#93: Ten Thousand Saints

Ten Thousand Saints, by Eleanor Henderson

(New York: Ecco, 2011)

Summary:
"Adopted by a pair of diehard hippies, restless, marginal Jude Keffy-Horn spends much of his youth getting high with his best friend, Teddy, in their bucolic and deeply numbing Vermont town. But when Teddy dies of an overdose on the last day of 1987, Jude's relationship with drugs and with his parents devolves to new extremes. Sent to live with his pot-dealing father in New York City's East Village, Jude stumbles upon straight edge, an underground youth culture powered by the paradoxical aggression of hardcore punk and a righteous intolerance for drugs, meat, and sex. With Teddy's half brother, Johnny, and their new friend, Eliza, Jude tries to honor Teddy's memory through his militantly clean lifestyle. But his addiction to straight edge has its own dangerous consequences. While these teenagers battle to discover themselves, their parents struggle with this new generation's radical reinterpretation of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll and their grown-up awareness of nature and nurture, brotherhood and loss.

"Moving back and forth between Vermont and New York City, Ten Thousand Saints is an emphatically observed story of a frayed tangle of family members brought painfully together by a death, then carried along in anticipation of a new and unexpected life. With empathy and masterful skill, Eleanor Henderson has conjured a rich portrait of the modern age and the struggles that unite and divide generations."

 Opening Lines:
"'Is it dreamed?' Jude asks Teddy. 'Or dreamt?'"

My Take:
Perhaps I was feeling unusually uncharitable here, as I read this one right after Imperial Bedrooms and had had it up to here with drug-addled adolescents before I tackled the first chapter. That said, Ten Thousand Saints didn't overwhelm me. It wasn't repugnant the way IB was, and the characters here were rather more sympathetic -- partly because it's set in the '80s and definitely conveys that this was a different time, and partly because it's easier to excuse adolescent behavior when it actually comes from adolescents.

And perhaps I just bring too much of my own baggage to the story. Jude and Teddy are of my generation, a mere two years older than I am, which means I should be able to relate to their world ... but I really can't. Sure, I grew up 30 miles from the NYC where much of the story is set, but that may as well have been another universe, and my suburban adolescence was probably more sheltered than most. Mine wasn't a drugging or even hard drinking crowd, if the motley handful of not-yet-cool nerds I occasionally socialized with constituted a "crowd" at all. I never had any burning desire to fit in either with the stoners who make up Jude & Teddy's clique at the beginning, and I don't think I knew such a thing as straight-edge existed at the time. Punk, yes, but much as I loved the music, I was well aware a big-haired teeny bopper from the 'burbs would have been eaten alive in that environment. Instead, I contented myself with volunteering at a crisis line throughout high school and growing vicariously wise through the lives that touched me there.

It's interesting, too, to look back on the '80s with enough distance and perspective that you're aware of the hallmarks of the era. As a middle and high schooler, I knew something about the culture and history of the 1920s or '40s or '60s -- enough to reference an era convincingly in a term paper, or make guesses about how my grandparents' adolescence differed from my parents' or my own. But I couldn't articulate what made the '80s the '80s or what future generations would see as the hallmarks of my decade, any more than my daughter can define the 2010s or a particularly conscious fish could tell you what it's like to breathe water rather than air. Ten Thousand Saints depicts the era as a very long, unglamorous morning after the hedonistic '70s, with the principals' parents as the clueless hung over guests you just know will spend the next week bragging about how awesome the party was and how wasted they were, and Jude, Johnny, and Eliza the housemates who get stuck cleaning up all the spilled food and broken glass. Jude's mom, Harriet, is the canonical leftover hippie, naming her kids after Beatles songs (Jude's sister is Prudence), selling handblown glass in a small town in Vermont, and earning the bulk of her income selling bongs; his father, Lester, is a successful Manhattan pot grower who takes pride in being a cool, approachable pseudo-stepdad to his girlfriend's daughter Eliza but hasn't bothered to contact his own kids in who knows how long. After Teddy's death, Jude and Eliza's guilt leads them (with Johnny's help) to discover the no-drugs, no-drinking, no-sex world of straight edge, drawing spiritual sustenance from a Hare Krisha temple whose connection to the former is never exactly clear.

Henderson's writing is clear, understated, and sad, and the setting an interesting, unusual one. I only wish the characters (yes, this is always a sticking point for me) felt big or complex enough to live up to it. The book was OK, and I finished it -- but it felt more like a duty than a pleasure to get through (although it did get somewhat better in the latter part).

#89: I Thought You Were Dead

I Thought You Were Dead, by Peter Nelson 

(Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2010)

 Summary:
 "For Paul Gustavson, a hack writer for the wildly popular For Morons series, life is a succession of obstacles, a minefield of mistakes to stumble through. His wife has left him, his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, his girlfriend is dating another man, he has impotency issues, and his overachieving brother has invested his parents' money in stocks that tanked. Still, Paul has his friends at Bay State bar, a steady line of cocktails, a new pair of running shoes, and Stella. Beautiful Stella. With long, sleek legs, kind eyes, lustrous blond hair. Their relationship is the one true bright spot in his world. She offers him sage advice on virtually every topic. And she only wets herself every once in a while.

"Stella is Paul's dog, and she listens with compassion to all his complaints about the injustices of life and gives him better counsel than any human could. In fact, she seems to know Paul better than he knows himself. It's their relationship that is at the heart of I Thought You Were Dead, a poignantly funny and deeply moving story about a man trying to fix his past in order to save his future, and about a dog who understands just what it means to be a man's best friend."

Opening Line:
"In the winter of 1998, at the close of the twentieth century, in a small college town on the Connecticut River, on the sidewalk outside a house close enough to the railroad tracks that the pictures on the walls were in constant need of straightening, not that anybody ever straightened them, Paul Gustavson, having had a bit too much to drink, took the glove off his right hand, wedged it into his left armpit, and fumbled in his pants pocket for his house keys."

My Take:
Surprising. I wouldn't have expected to enjoy a novel that opens with a run-on sentence like this, or one where the protagonist's talking dog is an important character -- but this is a sweet, gentle story about a lonely man at a crossroads trying to come to terms and move forward with his imperfect life. (And the talking dog works, even for a diehard realist like me, if you read it as Paul simply talking to his dog while they're alone, and imagining what she might say if she could indeed respond. Don't all pet owners do this?) Paul's relationship with his struggling father, which evolves primarily over the internet, is especially poignant. His ill-defined relationship with Tamsen is an interesting plot line as well, though I wasn't as satisfied with the way Nelson resolved this one.

#86 Trans-Sister Radio

Trans-Sister Radio, by Chris Bohjalian 

(New York: Random House, 2000)

 Summary:
"When schoolteacher Allison Banks develops a crush on university professor Dana Stevens, she knows that he will give her what she needs most: gentleness, kindness, passion. Her daughter, Carly, enthusiastically witnesses the change in her mother. But a few months into their relationship, Dana tells Allison his secret: he has always been certain that he is a woman born into the wrong skin, and soon he will have a sex-change operation. Allison, overwhelmed by the depth of her love, finds herself unable to leave him—but by deciding to stay she must face questions most people never even consider. Not only will her own life and Carly's be irrevocably changed, she will have to contend with the outrage of her small Vermont community and come to terms with her lover's new sense of self—and hope against hope that her love will transcend their ingrained notions of what it means to be a man and a woman."

Opening Line:
"I was eight when my parents separated, and nine when they actually divorced."

My Take:
This is Bohjalian at his peak, worthy to stand alongside Midwives and The Double Bind rather than the remaindered pale shadows of The Night Strangers and its ilk. The story is narrated from four different perspectives: Allison's, Dana's, Carly's (who opens the book with the line above), and that of Allison's ex-husband and Carly's father, Will. Admittedly, I did predict one of the points in the closing, which was probably supposed to be a twist -- probably just because I've read too many novels by Bohjalian and Jodi Picoult. Not sure I totally buy how calmly both Allison and Carly seem to accept Dana's revelation, but the former, at least, is sufficiently well-explained that it's not wholly ridiculous. And I especially enjoyed the reaction from Allison's school community (parents demanding to have their kids transferred out of her class, a wishy-washy first year principal, etc.). If anything, the book could have used a bit more conflict among the main characters; most of it comes from the school, whereas any friction between the protagonists seems minor and quickly resolved. Still a good read, though.

#76: The Folded World

The Folded World, by Amity Gaige

(New York: Other Press, 2007)

Summary:
"Charlie Shade was born into a quiet, prosperous life, but a sense of injustice dogs him. He feels destined to leave his life of "bread and laundry," to work instead with people in crisis. On his way, he meets his kindred spirit in Alice, a soulful young woman, living helplessly by laws of childhood superstition. Charlie's empathy with his clients—troubled souls like Hal, the high-school wrestling champion who undergoes a psychotic break, and Opal, the isolated young woman who claims "various philosophies have confused my life"—is both admirable and nearly fatal. An adoring husband and new father, Charlie risks his own cherished, private domestic world to help Hal, Opal, and others move beyond their haunted inner worlds into the larger world of love and connection."

Opening Line:
"At the moment she was born, five hundred miles away, a small boy, his mouth ringed with jam, paused in his play on the carpet."

My Take:
(Quickly, as I'm both backlogged and -- having gotten up at 2:45 to catch an early flight -- tired.) OK after a bit of a slow, confusing start, but not exceptional. Yet another meta-critique that may or may not have been what the author intended: for a novel that's all about how there are typically many more facets and much more complexity to an individual or a relationship than what we see on the surface, the novel almost seems too much aware of its own intricacy ... to the detriment of the characters and plot.

#56: House Lights

House Lights, by Leah Hager Cohen 

(New York: W. W. Norton, 2007)

 Summary:
"A poignant novel about how secrets threaten the stability of a family. Late in her twentieth year, Beatrice mails a letter on the sly, sparking events that will change her life forever. The addressee is her grandmother, a legendary stage actress long estranged from her daughter, Bea's mother. Though Bea wants to become an actress herself, it is the desire to understand the old family rift that drives her to work her way into her grandmother's graces. But just as she establishes a precarious foothold in her grandmother's world, Bea's elite Boston home life begins to crumble. Her beloved father is accused of harassment by one of his graduate students; her usually composed mother shows vulnerabilities and doubt. And Bea is falling in love with someone many would consider inappropriate. Powerfully written and psychologically complex, House Lights illuminates the corrosive power of family secrets, and the redemptive struggle to find truth, forgiveness, and love."
 
Opening Line:
"Near the end of the time that I still thought the world of him, my father and I took a walk along Memorial Drive."

My Take:
Interesting book to read in Boston, as the author's attractive but slightly ramshackle childhood home in Cambridge and her grandmother's museum-perfect Beacon Hill residence are very much characters in themselves. A more thorough review (Kathryn Harrison's from The New York Times) is here, but my own quick opinion:  The story of Beatrice's family falling apart as she grows up and flees the nest at the same time it becomes impossible to ignore her father's history of sexual misconduct is gentle, compelling, and heartbreaking. The thread that follows her desire to be an actress and sudden habit of spending every spare moment at her practically-a-stranger grandmother is less so, at least for me.

#47: Dedication

Dedication, by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (New York: Atria Books, 2007)

Summary:
"What if your first love left town, without a word to anyone, days before graduation?

"What if he went on to become one of the biggest recording stars on the planet and every song he’s famous for is about you? What if, after thirteen years of getting on with your life – walking past his face on newsstands, flipping past his image on TV, tuning him out on the radio – you get the call that he has landed back in your hometown for an MTV special two days before Christmas?  What if you finally had the chance to confront him?  What would you do?


"Kate Hollis finds herself on the threshold of her thirtieth birthday, about to discover that the only way to embrace life as a fully-fledged, well-adjusted adult is to re-visit seventeen."

Opening Lines:
"'He's here.'
 "'Laura?' I ask into the phone, disoriented, voice sandy with sleep."

My Take:
Saturday of my first weekend in Boston was wet, wet, wet. As in, the 40 days and 40 nights kind of rain. OK, maybe it was closer to 4 hours, but I still don't think I could have gotten any soggier even if there had been an ark instead of just a parade of duck boats swimming by. It only hit me that morning that I'd left both my raincoat and all my umbrellas back home in NY.

About 5 minutes later, it dawned on me that I might would get wet if I went out anyway, but I was about as certain to get weepy and fragile and withdrawn if I just sat here alone in my conveniently-located but poorly lit apartment, and ... well, wet stuff dries. So I set off down Charles Street with an adventurous spring in my step, snapping artful pictures of puddles and park benches with my iPhone. I fueled up for my trek beneath the tin-punched ceilings of Panifico and vowed to walk off my delicious but generous plate o' hash before I went back home. I fell in love with Commonwealth Avenue and its memorials on every corner, flanked by the hundred-year-old townhouses with their curved fronts and indecorous flower boxes who seem to be Boston's true grandes dames. I stumbled across a Marshall's incongruously planted between a Talbot's and a La Perla, finally brought an umbrella after I was drenched enough for my hair and jacket to drip a path through the store, and told myself the funny looks I imagined getting from the Back Bay Brahmins (well, any who'd wandered into Marshall's by mistake on their way to the Kate Spade in the next block) would make for a colorful story.

And since I was right there on Boylston Street anyway, and it was a rainy day, I found myself in Copley Square across from the Boston Public Library, which just happened to be having a book sale that day. You can guess where this is going. For a dollar or in some cases (i.e., if you ain't too proud to read anything from the paperback romance boxes) a quarter apiece, I could stock up on fun reads aplenty. Most are still in the apartment unread, but I did read Dedication (you knew I'd get there eventually, right?) a few weeks ago.

Decent, but I fear McLaughlin and Kraus may always suffer from the fact that they'll never write another Nanny Diaries. Dedication was pretty good, a fun read ... but I felt like I was meant to empathize with Kate a lot more than I did. Wondering about an old flame, especially if he's gone off and become famous? No personal experience but I can imagine how it might work. But the degree to which it's become an obsession, and to which it's been The Only Thing Jake seems to have written about over the years? Not feeling it. Worth what I paid for it, I guess, but not really funny or moving enough to keep it on my shelf long-term.

#33: Summer House

Summer House, by Nancy Thayer (New York: Ballantine Books, 2009)


Summary:
"After years of wandering from whim to whim, thirty-year-old Charlotte Wheelwright seems to have at last found her niche. The free spirit enjoys running an organic gardening business on the island of Nantucket, thanks in large part to her spry grandmother Nona, who donated a portion of land on the family's seaside compound to get Charlotte started. Though Charlotte's skill with plants is bringing her success, cultivating something deeper with people -- particularly her handsome neighbor Coop -- might be more of a challenge.


"Nona's generosity to Charlotte, secretly her favorite grandchild, doesn't sit well with the rest of the Wheelwright clan, however, as they worry that Charlotte may be positioning herself to inherit the entire estate. With summer upon them, everyone is making their annual pilgrimage to the homestead -- some with hopes of thwarting Charlotte's dreams, others in anticipation of Nona's latest pronouncements at the annual family meeting, and still others with surprising news of their own. Charlotte's mother, Helen, a Wheelwright by marriage, brings a heavy heart. She once set aside her own ambitions to fit in with the Wheelwrights, but now she must confront a betrayal that threatens her sense of place and her sense of self.


"As summer progresses, these three women -- Charlotte, Nona, and Helen -- come to terms with the decisions they have made. Revisiting the lives and loves that have crossed their paths and the possibilities of the roads not taken, they may just discover that what they've always sought was right in front of them all along."

Opening Line:
"Charlotte had already picked the lettuces and set them, along with the bundles of asparagus tied with twine and the mason jars of fresh-faced pansies, out on the table in a shaded spot at the end of the drive."

My Take:
Better and more engaging than The Last Time I Saw You, if perhaps not quite as much so as Maine ... but to be honest, these stories are starting to run together a bit. Maybe it's about time to switch from the love-and-friendship chick lit genre to something else for a while. After I finish my current library backlog, that is.

#31: The Town That Food Saved

The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food, by Ben Hewitt (Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2010)

Summary:

"For decades, the rural Vermont town of Hardwick (pop: 3,200) grappled with a challenged economy. Like so many small towns, the once-thriving regional industry had died, and the majority of the working population was forced to commute far beyond the town line to find work.

Enter the 'agripreneurs,' a group of ambitious young agricultural entrepreneurs with big ideas about how regionalized food-based enterprise can be used to create sustainable economic development and wean our nation of its unhealthy dependence on industrial food.

In The Town That Food Saved, Ben explores the contradictions inherent to producing high-end 'artisanal' food products in a working class community. To better understand how a local food system might work, he spends time not only with the agripreneurs, but also with the region’s numerous small-scale food producers, many of which have been quietly operating in the area for decades. The result is a delightfully inquisitive peek behind the curtain of the town that has been dubbed the 'Silicon Valley of local food.'"

Opening Line:

"If you come into the town of Hardwick, Vermont, from the east, you come in on Route 15, weaving through a series of curves that begin as gentle sweeps and become progressively sharper until you find yourself leaning in your seat, the view through your windshield tilted just a few degrees off its axis."

My Take:
Balanced if somewhat lightweight/ superficial look at what becoming a "local foods Mecca" can and can't do for a town -- specifically, the small and mostly blue-collar town of Hardwick, Vermont. I especially appreciated how Hewitt returned time and again to the problem of how most native Hardwickians (median income $15,000) were supposed to be able to afford $4 per gallon soy milk, $5 loaves of hand-made bread, and $20 per pound artisanal cheese. Some more possible answers to this question would have been even more appreciated, but at least the issue's on the table. An interesting companion to books like The Omnivore's Dilemma and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, though probably not much of an introduction for someone not already familiar with the topic.

#28: Maine

Maine, by J. Courtney Sullivan (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011)

Summary:

"For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano at night. Their beachfront property, won on a barroom bet after the war, sits on three acres of sand and pine needles nestled between stretches of rocky coast, with one tree bearing the initials 'A.H.' At the cottage, built by Kelleher hands, cocktail hour follows morning mass, nosy grandchildren snoop in drawers, and decades-old grudges simmer beneath the surface.

"As three generations of Kelleher women descend upon the property one summer, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.

"By turns wickedly funny and achingly sad, Maine unveils the sibling rivalry, alcoholism, social climbing, and Catholic guilt at the center of one family, along with the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each other."

Opening Lines:

"Alice decided to take a break from packing. She lit a cigarette, leaning back in one of the wicker chairs that were always slightly damp from the sea breeze."

My Take:

If there were a prize for most-improved sophomore effort, I think J. Courtney Sullivan would win. Commencement was a decent enough read, but not really a serious one. While Maine is probably still closer to Oprah's book club than Pulitzer territory, it puts Sullivan in a category with Alice McDermott of poignant, nuanced, and highly accurate portraits of the Irish-American family. More details are available in Lily King's New York Times review, but I enjoyed this one, too.

#7: The Red Garden

The Red Garden, by Alice Hoffman (New York: Crown Publishers, 2011)

Summary:
"The Red Garden introduces us to the luminous and haunting world of Blackwell, Massachusetts, capturing the unexpected turns in history in our own lives.

"In exquisite prose, Hoffman offers a transforming glimpse of small-town America, presenting us with some three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption in a web of tales where characters' lives are intertwined by fate and their own actions.

"From the town's founder, a brave young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or bears, to the young man who runs away to New York City with only his dog for company, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded Civil War soldier who is saved by a passionate neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year when summer never arrives.

"At the center of everyone's life is a mysterious garden where only red plants can grow, and where the truth can be found by those who dare to look."

Opening Lines:
"The town of Blackwell, Massachusetts changed its name in 1786. It had been called Bearsville when it was founded in 1750, but it quickly became apparent that a name such as that did little to encourage new settlers."

My Take:
The language Hoffman uses here really is lovely, as are some of the stories ... but that's how this book reads; more like a collection of loosely connected (by place) short stories than a coherent novel. Perhaps I'm just reading this one too closely on the heels of Last Days of Dogtown, but that novel conveyed a truer and more nuanced sense of place than The Red Garden manages to do. Then too, I'm not a huge short story fan, and don't usually care for the handful of supernatural elements the author throws in. Well done, but not an all-time favorite.

#3: The Last Days of Dogtown

The Last Days of Dogtown, by Anita Diamant (New York: Scribner, 2006)

Summary:
"Set on the high ground at the heart of Cape Ann, the village of Dogtown is peopled by widows, orphans, spinsters, scoundrels, whores, free Africans, and 'witches.' Among the inhabitants of this hamlet are Black Ruth, who dresses as a man and works as a stonemason; Mrs. Stanley, an imperious madam whose grandson, Sammy, comes of age in her brothel; Oliver Younger, who survives a miserable childhood at the hands of his aunt; and Cornelius Finson, a freed slave. At the center of it all is Judy Rhines, a fiercely independent soul, deeply lonely, who nonetheless builds a life for herself against all imaginable odds. Rendered in stunning, haunting detail, with Diamant's keen ear for language and profound compassion for her characters, The Last Days of Dogtown is an extraordinary retelling of a long-forgotten chapter of early American life."

Opening Line:
"Judy Rhines decided to take the footpath through the pasture."

My Take:
Outstanding, gentle book with memorable characters.

#96: The Night Strangers

The Night Strangers, by Chris Bohjalian (New York: Crown Publishing, 2011)

Summary:
"From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and Secrets of Eden, comes a riveting and dramatic ghost story.

"In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts.

"The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain after double engine failure. Unlike the Miracle on the Hudson, however, most of the passengers aboard Flight 1611 die on impact or drown. The body count? Thirty-nine – a coincidence not lost on Chip when he discovers the number of bolts in that basement door. Meanwhile, Emily finds herself wondering about the women in this sparsely populated White Mountain village –- self-proclaimed herbalists –- and their interest in her fifth-grade daughters. Are the women mad? Or is it her husband, in the wake of the tragedy, whose grip on sanity has become desperately tenuous?

"The result is a poignant and powerful ghost story with all the hallmarks readers have come to expect from bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian: a palpable sense of place, an unerring sense of the demons that drive us, and characters we care about deeply.

"The difference this time? Some of those characters are dead."

Opening Line:
"You see the long, wide, perfectly straight strip of asphalt before you, the hangar to your right with the words GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS painted in billboard-size letters along the side."

My Take:
I've had pretty mixed reactions to the last few Bohjalian books I've read. The Double Bind, my first, was a tremendous punch in the gut (yes, in a good way); Midwives was awesome. Skeletons at the Feast and Secrets of Eden, not so much.

Night Strangers was somewhere in between -- probably because Bohjalian tries to weave two stories together here, and one's a lot more compelling than the other. The real ghost story -- Chip struggling with his visions of those of his dead passengers who haven't yet been able to let go of their lives on earth -- is fascinating, poignant, sad, and sweet. The whole herbalists thing, though? Not very interesting. First of all, the ladies of Bethel -- who seem to have a WAY higher number of greenhouses per capita than the national average, and who all have odd floral names like Anise, Reseda, and Clary -- just come off as too weird and even nasty from the get-go, which makes it hard to get drawn into their story line. More importantly, even Emily notices this ... and it's just plain too much to believe that this lawyer/ mother, already torn up over uprooting her daughters' lives for the sake of her husband's recovery, would ignore every initial suspicious/ hinky feeling she has about the plant ladies and move so quickly from, "Hmm, why are these old biddies so unnaturally interested in my tween girls?" to "Oh, well, let's just have the girls stay with them after school every day." And I really didn't like the ending -- not because it was particularly upsetting (which was probably the effect the author was going for), but just because it's not well set-up and not very believable.

Oh well.

#78: The Arrivals

The Arrivals, by Meg Mitchell Moore (New York: Reagan Arthur Books, 2011)

Summary:
"What happens when an empty nest fills up again? A captivating, heartwarming debut about growing up and coming home.

"It's the start of summer when Ginny and William Owen's quiet, peaceful life in Burlington, Vermont comes to an abrupt halt.

"First, their eldest daughter, Lillian, shows up with her two children in tow, to escape her crumbling marriage. Next, Lillian's younger brother, Stephen, arrives for the weekend, accompanied by his pregnant wife, Jane, an ambitious and misunderstood Wall Street workaholic -- but their visit is extended indefinitely when Jane is put on mandatory bed rest.

"And by the time Rachel, the youngest Owen sibling, appears, fleeing the difficulties of her single life in New York City, the senior Owens are once again consumed by the chaos and stress of their early parenting days -- only this time around, their house is filled with grown-up children and their adult problems.

"Meg Mitchell Moore's absorbing debut offers acute observations on the workings of a modern family, the challenges of parenting, and the continual struggles of growing up. By summer's end, the Owen family will have new ideas about loyalty, responsibility, and how you survive the people you love most. The old adage 'once a parent, always a parent' has never rung so true."

Opening Line:
"It was eight thirty in the morning, June, a Saturday, and the sunlight was coming in the kitchen window at such an angle that William's granddaughter, Olivia, had to shield her eyes with one hand while she bent her head to sip from the straw in her glass of orange juice."

My Take:
Couldn't have picked a better book to read while visiting my own parents for the weekend. While the loving but beseiged Ginny and William are probably the most sympathetic characters, the whole lot of them are realistic and fairly likeable: Lillian, overwhelmed by the incessant demands of mothering an infant and a very-chatty 3 year old, who can't possibly imagine forgiving husband Tom's single act of infidelity; Stephen and Jane, who struggle first with how to tell William and Ginny that Stephen plans to be a stay-at-home dad, and then with bigger, darker questions about Jane's risky pregnancy and uncertain professional future; and Rachel, whose recent breakup and miscarriage have left her with an apartment she can't afford and a nagging fear that she's really not cut out for the single life in New York.

In contrast to a fairly forgettable read like Kindred Spirits, it's the small details that make this book stand out. The minor but annoying family drama around who gets which bedroom now that Jane needs to be on bed rest. William's mounting annoyance with the mess his once-orderly home has become, in one late scene where he wants only to run a load of laundry and find some breakfast. Ginny's observation that you never seem to have enough towels when you have house guests. And my personal favorite: a scene where William convinces Stephen to detour past the ice cream stand on the way home from a trip to the hardware store:

"'Sometimes I do this,' William said, licking the sprinkles off the tip of the cone.

"'Do what?'

"'Sneak out on your mother in the middle of the day and have an ice cream.'

"'Geez, Dad,' said Stephen. This knowledge, delivered though it was in a genial, conspiratorial tone, made him sad. 'Do you have to sneak out to get an ice cream, at your age?'

"'Sixty-five next month,' William said cheerfully.

"'Aren't you supposed to be sneaking out for a beer, if anything?'

"'Ah.' William licked at his ice cream. 'That's the thing. A beer tastes better at home in the summer, in front of the Red Sox, after a hard day of work. A Creemee: that's better away from home.'

"'But you have to sneak it.' Stephen watched an elderly couple toddle down to the edge of the water. The man held a cane; the woman held onto his elbow and guided him.

"'No, I don't have to sneak it.'

"'But you like to sneak it.'

"'Well, it's easier, sometimes.'

"'Easier why?'

"'Because then I don't have to see if your mother wants to go, or arrange to bring something back for her if she doesn't, or explain why I want ice cream, or feel guilty for having it, or wonder if she's thinking about my cholesterol. Which makes me think about my cholesterol. It's just easier, sometimes, to go out on my own.'

"Stephen surveyed the scrappy grass under his feet. There was a group of ants moving about. He envied them suddenly, their ignorance and industry, their incapacity for self-doubt. 'Jesus,' said Stephen. It was depressing to him, to think of his father and his surreptitious ice cream cones. 'Is that what marriage becomes, in the end?' Guilt over ice cream? Hiding on a picnic bench somewhere by yourself? And yet there was William, licking away, as happy as a little boy, so who was Stephen to begrudge him his small pleasures?

"'That's not all marriage becomes,' said William. 'And I don't consider this the end.'"

Were I writing a bona fide essay about this book, there's a lot I could pull from that single passage. A good, solid read.

#65: World and Town

World and Town, by Gish Jen (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010).

Summary:
"Hattie Kong -- the spirited offspring of a descendant of Confucius and an American missionary to China -- has, in her fiftieth year, lost both her husband and her best friend to cancer. It is an utterly devastating loss, of course, and also heartbreakingly absurd: a little, she thinks, 'like having twins. She got to book the same church with the same pianist for both funerals and did think she should have gotten some sort of twofer from the crematorium.'

"But now, two years later, it is time for Hattie to start over. She moves to the town of Riverlake, where she is soon joined by an immigrant Cambodian family on the run from their inner-city troubles, as well as -- quite unexpectedly -- by a just-retired neuroscientist ex-lover named Carter Hatch. All of them are, like Hattie, looking for a new start in a town that might once have represented the rock-solid base of American life but that is itself challenged, in 2001, by cell-phone towers and chain stores, struggling family farms and fundamentalist Christians.

"What Hattie makes of this situation is at the center of a novel that asks deep and absorbing questions about religion, home, America, what neighbors are, what love is, and, in the largest sense, what 'worlds' are we make of the world.

"Moving, humorous, compassionate, and expansive, World and Town is as rich in character as it is brilliantly evocative of its time and place. This is a truly masterful novel -- enthralling, essential, and satisfying."

Opening Line:
"It's the bai shu you'd notice most -- the thousand-year-old cypresses -- some of them upright, some of them leaning."

My Take:
I've gotten backlogged again (gee, why on earth would it be hard to keep up with a list no one reads?) but this one was pretty good. How does Hattie make a life and find meaning for herself with her husband and best friend gone? How do her new neighbors, Chhung and Sophy and the rest of their family, Cambodian immigrants fleeing the trouble their kids tend to get into in the big city, build their own lives and hold on to some semblance of family when absolutely nothing in this new world makes sense? More a character study (not only of the people but the town in the story) but still pretty satisfying for that -- enough so that I'm looking forward to seeking out other Gish Jen novels in the future.

#59: The Pact

The Pact: A Love Story, by Jodi Picoult (New York: HarperCollins, 1998)

Summary:
"From Jodi Picoult, one of the most powerful writers in contemporary fiction, comes a riveting, timely, heartbreaking, and terrifying novel of families in anguish -- and friendships ripped apart by inconceivable violence. Until the phone calls came at 3:00 A.M. on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily has been shot to death by her beloved and devoted Chris as part of an apparent suicide pact -- leaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew."

Opening Line:
"There was nothing left to say."

My Take:
Powerful? Heartbreaking? Devastating? More than a little hyperbolic, but I knew what I was getting into. I bought the book in a "buy 2, get 1 free" sale at one of the local book chains (back when we had more than one) a while back, and kept it in the bull pen till I needed it.

That time came a few weeks ago, before our long vacation -- I won't go into the gory details but it was a rough week emotionally, and I just plain needed some reasonably-absorbing escapist fiction. (Plus, maybe it's just me, but when I'm feeling like my own life's a mess, some melodramatic fiction is often just what the doctor ordered -- even at my worst, I can look at plot lines like this and reassure myself that at least I don't have it that bad.)

So The Pact fit the bill. It's obviously one of Picoult's earlier books, which is a mixed bag. On the minus side, it lacks some of the gentle ethical-dilemma-probing I've come to expect from House Rules, Handle With Care, and Vanishing Acts. However, a strong plus in my book is that she hadn't yet stumbled on her now-predictable twist ending formula (which some article I read a while back called "just kill a kid and get it over with") -- which, frankly, gets a bit tiresome after the 3rd or 4th book.

Not high literature, definitely a WYSIWYG book -- whether you think you'll enjoy it or not, you're probably right. Speaking only for myself, I'm in the "enjoy it, but in pretty small doses" camp.

#54: Red Hook Road

Red Hook Road, by Ayelet Waldman (New York: Doubleday, 2010).

Summary:
"Becca Copaken and John Tetherly are young and in love, and the future looks as bright as the day of their marriage. Becca's family is well-to-do and summers in Red Hook, Maine, where John's mother, Jane, runs a housecleaning service for clients like the Copakens. The only thing that binds the two families is the love the elated couple share, but it's enough to bring them together for the occasion.

"Until the unthinkable happens: Becca and John's limousine collides with another vehicle mere minutes after the wedding, killing them instantly. Joy gives way to grief, and the rifts between Becca's mother, Iris, and Jane grow, from the funeral arrangements to Iris's strong-willed interest in the musical career of Jane's niece to a new romance that buds between the surviving children, Ruthie and Matt. Time's healing powers prove elusive for Iris and Jane. Iris's thirty-year marriage disintegrates, while Jane's bitterness threatens to ruin her relationship with Matt. Only when a powerful, blinding storm hits Red Hook do the families begin to see what really matters most."

Opening Line:
"The flower girl had lost her basket of rose petals and could not bear to have the photograph taken without it."

My Take:
I had a few rough days this week -- let's say I was definitely in the valleys of the unemployment roller coaster -- and went to the library looking to be entertained and distracted. Don't worry if that doesn't automatically scream "couple killed on their wedding day" to you; Mr. Hazelthyme didn't get it, either. It's about catharsis, people ... that, and reading something that doesn't take too long or make you work too hard to become engaged.

So far (I'm on page 130), this fits the bill: hard to put down, but beautifully written with an excellent eye for detail and nuance. Given the subject matter, that does indeed mean it's painfully sad in parts. One example: the following early passage, where John's brother Matt reflects on whether it's more painful when others mention his late brother, or when they don't speak about him:

"At the sound of their names, Ruthie twitched. For the first couple of weeks Matt had felt the same way. Every mention of the names of the dead seemed to light a small hot fire inside him. Then one day a few weeks back he woke up and found that, suddenly, the opposite was true: it was the minutes, the hours, the entire days that went by without someone mentioning John that hurt Matt the most. He had tried to talk about John to his mother, but that went nowhere. So he had started hanging out with John's friends. Every evening he would head over to the Neptune, and stake out a stool in the middle of the bar. As people trickled in they would stop and pass a few minutes with him. Some offered no more than their condolences, some tried to buy him a beer. And that was okay. But what Matt was waiting for were the stories. About the birch bark canoe with swept-up gunwale and a squared bow that John and a friend had built for a middle school project on the Passamaquoddy tribe. About how one hunting season, when another buddy was laid up with a broken leg, John had filled his freezer with venison steaks, because he knew the guy relied on his yearly buck to feed his family. They'd retell John's jokes -- Matt must have heard the one about the robber in the sperm bank a dozen times. They'd remind one another about practical jokes John had played on them. The guys, as sad as they were, as much as they missed their friend, always ended up laughing, especially once they'd had a few. And if Matt rarely laughed out loud with them, as long as he was sitting on that barstool he felt okay. He felt like he was close to his brother. He was dreading the end of the summer, dreading the prospect of going back to college and being surrounded by people who had never known John, who had never laughed at his jokes or been the beneficiaries of his unsolicited largesse, who didn't know or care that he was dead."

(afterwards) Excellent book. It follows the surviving Copaken and Tetherly family members through the five summers that follow John and Becca's deaths, trying to move on with their lives knowing all the while there really is no such thing -- no going back to the way it was Before. As the summary suggests, Ruthie and Matt find comfort in each other, and struggle with the usual twenty-something "who am I and what am I doing with my life?" questions beneath the weight of their losses. Ruthie, who can't bear to return to London and the Fulbright her mother's always dreamed of/ expected for her, finds unexpected satisfaction working in the tiny Red Hook library ... while Matt finds a disappointing lack of the same as he endeavors to finish the work John started restoring an old wooden schooner. Jane is so committed to her stiff-upper-lipped New England stoicism that she can't even bear to talk about John, which strains her relationship with her surviving son. Iris channels her pain into overseeing the education of Samantha, Jane's niece and ward, who had been Becca and John's nine-year-old flower girl, and turns out to be a musical prodigy who's talent's gone unrecognized by her family to date. Daniel, Iris's husband and Becca and Ruthie's father, finds an outlet in the training and boxing he'd enjoyed as a young man, even if this opens a near-fatal rift in his marriage to Iris. Under the tutelage of Iris's father, renowned violinist Mr. Kimmelbrod, Samantha blossoms as a violinist, and teaching her gives him something positive to cling to even as his body grows increasingly frail. The ending is a little too dramatic for my tastes (thought it would probably translate quite well to film, and seeing this happen wouldn't surprise me much), but overall, this one's a keeper and a recommend-to-others book.

#24: Cost

Cost, by Roxana Robinson (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008).

Summary:
"When Julia Lambert, an art professor, settles into her idyllic Maine house for the summer, she plans to spend the time tending her fragile relationships with her father, a repressive neurosurgeon, and her gentle mother, who is descending into Alzheimer's. But a shattering revelation intrudes: Julia's son Jack has spiraled into heroin addiction. In an attempt to save him, Julia marshals help from her looseknit clan: elderly parents; remarried ex-husband; removed sister; and combative eldest son. Ultimately, heroin courses through the characters' lives with an impersonal and devastating energy, sweeping the family into a world in which deceit, crime, and fear are part of daily life. ... In Cost, Robinson tackles addiction and explores its effects on the bonds of family, dazzling us with her hallmark subtlety and precision in evoking the emotional interiors of her characters. The result is a work in which the reader's sense of discovery and compassion for every character remains unflagging to the end, even as the reader, like the characters, is caught up in Cost's breathtaking pace."

Opening Lines:
"Her memory was gone. It came to Katharine like a soft shock, like a blow inside the head."

My Take:
Aaahh. After working a few late nights, I took last night off, got into bed at 9, and stayed up till I finished Cost. (Admittedly, I was about 2/3 of the way through when I went to bed.) Compelling, beautifully-written story with a fitting, not-too-tidy ending. I particularly appreciated Robinson's skill with both intensity and depth. On one hand, she really takes you inside the seamy, devastating details of Jack's addiction ... on the other, you also feel like you understand and appreciate the other characters' more subtle inner lives. I was especially moved by Julia's parents' struggle with their advancing frailty. If you're looking for a compelling read that's fast-paced enough to hold your interest, but substantial enough that you don't feel like you've wasted the time it took to read it. this one's a keeper.

#4: Cum Laude

Cum Laude, by Cecily von Ziegesar (New York: Hyperion, 2010).

Jacket Summary: "Dexter College is a small liberal arts college in the quiet town of Home, Maine. But it won't stay quiet for long with this group of freshmen. There's Shipley -- blonde and beautiful, the object of envy and more than a little lust. Determined to assert herself and to shed her good-girl image, she buys cigarettes and condoms, because that's what every self-respecting college girl does. Her edgy roommate, Eliza, came to Dexter to get noticed, and she has the attitude and the mouth to prove it. There's Tom. Handsome, privileged, used to getting his own way, he's a jock-turned-artist who thinks his paintings will change the world. Sensitive Nick, Tom's wake-and-bake pot-smoking roommate, wants to follow in the footsteps of his boarding-school hero. And then there's brother and sister Adam and Tragedy Gatz. The freckle-faced farm boy lives at home with his parents and his little sister, who does all she can to stop him from being a wuss.

"As Shipley, Eliza, Tom, Nick, and Adam find out, that first year of college is more than credits and cramming. Between the lust and the love, the secrecy and the scandal, they'll all receive an unexpected education. It's a time of shifting alliances, unrequited crushes, and coming of age. Find Yourself is Dexter's motto. And they are determined to do just that."

Opening Lines: "College is for lovers. At least, this one was."

My Take: Not great literature by any means, yet better than it had any right to be.

When a serious relationship ends, conventional wisdom tells us it's better to be alone for a while than to jump right into another one. And when I return from a week's vacation, treating myself to restaurant-sized portions and/or the guilty pleasures of someone else's home cooking, I somehow just want to eat oatmeal and veggies for a while.

In the same vein, sometimes when I've just finished a Really Good Book, I want some white space around it. As I'd hoped, Cum Laude delivers. While the characters themselves aren't particularly deep or compelling, they're just offbeat enough that this isn't a fatal flaw. Likewise, von Ziegesar's eye for the minute, often ridiculous, but nonetheless realistic details that comprise the freshman experience make the story both familiar and entertaining (in that quasi-awkward, "wow, I'm glad that part of my life's over" sort of way). Some examples: Eliza taking a work-study job as a nude art model, and milking every minute of it. Patrick, the homeless, Dumpster-diving Dexter dropout, floating around the edges of the main characters' consciousness. Every straight man in town developing a sudden, simultaneous obsession with the "It" girl du jour (in this case, Shipley). Tom deciding on a whim to be an art major, and going off on week-long, X-fueled painting binges. Shipley, who loses her virginity to Tom their first night on campus, staying with him mostly because he looks like good boyfriend material, even though she really has the hots for loner townie Adam.

Not surprisingly, other parts of the story line strain credibility. It may be that the characters' family relationships are supposed to be over the top, but still -- only Tom's and Eliza's parents seem remotely realistic or sympathetic (and we never actually see Eliza's on screen, anyway). Likewise, it's hard to imagine that even a relatively sheltered, still-lives-at-home freshman like Adam would opt to spend most of his free time with his 15- or 16-year-old sister (though I will say, for the squeamish among you, that von Ziegesar does resist the urge to add an incest plot line to the novel). I also don't buy the Dexter administration's blithely allowing Nick to construct a yurt on campus, or Eliza's blithe willingness to let Shipley's mom foot the bill (albeit unwillingly) for her new clothes.

Still kept me entertained for an evening, though.

#1 - My Sister's Keeper

Gotta love road trips. When else would I make a dent in the paperbacks I seem to accumulate till they're triple-stacked in my bookcase, but then never read because my library books are due back soon?

So, my less-than-auspicious first book of 2011 was My Sister's Keeper, by the prolific, popular, and predictable Jodi Picoult (New York: Atria, 2004).

Jacket Summary: "Can a parent love too much? Or is too much never enough?

"Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplementation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate -- a life and a role that she has never challenged ... until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister -- and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. A provocative novel that raises some important ethical issues, My Sister's Keeper is the story of one family's struggle for survival at all human costs and a stunning moral parable for all time."

Opening Line: "When I was little, the great mystery to me wasn't how babies were made, but why."

My Take: I'm not usually a big fan of chain restaurants, but I'll grant that they have their place. Back when the Sapling was still just a wee shoot, many road trips were saved by a well-situated McDonald's Playplace. There's a sad little mall in Oneonta with a Subway that's just the thing on the not-quite-brief-enough-to-do-in-one-shot drive to Aunt & Uncle Thyme's house. And hey -- I may not have a minivan, but sometimes, when Sapling & I are running from errand to activity to friend's house on Saturdays, a quick swing by Panera is ... well, a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do. Pretentious foodie that I am, even I'll allow that sometimes, the ideal has to defer to the practical. The chains are quick, cheap, and reliable; you probably won't be transported when your lunch arrives, but nor will you be disappointed or disgusted.

And so it is with Jodi Picoult's books. They're incredibly formulaic, right down to the muted jewel tones on the covers: Take a hot contemporary legal/ ethical issue (bonus points if there's a medical component, though that's not strictly required), invent a family and associated professionals to go with it, choose different fonts to represent the perspectives of 5-7 different players in the story ... and eventually, cap it all off with a twist ending and at least one dead child. Even knowing all this, though -- I don't read 'em every day, any more than I eat at McD's or Subway on a regular basis -- sometimes, that's precisely what I want to read. Like here, when I was looking for something I a) owned in paperback, so as to conserve space and weight in my suitcase, and b) would find both compelling enough to overcome vacation inertia, but not so demanding that I couldn't concentrate despite the bustle and blaring TV in my parents' house. I had 2 yet-unread Picoults on the shelf, and this one won out over The Pact. I started it New Year's Eve and turned the last page before heading home on New Year's Day; I liked some of the characters more than others; I wished I'd stopped before reading the last few twist-ending chapters. In short, I got what I paid for and can't really complain.

Interestingly, the 6 characters Picoult chooses to tell the story don't include Kate -- at least not until the very end. Anna's voice, of course, comes first. Alternating chapters are narrated by Sara, the lawyer-turned-SAH mom who opts to represent herself and her husband in Anna's lawsuit against them; Brian, her firefighter husband and the kids' father, who harbors his own doubts about his kids' medical circumstances and lets Anna move into the fire house with him temporarily; Jesse, the Fitzgeralds' oldest child and only son, who's moved into the family's garage and been so utterly ignored over the years that he's turned to arson in hopes of finally attracting his parents' attention; Campbell Alexander, the attorney Anna convinces to represent her pro bono for reasons that aren't entirely clear; and Julia Romano, the court-appointed guardian at litem charged with getting to know the family and determining what's really in Anna's best interest (who, by the way, has a complicated romantic history with Campbell going way back). As you might surmise from my character summaries, some parts of the story are more interesting than others. The Campbell-Julia history and sexual tension didn't really do much for me, but perhaps that's just because I forgot to include "romantic sub-plot" in my required elements of Picoult blockbusters. On the other hand, I'd have liked to have heard more of Jesse's story -- which sheds considerable light on Anna's plight, and ended up being resolved far too quickly and smoothly for an author who seems to pride herself on capturing many shades of gray.

#57 - The Good Thief

The Good Thief, by Hannah Tinti (New York: Dial Press, 2008)

Jacket summary: "Richly imagined, gothically spooky, and replete with the ingenious storytelling ability of a born novelist, The Good Thief introduces one of the most appealing young heroes in contemporary fiction and ratifies Hannah Tinti as one of our most exciting new talents.

"Twelve-year-old Ren is missing his left hand. How it was lost is a mystery that Ren has been trying to solve for his entire life, as well as who his parents are, and why he was abandoned as an infant at Saint Anthony's Orphanage for boys. He longs for a family to call his own and is terrified of the day he will be sent alone into the world.

"But then a young man named Benjamin Nab appears, claiming to be Ren's long-lost brother, and his convincing tale of how Ren lost his hand and his parents persuades the monks at the orphanage to release the boy and to give Ren some hope. But is Benjamin really who he says he is? Journeying through a New England of whaling towns and meadowed farmlands, Ren is introduced to a vibrant world of hardscrabble adventure filled with outrageous scam artists, grave robbers, and petty thieves. If he stays, Ren becomes one of them. If he goes, he's lost once again. As Ren begins to find clues to his hidden parentage he comes to suspect that Benjamin not only holds the key to his future, but to his past as well."

Opening line: "The man arrived after morning prayers."

My take: Pretty darned good for a picaresque, and this is saying a lot, as this isn't usually my favorite genre. Cliche though it may be, I can't help rooting for an orphans hard-luck story -- even when the orphan, like Ren, is a petty thief from the get-go. As an infant, the one-handed Ren was pushed through a hole in a Boston monastery wall by an anonymous stranger on a miserable, rainy night. Now, twelve years later, he's too old for those couples who occasionally come to the monastery seeking a child to raise on their own, and his missing hand renders him unsuitable for those who want an older lad to help with the farm work. Consequently, he's pretty much resigned to being sold off/ conscripted into the army once he's of age, and when Benjamin Nab suddenly appears, claiming to be his long-lost brother and planning to take Ren away, neither Ren nor Father Joseph ask too many questions.

And that's where the real adventure begins. While Ren may be an incorrigible thief (he even swipes Father John's Lives of the Saints on his way out the door, just because), he's downright saintly compared to Benjamin and his ex-schoolteacher crony, Tom. While the term may not have been widely used 200 years ago, take my word for it -- these guys defined the word "sleazeballs." They hop from town to town, running minor variations on the con du jour until the locals wise up; in one chapter, they sell a magical bottled elixir that's guaranteed to cure naughty children's misbehavior (which it does, seeing as it's laced heavily with opium). When they need a big score, they rob graves. This horrifies the Catholic-raised Ren, especially on his first excursion; as he stands guard in the getaway wagon, he sees one of the first corpses harvested that night start to sit up. Mr. Buried-Alive turns out to be Dolly, a tattered but unrepentant murderer. Inexplicably, Ren repeatedly convinces Benjamin and Tom to let Dolly live and not abandon them, and an odd friendship of sorts forms between the two.

Several factors kept me reading in spite of the grotesquerie, the foremost of which is that I was just plain curious about Ren's identity and past. The one clue he has is a scrap of collar, hand-embroidered with the letters "R E N," which he's carried on his person since it was found in his bassinet with him. We learn almost immediately that Benjamin's long-lost brother story is a ruse, and we don't know what to make of his next tale (he tells Tom that Ren is his son), but we know he's important somehow, and must have had some reason for picking Ren out of the orphans' lineup. Then, too, I couldn't decide whether to prepare myself for yet another "rogues with hearts of gold deep-down" ending, or just plain wonder what it would mean for this pair of old-school bad-asses to saddle themselves, over the course of the novel, with more and more human baggage: Ren, Dolly, a half-deaf landlady with a mysterious nighttime visitor, and a brace of inseparable orphan twins whose back story (their mother committed suicide) is at least as pathetic as Ren's own.

The Good Thief is a quick and entertaining read. Give it a try, even if you're not sure it's your cup of tea.