Scott Semegran
Excellent collection of essays: thoughtful and searching.
Some I really enjoyed: Carly Rae Jepson Loves You Back, I Wasn't Brought Here, I Was Born Here, Death Becomes You: My Chemical Romance and Ten Years of The Black Parade.
A few essays were stale time capsules like The Weeknd and the Future of Loveless Sex.
But on the whole, a great read about music, race, and nostalgia for the real that flourishes in our youth when finding meaningful connections.
This is the third time I've read this novel and I loved it even more the third time. Exceptional novel and Everett's best of the ones I've read.
This novel unfolds over a year of time for Eve, the titular Mrs. Fletcher, and the many people that orbit her life. In no particular order of importance, there is: Brendan her douchebag, college-aged son, Amanda her adventurous yet lonely coworker, Margo her transgender professor, and so on. The relationships and friendships span out farther to Brendan's girlfriends and friends, Eve's friends in her ‘Gender and Society' class (which Margo teaches), and the complex orbital dance is revealed the farther along the novel is narrated by these various characters, all told in close third-person except for Brendan, who narrates weirdly enough in first-person.
Where the novel excels is the voyeuristic way the various narratives reveal that, even when they all get to know each other or reveal what they already know about their friends and families, they really don't know them as well as they think they do. For instance, Eve doesn't know just how misogynistic her son really is or the depths of his narcissism. Her idea of him is as outdated as his love for Teenage Ninja Turtles. But in the same way that people-watching fascinates some people, the unfiltered view into these characters lives–sometimes sexy, sometimes intimately confessional–is enthralling at times.
But the novel's strength is also its weakness, being too concerned about their internal lives and less concerned about serving the overall story or plot, or lack thereof. A unified plot is nonexistent and none of the characters experience any transgressions or difficulties to overcome worth cheering for. If you're hoping for high-risk stakes or difficult dilemmas to transcend, then you will be sorely disappointed. Ultimately, it's their first-world problems that you will be ruminating. In fact, the ‘big reveal' Eve explains in the final chapter that is supposed to illuminate the relevance of a sext message at the beginning of the novel–the one where an unknown sender calls her a MILF–is so groan-inducing that it's not worth even revealing here in this review. It's like a rom-com movie joke worthy of being left on the editing room floor.
Perrotta excels when the characters examine their hopes and dreams and debate the methods in which they want to escape the ways their lives have been compartmentalized, to the detriment of their hearts and souls. The dialogue and conversations are very realistic and utterly fascinating. If you enjoy living within the lives of others (and I admit, I do when reading fiction), then you will enjoy this novel. I did enjoy listening to these characters tell me about their lives. If you are hoping for a fascinating story with an intricate plot, then look somewhere else. I wished for more–story-wise–and was left wanting more from this novel.
I would give this novel 3 1/2 stars, if possible.
Hollow is one of those rare novels that has two very different narrative threads that weave together into a very satisfying whole. Each of these threads alone would not have been as satisfying, one being too depressing and the other being too quirky. But together, they balance each other and create a fully realized portrait of the main character, Oliver, and the world that seems to both mock and inspire him.
At one point, Oliver has a very well to-do life as a college professor, husband, and father to a newborn son. But in one night, a bad choice and an unfortunate life event completely destroys Oliver's world. We learn all of this in Oliver's backstory as he grapples with understanding how God, or life, deals him very, very bad hands. In the present, we find Oliver living in a shack on the southside of Austin, Texas, almost destitute. He befriends Lyle in a book shop, who quickly introduces him to the Hollow Earth Society of Central Texas and their idea that the Earth is hollow and something or someone lives down there. Lyle enters a contest to join an expedition to the North Pole with a hollow earth expert to find an entrance to the inner world. And with this, he and Oliver begin their something-like buddy trip to join this expedition to the North Pole, if they can conjure up the $20,000 needed to be a part of it.
These are the two narrative threads that Owen Egerton weaves with aplomb. Alone, Oliver's backstory would be too heartwrenching. And his friendship with Lyle is derivative of many well-known buddy stories in literature and movies. But together, these two threads weave a very satisfying literary tale of a man compelled to find meaning in a world that is both unrelenting with its maliciousness, but also beautiful with its acts of love. There is one violent turn late in the story that was off-putting and distracting from the story as a whole. Once I finished the novel, I realized that this violent turn was also unnecessary to the overall plot and without it, the story could have concluded in the same fashion. With this aside, the novel has a very satisfying ending, one in which Oliver's friendship with his terminally ill friend, Martin, shows that acts of kindness and generosity are what make life worth living, even when the end is imminent.
I highly recommend this novel for lovers of literary fiction. 4 and a half out of five stars.
Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett is a humorous novel of literary fiction about grief and family. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “Elvis Babbitt has a head for the facts: she knows science proves yellow is the happiest color, she knows a healthy male giraffe weighs about 3,000 pounds, and she knows that the naked mole rat is the longest living rodent. She knows she should plan to grieve her mother, who has recently drowned while sleepwalking, for exactly eighteen months. But there are things Elvis doesn't yet know—like how to keep her sister Lizzie from poisoning herself while sleep-eating or why her father has started wearing her mother's silk bathrobe around the house. Elvis investigates the strange circumstances of her mother's death and finds comfort, if not answers, in the people (and animals) of Freedom, Alabama. As hilarious a storyteller as she is heartbreakingly honest, Elvis is a truly original voice in this exploration of grief, family, and the endurance of humor after loss.”
Elementary school-aged protagonist and narrator Elvis Babbitt has recently lost her mother, who drowned while sleepwalking one night. Elvis's counselor at school helps her through her grief while Elvis snags self-help books from her office to research grief and trauma herself. Her sister Lizzie also sleepwalks and sleep-eats and it causes the family trouble, so much so that she's sent to an insane asylum for a time, eventually bringing her kooky roommate home with her. The sister ultimately pours her grief into baking one thousand rabbit-shaped cakes to set a world record. Her father tackles his own grief while wearing the lipstick and the robe of his deceased wife, pouring his deep well of love into caring for a parrot named Ernest Hemingway, a reject from the local pet store. Even though this novel is about grief, it is filled with humor and lightness and love for this dysfunctional family who learn to come together in the wake of the matriarch's death.
I loved loved loved this novel! I loved Elvis as a narrator and her spunkiness, intelligence, empathy, wittiness, and love for her family. I loved how the family came together despite the large holes left in their hearts. I loved the family's pets too, characters in their own right, the family dog Boomer and parrot Ernest, both having quirky personalities all their own including the parrot's propensity to speak in the deceased matriarch's voice, something he learned when she used to visit the pet store where he lived for a time. In short, I loved this big-hearted novel. Don't let the fact that it's about grief scare you away. It is a lovely book that I didn't want to end.
I really enjoyed this novel and I highly recommend it. I would give this book 5 stars.
True Grit by Charles Portis is the classic western novel narrated by protagonist Mattie Ross, first published in 1968, that was made into two classic movies (one starring John Wayne from 1969 and a second starring Jeff Bridges from 2010). The book description from the publisher describes it best: “True Grit tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen when the coward Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 cash. Filled with an unwavering urge to avenge her father's blood, Mattie finds and, after some tenacious finagling, enlists one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, as her partner in pursuit, and they head off into Indian Territory after the killer. True Grit is essential reading, an undeniable American classic as eccentric, cool, funny, and unflinching as Mattie Ross herself.”
I read this novel immediately after reading another novel I loved by Portis: The Dog of the South. The two novels couldn't be more different. The Dog of the South is irreverent, quirky, and takes place around the time of its publication (1979); True Grit is deadpan, an adventure of revenge with camaraderie between a ragtag crew, and takes place in 1878. Told by Mattie Ross as an old woman, recounting the time when she was 14 and sought retribution for the murder of her father by a scoundrel, Tom Chaney, her deadpan delivery probably springing more from her older perspective than the younger. But, it's fun to envision this 14-year old speaking to codger Rooster Cogburn and a flashy Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf (pronounced La Beef) in her dry, matter-of-fact way. The story immediately begins with Mattie's recounting of her father's unfortunate murder by the hands of a drunken Tom Chaney, and she leaves home to procure a marshal to bring Chaney to justice in Arkansas. She desperately wants revenge and to see Chaney hung for his crime. After asking around to folks all too confused about a child commandeering a marshal, she picks Cogburn, as he's described as the meanest of all the marshals, and the man she believes to have “true grit.” They reluctantly team up with LaBoeuf, who is also hunting Chaney.
The real pleasure of this story is watching the relationship between these three, very different characters who, at first, don't want to work together as a team, but reluctantly do so. Over time, they all discover that each of them is fully capable of bringing Chaney to justice when they work together. Rooster and Mattie especially build a close camaraderie as they get to know each other in the wild country. Portis' writing style is terse and lean. There is some humor when the characters speak to each other in their deadpan euphemisms, although this book isn't laugh-out-loud funny like The Dog of the South. But where both books are similar is with Portis' excellent dialogue, which is funny, vibrant, and rings true-to-life. Portis is a master at dialogue and I can see why True Grit was adapted into two films. If there is a downside to this novel, it's the loose structure of chapters, some of which stretch to 70 pages in length, too long in my opinion, but this is a small quibble. Side note: the novel is way more violent and gory than either movie depicts, but this is appropriate for this type of revenge story.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it. I would give this book 4 and 1/2 stars.
This is a novel written as a memoir about “Michael Chabon” memorializing his “grandfather.” In the last ten days of his life, his stoic grandfather unloads stories about his time in World War II, a stint in prison, how he met his wife, the “grandmother” of the novel, and the trauma of the family dealing with her mental illness. She is institutionalized for a couple of years in the early 1950s and a profound secret of hers is “buried” there only to be unearthed in the journal of her psychologist many years later by the grandson, the fictional Mike Chabon.
The stories of his different family members are beautifully told, as only the real Michael Chabon can write, deeply affecting even. But the use of his family name(s) for the narrator and certain other family members is a very unusual choice, one that ultimately left me scratching my head. While reading the book, I assumed Michael Chabon was writing about his real family and filtering their stories through his writerly hand, adding literary flourishes as he saw fit. He never gives the name of his grandfather or grandmother, while he uses his own name (he's called Mike) as well as his uncle, paternal grandfather, and the like. But in an article in the back of the book reprinted from BuzzFeed, Chabon cops to the fact that the novel is completely fictional. He tells the reporter, “In a weird way, it's a memoir of not my life, but my imaginative life...” Again, this led to more head scratching. Why use his own name? Without this article in the back of the book, a reader would assume, as I did, that there was some truth in this book. If there is no truth, then why not give all the characters their own unique, fictional names?
As a writer, this choice did lead to many questions. I did ponder things like: what constitutes a novel? What constitutes a memoir? Where does fact and fiction intersect if you're looking for truth? What if truth doesn't matter? And these are fun things for a writer to consider and definitely gets in “nerd alert” territory. But if there are more questions than answers, then does this hobble the book itself? Would I have been more satisfied if Chabon didn't use his family name at all? Most definitely.
Another curious choice is some very explicit details of the sex life between the grandfather and grandmother, details so graphic that I highly doubt any grandson would recount to anyone in this way. Although it's only a few paragraphs in the book, I cannot for the life of me figure out why “Chabon” would give these lurid details about his “grandparents” having sex. Very strange literary choice.
Ultimately, this isn't my favorite Chabon novel. I did enjoy the stories of the grandfather in World War II and his time in prison. They're beautifully told. But mostly, it just made me realize how much I enjoyed his other novels more than this one. I'd give this novel three and a half stars.
I've had a trepidation to reading any novels from the Western genre, mainly because of the clichés and the typical tropes that come with them from literature, movies, television, comic books, and more. But my wife purchased a used copy of this novel and told me she had always wanted to read Lonesome Dove. I had a curiosity about Larry McMurtry as well and decided to overlook any preconceptions about this adventure set in the Old West. And, boy, am I glad I did.
I'm not going to go into too much summation because there are too many storylines and too many characters. But I will say this: two former Texas Rangers, Woodrow McCall and “Gus” McCrae, are inspired to gather a herd of cattle and drive them north to begin the first cattle ranch north of the Yellowstone River because of an old friend's description of a beautiful and “uninhabited” Montana (by white folks, of course). The first thing I noticed, almost immediately and enjoyed for the entirety of the novel, was just how funny it was, the way the characters razzed each other, some of the situations they got themselves in. I found myself laughing out loud quite often and enjoyed the banter between the men in the Hat Creek outfit. Gus was the instigator of a lot of this banter, mainly because he just loved to talk, something that loveably irritated most of the outfit; they hated it when Gus was around but missed it when Gus was gone.
Although the novel takes place in the Old West, the narrative isn't bogged down with minutiae of setting or the things used in this time period like apparel or whatever. With the exception of naming a particular brand of gun or weapon, the story mostly focuses on the relationships between the characters rather than the details of the setting, something that a lot of genre fiction does i.e. to nerd-out on the details. The comradery of the friends, the women in their lives, and the men in the Hat Creek outfit is the nucleus of the novel. Their hopes and dreams propel them north for a better life although death shrouds them like a specter. The Hat Creek outfit as well as the other people that orbit them are constantly dealing with death.
Clara, the old flame that Gus pines for throughout the novel and is introduced to us later in the story, is in my opinion the conscience of the book. She meditates on death, having lost many children and a husband too soon, at one point concluding, ‘It's too much death, she thought. Why does it keep coming to me?' And as she recounts the things, places, and people that have traversed with her through her life, the narrator concludes, ‘It struck her that endings were never as you would expect them to be.' And I meditated on these two points often throughout the book. Although the dream of settling Montana with cattle propels Gus and Woodrow to move the Hat Creek outfit with the herd north, it isn't the culmination of the story or the ending we think will be. In fact, that dream dims and fades as friends are lost to unimaginable horrors brought on by bad weather, animal attacks, Indian ambushes, criminal interventions, and the like.
It's a brutal story, one that can't help but make you wonder, ‘What's the point of it all?' Not just with this story, but in all our lives, with death on the horizon. And late in the story (I'll do my best not to spoil the story) when Clara asks McCall why he's doing what he's doing for Gus, he simply states, “I can't forget no promise to a friend,” Call said. “Though I do agree it's foolish and told him so myself.” This is a touching summation to a great novel, that friendship is what gets us through it all.
The Pathless Sky by Chaitali Sen is a book of literary fiction. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “In the “exquisitely written” The Pathless Sky, Chaitali Sen conjures a world in which a nation's political turmoil, its secret history, and growing social unrest turn life into a fragile and capricious thing and love into a necessary refuge to be defended at all costs. A world not unlike the one we live in. Though they fell in love in college, life has conspired to keep John and Mariam apart for years. But a day comes when, across a great distance, both realize they have always loved each other. During the intervening years, however, the troubles in their country have reached a critical impasse. Government crimes have been white-washed, personal liberty is deeply compromised, a resistance movement has emerged from the underground to take the fight for freedom to the streets, and the government militia employs increasingly draconian measures in an attempt to maintain control. When Mariam is implicated in the latest spell of anti-government actions and arrested without appeal, the consequences of her and John's love will prove potentially dire for both.”
John and Miriam meet in college and although there is an unexplainable attraction, they don't consummate their relationship for years. The journey toward marriage is long, but is compelling, nonetheless. John joins the military and is deployed, then goes to grad school. Miriam gets a job as a librarian. They keep in touch through letters (!!!), but the distance between them is vast until John realizes he's in love with Miriam and goes to great lengths to get back to her. Once married, family secrets are revealed that conspire to keep them bound to Miriam's hometown, but John is determined to get them out at all costs.
Sen does a fantastic job of keeping the threads of John and Miriam's lives interweaving, even when John's behavior is frustratingly immature. There is a palpable connection between the two and both are intelligent and ambitious, but John philandering keeps him at arm's length from Miriam. But once deployed in the military, John witnesses a horrific war crime that “awakens” him, and all he can think about is getting back to Miriam.
The narrative takes its time and often meanders (its pathless, as the title suggests), but I couldn't help but cheer for these two as their connection is powerful and their relationship ultimately is beneficial and supportive for the both of them. Sen's writing is thoughtful and measured. If there is a downside here, then its lack of scene setting and location description is frustrating. I found myself trying to imagine their lives in places mentioned like Mount Belet, Sulat, and Alexandria, but my mind placed them in American settings because of the lack of scene description in these foreign locations. Despite this, I still really enjoyed this novel and I recommend it. I would give this book four and a half stars.
Summerlong is the latest book by Dean Bakopoulos, a humorous yet thoughtful and dreamlike novel about the disintegration of a marriage intertwined with other folks in a small college town. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “A deft and hilarious exploration of the simmering tensions beneath the surface of a contented marriage that explode in the bedrooms and backyards of a small town over the course of a long, hot summer. In the sweltering heat of one summer in a small Midwestern town, Claire and Don Lowry discover that married life isn't quite what they'd predicted. Award-winning writer Dean Bakopoulos delivers a brutally honest and incredibly funny novel about the strange and tenuous ties that bind us, and the strange and unlikely places we find connection. Full of mirth, melancholy, and redemption, Summerlong explores what happens when life goes awry.”
In addition to Claire and Don, we are also introduced to a wayward actor named Charlie who seduces Claire, a decrepit and stoned matriarch named Ruth, her beautiful yet suicidal caretaker named ABC who befriends Don, and the actor's philandering father Gil—now an invalid in a nursing home. Don tries to mend his marriage. Claire tries to run from Don. Charlie and ABC willfully get entangled in their marriage. Gil's narcissistic façade is uncovered, and Ruth gleefully watches everyone while getting stoned yet has a morbid plan of her own. From a high level, this all seems like first-world problems or the drama of the well to-do in the Midwest, where the people who fear bankruptcy or foreclosure suddenly receive a free house or a check for $25,000. But Bakopoulos masterfully weaves a hypnotizing story with pathos and thought-provoking insight into the struggles of a couple bound within stupefying routine and the doldrums dished out slowly over time.
There are pointed insights about parenting like this realization from Claire:
“This, she has begun to believe, is the curse of her life: everyone around her demanding reassurance, as if there is a bottomless well of it, as if there is nothing that scares or overwhelms her, as if she is a source of endless cuddles, back rubs, and soothing tones.”
Then thought-provoking ruminations about one's life and the things we leave behind:
“Do we all have secrets and do we all leave evidence behind of such secrets when our end comes without notice? What would Charlie want burned if he were to become incapacitated someday? Maybe that is the sign of a good, ethical life? The idea that there is nothing you need to burn before you die.”
I was mesmerized by this story, even when some of the characters steered into eye-rolling, selfish territory. I wanted to know what happened next to all of them and was transfixed until the end.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it. I would give this novel 4 and 1/2 stars.
Considered one of the first—if not THE first—Young Adult novels, The Outsiders is the classic tale of the conflict between the greaser and social teen cliques in 1960s Oklahoma. It spawned a faithful movie adaption directed by Francis Ford Coppola in the 1980s. If you've seen the movie, then there aren't any surprises in the novel. It's a well-plotted story with a realistic conflict between the social outcasts and the popular kids with some very dramatic turns and the sturdy underlying moral of “don't judge a book by its cover.” The relationship between Ponyboy, his brothers, and their friends is endearing and realistic. I did enjoy reading this novel.
But there are some caveats. First, the narration is clunky with questionable word choices. For instances, during a brawl, Ponyboy (who is the narrator) tells the reader that he wonders where Johnny is while his head is being violently submerged in a water fountain by a rival gang member. I can imagine images of his friend would frantically race through his mind. But wonder? There is a lot of wondering going on in questionable situations in this novel. Second, Ponyboy is described as very book smart and different from the rest of his gang, yet he doesn't site any of the dozens upon dozens of books he's claimed to have read—not even a single quote from a favorite book—and his narration doesn't display a single sign of this well-read dreamer and avid bookworm. His narration is clunky and lacks any signs of a literate mind. The only thing that seems to make him different from the rest of his gang is that he questions their station in life. And he does realize that the social kids are not much different than the greaser kids; they just have different problems and living situations.
Overall, this was a good read. I'd give it 3 and a half stars.
I came to this book via researching Lord of the Flies by William Golding (which I will be rereading shortly). Golding wrote his book as a counterpoint to Ballantyne's The Coral Island so, having never read it, I thought I'd give it a go before reading Lord of the Flies. The Coral Island is about three boys who are precariously shipwrecked on an island in the south Pacific Ocean. It is told by Ralph Rover, one of the boys, in first-person as an adult, reminiscing about his time stranded in the South Pacific. The book is steeped in Christian morality and is somewhat hindered by the narrator and author's limited worldview. The first 60% of the book is about the boys' time on the pristine island and they encounter few dangers except for a shark that happens into their favorite swimming bay. When the boys encounter cannibals that land on their island, then Ralph is kidnapped by pirates soon after, the plot finally revs up, at the behest of losing the presence of two of the boys since they remained on the island. Ultimately, the novel is bogged down by the Christian moralizing, where as the pirates and cannibals are the salacious counterpoint to the Christian crusaders that convert the heathen cannibals and offer an assist to the boys when they needed it most. I found this novel to be more of a historical document than a fun read. Although the relationship between the boys was sweet and realistic, the rest of the book left little to be desired in this modern reader.
I'm looking forward to rereading Lord of the Flies and see how Golding used his novel to respond to Ballantyne's The Coral Island.
Beautifully tragic, tragically beautiful. Tobias is a rock n' roll poet. If this book were music, then it would be on a mix tape with Jane's Addiction and Concrete Blonde. Excellent collection!
Very moving account of lawyer Bryan Stevenson's work with the Equal Justice Initiative assisting prisoners on death row as well as minors sentenced to life in prison without parole. The book is easy to read and understand while being deeply affecting. Some of the wisdom Stevenson imparts: 1) Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done and 2) We are all implicated when we allow others to be mistreated. We learn of several incarcerated people who were unjustly put on death row or given life sentences, and all were victims of a system that made easy targets of them: people of color, children, and poor people. I found myself dumbfounded by how our legal system works and how difficult it is for prisoners unjustly sentenced to have their sentences reversed when they are innocent. Many of these prisoners must have felt like they were on the cruelest episodes of the Twilight Zone, imprisoned or sentenced to death when they knew they were innocent. I found myself weeping quite a few times. A fantastic read worthy of your time and consideration.
I highly recommend this book and give it 5 stars.
Excellent first issue! Looking forward to continuing the series.
Great storytelling and exceptional artwork.
One of the most beautifully drawn and written graphic novels I've ever read. Simply fantastic! Pedrosa's drawing style is fluid, expressive, and surreal. The story is fantastical and very touching, executed with great care. This graphic novel is superb.
I was turned onto this book at my local bookstore by the store manager who said it had hints of magical realism and was also their bestseller. My interest was piqued. Plus, the author had spent time in Austin at the Michener Center, which I thought was pretty cool. All the short stories had some relation to Japan, whether they were set in Japan or have Japanese characters or characters obsessed with Japanese culture. There were only 10 stories in this small book and I'd break them down into three lengths: micro, shorter, and longer stories. The shortest story was 3 pages; the longest was 26 pages.
Both micro stories were unsatisfying, too short to unfold in any meaningful way besides being impressionistic. Like a skilled painter using a one-inch wide paintbrush on a 2 by 2-inch square canvas, the skilled stroke of each micro story didn't paint much of a scene or story. The writer in me thought, ‘Kind of interesting.' The reader in me thought, ‘Wish there was more.'
The five shorter stories were hit or miss: two being exceptional, one having a funny premise but lacking some background information about the narrator that made the story feel under baked, and two that were eerie yet lackluster. The story titled Ms. Yamada's Toaster had the funny premise of a toaster that could predict how people would die–soon after many did die in their predicted fashion–then the omniscient toaster with the penchant for predicting someone's mortality suddenly breaks. Pretty funny story idea! The best of these shorter stories, Wisher, was an amazing piece about a gardener who could hear the wishes of the people who tossed coins into the garden fountain. It was poignant, magical, and heartbreaking–all at once.
The longer stories were where the author really shined. Having a larger canvas to build her worlds, the three longest stories were the best of the book: Rooey, Pioneers, and Amorometer. The longer story-length gave the author enough room to explore the themes of these stories: loneliness, relationships, death, repressed sexual feelings, desire, and depression. The author skillfully fleshed out her characters with all the ticks, mannerisms, and personalities of three-dimensional human beings, a hard task to accomplish in short stories. And the author's ability to use imaginative similes didn't go unnoticed. “He scratched his beard. He'd stopped trimming it, and these days it resembled a storm cloud about to burst.” Fantastic imagery! In Amorometer, a widowed college professor writes a lovelorn letter to a former female research participant from the 1960s who had the highest score of all the participants in his important study using the Amorometer, a device capable of measuring one's capacity to love. Out of curiosity and loneliness, she agrees to meet him even though she's married. But as powerful as the Amorometer seemed to be to measure one's capacity to love, it couldn't measure one's capacity to lie, a characteristic which the former female research participant had in spades.
Now, I see this book as a primer for a longer work like the novel Pull Me Under, which I look forward to reading. I wish this small collection of short stories contained more but, if the longer stories in this book are proof, then I look forward to diving into the novel Pull Me Under. Kelly Luce is a fantastic writer!
Begins as an inverse of Huckleberry Finn. Funny at times yet endearing, Huck and Jim's friendship shines through. By Part 3, the story morphs into a revenge fever dream, horrific yet believable. James's vengeance feels true and just. A remarkable novel that is very readable, engaging, thought-provoking, and-most of all-fun to read.
It's a wonder that Grady Tripp even managed to write fiction at all being that he was so preoccupied with smoking weed and seducing his colleague's wife. I really enjoyed this novel. The relationships between Professor / Writer Grady Tripp and his self-loathing student James Leer and his horny editor Terry Crabtree were wonderfully developed and their adventurous weekend was told with humor and verve. Male friendships are simple yet complex yet simple things and Chabon has a gift of peeling back the layers that bond them. Chabon can really turn a phrase although occasionally he can be long-winded. Every once and a while, I found myself thinking, “Come on, get on with it, man.” Then Chabon would knock my socks off with the next paragraph. All in all, a fun read.
A beautiful novel of literary fiction that is wistful and full of longing. The relationship between grandmother Mineko and granddaughter Lia is the heart of the book. Can't recommend it enough!
My brief review: well-written, engrossing, and an unbelievable story. A.H. was a brilliant and interesting man, full of flaws yet willing to share them with the world. Chernow unfolds his story like an epic novel, almost too good to be true. Highly recommended.