Come to Me, by Amy Bloom (1993)
How can I tell you about this collection of short stories without immediately convincing you they're not your thing? In one story, a 19-year-old boy has a one night stand with his stepmother the night after his father's funeral. In another story, a little boy is killed in a "just looking at dad's guns" accident. In another, a grown woman understands that her parents were for a short time involved in a loving threesome relationship with another man. The subject matter is undeniably disturbing; how is it, then, that the stories stay so sweet and clear? Even as your heart sinks, you can't help but see the skillfulness of the writing.
Compatibility Test: Read the first three stories.
The Gifts of the Body, by Rebecca Brown (1994)
It's from the fiction section, but I suspect it's true. The narrator tells a series of stories about her work with AIDS patients. The style is so calm that the deeply touching moments can sneak up on you suddenly. Don't feel strange if you keep bursting into tears without knowing you're about to. A good book.
Compatibility Test: If you'd like to feel more compassionate towards people with AIDS and the people who help them.
Love Invents Us, by Amy Bloom (1998)
I loved her first book (see review, above), so when I saw she had a novel based on one of those short stories ("Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines"), I couldn't wait to read it. I found out that the dreamy-yet-deliberate style she does so well works better in short bursts than it does for the long haul. Still, I gamely read the whole book, and it was a "Finish the story yourself" ending. I hate those.
Compatibility Test: Like to be left hanging?
Getting Pregnant, by Niels H. Lauersen and Colette Bouchez (1991)
It's difficult to believe that this book was published in 1991: it talks to us from the stone age. The most amusing example of this is the height/weight chart for women which includes a note that the heights include 1" heels. Much of the rest of the book consists of scare tactics: walking past a copier will cause birth defects, air travel will make you sterile, five extra pounds will make you sterile, walking outside will cause birth defects and/or make you sterile, a sore throat means you have a fatal disease and if you're dead you'll be sterile, etc., punctuated by too many exclamation points and too many italics. Information that is not actually wrong is misleading or contradicts something written in a previous chapter.
Compatibility Test: Need lining for a parakeet's cage?
Bunny Bunny: Gilda Radner: A Sort of Love Story, by Alan Zweibel (1994)
It's a little odd to read something so personal. After his friend Gilda Radner died, Alan Zweibel started writing down conversations he remembered having with her. Collected in a book, they give a good idea of the sort of relationship the two of them had. I think it would be even better if it was read as a supplement to a book that was more biography than catharsis.
Compatibility Test: Read "July 1975; An Office In New York City," and see if you can handle the tennis-game-watching style.
Good Bones, by Margaret Atwood (1992)
Was she on drugs? My eyes ache from rolling. This shows that once you've had a number of books published you can put any old rambling tripe in a binding and sell it.
Compatibility Test: Look at the cover, which shows a bird with a woman's face, bunches of green grapes for hair, a wing made out of magazine cut-outs of mouths, and a tail made out of magazine cut-outs of eyes. There are sunglasses on its chest and it's perched on a horrible ill-proportioned naked leg. If it appeals, perhaps the book will also be to your tastes.
Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever: A Dictionary of Medical Folklore, by Carol Ann Rinzler (1991)
As soon as I started finding mistakes among her explanations of "common myths" (which were mostly items I'd never heard of or wouldn't call myths), I started losing interest. Still, I admit that every time I decided to stop reading it I'd catch sight of something coming up and think, "Oh, hey, cranberry juice, I'll read about that first, then I'll put the book down." It's just that every time I did that, I was disappointed.
Compatibility Test: You would have to be seriously interested in any old scraps you could dig up about what any old person thought about any old vaguely-medically-related trivia.
Rest in Pieces, by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown (1992)
Right off I'd like to say that I'm suspicious of a woman who gives her cat credit as co-author. How many do you smoke before you come up with that brilliant idea? A third as many as the number of cat-themed sweatshirts you own, is my guess.
There are rave reviews all over this book's jacket, but I found it barely worth reading, even on a very long flight with multiple layovers. The cutesy dialogue among the animals in the book was so forced and dull I could hardly stand it. And the names: Boom Boom (woman), Harry (woman), Blair (man), Mrs. Murphy (cat), Tee Tucker (dog)---they were more complicated than the mystery.
The plot, the characters, the solution---all were only borderline compared with the thrills of the in-flight magazine.
Compatibility Test: Delayed in O'Hare Airport and tired of reading the arrival/departure monitors?
Peony: The Story of a Chinese Bondmaid, by Pearl S. Buck (1948)
If you're familiar with Pearl S. Buck, you already know not to expect a happy ending. Peony is a Chinese child sold into bondage to a Jewish family living in China. She is bonded to the son of this family, a boy named David, and is to serve him and be a companion for him. As they get older, their feelings for each other change, though only Peony realizes it. A crisis develops in the household when it is time for David to be married: he was betrothed as a child to a Jewish girl, daughter of his mother's dead friend. His feelings are conflicted about this marriage, as are his father's, but his mother feels that the survival of the Jewish religion in China depends on this union. Peony, meanwhile, is desperately in love with David, but realizes she can never marry him. She instead takes action to ensure that he will marry a childlike Chinese girl named Kueilan instead of the Jewish girl Leah. In time, David learns that all along he has loved Peony, but of course by then it is far too late for either of them. The moral of this story, as in many stories by Pearl S. Buck, is that in the long run, individual relationships between human beings matter very little; and that life, overall, is sad but not completely without its good points.
Compatibility Test: You need to have at least a mild interest in Chinese/Jewish culture, plus a willingness to abandon the idea of a fairy tale ending.
What Keeps Me Here, by Rebecca Brown (1996)
There is a "See Spot run" quality to this author's writing style: spare and plain. In another book of hers, The Gifts of the Body (see review, above)--a story about sickness and sick people--this simple matter-of-factness was surprisingly touching, an author writing down just exactly what she saw and just exactly how things happened. The lack of embellishment made her words seem more true.
In this book--a collection of surreal, obsessive stories--the writing style is frustrating and weird. The sickening hopelessness is overpowering, more so than in a book about AIDS where it is expected. An entire story is devoted to an artist going mad and destroying all of her work. Another story contains long descriptions of the many different ways to eat a dinner roll. This book made me feel like going outside to get some fresh air.
Compatibility Test: Oh, don't bother. Save yourself the time and go for a walk.
The Changeling Garden, by Winifred Elze (1995)
The concept we're expected to swallow is that most plants are "sleeping," but that Annie's garden can communicate with her directly and can follow commands such as "make this catnip more potent" or "trap that murderer with vines."
That's not all. We're also expected to believe that Annie was born to the "wrong" parents, that she is actually the miscarried daughter of the woman who owned this garden to begin with, and that, furthermore, the reason Annie can communicate with the garden (and the reason that this garden is "awake" unlike its peers) is that her own miscarried soul went into it. This dubious information is backed up by the simple truth of "You're a Gemini, dear."
Then there's some thing about a Mayan witch doctor her father met in the forest who made sure that she would be born rather than miscarried a second time, and the same guy turns up years later to counsel her about using her garden to prevent her own murder by another Mayan, this one evil. Let's keep in mind that all the Mayans vanished sometime in the 10th century.
If that isn't enough, the text is printed in dark green ink. And did I read every last dark green word? You betcha. Aside from obvious writing flaws here and there, and the bizarreness of the plot, the storyline is so intriguing that I couldn't wait to believe in Mayans and talking apple trees.
Compatibility Test: Read beyond the part where, despite frequent convincing proof that she can communicate with her garden plants, she continues to tell her son that he can't.
Hotel du Lac, by Anita Brookner (1985)
Such a languid writing style Anita Brookner has. It always seems that her characters are floating aimlessly through whatever happens to them. In this story, Edith has been sent away for a rest after committing a social atrocity. Her well-meaning acquaintances bundle her up and send her away sternly to have a think about what she's done, just as if she were five instead of thirty-nine. At the hotel she gets involved in the lives of several of the other guests, including that of a man who wants to marry her as a strictly businesslike arrangement. The question becomes, What will Edith do with her life? Will she ever, ever have a happy romance, or is she doomed to brooding unhappiness? The ending isn't happy, per se, but it does have a certain quietly victorious feeling to it.
Compatibility Test: Read until you've met the Puseys, since you'll be seeing a lot of them. By then you should know if you like Edith enough to care about what happens to her.
The Dovecote, by Sue Sully (1995)
Some stories have in them a character who is so toxic I can hardly read the book. I prefer not to be worked up into an adrenaline frenzy over someone who doesn't exist and isn't attacking me, but perhaps you subscribe to the commonly held notion that literature isn't meaningful unless it makes you uncomfortable and angry.
A young woman named Esther, widowed by the war, joins a sort of artists' commune because of the charismatic and persuasive personality of the leader, a woman named Julia. Julia, it gradually becomes apparent, is an obsessive, manipulative, control freak. I can understand that it would take a sudden epiphany for each artist to realize this. What I couldn't understand was why each artist had to have this epiphany every three or four pages throughout the entire book. By the end I was ready to go and put a knife through that nasty witch's heart myself, and the other characters were still saying, "Oh, Julia means well, I suppose," like the little enabling patsies they were.
No One But Us, by Gregory Spatz (1995)
I think I've had just about enough of the coming-of-age story that involves a sexual relationship between the young narrator and a much older person. These sorts of books are always written from a perspective years down the road, and it's as if the narrator feels that this experience was so special and deep and broadening that he or she (but almost always he) needs to share it with the whole world. I always end up feeling that the experience may have been life-changing at the time, but get over it already. It was SEX, that's all.
Compatibility Test: I realize that not everyone has read as many of this kind of story as I have. Perhaps you can still be moved by a young boy's deeply meaningful (*cough*) experience.
Note (10-24-2001): If I get one more email from someone who doesn't know the difference between "narrator" and "author," I'm going to run screaming into the sea. And then I will run screaming back out again and write a really mean reply.
Here, Kitty, Kitty, by Winifred Elze (1996)
By the end of this book I was considering going back through and counting how many times the main character called pointlessly to her absent cat Billie, because I wanted confirmation that I wasn't going crazy for thinking it was several times every few pages. I got so sick of the cat's name, pretty soon I didn't care if it was in danger.
Billie disappears so often because there are doors that open to an earlier time, and only cats can see these doors. The doors were created by the main character's father years ago, and they appear or disappear at random. Sometimes creatures from long ago (sabertooth tigers, giant beavers) come through the doors and rip people's throats out. Billie the cat goes through these doors often because of the really bitchin' rats available in prehistoric times. Pretty soon the humans figure out what's going on, but it takes a heck of a long time.
There's a strong message of "let's not repeat the mistakes of our ancestors" that I think is supposed to be subtle, but it's like a brick to the temple. I was also unimpressed with the cat's-eye view of things, which was painfully old: "my person," and not understanding why the owner didn't consider a bloody rat on the pillow a nice gift. Seriously, who still finds that kind of writing fresh and funny?
Home Song, by LaVyrle Spencer (1994)
My first clue that I wasn't going to like this book was the inches-high raised metallic script of the author's name. Also, the soap-operaish design of the cover---a hinged frame with a happy family of four in one side, a single child in the other---made me suspicious. Sure enough: by page 67 I'd had enough. This is poor writing that well deserves the metallic lettering.
The plot is that a man with a wife and two high-school-aged children finds out that he has a son from a one-night stand he had the night before his wedding. Now this son is going to the same school as his children, the same school where he is the principal and his wife is a teacher. I stopped reading when it turned out that yes, a major plot tension was going to be a developing romantic relationship between the illegitimate son and the legitimate daughter.
I kept gagging at the daughter's constant reflections on what a great family she had and how she wanted a marriage just like her mom and dad's. When you were 16, did you think your parents' marriage was the romantic ideal?
Additional gagging for the love scenes: "...he kissed her as if licking a honey jar clean...". Oh, yuck.
Compatibility Test: You don't think soap operas are all that bad.
Loving Edith, by Mary Tannen (1995)
Edith was born "Desert Ray" but was adopted as an infant by a more sensible woman who would certainly have known how to spell Desiree if there were any chance she'd give the name to a baby. When Edith is 21, her grandfather gives her the name and city of her birth mother---a city Edith just happens to be boarding a bus for when he gives her the information. Edith encounters her mother almost immediately, just by accident, but she doesn't recognize her---or like her. Furthermore, Edith happens to land a job at the very magazine where her mother worked many years ago, and it turns out the staff was very involved in her mother's pregnancy, each person for his or her own motivations, sometimes secret and sometimes not. All sorts of mysterious relationships come out into the open, and Edith's arrival causes many an emotional upheaval.
Compatibility Test: Give it the basic 50-page test.
Like We Used To Be, by Jean Stubbs (1990)
Zoe and Leila are sisters who take turns telling this story. Zoe is earth-mothery, focused on marriage and family and cleaning; Leila is an artist who lives with odd housemates in big cities. Both are entrancing storytellers, despite the metallic letters on the cover. There are just the right number of bad guys in this book, and none of them stick around long enough to dominate the story. Things turn out all right in the end, and the main flaw is that you wish the book were twice as long.
Compatibility Test: One chapter and you'll be hooked.
Mrs. Demming and the Mythical Beast, by Faith Sullivan (1985)
Would you believe that the satyr god Pan lives in the woods of Minnesota? Well, not anymore he doesn't, because Larissa Demming took him back to Greece. The story swings between surreal stuff like this and totally normal human-relationships-in-a-small-town. On one page Larissa is doing the grocery shopping and trying to convince a woman that she's not having an affair with the woman's husband, and a page later she's picking up a hitch-hiker who then moves in with her as a ghost dog frolics in the back yard and Pan waits for her by the river. It would be difficult to classify this book, since routine slice-of-life fiction novels don't include supernatural creatures unless later they turn out to be dreams or delusions. Pan, however, is real, so get used to it. The plot is that Larissa is 47 and has everything happen to her at once. Her marriage falls apart as she realizes she has strong feelings for a man she's been merely flirty with for years---oh, and as she starts sleeping with the God of Sex, which could put a damper on anyone's 25-year bed partner. Meanwhile, one of Larissa's children is about to make a marriage Larissa feels is a terrible idea, and her other child has already made such a marriage and is expecting a child. As if things weren't stressful enough for our dear Larissa, suddenly her career as an artist takes off in four different directions, and she's frantic trying to keep up. Then there's the little matter of some evil corporate businessmen coming to take over the town, pitting Larissa against the wife of the man she's recently fallen in love with. Every word is absolutely believable while you're reading it. When a character died, I was as stricken as if I'd known her personally. When two characters were fighting, I took sides and felt involved.
Compatibility Test: Are you willing to allow a few crossovers from a science fiction or fantasy novel into your plain fiction novel?