Review: THE MOST DANGEROUS BOOK, by Kevin Birmingham

The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses, by Kevin Birmingham. Published 2015 by Penguin. Nonfiction.

Reading The Most Dangerous Book is probably the closest I'll ever get to reading Ulysses, and that's fine with me.

I've never really been interested in reading Ulysses or Joyce generally, although I have read some shorter works in college. The people I know who've read it seemed to have done it as a kind of dare or means of showing off; I can't think of anyone who's read it just for enjoyment. Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe one of you has? But to me novels are to be enjoyed first and foremost, not studied or pondered over or carried around like an adult-sized merit badge. So.

That said, I'd heard good things about The Most Dangerous Book and it appealed to me because I'm interested in the history of censorship. As it turns out it's a pretty great read.

Because the story of Ulysses isn't just about the story of its publication; that's only the middle of this story.  First it had to be written, and that means Joyce needed the time, space and support to write it, not to mention the prospect of publication. The Most Dangerous Book is about 1/3 Joyce biography, 1/3 social history of early 20th century bohemian culture and 1/3 censorship law and the growth of the First Amendment into what we understand it as being today. These elements combine to tell the story of how one book was published, distributed and sold, and what all that meant to literature, law and society.

So there's a lot to learn and Kevin Birmingham tells the story in prose that's passionate, articulate and gripping; it reads like a thriller sometimes, like an invective at others, and sometimes just entertaining social history. At the beginning of the book, talking about late 19th and early 20th century bohemians and their relationship with the establishment his prose has a kind of prissiness about it; he describes Anthony Comstock and other censors as tight laced villains and Joyce's early publishers as brave and daring ladies-about-town. At other times employs dry wit to describe how a conservative judge came to be one of the architects of modern First Amendment jurisprudence. The changes in tone keep the reader engaged and listening; this could be boring stuff in the hands of a less skilled writer. Throughout he engages in a robust defense of freedom for artists and readers alike.

But it's the characterizations of Joyce and his circle that kept the book interesting to me. Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach and Ernest Hemingway all had crucial roles to play, as well as the magazine publishers, booksellers, publishers, printers and smugglers who worked to get the book written, printed, distributed and brought into the United States. Because before Joyce could publish Ulysses he had to write it, and he was writing it almost till the last minute. We learn about the foes, which included judges, inspectors, and even the post office. It's an amazing drama above all, and Birmingham's prose will have you pinned to the pages. At times it almost seems like Joyce's own role was less significant than that of the varied and diverse team of booklovers who worked tirelessly to see his work come to light.

Along with all this drama Birmingham offers us plentiful excerpts from Ulysses and a mini course on the structure of the book, so readers can get a taste of just what was causing such a fuss. He includes personal papers of Joyce's too, letters and such, and papers from many of the other players in this drama. I learned things about Ezra Pound I never knew, and a lot about the literary scene that supported Joyce even as Joyce sometimes drove his supporters to distraction. And Birmingham tells us about the man himself, his relationship with this wife and children, his impecuniousness and his failing health and eyesight.

I highly recommend The Most Dangerous Book to readers of many stripes. History buffs, bibliophiles, Joyce fans and more will find time spent with this book to be rewarding, fascinating and fun. It's really terrific.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received a galley from the publisher.

Review: A MAN'S HEAD, by Georges Simenon

A Man's Head, by Georges Simenon. Published 2015 by Penguin. Originally published 1931. Crime fiction. Translated from the French by David Coward.

Georges Simenon's novel A Man's Head falls somewhere midway in his Inspector Maigret series, that moody and taciturn detective who haunts the streets of 1930s Paris. In this installment, he's helped a convicted murderer escape the gallows in the hopes that the man will lead Maigret to the real killer of a society lady found dead in her boudoir. The killer plays a game of cat and mouse with Maigret, leading the detective up and down and around again through high society and low, until it all ends where it began.

A Man's Head was my first Maigret and though it may not be my last, it will be for a while. I read the book in conjunction with a reading group I joined, an 8-week program at NYC's Center for Fiction focusing on classic crime fiction. I was kind of bored by the book, but the discussion we had was fascinating and I learned a lot about Simenon's craft and art with respect to the Maigret series. I have read Simenon before, his dark Tropic Moon, a stand-alone suspenser, but that novel was very different from this one and I get the feeling that the Maigret novels are a like a loaf of bread, a whole split up into slices.

The plot has some holes and the main appeal is the portrait of Paris and the different people inhabiting it. But this story takes place far from the glamour and instead is colored in grays, with a sense of doom and hopelessness pervading. Nobody is happy in Simenon's little world. And while justice is served at the end, there is no satisfaction to be had, no sense of relief or release, just the animal comfort of burning coals warming a solitary room, which may yet offer some kind of hope. My opinion of A Man's Head did not represent the majority but the discussion did leave me with an appreciation of Simenon and his creation if not exactly a love for the book itself. Maigret is probably required reading for crime aficionados and while A Man's Head is considered a classic, it wasn't quite the right book for me.

Rating: BORROW

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive a copy for review.

Review: THE GREAT BEANIE BABY BUBBLE, by Zac Bissonnette

The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute, by Zac Bissonnette. Published 2015 by Portfolio/Penguin. Nonfiction. Business.

Did you ever collect Beanie Babies? I did; when I was in my 20s and worked in an office, the ladies and I would wait for each Tuesday and the latest shipment to the local Hallmark store, and take turns running in to get our latest cutie pies. I never really went nuts with it- no Ebaying or buying on the secondary market, and I only really collected the kittens- but for a while it was fun and for $5.00 a cheap retail high that made me smile. And I think that in the mid-90s a lot of people enjoyed it on that laid-back level too, but as business writer Zac Bissonnette shows in his new book, a lot of people took it a lot farther than that.

Bissonnette documents the 90s craze from its first furry inception in the mind of Ty Warner, then an up-and-coming toy baron, to its height of insanity when people paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a particularly coveted plush, went into debt, made money, lost money, hoarded, stockpiled, even killed over the palm-sized pal. The story here is twofold. First, it's the story of a classic bubble, when a collectible reaches an astronomical height only to come crashing down when market conditions and the economy change.

Second, and no less important, it's the story of Ty Warner and his company, his cult of personality and his personal relationships, all of which were so enmeshed with the fate of the Beanies. Bissonnette portrays Warner as brilliant, vain, controlling, tireless and tenacious. Bissonnette recounts Warner's dysfunctional upbringing, his early career and then his rise to the top of the toy industry- and his fall, and rebirth as a real estate baron. He tells us about the thorny relationship between Ty (the company) and the Beanie Baby collectors and fans, the effect of the secondary market on retail and how Warner tried to manipulate the former to benefit the latter,  as well as Warner's often less-than-magnanimous treatment of employees, and Warner's tangled and sad romantic relationships. Bissonnette portrays a man gifted at attracting admiration and even devotion but poor at returning them.

Written in a breezy, gossipy style inviting quick reading, The Great Beanie Baby Bubble is very compelling if you're at all interested in Beanie Babies, collecting or business. I can't tell you the number of times I put the book down for a minute so I could read a passage out loud to my husband, or how often I laughed, or was appalled, or sad, or just fascinated. Warner's story elicits all those emotions and more. Bissonnette explains what he believes caused the rise and fall of the collectible craze and it makes a lot of sense; the business content is accessible but it's the story of the people that will keep you reading.

It was fun while it lasted, but I haven't picked up my Beanies in ages and when I moved I couldn't give the darn things away. Literally no one bought them at my yard sale and I had to convince my favorite nonprofit charity shop to accept several dozen. I even got rid of some of my beloved kittens. All good things must come to an end, and Bissonnette provides an enlightening and very engaging narrative of just how the Beanies came and went, and where they, and Ty, and Warner, are headed now.

Come back on Thursday when I'll have an interview with Zac Bissonnette.

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: UNBECOMING, by Rebecca Scherm

Unbecoming, by Rebecca Scherm. Published 2015 by Viking. Fiction.

Think of Unbecoming as the anti-Goldfinch. The commonalities are as follows: a coming of age story, set in New York, about art and restorers and getting away with fraud. Where The Goldfinch was redemptive, Unbecoming is unrepentant; where The Goldfinch slogged and took forever to get to the point, Unbecoming keeps you flying through the pages. Where The Goldfinch's protagonist finds freedom in telling the truth, the lead of Unbecoming becomes her true self only when she stops trying to be respectable.

Unbecoming tells the story of Grace, a young woman from Tennessee with some secrets. As the story opens she's living in Paris under a new name, trying to hide from friends back home who are about to get out of prison for a robbery in which she could be implicated. She works for a shady dealer doing restoration work on antiques- the kind of place where no one asks too many questions about sticky things like provenance or legality. The details of Grace's roll out slowly and I don't want to spoil anything, but the narrative goes back and forth between Grace's backstory- growing up in Tennessee, her relationship with her boyfriend Riley, a sweet boy from a prominent local family, her time in college in New York, her introduction to the world of appraising and how it all shakes out when she gets the idea to capitalize on her new skills. Meanwhile, in the present tense, fishy things are going on in the restoration studio, more like a fine art and jewelry chop shop, and Grace fears her number may be up sooner rather than later.

It sounds like a lot of information but Scherm relates it economically and the book reads very, very quickly. I read the book in two or three days; Grace is a complicated, fascinating character and things didn't really go the way I expected- and I liked that. Her relationship with Riley's family is particularly poignant, the story of an abandoned child who tries to belong somewhere that doesn't really want her. And her journey is that story writ large, until she finds the one person with whom she can be herself, and she accepts that self, and revels in it.

Unbecoming sits for me somewhere between literary and commercial fiction and would make a great beach read for readers of either genre. It's trashy in the best way, page-turning and engaging about the risks and rewards of bad behavior. At the same time Grace's story is moving and fun. Unbecoming is a terrific fun read, unpredictable and entertaining. I'd love to see a movie made of Unbecoming, and I can't wait to read what Scherm writes next.

Rating: BEACH

FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of Unbecoming from the publisher.

Review: BLOOD-DRENCHED BEARD, by Daniel Galera

Blood-Drenched Beard, by Daniel Galera. Published 2015 by Penguin. Literary Fiction, Thriller. Translated from the Portuguese.

If you're suffering from winter's cold, Blood-Drenched Beard might be just the thing to warm you up. A moody, slow-paced thriller set in modern-day Brazil, the book tells the story of a nameless young man who has moved to a resort town in search of the truth behind his grandfather's death. On his deathbed the man's father tells him a grisly story of small-town vigilante justice and an unmarked grave; when the man's father dies, the man takes his father's dog and goes in search of the truth.

The town is a tourist mecca quieting down at the end of the season, and our protagonist, an athlete with a brain disorder that prevents him from remembering faces, goes to work in a gym teaching swimming. He dates a local woman, starts a running club and befriends a B&B owner who lives nearby. Things seem to be going well. But some people react strangely to him, due, he finds out, to his uncanny resemblance to his grandfather, and nobody wants to talk about what happened.

Events unwind slowly but things do come to a head. For me this was a really great read, atmospheric and suspenseful, with more than enough forward motion to keep me going. It's not one of those white-hot twisty thrillers that will keep you up all night, but whenever I picked it up I was loathe to put it back down. It's a slow burn, with an explosion at the end. I would recommend it to lots of readers-literary readers and mystery readers alike. I think it would be great for the beach bag, although I hope you don't wait until summer to read it. Tinged with menace, Galera's writing is beautifully descriptive and the story is haunting and sad. It's a terrific read.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of Blood-Drenched Beard from the publisher.

Review: PRAISESONG FOR THE WIDOW, by Paule Marshall

Praisesong for the Widow, by Paule Marshall. Published 1983 by Plume. Literary Fiction.

Praisesong for the Widow is one of those books I've had lingering for a long time, one of those "I should really read that someday" deep backlisters that I finally got around to after moving to New York and having a lot of subway time to read all those books I've been meaning to read. It was well worth my time and yours, too.

Paule Marshall's book tells the story of Avey Johnson, a well-off African-American widow who abandons a Caribbean cruise with her similarly well-off friends for a spontaneous excursion to Grenada and its neighboring island of Carriacou. When she gets off the boat she intends to be on a flight home the next day but she ends up going on another trip, participating in the annual "excursion" of the Carriacou natives and their descendants to that island. Over the course of this time she reflects on her life, her marriage to Jay and its highs and lows, how she got to this place of privilege and how she can reframe her remaining years to bring her back to a more genuine sense of herself and her place in the world.

The narrative moves between the years of her marriage and the days of the excursion. We see her happy young years, the sacrifices her husband made to secure their affluence and the toll it all took on their relationship and on the two of them as individuals over the years. In her mind she reaches back to her childhood and a time when she saw the ghosts of African slaves on the way to their deaths. This moment had a before-and-after impact on her and she longs to understand its meaning and figure out how to incorporate that lesson in the flow of her life.

This book is one of those modern classics you should definitely make time for. A kind of fictionalized memoir, it touches on themes of identity and the impact of the large waves of history on individual lives. Regret, memory, acceptance and family are the threads interwoven in its panels, as well as love, individuality, the definition of success and the American dream. I like that Avey's experience doesn't cause her to reject her life but think of ways to open it up and enrich it. It's a wonderfully wrought story of society and the ripples each of us makes.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: THE BELL, by Iris Murdoch

The Bell, by Iris Murdoch. Originally published 1958. This edition 2001, Penguin Classics. Literary Fiction.

Reading Iris Murdoch is always a treat. Her novels are luminous little worlds with unique and beautifully-drawn characters whose relationships with each other are intricate and carefully wrought. Reading her books is to be reminded how good novels can be.

This novel tells the story of an English religious community and what happens when an unhappily married woman blunders in and sets off a chain of events that change it utterly. Dora Greenfield is returning to her husband Paul after a separation. As we get to know the community fissures start to show. Dora doesn't quite fit in, true, but then no one quite does. Paul is rigid and judgmental and claims to love his wife but you'd never know it. Michael, the leader, is there after more than one failed career and he is about to be confronted by the young man, Nick, who was the reason for one of those failures. Nick's unstable sister Catherine is about to become a nun in the abbey attached to the community, and young Toby finds himself discombobulated after an encounter with Michael. No one embodies the ideal of serenity and contemplation one might expect.

To top it off, the community is bracing for a major public event, the installation of a new bell, when the old bell, an ancient symbol of faith, is rediscovered by the unlikeliest of people.

The Bell is a pleasure to read. Part tragedy, part comedy, part meditation on human weakness and folly, it's just rewarding and enjoyable and suspenseful and fun. Murdoch's books feel like clothes that fit just right, and I am always glad to have read her.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

There Once Lived A Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In: Three Novellas About Family, by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

There Once Lived A Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In: Three Novellas About Family, by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya. Published 2014 by Penguin. Translated from Russian. Short stories. Literary fiction.

Despite the funny title, you need to know right away that Ludmilla Petrushevskaya's tales are anything but funny. These are not stories about people you're going to like very much. Petrushevskaya writes tough, relentless stories about women whose lives would be unimaginable if she did not imagine them for us. But she breathes such life into these sad people that they become real, and unforgettable.

It's almost hard for me to summarize the first story, "Time is Night". A woman's life spins around her like a centrifuge. Her elderly mother is being hospitalized for a mental illness and the narrator wants to spare her the slow suffering death of the wrong institution; her daughter is pregnant again; her son is a useless drunk; her grandson Tima is the light of her life but sets her aside for his mother, as useless as her brother. All of these unfortunates live in the same tiny apartment, making demands, taking up space, poisoning each other with anger and spite and bitterness.

In the second story the poisoning is more literal. "Chocolates with Liqueur" tells the story of a woman desperate to save herself and her children from murder at the hands of her husband. It's hard to say which of the three stories is the bleakest, but this one broke my heart with its nightmarish portrayal of lives gone horribly wrong.

Finally there is "Among Friends," about a mother who abandons her child to a group of friends including the child's father after being diagnosed with a fatal illness. She tries to convince us, and herself, that his future will be bright. But she doesn't quite manage it.

This is the third collection of Petrushevskaya's tales that Penguin has published in the last few years and has by far the darkest and most difficult stories. Other collections have dabbled in the supernatural and played with Russian folk tales. This collection is strictly realistic, each tale shot through with panic and inevitability. There is that little sliver of hope offered at the end, but only a sliver. Petrushevskaya has been described as a kind of Solzhenitsyn of the home- someone who doesn't write about politics, isn't a dissident writer in the classical sense but who exposes everyday horrors inside a way of life both oppressive and chaotic, which leaves people feeling out of control and therefore taking control the only way they know how- by acting out their rage and hopelessness on those closest to them. With the torments and brutality of everyday life she creates a searing and indelible lexicon with which to understand and imagine a country so much of whose history and stories are so familiar. She takes that familiarity and takes it apart, conjuring images and emotions sure to burn themselves into your memory and stay with you forever.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from Penguin.

Review: A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING, by Ruth Ozeki

A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki. Published 2013 by Viking Adult.

I picked up A Tale for the Time Being after it got a starred review in Kirkus; I tend to do well with starred Kirkus books, and I liked this one right from the opening lines. These lines come from a diary written by a teenage girl, Nao, who grew up in America but has moved back to Japan with her mother and father. Her father is unemployed and steeped in shame and depression; her mother is trying to support the family, and Nao is just trying to survive. When the book opens Nao's tone is cheeky and funny, but her story goes to some very dark places, and very quickly.

Coupled with Nao is a writer named Ruth, living on a Canadian island with her boyfriend Oliver. They share a quiet life, but grief and anxiety lie beneath the surface. Ruth's mother has recently died, and when she finds Nao's diary washed up on the beach, she becomes more and more concerned about the sixteen year-old's fate.

She has reason to be concerned. The Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred rather near to where Ruth thinks the diary came from, and Nao becomes more depressed and suicidal as the narrative of the diary wears on. There are some interesting things going on in this book. Ruth reads Nao's diary as if it will contain the end to Nao's story, but if Nao is alive or dead at the moment Ruth is reading, the answer won't lie within the diary's pages. Ruth has to negotiate her relationship with the text, to understand what she can and can't learn from it, the same way we always have to understand our position in relationship to what we're reading. In this way the book is really about the act of reading itself, about how to understand what we're reading and to understand that there are things we can never know.

Nao's driving motivation for writing the diary isn't so much to recount her own story but to tell the story of her great-grandmother, an elderly Buddhist nun whose son died as kamikaze pilot at the beginning of World War 2. This story is one she comes upon by accident, much the same way Ruth discovers Nao's. Like Ruth, Nao is left to make sense of the story by herself, with only the most slender of clues. In this way the book closes in on itself a little, like a nesting doll, stories within stories.

A Tale for the Time Being was short-listed for the 2013 Man Booker Prize and the fact that it lost to The Luminaries only makes me want to read that book because I need to know what made it better! Time Being is a quiet book that I didn't expect to receive recognition- it certainly wasn't hyped or promoted that I noticed- but I think it's a great book for the literary reader who has the time and stamina for a difficult, thoughtful and intricate book. It's not for every reader; it doesn't have much plot, and it's more about introspection than action. And it's long, too. But it's worth it, if you're up to it.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: AS MUSIC AND SPLENDOUR, by Kate O'Brien

As Music and Splendour, by Kate O'Brien. Published 2005 by Penguin Ireland. Literary Fiction.

As Music and Splendour is a book to fall in love with, but also a book to make you think. It tells the story of two Irish teenagers, Clare and Rose, who are sent to a music school in Paris by their communities to become professional singers. Their education is not a gift; it is literally a debt to be repaid, and both girls are expected to earn out their tuition once they graduate and take their place among the professional opera stars of Italy.

In Paris they are awkward and shy and still just children; but when they go to Rome they transform and begin to become what they are destined to be. Both young women work hard at singing and take their obligations seriously, and both are gifted with voices that lend themselves to their work. Clare finds a surer home in sacred music while Rose finds a natural place in the world of opera. They attract attention from those around them- fellow singers, Irish expatriates, devotees and hangers-on of the world of music. They fall in love, Rose with a moody Frenchman named Rene and an aristocratic Italian, Antonio; Clare finds herself in a triangle with her music teacher Duarte and his student, Luisa.

I think what I loved about this book is how comfortable the characters seem with themselves even as they struggle to grow up and find themselves. Clare and Rose know the world they live in- the stage- is not the one for which their Irish upbringing has prepared them, but they accept it anyway, because it's what they want. These women do not spend a lot of time angsting over sin or choices or the strange turns life takes. They accept them, and move on, even when they suffer heartbreak. They are clear-headed; they know what they want, and they take it. When they come against their limitations, they find a way to make things work anyway.

And I loved Clare and Rose for their vivacity and joie de vivre. She doesn't make her heroines blushing virgins but women who aren't afraid of life. O'Brien has created two very appealing heroines, very modern in their self-confidence and very real in their frailties. She has also created a compelling world and brought the world of music beautifully to life including a variety of intriguing and colorful supporting players. If you love books about Italy and music especially you will enjoy this book! As Music and Splendour is a wonderful book that will keep you reading and keep you under its spell, and then it will leave a lovely melody behind.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA, by Hanif Kureishi

The Buddha of Suburbia, by Hanif Kureishi. Published 1991 by Penguin.

Hanif Kureishi's novel about a British-Indian teen finding his way in 1970s London has become a kind of iconic portrait of the city at that time, and a sort of counterculture classic. I picked it up for both reasons, and it was well worth my time.

Karim is one of two sons of a white British mother and her Indian husband, Haroon. As the novel opens in the London suburb of Beckenham, Haroon is making a name for himself as a guru, making the rounds of suburban houseparties as "the Buddha of Suburbia." But before long he gets involved with Eva, an arty woman with her sights on high society, and Haroon leaves his wife to start a new life- a life filled with sophisticates, better parties, and glamour, or so he hopes. Karim and his brother Allie are devastated; Karim chooses to live with his father, whom he adores, and though he is torn between the life his father represents and his mother's love, he finds himself more and more enmeshed in Eva's glitzy pretensions, as well as the drugs, sex and excitement that go with them.

The Buddha of Suburbia often struck me as a London version of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but with better writing and more interesting characters and situations. Please don't bother telling me I didn't like Perks because I'm O-L-D. I didn't like it because it's not a very good book. Buddha manages to communicate the pains of growing up, growing apart from your family and falling in and out of love for the first time, without the vulgarity of that other book, and with a lot more intelligence. It covers issues like economic and racial tensions in 70s London and teenage sexual ambivalence without angsting over it so. I like this about some British books; people have their issues, and their struggles, but they manage to not be so gosh-darn melodramatic about it. I don't know about you, but I have enough melodrama in my day to day life without having to live someone else's, too, so I appreciate that.

The Buddha very plot-oriented; you get to know characters through their actions and the character you will know best is Karim, who narrates in a matter-of-fact style. His adventures take him from his mother's house to his father's, to the world of the theater, to America, to and from various friends, relatives and lovers, and back again, to himself at last. His brother Allie joins cousin Jamilla, her unforgettable husband Changez and a varied mix of characters for a ride you'll enjoy. London is a character in the book, its neighborhoods and streets, its social mores and conflicts. I'd recommend The Buddha to readers of edgy, eccentric fiction who like unusual characters and a strong sense of place.

Rating: BACKLIST

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: FALLEN LAND, by Patrick Flanery

Fallen Land, by Patrick Flanery. Published 2013 by Riverhead. Literary Fiction.

Patrick Flanery totally won me over with his stunning debut in 2011, Absolution; that book told the story of the dark legacy of apartheid and the way it twisted the lives of two writers, one a child when apartheid collapsed and one a literary star already in her twilight years who come together some years later, to discover what they have both lost.

Loss and the remains of history figure prominently in his latest novel, Fallen Land. He has moved from South Africa to middle America this time to tell the story of three broken families tied through blood and money to a plot of land undergoing all the changes of America of the last 100 years. Louise's family has lived on Poplar Farm for several generations after having inherited it from its owner after he was killed. Developer Paul Krovik buys it from her after her husband dies and she can no longer afford to keep it. He builds McMansions which he tries to sell to the newly-rich, but the economy collapses along with the poorly-constructed houses, and he's left with nothing- not his family, who leave him, nor his own dream home, sold to a bohemian-bourgeois family from, of all places, Boston. Nathaniel and Julia Noailles are about as Yankee as they come- they even named their shy, introverted son Copley- and slowly the mean spirits of the place devour them. Paul, meanwhile, hides in a basement bunker, stalking and terrorizing the family in hopes that they will leave.

A fairy tale about the dark side of the American dream, Fallen Land is a feverish nightmare of suspense and horror. Nathaniel works for the Orwellian EKK security company, whose ambitions only begin with enslaving prisoners and monitoring private citizens without limitation while Julia is trying, literally and figuratively, to make a robot of their son. Both Paul and Nathaniel are survivors of deeply horrific childhood abuse which drives each man to some very dark places indeed. We know that a tragedy of some nature has occurred from the opening pages; the suspense comes from watching Paul and Nathaniel's slow, horrible slide to madness and death.

Though there were some aspects of the book I felt were a little overdone, Flanery offers some powerful social commentary alongside the narrative and overall I really enjoyed Fallen Land. It certainly kept me turning the pages! I'd love to see a film adaptation; I bet this story would work well on the screen. Flanery alternates the viewpoints so we see each character's distorted vision, the fun-house-mirror versions of others that each person sees and then the way each person thinks about him or herself, and that's some fascinating and well-wrought character work. I recommend it to readers of literary suspense and realistic horror, and anyone looking to keep themselves awake at night!

Rating: BACKLIST

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher.

Review: SWIMMING TO ELBA, by Silvia Avallone

Swimming to Elba, by Silvia Avallone. Published 2013 by Penguin.

When I was in school, I had an inseparable best friend. Like a lot of young girls do, we had some kind of a fight- I have no idea now what it was about- and she dumped me. I've missed her ever since. We got back in touch in our late 20s but then she dumped me again, and now and then when I see Facebook pictures of her with other friends of mine I feel a little hollow and sad, like a part of me is missing that can never be replaced. That's sort of what Silvia Avallone's European bestseller is about, an adolescent friendship that hits the skids and seems like it might never recover.

Set in a working-class Italy that tourists never see, Swimming to Elba tells the story of Anna and Francesca, two beautiful almost-14-year-olds on the cusp of everything- adulthood, sex, love and their forever-lives. They live in the same run-down building in Piombino, a Tuscan town that faces the resort island of Elba, where wealthy tourists frolic and play, but their town is no showpiece. Life in Piombino centers on the Lucchino steel mill and the via Stalingrado, where everyone in the town works and lives, including the girls' brothers, friends and boyfriends.

Anna and Francesca have been inseparable since they were little kids; each cannot imagine her life without the other, but as they enter this fraught period in their lives things change. They are maturing physically, attracting the attention of boys and men, and their minds turn to escape from their limited prospects. Anna's father Arturo is a wanna-be criminal who periodically abandons the family. Francesca's father is a miserable monster who beats her and her mother. And one of them has a secret, too. The shame each girl feels isolates her and drives each to bad relationships and self-destructive behavior. They try out other people like clothes but always reach for each other.

I really loved this book for its honesty and frankness when describing the difficult lives of these girls. I have seldom read a truer picture of teenage female friendship with all its complexities and games and mixed-up feelings. No light beach read, this book goes to some very dark places very quickly, and only barely recovers by the end. Although peppered with the joys of adolescence, it feels hopeless and grim most of the time. Slowly it becomes apparent that things aren't quite as bleak as they seem, and that escape might just be possible. I highly recommend this book with the caution that it contains pretty graphic material on domestic violence, drugs and sex. It would be an edgy book club choice and would doubtless prompt some great conversations. It's lead by compelling characters you'll care about and root for, and may even surprise you by the end.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: YOU ARE ONE OF THEM, by Elliott Holt

You Are One of Them, by Elliott Holt. Published 2013 by Penguin. Literary Fiction.

Those of us of a certain age remember, at least vaguely, the Cold War.  I was in grade school when Ronald Reagan was president and Russia was still the USSR, when we had to know where the bomb shelters were, when nuclear war was a threat we lived with every day. I remember angsty pop songs and TV specials and nervous conversations about what would happen in the event of an attack. It was a scary time to be a kid.

You Are One of Them tells the story of two girls whose lives were shaped by that fraught and fragile time. Sarah's family is already broken when the story starts. Her older sister is dead and her father has left the family for his native England, leaving behind a mother paralyzed by anxiety and a daughter who sees loss and death and loneliness around every corner. She finds consolation and companionship with her neighbor Jenny Jones, a pretty and easygoing girl with picture-perfect parents, the kind of girl to whom life will come wrapped in a bow. Growing up in Washington, D.C. during the Cold War, their lives are stained with political anxiety; Sarah decides to write to Soviet President Andropov to ask for peace, and Jenny joins her. But it's Jenny's letter that Andropov answers, Jenny who gets to go to the Soviet Union and become a celebrity. And it's Jenny who dies under mysterious circumstances, and Jenny whom Sarah goes to find in the new Russia years later.

This novel is author Elliott Holt's first and it's a very well-written and and engaging debut. Personally, being about the same age as these characters, I related to their Cold War upbringing and enjoyed reading a book set in that time. I found the central mystery of the book to be interesting and the execution of it suspenseful and more or less believable. There are plenty of real-life events similar to what goes on in the novel; a little girl named Samantha Smith was asked to the USSR by Andropov after penning a letter similar to those written by Sarah and Jenny, and in recent years there have been various spy scandals that find an echo here. I don't want to spoil the story too much though.

At heart You Are One of Them is a coming of age story about a woman who grows up in the shadow of her dead friend after living in it for a while, and how that woman can or cannot move past that relationship to find herself. Ultimately Holt doesn't give us any easy answers but leaves us to ponder how we live with ourselves when that which defines us no longer exists. Sarah is a melancholy, lonely woman and as one reviewer has noted, the book is shot through with her loneliness. Holt depicts Russia as desolate, a land with little to offer someone seeking human connection. The suspense made it hard for me to put the book down; its sadness makes it hard for me to leave behind.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I borrowed a galley copy of this book from the bookstore where I work. I did not receive a copy for review from the publisher.

Review: THE HUMANITY PROJECT, by Jean Thompson

The Humanity Project, by Jean Thompson. Published by Blue Rider Press, 2013. Literary Fiction.

So, I became a fan-for-life of novelist Jean Thompson after 2011's luminous The Year We Left Home, and I jumped at the chance to review her latest, The Humanity Project. It's a little more outlandish than her last book, a little less grounded in ordinary life and more about people on the margins of American society, but it's just as wonderful in its own way.

Set in the present day and mainly in California, the book starts with a car accident that in one way or another will shape the lives of all the book's characters. Down-on-his-luck blue collar guy Sean goes to a bar to meet a woman for a drink. On the way back, he's in a horrific crash that lands him in worse shape than before. His son Conner, a smart kid trying to do the right thing, tries to take care of his dad but they're broke and basically homeless. He goes to work as a handyman for the wealthy, elderly Mrs. Foster, who is in the process of growing a foundation, called the Humanity Project. Her nurse, Christie, lives next door to Art, a lonely bachelor and unwitting father caring for his teen daughter Linnea, who is traumatized following her survival of a school shooting.

Everyone in this book is walking wounded, in one way or another. Conner is in the unenviable position of having to care for his parent. Sean means well but he's hooked on pain medicine and falling apart. Art, who never intended to raise his daughter, can't relate to her and can't help her. She falls into a loose group of kids roaming San Francisco and forms a tentative bond with Conner. Mrs. Foster earns the consternation of her grown daughter with her foundation, which has no clear mission but to make the world a better place. A noble ambition, to be sure, and Mrs. Foster does make the world better for these characters, though not in the way she intended.

I really enjoyed this book. It covers a shorter space in time than Year but Thompson shows the same warmth and compassion towards her characters. My favorite character is Christie. Mrs. Foster makes Christie the head of her foundation, and for a while we think Christie's found a purpose. But when she does discover the purpose of her life, it turns out it's right there all along, where she least expects to find it. Each character has his or her own story but the way Thompson brings them together is sweet and tender and very memorable. Once again Thompson creates a rich portrait of contemporary American life in all its strangeness, wondrousness and truth.

Rating: BACKLIST

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review.

Review: HOW TO GET FILTHY RICH IN RISING ASIA, by Mohsin Hamid

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, by Mohsin Hamid. Published 2013 by Riverhead Books. Literary Fiction.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia was one of those books for me that was just nothing like what I expected. It got a starred review from Kirkus, which was why I decided to give it a try, but even that glowing write-up didn't prepare me for how much I would enjoy this book. Author Mohsin Hamid writes the book in the second person, so everything is "you"- and he writes it as a kind of mock self-help book, a kind of "how to live" for a generation on the cusp of a new era. But that's every generation, right, and the "you" is everyone.

But mostly the "you" is a male character growing up in a country resembling India or Pakistan, a rural boy brought to the big city with his family who makes his fortune in bottled water. Hamid's narrative tracks this man from childhood till death, and along with his fortunes tracks those of an unnamed woman known only as "the pretty girl," the man's lifelong love. Their story forms the heart of the book which also touches on various social and political issues and trends, including corruption, social mobility, marriage, religion, globalization and more.

But How to Get Filthy Rich is also a book about books, about their power and sway.

It's remarkable how many books fall into the category of self-help. Why, for example, do you persist in reading that much-praised, breathtakinginly boring foreign novel, slogging through page after page of please-make-it-stop page of tar-slow prose and blush-inducing formal conceit, if not out of an impulse to understand distant lands that because of globalization are increasingly affecting life in your own? What is this impulse of yours, at its core, if not a desire for self-help?

So that's a question anyone could ask when reading a book about a different country, or even a different person. We are all foreign lands to each other, and books help us understand other places and other people. We learn how we're different as well as how we're the same, and Hamid has crafted a luminous universal story about life and love and the drive to make our mark:

We are all refugees from our childhoods. And so we turn, among other things, to stories. To write a story, to read a story, is to be a refugee from the state of refugees. Writers and readers seek a solution to the problem that time passes, that those who have gone are gone and those who will go, which is to say every one of us, will go. For there was a moment when anything was possible. And there will be a moment when nothing is possible. But in between we can create.

And that's what this book is about, that time in between, when we can still make something and make something with ourselves. I love that Hamid says "we can create." It's possible. We have the choice- it's not written whether or not we will take it. His characters create lives for themselves, create personas, create a world around themselves. What they create is what you have to find out by reading this remarkable and lovely book.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: Singing From the Well, by Reinaldo Arenas

Singing From the Well, by Reinaldo Arenas. Published 1988 by Penguin.

Singing From the Well is the first book in Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas's "secret history of Cuba," a series he called the Pentagonía. It's the story of a young boy growing up in rural Cuba, with his mother and brother and other relatives. I read it after reading his searing autobiography, Before Night Falls, and I intend to finish the series eventually. Singing from the Well, and most of Arenas's fiction from what I understand, is very different in style from his matter-of-fact autobiography. It's surreal, dream-like and fantastical; you can't quite tell what's real and what's not, what the character is imagining and what's actually happening. You get lost in the poetic beauty of the writing itself, the lyricism and music of it.

The book opens with a scene of the narrator's mother falling down the well:

There went my mother, she just went running out the door. She was screaming like a crazy woman that she was going to jump down the well. I see my mother at the bottom of the well. I see her floating in the greenish water choked with leaves. So I run for the yard, out to where the well is, that's fenced around with a wellhead of naked-boy saplings so rickety it's almost falling in.

I run up and peek over. But just like always- the only one down there is me. Me being reflected from way down there up to me above. Me- and I disappear if you so much as spit into the oozy green water.

So she didn't really fall down the well, she just threatened to, but that was enough to send her son off in a panic, to check, just in case. But the reader can see right away some of the themes that the book will explore- the terror of childhood, the beauty of the natural world, and the fear of annihilation. As the book continues we learn more about his world- his family and especially his cousin Celestino, a writer mocked by the rest of the family. But is Celestino real? Is he a figment of the narrator's imagination, or is he the narrator himself, older and wiser, looking in on his younger self:

Celestino came up to me and put his hand on my head. I was so sad. It was the first time anybody had ever cursed at me. I was so sad I started crying. Celestino lifted me up in the air, and he said to me, "What foolishness, but you might as well get used to it." I looked at Celestino, and I realized that he was crying too, but he was trying not to show it. So that made me realize that he stil hadn't got used to it either. I stopped crying a second. And the two of us went out into the yard. It was still daylight.

The book goes on in this vein, with the narrator's naive style and flights of fancy glancing over the horrors of his day to day life- the violence in his family, death, the violence of a country in transition. The family faces shame and mockery as word of Celestino's writing spreads; times are difficult and tension builds. I can't claim to understand everything that happened in the book, but reading it was a beautiful experience. I want to read it again and to continue with the series. The books aren't all that easy to find but I think it will be worth seeking them out.

Rating: BACKLIST

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: Before Night Falls, by Reinaldo Arenas

Before Night Falls, by Reinaldo Arenas. Published 1994 by Penguin. Nonfiction. Memoir. Translation.

For a long time I'd wanted to read Reinaldo Arenas's memoir Before Night Falls, which was made into a celebrated 2000 film starring Javier Bardem. I wasn't actually crazy about the movie- I fell asleep both times I tried to watch it- but I wanted to know Arenas's story better and this was the year I finally picked up a copy and read it.

I think these days with other forms of political and religious repression making headlines, the story of Cuba and Castro is easy to overlook. Reinaldo Arenas was a prominent writer and openly gay man whose life took a terrible turn after Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959. Although at first he was sympathetic to Castro, that changed, and Arenas was jailed, chased and persecuted and saw his work banned. His literary reputation grew thanks to friends who published his work and supported him from abroad, but in the end he fled the country for the United States and lived the last years of his life in New York City. He committed suicide in 1990 after a long struggle with HIV and drugs.

His memoir is a book everyone should read.

There's just so much in here, about Arenas and Castro's Cuba, that I was fascinated to learn. He writes about the indoctrination camps he attended, the work he did for the regime and his growing disenchantment with it as he saw what Castro's rule was doing to his beloved country. He writes about the communities of dissidents whose ranks he joined, the time he spent in jail- which is absolutely harrowing in its unremitting violence and absurdity- and his seat-of-the-pants escape and dangerous journey out. One of my favorite passages talks about Castro's conflict with the Peruvian embassy, which was sheltering dissidents:

Around the beginning of April 1980, a driver on the number 32 bus route drove a bus full of passengers through the doors of the Peruvian embassy asking for political asylum. Strangely enough, all the passengers on the bus decided to ask for political asylum. Not one of them wanted to leave the embassy.

Fidel Castro demanded that all the people be returned, but the ambassador from Peru said that they were on Peruvian territory, and according to international law, they had the right to political asylum. Days later, during one of his fits of anger, Castro decided to withdraw the Cuban guards from the embassy, perhaps tyring in this way to pressure the ambassador to give in and force the people out of the embassy.

...When it became known that the Peruvian embassy was no longer guarded, thousands upon thousands of people, young and old, entered the embassy...The following day the embassy doors were closed again but there were 10,800 people inside and 100,000 more outside...From all over the country, trucks were arriving full of young people who wanted to get in...

This passage shows the combination of absurdity and black comedy along with tragedy that is in evidence throughout Arenas's book.

There is also a great deal of sex in book and some reviewers have noted this and expressed some disbelief at the idea that Arenas is being truthful about the amount of sexual activity he claims to have engaged in. Here's what I think about that. First of all, memoir is a form of storytelling and sometimes memoirists sacrifice 100% truthfulness to tell their story the way they want to. It's also important to remember that Arenas was dying when he wrote this book, that the book was intended to reach Cubans in the U.S. and elsewhere, and that he had a great deal of very justified anger towards the Castro regime over the way that he, other gay people and Cubans of all stripes were persecuted. (And when I say "persecuted" I mean jailed, murdered, tortured, and had their lives ruined- not bullied in school or denied jobs somesuch more benign (but still terrible) forms of discrimination. ) Also keep in mind that Arenas's fiction is often fantastical, dream-like and surreal.

What that adds up to is this. I believe that while Arenas, who by all accounts probably had a pretty active sex life, uses sex to some degree as a metaphor for the life-spirit of the Cuban people, and that by portraying so much gay sex in Castro's Cuba, Arenas is jabbing his finger at Castro and his supporters and saying essentially, you can't keep us down, you can't deny our lives, you are liars and killers and you can't win.

Before Night Falls is one of the best and most powerful books I've read this or any year. It should be required reading for anyone who wants to know more about Cuba, about this particular writer or about the struggles that writers have faced all over the world throughout history. It's simply stunning.

Rating: BUY!

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: The Book of Jonas, by Stephen Dau

The Book of Jonas, by Stephen Dau. Published 2012 by Blue Rider Press. Literary Fiction.

The Book of Jonas is a lot of things. It's a coming of age story, a war story, and a story about coming to terms with your past and your secrets. It's also about letting them go, and letting go of the people who have made you who you are, even as you know they will stay with you forever.

Jonas is a teenage boy from an unnamed Muslim country, adopted by an American couple. His new family is well-meaning but cannot understand him or the difficulty he has assimilating into American life. He tries to make friends, fit in with other kids from his part of the world, kids who share his religion and culture to some degree but who remain nonetheless apart from him.

He's deeply traumatized by his last experiences in his own country, including the death of his family and the death of an American soldier, Christopher Henderson, who saved his life. He relives the story of the night the American died as well as the events leading to his death as he tells it to a court-appointed counselor. We also learn the story of Christopher's mother, transformed by her son's death into an unwitting activist for other bereaved military parents, and we see what happens when their two paths intersect.

I found The Book of Jonas to be a very quick and very absorbing read. Very of-the-moment in subject matter and thought-provoking as well, it's an unusual entry into recent war literature in that it considers the fates of those left behind the wake of American war. Dau does not demonize the military or its servicemen, but rather focuses on ordinary people and the tangential effects of battle, far outside the battlefield itself. If you've been reading books like The Yellow Birds or The Watch, you'll want to add The Book of Jonas to your pile as well.

Rating: BACKLIST

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher.

REVIEW: How Not to Read, by Dan Wilbur

How Not to Read, by Dan Wilbur. Published 2012 by Penguin. Humor.

Full disclosure: Dan Wilbur is a friend of a friend, and I hope someday to be able to call him my friend as well. He sent me the book to review, and Penguin asked me to blurb it, which I did. The book is based on his blog, Better Book Titles, in which he and others come up with creative and descriptive titles for books like White People Ruin Everything, also known as The People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, and Epic References! which you may know as The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. He's even retitled his own book I'll Probably Stop Blogging Now That My Book's Been Published.

The book is hilarious. Although it does include a nice sampling of his re-written book titles, most of it is a comedic tour of the book industry, reading and literary studies. It's the kind of book that's fun to dip in and out of when you have a spare moment and need a chuckle. The basic thesis of the book is that reading is a waste of your time. Obviously there is a heavy component of irony in writing about how it's dumb to read. Wilbur is a comedian and a bookseller when he's not blogging and he puts his knowledge of the book world and his well-honed comedic turns of phrase to good use.

Chapter headings include

• Books: What Are They, and What Are They Good For?
• How To Read
• How To Talk to Others About Books
• and the introduction, Ughhh! Books Are the Worst!

Each section addresses its respective topic with insight and thoughtfulness, with the genuine wish to help the "reader" sort through the morass of the literary world. The first chapter, Books: What Are They... talks about what exactly a book is, where you might have heard of books, and the various evils for which books are responsible. Later on Wilbur treats us to a guide to the various sections of a bookstore or library, like "Nonfiction, Or the 'I Feel Smarter Just For Buying This' Section".  Etc.

How Not to Read would make a great gift for the book-lover in your life, or a gag gift for someone who doesn't like to read. It's not really kid-friendly though so I would hesitate to recommend it for reluctant younger readers, even though it is very funny.

Click here for my very serious interview with Dan Wilbur.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review and was asked to blurb it.