#107: San Miguel

San Miguel, by T. C. Boyle

(New York: Viking, 2012)

 Summary:
"This latest novel from Boyle (The Women; When the Killing's Done) portrays two families living and working on barren San Miguel Island off the coast of California. In 1888 Marantha Waters leaves her comfortable life on mainland California and moves out to San Miguel with her adopted daughter and husband, a steely Civil War veteran convinced that he'll have success sheep ranching on the island. Marantha is seriously ill, but instead of breathing the clean, restorative air she expected, she must live in a drafty, moldy shack in a damp environment where the sun rarely shines. Years later, in 1930, Elise Lester, newly wed at 38, moves to San Miguel with her husband, Herbie, a World War I veteran. Though Herbie has his highs and lows, they are happy, and they have two daughters. The outside world learns of their pioneering ways, and they achieve a celebrity Herbie hopes will translate into additional income. Then World War II arrives, and with war in the Pacific, their insular island location may no longer be a refuge"

Opening Line:
"She was coughing, always coughing, and sometimes she coughed up blood."

My Take:
I don't think I'll ever be quite as transported by another of Boyle's books as I was by The Tortilla Curtain, but I know that's my problem. He's a fascinating writer, very skilled technically and with recurring themes (humans vs. nature, government vs. the civilian everyman or -woman, and with the addition of this to When the Killing's Done, apparently the Channel Islands) I enjoy. Intriguing characters here, especially if they were based on real people ... which would explain why the story seems not to have much of a real ending.

#104: Daughter of Fortune

Daughter of Fortune, by Isabel Allende 

(translated by Margaret Sayers Peden)

(New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008)

Summary: 
"An orphan raised in Valparaiso, Chile, by a Victorian spinster and her rigid brother, vivacious young Eliza Sommers follows her lover to California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Entering a rough-and-tumble world of new arrivals driven mad by gold fever, Eliza moves in a society of single men and prostitutes with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chi'en. California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence to the young Chilean, and her search for her elusive lover gradually turns into another kind of journey. By the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her true love really is"

Opening Line: 
"Everyone is born with some special talent, and Eliza Sommers discovered early on that she had two: a good sense of smell and a good memory."

My Take:
Maybe it's because I'm now getting into the more recent parts of my backlog, or maybe it's just that Isabel Allende is a brilliant writer, but when I decided it was time for a Latin American-themed flight of books, this was what I had in mind. (The fact that the protagonist's name is Eliza doesn't hurt, but I'd have loved Daughter of Fortune anyway.) Exciting adventure story with just enough twists and turns, and great characters. Just blogging about it and remembering how much I enjoyed it is almost enough to make me look forward to my long commute tomorrow and listening to Ines of My Soul. Almost.
 

#70: Under the Banner of Heaven

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, 

by Jon Krakauer

(New York: Doubleday, 2003)

 Summary:
"Jon Krakauer's literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In Under the Banner of Heaven, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by a pair of Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, and unyielding faith. In the process, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America's fastest-growing religion, analyzes the abduction of fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart (and her forced 'marriage' to her polygamous kidnapper), and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

"Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some forty thousand Mormon Fundamentalists believe that the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five 'plural wives,' several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamendalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers and preach that any day now this world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents.

"Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fantastical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism's violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the United States' most successful homegrown faith and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior."

Opening Line:
"Almost everyone in Utah County has heard of the Lafferty boys."


My Take:
I'll give Krakauer credit, and assume that much of what he describes was more shocking when he first published his book 9 years ago, before so many similar news and fiction accounts have been aired. That said, it's a good book and I still like his work, but would have liked him to have focused more on contemporary Mormon Fundamentalism and less on the history of Mormonism. I know his point is that the faith's violent past somehow leads to the fundamentalist horrors that bubble up now and again, but he doesn't sufficiently convince the reader how Mormonism is different in this regard from, oh, Judaism or Christianity -- both of which have plenty of violence in their own histories. Is it just because Mormonism is more hierarchical and values absolute obedience more highly? Or is there something else? A decent read, but again, the history seemed a bit too Wild West for my liking without a clear explanation of how it got us (or Mormon Fundamentalists, anyway) where we (they) are now.
 

#81: Chosen

Chosen, by Chandra Hoffman (New York: Harper, 2010)

Summary:
"It all begins with a fantasy: the caseworker in her 'signing paperwork' charcoal suit standing alongside beaming parents cradling their adopted newborn, set against a fluorescent-lit delivery-room backdrop. It's this blissful picture that keeps Chloe Pinter, director of the Chosen Child's domestic-adoption program, happy while juggling the high demands of her boss and the incessant needs of both adoptive and biological parents.

"But the very job that offers her refuge from her turbulent personal life and Portland's winter rains soon becomes a battleground involving three very different couples: the Novas, well-off college sweethearts who suffered fertility problems but are now expecting their own baby; the McAdoos, a wealthy husband and desperate wife for whom adoption is a last chance; and Jason and Penny, an impoverished couple who have nothing -- except the baby everyone wants. When a child goes missing, dreams dissolve into nightmares, and everyone is forced to examine what he or she really wants and where it all went wrong."

Opening Line:
"Chloe Pinter is trying to develop a taste for coffee."

My Take:
A not-too-silly fun read; no more, no less. What makes it more compelling than it might otherwise be is its subject matter; I've read plenty of chick lit about pregnancy and new parenthood, but don't remember any other fiction about the domestic adoption scene. The details here are interesting; sometimes funny, sometimes a bit sketchy if they're legit, which I suspect they are -- Hoffman's bio includes a stint as the director of a U.S. adoption program.

For the most part, the picture Chosen paints of birth parents isn't a flattering one. Jason and Penny, whose newborn son Francie and John McAdoo adopt, are not only poor, but ex-cons, and while we might forgive Penny (herself the victim of a heinous rape and assault long before the book opens) her single conviction for check fraud, Jason is a career criminal and sociopath. Most of the other birth parents Chloe and her clients reflect upon aren't quite this bad, but are nonetheless out to milk the system for all it's worth. Not long after Eva Nova gives birth to her own son, she muses about what might have become of Amber, the birth mother whose daughter she and husband Paul had hoped to adopt before Eva became pregnant:

"[A] year earlier, Amber, a pudgy thirteen-year-old birth mother, her own mother only twenty-eight, had chosen the Novas as the adoptive parents for her own baby. Chloe Pinter had arranged their first meeting at a Red Lobster, an obese pair of slow-blinking, loud-chewing women. Paul's tounge-tied comment, 'You could be sisters,' had offended them equally. They had strung the agency along for six months, huge expensive meals, dragging Chloe through the grocery store for hours. Chloe told Eva and Paul that Amber and her mother had each pushed a cart filled with Doritos, jumbo boxes of Froot Loops, doughnuts, crumb cakes."

At the same time, Paul muses silently that they're way better off without Amber's baby:

"It had surprised him how quickly he had gotten on board with the concept of adoption. ... But when adoption was presented in the specific, in the form of the gum-smacking Amber, Paul can admit to himself that he was shaken. He had felt such relief when it was over, no longer worried about their half-wit, sleepy-eyed Baby Huey of a daughter who would be knocked up at age twelve herself, nature's triumph over nurture."

Later, Chloe has an excruciating lunch meeting with Debra, a pregnant exotic dancer who boasts "two kids at home, two adopted out, and a couple I knew early enough about to take care of," admits to not just drinking alcohol but taking crystal meth during her pregnancy, and insists that she be paid enough to take her kids to Disneyland after the baby is born. If it weren't for Heather, the Good Birth Mom who happens to live near Penny and Jason, this would seem a little classist; as it is, it just kinda makes you wonder.

The adoptive parents fare a bit better in Hoffman's hands, but their portrayal isn't exactly glowing, either. The Novas are mostly decent people (sure, Eva struggles with postpartum depression after Wyeth's birth, and Paul comes this close to an affair), but the McAdoos, not so much; Francie seems way more interested in maintaining her online friendships and picking out the perfect nursery furniture than actually spending time with her new son, and John's frequent business trips to Singapore eventually prove to be a cover for other, less family-friendly hobbies.

Oddly, probably the one character who seemed least real or interesting to me was the main character, Chloe. I do appreciate that her relationship with boyfriend Dan is a complicated one, neither perfect nor across-the-board awful. Sure, they met cute/ slutty and moved in together way too soon; yes, Dan's dream of starting his own surfing business in Hawaii seems a little impulsive ... but Hoffman avoids presenting him as a complete ass, too. I'm not 100% thrilled with how their story line wraps up -- let's just say it involves some abrupt changes in personalities and priorities that didn't quite ring true to me -- but this didn't prevent me from mostly enjoying the book.

#86 - True Colors

Sigh. I do think I've found a new guilty pleasure.

One thing I owe to this blog is that I've stopped apologizing for what I read. Sometimes it's Literature, sometimes it's scholarly non-fiction, sometimes it's just fun. This is entertainment, darn it. Y'know, a hobby. Something I do for recreation. Sometimes I want to be challenged or provoked or informed, and others, I just want to be amused.

Sadly, chick lit isn't always all it's cracked up to be. Just when I think I've found an author who can reliably deliver the goods (i.e., escapist reading), either she goes and dies on me (R.I.P., Olivia Goldsmith) or (worse, 'cause I keep reading it even when I know I'll wish I hadn't later; the bibliophile's potato chips) she churns out one repetitive, bland bestseller after another, none of which ever taste as good as they used to.

Fortunately, it seems that Kristin Hannah can hook me up, at least for a while. True Colors (St. Martin's, 2009) is as girly as they come -- it's got a pink sunset and seashells on the cover, a friendly girl-next-door author pic on the back, and plotwise, it's about 3 steps above Danielle Steele -- but it's an engaging story about 3 sisters in a small Washington State town, has plausible, non-ridiculous characters, and is just plain fun to read. So here we are.

The three principals, Winona, Aurora, and Vivi Ann, have always been the closest of friends and soulmates; Pea, Bean, and Sprout in their mother's beloved garden. All three have also remained in their tiny hometown of Oyster Shores, despite their mother's death and their father's blunt, stoic emotionlessness. Winona is a successful small-town attorney, although she remains single and childless, and continues to struggle with her weight; Aurora is married to the kind if boring Richard; and glamorous Vivi, always their father's favorite, remains with him on the Grey family ranch and continues to ride their mother's beloved mare Clem.

Their comfortable routine of Friday "girls' night" at the local bar and Sunday walks to church en famile becomes strained when a stranger, one Dallas Raintree, comes to town. While even the girls' father grudgingly admits Dallas is a hard worker and knows his horses, he's also biracial, tattooed, and seems more than a little unsavory; nonetheless, there's an undeniable chemistry between him and Vivi. Unaccustomed to her father's anger and disappointment, Vivi quickly deflects attention from her and Dallas by agreeing to marry Luke Connelly, an old classmate of Winona's who's recently returned to town. This presents two problems, however. One, for all her efforts, Vivi just doesn't love Luke; two, Winona does, and has since she was 15, but fears it's too late to 'fess up. Things come to a head when Winona inadvertently catches Vivi and Dallas in mid-tryst, and then betrays her sister by rushing to tell Luke and their father.

When the dust settles, Vivi and Dallas have eloped, and the sisters forge a grudging forgiveness (more than their father, who's never trusted Dallas, is able to do). An occasionally-tense peace stands for several years, and after a fragile beginning, Dallas and Vivi's son Noah grows to a young boy.

Until the Christmas eve Cat Morgan, latter-day local Belle Watling and Old Friend (smug eyebrow wiggle) of Dallas', is found dead in her saloon. Vivi is steadfast in her belief in Dallas' innocence, but their neighbors have mistrusted him from the get-go, and he does have a criminal record. Winona, likewise, is unconvinced, and refuses to take Dallas' case. Without funds for a skilled lawyer or a thorough defense, Dallas is convicted of murder, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Vivi blames Winona for doubting him and for failing to help, and the sisters' relationship is shattered, with peacemaker Aurora taking Vivi's side, and father Henry (for once) on Winona's.

The story continues from there, and to Hannah's credit, kept me guessing about many of the points right up till the end. Is Dallas indeed innocent, and will he ever be freed? Can Winona truly forgive Vivi for winning Luke's love, and will she ever find love of her own? Is there some crumb of passion somewhere in Aurora's marriage that's worth saving? How will Noah be affected by growing up not knowing or knowing about his dad? Yes, the ending's a bit tidy, but given the overall strength of the book as a fun, light read, I'll allow that.