Ratlines by Stuart Neville

I feel very enthusiastic about this book.  I think I chose to read it because I wondered if it was the sort of things that would appeal to Alistair MacLean fans.

I think it would appeal to Alistair MacLean fans.  There's less emphasis here on military operations but plenty of action and adventure and most of the men in the story are ex-military.

I enjoyed it more because there was more of a backstory, not just for the protagonist (an agent with military intelligence), but for the villains.

The first chapter definitely reminded me of The Eye of the Needle, especially the way that you're just plunged into the story.  Although it's a dark story, it's interesting.  I certainly felt inspired to go on.

I wasn't familiar with the term "ratlines" which means the escape routes Nazis took to places like Ireland and Argentina.  Of course, ex-Nazis also came to the U.S.  Interesting, a new novel has just been published, called Warburg in Rome, which is about the Catholic Church's involvement in "ratlines."  There was also a film about an ex-Nazi in flight, The Statement, from 2003, which starred Michael Caine.

There's a bit of Irish history here, especially about Ireland's complicated neutrality during the Second World War.  Ireland's then government viewed neutrality as necessary, but the personal history of the protagonist demonstrates how complicated Ireland's position was.

My Irish history is spotty but at the start of the Second World War, the Irish Republic was less than two decades old.  Ireland had struggled for centuries to achieve independence, and could easily have been invaded by Britain.  How Britain felt about Ireland in 1939, I don't know.  But I do know that in the 16th and 17th centuries, Britain feared attack through Ireland.

Yet many Irish men fought for the British, as did Albert Ryan, this novel's protagonist, an ex-military man bored by civilian life and now working for the Directorate of Irish intelligence.  Shosrtly before John F. Kennedy, the Irish-American president, is to visit Ireland in August, 1963.  His boss farms him out to Charles Haughey; Haughey's goal is to hush up the problem as much as possible.  He knows that publicity about the sanctuary Ireland has given ex-Nazis will sour the good feelings produced by the president's visit.

Ryan is troubled by his mission, which is to get down to the bottom of a series of murders of ex-Nazis who've found refuge in Ireland.  He feels that finding the killers is nearly the same thing as protecting Otto Skorzeny and the other ex-Nazis in the novel.

The second half of the book is full of double-cross and even triple-cross, with plenty of action and suspense. I was surprised by the book's ending.  There are at least two scenes of torture.  I tend to ignore these kinds of things when I come across them in books, and I imagine that others do, too, but I felt my recommendation had to include that notice.

Neville provides a bibliography of some of the sources he used in researching his novel:

Fugitive Ireland:  European Minority Nationalists and Irish Political Asylum, 1937-2008, by Daniel Leach.  Four Courts Press.

Commando Extraordinary:  Otto Skorzeny, by Charles Foley, Cassell Military Classics.

Rescuing Mussolini:  Gran Sasso 1943, by Robert Forcyzyk, Osprey Publishing.

Haughey's Millions:  Charlie's Money Trail, by Colm Keena, Gill & Macmillan.

JFK in Ireland:  Four Days that Changed a President, by Ryan Tubridy, Collins.

News from a New Republic:  Ireland in the 1950s, by Tom Garvin, Gill & Macmillan.

Neville states that Cathal O'Shannon's documentary Ireland's Nazis "first planted the seeds of this story" in his mind.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I've just finished this novel, and I have so many contradictory and perhaps "sharp" or critical (as in finding fault) things to say about this book - which I basically enjoyed and would recommend.

The first thing I have to say is that I am sad.  I probably didn't cry as much as some readers, but I imagine that was because I was in a public place about 75% of the time I was reading the book.  I would guess that not crying did not help me to be less sad.  There were certain sentences in the book that immediately made me want to cry.

I found myself feeling uncomfortable with the unbearable pain of losing a young person to cancer being transformed into an entertainment.  Eventually, I realized that I had my own experience with this phenomenon, and perhaps my critical attitude had to do in part with how much I minded having my faded pain unearthed and freshened.

There is something weird about how we respond to the death of young people.  I noticed it when I was in high school and the president of the senior class killed himself.  Someone said, breathlessly, "I sat at his lunch table," as if physical proximity to someone who died not that long after was in some way significant.  I think I thought at the time that there was something callous and insincere about this reaction and perhaps it was only that it was wonder and stupefaction rather than real grief.  Death is so other; so strange and unlike our other experiences.

The book begins with an odd disclaimer.  Green reminds the reader that the book is a work of fiction and that too much and nothing literal/real/thinly veiled should be read into it.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This is not so much an author's note as an author's reminder of what was printed in small type a few pages ago:  This book is a work of fiction.  I made it up.  

  Neither novels nor their readers benefit from attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story.  Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species.  

  I appreciate your cooperation in this matter.

After the book concludes, there is a acknowledgemwnt of many people that includes the family of Esther Earl, the young woman to whom the book is dedicated, and who has presumably died of cancer.

As you can see from the very fact I mentioned this, I really did not "get it."  To me, it's patently obvious that readers may be passionately interested in the facts that lie inside a story and that academic criticism holds that those increase our understanding and appreciation of the story.  This is the first book I've read by John Green and I find myself wondering if all of his books are written in this style, which I see as a highly entertaining mashup of low colloquialisms and high diction.  I usually love that kind of stuff, and it's a very big part of why I enjoyed this book and why I recommend it.  But the whole thing about the author's note makes me nervous.

The flavor of the novel first appears in the second paragraph:

Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer.  But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.

The book goes in for a lot of criticism of the empty comfort that is offered to cancer patients (the support group leader who soberly intones, "We are literally in the heart of Jesus," while that cannot be true).  And there is a great deal of discussion of the search for meaning for dying people who do not believe in heaven or are not sure that they believe in heaven.

Hazel is a sixteen year-old cancer patient; at her mother's insistence, she very reluctantly attends a cancer support group meeting.  While there, she meets someone new, a young man who has had "a touch" of osteocarcinoma.
She is intrigued by him, and he is also very impressed by her.  They grow close in painful and sometimes absurd circumstances.

The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg

I like Fannie Flagg.  She's fun.  I enjoyed her book Redbird Christmas, although I think that this book has much more to offer.  Flagg is also the author of Fried Green Tomatoes and the Whistlestop Cafe (if I've got the title right), which, like this novel, affirms women's strength and relationships.

I really enjoyed The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion.  The things I liked about it were the fact that some complex issues were presented intelligently, although it was overall an optimistic, upbeat, life-affirming novel.  I also think that most readers will find it a light read, and one that is not too challenging.

It was also very much a book about women.  The protagonist, Sookie, has to find herself after her identity is shattered, as she sees it, when she learns that she is adopted.  It's also a book about women's achievement, which is shown as being very important.  (It is important, but I secretly wish that someone would say that making the meals and doing the laundry is very important, too.)

When the novel opens, Sookie has just married off her last daughter.  She's mentally breathing a sign of relief as she considers what she'll be able to do with her free time - including reading!  Her time isn't entirely her own, however, as she spends a good bit of time looking after her octogenarian mother.  Her mother is a bit of a handful.  That's putting it tactfully.  Her mother is demanding, interfering, embarrassing, and arguably a bit batty.

In the wake of a lawsuit against her mother for something like libel, Sookie has taken over paying her bills and handling her correspondence. That leads to the event that drives the plot.  ( I feel guilty about telling you too much.

In the second paragraph above, I said that I wished that someone would say that making the meals and doing the laundry is important, too.  I think that's part of what is so lovely about this novel.  I didn't realized until I'd thought about it some more, but Flagg is saying that making the meals and doing the laundry is important, and that all women's work is important and should not be devalued because it includes laundry!

Defending Jacob by William Landay

I'd been hearing that this was a good book and a kind of genre-crosser (a mix of family concerns and courtroom drama/legal thriller), and I finally got around to reading it last month.

I thought the praise was well-deserved.  This book reminded me very much of Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent, and it emphasized the family aspect more.  I've heard that it's a popular book club book, and I think the combination of real suspense and family concerns makes for a book that is likely to be enjoyed by many and will offer plenty to talk about.

Andy Barber is a prosecutor, a twenty-year veteran.  He and his wife are happily married and they have a teenage son named Jacob.

A classmate of his son's is killed in the park next to Jacob's school.  At first, Andy views the murder as routine and his first thought is to consider local pedophiles.  Things start to get a little strange when, after Jacob's classmates are interviewed by police and prosecutors, Andy's boss decides to take him off the case.

It shortly becomes clear why Andy has been removed from the case when Jacob is charged with the murder.

Andy enters a world of bifurcated perception as he sees every event through two lenses:  as a lawyer and prosecutor with a profound knowledge of the legal system's limitations and how to work them, and as a father who longs to protect his son.

Janet Maslin in the New York Times described Defending Jacob this way: "Mr. Landay turns out to be creating a clever blend of legal thriller and issue-oriented family implosion." Andy Barber's conflicted feelings about his predicament lead him to reevaluated his entire life. I enjoyed the "parry and thrust" of courtroom tactics, and I found the insider's view very interesting. I'd recommend it both as a suspenseful, entertaining read and as a good selection for a book group.

Sycamore Row by John Grisham

This book came out last year and I'm only getting around to reading it now.  One of my reasons for pushing it to the top of my TBR (to-be-read) list is my interest in finding out if it would be a good selection for a book group.

I'm now past the two-thirds mark.  I have to say I am really enjoying this book.

One of the qualities Grisham possesses, one which has turned me off in the past, is his intense interest on who stands where in the pecking order.  His interest in how manners, money, dress and comportment dictate your social standing has made me feel painfully self-conscious, and I have not enjoyed it.  It is the business of the novel, in my opinion, to talk about how we live now and certainly, this novel and his other novels do that. I think that one of the things that I particularly like about this novel is that there is so much to say about everything in this long novel that his socioeconomic rankings are less obtrusive than I have found them to be in the past.

Jake Brigance is a small town "street lawyer," in Mississippi in 1984.  He's well-known in his town because he represented Carl Lee Hailey in his trial for murdering the white men who raped his daughter, three years earlier.  Carl Lee was African-American, so Jake is highly regarded in the African-American community.

Jake is struggling financially, however.  He didn't make much money defending Carl Lee and his house was firebombed by racists during the trial.  He's been unable to settle with the insurance company and he, his wife, and his daughter are living in a rental house.

Enter Seth Hubbard, albeit by letter.  Seth is a cantankerous soul, who has made millions in timber and furniture in the previous ten years.  Then Seth learned that he had terminal cancer.

Seth has hung himself, and before doing so, made a new will and writtern Jake a letter in which he asks Jake to defend the new will vigorously.  (Seth chooses Jake because of his local reputation as the defender of Carl Lee Hailey)  Seth knows it will be challenged, because in his new will he cuts out his children.  The new beneficiary is his housekeeper, who is to receive 90% of Hubbard's estate.

Jake is stunned, but he instantly understands that the new will will be contested by the deceased's children and that he, as the estate's lawyer defending the new will, will have an opportunity to have a good, steady income for the first time in years.  When he begins discussing the will with his closest attorney friends, and the local sheriff, they all immediately understand that the fact that Seth Hubbard's housekeeper was black means that there will be a very big fight and that some jurors will feel reluctance to award 90% of a multimillion dollar estate to a black woman.

Grisham mentions Faulkner more than once in this book, and it's clear to me that he shared Faulkner's view that "the past isn't dead, it isn't even passed."  Nevertheless, the book ends on a hopeful note.

Appropos of nothing, I found this reference to dining and shopping in East London in an ad from Phaidon, the publishers.

http://www.phaidon.com/agenda/food/articles/2014/may/19/the-insiders-guide-to-london/

10/24/2017

I read Sycamore Row for  a second time this past spring, for another book group, and I have to say that I enjoyed it even more the second time. I found myself dwelling on details I hadn't noticed the first time around, and I loved the local color - the restaurant and Jake and one of his cronies goes to discuss the trial during a lunch break. It's in the country, and Jake's lunch partner is another lawyer, a really startling intellect. It's so rich in detail and feeling. If only every Grisham outing were this resonant. And this book is resonant.

Parade's End

Back in May, I watched all five episodes of the BBC miniseries, "Parade's End."  This is based on the series of novels by Ford Madox Ford, based in part on his experiences in the First World War.  It seems so odd to me that this year is the 100-year anniversary of the beginning of the war, because we seem to continue to read books and watch movies about the war.

Well, I loved it. The cinematography was wonderful, as was the music.  I thought Adeline Clements was sublime, as were the supporting actors, including Rufus Sewell as the mad vicar.  I recommend it to you for that alone.  It had a wonderful cast:  Janet McTeer, Miranda Richardson, Rupert Everett, Roger Allam, Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall.

I know that the screenplay was by Tom Stoppard and having enjoyed his plays very much, I found myself wondering if that was part of why I loved it.  The villain of the piece (Sylvia) was given some absolutely wonderful lines and I found myself thinking it was hard to dislike her entirely when she had such interesting things to say!

I thought Janet McTeer's performance as Sylvia's mother was note-perfect and I enjoyed watching her.  I loved everybody else, too.  Loved it!

I have not read the novels, but I learned something about them by going to the Wikipedia entry.  There's a scene in which Sylvia throws a plate at Christopher, complaining that he is correcting the Encyclopedia Britannica. She further complains that no jury would convict her if she killed her husband; I can't remember what her specific complaint is, but it seems to be that it is horrible to be married to such a pedantic person. In the novel, I learned from Wikipedia, Christopher reads the Encyclopedia Britannica to restore his lost memory as he recovers from shell shock.

I would say that it reminded me of the Makioka Sisters, the novel by Tanizaki Junichiro, but lately I've been thinking that everything reminds me of the Makioka Sisters, so I'll skip that.  (In the Makioka Sisters, different daughters react differently to the decline in their family's fortunes in the context of Westernization and militarization - here Christopher Tietjens and his elder brother have slightly different takes on responding to the ending of a way of life on landed estates after the First World War.  It seemed to me that the heart of the piece was the tension between Christopher's values and those of the world around him which were rapidly undergoing a huge shift.)

A friend gave me a copy of Parade's End and I've just finished watching it a second time. In my second viewing, Benedict Cumberbatch's performance seemed wonderful.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I thought the book started off surprisingly slowly.  I thought it did quickly get rolling and was very suspenseful.

In this classic women's fiction tale of a white woman and two African-American maids, set in 1960s era Jackson, Mississippi, the suspense comes not just from not knowing the outcome of the story but from understanding the very real danger in which these characters are placed by their actions.  I think that's definitely part of the appeal:  it's a social satire, an adventure story, a family story, and a town saga (many characters), all wrapped into one.

The book opens with Aibileen, a black maid, getting ready to start work at a new job.  For three months, she's been grieving the loss of her adult son, and she hasn't been working.

Her son was a physically slight and bookish man, who worked at manual labor.  Aibileen feels that his fatal accident at work occurred because her son was not physically strong enough for the job he had.

She feels bitter, and she feels conflicted about going to work for another white family.

Before he died, he started work on a book about what it was like to work for white people.

Aibileen mentions this to Skeeter, a young woman who has just returned from college (without that "Mrs. Degree").  Coincidentally, Skeeter's applied for a job at a New York publishing house and while she didn't get the job, an editor there advised her that she should write something.  It occurs to Skeeter that she should write about the black maids in her world and their experiences working for white people.

Minny is a friend of Aibileen and she also works as a maid for a white lady.  The daughter of her employer decides that her mother should be moved to a rest home, ending Minny's employment.  Hilarious hijinks ensue.  Actually, this occasions a crisis in Minny's life as she really needs that job.  Minny is a plain-spoken person who has a reputation for speaking her mind regardless of the consequences.

She eventually gets a job with a young white woman who is struggling with several aspects of married life. This aspect of Minny's story has many comic and heart-warming elements.

  

Invisible Woman

I loved this film.  It's based on a book by Clare Tomalin on Charles Dickens (which I haven't read) of the same title.

It's about Dickens' love affair with an actress named Ellen Ternan.  In many ways, it's a quite interesting story.  I was surprised to learn about Dickens' affair because he seemed to me to be such an connoiseur of fine family feeling in his fiction that I imagined that sensibility would be a central part of his own family life.

As shown in the film, he was close friends with Wilkie Collins, who was also living with a woman outside of marriage.  What the film doesn't show is that Collins had two mistresses.

The reason I loved the film, however, was not the interesting biographical facts it contained.  It was the acting, which I thought was sublime.

Ralph Fiennes played Dickens; Felicity Jones played Ellen Ternan; Kirstin Scott Thomas played Ellen Ternan's mother, an actress of some distinction, and Tom Hollander played Collins.

Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

I'm torn about this book.  I know it's a crowd pleaser, not because I know that it was a bestseller and book club favorite (which I do), but as I read the book I felt as though I could glimpse the Great Wizard behind the curtain, pulling the levers.

Is it wrong to please people?  Surely not!  Yet the fantasy aspect of this book made me feel uneasy.  I remember that line from Murder in the Cathedral, "Humankind cannot bear too much reality."  I don't know if I ever knew what that has to do with the death of Becket but I can see how it would make this book very appealing.

The book has more than one theme and I may not have picked up on them all:  the most important, I think, is about forgiving our parents for the foolish things they do, forgiving ourselves for the foolish things we do, and beginning the process of healing.  It's also about love in all its many forms.  I'm sure this is part of why this book was so popular (as well as its being a coming-of-age novel, which everyone seems to love - why is that?  Adolescence is often a horrible time, for one reason or another).  Race is also a theme.  The novel is set in South Carolina in the 1960's.

This author has a new book out, The Invention of Wings, about the Grimke sisters (famous abolitionists), which deals with the issue of slavery as well as the yin/yang of dependence on those we love and our desire for independence from them.

Since I wrote this post I've learned that the author knew of a house where bees came swimming out of the wall.  I realize that's not necessarily fantastic.  It's almost as if the time that has passed has allowed the novel to settle in my mind and I realize that the themes of forgiveness are very powerful, as is the idea of creating your own religion that permits you to affirm not only your own values but to affirm your value as a human being.

Saving Mr. Banks/Philomena/The Invention of Lying/About Time

I saw all four of these movies this weekend; of course, none of them were new.

I was so interested in Saving Mr. Banks because I loved the Travers books when I was a child and saw them as really wonderfully weird.  Learning that Walt Disney and Travers had a rocky relationship was no surprise then, really.  This film was so beautifully made.  The acting was fantastic (it was a wonderful cast, down to Melanie Paxson and Kathy Banks as secretaries).  I love Emma Thompson and I thought her ability to imitate Travers' speech patterns and accent was sublime.  I thought that there was a real anarchic streak in the Travers books, so I suspect that their relationship was even more rocky than depicted.  And the depiction of Travers' childhood was the experience of many; that could have been my grandmother.

Philomena was another wonderfully crafted movie - great music, good writing, another wonderful cast, wonderful acting from Judi Dench .. although it was a wonderful script, one that permitted Philomena to be a complex person with many feelings, some of them unexpected, I just think the movie would not have worked without Judi Dench's performance.  I read some criticism that argued that the jokes in the movie are made at Philomena's expense.  That's true, and a fair criticism.  Criticizing her perspective was part of the characterization of the character Martin Sixmith, and it added a needed comic element.  I can see how it would make some viewers uncomfortable and seem exploitative and like a cheap shot.

I loved the Invention of Lying, which is more a social satire than a romance.  Jennifer Garner's performance is both charming and deeply disturbing.  The film was shot in Lowell, Massachusetts, and in the film, Lowell is filled with many handsome buildings.

The notion of the film is that there was a time when no one lied, not even to spare each others' feelings.  In the film, we see that all that honesty makes people really scary; there's a wonderful scene in which Rob Lowe's character says of Ricky Gervais's character, "I don't like him because there's something different about him and that challenges me."  Have to love it; that's so much conflict in a nutshell.

Ricky Gervais is set upfor a date with Jennifer Garner and crushed when she tells him that she won't go out with him again because she wants someone more attractive to father her children.  (Actually, he takes it fairly calmly because he's accustomed to being disappointed.)  Then he's fired and faces homelessness - until, in desperation, he discovers lying can at least solve his income problem.

About Time is a Richard Curtis film that stars Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson; the fact that she starred in another time travel movie, The Time Traveler's Wife, caused me to be surprised to see her here.  Still, the time travel is not really an important part of this film:  it's more of a scaffold on which to lay some sentiment about family love.  I know I read a review of this film that was lukewarm, but I enjoyed it.  I think that I enjoyed having these issues explored again, although they've all been explored many times before.  I also was happy to see Lindsay Duncan, whom I like very much, and who played a part a little different than the others I've seen her in - most recently, Lady Blackwood in "The Last Vow" episode of Sherlock.

And, of course, Bill Nighy.  I love Bill Nighy.  His persona of self-deprecation is so charming:  it seems to make him a natural joke-tossing-off vehicle.  Yes, I never tire of Bill Nighy.

What Would Jane Austen Do? by Laurie Brown

I'm reading this romance novel that was nominated for an award.

The author displays quite an impressive amount of knowledge of Regency Era customs, from marriage mores to dress design to cuisine.  I was quite impressed.

The story has a few paranormal elements:  there are a couple of charming ghosts, some time travel, and a good-looking rake! who turns out to be a spymaster in the Napoleonic wars.  There's some steamy sex.

As is pointed out in the novel, in 1814 Britain was at war with both France and America.

And, to the delight, I am sure, of Jane Austen fans everywhere, Jane Austen makes an appearance in the novel (accompanied by her sister, Cassandra).

And, perhaps more important than any of these things, if you're a big Jane Austen fan, the climax of the novel does turn on the advice (what Jane Austen would do) Jane Austen gives our heroine regarding her perplexing love life.

Well Read and Dead by Catherine O'Connell

What a cute book, set in Chicago and published in 2009.  This book is a cozy mystery, and just barely a mystery in the classic sense:  the body doesn't appear until the last quarter of the book and I'd say the sleuthing doesn't begin until the last third of the book.

Before that, we get a very tongue-in-cheek portrait of the rich on Chicago's North Side.

I read this with a book group (they all loved it) and while my overall impression of the book was that it was an entertaining romp, the others disagreed about whether the heroine, Pauline, was overly materialistic. Some thought she was; others thought that a girl should get, and have, her own.  Some defended her by saying that she came from money:  they seemed to believe that it was natural to think that money was important if you'd grown up with it.

The others enjoyed the settings:  Chicago, Cambodia, Thailand and Aspen.  They approved of Pauline's loyalty to her missing cat, Fleur; Pauline's quest to find Fleur drives much of the plot.

O'Connell's first book was Well Bred and Dead, and apparently, Well Wed and Dead, is planned.

The most important part of the book, to me, was that the two main characters actually recited poetry to each other.  I don't believe anyone has fallen in love over poetry, in fiction, since Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove (in Jane Austen's Persuasion). Marvell was quoted, Milton too (!) and Sonnet 73, "Thou Mayst in Me Behold," also made an appearance.  Further, O'Connell gave all of her chapters the titles of famous novels, such as Pride and Prejudice.  I loved this, and I wonder if some other book-loving readers would alos enjoy this.

This author has a website (www.catherineoconnell.net), and if you take a look you can see that she is really part of the world that she depicts in her book, and, that she is not Catherine O'Connell, the Irish-American singer and Chicagoan.

There's quite a bit of romance, and quite a bit of comedy.  I objected to the denouement of the plot; the others expressed surprise.  If you like to be surprised by the ending, I recommend Well Read and Dead to you.  

In the Land of the Young by Lisa Carey

I checked this book out accidentally, or perhaps, saw it and couldn't resist it when I was looking for a children's book on St. Patrick.  I thought I remembered that the Land of the Young is the translation for Tir Na Nog.

I read the first chapter, and it broke my heart.  I assure you, if you read the first page you will be compelled to read the entire first chapter.  It's about a shipwreck of Irish immigrants off the coast of Maine in 1848, and how the fishermen ran to their boats when they saw a ship in distress, and how they tried to save everyone, and how a man lost his life saving a child, and how she passed, anyway.   After I read the first chapter, I said to myself, "I can't read this book; it's just so sad."

But later on, I found myself feeling curious about the book I wouldn't read, and I picked it up and started reading it in the middle or perhaps farther on, and I found that it seemed to be a domestic drama about a man caring for a girl .. but was caused me to read on, and on, was the prose.  I don't know if it was sparkling, but it was good.  It was plain and poetic and it made you want to know more.

I don't know if I will ever find time to read this book; I hope I do.  The jacket flap tipped me off to the fact that it's a ghost story, and I bet it has more sorrow to dish out than that I've already encountered.  I'm sure it's all about loss and how it haunts us and how the past gives us rich gifts and cripples us at the same time. And there are a lot of books about that subject.  But I think, based on what little I've read, that Lisa Carey is a wonderful prose stylist and her book is one well worth reading.