A voracious consumer of all things literary, Elizabeth Walls hears the siren call of a bookstore wherever her travels take her. Her book review column, “Reading and Writing,” has been a favorite among NFocus readers for ages. Below are a few of her recent reviews. Just click on the title or author to read an individual review, or simply scroll down to browse. If you’d like Elizabeth’s take on a certain book, email your request to elizabeth@elizabethcoltonwalls.com—you just may see your selection on this site in her next review.
By Author
Adiga,Aravind - White Tiger
Barbery,Muriel - The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Barrows, Annie and Mary Ann Shaffer - Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Benioff,David - City of Thieves
Brooks, Geraldine - March
Brooks,Geraldine - People of the Book
Chabon,Michael - The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Cooper,Helen - The House at Sugar Beach
Desai,Kirin - The Inheritance of Loss
Francis, Dick and Felix Francis - Silks
Heath, Chip and Dan Heath - Made to Stick
Horan,Nancy - Loving Frank
Lee,Min Jin - Free Food for Millionaires
Lewis, Michael - The Blind Side
Lweycka,Marina - A Short History of Tractors in Ukraine
McCarthy,Cormac - The Road
Miles,Jonathan - Dear American Airlines
Olson,Lynne - Troublesome Young Men
Russo,Richard - Bridge of Sighs
Scottoline,Lisa - Daddy’s Girl
Stegner,Wallace - Crossing to Safety
Tonello,Michael - Bringing Home the Birkin
Schwartz,Evan - Finding OZ
Shaffer, Mary Ann and Annie Barrows - Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Volk, Patricia - To My Dearest Friends
Von Tunzelmann,Alex - Indian Summer
By Title
The Blind Side by Michael Lewis
Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo
Bringing Home the Birkin by Michael Tonello
City of Thieves by David Benioff
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
Daddy’s Girl by Lisa Scottoline
Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Finding OZ by Evan Schwartz
Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
The House at Sugar Beach by Helen Cooper
Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann
The Inheritance of Loss by Kirin Desai
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
March by Geraldine Brooks
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
A Short History of Tractors in Ukraine by Marina Lweycka
Silks by Dick Francis and Felix Francis
To My Dearest Friends by Patricia Volk
Troublesome Young Men by Lynne Olson
White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
The White Tiger
by Aravind Adiga
If you loved the film Slumdog Millionaire, you must read The White Tiger, winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize. If you hated Slumdog Millionaire, you must still read The White Tiger.
Fans of the movie will appreciate the novel’s dramatic descriptions of life in India’s grimmest neighborhoods and the rags-to-riches tale. For those who found Slumdog Millionaire too Bollywood, the novel’s dark twist on the Horatio Alger story will be appealing.
The movie and the book concern the coming of age of a poor Indian boy. Both depict the foul-smelling and corrupt India that clings to the underside of the shiny, sophisticated, capitalist India like gunk on a pump. The hero of The White Tiger, Balram, calls this India “the Darkness.” It is where the “half-baked people” live. The office workers, software engineers, and sales managers so flatteringly portrayed in Thomas Friedman’s book, The World Is Flat, and the Western mediado not live here.
But locale and the coming of age theme are the only things the film and the book share. The heroes and their specific journeys could not be more different. Despite hardship and persecution, our film hero, Jamal Malik, remains an honest man. As a reward, he gets the girl and the cash. Faced with similar challenges, Balram murders his boss and steals the cash.
According to Balram, who considers himself “a thinking man,” “In the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat—or get eaten up.”
With this cynical view of his environment, Balram takes an aggressively entrepreneurial approach to his future. Ignoring familial obligations and the law, he travels to Bangalore where he is hired as a servant by the wealthy Mr. Ashok.
In the first chapter of the novel, Balram mentions that he kills Mr. Ashok. How he arrived at that point is the subject of the remainder of the novel.
Balram is an engaging storyteller and a keen observer of Indian life. The role of the water buffalo in rural communities, the institution of marriage, and global economics are just a few subjects on which Balram philosophizes.
Some of his ruminations have the punch and brevity of a bumper sticker. Some are more elaborate, such as his theory of the Great Indian Rooster Coop. The Rooster Coop theory is Balram’s explanation for why a huge number of his countrymen live in perpetual servitude. For an angry Balram, performing degrading tasks for an unscrupulous employer is worse than no life at all. What kind of man can break out of the coop? Only a White Tiger, such as himself.
Balram’s amoral and antisocial behaviors make him by definition a sociopath. But this narrow label doesn’t tell the whole story. Balram is a complicated and charming character not unlike India herself.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
By Muriel Barbery
If you wondered why you studied Liberal Arts in college rather than something more practical like engineering or ceramics, the French novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog is the reason. The novel is sprinkled with enough literary and philosophical references to make you feel really good about the money your parents spent on your fine education. (I remember Kitty, but who is Husserl?)
This funny and poignant novel concerns two residents of an upscale apartment building in Paris. Paloma, a precocious, suicidal twelve-year-old girl, and the building’s concierge, Renee, are misfits in their respective milieus. Both hide their intelligence and sophisticated interests behind the accepted stereotypes of their age and position.
The two outcasts might have lived forever in mournful isolation but for the appearance of a wealthy Japanese tenant. Keen-eyed Mr. Ozu spots potential soul mates in these two, and suddenly everything changes. A lovely book that I would happily reread.
The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society
By Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Society is a charming novel of 1946 London and Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands. London-based writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a Guernsey resident asking for a book recommendation. Juliet, who appears to know as little about Guernsey as I, is intrigued enough to write back. Thus begins a formidable exchange of letters with the Guernsey locals, most of whom are members of the Literary Society.
The Islanders are not naturally bookish. The Literary Society was founded on the spur of the moment to explain a curfew violation to the Germans who occupied the island during most of the war. But once the Literary Society was established, the residents embrace the concept with enthusiasm. Farmers read Charles Lamb, the lady with the wandering eye is a Bronte fan, the stone mason likes Shakespeare, and a former valet reads The Letters of Seneca—exclusively.
The book is a bit clichéd. Juliet is witty and self deprecating, her gay editor amusing, her rich American boyfriend suitably dense, and the Guernsey natives quaintly rural. But the history of the German occupation is poignant, and a novel about books and reading is always a pleasure. A gentle read.
The House at Sugar Beach by journalist Helen Cooper is the story of her privileged childhood in Liberia, her twenty- three year exile, and her subsequent return.
Located on the west coast of Africa, modern day Liberia was founded in 1821 by freed slaves from the United States and their white supporters from the American Colonization Society. At that time, a number of leaders in the U.S. felt that freed blacks and enslaved blacks were incompatible in the same country. Their solution was to resettle the freed blacks in Africa. The first ship embarked for Africa in 1820 with Ms. Cooper’s ancestor Elijah Johnson on board.
All good intentions aside, there was a major impediment to the success of this grandiose plan. Liberia and other countries in West Africa were already occupied –by Africans- many of whom participated in the slave trade. The Africans were less than enthusiastic about taking in freed blacks. After almost two years of searching for refuge, the representatives of the American Colonization Society finally forced (at gunpoint) the natives of Liberia to accept the settlers.
The predominately light -skinned freed blacks, henceforth known as Congo People, soon dominated the political, cultural, and economic life of Liberia.
150 years later, Helene Cooper, a bona fide member of the Congo ruling class, grew up in a groovy modern mansion by the sea. When she was eight, her parents took in a foster child from a poor native family, Eunice, to keep her company.
Eunice and Helene were inseparable until the revolution in 1980 when the oppressed natives staged a coup d’état. Forced to flee the country for the U.S., the Coopers left Eunice behind. In 2003, Helene returned to Liberia to find her old playmate.
The premise of this book is fascinating, as is the depiction of the history and customs of Liberia. But Ms. Cooper, currently the diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, is a better journalist than story teller. I kept waiting for some thoughtful observations that never materialized. I am not a fan of the navel- gazing that defines most memoirs (Eat Pray Love), but Ms. Cooper could have written a more provocative and insightful story.
City of Thieves
By David Benioff
At first glance, a novel about two young men who meet in Leningrad during the Nazi siege sounds unpromising. Russian novels (about or by) not only are a little bizarre, but inevitably take place in sub-zero temperatures. City of Thieves is both bizarre and chilly, but utterly engaging.
The narrator, nebbish Lev Beniov, is arrested for looting. He is tossed into a prison cell with a handsome deserter named Kolya. On the morning of their execution, the Soviet colonel grants them a reprieve. If they can bring him a dozen eggs for his daughter’s wedding cake, he will spare their lives.
This is an impossible task. The citizens of Leningrad are starving. Everything that could be eaten has been (including dogs and cats). Every stick of furniture in the city has been burned for fuel. The bread rations are a joke, and no one eats more than every few days anyway. Snacks made of bookbinding glue are a full meal. Finding the Holy Grail with a video and detailed map created by Joseph of Arimathea himself would be easier. But Lev and Koyla don’t have a choice. So with a curfew waiver signed by the colonel and 400 rubles, the two set off.
Lev and Kolya are an odd couple. Lev is the son of a poet who was executed as an enemy of the state. He is timid and intellectual. Kolya is boastful and blond. Koyla embarks on the journey with an annoyingly (in Lev’s mind) cheery attitude. As they encounter sights both ghoulish and pathetic, Koyla tells tired jokes, quotes extensively from The Courtyard Hound, the greatest Russian novel (in Koyla’s mind), and needles Lev about girls. Lev reluctantly joins in and soon the two are conversing about politics, music, chess, everything but the most pressing subject—how to stay alive. As their odyssey goes from worse to worst, Lev and Kolya become not just comrades, but friends.
Author David Benioff is also a successful screenwriter, and the novel has a cinematic quality to it. Lev and Kolya’s not-so-excellent adventure lurches from comedy to tragedy, sometimes in the same paragraph, but never loses its footing.
A combination buddy narrative, fairy tale, romance, and war story, City of Thieves may be my favorite book of the year.
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I was not especially eager to read my book club’s recent selection, March by Geraldine Brooks for two reasons. First, it is a Civil War novel. Despite being dragged by my dad to every Civil War monument in Middle Tennessee, I am not a Civil War enthusiast.
The second reason is that the title character is based on the father in Little Women. I am skeptical of books that are inspired by characters from other novels. For example, the novels of Jane Austen have spawned dozens of sequels. Did you know that Mr. and Mrs. Darcy became a crime-solving duo after their marriage? Is Louisa May Alcott the next author to catch the Austen affliction?
Happily, my hesitation about March was unfounded. Using the letters-back-home motif to fresh effect and a few beautifully rendered vignettes, Brooks depicts the conflict at the most personal level. There are no generals or famous battles, just men and women getting by as best they can.
Since the father is mentioned only briefly in Little Women, Brooks takes inspiration for her character from Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott. Bronson Alcott was a strict vegetarian, an abolitionist, and a transcendentalist. His most tangible legacy is Fruitlands, the wildly unsuccessful utopian community which he founded in Harvard, Massachusetts and which is now a museum.
In addition to sharing Bronson Alcott’s radical convictions, March is high-minded and rather obstinate. In a burst of patriotic zeal, the middle-aged March leaves Marmee and the girls to join the Union army as a chaplain. After the horrific battle of Ball’s Bluff, March offers his assistance at a field hospital housed in a formerly grand Southern mansion. Although the property has changed drastically, March recognizes the Clement estate from a previous trip some twenty years earlier.
At that time, March was a young Connecticut peddler. Mr. Clement’s luxurious property and stimulating conversation initially dazzled him. He was also attracted to a lovely slave named Grace. However, after he witnessed a vicious whipping, March’s admiration turned to disgust and guilt.
Remarkably, Grace is still in residence at the ruined Clement estate. Once again, this virtuous woman entrances March. Although he is careful not to refer to Grace by name, he can’t help but mention her in a letter home. “But here is the cloth of gold from which her character is spun; she refuses to leave her frail master, stating that he is incapable of surviving without her. And yet I know that this very man once had her whipped for some most trivial transgression of his authority. What an example of Christian forgiveness! Some call them less than human; I call her more than saintly—a model, indeed, for our own little women.”
Later on March is fired from his regiment for being, among other things, high-minded and obstinate. He is assigned to a liberated plantation estate named Oak Landing, which is leased to an Illinois attorney. Although devastated by his dismissal, he is characteristically reticent in his correspondence home, calling Oak Landing “a great experiment of equality.”
The harsh reality of the “great experiment” shocks March and forces him to reconsider his cherished principles.
When Oak Landing explodes in violence, March barely escapes with his life. While recovering at a hospital in Washington, he encounters Grace one last time. He appeals to her for absolution and guidance. In a bracing final exchange, Grace makes it clear what March needs to do. “Go home. Be a father to your daughters. That, at least, you can do. They are the ones who need you.”
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People of the Book
By Geraldine Brooks
Geraldine Books, the author of March and Year of Wonders, has written another inspired work of historical fiction. People of the Book is the story of an ancient Hebrew manuscript, known as the Sarajevo Haggadah, and the book’s conservator, Hanna Heath.
The novel alternates between the dramatic tales of the people of the haggadah and Hanna, who coaxes their stories from artifacts found in the book’s binding. Who created the haggadah? Why is it so beautifully illuminated when Jewish belief at the time was firmly against illustrations? How did this fragile book survive six centuries?
In tracing the haggadah back to fifteenth-century Spain, Hanna finds that a disparate group of individuals throughout Europe played a role in the creation and preservation of the codex. Foolish, brave Lola, a Jewish girl in World War II Sarajevo, the alcoholic Venetian priest Vistoirni, and the talented Muslim artist Zahra bint Ibrahim al-Tarek are a few of the characters whose lives were touched by the book.
The historical characters are vividly rendered, the contemporary characters less so. Nonetheless, People of the Book is a winning combination of history and suspense.
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
By Michael Chabon
What if we made a different choice? What if we attended another college, turned left instead of right, called him back, told the truth, skipped the third margarita, said what we really thought, took the job, or called the doctor?
The what-if exercise is rarely productive when applied to our personal lives but richly rewarding when adopted by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon. What if the fledgling republic of Israel was defeated in 1948 and the refugee Jews were settled in a Federal District in Sitka, Alaska? This is the minutely realized setting for the suspense novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.
As the novel opens, Homicide Detective Myer Landsman faces two problems. “A yid who was calling himself Emanuel Lasker” is found murdered in the Hotel Zamenhof, which also happens to be the temporary home of Detective Landsman. In addition, after sixty years, Sitka is to revert to the state of Alaska. The 3.2 million Jews settled there must make other living arrangements.
Of the two developments, Landsman focuses on Lasker’s murder rather than the Reversion. Since the recent breakup of his marriage and the death of his sister, Landsman doesn’t think much further ahead than the next drink.
To reader of mysteries, Landsman is a familiar figure. He is a seen-it-all cop who has insomnia, drinks too much, and makes wisecracks that barely mask his grief. He also has a long-suffering partner, Berko Shemets, half-Tlingit, half-Jew who has been known to carry a tomahawk just to disconcert the citizenry.
The death of a heroin addict in a sleazy hotel isn’t an unusual crime, except for the execution style of the murder and the chessboard set up next to the body along with a copy of Three Hundred Chess Games.
Landsman, who comes from a family of fanatical chess players, pursues the case with more vigor than it seems to warrant. In fact, Emanuel Lasker turns out to be Mendel Shpilman, estranged son of a powerful rabbi with connections to organized crime. While exploring Shpilman’s tortuous family history, Landsman confronts his own relatives, notably his wily Uncle Hertz. When his bosses want to close the case, Landsman is too emotionally involved to quit.
The who-done-it includes the typical features of the genre. Landsman is shot at, lied to, and kidnapped. Informants, nosey newspaper reporters, wealthy drug lords, run-of-the-mill thugs, and obtuse bureaucrats (from the U.S. Interior Department) populate the novel. While the mystery is intriguing, it is the depiction of the fictional community that is so compelling. The politics, history, cuisine, and culture are rendered vividly. Everyone speaks Yiddish but curses in American. The best food in Sitka is a shtekeleh, a Filipino-style Chinese doughnut followed closely by a slice of apple crumble from the pie shop near the Yakovy airfield. Even the slang has the ring of authenticity. Sitka Jews call their cousins from the lower forty-eight Mexicans, and the Mexicans in turn call the Sitka Jews icebergers or “the frozen Chosen.” Sitka’s residents proudly recall the 1977 Sitka World’s Fair but rarely mention The Synagogue Riots in which a dozen Native Alaskans were killed.
The tone of the novel is a bit choppy, veering into the surreal, but the story is a rewarding puzzler and the characters genuine.
The real Sitka, a popular stop on Alaskan cruises, has more kitschy gift shops than black hats. Fortunately, a gritty and vibrant alternative lives on in the pages of this remarkable novel.
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The House at Sugar Beach
By Helen Cooper
The House at Sugar Beach by journalist Helen Cooper is the story of her privileged childhood in Liberia, her 23-year exile, and her subsequent return.
Located on the west coast of Africa, modern-day Liberia was founded in 1821 by freed slaves from the United States and their white supporters from the American Colonization Society. At that time, a number of leaders in the U.S. felt that freed blacks and enslaved blacks were incompatible in the same country. Their solution was to resettle the freed blacks in Africa. The first ship embarked for Africa in 1820 with Ms. Cooper’s ancestor Elijah Johnson on board.
All good intentions aside, there was a major impediment to the success of this grandiose plan. Liberia and other countries in West Africa were already occupied—by Africans—many of whom participated in the slave trade. The Africans were less than enthusiastic about taking in freed blacks. After almost two years of searching for refuge, the representatives of the American Colonization Society finally forced (at gunpoint) the natives of Liberia to accept the settlers.
The predominantly light-skinned freed blacks, henceforth known as Congo People, soon dominated the political, cultural, and economic life of Liberia.
One hundred fifty years later, Helene Cooper, a bona fide member of the Congo ruling class, grew up in a groovy modern mansion by the sea. When she was eight, her parents took in a foster child from a poor native family, Eunice, to keep her company.
Eunice and Helene were inseparable until the revolution in 1980 when the oppressed natives staged a coup d’état. Forced to flee the country for the U.S., the Coopers left Eunice behind. In 2003, Helene returned to Liberia to find her old playmate.
The premise of this book is fascinating, as is the depiction of the history and customs of Liberia. But Ms. Cooper, currently the diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, is a better journalist than storyteller. I kept waiting for some thoughtful observations that never materialized. I am not a fan of the navel-gazing that defines most memoirs (Eat Pray Love), but Ms. Cooper could have written a more provocative and insightful story.
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The Inheritance of Loss
By Kiran Desai
October is full of reasons to celebrate. There is the cooler weather (finally), Friday night football, and, for book folks, the announcement of The Man Booker Prize. Established in 1968, the Booker rewards the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. The winner receives 50,000 pounds and a boost in book sales.
In 2007, the short list for The Man Booker Price was announced in September. The six titles shortlisted were Darkmans by Nicola Barker; The Gathering by Anne Enright; The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid; Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones; On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan; and Animal’s People by Indra Sinha. The winner, Enright’s novel, was announced on October 16.
For many years, I had avoided books with The Man Booker prize sticker on the cover, as I associated the prize with the novels of Anita Brookner, the 1984 winner for Hotel du Lac. I enjoyed Hotel du Lac as well as several other novels by Brookner. Despite the lyrical prose, however, Brookner’s novels are wearing. The protagonist is typically a misunderstood, middle-aged female trapped in a loveless marriage or alternatively being browbeaten by a worthless boyfriend. The books made such an impression on me that I have avoided the Booker sticker ever since, which in a twisted way is a tribute to Brookner’s skills as a writer.
Imagine my surprise when I realized that some of my favorite books received the Booker: The Life of Pi (2002), Amsterdam (1998), Possession (1990), and The Remains of the Day (1989).
So in 2007, I decided to give the Booker another chance. I selected 2006’s winner, The Inheritance of Loss, apoignant and darkly humorousnovelby Kiran Desai.
The novel takes place in a lush, isolated part of India in the northeastern Himalayas. Kalimpong is like the last slice of cake that no one claims but everyone nibbles before the table is finally cleared. Skirmishes, police actions, and riots are common here as India, England, Bhutan, and Tibet reach for the last dollop of icing.
This is not the India of Thomas L. Friedman—bustling PhD’s processing your tax returns. This India is still processing the remnants of British colonialism.
In Kalimpong, vestiges of the British occupation are everywhere, especially at the crumbling home of Judge Patel and his granddaughter, Sai. Sai reads the works of P. G. Wodehouse and James Herriot, and teatime is a carefully observed ritual served by “the cook.” As a retired member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS), the judge is practically a stranger in his own country. At one time the ICS meant security and respect. Now it is a reminder of an era many would rather forget.
On the other side of the globe, the cook’s son is an illegal immigrant in Manhattan. Fearful of deportation, Biju is outrageously exploited by everyone, even (or especially) other immigrants. Like the judge’s father who sought to improve his family’s status by sending his son to England, the cook thinks America is his child’s ticket to prosperity. Sadly, Biju finds America as oppressive and class conscious as India.
The fragile tranquility of life in Kalimpong is disrupted by two events: 16-year-old Sai falls in love with her tutor, and civil war breaks out.
As the fighting intensifies, long-held beliefs and traditions come under scrutiny. The residents of the mountain community start to question their personal identities. But in Kalimpong, as elsewhere, there is no easy answer to the question, “Who am I?”
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Silks
By Dick Francis and Felix Francis
I told a friend recently that I was reading the latest Dick Francis novel. She responded, “I read all his books as a teenager.” Since she is roughly my age, I calculated that Francis has been churning out equestrian-themed mysteries for thirty-plus years. After his wife and collaborator’s death several years ago, Francis took a break, which both he and his readers deserved. (Really, how much can we read about the British racing establishment?) But not long ago, Francis enlisted the services of his son Felix as a co-author. His second collaboration with Felix, entitled Silks, is vintage Francis, suspenseful but not gory, clever but not tricky, and horsey all over.
Perhaps if B.R. Ford had a few Francis novels in his carry-on bag, he wouldn’t be so grumpy.
Made to Stick
By Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Why do urban legends such as the Kidney Heist tale and booby-trapped Halloween candy persist despite the overwhelming evidence of their falsehood? Why can I remember and repeat a story I read in the check-out line but can’t begin to share the contents of a memo on interest rate fluctuations? In short, why do some ideas “stick” and others come unglued immediately?
This is the question brothers Chip and Dan Heath address in their new book, Made to Stick. Whether you are raising kids or selling a product, this unpretentious book offers practical advice for communicating your ideas more effectively.
Malcolm Gladwell first introduced the concept of stickiness in his fascinating book The Tipping Point. Mr. Gladwell explainsthat innovations are more likely to “tip” (make the leap from small groups to big groups) when they are sticky. What Mr. Gladwell didn’t address in his book is what characterizes a sticky idea.
The Heaths suggest that sticky ideas share six features. A sticky idea is stripped down to its essential essence (simple). A sticky idea captures people’s attention by surprising them and breaking established patterns (unexpected). A sticky idea uses images (concrete) and often references a trusted source (credible). A sticky idea appeals to things that people care about, including themselves (emotional). Finally, a special story can be the basis of a sticky idea (stories). (Yes, the six principles do create the acronym SUCCESs, which even the authors admit is a bit corny.)
The book is entertaining and persuasive largely due to the dozens of vivid examples, which show sticky principles in action. For example, the NBA uses an ingenious demonstration to make the AIDS threat real to their rookies. An elementary school teacher in Iowa creates an exercise to illustrate discrimination; the experience is so powerful that twenty years later her students were noticeably less prejudiced than their peers. A medical researcher is forced to adopt a very unusual strategy to convince the medical community of his controversial findings.
My favorite story is the tale of Jared. Jared is the young man from Bloomington, Indiana who lost over a hundred pounds on a diet of his own invention, which he called the “Subway diet.” The diet consisted of a foot-long veggie Subway sandwich for lunch and a six-inch turkey Subway sandwich for dinner. This story contains all the features of an unforgettable idea, but the executives at Subway almost missed it. If it wasn’t for the dogged persistence of a Subway franchise owner, Subway’s most popular and enduring advertising campaign might never have happened.
You may be thinking that you don’t have the time or creativity to make your fund-raising pitch stickier or to enliven your standard PowerPoint presentation.
To challenge these perceptions, “Idea Clinics” are included in every chapter. Here you can test your understanding of the sticky process. I know this sounds like homework, but actually the Idea Clinics are thought-provoking rather than onerous. And they convincingly show that improving a message’s stickiness factor doesn’t take that much time, nor do you have to be a creative genius.
Go forth and be memorable!
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In 1903, Mamah Borthwick Cheney and her husband commissioned their neighbor Frank Lloyd Wright to design a home for them in Oak Park, IL. By 1909, Mamah and Wright had departed for Europe leaving behind two spouses, eight children, and an outsized scandal.
Although Loving Frank is a work of fiction, it is based on the true circumstances of Mamah and Wright’s seven-year affair.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s brilliance and eccentricities are well documented, but Loving Frank is about the lesser known Mamah. A college graduate and a teacher before she married, Mamah is frustrated with her restrictive roles as mother and wife. She takes classes at the University of Chicago and volunteers for the suffrage movement, but she longs for more. Her sister tells her, “You always wanted to do something big. Something important.” Wright is both big and important, especially in his own mind. Mamah is dazzled by his ideas, his confidence, and his attention. He is the something more.
But dramatically abandoning her traditional life does not bring Mamah immediate happiness. Hounded by the press and struggling with guilt and the mercurial Wright, Mamah’s liberation comes with a high price. Mamah’s efforts to carve out a new identity for herself make for a poignant, engrossing, and surprisingly contemporary story.
Free Food For Millionaires
By Min Jin Lee
How do you select a good read? Recommendations from friends and book reviews are two popular sources. But sometimes nothing beats a leisurely stroll through your local bookstore.
I can spend hours perusing the stacks of bright, attention-grabbing covers wondering what lies beneath. Is the novel with the garish font and eerie photo a murder mystery? I’m sure the book with the pink cover and girlish design is chick lit. A testimonial from Dr. Phil emblazoned on the cover promises “happily ever after,” and a quote from Malcolm Gladwell guarantees a book full of witty business insights.
During a recent ramble, I ran across a book with the appealing image of a shiny top hat on the cover. The title, Free Food for Millionaires, was equally intriguing.
FFFM is a juicy family saga about the Hans, a Korean American family living in New York.
As the novel opens, our heroine, Casey Han, has returned to her parents’ shabby apartment in Queens after graduating from Princeton where she was a scholarship student.
Like many recent college graduates, Casey has only vague plans for the future. Although accepted to Columbia Law School, she is not excited by the prospect. Expensive clothes, golf, cigarettes, and sex with her white boyfriend Jay excite Casey. None of these activities is likely to lead to lucrative employment or impress her parents.
Casey’s parents, Leah and Joseph Han, are ambitious for their daughter as well as old-fashioned. They expect her to have a prestigious profession and marry a nice Korean boy. When it becomes clear that Casey has no intention of conforming to her parents’ expectations, Joseph expels her from the family.
In desperation, Casey moves in with a wealthy and practically perfect friend, Ella Shim. In marked contract to Casey’s situation, Ella is engaged to a successful Korean boy and is much adored by her widowed father.
Casey accepts an entry-level position as a sales assistant at a securities firm, whose lunchroom inspires the title of the book. She also works part-time for her mentor, Sabine, a glamorous retail tycoon.
Despite a roof over her head and steady employment, Casey is restless. She defers acceptance to law school, incurs huge credit card debts, and breaks up with Jay. Casey knows she should be more focused, but inertia envelops her. In frustration, Sabine tells her, “Every minute matters. Every damn second. All those times you turn on the television or go to the movies or shop for things you don’t need…every time you sleep with the wrong man and wait for him to call you back, you’re wasting your time….And by the time you’re my age—you’ll see that for every day and every last moment spent, you were making a choice. And you’ll see that the time you had, that you were given, was wasted. It’s gone. And you cannot have any of it back.”
It is a lament familiar to every parent. And like every child, Casey ignores her mentor’s wise words.
While Casey aimlessly putters along, her presumably well-adjusted friends and family have caught the dissatisfaction virus too. Ella’s perfect marriage collapses, Sabine’s husband cheats on her, and even Leah and Joseph’s old-world relationship shows signs of strain.
Just when the proud but indecisive Casey hits rock bottom, she performs an extraordinary service for her mother. The compassion Casey demonstrates for a woman whose life is a complete mystery to her represents a powerful turning point in Casey’s life.
Despite a few melodramatic plot twists, Free Food For Millionaires is an engaging story with vivid characters. As Casey comes to realize, the practically perfect family, love, or job doesn’t exist, but striving for it is what makes a life.
And who says you can’t judge a book by its cover?
The Blind Side
by Michael Lewis
A year or so ago, I read an article by Michael Lewis in The New York Times entitled “The Ballad of Big Mike.” The article, which was adapted from Lewis’s book, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, concerns a poor black teenager adopted by a white family in Memphis. The story, while interesting, might have remained local news had the boy, Michael Oher, not been a phenomenal football player.
I gave a copy of The Blind Side to my dad for Christmas. He loved it. My mom also enjoyed it, and she recommended it to me. I trust the senior Coltons’ literary opinions, but a book categorized under sociology and sports sounds pretty dull to me. Happily, The Blind Side is insightful, inspiring,and humorous.
Based on Lewis’s previous output, I should have known the book would be highly readable. Lewis has a knack for telling a unique story and connecting it to broader social trends. His engaging books cover the bond market (Liar’s Poker), major league baseball (Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game), and the internet (Next: The Future Just Happened).
Lewis begins his narrative not with Michael’s sad family history but with a discussion of “the blind side.”
Neophyte drivers learn that they have a dangerous blind spot, which lurks just outside the window of their vehicle. In football, the quarterback has a blind spot, too. Just like a driver is at risk of being hit by the unseen vehicle as he switches lanes, the quarterback risks being “sacked” by an unseen opposing player. Since a quarterback is an important (and highly paid) member of the team, protecting him from injury is crucial. The particular offensive lineman who guards the quarterback’s most vulnerable side is important (and highly paid) as well.
Apparently this was not always the case. A lineman was a lineman—left or right didn’t much matter. Why a left tackle now makes as much money as the quarterback (or more) and how the focus on the blind side changed the way football is played, coached, funded, and recruited provides the framework for the story of Michael Oher.
Left tackles can’t be just big; they have to be quick as well. More than one coach refers to these players as “freaks of nature,” and Michael Oher was just such a freak.
But elevating Michael to football greatness was going to take all the resources of his adoptive family. Before Michael arrived at the Tuohy home, he never had his own bed or regular meals. He could barely read and write. He had no social skills. And he had never played football. To get this one child to functionality took the unrelenting efforts of a team of teachers, coaches, tutors, counselors, friends, and all the members of the Tuohy family.
The culture of big football and the Memphis projects are worlds apart. With his remarkable talent and tenacity and loving adoptive family, Michael Oher manages to transcend both.
Michael Oher plays left tackle for Ole Miss. According to many football gurus, he is a top prospect for the 2009 NFL draft.
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A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
By Marina Lweycka
Nominated for the Man Booker Prize, this remarkable first novel concerns the daughters of Nikolai Mayevskyj, an elderly Ukrainian immigrant living in England. Nadezhda and her older sister Vera are not on speaking terms, but the impending marriage of their recently widowed father to a 36-year-old Ukrainian bimbo brings them together.
When not mooning over his sweetheart, Nikolai is writing a history of the tractor, pining for a Ukraine that he left sixty years ago, and arguing politics with left-leaning Nadezhda.
The bimbo is unsurprisingly awful and has the tenaciousness of the desperate. Disengaging her from their father is not as easy as the girls anticipated, and their frantic efforts take on a decidedly comedic tone. In between acts of burglary and writing anonymous letters to the Home Office, Nadezhda and Vera develop a wary partnership which leads some surprising revelations about the family’s experiences during the Second World War.
This is a truly original story, poignant and funny, of the immigrant experience, sibling rivalry, and the elusiveness of family memories.
That I would recommend a novel about the end of the world by Cormac McCarthy surprises me too. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t consider a book by McCarthy, who received the 1992 National Book Award for All the Pretty Horses. But several incidents conspired to put The Road in my hands. And once I started reading, I was hooked.
Last fall, the Coen Brothers produced a movie entitled No Country for Old Men based on McCarthy’s novel of the same name. I love the Coen brothers. (Their movie Fargo is one of my favorites.) So in spite of the movie’s origins, I thought it might be worth seeing. But before I rush to the theater, I call the Overton Colton household for the real scoop. With three teenage boys in residence, someone has seen every movie in town, usually more than once.
I ask Andrew Colton about NCFOM. He responds, “It’s really intense.” This isn’t particularly helpful, so I press on. “How intense?” I ask. “Just really intense, Aunt Elizabeth.” Well, I could tell that Andrew Colton didn’t think his old Auntie E. was tough enough for NCFOM, which I took as a personal challenge. I can handle this. Didn’t I see Munich?
So I put on my big girl pants and drive to the Green Hills Theater. The movie is not so frightening after all. The bad guy’s Prince Valiant hairdo really undermines his scariness. Did men actually wear their hair like that in 1980? Granted, I close my eyes during the bloody parts, but I estimate that I missed only about 20 percent of the film. The rest of the movie is fascinating, unhurried, and, yes, intense.
Not long after seeing NCFOM, my friend Conte recommends The Road. I explain that despite having tolerated NCFOM, I am not a fan of McCarthy’s work. But he insists that I read it.
Based on his recommendation, I pick up The Road the nexttime I’m in the bookstore. I read about a third of the book while sitting on the floor at Borders and finish it later that night. Reading The Road is like driving by a multi-car accident. You don’t want to look, but you can’t look away.
The plot is simple. It is the end of the world. The land is gray and cold. A father and son journey to the coast. They are always hungry and afraid. One night, the boy and his father have the following conversation.
We wouldnt ever eat anybody, would we?
No. Of course not.
Even if we were starving?
We’re starving now.
You said we werent.
I said we werent dying. I didn’t say we werent starving.
But we wouldnt.
No. We wouldnt.
No matter what.
No. No matter what.
Because we’re the good guys.
Yes.
At first, like the circuitous dialogue, The Road doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. (Can you find Despair on the map?) But eventually it becomes clear that the novel is not just about a trip to the coast (Aha!). With an extreme lack of fussiness, McCarthy explores what it means to be human, to be good, and to trust one another. The relationship between the boy and his dad is achingly real and one of the most poignant depictions of parental love that I have ever read.
A few weeks later, a boy and his aunt have the following conversation:
Hey.
I just finished the grimmest book, The Road.
We read that in school. Awesome!
It’s so sad, Andrew.
I hear they’re making a movie of it.
How is that possible? Nothing happens.
Lots happens, Aunt Elizabeth.
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Dear American Airlines
By Jonathan Miles
An irresponsible husband, a drunk, and an unemployable poet and translator, Benjamin R. Ford will never be nominated for a distinguished citizen award. However, five years sober, he travels to Los Angeles to attend the wedding of the daughter he hasn’t seen since her infancy.
But his noble plans are interrupted by an extended layover in Chicago. After eight hours of confinement in O’Hare International Airport, Ford writes a complaint letter to the airline. What begins as a demand for a refund morphs into a diatribe of his wretched life. And thus begins Jonathan Miles novel Dear American Airlines.
Ford’s account of his misspent existence is interspersed with hilarious observations on everything from food courts to sex. But underneath the acerbic tone, Ford is warily committed to making amends.
Does 24 hours in an airport bring redemption? Perhaps. In the end, Benjamin R. Ford tells American Airlines, “You can keep your money after all.”
Troublesome Young Men
By Lynne Olson
In hindsight, Winston Churchill’s election to Prime Minister in May 1940 looks as if it was inevitable. In fact, as Lynne Olson brilliantly describes in her book Troublesome Young Men, Churchill’s election was no sure thing.
For two years, a band of renegade Tory MPs had been clamoring for the resignation of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the architect of Britain’s policy of appeasement towards Germany. At great risk to their political future, these “troublesome young men,” among them Anthony Eden, Ronald Cartland, Leo Amery, and Harold Macmillan, opposed their own party.
Their visionary leadership and disregard for their personal ambitions is especially inspiring considering the social environment of the time. The House of Commons was a small world in 1940. Most members of the Commons had known each other since childhood, attended the same schools, played the same sports, and were mostly related to each other. Disloyalty was a violation of the public-school ethos on which they had all been raised. Furthermore, many had family and business ties to Germany.
Even though we know the outcome, Olson creates a compelling story. The back room deal-making, the infighting, and the dramatic debates make this nonfiction account as exciting as a suspense novel.
One of my favorite moments takes place on May 7, 1940, when Leo Amery, a onetime close friend and political ally of Chamberlain, addresses the incumbent administration in the House of Commons. Quoting Oliver Cromwell, he says, “‘You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing! Depart, I say, and let us have done with you! In the name of God, go!’”
Imagine that in the U.S. Senate.
Bridge Of Sighs
By Richard Russo
Last month I had dinner at The Palm with a dozen or so women. Toward the end of the meal I asked (apropos of what, I can’t remember), “By a show of hands, how many of you were homecoming queen?” Rita Mitchell, our esteemed host, looked vaguely irritated, because this is not at all the sort of sophisticated conversation she encourages at her gatherings. But after glancing nervously around the room, about half the women raised their hands. I then asked, “How many of you were valedictorian?” Again, about half the room waved, including several of the homecoming queens. On a roll now, I asked the definitive question, “How many of you were cheerleaders?” Amid sheepish expressions and much laughter, almost every hand went up.
Other than feeling incredibly inadequate, having been neither homecoming queen nor cheerleader nor valedictorian, I found the exercise interesting. What is it about our schooldays that intrigues us years later? We schlep to our high school reunions not to see the old gym, but rather to see if the boy named “Most Likely to Succeed” actually did so. Does our childhood shape us irrevocably, or is there an opportunity to rise above it?
In his latest novel, Richard Russo considers these questions as he follows three friends through their formative years and into adulthood. Like his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Empire Falls, Bridge of Sighs is set in an economically depressed factory town in upstate New York. Louis Charles (“Lucy”) Lynch is married to his childhood sweetheart, the former Sarah Berg, and owns three convenience stories that he inherited from his father. As the novel opens, Lucy and Sarah are planning a trip to Italy which may include a reunion with their childhood buddy Bobby Marconi. Bobby, now known as Robert Noonan, is a world-renowned artist living in Venice.
The trip has prompted the sixty-year-old Lucy to write his life story. Both Sarah and his mother, Tessa, are somewhat concerned about this as Lucy’s predilection for nostalgia is pronounced enough without further indulgence. All of Lucy’s conversations begin with, “You remember when….” The two women also suspect that while reminiscing about his childhood, Lucy may uncover some unpleasant realities.
Russo has a gift for portraying eccentric, small town characters. Or rather all the men seem to be “characters” and the women long suffering. Goofy Mr. Lynch Sr., his shiftless brother, Uncle Dec, crazy Mr. Berg, and Gabriel Mock Junior, whose hobby is “howling,” are sympathetic (mostly) misfits. The women, especially Sarah and Tessa, demonstrate tolerance and manage the consequences of the boys’ follies.
And as long as everyone stays in character, these fragile relationships hold up. People might be peculiar or even awful, but they are predictable. But when certain long-held assumptions about the past are challenged, suddenly everyone is behaving out of character.
The novel alternates between Thomaston (past and present) and Venice and is a bit too long. But it is an original saga that addresses many universal concerns in a reliably readable fashion.
Daddy’s Girl
By Lisa Scottoline
I consider myself an adventurous reader. I’ll read just about anything and, in desperate times, have been known to finish books I didn’t even like. I enjoy discovering new authors, and I always peruse my friends’ bookshelves for inspiration. But when selecting a book for airplane travel, I do not experiment. For trip day, I require a reliable, escapist read. I want a book by a brand name author that is guaranteed to keep me happily engaged for two or more hours, despite lack of oxygen, cramped seating, and starvation. Flight #1088 is not when I plan to catch up on the books from my high school summer reading list.
In fact, my idea of real panic is to wedge myself into my seat, open my novel, and be bored after ten pages. Help! The alternatives at 30,000 feet are not enticing—talk to my seatmate, stare out the window, sleep (lots of luck), read the American Way Magazine? The selection of the appropriate escape fiction is vitally important to a successful travel experience.
Accordingly, I can happily recommend Lisa Scottoline, a former trial lawyer and the author of a dozen consistently readable legal thrillers. Most of her novels take place in the Philadelphia area. Many of them involve either directly or indirectly the all-female firm of Rosato & Associates. Several of the best ones feature Mary DiNuzio, a hardworking and earnest young woman at the firm.
Daddy’s Girl does not, except for a passing mention, concern Rosato & Associates. But the lead character, law professor Natalie Greco, bears a remarkable resemblance to the Rosato girls. Smart and serious, Natalie feels slightly out of place at the University as well as with her loud, sports-obsessed family. Instead of a cat, she has a comfortable boyfriend. In a moment of weakness, Natalie allows a handsome colleague to persuade her to teach a class at the local prison.
On her first visit to the prison, a violent riot breaks out. A dying guard asks Natalie to deliver a cryptic message to his wife. Natalie dutifully contacts the wife, who finds her late husband’s words baffling as well. But Natalie is unable to forget the mysterious message. There is something about the prison incident that arouses Natalie’s suspicions.
Succumbing to her inner Nancy Drew, Natalie starts asking questions. Her snooping immediately lands her in serious trouble. She is accused of murder, and soon this conservative good girl is on the run from the law. (Problems like this never happened in The Case of the Old Clock!) Relying solely on her courage, creativity, and costume changes, Natalie must outwit the police, find the real killers, and determine the meaning of the guard’s final words. Although there is never any doubt that Natalie will triumph, the briskly-paced narrative and wily plot twists will keep you eagerly turning the pages.
The mystery is satisfactorily solved just in time for touchdown at LaGuardia.
Crossing to Safety
By Wallace Stegner
With so many new books to read, it is rare that I reread a novel. However, for the second time in twenty years, I read Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Angle of Repose.
Crossing to Safety chronicles the lifelong friendship of two couples, the Langs and the Morgans. At the ripe old age of thirty, I enjoyed the novel but was rather impatient with the characters. It all seemed so dysfunctional! Why did he/she put up with her /his behavior? Why are these people still friends? Get a job already! Now from the perch of truly advanced age (do the math), I have more respect for the complexities of friendship and marriage. An exquisite book about compatibility, sacrifice, and love.
Bringing Home the Birkin
by Michael Tonello
Bringing Home the Birkin is a chick-lit novel, although at first glance it violates a few standards of the genre. It is not written by a woman and involves stalking a handbag, not a man. Nonetheless, there is sufficient shopping, girl chat, and glamorous travel to satisfy the chick-lit aficionado.
BHTB is the story of Michael Tonello, an expatriate American, who from his apartment in Barcelona makes a fine living buying and re-selling expensive and elusive Hermes Birkin bags. Having stumbled on this money-making venture by accident, Michael soon develops a disciplined strategy that includes a Birkin-buying uniform, Birkin-buying script, Birkin-buying helpers, 20-plus credit cards, and written profiles of Hermes store employees. When he realizes that the fabled two-year waiting list for a bag is merely a marketing ploy, Michael cheerfully ransacks Hermes stores from Lyon to Buenos Aires. And along the way he finds romance, so it is a chick-lit novel after all.
For those of you who are only familiar with the works of L. Frank Baum through the MGM movie The Wizard of Oz, I must correct a terrible misconception. Dorothy didn’t dream Oz.
Oz is real. 26 novels real. And The Wonderful Wizard of Oz on which the MGM extravaganza is based isn’t even the best of the series. I am particularly partial to The Patchwork Girl and The Emerald City of Oz.
When I was a child, my mother read to us from her well-loved childhood copies of the Oz books. At the end of every chapter, my brother and I begged for one more chapter – pleeeze! To my mother’s great relief, we eventually were able to read the series on our own. I have read all 26 novels more than once and still find them remarkable.
As Evan Schwartz points out in his biography of L. Frank Baum, Finding Oz, the Oz books were the first authentically American fairy tales. Waves of immigrants had brought their own fables to America, but the Oz books are the first distinctly American fantasy, complete with farms, chickens, and Kansas!
Prior to his late life success as an author, Baum tried his hand at many different occupations, including actor, china salesman, chicken farmer, and journalist. Late 19th century America was an unforgiving environment for the only sporadically employed, but despite his hardships, Baum never lost his good humor or his knack for storytelling.
Schwartz’s account of Baum’s life is more convincing than his efforts at literary analysis. Seeking the mystical meaning behind the Oz stories is a popular exercise. Academics have inflicted similar analysis on A. A. Milne’s Pooh series. (You can find both The Zen of Oz and The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet at your local bookstore.) While it is more than possible that Baum’s writing was influenced by Theosophy to which he, his wife, and mother-in-law were adherents, some of Mr. Schwartz’s other theories seem a bit farfetched. Toto is not just a cute name for a dog, but rather taken from the Latin phrase in toto. And even more suspect is the theory that the character of the Cowardly Lion was inspired by Sitting Bull!
Aside from the overwrought, albeit intriguing, literary analysis, Finding Oz is a first-rate biography. Serious Oz fans will enjoy the discussion of the sources of Baum’s inspiration, but history buffs will appreciate the portrayal of turn of the century America.
The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society
By Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Society is a charming novel of 1946 London and Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands. London-based writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a Guernsey resident asking for a book recommendation. Juliet, who appears to know as little about Guernsey as I, is intrigued enough to write back. Thus begins a formidable exchange of letters with the Guernsey locals, most of whom are members of the Literary Society.
The Islanders are not naturally bookish. The Literary Society was founded on the spur of the moment to explain a curfew violation to the Germans who occupied the island during most of the war. But once the Literary Society was established, the residents embrace the concept with enthusiasm. Farmers read Charles Lamb, the lady with the wandering eye is a Bronte fan, the stone mason likes Shakespeare, and a former valet reads The Letters of Seneca—exclusively.
The book is a bit clichéd. Juliet is witty and self deprecating, her gay editor amusing, her rich American boyfriend suitably dense, and the Guernsey natives quaintly rural. But the history of the German occupation is poignant, and a novel about books and reading is always a pleasure. A gentle read.
The House at Sugar Beach by journalist Helen Cooper is the story of her privileged childhood in Liberia, her twenty- three year exile, and her subsequent return.
Located on the west coast of Africa, modern day Liberia was founded in 1821 by freed slaves from the United States and their white supporters from the American Colonization Society. At that time, a number of leaders in the U.S. felt that freed blacks and enslaved blacks were incompatible in the same country. Their solution was to resettle the freed blacks in Africa. The first ship embarked for Africa in 1820 with Ms. Cooper’s ancestor Elijah Johnson on board.
All good intentions aside, there was a major impediment to the success of this grandiose plan. Liberia and other countries in West Africa were already occupied –by Africans- many of whom participated in the slave trade. The Africans were less than enthusiastic about taking in freed blacks. After almost two years of searching for refuge, the representatives of the American Colonization Society finally forced (at gunpoint) the natives of Liberia to accept the settlers.
The predominately light -skinned freed blacks, henceforth known as Congo People, soon dominated the political, cultural, and economic life of Liberia.
150 years later, Helene Cooper, a bona fide member of the Congo ruling class, grew up in a groovy modern mansion by the sea. When she was eight, her parents took in a foster child from a poor native family, Eunice, to keep her company.
Eunice and Helene were inseparable until the revolution in 1980 when the oppressed natives staged a coup d’état. Forced to flee the country for the U.S., the Coopers left Eunice behind. In 2003, Helene returned to Liberia to find her old playmate.
The premise of this book is fascinating, as is the depiction of the history and customs of Liberia. But Ms. Cooper, currently the diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, is a better journalist than story teller. I kept waiting for some thoughtful observations that never materialized. I am not a fan of the navel- gazing that defines most memoirs (Eat Pray Love), but Ms. Cooper could have written a more provocative and insightful story.
To My Dearest Friends
by Patricia Volk
It used to be that remembering your sunglasses was the biggest worry for summer travel. Now packing for a one-hour flight involves more planning than Sir Shackleton’s expedition to the Antarctic and just as much stamina. Last month, an article with the chilling title “Buckle In: It’s Going to Be a Rough Summer for Flying” appeared in The Wall Street Journal—like we needed to be reminded. While Sir Shackelton’s men fought starvation, you fight homicidal tendencies as your flight posts yet another two-hour delay. I have no advice for controlling travel tempers, but I can recommend Patricia Volk’s charming novel To My Dearest Friends to help while away the hours.
The book opens with a compilation of comments “Overheard at the Funeral.”
“Who are all these people?” “Isn’t Zabar’s near here?” “The daughter could use a little makeup.” “You knew her since Lamaze?” “Think he’ll sell the apartment?” “I went to one last week, four people showed up.” “Someone’s dead. Just be glad you’re here.”
This mix of the mundane and poignant sets the tone for a story of friendship in Manhattan. Alice and Nanny are very different, middle-aged Manhattanites brought together by the death of a mutual friend, Roberta. At the reading of the will, they each wonder how Roberta could possibly be friends with the other. Nanny is Roberta’s friend from graduate school, and Alice is a childhood friend.
Each woman had her own relationship with Roberta. Nanny and Roberta went to movies at the Paris. Alice and Roberta ran in Riverside Park and accompanied each other to their mammogram appointments. Nanny is a recently widowed real estate broker. Alice tolerates an alcoholic husband and owns a chic Madison Avenue boutique which she inherited from her mother. Roberta’s instructions from the grave send this ill-matched pair on a quest to decipher the mysterious contents of her safe-deposit box.
Volk transcends this potentially clichéd premise (because, of course, Nanny and Alice become friends) by brilliantly describing the bumpy rhythms of the women’s relationships with friends, husbands, mothers, and grown children. And as Nanny and Alice discover, regardless of how well you think you know someone, everyone has a secret.
Volk gets the dialogue and the details so right that I can only assume that she hid a tape recorder in every ladies’ room in New York City. Volk is especially adept at portraying everyday irritants. In one scene, the women are dining per usual at Bergdorf’s.
The waitress stops by their table. “Still working on those?”
Dale puts her fork down. “Actually,” she says, “I’m working on a book about a peg-leg whittler from Chattanooga.” She turns to Nanny.
“And I’m working on a real-estate transaction.”
“And I’m co-designing a line of clothes. But,” Alice says, “we’ve finished our salads if you’d care to take our plates.”
Don’t you wish you had said it?
Indian Summer
By Alex Von Tunzelmann
After reading The White Tiger a few months ago, I became interested in Indian history, specifically the withdrawal of the British from their most valuable colony and the subsequent divvying up of the Indian subcontinent.
There have been other books written about the 1947 partition of India, notably Freedom at Midnight, but in Indian Summer Tunzelmann adopts a more Vanity Fair approach, which in no way negates the accuracy of her scholarship. Rather, she also offers unvarnished and rather sly portraits of the people behind the legends: pious Mohandas Gandhi, alienated from his children and whose stubbornness botches many opportunities for a peaceful resolution; Dickie Mountbatten, the last viceroy, also known as “The Master of Disaster”; Edwina Mountbatten, his rich, frustrated, and indefatigable wife; and Jawaharlal Nehru, in some ways more British than the British, and in love with Edwina.
These eccentric, ambitious souls end up on the same stage for the biggest peacetime land swap the world has ever seen. Indian Summer covers this fascinating and tragic period with novel-like readability.
