Novels Now

Near mid-century when Edward was born, the full moon was years from being the brightest. That would happen - in terms of luminosity and size - in the last month of the century. [Opening of The Brightest Moon of the Century]

Life Sentences by Laura Lippman

Pages: 344
First Published: Mar. 10, 2009
Genre: fiction
Rating: 4/5

First sentence:

“Well,” the bookstore manager said, “it is Valentine’s Day.”

Comments: Cassandra Fallows, author of two memoirs and one novel, travels back to her Baltimore neighbourhood to research her new book. Her first memoir centred around the lives of her middle class white family and that of her three best friends who are black and of mixed financial backgrounds. There was a fifth black girl on the outskirts of her group of friends whom Cassie never really paid any attention to but it has just now been revealed to her that this girl was questioned in the death of her infant son and then spent seven years in jail for contempt for pleading the fifth and has never uttered one word about her missing, presumed murdered son. This is what Cassie wants to base her new book on and as she travels home she finds that no one from the past wants to talk about that incident. It seems she has come to uncover a secret so big that many people have been silenced for what very little they do know and no one wants to open those doors again. But while unraveling other families secrets Cassie finds herself face to face with a secret from her very own family’s past which she has not known of and must face before she can face anyone else’s secrets.

I really enjoyed this book. I’ve read one other Lippman book and it was not a stand-alone as this one is. I had expected this to be a mystery but, in fact, I would not classify it as such, nor would I call it a thriller, crime or even a suspense. It is much more akin to what I think of as Southern Fiction (with the eccentric characters and the race relations) but being set in Baltimore takes that option away. What we have here is really non-genre fiction. A story of people, a select group of people, and how a secret affected their lives.

Lippman is wonderful at characterization. There is a big company of players in this book and the main characters are fleshed out, fully realized with full backgrounds and flawed human beings. The secondary characters are less developed but they certainly consist of an eccentric cast. While the plot mainly focuses on Cassandra and her life and relationship with her parents and friends from the past, often including passages from her published book of memoirs, the tracking down of the girl who grew up to possibly kill her own son forms a cohesive plot that pulls the whole together and gives an enjoyable mystery to solve with a satisfying ending, for this reader. But other readers looking for a traditional mystery may not find the ending quite so satisfying. Not having read many Lippman books I can’t say whether this book is typical or not of her stand-alones but if you are looking for a traditional mystery/thriller/crime book this is not the book you are looking for. However, if you are looking for a compelling read with an intriguing plot that includes a secret to unravel then by all means you’ll have found your book with Life Sentences.

P.S. I can’t help but mention that I just love the cover of my edition!

The Glister by John Burnside

Pages: 228
First Published: March 10, 2009
Genre: horror, thriller
Rating: 3/5

First sentence:

In the beginning, John Morrison is working in his garden.

Comments: Innertown, located somewhere on the coast of Britain, has been more like a ghost town since the chemical plant closed down years ago. Since them most people who worked there have either died or are very sick with undetermined illnesses. The plant and the surrounding acres have been shut down and closed off, left to the elements and time. Of course kids being kids, there are some who still like to hang out and wander around the old plant. This is the setting for a sudden disappearance of a local boy, there one minute, gone the next. Now over the years, every so often a boy will disappear, one this year, then one two years later, then one the next year and so on. The local police find no traces, the boys are just old enough, and family circumstances just bad enough for them to say this is a dead end town for these kids, they’ve had enough, they’ve packed up and gone off to face the world on their own. Some believe that line, others don’t.

Each chapter of the book is narrated by a different voice and thus the story is told from many points of view. Some characters only share their view occasionally while others, such as the main character, a local boy called Leonard, come to the front more often. From reading the blurbs and book summary I had presumed this would be a horror story but it is no ordinary horror book, instead I found it much more like what I would call a crime thriller. I found it very engrossing and read the book within a 24 hour period always coming back to it after having had to put it down for some reason or other. A page turner with wonderful characterization especially considering the short number of pages. I was really caught up in the story and found some of the scenes as the case started to unravel quite unnerving. My problem is with the ending, well with the last page exactly. As I was reading along and the case had been solved to the reader’s satisfaction, I came to the last page and came upon a scene which made me exclaim a great big “HUH???” I have no idea why it ended the way it did or what it’s supposed to mean. Remove that last page and I would have enjoyed the book for a higher rating but the ending left me so confuddled, I’m at a loss to say how I feel about the rest of the book now. Read the book and you’ll enjoy a good thriller but do yourself a favour and skip the last page or maybe come back to it and read it a week later.

Alligator Bayou by Donna Jo Napoli

Pages: 280
First Published: Mar. 10, 2009
Genre: YA, historical fiction
Rating: 4/5

First sentence:

The night is so dark, I can barely see my hands.

Comments: This is a coming of age story of one Italian immigrant boy, Calogero, of uncertain age until the end of the book where we can figure he is about fourteen years old. It is the story of his life with his uncles and cousin, as the only Italian family in a small Louisiana town in 1899. They grow vegetables and are grocers and doing a might fine job at the business. He becomes friends with a small group of black boys and falls in love with one of their sisters, Patricia. The book is filled with their adventures, alligator hunting in the swamp, sneaking a kiss at a church picnic and a meeting with a very old Indian way out in the swamps.

But this story is also set against a very disturbing time in American history. One in which I knew nothing about. The discrimination against Italian immigrants in the south. This was the time of Jim Crow laws which were set up to make sure that the whites had superiority over the blacks but also left certain immigrant groups in a no man’s land. The Italians in the south were not considered white and were not welcome where white society was. They were also given a tough time because economically they were taking business away from the white company stores. On the other hand, Italians were neither considered to be black and an Italian was sure to get himself beat up at the least or lynched at the most for fraternizing with the blacks; the whites certainly didn’t want the Italians giving the blacks any high and mighty ideas. The Italians were also denied an education at this time as they were not allowed in the white schools and the blacks had their schools in their churches, Protestant, and the Italians were Catholic and therefore chose to go without for the time being. It was within this climate that our main character, Calogero, finds himself.

Based on a true story of which little but the barest of facts are known, Ms. Napoli has brought to life a terribly tragic story and a pocket of time back to the future so that we may not forget the hardships and the abuses that went on not so long ago. A beautifully written story with searing truthfulness. The characters are wonderful and the end is too sad to comprehend. This is a quick little read but it’s packed with a lot of punch.

The Redeemer by Jo Nesbo
Harry Hole, Book 6
Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett

Pages: 457
First Published: 2005 (Norway), Mar, 10 2009 UK/Can
Genre: crime fiction, mystery
Rating: 4.5/5

First sentence:

Comments: One evening during Christmas a Salvation Army man is shot (assassination style) at his collection post. As the police try to find whether this murder is aimed at the Salvation Army as a whole the man’s brother is shot at and barely escapes with his life. Now it becomes a family thing and the police want to know which brother was the real target or are they both wanted dead? But when a seemingly unrelated woman’s brutal death soon follows the police are stumped as to whether there is any connection. There is an unknown hit man on the loose and the bodies are piling up when another man related to the case kills himself.

To Tricia and her coworkers, my mother is not entirely human - not a daughter, not a mother, not a wife. Her past wiped out, she is just another sack of flesh, dehumanized. She has become a freak. Staff members put food in Ellen’s mouth, strip clothes off her body, dress her and lay her in bed - she’s an oversized doll, an animate toy - but she does not belong to their species any longer. I understand this. It’s a human impulse to think: I will never be like that. - from Buffalo Lockjaw, page 111 -

Greg Ames has written a searing, all too real novel about watching someone you love slip into dementia. When James Fitzroy returns to his hometown of Buffalo at Thanksgiving, he finds himself tormented by his mother’s mental and physical decline from Alzheimer’s Disease. He wonders why his mother - a nurse who everyone loved and a woman whose nursing text is still being used to educate new nurses - should have to suffer this indignity, while James wastes his life drinking too much, having meaningless sex and working in a dead end job as a writer of taglines for greeting cards. He also worries about his father who is aging and alone now.

As per usual in his presence, I feel like I’m eight years old again. This is unnatural, I realize, a moral failing, and this tentativeness must end, because I am the stronger man here, young, powerful, intelligent, a representative of the future, and he’s old, decrepit and doddering - he’s literally riding in the passenger seat of life - and it’s my job to worry about him now that he lives alone. What if he falls down and breaks his hip in his bachelor pad? What if he chokes on a TV dinner? It’s time for me to step up and assume my new role in this family. This is my responsibility. Nobody else will do this. Time to become a grown man. But how does one begin? - from Buffalo Lockjaw, page 220 -

It is this misdirected sense of responsibility that compels James to consider ending his mother’s life. He agonizes over how he would do it, or if such an act is even justified.

I sit beside her trying to imagine what she thinks and feels. If it’s true that she experiences no physical pain, and that mentally she is no more cognizant of her condition than a baby is - the baby doesn’t recognize the helplessness of her life because she has nothing to compare it to - then this is my problem and not hers. But if she is suffering with the knowledge of loss, if she recognizes the absence of dignity, which I suspect is the case, then her shame and despair must consume her. And she has nothing but time, the regulated ticking of minutes on a clock, to remind her of that. - from Buffalo Lockjaw, page 117 -

James Fitzroy is not a wholly likable character - he can be crude and he drinks too much, he seems to have no aspirations to raise his life to a higher level - and yet, I found myself empathizing with him and appreciating his deep love and loyalty to his mother. In one scene, he carefully flosses his mother’s teeth, believing she would be ashamed by her poor dental hygiene. James shows compassion even toward other residents at the care home - holding their hands, or speaking to them with empathy. One gets the feeling that here is a young man completely misunderstood for most of his life, and trying now to rectify this.

Interspersed throughout the narrative are clips of other characters talking about Buffalo and the people who live there - at first I wasn’t sure what to make of these interuptions in the novel. But the reader ultimately understands that James was an “urban ethnologist” and these snippets of narrative come from his interview tapes. They lend a surreal touch to the book and offer a glimpse at the personal stories of others living in James’ hometown, but aside from this they seemed a distraction from the real purpose of the novel.

Ames writes with black humor and irony as he explores the controversial subject of assisted suicide for the terminally ill. He does not offer an answer as to whether euthansia is morally right or wrong, but instead opens up a fertile ground for discussion. Buffalo Lockjaw would make a great book club read for this reason. Thematically the novel is about aging, loss, love and the parent/child relationship through time.

Buffalo Lockjaw is a laudable debut and one which captivated me from the beginning because of its authenticity. I not only work with patients suffering dementia in my profession of Physical Therapy, but my father also suffers from progressive dementia because of small vessel disease. Greg Ames has skillfully captured the immense sadness and utter hopelessness of watching a loved one be robbed of their intellect, personality, and dignity because of a disease like Alzheimers.

Recommended with a caution - Ames writes with direct, sometimes unnerving prose which may disturb some readers.

Wanting by Richard Flanagan

Pages: 256
First Published: Mar. 9, 2009
Genre: historical fiction, Victorian
Rating: 3/5

First sentence:

Comments: When all is said and done this is a strange little story. It is two stories in one; first that of the past where Sir John Franklin is the Lieutenant-Governor with Lady Jane Franklin of Van Diemen’s Land (currently Tasmania, Australia) and how they come to ‘adopt’ a little Aborigine girl to prove that a savage can be civilized. Then there is the story of the future, one where Lady Jane, whose husband has now been missing for 9 nine years and she beseeches Charles Dickens to write an article squashing the horrible rumours of cannibalism among her husbands’ last crew. This he does but the story does not centre on that but on the relationship between himself and Ellen Ternan.

The story set in the past of Sir John, Lady Jane and Mathinna, the little black girl, is very absorbing and could have been a book itself without the other half of the ‘future’ plot. What Lady Jane did from the goodness of her heart turned against all those concerned and became a tragedy. The added story of Dickens really felt out of place here; it’s only connection to the other story is that Lady Jane appears at the beginning and at the end, plus the plot revolves around the time when Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins were putting on their play, No Frozen Deep, concerning a melodramatic love story set on an Arctic exploration. I can’t say I enjoyed this second part of the story at all, it seemed pointless to the plot.

The book is told in chapters which suddenly switch back and forth from one plot to another going from the past to the future willy nilly, which creates a somewhat dizzying affect to the reader until one has settled down into the style. The writing is good, the story is fast-paced and easy to read and certainly a page-turner during the Mathinna scenes.

But ultimately the theme of this book is not the plot but that of the title, “wanting”. Everyone in this story is wanting love. Sir John wants the love of a woman as Lady Jane makes it known early in the marriage that she finds wifely duties distasteful. Lady Jane wants maternal love, though she succumbs to her wifely duties at such times as necessary she is rewarded with being barren. Mathinna wants the love of belonging. She is a black who acts too white to be accepted by the blacks and feels the thoughts of a white but of course is black and will not be accepted by the whites . Then we have Charles Dickens who desperately wants the love of Ellen. A young, coquette who, in this book, is the first person to ever truly understand him. In truth their relationship has never really been firmly decided one way or the other.

An interesting, quick read but I found the whole Charles Dickens aspect of the story to be irrelevant to the plot and could have been left out entirely to leave a much more satisfying story of the Franklins’ “experiment’ in raising Mathinna and the tragedy it became.

The Side-Yard Superhero by Rick D. Niece
Book One in the Trilogy, Life in DeGraff: An Automythography

Pages: 173
First Published: Mar. 1, 2009
Genre: memoir,
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

Comments: First of all, I’ll admit I’m a sucker for early 20th century boyhood memoirs. No idea why, seeing as I’m a girl but there you have it. This book tells snippets of the author’s life living in DeGraff, Ohio and small former steel mill town during the 1950s and ’60s. The book does go in chronological order though there is no general plot rather single episodes or remembrances pulled from his life. What makes this book different from any of the others is Rick’s best friend. Bernie, is his name. An older boy, a teenager actually to Rick’s nine years when they first meet, who has cerebral palsy and is wheelchair bound. Bernie doesn’t talk very well and his arms and legs are always twitching but Rick can tell what he says, waits for him to get it all out and quickly becomes unaware of Bernie’s quirks. Rick and Bernie did a lot of special things together, special for Bernie as he got to experience things he never would have otherwise, and special for Rick as he grew up learning the joys of life through the eyes of one who was overjoyed with the simple things in life.

I found the book well-written, in a simplistic straight forward way, like listening to the man himself reminiscing. Interspersed throughout the book are a number of poems which I quite enjoyed, and I am so not a poetry person. While the story of the author’s friendship with Bernie is the focal point of the book, not every chapter involved him as Rick also described other events in his life. An eccentric cast of neighbours rounds out the book, such as Fern Burdette who only wore a bra from the waist up and Frank Tully the man who appeared to be a professional attendee, he was at every function that ever went on in town. A very quaint, enjoyable story. There are no famous, rich or celebrities in these pages; just plain ol’ down to earth good folks. And that is the pleasure of the book; the enjoyment of the good old days when people didn’t even lock the doors to their homes. If you like small town stories or boyhood memoirs, you’ll like this one. Recommended.

But in Iraq, there was never one story, there were always many stories, layers of episodes, each one a wound. [pg 6]

Kitty Raises Hell by Carrie Vaughn
Grand Central Publishing, 2009 (ARC)
Fantasy; 336 pgs

Book 6 in the Series

Trouble seems to follow Kitty no matter where she goes, and it certainly has found her in Denver. Something is stalking her and threatening her pack. She is up against a supernatural force she cannot explain, much less name. Seeking help from the crew of a televised paranormal investigation show, maybe she will be able to figure out who or what is behind the strange happenings and learn how to stop it before it wrecks even more havoc than it has already.

She also is offered help from another source; a mysterious vampire offers his services but for a price. His price is high and both the Master Vampire of Denver and Kitty are unsure they can trust the man who says he is the only one who can stop the foe they are up against. As danger draws closer takes the life of someone close to her, Kitty is desperate and willing to try anything to save her friends and family.

I am beginning to see a pattern with the Kitty Norville books. I appear to like the novels that take place in Denver best (although I really liked Kitty Goes to Washington too). Kitty seems more settled in this book, although not completely. Her position in the pack is somewhat tenuous, especially with an evil after her that she knows so little about.

Carrie Vaughn continues to add new and interesting characters to the series as well as bring back old ones that I am eager to learn more about. The longer the series goes on, the more I like the character of vampire Rick. Kitty has a good ally in him even though they do not always see eye to eye. And I was pleased to see Odysseus Grant reappear—there’s still so much to learn about him!

Kitty Raises Hell is a great addition to the series. It was different and fun. I look forward to meeting up with Kitty and friends again in the near future.

Hearts. This is all about hearts, restless or yearning, broken or bleeding. - from Bleeding Heart Square, page 229 -

Andrew Taylor’s latest crime mystery is a literary whodunnit set in London in the early 1930’s. Lydia Langstone, leaves her abusive marriage and arrives to live with her father, Captain Ingleby-Lewis, at Number 7 Bleeding Heart Square.  Also residing in the building is Joseph Serrige who is a rather mysterious character with a dark past; and Rory Wentwood who has recently parted ways with his girlfriend Fennela Kensley. What binds all these characters together is the disappearance of an older woman named Miss Penhow who has not been seen for four years.

Taylor has crafted a novel with twists and turns and a few gory details - such as the rotting hearts which keep arriving at Bleeding Heart Square addressed to  Serrige.

Mrs. Renton pulled the knot apart and coiled the string into a roll. She unwrapped the parcel gingerly. The smell grew steadily worse. Finally she drew back the last fold of brown paper, exposing an object like a misshapen egg about four inches long and two inches high. most of it was a dark, mottled red, bu there were streaks of a pale yellow embedded into its texture, and minute white specks milled about almost invisibly on its surface.

“Meat,” Mrs. Renton said.

“But its rotten,” Lydia said, shocked.

“I can see that,” Ingleby-Lewis barked. Holding his nose, he came nearer. “Damn it, those are maggots. What the blazes is it doing here?”

Mrs. Renton looked at Lydia. “Nothing to do with me.”

“What is it, anyway?” he asked ina quieter voice.

“It’s a heart, sir,” Mrs. Renton said. “A rotten heart.” - from Bleeding Heart Square, page 21 -

Narrated from multiple viewpoints and including snippets of the missing woman’s diary with commentary from an unidentified character, Taylor’s story builds slowly and steadily to its surprising conclusion.

Bleeding Heart Square is a mystery novel entrenched in the history of the time period between the Great Wars including the British Union of Fascists introduction into English society. It also covers such social issues as abusive marriages, adultery, divorce and the role of women during that time. These larger themes, as well as Taylor’s adept use of language, set this novel apart from other mysteries.

The first half of the book is a bit slow and there are many characters who weave in and out of the narrative which requires attention from the reader to keep them all straight. But despite the leisurely start, Bleeding Heart Square picks up its pace mid-way and becomes hard to put down. Atmospheric, rich in historical detail, and written with a literary flair, this novel is recommended to readers who enjoy historical fiction, whodunnit mysteries and British literature.

Bleeding Heart Square was published earlier this month. More information may be found at the Hyperion Website.

About Andrew Taylor:

• Official Website
• Awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger for 2009 for sustained excellence in crime writing
• Biography

Near mid-century when Edward was born, the full moon was years from being the brightest. That would happen - in terms of luminosity and size - in the last month of the century. As a child growing up, however, Edward found much splendor and mystery in the moon. It kept changing and following him around, a rock with its own rhythms, much like girls, and he knew he was years away from understanding girls. - from The Brightest Moon of the Century -

Christopher Meeks has transitioned from short stories to his first novel - and the result is a book which draws the reader in with humor, empathy, and a gentle understanding of what it means to live our lives with a sense of wonder.

The Brightest Moon of the Century is organized into nine distinctive chapters which allows the reader to experience the life of Edward Meopian from the age of 14 through his 45th year. Edward is a bit of a nerd and socially naive, a character who consistently made me feel for his struggles and celebrate his triumphs. As a young boy, he loses his mother to a tragic accident and it is perhaps this one event which shapes the man he ultimately becomes. Forced to attend a private boy’s school by his father (who is seeking his own happiness while struggling in his role as single parent), Edward must confront bullies and figure out his place in the world. Edward’s teenage challenges and search for love in the first two chapters reveal Meeks’ finally honed sense of humor and understanding of what it means to be young.

Guys would never talk about, say, what brand of acne medicine they were using, or what great pants another guy was wearing, or wow, good color for a golf shirt. Didn’t girls want to know how far someone got on a date? Or did they talk about how their boyfriends got boners and they happily let them suffer? The more suffering, the better a girl you were? If so, Annie was a fantastic girl. - from The Brightest Moon of the Century -

Edward moves from his childhood home in Minnesota to college in Colorado, later makes his way to Los Angeles (where he tries to follow  his dream of becoming a movie director), and finally ends up in rural Alabama managing a mini-mart in a trailer park (my favorite part of the book). It is through these years of his life that Edward struggles with self-discovery, faith, and fate.

“Failure seems to follow me around,” said Edward.

“You’re no failure, son,” said the officer, and Edward turned to face him. “This is God,” said the man. “Or the disorder of life, if you like. This is what we all have to live with.” - from The Brightest Moon of the Century -

In the final chapters, the reader watches Edward grow into middle-age and discover that often the joys of life are balanced with pain. Edward is revealed as a man who empathizes deeply with others and never loses his hope and optimism despite tragedy.

And this is what I love about Meeks’ writing ability - he gives us characters who are very human and who face many obstacles in life, and then he infuses their stories with hope.  As in his previous short story collections (reviewed here and here), I found myself caring deeply about the characters in The Brightest Moon of the Century.  Meeks writes with a wry humor as he shows Edward tripping and stumbling through the world with a refreshing openness to what life has to offer.

He was simply going to be open to the moment, like a sunflower or the Hari Krishna guy at the airport. - from The Brightest Moon of the Century -

Christopher Meeks’ work is joyful, funny and sensitive. The Brightest Moon of the Century is a satisfying read and one which made me hope that Meeks will continue to write novels.

Visit the Author’s Website where you can find many reviews of all of Christopher Meeks’ work.

Mike Dellosso
301 pages

Scream begins with Mark Stone talking on his cell phone with a friend, Jeff. The call is interrupted by what sounds like screaming and wailing on the line. It is heard by both parties but they just assume that it’s some type of interference. Then Mark hears the obvious sounds of a car accident and he is unable to raise Jeff on the phone. He makes his way to where Jeff was driving and finds that he was killed in a fiery crash.

Mark is shaken by the memory of the screams that he has heard and the fact that they happened right before his friend was killed but when the circumstances repeat themselves two more times in fairly rapid succession, Mark begins to understand what the screaming is about. He is being given a warning. He hears the screams when people are about to die.

Raised in a harsh and legalistic home, Mark hasn’t given much thought to his faith or what happens to a person after death since he left home. However, when he hears the screams while talking on the phone with his estranged wife, it all becomes very personal.

I have to admit that I was not sure that I would like this book. I haven’t typically liked some of the titles that I have read that have been “Christian Thrillers.” I’m not sure if it’s because of the genre or if I just didn’t click with the particular author.

Scream is a thriller in that it deals with both the supernatural and a real-world menace. On the one hand, there is the threat and the warning of the screams and on the other hand, there is a crazy man called The Judge who is abducting women. It’s suspenseful, it’s thought-provoking, I enjoyed the writing style and it kept me turning the pages.

While I typically prefer to point people to God’s mercy and grace when examining matters of faith, there is another side to the Gospel and it is clearly presented in Scream. Mike Dellosso did a wonderful job wrapping it in an engaging story. (4/5)

Footnote: I think it’s worth noting that this author is currently dealing with colon cancer and has written about it in the preface of Scream. I found his words eloquent and wanted to share an exerpt:

Now I think about death all the time. Cancer has a way of doing that, of reminding you of the frailty of your existence, the brevity of life. Of reminding you that we’re all just walking on a thing sheet of ice that can crack or break at any moment.

But thinking about death is a good thing. The wise king Solomon wrote, “We must all die, and everyone living should think about this. (See Ecclesiastes 7:2) Good advice. Thinking about death forces us to think about life, something most of us don’t do nearly enough. And thinking about life forces us to think about how we’re living our life, something all of us should do a lot more of. - Scream, preface pgs ix, x

Etta
By Gerald Kolpan
Completed December 28, 2008

Etta is the debut novel by journalist Gerald Kolpan. Inspired by a documentary about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Kolpan became interested in the mysterious Etta Place – Sundance Kid’s lover. Kolpan researched Etta, turned up very little, and decided to write a fictional account about this elusive woman.

In this story, Etta is really Lorinda Jameson – a wealthy girl sent west to escape the Italian mob who wanted to kill her to settle her father’s debts. Trouble followed Etta, though, like a bad shadow. Once settled in Colorado, she was sentenced for murdering a man who attempted to rape her. She was rescued by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and later joined them in their train and bank robberies. She also fell in love with the Sundance Kid (really named Harry Lonbaugh).

With little known about the real Etta Place, Kolpan had many holes to fill. He did plenty of research about everyday life during the turn of the century, from outlaws to train robberies, and bathing customs to cuisine. He structured his story with narratives, diary entries, memos from the Pinkertons and newspaper stories. The historical information and story structure advanced the story nicely.

However, I questioned how Kolpan developed the character of Etta. For example, I could not wrap my arms around how a woman of privilege so willingly embraced an outlaw lifestyle, with very little moral debate about what she was doing. Her diary indicated that she was stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, but it was not a convincing enough argument for me, considering Etta’s upbringing.

I also was unsure on why Kolpan added Eleanor Roosevelt to the story. Etta and Eleanor became friends in this story after Etta saw Eleanor’s work with the poor. Eleanor Roosevelt is one of our most honored women, and it doesn’t seem plausible that her path would cross with this debutante-turned-robber. And if their paths were to cross, it seemed unlikely that they would become such close friends, again considering Mrs. Roosevelt’s life and Etta’s career.

Despite these reservations, I enjoyed Etta. I would recommend it to readers who wanted to learn more about the social and economic history of the United States during the turn of the century. ( )

The rabbi shrugged. “Faith is hard, Rosa. Nonbelievers often speak of faith as if it were something easy, a cop-out from the really tough business of confronting a meaningless universe, but it’s not. It’s doubt that’s easy. - From The Believers-

When Audrey Howard meets Joel Litvinoff - a radical American lawyer -  at a party in London in 1962, she is a shy and unsure young woman. But years later, now married to Joel and living in New York City, Audrey has remade herself into a brash, foul-mouthed liberal who views the world cynically and lashes out at everyone around her. When Joel collapses from a stroke and lapses into a coma, Audrey is forced to face not only her out of control temper (and the consequences of it), but her loyalty to a serial adulterer whose shadow she has always lived within.

The Litvinoff family is a complex, rather dysfunctional group of people. Rosa, the youngest daughter, is struggling with her Jewish roots and lack of faith; Karla, the eldest daughter, finds herself in a loveless marriage and struggles to develop enough self-esteem to seek the happiness she is not sure she deserves; and Lenny, the adopted son, battles drug addiction. Despite the strong personality of their father, the Litvinoff children are really more influenced by Audrey - whose boredom with motherhood and barely concealed anger at the world (and her husband in particular) dominate their lives.

Zoe Heller has written a thoughtful and provocative book about politics and religion. Thematically, she explores how individuals discover themselves, while residing within a family whose beliefs threaten to suffocate their uniqueness. Heller’s ironic style and black humor are effective in teasing out the pitfalls of all belief systems - whether they be “politically correct,” religious, or socially radical. By choosing a mostly unlikeable protagonist (Audrey), Heller risks alienating her readers. But, instead, her ability to balance the character’s negative traits with the very real human emotions of fear, isolation, and grief allows for empathy.

I enjoyed the twists and turns of this cerebral novel which moves steadily forward as each character resolves their conflicts - both externally and internally. This is a book which will create great discussion  about the core beliefs individuals carry as they stumble through their lives.

Recommended.

The Believers
By Zoe Heller
Completed October 24, 2008

The Believers by Zoe Heller is the story of the Litvinoff family – led by Joel, a political activist and lawyer whose sudden collapse from a stroke put his family into chaos – compounded when a secret was revealed that rocked the family’s already fragile structure. Joel and his wife Audrey did not believe in raising a child-centric family. They were active in the worker’s movement in New York, and Joel was known for representing radical defendants. Audrey was “unmotherly” toward her two daughters, Karla and Rosa, but had a more tender side for her down-and-out adopted son, Lenny. The book only gave the readers snippets of their childhood, but one could conclude that the family was uncompassionate toward each other – as if the passion for their causes was the only passion they could muster.

As adults, the children were a crew of confused people who latched on to their vices (or beliefs) in an extreme way. Karla was overweight and unconfident. Rosa was interested in her Jewish roots and became involved in Orthodox Judaism. And Lenny was a drug abuser who manipulated his mother for money.

It was hard to like any of these characters. Audrey was nasty; Karla, cowardly; Rosa, snobbish; and Lenny, a loser. We learned about Joel only through the eyes of his family, and even he was deplorable.

Even with the unlikable characters, the story was captivating. Like a train wreck, I could not wait to see what disaster the family averted (or did not avert) with each chapter. As the story ended, I was left with a sense that they did not learn anything from their experiences, which was slightly dissatisfying. But not every book can have a fairy tale ending.

If you like a raw look at a dysfunctional family, then I would recommend The Believers to you. It’s a quick read if you can get into the lives of these interesting yet sad characters. ( )