Review 2330: Somebody’s Fool

~ whatmeread ~ 5 Comments

Somebody’s Fool is the third of Richard Russo’s North Bath novels. The first two (Nobody’s Fool and Everybody’s Fool) centered around the character of Donald “Sully” Sullivan. Sully is now dead, but he is certainly not forgotten, and in a way, you could say that this novel also centers around him.

These books of Russo’s are equivalent to ensemble cast programs. There are lots of characters, and the novel moves among them.

Peter Sullivan, Sully’s son, is one of the main characters. He is a college professor who spends his weekends fixing up, first, the house his grandmother left him and now, the one Sully left him. He enjoys this work, but his plan is to leave North Bath as soon as he finishes and sells the second house. On the other hand, he’s always planned to leave but doesn’t seem to do it.

Peter is surprised to receive a visit from his son, Thomas, whom he hasn’t seen since he and his wife split up when Thomas was a boy. Thomas doesn’t seem to mean well, even though he is friendly, and we learn later that he has a plan but not right away what it is. Thomas, we learn from letters to his brother, is eaten up with resentment against Peter for deserting them (even though his mother didn’t want to have anything to do with Peter) and with jealousy against Will, the oldest brother, for getting to go with Peter.

(Just as a side note, I can’t be sure, but I think this is the first time we ever hear that Peter has two other sons besides Will. They are certainly convenient for this plot but make Peter’s lingering resentment against Sully for deserting him and his mother even harder to understand.)

Another important character is Doug Raymer, the ex-Chief of Police of North Bath. North Bath has recently been dissolved as a political entity and absorbed by nearby Schuyler. Raymer was offered the job of Chief of Police there but decided to retire. He is mostly missing Clarice, his girlfriend and ex-officer, who wanted to take a break and has accepted the Chief of Police job. When he meets up with Clarice, he finds she is dealing with a breakdown on the part of her twin brother, Jerome, and the misogyny and bigotry (she is Black) of her new staff, led by Lieutenant Delgado.

Raymer gets involved with a case of identifying a badly decomposed suicide at an abandoned estate when his old officer, Miller, calls him for help. Clarice hires him as a consultant and asks him to take Jerome as a housemate.

Another main character is Janey, a woman with a history of poor choices in men. Although a lot of her space is occupied with her relationships with her mother (whom she resented for years for carrying on with Sully outside her marriage) and her daughter, she ends up being key because of her relationship with Delgado.

Russo’s characters tend to be self-doubting and over-think things. Usually I enjoy him, but in this novel some of these tropes became a little repetitive. And at times they slowed the action to a halt. For example, Peter hears someone moving around in his supposedly vacant house. He grabs a baseball bat but then Russo takes two pages to have him wonder who it is (including Sully’s ghost) before going up to see. Eventually, the plot gets going but before that, there were times that I got impatient.

Russo is a really good writer, though, who creates complicated and mostly likable characters. It seems like he wanted to use this novel to wind up the fates of his sometimes comic North Bath characters. If that was his intent, he succeeded.

Related Posts

Everybody’s Fool

Empire Falls

Mohawk

Review 2329: The Warrielaw Jewel

~ whatmeread ~ 1 Comment

I have read a few novels by Winifred Peck, so I was intrigued to learn she had also written some mysteries.

Betty Morrison is the newly married wife of an Edinburgh lawyer, John. She accompanies her husband on a call to the Warrielaws, an old family whose members are constantly feuding. The most recent dispute concerns the fairy jewel, a chunk of amber said to be given to an ancestor by a fairy and subsequently encrusted in jewels. Jessica Warrielaw, the old lady who was left the estate, hadn’t spent a penny on its upkeep but instead has been selling off treasures and giving the money to her nephew Noel. Shis is planning on selling the fairy jewel.

Jessica’s sister Mary as well as the other potential legatees are horrified by this. Mary, who lives with Jessica in shabby rooms divided in half by physical markers, wants the jewel to stay in the family as does niece Cora. Niece Rhoda, on the other hand, would like money to start over in America. She is horribly managing and makes the life of weaker Aunt Mary miserable. Other potential heirs are Neil, of course, and Rhoda’s much younger sister Alison.

First, there is an odd incident at the house that seems like a break-in except nothing is missing. Then Jessica leaves for London, presumably to sell the jewel—and isn’t heard from again. John, as trustee of the estate, finally hires Bob Stuart, an ex-police detective and friend, to find Jessica.

Weeks later Jessica is found dead, not in London but in the estate’s dilapidated stables. The jewel is nowhere to be found. Was Jessica murdered? How did she get back home when Betty herself saw her on the train to London?

As is often the case with mystery novels of the period (1933), this novel is more concerned with the puzzle than characterization. However, several characters do have strong personalities. The plot is rather slow moving, and once or twice just when things were getting exciting, Peck drove me crazy by inserting a several-page description. However, I liked Betty and though the novel was entertaining.

Related Posts

Bewildering Cares

House-Bound

4:50 from Paddington

A New Blog Feature

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

It seems that more attention is going to translators lately. I’ve noticed a few imprints putting translators’ names on the covers of books and other bloggers saying they plan to list translator names. I was wondering what I could do about this. I thought that adding them to my Authors page would be too complicated, as often a series of books changes translators. Finally, I decided to create a Translators page and link to it from my Authors page. The page contains two lists, one sorted by book title and the other by translator name. You can check it out today.

Review 2328: Tom Tiddler’s Ground

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

At the beginning of World War II, socialite Caroline Cameron takes her baby daughter to stay in a country village with her old school mate, Constance Smith. Caroline is witty but spoiled, and she has begun to feel that her husband John is coddling her too much. She thinks that Constance is nice but naïve, and her husband Alfred, who married up, is a social climbing bounder.

Caroline is surprised by how involved she gets with the lives around her. Constance also has an evacuee mother and baby staying with her. The mother is a sullen girl who pays little attention to the badly underweight baby. Once Nurse and Caroline change his food, he begins to gain weight and Constance begins to care for him.

Alfred is embarrassed because his half sister Mary moved to town as the grocer’s wife. He tries to avoid her, but Constance welcomes her.

Caroline, however, is being tempted into an affair with Vernon, an actor friend. She is displeased with her husband because he doesn’t want to discuss his first marriage, which she’s heard conflicting stories about. When she is in town with Vernon’s friends, she finds herself telling stories about her country friends and then feeling a little disloyal to them.

Although it deals with some serious issues, this is a charming novel about growing to understand other people.

Related Posts

Company in the Evening

Begin Again

Which Way?

Review 2327: Chenneville

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

John Chenneville, a Union officer, awakens in a field hospital in Virginia to find that the Civil War is over and he has been lying in a coma for months. He has a healing wound on his head where a chain hit him after an explosion. The war is over, but it takes him months to be well enough for the journey home to Bonnemaison in Missouri on the Mississippi.

Once home, he can tell something bad has happened, but he has to wait for his Uncle Basile to arrive from New Orleans to learn what it is. In the meantime, he occupies himself with trying to restore his ravaged estates. Finally, his uncle tells him that on another one of the family estates further south, his sister, her husband and baby have been murdered. His mother has gone to live with Uncle Basile and has not spoken since the event. After waiting longer to improve his strength and coordination, Chenneville sets off to avenge them.

He finds it is an open secret that they were murdered by a man named Dodd. Dodd was a deputy, and it’s clear that the sheriff is going to do nothing about it but has warned Dodd that someone is after him. After going on a wild goose chase, Chenneville learns that Dodd has fled southwest to Texas. He is killing people on the way, and Chenneville eventually finds himself a suspect for one of the murders.

Jiles seems to like writing about people on journeys, and she likes the setting of post-Civil War Texas. Chenneville finds in East Texas an area once more populous and prosperous, now wild and desolate. This novel is involving and eventful as you wonder how Chenneville can avenge his family without destroying his own life.

Related Posts

The Color of Lightning

Simon the Fiddler

News of the World

Review 2326: Fear Stalks the Village

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

Joan Brook has been working as companion for Lady D’Arcy, a woman suffering from dementia, when she is visited for the day by a friend from London. The village where Joan lives is so perfect that her friend begins making up stories about the villagers’ dirty secrets.

It’s not too much later when Miss Asprey, a respectable old lady who is a social leader of the village, admits to having received an anonymous letter alleging a past of improprieties. The Rector tries to keep her admission a secret, but the word gets out.

Things seem to settle down except that some people believe that the letter was sent by Miss Corner, a hearty writer of boys’ books. This belief is based on the way the envelope was addressed, using Miss Asprey’s middle initial, which only someone who knew her as a girl would know. Then Miss Corner receives a similar letter. Almost immediately after, she accidentally overdoses with sleep medicine.

The Rector calls his old friend Ignatius Brown for help. The once perfect village is under a shadow. Rumors are going about that Dr. Perry poisoned Miss Corner because of an inheritance, so some people change doctors. He actually did benefit from her will, but he hasn’t received anything yet and is having difficulties because of his wife’s spending and his loss of income. Moreover, he misses Miss Corner, who was his only friend after the Rector, whom he thinks has been indiscreet. Ignatius thinks that the relationship between Miss Asprey and her companion, Miss Mack, has something odd about it.

The novel slowly builds an atmosphere of fear and mutual distrust as more letters appear. Perhaps too slowly. Although White is skilled at building tension, it takes a long time before anything more sinister happens.

The character of Joan is about the only likable one in the novel except for poor Miss Corner. The Rector, Joan’s love interest, is a bit neurotic for me as are most of the villagers. But White does do an excellent job of portraying psychological pathology.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a free and fair review.

Related Posts

Some Must Watch

The Wheel Spins

Two-Way Murder

Review 2325: Homestead

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

In her research for Homestead, Melinda Moustakis incorporated her grandparents’ stories of homesteading in Alaska. Yes, in 1956, you could still receive a homesteading grant in exchange for working and making a home on the land. That was a surprise to me, too.

Lawrence Beringer is a withdrawn and hard man who has just filed homesteading documents for 150 acres of land when he meets Marie. Marie has traveled from Texas to stay with her sister Sheila and Sheila’s husband Sly with the plan of finding a husband so that she never has to return home. Within hours of meeting each other, Lawrence and Marie are engaged.

The couple live on a bus the first year while Lawrence clears land, plants a crop, and finally builds a cabin. Life is difficult, but for Marie, most difficult is understanding Lawrence, who is very withdrawn. For Lawrence has found he cares too much and must stay away to keep himself together. A miscarriage when Marie is almost at term doesn’t help, especially because Marie understands that her part of the bargain is providing children.

Conditions begin to improve, but even when things are good between them, Lawrence is aware that he’s keeping a secret from Marie.

I felt some distance from both of these characters but found the story fascinating nonetheless. It is written telegraphically, in short, sometimes partial sentences. Despite the descriptions of such activities as plowing, building a cabin, or planting potatoes, this novel is mostly a study of two distinct characters.

Related Posts

Coming into the Country

The Horseman

The Orchardist

Review 2324: Wonder Cruise

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

Just a little note to say that my biography index page has been selected as one of the Top 30 Biography Blogs on the web by Feedspot. I received a nice email from the founder, Anuj Agarwal, informing of this.

I don’t usually read romance novels, but a few reviews made Wonder Cruise sound like it was more than that. I received the book, to see that it was being marketed as a romance. However, it turns out to be an untraditional representative of the genre.

Ann Clements is a naïve and inexperienced 35-year-old. Before taking a tedious job in a London office as a typist, she lived with her brother, a strait-laced and judgmental rector, and his dull family. Ann dresses dowdily and goes back and forth between her boring job and her dreary lodgings.

Then she wins a sweepstakes—half of a six-hundred-pound winnings from a bet on a horse made by her office mate. All that morning something had been making Ann think of a Mediterranean cruise, so before she loses her nerve, she books passage, after encouragement of her boss.

Her brother Cuthbert vociferously disapproves and even says Ann should give the money to her niece. When Ann is finally on board, she finds herself to be afraid of almost everything. She is seasick, has brought the wrong clothes, and is afraid to do something wrong. Her dining mates are dreadful, but on her first night she meets Oliver Banks, a man she met briefly the day she won the sweepstakes.

This novel mostly dwells on Ann’s self-development—her emergence from a timid woman who thinks she is already old and past chances of happiness to someone who is much more open and wants a chance at happiness.

It’s hard to explain why this novel is not a standard romance without giving too much away. I’ll just say that it takes some unexpected turns.

Related Posts

One Afternoon

It Ends with Revelations

Yoked with a Lamb

Review 2323: Literary Wives! Mrs. March

~ whatmeread ~ 12 Comments

Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in 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!

This month we welcome a new member, Kate of booksaremyfavoriteandbest! She will join in for the next review in June.

My Review

Set in an undefined time that is probably the 1950s or 60s, Mrs. March is a character study of a woman disintegrating. This all begins at her favorite pastry shop. Mrs. March is a woman highly concerned with appearances. She is married to George March, a writer whose most recent novel is a hit. She is figuratively torn asunder when the shop owner asks her if she minds being depicted in George’s book as the main character, Johanna. Mrs. March hasn’t exactly read the book, but she knows that Johana is an ugly whore whose clients don’t even want to be with her.

Mrs. March immediately becomes obsessed by the idea that he has portrayed her and that everyone is talking about it. She doesn’t read the book, which might be a reasonable reaction, but she destroys a few copies and roots through George’s desk trying to discover his secrets. There she finds an article about a missing teenager in Maine and immediately begins to believe that George, who periodically visits a cabin in the same town, has had something to do with it.

This novel takes a deep look at the psychological behavior of a woman who is unraveling. At times it is darkly funny, sometimes tipping nearly to absurdism. Mrs. March is not likable, her behavior is often outrageous, yet it’s hard to turn away from the page.

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

It’s hard to answer this question, actually, because we don’t see much of George. You have to wonder in the first place what would make George give such an unpleasant character as Johanna all of his wife’s rather distinct mannerisms, especially since most of the time he seems affectionate and soothing to her. Artists can be clueless, but it also seems clear that Mrs. March is so self-obsessed that she is detached from everyone, even her son.

Literary Wives logo

What does the poor woman have to do all day except clean up things she doesn’t want her maid to see and prance around town in her fur coat shopping? It’s enough to drive anyone mad. Yet is seems that no one is stopping her from doing whatever she wants to except, possibly, the notion of how it would look if she, say, got a job.

And how things look seems to be the dominating force in her life. We get a few glimpses into her childhood where her cold mother taught her this priority.

George has his secrets, but he is really not at all important in this novel. Mrs. March is able to adjust her notion of George instantly, thinking he’s a murderer while preparing his birthday party. What a book!

Related Books

The Wife

The Tortoise and the Hare

The Bird’s Nest

Review 2322: A Well Full of Leaves

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

Laura is from a poor family, but lack of money isn’t the problem so much as lack of love. Her father earns very little and is often drunk. Her mother constantly complains, offers no affection to her children, and tells them they are ungrateful.

At the opening of the novel, Anda, the oldest at 16, is beautiful but selfish. Robert, at 14, loves reading about history but has been made to quit school for a job as a clerk. Both pick on Steve, the youngest at 11, who deeply feels the lack of affection. Only Laura, who is 12 or 13, seems to care about him, and she has learned to adapt to their circumstances by losing herself in the tiny details of life, to enjoy living. She tries to teach her outlook to Steve, but he just becomes more bitter.

A crisis comes when Steve is 14. Although he is the best student of Greek in school and has a good chance at university, their mother tells him she removed him from school so he can work. This is just meanness, because Anda is leaving home, and Robert and Laura are working, so the household is better off than it ever has been. After a huge family fight, Steve burns all his books.

The novel begins to be about the relationship between Laura and Steve. Steve becomes a famous actor with a very bad reputation. He has many affairs but says he loves only Laura. Once their father dies, Laura goes to live with Steve. The real crisis comes when Laura falls in love.

Although I agree with a lot of Laura’s ideas, Myers expresses them far too often and in a florid writing style that seems to belong to the early Romantics. Sometimes, I had no idea what she was talking about and other times, I didn’t want to think about it enough to figure it out. Parts of the novel are absolutely fraught in tone, especially at the end.

Related Posts

Which Way?

The Old Man’s Birthday

The Other Side of the Bridge