Ed King

If there were an award for “Most Unusual Novel of the Year,” David Guterson’s Ed King would most certainly be a contender for this year’s title.  The buzz about Ed King is that it is an imaginative retelling of Oedipus Rex, the ancient Greek tragedy by Sophocles in which an unfortunate young man is fated to kill his father and marry his mother (remember that one from high school?).  Unfortunately for Ed King (note the not so subtle similarity between the names “Ed King” and “Oedipus Rex”), he will do the same. 

The story begins in 1962 Seattle, just when actuary Walter Cousins finds himself in need of someone to help him care for his two young children.  Lydia, Walter’s wife, has been hospitalized in a psychiatric facility, and he is unable to cope with all the demands he suddenly faces.  Walter sees fifteen-year-old English au pair Diane Burroughs as the perfect solution to his problem.  Immediately smitten as he is by the teen’s irreverent persona, Walter should have sensed trouble ahead.  Unfortunately, he does not – and his affair with the girl produces an illegitimate child he wants desperately to hide from his wife.

This boy baby, after he is adopted by a wealthy, childless Jewish couple, will become Ed King, the book’s title character.  Decades later, Ed will have earned his own fortune, reputation, and cult following (a la Steve Jobs), and will be known to the world as “The King of Search” for having developed what seems to be the ultimate search engine.  In the meantime, Diane Burroughs, Ed’s mother, has used her wits to con her way into (and out of) a fortune or two of her own, and his father, the philandering actuary, has used his to keep Lydia in the dark about his long string of love affairs.

David Guterson

Ed King, despite beginning in 1962 and ending in the future, is not a particularly long book - coming in at just 320 pages.  But using relatively few pages to cover more than six decades in the lives of several key characters as he does, forces Guterson to use an annoying amount of third-person summarization to catch the reader up when the author wants to skip over large gaps in time.  That these sections of the book are sometimes dominated by page-long paragraphs detailing some of the book’s driest material, often kills the flow developed in previous chapters and makes it difficult for the reader to maintain momentum.

Surprisingly, despite the intimate details revealed about Ed’s physical relationship with his mother, that relationship comes across as far less shocking than one would imagine. The premise of Ed King is interesting but the first half of the book, during which Ed and his parents get themselves into their ultimate predicament, is the book’s stronger half.  This one is intriguing, but I do not expect it to make many “Best of 2011” lists.

Rated at: 3.0

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)

Kindle Owners' Lending Library

I imagine that most Kindle owners have already received the news - but for those who haven't, here you go.

From what I understand, Amazon.com is making its own "lending library" available to Kindle owners, a library that includes even some current and past NYT bestsellers.  The only major hitch to this service is that the Kindle owners have to have also signed up as Amazon Prime members, giving them: free postage on everything shipped directly by Amazon, Amazon's free movie service, and now, this new lending library.  I don't think that this service will work on other devices simply running the Kindle app, but it is definitely something that those who own Kindles will want to consider.

Follow this link to get all the details  - and please let me know how it works out for you if you take advantage of the offer.  


Thanks.

Tom's Wife

The years of America’s Great Depression were particularly tough ones for a young woman to find herself trapped inside an abusive marriage.  The struggle for family survival often placed unbearable stress on relationships that may have thrived in better times, but most women of that period could do little but endure the hand dealt them.  Nineteen-year-old Annie Huckaby, the heroine of Alana Cash’s Tom’s Wife, is one of those women.  Barely literate, Annie cannot imagine how she might provide for herself and her young son if she were to flee her marriage.  Her mother offers little comfort and has reminded Annie that “a good woman don’t go off on her husband.”  So Annie will do her best to be a good wife to Tom Huckaby.

That Tom comes home only on weekends from his coalmine job is one of the things that make Annie’s life bearable.  The rest of the week, she is happy enough, though still lonely, to have only her young son to worry over as she goes about her tasks caring for the little Huckaby farm.  Only as the weekend approaches, does her mood begin to darken.  Annie is grateful, too, for her friend Twila, a much worldlier young neighbor woman who pays her regular visits from a nearby farm.  Twila even manages to introduce Annie to the experiences of smoking and drinking moonshine, two indulgences she would probably have been too timid to try on her own.

Annie’s life, however, had been somewhat complicated by the two males who entered it almost together: her baby and the traveling salesman from New York who happened by just as Annie was about to deliver the boy on her own.  Jake Stern is such a contrast to her rough-edged husband that Annie often fantasizes about a new life with Jake even though she sees him only every few months when he passes through the area selling the latest batch of gadgets he has carried down from New York.  Annie considers herself a good woman – and, more than anything, she wants to do the right thing by Tom – but she is finding it harder and harder to ignore her feelings for Jake Stern.

Alana Cash

Alana Cash has created a cast of memorable, and believable, characters through which she vividly illustrates the Great Depression’s impact on rural America.  Annie, Tom, Jake, and Twila are complicated human beings, and that is what makes them real.  Tom may be the book’s “bad guy,” but there are moments during which his compassion is own display; Annie is the heroine of the piece, but she is sorely tempted to desert her husband; Jake is a compassionate man but he does not feel at all guilty about trying to steal another man’s wife; and Twila, jaded and hardened as she is by life, is still a good woman.

Tom’s Wife is further strengthened by the fact that Cash used the Arkansas farm of her own grandparents as the book’s setting.  Her intimate knowledge of the farm’s physical layout, the lifestyle associated with a farm of that period, and the people who lived around it, add another degree of authenticity to the story she tells. 

Rated at: 4.0

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)

Remember Ben Clayton

Stephen Harrigan’s Remember Ben Clayton is a brilliant piece of writing.  I use five consistent characteristics of good fiction to measure my reaction to a novel: fully developed characters, intriguing plot, pacing that matches plot, compelling prose, and realistic setting.  If Remember Ben Clayton were a baseball player, it would, in fact, be one of those rare “five tool” players (based there on average, power, speed, throwing, and defense) because it delivers on all five of the qualities I most admire in a work of fiction. 

The book is filled with interesting characters.  Ben Clayton, the title character, grew up on a remote Texas ranch under the care of a demanding father and a longtime housekeeper.  Lamar Clayton, Ben’s grieving father, is a man filled with secrets and regrets, the worst of which directly impacted his relationship with Ben.  Francis “Gil” Gilheaney is a respected sculptor whose stubborn pride has forced him to accept new commissions outside of New York City because he has offended that city’s artistic power structure, effectively burning his bridges there.  Maureen is Gil’s adult daughter, a never-married woman who has devoted her own life to helping her father in his work.  In addition, there is a young soldier, horribly scarred and deformed from battle, who has chosen to stay in France at the end of the war rather than face his friends and family as he is now.  He, too, plays a key role in Stephen Harrigan’s story.

Stephen Harrigan

Lamar Clayton wants to place a memorial to his son on a remote plateau to which the boy would often ride when he wanted to be alone with his thoughts.  Ben’s body is still buried in France near the World War I battlefield on which he died, and Lamar hopes to find comfort in seeing a likeness of Ben and his horse where the boy spent so much time.  Gil, who now lives in San Antonio, accepts the commission and soon comes to believe that the piece has the potential to be the best, and most genuinely artistic, work he has ever done – something that will be admired long after his own death even though very few people will ever actually see it.  Maureen is there to help in the research and construction of the piece’s several stages (a fascinating process in itself that Harrigan walks the reader through in some detail).

Things get complicated when Gil and Maureen, as part of their research into the character of young Ben Clayton, come to sense that there is much more to Ben’s relationship with his father than Lamar is willing to share.  Gil and Maureen, believing that they need to solve the mystery surrounding that relationship if Gil is truly to capture the essence of his subject, begin to pick at the scabs of Lamar’s guilt.  They will be shocked by the heartrending truth they discover about the Claytons – and about themselves.

Rated at: 5.0

Best of 2011, Update 8

There are barely two months left in the year, so it's time for another update to my evolving Best of 2011 lists.  I did read 12 books since I edited the two lists last month, but I'm light on the nonfiction titles again: 10 fiction, 2 nonfiction.

Additions to the fiction list are found at numbers 3 (Remember Ben Clayton), 7 (The Art of Fielding), and 8 (Lamb) - and the books at numbers 4-6 each move up a notch.

Fiction: (Top 10 of 76 considered):

1. Nemesis - Philip Roth (novel)

2. Saturday - Ian McEwan (novel)

3. Remember Ben Clayton - Stephen Harrigan (novel)

4. Doc - Mary Doria Russell (novel)

5. Love at Absolute Zero - Christopher Meeks (novel)

6. That Old Cape Magic - Richard Russo (novel)

7. The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach (novel)

8. Lamb - Bonnie Nadzam (novel)

9. Hustle - Jason Skipper (novel)

10.Among the Wonderful - Stacy Carlsen - (novel)

There are no changes to the Non-Fiction list this time around (that's a first), mainly because I only had two titles to consider.  But it's also because I don't feel comfortable moving a classic like Black Boy onto the list and the other title (Juan William's Muzzled) didn't top any of the titles already there.

Non-Fiction: (Top 10 of 30 considered):

1. If Trouble Don't Kill Me - Ralph Berrier, Jr. (biography)

2. Wolf: The Lives of Jack London - James L. Haley (biography)

3. Hitch 22: A Memoir - Christopher Hitchens (memoir)

4. Bittersweet Season - Jane Gross (on caring for aging parents)

5. Tiny Terror - William Todd Schultz (psychobiography of Truman Capote) 

6. Chinaberry Sidewalks - Rodney Crowell (memoir)

7. We Were Not Orphans - Sherry Matthews (memoirs from life in a Texas home for neglected children)

8. He Stopped Loving Her Today - Jack Isenhour - (music memoir)

9. What It Is Like to Go to War - Karl Marlantes (memoir)

10. Lincoln's Men - William C. Davis (Civil War History)

It's almost time to start the countdown...where has this year gone?

The Forgotten Waltz

Almost exactly four years ago, Ireland’s Anne Enright was the “surprise winner” of the Man Booker Prize for what is said to be a rather bleak novel called The Gathering.  Despite my good intentions, I have yet to read that one, but after reading her latest work, The Forgotten Waltz, I have to wonder if Enright does not specialize in “bleak.”

Set in a Dublin suburb, The Forgotten Waltz recounts Gina Moynihan’s reflections on a love affair she seems almost destined to have had, an affair in which she is the one wearing the tarnished label of “The Other Woman.”  Herself married at the time, Gina was immediately attracted to Sean Vallely when she first encountered him at a family function.  The two would be thrown together numerous additional times before the more oblivious Sean would finally succumb to the affair that would ultimately break up both marriages.

Complicating the affair for both Sean and Gina, is Sean’s young daughter Evie.  Evie is said to be a “special” child, one with fragile health – she suffers seizures - who, at least to Gina, seems to be uncannily observant of her father’s moods and whereabouts.  Almost despite herself, Gina is drawn to Evie in some inexplicable way and comes to believe that, without Evie, the affair with Sean would never have happened.  Gina’s life, of which the reader will share in the most intimate of details, is further complicated by a deteriorating relationship with her sister, the breakup of her marriage, the death of her mother, and the challenge of competing with Evie for Sean’s love and attention. 

Anne Enright

Frankly, nothing out of the ordinary happens in The Forgotten Waltz.  Enright’s story is one of commonplace adultery, the kind of love triangle that happens all around us, whether we notice or stop to think about it, every day.  What makes the book memorable is Enright’s ability to get so deeply inside the head of a narrator like Gina, someone honest enough with herself not to try to rationalize her involvement with a man like Sean.   Before she takes up with him, Gina knows that Sean has a loving wife – and, perhaps even more importantly, a daughter who needs him - but she gives little thought to their needs.  She wants Sean for herself, and when she gets him, guilt is not much  of an issue for her.

None of the characters in The Forgotten Waltz are particularly likeable but, thanks to Anne Enright’s way with words, they are real.  These are just ordinary people making do with what life throws their way.  They do not always make the best decisions or choices, but tomorrow always comes - and they get to try again.  Isn’t that just the way it is?

Rated at: 3.5