His Illegal Self, by Peter Carey

Intense is how I would describe Peter Carey's writing, from the books of his I have read. It certainly describes this one.

Told alternately from the point of view of the boy Che and from the caretaker Anna, this story is set in the 1970s, occasionally harking back to the 1960s for background. Anna is about to begin a career as a professor at Vassar when she is called back to a former life by an accidental connection. A radical member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), she was always malleable and in thrall to the leaders of that movement. Now she is older and stronger yet the pull is still there and is why she agrees to pick up the seven-year-old boy for a visit with his outlaw mother.

The boy is not told much. He has to go on instinct and expectation. When he first sees Anna step out of the elevator he is sure she is his mother. His mother, whom he last saw at age two. He has managed to build an imaginative world about his parents, aided by a babysitter who reads the papers and has radical ideas himself. So he is happy to say good bye to his grandmother and take off with this hippie-like woman.

Through a series of planned and unplanned events, Anna and Che find themselves sought by the law, and Anna makes decisions she later regrets. The two of them ultimately find themselves in the deep outback of Australia, about as remote from the New York world they knew as possible. And initially this is just fine with Anna.

Che - also known as Jay - is not thrilled to be dragged along to live an "alternative" lifestyle. He just wants to stay in a motel now and then. The two get to know different members of the commune they somewhat accidentally enter and try to get by. It isn't an easy or happy existence, although it sometimes has its rewards.

Each day and each act was, for me, intense. I never knew what was coming or if all would come out all right for any of the people involved. This is one thing I have learned about Carey - you really don't know how it will end. There were moments that made my stomach hurt.

I was drawn to it all, though, almost like to an accident but more personally caught up. I became attached to these characters, especially to the little boy. There are so many moments that felt real to me, accurate and deep. It isn't easy to portray the thoughts of a young boy when you are a middle-aged man, but somehow Carey seems to do it beautifully and believably. 

I surprised myself by how much I liked the ending. 

This is not a book for everyone. If you want light and easy, go somewhere else. If you want more this may be for you. I think it will stick with me for a long time. 

The Good Thief, by Hannah Tinti

Several reviewers refer to this tale as "Dickensian" and I have to agree. It stars a young boy, Ren, an orphan who is adopted by a con man, Benjamin, because Ren is missing one hand. Benjamin makes up any number of stories about the missing hand, and uses the sympathy of others to take their money. He soon learns that Ren has a way with stealing in any case, and is glad he doesn't have to teach him that particular skill.

So we start to think of Oliver Twist and others. This story, though, is set in New England. Not that it matters much, as that part of the country is older and steeped in buried history, much like its namesake.

The tale - and I feel "tale" is the right word - takes on gigantic dimensions in the adventure department, yet while I laughed at the absurdity of some of the characters I was willing to buy them. I also found the dialogue believable, authentic, unlike the mannered dialogue I have encountered in other "period" novels. Normally I walk away from fantastic fairy tales and period stories but this one grabbed me, from the grave-digging to the giant to the yelling landlady.  

An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination, by Elizabeth McCracken

A writer of fiction, Elizabeth McCracken found herself in France in an old house in the country, pregnant. She and her husband like to visit different places when not required to be home. Thus the French country. The two of them arranged for a midwife and had access to a hospital about 40 minutes away. All checkups went well, until the last one, when there appeared to be something amiss.

The baby was stillborn.

This book is the story of that baby, the months before and after, the way Elizabeth and her husband coped with the loss. It is written simply and freely, from the heart. Yet, although she says she did very little editing, she seemed to have a sense of how to tell the story. We know from the start that the baby dies, but we know no more about it until well into the story.

What we learn goes beyond the grief. We learn how a tragedy can be associated with a place to such an extent that the place is forever ruined. We learn that it is important to say something to the grieving parents, not to ignore the grief.

We learned, in this case, that McCracken does not want to forget the happy days, months, before the birth, even though she never wants to see those places again. It's important to remember.

McCracken wrote the book, she says, so that she does not have to keep telling the story, so that she does not have to answer the question, "Is this your first child?" It hurts to keep explaining, "No, the first was stillborn". Better that acquaintances already know.

A simply-written memoir that manages to sidestep the maudlin yet lets us in on the fullness of a mother's pain. 

When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

What a pleasure! An interesting array of characters and plenty of action, but that is not all.

The central character is Joanne, who suffers a great loss when she is six. We get to pick up on her life thirty years later, where we find she has become a doctor, is married and has a baby son she adores - and may be threatened by the same man who destroyed her family 30 years before. Joanne is kind and thoughtful and just possibly stronger than she looks.

On another track is Louise, a police detective particularly obsessed by cases of violence against women. She too is married, to an understanding and unflappable doctor, but she feels the need to test their bond again and again. She is prickly and aggressive.

Jackson Brodie is a former detective (also former police detective and former military guy), newly married yet on a trip to see a young son whose mother insists is not Jackson's. By a stroke of luck, Brodie has inherited big bucks so does not have to work, but he does not feel he really earned it so does not flaunt it. Brodie was central in Case Histories and One Good Turn, Atkinson's previous two novels, as well. His trip is more adventurous - and dangerous -than he would like.

Primary driving force, though, is Reggie. Reggie is a sixteen-year-old girl ("with a boy's name") who takes care of Joanne's baby and dog when the doctor is at work. Having struggled through quite a life already, Reggie is remarkably open to affection and is tough and resilient. She is also loyal and determined. It is Reggie who really brings everyone together. Reggie is also quite the little scholar, learning primarily on her own. Atkinson nails the teenage speech, which I found highly entertaining.

Joanne disappears one day and Reggie seems to be the only one who thinks there is something suspicious about the story her husband offers. The baby is with her but not the dog. And not a few other things that Reggie in particular insists would have been with her.

Beyond the suspense of the story there are the characters. All fully-formed persons, we get to see how they make decisions, good and bad, and act intelligently or not. We also get a great sense of place and custom, without being overwhelmed by it. The book is enjoyable for its quiet humor and believable characters, beautifully drawn, so fun to watch.

American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld

I read voraciously, yet it is rare for me to enjoy a book so thoroughly as I enjoyed this one.

Sittenfeld, after reading a biography of Laura Bush, realized that the former first lady is a complicated person, an interesting person. Her life seems like a novel. So she decided to write it. Yes, it’s fiction, but many of the basic elements of Laura Bush’s life are also in the life of the fictional Alice Lindgren of Wisconsin. By creating this character Sittenfeld has license to explore Alice’s thoughts, her emotions, her character, to bring her alive yet acknowledge, in the end, that she does not really exist.

The parallels are so close as to suggest that Sittenfeld is sorting through events in the Bushes’ lives and trying to create character from the bits and pieces she knows of the individuals. It would be presumptuous to write a biography, inserting the answers, the whys throughout, without even meeting the subjects. But the whys are what are so interesting. Who is Laura Bush and why did she behave as she did in the Bush White house? What caused her to marry George W. Bush?

More than a story of the presidential years, though, this is an investigation into love, and, delightful to me personally, a close look at what it means to grow up in the upper Midwest in the middle of the 20th century. I was born the same year Alice was and I was born in the midwest - Upper Michigan instead of Wisconsin. So much of what Alice experiences, how she reacts, how she feels, reflects how I have felt and experienced life myself much of the time. I think Sittenfeld nailed it, at least what it is like to be a bookish intelligent midwesterner with an open mind. Thus even though we are not alike I was able to understand how she acted, how she felt. Her life makes sense, her actions make sense.

There is much insight in here, in the ways our upbringings might cause us to see others very differently. For example, Alice acknowledges her own deep feelings and sense of obligation towards those in need, yet she can understand and accept that those raised in a privileged household, where they are kept effectively insulated from others, might not have the capacity to care in the same way. She does not blame them, but rather asserts her right to feel differently.

Another interesting insight is in her sense of obligation in relation to her position in the world. She finds herself occupying a position of influence - wife of the president - and realizes that with such privilege comes a greater burden: how much should she do to right injustices, to relieve suffering? How much can she do? What is her responsibility?

The novel offers an answer to the question, how can you love somebody with whom you so often disagree? Sometimes love has nothing to do with agreement; love may not be magic but its elements in this case may be reasonably defined. Alice’s quiet, thoughtful character is in stark contrast to that of Charlie Blackwell, the stand-in for George W. Bush. She is drawn to his essential acceptance of his own flaws - what you see is what you get. And to the fun he represents, that she craves. The story also explains how others might be drawn similarly to a candidate who speaks as plainly as they do.

The development of Charlie’s character is fully as interesting as Alice’s. We see how he comes to value loyalty over truth; how he can see disagreement as almost traitorous. We see how the clannish nature of his family provides a cushion against the world, and a history to live up to, a competition to join. We see, too, how being part of an Ivy League school extends that family, adds some sort of validity to a certain way of thinking.

One recurrent theme comes from mention of the children’s novel The Giving Tree. It is Alice’s favorite children’s book and she reads it in many places to many children. The story of The Giving Tree is of a little boy and a tree. The tree provides everything it can for the boy for his whole life and at the end provides a place to rest and is happy to do it. Did Alice represent the Giving Tree? Did she gladly give of herself to the man that she loved?

It’s a beautifully-written novel with complex, believable and sympathetic characters. Even without the parallels to recent history it stands tall.

The Challenge, Jonathan Mahler

Writing a book about a case that works its way to the U.S. Supreme Court poses inherent problems for an author. Perhaps the most difficult is putting the story in terms the average reader can understand while not bungling or giving too short shrift to legal complexities. This is especially so when the author is not law-trained and the case involves a variety of procedural machinations and areas of law with which most lawyers have little familiarity.

In what he calls "primarily a book of reporting," Jonathan Mahler masters that fine line in The Challenge: How a Maverick Navy Officer and a Young Law Professor Risked Their Careers to Defend the Constitution--and Won. Mahler, a journalist, gives us an inside look at Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the decision that found the military commissions established by the Bush Administration to try Guantanamo Bay detainees were illegal. Given that it explores a civil lawsuit from beginning to end, it isn't the type of narrative that keeps readers on the edge of their seat. Yet Mahler creates a highly readable exploration of a landmark decision on presidential powers and the rule of law. In addition, the paperback edition released this week contains a new epilogue that brings readers up to date on what transpired after the Supreme Court's ruling.

The story begins, of course, with Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was recruited to jihad. Mahler gives the impression that Hamdan saw being a jihadist more as steady employment than a political or religious mandate. He did, though, end up being Osama bin Laden's driver in Pakistan, where he was captured by local militia after the U.S. invasion. After being turned over to the U.S. military, he was held at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan and a prison in Pakistan before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2002. Although we get glimpses of Hamdan's life at Guantanamo and his claims of abuse, the story is told more from the legal perspective and the two lawyers who led the legal efforts on his behalf.

Charlie Swift, a member of the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corp (JAG), was assigned to the Office of Military Commissions in 2003. His job was to assist and defend detainees who would be tried in front of military commissions created by the Bush Administration for that purpose. Shortly after being assigned and before Hamdan became his client, Swift questioned the wisdom and legality of the commissions. Yet any challenge to them presented its own problems. How likely are military commissions to declare themselves illegal? But could a JAG officer sue the nation's commander in chief?

Shortly after the defense unit was set up, Neal Katyal, then a law professor at Georgetown University, emailed the head of the unit. Katyal, the son of Indian immigrants, had co-authored a law review article on the presidential order establishing the commissions. He urged they be challenged in federal court and volunteered his assistance. After they met, Swift realized Katyal had knowledge, skills and tools he lacked to adequately and fully pursue a court challenge on his own.

The Challenge details the twists and turns in and roadblocks to the litigation. To begin with, because Guantanamo was in Cuba, there was serious question whether Hamdan could sue in the U.S. Once that hurdle was surmounted, there were questions about whether the courts should abstain until the commissions had actually heard cases and the extent of their power to review what a president has done in a time of war. While Swift continued to protect Hamdan's interests on the military commission end, he and Katyal, with assistance from the Seattle law firm of Perkins Coie, filed suit in federal court in April 2004. They won at the trial court level in a ruling that exceeded their hopes. But in July 2005, a three-judge federal court of appeals panel reversed the decision. One of those judges was John Roberts. Four days after the ruling, Roberts was nominated by President Bush to become chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Getting the Supreme Court to hear a case is difficult any time. But the Hamdan case had even more roadblocks put in its path as Congress enacted legislation that sought to abolish jurisdiction over the proceeding. That forced Katyal to also wage a battle on the Congressional front. And perhaps demonstrating the government's attitude toward detainees like Hamdan, when the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan's favor and Katyal and Swift went to meet with him at Guantanamo, they were told they couldn't bring in a copy of the decision because the rules forbid bringing in outside information. It took 30 minutes of argument and a request to see a superior officer before Hamdan could actually see the written opinion in his own court case.

Mahler's recounting of the road from Pakistan to the Supreme Court relies on hundreds of hours of interviews with Swift and Katyal (he was not permitted to interview Hamdan). The reader is not only taken inside their strategy but the differences of opinion on strategy, their personality and their personal lives. Yet Mahler avoids a simple dry recounting. We learn that due to a lawsuit after Katyal's father lost his job, his parents had "a visceral hatred of lawyers." Although the front man in the media, Swift is not portrayed as a Navy officer in shining armor but a man with an ego as well as attention deficit disorder. The Challenge also often reflects the differences between not only trial and appellate lawyers but also between legal academia and the real world. Thus, after Katyal enlisted some law students to help him draft the initial filing, Perkins Coie wanted it drastically rewritten because "it read more like a law review article than a legal action." This would be a common theme as the case proceeded.

While the Supreme court decision established that military commissions must apply appropriate constitutional and legal procedures, it did not mean Hamdan was free. And while the initial book closes with Swift leaving the service because he was passed over for promotion twice while representing Hamdan (Katyal was named deputy solicitor general by President Obama in January 2009), the epilogue brings us up to date on Hamdan's case. It details his trial in July and August 2008 before a military commission created by Congress that applied rules and procedures the Bush commissions did not. Although convicted, the military jury gave him a sentence only five and a half months longer than he had already been detained. Thus, in November 2008, Hamdan was put on a military plane and flown back to Yemen, where he served the last month of his sentence.

Thus, some seven years after being detained, Hamdan returned home. None of us will probably ever know the nature and extent of his involvement in al-Qaeda. What we do know is that the case that bears his name confirms what Swift told the Senate Judiciary Committee before it even reached the Supreme Court, the way we search for accountability "says as much about the society that holds the trial, as it does about the individual before it."

---

"The rule of law is what I fight for," [the Marine colonel] told Swift. "Don't stop."

Jonathan Mahler, The Challenge

The Good Thief (Wendy's Review)

He had no memory of a beginning – of a mother or father, sister or brother. His life was simply there, at Saint Anthony’s, and what he remembered began in the middle of things – the smell of boiled sheets and lye; the taste of watery oatmeal; the feel of dropping a brick onto a piece of stone, watching the red pieces split off, then using those broken shards to write on the wall of the monastery, and being slapped for this, and being forced to wash the dust away with a cold, wet rag. – from The Good Thief, page 4 -

Ren, missing a hand, has lived for eleven years at an orphanage in New England – a place where children are whipped for infractions and schooled in Catholic doctrine. His friendships are few and his questions are many. Then one day a man named Benjamin Nab arrives at Saint Anthony’s claiming to be Ren’s brother. His wild stories convince the authorities at the orphanage to let Benjamin adopt Ren – and thus begins Ren’s second life filled with grave robbery, violence, and lies. Along the way, Ren makes friends with a paid assassin, a dwarf, a landlady who has a heart of gold, a nun, and a drunkard. He also begins to uncover the mystery surrounding his birth.

The Good Thief is a fast read and filled with unexpected events and excitement. Hannah Tinti’s story is a bit Dickensonian, but with more violence. Ren’s character is likable (he is the good thief, in case you were wondering)…he wants to do good, but is forced to lie and steal to survive. The writing in the novel is clean and vivid.

But, despite these strengths, I did not really enjoy this book. At times I felt the plot was too contrived, and the violence overdone and gratuitous. The number of evil characters in the novel turned me off a bit. I found myself wanting a better life for Ren and wondering if there were any loving adults in his world. Luckily, Mrs. Sand (the landlady) ends up being someone who provides the love Ren has never known. And although Tinti redeems some of her “bad” characters, the novel overall was just too dark and depressing.

Many readers liked The Good Thief – in fact, it has won a host of awards including:

Winner, American Library Association Alex Award.

Winner, John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize 2008.

New York Times Notable Book of 2008.

Washington Post Best Books of 2008

San Francisco Chronicle, 50 Best Fiction & Poetry of 2008

Kirkus, Best Fiction of 2008 list

Nominee, 2008 Borders Original Voices AWard

One of the Best Books of 2008, Paste Magazine.

Indie Next list for September 2008.

Borders Original Voices pick for September 2008.

Featured Alternate of Book-of-the Month Club, Quality Paperback Book Club, and The Literary Guild.

Foreign Rights to The Good Thief have been sold in thirteen countries.

When I read through that list, I wonder if I was just not in the mood for this book at the time I read it. Reader’s who like fast-paced fiction and are not overly disturbed by graphic violence, might give this one a try.

Breath by Tim Winton

You could summarize Tim Winton's Breath by saying it's a novel about a two Australian teenagers who perfect their surfing skills under the tutelage of a reclusive mentor. Of course, that would be like saying Fight Club is a novel about young men in an illicit fighting club.

Breath may be built around surfing but the story, told from the viewpoint of Bruce "Pikelet" Pike, is about what the title says -- breath, both as a life sustainer and as a metaphor. Pike's story focuses on his relationship with his best friend, Ivan "Loonie" Loon, and how Bill "Sando" Sanderson, a star surfer, takes them under his wing and becomes their guru to the dismay and resigned acceptance of Sanderson's wife, Eva. Breath serves to illustrate the routine of life and how the desire to challenge that routine can be, at the same time, exhilarating and dangerous to the point of deadly.

Within a moment of a newborn's first "rude shock of respiration," breathing becomes so routine we rarely give it another thought unless and until it is threatened. Thus, Pike wonders over the years whether the risks he took with Loonie, Sando and Eva "were anything more than a rebellion against the monotony of drawing breath." While an adult might deplore risks they took when young, as a youth the sense is "that life renders you powerless by dragging you back to it, breath upon breath upon breath in an endless capitulation to biological routine, and that the human will to control is as much about asserting power over your own body as exercising it on others."

This portrayal of breath appears at the outset of the novel, years after the main events. It is also a focus of Pikelet and the appropriately nicknamed Loonie as they rebel against the mundaneness of their life in a small town in relatively remote western Australia. It starts with challenging each other to see who can dive and hold their breath for the longest period of time, often pushing themselves to the point of blacking out. Their feats produce exhilaration even though fraught with disaster.

Pike and Loonie also become enthralled with surfing and come to meet and know Sando, a former world class surfer who, with his wife, has become essentially a hippie recluse. Sando sees in them a capacity to take on surfing challenges above and beyond ordinary mortals. Thus, not only does he take these barely teenaged boys to surf in shark-haunted waters, he teaches them how to analyze where storms will produce the biggest swells and takes them miles into the ocean to challenge huge waves only he has surfed.

Loonie and Pikelet encounter similar as well as differing coming of age challenges, some of which they will exult over, others of which will scar them for life. Throughout the book, there is an undercurrent of walking the line between acceptable risk and disaster. Breath doesn't try to tell us where to find the appropriate ground among routine, challenge and jeopardy. Instead, breath becomes a vehicle by which to reflect upon adventure and addiction, courage and self-destruction.

Netherland - Wendy's Review

And so I was in a state of fuming helplessness when I stepped out into the inverted obscurity of the afternoon. As I stood there, thrown by Herald Square’s flows of pedestrians and the crazed traffic diagonals and the gray, seemingly bottomless gutter pools, I was seized for the first time by a nauseating sense of America, my gleaming adopted country, under the secret actuation of unjust, indifferent powers. The rinsed taxis, hissing over fresh slush, shone like grapefruits; but if you looked down into the space between the road and the undercarriage, where icy matter stuck to pipes and water streamed down the mud flaps, you saw a foul mechanical dark. - from Netherland, page 68 -

The protagonist of Joseph O’Neill’s latest novel is Hans, a wealthy banker living in the Chelsea Hotel in post-911 New York City. Rachel, Hans’ conflicted wife, abandons him to return to London with their child and leaves Hans to navigate his way through a city of immigrants, idealists, and whacky characters. It is not long before Hans discovers the little known, yet thriving culture of immigrant men who gather each week to bat and bowl their way through cricket games. One of these men is Chuck Ramkissoon - an immigrant from Trinidad who runs an illegal gambling operation, cheats on his wife with a scrapbooker, and dreams of creating The New York Cricket Club - a venture which he envisions making millions while introducing Americans to a ‘whole new chapter in U.S. history.‘

“I’m saying that people, all people, Americans, whoever, are at their most civilized when they’re playing cricket. What’s the first thing that happens when Pakistan and India make peace? They play a cricket match. Cricket is instructive, Hans. It has a moral angle. I really believe this. Everybody who plays the game benefits from it. SoI say, why not Americans?” - from Netherland, page 211 -

Netherland explores the aftermath of 911 through the eyes of America’s immigrants who have come to America in pursuit of their dreams but find a country conflicted in the face of impending war with Iraq.

We were trying to understand, that is, whether we were in a preapocalyptic situation, like the European Jews in the thirties or the last citizens of Pompeii, or whether our situation was merely near-apocalyptic , like that of the Cold War inhabitants of New York, London, Washington, and, for that matter, Moscow. - from Netherland, page 24 -

O’Neill uses Hans and Rachel’s marriage as a metaphor to explore fear, isolation, disaapointment and reconciliation as they separate and then come back together. Family and country are two intertwined themes as Hans tries to understand his own identity within the larger concept of community.

Although O’Neill’s writing is fluid and evokes a New York which most American’s will relate to, I found myself indifferent to Hans and his troubles. I liked the colorful and outgoing Chuck, but his ultimate fate left me thinking “so what?” I am not exactly sure why the character development left me cold in this novel - O’Neill certainly gives the reader plenty of background and insight into the two main characters - but, ultimately, I found them forgettable. There are also long passages about the game of cricket - a sport which I know next to nothing about - and these I found mostly boring.

At the end of the book, Hans is talking to a minor character who had considered funding Chuck’s idea for a cricket club in New York:

“The New York Cricket Club,” Faruk says, raising his eyebrows, “was a splendid idea - a gymkhana in New York. We had a chance there. But would the big project have worked? No. There’s a limit to what Americans understand. The limit is cricket.” - from Netherland, page 251 -

And this is pretty much how I felt about O’Neill’s novel. A good idea, but it did not work for me. Although this book has gotten some great reviews (including being recognized as a NYT Most Notable book in 2008), I wonder if many Americans will struggle as I did with a story which in large part centers around a sport which is not well-known in our country. Some readers might like this one.

Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories by Steven Millhauser

A number of the characters in the short stories that comprise Steven Millhauser's Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories don't look at others straight on or are even hidden in darkness. That seems appropriate. Millhauser's work tends to present a view of parts of life and the human experience that most others don't see or for which they lack the imagination.

This is seen from the outset of the book. Like the movies used to, it begins with a section called "Opening Cartoon." But Millhauser's "Cat 'N' Mouse" story gives a different perspective on the never-ending battle between Tom and Jerry and actually considers what each of them may be thinking. The balance of the collection consists of three themed sections, each with four stories related to or perhaps inspired by the titles of the section, "Vanishing Acts," "Impossible Architectures" and "Heretical Histories." Yet each section still tends to examine people, ideas and life from a somewhat uncommon perspective or one we might overlook.

That is undoubtedly part of the reason The New York Times Book Review named Dangerous Laughter one of its 10 best books of 2008, a fairly heady accomplishment for a collection of short stories. Not only are the stories well written, Millhauser skillfully handles a wide range of styles. Some stories are cast somewhere in a ground between science fiction and fable. Others take aspects of modern society to another level while still others are based in more traditional tales to which Millhauser adds a somewhat different take.

Some of the strongest are those told from the first person, such as "The Disappearance of Elaine Coleman." Its narrator isn't bothered just by the fact the title character disappeared from her apartment. Instead, realizing he went to school with the young woman, he struggles with his own and the community's "failure of memory" and how that may affect being able to find her.

I felt that we were guilty of some crime. For it seemed to me that we who had seen her now and then out of the corner of our eyes, we who had seen her without seeing her, who without malice had failed to give her our full attention, were already preparing her for the fate that overtook her, were already, in a sense not yet clear to me, pushing her in the direction of disappearance.

Thus, although originally cast as a mystery of sorts, the focus is not whether the police solve the case. Instead, it asks why we so easily overlook or ignore people and things.

But Millhauser doesn't rely only upon individuals and individual failings or problems to intrigue the reader. There is a surprisingly broad range of topics and sources for the 13 tales. "The Dome" calls to mind William Kowinski's phrase "the malling of America" as it examines the gradual "doming of America." Meanwhile, "The Tower" goes back further, undoubtedly having its original genesis in the Old Testament tale of the Tower of Babel. "The Other Town" examines voyeurism and reality, as well as our concepts of history, the latter also being a focus of "Here at the Historical Society." Each of the last three carries echoes of the idea that dreams -- and even what we perceive as reality -- may at times be hollow or illusion, a concept explored in Millhauser's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer. Even fashion trends and a fanciful invention abandoned by Thomas Edison serve as vehicles for Millhauser's imagination.

Almost any reader will find something to their taste in Dangerous Laughter. Yet its real strength is that readers will also find jewels they may never have anticipated or expected.

(Crossposted at A Progressive on the Prairie and Blogcritics.)

Unaccustomed Earth - Wendy's Review

It was like the painting they’d first looked at together in London, the small mirror at the back revealing more than the room at first appeared to contain. - from Only Goodness, page 157 -

Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories - Unaccustomed Earth - reveals more about the relationships between its multi-faceted characters than first appears. Each story seems initially simple and then evolves into a wonderful look at how relationships between husband/wife, brother/sister, girlfriend/boyfriend, and parent/child evolve over time.

In the title story, a young Bengali woman named Ruma relocates to Seattle with her American husband and son as they look forward to the birth of their second child. A visit from Ruma’s father stirs memories of her deceased mother, and forces her to consider her duty as daughter to invite her father to live with her.

Ruma feared that her father would become a responsibility, an added demand, continuously present in a way she was no longer used to. It would mean an end to the family she’d created on her own: herself and Adam and Akash, and the second child that would come in January, conceived just before the move. - from Unaccustomed Earth, page 7 -

But Ruma is unaware that her father has begun to move forward after the loss of his wife, and treasures his new found independence.

He stared out the window at a shelf of clouds that was like miles and miles of densely packed snow one could walk across. The sight filled him with peace; this was his life now, the ability to do as he pleased, the responsibility of his family absent just as all else was absent from the unmolested vision of the clouds. - from Unaccustomed Earth, page 8 -

During his visit, Ruma’s father connects unexpectedly with his grandson, and plants a garden for Ruma. The visit unfolds in an unpredictable way, bringing a deeper understanding of both father and daughter; and opening a door to a new relationship.

This simple first story, rich in detail and expertly crafted, introduces the stories to come with the common theme of growing and changing relationships over time and how these changed relationships accommodate, or not, the needs of the characters. Each story involves a Bengali family or individual who has immigrated to America. In some stories, the characters are drawn back to India; in others they find a place for themselves in America; in still others, they are drawn to seek their future far from either place. The stories are also about loss - the loss of innocence, or intimacy, or love, or even life itself.

But death too, had the power to awe, she knew this now - that a human being could be alive for years and years, thinking and breathing, full of a million worries and feelings and thoughts, taking up space in the world, and then, in an instant, become absent, invisible. - from Unaccustomed Earth, page 46 -

The final three stories of the collection - interconnected by character - are actually more of a novella. In Once in a Lifetime, Hema recollects her childhood in Massachusetts when she meets Kaushik, the son of her parent’s close friends. Hema speaks directly to Kaushik in the narration, a technique which while unsettling, serves to bind the two characters together. The second story titled Year’s End, picks up the narration years later from Kaushik’s point of view as he deals with his father’s second marriage after the untimely death of Kaushik’s mother. In the final story titled Coming Ashore, Hema and Kaushik meet unexpectedly in Rome only weeks before Hema is to become married via an arranged marriage in India. These stories once again emphasize the growth of the characters and how this growth impacts and changes their relationship to each other. Lahiri also examines the cultural conflict between America and India as it reflects on the characters’ decisions.

Lahiri is a gifted storyteller, one who writes effortlessly and ties together complex themes with ease. Her writing is often simple, yet beautifully constructed with rich detail and in-depth characterizations. Readers who might shy away from short stories will find themselves delighted with Lahiri’s ability to make them feel connected to her characters. She compacts their lives in such a way that the reader feels as though they have spent a longer time with them - feeling their joys, sadness, regrets and hopes in rare depth.

Highly recommended.

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Many people believe the U.S. is in a mess. But the history David Hajdu recounts in his latest book might provide a handy scapegoat: comic books. Stop and think about it. For nearly two decades, the men in the Oval Office -- and even longer for Congress -- have been of the generation that grew up reading comic books, a communication form claimed to amount to little more than "cultural slaughter of the innocents."

The latter phrase is just one of many epithets -- and laws -- thrown at comic books from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, as Hajdu details in The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. Recently released in a paperback edition, the book traces a popular culture battle between two generations, a battle of mores in which rhetoric outweighed fact and that often reflected societal change.

Here's how bad comic books were, according to those who campaigned against them: "I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry." "The old dime novels in which an occasional redskin bit the dust were classic literature compared to the sadistic drivel pouring from the presses today." Comic books are "the greatest intellectual narcotic on the market.... Every hour spent in reading comics an hour in which all inner growth is stopped."

Relying upon extensive interviews with those in the comic book industry and historical records, Hajdu shows the evolution of the war, its ebb and flow and its combatants and victims. The Ten-Cent Plague takes us from the earliest comics, such as the Katzenjammer Kids in the Sunday papers, through the evolution of not only comic books but how they spawned publications like Mad magazine. Once they graduated from booklet reprints of the Sunday funnies, comics relied heavily on crime stories, whether it was a detective, Superman or some other character. But adults began to view these comics not as cautionary tales but ones that undermined the morals of youth.

As early as 1940, one newspaper series accused "these lurid publications" of depending upon "mayhem, murder, torture and abduction." In the years immediately following World War II, these claims found a wider audience among a populous no longer focused on a war (one in which comic book crime fighters helped battle the Axis). With no evidentiary basis, juvenile delinquency was laid at the feet of the crime comics. Communities throughout the country took steps to ban comics containing "objectionable material." The city of Cleveland even assigned two police officers to a permanent comic book detail.

Government wasn't alone. The Catholic Church and other organizations took stands against comics. They encouraged the public to boycott stores that sold comics and encouraged children to bring in comic books perceived as objectionable. The latter frequently led to public burnings of comic books. That, however, provoked a bit of a backlash, with the bonfires perhaps too closely resembling the all too recent book burnings by the Nazis.

Hajdu also shows how the comics industry wised up. In addition to creating a largely ineffective code, "romance" became the new focus. And like much of popular culture, imitation was the standard. At the end of 1947, only one romance comic was being published; three more were added in 1948. With the increasing criticism of crime comics during those years, though, there were 148 romance comics in 1950, issued by 26 different publishers. That didn't necessarily make them any less subversive. At a time when domestic bliss was the mainstream story line, the comics rarely focused on happy couples. Rather, the stories often tended to suggest that domestic life in the suburbs was the equivalent of the "levels of Hell."

But the romance fad, too, began to wane. The new focus became horror and the macabre. By the end of 1952, nearly one-third of all comics were of the horror genre, with more than a dozen publishers churning out 150 horror-oriented titles. And as the blood and gore increased, things got hot again, so hot that Congressional hearings were held across the country in 1953 and 1954, some of which were televised.

This is where The Ten-Cent Plague may be at its best. Hajdu compares and contrasts McCarthyism and the renewed attacks on comics as a cause of juvenile delinquency. "It was a bad time to be weird," one comic book artist told Hajdu. "You were either a Communist or a juvenile delinquent." He examines the lack of foundation for the "scientific" studies of the leading critic of the effect of comic books on youth. The book vividly details the televised hearings in April 1954, particularly the events leading to and the testimony of Bill Gaines, the owner of EC Comics. With one impromptu answer to a question, Gaines unwittingly helped seal the fate of comic books, the enactment of laws throughout the country regulating comic books and the adoption of a comic book code with provisions that, among other things, forbid "disrespect for established authority."

The impact was dramatic. Some 18 months after Gaines' testimony, EC Comics, once one of the major players in the industry, issued its last comic book. The only survivor was Mad, which EC moved to the magazine section of the newsstands. EC wasn't alone. Between 1954 and 1956, more than half the comic books sold on newsstands disappeared and the number of titles dropped by nearly two-thirds. One of the more sobering aspects of the book is an appendix listing more than 800 individuals who were among the "artists, writers, and others who never again worked in comics after the purge of the 1950s."

While The Ten-Cent Plague can tend to drag a bit at times, it seems to gain momentum as it moves toward this climactic moment. Moreover, Hajdu doesn't focus just on the events but gives a feel for the people involved in the profession. And without coming right out and saying so, he leaves us with the conviction that if the country is messed up today, it certainly isn't due to comic books.

(Also posted at A Progressive on the Prairie and Blogcritics)

Fine Just The Way It Is, by Annie Proulx

I listened to these stories in my car, on my CD player. I think the impression a book makes can vary significantly depending on how it is "read", and in this case the audio version may not have been my best choice. Even so, I found the stories compelling.

Fine Just the Way It Is is a set of short stories, specifically Wyoming Stories, as its subtitle says. The stories take place in the frontier days, in the present time, and in between. They vary in specific location, in the length of the tale and in the characters. But they are all about Wyoming, as if no matter who the human character is he or she cannot shake the indelible control of Wyoming on its soul. Oh, and I don't use that term "soul" lightly. Three of the stories feature the devil him- or herself.

It's possible that the actors on Selected Shorts have spoiled me for the usual professional readers of audio books. I love to listen to Selected Shorts on public radio, to how these veteran actors read fascinating stories, bringing every one to life. During one visit to New York City I could hardly contain my excitement the night I made my way to Symphony Space to watch the actors live, and I know I would go there regularly if I lived in Manhattan.

The readers of audio books are good readers, highly qualified, yet often for me there is no good fit between them and the material - or perhaps I am simply prejudiced. I found it difficult in the present case to get comfortable with the accent and style of speaking of Will Patton. Patton was chosen, I am sure, because these stories take place in Wyoming, and he has a decidedly western accent. Beyond the accent, he places emphasis where it might be natural for a westerner. He immerses himself into these lives and it shows and yet my prejudice, from wherever it comes, against that type voice, made it difficult at all times to enjoy the stories.

Nevertheless some of these stories stood out for me. They nearly stopped me in my tracks. There is a story here of a sagebrush that takes the place, for one woman, of a child, after she has lost so many of her own human children. The sage is of such a shape that it reaches its "arms" to the sky and it is so well treated that it reaches an astonishing size. It becomes a legend in its territory. It even becomes the subject of mysterious disappearances.

Another story, near the end, is of a man and woman who get into a fight, escalating until neither can back down. The man leaves, the woman heads out the next day for a long hike, one she had intended to do with the man. She hikes past a sign that says "trail closed" and continues on, knowing she is likely to be on her own the entire way, yet keeping in mind that her former lover might see the signs and come after her. When she makes a mistake and gets caught in some rocks we get to know how each day, each hour, each minute feels for her. And how her mind goes back to that fight.

There are several long stories here, each of which I wanted to be a book in itself. The first one left me long before I was ready to go. In fact, when I realized I was listening to a batch of short stories and not one long one I initially felt cheated, because I wanted so much for that first one to continue. Would I have the same impression if I simply came to the last paragraph of a printed page? I am not sure. Perhaps in some ways audio does have an advantage (in addition to being able to occupy my mind while I travel).

These are earthy, real, unwincing stories of the west, spanning several generations. People live and die and have hard lives and we are treated to details you almost had to be there to know. Better than any history book, this set brings the west, the real west, truly alive. The details are inscribed in the faces we imagine, in the actions the characters take, in the sense of relentless fate that seems to weigh everything down. Overall, the stories feel uncomfortably real while at the same time are frequently relieved by what may be called a kind of Wyoming humor.

This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust

Mind-numbing. That's the only way to describe the casualties from America's Civil War. For example:

• An estimated 620,000 soldiers died between 1861 and 1865, roughly the same number as in the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War combined.


• While three out of four white men of military age in the South became soldiers, one in five did not survive the war, three times the death rate of their Yankee counterparts.


• Following the three-day battle at Gettysburg in July 1863, n estimated six million pounds of human and animal carcasses lay on the battlefield.


• About half of all the soldiers who died ended up "unknown" due to lack of record-keeping, an inability to identify them or even being vaporized.


• So many families lost loved ones that stores and catalogs specialized in mourning apparel.

But numbers never can and do not tell the story. As Drew Gilpin Faust explores in This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, the massive number of deaths embarked America on "a new relationship with death," one that transformed society, culture and politics. By relying heavily on letters and other personal documents of combatants, their families and others, she puts more of an individual prism on the societal and personal effects.

Faust, president of Harvard University and the author of five previous books dealing with the South or the Civil War, starts with the 19th Century concept of death. Nearly 150 years later, it's easy to miss the fact that when the Civil War broke out, most people did not die in hospitals; they died at home with family members in attendance. In part because of that, the concept of a "Good Death" prevailed. This was a death in which an individual not only had time to accept their fate but to ensure their family and friends knew they were looking forward to salvation and to express their last words. By being present, family members could assure themselves that they would all be reunited some day. Yet with thousands of soldiers dying far from home and family and often alone, the Civil War was "an exemplary text on how not to die." This would bring at least one change to our views of "good" deaths that exists today. Dying bravely in service to the country became an avenue of dying well.

Still, the concept of the Good Death led many soldiers to write the families of their deceased comrades, assuring them their husband, son or brother had died a good death. And while the governments attempted to begin keeping records of fatalities during the war, none of the paperwork was used to notify the deceased's family. As a result, absent a letter or information obtained through private relief organizations, families had no idea if their loved one was alive. Even though the war would show the need for gathering accurate information, some families were left wondering for years after the war had ended, helping spur the growth of the spiritualist movement

The thousands of fatalities meant something else -- thousands of bodies. Yet neither the North nor the South had any system in place to deal with the bodies. There were no regular burial details or any graves registration units. Complicating the situation was that battles could last for days and by the time they were over, thousands of bodies lay strewn across the fields. Heat and decomposition merely made the task that much worse. One letter writer said the "mephitic effluvia" of rotting bodies could be smelled for miles. Quoting from that same letter, Faust writes, "Men had become putrefied meat, "not so much killed as slaughtered, with 'nothing to distinguish them from so many animals.'" Although dealing with a charnel house, This Republic of Suffering explores how the development of embalming and undertaking advanced because of such mass slaughter.

Likewise, the massive number of deaths would lead to the creation of our national cemetery system. It was only after the war, though, that a concerted effort was made to locate graves on and near battlefields. Yet even that caused division. The efforts focused exclusively on Union soldiers. Not only were residents of the former Confederate States left to deal with locating and reburying their dead without government help, Faust points out that not only did the Southern funerals and cemetery dedications serve to honor the dead, they become a mechanism and symbol for honoring the principles of the Confederacy. It would prove fertile ground for the coming Jim Crow years.

Faust's well-written analysis of the scope of the impact extends even to literature. Walt Whitman's experience as a hospital volunteer during the war impacted his writing from that point. In addition, Faust keenly observes that while the American public was grasping to comprehend all this death, many of the same questions were crucial to the writing of Ambrose Bierce, Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson. These writers, according to Faust, "transformed the need to grapple with the meaning of national conflagration into broad and lasting questions about the foundations of religion and human understanding."

Insight and observations like that placed This Republic of Suffering on many "best of" lists for 2008 and made it a finalist for both the National Book Award and the still to be awarded National Book Critics Circle Book Awards. Near the conclusion of the book, Faust observes a particular dilemma at the core of trying to understand the deaths caused by the war: "how to grasp the significance of a single death and the meaning of hundreds of thousands." That dilemma exists with every armed conflict. But Faust's unique perspective takes us beyond the obvious achievements of the Civil War to see how broadly it impacted our society and culture.

(Also posted at A Progressive on the Prairie and Blogcritics.)

The Road Home - Wendy's Review

He tugged out the photograph, tugged with trembling hands, and set it down on the bar top. And he looked at it and saw that it had faded. All the once-bright colors were vanishing, leaving only a trace of themselves, tinged with green, with the bluish green of the sky…when evening was coming…the sky behind Auror… - from The Road Home, page 237 -

Lev is 43 years old and forced to leave his rural East European town to seek work in London. He has been widowed (his young wife Marina having died from Leukemia) and must support his daughter Maya and his elderly mother who remain behind in Russia. Lev barely speaks English and is at first bewildered by London. But Lydia, a woman he meets on the train, helps him find a job working in a posh restaurant where he meets the sexy Sophie. Lev eventually finds lodging with an Irishman named Christy Slane who is also experiencing loss.

Then he looked at Christy, standing in the doorway, as though not wanting to come into the room, his hands held at his sides in a helpless way, and Lev was transfixed for a moment, recognizing something of himself in the other man, some willingness to surrender and not fight, some dangerous longing for everything to be over. - from The Road Home, page 77 -

He was gradually coming to understand that the Irishman’s loneliness was nearly as acute as his own. They were the same kind of age. They both longed to return to a time before the people they loved most were lost. - from The Road Home, page 80 -

Lev’s story is painful at times. He misses Marina - cannot seem to get past the loss of her - and struggles to save money to send home to his daughter and mother. His future seems hopeless and he misses his country and his best friend, Rudi - a gregarious man whose love affair with an American Chevy and his fondness for life make him immediately endearing.

Rudi was everything this story made him out to be - and more. He was a force of nature. He was a lightning bolt. He was a fire that never went out. - from The Road Home, page 277 -

It is largely Lev’s friendship with men like Christy and Rudi which elevates him past his grief and imbues him with hope. When Lev recalls a hiking trip with Rudi to an isolated cave shortly after Marina’s death, the reader begins to see there will be a future for him after all.

It was at this moment - with Rudi halfway up the ladder - that he heard himself whispering to his friend, “Don’t look down…don’t look back…” and he felt that he suddenly understood why Rudi had brought him here and that the thing he had to embrace was the idea of perseverance. - from The Road Home, page 127 -

The Road Home is a character driven novel about loss and identity. It is a novel which reminds the reader that the past must sometimes be left behind in order to move forward. Dreams are the fuel for overcoming obstacles in this story of a man who must leave his home in order to find it again. Lev is a dreamer and a romantic. He is a character who readers want to see succeed, a man whose flaws are surpassed by his kind and vulnerable heart.

Rose Tremain has yet to disappoint me - I’ve read Music and Silence (reviewed here) and The Colour (reviewed here) and found them both outstanding. Tremain’s novels are written with sensitivity and insight into the human condition - and The Road Home is perhaps her finest work. This novel won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2008.

Highly recommended.

Atmospheric Disturbances - Cyndi's Review

Book: Atmospheric Disturbances
Author: Rivka Galchen
My review:
This book is from the New York Times Notable Books of 2008 list. I was immediately intrigued by it when reading the description of the book. Basically it is the story of a psychiatrist who believes his wife was replaced with a doppleganger/simulacrum. Throughout the book we learn a lot about his wife and her doppleganger and his quest to find his real wife.
This book is written in the psychiatrist's perspective and he is quite logical (not that his logic often makes sense to the reader but it does to him). I am not a logical person, not even a bit. I don't see the point of logic at all, I have no use for it!!! If I were to give Leo a Personality Dimensions test, he would be Inquiring Green - very logical, inquisitive, scientifically minded, etc. To be honest, the way this book was written initially worried me - what with me having no use for logic. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the book. The logic didn't throw me off at all.
It is probably because the author interweaves logic with these incredibly detailed descriptions of minute things like a jacket that he thought the doppleganger should wear. Since when does a man care about what a jacket looks like, especially an Inquiring Green man???
Here's an excerpt from the part about the jacket (p. 218):
That next day I found a heavy coat that I knew would look beautiful on the simulacrum; it was of a pale blue wool, not wholly unlike Rema's winter coat; I placed the coat in the simulacrum's arms with assurance. Although it was not a perfect coat, and not exactly like Rema's, I knew that later we could locate oversized buttons to sew onto it and then it would be spectacular. And meanwhile it could keep her warm.
This novel was intriguing, funny, sad and more. I think Heather O'Neill, author of Lullabies for Little Criminals, described this book the best when she said, "Galchen has created a heartbreaking puzzle of a novel. Hilarious and daring."
My rating: 5 dopplegangers out of 5 simulacrums
Hope this review is okay - I'm much more of a reader than a writer!!!

Netherland - 3M's Review

Hans van den Broek and his wife Rachel are living and dealing with post-9/11 New York City. Hans is a banker and originally from the Netherlands, while Rachel is a British attorney. Rachel believes New York has become too unsafe and leaves for London, taking the couple's son with them.

With his new-found spare time, Hans spends more time playing cricket in the park and meets a Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon. Chuck has some big dreams and schemes involving the sport of cricket and brings Hans along for the ride. The question is whether Ramkissoon's dealing are on the up and up. Hans begins spending more and more time with Chuck while also travelling back and forth from London so he can see his son.

Some have compared this book to The Great Gatsby, and while it does have a little of that 'vibe,' I don't think the book really merits that comparison. The real question of the book is whether or not Hans is a reliable or an unreliable narrator. If he's reliable, I don't think I really got the point of the book. If he's unreliable, it certainly makes the novel more interesting with all the ramifications of what that might involve. I wasn't really clued in to the fact that he might be unreliable until I looked at some other reviews of the book.

Discussing and discovering the truth of the reliability of Hans' narration would really make this novel a good choice for a book group. Too bad I can't tell you more. Come back and email me if you end up reading the book, I'd like to hear your thoughts!

2008, 272 pp.
(3.5/5)

Atmospheric Disturbances - 3M's Review

Atmospheric Disturbances
by Rivka Galchen

Starred Reviews: Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, and Kirkus

2008, 240 pp.


It's rare that a book gets starred reviews from all four major review publications. Was this book that good; does it really deserve that much attention? Yes, absolutely. I really, really loved it; so much, in fact, that I held off reading the last 20 pages or so for two days because I didn't want it to be over.

Psychoanalyst Leo Liebenstein thinks his wife Rema has disappeared. Not only that, but he believes she has been replaced by a simulcrum, someone who looks and acts (almost) exactly like her. Meanwhile, Harvey, one of Leo's mental patients (who believes he has the ability to control the weather) is also missing. Not buying in to the simulcrum's Rema-like performance, Leo goes to the ends of the earth to Buenos Aires and Patagonia to try to uncover the truth of what has happened to his wife.

I'll be the first to admit that although I enjoyed this book tremendously, it won't be to everyone's tastes. It's very quirky, very eccentric, but also intelligent and extremely funny. Much of what I found humorous in the novel was due to the fact that I went to Argentina in April, so I was able to get many of the inside jokes about dog poop in the streets, maté tea, Alpha Wh*re Rays, and many other references to Argentinian life. The author had been in South America for a year working on public health issues, so her writing comes from first hand experience in the region. There were, of course, also references to the (not so funny) "Disappeared."

This is Rivka Galchen's first novel, and I definitely will be anxiously awaiting whatever she comes up with next. Oh, and if her literary career doesn't work out (I have no doubt that it will), she can always fall back on her MD that she received from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

An interview with Rivka Galchen

New York Times (NYT) Most Notable - 2008

Fiction and Poetry

AMERICAN WIFE, by Curtis Sittenfeld

ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES, by Rivka Galchen

BASS CATHEDRAL, by Nathaniel Mackey

BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN, by Charles Bock

BEIJING COMA, by Ma Jian

A BETTER ANGEL: Stories, by Chris Adrian

BLACK FILES, by Shannon Burke

THE BLUE STAR, by Tony Earley

THE BOAT, by Nam Le

BREATH, by Tim Winton

DANGEROUS LAUGHTER: Thirteen Stories, by Steven Millhauser

DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES, by Jonathan Miles

DIARY OF A BAD YEAR, by J. M. Coetzee

DICTATION: A Quartet, by Cynthia Ozick

ELEGY: Poems, by Mary Jo Bang

THE ENGLISH MAJOR, by Jim Harrison

FANON, by John Edgar Wideman

THE FINDER, by Colin Harrison

FINE JUST THE WAY IT IS: Wyoming Stories 3, by Annie Proulx

THE GOOD THIEF, by Hannah Tinti

HALF OF TE WORLD IN LIGHT: New and Selected Poems, by Juan Felipe Herrera

HIS ILLEGAL SELF, by Peter Carey

HOME, by Marilynne Robinson

INDIGNATION, by Philip Roth

THE LAZARUS PROJECT, by Aleksandar Hemon

LEGEND OF A SUICIDE, by David Vann

LIFE CLASS, by Pat Barker

LUSH LIFE, by Richard Price

A MERCY, by Toni Morrison

MODERN LIFE: Poems, by Matthea Harvey

A MOST WANTED MAN, by John le Carre

MY REVOLUTIONS, by Hari Kunzru

NETHERLAND, by Jospeh O'Neill

OPAL SUNSET: Selected Poems, 1958-2008, by Clive James

THE OTHER, by David Guterson

OUR STORY BEGINS: New and Selected Stories, by Tobias Wolff

THE ROAD HOME, by Rose Tremain

THE SACRED BOOK OF THE WEREWOLF, by Victor Pelevin

THE SCHOOL ON HEART'S CONTENT ROAD, by Carolyn Chute

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT: A New Verse Translation, by Simon Armitage

SLEEPING IT OFF IN RAPID CITY: Poems, New and Selected, by August Kleinzahler

TELEX FROM CUBA, by Rachel Kusner

2666, by Roberto Bolano (Translated by Natasha Wimmer)

UNACCUSTOMED EARTH, by Jhumpa Lahiri

THE UNFORTUNATES, by B. S. Johnson

WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? by Kate Atkinson

THE WIDOWS OF EASTWICK, by John Updike

YESTERDAY'S WEATHER, by Anne Enright

Nonfiction

AMERICAN LION: Andrew Jackson n the White House, by Jon Meacham

ANGLER: The Cheney Vice Presidency, by Barton Gellman

BACARDI AND TEH LONG FIGHT FOR CUBA: The Biography of a Cause, by Tom Gjelten

THE BIG SORT: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, by Bill Bishop

BLOOD MATTERS: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene, by Masha Gessen

CAPITOL MEN: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through The Lives of the First Black Congressmen, by Philip Dray

THE CHALLENGE: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power, by Jonathan Mahler

CHAMPLAIN'S DREAM, by David Hackett Fischer

CHASING THE FLAME: Sergio Vieira de Mello and The Fight to Save the World, by Samantha Power

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: An American Life: A Biography, by Elisabeth Bumiller

THE DARK SIDE: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, by Jane Mayer

DELTA BLUES: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music, by Ted Gioia

DESCARTES' BONES: A Skeletal history of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason, by Russell Shorto

DREAMS AND SHADOWS: The Future of the Middle East, by Robin Wright

THE DRUNKARD'S WALK: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, by Leonard Mlodinow

AN EXACT REPLICA OF A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION: A Memoir, by Elizabeth McCracken

FACTORY GIRLS: From Village to City in a Changing China, by Leslie T. Chang

THE FOREVER WAR, by Dexter Filkins

FREEDOM'S BATTLE: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention, by Gary J. Bass

A GREAT IDEA AT THE TIME: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books, by Alex Beam

HALLELUJAH JUNCTION: Composing an American Life, by John Adams

THE HEMINGSES OF MONTICELLO: An American Family, by Annette Gordon-Reed

HOT, FLAT, AND CROWDED: Why We Need A Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America, by Homas L. Friedman

THE HOUSE AT SUGAR BEACH: In Search of a Lost African Childhood, by Helene Cooper

HOW FICTION WORKS, by James Wood

MORAL CLARITY: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, by Susan Neiman

THE NIGHT OF THE GUN: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of HIs Life, His Own, by David Carr

NIXONLAND: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, by Rick Perlstein

NOTHING TO BE FRIGHTENED OF, by Julian Barnes

NUREYEV: The Life, by Julie Kavanagh

PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, by Mark Harris

THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD, by Fareed Zakaria

PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely

THE RACE CARD: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse, by Richard Thompson

RETRIBUTION: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45, by Max Hastings

A SECULAR AGE, by Charles Taylor

SHAKESPEARE'S WIFE, by Germaine Greer

THE SUPERORGANISM: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies, by Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson

TELL ME HOW THIS ENDS: General David Petraeus and The Serach for a Way Out of Iraq, by Linda Robinson

THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America, by David Hajdu

THEY KNEW THEY WERE RIGHT: The Rise of the Neocons, by Jacob Heilbrunn

THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING: Death and the American Civil War, by Drew Gilpin Faust

THE THREE OF US: A Family Story, by Julia Blackburn

THRUMPTON HALL: A Memoir of Life in My Father's House, by Miranda Seymour

TRAFFIC: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us), by Tom Vanderbilt

THE TRILLION DOLLAR MELTDOWN: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Creidt Crash, by Charles R. Morris

A VOYAGE LONG AND STRANGE: Rediscovering the New World, by Tony Horwitz

WAKING GIANT: America in the Age of Jackson, by David S. Reynolds

WHILE THEY SLEPT: An Inquiry Into the Murder of a Family, by Kathryn Harrison

WHITE HEAT: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, by Brenda Wineapple

THE WILD PLACES, by Robert Macfarlane

THE WORLD IS WHAT IT IS: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul, by Patrick French

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination - Wendy's Review

A child dies in this book: a baby. A baby is stillborn. You don’t have to tell me how sad that is: it happened to me and my husband, our baby, a son. -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 6-

Author Elizabeth McCracken lived briefly in France, with her husband, in her early thirties. It is there she conceives her first child - a son named Pudding - and begins to dream of his life and how it will enrich her life. And then the unthinkable happens. In her ninth month of pregnancy, the child she and her husband have been anticipating dies. An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination is the story of loss and how one woman moved through it.

Elizabeth McCracken has written a stunning memoir from the heart - a love letter of sorts to her first son and her husband. Her writing is never maudlin, yet is profoundly moving - and despite the bleak subject matter, it even manages to be funny at times. But it is McCracken’s honesty which makes the memoir powerful. She never pads the emotions or avoids the uncomfortable - instead she takes the reader through one of the most devastating years of her life with candor and grace. Lest the reader shy away from the book because a baby dies, it would be remiss of me not to mention that a child is also born and lives in this book…an event that is at the same time joyous, healing and bittersweet.

I will admit that this book hit me like a sledgehammer. It sent me reeling. I felt blindsided by the intense emotions it stirred up for me…because I lost a child too. No, I have never been pregnant. My loss arrived through infertility. And McCracken’s prose resonated with me. She writes about other women’s pregnancies after her unbearable loss:

Still, I wouldn’t have minded a pause in the whole business. A sudden harmless moratorium on babies being born. Doctors would have to tell the unfortunate pregnant, “I’m sorry. It happens sometimes. Tidal, we think. For everyone else, nine months, but for you, eleven months, maybe a year, maybe more. Don’t go outside. Don’t leave your house. Stroke your stomach, fine, but only in your own living room. Keep your lullabies to yourself. We’ll let you know when it’s time.” -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 43-

AND

No, I insist: other people’s children did not make me sad. But pregnant women did. -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 111-

She writes of that horribly destructive behavior called Blame which threatens to stand in the way of moving forward through grief:

Blame is a compulsive behavior, the emotional version of obsessive hand washing, until all you can do is hold your palms out till your hands are full of it, and rub, and rub, and accomplish nothing at all. And so we grieved but looked straight ahead. -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 143-

I found myself nodding in agreement when McCracken spoke of the pain of answering those innocent questions about children posed by unsuspecting strangers. She wishes for a stack of cards she can hand out which say ‘My first child was stillborn‘ whenever a person coos over her second son and asks, “Is this your first?” How I wish I had a similar stack of cards reading “I am infertile” for every time someone asks if I have children.

McCracken writes:

I want people to know but I don’t want to say it aloud. people don’t like to hear it but I think they might not mind reading it on a card. -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 73-

Yes. I agree.

McCracken’s great gift is that she reveals to her reader her deepest sadness, and her greatest hope. And in the end, she leaves us with a message which can sustain those who have experienced intolerable loss:

It’s a happy life, but someone is missing. It’s a happy life, and someone is missing. -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 184-

This memoir is highly recommended, but with a cautionary note. I believed I had accepted my childlessness until I began reading McCracken’s words. I found myself closing the book often to weep, and yet I kept going back to read again. For women who have either lost a child or have never been able to conceive, this is a difficult book to read - but, it is also a hopeful book and one which reminds us we are not alone in our grief.