Tag Archives: novel

Before the Rain Falls, by Camille Di Maio***

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beforetherainfallsThose looking for a sweet, light romance will find it here and come away happy. It was just published, and you can get it now. Thanks go to Net Galley and Lake Union Publishing for the DRC, which I received free of charge in exchange for an honest review.

The story is divided between three protagonists, and the narrative alternates to include each of their points of view. Two of the characters are Della Lee, a very elderly woman recently paroled from a life term in prison for the murder of her sister, and Paloma Vega, a young doctor that’s returned to her hometown on the Texas border to take care of family business.

One thing that drew me to the title is that the most important characters are both women, and it is they that prove to be the most dynamic. Our third character, Mick Anders, is a journalist seeking Della’s story. He is changed by it, and yet really his character exists as a foil for the two women. So far, so good.

Because the premise starts with the woman who’s spent her entire adult life in prison, I was expecting something grittier. Women in prison haven’t really made it into a lot of fiction, and so my interest was piqued. I was also hoping for a social justice angle, and to be fair, the teaser promises no such thing, and so to an extent, this disappointment is one I brought on myself. Though Della’s reminiscences as she unspools her memories for Anders recount some of what she went through, it really isn’t a prison story, but the story of Della’s own life and the sacrifice she has made.
The parallels between Della’s life and Paloma’s intrigued me and I was hoping the novel would veer in the direction of literary fiction, some allegory perhaps; something subtle and open to the reader’s interpretation. This isn’t that either. Soon the parallels feed into a tidy package, and the coincidences are just too many. I had reconciled myself to the likelihood that this really would, in fact, be a straight up historical romance, and if the end had been crafted in a more nuanced way I could have given it four stars, but instead it is predictable, and when that happens there can’t be magic, because the Great-And-Powerful-Wizard’s curtain has been pulled away by the unlikeliness of the story. Toto has the curtain in his mouth, and instead of looking at Della, at Paloma, and Nick I am looking Di Maio and saying, Oh come on. Seriously?

Some of the better moments in the story are the side elements, the interaction between Paloma and her sister Mercedes, an adolescent smarting from Paloma’s abandonment when she moved away. Paloma is wooing her back into a sisterly relationship, and her clumsy missteps and the ways in which she corrects herself are resonant and absolutely believable.

Although Della’s back story feels over-the-top to me, her present, the return to her home after seven decades away, the changes in the home and the strangeness of being back in the world and at liberty are also well done. The author does a nice job in crafting Della’s present-day setting and wedding it to her story.

Those looking for a traditional romance, something to pack for a vacation that will leave a warm, fuzzy afterglow will enjoy this novel, and to them I recommend it.

Coming Up

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Celebrations here in the family domicile have momentarily distracted me, but that all ends tomorrow. Before I commence partying with family tonight, I thought I’d show you the books you can expect to see reviewed here over the weekend. Some are memorable and others not-so-much, but I am surprised by which are which. Wait for it:

Grief Cottage, by Gail Godwin*****

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griefcottage“We know so very little about the people we are closest to. We know so little about ourselves.”

Gail Godwin has been lauded and honored many times over, and has five New York Times Bestsellers to her credit. I read Grief Cottage free and early, thanks to Net Galley and Bloomsbury USA. Now I have to find her earlier work and read it, because her extraordinary prose is worth seeking out. Those that love achingly brilliant literary fiction will want to read this book, which will be available to the public June 6, 2017.

Marcus and his mother live alone and are very close; when she dies, it is as if the bottom has fallen out of his world. He is taken in by a relative he has never met; his Great-Aunt Charlotte lives on a tiny island off the coast of South Carolina. Haunted by his grief, Marcus is drawn to a cottage said to be haunted by a boy that died in a hurricane many years before.

The story begins with a lengthy internal monologue that made me fear I’d regret requesting the review copy. There’s a saying that only those that know the rules of written convention well are entitled to break them upon occasion, and Godwin is one that does, and she does it for a reason. I can promise the reader that if you push through the first twenty percent of the story, complete with very frequently used parenthesis, you’ll be in it for keeps.

Marcus is one of the most resonant characters I’ve read in a long time. He is orphaned, unmoored, and friendless; his one good friend insulted Marcus’s mother, and the friendship was broken. Now his great fear is that Great-Aunt Charlotte, a reclusive painter that values her privacy and has a very small home, may grow weary of the inconvenience of having him with her and send him away. The reader can clearly see this brusque but thoughtful woman grow attached to her young relative, but Marcus is too overwhelmed and depressed to catch a clue. He tries to make himself scarce to reduce his impact on her, and in doing so spends an inordinate amount of time nurturing and watching the nests of leatherback turtle eggs laid on Charlotte’s beach, and walking or biking back and forth to the far end of the island, where the legendary Grief Cottage, Charlotte’s most lucrative painting subject, sits desolate and friendless, not unlike Marcus himself.

A measure of a well written a novel is the way our affection for it lingers after we have finished reading it and look back after we’ve read other things. Because I received a very early galley for this one, I have read and reviewed 24 other books since this one, and yet when I see the cover for this title, I heave a deeply satisfied sigh. Oh yes. Grief Cottage. That one was wonderful!

Those that only enjoy action-packed thrillers will have no joy here; rather, Godwin’s prose is the sort one sinks into, like a deep feather bed or a favorite chair by the fire. For those that love strong literature, I cannot think of a better way to spend quiet spring evenings.

Highly recommended.

Beartown, by Fredrik Backman****

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beartown“You can fuck any girl you like here tonight; they’re all hockey-whores when we win.”

Fredrik Backman is a sly writer, and he has a way of spiraling around his central point so that readers are mighty close by the time they recognize where they are. He writes with philosophical grace tinged with wit, and his novels are popular because of it. And so it cheers me to see him examine what might happen to a small depressed town whose hopes are all hinged on youth sports. Thanks go to Net Galley and Atria Books for the DRC, which I read free of charge in exchange for this honest review. Beartown is available to the public today.

In Beartown, everyone dreams of hockey, and those that don’t are stuck on the outside looking in. A man’s glory days are done before he’s 40; a woman has no glory days at all, since women cannot play on the men’s team and there is no women’s team. Everything comes second to hockey: education, social skills, and even the law are bent, sometimes to the breaking point, in order to accommodate star athletes. Hockey is the town’s only remaining business, and it seems to provide the only possible hope for young men that have grown up in the forest and don’t want to leave it to seek work.

Backman has a genius for drawing the reader in. Some of the scenes in this story actually make me laugh out loud. His respect for women is a breath of fresh air as well. In literary terms, though, the greatest success of this piece is the way a large number of characters are developed so that readers genuinely feel that we know not just a protagonist, but a whole town. We know who is related, what private baggage exists between individuals and families, which marriage is happy and which is not, and it’s delivered to us in a way that never feels gossipy or prurient. Rather, Backman makes us feel as if we are part of the town, and so everything is important to us as well.

Fans of Backman’s will be pleased once again here. My sole quibble is that I see a character at the end behave in a way that is so inconsistent with what we know of him so far that I can hear the violins play. It’s heartwarming, but if the same thing had been achieved more subtly, it would be credible as well.

Nevertheless, you won’t want to miss this book. Regardless of the ugly things that are said and done at various points, the author comes back, as he always has before, to the innate goodness of the human spirit, and it’s messages like this one that we need so badly today. Recommended to those that enjoy good fiction.

Something To Be Brave For, by Priscilla Bennett***

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Bennett’s provocative new novel tackles domestic abuse. I was invited to read this one free and in advance by a representative from Endeavor Press in exchange for an honest review.

somethingtobebraveforKatie Giraud is the daughter of a successful surgeon. Her father is disappointed when she chooses not to go into medicine, but he is overjoyed when she falls in love with his protégé, Claude Giraud. Claude is the son he never had. Katie is an art lover, and now she can enjoy her passion while being well provided for. Her husband is a handsome, charming Frenchman who woos her with roses and jewelry. It’s like something out of a fairy tale.

The trouble commences when the wedding is done and real life begins. You see, Claude has a wicked temper. He has enormous control issues, and he’s unpredictable. You just don’t know when he’s going to lash out. Next thing she knows, Katie is bleeding and cowering beneath the grand piano. But after daughter Rose is born, things are better, but they’re worse; Katie is more willing to try to escape this abusive relationship because she knows that it traumatizes her little girl to see Claude hurt her, but having a daughter also makes flight more complicated.

It isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Feminists everywhere can rejoice that the problem is so well demonstrated. Even in a home where there is such affluence, leaving isn’t as easy as it sounds. Her husband’s reputation is excellent, and he’s a smooth liar. Her parents love him, and he’s friends with the chief of police. Every effort she makes is thwarted. I appreciate this as I read it, because in cases of domestic abuse, societal conversation tends to question the victim: what is wrong with her, to make her stay in a situation like that? Why not develop a spine, get up, walk out? And yet statistics tell us that a woman is much more likely to be killed by a violent spouse, or former spouse, after she has left him, than to be killed by him while still in the marriage.

Leaving is dangerous.

That said, it seems strange that I never feel bonded to Katie. I know she is an art lover, a battered wife, and a devoted mother, and I know some of her physical attributes, but beyond these things her character remains blurry and underdeveloped. Better character development would move the entire story forward and add greater impact to the overall message.

The ending feels simplistic and somewhat formulaic. But those that care about domestic violence and champion women’s issues may want to read it anyway because it adds to the discussion, one that so often is stifled as its victims remain isolated in the shadows.

This book was published April 3, 2017 and is available for sale now.

Anything is Possible, by Elizabeth Strout*****

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anythingispossibleStrout is a writer of enormous talent and the owner of a Pulitzer. Here she builds on the characters she introduced in 2016 with My Name is Lucy Barton. Lucy is back, along with various relations and everyday people. I read this book free and early, thanks to Net Galley and Random House, for the purpose of generating an honest review. This title will be sold April 25, 2017, and those that love strong literary fiction won’t want to miss it.

Lucy has become a successful writer, and she has left behind her early life of extreme poverty and the people she spent it with. They’re still there, and some of them are bitter. Strout crafts each character in a series of consecutive short stories that build on one another, and although most of the people she features here are not ones you might want to spend time with if they were real, she designs them with so many layers and with so much nuance that it’s hard to remember they aren’t. We revisit the Pretty Nicely girls, and Lucy comes home for a visit. But facing the demons of the past, those that her siblings still speak about freely but that she has kept carefully compartmentalized in an emotional deep freeze is too much for her, and she has to leave earlier than she had planned.

One thing I appreciate about Strout’s writing is her affection for the working class and the down-and-out. Some of her characters have been kept from success by hard luck, and others by lack of talent, but they are still people, and they’re sometimes capable of more care and greater compassion than other folks that haven’t ever suffered. Strout develops these characters like nobody’s business, and you almost don’t need a plot, because the people themselves are the whole story. I like the chapter that features the Hit Thumb Theory, and the ramification of privilege it conveys.

Strout writes with an implied intimacy that is rarely found. Sometimes I feel as if I have entered in the middle of a conversation, and there’s a shorthand among the family members present that I have to watch for carefully before I understand what’s happening between them. Most writers don’t even attempt this kind of subtlety because it’s so difficult to achieve. In someone else’s hands, the reader might come away wondering just what that whole thing was about, but here I find myself leaning in, absorbing details carefully meted out with great discipline and flawless pacing.

If you’ve read this author’s work and liked it, you can be assured you will like this as well. If not, be aware that it isn’t warm and fuzzy writing; don’t take it to the beach. Rather, the joy comes from witnessing the way she draws her characters and their lives without trying to put a shine on them, leaving them as stark and real as human beings often are.

I highly recommend this book to those that enjoy brilliantly written fiction, and to teachers of creative writing.

Southern Fried, by Tonya Kappes***

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southernfriedThis fetching little cozy mystery is the second in a series, but I didn’t read the first one, and I was able to keep up with it finer than frog hair. You might could, too. I am grateful to Net Galley and Henery Press for the DRC, which I received absolutely free of charge in exchange for this review. But don’t you worry none, cause you can buy it now.

Our protagonist is Sheriff Kendrick Lowry, and she tells us the whole story in the first person. The problem starts when Myrna finds Owen in the greenhouse on top of her prize tomatoes. Why did he have to go and die there? She says it took her months to get them that plump, and if you’ve ever grown great tomatoes—an impossible feat in Seattle, I am sorry to admit—you know it’s true.

Sheriff Kendrick, locally known as “Kenni”, is assisted in her law enforcement activities by Poppa. Poppa was the sheriff around these parts, but he’s dead now, and his ghost can only appear when she has a case to crack, so in a strange sort of way, this murder is a blessing in disguise. The local stigma against a woman as sheriff in this small Kentucky town is offset by the venerable family tradition Poppa cultivated before he departed.

I believe my favorite part is the day following the discovery of the body, when Lowry arrives to find the crime scene tape destroyed and Myrna moseying around the greenhouse like nothing ever happened. You know this happens in real life, but you never see it in fiction, except here. I also love the part when someone suggests the sheriff call for backup, and she notes that her deputy is out of town, and so exactly who is she supposed to call? Again, fictional cops always seem to have unlimited resources in even the most unlikely situations, and Kappes leaned hard on my funny bone. What a hoot.

A lot of this book doesn’t make much sense, but then it doesn’t have to. It’s a romp. However, if a couple of inconsistencies had been cleared up and a hot-stove issue hadn’t been grazed, it would be better still.

Would anyone kill for an okra recipe, for example?  (I was told as a child that okra tastes like a bowl of warm snot.) Because there’s so much camp in this very funny story, I can’t tell whether I should be suspicious of this as motive or not; in the real world I don’t see it, but in this story, I feel as if anything goes.  And while I love the feminist spirit in the sheriff’s assertion that she doesn’t cook anything, period, later she goes to try out the secret recipe and I find myself wondering how she knows how to glaze a cast iron pan. This woman doesn’t even know how to boil water, and yet a fairly obvious cooking skill that nobody puts into a recipe seems to present no problem at all.

But these are just li’l thangs.

Despite the occasional feminist overtones, there are some tired devices and stereotypes that are harder to disregard. Why does half the story obsess with her crush on her deputy? It’s kept light, but the notion that a woman is nothing without a man, while not openly asserted, seems to float in the air. I would have liked to see more women, especially older women, depicted in a positive light. It seems as if every story that features a heroic young woman has to also feature an impossible mother, and so I moaned when she introduced her momma. And there’s the “cat fight”, which while there’s no denying that the narrative is straight-up hilarious, is also a stereotype that suggests women can’t get along once you put us in a room together.

The thing that knocked a star off what would have been a four star review is the place where her Poppa’s ghost notes that when he saw Deputy Finn carry Kenni’s drunken, unconscious body to her bedroom and put her in her bed, he had feared the deputy was about to “take advantage” of her.  The word is rape, and it’s never funny. The deputy didn’t, but the suggestion, accompanied by the euphemism, left an after-taste in my mouth that I couldn’t quite get rid of.

If you can get past these brief but clear obstacles, you will get a lot of laughs out of the main thread here. Kappes has a raucous sense of humor, and I had immersed myself in too many dark stories. I was ready for a good laugh, and this title provided several.  But unless your pockets are deep or your interest great, I recommend you get this one cheaply when you can, or at your local library if available.

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, by Hannah Tinti*****

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thetwelvelivesofs “Everything breaks if you hit it hard enough.”

What would you do to protect those you love the most? Tinti’s epic father-daughter tale has already drawn accolades far and wide. What can I add to it all? There are only so many ways to say that someone is a genius and that her work deserves the highest praise and honors. I received my copy free and in advance, courtesy of Net Galley and Random House, in exchange for this honest review, and I’ve spent the last month trying to decide what I can add to the discussion. Although 2017 is clearly an outstanding year for literature, this title stands head and shoulders above everything else I’ve seen. It will likely be the best fiction published this year.

Our two protagonists are Samuel Hawley and his daughter, Loo. The story is arranged with alternate points of view, and also moves from present tense to the past, when Lily, Loo’s mother, was alive. Hawley is a career criminal, a man that has robbed and killed as part of a business transaction, but his tenderness for his daughter and his wife keep us connected to him.

As a parent, though, Hawley is kind of a mess. He does his best, teaching his daughter useful tasks like how to file the serial number off of a weapon and how to use it, but at the same time, he keeps his criminal business quiet and low, and she is nearly grown before she realizes what he actually does for a living. The two of them move around the country frequently, and they have a routine that gets them gone in a hurry when it’s necessary, but as she gets older he takes her to the Massachusetts town where her maternal grandmother lives. And I have to say, Mabel Ridge, Lily’s mother, is one of the most arresting side characters I have seen in a very long time.

For Loo’s sake, Hawley works as a fisherman and sets down roots. His participation in the Greasy Pole event, a cherished local tradition, wins him a place in the community. But he’s left enemies in his wake, and Hawley is constantly alert to the threat others pose. Who’s in prison, and who’s out? Who’s alive, and who isn’t anymore? Sooner or later, someone he doesn’t want to see is bound to rock the life he has established for himself and his daughter.

This is the sort of literary fiction that lets the reader forget that it’s art, because it reads a lot like a thriller. There are scenes that are laugh-out-loud funny; my favorite involves a car thief named Charlie.

Samuel Hawley seems to me to be a character for our time. Fifty years ago, a novel like this would have been controversial—and it may still be, who knows? Great literature often is. But today with the stratospheric growth of the American prison population, many more members of the book buying public either have done time, know someone that has, or know someone that barely escaped having to do so. It’s no longer unthinkable that a person that has done some truly reprehensible things, may also be a human being.

One way or the other, you have to read this book. The buzz it’s created is only the beginning. If you read one novel this year, let this be it. It’s available now.

It Happens All the Time, by Amy Hatvany***

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ithappensallthetimeI was invited to read and review this title in advance by Net Galley and Atria Books; it is written by a rape survivor, who tells us bravely of her own experience in the introduction. I wanted to love this book and to scream it across the internet and from the top of the Space Needle, that everyone should get it and read it, but instead, I came away feeling ambivalent. The rape passage is resonant and horrifying, and it’s written in a courageous way, and I’ll go into that in a minute. The rest of the book, however, is flat, and so in some ways this proves to be an opportunity squandered. There are spoilers, so don’t proceed if you don’t want to know how the book ends. It is available for purchase today.

The premise is that Amber and Tyler are best friends. They dated when they were teenagers, but a lot of time has gone by, and they have agreed to be buddies, talking often. Amber does not know that Tyler’s torch is still burning for her, brighter than ever; he is waiting for her to come around. Meanwhile, she has become engaged to someone else.

Amber is also a recovering bulimic, and now she is a specialist in nutrition and fitness. The level of detail regarding Amber’s meals hijacks the narrative at times; I don’t care how many ounces of lean this, that, the other she is about to eat. If we’re going to write about diet and fitness, that should be another book, and otherwise it should stay in the background.

The rape itself is where the story shines, and of course, it is the central scene to the story. Hatvany wants us to recognize who rapists are, and who they aren’t:

 

“They’re not greasy-haired monsters who jump out from behind the bushes and tie up their victims in their basements.”

 

The story is told from alternating perspectives, so we hear from both Amber and Tyler. Amber is believable to a degree; a more richly developed character would be more convincing, but the story is one that countless girls and women have lived. It’s a date that goes badly wrong; sometimes the woman is one that expects that she will want sex, but then decides she doesn’t, and her date forces the issue. Is that rape? Unless she says yes to sex, it is. Sometimes it starts with kisses—drunken or otherwise—but when the man wants to go further, she decides she wants to keep her clothes on and not follow through. If she says stop, or wait, or fails to say she wants to do this, yes, it is rape. And so this part of the narrative is important, and once I have read it, I want more than ever to like the rest of the book so that I can promote it.

Tyler is just straight up badly written. I am sorry to say it, but I rolled my eyes when I read his portion of the narrative. The ending is way over the top, and it distracts us with morally questionable deeds done by Amber that we would never commit. If it was rendered brilliantly, it could perhaps come across heroically, like Thelma and Louise, but it isn’t, and it doesn’t.

What happens here, is that Amber kidnaps Tyler post-rape at gunpoint. She forces him to drive to her family’s vacation cabin, and she makes him say that he raped her. He won’t do it, so she shoots him. She refuses to take him to a hospital until he says what she wants him to say. Once all of this happens, he has a huge epiphany, and from then on, Tyler’s wails about what a bad thing he has done, and how he knows he deserves everything that will happen to him as a result.

Sure.

But in addition, I find myself squirming. At one point when Amber holds him hostage, Tyler points out to her that kidnapping is a felony. Having Amber muddy the waters morally by kidnapping and shooting her assailant is distracting and morally tenuous at best. He has to tell the truth; she doesn’t. He owes it to her to lose his job and career, and to serve his time; she never expresses any sort of remorse and never suffers the consequences of her actions. And whereas brilliant prose stylist could turn Amber into a vigilante folk hero, this isn’t that.

I know that the author intends to tell a story that is deeply moving and that will improve the social discourse regarding what rape is, and how we as a society deal with it, both institutionally and as individuals. Instead, the distractions and tired prose prevent this story from reaching its potential.

Skitter, by Ezekiel Boone****

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skitter Skitter is the sequel to Boone’s monstrous horror novel, The Hatching. Mutant spiders are on the rampage, fulfilling the worst nightmares of every arachnophobe, and president Stephanie Pilgrim has to decide how to save the USA—if it isn’t too late. I received my copy free and in advance from Net Galley and Atria Books in exchange for this honest review; copies will be available to the public May 9, 2017. Don’t miss out.

The first portion of the book is dedicated to bringing the reader up to speed so that those that didn’t read the first book can jump right in. The pacing feels a little slow, and I am thumbing my reader impatiently, wanting to find out what happens next. There is a fair amount of time discovering and discussing cold egg sacks versus warm, throbbing, glowing ones, but the emphasis is there for a reason, and it also makes for a more accessible read to a wider audience. At the 34% mark the ground work is done—so to speak—and the story breaks loose and really flies. The scene in Japan is particularly arresting.

So…imagine a bag of nice, warm spider eggs roughly the size of a bus; think of it as a “giant packet of doom in the corner”. It might hatch at any moment, and although the spiders may kill you, there’s a chance they may not. They spare some people to use as incubators for the next generation to come.

Let me just ask: how is your stomach doing right now? Are you feeling okay?

 

“Somebody gets bitten and then, what, five hours later they’re opening up and spilling out spiders like a bag of frozen peas?”

 

After The Hatching came out, I suddenly began noticing the spiders that came into the bedroom at night. It was uncanny how one turned up right after my spouse had fallen asleep, every single night. The spider would start in a far corner of the room—nothing to worry about here, ma’am, just minding my own business—and then gradually either circle to where it was directly overhead, or make its way to a location above the very center of the king sized bed, start a nice web, and commence to rappel doooown. I had never been that aware of them before, but now they seemed ominous. What the hell? Every night? Before he knew it, my spouse, who is nimbler than I, found himself drafted into spider-bombing the attic.

So yes, there is risk in reading this mesmerizing horror tale, but on the other hand, how can you not?

Ultimately, everything that can go wrong on Earth, does. There are mutant spiders from the South Pacific to Scotland, from Asia to Michigan. Quarantine zones fail. Hospitals fail. Other nations have tried everything, including using nuclear weapons on their own soil. And ultimately the president and her advisers wonder whether it is time to break out the Spanish Protocol.

I won’t tell you more than this; you need the book itself, either to take with you on vacation, or to make you feel better about the fact that you can’t go anywhere this year. Afterward, you’ll look at every little spider web in your living space with suspicion, and you’ll know it’s time for spring cleaning…right away!