Author Archives: Susan

“I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.” — Liesel Meminger

Most will recognize that line and character from Markus Zusak’s 2006 mega-selling, young adult novel “The Book Thief,” which appears to be one of the all-time favorites among book buyers and bloggers. I received it as a gift in 2006 but then it sat collecting dust on a shelf and wound up in storage when I moved. So I’m perhaps one of the last bloggers to read the book, which I picked for my book club to discuss next week.

I’m sure you’re familiar with what it’s about: it describes a young, at first, illiterate girl in Nazi Germany who comes to live with foster parents in a working-class neighborhood outside of Munich and takes to stealing books during the escalation of WWII. She befriends Rudy, a boy who dreams of being the runner Jesse Owens, and Max, a Jewish fist fighter, who her parents take in and let live in their basement, hidden away from the Nazis.

I had heard so much praise about “The Book Thief” but didn’t know what it all entailed until I read it. What surprised me and I felt was unique about this particular WWII story is that:

a) It’s narrated by Death, which could have come across quite morbid, yet Death here is sympathetic to humans and feels bad about taking souls away during such awful wartime

b) It’s about a non-Jewish German family inside the country who isn’t exactly in favor of the Nazis (rarely do you get this perspective)

c) It’s about language and the power of words; how Hitler destroyed people with his words and yet how the girl Liesel tries to steal them back, treasuring the books she takes and her reading of them

d) And lastly, it’s a considerably dark and sad story, as many WWII tales are, but this one surely doesn’t sugarcoat the ending. Only a few characters survive, which is quite bleak, especially perhaps for a novel that’s labeled “young adult.” Maybe young adult books are often killer-bleak yet lighten toward the end, but this one definitely snuffs some lights out just when you’re hoping they’ll make it out okay.

With so many themes and nuances, “The Book Thief” will definitely make for an interesting discussion on book club night. I am glad I finally read it. Liesel Meminger and her family are memorable characters, and the book is visual, unique and at many times powerful. I’m sure it will stay with me for quite a while. The only thing I wasn’t sure of is the book’s narration by Death which at times I grew weary of. I just wanted to cut his part and get on with the story. But including it does offer an eerie, overarching perspective on war. In places, Death’s narration serves up an awful foreshadowing that you wish wouldn’t come true. Continue reading →

I’ve been up to my ears in moonshine so to speak. I just finished Matt Bondurant’s 2008 historical novel “The Wettest County in the World” about the bootlegging that went on in Franklin County Virginia during Prohibition and then I saw the new movie adapted from it called “Lawless.”

Although the movie is decent, the book, as usual, is far superior. It’s a story about three brothers (actually the author’s own grandfather and great-uncles) who illegally ran moonshine stills and distributed “white lightning” under the cover of their filling station. It was apart of the ’20s and early ’30s when moonshine activity exploded in the poor Virginia county amid the Blue Ridge foothills. “The Bondurant Boys,” as they were known, were like many of the residents there involved in the illegal liquor trade. The Bondurants came up against law officers who covertly demanded their cut of the bootlegging profits. What happened in real life was a bloody showdown.

“Wettest County” is a novel based on that true story, which the author pieced together from news articles and filled in the gaps with his imagination. His grandfather never talked about his moonshine involvement other than to confirm he had once been shot. The rest the author dug up and turned into a vivid and resonant account.

The descriptions and atmosphere are right out of Prohibition- and Depression-era times. It’s direct and often violent, comparable to some of Cormac McCarthy’s writings but perhaps with more hope and less darkness. The brothers overcome various harsh realities, including the early loss of their mother and two sisters in the flu epidemic, and the night the head brother, Forrest, is left for dead with his throat cut open by two rival goons.

The story is exceptional and well written, but the novel isn’t totally easy. Most of it’s from Jack, the youngest brother’s point of view, but one thread conjures Sherwood Anderson, the author, who covered the resulting bootlegging trial. It jumps in time back and forth from 1935 to earlier. It gets a bit confusing or distracting a few times and I lost some steam in my reading about half way through, wishing parts might be a bit shorter. But still I took away from it an interesting dose of moonshine history and a story forever etched in my memory. I’d be interested to check out Matt Bondurant’s latest novel “The Night Swimmer” as he seems quite a writer to watch.

As for the movie “Lawless,” prepare yourself for some uncomfortable violence. For me, the screenplay was missing some of the essence of the novel. It’s too bad because the cast is quite good, albeit the foothill dialect meandered a bit. It’s still pretty decent and might not be too far off from other such attempts at novels like “All the Pretty Horses” or “Cold Mountain” that were moved to the silver screen. Lyrical books are just hard to match in movieland. Continue reading →

Margaret Atwood’s “Surfacing” is a bit of a creepy little novel about a woman who returns to her hometown in Quebec to look for her missing father. She brings her boyfriend along and a married couple who accompany her to her family’s old cabin on a remote, woodsy island. But with her father disappeared and her mother deceased, all that’s there are her childhood memories, which seem to overtake her. It’s while she’s staying on the island to look for him that her mind begins to unravel.

Check out the book’s cover; doesn’t it make you feel a bit uneasy? In that respect, it slightly reminded me of Dennis Lehane’s “Shutter Island” from 2003. But “Surfacing” was published 40 years ago in 1972, and has a lot of themes going on in it from that era, particularly Quebec’s separatist movement, Canadian nationalism, feminism, and environmentalism. The main character feels alienated by social pressures that she play a particular role because of her gender – which makes her respond by withdrawing.

“Surfacing” feels like it’s from the late ’60s – the four characters are hippy-ish — but still the novel seems quite potent today. Partly that’s because Margaret Atwood is a master who doesn’t mess around getting her themes across, but also it’s because these themes still linger. I had to grin a bit when the character David wants to drive the “fascist pig Yanks” out of Canada. The American “infiltration” up North is still a real sore point among quite a few.

I liked the novel as I felt as if I were on the island with the four characters – one of which is a chauvinist jerk — and there’s an ominous feeling that something eerie is going to happen. It’s quite tangible but towards the end, I did have to read some passages a few times over to make sense of what is going on. It gets quite loopy and is not totally easy to understand in places. But the writing is quite lyrical and otherworldly.

This is my third novel that I’ve read by Margaret Atwood, who I think is such a unique and powerful writer. “Alias Grace” is perhaps my favorite, but this one isn’t shabby either. I plan to keep reading Atwood and other Canadian authors because I live in Canada now – and want to familiarize myself with the great fiction of this vast and wonderful country. Continue reading →