Review: Lionel Shriver's "The Post-Birthday World"

The first chapter of Lionel Shriver's "The Post-Birthday World" describes the kind of "perfect" domestic arrangement that most people dream of. Irina and her partner of ten years, Lawrence, are enjoying a pleasant ex-pat existence in London. Irina's modest success as a children's book illustrator dovetails nicely with Lawrence's rising career at a prestigious UK think tank; their circle of friends is small but rewarding; and their home life has settled into a seamless, comforting routine. One small detail, however, has begun to occupy Irina's thoughts with niggling persistence: although their sexual couplings are frequent and satisfactory, Irina and Lawrence no longer kiss. Indeed, Irina is lucky to catch a dry "air peck" from Lawrence as he heads out the door each morning.

Irina's book collaborator, Jude, is married to Ramsey Acton, a champion player of "snooker" -- a British version of billiards. Ramsey is a popular celebrity in the UK, and although most Americans are immune to the charms of snooker, Lawrence loves the game and prods Irina into striking up a couples friendship with Jude and Ramsey. Through a series of fateful twists and turns, Irina finds herself unintentionally alone with Ramsey on his birthday. The awkward situation leads to overdrinking, and Irina is shocked when her long dormant sexuality asserts itself with a force that simultaneously thrills and horrifies her. Every molecule of her body tells her to kiss Ramsey; every dictate of common sense tells her not to.

At this point, the narrative splits into two parallel stories. Chapter 2, marked with a black square, proceeds to tell what happens when Irina chooses to kiss Ramsey. It is followed by Chapter 2, marked with a white square, which proceeds to tell what happens when Irina chooses not to kiss Ramsey. The book proceeds with alternative chapters to the end.

If you think that Shriver's novel sounds like a banal chic lit romance that happens to employ an interesting plot device, think again. "Post Birthday World" explores the psychological and physical aspects of attraction with intelligence, insight, and unflinching candor. Lionel Shriver is known for pushing the bounds of raw honesty, and she steadfastly refuses to resort to trite convention or comforting bromides in this novel. She is anti-PC with a vengeance.

Once Irina makes her momentous decision (such a small act -- a kiss -- with such profound consequences), she is driven to filter her perceptions in a way that will support her fateful choice. When Lawrence returns home from a business trip the night after Irina kisses Ramsey, she perceives Lawrence's face to be killingly familiar -- utterly devoid of any remaining mystery or charm. His pet name for her suddenly strikes her as cheeky and presumptuous, and when he embraces her in bed, his heavy arm and warm chest suffocate her. When he prods her with his pelvis, it has the pesky quality of a poking finger. She has made her choice, and she shapes her experience to reinforce her judgment call. How could anyone stay with Lawrence, really?

Alternatively, when Lawrence returns home from a business trip the night after Irina refuses to kiss Ramsey (Version B), Irina beams with relief and love at the sight of her partner ("There was no doubting that Lawrence's was a beautiful face . . . the kind you could dive into like dark water and get lost"), longs to have him embrace her (she insists on a long, wet kiss), and basks in the pleasure of hearing his familiar pet name for her. She has made her choice, and is determined to perceive their relationship as an exceptionally successful one.

Shriver is well aware that part of our attraction to another is based on our perception of who we are when we are with that person. Irina feels comfortably self-contained, productive, and centered when she is with Lawrence, but she also feels a bit dull. She feels adored, enlivened, and known for her innermost self when she is with Ramsey, but she realizes that she has abandoned her career and begun to eat and drink to excess. In a life without Ramsey, Irina will never know the heights of intimacy that she is capable of. She will always wonder what could have been. If she abandons Lawrence, however, a part of her will always be haunted by the years of comfortable, sustainable camaraderie that she threw away. She will always mourn the part of her that she left behind.

Shriver also realizes that time has a way of playing a cruel joke on our affections -- the thing that initially attracts one person to another is often the very thing that repulses us over time, and what we initially perceive as an irritating trait in a partner often prevails as a positive merit in the end, especially if the partner is no longer present from day to day. Ramsey's uncanny skill at snooker charms Irina initially, but she grows to loathe the world of high-stakes snooker and Ramsey's self-absorbed obsession with winning an elusive national title. Lawrence's overly casual approach to clothes irritates Irina initially -- she interprets it as a shabby failing on his part. With time, she fondly views his clothing as a symbol of his faithful and centered personality. Nature, blind chance, and the unforeseen behavior of others can also play cruel jokes, as evidenced by some of the jolting twists and revelations in Shriver's page-turning plot.

When faced with a romantic fork in the road, most people go through intense and prolonged agony due to their belief that the right choice will bring happiness and the wrong choice will bring misery, period. Shriver isn't afraid to tell us that misery will happen no matter what choice is made. Conversely, even "bad" choices can offer moments of joy and transcendence. My estimation of Shriver's intelligence, wit, and insight (sometimes subtle, sometimes ruthless) into human nature increases each time I read one of her books. "The Post-Birthday World" should be required reading for anyone who has ever made the kind of painful, once-in-a-lifetime romantic decision that invites haunting conjectures of "what if?" for years (if not a lifetime) afterward.

Pumpkin Pie and Indignation

I'm writing this entry during Thanksgiving weekend, and I'd like to take a shot at linking that holiday with, of all things, Philip Roth's newest book, "Indignation." Bear with me here.

I remember reading some pop/psych editorial piece (Psychology Today? Yahoo? NY Times?) a few years ago which addressed the phenomenon of the "College Freshman Catharsis" that occurs over Thanksgiving tables across the USA each year. You may not be familiar with the phrase, but I'll bet you've experienced the event in one capacity or another.

Freed from the orthodox constraints of home, and exposed to the liberating charms of self expression and independent thinking that are part of college life, a lot of freshman students return home each year for the Thanksgiving holiday with new beliefs and opinions that are bound to invite contention from Mom and Dad. The worst shock, of course, is reserved for those parents who successfully smothered any incipient "misbehavior" from their child during the high school years. Woe be unto them.

An uneasy détente is usually maintained during the Thanksgiving prayer (rolled eyeballs from the returning freshman notwithstanding), but sometime before the pumpkin pie is served, tempers flare when the returning guest of honor calmly informs the table that she supports gay marriage, has become a Buddhist, and is sleeping with her new boyfriend (a tattooed vegan).

Roth's book is a deeply serious one, and I don't mean to make light of its narrative. The book's protagonist, Marcus Messner, is experiencing the painful aspects of young college life. Driven to exasperation by his father's constant supervision and overly protective paranoia (Have you been drinking? Have you edited your paper yet? When will you be home?) Marcus has fled his local city college in Newark, New Jersey to attend a pastoral college in faraway Winesburg, Ohio. The year is 1951, and Marcus' continuing education is essential if he is to avoid being drafted and shipped off to Korea (his father's ultimate nightmare).

The acute sexual ambivalence that Marcus experiences at Winesburg would seem odd to today's college student. He is wildly attracted to the lovely and mysterious Olivia, but he suspects there must be something damaged about her when she willingly accepts his physical advances. Her unexpected gift of oral expertise creates a queasy mix of shock, euphoria, and disgust in Marcus that shakes him to the core and leaves him to conclude that she must be a psychological victim of her parents' divorce (a rare event in those days).

On all other fronts, however, Marcus' struggles resonate with those of today's undergraduate. He looks back fondly at his childhood years spent helping his father at the family butcher shop, where his blue collar father taught him the dignity of hard work and the value of committed effort, even in the face of despicable tasks. "That's what I learned from my father and what I loved learning from him: that you do what you have to do." College widens Marcus' view, however, and opens his eyes to the myopic parameters of his parents' world. His father chides him into improving a class paper without ever haven written one himself, while his long suffering mother desperately wishes "the best" for him without the slightest idea of what "the best" might be in a world outside of Newark. Marcus' frustration at his parents' inability to absorb new ideas or take a broader view of the world is surpassed only by his frustration at their inability to perceive their benighted state in the first place.

Marcus is forced to deal with class issues (he works as a waiter at the college inn taproom, with socially toxic consequences), disastrous roommate situations (he is too sexually naive to realize that Flusser, his abrasive and verbally abusive suitemate, is desperately attracted to him), and thwarted attempts to reinvent himself (Dean Caudwell pointedly asks Marcus why he put "butcher" down as his father's occupation instead of "kosher butcher.")

Above all else, however, Marcus' story conveys the white hot indignation that occurs when a young person's budding conviction about the way things should be in an ideal world conflicts with the arbitrary and ridiculous demands of reality. Marcus is outraged that his own father has so totally misjudged his character as to suspect that Marcus may become an alcoholic or engage in barroom fights. He is furious that his fellow students treat him with contempt and suspicion because he works at the college inn taproom and refuses to join a fraternity (not even the "lame" one). He is incensed by Dean Caudwell's ridiculous assumption that he must be psychologically unbalanced because he prefers to live alone in an attic dorm room. As a matter of fact, he is incensed by Caudwell's power to call him into the dean's office at all; as long as Marcus is a good student, why must he endure Caudwell's prying inquiries into his private life in the first place? Marcus is also driven to distraction by his mother's narrow, single-minded perception of Olivia; once she observes the healed cut marks on Olivia's wrists, she is blind to any other input -- Olivia may as well not have a head.

Marcus' indignation reaches a breaking point when he is forced to attend Sunday worship services at the college chapel as part of his graduation requirement. Not content to pay someone to attend the service and sign the attendance record for him (as many students do), he goes head to head with Dean Caudwell on the issue, armed with a inflamed sense of injustice and quotes from Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian." Marcus' sense of righteous fury in all of these situations is heightened by his firm belief (correct or incorrect) that everyone he opposes is clearly less enlightened than he is. Marcus' passion of conviction is both heroic and tragic; it simultaneously serves as the catalyst of his selfhood and his self destruction.

"Indignation" is a short book -- one or two nights of reading at the most -- and despite some of the details that I've mentioned above, I haven't really ruined the plot line, which contains some shocking twists. It's well worth the time.

Happy reading, and may all of your Thanksgivings be memorable.

Kate Atkinson's "When Will There Be Good News?"

I've never been a fan of the kind of paperback murder mysteries that fill the shelves of airport gift shops like so many king-sized Snicker bars. Even the best page-turners in this genre seem to bear a formulaic, commoditized quality that is surpassed only by the prepackaged peanuts that their readers will soon be munching in flight. In both cases (the books and the peanuts), the product is consumed because it offers a momentary diversion, but the long term effects aren't particularly gratifying.

I knew Kate Atkinson's work rose above the average murder mystery when I stumbled upon her first book in that genre, entitled "Case Histories." I was browsing the shelves of my library, picked up the book on a whim (interesting cover), and was hooked after reading the first three pages. Ms. Atkinson's writing had a tart and quirky edge to it that I hadn't encountered before, and I finished the book in about two days. When friends asked me why I was recommending it, I could only say that they had to read it for themselves. Her second book in the series, "One Good Turn," didn't impress me quite as much as her first, and I was anxious to see what her third installment would have to offer.

"When Will There Be Good News" was worth the wait. The book begins with a horrific crime that is presented to the reader in typical Atkinson style. The reader is gently pulled into the narrative by a comfortable depiction of everyday domesticity: A harried mother gets off a country bus with her three children and the family dog. The summer day is hot, the children are flushed and sticky, and the baby stroller is stubbornly resisting every rut in the deserted lane as the family slowly trudges home from the market. Bees buzz, grocery bags are juggled, the children chatter and argue over who is in charge of the dog, and then . . . the unthinkable.

As usual, Atkinson intertwines the crime and its aftermath with several other narrative threads that collide and twist together in amazing ways. The lives of Jackson Brodie, Brodie's former love interest Louise, an orphaned 16-year old girl named Reggie, and the sole surviving victim of the crime described in the book's first chapter intersect in a series of unlikely coincidences that keep the reader guessing until the end.

Atkinson's mordant humor has a dark quality that invites comparison with Roald Dahl and Lemony Snicket (a series of unfortunate events for adults, if you will). Every character in "When Will There Be Good News" has loved someone who died in a brutal or sinister way, and almost all of the adults have made disastrous domestic choices that can only lead to tears (if not worse). And yet, a spirit of feisty resistance against despair infuses Atkinson's work: Reggie, a cheeky little scrapper who has seen the worst that blind chance can dole out, is determined to worm her way into a new "adoptive" family; Jackson, bruised and battered by multiple romantic disasters in the past, is nevertheless ready to take his chances again if opportunity knocks.

The resilient "carry on" attitude of Atkinson's characters helps to counterbalance the malevolent twists of fate that they encounter, and the result is unusually engaging.

Atkinson's books are especially appealing to American readers who prefer a heavy dose of UK atmosphere in their fiction. Reggie's diet (crisps, digestive biscuits, and chocolate wafers), Louise's unwitting connection to some dodgy real estate schemes (we're talking Glaswegian underworld types here), and many other details (inadequate space heaters, Pakistani convenience stores, etc.) make for a convincing tour of the rough northern uplands.

The last chapter of "When Will There Be Good News" leaves the reader eager to discover what course Jackson's life will take next. I'm already awaiting Atkinson's next installment.

Note: If you like the Jackson Brody series, you should also read Kate Atkinson's first book, "Behind the Scenes At the Museum," winner of the 1995 Whitbread Award. It's hilarious.

"Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21730 Pages," by Ammon Shea

This compact little book is the perfect gift for an erudite reader. Original, witty, and wildly entertaining, it offers a highbrow alternative to its "book of lists" cousins that often occupy the family coffee table, kitchen table, or bathroom magazine rack. Mr. Shea, a self-avowed word junkie, spent one year reading the Oxford English Dictionary from cover to cover, and you'll love the treasures he's brought to light. Chapters "A," "B," and "C" alone are filled with enough amusing word trivia to keep you smiling for a week.

Ammon's entries run from the delightfully useful (acnestis -- that pesky area of your back that can't be reached to be scratched), to the evocatively poetic (apricity -- the warmth of the sun in winter). You've got to love a book that introduces you to the term bed-swerver (an unfaithful spouse), even if some of the words hit a bit too close to home (anonymuncule -- an anonymous, small-time writer -- ouch). The next time I'm at a public function and my nerves are rubbed raw by someone's incessant laughter, I'll just smile to myself and think, "this guy is a world-class cachinnator (a person who laughs too much or too loudly) -- he's due for a curtain lecture (a reproof given by a wife to her husband in bed) when he gets home."

Seriously, this book is addictive. I'm already poking around in the D's, and contrary to deteriorism -- the attitude that things will usually get worse -- I'm certain that Shea's book will just get better and better. Buy it. Samuel Johnson will be proud of you.

Novel Therapy

I hold a substantial portion of my retirement fund in equities (the actuarial tables inform me that I'm too young to ride a pure cash/bond route into the sunset), and you could say that the events of the past week have focused my attention. As they say, if things seem too good to be true, they probably are. Just as I was settling into a warm bed of complacency ("This 'investment stuff' is great. All I have to do is go to sleep at night, and when I wake up in the morning, I have MORE MONEY!"), reality, in the form of capitalism gone wild, stripped the sheets and pitched me to the floor in the process.

Conventional wisdom has it that the current market meltdown, albeit grave, will eventually pass; the trick is to batten down the hatches and ride the storm through in hopes that it won't attain Katrina force. My secret for staying reasonably collected in these volatile times? When the going gets tough, the tough get reading. I have a long history of burrowing into a good book during bad times, to wit:

1. I am nine years old, it is midnight, and I have a roaring case of the measles (yes, I know, this dates me). Folk medicine of the day has it that straining one's eyes during a measles outbreak can permanently weaken your vision. In an effort to drive this point home to me, my parents have upped the ante by vaguely alluding to actual blindness. Nevertheless, I am reading a Nancy Drew mystery ("The Clue of the Dancing Puppet," as I recall) by the light of a flashlight (I've also taken the precaution of stuffing a pair of pants into the light-emitting crack beneath the bedroom door -- you can't be too careful). My forehead is hot, my flannel pajamas are clammy, but Nancy's clever detective work has lifted me from my stale sickbed into an alternative universe where measles are irrelevant. (For those who are wondering, I didn't go blind, although I am extremely nearsighted.)

2. Fast forward to ninth grade: my intellectual precocity has consigned me to the fate of a social outcast. An ugly rumor that I read Shakespeare voluntarily (ychh!), together with the fact that I'm a chronic hand-raiser in class (Pick me! Pick me! I know!) have virtually insured a dateless future. Gossip has it that most of my classmates are going to a "mixer" on Friday night, and it's fairly clear by Thursday night that I'm not invited. The rebuff is particularly painful due to the fact that "Twister" (a game invented by the devil himself if ever there was one, my Sunday School teacher tantalizingly informs me) is on the agenda for what promises to be one hormone-fest of an evening. What's a shunned girl to do? Frank Herbert to the rescue. I devour "Dune" for the next four days, transported across time and space from my small town onto an arid planet that is depending upon me to fulfill a messianic prophecy. Who needs to roll around on a plastic mat and tangle legs with Larry Hoffbeck when you can hook and ride a massive sandworm into the pages of interplanetary history?

3. Freshman year, Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri: Things aren't going well. I'm homesick, stressed out (to my surprise, it's not quite as easy to stand out in a private women's college as it was to shine in a graduating high school class of 40 indifferent students), and flirting with an eating disorder. My roommate smokes like a chimney ( a fact that she concealed until about twenty minutes after her parents bid a teary goodbye) and owns the only television set on our floor, guaranteeing a nightly gaggle of Johnny Carson fans yucking it up while I try to study. Miraculously, while browsing the campus bookstore one muggy autumn afternoon, I stumble upon a series that everyone seems to be raving about -- "Lord of the Rings." I decide to give it a try. Tolkien saves my undergraduate life.

4. California Bar Exam, Los Angeles Airport Hilton: This is a nightmare. I'm committed to eighteen hours of exams spread out over three days, I'm one day into the process, and I've awakened with a flaming sore throat. With the aid of a sunny window and a makeup mirror (why are the light bulbs in hotel rooms so damn dim?), I observe white, pus-filled plaques coating my throbbing tonsils. Luckily, there is an "InstaCare" near the airport, and I'm able to see a doctor who confirms my diagnosis and dispenses some antibiotics.

After listening to fellow test-takers bemoan the incredibly low pass rate predicted for this exam, and after realizing that my recovery isn't imminent, I toss in the towel. I decide that I will continue to sit for the exam, but I'm beyond caring. In line with this defeatist attitude, I refuse to study, and instead spend all of my free time reading a paperback book entitled "Nobel House" by James Clavell. I focus on the novel with the concentration of a dog anticipating bacon, complete the exam as a mere auxiliary activity, and fly home with a devil-may-care attitude. Interestingly, I pass the exam.

Conclusion

There are, of course, a few rules to follow when selecting a good book to get you through bad times. A page-turning plot is a huge plus, of course, and I find that the most effective "escapist" fare predictably involves unusual or imagined settings. Whatever you do, don't read a "slice of life" book that addresses the very issues you're trying to escape from. (Don't read "Anna Karenina" if you're trapped in a deteriorating domestic situation, etc.) Accordingly, "Diary of a Bad Year" by J.M. Coetzee may be high on my current reading list, but there's no way I'm going to read it during these times of economic and political absurdity. Suggestions, anyone??

Susan Choi Explores the Psychology of "Otherness"

Susan Choi's newest novel, "A Person of Interest," is a complex thriller that rises above the usual standards for the genre. Professor Lee, an Asian-born mathematics professor at an undistinguished university, has lived an increasingly quiet and isolated life after the exodus of his second wife and the estrangement of his only child. His days are spent teaching calculus to indifferent undergraduates, worrying about how he is "coming off" to others (he wraps his empty beer and wine bottles in newspaper and carries them to the trash bin in cover of darkness so that his neighbors will see no evil/hear no evil), and nursing a festering resentment of Professor Hendley (middle-aged "hipster"), whose neighboring office is under constant barrage by starstruck undergraduates while Lee's office threshold gathers dust.

Lee's sedate existence is shattered when a mail bomb explodes in Hendley's office, killing Hendley and turning campus life on its head. Lee becomes increasingly agitated as he attempts to reconcile his self-contained private nature with the need to appear acceptably grief-ridden in the face of the tragedy (Lee skips out of Hendley's memorial service, and recoils at the sanctimonious orgy of tears, grief counseling, and cancelled exams that follow -- how well could the undergraduates have known Hendley, anyway?)

In the midst of the Hendley aftermath, Lee receives a "mail bomb" of a different sort altogether. It so happens that Lee poached his first wife, Aileen, from a fellow graduate student named Lewis Gaither decades ago -- a graduate student who subsequently disappeared and hasn't been heard from since. A letter addressed to Lee sets his head spinning with long-buried feelings of rivalry, regret, and guilt. His roiled state of mind doesn't help him when two FBI agents arrive at his doorstep to interview him about the bombing, and he slowly realizes that his sweaty efforts to "appear normal" have backfired -- he's obviously a suspect.

Choi weaves themes of estrangement and loneliness throughout her novel. Lee's daughter, Esther, has moved to the Rockies where she spends her days in isolation on the edge of a mountain cliff, patiently feeding abandoned eaglets with meat chunks delivered through a plastic tube. Aileen decamps from her marriage to Lewis when she realizes that their union is, at best, a sham of "togetherness." Her subsequent marriage to Lee is detached from the get-go; only their daughter Esther prevents her from fleeing earlier than she does. Lewis Gaither, an intensely religious man, recovers from Eileen's departure by marrying a fellow parishioner named Ruth, and their subsequent lives are spent wandering from one misbegotten mission outpost to another like fundamentalist nomads. Their itinerant travel has a negative effect on their young son, Mark, who is further isolated by the fact that he doesn't share their religious convictions.

Choi is at her best when she explores the inner workings of characters who are self-aware of their "otherness." Lee is ambivalent about his solitude -- he isn't upset about living alone, but he worries whether the neighbors might feel sorry for him; he is torn between feelings of resentment and relief when students don't visit his office; he is at once pleased and irritated when Gaither invites him to a church social. All of these feelings are intensified by Lee's status as an immigrant who will always remain, at least in his own mind, a "foreigner." "[Lee] had felt that his place in the world was unsteady and worthless, a perch best abandoned and, more than that, not even his." Choi's portrayal of"the immigrant's sense of hopeless illegitimacy and impending exposure" speaks to the occasional alienated (and sometimes paranoid) introvert in all of us.

I've not given away any "spoilers" here. The book's plot line is filled with twists, turns, and a bang-up ending. If you don't read it for its thriller appeal or psychological depth, read it for the prose, which is wonderful:

"The cherry trees had exploded like fireworks and left their pink litter all over the ground."

"She was aware of the need to frame an objection that was calm, logical, but she felt herself flailing around in her mental closet, knocking things off the shelf."

I highly recommend that you read this book.

Flotsam and Jetsam

I usually like to write around a central theme, and there isn't one to be had today. However, as Obama has recently stated, we shouldn't "let the perfect be the enemy of the good," so I'm going to relax and ramble a bit. Here goes:

The Problem with Historical Fiction

I finished reading Nancy Horan's "Loving Frank" two days ago and I'd like to give the novel a qualified thumbs up. Why the qualification? Let me explain.

A novel that is loosely historical and extremely well written can be highly successful. The book's page-turning story captivates readers, who learn a little about the time period involved without concerning themselves with the literal accuracy of each event and conversation that is articulated from page to page. Horan's novel, however, is more than "loosely historical." Horan is a journalist by trade, and the book smacks of fact-based veritas. As for her writing, it's solid, but I wouldn't rate it as an exceptional piece of literary prose.

Ultimately, therefore, "Loving Frank" ends up in a perplexing "literary limbo." You pick up the book because you want to learn more about Frank Lloyd Wright and his mistress Mamah (pronounced May-muh) Cheney, but the book isn't really a biography -- it's marketed as fiction heavily interspersed with facts (but which is which?). Conversely, if the book is truly a work of literary fiction, you expect more writing skill from the author. (You don't expect an official biography to be filled with lush prose or page-turning sizzle, but you do expect such characteristics to be present in outstanding fiction.)

Nonetheless, I recommend Horan's book for the insight it provides into the societal restrictions, changing mores and competing lifestyles that were fighting for legitimacy at the beginning of the 20th century.

Joe Bageant's "Deer Hunting With Jesus:"

Joe Bageant focuses an uncompromising lens on "his people," the white working poor of Winchester, Virginia, and ends up producing a book that is both a scathing send-up and a loving tribute to his family, friends and neighbors in that neck of the woods.

Bageant doesn't pull any punches: "Here, nearly everyone over fifty has serious health problems, credit ratings rarely top 500, and alcohol, Jesus, and overeating are the three preferred avenues of escape." He calls it as he sees it, even at the risk of straining family ties. Joe's brother is a Baptist pastor who claims to cast out demons, but that doesn't stop Joe from writing that "The 2008 elections, regardless of the outcome, will not change the fact that millions of Americans are under the spell of an extraordinarily dangerous mass psychosis [religion]."

None of these people ever had a fighting chance to achieve the American Dream, and yet they are its most enthusiastic, bellicose, flag-waving proponents. Every November, they proudly march to the ballot box and vote for the very policies that will push them further into debt, poverty, and ignorance. Bageant warns that neocon operatives "understand that the four cornerstones of the American political psyche are (1) emotion substituted for thought, (2) fear, (3) ignorance, and (4) propaganda." Grossly substandard public schools, shameful health "care," parochial resistance to progressive ideas and independent thinking, unconscionable lending practices, and the "Jesus palliative" all contribute to tragically squandered lives that the rest of us ignore at our own risk.

Bageant's political views and conceptions of reality couldn't diverge more from those of his Winchester neighbors, but the depth of his compassion and empathy for the plight of these "invisible victims" as he relates their personal stories will make you want to cry. Anyone who has ever recoiled at the thought of NASCAR, tent revivals, or the NRA should read this book. How can you contemplate the experience of a man who performs forty years of physically debilitating menial work without complaint, cherishes a "dream" of someday owning a prefabricated modular home in a former industrial park, and goes home each night to a wife on oxygen support (asbestos lung), and then proceed to mock him for going out and popping a few raccoons in the butt over the weekend for a momentary distraction? I'm telling you, this book will change your perceptions, and you'll be the better for it.

Endangered Pleasures, by Barbara Holland

The sybaritic subtitle of this book hooked me in like a bigmouth bass: "In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences." Other pleasures covered by Ms. Holland include bare feet, coffee, staying in, and undressing (for comfort, not sex -- think flannel bathrobe).

I have to quote a passage from her piece on "Happy Hour." If it doesn't make you want to bolt from your office chair and head for the nearest watering hole, I'm sorry for everyone involved:

"For the perfect happy hour, it should be summer, blistering hot, the street clogged with ill-tempered rush-hour traffic and the melting asphalt soft underfoot. Our workday should have been frantic but ultimately successful. After the glare outside, the bar should be almost pitch dark, icily air conditioned and smell of black leather banquettes, and we should be meeting someone there . . . Then, knees touching, neck muscles relaxing, brows drying in the cold dry air, we should drink. Certain things were put upon the earth for our enjoyment, and it's wasteful and wicked to contemn them."

Bravo, Ms. Holland.

A Note On the Origin of the Phrase "Flotsam and Jetsam."

It struck me as odd that these two nouns never stand on their own, so I decided to get to the bottom of the matter by visiting a UK website called "The Phrase Finder." (Warning: this site can become addictive if you are of a wordy disposition).

Flotsam and jetsam are indeed distinct things: flotsam are those items (natural and manmade) which float and bob on the surface of the water as a consequence of the action of the sea (floatsom, get it?); jetsam are those items which have been intentionally jettisoned into the water by a ship's crew (of course, they may float, too). Apparently these two words were traditionally used in conjunction with a third term, lagan, which denoted goods or wreckage at the bottom of the sea. Lagan was rudely booted out of bed by flotsam and jetsam in the early 1800's, never to gain egress again.

If You Read Only One Book This Summer . . .

Most avid readers, if they are lucky, encounter two or three books a year that they simply cannot put down. You know the kind of book I'm talking about. It is usually discovered through sheer serendipity -- a friend's casual suggestion, a snippet in the NY Times, a title that sticks in your mind -- and after reading the first few pages, you throw over life's distractions (grocery shopping, oil changes, sleeping) and dive into the book like there's no tomorrow. You're mesmerized, and the only debate is whether to ration your literary feast or devour the book all at once with the sloppy gusto of a mule eating an apple.

I've just finished a week-long affair with "Child 44" by Tom Rob Smith, and I'm prepared to crown it as my summer reading standout for 2008. "Child 44" is a murder mystery set in the cold environs of Stalin's Soviet Union. The novel is a winner on three fronts: it has the page-turning quality of a compelling police procedural novel; its descriptive prose immerses the reader in a sensory sea of Soviet life, complete with grey weather, grey expectations, and grey housing blocks; and the interpersonal relationships in the novel are explored with literary depth and insight.

Leo Demidov is the golden boy of the USSR's State Security Force ("MGB"). He has a beautiful wife, a luxurious Moscow apartment, and a future that is as secure as can be hoped for in a society in which the slightest misstep -- the slightest rumor of nonconformity -- can destroy a comrade's life overnight. Demidov is under pressure to solve a delicate problem: a murdered child has turned up in his neighborhood, but murders are not supposed to occur in Stalin's USSR, a paradise where all citizens are supposed to live free from the fear of crime. Demidov must diffuse the situation, and quickly. The MGB is rife with backbiters, and Demidov's enemies are more than happy to see how he will wiggle his way out of this one.

The murders begin to mount up, and the bizarre, twisted way in which the young victims were killed points to the work of a madman. The confounding nature of the crimes, speculation as to the nature of the killer, and several well-placed clues and surprises enhance the page-turning quality of the novel, but that is only part of this book's charm.

The author's exploration of Demidov's evolving relationship with his wife, Raisa, as he gradually loses his "golden boy" status and questions everything he has based his career upon, is masterful. (Tidbits for thought: How much can any woman love a man who has the power to extinguish her future at will? How far can spouses be expected to go in order to save their own lives, each at the expense of the other? Why do they, or don't they?).

In addition, the book is a psychological and sensory primer on what it must have been like to live in the USSR under Stalin's rule. Smith writes in such a way as to make the reader experience the paranoia of being "found out" by one's neighbors and reported as an enemy of the state. He explains the Kafkaesque nature of the criminal justice system (all accusations of crime are fatal -- the accusation itself is decisive, since the Soviet system is perfect, and in a perfect system, there are no false accusations, etc.). Similarly, Smith's writing conveys the smell of a two-room apartment occupied by twelve people and twelve pairs of perpetually moist, slush-infused shoes with a verity that will send you to the window for a breath of air.

Smith's prose is also a powerful component of his book's success. I dare you to read the first sixteen pages of the book without reading more. If you read only one book for pleasure this summer, read this one.

More Deaths in Cold Climates:

If you enjoy this book's combination of page-turning suspense, psychological exploration, sense of place, and overall literary merit, I suggest three other novels: "Smilla's Sense of Snow," by Peter Hoeg; "The Yiddish Policeman's Union," by Michael Chabon, and "Gorky Park," by Martin Cruz Smith. I invite other readers to add to this list.

Barbara Cartland Can Save Your Life

A few months ago, I decided to make use of the "dead" time I was spending in my car by listening to a recorded version of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's memoir, "Infidel."

Ayaan is an exceptional woman. Born into a traditional Islamic family in rural Somalia, her remarkable intelligence, strength, and stubborn independence enabled her to endure and ultimately overcome the sexist limitations and indignities inflicted upon her as a girl and young woman growing up in Africa and Saudi Arabia. She eventually escaped to the West (and I do mean escape -- she had to "jump ship" in Amsterdam en route to an arranged marriage), and currently lives in the United States. I highly recommend her book to anyone who wants a forthright, firsthand account of one woman's experience with Islamic fundamentalism.

Where does Barbara Cartland fit into this picture? Ayaan's book discloses that a virtual "black market" in Western romance novels existed among her teenage girlfriends. I like to imagine well-thumbed paperbacks with titles like "Highland Lover" and "My Naughty Marquis" being passed from burqa to burqa like so much contraband hashish. Even established classics like "Jane Eyre" and "Emma" were carefully concealed and read with furtive interest (and astonishment!) by girls in the chancy privacy of their bedrooms.

Most people I know don't hold paperback romance novels up as a paradigm of women's liberation. The heroines usually have matrimony and motherhood on the brain and aren't above scheming to achieve their goals. Most of them are described (in painstaking detail) as beautiful, although the beauty is frequently labeled as "unconventional" (a nod, I suppose, to broadmindedness). The men are frequently characterized as commanding, arrogant, and brutishly virile. Even good literature is a product of its time, and few women today would publicly own up to the matrimonial campaigning and feminine subterfuge contained in Jane Austen's works.

Ah, but we take so much for granted. These fictional women may appear hopelessly "retro" to us, but imagine their effect on young girls boxed into orthodox fundamentalism. Jane, Emma and Desiree must seem like creatures from another universe. They are opinionated and smart. They address men directly, and initiate conversations in public without a second thought. They venture into the public square without male supervision. It is obvious that they are not enshrouded from head to toe, and yet they survive the day without being stoned or bringing shame upon their family. They frequently disagree with their parents, elders, and suitors and yet they suffer no lasting punishment for it. They have firm opinions about those with whom they are willing to spend the rest of their lives. They smile at ridiculous homilies in their minister's Sunday sermon. They are not at all inclined to spend a life of unending submission, suffering, and self-sacrifice in the hope of a post-mortal existence in which they will be rewarded for their pains.

These kinds of books provided Ayaan with the first inkling that another way of life existed, and that it was being experienced by a great number of girls and women, currently, on this very planet. Knowledge is a powerful thing. Infinite possibilities began to present themselves to her. She began to doubt the justice of her current circumstance, and the infallibility of the tenets she had been raised with. In many ways, her journey to freedom could not have begun without those tattered paperbacks passed back and forth between giggling schoolgirls.

Ironically, Ayaan's flight to freedom has been compromised by constant death threats due to -- you guessed it -- the publication of her book. Those who pursue her aren't delusional in one respect: they know that ideas are dangerous things. Books are powerful. Barbara Cartland can save your life.

Nonfiction: Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose

In an effort to clean out my current backlog of books (see my post, 6/30/2008), I've finished reading two nonfiction books in the past week. My conclusion: one thumbs up, one thumbs down.

"The thing about life is that one day you'll be dead" by David Shields

This book was spectacularly depressing. I know, I know -- with a title like that, what did I expect? In my defense, I thought that the name of the book was the kind of tongue-in-cheek title that denotes a book of wry and witty essays about a traditionally sobering subject, a la Nora Ephron's "I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts On Being a Woman." Wrong.

I should have known better after reading some of the book's chapter headings ("Our Birth Is Nothing but Our Death Begun," "Decline and Fall," "Paradise, Soon Lost" . . . ), and Shield's use of a quote from Schopenhauer: "Just as we know our walking to be only a constantly prevented falling, so is the life of our body only a constantly prevented dying, an ever-deferred death."

Nonetheless, I slogged through this book to the bitter end (no pun intended), fruitlessly seeking some redemptive ray of hope. I did gather some interesting factoids along the way (did you know that when you're born, taste buds cover your entire mouth -- including your throat and the underside of your tongue -- or that from ages 11 to 16, boys' testosterone levels increase 20-fold?), but I can't recommend this book unless the prospective reader enjoys despondence. Even the book's "hero" -- the author's father, who has lived an amazingly healthy, vital life into his 90's -- eventually succumbs to vacant inertia as he awaits the inevitable knock on the door from The Reaper. Spare me.

"Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions," by Dan Ariely

Ariely's book, a New York Times bestseller, strikes a nice balance between respectable reportage of scientific research and "pop-psych readability." Each chapter is self-contained and deals with an irrational aspect of the human psyche that nonetheless dictates many of our daily decisions. What an eye-opener!

Ariely deals with such topics as the power of "free" (Quick! Which would you prefer at a shopping mall kiosk: a free $10 Amazon certificate or a $20 Amazon certificate in exchange for $8?), the "price" of social norms (lawyers are much more likely to participate in a program that offers free services to indigents than they are to participate in a program that offers the same services to indigents for a reduced fee), and the effects of sexual arousal on moral decision making (in one study, college men who filled out a questionnaire while in an aroused state were five times more likely to report that they would "consider" drugging a date in order to obtain sex than those men who filled out the same questionnaire in a composed state).

Besides being entertaining, the book has important social and personal implications (sex survey, above, duly noted). Imagine harnessing the power of "free" to improve public health and the environment by offering free registration and inspection for hybrid cars; free physical exams at set intervals; free weight loss clinics, etc. It's also good to acknowledge that most people are so adverse to losing an option that they will do almost anything to hang onto it, even to their obvious detriment (think personal relationships here . . . ), and that the emotion of "ownership" almost always causes the owner to inflate the value of the owned object (face it, your VW van holds a lot of fond memories, but you need to sell it at market value -- your neighbors are tired of looking at that heap).

Incidentally, the book also reports an experiment in which college students who completed a scrambled-sentence task containing words that suggested old age ("bingo," "ancient," "bifocals," etc.) exited the testing site more slowly than those students who performed a similar task with neutral words. This is yet another reason not to read "The thing about life is that one day you'll be dead." You may be unable to summon the energy necessary to rise from your Rascal (oops -- chair).

The 1950's: America's Golden Decade? For Some, Not So Much

If you're looking for a short, atmospheric novel to read this summer, I recommend Andrew Greer's latest book, "The Story of a Marriage," which recounts the story of one family's domestic crisis in post-WWII California, 1953.

Greer's tale, which follows the lives of the Cook family (Pearl, Holland, and their young toddler, Sonny) as they settle into the newly developed Sunset district of San Francisco, contains several well-placed surprises that I won't give away here. In the course of the story, the author makes it abundantly clear that the 1950's appear "golden" only if they are viewed through the rosy lens of selective memory. If you enjoyed membership in a favored class -- white, politically orthodox, and heterosexual -- the decade had its high points. Otherwise, not so much.

Greer weaves the darker threads of the 50's -- polio outbreaks, communist witch hunts, the Korean War, and the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation -- into his story with language that is evocative, yet understated. He is at his best when he addresses societal restrictions that suppressed personal freedom and dignity. Pearl and Holland live in a world where elegant grandmothers in their Sunday hats, eager to celebrate a special occasion, must request directions to the "special area" of the tea room reserved for blacks. Gay men are rounded up in private club raids and imprisoned for criminal indecency. Interracial couples must assess when and where they can be seen in public without risking physical injury. Conscientious objectors and draft dodgers are run out of their hometowns and forced to relocate in order to reclaim any semblance of a normal life. Next door neighbors spy on each other and suppress their political opinions. Unhappy wives and husbands consider clandestine murder as a preferable alternative to the public shame of a divorce. A repressed blanket of desperation smothers Pearl and Holland's suburban neighborhood as thoroughly as the fog that rolls in from San Francisco Bay each morning.

As indicated by the book's title, Pearl and Holland's marriage crisis forms the crux of the novel. Pearl, Holland, and some integral third parties are all casting about for some measure of freedom, some unfettered definition of their own personhood, throughout the book. Although the novel is written in Pearl's voice, I think that Greer's depiction of Holland's internal struggle offers the more subtle and deep exploration of human nature. Holland is portrayed as a handsome man -- the stunning kind of "handsome" that necessarily affects every aspect of his existence. It is his gift, and his curse. Greer writes (in Pearl's voice): "By being what everyone wanted him to be -- being the husband, the flirt, the beautiful object, and the lover -- by pleasing us all in giving us his gracious smile, he had tortured each of us when it did not turn our way. Beauty is forgiven everything except its absence from our lives, and the effort to return all loves at once must have broken him."

Other characters in the novel seem to have some idea of who they want to be and how they want to escape the box that the mid-20th century has constructed around them. Holland, on the other hand, has lost all sense of himself after years of existing as no more than a mirror image of other people's desires. Everyone has attempted to employ his beauty and use it to actualize their own "dream narrative." He has been a chameleon for so long that he is hard pressed to know his own heart's desire, and the choice he eventually makes may surprise you.

This is a good book on many levels -- I recommend it.

Anne Enright's "The Gathering"

I finished reading Anne Enright's "The Gathering," winner of the Man Booker Prize for 2007, last week. Since previous winners of this major literary prize, which is rewarded annually to a full-length novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or Republic of Ireland, have included "The Inheritance of Loss" by Kiran Desai, "The Sea" by John Banville (one of my favorite books of all time), and "The Line of Beauty" by Alan Hollinghurst, my expectations for Enright's novel were high.

I confess that my initial reaction was tepid. Enright's writing is engaging, lyrical, and thought-provoking, but the subject matter itself kept prompting me to indulge a peevish desire to shout "Oh, get over it, for God's sake!" The story contains all of the classic elements of the "dysfunctional Irish family memoir:" too many children, too little space, exhausted parents, alcoholism, suppressed sexual memories, suicide, family rivalries and secrets, untimely deaths, and a jigger of vaguely malevolent Catholicism for good measure.

Since the main character of the book appears to have escaped her childhood situation unscathed -- she is financially secure, healthy, married to a decent husband, and the mother of two delightful girls -- I couldn't help but wonder why she would choose to immerse herself in negative memories. ("Stop picking at that scab," as my mother always said, "or it will never get better.")

I decided to give Enright's novel a second chance after listening to an engaging interview with her about her book (find it HERE). The novel begins as Veronica Hegarty prepares to accompany the body of her beloved but hapless brother, Liam, to Ireland for burial. Liam's death was a suicide -- he walked into the sea near Brighton -- and the shock of the event has propelled 39-year-old Veronica into a kaleidoscopic quandary regarding her childhood past, her troubled family, the mysteries of love, and a burgeoning midlife crisis.

During the course of Enright's interview, she states that the natural consequence of a crisis is the universal urge to somehow "make sense of it all." This is accomplished by using our memory (an elusive and faulty tool at best), imagination and creativity to fashion a narrative that explains, if not justifies, a tragedy. All of Liam's nine surviving siblings are shocked by his passing, but Veronica bears a unique burden. She was Liam's closest friend and confidant, and she believes she witnessed an event in their shared past that could explain Liam's alcoholism and mental decline -- an event that she has suppressed and shared with no one for decades. The narrative that she fashions to "make sense of it all" is dark, beautifully rendered, and full of contradictions that she must acknowledge and grapple with before she can embrace her future.

Enright's brutally honest exposition of Veronica's conflicted emotions carried the book for me. Veronica loves her siblings, but at the same time, she will never forgive her parents for having so many children. She is devastated that Liam is dead, but she is also relieved. She mythologizes her beautiful grandmother, Ada, but she also longs to point a finger of blame at her. She loves her mother -- a woman who became successively "vaguer" with each of the twelve children and seven miscarriages she endured -- but at the same time she hates her for being so compliant, so willing to lose herself in her family. Veronica loves her husband and two daughters, but she wants to escape them, too. She knows them intimately, and yet fears they are complete strangers. These internal battles strike a chord with any reader who is capable of honest self examination, and Enright's prose peels the skin of this human predicament with exceeding skill.

Enright also explores the conflicts inherent in desire: it can be glorious, it can be destructively naive, it can be actively evil. There are as many varieties of desire as there are kinds of people, and Enright understands that we are often powerless to choose the people we are swept together with in the stream of life, be they our family, our friends, or our lovers. They happen. They just are.

In retrospect, this was a good book, especially upon a second reading.

Book Lover's Attention Deficit Disorder: So Many Books, So Little Time

I haven't posted in over a month and I'm laying the blame squarely on a disorder that catches up with all avid readers sooner or later. I like to call it "Literary ADD," and it's driving me crazy.

My job submerges me in a sea of books, books about books, blogs about books, and any number of related blurbs about books, day in and day out. Suddenly, after years of thoughtful and well-paced book consumption, I've lost all sense of self control and selectivity in my personal reading habits. I'm like an acquisitive chimpanzee in a room full of bright and shiny objects. The resulting stockpile of borrowed books on, under and behind my bedside table has grown to insane proportions. As soon as I open one book, I begin weighing the relative merits of an alternative choice. I switch books. After three pages, I hesitate, and decide that the alternative book doesn't quite fit my mood for the evening. I switch books again. The new book is good, but it's going to require a lot of concentration. I stare restlessly at the hill of books. I love them all! I must read them all! I sigh and turn on the television. Obviously, something's gotta give.

What's to be done about the delicious, but maddening, cornucopia of books at my fingertips? I haven't encountered this paralyzing blend of infinite choice and limited time since my parents plopped me down inside the gates of Disneyland and told me to "go for it," with the proviso that we would be leaving promptly at 5 p.m. for dinner and a sensible bedtime.

Several options have occurred to me:

1. Read more frequently.

This is out of the question if I want to live in reasonably hygienic surroundings and engage in any semblance of normal social life.

2. Read faster.

I've decided that this is ultimately unsatisfying. It defeats the very purpose of recreational and/or "deep" reading. I had to master the art of speed reading in order to survive law school, and it has taken me years to shake off the nasty habit of racing through text like a scholastic sprinter, mercilessly scanning each paragraph in search of the "take away point." Speed reading is the equivalent of taking one of those twelve-day "Highlights of Europe" package tours. You know for a fact that you were in Luxembourg on Wednesday, but all you can remember is that you had heartburn after lunch.

3. Read fewer, but better, books.

There are numerous readers' advisory sources that will recommend the best new books of the month, Critics' Top Ten of the Year, The Best 25 Books of the New Century, The Classic 100, etc. At first blush, this seems like a reasonable strategy for winnowing your reading list into a manageable, select collection. Don't be fooled. I can tell you from recent experience that these sources will exacerbate the problem.

To begin with, if you discover that a book is listed as one of the "100 Best Books of the Century," how can you NOT read it? Don't you owe it to yourself to at least check it out? Come to think of it, shouldn't you read all 100 in the interest of thorough edification? And what about book number 101? Is it really that less worthy of your time than book 100? You can't win this game.

Secondly, many of the shorter lists contain a brief, glowing description of the book which justifies why the critics think it is a must-read. These snippets are frequently so tantalizing that they compel you to explore a book that you initially considered to be easily dispensable in the interest of efficiency. This (and the fact that I'm totally out of control) explains why I seriously considered adding "Chasing Kangaroos: A Continent, A Scientist, and a Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Creature" to an already bloated list of must-reads. (Don't get me wrong -- I think Tim Flannery is a fantastic science writer, but there are only so many hours in the day, and I can't spend them chasing kangaroos, even if his book made the "Best 10 Science Books of 2007" list, etc.)

Finally, readers' advisory sources are so varied and bounteous that they themselves have become unmanageable -- thus the advent of websites with names like "The Review of Reviews." It never ends.

4. Throw everything out, start from scratch, and hope for the best.

Within the course of this week, I'm going to return all of my borrowed books. All of them. Period. Out of sight, out of mind, just like spooning the last half of that chocolate cake down the disposal. Next, I'm going to form a "reading plan" and pursue it in depth. More about this in a future blog post. All I'm willing to divulge at this point is that the plan involves limiting my bedside book cache to a maximum of three fiction books and three nonfiction books at any given time. Sigh. Wish me luck.