Canada by Richard Ford

Bev Parsons and his wife Neeva are a mismatched pair. He is a smiling gregarious six-foot tall retired Air Force bombardier from the south. The daughter of Jewish immigrants, she is an intense and aloof diminutive school teacher. A hasty marriage due to an impending birth brings these two together, and an equally hasty decision to rob a bank tears the entire family apart leaving their fifteen year old twins Dell and Berner orphaned. Neeva, anticipating an impending arrest, had arranged for a co-worker to intercept the twins before they could be placed into the care of the state, but the two still spend a few days adrift. Berner decides to follow her own path. Dell is transported over the border and into Canada and the care of Arthur Remlinger. Remlinger is an expat American educated and ejected from Harvard whose outward demeanor fools few.

Told majestically from Dell’s perspective Canada is his story. He is an unremarkable fifteen year old who’s only wish is to start the coming school year by joining the chess club yet finds himself as far away from normal as possible.  Dell survives to convey a life lived and suggests the means to get there.

Richard Ford has managed to bring the characters and the Canadian prairie to life. The story unfolds slowly with the introduction of the characters, but then the pages fly.  I do have a few issues with the novel. It truly is a slow go for about 100 pages, and the ending did seem a bit rushed, but overall Ford paints pictures with words and the time spent was well worth the effort.

posted by – Susan

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The World Without You by Joshua Henkin

Someone vital and important to you has died.  Sitting in a room accepting condolences from neighbors, friends and family the world seems so unreal.  You are busy with death and the after effects. The shiva calls end or the wake is over and everyone goes home.  Looking out the window the earth has continued to spin.  Children play games with their friends. Husbands and wives go to work, eat dinner, lie down with one another, but you just sit and wonder “how can life go on without the one you love?”

One year after the death of their only son Leo, a reporter in Iraq who was kidnapped and murdered while on assignment, Marilyn and David Frankel request the presence of their adult daughters and Leo’s widow and young son at a ceremony to remember Leo.  Each character is dealing not only with the loss of Leo, but also with personal and familial difficulties (infertility, mistimed love, moving on, marital strife, etc.)

At its essence this book is about family.  There is a political slant to the novel, but that is life – no?  Joshua Henkin has included a political perspective regarding the war in Iraq. Is this his perspective or is it the perspective of the characters? His characters were so perfectly written it would be impossible to believe that they felt otherwise.

What is important about The World Without You is the truth of the family.  Joshua Henkin has written the characters in such a clear manner that I felt that I knew them  – they were my neighbors, my friends, my classmates. I could not put the book down, and did not want it to end.  Very rarely is that the case.

There are no car chases, murders, or other big events to draw the narrative forward because the “big event” happened a year ago when Leo was murdered.  The after effects shine here. The World Without You is about how life happens and goes on even when you do not particularly want it to.

A beautiful book – thank you Joshua.

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Vincent van Gogh : the Life

I received Vincent van Gogh: the Life as a holiday present. No, I’m not that slow a reader!   I decided to treat myself to the life of Vincent van Gogh only when I could read without distraction, so I’ve only been reading it when I could read it sitting on the couch in the weekend house.

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have done exhaustive research and the result is a fully rendered Vincent -  beautifully written and a heartbreaking exploration of a shattered life.

For those who love his art. For those who love history. For those who love great writing, and research.

Susan

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A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

Christopher (Stump) Hall has never uttered a word in his young life, but one day out with his brother his curiosity gets the best of him and he witnesses something that will end his life and destroy the tattered fabric of his family.

Set in the mountains of Western North Carolina, the story is told in three voices: Jess Hall – Christopher’s younger brother, Adelaide Lyle, the town midwife and keeper of the children during Sunday services, and Clem Barefield the local sheriff and a man who has a cross to bear against the Hall family.  Wiley Cash has done a fantastic job of creating these three distinct voices, and a book that you just can’t put down.

Bravo Wiley Cash! I can’t wait until your next.

Susan

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You Are My Only by Beth Kephart

I know that Ed reviewed You Are My Only as our first post, but I’ve just read it and have to add my two cents.  This isn’t a review – just my reaction.

Looking through the window to a life that goes on without you – a world you’re not allowed to inhabit.

The trees green, the snow falls, a dog barks, close enough to touch but out of reach.

I read the stories of Sophie and Emmy, one beautiful word at a time, savoring the words and images evoked by the poetry Beth Kephart brings to us.  Eager to turn the page but yet reluctant to let it go, I read on into the night knowing I needed sleep.  How can I turn out the light when Emmy and Sophie yearn for what they can’t have?  How can I leave them when they are trapped and alone?

I am close to the end – forty pages to go and I’m weeping.  Why?  The beauty of the story, the fate of Emmy and Sophie, but most of all I just don’t want this story to end.  I want to stay with Emmy and see a reunion too long in the making. Beth Kephart has created characters so real I feel their pain at being torn apart from one another. Feel the love that Emmy has for Baby, the love that Miss Cloris and Miss Helen feel for one another and the fear of being pulled apart.

I reluctantly finish the most beautiful book I’ve read in a very long time, but I joyfully pass it on to the next person on the list.

I beseech you to read You Are My Only, and promise you characters and a story that will live with you for a long time to come.

To Beth – thank you.

To Beth – next time could you write a stable librarian.

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Mary Oliver

Ed recently sent information that upset me greatly.  Seems one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, is seriously ill.  I wanted to post quickly, but couldn’t.

When I was first introduced to her poems I was going through a very difficult time.  The world was trying to keep me in the box that I had been in for too long. Attempting to escape, I was assaulted at every turn by well-meaning friends accusing me of not knowing what I was doing.  They just couldn’t see how unhappy and caged I was.

I don’t want to sound cliché (even if this is), but I came across Wild Geese by Mary Oliver and it was like the wind shifted the cloud I was under and allowed the sun to shine on my face for a brief moment.  When you’re unsure of yourself, sometimes it only takes a brief something, as seemingly small as this, to give you the strength and courage required to keep moving.

To Mary Oliver I just want to say thank you.

To all of you find that one thing that will give you courage.

To those who haven’t been introduced to the beauty of Mary Olivers’ poetry – I give you Wild Geese.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

published by Atlantic Monthly Press

 

© Mary Oliver

Thank you to Beth Kephart, author of Undercover, for introducing Mary Oliver to me.  If you have a young adult looking for a beautiful book I highly recommend Undercover-a beautiful poetic book.

-posted by Susan

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The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Mabel and Jack are a childless middle-aged couple trying to eek out a living from the wild Alaskan soil.  They have ventured west from Pennsylvania in search of a new beginning, but the land is unwilling and both Mabel and Jack are unprepared.  With Winter coming there is concern that they might not make it through. Their once happy marriage has grown cold, their farm has not produced enough food, and the last means of extra money has just gone up in smoke. As their spare life becomes as barren as the land Mabel wishes for snow.  During the first snow storm of the year a thrown snowball begins a joyous evening, and heralds a new beginning.

Based on a Russian folktale the story of Mabel, Jack and the other cast of characters was charming and gripping all at once.  I often found myself just smiling at the gentle brush that Eowyn Ivey used to paint the characters and the setting.  I loved everyone and held my breath for an ending that was foretold in the folktale and in every fairytale ever written.  I wondered - will this one end like all of the others, do the characters have any hope of altering the inevitable?  Mabel’s sister Ada writes when forwarding the original folktale to Mabel, “What a tragic tale! Why these stories for children always have to turn out so dreadfully is beyond me. I think if I ever tell it to my grandchildren, I will change the ending and have everyone live happily ever after.  We are allowed to do that, are we not Mabel?  To invent our own endings and choose joy over sorrow? (pg 129)

Do Mabel and Jack choose joy over sorrow?  Read this book and find out. I’m wishing for a happy ending.  I’m trying to choose joy over sorrow.  Perhaps…

This is a wonderful book from an author to watch.

posted by – Susan

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The Street Sweeper by El

The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman is the story of three very different men.  Lamont Williams an African-American man just released from prison who was convicted of a crime that he shouldn’t have been who’s trying to get back the one thing in life that means anything; Henryk Mandelbrot, a man who survived the atrocities of Auschwitz who desperately wants someone to remember; and Adam Zignelik, a history professor who’s on the verge of losing everything.

Lamont is a bystander in his own life, who truly just wants to stay out of trouble and find the daughter he hasn’t seen in nearly six years, and keep his job.  Mr. Mandelbrot strikes up an unlikely friendship, on the street just outside of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, with Lamont by making a not so simple request that could potentially cost Lamont his job.  With a beckoning finger and a request to lean in Henryk Mandelbrot suggests “To hell with the rules.”

Adam, the son of a civil rights activist, has broken up with his long time girlfriend and lost sight of his once promising career at Columbia.  Untenured and untethered Adam is given a request by William McCray, the father of a good friend (chairman of the History Department at Columbia) and former colleague of Adam’s father, to look into the role of African-American soldiers during World War II.  This request will either save Adam or break him.

The first chapter was enough to hook me.  This is a book that once you pick up you just can’t put down.  My only complaint is that Perlman got bogged down in the story of Dr. Border( a psychologist that did some vital research after WWII I won’t say more – I don’t want to ruin this part for you.)  His story while heart breaking, could have been shortened.  So much of the book revolved around his story, but surprisingly the characters within this sub-plot were left hanging at the end.  Don’t get me wrong Border’s story was gripping, but it honestly deserved its own book.  I wanted more of Lamont and Henryk.  I wanted to hear Lamont’s voice.  I wanted to understand why Adam did what he did, or didn’t do what he should have.  I wanted to know why he loved Diana (the girlfriend he summarily dumped) and why he needed to let her go.

Having said all of this – I politely request that you pick up The Street Sweeper flaws and all. It’s still a great book.  “The trick is not to hate yourself.  It’s funny what you remember.”

posted by – Susan

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