The Uncoupling yields to sentiment

Book 55: The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer

Savagery, not sentiment, is expected from the merciless pen of the satirist. 

Yet sentiment, hope, optimism are exactly what we get from Meg Wolitzer in The Uncoupling. The delicious promise offered in the novel's premise -- when all the women in a New Jersey town stop having sex -- is never realized because the normally reliable Wolitzer pulls her punches.

Instead of skewering her characters, she permits them a happy ending. And with this novel that is surely the most disappointing and unlikely ending an author could conceive.

Wolitzer deftly uses a touch of magical realism to set up the story. There is a new drama teacher at the local high school and she decides to stage the Greek play Lysistrata.  In the play, written by Aristophanes, the women stop having sex to end war.

In The Uncoupling. the women stop having sex because they are touched by a weird cold wind -- somehow a product of the high school's production of Lysistrata. The cold wind affects women of every age and station from a middle-aged high school teacher in a model marriage to her daughter, an awkward young women just experiencing her first taste of young love.

When the sex stops, the men do not respond well. They become distant, withdrawn, surly. Some are quick to take offense, while others go on the attack. They say things, rude and offensive, that are meant to hurt.

It is a mistake to assume that The Uncoupling is simply about the differences between the sexes. Those differences are naturally a part of the story. The men miss sex. They really miss it. For the women, the absence of sex surfaces more as a memory of an activity that alternated between duty and pleasure.

In delivering her happy ending, Wolitzer suggests that sex (which is restored) is only a component of the necessary intimacy between man and woman. 

"These people . . . had no idea how to conduct their love lives," Wolitzer wrties. "They let everything fall into comfort or indifference or chaos or disrepair. They'd had no innate sense of how to protect the thing they claimed to care about above all else -- and instead they'd found many, many ways to let it rot. Some people seemed fine, seemed happy and contented with each other, and for the moment they actually were. But you knew that it was only a matter of time--months, years, it depended on the individuals--until their relationships began to erode just like everyone else's. So Fran Heller saved them all from themselves."

It seems too pat, too neat; take sex way for a time and then restore it and all is well. Surely some of the distance that developed in a relationship, some of the bitter words, would leave a more lasting residue. Sadly, The Uncoupling is a bit too optimistic to ring true. 

Tepper's The Waters Rising a blend of fantasy and science fiction

Book 54: The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper

Sheri Tepper combines two genres and adds a unique twist on an old convention to produce a spellbinding story of humanity's efforts to save itself from certain destruction in The Waters Rising.

The destruction facing humanity lies both ahead and behind.  Ahead are the rising waters from the earth's core that will soon swallow the earth, and mankind, in a watery grave. Behind is a terminator-like creature, both man and machine, loose on an relentless campaign to destroy humanity.  

The Waters Rising melds elements of fantasy and science fiction in a post-apocalyptic tale that could only emerge from the pen from this incomparable storyteller.

On a journey to perform a sacred mission in the homeland she has never seen, Xulai discovers that there is a second mission for her carry out. And this mission, the culmination of generations of planning, holds the fate of humanity its balance. 

At her side is Abasio, a mysterious wanderer with a talking horse, whose fate is inextricably entwined with Xulai and her mission to save mankind.

From The Gate to Women's Country to Grass to The Family Tree to The Margarets, Tepper's fans have come to expect a rich, complex story filled with vivid characters. The Waters Rising will not leave them disappointed. It is a powerful tale of sacrifice and hope in a future not that far removed from our own.

Just Kids just great

Book 53: Just Kids by Patti Smith

In her award-winning memoir, Just Kids,  Patti Smith makes it evident that her creative force is boundless, her artistry peerless.

Smith, mostly widely known as the "Godmother of Punk," originally saw herself as an artist. She also dabbled on the stage, wrote poetry and experimented with visual art before launching her career as a punk rocker with the release of her influential 1975 debut album, Horses.

Such creative range suggests that no one should be surprised that Smith is also a talented writer.  Yet her memoir, which won the 2010 Nation Book Award for non-fiction, is surprising for its depth, maturity and insight. This is work of such ease and command that you would only expect it from the pen of someone who had been writing books their entire life. 

Just Kids charts her tumultuous relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The pair met in New York City, instantly become close friends and lovers soon thereafter. Both were determined to carve out a career in the arts.  Both proved a source of support and inspiration for the other as they struggled to find their voice and an audience in the toughest city in the world. 

Just Kids is a love story. Yet it's most intimate moments are reserved for its rare glimpse into the growth and development of two artists.  It is also a voyeuristic look at the broad New York City art community in the 1970s.  Rockers Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and playwright Sam Shepard are among the artist who populate this book.

I have never listened to Patti Smith's music.  I knew her name and that she was punk rocker. I knew nothing more until I read this luminous memoir of love and art.

Just Kids is just great.

Twice A Spy has one improbability too many

Book 52: Twice A Spy by Keith Thomson 

In some thrillers the reader is asked to accept a certain level of improbability.  The problem with Keith Thomson's Twice A Spy is that it is filled with more improbabilities than the reader -- at least this one -- are willing to support.

The first improbability, introduced in Thomson's first novel, Once A Spy, is that although former CIA agent Drummond Clark has Alzheimer's he can continue to function at a high level. His skills as an agent kicking in to meet the demands of each perilous situation. He just can't remember a damn thing.

In this sequel, Clark and his son, Charlie, remain on the lam from the CIA who want to kill Clark because they're afraid his Alzheimer's will lead him to divulge sensitive information about an undercover operations he once operated.

Functioning at a high level means, among other things, that Clark can escape from almost any situation  even though he can't remember what he had for breakfast.  Functioning-despite-Alzheimer's is improbability number one. The Clarks' ability to escape, escape again and, yes, escape yet again is improbability number two.

The third improbability -- and this is where the scales tipped for me -- is that Charlie, a horse track habitue and general wastrel, seems to have his father's skills when it comes to espionage.  Whether this is due to a particular genetic strain or osmosis isn't clear.

What's clear to me is that Charlie's abilities, which are clearly going to be the focus of future books, are one improbability too many.

Thomson's books are entertaining, but there are so many thrillers that are better, which don't stretch our credulity to the breaking point, that I can't make the case for Twice A Spy.

How to purchase Flyover People

Cheryl Unruh's book, Flyover People, can be purchased from Quincy Press.

Flyover People conjures memories of a Kansas childhood

We’re 10 days into May and I am only now, with this post, wrapping up all the books I read through the end of April.  I’ve dispatched four books so far in May and I will get to them.

Warning to unwary readers: A substantial number of endnotes accompany this post.

Book 51: Flyover People by Cheryl Unruh

Some books are personally meaningful because of their content. They speak to us. Inspire us. Instruct us. 

We treasure others books because they were a gift from someone special. To pick up the book is to instantly conjure the giftgiver.

Flyover People by Cheryl Unruh is meaningful on both counts.

The book, subtitled Life on the Ground in a Rectangular State¹, was a gift from a great friend, a man who is as close to me as my own brothers. A book from him always warrants my attention.

Flyover People is also special because it is about my home state of Kansas. It is a collection of essays – loosely gathered under such as headings as Seasons, Nature, Looking Back, Small Towns and Earth and Sky – that Unruh² originally wrote for her column in The Emporia Gazette.³ Her column, whose subject is almost always Kansas, makes Unruh a latter day Peggy of the Flint Hills⁴.

Unruh grew up in the small Kansas town of Pawnee Rock. She is not only a native Kansan, but a true Kansan. I know this because Unruh is one of the few people who finds beauty in the Flint Hills – as do I. 

Most people, speeding through Kansas as they drive from one side of the country to the other, view the state as an unwelcome but necessary span they must traverse. They view the Flint Hills, one of the world’s last remaining tall grass prairies, as bleak and desolate. 

It is neither. But to see its beauty, as with much of Kansas, requires both time and a closer inspection than people are willing to give. Unruh take that time for us. Through her essays, I am able to revisit the state that my wife and I left nine years ago after living there for almost half a century.

Unruh’s essays evoke pleasant memories. She brings to life a place and a people I know so well. In reading Flyover People I recall my childhood in a small Kansas town, my tree house, my parent’s restaurant, my grandparents farm, working the wheat harvest from sunup to sundown, courting my wife, raising our family, working beneath the Capitol dome in Topeka.⁵

My father and brothers still call Kansas home. My mother, sister and grandparents lie beneath its soil.

My wife and I left Kansas, but it has not left us. Our experiences growing up, the state’s people and its history⁶, the way it is portrayed in film (I sorta hate Dorothy) shaped us, as did its landscape. There are few trees in Kansas and although is not literally flat it certainly appears to be so. This means Kansans are well acquainted with sunrise and sunset. The horizon is always before us. 

“We are the lucky ones,” Unruh writes, “for every day our eyes rest naturally upon the horizon, that thin line of magic that holds together the heaven and the earth.” 

Kansans are like that landscape. They're open. You see them coming. They’ll give you a hearty wave and warm hello whether they know you or not. They are generous, big-hearted people who know that the true antidote to hardship⁷ is a helping hand. They are people who care deeply about family and friends. They are people of vision, but practical too. Heads in the sky⁸, feet planted firmly in the deep, rich soil.

Unruh’s essays reminded me of all this. Her essays provide a rich experience for Kansans, wherever they now live. Yet it isn't necessary to be a Kansan to enjoy Unruh's writing. Her essays will be appreciated by anyone who has a deep understanding of the importance of place, an awareness of how landscape can shape a man or woman.

Flyover People reminded me of who I am and will always be – a Kansan.

 

¹The title and subtitle are a reference to the reality that if you’re not driving through Kansas to get somewhere else, you’re flying over it. We’re not a destination for many. The title also conjures memories of Vern Miller, a latter day Carrie Nation, who as Attorney General tried to stop airlines from serving alcohol while they flew over the state. The airlines, Miller contended, were in violation of the Kansas liquor laws.

²Unruh is a graduate of the University of Kansas as am I. We both have degrees in English. She also studied education. I also took journalism classes. I wonder if Unruh attended Calder Pickett’s History of American Journalism. One of the requirements of the class was to read William Allen White’s autobiography. He was the publisher of the Emporia Gazette.

³Emporia is on the edge of the Kansas Flint Hills. At the turn of the 20^th Century, the Gazette was owned and edited by William Allen White, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and confidante of Teddy Roosevelt. Under White’s leadership the Gazette was one arguably the most influential small-town newspaper in the nation.

⁴Peggy of the Flint Hills was Zula Bennington Greene. Her column appeared in the Topeka Capital-Journal and other Kansas newspapers regularly over a span of 60 years. I once worked as a reporter and editor at the C-J.

⁵ I worked in the Kansas statehouse for more than a dozen years, serving two secretaries of state and one governor. I think I have been in every inch of that stately building from the basement with its huge limestone walls to the narrow, winding staircase that leads to the top of the dome and a stunning view of Topeka. My wife once wrote and recorded the jingle used by the Kansas Department of Commerce to promote the state.

⁶ Kansas was a free state in the pre-Civil War days. Our enmity toward Missouri, which emerges these days in a rivalry between the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri, traces to the time when bushwackers from Missouri tinkered with our politics, murdered our citizens and burned our cities. There are many variants on the proper pronunciation of Missouri. I prefer Miz-ery.

⁷Yes, Kansas is swept by tornadoes in spring, summer and fall. There are few tornadoes in winter, but there are blizzards, sleet and whiteouts. Kansas also experiences drought, heat, humidity and hailstorms of biblical proportions. Settling this land took people of determination. Our state motto is Ad Astra Per Astra -- to the stars through difficulties.  

⁸Literally. Clyde Tombaugh who discovered Pluto, now referred to as a “dwarf” planet (but not in Kansas I’d wager) grew up in Burdett. Shuttle astronaut Steve Hawley called Salina home. Amelia Earhart was a Kansas girl.

When the Killing's Done a provocative novel

Book 50: When the Killing’s Done by T.C. Boyle

Arrogance and anger fuel the deeply flawed characters that vie for the right to decide the fate of the animals inhabiting two of California's northern Channel Islands in T.C. Boyle's engrossing When The Killing's Done.

Arrogance belongs to Alma Takesue, a National Park Service biologist, who is determined to clear the islands, Anacapa and Santa Cruz, of invasive species so that the endangered native population might flourish. On Anacapa, Takesue commands efforts to rid the island of rats that have come ashore via shipwrecks. On Santa Cruz, the target is feral pigs.

Anger drives Dave LaJoy, owner of a chain of high-end electronic stores, who is determined to oppose Takesue at every turn.  LaJoy dated Takesue once briefly, but their night out did not go well.  One wonders if his campaign to oppose the park service is because of the abortive romance or because he genuinely believes that the lives of all animals -- even the unwanted island invaders -- is worthy of protection. 

When the Killing's Done pits romance against reason, science vs. belief. Takesue is guided by reason and facts as she sees them. She is convinced that the logic of her argument will sway a rational listener. But the dreadlocked LaJoy is not a rational man. Boyle gives us Takesue's backstory, but not LaJoy's. We do not know the source of his anger, only that it is liable to boil into a violent confrontation at any moment.

The animals of Anacapa and Santa Cruz, whether unwanted invader or failing native, fade into the background as Takesue and LaJoy wage their battle for supremacy of the islands. Their shadowy presence lies at the essence of Boyle's message -- if the two characters are both deeply committed to the natural world could they not sit down and find a way to collaborate, to wrest a win-win from their confrontation.

Perhaps, but Takesue and LaJoy are so committed to their own viewpoint, their own ideology, that they are incapable of seeing merit in the other's stand, however principled or well intentioned. The fate of the animals seems to matter less than winning.

As we've come to expect from his work, Boyle has written a provocative novel that raises far more questions than it answers.  Those questions linger long after the reader has finished this fine novel.

Wonder a work of moral complexity

Book 49: Wonder by Robert J. Sawyer 

Since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a significant body of science fiction has explored the moral consequences of scientific endeavor. Other writers, Robert Sawyer among them, have extended the genre's exploration of moral consequences to decisions made by individuals, governments and humanity writ large.

In his most recent novel, Wonder, Sawyer concludes that humanity is doing just fine, thank you.

Wonder, part of a trilogy that began with Wake and Watch, examines what might happen when the Internet wakes up.  There is a long tradition of speculation among writers about what the emergence of an A.I. -- artificial intelligence -- might mean to the fate of humanity.

Mainly, the speculation is that a sentient machine is not good for humanity.  Recall Hal 9000 from Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Colossus by D.F. Jones (both which became films) or, in film,The Matrix. One of the characters in Wonder asks, Why are the representations of a sentient machine, in books and film, always evil?

Sawyer ask that question too in the course of the trilogy. His A.I., dubbed Webmind, is benevolent. First discovered and then tutored by a teenage girl, Caitlin Decter, the Webmind, is committed to aiding the advancement of humankind.

In the course of the novel Webmind cures cancer, sets to work eliminating AIDs, brings Democracy to China and is willing -- and most capable -- of serving as Dear Abby to millions of human on a one-to-one basis. Settling merely for an appearance on Jeopardy is far from this clever machine's mind.

Caitlin is one of Sawyer's most fully drawn characters. Her and her family (her father is autistic) and cast of school friends add richness to Sawyer's novel and help us to understand what the emergence of an A.I. might mean to a man rather than the collective mankind.  There is, for example, a scene late in the book when a high school bully who is threatening Caitlin's boyfriend is cowed by the "light" and enlightenment that Webmind has brought to the world.

Caitlin's mother, Barb, and Webmind engage is a "chat" about a moral arrow, the concept that through time humans have progressively widened the circle of entities they consider worthy of moral consideration -- men of other races, women, gays, the unborn, animals and, naturally in Wonder, a sentient machine. (It's also worth noting that Sawyer launched this moral arrow a long ago in others books where the moral arrow has encompassed aliens and Neanderthals.)

Not that everything in Wonder is sunshine and roses.  Whether it's a schoolyard bully, a zoo that wishes to neuter an exceptionally intelligent ape, oppression in China or a heavy-handed American government that fears what it doesn't understand, Sawyer acknowledges wildly varying levels of moral development. The tension in Wonder derives from our government's efforts to destroy Webmind before "he" becomes too powerful.

Sawyer delivers a thoughtful, entertaining exploration of what the emergence of a sentient machine might mean to the humanity. His approach -- to humanity's fate and to a machine that's smarter than us all -- is a rarity in the annals of science fiction.

For as we've come to expect from this author, Wonder is a work of moral complexity, filled with optimism and hope.

The Death of Sweet Mister a violent aria by a noir master

Book 48: The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell

"Him joining the group changed the feel of it the way one lit match does suddenly change the feel in a hay barn."

That sentence, with its odd, little rhythm and construction, which produces an awkward, yet stately tone, hiding the latent violence of the moment before laying it bare, is vintage Daniel Woodrell.

Woodrell, who sets his noir masterpieces in the Ozarks that he calls home, commands violence with the skill of a concert pianist.  The actual physical violence in Woodrell's The Death of Sweet Mister is limited or off the page.  But like the lit match in the barn, the threat of an explosion -- the suggestion that a quiet moment can become deadly in an instant -- is always present. And it is the threat of violence, its very imminence, that is Woodrell's canvass.

The "Him" in the quote above is Red, a particular unsavory piece of work, who inhabits violence like most men inhabit their skin. Red strikes out at his girlfriend, Glenda, or punches her teenage son, Shuggie, in the stomach with disturbing casualness. 

Perhaps even more disturbing is Red's constant verbal attacks on Shuggie, recruiting the boy to steal drugs from the home of sick men and women recently discharged from the hospital or his easy disregard for the boy's presence when he is having sex with Glenda or some other women.

Red is one of those men who wants what he wants when he wants. And when he's denied his desires, violence is his default setting.

But this story belongs to Shuggie, its narrator. His mother affectionately calls him her "Sweet Mister".  Shuggie despises Red and fears him, yet he is one of boy's few male role models. There is no other male figure in Shuggie's life to suggest that there are other ways to behave. 

The suggestion of violence is palpable throughout this slender novel.  The actual violence is tame by most stanrdards -- to a point.  And that point is reached in the novel's final pages when Shuggie undergoes a terrible and violence transformation.

A transformation that does, indeed, lead to the death of Sweet Mister.

Bird Cloud by Annie Proulx a mildly diverting work

Book 47:  Bird Cloud by Annie Proulx

A melange of memoir, family history, western lore and nature writing, Bird Cloud by Annie Proulx is a mildly diverting work of non-fiction that, even at its best, never approaches the brilliance of her most notable fiction.

At its heart, and recalling nothing so much as Tracy Kidder's 1985 House, is an account of Proulx's efforts to build her dream house on a Wyoming clifftop.  Few human undertakings as fraught with frustration and drama as having a new house built. All the more true when the new house is located on Wyoming cliff that is scoured by unceasing wind and beset by harsh winters that grip the land for much of the year.  

Bird Cloud, which is what Proulx calls her 640 acres of raw Wyoming land, has moments when it is both interesting and entertaining. For me, Proulx's account of the construction of the house -- the battles between the architect and the builders over design and what really works, the rising costs and the ultimate realization that she can't inhabit the house during the worst of Wyoming's winter months are the best parts of the book.

Unfortunately, Proulx fills the relatively small book (slightly more than 200 pages) with such an assortment of material that it leaves the reader constantly unsettled.  Become enthralled with the challenges of building the house and you are suddenly immersed in observing the wildlife that populate Bird Cloud. Become intrigued by that and you're off again on some new tangent that, inevitably, is more interest to the writer than the reader.

All in all, I would have preferred a series of magazine articles on each of the disparate elements of this book. That would have provided a series of more satisfying reads. It would not, however, have helped offset the increasing cost of Proulx's dream house turned nightmare as the author is clearly hoping this book will do.

Connelly on top of his game in The Fifth Witness

To quote Randy Newman, "Baby, I'm guilty." I am six books in arrears on my posts. That's due to the arrival of Portal 2 two weeks ago.  Yep, I chose playing a video game over blogging.

Now that the game has been dispatched (the single player at least), I can turn my attention to the stack of books on my computer table. Here's the first:

Book 46: The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly

I do not know how Michael Connelly does it.  For years, the former journalist has written one best seller after another. His novels, which manage to be both popular and critically acclaimed, were largely police procedurals featuring L.A. homicide detective Harry Bosch.  There was also the occasional one-off.

In 2005, with The Lincoln Lawyer, Connelly introduced a new character and a new direction. The character was a clever and charismatic defensive attorney, Mickey Haller. The new direction was the courtroom drama. Somehow, Connelly didn't miss a beat. The Lincoln Lawyer -- now, as they say, a major motion picture -- was one of Connelly's best books.

Last year, in The Reversal, Connelly did his own version of World's Finest or Marvel Team-Up, pairing Bosch and Haller in a riveting story that had Haller working for the prosecution. 

Haller returns for a solo gig in The Fifth Witness, and he's back as a defense attorney. His client, a woman losing her home to due to foreclosure, is accused of killing an employee of the bank that held the mortgage.

Haller doesn't care if his client is innocent or guilty. The reader does and Connelly laces the book with clues as to who killed the banker.  Clues I didn't notice until the end of the book when Haller and I arrived at a similar conclusion.

The courtroom drama isn't my favorite sub-genre of mystery.  I find so much of the inside the court goings-on a tad tedious. Not with Connelly.  He has full command of the material -- never letting things get stale or boring. He has full command of the pace and characterization too.

Connelly reaches the bestseller list book after book because he's a masterly writer. Police procedural or courtroom drama, it doesn't seem to matter.

I don't know how he does it, but I am exceptionally glad he does.

Challenge Update

A quick update on one of my 2011 reading challenges: With the completion of The Welsh Girl I am halfway through the challenge, issued by The Roof Beam Reader.

The 2011 TBR (To Be Read) Pile Challenge is to read 12 books from your to-be-read pile in 12 months. The challenge began in February, so I am in good position after three months, although three of the largest books remain to be read.

This is where I stand:

1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
2. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
3. War and Peace by Mr. Tolstoy
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
5. The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker
6. Under the Dome by Stephen King
7. White Noise by Don Delillo
8. Yogi Berra Eternal Yankee by Allen Barra
9. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
10. Winter in the Blood by James Welch
11. Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
12. Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson

Alternates:
Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz
Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich

On The Welsh Girl and Run!

Book 44: The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies

Davies begins this World War II novel -- his first -- with one story, switches to another that takes up most of the book only to return to his original story in the closing pages.

The connection between the opening-closing story and that of the Welsh Girl, which takes up most of the book and from which its title is drawn, is slender and the creative reason for Davies' decision to merge them into one novel still eludes this reader.

The central story, that of 17-year-old Esther Evans, who helps her father on the family farm during the day and works at the local pub as a bar maid at night, is not terribly original.

Esther is pregnant.  That's the only spoiler I'll let escape me in this post. The father is either a). the earnest local boy who proposed before leaving for the war, b). an English soldier posted in Wales who frequents the pub where Esther works, or c). a German prisoner of war who briefly escapes his confinement.

The second story -- the one that opens and closes the book -- is about a German-Jew who fled Germany before the outbreak of war and is now aiding the Allied effort. His work leads him to interrogate a British prisoner -- the notorious Nazi Rudolf Hess.

Davies is a gifted writer, but the story -- makes that stories -- that populate The Welsh Girl are neither compelling nor particularly original.

Book 45:  Run! by Dean Karnazes 

As a runner of more than 30 years, I am of two minds about Dean Karnazes and his book Run!

My first is that Karnazes's writing is clearly inspirational and that it motivates people to take up a more active lifestyle. But not necessarily a healthier lifestyle, and that's my problem with Karnazes's book.

Karnazes is not simply an endurance athlete, but an extreme endurance athlete. Emphasis on the extreme. A marathon is a walk around the park for him. He doesn't really break a sweat until he's got 100 miles under his belt or run across the Gobi Desert or the Sahara or Antarctica.

I admire Karnazes for his undertakings, but they are beyond most people. I've run four marathons, finished each one and ended up in the med tent receiving an IV after three of the four. And I was hospitalized for heat prostration training for a fifth.

Karnazes encourages people to take up a more active lifestyle, but he also writes blithely of friends, who have never run before, jumping in and running nine, 10 or 11 miles with him. That's the way to injury and it's not the way most of us start a successful training program.

My thought is that Karnazes's books -- he's written two -- should have a large red warning sticker affixed to the coverage: Danger compelling tales of extreme endurance.  I recognize that such a warning is only likely to incite more people to blindly follow his lead, but it might cause a few more cautious souls to embark on a saner, safer fitness regimen.

Townie naked in its candor

Book 43: Townie by Andre Dubus III

It's not remarkable that Andre Dubus III became a successful writer.  It is remarkable that he ever lived to do so.

In Townie, Dubus charts his journey from an impoverished childhood filled with the constant threat of violence to his first tender efforts at writing to his successful career as an author and his marriage and the birth of his children.

A significant part of the memoir is devoted to his relationship with his father, the celebrated author Andre Dubus.  Dubus the elder was missing from large chunks of his children's lives. His role as a writer and teacher took precedence over that of father and husband.

Curiously, for such a perceptive writer, Dubus the elder seemed largely oblivious to the impact of his absence in his children's lives.  He is puzzled to learn that Dubus the younger has never thrown a baseball or does not know who the Red Sox are. He is also unaware that his children rarely have enough to eat, that they roam the neighborhood unattended, experimenting with alcohol and other drugs or that his two sons live in fear of beatings by older, stronger boys.

It is those beatings, and the fear of them, that initially shape Dubus the younger.  He begins to work out with free weights and learns to box.  Even as he learns to defend himself, he struggles with an interior rage born of fear, anger, a deep-rooted sense of injustice and -- one can only guess -- his father's absence. 

Townie is the story of how Dubus the younger comes to terms with his rage through writing. It is also a story of how he comes to term with a father who more of a pal than a dad.  Dubus's father was not there to teach his son baseball or to fill an amazing lacuna of knowledge that most of us simply take for granted.

But Dubus did bequeath his son talent as a writer and, more importantly, the confidence to explore that talent and to find his unique voice as an author.

Throughout the book, Dubus the younger talks of acquaintances imprisoned or dead.  Near the end of the memoir he stumbles on the graveyard of a teenage running mate who was stabbed to death in his twenties. A reader can't escape the sense that Dubus was spared such a fate because of the interior transformation he underwent through the act of writing. That was his father's ultimate gift. 

Townie is a powerful book, naked in its candor and self-awareness.  Unsparing in both anger and love.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet a rich and haunting novel

Book 42: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

I put off reading David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet for almost a year.  I found his two previous works, number9dream and Cloud Atlas, which were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize, too experimental for my taste. 

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a more conventional, conservative work than those earlier novels.   A work of historical fiction, set at the turn of the 19thCentury, it is a beautifully written story that transports the reader to a Japan on the verge of vast cultural and social change.

The principal character is Jacob de Zoet, an earnest young clerk from the Netherlands, who is poised for rapid promotion only to learn that his lofty principles are not welcomed by his superiors. De Zoet and his colleagues live and work on Dejima, a man-made island in Nagasaki Harbor. The tiny, Dutch outpost was built by the Dutch East Indies Company for the sole purpose of trade with the Japanese, who vigorously limit their contact with the rest of the world. 

De Zoet falls in love with Orito, a Japanese midwife, the daughter of a venerated samurai, who is allowed on to Dejima to study with the outpost's resident physician. His courtship of Orito is hopeless.  All the more so when her father dies, leaving behind significant debt, and she is sold into service to a mountaintop shrine, where her skills as a midwife are coveted.

Efforts to free Orito from her fate are set against commercial intrigues that pit the Dutch against Dutch, Japanese against Japanese and, of course, the Dutch against the Japanese. Mitchell, too, plumbs the cultural tension that is a constant between the two nationalities to give his story an added inner tension that drives the narrative

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a rich and haunting novel of greed, ambition and love that is always just out of reach.

Challenge Update

With the completion of Yogi Berra Eternal Yankees I have read five of 12 books in a reading challenge issued by The Roof Beam Reader.

The 2011 TBR (To Be Read) Pile Challenge is to read 12 books from your to-be-read pile in 12 months. I have read four of my 12 since undertaking the challenge at the beginning of February.

This is where I stand:

1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
2. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
3. War and Peace by Mr. Tolstoy
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
5. The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker
6. Under the Dome by Stephen King
7. White Noise by Don Delillo
8. Yogi Berra Eternal Yankee by Allen Barra
9. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
10. Winter in the Blood by James Welch
11. Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
12. Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson

Alternates:
Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz
Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich

Barra touches all the bases in Berra bio

Book 41: Yogi Berra Eternal Yankee by Allen Barra

Let's trot out the compulsory sports metaphor early in our post on Allen Barra's biography of Yankee great Yogi Berra: Allen Barra touches all the bases in his biography of Yankee great Yogi Berra.

Barra touches those bases, not with a walk here and a base hit there, but in a single grand promenade. The chief strength of his biography is that he treats Berra, not -- as many view him -- as a loveable, word-twisting buffoon, a comic interlude, but as one of the greatest Yankee ballplayers of all time. 

And -- this from someone who is definitely not a Yankee fan -- to rank among the greatest Yankees ever is to rank among the greatest baseball players ever.

Larry Berra grew up in "the Hill," an Italian-American section of St. Louis, where he enjoyed a idyllic childhood and honed his athletic skills. Before he picked up the nickname "Yogi," he was known as "Lawdie" because his mother couldn't pronounce Larry.

In 1941, Berra and childhood friend, Joe Gargiola, tried out for the Cardinals at Sportsman's Park. General Manager Branch Rickey offered Gargiola a contract and a $500 signing bonus. He reluctantly offered Yogi a contract and a $250 bonus. Yogi, who figures he's as talented as Gargiola, turned Rickey down.

A year later Yogi signs with the Yankees.  Such are the fortunes of baseball made.

Yogi professional debut is with the Norfolk Tars in the Class B Piedmont League, but his career is slowed by World War II. After receiving his draft papers, Yogi joins the Navy. He goes on to become a decorated sailor who participated in the D-Day invasion.

By 1946, Berra is back in professional ball. Now with the Newark Bears. He makes his major league debut with the Yankees in September of that year and hits a home run in first game.

That home run speaks volumes about Berra's talents as a player.  Most people today know him for his odd nickname and all those Yogi-isms -- "Half the game is 90 percent mental." "It ain't over till it's over." "If you can't imitate him, don't copy him." "You can observe a lot just by watching."

Rightfully, Barra asks, "Do we take Yogi seriously enough?"

Barra builds the case that the Yankees should observe a "Yogi Berra Era" much as there is a DiMaggio Era and a Mantle Era and a Gehrig Era.  He also argues that Yogi must be considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, catchers in the game.

I won't devote this post to a recapitulation of Barra's arguments on Berra's behalf.  Sufficient to say, he's convinced me of Berra's stature as a player.  He hit with power and consistency, developed into a superb defensive catcher and handled a pitching staff with elegance and insight that left the pitchers with brimming with confidence and wins.

Barra provides us with a lively and insightful biography, even the appendices demand to be read. Like the battery of Ford and Berra, Barra and Berra are a match made in baseball heaven.

The Lost Gate a mashup of Portal and American Gods

Book 40: The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card's new book, The Lost Gate, is mashup between Valve Software's award-winning video puzzler, Portal, and Neil Gaiman's American Gods novel.

Wholly unoriginal and written in Card's breathless prose, The Lost Gate, with its wink and a nod to sex, bathroom humor and high school hijinks, will appeal to a 13-year-old boy, but that's about the extent of the audience.

The Lost Gate is the story of Danny North, who grows up in a compound in northern Virginia.  His family are Norse gods -- emphasis on the small g. His father is Odin and his uncle, Thor. Everyone but Danny has some sort of magical powers.

Although as it turns out -- no surprise here -- Danny does have magical powers. He's a "gatemage," someone who is able to dissolve the boundaries of space. Create a tunnel opening here and another there and "voila" you are miles or worlds away. Plus, people who pass through such a gate are healed of any illness and their powers increase.

But, to channel Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, "oh, that's good, no that's bad."

Good because a gatemage is extremely powerful. Bad because the various families of gods scattered around the world -- Danny's included -- have vowed to kill all gatemages because of some mischief by that chief gatemage and Norse trickster, Loki, centuries earlier.

Once his powers are discovered Danny is forced to flee the family compound and Card's story begins with earnest. Danny soon forges an alliance with other magically-inclined individuals who don't belong to one of the families and who do want to put Danny's powers to use. The trouble is Danny doesn't know the first thing about being a gatemage and there's a little matter of the Gate Thief, who, for centuries, has been stealing the powers of every gatemage that surfaces.

There's a host of characters and another storyline involving a gatemage in another world.  The Lost Gate is meant to be part of another book or two or three so naturally it concludes with more questions than answers.

There's far great entertainment value between Portal 2 --due out later this month -- and Gaiman's two novels, American Gods and Anansi Boys. The Lost Gate is no Ender's Game.

Tomato Red a Woodrell classic

Book 39: Tomato Red by Daniel Woodrell

Writer Daniel Woodrell frightens me.  Not for the violence that is such a casual and accepted undercurrent in the lives of the characters who populate his novels, but for the accuracy of his observations. 

Tomato Red will be described as noir fiction, a hardboiled novel distinguished by its unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex. And it is that, but it is also a sociological study of class warfare in the tiny Ozark town of West Table, Missouri.

Americans like to believe that we are a classless society, but Woodrell knows that is far from true. He also knows that it is in the small towns that the distinctions of class are most closely felt and keenly observed. Everyone in West Table knows exactly who is above them and who is below them in society's pecking order.

And when you live in Venus Holler, like Jamalee Merridew, and your brother is country queer and your mother is the town whore, there is no one below you. It is Jamalee's desire to better herself that drives Woodrell's powerful story.

Our narrator, Sammy Barlach, an ex-con and classic loser, meets Jamalee and Jason in the course of a burglary. Fueled by drugs, Sammy clumsily breaks into a West Table mansion.  The brother and sister are already inside.  The pair break into rich folks' homes to learn their secrets, wear their clothes and to pretend they are something better.

Later, when Jamalee is ejected from the local country club where she has went to find a job, the three recruit a trio of pigs to vandalize the golf course.  In a town where the country club represents the pinnacle of social achievement, their actions trigger a series of tragic and violent events.

Woodrell is best known as the author of Winter's Bone, which was recently made into a superb film. He also wrote The Death of Sweet Mister, which is widely recognized as a noir classic. My copy of Tomato Red is a re-issue from Busted Flush Press, which was founded by the late David Thompson.

Smiley's The Georges and the Jewels is warm and wise

Book 37:  The Georges and the Jewels by Jane Smiley

I shouldn't be surprised that The Georges and the Jewels, a young adult novel by Jane Smiley, is a wonderful book.  Smiley is a terrific writer as she has demonstrated in the past with such reward-winning efforts as A Thousand Acres.

Yet, I wasn't prepared for just how much I liked this book, which is warm and tender and wise. It's the story of Abby Lovitt, a seventh-grade girl living with her parents on a California horse ranch.

Abby helps her father train the horses. The male horses are all called George and the females Jewel so that no one, especially Abby, becomes overly attached to the horses, which are quickly trained and sold. Abby's role is important because one of her father's sales tactics is to assure prospective buyers that even a little girl can ride this horse.

Smiley weaves together a complex story line. There are complications at home. Abby's parents are born again Christians and her father's intransigence has led Abby's 16-year-old brother to leave home. At school, another girl is competing for the favors of Abby's one friend and a clique of four girls also threatens her happiness.

Those stories may prove compelling to Smiley's younger readers, but it is the story lines -- and there are several -- involving horses that elevate this novel.  One of the story lines involves Ornery George, a horse that Abby declines to ride bringing her in conflict with her father, and another concerns the unexpected birth of a colt whose mothers dies soon after its birth.

Late in the novel a knowledgeable ranch hand, Jem Jarrow, strolls onto the scene.  Jem, whose approach to horse training differs greatly from Abby's father, becomes Abby's mentor and friend. The scenes involving these two, Ornery George and the colt, are evocative. A horse person, Smiley brings all her power and passion as a writer to these scenes.

My daughter, a fan of the genre, has taught me not to dismiss books merely because they have the young adult label.  With The Georges and the Jewels and, earlier this year, Mockingbird, I can only agree that this is a genre discriminating adult readers should not overlook. It is no coincidence that the genre has produced two of the finest books I have read in 2011.

Book 38: The Hangman by Louise Penny

At 87 pages, The Hangman by Louise Penny could be considered a short novella or a long short story.

Either way, it's a quick reader. Penny wrote The Hangman for Good Reads, a literacy program funded by the Canadian government.

The Hangman is a good introduction to Penny's Gamache series, although it is so brief that the full joy of a rousing Three Pines mystery is missing here.  Still, fans of the series will want to read the book, which serves as a tasty appetizer before the next Penny novel.

Winter in the Blood a spare and lyrical novel of Indian life

Book 36: Winter in the Blood by James Welch

Bookseller Ken Lopez describes James Welch as "one of the most important and accomplished Native American writers of the post-1968 generation."

"Welch was considered, along with Leslie Silko, one of the key writers of the first generation of the renaissance in Native American literature," said Lopez.

In the introduction to the Penguin Classic edition of Welch's first book, Winter in the Blood,  author Louise Erdrich describes the book as "a central and inspiring text to a generation of western regional and Native American writers, including me."

The novel, Erdrich writes is "a quiet American masterpiece."

A masterpiece, perhaps, but a neglected one.  Few people today are talking or writing about the work of Welch, who died in 2003. And that is unfortunate for Welch, of Blackfoot-Gros Ventre heritage, is both an important writer, and a gifted one.

Winter in the Blood is a spare and lyrical novel narrated by an unnamed 32-year-old Blackfeet Indian living on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. It is a story of alienation and the search for personal meaning and identity, which draws its poetry and power from Welch's powers of close observation and gift for the telling detail. 

Readers familiar with the works of popular contemporary Indian authors such as Erdrich or Sherman Alexie would do well to explore Welch's writing. His work was valuable to this current generation of Indian writers both because it provided assurances that their stories of modern Indian life were worth telling and because he set the bar so high.

A reader doesn't necessarily need to know of Welch's importance in the Indian literary canon. He should know that Welch's is a skillful writer and masterful storyteller and that his novels, Winter in the Blood among them, make for a rewarding read.

+  +  +

The completion of Winter in the Blood advances me in a reading challenge that I have taken up in 2011.

The challenge was issued by The Roof Beam Reader. The 2011 TBR (To Be Read) Pile Challenge is to read 12 books from your to-be-read pile in 12 months. I have read four of my 12 since undertaking the challenge. This is where I stand:

1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
2. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
3. War and Peace by Mr. Tolstoy
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
5. The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker
6. Under the Dome by Stephen King
7. White Noise by Don Delillo
8. Yogi Berra Eternal Yankee by Allen Barra
9. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
10. Winter in the Blood by James Welch
11. Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
12. Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson

Alternates:
Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz
Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich

Boyd's The Bricklayer recalls Lee Child's The Killing Floor

Book 34: The Bricklayer by Noah Boyd

Reading Noah Boyd's debut thriller, The Bricklayer, stirred memories of 1997 and Lee Child's first Jack Reacher novel, The Killing Floor.

There are similarities between Reacher and Boyd's main character, Steve Vail. Reacher worked for the military police. Vail is a former FBI agent. Both are loners, who distrust authority. Both are have keen, analytic minds, yet are also capable of extraordinary physical feats. Both get the girl.

Which is not to suggest that Boyd's work is a mere copy of Child's. It's not, but it is in a similar vein and readers who enjoy Child's writing are certain to like Boyd's work as well.

The Bricklayer is an exceptional first novel for Boyd, a former FBI agent. While improbable (as most of these novels are), the plot is sound, the pacing strong and the characters well drawn.  Boyd displays a particularly nimble touch in the relationship between Vail and FBI Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon. The sexual tension, emerging in a lively banter between the two, is reminiscent of Moonlighting. 

He's also a fine hand at humor, which surfaces throughout the thriller.  

The second Steve Vail novel is now on the shelves and will soon make its way to the top of my reading list. I am eager to see if Boyd's second act is a good as his debut.

Book 35: The Girl in the Green Raincoat by Laura Lippman

The Girl in the Green Raincoat was originally serialized in the New York Times, which means it is both brief -- a novella, really -- and has the lovely pacing necessary for a literary work that must keep the reader returning day after day until the story's end.

It features Tess Monaghan, the Baltimore P.I., who appears in about half the novels Lippman writes. Tess is pregnant and confined to bed, setting up a Rear Window-type mystery.

Yet the mystery is incidental here. What's more important is that we learn about Tess's baby, her relationship with her boyfriend Crow and a little history of how her parents met.  Such information is critical to anyone who follows an on-going series and there's plenty here for Tess Monaghan fans until the next full-length novel.

While this slender volume is a must-read, at a mere 158 pages, it does leave readers wanting more. Much more.