This series of personal reflections about adolescence and early adulthood reveals an uber-senstive Franzen at his squirmy best, "a small and fundamentally ridiculous person."
You will find yourself identifying with his unflinching honesty about his awkward teenhood every page of the way.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
TRIGGER CITY by Sean Chercover (2008)
This thriller was recommended by a CBC book panel.
Sean Chercover is a former P.I. in Chicago and New Orleans and his insider's perspective of that milieu contributes an authenticity and frenetic pace to this novel.
As I approach my mid-forties I obviously agree with the opening gambit that "forty-four is too young for a woman to die." Joan Richmond is the corpse upon which the premise depends. Her father, Isaac, a retired Army Colonel approaches Det. Dudgeon to work exclusively on uncovering the "truth" about his daughter's murder.
What follows is Dudgeon revealing layer upon layer of corruption that implicates the US government and its acronym organizations including the FBI and the CIA at its core and threatening Dudgeon's own life because of his meddling.
Sean Chercover is a former P.I. in Chicago and New Orleans and his insider's perspective of that milieu contributes an authenticity and frenetic pace to this novel.
As I approach my mid-forties I obviously agree with the opening gambit that "forty-four is too young for a woman to die." Joan Richmond is the corpse upon which the premise depends. Her father, Isaac, a retired Army Colonel approaches Det. Dudgeon to work exclusively on uncovering the "truth" about his daughter's murder.
What follows is Dudgeon revealing layer upon layer of corruption that implicates the US government and its acronym organizations including the FBI and the CIA at its core and threatening Dudgeon's own life because of his meddling.
SAIL by James Patterson
At breakneck speed, Patterson's thriller about the Family Dunne weaves through twists and turns and resolves in a completely satisfying way.
Dr. Katherine Dunne is trying to repair the strained rapport with her children, following their father's accidental death in a diving mishap and her subsequent marriage to the top criminal lawyer in New York, a man whom the children loathe at best.
What begins as a tension-filled family disaster waiting to happen, turns into a true horror when their luxury boat blows up and leaves them floating in its wake in the ocean near the Bahamas. They manage to survive the wreck, dodge a shark afraid of flares, kill a snake that is squeezing their injured mother to death and get rescued, but not before almost being offed by someone all too close to them.
None of the story is plausible, but that didn't stop me from flipping through the 3-4 page-long chapters in one sitting.
Dr. Katherine Dunne is trying to repair the strained rapport with her children, following their father's accidental death in a diving mishap and her subsequent marriage to the top criminal lawyer in New York, a man whom the children loathe at best.
What begins as a tension-filled family disaster waiting to happen, turns into a true horror when their luxury boat blows up and leaves them floating in its wake in the ocean near the Bahamas. They manage to survive the wreck, dodge a shark afraid of flares, kill a snake that is squeezing their injured mother to death and get rescued, but not before almost being offed by someone all too close to them.
None of the story is plausible, but that didn't stop me from flipping through the 3-4 page-long chapters in one sitting.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
RUNAWAY by Alice Munro (2004)
Some of the stories in this collection are linked by a character, others stand brilliantly on their own, revealing a storyteller at the peak of her powers.
The titular tale is being adapted for the screen by Australian filmmaker Jane Campion (The Piano).
Alice Munro is one of the essential authors not only for our time, but for all time. (Thank you Ben Jonson.)
The titular tale is being adapted for the screen by Australian filmmaker Jane Campion (The Piano).
Alice Munro is one of the essential authors not only for our time, but for all time. (Thank you Ben Jonson.)
THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE by David Wrobelewski (2008)
Based on the structure of Shakespeare's Hamlet, this first novel is a revelation.
Edgar is a mute whose family breeds a special kind of dog that has been refined over generations and bred for temperment and intelligence. Edgar's earliest memory, indeed, is meeting Almondine, his first canine companion, as she licks his hand and does a little dance of joy outside his crib.
When Edgar's father dies unexpectedly when Edgar is approaching adolescence, the appearance of Edgar's Uncle Claude (his father's long lost brother) complicates life on the farm. Edgar receives guidance from his father's ghostly presence in scenes that are both wonderous and terrifying.
David Wrobelewski is not only a storyteller for our time, but like the bard himself, for all time.
SOMEWHERE TOWARDS THE END (2008) by Diana Athill
Winner of the 2008 Costa Biography Award, this series of personal essays by UK literary giant Diana Athill is at once witty, contemplative and unflinchingly honest about love and aging.
Athill worked as an editor of high profile writers including Mordecai Richler, Margaret Atwood and V.S. Naipal until she retired at 75. Since then she has turned to her own writing and produced several memoirs including this most recent one and she's now 91! Her voice belies her age and you will feel yourself one of her intimates in reading this frank account.
In one of my favourite passages where Athill contemplates what her own death might look like, she recalls with envy the death of one of her cousins, who "flop! fell off his horse stone dead in the middle of a laugh" at the age of eighty-two.
I barreled through this book in sheer delight, but will be returning to it to read it slowly, savouring every well-placed word.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
REMAINDER by Tom McCarthy (2005)
One of the boys at school told me this was the best book he's read this year, and he offered to loan it to me. He's a fairly discerning reader, so I thought I'd give it a try.
REMAINDER opens with the narrator explaining that he has survived an accident which involved "something falling from the sky." His lawyer has negotiated a large settlement whereby his client (always unnamed) will receive over 8 million pounds, if he agrees to never take legal action against the culpable parties.
Friends have suggestions for how to spend this windfall--including buying coke and more coke, hiring hookers off which to snort coke, setting up a foundation to provide humanitarian aid. However, the survivor is not terrible interested. Instead he decides to hire someone to completely recreate one of the distinct memories he has--of living in a run-down building where a pianist stumbles over the same part of a concerto and a frumpy middle-aged woman cooks liver every day.
By hiring actors and set designers to fulfill this re-enactment fantasy, our man hopes to reboot his lost memories. What happens instead is rather sinister. He takes on the persona of a god in charge of his world and moves beyond controlling his apartment complex to re-enacting neighborhood crimes including murders of drug lords.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
BESIDE STILL WATERS by Barry Callaghan (2009)
This is Callaghan's rewrite of his novel THE WAY THE ANGEL SPREADS HER WINGS--copping on to the right established by James Joyce when he "wrote" PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, making the Stephen Daedalus tale all the more accessible to readers.
Callaghan has done the same here.
His protagonist finds his way to an African leper colony, rediscovering his true love en route. The diction is poetic and as such rife with rhythm and rhyme that allows you to creep inside the son-of-a-blues musician's head, a place Callaghan is clearly comfortable inhabiting.
Callaghan has done the same here.
His protagonist finds his way to an African leper colony, rediscovering his true love en route. The diction is poetic and as such rife with rhythm and rhyme that allows you to creep inside the son-of-a-blues musician's head, a place Callaghan is clearly comfortable inhabiting.
THE PRIVATE PATIENT by P.D. James (2008)
This mystery was recommended by a panel discussion on CBC radio around Christmas time as one of the best books of its kind in 2008.
P.D. James is inching towards 90 years old and she continues to write stories that are intelligent and compelling. In THE PRIVATE PATIENT, investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn makes an appointment to have a facial scar removed at an exclusive clinic in Dorset where she will be guaranteed her privacy. She's had the scar since she was a child and her drunk father sliced her cheek open with a beer bottle shard. Her mother kept her home from school for a few days and they've always insisted that the reason for the scar was that Rhoda mistakenly walked into a kitchen cupboard. Her father's recent death prompts her to make the appointment with the revered plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell. (Why is it that so many British characters have hyphenated last names?)
Rhoda's surgery is by all accounts successful, but it doesn't matter a whit since she's found strangled to death in her room two days later. Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called by 10 Downing Street to investigate because another patient at the time awaiting her own surgery is the wife of an influential politician. While Dalgliesh and his team scour Cheverell Manor for clues, there are two other unusual deaths.
It is the humanity of Dalgliesh the resonates through the book and we are rewarded with his wedding to a worthy woman in the end.
P.D. James is inching towards 90 years old and she continues to write stories that are intelligent and compelling. In THE PRIVATE PATIENT, investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn makes an appointment to have a facial scar removed at an exclusive clinic in Dorset where she will be guaranteed her privacy. She's had the scar since she was a child and her drunk father sliced her cheek open with a beer bottle shard. Her mother kept her home from school for a few days and they've always insisted that the reason for the scar was that Rhoda mistakenly walked into a kitchen cupboard. Her father's recent death prompts her to make the appointment with the revered plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell. (Why is it that so many British characters have hyphenated last names?)
Rhoda's surgery is by all accounts successful, but it doesn't matter a whit since she's found strangled to death in her room two days later. Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called by 10 Downing Street to investigate because another patient at the time awaiting her own surgery is the wife of an influential politician. While Dalgliesh and his team scour Cheverell Manor for clues, there are two other unusual deaths.
It is the humanity of Dalgliesh the resonates through the book and we are rewarded with his wedding to a worthy woman in the end.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
TRUMPETS SOUND NO MORE by Jon Redfern
Redfern's Victorian Detective novel featuring Owen Endersby is engaging and rife with the messy life of London's underclasses. When theatre entrepreneur Samuel Cake is gruesomely beaten to death in his own home, it takes all of Endersby's patience, compassion and puzzling to figure out who the murderer is.
Flipping through these pages you will feel the life on the dirty streets and on the boards of the Old Drury theatre where some hopes are raised and others are squashed. Under Redfern's pen, that time is vividly created with especial attention to the difficult moral decisions that the disenfranchised face daily in order to survive.
Flipping through these pages you will feel the life on the dirty streets and on the boards of the Old Drury theatre where some hopes are raised and others are squashed. Under Redfern's pen, that time is vividly created with especial attention to the difficult moral decisions that the disenfranchised face daily in order to survive.
Monday, April 13, 2009
NETHERLAND by Joseph O'Neill (2008)
I only became aware of O'Neill's writing through his review of the Beckett Letters in the Sunday New York Times a couple of weeks ago. His kicker involved a hand scribbled note from his fellow Irish expat--a cherished private possession. So, I picked up O'Neill's novel NETHERLAND, posing as one of the "Best bets" at my local TPL branch in the Beach.
The cover claims that the story is "stunning with echoes of THE GREAT GATSBY," and I agree. O'Neill's narrator Hans, a Dutch-born, London-based investment banker, begins to unravel his tale in a modulated voice that is reminiscent of tone and style of Fitgerald's Nick Carraway.
In the late 90s Hans and his British-born wife Rachel move to NYC as their professional lives rocket to the top and find themselves both bewitched by the city that never sleeps and altered by being first-hand witnesses to 9/11 as they are forced to evacuate their chic loft and move into the Chelsea Hotel with their infant son Jake. Rachel decides she cannot raise Jake with the ghost of 9/11 terror looming, and moves back to London while Hans remains in New York.
Free to roam the city at all hours of the day and night, Hans finds himself rekindling a love for cricket which thrives under the watchful eye of Trinidadian born idealist/operator Chuck Ramkissoon, the Gatsby figure whose corpse mysteriously washes up in the river at the beginning of the novel, and whose presence in both Hans's life and ours by extension is the reason Hans is compelled to tell this story.
The cover claims that the story is "stunning with echoes of THE GREAT GATSBY," and I agree. O'Neill's narrator Hans, a Dutch-born, London-based investment banker, begins to unravel his tale in a modulated voice that is reminiscent of tone and style of Fitgerald's Nick Carraway.
In the late 90s Hans and his British-born wife Rachel move to NYC as their professional lives rocket to the top and find themselves both bewitched by the city that never sleeps and altered by being first-hand witnesses to 9/11 as they are forced to evacuate their chic loft and move into the Chelsea Hotel with their infant son Jake. Rachel decides she cannot raise Jake with the ghost of 9/11 terror looming, and moves back to London while Hans remains in New York.
Free to roam the city at all hours of the day and night, Hans finds himself rekindling a love for cricket which thrives under the watchful eye of Trinidadian born idealist/operator Chuck Ramkissoon, the Gatsby figure whose corpse mysteriously washes up in the river at the beginning of the novel, and whose presence in both Hans's life and ours by extension is the reason Hans is compelled to tell this story.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
WHERE ROSES FADE, NAKED TO THE HANGMAN, CALL THE DYING and THE LAST FOUR THINGS (4 thrillers) by Andrew Taylor
Three of these books are in the series set in Lydmouth, a sleepy English village, post WWII involving Detective Richard Thornhill, his ambitious underling Brian Kirby and other locals including Thornhill's on again off again mistress Jill Francis, a journalist, and their friends Philip and Charlotte Wemyss-Brown.
On the surface Thornhill is an affable man who is driven to mete out justice. Yet, as we discover, he has a complicated professional past when he was seconded to serve in Palestine and used as a patsy by his commanding officer. The horrors of that time resurface and push him towards a breakdown and a temporary leave of absence when he is forced to confront the truth that his young daughter's abduction is his fault.
THE LAST FOUR THINGS is a departure from the Lydmouth series and moves to London where Lucy Appleyard, the only child of a police officer and a controversial female priest in the Anglican church, is snatched from her babysitter. What is atypical in this book is Taylor provides the psychopath's point-of-view and manages to create sympathy for someone who certainly doesn't deserve it. There are predictable plot twists, but also a few that I didn't see coming, and one gruesome event that in its credible horror made me dissolve into the story and miss my bus stop. The ending sets up the second book in the Roth Trilogy which promises to be equally gripping, albeit upsetting, since "man's inhumanity to man" will surely be the fare.
On the surface Thornhill is an affable man who is driven to mete out justice. Yet, as we discover, he has a complicated professional past when he was seconded to serve in Palestine and used as a patsy by his commanding officer. The horrors of that time resurface and push him towards a breakdown and a temporary leave of absence when he is forced to confront the truth that his young daughter's abduction is his fault.
THE LAST FOUR THINGS is a departure from the Lydmouth series and moves to London where Lucy Appleyard, the only child of a police officer and a controversial female priest in the Anglican church, is snatched from her babysitter. What is atypical in this book is Taylor provides the psychopath's point-of-view and manages to create sympathy for someone who certainly doesn't deserve it. There are predictable plot twists, but also a few that I didn't see coming, and one gruesome event that in its credible horror made me dissolve into the story and miss my bus stop. The ending sets up the second book in the Roth Trilogy which promises to be equally gripping, albeit upsetting, since "man's inhumanity to man" will surely be the fare.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
FALL by Colin McAdam (2009)
A friend recommended McAdam's first novel SOME GREAT THING--about a plasterer in Ottawa and his son (sounds boring but it was a fantastic read)--so when I saw his name on the list at Harbourfront, I decided to go and hear him read from his second book which launches the Hamish Hamilton imprint at Penguin Canada.
FALL is not only the name of the beautiful and smart girlfriend to Julius, the protagonist, but also the leitmotif of the novel. Several of the players fall from grace in this privileged boarding school based on the tony Ashbury College in Ottawa, where McAdam was once a student as the son of a diplomat.
Although the meanness and hijinks of the boarders is typical for that milieu, Julius's roommate Noel takes cruelty to a new level and it is from his point of view that we get the insider's perspective as he looks back at his final year from the remove of his adult life.
What impressed me most about McAdam's book is his dialogue which is quintessentially teenish in its rhythm and content.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
A STAIN ON THE SILENCE by Andrew Taylor
Continuing my current obsession with crime fiction, I picked up one of Andrew Taylor's books, which does not feature a detective.
James is well established in his career and firmly grounded in his relationship to his wife Nicky until his past rears its ugly head and bites him in the ass in the form of a telephone call from Lily Murthington who is dying of cancer in a local hospice.
The novel shifts from present to past and we fill in the sordid details about Jamie's adolescence at boarding school and in the company of his classmate Charles/Carlo Murthington and his family--father Hugo, sister Felicity and stepmother Lily. There is a dark secret that Taylor manages to withhold until the final 100 pages and it is this secret that is Jamie's undoing in addition to the idea that he may have fathered a daughter with Lily, a young woman named Kate who was raised as Carlo's half-sister and who is in a spot of trouble herself thinking she will be blamed for an accidental death.
It seems a little soap opera-ish from the outset, but Taylor manages to make you care for Jamie and his unfortunate circumstances and wish for him to be able to set things right.
James is well established in his career and firmly grounded in his relationship to his wife Nicky until his past rears its ugly head and bites him in the ass in the form of a telephone call from Lily Murthington who is dying of cancer in a local hospice.
The novel shifts from present to past and we fill in the sordid details about Jamie's adolescence at boarding school and in the company of his classmate Charles/Carlo Murthington and his family--father Hugo, sister Felicity and stepmother Lily. There is a dark secret that Taylor manages to withhold until the final 100 pages and it is this secret that is Jamie's undoing in addition to the idea that he may have fathered a daughter with Lily, a young woman named Kate who was raised as Carlo's half-sister and who is in a spot of trouble herself thinking she will be blamed for an accidental death.
It seems a little soap opera-ish from the outset, but Taylor manages to make you care for Jamie and his unfortunate circumstances and wish for him to be able to set things right.
A NOBLE RADIANCE by Donna Leon
In a field outside of Venice, the partially decayed corpse of a young man is discovered in a makeshift shallow grave. What identifies him is his family ring--he is of noble lineage and has been "missing" for over a year. Detective Brunetti finds himself telling the deceased parents about their son's unfortunate end and then is stuck in a web of lies as he tries to discover what circumstances led to the boy's death.
There was a very public story of kidnapping, but Brunetti doesn't believe it. There is more to the Lorenzoni family and its business dealings than meets the eye. With the help of his connected father-in-law, the Count, Brunetti manages to uncover unsettling truths about the ties that bind.
There was a very public story of kidnapping, but Brunetti doesn't believe it. There is more to the Lorenzoni family and its business dealings than meets the eye. With the help of his connected father-in-law, the Count, Brunetti manages to uncover unsettling truths about the ties that bind.
Monday, March 16, 2009
GRIEF ENCOUNTERS by Stuart Pawson
I found the title misleading of this DI Charlie Priest crime novel. Though, I liked the way the narratives wove together--the disgraced police officer who has obviously been framed; the headmistress who had hoped for a romantic tryst who ends up being driven off the road; the married MP caught in an extra-curricular passionate clinch who decides to end it once and for all; the fabulous four who plot different ways to play the game that they have devised and to which they are so deviously and deviantly committed.
Pawson certainly knows how to spin a good yarn peopled with characters you love to loathe and a detective you will continually root for.
Pawson certainly knows how to spin a good yarn peopled with characters you love to loathe and a detective you will continually root for.
THE ALMOST ARCHER SISTERS by LIsa Gabriele
Gabriele's reading at Harbourfront convinced me to pick up a copy of her new novel, the story of two sisters who couldn't possibly lead more disparate lives: Beth Ann and Georgia "Peachy" Archer. Beth is a fashionable, skinny bitch New Yorker who has abandoned her farm girl upbringing and embraced the shallowness of a frenetic professional life while Peachy abandoned her dream of becoming a social worker, when she got knocked up at nineteen and married Beth's high school sweetheart.
On one of Beth's occasional fly by night visits to her family in rural southern Ontario, she makes an unforgivable decision and that decision pushes the plot forward and has the sisters exchanging lives, if only for a few days.
What kept me reading THE ALMOST ARCHER SISTERS was a need to witness Peachy exact her fumbling revenge in one of my favourite cities, where even the pavement hums with expectation.
On one of Beth's occasional fly by night visits to her family in rural southern Ontario, she makes an unforgivable decision and that decision pushes the plot forward and has the sisters exchanging lives, if only for a few days.
What kept me reading THE ALMOST ARCHER SISTERS was a need to witness Peachy exact her fumbling revenge in one of my favourite cities, where even the pavement hums with expectation.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
REMEMBER ME? by Sophie Kinsella (2008)
As a leader of the pack of chicklit, British-born, New York Times bestseller Sophie Kinsella knows how to wend a tale of a not-so-enviable life of privilege. Her protagonist, 28 yr. old Lexi Smart wakes up in a London hospital after a car crash, believing that it is the day of her father's funeral 3 years previous. Trouble is she doesn't remember the three years in between where she managed to lose a load of weight, have her teeth done, scrabble up the business ladder, alienate her friends and marry the rich man of her dreams.
Kinsella manages to let the reader in on the loathsome truth about Lexi's less-than-ideal husband and her coterie of spoiled "friends" while Lexi herself gives it the old college try to rebuild the marriage that she can't remember ever existed. Her supporting cast including her grifting little sister Amy, her Whippet-obsessed mother and her husband's right hand man Jon help, intentionally or not, to put Lexi on her proper path of redemption and self-discovery, but not before she faces the enigmatic Mont Blanc"--not the pen--and resolves for herself to set herself straight.
Kinsella manages to let the reader in on the loathsome truth about Lexi's less-than-ideal husband and her coterie of spoiled "friends" while Lexi herself gives it the old college try to rebuild the marriage that she can't remember ever existed. Her supporting cast including her grifting little sister Amy, her Whippet-obsessed mother and her husband's right hand man Jon help, intentionally or not, to put Lexi on her proper path of redemption and self-discovery, but not before she faces the enigmatic Mont Blanc"--not the pen--and resolves for herself to set herself straight.
BORN STANDING UP by Steve Martin (2008)
Poet, philosopher, novelist, screenwriter, playwright, art aficianado, actor and comic: Steve Martin is all of those and more. I, for one, am grateful that he did not have the funding to purse a Ph. D. in philosophy in the early 60s, because he may have ended up an abstract-scripting fuddy duddy, holed up in a state university, hoping to discover the meaning of life.
His work ethic and determination to succeed are enviable and ought to be modelled by young men and women in 2009.
His work ethic and determination to succeed are enviable and ought to be modelled by young men and women in 2009.
Monday, February 23, 2009
ONE FIFTH by Candace Bushnell (2008)
Bushnell catapulted to fame with her novel SEX AND THE CITY in the nineties, and followed that with another LIPSTICK JUNGLE, also purchased and developed for a t.v. series. ONE FIFTH, her latest entre into spoiled life in Manhattan, seems destined for the same trajectory. Definitely the doyenne of Chick lit, Bushnell returns to expected topics such as class, wealth and sex in an elite building with its prestigious address on Fifth Avenue.
It is difficult to find sympathy for characters who spend their days blogging and whinging about earning only 350K/year while neighbours spend a third of that on new photography. The character for whom I felt a pang of empathy ended up predictably snuffed out. And, try as I may, I couldn't feel anything for the beautiful people who were destined to be together from the opening chapter, but not before they engaged in sexual antics with unsuitable partners.
It is difficult to find sympathy for characters who spend their days blogging and whinging about earning only 350K/year while neighbours spend a third of that on new photography. The character for whom I felt a pang of empathy ended up predictably snuffed out. And, try as I may, I couldn't feel anything for the beautiful people who were destined to be together from the opening chapter, but not before they engaged in sexual antics with unsuitable partners.
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