weekly book review: american wife, by curtis sittenfeld

Seeing how I've never been a huge fan of either Laura Bush or books with women wearing big, fluffy white bridal gowns on the cover, I probably would have never gotten around to reading American Wife had I not had my socks knocked off my Curtis Sittenfeld's previous novel, PREP. However, since PREP was so awesome and Sittenfeld such a talented writer gifted with both Didion-esque prose and a knack for brilliant characterization, I was hot to read American Wife despite all the reasons I might have otherwise passed it by. And as was expected, Ms. Sittenfeld did not disappoint.

American Wife takes the skeleton of Laura Bush's life and personality and, around it, builds the fictional story of Alice Blackwell, a polite, bookish woman from a liberal, middle class background who marries a charismatic man from a powerful Republican family. From what I've learned, the stories of Alice Blackwell and Laura Bush are as dissimilar as they are similar, but it was, of course, the similarities I found most intriguing.

Like Ms. Bush, Alice Blackwell is a Democrat, an educator, and a voracious reader who, perhaps inexplicably, falls for a staunch Republican who, though funny and lovable, has a reputation for being a bit of a screw up. Like Ms. Bush, the primary tragedy of Alice's life occurs in high school when she accidentally kills one of her classmates in a automobile accident. Laura Bush's rumored abortion makes the book, as does George W.'s alcoholism, subsequent religious reawakening, and tumultuous presidency. But rather than being a true autobiography (which has been done before), Sittenfeld takes these truths and imagines the story behind them. Thanks to Alice, readers can understand how a woman can love a person she generally disapproves of, what it's like to be one of the most famous people on earth, and what literate Laura finds so appealing about George.

I have no idea what Sittenfeld's politics are, but she treats all of her characters with the utmost respect while refusing to shy away from some of the most embarrassing details of the former first family's history. And yet, this isn't really the story of a First Lady as much as it's the story of a very complex woman whose perfectly average life takes a very unusual turn. With the exception of the ending (Which sort of sucked, to be frank. It was rushed and Alice became a massive whiner), American Wife is an absorbing read. It's an ambitious, unusual page turner, regardless of your politics.

American Wife

Curtis Sittenfeld

2008, 558 pages (Paperback)

weekly book review: american pastoral, by philip roth

"I was a biography in perpetual motion, memory in the marrow of my bones."

Narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, Philip Roth's oft used alter-ego, American Pastoral is the story of Seymour "The Swede" Levov - a man who, on the surface, seems to be a glimmering example of The American Dream. Levov is handsome, athletically gifted, married to a former Miss New Jersey, and lives in a big stone house in the suburbs of Newark, comfortably removed from the crime, decay and racial turmoil consuming his blighted hometown. But when Levov's teenager daughter decides to protest the Vietnam War by setting off a bomb that kills an innocent bystander and sends her into hiding, there so goes "The Swede's" charmed life.

Something nagged at me while I read American Pastoral, a brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning story of how the idyllic American Dream turned in the the "American berserk" thanks to the political and social turmoil of the 1960s. It's been a few years, but I recalled feeling something similar while reading Roth's Human Stain - like I knew I was reading something pretty profound, something beautifully written by an incredibly skilled artist. So, why wasn't I enjoying it more?

Then I read Brian Prisco's recent Pajiba review of Roth's The Plot Against America, and it really helped crystallize my thoughts on Roth in general. Please allow me to borrow from Prisco's line of thinking for a moment:

I do not like steak. There are people who revere steak above most other things, people who would pay through the nose for a nice filet mignon or a piece of kobe beef. I am not one of those people. I will eat steak if that's what you make me for dinner, however I won't enjoy it nearly as much as I probably should, and would probably have preferred to have been served something else. For me, Philip Roth is like filet mignon: he's a satisfying, high-end, beautiful meal...for someone else.

When it comes down to it, I suppose I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't like American Pastoral very much. It's a highly lauded work by a highly revered author, so to say that I just didn't like it makes me feel like a bit of a dolt - like the uncultured, backwater hick who shows up to the opera in jeans and then falls asleep during the first act. (Yee haw, ya'll!)

And so though I may not have liked it, American Pastoral is a excellent novel by a gifted writer, so perhaps you should just take my thoughts with a generous grain of salt. After all, this is all coming from the lady who'd rather eat mac and cheese than filet mignon.

American Pastoral

Philip Roth

432 pages, 1998

book review: the end, by salvatore scibona

One of five finalists for The 2008 National Book Award, The End is an impressive debut whose serpentine plot hovers around a single tumultuous moment during a Catholic street carnival held in an Italian-American enclave of 1953 Cleveland.  Amidst a backdrop of racial tensions, poverty and immigration, this pivotal moment ties together the beautifully developed characters who makes up this highly psychological drama:  There's Rocco, the town baker, who has just received word that his son has perished in a Korean POW camp;  Mrs. Marini, an elderly abortionist, who is looking for a protégé before she dies and thinks she has found one in Lina, a would-be spinster; and the story's antagonist - a jeweler - who is responsible for a large part of the novel's dread.   

In a book that often reads more like an epic lyric poem than a novel, Scibona's characters become the focus of a piece that is often more psychology than plot.  In The End, Scibona seems to be channeling heavyweight modernists such as James Joyce, William Faulkner and T.S. Eliot, so it should follow that his novel is dense, poetic, often awe-inspiring and frequently difficult.  

Ultimately, it's the author's sentences that become both his blessing and his curse.  The End is comprised of gorgeously opaque sentences like "If he could denude himself from his mineral self, leaving only caption, he would become at last translucent, transient, timeless," and "I was a fleeting thought the mind that the sea was might light upon and then forget." Scibona's writing is as breathtaking as it is obfuscatory, and, as such, it follows that The End is a novel that demands much of its reader and one that must be read slowly. 

Ultimately, I found The End to be a bit of an enigma.  Scibona's writing sparkled, his characters troubled, his story mystified, and he unapologetically tested me as a reader, just like the modernist authors he appeared to be channeling.  And as is the case with the work of Eliot and Faulkner, I must be honest and admit that I appreciate what he created more than I enjoyed it.

The End

Salvatore Scibona

2008, 294 pages

five minute book review: johnny got his gun, by dalton trumbo

I've got a more fleshed-out review of something else simmering on the back burner, but for today here's my lightening-quick response to Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun, which is currently up for discussion amongst my book club peeps:

Johnny Got His Gun is perhaps the single most psychologically disturbing thing I've ever read.  A stream of consciousness narrative of a WWI soldier who has (perhaps unrealistically) survived a shell at the expense of all of his limbs and most of his senses, Trumbo's classic novel remains one of the most effective anti-war pieces of our modern era.   It's a lightening-quick read, but one that leaves a lasting impression for its searing portrayal of the effects of modern warfare.  If you've never gotten around to it then you probably should at some point, however do brace yourself for some powerfully disturbing imagery.   I have finished it, consequently I need a hug.

(And after tackling this back-to-back with Say You're One of Them, trust that I'm now in the market for some significantly lighter fare.  Something with unicorns who poo rainbows, perhaps.)

Johnny Got His Gun

Dalton Trumbo

1939, 256 pages

weekly book review: the amnesiac, by sam taylor

Fittingly, I have no recollection of where I heard about The Amnesiac, and I only have the haziest remembrance of purchasing it.  Weirdly, it's as if the little sucker just magically *appeared!* on my bookshelf, where it then sat, gathering dust for ages.  And it may have continued to gather dust for quite some time to come, however I spent a lot of time on the road this holiday season and the book I had been reading just wasn't doing it for me.  I needed something else, something readable, something fun and something preferably in paperback.

Enter The Amnesiac.:

After breaking his leg on the stairs of his Amsterdam apartment, James Purdew suddenly finds he has time to do something he hasn't done in a long time:  think.  And as tends to be the case, the more he thinks, the more trouble he finds.  His life in Amsterdam starts to fall apart as James becomes increasingly obsessed with three years of his life that have become lost to his memory, those being the years he spent as a college student in the town of H.  An avid journaler, James has three journals detailing his life during those missing years, but, for some reason, those journals are locked up in a black safe he keeps under his bed, and he has no idea where the key could be.  Clearly, something very bad happened in H., something he once chose to forget, but something he is now hell-bent on remembering.

In an attempt to unlock the mystery of those missing years, James must become the detective of his own mystery.  He returns to the British town of H., gets a job fixing up the crumbling remnants of the house where he once lived, and starts unearthing clues to who he was and what happened to him there.  The deeper James digs, the stranger things get, as the plot takes a bit of a Gothic turn, where suddenly a 19th century manuscript becomes a key to unlocking the mystery of James' own past.

To paraphrase the blurb on the back of the book, The Amnesiac is described as a time travel book without a time machine, a science fiction book without the aliens, and a murder mystery without the murder.  This description is pretty apt, and is a large part of why I liked it so much, despite the fact that it wasn't the most original premise for a book.  (At times, the plot felt quite similar to films like Vanilla Sky and Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.)  But even if similar stories have been told before, Taylor sprinkled heavy references to Borges, Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Freudian psychology, Heaven and Hell, and Descartes' solipsistic brand of philosophy (i.e.: "I think, therefore I am.") into his story, using them as clues that continued to keep me thinking and guessing until the end.  In The Amnesiac, Taylor has created something more original and intelligent than your average dimestore mystery novel, while still managing to craft a tale that was a whole lot of fun to read.

After skimming some other reviews of this book, it seems as if many folks didn't like it as much as I did, complaining that the ending wasn't very satisfying and that Taylor was a little heavy-handed with the references to Borges and Freud.  And those are complaints that I can certainly understand.  The Amnesiac is hardly a perfect novel. However, I thoroughly loved it, warts and all.  While reading, I, like James, became a detective - underlining clues, scribbling in the margins, and working the story over in my mind long after finishing it.  

In short, I can't remember the last time I had so much fun reading a book.  I'm not sure whether or not I fell in love with The Amnesiac,  but I certainly thought about it a lot when it wasn't around.

The Amnesiac

Sam Taylor

383 pages, 2007

monday book review: death with interruptions, by jose saramago

I've been done with this book for ages, but this has been a particularly difficult book review to write for some reason. Timing, I think, is certainly playing its part. My Grandpa is pretty sick at the moment, and so reading and/or discussing a book about death isn't really something I've been over the moon to do.  Go figure, right?

Nonetheless, I think the larger issue lies not with the subject matter, but with the author. For all his problems with sentence construction and characterization, Saramago is widely considered to be a genius.  In fact, Harold Bloom went so far as to call him "the most gifted novelist alive in the world today."  Thus, I can't help but sort of feel like the problem must lie, at least in part, with me, the reader, if I happen to really dislike one of his books.  

And let's be clear from the beginning - I really disliked this book.

On the surface, Death with Interruptions contains all of Saramago's trademark qualities: it's more fable than novel, the characters are widely unnamed and under-developed, he writes sentences that run-on for days, and it possesses a deep level of sociological insightfulness.  But while some of these qualities can be perceived as criticisms, they can and have worked in his favor.  Take Blindness, for instance.  It was brilliant, despite its "flaws."  The characters in that story remained unnamed and rather vague throughout the narrative, and yet I still found myself able to care for and about them.  I assume that the point there was to present more character types than actual characters - to explore how society as a whole would react to such a catastrophe, and so keeping them half-formed was a masterful decision that totally worked for the story he was trying to tell.  Since Death with Interruptions is a similar sort of sociological story - asking what would happen if there was suddenly no more death - one might think that using the same sort of tools would produce similar results.  But they didn't for some reason.  And I'm not sure if I can point to why, exactly.

The novel's premise is certainly an interesting one.  What if no one died? Death is hated, however necessary.  As Saramago illustrates, without it population soars, the sick linger on in a horrible sort of half-life, religion loses its purpose, organized crime thrives and the economy suffers.  However, I'm not sure Saramago is telling us anything none of us don't already know.  Obviously, death is a necessary evil, and stories of this sort have been told before.  Furthermore, the characters were left so vague and the story such an overview, that it was hard for me to feel invested in what was going on.

Then, half-way through, the novel switched gears.  While the first half focused on the societal implications of there suddenly being no death, the second half focused on death itself - this time, through personification of the concept.  Death decides to resume her work, though she now gives everyone two weeks notice.  This notice presents its own problems, but the real story in this second half is that death (small "d") finds herself (a woman, of course) unable to kill a cellist for reasons she can not understand.  The novel's two halves are not connected well, and I was never particularly clear on what point Saramago was trying to make with the cellist story.  By the end, I was bored and forcing myself to finish.

Again, maybe the problem is with me.  Maybe Death with Interruptions is genius and I'm the idiot who just didn't "get" it.  However, I suspect this isn't really the case.  I suspect that I'm right - that this is not one of his strongest efforts and that it contains some very real problems that many readers will overlook because of the author's acclaim.

Overall, fervent Saramago fans will certainly want to check it out, however first-time readers of his work would do best to start with a different work.

Death with Interruptions

Jose Saramago

2008, 256 pages

weekly book review: a confederacy of dunces, by john kennedy toole

The title of this post is factually incorrect, since this will not be much of a book review at all.  See,  a few friends and I recently decided to form an online book club, and "Dunces," our first selection, is presently up for discussion.  I could write something more involved over here, but I'd rather not steal anyone's thunder.  (Thanks again, Paul.)  Nonetheless, I thought I might share a few quick thoughts for those readers uninvolved in my weird little club.   

And so, my thoughts:

Overall, I found A Confederacy of Dunces to be a very enjoyable read.  Perhaps it dragged in spots, but it was, all things considered, a fantastic comic farce, and I don't think I've ever read anything quite like it.  As much as the protagonist begged to be hated, I found that I couldn't, and I enjoyed spending time in his wacko world almost as much as I was thankful that he didn't really exist in my actual life.   Did it deserve the Pulitzer?  Hard to say.  However, and despite its challenges, reading it was a worthwhile experience, and one I would certainly recommend.

weekly book review: blindness, by josé saramago

"Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are."

On an average street in an anonymous city, a man is suddenly struck blind while idling in his car, waiting for a red light to turn green.  It is no ordinary blindness, but rather a "white blindness," causing the victim's world to fall "into a milky sea." Another man - a thief, first thought to be a good Samaritan - helps drive the newly blind man home.  The thief takes advantage of the blind man's condition and makes off with his car.  While driving away, he is himself struck blind.  The blindness soon spreads like wildfire, striking the first man's wife, an opthamologist, and then his patients.  The government soon panics; the first victims are rounded up and sent to live in an abandoned asylum, quarantined until a cure can be found.  But to no avail.  The asylum is soon stuffed to overflowing with the ever increasing blind, and still the strange disease continues to spread unchecked in the outside world. 

Inside the asylum, conditions quickly deteriorate. Food becomes an uncertainty, the lack of running water reduces all to filth, and the guards become frightened and quick to shoot. Eventually, a small group of prisoners force themselves upon the others - holding hostage their food in exchange for valuables, and later, women. In all of this, there remains only one set of seeing eyes - those of the opthamologist's wife, who mysteriously retains her sight while the world loses its, and who is burdened with being the lone witness as society crumbles into vile depravity.  

With Blindness, Saramago makes a powerful statement about the delicate state of humanity, while creating a disturbingly apt parable for our times. Playing with the old adage of the eyes being the window to the soul, Saramago strips society of its eyes, thus plunging it into evil.  And as a parable, Blindness is intentionally vague. Surroundings are described in detail while characters remain unnamed, and the cause of the illness is left unexplained. Thus, the story becomes a limitless allegory - it could be the Holocaust, AIDS, Hurricane Katrina, The Sudan, or any other time when catastrophe has struck, pushing civilization to its breaking point. It isn’t pleasant to think about, but it’s a story that is too often true, and one that we can never learn from if we choose to ignore.

For a variety of reasons I’ve spent this month reading much lighter fare, and although I’ve enjoyed myself, I was itching for something a bit more substantial.  Thus, I was drawn to Saramago.  Although a masterful writer, I’d been reading very underwhelming reviews of his newest novel, so figured it best to start with his masterpiece.  As expected, Blindness absolutely did not disappoint. It’s a darkly brilliant, important book, and although I can’t say reading it was a pleasant experience, it was one I’m glad I had just the same.

Blindness

José Saramago

1998, 326 pages

weekly book review, halloween edition: the terror, by dan simmons

On May 19th, 1845, British bombships Erebus and Terror set sail from the Thames River stocked will three years worth of food, 126 men, and the mission of seeking out the elusive Northwest Passage. Being that they are traveling on the first steam-powered vessels ever to explore the icy Arctic waters, the men think they have every reason to be confident, but by 1848 all passengers were presumed dead and neither ship was ever seen again. Unsuccessful expeditions charged with finding the missing ships produced clues as to how the men may have met their end, but to this day the individual fates of the men of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror are at best a speculation.


Dan Simmons blends what little is known of this doomed Arctic excursion into The Terror - a fictionalized account of Sir John Franklin's final voyage. Simmons' story opens on Francis Crozier, Captain of the HMS Terror, who has been landlocked in a frozen landscape for the better part of a year thanks to Franklin's poor decision making. Beset by ice, Crozier and his fellow captains had hoped for a summertime thaw that never came, and so are in the middle of their second winter spent trapped on their quickly failing ships. As if things were not bad enough, their dwindling food supply is feared to be contaminated by poisonous lead, several restless sailors are in danger of becoming mutinous, and they are being slowly stalked by a supernatural polar bear-ish monster that is methodically hunting and eating the crew. One-by-one, the men of Erebus and Terror begin to meet their terrible ends - victims of either the elements, their poisonous rations, or the strange monster that seems able to appear and disappear from the ice as if by magic. It eventually falls on Crozier to led these men off their ships and into the barren landscape, desperate for a chance at a salvation that seems impossible.

With Halloween just around the bend, my craving for a scary book led me to The Terror, despite approaching it with some hesitancy due to the fact that I'm not the biggest fan of historical fiction, frankly couldn't care less about nautical journeys, and - weighing in at a whopping 771 pages - The Terror looked like a beastly tome requiring the sort of time I wasn't really sure I was willing to commit. But it quickly became clear that the time it would take to tackle The Terror would be time well spent, as I quickly found myself drawn into the world of Crozier and his men.

Ultimately, The Terror reads like two separate novels - one a nautical disaster and the other a supernatural thriller -and while I can understand why some would see this as a point of critique, it totally worked for me. I loved the supernatural element every bit as much as I loved reading about the trials and tribulations of the doomed exhibition. For me, the presence of the monster really elevated a misadventure story into something much more imaginative and unique, and although it didn't terrify me exactly, it certainly provided me with a fair share of moments that made my hair stand on end.

All and all, I've never read anything quite like The Terror. It's a tale of survival, of adventure, of horror and of Inuit mythology, and it's also an immensely satisfying read. I can't recommend it enough.

The Terror
Dan Simmons
771 pages, 2007

bonus book review: in persuasion nation, by george saunders

(Since I took last week off, I thought I'd throw a bonus book review your way today to make up for it. And aren't you all-a-quiver!)

Last week I found myself in a bit of a pickle. I was supposed to have spent my summer tracking down supplementary readings for a unit on media manipulation, but as of two days before my due date I hadn't found one single thing. Honestly, I hadn't even bothered to try. In short, I was screwed. Fortunately, a friend came to my rescue by suggesting In Persuasion Nation, a collection of short stories by George Saunders, and it proved perfect for my needs. (And thank God I can read a book in a day. Way to cut things close, me.) I wasn't planning on reviewing this book since I read it for work, however I really enjoyed it, and so what the heck - we're mixing work with pleasure over here today.

The cover of In Persuasion Nation depicts a man leaning over to sniff the solitary flower standing in the center of a wasteland - an appropriate image for a collection of stories whose protagonists are often searching for something real, pure and true in a plastic world that values consumerism over humanity. Often humorous, rather quirky and usually disturbing, Saunders' stories serve as a sort of protest of our corporate culture, warning what we very well may one day become if we choose to continue on our current path. The heroes in these stories are the misfits of this modern world. There's Brad, whose life is a sitcom which he is in danger of being written off of once he finds he can no longer continue smiling along with the laugh track, ignoring the world's ills. In the title story, an army of frustrated characters from smug television commercials rise up and refuse to continue being humiliated while hawking Ding-Dongs, Mac and Cheese and Doritos. And, in what I thought was the best story of the lot, there's Jon, an orphan who's spent nearly his entire life as a member of a product focus group, knowing no other way of communicating his feelings but through advertisements.

While some of these stories succeed better than others, the overall collection proves timely, affecting, inventive and highly entertaining. Like the best satirists, Saunders is thought-provoking, but with heart. Fans of Vonnegut and Pynchon should approve.

In Persuasion Nation

George Saunders

2006 (paperback), 228 pages

monday book review: child 44, by tom rob smith

How do you stop a serial killer operating in a State where one of the fundamental pillars is that crime does not exist? Set in Stalin's Soviet Union, Child 44 - part political thriller, part murder mystery, and part horror story - is the gripping exploration of that very question.

Leo Demidov is a high-ranking MGB officer who has dedicated his adult life to rooting out enemies of the State, and in the process is responsible for sending innumerable innocent citizens to the Gulags or marking them for execution. A loyal member of the Party, it never occurs to Leo that these people may be innocent until one particular arrest and subsequent interrogation causes him to call everything he once believed into question.

With this one crack, the foundation of Leo's life as a rich, powerful and respected State Security Officer begins to crumble. No longer certain of his work, his confidence weakens and all past cases become shadowed in doubt, in particular that of little Arkady Andreev, the son of one of Leo's MGB subordinates, whose mangled, lifeless body had been found discarded along the railroad tracks. Despite eyewitness evidence suggesting the boy was brutally murdered, Leo - working in a system that cannot acknowledge the crime's existence because to do so would suggest an imperfect society - labeled the boy's death an accident.

Leo's paradigm shift also makes him vulnerable to an ambitious enemy in the MGB, a man who manages to undermine Leo's credibility so much that he suffers a severe demotion and is forced to abandon a life of relative luxury in Moscow with his beautiful wife for a hovel in the depressed, rural village of Voualsk. It is here that Leo, now a low-ranking member of the militia, discovers that little Arkady's murder may not be an isolated incident, but rather the work of a very prolific serial killer. Conducting their own secret investigation, Leo and his wife soon discover that as many as 44 children may have fallen victim to a man the State refuses to admit exists. No longer willing to safely toe the company line, the Demidovs set out to find the killer and stop him themselves, despite the fact that doing so makes them political dissidents and prime candidates for the Gulags or worse.

Typically not my thing, I usually pass on political thrillers, but Child 44 was one of those titles that I couldn't seem to escape, so I was naturally curious to see if it was deserving of all the hype. And after tearing through all 400+ pages in a matter of days, I'd say yes, indeed it is. While it's true that Smith's simple prose won't exactly blow your mind, the compelling story he weaves makes for one gripping read. Although a beast in size, it can be tackled fairly quickly, and the entire time I was reading I couldn't help but think it would make for one terrific movie. (Turns out I'm not the only one who thought this. Ridley Scott committed to direct the film before the book was even published.) The novel does have its flaws, however. My enjoyment was lessened by a late twist that felt far too neat considering the complexity of the plot that had unfolded up to that point, and as I've already mentioned Smith's simple sentences are nothing to gush over. But hey - they can't all be high art, people.  As far as most literary thrillers go, it's far better than most.

In sum, it may not win any awards, but Child 44 is an incredibly ambitious debut from an author to watch and one terrific read. I highly recommend checking it out.

Child 44
Tom Rob Smith
436 pages, 2008

monday book review: the complete persepolis, by marjane satrapi

I am not a comic book person. Honestly, I'm not even a "graphic novel" person. But I love art, and I love stories, and I love it when stories teach me things, so I figured that I couldn't go wrong with a book that managed to combine these three loves. Thus, when I realized I could trade a few crappy old movies for The Complete Persepolis, I was so excited that I actually did a little dance in my dining room. True story. (I love Swaptree!) But I digress...

If you've read Art Spiegelman's brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus: A Survivor's Tale, then you should easily be able to wrap your head around Persepolis - a memoir in the form of a graphic novel. (Or, rather, several graphic novels, since both Spiegelman and Satrapi chose to release their stories in multiple volumes. I am reviewing The Complete Persepolis, which is actually two graphic novels: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return.) Like Maus, Persepolis uses art to tell a personal story while also educating its reader on a particular history and culture. Also like Maus, it's brilliant and wholly worth your time, even if you, like me, claim that comic books aren't really your thing.

Persepolis is the coming-of-age story of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian woman who is both the author as well as the protagonist. Her story begins in 1980 when Marjane was 10 years old. The Iranian Revolution had just taken place the previous year, and thanks to it, Marjane and her educated, liberal mother are both forced to wear the traditional Islamic veil. Coming from a very free-thinking household, the Satrapis have a difficult time adhering to the new regime, and Marjane's childhood is full of rebellion. She loves punk music, refuses to wear her veil properly, delights in pointing out the hypocrisy of her teachers, and follows her parents on political demonstrations. Eventually, her parents recognize that Marjane's outspokenness is putting her in increasing danger, so at age fourteen she is sent to live in Vienna where she experiences freedom and liberation, but also learns what it's like to be a Iranian immigrant in Western society. After spending four years in Vienna, Marjane returns home to Iran and discovers that while her Iranian heritage made her an outsider in Europe, her Western life has made her an outsider in her own homeland.

For a simply drawn, black-and-white graphic novel, Persepolis is a complex little thing. It's a breeze to read, yet incredibly thought-provoking. I think I learned more about the history of modern Iran from this book than I had from reading any number of newspaper and magazine articles on the subject. Furthermore, I gained an empathy for the Iranian people that one can't truly get from a newspaper or a magazine. While it's easy to dismiss the majority of Iranians as religious and political extremists, Marjane's story suggests that many Iranians are more like her - scared, rebellious and frustrated with the regime - than like the extremists the media tends to focus on. It's easy to see a veil rather than a individual, however Marjane's story reveals that although our politics may be different, we really have more things in common than we have differences to separate us.

All-in-all, I may not love comic books, but I loved Persepolis. It's smart, edgy, funny and sad, and I would recommend it to absolutely anyone.

The Complete Persepolis

Marjane Satrapi

352 pages, 2003, 20007

weekly book review: the monster of florence, by douglas preston with mario spezi

From 1968 to 1985 a serial killer is suspected to have roamed the gorgeous Tuscan landscape, killing as many as eight couples while they made love in cars parked in the rolling countryside. The killer's (or killers') viciousness rivaled that of London's Jack the Ripper, and his crimes inspired Thomas Harris's infamous Hannibal Lecter. And although the slayings would come to an abrupt stop in 1985, the Monster of Florence still enjoys a formidable presence amongst the inhabitants of Florence and its outlying areas, as his identity remains undetermined to this day.

Author Douglas Preston moved to Florence with the intention of writing a work of fiction, but after learning that his front yard was the scene of one of the Monster's gruesome murders, he became fascinated with the unsolved case and found he could focus on little else. With the help of journalist Mario Spezi - nicknamed the "Monstrologer" for his expertise in the case - Preston discovered an unbelievable story, one involving real-life monsters, a cast of degenerates, an Internet nutcase, and even a suspected satanic cult. 

But the story of the investigation would prove to be as fascinating as the story of the murders themselves, as time and time again the authorities proved they were more interested in using the case for their own personal gain than in justice; thus, they made false accusations, wrongfully imprisoned several innocent people, possibly planted evidence, illegally spied on dissidents, and even went so far as to accuse Mario Spezi of being the Monster after his investigative work and forthcoming book threatened to paint them in an unflattering light.  It's as hard to imagine such acts of brutality taking place in the breathtakingly beautiful home of The Renaissance as it is to imagine such investigative incompetence in a supposedly civilized country, however every bit of it is true.  

The Monster of Florence is divided into two parts: the first detailing the investigation into the Monster's crimes and identify, and the second chronicling Preston's collaborative work with Spezi and their subsequent indictments for obstruction of justice.  Both parts are of equal interest, and, in the vein of In Cold Blood and The Devil in the White City, the whole piece reads like a work of fiction.  My biggest criticism (aside from the difficulties I had keeping all the Italian names straight) was that the ending disappoints somewhat, but there's not much else the authors could have done seeing as the crime remains unsolved.

Bottom line: Preston and Spezi have created a meticulously researched, well-written and wholly absorbing book, and it's a must-read if you are at all interested in the true crime genre.

The Monster of Florence

Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi

2008, 304 pages

monday book review - prep: a novel, by curtis sittenfeld

Lee Fiora is an average, middle class girl who feels like she is meant for far greater things than her Indiana hometown.  Convincing herself that trading her Midwest family in for a fancy East Coast prep school is the answer, Lee becomes a scholarship student at the wealthy and prestigious Ault School, where she quickly learns that gaining admission isn't the same as gaining acceptance.  Prep chronicles Lee's four years at Ault, starting out as an insecure and lonely freshmen, leaving as a love-sick and angst-ridden senior, and reminding us just how very important all this felt at the time.

Coming-of-age stories are hard.  Being a teenager is so awkward, clunky, and uncertain, and it's difficult for any adult to write truthfully about that period without being tempted to go back and make revisions, creating a protagonist who's wittier, cooler, or more dangerous than most of us ever really were.  So when I finally picked up Prep - a book that was something of a critical darling when it was released and touted as a female version of The Catcher in the Rye - it was with strong feelings of reservation that I began.  After all, I had been burned many times before by the coming-of-age novel, and female authors tend to be the worst offenders for some reason. 

So, imagine my delight when Prep turned out to be everything it was lauded to be - a smart, honest, insightful, and often embarrassing trip back to one's formative years that doesn't make apologies or unnecessary revisions.  It was far from perfect, often painful, and at 449 pages sometimes felt a bit long, but these criticisms were easy for me to overlook seeing as I've never related to any fictional character the way I related to Lee Fiora.  Apart from the boarding school element, reading her story was like revisiting my own high school years, complete with all the heartbreak, angst, and feelings of self-doubt that it entailed.  Lee's decisions are often questionable, her insecurities difficult to reason, and she can often be downright unlikeable, but if we're being honest with ourselves - weren't we all? Aren't some of us still?

With Prep, Sittenfeld nailed what it's really like to be a teenager - or at least what it was really like for me - and in so doing restored my faith in the genre.  No small feat, that.

Prep: A Novel

Curtis Sittenfeld

2005, 448 pages

monday book review: snuff, by chuck palahniuk

,Something you may not know about me is that I have a weird and mildly embarrassing Palahniuk thing. I've read nearly all of his nine novels - most of them as pre-releases - and while there are a few titles that I've really enjoyed (Haunted, Diary and, of course, Fight Club), by and large I don't particularly like the dude's work. And yet, something about him keeps me coming back for more. He's like the boyfriend who doesn't treat you particularly well, but he doesn't treat you particularly poorly either, so out of familiarity, habit or laziness you stay with him way longer than you probably should. And so, despite hearing awful things about Snuff, I still read it. I had to. Chuck's my mediocre boyfriend of convenience. But despite the fact that he and I have shared some good times together, his newest book was so terrible that it might be the motivation I've been needing to finally break it off once and for all.

I refuse to spend more time reviewing this book than Palahniuk spent writing it (which couldn't have been very much), so I'll be brief. Snuff takes place entirely in the green room of a porno movie. Cassie Wright is an aging porn star who is trying to set a world record for having sex with 600 dudes in one film, an act that everyone seems to think will kill her. Cassie thinks this too, but that appears to be the whole point. She's hoping that if she dies trying to break the record, then the film will go gangbusters and make a ton of money, money which she will then leave to the child she abandoned eighteen years prior. A whole mess of creepy men answer the casting call to help Cassie make history, and the story is told from the point-of-view of three of those dudes: Mr. 600, a professional porn star and the man who got Cassie started in the business; Mr. 137, a washed-up television star who somehow thinks doing this will resuscitate his failing career; and Mr. 72, who - as messed up as this sounds - believes he is Cassie's son. And if this all sounds like a great big ol' wet, hot mess, then that's because it is.

I'm honestly not really sure what Palahniuk was trying to accomplish with this book. If I were feeling kind, I'd suggest that Snuff was a failed attempt at making some sort of larger critical commentary on the porn industry; however, I'm not feeling kind, so instead I'll suggest that Snuff is the product of a shocking author who has run out of ways to try and shock us. Trouble is, despite the subject matter, it's not particularly shocking at all. Instead, it's lazily written, pointless and boring.

In short, I absolutely hated this book. If it had a face, I would punch it in it.

Snuff
Chuck Palahniuk
2008, 197 pages

monday book review: when you are engulfed in flames, by david sedaris

With this, his most recent collection of sardonic essays inspired by his life, I am officially starting to worry that David Sedaris may be running out of ideas.  

Undoubtedly, fans of Sedaris will eventually pick up his newest collection.  Unfortunately, fans of Sedaris are already long-since familiar with his family, his boyfriend Hugh, and his humorous struggles to learn the language while living in France.  And since When You Are Engulfed in Flames includes several essays about his family, his boyfriend, and his struggles to learn the language while living in a foreign land (Japan this time, but even still), I was left with the unmistakable feeling that Sedaris was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Furthermore, all of the essays in this collection have already appeared in either The New Yorker or This American Life, so for hard-core Sedaris fans there's probably not a single new piece to be found.

For those who haven't already read the essays in this collection, they are standard Sedaris - witty, dry, the mundane turned humorous.  Like the Van Gogh on the cover, some of the stories here are downright creepy - Sedaris' retelling of his brief stint in a morgue, the story of his awkward friendship with a Normandy neighbor who turned out to be a pedophile, and the one where he recalls various pervy experiences gained while hitchhiking to name a few, and reading these is more of a uncomfortable experience than a humorous one.  Certainly, there are some gems to be found, and "The Smoking Section" where he writes about his attempt to stop smoking by moving to - of all places - Tokyo was, for me, the most enjoyable.  But even still, I felt like I had heard it before.  Like the novelty had worn off a bit.  

But this isn't to say I didn't enjoy reading When You Are Engulfed in Flames.  It may be spotty, but for my money spotty Sedaris is still better than a lot of the crap that's out there.  It's just that we're often hardest on the ones we love the most, you know?

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

David Sedaris

323 pages, 2008

monday book review - spook: science tackles the afterlife, by mary roach

Before writing this, her sophomore effort, Mary Roach (author of Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers) spent nearly a year traveling, interviewing, researching, and even enrolling in medium school, with the hopes of either proving or disproving the seemingly unprovable: the afterlife.  With a keen sense of a humor, a scientific mind and a mostly skeptical point of view, Roach writes of her experiences traveling to India to investigate claims of reincarnation, exploring the theory that a body loses 21 grams (presumably, the weight of the human soul) after death, charts ectoplasm's strange history, follows ghosthunters as they try to track down spirits with infrared cameras and tape recorders, and more.

Unfortunately (fortunately?), Roach's year-long investigation produces no real proof of the existence of a soul or of the possibility of an afterlife, but even still her stories are no less fascinating. It also doesn't hurt that she has a fairly well-developed sense of humor for a skeptic. And it's this skepticism that makes her final statements in the book's afterward that much more eyebrow-raising, as she ends her year-long, largely fruitless journey with these reflections:

I guess I believe that not everything we humans encounter in our lives can be neatly and convincingly tucked away inside the orderly cabinet of science...I believe in the possibility of something more...The debunkers are probably right, but they're no fun to visit a graveyard with.  What the hell.  I believe in ghosts.

And even though the book doesn't produce one iota of evidence to support her final claim, I have to say that I wholeheartedly agree.  After all, isn't it simply more fun to believe than to not?

In sum, Spook - 'though far from spooky and a bit dry in spots - is a enjoyable, quirky read for skeptics and believers alike.  (Although be warned that weak-stomached readers may just want to skip the chapter on ectoplasm.  It's truly amazing how much cheesecloth a scam medium can fit into her most private places.  Ick!)

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife

Mary Roach

2005, 295 pages

monday book review: the boys in the trees, by mary swan

Set in 19th Century rural Canada, Mary Swan's debut novel tells the haunting story of a an inexplicable murder in a small town and its ripple effects on everyone it touches.  Reading more like a collection of short stories than a novel, Swan weaves together a series of character sketches to reveal the tragic story of a poor immigrant who - suddenly and for no clear reason -murders his wife and two daughters.  Rather than telling the story directly, Swan adopts a variety of points of view: the slain wife, the murdered daughters - one sickly and troubled, the other sweet and kind - a teacher who feels a certain level of responsibility for the events, a small boy who befriended one of the murdered little girls and more, although noticeably absent is the voice of the man whose crime sets the wheels in motion.  Each story provides a piece of a puzzle that is never exactly solved, but - at least for me - that seemed to be the point.  Who really knows why horrific events happen?  The point isn't really the why so much as  the effect violence has on both those it is inflicted upon and the ones forced to bear witness.

For some reason I've always been a bit of a sucker for crime dramas, and when they are written in an elegant, artful and psychological manner I'm over the moon.  However, I  must admit that I didn't choose The Boys in the Trees based on its subject, but rather for a much more superficial reason.  I heard absolutely nothing about it, the blurb on the back didn't sound particularly interesting and I had never heard of author Mary Swan, but the cover was so pretty that I simply couldn't resist it.  It wasn't perfect - a tad uneven and confusing in spots - but the overall effect made these issues relatively easy for me to overlook.  Fortunately, the image on the cover perfectly captured the story inside: nothing particularly groundbreaking, however elegant and poetically beautiful nevertheless.  I love it when that happens.

The Boys in the Trees

Mary Swan

2008, 224 pages

monday book review: ovenman, by jeff parker

Antihero When Thinfinger is a bit of a loser, although a lovable one. After being kicked out of the house by his parents for accidentally getting both arms covered in horribly mangled tattoos, 15-year-old When found himself forced to take a job in fast food and has been there ever since. Although a maestro in a restaurant, he's basically hapless in everything else. He's a skater who keeps losing his boards; his bulimic girlfriend sleeps in the living room, plagued by dreams that he's trying to kill her; he's the lead singer in a band who will only let him repetitiously sing the word "Wormdevil," the band's name; and nearly every morning he finds himself reliant on the post-it notes his drunken self has affixed to his body in an effort to clue him in on the previous night's shenanigans. Although a terrible boyfriend who consistently steals here and there from the pizza restaurant that employs him, he's a fairly good guy; but when he wakes up one morning to discover a pizza box full of stolen money on his coffee table, things take a bit of a turn.

Despite being hailed as "uproariously funny," Ovenman is probably not the sort of book that would have made it into my shopping basket had it not been for my bracket in The Morning News's Tournament of Books. (Yes, it's sort of like a college basketball bracket, and yes I realize it's incredibly nerdy. Shut up.) Of course, this funky little book was quickly taken out in the first round by Denis Johnson's epic Tree of Smoke, I was intrigued at the description and figured I'd check it out.

Basically, I have this theory that there are some things that are better on airplanes. Sprite? - better on an airplane. Individual packets of peanuts or pretzels? - better on an airplane. Tiny bottles of liquor? - good, but definitely better on an airplane. Hand-held gaming devices, Sudoku puzzles, tabloid magazines, and novels by Jennifer Weiner and Helen Fielding ? - all nice enough, but for some reason far, far better when enjoyed on an airplane. It's something about the tiny, enclosed space where you are forced to sit and enjoy something completely and entirely in one sitting that makes all these things more enjoyable than they would be most anywhere else. I feel similarly about Ovenman. It was a good read, but as strange as it sounds, I have a nagging feeling that it would have been ten times better if I would have read it on an airplane. For whatever that's worth.

Ovenman, by Jeff Parker

242 pages

2007

monday book review: out stealing horses, by per petterson

Melancholily beautiful, Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses was widely hailed as one of the best books of 2007, and for very good reason - It was. In simple, unpretentious prose Petterson tells the story of Trond Sander, a elderly man who has purchased an old house in a secluded Norwegian village in the hopes of living out the remainder of his days in quiet solitude. But this isn't to be when Trond makes an unlikely discovery, one that "if this had been something in a novel it would have been irritating;" his nearest neighbor, Lars, happens to be the sibling of his closest childhood friend, a friend who disappeared from Trond's life after a terrible tragedy. Lars's presence sets off a torrent of memories reaching back as far as fifty years, and the novel is revealed through the ebb and flow of these often painful remembrances mixing with Trond's reclusive present.

Admittedly, if you're anything like me none of this sounds particularly exciting; however, Trond's story is inarguably compelling and moving. Out Stealing Horses is a quietly beautiful book written in a masterful manner - carefully, deliberately, without wasting a single word. And since this is one of those things that really must be experienced to be appreciated, here's my favorite passage (although Petterson certainly provided me with plenty to choose from):

People like it when you tell them things, in suitable portions, in a modest, intimate tone, and they think they know you, but they do not, they know about you, for what they are let in on are facts, not feelings, not what your opinion is about anything at all, not how what has happened to you and how all the decisions you have made have turned you into who you are. What they do is they fill in with their own feelings and opinions and assumptions, and they compose a new life which has precious little to do with yours, and that lets you off the hook. No-one can touch you unless you yourself want them to. You only have to be polite and smile and keep paranoid thoughts at bay, because they will talk about you no matter how much you squirm, it is inevitable, and you would do the same thing yourself.

Amen.

Out Stealing Horses

Per Petterson, Translated by Ann Born

2007, 258 pages