The South Carolina Lowcountry is one of my favorite places. Dorothea Benton Frank, although now a resident of New York, was born and raised on Sullivan's Island in the Lowcountry and her book drips with the charm, hospitality, humor and gentility that is so characteristic of that part of the country. "Lowcountry Summer" is 10th in a series of novels set in coastal South Carolina.
Caroline Wimbley Levine returned to the Tall Pines Plantation on the Edisto River after a divorce about 10 years before. When her alcoholic ex-sister-in-law checks in to rehab in California Caroline is thrown into the role of quasi-mother figure to her brother's four problematic daughters. She intervenes to straighten out everything from their vulgar language and poor diets to working on the girls' self-esteem and their attitude toward their father's fiance. Tragedy and mishaps strike, but somehow the family bonds and individual sense of responsibility for each member of the family are heightened through it all. Caroline finds love in the end as well.
There are many vivid, beautiful descriptions of the land, the traditions and the people of this land. At the same time, each person is presented as a complex, multi-dimensional individual. By the end of the book it is easy to feel both frustration and empathy for many of them. I felt that I had come to know this family as friends I plan to visit time and again.
Liz Nichols
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Freedom, a Novel by Jonathan Franzen
Eight or nine years after Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" he is back with a new blockbuster, "Freedom."
Freedom is the story of the Berglund family of St. Paul and Hibbing, MN. About half the book is written as a therapy exercise, a third-person autobiography of the life of Patty Berglund, a 45 year old housewife who is forced to go back to the workplace when she is thrown out of the house for cheating with her husband's best friend, a semi-successful rock star named Richard Katz from New Jersey.
Patty, her husband, Walter, and Katz met as University of Minnesota students in the late 70s or early 80s. Patty was a women's basketball star. Walter was an environmentalist and engineer, and Richard was the budding musician. Walter and Richard were room mates. Richard encouraged the relationship between Patty and Walter, but secretly Patty always was more attracted to Richard even though she recognized Walter would be the more stable provider. She seems to spend a lifetime being depressed about her marriage, her secret feelings for Richard, and the lives of her children, Jessica and Joey.
Eventually the family moves from St. Paul so that Walter can work as the executive director of an environmental non-profit called the Cerulian Mountain Trust, an organization dedicated to saving habitat for a particular breed of warbler. The Trust is really a front for a conservative coalition of coal mining and defense contractor interests who want to garner support for their anti-environmental activities by appearing to be the good guys. Walter and his assistant, Lelithia, meanwhile, are using the Trust as a way of pushing their own pet project for zero population growth.
Every character in the book is described, psycho-analyzed, actions discussed in tremendous detail, and motivations analyzed until the reader feels there is absolutely nothing else to know about each character. At times that detail gets quite tedious. However, every detail of action and every set of motivations is so consistent to the family background and personality of each character that it feels very much like the reader has stepped into the middle of these lives and is living them along with the characters. They all seem so real, and it is so easy to identify either personally with one or more of the characters, or it is easy to feel as if you know someone just like them. The reader watches helplessly as the family falls apart. One wishes that we could give a good shake to each one of them to prevent a lot of the pain and turmoil that happens; but we are in fact helpless to prevent what happens because we are only voyeurs on the outside looking in on their lives.
I'm glad that in the end we have quite a bit of closure as various characters come to their senses and learn to forgive and stop hurting each other. There is redemption in the end-- and that could have been the name of the book almost as reasonably as "Freedom." Another name that could have been used is "Mistakes were made," the title that Patty uses for her autobiography.
The word "Freedom" does, however, describe a continuing theme. Each character has free will to determine what they will do and how they will act in given situations. The people around them always let the other members of the family make their own mistakes and triumph with their own successes, even when they disapprove or even shun a loved one for following free will. There are many other thematic ties to the concept of freedom in the book, even though it seems at times that everyone is predestined to particular roles and to react in particular ways because of their family history, socio-economic class, and genetic make-up. Because the concept of freedom is explored throughout the book it really is the most appropriate title for the book.
The book is dense and long. It will not be everyone's cup of tea. It is one of the more thought-provoking and complex books that I have read in the past couple years, and for that my brain appreciates the exercise.
Liz Nichols
Freedom is the story of the Berglund family of St. Paul and Hibbing, MN. About half the book is written as a therapy exercise, a third-person autobiography of the life of Patty Berglund, a 45 year old housewife who is forced to go back to the workplace when she is thrown out of the house for cheating with her husband's best friend, a semi-successful rock star named Richard Katz from New Jersey.
Patty, her husband, Walter, and Katz met as University of Minnesota students in the late 70s or early 80s. Patty was a women's basketball star. Walter was an environmentalist and engineer, and Richard was the budding musician. Walter and Richard were room mates. Richard encouraged the relationship between Patty and Walter, but secretly Patty always was more attracted to Richard even though she recognized Walter would be the more stable provider. She seems to spend a lifetime being depressed about her marriage, her secret feelings for Richard, and the lives of her children, Jessica and Joey.
Eventually the family moves from St. Paul so that Walter can work as the executive director of an environmental non-profit called the Cerulian Mountain Trust, an organization dedicated to saving habitat for a particular breed of warbler. The Trust is really a front for a conservative coalition of coal mining and defense contractor interests who want to garner support for their anti-environmental activities by appearing to be the good guys. Walter and his assistant, Lelithia, meanwhile, are using the Trust as a way of pushing their own pet project for zero population growth.
Every character in the book is described, psycho-analyzed, actions discussed in tremendous detail, and motivations analyzed until the reader feels there is absolutely nothing else to know about each character. At times that detail gets quite tedious. However, every detail of action and every set of motivations is so consistent to the family background and personality of each character that it feels very much like the reader has stepped into the middle of these lives and is living them along with the characters. They all seem so real, and it is so easy to identify either personally with one or more of the characters, or it is easy to feel as if you know someone just like them. The reader watches helplessly as the family falls apart. One wishes that we could give a good shake to each one of them to prevent a lot of the pain and turmoil that happens; but we are in fact helpless to prevent what happens because we are only voyeurs on the outside looking in on their lives.
I'm glad that in the end we have quite a bit of closure as various characters come to their senses and learn to forgive and stop hurting each other. There is redemption in the end-- and that could have been the name of the book almost as reasonably as "Freedom." Another name that could have been used is "Mistakes were made," the title that Patty uses for her autobiography.
The word "Freedom" does, however, describe a continuing theme. Each character has free will to determine what they will do and how they will act in given situations. The people around them always let the other members of the family make their own mistakes and triumph with their own successes, even when they disapprove or even shun a loved one for following free will. There are many other thematic ties to the concept of freedom in the book, even though it seems at times that everyone is predestined to particular roles and to react in particular ways because of their family history, socio-economic class, and genetic make-up. Because the concept of freedom is explored throughout the book it really is the most appropriate title for the book.
The book is dense and long. It will not be everyone's cup of tea. It is one of the more thought-provoking and complex books that I have read in the past couple years, and for that my brain appreciates the exercise.
Liz Nichols
Thursday, December 9, 2010
The Rebellion of Jane Clarke by Sally Gunning
Gunning gained her fame with her first novels, "Bound" and "The Widow's War." "The Rebellion of Jane Clarke" is taken from a small historical fact about a woman who witnessed the killing of five colonists in Boston in March 1770 that helped to spark the War of Independence. Jane Clarke is the fictional character that embodies the true life witness.
Gunning has a true heroine in Clarke, a woman from a small village on Cape Cod from a family that sympathized with the crown. Jane and her brother both moved to Boston to gain their own independence from a rather judgmental and tyrannical father. Jane moved into the home of an aunt who appeared to have leanings toward the Sons of Liberty-- or does she? Jane has to put up with the surreptitious comings and goings of two household employees of her aunt and feels she needs to protect her aunt from the increasingly hostile environment in Boston.
When Jane meets Henry Knox, a bookseller who leans toward the Sons of Liberty cause, it introduces some conflict into her future. Should she accept Henry's proposal of marriage? Should she try to win back Phinnie Paine, her one-time suitor? Should she embrace her independence as a single woman for the rest of her life. If she decides not to marry, how will she make a living?
As it happens, I also started the docdrama series "John Adams" just as I finished this book. John Adams starts where this book ends, with the March 1770 shootings and the trial in which John Adams wins a pyrrhic victory in defending Captain Preston of the British guard.
This is a memorable fictional telling of an important period of American history as seen through the eyes of a woman.
I loved this book and look forward to many more from Sally Gunning.
Liz Nichols
Gunning has a true heroine in Clarke, a woman from a small village on Cape Cod from a family that sympathized with the crown. Jane and her brother both moved to Boston to gain their own independence from a rather judgmental and tyrannical father. Jane moved into the home of an aunt who appeared to have leanings toward the Sons of Liberty-- or does she? Jane has to put up with the surreptitious comings and goings of two household employees of her aunt and feels she needs to protect her aunt from the increasingly hostile environment in Boston.
When Jane meets Henry Knox, a bookseller who leans toward the Sons of Liberty cause, it introduces some conflict into her future. Should she accept Henry's proposal of marriage? Should she try to win back Phinnie Paine, her one-time suitor? Should she embrace her independence as a single woman for the rest of her life. If she decides not to marry, how will she make a living?
As it happens, I also started the docdrama series "John Adams" just as I finished this book. John Adams starts where this book ends, with the March 1770 shootings and the trial in which John Adams wins a pyrrhic victory in defending Captain Preston of the British guard.
This is a memorable fictional telling of an important period of American history as seen through the eyes of a woman.
I loved this book and look forward to many more from Sally Gunning.
Liz Nichols
Monday, October 18, 2010
Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife
Sittenfeld's novel, "American Wife" is the quasi-biographical tale of a recent First Lady, Laura Bush. The character, Alice Blackwell, has a number of things in common with Mrs. Bush: she worked as a school librarian before she was married, she had a similar upbringing, she is generally considered more liberal in her leanings than her husband and probably also more intelligent. As for the dramatic details-- the accident that Alice causes as a teen that leads to the death of a friend, the break-up of her friendship with her hometown friend Dena, the abortion that Alice has, and details about her marriage to Charlie Blackwell-- it is hard for me to say which of those mirror Mrs. Bush's experiences as I have not read a Bush biography. Sittenfeld does list a number of biographies on Laura Bush and works by and about Hillory Clinton as inspiration for her novel.
While I dutifully kept reading the book and enjoyed parts of it, I often found it hard to get inside Alice Blackwell's head, and especially hard to find much sympathy for Charlie Blackwell, the spoiled son of a Wisconson meat packing tycoon, baseball team owner, governor and Republican president. I just don't get what she saw in Charlie and why she stayed with him all those years when he was a liability to her and to his family and an alcoholic. I kept reading to find out and really never did figure it out.
I'm glad I read this novel-- but I still don't know why.
Liz Nichols
While I dutifully kept reading the book and enjoyed parts of it, I often found it hard to get inside Alice Blackwell's head, and especially hard to find much sympathy for Charlie Blackwell, the spoiled son of a Wisconson meat packing tycoon, baseball team owner, governor and Republican president. I just don't get what she saw in Charlie and why she stayed with him all those years when he was a liability to her and to his family and an alcoholic. I kept reading to find out and really never did figure it out.
I'm glad I read this novel-- but I still don't know why.
Liz Nichols
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Captivity by Deborah Noyes: A review
It took me awhile to appreciate Noyes' "Captivity," a fictional account of a real mid-19th century family of spiritualists who lived in Rochester, NY. The Fox sisters actually did learn how to "rap" up the spirits for seances in the second half of the 19th century. Maggie Fox and her sisters traveled around the country giving demonstrations and seances, and she did exchange letters with explorer, Elisha Kent Kane of Philadelphia. I have rarely thought about spiritualism and have never considered reading about the history of this phenomenon/form of 19th century entertainment.
The chapters alternate between a fictionalized account of how the Fox sisters and their mother claim to hear noises and receive messages from the dead, and the story of Clara Gill and her father, transplants from London to the wilds of Rochester, NY in the 1840s and 1850s. Gill is a fictional character, and it is her moving story of love denied leading to an isolated spinsterhood that is the more compelling story. It is also the more redemptive story. While Maggie is at the end able to help her friend, Clara, to free herself from the ghosts of her past, Maggie is trapped by her ghosts and eventually drinks herself to death.
The central theme of the book comes in a chapter where Pratt, Clara's chaperone is talking with Will, the animal keeper who has fallen for Clara. Will says to Pratt: "...Above and beyond what an unjust world will impose, every person's a slave to choce. We make them, and they make or unmake us in turn." Essentially, the book is an exploration of the choices the main characters make throughout their lives and the impact that those choices have on the themselves and the people around them.
It took awhile for me to care about these characters-- particularly Maggie Fox and her intended, Elisha Kane, but in the end, I found this a fairly deep exploration of the main theme of the choices that make or break each of the characters and their circle of family and friends.
Liz Nichols
The chapters alternate between a fictionalized account of how the Fox sisters and their mother claim to hear noises and receive messages from the dead, and the story of Clara Gill and her father, transplants from London to the wilds of Rochester, NY in the 1840s and 1850s. Gill is a fictional character, and it is her moving story of love denied leading to an isolated spinsterhood that is the more compelling story. It is also the more redemptive story. While Maggie is at the end able to help her friend, Clara, to free herself from the ghosts of her past, Maggie is trapped by her ghosts and eventually drinks herself to death.
The central theme of the book comes in a chapter where Pratt, Clara's chaperone is talking with Will, the animal keeper who has fallen for Clara. Will says to Pratt: "...Above and beyond what an unjust world will impose, every person's a slave to choce. We make them, and they make or unmake us in turn." Essentially, the book is an exploration of the choices the main characters make throughout their lives and the impact that those choices have on the themselves and the people around them.
It took awhile for me to care about these characters-- particularly Maggie Fox and her intended, Elisha Kane, but in the end, I found this a fairly deep exploration of the main theme of the choices that make or break each of the characters and their circle of family and friends.
Liz Nichols
Monday, August 9, 2010
Cook the Books by Jessica Conant-Park and Susan Conant
The mother-daughter team of Conant-Park and Conant have an imaginative series going with the "Gourmet Girl Mystery" series set in Boston. "Cook the Books" is the 5th in the series featuring not so aspiring social worker, Chloe Carter.
Carter is a somewhat typical 20-something. She has over-spent her credit limit doting on her best friend's baby. She hasn't really found her calling in life, but thinks she should at least give a try to finish a master's in social work (or at least that is what will qualify her to get access to a trust fund from a dead relative). She prides herself on being independent, and it is that stubborn independence that makes her stay in Boston when her boyfriend accepts a job as a personal cook in Hawaii and invites her to come along. She is so hurt that he made this plan without her participation she cuts him off totally, and makes herself miserable in the process.
Now Chloe desperately needs a part time job, and she responds to an ad to assist a cook book editor with the editing of a new cook book. The son of a famous chef is supposed to be working on the book and is making a mess of it. Chloe saves him organizationally and in terms of the recipes he is planning for the book. She proposes that they meet up with a friend of her former boyfriend, Digger, a chef who is about to open a new high profile restaurant in Boston. The night before the arranged meeting Digger is killed in a fire that sweeps through his apartment. Chloe has to discover who killed Digger and why while she juggles her work schedule, her school and clinical internship schedule, and resolving her feelings for the former boyfriend, Josh, who has returned to Boston for the opening of Digger's new restaurant.
The authors manage to keep the reader's interest throughout the book. Both authors are social workers, and Conant-Park is married to a Boston chef, so they write about things they know. They are able to legitimately endow their character with the kinds of skills and perception that make for good storytelling and great powers of observation for solving crimes.
I'm surprised I've missed the earlier books in this series and will make up for that by reading some of the previous books in the series.
Conant also has a well know series of mysteries for dog lovers, and I am familiar with some of the books in that series.
Liz Nichols
Carter is a somewhat typical 20-something. She has over-spent her credit limit doting on her best friend's baby. She hasn't really found her calling in life, but thinks she should at least give a try to finish a master's in social work (or at least that is what will qualify her to get access to a trust fund from a dead relative). She prides herself on being independent, and it is that stubborn independence that makes her stay in Boston when her boyfriend accepts a job as a personal cook in Hawaii and invites her to come along. She is so hurt that he made this plan without her participation she cuts him off totally, and makes herself miserable in the process.
Now Chloe desperately needs a part time job, and she responds to an ad to assist a cook book editor with the editing of a new cook book. The son of a famous chef is supposed to be working on the book and is making a mess of it. Chloe saves him organizationally and in terms of the recipes he is planning for the book. She proposes that they meet up with a friend of her former boyfriend, Digger, a chef who is about to open a new high profile restaurant in Boston. The night before the arranged meeting Digger is killed in a fire that sweeps through his apartment. Chloe has to discover who killed Digger and why while she juggles her work schedule, her school and clinical internship schedule, and resolving her feelings for the former boyfriend, Josh, who has returned to Boston for the opening of Digger's new restaurant.
The authors manage to keep the reader's interest throughout the book. Both authors are social workers, and Conant-Park is married to a Boston chef, so they write about things they know. They are able to legitimately endow their character with the kinds of skills and perception that make for good storytelling and great powers of observation for solving crimes.
I'm surprised I've missed the earlier books in this series and will make up for that by reading some of the previous books in the series.
Conant also has a well know series of mysteries for dog lovers, and I am familiar with some of the books in that series.
Liz Nichols
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Murder at Longbourn by Tracy Kiely
Tracy Kiely's "Murder at Longbourn" is an excellent first mystery novel. It will be of particulary interest to the cozy-lovers among the mystery reading set.
The sleuth is newspaper reporter (fact-checker, actually) Elizabeth Parker, who goes to Cape Cod to assist her Aunt Winnie at the aunt's B and B for a mystery dinner. Things heat up quickly when a guest is shot and it becomes apparent that the mystery play is being used as a cover for murder. Parker pits herself against a police detective who seems bent on fitting the evidence to point toward Aunt Winnie as the prime suspect.
While Kiely presents a fairly conventional cozy, she never lets it get too predictable nor the characters too stereotypical. For these reasons, I found it hard to put the book down once I started it and I polished it off in a couple of holiday weekend sittings.
I look forward to more Elizabeth Parker mysteries, with or without the B and B setting.
Liz Nichols
The sleuth is newspaper reporter (fact-checker, actually) Elizabeth Parker, who goes to Cape Cod to assist her Aunt Winnie at the aunt's B and B for a mystery dinner. Things heat up quickly when a guest is shot and it becomes apparent that the mystery play is being used as a cover for murder. Parker pits herself against a police detective who seems bent on fitting the evidence to point toward Aunt Winnie as the prime suspect.
While Kiely presents a fairly conventional cozy, she never lets it get too predictable nor the characters too stereotypical. For these reasons, I found it hard to put the book down once I started it and I polished it off in a couple of holiday weekend sittings.
I look forward to more Elizabeth Parker mysteries, with or without the B and B setting.
Liz Nichols
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