Jun

21

Good Luck

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You never know when you’ll hit a string of good or bad books when you take the approach I do.  I’m pretty broad these days in what I’m reading, requesting from the library anything that looks interesting.  I’m not sticking to familiar authors or series or anything, just bouncing all over.  (I will probably have a post later this summer on how depressing it is when an author you love writes a new book.  It should be exciting, but then you realize how long it will be until they write another one.  Pat Conroy and Margaret Atwood have new ones in the fall.  And it really makes me wonder when (if?) we’ll get another from one of my personal favorites, Donna Tartt, who takes a good 10 years per book.)

I’ve continued with Colson Whitehead, who I wrote about in my last post.  I’m in the middle of John Henry Days, which is somewhat slow going, but still really good.  (I think I’m just too distracted by my other books.)  At one point in a chapter, I was on pins and needles wondering what would be served for dinner.  That is a master at work.  Still, I think I’m admiring this book more than getting lost in it, the shifting viewpoints are getting kind of erratic.  I do miss the intimacy of Sag Harbor, which is probably one of my favorites of my reading so far this year.  (That list should come soon, too.)

As for my general reading, I am continuing my hot streak that started with Whitehead.  I read The Bridge of Sighs by Olen Steinhauer, who writes literary mysteries set in Eastern Europe, this one during communism.  While my general lack of knowledge about the time was a bit inhibiting, I did enjoy it and I think I’ll be reading more of his books.  And Tom Rob Smith (who has kind of ripped off his concept somewhat) could learn many lessons on subtlety from Steinhauer.  (Of course, I just reserved Smith’s new book, but I have a feeling it may pale in comparison.)

Then there was The Dragon Man by Garry Disher, another literary mystery, this one by an Australian writer.  I hadn’t heard of him before but he’s now high on my list of mystery writers.  The book was a traditional mystery with a crime happening early on and policemen trying to track down the killer.  But for once I actually felt like these were real detectives in a real city.  For one, they actually have other duties and work on other cases and deal with problems throughout the city.  (I hate how most mysteries treat it like all these detectives do is sit around for weeks working on one case.  They wish.)  There were a lot of characters, they were easy to keep track of, and I was actually having more fun reading about them than worrying about who the killer was.  (The book’s one flaw.  I knew it right off.)  I will definitely be recommending him in the future.  And I’ve already reserved another one of his books.

Then there was Human Capital by Stephen Amidon, someone else I’ve never heard of.  I think I got this one after reading about his newest release, which wasn’t available at the library so this was my second choice.  Bringing it home I was intrigued that it was blurbed by Tom Perrotta and Stewart O’Nan, two writers I like and that I don’t see blurbing every single thing that comes out.  It also meant that this was probably a book about sin in the suburbs, which is often overdone, but which can be really well done when in the right hands.  (See the aforementioned Mr. Perrotta.)   I really enjoyed reading the book, in many ways it’s one of my favorite kinds of reads.  I like books with a few set perspectives so you get to see someone from their own point of view and then see how their neighbor or spouse or friend sees them.  My major complaint about the book is that the big conflict, though it came halfway through the book, was too tidy in that it just happened to involve all these characters with competing interests and absolutely no one else, the resolution felt similarly neat.  Everything aligned just so and I would’ve liked a little bit more messiness.   But I plowed through it quickly and really enjoyed reading it, which tells me that at least he’s got the chops as a writer to pull me in and keep me going.  While it was set in 2001 and the little financial crisis that came then, it did feel quite resonant now that we’ve got the same thing, only bigger.  Especially since one of our lead characters has put himself into the kind of nightmare debt scenario that we hear so much about these days.  I’ve already reserved another one of Amidon’s books, too.

Finally, last night I finished Flight by Sherman Alexie.  I’ve been bad about putting off Alexie for a long time.  I always hear how great he is and I just never get around to putting him on my list.  I enjoyed Flight, which is one of those crazily messed up YA books we’re lucky enough to get nowadays, full of violence and insane moral dilemmas and big themes and surrealism.  While I did like it a lot, I think it’s one of those situations where I think I may enjoy more of Alexie’s “adult” writing.  That may keep me from reading one of his best-known books, the YA National Book Award winner, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  And I’m torn between going with an adult novel or one of his many short story collections.  He seems to be more of a story writer, but sometimes I get impatient with story collections…

All this reading has gone by pretty fast, which leaves me with a few books on reserve that I need to go pick up, and at long last, a copy of The Northern Clemency.  I reserved that book like four months ago.  Now I’m a little scared that with all this furious reading, it’ll get lost in the shuffle.  That can certainly happen with a big, slow book like I’m pretty sure it is.  But I’ll give it a shot.

I’ve never gotten around to writing my post about my crazy gothic novel streak from a month or two ago.  Let me blurb them quickly:

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield: A nice quick read, a more literary bestseller but certainly nothing intimidating.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters: I admit I was sad to see one of my very favorite authors do something different.  It lacked the snappy twisty plots she’s so good at.  Still, for atmosphere and writing and everything else, this one is far and away the best gothic novel I read of the bunch.  The time period is unusual for the genre (post-war Britain) but fits fantastically well.

The Observations by Jane Harris: Another somewhat non-traditional gothic novel.  The protagonist and narrator is definitely the major draw here.  Her voice is great, even if it’s more fun being with her than it is gradually getting all the revelations one by one.  Probably my #2 on this little list.

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton: I finished it just to make sure there wasn’t something really great at the end to make it all worth it.  There is a lot here that’s similar to the other novels on this list.  The protagonist is not one of the upper classes, she is in awe of a particular family and their estate, and gradually everything goes horrifically wrong for basically everyone.  And yet it was a total and complete bore.  No real mystery, no intrigue, and no chance to get to know why she cared about all this stuff at all.  (Even weirder, the family seemed to be famous 50 years later for no apparent reason.)  I completely forgot to put this on my book list until today and it’s no real surprise.

Some months before I read these I read The Séance by John Harwood and wasn’t fully impressed.  Now that I’ve read many more gothic novels, in retrospect I should have given Harwood more props.  It wasn’t quite The Little Stranger, but it was certainly an excellent entry for the genre.