Book Reviews: Fiction

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!

By Carlotta G. Holton

From the pages of history come the greatest mysteries of all. The Black Tower is an outstanding example of literary craft exercised at its best and wielded amidst a significant period of history: the Restoration of the Bourbon monarchy following France’s bloody revolution.

A master of capturing the mood and period of his story, Bayard sets in motion a theory that the Dauphin, Louis Charles, son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and rightful heir to the throne, is still alive. It is 1818 when the chase begins as detective Eugene Francois Vidocq (a former criminal) discovers a letter found in a dead man’s pocket with the name of Dr. Hector Carpentier, the narrator of the tale.

Since his father’s death, Carpentier has lived with his mother in a boardinghouse in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Presenting himself as an old cripple from the street, Vidocq sheds his disguise and enters the home of Carpentier in hopes of making a connection to the murder. Following a visit to the morgue it is determined the man, identified as Le Blanc, was brutally tortured before his death. What information did he have to merit this end? How is the good doctor involved?

The author skillfully reigns in the reader, blending political intrigue, social commentary, treachery and conspiracies into a page-turning race to retrieve the truth. The times are difficult. Vidocq sarcastically questions the ability of the French to “forget” what happened. “We are asked to forget from the ashes of this conflagration, everything between 1780-1815 from the Bastille and Waterloo. No hard feelings. We’ve torn down the Emperor’s statue, cheered our new king as we have execrated the old one. We can’t forget. History lies low, but rises up.”

So too are rumors that the Dauphin may still live. The prevalent theory is that the 10-year-old Louis Charles died in the Black Tower, also known as The Temple, and was tossed in an unmarked grave “to mingle with strangers; bones equal to the end – no marker, no prayer.”

Pretenders to the throne abound. Was Le Banc killed because he too thought the future king was still alive? And if indeed there is no chance he is alive and is in fact dead, why kill a man over a delusion?

It comes to light that Carpentier is the son of a Doctor with the same name. Was it his services the dead man sought? An elderly border known as Father Time reveals he was friends with the senior Carpentier. He explains that the doctor treated the Dauphin in prison. Le Blanc was his aid in assisting the ailing boy. But were the two part of conspiracy that effectively smuggled out the young boy? Is this why his father gave up his medical calling and became a glass grinder?

Carpentier evolves from murder suspect to colleague as he and Vidocq follow the trail to a village outside of Paris where they meet an unassuming gardener from Switzerland named Charles Ratskeller. A diary and hobby horse offer more links to uncovering the mystery. Like the garden Charles fondly tends, Bayard plants the seeds of speculation in the readers’ minds with twists and turns and betrayals as those in power act swiftly and brutally to end the life of the would-be king. And ever lurking in the background is the too-close-for comfort “growler”; the guillotine ready to fall.

Bayard offers no neatly tied-up ending. The reader is presented with an ironic twist that rests on one’s own beliefs. Emotionally compelling characters spin this intelligent thriller that will satisfy the most avid historical fiction aficionados. Long after finishing The Black Tower, the reader is touched by the fate of the young Dauphin.

Click here to read Carlotta's interview with Louis Bayard.

By Amanda Linsmeier

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is a delightful and adventurous tale of two intelligent children who run away from home. When at nearly 12-year old Claudia decides she’s had enough of her home life (being the oldest, getting virtually no allowance and getting overlooked), she makes the decision to run away. But she doesn’t want to just run away; she wants to run to someplace. A place that’s comfortable and elegant. Where she doesn’t have to be dirty and cold. And that is why she picks the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. And she takes her little brother Jamie with her. Not only is Jamie good for a laugh but he’s resourceful and has money. The children embark on their adventure with the planning skills of much older people, hiding in the museum bathrooms before opening and closing, rationing out their money for buying food, walking instead of taking taxis and overall having an enjoyable time living out their secret. That is until they find “Angel,” a lovely, marble statue of unknown origin. Some say she was carved by Michelangelo, others deny it. Claudia realizes she can’t go back home not knowing the truth about Angel. Because then she’ll be the same old Claudia. No, she decides, she must know if it was indeed the famous artist who created her because that sort of secret stays with a person forever. And what Claudia soon discovers is that she enjoyed the secret of running away much more than the actual running.

This book is an old one, which I’ve read many times when I was younger. Having picked it up again in a moment of nostalgia, I was not disappointed. It was just as much fun, just as much intrigue. But there were some moments of confusion. How could these two children create such an elaborate scheme? They might as well have been detectives on CSI for how much knowledge and intuitiveness they possessed. I certainly couldn’t come up with half the plans they did. But even with that slight problem, I still loved this novel. If readers are looking for a light-hearted tale, they won’t be disappointed. This book will bring out the kid in you and next time you go to a museum, you may not look at it the same.

By Patrick Van Gorder

On the day that followed they crossed a lake of gypsum so fine that the ponies left no track upon it. The riders wore masks of bone-black smeared about their eyes and some had blacked the eyes of their horses. The sun reflected off the pan burned the undersides of their faces and shadow of horse and rider alike were painted upon the fine white powder in purest indigo. Far out on the desert to the north dustspouts rose wobbling and augered the earth and some said they’d heard of pilgrims borne aloft like dervishes in those mindless coils to be dropped broken and bleeding upon the desert again and there perhaps to watch the thing that had destroyed them lurch onward like some drunken djinn and resolve itself once more into the elements from which it sprang. Out of the whirlwind no voice spoke and the pilgrim lying in his broken bones may cry out and in his anguish he may rage, but rage at what? And if the dried and blackened shell of him is found among the sands by travelers to come yet who can discover the engine of his ruin?
-Blood Meridian, p. 111

Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian follows the gruesome exploits of the historical “Glanton Gang,” a brutal gang of American mercenaries contracted by Mexican authorities to deliver the scalps of Native Americans during the 1840s and ’50s.

The protagonist is a young unnamed runaway, called simply “the kid.” The kid is possibly a stand in for Samuel Chamberlain, who claimed to have been a part of the Glanton Gang in his autobiographical My Confessions, a work that served as McCarthy’s primary historical text.

That work contains the only known reference to Glanton’s second-in-command, a huge, hairless anomaly called Judge Holden, or more often “the judge.”

The plot is a vehicle for this fascinating character. Like most of McCarthy’s characters, we know little of his past, only that the gang found him sitting alone on a solitary rock in the desert, as if he’d “brung it with him.”

The judge is a vastly learned figure, with a preternatural dearth of knowledge on many complex subjects, ranging from astronomy and chemistry to biology and philosophy. In the vein of the explorer, he collects samples of fauna and sketches birds he’s never seen before. When queried about this, he explains that anything that exists without his consent exists without his permission – an affront that he will not suffer.

Pages of the novel are renditions that tired genre convention of the campfire talk after a hard day’s ride. But these scenes are made fresh by the depth and mystery of the characters, mainly the judge. He holds forth on the nature of the world, and of war. The judge is the high prophet of war; he claims that while it has fallen out of favor, war and violence are the true catalysts of progress, and the only way that a man can justify his existence.

Reading the prodigious Blood Meridian is like trying to decipher the coded history of a bloody and alien world. The novel is excessively violent, chronicling massacres, scalping, and execution. Whereas other western novels are quick to glorify violence, McCarthy’s characters preach a gospel of violence while his brutally authentic scenes argue convincingly for peace.

These scenes of violence are interspersed with long descriptions of the band against the vast backdrop of the rough and empty terrain of 19th Century Texas and Mexico. In these scenes, in the vivid landscapes he paints of an alien – and gone – world, McCarthy’s prose excels.

It took me weeks to read the book, some days only conquering a few of its dense pages a day. Blood Meridian is many things, but it is certainly not an easy read. But from its biblical density derives its power. Each passage, each word is a testament to McCarthy’s mastery of the craft, and the power of language.

The vocabulary alone is incredibly immense. I quickly took to reading with a dictionary handy and was almost embarrassed by how frequently I consulted it. Even with the dictionary’s help, certain passages escaped me, their sentences hinged on nouns too archaic to still be referenced, moved by verbs equally antiquated.

That’s not to say it is unreadable. Far from it. McCarthy’s prose is a national treasure, and anyone familiar with more accessible (and popular) recent works like No Country for Old Men and The Road will see his distinct style shine brighter than ever in Blood Meridian. The work is considered by many literary critics, including myself, to be McCarthy’s masterpiece. In 2006, the New York Times named Blood Meridian the third most important book of the previous 25 years, based on a poll of writers and critics. Only Beloved by Toni Morrison and Underworld by Don DeLillo were rated higher.

By Carole Shmurak

Brat Farrar is one of the two mysteries by Josephine Tey that does not feature detective Alan Grant. Written in 1949, it was among the post-war novels — the other two being Daughter of Time and The Franchise Affair — that helped cement Tey’s reputation as one of the best of the Golden Age mystery writers.

Tey first introduces us to the Ashby family having a lively lunch in their home, Latchetts, which has been in the family for generations. The eldest, Simon, is soon to be “of age” and inherit Latchetts, and he is joined at the table by Aunt Bee (who has raised the children since their parents died in a car crash eight years earlier) and his siblings, Eleanor, who teaches horseback riding to children at a nearby school, and the young twins, Ruth and Jane. The scene is a warm, happy one and draws the reader into the book.

But then we meet the orphan Brat Farrar, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Simon. Brat is persuaded by a “friend” of the Ashbys to pose as the long-lost Patrick Ashby, Simon’s twin, who disappeared shortly after his parents’ death and whose body has never been found. Brat quickly insinuates himself into the family, explaining that rather than killing himself, as everyone assumed, he ran away to sea and lived in America until recently. As the older twin, Brat/Patrick will inherit Latchetts, not Simon. One by one, he wins over the Ashby family, leaving only Simon believing he is a fraud.

Tey is such a talented writer that she makes it difficult for the reader to dislike Brat despite his dishonesty. By the time he begins to suspect that Patrick was a victim of murder and not a suicide, we find ourselves firmly on his side. Brat’s dilemma is that by proving that Patrick was murdered, he will expose his own crime and bring further sorrow to the family he has come to love.

Brat Farrar has typical Tey touches: a humorous spoof of overly permissive schools like Summerhill and an exciting horserace, as well as some of her most appealing characters in Aunt Bee and Brat himself. It’s a masterful book from start to finish.