Review: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

By CeeCee Honeycutt's twelth year mental illness has taken her mother's life. Camille Honeycutt has developed a reputation for wandering the streets in old prom dresses, and one of these walks ends with her hit by a truck. CeeCee is taken in by a distant aunt and moved to Savannah. In Savannah CeeCee finds an entirely new life, including stable guardians and adults who show her love for the first time.

This is a very southern story. It is also a feel-good story. CeeCee is a child desperately in need of love. In the heat of the Savannah summer, she finds that love. I enjoyed this book, but I did have some quibbles. The treatment of racism in late-1960s Georgia is a bit too pat, and the resolution to racial problems a bit too neat. Oletta seems entirely too happy to spend nearly all of her time away from her own family. Racism is fairly minimal, and the only racist characters are the "bad" ones. The easy resolution of the one racist episode belies belief. Still, this book certainly has its charms, and CeeCee is a very likable character.

Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt (Penguin, 2010) ISBN: 0143118579

Review: Singing Songs

This is a book about child abuse. Anna and her siblings are abused by their father in every way: physically, emotionally, and sexually. Her brothers are not allowed to sleep in the house, and all of the children attend school only sporadically. The family continues to move to rural areas to avoid contact with the authorities. Anna's mother is not as guilty of abuse, but she is certainly guilty of neglect and failure to protect her children.

The book is narrated in Anna's voice, and it is quite believable. Through Anna's experience we can see how an abused child struggles to sort out what is right and wrong. Hers is a world in which the wrong has become normative. It is a startling reminder of how easy it is to hide a family's darkest secrets. It was shocking to me just how easily Anna's parents avoided schools, doctors, social workers, and anyone else who might interfere. Anna is a charming and believable narrator. It is hard not to feel for her plight.

 Meg Tilley, Singing Songs (Plume 1995) ISBN: 0452271657 

Review: Down from Cascom Mountain

This is a novel about grief and about moving on after a loss. Mary and Michael Walker arrive on Cascom Mountain in New Hampshire to spend the summer at Mary's childhood home. Mary has deep roots attaching her to the mountain, Michael is a newcomer. Just days into their summer Michael falls off one of the mountain's cliffs. Mary is left widowed. When Michael's estranged father arrives he and Mary, along with several alienated teenagers working on the mountain for the summer, start to forge connections and work out their problems.

This was a perfectly acceptable book, but nothing really stood out about it. I was never especially invested in Mary or Callie, Mary's teenage friend. The most interesting character in the book is Tobin, a bright but shy teenager, recovering from years of abuse at the hands of his mentally ill mother. Sadly he is a fringe character. Williams writes very believably about grief, I just wish that the book had more plot to add to the emotion.

Ann Joslin Williams, Down from Cascom Mountain (Bloomsbury, 2011) ISBN: 1608193063

Review: The Cracked Pot

This book features one of the most annoying protagonists I've encountered. Carolyn Emerson owns a pottery shop in a Vermont tourist town. When a dead body turns up in her backyard, the prime suspect is Carolyn's associate, who also happens to be her best friend's son. Convinced that the police are incompetent, Carolyn undertakes the task of solving the mystery.

The problem with all of this is that Carolyn is annoying. REALLY annoying. Her favorite activity is complaining. Carolyn complains about her husband, her customers, the local sheriff, among others. She's downright rude to the sheriff because she thinks he's incompetent (though there's no evidence of that in the book).

Then there's Carolyn's troupe of followers, "the firing squad," a group so devoted to pottery that they're willing to go all out to solve a dangerous mystery. They still take pottery breaks, though. Each of the members of the firing squad is a sort of stereotype, especially the ex-con with the heart of porcelain, and the tough, no-nonsense lady judge.

Honestly, life is too short for books like this. There are more entertaining ways to spend one's time.

Melissa Glazer, The Cracked Pot (Wheeler, 2008) ISBN: 1597228273

Review: This Boy's Life

As a boy Tobias Wolff and his mother moved west to seek their fortune and to escape an abusive man. They landed first in Utah, later in Seattle. In just a matter of months Wolff's mother has met and married another abusive man and moved Tobias deep into the Cascade Mountains where Dwight, his new stepfather, lives in a company town. In this remote environment Dwight is free to abuse Jack, as Wolff is known in his youth. And abuse is a constant in Wolff's young life. His stepfather has free reign, and Wolff's mother does little to reign in her husband's tirades.

The wild and dangerous setting of the mountains serves as a fitting background for Wolff's youth. His life in many ways mimics the scenery. It is lawless, it is amazing, and it has little connection to the outside world. Wolff's life is a test of wills, an assertion of wit and strength. His writing is lyrical and engaging. I was taken with his story from beginning to end.

Tobias Wolff, This Boy's Life (Grove, 2000) ISBN: 0802136680

Review: Saving Max

I didn't realize when I selected this book that it was more of a legal thriller than straight literary fiction. As such, it was much more violent than I was anticipating. That said, this book offers a compelling story, one I stayed up half the night reading because I had to find out what would happen at the end.

Max Parkman finds himself accused of murdering a fellow patient at the psychiatric hospital where he is being treated. Max is autistic, and appears to have violent tendencies. His mother, Danielle, is convinced that her son is innocent, and wages a full-scale effort to prove his innocence. Danielle's legal battle is a desperate one, and she is committed to saving her son at all costs. The costs will be high. Unable to keep up with work at her Manhattan law firm, Danielle falls off the track to partner. More seriously, her unorthodox efforts to prove Max's innocence land Danielle in jail and out on bail.

This is a fast-paced and suspenseful book. Over the course of the book I warmed to Max's character, but I was never able to warm to Danielle. I found Danielle to be quite disturbing. As an officer of the court, Danielle is more than willing to flout the law and the conditions of her bail. Even more troubling to me was the fact that she was willing to pin the crime on any sacrificial lamb in her path. Danielle quite candidly admits that she is willing to place the blame on a known innocent if it will lead to her son's exoneration.

Several weeks after having finished this book I'm still left with an unsettled feeling. I'll likely be thinking about this one for quite some time.

Antoinette van Heugten, Saving Max (Mira, 2010) ISBN: 9780778329633

Review: This Life is in Your Hands

This is Coleman's memoir of growing up on a homesteading farm in rural Maine in the 1970s. Coleman's parents moved to the backwoods of Maine to experiment with organic farming and self-sufficient living. The early years were idyllic, but things deteriorated.

Coleman's parents had been warned that homesteading with children was nearly impossible. The stress of managing Coleman and her two sisters, combined with postpartum depression, threw her mother into a tailspin of despair. The vitamin deficiencies in the family's self-produced diet affected moods and energy.

As the Colemans' efforts gained notoriety a series of apprentices shifted through the homestead, and Coleman's parents' marriage deteriorated. The final straw was the accidental death of Coleman's sister Heidi. Much of the book tells the story of the slow deterioration of the Coleman family.

This books offers a fascinating look inside the homesteading movement, and inside a family. The Colemans lived at the center of the Maine homesteading community. Their farm was adjacent to that of Helen and Scott Nearing, and the Nearings play a significant role in the book. Melissa's childhood was tragic in many ways- a little girl, desperate for friends and parental attention, her needs were generally secondary to a larger ideology. The farm was an all-consuming project, and its residual side-effects left little affective or attentive surplus for Melissa. My one complaint about the book is that it could be shorter; there were times I found it repetitive. This does serve to suggest the constant demands of the homestead, but I still think it could have been trimmed. This is a memoir well-worth reading.

Melissa Coleman, This Life is in Your Hands (Harper, 2011) ISBN: 0061958328

Review: Ask Me Why I Hurt

Christiansen's memoir of creating a mobile healthcare service for homeless teenagers is both inspiring and heartbreaking. Dr. Christiansen gave up his hospital appointment to transform an old RV into a mobile clinic. He discovers that there is tremendous demand for his services, and that America's homeless teenagers face multiple and complicated problems.

What is particularly striking is just how tragic the stories of Christiansen's patients are. The majority are homeless because they have run away from abuse. Most have weathered horrible situations. One of his patients lives in a hole in the desert. These children don't just need medical care, they also need attention, compassion, and a competent adult to pay attention to them.

This book highlights the difficulties of providing care to this population. It is nearly impossible to get these children enrolled to receive benefits, as such things require identification and parental help. Likewise, it is prohibitively expensive for Christiansen to stock drugs, but it is generally impossible for homeless teenagers to fill prescriptions, especially regular prescriptions for chronic conditions. The problems that are regularly recognized in the American medical system are magnified for Christiansen.

This book is also something of a personal memoir, as Christiansen is trying to start a family at the same time that he is beginning his work with the mobile clinic. I found the personal memoir to be much less engaging than the professional. Ultimately I left this book inspired by what Christiansen has managed to do, and terribly depressed by the extent of the problems.

Randy Christiansen, M.D., Ask Me Why I Hurt (Broadway, 2011) ISBN: 0307718999

Review: The Frugalista Files

In 2008 journalist Natalie McNeal decided to try and get control of her debt and her financial life. McNeal set up a blog to chronicle her journey. This book is the product of that blog. The book is essentially a compendium of blog posts. In terms of content, the book is fairly similar to other books in this genre. The content likely will not surprise most readers; McNeal learns to make do with the clothes in her closet and cook meals at home. Potential lay-offs at the paper where McNeal works provides a somewhat interesting twist, and she must decide whether to take a buy-out, or keep her current job. As a newspaper journalist the threat of cuts is always looming.

McNeal is a good writer, and she has an accessible, conversational style. I'm not convinced, though, that blogs translate well to books. There's not much in the book that goes above and beyond the blog. I also found that this was a book best read a few pages each day; it's not the sort that can be read in several-hour stretches. I'd prefer to see McNeal write an independent book apart from a blog, as she is a technically good writer. She seems like the sort of woman I'd like to meet for a drink. That's great for a blog, but with the book it seems that McNeal has sold herself short.

Natalie McNeal, The Frugalista Files (Harlequin, 2010) ISBN: 0373892292

Review: Minding Ben

Grace Caton's dream is to leave Trinidad and move to New York City. When she arrives in the city she finds herself along and forced to compete with other West Indian women for poorly paid, exploitative nanny jobs for Manhattan's wealthy. For most of the book Grace works for Sol and Miriam Bruckner, babysitting for their son, Ben. The Bruckners overwork and underpay Grace, lording the promise of a visa sponsorship over her head to keep her in their employ and justify their poor treatment.

This book reminded me very much of The Nanny Diaries, both books looking at the strange world of New York nannies, and the abuse they take from their employers. Brown's work adds immigration issues into the tale, and Grace's hope for a visa leads her to consider options she might otherwise avoid, such as marrying a completely unsuitable American man, and continuing to work for the miserable Bruckners. Grace realizes quickly that everyone is willing to take advantage of her.

Throughout the book I had a hard time understanding why Grace wanted to stay in New York, given how badly she was treated there. The Bruckners were a like a train wreck, their behavior was so bad that it was almost painful to read about, but at the same time, it's hard to look away. The luxurious apartments of Manhattan's wealthy are a different kind of sweatshop, taking advantage of vulnerable workers and subjecting them to irrational whims and poor treatment.

Victoria Brown, Minding Ben (Voice, 2011) ISBN: 9781401341510

Review: Tales of the City

Reading this book is a bit like a history lesson. Set in San Francisco in the late-1970s, this book was remarkable for presenting homosexuality as part of mainstream popular culture. In 2011 this is hardly shocking, but thirty-five years ago it was. This is important to recognize before going into the book.

With the stage set, I felt like this book read like a sitcom. The characters engage in crazy antics. They get involved in humorous love triangles. The series began in the newspaper, and I can see how that shapes the book. The book is comprised of short chapters and small vignettes. It is humorous and easy reading, a bit of mind candy.

By the end I was left with some unanswered questions. What was the issue with the landlady? As this is the first book in a series, I'm going to assume that Maupin is setting up for the next book. I'll be reading it to find out.

Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City (Harper Perennial, 2007) ISBN: 0061358304

Review: The Red Garden

This linked series of short stories follows the residents of the town of Blackwell, Massachusetts from its eighteenth-century founding to the present day. Nestled in the Berkshires, the town has a legendary founding involving an intrepid pioneer woman, a bear, a girl who drowns in the river, and a red-soiled garden that causes all plants to grow with a scarlet tinge. Throughout the years the garden nurtures the lonely and the sensitive, and is ever so slightly magical.

In tone and form this books is quite similar to Hoffman's earlier Blackbird House. Both books follow the life of a town through the centuries, but The Red Garden is far less depressing, and many of the stories are far more hopeful. I found that this was a book best read in increments, not in a few sittings. Each story really needs its own space to digest.

Alice Hoffman, The Red Garden (Crown, 2011) ISBN: 0307393879

Review: Hungry for Happiness

I wanted to like this book, I really did. Instead, I found it to be quite offensive.

Loretta Crawford has lost significant weight after a gastric bypass. Life remains a struggle, as she ties to get her catering business off the ground and navigate the dating scene as a thinner woman. Loretta has a terrible self-image, and discovers that life as a thinner woman is not as easy as she expected.

The main problem with this book was the characters. They were at best unlikable, at worst offensive. The worst of the lot is Loretta, who expresses tremendous hatred of fat people. She is constantly criticizing overweight people, including her friends and family. Loretta genuinely believes that fat people do not deserve happiness, and she thinks that her overweight friends and family are disgusting, a sentiment she repeats ad nauseum. She expresses anger and disbelief when good things happen to her fat friends. Loretta Crawford is certainly not someone I would want to be my friend. Hatred of fat women seems to be coursing through this book. The male character who prefers to date fat women is repeatedly described as "a pervert," and treated much more harshly than the male characters who commit rape.

This book also employs a strange dialect. I've lived in the south. I'm used to heavy accents. I've never heard anything like this. Loretta calls everyone "Bub," "Buster," or "Buckaroo." I have no idea what the intention was, but I have yet to hear a Texan speak lie this.

I honestly cannot recommend this book.

James Villas, Hungry for Happiness (Kensington, 2010) ISBN: 0758228481

Fifty States Reading Challenge

Challenge sign-up season has begun, and up first for me is The Fifty States Reading Challenge. The goal is to read a fiction book set in each of the fifty states. This is definitely going to be a challenge, and I'm looking forward to tackling it. We'll see if I can get the whole thing done in a year. I'm not going to list my books in advance- for this many I need the freedom to choose as I go.

Interested in signing up? Click on the image!

Review: The Embers

Some dysfunctional families draw readers in, and make them engaged in the story. Then there are the literary dysfunctional families who are simply annoying. The Aschers, the focus of Bass's novel, are decidedly in the latter category. Throughout the book I was struck by what a bunch of miserable, negative, self-absorbed people the Aschers seemed to be. Basically, this is a book about self-centered, neurotic people who experience tragedy, which in turn makes them more self-centered and miserable. A big part of the problem is that this book is longer than it needs to be. One simply gets sick of the Aschers' navel-gazing. The book seemed repetitive, with the same sentiments repeated. If the book had been cut down by a third, it would likely have been stronger. This is not a book based upon plot, rather, it is meant to be an investigation of the interior life of a family. The problem is, it's very difficult to pull that off with characters such as these, and in the absence of plot, the reader is left with little else.

Hyatt Bass, The Embers (Henry Holt, 2009) ISBN: 0805089942

Review: Dragonwell Dead

I should start by stating that I am clearly not the intended audience for this sort of book. I read this book for the "tea" category in my 999 Challenge. This is the first book I've read in the "cozy mystery" genre, and everything about it was just a bit too cute for my taste. Much of the plot was highly improbable. The basic plot involves tea shop owner Theodosia Browning trying to figure out why a local orchid aficionado dropped dead immediately after winning a rare specimen at an orchid auction. There's not much else to say about the plot, so I'll get on to the elements I found unbelievable or troublesome. First, the prose is chock-full of description that seems to serve little purpose. Second, there's really no character development. The characters are entirely one-dimensional. Third, the elements of the story and completely implausible. What police chief allows a random civilian to drop off key evidence in a homicide investigation to him at her convenience? Finally, all the extraneous elements of the story are just a bit too perfect. Everything is the best and the nicest.- the nicest tea shop, the most popular bed and breakfast. The tea shop has an unflappable chef who can always make just the most perfect pastries. All this saccharine is more than a little tiresome. Nowhere have I seen a discussion (and an extensive discussion, at that) of a community of small businesses that suffer from none of the concerns endemic to business owners. Ultimately this was a quick read, but I got little out of the experience.

Laura Childs, Dragonwell Dead: A Tea Shop Mystery (Berkley, 2008) ISBN: 0425220451

Review: Knockemstiff

This collection of short stories details the lives of the residents of the southern Ohio town of Knockemstiff. A working class region of Appalachia, each story details the life of one of the residents of Knockemstiff. What these people share is few opportunities, a world full of frustrated violence, and the hope-crushing realities of poverty. There's much that's depressing about Knockemstiff, Ohio. Characters with good hearts repeatedly find themselves trampled by others' greed and violence. Knockemstiff is a tough and lonely town, and yet, this is a collection of stories well worth reading. Pollock's characterizations are deep and complex. This is a world foreign to many of us, but one effectively created by Pollock.

Review: A Virtuous Woman

Gibbons's novel, a novella, really, is the story of a southern woman's relationships and the profound effect she has on those close to her. Born to a privileged family, Ruby Pitt enters first a disastrous, then a profoundly loving marriage. Though these relationships move her squarely into the working class, we see that love triumphs over class, status, and lineage. Told in alternating chapters by Ruby and her husband, Jack, at the time surrounding her early death from cancer, the book relates the history of Ruby and Jack's relationship. This is not a plot-driven, so much as an emotion-driven book. A beautiful, quick read, I couldn't help but feel deeply for Ruby, and especially for Jack.

I read this book as part of the 2008 2nds Challenge. I'd previously read Sights Unseen, which is still my favorite, but this was an enjoyable read too.

Kaye Gibbons, A Virtuous Woman (Vintage, 1997) ISBN: 0375703063

Review: The Inn at Lake Devine

This book tells the story of how one anti-Semitic hotel owner shapes the life of Natalie Marx, from her childhood through young adulthood. When Natalie's family is turned away in the 1960s from a Vermont resort because of their Judaism, Natalie becomes obsessed with the inn's owner and her prejudices. As a child Natalie works hard to infiltrate this forbidden world. The second part of the book jumps forward to Natalie's early twenties. By this point Natalie has more or less put the Inn at Lake Devine behind her, but when she makes the choice to revisit part of her past, the Inn at Lake Devine will return once again to Natalie's life in important and tragic ways. Once again Natalie will be forced to confront anti-antisemitism and the pain of her youth. At the same time, Natalie is trying to negotiate the world of and early twenty something: breaking away from overprotective parents, establishing a career, and finding love. Overall, a beautifully written and engaging story.

Elinor Lipman, The Inn at Lake Devine (Vintage, 1999) ISBN: 037570485X

Review: The Sound and the Fury

I'd not read any Faulkner prior to picking up The Sound and the Fury, and I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive about this book. But I was also looking forward to getting some Faulkner under my belt, and this was my book group's selection, so I had added incentive. The metanarrative of this book is the decline of an old southern family in a tale told by three brothers: one disabled, one suicidal, one horrible. All of the brothers are obsessed with their sister Caddy, and their three narratives explain their lives through their thoughts of and interactions with their sister. Caddy's own decline, in the form of an affair and resulting pregnancy, fundamentally shapes the life of all the family members. Each member of the Compson household is afflicted in one way or another, and these afflictions collectively bring the family into a downward tailspin. I enjoyed reading this book, though it's difficult for me to explain exactly what makes it a classic. It might be the beautiful prose, it might be the deep complexity of the story, it might be the investment the reader must make in getting through it. While I'm certainly aware of Faulkner's importance to the modernist movement and his place in the literary canon, it's something else that makes this classic literature for me. I did think that Faulkner's evocation of the New South was masterful, and for those who've not studied the history of the New South, this is an excellent snapshot. By the time I'd reached the final section of the book I wanted to devour it all in one sitting. I'll be exploring more of Faulkner's canon in the years to come.

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (Vintage, 1991) ISBN: 0679732241