Two Novels by Wonderful Writers

Reprinted from the Citizen:

March is set aside to celebrate Women’s History Month, and in that spirit, this month’s Book Report will feature novels written by women and set in different time periods.

Elizabeth McCracken’s “Bowlaway” begins at the turn of the 20th century in small New England town of Salford, Massachusetts. A woman named Bertha Truitt is found unconscious in the town cemetery with a bowling ball, a candlepin and some gold bars on her person. 

The entire town is curious as to where Bertha came from, but she either doesn’t know or won’t tell. She marries an African-American doctor, Leviticus Sprague, and opens a candlepin bowling alley in the town. (Apparently, this was a very New England activity.)

She hires two men, Joe and Jeptha, who are considered outcasts in the town. They are fiercely loyal to Bertha, and even when Bertha encourages the town’s women to bowl at the alley, people come to accept this unusual woman and her ways.

Bertha and Leviticus have a baby girl whom they dote on. When Bertha dies in a bizarre accident, Leviticus falls apart and sends the young child away to live with his family. Soon, a man named Nahum shows up claiming to be Bertha’s son from a previous marriage and wants to claim the bowling alley as his inheritance.

This intense story weaves its way through the years. We follow the large cast of characters throughout their lives, all revolving around the bowling alley. McCracken writes the novel with some magical elements within it, and it is a unique story, but she is such an amazing storyteller the reader becomes captivated by it.

Her characters and their journeys are fascinating and heartbreaking. We see how the past influences the present, and how secrets and choices can have such lasting consequences. McCracken’s writing is just stunning and lovely, and this book has received much critical praise.

“Bowlaway” is not for everyone, but if you are looking for a big, sprawling story set in a small bowling alley with characters who are unforgettable, definitely give it a try. McCracken’s previous book, “The Giant’s House,” also featured characters that are outside the societal norms, and is just as wonderful.

Taylor Jenkins Reid’s last book, “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,”  (my review here) featured an Elizabeth Taylor-like movie star, and her story as told by a young journalist who has been chosen by Hugo to write her biography. It was fabulous and garnered much critical praise. 

Her latest novel, “Daisy Jones & the Six,” is about a 1970s rock band, similar to Fleetwood Mac, who have a meteoric rise and fall after releasing a monster-sized hit album. This story also involves a journalist who writes this book as a series of interviews with members of the band, their producers, friends and others.

Billy Dunne begins a rock band with his brother Graham in their hometown of Pittsburgh. They eventually end up in Los Angeles, where they begin to have some success. Billy writes most of the songs and wants to be the one with final say on everything, something that rankles others in the band (now called The Six), including Graham.

Daisy Jones is gorgeous and a terrific singer. She signs with The Six’s record company and struggles with the fact that she wants to record the songs she has written, but the record producers want her to sing something else. Daisy also drinks too much and ingests too many drugs, and she has no one looking out for her, save her friend Simone (a Donna Summer-like singer).

The record company has Daisy sing a duet with Billy, and the song becomes a huge hit. Soon, Daisy joins the band and they become known as Daisy Jones & the Six, which angers Billy. The band tours arenas throughout the U.S. and Europe, and we see their love affairs, shifting alliances and fights as they become one of the biggest bands in the world.

Through the interviews we see how everyone feels throughout this, including Billy’s alcoholism and struggle to stay sober and faithful to his wife, Daisy’s drug use and many men, and the other band members' frustration at being left out of the creative process. It’s interesting to see everyone’s perspective on events, such as their first big album cover photo shoot.

If you have a worn-out copy of Fleetwood Mac’s famous album “Rumours” in a closet at home, “Daisy Jones & the Six” is for you.

If you read

BOOK: “Bowlaway” by Elizabeth McCracken

GRADE: A

PUBLISHER: Ecco

COST: Hardcover, $27.99

LENGTH: 384 pages

---

BOOK: “Daisy Jones & the Six”

GRADE: A-

PUBLISHER: Random House

COST: Hardcover, $27

LENGTH: 368 pages

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Diane La Rue is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and blogs about books at http://bookchickdi.blogspot.com. You can follow her on Twitter @bookchickdi, and she can be emailed at laruediane2000@yahoo.com.

The Twelve-Mile Straight by Eleanor Henderson

The Twelve-Mile Straight by Eleanor Henderson
Published by Ecco ISBN 978-0062422088
Hardcover, $27.99, 520 pages

One of the great joys of reading is discovering an debut author whose work just blows you away. Eleanor Henderson did that to me with her 2011 novel Ten Thousand Saints, set in 1987 New York City and Vermont. It is such an amazing book (made into a movie in 2015), I put it on my Most Compelling Books of 2011 list.

I was thrilled to hear that Henderson would be at the Book Expo this year signing copies of her followup novel, The Twelve-Mile Straight.  I was first in a long line of people, all eager to tell her how much we loved Ten Thousand Saints and how we couldn't wait to read this new one.

Eleanor Henderson at the Book Expo

The setting for The Twelve-Mile Straight is a small town in Depression-era rural Georgia in 1930. Young Elma Jessup gives birth to two babies- one black, one white. Her daughter is the child of the grandson of the wealthy man who owns the farm that her sharecropper father Juke works. Elma and Juke accuse a young black man who works for Juke, Genus Jackson, of raping Elma resulting in Elma's son.

Juke, who made moonshine on the side that he sold to men in the town, convinced others to join him in making Genus pay by lynching him, dragging his body behind a truck and leaving it in the road in town. The death scene is horrific, and we soon learn that there is more to this story.

Elma's mother died when she was a baby, and Elma was raised by Ketty, their black housekeeper. Ketty's daughter Nan grew up with Elma, and they were best friends, even though Elma went to school and Nan worked with Ketty, eventually learning from her how to be a midwife.

As the story unfolds, we find out that there are many secrets in this house, secrets that will affect everyone who lives there for years to come. People are curious about Elma's two babies, and their two different fathers, and Elma eventually meets a doctor, Oliver, who wants to study this unique phenomenon.

Oliver is a terrific character; he suffers from polio and he wants to be a research doctor. He is fascinated and compassionate towards Elma and her babies. There is a couple, Sarah and Jim, who came from up North and work on Juke's land. Why they are there is a mystery, but they provide company for Elma, for which she is grateful. And gentle, quiet Genus is such a sweet young man, his murder is devastating.

There are some powerful scenes in the story, including a baptism for the babies, where several townsfolk turn out believing that at least one of the babies "has the devil in him." Oliver's memory of his time spent on a ship filled with other polio patients because people feared catching polio was heartbreaking.

Henderson creates such a sense of time and place, you can feel the blazing summer sun and see the dust kicking up on the twelve-mile straight road. The reader is transported to this world, one that she conjured from stories her father told of his growing up, one of eight children born to a sharecropper.

Her writing is so precise, it feels like she worked to craft the perfect sentence for each paragraph. I got so lost in The Twelve-Mile Straight that frequently I found myself completely tuning out my surroundings, losing all track of time and place.

But it is the relationship between Elma and Nan that is at the heart of this emotional, moving story. The two women are as close as sisters, but it is the secrets between them that drive the momentum of the book to its shattering conclusion.

I highly recommend The Twelve-Mile Straight, and if you haven't read Ten Thousand Saints, pick that one up too. I'm not the only one who feels this way, The Twelve-Mile Straight has made many Best of Fall lists. 

Eleanor Henderson is a professor at Ithaca College, and her website is here.
My review of Ten Thousand Saints is here.

Two Novels About Marriage

Reprinted from the Citizen:

Marriage is a topic that has been covered extensively in books, from self-help books to romance novels to literary fiction to mysteries and thrillers. Today’s column reviews two novels with the theme of marriage, albeit with a slightly different take.

In Dennis Lehane’s newest novel “Since We Fell”, Rachel Childs is a local TV reporter sent to cover Haiti after a disaster. Her reporting earns her a chance at a network TV assignment, but when she has an on-air breakdown, she loses her opportunity and her husband leaves her. 

She becomes a recluse, rarely leaving her apartment. She reconnects with Brian, a man she knew as a private investigator while looking for information about her birth father. Brian rescues her from a man in a bar, and they begin to date.

Brian is patient and loving with Rachel, and soon they marry. One day Rachel sees Brian coming out of hotel in Boston when he was supposed to be in London, and she begins to question if he is the man she believes him to be.

The beginning of this fast-paced novel hooks you right away. “On a Tuesday in May, in her thirty-seventh year, Rachel shot her husband dead. He stumbled backward with an odd look of confirmation on his face, as if some part of him had always known she’d do it.” How can you not read on?

“Since We Fell” packs so much in this fast-paced novel. At first it’s about a young woman looking for her father. Then the story moves to cover Rachel’s breakdown and her subsequent marriage to a seemingly wonderful man. The last third of the book is a straight-out thriller, as Rachel uncovers the truth about her husband and fights to stay alive.

Fans of “The Girl On The Train” and “In A Dark, Dark Wood” will love “Since We Fell”, and I liked it better than those; Lehane is a superb writer who knows how to write terrific characters while ratcheting up the tension.

For a more optimistic view of marriage, Deanna Lynn Sletten’s new novel, “One Wrong Turn” tells the story of Jess and Clay. The book begins when Jess is rushing home and has a car accident that results in her becoming comatose. 

Jess is living with their two daughters, twelve year-old Maddie and seven year-old Jilly, working to open a bed and breakfast in a home left her by her grandmother. Clay is summoned to the hospital, where he sees his comatose wife and two daughters for the first time in two years.

The story goes back and forth in time, beginning with the first meeting of Jess, a waitress in beach bar and Clay, a guitarist in a rock band. At first Jess wants nothing to do with a musician, but Clay wins her over.

They marry, and Jess becomes pregnant with Maddie. Clay’s career begins to take off, which means he is off touring with bands, in addition to becoming a highly respected and in-demand studio musician. Musicians like to drink, and Clay begins to drink too much.

Jess puts up with Clay’s drinking until she returns home one day and finds him passed out when he is supposed to be caring for their baby. Clay’s attempts at sobriety include stints at rehab facilities, and he manages to stay sober for periods of times.

Eventually Jess has had enough and she takes the girls and moves away when she inherits her grandmother’s house. They build a life for themselves, and make friends, until the accident.

Maddie is old enough to remember good and bad times with her father, but young Jilly doesn’t remember much. Clay vows to the girls that he will care for them, but Maddie fears they will be abandoned by Clay once again. In addition, there is the question of whether Jess will ever come out of her coma. 

“One Wrong Turn” is the story of a marriage that tries to overcome the illness of addiction, and what happens when the unimaginable occurs. It’s beautifully written, and the characters, particularly Maddie and Clay, are ones that readers will identify and empathize with.

Sletten’s last novel, “Finding Libbie” was about love, marriage and mental illness, and she approaches her books with such sensitivity, I admit to tearing up more than once while reading her. Fans of Elin Hilderbrand's books should seek out Deanna Lee Sletten’s books.

“Since We Fell” by Dennis Lehane- A

Published by Ecco

Hardcover, $26.99, 432 pages

“One Wrong Turn” by Deanna Lynn Sletten- A-

Published by Lake Union Publishing

Trade paperback, $14.95, 204 pages

I'm Just A Person by Tig Notaro

I'm Just A Person by Tig Notaro
Published by Ecco ISBN 978-0-06226663-7
Hardcover, $26.99, 240 pages

In 2012, stand up comic Tig Notaro made headlines when she began one of her performances with "Good evening, hello. I have cancer. How are you? Hi, how are you? Is everyone having a good time? I have cancer." The video clip of that performance went viral and the world soon knew of Notaro's situation.

But that wasn't all. In the space of four months, Notaro nearly died of a C-Diff infection, her mother died in a freak accident, and she was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer. Her memoir I'm Just A Person shares Notaro's journey of those months.

The book opens as Notaro is taking a cab ride from the hospital back to her mother's house in Texas after her mother died. Tig had recently been discharged from a hospital in Los Angeles after a harrowing infection which resulted in her being unable to keep any food down.

She was weak as a kitten when she got the call from her stepfather about her mother. Notaro shares stories about her unconventional mother, a woman for whom "drinking with friends by the pool was (her) nine-to-five job and she took it very seriously."

Notaro was a poor student, held back twice in the eighth grade. She eventually dropped out of school and ended up in Los Angeles with some friends where she became a working standup comic.

I'm Just A Person deals mainly with her four month ordeal. She writes matter-of-factly about her illnesses and fears, but it is her relationship with her free spirit mother and how Notaro came to terms with it after her mother's death that truly resonates here. Her description of going into her mother's home and looking at photos and her mother's belongings, and the memories that conjures up is moving.

You'll read I'm Just A Person in a few hours, it is a slim book, but Notaro's story will stay with you a lot longer and maybe give you pause to reflect on your own mortality and relationships. She packs a big punch in a few words. I recommend it.

Tig Notaro's website is here.

Three Books That Deserve Attention

Reprinted from the Citizen:

There are so many books published each year that unless the author is an established one (James Patterson, Mary Higgins Clark, etc.), it may be hard to cut through the clutter and find an audience. I found three recent books by not-so-famous authors that deserve attention.

Maureen Sherry worked on Wall Street and she uses her experiences in her novel Opening Belle. Sherry takes us into this breakneck-paced, testosterone-fueled world of high finance through the character of Isabelle. 

Isabelle is married to Bruce, who is content to be a part-time stay-at-home dad, part-time not-exactly-sure-what-he-does-for-a-living. They have three young children, and even though Isabelle works full-time, she is still the one responsible for grocery shopping, Christmas present shopping, and arranging playdates for the children. Bruce goes to the gym. And they have a nanny.

The trading floor of the company Isabelle works for is filled with men who behave appallingly towards the female traders and analysts and heaven help the poor female assistants and administrative employees, it is worse for them.

And when some of the women working at the firm decide they have had enough, Isabelle has to decide whether to jeopardize her position at the firm and her family’s financial security to join with them.

Isabelle works hard and she is a great analyst. She has a luncheon meeting with the CEO of her biggest client and who shows up with him but Henry, the man who was once her fiance`until she found out that he was dating another woman just weeks before their wedding.

Sherry never signed a non-disclosure form when she left her job on Wall Street, so “Opening Belle” is filled with little tidbits and stories that you just know ring true, and I bet that some of the people who used to work with her recognize some of the events and characters. They are just too good to not be true.

Opening Belle is fast-paced read, and one that you will devour like a eating an entire bag of chips. You’ll root for Isabelle to get everything that she deserves.

Another contemporary novel is Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s The Nest, also set in New York City. The Plumb children are all grown adults who are waiting for the day when they can get their hands on a trust fund set up by their father. 

Each has different plans for the money. Jack needs the money to replace funds he spent behind his husband’s back; he mortgaged their beach cottage to keep his small antiques shop from closing.

Melody is counting on the money to send her two daughters to a good college and to keep from losing the home she has created and loved for so long. Sister Bea wants to quit her job and finish the novel she has started.

But all their plans go up in smoke when brother Leo has a car accident with young lady who is not his wife and she is seriously injured. Their mother gives Leo the money to pay off the young lady, and now the siblings must convince Leo to pay them back. Easy, yes?

Well, not so easy. Leo is a selfish man, and he feels no loyalty to his siblings. The story is interesting and the idea of what parents owe their children is one that will engender a thoughtful discussion for book clubs who choose this one.

The final book, The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett, takes place across the pond in England, starting in 1958 when Jim Taylor runs across Eva Edelstein, who has just had an accident with her bicycle on the way to take a test at university. They fall in love and what comes next is told in three different versions. 

The title of the book comes from the triptych that Jim paints, depicting three versions of a couple. I loved this story, and although you may think that keeping track of three different versions of this couple’s lives over the years would be confusing, Barnett does an amazing job of keeping it all straight in the reader’s mind.

We see what happens or could have happened, over the years to Jim and Eva, and how one decision made changes so many lives in each version. Fans of the books/movies One Day and Sliding Doors will like this one, and I enjoyed it even more than both of those.

Opening Belle by Maureen Sweeney

Published by Simon & Schuster

Hardcover, 352 pages

A+

The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

Published by Ecco

Hardcover, 368 pages

B+

The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Hardcover, 416 pages

A

New in Paperback- The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

One of my favorite books from 2014 is now in paperback:

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Published by Ecco ISBN 9780062306845
Trade paperback, $16.99, 416 pages

A great historical novel can transport you to a completely different time and place, a place you are unfamiliar with. Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist does just that. Set in 1686 Amsterdam, we meet young Petronella Oortman, who has just arrived at the home of her new husband, wealthy, influential merchant Johannes Brandt.

Brandt is not there to greet his bride, but his sister, cold and imperious Marin is, along with the young maid/cook Cornelia, and Otto, the dark-skinned manservant to Johannes. Petronella is unhappy to find that her husband is gone and his return is unknown.

When Johannes does show up, he shows no interest in his new bride. Nella is confused, but to appease his young wife, he gifts her with an exact replica miniature of her new home. He tells Petronella that she may order furnishings from the miniaturist to fill her new replica home.

Johannes and Marin argue about Johannes' business. He has agreed to sell a large quantity of sugar for Frans and Agnes Meerman, a married couple with whom Marin and Johannes have a complicated relationship. The book is told through Nella's eyes, so we find out the history of this relationship as she does.

When a package arrives from the miniaturist, it contains the items Nella ordered, along with a note that reads EVERY WOMAN IS THE ARCHITECT OF HER OWN FORTUNE. Nella is puzzled by this, and by the fact that there are more items than she ordered in the package. Exact replicas of two chairs, with the same carvings on them as the ones in the salon, along with a cradle, and replicas of Johannes two beloved dogs are also inside.

Nella is shocked by how the miniaturist would know what the chair and dogs look like, having never been to her home, and what the cradle means. She sets out to find the miniaturist for an explanation, but is unsuccessful. And then more packages with cryptic notes continue to arrive.

A scandal befalls Johannes and he is imprisoned. When Otto disappears after an altercation with a man who works for Johannes, that leaves only the women to carry on. Marin and Nella must pull together and find a way to sell the Meerman's sugar to get money to save Johannes.

I loved watching Nella grow in strength. She began the story a young, naive woman, who knew little of the ways of life in Amsterdam, yet like the famous Eleanor Roosevelt saying- "Women are like teabags- you never know their strength until they are in hot water"- she rises to the occasion when it becomes necessary.

We learn so much about the trading business, life in Amsterdam, the food they ate, how the people lived, their prejudices and laws, I found it so fascinating, even though I would have said before I read this book that I wasn't particularly interested in this time period.

The Miniaturist is a book that kept me reading on the treadmill just a little bit longer each time I read it, unwilling to put it down. There are strong female characters, a bit of the supernatural in regards to how the miniaturist knew what she did about the family, and a suspenseful plot that propelled the reader to continue on.

Burton shares her research at the end of the book, which was extensive, and she includes a photo of the actual miniature house that belonged to the real Petronella Oortman that resides in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. You can bet I will be looking for information on the real Petronella Oortman.

The Miniaturist will definitely be on my list of Most Compelling Reads of 2014- it's brilliant and breathtaking, and the fact that Jessie Burton is a debut author is astonishing.

rating 5 of 5
Jesse Burton's website is here.

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Published by Ecco ISBN 9780062306814
Hardcover, $26.99, 416 pages

A great historical novel can transport you to a completely different time and place, a place you are unfamiliar with. Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist does just that. Set in 1686 Amsterdam, we meet young Petronella Oortman, who has just arrived at the home of her new husband, wealthy, influential merchant Johannes Brandt.

Brandt is not there to greet his bride, but his sister, cold and imperious Marin is, along with the young maid/cook Cornelia, and Otto, the dark-skinned manservant to Johannes. Petronella is unhappy to find that her husband is gone and his return is unknown.

When Johannes does show up, he shows no interest in his new bride. Nella is confused, but to appease his young wife, he gifts her with an exact replica miniature of her new home. He tells Petronella that she may order furnishings from the miniaturist to fill her new replica home.

Johannes and Marin argue about Johannes' business. He has agreed to sell a large quantity of sugar for Frans and Agnes Meerman, a married couple with whom Marin and Johannes have a complicated relationship. The book is told through Nella's eyes, so we find out the history of this relationship as she does.

When a package arrives from the miniaturist, it contains the items Nella ordered, along with a note that reads EVERY WOMAN IS THE ARCHITECT OF HER OWN FORTUNE. Nella is puzzled by this, and by the fact that there are more items than she ordered in the package. Exact replicas of two chairs, with the same carvings on them as the ones in the salon, along with a cradle, and replicas of Johannes two beloved dogs are also inside.

Nella is shocked by how the miniaturist would know what the chair and dogs look like, having never been to her home, and what the cradle means. She sets out to find the miniaturist for an explanation, but is unsuccessful. And then more packages with cryptic notes continue to arrive.

A scandal befalls Johannes and he is imprisoned. When Otto disappears after an altercation with a man who works for Johannes, that leaves only the women to carry on. Marin and Nella must pull together and find a way to sell the Meerman's sugar to get money to save Johannes.

I loved watching Nella grow in strength. She began the story a young, naive woman, who knew little of the ways of life in Amsterdam, yet like the famous Eleanor Roosevelt saying- "Women are like teabags- you never know their strength until they are in hot water"- she rises to the occasion when it becomes necessary.

We learn so much about the trading business, life in Amsterdam, the food they ate, how the people lived, their prejudices and laws, I found it so fascinating, even though I would have said before I read this book that I wasn't particularly interested in this time period.

The Miniaturist is a book that kept me reading on the treadmill just a little bit longer each time I read it, unwilling to put it down. There are strong female characters, a bit of the supernatural in regards to how the miniaturist knew what she did about the family, and a suspenseful plot that propelled the reader to continue on.

Burton shares her research at the end of the book, which was extensive, and she includes a photo of the actual miniature house that belonged to the real Petronella Oortman that resides in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. You can bet I will be looking for information on the real Petronella Oortman.

The Miniaturist will definitely be on my list of Most Compelling Reads of 2014- it's brilliant and breathtaking, and the fact that Jessie Burton is a debut author is astonishing.

rating 5 of 5
Jesse Burton's website is here.

Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson

Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson
Published by Ecco ISBN 978-0062021021
Hardcover, $26.99

I had heard good things about this book, but wasn't sure I'd be interested in the coming-of-age story of straight edge teens in the late 1980s New York City. Boy, was I wrong.

Henderson has such compassion for her characters- Jude, the drug-using boy in love with a girl who slept with his best friend Teddy, Eliza, the lost rich girl with a secret, Johnny, Teddy's straight edge musician brother hiding from himself- that you feel like you know these people and care deeply about what happens to them. Even Teddy, who only exists for 72 pages yet whose presence influences all of the main characters, is so vivid, I felt I knew him well.

The minor characters are well drawn too; I particularly liked Jude's estranged father who left his family behind years ago, and although he faithfully sent support checks, checked out of his son and daughter's emotional life. Henderson has created this world that I had no idea about, the straight edge world of young people living in poverty on the Lower East Side of New York City in the late 1980s. It was a much different world there than it is today. They live with the homeless, violence and drug dealers in Tompkins Park, and with the fear and ignorance spawned by the AIDS epidemic.

There is one scene, a fight scene, that echoes S.E. Hinton's classic book, "The Outsiders", and I loved her homage to that story about teens also on the outside of mainstream society. (One of the characters even mentions the book later in the story.) This book will appeal to all of us who grew up loving "The Outsiders".

Part of the story takes place in Vermont, and Henderson creates that world with as much care. I felt like I was dropped into this story, these worlds that I knew little about. Great fiction can open up your mind and heart to characters and new ideas, and "Ten Thousand Saints" is great fiction. It is one of the best books I have read this year, and I can't wait for more from Eleanor Henderson.

I read this book in two sittings, I just couldn't put it down. These characters manage to crawl inside your heart, and when they make bad decisions and mess things up, you just want to hug them and tell them it will be alright.


rating 5 of 5 stars