A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

I haven’t read a book this bad in a long time. I’m surprised I even finished it, except that I wanted to be able to write a coherent post. This book features unpleasant characters, improbable plot devices, unexplained personality changes, off-putting sex, a bit of gruesome violence, and a complete lack of subtlety or nuance – it’s a total mess. There is one clever plot twist, I’ll grant that, though maybe more astute readers would have seen it coming. I probably was too irritated by that time to recognize the signs.

And can I mention the prose style? The overwrought, melodramatic and repetitive prose, the one-sentence paragraphs (“And so he wept.”), the declarative subject-verb-object construction over and over and over again until I thought I would scream? There, I mentioned it.

Here is a paragraph I that flagged because it was so impossibly bad. I leave you with it.

…There was not a speck of dust in the room. It was a fine room, not the best, but fine. It was the sort of room in which she might have served coffee or tea, dressed for dinner or the theater, might have kept a canary, if she had lived there, but she didn’t live there and no bird sang.

(Book 40, 2010)

Black Seconds by Karin Fossum

I’ve said this before about mysteries by Karin Fossum: they are good to read, but hard to write about. So much of the story is inside the heads of the characters, in how they think about their actions and the consequences of those actions (in the case of the perpetrators) or in how they reason out the solution of the crime (in the case of the detectives).

This book is about a child disappearance, but it isn’t typical. There are no evil serial killers, only a few troubled young men and some bad decisions. Like an earlier Fossum book I read, Don’t Look Back, it’s set in rural/suburban Norway, among typical Norwegian characters, such as oil workers, housewives, and students. This is worth mentioning, I think, because so many Scandinavian writers are focusing these days on issues of immigration and urban crime. While I enjoy those books, too, if you are looking for that angle, Fossum won’t provide it. Instead you will get a restrained and measured analysis of a series of events and their aftermath.

Trust me, this is good, even though it sounds like not so much. Fans of Scandinavian crime novels will immediately get what I’m driving at (I hope).

(Book 39, 2010)

Lima Nights by Marie Arana

Years ago I read Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa. I don’t remember much of the story but I do remember the setting: Lima, Peru in the 1950’s. I remember the atmosphere of elegance and faded glory in the grand European style apartment buildings and along the boulevards, the mix of haves and have-nots, and also my total unfamiliarity with the topography. We have all read enough books set in London and Paris to recognize landmarks like the Thames or the Louvre, but here was a city that sounded equally remarkable, but which was so unknown to me. I felt like I was truly visiting someplace exotic. I tried reading other books by Vargas Llosa but none of the ones I tried captured the essence of life in Lima the way that one did.

Now finally I’m back in Lima! Marie Arana’s short novel about an affair between a married, aristocratic Peruvian man and a young indigenous girl from the slums offers all the atmosphere I was seeking, along with a great story of passion and manipulation. Everything happens pretty much as you would expect: the man Carlos is older and married when he meets the girl Maria, who is a dancer in a bar. The affair progresses rapidly and soon Carlos is so besotted he risks his marriage and his livelihood to be with her. Arana handles the age difference between the characters well. Yes, it’s creepy and you want Carlos to leave the 15-year-old Maria alone; on the other hand you want Maria to find a way out of her squalid life however she can and Carlos provides a safer exit than most of her other choices. Both have things to gain and things to lose from the relationship, no matter how it turns out in the end.

Unlike Vargas Llosa, who writes in Spanish, Arana writes in English, and indeed works as a writer for the Washington Post. The Post’s excellent review of the book (with a more complete plot description than I offer) is here. I hope Arana writes more stories set in Lima.

(Book 38, 2010)

Red Bones by Ann Cleeves

I love this mystery series, set in the Shetland Isles. I love the cold wet climate, the isolation, the sheep. Weird, I know. But even if this setting sounds awful to you, if you are mystery fan, you will enjoy this. Some archeologists find some old bones. But wait, are they really old? Then one archaeologist turns up dead. What’s going on? Turns out, even in a place as peaceful and remote as this, there are people who are hungry for money and power, and who don’t want their secrets revealed.

Cleeves is the author of two previous Shetland mysteries, Raven Black and White Nights, both of which (like this one) feature detective Jimmy Perez. A fourth book, Blue Lightning, is due out in September. Her books are a kind of cross between standard British police procedurals and the darker, more detached style favored by the Scandinavian mystery writers. I’ll be really disappointed if she ends the series with Blue Lightning (which I think is likely, given the fact that Amazon bills them as the “Shetland Quartet”). Darn it.

Red Bones is set on the Shetland island of Whalsay. Here’s a link to a lovely batch of photos of Whalsay.

(Book 37, 2010)

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

I am conflicted about Lisa See. I think she excels in writing about places and time periods, but isn’t so good at creating original characters. The sisters in Shanghai Girls have a relationship that is clichéd and predictable. The dialogue is almost painfully banal. Yet the settings (1930’s Shanghai, 1940’s and ‘50’s Los Angeles) are great, very evocative and filled with detail. This book follows the fortunes of sisters Pearl and May, who make their living working in Shanghai as advertising models, or so-called “beautiful girls.” When their father suffers business reversals he marries them off to the sons of one of his creditors and the girls must leave Shanghai and join their Chinese-American husbands in California where they will work as low-wage labor for their father-in-law. But before they can leave, the Japanese invade Shanghai, forcing Pearl and May to flee with their mother to Hong Kong and make their way by a long circuitous route to the U.S. Their lives in the U.S. are quite a come-down from their affluent pre-war lives. Their husbands are poor and the sisters work long grinding hours in Chinatown. Is this why See must insert maudlin platitudes about how the bond between sisters is unbreakable, despite all adversity, blah blah blah?

Despite my complaints about the characterizations and relationships, I found this book really interesting and entertaining. I loved reading about the 1940’s incarnation of Chinatown in Los Angeles, a neighborhood built not for immigrants but as a tourist attraction and designed by Hollywood set designers. Pearl and May work in this pretend city and therefore are forbidden to wear western-style clothes, lest they disappoint the white visitors who come for the food and the rickshaw rides.

Lisa See has compiled a great set of photographs on Flickr, of Chinatown, Shanghai, and Chinese advertising posters featuring beautiful girls like Pearl and May. Here is the link.

(Book 36, 2010) 

Blog Redesign Coming!

I am not much on redecorating. Or really decorating at all; I think there is nothing wrong with teeteringly tall stacks of books on bedside tables and baskets of half-worked knitting projects in every corner. Family members agree; their favorite accessories run to USB cords and piles of magazines, and we've recently installed a phone museum in our kitchen that consists of broken cell phones, artfully arranged. It's on the side counter, if you are interested in visiting it.

Nevertheless, one must stay current. And in the blog world, at least, you can hire someone to do the freshening up for you. So stay tuned for a new look. I hope you like it!

ETA: It's here! Is the text too small? Let me know if you think it is.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

This is as good as everyone says it is. Helen Simonson has written an old-fashioned story and interjected some surprisingly contemporary elements, with great success. In many ways this is a standard story of English village life, complete with a vicar, eccentric neighbors, the golf club, social climbing relatives, and featuring a retired major who wants nothing more than to be left alone to putter around in his garden. All the elements are in place for a 21st century Mapp and Lucia type of romp. But here is what stirs everything up: the major’s infatuation with the lovely Pakistani widow who runs the local convenience store. Suddenly, race relations in the new Britain are front and center.

Major Pettigrew is not always a sympathetic lead. His obsession with his late father’s antique shotguns forms a subplot that reveals a weaker side of his character. On the other hand, his growing love for Mrs. Ali, and his continued commitment to her, despite the horrified reactions of the village, and the objections of his and her own families, makes you cheer for him despite his occasional weaknesses.

Simonson raises issues about race and class with a deft hand. For example, here’s a knotty one: Major Pettigrew was born in Pakistan, son of a much-decorated British hero of the partition. Mrs. Ali was born and raised in England, daughter of a Pakistani professor at a British university. Who is the foreigner here? I love it when books ask questions like these.

(Book 35, 2010)