"Gone," by Cathi Hanauer

There is something a bit odd about Cathi Hanauer’s new novel, “Gone” (Atria, 2012) (not to be confused with the current bestseller, “Gone Girl”). The central plot point is that a husband has suddenly left his wife, without telling her he is leaving, or where he is going. Yet there isn’t much suspense, as he frequently texts their teenaged daughter, and his destination is his mother’s house across the U.S. (yes, really, he runs away to his mother's house...). We are also clearly told that each of the two still loves the other, although Eve is sometimes exasperated with Eric. We first hear Eve’s story, then Eric’s, and then the story goes back and forth between their two perspectives. The reactions of their two children, fourteen-year-old Magnolia and eight-year-old Danny, are well-portrayed and seem realistic. The story is interesting enough, and kept me reading, but it all seems so low-key, and the writing is disappointingly talky and full of exposition. There are even long chunks of didactic -- very didactic -- explanations and exhortations about nutrition (the pretext for this is that Eve is a nutritionist), the environment, and mental health (Eric’s mother is a therapist). There are some thoughtful sections, and some better-written sections, but overall the pedestrian writing is an obstacle to really enjoying the book.

"Some Assembly Required," by Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott, who lives here in Marin County, just north of San Francisco, as I do, has a unique voice in her writing. I read several of her novels some time ago, and enjoyed them, but would not say they are great literature. But her memoirs, all of which I have also read, seem to me to be better written, more authentic, and more compelling. In them, she writes of her difficult family of origin, whom she nonetheless loves very much, as well as the alcoholism that runs through her family and her own alcoholism and recovery. She writes of finding salvation, religious and otherwise, through a small African-American church. She writes of how hard it was to be a single mother, and yet how wonderful. When she wrote about that topic, almost 20 years ago, in “Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year,” she was lauded for her honesty about the great joys and the great difficulties of motherhood, especially single motherhood. Now, in her most recent book (which I listened to on CD, read by the author herself), “Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son” (Riverhead, 2012), co-written with her son Sam Lamott, she writes about her 19-year-old son’s and his girlfriend Amy’s unexpected parenthood. Although surprised and concerned about their becoming parents at such a young age, and at a time that they are in a relationship with an uncertain future, she is also absolutely besotted with her new grandson Jax, and does all she can to help, yet makes an effort not to “take over.” The strength of Lamott’s voice is her openness, her willingness to confess all her thoughts and feelings, including the less worthy ones. Her feelings are understandable, though. For example, she hates it when Amy takes Jax to visit her family in Chicago, and she lives in fear that Amy and Jax, or maybe Amy and Sam and Jax, will permanently move to Chicago; I imagine most parents and grandparents can relate to that feeling. She writes of insecurity, of jealousy, of fear, and more. But she also writes of joy, family, sharing, and celebrating life. The book covers the time just before little Jax is born, and during the first year of his life. Much of the book is concerned with the everyday ebbs and flows of life, of worries, of happiness, of visits back and forth, of family celebrations, of hikes with friends and consultations with her therapist and her priest friend. She also takes trips to India and to Europe, and describes those trips in some detail. She writes of her meditation practice, and says a little about her own writing and her book tours. Most of all she writes detailed descriptions of Jax and his personality and growth; these, although in certain hands might be tedious to read about, are beautifully observed. Sam’s contributions are only perhaps 20% of the book, but his perspective is important. His maturity, love for his child, and ability to adjust to his new, unexpected life as a father are all impressive. He says that because his own father was not in his life, he wants to make sure that he himself will always be there for his son Jax. I can’t help thinking that despite all her eccentricities and insecurities, Lamott must have done a lot right in the way she raised Sam, because he seems to be have turned out so well. As for her writing, I think it is an acquired taste; it is admirable and brave and sometimes very funny, but also sometimes annoying, with a whining undertone. But these are two sides of the same coin, because she clearly knows she is whining sometimes, but is brave enough to share what makes her look petty or unappealing. This is all part of her candidness. Obviously many people love her writing, as her memoirs have all been bestsellers. And despite any reservations I have, I too will probably keep on reading them as she publishes them.

"All Roads Lead to Austen," by Amy Elizabeth Smith

Readers of this blog know how much I admire and love the work of Jane Austen. So I generally enjoy reading about others who also love Austen’s work. I recently read an unusual twist on this genre, “All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane” (Sourcebooks, 2012). It is a combination of a memoir, a travel book, a love letter to Austen, and a romance. The author, Amy Elizabeth Smith, is an English professor specializing in Austen, so the book is clearly informed by that background, but is written for general readers rather than for academics. Smith decides to take her sabbatical/study leave year to travel through Mexico, Central America, and South America, visiting six countries in all. She studies Spanish in Guatemala, teaches a class for American students abroad at a Chilean university, and sightsees. But her main unifying theme and activity is holding a series of reading groups, at least one in each country, each focusing on one of Austen’s novels (read in Spanish translation). The sessions are held in Spanish, and the members of the groups vary quite a bit in age, education, social class, and sophistication about literature. Some of Smith’s best-laid plans go astray, as members are added to or drop out of groups, dates are changed, locations are changed, and some participants do not finish the assigned books. She learns to go with the flow and accept these changes. Her main goal is to find out whether Austen’s novels, characters, and themes are understood and enjoyed in the same way everywhere, or whether they are mediated by national, cultural, and language factors. Her conclusion is that some aspects are universal and some are in fact culturally determined. She writes in a lively manner about each group and each locale, as well as about the people she meets, the adventures and misadventures she has, and her own feelings about her travels and project. She has a light and often humorous touch in her writing, but always with great respect and appreciation for her participants. And oh, by the way, do you remember I mentioned “romance”? Yes, the author experiences some romance during her trip, with a happy ending….what could be more like an Austen novel?

A Tribute to Nora Ephron

I am very sad about writer Nora Ephron’s recent (6/26/12) death at the too-early age of 71. She was extremely gifted and prolific: a successful journalist, essayist, screenwriter, director, producer, and more. Her books included “Heartburn,” “Crazy Salad,” and “Scribble, Scribble”; her movies included “Heartburn,” “Silkwood,” “When Harry Met Sally…,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” “You’ve Got Mail,” and “Julie and Julia.” She entertained us and she made us think. She was a pioneer in much of the work she did; even now, women in the film industry are rare. In her movies there were always women characters who were strong, believable, and interesting; female filmgoers could identify with these characters. This was more unusual than it should have been; as the Washington Post obituary reminds us, she once stated that to male studio moguls, “a movie about a woman’s cure for cancer is less interesting than a movie about a man with a hangnail.” And -- as that quotation indicates -- she was a feminist. In so many ways, in so much of what she did, she spoke for women. She was rarely a polemicist and mostly wrote with humor, thus getting her points across even more effectively. In fact, she was a one-woman rebuttal of the old canard that feminists have no sense of humor. She will be very much missed.

Everything I Am Reading Now

I believe I have mentioned here that I am usually reading several things at a time, and go back and forth among them. Because at certain times I feel more like reading certain books or periodicals. Or certain books or magazines are easier to carry if I will be out and about. Or a library book is due soon, or overdue. Or I plan to discuss a certain book with someone, or pass it on to someone, so it goes to the top of the pile. Right now I have even more than usual on my partly-read pile; to give you a flavor of the combinations I usually have in my currently-reading pile, I list the items here, in the order, more or less, in which I started them. 1. “Mending: New and Selected Stories,” by Sallie Bingham. 2. “Preacher’s Lake,” by Lisa Vice. 3. “The Memory Chalet,” by Tony Judt. 4. “The Last September,” by Elizabeth Bowen. 5. The July 2/9, 2012 issue of The Nation magazine. 6. “Interpreting Experience: The Narrative Study of Lives,” edited by Ruthellen Josselson and Amia Lieblich. 7. “Gone,” by Cathi Hanauer. 8. The July 12, 2012 issue of The New York Review. 9. Today’s edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, the print version. 10. I am also listening to Anne Lamott’s “Some Assembly Required” on CD in the car. Note the mixture of novels, short stories, memoir, scholarly work, and periodicals; this is a pretty typical conglomeration for me. I am pretty sure I will finish all of these eventually, although not in the same order I started them. I will also be posting about some of these in the near future.

There's Something Strange about "The Uninvited Guests"

What an original, diverting, and enjoyable book “The Uninvited Guests” (Harper, 2012), by Sadie Jones, is! Especially after the beautifully written but difficult, depressing worlds I have recently read about and posted on -- created by the authors of “Reckless Driver,” “Dirt,” “Are You My Mother?” and “Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?” -- this book is a refreshing change of pace. Not that it is exactly upbeat; there are family, money, and relationship problems, and the unusual problem of a horde of unexpected and certainly uninvited guests who have just been involved in a terrible train accident and need a place to shelter. The family that has to deal with them is a hodge-podge of characters at their country house. Charlotte, the mother, mostly leaves her two young adult children, Emerald and Clovis, and their friends and possible romantic partners, to handle this unique problem, in the midst of coping with other interpersonal issues. It turns out that someone from Charlotte’s past, Charlie Traversham-Beechers (what fun the author must have had in creating this name!) is among the uninvited guests, and he is determined to revisit that past and to exploit the situation to his advantage. As the novel proceeds, it is slowly revealed that not all is as it seems, and a sort of gothic element gradually takes over. But Jones expertly balances that gothic element with the very real issues and interchanges found among the characters, so we readers are kept on edge, not quite knowing where we are and how the story will turn out. This off-balance aspect is what stands out in this novel, along with the intriguing characters and slightly creepy setting. I heard distorted echoes of all sorts of houses, redolent of mystery and the occult, that have been portrayed in other novels over the years. This mixture of mysterious atmosphere with the tart and crisp writing is a winner. Normally I don’t like anything supernatural in my fiction, but this instance is managed so well, and is so firmly rooted in the quotidian that I was charmed and drawn in. What I didn’t feel, however, was any real connection to any of the characters. But I am not sure that the author intended us to feel such a connection; it isn’t really the point of the literary game she is playing. She plays her own surprising game well, and readers are in good hands with this novel.

Four Bleak Books

Four of the books I have written about in the past two weeks have depicted some of the hardest, saddest, most depressing childhoods and young adulthoods that I have read about for a while, along with, in some cases, the wrenching lifelong consequences of such childhoods. Two of the books -- Alison Bechdel’s “Are You My Mother?” and Jeanette Winterson’s “Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?” -- are memoirs; two of them -- Lisa Vice’s “Reckless Driver” and David Vann’s “Dirt” -- are novels. Vann has -- as I wrote in my post about “Dirt” -- said in interviews that the main character is based on himself, but exaggerated; I cannot say how much of “Reckless Driver” is based on Vice’s own childhood, but certain biographical facts suggest that at least some of the story may be drawn, at least indirectly, from the author’s own experiences. In all four cases, the parents are abusive and neglectful. These books focus in particular on the mother characters and their shortcomings. Although the biggest villain in “Reckless Driver” is the father, even the mother in that novel is neglectful. Three of the books write of violence in the family; although the exception, Bechdel’s book, doesn’t focus on physical violence, there is a kind of verbal and emotional abuse inflicted on the young Alison by her mother. All four of these books are important and well written; I am glad they were written, although it must have been painful for the authors to do so. Perhaps the power of words, of verbal and literary expression, was the mitigating factor for them. As for readers: Reading these books is also painful, but it is important that writers write (whether in memoir or fiction) about such experiences, even the most terrible ones, as they are part of life and we need to know about them. If we have had such experiences ourselves, this may be healing to know others understand; if we have not, it is important for us to understand them. That said, I must say that these four books read within such a short time period provided an unusually concentrated dose of bleakness; I am thankful for the small notes of hope in three of the four books (all but “Dirt”).