Great Reads to Kick Off Summer

It's summer and it’s time to check out what books you’ll be putting in your beach bag or reading on your front porch.

Ann Patchett is an author whose works I always read, and her latest Whistler continues her streak of excellent novels. Daphne and her husband are in the Met Museum when they notice an older man following them. He turns out to be Daphne’s former stepfather, who was married to her mother for only a year when Daphne was nine. 

Daphne reconnects with him, which brings forth a memory of why he left her family all those years ago. It’s a wonderful story filled with characters whom you root for, and Patchett writes beautifully. I finished it in one day and loved it so. 

Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel, The Things We Never Say is also a story about family. Artie is a beloved 11th grade history teacher whose best friend is a boisterous older widow who is moving away. He finds solace in his taking his boat out on Massachusetts Bay, but increasingly feels isolated and lonely.

When he learns that his wife has been keeping a huge secret from him, it upends everything and he has to decide how he will move forward. Like Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge) is a tremendous writer who encourages empathy in the reader for her characters. 

Evelyn Clarke is the pen name of two authors (V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke) who wrote a propulsive locked room mystery The Ending Writes Itself. Six authors are brought to a remote Scottish island to compete to finish a book written by a popular mystery series writer who drowned.

With two million dollars and a publishing contract at stake, each author is desperate to win, and soon one by one the authors meet a diabolical end. Who will be left standing and win the money? This is a book you will race through, and I was impressed that each character is distinct and memorable. 

Other big books this summer include Douglas Stuart’s new novel John of John, also set on a remote Scottish island. This one revolves around a young gay man who is summoned back home from Edinburgh by his religious father to come help care for the young man’s ailing grandmother. He struggles with his family’s expectations and life in a small town.

Stuart’s previous novel Shuggie Bain won many accolades, and John of John”is said to be his best book yet. 

Christina Baker Kline’s new historical novel The Foursome fictionalizes the story of famous conjoined twins Eng and Chang Bunker, who leave Siam to move to the United States in 1839. They marry two sisters (who are distant relatives of the author), and the story takes place over a fifty-year period as we see how the sisters deal with life married to conjoined twins. This one sounds intriguing. 

Kathryn Stockett’s last book, The Help was published seventeen years ago and became an instant bestseller. Her latest historical novel is The Calamity Club, set in Depression-era 1933 Mississippi. Meg is eleven years old and lives in an orphanage. She is deemed too old to adopt and so is stuck there.

Birdie is a unmarried woman, “a spinster” who befriends Meg as she works at the orphanage. When they meet Charlie, who is on the run from something, the three become friends. They come up with an idea to open a boarding house that caters to a certain clientele.

This is big book, over 600 pages, and the themes of found family and the limited choices of women during the Depression are dealt with humor and heartache. 

You need a little romance for summer, and popular sensation B.K. Borison’s second in her Heartstrings series will steam up your glasses, even though her new novel And Now, Back to You is set during winter.

Jackson is a buttoned-up meteorologist at a local Baltimore radio station who is raising his twin fifteen year-old sisters. Delilah is a delightful, friendly meteorologist on a local Baltimore TV station whose jealous boss is using every humiliating way to get her to quit.

The pair, who have a contentious relationship, are teamed up to travel to the mountains of Deep Creek, Maryland to cover a massive snowstorm headed their way. Of course they are forced to share a room with only bed, and well, you can guess what happens. 

If Nonfiction is your genre of choice, Patrick Radden Keefe’s new book London Falling tells the story of a young man who dies jumping off a balcony in London. While looking for answers as to what happened to their son, his parents discover that he was impersonating the son of Russian oligarch. Radden Keefe looks for answers in this true story. If you liked Keefe's book about the Troubles in Northern Ireland titled Say Nothing, you'll want to read London Falling.

Happy summer reading!

New in Paperback- With or Without You by Domenica Ruta

With Or Without You by Domenica Ruta

Published by Spiegel & Grau ISBN 978-0812983401-16

Trade paperback, $16, 240 pages

Memoirs about people growing up in tough family situations are abundant. I just reviewed Jeanette Winterson's poetic Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?, and Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle is a book I reviewed and recommended to many people over the past few years.

Domenica Ruta's With Or Without You is a searing, honest look at her life growing up with a mother who was an alcoholic and drug addict, and wanted her daughter to have the same life. Her mother kept Domenica home from school to watch classic movies; she felt this was a better education for her daughter.

The book opens with the mother, Kathleen, taking her young daughter along while she bashed in the windshield of romantic rival's car. The destruction she placed upon that woman's car is a metaphor for the destruction she would wreak upon her daughter's life.

Like Winsterson, literature and books became a savior for Domenica.

"Reading seemed to be a skill I'd somehow picked up on my own. In an extended family where people stumbled- and stumbled proudly- over three-syllable words, such a drooling little fiend for literature was endearing to no one. (It should be noted that even the most illiterate of my clan knew their way around a food stamp application, a subpoena, and a workman's compensation claim. We were nothing if not adroit at manipulating the system.)"

As she grew up, her mother did her best to lure Domenica into her drug-addicted lifestyle. Domenica did her best to avoid it, but eventually she succumbed. She believed that going to college and getting away from her mother would save her. If only her mother didn't send care packages of drugs to college with her.

Domenica writes honestly of her struggles with alcohol, drugs and her inability to have a romantic relationship. She runs away to Texas believing that only distance from her mother can save her. But her mother calls constantly, begging for money, pushing the guilt, harassing her daughter until the only thing Domenica can do is cut off all ties to her mother.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter where she worked as a recreation aide in a nursing home. She felt comfortable with those people, more at home with them than with her younger friends. She writes lovingly of a man named Saul who has lost his wife of sixty years, who became her compatriot.

With Or Without You will hit home with anyone who has had addiction issues or lived with anyone with addiction issues. Domenica Ruta writes with a clear-eyed honesty, which is remarkable considering how drunk and drugged up she was at times. Her decision to cut ties with the woman who gave her life and raised her probably saved her life, but is heartbreaking for her nonetheless. We don't know at the end whether Domenica will make it, but her journey is unforgettable.

rating 4 of 5

Domenica Ruta's website is here.

My review of Jeanette Winterson's Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?  is here.

With or Without You by Domenica Ruta

With Or Without You by Domenica Ruta
Published by Spiegel & Grau ISBN 978-0812993240
Hardcover, $26, 224 pages

Memoirs about people growing up in tough family situations are abundant. I just reviewed Jeanette Winterson's poetic Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?, and Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle is a book I reviewed and recommended to many people over the past few years.

Domenica Ruta's With Or Without You is a searing, honest look at her life growing up with a mother who was an alcoholic and drug addict, and wanted her daughter to have the same life. Her mother kept Domenica home from school to watch classic movies; she felt this was a better education for her daughter.

The book opens with the mother, Kathleen, taking her young daughter along while she bashed in the windshield of romantic rival's car. The destruction she placed upon that woman's car is a metaphor for the destruction she would wreak upon her daughter's life.

Like Winsterson, literature and books became a savior for Domenica.

"Reading seemed to be a skill I'd somehow picked up on my own. In an extended family where people stumbled- and stumbled proudly- over three-syllable words, such a drooling little fiend for literature was endearing to no one. (It should be noted that even the most illiterate of my clan knew their way around a food stamp application, a subpoena, and a workman's compensation claim. We were nothing if not adroit at manipulating the system.)"

As she grew up, her mother did her best to lure Domenica into her drug-addicted lifestyle. Domenica did her best to avoid it, but eventually she succumbed. She believed that going to college and getting away from her mother would save her. If only her mother didn't send care packages of drugs to college with her.

Domenica writes honestly of her struggles with alcohol, drugs and her inability to have a romantic relationship. She runs away to Texas believing that only distance from her mother can save her. But her mother calls constantly, begging for money, pushing the guilt, harassing her daughter until the only thing Domenica can do is cut off all ties to her mother.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter where she worked as a recreation aide in a nursing home. She felt comfortable with those people, more at home with them than with her younger friends. She writes lovingly of a man named Saul who has lost his wife of sixty years, who became her compatriot.

With Or Without You will hit home with anyone who has had addiction issues or lived with anyone with addiction issues. Domenica Ruta writes with a clear-eyed honesty, which is remarkable considering how drunk and drugged up she was at times. Her decision to cut ties with the woman who gave her life and raised her probably saved her life, but is heartbreaking for her nonetheless. We don't know at the end whether Domenica will make it, but her journey is unforgettable.

rating 4 of 5

Domenica Ruta's website is here.
My review of Jeanette Winterson's Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?  is here.

Come to the Edge by Christina Haag

Come to the Edge by Christina Haag
Published by Spiegel & Grau ISBN 978-0385523
Trade paperback, $15- Buy the book here

Christina Haag spent five years in a romantic relationship with John F. Kennedy Jr. She recounts these years in her tender and honest memoir, Come to the Edge.  While a memoir about loving one of the most famous Americans could be lurid and gossipy, this book is remarkable in its restraint.

Haag tells a story that is relatable to many women; she loved a man, thought they were headed towards spending the rest of their lives together, but in the end, it didn't work out.

She begins with a childhood filled with games and loving Dark Shadows and Lost in Space. (I loved those too, but wanted to be Judy, not Mrs. Robinson.) Her first remembrance of being aware of JFK Jr. was seeing his photo on the wall at a barber shop. She attended Sacred Heart School with his sister Caroline, but they weren't friends.

As teenagers, their social circles intersected as they attended many of the same parties. He had the reputation as a playboy, even then breaking hearts, and friends warned Christina to stay away from him, which she did.

They both attended Brown University, and shared a house with three other students, one of whom was future journalist Christiane Amanpour. They became closer friends then, and that section of the book sheds much light on Kennedy.

Haag tells of answering the phone one day, and a man on the other end threatened to kill Kennedy. She became justifiably upset, and when the roommates finally found John, he brushed it off. It was something he lived with, but he did not let it rule his life; he lived life to the fullest.

Haag became an actress, and appeared in an off-off Broadway play with Kennedy where they had a romantic kiss that deepened their feelings for each other. He wanted to be an actor, but knew his mother would not accept it, so he went to law school.

The portrayal of Jackie shows a different side to her than most people know. She was genteel yet strong, kind, wise, and she had a bit of wicked sense of humor. She liked Christina, seeing a bit of herself in the young woman whom her son loved. After they broke up, Jackie tried to help Christina get an acting job, and even sent her a note a month before she passed away.

Haag does an admirable job of writing this memoir while still respecting the privacy of people involved. Sometimes when you read memoirs with famous people in them, it can feel like reading The National Inquirer. Not so with Come to the Edge.

Even when she has a right to her anger, such as when he married his wife Carolyn on Cumberland Island, a place that he and Christina discovered together and spent a romantic vacation, she doesn't write of how much of betrayal that was. She describes the lovely time they spent there, and then of hearing that that was where he got married. She makes her point subtly, letting the reader come to her own conclusion how that would feel.

Kennedy comes to life in this book, especially in this passage:

"We had been together more than a year, and there were things I had learned. He was chivalric and competitive, puritan and sensual. He wore Vetiver and Eau Sauvage, and when he didn't, his skin was like warm sun. He loved to cook but burned his food, and he slept with the windows open. I wore his sweaters, he ate off my plate, and we spent most nights at his apartment on Ninety-first Street. And if he was in a mood and I wanted something, a small thing- a light turned on, a fan turned off- I found that if I said the opposite, it worked like a charm... He had a theory that his occasional contrariness was due to being "bossed by so many women" when he was young."

This is more than just a celebrity memoir, this is a story of a great love. Haag writes with grace, honesty and dignity, and anyone who has ever had love only to lose it will relate. Love is difficult, beautiful, exhilarating, breath-taking and heart-breaking, and Come to the Edge describes all its facets perfectly.

rating 4 of 5 stars

If you liked this, you will like Carole Radziwill's book What Remains, about losing her husband, Anthony Radziwill (JFK Jr.'s cousin), JFK Jr. and his wife Carolyn all within a short time. 

Next to Love by Ellen Feldman

Next to Love by Ellen Feldman
Published by Spiegel & Grau ISBN 978-0812992717
Hardcover, $25

A look at WWII and its aftermath on three women who sent their men off to war, people who liked Sarah Blake's THE POSTMISTRESS will be drawn to this well-written novel. Feldman based this book on a small town in Virginia that lost 19 men in a population of 3000. From that true story, she imagines the effect of losing so many young men on such a small town.

Babe finds meaningful, if many times sorrowful, work at Western Union, relaying telegrams to waiting families. I found this section of the book haunting, particularly the days following DDay when the town lost many young men, men Babe knew well.

Babe's husband Claude comes home maimed physically and emotionally, but two of his friends didn't make it home. Grace and her baby daughter Amy suffer the loss of Charlie, loving husband and father, a loss that resonates deeply for a very long time for both of them. Millie and her baby Jack lose Pete, but Millie finds a new love, and her remarriage faces ugly anti-Semitism that effects them all in different ways.

The author makes you care about the characters, all of whom deal with war and death in their own way. Grace is so overwhelmed with sadness, it it something she feels she cannot escape. I felt so bad for Grace, even when she appears to overcome, it is a hollow victory. Babe is a character who shows the most depth and growth, and her relationship with Claude was realistic. Millie seemed the least well drawn to me, I found her son Jack's story more interesting.

The constant time changes in the story took awhile to get used to; I found it at times difficult to keep things straight. I also would have liked to heard more from Claude, and Mac, another war survivor and Pete's brother, but at heart this is the women's story. So many women lost the loves of their lives in WWII, and the ones that did come home were often different men than the ones with whom they fell in love. Feldman succeeds in recreating a time in our history with characters you feel deeply for and want to know more about.

rating 4 of 5