Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. It was a glorious weekend in New York City last week and I was able to spend much of it on my apartment balcony overlooking the East River reading good books. By luck, I chose several short books and was able to read one each day.
1) One of the best things about volunteering at the Book Cellar is that I get to meet authors. One of our frequent customers brought in his friend Ed A. Murray who wrote a novel titled Autumn in Wolf Valley. The description enticed me to read it and I'm glad I did.
Howard lives in Autumn Valley in Pennsylvania, and he has been bereft since his wife Amber died last year. He only has a dog named Coby for company, and an occasional drop by from his neighbor. When a storm approaches that leads to dangerous flooding, Howard refuses to leave his home for a shelter because he would have to leave Coby behind.
The story goes back in time as we relive Howard and Amber's love story, their marriage, the challenges that we all face in life. Love stories written by men are not all that common, and this one is wonderful.
The scenes of the flooding are realistic and frightening, especially given that so many people have been experiencing this recently all around the country. There is a secret revealed at the end of the story that I did not see coming, and it makes this a good book for book clubs to read. The discussion regarding that secret would be fascinating. I recommend Autumn in Wolf Valley.
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| Ed A. Murray |
2) Linda Dahl's novel Tiny Vices is a sibling story that draws comparisons to Anne Tyler and Jojo Moyes' books. Four middle-aged siblings are dealing with their own crises-and those of their siblings. Kathy is the oldest and the one who seems to take on responsibilities of others. Corina has early-onset Alzheimer's and Kathy decides that a family vacation needs to be taken now before it's too late.
Brother Pete has a lot of medical issues as well, many of them self-inflicted from years of drug and alcohol abuse. Youngest daughter Becca and her husband are struggling with financial troubles and their own son's addiction that caused them heartache.
The only place they can all travel is to a beach town in Mexico where years ago something awful happened to Kathy on spring break, something she has never told anyone.
It's a road trip that also includes Kathy and Becca's husbands and Corina's caregiver and things get off to a difficult start and don't get better.
I raced through this story as I love a good family story, and Tiny Vices is surely one. The characters are vivid, and Kathy describes one thusly: "She knew him so well. Knew he was wearing his life like a musty old coat. And suspected that he wanted a new one." I highly recommend Tiny Vices to anyone who likes family stories. 
3) Katie Yee's new novel Maggie; Or A Man and A Woman Walk Into A Bar has been getting a lot of buzz lately. Our unnamed narrator is at a restaurant when her husband tells her that he has fallen in love with a woman named Maggie. She goes to the buffet and fills up on samosas. They have two young children who prefer their father's entertaining bedtime stories to hers and now he wants out.
She feels a lump in her breast and discovers she has cancer (she names the lump Maggie). She turns to her best friend Darlene for support, and writes "The Guide to My Husband: A User's Manual" for Maggie, alerting Maggie to her husband's many quirks. She eventually agrees to meet Maggie, resulting in an awkward scene at yet another restaurant.
She turns to Chinese myths of her childhood to create bedtime stories for her children so they can better understand her culture- and theirs. The novel is by turns funny and insightful. Katie Yee has drawn comparisons to Jenny Offill and Nora Ephron with her fantastic debut novel, and I look forward to reading more from her in the future. 
4) I first remembered Merrill Markoe as the head writer for David Letterman's Late Night with David Letterman. She was also in a romantic relationship with Letterman for years. In her collection of humorous essays Cool Calm and Contentious, she recounts in one essay her relationship with an unnamed talk show and how she learned that he had been cheating on her with young staff members. As someone who remembered this scandal, I found how she handled it in the essay brilliant.
She also has essays about her narcassistic mother (oh wow, that woman is something), and maybe growing up with her mother helped her deal with a life in show business, and all the difficult personalities she encounters in her work.
I picked this book up because I saw Markoe on HBO's Hacks this season and she is hilarious in her deadpan delivery. It was a good afternoon spent reading it. 
5) I caught uo with season four of Hulu's The Bear. This season focuses less on the restaurant and more on the lives of Bear, Sydney and Ritchie. I found it a bit slow going at first, but as the season progressed, there were three standout episodes- Worms (Ayo Edebiri's Sydney shines here), Bears (a family wedding stuffed with great guest stars like Sarah Paulson, John Mulaney, and Oliver Platt among them) and the last episode Goodbye (with strong performances from Ayo Edebiri, Jeremy Allen White and Ebon Moss-Bachrach). I do agree with people who say they relied too much on music this season and not enough dialogue, but the last episode sets up season five beautifully. 
Have a safe and enjoyable week- until next time.
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