Richard Ford is one of my favorite American authors and "Canada" is my favorite of his books. Ford has written through the eyes of a young teen male before. This time we follow Dell Parsons, 15 years old, who tells the story of how an ill-thought out robbery by his immature parents, changed his life forever. Dell, the narrator, is now 60 years old, a teacher of writing, who returns to American to visit his twin sister who is dying of cancer.
The novel is placed in 1960 and rings authentic in its descriptions. I recognize this middle century America; it is as true as I remember it. Just so, is the bewilderment of young Dell as his parents actions lead to consequences beyond his control, that he is incapable of understanding. It is all so real, even Dell's passivity and inertia to control the events that are determining his life and what he is to become.
Dell and his twin sister, Berner, grow up on a series of American air bases, until they find themselves in Great Falls, Montana, where their father, Bev Parsons, decides to settle down and leave the service. Dell at last begins to lead a more normal school existence, and it is touching to see his blossoming interest in chess and beekeeping. Meanwhile, Bev's choices in life are naive and grandiose, and he eventually destroys his family with his crazy schemes.
The book begins with the robbery, and after his parents are arrested Dell is spirited off to Saskatchewan by a friend of his mother. Here the reader begins to feel real anxiety as Dell is thrown in with some shady characters, especially an ex-pat radical, Arthur Remlinger, the brother of the woman who brought Dell to Canada. There is also a particularly peculiar and creepy character named Charley, who the reader will want to rescue Dell from. Yet, through all his subsequent adventures, there is something about Dell that is grounded and the knowledge that he is writing this, having reached adulthood safely, is somewhat comforting. Meanwhile his sister, Berner has chosen to run off to California and chooses a vastly different path in life than Dell.
Ford's writes perfect sentences, clean yet at the same time so full of description, that you don't have to have ever been in Montana to know just how desolate the open scrub landscape can be. When Dell flees to Canada, the reader does as well. All of Ford's characters are well-drawn and complete.
I highly recommend "Canada" to all readers. It is also a good choice for book club readers. It would be on my list of best books of 2012.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Saturday, March 30, 2013
I REMEMBER NOTHING by Nora Ephron (essays)
This is the last book published by the late contemporary writer, Nora Ephron. Most of the essays in the collection had been previously published in columns she wrote for various journals. This is a super airport book. It will afford you excellent company in that interminable terminal; it is light reading and easy to return to after a distraction. It is especially appealing to middle-aged women and beyond. Ephron is able to take the mundane in our daily existence and find the absurd. I found the last two entries, "What I Will Miss" and "What I Won't Miss" particularly moving in the light of Ephron's imminent death. The book is a poignant memorial to a gifted writer and artist.
THE PASSAGE OF POWER by Robert Caro (non-fic)
"The Passage of Power" is the fourth volume in Robert Caro's masterful life of Lyndon Johnson. I believe it to be the best of the series, and Robert Caro must rank among the best, if not the best biographer of all time. The sheer magnitude of his research is mind boggling.
This volume covers the five years in Johnson's life leading up to and following the assassination of President John Kennedy. We see Johnson as the absolute master of the Senate, wheeling and dealing, a shrewd judge of his colleagues, a giant of a man in appetites and achievements. Then we see him almost emasculated as a powerless and depressed Vice-President to Kennedy, and finally we see him take the reigns of power, rise to expectations and beyond, and become one of the most fascinating and complex personalities to occupy the Presidency of the United States.
Just as Kennedy was a product of his eastern prep-school monied background, an achieving son of an ambitious father; Johnson, in contrast, was a product of his upbringing, the son of a Texan dirt-farmer; poor, proud, and single-minded ambitious, anxious not to repeat the mistakes of his father.
Early on, Johnson focused on the Presidency. He spent little time in the US House of Representatives. He knew the Senate would be his stepping stone and worked quickly and diligently to forge the relationships he needed to achieve his ambition. Johnson's facility for reading people, finding their weaknesses, and feeding their egos, came early and naturally. He was relentless in going after what he wanted and very few were able to refuse him a favor. No one before or since has been able to do this as well.
Johnson was crude, brilliant and insecure. In this passage Caro captures him exactly: "Ruthlessness, secretiveness, deceit--significant elements in every previous stage of Lyndon Johnson's life story. Not always, however, the only elements, not always the only character traits, contradictory though other traits might be. And sometimes these other elements--the anger at injustice, the sympathy, empathy, identification with the underdog that added up to compassion--had been expressed by this master of the political gesture, in gestures so deeply meaningful, so perfect in their symbolism, that they reached a level for which "mastery" is an inadequate term.
Roy Wilkins, the leader of the NAACP wrote, "Withe Johnson, you never quite knew if he was out to lift your heart or your wallet."
The story of the enmity and rivalry between Johnson and Bobby Kennedy would be fair game for a Shakespeare if we only had one. Caro's presentation is as close as we will get to understanding it.
We often speak of our current Congress with its polarization and deadlock as hopeless and frustrating. However, if one looks back on other Congresses, it can be seen that similar situations were not uncommon. Kennedy was having trouble getting any of his programs enacted in a congress much like ours today. Looking back, we can see his relationship with his Congress was much like Obama's today. After Kennedy's death, Johnson's former colleagues were under no illusions at to what was about to descend on them. In an all-out blitz, Johnson, through threats, wheedling, and alternately bullying and charming, was able to push through the 1964 Civil Rights Act, The Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and social programs like Head Start (which gave me a summer job when a college student).
It is impossible in a review to adequately reflect the richness of this book. Though long, it is a mesmerizing study of a powerful, yet flawed leader. I give it my highest recommendation as a window on a bygone era and a group of skillful politicians (Harry Byrd, Sam Rayburn, Tip O'Neill) the likes of whom we may never see again. To all interested in history or the gateway to a rich discussion in a book group, do not miss this read.
This volume covers the five years in Johnson's life leading up to and following the assassination of President John Kennedy. We see Johnson as the absolute master of the Senate, wheeling and dealing, a shrewd judge of his colleagues, a giant of a man in appetites and achievements. Then we see him almost emasculated as a powerless and depressed Vice-President to Kennedy, and finally we see him take the reigns of power, rise to expectations and beyond, and become one of the most fascinating and complex personalities to occupy the Presidency of the United States.
Just as Kennedy was a product of his eastern prep-school monied background, an achieving son of an ambitious father; Johnson, in contrast, was a product of his upbringing, the son of a Texan dirt-farmer; poor, proud, and single-minded ambitious, anxious not to repeat the mistakes of his father.
Early on, Johnson focused on the Presidency. He spent little time in the US House of Representatives. He knew the Senate would be his stepping stone and worked quickly and diligently to forge the relationships he needed to achieve his ambition. Johnson's facility for reading people, finding their weaknesses, and feeding their egos, came early and naturally. He was relentless in going after what he wanted and very few were able to refuse him a favor. No one before or since has been able to do this as well.
Johnson was crude, brilliant and insecure. In this passage Caro captures him exactly: "Ruthlessness, secretiveness, deceit--significant elements in every previous stage of Lyndon Johnson's life story. Not always, however, the only elements, not always the only character traits, contradictory though other traits might be. And sometimes these other elements--the anger at injustice, the sympathy, empathy, identification with the underdog that added up to compassion--had been expressed by this master of the political gesture, in gestures so deeply meaningful, so perfect in their symbolism, that they reached a level for which "mastery" is an inadequate term.
Roy Wilkins, the leader of the NAACP wrote, "Withe Johnson, you never quite knew if he was out to lift your heart or your wallet."
The story of the enmity and rivalry between Johnson and Bobby Kennedy would be fair game for a Shakespeare if we only had one. Caro's presentation is as close as we will get to understanding it.
We often speak of our current Congress with its polarization and deadlock as hopeless and frustrating. However, if one looks back on other Congresses, it can be seen that similar situations were not uncommon. Kennedy was having trouble getting any of his programs enacted in a congress much like ours today. Looking back, we can see his relationship with his Congress was much like Obama's today. After Kennedy's death, Johnson's former colleagues were under no illusions at to what was about to descend on them. In an all-out blitz, Johnson, through threats, wheedling, and alternately bullying and charming, was able to push through the 1964 Civil Rights Act, The Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and social programs like Head Start (which gave me a summer job when a college student).
It is impossible in a review to adequately reflect the richness of this book. Though long, it is a mesmerizing study of a powerful, yet flawed leader. I give it my highest recommendation as a window on a bygone era and a group of skillful politicians (Harry Byrd, Sam Rayburn, Tip O'Neill) the likes of whom we may never see again. To all interested in history or the gateway to a rich discussion in a book group, do not miss this read.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
THE RIGHT-HAND SHORE by Christopher Tilghman (fic)
Christopher Tilghman has written a novel about a stately manor of vast acreage built in 1657 by the ancestors of the Bayly family on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. It is actually the second novel Tilghman has written about this estate, but this story takes place before his previous novel, "Mason's Retreat."
The story opens post-civil war and continues until the turn of the century. It is a story of the consequences of building an empire upon slavery and the breakdown of an aristiocratic family, its members fleeing the dead end the Mason House plantation had become.
When we enter the story, we learn the last of the slaves were sold off as the civil war was coming to an end. Ophelia, the heiress married a Union man from Baltimore, as if the remove the stain of the family's support of the Confederacy. Ophelia plays a small role in the story; she soon abandons the property to her husband and escapes with her daughter Mary to France and then Baltimore.
For a while the plantation was successful growing peaches, until blight ruins the orchard and changes the direction of the story. While all this is playing out, the reader becomes engrossed in the stories of both the black and white workers on the farm. Their relationships, especially the romance between Thomas the heir, Randell Terrell his best friend and Randell's sister, Beal, move the plot along to its poignant end. It seems all the main characters in the novel are searching for their own ways of escaping the vaguely sinister atmosphere of the manor.
Mary Bayly returns to the manor as a grown woman and is the only family member interested in bringing back the glory days of the property. She does this by turning it into a modern dairy with the latest equipment. It becomes a model for organic farming in the early years of the 20th century. As soon as Mary returns, her story becomes entwined with that of Thomas and Beal. We view much of the story through the eyes of the faithful estate manager as we and he watch the decline, rise and denouement of the stately Bayly homestead.
Tilghman writes beautifully and keeps his readers interested in the history of the Chesapeake peninsula and the drama of the Bayly family. I recommend this book as a good read which may prompt you to find his previous book to discover what happens to Mason's Retreat in the 20th century.
The story opens post-civil war and continues until the turn of the century. It is a story of the consequences of building an empire upon slavery and the breakdown of an aristiocratic family, its members fleeing the dead end the Mason House plantation had become.
When we enter the story, we learn the last of the slaves were sold off as the civil war was coming to an end. Ophelia, the heiress married a Union man from Baltimore, as if the remove the stain of the family's support of the Confederacy. Ophelia plays a small role in the story; she soon abandons the property to her husband and escapes with her daughter Mary to France and then Baltimore.
For a while the plantation was successful growing peaches, until blight ruins the orchard and changes the direction of the story. While all this is playing out, the reader becomes engrossed in the stories of both the black and white workers on the farm. Their relationships, especially the romance between Thomas the heir, Randell Terrell his best friend and Randell's sister, Beal, move the plot along to its poignant end. It seems all the main characters in the novel are searching for their own ways of escaping the vaguely sinister atmosphere of the manor.
Mary Bayly returns to the manor as a grown woman and is the only family member interested in bringing back the glory days of the property. She does this by turning it into a modern dairy with the latest equipment. It becomes a model for organic farming in the early years of the 20th century. As soon as Mary returns, her story becomes entwined with that of Thomas and Beal. We view much of the story through the eyes of the faithful estate manager as we and he watch the decline, rise and denouement of the stately Bayly homestead.
Tilghman writes beautifully and keeps his readers interested in the history of the Chesapeake peninsula and the drama of the Bayly family. I recommend this book as a good read which may prompt you to find his previous book to discover what happens to Mason's Retreat in the 20th century.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
A PERSON OF INTEREST by Susan Choi (fic)
A man we know only as Lee is a professor of computer science at a small mid-west college, perhaps in Iowa. The novel opens as a bomb explodes in the office next to Lee's, killing a colleague, Handley. As the story moves on, we get to know Lee very well; we are privy to his innermost thoughts. He is not a very likable man. (If we knew anyone's inner life, perhaps no one would be likable.) We discover Lee is lonely and an alcoholic. He is depressed, cranky, jealous of others success, and estranged from his only daughter.
Susan Choi who was a finalist for a Pulitzer for a previous novel, writes a beautifully structured novel. Here she has written a psychological study that follows the breakdown of a man who has good reason to be paranoid. He finds himself suspected by the FBI of being the bomber. Lee eventually sets out to discover who the real murderer is. The killer is reminiscent of the Unibomber of some years back. He writes tracts to newspapers and makes threats and demands a pulpit for his twisted ideas. Lee's suspicions focus on a former friend, Gaither whose wife Lee seduced and eventually married. The story goes back and forth between the past relationship of Lee, Gaither and Aileen and the present of Lee now divorced.
The story is interesting and excellently crafted, but moves slowly with its rich vocabulary. I found nothing to like about any of the characters (especially Lee, whom I wanted to shake some sense into) until the final third of the book with the introduction of a new character, who seemed to be the lone honest person in the book. Despite all this, I enjoyed Choi's writing and found I did get into the story.
Susan Choi who was a finalist for a Pulitzer for a previous novel, writes a beautifully structured novel. Here she has written a psychological study that follows the breakdown of a man who has good reason to be paranoid. He finds himself suspected by the FBI of being the bomber. Lee eventually sets out to discover who the real murderer is. The killer is reminiscent of the Unibomber of some years back. He writes tracts to newspapers and makes threats and demands a pulpit for his twisted ideas. Lee's suspicions focus on a former friend, Gaither whose wife Lee seduced and eventually married. The story goes back and forth between the past relationship of Lee, Gaither and Aileen and the present of Lee now divorced.
The story is interesting and excellently crafted, but moves slowly with its rich vocabulary. I found nothing to like about any of the characters (especially Lee, whom I wanted to shake some sense into) until the final third of the book with the introduction of a new character, who seemed to be the lone honest person in the book. Despite all this, I enjoyed Choi's writing and found I did get into the story.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
PEOPLE WHO EAT DARKNESS by Richard Lloyd Parry (non-fic)
"People Who Eat Darkness" was one of the notable books of 2012 of the New York Times. It is a true crime story and not for the fainthearted. It is a tale of darkness and horror that defies logic. Capable of causing nightmares, it is not a book that I can say I enjoyed reading, and the sadness of it is that it is all true.
Back in the year 2000, a 21 year of British girl, a former flight attendant for British Air, quit her job and went to Tokyo. It was to be a short term stay. Her name was Lucie Blackman, and she had gotten herself into debt and had large credit card bills. Lucie heard there was quick and easy money to be made in Tokyo by taking a job as a Hostess in a club catering to the whims of Tokyo businessmen. She and a friend easily found work in Roppongi, an area of Tokyo that is respectable enough in the day time, but caters to a different and decidedly creepy element as darkness falls. Lucie was naive, and like many tourists was lulled into a false sense of safety by Tokyo's reputation as one of the world's safest cities. And so it is, but not when dealing with the unsavory denizens of the club world which caters to all kinds of kinky types and fetishes.
Lucie came to a hideous end, being drugged, raped and finally dismembered by a millionaire madman whom she had the misfortune to meet and trust. His name was Obara, and he himself was an outsider though born in Japan. His family was Korean; they changed their name when they took on Japanese citizenship. Obara was one of three sons of a hard-working father who built up a business worth millions.
Parry a correspondent for the Times of London, has followed this case from its beginning at the turn of the century right through to present day, when it was finally resolved. This story isn't just about Lucie. The characters who were part of her life and background are all equally interesting. Her father, Tim, whose actions and seeming thirst for publicity, is a case study of its own. Her mother, Jane, who sought advice from a Medium, is another tale. Her brother and sister who suffered breakdowns in the years after the murder, have their story. Worst of all is the murderer, Obara and the mismanagement of the case by the police, who proved to be bumbling and inept in their investigation. The story of Lucie and her fate carried on for ten years, and Parry doggedly kept on its trail. The result is this true crime story. It is not easy to read in its unsavory detail, but is well-written and a fascinating study of human evil, error, greed, and sadness. Along with this is the overlying misunderstanding between very different cultures.
Back in the year 2000, a 21 year of British girl, a former flight attendant for British Air, quit her job and went to Tokyo. It was to be a short term stay. Her name was Lucie Blackman, and she had gotten herself into debt and had large credit card bills. Lucie heard there was quick and easy money to be made in Tokyo by taking a job as a Hostess in a club catering to the whims of Tokyo businessmen. She and a friend easily found work in Roppongi, an area of Tokyo that is respectable enough in the day time, but caters to a different and decidedly creepy element as darkness falls. Lucie was naive, and like many tourists was lulled into a false sense of safety by Tokyo's reputation as one of the world's safest cities. And so it is, but not when dealing with the unsavory denizens of the club world which caters to all kinds of kinky types and fetishes.
Lucie came to a hideous end, being drugged, raped and finally dismembered by a millionaire madman whom she had the misfortune to meet and trust. His name was Obara, and he himself was an outsider though born in Japan. His family was Korean; they changed their name when they took on Japanese citizenship. Obara was one of three sons of a hard-working father who built up a business worth millions.
Parry a correspondent for the Times of London, has followed this case from its beginning at the turn of the century right through to present day, when it was finally resolved. This story isn't just about Lucie. The characters who were part of her life and background are all equally interesting. Her father, Tim, whose actions and seeming thirst for publicity, is a case study of its own. Her mother, Jane, who sought advice from a Medium, is another tale. Her brother and sister who suffered breakdowns in the years after the murder, have their story. Worst of all is the murderer, Obara and the mismanagement of the case by the police, who proved to be bumbling and inept in their investigation. The story of Lucie and her fate carried on for ten years, and Parry doggedly kept on its trail. The result is this true crime story. It is not easy to read in its unsavory detail, but is well-written and a fascinating study of human evil, error, greed, and sadness. Along with this is the overlying misunderstanding between very different cultures.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
THE LADY IN THE TOWER by Alison Weir (non-fic)
Alison Weir is the author of a number of books on medieval royalty. This time she has focused on Anne Boleyn. Anne Boleyn is a romantic figure in British history and there have been a number of biographies and novels written about her. As most know, she was the second of Henry VIII's wives and was beheaded on what appear to be bogus charges. Because of the paucity of actual facts of these early figures, they are often more suited to romances than biographies. However, Alison Weir has taken a small window of time in Anne's life and researched it thoroughly, including plenty of original and primary sources. Weir has concentrated on the four month period when Anne was accused of infidelity with five men including her brother George while plotting against Henry. All were subsequently sent to the Tower of London and beheaded.
If you have read the brilliant "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel, and are interesting in this period of history, you may wish to check this book out. Weir is meticulous in presenting all the available sources: letters, legal documents, court proceedings, first and second hand references. She traces the motives of Henry, who was at that time already involved in a relationship with Jane Seymour and her rapacious family, as well as the wily Thomas Cromwell who was fighting to maintain his own position in the dangerous court of Henry. Weir debunks a lot of popular myths that grew around Anne who was not a popular figure in her time. She also tries to cut through some of the whitewashing that was done during the reign of her daughter Elizabeth I.
All in all this is an interesting and well written book if you are interested in the scholarly aspects of Anne's fall from grace and the horror dangers of finding oneself too close to the throne and Henry's ire.
If you have read the brilliant "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel, and are interesting in this period of history, you may wish to check this book out. Weir is meticulous in presenting all the available sources: letters, legal documents, court proceedings, first and second hand references. She traces the motives of Henry, who was at that time already involved in a relationship with Jane Seymour and her rapacious family, as well as the wily Thomas Cromwell who was fighting to maintain his own position in the dangerous court of Henry. Weir debunks a lot of popular myths that grew around Anne who was not a popular figure in her time. She also tries to cut through some of the whitewashing that was done during the reign of her daughter Elizabeth I.
All in all this is an interesting and well written book if you are interested in the scholarly aspects of Anne's fall from grace and the horror dangers of finding oneself too close to the throne and Henry's ire.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)