I finally got around to the parental phenomenon - rereading kids' books to your children. Lots of them are fun for the children, lots of them hold up to multiple readings, lots of them get stuck in your head, which can be a mixed blessing. Like Calvin's dad reading "Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey" (you'll have to find that one in the classic Calvin and Hobbes collections), sometimes you just can't stand reading it one more time...

Then there are ones that are fun for the children and give parents a little extra as well. That's what I found with Not the Piano, Mrs. Medley!. It seems that Mrs. Medley has just moved to a house near the beach, and in setting out with her grandson Max and her dog Word, she just can't decide what she'll need to take. What if it gets too cold? What if it starts raining? What if they want some entertainment? She envisions those what-ifs, and has to return to the house with the increasingly impatient Max and aggravated Word to grab the stuff she'll need just in case. Each trip takes them nearer and nearer the beach, so the walk gets longer even as their loads get heavier. When they finally make it to the beach, Mrs. Medley learns a valuable lesson, but discovers that she left the most important things behind.

Since I do the same thing every time I travel with my family, I got a kick out of Mrs. Medley's dilemma. Sometimes trying to envision everything that might happen means missing the actual reason for the trip. And since I always forget something when I go anywhere, I can sympathize with Mrs. Medley's final discovery.

S.D. Schindler's pictures make a lively background to Mrs. Medley's travels, and are worth taking the time to look over carefully. I reread this for the funny outcome, and because my kids ask me!

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Puzo's great rags-to-riches story has diverted me from more deadlines and projects than I'd like to admit to. It's an ideal combination of violent crime thriller, intricate palace intrigue, and affecting immigrant experience from the epigraph ("Every great fortune starts with a great crime" - Balzac) to the last line ("Then with a profound and deeply willed desire to believe, to be heard, as
she had done every day since the murder of Carlo Rizzi, she said the necessary prayers for the soul of Michael Corleone."). Coppola's film (from the parts I've seen) captures the nearly suffocating atmosphere of secrecy and code of ethics that governs the Corleone Family, but the details Puzo created still have a resonance that I've not taken from the visual representation.

For one thing, the great central section of the novel, following Vito Corleone's life from Sicilian poverty to the pinnacles of power, had to be filmed as Godfather II. To me, that is the most interesting story - not Michael's seduction into Family life, because Michael had grown up with nearly complete knowledge of the Family's olive oil business. As Puzo describes it, Don Corleone's ascent from invisible laborer to a man of respect is the result of a mature decision followed by a ruthless struggle to achieve his vision. It is also the portrait of an immigrant who takes the American Dream to its logical and frightening extremes by seeing through the myths of American society.

Corleone's small-f family has some great dynamics to it. The undisciplined eldest Sonny, the second-born Freddie (whose competition with Sonny turns sour), the pragmatic third child Michael and Connie, the indulged baby, all cause their own brand of trouble to their father. The Don's wife (I can't remember if she is even named!) is the home center, but her family has moved beyond their need for her, and she remains a minor character in this story. For all of his demonstrated ability to manipulate, even murder, people without consequences, Don Corleone is in his own way an ethical man. Puzo is able to develop that prim side of the Don without irony, while showing that even the most powerful man's Achilles heel may be his own family.

The Godfather, both film and book, created many touchstone phrases that have shown up in popular culture and continue to resonate. The ominous but not overtly threatening "I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse" is perhaps the best known. "Luca Brazzi sleeps with the fishes" is a pitch perfect death notice. "Omerta" became a byword during the Nixon White House's stonewalling on Watergate. Reading them in the original context takes any humor out of those other uses and is a reminder of the ever-present violence lurking in the world Puzo recreates.

I reread The Godfather when I'm looking for a strong plot peopled with interesting characters, an immersion in US history from the early to mid-20th century, or an inside view of a dark and dangerous subculture. There are still sections I find compelling (Michael's courtship and marriage to a Sicilian girl is one) even when I know what's going to happen, and that always makes rereading fun. Plus I've nearly always got a deadline that need evading.

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Heck, check for the film as well

Leonard Schiller is old, in failing health, and mostly alone. His wife died many years before, and he lives on in the apartment they shared, recollecting his jealousies and triumphs, nursing his heart, and writing one final book that will probably never be read. He wheedles just enough reviewing jobs to keep himself fed and clothed, but his reputation has vanished along with his peers and the now out-of-print books that brought him some notice in his heyday.

His daughter Ariel is in her forties, and has decided she wants to have a child before it's 'too late'. She is uncertain about the man she lives with (who doesn't want children), and finds herself catching up with a former lover who may father her child but may not be relationship material. Ariel is a self-centered aerobics teacher who has a hard enough time organizing her classes, let alone preparing for a baby, and Leonard despairs (to himself) of her pointless life.

Then 24-year old graduate student Heather Wolfe turns up on Schiller's doorstep. She believes her recent discovery of his books is a profound moment in her life, and wants to bring her treasure to the world through her own planned thesis. She visits Leonard repeatedly, bringing energy, change, and intellectual vigor back into his life. She takes him to literary parties, introduces him to a new generation of editors, and champions his books. Her sincere admiration for Leonard is like a drug to the old man, and for a time he is back in the thick of the criticism, polemics, and backbiting that brought him fulfillment in his younger days. He also begins entertaining images of his cherished stories back in print, discussed in literature classes, and available to readers everywhere. But he also begins to see a price on that engagement, one he's not sure he wants to pay.

Morton does an incredible job of creating these characters as individuals. They feel real enough to be your crotchety old neighbor, your ditzy aerobics teacher, or that dynamic student who drove you crazy in school. But he also makes them sympathetic, delving into the thoughts and emotions that drive them. Like Isaac Bashevis Singer's short stories about those times and people, it is intimate, loving, and unsparing. This is fiction that embodies the purpose of fiction - showing us characters who reveal our selves through a different lens.

My book groups read Starting Out in the Evening several years ago, and it still occasionally comes up in our discussions. I handsell our Gab Bag version to local book groups, and have had a lot of positive feedback about this quiet piece. A 2007 film starring Frank Langella was released on the art house circuit, and from all accounts the translation to screen kept the book's approach intact. I'm on hold for the DVD (thanks, Cheryl), but hope to take time to reread this marvelous book.

Check the WRL Catalogue for individual copies

Check for the Gab Bag

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For Steve Sillett, it started as a rebellious and incredibly dumb free climb that uncovered a new world. For Michael Taylor, a childhood trip introduced him to the trees, which became first a hobby, then an obsession. Marie Antoine's risk-taking youth evolved into a desire to study rare plants found in the canopies of these tall trees. Arborists Scott Altenhoff and Kevin Hillery took on the job of teaching 'skywalking' to the climbers, equipping them to ascend the trees then move among the branches in a kind of ballet. These, and the other people in the tiny community of canopy scientists, learned by the seat of their climbing saddles. All of them bring a love of the trees, incredible athletic ability, and a desire to learn to their vocation.

Their experiences were not without cost. Relationships suffered, job opportunities were set aside, expensive equipment purchased by sacrificing necessities. The searchers only looked in places deemed inaccessible by logging companies, fighting through tangled bushes and poison oak in often fruitless searches. Michael Taylor's fear of heights tortured him even as he told other climbers where to find bigger trees. The dangers inherent in climbing were amplified by inattention and possibly self-destructive impulses. These stories provide motion and drama while clearly keeping the giant trees at the center of the book.

The trees themselves? If you have ever visited Muir Woods National Monument in California, you may have seen a popular tourist attraction - the coastal redwood measuring 285 feet tall, or about the height of the United States Capitol Building. A member of this community discovered the tallest tree in the world, called Stratosphere Giant. It stands 370 feet tall (as high as a 35 story building) and is estimated to be 2,000 years old. An incredible series of drawings in the book depicts a small segment of a tree called Iluvatar, which has 220 trunks growing from its main trunk in an astonishing maze that dwarfs the humans. As both living organisms and habitats, these trees are incredibly complex, perhaps beyond our understanding.

In Encounters with the Archdruid, John McPhee writes about the philosophical divide between conservationists who want to maintain pristine wilderness and land managers who say everyone should have recreational access to those wild places. The people Richard Preston writes about have made that decision for themselves. To avoid divulging locations of the trees, the climbers and scientists go to great lengths, even approaching from different directions so they don't leave trails. For me, it is enough to know that the trees are there and that people who respect and love them are serving as their stewards - I don't need to see them to understand their value. Long may they stand.

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Maisie Dobbs is the brightest character to hit the Mystery world in some time. And boy, does the Mystery world recognize it! The Agatha Award for Best First Novel; named of the best books of 2003 by Publishers Weekly, Booksense, and the New York Times; nominated for the Edgar. As a follow-up, three more Agatha nominations (winning Best Novel for Birds of a Feather), and both the Bruce Alexander and Macavity/Sue Feder Awards for Best Historical Mysteries. Maisie Dobbs also earned the Alex Award for Best Adult Book for Teens. So what is it about Maisie?

Well, there's the timeframe. Set in England between the World Wars, Jacqueline Winspear faithfully recreates a country that has had its foundations knocked from under it. Every family knows at least one man killed in the War to End All Wars. The maimed and wounded are a daily sight on the streets. The class system is surviving only on the momentum that will carry it through the end of World War II. Cutting edge technology - phones and cars - are displacing people and opening new realms.

Then there's Maisie herself. These times of turmoil enable people to escape the old limits, and that is what Maisie has done. In the first book, we learn that Maisie was headed for a life of service before unusual circumstances gave her a way out. Then war erupts, and Maisie leaves her old life to volunteer as a nurse. Sent to a forward medical unit, she is exposed firsthand to the maiming and loyalty, the camaraderie and death, and the waste that is war. I'm not going to spoil the plot of the first book by saying any more than that, but Maisie emerges from the hell of France changed by her experience.

Ten years after the War, Maisie opens an office dedicated to using her study of psychology as an investigator. With the backing of her sponsor, Lady Rowan, and her mentor, Maurice Blanche, she begins to build a clientele. Her professional ethic - she will not divulge the results of her inquiries until clients agree to take a path of reconciliation - springs from an innate compassion honed by her experiences. Those experiences, and Maisie's unique placement outside the rigid class structure, make her an intuitive and successful detective.

Winspear also builds a cast of secondary characters that flesh out Maisie's place in the world, most notably Billy Beale, the wounded veteran who becomes Maisie's assistant. Maisie's father, Lady Rowan, Maurice Blanche - all provide both support and a source of tension in Maisie's life. Even the minor characters are rendered as individuals, which makes the world Winspear has reconstructed come alive.

Maisie Dobbs (2003) is the first novel in the series; the fifth book, An Incomplete Revenge, came out in February 2008 to rave reviews. Jacqueline Winspear must be as entranced with the character she 'discovered' (as Alexander McCall Smith put it) as we readers are, as she continues to explore Maisie's fascinating life with skill and enthusiasm.

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Maisie Dobbs large print
Maisie Dobbs on CD

An Indian reservation. Culture clashes with whites. Murder mysteries that center on Native history. Tony Hillerman, right?

Wrong. Margaret Coel.

The comparisons are inevitable, and Coel's Wind River series offers much to Hillerman's readers. Hillerman readers will appreciate another author who deals with Native Americans both accurately and with sensitivity. But where Hillerman uses Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn as our guides, Margaret Coel gives us John O'Malley, a Catholic priest, as our observer. He is trusted, but in a world not his own.

Father John has bridged many of the gaps between white and native cultures by his simple presence on the Wind River Reservation. His long service as a priest to people who value their Catholicism and blend it with their old ways makes him a integral part of reservation life. His willingness to advocate for the Arapaho in the white world, and to push criminal investigations on his own are the backbone of much of the series. O'Malley is also imperfect in many ways - an acknowledged alcoholic who struggles to stay on the wagon, a relationship builder estranged from his own family, a man of God with strong feelings for attorney Vicky Holden. And as a Boston kid, he is still developing a feel for the wide-open West.

A full-fledged Arapaho, Vicky Holden is also an outsider. Called Woman Alone by the Arapaho elders, she walks a nontraditional path after leaving her abusive husband, giving her children to family to be raised, and putting herself through law school. Holden is torn between serving her people and earning lots of money in distant places; her own feelings for Father John make it difficult for her to sustain relationships with more eligible men. She is a fascinating character - strong and driven on the outside, lonely and self-doubting on the inside.

Like any good author who has chosen to work in a series, Margaret Coel deepens relationships among her characters - not just Vicky and Father John - as the series develops. Readers also become more familiar with the seemingly infinite world of the Wind River Reservation through Coel's powerful descriptions of the landscape and its impact on its inhabitants. Those two elements alone are enough to bring readers back time and again to these books.

These are Mystery stories, though, and their real test is the quality of the puzzles. And Coel does a great job with that, setting up red herrings, misdirecting our attention, but giving us clues to work with. Unlike Tony Hillerman, who bases many of his storylines on the spiritual world of the Navajo and other Southwestern Indians, Coel draws from all aspects of Arapaho history and modern experience as starting places for her stories. Tensions between Arapaho, Shoshone, and the whites who want to hold and exploit the resources of the reservation (including the people) boil over into murder. These are not especially violent stories - not as cozy as Jacqueline Winspear, nor as detailed as David L. Robbins, but there is a real sense of the action and danger in her stories.

I was lucky to be introduced to these Mysteries, and am very much looking forward to meeting Margaret Coel on March 31.

Check the WRL catalog for the first book in the series, The Eagle Catcher.

Any time someone writes about modern Cuba, the reader starts with the understanding that there is a conspiracy at the heart of the story. When they write about Cuba in the early 1960s, the reader knows that the conspiracy revolves around assassinating Castro. So how can any writer make a Castro assassination conspiracy fresh? The Betrayal Game, David L. Robbins' latest, has the nerve to take on the subject, and to pull it off with a real kick.

Robbins makes it look easy. Even as he spins a web that tangles its characters, climaxes at just the right moment, and ends as history actually did (no spoiler there), he connects the strands in ways that defy readers' expectations. Robbins pays such attention to every aspect of his stories - plot, characters, setting, and mood - that a reader feels the urge to whip through Betrayal Game. The difference between this story and the run-of-the-mill thriller is that his characters and plots are still memorable when you close the book - and you keep thinking 'How did he do that?'. (But if you're thinking I'm going to tell you how he pulls it off, forget it.)

The Betrayal Game is something Robbins said he'd never do - a sequel. Mikhal Lammeck, an academic specializing in the politics of assassination, was the principal character in The Assassins Gallery, which involved an attempt on FDR's life. Fifteen years later, Lammek heads to Cuba with the reasonable expectation that Castro will be killed, and that he will be able to study the aftermath firsthand. Instead of observing, though, Lammek is drawn into a variety of plots (through mostly foul means), and has to navigate through them with his life, integrity, and relationships intact.

David L. Robbins is the 2007-2008 Writer-in-Residence at the College of William and Mary. He is also the author of 7 other novels, most of which examine the complexity of World War II through the eyes of people left out of the glorious narratives. One outside that stream, though, is Scorched Earth, a moving portrayal of a Virginia town torn by anger following the death of a bi-racial baby and the burning of a church. For a thoughtful examination of race and justice, this one is hard to beat. Check 'em out - and come hear what David, Jackie, Margaret, and Willetta have to say!

Just before Christmas 1944, the German Army attacked lightly defended Allied lines through the Ardennes Forest, driving a mixture of green American recruits and exhausted veterans back into Belgium. Accompanying the crack German units was a handful of English-speaking Germans, dressed in American uniforms and carrying forged papers. These men were commanded by the infamous Colonel Otto Skorzeny, whose lightning commando raids had already stunned the Allies. Skorzeny planned to use his men to capture and hold vital bridges, to sow confusion in the American rear, and to delay any counterattack.

Frost has taken these well-known events and added another element. If the first objective was to disrupt Allied defenses, the second objective was even more audacious – to get a German soldier all the way to Paris, find General Eisenhower, and kill him. Among the potential assassins chosen is a real sociopath, Erich Von Leinsdorf. Fresh from the death camp at Dachau, von Leinsdorf is a committed SS officer willing to take any measures to accomplish his goal. Accompanied by Bernie Oster, a German soldier born in New York, Von Leinsdorf crosses into Allied lines, killing freely to conceal his tracks. Even in the midst of a war zone, though, his killings attract attention from a New York homicide detective serving as an MP.

Frost takes the reader between Von Leinsdorf’s implacable progress towards his target, Captain Earl Grannit’s pursuit, and the larger historical view of panic, opportunism, and heroism that the Battle of the Bulge created. His ability to create twists and turns, set up coincidences that acquire larger significance, and develop his characters beyond the page make this a page-turner. No wonder it was just named an American Library Association Notable Book.

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The Good Soldier broke new ground in storytelling by giving the narrator late and incomplete understanding of the events he has witnessed, and by retelling the key episodes with the subtle differences that come with dawning comprehension.  At the beginning, Dowell informs the reader that he is going to tell the story as if he is sitting by the fire with a sympathetic listener, and that is what he does – flashing forward, making side comments about the other characters and about himself, lightly touching on asonishing revelations, but at all times keeping as his focus the detailed destruction of the five people involved. 

Ford’s sure hand guides Dowell in his narration, turning him from a passive, chaste innocent into an embittered man barely suppressing his rage even as he upholds the noblesse oblige that traps him.  Like an jeweler shaping a stone, Ford holds each character, save one, to the light of his examination.  The work he does polishing each facet is not to reveal beauty in the individual, but to show the complexity of each character and the rottenness at the heart of each one.  As a psychological examination, this is a masterwork. 

As you might imagine, this is not the stuff of pageturners.  Dowell is frequently more interested in the motives of the Ashburnhams than in what they do.  His nonlinear narration makes it difficult to keep precise track of events in order.  He himself is filled with self-pity, self-deception, class and religious bigotry, and a willful blindness towards the faults of those ‘nice’ people.  But the growing sense of disaster and gathering doom that portends not only the destruction of the Dowells and the Ashburnhams but of their entire way of life becomes a compelling reason to continue reading. 

It is difficult to imagine much of 20^th Century British and American literature without Ford as a major influence.  I’m not a literary historian (and I didn’t stay at Holiday Inn Express), but I think Ford led the way in breaking the narrator free of omniscience, in breaking the rigid storyline from it’s A-B-C requirements, and in prying into the depths of human psychology without judging or moralizing.  As an editor, sponsor, and collaborator, his work with Conrad, Hemingway, and Lawrence maintained the continuum from the late 19^th Century into the explosively creative 1920’s.  As an author, The Good Soldier stands easily with the best in modern writing, and deserves consideration by any reader.

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I don’t really know what the big deal is.  Granted I didn’t read the whole trilogy, and based on the execution of the first book am not terribly inclined to.  I’m not going to get into the whole theology/atheism authoritarian/’child empowerment’ debate because I don’t care.  And I’m certainly going to look askance at anyone who gushes that it is the best book evah, or that it is a readalike for Harry Potter. 

Pullman has a wonderful imagination – fertile enough to create a technological world that still worships science as magic, and people it with vividly introduced characters accompanied by animal daemons that reflect their personalities.  Beyond that, though, the Golden Compass devolved into a mishmash of adventure stories, a tentative coming of age tale, and a multi-dimensional political battle.  The adventure stories weren’t particularly gripping, the coming of age undelineated, and the offstage politics only provided Pullman a deus ex machina to imperil and rescue people as needed. 

The main character, Lyra, is threatened by a mysterious group known for kidnapping children.  After escaping from a villain, she joins a group of “Gyptians” (read water-borne gypsies) searching for the mysterious group.  Lyra and the Gyptians end up heading North, and finding an armored bear (the most interesting character in the story) who helps them rescue the stolen children.  Lyra chases after one of the kids, who has been taken for extra-nefarious purposes, and climbs an aurora into the sky.  Along the way there is some babble about ‘the Magisterium’ which is supposed to represent an unReformed Catholic Church, and Dust, which represents some theological or physical power. 

Maybe I’m approaching it as a too-critical adult; maybe I didn’t give it enough time or thought; maybe I’ve been tortured by Skraelings – in any case, The Golden Compass wasn’t my cup of tea.  Read it and decide for yourself.

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The wanderers in this case are hippies who have come from all over the United States to Drop City, a notorious commune in California. There, the allure of drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll comes up against the quotidian reality of sewage, food supply, and differing interpretations of what ‘dropping out’ really means. When ‘the man’ crashes their party, they pack up goats, children, and amplifiers, and head to rural Alaska to recreate Drop City in a true wilderness.

Boynton, Alaska is the last stop on the road to that wilderness, home to a cast of fiercely independent people determined to wrest a living from the backcountry. Sess Harder is a young newly wed fur trapper carving a homestead twelve miles into the bush from Boynton. He and his beautiful wife are building their self-sufficient lives when the unprepared, enthusiastic, and idealistic hippies arrive in a convoy to occupy the nearby cabin of his mentor.

Boyle captures the needs and wants of these people through the eyes of Sess and Star, a former teacher who embarked on an unsettling cross-country trip before landing at the original Drop City. As opinionated but not close-minded observers and participants, Sess and Star carry the story and provide insights into the two cultures. While both of them value the core of their lifestyles, neither is unwilling to reject the other life to cling to their own way. Sess and his wife Pamela find kindred souls among the hippies, and Star finds the sense of home and freedom she has been searching for.

Such a story doesn’t come with conflict, though. Boyle delves into the internal clashes in the hippie community, while setting Sess up against a rogue bush pilot. The questions that come out of these conflicts gets to the nature of community – can a loner be a better member of society than someone who uses isolation to escape social norms? Is it possible to have a peaceful, productive society without some central organization or leadership? How do people dedicated to pacifist ideals enforce their rules?

The secondary characters are as closely drawn as the two main characters, and Boyle often focuses on them as he carries the story forward. Boyle has also captured the settings – both time and place – with a keen eye for detail and a sharp but not unsympathetic insight into the motives of very different people. This is not the kind of book you forget when you’ve finished it, and I look forward to experiencing Boyle’s skill in the future.

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Faludi collects some damning evidence that she sorts into four general areas:  reporting and commentary, first-hand experiences, gender roles in the post-September 11 world, and the treatment of those women who didn’t follow the popular path.  In addition to providing statistics on ‘feminist’ vs. ‘status quo’ pundits (my terms), she unsuccessfully searches for the stories about female cops, firefighters, EMTs, and office workers and the take-charge flight attendant on Flight 93.  She studies the suddenly-fashionable (and false) reporting about career women rushing into marriage and childbearing.  She asks why the widows of responders and victims were vilified when they began to move on with their lives, and when they demanded accountability. 

Faludi shifts from the September 11 narrative into a wider view of American history, analyzing the ‘strong man/weak woman’ storyline from King Philip’s War through the settlement of the American West.  Using a variety of ‘captivity narratives’, she shows how women’s stories were edited, plagiarized, or manipulated to cast doubt or project frailty on the women themselves, while holding the men – relatives or authorities – up as examples of strength and virtue.  The pinnacle of this genre is Alan Le May’s 1954 novel, The Searchers (the source of the Faludi’s title), and John Ford’s 1956 film edition, which is consistently listed as one of the greatest films ever made. 

While that shift is somewhat jarring, Faludi does assemble solid historical evidence to support her thesis.  Her detailed take on the Salem witch trials in light of the captivity narrative is especially interesting, and her dissection of the imagery in both the print and film versions of The Searcher is clearly stated.  But it is her highlighting of the current state of affairs that is most shocking.  The changes to our popular culture in the wake of September 11 were so subtle but so profound that Faludi herself seems surprised at their pernicious depth.  With all the long-term injuries that the handling of September 11 have inflicted on the United States, this is an essential addition to the analysis of current events.

Graff does a good job of ratcheting up the tension, starting with a scary depiction of Jason’s torture and interrogation, then working into his growing sense of confusion and loss of any assistance or protection. Jason is unable to cope in a world of deception, and Graff keeps the reader in suspense as Jason’s inability to lie begins tripping him up. As the plot builds speed, the real dimensions of the security takeover become apparent, until Jason flees and become the target of a manhunt.

The major beef I have with this book is Graff’s insistence on using both first and last names each time he mentions a character. Thus, Jason is “Jason Walker”, his girlfriend “Gina Saraceno”, the spy “Chad Armstrong” throughout the book. This is a conscious choice, but what it is meant to signify is unclear. Still, that is a small complaint in a well-told story with frightening implications.

It isn’t in the catalog, since it isn’t coming out until October. Lucky me, I got a pre-pub copy.

Through a variety of circumstances, both Mariam and Laila marry Rasheed, a traditionalist who demands that his wives wear the full burqa covering and have no contact with other men. Mariam, unable to bear children, is the target of Rasheed’s rage and abuse, while Laila, who tries to protect her, increasingly triggers his ire. There are no surprises here for anyone who is aware of the status of women in the traditional Muslim world, but Hosseini does detail in visceral and disturbing ways the near-hatred men have for them.

The historic background of the story runs from the time of the Communist overthrow of the traditional Afghan king to the establishment of the international force that is still struggling to re-create Afghanistan. Encompassing the Soviet invasion, the mujahedeen victory and subsequent civil war, the coming of the Taliban, and all the miseries of the Afghan people, the novel becomes somewhat episodic, which may be its greatest shortcoming. But the themes of friendship, sacrifice, and love of the land and people continue from The Kite Runner, and One Thousand Splendid Suns ends on a redemptive note.

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I was hooked right away. Robicheaux opens the scene with a recurring Vietnam nightmare, consoling himself:

When I go back to sleep, I once again tell myself that I will never again have to witness the wide-scale suffering of innocent civilians, nor the betrayal and abandonment of our countrymen when they need us most.

But that was before Katrina. That was before a storm with greater impact than the bomb blast that struck Hiroshima peeled the face off southern Louisiana. That was before one of the most beautiful cities in the Western Hemisphere was killed three times, and not just by the forces of nature.

Prose like that tells you that this isn’t a simple mystery, and Burke follows through. The chaos of the storm is only a preview of the chaos that will descend on New Orleans in its wake, and Burke captures slices of that chaos through the eyes of his characters. The mystery portion of the story occasionally submerges beneath the details, and Burke tries to weave perhaps one too many storylines in, but this book is an elegy to a city that, for all its problems, was unique in the world. It is also an indictment of the the slow response of the Bush Administration, the sweetheart contracts, the insurance ripoffs, and the selling of the New Orleans to the highest bidder.

After my own visit to The Big Easy in Summer 2006, I had my doubts that it would ever regain more than the façade it had before the storm. The Tin Roof Blowdown makes me think James Lee Burke has sat up many nights wrestling, and finally succumbing to, those same doubts. The good times have rolled, and they aren’t coming back.

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At the center of the story is Meyer Landsman – disgraced cop, divorced husband, alcoholic, potential suicide – who takes on his last case only because the victim was murdered in the flophouse that has become Landsman’s all-but-actual grave. When the victim turns out to be a junkie with powerful connections, the mystery takes off. Despite the deadline for the handover, at which time all open cases will be tossed out, Landsman and his partner, a half-Jewish/half-Tlingit cousin, set out to solve it.

Suffice it to say, the resolution of the mystery takes them in unexpected directions, but the mystery isn’t the wonder of this book. The sheer risk that Chabon takes to set up a thoroughly believable history is astonishing; the imagined world the Alaska Jews create is peopled with singular sights and sounds; the language a delight to roll off your tongue as you read it. Landsman is a thoroughly developed character, but even the most minor characters stand out as if we’d seen them standing on the street only half an hour before.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is one of the most remarkable books I’ve read in 2007. Mazel tov, Mr. Chabon!

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Well, Harris decided to explore the creation of an amoral murderer and cannibal, so Lecter makes a prequel appearance in Hannibal Rising. Captured and nearly eaten himself by a band of murderous criminals operating in German-occupied Lithuania, Hannibal loses his sister, but survives to take his revenge on the villains. Long step-Oedipal scenes with his uncle’s Japanese wife, uninteresting byplay with a moderately capable detective, and explorations of his memory structure make up most of the book. Without the fear and action of the first two books, this flows like a muddy river: slowly, occasionally bubbling something up from the depths, but finally just another long view of the same scene over and over.

Here’s hoping his next book (sometime in the early 2010’s?) will either pick up Lecter’s middle career, or put him back into direct conflict with Starling. Maybe he’ll even return to the prescient vision that made Black Sunday such a great thriller. Either way, I hope he’ll pick up more action along with his excellent writing, and give me another ‘just one more page, then I’ll turn out the lights’ story.

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After years in the cruel Oklahoma prison system, Williamson (who was on Death Row) and Fritz succeeded in their appeals and were set free. After only five years of freedom, though, the toll on Williamson took his life. Ward and Fontenot are still in prison, but Denice Haraway’s killer still has not been found.

The Innocent Man is a detailed, well-written account of what happens when police and prosecutors decide that convictions are more important than justice. There are good prosecutors, committed police officers, dedicated public defenders. To Ada, Oklahoma’s shame and great cost, they had none of these.

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Best of all, Vonnegut singles out the people I love and respect more than any group in the world. From him to us:

“So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.”

“So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and a Chicago paper called In These Times.”

Hey, I’ll take that. What should our flag be?

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Ferrell plays the hapless Harold Crick, an IRS agent living a life devoid of human contact and unaware of what he’s missing. As the movie begins, Emma Thompson narrates his daily routine, right up to the ‘little did he know’ statement that reveals to the watcher that Harold can also hear her voice. He visits a variety of mental health professionals (some great scenes) to find out what is happening, before he winds up with literature professor Jules Hilbert (played by Dustin Hoffman).

With his life laid bare by Hilbert’s questioning, Harold risks his flat contentment by making a fumbling pass at Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a woman he is auditing. Ana is an anarchist baker who despises the government, but is oddly touched by Harold.  Their uneasy dialogue and halting attempts to open up to each other show just how deeply Harold has buried himself.

At the same time, Thompson’s narrative continues, and it turns out that she is a writer working on the climax of a book without knowing that she is controlling Harold’s life. Ten years of writer’s block has kept her from finishing this story, until editorial assistant Penny Escher (a serious Queen Latifah) forces her to focus. At the very moment of her breakthrough, her character Harold finds and confronts her. She is suddenly confronted with the knowledge that her writing will (maybe even has in the past?) lead to the death of a real person.

Tender, comic, romantic, tragic. A good mix that characterizes the only two movies I’ve seen in the theater in the last three years (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Little Miss Sunshine). Man, I’ve got to get out more.

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Taking out the fact that My Pafology is Monk’s conscious rip-off of Richard Wright’s Native Son (which none of the critics or publishers seem to notice), Everett skewers the idea that there is “a” black experience, and that it is best represented by the street lit genre. His satirical take is leavened by Monk’s struggle with his family problems, with his fumbling attempts to create relationships, and with his periodic insertion of novel ideas or ruminations on woodworking and trout fishing. A brilliant piece of work that dives through multiple levels while retaining a readibility that makes it entertaining. One caution: My Pafology is replete with violence, misogyny, and a carpet of f-bombs, but it can be skipped if sensitive readers want to follow Monk’s story.

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The author of – what? – literary science fiction? relationship stories? satire? social criticism? – died April 11 at the age of 84.  His best known work, Slaughterhouse-5: or The Children’s Crusade assaulted the stupidity of war while recognizing that war is a human constant; it also played with narrative convention by pulling protagonist Billy Pilgrim from his war experiences to his life as a successful optometrist, to his capture by the alien Tralfamadorians who show him that time is a flexible and twisted dimension.  All of his works are filled with authorial comments that create a fatalistic atmosphere, even as his ridiculous plotting and foolish characters combine in comic situations – practically the definition of black humor.  Hi-ho.

I’m torn between a couple of titles that I might call my personal favorite - Deadeye Dick, the story of a boy who shoots a pregnant neighbor with his Hitler-worshipping father’s gun, starting a roller-coaster ride of failure and success, or Galapagos, which plays Darwin out over the long term as the last remnants of humanity survive on the remote islands and evolve according to the needs of survival.  Strong stuff.

Vonnegut’s major theme seems to be that the passage of time absolves all sins and crimes, even when the protagonists are personally haunted by what they’ve done.  His own father said that he never wrote a story with a villain, probably because Vonnegut recognized the essential failing of humanity – that we want more than we can have, and are willing to fight and sacrifice for insubstantial trappings.  So it goes.

Poo-tee-weet?

Lethem plays with genre conventions until what starts as a streetwise noir detective story becomes a blend of character study, black humor, offbeat romance, and suspense novel, flavored with his trademark linguistic playfulness. Lionel’s Tourette’s riffs are effortlessly written, but infused with meaning that the people around him don’t hear.

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I know my voice isn’t going to make any difference, but I see Ian McEwan as a sure bet for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Maybe not this year, maybe not for 10 years (anyone care to start a pool?), but the man’s gonna win one day.

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