#108: Now You See Him

Now You See Him, by Eli Gottlieb

(New York: William Morrow, 2008)

Summary:
"The deaths of Rob Castor and his girlfriend begin a wrenching and enthrallingly suspenseful story that mines the explosive terrains of love and paternity, marriage and its delicate intricacies, family secrets and how they fester over time, and ultimately the true nature of loyalty and trust, friendship and envy, deception and manipulation.

"As the media take hold of this sensational crime, a series of unexpected revelations unleashes hidden truths in the lives of those closest to Rob. At the center of this driving narrative is Rob's childhood best friend, Nick Framingham, whose ten-year marriage to his college sweetheart is faltering. Shocked by Rob's death, Nick begins to reevaluate his own life and past, and as he does so, a fault line opens up beneath him, leading him all the way to the novel's startling conclusion."

Opening Line:
"At this late date, would it be fair to say that people, after a fashion, have come to doubt the building blocks of life itself?"

My Take:  
Side note:  While the barrage of end-of-year books I've just posted may have gotten somewhat out of order, I do know this was the last book I read in 2012. Just as parts of our lives have their own soundtracks, much of what I've done and read this past year comes with its own scenic backdrop. (Of course, some of the scenery was prettier than the rest.) There are novels I know I read in Boston because I can't see their covers without picturing the bedspread in my Boylston Street apartment; others I place in D.C. from the memory of painstakingly cramming the flimsy Days Inn pillows into place behind me so I could lean back while I read. Strangely, I could certainly look it up, but I don't know what I read in Pullman. I can see the autumn Palouse light, golden on the rolling hills and tinged pink through my window; I know I sat in the Lighty Hall atrium at lunchtime with a mocha in my right hand and a book in front of me. (What I remember from that trip is the podcast -- Frontline's "God in America" -- that served as its soundtrack: gasping uphill through the wildfire and paper mill smog in Lewiston on the way to the Nez Perce County Fair; twilight descending between the downtown taqueria with the mural and the community garden's fading sunflowers as I took the scenic route back to my hotel; gazing out the airplane window as Minneapolis fell away and realizing I'd be back amid the familiar bustle and mess of my family within hours.)

But this book did not come to Pullman. This one came to Boston over New Year's; I fiddled with the adjustable mattress as I sprawled on my bed in the Revere, the air smelling faintly of peppermint shampoo, Eliza channel-surfing and Mike doing game prep on his laptop at the art deco-inspired desk. Perhaps I sipped a glass of the wine we picked up at the 570 Market on our way back from dinner at Addis; it's likely I schlepped it to Manchester in my satchel when we drove up to see the NH side of the family.

If only. If only I could make the time to capture moments like this more frequently, rather than just sneaking them into tangentially-related blog posts like Jessica Seinfeld's vegetable brownies.

But oh, yeah, the book. Gatsby a la Richard Russo, if you transplant the title character from Roaring '20s Long Island to 21st-century Mohawk small-town Upstate New York. This is a good thing, and a good (if sad) story.

#69: The False Friend

The False Friend, by Myla Goldberg

(New York: Doubleday, 2010)

Summary:

"Twenty years after Celia’s best friend, Djuna, went missing, memories of that terrible day come rushing back—including the lie Celia remembers having told to conceal her role in Djuna’s disappearance. But when Celia returns to her hometown to confess the truth, her family and childhood friends recall that day very differently. As Celia learns more about what may or may not have happened, she becomes increasingly uncertain whom she should trust.

"In The False Friend, Myla Goldberg -- bestselling author of Bee Season -- brilliantly explores the cruelty of children, the unreliability of memory, and the unpredictable forces that shape our adult selves."

Opening Line:
"The sight of a vintage VW bug dredged Djuna Pearson from memory."

My Take: 
Not sure I ever quite bought the book's main premise -- that Djuna wasn't taken away in a strange car, but fell into a hole in the woods, and Celia's been lying about it all these years -- but it still made for an interesting story about our memories of childhood and its friendships, our growing awareness of our parents' imperfections, and how our hometowns look from a distance.

#67: Mohawk

Mohawk, by Richard Russo

(New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1994, c1986)

Summary:

"Mohawk, New York is one of those small towns that lie almost entirely on the wrong side of the tracks. Its citizens, too, have fallen on hard times. Dallas Younger, a star athlete in high school, now drifts from tavern to poker game, losing money, and, inevitably, another set of false teeth. His ex-wife, Anne, is stuck in a losing battle with her mother over the care of her sick father. And their son, Randall, is deliberately neglecting his school work -- because in a place like Mohawk, it doesn't pay to be too smart.

"In Mohawk, Richard Russo explores these lives with profound compassion and flint-hard wit. Out of derailed ambitions and old loves, secret hatreds and communal myths, he has created a richly plotted, densely populated, and wonderfully written novel that captures every nuance of America's backyard."

Opening Line:
"The back door to the Mohawk Grill opens on an alley it shares with the junior high."


My Take:
Was going to go for something fluffy again (Four Blondes, anyone?) but something about Russo's stories of hard luck former boom towns along the old Erie Canal seemed appropriate for my last scheduled week in Boston exile. He usually manages to be both wistful and warm-hearted at the same time. Let's see.

(time passes)

A good choice. As with Russo's other novels, he manages to portray upstate New York's Appalachia-meets-Rust-Belt, seen-better-days small towns and their inhabitants both so clearly, but with such compassion and warmth, that you almost find yourself seeing why it is that folks still live there (though you're not quite packing your own bags, of course). Mohawk isn't my world, but it's not too far away and I've driven through it often enough (this is metaphor, people; Russo's Mohawk isn't a real town, though it may as well be) that it was a good read for a homesick week. Recommended if you like portraits of small town Americana, or even if you just enjoyed Empire Falls and want to get a look at the town 30 years earlier. 

#43: My Name Is Mary Sutter

My Name Is Mary Sutter, by Robin Oliveira (New York:  Viking, 2010)

Summary:
"In this stunning historical novel, Mary Sutter is a brilliant, headstrong midwife from Albany, New York, who dreams of becoming a surgeon. Determined to overcome the prejudices against women in medicine -- and eager to run away from her recent heartbreak -- Mary leaves home and travels to Washington, D.C. to help tend the legions of Civil War wounded. Under the guidance of William Stipp and James Blevens -- two surgeons who fall unwittingly in love with Mary's courage, will, and stubbornness in the face of suffering -- and resisting her mother's pleas to return home to help with the birth of her twin sister's baby, Mary pursues her medical career in the desperately overwhelmed hospitals of the capital.
Like Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain and Robert Hicks's The Widow of the South, My Name Is Mary Sutter powerfully evokes the atmosphere of the period. Rich with historical detail (including marvelous depictions of Lincoln, Dorothea Dix, General McClellan, and John Hay among others), and full of the tragedies and challenges of wartime, My Name Is Mary Sutter is an exceptional novel. And, in Mary herself, Robin Oliveira has created a truly unforgettable heroine whose unwavering determination and vulnerability will resonate with readers everywhere.


Opening Lines:
"'Are you Mary Sutter?' Hours had passed since James Blevens had called for the midwife."

My Take:
Here's where the reviews get pretty terse and cursory. As I said, before I came to Boston, I spent a few weeks in Ohio. What I hadn't yet mentioned was that I almost got sent to Memphis for a few months. When that looked like a possibility, I began looking into what there was to keep myself busy after work and on weekends, and began making grand plans to indulge my interest in both Civil War and Civil Rights history. The trip didn't happen but a number of historical novels set during the Civil War did, and I'm still slogging my way through James M. McPherson's master single-volume work on the subject, Battle Cry of Freedom. 

Anyway, I enjoyed Mary Sutter. If you enjoy Civil War stories and want one with a slightly different focus than you're used to, like books about iconoclastic women ahead of their time (as opposed to reviews by redundantly verbose readers!), or enjoy fiction that touches on the historical practice of medicine, give this one a try.

#8: The Neighborhood Project

The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time, by David Sloan Wilson (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2011)

Summary:
"After decades of studying creatures of all kinds, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson had an epiphany: Darwin's theory won't fully prove itself until it improves the quality of human life in a practical sense. And what better place to begin than his hometown of Binghamton, New York? Making a difference in his own city would provide a model for cities everywhere, the habitats for over half the people on earth.

"Inspired to become an agent of change, Wilson descended on Binghamton with a scientist's eye and looked at its toughest questions, such as how to strengthen neighborhoods and how best to teach our children. He combined the latest research methods from experimental economics with naturalistic studies of holiday decorations and garage sales. Drawing on examples from nature as diverse as water striders, wasps, and crows, Wilson took a scientific odyssey that led him everywhere from a cave in southern Africa that preserved artifacts from the dawn of human culture to the Vatican in Rome. Along the way, he spoke with dozens of fellow scientists, whose stories he relates along with his own.

"Wilson's remarkable findings help us to understand how we must become wise managers of evolutionary processes to accomplish positive change at all scales, from effective therapies for individuals to empowering neighborhoods and regulating the worldwide economy.

"With an ambitious scope that spans biology, sociology, religion, and economics, The Neighborhood Project is a memoir, a practical handbook for improving the quality of life, and an exploration of the big questions long pondered by religious sages, philosophers, and storytellers. By approaching the same questions from an evolutionary perspective, Wilson shows, as never before, how places define us."

Table of Contents:

1. Evolution, Cities, and the World
2. My City
3. The Parable of the Strider
4. The Parable of the Wasp
5. The Maps
6. Quantifying Halloween
7. We Are Now Entering the Noosphere
8. The Parable of the Immune System
9. The Reflection
10. Street-Smart
11. The Humanist and the CEO
12. The Lost Island of Prevention Science
13. The Lecture That Failed
14. Learning from Mother Nature about Teaching Our Children
15. The World with Us
16. The Parable of the Crow
17. Our Lives, Our Genes
18. The Natural History of the Afterlife
19. Evonomics
20. Body and Soul
21. City on a Hill

My Take:
A promising but ultimately frustrating book. As the jacket summary above indicates, it's impressively broad, all right. Ever since that systems thinking class I took in grad school and the occasional behavioral economics book I've read since, I've grown a bit more used to this sort of unorthodox synthesis, but it still impresses me; I wish I could do it. (I tried in a recent job interview, and while I don't know that I failed spectacularly, I certainly didn't succeed well enough to get the offer.)

And there's so much potential here. Using the principles of evolution to study not just natural, biological phenomena, but the evolution of cultures and cities? Trying to figure out when and why what Wilson incessantly calls "the hammer blows of natural selection" select for selfish, water strider behavior and when they tend to favor the more cooperative wasp hive activity? Noting that both nature and culture resemble the immune system, with innate, inherited components that evolve very slowly and reactive, learning components capable of responding to one's environment? Assessing neighborhood quality based on how much candy kids get on Halloween? This stuff is different, fun, and entertaining to read about -- especially in Wilson's clear, well-worded prose.

And then somewhere in the middle of the book, things bog down. While I understand that setting up a whole new cross-disciplinary institute is A Big Thing, the details and name-dropping around this conference and that workshop get to be a bit tedious after a while. More irritating, in spending most of the last half of the text (with the hilarious exception of the chapter on crows) on such minutae, Wilson devotes an entire book to talking about how evolutionary principles and data gathering might be used to improve city and neighborhood quality of life without actually getting into any details about what distinguishes "hill" and "valley" neighborhoods, what interventions might help transform the latter, and whether they worked. The closest we get is a few reminders that yes, park space and nature within city limits appear to be A Good Thing ... but the concrete recommendations for improving life quality and empowering neighborhoods the promotional blurb promises are never delivered.

#29: The Reserve

The Reserve, by Russell Banks (New York: HarperCollins, 2008).

Summary:
"Twenty-nine-year-old Vanessa Cole is a wild, stunningly beautiful heiress, the adopted only child of a highly regarded New York brain surgeon and his socialite wife. Twice married, Vanessa has been scandalously linked to any number of rich and famous men. But on the night of July 4, 1936, at her parents' country home in a remote Adirondack Mountain enclave known as The Reserve, two events coincide to permanently alter the course of Vanessa's callow life: her father dies suddenly of a heart attach, and a mysterious seductive local artist, Jordan Groves, blithely lands his Waco biplane in the pristine waters of the forbidden Upper Lake. ... [Jordan] falls easy prey to her electrifying personality, but it is not long before he discovers that the heiress carries a dark, deeply scarring family secret. Emotionally unstable from the start, and further unhinged by her father's unexpected death, Vanessa begins to spin wildly out of control, manipulating and destroying the lives of all who cross her path."

Opening Line:
"When finally no one was watching her anymore, the beautiful young woman extracted herself from her parents and their friends and left the living room."

My Take:
Yawn. Based on the reviews I'd read (which, admittedly, were a while back), I expected more from this book. The concept was intriguing -- a rich, somewhat spoiled "wild child" who has some deep dark secrets hidden in her silk-lined mahogany closets -- but the execution "meh" at best. For one thing, the description of Vanessa's physical beauty and the sex appeal of another character's love interest evoked shades of Danielle Steel. You might get away with describing one character as luminous, if you do so convincingly enough that the reader forgets it's a cliche, but two? Within 100 pages of each other? Gag me.

For another, the unanswered questions about how much of what Vanessa believes is real vs. how much is a product of her mental instability (Dr. Cole invented the lobotomy? She was sexually abused as a child?) -- a technique that can be very unsettling and compelling when it's done well -- just doesn't seem to work here. Maybe it's because neither side is really fleshed out well; all we have is Vanessa hinting at events on one hand, and her mother and Jordan saying, "No, that didn't happen" on the other. Ditto the ambiguous ending. It's not clear exactly what becomes of Jordan and Vanessa, which could be interesting in other contexts ... except that I didn't feel like I had enough evidence to even speculate convincingly for one argument or another.

All in all, a fairly quick book and not absolutely horrible, but also not entertaining or provocative enough for me to bother recommend it. Moving along here.