Tag: New York State

Review 2753: Woman at the Window

~ whatmeread ~ 7 Comments

Although Elizabeth Burke leads a simple life, she enjoys it. She is looking forward to her new job in a bookstore when her brother-in-law Adrian calls. Her sister Anna has been told she won’t walk again. We’re never told what happened to her, but she has undergone two surgeries and refused a third that was supposed to either kill or cure her. Now Anna has asked Liz to come take care of her.

Liz is reluctant to go, citing a fear of losing her independence, but her issues are more complicated than that. And that’s one thing I liked about this book—everything is nuanced and complex, nothing black and white. Her friend and neighbor Lollie advises her not to go, but within a few pages, she has arrived at Anna’s home in Lakeville, New York.

There she finds a disturbing setup—Adrian is exhausted and seems to dislike her, having misunderstood her reluctance. Bunce, the cook and housekeeper, also shows dislike. Johnny, Adrian and Anna’s five-year-old son, avoids Anna’s room and spends most of his time by himself. Anna, who is charming to everyone else, is cold to Johnny. Adrian’s mother stays in her room all the time and doesn’t seem to notice Johnny much.

The crux of the novel is the relationship between the two sisters and between Anna and everyone else. Anna is charming and everyone loves her. Her bedroom receives visitors constantly. She talks affectionately to Liz but calls her her pony to other people. LIz has always adored Anna but previously Anna never seemed to heed her very much. She has seen Anna tire of people and doesn’t want her to tire of herself.

Liz is self-conscious about her looks and dresses badly while Anna is described as looking like Alice in Wonderland, fragile and beautiful. But Liz doesn’t understand her own qualities. There are a few instances, for example, when her intervention or comment helps another person, but she always attributes the help to Anna.

I disliked Anna. I could see that under her much-vaunted charm she sometimes makes knowingly hurtful remarks. Liz, although sometimes abrupt, is much more attuned to other people’s feelings. The situation becomes more intense when a friend gives Anna a mirror, to be put outside her house so that from the window she can see everyone who goes by. She becomes relentless about ferreting out people’s secrets, and she doesn’t seem to understand that she has no right to know them. Twice, she makes it appear that Liz has divulged someone’s secret when she has not and causes trouble by letting people know she knows their secret or by telling it to someone else.

Liz has a secret she doesn’t want Anna to discover. It’s that she’s fallen in love on sight with Huxley Reals, an employee of Adrian’s company. But Huxley is Anna’s devoted slave, coming constantly to visit her.

As Liz gets acquainted with the community, her influence begins to help particularly the people in their house. She pays attention to Johnny and he slowly opens up. She says something to get his grandmother to spend time with him. She cautiously makes some friends. But she believes she will be leaving, even continuing to pay rent on her old room, and everything in her life is overshadowed by her complex relationship with her sister.

I liked this book, which was published in 1951, a lot. I sympathized with plain, abrupt Elizabeth and felt she underrated herself and overrated Anna. I liked several other characters in the novel as well and thought it was an interesting character study.

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Review 2751: The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family

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When I realized that the family in this novel was the Netanyahus—I mean, the Netanyahus, as in the prime minister of Israel, I was not looking forward to this book. However, it is part of my Pulitzer Prize project, and in fact won it, although I have never heard anyone talking about it.

Before I start my review, I’m beginning to find the quotes and book blurbs ridiculous, I have to say. Maybe some people actually read the quotes to select a book, but I avoid them then and only sometimes read them later when I am perplexed about a book’s reception. Here are some of the words on the back of this book—“genre-bending,” “exuberant,” “funny beyond belief.”

First, let me address “genre-bending,” which apparently applies to this novel because it combines nonfiction and fiction. Excuse me, but isn’t that what any historical fiction book based on real events does? Isn’t that the definition of historical fiction except perhaps in the case of some light romances or maybe gothic novels?

The novel is set at a small college in upper New York state, where Ruben Blum is the only Jewish faculty member—an American History professor—in 1959-60. Blum is asked to serve on the hiring committee when it interviews Ben-Zion Netanyahu, a scholar of the Spanish Inquisition and its treatment of Jews. Although Netanyahu is living in the U. S., he is from the new nation of Israel. Blum doesn’t know how he’s supposed to judge the applicant’s knowledge since he knows very little about Medieval Europe, and he finally realizes he’s been chosen because he’s Jewish and he is mostly needed to provide hospitality.

For about the first half of the book, there was a lot of standard campus satire. My husband, whose first wife is an academic, always says that politics on campus are so brutal because the stakes are so low. I started wondering where the exuberance lay or when the book was going to become funny beyond belief as it made stereotypical humor out of two holidays with the in-laws, examined the different beliefs Jews have about Zionism, and explained Netanyahu’s beliefs.

I suffered through a ridiculously long, glowing letter of recommendation, which was countered by an even longer letter telling Blum that the reason Israeli scholars were gushing so much about Netanyahu was because they wanted him out of the country. Okay, that was kind of funny, but not funny beyond belief.

Finally, more than halfway through the novel, the Netanyahus show up for the interview and lecture—not just Ben-Zion but all of them: his wife Tzila and his three young sons—Jonathan, Benjamin (yes, him), and Iddo, ages 13, 10, and 7. And their behavior is outrageous. The book picked right up, and I can only assume that the critics who are gushing about it can only remember the second half.

I won’t say what they do—that’s the fun—only that in essence if not in detail, this part is based on a true story told to Cohen by Harold Bloom—although Cohen hastens to assure us that his character Ruben Blum is not meant to be Harold Bloom (right).

All I can say is, tearing things down seems to be more the style of these characters than building them up, and I guess that has continued up to today.

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Review 2670: Doorstoppers in December! The Deepening Stream (and Holiday Greetings!)

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Merry Christmas, everyone! This isn’t exactly a festive entry, but I have a real treat here in my one contribution to Doorstoppers in December. Although I had already read one book by Dorothy Canfield Fisher and thought it was far ahead of its time, The Deepening Stream was captivating.

This novel follows the life of its protagonist Matey from her first memories of childhood to the end of World War I. Apparently, the novel parallels Canfield Fisher’s own life, with the difference that Matey is a more ordinary person, according to the Introduction, than Canfield Fisher was, an everywoman.

Matey Gilbert and her sister Priscilla and brother Francis grow up affected by the state of their parents’ marriage, in which there is a continual state of one-upmanship. Matey’s father is a Midwestern college professor whose “company manners” are entertaining and charismatic and, Matey believes, false. But whatever his wife’s current interests are, he trivializes them, and his moods rule the household.

As a young teenager, Matey lives a year in Paris with the Vinets while her father is on sabbatical. (They always go to France because of her father’s field of study, where her mother cannot speak the language. A painful memory is the trip they took to the Netherlands, where her mother could speak but her father could not, and the fuss he made about it.) There she learns about a different kind of home life and a different way of conducting her own life. Used to running wild with little supervision, she sees that she is behind the Vinet children, who are younger, and begins taking her schoolwork and piano lessons seriously. She also feels at home.

Priscilla, whom Matey as a child believes is fearless, eventually copes with their home situation by making herself too busy to notice things, and this becomes a habit that continues to adulthood and keeps her from developing. Francis copes by treating everything as unimportant. Matey takes much longer to process her parents’ relationship, and it affects her throughout her life. However, when her father dies unexpectedly of an untreated wound, she is the only one to see that there was more to their parents’ relationship than they understood.

After her parents’ deaths, Matey learns that she has relatives on her mothers’ side that she has never heard of, because her parents never returned to her mother’s home after they were married and never talked about them. Matey has received a small bequest from her Cousin Constance, and when she goes to Rustdorf to inquire about it, she remembers her cousin’s home from when she stayed there as a child. At the bank, she meets Adrian Fort, a young distant cousin brought up as a Quaker who has just returned from Paris, where he has had to admit he’s failed as an artist and will join his father at the savings bank. He will become her husband, their relationship a close one. But she first has to learn how to be close to anyone.

With the advent of World War I, despite the U. S. neutrality, she and Adrian decide they want to go to Europe—Adrian to be an ambulance driver and Matey to use her legacy to help the Vinets and others who need it. Their friends and family are incredulous when they decide to take their two young children. Most of the rest of the book is about the struggles and conditions of World War I.

This is an absolutely fascinating novel. There were a few pages toward the beginning of the novel when Canfield Fisher was writing about the importance of play to children (childhood development being one of her interests) when I got a little bored, but after that, I was completely captured by the novel. It explores the intricacies of marital and other personal relationships, the influence of upbringing on children, the effects of war on humans, our responsibilities to others, and other issues that Matey thinks through, and it does all this without seeming weighty.

This is a terrific and thoughtful novel. It also is on my Classics Club list, so it serves two purposes. Three, really, because it is so, so good.

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Review 2633: The Pink House

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

Some of the best stories of my life begin with an orphaned child. Here is another one.

Norah is a crippled girl, probably from polio, but at seven she is loved and taken care of. Then her mother dies, and her father, who soon will be traveling to South America for business, gets Aunt Rose to take her home. Norah, who doesn’t even understand that her mother is dead, thinks she is going for a visit. And it’s clear right away that no one wants her at her aunt’s home in central New York State.

Aunt Rose is beautiful, but she is cold and aloof. Nevertheless, she makes people love her. She lives a life of barely hidden dislike with Uncle John, yet he loves her. The children are Paul, who tries to please Rose but never does; Mary Anne, who is so beautiful that Norah can’t help staring at her; Jed, who calls Norah “Toad”; and Dosie, who comes right out and tells Norah she doesn’t like her. The children make it clear they aren’t interested in her, and only Paul is kind but removed. Aunt Poll, John’s sister, is so direct that Norah at first hates her, but it is Poll who will help her become strong, independent, and brave. At first, though, she spends most of her time alone crying.

This is a story about how a lonely, neglected orphan slowly becomes an integral and valued member of the family. But it is also about a cold, selfish, beautiful woman who attracts love without effort and without deserving it and does her best to destroy that family. It is about self-determination and growth but also about family secrets.

I absolutely loved this novel and thank the brand new imprint, Quite Literally Books, for sending me the book in exchange for a free and fair review. The first thing I did after I finished this book was look for another one by Nelia Gardner White, a new name to me.

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Review 2339: The Quiet Tenant

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For five years, the woman in the shed has been captive, padlocked in, handcuffed to a table, subject to repeated rape. Her captor lives in the house with his wife and child. But his wife has recently died, and his in-laws, who own the house, want to sell it. When he tells her he has to move, she knows it means her death. She knows when he has been out killing, but she has managed so far to talk him out of killing her, and now she convinces him to move her.

Emily is the owner of a restaurant and serves as its bartender. She is in love with handsome Adrian Thomas, who comes in regularly for a nonalcoholic drink. His wife has recently died, and she thinks he is showing interest in her.

In between short chapters from the women’s points of view are even shorter ones from the points of view of his victims.

This novel is certainly readable and suspenseful, but I had a few problems with it. First, the tone of the chapters by the victims is all wrong. These chapters make up a very small portion of the novel, however.

I had a bigger problem with the unlikelihood of the captive woman not taking several opportunities to escape. The first time, when Adrian absentmindedly doesn’t lock the handcuffs properly, is explained by her belief that the house has hidden cameras and Adrian’s omission may have even been a test. But I don’t know. I think most people would try. It’s less believable when she decides not to leave without the 13-year-old daughter, Cecilia, especially since as soon as she got to police, Cecilia would not be in danger. I found this really unlikely after Adrian leaves her free in the house during Christmas break while he is at work. She would have had all day to get away. She knows by the end that he has tricked her about the cameras, so she should be able to guess he’s tricking her about the so-called GPS tracker he put on her wrist.

Still, if you want to ignore such details, the novel is certainly a page-turner.

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Review 2332: The Circular Staircase

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Rachel Innes, a 40-some-year-old spinster who has raised her niece Gertrude and nephew Halsey, is persuaded to leave the city and take a house in the country near where they have friends. She leases a large house from the Armstrongs, a banking family who are visiting California for their health.

Miss Innes arrives first with her servants and passes a comfortable night. However, the next night she and her servant see a face at the window and later on hear noises as if someone has broken in, although the windows and doors remain locked.

Gertrude and Halsey arrive with a friend, Jack Bailey, who is a clerk at the Trader’s Bank in town. That night, there is another disturbance. This time, an intruder is shot to death at the bottom of the circular staircase. He is Arnold Armstrong, the estranged son of the house owner, who should not have had a key. If that’s not bad enough, both Halsey and Jack have vanished. Right about this time it becomes known that the Trader’s Bank has failed because someone has stolen millions of dollars of securities. Suspicion has fallen on Paul Armstrong, the bank president, but maybe also on Jack, to whom Gertrude is engaged.

The house now becomes the target of a series of mysterious intrusions. Strangers appear on the grounds, noises are heard in the house, holes appear in the walls of an unfinished ballroom. Miss Innes runs up against someone on the staircase in the dark, and the events continue even with police guarding the house.

It’s not hard to guess why people are trying to break in, especially after Paul Armstrong dies in California, leaving an unexpectedly small estate. But Rinehart keeps the action going with lots of perplexing incidents.

The novel is engagingly written and moves along quickly. There isn’t much character development here, but that’s not to be expected from a thriller from 1908. However, we like Miss Innes and we also like Mr. Jamieson, the police detective who gradually lets Miss Innes in on the investigation.

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Review 2330: Somebody’s Fool

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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.

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