Where the Heart Is, by Billie Letts (1995)
Thanks to reader Alissa for recommending this book. I sure do like it when you guys send me recommendations, but it's difficult to trash a book when I picture your hopeful eyes scanning for the review of the book you liked.
A library mix-up resulted in me reading the large-print edition of this book, but that's not the only reason the text seemed childish. The book is written in the style of a C-average high-school graduate who fancies herself a writer but never reads other books and wouldn't recognize a cliche if it jumped out of the computer screen waving a banner. This is especially apparent at chapter endings: each one is like the end of a scene in a soap opera. And the dialogue!: "I think I am, Benny," she said. "I think I am." It's like being back in a high school English class.
Then we have a few glaring errors on the subject of pregnancy and childbirth, such as when the pregnant girl imagines her baby attached to the other side of her bellybutton, and when that same girl fills bottles with breastmilk the day after giving birth. Finally, the whole book is like one big advertisement for Walmart; Sam Walton is even a minor character.
Nevertheless, I read the entire book cover to cover, and sometimes while I was doing something else I'd be thinking of the book and wanting to get back to it. Why this would be the case, I have no idea. I'm just telling you than in spite of all the times I rolled my eyes, I'm also pleased that Alissa recommended the book because I liked reading it. There, I said it.
Flower in the Garden, by Lucy Cousins (1992)
If I may slip into the passive voice for a moment, it has been suggested to me that I review children's books as well as adult books. This is the first one I'm reviewing. Flower in the Garden is one of four cloth books illustrated by Lucy Cousins; the other three are Kite in the Park, Hen on the Farm, and Teddy in the House (all copyright 1992). The only words in these books are on the front and back covers. Each book has four sturdy cloth pages; this works out to six pictures per book, plus a picture on the cover. Flower in the Garden includes a flower (front cover) plus a bumblebee, a watering can, a crow, a leaf, a sun, and a butterfly. All pictures are high-contrast, simple, charmingly childish. This is the sort of book a parent would read to a young child, adjusting the words to the child's level of interest or comprehension: you could stop at naming the object, or you could go on and on: "This is a bumblebee. He has black and yellow stripes. A bumblebee says 'bzzz'," etc., or you could have the child answer questions about the object. I recommend purchasing the books rather than trying to find them at a library: a little field research revealed that these books go instantly into the mouth. On a related note, the books are machine-washable.
I Know This Much is True, by Wally Lamb (1998)
If you've been wondering why this month is so skimpy on reviews, this book is the reason. Checking a 900-page book out of the library is a commitment akin to marriage. I'm just over 400 pages into it and I realized this morning that already the first pages are a blur in my memory. If I wait to review it until I'm done with it, you'll be getting a review of the last couple hundred pages---so instead, I'll review it in segments.
Segment #1: pages 1-400. Wally Lamb is a vivid and emotional writer. If there's a decision to be made between the colloquial and the correct, he'll go for the colloquial every time. I can picture him at his word processor, running his hand over his hair and deciding in the heat of creative emotion to spring for that umpteenth f-word. It's clear to me that this is a man who understands strong feelings; it's possible that this understanding has led to the creation of a collection of characters who are perhaps just this side of melodramatic.
In this first segment, we are introduced to the plot: this book is a story told by a man whose twin brother is paranoid schizophrenic. Dominick, the man telling the story, is having problems other than his brother cutting off his own hand in the library: his wife left him after their baby died of SIDS, his mother died, his abusive stepfather is still in his life, his new girlfriend is getting on his nerves, and the woman he hired to translate his grandfather's life story disappeared with the original handwritten version after he laughed at her come-on. Can you see how this story can have so many layers and details you might need a notebook nearby?
Dominick's current crises bring up crises from his past: memories of his childhood, his twin's gradual mental deterioration, his mother's mysterious refusal to tell the twins who their father is, times when he was cruel to other people, his early relationship with the wife who left him, and so on. The sensitive soul will find these recollections bothering them days or weeks later: the image of the dead baby in the crib, the guilty feeling of getting someone else in trouble for something she didn't do and then finding out the next day she'd been killed, etc. The narrator has Wallowing tendencies, and he has created many a problem for himself to wallow in.
Segment #2: pages 401-700. "Gritty" doesn't begin to cover it. The first segment had a dead baby and a date-rape, but this one has death by powdered glass, "prison rape" if you get my meaning, animal abuse, and wife-beatings. Why am I still reading? It's anyone's guess, but I suspect it's because segment #1 introduced the mysteries and segment #2 begins to unravel them.
In segment #2, Dominick gets his grandfather's life story back in his hands and begins to read it; that's where most of the Bad Stuff occurs. He also finds out a few of the bad things his girlfriend's been doing. I was sick to my stomach and unable to put the book down. Melodrama and deep self-pity continue, but one character calls another character on it in a satisfying way, saying essentially what I would like to say (i.e., "Get over yourself.").
Segment #3: pages 701-901. One of the reasons I was willing to read another book from the iffy collection known as "Oprah's Book Club" is that I'd heard this book was filled with surprises. I heard someone say---and I won't say who it was but she's a very famous talk show host---that she just couldn't believe all the shocking twists and turns this book took. I can only assume she was referring to the plot twists that were clear as day from a distance of hundreds of pages, in part because of the nose-on-your-face foreshadowing and stage-whispered hints. I'd assumed that certain things were mysteries because the main characters had already considered and dismissed the obvious solutions, but no. The ending was so formulaic I gagged on it: man finds native religion and peacefully meditates on the roundness of the universe as all the kinks of his life fall into a happily-ever-after line. Fine, read the book anyway, I know you're going to.