Damascus by Joshua Mohr – Book Review

Oct 132011

Damascus by Joshua Mohr
Published by Two Dollar Radio

Love, sex, cancer, war, protest, and identity collide in a dingy bar located in San Francisco’s Mission District in Joshua Mohr’s Damascus. There is a surprisingly large and well-drawn cast of characters for such a short book. The lynchpin is Owen, the owner of the bar, whose livelihood makes the interactions of all of the other characters possible, and whose life is made somewhat miserable by the Hitler mustache-esque birthmark on his upper lip until he dons a used Santa costume to hide it from the world. Among the rest of the ragtag bunch is a divorced barfly nicknamed Shambles who has an unexpected connection with the unnamed man – referred to only as No Eyebrows for most of the book – who is dying from cancer. Rounding out the bunch are Owen’s niece Daphne and her protesting artist friend Syl, and Byron, the drunk Iraq War veteran Owen takes in temporarily.

It is impressive how vividly Mohr paints his characters, and how richly he weaves their stories in a book just slightly over 200 pages. Many of them have immense pain and anger in their lives, and have made non-conventional decisions, but even so they are beautifully alive, with enough humanity that readers in vastly different circumstances will still be able to understand where the characters are coming from.

Full of pain, anguish, and beautiful writing, Damascus may not be for the faint of heart, but it is perfect for readers who don’t mind having their heart torn out.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Author.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon – Book Review

Mar 152011

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Published by Harper Books, an imprint of Harper Collins

Always a strong and opinionated young woman, Kamila Sidiqi is not entirely sure what to do with herself once the Taliban overruns her home city of Kabul. She can no longer go to school, or indeed go outside with any freedom whatsoever. To make matters worse, Kamila’s older brother and father must flee to avoid being conscripted or punished by the Taliban and Kamila’s mother leaves with her father, leaving her five youngest children – nearly all in their teens – at home alone rather than risk their lives on a dangerous trip. As the oldest of the children left behind, Kamila is determined to do whatever it takes to care for her siblings, but to ensure that they are materially comfortable, she needs to find a way to make money, not an easy task since the Taliban will generally not let women work outside the home, or go anywhere without a male relative as an escort. Kamila is a resourceful young girl, however, and it is not long before she comes up with a plan: she and her sisters will become seamstresses, taught by their accomplished older sister who is married, but still lives in Kabul. All of the girls will work together to create the dresses, and Kamila will sell them to tailor shops in the market place. Clothing is, after all, one of the few items which people are still in Kabul.

I love portraits of people, particularly women, around the world, particularly when they show the strength of the human spirit through adversity. Looking at “The Dressmaker of Khair Khana” in that light, it was a fascinating book; Kamila and her sisters were incredibly brave and resourceful, finding a way to not only maintain their own household, but to provide work for numerous local girls and women as well.

Unfortunately, Lemmon’s writing and storytelling failed to captivate me. Everything seemed very flat. The danger inherent in their lives was stated, but never felt particularly urgent, nor was the political situation explored with much complexity, which disappointed me. The writing was very straightforward, but to the point where it, too, seemed to lack complexity.

“The Dressmaker of Khair Khana” failed to challenge me and, as such, I cannot recommend it wholeheartedly for adults, although people with particular interest in the lives of women in the Muslim world may find interesting. I do, however, think that this would be an inspiring and completely appropriate book for younger teens who wish to explore the realities of people in war-torn areas of the world.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

Source: Publisher, via Net Galley.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

You Know When The Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon – Book Review

Jan 192011

You Know When the Men are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
Published by Amy Einhorn Books, an imprint of Penguin

At one time, I swore off short stories, at least to review. They are always so uneven and difficult to talk about comprehensively. And then I had a chance to talk to Amy Einhorn, the publisher of an imprint I adore at Penguin, and she told me about this short story collection she would be releasing called “You Know When the Men are Gone.” She told me that short stories don’t usually call to her, but these did, and she found herself more captivated than she would have expected by the stories of men and women whose lives are touched by enlistment in the Army, men and women who live at Ft. Hood in Texas – at least when they are not overseas in Iraq.

Short stories about army families. The concept doesn’t immediately grab me and demand to be read, but because of Amy Einhorn’s enthusiasm, I knew I wanted to try “You Know When the Men Are Gone.” If anyone else had published this, if I had not had a chance to sit down with Amy and hear her talk about it, I would likely never have picked this book up, it would not have even been on my radar. If that had been the case, my reading life would have been poorer for it.

You also know when the men are gone. No more boots stomping above, no more football games turned up too high, and, best of all, no more front doors slamming before dawn as they trudge out for their early formation, sneakers on metal stairs, cars starting, shouts to the windows above to throw down their gloves on cold desert mornings. Babies still cry, telephones ring, Saturday morning cartoons screech, but without the men, there is a sense of muted silence, a sense of muted life.

The passage above, located on the first page of the first story, stood out to me in particular, partially because it is the title passage from the title story. However, as I reflect back upon the book, it stands out to me again, not because it is the highlight of Fallon’s writing, but because it is indicative of the strength of this collection. The first story starts out strong, and stays strong, and the same is true of the rest of the stories. There always seem to be stories that are weaker than others in collections such as this, it is such a truth that to say so has become a cliche to mention it in a review. This is not the case for “You Know When the Men Are Gone.” I’m sure each individual will resonate with some stories more than others, but none of the stories can be denigrated as a weak link, all are incredibly well-written, and the character development is top notch. Story arcs are not rushed, but still come to a satisfying – if not always tidy – solution at the end of 30 or so pages.

Siobhan Fallon has been compared to Jhumpa Lahiri on the back cover of the book, a daunting claim since Lahiri’s stories seem t be the only ones read by people who aren’t really fans of short stories. In some ways, this may do a disservice to Fallon, whose stories don’t have the same bleakness that characterizes “The Interpreter of Maladies,” a trait which does turn some readers away, despite Lahiri’s brilliant writing. Certainly some of the stories in “You Know When the Men Are Gone” are full of despair, but many also contain kernels of hope. People expecting the same sort of stories that Lahiri tells may not be immediately satisfied – in my opinion that was more closely achieved by Sana Krasikov’s collection “One More Year” – but readers searching for the strength and beauty of writing and storytelling that Lahiri possesses will be very pleased with “You Know When the Men are Gone.”

I read “You Know When the Men are Gone” over the space of a single day, even pausing between stories, making myself read something else or step away from the book for awhile, to make the experience last longer. At the end, however, I simply couldn’t keep myself from returning to it time and again, until I found myself at the end of the collection, and experiencing my first disappointment brought to me by Fallon’s book: that there are only eight stories.

Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

Source: Publisher, via a trade show.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear by Atiq Rahimi – Book Review

Jan 132011

A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear by Atiq Rahimi, translated by Sarah Maguire and Yama Yari
Published by Other Press

Kabul, 1979. It is the early days of the Soviet invasion, but for Farhad life does not yet seem particularly different. This happy naivete does not last long, however. Something happens while Farhad is out carousing with a friend preparing to flee to Pakistan, and the young man is severely beaten. When Farhad finally awakes, grievously injured, he finds himself in the house of a young widow – a woman whose life has already been greatly impacted by the presence of the Soviet soldiers.

Typically when I read, I like big meaty paragraphs, with lots of words to latch onto. Spare pages make me a bit nervous; “can this author really impart enough in these few words?” I wonder. Oftentimes, the answer is no. However, with “A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear,” the answer is yes. Some rudimentary knowledge of the situation in Afghanistan in the late 1970s is necessary to understand what is going on, but even knowing something so simple as the fact the Soviets invaded is, really, sufficient. With that firmly in mind, the atmosphere of a country at war is incredibly evident as Farhad drifts in and out of consciousness, as well as the reality he finds in the young widow’s house when he wakes up.

The prose is simply gorgeous, and incredibly evocative. This is all the more stunning as “A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear” is a translation. Maguire and Yari are very skilled indeed, to take Rahimi’s stark, poetic prose and render it lovely in English, without losing the sense of place and import.

This may not be a book for every reader, but for those who revel in writing and the power of language to evoke emotion, as well as those interested in feeling what it might be like to live in an occupied country, I highly recommend “A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear.”

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

Source: Publisher, for BOOK CLUB.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/9781590513613?&PID=34002

Exley by Brock Clarke – Book Review

Dec 062010

Exley by Brock Clarke
Published by Algonquin, an imprint of Workman

When Miller’s dad leaves their family, he announces that he is going to join the war in Iraq, and Miller takes him at face value. Miller’s mother, on the other hand, is adamant that her husband could not possibly have gone to Iraq – after all he was too old, too out of shape, too lazy. When Miller continues to insist that his father is in Iraq and letters start showing up, ostensibly from his father, Miller’s mother put him into therapy. Miller’s doctor, who refers to him as M., is a bit pretentious but does seem to have M.’s best interests at heart – if only because he has a crush on M.’s mother. Everything comes to a head when Miller discovers that his father – or someone he assumes is his father – is lying unconscious in the Veteran’s Hospital. In order to return his father to health and to his own life, Miller decides that he must find Exley, whose fictional memoir, “A Fan’s Notes,” is the one thing Miller’s father is truly passionate about in life. He is certain that if he brings Exley to his father, his father will get well again.

Over the last weekend, I found myself in a bit of a reading funk. I had a hard time picking up or concentrating on anything, until I picked up “Exley.” As might be expected of an author whose first book is titled, “An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England,” Brock Clarke has, with “Exley,” written a quirky and fascinating novel. The most immediate thing that captured my attention was the question of whether or not Miller’s father really went to Iraq and whether he was currently lying unconscious in a hospital bed. This brought up an even more intriguing question: if he had not been to Iraq, was Miller simply misinformed and confused, or is he an unreliable narrator? There is, of course, the issue of the man in the hospital, as well as some letters Miller’s mother intercepted, which she believes that Miller wrote and had someone post from an APO address.

This is an incredibly quirky book, with Miller expounding on things his father taught him, which his father learned from Exley, and calling people by their initials and speaking in imprecise dates as his father and Exley both do as well. Although not for the easily offended, Exley is an immensely enjoyable book which I can highly recommend.

Thanks to Beth Fish Reads, who has helped me to become more aware of the imprints I love over the past year, beginning with her Amy Einhorn Perpetual Challenge. Follow her blog for regular spotlights of some of her favorite imprints.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

The Gendarme by Mark Mustian – Book Review

Sep 022010

The Gendarme by Mark Mustian
Published by Amy Einhorn Books, an imprint of Penguin

The first thing that caught my attention about “The Gendarme” was the arresting cover. I found it very reminiscent of the National Geographic cover of the Afghan girl, if a slightly less intense gaze. When I read the jacket copy and saw that it was about Turkey and the Armenians in WWI, I was totally sold.

And, although, it was not at all what I expected, “The Gendarme” did not disappoint.

Emmet Cohn was born Ahmet Khan in Turkey at the end of the 19th century. Unfortunately, he does not remember much of anything before he woke up in a British hospital during World War I with severe head trauma. He made it to the United States due to the determination of his American nurse, whom he married. After a long life in which he considered himself American first and foremost, Emmet, 92 and recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, has become dreaming again of Turkey. Specifically, he is dreaming of being a gendarme – which is odd, because he is positive he was a Turkish solider, not a gendarme – who is taking a group of Armenians to Syria and is beguiled by an Armenian girl with two different colored eyes, Araxie.

I really enjoyed “The Gendarme,” the way it worked through memory, sins of the past, aging, sickness, duty, and repentance. The two storylines were worked together masterfully, particularly considering there was not always a visual cue of transition. One thing bled into another with ease and occasionally when the transition was overly quick, it was wonderfully evocative of exactly what Emmet must have been going through with his tumor and increasingly frequent lapses between waking and dreams. I adored the uncertainty – shared by Emmett himself – of whether or not we could trust him as a narrator, or whether him tumor and previous head trauma left him unreliable. There were times I felt that I shouldn’t buy the blossoming relationship between Emmett and Araxie, with all of the hardships between them, but Mustian wrote them so compellingly that I had a difficult time not believing their relationship, unlikely as it may have seemed.

In “The Gendarme,” Mustian blends history and the human spirit beautifully. Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from BEA.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

The Report by Jessica Francis Kane – Book Review

Aug 312010

The Report by Jessica Francis Kane
Published by Graywolf Press

In 1943, a shelter in Bethnal Green, London became the site of the largest civilian accident of World War II. Citizens of Bethnal Green, anticipating a retaliatory air strike, crowded into the station. Before 9pm, 173 of them were dead, although the Germans did not bomb London that night. After the accident, there was much finger-pointing in many directions: from the lack of light and the late arrival of the constable to the general existence of Jewish refugees. In order to quell unrest, the government appoints the young and popular local magistrate, Laurence Dunne, to conduct a private investigation. He works with surprising speed to create a report he hopes will mend the broken ties of the city in general and Bethnal Green in particular.

When I picked up “The Report,” I expected a competent novelization of a fascinating historical event and mystery. I also expected the account to be somewhat dry, if interesting, based both on the less than titilating title and the fact that it is essentially the story of how a governmental report came to be. Still, I was interested enough in the Bethnal Green tragedy, of which I had never heard before, to give it a go.

How wrong I was to be expecting something dry!

Kane takes an ensemble cast of characters and manages to make all of their stories compelling, without spending so much time on character development that she loses the thread of the story. A major element in this success is the inclusion of a secondary storyline, that of a documentary film maker – who has his own ties to the tragedy – who contacts Dunne to enlist his help in a documentary that will memorialize the 30th anniversary of Dunne’s report. This storyline serves as a nice foil to the primary storyline, moving events along and explaining what is necessary, without being overly expository.

“The Report” is a surprisingly compelling novel about a seemingly unlikely subject. A fabulous read if you are at all curious to explore history and human nature. Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the publisher for review.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

American Music by Jane Mendelsohn – Book Review

Aug 262010

American Music by Jane Mendelsohn
Published by Knopf, an imprint of Random House

Milo is a severely wounded war vet. Honor is a physical therapist coming to the rehabilitation hospital working with Milo, massaging his back – and only his back, because he refuses to lay on his back. Except something odd is happening whenever Honor touches Milo. Somehow, memories of the past are welling out of Milo’s body when Honor works on him. Not memories of his past, but of seemingly unconnected people, primarily from the last 100 years.

Mendelsohn’s writing is absolutely gorgeous and completely lyrical. That being said, it took me quite awhile to get into the book. Although beautiful, the way the writing is crafted – particularly the lack of quotation marks and, occasionally, other punctuation – served to separate me from the characters and kept me from getting a good feel for them for a good 100 pages. Flashing back to the past didn’t help that, although it did provide the interest in the novel.

I loved the way the stories ended up coming together, for awhile there I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. I must say, I am still slightly unsure how the harem of the Ottoman Empire really connected to the other stories. It just didn’t seem to come together in quite the same way, although I have my suspicions of what we are meant to take from it, but all of the other stories connected to one another in just one way, and this didn’t quite fit the mold.

If you’re a fan of gorgeous writing, don’t hesitate to pick up “American Music.” If you tend to need a good measure of plot and character, stick with “American Music.” You may not be sure about it at the beginning, but the story will grow on you, and it is worth it by the end. Recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book borrowed from the library
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

The Surrendered – Audiobook Review

Jul 232010

The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee, narrated by James Yaegashi
Published in print by Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin
Published in audio by Recorded Books

Synopsis:

As much as I hate using the publisher’s description of books, I think I may have to for “The Surrendered.” There was so much going on I don’t think I can put it together coherently.

June Han was only a girl when the Korean War left her orphaned; Hector Brennan was a young GI who fled the petty tragedies of his small town to serve his country. When the war ended, their lives collided at a Korean orphanage where they vied for the attentions of Sylvie Tanner, the beautiful yet deeply damaged missionary wife whose elusive love seemed to transform everything. Thirty years later and on the other side of the world, June and Hector are reunited in a plot that will force them to come to terms with the mysterious secrets of their past, and the shocking acts of love and violence that bind them together.

As Lee unfurls the stunning story of June, Hector, and Sylvie, he weaves a profound meditation on the nature of heroism and sacrifice, the power of love, and the possibilities for mercy, salvation, and surrendering oneself to another. Combining the complex themes of identity and belonging of Native Speaker and A Gesture Life with the broad range, energy, and pure storytelling gifts of Aloft, Chang-rae Lee has delivered his most ambitious, exciting, and unforgettable work yet. It is a mesmerizing novel, elegantly suspenseful and deeply affecting.

Thoughts on the story:

I really didn’t quite like the way that “The Surrendered” was structured. It opened with June in Korea, and then jumped ahead to her adult life. Shortly after we realize that she’s very sick and about to go off in search of her child, we jump to a pretty long section on Hector. At that point I had no idea how they really connected, and wasn’t sure why we had left June. I thought that this just went on too long, and it really broke up my investment in the story. In addition, June’s search for her son seemed to me like it was too much simply a vehicle to get her and Hector together and to tell their story in Korea, it didn’t have enough of an emotional impact for my taste. I think I would have preferred “The Surrendered” had it been set solely in Korea, with perhaps some flashbacks to Hector’s life before the war.

Thoughts on the audio production:

I’m sort of sad, because this production was so well done, and yet it so didn’t work for me. My first problem was that the entire first two discs worth of story didn’t have any dialog at all. This is obviously not the fault of James Yaegashi or Recorded Books, but it made it seem like Yaegashi was reading more than narrating. It wasn’t until I got farther into the story that I realized what a good narrator he actually really is. My biggest problem with “The Surrendered” in audio, though, was all the jumping around the story did between characters and in time. Perhaps I’m just not yet a sophisticated enough connoisseur, but I have a difficult time following most stories that jump around a lot in audio. I find that in print there tend to be clues in the formatting of the book, and it is much easier for me to jump back to find where that thread of storyline left off in print.

Overall:

Because so many factors contributed to me not really liking “The Surrendered” I think that others with different pet peeves many enjoy it, but I can’t quite recommend it.

Buy this book from:
Audible: Audio
Powells: Print*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound: Print*
Amazon: Print*

This review was done with an audiobook received from Recorded Books for review.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Devourer of Books

Damascus by Joshua Mohr – Book Review

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon – Book Review

You Know When The Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon – Book Review

A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear by Atiq Rahimi – Book Review

Exley by Brock Clarke – Book Review

The Gendarme by Mark Mustian – Book Review

The Report by Jessica Francis Kane – Book Review

American Music by Jane Mendelsohn – Book Review

The Surrendered – Audiobook Review

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