After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey/All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

After Visiting Friends is a memoir told like a mystery tale.  I thought it was very well written.

How important is good writing to a memoir?  I think it's very important.  I think it's like the old tale of The Pot of Broth (per Yeats) or Stone Soup (per Danny Kaye).  With creativity and writing skill you can make a lot out of a little.

On the other hand, in his memoir, Hainey himself writes that the secret of good writing is good reporting.  I know when I have talked to students I've said that a good term paper requires good research.  It is almost like a sculpture.  If you have plenty of information to work with, it's much to shape that information in a useful and aesthetic way (including by cutting things that don't fit your shape).

Hainey grew up with unanswered questions about his father's death, a loss he suffered when he was six years old. (Actually, there are so many intriguing little things about this short memoir that I could write for paragraphs about it:  At one point, Hainey speculates that he might have been a better man if his early loss had not been deepened by the secrecy surrounding it (I longed to know more!); in a publicity video on the Simon & Schuster website, Hainey, a fascinatingly soft spoken man, states that the memoir is really his parents' love story, a claim I'd like to see him prove).

Hainey includes many of his memories of his boyhood in the seventies on the northwest side of Chicago.  I think that there's no question that folks who've lived in Chicago, especially in this period, will enjoy revisiting some of the moments and places that Hainey visits in his quest for the truth which is also sometimes a sentimental journey. Hainey's father was a newspaperman and he is a magazine journalist and editor.  He's a good storyteller, and I both enjoy and respect that.  I think different kinds of readers will find different reasons to enjoy this book.

All the Bright Places is a YA novel.  Two teens have perhaps the "cute meet" of all time when they are both thinking about suicide and independently find themselves on the six story-high ledge of a campus bell tower.  One talks the other down and they find a great deal of meaning in their ensuing friendship/romance.  The boy, Theodore Finch, ensnares the girl, Violet Markey, in a road trip of sorts:  a Geography class assignment to wander the wonders of Indiana.  This proves to be charming, amusing and affecting and my favorite was the bookmobile farm they visited (but the farmer's backyard roller coaster was great fun, too).  This book reminded me of something I hadn't thought about for a long time but which I think is important: the stigma surrounding mental illness and the natural reluctance of those affected to be pigeon-holed in that category.

I've unfairly given both these titles short shrift because of time's winged chariot, etc.

After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey/All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

After Visiting Friends is a memoir told like a mystery tale.  I thought it was very well written.

How important is good writing to a memoir?  I think it's very important.  I think it's like the old tale of The Pot of Broth (per Yeats) or Stone Soup (per Danny Kaye).  With creativity and writing skill you can make a lot out of a little.

On the other hand, in his memoir, Hainey himself writes that the secret of good writing is good reporting.  I know when I have talked to students I've said that a good term paper requires good research.  It is almost like a sculpture.  If you have plenty of information to work with, it's much easier to shape that information in a useful and aesthetic way (including by cutting things that don't fit your shape).

Hainey grew up with unanswered questions about his father's death, a loss he suffered when he was six years old. (Actually, there are so many intriguing little things about this short memoir that I could write for paragraphs about it:  At one point, Hainey speculates that he might have been a better man if his early loss had not been deepened by the secrecy surrounding it (I longed to know more!); in a publicity video on the Simon & Schuster website, Hainey, a fascinatingly soft spoken man, states that the memoir is really his parents' love story).

Hainey includes many of his memories of his boyhood in the seventies on the northwest side of Chicago.  I think that there's no question that folks who've lived in Chicago, especially in this period, will enjoy revisiting some of the moments and places that Hainey visits in his quest for the truth which is also sometimes a sentimental journey. Hainey's father was a newspaperman and he is a magazine journalist and editor.  He's a good storyteller, and I both enjoy and respect that.  I think different kinds of readers will find different reasons to enjoy this book.

All the Bright Places is a YA novel.  Two teens have perhaps the "cute meet" of all time when they are both thinking about suicide and independently find themselves on the six story-high ledge of a campus bell tower.  One talks the other down and they find a great deal of meaning in their ensuing friendship/romance.  The boy, Theodore Finch, ensnares the girl, Violet Markey, in a road trip of sorts:  a Geography class assignment to wander the wonders of Indiana.  This proves to be charming, amusing and affecting and my favorite was the bookmobile farm they visited (but the farmer's backyard roller coaster was great fun, too).  This book reminded me of something I hadn't thought about for a long time but which I think is important: the stigma surrounding mental illness and the natural reluctance of those affected to be pigeon-holed in that category.

I've unfairly given both these titles short shrift because of time's winged chariot, etc.

Miracle on Monhegan Island by Elizabeth Kelly

What an unlikely book!  No wonder it has not yet taken the world by storm!

I loved it.

I hate to try to describe the book's plot because I don't think I can do it justice. I think I read the book mainly because I had a professor who summered on Monhegan, and perhaps also because a book set on an island seemed appealing.  I didn't choose it because of its description because the story of a troubled family, narrated by its dog, didn't seem immediately compelling.

Three generations of a family live on Monhegan Island.  The grandfather is a pastor; the uncle is a painter; and the grandson is only twelve. Although the father is a pastor there's little that's mild about him and his sons frequently compare notes and speculate about their father's plans and intentions. He's a  master manipulator and they're a little bit afraid of him, too.

The story begins when the absent son/brother/father, Spark, decides that he has neglected his son too long, and must return home to try to grow/repair their relationship.  Along the way, he steals a purebred Shih-Tzu from the back of an idling Mercedes.

This is quite shocking to the dog and to Spark's companion, but Spark cheerfully insists he loves the dog already.  The dog, who narrates this tale, soon loves Spark in return.

The dog, now renamed Neddy, falls for Spark because he is sure that he can intuit that beneath Spark's sarcasm and banter is a wounded, sensitive soul who has buried his pain very deep indeed.

The charm of this book, in my view, is its narrator.  Is it interesting and entertaining to know what the dog is thinking?  It certainly is.  But Neddy has a very unique viewpoint, equal parts affection, concern, loyalty, and a sure sense of self.  Neddy is an avid and entertained observer of the family's dynamics, and seen through Neddy's loving eyes they become important and fascinating.

In the book's acknowledgements, the author thanks her agent for "letting me have what for" and thanks her editor for editing and offers as evidence of her devotion the news that she cut her favorite joke from the book at her editor's suggestion.

Kelly's humor and sensibility is what brings Neddy's irresistible charm to life. This is her third book: her others are Apologize! Apologize! and The Last Summer of the Cumperdowns. I hope she will write other books because the glimpse I've had of her view of the world is engaging.

Murder on the Quai by Cara Black

Like A Fine Summer's Day (by Charles Todd) and Blind Goddess (by James R. Benn) this novel in the Investigator Aimee LeDuc series (set in Paris) is a wonderful way to get started in a long-running series by coming in at the beginning, so to speak, without actually going all the way back to the beginning.

Aimee LeDuc is a snappy dresser, a medical student, and the daughter and grandaughter of cops.   This book tells the "creation story," the story of how Aimee went from being a frustrated medical student to a private investigator working in her father's firm.

If you love Paris, and especially if you love eating in Paris, you will be charmed by this book.  After I read it, the first thing I thought was, "I wonder if I should learn French cooking." My jealousy was that acute.

I really enjoyed this book, and I think that in addition to visiting the different streets of the 8th arrodissement, and enjoying Aimee's wonderful dress sense, I loved the pacing of this book.  It swept me up and carried me along.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

This novel begs comparison with John Green's The Fault in Our Stars because both stories feature teenagers grappling with illness.  There the comparison must end, as Andrews' book, while well-constructed, is much less "painterly" than Green's novel.

Part of what I loved about this novel is that one of the characters frequently feels compelled to say funny things to his sick friend and I found myself laughing out loud.

I also enjoyed the departures in narrative style that Andrews adopted.  Some of the dialogue is presented as a film script; some in bullet points.  As in Jennifer Egan's A Visit to the Goon Squad, I found these alternative storytelling forms highly engaging.  In fact, Andrews has a good ear, and recounting of dialogue using bullet points didn't diminish his ability to capture the way we talk now in any way.  A very funny book with quite a bit of bad language.

The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian

I enjoyed this novel, cleverly structured for maximum suspense.  It's set in Florence, in the 1950's, and centers on a female detective (a novelty at the time) investigating a serial killer who seems to have a vendetta against a aristocratic family.  She herself is a former partisan who lived and worked in the area.  She was traumatized by the war and as she investigates the case she learns that the family who is the target of the vendetta also suffered greatly at that time and has a daughter close to her own age.

I love books set in Italy and that was why I guessed I'd enjoy this novel.  Chris Bohjalian is a veteran writer and the author of other novels (his most recent being another suspense novel, The Guest Room). Bohjalian is not a suspense writer, per se; the last novel he wrote was Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands, featuring a teenage protagonist trying to survive in Maine after a nuclear plant meltdown. He's also the author of The Sandcastle Girls, a historical novel about the Armenian genocide.

I enjoy reading author acknowledgements and in this case was delighted to learn that Bohjalian's portrait of the Tuscan family was based in part on writer Iris Origo's account of her own family's experiences trying to survive and protect their farm during the Second World War.  I don't know much about Origo but I loved her book The Merchant of Prato and would strongly recommend it to anyone planning a visit to Avignon.

Brighton by Michael Harvey/The Whites by Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt

Brighton by Michael Harvey is a wonderful novel.  It's very true that if you like Dennis Lehane you'll like this novel.  It's not just that it's set in Boston but that it also features a pretty clear-eyed view of the tensions inherent in the urban scene.

This novel is very suspenseful and in part, that's because the author carefully offers tidbits of information as you go along but also because there is a major plot twist at the end of novel which I didn't anticipate.  There were no red herrings, however, which I appreciate.  Michael Harvey's use of street slang and highly poetic metaphor side-by-side delighted me.  It's so fun, and somewhat unusual, to be surprised by excellence and beauty in prose style.

The Whites is a wonderful novel.  I read Brighton and The Whites back to back and as much as I enjoyed Brighton I loved The Whites even more.  It's hard for me to figure out why.  Part of it may be just that there was so much going on in The Whites: the protagonist has his dementia-burdened father at home, a man who slips in and out of the present but is capable of dispensing wisdom, intimidating his son, and helping his son out of a big, big jam regardless.  His friends from the force are all so interesting as individuals.  There's a lot of details about how we live now.

In both novels there are elements that strain credulity but to me that is more than counterbalanced by the richness of characterizations, the excellence with which the plot has been structured, and the realistic view of urban life.

The Granchester Mysteries: Sidney Chambers and The Problem of Temptation by James Runcie

A friend gave me these books for my birthday.  I feel very fortunate - I love them!  I guess what I like about them is that each books is made up of several novellas, so they are very easy to read in one sitting, something I really appreciate as a busy person.

Runcie, the son a former Archbishop of Canterbury, is well versed in the political as well as practical aspects of church administration and drops just enough authentic details about that world to give the stories a realistic grounding that appeals to the practical side of my nature.

On the other hand, because of his role as a clergyman, Runcie's hero, Sidney Chambers, is able to know people from every strata of society, from his charwoman to a Brit of African descent who owns a club in Soho.  I suppose Runcie would have been wonderful company for Jane Austen, or vice versa.

Last, but far from least, in the books Sidney Chambers wrestles quite a bit with how Chritianity prescribes behavior. He wrestles with his own feelings, and with what expectations to have of others. It's more explicit in the book.

In this book, Sidney is married to Hildegard, and in one of the stories they go to visit Hildegard's family in East Germany. This story is dark and while it's very much like the village mystery in that everyone knows each other and that the buried secrets of the past emerge, the change in setting makes it feel quite different.

I personally think the covers are delightful, too.

All the characters from the TV series are here:  Amanda, Mrs. McGuire, Leonard, Hildegard, Sidney's sister and his club-owning brother-in-law.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWit

I really enjoyed this novel.  It's a quick, easy read, and it has a happy ending.  I also thought that Mr. deWit's prose style was exemplary, and I thought it beautiful. 

It is a great book for reading on a bus, train or airplane - you can read for the rollicking action, or slow down, take your time and appreciate the prose.

It is, however, a very violent novel. 

I would definitely recommend this for you if you are a fan of Quentin Tarantino's movies.

It is the tale, set in the American West around the time of the California Gold Rush (1848) of two (arguably) psychopathic brothers (Charlie and Eli) who are paid killers.  Eli and Charlie are very close, but very different.  As the novel progresses, Eli demands, and gets, a reckoning.  After I'd finished it and considered its ending, I had to admit that it reminded me of Voltaire's Candide.  And, now as I consider the high amount of absurdity in the story, I have to say that it reminds me of Beckett, too.  That erudite Mr. deWit! I think I should probably suggest that Mr. deWit stop showing off his prodigious gifts, as they make the rest of us look bad.  But until he does, enjoy.

Billy Boyle: a World War II Mystery by James R. Benn

This title is the first in the series about an Army investigator by James R. Benn.

Really enjoyed it, although I thought the prose style was a little creaky, featuring a few too many adjectives in its description.  Blind Goddess, a later novel in the series, has a prose style I really enjoyed with more economy in its description.

The plot concerns Allied plans for an invasion of Norway.  It won't surprise you to hear that I didn't know any of the details of the invasion of Norway.  I had, however, heard of the "Bus," the fishing boats that ran back and forth from Scotland to Norway during the war.  I heard it about when I watched Shetland, a BBC TV series based on the novels by Ann Cleeves,

Billy's backstory is part of the charm of this novel.  He's a guy who's really never been out of his own backyard, Boston's neighborhoods:  Beacon Hill, North End, South Boston, and he finds himself catapulted into Eisenhower's command.

I read this with a book group and they loved it.  

A Good Family by Erik Fassnacht

I really enjoyed this book.  It took me longer to read than my average book, I think because I read so many mystery books that are written for plot development and in which characterization and psychological insight is often sacrificed.  I think I had to slow down for these carefully etched portraits of ordinary people.  But I found myself sneaking glances at the book at times when I was doing other things, thinking:  gee, do I have to do this right now?  I wonder what's happening in the story.. It wouldn't hurt anything if I read it right now, would it?

Fassnacht is not shy about dropping brand names:  NPR, Chicago magazine, 7-Up, New Balance, TrendStar.  I haven't read so many brand names since I read Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie.

When Barkley, the main protagonist of the novel, arrives at a school for his first day of work as a teacher, he looks down at his New Balance shoes.  I found myself wondering, "Is this significant?  Is this cool?  (Or does it just mean that real teachers wear real comfortable shoes?)"  I looked down at my own New Balance shoes and wondered, very briefly, if they made me cool.  I decided that any shoe with a velcro fastener can't be considered cool.

Many places in Chicagoland are mentioned in this novel, like Diversey Harbor.  I found myself thinking, if you don't know Diversey Harbor, how will you picture this place?

Fassnacht's portrait of Barkley's transition into a professional as he takes his first teaching job and deals with students, both the challenging and the troubled kind, bosses, and office politics generally, is really quite stirring. He experiments, responds to changing conditions and finds his footing. Teaching is a kind of performance, after all.

Nevertheless, the combination of familiar situations and locations, and yes, brand names, lends the novel a wonderful, intimate air of immediacy. I think that this is one of the many ways to tell a story that will resonate with readers.


 

A Question of Honor by Charles Todd (A Bess Crawford mystery)

I have to admit that I was interested in reading this novel both because of its plot, which seemed intriguing, but even more because I loved the cover, which shows The Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, India.  The Golden Temple doesn't really figure in the story, however.

Charles Todd is a mother-son writing team and they write historical fiction mysteries.  They write two series, the Bess Crawford series and the Ian Rutledge series.  I had already read the Ian Rutledge novel A Fine Summer's Day.  (I can hardly believe it, but this novel is the 17th in the series, and there's a new Ian Rutledge novel out now, No Shred of Evidence.)

Bess Crawford is a nurse serving in the First World War.  She grew up in India, where her father was a regimental colonel.  The early part of the novel recounts events from her childhood in India and I found that part very interesting and enjoyable.

As an adult, she is serving at a field hospital when a stuck truck is pushed out of the mud one night by a group of men, one of whom she thinks she recognizes as a man who served under her father and who disappeared the same day police came to arrest him for murders in both England and India, forever conferring an air of scandal on the regiment Bess's father commands.

The back story of the murders in England, as Bess uncovers the mystery, is fascinating.  I found myself feeling dissatisfied with the motive for the murder and wondered if other readers would feel disappointed as well.

City of Women by David R. Gillham

City of Women is set in Berlin; it opens in 1943, in a movie theater.  Berliners are facing food and other shortages, their men at away at war, neighbors turn in each other to the authorities and an atmosphere of distrust prevails. Sigrid is lonely, harried by her mother-in-law, and meets a strange man at the cinema with whom she starts an affair.  She also meets a young woman who comes to her for aid when the police come into the cinema looking for people with false papers.  These chance encounters change her life irrevocably.

City of Women has elements that remind me of other novels. Like the Paris Architect, the first 100 pages are incredibly suspenseful, and as in both The Nightingale and Paris Architect, apolitical and war-weary individuals nevertheless become engaged in the resistance. Essentially, these individuals come to the point where they say, no more, and their concern for friends, lovers, and strangers overwhelms their sense of self-preservation.

It's partly a novel about female friendship and how that is tested by extreme situations like war.  Over the course of the novel, everything deteriorates.  Danger comes closer for everyone.

Charles Finch, the Chicago-based author of a the Charles Lenox series (an amateur detective in Victorian London), wrote a lovely and thoughtful review of this novel for USA Today.  Here's the link:  http://usat.ly/1Qcy8WL

I think most readers who enjoyed The Nightingale and the Paris Architect will enjoy City of Women as well.  I do think that the sex here is portrayed in a less delicate way that in those other novels, in part because here it's a really important mover in the plot and the changes that Sigrid undergoes.