Category: books

Day 915: Come to Harm

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Cover for Come to HarmKeiko is a Japanese exchange student working on her doctorate who has accepted a grant from an association in Painchton, Scotland, near Edinburgh University. Her grant comes with a free flat that has even been stocked with food. Keiko is overwhelmed by everyone’s hospitality, particularly with their propensity for stuffing her with food, much of which she finds unappetizing.

Not everyone is welcoming, though. Her landlady Mrs. Poole is the proprietor of the butcher shop below Keiko’s flat. She is a recent widow, but her unfriendly behavior seems to indicate more than grief. She has two sons, Malcolm and Murray, and she certainly isn’t encouraging them to befriend Keiko. She also spends every morning cleaning the seldom-used slaughterhouse in the yard.

Early on, Keiko finds a note behind the radiator in her flat. It is clearly from a blackmailer, perhaps to the previous occupant of the flat. She also notices that several women have vanished from town. As Keiko tries to figure out what is going on in town, she also has quite a few misunderstandings with people through not understanding exactly what they’ve said.

I had a few problems with this novel that I haven’t had with other McPherson thrillers. For one thing, the reasoning behind the Painchton Trading Association’s grant to Keiko seems so flimsy that I had a hard time imagining even a child would believe it, let alone the entire town. The town committee seems to be up to something illegal, which lends to the atmosphere of the novel.

And then there is the resolution of the plot. First, Keiko’s suppositions run so berserk that I started to think the novel was an elaborate joke and that maybe I was reading an updated version of Northanger Abbey. But I won’t say whether I was right or not.

So, I wasn’t as happy with this novel as with others by McPherson, particularly as compared to the wonderful Quiet Neighbors. I thought it was obvious fairly early on that one character was dangerous, but Keiko doesn’t realize this until very late in the novel. Still, the novel is atmospheric and the ending is suspenseful, and parts of it are funny, so all that will probably keep most readers happy.

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Day 914: History of the Rain

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Cover for History of the RainBest Book of the Week!
The distinctive voice of its narrator is what stands out to me about History of the Rain. But again, I feel as if I may not be able to convey just how wonderful I found this lovely novel.

Ruthie Swain is a young girl bedridden from an illness. In her attic bedroom under a watery skylight she is trying to read her father’s thousands of books. She is also writing a novel to try to understand him. During this effort, she writes about Ireland, her village, and the history of her family, especially about the Impossible Standard. Her story incorporates the mythological heritage of Ireland as well as references to countless literary authors and characters and the eccentric residents of her village.

Ruthie’s mother’s family, she says, evolved from salmon, and her mother first meets her father salmon fishing, and is hooked. But that gets way ahead of the story, which in unchronological order recites the history of her father’s family, the story of the Impossible Standard and his evolution into a poet.

To give a flavor of the novel, here is how Ruthie imagines the first time Ruthie’s father Virgil is invited to dinner at her mother’s house:

“So, how do you like it here?”
“Very much.”
“Good.”
That exhausts the dialog. She realizes she hasn’t folded the napkins and takes hers and begins to press it in halves. Virgil does the same. Both of them are useless at it. Maybe evenness is a thing intolerable to love. Maybe there’s some law, I don’t know. She lines up the halves of hers, runs her forefinger down the crease. When she picks it up the thing is crooked. So is his. She undoes the fold and goes at it again, but the napkin wants to fall into that same line again and does so to spite her, and does so to spite him, or to occupy both with conundrums or to say in the whimsical language of love that the way ahead will not be a straight line.

She doesn’t give up, and he doesn’t give up. And in that is the whole story, for those who read Napkin.

This novel is funny, heartbreaking, and lovely. It is about the loves of reading and poetry and Ireland and life. I loved this book.

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Day 913: The Unforgotten

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Cover for The UnforgottenA novel set in two time periods, The Unforgotten is a thriller and a mystery. But it is more than that—a story with deep-running themes offering its characters difficult choices.

In 1956 Cornwall, Betty Broadbent is an innocent, naive 15-year-old. She helps her unstable mother run a hotel and sometimes has to run it herself when her mother is in the throes of depression or alcoholism. The small fishing village has been invaded by reporters after the murders of several young women.

In 2006, Mary reads that the man who served time for the murders back in 1956 still insists he is innocent. Mary remembers him as the man her mother used to date and believes he is innocent. She thinks she knows who the actual killer is and is torn between telling what she knows and keeping a long-held secret. Although we don’t know why she is living under another name, we are soon sure that Mary is Betty.

This novel is about the painful choices two people must make under difficult circumstances. It is also about a sad and doomed love affair.

At first I thought that some of the dialogue and situations were unlikely, but I soon forgot those thoughts, driven forward by the sheer power of the story. It is one that has many more levels than first expected. This is a great first novel by Powell.

Full disclosure: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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Day 912: Literary Wives! The Disobedient Wife

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Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in modern fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs. Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

Ariel of One Little Library
Emily of The Bookshelf of Emily J.
Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
Naomi of Consumed By Ink

My Review

Cover for The Disobedient WifeA distinctive characteristic of The Disobedient Wife is its sense of place in an unusual setting, Tajikistan. The novel contrasts the lives of two women, Nargis, a nanny and maid who is struggling to support her family, and Harriet, her employer.

The novel begins during a bitterly cold winter, and Milisic-Stanley effectively conveys how difficult life is for the majority of Tajiks. Harriet, in contrast, lives a life of luxury as the wife of a foreign diplomat. At first, she is not a very sympathetic character, as opposed to Nargil. The novel makes it clear that Harriet is a trophy wife who angled to take her husband Henri from his previous wife.

Nargil, on the other hand, is separated from her second husband. She loved her first husband, who died, but was rushed into her second marriage by her parents. Her second husband has proved abusive to her and her son, so Nargil has left him, at the expense of leaving her youngest son Faisullo with her husband’s family. She has no legal right to her son if her husband doesn’t grant it.

By contrast to Nargil’s, Harriet’s life is one of idleness and boredom. Her husband is almost constantly working, frequently away traveling, and she has little purpose to her life.

The writing style of this novel was so florid at first that it bothered me. However, I quickly got involved in the women’s stories and in the details of life in Tajikistan, particularly in Nargil’s life.

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

Literary Wives logoAlthough the marriages are very different, I felt they were both stereotypical, and a bit of a weakness in the novel. For one thing, we see very little of any positive interactions between the wives and husbands. As Nargil is separated from Poulod, we don’t see day-to-day interactions but understand he was an abuser. The novel concentrates more on the difficulties Nargil faces with his continuing presence in her life and her lack of rights.

Henri expects Harriet to be a proper hostess to his guests. Otherwise, he doesn’t spend much time with her. He patronizes her and leaves her with the children most of the time. It’s difficult to imagine why they ever got married.

I guess the message we’re supposed to get about this topic is that both women have the courage to leave their marriages, no matter how different.

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Day 911: A Place Called Winter

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Cover for A Place Called WinterI read A Place Called Winter for my Walter Scott Prize project, the second book I’ve read for the 2016 list. Like one of the other books I read recently for that project, Arctic Summer, it has as a major theme the main character’s homosexuality. However, I found myself feeling much closer to the characters and more interested in the plot of this novel than I did for Arctic Summer.

At the beginning of the novel, Harry Cane is being treated, or rather mistreated, in an asylum in Canada. Shortly thereafter, he is transferred to an experimental center that treats the patients much more humanely. We understand that Harry has committed a crime, but we don’t know what it is. Between short chapters about his life at the center, we learn what brought him there.

The story of Harry’s life begins when his wealthy father dies. His brother Jack is still in school, and Harry undertakes his education and expenses. Harry is a man of no occupation who feels that he would like one, but he doesn’t know what to do about it. He feels vaguely that he would like to work an estate or a farm but thinks he has to be born to it. A shy man with an occasional stammer, he likes reading and horses. Eventually, he marries a shy woman, Winnie, who informs him on their wedding night that she loves someone else. Nevertheless, he cares for his wife and loves his daughter.

An investment recommendation by his brother-in-law takes a large part of Harry’s inheritance, and Harry and his family are forced to move in with his in-laws. He is an innocent-minded person, so it is not until he meets an actor named Browning that he realizes he is homosexual. He begins an affair with Browning, but then disaster strikes. His affair is exposed to his in-laws by a blackmailer and Harry is forced out of the family. Even his brother Jack, whom he loves, is pressured by his wife not to correspond with him.

Now totally alone, Harry emigrates to Canada and ends up in Saskatchewan, which is just being opened to settlement by the arrival of the Grand Trunk Railway. On shipboard, he meets Troels Munck, who finds him a position where he can learn farming and then helps him purchase a homestead. Munck, though, is a bully, and from the moment Harry meets him, we know that relationship will not end well.

link to NetgalleyHarry finds that a farmer’s life suits him. He settles in, works hard, and makes friends. But we know where he is at the beginning of the book, so the tension builds as we find out how he got there.

Although the time spent to get him to Canada, where the book really captured me, seems a little long, by the time he gets there, we know Harry very well. He is a kind and polite person, but he earns our respect when he finds his niche. Eventually, I became deeply involved in his story. It was also interesting in its details of early homesteading and treatment of mental illness.

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Classics Spin #13!

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It’s time for another Classics Club Spin, for which I will post the rest of my Classics Club list, numbered. On Monday, the spin will select the number of the novel I must read and review by August 1. Since August 1 is a Literary Wives posting date, I will be posting my review the week before. And, since I have fewer than 20 books left on my list, I will have to repeat some of them. I have gotten my list down so that many of the remaining books are rereads. So, here goes:

  1. Cover for The MoonstoneThe Vicar of Wakefield
  2. Beloved
  3. Ada
  4. Henry VI, Part II
  5. The Idiot
  6. The Moonstone
  7. The True Heart
  8. Troy Chimneys
  9. Vanity Fair
  10. Bleak House
  11. Middlemarch
  12. The Beggar Maid
  13. The Moonstone
  14. Troy Chimneys
  15. The True Heart
  16. Vanity Fair
  17. Ada
  18. The Idiot
  19. Beloved
  20. Bleak House

Day 910: The Sisters Brothers

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Cover for The Sisters BrothersThe Sisters Brothers is a book I read for my Walter Scott Prize project, but it also turns out to qualify for my Man Booker Prize project. It is a peculiar novel indeed. It is blurbed as hilarious. I did not find it so. Satirical, maybe; dark, yes; picaresque, definitely.

It  is 1851, and the Sisters brothers are on their way from Oregon City to California to kill a man named Hermann Kermit Warm. They are hired killers who work for a man known as the Commodore. Charlie is the Commodore’s man, but Eli is tired of the life and wants to own a store.

This is definitely a road trip novel, and on the road, Eli and Charlie encounter many odd people. Most of them they deal with brutally. Eli and Charlie are themselves almost self-parodies, as is their mode of speech.

Although there is an underlying plot, the novel is a series of episodes, where the brothers encounter one situation after another and get out of them more or less fantastically. There is a bit of dark humor in the dialogue, but unlike some other reviewers, I did not find the novel funny. I was interested in Eli’s mental journey, but after he and Charlie blew away a bunch of people, not so much.

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Day 909: Big Little Lies

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Cover for Big Little LiesBest Book of the Week!
From the very beginning of Big Little Lies, we’re aware that someone has been killed, but we don’t know who, or why, or by whom. Liane Moriarty’s novel artfully builds suspense as it draws you in to care about certain of the characters.

The action of the novel is centered around Pirriweee Public School, and it begins six months before school trivia night, when the death occurs.

Madeline Mackenzie is taking her five-year-old daughter Chloe to kindergarten orientation when she has a small accident. Jane, the younger single mother of Ziggy, helps her, and Madeline and her friend Celeste befriend her. Jane is moving to the area in a few months when Ziggy will be in kindergarten with Chloe and Celeste’s twin sons Max and Josh.

During the orientation, the kindergarten teacher notices that someone has been choking Amabella, so she brings this up in front of all the children and parents, asking Amabella to say who hurt her. Amabella doesn’t want to say but ultimately seems to indicate Ziggy. Ziggy states clearly that he didn’t hurt Amabella, so Jane believes him.

However, Renata, Amabella’s high-powered corporate mother, starts a campaign with some of the other mothers to ostracize Ziggy. This begins with not inviting him to Amabella’s birthday party. All of this behavior escalates, and for a while I thought it might be taking on a comic edge, like the school-based nonsense caused by helicopter parents in Where’d You Go, Bernadette? But underlying it all is the knowledge that someone will end up dead.

And the characters have their secrets. Madeline, whose husband Nathan deserted her with a newborn baby 14 years earlier, is upset because he and his new wife Bonnie seem to be winning her older daughter away from her. And Jane’s and Celeste’s even darker secrets come out later.

This novel is striking in its ingenuity and in how much Moriarty brings you to care for its characters. I was deeply involved from beginning to end. The conclusion was eminently satisfying. I’ll be looking for more books by Moriarty.

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Day 908: Relativity

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Cover for RelativityIt’s hard to express my feelings about Antonia Hayes’s first novel, Relativity. When I say it’s sort of a feel-good novel about the ramifications of shaken baby syndrome, you’re going to get the wrong idea. So, maybe I should just start at the beginning. I read recently that Hayes’s own son was a victim, and that adds an unexpected dimension to the novel.

The novel begins from the viewpoint of a delightful character, Ethan Forsythe, the 12-year-old ex-baby in question. He is thrilled about astronomy and physics, and we meet him with his mother, Claire, watching the stars from the park. Ethan is a science nerd who is having some problems at school from bullying, and he also wonders about his father, whom his mother refuses to talk about. Finally, some particularly nasty comments about his father by his ex-best friend Will at school lead him to hit Will, an incident that he can’t remember. In the resulting conference with parents and his teacher, Will’s mother makes some cruel comments and Ethan is so upset that he has a seizure.

Claire, who is a distracted, hazy, self-involved person and overly protective parent, has been having her own problems. Her ex-husband Mark has written her a letter telling her his father is dying and wants to see Ethan. Claire has not allowed Mark’s family any contact with Ethan since Mark left. Claire decides it is not in Ethan’s best interest to meet Mark’s father John, so John dies without seeing Ethan. We know that Ethan had developmental problems as a baby, but it is a while (but still in the first third of the book) before we find out that his father was found guilty of shaking him and injuring him. For that, he served time in prison.

One of the questions of the novel is whether Mark did it or not. However, this novel deals with more issues than that. Mark insists he did not, and we don’t learn the truth about it until the latter part of the novel. It also deals with how both parents handle self-blame over the injuries to Ethan and the disintegration of their marriage. Another theme is Ethan’s own need for knowledge of his father.

link to NetgalleyThis was quite an enjoyable read for me, although I had some problems with the last part of the book. It is hopeful and gentle without providing a magic ending that solves everyone’s problems. That sounds good, right? But something about it bothered me in this context. The novel is compassionate and understanding, maybe too much so.

But the characters are convincing. Ethan is charming, especially in his friendship with his hospital friend Alison and in his love of and excitement for physics. Claire has reason for her over-protectiveness, although she is also very self-obsessed. Mark gradually pulls out of his own self-involvement over his ruined future to consider his son. Overall, I have to decide in favor of this novel, especially as Hayes undoubtedly knows her subject.

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