A Lovely, Inspirational Story

A Stop in the Park by Peggy Panagopoulos Strack (Self-Published, 2012, 372pp.)

Jamie and Michael Stolis have it all: a nice home in the thriving metropolis of Washington, D.C., two beautiful daughters, and all the material items they can afford—and yet, they couldn’t be more miserable. Michael, a lawyer, is always in a foul mood when he gets home, and feels unappreciated by his family. Jamie, a former news reporter-turned-stay-at-home mom, struggles to keep up with the kids and housework, and fears Michael’s nightly outbursts of temper. What starts out as mere discontentment builds up into outright misery. After a particularly vicious verbal battle, Michael and Jamie agree to a separation. Then, Michael meets an older gentleman playing blitz-chess in the park, and stops to challenge him to a game. What follows is a most unexpected friendship, and the wisdom and insight Michael gains from Rufus changes his outlook on life. Even better, Rufus’s advice just might save his marriage! A lovely, thought-provoking and inspirational story that examines how ordinary men and women are affected by today’s hyper-paced, technology-cluttered society.

An Effective Thriller About Two Unlikeable People

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Crown, 2012, 432pp.)

Young marrieds Nick and Amy Dunne are in trouble. Like so many people today, they find themselves bogged down in the mire of today's rotten economy, their jobs (magazine journalist and Cosmo quiz-writer respectively) made obsolete by the Internet. Due to money troubles and general incompatibility, their five-year-old marriage has crumbled, leaving them locked in a hateful, claustrophobic relationship. Then, on the day of their anniversary, Nick returns home to find Amy missing. When police find trace amounts of blood in the kitchen, they begin to suspect that Nick is the culprit. Is Nick being framed, or is he truly responsible for a horrible crime? By examining both past and present, Gone Girl traces the ugly meltdown of a marriage, and the terrible consequences it brings.

Although I won’t hesitate to proclaim Gone Girl to be a tense psychological thriller and an excellent choice for airport reading or beach trips, I have to admit that I had mixed feelings about the novel as a whole. Like the 1989 Michael Douglas movie, War of the Roses (which details the worst divorce battle in history), Gone Girl focuses on the absolute worst aspects of two fairly unlikeable people. While I must applaud Flynn for going against the grain in this aspect, I can’t think of two characters I would rather NOT read about ever again. The reader will either delight in Nick and Amy's despicable natures or want them both to die horrible deaths. It’s one of those books that makes you glad that you read it (just to see what the fuss was about), but also equally glad when you finish it and move on to something prettier.

Better Than Average Picoult Novel

Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult (Emily Bestler Books, 2012, 438pp.)

Tragedy strikes a New Hampshire family when 17-year-old Cara and her father, Luke, are in a car crash. Cara manages to escape with a broken arm, but Luke suffers a devastating brain injury and is left in a coma. The prognosis is grim, with little chance of his recovery. As Cara, her mother, Georgie, and her brother, Edward, gather at Luke’s bedside, the question arises: who is legally responsible for making medical decisions? Since Georgie divorced Luke several years ago and is no longer his legal spouse, the decision then falls to 24-year-old Edward. His opinion? Pull the plug. Cara's opinion? Give their father a chance to recover, so that maybe, weeks, months, even years from now, he just may wake up.

Like a good, old-fashioned soap opera, the plot often has the tendency to veer towards the melodramatic: Edward tries to unplug the life support machinery while his sister isn't looking, and in return, Cara goes to great lengths to have Edward arrested for attempted murder. Yet despite the teeth-gnashing and sibling rivalry, Lone Wolf succeeds in following in the footsteps of Picoult's earlier novel, My Sister’s Keeper. As some readers may have noticed, I tend to compare all of Picoult’s work to MSK, mainly because it’s the best one she’s written to date. Like MSK, Lone Wolf manages to focus more on the human aspects of the story, rather than champion Picoult’s political views. Even better, it may actually force readers to think about the importance of living wills, and prompt family discussions about end-of-life wishes. So, while Cara’s lack of maturity and Edward’s impulsiveness may grate on your nerves, keep reading! Only after the story is over, and the reader has the chance to think about what she’s read, does Lone Wolf become, in my opinion, a better-than-average Picoult novel.

Cheaper by the Half-Dozen

And the Whippoorwill Sang by Micki Peluso (Self-Published, 2012, 308pp.)

“...The whippoorwill had two songs, one happy, lilting song for spring, followed by a guttural tune of deep sadness as autumn approached and the bird was replaced by the winter wren.”

Much like the whippoorwill’s song, Peluso’s memoir conveys tales from a life that has known both joy and sorrow. It alternates between two timelines: in the first one, we sit with Peluso at her dying child’s bedside in 1981; in the second, we visit past memories and happier times. Starting in her late teens, Peluso recounts her married years with her high school sweetheart, Butch, as they move from one home to another, welcoming and raising six children along the way. Although times are frequently tough (and at times downright tragic), the tone of the work is mostly light-hearted. The reader will find themselves chuckling at the antics of Peluso’s kids, as well as her domestic misadventures involving disobedient dogs, a house plagued by paranormal activity, and cross-country road-trips taken with her family of eight. The story comes full circle when Peluso reveals the tragedy that marks the memoir’s beginning. By turns saddening and laugh-out-loud funny, And the Whippoorwill Sang is definitely one to check out.

Lovely Bedtime Stories For Adults

Allister Cromley’s Fairweather Belle (Bedtime Stories For Grownups to Tell) by Shane Portman (Self-Published, 2012, 76pp.)

For those of you who are looking for something to lull you to sleep at bedtime—something a little softer than that white-knuckle thriller you probably have on your nightstand—might I suggest Shane Portman’s Allister Cromley’s Fairweather Belle. Reminiscent of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, this gentle, nonsensical little collection of vignettes follow the allegorical adventures of Allister Cromley, a man who lives in a world that is “at once ours and at once only his” (26). Who is Allister, you ask? He’s a man prone to “subtle anarchy,” someone who writes “Go!” at the bottom of stop signs and who doesn’t follow rules—at least, until he realizes that “following no rules in itself [becomes], by definition, a rule” (40). While it can stand perfectly well on its own, I think the book works best as a complement to its companion website, http://www.fairweatherbelle.com/. Also see the Allister Cromley blog (http://allistercromley.blogspot.com/), a kooky, quirky source of extra Allister stories, with links to some really weird (but really cool) websites.

Interesting, But Not Remarkable

Beside the Sea by Véronique Olmi (2001; Tin House Books, 2012, 119pp.)

A somewhat tediously detailed story that follows an emotionally fragile mother and her two young sons on a beach trip. It’s not your ordinary trip, however. A dark undercurrent haunts the pages from the beginning to end, leading the reader to suspect that all is not well with this little family. Narrated by the mother, she confides to us that the world is too dangerous for her sons, and she, as their mother, feels it best to remove them from it.

I’m not even sure how much information about the plot I can reveal without completely giving away the ending. Although a little slow at first, the events leading up to the tale’s conclusion are riveting. I can’t really say how readers will react to the story. There’s not really a take-home message, and I don’t feel like I gained anything or became a better person for having read it. It’s interesting, but not exactly remarkable.

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Odds of This Story Making Me Care: 1 in 1,000,000

The Odds by Stewart O’Nan (Viking, 2012, 179pp.)

“At this point he was the exact opposite of a gambler, interested only in what gave him the best chance to win. He’d already taken the greatest risk in his life and lost. The best he could hope for was to break even.”

The Canadian side of Niagara Falls serves as the backdrop for a struggling middle-aged couple on their second honeymoon. Returning to the same hotel where they first spent their days of post-wedding bliss, life for Art and Marion has changed drastically since then. Everyday interactions are now colored by hurt and distrust, brought on by the looming shadow of Art’s past infidelity, a sin committed over 20 years ago—not to mention they’re broke and unemployed. The hotel they stay in sits on top of a casino, and it’s here where the soon-to-be-bankrupt couple decide to gamble away their savings. Each chapter is cleverly headed by the odds of certain events happening, such as: a spouse committing infidelity, an American filing for bankruptcy, and my personal favorite: “Odds of surviving going over the Falls without a barrel,” (it’s 1 in 1,500,000, in case you were interested).

Actually, the chapter headings were about all I liked about the story. I had two main problems with it. First, Art and Marion’s relationship. Obviously it’s a complicated one, but to me, they didn’t really seem like they were headed to divorce. They just seemed like an ordinary older married couple that squabbles and then settles in for a nice evening of TV together. Then there’s the author’s rendering of Niagara Falls, the casino, the hotel, and its surrounding attractions. It’s all so immensely detailed, that it actually killed the story for me. On the one hand, it feels like you’ve visited Niagara Falls yourself. On the other, it’s more than you ever needed to know. It’s kind of like when you make a pilgrimage to an oft-visited historical site/natural wonder-turned-tourist-trap. After the initial sense of awe wears off and you’ve absorbed your surroundings, you start to get a little bored. In The Odds, O’Nan manages to turn the characters’ potentially interesting plight into something tediously dull. By the time the couple reaches the end of their journey, I’d stopped caring. So, by way of Stewart O’Nan, I’d have to say:

Odds that you will consider never visiting Niagara Falls after reading this book because O’Nan touches on absolutely everything you can see and do there? 1 in 3.

Odds that you will spend the last half of the book skimming the pages? About 1 in 2.

Odds of this story making me care? 1 in 1,000,000.

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An Australian Rendition of “Wind in the Willows”

Albert of Adelaide by Howard L. Anderson (Twelve, 2012, 240pp.)

Australia has produced some of the strangest-looking creatures on earth, not least among them being the PLATYPUS. Duck-billed, beaver-tailed, web-footed Albert of the Adelaide Zoo has escaped captivity in order to flee to Old Australia, a fabled place where life is pristine and wild, like the time before humans arrived. Entirely plot-driven, Anderson’s novel is a funky sort of Australian adventure/Western/road-trip novel where animals wear clothes and carry guns. Follow Albert as he gets in on the wrong side of the law with a well-meaning pyromaniac wallaby, buddies up with a pair of chummy, drunk bandicoots (apparently, that’s a kind of rodent), and faces down a lunatic possum named Theodore. An interesting idea, to say the least, the whole concept (with its underdeveloped, though colorful characters) wear a bit thin towards the end. The dust-jacket summary describes it as a “old-fashioned-buddy-novel-shoot-’em-up,” and that’s exactly what it is, no more, no less.

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A Nice Parable, But Not for Everyone

The Missing Rose by Serdar Özkan (Tarcher, 2012, 224pp.)

Diana Oliveira’s mother dies, leaving her a letter which contains some shocking truths: her “dead” father is actually still alive, and she has a twin sister she never knew about. Her mother entreats her (through letters that she wrote while on her deathbed) to seek out this long-lost sister. Diana reluctantly travels to Istanbul, where her sister, Mary, has gone to learn the peculiar “art of hearing roses.”

It’s a pleasant enough story, and although I had trouble getting into it, it really gains substance towards the end and finishes with an ironic twist. The pacing is what weakens it as a piece, forcing the reader to float through a story that never really stops to put down roots in firm reality.

Because of its “yogic” feel, I’d recommend it to those who enjoy Mirti Venyon Reiyas’s Cosmic Library series. I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone looking for a story that gets directly to the point. What little there is of the plot matters less than the message Özkan is sending to the reader. After all, the “art of hearing roses” is really just a metaphor for following your dreams and being true to yourself. A nice parable with interesting things to say, but not for everyone.

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A Cynical Portrayal of the Crucifixion

The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín (Scribner, 2012, 81pp.)

A very bitter, cynical portrayal of Mary’s reflections on the Crucifixion twenty years after the event, as written by formerly Catholic author Colm Tóibín. At 81 pages long, there are a lot of things that this book isn’t. It’s not quite an exploration of Mary and Jesus’s relationship. For that, the story would need to be much longer. Nor is it a work of great beauty. It’s a broody little parable that has only a few things to say, and then says them. End of story. Do not expect the Pietà, and do not expect The Passion of the Christ. There’s no poignant scene of Mary cradling the body of her dead son after his demise. In fact, we get the impression that she doesn’t believe in her son’s divinity any more than the next atheist. That said, Tóibín’s Mary is also a very human rendition of the mother of Christ. Hers is a story that chronicles a widow’s lonely later years, one that’s based more in domesticity and than religiosity. It’s short, it’s simple, it’s depressing, and it’s slightly thought-provoking. Recommended for the reader who doesn’t mind a somewhat plain, not exactly unorthodox version of Biblical events.

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Good, But Kind of Weird

The White Forest by Adam McOmber (Touchstone, 2012, 320pp.)

Set in Victorian London, The White Forest centers on a trio of friends: Nathan Ashe (son of a Parliament member), Madeleine Lee (daughter of a photographer socially exiled for his lascivious photography), and Jane Silverlake, whose mother went raving mad before dying an early death.

Jane, who serves as the novel’s narrator, has a special, if somewhat bizarre, ability to see the “souls” of inanimate, manmade objects. Furniture, pottery, and statues give off strange light and emit sounds, caused by what some would think of as an aural/auditory migraine (but isn’t). Even stranger is the fact that behind those objects lurks a hidden world, a kind of “backstage area” for the universe, if you will. The “White Forest,” as she calls it, is stark and barren and completely white.

Trouble begins after Nathan, who has become aware of Jane's “affliction,” discovers that by touching her bare skin, he too can see what she sees. Eager to know more about the universe itself, he encourages an ever reluctant Jane to experiment with her abilities. But the experiments change Nathan. Not satisfied with his contact with Jane, he enrolls in a cult led by the charismatic leader Ariston Day.

Day is a peculiar figure, one that the girls instantly dislike as Nathan describes their cult meetings to them. Day claims that cities like London are blights upon the natural world. Mankind will never reach enlightenment and understanding until civilization is razed to the ground, and the natural world is allowed to flourish. Weeks after joining the cult, Nathan vanishes. Maddy and Jane fear the worst, and set out to investigate his disappearance. But then Jane is contacted by Ariston Day himself. Nathan has told him about the White Forest, and he is very interested in getting to know Jane…

Although the premise is, yes, a little strange, the story works. It works primarily because of its firm roots in a very vividly described Victorian London, and from the interactions of the three main protagonists. But this sense of humanity is lost towards the end, as Jane is forced to physically leave her world and enter the White Forest (to save the world, of course). To put it simply, things in the White Forest get weird and stay weird from that point on. This is extremely unfortunate, because although the ending works well in context with the rest of the story, it’s still a bit disappointing. I can’t really tell you to stop 30 pages before the end, because the action leading up until that point is so suspenseful. So, despite these flaws, my verdict is: if you like spooky, creepy stories and Victorian London (and honestly, who doesn’t?) go ahead and give it a try.

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A Charming, Poetic Tale

The Vanishing Act by Mette Jakobsen (W.W. Norton & Co., 2012, 224pp.)

Minou, a little girl, lives on a tiny, nameless island. The only other inhabitants of the island are her philosopher father (who claims to descend from Descartes), their friend Boxman (who makes sawing-people-in-half boxes for magicians on the mainland), and Priest, the island’s pretzel-baking spiritual leader who leads their congregation of three. Well, technically, there’s a fourth member, if you think to count No-Name, the resident dog. And there is a fifth presence, too: Minou’s mother, who went for a walk on the beach several months ago and hasn’t been seen since. Only Minou believes her mother is still alive—whisked away, perhaps, by magic! But when a boy’s dead body is found tumbling in the surf, the reality of life and death forces Minou into a pensive state, and causes her to reflect on past events leading up to her mother’s disappearance. Short but sweet, The Vanishing Act is a charming, poetic tale of parable-like simplicity.

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If You Like “Room” You'll Like “Memoirs”

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks (St. Martin’s Press, 2012, 320pp.)

We’ve all had imaginary friends at some point or another. The thing is, most of us give them up before too long. So what happens to those imaginary friends when we forget about them? Memoirs is a kind of autobiography of Budo, the imaginary friend of autistic kindergartner Max. Max needs him more than most children: he doesn’t like using the school bathrooms unless they’re completely devoid of other occupants (Budo keeps watch outside the door); he hates it when his mother kisses him goodnight (Budo has to keep track of how many goodnight kisses his mother bestows upon him while he’s asleep). Budo doesn’t mind his duties, though. All this means that Max needs him, and the more Max needs him...the longer he can exist. As Budo explains:

“It’s very strange to be an imaginary friend. You can’t suffocate and you can’t get sick, and you can’t fall and break your head, and you can’t catch pneumonia. The only thing that can kill you is a person not believing in you.” (140)

Dicks has given Budo an elaborate set of rules to abide by. No one can see him but Max, and his abilities are limited to what Max has imagined for him: he can pass through doors and windows, but not through walls; he can’t communicate with adults or other children (but he can talk to other imaginary friends). He can’t pick things up, either. All of these things come into play when one of Max’s overzealous special ed teachers decides that she knows more about Max’s well-being than his own parents (what were they thinking, enrolling an autistic child in a public school?) So she decides to take custody of Max—without Max’s parents’ permission (which technically is kidnapping). Naturally, Budo wants to help Max return home to Mom and Dad—but that would mean encouraging Max to take things into his own hands—and that could threaten Budo’s very existence.

I won’t lie. Memoirs takes its time setting up the rules, and it’s about eighty-five pages in before the story really gets started. Dicks also focuses more on the premise than the characters. Budo (How do you even pronounce that? Budd-o? Boo-do?) spends a lot of time repeating himself, giving example after example about  how imaginary people are different from real people: “It’s not the fence that blocks [an imaginary friend] from entering. It’s the idea of the fence. ... I don’t leave footprints because I’m not actually touching the ground. I’m touching the idea of the ground” (60). “I look like I breathe, but all I breathe is the idea of air...” (140). And at one point, Budo accidentally backs into the corner of a wall (“The idea of the corner, I mean...”) (233). Yeah, yeah, we get it already.

As other readers have noted, though, there are times where Budo’s childlike voice pushes the story into the territory of YA cross-over instead of adult fiction. This is not to say that Memoirs has plenty of elements to make a good story: Max’s evolution from inflexibility to self-sufficiency, his poor parents’ struggles with having an autistic child, not to mention the almost unbearable suspense of the novel’s second half (if you find yourself struggling through the first half, don’t worry. It picks up really soon). So if you’re not too fond of childlike narrators, you may want to look for something else. If you liked Emma Donoghue’s Room, however, chances are that Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend will be just the right fit for you.

Similar Books:

• Room by Emma Donaghue

Equal Parts “Omega Man” and “The Postman”

The Zombie Generation by Drake Vaughn (Dead Orb Press, 2012, 238pp.)

Plunk a man down in the middle of a nightmare zombie scenario, then arm him with only a Glock, a bottle of whiskey, and several dozen Furby-like children’s toys to defend himself with, and you’ve pretty much summed up Warner’s situation. To his knowledge, he and his girlfriend Pam are the only two people left in the world. An infection has spread, turning the rest of mankind into zombies. These despicable hordes share the genre’s normal hankering for brain matter, but Vaughn has made a few interesting additions to how his monsters behave. “Buggers,” as they’re referred to in the story, are more alive than undead. They’re also much less intelligent than the average person, and are easily distracted by obnoxious electronic children’s toys, such as the Googriff, a close cousin of the Furby. Although scientists claimed that the infection was not spread through blood or saliva, Warner’s pretty sure that’s not the case. After he’s scratched by one of the buggers, he immediately begins having blackouts and unusual cravings. Determined to hold on to his humanity, he frantically begins searching for a cure that may or may not exist. While the story’s pacing drags a bit in places, Warner’s plight—equal parts Omega Man and The Postman—is still interesting enough to hold the reader’s attention to the tale’s gory conclusion.

Similar Books:

• The Postman by David Brin

High Art

The Great Peace, or, Get with the Pogrom by Ryan George Kittleman (Timbre & Yarn LLC, 2012, 322pp.)

The Great Peace is what 1984 would look like if Big Brother was a talentless art hack. In this case, Big Brother is Polo Younger, a peculiar, mask-wearing, sweatpants-clad Napoleon who swore vengeance after being rejected from numerous art schools. Since he took over the City Arts Commission, he’s decided to have art production strictly regulated. He’s also had all the classical art museum destroyed. Many despise him, many struggle against him, but only Rufus Wiggin, his high school nemesis, has a chance at overthrowing his reign of bad art.

The Great Peace is a quirky and entertaining story. My only complaint is directed at a section where Rufus and Polo have a lengthy debate about the purpose of art in society, and function as obvious mouthpieces for the author’s views. Because of its surrealist quality, I wouldn’t recommend it for the casual reader, but rather for fans of satirical or absurdist fiction.