Please: Fiction Inspired By The Smiths--Edited By Peter Wild

It turns out that if you've never sat down and listened to The Smiths until you are 33 or 34, you have no deep background with or emotional attachment to the band. And therefore, short fiction by writers you've never heard of about the band are about 5 degrees too far removed from your interests.

If you'd like to read this, speak up and I'll send it. I have no opinions on quality or enjoyability of this collection, but maybe you are excited by it.

What I've Been Reading--Adult Edition

The Thousand--Kevin Guilfoile

This is an odd hybrid of mystery, thriller and science fiction that centers on Canada Gold, a pro gambler with a neurotransmitter implant to control her severe ADHD. The implant, or "spider" as she calls it, allows her to focus and process minute changes in the environment and gives her near superhuman powers of observation. (Yes, in case you hadn't thought of it, she's a veritable Lisbeth Salander clone.) Anyway, so there's a lot about her father the composer/murderer, the murder of her friends, a mysterious job she's given, a schizophrenic artist, and a giant society dedicated to mathematical secrets of the universe that's fighting amongst its two branches. Crazy. There's some interesting stuff here, but any time you've got some sort of gigantic secret society fighting over the mystical secrets of the universe, I snort and grow bored.

Guilfoile did write a hilarious series of stories about atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair as a detective in hell.

Gunshot Road--Adrian Hyland

I reviewed the first book in this series back in 2008, and this is a worthy sequel. Emily Tempest has a new job with the police as an aboriginal community police officer, but on her first day of training the superior who hired her and likes her winds up injured and off the job. So Emily has to face racism, sexism, assholism, and the death of an old friend of her dad's, a miner who was also a passionate philosopher. Her digging into the case leads her across the outback, into tiny towns and roadhouses, and into a ton of danger. It's a hard read, but has beautiful language and an economy of description that really gets the feel of Australia across with lines like "I threw a scrap of turkey, a lump of roo-tail and an orange in my little saddlebag and headed for the track to town."(5)

Tooth And Claw--Jo Walton

I first found Jo Walton through her Small Changes trilogy. Check it out, it's an awesome read. It's a fantasy series with aspects of mystery and thrillers. The story takes place in a Great Britain that made its peace with Hitler after the Battle of Dunkirk. But this book is even trippier. It's a Victorian novel in spirit and themes--but with dragons. The central conflict is the aftereffects of the death of a patriarch. He left clear instructions on the dispersal of his gold amongst his two sons, married daughter, and two unmarried daughters, but his intent for the dispersal of his body was less clear. (Yes, dragons eat their dead and their weak--this detail lends a great fraught quality to the story). His louish son-in-law eats more than is fair, and one of the sons decides to sue. Throw into the plot other wickedness of the son-in-law, the marital prospects of the daughters, the attempts of the son to rise in the legal ranks, and a Catholic-Protestant simile, and still more plot and excellent characters in this detailed world. A great read!

Knowle's Passing--Edith Forbes

I read her novel Alma Rose back in 2006 and recently decided to finish up reading her novels. Bless you, Phoenix Public Library for your interlibrary loan services! This is an interesting meditation/mystery looking at the after effects and cause of Vernon Knowle's death by gunshot in his Vermont farmhouse.

Stumptown--Greg Rucka

A graphic novel set in Portland about a PI with a gambling problem. So I've been really interested in this but it was $30 for a 159 page hardback. Thank you, ILL because this really was not worth the money. Dex Parios is set up to be a classic noir badass detective with her own code and a heart of gold, but she leaves me cold. I just didn't find the character interesting or sympathetic, even with the brother with Down Syndrome and the gambling problem. Too much action and not enough character-building. And the artwork is all hard edges and gray and blue and makes Portland look really ugly and kind of like Cleveland or Detroit. And the ridiculously leg-humping fanboy introduction doesn't help.

What's next--

We Need To Talk About Kevin--Lionel Shriver

I was on the reserve list for this book for 3 months. Since it's publication in 2003, it's been a perennial book club read because of its polarizing narrator, and the essential question of whether a psychopathic school shooter is born or created. It's now a film with Tilda Swanson. I've read about 10 pages and it floors me with its intensity.

The Flying Troutmans--Miriam Toews

I loved this darkly funny road novel by Canadian writer Miriam Toews. I think that if you liked Little Miss Sunshine, you'll like this book--it has a lot of the same feel to it in the low-key tragicomic tone, and deals primarily with how family members cling to each other in the wake of mental illness and chaos.

Hattie Troutman has come back from Paris to take care of her niece and nephew and put her sister Min back in the hospital for the umpteenth time. Min has 30 years or so of crazy under her belt--she's tried to kill herself numerous times, Hattie at least once, and was inadvertently responsible for their dad's death. Hattie fled to Paris, just tired of it all and needing a break. She's the last of the family able to assume responsibility for Min and her kids, 15 year old Logan and 11 year old Thebes. After checking Min into the hospital, Hattie surveys the wreckage and decides that the best thing to do is go off looking for the kids' long-gone dad, Cherkis, who was last heard to be in South Dakota. After all, Logan's been expelled from school and alienated the neighbors by throwing hatchets, and Thebes is decidedly more manic than before, and there's nothing keeping them in Manitoba, is there?

So off they go in the family van, confounding American border agents, hustling on local basketball courts, squabbling, and trying to reach Cherkis before the van breaks down irreparably. Meanwhile, Hattie reflects on her history with her sister and gets to know her niece and nephew. The charm of this book is in the characters--Thebes is a wildly charming creation, with her novelty checks and homemade gift certificates, but all the characters are nicely layered.

Shipwrecks--Akiro Yoshimura

This book is described as "a thrilling tale of murder and retribution aet on the wild seacoast of medieval Japan" and "a stunningly powerful Gothic tale" on the cover. This sets up the novel to be more Western than this story truly is. It follows a small settlement that lives at less than subsistence level on the Japanese shore. They fish, gather some vegetation and trade in neighboring towns. One of the ways they ensure survival is by various members of the community selling themselves as indentured servants. Another is through a ritual asking the gods for an O-fune-sama, or shipwreck. The community harvests salt from the sea every winter by boiling down seawater on the shore at night, causing ships to occasionally wreck on the rocks during winter storms.

Isaku is a 9 year old whose father has become an indentured worker, leaving behind the family. Isaku is tapped in his place to take over salt distillation duties, and the story is a detailed look at his life as he matures. It also details exactly what role the O-fune-sama plays in ensuring the survival of the community, and the entirely human reactions to the bounty.

This is a very Japanese story, elegant in its surface simplicity. But that simplicity disguises the attention to detail, and Yoshimura's expert world building that makes the story fascinating.

Breakfast With Scot--Michael Downing

So last month I watched a movie that charmed and touched me so much, I watched it 3 times in 2 days. (What? It was President's Day weekend. I had time.) The third time, I noticed that the movie was based on a book and ordered it. The book and movie are somewhat different, but both have smart observations on parenting, sexuality, and what makes a family. And I highly recommend them both, so much that the book gets a spot on my keeper shelf.

The book is about Sam and Ed, a settled gay couple living in Cambridge, Mass. Sam's a holistic chiropractor, and Ed works for an Italian art magazine, and they have a calm, peaceful, life together. Then Sam is named as the guardian to Scot, the son of his brother's late girlfriend, and the couple is thrown into parenthood with the arrival of the 11 year. Said 11 year old tries hard, but has an unfortunate effect on people--he's part miniature flamboyant Quentin Crisp, part sad geek, with a wardrobe of pink girly clothes and a certain tone deafness to social norms. Any kid would be a big adjustment, but Scot comes with a special kind of chaos, bringing an accidental confrontation with sexuality, awkwardness and youth to everyone he meets.

THe writing is just beautiful and terribly funny--just see my post from earlier this week. It's really a lovely book, and I intend to reread and pass it along to some parents I know.

A Discovery Of Witches--Deborah Harkness

I think I described this book as "Harry Potter for adults." That's actually an insult to the Harry Potter series--it at least had some subtlety. This book is an enjoyable romp of a read that kept me busy for a couple of nights, but it isn't in any way emotionally deep, despite attempting to create a shorthand deepness for its characters by putting them in peril.

Right, so we're in an alternate modern time in which three types of supernaturals coexist secretly with humans: witches, daemons, and vampires. Witches use magic, vampires are gorgeous but able to exist in sunlight and eat raw food and pursue their eternal interests, and daemons are brilliant but tend towards ca-ra-zy. Personally, I liked the daemons best. They seemed to be the most fun.

So Diana Bishop is an historian with a specialty in the history of science. She's also the daughter of one of the most powerful and renown prodigy witches of all time, and her daddy was no slouch either. But Diana has no interest in magic, and has never honed her powers. She blames it on the fact that when she was 7, her anthropologist parents were killed in Nigeria for being witches. So no magics for her! Science and logic only! Magic is only for use in an emergency, like when the washer overflows. So one day off in Oxford at the Bodelian, she gets her hands on a manuscript, Ashmole 782. This manuscript is supposed to be missing. And it's locked up in magic, but opens when Diana touches it. But being freaked out, she sends it back to the stacks. Dumb. Ass.

So starting the next day there's all sorts of supernatural with an interest in Diana's doings, including hottie vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont, who's all following her around, gazing at her while sleeping, taking her to yoga, being her new bestie. And then LOVE! And DANGER! And SECRETS!

Right, so Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont have a bad case of The Perfects. Maybe that's what brings them together. Because not only are they each sort of bland, but there's no emotional conflict. Oh, you stalk me? That's okay. You killed someone to protect me? Thanks, hon. Your mom hates witches? Oh, but we're getting on okay. Vampire-witch forbidden love that leads to a secret governing body to tell us to knock it off? Eh, whatevs. You don't believe in intercourse, and are all about the everything but? That's so romantic. Diana particularly has "faults" that are just additions to her perfection, like her "anxiety disorder" that fills her with adrenaline and makes her irresistible to vampires, bad dress sense, and her limited emotions. I mean, you expect a vampire to be perfect, at least.

It's not a bad book--it is very enjoyable, but as you know I'm a character-based reader and the characters in this are not that interesting. So it's just not for me.

Winner of the National Book Award--Jincy Willet

This is the book I took to read at the Roosevelt Tavern, and it was an excellent choice all around.

It's subtitled "A novel of fame, honor and really bad weather." Dorcas Mather, small town Rhode Island librarian, is waiting out a hurricane in the library, drinking and reading and criticizingIn the Driver's Seat: The Abigail Mather Story, the hack true crime book designed to get her twin sister, who is in prison awaiting trial for murder, some sympathy. This book is a triumph of narrator voice, as Dorcas takes on Yankees, fake Yankees, intellectuals, reading, libraries, childhood, feminism, men and women, and what really happened with her sister through the course of reading and being infuriated by the book (for inaccuracy, awkward writing, and the dippiness of the author). It's also a book about sisterly love, extremely funny, and completely enjoyable. Willet's an author beloved by David Sedaris (see, now you want to read it too!) and I'll be looking out for her other books.

The Three Weissmans of Westport--Cathleen Schine

I'm getting tired of Jane Austen homage novels, particularly ones that try to rework Sense and Sensibility. This is the second one I've read recently and I haven't liked either of them. Jane Austen mixups generally work a bit better for the YA crowd, since lack of power and self agency due to age is roughly equivalent to the lack of power women held during the early 1800s. Once one realizes how lucky one has it as a modern American women, it's hard not to want to shake characters who are just dumb or annoying.

Betty Weissman is unceremoniously evicted from the marital home, a Park Avenue apartment, when her husband of 48 years takes up with a younger woman. A relative offers her a home in a slightly winterized home in the summer colony of Westport, and her two daughters, Miranda and Annie, join her. Each has money and career troubles. Miranda is an agent whose clients have been found to have imagined their memoirs and is in bankruptcy, and Annie is bleeding money to cover life in New York and launch her own sons. She's also somewhat in love with a celebrity author (who happens to be the brother of the mistress).

Miranda is the Marianne, of course, all doing, and not thinking, and she manages to fall for an actor visiting the area. Or is it that she's more in love with his young son? Annie spends her time mooning and thinking and not doing, and is generally very annoying. The fellow she's in love with is dumb as a box of rocks. Their mom is at least mourning the loss of her marriage, although she's also completely ignoring the fact that she's getting hosed in the divorce. And then a man saves them! Sheesh. This was an annoying read that I bought based on the New York TImes' love for it. Bad choice.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society--Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I'm here to tell you that if you've put off reading this book because you thought it was just twee ladies' book club fodder, you were absolutely right. It is completely put together to appeal to book clubs--a simple read about a bit of WII history that you may not have heard about, with a cast of characters who all did the best they could to get through the war and are trying to rebuild their lives.

It's pretty well written epistolary novel. In 1946, author Juliet Ashton receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a farmer from the Isle of Guernsey. He bought a book of Charles Lamb's essays secondhand from her collection and tracks her down through her name in the book. Juliet's flat was bombed in the Blitz and she lost all her books, and is thrilled to get a letter from someone who enjoys Lamb as much as she does and who has one of her personal books. Dawsey tells her about life in Guernesey during the war, when the islands were occupied by the Germans who cut them off from the outside world (no letters or papers were allowed in or out) and nearly starved them all. And then the whole freaking town starts writing to Juliet for a project about the sustaining power of reading that she's working on, and she back, and they tell her of their personal experiences and their great, clever, good friend Elizabeth McKenna who was sent to the concentration camps for helping a poor Polish prisoner of war, and is missing. And then Juliet goes to Guernsey to research a book, and it's all just LOVE.

So, I had a fair amount to totally Kerry problems with this book. The letters thing disguises the fact that it's all tell, not show, so it's a great way to disguise the lack of tension. There's no real plot, merely a bit of mystery about what happened to Elizabeth McKenna and who will Juliet marry, the pushy American, Dawsey, or her publisher Sidney. Then at the end there's some plot about the witch Isola's granny's letters to tie up some loose ends. So really, all things I hate in books,

After a while, I just got annoyed with how damn saintly everyone was, especially fucking Elizabeth McKenna. Yes, she has an affair with a German soldier, but it's True Love. And he's a Good German With A Conscience. And she a spunky champion of Good that everyone but the cartoonish villians loved. And she Helped Others, always, constantly, with her spunk. Sigh.

Oh, and once the reader finds out Sidney is gay, of course Juliet will marry Dawsey, no matter how thinly drawn he is. Marriage fixes everything, even to a guy who can't hold a decent conversation with you.

I don't think it helped that I went to see Connie Willis the Friday before I started reading this book. Her talk about her most recent book(s)* which combine her obsessive interest in WWII and her humanist views. All I could think of is how much better Connie Willis is at this sort of tale--she has bite in her characters and tales, not overly sentimental treacle.

*She said, "Yes, it was supposed to be one book. I handed in a manuscript that was about a thousand pages. Well, it took me 8 years to write it!"

Moonlight Downs-Adrian Hyland

You thought you'd never see another book review from me, didn't you? It was worth the wait, I promise. Published in the US by Soho Crime, Moonlight Downs won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Novel in its native Australia and is a fascinating, engrossing read.

Emily Tempest comes back to her home in Central Australia after 14 years away at school and roaming the world. "Home" is the Moonlight Downs community, a tribe of Warlpuju lead by Lincoln Flinders. First night back, Lincoln is murdered. Blakie Japanangka, sorcerer and enemy of Lincoln is discovered with the body and supposed to be the killer, but Emily isn't convinced and starts a discreet dig for answers.

This story really worked for me. First off I'm a sucker for Australia, and good writing in the "show, don't tell" style. This is a magnificently detailed book, and Emily an appealing and observant narrator. The small bits abound, like Emily's observation that a friend's little sister had "turned into an outback Naomi Campbell." Hyland's experience with native culture and the area he writes about comes through Emily's authentic narration, and her own difficulties figuring out where she as a young, mixed race, well-educated, bright and curious Australian fits. The difficulty of life in the desert, the roughness of the people drawn to the life and the harshness inherent are all well-depicted and three dimensional, from Emily's friend Hazel to the suspect Earl Marsh.

One of the rarer things to find these days is a fair mystery--one where clues are seeded but you as the reader can figure it out. This is a fair mystery--the solution and climax depend on Emily's knowledge and interpretation, but there's nothing that happens out of the blue to jury-rig an acceptable ending.

Great story. More, please!

Curse Of The Spellmans--Lisa Lutz

Dear god, the Spellmans are back.

Dear god, the Spellmans are back!

As you may glean from those two statements, I have somewhat mixed feelings about this book. I really liked last years The Spellman Files, narrated by the saucy Izzy, who can't help telling a story that runs around the mulberry bush as police investigate the disappearance of her little sister Rae. Key to the tale was the history of her family of San Franscisco private eyes, a family for whom evasion, deception and suspicion are more of an identifying trait than any physical resemblance. Curse of the Spellmans continues Izzy's roundabout narrative tendencies as she tries to explain to her lawyer Morty how she's managed to get arrested 4 times in 2 months. She maintains that arrests 2 & 3 don't count as they were instigated by family, and 4 shouldn't because...well, it's complicated.

The main flaw levied against Lutz's first novel was that it lacked plot. Her second is chockablock full of major and minor mysteries, and she expertly spins them out. Why is Olivia Spellman sneaking out at night to vandalize a motorbike in the Noe Valley? Why is Albert Spellman hitting the gym after avoiding it for 35 years? Is David Spellman entering a downward spiral and personality change a la Uncle Ray? Why did his wife leave town? Who is recreating a series of pranks Isabel and Petra perpetrated in high school? And what is Inspector Henry Stone getting out of his friendship with the Spellmans, a relationship that leads to accidental attempted vehicular manslaughter, fake engagements, "it takes a village" parenting, and having Izzy as a roommate?

And that's not counting the cause of the arrests, the Spellmans' new neighbor John Brown, or "Suspect," as Izzy calls him. Most girls wouldn't be insanely curious about a locked bedroom, a common name, and a gardening habit. But it only takes a few dates and evaded questions before Izzy's insatiable need to ascertain the truth takes over and leads to dead end investigations, stalking, and a restraining order.

This book is as funny as the original, but there's also an undercurrent of fear and sadness--the Spellmans, for all of their eccentricities seem to be fraying and Izzy's obsessions in particular raise an eyebrow. But it's a great read, and I'm interested in seeing where Lutz goes with this (I presume) series.

If you liked this series, check out Lauren Henderson's Sam Jones and Liz Evans' Grace Smith series for more sarcastic female investigation. They're British, but much the same in tone and humor. I'm also strongly reminded of The Bagthorpe Saga in the way the Spellmans pile on the family crazy.

Nightlife, Moonshine, Madhouse--Rob Thurman (Cal Leandros Novels)

I heard about these books from Jia's review of Madhouse over at Dear Author. Damn, I am thankful for the recommendation, even if these books provided too much of a distraction. How much of a distraction? Not only did I get the first two books from the library and DEVOUR them, I went out and bought the third and I am not allowed to go and buy books, especially if I am paying a full $7 for it. It was totally worth it. And fantasy is usually not my thing. Having spent too much time around the LARP crowd, I am so burnt out on the angsty, the monsters, vampires, werewolves, oh my! and retread stories about souls and demons and blah, blah, blah that 3 years later I will kick you in the shins if that sort of shit comes up.

Or maybe it's being older that you have no patience for such. It started to decline after I broke my arm, I know that. That's when everything changed.

But anyway--back to the awesome stories!

Cal Leandros and his older brother Niko are on the run. Truthfully, they've been on the run their whole lives--when your mom is a Gypsy con artist/whore, staying long in one place is not an option. However, for the past 4 years they've been on the run from creatures they call "Grendels," one of which is Cal's father. The last time they all met up, Cal vanished for 2 days and came back 2 years older, with no memory of where he'd been or what happened. Recent Grendel sightings have them looking to leave New York, despite the assurances of their psychic friend Georgina King that they should stay. Hunting for a car, they meet puck/used car salesman Robin Goodfellow, who identifies Cal as part Auphe (the basis for the elven myths, only not hot like Orlando Bloom and much more into killing things.) Nice. Rob's good sorts, which is helpful because the Auphe have a plan that they shortly put into action that leaves Cal not in control of himself. Oh dear.

Moonshine has the brothers living a semi-normal life: Cal is mostly recovered from the trauma of Nightlife, Niko's gone back to college and got a girlfriend, and the three of them have a supernatural fix-it/detective agency thing going, with Robin Goodfellow hanging around to help and amuse. Cal is also being pursued by George King, and doing his best to elude that relationship for fear of the Auphe and "You really want to find daycare for a flesh-eating baby? I think they charge extra when your kid goes cannibal during naptime." Things get rough when they agree to do a job for a werewolf, who decides to make sure he gets good results by kidnapping George to ensure compliance and sends Cal undercover. Yikes.

Madhouse has the brothers facing off against the famous "cannibal" Sawney Bean (he eats people, but he's a Red Cap, not a human. He's also the inspiration for the Reivers in Firefly.) And someone's making attempts on Goodfellow's life. Sawney Bean's got a special liking for Cal, whose mental health is strained, what with the events of the previous books, and this whole being connected to people thing is new and very stressful.

As you can see, there's a lot of fantasy cheese factor in these stories. Let me count the types:

Gypsies!
Hot brothers who spend all their spare cash on weaponry!
Hot angsty sarcastic men with ISSUES!
Vampires, werewolves and monsters, oh my!
The whoring, drinking, cheating, stealing puck with a mastery of the lewd remark!
Half human/half monster!

Sorry, I had to fan myself. Here's the deal--I know logically much of this seems over the top. But surprisingly, it really works for me. I spent some time analyzing why, and it's because Thurman does such a great job of balancing all aspects of her tale. Okay the plot of Moonshine wanders, but I didn't notice it until after. She's got tightly written fight scenes, plenty of action, and good pacing within the stories. Robin's a great source of humor, and so is Cal's sarcastic first person narration. And I appreciate that in her world the supernatural races are born and just exist, no angsty vamping or wolfing necessary.

And there's character grounding and development, which I'm always a sucker for. Niko's overachieving, supercontrolled, overprotective nature and Cal's crappy self-esteem and perpetual guilt owe as much to having a neglectful, alcoholic mom as to the events of the books. Cal is particular is an evolving character that Thurman's got on the Hero's Journey. He's very much the younger brother in the first book, but by Madhouse he's moving out of Niko's shadow and making independent choices that he knows might not be best, but what he he feels he has to do. He also feels greater connection and responsibility to the victims that he and Niko encounter, and tries to right things.

So if you like the sound of this, you might also like Bill Willingham's Fables for the novel character development and humor, Simon R. Green and Charles de Lint for urban fantasy settings. Heck, throw in Neil Gaiman too.

And you know what hit me around Madhouse? These books are a lot like Robert B. Parker's Spenser series. No, really. Lone wolf detective, deadly silent companion, idealized female love interest, sarcasm, and a little sap.

The Sexiest Man Alive--Diana Holquist

Here's my entry for Beth's Smart Bitches Day.

So here's the deal--I don't usually read contemporary romance. Mostly because my romantic history is dull as dirt and from what I can gather of modern mating rituals, contrary to perception, I'm apparently a guy. So contemporary romance depresses and kind of annoys me as it doesn't reflect my life. It's a lot easier for me to get into historical romance with the angst and long skirts, and the propriety and the illicit sex than deal with the modern day. But I checked this book out because of Dear Author's review in which them mention there's a secondary character who is a librarian. A male librarian. This is rare, I tell you. So lured by the possibility of a positive portrayal of a librarian, by which I mean a character who isn't a virgin or nearly so, has a backbone, possibly clothes sense and isn't shirking from the larger world, I opened the book.

And for the approximately 3 pages he appears, Senior Reference Librarian of the NY Public Library, Mr. Josh Toby, pays off. He's tall, skinny and redheaded, but treats his delusional homeless patrons with kind but firmlpatience. And he gets into a physical fight for his true love in the end. Okay, the fight is with his true love, who he's had a thing for since high school, but aw!

I have a lot of problems with all other aspects of this book. Jasmine Burns is an aspiring costume designer who has a fear of men. Oookaaay. This fear dates to when she was 16 and was invited to make out under a tree with her handsome tutor, who invited his friends come by to observe and catcall.

Yeah, unbelievable much? Because my that logic, I should be institutionalized. Believe me, if you haven't developed a fear of men from spending your 7th grade year being sexually harassed and called "whore" by all the boys in your class, a few guys spying on you from a tree isn't going to do it.

Her sister Amy got the family's gypsy gifts--she can occasionally tell people who their true love is. And in return for $2,000 to pay off her and Jasmine's other sister, Amy lets Jasmine know her true love is Josh Toby. But is it actor Josh Toby, who is kicking around his hometown of NYC incognito doing random acts of kindness and feeling bad that he's not real deep, he doesn't fit into his family's counterculture mold, and everyone just thinks he's just a hottie with no brains or soul or Librarian Josh Toby? Oh, noes! It's Hottie Josh of course!

So a book that I can't suspend disbelief to get into, annoying characters, a plot that likes to think it's full of outrageous fun but isn't really funny--I didn't make myself finish it, because I wanted to slap everyone.

Breaking Rank--Kristin D. Randle

This book really tries to be The Outsiders, but fails. It's got an intriguing kernel of an idea though.

In an unnamed, dreary, anywhere city there's a group of boys labeled The Clan. They wear all black, they don't participate in school, are all tracked into special ed classes. They skulk around in groups on the outskirts of middle class society, being poor, looking intimidating, sticking to themselves, and ignored.

One of the high school teachers decides to break up The Clan by targeting one Thomas Fairbairn, aka Baby, sending him to the honors track and pairing him with Casey, a combination tutor/guide to the system. It's an awakening for both of them--The Clan turns out to be an organized group started by Baby's older brother and two friends, devoted to Waldenesque ideals of self-education and apprenticeship and Baby has an active mind hidden behind his exterior. Casey's intrigued by him, and Baby's fascinated by her loving middle class family and values. However, this situation threatens and unnverves various other people leading to the classic YA exploration of self vs. group, nonconformity, and that agonizing rite of passage called figuring out who you are and what you want independent of everyone else.

Randle's ham-handed with her deus ex machina points, like the teacher's ability to arrange college plans for Baby and a too easy ending. On the whole, it hampers her narrative and character development, but I love the idea of a boy cult devoted to self education, intellectualism and high ideals.

Book connections: I was very much reminded of the original Hopeless Savages graphic novel, to which I had this same intrigued but disturbed reaction due to its theme of the pressures of family conformity in the guise of nonconformity. And I was also reminded of my current favorite song, Billy Bragg's "To Have And Have Not" with its theme of self-reliance and confidence in the face of low expectations and economic odds. It gives me succor as I think about my job hunt. it also reminds me how much I just flat out like teenage boys.

Here At the Scenic-Vu Motel--Thelma Hatch Wyss

Here's a dirty secret about libraries--they throw away books. Even though I am immune to the sight of books in a dumpster due to the Great Law Firm Purge of '01, the idea of public libraries weeding out and tossing good books, books that I read and loved, makes me cry.

So sometimes I try to give them a little more life by taking out books I've read before and liked. This YA novel from 1988 is a good read but slight. It's the diary of Jake Callahan, who along with 6 other high schoolers is boarded at the Scenic-Vu Motel in Pine Flats, ID. They all come from a hippie family settlement up the mountain 90 minutes away, and the school board will not pay to run bus service up there for a handful of high school students, preferring to pay to board them in town.

Jake's a senior, which mean's he's the defacto leader of the bunch, keeps them on the honor roll and out of trouble with two rules-- "Work Hard" and "Have Fun." His journal details his attempts to come to grips with his unusual family, deal with the burden of being the grownup for the other 6 kids, and attempts to get a social life and some fun out of his last year of school. They all bond with the motel's owner, Mrs. Metz.

Wyss has an engaging voice, but the plot and characters are slim. Not an emotionally gripping tale, but when I was a kid way back when it was an enjoyable read.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union--Michael Chabon

I've been having a few interviews lately, and I've been asked to do a spur of the moment booktalk as one of the questions. I've been using this book, so it deserves a blog entry to pass along the love.

In a Sitka, Alaska that has been a refugee station for Yiddish-speaking Jews for the past 60 years, a man is found dead of an overdose in a derelict hotel. Meyer Landesman, policeman and fellow down and outer, is asked by the manager to investigate. Despite being officially taken off the case, he and his partner/cousin Berko Shemets continue to poke around the case, venturing into the worlds of chessplayers, the ultrareligious, and various family secrets. Sitka's on the brink of being handed back to the States, and everyone is veering between hopelessness and action as they scramble to find sanctuary before being kicked out of the community they've managed to create.

It's a wonderfully drawn world. I was about ready to buy a plane ticket to Sitka before remembering it's not really an Eastern European shetl with extra blintzes and snow. You've got great descriptions and writing, like this:

"The Taytesh-Shemets family lives in the Dnyeper, on the twenty-fourth floor. The Dneyper is round as a stack of pie tins. Many of its residents, spurning fine views of Mount Edgecombe's collapsed cone, the gleaming Safety Pin, or the lights of the Untershat, have enclosed their curving balconies with storm windows and louvers in order to gain an extra room. The Taytesh-Shemetses did that when the baby came along: the first baby. Now both little Taytesh-Shemetses sleep out there, stashed away on the balcony like disused skis." (36)

I'm hoping for a sequel of sorts concentrating on the Taytesh-Shemetses--Berko and his scrappy wife Esther-Malke are worth further exploration and I found their relationship more interesting that that of Landesman and his ex-wife.

So who would this appeal to? People who like noir, mystery, richly drawn characters, alternate history, Jewish culture/Jewish fiction, exotic locales, and are interested in a downbeat narrative.

I did have a problem with the book that's not precisely about the text. I've previously mentioned that I have certain issues with Chabon's wife Ayelet Waldman, who basically has no personal censor that would prompt her to keep certain business to herself ("oh, I hope my child is gay, I had an abortion, I am super special and bipolar, I have hot sex with my husband, I hate my mother-in-law"--dear god, shut up! Some things are personal!). And I also have problems when too much of an author's life makes it into a book. it just creeps me out. Let's just say the character of Meyer's ex-wife, Bina Gelbfish, bears a shocking physical resemblance to Waldman and the guilt over aborting a baby with a disability is a major character point for Landsman in the novel. This real life parallel made me uncomfortable.

The Spellman Files--Lisa Lutz

Oh. My. Awesome.

That's what this book is. It got a great review in Entertainment Weekly a couple of months ago, so I was really looking forward to it since I trust their reviewers. But what that short capsule did not convey was the excruciating mixture of sharp comic writing, good characters, and heartwarming family love that makes this an super enjoyable novel and perfect for summer reading.

Izzie Spellman, 28, works for her parents' San Franscisco private investigation firm, and has managed to turn herself into something resembling an adult after a long and tumultuous stint as her family's devil child. She's even got a new boyfriend, a nice normal dentist. True, he thinks she's a substitute teacher, and is curious about her family, but when your family violates other people's privacy for a living and an avocation, certain countermeasures have to be taken to keep them out of the loop. Izzy's going make a big step--she wants to quit the business and move out of the apartment in her parents' house, but before they'll accept her resignation she has to solve a 15 year old missing persons case that been languishing in the dead file.

Are you looking for a plot? There's not much of one. It's totally character driven, and Izzie's telling the story that outlines out the history of her family and tracks events up to the ostensible opening, which has her being interrogated by the police investigating the disappearance of her 14 year old sister Rae. It's a lightly told tale of family love-hate, and excellently written, and very, very funny. Every page is amusing, and I can't even start quoting because I'd violate copyright and post the whole thing. It's that good.

The book's being marked to adults, but I'd give it to a high schooler-the themes of independence and how family shape you are right for that demographic. Excellent book, one of many great reads I've encountered recently.

For Matrimonial Purposes--Kavita Daswani

You all know that I read a lot more than I review here on the site, right? I read like some people drink--as a daily form of escapism. And while I may churn out some decent sentences, for me to sit down and write is kind of like treating guinea worm disease. Long slow torture of pulling something out of your body, involving frequent rests to get your head together and forget the pain, plus screaming. So a book really has to spark some feeling for me to bother. Otherwise, it just gets filed into a category called Things I Don't Care About. It's a vast category.

This is a book that sparks frustration for me, because it has a good idea but Daswani makes so many poor choices in the telling of her tale that the novel is just mediocre. I have to ask, did she not have an editor or friend read it before publishing and give her critical feedback? Because she cuts her own narrative off at the knees at so many points that she completely lessens the effect of the tale. And the writing and secondary characters clearly show she's got some ideas and skill, and with a little refining this could have been a very, very good novel.

Anju comes from a wealthy Bombay family in the jewelry business, and as befits her social station she's expected to marry a fellow Indian of a good family and have children. Nothing more, and nothing less. Anju has a different path in mind, and persuades her parents to allow her to work and continue her education, first in Bombay and later in the US. She's very picky about her potential husbands when she's younger, but at age 30 she finds that herself in an uncomfortable place. She'd like to get married, but she's considered too old and too independent, if not actually slutty, by most suitors. Anju is faced with questions and doubts--did she make the wrong choices? Has she let her family down? Will she ever meet a nice fellow and fall in love?

The problems I have with this story center on the character of Anju. Her story is told as a first person flashback, so it's essentially a data dump. Classically lazy tell, not show. Then there is the fact that we are supposed to believe that Anju is spirited and ambitious, but she's not shown to be such. She's drab. Her one bit of spark comes when she bribes a fortuneteller to lie to her mother and say that her horoscope does not show her marrying until at least her late 20's so that her parents will be persuaded to let her go to America. We're told she's successful at her job as a "fashion publicist" but there are no details about what she likes about it, or how she goes about her job, or what makes her good at it. She enjoys Western life, but there's no detail about how she struggles to maintain her Indian identity and values. I mean, she doesn't date and she's a virgin! She lives in a bubble in Bombay, and then secrets herself in a bubble in NY. The only difference is that she lives alone in a studio apartment. She's a static, dull character with no voice, and to have her narrate a novel that is supposed to deal with her life and personal struggles--it's just not worth reading.

Then there is a question of the website. At one point, when Anju ramps up her marriage hunt, she takes a last-minute flight to a dinner party where an eligable man who might be interested is supposed to be. She later finds out that there's a website devoted to her attempts to find a husband. But this is never followed up on. It is the equivalent of that old bit of advice credited to Chekhov, that if you put a gun in the first act, it had better go off by the third. How can you put such a detail, ripe with dramatic possibilities, in a story, and not follow up on it? Anju doesn't Google herself to find fellow members of the Indian diaspora making fun of her? Sheesh!

There were a lot of possibilities in this novel, but it's ultimately unsatisfying. I like exploring Indian culture through fiction, and this story conveys the culture well, but the central character drove me nuts.