the After

The After
by Briane Pagel
(5/5 stars)

It's often said in writing that the details are everything.  In this case I think the details were what drew me in.  The way the author portrays the family as they're getting ready for their trip to Florida is just like how my family used to be:  the mom (Saorise) is frantic while her husband Ansel is cooler about it and the kids--Stephanie, Austin, and Chuck--are squabbling and creating various nuisances, just like me and my three siblings.  And then after the plane crashes (or does it?) and Saorise is back home, I loved how she figures out she's in the afterlife by the fact her kids are all getting along at dinner for once.

I also love the primary idea of the book that an afterlife where everything is perfect would really suck.  A similar conceit was used in an old "Twilight Zone" episode where a criminal dies and goes to the afterlife, where he can have all the booze and babes he wants, plus always wins at poker and blackjack.  Then he realizes that getting everything you want and winning all the time is really boring.  (Then comes my favorite part where he tells the angel, "I want to go to the other place."  And the angel tells him, "This is the other place!" Bwahahahahahaha!)  If you haven't seen that then just think of the old Simpsons episode where Homer becomes head of the Stonecutters secret society and soon finds that getting what you want all the time is really boring.



So I love it when Saorise decides, "Screw this place, I want to go home!"  Because you know how they say you couldn't know what good was without evil, by the same token you can't really appreciate the wonderful stuff in life without some of the drudgery.  Since pretty much all of us here are writers, think of it this way:  what if everything you wrote was hailed as genius?  I mean not just a novel or poem, but even your shopping list?  It would get really boring.  What would be the point in trying to write anything if it would be praised no matter what you did?

By the same token, all the whining your kids do makes it more special when they make you a special gift for Mother's Day/Father's Day or snuggle up in your lap when you aren't feeling good.  The struggles are often what make life rewarding and worth living.  (Look what happens to people like Paris Hilton who've gotten whatever they've wanted their whole lives; they're just spoiled, worthless excuses for human beings.)

In my basic review of the After I compared it to The Lovely Bones, which was one of the last books I'd read (one of the only ones other than the Bible) dealing with the afterlife.  No question to me that the After kicks The Lovely Bones's ass in terms of contemplating the afterlife.  I mean the afterlife scenes in that book were so trite and saccharine.  Oooh, my heaven is high school and my face is on all the fashion magazines and here's my dead grandpa and dead puppy...puh-lease.  I got to the point where I just started flipping through those.  Whereas in the After it's a more thoughtful look at what makes us happy.  Maybe that is sitting around high school reading Teen People with your dead puppy.  Chances are that would get pretty boring after a while.  For a lot of us maybe that is just going through our daily lives, the good and bad of it.  Maybe you don't need to climb Mt. Everest so much as just to go about your normal routine and at the end of the day have someone waiting for you to watch TV with.

The good thing about the After is that all this philosophical stuff is woven into a good mystery story.  Saorise doesn't just sit there gazing at her navel; she goes out and explores the After (often unwittingly).  There are a lot of questions raised like what is the After? can you leave? and why the hell is William Howard Taft (a former president in the 1910s in case you come from America's dreadful public school system and never learned that) following Saorise around?

So to summarize, the After is a remarkable book because it takes on big philosophical issues without falling back on lame cliches of clouds and people playing harps and whatnot while the attention to detail to the characters and settings help keep the story humming along.  (And no one gets chopped into bits and shoved into a safe, which is always a bonus.)

That is all.

WHERE YOU BELONG

Where You Belong
by Patrick Dilloway
(5/5 stars)

In my review of Saul Bellow's "The Adventures of Augie March" I wrote:

"When I thought about it deeper and looked more closely I decided what gave this "great American novel" status is not the story itself but the underlying sense of optimism as Augie never loses hope even after the love of his life leaves him and his Merchant Marine freighter gets torpedoed. It's that same spirit that sent explorers to these shores and propelled pioneers ever westward in search of Manifest Destiny."

In a much similar fashion, "Where You Belong" by Patrick Dilloway is a Great American novel in spirit because while the protagonist of the story--a man with the unlikely name of Frost Devereaux--loses the love of his dreams, he never gives up hope of finding a better life just around the next corner.

Another novel "Where You Belong" draws comparisons to is John Irving's "The World According to Garp" and not just because the main characters in both have unusual names. Like Garp, Frost Devereaux is raised for a time by a nurse (though in this case the nurse is not his mother) and grows up to become a writer. Unlike Garp, though, Frost is never able to find and hold on to his one true love.

Through most of his life, Frost's true love is Frankie Maguire. Frankie, an energetic tomboy who dreams of becoming a Broadway star, is Frost's best friend and first crush, who abandons him in junior high to seek out older boys. This leaves Frost with a hole in his heart that is never filled until Frankie returns to him. If this were a fairy tale they would ride off and Live Happily Ever After, but this isn't a fairy tale.

Frost's search for a love that lasts leads him across the United States, from his boyhood home in an Iowa town noted for the stench of the fertilizer it produces to an all-boys school in upstate New York with a dark secret to an artist's colony in New Mexico presided over by a French-Canadian lumberjack to the Manhattan apartment of Frankie's twin brother, a powerbroker in the Gordon Gekko mold. Each step along the way Frost discovers more about the world, the people he cares about, and himself.

I really enjoyed this book because of that Great American Novel spirit I talked about and its similarities to "Garp." Like the better John Irving novels, Mr. Dilloway attempts to tackle a large social issue without losing sight of the personal story. The character of Frost Devereaux is depicted as naïve and vulnerable, especially when it comes to his feelings for the Maguire twins, which in some ways makes him a more sympathetic character than TS Garp who, let's face it, could be a real jerk by sleeping with babysitters and so forth. By contrast, Frost is the one who gets cheated on, not the one who cheats.

Still, for the seriousness of the topics covered in the novel, it never loses a dark sense of humor, putting Frost in bizarre situations and with even more bizarre characters. For that reason fans of Irving's work should love this novel. Of course it wouldn't really be fair to compare the writing of a young unknown like Mr. Dilloway to great authors like John Irving or Saul Bellow. There are few who can really compete on that level. Nevertheless, the story is solidly written and hopefully the start of more to come.

That is all.

Nobody's Fool

Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo



I first read "Nobody's Fool" about 3 1/2 years ago and at the time I only gave it four stars because I was disappointed with the ending. After rereading the novel, I'm willing now to give it that extra star it deserves. This is a tremendous, tremendous book, even if there isn't really any conflict resolution at the end.

Upon second reading, I was reminded a lot of when I read Anne Tyler's Pulitzer-winning "Breathing Lessons." Both books have the same in-depth storytelling that makes the characters and the world around them seem so fully realized it's easy to believe you could find the town of Bath in upstate New York and run into Donald Sullivan, his cronies, and his nemeses.

And like "Breathing Lessons," the plot of "Nobody's Fool" sounds pretty thin for a 550-page book and not all that enticing. Donald "Sully" Sullivan is a rascally laborer (mostly working under the table) with a bum knee only getting worse, a best friend who smells worse than the garbage he sometimes hauls with his cousins, a lover married to someone else, an an ex-wife who thinks he's Satan incarnate, and a son he never thought much about. Over the Thanksgiving-Christmas holidays his luck seems to go from bad to worse as his estranged son returns after being let go from the college where he teaches, Sully's claim for full disability is denied (again), and he punches a police officer, landing him in jail. There's more to that, but it's hard to describe without going on and on about the background of the story because everything that happens seems to extend organically from Sully's bullheaded personality. The only "plot twist" involves the possible building of a theme park and the local savings and loan, but this doesn't contribute a lot to the overall story except to compound the bad luck facing Sully and just about everyone else in Bath.

The writing in this book is just about top-notch and as I said earlier, the setting and characters are about as vivid as anything I've ever read. There aren't the contrivances you find in most other books, including Russo's Pulitzer-winning "Empire Falls," which I feel is a lesser novel than "Nobody's Fool." The two share a lot of the same DNA, along with Russo's "Mohawk" and "The Risk Pool" but I think "Nobody's Fool" is where Russo was really on top of his game.

The only problem as I mentioned earlier and in my original review is there is seemingly no resolution at the end. The novel just sort of coasts to a stop. Everyone's lives--including Sully's--seem to have taken a turn but we don't really know if it was for better or worse. It's disappointing especially because characters like Sully and Miss Peoples are so likable despite their faults that you really want to know what happens to them; you really don't want this book to end. And generally speaking, that's a great problem to have, which is why I'm giving back the star I took away before.

The caution here is that if you're someone who likes reading plot-driven books, this isn't for you. This is a slow, kind of sleepy narrative that appeals to only the more patient readers out there who can appreciate the completeness and reality of the world Russo creates.

By the way, the 1994 movie version of this starring Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, and Bruce Willis is also excellent. That might be better for those who don't want to plow through all 550 pages here.

That is all.

The Giant's House: A Romance

The Giant's House: A Romance by Elizabeth McCracken

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

May 9, 2006

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this but because I read both books recently and they sit next to each other on my shelf, I couldn't help noticing some similarities between "The Giant's House" by Elizabeth McCracken and the later bestseller "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger. For one thing, just look at the covers next to each other: both feature two pairs of shoes with empty shoes representing the tragic heroes. The subject of both is very similar: a tale of love and loss between an ordinary woman and an extraordinary man (giant vs. time traveler) who meet when one of the characters is very young. I'm not bringing this up to accuse anyone of anything, but to say that if you like one read the other.

Speaking just for "The Giant's House" it really is a tremendous debut novel. Peggy's narration is often witty and cynical without being too bitter or self-pitying. The book is populated with interesting characters from James the giant to his tragically unhappy mother to Oscar with his get-rich schemes and ultimately to the infamous Mr. C. Sweatt. Peggy is actually the least interesting character which is by design because she's narrating and she doesn't see herself as particularly interesting or unique.

I noticed one review where someone said they didn't understand why Peggy loves James. The answer to that is simple: a mutual loneliness and love of books. James' size keeps him isolated from other people, who drop by his house and come up to him on the street to gawk and ask inane questions about how much he eats. Peggy is similarly isolated as the town librarian; she's around the people and town but not really a part of anything. It's this mutual feeling of isolation and loneliness that allows Peggy to overlook James' height and his age to fall in love.

The story follows James from 12 until his death a decade later and how Peggy becomes increasingly a part of his life. First she helps him find books, then brings books to him, and soon is helping to design his house and spending most of her free time there with him. James has to make sacrifices--including a brief stint as a circus performer--to make the money needed to provide for his unique needs and never can live a truly "normal" life.

My only real complaint is that the end gets a little too rushed, going into summary mode for the last ten pages or so. Also, what wasn't clear to me was why Peggy lies about the father of her child. Still, those are minor imperfections in a great novel and can be easily overlooked. And I have to mention the shorter length is one reason "Giant's House" is better than the other book I mentioned earlier, although I suppose it's funny a book about a giant is only average sized.

This is one of the best first novels I've read. I highly recommend it.

That is all.

Liner Notes

Liner Notes by Emily Franklin

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

October 21, 2005

Have you ever known someone whose life seems so wonderful that you can't help wishing something really bad would happen to them? That's what "Liner Notes" is. In fact, I've invented a whole new term to describe the reading of this book: reverse catharsis. Everyone in this book is so happy and well-adjusted that it makes you think your own life is pretty rotten by comparison.

The story is that Laney's mother suffered from cancer through Laney's childhood. Now as Laney is going back to Boston to start a new job, her mom invites herself along on Laney's cross-country drive from San Francisco to Boston so they can bond. I'd like to say at this point they have a bunch of adventures or do anything mildly interesting, but pretty much they reminisce over a box of mix tapes. Their journey across America is so bland and vague it could have been written by someone who'd only read about the USA from AAA guidebooks.

Exhibit A is when Laney and Mom detour to Las Vegas. Now since they're in Sin City you think all sorts of wild things could happen to them. All they wind up doing is playing the slots for a couple hours, eating at a buffet, and sipping margaritas on a balcony, where of course there's another mix tape flashback.

The overall problem with this book is what I mentioned in the beginning. Everyone is happy and well-adjusted. Laney's mom had cancer, but has now made a full recovery. Laney's brother is in medical school and on his way to being a doctor. Laney's father runs a very successful pottery business. Laney has good relations with all of them. The only problem is Laney and her mom weren't extremely close and Laney hasn't found the love of her life yet, a problem we know will be solved from Page 1.

There's hardly anything even remotely close to drama or conflict in this book. The one possibility is that Laney gets pregnant with "Crappy Jeremy" and has an abortion. You'd think that would make for something interesting, but this issue is quickly buried and forgotten. Otherwise, Laney and her mom get along so well that a cross-country trip to "bond" seems pointless. There are no obstacles thrown in their way so the outcome is never in doubt.

Then of course the last 30 pages go into full summary mode with the tacked-on overly happy ending. Anyone with half a brain could have seen that coming. Everything works out so wonderfully for everyone that you expect them to form a chorus line and break out into song. It made me want to scream.

Overall this book is so light, so shallow, and so uneventful that it gets tiresome waiting for SOMETHING to happen, only to learn nothing does. Even Lifetime movies of the week have some kind of drama. But if you want a cozy little book to give you a warm fuzzy and reassure you about how good and wonderful the world is, this is your book. This is excellent beach/airplane reading for those who don't want want to be excited at all. People on high-blood pressure medicine maybe.

It's not to say that I absolutely hated this book. I thought it was very NICE. Far too nice. I liked all the characters, but as I described in the beginning, I started to jealously wish something very bad would befall them.

To read a far more interesting story of a young woman coping with issues, I suggest "The Dive From Clausen's Pier" by Ann Packer.

Until I Find You

Until I Find You: A Novel by John Irving

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

September 11, 2005

In sports, especially boxing, there are always those formerly great athletes who stick around too long for one last season or one last fight and in the process tarnish their legacy by revealing themselves to be merely ordinary. Starting with his last book, "The Fourth Hand" and continuing with "Until I Find You", John Irving is tarnishing his reputation as a great author of books like "The World According to Garp", "The Cider House Rules", and "A Prayer for Owen Meany." For a huge fan of Irving's older work like myself, "Until I Find You" is without a doubt the author's most disappointing effort.

The book gets off to a pretty good start with 4-year-old Jack traveling to Scandinavia with Alice, his mother, supposedly in search of his womanizing father William. This turns out to be untrue for the most part. The pace at this point is good as Irving takes the reader to Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, and Amsterdam (which should be familiar to Irving readers from "A Widow for One Year") where we meet lots of interesting tattoo artists, organists, choirgirls, and the obligatory prostitutes. By the time Jack and Alice board the ship for Canada, there could be an interesting story about the relationship between Jack and his parents.

But then it takes Irving about 600 pages to really get back to this story. For those 600 pages we have a lot of filler and the obligatory private schools and wrestling lessons that have become Irving staples. In the case of his earlier works, they add to the story, but in "Until I Find You", it does little more than fill the reader in on each year of Jack's life.

The most controversial aspect of the book, the sexual abuse of Jack at the hands of a Portuguese nanny and to a lesser extent the sister of his mother's girlfriend, serves no real purpose in relation to the overall story. It's almost as if it came from another novel and somehow got mixed in. There was so much talk about Jack's "little guy" at this point in the book I seriously thought of not finishing. I found the almost constant discussion of 9-year-old Jack's "little guy" to be more disturbing than just about all the gore and debauchery in "American Psycho", the book I read before this. Not just because it was talking about child abuse, but because it didn't seem to ADD anything to the story. What did this have to do with Jack's missing father or mother? Granted if he had a mother and father looking after him maybe he wouldn't have been abused, but it didn't really help move the story forward.

Mixed in with the child abuse during Jack's elementary school years at St. Hilda's mostly girl's school are several ham-handed attempts to create humorous situations. The writing here is so self-conscious and obvious that I found myself groaning. The worst refers to one teacher who was born in a hurricane and Irving several times thinks it's funny to contrast this to her calm demeanor. The first time was mildly amusing, but he mentions this over and over again until it's just not funny.

After the child abuse, and mandatory New England prep schools--Exeter again!--and wrestling, Jack goes to Hollywood and even wins John Irving's Oscar for Best Screen Adaptation in 2000. None of this matters. Again, it's just a lot of filler. John Irving does not seem the logical choice to play an actor. Make no mistake about it, Jack Burns is a thinly-veiled John Irving. My personal theory is so much of the filler happens to Jack Burns because it happened to John Irving.

Therein lies the problem for me as a reader. In his own books--"The World According to Garp" and "A Widow for One Year"--Irving decries autobiographical writing and writing for therapy. Yet with "Until I Find You" he manages to do both. There can be nothing more disappointing when a great author BECOMES everything he's claimed to despise.

After the book plods along through the wilderness of Jack's life for 600 pages, it finally gets back to the point when Jack goes back to Europe and realizes that his mom was the bad guy, turning him against his father for all those years. Then Jack meets his long-lost sister and finally meets his father. Unfortunately, at that point the book ends, just when it was getting interesting.

I would have liked to see a lot more of Jack with his sister and father, to see if they could really make things work and become some kind of family unit. This might have been possible if there hadn't been so much filler taken from Irving's life. And so where the formerly great author fails is by delivering his autobiographical therapy session and not a compelling and well-thought-out novel.

After the subpar "The Fourth Hand" and even lesser effort of "Until I Find You", there is little doubt to me that Irving's best work is behind him. As a great fan and admirer of his work as an author, I only hope he realizes that he's stayed in the game for one fight too long. Time to hang 'em up.

Breathing Lessons

Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

March 27, 2005

Here's a good litmus test to show how good a book like "Breathing Lessons" is--nothing extraordinary happens and yet I did not want to put the book down. There are no conspiracies to rule the world or cover up some dark secret. There are no car chases, explosions, sex scenes (barely even any kissing), or exotic locations. No one changes or has an epiphany. Almost NOTHING happens--Maggie and Ira go to a funeral and when they come back they try to reunite their son and former daughter-in-law but nothing changes at all. To the average reader this book probably would seem really dull. Heck, if someone told me the plot of this book I'd think it was really dull too, but I didn't want to put it down.

The reason is that Maggie and Ira are so well-drawn and so familiar to me that they seem like people I know or COULD know. I think I could go to the supermarket and run into Maggie and Ira, that's how real they seemed to me. I suppose ther reason is that Tyler allows me as the reader to know just about everything regarding these two characters and their two personalities just come through so transparently in the story that they don't seem like CHARACTERS acting their parts; they seem like real people.

Because of this, even though very little happens to Maggie or Ira and even though neither of them changes by the end of the book, I cared so much about them that I wanted to keep reading right through the end so I breezed through the novel in a few days. In all honesty, what I really appreciate about this book is that it seemingly disproves almost everything I've ever read about how to write a book. This is purely a character-driven novel with very little "plot" except for the death of Maggie's friend's husband that gets the ball rolling. Everything else seems to happen so naturally as an extension of Maggie's personality more than any artificially-generated plot twists.

It's hard for me to find any real faults with this book, except for the lengthy flashback near the end that perhaps goes on too long. Some people may call this boring or dull, but I would call it purely exceptional. I LOVED this book and highly recommend it.

Rabbit Angstrom Series

Rabbit Angstrom Series by John Updike

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

December 17, 2004

Some authors offer us the "slice of life" in a novel, but with the four Rabbit books, Updike gives us the entire pie by following Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom through four decades, starting in 1959 with "Rabbit, Run" and ending in 1989 with "Rabbit at Rest", the last two in the series each winning a Pulitzer and rightfully so.

"Rabbit, Run" took me two false starts before I finally got all the way through it. It was only after reading some of Updike's other books that I was prepared for this one, because Rabbit, Run is not a very happy book, with no real redemption or epiphanies at the end like many other novels. In this one, Rabbit runs out on his pregnant wife Janice and 2-year-old son Nelson only to have an affair with another woman (Ruth), who he then gets pregnant before returning to Janice for the birth of their second child, who Janice (while drinking, perhaps "post-partem depression" is what they'd call it now) accidentally drowns. This one I think is th weakest of the series as the characters hadn't really come into their own yet and neither really had the author. Rabbit through that book always seems like a whiny jerk while Janice is a drunken slob and if things had stayed that way, I don't think we'd have four books. But it's the foundation for a lot of better things to come. (Three stars)

With "Rabbit Redux" 10 years later, Rabbit has matured and taken a job at the printing press where his father works. He and Janice have a little house in a development and are sort of treading water in a blue-collar existence. This time it's Janice who runs out on Harry and Nelson to hook up with a used car salesman named Charlie. In response, Harry takes in a runaway named Jill and her "friend" (drug dealer really) Skeeter, who tries to enlighten Rabbit on civil rights and his view of the world. As Jill sinks deeper into addiction thanks to Skeeter, Rabbit has an affair with Janice's best friend Peggy. During this, Jill and Skeeter burn down Rabbit's house with Jill being killed in the fire. Because of heart trouble, Charlie doesn't want to stay with Janice and so she and Rabbit after the fire reluctantly get back together. This second part was I think the transitional book, where Rabbit became more of a responsible adult (though still prone to selfish bouts) and someone readers could look at as a more "heroic" figure. Janice also shows more personality through this book. (Four Stars)

"Rabbit is Rich" is probably my favorite in the series. It takes place another 10 years later in 1979. Rabbit has taken over the Toyota dealership established by Janice's deceased father. This leads to quite a financial windfall for Rabbit, as the title suggests. He and Janice spent quite a bit of time at the country club with their new friends, but still live with Janice's mother in her house. Nelson, away at Kent State, has grown froma troubled teen into a troubled young adult. He has impregnated a secretary at the school named Teresa (nicknamed Pru)--like father like son--and they get married. Nelson tries to work with Harry at the lot, but (again, like father like son) can't find his niche there. On vacation in the Caribbean (in part to give Nelson some breathing space at the lot), Harry and Janice and their friends from the country club engage in a little wife-swapping. Harry wants the wife of his best friend, but instead winds up with Thelma, the wife of his long-time rival Ronnie. The vacation is interrupted with news that Nelson is gone and they return home to find out that he's returned to school. Harry and Janice buy their own house, leaving the other for Nelson and Pru to live in after he returns from school. This book, while you could say is the most boring of the series in that no one dies and there are no big affairs, is also Rabbit at his most "heroic", because while still selfish the sins he commits aren't quite as bad. The wife-swapping was a mutual agreement--Janice participated as well--so it's not really an affair. What I liked about "Rabbit is Rich" is that by lacking the big plot twists of the others, it presents more a picture of real American life and even 25 years later is not so different from my family. It's by this point that I think Updike has really got to know the characters to make them even better and his skills as an author have grown as well. (Five stars)

"Rabbit at Rest" concludes the series starting in 1988. Harry (now 56) and Janice are "snowbirds" who travel to Florida to spend winters there while Nelson runs the car dealership. Like many Americans, years of poor eating and lack of exercise are catching up with Rabbit, leading to heart trouble that culminates in a heart attack during a sailing expedition with his granddaughter Judy. Rabbit recovers and back in Pennsylvania gets an angioplasty when he should have gone for a full bypass. It's during this time that Rabbit learns Nelson is hooked on coke and imbezzling money from the dealership along with the company's accountant, who is dying of AIDS and using the money to buy nonapproved medication. Nelson is forced into rehab, Harry takes over the dealership, and Janice goes to school to become a realtor. At one point while Nelson is away, Harry and Pru have a one-night stand. Toyota pulls the plug on the dealership, Nelson comes back as a Born Again Christian, and Harry is left alone for long stretches while Janice goes to school. Now you'd think Harry would be trying to change his life after the near-death experience, but you'd be wrong--he still doesn't really exercise and has a penchant to cram his mouth with salty snacks. In the end, when Janice finds out about Harry and Pru's encounter, she says she'll never forgive him. In response, Harry goes down to Florida early, where he winds up overexerting himself on a basketball court. Enough. This final installment is a step back from "Rabbit is Rich" and incorporates more of the big plot twists. I thought the coke and AIDS were the kind of stereotypical things anyone writing a book about the '80s would work in--if Updike would have worked in some "Wall Street"-type financial stuff it would be the perfect '80s hat trick--so I was a little disappointed. And I had to groan when the Japanese Toyota executive comes onto the scene with his dialogue peppered with "l"s replaced by "r"s. Shameless. A master author like Updike should not have to stoop to such a low-brow device. But what I really respect with this book is Updike did not turn it into a sappy tear-jerker where Rabbit "comes to terms" with death and makes peace with everyone in his family. There is no redemption for Rabbit, even in death. (Four Stars)

People have devoted whole books on the subject of what these books are "about" and what they mean to us and such. What I think is Rabbit is a classic character because he is so real, with some virtues and some vices. He is selfish, but so are Nelson and Janice and you and I. Some of the things he does are far worse than many of us will ever do, but we're all at least a little selfish. But like most of us, Rabbit is also able to make sacrifices for the greater good of his son and marriage, although reluctantly.

In the end, the Rabbit novels are a portrait of American life through four decades. Harry is not really an "Everyman" but he's the most human character I've read in a while and most of us can probably see there's a little Rabbit in all of us if we care to look. Read all four of the novels to get the complete Rabbit saga and I guarantee your perception of life will never be the same.

The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones: A Novel by Alice Sebold

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

September 18, 2004

Before I begin the review, let me start with a disclaimer. I am notoriously picky about what I read, watch, and listen to. My taste rarely gels with the mainstream. So while I absolutely didn't like this book, I'm sure most of you will love it. In other words, don't listen to me.

The biggest obstacle I could never overcome completely was the main gimmick of the book--the narrator in heaven, or as I think more aptly applies, purgatory. I could never buy into it because of my own conflicting beliefs and as such, every time I read those parts about the narrator in "heaven"--btw, how can you have an imperfect heaven? Isn't heaven supposed to be perfect?--it was like torture for me and I have to admit I skipped a few pages near the end. I just think all that stuff about watching the people below and meeting her relatives (and pets) "up there" is cliche and a bad cliche at that. And since the narrator is only 13 it makes it seem like a young adult book, which doesn't interest me.

The other problem, and another cliche was with Mr. Harvey the serial killer. This guy pretty much comes out of Serial Killer 101, the creepy loner who's quiet and no one would really think would hurt anyone. If I wanted to read about serial killers I could have picked up "Silence of the Lambs" and it would have been much more interesting.

The parts that did interest me were with the Salmon family and their coping with the death. Those were the times when I actually got involved with the story, but the author kept spoiling the mood by going to "heaven" or detailing how Susie was chopped to bits and stuffed in a safe. The best way I can think of to explain this effect is that it's like having an intimate moment with your partner and suddenly one of you breaks wind very loudly--the moment is gone and you can't ever get it back to what it was.

I think the most annoying moment is when Susie comes back to life for a little bit. Now if you could come back to life for an hour or so what would you do? A. Take revenge on your killer B. Say goodbye to your loved ones C. Have sex with the boy you had a crush on? Well I guess if you answer C then this is your kind of book. Since I wouldn't maybe that's part of my problem. That was another of those mood spoilers for me.

I just wish the book would have focused on Susie's family instead of all these tangents that did nothing but ruin my enjoyment. A few less characters would have helped too, because I didn't care about Ruth or Ray because they didn't seem to do a lot. They were there primarily for the event I referenced in my little poll up above. The characters in "heaven" never contributed much to the story either; I could have done without them as well.

As it was, I just didn't think the story focused enough on the most compelling characters and as such I could never really get into the book. It had some moments, but they were always interrupted before they could blossom.

But even though I didn't like it, I'm sure the rest of you will. See my disclaimer above. So go ahead and read it.

The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

37 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

December 23, 2003

Before I begin the review, let me start with a disclaimer. I am notoriously picky about what I read, watch, and listen to. My taste rarely gels with the mainstream. So while I absolutely didn't like this book (as much as I WANTED to like it), I'm sure most of you will love it. In other words, don't listen to me.

Anyway, the idea of this book is what drew me to it. I don't usually read romances or time travel books, but from everything I read, it sounded like an interesting blend of romance and sci-fi. The idea is still good; the problem was in the execution.

First off, as other reviewers (even those who like the book) have noted, there's not a lot of depth to pretty much everyone other than Henry and Clare. The idea that Clare's friend Gomez is madly in love with her comes out of left-field 3/4 of the way into the book and is never developed much further. Nell, the black cook, and Kimy the Korean landlord come off to me as little more than ethnic stereotypes. Then there's just a myriad of friends and acquaintances who pop into the narrative from time-to-time but are not given any flesh on their bones.

The lack of depth infects the entire novel. While it is a sprawling 500+ pages, most scenes are tiny snapshots that reveal little. For example, there's a little two-page snippet on September 11, 2001 that doesn't provide anything about what the characters think or feel about the event, but more or less just states its existence (as if we didn't know). The same can be said for most scenes in the book. The farther I read, the more I kept thinking that if I had been the editor who saw this monstrosity come across my desk, I would have sent it back and told the author to focus the story on a handful of crucial events instead of applying a wild, scattershot approach. In the end, I didn't feel that a lot of the issues about Henry's time traveling and Henry and Clare's relationship were dealt with. For example, with all his money and resources, why did he even bother trying to live a "normal" life? Why not just kick back in his mansion with his wife and read books or discuss philosophy or whatever all day? I didn't see a suitable answer in the story, but that's just me (see disclaimer above).

As for the two main characters, by the end I didn't really like either one of them. Clare always seemed to me to be a whiny, spoiled rich girl who never worked a day in her life, whose sole purpose was to pine after Henry and nurse him on occasion. As for Henry, I was largely ambivalent towards him--I understood that he had a lot of problems--until the scene where 41-year-old Henry has sex with 18-year-old Clare in The Meadow. OK, it was consensual, but she's nave, vulnerable, and HALF HIS AGE! He's old enough at that point to be her father! Doesn't he have any self-control? If that's the author's idea of wonderful, timeless love, it did not sit well with me at all. After that scene, I was just counting the pages until Henry's inevitable demise.

This leads me to another problem I had, which was unnecessarily lewd language and descriptions used throughout the book. In the aforementioned scene in The Meadow, the author refers to Henry putting his tongue in Clare's [rhymes with `slit'] and talks about her love of oral sex. Later Clare talks about how her [rhymes with `hunt'] hurts. It's not that I have a problem with some frank talk about sex, but such language spoiled the illusion of the purity of their love and made it, well, you know, dirty. I guess you can label me a prude for that if you want.

OK, one last issue before I pack it in for this review. Do you think it was right for Henry to insert himself into Clare's past (albeit unconsciously) and unwittingly make her fall in love with him? Do you think that she would have fallen in love with him if they had never met in The Meadow when she was six? I can't really answer the latter question, but I doubt it. Their whole relationship seemed built on the bond she built with him in the past (or his future if you want to get technical), not the present. As for the former question, ethically I don't think it was right for him to involve himself with her in the past. In Star Trek they have the Temporal Prime Directive that basically says that should you happen to go back in time for whatever reason, stay low and butt out of people's lives. I think Henry should have followed that doctrine. You can make the case that he had no choice, but didn't he? He didn't have to reveal himself to her or tell her when he was coming back. The author's assertion that because it had already happened it was going to happen no matter what did not wash with me. Again, doesn't he have any self-control?

In conclusion, there are two types of readers in my opinion. There's most of the public who just want an entertaining yarn and can get by with superficial stories and bland prose (I'll save you from a rant on the author's lackluster writing style). Then there's the minority of people like me who look for depth and quality in a book. So, most of you are safe; you can buy this book and come away satisfied. It's the people in the latter category who are going to be disappointed with this long-winded, shallow disaster.

(That is all, except I reread this book later and thought more favorably of it, but this rant is too good to delete.)

Atonement

Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

October 14, 2003

Here's how I can best illustrate the feeling of reading this book: imagine Game 7 of the World Series, top of the ninth, the home team up by a run, bases loaded, the count is 3-2 to the hitter at the plate. Everyone is waiting for that last pitch to decide the game one way or another. The pitcher gets ready to throw, the crowd holds its breath...and the pitcher throws to first base. Then he walks around the mound to gather his thoughts, has a meeting with the catcher, gathers his thoughts again, shakes off a few signs, and then just as the crowd can take no more, he rears back and gets that last strike and the crowd goes wild.

McEwan is like that pitcher on the mound--so slow and deliberate with the first part of the book that it's like Chinese water torture. The night when everything changes in Briony's life unfolds so slowly that any reader who isn't patient is going to get tired of the book before it really hits its stride. I had to force myself to keep going on faith alone that it was going to get better, that things would start HAPPENING soon, that all this Victorianesque society garbage (where the high drama is what to wear and whether or not to cook a roast on a hot day) would be worth it.

And like the pitcher in my analogy, it is worth it when McEwan throws a perfect strike. The writing is solid, the important characters are well-described and have real flaws, and once it gets going there's the drama pulling me in. I always wanted to know what would happen next. What would happen to Robbie and Cecelia and Briony?

What really got to me was the end. I won't spoil it for readers, but it was so touching that I almost cried. As someone who writes, I can see a lot of Briony in myself and my own work, and her thoughts about writing at the end really gave me pause to take a good look at myself and what I'm doing. The end took me so by surprise and was so satisfying, that I can easily look past any small flaws with this book and give it the five stars it deserves.

If you can get through the first 150 or so pages, the rest is worth it. Don't take my word for it, find out for yourself. You'll be glad you did.

I have read many recent Pulitzer winners like "Middlesex", "Empire Falls", and "Kavalier and Clay", but none of them satisfied me on such an intellectual and emotional level. If you wanted to go find my reviews of all those (which you don't), you'd see that all of them, while great books, had minor problems that couldn't be overlooked. Other than the slow beginning, however, "Atonement" has no real problems for me in its plot or writing style.

The Shipping News

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

October 22, 2002

It's rare that I would ever recommend a movie over a book, but the movie of the Shipping News is far superior in my mind because the reader isn't subjected to Proulx's short, choppy prose. The movie also sticks close enough to the story of the book (though it chops out some unimportant stuff for time) that if you just watch it and don't bother with the book you really aren't missing anything. It's not that the movie was perfect either, but it's not as bad as the book.

The problems with the book are numerous. First is Proulx's overall writing style. Bad. Real bad. Choppy sentences. No flow. Author Ignores Basic Rules of Grammar. Looking at excerpts of her other books I have to assume this writing style was intentional, maybe to make it seem like an article from the Gammy Bird, but that technique would have made more sense if the story were told in first-person with Quoyle as the narrator. After a while her style just grated on me and more importantly it kept me from really getting into the book. The story, even the characters were decent enough that I would have enjoyed the book had it been written in complete sentences.

I also never understood a few things. Why doesn't Quoyle have a first name? Everywhere he goes he just introduces himself as "Quoyle". Who does that? If I go somewhere and meet someone for the first time I say, "Hi, my name is BJ Fraser." I don't say, "Hi, I'm Fraser." It's revealed after a while that his first initials are R.G., so his name is probably Bob or something equally anonymous that there's no need to go to great lengths to keep it secret. Also, why does he always refer to Agnis Hamm as "the aunt"? Maybe it's because I have several aunts, but I say "Aunt Mary" or "Aunt Jane" not "the aunt". It could just be the way people from New York or Newfoundland talk, I wouldn't really know.

The area I think the movie really excels over the book is that the movie plays up the relationship between Quoyle and Wavey Prowse a little more. It never seemed to go anywhere in the book, nor did I really care because Wavey sounded like an unattractive bore anyway. Also, I liked the last sentence of narration in the movie where Quoyle says (though I can't quote it exactly): "if a drowning man can come back to life, , then I believe a broken man can be healed." That really sums up the whole point of the book and movie, a great way to end things. Better than the end line of the book, which I can't remember at all.

Chalk up "The Shipping News" as another Pulitzer dud but also another screen gem.

Forever Free

Forever Free by Joe Haldeman

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

February 8, 2002

I would rate this as the second worst book I've ever read in my whole life. Don't get me wrong, I love Haldeman's original "The Forever War". It's a true classic and highly recommended. The only strength of this book is the narration of "The Forever War's" protagonist, William Mandella. Mandella's telling of the story is brisk and down-to-earth, which is just as well because this book needed to be as short as possible, as in 0 pages.

The main problem is that 25 years after "The Forever War", Haldeman concocts this sequel, but he has no material to work with. There were no lingering questions or problems from the original book to be dealt with. William and Marygay went riding off in the sunset, Happily Ever After, so to speak, at the end of "The Forever War". So now Haldeman is forced to create a completely far-fetched plot that concludes with the most insane ending I've ever read (wherein "God" reveals the secrets of the universe to William and Marygay at Disney World, circa 3200 AD).

Let me be blunt, this book is terrible. It isn't worthy of Haldeman or those who appreciate his earlier work. From start to finish the book lacks a believable or interesting premise, any kind of dramatic action, and well-developed supporting characters.

To quote from the Grinch, the three words that best describe "Forever Free" are as follows: stink, stank, STUNK! Don't waste your time on such trash.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

December 18, 2001

I think I was having a bad day when I wrote my original review. So, after rereading the book, I'm back to rewrite my review. Probably no one but me will ever see it, but no matter. To start with, after reading quite a few Pulitzer winners, "Kavalier & Clay" was more than worthy of the honor. It is, in my humble opinion, the most original, satisfying, and well-written of any of the Pulitzer winners I have read.

The story naturally follows Josef (Joe) Kavalier and Samuel Klayman (Sammy Clay) as they achieve fame and glory during the "Golden Age" of comic books in the years before WWII. When the war breaks out, Joe goes off to fight in it, leaving behind his pregnant girlfriend, whom Sammy--a closet homosexual--marries. Joe comes back 12 years later, befriending his son and after a Senate hearing exposes Sammy's lifestyle, he leaves Joe and his wife Rosa behind.

The story is mostly good and the writing is superb. Both times I've read this book, I wanted to keep reading and reading; it just sucked me in. Chabon's writing style is at times a little overblown--sometimes I wish he would just get to the point already!--and ranges from witty to philosophical. The dialogue is sharp and the characters (while maybe a little warmed-over from Chabon's other novels) are well-rounded. That all said, a few things bothered me.

For me, the story falls apart after Joe goes off to war. My first question was that if Joe wanted to kill Nazis, why did he join the NAVY? Wouldn't the Army, Marines, or Army Air Corps better served his need for vengeance? Maybe he wanted to sink U-boats like the one that torpedoed the ship carrying his brother. Another minor question was why Joe rented space in the Empire State Building to live after he returns to New York. Wouldn't it have been cheaper (and less risk of eviction) to rent an apartment in the city somewhere?

The big question, the one that really bothers me is why Rosa married Sammy. The impression I got is that Rosa is a strong, independent woman, not the sort who would care if people would whisper about her being a single mother behind her back. Besides, she could have just said the father died in the war (which was almost true), which I doubt was a situation unique to her. To me, though, she seemed like the kind of person who would say, "my son doesn't need two parents, I can love him enough for both". Sammy and her father still could have helped raise Joe & Rosa's son. Maybe my impression of the character is wrong, or maybe Sammy convinced her to marry him because he didn't want the child to grow up without a father like he did. The problem is that WE DON'T KNOW because the marriage proposal is not detailed in the book, so we're left to draw our own conclusions. I think this is an issue central to the story (or at least the last third or so of it) and if I feel it's contrived by the author as a convenient plot device, that tarnishes my enjoyment of the book.

To be honest, I didn't like the last third or so as much as the first two-thirds, where Sammy and Joe are building the Escapist character (among others) while being cheated out of the money that's rightfully theirs by the greedy publisher. Everything after the war seems like a soap opera. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but it reminds of the movie, "Legends of the Fall" where Brad Pitt's character goes off after WWI and returns home years later to find his girl has married his brother. With the questions I mentioned earlier, I really couldn't enjoy this phase of the book much. And like "The Cider House Rules", I hate those disorienting big time shifts.

All that aside, the whole book is still much better than most everything else. I highly recommend escaping into Chabon's wonderful world.

Animal House Saves the Universe

The Engines of Dawn by Paul Cook

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

March 1, 2001

In the Engines of Dawn by Paul Cook, frat boy-cum-physics-instructor Ben Bennett and his three drop-out buddies liberate humanity from the evil aliens slowly, methodically, sapping all humans of their intelligence and sex drive.

I'd give the actual story concept at least 3 stars, but the execution is terrible. For some reason, Cook has to give every character a complete dossier after mentioning their name. For instance: Bob Jones, a large, muscular, redheaded man, turned on the lights. Childish sexual innuendo is all over the place, really distracting from the seriousness of the story.

Don't get me wrong, this book can be entertaining, in that cheesy, late night B-movie kind of way, but if you want thought-provoking literature, don't waste any time with the Engines of Dawn.