Book Reviews: Fiction

By Carole Shmurak

When The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins first appeared in 1868, it was printed in weekly installments in Charles Dickens’s magazine All the Year Round. Each week, readers thronged the streets in front of the magazine office, eager for the next part. No book, except Collins’s The Woman in White, published 8 years earlier, had ever received such a reception. Many years later, the poet T.S. Eliot would refer to The Moonstone as “the first, the longest, and the best of the modern English detective novels.”

The moonstone is a diamond – not the semi-precious stone we call “moonstone” today – stolen from a statue of the moon god in India and later inherited by the young Rachel Verinder on her 18th birthday. It disappears the same night, and the three Hindu men reportedly seen nearby are immediately suspected. But of course things are not so simple as they first appear, and it is well over a year before the diamond is recovered and the mystery of its theft is solved. In the interim, many lives have been disrupted and several characters are dead.

The story is told in a series of narratives by some of the characters, making them much like witnesses at a trial. In this book, Collins originated many of the conventions of the mystery genre: a crime at an English country home, a small group of suspects present when the crime occurs, a bumbling local policeman, and investigation by both a talented amateur detective and the celebrated detective from Scotland Yard.

Life moved at a different pace in the 19th century, and books from the mid-1800s reflect that. Reading The Moonstone takes some patience in 2010, but it’s well worth it. The first-time reader will be intrigued by the mystery of the gem’s disappearance, while the re-reader can savor the gentle humor of some of the narratives and the biting satire of some of the others.

By Carlotta G. Holton
The Kitchen Boy is a gripping work of historical fiction that entails intrigue, loyalty, betrayal and forgiveness during the last days of Tsar Nicholas and Tsarista Aleksandra Romanov. It is 1918 and in their imprisonment in the House of Special Purpose in Yekaterinburg, just on the Siberian side of the Ural Mountains the family of seven is confined with a small staff including kitchen boy, Leonka. Their story is narrated by 94-year-old Michael (Misha) Semyanov, a Russian immigrant living in Chicago who depicts the bloody days of the Russian Revolution and his role as the last living witness to their savage murders.

There has been much written about the possible survival of one or more of the Romanov children. Alexander, however, serves up another spin. In this well written page turner, he resurrects the previously overlooked kitchen boy, spared by the Bolsheviks, who witnessed the gruesome murders and then vanishes from the pages of history.

The author pays close attention to details. Because of the kitchen boy’s lowly position in the household, Leonka was able to see and hear secret things. Citing and alluding to actual letters and notes in French exchanged by the Romanovs the author adds authenticity to his plot. The reader gets a sense of the day to day life during the Romanov’s imprisonment in which they were “crammed in like herring in a barrel” is depicted with descriptions of windows painted over with lime to prevent a view, limited food and exercise is confined to walks in an unkempt garden.

At every turn they are humiliated and reproached. The guards draw Vulgar pictures on the bathroom walls intended to humiliate and test the patience of the doomed monarchy.
Small pleasures have been denied. The Romanov’s loved photographs and according to Alexander 150,000 photos are in the archives in Moscow and Harvard and Yale. Their prized Kodak cameras were taken save for the one secreted by the only son who suffers from hemophelia. Yet through all their incarceration, the narrator assesses, ‘They suffered well, those Romanovs, they truly did.”

While the family’s zealous religious belief and Aleksandra’s placement of icons on the altar are a strength which unites them, it is also used to attack their attachment to the old monarchy. Through the eyes of the Leonka the reader learns of their close family relationship Aleksandra’s religious zeal their nobility within the confines of their ignoble confinement far outshines their regal existence in the palace of St. Petersburg. As much as the kitchen boy cares for the family, as a man he blames the Tsar for the state of Russia and cannot issue forgiveness. “

Intrigue runs rampant with suggestions of staged escape from Rasputin’s daughter and other relatives.

The book hits on some unusual twists such as Aleksandra’s fascination – which turns out to be eerily precognizant - with the violent end of another hated queen; Marie Antoinette. While the French hated the Austrian woman, she was looked upon as the “German bitch who consorted wit the crazy monk, Rasputin. ON a daily basis Aleksandra and her daughters feverishly stitched their “medicines” - the $500 million crown jewels in their corsets, one is reminded of Marie Antoinette’s brief history with the Hope Diamond. .

Alexander humanizes the royal family. Recalling the tsar he says he was “too nice to be a Tar of Russia.” Yet there is a dichotomy of thought between what the young boy lived and what the old man dictates on the tape recorder. He holds back on forgiveness because he blames the Tsar for the state of Russia. “They lost Russia and I for one no matter how badly I feel about what took place, no matter how terrible I feel for what I did, can never forgive them for that.”

Note that Russia was lost because the Romanov’s never realized that Russia was not a 17th century empire, but a20th century industrial power and society>” Put simply, the family was out of touch with the modern world.

There are twists and turns with hope being resurrected like the religious icons Aleksandra puts out for mass, and then cruelly dashed ending with a final abrupt denouement of the family. Their tale post mortem is no less bizarre as bodies fall from the wagon and the family’s resting place is changed three times.

The narrator looks back on his past at 94 when his wife has died and he is ready to reveal the truth of the experience to his granddaughter with a letter and tape recording. Yet is is only a shade of the truth. Katya has questions about the real identity of her grandfather. Why does her son have hemophilia? Did any of the Romanov children survive the night of terror? What became of the jewels and exquisite Faberge egg collection? As she returns to Russia and learns the shocking identity of her family, she discovers there are layers of truth and that sometimes it is harder to forgive others than to forgive oneself.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact, Touching The Dead and Vampire Resurrection, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

By Amanda Griswold

Hely’s parody of the publishing world, How I Became A Famous Novelist (Grove Press, 2009) is utterly entertaining but equally unsatisfying. What begins as a satirical romp through the Mardi Gras of literary pop-culture ends right where it began, with a delicious sense of sacrilege and a terrible hangover. Hely has all the right ingredients for comedic success: an archetypal anti-hero, rapid-fire humor, a shocking lack of decorum and dead-on criticism. I can’t deny being thoroughly engaged and entertained. Hely ridicules the ghosts-of-publishing-past and current publishing giants alike, from William Shakespeare to Nicholas Sparks, Alexander Pope to James Patterson. Yet it’s difficult to explain why, after 322 pages of this colorful Bahktinian carnival, I felt drained and over-indulged.

Hely’s protagonist, Peter Tarslaw, is an idiot savant who ghostwrites college application essays for a living, drinks himself to sleep and then substitutes beer bottles for chamber pots. Trust me, Hely gets plenty of comedic mileage out of poor hygiene, awkward encounters and bodily fluids. Tarslaw decides to write a best seller in order to fulfill his 4 simple, well defined goals: 1) enough fame “to open new avenues of sexual opportunity,” 2) wealth enough to “spend rest of [his] life lying around,” 3) an impressive estate with “HD TV, discreetly placed,” and 4) to humiliate his ex-girlfriend, Polly, at her wedding.

Hely writes his best seller (and Tarslaw’s fictitious one) with an uncanny instinct for exactly what it takes to write a terrible but financially successful novel. I enjoyed the book in spite of myself and couldn’t help the occasional smirk. Hely’s parody of the New York Times’ Best Sellers list is critical genius. He invents fictional novelists by cleverly disguising and conglomerating contemporary best sellers and saves his sharpest satire to wield against long-dead writers who, conveniently, can’t sue. The fake excerpts from Tarslaw’s novel interwoven into the text are brilliantly awful. As New York Times reviewer Janet Manslin suggests, “Steve Hely needed to know how to write very well in order to write as miserably as he does in ‘How I Became a Famous Novelist.’”

Undoubtedly. But (and it’s a big ‘but’) by the novel’s conclusion, I didn’t believe him. Sure, Hely can skewer Melville, cut Faulkner to pieces, and dismember Steinbeck with a physician’s precision. The scope of his criticism is almost dizzying: publishing houses, editors, agents, writers, academia and Hollywood are all at a loss. In the end, the novel’s critical humor deflates and Hely is left with his suddenly exposed parody in pieces. The central problem, according to Tarslaw’s editor and friend, Lucy, is that people can no longer distinguish good writing from bad writing, if the distinction even exists. So, Hely, the man behind the curtain, puts on a semi-serious air, slaps on an ambiguous “literary” ending and sends his manuscript off to the publishers to become a real-life famous novelist.

It worked. Hely’s parody is still selling strong and stirring conversation. He knows the emotionally manipulative writing that floods the market and can imitate it impressively. Yet the novel ends with an odd nostalgia for sincerity and for literature that can transcend commercialism. It’s a stay against chaos that Hely can’t provide and perhaps won’t even attempt. The result is entertaining but ultimately unsatisfactory. That Heley’s humor peters out is less disappointing than that his book is yet another ambiguous, though not wholly undeserving, commercial success.

By Sarah Benjamin

A friend of mine read “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert and raved about it for weeks. When she insisted that I read the book, I simply responded: “I don’t do memoirs.” In truth, I didn’t do non-fiction at all. The nauseating prospect that this book was probably about some woman going through a mid-life crisis was enough to make me gag a little.

Then, while visiting this same friend in New Hampshire, as we laid on our beach blankets soaking up the sun, she handed me the book. I had nothing else to read so grudgingly, I opened it. I was immediately hooked.

I didn’t get the feeling that I was intruding on some stranger’s life, but rather reading a really good story about survival and recovery. This was the honest confession of a woman who had everything—a great marriage, a big house, and a fulfilling writing career – but suffered from an unexplainable depression. This depression was so severe that it led her to cry alone, night after night, on the bathroom floor struggling with the decision of having children or not. She knew that this struggle was the cause of her decaying marriage. It may sound depressing, but instead of closing the book, I found myself on the floor with Gilbert, vicariously and voraciously sharing in her struggles and emotions.

Gilbert’s marriage ultimately ends in divorce, and for a moment it looks as though she’s going to spiral out of control. Especially when she hooks up with a guy that seems to be more bad than good. But then, at this crucial turning point, she does the unexpected: She leaves behind her relationships, her doctors, her family and friends and heads for a whirl-wind tour of three countries: Italy, India and Bali. Her reasons: To learn to enjoy life, connect with herself and to find her own balance of the two.

My inherent sense of duty was initially skeptical of Gilbert’s “run away from it all” tactic, which I have stereotypically assumed was reserved for men. But, nonetheless, I went on the journey with her. I precariously found joy in Italy, solace in India, and discernment in Bali. It was Gilbert’s witticisms, humor and wise insights that made her story so utterly fascinating. She has an amazing sense of balance in her writing – in a simple sentence – that I found to be refreshing and inspiring. While I hope that I will never suffer from depression, get divorced or make the decision to never have kids; if I ever lose my joy, myself, or my reason, I’ll have one woman’s map of how to reclaim them. Thanks Elizabeth for sharing. I’ve bought this book to pass on to a friend: She doesn’t like memoirs, either.

Contact me at sbenjamin496@yahoo.com

By Amanda Linsmeier

Where the Heart Is (Warner Books, 1998) by Billie Letts, is a novel that was also made into a movie. Usually it’s better to read the book first, but in this case, it was completed backwards. The novel was surprising and even though the film was enjoyable, the book was even better.

Novalee Nation is seventeen years old, seven months pregnant and on her way to California with her boyfriend, and the father of her baby, Willie Jack Pickens. To say Willie Jack is unenthusiastic about the upcoming birth of his baby is being kind. On a quick stop to an Oklahoma Wal-mart, Willie Jack ditches her and heads off to California on his own. There Novalee is, young, pregnant and stranded. She has no where to go, no place to turn. She starts to live in the Wal-mart, hiding out in janitor closets, eating cold peas out of cans, and showering at gas-stations, until the birth of her baby forces her out of hiding and into the spotlight. What happens next in Novalee’s life is a series of fortunate, and sometimes misfortunate, events that brings her close to the people from her past, then pulls them away. It pulls her into the lives of new people, who become her new family, who teach her things about life, happiness and love.
This novel contains beautiful language. Letts’ style of writing is more enjoyable as opposed to the movies’ “chick-flick” style. The book is deeper, more intimate, and more emotional. The book is an inspiring story of a positive woman who refused to give up and made her life into something great. Letts’ story is a fantastic read for women, pregnant and otherwise, photographers, romantics and those who strive for more.

By Carlotta G. Holton
When a man gives violets it’s a symbol of love. Perhaps it’s the only overt symbol he can proffer when an affair is an illicit one during a period when double standards still dictate private intimacies. Such are the circumstances in this fictional romance between French painter, Edouard Manet and his model, Berthe Morisot, a founder of the Impressionist movement in Paris.

With Violets (HarperCollins Publishers, 2006) by Elizabeth Robards effectively depicts the changing 19th century, rife with change, not only in the streets of Prussian- invaded Paris, but also within the artistic community. Robard also successfully portrays Berthe’s own struggle to live independently and remain true to her self. With Violets is a love story, rich in the emotional longings of the 27-year-old Berthe. At her first meeting with Manet, at the Louvre, she recalls, “I felt my throat tighten.” There was instant chemistry. “It is his unpretentious freedom that draws me to him. His ability to ‘just be.’”

This is also a coming of age story that, in some ways, is emblematic of every woman’s inner struggle between love at all costs and societal conformity. She appropriately designates these two sides of her being as “Propriety” and “Olympia.” She lives amongst Frenchmen who take for granted adultery with a mistress, including members of the Manet household. Women are not afforded the same acceptance.

To her credit, Robards’ canvas depicts no ordinary woman of the time – Berthe is an accomplished painter – she also bucks the establishment in every way. She refuses, much to her mother’s chagrin, to find a suitable marriage partner. She studies painting and joins the movement to break away from the Academe’ D’Arts. She acknowledges her departure from societal convention and states, “While most parents insist daughters of marriageable age not approach a hobby such as painting as more than a fleeting fancy, mine indulge.”

Berthe takes a stand against the Academe and prevails. She bonds with colorful artists of the times, such as Degas, who shares her frustration with their depiction of the era. Berthe notes, “It [the Academe] has a firm grasp, dictating the direction of modern art. Many, myself included, believe they need to move forward away from the staid mode of history. We are more than halfway through the 19th century yet art does not reflect the times.”

This book could have benefited from a more detailed description of the aesthetic battle waged on the Academe. Without bogging the story down with historical detail, one or two specific incidents would have made this struggle more real. At times the reader’s patience with Berthe grows thin. As the “other woman,” she questions Manet’s marriage, stating, “I do not understand how a man with such an eye can find anything beautiful in this woman, and it irritates me.” Their on again off again romance confuses Berthe. She ponders, “Why is it that he does not want me when he can have me, yet tries so desperately to win me the moment I resolve I am finished with him?”

Perhaps in such a dubious relationship the ending should not come as a surprise, but it does. It is not a conventional solution, nor is it the one readers might hope for, yet it is one that leaves the door open to all possibilities.

By Amanda Linsmeier

Veil of Roses (Bantam Books, 2006) by Laura Fitzgerald is a compelling and beautiful novel. Tamila, a 27-year old Iranian woman travels to America as a gift from her loving parents. It is their hope, and Tami’s too, that she will find a husband before her tourist’s visa expires so that she is able to stay in America forever. Although Tami loves her parents desperately, she is willing to make the sacrifice of marrying a stranger in order to stay in “the land of the free”. While staying with her sister Maryam, Tami is given opportunities to explore this strange and foreign land. She is able to take off her veil and not fear persecution. She can look men in the eye and not be afraid. She doesn’t have to answer to anyone. Tami takes up photography and joins an ESL class to better her communication skills. At her class she meets many new friends, including Eva, an “incorrigible” German with a talent for making Tami blush. Combining Tami’s newfound passion for freedom and her strength in making decisions is her interest in Ike, a Starbucks employee who catches Tami’s eye one day before her class. Despite Maryam’s objections to an American man, Tami finds herself drawn to Ike in a new and frightening way. Hiding the secrets of her heart, Tami is forced by her sister and her own desire to become married, to enter into a series of awkward matchmaking events in the hopes of finding a husband and gaining a Green Card.

This novel is very interesting. To look at America through the eyes of someone who is repressed is truly touching. To Tami, stepping into Victoria’s secret is not only terrifying but also extremely liberating. Flirting with a man, “free samples”, mini-skirts, men and women conversing in public, and so on, are all new experiences for Tami. and It is fun to see what she goes through and sad to know what others take it for granted. The journey Tami takes in this novel is exciting, distressing, humorous, and scary. Fitzgerald’s wonderful story about family, sacrifice, love and freedom will touch many readers.

By Bethany Olson

Arthur, a recent college graduate who has just ended a strange dating relationship, starts out a lazy Pittsburgh summer with little idea of purpose or knowledge of self. He stops into the University of Pittsburgh’s Hillman Library without realizing that that decision would catapult him through an unusual and enlightening series of events.

Arthur meets Art in the library, a young man of whom he “hadn’t a doubt that he was gay,” and with whom Arthur was “keen to avoid, as they say, a misunderstanding” of sexual interest. Despite his reservations, Arthur agrees to have a beer with Art on Forbes Avenue. Shortly thereafter, Arthur meets Phlox in the library, a girl who had admired him from behind the metal bars of her small work area. “She was unquestionably beautiful, and yet there was something odd, wrong, about her looks, her clothing: something a little too, from her too blue eyes in their too direct stare to the too red stockings she wore.”

Arthur estimates his own identity by his interactions with others; throughout, he alternates between friendship with both Art and Phlox to being sexual lovers with one or the other of the two (Arthur no longer knows if he is straight or gay.) And ever-hidden is Arthur’s secret, “the nature of my father’s work,” which “I came to associate… with shame.” Arthur did not realize his father was in mob work until his thirteenth birthday: “I never afterward had the slightest desire to tell [my father’s] secret to any of my friends; indeed, I ardently concealed it.”

If only Art did not need his father’s money; if only Art did not desire his father’s never-given approval. If only a third friend, Cleveland, had not exploded into Arthur’s life; Cleveland’s interest in mob business and his knowledge of Arthur’s father threatens to join the two worlds Arthur so desperately tries to separate. Some time after realizing that Cleveland would “breach the barrier that stood between my family and my life, and scale the wall that I was,” Arthur says, “I saw that I’d been mistaken when I thought of myself as a Wall, because a wall stands between, and holds apart, two places, two worlds, whereas, if anything, I was nothing but a portal, ever widening…. And a wall says no; a portal doesn’t do anything.”

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon is a coming-of-age story with elements of self-understanding and making one’s way in the world, without the influence of others. Its quirky subthemes and genius passages are too many to list here. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh was Chabon’s premiere novel that launched his fame (first published in 1988); his The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is an unusual, inviting, thoughtful read with layers of meaning infused not only throughout the plot, but evident in every word and metaphor. It is exciting for a Pittsburgh native to read about places and streets that are so familiar (I live around the block from Arthur’s fictional home). But regardless of where a reader lives, Chabon crafts both setting and characters’ complicated emotions with startling intensity, promising a meaningful read for all adult readers.

By Amanda Linsmeier
Pink sequins. Elephants. Clowns. We all have an image in mind when it comes to the circus. In Water for Elephants, many of those images come to life in this sometimes gritty and always entertaining novel. Jacob is a 90-something year old man living out his last, unhappy days in a nursing home. While he has some moments of senility, Jacob is relatively adept for his advanced age. When he learns a circus is in town and he’ll get to see it, he is overcome with flashbacks of his colorful past decades before. After his parents are killed in a car accident during the Great Depression, Jacob drops out of college without taking his final exams to become a vet. He joins The Benzini Brothers traveling circus as their veterinarian and soon discovers circus life is much harder than it is glamorous. Between the sometimes awful abuses of the animals by others, the mistreatment of the workers and the inability to trust almost anybody, Jacob has his work cut out for him. The animals’ trainer, August, is an unpredictable, sometimes violent man given to bursts of temper one moment and undeniable charm at others. It makes matters even worse when Jacob falls for Marlena, the lovely wife of August. Loving Marlena only adds to Jacob’s frustration in which not only his job, but often his life is at stake.

Water for Elephants is a good novel. I was disappointed in that I had heard somewhere that Rosie, the elephant, is actually the main character and the story is told from her point of view and that wasn’t so. Although Jacob was an interesting character and I enjoyed reading about him, I suppose I was expecting something a little more unique. That being said, the best part about Jacob was reading about him in the nursing home at his advanced age. I haven’t read many books from an elderly person’s point of view and I could really sympathize with him. The circus parts of the book were very interesting but also somewhat sad. I felt bad for nearly every character involved, most particularly the animals. But for anyone who has ever seen a circus show, I’m sure they would appreciate the genuine historical details in this book as well as the behind the scenes look the reader gets. I am sure you’ll never look at a performing elephant the same way again.

By Amanda Linsmeier

Eating Heaven, a novel by Jennie Shortridge, is a lovely and bittersweet novel about family and truth. Eleanor Samuels is a food writer with plenty on her plate- both literally and figuratively. Besides her (un) healthy appetite for food, she is also dealing with the sudden and frightening decline of her favorite uncle’s health. Uncle Benny is not really her uncle but he’s been a part of her life since she was a child, and she’s going to discover, perhaps much earlier. Caring for Benny becomes a full-time job and Ellie is the only one willing and able to do so. While she spends her time cooking and nurturing Benny, Ellie is forced to take a hard look at herself and her family. She soon discovers that things aren’t as confusing as she thought but in many ways, they are much worse.

Eating Heaven was real. I enjoyed every last bite of it! From the first page to the last, Ellie took me on a journey of family secrets, romance, self love (and sometimes hate) as well as a heavy dose of delicious foods- from diet foods all the way to full fat pineapple upside down cake and lard-laden fried pork chops. I thought the journey Ellie had with herself was inspiring and something I could really connect to. I think readers who have dealt with the serious illness of a close family member, particularly an older member, will relate to this novel. I also believe any woman who has ever put anyone before herself will enjoy it as well. And if you have a good appetite, that probably wouldn’t hurt!