Just Jennifer

Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez (Riverhead Books, October 5, 2010)

Thirteen-year-old Cole knows his mother is planning on leaving his father.  An only child, Cole and his parents have just moved from Chicago to a small town in Indiana just as a flu epidemic hits the mid-west.  The epidemic becomes a pandemic; Cole’s father dies first, then Cole’s mother.  Cole is near death twice, but survives, only to find himself an orphan, and thinking his mother’s twin sister is also dead, alone in the world.  After being in an orphanage, Cole is taken in by an evangelical pastor, Pastor Wyatt (PW) and his wife Tracy, who live in an enclave known as Salvation City where PW and his followers are awaiting the Rapture.   Cole’s parents stressed education and were not religious, and now Cole finds himself learning from the Bible and being home-schooled by Tracy whom he knows is not well-educated herself.  Cole uses his new religious knowledge to grapple with the deaths’ of his parents and his survival.  He never questions his new family and is almost humbled by the new life he has been given.  But, he is still a thirteen-year-old boy and finds himself with a very big crush on Tracy’s sixteen-year-old niece who is considered special by the community, especially the older and inappropriate Mason.  Once settled in comfortably in his new situation, Cole is confronted with news that will force him to make a decision about his future, one he is not ready to make at this time.  Tracy and Mason vanish, apparently taken by the Rapture, Cole is bright enough to realize what has happened, and knows that he will be able to make his own decisions about his future.

Deceptively simple, Nunez’s elegant prose presents a problem that is not hard to imagine in today’s world.  She quietly reveals Cole’s story, and gently and believably presents his dilemmas, learning to live with his new family now that he is orphaned, living in a different environment than he has been used to being brought up in, one stressing religion rather than education.  Cole, on the surface, is very adaptable, and willing to give things a good try, until Tracy and Mason vanish, apparently taken by the Rapture. Cole is bright enough to realize what has happened, and knows that he will be able to make his own decisions about his future. 

Just Jennifer

 Exley by Brock Clarke (Algonquin Books, October 5, 2010)

Nine-year-old Miller Le Ray lives in Watertown, NY, where Frederick Exley’s cult novel A Fan’s Note (a fictional memoir) is set.  Miller witnessed an argument his parents had, ending with his father driving off shouting back “Maybe I should go to Iraq too.”  Miller hasn’t heard from his father since and becomes convinced that Tom has returned from Iraq and is lying in the local VA hospital in a coma.  Miller is also certain that if he is able to bring the author of Tom’s favorite book, Exley, to the VA that Tom will wake up from his coma and be well again.  Carrie, Miller’s mother, an attorney, thinks Miller, a precocious, inventive and imaginative child, has created a world where his father has returned and has turned Miller’s mental health over to a doctor whose mental health is also questionable.  The narrative is told from Miller’s point of view and from the doctor’s notes from his sessions with Miller and his observations.  There is no question that Miller is a smart, intelligent child, but also a deeply disturbed one and it soon becomes clear that Miller’s version of the truth and reality may not necessarily be so.  The story is touching as it unfolds, but Miller’s voice and his actions are a bit too grown up for a nine-year-old child and the doctor’s voice too pedantic and downright odd, and it’s curious how Carrie doesn’t pick up on doctor’s shortcomings.  As Miller’s story unfolds and the truth comes into focus, it becomes clearer where Miller’s reality lies and where Carrie’s lies as well.  Part social commentary, literary criticism and part memoir, the carefully constructive narrative will require close reading, but the payoff will be rewarding as Clarke’s satire and humor slowly emerge.

Just Jennifer

 Room by Emma Donoghue (Little Brown, September, 2010)

 

Irish born author Emma Donoghue has created a world that is as safe for a five-year-old boy as it is terrifying for his mother in Room.  The main character, known only as Ma, was kidnapped by Old Nick when she was nineteen and has been held captive in a reasonably well-appointed shed on his property for the past seven years.  Old Nick routinely visits Ma, raping her, she becoming pregnant as a result.  Jack is born and lives the first five years of his life in captivity.  Ma takes as good care of him as she is able under the circumstances, teaching him and trying to create as normal a routine as possible, but Jack is never properly socialized and at first cannot fathom a life, or world, outside his four walls, nor why anyone would want one.  As Jack gets older, he begins to grow curious about life outside and Ma becomes almost frantic in her desire to escape the only life Jack has ever known.

Ma and Jack's world in Room (Jack doesn't use articles for the objects in his life, but calls them by their name as if it were their proper name) is both horrifying and fascinating at the same time; Ma tries to keep the world she has created for Jack as normal as possible, teaching him good hygiene, how to read and speak, and devising ways for the young boy to exercise.  That she is able to stay as positive as she does for her son’s sake is a tribute to Ma’s strength; the plan she hatches for their escape and rescue is brave, though she knows she will possibly end up sacrificing the one thing that gives her life meaning.  Emma Donoghue creates a believable world and story with carefully written sentences and descriptive language, bringing the reader into the room with Ma and Jack.  She currently lives in Ontario and has written several novels, both contemporary and historical, including Slammerkin. 

Just Jennifer

Up from the Blue by Susan Henderson (Harper, October 2010)

Tillie Harris and her husband have just moved into a new home in Washington, D.C. where Tillie lived as a child.  Nothing is unpacked, not even their telephone, Simon is away on business and Tillie is in labor.  Not knowing anyone in the city, nor having made any medical arrangements, Tillie goes to a neighbor’s house and calls the only person she knows in the city, the father from whom she has been estranged for years.  As Tillie goes into labor, the story of her childhood begins to unfold.

As a eight-year-old living in an army community in New Mexico, everything in Tillie’s life is covered in a thin film of red dust.  Tillie’s father is regular army and often away on business trips, leaving Tillie and her twelve-year old brother in the care of their mother.  Mara is different than most mothers Tillie knows:  she is exuberant, unorganized and often sick in bed for days.  Tillie doesn’t know her mother is plagued by depression, but is fiercely protective of her when other mothers try to meddle in the Harrises’ lives.  General Harris is reassigned to Washington, D.C. and while he moves his family across country, Tillie stays with his assistant Ann and joins her family two weeks later.  When Tillie arrives in Washington, her mother has vanished and no one will talk about her.  Tillie is desperate to find out what has happened to her mother and is frustrated by her brother’s lack of interest and anger toward their mother and her father’s unwillingness to discuss anything to do with her mother.  Tillie is a scrappy fighter and fights against her natural instincts to be free and do things the way she thinks they should be, often without boundaries, as her mother did.  As adult Tillie’s labor progresses, an uneasy truce is forged with her father, and the story of one year in her life that affected everything after unfolds.  There is a Gothic quality to Tillie’s life with its terribly painful emotions, though there is such a goodness and innocence in Tillie that will endear her to you.

The story of Tillie’s eighth year is neatly woven in between the progression of her labor.  The tone of each part of her childhood story matches the phase she is in during labor until the baby is born and the story of that year is fully revealed.  Tillie is a heart-wrenching character who just wants her mother and wants to understand.  She has been compared to Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird.  Her love for her mother, with all her eccentricities is so pure and uninhibited.  Over twenty years of Tillie’s life are unaccounted for, but at the end it is easy to see she will be able to transcend her childhood tragedies and make tentative steps to create a relationship with her husband, new baby, and perhaps even the father she had grown away from.  This is an elegantly told and haunting first novel.

Just Jennifer

Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay (HarperCollins, September 2010)

As a young woman, Nina Revskaya was a prima ballerina with the Bolshoi ballet in Russia.  She was know as “The Butterfly” and performed the leads in many ballets, often for Joseph Stalin and his special guests.  Just after she reaches the apex of her career, something occurs that causes Nina to defect to America.  Now, she is a bitter, lonely 80-year-old woman, confined to a wheelchair.  She has just decided to auction her magnificent collection of jewels and a young woman named Drew Brooks is charged with assembling the collection, verifying its provenance and learning as much of the history of the pieces as possible.  When an anonymous donor, local Russian literature professor, Grigori Solodin, comes forth with an amber pendant necklace that matches two of the pieces of Nina’s amber, Drew feels they are part of the same suite and begins seeking out the history of the pieces, their makers, original owners, and pressing a reluctant Nina to remember their origin. 

As Nina reflects on her past life, her story slowly unfolds:  her rise in the Russian ballet, her marriage to Russian poet Viktor Elsin (Solodin is an Elsin scholar and translator), watching as her friends fight for survival in Soviet Russia, and seeing them taken away to a work camp.  As Nina tries to hold her life together and make the best of things, she learns something that leads her to believe the ultimate betrayal has been committed, and without a second thought, she flees Russia and seeks asylum in the United States of America.  Now her past comes crashing into her present as Drew presses Nina to reveal what she has hidden and as Grigori confronts his own past, the heartbreak he feels over losing his wife Christine, and the mystery surrounding his birth and adoption, secrets he thinks he has unraveled, but will be surprised to learn nothing is as it seems.  Drew also confronts her own failed marriage and the choices she has made for her present, but not her future. 

Russian Winter is a complex saga that spans generations and continents with a rich setting.  The history is cursory, enough to provide a good atmosphere, but nothing new is revealed to those with a basic understanding of life in Russia during this time period.   Modern day Boston in the winter provides a good backdrop for the remembered dismal Russian landscape with only a few bright spots.   As all the characters’ lives intertwine and separate, much like a ballet, an intricate plot is revealed; the characters are well-enough imagined, though readers may feel that Nina is too reserved and wonder if she has any remorse or regrets. 

Just Jennifer

The Gendarme  by Mark T. Mustian  (Amy Einhorn, September 2010)

At the beginning of World War I, Christian Armenians were deported from the Ottoman Empire by Muslim Turkish soldiers, escorted, for the most part on foot, in large waves, by Turkish policemen know as Gendarme.  Many Armenians died during this deportation and it has been a very controversial subject in Turkey and until recently it was considered a crime in Turkey to refer to this episode in their history as genocide.

In present day Georgia (U.S.), a 92-year-old WWI veteran, Emmett Conn, has begun having spells that cause him to have very real dreams; only Emmett realizes he is not dreaming, but reliving the life he has forgotten.  Emmett was born Ahmet Kahn in Turkey and was seriously injured as a young man in Gallipoli.  Thought to be a British solider, he is evacuated to a British hospital in England where he is attended to by an American nurse.  Emmett recovers, marries Carol and moves to the United States of America where he assimilates as well as he can, even anglicizing his name, but bothered by the fact that he cannot remember anything of his life prior to waking in the British hospital.

During Emmett’s seizures and treatment for a brain tumor, he has vivid dreams, as if he is reliving his early life as if seeing a movie.  Each dream picks up where the last left off, revealing a new part of his forgotten life.  Emmett learns he was not just a soldier, but a Gendarme, escorting waves of Armenians to Syria.  Along the way he commits atrocities that are unfathomable to his present self.  He is touched deeply by a young woman, Araxie, whom he tries to keep safe during her journey and upon arriving in Syria, but from whom he is ultimately separated, for both their safety.  As Emmett’s life in Turkey is slowly revealed to him, he learns more about himself than perhaps he cares to know as he faces the harsh realities of his past.  It is in these revelations, though, that he is able to see his daughter Violet and her life decisions with new eyes.

The Gendarme is beautifully written, alternating between 1990’s America and the beginning of World War I in the Ottoman Empire.  As horrifying as Ahmet’s acts as a Gendarme are, his story is a poignant one, not just in his reflection of his role in the deportations, but in how his feelings for Araxie evolve.  Emmett’s current physical deterioration is heart-breaking, as Violet makes choices for him that she feels will keep him, and those around him safe, though he is not ready to end his story yet.  Araxie has one blue eye and one brown eye, mirroring the dichotomy of many things in Emmett’s life:  the humanity and love he shows Araxie amidst other cruel acts he commits, Sash, who helps him hide in Syria, his two daughters, even his two names and two lives, the one he lived before the war and the one lived after.

The Gendarme is a haunting story that surprises, horrifies and gives hope all at once.  It is at once a war story, a multi-layered love story and a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit and its capacity to forgive others and ourselves. 

Mark Mustian is of Armenian descent but has a great-grandfather who fought for the Confederacy in the US Civil War.  This is his first novel.

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Just Jennifer

Strangers at the Feast  Jennifer Vanderbes (Scribner, August 3, 2010)

At first glance, I thought the title would refer to the young men who would be the catalysts for the tragedy that was to occur this Thanksgiving evening, but as I began to read the novel, I realized the strangers were actually the members of the Olson family, both to each other and to themselves.  Ginny can't quite explain to anyone, including herself, why she has impulsively adopted a child from India; Douglas has become withdrawn from his wife and children as the real estate market has begun to plummet; his wife Denise is no longer living the life she feels she signed on for.  Ginny and Douglas's father has been withdrawn from his family since his return from Vietnam, his only passion being looking at the stars and planets through his telescope, distancing himself from life; their mother Eleanor has tried to keep her family together all these years and is just worn out, only managing on the surface any longer.  Kijo and Spider, while strangers to the Olsons, display, at times, more sense of themselves and their families, as Kijo seeks revenge for a wrong he feels Douglas committed against Kijo's grandmother. 

As each character's story unfolds, the tragedy begins to take shape and is foreshadowed, but what ultimately occurs is startling and though most characters’ reactions to it is predictable, as most react the way they have reacted to the events in their lives thus far, there is one notable exception.  The story of the unraveling not only of a family, but of each of the characters who thinks they have reached an apex in their lives serves as a reminder of our responsibilities as members of our own families, however torn and dysfunctional they may be. Each characters is searching for something, though they may not know what it is and may not recognize it when they find it. 

Overwritten and dramatic in places, Strangers at the Feast is one of those books that as you are reading it you are not sure you really like the characters, but that will resonate with you after you read the last pages, wondering how each character could have acted and reacted differently over the course of their lives, up to and including those last moments on Thanksgiving, that could have altered the outcome of the evening and everyone’s futures.  Ultimately, though, fate is fickle, and if Ginny's oven had not failed, this family’s story would have had a much different ending, though not necessarily a happy one.

Saving Cee-Cee Honeycutt

Author: Beth Hoffman
Stars: 2.5
Review by: mystery lover

 Cee-Cee Honeycutt is sent to a relative's house to live after her mother, with issues, passes and her father has other priorities.  Though, I did like the book, it is true to the reviews--there could have been more depth in parts, instead of just touching on a subject.

Through a Dog's Eyes

Author: Jennifer Arnold
Stars: 3.5
Review by:  Miss Lucy

The author runs Canine Assistants, and has spent years training and overseeing the training of assistance dogs.  Her compassionate way of seeing dogs' personalities and souls is uplifting and fascinating.

White Teeth

Author: Zadie Smith
Stars: 3
Review by: Miss Lucy


A good story by a talented author, this book also gives insight into how Muslim Pakistanis feel about emigrating to the West.

Strider

Author: Beverly Cleary
Stars: 4
Review by: KM

Boy gets a dog while growing up. She is a very good writer so even though juvenile, very enjoyable.

Chasing Badger

Author: Tony Hillerman
Stars: 4
Review by: KM

Listened to it on audio. The narrator is the usual one for Hillerman's books and is very good, brings actor talent to the voices. If you like the Southwest and mysteries, you will enjoy this read.

Cheaper by the Dozen

Author: Frank B. Gilbreth
Stars: 3
Review by: KM


A classic. The reader can glean some cultural history while enjoying a good read.

Getting Organized in the Google Era

Author: Douglas C. Merrill
Stars: 4
Review by: KM

 Depending on your needs and interests and your level of already acquired tech savviness, it may have some good information or a LOT. I am very glad I read this book.

The Castaways

Author: Elin Hilderbrand
Stars: 5
Review by:  reademquik

Thoroughly enjoyable!!

Wicked Witch Murder

Author: Leslie Meier
Stars: 3
Review by: patco81

17th of a series featuring smalltown Maine reporter Lucy Stone.  This time she becomes involved with practitioners of Wicca, matches wits with a greedy development company and tries to help the family of a stubborn patriarch who lives by 18th century rules.

Amethyst Dreams

Author: Philys Whitney
Stars: 3
Review by: JamBob

Philys Whitney was around before Danielle Steel and wrote many books of suspense and romance...she delves a lot into the characters.  Her books are short with always a surprise ending.

"U" is for Undertow

Author: Sue Grafton
Stars: 3
Review by:  patco81

U's story was not as compelling as other titles in this series, but still offered a good hook wherein we are given more glimpses into the personal life of the main character, Kinsey Millhone.  
And now, with the conclusion of U, I have achieved my summer goal of reading all the alphabet mysteries (hooray!) published to date.