The Cue Card

Happy Holidays everyone. I hope your December has been festive and fun and that you’re able to close out the year with your loved ones. This might be my last post of 2019 since my husband and I will be leaving in a little over a week to spend the Christmas week with family in Southern California. We are looking forward to it and plan to brave a bit of Christmas shopping beforehand. Better late than never. 

We’ve had some good snow here lately and the cross-country ski trails are in prime shape. We’ll be out there this weekend, leaving the shopping behind. I never thought I’d like the winter season so much, but after almost 10 years here, I’ve pretty much adapted to the cold temps and white flying fluffy stuff — as long as it’s above single digits Fahrenheit. Meanwhile I’ll leave you with a few reviews of what I finished lately. 

Ahh yes, the sequel to Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian classic “The Handmaid’s Tale,” drew me in and pleasantly surprised me (as it did my book assistant, pictured at left). I noticed that “The Testaments” was recently picked as Amazon’s #1 book of 2019 as well as earning the most votes as Goodreads Best Fiction choice of the year. Wow, I didn’t know this at the time I read it, but I’m glad I’m not alone in appreciating the sequel, which also co-won this year’s Booker Prize.

Perhaps it’s sort of a hard tale to actually “like” because of the harsh place it depicts, but you can see what Atwood was portending with her dystopian futuristic story about the Republic of Gilead, where the environment has gone to seed and a totalitarian regime rules in portions of North America that enforces strict social roles and enslaves fertile women. 

I had read the original novel in 2017 so I was acquainted with the horrors of living in Gilead. “The Testaments” takes place 15 years after this, and is told in short chapters among three alternating narrators. There’s Aunt Lydia:  Gilead’s top female enforcer, who we come to learn was taken in gruesomely at the Republic’s beginning and consolidated her power over many years; then there’s Agnes, who’s born into a well-to do Commander’s family and is trying to figure out her parentage and role within Gilead; and lastly there’s Daisy, a girl living outside of Gilead in free Canada, whose parents aren’t exactly who she once thought they were. Uh-oh.

The three characters’ stories unfold in interesting ways and I was impressed by how each gripped me from the get-go. None of them are really who you think they are at first and they each come to grapple with their own identities and roles in order to get what they want. They all have to bide their time, carry on with the harsh status quo, and hide their true selves … though eventually their motivations and worlds come to collide in a page-turning flurry. 

“The Testaments” is quite different than “The Handmaid’s Tale” in tone and style. For one, it seems quicker and faster paced with short chapters — and does not delve into all the harshness of the first one; it’s more escapist. And while the first one was basically Offred the Handmaid’s story, this one revolves around the lives of the three females and seems more hopeful. The sequel doesn’t continue Offred’s story, but it answers questions about her and Gilead. Some purists will probably continue to like just “The Handmaid’s Tale” and not the sequel …. but I ended up appreciating the follow-up as well because it seemed cleverly handled and resolved some things in my mind. I have to hand it to Atwood, who finished writing it at age 79, nearly 35 years after penning her thought-provoking original. 

I also loved Kevin Wilson’s novel “Nothing to See Here,” which was funny, quirky, and heartwarming too. As unlikely as it seems at first, Lillian (age 28) comes to work as a governess taking care of her rich former boarding school roommate’s stepkids — Bessie and Roland — who happen to catch on fire whenever they become anxious or upset. That’s right: they’re combustible kids. Say whaaa? It feels pretty normal when you experience the story, which says a lot about how good this novel is. 

It engaged me pretty much from the start, and I listened to it as an audiobook read by actress Marin Ireland who made the whole story come alive. It might even be my favorite audio of 2019! It’s a wonderful story about these unusual kids and Lillian, who had a rough childhood herself and becomes their protector and caregiver — as her former roommate Madison marries the kids’ father — a rich US Senator — who keeps the kids at a distance in his guest house on their mega estate. Luckily Lillian really takes to the kids and it’s a transformative journey and ending. You can’t fully explain this one — it’s funnily told and heartwarming without being saccharine. (It’s not exactly Maria in the Sound of Music.) You just need to get it and tap into the fire of these kids. Kudos to author Kevin Wilson.

Lastly I finished the audiobook of Ann Patchett’s recent novel “The Dutch House,” which I liked well enough but did not love. I know I’m in the minority since many seemed gaga over this one. I was keen on the beginning with the big estate that their real estate investor father purchases outside of Philly and Danny and his sisters’ youths and caregivers there. But once their fortunes change, the story seems to spin its wheels a bit about Danny and Maeve’s long lost mother and their stepmom who keeps the mansion for herself and throws them out. It’s a book with a lot of reminiscing in it and is a lot about Danny and Maeve, a brother and sister who rely closely on one another as they grow up, age, and commiserate about their parental circumstances. 

It’s a sad, regretful and nostalgic story, but I didn’t find a lot more necessarily happened in it. I listened to the novel as an audiobook read by Tom Hanks and I thought he was wonderful narrating as Danny. Towards the middle though I found it a bit slow and had to push myself a little to finish it. There’s some development at the end that changes the dynamic about the mother and stepmother in the siblings’ lives … so that made me wake up a bit but didn’t fully redeem much about them for me. It seems a novel about family mistakes, forgiveness, and the bonds of a sister and brother. I commiserated with them and wish their lives in the Dutch House, a mansion worthy of their strong childhood bonds, had never changed. 

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these, and if so, what did you think? Wishing you all very happy holidays!

Greetings. I want to wish everyone in the U.S. a very Happy Thanksgiving holiday ahead. It’s hard to believe it’s already upon us. Last week I was away visiting my parents in Southern California (see the photos attached) so I’ve  been off the blog for awhile and since then a lot in book news has happened. Particularly you probably heard that author Susan Choi won the National Book Award for fiction for her novel “Trust Exercise,” which I read back in April and found ambitious and a bit challenging.

Now I’m curious about Sarah M. Broom’s memoir “The Yellow House,” which won the National Book Award for nonfiction. It’s said to be about her New Orleans home and how her family scattered after Hurricane Katrina. It sounds good and I’m looking to get my hands on it. Also I was a bit surprised to see that Ian Williams beat out various authors including Michael Crummey to win Canada’s Giller Prize for his debut novel “Reproduction.” Set over three decades, it’s about a family living in an economically mixed and diverse Toronto neighborhood. I don’t know much more about it than that, but I plan to check it out in the future. 

Meanwhile a few publications I follow have already put out their 10 Best Books of 2019 lists, which are pretty interesting. Here they are below: 

The New York Times
The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
Amazon Books

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of overlap among their fiction picks, but two of these publications share the pick of “The Topeka School,” two others share “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” and two share “The Nickel Boys,” so there you have it. Did you get to any of these? I was impressed with “The Nickel Boys,” which I read in August, but I likely won’t put my list of favorite books of 2019 out until early January. There’s still plenty of reading left to do. Meanwhile I’ll leave you with a few reviews of what I finished lately. 

I liked the setting of Leigh Bardugo’s first adult novel “Ninth House,” which has to do with Yale’s secret societies and their hidden rituals and elite members in the city of New Haven. And the protagonist, too, Alex Stern is quite cool. She’s gone from a druggy teenage past that left her the sole survivor at a multiple homicide scene in L.A. to being offered a full ride at Yale U from a benefactor who knows of her ability to see ghosts and wants her to monitor the activities of Yale’s secret societies. So when a town girl involved with the societies is killed, Alex becomes determined to find her killer, even if it means dodging attempts on her life and making bargains with spirits. 

So far, so good. I was able to hang with it — even though I’m not typically a reader of fantasy novels. As with many such books, there’s a lot of setup and explanation to get the plot to where it’s going and fill you in on what the heck is going on amid its societies and rituals. It can be a bit involved — all the explanation and setup — but the beginning also kept me interested. I  liked Stern’s secret society mentor Darlington who seems to be a neat character but he mysteriously disappears … which is a bit too bad for the story. Towards the end, all becomes sort of crazy and I had to roll my eyes a few times throughout. Certainly, “Ninth House,” which is the first in a series, will keep you on your toes with its various twists and secret magic to get to the bottom of its murder mystery — check it out if you’re up for a gritty, lively fantasy. (There is some violence & a bit of strong language involved.)

“My Twenty-Five Years in Provence: Reflections on Then and Now” is a charming slim travelogue-kind-of book — the final volume by Englishman Peter Mayle who died in Jan. 2018 — of his recollections and anecdotes about his life in Provence, France, where he moved to upon retirement in the late 1980s. In it, he writes about how he came to live there (so much more sun!); the wines and food; the seasons, weather and tourists; how he learned the language; what the locals are like; how fast they drive; buying real estate there; the melons and asparagus; dogs; his time on the set with director Ridley Scott while making his book “A Good Year” into a film; and his receiving France’s Legion of Honor. 

I found Mayle to be a pretty endearing guide throughout and listening to it as an audiobook read by John Lee was enjoyable. It reminded me of the time I briefly spent in Provence on my honeymoon visiting the area (hooray). I don’t think I ever read Mayle’s 1989 bestseller “A Year in Provence” (my husband did), but I’d like to someday in the future. Apparently Mayle never liked the TV series that was based on his book — he thought the actor who played him always seemed to be in a bad mood whereas he said he was delighted by his new life in France.

It is quite sad Peter Mayle has now passed away. My only qualm with his last book was that it seemed a bit redundant in places, such as about the seasons and weather, and it skips around quite a bit, but certainly it is a celebration of the Luberon area of France, which made me want to jump on a plane and just go. 

I can now check John Knowles’s 1959 classic “A Separate Peace” off my list. I know it has often been required reading for students in junior high or high school, but somehow I missed it and was always curious. It’s set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II and is said to be a “parable of the dark side of adolescence.” The two prep school boys Gene (the studious one) and Phineas (the athlete) become close friends, though Gene feels jealous and competitive with Finny, which in time leads to a misfortunate accident, or is it? 

The atmosphere of the New Hampshire prep school during the summer of 1942 with the war going on interested me. It wasn’t the heroic tale you often hear about of the Greatest Generation with boys going off to fight valiantly in WWII, but it is more grim and felt like impending doom. Themes of male bonding and coming of age permeate the story, and the accident with Finny leaves Gene, who narrates it, with feelings of guilt and sorrow. It’s hard to totally like Gene because of his early behavior, but it seems he comes around and learns a painful lesson in the end.

That’s all for now.  What about you — have you read any of these books, and if so, what did you think? 

Greetings. I hope everyone is enjoying their fall … or early winter as some might have it. We received several inches of snow on Tuesday, which made walking our Labrador (my trusty book assistant) very pretty and serene on Wednesday. We had the trails by the river all to ourselves and the sun was out and the snow bright and fluffy. Little ice crystals latched onto the tree limbs and fell from the air at times in the nippy 15F degree weather.

It’s often that winter days have the prettiest walks, but you just have to dress right for them. I usually walk Stella an hour each morning, year-around — no temperature is too cold for her — and I try my best to accommodate, which is pretty good for a California-raised girl based in Canada. And now I’ll leave you with reviews of several books I recently completed. 

The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir by Samantha Power (2019) / via hardback print copy, 552 pages

I’m a bit of a sucker for books by staffers from the former Obama administration and Samantha Power’s new memoir was almost as good for me as Michelle Obama’s book earlier in the year. Power as you might recall was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations during President Obama’s second term and also won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for her nonfiction book: “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.” Other than that, I knew practically nothing about her before reading this memoir. 

Background: The book picks up with the author’s youth in Ireland and how her parents divorced and her mother (a medical doctor) moved with Samantha and her brother to the United States when she was 9, first to Pittsburgh a few years then to Atlanta. Her parent’s divorce and her father’s subsequent decline hit Samantha hard, but she excelled at sports and school and eventually got into Yale, where she became interested in journalism and foreign affairs.

She was so taken with both that she moved to Bosnia during the war there and became a freelance reporter for various publications, while becoming hooked with wanting to do more for human rights. She went on to get a law degree at Harvard and the rest is sort of history. She wrote her book about the Rwandan genocide and later met Obama in 2005 and started working for him while he was in the Senate, then during his presidential campaign, and on his National Security Council, and finally at the U.N. 

My Thoughts: What made this an interesting read was the behind-the-scenes views of her personal and work lives … about how this Irish immigrant girl from a broken family rose to become such a voice and activist on human rights and the U.S.’s top U.N. Ambassador as well as one of Obama’s key advisors. She seems to be quite candid about her fears, struggles, and thoughts along the way — and I felt it wasn’t just PR fluff about her life and work in the administration but that she reveals much more, which made it enticing.

The memoir’s first half (of her early days & personal life of her family, school, ambitions, friends, and meeting her husband etc.) seemed to read quickly, and the last half delves into chapters of crises she faced in her government roles (such as on Libya, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Ebola) that weighed it down a bit more, but was quite informational. I felt a kinship with her on policy and ideology so that made it appealing.

All in all, I found the author to be thoughtful, humane, modest, candid, and caring throughout the book. Though it was long, I made it through and found it quite a worthy read. In it, she makes a strong case that an individual can make a difference … in the face of overwhelming odds and obstacles. It’s quite evident in reading her book: just how hard and many hours a day she worked on behalf of humanity and democracy — and for that, I wish Samantha Power was still at the U.N. 

The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall (2019) / via audiobook read by Kathy Keane

This is a bit of a heartwarming story about two married couples (Charles & Lily, and James & Nan) whose men come to co-pastor at the same church in NYC starting in 1963 for a couple decades. Their wives differ, Nan is religious and from a wealthy family, while Lily is orphaned at a young age and is not religious. The story grapples over the two couples faith, as well as the afflictions that are not trivial that hit their families over the years. (I will refrain from telling you what they are.) 

It starts a bit slow in Part 1 then moves a bit better in Parts 2 and 3 as things in their families come to pass. Quite a bit of the story had a 1950s and early ’60s feel to me and I wondered at times if in general it was a bit too wholesome and a tad saccharine. Still listening to it as an audiobook — the narration of their lives felt quite soothing. I can’t even explain it. These people did seem real to me and I felt like I came to know them — so I was a bit sad by the end to see them go. 

The story does switch between the four main characters at times quickly (a small criticism), and there is quite a bit about faith and God in it, but you don’t really have to be religious to partake or like the novel. There are some thoughtful passages just about human existence and struggle and despair in it. Ultimately it’s about family, friends, and communities and how people come together and help each other out in their daily lives over many decades, so I liked its overall theme.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959) / via e-book 

I was looking for a spooky story to read right before Halloween …. and this slim novel fit the bill quite well. When paranormal scholar Dr. Montague invites some guest researchers to stay at the presumed haunted mansion Hill House — he doesn’t know who he will get … but a shy, lonely girl named Eleanore Vance, who’s done nothing but care for her disabled mother for many years, and Theodora, a bohemian girl, answer his call … along with Luke, who one day hopes to inherit the mansion from his family. Eleanore is the main character and you root for her despite her being sort of out of it from being a recluse most of her life. 

All is quiet for awhile until a few nights in when disturbances inside Hill House start to take place and the four are frightened to their core. It’s a short novel that has plenty of atmosphere and eeriness and I didn’t exactly know what would happen — it kept me off-balance — though I knew wherever it was going likely wouldn’t be good. Hill House had me in its clutches, fearing its many nooks and corridors, and I probably won’t forget poor Eleanore Vance anytime soon. Ps. I have not seen the Netflix TV series that is loosely based on this novel, have you?

The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O’Neill (2017) / via audiobook read by Julia Whelan

This is the second novel I’ve read by Canadian author Heather O’Neill and one that Judy over at Keeping the Wisdom wrote about quite favorably just last month, so I had to investigate. It was also named one of the best novels of 2017 by Kirkus Reviews among a few other places.

It turns out the novel is an epic and lengthy love story about two talented orphans (Rose & Pierrot) who share their 1920s youths in Montreal together and become musical performers, then get separated for many years during the Great Depression … and what happens to their lives after they reconnect.

It’s a pretty gritty, grim tale as Rose and Pierrot’s impoverished orphan lives make them vulnerable to the bleak underworld of 1930s Montreal. Along the way, they endure a slew of harsh things to survive such as abuse, prostitution, addiction, and crime. The story is sexually explicit in places so readers should be forewarned. Yet the characters have a dignity and soul about them that makes you keep on following attentively. There is also some lively storytelling along the way about their love for one another and living on extreme edges …. I’ll call it a tale of Dr. Zhivago for destitute orphans who become mixed up in underworld life. 

I ended up liking Pierrot but Rose becomes pretty hardened and transformed by her circumstances. You root for them …. but sometimes you can never fully leave what shapes your life behind. It’s tragic and sad in that way.

That’s all for now. What about you have you read any of these books or authors?  And if so, what did you think? 

Oh October has been busy and flown by. Luckily as a remedy to all the jarring political news going on these days … I’ve been attending our city’s annual book festival over the past week called The Imaginarium (put on by Wordfest), and I’ve enjoyed seeing and hearing from so many authors. It turns out in seven days, I’ve been to 10 separate author panel events (some at our Central Library pictured here) and listened to 25 authors. Some panels have been about fiction and dystopia, others about memoir, and still others about history, essays and criticism. Sitting in on these has been quite inspiring and creative to hear, and I guess I feel that supporting the annual festival is important.

Perhaps one of the more lively panels I went to was one called Not So Quiet Resistance, which featured books not uncommon to the #MeToo era. Such authors on hand were Mona Awad with her novel “Bunny,”  Leni Zumas with “Red Clocks,” Joanne Ramos with “The Farm,” and E. Jean Carroll with her memoir “What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal.” They all appeared quite sharp and read interesting passages from their books, which I still hope to get to. Two of the novels — “The Farm” and “Red Clocks” — are reproductive/surrogacy, dystopian-type novels made all the more chilling for their not too far-off realness. And Mona Awad’s novel “Bunny” definitely sounds strange — a grad school novel about a clique of rich girls, known as the Bunnies, who lure in an outsider named Samantha with deadly consequences. It seems both sinister and darkly funny. The author says she reeled off the novel’s first draft in three months time (so you can write one too!). I guess I’ve read a couple bloggers say they didn’t make it through “Bunny” … but I like that it’s depicted as “Mean Girls” meets “Heathers” — or something like that, which seems like a decadently crazy combination.  

As for author E. Jean Carroll, a longtime advice columnist at Elle, she was also featured at an event with Emily Nussbaum, the Pulitzer Prize-winning TV critic at the New Yorker. I didn’t know much about Nussbaum or Carroll beforehand — though Carroll’s rape accusation against Donald Trump is certainly one I had heard. She’s a hoot in public and quite a feminist cheerleader for the #MeToo movement. The interview and discussion with E. Jean Carroll and Emily Nussbaum (pictured here) on everything from their books, to TV shows, and current life made for quite the entertaining evening … funny, raucous, and thought-provoking too.

Next at the festival, I was also pleased to sit in on a workshop with grammar guru Mary Norris, who was a copy editor and proofreader at the New Yorker for several decades. As a former copy editor myself, I sort of liken Norris to a hero and enjoyed her first memoir called “Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen,” which came out in 2016 and was a funny ode to the correct way of punctuating and writing. She has a new one out now called “Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen” about her passion of all things Greek. What was cool in the workshop was that she had printed out worksheets for our gathering to go over of published news articles that had errors in them that we had to find and correct. Ohh it was good fun and took me back to the days of yore. It’s always good to refresh one’s understandings of grammar rules and usage … especially when I often find mistakes creeping into my own writing. Who doesn’t?

Lastly it was great to hear from a combination of big well-known authors — such as Emma Donoghue, known for her book “Room” among others, Michael Crummey for “Sweetland” among others, and Stephen Chbosky, who wrote “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” — with lesser-known or debut authors. I must say those big three were very well spoken. I really liked “Sweetland,” so Crummey, who I’ve heard interviewed in person before, is always a treat. He’s got a new one out — “The Innocents” — which I plan to get to soon. And Stephen Chbosky, pictured with me here, couldn’t have been nicer at his event. His new novel “Imaginary Friend” seems very long but worth checking out. Stephen’s been in the film industry as a screenwriter and producer for a long time — he recently adapted the screenplay for the movie “Wonder” and said he wrote his new novel over a period of 10 years. You might recall he also wrote and adapted his bestselling first novel “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” to the big screen, which was excellent in both forms. 

That’s all for now. Though I didn’t even talk about Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo both winning the Booker Prize recently, or Polish author Olga Tokarczuk and Austrian author Peter Handke winning Nobel Prizes for Literature for their works. Have you read them? Atwood’s books are familiar to me, but I’d like to explore the others’ books too, so I’ll toss them onto my ever-growing TBR heap. In signing off, I’d like to just list the authors with their latest books who I saw at various events at the book festival. Many are Canadian with a sprinkling of other nationalities. Have you read or met them? And if so, what did you think? 

Anar Ali (Canadian) / “Night of Power” (novel)
E. Jean Carroll (American) / “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal” / (memoir)
Lynn Coady (Canadian) /“Watching You Without Me” (novel)
Michael Crummey (Canadian) /“The Innocents” (novel)
Emma Donoghue (Irish-Canadian)/ “Akin” (novel)
Dave Hill (American) / “Parking the Moose” (nonfiction, humor)
Nazanine Hozar (Iranian-Canadian)/“Aria” (novel)
Anosh Irani  (Indo-Canadian) /“Translated from the Gibberish: Seven Stories & One Half Truth”
Amy Jones (Canadian) / “Every Little Piece of Me” / (novel)
Naomi K. Lewis (Canadian) / “Tiny Lights for Travellers” / (memoir)
Ami McKay (Canadian) / “Daughter of Family G” / (memoir)
Susin Nielsen (Canadian) / “No Fixed Address” / YA & children’s author
Mary Norris (American) / “Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen”  (memoir/nonfiction)
Emily Nussbaum (American) / “I Like to Watch : Arguing My Way Through the Television Revolution” / (nonfiction, criticism) 
Sara Peters (Canadian) / “I Become a Delight to My Enemies”  
Ruby Porter (New Zealand author) / “Attraction” (novel) 
Anakana Schofield (Irish-Canadian) / “Bina” / (novel) 
Tom Lanoye (Belgian) / “Slaves to Fortune” / “Speechless” (novels)
Joanne Ramos (Filipino-American)/ “The Farm” (novel) 
Mona Awad (Canadian) / “Bunny” (novel) 
Jesse Thistle (Métis-Cree, Canadian) / “From the Ashes” / (memoir) 
Ayelet Tsabari (Israeli-Canadian) /“The Art of Leaving” / (memoir) 
Leni Zumas (American) / “Red Clocks” (novel) 
Linden MacIntyre (Canadian) / “The Wake: The Deadly Legacy of a New Foundland Tsunami” / (memoir) 
Stephen Chbosky (American ) / “Imaginary Friend” (novel) 

Greetings, I hope everyone is enjoying the fall colors these days.  So far we’ve had two snowstorms here, and still the leaves seem to be in fine form and haven’t come down fully yet. It’s pretty out now … just in time for Canadian Thanksgiving on Monday, which is a holiday that always surprises me when it comes so early, but who doesn’t want a three-day weekend?

Meanwhile I’m trying to heal from eye surgery and I’ve been told not to do much for an entire week … including not reading or perusing much “screen time” or playing tennis or showering instead of bathing, or going to the gym or bicycling etc. Though yesterday I had the ingenious idea of using a swim mask in the shower so I could wash my hair. This worked, even though it scared my dog a bit. Still you got to do, what you got to do. Admittedly I’ve been cheating a bit on the reading and “screen time” though I’m trying to listen to more audiobooks. For now, I’ll leave you with some reviews of what I finished lately. 

Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner / via audiobook read by Allyson Ryan 

Synopsis:  This debut novel follows the travails of 41-year-old, 5-foot-5 New York physician Toby Fleishman, who appears to be reveling in his new found dating freedom after splitting from his career-driven wife Rachel of 14 years for often being angry and paying little attention to their preteen kids. “But then, just as Toby is juggling his new girlfriends, dying patients, and unhappy children, Rachel disappears, leaving Toby to cope with logistics more complicated than he anticipated.” — Publishers Weekly 

My Thoughts:  Ha, I found this novel in the nick of time. Who knew it’d give me more faith in what’s been out this year. Going into it, I knew nothing about “Fleishman” though I heard the title batted around some. The novel, which is broken into three parts, is particularly funny and irreverent in Part 1, which details Toby’s new lease on freedom after his divorce from his wife. He can’t believe his luck and his dating apps that women are really into him at this stage in life, but lo’ and behold they are: who would’ve guessed Toby Fleishman!  (Beware dear reader: the novel is pretty explicit with the sexual musings of horny Toby, which usually would be totally yikes, but Part 1 is pretty spoof-filled so it’s pretty easy laughing off ole Toby Fleishman.) He becomes more filled in and better as the story goes along so give it more of a chance, if you’re annoyed at first. It becomes more than what you might initially think.  

In Part 2, the novel goes back in time to Toby and his wife Rachel’s first days, and those of their marriage, their kids, and what went wrong; while Part 3 gives more of Rachel’s side of things — as well as Libby’s — who is a college friend of Toby’s who tells most of the story. These parts become more serious in tone, and explore details of marriage, career ambition, and what women face … that have insightful introspective touches to them. 

It’s a novel that reminded me a little bit of a funny version of Lauren Groff’s “Fates and Furies” or a funny, Jewish version of “Fates and Furies.” It’s different than that, but explores similar themes. And I probably liked it better. For whatever reason, I was picturing Toby throughout the book as Philip Seymour Hoffman, who seemed to perfectly fit my image of Toby, but sadly he won’t be able to play him if there’s ever a film version. I warmed to Toby’s character, though not much to his wife Rachel’s, despite her rough familial beginnings.  

Still I was quite impressed with Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s debut. Apparently she wrote the book in six months time, all the while being a journalist and contributor to GQ magazine and The New York Times, where’s she’s now a staff writer. You can tell from “Fleishman,” she’s a fan of the works of Philip Roth, John Updike, and Saul Bellow – if you know or like those. I hope to read more from her in the future. She definitely had me laughing during the novel’s first half, and pondering during its second half. 

Inland by Tea Obreht / via e-book on a plane  

Synopsis:  The novel features two alternating storylines that converge a bit at the very end — the first is of a frontierswoman named Nora and her family living in Arizona Territory in 1893 and the other is of a former outlaw named Lurie, who becomes part of the U.S. Army’s Camel Corps on a trek through Texas and the American West.

My Thoughts: I was quite taken by Tea Obreht’s first novel “The Tiger’s Wife” in 2011, so I really wanted to like this one as well, but I didn’t fully warm up to the story until the second half when it finally started to move for me. The protagonist of Nora is a pretty tough lady, who’s waiting for her husband to return from a far-off errand of acquiring water for the household. She’s trying to manage the bone-dry property and family of boys, while still holding conversations with the one young daughter she lost years ago. Meanwhile Lurie, the former outlaw, who is being chased by a sheriff, joins up with an Army regiment of Camel Corps in Texas, which apparently once truly existed in the West as a means to transport gear over the dry, rough terrain. Lurie becomes attached to his camel Burke, and the two share in a variety of adventures on a trek though the West, culminating eventually in crossing paths with Nora.  

The idea of the Camel Corps and the frontierswoman in Arizona Territory sparked my imagination, and there are some keen descriptions in the story of the landscape and characters that captured me, but you also have to wade through quite a bit. It’s not exactly a page-turner, but I did want to see how it would end. So while “Inland” was quite a bit more work than I thought it would be, there are some rewards if you see it through to the end. Though perhaps I was expecting a bit more from the story … or I found it a bit slow in parts. Admittedly I don’t read a lot of western novels, but if you liked Paulette Jiles’s 2016 novel “News of the World,” which I did, than you might try this one as well. 

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes / via audiobook read by Julia Whelan 

Synopsis:  A widow (Evvie) in a seaside town in Maine ends up renting part of her house to a former Yankee pitcher (Dean) who’s recently retired after losing his game … and the two try to start over after life throws them some surprises. 

My Thoughts: This was a light, entertaining romantic-comedy-type of novel. I listened to it as an audiobook and picked it up because I liked the idea of a professional baseball pitcher moving in next door. Why doesn’t that happen to me?  I also like sports novels in general, but I don’t think this was exactly that. 

Some of the humor early on in the story was enjoyable, though as it went on I sort of wondered … how believable the story and characters were — would they really appeal to one another? I also felt it was more chick lit / romance than I typically read. Still I liked Dean, but I wasn’t sure about Evvie. I wanted Dean to get over his “yips” about pitching and get back to the MLB pronto, but you have to stay tuned to see what happens. For light summer fare, “Evvie Drake” was enjoyable enough to see it through, but I think I wanted to like it more. I gave it 3 stars on Goodreads, though others seemed to mark it higher. 

Southern Lady Code: Essays by Helen Ellis / via audiobook read by the author 

Synopsis:  A short collection of essays from a sassy Southern girl raised in Alabama and based in New York City. 

My Thoughts:  I actually listened to this book twice since it’s short, light, and funny in various places. (I deserve this after reading the long “Goldfinch” and dry “Inland” recently.) I would recommend it if you need a laugh, or a pick-me upper. Some of the chapters are better than others (some perhaps are too over-the-top) but overall I enjoyed this Southern author’s particular craziness on her takes on such things as manners, clothes, cooking, thank-you notes, going on flights, having, mammograms, and battling Twitter spam/pornography, etc. 

A couple of my favorite chapters were “Straighten Up and Fly Right” and  “An Emily Post for the Apocalypse” though there are others like “Dumb Boobs,” “Tonight Were Gonna Party Like It’s 1979” and  “Young Ladies, Listen to Me” that were pretty priceless too. This collection is not exactly rocket science, but it’s just good fun. I haven’t read Helen Ellis before, but I’m glad I didn’t pass this one by. It’s a good palette cleanser — and one I need to give to my sister for the laughs and for the hell of it. 

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read any of these books and if so, what did you think?