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Friday Book Whimsy: Girl Waits With Gun

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searchOne day in 1914, three young women – Constance, Norma, (both 30-something) and Fleurette (16) Kopp are riding in their horse-drawn buggy to their farm from the nearby New Jersey town in which they had been shopping, and are slammed into by an automobile. The car’s driver is the rich, alcoholic, and ill-mannered proprietor of the silk manufacturer that employs many of the townspeople.

Thus begins author Amy Stewart’s first novel, Girl Waits With Gun. While it is admittedly a novel, it is largely based on a true story about the ensuing troubles after Constance – a very tall and intimidating woman – becomes obsessed with getting the money owed for the damage from Henry Kaufman. Her efforts bring her in contact with – and eventually lead her to provide considerable help to – the local sheriff. Constance Kopp goes on to become one of the nation’s first female deputy sheriffs.

While the premise perhaps sounds dull, the novel is actually interesting and fun to read. The Kopp threesome are enormously entertaining, just as I suspect they were in real life.

While the three women – both in the novel and apparently in real life – present themselves as sisters, the reader learns early on that Fleurette is actually Constance’s daughter. This fact is unbeknownst to Fleurette herself, and only marginally meaningful to the story told in Girl Waits With Gun.

There are actually two stories that run parallel. The first is based on fact – that of the accident and the events that followed. The second, related, tells the story of a young woman who had been employed at the silk factory and got taken advantage of by Henry Kaufman, who subsequently takes away the child she bears.

The book is a fairly quick read, and provided a lot of entertainment. It’s fun to see how something we so take for granted today (women in law enforcement) was actually the result of a hard-fought battle.

Great book for a book club discussion.

Here is a link to the book.

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Friday Book Whimsy: Why Not Me?

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searchI will tell you the truth right up front. I love Mindy Kaling. I am not her demographic. I am way older than what I would believe is her typical fan. But The Office, for which she wrote many episodes and appeared as Kelly Kapoor, made me laugh (until Steve Carrell left at which time it didn’t make me laugh any more). And I found her own show, The Mindy Project, to be quite quirky and funny in a just-short-of-offensive way. Admittedly, I don’t find it funny enough to pay money to watch it now on Hulu, which picked it up after it was cancelled by Fox.

Her first memoir, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, was humorous and provided the reader with a good sense of what it’s like to break into television, especially for a minority. Why Not Me? continues her personal story via short and very amusing essays.

The book – and Ms. Kaling – wouldn’t be for everyone. She doesn’t hold back from saying what she thinks. In fact, if you watched The Mindy Project, it appears you will have a pretty good idea of who Kaling is (though one of the essays in the book is about ways in which she is different from the character she plays on The Mindy Project – i.e. TV Mindy would sue a Boston Market for giving too-small helpings of sides, and TV Mindy would own a gun and keep misplacing it). Still, the irreverence seems to be the same.

While not particularly a fan of nonfiction, I am – oddly, perhaps – a fan of biographies and memoirs. Caveat, I simply loathe the self-indulgent oh-poor-me-I-grew-up-in-a-dysfunctional-family memoirs seemingly written by anyone who knows how to use a keyboard. I enjoy memoirs in which the writer doesn’t take himself or herself too seriously and can make me laugh, or has a truly interesting story to tell. Why Not Me? meets both criteria.

The book reads very quickly and I finished it in one day. It was a nice break from the serious books I had been reading as of late.

If memoirs are your cup of tea, give Why Not Me? a try.

Here is a link to the book.

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Friday Book Whimsy: The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns

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searchWhen we first bought our house , there was a rose garden in the back yard. I love roses. They are so beautiful, fragile and yet resilient, and the blossoms smell so good. But it took no more than a season or two for me to destroy each and every rose bush. They require a lot of tender, loving care.

I thought about my short-lived tenure as a rose gardener as I read The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway. Growing roses is not for the timid gardener. It requires a lot of patience, and you have to not mind getting stuck by the thorns.

Galilee “Gal” Garner – the protagonist in The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns, has spent much of her adult life tending to her roses. She is not just a rose gardener, but passionately pursues her hobby of breeding new hybrids with the ultimate goal of getting a new rose into the market. She earns her living as a high school biology teacher, but who she is was primarily shaped by the fact that she has been on kidney dialysis for most of her life. She has had – and rejected – several kidney transplants. As the novel takes place, she is awaiting a new kidney, and must spend every other night undergoing dialysis. At the same time, she is awaiting recognition for her roses. It’s an interesting dichotomy.

Because so much of her parents’ lives were spent handling Gal’s illness, Gal’s younger sister grew up using drugs and alcohol to garner attention. Her actions result in her teenaged daughter Riley coming to live with Gal for a period of time. The situation changes all of their lives.

Gal’s personality is prickly at best. And my use of the term prickly is no accident, as Dilloway is clearly urging us to compare roses to our heroine.  Thorny on the outside, but lovely when you look beyond the thorns.

The story develops slowly – perhaps a bit too slowly. Once you have the background (that is, learn a lot about kidney disease, dialysis, and roses), and more importantly upon the arrival of Riley, the storyline blossoms (sorry, no pun intended). I couldn’t put the book down.

Gal isn’t an easy character to like, and I think that’s the way Dilloway intended it. You know – roses with thorns. But she also isn’t an easy character to forget, especially once you get to know her. I enjoyed learning about roses. I now have a much clearer picture of what it’s like to depend on dialysis to live. I even understand the ups and downs of being a teacher.

The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns is a lovely story, and I recommend you give it a read.

Here is a link to the book.

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Friday Book Whimsy: Hangman’s Game: A Nick Gallow Mystery

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searchAs much as I love mystery stories, I try to limit the number that I review. I avoid reviews of mysteries mostly because each book is often part of a series, and so I am reluctant to review only one of the books. I’m making an exception with Hangman’s Game primarily because it is a debut novel, though the fact that it is called A Nick Gallow Mystery leads me to assume that the author, Bill Syken, intends to make it a series.

I hope so.

Nick Gallow is a punter for the fictitious NFL team the Philadelphia Sentinels. He is a somewhat disgruntled punter. He was originally a college quarterback but was injured in a way that precluded him from continuing as a QB. At the urging and with the assistance of his football coach father, he reinvents himself as a punter, a role he has played for five years with the Sentinels.

One night, following dinner with his agent and the brand new and highly-paid Sentinels rookie, a drive-by shooting results in the rookie being killed and the agent being seriously injured. Gallow is the only witness, and he didn’t see a lot. All fingers are pointed at a self-absorbed and arrogant Sentinels linebacker as the killer, but Gallow doesn’t think so, and sets out to find out.

The author is a long-time sportswriter and editor with Sports Illustrated, and so his descriptions of the BUSINESS of football are believable. As an avid football fan, I enjoyed getting a pretty honest picture of what it’s like to be a punter – basically the low man on the totem pole that consists of plenty of prima donnas.

Reviewers have said that the reader doesn’t need to be a football fan to enjoy the book, but I’m not certain I entirely agree with this assessment. It is a very good mystery, but part of what I enjoyed about the book was the element surrounding professional football.

With that caveat, I recommend the novel, and look forward to the next Nick Gallow mystery.

Here is a link to the book.

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Friday Book Whimsy: The Rent Collector

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imagesI was initially interested in reading The Rent Collector, by Camron Wright, because the story takes place in Cambodia. One of my daughters-in-law is Cambodian (born there and moved to the United States with her mother, father, and baby brother when she was a toddler during the latter days of the horrible-beyond-belief Khmer Rouge). I shamefully know very little about this dark time in world history.

The Rent Collector takes place in contemporary times, but as you would imagine, the story of the Khmer Rouge plays an important role. I didn’t quite know what to expect. I have been unable to make myself watch the movie The Killing Fields because it would break my heart. I was fearful The Rent Collector would do the same. What I found, instead, was a beautiful and poignant story about an unforgettable family who, despite what would seem to us to be nearly unbearable living conditions, finds joy in almost everything.

Sang Ly lives with her husband Ki Lim and their baby boy, Nisay in Stung Meanchey, Cambodia’s largest municipal waste dump. Not only is this their home (along with a surprisingly large community of people), but they make their living from “picking,” that is, going through the dump site daily to find things to sell. While they are totally aware of the horror of their living conditions, they are surprisingly happy. Sang Ly and her husband are in love, and Nisay is the most important person in their life together. In fact, much of the book centers on the two trying to find a cure for Nisay’s constant diarrhea and inability to eat.

As the story begins, it seems as though the book’s villain is going to be the rent collector – a woman called Sopeap Sin. Her job is to collect the monthly rent from the people living in Stung Meanchey, and she initially seems mean, cold-hearted, and vindictive. Through a set of circumstances, Sang Ly learns that Sopeap Sin was a teacher in her earlier life and she begs Sopeap Sin to teach her to read. Sopeap Sin reluctantly agrees, and a remarkable friendship is formed.

The ability to read changes Sang Ly’s life in many ways, and witnessing those changes is absolute joy for the reader. Things don’t go smoothly much of the time, but Sang Ly’s and Ki Lim’s optimistic attitude and refusal to give up makes for indescribably satisfying reading. The Rent Collector is a beautiful story, plain and simple, and Camron Wright is an amazing writer. This is a book I will long remember, and Sang Ly, Ki Lim, and Sopeap Sin are characters I will not soon forget.

By the way, though The Rent Collector is a novel, it is based on a true story, and the book actually shows pictures of the real-life Sang Ly and Ki Lim and their most disturbing home.

I strongly, strongly urge book clubs to consider this novel for discussion.

Here is a link to the book.

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Friday Book Whimsy: The Color of Light

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740854Jillian Parrish is divorced, pregnant, and understandably unhappy with her situation. She decides to move, along with her 7-year-old daughter Grace, back to her grandmother’s house on Pawley’s Island, South Carolina. The house was Jillian’s only escape from a terribly unhappy childhood in Charleston where she lived with her mother and father.

And so begins author Karen White’s novel The Color of Light, a novel I’m afraid I found to be mostly forgettable. And since White has become one of my favorite authors, I was hugely disappointed by my lack of interest in Jillian’s life.

During Jillian’s formative years, her very best friend on Pawley’s Island – Lauren – disappears and is never found. Lauren’s boyfriend Linc is initially suspected, but there is never evidence to support his involvement, and eventually the case fades away. Jillian moves away, marries a man she doesn’t love, has a daughter – Grace —  and gets pregnant again, about the same time that Grace begins having conversations with an invisible friend named (you guessed it) Lauren. This brings Jillian back to Pawley’s Island.

Perhaps White tried to stuff too many gimmicks into one novel. The Color of Light is a romance novel, a ghost story, a coming-of-age story, and a tale of an unhappy childhood. Though all of White’s novels (or at least all that I have read) involved a romance, none that I have read thus far has the romance as front-and-center as it is in this book. I am not opposed to romance in a novel – in fact, I rather enjoy a love story – I personally don’t want it to drive the story. I felt as though this novel might as well have had heaving bosoms on the cover. And let’s face it, no one is as beautiful as Linc found Jillian, both when she was pregnant and when he would blissfully watch her while nursing the new baby. Because seriously, in real life, nursing involves leaky breasts and exhausted mothers.

The Color of Light was predictable and uninteresting. Except, of course, for the setting, which was spectacular. White does such a good job of painting a picture with words when describing life on the islands in the Low Country of South Carolina.

I found myself wondering throughout the book just why a particular story line was necessary. For example, I never really understood the point of making Jillian be pregnant, unless it was simply so that Linc could help her walk, well, anywhere really since she apparently couldn’t walk by herself because of her physical state. Really? In Pearl S. Buck’s novel The Good Earth, O-Lan is working in the fields and goes inside the house, gives birth, wraps the baby up in a blanket, and goes back to work!

I will continue to enjoy Karen White’s books, because even in this one book of hers that I haven’t liked, I continued to read it because I find White’s writing to be exceptional. I just felt this wasn’t her best effort.

Here is a link to the book.

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Friday Book Whimsy: Dear Daughter

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searchIt seems like every day I come across a new mystery/suspense/thriller novel that purports to be “the next Gone Girl.” Clearly, Gone Girl is the book that authors want to write (and readers want to read). Having found Gone Girl to be one of the most satisfying thrillers (in an oddly unsatisfying way) I have ever read, I must admit that I, too, am looking for the next Gone Girl.

I’m not going to go so far as to say that Dear Daughter by Elizabeth Little is on equal footing with Gillian Flynn’s amazing novel-with-the-twisted-ending, but man, the book did hold my attention, and the only thing that prevented me from throwing the book against the wall (as I did when I finished Gone Girl) was the fact that I was reading on my iPad. It wouldn’t survive the toss.

Jane Jenkins is a Kim Kardashian-type Hollywood celebrity, famous only for being the daughter of a well-known actress. Well, famous for only that up until the time that she is tried and convicted of murdering her mother, a crime she’s pretty sure she didn’t commit. I say pretty sure because there were a lot of drugs and alcohol in her life. Ten years after being imprisoned, she is released on a technicality, and sets out to find out who did, in fact, kill her mother (if it wasn’t her).

Through a bit of sleuthing (and some unbelievable coincidences), she is able to find out where her mother grew up and learns things she wouldn’t have dreamed about her mother’s life as a young woman. In the meantime, she is trying to hide from the paparazzi who are endlessly trying to find out where she went following her release. The public, you see, still think she’s guilty.

Little’s writing is sharp, perhaps a bit too sharp. Jane goes through life mouthing nothing but quips. Much of the writing is clever, but it went a bit too far. I think Little’s character development was good, and I got a great feel for who Jane is and the frustrations she felt both currently and while growing up the child of a celebrity who is famous ONLY for being the child of a celebrity.

There are a few too many coincidences to lead me to unequivocally recommend the book. Still, the story was compelling and I couldn’t stop reading, wanting to find out who actually murdered her mother. And the ending – boy oh boy. That’s all I’ll say.

Despite its flaws, I highly recommend the book (gosh, I can’t believe I’m saying this) for anyone who liked the book Gone Girl.

Here is a link to the book.

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Friday Book Whimsy: The Headmaster’s Wife

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searchOnce in a while, I will come across an author who writes fiction that is so beautiful that it’s almost like poetry. Thomas Christopher Greene, the author of The Headmaster’s Wife, is such a writer.

The Headmaster’s Wife is short enough to almost be considered a novella, though the story is too complex to be considered as such. The book is one of the saddest I’ve ever read, but not in that traditional way where, for example, you become attached to a character who then dies of cancer. The Headmaster’s Wife is perhaps more poignant than sad, because the characters are so unable to face the unhappiness that has taken over their lives.

The story takes place at a fictional private prep school in Vermont. Arthur Winthrop is the headmaster, as his father was before him. The novel begins when he is found walking naked in Central Park in NYC.

Out of the gate, Winthrop becomes interested – obsessed, really – with one of his students. It’s a distressing story line, and one I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue reading. But at the end of Part One, something happens that made me literally say out loud, “Oh my God.”

Greene’s novel is written in three parts; the first part is narrated first person by Winthrop. The next two parts are told in third person, and what you learn in Parts Two and Three at least make an attempt to explain Part One. It’s an interesting format for a novel.

I really wanted to like the book a bit more than I did. As I said in the beginning, Greene’s writing is beautiful. I think what troubled me is that I just couldn’t come to empathize – or really even sympathize – with any of the characters. While not necessarily unbelievable, they just didn’t draw my sympathy.

Having said this, I do, in fact, recommend the book, especially for a book club. The discussion, I think, would be so interesting and thought-provoking.

Mr. Greene has been involved in academia in his interesting and varied professional life. His understanding of the politics involved in the area of education – and particularly East Coast educational facilities – makes the book more believable.

I recommend you give The Headmaster’s Wife a try.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: The House We Grew Up In

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searchThe stars of Lisa Jewell’s highly readable novel The House We Grew Up In are about the most dysfunctional fictional family I have ever come across in a novel. And I read a LOT.

But here’s the thing: Despite their ups and downs, you can’t help but like them all. Well, almost all of them.

Clearly the most interesting thing about this novel, and the thing that at least in part makes the reader unable to turn off the light and stop reading is the hoarding. Reading about hoarding is like having a scab that you can’t leave alone. It’s unpleasant but oh-so-interesting.

And yet there is so much more to the novel, and so much more to the characters.

The Bird family lives in a pleasant cottage in the Cotswolds in England. Lorelei Bird is a lovely, charming mother of four who wants nothing more than to provide a life of joy for her children. She loves pretty, colorful things, and likes to hang on to them like we hang on to memories. Her husband and children find her to be delightful and full of love. Easter is her favorite holiday, and her annual Easter Egg Hunt provides joy each year. Until it doesn’t. Because one year something particularly terrible happens, leading the family to slowly begin to crumble.

I enjoyed the way Jewell told the story, telling the tale from each of the characters’ perspectives, going so far as to use Lorelei’s online love relationship to fill us in even more, via her letters to her online friend.

There is so much more to the novel than hoarding, but as we undoubtedly all have a secret fear that we are hoarders, it is the most compelling part of the novel.  Let me assure you, this novel will put your mind at ease. We may need to send a few things to Goodwill, but most of us can get to our kitchens.

I particularly loved the way this novel ended, despite the distressing facts we learn about some of the characters. Jewell leaves us with the idea that families who love one another can get through unbelievable stress and tribulation and love will rise above it all.

The House We Grew Up In would be a WONDERFUL novel for a reading club. Please consider it. It will be one of my favorite books of 2015.

Now, excuse me while I go clean my basement.

Here is a link to the book.

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Friday Book Whimsy: The Homesman

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The HomesmanThe only thing I like more than reading a novel that takes place in the Old West is when that novel takes place in Nebraska. While no novel will compare with Willa Cather’s amazing My Antonia, I always enjoy reading about what my home state was like in the 1800s.

I so often have no recollection of how I come across certain books, and The Homesman, by Glendon Swarthout is no exception. I’m on lots of book email sites and there’s always good ol’ Amazon and/or Goodreads to make suggestions. Often the suggestions are eerily on target. This recommendation certainly was.

The driving character in The Homesman is Mary Bee Cuddy and she is a fictional character I won’t soon forget. Cuddy is a strong woman, unmarried, who single-handedly runs one of the most successful homesteads in the never-named small Nebraska community of Swarthout’s imagination.

An unbearable winter in this part of the pioneer west has left three hard-working women literally out of their minds. Their husbands are unable and unwilling to care for them. The area’s kind minister knows that the only thing to do is to get them back to the family they left back east to come to the untamed Nebraska territory with their husbands to find prosperity. He has a connection in Iowa who will make sure these women are reconnected with family. Unfortunately, he is unable to convince any of the husbands to accompany these women east to Iowa.

Mary Bee Cuddy offers to be the one to make sure these women are safely returned to their families. Despite the minister’s concern, he realizes no one else is stepping up and something must be done.

Circumstances bring Cuddy together with a scoundrel calling himself George Briggs. Cuddy saves his life in exchange for his promise to help her in her difficult journey.

Their journey is the crux of the story.

Swarthout’s two main characters are complex and remarkable. The story is heart-warming in parts and terribly, terribly sad in other parts. Cuddy and Briggs grudgingly become admirers of one another. And always, always in the background of the story are the three insane women. It’s a fascinating storyline.

The ending isn’t necessarily what I would have chosen, but on the other hand, the ending is what makes the novel believable and compellingly readable.

The book has been made into a movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and Hilary Swank, which I promptly watched on Netflix. While the movie follows the book fairly reliably, Swarthout’s descriptions of the unimaginable winter and unthinkable circumstances which led to the women’s insanity was much more detailed and therefore more understandable.

I enjoyed The Homesman very much.

Here is a link to the book.

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