My Mom is Reading Again!

My mother got very ill about three months ago, a source of great worry for all the family. Fortunately, her health has very gradually but definitely improved. She is not back to her old self, but getting closer. I am very grateful to my two brothers and my sister-in-law who live in the same city as she does, and who have taken such great, loving care of her. I visit on weekends when possible, call her, and write to her, but they are the heroes of this story. I write about this here because as some of you may possibly remember, one of our great connections is our love of reading, and I enjoy choosing books for her that I think she will like. When she got so sick, it was hard for her to read. But one sign that she was getting better was that she started reading the newspaper again. And then she started reading the book I had chosen for this particular time: “Miller’s Valley,” by Anna Quindlen (see my post of 4/24/16). A while ago she told me she was reading it, and a few days ago she said she had finished and enjoyed it. It took her longer than usual to read it, but I was so happy that she had gotten back to reading. She also told me she had started the next book I had chosen for her: “The Excellent Lombards,” by Jane Hamilton (see my post of 9/24/16). I hope she will like it as well. I am so happy that she is reading again – a real sign of recovery!

"Still Life," by Louise Penny

I have written more than once about my lifelong enjoyment of mysteries, but I have also written of how I sometimes go “off” mysteries for years at a time. I have now gone through a long period, several years, without mysteries (with one or two exceptions) during those years. But a colleague who is an editor who reads very widely, K.S., recently told me about a mystery writer new to me – Louise Penny – and her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache books. K. S.’s enthusiastic recommendation, plus the fact that the books are set in a small town in Quebec, Three Pines, convinced me to try at least the first one, “Still Life” (Minotaur, 2005) (K. had recommended reading them in order of publication). I may have mentioned to her that my favorite mysteries are British “village cozies” as they are known, with thoughtful and intriguing inspectors/investigators. Although this mystery is set in Quebec, the “village cozy” model is in evidence. A beloved older woman, a mainstay of the village, is found dead of a wound from a bow and arrow. At first it looks like an accident, but of course (this being a mystery novel) it is not. We get to know all the chief residents of the village, many of whom are quirky and eccentric, but who support each other despite some feuds. We find that their stories are entangled going back many years in their individual and town histories. Gamache is a good watcher and listener, and knows his psychology. He is also very likable. There is a satisfyingly surprising ending that once known makes complete sense. A side story is Inspector Gamache’s having to deal with an odd, ambitious, brash, socially inept assistant. Apparently there are a dozen or so more novels in this series, and I think I may be hooked. I will read at least one more…the next one…and see what happens.

"Commonwealth," by Ann Patchett

If you like beautifully written novels about quirky, dysfunctional but loving families, read the wonderful author (of such novels as “Bel Canto” and “State of Wonder,” the latter of which I posted about on 9/19/11) Ann Patchett’s new novel, “Commonwealth” (Harper, 2016). Really. Read it! Two families are friends; early on in the novel (so this is not a spoiler) the husband in one family and the wife in the other fall in love and get married. The focus is on the six children of the two families, who are now bound together as stepsiblings. They bond but also fight, and live through some very difficult times, sent back and forth between their new sets of parents, sometimes living together and sometimes separately. They resent each other yet cling to each other; they fight yet back each other up. They suffer, some more than others, and there is at least one tragedy. Some of them feel lifelong guilt. But there is much humor and much resilience as well. The novel covers 50 years. We follow the children into adulthood, and among other events, a new crisis is precipitated when a famous author becomes the lover of one of the grown siblings and uses the family story as the basis of his next novel, which becomes a huge bestseller titled “Commonwealth,” just as this real novel with the same title has become a big bestseller (very meta). The plot thickens: Patchett is open about the fact that this novel is very autobiographical; there was a similar set of divorces in her childhood, and she too has stepsiblings. She and those stepsiblings also regularly crossed the U.S. to be with the various parents. So one question the novel raises is that of who owns our stories, and what obligations we have regarding our own and our family’s stories and privacy. Highly recommended!

Try the Search Box

A longtime reader of this blog, M.L., suggested that I point out to readers that they can search the blog, using the small search box on the top left of the blog. Besides searching for specific titles or authors, which would likely be the most common searches, a reader might want to search for a specific genre (e.g., memoir, mystery, campus novel, poetry) or a specific setting (e.g., San Francisco, Manhattan, India). And if you have trouble getting results with this, please don’t hesitate to email me directly to ask a book question, and if I possibly can, I will happily answer.

"We Could Be Beautiful," by Swan Huntley

A little romance. A little domestic drama. A little social commentary on life in upper-class Manhattan. And elements of a thriller, perhaps of the general genre of “Gone Girl” or “Girl on a Train,” although a little more literary and a little less overtly dramatic and frightening. These are the strands of “We Could Be Beautiful” (Doubleday, 2016), by Swan Huntley. Unfortunately, some of the story, and the writing, are squirm-inducing. And the many portentously presented hints and clues are not very subtle, so readers start to see the denouement of the narrative coming far in advance. Catherine West is a rich, beautiful, art-loving 44-year old woman living in an expensive Manhattan apartment. She desperately wants to get married and have a child, but has been unlucky so far. At the beginning of the novel, she meets the older, handsome, seemingly perfect William Stockton, and it turns out their parents had known each other long ago. Before we know it, they are engaged. But there is a note of something “off,” which Catherine tries to ignore but eventually cannot. There are a few twists in the story, including, I must admit, some I had NOT expected, but still the substantial majority of the ending was quite predictable. This is a somewhat creepy quick read that might be entertaining if you are in the mood for it, but not something I recommend.

Enough "Comfort Reading" For Now

I wrote on 9/12/16 about reading several novels that were the equivalent of comfort food: not necessarily very good, and not literary fiction, but enjoyable and easy to read. I give all credit and thanks to these novels (which I did not review on this blog); they provided reliable pleasure and distraction during a difficult time involving a family member’s health. But now I realize I have had my fill of that type of novels, for now at least. The first sign of this was when I noticed myself getting impatient with the sloppiness of the writing itself. In one case, I was listening to the book on CD in my car, and that may have magnified the problems with the writing. I noticed a lot of repetition of certain phrases, way too may extraneous adverbs, and a general talkiness, not to mention excessive use of clichés. Not that I had not been aware of these shortcomings from the beginning, but I was willing to overlook them for their easy comfort value. But that could only last so long. I began to hunger for better writing, and so I have, for now anyway, changed my reading diet back to my usual more literary novels and memoirs.

On the Attempt to "Out" Elena Ferrante's True Identity

I was upset to hear that an Italian “investigative reporter,” Claudio Gatti, is trying to unmask the identity of Elena Ferrante. Ferrante is a pseudonym for the author of the highly-praised and internationally bestselling Neopolitan Series and other well-received novels. She has given a few interviews, but for the most part has been adamant about preserving her privacy. She feels it allows her to be freer in her writing, and to keep readers focused on her work rather than on her as an author, her appearance, her marital status, and all the other things that readers often want to know about famous writers. But now Gatti has chosen to investigate her identity and to write publicly, first in Italian and then in English, about his conclusions about her true name and identity. (I will not give the name here, as I disagree with this kind of involuntary “outing,” but of course if you really want to know, you can Google it.) Most fellow writers, and many of us readers, are outraged and unhappy about this intrusion on Ferrante's wish for anonymity. Gatti may or may not turn out to be correct, but in any case, it is a sort of violation of Ferrante’s intent, and of her privacy. A sample response from the writer Roxane Gay is her tweet that “You are entitled to curiosity but you aren’t entitled to having your curiosity satisfied.” To add to the outrage, Gatti seems to intimate that the author he identifies may have been aided in her writing by her writer husband. So his actions are not only violations of privacy but also sexist. I know that some people may argue that writers are public persons and don’t have the right to privacy, but I don’t believe most people would agree with this. This may be true for politicians, but not for writers.