Never Change, by Elizabeth Berg (2001)
Myra never had a date for the prom in high school; now she's 51 and still unmarried. She's a visiting nurse, and the new patient on her list is Chip Reardon--the cutest guy from her high school, the one she always had a crush on back then. Chip has a brain tumor and is not expected to live much longer. After all these years, he and Myra fall in love. When I tell you that this is a touching, moving, emotional book, you're going to think to yourself, "No kidding--guy dies of brain tumor in newfound love's arms--how can it miss the tissue target?" The surprise is that there are moments even more touching in Myra's relationships with other patients on her list. Elizabeth Berg is an astonishingly good character writer: these people MUST be real, mustn't they? Surely there's really a DeWitt, at least--the "drug dealer with a heart of gold" role has never been so well filled. And of course there must be a Diann, Chip's old high school girlfriend who comes to live at Myra's house and administer to Chip with her...um, bedside manner. And Grace, fifteen years old, calling Myra with anxious, swear-laced questions about her new baby. Never Change is a wonderful, wonderful book, and perhaps it would be wise to make sure you have some privacy while you're reading it.
The Umbrella Man and Other Stories, by Roald Dahl (1996)
Those of you who were Roald Dahl fans as children may have mixed feelings about his writings for grown-ups. Most of these stories have an O. Henry sort of feel: the plan that backfires with a twist, that sort of thing. Though spectacular in tension and resolution, the stories left me feeling queasy and unhappy. I think it's because Bad always wins: either Bad wins over Bad, or Bad wins over Good, but Bad is always on top in the end. If a good guy ends up benefiting, it's for bad reasons, or because something bad happened. (Are you familiar with O. Henry's "The Caballero's Way"? If so, you know the kind of thing I mean.) And in several cases, we end the story with Good left at the mercy of Bad, with no hope in sight for Good. Nevertheless, all but one story is a masterful tale of suspense, true childlike fiction for grown-ups. (The one exception, "Katina," is a sad war story with no twist and no satisfying resolution.) It's difficult to say whether I recommend the book or not; in the middle of each story I would have said YES, but now, looking at the closed book, I'm less emphatic about it. Think of being asked your opinion about a batch of fudge after you've eaten the whole thing in one sitting: you're sure you enjoyed it at the time, but looking back on it you can hardly believe it.
Back When We Were Grownups, by Anne Tyler (2001)
Where is the resolution? There's Rebecca, in the service of her family for 30 years or so, coming to the realization in her 50s that this is not the life she would have chosen. There are her awful stepdaughters, total ingrates, mocking everything she does even though she reared them lovingly after their father died. There's her own daughter, no better and maybe worse. Rebecca tries to keep everyone happy to no avail: her advice goes unfollowed, her parties are excuses for eye-rolling and derision, any favors she does for anyone are taken in matter of course, or, worse, are fresh material for offense. Here's what I expected to happen when Rebecca had a little breakdown: her family would realize how much they need her and how accustomed they'd become to the way she knit the family together. They would feel ashamed of their behavior and would vow to change for the better. They would throw a party for Rebecca, perhaps, for the first time in all these years. They would thank her for all her thankless work. A certain man would confess his undying love, and he and Rebecca would finally be happy together; Rebecca, in her new marriage, would distance herself from those clinging, presumptuous, mooching grown children. But no. Rebecca pulls out of it and things go on as before. It's a good book, but it needs an ending.
The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty (1969)
Didn't I hear that Eudora Welty was a funny writer? In fact, I chose this particular book because I read somewhere that someone thought it was her all-time funniest. Was that "funny ha-ha" or "funny strange"? It doesn't matter, because this book is neither; it's sad and enraging. Laurel travels home to be with her father while he has eye surgery, and he dies inexplicably during his recovery. Then the poor woman has to deal with her stepmother of less than 2 years, a trashy childish chippie named Fay whose neck I could feel between my hands after about ten words from her revolting little mouth. Oh, and Laurel is a widow; her husband was lost in the war. And she's an orphan now, too, since her mother died some years ago. Where is the hahahahaha I was looking forward to? I must have misheard, obviously, but the book is a downer AND Fay survives to desecrate the rest of Laurel's beloved mother's possessions. The writing is, of course, superb; it would have to be, to make me want to kill a character with my bare hands.
A Recipe for Bees, by Gail Anderson-Dargatz (1998)
This book is about a rare thing: a marriage that improves with time, lasting through situations that should have ended it but didn't. I would have enjoyed a more dramatic ending--a death, perhaps--but that's just the mood I was in when I read it. The book follows Augusta in hop-skip fashion through childhood, marriage, motherhood, an affair, and several jobs. Augusta's gift of second sight adds spice; the real black-and-white photographs (from the author's parents' album) add additional interest and mood.
Today I Am a Ma'am, by Valerie Harper with Catherine Whitney (2001)
You know those people who still think it's funny to say things like, "Chocolate is one of the four food groups" and "Broken cookies don't have calories"? Meet Valerie Harper, Queen of Greeting Card Wit. Interestingly, it is in her 60s that Valerie Harper has come to realize that wrinkles are a badge of honor, and that our culture shouldn't value youth and thinness. And--get this--that leading lady roles should go to older women. Apparently it's inner beauty that counts, as well as genuine acting/life experience. No one is going to argue with her points; it's just that she doesn't realize all those points have been made already--millions and billions of times, by everyone who has ever lived. Furthermore, let's be careful not to confuse what should be with what is. Don't we all agree that people should be judged by their inner selves, that women should not kill themselves to be thin, that old people still have value, that 16-year-olds are both cuter and stupider than they realize? But Valerie Harper (and, to be fair, she's not alone) believes that such decisions as that youth/beauty/thinness are superior to age/wrinkles/flab are made by advertisers and corporations, and that all we need to do to turn things around is start yelling that that's not fair, and maybe passing around a petition. Advertisers don't dictate, they cater. Okay, so advertisers encourage and lie. But is it clear to everyone that older men appreciated the look of younger women LONG before commercials and ads came along? And that although the ideal feminine figure has varied over time, it has never varied to include huge drooping flaps of any kind?
I've gotten sidetracked. The point is that this book will be witty and clever only to the very lowest layer of wit-appreciators: namely, those who wear t-shirts proclaiming that they are not overweight but merely undertall. However, the book is astronomically enhanced by the addition of drawings by Rick Tulka, who does great things with the little he's given to work with.
The Truth Is...: My Life in Love and Music, by Melissa Etheridge with Laura Morton (2001)
Perhaps the most revolting trend revival of late is the "telling my truth" trend. The idea, for those of you fortunate enough to have avoided encountering it, is that a person can--nay, should--say anything that is "true," and those those truths are good in and of themselves by merit of being true. Included are such things as your friends' secrets, confided to you in cross-your-heart-hope-to-die moments, because, hey, they're TRUE, and I HAVE TO TELL MY TRUTH. Repulsive. Recently I read an interview with the comedian Margaret Cho, in which she mentioned that she'd revealed in her recent book that a friend of hers was gay, defending this terrible breach of confidence (the friend had not even come out to his parents) by saying that it was "her truth." Are you familiar with that William F. Buckley Jr. quote that goes something like, "Your right to swing your fist stops just short of my nose"? Apparently we need to paraphrase that for people who are missing the point. Perhaps something like, "Your right to tell your secrets stops just short of the ones I told you." Furthermore, do any of us seriously believe that these people ARE telling the truth? Isn't "telling my truth" just another way of saying, "telling only my side of the story while implying that your side is a lie"?
All these quotation marks and rhetorical questions are leading up to my main criticism of Melissa Etheridge's autobiography, which is that she disregards other people's rights and feelings by claiming obeisance to the goddess Truth, a fickle two-faced backfiring bitch of a goddess if ever there was one. As it turns out, "it's the truth" is an excuse that sounds good on first hearing (how can you argue with someone who's "just being honest"?), but after awhile starts eliciting other, less positive reactions. Tattletales tell the truth, but they don't get away with it, nor should they. People who say, "That dress makes you look like a fat cow" are not revered for their truth-telling--or if they are, they shouldn't be. Little brothers who read big sisters' diaries and then go around blabbing the contents can't use the "But it's TRUE!" defense. Nor can Melissa Etheridge tell us what her couples' therapist told her partner was wrong with her (the partner), or what her partner said to the therapist about her inner feelings. And although I would be hard-pressed to say that in her own autobiography Melissa Etheridge can't tell about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her sister, it's difficult after awhile not to have some sympathy for sister Jennifer, who is a grown woman with two grown children, and who is now treated to a public airing of her family's dirty laundry, including the fact that her little sister financially supports her and promised their father on his deathbed that she'd "take care of Jennifer." One starts wondering if Jennifer might have some choice words to add to this suspicious tale of one bad sister and one good one.
It becomes clear early on that Melissa was an expressive, emotional, artistic child in a family of people who didn't much like to talk things out. In an age of "telling my truth," it would benefit us all to remember the negative effects of another disgusting trend, the one about saying everything that's on your mind. It is not a felony to want to keep some of your thoughts and feelings to yourself (though M.E. believes it causes cancer, which reminds us that she is an excellent musician but not much of a scientist). And by her own admission, Melissa Etheridge's artistic talents thrived in this environment of low self-expression, as she sought other outlets for her emotions in her music. So let's lay off the people who would rather not tell their truths to everyone they meet, and let's give our parents a break rather that saying, "My family NEVER talked about ANYTHING, EVER, not EVER" every page or two. Let's also not give our parents crap for not wholeheartedly believing in the inevitability of their 11-year-old daughter's dream of becoming a famous rock star; it sounds to me like they did everything they could to make this dream come true while still maintaining the necessary parental role of reminding the child that practically everyone dreams of being famous and practically no one gets to be.
It turns out, upon reading this unempathetic autobiography, that Melissa Etheridge is, deep down, a little girl searching for acceptance. Trying to fill a big empty hole inside her. Looking for love. Chasing only after romantic partners who run. It further turns out that her fans don't really know her, not really. Big surprise, all of it. She goes on to say that her story would be easier to tell if it weren't so rooted in truth, but that truth is always better. You know by now, I trust, what I think of that.
So now you think I hate this book and have already burned my library's copy, perhaps dancing and chanting mockingly as the pages curled and burned. Not so. In fact, if you can train your brain to edit out the "That's just not the way my family was; we never talked about things like that," and if you can remember that the world would not be the same without introspective artistic types to write moody rock songs of misunderstood childhoods and love-related angst, this is an interesting and enjoyable autobiography of a well-known singer/songwriter. I was glad to read it, happy to learn more about Melissa Etheridge's life and career, and riveted by the great photographs cleverly scattered throughout the text rather than clumped together in the center of the book. How do I reconcile four paragraphs of critical annoyance with an overall thumbs-up review? I don't try.
Aging With Grace: What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives, by David Snowdon, Ph.D. (2001)
Do you know what the Nun Study teaches us about leading longer, healthier, and more meaningful lives? NOTHING. This is a book about Alzheimer's disease and a study done on several hundred nuns involving mental/physical tests (living) and brain autopsies (dead). What scientists have learned is interesting, and the book was well worth reading, but that subtitle is like those foreign movies where after a few scenes you're sure the subtitles go with a movie other than the one you're currently watching. A man and woman kiss passionately, speaking breathily in between each embrace, and the subtitles read, "The birds, they are flying!" and "Walnuts and oranges are delicious together; I hear the best ones grow in the south of France" and "Darling, you remember that woman we met at the party last night, the one with that, you know, that thing in her hair, not a feather but some sort of fluffy thing? Well, she called today and apparently she wants us to have dinner with them next Thursday night. Can I say we're busy? You know I hate those dinner party things."
Dr. Snowdon studies nuns because it's difficult to find a more homogeneous group. (If you'd like to say something at this point about them all having such similar habits, I'll wait. Go ahead. I'm sure the joke's been made a million times, but don't let that stop you.) If two nuns live in the same place doing the same things for 75 years, and one of them ends up with Alzheimer's and the other doesn't, it's much easier to pinpoint why. Not that anyone does pinpoint why. It might be a positive attitude that makes a difference, or education. Strokes might factor in, or maybe it's a folic acid deficiency. The difficulty, as Dr. Snowdon does a good job pointing out, is determining cause and effect: does a nun with a positive attitude ward off Alzheimer's disease, or is she a positive person because she doesn't have the conditions that lead to Alzheimer's? If depression and Alzheimer's disease are connected, as they seem to be, does one cause the other or are both caused by a third thing? We still don't know, but this book gives hope that we soon will.
The Bay of Angels, by Anita Brookner (2001)
There was a time, and it wasn't many years ago, that I would have counted Anita Brookner among my favorite novelists. I was hypnotized by the Valium-like calm, the charming simplicity: they're the loaf-of-bread-jug-of-wine-and-thou type of books, drifting dreamily from beginning to end on one single emotional plane. The narrator delivers all the news in the same flat detached tone: she gets a new apartment, she misses the bus, her mother dies, she begins a new relationship, she washes the dishes, it's all the same. This can be beautifully calming--or utterly mystifying. When I was working my way through D.H. Lawrence books about 10 years ago, I remember sometimes I'd have to go back a few pages because I'd be thinking, "Hold on--she's pregnant. Does that mean they had SEX? I missed it." And sure enough, there it was; when I knew what to look for, it was right there, but while I was reading I skimmed right over the top of it. It can be the same with Anita Brookner books: gently rocked into drowsiness by the narrative, you can float obliviously past the big developments. There's no change in tone or delivery to cue you to pay attention. I kept losing my place, reading for several paragraphs before realizing I'd already read them. Once I lost my bookmark and it took me nearly five minutes to figure out where I was: everything looked equally familiar and unfamiliar. Dialogue, when it occurs, is a shock: can these people really communicate with each other? It had seemed like they were sealed in individual soundproofed units, deaf and mute. The conversations seem so trivial, or else so symbolic they're senseless on the non-symbolic level. I don't get a mental picture of what any of these people look like, or how they might speak to me if I ran into them. Anita Brookner books are a particular sort; you don't just pick one up when you don't care what you're reading. You should be in the mood for beautiful, soothing literature that makes you feel detached and sleepy and deep and introspective.
Mapping the Edge, by Sarah Dunant (1999)
Anna, mother of 6-year-old Lily, goes off to Italy on the spur of the moment, to spend three days figuring out who she is when she's not the mother of 6-year-old Lily. In other words, she goes off to find herself. The trouble is, she doesn't come back. Her close friends don't believe Anna would ever leave Lily--but if that's so, the only conclusion is that something dreadful has befallen Anna. After establishing for the fretful reader that Lily would be well taken care of even if that were the case--Lily has a sort of substitute non-resident father in Anna's gay friend Paul, and a substitute aunt in Anna's best friend Estella--the narrative splits into three alternating narratives. First is Estella's, in which we get updates from the homefront: how Lily is doing, what they've heard from the police, what they've found in Anna's desk drawers. Second is Anna's, in which we begin to learn of the events leading up to her disappearance. And third is Anna's, in which we begin to learn of the events leading up to her disappearance. Do you follow this? TWO of the three narratives purport to be the story of what happened to Anna, though of course they can't both be true. You can decide for yourself which one is worse: is it better for poor Anna to be the victim of something that keeps her from returning? or is it better for a mother to deliberately leave her child and panic her friends for what we shall delicately call a tangle of sheets? (The author, I note here, uses no such delicacy; the tangle scenes are many and detailed, with commentary on such things I would never ask to know about people's Special Places and the feelings/characteristics thereof.) Things get dramatically more complex than that; even after finishing the book, I had to take some time to work things out. And which one ends up being the "real" Anna? Well, I've always been the type of reader who needs things spelled out; I don't like to guess. I felt like I was pretty sure I knew which one was real--but then, where does that leave the other one? I'm not sure I get it. But I loved the book, really enjoyed it.
Undercurrents, by Frances Fyfield (2000)
When Henry goes in search of his girlfriend of 20 years ago, he finds her in jail for murdering her 5-year-old son. That doesn't sound like the friendly Francesca he remembers, so he sticks around to see if he can find out what really happened. A big warm thank you to Frances Fyfield for TELLING us, rather than leaving us to decide for ourselves as so many books of this sort do. The tension is good: you get to the point where you know all the secrets but can't see how the author can possibly get to a happy ending from there; then it turns out there's one more secret. The ending is bittersweet and satisfying. Great book.
These Granite Islands, by Sarah Stonich (2001)
My abiding gratitude goes out to any author who has a secret and reveals it. When Isobel begins on her deathbed to recount to her son the story of a summer long ago when her best friend vanished with a lover, my great fear was that I'd get to the end and be left to figure it out for myself. At one point Isobel has the answer in her grasp but chooses not to know it; I am forever a fan of Sarah Stonich for sneakily allowing the reader to know it without Isobel's assistance. This is not merely a mystery story, however, but also a story of hatmaking, courting and marriage, child-rearing, friendship, and plenty of death and mourning. Loved it, really loved it.
Open House, by Elizabeth Berg (2000)
I love a good love story, but good love stories are few and far between. Either they make the assumption that sexual attraction is tantamount to true love, or they seem to believe that if you hate someone it's only a matter of time before you're in bed together. Most romance novels are little paperbacks that could just as easily be blank for all the story they tell. The characters are shallow, the tale of love unconvincing--and the truly pitiful thing is that they don't even try to be otherwise. The book is just trying to get from A on the first page to B on the last page, and the only meat to the story is the romance and how it's supposedly developing.
Open House is a good love story. Samantha's husband has just left her, and she's trying to get herself together. Her thoughts and feelings are so true-on, I would sometimes find myself laughing and then feeling a little weepy. Samantha is a great character; we want her to be happy. And yet her discovery of new love is not the entire point of the book: another point is her relationship with her 11-year-old son, and another is her relationship with the various tenants she takes in to help pay the mortgage, and another is her relationship with her tough sarcastic friend Rita, and another is her relationship with her dizzy fun mother. It's a terrific book.
Of course, I was disappointed to discover it was an Oprah's Book Club book. Nothing wrong with Oprah, nothing wrong with a book club, it's just that....it's just that....Well, you know when you discover something new and you're just so thrilled to have found it you want to tell everyone? A great new Chinese take-out place, an excellent source for used books, a TV show that's really worth watching? Well, and then you tell a few people, and they shoot the stars right out of your eyes by saying, "Oh, yeah, everyone goes there / watches that / knows about that." Well, pooh. You thought you were special and that you'd ferreted out something special, but it turns out all you were doing was hopping on the bandwagon to join the crowd of other people all exactly like you. Apparently millions of women were already laughing and then feeling a little weepy, astonished by the bond they felt with a fictional character. So, that was a little disappointing. On the other hand, that means there'll be millions of cheap hardcovers on eBay.