Category: american authors

More often than not, the novels of Chris Bohjalian have some sort of moral core at the basis of the narrative. I think that’s why I enjoy his books so much; they’re a little like morality tales slipped inside really good storytelling. As a result, I read a lot of Bohjalian and count The Buffalo Soldier among one of my favourite books by a living American writer. I didn’t damn Oprah for introducing me to Bohjalian; instead, I let her pull me into him like a tight hug. He’s one of the authors where I used to go to the “B” section in the bookstores looking for new titles (before I knew my way around the internets and browsed in a non-virtual environment).

Therefore, I was happy to see a new title of his this spring, Skeletons at the Feast, and sat down eagerly to read it (after letting it sit on my shelf, I’ll admit, for a couple of months because I’m busy dammit!). Bohjalian’s a “purely for pleasure” kind of a read. The novel doesn’t satisfy any challenges. The books are afternooners, and I’m always happily surprised by their twist endings.

Skeletons at the Feast, though, is unlike any other Bohjalian book I’ve read. It’s as emotionally impactful as The Buffalo Soldier and as epic as, say, Snow Falling on Cedars. As the Emmerich family prepares to leave the only home they’ve ever known, the end of the Second World War approaches. A wealthy Prussian family that runs a huge farm, they are luckier than most in that they’ve remained somewhat on the outskirts of the war. They’ve made sacrifices (the eldest brother is off fighting for the majority of the book; a ghost within the narrative itself, his story told through memory and referral) but in the months that follow, their lives will change beyond belief.

Displaced by the crumbling German empire and about to be overrun by Russians, legions of people set out on foot, walking west toward the Allied lines in order to escape the unspeakable horrors of what happens when they meet “Ivan.” Mutti, Anna, Theo, and Callum, their POW (a Scottish paratrooper assigned to the farm where they lived to help with the labour) set off on foot with their father and Anna’s twin brother, Helmut. Toward the beginning of the novel, Anna’s father and brother separate from the group, as the two men are called into action. They leave the trio with Callum hidden underneath the horses’ oats and head to the front. For everyone in the book, this journey is long, hard and not without its losses.

The powerful stories of two other main characters are intertwined with the Emmerich’s: there’s Uri, a young Jewish man who made a desperate escape and has been hiding among his enemies for much of the war, begins to travel with the family after meeting them on the road; and Cecile, a young Jewish girl who is forced to walk west with the rest of the starving, poorly dressed, and desperate members of her concentration camp as the Germans try to outrun defeat and shield their atrocities from the eyes of the world. The moment in the novel when all three stories come together as one, and the characters all cross each other’s paths if you will, leads the book (obviously) to its conclusion.

Bohjalian writes effectively of the horrors of war, but you get the sense that some of his characters maybe aren’t as fully formed as one might hope. Callum, the Scottish fellow, suffers the most from this, and his dialogue is often stilted, stereotypical and a little unbelievable (who says “chap” except in the movies?). The heart of the novel is the love story between Callum and Anna, the Emmerich’s daughter, and it’s fine, really just what you’d expect. But I adored the character of Uri, his moral centre, his ability to shapeshift, his utter sense of survival. I guess I look forward to Bohjalian’s novels to bring a different sense of events to his novels and Skeletons at the Feast, while by no means a bad book, maybe just didn’t live up to my own expectations of his work. That’s not the writer’s fault — he’s delivered a powerful, riveting, emotionally intense novel about a horrifying experience. It’s war from the point of view of those who are surrounded by it, of those who are destroyed by it, those who must survive after the guns are down and treaties are signed.

To end, I would recommend the book, and it would be great for book clubs, but it hasn’t claimed the prize as my all-time favourite of his books, The Buffalo Soldier still reigns supreme. And I have but one other bone to pick: what on earth is up with the cover of a young girl with short brown hair on a summer’s day looking out over a field? What about that spells “victims of war driven to desperate lengths to save their lives as their world collapses about them”? Boo, I say, boo!

WHAT’S UP NEXT: I started Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife yesterday on the ride home. I’m already loving it. Can you tell right now I’m reading only for pure pleasure? But I guess under the circumstances, it’s a wonder I’m reading at all, right?

As I reviewed both Home and Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson for the blog at work, The Savvy Reader, it’ll be a duplication of efforts to re-write them here. So I’m cutting and pasting from my original review:

The first Marilynne Robinson novel that I read was Gilead, and what a reading experience it was, exhilarating would be a good descriptive word. That novel sent me reeling forward headlong into Home, which comes out this fall, and follows many of the same characters from Gilead. Glory has come home to take care of her father, Reverend Robert Boughton (neighbour and best friend of John Ames), as his health declines in old age. It begins:

While, this new novel takes place concurrently with Gilead, you don’t have to have read the first book to enjoy this one, as the stories, while they have similar plot points and some of the same characters, are extremely different.

The assured nature of Robinson’s voice, her ability to tell a story, and the emotional depth of the relationships between the elder Boughton and his children, bring you right into this novel from the very first page and just don’t let you go. As both Glory and her father await the return of Jack (brother and favourite son), who has been away from Gilead for twenty years, it’s apparent that his presence will change their lives irrevocably and as only family members can. In many ways, Jack’s visit is a blessing and a curse, as it brings both Glory and her father closer together but also forces them to reflect on the past, an exercise that truly brings out the richness in Robinson’s writing.

When I finished the book at the cottage last weekend, I actually hugged the book. I may have uttered an, “Oh, Glory!” or two, as well. The novel picks you up and drops you so wholly into these characters that you can’t help but want to reach into the book and hold them, befriend them, debate with them, and simply enjoy the pleasures in their lives.

Of course, my adoration of Home sent me reeling, again, for more of Marilynne Robinson, which led me to read her first book, Housekeeping. I’ve only just begun, but I am already enthralled by Ruthie’s story. Here’s a passage I read this morning in transit:

What do your lighted windows display? Right now mine would be filled to the brim of thoughts about Marilynne Robinson’s books.

My reading table has been heavy with chicklit these days because I’m working on a new project with Scarbie. And for reasons that probably have to do with too much bottled plane air and consistent movement, my concentration has been nil. Enter Chasing Harry Winston. The perfect book to read on the subway into work because you’re too lazy to pump up your bike tires. The perfect book to read before bed because you don’t really miss that much by only getting through 2.5 pages before falling utterly asleep. The perfect book to read without concentration, well, because it doesn’t need any.

Lauren Weisberger has achieved a level of lit stardom few writers achieve. It’s funny, that the US lit stars are all men writing serious fiction, the Jonathons, the Eggers, and the ladies who sell those kinds of numbers are all either British, Irish or Lauren Weisberger writing bland books of a certain genre that will probably never end up on the 1001 Books list. In the end, though, if someone enjoys the book, does any of that stuff even matter? I’ll read anything by anyone, the popular stuff, chicklit, literary fiction, commercial fiction, because all that really matters to me is a good story. And right now, I’m really wondering if chicklit writers can come up with something original. To wit it seems that the purpose of books like Chasing Harry Winston is to make a movie about them two or three years after they’re published. In a sense, couldn’t they save the trees and just skip right to the cinematic version and save us all the trouble?

That said, Weisberger’s latest novel attempts to pull itself up and out of the cliches of its cover (a furry spiked heel with three gorgeous rings stacked from tip to mid-inch). Considering the title is more Plum Sykes than what the actual book is about, and the characters more Sex and the City than anything else, it’s an interesting bit of shoe not entirely fitting the foot, I’d say. Three characters, Emmy, Adriana and Leigh, navigate the final year of their thirties while living and working in New York. Only one of them, Emmy, is truly chasing the married with children dream; the other two look a little deeper in terms of self-satisfaction, Leigh in the form of where she’d like her career to go and Adriana simply needs to grow up. Bits and pieces of the story are told from each girl’s perspective and the characters are well-drawn, quite engaging and utterly trapped by their circumstances at the moment. Weisberger plays the role well, they wear “the latest” Chloe shoes, are cognizant of trends and fashion, but you can feel her writing trying to pull away from the cliches as she attempts to be a little less “chick” and a bit more “lit.”

There are conflicts, petty jealousies, and the reader wishes again and again for the book to delve a bit deeper into the idea of female friendship and less into silly “pacts” and false start-ups to plot. In the end, I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy the book, because I did, and I can’t say that Weisberger isn’t a talented writer, because she obviously is, I just hope that her next book abandons all pretense of Harry Winston and lets her spread her wings a little.

Over the course of the 10 days I was away, I stopped and started a number of books. But Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead was the only one out of the five or so paperbacks I brought with me to capture my exhausted attention and hold it tight in its hands.

The narrator, a Reverend John Ames, nears the end of his life and wants to leave a record behind for his only son, a seven-year-old boy. Told in epistolary format, the Reverend mixes scripture, sermons, stories and observations into the narrative of his life, loves words and their meanings, and takes the spirit of his life very seriously. He means to leave a legacy behind for his son; it’s the only way, he’ll not survive into his adulthood. Interwoven into his own history is that of his grandfather, his father (both reverends as well) and his neighbour, an aging Presbyterian minister, Boughton.

Novels that are technically brilliant, novels like this one, make one appreciate the sheer talent that a voice can bring to a book. Ames’s remains loud, clear and unclouded throughout the entire novel. Robinson uses the form to her advantage, and you can hear the tenor reverberating throughout each sentence of the love letter to his son. There were so many passages that I wanted to soak up like clouds do mist and the book is so heartfelt that one can’t help but feel that Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer was utterly and rightly deserved.

Here’s a passage that I put up earlier this week on Savvy Reader:

Our dream of life will end as dreams do end, abruptly and completely, when the sun rises, when the light comes. And we will think, All that fear and all that grief were about nothing. But that cannot be true. I can’t believe we will forget our sorrows altogether. Sorrow seems to me to be a great part of the substance of human life.

Just, astonishing and awesome, as in its original meaning. Truly.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: I read the bulk of this book in the Jardin des Tulieries in Paris after visiting the Musee D’Orsay after Sam went home on Friday. Also included is me in thoughtful repose, flaws, freckles, dirty hair and all.

I’m going to start off my review by confessing a number of things:

1. I work for the company that published Bright Shiny Morning.
2. I came down hard on the side of Frey over the whole Oprah debacle.
3. I did not read My Friend Leonard, but loved A Million Little Pieces.
4. I believe Frey to be an extremely talented writer.

Now with all of that out of the way, I think it’s important also to note that it’s impossible to read Bright Shiny Morning outside of the context of what happened to its author. The characters are all deeply scarred by life, by their own actions and by the harsh nature of the world in general. That’s as far as I’ll go in terms of imprinting an author’s psyche onto his work.

When I started the novel on Friday evening on the subway ride home, I wanted to ignore the world and simply read it until I was finished. Lucky for me, my RRHB had to work on Saturday so I did not leave my room until I had read all 501 pages. And the thank yous. And my first thoughts upon finishing the book was not unlike what Thom Geier over at Entertainment Weekly opined. Once done, I said to myself, “Huh, where’s the story?”

I got out of bed, pulled the covers up, tidied the pillows, sat back down and decided I was all wrong in my thinking. It’s not so much where’s the story but what’s the story. And the city is the story. The book is Los Angeles. From its beginnings (told in chronological order in parallel to the various stories that have physical characters in them) to its current state: polluted, prolific, rich, brilliant, troubled, lost, found and a whole host of other descriptors pregnant with meaning. Throughout the novel, there are 4 key storylines that thread the book together, that break through the setting (which includes many, many other characters, which go beyond their usual narrative importance and simply become setting themselves) and hold the book together: a young couple that leave abusive homes to find their fortune in LA; an American-born Mexican girl struggling to find her way; a closeted superstar with a functional marriage and dysfunctional obsessions; and a homeless man who lives near Venice Beach in a bathroom.

Frey’s unique writing style, his lack of punctuation, his driving, aching prose, reaches out off the page and right into your emotional core. When life collapses all around the characters, as it does, Frey’s ability to convey the events that cause their downfalls is matter of fact. Not without emotion, but with a driving honesty that enables one to come to grips with the sheer force of unhappiness in all its glory. That’s not to say there aren’t happy parts to the book, but there’s a lot of realistic unhappiness too, as if he’s taking the Hollywood dream and showing it from every angle the cameras won’t capture. It’s as if he’s taken the idea of honesty and pulled it apart, driven it to new heights, and then broken it all apart again just to make sure we get it.

And we do, get it.

By the end of the book, I felt despite the cliches (and there are some, they are unavoidable), despite the slightly frustrating epic-like lists, and despite my own craving for more about the 4 main stories, I closed the cover extremely satisfied. Satisfied in the sense that there are many writers trying to push the boundaries of fiction and the form of the novel, but none who can do it so publicly as Frey. His name will push the novel onto the bestseller list, but his work will show everyone what he’s got in him: a tenacious ability to tell a good tale and a need to drive the form of the novel itself in a new direction.

I got up off the bed again, stripped off my pajamas, had a shower, and decided that yes, it’s a freaking good book. My thoughts now far more in line with what the NY Times had to say. And I’d highly recommend it to anyone who asks, and I still think Oprah was a fool over it all.