#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.

#79: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski

(New York: Ecco, 2008)

Summary:
"David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle explores the silent world of the novel’s protagonist, Edgar Sawtelle. Edgar lives in Wisconsin during the middle of the twentieth century. Born mute, he is a teenager who seems to prefer the language of dogs more than the words of the adults around him. From his earliest memories, his favorite job on the farm was to name the new puppies that were born there. He chooses names randomly from a dictionary. As he grows older, his connection with the dogs becomes more profound. He helps to train them through sign language.

"Wroblewski begins his novel with Edgar’s grandfather, telling readers about how the dog farm began. When Edgar’s father, Gar, dies suspiciously, Edgar blames his uncle Claude, his father’s younger brother, who has meant nothing but trouble for the family. When Claude makes romantic overtures to Edgar’s mother, Trudy, Edgar is outraged.

"The story is filled with loving family memories until Claude arrives. Claude spends most of his time in the barn or at the local bar. The details of Claude’s life are sketchy at best and Edgar finds Claude to be two-faced. The man presents his best side to Edgar’s mother. She falls for him, allowing him to fill in the vacant spaces left behind from her husband’s death. Edgar sees the other side of Claude, a side that Edgar finds dangerous.

"When tensions become too strong between Edgar and Claude, Edgar takes his favorite dogs and runs away from home. For the story itself, this tension raises the level of curiosity for the reader. It is at this point that the novel takes on the form of a mystery or a sort of detective story. Edgar fears the police are looking for him because of an accidental death that he played a part in. Readers worry that Edgar might be caught because Claude is suggesting to local officials that Edgar committed murder. In the end, it is Edgar versus Claude—a fight to the finish. Unfortunately, there are no winners."

Opening Line:
"In the year 1919, Edgar's grandfather, who was born with an extra share of whimsy, bought their land and all the buildings on it from a man he'd never met, a man named Schultz, who in his turn had walked away from a logging team half a decade earlier after seeing the chains on a fully loaded timber sled let go."

My Take: 
OK, this one I liked. For a change, I actually preferred the first, oh, two-thirds or so to the end (suffice it to say that I have a low tolerance for characters speaking or otherwise interacting with the dead) but it was still an engaging story with deep characters and an unusual setting.

#49: Lone Wolf

Lone Wolf, by Jodi Picoult (New York: Atria Books, 2012)

Summary:
"Edward Warren, 23, has been living in Thailand for five years, a prodigal son who left his family after an irreparable fight with his father, Luke. But he gets a frantic phone call: His dad lies comatose in a NH hospital, gravely injured in the same accident that has also injured his younger sister Cara.

"Cara, 17, still holds a grudge against her brother, since his departure led to her parents’ divorce. In the aftermath, she’s lived with her father – an animal conservationist who became famous after living with a wild wolf pack in the Canadian wild. It is impossible for her to reconcile the still, broken man in the hospital bed with her vibrant, dynamic father.

"With Luke’s chances for recovery dwindling, Cara wants to wait for a miracle. But Edward wants to terminate life support and donate his father’s organs. Is he motivated by altruism, or revenge? And to what lengths will his sister go to stop him from making an irrevocable decision?

"Lone Wolf looks at the intersection between medical science and moral choices. If we can keep people who have no hope for recovery alive artificially, should they also be allowed to die artificially? Does the potential to save someone else’s life with a donated organ balance the act of hastening another’s death? And finally, when a father’s life hangs in the balance, which sibling should get to decide his fate?"

Opening Line:
"In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have freed the tiger."

My Take:
Granted, that's a cool opening line -- but a review for this one is hardly worth my time or my reader's. (Dontcha like how I manage to be both self-deprecating and poke tongue-in-cheek fun at the apostrophe abuse that so grates on the nerves of the grammarians among us there?) It's a Jodi Picoult book, and you either like that sort of thing or you don't. I do now and again but don't expect the earth to move (unless the dizziness from the author's shifting-fonts-to-represent-different-characters technique counts).

#42: Marley & Me

Marley & Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog, by John Grogan (New York:  HarperCollins, 2008)

Summary:
"John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wriggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same.

"Marley quickly grew into a barrelling, ninety-seven-pound steamroller of a Labrador retriever, a dog like no other. He crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, flung drool on guests, and ate nearly everything he could get his mouth around, including couches and fine jewelry. Obedience school did no good -- Marley was expelled. Neither did the tranquilizers the vet prescribed for him with the admonishment, 'Don't hesitate to use these.'"


"And yet Marley's heart was pure. Just as he joyfully refused any limits on his behavior, his love and loyalty were boundless, too. Marley shared the couple's joy at their first pregnancy and their heartbreak over the miscarriage. He was there when babies finally arrived and when the screams of a seventeen-year-old stabbing victim pierced the night. Throughout it all he remained steadfast, a model of devotion, even when his family was at its wit's end. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms.


"Is it possible for humans to discover the key to happiness through a bigger-than-life, bad-boy dog? Just ask the Grogans."


Opening Lines:
"We were young. We were in love. We were rollicking in sublime early days of marriage when life seems about as good as life can get. We could not leave well enough alone."


My Take:
Expected to like it, but not quite the way I did. Expected a cathartic, glurgey, emotionally manipulative tearjerker in which at least one pet and/or child died before its time. Spoiler alert:  This didn't happen. Marley's a feel-good book, sure, and the ending is sad, but in a very natural, bittersweet way. A wise man I used to know (Filbert's late uncle) once told me that to love animals is to set yourself up for a lifetime of heartbreak; we don't usually dwell on it, but we know deep down that we're going to outlive all our pets except the last one or two. But we also know that every chewed wire, every gross waste management chore, every midnight veterinary emergency, and even that first wave of raw grief that stuns you with its intensity Every Damned Time, is worth it; in the immortal words of Garth Brooks, "I could have missed the pain, but I'd have had to miss the dance."

Tangent aside, this is an unexpectedly gentle and non-saccharine story of what it means to build a life and a family that includes a pet, and all the richness (joy, destruction, laughter, and sadness) our animal companions bring us.

#41: We Bought a Zoo

We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Change Their Lives Forever, by Benjamin Mee (New York: Weinstein Books, 2008)


Summary:
"In the market for a house and the adventure of a lifetime, Benjamin Mee decided to uproot his family and move them to an unlikely new home: a dilapidated zoo in the English countryside, complete with over 200 exotic animals. Mee, who specializes in animal behavior, had a dream to refurbish the zoo and run it as a family business. Naturally, friends and colleagues thought he was crazy.


"Mee's pipe dream became a reality in October 2006, when he and the rest of the Mee clan -- wife Katherine, son Milo (age six), daughter Ella (age four), brother Duncan, and Benjamin's seventy-six-year-old mother -- relocated to the Dartmoor Wildlife Park and met their new neighbors, including Solomon, an African lion and scourge of the local golf course; Zak, the elderly Alpha wolf, a benevolent dictator clinging to power; Ronnie, a Brazilian tapir, easily capable of killing a man but hopelessly wimpy; and Sovereign, a jaguar who had devised a long-term escape plan and implemented it.


"The grand reopening of the zoo was scheduled for spring, but there was 
much work to be done and none of it easy for these novice zookeepers. Tigers broke loose, money ran low, the staff grew skeptical, and family tensions reached a boiling point.


"Then tragedy struck, and the situation went from difficult to unimaginable. Katherine had a recurrence of a brain tumor, forcing Benjamin and his children to face the heartbreak of illness and the devastating loss of a wife and mother. But inspired by the memory of Katherine and the healing power of the incredible family of animals they had grown to love, Benjamin and his kids resolved to move forward. The Mee family opened the gates of the revitalized zoo in July 2007 to great success.


Brimming with energy and insight, We Bought a Zoo is a profoundly moving portrait of an ordinary family living in the most extraordinary circumstances."

Opening Line:
"Mum and I arrived as the new owners of Dartmoor Wildlife Park in Devon for the first time at around six o'clock on the evening of 20 October 2006, and stepped out of the car to the sound of wolves howling in the misty darkness."

My Take:
Do not confuse this book with the Matt Damon movie it inspired, which received mostly lukewarm reviews. The book's a bit on the warm fuzzy side, sure, but does offer some interesting insights into running a zoo ... and some beautiful passages on love, illness, and death as well.

#77: Bonobo Handshake

Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo, by Vanessa Woods (New York: Gotham Books, 2010)

Summary:
"Imagine a relative who thinks sex is like a handshake. Who organizes orgies with their neighbors, doesn't mind if their partner sleeps around, and firmly believes females should be in charge of everything. Now imagine there was a whole tribe of these relatives -- crazy, right? But definitely a lot of fun.

"Compared to chimps, we know hardly anything about bonobos. They are an extremely endangered ape and share 98.7 percent of our DNA. But while chimpanzees live in male-dominated societies with sexual coercion, infanticide, and war, bonobos are peaceful and female dominated; there is no infanticide or war, and sex is used to resolve conflict.

"The question is, how much of us is chimpanzee, how much is bonobo?

"Bonobo Handshake is the memoir of Vanessa Woods's journey to answer these questions. In 2005, she agreed to marry a handsome primatologist who was on the hunt for the answer to the greatest question of all time: What makes us human? Her fiance, Brian Hare, freshly armed with a Ph.D. from Harvard, believed the answer was in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country with a jungle three times the size of France, and in an ongoing war. Brian was on a quest to study bonobos, and bonobos only live in the Congo.

"Vanessa goes to live with him at Lola Ya Bonobo, a sanctuary for orphan bonobos in Kinshasa, the capital of Congo. The parents of the bonobos were killed by the bushmeat trade and the orphans were sold as pets before they were rescued. Some of them were tortured, with fingers and toes cut off for use in black magic. Others were raised like children in the homes of well-meaning but deluded expatriates. The sanctuary is also full of human refugees searching for respite from a conflict that has killed more than five million people. There Vanessa finds herself -- with no job and no identity, except as Dr. Hare's wife -- trying to turn a fling into a marriage and make sense of the suffering she witnesses. As it becomes clear that the bonobos are wary of men, Vanessa runs all of the experiments, and as she develops deep bonds with the bonobos, she also finds herself deeply in love with her husband and her new surroundings.

Bonobo Handshake is a memoir of science, adventure, love, and finding inspiration where you least expect it. It's about the similarities and extraordinary courage of people and animals and their will to survive. At times heartbreaking and humorous and always intelligent, it is also about a young woman finding her own path as a writer and scientist."

Opening Line:
"It's 2:17 A.M. in a Paris hotel room and my sweat is bleeding into the sheets."

My Take:
OK, but I had pretty high expectations and don't think the book quite lived up to them. In only 26 pages, Woods touches on the usual trials of newly-married life, the plight of the trailing spouse on an overseas assignment, the social and behavioral habits of the bonobo, and the dreadfully underreported, 13-year armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Unfortunately, the end result is that none of these topics really get the in-depth attention you might want. Woods has an engaging, personal, and often very funny writing style, and I'd happily read a longer book about the bonobos or her marriage. As it was, I finished the book feeling like I'd sampled a very tasty appetizer, but it wasn't quite enough to make a meal.

#28: Ape House

Ape House, by Sara Gruen (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2010).

Summary:
"Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships -- but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language.

"Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn't understand people, but animals she gets -- especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she's ever felt among humans ... until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what's really going on inside.

"When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and 'liberating' the apes, John's human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he'll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Then a reality TV show featuring the missing apes debuts under mysterious circumstances, and it immediately becoms the biggest -- and unlikeliest -- phenomenon in the history of modern media. Millions of fans are glued to their screens watching the apes order greasy take-out, have generous amounts of sex, and sign for Isabel to come get them. Now, to save her family of apes from this parody of human life, Isabel must connect with her own kind, including John, a green-haired vegan, and a retired porn star with her own agenda.

"Ape House delivers great entertainment, but it also opens the animal world to us in ways few novels have done, securing Sara Gruen's place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before."

Opening Line:
"The plane had yet to take off, but Osgood, the photographer, was already snoring softly."

My Take:
A solid all-around read. Neither as good as I'd hoped, nor as bad as I'd feared it might be.

Like just about everyone else I've asked, I loved Water for Elephants. That's a mixed blessing; on one hand, it certainly got me to read Ape House without thinking too much about whether it was worth carrying home, but on the other, it's a lot to live up to.

For the most part, it succeeds. The above summary, and a few early chapters in the same vein, had me fearing this would be yet another cheesy and inevitable love story, with the bonobos serving only as a fairly novel backdrop. I was quite pleased that it wasn't, and they didn't. Yes, Isabel's fiance ultimately proves to be a pretty over-the-top Jerky Bad Guy, but she and John don't end up riding off into the sunset together despite some heavy hints in that direction.

As far as what actually does happen, that's somewhat more of a mixed bag. There's a lot going on here, which isn't a bad thing ... but it's also not a terribly long novel, which made certain elements of the plot seem a bit rushed (including the conclusion). I would have liked more page space devoted to fleshing out the events in the second half of the book, and probably wouldn't have complained about more of the very entertaining bonobo scenes, either.

#22: Wesley the Owl

Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Story of an Owl and His Girl, by Stacey O'Brien (New York: Free Press, 2008).

Summary:
"On Valentine's Day 1985, biologist Stacey O'Brien first met a four-day-old baby barn owl -- a fateful encounter that would turn into an astonishing 19-year saga. With nerve damage in one wing, the owlet's ability to fly was forever compromised, and he had no hope of surviving on his own in the wild. O'Brien, a young assistant in the owl laboratory at Caltech, was immediately smitten, promising to care for the helpless owlet and give him a permanent home. Wesley the Owl is the funny, poignant story of their dramatic two decades together. With both a tender heart and a scientist's eye, O'Brien studied Wesley's strange habits intensively and first-hand -- and provided a mice-only diet that required her to buy the rodents in bulk (28,000 over the owl's lifetime). As Wesley grew, she snapped photos of him at every stage like any proud parent, recording his life from a helpless ball of fuzz to a playful, clumsy adolescent to a gorgeous, gold-and-white macho adult owl with a heart-shaped face and an outsize personality that belied his 18-inch stature. Stacey and Wesley's bond deepened as she discovered Wesley's individual personality, subtle emotions, and playful nature that could also turn fiercely loyal and protective -- though she could have done without Wesley's driving away her would-be human suitors! O'Brien also brings us inside the prestigious research community, a kind of scientific Hogwarts where resident owls sometimes fly freely from office to office and eccentric, brilliant scientists were extraordinarily committed to studying and helping animals; all of them were changed by the animal they loved. As O'Brien gets close to Wesley, she makes important discoveries about owl behavior, intelligence, and communication, coining the term 'The Way of the Owl' to describe his inclinations: he did not tolerate lies, held her to her promises, and provided unconditional love, though he was not beyond an occasional sulk. When O'Brien develops her own life-threatening illness, the biologist who saved the life of a helpless baby bird is herself rescued from death by the insistent love and courage of this wild animal. Enhanced by wonderful photos, Wesley the Owl is a thoroughly engaging, heartwarming, often funny story of a complex, emotional, non-human being capable of reason, play, and most important, love and loyalty. It is sure to be cherished by animal lovers everywhere."

Table of Contents:

1. The Way of the Owl
2. To That Which You Tame, You Owe Your Life
3. Owl Infancy
4. Barn Owl Toddler: Love Me, Love My Owl
5. Flying Lessons
6. Attack Kitten on Wings
7. Love to Eat Them Mousies
8. Understanding Each Other: Sound and Body Language
9. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
10. A Day in the Life of a Biologist
11. Owls Are Not Waterbirds
12. Deep Bonds
13. The Sex Tapes
14. Fifteen Years of Trust
15. Twilight: He Whom I Tamed Saves My Life
16. The End
17. After

My Take: A sweet, funny, and sad in unexpected places book. Bonus points for its actually including some interesting information about owl behavior, and for being a book Twig and I could enjoy together (well, serially, but still).

Another fluffy book

Yep, I'm back. #18 was Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter. In a word, awww. A sweet story for anyone who loves libraries and/or cats. I love both, so it's not too surprising that I enjoyed the book way more than I expected to.

Ostensibly, I checked this one out because my daughter loves animals, and I thought it would be something we'd enjoy reading together. Well, we did, sort of. After I read the first chapter aloud, E snagged the book, and spent most of the afternoon in her aerie tearing through it and chortling at regular intervals; I did the same Sunday afternoon. If, as I did, you somehow missed the national press the story received, Dewey is the true story of a kitten who, on a frigid January morning in 1988, was found shivering in the book drop of the Spencer, Iowa public library. After immediately charming the library's director (Myron, the book's principal author), he's adopted by its staff and patrons, and makes the library his home for the rest of his 19 years.

For the most part, this is an animal story. Cute kitten anecdotes abound: Dewey's taste for rubber bands and the library staffers' constant struggle to thwart it, his one and only great escape attempt, his enduring love affair with the Christmas tree. These could be saccharine, but aren't, really; the tone is simple and funny, with just a touch of down-home Midwestern. The cute cat stuff is also interspersed with details about the town and surrounding farm country, the library itself, and the author's own experiences growing up in a now-abandoned farm community, going on welfare to support her daughter after divorcing an alcoholic husband, and eventually returning to school for both bachelor's and master's degrees. Myron and Witter's prose is clear, warm, and genuine; the heartland corn pone comes on a little thick at times, but for the most part, it works.

The latter part of the story spends a bit too much time on detailing Dewey's rise to regional, national, and even international fame. Personally, I'd have preferred a bit less cataloging of all the interviewers, magazines, tourists, etc. that sought out Dewey, and more about how this notoriety affected the library staff, patrons, and community members. This is a minor quibble, though. Myron would probably call this good old-fashioned Iowa practicality, but this is a simple, warm-hearted story that (its title not withstanding) doesn't pretend to be anything more than what it is: a book about a cat, a library, and a small town. 4 out of 5 bookmarks.