Our New Little Reader

Apologies for the radio silence on this blog, but I have a pretty good reason for not writing lately.  We welcomed our newest little reader into the family:

He’s a great baby, but unfortunately between him and his brother, I have very little time for reading.  So posts are likely to be sporadic for a while, but I hope to get back into the swing of things in a few months.  In the meantime, I will be building up my TBR queue over on Goodreads and mainly skimming completely trashy books because that’s all my sleep deprived brain can handle!  Happy reading to all.

The TMN Tournament of Books Has Begun!

As I have mentioned previously, I am geekily excited for The 2011 Tournament of Books by The Morning News.  This week, the tourney starts.  I have proudly read eight (plus part of a ninth) of the sixteen books in the tournment.  These include the six I listed here plus Bad Marie (which I reviewed here) and Bloodroot.  I am currently in the middle of reading Skippy Dies.

Looking over the brackets, I really cannot predict which book might win the overall competition.  There is still too much I haven’t read in order to make an educated guess.  However, there are two Opening Round lineups in which I’ve read both the books competing against one another: March 9, which is Room versus Bad Marie, and March 17, which is The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake versus Bloodroot.  I’ll also throw in March 11, which is A Visit From the Good Squad versus Skippy Dies (25% completed as of this writing).  I will hazard predictions on these pairs.

3/9:  Room versus Bad Marie

This is a tough one.  Both of these books feature young children: Jack, the young boy who narrates Room, and Caitlin, the young girl Marie cares for in Bad Marie.  Both novels are also about women making the best of bad situations: the mother in Room, who creates a rich life for her small child in the confines of one small room in which they are imprisoned; and Marie, who has spent time in prison and now, without many options, has found herself in a dead end job as a nanny for her wealthy and successful childhood friend.  The similarities end there.  The mother in Room is a highly sympathetic character, having demonstated ingenuity and courage in the face of a terrible situation.  Marie is not at all sympathetic, having made numerous poor choices in her life, but she never fails to be interesting.  The choice between these two books is difficult for me because Bad Marie happens to come across as a bit more sophisticated, with its European adventures and sexual exploits; but the voice in Room comes across as much more unique, given that the narrator is just a five year old boy, and yet we are totally captivated with his story.  Though it is close, I choose Room as the winner due to the distinctive narration, and for Donoghue’s skill in capturing Jack’s voice.

3/11:  A Visit From the Goon Squad versus Skippy Dies

I have professed my love for A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, and I would love for it to win the tournament.  However, it has some stiff competition from Skippy Dies.  Though I haven’t finished the book, I am thoroughly enjoying it thus far.  It is smart and sharp, shifts voices in between chapters with authenticity and ease, and has left me wanting to read more to find out what’s troubling Skippy.  It does, however, have its faults.  I’m finding it a bit macho (which makes sense, since it takes place at a testosterone-charged all-boys school), and I drift off a bit when Ruprecht is going on about his various theories of the universe.  Otherwise, I believe this is going to be another close one, and is really going to depend on the tastes of the judge.  However, were I judging, I would pick Goon Squad.  Nonetheless, I would be happy to see either of these books reemerge in the Zombie round.

3/17:  The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake versus Bloodroot

This is an easy choice for me.  The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake was not a favorite of mine.  It was perfectly fine, but as I have mentioned before, I just didn’t fall for its magical realism.  I recently finished Bloodroot, and I certainly enjoyed it more than Lemon Cake.  Bloodroot also utilized mystical powers (sort of healing powers/mountain mama/herbs and magick/family curses type of stuff), but you didn’t have to fall for them in order to enjoy the book.  The novel was grounded in the gritty everyday lives of an Appalachian family over the generations, told from different perspectives of various family members and friends, young and old.  I like that Bloodroot seems a bit different than the other books in the tournament: it is a domestic drama, it doesn’t really delve into politics, doesn’t really have a message, it is a rural novel, and it is woman centered.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say it should win the tournament, but I do hope Bloodroot prevails in this round.

I will be watching over the next month to see which book wins, and perhaps I’ll chime in here from time to time to comment on the tournament.  In the meantime, I’ll be trying to finish Skippy Dies.

Review: Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky

We all read through the lens of our own unique experiences, informed by our upbringings, our travels, our cultures, our genders, our emotions, etc.  Though this is inescapable, I do like to think of myself as a “human” reader first rather than a “mom” reader (despite the name of this blog) — first, because I am many things other than a mom; and second, because I would guess that books marketed towards a stereotypical “mom” demographic are not particularly interesting to me.  Nonetheless, I sometimes find that my mom lens really affects my judgment of the novels I read, for better or worse.  The first time I noticed this was when I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy.  I was hugely pregnant with my first child, and though I could intellectually appreciate that the book was well done, I could barely stand to read it.  My heart ached for the poor boy in the novel, and I couldn’t imagine having to put my own child though the trials that the boy in The Road had to endure.

I found that I had a similar sort of reaction to Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky.  Certainly the child in this novel, two-year old Caitlin, isn’t subject to the same post-apocalyptic tortures as the boy in The Road.  Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but cringe at Marie’s treatment of Caitlin, which made it difficult for me to enjoy this novel as a whole.  Interestingly, my copy of the book contains a short section at the end entitled “About the Author,” where Dermansky explains some of her motivations for writing Bad Marie.  She notes that she did not have a child when she wrote the book, but she does now.  “Now that I am a mother, I wonder if [sic] would write the same book.  It’s impossible to say,” she muses.  I think it is possible, since Dermansky so fully inhabits Marie’s psyche, but (I’m guessing here) it might have been more difficult for Dermansky post-motherhood to have a child involved in Marie’s wrongdoings.  However, Bad Marie would not have packed the same punch without Caitlin along as baggage.

The eponymous protagonist of this novel has recently been released from prison after a six-year sentence for acting as an accessory to a bank robbery committed by her now deceased ex-boyfriend (he killed himself in prison).   Marie has been hired by an old childhood friend, Ellen, as a nanny.  Marie enjoys the nanny gig.  Her charge, Caitlin, “was bossy, but that suited Marie fine.  Marie often felt herself in need of a leader.”  Marie seems to enjoy the slow pace of a two-year old’s life, as she and Caitlin visit Manhattan parks, partake of Ellen’s fully stocked refrigerator, and take long baths together (while Marie swills whiskey, no less).  This arrangement quickly unravels, as Ellen and her husband, the French author Benoit Doniel, arrive home one evening to find the pleasantly buzzed and naked Marie asleep in the bathtub with their young daughter.

At this point, most mothers would have fired Marie on the spot and thrown her out of the house, but not Ellen.  Ellen and Marie have a complicated history together.  Ellen grew up rich, Marie poor, but Ellen’s family tried to help out young Marie whenever possible.   Marie enjoyed this largesse, but never felt it was enough.  Perhaps this is why she cavalierly slept with Ellen’s high school boyfriend, Harry.  Years later, when Marie showed up on Ellen’s doorstep fresh out of prison, it seems that Ellen could not resist lording her privilege in Marie’s face.  Even upon discovering Marie’s bathtub transgression, she cannot let go of her need to use benevolence to condescend to her wayward friend, much to the detriment of Caitlin. Ellen gives Marie a week before she has to leave.

This is a huge miscalculation on Ellen’s part, besides for the obvious reason that Marie cannot be trusted with children.  Ellen’s husband, upon observing the naked and nubile Marie in the bath, has taken a sudden interest in his soon-to-be-fired nanny.  Marie has a covert interest in Benoit as well.  In prison, she read and re-read Benoit’s novel, Virginie at Sea, and loved it.  She strongly identified with Virginie, a suicidal girl who falls in love with a sea lion.  Marie simply could not believe her good fortune that her childhood friend happened to marry the author of her favorite book.  Accordingly, her next step is to seduce Ellen’s husband before her last week as Caitlin’s nanny expires.

Marie finds Benoit quite amenable to her advances, and together the two leave Ellen and travel to Paris, Caitlin in tow.  Marie quickly discovers that Benoit is not a stand-up guy (as if leaving his wife for his nanny didn’t already indicate this). On the flight to Paris, he runs into an old lover, Lili Gaudet, and drags Marie and Caitlin to Lili’s apartment.  He then proceeds begin relations with Lili right in front of Marie.  Marie tries to ignore these enormous red flags and enjoy simply being in Paris, but the situation continues to deteriorate.  Ellen is hot on their trail, there’s a warrant out for Marie’s arrest, Benoit has no money, and Caitlin is proving to be less agreeable than Marie had hoped.  Most importantly, perhaps, a sudden revelation by Benoit concerning Virginie at Sea persuades Marie to abandon Paris altogether.  Marie and Caitlin travel to the South of France, and then to Mexico, embarking on more misadventures and near-disasters before settling in comfortably for a shared bath in a suite at a posh Mexican resort paid for by a stolen credit card.

Bad Marie reminds me a bit of Madame Bovary, as both concern the sexual adventures of bored women trapped by their unfortunate circumstances.  Both Marie and Emma desire freedom and believe they deserve the finer things in life.  Both women are terrible with children and both attempt suicide (though Marie is unsuccessful).  Both stories take place primarily in France.  Emma Bovary is perhaps a bit more crafty and ambitious, having to plan ahead and expend more effort to push forward her love affairs, whereas Marie simply seems stumble along without a plan, doing whatever suits her at the moment.  Nonetheless, both are hedonists, devoted mainly to their own creature comforts.

Though these Bovary-like traits make Marie interesting as a character, it makes her a cringe-worthy caretaker.  On one hand, like Ellen, I can envy Marie.  She is beautiful and does whatever she feels like doing, whenever she wants to do it, without thought of consequences.  Mothers do not often get to escape the burdens of responsibility, but Marie does not let Caitlin get in the way of her own wants and needs.  Perhaps this is because Caitlin is not her own child, but I doubt Marie would act much differently with her own flesh and blood.  Thankfully, Caitlin survives Marie’s care unscathed, but I think this is because, outside of the sex and the booze, Marie and Caitlin’s needs (food, baths, a comfortable place to sleep, entertainment) are remarkably similar.  Marie is hardly more than a child herself.

Somehow, though, I cannot feel sorry for Bad Marie.  The scene on the Mexican beach finally did me in.  Up until that point, Marie had kept Caitlin in relatively good health and spirits, despite kidnapping her and generally providing her with lackadaisical care.  However, she feels out of options at this point and moreover, Caitlin is not being very nice to her.  The child, of course, wants her mommy.  Marie can’t understand this, having only been rejected by the mother figures in her life.  “Your mother is never going to leave the office.  She isn’t,” Marie tells Caitlin.  Then she abandons Caitlin on the beach and tries to drown herself in the ocean.  Instead of feeling despondent for Marie, I was horrified that she would leave a two-year old that she had stolen away from her parents to suddenly fend for herself.  I read on only to make sure Caitlin would be alright.  Marie, I knew, would be perfectly fine.

Momreads is Here for Women Readers & Writers (and their friends and supporters)

VIDA recently released “The Count 2010,” which sets forth the number of women reviewers at certain magazines and journals (like The Atlantic and The New Yorker), and also the numbers of women writers reviewed by these magazines.  The results, displayed in a series of pie charts, are disheartening but ultimately not surprising.  These publications have far more male reviewers than female reviewers, and they review far more male writing than female writing.

I started this blog a few months ago with no conscious feminist mission; I just wanted a record of what I have read and of my own thoughts on those books.  But as I thought over my reading choices, I realized that perhaps I can help promote women’s writing in my own small way.  For example, I have reviewed the following adult books:

• The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman
• So Much For That by Lionel Shriver
• You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know by Heather Sellers
• The Metropolis Case by Matthew Gallaway
• Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

You might notice a trend here:  of the five adult books I have reviewed, four are by women.  Moreover, of my personal Top Ten Books of 2010, six of the ten books  were written by women.  And further, I don’t review all the books I actually read, and yet it turns out that many more of my recent reading selections, like Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand or Just Kids by Patti Smith or A Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry, are written by women.

For some reason, unlike many others, I am clearly drawn to women’s writing and I am interested in what women have to say.  Now, I certainly can’t claim that my humble and few reviews are anywhere near as sophisticated or influential as those appearing in Granta or the New York Review of Books.  However, I do think I can use this blog as a platform of sorts.  I’m a woman who reviews women’s writing.  This is apparently a rarity.  Any little knock I can give to the system is fine by me.  I’d like to show that busy, thinking women appreciate quality writing that reflects their own experiences.  I guess that’s why I named this blog “Momreads” rather than “Personreads.”  It says, hey!  I’m a lady and a mom who, despite being knee-deep in poopy diapers and playdates, likes to read and wants to talk about books.  People like me exist!

This does not mean I am not going to read and review writing by men.  I read what interests me.  If a man writes a book I want to read, I’m going to read it.  Furthermore, I’m not going to read a book just because it is written by a woman.  Nor am I looking to read books marketed specifically towards women and only women; call this chick lit if you like, but I’m just not interested in reading bodice rippers or books about shopping.  I’m looking for solid writing and interesting subject matter.  I’m looking for inspiration for my own writing.

Unfortunately, I do read book reviews (many from the publications studied by VIDA) for ideas on what to read, and since we know these reviews are skewed towards men, I’m afraid I am missing a lot.  There must be so much quality writing out there by women that is totally passing me by.  So please, share your thoughts on good books I should check out, especially those by women; and if you are a female writer, please draw my attention to your underappreciated work of literary fiction.  I’m here to help!

Dr. Seuss and the Art of Choosing Children’s Books

My son, now 2 years 7 months old, has recently discovered a new reading passion:  Dr. Seuss.  A while back, we inherited a number of Dr. Seuss books from a friend.  The collection is particularly good.  It includes old standbys, like The Cat in the Hat and One Fish Two Fish, yet also has some more relatively obscure Dr. Seuss titles like Bartholomew and the Ooblek, Thidwick the Big Hearted Moose, and I Had Trouble Getting Into Solla Sollew.  When we first received the books, my son was completely uninterested.  If we attempted to read one to him, he would slam the book shut after a few pages and instead suggest we read him a book about Elmo.  So, this wonderful collection sat in a pile for several months, sadly unread.

Then one day about a month ago, on a whim, I picked up Ten Apples Up On Top.  The kid and I sat down to read it, and lo and behold, he loved it.  Ten Apples became part of the regular reading rotation.  From there, he moved onto The Cat in the Hat and The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.  He also really enjoys Happy Birthday to You! (which prompted him to learn the date of his own birthday), ABC, and The Sneetches.

Why exactly does my son now adore Dr. Seuss, at age 2 and 1/2 years, when he couldn’t be bothered with him at age 2?  I can’t provide any sort of scientific answer to this one, but I have developed an “art” of sorts when it comes to choosing books for my son.  I call it the “words-to-pictures ratio.”  It’s pretty simple:  with your baby, you start with books with big colorful pictures and very few words.  As they grow older, add books with more words. For instance, from a very young age my son loved the book I Love You Through and Through by Bernadette Rosetti Shustak, which has big simple drawings of a little baby and about five words per page — perfect for the under 1 set.  Eventually, we moved onto books with more words, but still not too many.  Any Sandra Boynton book is a perfect example of the type of book that appealed to my son between the ages of 1-2.

Now, at 2 plus, the words-to-pictures ratio has increased.  My son can handle books with more plot and less illustration.  I noticed this when he spontaneously grabbed Olivia by Ian Falconer off the library shelf this fall and read it constantly for the next month.  Sure, the pictures in Olivia are very cute, but each Olivia book has a real story and characters that my son now seems to appreciate.  Plus, I noticed he liked to “read” (a/k/a memorize) parts of books himself.  This new tendency, I suppose, is why I gave Dr. Seuss another chance.  The Dr. Seuss books, which tend to be long, are not ideal for the short attention span of a toddler, but as my son moves from the toddler stage into the preschooler stage, he’s ready for something more.  He likes the cadence and the rhyming of the words in Seuss books, which also helps him memorize the story.  I’m pretty sure he can recite most of The Cat in the Hat himself.  He chastises me if I read any part of it incorrectly.  Plus, even though there are a lot of words, the words are quite simple, which is ideal for pre-readers.  He may not be able to truly read yet, but my son can recognize easy words in context, like “cat,” and from there you get right to “hat,” “sat,” etc. etc.  Of course, you still need illustrations as a hook in a kid’s book, and Suessian drawings are pretty much iconic.  My son seems drawn to their whimsical nature.

I have no idea if my words-to-pictures ratio theory works for all kids, but it seems to be working for my son.  I’m sure there are other children with much longer attention spans than his who will sit through War and Peace by the age of 1.  If that’s the case with your child, well, then, ignore my advice completely.  Otherwise, I believe it is important ensure that your child is reading books that capture their interest, rather than forcing books upon them that they aren’t ready for, even if they are classics like the Seuss books that kids are “supposed” to like immediately.  Even if this means reading the horrific Potty Time With Elmo to your child ad nauseam for a few months (been there, done that), it will keep them excited about reading.  Eventually, they will move onto something a bit more interesting and advanced.

Review: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

The thing about the British is that they are so good at expressing certain sentiments without overtly uttering the exact words.  For instance, the British would never call someone an idiot; rather, they would say something along the lines of, “Well, he’s a rather interesting fellow, now, isn’t he?”  And you would know exactly what they meant, and yet, they retain that plausible deniability that they would never be so crass so to speak ill of another person in passing.  What an amazing skill!  I completely lack it.  I tend to blurt out whatever is on my mind, completely uncensored.

This saying-without-saying is in part why I loved Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson.  A quintessentially British novel, written by an expatriate Brit living in America, the star characters in the novel practice this expressive restraint quite well, sometimes too well.  The characters that do not manage to finesse their speech are boorish and obtuse, at least in the judgment of the impeccable Major Pettigrew.

As a main character, Major Pettigrew is a study in contrasts.  An older widower living in his ancestral home in the English countryside, he is of the old guard.  The Major (don’t call him Ernest, or Mr. Pettigrew; that is a grievous insult) was born in Pakistan during the height of British colonial rule, and eventually joined the military and served honorably, just as his father did.  He pines for bygone days of British supremacy, simpler times, perfect manners, rigid order, and class structure.  He is a master at the expressive restraint that I admire so much.  We learn from his internal monologue that he has a strong opinion, often negative, about many of his compatriots and relatives, but any insults he hurls their way are so oblique that the subject usually misses it completely.

And yet, despite this old-fashioned British rigidity, the Major is a complicated, nuanced person.  He finds himself falling in love with Mrs. Ali, a Pakistani woman who runs a convenience store in town.  They share a love of beauty, literature, culture and decorum.  This relationship, of course, is frowned upon by the Major’s acquaintances, mainly members of his country club.  They all profess to be open-minded and without bias, but they view Mrs. Ali as an interloper in their quiet, white world of golf, gardening and duck hunting.  Their simmering, unwarranted resentment of Mrs. Ali and other Pakistanis eventually cannot be contained by that famous British restraint, forcing Major Pettigrew to decide between love and tradition.

Though the love story between Major Pettigrew and Mrs. Ali is the highlight of the novel, the book is chock full of interesting characters and subplots.  Frankly, this would be the perfect book for an English teacher to assign to his/her class, because it is so full of material for students to mine for papers.  For instance, an entire master’s thesis could be devoted to the symbolism of Major Pettigrew’s Churchill guns.  Without going into the entire history of the guns, they represent the Major’s ties to the past (his father having received them as a gift from the Maharajah).  His inordinate attachment to the guns almost causes the Major’s downfall.

Another entire paper could be devoted to a comparison and contrast of the love relationships in the novel.  I would compare Major Pettigrew and Mrs. Ali’s mature relationship with that of Roger and Sandy, and of Amina and Abdul Wahid.  Roger, Major Pettigrew’s impetuous son, and Sandy, an ostentatious American, represent a “modern” relationship that pays no mind to old-fashioned notions like love and romance in preference to status and money (to disastrous results); and Amina and Abdul Wahid represent a relationship complicated by cultural constraints and family (to disastrous results).  Only the Major and Mrs. Ali are able to successfully navigate cross-cultural and cross-class complications and meld the best of old-fashioned virtue with modern sensibilities.

And there’s so much more….the treatment of other cultures (Pakistani, American) by the British would make a fine topic, particularly the country club dance scene.  I’d also write on the impending destruction of the pastoral British countryside by Lord Dagenham, and the Major’s complicated reaction to the Lord’s plans, which makes a great illustration the slow encroachment of crass modernity on old British values.  The constraints placed on the women in the book would make another excellent study.  One could examine and compare Mrs. Ali, of course, and her relative freedom as a widow and a shopkeeper, which she sacrifices in an attempt to help others; Amina, a free-spirited Pakistani single mother who suffers under the severe dictates of her culture and yet manages, better than most characters, to be true to herself while doing right by her young son; and Sandy, Roger’s American beau, who has more freedom than most women in this novel, but eventually finds that she may pay an emotional price for her stubborn independence.

Alright, I’m going to stop providing fodder for students here; but truly, there’s a lot going on in this novel, and it is all done very well, and with that perfect British constraint.  It is interesting to watch how facile one must be with language in order to say a lot while only using a few words.  Simonson successfully employs this skill in order to navigate Britain’s colonial past in a sensitive way.  She manages to celebrate the positives of a bygone culture while rejecting the ugliness of its rigidity and biases.  Yet, we do learn that this skill is fading fast in British culture.  Roger is a perfect example:  his undisguised ambition and status grubbing comes across as very young, modern and unrefined (despite his love of foie gras and designer duds).  Though we may cringe at Roger’s antics, I don’t think this new transparency is all bad, if not as genteel.  After all, we always know what Roger wants.  Major Pettigrew’s reserve often keeps him from communicating his own desires even to himself, and most importantly, to Mrs. Ali, who he very nearly loses.  Perhaps the trick is figuring out when to employ restraint, and when to pour your heart out.  When I figure this out, I’ll let you know, but Major Pettigrew would probably agree that you should certainly speak your mind when it comes to matters of the heart.

It’s Almost Time for the 2011 Tournament of Books!

While most Americans will be following their college basketball brackets this March, I’ll be following The Tournament of Books by The Morning News.  Yes, this probably makes me hopelessly nerdy.  I don’t care.  I love it.  The Tournament of Books starts on March 7 and I’m gearing up for the “battle royale.”  I’m feeling pretty psyched that I’ve read six of the sixteen books that made the short list:

• The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
• Room by Emma Donaghue
• A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
• So Much for That by Lionel Shriver
• Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

I can make a few semi-educated guesses on potential contenders based on those novels that I have read thus far.  Now, not knowing how the bracket will shape up yet, I can’t yet make my very best guess as to the ultimate winner.  However, as I’ve mentioned before, A Visit From the Goon Squad was my favorite read of 2010, so I’ll be cheering for Jennifer Egan.  Freedom, Room and Super Sad True Love Story all made my list of top 10 reads for 2010.  Obviously, I enjoyed them all, but I hope Room makes it the farthest besides Goon Squad.  Room is the most original voice of the bunch.  I’ve never read a book quite like it.  I suspect that Shteyngart will be a favorite among the judges, but Super Sad Love Story, while excellent, left me feeling a little hollow. I suspect Freedom, with its over-hyped release and Oprahfication, is not going to find a lot of support from the panel of judges, especially Jennifer Weiner, who vocally criticized the hoopla surrounding Franzen.  The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake got a lot of buzz this year, and it was quirky, but I didn’t love it.  Perhaps I didn’t give myself over to the sad magic of the book, which I suppose is part of its appeal.  So Much for That, which I reviewed recently, is solid, but a hard slog based on its depressing subject matter.

My goal is to read at least two more books on the short list by March, so that I will have read half of the books in the tournament, and thus can better follow the competition.  The trick is picking the right books to read.  I probably should choose two award winners, The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson, which won the Man Booker prize, and Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon, which won the National Book Award.  I would like to read these books eventually, but frankly, there are other books on the list that sound more intriguing to me.  Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky sounds delicious.  I love “evil” women protagonists.  Bloodroot, by Amy Greene, is a novel I’d never heard of before, but the description appeals to me.  I don’t suppose, with its romance angle and its foray into magic, that it will be a likely tournament winner.  However, I like American regional fiction and generational sagas that make me ponder how we affect our children, and our children’s children.  Lastly, I’ve heard a lot of buzz about Skippy Dies by Paul Murray, and it has been on my library reserve list for a while now.  We’ll see if it comes off my reserve list by March.

I’ll be following along as the Tournament of Books proceeds, and I’ll probably comment on the competition from time to time, especially when they crown the winner.  I’ll be interested to see if I can accurately predict the champion, and if the judges agree or disagree with my own assessments of the novels.  At the very least, the ToB provides a nice list of reading recommendations for those looking for something decent to read or to catch up on some of the best releases of 2010.

Review: The Metropolis Case by Matthew Gallaway

I’ve been following author Matthew Gallaway from afar (or not so far, really, as we are both residents of Northern Manhattan) for a while now.  I’ve read his writing on various blogs, and have thoroughly enjoyed what he has to say.  Moreover, Gallaway attended law school, like I did, and I often find myself attracted to writers who have migrated from the law to fiction.  (As Gallaway puts it on twitter, “JD as an MFA.”  I like this.)  Something about this career path provides an interesting perspective on life, if only because us former lawyers are generally fucked up unique individuals.  Happily, the release of his debut novel, The Metropolis Case, coincided with my vacation, so I got to read it on the beach while Dad prevented the Kid from eating sand and running headlong into the ocean.

The Metropolis Case follows the lives of several disparate characters:  Lucien, a budding opera singer in 1860’s Paris; Maria, a young singer and outcast from blue-collar Pittsburgh who is bound for big things; Martin, a lawyer, opera buff, and gay man who, in the face of tragedies, discovers his true self, in spite of himself; and  Anna, a famous opera singer.  Eventually, the lives of these characters converge.  I’m gonna admit, it is quite obvious from the beginning how the characters are connected (and I’m usually slow on the uptake on these sorts of things), but figuring out the “surprise” did not ruin the book whatsoever.  The book is not meant to be a potboiler mystery novel, after all.  Rather, the glaringly evident connections between these characters are used to explore more profound themes that are really at the heart of this novel (and that I discuss further below).

One of the things I pondered as I read The Metropolis Case is “For whom is this book meant?”  (I think Gallaway, too, has thought a bit about this.)  I imagine this book has been marketed towards opera buffs, since nearly all of the characters are connected to the opera in some way.  Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde connects the various characters across the eras.  Now, I’ve been to the opera before, but I can’t say I listen to opera regularly.  In fact, it is possible that I might have fallen asleep during long operas on certain occasions.  I never heard Tristan und Isolde until this book inspired me to listen to a bit of it (and I was expecting something really wacky based on Gallaway’s description of the opera, but to my uneducated ear, I thought the opera sounded like a fairly “normal” opera).  Anyway, I didn’t find it at all necessary to be a bona fide opera lover to enjoy this book, though certainly opera aficionados will enjoy some of the insidery stuff.  Really, the opera is a sort of stand-in for “finding your passion,” though I admit that’s a rather pat way of putting it, and surely Lucien, Anna, Martin and Maria would scoff at my simplification, given each of their complicated relationships with the opera. If I wanted to get really profound, I could say that TMC’s view of opera, and specifically Tristan, has to do with Schopenhauer‘s concept of the “will,” but truthfully I don’t know a lot about Schopenhauer and I don’t want to embarrass myself any further by trying to draw that parallel.  Nonetheless, the novel’s treatment of opera means something more than a fat lady singing, and can extend to a search for beauty, a newfound maturity or discovery of self, a symbol of the fates, a beacon through life’s travails, or what have you.

Another alleged audience for The Metropolis Case, and one that Gallaway himself seems to fret over, is gay people.  Martin is a gay man, and the book follows his coming out of the closet.  Lucien’s true love is another man, though he has sex with men and women, mainly men.  Gallaway has written about his own worries on being pigeonholed as a gay writer, by both the gay community and the straight community.  I have to admit that this never occurred to me until I read his blog posts on the topic.  I guess I just don’t choose my reading material based on the character’s sexual orientation, though I suppose some people might.  At any rate, I followed Lucien, Martin, and Maria’s (a straight woman) sexual awakenings with equal interest; but interestingly, as a straight woman myself, I most related to Martin.

Martin is a person who struggles with what one is “supposed” to do, based on parental and societal expectations, versus what one would actually prefer to do, based one one’s own inner values and proclivities.  This struggle is not just about Martin’s sexual life, though his coming out is a wonderful illustration of this turmoil, but it also manifests itself in his education, career choices, family relationships, extracurricular activities, and even his geographic location.  For instance, Martin eventually realizes that he is hiding behind his legal career as a way to “legitimize” himself:

For many years, he had in fact relished the broader approval and prestige that came with a high-paying position in a Manhattan law firm but with the passage of time and the accompanying acclimation to his desires, this motivation had waned; he no longer relied on his career as a crutch for his identity, to justify his existence, gay or otherwise.

I certainly relate to this, having left my own legal career.  However, when one realizes that being a lawyer is not a good fit, and also, when you realize that the “broader approval” of society is bullshit if you aren’t happy, then it becomes easier to find better reasons to justify your existence.  In saying this, I don’t mean to imply that my own experience of leaving the law is at all comparable to Martin’s far more complex and fraught process of coming out; yet, I do, in some small way, understand what it means to be in a world where you don’t quite fit in.  I think it’s fair to say that most people will have this feeling at some point in their lives (and if you haven’t, I’m not sure we would get along).  Accordingly, I can hardly allow that The Metropolis Case be limited to a gay audience.

Now, there is one audience that I believe will embrace The Metropolis Case wholeheartedly:  Manhattanites.  First, I’m getting a little tired of the cult of Brooklyn writers, so it was nice to see a promising debut novel coming from Washington Heights and not Bushwick.  Second, a portion of the book takes place uptown, a place close to my own heart.  I don’t often seen upper Manhattan featured in literary fiction, let alone in such a lovely way:

To the south was the George Washington Bridge, while the sheer cliffs of the New Jersey Palisades extended impressively to the north.  The bridge seemed to bring the same order to his thoughts as it did to the cars streaming over it, and as he considered the river, he was struck by a stillness and a grandeur that had nothing to do with the more frenzied atmosphere in which he had lived for the previous twelve years.  It was difficult to believe he was still in Manhattan, but the certainty that he was added to the allure; as he looked farther south, at the outline of midtown, he felt as if a fever had just broken.  The city had always seemed alive to him — and in ways that were increasingly difficult to romanticize — but from this vantage point it appeared less monstrous than benevolent, and in admiration he felt an encouraging spark of love and possibly forgiveness.

Yes!  I just love how this passage captures the feeling I get when running south on the greenway underneath GWB, past the lighthouse, and around the bend, and then — bam! — there is midtown hovering in the distance.  But I’m getting carried away with my own unique experience here.  In truth, TMC also takes place in Paris and Vienna, and so really will appeal not just to Manhattanites, or Manhattan-philes, but to Metropolitans generally.

All this blabbering on, and I don’t think I’ve answered my own initial question adequately, but hopefully I’ve provided some general sense of The Metropolis Case.  I’d love to say that it’s a book for everyone, but it’s not.  Some people may find it uncomfortable, because they don’t like opera, or gay people, or cats, or whatever.  Like those living in the City, to enjoy TMC you have to be willing to accept a bit of chaos, deal with some graphic depictions of life, suspend some disbelief, and have an open mind towards cultural experiences.

Review: You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know by Heather Sellers

I know I said that I don’t read much non fiction, yet here I am, reviewing a non fiction book.  However, the story driving this particular memoir, You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know by Heather Sellers, sounded so intriguing and almost fantastical that I felt compelled to check it out.

The book is ostensibly about Sellers’ struggles with prosopagnosia, or face blindness, but really, it’s about so much more.  In fact, for much of the book, it almost seems like Sellers’ face blindness is secondary to the other problems in her life, such as her troubled marriage and relationship with her mentally ill parents.  These problems are, in a way, all connected, but often the fascinating and troubling parts of Sellers’ life had nothing to do with face blindness at all.  Moreover, she is in denial about/doesn’t recognize her prosopagnosia for much of the book.

Nonetheless, her struggle with prosopagnosia is mind-boggling.  The concept of face blindness is really difficult to wrap one’s mind around, and I find it terrifying to imagine living with this condition.  Sellers never reliably recognizes anyone, including her own parents and husband.  Her friends, colleagues and acquaintances think she is aloof and stuck up because she continually fails to recognize them.  I still find it utterly amazing that she managed to be so successful while suffering from this condition.

Sellers does not know how she developed face blindness, whether she was born with it or whether she suffered some sort of trauma that brought it on.  Interestingly, she uses it as a coping mechanism.  Her life is so chaotic and dangerous that keeping people at a remove is almost essential to her survival; yet, keeping people at a distance also hampers her personal relationships in really crucial ways.  Sellers is quite reluctant to reveal her condition to anyone, once she figures out that she is face blind.  She likens it to coming out of the closet.  I suppose there are various reasons why it might be difficult to admit this condition, especially since she relied on it as an emotional crutch, but I felt like her life would be so much easier if she just let everyone know what was going on.  Eventually, with the help of a therapist, she is able to do this.

However, as I mentioned, face blindness is just one aspect of Sellers’ chaotic life.  She focuses much of the book on her relationships, particularly those with her parents.  She figures out that her mother is a paranoid schizophrenic.  Her father is an alcoholic.  Nonetheless, we really only get glimpses of their dysfunction, as Sellers lives in Michigan and they live in Florida.  She does recall some scenes from her childhood, but it feels like she’s holding a lot back (and with good reason, no doubt).  At the end of the book, Sellers notes that she had written a separate memoir primarily about her childhood, but that her editor thought it was too raw and needed perspective.  I guess the face blindness provided that needed perspective?  This all left me curious about the parts of her upbringing that Sellers left out, but perhaps I’m just being nosy.  Yet, the glimpses she does provide of her life with her mom and dad are certainly disturbing.  She notes a few times that people have told her that her childhood was unsurvivable, and you certainly get the sense through the anecdotes that she shares that her life has not been easy whatsoever.

Sellers also enters into an ill-advised marriage with a decent but troubled man, Dave, at the start of the book.  You can tell from the first twenty-five pages or so that this marriage is doomed, but Sellers doesn’t see it for a long while.  Certainly, Sellers has no model of a good relationship in her life, but her relationship with Dave is filled with obvious red flags:  he is bankrupt, has two kids from a prior marriage, is at the opposite end of the political spectrum from her, and seems hesitant to settle down with her, among other things.  Sellers is likewise hesitant, but has no idea why.  Her primary attraction to him seems to be that he understands mental illness well, because his ex-wife is schizophrenic.  This makes her feel safe.  She also adores his sons, though like most children in relationships with quasi-parental figures, the kids seem ambivalent about her.  They are even quite cruel to her at times, but it barely registers in Sellers.  I think she likes the idea of a built-in family, but also she relates to the chaos in the lives of these children.

Despite all of these problems, Sellers retains an astounding ability to love.  Her relationship with Dave and his boys is fatally flawed, but you don’t doubt that she loves them.  She also unthinkingly loves her parents, who have wreaked havoc in her life.  Though in the course of the book she does manage to set some boundaries with them, she is very forgiving of her parents’ instability.  I’m not sure I could keep myself as emotionally vulnerable as Sellers, who has been profoundly hurt so many times. Moreover, though Sellers’ relationships are complicated, I imagine that forging any connections at all must be immensely difficult when one is face blind.

You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know is a fascinating look at a confounding life.  However, I read it as only an introduction to the turbulent life of Heather Sellers.  Now that she has faced down her prosopagnosia, what will happen next?  Will she unearth more trauma from her childhood?  Will she discover the origins of her face blindness?  Will she discover what, exactly, is wrong with her mother?  Will we hear more about her father’s mysterious life, which she mentions includes cross dressing and a number of marriages?  Will she find herself able to enter into a healthy, long-term romantic relationship?  I hope she answers some of these questions in a subsequent book.

Subway by Christoph Niemann

I’ve been checking the library shelves under “N” for months now,waiting for Christoph Niemann’s Subway to appear on the shelves for my son and me to check out.  I’m a fan of Niemann’s charming Abstract City blog, and when I heard he had written/illustrated a book about the subway, I knew we had to get our hands on it.  Miraculously, the book was available yesterday, and I snatched it up.

At age 2 1/2 and a lifelong Manhattanite, my son has become a big fan of the subway.  He is working on memorizing all the stops on the 1 Train, which is the line we tend to take most often.  His little friends seem to like the subway too.  At school pick up, his pal Ben likes to ask us if we are taking the local or express train home.  Thus, I had a strong feeling this book would be a big hit with the toddler set.

My son took to Subway immediately.  Besides loving the subway as a mode of transportation, the names of the trains are especially suited to 2 year olds, who are busy learning their letters and numbers.  We also like to use to book to explain the concept of “New York City” to him.  Frankly, a huge city with five boroughs and numerous small neighborhoods is really confusing to a little kid.  But when we read Subway, we say, “Look!  This train is going all the way through Manhattan and across the East River into Brooklyn!”  Eventually, I think this will all sink in.  Moreover, my son is looking forward to riding the subway all over the city with his father, just like the little kids in the book.  (Right now, he hasn’t quite developed the patience to ride around on the train all day long.)

I wonder if this book appeals to children outside of New York City.  I imagine the subway is a very abstract concept to kids who spend all their time in the suburbs and travel exclusively by car.  But sometimes it seems like the rest of the country believes that New York City belongs to them, too, so perhaps if the child has visited the City, or plans to visit, this book would be appropriate.  Also, I suppose it’s never bad to expose your child to life in other places, even if you don’t live in New York and have no plans to take the subway, ever.  However, my son feels a certain ownership over the subway, and the city in general.  Every so often, he will exclaim gleefully, “We’re in New York City!”  Whenever we pass the stop for the A Train, he shouts, “It’s the A Train!”  Can any other place, and its imperfect but astounding mode of transportation, inspire such loving devotion?