The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson- Book Review

Jul 202011

The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson
Published by Other Press

When a young, pregnant woman, Lillie, is found floating dead in Richmond’s reservoir, the cause of death is originally thought to be suicide, but soon the evidence piles up so that murder is suspected. Before too long, the police pick up Lillie’s cousin Tommie, with whom she had been having a fling. As it becomes more and more obvious that Tommie was with Lillie the night she died, he is put on trial for her murder, his own life hanging in the balance.

The Reservoir has just a bit of a slow start. I read about 35 pages and put it down for a week, without ever particularly needing to pick it up again. Once I finally picked it up again, however, I finished the last 300 pages in just two sittings in under 24 hours. Thompson has brought 19th century Richmond to life.

The based-on-a-true-story events of The Reservoir are viewed at somewhat of a remove, with distant language, but it worked in this case. Tommie is removed from his own life, awaiting the outcome of his trial. The narrative distance also contributes to the questions about whether or not Tommie is a reliable narrator in his tales of what happened to Lille, of what really happened.

After a slow start, The Resvoir is a truly engrossing, beautifully-written literary historical mystery.

We will be discussing The Reservoir right here on Tuesday, July 26 as part of BOOK CLUB, all are welcome to attend.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

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.

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion - Book Review

Jul 142011

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
Published by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

R has always been a bit different than his zombie friends - if you can call them that - trying harder than most of them to hang onto his pre-zombie identity. So, perhaps it makes sense that it was R who managed to take in and keep the memories of a dying boy at the same moment that he was feasting upon his brains. R’s victim was in love with a girl named Julie, a girl who was in the same room, under the same attack, but somehow R manages to save her, and even bring him home with her. Back in the presence of the living in a non-predatory role, R begins to become more sentient, and even win Julie’s affections. How can their love survive, though, when zombies and the living are the most deadly of enemies?

I never expected to be talking about a beautifully written zombie novel, but here I am. At times, Warm Bodies verges on the poetic:

I don’t know why we have to kill people. I don’t know what chewing through a man’s neck accomplishes. I steal what he has to replace what I lack. -p. 8

The writing is lyrical and smart, including literary references to Melville and the Epic of Gilgamesh, not to mention the fact that the whole thing is essentially a post-apocalyptic version of Romeo and Juliet (R and Julie). Part of what is so interesting about Warm Bodies is that the Romeo and Juliet aspect is so subtle. Once you are alerted to it, it becomes obvious - what two groups could be more diametrically opposed than zombies and the living? - but Marion makes the story his own, instead of simply sticking to the story laid down for him by Shakespeare.

I will admit, I was very skeptical about the idea of a sentient, loving zombie, as that seemed to be the antithesis of all things zombie, but Marion makes it work beautifully. Not that there aren’t times where the improbablity of R’s character - even accepting the existence of zombies - can frustrate, but the story and the writing pull the reader through those times.

Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

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.

Galore by Michael Crummey - Book Review

Apr 252011

Galore by Michael Crummey
Published by Other Press

Paradise Deep are Gut are insular, isolated Newfoundland communities. Theirs is a hardscrabble life where nothing much changes, in many of the families one generation seems largely interchangeable with another, a constant cycle of birth and death, and birth again. But then, a whale washes ashore. A beached whale represents a bounty for a community that does not have the resources to catch more than cod, but when they slice open the whale’s stomach, a strangely pale man tumbles out. Named Judah due to a disagreement about whether it was Judas or Jonah who was swallowed by the whale in the Bible, the mute man is s subject of fear and wonder for the community by turns.

It is a bit difficult to say what Galore is about, because, at its heart, it is simply about the people of Gut and Paradise Deep. Even Jonah’s odd appearance - both in how he comes to the community and in how he looks - is not truly at the heart of this novel. Instead it is the people, the community as a whole, even.

What is particularly amazing about Galore is just how meaningful and riveting it is, given the number of people and the length of time covered. Although the Devine family - who shelter Jonah to the point of marrying him to a daughter of the family - and the Sellers family are certainly the major players, Crummey has created a rich cast of characters, each with their own particular foibles. The drama of the communities spans more than a century, the majority of that time passing in the second half of the book. This seems like it should be a recipe for a shallow and confusing story, but this is not the case. Certainly, I had to flip back and forth to the family tree at the front of the book more than once to remind myself of how certain people were related, but the characters have surprising depth and are surprisingly compelling given how many of them there are.

Galore is a masterfully written book with beautiful language and fabulous character development. The mixture of day-to-day life and fantastical happenings is particularly well done. Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound.*

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.

Safe From the Sea by Peter Geye - Book Review

Apr 182011

Safe From the Sea by Peter Geye
Published by Unbridled Books

After the sinking of the Ragnark and the death of the majority of its crew, Olaf Torr turns to drink. Over the next 30 years, Olaf’s family falls apart: his wife has an affair, and he becomes estranged from his son and the worry of his daughter. And yet, when Olaf calls his son Noah, telling him that he is sick and needs help preparing his isolated house for winter, Noah flies to join him immediately. Noah has been more than a little annoyed with his father, first due to the drinking and lack of fatherly affection, subsequently for some inappropriate comments that Olaf made at his wedding. Even so, he knows that Olaf would not be calling if it were not terribly important. He arrives still annoyed and distant, but in the time that follows, he falls back in love with his father and begins to understand just how damaged Olaf truly was by experiencing the sinking of the Ragnark. As Olaf begins recounting to Noah the story of that fateful night, both men begin to truly find peace with themselves and one another.

At first I was unsure about Safe From the Sea. It is very well written, but with the kind of spare prose that isn’t always capable of grabbing me. In addition, the story of the shipwreck and shipping on the Great Lakes didn’t particularly appeal to me, nor was I sure I would be able to relate to Noah and Olaf’s relationship. Peter Geye didn’t let me down, however. His prose was sparse, but also evocative, particularly when Olaf is describing the night the Ragnark sank. Olaf and Noah’s relationship is so artfully reanimated that the reader cannot help but become invested in them and their interactions with one another, not to mention bereft at the thought that they are only now coming back to one another now that Olaf is so very ill.

Although it starts out a little slowly, Safe From the Sea is absolutely beautiful and will suck you in. Recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher at 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.

The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer - Book Review

Apr 052011

The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer
Published by Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin

I read The Uncoupling for an episode of What’s Old is New. You can check out our interview with Meg about the book, and if you’ve already read it, check out our spoilery outtakes.

Stellar Plains, New Jersey is a relatively happy town. Dory Lang and her husband Robby are certainly happy, even if they do wish that their teenage daughter would read a bit more. Still, they are happy with their lives, with their jobs as high school teachers, with their relationship. Then Fran Heller enters all of their lives as the high school’s new drama teacher and decides to put on Lysistrata as the school play. Suddenly, Dory has no desire to sleep with her husband, which has never been the case in the entire time they have been together. She isn’t the only one, either, all over town women are turning away from their husbands, boyfriends, and lovers. Suddenly the little flaws that have been overlooked in everyone’s relationships are front and center, and sex is nowhere to be found.

At its height, it was a knockout of a spell, fortified by a classic work of literature - a play that had lasted since 411 B.C., and which lasted even now, in this age of very different gratifications. -p. 246

Wolitzer’s prose is phenomenal. I am typically a reader who requires a mixture of good writing and good plot and character development in order to love a book, but I think I could have loved The Uncoupling even if the plot had been completely uninteresting, the writing was good enough to suck me in and keep me reading compulsively all on its own. The quote above is, I think, a perfect example of the compelling style of prose - in addition to containing a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree.

And then there was the fact that the prose was not the only thing that The Uncoupling had going for it. Certainly the book uses the famous Aristophanes play, Lysistrata, as a jumping off point, but it is not about a sex strike in order to end war. Instead, it is an examination of love and sex, of relationships and desire, and how the waxing and waning of one element can have such great consequence for another. So many relationships are examined that a reader would be hard-pressed to become emotionally involved in more than one or two (likely those of Dory and Robby, or their daughter Willa and her boyfriend Eli), but all of the characters are fully realized, even those with extremely minor roles, which lends a richness to the story as if the reader was actually a part of the town of Stellar Plains, watching this spell strike all of his or her neighbors.

I absolutely adored The Uncoupling, it offered me the full package of what I believe makes a book worth reading: prose, characters, plot, and something to connect with on a deeper level. This is a book I can very highly recommend, and one that is likely to make an appearance on my ‘best of’ list at the end of the year (and likely that of many other people as well).

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

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.

Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon - Book Review

Mar 282011

Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon
Published by Broadway, an imprint of Random House

Locked away in a convent by her father, Princess Margarethe is bored and feels overly sheltered. She knows her father is simply trying to keep her safe, as threat of war looms with the Southern Kingdom, but she longs for freedom, for adventure. Under the sea another princess, her mermaid complement, Lenia longs for adventure as well. She is lured by the promise of new things above the sea. On her birthday, Lenia takes a trip to the surface in the midst of a raging storm and comes across a ship breaking apart. After seeing many men die beneath the waves, she sees the man she has fixated on fall into the water and becomes determined to save him. Lenia pulls the man safety on the beach by Margarethe’s convent, summoning Margarethe down from the towers to summon help for the man.

Tending to the man, Margarethe begins to fall in love, just as Lenia did when she saw him on the boat. It turns out, however, that the man is actually Prince Christian of the Southern Kingdom. Margarethe’s father is preparing even more for war now, believing, or choosing to believe, that Christian was near her convent for purposes of war. Margarethe believes she must marry Christian to spare her country the pain of additional years of warfare. Meanwhile, Lenia has given up her voice and life with her family under the sea to become human in an attempt to win Christian’s love, setting the two women in competition with one another. One for her soul, the other for the souls of her people.

Like the original fairy tale, Mermaid is a darkly beautiful story. Perhaps the thing that impressed me the most was the relationship between Margarethe and Lenia. Before becoming competitors for Christian’s love they shared an understanding and a deep connection. The fact that Turgeon tore my heart between Margarethe and Lenia, that I couldn’t decide whether I was rooting for the title character or the woman whose entire country depended on her, is a testament to the empathy of her writing style. For such a short book, Mermaid packed an emotional punch.

Recommended.

I read “Mermaid” in preparation for the most recent episode of our podcast, What’s Old is New, this one on fairy tales.

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 Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht - Mini Review

Mar 082011

The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht
Published by Random House

In The Tigers Wife, Tea Obreht’s gorgeous novel set in a war-ravaged Eastern European country, life, death, and myth coincide. Although Natalia, a young doctor who has recently lost her grandfather, is the central character, Obreht’s narrative also follows Natalia’s grandfather’s periodic encounters with a deathless man, as well as the titular story of the tiger’s wife.

Tea Obreht’s debut novel is beautiful beyond belief. The writing is simply gorgeous, and the plotting impeccable. Obreht weaves a remarkable tale that defies easy description. In fact, I think it is better if I do not try to go into too much detail, as The Tiger’s Wife is so absolutely beautiful that I cannot do it justice.

This is one of those times where I must simply say, trust me, read it.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound | Amazon*

Source: personal copy.
* 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 Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard - Book Review

Feb 242011

The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard
Published by Ecco, an imprint of Harper Collins

On Halloween night, 16 year old Norah Lindell disappears. This disappearance colors the lives of the boys she left behind, her school mates, for years to come. Norah’s sister becomes suddenly tantalizing in the year following Norah’s disappearance, a product both of her own coming of age and of the boys’ fascination with all things Lindell. Even as the boys continue to grow into adulthood, they never stop thinking about Norah and what might have become of her. Of course, her fate might have been the tragic end of so many disappeared young women, violated and killed. But perhaps she left on purpose, and ended up creating a life out West. Then again, she might have traveled the world, ending up in the midst of the India in time for the bombings in Mumbai. The boys - and the reader - will never know, but that does not stop them from wondering, from imagining.

At well under 300 pages, The Fates Will Find Their Way is a slim volume that packs a huge punch. Pittard’s writing is not only lovely, but absolutely captivating. Interestingly, this is the second novel I read this year told in the first person plural (we, etc.). It is never completely clear in The Fates Will Find Their Way whether it is one boy speaking for the group, but I like to think that it is something akin to their collective memory. The boys were always more of a group than individuals, although individuals were often named. I never felt that I got a good handle on most of them as individuals, but as a group they had an amazingly strong identity that their weaker individual identities was not a stumbling block to enjoying the story.

There is so much to this little book that it is difficult to do it justice. Suffice it to say that I think you should read it. Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | 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.

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown - Book Review

Jan 202011

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
Published by Amy Einhorn Books, an imprint of Penguin

Sisters Rose, Bean, and Cordy - real names Rosalind, Bianca, and Cordelia, courtesy of the renowned Shakespeare scholar who is their father - have never gotten along particularly well. Rose is responsible to the point of being overbearing, Bean craves attention and makes sure she gets it, and Cordy just floats irresponsibly through life. Dependable Rose has always stayed in close proximity to her parents, but Bean and Cordy, long out doing their own things, are finally brought home - ostensibly, at least - by their mother’s battle with cancer. In reality, all three sisters have serious issues of their own which make them reexamine the lives they had been living, and they must return home to recoup. Although being suddenly returned to one’s childhood home with one’s siblings understandably causes lots of stress, the sisters also begin to learn to support one another in their lives going forward.

The first thing that any reader is going to notice about “The Weird Sisters” is the plural narration. I do not mean that each of the sisters narrates, I mean that they narrate together as if they were a single entity. Think of it as the spirit of their sisterhood looking back on these events from a point sometime in the future. This may sound odd, but it was the perfect touch in a book that deals with families, sisters, and Shakespeare. The plural voice gave hope for their eventual cohesion, and spoke beautifully about the bond they shared, even if they were loathe to admit it at the beginning of the book.

This was a beautifully written and wonderfully moving book. Each of the three sisters tugged on my heartstrings in their own way, and one of them (if you’ve read the book already, or once you have, come back and guess who!) brought me to tears near the end of the book, something that doesn’t happen to me terribly often with literature. “The Weird Sisters” is one of those books which I will be going back to again and again. I’m already planning to listen to the audio version, and I will be going out and buying a hardcover to keep permanently in my collection to replace my ARC (incidentally, both of these things are also true of “You Know When the Men Are Gone” by Siobhan Fallon, also out today from Amy Einhorn Books).

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

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Devourer of Books

The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson- Book Review

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion - Book Review

Galore by Michael Crummey - Book Review

Safe From the Sea by Peter Geye - Book Review

The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer - Book Review

Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon - Book Review

The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht - Mini Review

The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard - Book Review

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown - Book Review

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

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