"Her Fearful Symmetry," by Audrey Niffenegger

I usually experience a vague feeling of foreboding when twins are introduced into the story line of a book I'm reading; something in the back of my head whispers, "This can't end well." I guess I've seen too many popular movies featuring the good twin/evil twin trope or -- worse yet -- two evil twins who use their interchangeability to commit murderous deceptions (Jeremy Irons' dual role in Dead Ringers still has me shaking in my boots).

That being said, Niffenegger's initial introduction of Julia and Valentina, the twins in her newest novel, set me at ease. The girls live contentedly with their parents in a normal Chicago suburb. They've graduated from high school, but they're taking their time leaving the nest; it's too easy to sleep in, browse a fashion magazine or two, and slap together a PB&J sandwich for lunch to become overly zealous about college or a career. Their social life is somewhat stunted due to their close relationship, but they don't much care; there's plenty of time to work out the interpersonal logistics of dating in the future, and they're never lonely because they have each other.

The cozy predictability of daily suburban life is abruptly turned on its head when a letter arrives from England, addressed to "Julia and Valentina Poole." The girls' mother, Edie, was also a twin, and her estranged twin sister, Elspeth Noblin, has died a tragically premature death from cancer. Surprisingly, Elspeth has bequeathed her apartment, located in a historical home bordering the stone fence of Highgate Cemetery in London, to her two nieces, conditioned upon a peculiar prerequisite: The twins must live in the house for a full year, during which time their parents cannot visit or enter the house.

An important wrinkle to the story must be added here: Elspeth is dead, but not quite. She has slowly begun to materialize, ectoplasm-like, in her former apartment. Some of the most engaging passages of the book involve her gradual familiarization with her evolving "body," her attempts at mobility (she can't leave her apartment), and her desperate efforts to communicate with her former lover, Robert, who lives one floor down and makes frequent "grieving visits" to her bedroom. She contracts into a misty ball and sleeps in a cozy drawer of her writing desk when she's exhausted herself with attempts to push doors closed and puff pieces of paper across table tops. Unable to communicate with Robert, she must content herself with watching him interact with her nieces as they enjoy their new life.

So far, this may sound like a light-hearted romp of a novel (think "Blythe Spirit"), but things turn dark from here on out. The twins seem basically normal, but Niffenegger informs the reader that despite their age, Julia and Valentina still enjoy dressing identically alike, and they sleep in the same bed (spoon-style, no less). It's also clear that Julia is the increasingly stronger twin of the two, both mentally and physically. Elspeth slowly becomes more adept at making her presence known, and she's not ready to relinquish Robert. Add a budding romance, kittens that die and skitter back to life, eccentric neighbors, and the ever-present spell of Highgate Cemetery and its not-so-sleeping occupants, and you have the makings of a great contemporary ghost tale.

You may think you've figured out the plot, but you haven't. Niffenegger fills the last third of the book with unexpected twists and turns that will keep you guessing. There is one strained plot device that is patently implausible -- you'll know it when when you encounter it -- but the book is a must-read for lovers of gothic mysteries and readers who would enjoy learning the fascinating history of Highgate Cemetery (you'll feel like you've taken a personal tour of its mossy paths and ivy-covered crypts by the time you finish the book).

Richard Russo's "That Old Cape Magic"

Be forewarned: When you gaze into the eyes of your future mate and proclaim "I do," odds are that you're tying the knot with three people, not one. Richard Russo's recent novel explores the inconvenient fact that most marriages involve two players on the field and four players on the bench; each partner's parents are shadow participants in the enterprise, despite their physical distance or animate state.

Jack Griffin and his wife, Joy, have weathered a 30-year union with relative success. The marriage has had its ups and downs, but each of them has come to accept the other's perceived idiosyncrasies with equanimity and the occasional rolled eyeball. Griffin can't relate to Joy's effusively close relationship with her parents and siblings; he perceives it as unnatural and mildly obnoxious. Nonetheless, he endures her daily phone chats with her sisters and attends backslapping holiday reunions with only an occasional complaint ("I guess what I can't understand is why we can't have one holiday with just us."). Joy, on the other hand, can't understand Griffin's desire to avoid contact with his own parents altogether. She concedes that his childhood memories of constant marital bickering were less than ideal, but family is family, and their only child Laura deserves to know both sets of grandparents. Nonetheless, Joy sighs and goes along with Griffin's strategy of avoidance, even after his father dies and his mother seeks to mend old ties.

Griffin's obsessive attempt to avoid his mother's manipulative intrusions and his father's influence beyond the grave seems doomed to failure: he finds himself involved in heated mental arguments with them that take place in his head as he drives down the highway; he catches himself repeating his father's physical mannerisms and adopting his mother's cynical view of human nature; he realizes that his weathered Connecticut farmhouse and teaching post at a toney East Coast school is a realization of everything his parents wished for, but never attained ( snobby academics who graduated from the Ivy League, his parents felt permanently cheated when relegated to the "Mid-f***ing West" for their entire teaching careers). Griffin can't even bring himself to disperse his father's ashes, which have been residing in an urn in the wheel well of his car for over a year.

Griffin's parents are major characters in the novel and provide most of its laugh-out-loud humor. The best chapters in the book involve the contentious history of their marriage and the quirky love/hate nature of their relationship. The elder Griffins share an amazingly similar view of life: they've been screwed over and there's nothing to be done for it. Their yearly summer pilgrimages to Cape Cod, where they torture themselves by imagining how life might have been had their professional fortunes been otherwise, is punctuated by wistful searches through the local real estate guide, where every house they study is either far beyond their means or something so dilapidated that "they wouldn't have it, even as a gift." Unfortunately, the elder Griffins also share a fierce sense of competition. When Griffin's father begins to indulge in philandering, Griffin's mother responds in kind. When Mr. Griffin falls in love with an intellectually challenged graduate student young enough to be his granddaughter, Mrs. Griffin is torn between outrage and secret satisfaction at the girl's bovine dullness. Griffin's mother puts up with her husband's infidelities for a preternaturally long time because she's afraid that once divorced, he could move away from the dreaded Midwest and find a better teaching position than she enjoys, a fact that would drive her crazy. They cling to each other in a marital death spiral until they can't take it any more, but even after the divorce each ex-spouse follows the trajectory of the other's life with intense and spiteful interest.

Will Griffin ever be able to escape his obsession with his parents' shortcomings? Will Joy finally snap and refuse to put up with Griffin's growing tendency to look at everything in life as something beyond his means or "something that he wouldn't have, even as a gift?" Can any of us ever escape eventually becoming our parents? Do yourself a favor and read this amusing, intelligently written book to find out. (Note: the storyline, which is book-ended by two colorful weddings, begs to be made into a movie, which makes sense; Richard Russo is also a successful screenwriter.)

And the Ship Sailed On: Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh

Sea of Poppies is a lush, tropical whirlwind of a novel that will sweep you away from the winter snow and onto the broad, weathered deck of the seafaring Ibis, a former slave ship plying the warm waters of the Indian Ocean circa the 1830's, refitted as a merchant clipper and now en route to China to take part in the Opium Wars. The life stories of your fellow passengers, and the myriad paths of fate that have drawn them into the hold of the Ibis, will keep you turning pages to the end and eagerly awaiting the second book in Ghosh's planned "Ibis Trilogy."

The back stories of the characters in Sea of Poppies are so numerous and varied that they would become trapped in a hopeless tangle if left to the hands of a lesser writer. Ghosh makes each story so uniquely compelling, however, that the reader moves easily between tales, eagerly resuming the thread of one story while hoping for the addition of yet another character to the novel's narrative tapestry. Each character in Sea of Poppies is a star, and it's a bang-up ensemble cast: Deeti, a young village girl with the pale grey eyes of a ghost, who is forced to marry an opium addict against her will; Kahlua, a common laborer with limited intellect whose menacing size belies a wise and tender heart; Paulette, a young orphaned French girl who discovers her guardian's desire to provide her with private catechism lessons isn't guided by Christian charity; Zachary, a light-skinned mulatto freeman from Boston whose ethnic heritage is unknowable but for his listing as "black" in the ship's manifest; Neel, a wealthy East Indian who loses his family's fortune in the opium bubble; the comical Baboo Nob Kassin, a bulgy-eyed devotee of Krishna, who eagerly believes that his body is miraculously morphing into the female incarnation of his deceased beloved -- these are just a few tantalizing samples of the myriad characters you'll meet in Ghosh's teeming saga.

Every element of narrative intrigue is encountered during the course of the book: forbidden young love, premature widowhood, the forced separation of a mother and daughter, vast turns of fortune, the mighty brought low, the low elevated to power, an unexpected courtship and marriage, justice denied and justice regained, clever disguises, narrow escapes, a bastard son's search for his rightful heritage, a dastardly ship's mate with murder on his mind, lashings, typhoons -- the list goes on and on.

In addition to the immense entertainment value of the book, it provides a painless education about the economics of the poppy trade, the class systems of India in the 19th century, the history of the Opium Wars, British colonial life in the Near and Far East, the medicinal and addictive features of opium, details of life aboard a 19th century sailing ship, and more salty shipboard lingo than you can shake a stick at (you'll either blush or try to memorize it, depending on your personal standards). I, for one, can't wait for the next installment in this multi-ethnic swashbuckler.

Far Bright Star: Robert Olmstead Writes Another Masterpiece of Americana

Far Bright Star, a loosely linked sequel to Olmstead's Civil War/coming of age classic, Coal Black Horse, is every bit as engaging and beautifully written as its predecessor. At the conclusion of Coal Black Horse, the book's young protagonist, Robey Childs, marries and fathers two strapping sons: Napoleon and Xenophon. Far Bright Star reacquaints the reader with these two brothers, now aging adults, as they engage in a new military venture: they're members of a cavalry unit that has been sent into the wilds of Mexico to capture Pancho Villa. Xenophon is a consummate horseman, but Napolean is the leader of the two, and as such he is ordered to muster a ragtag scouting party into the desert to assess Villa's whereabouts.

Never the naive optimist, Napolean has an unusually keen sense of foreboding about the mission. His thinly staffed posse can boast of only one other seasoned cavalryman; the rest of the party consists of drunkards, untried boys, misfits, and a spoiled dandy from the East whose character flaws pose a serious danger to the entire group. Even Napolean's horse, a devilish black behemoth named Rattler, seems apprehensive. Pancho Villa is nowhere to be found, but the group stumbles upon evil nonetheless, and a series of tragic mistakes in judgment culminate in a survival story that will have you gripping the book with white-knuckled hands.

Far Bright Star, like Coal Black Horse, has a mythic, larger than life quality that is enhanced by Olmstead's glorious use of language. Every other page of the book contains a passage that glows like a polished jewel. Olmstead's powerful prose, his consummate skill in portraying the varieties of human character that emerge when men are subjected to extreme circumstances, his ability to transport a reader's five senses into the physical landscape of the story, his willingness to confront the "big questions" -- all of these are compelling reasons to make Olmstead's recent novels part of your personal library.

I listened to this book on compact disc, and I think that Ed Sala's reading performance enhances the impact of the novel. His dry, "man's man" delivery may initially strike the listener as a bit too Cowboy Poetry-esque, but his succinct, no-nonsense tone (think Tommy Lee Jones or Robert Duvall) conveys the flavor of the book perfectly. I fell in love with Sala's true west cadence by the end of the novel.

One cautionary note: some of the events in this book are gruesome. If your stomach churned one too many times at the psychopathic atrocities committed by Blue Duck in Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, this novel may not be for you. One suggestion: read the book, don't listen to it. That way, you can "skim" when the going gets graphic.

The Humbling, by Philip Roth

Advanced age, doomed sex, and impending death: just the kind of topics you enjoy exploring on a cozy winter night, right? Roth's frequent laments about the dark underbelly of the golden years may alienate some readers, but his literary skill keeps me coming back for more. The Dying Animal, Exit Ghost, Everyman -- I just can't stop, as evidenced by my recent one-night immersion his thirtieth book, The Humbling.

Roth's aging characters share one outstanding characteristic: they can't bear the thought of giving up on sex. Their stubborn refusal to go quietly into that celibate night is linked to deeper psychological moorings than mere carnal desire. In their minds, sex is the polar opposite of decay and death; as long as it can be maintained, the grim reaper is forced to pause at the door. The protagonist of The Humbling, Simon Axler, is no exception to the rule.

Unlike some of Roth's previous characters, Axler's late-life crisis doesn't commence with a physical ailment. Axler, a famous A-level theater actor -- wakes up one day and finds himself utterly unable to act. Each stage performance becomes a tortuous farce in which he floats out of his body and views himself puppeting the lines like an automaton. His shock at this new ineptitude is surpassed only by his shock at the impersonal, random way in which such a key element of his personality has been erased overnight. Nothing can be relied upon forever, apparently.

Axler begins a downward spiral. His agent is infuriated that he won't suck it up and attempt a comeback, his wife leaves him (she was never that wild about him in the first place), and he spends a brief stint in a mental hospital after thoughts of suicide threaten to overwhelm him. He eventually finds himself living a hermit's existence in one of those isolated East-coast "farmhouses" inhabited by artists and literati (like Roth). This is where the story gets interesting: from here on out, Roth's story line is so unbelievable as to border on the ludicrous, but Roth's piercing exposition of an aging man's psychosexual innards springs from the page with such raw authenticity it saves the day.

Axler opens the rustic door of his rural hideaway one snowy day and greets Pegeen Stapleford, daughter of two of Axler's best friends from the past, Carol and Asa Stapleford. Pegeen's visit is a total surprise; he hasn't seen her for over twenty years. Indeed, his most vivid memory of Pegeen is a mental picture of her nursing Carol's breast shortly after her birth. Pegeen, a self-professed lesbian since the age of twenty three, is still smarting from a long term love affair gone sour in Montana. She has moved to the East coast for a fresh start (she's procured a teaching job at the local college by seducing the female dean), and she's popped in on Axler, out of the blue, to say hello (?).

One thing leads to another, and before the end of the afternoon, Pegeen has hopped into the sack with Axler, despite the fact that 1) Pegeen knows virtually nothing about Axler beyond his reputation as a former star of the theater; 2) Axler, aged 65, is Pegeen's senior by 25 years, 3) Pegeen has been steadfast in her sexual preference for women during the past seventeen years, 4) Axler's relationship with Pegeen in the past was purely avuncular, and 5) Pegeen's parents would be (and, as it turns out, are) outraged at the relationship. Don't get me wrong -- I don't think any one of the circumstances I've listed above would be prohibitive if standing alone, but in the aggregate?? Give me a break.

A whirlwind romance follows in which Pegeen dumps her college dean (hell hath no fury . . . ) and settles into a cozy domestic arrangement with Axler, Their isolated country life is invigorated by enthusiastic sex and occasional trips into NYC, where Axler showers Pegeen with feminine clothes and provides her with a transformational haircut (Who knew sexual re-orientation could be so easy? Someone alert Evergreen!). Axler is living a classic male dream come true ("He felt the strength in her well-muscled arms . . . he cupped her hard behind in his hands and drew her toward him so that they kissed again. . . . she . . . was with a man for the first time since college"). At this point, the reader begins to wonder if Axler is taking his cues from Woody Allen and/or Pretty Woman. Storm clouds are approaching, however. The scorned college dean pays an uninvited visit to Axler and proceeds to give him an earful concerning Pegeen's less attractive qualities, while Pegeen gets a similar earful about Axler from her distraught parents. Axler proceeds to subconsciously shoot himself in the foot with an escapade that is as foolish as it is factually improbable (I'll let you discover this one on your own), and then . . . .

Roth's doubtful narrative is redeemed by the raw honesty and skill with which he reveals the inner workings of Axler's mind as he wades through his existential crisis. Axler views Pegeen as his chance at a "second birth;" she's the feminine muse he needs to reinvigorate his acting ability and his manhood. Despite her horrified parents, despite her previous sexual history, despite long odds at every turn, he's determined to have her and the reincarnation she offers. And yet, in the midst of Axler's wildest fantasies (he plans to have a child with Pegeen), some part of him knows that his obsessive drive towards renewal may ultimately accelerate his own self destruction. He can see the train wreck coming, but he doesn't know whether he welcomes it or abhors it. Roth's portrayal of Axler's psychological moth-to-the-flame dance is utterly convincing, even if the book's story line is not.

I've exposed quite a bit of plot line here, but the real value of the Roth's book lies in the spare prose, powerful metaphors (obvious and not so obvious), and psychological insights imbedded throughout the novel. His understated delivery belies an underlying reservoir of emotional combustibility. The Humbling is a compelling treat for readers who prefer truth over happy talk.

Louis Auchincloss: Still Dishing the Inner Lives of the Upper Crust at Age 92

If you're the kind of reader who enjoys delving in the private affairs of the moneyed elite, you're probably already a fan of the works of Evelyn Waugh, Edith Wharton and Henry James. For me, the central charm of Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited" lay in my opportunity to join Charles Ryder as he burrowed into the mysteries and complexities of the rarefied lifestyle enjoyed (and suffered) by his fellow Oxford student, Sebastian Flyte. I shared Ryder's ambivalent fascination as he explored the Flyte family's grand halls, refined mannerisms, and indiscretions. The works of Edith Wharton (The House of Mirth, The Buccaneers), Henry James (The Bostonians, Portrait of a Lady), and, in a more contemporary vein, Dominick Dunne (People Like Us, Fatal Charms) provide similar fly-on-the-gilded-wall experiences for their readers.

If you like this sort of thing and haven't discovered Louis Auchincloss, you have a treasure trove awaiting you. Auchincloss, a Manhattan native of the Upper East Side set, is well situated to tell tales about the moneyed and Mayflowered. He was born in 1917 to a wealthy family ("We were not as rich as the Rockefellers or Mellons, but we were rich enough to know how rich they were"). A Groton and Yale alumnus who retired from the white-shoe law firm of Hawkins, Delafield and Wood in 1986, he currently occupies a three-bedroom top-floor apartment on Park Avenue. His literary output is astonishing -- over sixty books and counting, most of which were written during his 30-odd year career as a fully employed attorney.

His most recent novel, Last of the Old Guard, follows only one year after his previous book, "The Headmaster's Dilemma," a favorite of mine which I briefly reviewed in my 4/7/08 blog. Last of the Old Guard is a penetrating character study of two founding partners of a New York law firm formed during the turn of the century. The story is narrated by the surviving partner, Adrian Suydam, upon the death of his best friend and law firm co-founder, Ernest Saunders. Suydam's painstaking exposition of Saunders' strengths and foibles reveals as much about Suydam and it does about Saunders. In his attempt to accurately express the core of Saunder's personality and define Saunder's ultimate legacy to his family, profession, and community, Suydam (and Auchincloss?) projects his own values and beliefs with understated skill.

The Last of the Old Guard is a quiet little book. If you're looking for a flashy page-turner, look elsewhere. If you're seeking an honest exposition of the inner thoughts and motivations of a rare and dying breed, however, it's invaluable. It's all there: personal tragedy, children that disappoint, cool-headed marital bargains, law firm maneuvering, conflicting loyalties, a sense of duty, defense of honor, the triumph of pragmatism over passion (and sometimes not!), man-to-man chats over brandy and cigars, and an overarching conviction that one's life can actually make a difference to an entire country. Sound interesting? Settle down into a leather club chair, put your feet up on a tufted ottoman, and read this book (if you're an avid fan of this kind of novel, I'm betting you already have these items of furniture in your home).

If you're going to read only one Auchincloss book, many readers suggest The Rector of Justin, a "school book" in the lighter vein of The Headmaster's Dilemma. It is considered by some to be Auchincloss's greatest (and most entertaining) book.

Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town

Nick Reding's Methland captured my attention for personal reasons. Like Reding, I grew up in a small rural town (population 2000) in the Midwest. Upon adulthood, I moved to a large urban area in the Intermountain West, prompting my parents to worry incessantly about the dangers that would surround me in the big city. In their minds, it was only a matter of time before some drug-crazed maniac would break into my bedroom in the wee hours of the morning demanding money and worse.

As predicted, my weekly calls home to Mom and Dad began to include stories of rampant drug use and manufacture; the twist was that the locus of the activity was on their end of the line. Tales of former classmates who were now in rehab or jail were surprising (or not, depending on the classmate), but the real shock involved tales of several farmhouses that had blown sky high in the course of faulty meth production. What was going on?

I began paying attention to meth articles in the media. Several reliable sources quoted statistics confirming the fact that drug use, and meth use in particular, was more prevalent per capita in small towns than in cities. It was becoming the not-so-secret scourge of Heartland, USA. I initially attributed the problem to the mind-numbing lack of opportunity and alternative entertainment in rural towns. (Every time my mom mentioned yet another teenage pregnancy, I would jokingly suggest that they take up a collection for a roller rink, and fast.)

Nick Reding puts all of the pieces together in an excellent investigative book that exposes the complex and seemingly unstoppable forces behind the epidemic, while also revealing its human cost through individual stories that will make you hurt. If you grew up in a small town, you know these people.

The heartland's struggle with meth addiction is largely rooted in a cataclysmic shift from small farm and ranch operations to corporate-run centers of mega-production. Animals are raised in centralized factory pens, fattened in giant feed lots, and slaughtered in megalithic processing plants. Grain production has been centralized on huge corporate farms where food is planted, harvested, and processed under the supervision of agribusiness giants like Cargill and Monsanto. This shift has devastated the morale and pocketbook of rural America. Former independent entrepreneurs have been reduced to the status of easily replaceable wage slaves. Local packing plants that used to pay their employees twenty dollars an hour plus health benefits have been absorbed by mega corporations that pay six dollars an hour and no benefits to a workforce that is powerless to demand anything better. Anyone who toured the Midwest farming country during its heyday, which peaked in the mid-1970's, would be shocked to witness the grinding poverty that permeates its small towns today.

The issue of poverty drives the meth market in multiple ways. The ingestion of meth can temporarily alleviate the depression and hopelessness of a single mother who just completed a double shift slitting chicken bellies at the local Tyson plant. The production of meth in rural basements, a relatively simple but risky endeavor, is a cottage industry that offers low startup costs and large returns to those meth cooks who manage to avoid arrest or incineration. Poverty and lack of decent employment tend to drive rural youths to the West coast and California, where their habit eventually hooks them up with big-time distributors who in turn employ them to funnel meth back to their home town in return for a cut of the cash and goods.

To make matters worse, large processing plants and pig farm factories actively solicit Mexican citizens to cross the border and work for subsistence wages ("First 6 months of housing provided free!"). Although the vast majority of these workers are husbands and fathers desperate to provide a higher standard of living for their families, a fraction of this workforce is inevitably involved in siphoning drugs from Mexico into Small Town, USA.

Corporate culpability doesn't end with agribusiness. Big Pharma has used its massive economic power and lobbying skills to fight meth regulation at every turn. Why waste a relatively modest sum of money adding an element to cold pills that will render them useless for meth making when only half of that sum can "convince" Congress to avoid requiring the additive at all? After all, they argue, they make a legal product for a legal purpose. Why should they have to spend one penny because some societal misfit may personally choose to commit a criminal act? Why indeed.

Ironically, one of the final reasons for meth's prevalence in the heartland is the work ethic of its people. Most drugs don't help work performance. Mention "severe drug addict" and most people envision a lethargic, unemployed couch surfer who lives off friends and relatives until they finally throw him/her out. In contrast, meth (at least initially) boosts concentration and energy, allowing the user to work two and three jobs, performing for weeks with minimal sleep until the inevitable crash. Small town rural people who pride themselves on hard work and self-sufficiency often succumb to meth as a temporary way to "hold it all together" while they work through a financial crisis (divorce, sick child, loss of benefits) that requires them to work long hours without relief. Temporary use is seldom temporary for long.

I've laid out the general framework of Nick Reding's book, but the real power of his work comes from personal interviews and the hard-to-hear stories of working people who have been destroyed directly or indirectly by the meth trade. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand meth addiction and, more importantly, the largely unreported societal malaise that is sapping the life from rural America.

The Secret Speech, by Tom Rob Smith

A jam-packed schedule during the past two months forced me to choose between reading books and writing about books. Reading is easy. Writing is hard. Guess which option I chose?

In an effort to catch up on the writing end of the equation, I've decided to produce some reviews. Here goes the first one:

The Secret Speech, by Tom Rob Smith

This follow-up to Smith's first book, Child 44 (an award winning best seller), is well worth your time, particularly if you like high suspense in cold climates. It's 1956 in the Soviet Union, Stalin is dead, and Leo Demidov has escaped his former job as a state security officer to pursue a non-political career as a murder investigator for the state. Leo cannot escape the moral consequences of his former job, however. His adopted daughters, Zoya and Elena, cannot forget his complicity in the death of their parents years ago, and his wife, Raisa, still harbors deep emotional reservations about Leo due to the ruthless nature of his former occupation. Indeed, Leo's marriage is on such thin ice that he feels he must conceal a recent discovery: Zoya has been creeping into her adoptive parents' bedroom at night and holding a kitchen knife above Leo's throat while he sleeps, then returning to her bed, filled with ambivalence and rage.

To make matters worse for Leo, Khrushchev has distributed a "secret speech" throughout the Soviet Union denouncing Stalin as a tyrant and openly condemning the atrocities of Stalin's regime. Former secret service officers can no longer rely on unwavering support from the state, and some officers have begun to turn up dead at the hands of their past victims' friends and relatives. Khrushchev's attempt at a new spirit of openness has unleashed a wave of pent up resentment and blood vengeance.

A lot of the sinister charm of Child 44 was the mind-boggling mystery behind a series of child murders and the twisted psychological nature of the killer. The identity of the villain in Smith's second book is never a mystery, and her psychological state isn't overly complex: she's all about revenge with a capital R. The page-turning aspect of The Secret Speech is derived from action, not puzzle solving. An uprising on a convict ship, chases in subterranean sewer systems, gang justice in a Siberian gulag, and riots in the streets of Budapest keep the reader hurtling toward an ending filled with several unexpected twists and turns. Smith has succeeded in writing a straightforward suspense novel that also manages to incorporate a nuanced exploration of the nature of revenge, forgiveness, and personal redemption. I give it a thumbs up.

"Mrs. Bridge," by Evan S. Connell

I enjoyed Elizabeth Strout's prize-winning "Olive Kitteridge" so thoroughly (see my blog entry for 6/21/09) that I decided to read a contrasting study of one woman's life in suburban America as it existed a generation before Olive was born.

"Mrs. Bridge," a classic work by Evan S. Connell, is similar to "Olive Kitteridge" in several ways. Strout's book consists of a series of related short stories; Connell's novel consists of a string of 2-3 page vignettes. Both books illuminate the inner lives of long-married women who live comfortably within the confines of American suburbia. Neither book builds to a dramatic climax; both stories are told with a quiet understatement that matches the tenor of their main characters' daily domestic lives.

That being said, the two women in these novels could not be more different; their temperaments occupy opposite ends of the personality spectrum. Olive suspects her husband is a ninny, and she's not afraid to tell him so. Mrs. Bridge, on the other hand, adores her husband; he is the very anchor of her existence. She trustingly sits beside him in the dining room of a Kansas City country club while a tornado approaches within blocks of the building because he announces that the tornado will skirt the club, and he wants to finish his steak. Olive isn't afraid to confront her only child with a litany of his faults; her son's love for her is marred by a constant fear of being bullied. Mrs. Bridge, on the other hand, is slightly afraid of her own three children. She is deeply unnerved at her oldest daughter's tendency to wear trashy outfits and sneak off with boys at night, but she also suspects that her daughter knows something about life that she doesn't. She elliptically confronts her son about his dalliance with an "experienced girl" from the other side of the tracks by informing him that a very nice girl from the country club has been inquiring about him lately. Even her most compliant child, Caroline, eventually "one-up's" Mrs. Bridge by informing her, "I'll never let my husband boss me around like Daddy bosses you."

Mrs. Bridge isn't a complete angel; she harbors unsavory attitudes about race and class that emerge subtly during the course of the book. She is upset when her new laundry woman plumps into the front passenger seat of the car instead of taking a seat in the back, and she becomes ill at ease when her daughter's childhood friendship with a black girl persists into puberty. Ever the lady, however, Mrs. Bridge avoids direct confrontation and resolves these conflicts with veiled hints and subterfuge.

It is tempting to conclude that the difference between Olive and Mrs. Bridge is a product of their respective times; "Olive Kitteridge" is a contemporary tale, and "Mrs. Bridge" takes place in the 20's and 30's. This is true to a degree, but it doesn't explain why most of us know a "Mrs. Bridge" today (you know this woman, she's the one who always gets stuck laundering the table linens after the church bake sale). Conversely, the suffrage movement was probably populated by an abundance of "Olives" who weren't going to take it any more. Both types of women bring value to their insular world. Mrs. Bridge purchases a subscription to "Doberman" magazine from her impoverished art teacher because she can't say no; Olive Kitteridge shakes a student into action by informing him "If you're scared of your hunger, you'll just be one more ninny like everyone else." Olive's frequent displays of anger create a barrier to the psychological intimacy she craves from her family. Ironically, Mrs. Bridge's inability to express anger performs the same isolating function. Each woman's loneliness bears a direct relationship to her ultimate "unknowableness."

If you enjoy a gentle character study that draws you in with subtlety and surprising depth, you'll like "Mrs. Bridge." Additional suggestion: read "Revolutionary Road" and "The Ice Storm" for a slice of domestic dystopia in the 50's and the 70's, respectively.

Two Horror Tales: "The Strain" by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, and "The Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters

I don't usually read horror fiction, but I recently finished two tales of terror that kept me turning pages into the wee hours of the night, despite my usual urge to flip off the light any time after my evening bath (I'll do well at a rest home some day).

Guillermo del Toro's "The Strain," the first volume of a planned vampire trilogy, is pretty much what you would expect from del Toro. If you saw "Pan's Labyrinth," written and directed by del Toro in 2006, you know that Guillermo knows how to create a monster; I was scrambling away from del Toro's grotesque "eyeball ghoul" in my dreams for weeks after seeing that movie. Del Toro's vampires aren't of the romantic Abercrombie and Fitch ilk that dominates today's popular culture. His creatures have blood red eyes with huge black pupils, atrophying body parts (yes, there in particular), and extendable tongue-like stingers that can fly out and tap your carotid artery at six paces. Add the fact that these fellows smell like a mixture of sour dirt and moldy cheese, and romance is not an option.

Del Toro takes some classic tropes from the vampire canon (earth-filled coffins, the utility of silver, sunlight, and mirrors, etc.) and adds a scientific angle that infuses time-ticking exigency to the situation. Apparently, these vampires are victims of a parasite-born virus that is capable of multiplying exponentially and overtaking the entire globe if left unchecked. It's up to a grandfatherly survivor of Hitler's death camps and a recently fired scientist from the Center of Disease Control to save the world. Del Toro's artful mix of Bram Stoker and Michael Crichton is spiced with graphic descriptions of grisly battles that beg for cinematic treatment. The cliffhanger ending will leave you a) expecting a movie within the year, and b) eagerly awaiting the next installment despite your normally lofty literary tastes.

Although Sarah Waters' "The Little Stranger" also falls into the horror genre, it couldn't be more different that "The Strain." Del Toro's novel is set in the skyscrapers and subterranean subway networks of contemporary New York City; "The Little Stranger" is set in the bucolic countryside of 1947 Warwickshire, England, and centers upon strange happenings at Hundreds Hall, a decaying manor that is consuming the pocketbook and possibly the sanity of its aristocratic occupants.

Oddly, I found "The Little Stranger" to be the more unsettling of the two books. Del Toro isn't coy about the nature of his monsters. The demons in his book are all too real; they may cling to the shadows and dark corners of the night, but when they spring out for the kill, they are all hiss, stink, and tangible body impact. Waters chooses to be more elliptical about the exact nature of the goings on at Hundreds Hall, and that is the chilling charm at the heart of her book's success.

"The Little Stranger" is narrated by Dr. Farraday, a country doctor whose initial visit to the Ayres family at Hundreds Hall is prompted by the sudden illness of their sole maid, Betty. Dr. Farraday had visited the Hall once before as a young boy, when his working class mother managed to talk a servant into showing young Farraday the Hall's interior rooms while a busy civic event took place on the home's grounds. The older Farraday is shocked at the Hall's state of decay; the peeling wallpaper and sagging ceilings bear only a slight resemblance to the grand palace he viewed with a child's astonished eyes. The Ayres family has suffered with time, too. Mr. Ayres is deceased, his wife is now a frail and aging beauty, and the Ayres' only son, Roderick, has been mentally and physically crippled by his service in WWII. Only daughter Caroline, a thick-ankled spinster who is fond of wearing shapeless woolen shifts and sturdy shoes, seems to emit a sense of animal vitality. The Ayres's only other child, Susan, died of diphtheria when she was very young.

The physical clues to the deadly mystery haunting Hundreds Hall are maddeningly ambiguous. A key thrown into the snow, smudged burn marks that slowly proliferate on the library's walls and ceiling, childlike scribbles that are discovered on woodwork and behind furniture, the sound of whistles and tinkling bells emanating from the Hall's ancient servant-summons system -- all of these can be dismissed by a bit of agile rationalization, and Dr. Farraday does his best to calm the growing fears of his upper crust clientele.

The true suspense in Waters' novel is mental, in the best gothic tradition of "The Turn of the Screw." The psychological tension within and between characters is at once subtle and overpowering. Dr. Farraday, an "up-from-his-bootstraps" local success story, is simultaneously charmed with the outdated eloquence of the Ayres family and revolted at his lapdog attempts to worm his way into their gentrified circle. (In one of the book's telling passages, Farraday looks at his image in a mirror before he visits the Hall and worries whether he looks like a balding grocer.) His initial tepid appraisal of Caroline gradually grows into a physical obsession; the tiny line of sweat that always appears on her upper lip after walking the family dog slowly transforms from turnoff to turn on. Caroline's animal vitality runs hot and cold with Farraday; she alternately urges him on and pushes him away with fear and disgust. Mrs. Ayres admits to Farraday that she has always been indifferent to Roderick and Carolyn; the only child she ever loved with maternal passion was Susan. Roderick feels that the house itself is a monster that can never be given enough repair and upkeep; the burden of his family's legacy is slowly consuming him.

Is it possible that repressed sexual desires and bottled-up mental torment can ultimately call forth "a little stranger" who wreaks havoc on its victims? If so, what is the nature of this "little stranger?" Is it based in the mind, or in reality, or somewhere in between? It is Sarah Waters' artful working of the "in between" that makes her book so memorable. Waters' refusal to spell out the answer forces each reader to reach his or her own conclusion based upon their own internal stranger. Del Toro's vampires may cause your heart to pound wildly as they pounce on their next victim, but when the dust settles, that's the end of it. Sarah Waters' novel will prompt a little tickle on the back of your neck that will refuse to go away. An evil that is never decisively identified is difficult to decisively ignore. Don't forget your night light

If You Listen To One Audio Book This Summer . . . A Review of Kathryn Stockett's "The Help"

When is the last time that you listened to an audio book that was so splendid you couldn't wait to share it with everyone you care about? "The Help," by Kathryn Stockett, offers that kind of experience. Stockett's novel, set in the Deep South of Jackson, Mississippi during the racially charged years of the 60's, is currently a darling of book clubs everywhere. Stockett has written her story in three different first-person voices, and this narrative format, when paired with the consummate skill of three of the best reader/actors you'll ever hear, makes the unabridged CD version of her book a perfect candidate for summer listening.

The three main characters in the book are unforgettable. Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a recent graduate of Ol' Miss who returns home to her parents' cotton "plantation" and discovers that a passion for journalism and her tendency to speak truth to power can be as socially lethal as her much-lamented six-foot frame. Aibileen is a soft-spoken black woman who has raised 16 white children; she loves her newest charge, Mae Mobley, but dreads the day when "Baby Girl" reaches the age (8 or 9) at which all of Aibileen's other white children have "turned" and broken her heart by following in their parents' bigoted footsteps. Minny is a feisty stout fireplug of a housemaid with heavenly cooking skills and a sassy mouth that usually gets her fired within a month; one of her few successful tenures occurs when a deaf employer can't hear her talk back.


Together, these three women embark on a brave project that threatens their respective futures and ultimately, their lives. Throw in a side story about a love-struck husband named Johnny Foote and his new bride, Miss Celia (a culturally challenged girl from Sugarditch who prunes the rose bushes in what Minnie describes as hoochie-pink pedal pushers); add a bossy queen bee socialite named Miss Hilly Holbrook to the mix (you'll want to scratch her eyes out), and you have the makings of a rousing drama that will prompt you to ration your listening sessions so you don't end the book a moment sooner than you have to.

Do yourself a favor and plunk down on a chaise lounge with this audio book and a tall glass of Southern sweet tea. Prepare to work up an appetite (Minnie's fresh peach pie, three-tiered caramel cake, and buttermilk fried chicken will have your taste buds screaming), laugh out loud, cry a little, and make three of the best friends you'll ever have the privilege of meeting. When you're done, you'll want to buy a copy of the recording and give it to your sister, who will give it to her daughter, who will give it to her best friend, who will give it to her mother. It's that good.

Ties that Bind: A Review of "The Believers" by Zoe Heller

One of the unanticipated joys of viewing a harrowing movie filled with bizarre behavior and dysfunctional characters is the clean wave of normalcy that descends upon the moviegoer as he/she trudges up the murky walkway toward the sweet light of day. "I may have my moments," the viewer muses, "but that woman was CRAZY."

I experienced a similar feeling when I completed the last page of Zoe Heller's "The Believers." I approached the rest of the day with light-footed elation, deliciously free of the self-imposed angst borne by each member of Heller's beleaguered NYC family, the Litvinoffs.

The patriarch of Heller's fictional family is Joel Litvinoff, a self-described radical leftist attorney and civil rights worker who attained his national celebrity through tireless work on numerous high-profile legal defense cases. Heller reveals the least about Joel, who suffers a major stroke in the first pages of the book and remains in a coma thereafter, but that is probably to his advantage, since the more you know about this Manhattan family, the less you like them.

Joel's battles against the establishment may have originally been fueled by altruistic ardor, but Heller hints that Joel has become enamored with his own celebrity in recent years. He needs constant public attention to energize his leftwing passions and enhance his cult-like status, a status that in turn facilitates his favorite hobby: he's a womanizer. One would like to feel sorry for his wife, Audrey, but she has quite a few flaws of her own. It's highly probable that she married Joel to escape the dismal fate endured by her English parents, who live in a tatty Chertsey apartment that smells of boiled cabbage and cat pee. No longer the attractive and saucy feminista of her youth, Audrey has become abrasive, foul-mouthed, and bitter in middle age. Her sole friend, Jean, endures verbal attacks from Audrey that would incite bitch-slaps from anyone less saintly.

The Litvinoff children are no sweethearts, either. The oldest child, Karla, is an overweight social worker who is maddeningly weak-spined and complacent in the face of outrageous verbal abuse from Audrey and rude inattention from her husband. She may as well print "Kick Me" on her behind. Karla's sister, Rosa, is a stiff, self-righteous do-gooder who has turned to helping urban girls in Harlem after becoming disenchanted with Castro's Cuba, where she lived for a time. As Rosa's job at "Girlpower" slowly sours (in truth, she doesn't like the girls, not even one), she begins to flirt with Orthodox Judaism, a move that is sure to inflame Audrey, a militant atheist. The youngest Litvinoff, an adoptee named Lenny, is a drug-using lay-about who somehow manages to wheedle money and favors from Audrey in inverse relation to his bad behavior; the more outrageous his transgressions, the more Audrey gives him, a fact that rankles his sisters and consigns him to the status of permanent manchild.

"The Believers" can be read as a scathing social satire, but Heller's underlying themes are nothing to smirk at. Each character is trapped inside a forced persona that he or she can't seem to shed. Joel has become so dependent upon national notoriety that he is determined to chase it to the point of exhaustion (and stroke). Audrey has played the role of adoring wife and quirky iconoclast for so long that she is totally at a loss as to how to define herself when Joel's transgressions come to light. Karla is boxed into a social work job and a miserable marriage because Joel and Audrey convinced her at an early age that she was "the nurturer" in the family. Rosa has modeled her adult life after her father, only to discover that his ideology has left her adrift and longing for something more. Lenny has allowed himself to sink into a destructive co-dependency with his mother that threatens to kill him unless he cuts and runs altogether.

Each family member seeks an external anchor, a belief system that will reveal his or her raison d'etre once it is adopted and internalized. Heller subtly explores whether such a quest is an effective strategy or a harmful barrier to true self realization. Each Litvinoff resolves his or her existential crisis differently, and in refusing to reveal her bias one way or another, Heller forces her readers to address the issue for themselves. "The Believers" is a tragicomic and thought-provoking book that will leave you feeling relieved that you're not headed to the Litvinoff household for dinner any time soon.

"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao:" A Literary Trifecta

In "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," Junot Diaz artfully weaves three distinct narrative threads into a prize-winning novel that offers three books for the price of one.

The novel's main character, a massively overweight, nerdy Dominican American whose romantic passion for women is simultaneously humorous and heartbreaking, is one of the most original characters to appear in fiction in recent years. The reader first meets Oscar at the tender (and relatively thin) age of seven. Oscar's prepubescent love life is blossoming; he's romancing two girls at once, and his reputation as a schoolyard Romeo has spread throughout the Dominican barrio of his New Jersey town. His bliss is cut short, however, when the girls refuse to share his affection and force him to choose between them. The victor promptly dumps him for another suitor, and Oscar's love life begins a downward spiral that will persist into a dateless and despondent adulthood.

Depression prompts Oscar to overeat and lose himself in comic books, fantasy novels, and marathon rounds of Dungeons and Dragons. Despite the repeated efforts of his sister Lola and his best friend Yunior to educate Oscar about the proper way to seduce the opposite sex, he stubbornly persists with obsessive personal habits and un-hip hobbies that guarantee his lovelorn isolation. College finds Oscar holed up in his dorm room, chubbier than ever, writing what he hopes will be the next "Lord of the Rings" and fantasizing about his latest crush. Readers will find themselves fuming at Oscar's hapless inertia while also hoping that something wonderful will finally fall his way. What can life offer a bounteously romantic soul wrapped in an unappealing body? What should it offer? What do we owe to ourselves and others regarding such issues? These deep questions, together with Diaz's skillful and original development of Oscar's character, could carry the book without the aid of any additional material.

Nevertheless, "Oscar Wao" offers the reader a second story line that is equally engaging. Many readers may find Diaz's exposition of the complex relationship between Oscar's mother, Beli, and his sister, Lola, to be the most gripping element of the book. Beli's violent verbal and physical attacks on her own daughter are maddeningly inexplicable until Diaz gradually informs the reader about Beli's past life in Dominica, a tragic tale that could fill a book of its own. Beli and her daughter are oil and water in some respects (Beli's romantic entanglements have bordered on the fatally obsessive, while Lola's approach to "love" is about as cool and calculating as it gets), but it is their wild tenacity of spirit that locks them into combat; each despises the other for a stubborn ferocity that she refuses to recognize in herself. Diaz explores this mother/daughter relationship expertly, guiding the reader through Beli and Lola's tangled web of love, fear, resentment, and hope with a story that could stand alone on its own merits.

That being said, Diaz offers the reader yet a third narrative lens through which to enjoy the book. "Oscar Wao" offers an expansive, multi-generational history of the Dominican Republic in general and an account of the diabolical 30-year reign of President/dictator Rafael Trujillo Molina in particular. From the time Trujillo rose to power in 1930 until he was assassinated in 1961, he ruled the country with a ruthless cruelty that was feared throughout the Caribbean. Oscar and his family are fictional characters, but Trujillo was real, and Diaz doesn't pull any punches as he depicts the ruinous effects of Trujillo's rule upon the Dominican people. Trujillo's tentacles reach out to adversely affect every member of Oscar's family, touching everyone from Oscar's scholarly Grandfather Abelard to Oscar himself, who finds himself in a deadly confrontation with Trujillo's legacy long after the man himself is dead.

This book, a well-deserving winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, is an excellent choice for your to-read list in 2009, whether you're interested in exploring Dominican history, mother/daughter relationships, or the imaginative, love-addled brain of a Star Wars fan named Oscar.

Coffee Talk . . . . .

It's four o'clock in the afternoon, you're desperate for a break from work, and you've got coffee on your mind. Do you order up a whipped mocha or something short, black, and bitter? I experienced a bit of both options last week when I read Elinor Lipman's "The Family Man" (iced vanilla frappe) and Denis Johnson's "Nobody Move" (thick and black in a paper cup) in rapid succession.

The books read like night and day, but they both depend upon the same literary element -- dialogue -- for their success. I love a book that lets me eavesdrop on private conversations, particularly when they are unusually artful (Jane Austen, Henry James, Edith Wharton -- why don't people craft their social exchanges like that any more?), witty, or eye-opening (check out "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" by Mohsin Hamid).

Elinor Lipman's "The Family Man," set in contemporary Manhattan, consists almost entirely of dialogue. Wordy characters abound in this fast-paced domestic farce: Henry Archer, a successful, recently retired gay attorney; Denise, his histrionic ex-wife from the distant past; Todd, a middle aged sales clerk with his eye on Henry; Thalia, an aspiring actress who seeks to reunite with her stepfather Henry after twenty years of estrangement -- all of these characters are bubbling over with something to say, and the result is a light yet gratifying verbal soufflé reminiscent of Grant/Hepburn screwball comedies of the 30's and 40's (for those of you under 35, think Hugh Grant/Renee Zellweiger in "Bridget Jones' Diary).

Denise's Xanax-induced "eulogy" of her deceased husband (third one and counting) is almost as entertaining as her verbal overtures to her new soul mate, Albert Einstein, a greyhound rescued from the racing circuit and formerly named "Kill Bill." Todd's "coming out" interchange with his house-coated Brooklynese mother left me rolling on the floor. The story is drenched with New York references both real (Zabar's, the Number 7 Line, a haute restaurant named "Per Se") and imagined that reinforce the urbane nature of the wordplay. Lipman's novel may fall on the light side of the literary scale, but a literary carmel macchiato can go down deliciously on a long summer afternoon, especially when it is intelligently crafted.

Denis Johnson's "Nobody Move," set in the depressed burgs of Northern California, also relies upon clever dialogue for its success, but the mood of the book is a polar departure from Lipman's light hearted romp. All of Johnson's characters are losers of one sort or another: Jimmy Luntz, a middle-aged nobody with a serious gambling debt; Juarez, Jimmy's creditor, a small-time crook who has assumed a false name and accent to conceal the fact that he is actually from the Middle East; Gambol, Juarez's lumbering "enforcer" who is sent to collect Jimmy's debt; and no less than two femme fatales: Anita Desilvera, a petite brunette with a drinking problem who joins Jimmy's fugitive run with a few plans of her own, and Mary, a "hefty blonde" who applies her nursing skills (and more) to an injured and morose Gambol in hopes of gaining some personal dividends in the bargain.

The book is an abrupt departure from Johnson's previous prize-winning book, "Tree of Smoke," and one gets the feeling that he is having fun with it. If Lipman's novel reads like "Bringing Up Baby," Johnson's book evokes the mood of "Double Indemnity." It's an homage to Chandler, Spillane, and James M. Cain. The dialogue is terse, cynical, and darkly humorous: "You're drunk." "Not yet, but I like how you think." The light banter that ricochets between characters in a volley of poker-faced one-liners is eerily at odds with the extremely violent chain of events, but Johnson works this internal contradiction to the book's advantage, a la "Pulp Fiction." Much of Johnson's dialogue echoes that of Richard Price ("Lush Life," "Clockers"), the current king of gritty urban dialogue, who also happens to be a script writer ("The Wire."). No wonder "Nobody Move" almost begs to be made into a movie.

Some readers who loved "Tree of Smoke" might consider "Nobody Move" to be a turn in the wrong direction for Denis Johnson, but if you enjoy noir fiction packed with one-liners that prompt a guilty smile, this book is for you (to be read with a strong cup of warmed over coffee in hand, of course.)