Novels Now

Atomic Lobster was one fast ride. It’s a story about Serge A. Storms, a criminal who always ends up helping the underdog, and his motley crew consisting of Coleman, a pothead alcoholic, and Rachael, a coke-sniffing stripper. In this story, Serge is hell-bent on protecting Jim Davenport, who saved Serge’s life ten years prior and is being hunted down by a serial killer. It’s also the story of four old ladies who have learned that it’s cheaper to go on cruises all year than to live in a retirement home. And it’s a story of the Mexican drug trade and terrorist attempts to poison Americans with anthrax. All of these subplots rapidly weave and twist their way through the story, until the end when they all come together in an Old West-meets -Florida fashion.

This story is not one of my usual genres, but I have to admit that I enjoyed the book. Excuse my eighth grade vernacular, but there’s something totally cool about seeing familiar streets, shopping centers, bridges, bars and cultural events in a book. The characters drive up the road I take to work every morning. They stop at a shopping center where I used to work. It’s like seeing your neighbor on TV over and over again, and this helped make Atomic Lobster very amusing to me.

Dorsey also chose “only in Florida” new stories and mixed them into the story. I am not sure if a non-local would “get” the humor behind a toll booth operator alerting police that a man’s body was stuck to the front of a car, or a house being sold dirt cheap because the owner, who was a county official, cut corners on code enforcement. But for a local, this is funny stuff. From the state the brought you hanging chads and the president’s brother, Florida does not get enough credit for being a little bit backwards. Read Dorsey and you’ll get a huge dose of the absurdity that can be the Sunshine State.

If you like dark humor and high crime, and don’t mind the sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, then I would recommend Atomic Lobster to you. If it’s not your cup of tea and you don’t live in the Tampa Bay area, I think you can safely skip this book. (3/5)

In her debut novel, The Sister, former BBC producer Poppy Adams used her photographer’s eye and mind to conjure up a unique tale of two sisters, Ginny and Viv, and their lifetime of secrets that tore their family apart. The story opened with Ginny, in her seventies, waiting for the arrival of her sister, Vivien, who she has not seen in almost fifty years. Once Vivien arrived, the reader must decipher between a past and present story line that unravels the disastrous family secrets – and keeps the reader wondering which sister is in the right until the last few chapters.

The Hitchcock-weird feeling of the characters can be downright bone chilling. Ginny narrated the story, and throughout her tale, little idiosyncrasies cropped up about Ginny, like her wearing of two wristwatches – one standard and one digital – that she meticulously checked for accuracy against her bedroom alarm clock. Or the drawer full of cannabis tea bags that she maintained to help her with arthritic pain but never liked to use because it caused a lack of symmetry in the drawer. Adams “spoon fed” Ginny’s personality quarks to the reader throughout The Sister, resulting in the nagging hunch that Ginny may not be a reliable narrator.

Then Adams, through Ginny’s narration, drew a picture of Vivien that was equally unsettling. Vivien was selfish and attention seeking, often manipulating her relationship with Ginny for her own gains. Ginny had a major inferiority complex with her sister, and the way Vivien was depicted, one could see why: smart, beautiful and full of creative ideas. You never get the sense though that Viv was a good person (through Ginny’s eyes), but the reader cannot doubt the love between them.

The Sister has the making of a great novel, especially for readers of Gothic literature: an old house, eccentric characters and a secret to be discovered. However, it has an obvious flaw – The Moths. The sisters’ father, Clive, was an expert in moths and taught his craft to Ginny when she was a teenager. Throughout the first half of the novel, The Moths are major characters. The reader learned about different types of moths, their importance to scientific research, how one caught them, how to kill them, how they transform from a caterpillar into a moth and what’s inside the cocoon during the transformation process.

All of this scientific knowledge took up pages of the story. While it was well written, it bogged the story down. When the reader finished, you can see how and why moths were important to The Sister’s plot, but perhaps Adams could have arrived at this point in different way. I almost abandoned The Sister because of the darned moths – and though I am glad I did not, I still have to shake my head about why they took up such a prominent place during the first half of the novel.

Once you get past The Moths, the suspense and mystery built masterfully into a real page-turner. I would recommend The Sister to readers with that disclaimer: have patience during the first half of the book and then prepare to be awed during the second. Adams made a promising debut, and I look forward to her future stories. (3.5/5)

Betts McGee fled her childhood home of Charleston, SC, after the sudden death of her mother, which drove a wedge between her and her fiance, J.D. Betts moved to New York City, became a successful financier and raised her son, Adrian. For almost 20 years, Betts never spoke to her father, sister or estranged fiance. That is, until her company sent her back to Charleston on assignment - and she must deal with her ghosts from the past, including J.D., who still has feelings for Betts.

This is my first novel by Dorothea Benton Frank, and I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed with the plot in Bulls Island. On the surface, it sounded like fun “poolside reading” - but the plot did not move quickly enough to keep this reader interested in the story. It was nearly half way into the novel before Betts actually arrives in Charleston. First, the reader must deal with her son’s departure to college and Betts’s fling with another man before the reader gets what she’s been waiting for: the boy-meets-girl tension that dangled from this story for nearly 150 pages. When we finally get there, the book rushes through the storyline. The whole plot was choppy and disjointed to me.

While the plot was not up to par, I did find Frank’s writing style easy and fun to read. Her depictions of Southern landscapes rival Nicholas Sparks or Sue Monk Kidd. I felt the humidity, smelled the river and watched the grass brown right with the characters. As a fan of books set in the South, I found these parts of the book to be the best.

Would I read another book by Dorothea Benton Frank? Only after doing some more research on what other readers have thought about her stories and examining what the plots have to offer. I am guessing that fans of her writing might enjoy Bulls Island. For others, I think you can safely pass on this tale. (3/5)

“It’s where I live, my lord,” I said. “Not in the Temple, but in the world. And in the world, I learn what the world is and what the world will teach, and I am of the world.” (page 99)

When I started to read Anne Rice’s latest book, Christ The Lord: The Road to Cana, I did so knowing that I have two biases: (1) I love the way Anne Rice writes and (2) I love to read fictional accounts based on the Bible. Having enjoyed Rice’s first Christ book, I had high hopes for The Road To Cana, and all in all, I was not disappointed.

The Road to Cana detailed Jesus’s life in his early thirties when he was a carpenter living with his family in Nazareth. In Rice’s depiction, Jesus (still known as Yeshua) struggled with his identity. In his heart, he knew that he was the Son of God, but he tried to live a “normal life” of peace and worship. However, Jesus knew that he could not live out all aspects of an average Jewish man, including marriage or having children, despite pressures from his family and villagers. In essence, Jesus tried to keep his holy birth a secret while going about his daily life – until events transpired that brought his purpose to light.

In this book, Rice drew out Jesus’s human qualities. For example, Jesus was in love with a young woman, Avigail, and dreamed about her at night. At times, he maintained a cool head, but other times, he bumbled like a clumsy suitor, often making mistakes that jeopardized the social norms of unmarried men and women in Jewish culture. Another example was Jesus’s struggle with his older brother, James. As the oldest child, James was in charge of the household, but living with the Son of God gave James an inferiority complex (and understandably so). James fought with Jesus about getting married, dealing with the Romans and household duties – and Jesus’s patience was tried at many times, which often led to an “exchange of words” between the brothers.

While the first two-thirds of the book was devoted to Jesus’s struggle as a man, the last third of the book dealt with his epiphany of why he was the Son of God and his purpose among humans. This section of the book is classic Anne Rice, full of imagery, allusions and struggles between good and evil. The Devil made an appearance, and I was reminded of Rice’s Memnoch The Devil from the vampire series. In fact, her depiction of The Devil was so true to her earlier character that I believe it to be intentional. Jesus’s epiphany was hard to read as he cried over humans’ flaws, starved himself to death and denied himself water. But he emerged sure of his purpose and more in love with humanity than ever before.

Upon completion of Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, I felt like I had just finished the second book of a trilogy. It had many “transitional” and “setting up for the big finish” aspects to it. I hope Rice delves into a third book about Christ because I find her storytelling and historical research so compelling. Her Christ books are a great addition to the literary canon of Biblical fiction. If you enjoy religious narratives or are a fan of Anne Rice, this is one book that I recommend for your bookshelf. (4/5)

People of the Book is a fitting title for Geraldine Brooks’s latest novel. This book explored the many people who touched an ancient Hebrew codex that traveled through Europe for 500 years. Though a work of fiction, the book is based on a true story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a Jewish manuscript that was rescued by Muslim librarians twice – once during World War II and most recently during the nationalist wars in Yugoslavia. The irony that Muslim men rescued a Hebrew text during times of cultural strife provided Brooks with her framework. But it’s Brooks’s fictional illumination of what else happened to the haggadah during its long life that further advanced the message of People of the Book - how people can do the right thing, despite religious differences and political rules of the time.

In this book, Dr. Hanna Heath, an Australian expert in book conservation, was called to Sarajevo at the beginning of the cease-fire to inspect the haggadah and unravel its mysterious origins. As she inspected the book, Hanna extracted several clues to its past: an insect’s wing, sliver clasps, red stains on the page, a morsel of salt and a white hair. As she investigated each clue, Brooks took the reader back in time to how each item found its place in the haggadah. The “flashbacks” are all fictional, but they provided a narrative on the treatment of Jews through the years, from the Spanish Inquisition to World War II – and how one book survived it, thanks to the love and care of the people who were entrusted to protect it.

Admittedly, I found some of the historical narratives a little drawn out, but each fact had its place in the large context of the story. Hanna’s personal life also entered into the story, which in my opinion did not add to the story of the haggadah but explained why she became so interested in the conservation of books.

All in all, I enjoyed People of the Book because of what it represents: “It was here to test us, to see if there were people who could see that what united us was more than what divided us. That to be a human being matters more than to be a Jew or a Muslim, Catholic or Orthodox.” The real Sarajevo Haggadah is testament to this feeling, and thank God there are people out there who remember that humanity should transcend everything else.

If you like religious historical fiction, I highly recommend People of the Book to you. (4.5/5)

Daoud Hari, as a translator of many languages, knows how important words can be. During his entire life, Hari followed the “pen is mightier than the sword” philosophy by providing translation services to journalists writing about the genocide and the horrible circumstances of his homeland, Darfur, Sudan. His adventures and reflections came to life in his memoir, The Translator: The Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur.

Let every reader of this little book be warned: Hari’s memoir is powerful, impactful and heart-breaking. He spares nothing when describing how his fellow countrymen and women (including children) are being slaughtered in Darfur. Entire villages are being gunned down by helicopters, men and women are burned alive in their huts, children are killed by the sharp tip of the bayonet. During most of this book, I could only read a couple of chapters at a time because the descriptions were so hard to read. But Hari’s plea to his reader - to read and learn more - echoed in my head , and I pressed on until I finished the last word.

I have no regrets reading this memoir. And I ask that all of you read it too. By talking about this book, I hope to spread the mighty written word of Daoud Hari to you, and together, we can be more aware of the situation in Sudan and Chad. Won’t you join me?

Rating: 5/5

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton swept me away into a tale of love, murder, war and revenge. Admittedly, I was a little hesitant to read this book, partly because of its length (470 pages), but also because I feared it would read like romantic fiction. I was wrong. The story encircles you and pulls you in, leaving you satisfied and moved by this provocative story.

Grace was only fourteen years old when she accepted a position at Riverton, the wealthy estate in her English village. There, Grace witnessed (and often participated) in remarkable events that struck three generations of the Hartford family. Grace became attached to the three children, but especially Hannah, who she eventually served as a “lady’s maid” well into adulthood.

Morton used Gothic literary tropes throughout this novel, which accelerated the story at nice intervals. In the modern day, we meet Grace as a 98-year old nursing home resident who was determined to record her story, including Riverton’s biggest secrets, for her grandson. As she recorded her tale, we experienced Grace’s flashbacks as she relived her life. There were two big mysteries for the reader: Who was Grace’s father, and what happened to Robbie Hunter, a poet who killed himself at Riverton in 1924? Morton offered the reader clues along the way. To me, there were no big surprises once everything was revealed, but I thought the twists were appropriate and advanced the plot at a nice pace. Certainly, this book was a real page-turner.

While the Gothic novel is by no means new, what I think is poignant about The House at Riverton was the theme of “shell shock” – the post-traumatic stress syndrome that affected World War I veterans. Several of the male characters who survived “The Great War” came home skittish, depressed, claustrophobic and restless. Morton’s accounts of these men (from all social classes) made the reader “see” what happened to them. I couldn’t help but think how this continues today with our Gulf War veterans. In my opinion, the military is excellent at training soldiers for war but may not offer the help they need when it’s time to return to civilian life. I can’t imagine what this transition must be like, and after reading this book, I appreciated their predicament even more.

I also enjoyed the “upstairs and downstairs” views of English society during the Edwardian era. Downstairs, the servants fret about food, what’s happening to the family upstairs, prepared for parties, looked after each other, and formed bonds built on honor and loyalty to the family they were serving. Upstairs, I sensed a lot of boredom and unrest with the younger generation while the older one desperately held on to societal traditions that were slipping away.

By far, Grace is one of the most interesting narrators I have read in a long time. She emerges from her Riverton experiences strong and determined, and turned her life into something she wanted. She’s the type of woman who always looked forward but never forgot her past. If you enjoy Gothic literary novels, such as Rebecca or The Thirteenth Tale, then I think you will like Grace and her story. (5/5)

Historians will tell you that to understand the present you must comprehend the past. I believe that is what Mary Doria Russell is trying to show us in her latest book, Dreamers of the Day.

At initial glance, Dreamers of the Day is a coming-of-age novel about late bloomer, Agnes Shanklin, who becomes an heiress after the death of her relatives from the influenza epidemic in 1918. Agnes is unconfident and has an inferiority complex that has hindered her since childhood. Suddenly free of family and societal ties, Agnes decides to leave Ohio and voyage to Egypt to see the sites described in her deceased sister’s letters. Accompanied by her dachshund, Rosie, Agnes embarks on a journey that shapes her life.

While in Cairo though, she witnesses a moment of great historical significance: the Cairo Conference, when Winston Churchill, Lady Gertrude Bell and T.E. Lawrence decided the fate of the Middle East after World War I. This simple story of a woman’s self-discovery transforms into a social commentary – in a graceful style that only Mary Doria Russell can write.

Mary Doria Russell could lecture on character development. She is the master of it. And that is true for her characters in Dreamers of the Day. My favorite character is Rosie, the loyal but fiery dachshund who adds such a realistic dimension to this story. Rosie poops in Winston Churchill’s car. She dives into the Nile after a fish. She has a crooked tail and likes to eat sausage at the table. Through Russell’s writing, you can see Rosie, walking down the streets of Cairo on her short legs with her ears perked up at the new sounds. To be honest, I loved Rosie’s character so much that I wished I owned a dachshund too.

Despite the superb character development, I believe that Dreamers of the Day has some flaws. First, you must suspend a level of disbelief before reading this story. The likelihood that this prestigious international assembly would welcome an American spinster is slim to none. Agnes reminds me of Forrest Gump, showing up at the right place at the right time, while major historical events unfold. Second, the ending seemed superfluous. To be certain, Dreamers of the Day is social commentary about the mess in the Middle East and the U.S. involvement in this region. I got that. I didn’t need to last chapter to be so aggressive in advancing this message.

While I would contend that Dreamers of the Day is not one of Russell’s best, I still feel that it is a good, important book to read and would recommend it to MDR fans and lovers of historical fiction. I bet we will see Dreamers of the Day on notable lists and perhaps as a Pulitzer finalist in 2008 – the message is that important and one I doubt critics will ignore. If you decide to read this book, be prepared to learn a lot, let the story take its course – and bring some sausage bites for Rosie. She’ll love you for it. (4/4)