The Cue Card

Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel “The Burgess Boys” follows up her 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winner “Olive Kitteridge,” which I liked quite a bit along with her novel “Amy and Isabelle” from 1998. So I jumped to read this one about two middle-age brothers, Bob and Jim, both lawyers in NYC, and their sister, Susan, who still lives in their hometown of Shirley Falls, Maine. “The Burgess” family reunites in Maine after Susan’s teenage son, Zach, pulls a senseless prank at a mosque that eventually leads to a hate-crime charge. Jim, who’s a hotshot corporate attorney,works to get the charge on his nephew dropped, while Bob, the hapless brother who’s always idolized Jim, goes to lend support to their sister Susan, who desperately needs their help.

“The Burgess Boys” is a bit of a departure for Strout, whose past books have mainly been about women and children, not brothers. This one seems a bit more accessible than quirky “Olive Kitteridge,” and is propelled by the topical issue of immigration and the prejudices surrounding the era after 9/11. But like her other books, “The Burgess Boys” focuses mainly on family relationships, which Strout writes so adeptly about, and involves New York and Maine, which might make you think Olive Kitteridge is going to pop out of the story briefly, but alas she doesn’t.

Strout writes masterfully about the Burgess siblings and I got drawn in to the Jim-Bob-Susan dynamic of the story along with their spouses and exes. There’s a hierarchy, disfunctionality and grievances towards one another that feels very real, all shaped by the guilt of their father’s accidental death when they were young. Towards the end of the book, a secret about this is revealed that blows the story into another gear.

“The Burgess Boys” is a book that’s both subtle yet charged. I’m sure I especially won’t forget about Bob or Jim for a while. They conjure a complexity about brothers that seems to hit a nail on the head. With “The Burgess Boys,” I felt for a time like I had stepped into a siblings’ world and how they had grown up in Maine with the weight of their childhood on their shoulders. Perhaps because of this they seem to hang on to each other despite their troubled relations, and the book is more touching than a downer.

It might be a departure from “Olive,” but “The Burgess Boys” is a solid follow-up.

Every once in a while I’ll read a book of nonfiction. I enjoy fiction more, but when done well, nonfiction can be good, too. My husband gave me “Seaworthy: A Swordfish Captain Returns to the Sea” for Christmas I think because he wants to keep me interested in being on a boat at sea. We stayed aboard a sailboat for a week last summer, sailing around Lake Ontario, which was pretty much tantamount to heaven for him, though I’m not sure I ever really got to be captain of the boat like Linda Greenlaw.

You may remember Linda Greenlaw from Sebastian Junger’s 1997 book “The Perfect Storm” about the swordfishing crew aboard the Andrea Gail who were lost at sea during a huge storm in 1991. Greenlaw was also featured in the 2000 movie version played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio; Greenlaw was captaining the sister ship the Hannah Boden at the time and was friends with the captain of the Andrea Gail and in radio contact before it went down. She told about that experience in her 1999 book “The Hungry Ocean.” She’s noted as being America’s only female swordfish boat captain and has written three books about being a commercial fisher.

But this was my first of hers. I had read Junger’s “Perfect Storm” and somehow never got around to reading Greenlaw’s “Hungry Ocean” (though I still want to). “Seaworthy” picks up her story 10 years later after she’s been asked to captain a boat for a season of swordfishing once again. She’s been out of swordfishing since then, while lobstering, and now at 47 years old was worried she’d be rusty, but couldn’t help but jump at the chance.

“Seaworthy” tells of her time captaining the sixty-three-foot boat the Seahawk on a quest for swordfish with a crew of four guys along the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. It’s quite a tale. Who knew Greenlaw would incur such terrible happenstances upon her return to commercial deepwater fishing? It seems almost as if everything that could go wrong, sort of does. The equipment doesn’t work, the shoddy boat breaks down, they drift into Canadian waters while fishing and Greenlaw is arrested, they lack gear and electronics, and the boat’s overseer makes a wrongful decision in ordering them back to port too early to drop the fish off at market.

I realize now there’s so many aspects that come into play in swordfishing at the Grand Banks. Greenlaw writes it’s 1,000 miles from home and 144 hours from Cape Cod Bay, just in getting there. Good luck if you break down. They planned for 60 days at sea, out on the ocean setting and hauling in 30 miles of long lines of 800 hooks again and again, all amid hurricane season. It’s sort of madness that can get one killed in unpredictable weather and on an unreliable boat, but Greenlaw appears at home in her element, being at sea on a fishing boat captaining men.

She’s an entertaining narrator, and combined with the daily journey, gets into the mental aspects of what makes a good captain, how she gets along with the crew, and how she’s changed in her years away from swordfishing. She goes into her inner doubts and explores herself at this stage in life while facing a myriad of challenges onboard the Seahawk.

It all makes for interesting reading. I got caught up in “Seaworthy” and felt despite the Seahawk’s various disasters it was a worthwhile and compelling read. I’m envious Greenlaw is both such a knowledgeable boat captain and an author who can write so well about her adventures and the profession she loves. I felt like I could feel the boat rocking and the wind at sea. I’d be interested to read her other books as well.

Which by the way, she has just published a new book called “Lifesaving Lessons: Notes From an Accidental Mother” about her newly adopted daughter. From what blogger Beth Fish says of the audiobook, it’s quite inspirational as well. Check it out.

Yep, I finally took the plunge and read last year’s top-selling suspense novel “Gone Girl.” About time, right? I sort of had been saving it for an island retreat or something, where I pictured devouring it while lounging on a beach chair under a palm tree. But “Gone Girl” never made it to spring break, which for me is in April, it got picked up by my book club and we discussed it this week.

For sure, most people know what it’s about by now. It’s about a marriage gone terribly wrong and a fifth year wedding anniversary that comes and goes with the wife found missing under suspicious circumstances. What more do you need to know? The couple (Nick and Amy) had been magazine writers in New York City before losing their jobs and having to move back to Nick’s hometown in Missouri. Using Amy’s money (her parents are successful authors of an “Amazing Amy” book series), Nick has bought a bar with his twin sister where he works while Amy remains at home unemployed. That’s about when the wheels come unglued for these two.

It’s told in alternating chapters between Nick, who’s a suspect in his wife’s disappearance, and Amy who fills in the history of their relationship from the beginning. The author weaves the web of it all very well, suspensefully propelling one through it almost like a bat out of hell. I can’t say the characters are really likable, there’s no real good guys in this. I’m sure you’d be ready to hypothetically strangle either Amy, Nick or the cops, sister, or parents at times for what they’re like. And don’t forget Desi.

I mean the novel is done well, but it’s pretty crazy. It reminded me slightly of a combination of “Fatal Attraction,” “Presumed Innocent” and perhaps a touch of “Psycho” thrown in. There’s plenty of twists, with the characters trying to outmaneuver each other at each step of the way. Suffice it to say you’ll be fairly spent by the time you get done. I think my book club liked it quite a bit but I’m not sure I’d recommend it to everyone. But for the suspense genre, it sure has made waves.

“Gone Girl” recently made the longlist for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction, formerly known as the Orange Prize. Stay tuned to see if it will make the shortlist, which will be announced on April 16. It also apparently has been picked up to be made into a movie, which begs the question: who should be in it? My book club suggested possibly: Josh Lucas as Nick and Charlize Theron as Amy. hmm. Your suggestions?

ps. This summer my husband and I will have our third year wedding anniversary; if “Gone Girl” is any example just think what we have to look forward to at the fifth year anniversary!@!?<@#! LOL.

I read “When God Was a Rabbit” for my book club. I hadn’t heard of it before perhaps because it’s a 2011 debut novel from a British author. I definitely would’ve remembered a title like that, which is different enough and made me not sure what to expect. But if you’re wondering, it’s not really a religious or supernatural novel per se.

It’s sort of a novel that’s hard to pinpoint, but it’s primarily about a brother (Joe) and his close, younger sister (Elly) who grow up in Cornwall, England with their parents. Elly tells their story, which spans from her birth in 1968 to 9/11, and from England to New York, where Joe moves as an adult. The narrative includes a colorful cast of Elly’s down-home parents, an aunt that’s gay, her quirky life-long friend Jenny Penny, her brother’s first love Charlie, family friends Arthur and Ginger, and of course a pet rabbit from childhood that her family refers to as God.

Along the way, each of the cast, who are all a bit quirky, seems to suffer a tragedy or hardship that marks their life, yet they persevere with the help of their strong bonds to each other. Elly and her brother are particularly close; she believes he’s the only one who truly understands her. But when a terrible event happens toward the end, their life-long bond is threatened.

In many ways, the novel is very readable and engaging, particularly in the first half when Elly is young and impressionable and telling of her life growing up. She is funny in places despite the bad things that happen, and the cast is interesting.

But later on, the second half of the novel gets a bit disjointed and meandering as if the author didn’t know where she was going with it. Some of the transitions get abrupt, making it hard to discern if the characters are in England or New York. Other details like Elly’s home-schooling are mentioned then dropped; years fly by. More bad things happen, and the narrative turns a bit maudlin. Elly seems to be yearning for her childhood days “when God was a rabbit” and her innocence wasn’t lost.

The novel has endearing qualities, but it just didn’t execute all the way through for me. My book club seemed to have a similar impression of it. What about you? Have you read this one? What did you think?

I recently finished these two slim novels that are pictured here, and though they were stories about different topics, they did share some similarities. Both are quite dark and are told by flawed narrators who are working their way psychologically through difficult circumstances (one after divorce, the other war). Both use landscape to lend to the plot’s mood (one in New Mexico, the other Iraq), and both forebodingly lead up to an event at the end of the book that makes a shattering impact.

“The Boy” by Lara Santoro, which came out last month, is about a 42-year-old woman (Anna), who’s a single mother trying to put her life back together after a bitter divorce. She crosses paths with a 20-year-old male neighbor, who seems to get under her skin and infatuate her. Though she tries to resist the temptation, she soon finds herself involved in a reckless relationship with the boy. His carefree nature seems to make her happy and she pursues her lust for him despite admonitions from his father and her daughter. Ultimately the consequences of their affair turn devastating for all in its wake.

I found the narrator Anna to be pretty harsh. She’s obviously a damaged soul (apparently from her divorce) who looks at the world in a dark or seemingly uncaring way. Her judgement about her sexual relationship with the boy is pretty screwed up and awful, and the one person she truly seems to love, her young daughter, she puts at risk.

It’s hard to find a lot redeemable about Anna, which marred some of my ability to like the novel. She loves her daughter, but can she really be trusted to raise her? That’s one thing the book puts forth to struggle with, along with the “ick factor” of Anna being sexually involved with a 20 year old. The author writes effectively in casting Anna as both flawed and not totally beyond redemption; her daughter still loves and wants to be with her. But after what happens, you’ll be struggling with Anna’s ability as a mother for long after the book’s climax crashes down.

I can’t say I thoroughly liked “The Boy” but it did raise some disturbing questions.

The same perhaps can be said of my feelings towards “The Yellow Birds” by Kevin Powers, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2012.

This novel is about a 21-year-old boy, Private Bartle, who with a buddy he meets in basic training, 18-year-old Private Murphy, tries to stay alive while their platoon wages a bloody battle in Al Tafar, Iraq. Before leaving the States, Bartle promises Murphy’s mother that he’ll bring him back unharmed, but after a year or so into the war, Murphy begins to become unhinged. Yet Bartle still feels responsible for him. The actions that follow by both soldiers lead to devastating consequences at the end.

“The Yellow Birds” is told through Bartle’s narration, and alternates chapters of life during the war and then after the war when Bartle is back home in Virginia, trying to piece together his experience in Iraq.

The novel paints a bleak picture of what war is like: the constant stress of danger, the ambivalence toward dead bodies, the fatigue, the body counts, the psychological toll. The author effectively captures it all quite vividly with his descriptive images and account of life among the platoon. Undoubtedly, this is why the book was chosen as a finalist for the National Book Award.

But it’s not an easy read. At times, I grew impatient with Bartle and his malaise and damaged self. I wanted to relate and understand his take on war but found him and the tangents he goes on at times out of reach. My mind started to wander during some of the storytelling and I wanted Bartle to get to the point of what happened. It reads a bit like a gradual march, or a look back on something bad that’s happened but it takes till the end of the book to get there, dangling you along like a wet rag.

While I appreciated some of the writing and insight into war in “The Yellow Birds,” it’s sort of an agonizing place to remain too long, marching.