BookPage February 2010 by BookPage

Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s BoOK Review

Feb. 2010

67 new book reviews

MUst-read interviews

funny valentine Adriana Trigiani's hilarious heroine is back pg. 15

Then we came to book two

Second act from literary phenom Joshua Ferris pg. 5

BAD ROMANCE

Why do fools fall in love?

pg. 12

America’s America’s BoOK BoOK Review Review TTH HEE BBEESSTT IIN N N NEEW W BBO OO OKKSS Publisher Michael A. Zibart Publisher Associate Michael A.publisher Zibart Julia Steele Associate publisher Editor Julia Steele Lynn L. Green Editor fiction Editor Lynn L. Green Abby Plesser fiction Editor NONfiction Editor Abby Plesser Kate Pritchard web Editor web TrishaEditor Ping Trisha Ping Contributing Editor Assistant web Editor Sukey Howard Eliza Borné Contributor Contributing Editor Roger Bishop Sukey Howard Children’s books Contributor Allison Hammond Roger Bishop Advertising Sales Children’s books Julia Steele Allison J.Hammond Angela Bowman Advertising Sales Production Manager JuliaChildress Steele Penny Angela J. Bowman Production Designer Production Manager Karen Trotter Elley Penny Childress SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER Production Designer Elizabeth Grace Herbert Karen Trotter Elley Customer Service SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER Alice Fitzgibbon Elizabeth Grace Herbert ONLINE SERVICES manager Customer Service Scott Grissom Alice Fitzgibbon ONLINE SERVICES manager Scott Grissom

R E V I E W S

Our editors evaluate and select for review the best new books published each month. Only books we highly Our editors evaluate and select for review the recommend are featured. BookPage is editobest new books published each month. Only rially independent and never accepts payment books we highly recommend are featured. for editorial coverage. BookPage is editorially independent and never accepts payment for editorial coverage.

R E V I E W S

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CONTENTS

FEBRUary 2010

13 Kristan Higgins Learning to love again after

tragedy strikes

21 Cathleen Schine Sense and Sensibility retold

in a charming Connecticut seaport

24 Dani Shapiro Talking about faith and family

FEATURES 5 Joshua Ferris Meet the author of The Unnamed 8 Behind the Book Thomas Mullen on the eerie

timing of his new Depression-era novel

love, marriage and what comes after

14 Romance Love stories for Valentine’s Day,

plus a look at trends in the genre

B O O K PA GE.COM

5 Point Omega by Don DeLillo

20 Q&A Richard Whitmire discusses why our

6 The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

6 The Wife’s Tale by Lori Lansens

schools are failing boys

Brava, Valentine by Adriana Trigiani

Be Careful What You Pray For by Kimberla Lawson Roby

Weeping Underwater Looks a Lot Like Laughter by Michael J. White

27 Rita Williams-Garcia Remembering summers

Safe from the Neighbors by Steve Yarbrough

The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell

The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale

Children’s Books 26 Matt Tavares Meet the author-illustrator

of Henry Aaron’s Dream in wide-open California

28 Gary Paulsen The author of Woods Runner

on writing about war and the wilderness

29 Teen Scene Exploring the weird worlds of fantasy

Nonfiction 8 This Book is Overdue by Marilyn Johnson 8 The Whale by Philip Hoare

REVIEWS

I’m Still Standing by Shoshana Johnson

24 Settled in the Wild by Susan Hand Shetterly

Fiction

4 Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich 5 Union Atlantic by Adam Haslett

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

25 Street Shadows by Jerald Walker 30

Eternity Soup by Greg Critser

The Poker Bride by Christopher Corbett

The Routes of Man by Ted Conover

Yalta by S.M. Plokhy

DEPARTMENTS

Rates or contact Julia Rates are are available availableonline, at BookPage.com or Steele 615-292-8926, ext.15. contactatJulia Steele at 615-292-8926, ext.15.

RREEA AD DA ALLLL O OU URR RREEVVIIEEW WSS AT AT

page 7

12 Relationships A new crop of memoirs about

A A D D V V EE RR TT II SS EE

Secrets of a small town

11 Well Read Life on the run in London

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Notice: Somebooks booksmentioned mentioned in this Notice: Some in this issueissue may may be in be in supply short supply or available. not yet available. Prices are of short or not yet Prices of books books subjectwithout to change without notice. subjectare to change notice.

CHRIS BOHJALIAN

INTERVIEWS

® ® ® ®

Learning from the past

page 25

3 4 9 13 18 20 22 30

Buzz Girl The Author Enablers Whodunit? Bestseller Watch Audio Lifestyles Book Clubs Cooking

On the cover: Image from the jacket of Where the Wolf Leads, a Harlequin Romance by Jane Arbor, courtesy of Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.

buzz girl ➥ Our publishing

insider gets the skinny on tomorrow’s bestsellers From the revival of a classic teen series to new titles from big authors, 2010 is shaping up to be a great year for books—and it’s only February!

➥ more from martel Great news for fans of Life of Pi: Random House recently announced the April 13 publication of Beatrice and Virgil, a new novel from Canadian author Yann Martel—his first since 2002’s Pi. Few details are available, though Amazon has this description: “A famous author receives a mysterious letter from a man who is a struggling writer but also turns out to be a taxidermist, an eccentric yann martel and fascinating character who does not kill animals but preserves them as they lived, with skill and dedication— among them a howler monkey named Virgil and a donkey named Beatrice.” The animal characters and the names Virgil and Beatrice, drawn from Dante’s Divine Comedy, hint at a Pi-like aesthetic for the new book.

➥ ah, youth

➥ after wolf hall Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall has gotten more than its fair share of press in recent months—Booker Prize notwithstanding, it also earned a place on our Top 10 of 2009 Fiction list (check it out at BookPage.com)—but you might not know that Wolf Hall is the first book in a planned trilogy. During a recent interview at Daunt Books in London, Mantel revealed a bit more about the second installment, The Mirror and the Light. “It picks up in the autumn of 1535, when the

➥ waiting for allende Chilean author Isabel Allende has made a name for herself by creating historical epics tinged with magical realism. On April 27, her latest novel, Island Beneath the Sea, will be published by HarperCollins. The original Spanish version of the novel was released in August 2009 as La isla bajo el mar and is already a bestseller. From what we can gather from the pub copy, the novel will tell the story of Zarité, a slave fighting for freedom in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) at the end of the 18th century. Her owner will ultimately take her to New Orleans. So far, the novel seems to have healing powers—at least for the author. In an interview with the Latin American Herald Tribune, Allende said that isabel allende a stomach ailment convinced her she had cancer as she was writing Island Beneath the Sea. “I went from one doctor to another and no one could cure me,” she said. “When I finished the book, the symptoms went away and so far [they haven’t returned].”

➥ vampire mania This just in: Seth Grahame-Smith, the brains behind Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, is writing what is sure to become a classic: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. The parody will hit stores on March 2. If you can believe it, P&P and Zombies has sold over half a million copies; but will this wacky trend of historical figures/classic novels-meetthe-undead stand the test of time? Guess we’ll have to wait and see!

➥ page to screen Speaking of vampires, The Guardian recently reported that “piggybacking off the success of the Twilight saga,” there will soon be two new film adaptations of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Wuthering Heights producer Robert Bernstein explained the connection between vampires in Forks, Wash-

New York Times bestselling author of Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked

ROBERT GRAYSMITH

➥ Major games Big news for Suzanne Collins fans: the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy will be published on August 24. In a press release, Ellie Berger, President of the Scholastic Trade Publishing division, confirmed that over 1.5 million copies of the first two books are in print in North America. No word yet on a title or plot details for book three, but if books one (The Hunger Games) and two (Catching Fire) are any indication, readers are in for a real treat.

➥ the in crowd With a title like Last Night at Chateau Marmont, it would seem we have more dishy fun to look forward to in chick-lit darling Lauren Weisberger’s latest. Best known for the blockbuster novel and film The Devil Wears Prada, Weisberger turns her keen Lauren eye to a break-up weisberger gone bad in Last Night. Simon & Schuster puts it simply: “Girl meets boy, girl supports boy as he struggles to make it as a rock star, then girl gets dumped for a supermodel.” Ouch. Look for this novel sometime in May.

➥ lamott’s latest Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird, Operating Instructions, etc.) is back in April with her first novel since 2002. Imperfect Birds focuses on Rosie Ferguson, a young woman who seems to have it all together, but is hiding much from her loving parents. According to Riverhead, “This is Anne Lamott’s most honest and heartrending novel yet, exploring our human quest for connection and salvation as it reveals the traps that can befall all of us.” 

THE GIRL IN ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S SHOWER Marli Renfro, the model who played Janet Leigh’s body double in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, faded into obscurity—until her murder years later, by a serial killer with a fetish for the classic film. But the more Graysmith investigated this cold case, the more he came to suspect that the killer’s victim was not Marli Renfo at all.

BERKLEY A Member of Penguin Group (USA) penguin.com

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Scholastic has thrilled a lot of nowgrown young readers with news of a prequel to the wildly popular BabySitters Club series. On sale in April, The Summer Before will be about, well, the summer before the Baby-Sitters Club was founded, detailing a time when four tweens are “on the edge of something big—not just the club that will change their lives, but also the joys and tribulations of being a girl.” Scholastic hopes the prequel will renew interest in the whole series, and they will also re-release paperbacks of some of the original books, starting with Kristy’s Great Idea. Ensuring that kids raised on Wii and Webkinz can relate to the books, certain anachronisms (like “cassette player” and “perm”) will be updated.

holiday makers at Wolf Hall in Wiltshire take Cromwell through his further rise and his abrupt fall in 1540.” No word yet on a publication date for this hotly anticipated sequel, so stay tuned!

ington, and two of the most famous Victorian love stories of all time. “[The Twilight factor is] clearly in the zeitgeist. Why is anybody’s guess, but people are absolutely obsessed with this doomed, romantic love that can only be achieved beyond death, or in the case of Twilight, by becoming a vampire.” If you’re hoping for a tortured stud to play Heathcliff, well . . . hope you like Chuck Bass (of “Gossip Girl” fame). The 22-year-old Ed Westwick will star opposite Gemma Arterton’s Cathy. Irish heartthrob Michael Fassbender will play Mr. Rochester. Mia Wasikowska (age 20) has been cast as Jane. Both movies will start shooting in spring 2010.

NEW IN HARDCOVER

FICTION

Marital mind games Review by Jillian Quint Irene America, the protagonist of Louise Erdrich’s 13th novel, is a woman whose identity has never been entirely her own. For while she is both a mother and a serious academic, she is best known as the subject of her husband Gil’s esteemed art—large, assertive and overtly sexual portraits that exemplify his love, but also his constant need to subjugate and own her. This power dynamic has always troubled Irene, but at the novel’s start, she discovers that Gil has reached a new level in his quest for possession; he is reading her diary in an attempt to both quell and verify fears that the marriage is deteriorating. Unable to confront Gil directly, but unwilling to let him know everything, Irene reacts by creating another hidden diary in which she records the actual truth. She continues to write in the original diary, however, leaving it where she knows her husband will find it and crafting her words in order to manipulate him. In many ways, this charade is much like the game referred to in the novel’s title, shadow tag, in which players try to step on each other’s shadows without casting any of their own. American Indians believe shadows hold a per- Shadow Tag son’s soul, Irene (who is herself of Native blood) explains, By Louise Erdrich and thus the game becomes a literal fight for self-preserHarper vation. Irene, Gil and their three children struggle to de- $25.99, 272 pages fend themselves and their family, but increasingly realize ISBN 9780061536090 that such defense requires a certain splitting of the self. “[It] had released a double into the world,” Irene thinks of one of Gil’s paintings, but she could easily be talking about her diaries, about her biracial ethnicity or about the disconnect between who she is and who she pretends to be. Erdrich is a muscular and fearless writer, and she explores her characters with both compassion and criticism and through lyrical and visceral prose. At one point, Irene notes that it is the process of narration that authenticates history—a sentiment Erdrich no doubt wants readers to consider. After all, it is her superb telling of this story that makes it real, her stellar writing that brings powerful truth to invented worlds. o Jillian Quint is an associate editor at the Random House Publishing Group.

THE AUTHOR ENABLERS From page to screen Dear Author Enablers, I recently read a biography copyrighted 1965 which would make a great screenplay. Do I need to contact the author/publisher regarding “use of material” rights? Joan Bryant Island Lake, Illinois You should make every reasonable effort to contact the publisher and/or the author to get rights to use this material for your screenplay. If you have trouble tracking down the appropriate people, we suggest you consult a lawyer with expertise in intellectual property issues. When we blogged about this topic (on our Author Enablers blog at BookPage. BY SAM BARRY & com), the thoughtful and wise commenter “penshark” had more to say: “If KATHI KAMEN GOLDMARK the biography is 35 years old, it almost certainly continues to be protected by copyright. You legally must attempt to contact the copyright holder, who is probably the author. The publisher may be able to help with the tracking. What may also help is that it appears, from the dating you mention, that the book was published and copyrighted when registration was still required in the U.S. (in other words, before 1978). That means there may be information available through the U.S. Copyright Office on who holds the rights. A really useful chart for copyright terms can be found here: http://copyright.cornell. edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm.” Thanks, penshark, whoever you are. Dear Author Enablers, My actress friend wants to know if you can copyright a book idea. Susan Berston San Francisco, California

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

The short answer is no. A book, once completed, can be copyrighted exactly as written, but you cannot copyright the idea for the book. It’s easy for new writers to get hung up on this question, but we think this concern is something of a red herring. There is so much more to successfully publishing a book than the concept, however original that concept may be. For most authors, keeping your idea a secret is not the primary issue. You’re better off focusing on developing a good proposal, building your platform and writing an engaging story. We’ve seen many instances of several books coming out at the same time on the same subject, and this is more a reflection of the cultural zeitgeist than plagiarism. Believe it or not, this occurrence can work to a beginning author’s advantage. Writers who are not well-known are more likely to get reviewed (or asked to be on panels, etc.) along with others whose work covers similar subject matter. So start writing and let your little light shine.

Dear Author Enablers, I am a playwright and I am staring at a play publishing agreement with a big publishing company for my short play book of monologues. I’m happy someone wants to publish it, but I’m not very happy with the 10 percent royalty. I know this is different from a novel or short story book, yet it is not that much different. Lynne Elson Playwright and Teacher

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Our understanding is that a 10 percent royalty is pretty much in the ballpark for big publishing company contracts. You may be able to negotiate a different arrangement, but it will probably involve a buyback from you of a certain number of your books. In other words, you would agree to buy a significant quantity of the books in exchange for getting a higher royalty. Of course, we don’t know if this is an arrangement that would be of interest to your publisher. Aside from the royalty percentage, there are other things you’ll want to look out for if you go ahead with the deal: What rights are you selling and for how long? Is there a commitment to a marketing and publicity budget? How many copies of the finished book will you, the author, get? If you have representation, these questions can be asked (and answered) by your agent. If you’re going it alone, we suggest talking to a literary agent or lawyer before putting your signature on the dotted line. o With more than 25 years of experience, Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry have the inside scoop on writing and publishing; their new book on the subject is scheduled for release later this year. Aspiring authors can email questions (along with their name and hometown) to authorenabler@aol.com or visit the Author Enablers blog at BookPage.com.

The lure of money, power and privilege Review by Lauren Bufferd When Adam Haslett was writing the novel that became Union Atlantic, he couldn’t have known that a book about a rogue banker, the Federal Reserve and conflicts between old and new monies would have such special resonance at the beginning of the century’s second decade. Haslett’s vision of an implosion in the financial world was certainly prescient, making this an eerily intriguing novel to read, its absorbing storytelling powered by Haslett’s intelligence and compassion. The plot of Union Atlantic is two-pronged—focusing on a legal battle and a banking crisis—both of which explore the class and cultural tensions that shape America’s current conditions. A veteran of the Gulf War, Doug Fanning works for Union Atlantic bank. Doug oversaw the bank’s transformation from a local community savings and loan to a player in the world markets, a transition that made billions, and he continues to manage the bank’s multinational funds. Raised in a working class family, he uses some of his newfound wealth to build a McMansion on a parcel of land originally donated to the town by the affluent and privileged Graves family. This enrages Charlotte Graves, a retired schoolteacher and granddaughter of the donor who is eking out a living as a tutor. Charlotte’s brother Henry, who runs the Federal Reserve, is drawn into the story, first when Charlotte sues Union Atlantic Doug over what she considers to be a gross misuse of the property, and secondly when the Federal Reserve is called By Adam Haslett upon to bail out the Union Atlantic as it teeters on the edge Nan A. Talese/Doubleday 320 pages of dissolution. Into the fray walks Nate Fuller, an awkward $26, ISBN 9780385524476 teenager who is sympathetic to his tutor Charlotte, but also drawn to Doug’s irresistible wealth and power. The troubled but trusting teen is used by both adults as each one schemes to outwit the other. Haslett’s 2002 book of short stories You Are Not a Stranger Here explored with lucid sympathy pivotal moments in the lives of troubled adults. The damaged characters of Union Atlantic inhabit a similar world of depression and loss. Haslett’s empathy for his characters is remarkable, drawing us past the surface into the key moments that shape their decisions, choices and core identities. This is especially true of Charlotte Graves, whose righteous anger will feel all too familiar to anyone bewildered by today’s financial headlines. o Lauren Bufferd writes from Nashville.

MEET

Joshua Ferris

FICTION

Darkness in the desert

Joshua Ferris worked at a Chicago advertising agency for several years before writing his first novel, Then We Came to the End, which won the 2007 PEN/ Hemingway Award. His second novel, The Unnamed ($24.99, 320 pages, ISBN 9780316034012), has just been published by Reagan Arthur Books. Ferris lives in Hudson, New York.

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Review by Rebecca Shapiro An omega point, as defined by philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, is the supreme point of complexity and consciousness to which the universe is always striving. It is curious, then, that the postmodernist master Don DeLillo chooses this as the title of his very succinct latest work, clocking in at only 128 pages and seemingly, at first glance, less sweeping in scope than his previous novels. But, as one might expect from DeLillo, this sparse, beautifully crafted modern fable packs a solid punch. Bookended by haunting scenes of a museum exhibit that has stretched Hitchcock’s Psycho to a full 24 hours, the novel focuses on Richard Elster, a curmudgeonly former war strategist who has retreated to a remote California desert. He is joined by Jim Finley, a young filmmaker escaping his own demons back East, who is intent on making a bare-bones, one-take documentary of Elster. As the visit stretches on, the pair engages in typical DeLillo-esque intellectual banter— tackling death, war, art, etc. Soon, Elster’s grown daughter Jessie shows up, exiled from New York in the hopes that she’ll escape an unwelcome suitor, and the trio forms an awkward but strangely functional family, sharing space, omelet dinners and the strange, beautiful desert that surrounds them. Point Omega This is, of course, the calm before the storm. By Don DeLillo DeLillo’s latest novel is also his most human—his charScribner acters are strikingly emotional, particularly in times of pro- $24, 128 pages found stress. When tragedy strikes Elster’s family, he—the ISBN 9781439169957 scholar—crumbles, making almost obsolete the preceding Also available on audio intellectualizing. It is fitting, then, that DeLillo has inverted Teilhard de Chardin’s term for his title. Elster’s desert compound is perhaps the antithesis of the most complex point of consciousness to which the modern world strives, but within it lies something deeper and all the more harrowing. o Rebecca Shapiro is an assistant editor at the Random House Publishing Group.

HISTORICAL FICTION

FICTION

Wounds of a world war

The weight of a woman

Review by Stephenie Harrison History comes to life in The Postmistress, a novel that takes readers back to the early 1940s, when the war raging in Europe showed no end in sight and America was on the brink of joining the fray. Through the eyes of three very different women, author Sarah Blake traces America’s journey from willful ignorance of the fight overseas to eventual understanding. Emma is a young newlywed in Franklin, Massachusetts, searching for security and the sense of family she has always been missing. For her, the war becomes all too real when a local tragedy prompts her husband, the town doctor, to go abroad in order to provide medical aid to the wounded and the dying. Each day she listens to dispatches on the radio from Frankie—a young reporter in Britain, desperate to give her fellow Americans a sense of the tragedy and horror that she witnesses daily—and brings a letter for her husband to Iris, the local postmistress. Ironically, it is the ravages of war, rending countries and families apart, that ultimately join Frankie’s story with those of Emma and Iris, each woman sharing a part of the others’ sorrows and losses, and each lessening the burden of the horrible truths they all carry. The Postmistress It is with graceful tenderness that Blake provides read- By Sarah Blake ers with this heartbreaking examination of the devastation Amy Einhorn/Putnam of war. Her tenure as a poet serves her well, with each sen- $25.95, 336 pages tence painstakingly crafted, her prose packing an impres- ISBN 9780399156199 sive emotional punch that belies its unassuming and gentle Also available on audio tone. Much as the spirited Frankie seeks to do throughout the novel, Blake manages to give a face to a war in which so many were lost, all the while seeking to restore order and sense to a world mired by devastation and sorrow that defy easy explanation. More than just a novel about love and loss, The Postmistress is an expansive epic about the stories we tell and the secrets we guard—all as we search for the truth, sometimes blindly, sometimes bravely. This is a thoughtful novel, quiet in its catharsis, and best read with a box of tissues on hand. o Stephenie Harrison writes from Nashville.

Review by Becky Ohlsen Mary Gooch’s biggest problem is not the size of her body, but the scope of her world. At just over 300 pounds, the 43-year-old Canadian is well aware that she’s fat; she has resigned herself to being that way. What she doesn’t realize, though, is the degree to which her weight has insulated and isolated her from the rest of society. She’s spent years in denial about how sheltered her life is, and when she’s forced to see it, the shock is worse than any she’s ever felt upon catching a glimpse of herself in a mirror. Mary has been quietly accumulating pounds for years when her husband, the tall, handsome Jimmy Gooch, fails to come home one night—specifically, the night before their 25th wedding anniversary. Eventually he sends a note explaining that he has left $25,000 from a winning scratchlottery ticket in their joint bank account, and that he needs “time to think.” At a loss, Mary sets out to find him, using the only clues she has: his family connections in California, some restaurant receipts and not much else. Lori Lansens, best-selling author of The Girls, structures The Wife’s Tale as the story of a damaged heroine on a quest. The trick is that (as in any good quest story) the real object of the search isn’t what the searcher thinks it is. The Wife’s Tale Mary’s pursuit of her husband draws her slowly back into By Lori Lansens the world she’d been hiding from. She takes her first air- Little, Brown plane flight, gets a makeover, stands up to her boss and her $24.99, 368 pages difficult mother-in-law, makes new friends, learns how to ISBN 9780316069311 use an ATM card. She finds hidden reserves of endurance; Also available on audio she loses her appetite and her certainty about what her life is built on. Occasional traces of hackneyed sentiment slip into the novel, but the fast-moving story and Mary’s gradual metamorphosis overcome such flaws easily. By the novel’s satisfying end, Mary has learned that it’s better to strive for balance and control than to hide behind one extreme or another. It’s not a simple transformation, and even if it’s not quite realistic, it certainly rings true. o Becky Ohlsen writes from Portland, Oregon.

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INTERVIEW

Trouble in paradise

The surprising twists of a small-town murder mystery

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Interview by Alden Mudge conversation with Chris Bohjalian about his gripping appeared to me is a character who appears in the novel only new novel, Secrets of Eden, is sprinkled with unexthrough her diary. That is Alice Hayward. The diary was really pected observations and self-revelations. important for me because I wanted Alice to have a voice, even “Here’s a strange confession,” Bohjalian says good-humoredthough the book begins with her death.” ly during a call to his home in the small town of Lincoln, VerThough he did not know it then, the seed for Secrets of mont, where he lives with his wife and teenage daughter. “The Eden, Bohjalian says, was planted back when he was researchbetter one of my books is, the less time it takes to write. The ing his novel The Law of Similars (1998) and a victims’ rights books that have taken the longest time advocate he was interviewing “reached to write and that I’ve really struggled into her folder and tossed onto the over aren’t necessarily the books that table between us two Polaroid photoI think are my better books. There are graphs. The Polaroids were of head insome real clunkers in that batch.” dentations in sheetrock. The advocate Secrets of Eden, he says, took just was trying to help a woman extricate 12 months to compose, and he regards herself from a violently abusive relait as one of his three best novels. No tionship. The photographs stayed with question about that. It may even be me a long time,” Bohjalian says. Then the best of the dozen novels he has after the publication of The Double written thus far. Bind in 2007, dozens of women from Then, describing his workspace— across the country wrote him about the library in his “1898 Victorian vilhis portrayal of the violent attack on lage house”—Bohjalian says, “The his character Laurel Estabrook, wantlibrary sits at the corner of the house ing to know how he heard the details and juts out ever so much, with southof their personal stories. “Violence ern, eastern and northern exposures. against women in this country is abCHRIS BOHJALIAN So I can watch the sun rise over Mount solutely epidemic,” Bohjalian observes. Abraham—I start writing usually at 5 “I thought about those images of head or 6 in the morning—and I can chart indentations in sheetrock and wonthe progress of my day and the progdered if there might be a novel in that “I’m interested in seeing ress of the book by where the sun is subject.” He decided there was. and where it hits my desk. As you can So Bohjalian interviewed victims’ what happens to ordinary imagine, there are lots of books, piles rights advocates and victims of abuse. of books, shelves of books. But it’s He “spent a good deal of time” with his pretty neat. I’m obsessive-compulsive good friend and pastor, to whom the people in extraordinary about neatness. I need to have nothbook is dedicated, discussing crises of ing on the floor as I’m working, and faith and pastoral counseling of womcircumstances.” the desk needs to be pretty clean.” He en victims of spousal abuse. He asked adds, “I think tidiness is overrated. I his teenage daughter to read and criwish I could get over my clean-freaktique a draft of the book, especially the ness.” section about 15-year-old Katie HayBut maybe, just maybe, Bohjalian’s “clean-freakness,” is what ward. “One of her notes,” he says, “was, ‘I don’t talk like this, and underlies the clear, clean prose, meticulous research and vivid I don’t have any friends who talk like this.’ . . . My wife is also a descriptions that are characteristic of all of his novels, and are spectacular editor and is the most honest reader I have. I’ve also particularly evident in Secrets of Eden. been lucky to have the same editor, Shaye Areheart, since 1995. This latest story—a mystery that does not at first appear to So I have two generations of very smart women preventing me be a mystery—unfolds through the overlapping perspectives of from shooting myself in the foot.” four central characters. There is the Reverend Stephen Drew, In conceptualizing his story, Bohjalian also drew on deep a small-town minister who suffers a crisis of faith when a papersonal experiences. “My parents didn’t have nearly as horrible rishioner, Alice Hayward, is killed by her husband in an appara marriage as Heather Laurent’s parents, but a lot of the fights ent murder-suicide just hours after he has baptized her. There described in the book were just pulled from my own childis Catherine Benincasa, the state’s attorney, who is not so sure hood,” he says. “All of my books have got strange unexpected the crime before her is a murder-suicide and is also not so sure autobiographic minutiae. [For example] there is a lot of me in that the good Reverend Drew, who appears distant and cold, is Stephen Drew. Of all the first-person voices I’ve done over the not in some way complicit. There is Heather Laurent, author of years I think his might be the most me—that juxtaposition of best-selling spiritual books about angels who is drawn to the faith and cynicism. Certainly I love my church and my fellow tormented Reverend Drew and whose own parents died in a parishioners, but I can’t tell you how many Sunday mornings murder-suicide after years of spousal abuse. And there is Katie over the years I’ve sat there in the pew thinking to myself, oh, Hayward, the teenage daughter of Alice and George Hayward, suck it up and stop whining, for crying out loud.” and longtime witness to—and a collateral victim of—her faFrom this unexpected mix of personal experiences and carether’s abuse of her mother. ful research, there emerges a novel with resonant psychological Actually, as Bohjalian reminds the and social implications. “I don’t know that I think of myself as a caller, there is a fifth perspective in social novelist,” Bohjalian says, “but there’s a component to my the book. “The first character that work that involves an important nonfiction issue. That doesn’t mean that my books are polemics or op-eds. I’m interested in seeing what happens to ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. But what I hope I’m doing first and foremost is Secrets of Eden giving a reader a ripping good yarn, a book that makes them By Chris Bohjalian want to frenetically turn the pages. I’m interested in a good Shaye Areheart/Crown story, and if that story is grounded in a social issue, then all the $25, 384 pages better.” o ISBN 9780307394972 Alden Mudge writes from Berkeley, California. Also available on audio

Beat the

BEHIND THE BOOK

Modern-day echoes of a world turned upside down By Thomas Mullen irst allow me to say that I had nothing to do with our current financial melt- two of the three sons become bank robbers—and, soon enough, folk heroes to the ledown. A few years ago I found myself starting a novel about a family of bank gions of angry souls who blame the banks and the government for the hard times—and robbers set during the Great Depression, a story that would become The Many a third son can stay home to try supporting the family legitimately. The domestic tension, Deaths of the Firefly Brothers. At the time, our stock market was briskly accelerating, the sibling rivalries, the cool bank-robbing scenes, the fedoras and Tommy guns and fast the wind in its hair and its wrist casually dangling out the window. My house had almost cars, the mythology of the ’30s bank robbers, the sense that all of America’s founding principles had suddenly and irrevocably been called into question, a nadoubled in value, along with pretty much everyone else’s, and people tion that seemed on the verge of revolution—all these were rich in narat parties traded ideas for the next great investment (redo the kitchen? rative possibility for the novelist, even in 2007. I had no idea that any of buy nanotech stocks? get a second house?). this might also become frighteningly relevant to my own times—after While casting about for an idea for my second novel, I read a hisall, as I wrote the rough draft, the Dow was above 13,000. tory of bank robbers during the Great Depression and was intrigued A very unfunny thing happened during the final revisions of The by colorful characters like John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde and Pretty Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers—the world economy collapsed. I Boy Floyd. I next read a number of books about the Depression itself had, alas, not seen this coming (one glance at my retirement account will and marveled at the stories. Fistfights at the offices of employers who prove my point). But as I read and reread my book in the final months announced they needed to hire two men and found themselves fending of copyediting and proofreading, it was eerie that so many things I had off a riot of hundreds of applicants; long lines of laid-off white-collar once considered borderline fantastical were becoming commonplace workers waiting on city sidewalks for a free lunch, shamefully shielding in 2009: entire neighborhoods foreclosed and vacant; a modern-day their faces from view; families facing desperate decisions about how to Hooverville popping up beneath a highway overpass in my childhood simply stay alive, some of them evicted and with nowhere to turn but home of Providence, Rhode Island; populist rage at government and ramshackle collectives in city parks; angry young men robbing banks banks, along with accusations and counteraccusations about the merits and redistributing wealth the old-fashioned way. This all seemed so THOMAS MULLEN of socialism and the failures of capitalism; the sense that we had, for the otherworldly to me as I read about the ’30s from the comfortable vanlast few years or decades, been deluded fools, recklessly living according tage of 2007. And it had seemed so otherworldly to the people living it, too. People in the Great Depression, particularly the early years, felt utterly unmoored. to a set of fictional principles that had finally crumbled in the face of reality. When writing The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, I Their world had been turned upside down. One year, shoeshine boys had been trading stock tips; the next year, stockbrokers were taking walks out their 20th-floor windows. had not been trying to tell the future or draw parallels between a Countless people were dispossessed, out of work and literally starving. How had this distant time and our own—and I think the book works even for happened? We were a nation in complete and utter shock. All of the foundations of nor- readers unconcerned with such analogies. But it also proves that malcy had been torn down—faith not only in capitalism but also in democracy; the no matter how hard a writer might try to tell own his story and belief that hard work would be rewarded, that the American Dream could be achieved. control his characters, there are always more powerful forces at work. The best you can do is tell your tale and let it loose upon Our most basic assumptions had been revealed to be no more than empty myths. I had always wanted to write a novel centered on a typical American middle-class fam- a world that we’re all trying to make sense of, even as it changes ily unexpectedly derailed by economic disaster, but had struggled with figuring out how around us, day after day.  to do so without being too depressing—and had wondered how I might make the story interesting to readers who were themselves living in the strongest economy ever known Thomas Mullen made his literary debut in 2006 with the awardto man. The larger-than-life bank robbers of the Depression, I realized, presented me winning novel The Last Town on Earth. His second novel, The with a perfect opportunity. My fictional family could be a shop-owning clan in a small Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers ($26, 416 pages, ISBN 9781400067534), has just Midwestern city, ruined by the father’s horribly timed real estate speculation. In response, been published by Random House. Mullen lives in Atlanta with his wife and two sons.

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

SOCIOLOGY

NATURAL HISTORY

A new breed of free-range librarians

Meeting the gentle giants of the deep

Review by Amy Scribner My first thought upon seeing the title of this book was, wow, talk about preaching to the choir. I love librarians: their quiet efficiency, their confident bookishness and the way they can always help no matter the request, from a picture book on potty training to the latest chick lit to an obscure bluegrass CD. But as Marilyn Johnson postulates in the gloriously geeky This Book is Overdue, librarians are no longer ladies in cardigans hovering over the card catalog. The new librarians are bloggers, information junkies and protectors of freedom and privacy in the Patriot Act era. Says Johnson, “The most visible change to librarianship in the past generation is maybe the simplest: Librarians have left the building.” Johnson travels around the country and the world meeting those behind Library 2.0. She writes about the “street librarians” who stood outside the 2008 Republican National Convention with their iPhones at the ready, telling passersby about the candidates, nearby tourist attractions and street closings. She visits college librarians working to arm students from far-flung nations with the latest technology to help them earn their degrees. She talks to librarians who This Book is sued to protect patrons’ records from the invasive grasp of Overdue the feds. She also writes—very amusingly—about the seemingly By Marilyn Johnson endless number of librarians with blogs: The Annoyed Li- Harper brarian, Miss Information, Free Range Librarian. It turns $24.99, 288 pages out these “mousy” librarians have a lot of opinions, and ISBN 9780061431609 they’re not afraid to share them Energetic, winningly acerbic and downright fun, This Book is Overdue will leave you convinced that librarians really can save the world. o Amy Scribner writes from Olympia, Washington.

Review by Heather Seggel Philip Hoare’s literary and cultural history of the world’s largest and oldest animal may lead you to brush up on your sea chanteys and protest ballads simultaneously. The Whale, already winner of the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction in England, should be welcomed by American readers on both coasts and all points in between. Hoare follows his passion for whales around the world and back through time, beginning with and continually touching on Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick for source material and inspiration. The book is liberally peppered with quotes that are guaranteed to bring new readers to the classic novel and send long-time fans back for another voyage on The Pequod. The Whale explores the history of the whaling industry and the systemic abuse and harm humans have done to what is arguably the gentlest mammal known to man; the details are often heartbreaking, even when they’re offset by thrilling descriptions of the dangers of life at sea. Hoare visits historic whaling towns in multiple countries and actually swims with whales, and his personal accounts and sheer delight in his experiences lighten the mood. Readers will appreciate the ironic plot twist when what ultimately saves the whales from extincThe Whale tion turns out to be the discovery of crude oil. There’s a generous smattering of scientific and biologi- By Philip Hoare cal information spread throughout the book; but the most Ecco amazing fact of all is how little humans actually know about $27.99, 464 pages whales. Hoare writes, “We would do well to remember that ISBN 9780061976216 Also available on audio the world harbours animals bigger than ourselves, which we have yet to see; that not everything is catalogued and claimed and digitalized. That in the oceans great whales swim unnamed by man.” Yet another reason to be humble in their amazing presence. o Heather Seggel reads and writes in Ukiah, California.

WHODUNIT? Our cup runneth over

Mystery of the month

In all the years I have written this column, I cannot recall a month with more great choices. Winnowing down the numerous fine February offerings to a mere four selections—and reviewing them in the space available here—has proved nigh impossible. If you don’t get your fill of crime fiction with the selections below, check out my Mysterious Orientations blog at BookPage.com for coverage of more excellent February mysteries. There is no shortage of violence in Roger Smith’s South Africa thriller, Wake Up Dead (Holt, $26, 304 pages, ISBN 9780805088762); indeed, the brutality starts on page seven and doesn’t let up for the next 300-odd pages. Cape Town, South Africa, is home to American ex-model Roxy Palmer and her gunrunner husband Joe. Upon returning home from a working BY BRUCE TIERNEY dinner, Roxy and Joe are carjacked by a pair of amped gunmen. Things get a bit out of hand and Joe takes a bullet in the leg. The carjackers leave the gun at the scene, making their escape in Joe’s Mercedes convertible. As the taillights disappear into the dense South African night, Roxy picks up the gun, takes careful aim with rock-steady hands and shoots her husband right between the eyes. Joe had it coming, to be sure. In life, he had been a death merchant of the first tier; additionally, some time back in a fit of rage he had pushed Roxy down a stairs, terminating her pregnancy and ensuring that she could never bear another child, for which she has never forgiven him. But killing her husband will prove to be the most dangerous and complicated decision Roxy has ever made. There are no real good guys in Wake Up Dead; the protagonists, such as they are, sport some serious character flaws, but are all the more believable for it. If you are a fan of George Pelecanos or Dennis Lehane, give Roger Smith a close look.

It is not a good day to be named Noel Rafferty. An obnoxious drunk holds court in a pub, obviously spoiling for a fight. Other patrons stare studiously down at their drinks, reluctant to be drawn into the brewing fracas. Then, as if out of nowhere, a cloaked figure emerges with gun drawn, and moments later, erstwhile inebriate lout Noel Rafferty lies dead on the bar floor; the killing bears all the hallmarks of a gangland assassination. Later that evening, Rafferty’s uncle, a wealthy businessman also named Noel, dies in a suspicious car accident. Is there a connection? It certainly seems so to Gina Rafferty, sister to one Noel and aunt to the other. And so begins Alan Glynn’s Irish thriller, Winterland (Minotaur, $25.99, 320 pages, ISBN 9780312539221), a tale of politics, avarice, corruption and murder on a national scale. As Gina picks at the threads of the two deaths—first out of curiosity, then later as a result of increasing unease about the unlikely “coincidence”— a couple of things transpire in fairly short order: First, she is warned off her investigation in no uncertain terms, and from several quarters; and second, this only steels her resolve to see justice done, whatever the personal cost. Her potential (and ever-so-worthy) adversaries are well placed in Dublin’s power elite: Paddy Norton, fabulously wealthy (and by some accounts unscrupulous) land developer, currently involved in the largest building endeavor in modern Ireland; and Larry Bolger, politician extraordinaire and heir apparent to the number one position in the Irish Republic. Winterland is not a comfortable read by any means; it stirs up the thorny issues of globalization, the troubling get-it-done-regardless mentality of the wealthy and the politically connected, and the proximity of the “business-crimeterrorism-politics” continuum to all of our daily lives. Glynn’s previous novel, The Dark Fields, has been optioned for the silver screen, and I predict Winterland will be hot on its heels. Well done, Mr. Glynn! o —BRUCE TIERNEY

Ian Rankin’s crime caper When I saw the new Ian Rankin book in the recent BookPage shipment, I immediately anticipated several enjoyable (and suspenseful) evenings spent in the company of Inspector John Rebus. It was not to be. Doors Open (Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown, $24.99, 368 pages, ISBN 9780316024785) is, instead, a caper thriller along the lines of The Italian Job, a tale of a daring art theft from a well-endowed Edinburgh museum. Three conspirators form the nucleus of the heist: Mike Mackenzie, man of leisure and art collector, who desperately wants to add a particular painting to his collection; art professor Robert Gissing, who rails against the notion that paintings should be privately owned (or stored in back rooms of museums) and kept out of the public domain; and meek investment counselor Allan Cruickshank, whose art purchases have been severely curtailed by an expensive divorce. Early on, the men realize that their talents alone will not suffice to carry the day, and they recruit a talented art forger and a notorious crime boss to fill out their ranks. The plan is virtually foolproof, the key word (of course) being “virtually.” In the aftermath, the unity of the group begins to show stress fractures, the sort of tiny cracks just itching to be pried apart by a tenacious cop. In Doors Open, Rankin displays once again the versatility that allows him to write credibly from both sides of the law.

Devil in the details To the best of my memory (a sieve-like entity at best) I had not read anything by Chuck Hogan prior to Devils in Exile (Scribner, $26, 384 pages, ISBN 9781416558866). This is a lapse I intend to rectify at the first opportunity, because Hogan is really, really good! Anti-hero Neal Maven, a returned Iraq vet, works at a Boston parking lot. There are not a lot of jobs available for a man with his unique military skill set, it seems—at least not in private-sector mainstream U.S. companies. Enter Brad Boyce, a fellow vet who seems to embody everything Maven would like for himself: confidence, a dangerous charm, wealth and most of all, the affections of beautiful Danielle Vetti (a high school compatriot of Maven’s, and the object of his long-time unrequited crush). Boyce offers Maven an under-the-table job, and Maven is only too happy to accept. The job is something of a get-rich-quick scheme: ripping off drug dealers, and flushing their harmful product down the toilet. Boyce represents the enterprise as a Robin Hood-like endeavor, with the dual benefits of breaking the (financial) backs of the drug dealers and getting the supply off the streets. A win-win for everyone, right? Wrong-o! Because Boyce has a plan inside a plan, about which I shall say no more, except that it spells trouble with a capital “T” for Neal Maven. Lightning paced, with a clever and exceptionally satisfying conclusion, this is a don’t-miss book for early 2010! o

On sale now www.MIRABooks.com www.TheOriginalHeatherGraham.com

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

Welcome to Las Vegas, where the line between the living and the dead has blurred.

MEMOIR

MEET

Robert Crais

A soldier’s tale of survival and homecoming Review by Rebecca Bain On March 23, 2003, when Operation Iraqi Freedom was still a new venture for American troops, 18 vehicles became separated from the rest of their army convoy. Following faulty directions, the group entered a hostile town, where they were overcome by militant villagers. In her new book, I’m Still Standing, Shoshana Johnson writes of the ordeal that followed. Johnson, who is this country’s first fe-

male black POW, wasn’t even sure why she’d been deployed—she’d spent her career in the Army as a cook. Meals in the desert were either field rations or provided by a civilian dining service, so she had little to do once she arrived in Iraq. But in the attack that killed 11 of her fellow soldiers, Johnson and six male soldiers were taken prisoner. Johnson had sustained severe injuries to both of her legs; two of the others were also injured.

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ROMANCE

ROMANCE/SUSPENSE FICTION

Back In Black Gillian Noode is a PR expert hired to smooth out the rough edges on hotheaded sports club president Drew Black. He’s rough, raw—ready for any challenge Gillian throws his way. To makematters morecomplicated, she’s starting to like him. But in the rising heat, whowill endupontop?

The Golden Season Lady Lydia Eastlake is a celebrated beautyof RegencyEngland’ston.When her fortune suddenly disappears, she must find a wealthy husband. Captain NedLocktonsends Lydia’s pulseracing, but little does she knowthat he is on the hunt for a rich bride to rescue his familyfrompoverty.

Hot Rocks Laine Tavish surrounds herself with antiques in her store. As for her own past, she’d rather avoid it. When that doesn’t work, she has to rely on a stranger named Max Gannon to figure out whois chasingher andwhy. Theanswer liesinahiddenfortunethat will changeLaine’slife.

Night and Day WhenthesunsetsinParadise,it’stime for thewomenintowntoget nervous. APeepingTomcalledtheNight Hawk is ontheloose. Accordingtothenotes he sends to Police Chief Jesse Stone, this predator of the night is about to take his obsession one step further.

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FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

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PAPERBACK PICKS

SUSPENSE

ROMANCE

SUSPENSE

FICTION

Pursuit When the First Lady dies in a fiery car crash, rookie attorney Jessica Ford is the only survivor of the tragedy. As the nation mourns, Ford has reason to believe it wasn’t an accident. One by one, others in the First Lady’s inner circle are being killed. Jessica must findout why—beforeshe’s next.

Ravishing in Red Audrianna Kelmsleigh is unattached, independent—and armed. Her father diedinascandalous conspiracy, a deserved death in her adversary Lord Sebastian Sommerhays’s eyes. Audrianna vows to clear her father’s name, never expecting to fall in love withthemandevotedtodestroyingit.

The Renegades Deputy Sheriff Charlie Hood cruises the dusty backroads of the new American West. But when his partner is shot deadandHoodis drafted to find the killer, the investigation takes himtoplaces he never wanted to go—where there’s no clear line betweengoodandevil.

The Silent Man CIAagent JohnWells has spent years inthecompanyof evil men. He’s paid thepriceandis beginningtodoubt if he can ever leada normal life. When a powerful adversary from his past finds him, Wells must once again enter the fray—for his country, for his soul, for revenge.

For the next 22 days, until they were rescued by Marines acting on a tip, the seven POWs were shuffled from cell to cell, building to building, town to town. They were often separated; their injuries were given only cursory attention; their meals were inadequate bowls of rice, sometimes with a piece of chicken. Worst of all, they had no idea if they would be released, kept in prison indefinitely or executed. The last two options seemed the most likely. Johnson writes of the horror of this uncertainty, of the unending boredom of days with nothing to do but imagine the worst scenarios, of hostile guards—or even worse, a flirtatious one who would stroke her neck or try to hold her hand. She also includes the more mundane details of the prisoners’ grim existence: dirty clothes, the lack of bathing facilities or even toilet paper. But Johnson isn’t entirely censorious about her treatment by the Iraqis. Several treated her with kindness, even becoming protective of her. And she still wonders if the three policemen who were their final captors might have been the ones to tip off the Marines. When she and her fellow captives were finally released and landed in Kuwait, a chaplain approached Johnson and asked if he could pray with her. “The chaplain took my hand to begin the prayer, but before he could even say the first words, I started crying. I was overwhelmed with how much I had to pray about. There had been days of sheer terror, days of utter hopelessness. So many awful things that could have happened didn’t. Instead there were times when I had been grateful for the kindnesses so many of our captors had shown. And now I was free and on my way home. It was overwhelming.” In fact, events after Johnson’s return to the U.S. were at times nearly as emotionally devastating as her ordeal in Iraq. Fellow soldiers became jealous of the attention the POWs received, and the Army refused to include PTSD treatment as part of her insurance coverage. She believes reporters even gave more coverage to Jessica Lynch (also captured by other Iraqis that day) because she was blonde and Johnson was black. It was distressing enough that Johnson left the Army; these days, she has returned to culinary school and also does public speaking, and she struggles with depression, guilt over living when her fellow soldiers died and anger at her treatment by the Army. Yet Shoshana Johnson proves with this book that she is, in fact, still standing. o Rebecca Bain is a freelance writer in Nashville.

I’m Still Standing By Shoshana Johnson Touchstone $23.99, 288 pages ISBN 9781416567486 Also available on audio

FIND MORE REVIEWS ONLINE AT BookPage.com

Well Read A man on the run William Boyd has a thing for outsiders, be it the genteel Englishman adrift among rednecks in the American South in Stars and Bars, the young woman in self-imposed African exile in Brazzaville Beach or the Russian recruited as a British spy in the Costa Award-winner Restless. In his new novel, Ordinary Thunderstorms, Boyd has crafted a persuasive story about a singular kind of outsider, a man forced by extraordinary circumstances that spiral out of control to go underground and live an anonymous existence in the middle of a bustling, indifferent 21st-century city. Adam Kindred (the name speaks volumes) has returned to his native England after a stint at an Arizona university. Escaping the wreckage of a failed marriage, he has come home to interview for a position as a climatologist at Imperial College in London. After his job interview, Adam stops at an Italian restaurant in Chelsea, where he strikes up a casual conversation with another man. When that man—Philip Wang—leaves behind an importantBY ROBERT looking file folder, Adam plays the good Samaritan and WEIBEZAHL arranges to bring it to Wang’s apartment, but when he gets there, he finds Wang has been stabbed and is close to death. At Wang’s behest, Adam pulls out the knife, but the man dies anyway. Adam panics and flees the premises with the dead man’s file. Having signed his name in the registry at the front desk of the apartment building, he is now the primary— indeed, the only—suspect in Wang’s murder. Unable to return to his own hotel for his belongings, Adam is forced to live rough on a sheltered patch of ground along the Thames. He becomes adept at survival, but things turn from bad to worse when he is mugged and what little money he has left is stolen. Mounting misfortune leads him to a series of encounters with other disenfranchised denizens of London, lands him for a time in a notorious housing project, The Shaft, and takes him to a evangelical ministry, the Church of John Christ. Slowly, through his own ingenuity, Adam begins to construct a new kind of life for himself, and a new identity far removed from his former professional prestige.

Boyd’s latest is the best of both worlds: literary fiction with the pacing of a thriller.

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

Despite his ability to survive, though, Adam is never far from danger, pursued by both the police and Jonjo Ordinary Case, Wang’s hired killer who is eager to find Adam and Thunderstorms silence him for good. Meanwhile, Adam, now called Pri- By William Boyd mo, begins to do some research and discovers that Philip Harper Wang was head of research and development for a phar- $26.99, 416 pages maceutical firm that is about to launch a revolutionary ISBN 9780061876745 new asthma medication. The drug company, wishing to stifle whatever Wang knew, has issued a £100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Adam Kindred. It all makes for a deftly constructed thriller, told from four points of view that ultimately converge—Adam’s and Jonjo’s, as well as those of the chairman of the drug company—and of a police officer who stumbles into the case. The cop, Rita Nashe, works for the Marine Support Unit of the London police, patrolling the river, which twists through the city on its way to the sea. The Thames becomes the vein through which the blood of Boyd’s narrative flows, a simultaneously poetic and perilous entity connecting the story’s disparate elements. While the novel makes for undeniably compelling reading, it offers far more substance than the run-of-the-mill thriller. Not only does Boyd’s always elegant writing far outstrip that found in most best-selling potboilers, but Adam’s predicament, for all its nightmarish horrors and clever solutions, etches a deep impression in the reader’s mind. Boyd asks us to consider how any of us might survive if we were stripped of our identities and all the accoutrements of modern urban life. He raises uncomfortable questions, too, of the value of human life in a world where the pursuit of corporate profit supplants human dignity. Ordinary Thunderstorms is that oh-so-rare hybrid of entertainment and literary novel, the kind of book Graham Greene might have written had he lived into our information age. Like Greene, William Boyd is an expert at conveying two fixtures of the human condition: the fluidity of morality and the invincibility of fate. o

RELATIONSHIPS

Bumps in the long and winding road to love Feature by Carla Jean Whitley ove stories never get old, and one couple’s romance is always different from the next. With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, a number of authors are sharing their own tales of dating, mating and trying again. Learn from others’ trials and successes with four of this year’s best relationship memoirs.

Dating disasters Julie Klausner still hasn’t found what she’s looking for, but as the lengthy subtitle of her dating memoir suggests, she’s spent time with a lot of the wrong guys. In I Don’t Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Faux Sensitive Hipsters, Felons and Other Guys I’ve Dated (Gotham, $15, 256 pages, ISBN 9781592405619), Klausner recounts years of dating the wrong guys. She never went through a boys-are-icky phase, instead openly chasing her crush of the moment since childhood. In fact, in the book’s opening pages she boldly declares, “I love men like it is my job.” Klausner refuses to pussyfoot around her recollections of past lovers, indiscriminately flaunting her dirty laundry and theirs. (This is the kind of memoir an author hopes her parents won’t read.) But what could be an airing of grievances from the pen of another author is, in Klausner’s hands, an entertaining romp through a series of comic sketches. As a writer for VH1’s “Best Week Ever,” Klausner regularly transformed a week’s minutiae into pithy television, and she applies the same droll tone to her own missteps and willful mistakes. And through failure after dismal failure, Klausner clings to one hope: The right man is out there, somewhere. If she’s got to date all the wrong ones to find him, she’ll do it, enthusiastically.

Matching wits Boy meets girl. Boy falls for girl. Girl doesn’t give boy the time of day for five years. And then boy’s wildest dreams are fulfilled when girl suddenly decides he is all she wants. Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn’s relationship is far from a fairytale romance, but it’s a story filled with all the excitement and drama you’d hope for from a couple of writers and actors. They’ve had a lot of experience in telling other stories, after all: For years Gurwitch hosted “Dinner and a Movie” on TBS, and she has written for NPR and The Nation. Kahn wrote for “The Ben Stiller Show” and appeared in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and other films. In You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up (Crown, $24, 288 pages, ISBN 9780307463777), Gurwitch and Kahn bicker as they recount their sometimes-conflicting tales of meeting, courtship, marriage and the journey toward “till death do us part.” And even as their lives turn gravely serious when their son Ezra is born with multiple birth defects, the couple injects humor into their otherwise terrified mindset. This is definitely not a sweet tale, but couples who love and argue with equal intensity will find solace—and more than a few laughs—in Gurwitch and Kahn’s frank depiction of their relationship.

Something’s cooking FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

Elizabeth Bard spotted the classic tall, dark and handsome stranger at a conference in London. She was an American beginning a master’s program in art history. He was a Frenchman wrapping up a Ph.D. in computer science. When the opportunity arose, she made a point of meeting him. The bevy of emails that followed led to lunch—and then love—in Paris. Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes (Little, Brown, $23.99, 352 pages, ISBN 9780316042796) doesn’t stop with happily ever after. In fact, Bard’s wedding to the exotic Gwendal takes place halfway through the book. But the challenges of a life in a foreign country are just beginning. On the surface Bard’s life seems like a fairy tale: living in Paris, married to a Frenchman and dining on any number of delicacies. But what’s simple in America is a challenge for an American in Paris. A task as easy as buying curtains can become an all-day event. A memoir with recipes isn’t a new concept. Amanda Hesser covered that territory well in Cooking for Mr. Latte, and in recent years there’s been an avalanche of relationship-and-recipe books. But if there’s anything that doesn’t get old, it’s a good love story and a good meal—all the better if they are crafted by someone who can both write and cook! In Lunch in Paris, Bard shares not only her love story but her journey to finding a sense of self in a foreign land with a foreign man. Whether you read it with the love 12 of your life at your side or while dreaming of meeting your own exotic other half, this

story and its accompanying recipes will warm your soul.

A new dance Maria Finn met her husband while salsa dancing. The couple danced their way into a relationship, then marriage. But after she discovers that he’s been cheating on her, salsa dancing has little place in her life. Finn instead turns to tango, also a seductive Latin dance, but one that allows space for sorrow and loss. She quickly becomes addicted to tango, attending private lessons and dance classes and clearing space on her calendar for frequent milongas (social dances). While dancing, Finn learns to give herself over to a man, to allow herself to be pulled off balance and follow his lead, even while carrying her own weight. The dance carries her from her home in New York City to the dance floors of Argentina, but more importantly, it helps Finn rewrite her understanding of men and her own life. In Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home (Algonquin, $13.95, 240 pages, ISBN 9781565125179), Finn incorporates her deep understanding of tango into the story, revealing its history even as she explores her own relationship with the dance. Unlike many life-after-heartbreak memoirs, this one doesn’t end with the author tangoing into the sunset with a new beau. Instead, Finn repairs her outlook on life and men in general, while finding comfort, challenges and encouragement in the arms of strangers. o Carla Jean Whitley lives, writes and dates in Birmingham, Alabama.

Finding your own happily ever after Don’t let your reading about love end with stories of others’ relationships. Whether you’re looking for Mr. or Miss Right or have already found your special someone, there’s a book to enhance your love life. In Meeting Your Half-Orange: An Utterly Upbeat Guide to Using Dating Optimism to Find Your Perfect Match (Running Press, $22.95, 240 pages, ISBN 9780762437740), Amy Spencer helps singles harness the power of optimism to find their other halves. If your glass is half empty, this book might not appeal to you. But if that’s the case, you may be the person who needs it most. Spencer plays up the value of wanting something and focusing your energy on that goal, rather than lamenting what you don’t have. It’s not your responsibility to figure out how to get from point A to point B— that’s the power of optimistic magnetism, she says. Your job is merely to control the longing, and to be prepared to recognize your other half when he or she walks in. It’s a tactic that worked for the author. Spencer, who has written for a number of magazines and Match.com, learned the term half-orange (a translation of the Spanish phrase mi media naranja) from her own sweetheart. Have you already found your soul mate? Then Charlie and Linda Bloom are the relationship gurus for you. During their 38 years of marriage, the Blooms have learned to love, compromise and protect their relationship. The Blooms, both therapists, pass their wisdom on to other couples through BloomWork, the workshop and counseling business they run together. In Secrets of Great Marriages: Real Truth from Real Couples about Lasting Love (New World Library, $14.95, 288 pages, ISBN 9781577316787), the Blooms recount the stories of more than two dozen couples. They interview a couple who believed they were headed for divorce before seeking individual healing that reinvigorated their marriage. They talk with a couple who worked through childhood hurts to find healing in the emotional intimacy of their marriage. Along the way the Blooms reveal not only the beauty of a lasting, loving relationship, but also the lessons we can learn from one another’s successes and mistakes. o —CARLA JEAN WHITLEY

INTERVIEW

Shattered hearts and second chances Kristan Higgins explores the landscape of loss and new love INTERVIEW BY KAREN ELLEY fear that her husband Chris is next. he seeds of Kristan Higgins’ writing career were sown So Lucy has decided that it’s time to get on with her life, find when, at the age of 13, she swiped Shanna—a notorious a husband and have children. Ethan, a friend with privileges, is bodice ripper by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss—from her grandimmediately ruled out because he is much too attractive and their mother’s nightstand. Woodiwiss has been called “the founding relationship is way too complicated. Lucy wants someone more mother of the historical romance genre” and has inspired a mundane, secure and safe and, dare whole generation of writers, Higgins we say, boring—somebody she among them. won’t ever love too much. Lucy’s “I was hooked,” Higgins says. “For learned her lesson: Love hurts, espeseveral years, I controlled the black cially when the one you love is gone. market for romance novels at my After going through a series of Catholic girl’s school, and now they false starts, Lucy may have found a actually carry my books in their lipromising candidate. But to date, brary, which I find shocking!” no Black Widow has ever remarried, Higgins began her writing career and the fact that Lucy has supposas an advertising copywriter right afedly made up her mind doesn’t stop ter college, and worked until her first her aunts and Jimmy’s parents from daughter was born. Then when a doling out more unsolicited adsecond child came along, and the two vice than Dr. Phil. Soon Lucy is yokids started napping simultaneously yoing back and forth between her in the afternoon, the young mother head and her heart, trying to make had a couple of hours to herself for a decision—and making everybody the first time. else crazy in the process. A pseudo“I wasn’t one of those people psychic offers guidance from Jimmy who carried a notebook around and KRISTAN HIGGINS on the other side, but will Lucy be wrote down everything,” Higgins reable to interpret his message before calls, “but I was a reader. And since it’s too late? I’d been reading romance novels for Much like the extended family in “Romance novels are a decades at that point, I thought I’d The Next Best Thing, Higgins herlike to see if I could write one. The self grew up in a large, tight-knit jump from ad copy to fiction wasn’t promise to the reader that love Hungarian family. “All my heroines too hard,” she says with a laugh. are involved with their family, someWhen Higgins finished her first makes you stronger and life times to their detriment, because novel, Fools Rush In, she shipped it nobody knows you and can torment off to an agent who immediately better, and you’re going to feel you as effectively as your family. But took her on as a client. “I was really hopefully no one loves you and aclucky,” Higgins stresses; “the timing cepts you as much as your family.” was right, and the agent was willing good at the end of a book.” Higgins’ three great-aunts and to take a chance on a new author, and her mother, all widows, inspired the she made a sale.” She advises other fictional Black Widows. “Unfortuaspiring writers to keep working, nately my aunts have all passed away,” she says, “but I hope somemake sure you know what you do well and hone that skill. “Keep how they’ll know that they’ve been immortalized.” your head down, work hard and never be satisfied,” she says. Although Higgins says she tries to focus on universal ideas and Apparently Higgins took her own advice. Her second book, concerns, writing about the death of a husband is not a common Catch of the Day, won the 2008 Romance Writers of America’s romance theme. She handles the issue with grace and humor and RITA Award for best contemporary romance. Next came Just strikes emotional chords by putting into words what is in the One of the Guys in August 2008, followed by Too Good to Be True hearts and minds of many who have lost loved ones. in February 2009. “My dad died unexpectedly when I was 23,” she explains. “LosHer latest offering hits bookstores this month, just in time for ing someone like that re-creates your world; it’s suddenly differValentine’s Day. As in Higgins’ past books, family relationships ent and you have to learn how to negotiate that landscape.” The are the stars of the show. The Next Best Thing is a multi-generaplot of The Next Best Thing revolves around Lucy’s struggle to tional, heartwarming tale of lost love, broken hearts and second accept the fact that her life with Jimmy is over—and that she still chances set in a small New England town, peopled with plenty of has a lot of living left to do. funny, quirky folks to provide some timely comic relief. “Being widowed young is something I live in fear of because The heroine, Lucy, works in the family business, Bunny’s my mom was widowed when she was 46, and my husband’s a Hungarian Bakery, as a bread baker who secretly yearns to crefirefighter. So if he’s late coming home from work, all these worate desserts. Her mother and her aunts Iris and Rose all share ried thoughts go through my head. You never trust the fates in the the same maiden name—Black—and all were widowed by the same way as someone who hasn’t been through that experience.” age of 50. As a result, they have been dubbed the Black WidAlthough not every real romance has a happily-ever-after endows, and five years ago, 24-year-old ing, Higgins doesn’t think those endings will ever go out of style Lucy joined their ranks when her one in fiction. “It’s about the quest to find the one person to share true love, her husband Jimmy, died in your life, help carry your burdens, celebrate your triumphs and a car accident. Now, Lucy’s very preglove the real you. Romance novels are a promise to the reader that nant sister, Corinne, lives in constant love makes you stronger and life better, and you’re going to feel good at the end of a book.” “I want to write big memorable love stories about regular The Next Best Thing people,” Higgins says, “like me or my best friend, or my sister. Not By Kristan Higgins everyone is rich, famous, beautiful, psychic or immortal.” On her HQN website there’s a quote that sums it all up: “Real life, true love and $7.99, 400 pages ISBN 9780373774388 lots of laughs.” o

The second book in a brand new series,

The Black Cobra Quartet

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A battle-hardened, ex-officer of the Crown confronts the deadly enemy known only as the Black Cobra. A lady secretly follows him and joins him to battle this treacherous foe. www.avonbooks.com See the trailer at www.stephanielaurens.com

BESTSELLER WATCH Release dates for some of the guaranteed blockbusters hitting shelves in February:

Sweet Little Lies By Lauren Conrad Harper, $17.99, ISBN 9780061767609 The “Hills” star follows her YA smash, L.A. Candy, with a new novel about young women living their lives in front of the camera.

The Midnight House

Horns By Joe Hill Morrow, $25.99 ISBN 9780061147951 One morning Ig Perrish wakes up with horns growing out of his temples. Maybe his girlfriend’s murder has something to do with it?

Big Girl By Danielle Steel Delacorte, $28, ISBN 9780385343183 The prolific Steel tackles issues of body image, family pressure and betrayal in her latest novel.

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

By Alex Berenson Putnam, $25.95, ISBN 9780399156205 CIA agent John Wells is back to track a mysterious assassin in Berenson’s latest international thrill ride.

TRENDS

What do (younger) women really want? Feature by Christie Ridgway Did you know that romance novels are in the hands of more readers than any other fiction genre? According to the Romance Writers of America’s website (rwanational .org), romance books make up the predominant share of the consumer market. In 2008, 74.8 million Americans read at least one romance, while the core of the romance novel fan base is estimated at 29 million regular readers. Bottom line: Today’s “it” story is the love story! But for whom? The majority of American romance readers are women between the ages of 31–49, but younger readers are joining the ranks: 29 percent of Americans over the age of 13 read a romance novel in 2008 (Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, anyone?). Are these younger readers looking for something beyond the traditional archetypes of romance? I decided to investigate, interviewing more than a dozen readers between the ages of 25 and 35, contacted via my newsletter and multi-author blog.

The players The starring men who stride through the pages of romances—be they dukes or vampires, soldiers or spies, brooding loners or playful bad boys—come in a variety of shapes and styles. When asked if they have a preference, the younger readers I talked to were in nearly unanimous agreement. “I’m not sure I have met a romance hero that I didn’t like,” says 25-year-old Rachel. “If the writer is good, she’ll make me fall in love with about any kind of hero,” says Emmanuelle, 31. And heroines? Readers can enjoy any female lead, “As long as,” Keri, 26, says, “the author backs up the heroine with the history to fit the character.” Adds 32-year-old Lanae, “I love reading about heroines who start out as not so confident, then are put in a situation where they really find themselves. It’s almost inspiring.”

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

The good stuff

What about heat? “The hotter the better!” exclaims 27-year-old Anna. With the rise in availability of erotic romance, it’s not hard to find sexy scenes. But as Stephanie, 29, explains, “The sexual tension and sex should help move the relationship and emotional connection between characters [forward].” Another change in the landscape: Younger fans are more likely to get their romance news through webbased means such as blogs and social media. And while most of those interviewed are not averse to the concept of reading an electronic edition, the cost of electronic readers can be prohibitive. But beyond the cost, all of the readers I spoke with profess their enjoyment in holding an actual book. “Who wants to take a gadget with them to the tub?” asks Toni, 35. Still, as Leis Pederson, assistant editor for the Berkley Publishing Group, puts it, “The core of what draws readers to romance novels is the same across generations.” Alyson, 31, uses the true romance readers’ code: “It’s the HEA.” The “happy ever after” is what appeals to readers more than a particular kind of hunky hero, feisty heroine or steamy love scene. Instead of apologizing for their reading preference, these young women even appear a little smug about their choice of books, as Rachel sums up so well: “Sometimes when people make fun of romance, I smile to myself because they just don’t know what they are missing. Romance novels make me happy.” Having been a dedicated fan of the genre since discovering Georgette Heyer’s works in my public library, I wasn’t surprised by what younger readers said was the fundamental appeal of the genre—it’s the journey to that guaranteed happy ending that makes romance popular every day of the year, and for readers of every age. o

ROMANCE The sweetest season for love stories February is the month of Valentine’s Day, candy hearts and sweet love notes, so there is no better time to check out fiction’s hottest genre—romance. Love stories for all tastes are on the shelves this month. Eager readers can’t go wrong! Romance doesn’t get much better than Connie Brockway’s latest, The Golden Season (Onyx, $7.99, 400 pages, ISBN 9780451412836). Society leader and celebrated beauty Lady Lydia EastBY christie ridgway lake abruptly discovers her vast wealth is gone, meaning she’ll need to marry a rich man in order to keep the only lifestyle she’s ever known. She decides her husband hunt will have more success if she hides her financial straits, though she promises to reveal the truth before accepting a proposal. Enter handsome naval hero Captain Ned Lockton, scion of a wealthy, respected family. Their instant attraction is a surprise to them both, but a happy one, as Ned is also looking to wed. He hopes to find a rich bride, but he’s keeping his own desperate circumstances to himself until the time is right. Alas, it’s already too late for Lady Lydia and the captain. By the time they trade confessions, they’re both in love and marriage appears impossible. Ned has a family to provide for and Lydia has no family at all—her position in high society is the only stability she knows. Readers’ hearts will ache alongside Lydia’s and Ned’s. It’s worth staying up all night for this happy ending.

Science-y suspense Romance, suspense and a touch of the paranormal are all found in Cate Noble’s Deadly Seduction (Zebra Books, $6.99, 352 pages, ISBN 9781420101713). When CIA operative Max Duncan is rescued from the jungle where he was the guinea pig for unscrupulous scientists, the danger isn’t over. The CIA wants to know how and why he was brainwashed, more scientists are interested in dissecting his psyche and he has to get away from both in order to locate a fellow prisoner. Psychologist Erin Houston is part of the team enlisted to help Max, but she thinks he might have some answers for her as well. Was her late and beloved father one of the doctors researching this diabolical mind control? She’ll do anything to find out the truth—including going on the run with sexy yet dangerous Max. As they fall for each other, more questions arise, including whether they will survive to see the full flowering of their feelings. A breathless pace makes this book impossible to set down.

Matchmaker, matchmaker A delightful sleuth is introduced in Heather Webber’s romantic mystery, Truly, Madly (St. Martin’s, $7.99, 316 pages, ISBN 9780312946135). Lucy Valentine reluctantly takes the reins of her father’s famous matchmaking business. She doesn’t believe she can

bring couples happily together—her father’s secret talent is the auras he can read, but Lucy’s takes the form of finding people’s lost objects. Still, she’s left with little choice, and soon she’s immersed in trouble. By the time she’s found a lost child and a dead body, she’s met with the private investigator upstairs, Sean Donahue, and she senses more trouble coming from him . . . trouble of the sexy kind. Knee-deep in difficulties, Lucy turns to friends and family, who offer both advice and further obstacles. This story presents a delicious cast of characters, an intriguing mystery and a charming duo who are heading toward romance. Readers will be eager to follow the pair on their upcoming adventures.

Déjà vu Lessons in French (Sourcebooks, $7.99, 480 pages, ISBN 9781402237010) comes from one of the genre’s much-admired historical authors, Laura Kinsale. Childhood sweethearts Lady Callista Taillefaire and Trevelyan d’Augustin have been parted for nine years after being caught in a compromising position. Trev went away, presumably to regain the French holdings his family had lost, and Callie has never forgotten him—though she’s been jilted three times and now considers herself an affirmed wallflower and staid spinster. But Trev doesn’t view her the same way, and this romping reunion story will keep readers turning the pages as Callie regains her confidence and embarks on a new series of Trev-partnered adventures. He’s not as he appears either, but the tender heart inside the suave exterior only makes him more memorable. Both touching and funny, this is a worthy valentine for the season.

Jackpot! Two lonely people meet up in a Vermont B&B in Donna Kauffman’s Here Comes Trouble (Brava, $14, 336 pages, ISBN 9780758231338). At 40, heroine Kirby Farrell has left a long-term relationship gone sour and struck out on her own by buying and renovating a Victorian in the Green Mountains ski area. But success is as elusive as the snow, and she’s desperate for business when a gorgeous younger man rides up on a motorcycle. He’s her first guest . . . and a temptation she thinks she can temporarily indulge in. Brett Hennessey has left the bright lights and the big jackpots of Las Vegas in order to figure out the next step in his life. A poker star, he has money and fame, but he no longer wants to pursue either. When he meets Kirby, he begins to think she might be the home he’s been seeking. Cautious Kirby wonders if he might be too good to be true, and Brett has baggage that shows up in Vermont to derail the budding relationship. Sexy, with an emotionally honest core, Kauffman’s latest is easy to snuggle with on a winter’s night. o Columnist Christie Ridgway writes contemporary romance from her home in Southern California.

FICTION

Trigiani’s latest is lovely REVIEW BY AMY SCRIBNER As we pick up with Valentine Roncalli in this follow-up to the vibrant bestseller Very Valentine, she is taking over the family business from her grandmother, who has, in her 80s, remarried and moved to Italy. But the Angelini Shoe Company isn’t just any business—it’s been passed down through generations, each proprietor painstakingly building custom wedding shoes in the same Greenwich Village shop. But this is post-recession 2010: who has the money to buy such frivolity as custom shoes they’ll wear only once? Valentine wants to expand the business by introducing a line of affordable yet stylish shoes to supplement the custom brand, but she’ll need the approval of her insufferable (and business-savvy) brother, Alfred. Valentine travels to Buenos Aires in search of a suitable manufacturer, but things get complicated when she discovers a long-hidden family secret that opens old wounds in the Angelini-Roncalli clan. Valentine is one of Adriana Trigiani’s most winsome characters (yes, she even rivals the Big Stone Gap gang). She’s honest, wry and utterly human as she approaches her mid-30s without a man in sight (other than ex-boyfriend Bret and gay roommate Gabriel—both fabulous comrades but not exactly marriage material). When she again crosses Brava, Valentine paths with Gianluca, a suave, slightly older Italian who is By Adriana Trigiani looking for more than a fling, Valentine must figure out if Harper $25.99, 352 pages she’s able to balance work and life. “I am my best self, the most alive I can be, when I’m cre- ISBN 9780061257070 Also available on audio ating in the shop,” says Valentine. “I would never admit this to a man I was interested in, but it’s the truth. Love is not the main course in the banquet of my life. It’s dessert. My mother would say that’s why I’m still single. And my sisters would say I’m lying. But I know this to be true, that love is my treat, my tiramisu, because I’m living it.” Brava, Valentine is laugh-out-loud funny (the Thanksgiving dinner family blowout is one for the ages), but it’s also an unexpectedly poignant examination of the power and pull of family, faith and love. Can’t wait to see what Valentine’s up to next. o Amy Scribner writes from Olympia, Washington.

WOMEN’S FICTION

Snakes in the grass

antastic F ICT ION by abulous AUTHORS First Drop of Crimson By Jeaniene Frost $7.99, 9780061583223 The night is not safe for mortals. Denise MacGregor knows all too well what lurks in the shadows—her best friend is half-vampire Cat Crawfield—and she has already lost more than the average human could bear. But her family’s past is wrapped in secrets and shrouded in darkness—and a demon shapeshifter has marked Denise as prey. Now her survival depends on an immortal who lusts for a taste of her.

Fugitive By Phillip Margolin $9.99, 97800061236242 It’s not just the state of Oregon that’s got it in for philandering con, Charlie Marsh. Criminal lawyer Amanda Jaffe has her work cut out for her. She must keep Charlie off death row, protect him from the head of a dictator’s deadly secret police, and prevent him from being caught by a shadowy killer who will stop at nothing to keep the truth about a decade-old crime buried forever.

The Dakota Cipher By William Dietrich $9.99, 9780061568084 Ethan Gage wants to enjoy the fruits of victory after helping Napoleon win the Battle of Marengo. But an ill-advised tryst with Bonaparte’s married sister has made that impossible. And the fantastic schemes of the wild Norwegian Magnus Bloodhammer soon have Ethan dodging hostile Indians on America’s frontier.

Final Target By Steven Gore $9.99, 9780061782183 A man lies unconscious in a hospital bed, the victim of a violent assault the police are calling “road rage.” If he recovers, prosecutors are waiting to indict him for conspiracy, eager to send him to prison for the rest of his life. And he’s the lucky one. Because the first target was his friend . . . but the final target is his country.

Fragile Things By Neil Gaiman $7.99, 9780060515232 These marvelous creations showcase the unparalleled invention and storytelling brilliance—and the terrifyingly dark and entertaining wit—of the incomparable Neil Gaiman. By turns delightful, disturbing and diverting, Fragile Things is a gift of literary enchantment from one of the most original writers of our time.

www.harpercollins.com

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

Review by Arlene McKanic “Are there no nice people in this book?” this reviewer wondered, even as she avidly turned the pages of Kimberla Lawson Roby’s latest novel. The novel’s subtitle asks, “Does Alicia, daughter of the Reverend Curtis Black, finally have the perfect life?” and the answer is a definite “no.” She thinks she does, however. Alicia has married the up-and-coming pastor JT Valentine against the wishes of her famous zillionaire father—a character who resembles real-life megachurch pastor T.D. Jakes. Alicia loves JT and he actually loves her, and since she’s been a spoiled rotten princess all her life, JT is prepared to spoil her some more. The thing is, both of them are people to whom a decent person would give a wide berth. A budding novelist who finally uses her dad’s literary agent when no one else will take her on (and gets a big fat advance to boot!), Alicia displays greed and shallowness that would have been repugnant even in the go-go ’80s. JT’s wickedness is breathtaking; he is a flat-out, hairy-hearted sociopath. Convinced that God is ever on his side, he sees no problem with cheating on his wife with one woman after another. He lies to his women, to his wife, to his business partners. He lies when he doesn’t have to lie. Basically, Be Careful What he lies to everyone about everything—all the time. For- You Pray For tunately, one of his women, a minx named Carmen, is as By Kimberla Lawson Roby crazy and evil as he is. But unlike JT, she’s patient. Morrow Roby’s characters may not be admirable, but they cause $23.99, 288 pages the same chill and fascination you’d feel if you came ISBN 9780061443114 across a den of rattlesnakes. A skilled writer, Roby knows just how to keep readers hooked; you know that somebody has to get their comeuppance, and you hope the very first somebody is JT. After him, whatever happens to the other miscreants in this tale will be icing on the cake. When the hammer finally comes down, it’s not quite as satisfying as the reader would like—there are no gruesome deaths or Shakespearean piles of vile bodies—but it’s enough. Be Careful What You Pray For is an irresistibly nasty work. o Arlene McKanic writes from Jamaica, New York.

1 F

Discover the this Valentineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Day with romance, adventure and stories that kindle the heart!

Sassy, Heartwarming Romance

THE NEXT BEST THING Kristan Higgins 978-0-373-77438-8

FORBIDDEN FALLS Robyn Carr 978-0-7783-2749-3

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THE SUMMER HIDEAWAY Susan Wiggs 978-0-7783-2799-8 Coming in March

AMAZING GRACIE Sherryl Woods 978-0-7783-2753-0

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LEAD ME ON Victoria Dahl 978-0-373-77434-0

MORE THAN WORDS VOLUME 6 Joan Johnston, Robyn Carr, Christina Skye, Rochelle Alers, Maureen Child 978-0-373-83744-1 Coming in April

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Sweeping Historical Romance

PROOF BY SEDUCTION Courtney Milan 978-0-373-77439-5

TRIUMPH IN ARMS Jennifer Blake 978-0-7783-2748-6

REESE’S BRIDE Kat Martin 978-0-7783-2744-8

Poignant Nonﬁction

UNDERNEATH IT ALL Jennifer Manuel Carroll, Kathy Schultz 978-0-373-89205-1

HOW I LOVE YOU Aimee Chase 978-0-373-89217-4

LOVE MATTERS Delilah 978-0-373-89200-6

Extraordinary Young Adult & Paranormal Romance

MY SOUL TO TAKE Rachel Vincent 978-0-373-21003-9

MY SOUL TO SAVE Rachel Vincent 978-0-373-21004-6

TWICE AS HOT Gena Showalter 978-0-373-77437-1

FICTION

Exploring the worlds of love and grief Review by Harvey Freedenberg In his debut novel, Michael J. White has crafted an affecting story of first love and first loss. It’s an observant and often lyrical tale of its protagonists’ efforts to navigate some of the early, stumbling steps on the road to adulthood. Seventeen-year-old George Flynn has moved with his parents and older brother to Des Moines. Apart from a murder in the Holiday Inn where he and his family spend their first night in town, life for earnest and awkward George, a dedicated if only intermittently successful wrestler, settles into a predictable groove. That is, until he meets Emily Schell, his St. Pius High School classmate and an aspiring actress. George’s “only real ambition was to love Emily in the same fierce and noble way [he’d] loved her from the beginning,” but his infatuation is complicated when he meets her 13-yearold sister, Katie, wise beyond her years and suffering from multiple sclerosis. They form an odd triangle that’s shattered by a tragic accident. At first George and Emily drift apart, but inevitably they act on their mutual attraction, cemented on an impromptu road trip from Iowa to Colorado. George scraps his plans to attend college and Emily abandons North- Weeping western University to return home, where the two tumble Underwater Looks into a passionate relationship that seems fueled as much a Lot Like Laughter by sorrow as by lust. White explores the complex and ever-shifting dynamics of their relationship in a way that’s By Michael J. White both intensely realistic and psychologically astute, build- Putnam ing a strong foundation on which the novel rests. Though $24.95, 352 pages ISBN 9780399155901 White is nearly two decades removed from his own high school days, he displays an acute recall, and his wit and tenderness leaven the novel’s autumnal sensibility of the events and emotions that cause most people’s memories of those years to range from bittersweet to appalling. While they’re familiar to all, the territories of love and grief have no signposts. In Weeping Underwater Looks a Lot Like Laughter, Michael J. White has marked out a memorable path through this often forbidding landscape. o Harvey Freedenberg writes from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

FICTION

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

Secrets of a small town

Review by Eliza Borné Luke May, the protagonist of Safe from the Neighbors, provides readers with a strange dilemma: as a character, he is hardly worthy of the masterful language that swirls around him. Luke is a high school history teacher in Loring, Mississippi, and though he seems to like his work—even going so far as to create and offer a local history course— he is a man without ambition or distinction. He is, as he says, “Mr. History.” He bemoans his life of discussing other people’s actions, rather than leading boycotts, taking a stand or otherwise creating history himself. Recently empty-nested, Luke and his wife, a passionate poet, have a ho-hum sex life and a predictable existence. When Maggie, a childhood friend, returns to Loring to teach French, Luke’s life changes drastically and quickly. In 1962, on the night that riots erupted at Ole Miss on account of James Meredith’s enrollment, Maggie’s father killed her mother. Luke longs to get to the bottom of this years-old mystery, and Maggie provides clues to the puzzle. A sophisticated and single woman, she also adds excitement to Luke’s flat daily life. They have an affair, and their passion escalates as Luke delves deeper into events from the past. Safe from the Although the reader may sympathize with Luke’s deNeighbors sires, he is not a particularly likeable character. But that’s fine, because Safe from the Neighbors is not a character- By Steve Yarbrough or plot-driven novel. It’s a novel of memorable words and Knopf phrases; of intense introspection; of images depicting the $25.95, 272 pages ISBN 9780307271709 way we interact with people, both today and during the Also available on audio Civil Rights era of the Mississippi Delta. There are moments in Safe from the Neighbors—quiet observations about a gesture or a scene frozen in Luke’s memory—that will stick with the reader long after the book is finished. The murder mystery and the tension created by Luke’s adultery will draw readers in to this novel. But it is Yarbrough’s beautifully crafted sentences that will keep them riveted to the end. o

THE SPOKEN WORD In the wilds of Munrovia When it comes to short stories, no one does it better than Alice Munro, and at 78, her perception, style and control seem only to have sharpened. Munro’s narratives can be deceptively simple until her subtle, skillful analysis of a situation begins to surface; her characters may look back after years to see the reality of their younger selves, or they may experience a moment, even a sequence of moments, that transforms their future—not as a bold epiphany, but as a more nuanced shift. Too Much Happiness (Random House Audio, $40, 11.5 hours unabridged, ISBN 9780307576736), her latest and winner of this year’s Man Booker International Prize, is a wonderful reminder of why Munro is considBY SUKEY HOWARD ered such a master of her craft. And, read here by Kimberly Farr and Arthur Morey, it is a wonderful reminder, too, of how powerful short stories are as audio presentations. Most of the 10 stories in this collection are set in Inner Munrovia—small-town southern Ontario— where tragedy and oddity, big and small, can roil the seemingly smooth surface; but the title story, the longest and most unusual, is based on the life of Sophia Kovalevsky, a Russian mathematician and novelist who lived, loved, lost and strived, in vain, for intellectual and social equality during the last half of the 19th century.

Bosch is Back I’ve always had a soft spot for hardboiled Harry Bosch, Michael Connelly’s super-dedicated LAPD homicide detective. He makes his 15th appearance in Nine Dragons (Hachette Audio, $39.98, 11 hours unabridged, ISBN 9781600247439), read by Len Cariou, who has given this tough/ tender cop voice, depth and added dimension in seven audio performances. What makes Nine Dragons so compelling is not just the wellplotted whodunit-cum-police procedural and not just the case—solving the murder of John Li, the elderly, Chinese immigrant owner of Fortune Liquors in gang-banging South L.A. It’s the sudden twist that morphs this stolid, solid stateside investigation into a wild, violent, pounding 39-hour thriller-diller hunt through the seamy underside of Hong Kong for Harry’s kidnapped 13-year-old daughter. When the hunt comes to a screeching stop, the aftershocks change Harry’s life, his daughter’s and their future together. What brings all this on—cultural misunderstanding and its inevitable fallout, an adolescent’s naiveté, a father’s fierce, relentless drive to save his daughter—takes Nine Dragons out of the ordinary and leaves its characters to come to terms with their soul-scorching actions and listeners primed for the sequel.

Audio of the month What do you get if you cross the “Prairie Home Companion” joke show with a seminar on the fundamental questions of Western philosophy? You get Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates (Penguin Audio, $29.95, 5 hours unabridged, ISBN 9780143144984), Thomas Cathcart’s and Daniel Klein’s third foray (remember Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar ?) into elucidating the daunting, dismaying depths of philosophy with some pretty good jokes and some very clever, fast-paced précis of what the big guys have thought and said about the meaning of it all. Because death is one of the immutable facts of life, a combo that drives many to distraction, the awareness of mortality—and its prequel (life) and sequel (the hereafter)—is basic to the human condition and has been front and center in metaphysics, theology, ethics and existentialism for eons. Heavy stuff that, in Cathcart’s and Klein’s deft, dare we say death-defying hands, and with their twinkling, tandem reading, lightens up, makes you laugh and leaves you understanding a lot more than you did when you started. o

Hot audiobooks for a cold winter. The Last Surgeon

Poor Little Bitch Girl

“Collins is at her seasoned best.”

“Palmer’s best novel in years.”

—Publishers Weekly

—Booklist

A Night Too Dark “Sizzling.”

—Publishers Weekly

Last Snow

“Last Snow catapults high over the bar of great thrillers.” —Nelson DeMille

Available wherever books are sold and for download. Visit www.macmillanaudio.com to listen to excerpts.

macmillan audio macmillan

Q&A

A failing grade for boys Interview by John T. Slania ichard Whitmire is a longtime education reporter and editorial writer who has chronicled a critical shift in the national education debate: While it was once presumed that girls were falling behind in school, now it appears that boys are at greater risk. Exploring the issue has become his passion, both in his blog and in his new book, Why Boys Fail (AMACOM, $24.95, 256 pages, ISBN 9780814415344). BookPage asked Whitmire to provide a tutorial on a subject of interest to parents, teachers and employers.

You didn’t always believe it was boys who were in trouble in school.

I was an education reporter in the Washington bureau of Gannett News Service when the American Association of University Women released its research on girls getting shortchanged in school. As the father of two daughters, I quickly wrote that up—uncritically—as fact. RICHARD WHITMIRE

What made you change your mind?

In the years that followed, I realized I had made a mistake. That research was flawed. It first became obvious anecdotally, by watching my nieces and nephews and the other students in local schools. More importantly, it became obvious in the national data. The gender gaps we see in college are the most obvious evidence—nearly 58 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 62 percent of associate’s degrees go to women. Unlike two decades ago, when uneducated men could find good-paying work, men today need those degrees as much as women. How did the researchers get it wrong?

It’s not so much a matter of getting it wrong as never trying to get it right. By choosing not to investigate the problem, the U.S. Department of Education ducks the politically sensitive issue. In Why Boys Fail, I lay out the history behind that sensitivity, which starts with conservatives blaming feminists (unfairly, from my perspective) for the problems boys were experiencing in school. The national feminist groups went into a defensive mode and countered that boys were not experiencing problems. When men rule the White House and Wall Street, that argument carries a lot of credibility, at least on the surface. But when you bore down to the community level, to the boys and girls in your local schools and men and women in the local economy, the reality is very different. Men are in trouble, and much of that trouble can be traced back to unequal educations.

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

Does the failure of boys in school cut across all races and income levels?

I would say yes, with the possible exception of those coming from the most elite families. (And even in the most expensive prep schools I hear college placement advisers remark that their girls perform better than the boys.) Among Hispanic and African-American boys, the gaps are huge: Twice as many black women as men earn bachelor’s degrees. Less obvious, however, are the gaps we’re seeing among the sons and daughters of blue-collar families, where the daughters are far more likely to enroll and graduate from college. This is a key question, and it gets at what may be the most important insight from the book: There’s a common thread (literacy skills) connecting the problems minority boys are having with what we’re seeing in blue-collar/white and middle-class suburban schools. Could it simply be that boys traditionally have never liked school as much as girls?

Yes, but in years past the boys were given plenty of time to catch up. Reading experts tell me that by fourth grade boys should pull even with girls in literacy skills, but that’s not happening. There’s a second issue here. In years past it was OK for many boys to dislike school. Blue-collar jobs were plentiful. Today, however, college has become the new high school. Want to be a cop? Better have at least an associate’s degree. What are the risks of having too few male college graduates?

There are some national economic considerations. Women are less likely than men to major in the hard sciences or launch risky business ventures. But the real implications are interpersonal—the so-called “marriageable mate” issue that has inflicted so much pain among African Americans. Women hesitate to “marry down” to someone with a lesser educational background. Hence, a lack of marriageable mates. What solutions do you recommend?

The obvious solution is to start at the beginning with a federal investigation. Once the causes are pinpointed, the Department of Education can launch research into remedies that can be pioneered by interested school districts. Just as urgent is federally 20 sponsored research into single-sex education. Do boys and girls really have genderspecific learning styles that teachers must master? Maybe, maybe not. Let’s find out. o

LIFESTYLES Engaging projects for your crafty side In the worst economic downturn since Herbert Hoover, DIY consciousness is pure gold. The three books reviewed here will help you save money by doing it yourself in three areas that can be huge money pits: your wedding, your house and your creative dreams. Esther K. Smith has been called the queen of paper crafts. This Queen Esther has earned her crown with gorgeous work in two previous titles, How to Make Books and Magic Books & Paper Toys, and through decades of yummy letterpress creations as co-founder of Purgatory Pie Press. Her new book, The Paper Bride (Potter Craft, $24.99, 144 pages, ISBN 9780307407108), focuses on doit-yourself paper goodies for any stage of a wedding, from save-the-date cards to anniBY JOANNA versary albums. The projects BRICHETTO do not require any special equipment, “only a clean kitchen table with a pair of sharp scissors and a few simple tools.” Neither do they require expertise. Anyone remotely handy with paper can find something doable and spectacular within, whether a pop-up map, a paper boutonniere, hand-written place cards or a funky table runner made of pages from a bridal magazine. Some designs are trickier, like programs and booklets that call for needle and thread, but they needn’t dissuade readers from attempting less ambitious goals. And the lovely thing is that at each step of each project, opportunities abound for personalization: wording, writing, typesetting, images and more. The point is to create a unique, hands-on something for a unique, hands-on occasion.

Finding beauty in the everyday In House of Havoc, (Da Capo, $16.95, 320 pages, ISBN 9780738213118), syndicated At Home columnist Marni Jameson dishes out hard-won how-tos for the best kind of home improvement: living more beautifully with others. The potential for havoc increases with the number of humans and animals we live with, but Jameson’s blend of humor and helpfulness can handle anything. As if her own credentials aren’t enough, she enlists expert aid on specific quandaries: a certified kitchen coach for making meal prep more efficient; a professional organizer to tame drawers of disaster; a DIY specialist for a cabinetry makeover; and a home magazine editor to demonstrate the staggering usefulness of a glue gun. Jameson’s strategies address five crucial categories: “time, stuff, space, meals and housekeeping,” all viewed through the lens of accommodating and adapting to the quirks and realities of living with other people. For an example, see Mantra #4: “Honor the acts of daily living. If it’s a habit, make it beautiful.” Jameson brings home the fact that while there is an art to interior design, “there’s also an art to living.”

Craft a new career For folks who create unique things with a view to getting paid, this book should prove quite useful. The Handmade Marketplace (Storey, $14.95, 224 pages, ISBN 9781603424776), by Kari Chapin, is a charming, easy-to-use guide to getting your stuff “out there,” written by a crafter for crafters. This guide is organized into three sections. Part one is devoted to finding out what you want—goal clarification, business basics and branding yourself—and part two details how to get it: marketing how-tos, community resources, websites and blogs, advertising and publicity. Part three gets down to the details of selling, whether at craft fairs, online or in brick-andmortar stores, or through other less obvious (and more creative) venues. Chapin also brings in experts she calls the Creative Collective: experienced artisans, artists and business people who comment on topics throughout the book. The appeal of handmade goods of all kinds is growing; just look at the phenomenal success of sites like Etsy.com, the biggest online presence for buying and selling handmade creations of all sorts. The Handmade Marketplace will be helpful for makers at any stage, from just-thinking-about-it to ready-to-quit-my-day-job. In this thriving market, says the author, there is “room for everyone.” o Joanna Brichetto would love to make a paper flower but cannot find a clean kitchen table.

INTERVIEW

Austen city limits

Modern-day master delivers a sparkling suburban comedy Interview by Katherine Wyrick mbient city sounds—horns, sirens—provide a fitting kind of chocolate-covered pretzel concoction—a little salty, a soundtrack for a recent conversation with Cathleen little sweet. Schine, a New Yorker who has written so astutely about Schine has said elsewhere, “Families are funny and adultery the lives of other New Yorkers. She does it yet again in her new is funny; families are tragic and adultery is tragic. Love just novel, The Three Weissmanns of Westport, a reimagining of complicates everything that much more.” In The Three WeissJane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility that tells the story of three manns of Westport, she explores love in its many forms—maurbanites in exile, and the cast of characters in their orbit. ternal, romantic and filial. During the interview, Schine, also As the world she knows unravels, the author of The Love Letter and The Betty’s daughters—the passionate MiNew Yorkers, makes a frank confession: randa, a famous literary agent, and the “This is very unfashionable to say, but more subdued Annie, a sensible library I read for comfort a lot of times. That director—rally around her in supsounds very old-fashioned, but that’s port. Forced out of her elegant New my dirty little secret.” Her readers York apartment by her husband’s miscan take comfort in the fact that she’s tress, Betty, joined by her girls, takes created another ensemble novel that, refuge in her cousin Lou’s cramped, though sad at times, is also entertainrun-down beach cottage in Westport, ing and diverting. Connecticut. As they mingle with subOther facts one might be surprised urban socialites, they discover love in to learn about this prolific author: unexpected places—and truths about She’s partial to terriers (and presently themselves and each other. owns a Cairn); before becoming a Schine describes the process of writwriter, she studied to be a Medievalist; ing this novel as a dynamic experience, and she didn’t read Jane Austen until a kind of call and response between her well into adulthood. “I’m very unusubook and Austen’s. “It’s partly my beCATHLEEN SCHINE al among novelists in that I didn’t read ing caught up by the narrative of Sense Austen until I was an adult,” she says. and Sensibility and partly my own But when she did, “It was an incredstory and characters, sometimes push“Any woman who writes ible revelation.” ing toward that and sometimes pulling Asked about being dubbed by critaway from that. . . . It was kind of like a a comedy of manners is ics as a modern-day Jewish Jane Ausdialogue. For me, reading and writing ten, a moniker she’s flattered by but have a lot in common. So there was a reluctant to claim, Schine responds, lot of communication with the characcompared to Jane Austen. “I’ve been writing for 25 years. That ters,” she says, adding, “All apologies to was written about me when I was Jane Austen, of course.” She’s the gold standard.” quite a bit younger, but I’ve noticed What appeals most to Schine about that any woman who writes a comAusten’s work is that, though written edy of manners is always in some way two centuries ago, it still resonates with compared to Jane Austen. She’s the readers today. “So much of it feels so gold standard.” alive,” she says. She found herself asking, what in modern-day The Three Weissmanns of Westport will, of course, invite society approximates that? What is the equivalent? comparisons to Sense and Sensibility, but Schine insists, “It’s She also wanted to write about “women who’ve lived a cersomewhere between a theft and an homage, but what it’s not tain way whose whole lives have been pulled out from under is an appropriation or a comparison. That, I know better. Jane them.” Austen is an inspiration to anybody who writes a comedy of “I know women to whom that has happened,” she says. manners because she practically invented it.” Schine, like Austen, is particularly interested in the ways in Schine’s story begins when 78-year-old Joseph Weissmann which, even today, women depend on marriage to ensure social decides to divorce Betty, his wife of 48 years, citing “irreconstanding and economic security. cilable differences” (read: another woman). The genuinely perIn writing this novel, Schine found herself returning time plexed Betty replies, “Irreconcilable differences? . . . Of course and again to the relationship between Betty and her daughthere are irreconcilable differences. What on earth does that ters. Schine, who’s very close to her own mother, says, “I love have to do with divorce?” writing about mothers and daughters and mothers and sons. Approaching grave subjects with levity is Schine’s trademark. That’s one of the things I found when I was writing this, that “For me, it’s just the way I experience the world. It’s a good surthe mother took on a much more important and central role in vival mechanism,” she says. In the past, she’s leaned more heavmy story; that’s one way in which it really veered from Sense and ily towards comedy, but feels that “this book is sadder, more Sensibility.” Most poignant, perhaps, is the way Schine describes serious, a bit emotionally darker than other things I’ve written.” the awakening of Miranda’s maternal instincts after she meets Though that may be true, she strikes a balance between pathos a winsome toddler named Henry (the son of her new lover). and humor. Let’s just say that if The “It’s hard to write about kids without it being sentimental,” says Three Weissmanns of Westport were Schine. But she does it, drawing on her own experience of raisa movie, Nora Ephron would direct it. ing two boys. Or if it were a food, it would be some Asked if she would ever write a memoir, Schine says she finds she can come closer to the truth when writing fiction. “Also, it’s just more fun for me,” she adds. “Part of the fun of writThe Three Weissmanns ing is finding out what’s going to happen next.” Her ultimate of Westport goal, she says, is to create recognizable characters and a story By Cathleen Schine that rings true to life. She does both in The Three Weissmanns Farrar, Straus of Westport, her lambent wit flickering across each page like $25, 304 pages moonlight on the waters of Westport. o ISBN 9780374299040 Katherine Wyrick writes from Little Rock. Also available on audio © JAMES HAMILTON

PB 9781589093690 $15.95

The Curious Exchange At Killamore Strand Chris O’Grady A morning stroller along a beach, a clam-digger on the bank of the peninsula’s inlet, a few men working in a truck across the narrow inlet. Then . . . murder! Bookstand Publishing www.bookstandpublishing.com

Here intelligence comes in. Let him who has the mind for it calculate the number of the beast, for it is a man’s number, and his number is 666.

REVELATION 13:18

What if everything you knew about the Antichrist was wrong? And what if he was alive and amongst us right now? You would have difficulty locating someone who didn’t have at least a basic understanding of what the number 666 means. Countless theologians and scholars have studied the biblical prophesy in depth and have correlated the data to the best of their ability—but you may be surprised to know that it was all based on a flawed assumption. It has recently come to light that a scribe in ancient times made an innocent but profound clerical error: 666 is the wrong number! Because of this very recent discovery, an accurate text about the time of the apocalypse using all of the available data to give us a clear picture of the Antichrist and the end times has never been written. Until now. Louis Diedricks has spent years cross-referencing the book of Revelation with other apocalyptic references, and it is his learned deduction that the signs of the Apocalypse are practically upon us. With the understanding that the signs of the Apocalypse are metaphors rather than literal descriptions, and with a profound awareness of the technological capabilities of our time and what that might mean within the framework of Scripture, Diedricks guides us step-by-step down the windy road of the end of times prophesy. Using the correct number—616—and a brilliantly innovative way of interpreting that number, he uses all available data to lead the question of the Antichrist’s identity to its logical conclusion. He is alive, he is among us, and it is time to prepare ourselves for what is coming. This book will prove to be an invaluable resource to anyone who wants to understand the difficulties of the very near future and who the players are.

US $13.95

PB 9781936198054 $13.95

The Day of the Lord Louis Diedricks An enlightening new perspective on what is described within the Book of Revelation for the tribulation period during the upcoming days of Apocalypse. Be prepared for a soul schocking experience. Mill City Press www.louisdiedricks.com

The Guardians:

Loving Eyes are Watching Richard Williams Imagine a world where special dogs lead their masters back to the path of God’s love. The Guardians is such a story; it tells of two shelties who have the ability to speak, but their unusual talent is a closely guarded secret. Visit www.lovingeyesarewatching.com AuthorHouse

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

PB 9781434376633 $12.99

HISTORICAL FICTION

Cornwell’s epic saga continues Review by Dennis Lythgoe With 40 books behind him, the 65-year-old British-born author Bernard Cornwell is at the top of his game. But interestingly, his profession came as a sort of happy accident. As a young man, Cornwell married an American and moved to New Jersey. When he was unable to get a green card, he decided to try his hand at writing. The rest, as they say, is history. The Burning Land is the fifth volume in Cornwell’s Saxon Tales series about the battle for supremacy between the Saxons and the Danes in ninth-century Britain. Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a fictional character loosely based on a Cornwell Saxon ancestor, is the star of Cornwell’s story and the battles fought to unify Britain under Alfred the Great. The book is written in Uhtred’s voice as he looks back on an exciting life that, in his opinion, has not been well-documented. Historically, Cornwell’s major contribution is to tell the story of Ethelflaed, an actual heroine forgotten by most scholars. She interacts with Uhtred in the fictional sense, but figured prominently in the history of the Danes’ ongoing struggle with Britain. Yet it must be said that the few other women in the story are portrayed with a tinge of sexism, as The Burning Land is the case with the fictional Skade, a woman of exceptional By Bernard Cornwell beauty who is captured by Uhtred and stripped naked with Harper a rope around her neck to entice her Danish lover, Harald $25.99, 352 pages ISBN 9780060888749 Bloodhair, into battle. Cornwell is adept at enveloping his fictional characters in Also available on audio British history. His use of geography, instruments of battle, strategy and ancient vocabulary is faultless. In Cornwell’s hands, Uhtred appears as a highly charismatic, heroic figure who accomplishes great things with his superior physical abilities and sheer force of will. Even if you haven’t read the previous books in Cornwell’s popular series, The Burning Land stands on its own two feet; no knowledge of early British history or of his earlier Saxon volumes is necessary for a reader to enjoy his dexterous approach to historical fiction. o Dennis Lythgoe is a writer who has lived in Boston and Salt Lake City.

DEBUT FICTION

Lighting up the sky

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

Review by Cory Bordonaro A single bottle rocket sends flaming flickers of white light into the air. Soon after, a dotted line of fire travels silently and slowly to a great height, where, with a heart-thumping blast, it explodes into brilliance. Firefly-like bursts fall gracefully to the ground while another stream makes its way north to awe spectators with its beauty. A fireworks display may begin unassumingly, but as it builds momentum toward the grand finale, the oohs and aahs ensue. The Book of Fires, the debut novel by British author Jane Borodale, follows a similar pattern: Expositional descriptions build the framework for a layered narrative that moves toward a striking finish. Born in the English countryside, Agnes Trussel is a young woman who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant at 17. Fleeing the ignominy of her situation to seek refuge on the unfamiliar streets of mid-18th-century London, she finds an unlikely haven in the home of a widowed pyrotechnist, John Blacklock. Agnes soon falls into an improbable career as his assistant, finding her quick and nimble hands adept to the task of helping Mr. Blacklock with his trade. He, too, is taken with her aptitude for the work, entrusting her with more and more responsibility in the shop. Immersed in the The Book of Fires science and production of fireworks, she encourages his By Jane Borodale quest to discover how to add vibrancy to his colorless py- Viking $26.95, 368 pages rotechnics. All the while, Agnes keeps her growing secret under ISBN 9780670021062 wraps. Her appetite for learning, coupled with the shame Also available on audio associated with her unwed pregnancy, fuels her crazed search for a solution to her seemingly impossible lot. The hope of a new life begins to illuminate what was once dismal. The Book of Fires is a quietly beautiful novel. Borodale’s elegant use of language and inventive storytelling captures the tale of a young woman smoldering with desire for a life painted with vivid colors. o 22 Cory Bordonaro is a freelance writer, crafter and barista in Birmingham, Alabama.

Book clubs New paperbacks for reading groups Shanghai Girls By Lisa See Set in the 1930s, See’s richly detailed historical novel tells the story of Pearl and May Chin—two wealthy, beautiful, liberal-minded sisters who are coming of age in the magical city of Shanghai. Life is grand for the girls until their father confesses that his fondness for gambling has done the family in, both financially and socially. In an effort to repay his debts, the girls’ father sells them to two men in America who are looking for Asian brides. Pearl and May are determined to stay in their homeland, but when the Japanese attack and their par- Random House ents vanish, they decide to leave China for Los Angeles, where $15, 336 pages ISBN 9780812980530 their future husbands await them. The immigration process proves easier said than done for the two young women, who arrive at Angel’s Island (known as the Ellis Island of the West Coast) only to be delayed by the authorities and questioned for several months. Once May and Pearl meet their husbands and become accustomed to American life, they find that their family heritage serves as a powerful source of inspiration and solace. Spanning 20 years in the sisters’ lives, this unforgettable narrative convincingly traces their dramatic development from privileged girls into hard-working women and wives. See has written a compelling and finely detailed novel that takes readers on an unforgettable journey into the past. A reading group guide is included in the book.

Cutting for Stone By Abraham Verghese Author of the much-praised medical memoir My Own Country, Verghese, who is a doctor as well as an author, now offers an expertly composed first novel about missionaries in India and Africa. In 1947, Sister Mary Joseph Praise leaves her missionary post in India to take a new position in Yemen. Traveling by ship to her new home, she saves the life of a fellow passenger—an English physician named Thomas Stone. Their meeting proves a fateful one, as Sister Praise comes to realize when she and Thomas are reunited at a hospital in Vintage Addis Ababa. Years later, she dies giving birth to twins—sons $15.95, 688 pages named Shiva and Marion, who are raised in Addis Ababa in ISBN 9780375714368 an atmosphere of political upheaval. Their adopted parents are doctors at the local hospital, and the boys are raised within the confines of the medical complex. Marion serves as narrator for this poignant novel, recounting the story of how his foster parents met. As the two brothers become doctors themselves, they find that their destinies are bound up in each other and in the place they call home. Covering a 50-year span, Verghese’s accomplished novel has plenty of narrative momentum, moving smoothly between exotic locales and exploring ambitious themes of race, identity and family. An insightful and assured writer, Verghese writes from the heart about medicine and politics—timely topics that are clearly dear to him. A reading group guide is available online at randomhouse.com.

Lowboy By John Wray Wray’s wonderfully original third novel focuses on New Yorker Will Heller, a 16-year-old schizophrenic who stops taking his medicine and sneaks away from the mental hospital where he’s a patient. Convinced that the end of the world is just a few hours away and that he’s destined to save mankind, Will is drawn into the subway tunnels of Manhattan. He rides the trains in search of a way to solve humanity’s problems— and in search of his friend Emily. Meanwhile, a determined detective named Ali Lateef pursues Will at the urging of Violet Picador Heller, the boy’s mother. A beautiful, strong-willed and per- $14, 272 pages petually agitated Austrian woman, Violet has a secret of her ISBN 9780312429331 own, and the task of finding her son proves to be surprisingly dangerous for everyone involved. The novel takes place in a single day, and it’s an action-packed ride heightened by Will’s smart observations and lyrical insights into modern culture. The book is filled with mesmerizing scenes set beneath the streets of New York, as Will travels underground on his strange quest to save the world—and himself. Wray’s sensitive portrayal of the teen brings to mind the work of J.D. Salinger and Jonathan Lethem. A fast-paced novel of pursuit, this dramatic, authentic narrative will solidify Wray’s reputation as one of America’s finest modern novelists. A reading group guide is available online at picadorusa.com. o —JULIE HALE

Your perfect Valentine awaits! by Adriana Trigiani

“Sex and the City meets Moonstruck …

this first in a new trilogy from Trigiani is sly, sensual and dripping in style.” —People, Lead Review

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The love stories continue in these great paperbacks... “Gives us full

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Thank s for t he Memo ries A Novel

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The Summ e We Fel r l Apart

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“A well-crafted and cunning debut novel…. A testament to the resilience of the human spirit and to the importance of family ties.” —Publishers Weekly

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“Often funny, always lovable, this endearing novel of obsessive compulsive disorder and romance is outstanding.” (Pick of the Week) —Boston Globe

From the bestselling author of the Sisters of the Heart Amish romance series comes the first book in the new Seasons of Sugarcreek series!

Visit www.BookClubGirl.com, a blog dedicated to sharing great books, news and tips with book clubs everywhere.

NATURE

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

Lessons from a life in the natural world

Review by Rebecca Steinitz The back-to-the-land movement was nearing its peak in 1971, when Susan Hand Shetterly, her husband and their young son moved to a small cabin in coastal Maine with “no electricity, no plumbing, no phone.” Almost 40 years later, unlike most of her peers who soon beat a retreat back to urban comfort, Shetterly still calls Maine home, a word that resonates powerfully throughout Settled in the Wild (Algonquin, $21.95, 256 pages, ISBN 9781565126183), her clear-eyed and loving tribute to the land, wildlife and people of her adopted community. Though the essays in Settled in the Wild touch on the stuff of memoir—a second child, a divorce and work as a teacher, writer and wild bird rehabilitator—Shetterly focuses most acutely on the natural world she inhabits: walking, swimming, caring for animals, chopping trees and, always, observing. Whether she is telling the story of an injured raven who gradually leaves her care for the wild, describing the dead tree outside her kitchen window which turns out to be an ecosystem of its own or observing her neighbors as they navigate the changes that come with the development some welcome and others resist, Shetterly’s nuanced and attentive prose brings her world to life. Over the course of the book, several related themes emerge. Like Shetterly, who believed from childhood that she belonged in the country, the book’s eels, alewives, ravens and dogs have an innate, even ancestral sense of home. However, their homes are shared, and the sharing is not always pretty: Settled in the Wild is full of dead and injured animals, some harmed by people, some by other animals who hunt, kill and eat as nature intends them to do. Human intervention, on the other hand, takes nature in unforeseen directions. “Cormorants,” one of the book’s most powerful essays, details the ups and downs of local bird populations, undone and restored by the acts of people whose solutions to problems inevitably create new problems, leaving Shetterly, finally, “in hell.” For her readers, though, this wise and subtle book is a gem: beautiful, insightful and realistic, a lesson in embracing the world as it is while envisioning how it might be. o Rebecca Steinitz is a writer in Arlington, Massachusetts.

INTERVIEW

Finding faith

One woman’s midlife search for meaning Interview by Amy Scribner few weeks ago, author Dani Shapiro, her atheist hus- brownstone and headed for Connecticut. But even in that bucolic setting, even when her son was no band and their young son went to hear a children’s choir perform on a village green near their New longer sick, her anxiety grew and she knew she needed more. England home. They listened to hymns and Christmas carols “I was looking not so much for a religion—I had one and had interspersed with readings by Persian poet Rumi and Catholic mixed feelings about it—but a way of life that would allow for author Thomas Merton. Then the family went home and lit greater meaning, greater depth, greater awareness,” Shapiro says. “I desperately did not want to be 80 years and saying, ‘But Hanukkah candles. I was just getting my life together.’ ” “I thought, this is my idea of what Those are the words her mother it should be like,” Shapiro laughs uttered on her deathbed. In Devoduring a call to her home in Contion, Shapiro revisits their beyondnecticut. “If I hadn’t done the jourrocky relationship. ney, though, all these contradictions “I grew up hearing, ‘You made would have felt wrong. I wouldn’t this happen,’ or ‘You poisoned this have been able to do it.” person against me,’ ” she says. “With “The journey,” as Shapiro calls my mother, I had to ask myself, is it, is her search to discover a deeper it ever OK to give up on a person?” truth about life, which she details in The answer, at least for Shapher lovely mosaic of a memoir, Deiro, was yes. After attending several votion. Courageous, authentic and therapy sessions with her mother, funny, Devotion is Shapiro’s exploShapiro talked with the psychiatrist, ration of her own relationship with who told her something he’d never faith. said to a client in 30 years of pracIn her mid-40s, Shapiro found tice: She and her mother had no herself unsettled and out of balance. hope of forging a healthy relationWhat did she truly believe? What DANI SHAPIRO ship. kinds of values did she want to instill “It was such an incredibly inin her young son? Raised in a deeply tense moment,” Shapiro recalls. “It religious family with strict rituals, “I was looking not so much will remain one of the definitive Shapiro was drawn more to the spirmoments of my life. The feeling ituality of yoga and meditation, yet for religion . . . but a way of somebody totally unbiased coralso attended monthly Torah studies. roborating that or saying, ‘Yeah, this In Devotion, she asks: Is it all right really is impossible.’ It was in equal to take a hodge-podge approach to of life that would allow and opposing measures relief and spirituality, or does dabbling in difincredibly painful.” ferent faiths signal a wishy-washifor greater meaning.” The relationship she had with ness, an unwillingness to choose a her mother hasn’t tainted her own doctrine and stick with it? And how parenting. “I’m very glad I had a did her family history feed into her boy,” she admits. “During the sonoconfusion about faith? “I had reached the middle of my life and knew less than I gram, I heard it was a boy and was instantly and profoundly ever had before,” she writes. “Michael, Jacob and I lived on top relieved. I think it would have been very complicated for me of a hill, surrounded by old trees, a vegetable garden, stone to have a daughter, and I think I would have been a very selfwalls. From the outside things looked pretty good. But deep conscious mother of a daughter.” Jacob, now a healthy grade-schooler, has adapted to the inside myself, I had begun to quietly fall apart. Nights, I quivered in the darkness like a wounded animal. Something was slower pace of life away from the city—although it took awhile. “When we first moved, there was a sidewalk out here very wrong, but I didn’t know what it was.” Shapiro got serious about meditating (“It’s a struggle for bisecting a huge meadow and Jacob would not step off that my kinetic, type-A, busy-minded self,” she admits). She went sidewalk,” she laughs. “He went from this urban two-and-aon silent retreats and practiced yoga. She read about spiritual- half-year-old to being this total country boy.” Someday, that boy may read one or both of her incredibly ity. She talked with friends and relatives, devout and not. She pieced together fragments of her life, both harrowing and honest memoirs, which yields mixed feelings in Shapiro. “Slow Motion is a book I’m really proud of,” she says. “I’ve often beautiful, that shaped who she is. Raised in an Orthodox Jewish household with a father wondered whether I would have written it had I already had prone to panic attacks and a supremely difficult mother, Sha- a family myself. I dread the day Jacob picks up that book. As a piro found her childhood fraught with confusion. By her 30s, mother, I wouldn’t have written it; as a writer, I’m glad I did.” Still, she’s learned to live with that, and with other quirky she was a recovering drinker, had lost her father to a car accident (which she wrote about in her gritty first memoir, Slow aspects of being a best-selling memoirist. “Nobody ever asks Motion) and had a newborn with a me anything about myself,” Shapiro says. “People say, ‘You potentially life-threatening seizure must feel like I know everything about you.’ Actually, I don’t! disorder. After hearing the planes That’s a strange phenomenon. I don’t feel I’ve exposed myself. hit the World Trade Center, Shap- I’ve written about the part of my life I wanted to write about.” In one chapter of Devotion, a magazine editor offers to iro and her husband, screenwriter Michael Maren, sold their Brooklyn send Shapiro to India to report on yoga and meditation. A dream assignment! But Shapiro turns her down, saying, “My life is here.” And that is the beautiful simplicity of Shapiro’s journey: She doesn’t want to go to exotic, far-flung destinaDevotion tions, Eat, Pray, Love-style. She just wants to look inward. UlBy Dani Shapiro timately, Devotion is the best kind of memoir—although it’s Harper about someone else’s life, it makes you shine a flashlight on $24.99, 256 pages your own. o ISBN 9780061628344

BLACK HISTORY

New books examine key eras and figures in African-American life Feature by Ron Wynn ritics who decry Black History Month celebrations often claim they focus too much on wellknown figures and personalities and don’t reaffirm the importance of recognizing African-American accomplishments on a regular basis. But a series of new books by noted scholars and authors refute those contentions. While they certainly cover familiar names and major events, they also demonstrate why these people and places have not only affected the lives of black people, but changed the course of history in a manner that affects all Americans.

The political passions of youth Wesleyan University history professor Andrew B. Lewis’ The Shadows of Youth: The Remarkable Journey of the Civil Rights Generation (Hill & Wang, $28, 368 pages, ISBN 9780809085989) spotlights the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), established in 1960, whose members were younger and more radical than their counterparts in the NAACP and other black organizations. Through interviews with key members Marion Barry, Julian Bond, Bob Moses, Diane Nash and Bob Zellner, he examines the sit-ins, voter registration drives and protest marches that led to the dismantling of state-sanctioned segregation throughout the South. But the book also shows the split within SNCC between those who felt America could be changed politically (Bond, Barry and John Lewis) and others who were convinced that black America’s only hope was a philosophy of self-determination that ultimately became known as “Black Power” (Stokely Carmichael, H. “Rap” Brown). Unfortunately, this conflict splintered SNCC, as did the Democratic Party’s decision to withdraw federal support, largely due to fears about the group’s direction. Still, The Shadows of Youth shows that SNCC had a large, mostly positive impact on the Civil Rights movement, and that its major goals weren’t nearly as radical as many claimed.

Building a landmark case

Migration and culture University of Maryland Distinguished Professor of History Ira Berlin’s The Making of African America: The Four Great Migrations (Viking, $27.95, 320 pages, ISBN 9780670021376) studies four centuries of black relocation to and within America. Berlin begins with the first two migrations—the forced relocation of Africans to America in the 17th and 18th centuries and the movement of slaves to the interior of the South during the 19th century. Berlin also presents what he deems an updated approach to AfricanAmerican culture, one that doesn’t just cover progress from slavery to civil rights, but also incorporates the struggles of more recent black immigrants to the U.S. He draws comparisons, for example, between the two most recent migrations—the movement of thousands of African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North and Midwest between 1915 and 1970 and the growth of the foreign-born black population in the U.S. that mushroomed during the last part

MEMOIR

Saved by the power of words Review by John T. Slania The gritty side of black urban life has been portrayed so often in literature that it has become its own genre: street lit. Authors such as Iceberg Slim and Sister Souljah have captured the black experience in groundbreaking novels, and hip-hop artists like Tupac Shakur and 50 Cent have explored the dark side of urban life in words and music. So the challenge for Jerald Walker was to find something new to write about in Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption. Walker succeeds for two reasons: There are some unique experiences in his life, and he is a strong writer. The plot line for Street Shadows is familiar—an African-American youth overcomes the poverty, drugs, gangs and violence of the big city to become a success. Walker grew up in a Chicago ghetto, dropped out of high school, joined a gang, abused drugs and was a thief. But he beat the odds to become a college professor, a reliable husband and a responsible

Street Shadows By Jerald Walker Bantam $25, 256 pages ISBN 9780553807554

of the 20th century. Berlin believes that the cultural and social contributions to both black life and America in general by recent immigrants from Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and other areas have been sizable and often overlooked. The Making of African America contains its share of controversial views about black culture, but it is thoroughly researched and well-documented.

Nina Simone: a life divided Award-winning journalist Nadine Cohodas has previously penned definitive books on Dinah Washington and Chess Records, and her latest biography covers a beloved, misunderstood icon. Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone (Pantheon, $30, 464 pages, ISBN 9780375424014) profiles a complex, immensely gifted performer whose frequently acerbic personality and willingness to openly confront injustice often obscured her instrumental and vocal brilliance. Classically trained as a youngster, then denied a chance to attend the Curtis Institute of Music due to racism, Simone (born Eunice Waymon) divided her professional life between forging a brilliant sound that blended jazz, classical and pop influences and political activism. Cohodas illuminates Simone’s close friendships with playwright Lorraine Hansberry and author James Baldwin, her clashes with promoters, record labels, ex-husbands and audiences, and her remarkable musical achievements. As with all the books mentioned here, Princess Noire has special meaning for black Americans, but tells a story that’s important for everyone to know. o Ron Wynn writes for the Nashville City Paper and other publications.

Related online content Exclusively at BookPage.com, read a Behind the Book column by author Dolan Perkins-Valdez about her debut novel, Wench. This work of historical fiction takes place before the Civil War at an Ohio resort where Southern plantation owners vacation with their slave mistresses. FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

Attorney and author Rawn James Jr.’s Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Struggle To End Segregation (Blooms-

bury, $28, 288 pages, ISBN 9781596916067) examines the celebrated 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case by profiling the lives of its two principal architects. Charles Hamilton Houston, the first black man on the Harvard Law Review, was a brilliant lawyer and teacher, and Thurgood Marshall was one of his students at Howard University. This pair opened the NAACP’s legal office and spent years devising the legal campaign against educational disparity that culminated in the Brown case. Sadly, Hamilton died before the case was fully developed, but Marshall would victoriously argue it, and ultimately end up on the Supreme Court himself after breaking the back of the “separate but equal” philosophy of education.

father. His redemption is his writing, which is clear, crisp and rhythmic. From an early age, he writes with honesty and passion, and he earns the attention of his community college professor, who helps Walker enroll in the University of Iowa. This leads to his acceptance into the distinguished Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he attains notoriety for his poignant urban essays. Street Shadows is a compilation of some of those previously published essays, interspersed with new material that helps weave together the defining moments in Walker’s life. He recounts growing up with parents who were both blind and members of a religious cult, and he relates his struggles to overcome drug abuse and his return to school as a young adult. He also describes his encounters with racism as a college student, and later as an English professor on the East Coast. The material is compelling, although it does have a stitched-together quality, because Walker hops from past to present rather than telling his tale chronologically. But it was great writing that saved Jerald Walker’s life, and it is great writing that saves this book.o 25 John T. Slania is a journalism professor at Loyola University in Chicago.

MEET Matt Tavares

CHILDREN’S BOOKS A wolf in the village Review by Sharon Verbeten Living in a remote mountain village, Maria and her grandfather are removed from other villagers for most of the harsh winter. They may be isolated, but they like the solitude and quiet—where they can huddle inside, watch the snow fall and the moon beckon and hear the plaintive calls of the wolves in the woods. The wolves are sacred here—the villagers realize their presence and respect them, but do not fear them. Their calls, Maria says, are “part of the music of the valley.” So one snow-speckled day, when Maria finds a tiny gray wolf huddled alone in the woods, she considers what might be the right thing to do. What would Grandfather do, she wonders? Should she hurry it home to the warmth of the hearth? Or leave the young wolf cold and alone, possibly to die in the woods? When Maria’s sage grandfather allows her to keep “Shadow,” as she has named the cub, a gentle story of innocence, belonging and the natural order unfolds. But will the villagers accept a wolf in their midst? Will Shadow return to the wild? Who are those traders nefariously nosing around? And who is the mysterious woman who captivates Winter Shadow the village with a story of a boy raised by wolves? Life goes on, seasons pass and Shadow grows into an adult, and one By Richard Knight day, he lets out a howl, concurrently sad and beautiful—a Illustrated by Richard Johnson note full of meaning and soul. Publisher Barefoot Books touts its titles as “celebrating Barefoot Books art and story,” and Winter Shadow is a fine example of the $16.99, 80 pages 9781846861161 synchronicity of the two elements. The spare, quiet story ISBN Ages 8 to 14 is woven amid lush acrylic illustrations, which also decorate chapter headings and endpapers. There are some brief moments of conflict in the plot, providing just enough momentum to drive readers on. Above all, this is a beautifully crafted, atmospheric book—slim and inviting for reluctant readers, yet satisfying in itself, especially for animal lovers. o Sharon Verbeten is a freelance writer and former children’s librarian near the frozen tundra—but hardly an isolated village—of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

Learning to survive

A native of Boston, Matt Tavares created his first picture book as a senior thesis at Bates College. That first effort was published two years later as Zachary’s Ball, and he has since written and/or illustrated eight other picture books, including his latest, Henry Aaron’s Dream (Candlewick, $16.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9780763632243). Tavares lives in Ogunquit, Maine, with his wife 26 and two daughters.

Review by James Neal Webb Y’Tin Eban is a Vietnamese boy growing up at the end of the Vietnam War, and in many ways he’s not much different from American kids of the era. He has a circle of friends, loves his family, knows the people in his neighborhood and hates school. The biggest difference between Y’Tin and a typical American boy is that he dreams of being an elephant trainer. As Cynthia Kadohata’s new book, A Million Shades of Gray, opens, he’s about to get his wish. Under the tutelage of an older boy in the village, Y’Tin becomes skilled in the ways of the giant gray animals. During this same period, the American soldiers leave his country, and while the war is over for the Americans, the struggle is just starting for Y’Tin and his people. The Dega are a rural tribe and mostly haven’t gotten involved in the war, but that will soon change. Y’Tin’s father served as a scout for American soldiers, and partly for this reason, the North Vietnamese army attacks his village in retaliation as the war ends, scattering half of his tribe into the jungle. The rest—including Y’Tin—are held as terrified prisoners. Facing a situation that he can barely understand, the boy must learn whom to trust, and he comes to realize that people you’ve known all your life can change—not necessarily for the better. Kadohata won the Newbery Medal in 2005 (for Kira-Kira), and it’s easy to see why: Human beings do things for all A Million Shades sorts of reasons, or sometimes for no reason at all, and her portrayals capture these ambiguities perfectly. Y’Tin goes of Gray through some horrific situations and manages to persevere. By Cynthia Kadohata Sometimes the boy thinks a lot about what he’s doing and Atheneum why, and sometimes he doesn’t think at all, but simply does $16.99, 224 pages ISBN 9781416918837 what is necessary to survive—just as in real life. Ages 8 to 12 In an author’s note, Kadohata explains how she conducted research on elephant behavior and the indigenous Dega people of Vietnam to prepare for writing this novel. As a result of her work, the story rings true in every way. Young readers who stress over getting the latest video game will learn important lessons in perspective from A Million Shades of Gray. o James Neal Webb works at the Vanderbilt University library.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS Childhood memories spark a new mother-daughter story Interview by Linda M. Castellitto hen she began to write her eighth novel, Rita Williams-Garcia decided to discrimination.” Thus, when none other than the Black Panthers become part of the sisters’ everyday try something different. “Every writer should get a little antsy once they get too familiar with the worlds they create—if that happens, you’re not lives, there aren’t cinematic goings-on at every turn. Sure, the girls initially are anxious working hard enough, and there’s not enough in it for you as a writer,” she says in an when Cecile sends them on all-day visits to the Panthers-run community center, where they have free breakfast and learn about the group’s political causes and interview from her home in Queens, New York. “I have a very differviews. And the political rally at book’s end certainly is exciting. ent background from the kids I tend to write about, so I thought, for But in between, the children develop friendships and enjoy being a change, why not tap into the childhood I did have?” part of something larger than themselves, even if they understand only And so she did, setting One Crazy Summer (Amistad, $15.99, 224 some of what’s going on at the center. Cecile keeps a printing press pages, ages 9 to 12, ISBN 9780060760885) on the West Coast rather for the Panthers in her kitchen, which she fiercely protects as her own than in her usual locale of New York City. “My sister, brother and I were space for working, thinking and writing her poetry. always amusing ourselves in the wide-open spaces of Seaside, CaliforCecile and the other women in One Crazy Summer—smart, strong, nia. I was determined to have the three girls in my story run around often unrepentant—are in many ways like Williams-Garcia’s own late outside in California in the 1960s, too.” mother, whose influence was central to another change in approach Eleven-year-old Delphine and younger sisters Vonetta and Fern live for the author. Her previous work—including the 2009 National Book in Brooklyn with their father, Papa, and grandmother, Big Ma. The Award Finalist Jumped—“always seemed to mourn the loss of childadults decide to have the girls spend the summer of 1968 in Oakland, hood,” she says. This time, “I decided to celebrate my experiences. My California, with their mother, Cecile, who left them after Fern was born. mother was the super-mother of all mothers; she made it clear there Big Ma has never forgiven her, but Papa prevails, and off they go. was only one woman in her house, and my sister and I did not qualify.” The scenes depicting the girls at airports are just a few of the many RITA WILLIAMS-GARCIA With that in mind, she wanted to have a chasm between mother moments in One Crazy Summer wherein the author’s gift for comand children in One Crazy Summer. “I respect bining everyday settings with social commentary and wry wit make for memorable, but not heavy-handed, reading. Delphine rolls her eyes (and bites her the difference between parent and child. Delphine and her sisters tongue) when she and her sisters are stared at as if “on display at the Bronx Zoo,” and the haven’t earned their mother’s story, and she hasn’t earned their girls engage in what Williams-Garcia calls “colored counting.” It’s an activity she and her forgiveness.” Ultimately, what is attainable for Cecile and her children is a siblings “did everywhere. It was a time when, in public places, you might not see a lot of African-American people. We’d count how many of us were there, how many words we truce of sorts, one characterized by hope for mother and daughters, as well as the America they’re living in. got to say on TV.” As for Williams-Garcia, herself the mother of two daughters, These small but telling moments are the ones that most interest Williams-Garcia. “Usually I don’t like to do ‘the race book’ because it’s not how people live,” she says. “Not she’s hoping to challenge herself even more via her next book, to say racism doesn’t exist, but it’s not this moment-to-moment consciousness. I like a gaming novel: “I’m estrogen-ed out—it’s time for me to write to include the domestic, intimate things about race and identity that never really make about a boy.”o it into books or media—you mainly get big or dramatic events of racism, violence or Linda M. Castellitto writes from North Carolina. © BRAD DECECCO

Flora, only one acorn tall, is about to change everything you thought you knew about fairies. An exhilarating new novel from Newbery Medal winner

illustrated by Angela Barrett

★ “Finely crafted and unusually dynamic. . . . A far cry from the conventionally sweet stories about fairies.” — Booklist (starred review)

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

L AURA A MY SCHLITZ

CHILDREN’S BOOKS Dancing around the fire with Gary Paulsen Interview by Eliza Borné alking to Gary Paulsen is like reading Gary Paulsen. The acclaimed author of books back from the Philippines we moved to northern Minnesota. The town was right on the for children and young adults is a storyteller, all the time. He is also a hearty laugh- edge of the forest. And I would skip school and go down there. I just lived in the woods er, a casual curser and an eternal devotee of the natural world—characteristics that to get away from my parents.” are happy confirmations of what his fans would hope to be true. Many readers will forever associate Paulsen with 13-year-old Brian Robeson, the hero The author of more than 200 books, Paulsen needs little introducof Hatchet. When Brian fights for survival in the Canadian wilderness, tion. His novels Dogsong, The Winter Room and Hatchet won Newbery the woods become “a place where he could become what he was,” says Honors and his personal life is almost as famous as his characters. The Paulsen. When Paulsen turned into an “outcast drunk” prior to starting son of “appalling drunks,” Paulsen disliked school growing up and lived his writing career, the woods served the same purpose for him. as a “street child” in Manila when his father was stationed in the PhilipPaulsen invokes a mystical tone when he writes about Samuel and pines right after World War II. The adult Paulsen’s wilderness adventhe forest, a quality that also emerges when he talks about the craft of tures sound like plots from his books. In 2006, he had to drop out of the writing. For Paulsen, writing is primitive. “It’s very old,” he says. “It’s Iditarod because he’d cut a vein on an old piece of pipe after 80 miles like putting skins on your back and dancing around the fire and telling of racing; he almost died from the blood loss. He has sailed across the what the hunt was like.” Pacific Ocean three times. His voice hardens when he speaks about “intellectual carbon monBut currently, Paulsen says, he is concentrating on work: writing oxide,” or television, as the rest of us know it. “You think you’re seeing work, that is, rather than dogsledding or sailing. “I’ve got to settle on facts, but you’re not,” Paulsen says of the viewer’s experience. “You’re other things right now,” he says in a recent phone conversation with dying. You’re dying intellectually by watching it. I hate it. I think it’s BookPage. “One of the things I’ve got to settle on is writing.” appalling.” Paulsen’s latest novel is Woods Runner (Wendy Lamb, $15.99, 176 On the subject of intellectual death—and more specifically, misinGARY PAULSEN pages, ISBN 9780385738842), a suspenseful Revolutionary War story formation—Paulsen is strident. “People will watch a 30-minute show that will grip both boys and girls, as well as their parents and teachers. on Napoleon and think they know everything about him. You’re only The tale focuses on a familiar theme: A boy must fend for himself in the woods. It getting 19 or 21 minutes, the rest is commercials. You’re getting at the most 30 minutes is 1776, and Samuel is a “child of the forest.” He lives in a settlement in western Penn- in an hour show and you couldn’t begin to understand Napoleon in less than 10 years.” sylvania, far away from any large city. As Samuel hunts in the The same goes for the Internet. “What’s appalling to me is the phrase ‘Google it,’ ” woods to find food for his family, he is comfortable, familiar he says, “that you can actually think that you can get all the information there is off of with his surroundings and at peace. Google.” He pauses. “Not that the company’s particularly bad, but the idea that all the When Samuel’s parents are captured by British soldiers and information you could want is there. It’s not.” Iroquois, the boy travels to New York City on a rescue mission. The author is a firm believer in the importance of digging for truth by reading hisAlong the way, he meets a group of memorable characters: a torical documents. This philosophy was part of his impetus for writing Woods Runner. young girl he adopts as his sister, a traveling tinker with a big In Paulsen’s opinion, young people get a “sugar-coated” version of history in most war heart. By the end of his impossible journey, Samuel remains literature, and in Woods Runner he seeks to be more honest. Whether describing a gruethankful for “the haven of the forest.” some attack on an innocent family or explaining how to dress a war wound, Paulsen That Paulsen would choose to set Woods Runner and so doesn’t scrimp on the details. War novels don’t have to be all “blood and guts” to be acmany of his novels in the forest is unsurprising. When he speaks curate, Paulsen says, “although that is a real primary part of combat.” about his own difficult adolescence, his voice softens when he In spite of contemporary obsessions with Google, television and other shortcuts to mentions the woods or the sea, his sanctuaries. information, Paulsen remains passionate about serving young people with his books. “The woods themselves have always been a place where if things were not working well “Children want to know,” he says. “Young people want to know everything about whatfor me I could go there and live,” he says. “As a young person at the age of 11, when we got ever it is—math, humor, sports, whatever it is. The primary curiosity is still there.” o TIM KEATING

An out-of-this-world dilemma

FEBRUARY 2010 BOOKPAGE = www.bookpage.com

Review by Deborah Hopkinson Parents may refer to their teens’ behavior as “13 going on 30.” But in the case of Liam Digby, narrator of Frank Cottrell Boyce’s hilarious new novel, Cosmic, Liam doesn’t so much act like a 30-year-old as look like one. The results are out of this world. Literally. It’s not just that Liam is tall. There’s the matter of his facial hair, which first becomes an issue during the Year Six trip to Enchantment Land. Liam is the only one in class tall enough for the Cosmic, a ride that generates 4g—four times the gravitational force exerted by the Earth. He loves the ride so much the class leaves without him. When his dad returns for him, the ride operator can’t believe Liam is a kid. “It’s not his height; it’s his beard.” From then on, Liam discovers certain advantages to being mistaken for an adult. At a Liverpool shopping center, he passes as Florida Kirby’s dad. They explore to their hearts’ content without security guards thinking that they’re “unaccompanied children.” And once you have that kind of success, why stop at shopping centers? Why not pop into the Porsche showCosmic room? Why not, come to think of it, win a place as the “responsible adult” on the first spaceship to take five kids into By Frank Cottrell Boyce space? This is the cosmic experience Liam’s been waiting Walden Pond/HarperCollins 320 pages for—except for a slight malfunction that causes the Earth $16.99, ISBN 9780061836831 to disappear. Luckily, he and his crew have the resources to Ages 8 to 12 solve the problem. Cosmic includes a promotional partnership with NASA and a contest in which a family of four gets a behind-the-scenes tour of Johnson Space Center. Real trips into space won’t be part of the prize, though—at least, not just yet. o 28 Deborah Hopkinson’s new books for young readers include Michelle and First Family, both illustrated by AG Ford.

The dog of her dreams Review by Abby Plesser Like a lot of little girls, Amelia desperately wants a dog. But not just any dog— Amelia wants a small brown dog with a wet pink nose. Despite her constant pleading, her well-meaning mother and father insist that their family just isn’t ready for a dog. Then clever Amelia decides to change her line of questioning. She asks them, “If we did have a dog and he got lost, would we find him and bring him back?” Amelia’s parents assure her that they wouldn’t stop looking until they found their dog. And so Amelia creates an imaginary dog named Bones, who snuggles up next to her in bed, eats the veggies she doesn’t like at dinner and takes walks with her after school. Multi-textured illustrations by Scottish artist Linzie Hunter perfectly complement the story, giving the reader various incarnations of the adorable dog of Amelia’s dreams. Then one day, Amelia wakes up to find that Bones is gone. She and her parents search the town, A Small Brown Dog but can’t find Bones anywhere. Finally, they try the with a Wet Pink Nose local animal shelter and, wouldn’t you know it, at last Amelia finds her small brown dog. When Ame- By Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen lia’s parents realize that their daughter is indeed Illustrated by Linzie Hunter Little, Brown ready for a dog, they agree to take the pup home. Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen has created a whimsi- $16.99, 32 pages ISBN 9780316058308 cal and inventive story for the legions of children Ages 3 to 6 always asking for a dog. Young readers will love this funny, easy-to-follow story and the mixed-media artwork that accompanies it; and parents—well, you will be glad Amelia had this idea before one of your children did. o Abby Plesser lives with her own small brown dog, Cooper, in Nashville.

TEEN READING The wide, weird world of teen fantasy Feature by Deborah Hopkinson ince the first Harry Potter book burst onto the literary scene more than a decade ago, there’s been an explosion of fantasy literature for young people. Many of today’s teens grew up with Harry Potter and, along the way, have become avid fans of the genre. These discriminating fantasy readers have a lot to choose from these days, and this season brings some wonderful new titles from around the world.

Unlocking a mystery First published in England, Catherine Fisher’s Incarceron (Dial, $17.99, 448 pages, ages 12 and up, ISBN 9780803733961) is a thought-provoking, original tale about a secret prison unlike any other: Not only is the gate sealed, but the prison itself is alive. The world inside the prison is dark, violent and terrifying, especially for Finn, who cannot remember how he came to be there. From time to time Finn has shadowy memories of a time before he was inside Incarceron, yet he can never quite piece his past together. All he knows is that he has to try to escape, even though legend has it that only one man has ever reached the outside world. And in that outside world lives Claudia, the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron. While she lives Outside, Claudia is trapped in other ways: by an arranged marriage to a prince she despises, by her tense relationship with her harsh father and by her entire society, which has been virtually frozen in a past era. When Claudia and Finn both find a crystal key, they discover the ability to communicate. Claudia suspects that she has uncovered something else as well: the secret of Finn’s true identity. With Incarceron, Fisher creates a world of danger and suspense that will keep readers ensnared.

Black has a gift for creating the kind of edgy, original stories teens love. She describes this collection as “rather like a lunatic cocktail party: a poisonous girl, who spends most of her undeath arguing with her ghostly sisters, a costume designer still mourning a childhood lover stolen by faeries, a wolf who might also be a prince, and a teenager who needs to drink herself into oblivion to keep from craving human blood.”

A classic quest story

Picking up the broken pieces

Bleak days on Rikers Island

Review by Angela Leeper It’s been almost two years since Melissa’s father lost his long-fought battle to cancer. She keeps him alive by remembering the unusual information he loved, like the fact that glass takes a million years to decay. These interesting tidbits offer the high school freshman a new way of looking at the world, but they don’t provide any guidance on how to grow up and work through her continuing grief. While her older sister Ashley begins preparing for beauty pageants, following in the footsteps of their gorgeous mother, who has started dating again, plainer Melissa just wants everything to remain the same. At least she can depend on Ryan, her childhood friend who still likes to ride bikes in the river wash behind their Phoenix desert homes—until curvy, confident Courtney transfers to their school and immediately sets her sights on Ryan. And Melissa has always thought she could depend on her adoring father’s impeccable reputation, until she discovers clues about a woman from his past. As she dates a popular senior athlete (as much a surprise to her as it is to the rest of the school), all the while hiding her envy of Ryan and his new girlfriend, Melissa achingly The Life of Glass ponders beauty, jealousy, secrets and the signs of first love. By Jillian Cantor Instead of seeking out the answers to her family’s mysteries, HarperTeen she realizes that she can fill in the gaps with her own stories. $16.99, 352 pages And taking her father’s facts and wisdom to heart, she also ISBN 9780061686511 realizes that relationships are like glass: they may break into Ages 13 and up pieces around you, but those pieces stay with you forever. In Jillian Cantor’s expressive, eloquently rendered coming-of-age novel, The Life of Glass, the broken-glass motif echoes throughout Melissa’s heartfelt story of love and resilience. Cantor’s pitch-perfect narration and spot-on depiction of emotional turmoil will remind readers of the exquisite fragility of adolescence. o Angela Leeper is a librarian at the University of Richmond.

Review by Heather Seggel Martin Stokes is a 17-year-old black high school student. Arrested on his own front stoop for “steering” an undercover cop to a drug dealer, he’s spent five months in jail at Rikers Island when this story begins. By turns bleak and funny, Rikers High follows Martin’s struggles with his overworked legal-aid attorney, the bullying of his fellow inmates, a complicated home life and his own burgeoning anger at the unfairness of his incarceration. The novel spans just two and a half weeks, but those few days feel as long as a lifetime. Rikers High opens with Martin being cut in the face with a razor, and the story builds tension around whether or not he will seek revenge for the attack and jeopardize his chance for release. Author Paul Volponi taught adolescents at Rikers Island for six years, and he notes in a foreword that while the characters are fictitious, most of what transpires in the novel really happened at some point on his watch. That includes corrections officers beating up inmates and fighting with the teachers, kids beating up on each other and even one death, as well as seemingly endless hours of mind-numbing boredom. Volponi balances the excitement of the story’s various conflicts with a real sense of how long the days feel when you have nowhere to go and nothing to do—when Rikers High fighting for the fun of it begins to seem like legitimate en- By Paul Volponi tertainment. Viking Martin is a smart kid with a good sense of humor (“I’d $16.99, 256 pages been sitting five feet from [the teacher] for a week, with a ISBN 9780670011070 big cut on my face. But he still had no idea I was his student. Ages 12 and up He should have been a detective instead of a teacher. Then maybe the jail would be empty and some high school . . . would be full of kids.”), and readers will root for him to do the right thing. They’ll also have much to discuss with this engrossing and thought-provoking read. o 29 Heather Seggel is a freelance writer in Ukiah, California.

Faeries, vampires and lunatics

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Holly Black, the talented and best-selling author of Tithe and Valiant, is releasing her first collection of short stories, The Poison Eaters and Other Stories (Big Mouth House, $17.99, 256 pages, ages 14 and up, ISBN 9781931520638). Some of the stories have been anthologized in other collections or echo the author’s other works. There is an amazing range here, in both the stories and the settings, which take readers from castles to cities to a boarding school. “The Coldest Girl in Coldtown” is a chilling tale about vampires, while “In Vodka Veritas” tells the story of a boy at a boarding school coming to terms with his sexuality.

Australian author Melina Marchetta, winner of the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award for Jellicoe Road, now tackles fantasy in Finnikin of the Rock (Candlewick, $18.99, 416 pages, ages 14 and up, ISBN 9780763643614), which won the Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel in Australia. Finnikin was just a boy when the kingdom of Lumatere was overthrown and its royal family murdered. Some citizens of Lumatere, including Finnikin, were sentenced to exile, while others have been confined in horrible conditions in refugee camps where fever reigns. Without a true heir to the throne, it seems impossible to break through the curse that binds all those who remain inside the walls of Lumatere and overturn the imposter king. But then, 10 years after these terrible events, Finnikin and his mentor Sir Topher are summoned to escort a young novice named Evanjalin, who claims she can walk in her sleep through the dreams of the people of Lumatere. Has she seen the lost prince, who may yet live? Can the curse be broken and justice restored? Finnikin is not sure, and moreover, he finds Evanjalin’s often unpredictable behavior challenging—and sometimes just plain annoying. Yet together with Sir Topher, they set out on a quest through the Land of Skuldenore with the hope of restoring justice and healing the suffering of the people of Lumatere. This is a wonderful, engrossing reading experience with strong characterizations and a rich, fully realized setting. Marchetta is a marvelous storyteller, and the many fans of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy will find this to be not only a book with echoes in our contemporary world, but an engrossing page-turner that begs to be read in one sitting—and then read again. Finnikin of the Rock has all the makings of a classic. o Deborah Hopkinson’s newest book for young readers is The Humblebee Hunter.

AGING

In pursuit of a longer lifespan Review by Alison Hood In the next 20 years, as the baby-boom generation ages, the numbers of people ages 65 and older will increase from approximately 13 percent to 20 percent. Given the probability that more of us will live longer, perhaps even achieving centenarian status, journalist Greg Critser (Fat Land, Generation Rx) examines the range of scientific possibilities— from legitimate to dubious—of human life extension, the reversal of aging and the dream of immortality in Eternity Soup: Inside the Quest to End Aging. The prospect of reading about aging and longevity science might, for some, induce ennui. But Critser shoots straight from the hip about the antiaging industry with a grounded knowledge of the current science, informed insight and a soupçon of sharp-edged humor. After he suffered a concussion, which resulted in “an accelerated form of brain aging,” his investigation into the real science and confounding quackery that exist side by side in the antiaging “community” became personally charged. “A jock,” jokes Critser in his introduction, “would say that I’ve got skin in the game.” Eternity Soup examines the origins and teachings of “longevity science,” its relationship with medical science Eternity Soup and the impact it will have on our thinking about our own By Greg Critser bodies. Under the microscope are the theory, practice and Harmony scientific claims of “caloric restriction” (you might live lon- $26, 256 pages ger, but with no sex drive); the greed, deceit and legitimate ISBN 9780307407900 science that surround the manufacture of many antiaging products and treatments (such as hormone therapy); a mind-bending look at cellular engineering; and the push toward new realms of research using a newer animal “bestiary” (beyond flies, mice, yeasts and rats) for modeling and testing. Critser plots an accessible route through complex material, demystifying both the science and the political and economic implications of the antiaging movement. Especially revealing and entertaining are interviews with the groundbreaking and iconoclastic scientists, such as Aubrey de Grey, that form the cast of characters working toward the Shangri-La of vital later years—and, perhaps, human immortality. o Alison Hood writes from Marin County, California.

AMERICAN HISTORY

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A detailed retelling of a unique life

Review by Martin Brady The story of Polly Bemis—the subject of Christopher Corbett’s The Poker Bride— has been told before. A biographical novel, Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn, was made into a film in 1991, and she has appeared in juvenile biographies and history books. Factor in the many other journalistic accounts since her death in 1933, and Bemis emerges as an outright legend. Sold into indentured servitude in China by her parents and brought to San Francisco by her Chinese owner, she later made her way into the post-Gold Rush mining areas of 1870s Idaho, where—like most other immigrant Chinese women of that era—she presumably was a concubine or a prostitute. What still remains somewhat unclear is how Polly ended up as the the long-lived wife of Charlie Bemis, a gambler and saloon owner. The more romanticized version avoids the possibility that Charlie actually won her in a game of poker. Corbett seems comfortable enough with that scenario, however, and it’s in line with the broader history he gives us of the harsh realities of Chinese immigra- The Poker Bride tion in the late-19th-century American West. In fact, the main strength of Corbett’s book is his detailed By Christopher Corbett description of life in wide-open California and the Pacific Atlantic Monthly $25, 240 pages Northwest, places where gold fever induced thousands of ISBN 9780802119094 Chinese men to enter the country in search of new opportunities and financial fortune. The darkest side of things happened in San Francisco, where imported Chinese women and girls stocked a burgeoning skin trade that helped define Chinatown’s more lurid character. Fortunately for Polly Bemis, her story was totally atypical. She somehow managed to avoid the worst fate of a young Chinese woman—abuse, disease, early death—and lived out her long days as a highly respected lady on a picturesque ranch on the Salmon River. Her story is remarkable, and Corbett’s research is certainly thorough. The Poker Bride adds immeasurably to the Asian-American nonfiction catalog. o

COOKING Going faster slowly A few years ago, foodies announced that Spain was the new France, in the same way that fashionistas decide that brown is the new black and 40 is the new 20 (I’ll drink to that!). With slow cooker books piling up, my pronouncement is that slow is the new fast. One caveat: A slow cooker is not a magic cure-all. Just remember that axiomatic computer warning—garbage in, garbage out. Sadly, it holds true for most of life. Stephanie O’Dea made a New Year’s resolution in 2007 to use her slow cooker every day in 2008 and blog about it on crockpot365.blogspot.com (a familiar approach, but I doubt this one will make it to the silver screen). The result is Make It Fast, Cook It Slow (Hyperion, $19.99, 464 pages, ISBN 9781401310042), with over 300 recipes for everything from beverages to breakfast to baking (yes, you can make banana bread in a slow cooker in BY SYBIL PRATT four hours; the question is, why bother?), from meat and meatless mains, poultry, pasta and casseroles (though I’ve always thought of a slow cooker as self-propelled casserole) to desserts and mostly non-edible “fun stuff,” like crayons, play dough and shrinky dinks. All recipes are presented with usable directions and a “verdict” on the finished product. Each underscores the real advantage of a slow cooker: Do the prep when you have time, and let it cook when your time is needed elsewhere, like earning a living. Michele Scicolone had an epiphany on a street in Rome that opened her eyes to the wonders of a slow cooker for Italian food. Once she realized that well-prepped ingredients could simmer happily for hours, unattended, she was off and running. The fruit of her epiphany is, no surprise, The Italian Slow Cooker (HMH, $22, 240 pages, ISBN 9780547003030), where tradition and innovation meet and meld with grand success. Italian soups are naturals, especially when they are bean-based like Chickpea and Porcini Soup or a classic Pasta Fagioli. Rich, redolent sauces, so essential to Italian cuisine, from a basic Sweet Tomato Sauce to a bevy of deep-flavored ragus made with beef, swordfish, chicken, turkey or super-tasty pork shoulder, only get better with slow cooking. Risotto with Artichokes and Creamy Polenta with Gorgonzola and Mascarpone, dishes that usually need lots of babying, do brilliantly without constant caretaking. And Michele includes fabulous meat, poultry and seafood recipes, plus veggies (Spinach Parmesan Sformato) and desserts (Pears in Marsala), to round out this slow, easy, energy-efficient take on Italian excellence. Make it Italian. Take it slow. Non dimenticare—good things in, good things out!

A sure bet Dawn Welch owns and operates the Rock Cafe, a “small family joint with a big reputation” on Route 66, just outside Stroud, Oklahoma. The Rock, first opened in 1939, has been Dawn’s domain since 1993. It’s a gathering place, a landmark, but most of all it’s a “human refueling station,” where Dawn’s down-to-earth comfort food makes patrons feel at home. A cost-conscious cook, Dawn has learned to avoid waste, use inexpensive ingredients and give leftovers a new lease on life, and in her very first cookbook, Dollars to Donuts (Rodale, $19.99, 288 pages, ISBN 9781605295718), she serves up her recipes and hard-earned wisdom for “getting it done, having fun and saving money too.” Her mission is all about getting the biggest bang for your buck (every recipe includes cost per serving), and toward that noble and timely end, she shows you how to strategize, budget (sensible splurge options included), organize, shop in bulk, take advantage of sales and cook big to maximize main-dish spinoffs. For instance, whole Rosemary and Thyme Roasted Chickens can easily morph into Almond Chicken Salad, Enchiladas, Udon Soup and a savory stew with dumplings. Dollars to donuts, Dawn’s advice is worth twice its price. o

SOCIOLOGY

What our roads reveal about us Review by Edward Morris The crucial matters of civilization, contends Ted Conover in The Routes of Man, invariably occur on and alongside roads, be they ground-based pathways or navigable rivers. Here is where cities are built, commerce conducted, cultures mingled, empires extended and invaders admitted. Just about every good thing a road enables is matched by something bad; the same route that conveys one’s goods to market can just as swiftly bring back disease and political disruption, or it can create a momentarily bustling economy at the expense of scarce natural resources. To demonstrate the more particular consequences of modern roads, Conover invites the reader to accompany him on sometimes long and frequently hazardous journeys through Peru, the Himalayas, East Africa, the West Bank, China, Lagos and Nigeria. In Lagos, he hangs out with an ambulance crew stationed beside an incredibly clogged and robber-infested freeway. In China, he joins a rally of newly minted car enthusiasts for a weeklong excursion from Beijing to Hubei province. In the Himalayas, he trudges with villagers along the frozen river that is their The Routes of Man only winter outlet to the outside world. Conover rides “shotgun” in the West Bank with both By Ted Conover Palestinian residents and the Israeli soldiers who patrol Knopf and monitor the region’s roads. Ubiquitous and madden- $26.95, 352 pages ingly arbitrary in their operation, the soldiers’ checkpoints ISBN 9781400042449 are an unrelenting source of frustration and humiliation Also available on audio to the Palestinians: “Most permit both vehicles and pedestrians to pass, but some allow only pedestrians. Some close at dusk and open at dawn. . . . Some allow anything to pass once the soldiers have left for the night. And some change the rules from day to day.” Although the narrative occasionally gets bogged down in what appears to be detail for its own sake, The Routes of Man is an absorbing read. Conover may not reach any grand conclusions about the future of roads, but he does illuminate the myriad functions of these vital but underappreciated structures—not the least of which is their symbolic importance to the human race, which is constantly on the move. 

HISTORY

New understanding of a critical summit

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Review by Roger Bishop The eight days of the wartime Yalta Conference in February 1945 had a major impact on history, down to the present day. Decisions made by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin affected the lives of many and led to much speculation about what really happened. With painstaking research, including documents from the Soviet archives that were only declassified in the 1990s, Harvard professor S.M. Plokhy gives us perhaps the most complete picture we are likely to get of the proceedings in his engrossing Yalta: The Price of Peace. Plokhy demonstrates that, contrary to the opinions of some, the Allies did as well as could be expected at Yalta, despite serious missteps. Roosevelt, for example, is often criticized for yielding too much. But Plokhy argues that FDR was in command of the major issues and was able to achieve his main goals: to win the war against Japan with help from the USSR and to get Stalin to cooperate in establishing the United Nations. As the player with the most troops on the ground, Stalin was in a position of advantage, and his negotiating skills were aided enormously by Yalta Soviet espionage, which alerted him to issues that would By S.M. Plokhy be raised by FDR and Churchill and instances in which Viking those two disagreed. $29.95, 480 pages Plokhy touches on such particulars as FDR’s disdain for ISBN 9780670021413 empires, Churchill’s desire to expand the reach of the British Empire and Stalin’s drive to expand the territory and control of the USSR, and readers will learn how each side misjudged the other’s intentions. Yet, as Plokhy writes, “by design and by default, the Big Three managed to put together elements of an international system that helped preserve the longest peace in European history.” This balanced and detailed study is an excellent source for understanding the last 65 years of U.S. and European history. Although the Yalta Conference may remain controversial, it is hard to disagree with Plokhy’s judgment that when the leaders of democracies make alliances with dictators, there is always a price to be paid. o

WORDNOOK

By the editors of Merriam-Webster

The truth about ruth Dear Editor: I’m dying to know if ruthless was ever used without the –less. Was there ever a ruthsome or ruthful? Things that keep word nerds like me up at night are truly frightening, let me tell you. D. R. Milwaukee, Wisconsin Yes, Virginia, there is a ruth! It’s more than a century older than ruthless, and it hasn’t seen much recent use, but it’s still a valid word. Ruth can mean either “compassion for the misery of another” or “sorrow for one’s own faults.” Ruthful, ruthfully and ruthfulness are other ruthwords that have declined in use just in the past century. In addition, there are ruthly and ruthness, which have been in disuse for several centuries and are now considered obsolete. But we regret to tell you that we have no evidence that there has ever been a ruthsome. You may be interested to know that ruth descends from the Middle English verb ruen, which means “to rue” (“to feel sorrow or regret”); ruth is not related to the name Ruth, which comes from Hebrew. Sleep well.

Check, please Dear Editor: When a store is out of a sale item, they often give what they call a raincheck. Can you explain the meaning and origin of this term? D. S. North Arlington, New Jersey

This sense of the word raincheck is defined in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition as “an assurance of a deferred extension of an offer; especially: a document assuring that a customer can take advantage of a sale later if the item or service offered is not available (as by being sold out).” It would seem to derive from the earlier sense of a raincheck meaning “a ticket stub good for a later performance when the scheduled one is rained out.” One sense of check is that of “a ticket or token showing ownership or identity or indicating payment made.” The word raincheck dates back to 1884 as used to describe the stub given by baseball stadiums to spectators who bought tickets to a game that was subsequently rained out. Patrons can redeem this stub or check for admission to a later game. Today we often receive rainchecks from stores when a particular sale item is sold out. Just as fans are invited to see a later game played in better weather conditions, so too are shoppers urged to return to the store at a later date to purchase the restocked item at the sale price, a convenience which any bargain hunter can appreciate. All that’s missing is the rain.

Tip of the hat Dear Editor: I am interested in learning the names of various kinds of hats. (It’s amazing how many different kinds there are!) I’m wondering if you can tell me what you call the tall white hat worn by chefs. P. F. Salem, Oregon

The hat you’re thinking of is called a toque. The term toque comes, by way of French, from the Old Spanish word toca, meaning “headdress.” In the 16th century, a toque was a soft hat with a narrow brim. Later on, toque came to describe any small, soft, close-fitting hat without a brim worn by women. Through the years, toques have gone in and out of fashion as tastes in clothing and accessories have changed. The beret is a toque, as are the pillbox hat, the ski cap and the bonnet. Since the 16th century, toques have appeared plain, with flowers and netting, in gold lamé and black satin, with feathers and even with pompons. They’ve been worn by kings and queens and fashion-conscious people the world over. In French, toque is also the name for various kinds of professional headgear, including the jockey’s cap and the tall white hat worn by chefs. Around 1965 the chef’s hat started to be called a toque in English too. Nowadays, the term is found increasingly often in the context of cooking. Figurative toques are sometimes given to chefs instead of stars as a measure of excellence by restaurant critics (four toques is, of course, the best).

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