Summer means beach reads!

Over the past couple of days I read two of my favourite "summertime" authors.  Both of them write easy to read, engaging, and intelligent novels.

The Matchmaker by Elin Hilderbrand
I have read most of Hilderbrand's Nantucket based books and I'd say this was one of her better ones.  The story centres on Dabney, a woman in her early 40s who is the face of Nantucket's Chamber of Commerce.  She is married to a Harvard economics professor, Box, who spends his weekdays in Boston and they have one daughter, Agnes, who lives in New York.  Dabney also has her quirks - she has a strange phobia which means she will not leave Nantucket unless her life depends on it (though she did do an undergraduate degree at Harvard) and she is a very successful matchmaker (she sees a pink, good, or green, bad, aura around all prospective couples).

Dabney's life is thrown into chaos when her high school sweetheart, and Agnes' biological father, Clendenin, returns to the island.  They have not been in contact with each other for over 25 years as Clen left the island to pursue his dream of becoming a foreign correspondent and Dabney's phobias did not allow her to follow him.  After he left she found out she was pregnant, and told him, but he did not return.  Box adopted Agnes and they did not tell her who her real father was until she was 16.

Agnes also returns to the island for the summer.  She is engaged to a much older, wealthy man who is very controlling.  She has also heard rumours he was abusive to his first wife and she is trying to figure out what to do.  Dabney of course saw the green aura around them and instead tries to push her toward a dental student who is working on Nantucket for the summer.

Clen's appearance makes Dabney physically ill - at least that what she thinks.  And we follow the characters for the course of a summer and fall to see how the various relationships resolve.

The One & Only by Emily Giffin
Shea is a 30 something woman who has never left her home town in Walker, Texas.  She is employed by the Walker University athletics department and has been obsessed with the Walker football team for her entire life.  She is dating a former Walker football player but is not terribly enthusiastic about him.  The story starts at the funeral of the mother of Shea's best friend Lucy.  Lucy's father also happens to be the Walker coach.  The funeral causes Shea to take stock of her life.

So the book follows her decision to pursue her dream of sports journalism, date Walker's only Heisman trophy winner and fall for Lucy's father.  There's not really much more to the story but the characters are generally likeable (except for the ones who are meant not to be) so I really wanted to find out what happened to all of them.  This is a well written, easy read for a lazy summer day.

Two Recent Books

Every Day is for the Thief by Teju Cole

This is a really quick and interesting read.  The books is narrated in the first person by a young medical student studying to be a psychiatrist, whose name we never learn.  He was born in Nigeria but has lived in the US for many years and returns for his first visit.  He left after some sort of personal tragedy which caused him to be estranged from his mother but we never really learn the details of that either.

It is fascinating to see Nigeria through the eyes of someone who once lived there comfortably but now filters all he sees through North American sensibilities.  He is now taken aback by the extent of the corruption (he sees internet fraudsters in action at local internet cafes and is approached for bribes for just about anything he does).  He is also disappointed by the terrible lack of displays at the local museum - he feels Nigerian history, culture and art is better documented in museums in London and elsewhere.  He also has trouble truly connecting with his former friends - though he does have a good relationship with his aunts and uncles.  There are also cultural advances that surprise and delight him - a woman reading literature on a bus, a sophisticated music school (unfortunately only accessible by the most wealthy Nigerians) and a well stocked book store.  The story is interspersed with photographs taken by the author which appropriately illustrate his impressions of the country.

At the end the narrator is still torn about whether he can return to the country permanently or not - and it is easy to understand his mixed feelings.

It's Kind of A Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

This is a sad but hopeful story about a depressed teenager who thinks of committing suicide one night but instead calls a suicide hotline and is encouraged to check himself into a local hospital's psychiatric ward.  The author clearly illustrates the devastating effects of too much pressure on a teenager in today's competitive environment.

Craig devoted himself to the sole purpose of getting accepted at a prestigious Manhattan high school - but as soon as he gets there his life begins to unravel.  He gets in with a group of less than desirable friends, develops a crush on his best friend's girlfriend and feels totally incapable of achieving the marks he wants.  His worry spirals and he becomes unable to sleep and eat.

In the hospital, faced with others who have had lifelong struggles or new ones like himself, he learns about himself and finds that art grounds him.  After five days he makes friends, changes his life goals,  settles into appropriate therapy and medication and we come away feeling he'll have to struggle with depression and anxiety forever but that he'll have the inner tools he needs to survive.

Fields of Exile by Nora Gold

This was a great novel by a relatively new author.  Gold tackles a difficult subject in a balanced way without coming across as preachy.

Judith is a Canadian woman who moved to Israel and has been working there in a series of jobs.  Though she is not financially successful, and her father thinks she is also not socially successful since she remains single, she is very committed to the country.  She feels it is her home - though she is left leaning and demonstrates against many government policies in the territories.  Judith returns to Canada to be with her dying father and on his death bed promises to complete her MSW in Canada.

She enrols in the fictional Dunhill University.  There she quickly makes friends with both fellow students and a professor, Suzy.  Suzy appoints her to be co-chair of the school's anti-oppression committee and Judith's life begins to unravel when they invite a keynote speaker who favours violence against Israeli and Jewish civilians to further the cause of the Palestinians.  Judith's boyfriend encourages her to keep her head down and finish her degree quickly.  And she tries too...but eventually is faced with one too many demonstration and takes a stand.  She quickly learns who her real friends are and it all comes to head at an Anti-Oppression Day rally which has dire consequences for her.

The pace of the book is good, the writing is fluid and the characters are all interesting (whether they are likeable or not).  I highly recommend this book for a fictional account of very real issues.

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

I suppose it's not surprising that a book about depression and suicide is a depressing read.  But, as usual, Toews writes well so I wanted to read to the end despite the topic.

The book is written from the perspective of Yoli, the younger sister of an unconventional Mennonite family from small town Manitoba.  As an adult, Yoli is trying desperately to keep her older sister, Elf, from killing herself after several unsuccessful suicide attempts.  Superficially, Elf appears to be the better adjusted - she is a world renowned pianist, involved in a stable relationship with a supportive man.  Yoli has been divorced twice and has one child from each of the men.  She is also a semi-successful writer of teen rodeo novels who is struggling to finish her first "serious" book.

The girls both struggled in the confines of their restrictive Mennonite community and were often condemned by the town elders.  Their father also suffered and eventually took his own life.  My favourite character was the girls' mother.  She is strong and adaptable despite losing her husband and many siblings and having to face her daughter's mental illness.

This is in the end a story of struggling through life, and mental illness, and trying to figure out how to move on after tragedy.  It's also a study in the influence of family relationships and history on one's own life.  It's equal parts uplifting and depressing, but in all I really enjoyed it.

Two very different books...

The last two books I read were polar opposites - but each enjoyable in its own way.

In Paradise by Peter Matthiesen

This novel is about Clements Olin, an American professor of Polish descent who specializes in Holocaust studies.  He joins a diverse group of people for a one week retreat at Auschwitz Birkenau which is intended to "bear witness".  Initially he is unsure what he can offer to the group, but he is interested in exploring the mysterious past of his mother who was left behind in Poland while he was taken by his father and aristocratic grandparents to a new life in America.

The group at Auschwitz, led by a Buddhist is diverse - it includes survivors, descendants of survivors, Germans and Poles who are trying to understand how their people could have been part of such horrors, Christians and Jews, young and old.  There is a great deal of tension between the various factions and even amongst them.  Some are very angry - others have made an uneasy peace with what has happened.

Professor Olin is haunted by ghosts - including one of his mother, grandmother and aunt - who his family refused to talk about, ostensibly to save his father from the pain of losing her.  But as Olin digs into it he discovers his grandparents and even his father may not have been so innocent and almost certainly were aware of the fate they left her to when they took him away.

Another interesting aspect of the book is the strange relationship Olin develops with a novice nun.  One gets the impression he is afraid to bond with a woman who can actually commit to him.

Though grave, the books is not depressing and moves at a manageable pace.  I quite enjoyed it.

Boston Cream by Howard Shrier

This is a crime novel which is a genre I rarely read but it's on my book club list as the author is coming to speak to us.  Part of a series, the protagonist is Jonah Geller, a somewhat bumbling Jewish private investigator who is a disappointment to his high achieving parents.  In this case he is asked by an Orthodox Jewish man to locate his son, a promising doctor in Boston, who has mysteriously disappeared.  Geller heads off to Boston with his attractive, lesbian partner, and they are on the case together until she is also abducted.  Geller then brings in the "big guns", a recovering contract killer, to help solve the mystery of the doctor and get his partner released.

The story is entertaining, and not entirely predictable as some mysteries are.  The characters are amusing and likeable.  The book won't stay with me for long but it was a pleasant enough way to pass away an afternoon.

Annabel by Kathleen Winter

This was a really interesting book and certainly deserving of its Giller nomination.  The story is about Wayne, an unusual baby born into a small community in Labrador.  Unusual because he is a hermaphrodite.  The only people who know Wayne has both male and female sex organs are his parents and a trusted neighbour, Thomasina.  Wayne's father and his doctors decide he should be raised as a boy so sew up his vagina and feed him with hormones.  His mother mourns the loss of her daughter, but goes along with her husband's decision.

Wayne's father tries hard to turn him into a typical Labrador boy - teaching him hunting, trapping and other masculine pursuits.  But Wayne is interested in synchronized swimming, drawing and is particularly fascinated by bridges.  His best friend is a young girl who dreams of being an opera singer.

On the day Wayne is born, Thomasina loses her husband and daughter Annabel to drowning.  When Wayne is young she calls him Annabel when they are alone.  He hears it as the nickname "Amble" and thinks nothing of it.  Though he is given daily medication, Wayne is not told the truth until he hits puberty and has to be given even stronger hormones to suppress his female side.

After high school Wayne feels trapped in Labrador and moves to St. John's where he also experiments with stopping his hormone treatments.  This has both good and terrible consequences for him when some local boys find out.  But, somewhat surprisingly, it also strengthens his relationship with his father who wishes to protect his daughter that he'd always treated as a son.

At times the descriptive passages got a bit overwhelming, though they certainly painted a clear picture of both small town life and St. John's.  I did skim some of them though I'm sure they're what attracted the Giller judges.  In all it was worth wading through them to see how the main story unfolded.

The Fishing Fleet by Anne De Courcy

This non-fiction book, subtitled Husband Hunting in the Raj, describes the young English women who travelled to India to find husbands in the late 1800s and early 20th century.  The women were sent to have their pick of soldiers and government workers posted in India.  Some were returning to their birthplace having been sent back to England by their parents for their education, others were "old maids" in their early 20s who had fewer prospects at home.

I don't really recommend this book unless, like me, you are headed to India in the near future and wish to learn more about the country's history.  It reads like a text book and some of the lengthy descriptions of clothing and living quarters were quite tedious.  That being said, it was clearly well researched - in the acknowledgments the author credits dozens of memoirs and first hand accounts.  And some of the social commentary - on the gender discrimination as well as the racial and class discrimination were quite fascinating.  It was also interesting to read about sites that I will see (like the Taj Mahal) from the perspective of people who were seeing them over 100 years ago.

In sum, this was educational but felt a bit like studying for a history exam rather than leisure reading.