The Cue Card

Jennifer Haigh’s 2011 novel “Faith” turned out to be a good pick for our book club this month as it concerns various issues that made for an interesting discussion: notably those having to do with religion, morality, loyalty, family and the secrecy and silence that often dwell within. It’s about an Irish-American family and what happens when a sibling is accused of a horrendous crime.

The story’s narrator, Sheila McGann, is trying to get to the truth surrounding accusations against her brother (Art), a Catholic priest, who’s been charged with molesting a child. In doing so, she uncovers the history of her family and the roles it played in her brother’s ultimate undoing.

The story takes place outside Boston in 2002 at the height of the priest-pedophile scandals that were rocking the country then. It’s not a topic I ever thought I’d seek to read a novel about, but it’s not a story so wrapped up in Catholicism or the priesthood that those with different or more secular views wouldn’t enjoy it. It happens to be about an Irish-Catholic family but also could be true for so many other kinds of families who keep quiet about unseemly or unredeemable things among themselves.

The story flows along speedily and is suspenseful. You wonder what the sister will find out about her brother, Art, and whether he is guilty, and if not, why someone would make such an accusation. Sheila, the narrator, seems convinced Art’s not guilty and sets out to redeem him until she finds out something about his past that casts some doubt in her mind. Her other brother, Mike, thinks Art is guilty and needs evidence to prove otherwise. He can’t take Art’s innocence on “faith” but goes to dubious lengths to get to the truth. The parents, too, are an interesting mix (the mother a diehard Catholic, the stepfather a non-believer) that lend complexity to the plot — not to mention Art’s accuser who seems to have a lot of issues herself.

I hadn’t read author Jennifer Haigh before, but found her a compelling and natural storyteller. It surprised me taking to such a book about the priesthood scandal. But it’s a story with characters who aren’t just black and white, or good and bad, but are morally more nuanced facing a very difficult situation. The narrator is self-effacing, and it’s interesting how she comes to grips with uncovering what she finds out. I think the narrator’s voice makes it quite a worthwhile journey into discovery.

I’d read Haigh again and have heard her latest book, a short-story collection called “News From Heaven,” is good as well. Let me know if you have read “Faith” and what you thought of it, or other books from this author.

The novel “Serena” received such critical acclaim when it came out in 2008 that I had always wanted to read it. Authors such as Lee Smith called it a “flat-out masterpiece – mythic, terrifying and beautiful.” Anna Quindlen said that it’s “a new classic in the category of love gone terribly wrong.” And Pat Conroy wrote that “Serena” catapults Ron Rash “to the front ranks of the best American novelists.”

Those are some pretty strong statements, which caught my attention, including the fact that it’s being made into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper among others. (The movie’s U.S. release date remains to be determined apparently, but if you’re overseas in Russia it looks to be coming out in time for Halloween — or so says IMDB.com.)

So I finally pounced on the novel “Serena,” but it’s not really meant as a fast read. I had to absorb its Appalachian story and atmosphere slowly like fine wine. It’s set in 1929 at the dawn of the Great Depression, about newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton who are determined to make a timber empire in the North Carolina mountains and wilderness. Their greed and lust for power will lead them to stop at nothing to get their way, including killing or vanquishing all those who fall out of their favor, and standing in the way of governmental plans for a national park. Together they make a formidable duo, inseparable in word and deed, resolute in their intense marriage and plans for an empire.

But the pair starts to unravel when Serena learns she will never be able to bear a child and begins to suspect that George is trying to protect an illegitimate child he fathered before he met her. The ending is a reckoning that’s both hard to believe and not hard to believe — with such nefarious characters. Still, you can’t turn away.

Ron Rash’s writing is exquisitely vivid and visual in its depiction of the mountainous landscape, the timber camp, and the characters that inhabit it. Serena is an anti-hero you wouldn’t want to cross paths with. It’s amazing that Jennifer Lawrence will go from playing Katniss in “The Hunger Games” to the cruelness of Serena in this. But both become very powerful.

I can see why the novel garnered such acclaim. Rash’s writing reminded me a bit of Charles Frazier’s — (“Cold Mountain”) because of its Appalachian landscape — mixed perhaps with a dose of Cormac McCarthy’s because of its darkness and impending violence. I would read Rash again, perhaps I will pick up his more recent novel “The Cove.” He’s definitely an immense talent, an expert on all things Appalachia, who I’ll plan to keep tabs on in the future.

Whenever the movie “Serena” comes out, you’ll need to check the wooded landscape, because according to IMDB a portion of it was filmed in the Czech Republic; so much for Appalachia! Also look for its stars, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, to team up once again (for their third time), in “American Hustle” due out around Christmas.

“The Girl With No Name” is a nonfiction book I saw on display at a local bookstore that I ended up buying and reading. The subtitle caught my eye: “The True Story of a Girl Who Lived With Monkeys” – Come on, I couldn’t walk away from that! I hadn’t heard about it before, but I was curious whether the book, which came out this past spring, was some kind of modern-day Tarzan story, albeit a true one.

It tells the account of a little girl, almost five, who’s abducted from her family’s home in Colombia in the 1950’s and abandoned in the jungle. She learns to survive by copying and living with a troop of monkeys, gradually becoming feral and losing her humanness over the five years she spends with them.

Eventually she’s discovered by two hunters who take her to the Colombian city of Cucuta and sell her to a brothel, where she’s beaten constantly and being groomed for prostitution. She manages to escape but winds up living on the streets for a few years till a crime family enslaves her to work in their house. Finally she gets away from them thanks to a neighbor she befriends who puts her on a path to start her life all over again at age 14.

It’s quite an incredible, harrowing childhood account and reads quite well thanks to the author’s daughter who apparently put her mother’s memories together over several years to make this book, along with the help from British ghostwriter Lynne Barrett-Lee.

I did have trouble believing the author survived alone in the jungle living with monkeys at the age of four. Seemingly there’s no way to verify it. But I read on and got caught up in her many escapes and misfortunate story nonetheless. By the end, the years she recounts in the jungle seem the least of her worries as a kid — as she went to hell and back many times over living among various humans. (No wonder she appreciates the monkeys so much!)

I’m not sure if it totally matters to me if the monkey part is totally true or not; even if the story is peripherally true it seems quite something. The book reads sincere and from what I’ve heard from interviews from the author (Marina Chapman) and her daughter (Vanessa) – the scary things that happened to her in childhood seem quite believable – it’s a glimpse of poverty and hell in South America. Marina Chapman appears real to me and one who’s overcome a lot. She and her daughter don’t seem in it for fame or money, they are donating the profits to charity. The daughter says she wrote the book to find out more about their long-lost relatives, her grandparents.

I credit Marina Chapman for her strength and perseverance to make a life for herself and her daughter for making this pretty unforgettable story of redemption known.

Wow this is a dynamite novel. So well done, so heartfelt, the characters so believable I thought they were real. It was sad to leave them behind at the end. So far I think “Me Before You” is my favorite read of 2013; does that make me a lightweight? I hope not. After all, British author Jojo Moyes is definitely more than a romance writer by now if ever she was categorized as only that.

This was my first Moyes read so I’m definitely behind the curve as I know she’s popular for quite a few other novels. I had heard such great things about her and this book that I had to snap it up. It was a pick for my book club, too, and I was glad it didn’t disappoint.

Most know by now, “Me Before You” is about a 35-year-old former male business executive in England who suffers an accident and becomes confined to a wheelchair as a quadriplegic. Twenty-seven year-old Louisa Clark becomes his caretaker though she has no experience working with disabled people. She’s not wealthy like he is, and they are at odds at the beginning, he is very embittered and she’s quite new to the situation. But after months they finally start to warm to each other and begin to broaden each other’s horizons. About then Louisa secretly finds out Will’s set a six-month deadline to go through with an assisted suicide. So she begins to plan adventures to take him on that hopefully will change his mind. Both meanwhile find themselves falling for the other. Will he go through with the suicide or won’t he? That is the question.

The issues behind the book seem quite topical and well researched by Moyes. You really feel a perspective of what disabled people go through and what they face on a daily basis. Despite the grim subject matter, the novel is quite uplifting and didn’t seem overly sentimental; the character of Louisa is upbeat and endearing, funny at times, and the families of Will and Louisa play interesting supporting roles. Moreover, the love story of these two from different worlds sweeps one away. I felt for both of them, and thought the ending worked okay though others might disagree.

If you read this one, let me know what you think. And if you didnt, check it out!

I’m usually game for science/suspense novels especially having to do with Arctic exploration, paleontology/anthropology or those of another era, including people or creatures stuck in the ice (or even sap for those “Jurassic Park” readers). Yeah let me at those books!

Stephen Kiernan’s debut “The Curiosity,” published last month, came right at a good time for such a summer read. It’s not giving anything away to say it’s about a man swept overboard into the Arctic Ocean in 1906, who’s found frozen deep in the ice by a group of modern-day scientists and is brought back to life to today’s world.

The ramifications of this are huge and the novel interestingly delves into all sorts of issues: how the frozen man views today’s technological advances in contrast to the world he left behind; what his reanimation means for the field of cryonics; and the moral, ethical and religious questions it raises about humanity and bringing back a dead person to life.

The story unfolds through four rotating narrators; there’s the frozen man himself (Jeremiah) who comes back to life and slowly regains his memory of his former life as a judge, husband and father; and Dr. Kate Philo, who’s scientific team made the discovery and comes to know and love her subject albeit a bit too personally; and her boss the egotistical Erastus Carthage who’s after power, glory and money from the discovery; and lastly, Daniel Dixon the slimy journalist who ends up playing a heavy hand in the novel’s crash-down ending.

All in all, I enjoyed the novel, and thought it a good summer yarn, one that raises some interesting dilemmas, and in places was a good page-turner. The author has a good ear for writing dialog and conjuring the transformative story. Just a few problems popped up for me: the middle of the novel seemed to lose steam and lag a bit and I thought it could’ve been edited shorter than its 432 pages. It seems to get a bit redundant in the middle, and two of the narrators (Carthage and Dixon) I looked forward to much less than the two main narrators, Jeremiah and Dr. Philo. Perhaps in this respect their characters were a bit too black-and-white, between being bad guys than good guys.

I also had a few credibility issues here and there with the narrative (beyond the premise), but I guess I could possibly believe the love story theme towards the end between scientist and subject.

After all, remember Timothy Hutton in “Iceman” in 1984? It was similar in concept. Hutton plays an anthropologist whose team finds a body of a prehistoric man in ice who comes to life. And Hutton finds himself defending the man against those who want to dissect his life in the name of science. There’s a love there for another persecuted human being, am I right? And always in these tales, the scientist will go down fighting. Meanwhile the modern-day world, which ruins everything, is viewed as awful.

Interestingly author Stephen Kiernan says the idea for “The Curiosity” came from the James Taylor song “Frozen Man,” which he heard in 1992. I guess I’m not too familiar with that song, but I have to give Kiernan credit for letting his novel thaw over these many years. “The Curiosity” got me interested in the ice again, earlier eras and the primordial goo that makes up life and ties all that lives together. Way to go, an enticing debut!

PS. I like the book cover of the Canadian edition (pictured above) much better than the U.S. edition (at left), which seems with the clothes spread out almost clown-like and perhaps confusing. The Canadian edition is more fetching and dignified of the frozen man. What do you think? And are you curious to read “The Curiosity”?