"Housebreaking," by Dan Pope

I admit it: I usually get my literary domestic drama (in the broad sense of focusing on families and their relationships) fix from novels by women writers. The few exceptions among contemporary writers (living or only recently deceased) include (some of) the fiction of Julian Barnes, Peter Cameron, Kent Haruf, Andrew O’Hagan, Stewart O’Nan, Richard Russo, Akhil Sharma, Colm Toibin, and William Trevor. A review of Dan Pope’s novel “Housebreaking” (Simon & Schuster, 2015) caught my interest, I found it in the library, and I must say it held my attention quite firmly throughout. It is about two youngish families living in Connecticut who have recently moved (or moved back) to the same street, and how their lives intersect in ways that are both positive and problematic. Each family member gets her or his own section of the novel, so we readers see some of the same events from several perspectives. There are two marriages in trouble, one adolescent who is seriously struggling after a heartrending loss in the family, and one elderly widowed father and his surprising but comforting new love interest. We also get glimpses into the work worlds of some of the characters, especially the Cadillac sales business and the big law firm business. Some of the elements in the troubled lives of the main characters are adultery, tragedy, love, loyalty, drugs, sex, juvenile delinquency, unhealthy and dangerous use of smartphones and social media, and more. The tone is a mixture of jaunty, world-weary, vulnerable, and hopeful. "Housebreaking" feels very believable and organic.

"The Summer Before the War," by Helen Simonson

A new novel by Helen Simonson, the author of the absolutely charming and compelling novel “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand” (about which I posted on 6/16/10), and which is a hard act to follow, is “The Summer Before the War” (Random House, 2016). It does not disappoint – far from it. The war it refers to is World War I, and the setting is the small town of Rye, in Sussex, England. It is a glorious summer, with all the gentle pleasures of England at its best, but it is soon marred by the approaching reality of the war. The local people form committees and try to defend their own area, offer support for the soldiers going off to war, and take care of their share of refugees, in this case from Belgium. The beauty of this novel is evident in layers. On one level, we see the gentle pace of life in the town, and the interactions of its residents. On another level, we see the pain and fear and tragic losses caused by the war. On still another level we see the problems brought about even in a small town by prejudice, infighting, rigid morality, and pettiness: discrimination based on class, ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity, among other types. To be fair, these prejudices are typical for the time period, but that does not make them any less angering and saddening. In addition, though, suffused throughout is a sense of humanity, as well as some understated humor of the Jeeves/Lucia/garden party type. The characters include the wonderful (and surprisingly liberal, for her time, but always in a diplomatic and careful way) Aunt Agatha, the center of the town’s activities; her nephew, the serious Hugh, a newly minted doctor who is torn between two romances; her other nephew Daniel, a budding poet who charms everyone but is caught up in a scandal because of who he loves; Beatrice, a writer who has had to make her way in the world alone since her scholarly father died; the scheming and petty Lady Fotheringill; the bright and intrepid young Gypsy boy, nicknamed Snout, who loves Latin and learning but whose promise is cut short because of society’s intolerance of his people; and many more. There is even a famous writer clearly based on Henry James (who did in fact live in Rye), who is revered but also gently (and at one point not so gently) skewered for putting his writing before his loyalty to humanity. As the story moves from the “before the war” portion to the “during the war” part, it gets darker, for obvious reasons, and we start learning increasingly bad news. Although very little of the novel takes place at the battlefront, there is enough for us to be horrified and saddened, and these feelings are reinforced by the pain of the survivors back home. “The Summer Before the War” is one of those “big” novels that contains much about human nature, England, war, love, ambition, and more, and the reader cannot help but be drawn in. That the author can balance the weight of all these topics with an intermittently light touch is admirable, almost miraculous.

"The Red Notebook," by Antoine Laurain

Thank you, B., one of my very favorite people with whom to talk about books, for your recommendation of the delightful (and delightful is the perfect word here) French novel, “The Red Notebook” (Gallic, 2015), by Antoine Laurain (translated into English by Emily Boyce and Jane Aitken). It is a small book, a lovely romp. The story is that a young Parisian woman, Laure, is mugged, and a bookshop owner, Laurent, finds her beautiful mauve-colored bag on the street, minus money and identifying information. He tries to turn it in to a police station, but is given a bureaucratic runaround, so he starts looking for clues to her identity himself, using various objects in the bag as tenuous leads. So the story is a sort of mystery, with a bonus of reading about the various Paris locales depicted, as Laurent follows leads. Laure is obviously a book-lover, and some of the clues Laurent finds are literary, including a book in Laure’s bag signed by the famous but somewhat reclusive writer Patrick Modianao. Other characters include Laurent’s daughter, Chloe, and Laure’s co-worker and good friend William. Did you notice that the author’s name and those of the two main characters all include versions of “Laur…”? Well, you can guess where the story goes, but I won’t spoil it by telling you more here. You can read this slim novel in an hour or two, and I can pretty much guarantee you will be completely charmed in the process. Paris, books, a bookshop, an author, a mystery, a beautiful cat, and the hint of love in the air...what's not to like?

"Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty," by Ramona Ausubel

Money, money, money. “Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty” (Riverhead, 2016), by Ramona Ausubel, is a novel pondering the age-old questions of “What is the meaning of life?” and “How should I live?” But as the title indicates, and as a theme throughout the book, money and privilege provide the main focus, even when the main characters, who greatly benefit from family money, are constantly downplaying (but ambivalently) its importance. “How do I live when I have money but feel guilty about it?” Fern and Edgar, a married couple with three children, both come from money; in Fern’s parents’ case it is old(ish) and confident, while in Edgar’s parents’ case it is new and anxious. But the center of the anguish and ambivalence about money is Edgar, who declines to take over his father’s steel business because he believes the business and its profits are tainted by – well, by American history, slavery, corruption, and…the list goes on. So he takes the "moral" stand of living on Fern’s parents’ money instead; he knows that if one goes back far enough in history, that money is tainted as well, but perhaps the passing of time makes it more palatable to him than that of his parents. He constantly talks about and worries about the negative effects of money, and tries in his mostly symbolic way (not actually denying himself anything he really wants) to live (ostentatiously) simply, but still accepts the “ease and plenty” provided by Fern’s family money. The author’s rather surprising achievement is to make Edgar a somewhat likeable character, despite all of his self-indulgent angst about money, the angst of a privileged person for whom nothing truly material (his family’s welfare, for example) is at stake. His ostensible reason for not taking a job is that for ten years he has been writing a novel about his own situation and moral dilemma, including a merciless attack on his father and his business. The crisis that activates the plot of this novel is Fern’s parents’ deaths and the subsequent revelation that they had spent and given away all their money; nothing is left, and now Fern and Edgar for the first time will actually have to figure out how to make their own money and support themselves and their children. This sends them both into existential tizzies, and very soon they do surprising and out of character actions that precipitate an unintended and possibly dangerous result for their children. SPOILER ALERT: The children end up fine, and it seems that the couple and family will be fine as well. This novel is well written, and raises important questions about money and privilege in human lives. To me, its major achievement is that it portrays so very well a certain type of self-involved, self-conscious, self-congratulory angst-without-anything's-actually-being-in-the-balance attitude that readers will recognize.

The Enchanting "Enchanted August," by Brenda Bowen

The word “enchanted” is itself enchanting and appealing. At the library recently, in the new books section, a colorful cover with the title “Enchanted August” (Viking, 2015) exerted its magic on me even before I even realized that it was a modern retelling of the itself enchanting 1922 novel,“Enchanted April” (about which I posted here on12/20/14). That novel was by Elizabeth von Arnim, about four English women who don’t know each other but band together to rent a castle in Italy by the water for a month. The current novel, by Brenda Bowen, is set in the present, and the castle becomes a huge “cottage” on an island in Maine. The four (American) co-renters are three women and an elderly gay man. Although the two novels take place almost a century apart, the dynamics are similar: at first, the co-tenants are awkward with each other, angle for the best rooms, get annoyed at each other at times, try to keep their distance from each other. But the place works its magic, and they take care of each other in various ways, and there is joy and healing. Other characters who enter the story at various times include the owner of the cottage, two husbands, three children, and various local people. An added appeal for me is its “take a small group of people and put them in a fairly confined space and see what time reveals” aspect, of which readers of this blog may remember that I am quite fond. This novel tells a delightful story, and is a lovely variation on the usual “summer” story; although told with a light touch, it shares thoughtful if not particularly original insights about what is important in life. Highly recommended for anyone looking for enjoyable summer reading that doesn’t make you feel it is a “guilty pleasure” (not that there is anything wrong with that!).

"Goodnight, Beautiful Women," by Anna Noyes

The blurbs for Anna Noyes’ small book of short stories, “Goodnight, Beautiful Women” (Grove Press, 2016) are extravagant, using words and phrases such as the following: precise, fearless, breathtaking, terrible grace, enthralling, a revelation, singular, has the gift, mesmerizing, one of America’s most exciting young writers, wrenching, funny, deeply sensuous, seductive, a book to fall in love with…. I did like the stories, mainly, but I feel the blurbs are truly over the top. Yes, yes, that is what blurbs are generally like, and one should generally take them with a grain of salt. However, this seems like an extreme case. But maybe I noticed this excessiveness more because I was already somewhat uncomfortable with some of the stories. I am trying to figure out why. It can’t be because some of the characters push the boundaries a bit too much, can it? Or is it because of the many of the characters are poor, and it is uncomfortable to read about poverty, or near-poverty? But I have read, enjoyed, and praised many novels and short stories about this class status. Could it be because some of the young women are at that strange cusp between childhood and adult womanhood, and their love affairs and adventures are a little disturbing at times? But I don’t think of myself as easily disturbed, or as prudish. (And, to be clear, although some of the stories are somewhat erotic, they are not unusually so for mainstream fiction.) Am I too old for these stories? But I have always read and enjoyed stories about characters of all different ages and places in life. Now I am feeling uncomfortable about feeling uncomfortable. What has gotten under my skin about this collection? Is the issue with the stories or with me?

"Vinegar Girl," by Anne Tyler

It seems that there are more and more books that are fictional retellings of famous literary works from the past. I have written here about the fact that many of Jane Austen’s novels, for example, have been retold in modern settings. I have just read a very new such retelling, in this case of Shakespeare’s play “The Taming of the Shrew’: this version is called “Vinegar Girl” (Hogarth, 2016), and is authored by the inestimable Anne Tyler. Apparently it is part of a planned larger project by Hogarth. Kate Battista, an American woman of thirty, is unmarried, and has a job as a preschool assistant teacher that she doesn’t particularly like. She lives with her father and her much younger sister, taking care of them and the house; her mother has died many years ago. She feels a bit at sea in her own life. The main plot point is that her father, a scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, wants her to marry his research assistant so he can extend his visa to stay in the United States. Kate is of course resistant, and angry at her father. She, like the original Kate, doesn’t care about pleasing everyone, thus the “vinegar” in the title. I won’t give away the rest of the story, although you may be able to guess it. The story is told with Tyler’s familiar verve and warmth. It will be of interest to see which other Shakespeare plays will be retold by writers of today; stay tuned!