The Ha-Ha by Dave King

Howard Kapostash has not spoken in thirty years. Sixteen days into his tour of duty in Vietnam, a land mine caused a blunt trauma injury to his head, and he was left without the ability to speak or to read. In recovery, Howard is told every day what a miracle it is he survived. Now, thirty years later, Howard is still just surviving. Years of therapy were grueling, and, when the results stopped coming, he quit. Now, he relies on a series of gestures and grunts to communicate with the few people he meets in his daily life.

Living in the house he grew up in with an oddly assorted set of roommates, Howard maintains only a handful of friendships, despite the fact that he is living in the town he never really left. The one constant in his life is Sylvia, and she is anything but constant. When Howard left for Vietnam, it was Sylvia’s picture he carried in his pocket. Their high school relationship is the only serious love affair he’s had, and thirty years later he is still pining for those carefree days. We get the impression right away that Sylvia has not exactly shed a tear over losing Howard, especially since she never lost him, just gave him up. Sylvia is a classic user – in every sense of the word.

As if Howard’s world wasn’t bleak enough, in bounces Sylvia, with a call in the middle of the night to ask Howard to watch her nine-year-old son Ryan, while she spends a little needed time in rehab. You can see where this is going – guy with issues meets needy kid, they bond, etc., etc. You might think this, and you’d be right. Dave King’s story, told through the tortured voice of Howard, is fairly predictable. While there are a few surprises, there is nothing shocking in the lessons learned and the relationships formed. But getting there is worth the read. Howard’s voice is heart-breaking, his denial of all the obvious signals Sylvia sends him about their relationship is painful, but there are moments of grace and beauty that make you root for him despite his ignorance.

Sylvia, on the other hand, is pretty much a caricature of every 12-stepper you’ve ever heard about. Her blatant disregard for Howard’s feelings is pretty over the top; despite his discounting her intentions and defending her indefensible positions. You are rooting for Howard, but you may want to kill Sylvia.

In any case, since this is not a thriller, I will say that the ending was satisfying – not your typical perfect ending with all the loose ends tied in a bow, but pretty enough. The roommates are carefully drawn, and Ryan is alive on every page. There are also some very good minor characters. I think what really drew me into the story was the idea that these people (not Sylvia) are basically good, and they are trying, each day, to put a little more goodness out in the world. Before Ryan came into the picture, Howard did not believe his life could make a difference. And, corny as that sounds, I enjoyed, for once, reading a book about people who had their faults, but tried, each day, to make things a little better for someone else.

Incendiary by Chris Cleave

After reading Little Bee and appreciating the writing of Chris Cleave I came across another of his novels. Once again he writes in a female voice in Incendiary, the story of a British woman who writes a letter to Osama Bin Laden after suicide bombers have blown up a soccer stadium in England, a stadium where her husband and son where attending a game. The book is framed as a letter about the life he took away from her, and it's not a pretty picture.

Not much sunshine and happy endings here as one might expect after reading Little Bee. The narrator, whose name is never mentioned, nor her husband or son, has occasionally strayed during her marriage (because of 'nerves' she says) and in fact during the tragic soccer match she was... how do i put this delicately.. literally in the middle of a liason with someone when the explosion occurred. In our book group we had some critical comments about how he treated some of his female characters and I would have the same issues with this character and the depiction of her and how she has lots of sex (!) in this story...

After the loss of her family she is a shell of a person, sleeping with married men, finding comfort where she can. London is in turmoil after the attack and her life goes downhill as well.

Yes, a depressing book. Don't know if I'd recommend it but I did read on the book jacket that they've already made a movie out of it with Michelle Williams as the main character and Ewan mcGregor as her co-star. Beth, I think you'd approve of the casting.

Off to Rhode Island tomorrow so this short and a a bit all over the place.. Don't forget to send book recommendations my way.. Have a great summer y'all!

Half Life by Shelley Jackson

I just finished reading Half Life, by Shelley Jackson. This was definitely one of those back of the Barnes & Noble bargains that I bought for the cool cover. I can admit that. I cannot admit how long it took me to read this book. Suffice it to say that other books were red concurrently, or I would be completely off my goal of a book a week. Sadly, despite how much I really did not enjoy most of this book, I kept reading, because I had invested so many hours into it by the time I started thinking about shelving it. I found, for the first time, that I had read a book that I could not recommend to anyone I knew, despite the varied interests of my friends and family.

Shelly Jackson is apparently one of those people who is good at many things – art, writing, electronic literature, even creating a novel called Skin, published in tattoos on the skin of more than two thousand volunteers. Ok, really, I should have read all of this on the back cover before I started reading. Instead, I was duped by the short quote front and center on the book, “Truly Glorious” from the New York Times Book Review. Unfortunately for me, they did not include the entire quote, which apparently praised Jackson's ambition as "truly glorious," but also added that "All this razzle-dazzle, all the allusions, [and] the narrative loop-de-loops [get] a bit busy.” I think they may have been a tad gentle, even in that. Jackson describes herself as a "student in the art of digression", and honestly, she is not kidding. There are so many digressions here that when the story actually picks up you find yourself saying, oh, yeah, that’s what this was about.

In any case, the title of the story is only a small clue about what’s to come, but it is a clever one. Since the scientific meaning of half life is the amount of time a substance undergoing decay takes to decrease by half (thanks Mrs. McGurty’s seventh grade science, and Wikipedia for the refresher), it is an interesting twist that the novel is actually about a Siamese twin who would like to get rid of her extra head. Yes, I know you are probably saying, why did you ever pick up this book? And you would be right. The actual premise is that the atomic bomb caused a genetic mutation that resulted in a significant amount of conjoined twin births – so much so that as Nora grows up she and Blanche are almost in the majority. There are different groups pro and con the “decapitation” she is trying to undergo, and the whole thing just gets crazier from there.

I felt, while reading this, that the author got way too involved in her own little world when she was writing this. Kind of reminded me of all those people who actually speak the language Tolkien created for Lord of the Rings. Despite all this, there were glimpses of a great mind, and a great writer, at work. Her observations were often thought-provoking and sometimes amazing, but there is just too much going on here for me.

Serena by Ron Rash

Reading Serena after the Magician’s Elephant is like reading The Silence of the Lambs after Goodnight Moon. Ok, I haven’t read the Silence of the Lambs, too scary for me, but you know what I mean. I read Serena for a new book club I am hoping to join.

I was drawn into this story right away, and that is sad, because the characters are really despicable. Serena is absolutely starved for redeeming qualities – don’t look for them, she has none. For the first five minutes of the book, you are thinking oh, how nice, this lovely newlywed couple is on a train to their new home in North Carolina. But then, there is a slight sense of doom, and, before you know it someone is dead. I will spare you the gory details, but Ron Rash does not.

At first I had the feeling Serena was going to be like an Ayn Rand character, Dagny Taggert, or the female Howard Roark. Her husband, George Pemberton, unfortunately displays none of those qualities, and, in the end, is just unbelievably. We debated in the book club if he was really stupid, or just resigned to his fate – either way he comes out flat. There is a backstory for Serena that is never fully explained, and, rather than making her more intriguing, it just gets annoying. Her character is about as one-dimensional as they come.

There are qualities of the book that I really did enjoy. In the historical context, Serena and her husband are lumber barons, stripping the land of North Carolina, not long after the stock market crash. The laborers are desperate for work, but, at the same time, the government and some powerful allies (the Vanderbilts, Horace Kephart, Roosevelt) are planning to enforce eminent domain to gain back the land for the National Park System. Besides the very interesting history of the park creation, I learned the many ways a man can die cutting down a tree!

Having said that, the drama is fast-paced, and Ron Rash really is a beautiful writer, when he’s describing the rugged mountains of North Carolina. There are engaging characters – Rachel, the mother of Pemberton’s bastard child, the Greek chorus of workers who comment on their paranoid bosses, and a few other nice people, mostly all dead by the end (including the completely gratuitous killing of an old widow woman who never bothered anyone!). Not sure what else to say. I heard they’re making a movie of this (of course they are, can’t have too many psychopathic female lumber barons on screen!) Angelina Jolie is allegedly playing the part, and, for some reason, I think that’s just perfect.

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Stegner's language is just beautiful. In "Crossing" when Larry Morgan says of his wife, "Sally has a smile I would accept as my last view of earth," it just makes you stop for a second and appreciate this amazing writer.

Larry and Sally Morgan, an English college professor and housewife, respectively, are newly married and newly arrived at a university in Wisconsin when they meet the force that is Sid and Charity Lang, he a professor as well. They are completely captivated with the Langs. More from Stegner: "We straggled into Madison, Wisconsin, western orphans and the Langs adopted us into their numerous, rich, powerful, reassuring tribe. We wandered into their orderly Newtonian universe, a couple of asteroids, and they captured us with their gravitational pull and made moons of us and fixed us in orbit around themselves."

Through the years the 2 couples become deeply involved in each other's lives, from the Lang's beloved home and 'camp' in Vermont to a year in Florence together to the very end and everywhere in between, their friendship survived heartbreak and tragedy.

Stegner isn't everyones cup of tea but I just revel in his use of words and his characters.

The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

I have to admit that as my daughters get older, I try to impose my reading wish lists on them. Sometimes it’s a chore, but other times I only have to make the suggestion and they are right on board. Any book by Kate DiCamillo is an easy sell.

We have had The Magician’s Elephant sitting on the shelf since Christmas, and I was eager to read it. (Partly because the “grown-up” books I am reading are somehow not as alluring as this right now.) I wasn’t sure if it would be too dark for them (6 and 8), because the cover looked a little ominous. But I trust Kate DiCamillo as if she’s a close personal friend. Surely anyone who gave us Edward Tulane and Mercy Watson will not scare my little girls! I did not even feel the urge to read ahead, just in case.

The story is simple, and even a little predictable, but it is wonderful. Reading it aloud is even better. Her language is so beautiful, the characters are so real, and even their names are fun to say. DiCamillo has an amazing gift for making even the most despicable characters sympathetic. She is also able, in a relatively short amount of time, to introduce a large cast of unique and complicated people. My girls began to recite lines each night they knew certain characters would say (“I intended only lilies”); and we decided this is the perfect answer for whenever you get caught doing something wrong.

Peter Augustus Duchene lives in the attic apartment of Vilna Lutz, an aging war veteran who took him in after his father was killed in action, and his mother died giving birth to his sister. Lutz has been raising the pint-sized soldier alone, and he is doing the best he can, which is to say, not much. A fortuneteller comes to the small city of Baltese, and Peter knows she will answer one question only, so he must be careful what he asks. “Does my sister live?” Vilna Lutz has told him she was stillborn, but Peter’s memories are becoming more persistent, and he is coming to an age where he does not believe everything Vilna Lutz tells him anymore.

The fortuneteller’s answer startles him, despite how prepared he thought he was for it. “An elephant will lead you to her.” In Baltese! A city of people who have never even seen an elephant! But Peter does not hear any of that, only this: she LIVES! And he will find her.

I don’t think I have ever read such a joy-filled story to my children. At the end, they laughed aloud at the wonder and beauty and perfection of it all, and, of course, I cried. “She lives” – two simple words that set in motion one boy’s search that will change the lives of everyone he meets along the way.

The House on Salt Hay Road by Carin Clevidence

For years I've been sitting on the front porch of our summer house in Portsmouth, RI (the same house that Jim's mom, now 82, went to as a little girl) looking out on the Narragannset Bay, beyond the lighthouse towards Hog and Prudence Islands. Both are small islands, just a few miles long and 1/2 or so mile wide, filled nicely in the summer months with 'summer folk' and nearly depleted in the winter months. I have always been fascinated with the 'year rounders' those who make their living off of the ocean and send their kids to the one room school house. They must shun those who tumble in for July and August, hiring the women to clean their houses and the men to maintain them. Residents have to take a ferry to get supplies beyond what the one small grocery store in town can provide.

Another writer, Katherine Towler, has written 2 books about Prudence Island, Evening Ferry and Snow Island. I devoured both of them, reading on our front lawn, lying on my blanket and looking over at the very island she was writing about. How when summers are magical, winters nearly unbearable, but the hearts and souls of the 'islanders' remained on that place even if they long to escape.

Salt Hay Road takes place on Long Island's Fire Neck 'just east of Southease' in the late 1930s and is the story of a splintered family living together by happenstance. Mavis and Roy are brother and sister, both mid-aged and broken hearted, neither able to make a life for themselves beyond the place they have lived nearly all of their lives, their father, Scudder, who spent his early years rescuing cargo and people from boats shipwrecked on the island and his orphaned grandchildren, Nancy and Clayton.

Nancy wants to get off of the island and sees her chance when a young man comes to visit one summer. She wants to take Clayton with her to Boston but he refuses to go, Fire Neck is his home and its beaches, fishing boats and sandy dunes are his passion.

When the (real) hurricane of 1938 hits their island and home tragedy strikes and the splintered family is blown apart.

I loved this book, the '38 hurricane hit our house as well, though it wasn't swept away like many other homes were. As I close my eyes and think of those islands across the bay I'd like to think that not much has changed since back then. Undoubtedly folks built their homes back up and went back to their lives as usual.
A good read .. first novel by this author. Recommended if you're on the beach and want to escape to another time and place.

Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott

I know I don't have to sing the praises of Anne Lamott to readers here! Reprising characters from Rosie and Crooked Little Heart, she tackles teenage drug abuse in this book. Rosie, now a senior in high school, lives with her mom Elizabeth, a recovering alcoholic and her stepfather, James, a novelist and contributor to NPR radio. She's grown up to be an outstanding student and a natural beauty, trouble is she is also a drug addict. She'll try any drug that comes her way and sleep with almost anyone willing to offer it to her. Her parents live in a world where denial is the 4th member of their family at the dinner table and if Rosie tries a little weed, sometimes smells of alcohol, has valium stuck in her jeans pocket and keeps condoms in her tennis racquet case, well that's just what kids do, isn't it? This line from the NY Times book review should send a chill down the spines of every mom or dad :The parents are regularly and convincingly lied to, then later derided for having believed those very lies. “You had to feel sorry for Elizabeth,” Rosie thinks, with something approaching real sympathy. “Getting tricked like that all the time, like a child.”

Scary reading this as a parent, wanting to always give your kids the benefit of the doubt ('the pills weren't mine'.. 'everyone else is drinking'.. 'i just tried pot a few times'). When Rosie's world comes crashing down and her mother finally comes to terms with her daughter's problem, drastic steps are taken, deep pain is felt and expressed, but healing begins.

A very powerful story. It's official, I'm jumping on the Anne Lamott fan bus! (And can't wait to finally read 'Operating Instructions' this summer!!)