One of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons featured Kelsey Grammar as Sideshow Bob and the voice of the guy who played Niles on Frazier as brothers. The Niles guy gives Sideshow Bob a job building a dam. When he takes Bob up to see it, Bob says something like "All these millions of gallons of rushing water make me wonder why the hell I should care."
That's how I felt about the new Elizabeth Kostova, The Swan Thieves. Kostova had a hell of a debut with The Historian, and it's almost as if some editor told her, 'Do whatever you want with this one.'
I'm not one to bitch about the length of a book. I've read 600-page books that were so absorbing I finished them in two days (and no, I'm not just thinking Harry Potter here). This was not one of them. This book could have been about half the length. In fact, it would have been well-served to be half the length.
The book is about a painter who attacked a painting in the National Gallery. Before he lapses into utter silence, he tells his psychiatrist (the narrator) that he did it 'for her,' and that the narrator can speak with anyone he wishes. So the narrator does just that, talking with his ex-wife, his ex-mistress, his former colleagues at the college where he used to teach. It turns out that the painter has become obsessed with a female French impressionist painter. You get her story in dribs and drabs, from a one-sided packet of letters.
I didn't find either of the two parallel stories terribly interesting. I think there was so much detail that it bogged down. A phrase from my collegiate women's studies classes kept coming back to me: 'The Male Gaze.' The book's full of it. Obviously full of it. This is not just the male gaze, this is the male, stopped in his tracks in the middle of a street while people flow around him, staring openmouthed at some woman who's just trying to mind her own business. The women in the book even turn it on themselves on occasion: the painter's girlfriend, describing how she liked to dress post-college in beat-up clothes with expensive fancy underwear, says "I loved myself this way, slim, swelling roundness...I was my own treasure."
FACEPALM! Seriously, does that sound like any woman you've ever met in your entire life that wasn't being paid by Victoria's Secret or Playboy? Ugh. That awful passage comes at about the midway mark, and that was when the scales truly fell off my eyes. I was NOT enjoying this...but maybe it would get better? And her last one had been so good? And really, it was almost over?
The pace picked up a bit towards the end, but really, it didn't get much better. I was so disappointed in this one. Kostova's an awesome writer, despite this one being so dull. It's got many lovely vivid passages, many living characters, but they don't wind up doing anything. The events of the past are so tepid it's hard to imagine them possessing anyone and driving them insane. It took me two weeks to get through this one. I wish I'd spent them on a different book. Or, rather, I wish that THIS BOOK had been better. I'm not giving up on Kostova. I hope her next book combines the eye for detail with the forward momentum and creative thinking of her first.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
The Library: there for you and me
That's one of the things I love the most about the library. Some visits make it harder to love than others, but still, I enjoy it. I enjoy seeing the recent immigrant adults learning English from the books in the children's room. I enjoy seeing the teenage girls check out armloads of Gossip Girl books. I like the nostalgia of the mom trying to explain to her six-year-old that there is NO WAY he's going to be able to read all of those books in a month and he has to put some back.
Free For All by Don Borchert is an insider's look at the drama that parades by the checkout desk daily. Borchert works in a branch library in the Los Angeles system, located near a public school, and he sees it all. The older woman who confesses, one day, that she loves to bake but has no audience, and wonders if she might bring her treats in for the staff. The woman who returns every year with a new last name, takes out a new card and racks up hundreds in fines, and uses the library as a babysitting service. The flying saucer man. The pervert who chats up the preteen girls doing their homework. The Great Korean Mom Fight in the parking lot.
Not all of the stories in the book are happy, of course. But it's a funny book, and uplifting in a weird way. Borchert is a very empathetic writer, especially when he's talking about some of his nuttier patrons. The book makes you glad that the library is there for people who may have no one or nothing else. It's one of the few places you can go that's not home or work where you're not expected to buy something. It's there whenever you have a question about anything in life, from: "what type of taillights does my 1992 Lincoln Mercury take?" to "why is everyone tossing my resume in the trash bin?" to "do bluebells grow well in this climate?" It cares not one whit whether you're the type to pose about ten of these questions a week, or if this is the first and last time you'll ask.
Borchert feels this way too, and though he never comes out and says it, that sentiment imbues every sentence of the book. In an era where so many people desperately cling to jobs they despise because, hey, at least they have one, it's nice to read a book by someone who genuinely loves and believes in what he does.
Free For All by Don Borchert is an insider's look at the drama that parades by the checkout desk daily. Borchert works in a branch library in the Los Angeles system, located near a public school, and he sees it all. The older woman who confesses, one day, that she loves to bake but has no audience, and wonders if she might bring her treats in for the staff. The woman who returns every year with a new last name, takes out a new card and racks up hundreds in fines, and uses the library as a babysitting service. The flying saucer man. The pervert who chats up the preteen girls doing their homework. The Great Korean Mom Fight in the parking lot.
Not all of the stories in the book are happy, of course. But it's a funny book, and uplifting in a weird way. Borchert is a very empathetic writer, especially when he's talking about some of his nuttier patrons. The book makes you glad that the library is there for people who may have no one or nothing else. It's one of the few places you can go that's not home or work where you're not expected to buy something. It's there whenever you have a question about anything in life, from: "what type of taillights does my 1992 Lincoln Mercury take?" to "why is everyone tossing my resume in the trash bin?" to "do bluebells grow well in this climate?" It cares not one whit whether you're the type to pose about ten of these questions a week, or if this is the first and last time you'll ask.
Borchert feels this way too, and though he never comes out and says it, that sentiment imbues every sentence of the book. In an era where so many people desperately cling to jobs they despise because, hey, at least they have one, it's nice to read a book by someone who genuinely loves and believes in what he does.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
A Dog's Life
If you read The Art of Racing in The Rain by Garth Stein, I reccommend you don't read it at work, and save it if you've recently had something sad happen in your life. Explaining to co-workers who happen into the break room that everything is OK, you're just reading the saddest book ever, is a difficult prospect.
But it's a very, very good read, and it shows how one key gambit can make or break a book. The baseline plot is rather maudlin stuff, dealing with the early death of a young woman and false allegations against her husband and an epic custody battle over their daughter. However, it's all told through the eyes of a dog.
Enzo is an old, faithful, mixed breed dog who's been with his family since early puppyhood. As he prepares to close his eyes forever, he looks back on his life with them. The story has the gaps you'd expect from hearing things from a dog's perspective, but also more insight -- after all, no one watches what they say around the family dog. Enzo truly is a wise old man, with lots of insights into human behavior, who spends his alone time broadening his dog mind with television and never forgot that one, shining moment where his human took him out in his racecar. Who dreams of the day he'll be reborn as a human. It's a sad, beautiful gem of a book, but tread with caution because of all the upsetting content.
But it's a very, very good read, and it shows how one key gambit can make or break a book. The baseline plot is rather maudlin stuff, dealing with the early death of a young woman and false allegations against her husband and an epic custody battle over their daughter. However, it's all told through the eyes of a dog.
Enzo is an old, faithful, mixed breed dog who's been with his family since early puppyhood. As he prepares to close his eyes forever, he looks back on his life with them. The story has the gaps you'd expect from hearing things from a dog's perspective, but also more insight -- after all, no one watches what they say around the family dog. Enzo truly is a wise old man, with lots of insights into human behavior, who spends his alone time broadening his dog mind with television and never forgot that one, shining moment where his human took him out in his racecar. Who dreams of the day he'll be reborn as a human. It's a sad, beautiful gem of a book, but tread with caution because of all the upsetting content.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Short Takes
I do horrible on updating this blog, ever since I started working at the newspaper and writing all day. Or maybe it's that I can get people to listen to me every week and don't need it as much here, I don't know. So I fgiured I'd write about a couple of books at once, books that don't really merit separate entries anyway.
Whiter than Snow, by Sandra Dallas.
I always like to see a new one for summer. It's good, simple, uplifting summer fare. Like a street vendor hot dog, or a fresh croissant in the morning, you devour it quickly, savor the taste, but are sort of hungry again an hour or two later. Whiter Than Snow concerns an avalanche in a mining town that buried several children alive. The book is really about the hopes and dreams of their parents, and about the different ways life can trap a person. The town's sole black man absconded from the terribly racist Deep South after his wife died in childbirth -- essentially of racism. Lucy and Dolly haven't spoken in years after Dolly stole Lucy's fiance. Lucy wound up marrying the first man who asked in order to have some measure of freedom from her father. There's a lot more: Essie, the Jewish hooker, the grizzled Civil War vet who let his best friend die.
It's the same sort of Sandra Dallas book, though. The ending is usually sort of brutal (one thing about her is that she's not afraid of a strong dose of tragedy) and uplifting at the same time. If you've read any of her books, there are no surprises in this one.
E2 by Matt Beaumont is the follow up to E, which I read on vacation last year. Not all of the characters return, though several do. You could easily skip the first one to read this one. It's been updated to include not only email, but texts, blog posts and IM conversations. It was sad to see how poorly one of the horny young men had aged. Other than that, there's little to say about this one that I didn't say about the original last year. Not that it was a regrettable choice or anything. But it's another good fun, summer read.
Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel would surely merit its own post had I finished it. I got about 75 pages in, and would likely have kept going had it not been due back (and had I not already renewed it once). It's a slow start, about a writer who had developed a conceptual book that his publishers refused spectacularly and is just kind of adrift. His adriftness reminded me of myself over hte past year: he got involved with community theater and a volunteer group, and took a part-time job in a pleasant environment with no status and low pay.
Then he gets sucked in by this manuscript written by a taxidermist about Beatrice and Virgil, his howler monkey and donkey. And what I think is going to happen is that it will wind up being an elaborate metaphor for a re-imagining of the Holocaust, as the writer's original conceptual book was to be. At some point I'll pick it up again and find out.
Whiter than Snow, by Sandra Dallas.
I always like to see a new one for summer. It's good, simple, uplifting summer fare. Like a street vendor hot dog, or a fresh croissant in the morning, you devour it quickly, savor the taste, but are sort of hungry again an hour or two later. Whiter Than Snow concerns an avalanche in a mining town that buried several children alive. The book is really about the hopes and dreams of their parents, and about the different ways life can trap a person. The town's sole black man absconded from the terribly racist Deep South after his wife died in childbirth -- essentially of racism. Lucy and Dolly haven't spoken in years after Dolly stole Lucy's fiance. Lucy wound up marrying the first man who asked in order to have some measure of freedom from her father. There's a lot more: Essie, the Jewish hooker, the grizzled Civil War vet who let his best friend die.
It's the same sort of Sandra Dallas book, though. The ending is usually sort of brutal (one thing about her is that she's not afraid of a strong dose of tragedy) and uplifting at the same time. If you've read any of her books, there are no surprises in this one.
E2 by Matt Beaumont is the follow up to E, which I read on vacation last year. Not all of the characters return, though several do. You could easily skip the first one to read this one. It's been updated to include not only email, but texts, blog posts and IM conversations. It was sad to see how poorly one of the horny young men had aged. Other than that, there's little to say about this one that I didn't say about the original last year. Not that it was a regrettable choice or anything. But it's another good fun, summer read.
Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel would surely merit its own post had I finished it. I got about 75 pages in, and would likely have kept going had it not been due back (and had I not already renewed it once). It's a slow start, about a writer who had developed a conceptual book that his publishers refused spectacularly and is just kind of adrift. His adriftness reminded me of myself over hte past year: he got involved with community theater and a volunteer group, and took a part-time job in a pleasant environment with no status and low pay.
Then he gets sucked in by this manuscript written by a taxidermist about Beatrice and Virgil, his howler monkey and donkey. And what I think is going to happen is that it will wind up being an elaborate metaphor for a re-imagining of the Holocaust, as the writer's original conceptual book was to be. At some point I'll pick it up again and find out.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
A Parent's Worst Nightmare
What do you think it is? Judging from the general media, it seems to be that your kid will be raped and/or murdered. Bebe Moore Campbell's 72 Hour Hold explores an eventuality that, in same ways, could be just as hard for a parent: a serious mental illness.
Trina was a bright, beautiful teenaged girl. She had been accepted to Brown, she had lots of friends, she seemed to be doing well. Until her mother noticed her talking too much, too fast. Staying up for 36 hours at a time. Hitting the streets in the morning and returning loaded with shopping bags late at night. Then she'd crash. Trina was bipolar.
And the system was failing her, and her mother Keri. Trina's behavior would often be terrifying, but when her mother called to have her admitted to the mental health unit, she'd be able to pull herself together long enough to be judged not to meet the criteria for a 72-hour hold. Meanwhile, Keri's life changed. Her carefree days of spa trips with her girlfriends were over. She had a new crew now, people that she met at the mental illness family support groups she attended. Mostly they talked on the phone, rather than socialized in person, because they were all caring for children of their own.
Keri hits a breaking point when her daughter, a recently legal adult, sneaks out after her latest 72-hour hold before she can bring her home. One of Keri's friends from group told her about an alternative to t he traditional treatment: illegal, shadowy and costly, but she and her friend decide to pursue it together.
This is where the book started to come undone a bit, for me. The chapters on Keri's battle with Trina's illness were gripping, suspenseful, engaging and heartbreaking. And they had enough ancillary stuff thrown in so you didn't walk away from the book feeling like you'd just gone four rounds with Mike Tyson. Keri also deals with her ex-husband, Trina's father, a neocon pundit who's been married four other times since their divorce and is making noises about how maybe he had it right the first time. She deals with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, an actor whose dreams, talent and ambition are much larger than his luck. She runs her own business, a high-end designer consignment shop, with her two assistants, one of whom is a former prostitute and drug addict.
Keri's an interesting person, dealing with something unimaginable. The passages where she's trying to provoke Trina into assaulting her so she could get her placed on 72-hour-hold are heartbreaking. And the "alternative" is intriguing, but it should have been fleshed out a little more. The leader of the alternative treatment comes off as a foolish little boy, who revels in secrecy and the power it gives him. The reasons why people who've responded to nothing else respond to whatever it is his group does remain shrouded in mystery. Ultimately, Keri turns back to the system for help and hope.
But then again, I guess you can't really fault a novel for coming to the same conclusion about mental health treatment that anyone who's worked around it does: this isn't the answer, but damned if I know what is.
Incidentally, this is the book I got from the African-American section. It was good, and I'm going to do my best from now on not to read that label as a "WHITE GIRLS KEEP OUT" sign.
Trina was a bright, beautiful teenaged girl. She had been accepted to Brown, she had lots of friends, she seemed to be doing well. Until her mother noticed her talking too much, too fast. Staying up for 36 hours at a time. Hitting the streets in the morning and returning loaded with shopping bags late at night. Then she'd crash. Trina was bipolar.
And the system was failing her, and her mother Keri. Trina's behavior would often be terrifying, but when her mother called to have her admitted to the mental health unit, she'd be able to pull herself together long enough to be judged not to meet the criteria for a 72-hour hold. Meanwhile, Keri's life changed. Her carefree days of spa trips with her girlfriends were over. She had a new crew now, people that she met at the mental illness family support groups she attended. Mostly they talked on the phone, rather than socialized in person, because they were all caring for children of their own.
Keri hits a breaking point when her daughter, a recently legal adult, sneaks out after her latest 72-hour hold before she can bring her home. One of Keri's friends from group told her about an alternative to t he traditional treatment: illegal, shadowy and costly, but she and her friend decide to pursue it together.
This is where the book started to come undone a bit, for me. The chapters on Keri's battle with Trina's illness were gripping, suspenseful, engaging and heartbreaking. And they had enough ancillary stuff thrown in so you didn't walk away from the book feeling like you'd just gone four rounds with Mike Tyson. Keri also deals with her ex-husband, Trina's father, a neocon pundit who's been married four other times since their divorce and is making noises about how maybe he had it right the first time. She deals with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, an actor whose dreams, talent and ambition are much larger than his luck. She runs her own business, a high-end designer consignment shop, with her two assistants, one of whom is a former prostitute and drug addict.
Keri's an interesting person, dealing with something unimaginable. The passages where she's trying to provoke Trina into assaulting her so she could get her placed on 72-hour-hold are heartbreaking. And the "alternative" is intriguing, but it should have been fleshed out a little more. The leader of the alternative treatment comes off as a foolish little boy, who revels in secrecy and the power it gives him. The reasons why people who've responded to nothing else respond to whatever it is his group does remain shrouded in mystery. Ultimately, Keri turns back to the system for help and hope.
But then again, I guess you can't really fault a novel for coming to the same conclusion about mental health treatment that anyone who's worked around it does: this isn't the answer, but damned if I know what is.
Incidentally, this is the book I got from the African-American section. It was good, and I'm going to do my best from now on not to read that label as a "WHITE GIRLS KEEP OUT" sign.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Apartheid at the Library
During my last library visit, it was unseasonably warm. Hardly anyone was there, and I was really able to take my time, to poke around, and to do it with no distractions. I'd noticed the "African-American Fiction" section before, but never really investigated it. For some reason, that day, I decided to. I pulled books by unfamiliar authors off the shelves and looked at them. I'd assumed, for some reason, that what was over there was primarily chick lit with black women, and there was a fair amount of that, but plenty of other, more intriguing fare mixed in.
It got me wondering, what is "African-American Fiction" anyway? How do they decide what gets shelved there, and what gets shelved in the general fiction section? Is it the race of the author? The race of the subjects? The fact that race is treated at all? How come Zadie Smith and Zora Neale Hurston aren't over there, then? My best friend from college is black, and I am white. If she wrote a novel about our friendship, where would they put it? Where would they put it if I wrote it?
Come to think of it, why is there an "African-American Fiction" section, anyway? Isn't it a pretty racist assumption that white people wouldn't want to read about black people, and that black people won't read anything unless it's about them? I think to some extent, a lot of people like to read about themselves. I know I do. I enjoyed books about college students when I was in college, books about people making their way in the world as a recent grad, and now that I'm over 30, I like to read about people making the transition to being 'real adults,' though I'm still not into Babylit yet. But I can appreciate and take an interest in the experiences of others. Why would the necessarily be all that different?
Sure, there are cultural differences between blacks and whites. Sadly, there are still many differences in status and socioeconomic class, too, too many differences. That doesn't mean that we still can't get something out of each other's experiences, though. Look how much fantasy and sci-fi novels often give their readers. I wrote, a while back, about how I found the explanation of death contained in the His Dark Materials trilogy to be enormously comforting, based in the only after-death experience we have hard evidence for. You never know what you might learn from, be enriched by, or take comfort in. That's why I feel it's wrong to take a group of books and put up a big "KEEP OUT" sign on them.
I'm interested, though -- does anyone have a different perspective? Do you feel that the classification of fiction into racial or ethnic groups is OK? I'd very much like to hear it, if so. Also, if anyone has theories as to why they started doing this in the first place, I'm interested.
It got me wondering, what is "African-American Fiction" anyway? How do they decide what gets shelved there, and what gets shelved in the general fiction section? Is it the race of the author? The race of the subjects? The fact that race is treated at all? How come Zadie Smith and Zora Neale Hurston aren't over there, then? My best friend from college is black, and I am white. If she wrote a novel about our friendship, where would they put it? Where would they put it if I wrote it?
Come to think of it, why is there an "African-American Fiction" section, anyway? Isn't it a pretty racist assumption that white people wouldn't want to read about black people, and that black people won't read anything unless it's about them? I think to some extent, a lot of people like to read about themselves. I know I do. I enjoyed books about college students when I was in college, books about people making their way in the world as a recent grad, and now that I'm over 30, I like to read about people making the transition to being 'real adults,' though I'm still not into Babylit yet. But I can appreciate and take an interest in the experiences of others. Why would the necessarily be all that different?
Sure, there are cultural differences between blacks and whites. Sadly, there are still many differences in status and socioeconomic class, too, too many differences. That doesn't mean that we still can't get something out of each other's experiences, though. Look how much fantasy and sci-fi novels often give their readers. I wrote, a while back, about how I found the explanation of death contained in the His Dark Materials trilogy to be enormously comforting, based in the only after-death experience we have hard evidence for. You never know what you might learn from, be enriched by, or take comfort in. That's why I feel it's wrong to take a group of books and put up a big "KEEP OUT" sign on them.
I'm interested, though -- does anyone have a different perspective? Do you feel that the classification of fiction into racial or ethnic groups is OK? I'd very much like to hear it, if so. Also, if anyone has theories as to why they started doing this in the first place, I'm interested.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Russo's Magic, and a book out of season
Richard Russo has been a favorite of mine since graduate school. Faced with the horrifying prospect of taking at trip without a book, I walked into the town's only, tiny bookstore and chose a Richard Russo book solely because his books seemed to be set in the same area I was living in at the time. Since then, I've read all of his books, but I've always found him to be hit and miss.
I would, sadly, put That Old Cape Magic in the "miss" category. I was rather surprised to see this one out so soon after his lengthy, ambitious Bridge of Sighs. That, right there, made me raise an eyebrow. But since it's Richard Russo, and since the library actually had this one, I read it.
The protagonist of the book, like many of Russo's protagonists, is a middle-aged man. Griffin grew up an only child of two academics who had a twisted and miserable outlook on life. His parents' lifelong goal and dream was to live and work in New England. Instead, they were stuck in "the fucking Midwest" (as they both consistently referred to it), unable to find a school that would take them as a package deal. They could only make their glorious escape to a rental every summer. Usually, that was virtually the only happy time of their year. Their marriage slowly became a prison and eventually broke up for good after mutliple infidelities on both sides.
Griffin strove to become their opposite. Happy in the present, committed to his wife and daughter. He comes to the Cape again in the first half of the novel to scatter his father's ashes and attend the wedding of his daughter's friend. As the book jacket promises, he is back in the second half, with more ashes to scatter, and has brought a date to his own daughter's Cape wedding. So has his wife.
I don't know what it is lately with books that take place in the past, but this is another one. The real story is not what became of Griffin's ostensibly happy marriage (though even in the first part, there are major cracks). The real story is how Griffin will resolve his relationship with his complicated parents, and cope with their deaths.
But it all fell a bit flat to me. Even though most of Russo's characters are in the throes of a personal crisis, he keeps them from being too angsty by a strong cast of supporting characters. Lucky Hal and Sully didn't just sit around and whine. They went out drinking, they played raquetball, they threatened ducks, stole snowblowers, went to work. They had LIVES. They had friends, too, and antagonists. Griffin's angst exists in a virtual vaccuum. Russo gave him a best friend, who stays mostly in the background. His daughter is made of cardboard. Griffin isn't working, since he too has become an academic and this is a summer story. His main activity is sitting around and whining.
It gets old. Fortunately, this is a short one. And Russo at his worst is better than a lot of people at their best.
The next book I tried was another David Guterson. I've been meaning to since Snow Falling on Cedars. East of the Mountain was just as beautifully written. But I couldn't do it. The book is about the last journey of an old man with terminal cancer. He is going to shoot himself and make it look like a hunting accident. It's gorgeous, sad...and all wrong. Around here, it's been warm and sunny, the flowering trees are in bloom, my folks are coming home soon, everything is going well. I tried. I will remember this one and come back to it, but for now it's definitely out of sync with my mood. I'm going to try that Sherman Alexie one instead.
I would, sadly, put That Old Cape Magic in the "miss" category. I was rather surprised to see this one out so soon after his lengthy, ambitious Bridge of Sighs. That, right there, made me raise an eyebrow. But since it's Richard Russo, and since the library actually had this one, I read it.
The protagonist of the book, like many of Russo's protagonists, is a middle-aged man. Griffin grew up an only child of two academics who had a twisted and miserable outlook on life. His parents' lifelong goal and dream was to live and work in New England. Instead, they were stuck in "the fucking Midwest" (as they both consistently referred to it), unable to find a school that would take them as a package deal. They could only make their glorious escape to a rental every summer. Usually, that was virtually the only happy time of their year. Their marriage slowly became a prison and eventually broke up for good after mutliple infidelities on both sides.
Griffin strove to become their opposite. Happy in the present, committed to his wife and daughter. He comes to the Cape again in the first half of the novel to scatter his father's ashes and attend the wedding of his daughter's friend. As the book jacket promises, he is back in the second half, with more ashes to scatter, and has brought a date to his own daughter's Cape wedding. So has his wife.
I don't know what it is lately with books that take place in the past, but this is another one. The real story is not what became of Griffin's ostensibly happy marriage (though even in the first part, there are major cracks). The real story is how Griffin will resolve his relationship with his complicated parents, and cope with their deaths.
But it all fell a bit flat to me. Even though most of Russo's characters are in the throes of a personal crisis, he keeps them from being too angsty by a strong cast of supporting characters. Lucky Hal and Sully didn't just sit around and whine. They went out drinking, they played raquetball, they threatened ducks, stole snowblowers, went to work. They had LIVES. They had friends, too, and antagonists. Griffin's angst exists in a virtual vaccuum. Russo gave him a best friend, who stays mostly in the background. His daughter is made of cardboard. Griffin isn't working, since he too has become an academic and this is a summer story. His main activity is sitting around and whining.
It gets old. Fortunately, this is a short one. And Russo at his worst is better than a lot of people at their best.
The next book I tried was another David Guterson. I've been meaning to since Snow Falling on Cedars. East of the Mountain was just as beautifully written. But I couldn't do it. The book is about the last journey of an old man with terminal cancer. He is going to shoot himself and make it look like a hunting accident. It's gorgeous, sad...and all wrong. Around here, it's been warm and sunny, the flowering trees are in bloom, my folks are coming home soon, everything is going well. I tried. I will remember this one and come back to it, but for now it's definitely out of sync with my mood. I'm going to try that Sherman Alexie one instead.
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