Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

Popular fiction is a genre that is distinct from literary fiction, though the boundaries are fluid. I like to think of these categories as either ends of a ruler, with most books falling somewhere between the two ends. A lot of the books I read fall right around the middle of the continuum between popular and literary fiction. For example I put authors like Kate Atkinson, Diane Johnson, and Elinor Lipman right smack in the middle. At the literary fiction end of things are some of my favorites like Mary Gordon and Margaret Atwood. And at the other, popular fiction end are people I read (and enjoy) such as Janet Evanovich. Note that these are my own categorizations; others may disagree.

What baffles me is when the book industry people decide in advance where along the continuum a book goes, and design the cover and the marketing plan accordingly. Such is the case with Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner. The childish title and the frothy cover announce that this is Popular Fiction, capital P, capital F. Readers in search of serious ideas need not bother. Why pigeonhole a book like this? Why not a more ambiguous cover and title? Does the book sell more copies because of what it is, or what it’s not?

In fact, Best Friends Forever was good, and it reminded me a lot of Elinor Lipman’s books, which are often about sibling relationships and close friendships among women. BFF was a little more slapstick, a little less taut than Lipman’s typical work, but the jokes were funny, the characters were multilayered, and the plot (while not groundbreaking) had some originality. The dialogue was especially good. It’s supposed to be a Thelma and Louise kind of story though it’s much tamer than that. I think BFF would appeal to a lot of different readers but unfortunately many of the more serious ones wouldn’t be caught dead with it. Weiner’s publishers have done her a disservice; the chick lit fans will read it anyway because Weiner is already established in that subgenre, and by choosing this fashion magazine type of cover they are denying Weiner the possibility of bringing in new readers who usually hang out a little closer to the literary end of the book world.

The only reason I tried this book was because it was recommended to me by someone whose opinion I trust. If you trust my opinion, you might want to give this a whirl also.

(Book 39, 2009)

A Long Finish by Michael Dibdin

When I heard in 2007 that Michael Dibdin had died, I remember thinking "Oh darn, I never got around to reading any of his books." What a weird thought, as if the Head Librarian would now be taking all his books off the shelves. It is true that I prefer to read books by living authors but that's mostly because I am trying to stay current, not because I've got anything against the dearly departed.

Dibdin's Aurelio Zen mysteries (of which this is an early one) always show up on the must-read lists, including this one, the Times Online's list of the 50 greatest crime writers, where he is #37. (How many of these authors have you read? I've read 26.) Dibdin is often discussed in the same context as Nicholas Freeling (also dead) and H. R. F. Keating (not yet dead) because all three are British mystery novelists who write in English about non-British detectives. Freeling created Amsterdam detective Piet Van der Valk and French Inspector Henri Castang, while Keating is the creator of Inspector Ghote of the Mumbai police. Aurelio Zen is Italian. Being British distinguishes these authors from mystery novelists such as George Simenon (#2 on the Times list, dead) who wrote in French and Andrea Camilleri (#43 on the Times list, not dead) who writes in Italian. Why the sudden interest in authors’ nationalities (and state of animation)? I am just wondering what it is about the British psyche that gives certain writers the confidence to imagine up these non-British scenarios with such confidence and panache. Are there books written in Chinese about London detectives, do you think?

Oh, did I like the book? I guess so. It had a lot in it about food and wine, which is always fun. It also had a wonderfully ironic ending. Zen is not terribly interested in following any sort of policeman-type rules, which makes for some good tricks.

(Book 38, 2009)

Vacation (reading)

I'm having a little vacation at my father's house near the beach. It's nice to hang out with my dad and his dogs, and in a few minutes I'm going to take a walk on the sea wall. The weather is warm-ish and sunny and the tide is coming in. It's been a good short break from my job (not very stressful) and my teenagers (don't ask). I go home tomorrow.

I've read two books since I've been here and have started a third. I don't usually distinguish between vacation reading and regular reading but I seem to have done so for this trip. My airplane reading was A Long Finish by Michael Dibdin, an author I've always wanted to try but have never gotten around to. My laying-around-the-house reading has been Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner, a book I would normally NEVER read due to its embarrassing title and even more embarrassing cover art. But my father's wife liked it and promised I would too, and it turns out to be entertaining. For the trip home I've got Arctic Chill, another Icelandic mystery from Arnaldur Indridason.

Catch you on the flip side.

Caravaggio's Angel by Ruth Brandon

I am very picky about writing styles. Have you noticed? I don’t like (and won’t read) badly written books. I will, however, sometimes read a decently written book* with a lousy plot. Caravaggio’s Angel fits into this category. I am a sucker for art mysteries and picked this up by chance. It’s about a museum curator who is putting together an exhibition of Caravaggio paintings. Some paintings are missing; others are of dubious quality. Still others are suddenly unavailable for loan due to unexplained intransigence on the part of their purported owners. The curator (Reggie Lee) must sort all this out.

I didn’t like Reggie and I didn’t like her methods. I also didn’t like all the extraneous clutter that littered the story (a Surrealist plot from the 1930’s; a loathsome French politician who does his best to thwart Reggie’s work, but yet to whom Reggie is inexplicably attracted; Reggie’s ill-advised fling with a French journalist who happens to be married to Reggie’s friend Delphine). Despite these complaints I was driven to finish it. How bad could it get? Pretty bad, in the end. Apparently this is the first book in a planned series about Reggie. I think I’ll pass on the rest of them.

*An editorial complaint: I hate the verb “to google.” It’s likely to move out of fashion, and can easily be replaced by the phrase “to search the Internet.” Shame on the lazy editor who allowed this to get through.

(Book 37, 2009)

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

Some books just take longer than a week to read. This one took more than two weeks, partly because it’s long, and partly because some of it is a slog. Nevertheless it’s an interesting book and worth reading for the 85% non-sloggish bits.

The 19th Wife is another one of those 2-in-1 tales where the author skips back and forth between a modern story and a fact-based historical one. The historical tale is about Ann Eliza Young, Brigham Young’s 19th wife, who divorced him and led a crusade against polygamy all the way to the U.S. Senate. The modern story is about Jordan Scott, whose mother (also a 19th wife) is accused of murdering her husband, the leader of a present-day polygamous sect in Utah. Jordan’s quest to clear his mother of these charges leads him back into the sick society from which he was ejected as a teen and forces him to confront the worst of it.

Both stories are compelling. Ebershoff does a virtuoso job of writing in a variety of styles and voices. Jordan is a young gay man, filled with rage at the society in which he was raised, yet convinced that his mother did not kill his father. He’s an endearing, sympathetic character and his chapters made me feel all maternal. In contrast, Ebershoff retells Ann Eliza’s story through a fictional version of her memoir, and includes multiple supporting documents to buttress her story. It’s these supporting documents that are the slog. Sometimes in the evening I would say to myself “Well, I could go read excerpts from Brigham Young’s prison diaries, or wait! Didn’t we get a new issue of Rolling Stone in the mail?” Guess which reading material I chose.

At times I struggled with knowing where fact ended and fiction began in the sections about Ann Eliza. Ebershoff provides a helpful discussion at the end of the book about his sources and methods but of course I didn’t find that until I was done. Observant readers of this blog will notice that this is the second book this year that I’ve read about Mormon society (the first was Escape by Carolyn Jessop). Neither book presents the group in a positive light, though neither explicitly deals with life among modern day non-polygamous LDS church members.

(Book 36, 2009)

Two Books in One

I am reading The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. It's really two books in one: Ebershoff retells Ann Eliza Young's original memoir of her life with, and subsequent divorce from, Brigham Young in the late 19th century. Young (Ann Eliza, not Brigham) went on to be a crusader against polygamy and against Mormonism itself. Layered between the pages of this story is a modern murder mystery set in a fictional fundamentalist LDS clan in Utah, told from the point of view of one its "lost boys." Ebershoff also includes historical background material that retells Ann Eliza Young's story from different points of view. These include a memoir by her father, depositions by her brother, and extracts from a graduate student's research.

The question for me is, what is real and what isn't? Ann Eliza Young really wrote a memoir, but how accurate is Ebershoff's retelling? Is he using her words? How do I figure this out? Is the material that was supposedly written by Young's brother and father real or fiction? The only thing I know that is certainly fiction is the modern mystery, which is also very good.

Ebershoff has a Web site but it's not very comprehensive. Wikipedia has a good article about Ann Eliza Young. I am starting with these, but this process is taking me a long time. The book is long and engrossing, but is also slow going.

So that's where I've been. Just wanted to give you an update.

Mother on Fire by Sandra Tsing Loh

Sandra Tsing Loh is a writer, performance artist, and public radio commentator. I don’t hear her much on radio but I do read her pieces in the Atlantic. I’ve also never seen any of her one-woman shows but would sure like to. In 2008 she published Mother on Fire, a memoir about her life in Los Angeles, specifically framed around her search for an appropriate school for her kindergarten-age daughter.

This is a very funny book, filled with raw emotion and angst. Loh takes on issues of class and status, money worries, stalled careers, the mommy wars, and the frantic pace of life in LA. She expertly captures the desperate panic of educated, affluent, urban parents in search of the perfect environment for their precious offspring. Loh herself vacillates between being one of these super-obsessed types, and being a slacker mom, and freely admits her own contradictory impulses. That’s partly what makes the book so entertaining. One day Loh is touring the $22,000-a-year private (pseudonymous) Wonder Canyon School, where “children honor diversity, learn peaceful conflict resolution and are taught music using the Orff-Schulwerk method.” Of course there is no diversity at Wonder Canyon; as Loh points out, the children must honor it because they don’t actually experience it. The next day Loh is letting her daughters watch Disney princess videos for the 82nd time and feeding them Kraft macaroni and cheese. She is consumed with guilt for failing to provide Baby Mozart and organic broccoli all the while railing against the forces that make her feel guilty. But despite how much Loh wants the Wonder Canyon, there is no way that she and her husband can afford it on the combined income of a journalist and a musician.

Thus Loh’s daughter ends up at an LA public magnet school. It’s a better choice than the local elementary school (which Loh dubs Guavatorina for its 89% English Language Learner status) though she is still the only blonde in a sea of Central American and Armenian children. But why is this a bad thing, Loh asks? Her daughter’s school is a warm and loving place where the children thrive. As a result of this revelation Loh becomes a public school activist and runs a Web site for parents of children in LA public schools.

Loh’s writing style takes a little getting used to. Her articles in the Atlantic are straightforward magazine-style journalism but Mother on Fire is filled with exclamation marks! –And interjections! Also lots of $%^#@!!!!! Before writing this book, Loh performed a stage version of Mother on Fire for 7 months in Los Angeles. I imagine the book reflects the style of the show. Was there a lot of ranting and desperate proclaiming? I bet there was.

You can find Sandra Tsing Loh everywhere on the Web. Here are some links to an interview in Salon, her articles in the Atlantic, her NPR pieces, a New York Times review of Mother on Fire, and her personal Web site.

(Book 35, 2009)