November – The Twisted Thread
I have been substituting at University School and am always reminded of my own teenage years at boarding school when I see the groups of students crossing the sports fields in the brilliant fall afternoons. The Twisted Thread is a novel that reminds me of the special world of adolescence – where secrets are sacred, never revealed to the adults who are their teachers, parents, or advisors. The story is narrated by Madeline Christopher, a young intern in the English department of the prestigious boarding school, Armitage Academy. Author Charlotte Bacon recreates the sense of place so beautifully and captures the nuances of the insular life of the students that I was not surprised to learn that she and her husband have attended or taught at Miss Porter’s, St. Paul’s, Phillips Exeter and Milton Academies, and he is currently the headmaster of North Yarmouth Academy. When a senior student named Claire Harkness is found dead in her dorm room, everyone is shocked. But as the police investigate, even more disturbing news emerges. The young woman had recently given birth! How could her pregnancy have escaped the notice of the faculty? Madeline feels especially responsible, since Claire was one of her students. When a group of girls confide to Madeline that Claire had been a member of a secret society, she feels that she must reveal this information to the investigating detective, who happens to be a former student at Armitage. This satisfyingly complex mystery explores the nature of relationships between students and adults in authority and the culture of privilege so prevalent in elite educational institutions. If you liked Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, you will enjoy this very much.
October – The Night Strangers
October is the ideal time to read something scary and what could be better than a novel set in a haunted house in a remote New England village complete with a coven of evil modern day witches! Pilot Chip Linton is trying to escape the memories of his unsuccessful emergency landing in Lake Champlain (ala Sully) where thirty-nine of his passengers died. He retreats to Bethel, a picturesque town in the White Mountains, where his wife Emily finds employment as attorney in a small law firm and he spends his days restoring the rambling Victorian wreck they have purchased. Their weird herbalist neighbors seem overly friendly, especially towards the couple’s twin 10 year old daughters. But instead of healing, Chip seems to get increasingly worse and starts hearing voices and seeing two ghosts – a father and daughter who are victims of the plane crash. Poe, Hawthorne and Stephen King come to mind. Guilt driven, Chip struggles against his demons; as they seem to be ordering him to sacrifice his own children so that the little ghost girl will have some playmates. The twins are also threatened by the herbalists, who have their own sinister plans to use their blood to make an anti-aging potion. The suspense reaches its climax on Halloween, of course! Author Chris Bohjalian has written several other successful novels – including another favorite of mine, Midwives.
September – The Submission
Almost everyone remembers where they were ten years ago on 9/11. I was working in the Upper School Library when a student rushed in and said that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We turned on the TV and everyone gathered to watch history unfold. Amy Waldman’s timely novel weaves a tale of the problematic nature surrounding the selection of a design for the memorial to honor those who died that day in the terrorist attack. As the story opens, the jury has narrowed the competition to the final two designs – with the members deadlocked between a garden with reflecting pools and a towering black granite sculptural rectangle. The sole juror representing the families of the victims’ favors the garden concept and she manages to convince the majority to choose it, only to learn that the architect whose design they have selected is a Muslim. Highly thought-provoking, Waldman entertains as well as raises the reader’s social awareness in this provocative book.
August – A Discovery of Witches and The Twelfth Enchantment
When I was spending last winter in Austin, Deborah Harkness was reading from her new novel at BookPeople – the premier city bookstore, located conveniently next door to Whole Foods. Her book sounded intriguing, but there was a long waiting list at the public library. I finally managed to get it when I returned home, and found it to be quite “enchanting” reading. Normally I don’ t choose to read fantasy – but this was a welcome departure – sort of Harry Potter for adults. The heroine, Diana Bishop is the child of a modern day witch and warlock, who tries hard to avoid associating with other witches, and is “spellbound” – but still is tempted occasionally to resort to magic in her research. When she accidentally discovers a powerful ancient manuscript in the Oxford Bodleian Library, she attracts the attention of all kinds of supernatural creatures, witches, vampires, and demons. She falls for the charms of a centuries old vampire and trouble really begins. Look for the sequel to Discovery of Witches in 2012.
David Liss, author of The Twelfth Enchantment, appeared at Next Chapter Bookshop in Mequon this 
month, and his new book also features a young woman with magical powers. Lucy Derrick is a plucky orphan right out of Jane Austen, who finds that she has been cheated out of her inheritance, which includes the contents of her father’s library. She must find and reassemble the pages of one of his books in order to foil her (and England’s) enemies. Lord Byron and Robert Burns are also characters in this Regency flight of fancy. The Twelfth Enchantment is an enjoyable departure from Liss’ earlier historical novels. This pairing should keep readers entertained through the magical month of August.
July – Reservation Road and Northwest Corner
In 1998 I read the story of a small-town lawyer whose life changes tragically and irrevocably on a beautiful summer evening. He kills a 10 year old boy in a hit-and-run accident with his own son asleep in the back seat of his car. Dwight Arno must decide whether to come forward and admit his crime or continue to conceal it and live with his guilt. This story of two ordinary families dealing with a terrible tragedy explores themes of guilt, accountability, grief, retribution, and atonement in human relationships. This story, told by different characters is engrossing and quite believable. Now nearly 13 years later, John Burnham Schwartz has written a sequel to Reservation Road! In Northwest Corner, Dwight is nearly fifty and living in southern California. 
He is estranged from his son Sam, now 22 and a talented baseball player about to graduate from the University of Connecticut. Although Dwight has a job managing a sporting goods store, he lives a solitary life and has only recently begun dating a woman, who knows nothing about his past. Then once again tragedy strikes, but this time it is his son Sam, who must decide whether to run away or face the consequences of his actions. Read these novels in order for the best experience – starting with Reservation Road.
June – State of Wonder
Ever since Bel Canto, I have been waiting for Ann Patchett to write another wonderful novel. Then I learned that she had not only written a new book, but was appearing at Bosworth Books in Milwaukee to promote it! What a treat to hear her read and answer all sorts of questions about her work, interests, and ideas about life. She is as witty and articulate as her prose and her latest offering does not disappoint. Opportunities to explore the unknown and experience states of wonder still exist right here on earth, and Dr. Marina Singh discovers hers when she travels to the Amazon to find out what happened to her colleague Anders. He is thought to have died while observing the research of Singh’s former medical school professor, Annick Swenson – who is conducting an immunology study of a primitive tribe called the Lakashi. Marina is not the adventurous sort and she is even more reluctant to encounter her former teacher because of a tragic surgical accident in her past. She is also conflicted because she is conducting a secret affair with her boss and doesn’t want to reveal any personal weakness to him. Patchett visited the Amazon as part of her research for the novel, and she really captures the strange and terrifying aspects of the remote reaches of this vast rainforest. This is the book for readers who loved Joseph Conrad – but wished for some strong female characters (Marina as Lord Jim or Annick as Kurtz). Marina battles insects and snakes, and is forced to confront her worst fears, internalized and repressed for most of her life. Patchett is a master at exploring the nuances of human relationships – and she is clever enough to pose intriguing questions about honesty, social responsibility, medical ethics, and imperialism without preaching or providing easy answers.
May – Lord of Misrule
Kentucky Derby month is the ideal time to read this year’s National Book Award winner by Jaimy Gordon. If you are expecting a glamorous setting, prepare for a surprise because this story takes place at a seedy West Virginia racetrack in the 1970’s and the characters are past their prime horses and people desperate to survive in this expensive and often cruel sport. From the first sentence the reader is hooked by the evocative language that perfectly captures the flavor of the underside of horse racing; dark, desperate, often ugly and decidedly unromantic – with plenty of drama aside from the race itself. The business side of the sport often involves claim races – where someone can claim a horse after it races for a predetermined sum. The original owner gets to keep the winnings from the race (if any) plus the sale money. To complicate matters, a horse may be claimed more than once! Read this for the exciting story, savor the rich language and appreciate the drama enacted by these tragic, comic and heroic characters – animal and human.
April – The Oracle of Stamboul
Michael David Lukas has spent time in Turkey, Israel and Tunisia and his novel takes the reader on a carpet ride to a magical place and a long ago time. The story opens in late summer of 1877 when a flock of exotic birds herald the birth of Eleonora Cohen in Constanta. Her mother dies soon after her birth and she is raised by her father and his new wife, her mother’s older sister. When Eleonora shows signs of extraordinary intelligence, her stepmother convinces her father that they should keep her gifts a secret – and limits her reading to one book per month. Her father plans to travel to Stamboul on a long business trip and Eleonora, who can’t imagine life alone with her stern, unloving stepmother, stows away on the boat. At the end of the voyage, her father is forced to take her along with him to his Muslim partner’s sumptuous home and the true adventure begins. The exotic historical setting enriches the narrative and makes the reader better able to accept the extraordinary happenings. The ending seems a bit abrupt and unsatisfying, but I’m hoping for a sequel!
March - You Know When the Men Are Gone
This collection of loosely interwoven stories poignantly depicts the troubled lives of the women waiting for their soldiers to return to Fort Hood, Texas from their tours of duty in the war torn Middle East. Austin has an excellent public library system and when this book was chosen as the city-wide reading selection, the author Siobhan Fallon was invited to speak at the Main Library. She lived at the army base while her husband served in Iraq and offers a vivid picture of the loneliness and quiet desperation experienced by those left behind to wait in fear and uncertainty for news from and the return of their loved ones. Infidelity is a pervasive theme in several of the stories: in one, a wife chooses to accept her husband’s explanations and forgive his lies and behavior; in another, a soldier sneaks home and hides in his basement in an attempt to determine if his wife is having an affair. Yet many military wives show great bravery, loyalty and determination – in their relationships with their family members and each other. Simple but moving descriptive passages and excellent dialogue make this book an excellent opportunity to glimpse a world unfamiliar to many of us.
February - Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
This atmospheric novel by Tom Franklin is set in the rural Mississippi hamlet of Chabot, where the locals continue to suspect sad and lonely “Scary Larry” Ott of murdering and hiding the body of a teenage girl – an unsolved crime that has made the weird but gentle man an outcast for more than twenty years. When the college bound daughter of the town’s lumber baron never arrives at Ole Miss, Constable Silas “32” Jones is probably the only person who believes in Larry’s innocence. The policeman has returned to his hometown after a long absence to make a success of his new position and is determined to avoid all controversy. But when he first finds the badly decomposed body of a local drug dealer, and then discovers Larry, victim of a gunshot to the chest, Silas is forced to confront his own secret boyhood friendship with Larry and reveal his guilty knowledge of what happened on the night long ago, when the first young woman disappeared. The crooked letter “s” in Mississippi is a fitting symbol for the deformed lives of these characters - rich and poor, black and white, good and evil – a tale told in a deceptively simple voice that reminds the reader of Faulkner.
January - Spartina & Compass Rose
More than twenty years after John Casey won the National Book Award (1989) for Spartina, he has rewarded the reader with a wonderful sequel in Compass Rose. In the first novel, Casey introduces us to Dick Pearce, a commercial fisherman who struggles to make a living off Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay. His dream to build his boat, Spartina, is ultimately realized, but not without great struggles against the sea and within his heart. In Compass Rose, we continue his story – but now the focus moves to Rose, Dick’s love child conceived with Elsie Buttrick. Elsie’s refusal to leave their small community, and whose 
presence is a constant reminder of his affair (which is still a secret to his two sons), causes anguish for Dick and his wife. When will the secret be revealed and how will their tangled relationships resolve themselves? The complicated lives of these very real characters are rendered with skill and sympathy. Please read (or reread) Spartina first – you will be eager to revisit these people in the second book.
December -Under Fishbone Clouds
Sam Meeking’s big first novel is a love story based on the experiences of his wife’s grandparents. Myth and history are seamlessly interwoven by narrative voice of the Kitchen God, who has accepted a challenge made by the Jade Emperor to discover the nature of true love. He decides to study the relationship of Jingi, a poor peasant and his wife Yuying, the daughter of a wealthy restaurateur. In the early years of Mao’s regime, they live a life of privilege in the home of her parents. But once the Cultural Revolution begins, Yuying’s education and status means that they are subject to years of separation and re-education via hard labor back in the countryside that Jingi has recently escaped! This sweeping historical novel portrays with realism the struggles of the masses of Chinese as they struggle to support their leader’s drastic changes to centuries old society. The reader feels empathy for and an appreciation for this ancient, rich and complex civilization as it enters the 21st century. This is a good tale, well told – of enduring love and its ability to overcome huge obstacles.
November – The Widower’s Tale
Julia Glass has done it again – written about people you feel like you know or would like to meet. Also the setting, a charming New England town of Matlock, not far from Boston, is a place you might have chosen to live yourself. But naturally, even a seemingly idyllic community has its problems. Percy Darling, a widowed librarian, is happily retired in his historic farmhouse – reading books, enjoying his predictable if somewhat insular life, and swimming in his pond. Then his younger daughter, Clover, suddenly leaves her husband and children, returns home, accepts a job as a preschool teacher and prevails upon him to allow her school “Elves & Fairies” to renovate and occupy his barn. Of course one expects that Percy will try and ultimately fail to prevent the inevitable difference these events make – but the reader still identifies and sympathizes with him. Some of the changes seem beneficial – Percy meets an attractive artist, who enrolls her son at the school. But some are not – Percy’s favorite grandson Robert falls under the sinister influence of his charismatic Harvard roommate, and so the drama begins. So much like real life! Glass presents contemporary social issues in her deft and provocative manner – leaving the reader thoughtful, entertained and satisfied.
October – The Invisible Bridge
Paris and Budapest in the late 1930’s provides the suspenseful setting for this historical novel. The protagonist, Andras, is a young Jewish student who travels to Paris on an architectural scholarship, only to lose it as the Nazis gain power. He falls in love with the mysterious Klara, a Hungarian ballet teacher and together they escape from Nazi occupied Paris, only to face the horrors of the Holocaust back home in Hungary. This sweeping romantic novel is a worthy follow-up to Julie Orringer’s successful short story collection How to Breathe Underwater. The author was inspired to write this book when she visited her grandfather (a Hungarian Jewish immigrant) and learned that he had studied architecture in Paris. The beauty of the love story is all the more powerful because the reader anticipates the tragedy that awaits them. The foreshadowing threat of war lends a powerful poignancy to this carefully crafted, leisurely paced story.
September – The Cookbook Collector
Mix together all the richest ingredients that you can imagine, a great Berkeley California setting, quirky but appealing characters, a somewhat predictable but ultimately satisfying plot, and what an entertaining novel Allegra Goodman has prepared to whet our reading appetite. Jess Bach is a romantic graduate student who takes a part-time job at Yorick’s, a local bookstore owned by George Friedman, a 39 year old bachelor Microsoft millionaire. Their relationship grows slowly, in part because George is eccentric and anti-social and also because Jess believes herself in love with a fanatical tree-hugger. Emily Bach is Jess’ disapproving older sister, leading the frantic life of a successful entrepreneur who is preparing for her computer software company to go public. The lives of these two very different sisters and the men that they love are presented ala Jane Austen’s Sense & Sensibility – in the heady 1990’s milieu of dot.com start-ups and instant millionaires. But the narrative also urges the reader to consider the choices the characters make – especially that of George, the modern day book collector, and what they reflect about our own values.
August – Private Life : A Novel
Ever since reading Snow Falling on Cedars, I have been intrigued by the period right before the attack on Pearl Harbor – when suspicion, paranoia and prejudice plagued America’s Japanese citizens. This is the story of Margaret Mayfield, a woman who marries the eccentric, egotistical, domineering astronomer and Navy Captain, Andrew Early, and travels from her home in rural Missouri to Vallejo, California. The narrative begins with a prologue in 1942, and then returns to 1883 when Margaret is a little girl, meets Andrew, marries in 1905 and leaves the Midwest for life as a new bride in California. Gradually but steadily her hopes for her life are slowly refashioned into a narrow, carefully predictable existence ruled by Andrew’s own increasingly selfish and ultimately dangerous obsessions. This is Jane Smiley’s best book since A Thousand Acres!
July –Nefertiti: The book of the dead & Tutankhamun: The book of shadows
Until I am able to cruise down the Nile myself, I am satisfying my wish to see Egypt’s ancient wonders through the eyes of Nick Drake’s clever detective, Rahotep. Both Nefertiti and Tutankhamun request his assistance in solving murders and threats to their dynasty. Life more than three thousand years ago was astonishingly sophisticated and at the same time deadly – this smoothly written, carefully detailed depiction of this civilization makes for terrific reading for those who enjoy either historical or mystery fiction, or both! Here’s hoping that the final installment of the trilogy will be as exciting and available soon.
June –The Lonely Polygamist
Fans of the television series “Big Love” will be intrigued by Golden Richards, the protagonist of this simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking tale. Golden’s life is complicated by four wives, twenty-eight children, and his struggle to support them either financially or emotionally. Forced to accept a construction job to build an addition to a brothel a long drive away in Nevada, Golden finds that he relishes the distance from his family and is tempted to have an affair with his client’s wife. The reader can easily predict that Golden will not be able to escape his myriad of problems forever – but this does not spoil the story. Brady Udall has created a world in remote southwestern Utah that somehow manages to reflect many of the problems faced in contemporary society, and his bizarre characters will remain alive in reader’s minds long after the book is finished.
May - Mudbound
Life is hard enough in the rural Mississippi Delta in 1946 without the bigotry and hatred that surrounds this cotton farming community. It threatens to destroy the lives of two families who are forced to form an unlikely and unwilling alliance when they are marooned during the frequent floods that leave their homes Mudbound. This winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction written by Hillary Jordan is narrated by several different characters. Laura is Henry's wife, who reluctantly moves from her comfortable hometown of Memphis to this remote farm and into a primitive shotgun shack. She is ill equipped to deal with the rigors of country life and finds living with her hateful, racist father-in-law nearly intolerable except for the love of her children and the support of her black neighbor, Florence. Henry has always dreamed of owning a farm, and he is determined to overcome all obstacles to succeed. When Florence's son Ronsel returns from fighting overseas and finds that he is still a second-class citizen in the Jim Crow South, all the necessary ingredients for tragedy are there. Jordan captures the nuances of the diverse characters by the skillful use of their voices in alternating chapters, and this look at life in the post-WWII South provides a welcome companion to The Help - our USM Book Club selection for May.
April - I See You Everywhere
This third novel by one of my favorite writers, Julia Glass, is a story of two sisters, told in their alternating voices over a period of twenty-five years. Louisa, an artist and art critic, is the older of the two, serious and pragmatic; she envies her charismatic younger sibling Clem's exciting life. Clem is a beautiful, athletic risk-taker, living a seemingly rootless existence, enchanting a series of men while she follows her career as a wildlife biologist to wilderness areas from Newfoundland to Wyoming. This tale of sisterly love and competition is beautifully rendered through the eyes of each woman - and the reader learns how difficult it is to really know another person, even for someone who is the closest relative. Glass is a master at presenting complicated relationships - and this book is almost as satisfying as Three Junes.
Spending the winter in New Orleans has made me curious about the lingering and quite visible effects of Hurricane Katrina and I discover that the people I meet who have lived through it are not always eager to talk about their experiences. The low-lying areas that were literally destroyed are off limits to the curious visitor. Tour buses are considered violations of privacy by those who are trying to rebuild. But in the local newspaper, stories continue to examine police cover-ups, misuse of government funds, and a long list of criminal behavior that is still being investigated after five years! James Lee Burke's series of mystery novels featuring Dave Robicheaux are mostly set in New Iberia (a town to the southwest of NOLA), but the detective’s adventures feature many actual events and places as a backdrop to this violent and gripping story. Tin Roof Blowdown (c2007) is set in New Orleans during and immediately after Katrina and really captures the haunting power of this city and its people, during a catastrophic storm that brought out the best and worst in human nature. The HBO series "Treme" was being filmed while we were living in New Orleans, and it gives the viewer a good taste of the town post Katrina.
Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle told the heartbreaking but unforgettable story of her childhood. This new novel is a beautiful tribute to her maternal grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, told in the first-person. Her adventures in the wild west of the early 20th century; as a cowgirl, schoolteacher, rancher, wife and mother are told in a matter of fact, breezy and entirely authentic voice. Born in 1901, she lived with her family in a one-room dugout in West Texas with "scorpions, lizards, snakes, gophers, centipedes and moles" until a flash flood washed it away. After a tornado destroyed their next house, her family moved to a ranch in New Mexico. When she was hired at age 15, to teach in a one room schoolhouse in Arizona, she rode there alone on her horse. The trip took 28 days! And this is just the beginning of her experiences. Walls's grandmother is a heroine with enormous appeal - and this novel based on her life offers an inspirational reading experience.
Our tiny Cotton Mill Warehouse loft apartment in New Orleans is charming and offers a great location. In the bedroom bookcase, I found this book by Julia Reed, a journalist who bought a historic home in the Garden District of New Orleans and embarked on a massive restoration project which was nearing completion when Hurricane Katrina struck. Her narrative is lively and provided a perfect introduction to my three month winter home. Reed grew up in Greenville, in the Mississippi Delta, about 400 miles north. Throughout her life she returned to NOLA for vacations and eventually rented a small apartment in the French Quarter. When she married a local attorney, the couple decided to buy a home. Their house at Chestnut and First Street is in the lower Garden district, a desirable residential area and home to many well known local artists and personalities. Anne Rice (of the Vampire Chronicles) lived right across the street: her former home is currently for sale for more than 3 million dollars. Archie Manning (football great and father of Eli and Peyton) also lives nearby. Although I haven't visited her street yet - it's certainly on my list! Reed admits to making many mistakes as a novice homeowner - from her poor choice of a contractor to her unrealistic plan to move into her house in less than a year. Only the demolition went as planned - everything else was a nightmare (and that's before Katrina). If you are planning a trip to the Big Easy, this book will get you in the proper frame of mind. If not, it will convince you to exercise extreme caution when contemplating a major remodeling project!