you play the card game “Authors” when you were a child? My brothers and I played a lot of board and card games (Monopoly, Clue, Scrabble, Snakes and Ladders, Risk, etc.) when we were kids, and even as adults we occasionally played while at my parents’ summer cottage in Michigan and at other family gatherings. One of my favorite games was – and I suppose this will not be a surprise! – the card game of “Authors.” If you don’t know this game (which appeared in various versions over the years, but I will describe the one I remember): It involves a set of 52 cards, which includes a card for each of four books by each of 13 classic authors. The object of the game is to collect sets of the books of each author, and whoever has the most sets by the end of the game wins. What I remember is how much I liked the look of the cards: each card had a drawing of an author, with the card’s book written above the author’s picture, and the other three books in the set listed below his/her (mainly his, with the exception of Louisa May Alcott) picture. I also remember how I loved the way it sounded when we would ask each other for a card: “Do you have ‘Rip Van Winkle’ by Washington Irving?” “Do you have ‘The Prince and the Pauper,’ by Mark Twain?” “Do you have ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,’ by Robert Louis Stevenson?” “Do you have ‘The Brook,’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson?” And so on. Soon we had all the titles by all the authors memorized, and I can still to this day hear the rhythm of these questions, and remember the satisfaction of asking them, and of course the even greater satisfaction of hearing one of my brothers reluctantly admit that yes, he did have “The Deerslayer,” by James Fenimore Cooper, and have to hand the card over to me, augmenting the set I was collecting. Of course if he -- or another brother -- had in his hand “The Last of the Mohicans,” I might be in trouble, as on his next turn, he would triumphantly ask for all my James Fenimore Cooper cards back. We must have played this game hundreds of times over the years. “Authors” is a relatively simple and straightforward game, similar to other card games in which one collects sets, but the fact that we were collecting book titles made it special to me, and I still remember those games vividly and with great nostalgia.

"The Engagements," by J. Courtney Sullivan

J. Courtney Sullivan, author of “Commencement” and of “Maine” (see my post of 7/30/11) has a new novel: “The Engagements” (Knopf, 2013). The cover shows a woman’s hand displaying a ring with a huge diamond, and in fact the novel’s main motif is diamonds. The novel tells the stories, in alternating chapters, of four very diverse couples: diverse in time, socioeconomic status, age, personality, and more. In each case, there is a diamond ring involved. The fifth element, interwoven among the chapters about the four couples, is a fictionalized version of the life of a real historical character, Frances Gerety, who worked for an advertising agency and created the advertising line “A diamond is forever.” Her story shows how hard it was for a woman to succeed in business, despite talent, but fortunately her abilities and achievements were eventually recognized. The other stories deal with love, children, death, illness, financial problems, and of course engagement and marriage. The book does not avoid the issue of the destructive and exploitative way that diamonds were, and sometimes still are, mined, and the efforts that were eventually made to ameliorate those conditions. Although the stories are paramount, as they should be in a novel, there is a lot of “content” in the form of issues about women’s lives, business, and political and social struggles and evolution (e.g., one of the marriages portrayed is between two gay men). This is a book bursting with ideas, themes, events, and emotions, and I (mostly) found it quite satisfying. I want to add a note here about the prevalence, in novels I have read recently, of the technique of skipping back and forth in time and among various characters’ stories. Although this can be interesting and enriching, it can become a bit wearying at times. (I do appreciate it when the authors at least write the date or year at the beginning of each chapter.) I find myself suddenly wanting to read a novel that tells one story straight through, chronologically. It is not that I don’t appreciate or like the other type; I just find myself needing a sort of literary palate cleanser.

"Life after Life," by Kate Atkinson

“Life after Life” (Little, Brown, 2013), by Kate Atkinson is a BIG book, and the volume I read is even bigger -- 683 pages -- because it is large print (occasionally I borrow a large print book from the library if it is the only copy available at the time). I read many reviews of this book, and although it came highly recommended, I initially resisted it because the premise – that the main character kept dying and coming back to life over and over again – sounded too science fictionish for my tastes. Finally, after reading more and more positive reviews, I decided to give it a try. I absolutely loved it. The premise I mentioned is in fact a focus, and at first is slightly disorienting, but then becomes a sort of rhythm of its own, and a relief when the character Ursula, whom we repeatedly thought lost forever (her death generally announced to readers with a variety of the phrase “and then darkness fell”), repeatedly comes back to life. Sometimes everything proceeds in the next chapter as if nothing bad had happened. Other times it turns out that there is an alternate story that is the true story. Occasionally the death or bad event averted is of one of her family members or friends. Ursula is aware that she has odd cloudy memories and inklings, but she never speaks as if she clearly understands that she has avoided tragedy over and over again. And in fact, although she doesn’t die in an untimely manner, she does experience other tragedies, other losses. The story takes place, mostly in England, from near the beginning of the twentieth century to near the end of that century, but the most important events take place during the first half of the century, and especially during the two World Wars. The main character, Ursula, is a member of a large, upper middle class family living in the countryside outside of London. We learn much about this family and their neighbors, extended family, friends, lovers, co-workers, and more. The story is told in chapters that go back and forth in time (with the dates listed at the beginnings of the chapters), focusing on various characters, but most of all on Ursula herself. World War II is like another main character, as is the city of London, where much of the story takes place. So the book jumps, for example, from 1910 to 1918 to 1910 again to 1926 to 1940 to 1967 and so on, with many other jumps along the way. We learn much about the horrors of the bombings of London during World War II. To me the main fascination is the way the novel looks at history through the lens of one family, including the trying-out of alternative versions of life and history, such as a visit by Ursula to Germany and Hitler’s inner circle, in which she hopes to assassinate Hitler. And the always reliable, for me, further fascination is the one with how families work, how they love and support and sometimes hate and sometimes betray each other in endless permutations. I have to add that an added attraction for me is that this novel is about a time and place that I love to read about, and return to repeatedly: England during the first half of the twentieth century. But even for readers without that particular fixation, I highly recommend this book.

"Blue Plate Special," by Kate Christensen

Who could resist a book titled “Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of my Appetites” (Doubleday, 2013)? Certainly not I! This memoir by novelist Kate Christensen is aptly described on the front book flap as follows: “In the tradition of M.F.K. Fisher, Laurie Colwin, and Ruth Reichl, “Blue Plate Special” is a narrative in which food – eating it, cooking it, reflecting on it – becomes the vehicle for unpacking a life.” I have read and enjoyed the three authors listed, with a special fondness for the late Laurie Colwin. So I dived headfirst into this book, and devoured it in a couple of days. It is candid, sometimes very sad, sometimes celebratory, and absolutely mesmerizing. It is a memoir of family, friends, a series of loves, and a series of homes scattered across the U.S.; it tells of struggling to be a writer and struggling to overcome the legacy of a very difficult childhood. And woven throughout are the author’s connections with food: learning about different types of food, learning to cook, being comforted by food, being fascinated by food, maturing in her tastes…and always, throughout, cooking and eating. She describes the food in her life in vivid detail. The food is important, even central, but finally, the biggest strength of this book is Christensen’s honest depiction of her life and evolution. I have known of but not been drawn to her novels, but perhaps now I will look for them.

"Fin and Lady," by Cathleen Schine

Cathleen Schine, whose “The Three Weissmanns of Westport” I posted about on 4/11/10, has a new novel out: “Fin and Lady” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), and it is just as lively and engrossing as the earlier novel. (She has also written several other novels.) Both are full of life, full of interactions, meditations, surprises. In “Fin and Lady,” an eleven-year-old boy is orphaned and goes to live with his glamorous, fun but restless and moody, older half-sister in Greenwich Village in New York in 1964 (but it somehow seems like a slightly earlier era, perhaps because the expectations for women were still so restricted...). It is a huge change for young Fin, who has not only lost his parents but also his roots on a dairy farm in rural Connecticut. Lady is warm and welcoming to Fin, admirably seeming not to hesitate for one moment to take on the sudden responsibility of being guardian of a young boy she has only met a couple of times, but they make an odd pairing, and they know so little about each other’s very different lives. Lady isn’t sure how to be a guardian/big sister/substitute mother, and Fin has to learn how to adapt to the new situation. He is in fact remarkably adaptable (the one thing I find not entirely believable is the swiftness with which he does adapt, although perhaps it is because he has no choice, and because Lady is genuinely loving if an atypical “parent”), and comes to love Lady profoundly. He also finds that she is unsure about what is important in her life, and her constant need to do new things, go to new places, be with new people is a sign of this. She wants to marry, she says, but she seems at the same time to resist this kind of commitment, and she keeps several suitors dangling. These suitors develop the habit of all visiting Lady and Fin, sometimes at the same time, each hoping she will make up her mind in his favor. I don’t want to reveal more of the story than this, but there are many plot developments, and they definitely kept me glued to the book. There is a bittersweet ending, but one that readers can accept and even celebrate some aspects of. These two unusual characters, Fin and Lady, and their touching if unusual relationship, are the central draw of this engaging novel.

Jane Austen on England's ten-pound note!

I opened my newspaper a couple of days ago to see my beloved Jane Austen's face on a sketch of a future British ten-pound note -- hurray! The new bank note will appear in 2016 or 2017. Apparently there had been many complaints about the lack of women on English money; fortunately, "The Bank of England chose the chronicler of 18th century English country life as the new face of the note, bowing to critics who complained that the venerable institution was ignoring women on their currency" (San Francisco Chronicle, 7/25/13, p. A6). It seems to me that the issue of equal treatment of women, although a very important one that readers of this blog know I am passionately positive about, is not the main one here; the main point is that next to Shakespeare, Austen is the greatest English writer ever, and should be honored as such. In any case, I am thrilled to learn this news.

"Where She Went," by Kate Walbert

More Kate Walbert! As I wrote on 7/24/13, I so admire Walbert’s fiction. Because I enjoyed the three books I have already written about, I looked for and read her earlier book, “Where She Went: Stories” (Sarabande, 1998). This collection of stories is really, like Walbert’s “Our Kind,” a “novel in stories,” although not labeled as such. The first half of the book tells the stories of a mother, Marion, and the second half tells the stories of Marion’s daughter, Rebecca. But in fact both halves include both women’s stories. The stories start in the 1950s, and move back and forth through the years up to 1992. Marion escaped her own background in “the middle of the country, near a Great Lake few could remember the name of” (great line! Even though I lived in Michigan for many years, I still can't remember the names of all the Great Lakes....), moved to New York, and married a man she had only known for a short time. After all, at that period in our history, most women’s main goal was to find a husband. Marion’s husband Robert is a good man, but they are very different. His job took them to many cities over the years – Rochester, Norfolk, Baltimore, Tokyo, and many more. Every time, Marion tried to establish herself, decorate the new house, and build a new life. Her daughter Rebecca, who came of age in the 1970s, was determined to lead a more independent life, as were so many young women at that time. Intriguingly, she too lived in many different places, but in her case it was because of her restlessness and her longing to find out what kind of life she really wanted. Marion and her mother have a loving but somewhat wary relationship. Marion encourages Rebecca to do the traveling and have the freedom that she, Marion, wishes she had had. So Rebecca is sometimes torn between feeling she is doing what she is doing for herself, and wondering how much of her behavior is based on trying to fulfill her mother’s dreams. Like “Our Kind,” this book – without being preachy – clearly focuses on the dilemmas faced by (American) women in the second half of the twentieth century (and of course some of these dilemmas continue now). My only small reservation about this book is that occasionally it tends to get sidetracked with rather dreamlike, poorly integrated descriptions of the various locations and scenes. Because -- captured by the author's more recent books and wanting more -- I am reading “backward” in Walbert’s career (this is the earliest-published of the books I have read), naturally the writing here is slightly less accomplished than in the later books. Even so, the writing is generally beautiful and insightful, and this book, like the others by Walbert that I have written about, is well worth reading.

"Our Kind," by Kate Walbert

I am increasingly convinced that Kate Walbert is an exceptional writer of fiction. I wrote admiringly about two of her novels: “A Short History of Women” on 6/13/12 and “The Gardens of Kyoto” just a few days ago on 7/13/13. “Our Kind: A Novel in Stories” (Scribner, 2004) is also astoundingly well written. The interrelated stories are about a group of women living in a small town that could be anywhere in the U.S.A., over a period of time roughly the second half of the twentieth century. The specific times are vague, but these are women born about 1930, by my calculations. The book seems to embody some of the assertions of Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” (1963), the early feminist book about how the majority of women were staying at home as they were “supposed to” and quietly going a little crazy, wondering why raising children and running a home just wasn’t fulfilling enough. The women in “Our Kind” don’t explicitly talk about such feelings, except in a late chapter when Viv remembers how as a scholarship girl at a Seven Sisters college, she was encouraged by an admired professor to go on for graduate school, but gave it all up to get married. The women in general have been happy at times, but their husbands often leave or die, and their children move on, and then they wonder what to do next. Their greatest comfort seems to be each other’s company. This book is both somewhat hazy about exact dates and plots, and very concrete and thus evocative of the lives of these women. Happiness and sadness are interwoven, as the women get older, lose family, lose their health, drink too much, in some cases see their children struggle and even die, yet the women keep on, always keep on. To me this is a very sad novel about the waste of so much talent and energy, but also a positive novel about the power of female friendship and support of each other. Walbert is so insightful about women’s lives, yet without being didactic. A lovely, wistful book that thoroughly captivated me. Do put Kate Walbert's fiction on your "must-read" list.

"Shakespeare's Kitchen," by Lore Segal

The name of the author Lore Segal is familiar to me, yet I cannot remember what I have read by her. Perhaps, a long time ago, her early novel, “Her First American”? She also writes children’s books, so perhaps I read some to my daughter when she was young? In any case, I have now just read her “Shakespeare’s Kitchen” (The New Press, 2007), a collection of short stories that reads very much like a novel, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The book has nothing to do with “the” Shakespeare; one of the three main characters is named Leslie Shakespeare. The others are his wife Eliza and his mistress Ilka. They, along with most of the other characters, work for or are connected to a think tank in Connecticut, the Concordance Institute. The novel is about the small and big events in the lives of this group of colleagues and friends. Even more, as the author points out in an “Author’s Note,” she was “thinking about our need not only for family and sexual love and friendship but for a ‘set’ to belong to: the circle made of friends, acquaintances, and the people one knows.” I think this is a wonderful, fascinating theme; as Segal says, most of us have, or want to have, such a network of people to be part of. In this book, she shows us the daily interactions, gatherings, connections of this particular group of friends; many of these interactions take place in the “Shakespeare’s kitchen” of the title. Most of the action takes place over a period of perhaps 20 years, with a bit of looking back at the end of the book. There is love, sex, work, conflict, kindness, conversation, illness, deception, reconciliation, gossip, intrusions from the outside world, and much more. There is, too, a bit of humor, even gentle satire, about the think tank and its members. This is a very human and completely engrossing book; I highly recommend it.

"Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules," edited by David Sedaris

David Sedaris is a funny, original, insightful writer. The CD I recently listened to, “Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules” (Simon & Schuster Audio, 2005) (Sedaris’ titles are usually quirky) shows his philanthropic side; the five stories in this collection were not written by Sedaris but rather selected, edited, and introduced by him. The stories on this audiobook are taken from a larger collection in a book of the same name that Sedaris also edited. He reads one story himself, and the others are read by writers and actors, including one by the wonderful actor Mary-Louise Parker. Sedaris published this audiobook “to support 826NYC, a nonprofit tutoring center in Brooklyn, New York, designed to help students ages six to eighteen develop their writing skills through free writing workshops…and one-on-one help with homework.” This organization, I happen to know, is an offshoot of writer Dave Eggers’ “826 Valencia,” here in San Francisco; the original San Francisco site for this wonderful and worthy project has inspired several others. The stories – one each by Patricia Highsmith, Tobias Wolff, Charles Baxter, Amy Hempel, and Akhil Sharma (what a marvelous selection of writers!) – are excellent, with a slight tilt to the eccentric and gloomy, and the readings do them justice. The only thing that seems a bit strange to me is that the label on the copy I borrowed from my local library says “Fiction, Children”; while this audiobook benefits children, the stories themselves are definitely adult-oriented (not as in "adults only," meaning sex and violence, but as in -- see above -- at times rather dark and gloomy). For readers who listen to audiobooks in their cars, as I do, or elsewhere, this is a short, well-chosen collection. That it benefits a good cause is a bonus.

"Mother Daughter Me," by Katie Hafner

Reading-wise, fiction has always been my first love by far. Novels, short stories are my reading life’s blood. But once in a while I enjoy a good memoir, and the one I just finished is a powerful one. Katie Hafner’s “Mother Daughter Me” (Random House, 2013) tells the story of her decision to invite her mother, Helen, to move from San Diego to San Francisco and live with her and her teenaged daughter Zoe. Helen has lived for over 30 years with Norm, but Norm’s daughter has just put him in a nursing home. Katie hopes that this three-generation household will bring her and her daughter closer to her mother, but unfortunately it doesn’t work out that way. In fact, the living together turns out quite badly. This should not have been a surprise for Katie, as her mother was a very neglectful, difficult parent, due largely to her alcoholism but also to her own unloving parents. When Helen and Katie’s father divorced, Katie and her sister Sarah went back and forth between them, and when Katie was ten years old, her father won custody of the girls, based on the mother’s binge drinking, promiscuity, and inability to maintain an adequate household for her daughters. Over the years, the mother and daughters have had a rocky but continuing relationship, and Katie feels that she and her mother -- who no longer drinks much -- are now quite close. Now over the course of less than a year, they realize the living-together experiment is a failure, despite therapy and other efforts to make it work. Finally, though, they reach a kind of rapprochement, with Helen living separately but nearby. This last piece of information may seem like a spoiler, and perhaps it is, but really the fascination of the memoir is the back story and the process, rather than the details of the conclusion. Hafner, a journalist and author of six nonfiction books, is a good writer, and expertly moves back and forth between the present and the past. We also learn about her own marriages, one mostly good and one bad, and her current far better relationship. A perhaps trivial but extra attraction of the story for me is that it takes place in San Francisco, and in an area of San Francisco that I know well (because my daughter went to school there for thirteen years); I can picture the streets, houses, hills, sights, and restaurants of the area; I also recognize some of the local personalities she mentions. Finally, an important feature of this memoir is that Hafner strikes just the right note: she is candid about what she has been through, but she is also thoughtful and tries to understand the reasons for her mother’s neglect, to understand ways in which others were responsible as well, and to be open about her own bad choices too. And of course the topic of mothers and daughters is always of interest to me and to almost any woman; many of the recognitions relate to fathers and sons as well -- in other words, to anyone who is part of the tangle of family life.

"The Innocents," by Francesca Segal

I am both attracted to and skeptical of novels based on other novels, especially those by great authors. Sometimes these new versions are wonderfully reimagined tributes to the original; sometimes they are just a botch, making one feel they are either cynically or cluelessly riding on the coattails of far better novels and writers. Fortunately, “The Innocents” (Voice/Hyperion, 2012), by Francesca Segal, is a worthy contemporary version of Edith Wharton’s “The Age of Innocence.” Of course it is not at the same level as Wharton's work, but it is an excellent novel in its own right. Although set in the present, it retains a whiff of the late 19th century of Wharton’s work, because the characters all live in a tightly connected group of family and friends, in this case all Jewish, in an affluent suburb of London called Temple Fortune. This community is as close as the high society of Wharton’s New York. The reversal of the two cities in the two novels is interesting, and the Ellen/Ellie character also reverses directions in her going away and returning. Speaking of the characters: the names of several characters in “The Innocents” have echoes of Wharton’s characters; for example, Newland Archer becomes Adam Newman, and Ellen Olenska becomes Ellie Schneider. Several other characters are clearly modeled after specific characters in the original novel; part of the pleasure of reading this new novel is making those connections with the original. The main story replicates Wharton's story quite closely, at least in its bones; there are of course minor adjustments for a different time period, and other small changes. This novel, to its credit, is enjoyable both for its reconstruction of the original and for its own self. One would not need to have read “The Age of Innocence” to admire and enjoy this new novel, although having done so certainly adds to the pleasure of the experience. As a quick summary and/or reminder of the plot: Newland/Adam is part of a close traditional and prosperous society, and is engaged to the very suitable May/Rachel. But then May/Rachel’s cousin Ellen/Ellie returns from a long time abroad, beautiful and trailing scandal behind her. As a (future) family member and a lawyer, Newland/Adam wants to help, but before he knows it, is deeply in love with Ellen/Ellie. They admit their mutual attraction, but Ellen/Ellie, out of loyalty to her cousin May/Rachel, refuses to allow Newland/Adam to leave May/Rachel. There is much tension, several side-but-related plot lines, and finally a bittersweet resolution. In the course of reading each novel, one also is given fascinating and detailed insights into these two close-knit, affluent societies, societies which have much in common despite being divided by a century or so, and by the Atlantic Ocean. Despite my initial skepticism, I was very much won over by this beautifully written novel, full of realistic characters, evocative of a specific community and way of living, and providing the tension of a classic love triangle in which there is a fourth side: a family/community/commitment that is as real and compelling as any character.

"Tapestry of Fortunes," by Elizabeth Berg

I have posted about the writer Elizabeth Berg before. On 2/8/10, I gave her as one of several examples of “middlebrow” writers, not of the very top literary quality, but the writer of solid, well-crafted, satisfying novels. On 12/21/11, I said that I had read and enjoyed many of her novels over the years, wrote about one of her novels, “Range of Motion,” and praised its insights into women characters and their lives, and praised the occasionally lovely writing in that novel. I have just finished “Tapestry of Fortunes” (Random House, 2013), and it is, as I have come to rely on, an enjoyable, satisfying, and entertaining book. It could be labeled, as some of her other work could be labeled, “feel good” writing; there is much about positive thinking, much advice about how best to live. The main character, Cece, is in fact a motivational speaker, but in the way of such books, isn’t always sure how best to live her own life. Cece has recently lost her best friend to cancer, and is considering retiring from writing and lecturing, as well as moving out of her house. She suddenly receives a letter from an old boyfriend, one she has not seen since she was a young woman, saying he is thinking of her. These factors come together in a move to a house shared with other women, a pause in her career, renewed communication with the old boyfriend, and a road trip. I won’t tell you how it all turns out, but you can perhaps imagine. This novel is a bit too self-help oriented, and a bit too predictable, for my tastes, yet I must say it was enjoyable in a not too demanding, “good read” way. I love Berg’s focus on relationships, especially those between women friends. I also appreciate her demonstrating that romance is still possible in late middle age and beyond (Cece’s widowed mother begins a romantic relationship during the course of the story as well). Not exactly a “beach read” (see my post of 7/1/13), but close. One postscript: I see from the book cover's back flap that Berg lives part of the year here in San Francisco, which (irrationally, I know!) increases my favorable view of, and feeling of connection to, her fiction.

"The Gardens of Kyoto," by Kate Walbert

When I wrote (6/13/12) about Kate Walbert’s 2009 novel “A Short History of Women,” I noted that despite the title, I was not initially drawn to the book, but once I read it, I liked it very much. I have just had essentially the same experience with her 2001 novel, “The Gardens of Kyoto” (Scribner). But once I started reading it, I liked it even more than the other novel. It is,in fact, a wonderful, very original novel. The main character, Ellen, looks back on her life forty years earlier, during and after the WWII years; because the narrative moves back and forth in time, it is (as clearly intended by the author) at first a bit difficult to keep track of the varying characters, plot lines, and perspectives. So there is a sense of mystery, even foreboding at times. The novel begins with the line “I had a cousin, Randall, killed on Iwo Jima.” Ellen and Randall had a very special relationship from childhood, being two very bright and nonconforming children and adolescents. That he died at age 17 is the tragedy of the book. But there are other tragedies, other deaths, and other terrible results of the war, not only for those who fought, but for those who loved them. The main characters are Ellen’s and Randall’s family, but there are other important characters, such as another soldier Ellen fell in love with after Randall’s death, one who is charming but damaged. There are also secrets about Randall’s family and parentage, which involve bringing in another character, Ruby, and her plot line. Various other topical issues arise, including domestic violence and slavery (Randall’s house had been a place for slaves on the underground railway to the north to stay). But these never feel didactic; they are organic parts of the story. The reason for the title, “The Gardens of Kyoto,” is too complicated to explain here, but suffice it to say that it is related to the war and to what is truly important in life, but has only a peripheral place in the novel's sites and plot lines. Ellen and Randall especially are compelling characters, and readers are drawn into their stories. Reading this novel provides an intense sense of being immersed in the drama of life. Most of all, it is beautifully written. I highly recommend this novel.

"The Suitors," by Cecile David-Weill

“The Suitors” (Other Press, 2012, originally published in French in 2009), by Cecile David-Weill, is so much fun! It is as light as a French meringue; it could practically float away. The reader needs to do nothing but sit back and enjoy it. This novel, translated from the French, is well written and delicious. It tells of two sisters who are dismayed that their parents plan to sell their beautiful summer house in the south of France. The sisters decide to invite various men to the house who may be candidates for a rich husband for one or the other of them, a husband who could then buy the house and preserve it in the family. But this flimsy, even half-hearted plot is merely an excuse for an extended paean to the house and to the very proper and very upper-class life and entertainment that the two daughters value and sentimentalize. The descriptions of the house, L’Agapanthe, and its surroundings and rituals are organized into chapters describing three consecutive weekends. For each weekend, there is a list of the characters (family, visitors, staff), the rooms where guests stay, the elaborate menus for each meal, the schedule for the weekend, and other relevant information. These beautifully ornate lists (just one feature of the aesthetically pleasing format and production of this book) are useful, but also serve to make concrete the extensive planning and traditions that accompany these weekends, invitations to which are most prized. As I said, this novel is mostly frou-frou; one doesn’t get the sense that the stakes are very high for anyone, and that makes the novel untaxing and enjoyable to read. The one serious note, one that I could relate to (on an entirely different scale!), was the attachment of the family to a summer home and all it symbolizes for them. There is something so family-oriented, so memory-making, about vacation places where it seems that all is right with the world. In my family’s case, the place was a humble summer cottage (probably a twentieth the size of L’Agapanthe!) on a beautiful lake in northern Michigan, one where the family gathered every summer in various combinations, and one where I went for a couple of weeks almost every summer even long after I moved to California, as did most of the family. My parents themselves had moved to California, but they kept the cottage for many years afterward. I loved that my daughter spent idyllic time there with her grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, as well as the neighbors’ grandkids, every summer. Both kids and adults swam, went out on the boat, took excursions, ate the wonderful summer fruits and vegetables (and fudge!) of Northern Michigan, played, read, talked, lay in the sun, took day trips, and generally had a lovely time. I thank my parents for having this cottage and for welcoming us there every summer.

Barbara Pym's Centenary

This post is dedicated to my friend B., who loves Barbara Pym's novels as much as I do.... I have mentioned writer Barbara Pym two or three times in this blog, but not in any detail. I am prompted to do so now by a 6/23/13 essay by Laura Shapiro in the New York Times Book Review, titled “Pride and Perseverance,” on the occasion of the centenary of Pym’s birth. This wonderful British novelist first wrote “six modestly successful novels” but in 1963, her publisher declined to publish more. Perhaps she seemed anachronistic in the 1960s; as Shapiro puts it so well: “Pym specialized in a minor-key world far from fiction’s cutting edge. Her characters tend to be unmarried women in sensible shoes, fond of musing over Anglican hymns and scraps of English poetry. They help out at the church jumble sale, offer cups of Ovaltine at moments of late-night crisis….” Pym herself, as well as her loyal readers, was shocked by this turn of events, and she was a discouraged writer for many years. It was only 1977 Times Literary Supplement statements by famed British writers Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil that Pym was the most underrated author that brought her back to the spotlight. Then her recent books were published, her older books were reprinted, and she was interviewed and celebrated. Unfortunately she died three years later of cancer. It is terrible that she had those 12 years of obscurity, and that she died so soon after her work was published again, but it is a great thing that she lived to see her work rediscovered and celebrated. I am personally a huge fan of her novels, having read all of them, some several times. They have great titles: “Excellent Women,” “A Glass of Blessings,” “No Fond Return of Love,” “The Sweet Dove Died,” and “An Unsuitable Attachment,” to name a few; there are about a dozen in all. The low-key aspect of her topics does not indicate low-key writing. Her work is witty, in an unassuming, musing way. She draws her characters sharply, with details and conversations that reveal much in a few words. Her understanding of human motivations and self-delusions approaches that of the great Jane Austen. Her novels, like Austen’s, are often labeled “domestic” dramas, and although in a sense that is accurate, it doesn’t begin to show how whole worlds can be found in domestic scenes. Sometimes reading Pym makes me laugh out loud at her humorous perceptivity. Pym’s women characters are sometimes sad, but good at cheering themselves up, finding ways to encourage themselves, often through helping others (but not in a goody-goody way). One of the later works, "Quartet in Autumn," is definitely darker than the others, as it takes a close look at ageing. I find myself somewhat at a loss to convey the unique and compelling qualities of this writer’s fiction. I strongly urge readers to just find and read one of her novels; I suggest “Excellent Women” to start, but really any of the novels will do.

"Little Sinners," by Karen Brown

I feel happy when I think I have “discovered” a “new” writer whose work I find I like very much. I had never heard of the writer Karen Brown before, but when I saw her small collection of short stories, “Little Sinners” (University of Nebraska Press, 2012) on the “new book shelf” of my university library, something told me to pick it up and check it out. Perhaps it was the contrast between its modest, university-press appearance, its author's common name, and, on the other hand, the provocative title. This book won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, and I can see why. (Of course a book that has won a prize and been published cannot be said to need “discovering” by me, but the work is just new enough, and as far as I can tell, not reviewed in the major newspapers and magazines, that I will preserve the feeling of having “discovered” Brown, at least for myself!) The stories are a fascinating blend of the very concrete and the slightly mysterious. The situations seem both real and just beyond one’s understanding. They are psychologically intriguing, character-focused, yet with compelling plots. Most of the stories take place in East Coast suburbs and small towns, some of them with working class roots, some not. There are many secrets and much pain. Yet the overall feeling of the book is not all sad and depressing; there are notes of hope. Even the characters in bad situations don’t necessarily seem desperate, and in fact sometimes seem curious to see what will happen next. Some of the stories have an elegiac tone. The overriding feeling, though, is of matters strange and haunting. Throughout, I had the sense that I was in very good hands, and that Karen Brown is a writer to watch out for. I hope to read more by her.