Review: Starving Hearts

This novel appears to have been written as a therapeutic exercise. The plot sounded interesting to me, but the book comes complete with pages and pages of blurbs from therapists about the therapeutic value of the text. So, I approached reading the book with a bit of trepidation.

I did find the plot to be engaging. Susan Talberg, coming of age in the 1950s, is overshadowed by her abusive mother and bratty sister. To cope with her family issues she falls into anorexia and bulimia. The trajectory will sound familiar: controlling food is the only way that Susan feels she can control her life. Over the course of the book the reader discovers that Susan's mother is a miserable woman with food issues of her own. Completely beaten down by her useless family, Susan's life revolves around sustaining her eating disorders and dealing with her abusive husband.

I would rate this book as acceptable. The plot is okay, but nothing special or earth-shattering. The book will likely be of most interest to those dealing with issues surrounding eating disorders in their own lives. This is not transcendent fiction; it is a story that deals with a specific issue. I suspect I might have enjoyed a memoir by Miller more than I did this book. Miller suggests in her acknowledgments that she has been through a similar series of struggles, and a memoir might have allowed for deeper insight than what this fictional story can offer.


Lynn Ruth Miller, Starving Hearts (Excentrix, 2000) ISBN: 061511671X

Review: Chosen

This is a book about adoption, and the difficulties faced by all of the parties involved. At the center of the story is Chloe Pinter, a low-paid adoption coordinator. She manages desperate adoptive parents and birth parents in difficult situations. Her personal life is also full of drama. Chloe's boyfriend is what one might call a 'fixer-upper'- he lacks a job, ambition, and spends most of his time complaining.

I thought the subject matter of this book might be very interesting, especially given that the author has worked in the field. That said, I did not enjoy this book very much. I found the characters ranged from annoying to downright offensive. Offensive and unlikeable characters can be useful, and certainly there's a place for them, but in this book nearly all of the characters are entirely unlikable. The only character for whom I could really feel empathy was the birth mother, Penny, who was forced to give up a baby she wanted to keep. The characters also lack depth; all of them seem incapable of engaging any sort of complex emotions, even when they find themselves in situations that should plumb the depths of the soul.

Reading this book was the closest I've come to the world of domestic adoption, and I must admit that there was a great deal I fond difficult. The heavy use of euphemism, such as asking the birth mother to claim that she's "giving the baby a new home" rather than "giving the baby up," struck me as erasing the suggestion of loss or sacrifice on the part of the birth mother. Indeed, of all of the characters in this story, it seemed as though the needs of Penny, the young and destitute birth mother, were largely ignored. Penny's financial needs were met, but her emotional needs were never part of the equation, at least as far as the agency was concerned. Among the adoptive parents there was a definite shared sense that white, American-born children were far more desirable. Thinking about all of the families I know whose children were adopted abroad, seeing this sentiment shamelessly on display really struck a nerve. If I was the parent of child adopted abroad I'm not at all sure I could have finished this book.

Hoffman is trying to show the complexities of domestic adoption, but ultimately I found the book too simplistic to really do the topic justice. The ending was far too neat and tidy to allow for complexity, and some of the characters were more like caricatures.

Chandra Hoffman, Chosen (Harper, 2010) ISBN: 0061974293

Review: Blood Orange

This is a novel of child abduction and torrid love affairs, and what happens when these things intersect. The book opens with a community searching for the missing seven-year-old Baily Cabot. The book then moves back into the months preceding Baily's disappearance. Baily's mother made a fateful trip to Rome, and her father, an attorney, undertook the defense of a high-profile client, a suspected murderer. It quickly becomes clear that one, or both, of Baily's parents might know more about their daughter's abduction than they are telling.

I expected this to be a book about what happens to a family when a child is abducted, but it is actually a book about what happens to a family when a child is returned. I found that to be a refreshing change. It's difficult for me to offer too many of my thoughts without giving away the plot, but I can say that I did find Baily's mother Dana difficult to comprehend. As it becomes clear that she might know more about Baily's disappearance than she's telling, it was difficult for me understand how she could not come forward. The prose read easily, and was reasonably engaging.

Drusilla Campbell, Blood Orange (Kensington, 2005) ISBN: 0739455028

Review: In a House of Dreams and Glass

This book is Klitzman's memoir of his time in residency, training as a psychiatrist. There are many memoirs of medical training in print, and this one does bear some similarities to the others, but there is plenty of original content too. Like most memoirs of residency, Klitzman's training brings into stark relief the inadequacies of the mental health system, and the inability of well-meaning practitioners to deliver the best medical care.

Some of the issues, dealing with insurance companies, nurses, and other doctors are shared across disciplines. But psychiatry presents a whole new set of issues, and Klitzman's treatment of these make this book well worth reading. While medical memoirs are full of tales of senior doctors mistreating students, the psychiatrists seemed to be using their students as experiments. Klitzman notes that residents were frequently treated like patients. Where Klitzman is at his most eloquent is in his discussion of the difficulties of treating the mind, rather than the body. Serving a patient population that does not necessarily want to get well, navigating disagreements about drug vs. behavioral therapy, these issues provide new challenges Klitzman had not faced in treating the body.

This is a well-written, passionate memoir. Much has changed in psychiatry in the fifteen years since this was published. Prozac was the new wonder drug when Klitzman was writing. This is still a book well-worth reading. The drugs may have changed, but many of the issues remain.

Robert Klitzman, In a House of Dreams and Glass: Becoming a Psychiatrist (Simon and Schuster, 1995) ISBN: 0671734504

Review: The Quickening

This novel follows the lives of two women living on adjacent farms on the Great Plains during the Great Depression. Enidina and Mary, two very different women, are brought together by geography, but have little else in common. Enidina's life is filled with sorrows, but Mary has little ability to empathize. Mary, while devoutly religious, is convinced in the ultimate rightness of her actions, even when those actions are questionable or self-serving. Meanwhile, Enidina is the very definition of Christian patience. She takes death, poverty, and the hardships of farm life with a quiet patience and stoicism.

This was quite an interesting book, though it was rather slow to start. I found the characters somewhat difficult to get to know, living out the image of the taciturn Midwesterner. I also found the format to be a bit clunky; much of the book is written as Enidina's letters to her grandson. The end of the book is quite good. Hoover has captured a particular type of character, the strong Midwestern farm wife, brilliantly.

Michelle Hoover, The Quickening (Other Press, 2010) ISBN: 1590513460

Review: The Other Mothers' Club

This chick lit novel focuses on young women navigating the rocky terrain of stepmotherhood. At the center is Eve, a magazine editor who has fallen in love with a widower. Her new boyfriend comes complete with three children and a family home replete with relics of the deceased and seemingly saintly first wife, Caroline. Through her best friend Eve discovers that plenty of other women share her situation, her fears, and her problems. Five of them form a support group, and the book chronicles their meetings and individual histories.

Generally, this is a well-written book, though the plot is quite predictable. It is unlikely that any reader will be surprised by the book's ending. I was quite sympathetic to Eve's plight, especially as I thought she was poorly treated, both by her best friend and her boyfriend, Ian. While Ian's devotion to his children is admirable, there is a crucial point in the story where his complete abrogation of responsibility to Eve was appalling. Likewise, Eve's best friend Clare is so bitter that she sometimes seems to be a caricature. Ultimately I'd classify this as summer beach reading. It's not deep, but it is well-written, and definitely one of the better books of its genre.

Samantha Baker, The Other Mothers' Club (Avon, 2010) ISBN: 0061840351

Review: Sima's Undergarments for Women

In the network of basement shops that serve Brooklyn's neighborhoods, Sima Goldner runs a lingerie shop renowned among locals for superior bra fitting. When Sima hires a young Israeli woman to be her new assistant, she begins an exciting new friendship. Timna, the new employee, reminds Sima of the opportunities and excitement of her youth. But these memories are not entirely welcome, and Sima is reminded of the disappointments of her own youth. Infertility left Sima and her husband childless, and their marriage distant. In Timna Sima sees the potential for everything she missed, and she becomes obsessed with engineering Timna's future. For Sima the relationship quickly moves beyond friendship to obsession. Her memories and her new friendship force Sima to face the problems in her marriage and her past.

This novel is a study of how long problems can fester and how miscommunication can divide. Ultimately Sima's problems cannot be swept under the carpet, no matter how persistently she tries. For years Sima avoided her unhappiness by throwing her energies into her shop. When she foists her problems onto a living, breathing person, Timna, she is forced to come to terms with them.

Sima herself is something of a trainwreck. The reader knows her actions are going to blow up in her face, and yet Sima is blind to the consequences. I couldn't help but cringe every time Sima berated her husband or obsessed about Timna, in this some of the reading becomes a bit uncomfortable. That said, this is a light, summer read. Despite some heavy themes, Sima is a bit to cartoonish to be a deep character. This was a quick read, and a reasonably enjoyable one.

Ilana Stanger-Ross, Sima's Undergarments for Women (Penguin, 2010) ISBN: 0143117483

Review: Private Life

Moving from the late-nineteenth century through World War II, and crossing North America from Missouri to California, this novel is the story of the unhappy and increasingly distant marriage of Margaret and Andrew Early. Always an unlikely couple, the Earlys' marriage grows more troubled over time. By her late twenties Margaret was in danger of living her life as a perpetual spinster. Andrew, a troubled and headstrong scientist, dismissed in shame from his faculty position in Chicago, charms Margaret into accepting an offer of marriage when her options are few. Yet Andrew's problems loom over the marriage: mentally ill, obsessive, a conspiracy theorist, the marriage becomes a cage that holds Margaret in increasing unhappiness.

This book is stark and raw. Breaking out of unhappy marriages is such a mainstay of contemporary fiction, Smiley's work serves as a useful reminder about the realities that have and do face so many women. Reality was and is frequently far more in line with Margaret's experience: decades of unhappiness, few options, with escape beyond the bounds of thought or possibility. Margaret's marriage seems to close in over time. As her existing friends and family die or move away, Andrew's increasing psychosis cuts her off from social circles. Margaret's private life becomes an increasingly tight enclosure. Margaret's is a life that belies easy solutions. Above all, this is a book about making do with what has been given, and its remarkable just how good a book about making do can be.

Jane Smiley, Private Life (Knopf, 2010) ISBN: 1400040604

Review: The Four Seasons

This novel tells the story of the four Season sisters . When they gather for youngest sister Merry's funeral they are presented with the chance to confront a family secret that has festered for nearly thirty years. As they gather for the funeral each of the Season sisters is awash in her own problems. Investigating an old family secret gives them the opportunity to face their own demons, as well as to fulfill Merry's dying wish. If the plot sounds a bit hackneyed, that's because it is. The plot is entirely predictable. At no point was I surprised, and I saw the end coming from a mile away. The writing is also clunky. The prose is littered with excess detail, which serves no real purpose. Ultimately this book was far too predictable and sentimental to be enjoyable.

Mary Alice Monroe, The Four Seasons (Mira, 2009) ISBN: 0778326845

Review: Mrs. Somebody Somebody

This collection focuses on the lives of women living in the industrial city of Lowell, Massachusetts over the course of the twentieth century. These women cross the boundaries of age, race, and economics, but what they share is a feeling of marginalization and disempowerment. Each of them is trying, in one way or another, to make a place for themselves in the world, to prove that their existence matters. As it turns out, their place in the world is determined by their relationships to men. They aspire to be Mrs. Somebody Somebody, but those who fall outside this paradigm slip through the cracks. In style and substance this book reminded me of Donald Ray Pollock's Knockemstiff, disempowered people scattered throughout a small town. That said, the tone of Winn's work is softer, and less ragged than Pollock's. While the characters do find themselves in desperate situations, their lives still seem less ravaged. A glimmer of hope remains.

Tracy Winn, Mrs. Somebody Somebody (Random House, 2010) ISBN: 0812981456

Review: Violet Clay

The story of a young artist's coming of age, Violet Clay explores a woman's efforts to come to terms with a life that has turned out quite differently from her expectations. Violet Clay, orphaned as a small child, shuffled through boarding schools, finds her adult self with only one family member to speak of, her uncle Ambrose, a troubled writer. Ambrose has never managed to finish his second book, and Violet has failed to become an artist of note. A move to New York brings Violet little success. Eight years after her move she finds herself stagnating at art, life, and love. When Ambrose commits suicide, Violet takes the opportunity to move to her uncle's remote upstate cabin to try and reinvent her life. Godwin does an excellent job of creating complex worlds around her characters, and Violet Clay is no exception. Violet's history and psyche are richly drawn, and Godwin deftly recreates Charleston, New York City, and upstate New York. I did find some of Violet's relationships to be somewhat tiresome. Indeed, Violet herself is tiresome, the poster child for a navel-gazing artist's personality. Still, this is an intriguing book: more interesting than the story of an artist trying to figure herself out might seem.

Gail Godwin, Violet Clay (Penguin, 1986) ISBN: 0140082204

Review: Dead End Gene Pool

If one was wondering what it's like to grow up in one of the United States's wealthiest families, Burden's memoir provides the answer. Descended from Cornelius Vanderbilt, Burden grew up among the super rich. If her autobiography makes anything clear, it's that the super rich are entirely dysfunctional. Burden grew up with little familial attention: her father committed suicide, her mother was rarely present. Burden spent most of her time in boarding school or with her distant grandparents, who clearly preferred her brothers. It's nearly impossible to overstate just how dysfunctional "Burdenland" is. Burden does a brilliant job highlighting the absurdity of uber wealth. For anyone who suspects that nobody actually needs that much money, this book will certainly reinforce that. This is a thoughtful memoir, Burden manages to highlight the absurdities of her family without any of the bitterness to which she is likely entitled. The Gilded Age that produced Cornelius Vanderbilt was alive and well in the twentieth century, at least for some. This memoir is both hilarious and poignant, and well worth the read.

Wendy Burden, Dead End Gene Pool (Gotham, 2010) ISBN: 1592405266

Review: How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly

Set on a single day, the summer solstice, this novel chronicles the empowerment and awakening of one Clarissa Burden. A successful novelist, Clarissa has found herself at age thirty-five in an unhappy and abusive marriage. She suffers from tremendous writer's block, while her husband ogles naked women in the name of "art." Clarissa's life gave her no reason to expect any better, as she grew up with a destitute and abusive mother. A series of encounters on the summer solstice will change this. Given the book's title, the basics of the plot probably come as no surprise. Where the surprise does come is in that these encounters are pushed by ghosts, of the family who lived and died in Clarissa's house, among others. I definitely found this to be one of the better fictionalized treatments of the supernatural world interfering with the mortal. The ghostly parts of the story fit, and they aren't forced. I found the ending somewhat surprising, though also rather unbelievable. Generally this was a good read, not my very favorite book, but definitely worth my time to read.

Connie May Fowler, How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly (Grand Central, 2010) ISBN: 0446540684

Review: The Girl Who Chased the Moon

This novel chronicles the move of seventeen-year-old Emily Benedict, as she returns to her mother's hometown following her mother's death. Emily arrives with little knowledge of Mullaby, North Carolina: her mother never spoke of the town, and moved after high school, never to return. What Emily finds is quite fantastic. Her grandfather is over eight feet tall. The wallpaper in her room changes to match her mood. Mystery lights appear in the back yard, and the town's leading family is harboring a tremendous secret. More prosaically, Emily finds that her mother's reputation in Mullaby is quite different from that of the charitable, activist mother Emily knew. Emily does her best to uncover the town's mysteries, but doing so may just arouse the town's ire, and there seems to be significant opposition to her doing so. The highlight of this book is the magical twist that Allen adds to the story. The plot is, in and of itself, fairly simple, and the characters don't have tremendous depth. But Allen does do a remarkable job of weaving a bit of fantasy and magic into the story. The book certainly reminded me of Alice Hoffman's writings, though perhaps less complicated than some of Hoffman's work. Some of the characters I found to be less than believable, especially Emily, who seems remarkably free of grief and despair. Emily has just lost her mother, and has left the only home she's ever known to come live with a previously unheard-of grandfather. The Coffey family, and Mullaby more generally, seemed entirely out of time, like they couldn't exist in the present day. I would classify this book as light reading, for vacations and the like. It is a book to read because it is charming.

Sarah Addison Allen, The Girl Who Chased the Moon (Bantam, 2010) ISBN: 0553807218

Review: Born under a Million Shadows

I know very little of Afghanistan outside of war reports, so I was intrigued to read this novel about a boy and his family in post-Taliban Afghanistan. The novel follows 11-year-old Fawad and his mother as they move into the employment and residence of a house of foreigners. Curious and clever, Fawad busies himself spying on his new housemates and trying to figure out the complex world of adult relationships. Fawad is especially captivated by the romantic fortunes of Georgie, Fawad's favorite of his new housemates, who has fallen in love with a local warlord. Through all of Fawad's childhood games and fantasies the reader sees the troubled landscape of Afghanistan: beautiful, but caught in suffering. Violence, poverty, and death pervade the lives of all of the Afghans in this book. At only eleven Fawad has lost three siblings and his father. No one is a stranger to suffering. But violence does not overshadow the fact that this is a novel about family, friends, and relationships, and how these are formed across cultural and geographic distance. Busfield does a surprisingly good job of capturing the voice of an Afghan boy, and Fawad is charming and believable. I would certainly be interested in reading other things by this author.

Andrea Busfield, Born under a Million Shadows (Holt, 2010) ISBN: 0805090614

Review: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Major Ernest Pettigrew and Mrs. Jasmina Ali have much in common: a love of reading, both widowed, both resident in the small Sussex town of Edgecome St. Mary. Both are trying to deal with the machinations of troublesome family members who have become more so in the wake of the deaths of their respective spouses. Edgecombe St. Mary is a provincial community in more ways than one. As Major Pettigrew and Mrs. Ali move towards a romantic relationship the village makes its gossip more explicit, and it becomes obvious that the public is not willing to accept the Anglo-Pakistani Mrs. Ali as part of its establishment. This is a delightful book in so many ways. Part pastoral novel, part comedy of manners, this work is like a vintage English novel mixed with some very modern themes. The characters are richly drawn, and the book retains the feel of the old English countryside.

Helen Simonson, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (Random House, 2010) ISBN: 1400068932

Review: Another Life Altogether

Set in the English provinces in the 1970s, this novel tells the story of Jesse Bennett, a troubled teenager trying to hide her mother's mental illness from the cruelty of her classmates. Deep in the throes of manic depression, Jesse's mother alternates among the local mental hospital, her bed, and tearing apart the family. Jesse's father copes by ignoring the issue, and leaves Jesse home to manage the house and her mother. A move to the countryside has vaulted Jesse into the popular clique at her new school, but her new friends are profoundly cruel to outsiders, especially Malcolm, an openly gay student. To complicate Jesse's life she develops a tremendous crush on her best friend's sister, and begins to realize that she might be a lesbian. Family, sexuality, and basic human decency wreak havoc on Jesse's conscience, as she tries to rationalize her relationship with her cruel but powerful new clique. This novel brings into stark relief the rigid social hierarchies and cruelty of high school. Jesse's story makes clear how easy it is for children to get lost. It also reminds the reader that for all of the problems and injustices that remain, we have made some real progress in educating children about sexuality. The ending was abrupt and unbelievable, but I enjoyed the reading.

Elaine Beale, Another Life Altogether (Spiegel and Grau, 2010) ISBN: 0385530048

Review: Even the Dogs

This was a very difficult book to read. McGregor is raw, graphic, and unrelenting in his portrayal of the horrors of drug addiction. The story follows a group of heroin addicts in an unnamed English town. In the days following Christmas each of them dies from drug-related causes, and the book follows in particular the authorities' investigation of the death of one of them, a man named Robert, who lost all of the normalcy in his life, including his wife and daughter, as he fell into the arms of addiction. The story is narrated by the various characters, some during their lives, and others in death. They follow the investigation of Robert's death in all of its horrors. As the book unfolds we learn how Robert and his friends became drug addicts, and how each met their end. This book is nothing, if not hard-hitting. McGregor writes in the voice of drug addicts in a stream-of-consciousness style. The prose is sometimes difficult to get through: there's plenty of slang and jargon. Even more so, the book itself is hard to get through because it is so graphic and so tragic. Certainly McGregor captures the incessant search for drugs that defines the addict's life. Indeed, the book is itself is unrelenting in illustrating this, as the characters' lives have become entirely defined by the search for the next hit. For all that is remarkable about this book, I was left with little at the end aside from a sense of depression. Many of the finest works of literature are written about extreme human misery, but they leave the reader with larger lessons, things to consider, and that was missing here. At the end there was little left but sadness.

Jon McGregor, Even the Dogs (Bloomsbury, 2010) ISBN: 1596913487

Review: The Last Will of Moira Leahy

I should start by mentioning that this is quite a different book from the sorts I usually read. Normally I read mainstream literary fiction. This book is mostly mainstream literary fiction, but with a distinct twist. In writing style and character development this book certainly fits the bill, but Walsh adds distinct threads of the fantastic and supernatural as she weaves the story of Maeve Leahy and her departed twin, Moira. Maeve Leahy lost her twin at sixteen. Nine years later she finds herself drawn to an antique Javanese knife, a keris, which seems,s somehow, to embody her sister's spirit. After purchase of the keris at auction strange elements of the past reappear in Maeve's life. It's difficult to explain the progression of the plot or what is so different about it without giving away important parts of the story, except to say that Maeve travels to Rome to try and unlock the mystery of the keris, and there finds danger and surprise she hadn't anticipated. Walsh does an excellent job building suspense as Maeve travels to Rome in search of an expert who can explain the keris to her. She has written what is certainly a gripping mystery. The writing is good and the characters are well developed. I do, however, generally prefer more concrete explanations in my fiction, obviously other readers' mileage may vary depending on their tastes, and even for someone such as myself who doesn't generally venture into the realms of fantasy or supernatural, what Leahy has done seems well-done, at least to my untrained mind. What I did find difficult, or perhaps distracting, was that Maeve was never very believable as a foreign language professor. Her character appeared to have minimal research skills, and little ability to track down information or experts. Also, it's nearly impossible that a foreign language professor with an academic appointment could have never left the country, or have cloistered herself at home in the ways that Maeve apparently does-- research and conferences would have commanded that. I will fully admit this is a bit nick-picking, and likely will not affect the majority of readers, but if you live in what is Maeve's academic world, you'll likely find it implausible. I also disliked the discussion of Maeve's relationship with her friend/maybe-boyfriend Noel. I've read a number of books lately where the female protagonists treat their maybe-boyfriends poorly, and this seemed to fall into the same trap.

Therese Walsh, The Last Will of Moira Leahy (Shaye Areheart, 2009) ISBN: 0307461572

Review: Murder at Hazelmoor

A murder in a tiny Dartmoor village in the dead of winter sets the stage for this classic Christie whodunit. Several had a motive, few had an opportunity. The most likely suspect is quickly imprisoned, but his fiance remains unsatisfied with the law's conclusions. Determined to clear James Pearson's name, Emily Trefusis sets off with intrepid newspaper reporter Charles Enderby to seek out the circumstances of Major Treveylan's murder. As with all of Christie's books, we get plenty of atmosphere as the plot unfolds in the Dartmoor countryside. Here we see the deepest depths of winter. This novel has all of the elements of a juicy, quick read. The plot and suspense build as we follow Emily on her quest for answers. This is classic Christie- a bit of brain-fluff, for sure, but engaging and well-written.

Agatha Christie, Murder at Hazelmoor (Putnam, 1987) ISBN: 0396090133