Keeping the Promise by Donna E. Elliott

Jerry Elliott was listed as Missing In Action in Viet Nam in 1968. This book, written by his sister, is the story of her almost 40 year hunt for him. She describes how the lack of closure caused the disintegration of her family and of the callousness and deception of the government in her attempts to get information about him. She eventually joins Viet Nam Veterans Against the War, taking part in marches in Washington, DC. She makes three trips to Viet Nam searching for answers. It is hard to imagine that our government walked away from Viet Nam, leaving hundreds if not thousands of POWs there. Elliott gives a very believable explanation of why that happened. This is an interesting but ultimately very sad story. It's a good reminder that the war is never really over for those families who are left with no answers. I recommend this for anyone interested in Viet Nam history.

Amandine A Novel by Marlena De Blasi

This is De Blasi's first work of fiction although she is a food writer and has written a number of other books. It is a great start. Set in France during the few years before WWII and during the occupation, it tells the story of a young Polish girl, Amandine, born illegitimately to a wealthy young member of Polish nobility, who is placed in a French convent under the care of a young French woman, and all traces of her identity are removed. The first part of the book covers the first dozen years of her life there. Amandine is greeted with varying degrees of welcome, from love from her young governess to hatred from the abbess. The author draws very complex characters, with complicated relationships to each other, and the coming of Amandine brings these to a head.
The second part of the novel follows Amandine and Solange, her governess, as they leave the convent and head across occupied France, trying to get to Solange's village and Amandine's ultimate goal of finding her mother. It is interesting that the two have lived so isolated from normal society and village life that they seem incapable of understanding the changes that the presence of the Nazi's have brought or the dangers of war. I found myself emotionally invested in the characters and fascinated by the story. The ending was predictable but handled in a very delicate way that I appreciated. A well-told story.

Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos

Margaret Hughes has spent most of her life sealed off from others in her large home. Facing terminal cancer, she asks a waitress what she would do if she had only a year or two left to live. "I'd do what scares me the most...Do the opposite of what I've always done." Margaret decides to open her home to a boarder which introduces the other main character, Wanda, a young woman on a single-minded quest to find the lover who has dumped her. Their encounter changes their lives and a growing circle of other "loners". It is ironic that as Margaret works to create an environment to die in, she actually creates a vibrant, healthy surrogate family and meaning for her life. There are many characters in the book and lots of sub-plots that move along at a steady pace. My main criticism of the book is that there are way too many coincidences in the story and it definitely strains credulity. But I found it very engrossing and came to care about the characters.

The Seamstress by Sara Tuvel Bernstein

There are so many books written by or about the survivors of the Holocaust and all share similar elements. But each one is also unique, describing how an individual manages to survive the unimaginable. In this book, Seren (Sara) Tuvel is a young Roumanian Jewish girl, working as a seamstress in Budapest, who is arrested and taken from her home. She is transported with her sister and niece and the young daughter of a family friend and they ultimately end up in Ravensbruck, a concentration camp near Berlin. The four of them band together, led by Seren, and gain strength from each other. The reader can't help but wonder at what traits are needed for survival, not just youth and good health, but being observant and taking advantage of luck. This is a wonderful book , very moving and thought-provoking.

The Tricking of Freya by Christina Sunley

I finished this novel several days ago and have been thinking about it ever since. It is a multi-layered book with characters that stay with you. The first part of the book is related in the first person by Freya Morris, a young woman living in New York who is remembering her childhood in Connecticut with her widowed mother and the summers spent in Gimli, Canada with her Icelandic immigrant extended family. It is a family seeped in Icelandic tradition and most of their communication with the child Freya is an attempt to impart this knowledge to her. She is lectured continually about ancient family connections back to the 8th century. But there is no real communication about recent family events and relationships. Her grandmother and especially her mother's sister Birdie, fill her with legend and history. She is especially drawn to Birdie, who struggles with manic and depressive moods and has been in and out of institutions. A key element in the plot is Freya's being "tricked" into a trip to Iceland with Birdie, which creates a crucial turning point in the story. The second part of the book takes the form of a journal that Freya addresses to a cousin she believes exists and her search for her. As she attempts to unravel her mother's relationship to Birdie, she finds more and more events that were kept from her. This culminates in a second trip to Iceland where she must come to terms with her life.
Sunley spends a lot of time describing Icelandic language, culture, history, religion, and geography. At times I thought I was reading a Tour Guide to Iceland and it was a little disconcerting. But in fairness, I would have to say that this information is central to understanding the characters and their stories. I would definitely recommend this book.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

Wow! I hardly know where to begin. The Eyre Affair is funny, intelligent, and above all, clever. The time is modern day England, but Fforde has created an alternative universe where the Crimean War is still being fought, international travel is through a "gravatube" through the center of the earth, and government special forces rule with an iron hand. The protagonist, Thursday Next, is a Special Ops literary detective, solving crimes such as book forgery, theft, and entering a book to change the plot. (Not only is time travel possible here, but people can enter books and alter the story). Through a series of events, Thursday is hunting the most evil man in her world, Hades Archeron. Her chase takes her into Jane Eyre with results that have a very strong impact on the ending. The book is full of so many puns and literary references that it can keep your head spinning. This is the first of a series of Thursday Next novels and a great introduction into Fforde's amazing creativity.

Shakespeare & Company by Sylvia Beach

I was anxious to read this because Beach played such an important role in the American literary community in the Paris of her time but ended up with mixed feelings about the book. The part I enjoyed most was her relationship with James Joyce and the story of the publishing of Ulysses. But most of the book was just a catalog of the people who frequented her bookshop without many personal or even professional details. So much of her commentary was of the "one of the nicest persons I've ever met" type, which she said of almost everyone.

The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara Tuchman

I had always thought that America entered the first World War because of German u-boat attacks. That was only a part of the picture. Tuchman describes how the British Intelligence Service breaks the German code and how this affected a scheme to keep America out of the war. By early 1917, the war was at a stalemate. The English and French were exhausted and running out of money. Germany was ready to launch a massive u boat navy, attack all ships, neutral or otherwise, and win the war. They were afraid this might tip the scale of American public opinion towards war. The Germans hoped to keep America so busy dealing with revolts in Mexico and threats from Japan that they would avoid any entanglements in Europe. Even though I knew the outcome, this book had me on the edge of my seat as the plot unfolded. Tuchman brings the characters to life and helps the reader to follow the rather complicated unfolding of events. I loved this book.

The Brontes Went to Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson

Set in 1930s London, this is the story of the Carnes family, three sisters who live with their widowed mother. The eldest, Dierdre, a journalist, is the narrator. Katrine is a struggling actress and Sheil is still in the schoolroom. They are not wealthy but of an educated class and the daughters of a "gentleman". The most striking their about them is the fantasy world that weaves in and out of their everyday lives. All the members of the family share imaginary friends based on dolls, toys, and sometimes real people they have briefly encountered. They have long, ongoing discussions of the daily doings of these people, discussing them as you would old friends with whom you are in daily contact. I found this very confusing to follow at first. Interspersed with this is a seance and ghostly visitors. During a vacation in Yorkshire, the Brontes make an appearance, although frankly, I had to read this portion twice to get what was happening. When her mother is called to jury duty, Dierdre is taken with the judge, Sir Herbert Toddington, and soon "Toddy" and his wife "Lady Mildred" have joined their fantasy world. But things begin to change when the family actually meets them. The story seems to shift at this point, moving at a quicker pace, and I found my interest growing. As their friendship with the Toddingtons develops, and the Brontes return with a disturbing result, the family has to look at the effect all of this is having on the youngest daughter. Although I was off to a shaky start at the beginning of the book, I found myself increasingly caught up in the story.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Wench gives a fascinating look at an aspect of slavery I had never imagined. The author sets the story in a real place, Tawawa House, which was a summer resort for both Northern and Southern whites. Southern slave owners would spend the summer hunting and fishing, accompanied by one of their female slaves. This is the story of four slaves who come every year with their owners. The resort is set in Ohio, free territory, and you would have expected the slaves to run. Perkins-Valdez explores the complicated relationships of these four and what a run for freedom would mean for them. There are practical considerations, such as leaving children behind, and emotional and psychological ones as well. The most fascinating story is that of Lizzie, who lives as her owner's mistress year round and has two children with him. She tells herself that they love each other, even though he won't free her or their children. It reminded me of the "Stockholm syndrome" where kidnap victims identify with their captors. Reenie comes every year with a man she calls Sir and explains to Lizzie that he is her half-brother, both having the same father. Mawu comes from a plantation in Louisiana and Sweet from Tennessee. They are unforgettable characters that stay with you after you've finished the story. This is an amazing book that I couldn't put down.

All Over Creation by Ruth Ozeki

All Over Creation is an ambitious book. Yumi Fuller returns home to Idaho with her three children after running away 25 years earlier. She is contacted by her childhood friend, Cass, when her parents are no longer able to care for themselves. It is interesting that her relationship with her parents has frozen in time when she runs away and she hasn't really changed at all in spite of having children of her own. Her anger with her father drives all her life choices. Once she settles in on the family potato farm, the second story begins, an invasion by the Seeds of Revolution, a group of peaceful hippies fighting genetic engineering in plants.
They have come to the farm because of the writings of Yumi's father, Lloyd, and look to him as a sort of guru. The stories play out pretty much as I expected them to but the whole subplot on plant engineering was very interesting.

Short Cuts by Raymond Carver

I remember seeing Robert Altman's film Short Cuts several years ago and even though I couldn't put it all together, I was fascinated by the characters. I felt the same way reading Short Cuts by Raymond Carver on which the film was based. It is a series of vignettes, each giving me the feeling that I had dropped into someone's life mid-sentence. The stories deal with married couples experiencing distress ranging from the great, losing a child, to the small, hunting for a lost dog. There is no real resolution to them, you don't know what has come before or what will happen after, but I felt that I had shared an intense moment in someone's life. I hope to read more of Carver.

Homesick Creek: A Novel by Diane Hammond

Homesick Creek is set on the central Oregon coast. It is the story of two marriages. Anita, a former beauty queen with high hopes, is now middle-aged and overweight with very little expectations for her future. She fantasizes of a real home, a double-wide trailer she knows she'll never have. She is married to Bob, a weak, ineffectual alcoholic with a secret life who seems to take everything and give nothing to his marriage. The other story is that of their friends, Bunny and Hack. Hack is a Vietnam vet who has drifted into town with lots of secrets of his own. He is a car salesman with a roving eye married to Bunny, waitress at the local diner. Bunny and Anita have been best friends since childhood and lean on each other for support. Bunny seems to be marking time, waiting for the pain of Hack's leaving. Hack has other reasons for staying which become clear as the novel develops. The characters are very finely drawn and Hammond does a good job of describing how little they can settle for. There were the elements in the plot I expected, alcoholism, drug use, bitterness and despair. But also some I didn't expect which made it a much more satisfying story.

The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West

I had some difficulty getting into this book. Although not strictly autobiographical, West has based the characters on her family. The story revolves around the fortunes of the Aubrey family. The narrator is Rose, one of the four children of Piers, a small time newspaper editor and pamphleteer, and Clare, formerly a concert pianist who gave up her career upon marriage. Rose struck me at first as another example of the peculiarly British fictional character, the very precocious child who patronizes and condescends to the adults around her. But as I continued, I began to realize that West had created Rose with an adult eye so that she could describe their failings and weaknesses of the others while at the same time loving them with a child's unquestioning love. She describes her father with the words "sneering" and "swaggering", while expressing her adoration. The mother is so sensitive that hearing music performed by one who is not gifted makes her physically ill and yet she is the strength in the family, holding them together through poverty and disappointment. I gradually became fond of them all and fascinated by their lives. My biggest disappointment was the ending, which ends abruptly, almost as if the narrator suddenly put her pen down and had no chance to continue.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I've just finished The Help and was pleasantly surprised. This was a selection of my book group and I probably wouldn't have searched it out on my own. It's a theme that has been dealt with so many times, black servants/white employers in the south, that I wondered what the author would add. But she has created some compelling characters and I found myself unable to put it down. The main white character, Skeeter, is a well-to-do, educated young woman in Jackson, MS, in the early 60’s. She is doesn't quite fit the southern belle pattern, not because she doesn't want to, but because she doesn't measure up, being socially awkward, very tall, and not especially pretty. She has graduated from college and struggles to reconcile what she has learned in college with what her mother and peers expect of her, mainly a good marriage. Her character is a foil to the other young white women, who range from those blindly following the community social leaders, to those leaders, acting from ignorance and hate. But Skeeter is amazingly naïve in her understanding of how the black maids she encounters regard their employers, even though she is interested in the maids as persons.
Aibileen is one of the black maids, an older woman who has lost her only son to white violence. Her best friend, Minny, is younger, and the mother of four children. Both work in white homes, as maid and nanny to the children. Stockett does a good job of describing the complex mix of love for the children and resentment of the mothers that these women experience. Like the other black women who work as maids, they are totally dependent on the good will of the employers for their livelihood. This tension drives the unfolding of the plot.
The characters and the stories seem very real. I recommend this as an entertaining and interesting story.

Bleeding Heart Square by Andrew Taylor

I have just received this book which was offered in the February 2009 Early Reviewers program. It was well worth the wait. I love British mysteries but had never heard of Andrew Taylor. I will be reading more. Bleeding Heart Square is set in pre-WWII London. He weaves a tale of two types of evil, the institutional kind represented by the British Union of Fascists and a more personal evil of greed and betrayal. Lydia Langstone is escaping her abusive husband who is a member of the fascist organization and takes refuge with her neer-do-well father. Here she meets the other renters in the building, including Rory Wentworth, just back from India. He is searching for his fiancee's aunt, Phillipa Penhow, who used to own the house and has disappeared. The stories of all the characters weave around Penhow's disappearance and they all seem to be involved. In the midst of this, both Lydia and Rory try to dodge the violence of the Fascists as her husband tries to force her back home. Both stories are wrapped up very well with an ending I didn't expect.

The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World by Paul Collins

I've just finished my fourth book, The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World by Paul Collins. I think this book is a must read for those of us who love old books and Shakespeare but are not scholars. The author describes what printing was like in early 17th century, and how books were bought, sold, and cataloged. From a book sale at Sothebys to a Japanese university, he tracks the ownership of first folios and gives a sense of that rarified world where people have fortunes to spend on books. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Little Book by Selden Edwards

This is my third book of the year. 72 to go!

This novel, involving time travel by three generations of the Burden family, begins in 1898 Vienna, then touches on every major event of the first half of the 20th Century. The story is told by the mother of Wheeler Burden. He is a bit of a cardboard character, as are the others: scholar, incredible athlete, rock star, a perfect character following in the footsteps of his perfect father, who was also a war hero who died at the hands of the Gestapo. Wheeler leaves 1969 San Francisco and suddenly finds himself in 1898 Vienna. The concept, that the Burden family affected almost every historical event of the time, is interesting but at times a bit strained. I found it hard to follow the debates between Wheeler and Freud. I don't want to be a spoiler but Wheeler Burden's love affair was very disturbing, even creepy. But in spite of all that, I really enjoyed the book and couldn't put it down. The author's description of fin de siecle Vienna is fascinating. The plot is very clever and I thought he dealt with the details of time travel, how it can affect the past and the future, very well.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

This is my second book of 2010. 73 to go!


I found this to be a very entertaining and interesting novel. Stein tells the story of Denny Swift, race car driver and owner of an amazing dog, Enzo. The story is told through Enzo's eyes, as he spends his life preparing, he is convinced, to be reincarnated as a man. There is a lot of detail about racing which helped me to understand the appeal of this sport, at least to the drivers. Enzo is Denny's best friend and support as he goes through incredible difficulty and loss in his life. Enzo is full of observations and ideas about the life of men around him, some of it quite profound. It is a very sweet story but I think the author does a good job of avoiding getting too sappy.

First book of 2010!

Here is a review of my first book of 2010. Only 74 to go!

Canoe Trip: North to Athabasca by David Curran

This is a recounting of a canoe trip taken by the author and a friend on an extremely remote wilderness river, the MacFarlane, in northern Saskatchewan. Curran describes his previous canoeing experience in wilderness areas of Maine. But, he explains, even though there are not many people there, there is evidence of their presence with dirt roads, trails, etc. He was looking for something more pristine. His descriptions of the MacFarlane area, from the geology, to the black flies that made life miserable, is very detailed. I really enjoyed this book and came away with the sense that I had shared the experience which is what every arm chair adventurer wants.