"Seating Arrangements," by Maggie Shipstead

“Seating Arrangements” (Knopf, 2012), by the first-time young (29-year-old) novelist Maggie Shipstead, is an example of books that evoke a specific, albeit complicated, response in me: I “enjoy” reading them, or at least find myself wanting to keep reading, yet feel a bit dismayed and even slightly repulsed by them. This novel tells the story of one weekend on a New England island before, during, and after a wedding. The characters are the bride Daphne and groom Greyson and their families (parents, multiple siblings, grandparents, aunt), with a few friends and others (e.g., a chipper wedding planner) on the fringes of the action. Complicated but somehow not very interesting family dynamics loom large, as do rehashings of old grievances, flirting, and random sex, with resultant jealousy and other bad feelings. But the main character and his limitations take center stage: he is Winn Van Meter, the father of the bride. Winn comes from an upper middle class family, went to Harvard, was a member of its most desirable club, is financially successful, but is still striving, still feeling he hasn’t quite made it in the social world. He desperately wants to join the prestigious Pequod Club on the island, and can’t understand why his application has been stalled for three years. His open striving, his one-sided rivalry with a neighbor with a perceived higher status, as well as his doomed flirtation with one of his daughter Daphne’s friends, Agatha, make him appear very shallow and lamentably foolish. No one in the novel does anything truly terrible, but none of them appears very admirable, interesting or likeable either. I can’t be sure whether the author expects us to dislike these characters, and is focusing on the social satire that exposes them, or if she wants us to see them as flawed but very human characters that we can all in some ways identify with. In any case, it was with a sense of relief that I finished and closed the book.

"A Queer and Pleasant Danger," by Kate Bornstein

One of the great things about reading is its allowing us to enter whole worlds that we would never have known much or anything about without books or other written works. This is an obvious observation, a cliché, but occasionally certain books powerfully and even viscerally remind us of its truth. I just finished reading Kate Bornstein’s “A Queer and Pleasant Danger” (Beacon, 2012), a memoir described on the front cover as “The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today.” This description is a good short summary of the “plot” of Bornstein’s life, but doesn’t begin to capture the way she invites readers into the painful and exhilarating highs and lows of her life. About those worlds that we learn about (“we” here meaning “I,” and others like me who are well read and somewhat knowledgeable about the worlds within our world, but have only superficial – even if open-minded and accepting – real understanding of some of those worlds): Here we learn about the worlds of scientology, transgender, and sadomasochism (and various permutations in the complicated taxonomy of gender and sexuality). Our guide, Bornstein, is a complex, troubled, yet resourceful and resilient person who has somehow survived (sometimes just barely) a complicated dance of insiderness/outsiderness throughout her life, and now is at what seems to be a place of hard-earned (at least relative) peace and happiness. Her person and voice are candid, confiding, bracing, even endearing. She is a pioneer in her openness, as well as a good writer; I thank her for her honesty and courage, and wish her well.

"Wild," by Cheryl Strayed

"Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail" (Knopf, 2012), by Cheryl Strayed, is not the type of memoir I would normally read. A book about a long, tough, physically and mentally bruising 1,100 mile solo hike? For this not-at-all-athletic, camping-averse reader, there was nothing compelling about the prospect of reading a 300-plus-page book about a young woman's trek up and down mountains, through alternately freezing and steaming weather, encountering bears and rattlesnakes, carrying a backpack that is so heavy that the author calls it the Monster, experiencing aches and pains and blisters and calluses that she has never imagined, often going days without seeing another human being, and sometimes suffering hunger and thirst, among other hardships. Strayed had had no experience with long-distance hiking, but decided it was the challenge she needed in order to deal with the blows life had dealt her and the unhealthy ways she had been living in order to blot out those blows. The most devastating loss was her mother's death when Strayed was only 22. She then embarked on aimless traveling, used destructive drugs, and entered unhealthy relationships. But after four years of this, she pulled herself together to plan and earn money for the big trek along the Pacific Crest Trail. The story of her adventure is both painful and inspiring. Despite my initial reservations about the book, I found myself completely caught up in Strayed's recounting of the journey, as well as her flashbacks to the earlier events in her life. There is an honesty and openness in her writing that is hard to read but also makes it easy for the reader to connect with the narrative and the narrator.

Farewell, Gore Vidal

The great author, politician, intellectual, and provocateur Gore Vidal died yesterday at the age of 86. As the Associated Press, The New York Times, and other news outlets pointed out, he was one of the last of the "generation of writers who were also genuine celebrities" (AP); we saw him on TV and in the gossip columns as well as in literary venues. He was a real "public intellectual" -- he fearlessly (and even joyfully) challenged orthodoxy wherever he found it. I didn't always agree with him, and it was clear that he was often purposely being outrageous, but I was happy that such a thinker and dissident was speaking out regularly. As for his novels: they were sometimes wonderful, sometimes very disappointing. But overall he made a tremendous contribution to literature. I will never forget reading, many years ago, "Burr," one of his very best books, and a revelation to me. It is a wonderful combination of history and literature, and I couldn't put it down. A related happy personal memory is that my late father and I both read some of his novels and had good conversations about them. Vidal's essays, which I found in many of the magazines and newspapers I read, and was always happy to see, were often masterpieces of criticism, and pointed (some say sly and devilish) humor as well. Farewell, Gore Vidal. Your presence and voice will be missed.

"The Man of My Dreams," by Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld's first novel, "Prep," was a fascinating look at the East Coast boarding school set. Her "American Wife" was a fictionalized version of the life of a Laura Bush type character. I enjoyed both. I have just listened on CD to her novel, "The Man of My Dreams" (Books on Tape, 2006). As in "Prep," Sittenfeld's main character here is a distinctive, somewhat eccentric, somewhat lonely "outsider" type. We meet Hannah when she is 14, and reeling from the recent separation of her mother from her abusive father. We follow her life up to her late 20s. She is smart and observant, blunt and somewhat socially inept, and continues to be a bit of an outsider. She is the kind of person who is almost always insecure, but who is capable of feeling both superior and inferior at almost the same time. She would love to be loved, but on one level doesn't feel she deserves true love and, perhaps consequently, keeps choosing (or being chosen by) the wrong men, and seems not to quite know what to do about that. All of this is painfully and realistically portrayed in this novel. The author is brave enough to make Hannah a bit unlikable at times, yet we readers understand and sympathize with her, and ultimately cannot help liking her. This novel felt very immediate, very real to me. It wasn't always comfortable to listen to, but ultimately I admired and enjoyed it.

"High Wages," by Dorothy Whipple

Some readers may remember that a few months ago I “discovered” the writer Dorothy Whipple, whom I had not known about before. Now that I have read some of her fiction, I find that although she wrote mostly in the 1930s and 1940s, many besides me still read her today. This was a humbling experience. Not because I claim to know all writers, of course (!), but because Whipple’s work is exactly the kind of fiction I like, and I am surprised and a bit chagrined that I had not heard of her before. In any case, I did recently “discover” her, loved her fiction, and posted about three of her books (one short story collection and two novels) on 1/24/12, 1/30/12, and 2/10/12. After that, I had been meaning to read more of her fiction, and knew that the USF library had several of her books, in the beautiful Persephone editions with their grey covers and gorgeous, colorfully patterned inner covers. I have now just read “High Wages” (originally 1932, republished by Persephone 2009), and enjoyed it very much. This novel is different than most of Whipple's other works, in that instead of focusing on middle and upper class characters, it features a main character who starts out very poor. Jane becomes an orphan in her early teens, doesn’t get along with her stepmother, and soon is out on her own. At first she works in a haberdashery shop, at the lowest level possible, living behind the shop, badly paid and badly fed. But she is a bright, talented, hardworking, observant young woman, with a vision of how to do things better, and with ambition, and she gradually raises her station in life, eventually owning her own very prestigious and successful shop. The story tells not only of her work, but also of her friendships, hardships, romances, and more. Unlike most English novels that are set in London, this one takes place mainly in northern England, in a small town near Manchester. Some of the scenes that most impressed me were Jane’s outings to increasingly far away cities – first Manchester, then Liverpool, and finally London. She was fascinated by everything about these cities, wandering the streets, observing the people, looking at the shop windows, soaking it all in. This suddenly reminded me of how even today, even in my prosperous city of San Francisco, there are children in some districts of the city who have not only never been out of the city but have not even been to Golden Gate Park or to Ocean Beach. This was a sad reminder that a seemingly unchanging fact about the world -- the gap between the rich and the poor, and even the middle class and the poor -- is still huge, and still something we need to be aware of and fight against.

"Yes, Chef," by Marcus Samuelsson

Readers of this blog know that one of the genres I enjoy is books about the restaurant world, and especially memoirs of chefs. I just finished a new example of this genre, “Yes, Chef: A Memoir” (Random House, 2012), by Marcus Samuelsson. This is the story of a man who was born in Ethiopia, was adopted as a toddler by a Swedish family, loved to cook with his Swedish grandmother, started working in restaurants as a young teenager, and at the practically unprecedented age of 24, became the chef at New York’s Aquavit and earned a New York Times three-star review for the restaurant. He was the youngest chef ever to receive a three-star review from the Times. Along the way, he worked in restaurants in Europe, and while in New York and elsewhere, he roamed the various neighborhoods and explored the cuisines and markets of many different countries and cultures. He also recently won the Top Chef Masters television competition, and planned and cooked for the first state dinner at the Obama White House. At a certain point, he felt the need to reconnect with his Ethiopian birth family and background, and with his black identity as well, so he went back to Ethiopia several times. His own path to success was not as direct and easy as the above description might indicate; he overcame many challenges and missteps along the way, both in his professional life and his personal life. Now, bringing together many aspects of his life, talents, identity, and character, he is the creator, owner and chef of the successful and well-reviewed Red Rooster restaurant in Harlem. One of his goals in life is to bring more attention to Harlem and its rich history and culture; another goal is to bring more black chefs into the restaurant world. This story is well written. Although no co-author is listed on the title page, the author mentions in the acknowledgements that “the real work of writing this book began when my friend Veronica Chambers agreed to help me tell my story….This is my story, but the fine touch on the words is all hers,” so it is not clear how much of the writing is his and how much hers. In any case, it is a readable and compelling story. Samuelsson has a unique and inspiring story, and his “voice” is both proud and humble, a good balance. He seems very likable, although I did question his decision for many years to support his illegitimate daughter financially but not see or communicate with her. Fortunately, he eventually, as he became more mature, established contact with her and built a belated relationship with her. I like the fact that he often acknowledges and thanks the people in his life who helped him succeed, not only as a chef but as a person, most notably his beloved and admirable Swedish parents. Now, back to the reason Samuelsson published a book in the first place: his life in and love of cooking. He is obviously a tremendously talented chef, and has been able to blend various aspects of his background, identity, and gifts to produce amazing, creative food and a wonderful experience for those who dine at his restaurants. A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to eat at Aquavit while he was still the chef there, and it was an impressive and memorable meal and experience.