THE SOUND OF THINGS FALLING by Juan Gabriel Vasquez (fic)

The noteable Colombian writer, Juan Gabriel Vasquez has written another brilliant book which goes to the heart of Columbia and her people.  The story veers between the present and a mystery of the violent past that spills over to the present and affects the life of the narrator of the story, Antonio Yamarra.  Antonio lives with his family in Bogota and is a law professor in the University. It was his habit to relax after classes by playing billiards in a nearby bar.  There he meets and has a casual friendship with an older man, Ricardo Laverde. One day the meloncoly and somewhat mysterious Laverde confides in Antonio that he had been recently released from serving a 20 year sentence in the States for drug smuggling. He had been a talented and daring pilot.  He requests that Antonio accompany him on a walk through the city.  As they walk out together, Laverde was violently accosted and killed, and Antonio was injured. This incident sets off a chain of actions that leads the reader deep into the atmosphere of Colombia in the 1970s.

After the attack, Antonio suffered from PTSD and was unable to concentrate on anything but solving the mystery of why Laverde was slain in gangland style.  Laverde had confided in Antonio that his wife had been killed in a plane accident when she was on her way to join him in Bogota after his release from jail, and he possessed a copy of the cockpit recording taken from the plane's black box.

The main part of the novel is about Ricardo and Elaine Laverde and how this man became involved in the drug trade, headed in those days by the dangerous drug cartel led by Pablo Escobar.  Ricardo and Elaine had one child, a daughter who is anxious to know more about her father.  Antonio is able to contact her and visits her ranch in the Magdalena Valley which at one time was the center of Escobar's drug empire. Antonio and the daughter, Maya, are able to piece together the story of her parents, whose love story becomes entangled with that of the Peace Corp that Elaine is a member of.
As they entangle the web of her parents' lives, Maya and Antonio are drawn closer together. Vasquez shows how fate places us in situations from the past even as we live in the present.

Part of the mystery of the novel concerns a sound from the cockpit of the downed plane that cannot be identified by Antonio, thus the title:  "It's the sound of things falling from on high, an interrupted and somehow also eternal sound, a sound that didn't ever end, that kept ringing in my head from that very afternoon....."

Antonio strays from his life and his family as he becomes involved in the lives of the Liverdes and rediscovering the sadness and violence of Columbia's past history.   Toward the end of the novel he says, "The saddest thing that can happen to a person is to find out their memories are lies."

I highly recommend this novel to all readers.  The translator has done a beautiful job of conveying the depth of Vasquez's writing.  What a wonderful writer Vasquez is.  

CLEMENTINE by Sonia Purnell (non-fic)

We seem to know a lot about Winston Churchill, but not so much about his wife Clementine.  Sonia Purnell has written a comprehensive and fascinating biography of Clementine, born Clementine Hozier.  Her mother, Lady Blanche, a daughter of Scottish aristocracy, was free spirited and certainly  promiscuous for the age she lived in.  There remains a question of who was Clementine's father because of her mother's numerous affairs.  Some feel it was her uncle the grandfather of the famous Mitford sisters.  

Clementine was highly intelligent and beautiful and could have had a career in academics, but she was pushed into society by her mother, keen to find rich husbands for her daughters.  Clementine was of an anxious disposition and backed out of two engagements before she met and fell in love with Winston Churchill, third son of the Duke of Marlborough and Jennie Jerome, the lovely American heiress.  

Both Winston and Clementine were wildly ambitious. They shared goals and were partners in every aspect of their lives.  It is a fact that without Clementine's help and advice, Winston would never have had the rich political career he did.  These were the days when a woman's influence was hidden or at best minimized.  Churchill barely mentions Clementine in his biographical account of his early years. Yet during WWII, he allowed her access to secret intelligence and discussed all important decisions with her. 

Marriage to the brilliant Winston Churchill was no picnic.  He was a difficult man under the best of circumstances and both he and Clementine suffered from bouts of depression and exhaustion.  While they achieved great feats in the terrible war years, they were neglectful and absent parents.  Their children were turned over to a succession of incompetent nannies. Their three daughters Sarah, Diana and Mary, and son, Randolph ran wild and had unhappy lives.  Another daughter died tragically at age two of septicemia that with better care could have been avoided.  The strain of the life she led caused Clementine to have more than one breakdown, and she was prone when things became overwhelming to take to her bed or go on long holidays with friends.  As her children grew into adults, their relationships with Winston and Clementine remained stormy.  Randolph was uncontrollable and the Churchills shamelessly used his wife, the popular and vivacious Pamela Digby to lure Anerican politicians into supporting America's entry into WWII.

Purnell has written an absorbing and engrossing account of Clementine's life and times.  I highly recommend this book to all readers.  It would be an excellent choice for book groups. 

EUPHORIA by Lily King (fic)

This is a lightly veiled fictionalized account of a period in the life of the social anthropologist, Margaret Mead who achieved early fame for her "Coming of Age in Samoa." Mead wrote the book in 1928 and was wildly acclaimed until the latter 20th century when her popularity flamed out.  Lily King, a superb writer, has chosen to base her novel on a 1933 study trip Mead took with her husband Riu Fortune up the Sepik River in New Guinia.  "Euphoria" was chosen one of the Times 10 best books of 2014 and also won the Kirkus Prize that year.

King's stand in for Mead is Nell Stone, who like Mead, is coming off great fame for a book called, "The Children of Kirakira."  Her husband Fen, a Hemingway type of macho guy, is jealous of her popularity and hungry for a find of his own.  They meet up with an old acquaintance, Andrew Bankson, at a Christmas party after a failed field study with another tribe the two were living among. Bankson is the narrator of the story, who falls in love with Nell.  He is conducting his own study of the Kirakira tribe. Bankson is an interesting character himself, having lost two brothers, one in WWI and the other, unlucky in love, committed a well-publicized suicide in Piccadilly Square in London.

Bankson finds Nell and Fen a tribe seven hours  up the river from his station where they take up residence with the Tam people.  It proves a convenient spot for the three anthropologists to occasionally meet and exchange observations.  Before long, Bankson who lived such an isolated life, falls for Nell, and the love triangle steams up just as the King's descriptions of the steamy hot jungle feel realistically dangerous.

Bankson's memories of this trip are combined with musings in a diary of Nell's he possesses.  Things seem to be going well for the three as they combine their findings.  They believe they are making a breakthrough in the understanding of all humans by the study of the Sepik River tribes, thus the euphoria of the title, (or perhaps, equally, the euphoria, of love and sex).  Before long, however, things go horribly wrong as Fen's need for recognition leads him to a disaster that affects them all.

While King pulls from an incident in Mead's life, the book ends very differently than Mead's own life.  There is a lovely last paragraph in the novel, that I won't quote as it might be a spoiler. King has a way of writing that creates a sense of being in the moment for the reader and its moody spell keeps one in thrall even after the last page is read.  I greatly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to all readers; it would make for a lively book group discussion.

CITY ON FIRE by Garth Hallberg (fic)

"City on Fire" was met with great critical acclaim, and I raced to read it soon after it was published.  It is a massive book and was compared to a Dickens novel in several reviews.  I plunged into it with interest but about half way through I lost the fervor and only recently picked it up again to finish.  Hallberg is certainly a great talent and excellent writer.  At times the book seemed over-crafted, and there was so much going on with many characters and plot lines that I had to thumb back to refresh my memory.

Hallberg's city is the Manhattan of 1976 and "77 when all hell seems to have let loose.  He takes us to  the South Bronx, Hell's Kitchen, Alphbet City, and into the rich homes of the Upper East and West sides.  A murder in Central Park plays an important part in the plot.  Like the book, there was so very much going on in America's Bicentennial year that looking back one wonders how we ever got beyond it, and finally the great New York City blackout of '77 brings all the plot elements to a head, amidst rioting and an out of control fire.

Hallberg takes us back to a time without Internet or cell phones where life was fast moving, but unlike today, the characters could not be instantly connected, and the lack of communication reminds us how difficult it was for any one character or group to control events or plan outcomes.  The story centers around two generations, the older rich gentry of the city, personified by the patrician Hamilton-Sweeney family and the new wave punks, the "lost kids" followers of Nicky Chaos who ran an anarchist terrorist cell.  Bridging these two groups was William Stuart Althorp III, also known as Billy Three Sticks, who was a 33 year old heroin addict, heir of the Hamilton-Sweeney family; and, Samantha Cicciaro and Charlie Weisbarger, Long Island teens who are seduced by the city lights and disco night life.  These characters move back and forth throughout the story, as an aging detective and a journalist obsessed with the case, attempt to solve the murder. It comes as a surprise when the murderer is finally revealed.

The author who was not alive for these events does a good job of recreating the period and frantic chaos of the times.  While I respect his talent and writing, I did not enjoy the book as much as Rachel Kushner's "Flamethrowers" which covers the same period. I do recommend the the book, however, if you wish to be taken back to a confusing time before the city became what it is today, where wealthy foreigners are buying up property, and ordinary people have become tourists.

BEFORE THE WIND by Jim Lynch

This is a nice and easy summer read, bound to mainly appeal to sailors and wharf rats.  Lynch nails it with his knowledge of racing in Puget Sound with its quirky winds. He knows the lure of the beauty of older wooden boats and also the drawbacks of racing with larger fiberglass boats meant for cruising. He knows the thrill of being a kid in a Laser or graduating to a Star. Embedded in the sailboat vocabulary, is the story of Johannssens, a family obsessed with sailing and racing, three generations living under the same roof, with a heritage of naval architecture.

Josh, the narrator (named after Slocum, of course), loves old wooden boats and works in a boatyard, with no ambition beyond being around sailboats and water.  Father and Grandfather, known as the two Bobos, despite their constant bickering, see the expediency of building fast and lighter fiberglass boats.  The mother of the family lives in her own mathematical world, dreamy and somewhat spacey. The sister Ruby is an old soul, gifted in reading the wind and finding a breeze on the calmest of days.
Bernard, the older brother, is a hippie at heart and becomes involved in some shady pastimes.

The novel joins the family as they prepare in their individual ways, to do one last big, tough race. Here is where all their stories collide and bring the reader to the climax and bittersweet ending.

This is a novel sure to appeal to those who know boats, but it is not that technical so anyone can enjoy it on a breezy summer day.

THE INCARNATIONS by Susan Barker (fic)

Like her previous books, Barker sets her latest novel in Asia, this time China. "The Incarnations" was chosen as a 2015 Times notable book. Barker is a talented creative writer and unique story teller. Here she presents the reader with a series of loosely connected stories, each of which could stand on its own. The stories range over 15 centuries, and cover much of China's history.

The unifying factor of these stories is a Beijing taxi driver named Wang Jun; that is to say, in his life in contemporary China he is a taxi driver. He has a lovely wife and daughter whom he loves. Wang Jun was born into a life of promise, but circumstances were unkind to him. He suffered many adversities including a stint in an asylum.  Wang is being followed by an unseen person, the Watcher, who has shared Wang's many adventures through history and seems inseparable from him. Wang doesn't see the Watcher, but receives missives from him reminding him of previous lives. The identity of the Watcher is a mystery revealed at the end of the book.  These two characters live through Empires sometimes as men, sometimes as women; sometimes as lovers and others as enemies. They saw the Mongol invasion, the rise of Mao and communism. The witnessed the Tiananmen Square massacre and survived the massive Tangshan earthquake.

The Watcher tells Wang that in order to understand himself, he must understand who he was.  The past plays on the present that we all carry within ourselves. The author seems to be drawing a parallel between Wang's violent and sometimes cruel past with that of China's long history of strife.

There is much to reflect on in this unusual novel. It is not an easy read, nor a happy one. It is, however, a brilliant one. While I did not enjoy this insightful novel, I have reflected on it many times.   It explores the soul of a man and his country.

THE FIFTH QUEEN by Ford Maddox Ford (fic)

No need to review a book by Ford Maddox Ford as he is a master who never gets stale.  Having read his other work, most notably "The Good Soldier," I was curious when I came upon this reissued novel in the book store.  I had never heard of it.  There is a knowledgable introduction by A.S. Byatt and the more I read, the more I felt this was a good book to read in today's dramatic political climate.  Written between 1906 and 1908, it was originally published in three parts.  Ford fiddles with history.  The fifth queen is, of course, Katherine Howard, Henry V's fifth wife.  And we all know what that means--not long for this world!  It is pretty well accepted in today's world that Katherine Howard was a flirty, flighty, though well-educated young girl.  She had little supervision as a child and as a teen, her escapades could not stand close scrutiny.

Ford changes the character of Katherine and presents her as a devout Catholic who truly believed she could bring Henry and England back to the church and strengthen ties with Spain.  What this does is pit her against Cromwell, a master schemer and architect of Henry's England. Even a highly sophisticated and astute woman  (her cousin Anne Boleyn) would have little chance of survival in the  midst of court intrigues and jockeying for power in the Tudor court.  Poor Katherine, naive and the most beautiful of all Henry's wives, was somewhere between the ages of 15 and 18 when she was pushed forward by her Howard relatives to catch Henry's eye. (Though Ford doesn't bring this into the book). Mainly we see Katherine caught between the different court factions and men who were in love with her themselves.

There is an interesting meeting between the spy, Throckmorton, and Katherine where he advises Katherine to be mindful of the intriguing around her,  "It is folly to be too proud to fight the world with the world's weapons." Katherine's world was already in the past when she arrived at court.  Romanticism and chivalry were taken over by the pragmatism of Machiavellian Cromwell, ushering Henry and the country into a differ political paradigm.  In the end, both Cromwell and Katherine lose their heads, as alliances form and reform.

Ford presents Katherine as pure and unfailingly honest, a maker of her own destiny. She was open about her choices to those who betrayed her.  She insisted on taking responsibility for her beliefs and actions.  There is little mention of her Norfolk and Howard relatives using her as a pawn to destroy Cromwell.

Ford has given us a powerful study of the politics of the changing world of the late Middle Ages.  The book is written in colloquial language, much like reading Shakespeare.  As one reads, the rhythm of the language becomes natural.  Not everyone will want to read this lengthily novel which uses the language of the period.  It also requires a suspension of what we know of the historical Katherine Howard.  However, it is such a worthwhile read.  I highly recommend it to those who care to take the time and attention to give to this amazing feat of writing.