Featuring 301 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction and Children's & Teen
KIRKUS VOL. LXXXIII, NO.
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REVIEWS
FICTION
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson Time takes another spin in this return to the world of Life After Life. p. 7
INDIE People in showbiz have the best stories, and David Black is no exception. p. 126
CHILDREN'S & TEEN
We Are All Made of Molecules
by Susin Nielsen A blended-family comedy expertly balances laughs and wisdom. p. 103
NONFICTION
The Life of Saul Bellow by Zachary Leader Will now stand as the definitive Bellow biography p. 58
on the cover
Hanya Yanagihara’s
bold, unforgettable A Little Life is the first must-read literary novel of the year. p. 14
from the editor’s desk:
Remembering George Nicholson, 1937-2015 B Y C la i b o r ne
Sm i t h
Chairman H E R B E RT S I M O N # President & Publisher M A RC W I N K E L M A N
Photo courtesy Michael Thad Carter
My friend George Nicholson died on Feb. 3 at the age of 77. At the time of his death, he was a respected literary agent at Sterling Lord Literistic for writers of children’s and YA books, but he had also been a groundbreaking editor and executive who changed the way that children read. Leonard Marcus, the children’s book historian, writes in Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children’s Literature that George’s innovations compelled children’s book publishers to “lower their pride and experiment with a book format, and approach to trade publishing, that they had long considered beneath them.” In the mid-’60s, George was the head of Dell Publishing’s then-new children’s Claiborne Smith book division. At that time, Dell’s adult output was low-rent stuff like Inside Detective and Modern Romances. “It was fascinating going to work in the morning because you’d walk into the waiting room and find people dressed in leather and chains or in evening gowns,” George told Horn Book in 2007. They were the actors and models hired to pose for the racy covers of those magazines. There weren’t many children’s books published in paperback then, and those that were weren’t literary. Hardcovers last longer after numerous checkouts at the library, but publishers had a trickier justification for not publishing in paperback: there was no prestige in it. And Dell was good at nonprestigious adult paperbacks. Rather than spend a career feeling like he was from the wrong side of the tracks, George changed the entire scene; after convincing E.B. White’s widow, Katherine, he bought the paperback rights to the literary masterpieces Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little for $37,500 at a time when, as Marcus points out, most kids’ book writers received advances of $500 to $1,000. He published those paperbacks smartly and faithfully George Nicholson to the original hardcovers. But it wasn’t just all that cash George had access to at Dell that made the revolution in children’s publishing long-lasting. Employing his diplomatic skills, he confronted the gulf in taste and prestige between the mass-market and trade publishers. “The first thing I did at Dell was to go and see every trade editor in the industry and explain what I was trying to do and say that I hoped we could cooperate,” he told Horn Book. George’s innovation and charm made books more available to children. “As publishers struggled to find ways to respond constructively to national events,” Marcus writes in Minders, “the affordable format seemed an ideal means of putting books that addressed the issues of race and poverty into the hands of more of America’s young people.” What George treasured most about being an agent was the thing he loved the most about being a publisher: unearthing a manuscript that he wanted to share with readers. “I can be bowled over by the activities of the day, but if I close the door and get in an hour’s worth of reading and am lucky enough to stumble onto something that I really like, it totally revitalizes me,” he told Marcus. “And the business itself remains genuinely fascinating. It’s like a giant puzzle that falls apart from time to time. It’s shapeless one minute, but then it takes on a new shape—often a surprising one.” Rest in peace, George.
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contents fiction
Index to Starred Reviews............................................................ 5 REVIEWS................................................................................................ 5 editor’s note..................................................................................... 6 On the Cover: Hanya Yanagihara.......................................... 14
The Kirkus Star is awarded to books of remarkable merit, as determined by the impartial editors of Kirkus.
Mystery...............................................................................................35 Science Fiction & Fantasy.......................................................... 40 Romance............................................................................................ 43
nonfiction Index to Starred Reviews.......................................................... 45 REVIEWS.............................................................................................. 45 editor’s note...................................................................................46 Tennessee Williams’ Women..................................................... 60
children’s & teen Index to Starred Reviews...........................................................73 REVIEWS...............................................................................................73 editor’s note................................................................................... 74 Pam Muñoz Ryan Creates an Echo.......................................... 90 BASeBALL picture books............................................................ 116 shelf space..................................................................................... 118
indie Index to Starred Reviews.........................................................119 REVIEWS.............................................................................................119 editor’s note................................................................................. 120 David Black Goes Behind the Scenes.................................. 126 Appreciations: William Golding’s Neanderthal Interlude............................................................139
Edna O’Brien’s career-spanning story collection places her firmly in the company of literary heavyweights. Read the review on p. 28. |
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on the web Linked short stories follow the members of a wealthy Mexican family forced into exile in Antonio Ruiz-Camacho’s debut, Barefoot Dogs. When José Victoriano Arteaga, head of a thriving Mexico City family, vanishes on his way home from work, his family investigates but finds few answers. The full truth of what happened to Arteaga is lost to the shadows of Mexico’s vast underworld, a place of violence, kidnappings, and government corruption. But soon, packages arrive to the family house, offering horrifying clues. Fear, guilt, and the prospect of financial ruination fracture the once-proud family and scatter them across the globe, yet delicate threads still hold them together. Ruiz-Camacho offers an intimate evocation of the forces that can bind a family even as unspeakable violence tears it apart. “A nimble debut that demonstrates...a realistic chorus” of narrative voices, remarks the Kirkus review; look for our interview with Ruiz-Camacho this month on Kirkus.com. Photo courtesy Joel Salcido
w w w. k i r k u s . c o m Check out these highlights from Kirkus’ online coverage at www.kirkus.com 9 Photo courtesy Alan Rhew
In David Joy’s Where All the Lights Tend to Go, the area surrounding Cashiers, North Carolina, is home to people of all kinds— but the world that Jacob McNeely lives in is crueler than most. His father runs a methodically organized meth ring, with local authorities on the dime to turn a blind eye to his dealings. After dropping out of high school and cutting himself off from his peers, Jacob has worked for his father on the promise that his payday will come eventually. The only joy he finds comes from reuniting with Maggie, his first love and a girl clearly bound for bigger and better things than their hardscrabble North Carolina town. “A dark semiautobiographical first novel in which action flourishes,” notes the Kirkus review; look for our interview with Joy this month on Kirkus.com.
9 And be sure to check out our Indie publishing series, featuring some of today’s most intriguing self-published authors. We feature authors’ exclusive personal essays and reported articles on how they achieved their success in publishing. It’s a must-read resource for any aspiring author interested in getting readers to notice their new books.
In recent years, there have been major outbreaks of diseases in America—despite the fact that they are all vaccine-preventable. In Bad Faith, these issues provide a springboard for author and physician Paul Offit’s analysis of the complicated relationship between medicine and the very religious. Although America is the most medically advanced place in the world, many people disregard modern medicine in favor of using their faith to fight life-threatening illnesses. Offit delves into the minds of those who choose to medically martyr themselves or their children in the name of religion and provides a strenuous case for children’s universal right to proper medical treatment, regardless of faith—and how the two can actually be compatible. We talk to Paul Offit this month on Kirkus.com.
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fiction THE WONDER GARDEN
These titles earned the Kirkus Star:
Acampora, Lauren Grove (368 pp.) $25.00 | May 5, 2015 978-0-8021-2355-8
THE WONDER GARDEN by Lauren Acampora...................................5 THE DISTANT MARVELS by Chantel Acevedo.................................... 6 A GOD IN RUINS by Kate Atkinson......................................................7 ONE RAINY DAY IN MAY by Mark Z. Danielewski..........................10 THE GREEN ROAD by Anne Enright..................................................10 THE FAIR FIGHT by Anna Freeman....................................................12 THE BLACK SNOW by Paul Lynch.....................................................25 COME TO HARM by Catriona McPherson..........................................27 THE MAINTENANCE OF HEADWAY by Magnus Mills....................27 THE LOVE OBJECT by Edna O’Brien................................................. 28 THE GIVEN WORLD by Marian Palaia............................................. 28 I SAW A MAN by Owen Sheers............................................................32 THE BOOK OF ARON by Jim Shepard................................................ 33 THE DEVIL’S MAKING by Seán Haldane............................................ 37 THE AFFINITIES by Robert Charles Wilson........................................43 I Saw a Man
Sheers, Owen Talese/Doubleday (304 pp.) $25.95 | Jun. 9, 2015 978-0-385-52907-5
The odd interior lives of suburban Connecticut residents are unceremoniously unearthed in the interwoven stories of Acampora’s debut. On the surface, Old Cranbury is just another New England town: picturesque, soaked in history, full of unspoken class divides, and populated with people who have abandoned New York City for, presumably, greener pastures. But beneath its exterior are wishes, dreams, and choices as grotesque as anything out of Winesburg, Ohio, and Acampora paints the town’s web of relationships with lucid, unsettling prose. In “Afterglow,” a wealthy businessman becomes obsessed with touching a human brain in the wake of his wife’s tumor diagnosis. A pregnant newlywed watches helplessly as her husband becomes convinced he’s being poisoned by technology and abandons his livelihood to take up New-Age medicine in “The Umbrella Bird.” An aging gay couple struggles with the yawning gulf between them in “Elevations.” In “Moon Roof,” a real estate agent stops her car at an intersection on her way home and cannot bring herself to continue as the minutes and hours inch by. In “Swarm,” a retired teacher is given the chance to realize his artistic dreams when a couple commissions him for an ambitious installation project: giant insects obscuring every wall of their home. “If it is possible,” he wonders, marveling at his good fortune, “that a boy who sucked licorice on the sidewalks of Flatbush could be a millionaire now...then the world is a spooky and fabulous place indeed.” Acampora’s world is exactly this: spooky and fabulous. There are expected beats—affairs, teenage mischief, ennui, unhappy marriages— but woven through them are bizarre set pieces, unnerving hungers, and such weirdly specific desires it’s as if the author rifled through a local therapist’s filing cabinet. A cleareyed lens into the strange, human wants of upper-class suburbia.
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go to college, keep your friends, have fights, write a novel Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life is this year’s first must-read literary novel. (If you favor thrillers, you’ll already have picked up The Girl on the Train, of course.) As our review describes it: “Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor, and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.” Reading it reminded me how much I love the “college friends followed for decades” genre. There’s the mother of them all, Mary McCarthy’s The Group (1963), about eight women from the same class at Vassar. (Just to consider how the world has changed since that was published a half-century ago—or even since my copy was printed in 1989—the jacket proudly displays a blurb from Newsweek calling McCarthy “our only real woman of letters.”) Joanna Smith Rakoff consciously updates McCarthy in A Fortunate Age (2009), focusing on a group of Oberlin grads who settle in Brooklyn; Kirkus’ review sets out the conventions of the genre nicely: “Some of the friends will succeed beyond expectation, some will fall short of their promise and others will couple improbably.” Meg Wolitzer spins a variation by throwing her friends together at summer camp, not college, in The Interestings (2013). Perhaps more than any of these other authors, Wolitzer is trying to capture the changing world as her friends move through it—unlike Yanagihara, who focuses on her characters’ inner worlds. When I sent out a call on Twitter for more examples of the genre, I received an enthusiastic response. Several people mentioned Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children (2006), a brilliant novel that doesn’t quite fit the category, since it takes place over a short period when its Brown grads are about 30. And two other novels came up that I had read years ago: Marge Piercy’s Braided Lives (1982) and Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s Disturbances in the Field (1983). These may not fit entirely into the category, either, but they’re going on my pile of books to reread. —L.M. Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.
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THE DISTANT MARVELS
Acevedo, Chantel Europa Editions (304 pp.) $16.00 paper | Apr. 7, 2015 978-1-60945-252-0
One woman’s story of brutality, courage, tragedy, and love gets a roomful of Cuban refugees through a hurricane. As Hurricane Flora approaches Cuba in 1963, 82-year-old María Sirena Alonso refuses to evacuate with her neighbors; she is seriously ill and does not want to be saved. But once the storm arrives, a soldier shows up at her door to load her on a bus bound for a shelter. Though she takes nothing with her except a small framed photograph of a little boy, she needs nothing more because her whole life is in her head: “I have a perfect memory. I remember nearly everything I’ve ever read or heard.” Once installed in a room at the erstwhile governor’s mansion with a group of women who will ride out the storm together—including an ex-friend whose dead son used to be married to her daughter—María Sirena begins to tell the story of her life, beginning with her birth to Cuban parents on a Spanish ship at the end of the 19th century. Her rebel father is jailed as soon as they reach shore; her resourceful, beautiful mother, Lulu, finds protection for herself and her daughter with another man. When Agustín rejoins them, they are swept into the war against the Spanish. Acevedo’s third novel (A Falling Star, 2014, etc.) mingles the recounting of María Sirena’s epic family saga, which ends with a heartbreaking confession, with scenes among the women at the mansion. One woman decides to make a break for it: “It is Noraida, swimming in the debris-filled water, her brightly dyed hair like streamers in her wake. We watch as she pushes aside a plastic cup, a sheet of plywood, an umbrella floating upside down and bobbing along.” Such irresistible moments of rebellion and bravery define this tale. Perfect timing for a Scheherazade-style account of Cuban history.
FIFTEEN DOGS
Alexis, André Coach House Books (160 pp.) $17.95 paper | Apr. 14, 2015 978-1-55245-305-6 When is a dog not a dog? Two Greek gods bet on what would happen to 15 unsuspecting canines if they were granted human intelligence. Alexis (Pastoral, 2014, etc.) devises an inventive romp through the nature of humanity in this beautiful, entertaining read. Apollo and Hermes debate what, if anything, sets humans apart from other mortal beings—a question that is more frequently part of today’s conversations among scientists about consciousness. Settling on intelligence, they enable a random group of
mutts, poodles, retrievers, and other breeds to develop their own language, comprehend human language, and understand the passing of time. But the book’s central quest is to explore the possibility for happiness—and whether intelligence hinders or helps this. In their new state of awareness, the dogs escape from a veterinary clinic and form a pack in a city park. Armed with human capabilities, they jockey for power and quarrel over how these gifts should be used. The group’s leader, a mastiff named Atticus, fears change, thinking “a pack needed unity, and unity meant that all understood the world in the same way or, if not the world, the rules, at least.” The pack’s poet, who entrances some and disturbs others with his original musings in their new language, is marked for elimination by Atticus, who bans the language as unnatural for dogs. Readers spend most of their time with Majnoun, a poodle who develops a symbiotic relationship with a woman who takes him in, as he encounters other survivors from his pack. To him, “the line between natural (the things Majnoun couldn’t help doing) and cultural (the things he could) was neither clear nor fixed.”
A clever exploration of our essence, communication, and how our societies are organized.
A GOD IN RUINS
Atkinson, Kate Little, Brown (400 pp.) $28.00 | $14.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-0-316-17653-8 978-0-316-34155-4 e-book Fresh from the excellent Life After Life (2013), Atkinson takes another sidelong look at the natures of time and reality in this imaginative novel, her ninth. Transpose Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” to the skies over Europe in World War II, and you’ll have some idea of the territory in which Atkinson is working. Ursula Todd, the protagonist of Life After Life, returns, appearing from time to time at just the right moments,
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Mazie Phillips was a real person, a rough-and-ready Mother Theresa who walked the streets of Lower Manhattan in the early 1930s. saint mazie
in the manner of a chorus. The lead in this story, though, is her brother Teddy, who, having survived both childhood and the air war, is now disillusioned—“The whole edifice of civilization turned out to be constructed from an unstable mix of quicksand and imagination”—and suffering from more than a little guilt that he lives while so many others do not. If Bierce might be a silent presence in the proceedings, so too might be The Best Years of Our Lives, which treats just that issue—save that we know how things turned out for the players in William Wyler’s 1946 film, whereas Atkinson constantly keeps us guessing, the story looping over itself in time (“This was when people still believed in the dependable nature of time—a past, a present, a future—the tenses that Western civilization was constructed on”) and presenting numerous possibilities for how Teddy’s life might unfold depending on the choices he makes, to say nothing of things well beyond his control. Atkinson’s narrative is without some of the showy pyrotechnics of its predecessor. Instead, it quietly, sometimes dolefully looks in on the players as, shell-shocked by a war that has dislocated whole generations and nations, they go about trying to refashion their lives and, of course, regretting things done, not done, and undone as they do. But do we really have just one life, as Ursula insists? It’s a point worth pondering. A grown-up, elegant fairy tale, at least of a kind, with a humane vision of people in all their complicated splendor.
SAINT MAZIE
Attenberg, Jami Grand Central Publishing (336 pp.) $25.00 | $12.99 e-book | Jun. 2, 2015 978-1-4555-9989-9 978-1-4555-9988-2 e-book Early 20th-century New York and its denizens portrayed through the fictional diary of a nonfictional heroine. Mazie Phillips was a real person, a rough-and-ready Mother Theresa who walked the streets of Lower Manhattan in the early 1930s, giving out money for food, buying drinks, calling ambulances. She was profiled by New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell in an essay collected in Up in the Old Hotel (1992), which is how Attenberg (The Middlesteins, 2013, etc.) came to know of her. Attenberg’s fictional Mazie begins a diary she will keep for 32 years on Nov. 1, 1907, with this entry: “Today is my birthday. I am ten. You are my present.” Born in Boston, Mazie now lives in New York with her older sister Rosie, who has rescued her and another sister from their parents, “a rat” and “a simp.” Rosie’s husband, Louis Gordon, owns a cinema, and at 21, Mazie begins her long career as ticket-seller. A free-thinking, hard-drinking gal who never marries or has children, Mazie carries on an intermittent, lifelong affair with a sea captain. Their first tryst, on the Brooklyn Bridge, is described in the diary with characteristic blunt eloquence. “We pecked at each other for a minute, figuring each other out. Finally he kissed my upper lip, and then my lower lip....He put his tongue where he liked. I could not 8
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argue. I did not even try.” Mazie’s voice is the most successful thing in this book. Perhaps we didn’t need Nadine, the fictional documentarian who puts her story together, adding excerpts of interviews with the sea captain’s son, Mazie’s now-ancient neighbor, and the great-granddaughter of the theater manager. A particularly odd subplot has the man who supposedly found the diary making a play for Nadine. Too much concept and not enough story, but Mazie might win your heart anyway with her tough-talking mensch-iness.
THE WATER KNIFE
Bacigalupi, Paolo Knopf (384 pp.) $25.95 | May 26, 2015 978-0-385-35287-1
In his sixth novel, Bacigalupi (The Doubt Factory, 2014, etc.) imagines the vicious conflicts that might arise in a world of severe water scarcity. In an American Southwest devastated by severe drought, Angel Velasquez is a “water knife” for one of the most powerful people in the region. When his boss, Catherine Case, wants to cut off a city’s water in a game of ruthless political maneuvering, Angel descends upon it with helicopters, guns, and unshakeable loyalty. He chases rumors of something that might transform the region’s balance of power to Phoenix, a city in a state of precarious near-collapse, where he finds himself entangled in the lives of Lucy, a journalist, and Maria, a young and desperate refugee. The three of them plunge into a frightening mess of political betrayal and merciless greed, desperately trying to second-guess the plans of people who will do anything to wield the power and wealth that water bestows. While the characters sometimes slip into the uncomplicated types that inhabit a slick action movie and the plot suffers from an excess of tidy coincidence, the frightening details of how the world might suffer from catastrophic drought are vividly imagined. The way the novel’s environmental nightmare affects society, as individuals and larger entities—both official and criminal—vie for a limited and essential resource, feels solid, plausible, and disturbingly believable. The dust storms, Texan refugees, skyrocketing murder rate, and momentary hysteria of a public ravenous for quick hits of sensational news seem like logical extensions of our current reality. An absorbing, if sometimes ideologically overbearing, thriller full of violent action and depressing visions of a bleakly imagined future.
WASHING THE DEAD
Brafman, Michelle Prospect Park Books (280 pp.) $16.00 paper | Apr. 14, 2015 978-1-938849-51-0 After decades spent suppressing sad and angry feelings toward her mother for adultery and the destruction of her childhood happiness, it’s time for anguished Barbara Blumfield to make peace with her parent and herself. The pendulum swings, slowly, from toxic rage and instability to all-embracing forgiveness in Brafman’s debut, a three-generational mother-to-daughter family portrait that almost loses itself in a vortex of introspection. Although now in her 50s, with a husband, successful teaching job, and daughter of her own, Barbara has never been able to confront or forgive her mother, June Pupnick, for her affair with the “Shabbos goy” in their Orthodox Jewish community in Milwaukee. “My mother torched my home, my shul,” Barbara mourns, full of emotional discomfort, guilt for keeping her mother’s secrets, and skepticism that she can be a good-enough parent to her own daughter, Lili. Brafman’s sober, earnest novel mines this sensitive territory obsessively, focusing on Barbara’s yearnings and undigested feelings to the exclusion of almost everything else. Crosscutting between the 1970s and 2009, the narrative juxtaposes the crises of the past—June’s transgressions, a child care episode in California that ended badly, a breakdown—with the problems of today, which mainly involve Lili. Barbara’s coping mechanisms start to fail in the face of the reappearances of the compassionate rebbetzin (rabbi’s wife) of her childhood and also of her mother, newly restored to town by Barbara’s brother after her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. And there’s more, with Brafman ratcheting up the pressure until a very late shift in perspective that, enhanced by an intervention from Lili, allows ill feelings to be swept away in a tide of comprehension and compassion. Sincere but long-winded, Brafman’s story cycles through a limited range of emotional chords, to numbing effect.
friends. She’s on the rise as the manager of the rock band Savage Earth Heart, whose leader, Heike Gunn, has gone missing. Monica Halcrow also learns the art of improvisation when she joins Heike’s band as the fiddle player and starts to break free of her classical training. She becomes preoccupied with understanding the manipulative, controlling Heike, who, like her, grew up on a remote island off the Scottish coast. On the band’s European tour, Monica ventures even further into new territory and comes to suspect, as Parlabane does in following the band’s trail, that what seems like a simple merchandising ploy is actually a front for something more sinister. When Parlabane can no longer avoid the possibility that Heike may have been killed for information she shouldn’t have had, he also confronts uncomfortable truths about his own life. But a subtle twist in Monica’s account of the band’s tour leads Parlabane to a shocking discovery and a slender hope. A complex back story and some awkward attempts to convey the magic of the lost singer’s music make for a slow start. But Brookmyre (Bred in the Bone, 2104, etc.) builds momentum and combines the two distinct narrative voices in a clever duet.
DEAD GIRL WALKING
Brookmyre, Christopher Atlantic Monthly (384 pp.) $25.00 | May 5, 2015 978-0-8021-2364-0
A disgraced journalist and a young violinist seek a charismatic rock star in parallel quests. Jack Parlabane’s two-decade career as an investigative reporter, first in his native Scotland and then on the international scene, has always relied on a certain improvisational approach to obtaining information. But when he went too far, he lost everything, even though he stuck to his principles and didn’t name his source. Now he’s washed up, divorced, childless, lonely, and wary of an offer from Mairi Lafferty, the younger sister of one of his best |
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ONE RAINY DAY IN MAY
Danielewski, Mark Z. Pantheon (880 pp.) $25.00 paper | $11.99 e-book May 12, 2015 978-0-375-71494-8 978-0-375-71495-5 e-book Series: The Familiar, 1 Fabulist and avant-gardist Danielewski (House of Leaves, 2000, etc.) embarks upon a long-promised 27-volume fantasia with this sprawling, continenthopping potpourri. On its face, this first installment is the story of a girl. And rain. And a “ridiculous dog bed.” And a cat. And then the whole of human civilization and of the human propensity to do wrong while struggling to do right. The storyline is scarcely describable. Think of it this way: what if a prepubescent Leopold Bloom had fallen down a rabbit hole and wound up in Southeast Asia with a Pomona street gang in tow? Young Xanther, bespectacled, mouth full of metal braces, acne-spattered and lefthanded, epileptic, self-doubting and sometimes self-hating, is a mess, just as every 12-year-old is a mess. She is also, her doctor assures her, something more: “If I could grant you one certainty, Xanther, one which you could hold on to without dissolving under all your scrutiny, let it just be how remarkable a young girl you are.” So she is: there’s scarcely a thing in this world she’s not interested in and has theories about, spurred on by a brilliantly eccentric dad who’s always talking about engines and the thought of Hermagoras of Temnos, “whoever he was, a rhetor, whatever a rhetor is.” So what does she have to do with an Armenian cabbie, a pidgin-speaking Singaporean, and a Chicano street gang? Ah, that’s the question, one that the reader will be asking hundreds of pages on, tantalized by the glimmerings of answers that peek through rainy calligrams and sentences endlessly nested like so much computer code. Danielewski’s efforts at street-tough dialect verge into parody (“Like this be plastic shit. All scratched up and chipped”), but most everything about this vast, elusive, sometimes even illusory narrative shouts tour de force. Strangely, it works, though not without studied effort on the reader’s part. And as for all the loose ends? No worries—there are 26 volumes to come in which to tie them up.
THE DEATH’S HEAD CHESS CLUB
Donoghue, John Farrar, Straus and Giroux (400 pp.) $26.00 | May 12, 2015 978-0-374-13570-6 This first novel ambitiously and awkwardly examines questions of guilt and forgiveness arising from the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. 10
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At a 1962 chess tournament in Amsterdam, Holocaust survivor Emil Clement is disturbed that his first opponent is the German Wilhelm Schweninger, a Nazi propagandist. His emotions and memories are jolted further when he is sought out in the Dutch city by Paul Meissner, an officer at Auschwitz who helped Clement and, after jail time for war crimes, became a priest. Chapters alternate between the strange bonds formed amid the horrors of imprisonment and the slowly growing friendship among the three men in 1962. To boost officers’ morale at Auschwitz, Meissner starts a chess club, but when he learns that the Jewish prisoner Clement is considered unbeatable, he arranges to have him face the camp’s best German players. After Clement defeats three, he is hounded by a Gestapo sadist who is also a top chess player. Schweninger has a minor role in the flashbacks: Germany’s best player in the 1940s, he was to have been the prisoner’s last opponent but was prevented from playing the game. In the 1962 chapters, Meissner is a Catholic bishop dying of leukemia who wants Clement to find forgiveness and to abandon his belief that there are no good Germans. The novel’s dubious setup, with Meissner so quickly corralling Clement and Schweninger, is offset by a fairly persuasive rendering of the camp, where the author uses the chess games to maintain an element of suspense in a situation in which death was almost inevitable— and clearly was postponed for Clement. Donoghue, a Briton, is readable and well-intentioned, but plausibility frays in the number of bad guys converted to goodness and, unfortunately, in the notion that the bitterness Clement has harbored for almost two decades can be eased in several days of recollection and dying-man homilies. That’s quite a talking cure.
THE GREEN ROAD
Enright, Anne Norton (304 pp.) $26.95 | May 4, 2015 978-0-393-24821-0
When the four adult Madigan children come home for Christmas to visit their widowed mother for the last time before the family house is sold, a familiar landscape of tensions is renewed and reordered. Newly chosen as Ireland’s first fiction laureate, Enright (The Forgotten Waltz, 2012, etc.) showcases the unostentatious skill that underpins her success and popularity in this latest story of place and connection, set in an unnamed community in County Clare. Rosaleen Considine married beneath her when she took the hand of Pat Madigan decades ago. Their four children are now middle-aged, and only one of them, Constance, stayed local, marrying into the McGrath family, which has benefited comfortably from the nation’s financial boom. Returning to the fold are Dan, originally destined for the priesthood, now living in Toronto, gay and “a raging blank of a human being”; Emmet, the international charity worker
struggling with attachment; and Hanna, the disappointed actress with a drinking problem. This is prime Enright territory, the fertile soil of home and history, cash and clan; or, in the case of the Madigan reunion, “all the things that were unsayable: failure, money, sex and drink.” Long introductions to the principal characters precede the theatrical format of the reunion, allowing Enright plenty of space to convey her brilliant ear for dialogue, her soft wit, and piercing, poetic sense of life’s larger abstractions. Like Enright’s Man Booker Prize–winning The Gathering (2007), this novel traces experience across generations although, despite a brief crisis, this is a less dramatic story, while abidingly generous and humane. A subtle, mature reflection on the loop of life from a unique writer of deserved international stature.
BURNING DOWN GEORGE ORWELL’S HOUSE
Ervin, Andrew Soho (288 pp.) $25.95 | May 5, 2015 978-1-61695-494-9
Advertising, single-malt whisky, and a remote Scottish island feature prominently in this novel about a man paying homage to his love for Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Ray Welter, a burned-out advertising executive with a failed marriage, decides to radically alter his life by going to Jura, an island in the Inner Hebrides, and renting Barnhill, the very house where Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four. Ray has been obsessed by the novel since college, and in flashbacks to his career as an adman, both he and the reader see the irony of his life—he’s become a slave to Big Brother (in the guise of corporate America), using Newspeak to sell products that he doesn’t
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Great characters and wild turns of events make this book a knockout. the fair fight
believe in. On the island he finds an assortment of eccentrics— one of whom believes himself to be a werewolf—and at least one almost-certifiable sociopath, Gavin Pitcairn, whose 17-yearold daughter, Molly, desperately wants to leave Jura and go to art school. As one might expect, Ray finds Barnhill much different from the romanticized mental image he’d created, and those older islanders who remember Eric Blair (George Orwell’s real name) have not-so-fond memories of him. The house had been abandoned for a good while, and it’s in such a state of disrepair that it’s almost unlivable, but Ray takes comfort in the abundant local Scotch whisky and in rereading his beloved first edition of the novel. When Molly takes refuge with Ray at Barnhill to escape her abusive father, she acts provocatively, though no romance develops. Still, Gavin assumes the worst, making Ray’s hold on life much more tenuous than it had been. A dramatic, thoughtful, and at times comic revisiting of (and attempt to escape from) Orwell’s world.
HYACINTH GIRLS
Frankel, Lauren Crown (288 pp.) $25.00 | $12.99 e-book | May 12, 2015 978-0-553-41805-7 978-0-553-41806-4 e-book When a bully turns into a target, it’s hard to know whom to blame. And, as this twisty debut demonstrates, whom to believe. Murder and suicide don’t make for an auspicious entrée into motherhood, but that’s how Rebecca becomes the caretaker of her late best friend’s daughter, Callie, when the girl is only 4. Frankel introduces us to this odd little family nine years later, as teenage Callie’s face goes up on a billboard next to a pointed question: “Do you know your children?” The answer isn’t a mystery (spoiler: no), but we spend the rest of the book retracing Rebecca’s and Callie’s steps to find out why not. A lonely dental hygienist with insomnia and an awkward budding romance, Rebecca means well but lacks the intuition to see through Callie’s lies about the misery her school life has become. Callie blames Robyn, an unpopular girl in her class, for the trouble Callie and her friends have been getting into. Rebecca’s version of support looks like willing gullibility, driven by her insecurity about playing the role of mom: “I had never been a great one at connecting the dots,” she tells us, and we soon find out she’s not being modest. As she peels away the layers of Callie’s story, much of which is revealed through instant messages and texts between the girls, Rebecca discovers that her worst fears about herself and her young charge are depressingly accurate. It seems clear that we ought to root for Rebecca and Callie, but it’s much less apparent if their redemption is even an option. Hell hath no misery like a mean girl scorned.
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THE FAIR FIGHT
Freeman, Anna Riverhead (480 pp.) $27.95 | Apr. 14, 2015 978-1-59463-329-4
A lady boxer, a poxy lady and a louche pretty boy tangle in 18th-century England. “I’d like to say that my beginnings were humble, but they weren’t beginnings, because I never really left them but for a short while.” This is Ruth, and the birthplace and lifelong home she’s referring to is a Bristol whorehouse known as “the convent.” When her older half sister, Dora, is drafted at “12 or 13” into the ranks of their mother’s “misses,” plain-faced Ruth feels left out and jealous, not least of the big, fat piece of bacon Dora now rates at the breakfast table. The tension erupts into a catfight, which the gentleman patrons witness with such enthusiasm that it’s moved to the yard outside and bets are placed. One of the onlookers is a fellow named Dryer; he becomes the patron of both girls, Dora at the brothel and Ruth in the boxing ring. (In the Author’s Note of her debut novel, Freeman writes that lady pugilists were just one of many rough entertainments common in the nasty, smelly 1700s, so brilliantly evoked here.) Through Dryer, Ruth will eventually meet the two other main characters of the story, both of whom take turns with her in telling it. One is Charlotte Sinclair, an upper-class young woman who was terribly marked by childhood smallpox; she ends up married to the awful Dryer. The other is George Bowden, a schoolmate of both Dryer and Charlotte’s brother Perry; George’s good looks far surpass his moral character. Gamblers, drinkers, fighters, hookers; the fancy, the rowdy, the rude—Freeman does a wonderful job of spinning this furious yarn, in which the fury of women plays the lead role. Great characters and wild turns of events make this book a knockout.
A HAND REACHED DOWN TO GUIDE ME Stories and a Novella
Gates, David Knopf (336 pp.) $25.95 | $12.99 e-book | May 21, 2015 978-0-385-35153-9 978-0-385-35154-6 e-book For his first work of fiction in more than a decade, Gates explores—though maybe the better term is strip-mines— well-off souls hitting the skids thanks to divorce, illness, selfmedication, or some combination thereof. Gates knows his preferred theme, and the dozen stories here stick to it. The opening novella, Banishment, is narrated by a New York journalist who falls for a semifamous architect 30 years her elder. Speaking in a sassy, world-wise, but
increasingly weary tone, she catalogs her creative decline (her dream of using her kept-woman status to write essays ends with her whiling away days smoking weed), her husband’s failing health, and an emotional decision that crashes the house of cards. In that story, Gates (The Wonders of the Invisible World, 1999, etc.) displays a knack for burrowing into the lives of affluent, culturally savvy types. But though Gates tinkers with perspective and setting in the remaining stories, their effect is less expansive and ultimately repetitive. “Alcorian A-1949” is narrated by a hard-drinking composer turned cynical about his “oh-so-personal vision.” “George Lassos Moon” follows a theater critic with a drug habit, thrust back into the life of a protective aunt after a drunk-driving arrest. An English professor in “Monsalvat” is maintaining a speed habit while minding her aging poet father. And so on, and so on. Sometimes these stories strain credulity to attain their effect of domestic collapse, never worse than the moment when a doctor’s druggy children take revenge on his new wife in “A Secret Station” by taking a chainsaw to the Thanksgiving turkey. Gates is a graceful and penetrating writer about people who are stuck in a rut. But the rhythms and emotional temperature of these stories have a stubborn sameness of their own. A well-turned but overly familiar sequence of domestic dramas.
and there are moments when what Nina seems to need most is a good shake. Fortunately, she manages to give herself one in time to weave together enough of her history’s free-floating threads to leave us covered. In this middle-aged love triangle, the points take a while to connect.
THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF NINA FINDLAY
Gillies, Andrea Other Press (416 pp.) $17.95 paper | May 5, 2015 978-1-59051-729-1
Through the lens of a failed marriage and a lost love, a flawed but appealing woman recovers her health while dissecting her complicated relationships. In her second novel, Gillies explores the same subject she did in Keeper (2010), her raw nonfiction account of caring for a close family member with Alzheimer’s: the fallibility of memory and the often heartbreaking halftruths we tell ourselves by way of compensation. Forty-something editor Nina Findlay grew up next door to two brothers, the one she married and the one she loved. Having finally left her husband, Paolo, Nina returns to the Greek island where they honeymooned and promptly gets hit by a bus. We spend the rest of the book recouping with her in the hospital, where she meets a charming doctor whose intentions are murky at best—but so, as it turns out, might be Nina’s. Wandering between her childhood, her coming of age, and her uncertain present, she tries to tell the story of her marriage without really understanding how it started; or, more critically, how it’s likely to end. Nina’s dead mother, Anna, the eccentric alpha female to her daughter’s apprehensive beta, haunts the narrative like a specter who doesn’t realize she’s overstayed her welcome. Both women are attractive but sometimes-frustrating, |
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INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
Hanya Yanagihara
How the most impressive novel of the year so far came to life By Claiborne Smith
Photo courtesy Sam Levy
One way to describe a novel you like, maybe the quickest way, is to say that you can’t put it down. People say that all the time. There are also novels that compel trickier, but no less passionate, emotions. They are books that confront you and make you wrestle with them. You might feel protective of the characters and their fates; maybe you feel like the writer is talking directly to, or about, you and you are delighted but spooked about what the writer might reveal. There is no shorthand phrase for a novel that seduces you even as it frightens, guts, exhausts, and disgusts you. Hanya Yanagihara thinks of the emotional journey taken by readers of her novel A Little Life as akin to ombré fabric, a shirt, say, whose colors gradually shift from one tone to another, related tone. “I have this picture of a very light blue,” the beginning of the 14
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novel, “that shaded to a very dark indigo,” the ending, she says. “That was the emotional arc I wanted to take readers on through the book.” A Little Life is the most devastating but satisfying novel published so far this year. Finishing its 720 pages is like finishing one of the doorstop novels of 19th-century Russia: you feel worn out but wide awake. The novel follows several decades in the lives of four friends who go to college in Massachusetts and move to New York after graduation. They are all men. (There is just one woman in the novel who’s given more than a passing glance.) Willem is an actor, JB an artist, Malcolm an architect, and Jude is a litigator. None of them have children; some are gay, some are straight. They all become successful in their fields. Yanagihara tracks the ups and downs of their friendships with one another in anthropological detail. That, essentially, is what this strange, moving novel is about. Except that as the book progresses, Jude’s story absorbs more and more of Yanagihara’s interest. She wanted A Little Life to be an “interior epic”; Jude is its heart. Jude is abandoned at birth and raised by the brothers of a monastery in the West. They, and others later in his life, beat and use him. He walks with a noticeable limp from the injuries. He becomes a considerable harm to himself. But he is wily, thoughtful, and determined. He eventually finds a way to become a prestigious lawyer feared by his adversaries in court. His colleagues respect him, partly because he is such a mystery to them. The problem is that he makes himself a mystery to his closest friends. “He had thought that by not saying who he was, he was making himself more palatable, less strange,” Yanagihara writes. “But now, what he doesn’t say makes him stranger, an object of pity and even suspicion.” One of
the haunting questions animating this book is whether being surrounded by the most giving, loyal friends is enough for someone who has survived—and inflicted upon himself—unbearable, prolonged abuse. “Once, he tried to write some things down, thinking that it might be easier,” Yanagihara writes about Jude, “but it wasn’t—he is unclear how to explain himself to himself.” Doubleday also published Yanagihara’s 2013 novel, The People in the Trees, which earned critical raves and won her more coverage than most debut authors receive. Yanagihara, who grew up in Hawaii, set that novel on a fictional South Pacific island, a number of whose residents live to be over 100 years old. A Nobel Prize–winning scientist discovers a gene that the media hype as the secret to a long life. In the ensuing invasion of the island by Western corporations, the scientist adopts a number of the island’s children, one of whom he is accused of molesting. (The novel is partly based on the story of Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, who received the Nobel in 1976 but was convicted of child molestation in 1996.) Despite how emotionally tough it is to read A Little Life, it is actually a more approachable novel than The People in the Trees: everyone has friends and has fallen, or wants to, in love; far fewer of us can say we know anything about what the protagonist of The People in the Trees experiences. In fact, A Little Life investigates a phenomenon that Yanagihara says half of humanity experiences: our culture’s lack of imagination about what it means to be a man. Men are given “such a small emotional palette to work with,” she says. “I think they have a very hard time still naming what it is to be scared or vulnerable or afraid, and it’s not just that they can’t talk about it—it’s that they can’t sometimes even identify what they’re feeling.” She says that she and her female friends talk about all kinds of emotions with one another. But “when I hear sometimes my male friends talking about these manifestations of what, to me, is clearly fear, or clearly shame, they really can’t even express the word itself.” It’s not that Yanagihara thinks there isn’t enough fiction about men and their interior lives. It’s that there isn’t enough fiction about male friendships, about people who make friendship “another way of adulthood,” an alternative to marriage and children. Yanagihara says she is glad same-sex marriage is increasingly legal but that the idea of getting married “is one I personally find squirm-inducing. My friends
and I just don’t believe in it as an institution.” During the AIDS crisis, gay men formed their own society and “expanded friendships beyond what social convention dictates”—sometimes for happy reasons and sometimes because they’d been banished from their families. She mentions some gay friends who are younger than she is at 40. “I don’t know if that impulse, that society of kinship and necessity, still exists,” she laments. She told one young gay couple she knows not to have a child, but they did have one. “They never see their friends anymore. They said something like, ‘Finally we’re a real family,’ and I thought, ‘You were always a real family.’ ” Yanagihara is a writer for Condé Nast Traveler and has also worked in the publishing industry (see sidebar on p. 17). Having a full-time job makes her a better artist, not a less productive one, she says. She spent 16 years, off and on, writing The People in the Trees but just 18 months on the 947 pages of A Little Life she turned in to Gerald Howard, the executive editor at Doubleday. “I think it’s important to live in a society where writers and artists can make a living for their work, and I think it’s fine if you want to, but you’re probably going to be poor and that’s just the way it’s going to be,” Yanagihara says. Declarations like this cause people to assume Yanagihara the uncompromising writer is also a forbidding personality. “Hanya’s a pretty tough customer, and I don’t think she thinks much of editors as editors,” says her editor. In person, she is quite warm, chatty and playful. “She’s also super analytic and empathetic,” her friend Jared Hohlt, an editor at New York magazine, says. “She is very impish. Hanya has an amazing wit. She loves to ask friends outlandish ‘what if ’ scenarios.” When a writer believes that “if you don’t depend on your writing for money, you’ll have to compromise but you’ll never have to concede anything,” her editor might be more apt to lock and load than play nice. It is perhaps inevitable that there would be some “tussles,” as Howard puts it, between him and Yanagihara about the published version of A Little Life. They were mainly about the punishment that Jude suffers. “This is just too hard for anybody to take,” Howard told her, referring to Jude, not the reader (though the same could be said of the reader). “You have made this point quite adequately, and I don’t think you need to do it again.” Yanagihara says that Howard also thought Jude was too unbelievably talented. But “the talents he needs are |
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never the talents he finds,” she replied to him, articulating one of the novel’s sad truths. Howard says he won a few of those “discussions” with Yanagihara but not all. “One thing you better get used to as an editor is losing these arguments,” he acknowledges. “I lost a whole lot of them with David Foster Wallace when I was working with him, and that worked out pretty well.” Yanagihara says it wasn’t a question of winning or losing. “I thought his concerns were all legitimate.” A good editor, she says, “should take the things they think are weakest in the book and really make you fight for them.” Not many passages that were up for cutting were cut. Yanagihara caused more contention with the photograph she asserted should be the book’s jacket image. To someone who doesn’t know photographer Peter Hujar’s work, or the series of photos this particular image comes from, it is reasonable to assume the jacket photo is meant to evoke the idea of Jude grimacing in pain. Hujar is revered among photography critics and collectors, and some believe that Robert Mapplethorpe imitated Hujar’s work (whether or not he did, he had a far more lucrative and famous career than Hujar). The photo is actually titled Orgiastic Man One from Hujar’s Orgiastic Man series; it’s a photo taken in 1969 of a man at the peak of orgasm. “Holy shit,” Anna Stein O’Sullivan, Yanagihara’s agent, remembers thinking when Yanagihara showed her the image she wanted for the book cover. “And to me, that’s a good thing,” she adds. “The fact that it makes you pay attention—it makes you look, it makes you wonder—that can only be a good thing.” “I really wanted that image,” Yanagihara says. “It’s a really striking image, and I think the tone of it is just right. It’s not literally how I imagined Jude looking like, or Willem for that matter, but I do think there’s something unsparing about it and something sort of helpless, too.” Hujar is still underrated enough that culturally literate people do not know his photographs. But Gerald Howard did (for one thing, Hujar took a famous photo of Susan Sontag, who admired his work). “You know, it’s obviously someone coming,” Yanagihara says Howard complained to her. “The only reason you know that is because you know Hujar’s work,” she countered. “To anyone else, they wouldn’t know if he’s in pleasure or pain.” Then there was “a whole series of back-and-forth-and-back-and-forth,” Yanagihara says. “This was a really big fight.” 16
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Howard says he actually wasn’t opposed to the image being on the cover but that he “had to think pretty hard about it.” He also had to win over everyone else at Doubleday who didn’t like the idea. He eventually told the publisher’s art director that he wanted “to have a look” at what the cover might be like using Hujar’s photo. “I have a feeling that anybody who is likely to buy and enjoy this book is going to be attracted by the cover,” Howard says. So Yanagihara won the cover battle. The only battle she hasn’t won so far is against the very thing she created. Yanagihara wrote A Little Life for three hours a night, from 9:00 until midnight, every Monday through Thursday. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, she’d write six hours a day. She didn’t deviate. But she hasn’t yet sloughed off the story of a man who tries to overcome the injustice done to him and to conquer his own habit of self-destruction. “It’s been mentally and emotionally draining in a way I haven’t been able to move past,” she says. Claiborne Smith is the editor in chief. A Little Life received a starred review in the Jan. 1, 2015, issue.
A Little Life Yanagihara, Hanya Doubleday (728 pp.) $30.00 | Mar. 10, 2015 978-0-385-53925-8
Want to Become a Published Writer? Start Out in Publicity Crosley interviewed potential publicists for the department and says they sought out candidates who didn’t just love books, but were articulate about why they were passionate about reading. “You don’t walk in and say, ‘I love books.’ We needed people who could roll up their sleeves,” she says. She adds that paperback publicity is particularly difficult because the majority of journalists have already written about a book before its paperback version emerges. Vintage tends to attract publicists who can think beyond all the angles that journalists have already covered. Russell Perreault, a vice president at Vintage and the executive director of the publicity department, has a more blunt assessment. “I tend to hire unusual people,” he says. “That’s the only thing I can think of. I don’t like normal people.” He adds that publicity is an ideal spot for a writer because wannabe writers who work Russell Perreault in editorial have to trudge through unpolished manuscripts; publicists work on “the cream of the crop,” as he puts it. “To read constant bad stuff is not very helpful,” he adds. Vintage is “very collegial,” he says. “It’s like a small East Coast college.” That atmosphere is largely attributable to Perreault, according to his former employees. “I do think Russell fostered an incredibly safe environment for me to be a writer,” Yoon says. “It meant the world when you’re 22 to have that support system and to have that safe environment to go home at night and think, ‘I have permission to do this.’ ” You’re a writer who wants to be near books at your job? Consider book publicity. And a final piece of advice if you want to work in publicity at Vintage: at the job interview, don’t fess up that you’re a writer. “People tell me all the time they want to be writers,” Perreault says. “I would never hire somebody who would say that.” —C.S.
Courtesy Michael Lionstar
There was a brief period when Yanagihara worked in sales at Ballantine. This was in 1995, when Random House was at 201 E. 50th St. She worked on the eighth floor; the book room belonging to Vintage, the paperback publisher of numerous legendary writers, was on the 20th. “I used to go up there and steal books from the rights department’s book room,” Yanagihara recalls. In 1996, she started working for Vintage’s publicity department, where she could filch literature without getting on an elevator. It’s not rare to hear an editorial assistant say that he or she is writing a book; less often do you hear book publicists say the same thing. A surprising number of the ones who do once worked in Vintage’s publicity department, like Yanagihara. They include Sloane Crosley, whose first collection of essays, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, was a finalist for the Thurber Prize and a bestseller. FSG is publishing her debut novel this fall. Other literary writers such as Paul Yoon (Snow Hunters), Ethan Rutherford (The Peripatetic Coffin: And Other Stories), playwright and actor Sam Perwin, YA writer Martin Wilson (What They Always Tell Us), and Sabine Eckle, who has a forthcoming book, also worked in publicity at Vintage. Besides easy access to Vintage’s good books, what would compel a burgeoning writer to seek out a job that entails emailing journalists all day and not hearing back from them, thus learning that although it’s difficult nabbing a book deal in the first place, it’s sometimes harder to garner coverage about your book after you’ve worked so hard writing it? That sometimes-elusive thing writers need: community. Rutherford worked at Three Lives, the West Village bookstore, before joining Vintage. At Three Lives, he got to talk about books all day. “At its best that’s what publicity is too,” he says. It’s harder to be a writer working in the editorial department. “If you want to go home and write, it’s best not to get into the head of another writer at your day job.” But at Vintage, “you’re talking about such incredible books all day. It’s really a pretty shitty job if you’re stuck selling books you don’t believe in.”
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WILD WOOD
Graeme-Evans, Posie Atria (464 pp.) $16.00 paper | Mar. 3, 2015 978-1-4767-4361-5 Revisiting the interconnected-mysteries-separated-by-centuries setup that worked so well in The Island House (2012, etc.), Graeme-Evans sends an Australian adoptee searching for her birth mother to a castle on the England-Scotland border. In 1321, Hundredfield is held by the Dieudonné family, arrogant descendants of the Norman invaders who are feared and hated by the Saxon peasantry. Godefroi, the current lord, has done little to improve matters by marrying the mysterious Lady Flore, said to be a sorceress, while keeping as her servant a local girl, Margaretta, who has borne his son. How can Jesse, in the hospital after being hit by a motorcycle on a June day in 1981 shortly after arriving in London from Sydney, know Hundredfield well enough to draw it with her left hand, even though she’s righthanded and can’t draw? It might seem a ridiculous coincidence to have Jesse’s doctor, Rory Brandon, recognize the castle because his mother worked for the owners—whose daughter happens to be Alicia, the cafe waitress who helped Jesse after the accident. But there are no coincidences in Graeme-Evans’ satisfyingly spooky tale, which turns on a pre-Christian cult of the mother goddess whose female acolyte, the Lady of the Forest, arrives in the woods near Hundredfield over the centuries in times of need and bears a daughter. Flore is one such otherworldly visitor, Margaretta reveals when the lady’s body vanishes after giving birth about halfway through the book—a red flag that will tell alert readers where the story is heading. This doesn’t seriously mar the tension Graeme-Evans builds as the 14th- and 20th-century stories alternate while moving toward violent climaxes followed by loving renewal in both. Unlike The Island House, the modern characters are not as compelling as their ancestors—yes, Jesse proves to have roots in the borderlands as well—but the expert unfolding of a complicated plot mostly compensates. More gripping entertainment from a seasoned professional.
THE SUBPRIMES
Greenfeld, Karl Taro Harper/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $25.99 | May 5, 2015 978-0-06-213242-0 In a near future where the poor have been utterly undermined by the rich, a renegade emerges to champion the inherent good in people. After mocking urban gentrification in his debut novel (Triburbia, 2012), here Greenfeld employs the ethos of the Occupy movement in imagining how the worst tendencies of conservative power and 18
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economic greed might wreak havoc on a nation. The novel opens on a squatter’s camp in California, where “Subprimes” with ruined credit ratings wander fruitlessly looking for food and shelter. We meet Sargam, a motorcycle-riding orphan whose kindness is blinding. Blessed by one young family for giving them a little money, she says, “Not God. It’s just people. People helping people. That’s all we got.” Greenfeld pulls back the curtain on his slow apocalypse to reveal an America where roads, education, and the justice system have been privatized, with public services and schools left to crumble. In an eerie sidebar, the poisoned environment is driving whales to beach themselves in mass numbers. Greenfeld alternates his third-person narrative with a firstperson perspective on current events from Richie Schwab, one of LA’s last journalists, who copes by smoking potent weed and working his beat. Schwab falls in with Gemma Mack, the beleaguered wife of Arthur Mack, a hedge fund manager who famously swindled billions from his clients. Arthur is now in cahoots with “Pastor Roger,” the leader of a megachurch who empowers industrialists and oil barons in the name of God—seriously, the villains here make the most single-minded Objectivists look like saints by comparison. Sargam and her tribe make their way to rural Nevada, where the Subprimes occupy a housing development and begin building a fair, equitable, and sustainable community dubbed Valence. Naturally, the bad guys learn there’s fracking energy to be had beneath Valence, and the fight is on. Ain’t no justice, just us. Greenfeld has a tendency to lean toward parody in his satiric style, but here he employs enough authenticity to terrify, enough black humor to disarm the story’s inherent pessimism, and a surprising admiration for faith in its myriad forms.
YOUR NEXT BREATH
Johansen, Iris St. Martin’s (352 pp.) $27.99 | $14.99 e-book | Apr. 28, 2015 978-1-250-02008-6
Gorgeous superspy Catherine Ling finds her world falling apart as a vicious killer she once sent to prison tries to wipe her past off the map. Three people from Catherine’s past— Olena Petrov, Robert Jantzen, and Slantkey—are murdered in quick succession, all found with gold dog tags bearing Catherine’s name. When her old friend and mentor, Hu Chang, shows up, Catherine quickly deduces that only two men could be behind this attempt to wipe out her address book, and one is already dead. That means that Santos, a homicidal maniac from Caracas who was recently released from prison, is behind the slaughter. Catherine spreads the word to her best buddies that their lives are in danger, but maddeningly, they all seem to want to come to her rather than take cover. Erin, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist once saved by Catherine from a Tibetan warlord; Kelly, a teenage genius whose life Catherine saved in the jungles of Colombia; and others find their lives on
the line, but Catherine is on the warpath, and that spells trouble for Santos’ plan. Although Johansen (The Perfect Witness, 2014, etc.) has a legion of fans, this messy recycling of characters from previous Catherine Ling novels feels thrown together. Much of the plot is contrived, with characters constantly regurgitating back story that everyone present would already have known. Johansen also throws in a good dose of mysticism and pads the pages with multiple one-line paragraphs. But instead of feeling Catherine’s anguish, most readers will feel annoyed with this half-baked literary mishmash, as the beautiful, intrepid, and deadly CIA agent spends most of her time hauling her young son on dangerous missions, lusting after a man who can read her mind, and moistening her lips while expertly delivering karate chops and killing cartoonish bad guys. Even die-hard Johansen fans will find disappointment between the covers of this white-hot mess of a book.
WRITTEN IN THE BLOOD
Jones, Stephen Lloyd Mulholland Books/Little, Brown (496 pp.) $26.00 | $12.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-0-316-25448-9 978-0-316-25447-2 e-book Series: String Diaries, 2 Leah Wilde, one of the last descendants of the hosszú életek, a mythic Hungarian clan with shape-shifting abilities, risks her life against dark forces in an attempt to save her widely scattered people from extinction. In The String Diaries (2014), the first book in this series, Leah and her mother, Hannah, were stalked in America by the monstrous Jakab, a rogue member of the clan. Only then did Hannah discover she had illegitimate blood ties to him. Fifteen years later, she heads up dangerous efforts to produce hosszú életek babies through blood infusions. Meanwhile, Leah confronts ruthless
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criminals who were banished from the sect to seek their help in the fertility program. The sequel moves between the present, in a variety of European locations—where an evil strain of body snatchers thirsts for fresh blood—and 1870s Hungary. There, an orphaned boy, Izsak, is forever scarred after his family is subjected to horrific punishment rites. He meets a girl, Etienne, who, like him, will leave a mark on the future. Few living writers of supernatural thrillers equal Jones’ powers of imagination and overall vision. His first book spent so much energy setting up its premise that it ran out of plot and ideas. The far superior sequel is a complete success, both in narrative terms—it’s a page-turner— and in evoking horrific movements in modern European history. There are a few too many cliffhanger-type chapter endings, but Jones delivers on their promise in dramatic, violent fashion. A superior sequel, Jones’ tale of a people struggling for survival is as emotionally compelling as it is frightening.
THE WORLD IS A WEDDING
Jones, Wendy Europa Editions (240 pp.) $16.00 paper | May 19, 2015 978-1-60945-267-4
A sequel to the British author’s captivating debut, The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals (2014). Forget the humorously inflated job description. As Wilfred admits, “undertaking was a simple business of box, hearse, and hole.” Wilfred makes the coffins, and his beloved da digs the graves. It’s the 1920s, and embalming has not yet reached Narberth, the gossipy, self-absorbed West Wales town where both novels are set. The earlier book saw Wilfred weathering a brief, unconsummated marriage to Grace, the doctor’s daughter, and their subsequent divorce. Now Wilfred is marrying his true love, the saintly Flora, whose father he recently buried. The novel also tracks Grace, who in the earlier book was banished from her family home after refusing to reveal who had impregnated her. Grace was no loose woman; she had been raped by her brother. Now she’s found work as a chambermaid at the Ritz in London. Wilfred’s role in her downfall will seem murky to new readers, for he’s barely discussed it with Flora. Their marriage begins awkwardly; the wellmeaning Wilfred knows nothing about a woman’s needs, and Flora feels adrift. If only she could hone her photographer’s skills professionally! Female emancipation is a major theme. In London, Grace attends a Suffragettes rally and learns about women’s self-defense; then her pregnancy forces her to leave the Ritz, and she gives birth in a bakery. Should she emulate her mother’s hardness of heart and leave her son on a doorstep? While Jones moved confidently from light to dark in her debut, here the narrative zigs and zags at the expense of character, while scenes of boisterous fun among the Narberth townsfolk are a jarring distraction. The resolution, which involves witchcraft and violent melodrama, is likely to disappoint admirers of the author’s debut. 20
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PLAY FOR ME
Keating, Céline She Writes Press (220 pp.) $16.95 paper | $9.95 e-book Apr. 21, 2015 978-1-63152-972-6 978-1-63152-973-3 e-book Empty nester has whirlwind affair with indie rock guitarist, with predictable results, in Keating’s second novel (Layla, 2013). Lily, a slightly zaftig 49-year-old woman with a successful career in industrial videography, a loving if preoccupied city planner husband, Stephen, and a comfortable Manhattan lifestyle, confronts a crossroads when she drops her son, Colby, off at college. How will she define herself now? The answer comes quickly when Colby takes her to a campus performance by “upand-coming folk rocker” Blaise Raleigh and her lead guitarist, JJ, with his “long ponytail and a worn, raw face that looked dug out of the mountains of Appalachia.” But it isn’t until JJ rips out a riff that Lily is struck by the thunderbolt, or, in her preferred metaphor—if its overuse is any indication—shot through the heart. Approaching JJ after the concert, Lily boldly propositions him to give up smoking, which he does, and then starts following him and Blaise all over upstate New York. (Ostensibly, she’s there to videotape the band.) Stephen is oblivious to his wife’s obsession with a rock star, or more accurately, a talented 43-year-old guitarist who failed to launch a big career. Keating, who writes for Acoustic Guitar magazine, is at her surest when discussing musical issues, whether questions of guitar technique or the challenges of the music business for nonmainstream artists. When, roughly two-thirds of the way through the novel, Lily and JJ finally consummate their flirtation, the situation doesn’t seem that fraught. JJ is a genuinely nice person, the age difference is not all that shocking, and Stephen barely notices she’s out of town. None of the potential conflicts are milked for the depth they could afford this novel. When Lily returns to face another sort of music, readers may feel that her come-to-realize moments have been rendered as sketchily as her emotions. A promising premise sadly underdeveloped.
ALMOST CRIMSON
Kelly, Dasha Curbside Splendor (300 pp.) $15.95 paper | May 12, 2015 978-1-940430-48-5 Twenty-eight-year-old accounts manager Cece Weathers has spent her life taking care of her sick mother after her father, a traumatized Vietnam vet, abandoned them before she was born. Cece can’t remember a time before her mother, Carla Weathers, “became too weak to carry anything but tears”— Cece’s memories of her 1970s childhood are shadowed by the
A dark, cynical psychological comment on our culture of excess and violence. luckiest girl alive
gray weight of her mother’s depression, which forced Cece to take on adult tasks such as laundry, groceries, and cleaning. But when social worker Tanya Boylin entered the picture, Cece excitedly began attending a school for gifted and talented students. Unfortunately, Cece was the “only caramel face in the row of vanilla crème” and was ostracized by her predominantly white classmates. She sought refuge in books—reading “seventh grade chapter books” by fourth grade. It wasn’t until Carla’s state-ordered therapy sessions also ushered in piano lessons for Cece as a form of day care that Cece made her first friend her own age, Pam. Cece’s friendship with Pam and Rocky, her first crush, sustained her during four traumatic years of high school bullying followed by the horrors of job applications and workplace politics. And when another friend, Doris, an octogenarian dying of cancer, gives Cece a house, Cece is faced with deciding if, for the first time, she will be able to live apart from her co-dependent mother and build a life of her own. Shifting between past and present, Kelly (Call It Forth: Poems, Stories & Columns, 2014) deftly weaves a narrative extending from Carla’s college days during the civil rights movement through Cece’s
girlhood and present adulthood. But it’s Cece’s vibrant, personable voice that carries us through the novel. A multilayered exploration of the intricate nature of family ties in defining who we are—and how, ultimately, we can choose who we want to become.
LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE
Knoll, Jessica Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) $25.00 | May 12, 2015 978-1-4767-8963-7
Knoll’s debut thriller is a dark, cynical psychological comment on our culture of excess and violence. TifAni FaNelli seems to have it all: an upcoming marriage to a handsome, wealthy financier; a job at a competitive, sexy women’s magazine; and a wardrobe filled with designer names.
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But buried beneath this surface is a secret past that threatens every day to destroy her success and happiness. As her marriage nears, and she finds herself under even more stress about keeping up appearances, Ani forces herself to participate in a documentary commemorating a violent incident from her high school days, hoping that she might, once and for all, be able to make peace with the past. Knoll’s novel is fragmented and unsure of what tone to take; the first part of the story seems at once superficial but also satirical in its complete obsession with designer name-dropping and dietworshipping. When Knoll alternates chapters about Ani’s present with flashback chapters, the narrative becomes less commentary and more very depressing movie-of-the-week. The main problem is that Ani, despite the awful things she survives, is not a particularly admirable or interesting character, and she doesn’t have the charisma to bring any light to the savage story that unfolds. Even the final suggestion that she will finally break away from trying to be perfect and instead be true to herself lacks punch. The promise of redemption in the end is not enough to balance the darkness.
THE ROCHEFORTS
Laborie, Christian Open Road Integrated Media (484 pp.) $18.99 paper | $9.99 e-book May 5, 2015 978-1-5040-0077-2 978-1-4804-6120-8 e-book From the rise of industrialism through the bitter dregs of World War II, a ruthless patriarch strives to restore his family to social and economic eminence. In the wee hours, a cloaked man delivers a mysterious child to the mother superior of a Parisian orphanage, saving one life but perhaps jeopardizing another. This rather gothic opening—riddled with dark alcoves along narrow avenues under an icy moon—foreshadows not only the web of lies that will constrain this orphan’s life, but also the web of family ties that Anselme Rochefort weaves to bind and ultimately estrange his children. (And that orphan will return to trouble the Rochefort empire.) The son of the powerfully connected and financially savvy Charles-Honoré Rochefort, Anselme nearly bankrupts the family textile business after his father’s death. Determined to prove his worth—but equally determined to indulge in his vices—Anselme sets out, coldbloodedly, to rebuild the family’s reputation and fortune. A marriage of convenience to the beautiful, wealthy, orphaned, and pregnant Eleanor Letellier infuses Anselme with much-needed capital and offers Eleanor social sanctuary. A broken heart, however, drives Eleanor to take her own life soon after the birth of her daughter, Catherine. Ever practical, Anselme quickly remarries, encouraging his second wealthy bride, Elisabeth Langlade, to raise Catherine as her own. Fifteen years and four children later, Elisabeth dotes on Catherine, Anselme ignores her, and, desperate for love, Catherine falls into the arms of a penniless man Anselme could never consider as a son-in-law. This 22
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is a world in which the highborn have the power to determine which families’ reputations are sterling enough to participate in economies both social and financial. Arranging the warp and weft of his children’s lives proves difficult for Anselme, however, particularly as his younger son, Sebastian, is drawn into the free love of political radicals and his favorite daughter, 9-year-old Faustine, falls in love with a farmer’s adopted son. The old world of convention collides with a new world of experimentation with calamitous consequences. Marred only by stiff dialogue, Laborie’s debut impresses with a sweeping saga full of historical detail and familial melodrama.
THE MOUNTAIN STORY
Lansens, Lori Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (320 pp.) $26.00 | May 12, 2015 978-1-4767-8650-6 In Lansens’ latest (The Wife’s Tale, 2010, etc.), a teenage boy finds himself stranded on a mountain with three women he doesn’t know and must overcome not only the natural elements, but his own fears and guilt. Since the novel is framed as a letter written by Wolf Truly to his son years later, there’s no question about his survival; but the letter hints that survival has come at a major cost. The characters’ names tell a lot about Lansens’ schematic approach to her material. There’s the protagonist, Wolf; his best friend, Byrd; and Byrd’s beautiful cousin, Lark, with whom Wolf has long been infatuated. Wolf and Byrd met when Wolf was 13, after he and his alcoholic father moved from Michigan to the California desert town of Santa Sophia. They bonded in part because both had lost parents—Wolf his mother, Byrd his mother and father— but Wolf lives in a poor, trashy neighborhood while Byrd’s uncle is a successful businessman. Byrd taught Wolf to love the mountain rising above Santa Sophia. When Wolf is 18, he heads to the mountain, alone, on the first anniversary of a terrible accident Byrd had, for which he feels responsible. He’s planning to commit suicide when an older woman, the recently widowed Nola, asks him to guide her to Secret Lake. Two women hanging out nearby turn out to be Nola’s daughter, Bridget, and granddaughter, Vonn. If Nola is grief-stricken, Bridget exudes desperation. Through a series of missteps, the group gets lost, then trapped in a canyon. As Wolf makes one failed attempt after another to get help, he relives his troubled childhood and becomes caught up in the history and complicated relationships of the women. The conclusion mixes hard-to-believe sacrifice with an equally hard-to-believe happy ending. If nature’s danger and beauty are extreme here, the characters too seem melodramatically extreme in their sentimental goodness (and evil).
Dewey is a funny cat—a fiercely intelligent man whose cynical lingo and casual violence belie his true character. the immune system
THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
Larson, Nathan Akashic (288 pp.) $15.95 paper | $15.95 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-1-61775-339-8 978-1-61775-361-9 e-book In post-apocalyptic Manhattan, antihero Dewey Decimal comes to the end of the stacks. This is the final volume in a crisp dystopian crime trilogy by Larson (The Nervous System, 2012, etc.), so new readers are advised to start with The Dewey Decimal System (2011). Our narrator is many things: a black-ops veteran with a particularly gruesome set of combat skills; a slave to the obsessive-compulsive disorder that keeps him popping pills, rubbing on hand sanitizer, and organizing the stacks at the New York Public Library; and one of the most dangerous freelance assets in the city. Our man hasn’t changed in the interim—as the book opens, Dewey has his foot squarely on
the throat of a soldier who’s been marked for revenge. Dewey is a funny cat—a fiercely intelligent, multilingual man whose cynical, staccato lingo and casual violence belie his true character. “Well, I ask you now, you think I cherish these sorry situations?” he asks. “This lopsided sadism? Think I get jiggy on the misfortune of my fellow travelers? Not so, y’all, not so.” Dewey is still serving as muscle for corrupt Sen. Clarence Howard, who charges his hired gun with disrupting a group of anarchist squatters who are troubling the shadow government he serves. Secondly, Dewey finds himself tasked with protecting a pair of twins, Saudi royalty no less, in order to ensure the continuation of the family bloodline. As he gets closer to the truth about his part in his city’s misfortunes, Dewey also struggles with his own place in this dark metropolis. “Oh, I’m know I’m a monster,” he admits. “The question is, am I just garden variety, like everybody else—like I did what I done to keep kicking? Or, despite my Code, despite my System, do I carry a yawning black abscess where my soul should be, burning with fever, flush with infection?” A sharp and satisfying conclusion to one of the most unique hard-boiled arcs in recent memory.
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A GOOD KILLING
Leotta, Allison Touchstone/Simon & Schuster (320 pp.) $25.00 | $12.99 e-book | May 12, 2015 978-1-4767-6099-5 978-1-4767-6103-9 e-book Dark secrets, a small town, and one supercharged trial provide the backdrops for Leotta’s latest legal thriller. Jody Curtis once loved Owen Fowler, Holly Grove’s famed football coach, and when he dies in a fiery ball after his car slams into the football stadium where he worked, she finds herself the prime suspect in his murder. Jody’s big sister, Anna Curtis, the D.C. prosecutor whose exploits Leotta chronicled in previous novels, flies home to help her sister in the wake of her own breakup from Jack, the homicide chief at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C.. Anna’s met by Cooper Bolden, a hunky Afghanistan vet who came home from the war with a prosthetic leg. And when she runs into her former high school flame–turned–police investigator, Rob Gargaron, she finds it’s her temper that flares—not romantic sparks. After Jody is arrested, Anna decides to defend her, but the price the two sisters pay for their stubborn refusal to let sleeping dogs lie may be more than they can handle. Leotta successfully replants her big-city prosecutor in small-town America, painting a realistic picture of how public opinion can wound; but the alternating chapters featuring the less-educated Jody don’t always work—Jody sounds more like a creative-writing major than an assembly-line worker. The novel’s major flaw—Jody has a deep, dark secret about a long-ago incident with the dead man that she keeps from Anna—comes off as illogical rather than mysterious. The author scores big, however, by yanking Anna from D.C. and turning her into a defense attorney. This Anna is a much more interesting main character than the Anna of previous novels. While readers may grow exasperated with Jody’s stubborn and nonsensical refusal to come clean with her sister about her teenage contact with the victim, Leotta’s growing skills turn dull Anna into a character who’s not only worth reading about, but also one to look forward to in future works.
THE FALL
Lescroart, John Atria (320 pp.) $26.99 | $12.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-1-4767-0921-5 978-1-4767-0923-9 e-book Dismas Hardy’s daughter, Rebecca, the most junior associate at his law firm, gets her own first case, and it’s a doozy. The San Francisco legal system has made little progress lately on homicide cases involving African-American victims, and rabble-rousing 24
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city supervisor Liam Goodman, along with his rabble, is turning up the heat. So when Anlya Paulson, 17, takes a header from the Bush Street overpass to land on the hood of a Subaru passing through Stockton Street below, district attorney Wes Farrell sends mixed-race Inspector Abe Glitsky over from his own office to help Inspectors Eric Waverly and Ken Yamashiro. Soon enough, a gift falls in their laps: Greg Treadway, a schoolteacher who’s serving as Court Appointed Special Advocate for Anlya’s twin brother, Max. Greg had dinner with Anlya hours before she died, and his first statement to the cops fudges on several key details. That’s good enough for the SFPD, who hustle him off to jail. Rebecca, who met Greg only a few minutes before he made that first statement, agrees to represent him, and the game is afoot. The circumstantial evidence against her client piles up, and The Beck, as Hardy calls her, makes several greenhorn mistakes in court. But she also pokes unexpected holes in several witnesses’ testimonies. Meanwhile, events conspire to put three alternative suspects into play: Royce Utlee, the pimp who’s partnered with Anlya’s friend Honor Wilson to manage a stable of prostitutes; Leon Copes, the former live-in boyfriend of Anlya’s and Max’s mother, Sharla, who molested the girl before the twins were removed to foster care; and Ricardo Salazar, a killer who escaped trial in California only to kill again in Minnesota. “You’re never going to believe what just happened,” as The Beck’s roommate tells her at one point, could be a motto, for better or worse, for the whole wild tale. The final twist, however, is sadly predictable.
HOW TO START A FIRE
Lutz, Lisa Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (352 pp.) $25.00 | May 12, 2015 978-0-544-41163-0 Three friends try to muddle through their complicated lives. Kate Smirnoff, Anna Fury, and Georgianna “George” Leoni become friends at UC Santa Cruz in the early 1990s. Almost immediately after becoming a trio, they take a road trip to hike among the giant coastal redwoods of Northern California. George is pretty and athletic; Kate is an expert on redwoods, a topic which is just one in a long line of quirky obsessions; and intelligent, ambitious Anna turns out to be a raging alcoholic. Over the next two decades, the women will find opportunities to reconnect as their lives, and the nature of their friendship, carry on in a constant state of flux. They fall in and out of marriages, careers, cities, and winning or losing sides of battles with their personal demons. There is also a pivotal instance of violence, revealed about halfway through the book, which forever changes their friendship. Unfortunately, that moment comes after the book’s structural flaws are already too obvious, the narrative becoming such a disjointed collage that it’s hard for the reader to establish any cause and effect. Lutz doesn’t allow these women to spend enough
Lynch has a Seamus Heaney ear for the sights and sounds of rural life. the black snow
time in one place to make them come to life as individuals or as friends. There are coy hints at a plot that never materializes. The chapters jump wildly back and forth from one year, one point of view, one setting to another, with a parade of characters that whisks by at a dizzying speed, until the book becomes little more than a list of names and places. This novel is instantly forgettable. Fans and curious new readers should stick to Lutz’s bestselling Izzy Spellman mystery series (The Last Word, 2013, etc.).
THE BLACK SNOW
Lynch, Paul Little, Brown (272 pp.) $25.00 | $12.99 e-book | May 12, 2015 978-0-316-37641-9 978-0-316-37644-0 e-book Life turns brutally cruel for a farming family of three in 1940s Ireland in this sad, haunting novel from a writer with a gift for language and character. “It was the beginning of darkness” are the opening words, a telling phrase that also tells the time of day when Barnabas Kane and his hired hand, Matthew Peoples, rush from their fields at the signs of a fire. The building housing 43 cows is ablaze; Matthew would never have entered without the hand of Barnabas pushing him. So begins to swirl a maelstrom of unrelenting misfortune for the family Kane, the name echoing the Bible’s first murderer. The family has scant capital and no insurance coming because Barnabas canceled it
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in a prideful moment. Seeking help among the community, he encounters suspicion that he had a hand in Matthew’s death as well as the perverse rejection of anyone not born in and unmoved from the area (Barnabas is local but spent some years in New York before returning). Having done something sinful, Billy Kane, 14, fears he may have indirectly caused the fire to be set. Whether it was arson and who struck the match provide one thread of suspense. The other arises, as it can in the book of Job, from wondering what in God’s name the devil will come up with next. Even Eskra Kane’s bees are victims of slaughtering wasps that then assail her body and unhinge her mind. An accidental death also propelled Lynch’s first novel (Red Sky in Morning, 2013, etc.), a blunter retribution tale that calls to mind the stark cruelty of Cormac McCarthy. With his second novel, Lynch has a Seamus Heaney ear for the sights and sounds of rural life, making his prose thick and jagged, sometimes ponderous and often evocative. Lynch evokes so many shades of guilt, pride, innocence, righteousness, and punishment that the book might help found a religion or maybe restore one’s faith in a deity that could make a fine writer with one hand even if he unmade the Kanes with the other.
LAVINA
Marcus, Mary The Story Plant (358 pp.) $25.95 | Apr. 28, 2015 978-1-61188-201-8 An exploration of race relations in Louisiana from multiple perspectives, including those of a 12-year-old white girl and her family’s African-American housekeeper. In the early 1990s, Mary Jacob Ascher (nee Long) gets a call from her older sister, Kathryn, informing her that their father, Jack, is dying and that she’d better hurry home to Murpheysfield, Louisiana, if she wants to see him. Mary Jacob, one of the narrators of the story, reminisces about her privileged upbringing and the “gorgeous greedy bitches” who were Jack’s ex-wives. On her return trip she finds out that Billy Ray Davis, a brilliant harmonica player from Murpheysfield who had made a name for himself in the ’60s, is passing through town to give a concert. Billy Ray is the son of Lavina Davis, the Longs’ housekeeper, who provided most of the nurture and care that Mary Jacob received during the formative years of her adolescence. We see the family dynamics— that Mary Jacob is still alienated from Kathryn, who’d always been the pretty one, and that Jack wants to see his beautiful former wife, Van, before he dies, and he asks Mary Jacob to find her. The novel then shifts back to the summer of 1963, when racial tensions are high in Louisiana, and a rumor develops that Martin Luther King is coming to Murpheysfield to lead a sit-in. Jack’s virulent racism leads him to consider assassinating King, and Mary Jacob, already questioning the system under which she’d been raised, develops a counterplot that would involve sacrificing her own life. We also encounter racism through 26
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the experience of Billy Ray’s growing musical prowess and his involvement with Mary Jacob’s family. Thoughtful fiction that once again exposes the dark enigma of America’s racist past and present.
THE MAPMAKER’S CHILDREN
McCoy, Sarah Crown (320 pp.) $25.00 paper | $12.99 e-book May 5, 2015 978-0-385-34890-4 978-0-385-34891-1 e-book
Two women, living 150 years apart, struggle to define family and to find fulfillment in life when they realize they can’t have children. Eden has been trying to conceive a child for years and, emotionally drained and depressed, must face the fact that it may never happen. A new dog, a precocious neighbor girl, and a broken doll’s head in a hidden root cellar help her build a home that is different from the one she once imagined. McCoy (The Baker’s Daughter, 2012, etc.) alternates between telling Eden’s story and the story of true historical figure Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John, who served as an artist for the Underground Railroad. Strong, sensitive, and driven to make a difference in the world, Sarah, who is unable to bear children after a dire bout of dysentery, rejects the traditional path of wife to become an educator and, eventually, foster mother to two black children. Their narratives intersect in the end as Eden learns more about the history of her house. Though the novel is a bit slow to begin, the women’s stories are engaging and emotionally charged. Sarah’s tale is particularly interesting, as her life has not been the subject of much historical exploration, and reading about the Underground Railroad and the Civil War from a woman’s perspective breathes new life into a familiar era. McCoy’s descriptive writing catches the reader up in both time periods and even accomplishes the difficult task of conflating the two stories without being too heavy-handed. Eden’s realization that “what fable and history could agree upon was that everyone was searching for their ever-after, whatever that may be” neatly sums up the novel’s heart—it’s about the family and the life we create, not always the ones we imagine for ourselves. Though the conclusion doesn’t surprise, it satisfies.
O’Brien’s stories ask difficult questions about the nature of love and the possibility of happiness, and they refuse to settle for easy answers. the love object
COME TO HARM
McPherson, Catriona Midnight Ink/Llewellyn (360 pp.) $14.99 paper | May 8, 2015 978-0-7387-4387-5 A Japanese graduate student convinces herself that a small Scottish town is filled with dark secrets. Keiko Nishisato has come to the University of Edinburgh for her Ph.D. She dreams of a wise adviser, friendly fellow students, and a busy life in a city steeped in history. Instead, her adviser seems uninterested and her fellow students, cold. Even worse, her grant from the Painchton Traders provides her with lodgings above a butcher shop in the little town of Painchton, a long bus ride from Edinburgh. The leader of the Traders, Jimmy McKendrick, and his fellow board members have been attracted to her thesis because it has something to do with food, a subject dear to their hearts. So her apartment’s fridge and cupboards are stuffed with every imaginable foodstuff, all provided by the Traders. The Pooles, who own the butcher shop, include a widow and her two sons, Malcolm, who seems obsessed with meat, and Murray, a classic-motorcycle buff who’s returned to the shop only since his father died. Keiko makes friends with Fancy Clark, a young mother recently returned to the village, and Murray, who helps her exercise every evening in the makeshift gym where he keeps his motorbikes. A threatening note under her radiator and stories about three young women who’ve vanished from the village suggest some deep, dark mystery. Using questionnaires the villagers fill out for her thesis helps her get some insight into the people who are willing to help, but her discomfort only increases. Are the villagers really hiding some awful secret? Or are Keiko’s imagination and the strangeness of a different culture getting the better of her? The latest from this master of psychological thrillers (The Day She Died, 2014, etc.) is more cerebral than physical. But every page will draw you in and deepen your dread.
THE MAINTENANCE OF HEADWAY
Mills, Magnus Bloomsbury (160 pp.) $15.00 paper | May 19, 2015 978-1-63286-036-1 Set within the bureaucracy of the London bus system, Mills’ slim novel fuses whimsy with warped logic. Bus drivers must remain committed to the Maintenance of Headway— “The notion that a fixed interval between buses on a regular service can be attained and adhered to”—even when it seems absurd. Consider a moment when the narrator’s bus is running early. What does he do? He disregards his current passengers and fakes engine problems. Another bus driver even stops to help him, and together, they stage an animated discussion and
walk around the engine thoughtfully until a proper amount of time has passed. No real plot here—rather, a series of vignettes that demonstrate the kind of bureaucratic logic that’s warped because it’s so airtight yet so small-minded. Mills—who’s been a bus driver himself—has written a fantastically odd novel, full of great details (a TV at the bus station that’s been stuck on the same channel for four years) and walk-on characters (like Mrs. Barker, who creates chaos by stopping anywhere—including green traffic lights—to pick up passengers). Mills (Explorers of the New Century, 2005, etc.) avoids revealing anything personal about his characters: even his narrator lacks a life outside the all-consuming absurdity of his work. In a long novel, this might get tiresome, but Mills has written a slender book and made each sentence feel harried, peculiar. There’s bizarre logic: “The idea of curtailing bus journeys in order to provide a better bus service defied logic, but needless to say, the Board of Transport had a logic all of its own.” There’s bureaucratic pseudo-science: beyond the titular reference, there’s also the Theory of Early Running and the Law of Cumulative Lateness. It’s a comic complaint—whimsical, but pointed. Nearly flawless in its own unassuming way.
THE FISHERMEN
Obioma, Chigozie Little, Brown (304 pp.) $26.00 | $12.99 e-book | Apr. 14, 2015 978-0-316-33837-0 978-0-316-33836-3 e-book Life changes dramatically for Benjamin, the fourth of six children, when his father, Eme, is transferred to the town of Yola by his employer, leaving his mother to raise him and his siblings back home in Akure, Nigeria in the 1990s. Adrift without their father’s presence, Benjamin and his elder brothers, Ikenna, Boja, and Obembe, find a sense of purpose in fishing at Omi-Ala, the local river, where they have been forbidden to go because it’s too dangerous. When their disobedience is discovered and swiftly punished, Eme encourages his sons to study harder at school and become “fishermen of the mind” rather than “the kind that fish at a filthy swamp.” Thus adjured, the boys agree to devote themselves to their education. But after local madman Abulu curses Ikenna and claims he will be murdered by his brothers, Ikenna begins to act out—disobeying their harried mother, running away, getting drunk, and beating up Boja. Desperate, their mother counts the days until their father will return home and straighten the boy out. But before Eme’s arrival, Ikenna is found dead after his most vicious fight with Boja yet. The family is speedily forced to reckon with the violence that has torn them apart, and the joy of childhood which permeates Obioma’s lively, energetic debut novel thus swiftly becomes shadowed with the disturbing ghosts of Cain and Abel. Although Benjamin’s first-person narration distances the reader from the emotional states of other characters at key moments—especially Benjamin’s mother in the aftermath of |
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so much loss—the talented Obioma exhibits a richly nuanced understanding of culture and character. A powerful, haunting tale of grief, healing, and sibling loyalty.
THE LOVE OBJECT Selected Stories
O’Brien, Edna Little, Brown (544 pp.) $30.00 | $14.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-0-316-37826-0 978-0-316-37827-7 e-book A career’s selection of stories to savor. These 31 stories by O’Brien (The Country Girls Trilogy, 1986, etc.), spanning some four decades, are brought together in the sort of volume meant to establish a legacy and win prizes. The Irish-raised, London-based author hasn’t been praised for her short stories with the same reverence as William Trevor or Alice Munro (the Nobel Prize winner who provides a rapturous blurb here, proclaiming that O’Brien writes “the most beautiful, aching stories of any writer, anywhere”). Perhaps her novels, memoir, and persona have distracted attention from her mastery of short fiction, which reveals itself over the course of this generous selection as the focus moves from Irish girlhood to the literary life in large, cosmopolitan cities. Not that these stories are necessarily autobiographical or that it even matters if they are. The power of the first-person narrative in a perfect, and perfectly wrenching, story such as “My Two Mothers” rings truer than a memoir might, as O’Brien describes a relationship with a mother who is somehow both lover and enemy, the breach caused when “I began to write,” the story itself a meditation on life, literature, and “being plunged into the moiling seas of memory.” Hers is not the sort of writing that indulges in what one story dismisses as “clever words and hollow feelings”; her stories ask impossibly difficult questions about the nature of love and the possibility of happiness, and they refuse to settle for easy answers. As she writes in “Manhattan Medley,” a tale of infidelity in a city and a world filled with it, “the reason that love is so painful is that it always amounts to two people wanting more than two people can give.” Beneath the veneer of sophistication in a story such as “Lantern Slides,” the emotional ravages are as deep as in the hardscrabble stories of rural Ireland. With an introduction by John Banville and a dedication to Philip Roth, this collection positions O’Brien among the literary heavyweights, where it confirms she belongs.
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THE GIVEN WORLD
Palaia, Marian Simon & Schuster (224 pp.) $25.00 | Apr. 14, 2015 978-1-4767-7793-1 One woman’s war. Riley is a child when her brother leaves Montana for Vietnam. She’s still a child when her parents receive a letter explaining that Mick is missing and presumed dead. That Riley never recovers from this loss goes without saying, but her grief becomes a kind of loss of self. This is ironic in that Riley is a powerful narrator—funny, self-deprecating, fully aware of the feelings she refuses to be aware of. Her story is often heartbreaking, but she never asks for pity, and she most certainly never pities herself. Palaia covers a 25-year period spanning the 1970s, ’80s, and early ’90s, following Riley from the farm to San Francisco to Saigon and back home again. Alternating chapters present the viewpoints of other characters—Riley’s mother, her lover, strangers who help and befriend her—each of whom gives readers a fuller perspective on the protagonist while also being engaging in his or her own right. All of these disparate voices come together beautifully, as does the narrative as a whole. Palaia demonstrates a magnificent command of craft for a firsttime novelist, but it’s her emotional honesty that makes this story so rich and affecting. The novel ends on a more hopeful note than the reader might expect, but it rings true nevertheless—largely because Riley doesn’t expect it, either. She knows that the chance she’s given is a gift. Like grace, it can’t be earned, only accepted with gratitude and awe. An immensely rewarding read and a remarkable debut.
CHURCH OF MARVELS
Parry, Leslie Ecco/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $26.99 | $15.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-0-06-236755-6 978-0-06-236757-0 e-book In Parry’s colorful debut novel, seedy corners of late 19th-century New York come alive—and no one is exactly who they seem to be. Odile and Isabelle Church are mourning Coney Island’s famous Church of Marvels, a theater and sideshow act that has recently burned to the ground with their mother inside. Both girls had been performers, but after the fire, Isabelle disappears into shadowy Manhattan. When Odile receives an alarming letter from her sister, she plunges into the city, determined to save her and bring her home. Along the way she encounters Sylvan the Dogboy, a bare-knuckle boxer who has recently discovered an abandoned baby in a privy; Mrs. Bloodworth, who helps pregnant girls arrange adoptions under the table; and a group of children at the underground gambling parlor the Frog and Toe who know more about her sister’s fate than
she does. At the same time that Odile’s search unfolds, the book also follows Alphie, who has woken up at the Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island and must try to remember the circumstances that led her to be committed to that place of abuse and humiliation. Parry’s writing is smooth and descriptive, and she imbues these misfit characters and shabby, sometimes horrifying settings with energy and depth. But the search that drives the story loses steam about halfway through the book; by cutting back and forth between several different narratives, Parry makes it harder for the reader to connect with these flawed, injured characters until there’s a great revelation that brings all the stories together. This surprise revitalizes the novel but also makes its shortcomings more apparent. Beautifully written, Parry’s imaginative novel is most successful when exploring the limitations and complexities of gender and sexuality during its historical period.
THE DAYLIGHT MARRIAGE
Pitlor, Heidi Algonquin (256 pp.) $24.95 | May 5, 2015 978-1-61620-368-9
A wife and mother goes missing, and a family is forced to reassess both the past and the future. Call it Gone Woman. The morning after a bad argument with her husband, Lovell, a climate scientist, 39-year-old Hannah Hall disappears on her way to work. When some of her possessions and then pieces of bone are found on a South Boston beach, it gets progressively harder for Lovell and their two children, 15-year-old Janine and 8-year-old Ethan, to fend off their fears for her safety. These are the scant plot points of Best American Short Stories series editor Pitlor’s second novel (The Birthdays, 2006), and they’re augmented by flashbacks, character studies, and descriptions of the family’s struggles to cope with Hannah’s disappearance and the media’s interest in it. Originally from a wealthy Martha’s Vineyard family, Hannah emerges as unfulfilled and naïve, still yearning at some romantic fantasy level for Doug, the handsome boy to whom she was originally engaged before he revealed his faithlessness. Lovell, from a semirural background in Maine, now wholly immersed in his work, couldn’t believe his luck when Hannah accepted his proposal—“She was light years out of his league”—but that was before the marriage turned sexless and sour. A pall of unhappiness hangs over the story as the weaknesses of the marriage, Hannah’s equivocal feelings, and the doomed nature of events (gradually revealed in chapters narrated from Hannah’s point of view on that fateful day) are examined. While Lovell is a gloomy central character and Janine is insolent and disdainful in her teenage distress, Pitlor lays a closing gleam of compassion over them all. A technically accomplished but largely downbeat tale of miserable people learning life lessons late.
HOUSEBREAKING
Pope, Dan Simon & Schuster (224 pp.) $25.00 | $12.99 e-book | May 12, 2015 978-1-4767-4590-9 978-1-4767-4592-3 e-book Adultery, one of fiction’s inexhaustible treasure-troves, is the main attraction in this second novel from Pope (In the Cherry Tree, 2003). Benjamin Mandelbaum has cheated twice and been caught twice. His wife, Judy, has a three-strikes policy, so when she discovers an incriminating hotel bill, Ben’s out on his ear, even though this time he’s innocent. He decamps to his childhood home in Wintonbury, a suburb of Hartford, Connecticut, where his widower father lives alone. Whaddaya know, his near neighbor is Audrey Martin, someone he’d lusted after in private school. Both are now in their mid-40s; Audrey’s a housewife married to a workaholic partner in a law firm, Andrew, and mother of a teenager, Emily. Their attraction is immediate, and soon, Ben and Audrey are going at it like rabbits, even using a Starbucks bathroom for their coupling. Audrey needs the release; she hasn’t had sex with her husband, or anybody else, since that terrible day 18 months earlier when their son, Daniel, died after a car crash. Andrew, too, needs some release, and the focus moves to his growing fascination with an associate, Johnny Sampson, a supercilious ambassador’s son and carefree bisexual. Andrew’s new tack is not entirely convincing as tennis games lead to blow jobs. The family portrait enlarges to include Emily, who has become wildly promiscuous since losing her brother; an experienced shoplifter, she teams up with the neighborhood badass to break into houses, including Ben’s. Pope describes her teen angst compellingly, but it’s an awkward fit with the grown-ups’ disordered lives, and the psychological complexities of adultery are sacrificed to strenuous action as Andrew’s situation turns dire and Emily’s transgressions collide with Ben and Audrey’s trysts. Well-grounded but a little too busy for its own good.
DIVINE PUNISHMENT
Ramírez, Sergio Translated by Caistor, Nick McPherson & Company (502 pp.) $30.00 | May 6, 2015 978-1-62054-014-5 A one-time vice president of Nicaragua explores dark corners of his nation’s history in this blend of historical novel and noir procedural. “It was to be a historical novel,” writes Ramírez of the making of his book, which was written and published in Spanish more than 30 years ago, “but also a realist novel, a mannerist novel, a police thriller, a courtroom drama.” Elements of all these run through his narrative, though perhaps |
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A slow, lyrical exploration of a family’s unspooling after the death of a child. trompe l’oeil
with a touch too much emphasis on the courtroom drama part of the mix, which goes on too long without a suitably Perry Mason–esque moment of reckoning (“Please tell the court: Did you take bicarbonate of soda to the room with a glass of water and a spoon to dissolve the medicine”). The premise is transparent enough: in 1933, a young man, an “attractive male specimen,” is both wooing and apparently doing away with some of the most eligible bachelorettes in León, but it’s not really for his allegedly lethal rakishness that he’s in trouble. Hauled to the bench, he affords Ramírez—the winner of last year’s prestigious Carlos Fuentes Prize—an opportunity to satirize Nicaragua’s bourgeois society of the 1930s, which ended in the rise of the Somoza dictatorship. With a few liberties taken, and with a large and diverse cast of characters, Ramírez works with historical fact: there really was a “Casanova killer” of the day, and of course there really was a dictatorship that put an end to the niceties of law—and a dictator who had personal reasons for disliking the defendant, whose story did not end well. Ramírez’s tale, long and diffuse, may be of more historical than literary interest to many readers in exploring a society that was ripe for strongman rule, planting the seeds of the Sandinista revolution half a century later. Still, though not as smoothly told as it might have been in the hands of a Vargas Llosa or García Márquez, a good yarn—and considering the lack of Central American literature available in English, it enriches a slender library.
DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME
Readman, Angela & Other Stories (176 pp.) $15.95 paper | May 12, 2015 978-1-908276-52-0
Basic human truths lie at the heart of every story in this collection, which ranges from the odd to the fantastic. The title story begins with the lines, “I cut my boyfriend in half; it was what we both wanted. I said we could double our time together.” From there, things only get weirder. The narrator is left with identical versions of her boyfriend, essentially two halves of the same man, and for a while, it works. But then, they think, why stop? There is always more to do, and the more bodies around, the easier their lives will be; the narrator cuts her boyfriend in half again, and then again. The more halves she makes, the more unsettling and unexpected the results. Amid the bizarre reality of the story, however, lie surprisingly familiar emotional complications. This is a thread that runs through the collection—the weird and sometimes fantastic eventually reveal issues that very much belong to the real world. In “There’s a Woman Works Down the Chip Shop,” the narrator recounts the summer her mother became Elvis—“she was Elvis, hips a gogo, rocking onto the balls of her feet with only the counter between her and lasses screaming and promising to love her forever.” The totality of the transformation is ambiguous, but it acts as a lens through which a secret side to the mother’s life is 30
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revealed. Readman’s writing style is plain in ways that can sometimes feel tired, and occasionally the stories can be convoluted. As they progress, though, both the author and the stories find solid footing. A strong collection in which elements of the strange are sustained by a surprising subtlety and understanding of human nature.
TROMPE L’OEIL
Reisman, Nancy Tin House (352 pp.) $15.95 paper | May 12, 2015 978-1-941040-03-4 A slow, lyrical exploration of a family’s unspooling after the death of a child. As Reisman’s (The First Desire, 2004) second novel begins, James and Nora Murphy are about to take their three young children on vacation from their home in Massachusetts to Rome. One of them dies in an accident there, and the novel follows the survivors, and two children born later, for decades. In those years, just about every other bad thing that can happen to a family piles on to the original tragedy, accruing in short chapters and poetic language. A landscape: “August thunderstorms...jagged lines to the northeast, and the felt-sense of water spilling over into the dark.” A sex scene: “a place of liquid and muscle and bone. A salt tang, a pale gray drifting....” A dinner: “the kettle almost announcing itself as kettle, the paper shell of the garlic feathery against his skin, tart slices of lemon brilliant on the counter.” One admires Reisman’s skill, but these lapidary descriptions eventually become tiresome. Ornamenting the narrative further are vignettes analyzing various paintings and sculptures which can be seen in Rome—by Caravaggio, Fetti, Bernini, many more. Each moves from description into second-person philosophical inquiry. “If she could escape the harsh light, the judging view, might the shame dissolve into more tender melancholy? Beyond the frame and any view—even yours—she might rest.” If these sections develop the plot, it’s so subtly that one could easily skip them, like the whaling chapters in Moby-Dick. Too many paintings, too many houses, too many emerald green pieces of broccoli: the Murphys’ lives become as wearying to the reader as they are to the Murphys themselves. An almost narcotically depressing novel; its fine writing, artsy digressions, and close psychological study require a special sort of reader.
THE SEVEN SISTERS
BEAUTY’S KINGDOM
Riley, Lucinda Atria (480 pp.) $24.99 | May 5, 2015 978-1-4767-5990-6
Launch of a projected series about six sisters who were adopted from all over the world by a mysterious Swiss tycoon. When word comes of the death of the seafaring adoptive father they fondly called Pa Salt, his six daughters gather at Atlantis, the estate on Lake Geneva where they grew up. The eldest, Maia—each daughter is named for a star in the Seven Sisters cluster, though a seventh sister never arrived—is the only one who hasn’t left the nest: she works from home as a translator. Pa Salt left a will providing all his daughters with the means to pursue their wildly divergent paths but with specific instructions that each investigate her origin. The clues provided by Pa Salt—a moonstone necklace, a set of coordinates, and a triangular stone tile—lead Maia to a crumbling mansion in Río de Janeiro; the sole inhabitants, an old woman named Senhora Carvalho and her maid, Yara, are initially suspicious but relent when they note a family resemblance. A mammoth flashback comprises the bulk of the book. In 1927, Maia’s greatgrandmother Izabela “Bel” Bonifacio, the daughter of a wealthy Italian coffee grower, is betrothed to Gustavo Cabral, scion of one of Rio’s most aristocratic Portuguese families. The Cabrals need the Bonifacio money, and the Bonifacios need the Cabrals’ social cachet. Against a backdrop of the Great Depression and the building of Río’s giant statue of Christ, a tangled tale unspools of Bel’s affair with a Parisian sculptor, of Gustavo’s despair and forgiveness, and of Beatriz, the child of dubious parentage born to them. Maia’s interview with the dying Beatriz reveals additional startling clues about her lineage. The novel churns through a lot of exposition and logistics before racing to a satisfactory payoff. Maia’s frame story seems almost an afterthought, though—the Bonifacio-Cabral saga is clearly the main event. Although the conceit of six sisters searching for their birth parents is certainly intriguing, one hopes the future books will achieve a better balance between past and present.
Roquelaure, A.N. Viking (368 pp.) $27.95 | Apr. 21, 2015 978-0-525-42799-5
Years after Roquelaure (Beauty’s Release, 1999, etc.) first published the Sleeping Beauty trilogy, placing the popular fairy tale within an adult, erotic world, she returns to continue the saga. Imagine what happens after Sleeping Beauty and her prince live happily ever after: they inherit the kingdom of Bellavalten, long known for its pleasure slaves. The new rulers decide to make sexual servitude completely voluntary, and the kingdom becomes a magnet for beautiful, nubile men and women from near and far. Reuniting characters from the original trilogy, the bare-bones plot mainly exists to scaffold voluptuous imagery and graphic scenes of mostly BDSM sex. Roquelaure pulls no punches (or holds back no spankings); anatomy, accouterments, and arousal are all examined in minute detail, though there is a sort of gilded veil draped across even the most violent of sexual punishments. The fairy-tale setting—complete with exhaustive descriptions of decoration and clothing—provides an apt stage, and the magical world clearly marks the erotic action as fantasy. The novel is an equal-opportunity pleaser; men and women get it on with other men and women in pretty much every imaginable combination, and everyone’s pleasure counts, whether dominant or submissive, noble or slave. Roquelaure is the not-so-secret pseudonym for Anne Rice, mistress of the contemporary erotic vampire novel, so fans looking for a little more, um, action will enjoy this new setting. Hard-core? Yes. Overwritten? For sure. Guilty pleasure? Absolutely.
THE POSER
Rubin, Jacob Viking (256 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 17, 2015 978-0-670-01676-1 Rubin’s debut novel tells an imaginative story of American emptiness. Encouraged by his mother, Giovanni Bernini has nursed his gift of imitation since childhood, practicing on friends and teachers, always performing flawless facsimiles of those around him. Finally pushed into the spotlight by a talent agent named Max, Giovanni becomes, pardon the cliché, the toast of the town, and one imagines an old-timey montage from a 1940s movie: newspaper headlines twirling, champagne corks popping, and hammy impresarios introducing the great impressionist upon stage after stage. This old-fashioned, show-biz quality is one of the more appealing aspects of Rubin’s novel—there’s even a love interest named Lucy Starlight (a singer, of course) and a villainous |
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Accidental deaths in war and at home engender terrible lies and guilt in this highly original, engrossing literary thriller. i saw a man
theater owner named Bernard Apache. But Giovanni is the center, and he’s a complicated figure: a man who, in his attempt to perfectly mimic the characteristics of others, ultimately realizes he has no characteristics of his own. Rubin excels at detailing the specifics of impersonation, as when Giovanni breaks down what different gestures mean—“nodding while breathing out your nose (to express amused agreement), raising your eyebrows while suppressing a smile (mild scandal), or shaking your head while breathing in through the mouth (sympathy)”—or when he discusses “the thread,” the aspect of personality that everybody has and on which a great impressionist pulls to begin unraveling the subject (“the thread” is a masterful governing metaphor). As Giovanni drifts from New York into Hollywood, then into politics, then into therapy, the novel starts to feel diffuse, as though Rubin wants to do too much. It doesn’t help that, as an occasional screenwriter, Rubin tends to sketch his scenes sparsely—mostly dialogue and gesture—as though awaiting a director to fill in the rest. A strong debut that remains steadily written, even as it drifts away from its best material.
THIS LIFE
Schoeman, Karel Translated by Silke, Else Archipelago (210 pp.) $18.00 paper | $18.00 e-book May 12, 2015 978-0-914671-15-2 978-0-914671-16-9 e-book In this decades-spanning novel, an Afrikaner woman looks back at her life and the slow evolution of her family. At the time that Schoeman’s novel opens, narrator Sussie is advanced in age. She’s recalling her life, and that of her family; an early reference to “when the first white people toiled up the passes of the Roggeveld Mountains” gives a sense of the geographic and racial politics to come. The novel, originally published in Afrikaans in 1993, has a pace that unwinds slowly and unpredictably. Sussie sometimes contradicts herself, and it gradually becomes clear that this self-imposed mental journey is arduous. She writes of “running off sentences in a way my slow tongue could never have managed before.” Later, her denials sound almost Beckett-ian: “I cannot remember any more; I do not know any more. I do not want to remember any more.” To the extent that Schoeman’s novel has a shape, it’s one that coalesces very slowly, tracing the evolution of the family’s fortunes through several generations, as they move from prominent farmers toward a more urban existence. Over that time, relatives die, both peacefully and violently, and Sussie remains an observer throughout, grappling with her memories and the quiet and gnawing anguish that comes from roads not taken. Late in the book, Sussie declares, “there is nothing more to tell,” yet the novel hasn’t reached its conclusion. Schoeman brings together the threads of mystery, loss, and progress in a haunting final scene. 32
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For all that Schoeman’s novel summons up grand themes, its handling of them is subtle and sometimes mysterious, arriving at its most powerful moments unpredictably and honestly.
I SAW A MAN
Sheers, Owen Talese/Doubleday (304 pp.) $25.95 | Jun. 9, 2015 978-0-385-52907-5 Accidental deaths in war and at home engender terrible lies and guilt in this highly original, engrossing literary thriller. Michael, a writer, and TV journalist Caroline are in their 30s when they meet, marry, and move to Wales in a love story that is a marvel of freshness and compression—and a delayed subplot in this skillful novel. Welshman Sheers (Resistance, 2008, etc.), also a poet and playwright, actually begins with the recently widowed Michael slowly moving through the next-door home of his new friends in London, where he has moved after his wife is accidentally killed in a Pakistan drone attack. Her death, however, is not “the event that changed all of their lives,” an event that is heralded on the first page but then withheld for almost half the book as Michael’s search for a borrowed screwdriver becomes an eerily suspenseful exploration of the house. It is constantly interrupted by sections of flashback and ends with another terrible accident. Tension surges again in police and amateur detective work, or in the psychological agony of living with a terrible truth. With smooth shifts of time and place, the author navigates love and friendship, more than one life lost, more than one knot of lies, more than one family shattered. Parallels abound; almost every character seems to have some kind of double in worlds as disparate as Wall Street, war, and publishing. Some key behavior seems questionable, and Michael’s glacially slow search next door risks becoming tedious. But these are small faults in the face of such a large talent as Sheers, a resourceful writer with a sharp eye for both the big picture and the lovely detail, such as “tiny women lost in monstrous SUVs, their painted nails clutching the steering wheels like the feet of caged birds.”
THE BOOK OF ARON
Shepard, Jim Knopf (272 pp.) $23.95 | May 12, 2015 978-1-101-87431-8
An understated and devastating novel of the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation, as seen through the eyes of a street-wise boy. Shepard has recently earned more renown for his short stories (You Think That’s Bad, 2011, etc.), but here he presents an exhaustively researched, pitch-perfect novel exploring the moral ambiguities of survival through a narrator who’s just 9 years old when the tale begins. He’s a Jewish boy living in the Polish countryside with his family and an odd sense of his place in the world. “It was terrible to have to be the person I was,” he despairs, matter-offactly describing himself as basically friendless, a poor student, and an enigma to his loving mother: “She said that too often my tongue worked but not my head, or my head worked but not my heart.” Yet Aron proves to be engaging company as he describes the selfishness that will help him survive as the world becomes increasingly hellish. The horrors are so incremental that Aron— and the reader—might be compared to the lobster dropped into the pot as the temperature keeps rising past the boiling point. Aron’s perspective is necessarily limited, and he often seems to have little understanding of what’s happening around him or why. His family is pushed into the city, and in the ghetto’s chaos, he’s separated from them. Serving as a moral counterweight to the boy’s instinctive pragmatism is Dr. James Korczak, a real-life Polish Jew whose ambition to “become the Karl Marx of children” inspired him to keep a couple hundred alive through his orphanage, which he supports by begging for funds from the better-off ghetto inhabitants. Aron becomes the doctor’s ward and accomplice, though he has also been serving as an occasional informer for the Gestapo through an intermediary in the Jewish police. He tries to use his position to help save the doctor from being sent to a concentration camp, but the doctor is only interested if he can save all the other children as well. “How do we know if we love enough?” asks the doctor. “How do we learn to love more?” Ordinary people reveal dimensions that are extraordinarily cruel or kind.
BACKLANDS
Shorr, Victoria Norton (288 pp.) $25.95 | May 11, 2015 978-0-393-24602-5 Shorr’s debut novel is a fictionalized rendering of the interior lives of reallife 20th-century Brazilian folk heroes Lampião and Maria Bonita as they meet, fall in love, and travel the countryside with their gang of outlaws.
Although he only began living outside the law in order to track down those responsible for the murder of his father, Lampião quickly becomes legendary for repeatedly escaping the authorities, engendering the loyalty of fellow outlaws and the awe of his countrymen. Sixteen-year-old Maria Bonita grows up hearing of his exploits but has no connection to Lampião when she’s married to an elderly shoemaker by her father in an attempt to find her a steady source of food and housing in a severe drought. For six years, she sweeps the shoemaker’s dirt floor and sleeps chastely in a hammock, more maid than wife. One day, Lampião’s gang comes to the shoemaker’s house with gun belts, sandals, bridles and other accessories that will take several days to mend. Lampião notices Maria’s beauty, and Maria hears Lampião sing a song that says, “You teach me to make lace, and I’ll teach you to make love.” Her decision to leave the shoemaker and join Lampião for some lovemaking lessons is easy; but her decision to leave behind safety for perpetual uncertainty is much harder. Shorr writes with a dreamy, fatalistic lyricism: “Like a map of her life with Lampião, all the crossings and journeys, the battles and hideouts, she could see it all there, in the light of her eyes,” Maria thinks while looking in a mirror. The knowledge of Maria and Lampião’s inevitable end gives the work a contemplative air, in which the irresistible pull of love and the resulting travails and triumphs of living dangerously are elevated to a poetic ideal. More long-form ode than rigorously plotted pageturner, Shorr’s lyrical exploration of these Brazilian folk heroes is as much a study of love as of the shifting emotional terrain of an entire country.
BOO
Smith, Neil Vintage (320 pp.) $14.95 paper | May 19, 2015 978-0-8041-7136-6 This first novel, a fugitive from the teen bookshelves, combines a school shooting and a whimsical afterlife in a touching tale of what friendship and growing up can mean. Oliver Dalrymple, whose pallor earns him the nickname Boo, is a precocious 13-year-old at Helen Keller Junior High when he suddenly dies in front of his locker. He reports this on the first page of what will be his book-length effort to explain the afterlife to his parents. Smith (Bang Crunch: Stories, 2008) has fun presenting the slightly off or odd details of a limbo called Town where those who have “passed” are gathered with others of the same age—13 in Boo’s case—to live in “three-story red-brick dormitories,” work simple jobs, and abide by a few rules before entering another phase after 50 years. It’s Lord of the Flies without pig slaughter and privation: there are regular shipments of food, clothing, and other needs provided by a deity whom Boo annoyingly calls Zig. A plot of sorts develops when Johnny Henzel, another kid from Helen Keller, appears and Boo learns that both of them were victims |
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This sweeping, romantic journey will leave you breathless and a little unsure of where in time you’ve landed. the memory painter
of a student with a gun whom they dub Gunboy. Memories can be fuzzy in Town, so there’s more than one unreliable narrator at work here. A hunt for Gunboy ensues in which self-discovery plays a major role. The novel has an understated message about gun control and bullying and is a fine portrayal of Boo’s emergence from the carapace of fear, distrust, and solitude he grew for himself in his short life. Smith is often amusing in cute and clever ways, but there’s a slyer, more satisfying humor in the twins Tim and Tom Lu, who owe something to Lewis Carroll’s Tweedledum and -dee. The book’s often earnest trip over the rainbow could have used more of that.
THE SUNSHINE CRUST BAKING FACTORY
Wakefield, Stacy Akashic (228 pp.) $15.95 paper | May 5, 2015 978-1-61775-303-9
The lives of young, poor New Yorkers form the center of this novel by Wakefield (Not For Rent, 1994, etc.), no stranger to squatter chic. In 1995, a tattooed young woman named Sid hits America’s largest city with confidence: “I thought getting a room at a squat would be a cinch. These were my people, right?” But ingratiating herself into this world proves more challenging than expected, leading to a series of friendships and relationships, adventures and mishaps, all narrated in a conversational style. Sometimes this style is winning; other times—as when Wakefield writes, “I could hardly believe my luck. Lorenzo from Disguerro! He was so cool! We were going to be a team!”—it feels pedestrian. Wakefield clearly understands the mixture of romance and seediness in hipster poverty; it’s a believable world she creates, especially in long party scenes, which are appropriately chaotic, veering from punk shows to apartments and then across bridges. A particularly strong sequence involves Sid and her friends rescuing some personal belongings from an apartment building the night before the city tears it down. But sometimes the characters—young men and women interested in bands, poetry, and zines—feel interchangeable, and the novel becomes a swirl of meaningless names and action. The biggest problem is Sid herself. What makes her story worthwhile? It’s sometimes difficult to say. There’s a promising chapter when circumstances force her to move to the suburbs with her dad and stepmother; alas, the reader learns nothing from seeing Sid in this new setting, and after a few pages of stiff dialogue, she returns to the city. Will other readers find the squatting life as inherently interesting as the author does? A book that Wakefield’s characters would love but that might leave other readers locked out.
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THE MEMORY PAINTER
Womack, Gwendolyn Picador (336 pp.) $26.00 | $12.99 e-book | Apr. 28, 2015 978-1-250-05303-9 978-1-250-05304-6 e-book Four scientists receive a grant to study memory in the hope of finding a cure for Alzheimer’s and make the discovery of a lifetime—or lifetimes. Womack’s debut novel has many beginnings, but the crux of the story starts in 1982, when a research team led by Michael Backer develops an Alzheimer’s drug called Renovo that produces startling results. Michael, amazed by what his patients can now remember, begins to wonder what the drug might do for a healthy mind—and the story races off at an ever intensifying rate from there, building layer upon layer. Choices made in 1982 have ramifications in the present, and all comes to a head when Bryan Pierce, an artist who paints the extremely lifelike dreams he suffers from, meets Linz Jacobs, a brilliant scientist also troubled by a childhood dream, and is instantly drawn to her. More than that, he remembers her. But the recognition goes far beyond this life. As Bryan and Linz deepen their connection, it becomes clear their dreams are more akin to “remember[ing] an entire life”: they’ve fallen in love in ancient Egypt and ancient Rome; lived as Vikings and musicians and poets. But how does this connect to Renovo? And how can “the human psyche...process such information?” At times, the complex plot, which covers thousands of years of history when all is said and done, seems to rely on coincidence and circumstance to propel itself toward a conclusion; readers will just have to try their best to ignore this. Womack makes a romantic case for the existence of destiny, though, and does a beautiful job—especially in the slower-paced “recall” passages—of building emotional depth that can be achieved only by lovers unbound by time. Dive into this sweeping, romantic journey that will leave you breathless and a little unsure of where in time you’ve landed.
MISLAID
Zink, Nell Ecco/HarperCollins (256 pp.) $26.99 | $15.99 e-book | May 19, 2015 978-0-06-236477-7 978-0-06-236479-1 e-book New novel from the critically acclaimed author of The Wallcreeper (2014). It’s 1965. Peggy Vaillaincourt is a firstyear student at a tiny women’s college in Virginia. The fact that she’s a lesbian doesn’t stop her from falling into an intensely physical affair with Lee Fleming, Stillwater College’s most famous—and most famously gay—faculty member. Their relationship leads to a pregnancy. This pregnancy leads to marriage, and the marriage
leads to another pregnancy. Eventually, Peggy leaves, taking her daughter but not her son. And, as she starts her new life, Peggy decides to pass as black. This is an ambitious premise, one that seems poised for an interrogation of race, sexuality, and social class. What Zink delivers is...not much of anything. The novel reads more like an outline for a story than the story itself. To cite just one example: “She was feeling new feelings, emotional and physical, new pains and longings, and she couldn’t make notes...but she kept careful track of them mentally.” Zink offers no description of the precise nature of these “pains and longings.” She merely mentions that they exist, which, given the context, could probably go without saying. It would be surprising if Peggy’s discovery of sex—with a man, no less—didn’t provoke “new feelings.” This is typical of the novel as a whole. It’s not necessary, of course, for a protagonist to be introspective and insightful, but it’s a problem when the author herself seems not terribly interested in her creation. Zink’s lack of curiosity about her characters and the connections between them seems especially odd because notions of identity—how we see ourselves, how others see us—are such a significant feature of her very baroque plot. A promising premise rendered in dispirited, disappointing prose.
m ys t e r y THE LOST AND THE BLIND
Burke, Declan Severn House (240 pp.) $29.95 | May 1, 2015 978-0-7278-8464-0
A Donegal novelist and freelance journalist is offered a ghostwriting assignment bound to change his life, if it doesn’t end it first. Something smells funny about Shay Govern’s pitch to Tom Noone from the very beginning. Why is an 81-year-old millionaire mining executive willing to act as a go-between for Lady Carol Devereaux, who wants to be credited as the author of a ghostwritten life of her father and forgotten novelist Sebastian Devereaux? What does the assignment have to do with the public announcement that Shay’s company is investing in an Irish gold mine? Or the hush-hush news from private eye Jack Byrne that Shay’s engaged him to find his old friend Gerard Smyth, nee Gerhard Uxhill, who’s been telling Jack wild stories about “some lunatic’s story about Nazi war crimes in Donegal” back in 1940? When Tom gets together with accountant Martin Banks, who married Tom’s ex-girlfriend, to brainstorm, an even more disturbing series of questions emerges about Sebastian’s novel Rendezvous at Thira, which tells much the same horrific story as the one Smyth’s just presented to Tom as gospel truth. No sooner has the case set Tom the question of whether art is following life
or vice-versa than Smyth’s conveniently timed death puts Tom on the spot as the leading suspect in his murder, and he packs up his 6-year-old daughter, Emily, and takes a powder in a way that’s not likely to help his custody battle with his estranged wife one bit. There’s much, much more, and readers with the patience to watch as Burke (Crime Always Pays, 2014, etc.) peels back layer after layer will be rewarded with an unholy Chinese box of a thriller. Make that an Irish-German box.
DEADLY DESIRES AT HONEYCHURCH HALL
Dennison, Hannah Minotaur (304 pp.) $24.99 | $11.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-1-250-00780-3 978-1-4668-7397-1 e-book Deception, theft, and death disrupt the Devonshire village of Little Dipperton. Kat Stanton, the former host of Fakes & Treasures, plans to return to her turf in London once she’s convinced that her mother, Iris, can manage on her own in her new home on the Honeychurch Hall estate. But Iris’ determination to protest a high-speed rail line that will cut through the entire valley makes Kat (Murder at Honeychurch Hall, 2014) decide to stick around, especially given her mother’s talent for getting into trouble. Iris has other talents too. She writes bodice-rippers under the name Krystalle Storm, and just after she wishes aloud for a new beau for Kat, a tall, handsome man appears and introduces himself as Valentine Prince-Avery. The laugh is on Iris, though: the newcomer is a compensation consultant for the new train line. When Kat arrives at a private appointment with him to see what Iris’ options are, she’s dragged into a protest meeting as well. Prince-Avery inexplicably runs away from the meeting and leaves his SUV behind—along with the body of an elderly villager he may have run over in his haste to escape. While Kat’s trying to get to the bottom of his part in the tragedy, she’s also tracking down a missing bundle of £5,000, holding her ex-boyfriend at bay, and living down a scandalous tabloid story while she tries to figure out which people in her life really are what they seem. A haunted chair, a dangerous bog called Coffin Mire, a velveteen mouse, and a ghostly black figure add to the mix, and thrill follows dizzying thrill right up to the last page in this fitfully entertaining cozy. Even if Dennison had pared down the number of frenetic adventures to make a more plausible story, the twee alarm would still squawk. Thank goodness for Kat’s common sense.
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THANKSGIVING ANGELS
Duncan, Alice Five Star (264 pp.) $25.95 | May 6, 2015 978-1-4328-3056-4
A Boston Brahmin–turned–woman of the people helps solve a murder. Mercy Allcutt left Boston to get away from her stiff, wealthy, ultracritical parents. Thanks to an inheritance, she lives comfortably in Los Angeles, where she works as a secretary for private eye Ernie Templeton. Her parents have purchased a mansion in Pasadena and ordered Mercy and her sister, Chloe, who’s married to movie mogul Harvey Mann, to come for Thanksgiving week. Mercy takes her toy poodle Buttercup, sure to annoy her mother, who dislikes dogs. A séance her mother has arranged with Daisy Majesty is attended by Mercy, Chloe, and several neighbors: the Pinkertons, Mrs. Bissel, and movie costumier Harold Kincaid. Just as they exit the séance room with perfect alibis, another guest, Mrs. Winkworth, plunges to her death from the staircase. It quickly becomes obvious that the tiny lady could not have accidentally fallen over the high railing, and everyone agrees that she was too self-centered and nasty to kill herself, so it must be murder. Daisy calls her fiance, Sam Rotondo, a detective on the Pasadena force; Mercy’s parents insist that she call her boss to come solve the crime. Several other people are less lucky in their alibis: Mrs. Winkworth’s unhappy secretary; party-crashing movie star Lola de la Monica; Harvey Mann, who has just told Lola that her contract won’t be renewed; and the Allcutts’ Japanese houseboy, who were all upstairs. Even Mrs. Winkworth’s daughter and grandson loathe her. Daisy gets to hear most of the interviews when she takes notes for Ernie. Fancying herself a detective, she discovers several clues even as she makes herself a target. Duncan’s decision to combine the talents of Daisy (Spirits Revived, 2014, etc.) and Mercy (Fallen Angels, 2011, etc.) doesn’t strengthen the mystery, but the period details are charming.
THE FINAL REVEILLE
Flower, Amanda Midnight Ink/Llewellyn (336 pp.) $14.99 paper | May 8, 2015 978-0-7387-4473-5 A living history museum teeters on the brink of extinction. Kelsey Cambridge, director of Barton Farm, is just about to pull off the biggest coup of her tenure: a long weekend of Civil War re-enactments capped by a ball. Cynthia Cherry’s foundation has long supported the museum. So Kelsey is shocked when Cynthia’s unlikable nephew, Maxwell, takes her aside and informs her that his aunt’s health 36
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is failing, that he’ll be running the foundation, and that Barton Farm will need to look elsewhere for money. During a tour Kelsey gives Cynthia, Maxwell, and his new fiancee, Portia Bitner, Maxwell, who’s highly allergic, is disturbed by bees in the brick-making pit, and Portia comes face to face with Sgt. Wesley Mayes, whom she’d recently dumped for the wealthy Maxwell. When Maxwell is found dead in the brick pit, Kelsey becomes better acquainted with paramedic Chase Wyatt, the handsome nephew of the police chief (and part-time Confederate general), who indulges his uncle by taking part in an occasional re-enactment. Once it’s discovered that Maxwell died from an overdose of insulin, Kelsey, whose father is diabetic, becomes the favored suspect. Chase wants to help prove her innocence, but Kelsey has had trust issues ever since she divorced her cheating husband, her beloved son’s father, who’s just announced he is getting remarried. Juggling all the problems that come with the crowds at the museum and sleuthing at the same time is very stressful, but it’s not as bad as being attacked by a killer who thinks Kelsey is getting too close. In kicking off her Living History Museum series, Flower (Maid of Murder, 2010, etc.) combines a plethora of suspects, a soupçon of history, and a dash of romance.
PATTERN OF BETRAYAL
Fox, Mae & Lillard, Amy Annie’s Publishing (216 pp.) $7.99 paper | May 1, 2015 978-1-57367-481-2
A murder-mystery weekend goes awry. Antiquities bounty hunter Julie Ellis and her friend Hannah have spiced up the Quilt Haus Inn with gourmet meals and a bit of adventure. The retired owner, Millie Rogers, insisted that they add a mystery weekend to their usual quilting specialty. A mixed bag of guests arrives, filling the inn to capacity, but as they’re beginning the festivities, the lights suddenly go out, and one of the guests, Alice Peyton, is found dead. Detective Everett Frost, who’s already had some experience with Julie and her historian friend, Daniel Franklin (Threads of Deceit, 2015), is not entirely surprised. In the course of Googling her guests, Julie discovers that Alice worked for a book appraiser who’d told Julie that the Civil War journal she’d recently discovered wasn’t worth much. When another expert calls asking to see the book and hinting that it may be much more valuable, Julie wonders if the journal could have been the motive for the crime. She wonders too if all the other guests really are who they claim to be, especially a self-effacing young woman and a well-known mystery writer masquerading as a college professor. The journal is stolen, a snake appears in a guest bathroom, and another guest almost dies from a peanut allergy. While the police force the guests to remain in town, Julia does her best to solve the theft and the murder. More suspects, more red herrings, and more historical tidbits than Julie’s debut.
A naïve young Englishman learns much about love, life, and death when he travels to British Columbia in 1868. the devil’s making
THE DEVIL’S MAKING
Haldane, Seán Minotaur (368 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-1-250-06940-5 978-1-4668-7812-9 e-book A naïve young Englishman learns much about love, life, and death when he travels to British Columbia in 1868. Chad Hobbes is an Oxford graduate at odds with his father, a vicar deeply disturbed by his son’s embrace of Darwin’s theories. For his part, Hobbes’ feelings about women and sex are complicated by his love for his mother, who once had an affair with his father’s curate. Unable to continue his education in jurisprudence without family help, he decides to travel. A letter of introduction to Chief Justice Begbie gets him a job as a constable in Victoria, whose local population is a volatile mixture of British, American, Black, Chinese, and Native American. Hobbes’ first case is the murder of Dr. McCrory, a self-proclaimed alienist, who is found dead and mutilated by visiting Tsimshian Indians. The Tsimshian send a runner to tell the authorities, who arrest Wiladzap, a medicine man. Hobbes, called to investigate, doubts Wiladzap is the killer and sets out to learn more about the victim. Meanwhile, the sexually inexperienced Hobbes falls in love and lust with Wiladzap’s tribeswoman Lukswaas. Hobbes’ one friend from Oxford, Frederick Blundell, who’s reduced to working at an ironmonger’s shop in Victoria, introduces Hobbes to a widow with three attractive daughters. He finds Aemilia, the oldest, appealing but continues to meet with Lukswaas in the woods. At length, Hobbes discovers that the dead man’s strange and mostly hidden medical practice involved using magnetism and sexual congress to promote cures, giving a number of people cause to hate him. As Hobbes ponders who’s civilized and who’s savage in a land strange to him, he must plumb his own beliefs to right a potential injustice. Haldane’s first mystery, evocative and elegantly written, is a deeply philosophical look at a relatively unknown historical period.
A GOOD WAY TO GO
Helton, Peter Severn House (240 pp.) $29.95 | May 1, 2015 978-0-7278-8468-8
DI Liam McLusky (Four Below, 2012, etc.) returns in time for serial mayhem. Blasting a suspect’s car with a sawnoff shotgun may be routine for Dirty Harry–style American cops, but the Bristol CID takes a dimmer view of gunplay. So McLusky is all but floored when Superintendent Denkhaus agrees to take him back—after a refresher course on police procedure. Vowing to do better, McLusky takes one step forward
and two back. He tries eating chocolate bars to wean himself off cigarettes. Of course he ends up addicted to both. He accepts that his affair with college lecturer Louise Rennie has run its course—hard to deny, since Louise in now sleeping with his colleague, DI Kat Fairfield—only to see Laura, his previous lover, resurface. At work, he faces two highly disturbing cases. First is a nutter who invades women’s homes—often with the women still in them—to rummage through their lingerie. More sinister is the murder of Barbara Steadman, head of domestic telesales at Western Energy, who is found in a lake, bound, gagged, and anchored to a radiator. McLusky and his bagman, DS James “Jane” Austin, have made scant headway in either case when a second body appears. Stephen Bothwick, a 34-year-old personal assistant, is found flung in a field. Like Ms. Steadman, the latest victim is bound with clothesline, but his injuries are more extensive and more severe. Fearing what a third victim might look like, McLusky baits a trap that just may add his name to the killer’s list. The McLusky series manages to be both hilarious and dead serious, adding yet another string to Helton’s impressive bow.
CAFÉ EUROPA
Ifkovic, Ed Poisoned Pen (278 pp.) $24.95 | $14.95 paper | $9.99 e-book $22.95 Lg. Prt. | May 5, 2015 978-1-4642-0048-9 978-1-4642-0392-3 paper 978-1-4642-0393-0 e-book 978-1-4642-0391-6 Lg. Prt. Edna Ferber’s sixth case takes her back in time to a cosmopolitan city and
a late-night murder. Two years after the Titanic disaster, reporter/author Ferber travels to her father’s homeland of Hungary. In Budapest, she and her suffragist friend Winifred Moss take rooms in the shabby Árpád Hotel, where the electricity is capricious and a portrait of the Emperor Franz Josef covers the dumbwaiter in every room. The heart of the hotel is the Café Europa, a center for gossip, intrigue, and front-page news, at least according to Harold Gibbon, a journalist for the Hearst syndicate. The ferretlike reporter wants to write a book about the decline and fall of the Austrian Empire and sees no better symbol for it than the upcoming marriage of the beautiful but gauche American heiress Cassandra Blaine to an impoverished, second-rate Austrian count. Winifred thinks empty-headed Cassandra laughs too loudly and defeats the cause of women’s rights. But Edna sees that the laughter covers up heartbreak: Cassandra’s in love with Endre Molnár, who’s from an old Hungarian family that isn’t noble enough to tempt Cassandra’s social-climbing mother. And the Blaine fortune, which comes from American-manufactured firearms, is all that interests her cold, unattractive fiance. Then Cassandra confides in Edna that she heard something she didn’t understand, and she’s |
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afraid. Before Edna can decide how to help, Cassandra gets a note from Molnár to meet him in the garden, where she’s stabbed to death. Her Hungarian lover is the top suspect, but Edna and Gibbon think that the murderer could as easily be a fading singer who helped arrange the marriage, a failed poet, or a sinister American businessman who seems to be everywhere watching everyone. Gibbon thinks he has the answer, but it falls to Edna, with the help of two Hungarian artists, to find the missing piece to the puzzle. Apart from one gratingly predictable plot twist, Ifkovic (Final Curtain, 2014, etc.) successfully blends homicide with a loving homage to Budapest on the eve of World War I.
MURDER WITH A TWIST
Kiely, Tracy Midnight Ink/Llewellyn (264 pp.) $14.99 paper | May 8, 2015 978-0-7387-4372-1 Kiely (Murder Most Austen, 2012, etc.) updates her jam with the tale of a couple of LA sophisticates hoping for a quiet holiday in the Big Apple. Nic and Nigel Martini planned to spend their Christmas vacation as any wealthy out-of-towners would: knocking back Grey Goose and watching the Rockettes. But Nigel’s cousin Daphne Beasley knows that before the scion of the Martini clan dragged her off to the West Coast, Nic had been Detective Landis of the NYPD. So with the help of her mom, Nigel’s formidable Aunt Olive, Daphne guilts Nic into searching for Leo, the missing husband of Audrey, Nigel’s other cousin. Leo’s a louse everybody knows Audrey would be better off without. Everyone, that is, except Audrey, who swears she won’t come to the 25th birthday bash Olive is throwing her without him. Equipped only with their rapier-keen wits and a bull mastiff named Skippy who’s big enough to swallow Asta in one gulp, Nic and Nigel set off to interview Frank Little, an enforcer who works for loan shark “Fat Saul” Washington. Leo, one of Fat Saul’s favorite customers, is in a little too deep this time, and even his wife’s trust fund can’t bail him out. And when Leo’s girlfriend, Lizzy Marks, is found dead in her apartment, Nic and Nigel realize that even the sharpest of wits may not be weapon enough to keep Audrey safe. Even teetotalers will enjoy these Martinis. Here’s hoping Kiely will treat readers to another round.
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COLLAR ROBBER
Locke, Hillary Bell Poisoned Pen (304 pp.) $24.95 | $14.95 paper | $9.99 e-book $22.95 Lg. Prt. | May 5, 2015 978-1-4642-0334-3 978-1-4642-0336-7 paper 978-1-4642-0337-4 e-book 978-1-4642-0335-0 Lg. Prt. An insurance loss specialist and a lawyer work opposite sides of a case of potential art fraud, bringing danger into both of their lives. Worlds collide when loss prevention specialist Jay Davidovich has to match wits with Cynthia Jakubek, an attorney with attitude. Both characters from Locke’s previous work (Jail Coach, 2012; But Remember Their Names, 2011), the two are set at odds by a complex plot involving Jay’s role at Transoxana Insurance Company and the overlapping interests of several of Cynthia’s clients. The plot vaguely connects some dark hints about the Catholic Church with the insurance for Eros Rising, a painting that may or may not have spawned a forged copy. Jay’s role is to protect Transoxana from a potential $50 million fraud. Unfortunately, it’s a bit hard to tell just what’s going on beneath all the complexities of Cynthia’s involvement with the case, though she’s definitely in the business of tracking people connected to the painting, if not the work itself. One thing becomes clear, however, when an unknown man tries to steal an attaché case with information about the deal: Jay and Cynthia aren’t the only two in the hunt. They race to find out who knows what before either of them becomes the victim of a violent crime. Even though they’re adversaries, their best bet may be to work together—but at what cost? Locke, who’s too clever for her own good, would have done better to unfold a more straightforward plot than to concentrate on nudging the reader with needlessly highbrow references. Readers enticed by Locke’s title should prepare for some confusion.
NEIGHING WITH FIRE
O’Sullivan, Kathryn Minotaur (272 pp.) $24.99 | $11.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-1-250-06641-1 978-1-4668-7419-0 e-book A fire chief and a sheriff on North Carolina’s Outer Banks combine their sleuthing talents and local knowledge to solve two murders. The course of Fire Chief Colleen McCabe’s budding romance with Sheriff Bill Dorman would run a lot smoother if he weren’t so ambivalent about her sleuthing. The trouble begins this time when Colleen questions obnoxious local builder Denny Custis about several arsons, even though her real interest is a request by Myrtle Crepe, her
The dense web of characters contrasts with the spare style in this sequel to Bone Dust White (2014). Salvalaggio devotes as much attention to personalities as to the events that pull people together and drive them apart.
former teacher, who thinks Denny’s bothering the wild horses who live on the Outer Banks. Just as Colleen’s leaving what’s turned into a nasty meeting, a neighbor’s screams announce the discovery of a body buried under the boardwalk, revealed by a recent storm that’s washed away the sand. The victim is identified as one of Denny’s workers who’d vanished, leaving people to think he’d gone to Mexico to see his sick mother. Before Colleen can question Denny, his body is found in the fire-ravaged beach house being built by his arch rival, Antonio “Pinky” Salvatore, a charmer whose flirting with Colleen doesn’t endear him to the sheriff. Fire investigator Morgan is convinced that this latest arson isn’t linked to a series of fires on the mainland. Since it’s hard to find anyone who liked Denny, Colleen and Bill have their hands full with various suspects—in addition to a feud between several animal protection groups and plans for the wedding of one of Colleen’s firefighters. Fans will be pleased by the way O’Sullivan’s third (Foal Play, 2013, etc.) builds the relationship between characters, but the mystery is uninspiring.
SEE ALSO MURDER
Sweazy, Larry D. Seventh Street/Prometheus (250 pp.) $15.95 paper | $11.99 e-book May 5, 2015 978-1-63388-006-1 978-1-63388-007-8 e-book A North Dakota farm wife–turnedindexer who’s cared for her husband ever since an accident left him unable to take care himself takes on still another job—amateur sleuth—when someone begins cutting her neighbors’ throats. It’s 1964. Ever since a freak accident with his shotgun left Hank Trumaine blind and disabled, he’s been wholly dependent on his wife, Marjorie, who ekes out some income by indexing books for far-off H.P. Howard and Sons, and their friends and neighbors for his care. Things take an abrupt turn for the worse when Dickinson Sheriff Hilo Jenkins tells Marjorie that her neighbors Erik and Lida Knudsen have had their throats slit, leaving their college-age sons, Peter and Jaeger, suddenly orphaned. The day after Jenkins asks Marjorie to help him learn more about a mysterious amulet clutched in Erik Knudsen’s dead hand brings an even bigger shock: the sheriff ’s wife, Ardith Jenkins, disappears from Hank’s side, where she’d been helping Marjorie, and turns up behind the Trumaine barn with her own throat cut. Nor will she be the last casualty. Sweazy (The Devil’s Bones, 2012, etc.) establishes a quiet atmosphere that’s somehow never broken by the horrific series of murders. There’s not much of a small-town feel to the proceedings, though the tale is sensitive to the rhythms of the Trumaine farm. Nor is there any detection to speak of: after carefully researching the amulet’s significance, Marjorie leaps to a conclusion—“It’s just a gut feeling,” she says—and identifies the wrong suspect. A distinctive bonus, however, is that Marjorie, an indexer to the tips of her fingers, includes a draft index to her own first case. That’s got to be unique in the annals of the genre.
BURNT RIVER
Salvalaggio, Karin Minotaur (304 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | May 12, 2015 978-1-250-04619-2 978-1-4668-4633-3 e-book The complex case of a back-alley murder and a coverup raises the low crime rate of a remote Montana town. When John Dalton, a decorated veteran and the son of a wealthy rancher, is shot to death next to a bar in Wilmington Creek, the captain of the state police, Ray Davidson, appoints Detective Macy Greeley as a special investigator. Davidson, the father of Macy’s young son, has yet to keep his promise about leaving his wife. Macy’s single-mother status helps her bond with John’s twin sister, Jessie, a former drug addict with a 6-year-old daughter by a man she doesn’t remember. John’s murder devastates Jessie, whose twin was her bulwark against a bullying father and a mentally unstable mother. Unfortunately, the sole witness to the murder has bad vision, and a text to Jessie’s mother that apologizes for the murder makes the case even murkier, as do a poisoned dog and John’s girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend. Davidson’s visits from Helena to oversee the case complicate Macy’s investigation further, especially when the town sheriff reminds her that sleeping with her boss is a bad idea yet wants to spend a night with her himself. Macy doesn’t know that receding lake waters threaten to reveal criminal evidence that John and two childhood friends wanted to stay hidden. The past catches up with the present in a death by fire and a near miss for Macy in an explosion meant to kill someone else. The disappearance of the leader of a local militia, relationships ranging from ill-advised to obsessive to deadly, and a plot that depends on key players hiding their true selves add to a Gordian knot of a plot that could have been just as good with fewer threads. |
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ANATOMY OF EVIL
Thomas, Will Minotaur (304 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | May 12, 2015 978-1-250-04105-0 978-1-4668-3720-1 e-book In 1888, two private inquiry agents become involved in one of Scotland Yard’s most infamous cases. Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, receive a visit from Robert Anderson, an old friend who’s just been appointed assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard and head of the CID. Because Anderson’s doctor has insisted he go away for a rest, he asks Barker to become a temporary member of Scotland Yard’s team, investigating what will soon be known as the Jack the Ripper murders. Although he’s not popular with the Yard’s upper echelon, Barker agrees to work as Anderson’s assistant, and Llewelyn becomes a special constable. The wealthy Barker (Fatal Enquiry, 2014, etc.) leaves his comfortable home, and the pair move into a room in Whitechapel, the poor London neighborhood where horrific murders and mutilations of prostitutes are spreading fear and tarnishing the reputation of Scotland Yard. Llewelyn already has a friend among the Jewish population that is slowly gentrifying the slum, but anti-Semitism is rife, and the government is desperate to keep a lid on it. Already rumors are spreading that a member of the royal family could be involved in the murders. Barker and Llewelyn slowly learn the location of every street and alley as they investigate those suspects the Yard has already turned up and hunt for new ones. The latest rehash of the Ripper case is packed with historical detail and is interesting enough as a police procedural but contains no surprises.
KILLING FROST
Tierney, Ronald Severn House (192 pp.) $27.95 | May 1, 2015 978-0-7278-8477-0 Tierney celebrates the 25th anniversary of Indianapolis shamus Deets Shanahan’s debut with an autumnal 11th case whose subject is its biggest mystery. There’s really no reason why Deets (Bullet Beach, 2011, etc.) should still be working. He’s had surgery to remove a brain tumor; his left hand and arm are all but useless; and he’s been having more seizures than any self-respecting PI can take. So, he’s not exactly eager to meet with Alexandra Fournier, founder of Second Chance Community and head of a civilian task force for police oversight. But he’s promised her sister, former Indiana Attorney General Jennifer Bailey, so he dutifully waits in his window, and that’s where he’s standing when he sees his aspiring client get shot to death just after she pulls into his 40
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driveway. Now that Ms. Fournier’s never going to get the chance to tell him what she wanted to consult him about, her sister hires him to find out. In a trice Deets is up to his ears in suspects and motives. His late client had evidently just separated Tyrus Investments, whatever that is, from the rest of her estate and given it to her brother, con man Charles Bailey. She’d been actively pursuing the volatile case of Sgt. Leonard Card, the city cop who killed Second Chance kid Justice King. When Deets goes to her home to see what sorts of paperwork she’s left behind, he finds instead the corpse of Nicky Hernandez, King’s close friend. It’s ironic that even though Deets constantly feels his mortality, everyone around him, even his ladylove, Maureen, seems to be in greater danger. Deets winds up the case in routine but satisfying fashion. The real prize here is the tone, which Tierney keeps expertly hovering between compassionate valediction and civic outrage.
science fiction and fantasy MOTHER OF EDEN
Beckett, Chris Broadway (480 pp.) $15.00 paper | $9.99 e-book May 12, 2015 978-0-8041-3870-3 978-0-8041-3871-0 e-book Sequel to Dark Eden (2014), Beckett’s 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award–winning tale of humans stranded on a remote planet who have mostly forgotten their origins. Leaving aside the utterly implausible proposition of a society descended from just two individuals, Beckett’s sunless planet Eden has huge trees pumping hot water up from subterranean volcanic rivers to power its ecology. He doesn’t engage with the question of how this might work but populates Eden with a fine array of weird creatures perfectly adapted to the weak illumination provided by various luminescent organisms. At the end of the last book, the revolutionary Johnfolk left the conservative Davidfolk, crossing the Worldpool ocean to establish an innovative new colony, New Earth. Intelligent and restless Starlight Brooking, who lives on an island in the middle of the ocean and has never been anywhere else, decides to visit Veeklehouse, a town where the original landing vehicle reposes. There, she meets the handsome Greenstone Johnson, son and heir of New Earth’s brutal and ruthless strongman, Headman Firehand. The two fall in love, and Starlight accompanies Greenstone to New Earth. Firehand is dying, while his old rival and now right-hand man Chief Dixon nurses ambitions to take over. Still, Greenstone becomes the new Headman; Starlight wears the legendary
DREAMS OF SHREDS & TATTERS
Gela’s ring and discovers that New Earth’s workers, most of whom are serfs, worship her. Greenstone, seen as a weak leader, won’t survive long against Dixon’s plotting, so she tries to build support for his cause through the power the ring gives her to move the masses. What could possibly go wrong? Again, the narrative unfolds via several first-person accounts, this time more for effect than substance. Apart from the exercise in power politics, Beckett introduces some intriguing new ideas, which, presumably, he will develop in books to come. Readers delighted by the first book will certainly wish to renew their acquaintance.
Downum, Amanda Solaris (352 pp.) $9.99 paper | May 12, 2015 978-1-78108-326-0
In a novel that brings together modern Vancouver and a nightmarish dream world, Downum (The Kingdoms of Dust, 2012, etc.) offers an unsettling adventure that relies on some familiar elements of urban fantasy. Liz Drake, a 25-year-old graduate student, has what she believes are prophetic dreams. When her friend Blake Enderly has a strange accident and falls into a coma, Liz finds herself dreaming about Blake drowning, over and over again, in a dark and progressively more fantastical place. Spurred on by her dreams and guilt over past dreams that seemed to foretell the deaths of friends and family, Liz goes to Vancouver to rescue Blake and is embroiled in an unlikely world of artists who are also magicians, monsters, and
THE VORRH
Catling, B. Vintage (512 pp.) $15.95 paper | May 5, 2015 978-1-101-87378-6 A darkly imaginative story of magical realism set in and around a forest with mystical powers. The Vorrh is a timeless, trackless forest haunted by deformed creatures that might once have been angels, or demons. Humans can’t spend much time in it without losing their memories, possibly even their souls, but one man is setting out to walk across it. Another has been hired to kill him. Meanwhile, a world-weary Frenchman hopes to find some true magic inside the forest’s vastness; a photographer tries to use his science to capture mysteries like time and passion; a slave driver and a surgeon work to harness the forest’s power through dark experiments; and, in the heart of the city that sits uneasily next to the forest, a cyclops raised by Bakelite robots waits to meet the outside world. The book is packed with striking images, and there are many moments of real beauty and power. But the plot wanders, and the image-rich language balances on the edge of being overwritten. The characters are memorable grotesques, but as original as this book is, it still uses Africa, and black women in particular, as metaphorical stand-ins for wildness and sensuality in a way that feels wearyingly familiar. Certainly unusual, sometimes powerful, this book nevertheless doesn’t quite succeed thanks to its murky, roundabout plot and over-rich language.
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angels. The squabbling and hunger for power that drives these factions against each other also connects them to the mysterious city of Carcosa, a place that can only be reached by magic or, for those with a talent for it, by dreams. As Liz attempts to bring Blake back to the waking world, her efforts combine with the others’ ongoing struggles to let dangerous bits of the dream world leak into reality. While the various elements of the world inside the novel are appealing, they often cross the line into predictable urban fantasy cliché and offer very little freshness or surprise to charm the reader. The intersecting storylines sometimes seem to lose track of each other, and any suspense or momentum that might turn the novel’s expected elements into enjoyable entertainment are obscured by a slack plot and overwrought description. A contemporary fantasy with a potentially fascinating setup that gets overwhelmed by prosaic writing and an unambitious use of familiar tropes.
A CROWN FOR COLD SILVER
Marshall, Alex Orbit/Little, Brown (656 pp.) $26.00 | Apr. 14, 2015 978-0-316-27798-3
What begins as a typical revenge story veers into an epic tale of invasion, civil war, and divine incursion in the apparent first of a series by a pseudonymous author. More than 20 years ago, Gen. Cobalt Zosia, her Five Villains, and her peasant army assassinated King Kaldruut of the Crimson Empire and placed Zosia on the throne. When the nobles and the merchants actively sabotaged her efforts to create a more equitable society, she faked her death, married a courtesan, and lived a happy, peaceful life in the rural village of Kypck... until a brash, inexperienced colonel ordered his regiment to slaughter everyone in Kypck except for her. Zosia immediately embarks upon a campaign against the one she’s sure is responsible—the current ruler, Queen Indsorith. But as the Crimson Empire faces conflict between the queen and the power-hungry Church of the Burnished Chain, unrest with a rival empire, and a new outlaw army headed by a rebellious princess posing as Zosia, can the aging bandit really be sure as to the identity of her foe? The famous warrior violently forced out of retirement and thrust into renewed conflict has been done many times and in many genres, and for a good portion of the book, there seems to be little to distinguish this from its predecessors. But it gradually becomes clear that Marshall is playing a wider and more interesting game. Ultimately, Zosia isn’t truly the protagonist (or at least, not the only one) nor the primary catalyst for events, which lends the story greater potential, both here and in future volumes. A promising start.
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WHERE
Reed, Kit Tor (240 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | May 12, 2015 978-0-7653-7982-5 978-1-4668-7049-9 e-book A paranormal mystery about what happens when a whole town goes missing. Davy Ribault and Merrill Poulnot have had a fight, a bad one. Which would be fine if Davy hadn’t left so early in the morning without leaving a note—and if the entire population of Kraven Island hadn’t vanished from their homes while he was gone. Now Davy is left trying to figure out what happened—and whether Rawson Steele, the handsome “big-city stranger” who recently swooped into town, has anything to do with it. Meanwhile, Merrill, her vulnerable brother, Ned, her domineering father, and just about everyone else in their town have been transported to a mysterious, featureless desert town that could be anywhere, or nowhere. Reed’s (Son of Destruction, 2014, etc.) premise has plenty of eerie promise, and her decision to show both sides of this missing persons mystery adds an unsettling new dimension to the tale. But mysteries need clues to keep readers going, and Reed waits far too long to let her characters learn anything about what’s happened. Davy at least tries to figure things out; the missing townspeople spend most of the book just thinking about taking action. There’s real, raw emotion here, centered around the experience of having a loved one go missing, the idea that “the one you lost and never find lives on forever.” The problem is the plot, which leaves its characters with plenty to want but not much to do about it. An intriguing, but ultimately underdeveloped, premise that doesn’t pay off.
POSITIVE
Wellington, David Harper Voyager (416 pp.) $26.99 | $15.99 e-book | Apr. 21, 2015 978-0-06-231537-3 978-0-06-231538-0 e-book A young survivor of the zombie pandemic finds himself thrust outside the comfort and safety of post-apocalyptic Manhattan and into the wastelands of America in this coming-of-age novel from Wellington (The Hydra Protocol, 2014, etc.) Nineteen-year-old Finnegan has been living what’s left of the good life in what’s left of Manhattan, protected from the occasional zombie living in the outer boroughs by polluted rivers and the lack of transportation in post-crisis America. He’s grown up, with no memory of the pandemic, in a survivor’s settlement in Times Square, raised by his parents, fishing in the old subway tunnels and scavenging food from abandoned apartments, listening to the radio for reports from the Army
A seriously innovative attempt to grapple with some of the issues raised by the 21st century’s obsession with social media. the affinities
and the bits of the old government that are still viable. That is, until the day his mother turns into a zombie, a result of the virus’s 20-year gestation period. Finn is now suspected of harboring the virus as well. He’s given a plus-sign tattoo—proof of his positive status—and a ride to a medical camp in Ohio. But when he finds his government-issued driver murdered at the far end of the George Washington Bridge, Finn has to set out on his own. He quickly makes an enemy of a looter named Red Kate and just as quickly makes friends with a survivor named Adare, a big man with a big car and a harem of young girls he uses both for sex and for looting abandoned buildings for swag to trade to the Army for gas and food. Among the harem is Kylie, a teen girl whose deadened personality Finn somehow finds irresistible. Finn’s halfhearted attempts at rabble-rousing to free Kylie and her sisters ends badly for Adare and—when the ragtag group of misfits ends up at the Akron medical camps at last—for the girls as well. All except Kylie, of course. Finn’s principled attempts at an old-fashioned strike are laughable at best. (“My life was less important than what was happening here. Than what could happen, if the cards played out right,” Finn says, nobly.) In Akron he’s reunited with his old Manhattan buddy Ike (the kid who killed Finn’s mother when she zombied out) when Ike helps the positives break out of camp, and Finn and Kylie lead him and the rest into the brave new world they’ll make together—if they can survive Red Kate and the deadly warload named Anubis. Lacking the storytelling virtuosity of World War Z or the emotional impact of The Passage, the novel suffers from a woefully underdeveloped and naïve hero, a love story without an ounce of heat, and a carload of ancient zombie tropes just begging to be put out of their misery.
THE AFFINITIES
Wilson, Robert Charles Tor (320 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | Apr. 21, 2015 978-0-7653-3262-2 978-1-4668-0077-9 e-book Social science fiction from the author of Burning Paradise (2013, etc.). Genius researcher Meir Klein of InterAlia develops reliable methods for sorting clients into social affinity groups. The members of such Affinities enjoy an intuitive, almost telepathic rapport, enabling them to cooperate to better themselves and their Affinities. (Think Facebook “friends” but genuine and extended to all phases of life, with a dab of Isaac Asimov’s psychohistory.) The drawback is that many people qualify for none of the groups, putting them at a huge disadvantage. Graphic design student Adam Fisk’s life is falling apart until he tests into Tau, the largest Affinity. To his astonished gratification he finds that his problems—job, money, family, accommodation—rapidly disappear. In turn he is able to contribute to the needs and desires of his fellow Taus. However, Adam does note a distinct antipathy toward those not of the Affinity, even family members.
Then Klein, who has disassociated himself from monopolistic InterAlia, requests Tau’s help in releasing the codes underpinning the testing system. Adam, with Tau bigwig Damian Levay and girlfriend Amanda Mehta, meets secretly with Klein, who’s dying. Klein’s further research predicts that current geopolitical instabilities (most notably, dangerous disputes between China and India) will worsen—because of the Affinities’ very existence. Not only that, but the groups will soon come to view each other as rivals. Soon, sure enough, Klein is murdered. But who’s responsible? InterAlia? Or Het, Tau’s powerful, hierarchical rival Affinity? And what did Klein mean when he hinted at the possibility of still other and perhaps vastly superior methods of social engagement and cooperation? All this unfolds as a series of slow epiphanies as Adam understands via his experiences the implications of his journey from bewildered disconnection to unequivocal engagement and back. An intriguing and seriously innovative attempt to grapple with some of the issues raised by the 21st century’s obsession with social media.
r om a n c e THE UNLIKELY LADY
Bowman, Valerie St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $7.99 paper | May 5, 2015 978-1-250-04209-5
A bookish young woman tries to convince her mother she’s just not marriage material in this Regency romance inspired by Much Ado About Nothing, but her mother has the last laugh. Bowman (The Accidental Countess, 2014, etc.) offers another installment in her Playful Brides series with the story of confirmed spinster and bluestocking Jane Lowndes. Jane is attempting to convince her mother to stop trying to find her an advantageous match. She dusts off her friend Cassandra’s old ruse, inventing a chaperone named Mrs. Bunbury in order to gain permission to attend a house party without her mother. But while at the house party, the unchaperoned Jane finds herself spending more and more time with Lord Garrett Upton, the cousin of one of her closest friends. Garrett and Jane can barely tolerate each other, but when Jane dresses with unwonted care for a masquerade and they spend time together without knowing each other’s identities, the sparks fly. When their mutual friends realize what’s going on, they take a page from Shakespeare’s book, telling Jane that Garrett is in love with her and telling Garrett that Jane is in love with him. Both of them begin looking for signs of affection in the other, and as a result, affection naturally grows. This comedy of errors is an enjoyable read even though the old trope |
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of extreme annoyance being the flip side of love and sexual attraction is a bit boring. The villain in the piece, a manipulative war widow preying on Garrett’s survivor’s guilt, is also crudely drawn and predictable. But overall, Bowman keeps her prose and characters fresh and interesting; her book is an entertaining renewal of a classic plotline and well worth reading.
THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
Chase, Bethany Ballantine (352 pp.) $15.00 paper | 9.99 e-book | Apr. 7, 2015 978-0-8041-7942-3 978-0-8041-7943-0 e-book A woman is torn between her dependable boyfriend and a former fling in this sparkling debut from Chase Sarina, an architect living in Austin, is completely happy with her boyfriend. Sure, Noah is in Buenos Aires working on a huge corporate merger, but that doesn’t mean their relationship is in danger. That is, until retired Olympic swimmer Eamon Roy shows up. He and Sarina shared one passionate night together years ago, and then Eamon never called her again. Even though Sarina moved on and found a much more stable relationship with Noah, she’s never quite been able to get Eamon out of her mind. When he enlists her help in renovating an old Austin fixer-upper, Sarina is horrified to find out that her feelings for him never really went away. Eamon understands her better than anyone else, but could she ever trust him again? And Noah’s always been the man she could count on, but can she depend on him to make her happy in the future? Thus begins a believable love triangle full of steamy romance and tangled feelings. Sarina’s interactions with Eamon have that classic rom-com spark, but the book also packs serious emotional punches, as Sarina faces a devastating personal tragedy and deals with career struggles. Luckily, the supporting cast of zany side characters keeps the book light and heartwarming. This utterly enjoyable romance will have readers swooning, sobbing, and eagerly anticipating Chase’s next book.
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nonfiction END UNEMPLOYMENT NOW
These titles earned the Kirkus Star:
Batra, Ravi Palgrave Macmillan (256 pp.) $28.00 | May 12, 2015 978-1-137-28007-7
WENT THE DAY WELL? by David Crane.......................................... 49 BEHIND THE MASK by Matthew Dennison.......................................50
Batra (Economics/Southern Methodist Univ.; The New Golden Age: A Revolution against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos, 2009, etc.) offers far-reaching proposals to end joblessness quickly. Taking a broader overview of unemployment than the narrow definition employed to boost claims for the strength of economic recovery, the author offers a macroeconomic look at the causes of joblessness and income inequality. “The ultimate source of joblessness,” he writes, “is monopoly capitalism, which enables industrial giants…to charge exorbitant prices while restraining wages and extracting huge productivity from employees. This creates overproduction, hence layoffs.” Batra disagrees with those who believe that domination by virtual monopoly corporations is part of the proper functioning of a free market. He advocates for the use of the executive branch to adopt and enforce regulations to launch a shift away from corporate domination and toward truly freer markets. Interestingly, he recommends as a model the approach adopted by American occupation authorities in Japan and Germany after World War II. Japanese industries were configured as vertical monopolies and called Zaibatsu, which “earned high profits by keeping wages low.” The U.S. military dissolved them and the owners were removed from their positions. The conglomerates were then broken up into the smaller, more agile and creative pieces, which helped Japan recover from the war with free market methods. The U.S. military did the same to Germany’s war economy, breaking up IG Farben, which provided the gas for many concentration camps. Batra believes “the president has to take charge and deliver the poor and middle class from the damning status quo.” The author argues that the president should break up the corporate monopolies of the finance and retail sectors, along with oil and pharmaceutical industries, by administrative fiat. A similar approach, he argues, could be adopted to reregulate foreign trade. An innovative approach that will appeal to those who question current claims of economic recovery.
FIRST TO FLY by Charles Bracelen Flood............................................52 BIG SCIENCE by Michael Hiltzik.......................................................56 Jonas Salk by Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs........................................56 THE LIFE OF SAUL BELLOW by Zachary Leader..............................58 LORD FEAR by Lucas Mann................................................................63 THE UPRIGHT THINKERS by Leonard Mlodinow............................65 BILLY MARTIN by Bill Pennington......................................................67 EVERY DAY I FIGHT by Stuart Scott with Larry Platt.................... 69 MADNESS IN CIVILIZATION by Andrew Scull.................................70 EVERY DAY I FIGHT
Scott, Stuart with Platt, Larry Blue Rider Press (320 pp.) $26.95 Mar. 10, 2015 978-0-399-17406-3
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haven’t read michael paterniti? get to it MY PARIS DREAM An Education in Style, Slang, and Seduction in the Great City on the Seine
For readers who love creative nonfiction (or literary journalism or whatever designation suits you), if you haven’t read any work by Michael Paterniti, take note. The longtime GQ and New York Times Magazine contributor and author returns on March 3 with a collection of essays, Love and Other Ways of Dying, which Kirkus called, in a starred review, “realworld storytelling of the highest order.” It’s an apt description for a writer who explores the human spirit with humor, empathy, and a heightened awareness of evocative, telling details. Paterniti’s previous book, The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese (2013), was one of my favorite books of the year. Though nominally focused on the author’s obsession with a particularly “sublime” cheese from the Castile region of Spain, the layered narrative covers much more ground than that—it encompasses memoir, travel, social sciences, murder mystery, and beyond. In a starred review, we noted that Paterniti “gracefully unravels how tradition, culture and a sense of place affect the human heart, while simultaneously wrestling with the joys and boundaries of storytelling and journalism.” Love and Other Ways of Dying is packed with plenty of examples of what his fans have come to expect: potently rendered, consistently zesty tales of the author’s adventures in storytelling, including his account of carrying Einstein’s brain across the country, which became his first book, Driving Mr. Albert; a celebration of the wizardly Spanish chef Ferran Adrià; a visit with a Ukrainian “giant” who is more than 8 feet tall; and a moving profile of a Chinese man who has stopped hundreds of people from committing suicide from a bridge over the Yangtze River. The collection is a fitting entrée to a writer who will appeal to all readers of creative nonfiction, especially that of John Jeremiah Sullivan, Tom Bissell, Susan Orlean, Geoff Dyer, and others of their ilk.—E.L.
Betts, Kate Spiegel & Grau (236 pp.) $27.00 | May 12, 2015 978-0-679-64442-2
One woman’s passionate pursuit of fashion in the City of Light. When Time contributing editor Betts (Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style, 2011) went to Paris as a high school graduate in 1982, she dreamed of returning to the city to live. After graduating from Princeton four years later, she fulfilled her dream. She wanted to be a foreign correspondent, writing articles and news stories on the important events happening around her, but she quickly became immersed in Paris’ dynamic world of fashion. In this lighthearted, appealing memoir, Betts takes readers back in time to when she was a young woman, still searching for her identity, a tribe or family of her own choosing, and a place to call home. She intermingles memories of life in her little flat in Paris, her French girlfriends, and long weekends with her lover with the rapid-paced world of writing about French haute couture. After landing a job at Fairchild Publications writing for Women’s Wear Daily and W magazines, Betts’ life escalated into the whirlwind that constitutes the fashion scene in one of the most fashion-conscious cities in the world. She learned to interview well-known designers and models and those whose work had yet to hit the big time, and she includes enjoyable anecdotes about many of these people. However, with impossibly long work hours and a highly demanding boss, the author’s world telescoped inward until every waking moment revolved around the gossip and anticipation of each new fashion season. Suddenly, she discovered she had lost her Paris dream. For those who are interested in the men and women involved in haute couture, Betts’ reminiscences will be a delight. For those who know nothing about fashion, the namedropping may be tiresome, but the book is diverting nonetheless. A colorfully descriptive memoir of life as a writer working the Paris fashion beat.
THE ROAD TO CHARACTER
Brooks, David Random House (320 pp.) $28.00 | Apr. 21, 2015 978-0-8129-9325-7
New York Times columnist Brooks (The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement, 2011, etc.) returns with another volume that walks the thin line between self-help and cultural criticism. Sandwiched between his introduction and conclusion are eight chapters that profile exemplars (Samuel Johnson and
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Michel de Montaigne are textual roommates) whose lives can, in Brooks’ view, show us the light. Given the author’s conservative bent in his column, readers may be surprised to discover that his cast includes some notable leftists, including Frances Perkins, Dorothy Day, and A. Philip Randolph. (Also included are Gens. Eisenhower and Marshall, Augustine, and George Eliot.) Throughout the book, Brooks’ pattern is fairly consistent: he sketches each individual’s life, highlighting struggles won and weaknesses overcome (or not), and extracts lessons for the rest of us. In general, he celebrates hard work, humility, self-effacement, and devotion to a true vocation. Early in his text, he adapts the “Adam I and Adam II” construction from the work of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Adam I being the more external, career-driven human, Adam II the one who “wants to have a serene inner character.” At times, this veers near the Devil Bugs Bunny and Angel Bugs that sit on the cartoon character’s shoulders at critical moments. Brooks liberally seasons the narrative with many allusions to history, philosophy, and literature. Viktor Frankl, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Tillich, William and Henry James, Matthew Arnold, Virginia Woolf—these are but a few who pop up. Although Brooks goes after the selfie generation, he does so in a fairly nuanced way, noting that it was really the World War II Greatest Generation who started the ball rolling. He is careful to emphasize that no one—even those he profiles—is anywhere near flawless. The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.
but most of them gave him the silent treatment, literally never speaking to him, hoping he would feel so isolated that he would quit. Reared in small-town North Carolina, Battle had learned how to deal with racism, and he felt determined to show the police command and the New York City mayor that his performance could match or outpace any other cop’s. Eventually, enough powerful New York City individuals recognized Battle’s abilities, and he was promoted to the rank of supervisor, where he was in charge of many white officers. Browne also explains Battle’s major role in the New York Fire Department’s racial integration, as well as the friendships he developed with prominent figures, including first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and boxing champion Sugar Ray Robinson. An occasionally rambling but especially timely book, given recent tragedies involving certain police forces across the country.
ONE RIGHTEOUS MAN Samuel Battle and the Shattering of the Color Line in New York
Browne, Arthur Beacon (336 pp.) $27.95 | Jun. 30, 2015 978-0-8070-1260-4
A veteran New York City journalist relates the dramatic saga of the first uniformed African-American police officer. New York Daily News editorial page editor Browne (coauthor: I, Koch: A Decidedly Unauthorized Biography of the Mayor of New York City, Edward I. Koch, 1985) never met Samuel Battle (1883-1966), but he decided to write Battle’s biography due to an unusual resource: an unpublished manuscript based on Battle’s conversations with African-American poet Langston Hughes. In 1949, Battle hired Hughes to interview him and produce a manuscript. Hughes needed money, so he assented. However, according to Browne, Hughes’ detachment led to a low-quality work that was rejected by multiple publishers. As a result, Battle died without a wide readership understanding the impressive accomplishment of a courageous cop who broke the racial barrier, at frequent risk to his safety. Battle rightly feared street thugs encountered during his daily work, but mostly, he feared the white police officers, most of whom exhibited overt racism. Some New York cops aimed racist comments at Battle, |
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IS GWYNETH PALTROW WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING? How the Famous Sell Us Elixirs of Health, Beauty & Happiness
In this humorous memoir, former iVillage.com pregnancy and parenting senior producer Caviness, a black woman raising three children while working as a writer, explores the ideas behind modern, more lenient parenting skills, contrasting with those she experienced during her childhood. Her mother and her friends didn’t “suffer the mess we put up with now,” she writes. “Of course, the culture as a whole was far more stringent. No one I knew was unfamiliar with the sting of a belt across their backside. Beyond that, though, we didn’t take out parents’ attention—or their affection—for granted.” When Caviness gave birth to her first child, she downplayed the significance of her mother’s parenting methods and followed the advice she had heard or read about so that her daughter would grow up to be a well-rounded adult. When her second child arrived, she followed the same regime but discovered she was becoming increasingly frazzled in the process. Ultimately, her third child pushed Caviness over the edge and forced her to re-examine how her mother had raised her to become the responsible person she is today. Perhaps her mother’s parenting techniques weren’t as far off base as she had originally thought. Employing intimate details of giving birth, as well as memorable encounters with her mother, both as a child and as an adult, Caviness uses her wit and sharp attitudes on being a black working mother to bring a new conversation to an old discussion: What’s the best way to raise a child? This is one woman’s introspective analysis of that age-old conundrum. Waggish and occasionally wise, the strong-minded author delivers a potent dose of motherly advice and experience.
Caulfield, Timothy Beacon (256 pp.) $24.95 | May 5, 2015 978-0-8070-5748-3
Caulfield (Health Law and Policy/ Univ. of Alberta; The Cure for Everything: Untangling Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness, and Happiness, 2012) dispels the myths of celebrity-endorsed products and the cult of fame that they sell. More than ever, we view celebrities as paragons of success and emulate celebrity lifestyles in increasingly extreme ways—e.g., Kim Kardashian–like butt implants. With such power and influence, it’s no surprise that celebrities take advantage of their status to endorse products that benefit their brands. The so-called authority of celebrities hawking wares is especially questionable when these products sell a “healthy” lifestyle or guarantee a more youthful complexion, for example. Caulfield sees these products as dangerous and shallow money-grabs rather than legitimate health plans. However, despite his willingness to burst the celebrity bubble, the author admits that he is not out to attack celebrities or celebrity. In fact, he admits his love of celebrity; as part of his excursion, he auditioned for American Idol to get into the minds of the fame-obsessed. Beginning with Gwyneth Paltrow’s famous Clean Cleanse, Caulfield systematically dismantles the notion that celebrity products have any scientific foundation to justify their claims, and he even counters that many of them actually have the opposite effect. Caulfield goes beyond simply calling out celebrities as modern-day snake oil salesmen. He delves deeper into the social phenomenon of fame itself, asking why celebrities have this power in the first place and why most people are willing to heed their advice even when they are not surprised to learn that celeb products boast phony claims. This disconnect, writes the author, is even more perplexing when he considers how rare fame is and how devastating it can be. An intelligent mix of research and pop culture, Caulfield’s analysis of celebrity trends gets to the heart of America’s obsession with the fame monster.
WATERLOO The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles Cornwell, Bernard Harper/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $35.00 | May 5, 2015 978-0-06-231205-1
In his first nonfiction book, acclaimed historical novelist Cornwell (The Empty Throne, 2015, etc.) employs his storytelling skills to bring military history out of the textbook. The author writes of the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s loss (as opposed to the Duke of Wellington’s victory) in a readable account that only occasionally gets bogged down in tactics and the movements of brigades. Early on, he points out that we must understand the difference between infantry arrayed in either lines or columns since it made a considerable difference in the outcome of the battles fought on those June days in 1815. The Dutch and Germans combined with the British under Wellington; this was not a particularly pleasant circumstance, as Wellington had little faith in their ability or loyalty. He placed them carefully with his most effective fighters and did his best to keep Prince William of the Netherlands, or Slender Billy, from creating the disastrous confusion for which he was known.
CHILD, PLEASE How Mama’s Old-School Lessons Helped Me Check Myself Before I Wrecked Myself
Caviness, Ylonda Gault Tarcher/Penguin (320 pp.) $25.95 | May 5, 2015 978-0-399-16996-0
How one woman returned to more old-fashioned parenting skills to raise her children. 48
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A historical tour de force—a fascinating panorama of Great Britain during the summer of Waterloo. went the day well?
A historical tour de force—a fascinating panorama of Great Britain during the summer of Waterloo.
Two preliminary battles, at Ligny and Quatre-Bras, could have given France success, but miscommunication and outright dithering on the part of Napoleon’s commander Michel Ney enabled the opposing forces to fight on. Throughout the battle, there were many instances of generals making their own decisions that affected the outcome—perhaps none more than the Prussian Prince Blücher, who retreated to the north rather than west to maintain his ability to relieve Wellington, thus confounding Napoleon’s attempt to split the armies. The French were weakened in an attempt to take Wellington’s right flank at Hougoumont, where just over 2,000 Dutch, German, and English soldiers held off 9,000 French infantry. Despite a little confusion regarding the movements of divisions and brigades, this is a fascinating, detailed, and generously illustrated description of the battle that changed the fate of 19th-century Europe. (200 color illustrations, maps, photos)
UNIVERSAL MAN The Lives of John Maynard Keynes Davenport-Hines, Richard Basic (416 pp.) $28.99 | May 12, 2015 978-0-465-06067-2
An unconventional biography of the brilliant economist who shaped British public life in the 20th century. Historian Davenport-Hines (An English Affair: Sex, Class and Power in the Age of Profumo, 2013, etc.) examines the many ways in which John Maynard Keynes (18831946) left his mark on the age that bears his name. In the 35 years after World War II, Keynes’ economic ideas dominated the policies of Western governments. Yet his celebrated economic theories are little discussed here. Instead, the author traces the many other ways of viewing Keynes’ unusually rich life “as an exemplary figure, as a youthful prodigy, as a powerful government official, as an influential public man, as a private sensualist, as a devotee of the arts and as an international statesman.” A product of Eton and King’s College, Keynes, in his varied undertakings (civil servant, businessman, writer, book collector, and member of the “gifted little clan” called the Bloomsbury Set), “conjoined different networks of expertise, influence and ambitions.” Eschewing chronology, Davenport-Hines focuses on the values and forces that animated Keynes in his engagements with so many spheres of life. With his great curiosity and imagination, Keynes sought always to convince people into “right thinking,” whether in dining clubs and discussion groups or in encounters with leading figures in politics, banking, and the arts. A homely man (with a “queer swollen eel look,” said Virginia Woolf), he was nonetheless highly persuasive, with a beguiling voice that seduced listeners (including many lovers) and a tireless devotion to the belief that only human stupidity and pessimism stood in the way of progress. In all things, he was guided by a concern for how people could lead virtuous and productive lives. The author offers vivid glimpses of Keynes’ interactions with such contemporaries as Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf, and Vanessa Bell. An admiring and nuanced book filled with insights into this scholar and man of action in all his complexity.
WENT THE DAY WELL? Witnessing Waterloo
Crane, David Knopf (384 pp.) $30.00 | Apr. 29, 2015 978-0-307-59492-1
As the armies gathered in June 1815, few doubted that a world-shaking event was in the works. Britons poured into Belgium to witness the excitement; those remaining behind agonized, debated, and quarreled; others went about their daily lives. Most important, they wrote letters, kept journals, and tangled with the law. British historian Crane (Empires of the Dead: How One Man’s Vision Led to the Creation of WWI’s War Graves, 2013) mines this bonanza of material for a delightful chronicle of how Britons, famous and obscure, in and out of the Duke of Wellington’s army, experienced the iconic battle. Crane astutely reminds us that not everyone yearned for a British victory. Britons were free, but they were governed by an aristocratic oligarchy mired in corruption and supported by a minuscule electorate. Reformers, energized by the French Revolution but devastated by 20 years of war and vicious attacks on their patriotism, made their voices heard. Crane creates a vivid portrait of perhaps the most notorious Napoleon advocate, the driven, misanthropic writer William Hazlitt, but he was only one of a coterie of famous names (Lamb, Byron, Hunt, Godwin) who spoke for a voluble and not insignificant number of their countrymen. Readers will marvel at the richly expressed feelings of servants, soldiers, prisoners, wives, and lovers, rich and poor, not excepting many who, preoccupied with their own problems, ignored the great battle. “Beyond London,” writes the author, “spreading out in concentric rings across the blackness of the country and the farms and villages and towns of Britain, thirteen million souls lived out their own separate lives in this strange phoney pause in the nation’s life....The day of Waterloo had begun.” |
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A lively, vigorously written biography of a singular character that beckons readers urgently back to Sackville-West’s writing. behind the mask
THE HAPPINESS INDUSTRY How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being
BEHIND THE MASK The Life of Vita Sackville-West
Davies, William Verso (320 pp.) $26.95 | May 12, 2015 978-1-78168-845-8
Dennison, Matthew St. Martin’s (384 pp.) $29.99 | Jun. 9, 2015 978-1-250-03394-9
Durable reportage on governmental and commercial attempts to influence and propagate national well-being. British sociologist and political economist Davies (The Limits of Neoliberalism: Authority, Sovereignty and the Logic of Competition, 2014) scrutinizes an increasingly desirous yet elusive commodity: human happiness. He asserts that proof of well-being lies in scientifically measured studies with verifiable data, not with advertisers and pharmaceutical companies “watching, incentivizing, prodding, optimizing and pre-empting us psychologically.” The author profiles 18th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham and discusses how his doctrine of utilitarianism might also be applied to modern theories of individual happiness. Davies believes a race has begun to discover and ultimately develop what motivates human psychology in order to apply methods of achieving contentment across a broad spectrum of societies. Spurred on by capitalism and strategically manipulated technology, influential corporate tastemakers have long sought to tap into (and capitalize on) the secrets of personal happiness by way of behavioral economics, advertising, and the often ethically dicey involuntary monitoring and calibration of human satisfaction. A section on how happiness quotients are actually measured—whether through a smile, a pulse rate, or a particularly impulsive purchase—makes for contemplative reading. Through neuroscientific research studies addressing everything from workplace satisfaction to the depression epidemic, Davies shares a wealth of relevant information that points to the vast marketing potential of commercializing the concept and achievement of universal human bliss and the “limitless pursuit of self-optimization.” Also significant is whether personal contentment can be bought, sold, managed, and manipulated via the global economic marketplace. If it hasn’t happened already, Davies writes, governmental and corporate entities are hard at work converting the concept of happiness into a “measurable, visible, improvable entity.” Skillfully written intellectual entertainment—prime fodder for postmodern psychologists and New-Age thinkers alike.
A passionately delineated portrait of the savage writer, fiercely private lover of women, and eccentric denizen of Sissinghurst. There are many moments in this breathless biography of Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) when British journalist and biographer Dennison (The Twelve Caesars: The Dramatic Lives of the Emperors of Rome, 2013, etc.) is so caught up in his narrative that he neglects to fill in the blanks for readers unfamiliar with his enigmatic subject, the British novelist and poet known mostly for her ardor for Virginia Woolf and as a gardener at Sissinghurst later in life. Nonetheless, on the whole, the author ably illuminates the life of his fiery subject. She was a creature of the ancient aristocratic order who pined forever for the loss of the Sackville ancestral home, Knole House, in Kent, which her profligate mother, Victoria, nearly lost in 1912 due to its massive financial drain but which essentially passed by inheritance laws to the nearest male heir. Growing up in Knole shaped Vita’s extravagant, secretive persona, and Dennison constantly returns to her duality of nature, male and female, that she would try to resolve in her writing. An only child to her overbearing mother, she adored playing dramatic roles, cross-dressing, and wearing masks. The two great loves of her life allowed her to indulge her passion for concealment: her homosexual diplomat husband, Harold Nicholson, and the relentless lover of her mid-20s, Violet Keppel, who christened Vita “Mitya” or “Julian” as they danced scandalously across Europe. Dennison downplays Vita’s relationship with Woolf as a smoldering and significant writerly friendship. His narrative is utterly absorbing in its attention to the minutiae of property, inheritance, houses, clothing, and letters. All the while, the author extracts from Vita’s writing rich autobiographical detail. A lively, vigorously written biography of a singular character that beckons readers urgently back to SackvilleWest’s writing. (8-page b/w photo insert)
LESSER BEASTS A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig Essig, Mark Basic (288 pp.) $27.99 | May 5, 2015 978-0-465-05274-5
An enlightening culinary history of an “uncanny beast.” Essig (Edison and the Electric Chair, 2004, etc.) begins his sprightly tale 65 million years ago, when a giant meteor crashed into the Earth. The 50
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climate changed, dinosaurs died, and mammals began to diversify. Ten million years later, the first hoofed animals appeared, pigs among them. Impressively adaptable, they could search out food with a sensitive snout, and they ate everything, ensuring survival in all manner of terrain and climates. Unfortunately, everything included scavenged corpses and human excrement, which led to their being shunned as impure by certain groups: upperclass Egyptians in the fifth century B.C., for example, and Jews. Ancient Greeks and Romans, though, revered pigs, sacrificing them to their gods and feasting on them. Easily preserved, pig meat became a staple of medieval kitchens; lard gave its name to a household’s pantry, or larder. Essig makes a convincing case for the importance of the pig in European economies and forays into the New World. Because pigs breed so easily, have a short gestation period, and can successfully forage for food, explorers’ ships contained many sows and boars, which could be deposited on land and left to themselves. From a pair or two, scores of pigs were ready as food for future settlers. By the 19th century, Midwestern American farmers discovered a perfect match between the “breathtaking amount of corn” they grew and the pigs they
wanted to fatten. Wheat was raised for humans; corn was fed to cattle and hogs. The author engagingly traces the change in meat production as family farms transformed into giant factories, where pigs are packed into crate-sized pens, antibiotics have become routine, and waste from pig farms pollutes water and land. Although the pork industry “claims that confinement barns are perfect for the animals,” environmentalists, animal rights groups, and, increasingly, concerned consumers press for change. A lively, informative farm-to-table feast. (27 b/w images)
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Top-notch military history. first to fly
Thomas Mapfumo and the Music that Made Zimbabwe
Flood (Grant’s Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant’s Heroic Last Year, 2011, etc.) produced a string of memorable histories before his death in 2014. This one centers on a cast of characters as wild as any in fiction. The Lafayette Escadrille was made up of American volunteers, pioneering fighter pilots at a time when flight itself was still in its infancy. The squadron had a core of rich Ivy Leaguers, but its members came from all backgrounds, including an Alaskan dog trainer and a couple of cowboys. Few of them had ever flown planes. They drank heavily, enjoyed the sexual favors of numerous willing Frenchwomen, had a pair of lions as mascots, and wore a variety of nonregulation uniforms. They flew combat missions in flimsy wooden planes against better-trained and -equipped German pilots. Miraculously, some of them survived their first dogfights and went on to become aces. From the founding of the squadron to final armistice, 27 of the 38 men who flew missions survived. Flood tells their stories, based on their own accounts, with more emphasis on the personalities than on tactics and strategy. One of the most colorful was Bert Hall, a gambler, womanizer, and part-time spy whose memoirs provided plentiful—if sometimes self-aggrandizing— material. A more modest flier, Edmund Genet, was a deserter from the U.S. Navy who kept a detailed diary before dying on a mission in 1917. Flood also draws on German sources, giving us glimpses of the war as seen by the likes of “Red Baron” von Richthofen and Hermann Goering. While the author doesn’t always provide dates—perhaps that’s too much to ask with such an undisciplined unit as his subject—his portrayal of the fliers and the crazy life-and-death world they lived in is priceless. Top-notch military history.
Eyre, Banning Duke Univ. (368 pp.) $34.95 | May 22, 2015 978-0-8223-5908-1
A deep, detailed biography of a complex African musician and the homeland that has shaped his artistry. There’s no questioning the ambition of this biography of Thomas Mapfumo (b. 1945), a musical figure who might well be to Zimbabwe what Bob Marley was to Jamaica. Eyre is certainly well-qualified, as a guitarist who has long known his subject (and performed with him) and as a journalist, radio producer (PRI’s Afropop Worldwide) and musicologist (Griot Time: An American Guitarist in Mali, 2000). The author asserts from the outset that “in the end, there is no way to understand Thomas Mapfumo without understanding Zimbabwe, and no better way to know Zimbabwe than through an examination of the life and work of Thomas Mapfumo.” Yet both the complex, contradictory artist and his country, the former Rhodesia, defy easy understanding. His musical accomplishment has been controversial from the start, as he appropriated spiritual music and brought it into the secular marketplace, updated it with electric guitars and added nonnative elements such as reggae and rumba, and had contentious business dealings with practically every musician and most managers with whom he has worked. Mapfumo’s “music has never riveted the larger world the way Bob Marley’s reggae or Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat have. Many of those closest to Thomas and his story are left with the nagging sense that he could have, should have, counted more.” Eyre is plainly one of them, and this biography is the result, though it gives ample space to those questioning Mapfumo’s originality, politics, business dealings, and decision to leave Zimbabwe for Oregon almost two decades ago, with even the author acknowledging, “Thomas’s career was certainly compromised, if not ruined, by his move to America.” An essential book for those who love the artist’s music and want to know more, but it won’t likely win converts as an introduction.
TEACHING PLATO IN PALESTINE Philosophy in a Divided World
Fraenkel, Carlos Princeton Univ. (232 pp.) $27.95 | Jun. 1, 2015 978-0-691-15103-8
A valiant attempt to provoke philosophical questions about identity and purpose in unlikely hotspots. Over the course of a few years, Fraenkel (Philosophy and Religion/McGill Univ.; Philosophical Religions from Plato to Spinoza: Reason, Religion, and Autonomy, 2013, etc.) took philosophical conundrums outside the confines of academia to test whether questions about morality and politics taught by Plato and Maimonides could be relevant to people in enduring conflict—e.g., Palestinians and Israelis, orthodox practitioners both Muslim and Jewish, Afro-Brazilian youth, and indigenous Mohawk. Between 2006 and 2011, Fraenkel, who is Jewish and speaks Arabic, held workshops among these groups, and he chronicles in abbreviated essays how the discussions proliferated, with himself constantly taking on the role of Socratic interlocutor. At his seminar at Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem, he discussed how the “examined life” advocated
FIRST TO FLY The Story of the Lafayette Escadrille, the American Heroes Who Flew for France in World War I
Flood, Charles Bracelen Atlantic Monthly (288 pp.) $25.00 | Jun. 2, 2015 978-0-8021-2365-7
The word “legendary” is overused in military history, but it is almost an understatement for the Lafayette Escadrille. 52
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by Socrates in Plato’s Apology can apply to notions of justice authorized by Islam or Judaism. In Makassar, Indonesia, the author stimulated conversation about democracy—a rather new concept in that once-authoritarian, Muslim-dominated country—and whether it is just a Western import. Among a group of Hasidic Jews in New York City who were questioning their childhood faith, Fraenkel read 11th-century Muslim thinker Al-Ghazali’s Deliverance from Error, in which the author describes his own loss of faith. Reading these texts, such as Maimonides’ The Guide for the Perplexed, is prohibited in their community, and thus offers the students the thrill of leading a “double life.” In Brazil, where teaching philosophy in high school is now mandatory, Fraenkel plunged into received notions of justice and equality in a deeply unequal nation. Among the Mohawk of the Akwesasne reserve, near Montreal, the author tried to endow his students with tools for discussing how to reconcile tradition and modernity and what it means to “live well.” Above all, the author endorses the questioning of “bonds of authority” and “inherited beliefs.” Fresh, iconoclastic, stimulating debates.
difference. It is also a reminder that he is “part of the grand experiment in democracy” that is America. Provocative and mostly thought-provoking essays.
CITY BY CITY Dispatches from the American Metropolis
Gessen, Keith & Squibb, Stephen—Eds. Faber & Faber/n +1 Foundation/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (496 pp.) $17.00 paper | May 12, 2015 978-0-86547-831-2
In these 37 singular essays, some reading like research papers, others as personal as memoirs, editor Gessen (All the Sad Young Literary Men, 2008, etc.) and Harvard graduate student Squibb find in certain American cities the crucible of enormous change since the financial meltdown of 2008. In “Lessons of the Arkansas,” Ben Merriman wisely considers the hugely troubling ramifications of diverting rivers such as the mighty Arkansas for the irrigation of arid land. Dan Albert’s “The Highway and the City” finds the interstate structure both a product of wrongheaded urban renewal and a “transcendent” step in technological progress. In “The Office and the City,” Nikil Saval, author of Cubed: The Secret History of the Workplace (2014), looks at how the once-ubiquitous office towers of New York, San Francisco, and other metropolises face conversion rather than obsolescence. Two of the chapters are interviews: historian Gar Alperovitz explores how Cleveland has become a model for worker-owned, multistakeholder institutions that anchor the community and distribute wealth more equally. City Life/Vida Urbana organizer and activist Steve Meacham shares his methods of helping advocate for tenants’ rights in Boston against foreclosures. Some of the more amusing essays are highly quirky reminiscences of living or growing up in certain cities—e.g., Annie Wyman’s ferocious “Dallas and the Park Cities,” which chronicles her move to this “dark heart of Republican power” as a child and feeling appalled by its racist tones; and Ryann Liebenthal’s “The Making of Local Boise,” which finds a charm in the “little anthills of aesthetic and cultural kinship” popping up in his hometown. Other contributors include Michelle Tea, Jenny Hendrix, and James Pogue. From Whittier, Alaska, to Williston, North Dakota, to Palm Coast, Florida, these varied essays offer compelling snapshots of how Americans live, move, and work.
MY CHINESE-AMERICA
Gee, Allen Santa Fe Writers Project (188 pp.) $15.95 paper | May 1, 2015 978-1-939650-30-6 A Chinese-American professor and writer reflects on the social and cultural ramifications of his ethnic identity. In this collection of essays, Gee (English/Georgia Coll.) engagingly probes his thoughts about living as a man of Chinese origin in the United States. Feeling different from other Americans was a constant of his life that began in childhood. Representations of Asian people he saw on TV and in the world “failed to correspond with who [he] was.” Forced to deal with Chinese stereotypes— such as math geek and music prodigy—Gee had to defend his right “to belong,” even among other nonwhites. But being considered a “model minority” didn’t always equate to better treatment. He tells the story of how a state trooper assumed criminal intent on his part because of what he looked like. At the same time, his Chinese background was also a source of fascination and even desire. Gee recalls how a young white woman asked him to a dinner and then later invited him to sleep with her. “She wasn’t interested in me as much as the idea of me,” he writes, “...based on the hue of my skin and shape of my eyes.” Cultivating visibility and nonviolent means of retaliation against all forms of anti-Asian racism is crucial. In one essay, Gee celebrates the efforts of a young man who, in 2011, combated a white student’s video rant against Asian students in the UCLA library. Commenting on the fact that he is part of a tiny Asian minority in his small town of Milledgeville, Georgia, where he lives and works, Gee remarks that his presence—like that of Chinese-American NBA star Jeremy Lin, whom he discusses elsewhere—is not just a defiant marker of |
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THE LOST GIRLS The True Story of the Cleveland Abductions and the Incredible Rescue of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus
but no less important female civil rights activist. Rosemarie Harding (1930-2004) never achieved the iconic status of Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr. Yet she made many significant contributions to the civil rights movement, especially in the work she did to connect spirituality to the larger project of social justice. In this memoir, Harding tells the story of her life through a series of personal essays, fictional stories, and poems, which her daughter, Rachel, interweaves with her own memories and observations. The child of Georgia-born African-Americans who had migrated north to escape racism and violence, Harding grew up in the relative safety of Chicago. But when she was in her early 20s, she returned to the South with her husband as part of a church-based mission to use reconciliation and peacemaking as tools in the struggle for civil rights. Christianity was only one of the spiritual traditions upon which Harding drew for her work. Over time, she incorporated insights from others—including Tibetan Buddhism and Afro-Brazilian Candomblé—to help the African-American community transcend generations of “collective trauma.” In the words of her daughter, Harding’s ultimate goal was to teach people how to transform their pain and anger into “something useful...a song, a dance [or] some poetry for those following behind.” Her own life eventually became a study in finding spiritual balance when she was diagnosed with an especially pernicious form of diabetes. Fighting for her dignity, Harding would come to a deeply visceral understanding that the journey to wholeness began from the “ ‘remnant’ quality of spirit” within the self that allowed for hope to shine through, even in the most desperate of circumstances. A wise and humane memoir.
Glatt, John St. Martin’s (352 pp.) $26.99 | Apr. 14, 2015 978-1-250-03636-0
Journalist and seasoned true-crime writer Glatt (The Prince of Paradise: The True Story of a Hotel Heir, His Seductive Wife, and a Ruthless Murder, 2013, etc.) recounts the highly publicized story of three women kidnapped and held in captivity for a decade. In May 2013, three women and one young child were rescued from captivity in a boarded and locked house in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. Of the three women, none had been held for less than nine years, and one had been there for more than a decade. The child was born in captivity and was the only one of the four to have seen the world outside the house and yard during their years of imprisonment. The women were victims of serial kidnapper and sexual predator Ariel Castro. Glatt has solid storytelling chops, and the result is a gripping, read-it-all-in-one-sitting kind of book. With such a well-covered crime, that kind of narrative push is all the more impressive since the ending certainly doesn’t come as a surprise. Savvy true-crime readers may wonder how Glatt came by his information, which seems to be mostly compiled from other public sources such as newspapers, TV specials, and public statements by the freed women. That’s not to say it isn’t a worthy read. In fact, Glatt’s book is a page-turning, detailed overview of this remarkable story, and the author provides background on Castro and chronicles a number of alleged calls to Cleveland police by Castro’s neighbors, who noticed strange behavior. Still, all three women have written about their experiences, so those looking for more depth from the victims’ perspectives should seek out their accounts. For a wide-angle view of the horrific string of crimes start to finish, Glatt constructs an absorbing winner. (8-page b/w photo insert)
CAROLINA ISRAELITE How Harry Golden Made Us Care About Jews, the South, and Civil Rights
Hartnett, Kimberly Marlowe Univ. of North Carolina (376 pp.) $35.00 | May 11, 2015 978-1-4696-2103-6
A warts-and-all portrait of Harry Golden (1903-1981), founder of the North Carolina newspaper Carolina Israelite. Hartnett pulls no punches in describing the life and career of the Jewish American humorist perhaps best known for his bestselling first book, Only in America (1958). She makes clear that he was a charming man who tricked people out of money and reneged on promises. Born Hershel Goldhirsch in present-day Ukraine, he told various versions of when he was born and when he arrived in New York City’s Lower East Side. Hartnett notes his discrepancies but does not attempt to sort them out. She passes briefly over his short career on Wall Street and his prison sentence for mail fraud, focusing instead on his life in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he settled during World War II and where he founded the Carolina Israelite. Liberal quotes give the flavor of Golden’s style, his warm humor about the Jewish experience in America, his deep sympathy
REMNANTS A Memoir of Spirit, Activism, and Mothering Harding, Rosemarie Freeney with Harding, Rachel Elizabeth Duke Univ. (312 pp.) $24.95 | May 15, 2015 978-0-8223-5879-4
A collaborative memoir in two voices that celebrates the life, creativity, and accomplishments of a little-discussed 54
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A brief but poetic rendering of a fraught and wild pilgrimage.
for the underdog, and especially his views on race relations. Hartnett shows us his friendship with Carl Sandburg, who wrote the foreword for his first book, his work for Adlai Stevenson, his relations with the Kennedy White House, and the disdain he received from Jewish intellectuals, who found him sentimental, even corny. The popularity he enjoyed in the 1950s and ’60s waned in the ’70s, as a younger generation disagreed with his views on the Vietnam War and were not charmed by his romanticized Lower East Side stories. Much more than the biography of one man, however, this is a well-told account of the civil rights movement, describing significant milestones in its history, the splits among its leaders, and the various forms that activism took. A solid piece of research that reveals both the strengths and weaknesses of a now-forgotten man who loved a good story and could put a comic spin on important social issues. (20 photos)
THE MAN WHO STALKED EINSTEIN How Nazi Scientist Philipp Lenard Changed the Course of History
Hillman, Bruce J. Lyons Press (224 pp.) $26.95 | Apr. 14, 2015 978-1-4930-1001-1
History of the clash between “German” and “Jewish” physics in the early decades of the last century. That clash explains why Albert Einstein ended up at Princeton and why his self-appointed nemesis, Philipp Lenard, ended his years stripped of academic rank but worshipping Adolf Hitler to the end. In what former University of Virginia School of Medicine chief of radiology Hillman (co-author: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice—How Medical Imaging Is Changing Health Care, 2010) calls “a memorable, character-driven story,” Lenard emerges as a kind of furious, single-minded Javert whose particular branch of experimental physics relied on studies of more or less observable phenomena, much removed from the theoretical physics in which Einstein traded. That divide, Hillman writes, had its origin in World War I and the virtual blockade of German scientists, cut off from the international community and defiantly nationalistic as a result. Einstein’s refusal to play along and his more independent path of inquiry earned him widespread antipathy. That, coupled with Lenard’s growing anti-Semitism and general ire over Einstein’s popularity, set a pattern of persecution that would last for as long as Einstein worked within the sphere of German influence—and Lenard bore more than his share of the burden of making Einstein’s life miserable. The writing is mostly serviceable, if sometimes infelicitous, but the storytelling is too often clunky and digressive. Einstein is given the sobriquet “the relativity Jew,” and Max Planck spends “an uncomfortable minute” with Hitler, while Lenard imagines him wondering, “how had he become so old?” and straining “against the constricting dark tie and starch-stiff collar that bit into his thin, old man’s skin.” Well, that’s what he gets for tangling with the quantum, one might think, but his larger punishment lies in being mostly forgotten today. A footnote to modern theoretical physics and the history of science. Readers may prefer the bigger picture provided by John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Scientists (2003) and the better-written works on Einstein by Walter Isaacson and Alan Lightman, among others.
OF WALKING IN ICE Munich-Paris, 23 November–14 December 1974
Herzog, Werner Translated by Herzog, Martje & Greenberg, Alan Univ. of Minnesota (128 pp.) $19.95 paper | Apr. 1, 2015 978-0-8166-9732-8
Diary of a passionate quest. In 1974, when he was 32, acclaimed film director, writer, and producer Herzog (Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo, 2010, etc.) set out on foot from Munich to Paris with the goal of saving a dying friend, the film critic and poet Lotte Eisner. For Herzog, walking was an exercise in magical thinking. “When I’m in Paris she will be alive,” he told himself. “She must not die. Later, perhaps, when we allow it.” At that point in his career, he had completed only one movie, Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972). Dozens of works, including Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) and Fitzcarraldo (1982), lay in the future. Originally published in 1978, this raw, emotional account of his three-week journey, from late November to December, reveals an astute observer, a painterly writer, and a man desperate to achieve his goal. Like a Romantic hero, Herzog finds that nature echoes his state of mind: “Dusky desolation in the forest solitude, deathly still, only the wind is stirring.” He walked through blizzards and suffered bone-chilling cold, and when he could not find an inn for the night, he buried himself under hay in barns. Sometimes, he broke into vacant homes, taking brief refuge. He sustained himself mostly on milk and tangerines; often, he was parched with thirst. His feet, in new boots, blistered and ached. He endured pain in his knee and an Achilles tendon that swelled to twice its size. He was plagued by horseflies, and his duffel bag rubbed a hole in his sweater. Suffering, though, only spurred him on. Two weeks into the journey, he was overcome by “severe despair. Long dialogues with myself and imaginary persons.” Finally, he arrives at Eisner’s bedside: she was alive, and she lived for nine more years. |
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A fascinating biography of a physicist who transformed how science is done. big science
BIG SCIENCE Ernest Lawrence and the Invention that Launched the MilitaryIndustrial Complex
Esteemed youth leader and president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Hrabowski (Overcoming the Odds: Raising Academically Successful African American Young Women, 2002, etc.) was barely a teenager when he was arrested for participation in the anti-discrimination Children’s Crusade march in central Alabama in 1963. His highly personal account retraces this event and its impact on his life and livelihood, which began in oppressive Birmingham, where he was raised by hardworking teacher parents who fostered his early affinity for mathematics. With his parents’ ambivalent blessings, Hrabowski, just 12, joined the historic civil rights march against antagonistic segregation and was swiftly corralled in a mass arrest and jailed with hardened criminals for five days. The words of Martin Luther King Jr. would soon motivate him into forging a career in education, the promotion of critical thinking curriculums such as goal-based academic disciplines, and youth advocacy. In other sections of the book, the author praises the evolution of his university’s innovative culture and the impressive role it has played in promoting undergraduate education and research work amid an all-inclusive, unsegregated atmosphere conducive to learning. His discussion dovetails nicely with the book’s concluding chapters, which address the historical advancement of American educational and economic opportunities, particularly for African-Americans. Spawned from the speeches Hrabowski delivered during the Simmons College-Beacon Press Race, Education, and Democracy Lecture series in 2013, the book’s strength derives from the advancements achieved by AfricanAmerican students, in which the author has played a significant role. Still, he acknowledges that there is much more work to be done with regard to overall unemployment rates, income levels, and civic equality. A noble personification of the civil rights movement and an inspirational manual on instilling empowerment and possibility in today’s youth.
Hiltzik, Michael Simon & Schuster (496 pp.) $30.00 | Jul. 7, 2015 978-1-4516-7575-7
Europe’s Large Hadron Collider cost more than $10 billion, paid for by a consortium of nations. Its success owes much to charismatic physicist Ernest Lawrence (1901-1958), who invented the cyclotron, the Collider’s ancestor. Los Angeles Times business columnist Hiltzik (The New Deal: A Modern History, 2011, etc.) attempts to combine Lawrence’s biography with the revolutionary consequences of his invention. He succeeds superbly with the biography. After 1900, scientists explored the atom by bombarding targets with feeble streams of particles from radioactive elements such as radium. Researchers yearned for means to produce more particles with higher energies. In the late 1920s, Lawrence conceived of an electromagnet and oscillating electric charge that accelerated protons around a device the size of a breadbox. After several years’ labor, mostly by brilliant, often unpaid graduate students, and huge (for the 1930s) expense, a functioning cyclotron began spewing out particles. By the early ’30s, Lawrence was famous; in 1939, he won the Nobel Prize in physics. During World War II, he was a central figure in the Manhattan project and the development of the atom bomb. Afterward, he became a proponent of the hydrogen bomb and a polarizing Cold War figure, although his advocacy of bigger cyclotrons remained undiminished. Except for an epilogue, Hiltzik ends with Lawrence’s death in California. Decades later, “Big Science”—i.e. wildly expensive, often government financed— continues to flourish. The author disapproves of its proliferation for the usual unconvincing reason—that it diverts money from more worthy endeavors, such as small science, education, and social programs. In fact, when massive projects such as America’s superconducting supercollider are cancelled, the money often never goes to worthy programs; it usually disappears. A fascinating biography of a physicist who transformed how science is done. (16-page b/w photo insert)
JONAS SALK A Life
Jacobs, Charlotte DeCroes Oxford Univ. (524 pp.) $35.95 | May 7, 2015 978-0-19-933441-4
An extraordinarily rich biography of the doctor Americans adored and all but regarded as a saint. Jacobs (Emerita, Medicine/Stanford Univ.; Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin’s Disease, 2010) delivers a nuanced portrait of Salk (19141995), a complex and kind man with a mission to do good for mankind. Salk scotched his plan to become a lawyer when his mother disapproved, and he entered medicine. Early on, he worked on an influenza vaccine, demonstrating the possibility of achieving immunity with a dead rather than weakened live virus. He adopted the same strategy for polio, going against the conventional wisdom of senior investigators. Jacobs chronicles the polio years with a vivid, you-are-there quality.
HOLDING FAST TO DREAMS Empowering Youth from the Civil Rights Crusade to Stem Achievement Hrabowski III, Freeman A. Beacon (176 pp.) $25.95 | May 5, 2015 978-0-8070-0344-2
A potent hybrid of prideful memoir and galvanizing guidebook derived from lectures on race and education. 56
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Remarkably, the research and clinical trials of the Salk vaccine all stemmed from the coffers of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and its March of Dimes campaigns. Unfortunately, Salk’s availability and popularity with the media only further damaged his credentials with scientists who thought him a scientific lightweight and egotist. Nonetheless, he eventually realized a second dream: to build a scientific institute where great minds could conduct research and bridge the gap between science and the humanities. The result was the Salk Institute, set in La Jolla, California, in buildings designed by Louis Kahn. Sadly, the prestigious institute never bridged the culture gap, and Salk was effectively banished from his lab over time. Yet in his private life, he drew inspiration from a second marriage to Françoise Gilot (a Picasso mistress), and in old age, he enjoyed liaisons with a handful of attractive, intelligent young women with whom he shared a lifetime habit of nighttime thoughts jotted down in moments of wakefulness. Throughout, the author demonstrates a deep understanding of the character and the nature of science in the latter half of the 20th century. Jacobs makes a convincing case that Salk was a shy man who never succeeded in making the scientific or personal connections that could bring happiness, but his idealism proved a boon to mankind.
poised to flourish in the years to come, but in Alderson’s four years at the helm, the Mets have never surpassed 80 wins in a 162-game regular season. In the five years prior to Alderson’s tenure, the Mets never won fewer than 70 games; in 2008, they won 89, and in 2006, they won 97 games and a playoff series. Kettmann has written a worthy biography of a compelling figure, but the author’s desire to produce his own version of Moneyball has caused him to overstate his case.
BAPTISTS IN AMERICA A History
Kidd, Thomas S. & Hankins, Barry Oxford Univ. (328 pp.) $29.95 | Jun. 1, 2015 978-0-19-997753-6
A thoroughgoing study of Baptists, radicalized by persecution and honed by internal schism. Although both authors are avowed Baptists and teach at the Baptist Baylor University, Kidd (George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding Father, 2014, etc.) and Hankins (Jesus and Gin: Evangelicalism, the Roaring Twenties and Today’s Culture Wars, 2010, etc.) present a fairly evenhanded account of Baptist history, from the first Baptist colony at Providence to the full-blown clashes over fundamentalist doctrine between the powerful and competing Baptist organizations allied with the political right from the 1970s until today. Baptists emerged originally as a radical element from the Reformation movement (“Anabaptists”) that rejected infant baptism, which had become accepted as an “emergency measure” for children in an age of high infant mortality, in favor of “believer’s baptism,” whereby adults recognized and repented their sins and were reborn. A branch of the Separatists in Colonial America, the Baptists were seen as dangerous dissenters from the Puritan and Anglican mainstream, however, and persecuted relentlessly. The Great Awakening of the 18th century would spur a radical evangelical wing that helped dismantle the older New England churches in favor of new churches in Philadelphia, Charleston, South Carolina, and Sandy Creek, North Carolina. The authors highlight the important role the Baptists played in the American Revolution in their campaign for the disestablishment of the state churches and insistence on pressing for religious liberty. Kidd and Hankins demonstrate how the first schism occurred over the issue of slavery, with growing tensions between northern and southern Baptists and AfricanAmerican membership doubling. Shut out from political power after Reconstruction, blacks formed their own institutions— e.g., the influential National Baptist Convention USA. The authors usefully trace the Baptists’ shift from outsiders to consummate insiders, all the way to the White House. An instructive work that allows for a fuller understanding of an important religious element in America.
BASEBALL MAVERICK How Sandy Alderson Revolutionized Baseball and Revived the Mets
Kettmann, Steve Atlantic Monthly (320 pp.) $26.00 | Apr. 7, 2015 978-0-8021-1998-8
A biography of one of baseball’s leading front-office figures. Raised in a military family, Sandy Alderson (b. 1947) attended Dartmouth, joined the Marines, served in Vietnam, and climbed the ranks in major league baseball, eventually becoming part of the brain trust for the Oakland A’s. He rose to become general manager of that team when they saw a run of success that included two World Series appearances and one win, in 1989. As GM of the A’s, he helped to revolutionize the game by introducing sophisticated statistical and computer analysis to the game. Indeed, Alderson deserves as much credit as Billy Beane, Alderson’s successor as the A’s GM, who was featured in Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball and the award-winning film of the same name. From the A’s, Alderson went on to work for the MLB league office, the San Diego Padres, and the New York Mets, where he became GM in 2010. Prolific journalist Kettmann (One Day at Fenway: A Day in the Life of Baseball in America, 2004, etc.) convincingly argues for Alderson’s importance, but he spends more than half of the book on Alderson’s ongoing work with the Mets. As the subtitle indicates, Kettmann believes that Alderson is a central figure in “reviving” the franchise. Perhaps the Mets are |
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Will now stand as the definitive Bellow biography. the life of saul bellow
THE LIFE OF SAUL BELLOW To Fame and Fortune, 1915-1964
ALL IN How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Businesses—And How We Can Fix It Together
Leader, Zachary Knopf (816 pp.) $40.00 | May 5, 2015 978-0-307-26883-9
Levs, Josh HarperOne (272 pp.) $25.99 | May 12, 2015 978-0-06-234961-3
The author of The Life of Kingsley Amis (2007) returns with the first installment of a two-volume biography of Saul Bellow (1915-2005), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. Leader (English/Univ. of Roehampton) is a believer in the hefty biography (Amis nears 1,000 pages), and his new volume—which takes us to the publication of Bellow’s Herzog— will bend a hardwood shelf, as well. The research underlying the text is formidable. Leader certainly read everything, talked to everyone relevant who would talk with him (not everyone would), and visited numerous significant sites. Throughout, the author expresses his gratitude to the (few) Bellow biographers who have gone before, occasionally pausing to disagree— especially with James Atlas, although Leader later provides some praise in source notes. In structure, this volume is traditional. After an introduction that praises Bellow, he takes us to Russia (Bellow’s ancestral home) and then marches steadily forward chronologically. In many places, the author stops his narrative to explore fictional analogs among Bellow’s actual experiences, friends, and lovers. This occurs in every section and sometimes goes on for quite a while, occasionally trying even an indulgent reader’s patience. But what a busy life Bellow had. He taught at the University of Minnesota, Bard College, the University of Chicago, and at other venues, including Puerto Rico, where he found the heat oppressive. Among his students were William Kennedy and Donald Barthelme. Bellow also traveled around Europe, and he hung out with Ralph Ellison, partied with Gore Vidal, dined with Marilyn Monroe, attended a Kennedy White House tribute to André Malraux, had sex with myriad women—but was stunned to discover that his second wife had been having a long affair with one of his friends, writer Jack Ludwig. Some violence ensued. The volume ends with some pages about Herzog, the novel that propelled Bellow into celebrity. Will now stand as the definitive Bellow biography.
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Using his personal experience as a jumping-off point, journalist and “dad columnist” Levs examines the need for more paternity leave in the United States. When his third child was born, the author wanted time off to be with his family. However, he quickly discovered he would only receive two weeks, unlike others, such as adoptive parents, same-sex partners, and mothers, who would receive 10 weeks. Levs filed a lawsuit and began a serious investigation into the discrepancies between maternal and paternal paid leave. Since an increasing number of fathers are becoming involved in the day-to-day raising of their children, it makes sense that they want to be there during the first critical months of a child’s life. But as Lev points out after conducting over “150 hours of interviews” with male workers, the amount of paid leave is far from fair for the new fathers. The author’s interviewees “divulge their struggles to find balance, and their thoughts on all the issues that play into the fight for gender equality: work, home life, money, ‘male privilege,’ ‘female gatekeeping,’ and a lot more.” Through his straightforward analysis, Levs shows how the malefemale dynamics at home have changed significantly over the past 50 years, while those same forces have not changed in the workplace. Fathers are expected to continue working while new mothers must handle all crises at home on their own, and men who place family before work are often punished and even fired. Levs also considers the issues surrounding absentee fathers, the lack of intimacy for new parents, and finding the mental and spiritual balance needed to continue parenting well during times of extreme emotional and physical stress. His scrutiny and evaluation of paid paternity leave leaves no doubt that the entire infrastructure needs a serious renovation. Well-documented and easy-to-comprehend data on why men need more paid time off to be with their newborn children.
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I AM BECAUSE YOU ARE How the Spirit of Ubuntu Inspired an Unlikely Friendship and Transformed a Community
QUEEN OF THE FALL A Memoir of Girls and Goddesses Livingston, Sonja Univ. of Nebraska (168 pp.) $18.95 paper | Apr. 1, 2015 978-0-8032-8067-0
Lief, Jacob with Thompson, Andrea Rodale (240 pp.) $24.99 | May 12, 2015 978-1-62336-449-6
Livingston (MFA Program/Univ. of Memphis; Ghostbread, 2009) weaves her own memories throughout ruminations on famous mythical goddesses and popculture icons to explore what becoming a woman means both for her—as a Roman Catholic girl coming of age in the late 1980s—and, more broadly, within the context of the real and fictitious women who surround her. “Shopping days were like a holiday to a family of seven children,” writes the author in “Our Lady of the Lakes.” Although her mother, a single parent living in poverty, usually bought off-brand, “or—God forbid—margarine,” sometimes they were graced with the presence of Land O’Lakes butter. Livingston describes how her siblings would fight about who could play with the package’s cardboard panels. They all wanted to be the one to fold the package just right so that the maiden’s knees became a “stunning pair of breasts, the polished divots looking for all the world like perfectly bronzed nipples.” The author’s balancing act between her own narrative and the backdrop of larger cultural images of womanhood threads throughout this collection, as she tackles such subjects as fertility, teenage pregnancy, loss, and poverty. Some essays—e.g., “The Lady with the Alligator Purse,” which explores her fascination with Susan B. Anthony—have notes of playfulness. “What I’m most interested in,” Livingston tells a friend, “is whether the woman ever had any fun.” Others pieces are decidedly more somber—e.g., “One for Sorrow,” in which the author shares the unique ways young girls lied to her in her time as a school counselor. While Livingston’s prose shines, the pacing and cohesion of the collection occasionally feel off—some topics are exhaustive, while others, like her relationship with her niece, will leave readers wanting more. Livingston overcomes the collection’s inconsistencies with her dexterity in addressing an impressive range of questions regarding humanity, femininity, and growing up in America.
How an unlikely 15-year partnership between an American college graduate and a South African schoolteacher created a model nonprofit to help stabilize and educate children in the poorest townships. While working at an after-school program in the local schools as a college student during his 1998 summer break, Lief, who is now on the Clinton Global Initiative advisory board, recognized his mission to improve the lives of the impoverished children of a Port Elizabeth township. He learned about this deeply troubled landscape—still reeling from the wounds of apartheid and wracked by cyclical afflictions of “poverty, crime, bad schools, and no jobs”—from the gregarious, gracious Malizole “Banks” Gwaxula, a schoolteacher who secured the author a job at his school, the severely overcrowded and understaffed Emfundweni Primary School. The sight of children heating rocks in makeshift fires along the dirt roads at 4 a.m. in order to iron their school clothes jolted the privileged young white student. When Lief returned to the United States and graduated, he was able to convince many affluent people to help subsidize the nonprofit project he and Gwaxula called Ubuntu Education Fund (ubuntu is the concept of shared humanity that allowed Gwaxula initially to welcome the white stranger). Yet simply furnishing the school with a computer lab did not ease the essential crisis plaguing the lives of these children—namely, a very shaky family structure eviscerated by the AIDS epidemic and poverty. Thus, Lief and Gwaxula realized the need to generate more creative ideas, from building a library and teaching about health and sexual abuse to creating a community center with a theater and career and health centers. Lief ’s straightforward yet moving work delineates step by step how their initial good intentions became a powerful tool for transforming young lives. A useful hands-on resource for development visionaries. (16 pages of color photos)
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INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
James Grissom
Tennessee Williams asked for Grissom’s help; 32 years later, he steps up to the plate By Megan Labrise Williams was 71. The glorious inspiration that birthed A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie—which he imagined as a “fog” billowing across the boards of a stage in the theater of his mind, conjuring a female form on whom he’d stake a hit play— hadn’t visited in years. To speed its return (and kickstart Grissom’s career), Williams offered an assignment: go to New York, interview the actresses who inspired and embodied his heroines, and ask if he still mattered to them. “ ‘I need to know that I mattered,’ Tenn told me, ‘and your letter led me to feel that I did. Surely, there must be others who can tell me that I mattered, that I was of some value,’ ” Grissom recalls Williams saying. The “others” he had in mind included Jessica Tandy, Lillian Gish, Marian Seldes, Eva Le Gallienne, Jo Van Fleet, Maureen Stapleton, Barbara Baxley, Frances Sternhagen, Geraldine Page, and Katherine Hepburn. Grissom had no journalistic experience. (“I was a shy kid, always on the corner looking at everybody else,” he says.) So, in a series of subsequent visits, Williams prepared him for his mission with background, opinions, and advice—Grissom taking diligent dictation in small blue notebooks. “I had to get older to understand a lot of what Tennessee was telling me about ‘time knots’ and limitations and glandular flexibility. I’m like—what the? I’m 20! What are you talking about? I have all the time in the world,” Grissom says. Sadly, their time together was brief: Williams died in February 1983. “Of course I didn’t take any of his advice, which is the human folly. Here I was given this treasure chest of wisdom and went and made all the stupid mistakes people make—to which Tennessee would say: you have to. You really have to,” he says.
Photo courtesy Michael Lionstar
Most people who write to celebrities get an autographed 8 x 10. James Grissom got a vocation. In 1982, as a college student, Grissom sent a letter soliciting advice on a writing career to fellow Louisianan Thomas Lanier “Tennessee” Williams III. The famous playwright responded by phone with an entreaty of his own. “ ‘Perhaps you can be of some help to me.’ These were the first words Tennessee Williams spoke to me in that initial phone call to my parents’ home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” Grissom writes in Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog. “It was September of 1982, a fact I noted in a small blue book. The book was new and had been purchased for an upcoming test in World History that I would not be taking because Tennessee invited me to lunch in New Orleans, and I accepted.” 60
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It took him five years to relocate to New York and begin the assignment in earnest. Marian Seldes, an early champion of the undertaking, made key introductions. Grissom approached others named by Williams at theater district events or cold-called them. “A lot of the subjects had to wait an hour or two to figure out ‘Who is this?’ because they didn’t know who I was, but they wanted to honor Tennessee Williams,” Grissom acknowledges. “I was either some kind of incredible Edgar Cayce clairvoyant—because in conversations before I met them, I said, ‘Tennessee told me this and that,’ and they were things that I couldn’t have known—or there’s some validity to this. But I’m coming here representing a dead man, and no one knew quite what the project would end up being, so I needed a lot of trust. That was sometimes over in an hour or two, if it ever existed.” One stipulation was that he read aloud Williams’ opinions of the actresses to them—opinions that ran the gamut from flattering to querulous. On Sternhagen: “She was like some heavily buffed apple, shiny and good for you, that had been placed on the stage as if it were the teacher’s desk, and everything around her became immediately superfluous.” On Seldes: “There is a fantasy Marian, who is erudite, glamorous, beautiful, and I have seen her become consumed by this fantasy at rehearsals and parties, but it truly thrives on the stage. The stage is her narcotic, which she needs to keep herself alive.” On Tallulah Bankhead: “She could upstage a crucifixion with the right dress, and she would gladly do so, if the pay was sufficient.” (Grissom never got to try this line; Bankhead died in 1968.) Their responses to his assessments—and the tokens of esteem purchased by Williams in New Orleans antiques shops and delivered by Grissom— were often emotional. For these gifts, they returned Williams’ insight and incisiveness. “He wanted an example, but he never realized that he was an example to me—so brilliant and sharp and funny,” Hepburn told Grissom. “He was extraordinary by birth and by effort, but he was a victim, or chose to see himself as one. He foolishly believed that I had escaped any sort of doubt in my life, and that my flawless past, as he saw it, could rub off on him.” “He was a great writer…but a flawed man. Emulate the writer, not the man,” Le Gallienne told Grissom. Stapleton addressed Williams’ ghost: “We need
you and we love you. Your writing is glorious and— fuck you—it mattered.” The definitive proof of how much Williams mattered radiates from every page of Follies of God. Grissom’s gorgeous, polyphonic portrait shows he’s grown from a protégé to a bona fide writer who’s qualified to give his own advice. “What is your definition of home? Where are you most comfortable? If you’re most comfortable writing plays, write plays, no matter how many times they’re rejected, no matter how many times they’re done in basements with mice,” Grissom says. “The key is to get the work right. The work fulfills you and makes you happy. I just wanted to tell stories; I couldn’t wait to share them.” Megan Labrise is a freelance writer and columnist based in New York. Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog received a starred review in the Dec. 15, 2014, issue.
Follies of God Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog Grissom, James Knopf (416 pp.) $30.00 | Mar. 3, 2015 978-0-307-26569-2 |
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GOEBBELS A Biography
IN A DARK WOOD What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love
Longerich, Peter Random House (992 pp.) $40.00 | May 19, 2015 978-1-4000-6751-0
Luzzi, Joseph Harper Wave/HarperCollins (224 pp.) $25.99 | May 26, 2015 978-0-06-235751-9
Thoroughly researched, massive biography of one of the chief powers behind Hitler’s throne. It is perhaps literature’s loss, but certainly humankind’s, that Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) abandoned his attempts to make a living as a writer and instead attached himself to the firebrandcum-spectacle Hitler. As Goebbels, in an early, mawkish piece, wrote, “All modern artists...are to a greater or lesser degree insane—like all of us who have active minds.” As is his custom, Longerich (Modern German History/Royal Holloway Univ. of London; Heinrich Himmler: A Life, 2012) draws on psychology to characterize Goebbels as a classic narcissist, though one of real ability and accomplishment. He may not have been a first-rate writer, but he had a sharp mind and a strong sense of resolve, all of which he put to use as the Nazi state’s chief propagandist. In the first third of the book, the author charts the development of that ideology and the growing connection between Hitler and Goebbels, a friendship that suffered from tensions that haunted the lieutenant. As he wrote in 1934, “Führer does not call at supper time. We have the feeling that somebody is influencing him against us. We are both very pained by it. Go to bed with a heavy heart.” Hitler must have had other things on his mind, and though often slighted, Goebbels proved a loyal assistant. Of particular interest is Longerich’s account, late in the book, of efforts among Hitler’s chief aides to forge separate peace treaties with the soon-to-be-victorious Allies, with Goebbels angling for a concord with the Soviets. Close though Goebbels was to Hitler, he was never able to present the proposal, and the Nazis continued to wage a ruinous two-front war. A schemer and masterful manipulator, in short, Goebbels was seldom able to sway the chief object of his attention. Longerich’s book is overly long and even plodding, but it is essential: it paints a definitive portrait of a man whose name has become a byword for complicit evil, and deservedly so.
Dante serves as a guide through a landscape of sorrow. In November 2007, Luzzi (Italian/ Bard Coll.; My Two Italies, 2014, etc.) faced a cataclysmic change in his life: his wife, eight and a half months pregnant, was killed in a car accident; his daughter, born prematurely, was fighting for her life. As he struggled with grief, guilt, and loneliness, Dante’s works, which he had long been teaching, “gave me the language to understand my own profound sense of displacement. More important, they enabled me to connect my anguished state to a work of transcendent beauty.” In this frank and engaging memoir, Luzzi demonstrates a deep knowledge of Dante’s life and writing, interweaving the poet’s experiences with his own. He admits feeling numb after the accident, unsure of his ability to be a father and emotionally detached from his infant daughter. As much as he missed his wife, he yearned to find another love; self-protectively, he buried himself obsessively in teaching and scholarship. Dante suffered similarly, condemned to exile, mourning the death of his beloved Beatrice, and devoting himself obsessively to poetry. Luzzi is not proud of turning over his daughter’s care to his selfless 77-year-old mother and sisters, for him “the path of least resistance” that allowed him to return to the classroom and, nearly a year into widowerhood, to begin a relationship. With his competent female relatives willing to raise his daughter, he decided he couldn’t face “the drudgery [and] grinding rhythms of focusing exclusively on a child.” He had never, he confesses, considered what child care responsibilities he would have had if his wife had lived. When his first relationship ended, he embarked on a desperate search for a companion, meeting women through online dating sites, which was a dispiriting experience. It took years before he found a new love and embraced his role as a father. A forthright chronicle of emergence from darkness.
MONOLOGUE What Makes America Laugh Before Bed
Macks, Jon Blue Rider Press (240 pp.) $25.95 | Apr. 21, 2015 978-0-399-17166-6
The top writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno offers some reflection on late night’s influence but mainly shares jokes and anecdotes. 62
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In constructing his aching, poignant narrative, Mann offers a fine meditation on fate. lord fear
Macks (How to Be Funny, 2003), who has also written for most of the top awards shows and many of the leading politicians, is more ambitious in theme than execution. He promises a book about “the larger meaning of how late-night comedy monologues and sketches can influence and impact us,” but he mostly discusses Leno and the experience of working for him. Leno, it seems, is a great guy who won the late-night ratings wars because he was the most talented and likable. Macks knows how tough it is to be funny night after night, and he has plenty of respect for anyone who does it. Throughout, he borrows jokes from all of them, along with reprinting Leno’s first monologue post-9/11 in its entirety and chronicling the arc of Bill Clinton as a font of material. Readers get a sense of what it’s like to have the job of “feeding the monster,” writing 100 or so jokes per day for a comedian who will select 15 or 20 from among a thousand. Macks calls himself “Jonny the Joke Boy,” and though he moved to comedy from running political campaigns for Democratic candidates, he and Leno never let political affiliation get in the way of a laugh: “When it comes to jokes, I’m a writer first, Democrat 615th.” The author has little in the way of dirt to share, though his contempt for the presidential campaign of Al Gore is evident throughout (he’s much more of a Clinton apologist), and he praises “Charlie Sheen, a great guy and a great guest.” But mainly he shares jokes, his own and those of others. A book that seems to have been written because a writer has to do something after his regular gig of two decades disappears.
of the stories they told me, complete with my own subjectivity.” In the book, in death, and in the memories of the author and others, Josh is larger than life, a person who “could have been a rock star so easily. Some kind of star,” as a friend recalls. He was a wouldbe musician, a would-be writer, the lover of all sorts of gorgeous, exotic women, a troubled child from before the author’s birth, and a junkie who died alone, unexpectedly and inexplicably, after he’d shown his family and friends he’d cleaned up. In constructing his aching, poignant narrative, Mann offers a fine meditation on fate and on how “the story of addiction is the story of memory, and how we never get it right.”
HOLD STILL A Memoir with Photographs Mann, Sally Little, Brown (496 pp.) $32.00 | May 12, 2015 978-0-316-24776-4
A journey of self-discovery begins in family archives. An invitation to deliver the prestigious Massey lectures at Harvard inspired photographer Mann (Sally Mann: Immediate Family, 2014, etc.) to embark on a search for her past, beginning with boxes stored in her family’s attic. She hoped to find “a payload of southern gothic”: juicy details of “deceit and scandal,” including suicides, fortunes made and lost, and even a murder. Her sources did not disappoint her, and she effectively weaves a “tapestry of fact, memory, and family legend” in this candid and engrossing memoir. An incorrigible child, Mann loved to cavort naked on the Virginia farm where she grew up. Her mother, exasperated, turned over her care to Gee-Gee, the loving AfricanAmerican woman who served as the family’s housekeeper, cook, and nanny. Mann’s rebellion continued throughout high school, where she discovered a passion for writing and photography that channeled her energies. “I existed in a welter of creativity,” she recalls, “—sleepless, anxious, self-doubting, pressing for both perfection and impiety, like some ungodly cross between a hummingbird and a bulldozer.” Married at 18, she continued her creative life at Bennington College and made photography her vocation. For the next several decades, she “virtually lived in the darkroom,” dealing with “some end-of-tether frustrations” in printing her work. She was “blindsided,” she writes, when she was accused of child abuse and exploitation after the publication of Immediate Family (1992), which included nude photographs of her children. Besides revealing portraits of her parents and Gee-Gee, Mann chronicles the sordid murdersuicide of her husband’s parents; a deranged letter-writer later accused Mann and her husband of the crime. Although committed to photography as an art, Mann is troubled by the medium’s “treacheries”—i.e., its power to displace real memories. Generously illustrated, Mann’s memoir is testimony to photography’s power to evoke tender, lucent portraits of the past. (418 4-color and b/w photos, letters, drawings, and illustrations)
LORD FEAR A Memoir
Mann, Lucas Pantheon (240 pp.) $24.95 | May 12, 2015 978-1-101-87024-2 978-1-101-87025-9 e-book
An ambitious, literary-minded memoir of the author’s relationship with his late brother, a much older heroin addict. Mann (Writing/Univ. of Massachusetts, Dartmouth; Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere, 2013) works on a number of different levels, delivering a narrative of addiction, memory, and family dynamics; of the attempt to see someone through the eyes and different memories of other people; and of the challenges faced by a writer as he attempts to fulfill his literary ambitions. Ultimately, this is a memoir about trying to write a memoir: the challenge, the impossibility, and the catharsis. It begins at the funeral of Mann’s older brother, Josh, since the author, 13 at the time, “once read a Philip Roth novel that begins over a grave.” Before he’s done, he will invoke Nabokov, Burroughs, Woolf, and Kincaid as literary antecedents whose inspiration has informed his own work. Unlike, say, James Frey, Mann drops his cards on the table from the start, admitting in his author’s note that though the focus of the book is a real person, “it is not, however, an exact representation of his life. People’s memories contradict one another, and many of the scenes are my imagined versions |
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HOW THE GRINGOS STOLE TEQUILA The Modern Age of Mexico’s Most Traditional Spirit
entire life. Between his tumultuous marriage to Princess Diana, which tragically culminated in a 1997 fatal car crash, and the nasty rumors that Charles is anxiously awaiting his mother’s death to ascend the throne, there has been no shortage of ink spilled over the prince. Yet despite his presence as a public figure, Charles has maintained a remarkably guarded life. Though he makes hundreds of appearances each year, from hosting world leaders to visiting local businesses across Britain, as a person, he is difficult to define. Longtime Time journalist Mayer has profiled dignitaries of all stripes, and here she sets out to dispel the prejudices dogging not only Charles, but also the institution of monarchy. Bad press and mismanagement have long plagued the Windsors, and politicians have routinely questioned the political and financial legitimacy of the royal family. Yet Prince Charles remains the family’s most active and public representative—for better or worse. Bucking the conventional linear narrative of traditional biographies, Mayer focuses her study of Charles on aspects of his character. Chief among them is his dedication to philanthropy and cultural initiatives. Charles was notably one of the first proponents of sustainable agriculture, environmental activism, and conservation in Britain, famously mentioning that he liked to walk through his garden and talk to his plants. He even founded one of the country’s first organic brands and published a manifesto called Harmony. Mayer also dives into the juicy bits such as family history and his marriage to Diana. Ultimately, she captures the contradiction between Charles’ traditional wisdom and progressive causes and illuminates a man perpetually caught in between the rule of royalty and his need to express himself as an individual. Though far from comprehensive, Mayer’s intriguing snapshot of Prince Charles reveals the often overlooked intricacies of his personality.
Martineau, Chantal Chicago Review (304 pp.) $26.95 | May 1, 2015 978-1-61374-905-0
A brief glimpse into the increasing gentrification of tequila. Widely published food and travel journalist Martineau makes her nonfiction debut with this thoroughly researched study of what appears to be a growing trend in the spirit world: the rise of tequila from a low-end frat-party tipple to a high-end connoisseur’s sipping drink. But the book is about more than just tequila’s new image as a luxury product; it’s also about the processes and people behind the making of the drink, the conflicts over mass-produced tequila versus more exclusive artisanal tequila (Patron et al.), and the agave activists who fight to keep tequila “real”—i.e., a Mexican product through and through. “How Mexicans are viewed—either by themselves or by foreigners—has long influenced how tequila is marketed,” writes the author, “both in the United States and in Mexico.” Through the marketing of tequila, using old-world Mexican authenticity as its selling point, it has become, ironically, just as American as it is Mexican. Martineau chronicles her interviews with a variety of industry insiders, from small producers and agave growers from Mexico’s Jalisco region to hipster mixologists and corporate CEOs pushing their upper-crust customers to take on what passes for authentic Mexican tequila. The real problem is not so much that age-old traditions are being made a mockery of in the mass production of tequila; the trouble comes when the production and bottling of the drink get increasingly co-opted by corporations based in the U.S., which means fewer jobs for Mexican workers in Mexico. So, as Martineau objectively presents it, the very factors that are making tequila so popular are also threatening to undermine it. Unfortunately, however, the book’s reportorial nature doesn’t lend itself to theorizing on what might ultimately be the answer to tequila’s curious new authenticity problem. An informative but somewhat inconclusive study. (30 color photos)
THE SPIRITUAL CHILD The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving Miller, Lisa St. Martin’s (384 pp.) $27.99 | May 5, 2015 978-1-250-03292-8
A reassuring and instructive lesson in spiritual parenting that strives, but only partially succeeds, to cement the link between science and spirituality. In this paradigm-shifting book on parenting, Miller (Psychology and Education/Columbia Univ., Teachers College) claims that spirituality exists innately in all human beings from infancy onward and that spiritual education is an important part of a child’s development. Emphatically, and repeatedly, describing research that correlates different levels of spiritual awakening with different developmental stages across cultures, Miller contends that spirituality is a universal experience. She carefully defines spirituality outside the confines of any particular religion, as “an inner sense of relationship to a higher power
BORN TO BE KING Prince Charles on Planet Windsor
Mayer, Catherine Henry Holt (272 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 17, 2015 978-1-62779-438-1
A brief biography of Britain’s famous king-in-waiting, Prince Charles. The Prince of Wales has been a mainstay of international media for nearly his 64
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A breathtaking survey of the human mind exponentially accelerating the accumulation of knowledge, from pratfalls to ventures beyond the veil. the upright thinkers
that is loving and guiding.” Many of the studies the author cites provide surprising and useful information. For example, the knowledge that spirituality correlates to lower rates of substance abuse, depression, and risky sexual behavior in adolescents can encourage parents to make important changes in their children’s spiritual lives. Some of the studies could be more open to interpretation, such as twin studies showing that an adolescent “surge” in spirituality is 52 percent attributable to purely genetic factors—though Miller does not advance alternative explanations. Ironically, the author’s focus on the science behind her theory takes something away from the engaging and deeply felt case studies and personal stories she shares in later sections. Unfortunately, she saves two particularly poignant examples—adolescents dealing with depression and sexual addiction—for the penultimate chapter. If the plights of Marin and Kurt had been introduced earlier, Miller could have established more emotional connection with her readers, who would then be more engaged with the science she presents. New science or a leap of faith? Either way, nurturing spirituality in your children may save them a world of pain. (First printing of 125,000)
you knew is wrong”). Though the book has a snug cohesiveness, the author clearly enjoys his role as storyteller, introducing entertaining, illuminating asides—e.g., Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis, “had a huge belly,” because she was primarily vegetarian; and “fortunately for science, in the Arab world the ruling class find value in Greek learning.” Mlodinow also reacquaints readers with significant characters, from Galileo to Planck, who made the incomprehensible comprehensible. A breathtaking survey of the human mind exponentially accelerating the accumulation of knowledge, from pratfalls to ventures beyond the veil. (b/w illustrations)
BORN WITH TEETH A Memoir
Mulgrew, Kate Little, Brown (320 pp.) $28.00 | $14.99 e-book | $30.00 Lg. Prt. $24.98 Audiobook | Apr. 14, 2015 978-0-316-33431-0 978-0-316-33430-3 e-book 978-0-316-33929-2 Lg. Prt. 978-1-4789-0327-7 Audiobook
THE UPRIGHT THINKERS The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos
Solidly literate but gushy memoir from the actress known for her roles on Star Trek: Voyager and Orange Is the New Black. Mulgrew recounts her rise from a bucolic Iowa upbringing to much-in-demand thespian on the New York stage to iconic TV roles on Ryan’s Hope and Voyager. The memoir immediately sets itself apart from most other actors’ life stories, as the author’s prose can occasionally be self-consciously lapidary, the overall effect of which can alternate between stuffiness and evocative elegance. Unlike the Sisyphean plight of 99 percent of aspiring actors and actresses, Mulgrew’s rise to prominence in the acting field in the 1970s seems comparatively less fraught. She studied with Stella Adler (who told her that it would “be so easy for you to take your eye off the prize and skate into Hollywood”) in New York for a short time and performed in a few amateur productions. She then strode confidently into the office of a talent agent, and the rest was history. By her early 20s, Mulgrew had assumed the high-profile role of Mary Ryan on the much-beloved TV soap Ryan’s Hope. But it was also around this time that she became pregnant with her first child; being young and wary of her burgeoning career, she gave her daughter up for adoption. It would prove to be a decision that would haunt her for years, even though she would go on to have other children. The author also plows methodically and somewhat coldly through the many romances and marriages that did not survive her busy career and mercurial lifestyle as a stage and TV actress. But while her career is reaching its peak with her portrayal of Capt. Kathryn Janeway on Voyager, she also closed an important and long chapter in her life when she was unexpectedly reunited with her adopted daughter. Compellingly introspective and revealing, despite the tendency toward overwriting. (29 b/w photos)
Mlodinow, Leonard Pantheon (352 pp.) $27.95 | May 5, 2015 978-0-307-90823-0
A selective, guided tour of the human accumulation of knowledge from American physicist and former CalTech instructor Mlodinow (Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior, 2012, etc.). In this smooth celebration of the human project, the author places a decided emphasis on its cerebral aspects: “The thirst for knowledge is the most human of all our desires.” If at times Mlodinow drifts into hubris—“we have shaped our environment to our needs, rather than allowing our environment to shape—or defeat—us”—it can be excused as a byproduct of his enthusiasm, the thrill of deciphering nature’s puzzle and appreciating the striking characters who pioneered scientific discoveries. It is an endlessly fascinating story, this ineluctable quest that required getting out of the head’s comfort zone and accepting change, and Mlodinow’s explanations of often perplexing thinking are easy to digest. He throws out ideas and theories that are consistently thought-provoking—e.g., “Animal brains first evolved for the most primal of reasons: to better enable motion.” The author divides the book into three sections: the development of the human mind, touching down at critical junctures; the revolutionary entrance of the hard sciences; and quantum physics, developed thanks to the “brainpower in Central Europe,” which Mlodinow fittingly introduces via Tom Stoppard (“It’s the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought |
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POTSDAM The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe
IT’S A LONG STORY My Life
Nelson, Willie Little, Brown (400 pp.) $32.00 | May 5, 2015 978-0-316-33931-5
Neiberg, Michael Basic (336 pp.) $29.99 | May 5, 2015 978-0-465-07525-6
The beloved outlaw country icon rolls a fat one for his fans and sits down on the porch to spin a few yarns. Those fat ones are legion in this book, whether in the company of the superbly suave Julio Iglesias or out on the road taking it to The Man. Still, Nelson (Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die, 2012, etc.) opens on an oddly dark note, first conjuring up and analyzing T.S. Eliot and then brooding on his infamous woes with the IRS a quartercentury ago. The author has much more to brood about besides that sorry episode, from the life course–transforming death of family early on to the demise of nearly all of his contemporaries. Yet he’s nothing if not a survivor, accustomed to dusting himself off and going back into battle: “Because I was small, I got the shit kicked out of me. Wound up with a broken nose and busted collarbone, but nothing stopped me….The minute I healed up, I was back out there.” Those battles, too, are many and storied, involving not just the IRS, but also the whole of the Nashville establishment; Nelson has found allies in the likes of Ernest Tubb, Johnny Cash, and Chet Atkins. The last counseled, “Be patient, Willie, and you’ll get the mainstream audience you’ve been looking for”—and so Willie was, and so he did. The narrative is sometimes choppy, with staccato one-sentence paragraphs going on for long stretches like an endless jam on “Whiskey River,” and it’s often repetitive, as if—well, as if Nelson maybe rolled one too many before hitting the typewriter. Still, if the stories are familiar, and if we’ve heard them before, he still has much new to say on issues such as privacy, the changing music scene, and, of course, legalization (“I owe marijuana a lot”). Amiable but with an edge, and good reading for Nelson’s legion of followers.
A military historian analyzes the significance of the final conference of the World War II allies. In July 1945, the leaders of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union met in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam to determine policy for the occupation of Europe and the conclusion of the war against Japan. The conference was originally expected to include the “Big Three” of the Teheran and Yalta conferences, but Franklin Roosevelt had died and been succeeded by the inexperienced Harry Truman, and in midconference, Churchill was unexpectedly turned out of office and replaced by the Labour Party chief Clement Attlee. Stalin was therefore the best prepared of the three and held most of the cards as his armies occupied Eastern Europe and much of Germany. Neiberg (History/U.S. Army War College; The Blood of Free Men: The Liberation of Paris, 1944, 2012, etc.) thoroughly canvasses the multiplicity of issues taken up by the conferees. He does not report the meetings in detail but concentrates on exploring several themes underlying the proceedings, particularly how visions of history weighed on the participants and how “strategic environments and historical understandings limited and shaped the range of options open to [these] socalled ‘great men.’ ” Neiberg parts company with historians who view Potsdam as the beginning of the Cold War, pointing out that most participants left the conference optimistic about the prospects for continued cooperation among the allies. Instead, the author views it as a successful ending to the European conflicts that began in 1914. Neiberg’s casual acceptance of the reordering of Eastern Europe is troubling, as this was achieved only by displacing millions and placing the governments firmly under Stalin’s thumb. Nevertheless, this is a solid account of the conference, concisely summarizing its results and significance without excessive indulgence in entertaining personal anecdotes. Fills a hitherto surprisingly empty niche in the World War II library. (14 b/w images)
WATERLOO The Aftermath
O’Keeffe, Paul Overlook (400 pp.) $37.50 | May 12, 2015 978-1-4683-1130-3
The story of the physical aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, where 200,000 men fought intensely for 10 hours on a bloody battlefield of 5 square miles, leaving more than 40,000 bodies piled in heaps and forcing Napoleon’s abdication as emperor of France. O’Keeffe (A Genius for Failure: The Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, 2009, etc.) draws nicely on letters, memoirs, and other documents to create this vivid account of the immediate days after the historic clash between French, Anglo-allied, and 66
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Baseball (and Yankees) fans will devour this like ballpark popcorn, and all will muse about the many what-ifs of Martin’s motley life. billy martin
Prussian forces, from the “landscape of carnage” to the occupation of Paris and Napoleon’s exile to Saint Helena. Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Waterloo (June 18, 1815), the book’s grim recounting begins with the congested battlefield, which has been thoroughly documented before: littered with paper (letters, playing cards, prayer books, and much more), the drums of French drummers, and the naked bodies of soldiers stripped completely of their clothing by local peasants and soldiers. Survivors begged to be shot dead. Wheels crushed bodies into “a mass of blood, flesh and clothes.” Predators extracted the teeth of dead soldiers (preferably young), to be sold to London dentists, who offered immaculate “Waterloo teeth” to the fashionable and toothless rich. Tourists (including Walter Scott and Lord Byron) gathered swords, belt buckles, and a host of other mementos. The author describes the eagerly awaited news of Napoleon’s defeat as it arrived by mail coach in England, the many ensuing celebrations there, and the stripping of the Louvre. Thousands sailed out to see Napoleon on the ship where he was kept before his final exile. Some paid his laundress for the chance to wear his shirts. O’Keeffe offers no revelations for Waterloo buffs, but his book is a highly readable, richly anecdotal retelling of the battle’s devastating results.
Although translations make up only 3 to 4 percent of novels published in America, English dominates publishing in other countries, leading some European writers to emulate English syntax. Parks refers often to writers he esteems, such as D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Beckett, Peter Stamm, and Henry Green. Jonathan Franzen, who he thinks is overrated, is not among them. “Do We Need Stories?” “Why Finish Books?” “What’s Wrong with the Nobel?” “Does Money Make Us Write Better?” Readers vexed by such questions will welcome Parks’ thoughtful responses.
BILLY MARTIN Baseball’s Flawed Genius
Pennington, Bill Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (560 pp.) $30.00 | Apr. 7, 2015 978-0-544-02209-6 A sympathetic examination of the fiery player and manager Billy Martin (1928-1989), who could dazzle between the lines but whose life outside the stadium was often boozy, libidinous, and rudderless. Earlier in his own career, Pennington (On Par: The Everyday Golfer’s Survival Guide, 2012, etc.), now a sportswriter with the New York Times, covered the Yankees during one of Martin’s five terms as manager under owner George Steinbrenner. The author even witnessed one of Billy the Kid’s late-career barroom brawls. As he notes, Martin, slated to return for his sixth stint as manager in 1990, was killed in an accident in his pickup truck on Christmas night—an accident the author both begins and ends with, devoting many pages to the controversy about who was driving that night, Martin or his friend William Reedy (who survived). Pennington interviewed myriads for this comprehensive work—from kings to commoners. Among the latter was a housekeeper at the end of Martin’s life, a woman who tried to make Billy more accurate at the urinal. Although he focuses principally on Martin’s professional career, Pennington also explores his family background in California, his lifelong problems with drinking, his fondness for fisticuffs (he would invariably swing first), his inability to be faithful to his wives (he was married four times), his cluelessness with money, and his celebrated feuds with Steinbrenner, Reggie Jackson, and others. All the notable moments are here—Cleveland’s Ten-Cent Beer Night, the dugout fracas with Jackson, the spats with umpires (the dirt-kicking and -throwing), the firings and rehirings. As the author shows, Martin could charm as well as disgust and disappoint, and Pennington argues that although his record merits the Hall of Fame, his erratic behavior has kept him outside. Baseball (and Yankees) fans will devour this like ballpark popcorn, and all will muse about the many what-ifs of Martin’s motley life. (8-page b/w insert)
WHERE I’M READING FROM The Changing World of Books Parks, Tim New York Review Books (256 pp.) $19.95 | May 12, 2015 978-1-59017-884-3
Why do books matter? British novelist, essayist, translator, and critic Parks (Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo, 2013, etc.) considers the current state of writing and reading in short, contemplative literary musings. Organized into four sections—The World Around the Book, The Book in the World, The Writer’s World, and Writing Across Worlds— the essays focus on the challenges writers face in defining their literary boundaries. In the author’s view, creative writing programs teach novelists “how to create a product with universal appeal, something that can float in the world mix, rather than feed into the immediate experience of people in their own culture.” This “standardization and flattening” of narrative reflects students’ anxiety about getting published, which in turn often makes literary fiction predictable and unimaginative. Pressure to market books globally has led, the author believes, to “a slow weakening of the sense of being inside a society with related and competing visions of the world to which writers make their own urgent narrative contributions.” As a teacher and practitioner of translation, Parks devotes many essays to its problems: the struggle to translate unexpected syntax or subtly novel ideas and the relationship between semantic sense and “the acoustic inertia” of a language. Translated texts, he notes, “tend to be cooler, a little less fluid” than their originals. |
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FINDING ABBEY The Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave
exhorts writers to think of their lives as “a form of perpetual perishing, that as you lose yourselves in devotion and discipline to your work, you will attain the Beloved and begin to perceive the divine reality in all.” Another essay recounts her search for a regional voice as indelible as those of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O’Connor, writers “inextricably linked to place.” In the brief but potent essay “Elephant in the Dark,” Pritchard underscores the importance of a story’s point of view, asking, “which character owns the story most deeply?” A few pieces are slight memoirs: the author recalls her experience researching at the British Library; teaching British, Irish, and American writing students at Warwick University; and reflecting on why she came to admire Georgia O’Keeffe. Longer pieces are more substantive. “Finding Ashton,” a moving piece with a tragic ending, recounts her friendship with a female soldier that began when Pritchard was embedded with troops in Afghanistan. “ ‘Still, God Helps You’: Memories of a Sudanese Child Slave” reveals the harrowing story of 33-year-old William Mawwin, whom the author met when he was a student in Phoenix, Arizona, where she lives. When she discovered that he had to drop out of community college due to financial difficulties, she heard a “voice” that commanded her to pay for his tuition and books. In the course of many interviews, he related his experiences of unspeakable degradation and cruelty as a child slave. As with many collections, the quality varies, but the best of these heartfelt essays bear powerful witness to suffering, compassion, and transcendence.
Prentiss, Sean Univ. of New Mexico (240 pp.) $21.95 paper | May 1, 2015 978-0-8263-5591-1
It’s on a hillside, within view of roadless desert and dug deep to keep the coyotes out. Prentiss (Creative Writing/ Norwich Univ.) roams sun-struck country to find a famed grave, having narrowed its location down to a Massachusetts-sized parcel. The late novelist and environmentalist Edward Abbey (19271989) liked to imagine that he’d be reincarnated as a turkey vulture, floating on thermals and feasting on carrion. He likely didn’t imagine that he’d become the subject of exercises in creative nonfiction, but Prentiss offers a book that’s part memoir, part literary appreciation, part biography, part travelogue, part jeremiad for what the rest of the world has become. These parts are of uneven value. On the biographical front, Prentiss, who never knew his subject personally, has little to add to the standard works on Abbey, many of which are also uneven. Prentiss brings value to the proposition by interviewing numerous people who knew Abbey, and he settles a few matters that will nonetheless provoke controversy precisely because they’re mentioned at all: the alcoholism (what causes esophageal varices, he asks a counselor and then a doctor, and the answer comes back, “Drinking”), the lechery, the racism. The appreciation is very good: Prentiss offers fine, thoughtful readings of Abbey’s writing, and he applies it judiciously to his life and ours. The reverie of the desert—well, Abbey would doubtless grin wolfishly and disdainfully at effusions such as this: “In this landscape, my tongue is fat from dehydration. My scalp and neck sunburned. Cactus needles hang from my calves. Small rivulets of blood stain my legs like badges of honor.” For Abbey completists, though, they’ll be divided: does Prentiss give away too many secrets in his quest for the final resting place? Those fans will want to read this book and argue about it over a desert campfire.
JANUARY 1973 Watergate, Roe v. Wade, Vietnam, and the Month that Changed America Forever Robenalt, James Chicago Review (416 pp.) $26.95 | May 1, 2015 978-1-61374-965-4
What was so special about January 1973? Robenalt (The Harding Affair: Love and Espionage During the Great War, 2009, etc.) makes the bold claim that this month signaled a turning point in the history of American political life. The author focuses on the convergence of three major events: the first Watergate trial, which led to the unraveling of the Nixon Administration; the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, intended to end the war in Vietnam; and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions to protect a woman’s right to an abortion in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. His persuasive if somewhat self-evident argument, mostly confined to the book’s introduction and epilogue, is that one vision of America, based on Cold War hubris abroad and the welfare state at home, died in the first month of 1973. In its place arose the “Nixon counterrevolution,” giving new shape to conservatism as a political force and poisoning the body politic with new strains of mean-spiritedness and (after Roe v. Wade) religious mania. For the bulk of the book, however, Robenalt keeps his argument subdued and offers a straightforward account of
A SOLEMN PLEASURE To Imagine, Witness, and Write
Pritchard, Melissa Bellevue Literary Press (192 pp.) $16.95 paper | May 12, 2015 978-1-934137-96-3
Essays in praise of writing and faith. Journalist, fiction writer, and teacher Pritchard (Creative Writing/Arizona State Univ.; Palmerino, 2014, etc.) collects 15 pieces that testify to her belief that art is “a form of active prayer” and writing literature, a “sacred vocation.” The author addresses several essays to aspiring writers. In “Spirit and Vision,” she 68
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IT’S NOT OVER Getting Beyond Tolerance, Defeating Homophobia, and Winning True Equality
the month’s events, as though he were presenting evidence in a case. He makes ample use of the Nixon tapes, diaries, and other primary sources, but the results can be overly detailed, even tediously quotidian. Things get interesting, though, when Nixon takes the stage, playing the central role. Fresh off his re-election, Nixon was by turns erratic, devious, repellent, sympathetic, lonesome, and drunk. But he is always fascinating in Robenalt’s unvarnished portrait of a flawed leader grappling with momentous events and heading, ultimately, toward ruin. This immersive microhistory offers macro conclusions about American politics. A richly sourced and meticulous—albeit Nixon-centric—case for why January 1973 matters. (24 b/w photos)
Signorile, Michelangelo Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (320 pp.) $27.00 | Apr. 7, 2015 978-0-544-38100-1
The noted outspoken gay journalist and radio host passionately appeals to the gay community to resist complacency in the struggle for equality. In a thought-provoking call to arms, Signorile (Hitting Hard: Michelangelo Signorile on George W. Bush, Mary Cheney, Gay Marriage, Tom Cruise, the Christian Right and Sexual Hypocrisy in America, 2005, etc.) masterfully combines quotations and interviews from his satellite radio show with historical facts from the ever evolving gay rights movement to reiterate the “disconnect between the way we talk about the strides forward and the reality on the ground.” As revolutionary as the advancements in LGBT equality may appear, much work remains. Anti-gay violence, vicious schoolyard bullying, transphobia, Hollywood “gatekeep[ing],” and widespread discrimination in the name of religion are still occurring at alarming rates. The author surveys an impressive variety of contentious incidents (many already addressed on his radio program) ranging from the controversial, “morally complex” resignation of anti-gay Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich to extreme cases of homophobic bigotry, industry double standards, and hate crimes. Though it’s crystal clear whose side he’s on, Signorile fair-mindedly contrasts his pro-gay stance with contradicting conservative political and religiousleaning perspectives, and he points out the inherent flaws in their dictums. He severely criticizes the Republican Party for enacting widespread legislation based on the doctrine of “religious liberties.” By rebranding their backlash against marriage equality, the author shows how it directly threatens the freedoms of the LGBT community. Furthermore, he writes, this type of manipulative legal and social maneuvering places many other minority populations at risk for legalized discrimination as well. A summary of empowering steps forms a galvanizing takeaway for readers interested in making a difference. Though a tad vainglorious in spots, the thrust of Signorile’s urgent message is cogent and heartfelt, creating an essential reminder to the LGBT community to continue pressing forward toward the ultimate goal of “full civil rights and true equality.” A cautionary, timely gay rights manifesto with teeth.
EVERY DAY I FIGHT
Scott, Stuart with Platt, Larry Blue Rider Press (320 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 10, 2015 978-0-399-17406-3 The posthumous memoir by the sportscaster who brought hip-hop to ESPN and subsequently showed his strength of character through his fight with cancer. Though Scott was once mainly known for his “Booyah!” catch phrase (which he explains the origin of here), this memoir shows what a mistake it would be to underestimate the man or his cultural influence. About half of it is what one would expect from a cancer memoir: the mysterious pain, the diagnosis, the operations, the chemotherapy, the false hope of an illusory remission, the support from family and friends, the unwitting insensitivity from others. Yet some of the most moving parts of the book have little to do with cancer—mainly showing what a devoted father Scott was to his two daughters—and some of the most revelatory sections reflect the dynamic between the sports journalism establishment (overwhelmingly white) and the athletes they cover (predominantly black). “I’ve been criticized for being too chummy with and soft on athletes,” he writes. “That critique is born of a very particular type of journalism: one in which predominantly white, middle-aged writers and broadcasters judge young, often black, athletes. I’ll ask tough questions, if need be. But they’ll be in service of explaining rather than judging.” Within such a culture clash, Scott was also closer in age to many of these athletes, sharing the culture of hip-hop that seemed to mystify or annoy older white fans (and broadcasters) but plainly resonated with a larger, younger part of the audience. So this is also the story of how he got to be where he was (unlike others, he had never aspired to ESPN). It’s also the story of a man who felt blessed by what life gave him and even learned to appreciate the perspective that terminal cancer afforded him: “It makes you look fresh at small moments and see them—really see them—as if for the first time.” A class act and a courageous voice to the end.
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To be read as both corrective and supplement to Foucault, Szasz, and Rieff. Often brilliant and always luminous and rewarding. madness in civilization
MADNESS IN CIVILIZATION A Cultural History of Insanity, from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine
MY JOURNEY WITH MAYA
Smiley, Tavis with Ritz, David Little, Brown (224 pp.) $24.00 | Apr. 7, 2015 978-0-316-34175-2
Veteran talk show host Smiley (Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Year, 2014, etc.) chronicles his relationship with Maya Angelou (1928-2014), his intellectual and spiritual guide. The author recounts how, as an eager and insecure young man, he was in awe of the multitalented woman who “dispens[ed] love with such natural and joyful ease...[it] drew people to her.” Dr. Angelou gently scolded Smiley for his “idolatrous attitude,” yet he writes about her with such fascination and awe it approaches hagiography. The woman he came to call “Mother Maya” (she affectionately called him “young Tavis Smiley”) was his Buddha: a teacher, a wise elder, and a gentle corrector of his behavior, thoughts, and perspective. He remained a student at her feet, though some readers might regard him as overly fawning. Smiley wisely shapes what he learned from Angelou in the form of conversations they had over decades. The resulting narrative, comprised of Angelou’s words as speeches, stories, and lectures, appropriately keeps the focus on the woman and her teachings rather than Smiley’s own (impressive) credentials. To his credit, he shares Angelou’s criticism of his BET interview show—that he’s very prepared and informed but also too eager to speak and not a good listener. Here, Smiley proves to be a faithful recorder of Angelou’s poise, compassion, and dignity. Throughout, he illustrates how Angelou regularly combined practicality and spirituality. “Her practical advice—be assertive, not aggressive,” writes the author. “Her spiritual advice—be yourself.” Readers might feel regret for not having the privilege of meeting Angelou personally, but Smiley has faithfully recreated both her voice’s “haunting beauty and lilting musicality” and the experience of receiving her transformative wisdom, humor, and compassion.
Scull, Andrew Princeton Univ. (456 pp.) $39.50 | Apr. 1, 2015 978-0-691-16615-5
Far-ranging, illuminating study of minds gone awry across space and time. Scull (Sociology and Science Studies/Univ. of California, San Diego; Madness: A Very Short Introduction, 2011, etc.), a specialist in the history of science, warns at the outset that the very word “madness” is laden with cultural baggage: our idea of the subject, limned by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and various psychotropic medications, would likely be alien to a maenad-beset Greek of old. “We run enormous risks of misconstruing history,” he writes, “when we project contemporary diagnostic categories and psychiatric understandings back on to the past.” Still, when we look at Achilles, we can see PTSD, just as Mozart is better explained by throwing a little bipolarity into the picture. Though careful, Scull allows some imaginative readings into his long but utterly absorbing tour of history from ancient times to our own. Without overexplaining, he looks at medical controversies through time in familiar ways. The anti-vaccination crowd takes on different colors when seen as modern-day followers of the old temple gods: “If these methods did not bring about the desired result, failure could always be explained away. The gods were still displeased, the prayers insufficiently fervent.” Just so, by Scull’s account, traditional Chinese medicine, beloved of so many today, represents a victory of conservatism over progress, though Chinese physicians did tend to eventually reject the idea of wind-caused madness. Scull is sharp on every point, but some of his best moments come when he explains the introduction of psychoanalysis into pop culture in the postwar period, thanks in good part to Hollywood, and when he takes a sidelong look at both the drug-dependent psychiatry of today and its discontents, such as Scientology. To be read as both corrective and supplement to Foucault, Szasz, and Rieff. Often brilliant and always luminous and rewarding.
THE GREAT FIRE One American’s Mission to Rescue Victims of the 20th Century’s First Genocide
Ureneck, Lou Ecco/HarperCollins (448 pp.) $26.99 | May 12, 2015 978-0-06-225988-2
Ureneck (Journalism/Boston Univ.; Cabin: Two Brothers, a Dream and Five Acres in Maine, 2011, etc.) brings to light the miracles of a little-known hero. In 1922, Asa Jennings was a Methodist minister working as a secretary for the YMCA assigned to Smyrna, located in modern-day Turkey. Smyrna, occupied by Greece, was the 70
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richest and most multicultural city of the eastern Mediterranean. Jennings and his family arrived shortly after the Turkish Nationalist Army defeated the Greeks at Afyonkarahisar-Eskishehir. The Nationalist’s leader, Mustafa Kemal, continued the policies of the “Young Turks” who had taken over the government. Ureneck’s research is thorough and wide-ranging as he explains the 500 years of conflict between Greece and Turkey, the World War I years of the Armenian genocide, and the new government’s policy of Turkey for the Turks, barring all others. Jennings’ appeals for evacuation to the American senior Naval officer, Adm. Mark Lambert Bristol, were generally ignored. Bristol was a well-known supporter of the Nationalists and harbored little sympathy for the refugees. With the backing of the heroic commander of the USS Edsall, Halsey Powell, and the help of the Greek commander of the Kilkis, they managed to evacuate more than 250,000 people from Smyrna in only seven days. With no Allied ships, they convinced the Greeks to lend merchant ships and then persuaded the Turks to allow them into the harbor under American escort, as long as they didn’t fly the Greek flag. Powell certainly fudged his orders by escorting the ships, and Jennings worked night and day to move the refugees to a safe location. The story, especially that of Jennings, crippled by tuberculosis and typhoid, is remarkable, and Ureneck delivers it with a wonderful style that grabs and holds the reader’s attention. An inspiring illumination of a hero who deserves recognition.
editors strive for, and attain, a good balance of old and new and of ethnicities and ages. Though there are a couple of gaps and missing names (LaVerne Harrell Clark, Becky Patterson), some of the state’s better-known writers make appearances—e.g., Naomi Shihab Nye, Carmen Tafolla, and Sandra Cisneros. As Willie Nelson can attest—and as Kathleen Hudson’s thoughtful introductory essay to a gallery of lyrics shows—women are particularly well-represented in the ranks of Texas songwriters; the anthology includes selections from the always excellent Tish Hinojosa, as well as Amanda Pearcy, Emy Taylor, and others. Their commentary on their lyrics is a lagniappe, a bayou country term of art that the editors employ in a closing section comprising their own work. Inevitably, there are a few clunkers, but this is a strong gathering in both its parts and its sum.
BLENDED Writers on the Stepfamily Experience
Waltz, Samantha—Ed. Seal Press (272 pp.) $16.00 paper | May 1, 2015 978-1-58005-557-4
Writers of all stripes explore the experience of being part of a stepfamily. In the past few decades, a host of sociological studies have sought to make sense of the fracturing of the American marriage. As divorce rates have continued to hover around 50 percent, the studies have suggested something of a moral crisis, even to the most stoic of observers. The rates have decreased somewhat in the new century, but what of all those divorces? However, second and third marriages often succeed, which has led to increasing numbers of steprelationships—and all the ups and downs those relationships imply. In her collection, Waltz offers essays and stories from writers who have found themselves in stepfamilies, whether by their own decisions or by the marriages of others. Many of the pieces highlight the shifting boundaries and structures of “families,” including not only blood relatives and steprelatives, but also others who come to be considered “one of us” through selfless actions and commitments. The bonds that can be forged, we are reminded repeatedly, come more through empathy than through sharing parents; it’s more about what we do than who we are. The stepfamily can present problems not unfamiliar to blood relations, but with a different angle. The disagreements between two people worked out over time follow a different process than the disagreements that must be faced by a couple for whom the battles have been fought before and the willingness to see differently muted. The challenges can also be unique—e.g., how do we make that leap of faith into new families when our old ones have failed us? Throughout this collection, the contributors—who include Kerry Cohen, James Bernard Frost, Ariel Gore, and Ellen Sussman—provide “a model for creating order and peace out of a tangle of step relationships [or] let us know it isn’t always possible.”
HER TEXAS Story, Image, Poem & Song
Walker-Nixon, Donna & Burleson, Cassy & Crawford, Rachel & Palmer, Ashley—Eds. Wings Press (448 pp.) $29.95 | Mar. 1, 2015 978-1-60940-423-9 Spirited, appropriately oversized anthology of Texas-centric creative work by women from the Lone Star State. Gathering poems, nonfiction, stories, and images, this collection explores the premise, as lead editor Walker-Nixon (Canaan’s Oothoon, 2010) writes, that “women form a large part of the backbone of Texas storytelling and art, despite the fact that the existence of female mythmakers has all too often been overlooked.” That seems almost self-evident: the genres associated with Texas have been dominated by male writers, a point the thoughtful introductory essay by the late folklorist Lou Rodenberger details while arguing for greater inclusiveness. The present anthology proposes any number of women to join their ranks, with a particularly strong showing in fiction; too many of the poems are just limping prose with line breaks—though that is true everywhere. Not all the work is set directly in Texas. Some poems and stories wander to New York City, others deep into Mexico, but in the main, they partake of the state’s storied sense of independence and assertiveness. The |
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A cleareyed and chilling account of warfare’s present and future. sudden justice
SUDDEN JUSTICE America’s Secret Drone Wars
These writings inform, wrestle with, and embrace these questions and more.
Woods, Chris Oxford Univ. (320 pp.) $27.95 | May 13, 2015 978-0-19-020259-0
THE WELL-TUNED BRAIN Neuroscience and the Life Well Lived
Detailed history of the armed drone’s prominence in the war on terror, focused on the controversial tactic of targeted assassination. Former BBC producer Woods, a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Journalism Prize, brings a cool, informed perspective to this ominous topic, confidently examining the Pandora’s box of legal, human rights, and governance issues raised by this deceptively simple weapon. The missilearmed Predator was still experimental when 9/11 occurred, its potential quickly grasped by both the Pentagon and CIA: “The remote aircraft’s intelligence gathering capabilities—and its unique competence as an assassin—would over a short time profoundly change [warfare].” Its role was expanded dramatically as the Iraq occupation unraveled. Woods notes that the hard-charging Gen. Stanley McChrystal made previously marginalized drone-piloting units central to his streamlined Joint Special Operations Command: “This flattening-out of hierarchical structures, heresy to some in the US military, would help lead to Al Qaeda’s defeat in Iraq.” These improved drone units then returned to Afghanistan, but as military action wound down there, targeted attacks increased in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere, creating massive political blowback. Woods’ thoroughness captures the disturbing ambiguities of drone warfare. While clearly effective at delivering punishment to participants in atrocities like the 2004 Madrid train bombings, many civilians have been collateral damage in “more than a decade of US secret bombings,” and about 40 Westerners have been targeted. In this meticulous history, the author suggests that drone warfare has given the U.S. an edge over overseas proponents of mass-casualty terrorism but also establishes the unsavory specter of extrajudicial killing as a new norm for U.S. and British policymakers. Woods even talked to many drone operators, who express both patriotism and deep misgivings, wondering “if their own actions were in some ways reminiscent of those they were fighting.” A cleareyed and chilling account of warfare’s present and future.
Whybrow, Peter C. Norton (372 pp.) $27.95 | May 18, 2015 978-0-393-07292-1
Whybrow (Director, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior/ UCLA; American Mania: When More Is Not Enough, 2005) addresses significant issues related to the navigation toward a more meaningful life. Many of society’s current plagues—obesity, debt, stress, etc.—find their sources in three areas: instinctual strivings for short-term rewards, our habit-driven brains, and the affluence of contemporary culture. The problem, as Ogden Nash neatly put it in 1971, is that “progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.” Relic, habit, and circumstance have created the perfect storm to wash away much of our better selves: our senses of measure, self-control, empathy, and thoughtful decision-making. Whybrow rightly recognizes the naturenurture complexity of why our behavior has been derailed. Our intuition (“reflexive self-knowledge based on implicitly learned, social habits of mind”) has shed its deliberate, reflective qualities, and when it comes to choice, we are opportunists. The author digs deep into economic theory—primarily Adam Smith and the necessity of moral obligation—and psychology and a variety of social fields, easily handling complex topics. While Whybrow’s storytelling is entertaining, it falls shy of the sophistication that would give the unspoken science more palpability. When he launches into some basic cures, however, he bracingly calls on our better selves to wake up. “The genetic prescription we each carry,” he writes, “does not alone determine our destiny: but the interaction of that prescription with family, culture, and experience certainly does.” Whybrow’s crisp neuroscience reporting is important, as it helps us understand why parts of the brain are at war, some busy offering rewards and reinforcement, others cross-talking, all the while being stressed and pulled by environment. “The ecology of the family is a multitude of sympathetic, synergistic, and symbiotic interactions,” the author astutely points out. “Personal freedom and individual responsibility are forged…within this ecology.” “To reshape the future we need first to better understand and reshape ourselves,” writes Whybrow, and he offers a running start. (7 illustrations)
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SIMPLE MACHINES Wheels, Levers, and Pulleys
These titles earned the Kirkus Star:
Adler, David A. Illus. by Raff, Anna Holiday House (32 pp.) $17.95 | $17.95 e-book | May 15, 2015 978-0-8234-3309-4 978-0-8234-3350-6 e-book
FALLOUT by Gwenda Bond.................................................................78 BY TROLLEY PAST THIMBLEDON BRIDGE by Ashley Bryan & Marvin Bileck; illus. by Marvin Bileck............................................. 80 ENORMOUS SMALLNESS by Matthew Burgess; illus. by Kris Di Giacomo.....................................................................81 THE AWESOME by Eva Darrows.......................................................85 OTTER IN SPACE by Sam Garton...................................................... 89 LOST IN THE SUN by Lisa Graff........................................................ 92 LITTLE KUNOICHI, THE NINJA GIRL by Sanae Ishida................... 94 ARCHIVIST WASP by Nicole Kornher-Stace......................................97 SCARLETT UNDERCOVER by Jennifer Latham............................... 99 GOOD NIGHT, KNIGHT by Betsy Lewin..........................................100 THE WORLD IN A SECOND by Isabel Minhós Martins; illus. by Bernardo P. Carvalho; trans. by Lynn Miller-Lachmann...100 3, 2, 1, GO! by Emily Arnold McCully..............................................101 THE COWBOY by Hildegard Müller; trans. by Grace Maccarone.................................................................. 103
Continuing to branch out into science concepts (Things That Float and Things That Don’t, 2013), the math and biography whiz tackles the elementary topic of simple machines. Using sumi ink washes that have been digitally colored and arranged, Raff ’s illustrations loosely follow three characters as they use simple machines: a Caucasian lumberjack dad (in faded red flannel), his blond son, and his playmate, an African-American boy with curly hair. Moving from wedge to inclined plane to lever to wheel and axle and finally to pulley, Adler presents the simple machines one by one, describing their parts and how they make work easier. He takes care to provide many examples that are sure to be familiar to readers: teeth (natural wedges!), playground equipment, a Ferris wheel, a screw, a flagpole. In addition to the machines, Adler explains friction. Terms in boldface stand out from the rest of the text, but there is no glossary or any backmatter at all to summarize or review the information presented; the absence is felt, especially since the book seems to just stop—there’s no closure. Still, this is as solid a look at simple machines as any that exists outside of dry textbooks, and at least readers can imagine a narrative for the two young boys. (Informational picture book. 4-8)
MARKET MAZE by Roxie Munro....................................................... 103
DRAGONS BEWARE!
WE ARE ALL MADE OF MOLECULES by Susin Nielsen.................. 103
Aguirre, Jorge Illus. by Rosado, Rafael & Novak, John First Second (160 pp.) $14.99 paper | May 12, 2015 978-1-59643-878-1 Series: Chronicles of Claudette, 2
KISSING IN AMERICA by Margo Rabb............................................106 ICE CREAM SUMMER by Peter Sís.................................................... 111
When a wicked wizard threatens her city, Claudette decides it’s once again her job to save the day. Impetuous young Claudette is still determined to become a warrior like her father, Augustine, the heroic blacksmith of the town of Mont Petit Pierre. Buoyed by the success of her first adventure (Giants Beware!, 2012), Claudette is completely |
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the big winner at the children’s literature awards? diversity “Call me an old lady, but I’d like to think it’s time to get past using black characters as plot devices for some white kid’s coming of age.” The statement shouldn’t have been revelatory, but it was. I’d been gushing about a historical novel I loved, and my friend Deborah Taylor stopped me cold. Turned my brain inside out, actually. I couldn’t look at kids’ books the same way again. So when Jonda McNair, the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Committee chair, announced on Monday, Feb. 2, that the recipient of the 2015 Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement was Deborah Taylor, I jumped to my feet, along with everyone else in the room. The award is given in even years to an author or illustrator—previous recipients include Walter Dean Myers, Ashley Bryan, and Patricia and Frederick McKissack— and in odd years to a practitioner. In over 40 years of service at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Deb has worked with dedicated persistence to connect the children and teens of her community to great books, recognizing that all readers need to see both themDeborah Taylor selves and others in their literature. Her “Books for the Beast” event, a biennial conference that brings authors and editors to Baltimore to talk directly to their teen readers, is a national exemplar. She’s spoken at countless conferences around the country and served on an equally impressive number of committees. In fact, Deb was at the announcements that morning as the chair of the 2015 Sibert Committee, which had just chosen the most distinguished informational children’s book of the year, The Right Word, written by Jen Bryant and illustrated by Melissa Sweet (and which was also a 2014 Kirkus Prize finalist). And for the past several years, I’ve been proud and grateful to take advantage of Deb’s graceful, intelligent prose as a Kirkus reviewer. 74
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That Monday was a great day all around for diversity in children’s and teen literature. AfricanAmerican Sharon Draper won the Margaret A. Edwards Award, given for lifetime achievement in writing for teens. Thai-American author/illustrator Dan Santat won the Caldecott Medal for The Adventures of Beekle; Japanese-Canadian graphic novelist Jillian Tamaki and Latina author/illustrators Lauren Castillo and Yuyi Morales all won Caldecott honors. African-American author Kwame Alexander won the Newbery Medal for The Crossover; African-American author Jacqueline Woodson and deaf graphic novelist Cece Bell (another 2014 Kirkus Prize finalist) each won Newbery honors. And African-American author/illustrator Donald Crews won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, given to recognize “a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.” His Bigmama’s provided a cultural window to my preschool daughter, while his Harbor gave her a mirror. And is there an American toddler who has not learned colors from his sublime Freight Train? It was a great day, a day that, I hope, finally marks a seismic shift in what Nancy Larrick called “The AllWhite World of Children’s Literature” in 1965. And if it does, that shift will be in no small part thanks to Deborah Taylor, who has been patiently, ferociously turning the brains of the mostly white literary establishment inside out for the past 40 years. You go, girlfriend. —V.S. Vicky Smith is the children’s & teen editor.
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undeterred when her family and friends tell her that fighting the villainous Grombach is a task for adults. Fortunately, neither her little brother, Gaston, nor her best friend, Princess Marie, will let Claudette sally forth alone to confront the dragon Azra the Atrocious, who long ago swallowed the powerful sword that is the key to defeating Grombach. Rosado’s expressive art, with its heavy lines and cartoonishly exaggerated figures, highlights the humor of Aguirre’s script, and the clear, often cinematic paneling makes the gargoyle-smacking, dragonbashing action easy to follow. The warm palette, courtesy of colorist Novak, helps bring the otherwise generic medieval setting to life. While the funny, fast-paced story will draw in readers, it is the trio’s winning friendship and teamwork that will leave fans clamoring for a sequel. Clever Marie and little master chef– turned-swordsmith Gaston each get their chance to shine, and it’s impossible not to root for scruffy, hotheaded Claudette. This rowdy adventure is sure to be a crowd pleaser. (Graphic fantasy. 7-12)
THE EDUCATION OF IVY BLAKE
THE BOY WHO LOVED THE MOON
Alaimo, Rino Illus. by the author Familius (32 pp.) $16.95 | May 12, 2015 978-1-939629-76-0
In this atmospheric version of the author’s prizewinning short film, a lad woos—and ultimately wins—the Moon. Strangely, in the film, the story is revealed at the end to be an allegorical take on a more earthly pursuit, but here, Alaimo tells it straight. His heart captured by the Moon, a lonely boy endures “a long and arduous journey upward” (not depicted) to offer her a rose. She rejects that gift, as well as the pearl that he fetches from the sea and the diamond eye he intrepidly cuts from a dragon. Ignoring an old man’s warning that she would transform him forever, he finally ties the Moon in place until she beholds “the beauty of the colors of the day” and so accepts him at last. Except for the climactic daylight spread, the
Airgood, Ellen Nancy Paulsen Books (256 pp.) $16.99 | Jun. 9, 2015 978-0-399-16278-7 It seems like 11-year-old Ivy Blake’s dreams are coming true when she is reunited with her mother, but she quickly realizes that this is not the happy ending she’s been yearning for. Ivy was first introduced as Prairie’s best friend in Prairie Evers (2012), but readers don’t need to have read that volume to enjoy this installment of Ivy’s story. When Ivy’s mother comes to collect her from the Evers’ home, where she’s been staying, Ivy has high hopes. But soon her mother’s bad judgment and temper return in full force, and Ivy is scared, lonely, and ashamed to tell the Evers family what’s happening. Still, Ivy keeps a level head as she forges onward, finding new friends and a means of self-expression by cultivating a newfound love of moviemaking. In the end, Ivy will have to choose between the life her mother wants for her and the life she is building for herself. Because this contemplative tale is character- rather than plot-driven and doesn’t shy away from Ivy’s emotional turmoil, it can feel somewhat dispiriting in places. Persistent readers, though, will become invested in Ivy and ultimately find her story quietly satisfying. An uplifting coming-of-age story that foregrounds both the loss and the luster involved in creating an identity all one’s own. (Fiction. 9-12)
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illustrations, drawn from the film, feature a boy, the big crescent Moon, and other shadowy figures lit in pale gold against dark backdrops of equally dim stars. Over and above the bondage bit, not only is the original’s plotline significantly altered and shortened, but two scenes—one showing the lad planning his final ploy and the other of a threatening shadow—are confusingly jammed together. In video and on paper, the art casts an evocative glow, but the story is much changed and the transition from one medium to the other, awkwardly accomplished. (Picture book. 6-8)
EVEN WHEN YOU LIE TO ME
Alcott, Jessica Crown (352 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | $20.99 PLB Jun. 9, 2015 978-0-385-39116-0 978-0-385-39118-4 e-book 978-0-385-39117-7 PLB Charlie, an insecure high school senior, finds herself in a troubling relationship with a teacher. Charlie’s tense relationships with her casually cruel mother and her beautiful best friend pop up occasionally in this story, but the distressing heart of the book is Charlie’s relationship with Mr. Drummond, a man who deliberately blurs the lines between teacher and student by swearing in class, engaging in sexual innuendo, and initiating lots of “playful” physical contact with students. When lonely Charlie blossoms under his teasing attentions, he quickly encourages her crush through inappropriately personal, private conversations with her after school about his failed marriage; his reaction to finding her stalking him at his gym is to take her out to lunch. Though it takes some time, readers will be unsurprised by the graphically depicted sexual escalation of the relationship, especially given the increasingly shocking series of encounters that leads up to it. That is, shocking to readers though not to Charlie, who narrates the story with an all-too-believable, single-minded cluelessness. They are given glimpses of Drummond’s ambivalence and remorse, but a disturbing “what might have been” moment he and Charlie share at her graduation ends both story and Charlie’s character arc with unsatisfying ambiguity. Ultimately, readers see almost none of the anguish that this relationship would likely have caused Charlie, which dangerously de-emphasizes the predatory nature of Mr. Drummond’s attentions. (Fiction. 14-18)
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DAREDEVIL DUCK
Alder, Charlie Illus. by the author Running Press Kids (32 pp.) $16.95 | May 12, 2015 978-0-7624-5456-3 He braves the wild and performs daring stunts...in his dreams. In his superhero cape, extra-strong helmet, and X-ray glasses, Daredevil Duck is the bravest in the world...sort of. Actually, he wants to be brave but is afraid of many things—things that are too high, too wet, too dark, too fluttery. Sometimes the other ducks tease him. (He rides a rather squeaky tricycle.) But somehow, simply by trying new things, Daredevil Duck manages to conquer some of his fears. Not that there aren’t some setbacks: his ride on the lake in an inner tube terrifies him. When he tremulously climbs a tree to rescue a garrulous mole’s yellow balloon, he ends up taking an unexpected flight, succeeding at this bit of derring-do. From then on, he tries to be brave in smaller ways, like turning off the light when he goes to bed and zooming on his tricycle without holding on. Though they tease him a bit, his friends get it and actually give him the title of bravest duck in the world, emblazoned in a double-gatefold spread. The book’s ingenious design features several flaps of various shapes and sizes that allow readers to see Daredevil Duck both as he is and as he imagines himself. This device beautifully supports Alder’s valuable message about childhood fears. Simple, sweet, and very effective. (Picture book. 3-6)
MASSACRE OF THE MINERS
Anderson, T. Neill Charlesbridge (144 pp.) $16.95 | May 12, 2015 978-1-58089-520-0 Series: Horrors of History
A fictional account of a real, deadly day. In 1914, when coal miners in several Colorado communities went on strike for more pay and better working conditions, they and their families were forced out of companyowned housing. They set up tent camps and continued to strike. Tempers flared among the miners, scab workers, and coal company officials; eventually, the National Guard set up militia nearby. On April 21, miners and militia fought a deadly battle whose origin is unclear; by the end of the day, 20 people had been killed, including two women and 11 children who suffocated in the cellar where they sought refuge. Anderson’s latest in his Horrors of History series begins with this grisly sight and then flashes back two days with his imagined story of how it came to be. The narrative comes at readers from all angles, with no clear main character or point of view but with far too many characters for easy comprehension. The background of the strike is hard to understand, the topography of the attack
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Barry supplies these kids with enough smarts to get out of jams but enough vulnerabilities to keep readers engaged. the worst class trip ever
murky, and the violence inexplicable. Anderson seems to revel in gory details, as when a 10-year-old boy is shot: “A bullet had torn off a large chunk of Frank’s skull and brain.” This novel neither elucidates nor entertains; it’s hard to see a reason for it. (Historical fiction. 12-16)
THE WORST CLASS TRIP EVER
Barry, Dave Disney-Hyperion (224 pp.) $13.99 | $9.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-1-4847-0849-1 978-1-4847-1941-1 e-book
A Miami eighth-grader’s class trip to the nation’s capital quickly escalates into an international incident. Wyatt Palmer wants nothing more than a nice, peaceful, informative class trip to Washington, D.C. But when his best friend, Matt, spots some suspicious activity on their plane, his dream vanishes—in a big way. Soon Matt is kidnapped, possibly by international terrorists, and it’s up to Wyatt and the girl of his dreams to find him and exchange a deadly device for their lost friend. That all sounds heavy, but humor columnist Barry sprinkles enough laughs throughout to keep things moving smoothly. The novel’s ludicrous scenario is met with an equally comic tone, making for a fast-paced, easy read. The author supplies these kids with enough smarts to get out of jams but enough vulnerabilities to keep readers engaged. At no point will readers be worried about the fate of the world, but whether or not Wyatt and his pals make it out in one piece is another matter. The book’s shortcomings are few: the adult characters are as flat as the children are round, some of the slapstick goes a bit too far, and the final pages are overstuffed with expository “this is how everybody ended up” chunks of text. A light, comic tone and more-or-less believable stakes make for a winning combination. (Thriller. 8-12)
GARGOYLES GONE AWOL
Beauvais, Clémentine Illus. by Horne, Sarah Holiday House (208 pp.) $16.95 | $16.95 e-book | May 15, 2015 978-0-8234-3205-9 978-0-8234-3374-2 e-book Series: Sesame Seade Mystery, 2 Young Sesame Seade returns for a second round of detective work around and about the colleges of Cambridge University (Sleuth on Skates, 2014), this time aided by friends Toby and Gemma. As Sesame’s classmate Gemma points out, though the irrepressible Sesame has billions of connections in her brain, so does everyone else—and Sesame’s rejoinder is yes, but few use |
them “to save the galaxy as regularly as I do.” Oddities abound. A mysterious thief is stealing gargoyles from the rooftop of Gonville & Caius College. An influx of mice comes through the window of Sesame’s room, and Peter Mortimer, Sesame’s large and aggressive cat, has suddenly become sleepy and limp. And Jeremy, Sesame’s older friend, a university student and ally, has a girlfriend. Beauvais’ voice for her young gumshoe is wisecracking and clever, conferring on Sesame moments of sleuthing prowess as well as discomfort. The several threads of the current mystery are whirled and knotted together briskly with the inclusion of pharmaceutical experiments, a marsupial, hidden treasure, rooftop capers, and a bit of perfidy on the parts of both a visiting student and Sesame’s mother. The pleasure here, as with many mysteries, is not so much with the plotting as with the interactions among the characters. Beauvais’ narrative zips breezily along and gets to the end with several moments of laugh-out-loud cleverness— and that’s enough to grab readers. (Mystery. 9-12)
THE LAST LEAVES FALLING
Benwell, Sarah Simon & Schuster (368 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-1-4814-3065-4 978-1-4814-3067-8 e-book A Japanese teen contracts a fatal disease and tests the strength of friendship. Online, introverted Abe Sora can be anything—like the 17-year-old baseball player he was before Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, stole his ability to walk and even attend school. Largely homebound, he turns to samurai death poetry for comfort and the KyoToTeenz chat room for distraction. Eavesdropping on school woes and exchanging quips (printed in various types for verisimilitude), he meets artistic Mai and techy Kaito, and he eventually invites them to dinner. Overcoming their initial awkwardness, they become inseparable. Through vividly depicted outings and comic-book adventures, they give Sora something to live for as his health declines. Search terms like “help me die” foreshadow his outlook, however, and after poignantly encountering a dying man and waking up unable to use his fingers, he wonders if his friends will help him. Sora’s introspective narration, coupled with stark and startling moments of chapter-to-chapter deterioration, emphasizes that suicide is his personal choice, avoiding generalizations of disability as a whole. Their dialogue is sometimes stilted, but the supportive characterizations of Sora’s family and friends ease the sharply articulated uncertainty of disability and dying young. References to samurai culture and snippets of poetry will leave readers at peace with the drifting ending. Benwell’s gentle treatment of friendship and death with dignity will touch fans of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (2012). (glossary) (Fiction. 13-18)
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Bond provides Lois with plenty of interesting supporting characters to bounce off, establishing a world worthy of a series. fallout
LOOK OUT, MOUSE!
Björkman, Steve Illus. by the author Holiday House (24 pp.) $14.95 | $6.99 paper | $14.95 e-book May 1, 2015 978-0-8234-2953-0 978-0-8234-3397-1 paper 978-0-8234-3336-0 e-book Series: I Like to Read When Farmer Fred forgets to feed his horse, bad things happen! Farmer Fred snoozes in front of the television, surrounded by the detritus of a long night of snacking, leaving his horse to fend for itself in the barn. A mouse nibbles at the bag of oats suspended over the trough but attracts unwanted attention. The easy-to-read text warns the mouse: “Look out, mouse! Here comes the cat!” Soon, a snake, an owl, a weasel, and a fox are after the mouse, drawing the attention (and clatter) of the horse, dog, and chicken. This commotion wakes Farmer Fred and allows the mouse to escape. Lively ink-and-watercolor illustrations add humor and energy to this very simple addition to the I Like to Read series. The angry but funny faces of the animals chasing the mouse are just scary enough to hold attention, and the final scene, in which the mouse stands surrounded by Farmer Fred’s discarded snack foods, will bring knowing chuckles to careful readers, who will have seen the mouse sneak in. The bold, simple type, punctuated by many exclamation points, is easy to decode and mostly easy to see. Much of the text is reproduced against the night sky, sometimes in white typeface and sometimes in black, potentially posing a challenge for young eyes. However, the comfortingly repetitive and easy-topredict text will please them. Easy-to-read farm high jinks. (Early reader. 3-5)
THE FRIENDSHIP RIDDLE
Blakemore, Megan Frazer Bloomsbury (368 pp.) $16.99 | $13.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-1-61963-630-9 978-1-61963-631-6 e-book In a small Maine town, struggling with how—or whether—to have friends, a girl follows a trail of cryptic paper clues. Ruth used to have a best friend, but now that they’re in sixth grade, Charlotte’s joined the popular crowd instead. No matter: Ruth prefers being a lone wolf. When an old envelope containing a riddle falls out of a library book, she imagines undertaking a quest similar to those in her favorite fantasy novels. One clue leads to another, but they’re confusing; Ruth needs help. Everything feels awkward. Whether to join the spelling bee, whether to tell her doctor Mom to stop forcing playdates and her business-traveling Mum how much she misses her, and whether 78
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to offer Charlotte illicit help on a quiz after Charlotte’s home burns down, leaving her and her dads homeless—all options feel mournful and fraught. Blakemore peppers her navigatingsocial-awkwardness arc with myriad topics—puberty, geography, literature, science (whales produce ear wax; snow quiets the air)—all more compelling than the quest riddles and frequent, intrusive insertions about Ruth’s current fantasy read. Ruth never grasps her own role in Charlotte’s departure from their friendship, while a new friend who owes apologies never gives them; still, Ruth ends her quest with satisfying new connections. Not so much for puzzlers as for patient observers of social growth who enjoy varied intellectual and philosophical tidbits. (Fiction. 9-12)
FALLOUT
Bond, Gwenda Switch/Capstone (304 pp.) $16.95 | May 1, 2015 978-1-63079-005-9 Series: Lois Lane, 1 A teen reporter busts a cyberbullying ring at her new school in Metropolis. Lois Lane is new in town, and she’s doing her best to keep her head down and her nose clean. Her Army general father is hoping to make their family’s stay in Metropolis permanent, and Lois doesn’t want to jeopardize that. She joins the Daily Scoop, a teen subsidiary of the Daily Planet, in an effort to make friends. Of course, trouble always has a way of finding Lois Lane. This first entry in a planned series gets plenty right. Lois is as fully rounded as she is in the comics, headstrong, smart, capable, and equipped with a solid moral compass. Bond (Girl on a Wire, 2014, etc.) provides her with plenty of interesting supporting characters to bounce off, establishing a world worthy of a series. Bond also resists the fan-service urge: there’s no mention of Gotham, the Waynes, Lex Luthor, Central City, or any other landmark DC icon. The one big connection Bond makes is a playful one: Lois’ online pal goes by the name “SmallvilleGuy,” and few readers will not put the pieces together quickly regarding his true identity. Bond plays with their knowledge though, effectively turning this eye-roll–worthy quirk into a knowing smile, similar to the one Supes gives to viewers at the end of many a comic book and film. This lighthearted and playful tone permeates the novel, making for a nifty investigative mystery akin to Veronica Mars or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Readers are in for a treat. A spectacular prose start for DC Comics’ spectacular lady. (Fiction. 12-16)
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FEET, GO TO SLEEP
Bottner, Barbara Illus. by Smith, Maggie Knopf (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 12, 2015 978-0-449-81325-6
When every inch of you is bone tired, why not try falling asleep bit by bit? That’s what little Fiona, weary from a tiring day frolicking with family at the beach, does—and it works. She dispatches each body part off to dreamland, reminiscing as she goes how each part, starting with her toes and proceeding upward, was especially suited to enjoy a day bursting with activity and fun. The watercolor, gouache, fabric, and digital illustrations are bright and cheerful, neatly conveying a perky child and her warm, happy memories of a day spent with loving, multiethnic relatives. In her body language, Fiona looks almost as energetic in her varying states of repose as she did on the beach and during the picnic afterward, which may lead some readers to believe that actively, consciously willing the body to sleep might stimulate wakefulness rather than induce drowsiness. Additionally, the front blurb suggests that sending body parts off to sleep, one by one, is “a proven relaxation technique,” but no supporting evidence to back this up is provided in an author’s note or elsewhere; parents might appreciate corroborative research or anecdotal data. Still, children and their special grown-ups should find this an endearing prelude to bedtime after their own very busy days, especially if enlivened by discussions of how kids’ body parts figured into their activities. This technique for drifting off to slumber is surely worth a try. (Picture book. 3-6)
THE AMAZING HAMWEENIE ESCAPES!
Bowman, Patty Illus. by the author Philomel (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 26, 2015 978-0-399-25689-9
Hamweenie the marmalade cat makes good on his desire to escape the confines of his everyday life. Not much has changed in this follow-up to Bowman’s earlier, decidedly quirky depiction of this pampered yet disaffected pet in The Amazing Hamweenie (2012). Muted colors, odd angles, and just slightly off-brand names crowd the pen-and-ink–andwatercolor illustrations, while the deadpan narration once again slyly contradicts the action shown. Hamweenie’s outsized ego finds him daydreaming of stardom while he’s standing in his litter box in the closet. Meanwhile, his actual existence is almost as far-fetched as his imaginary adventures. He claims to follow “a strict diet” but is shown gorging on pizza, fast food, and sweet snacks. A circus poster on the refrigerator door prompts him to action, and he handily escapes down the laundry chute and out through a basement window. A quick (if unlikely) bus ride later, |
Hamweenie arrives at the Darnum and Dailey circus, where he (mis)interprets every encounter as a reflection of his talent and star status. Narrowly escaping being eaten by a variety of animals, he’s nonetheless nonplussed to be scooped up and toted back home. The only thing that’s changed from the first outing is the setting. His owner’s gift of a top hat and cape that exactly match the ones he’s lost along the way gives the narrative a circular feel that seems quite fitting for this repetitive outing. (Picture book. 4- 7)
WALKING TWO WORLDS
Bruchac, Joseph 7th Generation (160 pp.) $9.95 paper | Apr. 15, 2015 978-1-939053-10-7 Series: PathFinders
Ely, a Seneca Indian, has been sent to a boarding school to learn the ways of white people in hopes that he can become an effective representative for his people. It’s not an easy path to tread. He has to deal with ample prejudice in many forms: the less-troublesome lowered expectations of whites, the disdain and abuse of a group of unruly British soldiers, and rejection when he steps out of “his place” and shows interest in a white female classmate. Bruchac is especially effective when he depicts the period of time, around 1840, when Ely goes to live with an uncle who keeps his people’s old ways. The tale is related in simple, straightforward language that persuasively portrays the boy’s growing awareness of the complexity of his—and his people’s—position. A brief, informative afterward provides factual information about the real Ely Parker, who became an ambassador for the Senecas and helped prevent further loss of tribal land to greedy whites. Notably missing are suggested sources for further reading about the historical Parker; the depiction of his teen years is so intriguing that many readers will want to learn more. Captivating and brief enough to be an easy sell for reluctant readers, this effort combines a snapshot of history with a skillful multicultural portrayal. (Historical fiction. 9-14)
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BY TROLLEY PAST THIMBLEDON BRIDGE
Bryan, Ashley & Bileck, Marvin Illus. by Bileck, Marvin Alazar Press (32 pp.) $17.95 | May 1, 2015 978-0-9793000-4-2
With echoes of Lear and Stevenson, this journey into the land of dreams pairs a detailed Old World setting with a pulsing four-beat rhythm to pull readers into its magical realm. Bileck, illustrator of Julian Scheer’s Rain Makes Applesauce (1964), originally created these graphite-and–colored-pencil drawings for a children’s manuscript by Virginia Woolf. When her estate canceled the project, Bryan collaborated on a new text with his longtime friend. Masterful wordplay, alliteration, imagery, and rhyme contribute to this 29-stanza poem, printed in its entirety at the opening and then woven throughout the densely populated pages in a hand-printed text. Thimbledon Bridge “is a merry mile long. / No one can cross who is cross. / It boasts a moon quite enormously blown / By bubble-man, bassoonist, Peat Moss.” Spools, needles, and thimbles weave the emerging tapestry, both out of and “into the blue.” Pinwheels and performers, giraffes and camels, turrets and greenery unfold in a fantastical, surreal parade. The images are alternately richly saturated with color or rendered with such a pale line as to be slipping from sight. The seamstress/narrator appears at the beginning and conclusion as a benevolent figure, relaxing in a rocker. Inside she becomes the wild Wind-Witch, hoary and zombielike, in compositions as disturbing as the rest are delightful. Bileck and Bryan capture the stuff of dreams in this mesmerizing and multifaceted pageant. (contributors’ notes) (Picture book. 5-9)
UNDERTOW
Buckley, Michael HMH Books (384 pp.) $18.99 | $18.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-0-544-34825-7 978-0-544-34862-2 e-book The Alpha arrive on the shores of Coney Island. Coney Island native Lyric Walker has always kept her secret hidden: that she’s part Sirena on her mom’s side. When the Alpha arrive—strangely beautiful yet violent half human/half sea creatures, of which Sirena are a variety—all of New York City erupts into confusion and intolerance. Lyric and her family fear the discovery of their secret, but all is mostly well until a troupe of Alpha teens is admitted into Lyric’s high school, and Lyric is forced to give Fathom, the hot, proud, militant prince of the Alpha, reading lessons. Sparks and bodies fly in a maelstrom of stolen kisses and fights, and all of New York seems headed toward a budding war that only Lyric can stop. The Alpha 80
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concept is initially hard to swallow, but readers will likely eventually suspend their disbelief about halfway through the novel, seduced by the Twilight-esque feelings of lust and restraint between Lyric and Fathom. This first in a trilogy isn’t without overt politics: racial intolerance runs amok, and Buckley even names the governor of New York “Bachman.” Despite all of the deliberate, silly setup, the dialogue and characterizations mostly ring true, and by the end, readers will find themselves immersed in this semi-edgy, race-against-the-clock world that’s waiting to implode. Odd but nevertheless exciting. (Dystopic fantasy. 13-16)
THE RUNAWAY’S GOLD
Burack, Emilie Christie Amulet/Abrams (320 pp.) $16.95 | May 12, 2015 978-1-4197-1369-9
A Scottish lad flees his home in pursuit of treasure that promises to relieve his family’s penury forever. Almost 14, Christopher Robertson lives in dire poverty with his family on the Shetland Islands in 1842, in debt like everyone else to the landowner, a smuggler. When Christopher’s brother seemingly betrays him by framing him for a crime, Christopher embarks on a journey that first lands him in prison and then eventually leads him to America on a treasure hunt. The danger-filled adventure plot allows Burack plenty of room to elaborate on the setting, politics, and social conditions of this particular bit of “Old Country”–immigrant history. Readers may sense that Burack is ultimately more interested in that history than the story itself, as some side characters are shirked and the plot swerves and hiccups (for instance, the passage from Scotland to New York is never remarked upon). The light spattering of Scottish brogue is also, at times, awkward. Still, Christopher’s escaped-felon partner is memorable, and his encounters with an up-and-coming future Boss Tweed tantalize. An appendix fleshes out historical details, and a closing bibliography provides authority. Despite thin spots, Burack’s story moves at an engaging clip with enough thrills and historical detail to please many readers. (Historical fiction. 9-12)
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The use of a classic typewriter typeface to set cummings’ words apart from Burgess’ text is nicely apropos. enormous smallness
ENORMOUS SMALLNESS A Story of E.E. Cummings
Burgess, Matthew Illus. by Di Giacomo, Kris Enchanted Lion Books (64 pp.) $17.95 | Apr. 28, 2015 978-1-59270-171-1
A picture-book biography of the poet, with appropriately quirky multimedia illustrations. Burgess takes young readers from the birth of Edward Estlin Cummings in Cambridge in 1894 through his decades in Greenwich Village as an established poet. The economical text emphasizes his connections to the natural world, manifesting in his first poem, composed at the age of 3, and the loving support of his parents. Even as a boy, he played with words, inventing new ones and “squish[ing] others together.” Burgess chooses details that will speak to child readers: Estlin’s idyllic, streamside summers; his treehouse in Cambridge (equipped with a stove!); the encouragement of a favorite teacher; the “Krazy Kat” comic strips he affixed to his dorm walls; and especially, his effervescent, rule-breaking approach to writing poetry. Using muted, modernist hues, Di Giacomo incorporates letters and words into her double-page spreads, jumping them through a hoop in an imagined circus scene that emphasizes Estlin’s fearless wordplay and depicting them springing from the open pages of his first published book along with the titular Tulips & Chimneys. The use of a classic typewriter typeface to set cummings’ words apart from Burgess’ text is nicely apropos. Backmatter includes a chronology, the five poems, dated, that appear earlier in the book, an author’s note, and acknowledgments (which double as a bibliographic essay). An eminently friendly introduction to both the poet and his spirit—deceptively simple, just like its subject. (Picture book/biography. 6-10)
WILD HEARTS
Burkhart, Jessica Bloomsbury (304 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 paper | $7.99 e-book May 5, 2015 978-1-61963-258-5 978-1-61963-259-2 paper 978-1-61963-260-8 e-book Series: If Only, 4 Brie is used to constant travel; she’s not accustomed to caring passionately about a cause—or a young man. Brie’s dad is a land developer, so they move from place to place worldwide. Home-schooled, Brie has never made attachments. When she and her parents move to a one-main-street town in Wyoming, the welcome is frosty, as its citizens protest the uprooting of the wild mustangs for the hotel Brie’s dad is |
building. The loudest opponent is the father of a handsome, kind, cowboy-hatted boy named Logan. This quickly becomes more than a budding romance between Brie and Logan, as they take up the cause to create a sanctuary for the mustangs. She finds within herself a stirring love for the horses and a deep desire to do something good. However, caught in the middle of the heated battle, this is the first time Brie has contradicted her father and the first time she’s fallen in love. Burkhart’s uncluttered prose easily develops both characters and complications, making for a smooth-reading romance. Each chapter is headed with a pithy quote—“Cowboy proverb: The bigger the buckle, the better the cowboy”—lending light wisdom to the tale. This inspiring look at the plight of undomesticated landscape and wildlife nestled in a tender romance is a surprisingly sweet and resonant story. (Fiction. 12-18)
THE SECRETS OF THE STORM VORTEX
Cameron, Anne Illus. by Jamieson, Victoria Greenwillow/HarperCollins (464 pp.) $16.99 | $8.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-0-06-211283-5 978-0-06-211285-9 e-book Series: Lightning Catcher, 2 In this second Lightning Catcher book, 12-year-old Angus McFangus learns more about his storm-prophet powers while investigating a mysterious storm vortex engulfing the Perilous Exploratorium for Violent Weather and Vicious Storms. Angus and pals Dougal and Indigo begin their second year of studies with a volatile storm brewing over Castle Dankhart, poised to hurl weather weapons at Perilous. Is villainous Scabious Dankhart responsible? While lightning catchers work to uncover Dankhart’s plot, Angus and classmates experience scarlet sleeping snow, rancid rain, shimmer sharks, and murderous mist. Angus also receives special instruction on the history of storm prophets, including a visit to the Perilous crypt, where early storm prophets are entombed with their storm dragons. When his storm dragon is unexpectedly aroused, Angus realizes he can control as well as predict weather. Angus, Dougal, and Indigo witness a shocking betrayal and find themselves in grave danger as they discover Dankhart’s cataclysmic weather plans. Humorous boarding school high jinks, weird weather scenarios, and eccentric personalities abound as the engaging trio pursue theatrical villains with diabolical schemes. Black-and-white spot art adds atmosphere. This outrageous meteorological adventure will leave readers eager for the final Lightning Catcher volume. (map) (Fantasy. 8-12)
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This very brief effort appealingly captures a small slice of very funny family life. not for sale
NOT FOR SALE
this not only a fine read-aloud, but a great early reader for those kids who need some comedy with their basic vocabulary words. So enjoyable the real thing may pale in comparison. (Picture book. 3-7)
Cassidy, Sara Illus. by Flook, Helen Orca (64 pp.) $6.95 paper | May 1, 2015 978-1-4598-0719-8 Cyrus and Rudy, 9 and 8 respectively, are faced with the nightmare scenario: their family is moving to a new house. The brothers are best friends who enjoy amusing themselves with potatogun battles and Legos and sitting up high on closet shelves and windowsills. Rudy is prone to panic attacks. Cyrus, the book’s insightful narrator, seems a calmer sort until he learns of the pending move. He’s lived in that house since he was adopted at the age of 2 months. Moving is just too scary. So he hatches an age-appropriate plot: get up in the middle of the night and remove the “For Sale” sign—and the one that replaces it—and the several that replace that one. From the intriguing opening sentence (“Ancient potatoes lurk in our bedroom closets”) to the feel-good conclusion, this very brief effort appealingly captures a small slice of very funny family life. In between are tolerant, loving parents, an admirable relationship between brothers, a bizarre but humorous cat, numerous rib-tickling, full-page illustrations, and some quirky problem-solving. Perhaps the only downside is that young readers are going to be trying to figure out how to build potato-guns—they look like water pistols but shoot spud chunks—of their own. A warmhearted romp that might even work for older reluctant readers. (Fiction. 6-10)
FUN IN THE SUN
Catrow, David Illus. by the author Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | $16.95 e-book | May 1, 2015 978-0-8234-2945-5 978-0-8234-3322-3 e-book A self-sufficient pup takes his beloved pet to the beach. High jinks ensue. Outfitted in its best purple bathing suit, a rather zaftig dog determines that today is perfect for a trip to the seashore. Its pet goldfish comes along, thanks to a wheeled fishbowl, and the two join a bus full of crazily caricatured humans (and at least one more dog). Once they’ve arrived, it’s time for lots of sun and swimming. Everyone has a magnificent, madcap time, though the dog’s hot-pink skin answers the final thought: “I hope I didn’t forget anything.” Catrow’s trademark tendency toward contained chaos is put on fine display as the combination of wind, waves, and the occasional sentient octopus yields a fantastic day for all involved. The art’s colorful inventiveness gives the entire enterprise a wild devil-may-care feel, and the cast of characters rewards multiple readings, as they enjoy separate adventures in the background. The simple language makes 82
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TINY PRETTY THINGS
Charaipotra, Sona & Clayton, Dhonielle HarperTeen (448 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-0-06-234239-3 978-0-06-234241-6 e-book Harassment and manipulation abound at a competitive feeder school for New York’s American Ballet Company. When Gigi, a sunny, positive newcomer from California and the school’s only black student, is cast as the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker, blonde, powerful Bette is furious. E-Jun, whom classmates call June, is simply dejected; she’s the Sugar Plum Fairy’s understudy, and her mother has been threatening to enroll her in a traditional high school if she doesn’t start getting big roles. The three girls take turns narrating chapters, and readers learn secrets about each of them: Gigi has a potentially dangerous heart condition; Bette pops pills to endure her rich, alcoholic mother’s cruel remarks; June has an eating disorder and a vicious rivalry with her former best friend, Sei-Jin, that began when Sei-Jin tried to kiss her. Lipstick-scrawled warnings appear on mirrors, confidential medical records are posted for all to see, and acts of violence, both petty and not-so-petty, are committed. Despite the book’s decidedly gossipy tone, however, each character is fully realized, and each is sympathetic in her own way. A climactic ending fails to resolve a few key questions, suggesting further twists and turns in a sequel. A page-turner with a heart. (Fiction. 14-18)
PUTTING THE MONKEYS TO BED
Choldenko, Gennifer Illus. by Davis, Jack E. Putnam (32 pp.) $16.99 | Jun. 9, 2015 978-0-399-24623-4
Those monkeys just don’t want to sleep! Snuggled in bed with his three stuffed monkeys, Sam asks his mother if he would have to go to sleep if he were a monkey. In answer, she tucks him in after reading him his favorite book—but once she leaves, his stuffed monkeys come to life and want to jump around. “They smash and bash and crash-crash-crash until all balls have been bounced and all trains have been trounced.” Mama warns him to get back in bed, and he does, but his mind teems with questions: “Do fish go to bed in their bathing suits?” Mama says she’ll answer his questions in the morning. He tries his breathing exercises, but
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the monkeys turn it into a “ping-pong song” and “the French ding-dong song.” Mind and monkeys still working overtime, Sam tricks the lively stuffed animals into listening to his book, and they all drift off. Choldenko’s tale of bedtime bounciness reads like something a parent might make up on the spur of the moment to quiet a restless child. Imaginative, restless tots might recognize themselves in Sam, but their imaginations are probably a bit more original and outlandish than his. Even Davis’ frenetic and funny watercolors can’t mitigate the story’s extemporaneous feel. With bedtime-story shelves bursting, this is one that can be set aside. (Picture book. 2-5)
AH!
Collet, Géraldine Illus. by Spagnol, Estelle Billon Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | $16.95 e-book | May 1, 2015 978-0-8234-3199-1 978-0-8234-3318-6 e-book A rabbit and a spider engage in a strange adventure. An unsuspecting rabbit is happily going about his business when he enters a kind of tunnel and discovers a spider, which promptly attaches itself to him. He runs, jumps, and yells, but nothing can dislodge it. Exhausted, the rabbit rests while the spider bides its time. When the rabbit wakes, he pays court to a lovely lady rabbit (so identified by eyelashes and wrist bangles), who, unknowingly, carries a spider of her own. Seeing the two spiders, they run away in panic, at which point the spiders get together gleefully. A curious bird and a dragonfly lurk nearby and watch all the action dispassionately. Various spellings of “Ah” provide most of the text, alternately expressing panic, satisfaction, or contentment. The spiders utter the only sentence, “How silly they are,” while laughing merrily at the rabbits’ fear and their own happy ending. The creatures are rendered in black line cartoon drawings with splashes of color in the secondary characters and in flowers and a rainbow. There is constant movement across the double-page spreads as the characters meet, separate, and meet again, but very young readers may have difficulty in following or understanding the plot. The underlying mood is rather nasty; the spiders are bullies who succeed at the rabbits’ expenses, while the bystanders do nothing. Creepy and uncomfortable—rather like discovering that a spider is riding on your head. (Picture book. 4-8)
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I TEXT DEAD PEOPLE
Cooper, Rose Delacorte (256 pp.) $12.99 | $9.99 e-book | $15.99 PLB Jun. 9, 2015 978-0-385-74391-4 978-0-385-37321-0 e-book 978-0-375-99138-7 PLB Thirteen-year-old Anna has just moved into the creepy mansion next to the cemetery and has hopes of making friends in
her posh new school. She finds a cellphone that might replace the one she lost, but it only works sporadically, sending her cryptic texts. Meanwhile she meets Millie, a nice girl in school, who warns her about the twin queen bees, Olivia and Eden, who manipulate Anna into doing their homework. Everyone in her new town seems to be rich except Anna’s family, though, as long as she continues to do their homework for them, Olivia and Eden tolerate her. But when Lucy, a girl with a delusional crush on a classmate, is accidentally killed in the cemetery, Anna begins receiving texts from her on the phone. Not understanding that she’s dead, Lucy demands that Anna help her, haunting her ever more intrusively. Cooper writes with a light style and demonstrates keen insight into the social anxieties of middle schoolers. She occasionally includes her own whimsical line drawings that add to the humorous tone of the book. A really nice plot twist at the end should please readers. Good, ghostly fun. (Paranormal suspense. 9-12)
BUCKLE AND SQUASH The Perilous Princess Plot Courtauld, Sarah Illus. by the author Feiwel & Friends (192 pp.) $14.99 | May 5, 2015 978-1-250-05277-3 Series: Buckle and Squash, 1
Two sisters living in the Middle of Nowhere get involved in a dangerous plot in this debut fantasy from England. Farm girl Lavender completely believes that she will marry a prince, trusting her book of fairy tales implicitly. Practical Eliza tends to the farm and their loyal but enigmatic goat, Gertrude. When Lavender decides to take her fate into her own hands and disguise herself as a princess, she is kidnapped by the minions of the evil Mordmont to hold for ransom. He believes Lavender is the real deal, and Lavender decides he must be the beast who will turn back into a handsome prince when she gives him True Love’s First Kiss. Eliza, riding Gertrude, tracks her down and tries to rescue her. However, the girls will have to contend with moat-dragons, especially mother dragon Violet. Courtauld goes wild with puns and humorous turns of phrase: “There was a pause. Then, there were some paws”; in order to escape
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Lavender’s singing, “[b]adgers started hitting each other over the head with rocks in order to make themselves deaf.” Most pages sport whimsical pencil drawings by the author, some using more puns, such as a drawing of a tree hung with underpants for “pantry.” It’s mayhem, with fart jokes, direct addresses to readers, gleefully ridiculous names, and more. Young readers will laugh themselves silly. (Fantasy. 7-10)
GOBLINS ON THE PROWL
Coville, Bruce Aladdin (272 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Jun. 16, 2015 978-1-4169-1440-2 978-1-4814-4128-5 e-book Series: Goblins in the Castle, 2 In an inexcusably tardy sequel to Goblins in the Castle (1992), stakes escalate when old spells and new mischief collide, sending a giant stone toad bounding off with the previous episode’s protagonist in its mouth. When a bit of incautious foolery with a book of spells leads to her friend William being carried away by the suddenly reanimated monument that gives Toad-in-a-Cage Castle its name, Fauna intrepidly hares off in pursuit. The chase takes her past diverting encounters with a particularly mercurial giant, an urbane troll, and others to the underground goblin city of Nilbog. She has the dubious help of a notably motley set of fellow rescuers, including an obnoxious ghost, the hunchbacked Igor (who clutches a weaponized teddy bear), and a brawny woman warrior with a speech impediment who introduces herself as “Bwoonhiwda.” Coville expertly stirs together moments of terror with goblin farts (“Oh, stop fussing. The smell ain’t gonna hurt you. At least, not much. You might lose a little skin, but it’ll grow back”) and like comical touches. He propels his tale to a climactic battle with a malign mage who threatens Nilbog’s very existence and then ties up all the plotlines both new and old with a neat round of counterspells, revelations, and just deserts. A goblin salute (i.e., a finger up the nose) for this brisk and funny outing. (afterword) (Fantasy. 9-11)
HALFWAY PERFECT
Cross, Julie & Perini, Mark Sourcebooks Fire (384 pp.) $9.99 paper | May 5, 2015 978-1-4022-9719-9 Romance and scandal dominate the lives of two young fashion models. Former model Eve was on her way to superstardom when she walked away from the business. The tabloids said it was drugs, but Eve really left to get away from her abusive agent, Wes, in a sexual relationship with her although she was only 15 at the time. Now three years later, Eve 84
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studies photography at Columbia. Working with mentor Janessa, she meets 18-year-old Alex and 14-year-old Elana, both well on their way to stardom. Wes now represents Alex and insists that he pose as Elana’s boyfriend, telling everyone that she is 18, a ruse that works and leads to lucrative jobs. Meanwhile Eve and Alex secretly fall for each other, but their relationship seems doomed from the start, especially once Wes learns of it. Written in alternating chapters in Eve’s and Alex’s present-tense voices, the book works as a fascinating exposé of the modeling profession. Both the romance and the difficulties the teens face feel real, and the details the co-authors (Perini is himself a professional model) provide about the industry—working shoots while pinned into outfits, the constant jockeying for position— lend the story an air of authenticity. Engagingly and intelligently written, this absorbing novel should work as catnip to fashion-obsessed readers. (Fiction. 12-18)
APPLE AND RAIN
Crossan, Sarah Bloomsbury (336 pp.) $17.99 | $12.99 e-book | May 12, 2015 978-1-61963-690-3 978-1-61963-691-0 e-book Apple’s got plenty to contend with: her best friend’s deserted her, the boy she’s attracted to barely knows she exists, and her overprotective Nana is a source of embarrassment at school—but what hurts most is her glamorous mother’s abandonment 11 years ago. At first, her mother’s unexpected return feels like a dream come true, but Apple’s euphoria fades when she realizes Mum didn’t return to rescue her but to be rescued herself from having to raise her younger daughter, Rain, 10, whose existence is a surprise to Apple and Nana, Mum’s mother. Apple, 14, suppresses her doubts when she’s invited to move in with Mum and Rain—the prospect trumps life with Nana. At least Mum won’t insist on driving Apple to school. Instead, Mum urges alcohol on Apple and her classmates, flirts with Apple’s crush, and disappears for days at a time, leaving Apple to skip school and care for troubled Rain. Her English teacher’s poetry assignments encourage Apple, a budding writer, to examine and express her complicated feelings, giving rise to important insights. Her friendship with a new classmate, Del, is a further support. Appealing but naïve, Apple feels more preteen than teen. Most characters, including Nana and Rain, are compassionately drawn—the exception is Mum, whose monstrous narcissism goes far beyond anything Nana’s self-confessed strict parenting can explain. A realistic if gently didactic tale about growing up and parenting. (Fiction. 11-14)
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Maggie’s profanity-laced, snarky, deeply loving, yet antagonistic relationship with her mother is delightful. the awesome
THE AWESOME
Darrows, Eva Ravenstone (288 pp.) $9.99 paper | May 21, 2015 978-1-78108-324-6 An apprentice monster hunter will never be promoted if she doesn’t get her freak on. Seventeen-year-old Maggie is training to hunt monsters. With her foulmouthed mom, Maggie travels around Massachusetts as an exterminator of things that go bump in the night—or at least those that endanger regular humans. Maggie desperately wants to become a federally registered journeyman, legally able to hunt vampires, but there’s one catch: she needs to lose her virginity first. Young vampires go into a frenzy when they smell virgin blood, so Mom won’t let her near a vampire until she gets herself deflowered. How is Maggie—home-schooled, unfashionable, and often covered in ecto—supposed to find what she calls The Sex? An attempt at (hilariously, depressingly) realistic drunken-party sex with a beer-swilling bro fails, leaving Maggie still vulnerable to rampaging bloodsuckers. If her mom weren’t such an action-heroine badass, Maggie might have been clawed to death by a baby vamp. The killing of a frenzied vampire drags them into the precarious world of vampire politics, accompanied by the bro (who’s actually quite pleasant when not swilling beer). Maggie’s profanity-laced, snarky, deeply loving, yet antagonistic relationship with her mother is delightful. Maggie’s adventurous baptism-by-undead provides enough complications to set up a sequel—readers will not want to wait long for it. (Fantasy. 14-18)
HENS FOR FRIENDS
De Lisle, Sandy Illus. by Hansen, Amelia Gryphon Press (24 pp.) $17.95 | Apr. 14, 2015 978-0-940719-26-2
Aarón loves all his family’s chickens, but Rhode Island Red Margaret is his
special favorite. It’s no wonder, as Margaret has an especially fetching expression in Hansen’s line-and-watercolor illustrations, which take advantage of natural chicken physiognomy to endow Margaret and the rest of the flock with demure “smiles.” They make it clear that it’s not just the eggs that spur Aarón’s devotion. In a simple, personable narration, Aarón tells readers that his family got their flock from Mother Hen Chicken Rescue after the city council passed an ordinance allowing residents to keep the birds. He explains how they house, care for, and feed the chickens, gather eggs, and use the composted “poop” in their garden. When Aarón remarks that the chickens’ dust baths look like fun, his mother soberly explains that factory-farm chickens |
live in decidedly worse conditions. With that one exception, De Lisle keeps the tone light, ending the story with a birthday cake for little brother Eduardo made with Margaret’s eggs. Backmatter explains more about chicken keeping, offers tips on chicken care, and for readers prepared to keep them responsibly, suggests resources for chicken adoption. Margaret and the rest of the flock are depicted on the endpapers, but it’s a shame that they are not specifically identified by breed. That Aarón and his family are Latino is just icing on the cake in this engaging introduction to keeping backyard chickens. (Picture book. 5-8)
IMMACULATE
Detweiler, Katelyn Viking (464 pp.) $17.99 | May 26, 2015 978-0-4514-6962-5 There’s nothing like being a pregnant virgin to ruin your senior year of high school. After a typical shift at the pizza parlor, “nerdy, chronic overachiever” Mina, trying to get free of Iris, a strange, old customer who seems to know a lot about her, answers a vague proposal with a frustrated “yes”—and now Mina’s pregnant. And still a virgin. Her father doesn’t believe her; “calm and predictable” boyfriend Nate is hurt and knows it’s not his child; best friend Izzy is certain she’s being lied to. But along with her mother and friend Hannah, busboy Jesse (who also met Iris) joins Mina’s supportive posse—Mina/Jesse, Mary/Joseph, get it? In addition to the obvious Biblical parallels, Mina’s story is also that of every misunderstood teen—bullies harass, an embarrassing website pops up. But calls to “Virgin Mina” to denounce her claim grow stronger, and Mina becomes the focus of adult anger and passion. Eventually forced to take protective action for herself and her unborn child, Mina depends on family and friends. The pace occasionally slows as Mina explores religion, spirituality, and impending motherhood, but overall, Detweiler’s smart writing moves quickly and entertains, particularly with Mina’s appealingly bright voice. Even as the story probes its mystical underpinnings, the focus remains firmly on Mina right through to the end. Detweiler’s ambitious debut takes an intriguing premise and executes it well. (Fiction. 14-18)
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Through its likable characters, sly humor, and smart, fast-moving plot, this entertaining debut raises serious questions about the costs of disposable fashion and pursuit of celebrity. from material girls
MATERIAL GIRLS
Dimopoulos, Elaine HMH Books (336 pp.) $17.99 | May 5, 2015 978-0-544-38850-5
Fashion judge Marla Klein and pop superstar Ivy Wilde have achieved success their teen peers only dream of, but in a world where clothing trends come and go so fast that only high-tech trendcheckers can detect their passing and “stay young” has replaced “goodbye,” no one rides high for long. Ever since she was tapped to join the lucky few leaving school after seventh grade to enter the creative industries, Marla’s worked for fashion powerhouse Torro-LeBlanc. But in an economy dominated by youth-oriented media and with trends carefully orchestrated to drive consumption, exercising independent judgment gets Marla demoted to drafter. While her friends drop her and her vicariously invested mother berates her, Marla’s new colleagues—a smart, creative bunch—invite her to help foment rebellion against lousy pay and working conditions. Elsewhere, stardom’s taking a toll on Ivy. Reliant on an entourage of personal assistants called nymphs and placidophilus pills that engender docile acceptance of the status quo, Ivy stumbles through her micromanaged days, her supremacy increasingly threatened by a younger rising star. Forced to wear outfits showcasing the new torture trend (agonizingly painful) is the last straw. Then a chance meeting with Marla offers both a way out. Through its likable characters, sly humor, and smart, fast-moving plot, this entertaining debut raises serious questions about the costs of disposable fashion and pursuit of celebrity, asking readers to ponder who’s driving the bus. Sly, subversive fun. (bibliography) (Fiction. 12-18)
DUNCAN THE STORY DRAGON
Driscoll, Amanda Illus. by the author Knopf (40 pp.) $16.99 | $19.99 PLB | Jun. 9, 2015 978-0-385-75507-8 978-0-385-75508-5 PLB
A story-reading dragon—what’s not to like? Duncan the Dragon loves to read. But the stories so excite him, his imagination catches fire— and so do his books, leaving him wondering about the endings. Does the captain save the ship? Do aliens conquer the Earth? Desperate to reach the all-important words “The End” (“like the last sip of a chocolate milk shake”), he tries reading in the refrigerator, in front of a bank of electric fans, and even in a bathtub filled with ice. Nothing works. He decides to ask a friend to read to him, but the raccoon, possum, and bull all refuse. Weeping, Duncan is ready to give up, but one of his draconic tears runs “split-splat into a mouse,” a book-loving mouse! 86
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Together they battle sea monsters, dodge icebergs, and discover new lands, giving rise to a fast friendship. Driscoll’s friendly illustrations are pencil sketches painted in Adobe Photoshop; she varies full-bleed paintings with vignettes surrounded by white space, imaginary scenes rendered in monochrome to set them apart. Duncan himself is green, winged, and scaly, but his snout is unthreateningly bovine, and he wears red sneakers with his shoelaces untied—a nicely vulnerable touch. Though there are lots of unusual friendship stories in picture books, the vivid colors, expressive faces, and comic details make this one likely to be a storytime hit. Like the last sip of a chocolate milkshake, it’s very satisfying. (Picture book. 4-6)
WHAT REMAINS
Dunbar, Helene Flux (336 pp.) $9.99 paper | May 8, 2015 978-0-7387-4430-8 A 16-year-old boy attempts to put his life back together after suffering a nearfatal injury in a car accident that leaves his best friend dead. A heart transplant saves Cal Ryan’s life, but as he sets out on the road to recovery, a familiar voice begins to invade his thoughts. After some not-so-subtle foreshadowing, Cal finds out that Lizzie, his deceased best friend, is the heart donor; it’s her voice he hears. Cal must cope with his grief while nurturing his other friendships, but there isn’t much of a plot. He suffers survivor’s guilt and must also come to terms with the end of a promising future playing baseball, so his anger and depression are understandable, but he comes across as whiny and unlikable. The story is told in Cal’s first-person voice, but too much internal exposition and overuse of “or something” to replace more creative description make for painful reading. Clichés abound: the gay drama geek, the depressed artsy girl, the homophobic jock, and the oblivious love interest populate the novel’s thinly drawn world. The theory of cellular memory is tossed around, and ambiguity surrounding whether or not Lizzie’s ghostly presence is literal or metaphorical is the novel’s only asset. Misses its chance to be a satisfying, big-box-of-tissues tear-jerker. (Fiction. 14-17)
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ELENA VANISHING A Memoir
Dunkle, Elena & Dunkle, Clare B. Chronicle (288 pp.) $17.99 | May 5, 2015 978-1-4521-2151-2
This co-authored, mother-daughter memoir recounts daughter Elena’s fiveyear struggle to overcome anorexia nervosa after her diagnosis at 17. Elena’s memories often highlight the interwoven nature of her relationship with food to traumatic events in her life, from childhood feelings of maternal abandonment to a rape at age 13. The memoir’s most emotionally resonant moments involve Elena’s recognition of the connections between her emotional landscape and her anorexia. However, the narrative follows a distinct pattern: Elena experiences a health crisis that leads to professional intervention, she leaves treatment, the timeline skips ahead. At this point readers are essentially told that during the intervening time Elena was academically successful in such varied accomplishments as completing advanced placement exams and securing a job as a college dormitory residential assistant. It’s difficult to imagine how she masked her heart condition, fainting, and other indicators of serious health problems. With each health crisis, the cycle begins anew, and readers learn that her anorexia has been growing increasingly severe. Elena does bravely expose her emotional struggles, and readers will welcome her eventual recovery. Unfortunately the book again skips the two years between her decision to accept help and the final reveal. This memoir contains moving snapshots of a young woman’s struggles with anorexia nervosa, but readers may be frustrated by omissions of key moments in the recovery process. (Memoir. 14 & up)
CLICK!
Ebbeler, Jeffrey Illus. by the author Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | $16.95 e-book | May 1, 2015 978-0-8234-3295-0 978-0-8234-3328-5 e-book An industrious lamp in the shape of a bird fixes all things that go bump in
creaks, flaps, and rustles, which means more things to fix. The sweetest fix of all comes when a stuffed animal becomes separated from his boy. In his first picture book as both writer and illustrator, Ebbeler (The Only Alex Addleston in All These Mountains, 2014, etc.) embeds simple, audible text sparingly within the illustrations, to the fullest effect. No two reads will be the same, as he leaves room for lively interpretations. Although the text-sounds aren’t unique, the lamp-bird is. Reminiscent of a vintage drinking-bird toy, this late-night fixer-upper will keep readers and listeners guessing whether it’s part pelican, ostrich, chicken, or something of their own creation. An enjoyable bedtime story that demands to be heard. (Picture book. 3-6)
HENRY’S STARS
Elliot, David Illus. by the author Philomel (40 pp.) $16.99 | May 5, 2015 978-0-399-17116-1
Henry, the likable pig of Henry’s Map (2013), is back in this picture book. Stargazing one evening from his front stoop, Henry sees a group of stars that seem to form a picture in the sky—a picture that to Henry’s eyes is the Great Pig. Excited, Henry runs to where his sheep friends are just heading off to bed and shows them the stars. They stare and see...a Great Sheep. Abigail the cow joins them, and she sees a Great Star Cow. And on it goes. Even the chickens see Heavenly Hens. Irritated, Henry goes back to his stoop. Elliot’s gentle writing is quietly humorous, and his illustrations, with their softly rendered nightscapes, capture the magic and mystery of night-sky gazing. The problem, though, is that the ending lacks developmental impact. Henry, after going home and sitting alone, once again sees the Great Pig and rushes off to tell his friends, just as he did at the beginning of the story. And this feels flattish. Nothing, apparently, has changed. The back endpapers show the clever visual reveal of a starry sky with all the animals delineated, but it would have had more impact if it were included in the body of the story. A lovely story with fetching illustrations that needs a more developed ending to completely succeed. (Picture book. 3-6)
the night. At bedtime, a young boy yawns, tosses, and turns, then drifts off to blissful sleep. Soon, noises throughout the supposedly quiet house begin to sound, and the boy’s bedside lampbird can’t resist investigating. With a “tip, tap, click, click,” it springs down the hall on ostrichlike legs, its conical beak poised for action. How convenient that its torso contains a light bulb to illuminate the way! It hears “drip, drip, drop, drop” from the bathroom and dutifully cranks the bathtub faucet shut, much to the bath toys’ relief. More noises follow, including sneezes, |
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LUKE & THE LITTLE SEED
Ferri, Giuliano Illus. by the author Minedition (32 pp.) $17.99 | Apr. 1, 2015 978-988-8240-94-4
What could be a better gift for a wee mouse than a mysterious gift that promises both something delicious to eat and branches to climb and play on? It’s Luke’s birthday—Luke being a little mouse standing on a soft, grassy hill, waving at his friends as they arrive at his party. Then his bespectacled grandfather gives him a gift: a small orange bag, full, disappointingly, of “just seeds.” But his grandfather promises that if Luke takes care of them, the gift will provide a tasty treat and a botanical jungle gym. They plant the seeds, but like every small child (or mouse), Luke is disappointed when he doesn’t see speedy results. Grandfather counsels patience. Finally, up grows a small, strong shoot, and Luke sits over it, enchanted, as if a new friend has magically appeared. The story quickens; Luke forgets to water the plant, and it nearly dies; when, one day, Luke is sick in bed, his curious friends happily fill in for him. The soft pastel watercolors beautifully capture the world from a mouse’s-eye view, and the mice are irresistible, with their big ears, little hands and feet, and eyes that shine like tiny marbles. Towering, fluffy white dandelions stand like watchful and eager spectators. Readers will appreciate seeing the good things that come to those who wait, watch, and water. (Picture book. 3-8)
DIME
Frank, E.R. Atheneum (336 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-1-4814-3160-6 978-1-4814-3162-0 e-book Frank’s first novel since Wrecked (2005) is a searing examination of teenage prostitution. Dime is 14, loves books, and turns tricks. After her foster mother kicked her out, living with Daddy is like something out of a dream. Daddy buys her clothes and sticks up for her against Brandy and L.A., the other girls in the house—and he’s so gentle when he takes her virginity. When Daddy needs Dime to make some money, she joins L.A. and Brandy on the track, having sex for coin. The arrival of new girl Lollipop, just 11, makes Dime realize she doesn’t love Daddy anymore—and she doesn’t want this life. It’s only when they realize Lollipop is pregnant that Dime knows what she’ll do. If she writes a note that explains everything, people will take care of Lollipop’s baby. But what she’ll do to protect Lollipop and her baby can only end one way for Dime herself—and it’s a sacrifice she’s ready to make. The story is related in flashbacks as Dime ponders her note, taking 88
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inspiration from The Book Thief and imagining writing it in various allegorical voices: Sex, Violence, Money. Since her overall narration is fairly straightforward, the note device often feels self-conscious rather than artful. Dime’s desire to save her friend transcends artifice and approaches heroism, making for a tremendously affecting novel. (Fiction. 14 & up)
THE WILD PIANO
Fred Illus. by the author Translated by Kutner, Richard TOON Books & Graphics (48 pp.) $16.95 | May 12, 2015 978-1-935179-83-2 Series: Philemon Adventures, 2 Philemon (Cast Away on the Letter A, 2014) returns in another whimsical romp to revisit the letter A and free his friend Bartholomew. Upon his return from the labyrinth on the letter A (of the word “Atlantic” on a map), Philemon quickly discovers that his hardworking father has little time for his fanciful tales. But his uncle Felix not only believes him, but knows of the letter A and of Bartholomew. Felix quickly transports Philemon—via a reversed telescope and careful placement on a globe—back to the letters that make up the lands he had just left. Upon his arrival, he finds all kinds of wonderfully odd things, like a traveler who can not only walk, but sleep on water; a race of brilliantly hued, capricious beings who arrest him for bouncing; and a bizarre house full of strange doors, giants, and calamitous carpets. This second Philemon outing, originally published in France in the 1970s and only now published in English, is just as charmingly offbeat as its predecessor. Included are notes that help young readers place many of the literary references found in Philemon’s adventures, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to Gulliver’s Travels. Easily eclipsing the decades, this mind-bending fantasy blends familiar literary allusions, psychedelic settings, and just the right smattering of fun. (Graphic fantasy. 7-12)
THE TENDERNESS OF THIEVES
Freitas, Donna Philomel (352 pp.) $17.99 | May 26, 2015 978-0-399-17136-9
A smart, straight-laced teen who’s survived a terrifying crime falls hard for a boy from a family with a bad reputation in this summer romance shot through with suspense. Jane yearns for happiness following the events of the year before, when her father, a police officer, came to her aid and was murdered while she was blindfolded
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From “mishun control” to launch and liftoff, Garton’s bright, shiny digital illustrations are full of sparkle and humor. otter in space
and held at knife point during a burglary. However, summer has barely begun in their insular New England town when Jane suddenly finds herself pursued by gorgeous bad boy Handel. Her tightknit group of friends is convincingly divided in their opinions about the burgeoning relationship. In contrast, Jane’s mother, a talented seamstress whose work draws customers across the town’s sharply portrayed class divide, is believably supportive and open with her daughter, whom she pushes toward making some peace with the past even as she trusts her to make her own decisions about love and sex. The meandering, dreamy language—grass is “tender with the newness of life,” and Jane’s desire makes her heart “flutter like the wings of a hummingbird”—is perfect for the hazy, hot summer days depicted, though the mystery isn’t served as well by the languid pace. Readers will likely solve the puzzle before Jane does, but fortunately, there’s plenty to enjoy here besides the whodunit. (Mystery. 14-18)
ETERNITY’S WHEEL
Gaiman, Neil, Reaves, Michael & Reaves, Mallory HarperTeen (288 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | May 19, 2015 978-0-06-206799-9 978-0-06-206801-9 e-book Series: InterWorld, 3 The Interworld series, based on a TV concept developed by Gaiman and Michael Reaves (and still sporting Gaiman’s name although seemingly not written by him), comes to a close. Taking place immediately after the conclusion of The Silver Dream (2013), this final volume picks up Joseph Harker’s story as the combined forces of HEX and Binary threaten all of creation with FrostNight, a Multiverse-erasing incident. A long, exposition-heavy rehash of the previous two volumes, rather artificially delivered to Joseph’s former history teacher, aims to bring new readers up to speed but may deter even fans as it slows any forward impetus in the opening chapters. Once the actual plot picks up (Joe and a handful of other Walkers, including new recruits, must save the world; creative enemies and disaster are everywhere), the Reaves deliver another mishmash of science-fictional jargon and paradox, lots of characters whose names start with J, and some action and mystery that add up to a mildly emotional conclusion (which incidentally leaves open the possibility of future Interworld stories). Part war story (with children as soldiers), part adventure, part coming of age, this sits uneasily between genres and tones; like its protagonist, it is still trying to figure out its path. All in all, purely for fans. (Science fiction. 12-15)
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REBELS OF THE LAMP
Galvin, Michael M.B. & Speakman, Peter Disney-Hyperion (288 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | May 12, 2015 978-1-4231-7957-3 978-1-4231-8767-7 e-book Series: Rebels of the Lamp, 1 New authors Galvin and Speakman present 12-year-old Californian Parker Quarry in stock but action-packed, third-person chapters alternating with the ancient journals of Vesiroth (circa 1,200-900 B.C.). Apparently well-educated for his time, farmer Vesiroth writes of accessing magick and the power of the Nexus after the tragic loss of his family. But working with the magick of the Nexus “erodes the soul,” and soon Vesiroth is creating an increasingly corrupt family of genies who are eventually entrapped in metal canister-lamps. Meanwhile, back in the modern-day storyline, Parker has been transplanted to New Hampshire after getting into trouble one too many times. There, he, his cousin Theo, and the lovely overachiever Reese have released one of the genies and, after requesting a Porsche (they’re 12, after all), have run afoul of a throat-slitting cult. Brutal members of the Path worship the genies and appear capable of anything— except accurately aiming their endless supply of machine guns or missiles. With a massive rolling globe in a museum, endless chases on foot, car, and airplane, and the fortuitous appearance of a polar bear, there is no end to the assorted excitement. Gratuitous references to the Disney empire, along with a made-forthe-big-screen feel suggest this first of a two-part series may find its way into theaters, where the fast pace may eclipse the energetic but uneven plot. Mythology, magick, and mayhem—but mostly, mayhem. (Adventure. 9-12)
OTTER IN SPACE
Garton, Sam Illus. by the author Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 5, 2015 978-0-06-224776-6 Having previously opened a toast restaurant (I Am Otter, 2014), an otter ups the ante and shoots for the moon. When Otter Keeper takes Otter and Teddy to a museum, they see moon rocks, NASA models, simulated spaceship controls, and a video about the moon. At the gift shop, Otter is “forced to make some very difficult decisions.” She gets a new toy spaceship but not a moon rock, so the next day, when Otter Keeper goes to work, Otter hatches a plan: “Teddy and I [will] get our moon rock from the same place the museum did: the MOON!” As she builds space suits (using glue, boxes, galoshes, and a scuba mask) and puts Teddy through rigorous “antigravity training” in the dryer, Otter’s hilarious narration
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Interviews & Profiles
Pam Muñoz Ryan
A story about segregation inspires the writer’s latest novel (and, oh, a harmonica) By Lora Shinn
Photo courtesy Sean B. Masterson
When Echo first called to her, Pam Muñoz Ryan was researching a different story altogether: the nation’s first successful desegregation case in California. Ryan traveled to Lemon Grove, California, to dig into the 1931 case of Roberto Alvarez v. the Lemon Grove School District, where the all-Anglo local school board attempted to segregate children of Mexican or Mexican-American origin. While poring through the local historical society’s archives, “I came across a photo from the early 1930s of a classroom of students sitting on the steps of the school, each holding a harmonica,” she says. “When I asked about the odd photograph, the elderly docent, who had attended that very school said, ‘Oh, you know, that was our elementary school harmonica band. Almost every school had one in the ’20s and ’30s during the big harmonica band movement.’ ” 90
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Wait, what? Her curiosity instantly piqued, Ryan’s research focus started following a new tune. “Not only was there a harmonica band movement in the United States, but also Alfred Hoxie’s then-famous Philadelphia Harmonica Band of Wizards,” Ryan says. The Wizards, she explains, were a 60-member band of boys—many orphaned—who played in Charles Lindbergh’s parade and for three presidents. The band’s preferred harmonica was the same as the kids’ on the country school steps: the Hohner Marine Band harmonica. “I began to wonder about the children in that country school and in Hoxie’s band,” she says. “Two fictional characters and their stories began to take shape.” Those characters were Mike, a white Philly-based orphan boy who wanted to be in Hoxie’s band, and Ivy Maria, a Hispanic girl in a country school harmonica band, with details inspired by the desegregation case and Japanese internment camps. Not only did they both play the pocket-sized wind instrument, but through a mixture of fate and magic, they played the same kind of harmonica. Intrigued, she traveled to Trossingen, Germany, to tour the Hohner Harmonica company campus and museum, home to one of the world’s largest, oldest harmonica factories. “Everyone was wonderful and welcoming and could not believe I wanted to include a Hohner harmonica in my story,” Ryan says. “Going through that museum is like going through history,” she says. “Every world event had a commemorative harmonica made for it.” Amid the exhibits, Ryan learned about pre–WWII harmonica-factory apprentices, which inspired the story of the book’s third main character, Friedrich. Behind the glass cases were the literal and metaphorical strength of harmonicas. “I saw a glass case of harmonicas embedded with bullets that had saved soldiers’ lives along with let-
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ters from grateful family members, or the soldier himself, who had eventually returned the harmonica. “I took the story further and wondered, ‘What if there’s something magical about this harmonica that helps each of my characters’ abilities to carry on in very dark times, through depression and war?’ ” Ryan says. “I began to imagine the harmonica’s back story. That is how Friedrich’s and Mike’s and Ivy’s stories became entwined and framed in a fairy tale.” Echo contains lyrical, emotional descriptions of melodic pieces—often from the musician’s point of view— with such realism that it’s somewhat surprising that Ryan isn’t a working musician. Dabbling in lessons as a child, Ryan says she was “mediocre at best” at the piano. With her friend Irene, she took up the violin in elementary school. But a few months later, an unfortunate incident with a music teacher quashed her aspirations. “He had lectured us about the responsibility for the care of our instruments,” she says. “When the bridge popped off of my violin while I was practicing at home, I was so terrified of what his reaction might be that I secretly tried to fix it with wood glue.” She hoped the teacher wouldn’t notice and also didn’t know that a violin’s bridge was held in place by string tension. She came back to class; the music teacher not only noticed, but was also unforgiving. “My violin lessons ended in shame,” she says. She switched to glee club and joined the school chorus in junior high, then dropped performing. Today, she’s an enthusiastic audience member with a special appreciation for musical theater and Motown. “That’s the wonderful thing about music and so many of the arts,” she says. “You don’t have to be the one who makes the art to love and appreciate it or even to become an expert on it. Someone has to be the audience. Music is a universal language understood by both the person speaking—the musician—as well as person spoken to, the listener,” she says. Ryan is disheartened by contemporary cuts to school music programs. She points to her friend Irene, who just retired from the Sydney Philharmonic. “We’re talking about two little girls walking to school for violin lessons who could not have ever afforded private lessons,” she says. “It’s a perfect example of why music is so important.” Nervous parents and teachers may worry that some of the book’s topics (Hitler’s Germany, orphanages, discrimination in the U.S.) are too sensitive for children. Yet Ryan delicately handles each. “My goal was to be honest and clear, but not graph|
ic, and to really trust the reader to infer,” Ryan says. “I wrote hoping that there would be multiple levels of comprehension—to introduce a topic on a simple level but have another layer of understanding bloom for an older reader or an adult, or if they read it again down the line, they’ll have a richer understanding.” Reading the German chapters, a child may not grasp the larger picture of concentration camps and widespread destruction, but a young adult will. In fact, the unspoken sometimes confers an ominous quality to chapters, particularly for adults. Parents and teachers can use the book as a springboard for heavy topics without traumatizing the younger reader. And Ryan resolves stories perched on a worrisome cliffhanger. That’s also by design, although Ryan played with alternative, unfortunate endings. “I tried on many scenarios in my mind and on paper,” she says. “But in the end, neither of those situations felt right for such high-profile characters. In each story, so much of the characters’ struggles were about what they conquered together as a family. One of the themes was finding a way through darkness and fear and obstacles. And I so wanted them all to find their ways.” Lora Shinn is a former youth and teen services librarian and now writes full-time about literacy, health, and travel. Echo received a starred review in the Dec. 15, 2014, issue.
Echo Ryan, Pam Muñoz Scholastic (592 pp.) $19.99 | Feb. 24, 2015 978-0-439-87402-1
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Graff writes with stunning insight into boyhood and humanity. lost in the sun
never acknowledges that this isn’t a real trip—nor that Teddy and the other participants are stuffed animals. Otter herself is a delightful amalgam of pet (staying home alone when Otter Keeper, an adult human, goes to work) and child (drinking from a juice box and riding in a car seat). From “mishun control” to launch and liftoff, Garton’s bright, shiny digital illustrations are full of sparkle and humor. Even a sudden progression from spot illustrations to a full double-page spread is funny. Lively, giggle-producing proof that imaginative play is just as good as getting to the moon. (Picture book. 3-6)
LION HEART
Gaughen, A.C. Bloomsbury (352 pp.) $17.99 | $12.99 e-book | May 19, 2015 978-0-8027-3616-1 978-0-8027-3617-8 e-book Series: Scarlet, 3 This third and concluding volume in Gaughen’s retelling of the Robin Hood legend from Marian’s point of view finds Marian (aka Scarlet) facing execution after months of imprisonment by evil Prince John. She escapes and meets with her grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who asks for her help raising ransom to bring King Richard home, though what Marian longs to do is reunite with her beloved Robin—even though that may put Robin in danger. After Marian saves Eleanor from an ambush, she meets up with Robin in Nottingham. Through a twist of fate, she’s now a powerful lady whose swift rise in status (granted by her father, King Richard) gives her holdings in Nottingham and the social standing to defy Prince John’s cruelty—though she still needs her street-fighting skills to fend off occasional assassins. The plot moves briskly, with an even mix of heart-fluttering love scenes and gritty fight sequences. Following in the tradition of Tamora Pierce’s stories of feisty, kickass heroines and drawing on some factual underpinnings (explained in an engaging author’s note), Gaughen’s tale will satisfy teen readers seeking action-packed romantic adventure set alluringly in another age. Fans of Scarlet will celebrate both this opportunity to revisit Gaughen’s colorfully depicted long-ago world and her suspenseful ending to a lively story. (Historical fiction. 13-18)
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LOST IN THE SUN
Graff, Lisa Philomel (304 pp.) $16.99 | May 26, 2015 978-0-399-16406-4
When internal anger turns into outward rage, one middle school misfit must find a solution or risk ruining everything that matters. Trent Zimmerman can’t help it. It’s not his fault that his dad hates him, and his teacher, the old crone, hates him, and his old friends hate him. Only, well, he feels so guilty. Maybe it is his fault. Ever since the accident back in February, when Trent accidentally hit a hockey puck into Jared Richards with catastrophic results, his life has been turned upside down. When middle school starts in the fall, Trent believes it’s a chance to start fresh, only it doesn’t take long for him to realize that no one has forgotten what happened to Jared—especially Trent. Now his anger is getting bigger and bigger, pushing against his insides and making Trent lash out. If that isn’t crazy enough, he finds himself in a bizarro friendship with terribly scarred Fallon Little, who just might be able to teach Trent how to value himself. Graff writes with stunning insight into boyhood and humanity, allowing Trent to speak for himself in a pained, honest narration. Investing Trent with all the tragic frailty of Holden Caulfield, Graff tackles issues of loss, isolation, and rage without apology. Graff consistently demonstrates why character-driven novels can live from generation to generation, and here she offers a story that can survive for many school years to come. (Fiction. 9-12)
THE PERFECT PERCIVAL PRIGGS
Graham, Julie-Anne Illus. by the author Running Press Kids (32 pp.) $16.95 | May 26, 2015 978-0-7624-5506-5 There are more important things in life than being perfect. The Priggs are an impressive family. Father Prescott excels in the sciences, mother Penelope is a wordsmith extraordinaire, and son Percival seems to have inherited the best of both parents. The three earn high marks in everything they attempt, and each has a shelf packed with prizes. The family also has a pair of perfectly poofy poodles. But Percy finds it exhausting to be perfect, and he fears his parents won’t love him if he’s anything less. One weekend, Penelope puts the finishing touches on a luscious, multitiered cake, while Prescott carefully trims the hedge...to perfection. Percy is entered in so many contests—from chess to model making to history—that he invents a rocket to help him race through his prep. Unfortunately, it races out of control, knocking over the cake and tearing up the prize roses and sending the poodles flying. Incredibly, Percy’s parents just laugh and
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then show him all of their failures, giving him valuable permission to pursue what he loves and fail along the way. Graham’s digitally collaged illustrations are quirky and appealing, depicting the three Priggses with identical, enormous round glasses and post-catastrophe Percival with tufty, flyaway hair. The mayhem itself is solid slapstick, and the buildup is well-paced. Though familiar, the story’s message certainly bears repeating. Decidedly delightful. (Picture book. 4- 7)
SHADOW OF THE WOLF
Hall, Tim David Fickling/Scholastic (480 pp.) $18.99 | $18.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-0-545-81664-9 978-0-545-82313-5 e-book This grimdark reimagining of the Robin Hood legend, first in a projected trilogy, takes little from its source but the names and setting. Robin Loxley is already a consummate woodsman by age 7, when his father abandons him in the Winter Forest. He forms an inseparable bond with Marian, daughter of the local lord, but their idyllic, feral childhood ends with Marian’s abduction by the mysteriously malevolent Sheriff and Robin training for knighthood. An abortive escape attempt leaves Robin blind and Marian imprisoned, but the capricious Forest gods have other plans....Don’t expect roguish folk heroes or merry men in this unrelentingly joyless version, with its lush, sensuous prose and dense, glacial plotting. Rather, brace for bestial squalor and sadism, emphasizing cowardice, hypocrisy, madness, bloodlust, rape, and incest, and lingering on the grisly details of torture and savagery. Characters operate as mere puppets of a narrative propelled by cryptic forebodings and snatches of prophecy. The Sheriff is little more than a generic epitome of evil; his henchmen are mostly sniveling lackeys or psychopaths almost comical in their grotesquerie; Marian, whether as madcap tomboy or assassin mastermind, functions primarily to motivate Robin. Robin himself is strangely aloof and opaque, revealing little personality beyond sullen hate, berserker fury, and a consuming obsession with Marian more creepy than romantic. Imaginative depth and exquisite craft in service to a bleak and brutal muse. (Fantasy. 14 & up)
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YELLOW COPTER
Hamilton, Kersten Illus. by Petrone, Valeria Viking (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 19, 2015 978-0-451-46991-5
A rhyming picture book about a yellow rescue helicopter geared toward toddlers. Simple, onomatopoeic text and bright illustrations tell the story of a new, yellow rescue helicopter that receives its first assignment. The smiling, friendly-looking rescue copter is rendered in bold colors that contrast nicely with the grayblue background. The unencumbered art style helps make the various parts of a helicopter easily identifiable. Some doublepage spreads focus on the names of the helicopter parts (rotors, tail boom, skids, etc.), which should appeal to readers who are interested in mechanical transportation. The plot concerns a teacher who is stuck at the top of a Ferris wheel and needs saving. While both the group of ethnically diverse students watching from the ground and the teacher up on the wheel look distressed, they do not look afraid, and the tone is one of hope, which should assuage anxious readers. Whenever the words “yellow copter” appear in the text, they are always printed in yellow, which makes sense and will help teach color association, but other words arbitrarily printed in colored type may confuse young readers. The interpretation of the sound (“whup, whup, whup”) helicopters make—as well as other sounds—should make for a bouncy read-aloud. A good choice for young transportation lovers. (Picture book. 2-4)
NOSE TO TOES, YOU ARE YUMMY!
Harrington, Tim Illus. by the author Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $17.99 | May 19, 2015 978-0-06-232816-8 Indie rock musician and author/illustrator Harrington appropriately combines his musical and artistic skills in this creative take on such music and movement games as “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes.” In an exuberantly interactive style, young readers are directed by a miscellany of cute animals to wave their hands, tug their ears, shrug their shoulders, touch their noses, blink their eyes, kiss, and touch tummies, simply because “I think every little bit of you is yummy, yummy, yummy!” In strong, simple rhyming format, Harrington connects body parts to actions in a way that will have even grown-ups jumping and jiving. The last page teaches the “Yummy Dance” with simple graphic diagrams. The bold, brightly colored digital illustrations tend to brashness and a simplicity verging on monotony. This tendency is alleviated by humorous touches such as the wacky collection of shoes on the centipede’s feet and the funny, warm connections
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between the animals in the illustrations: a tiger lavishly licks her cub, and two penguins charmingly press a balloon to their ample tummies. A nifty way to get preschoolers up and moving, made even more effective by the accompanying music (available for download from the publisher). (Picture book. 2-4)
THIRTEEN
Hoyle, Tom Holiday House (240 pp.) $16.95 | $16.95 e-book | May 15, 2015 978-0-8234-3294-3 978-0-8234-3382-7 e-book Only one boy has the power to stop a dangerous cult from wreaking havoc in the city of London. Adam leads the boring life of an average 13-year-old—hanging out with friends, going to school, and attending the occasional music festival. But then his life is turned upside down when members of a cult convinced that he must die before he reaches his 14th birthday begin to stage attacks. He manages to escape their clutches but at the same time puts everyone he cares about in danger. Cults are not yet an overdone topic in literature for teens, and a refreshing plot element is always welcome. However, these characters are too underdeveloped to present any real tension, even as lives hang in the balance. Adam’s personality does not stretch beyond the thoughts and actions he needs to defend himself, and too rarely does he question the weirdness of his life, leaving him resistant to readers’ sympathy. The bad guys are nearly comical in their attachment to cliché and weak threats: “People are going to get hurt if you don’t get into that car right now.” The easy language and simple sentences feel more appropriate for an audience younger than 12 than for teen readers. In a market saturated with tales of danger and heroic teens, this one is best left at the Tube station. (Thriller. 10-12)
LITTLE KUNOICHI, THE NINJA GIRL
Ishida, Sanae Illus. by the author Little Bigfoot/Sasquatch (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 5, 2015 978-1-57061-954-0
makes their friendship bloom. Together they prepare for the Island Festival, where they wow the crowd and grow in confidence (despite a lost ninja star or two). Ishida cleverly and drolly promotes the virtues of hard work, imagination, and play. There is much to intrigue both genders, from silly jokes and pink dragons to swordplay and cunning. Beautiful, vivid pops of color—at once both gentle and vibrant—fill the spreads. The lovely paint-on-paper illustrations have a winning honesty and whimsy. From the text to the artwork, everything about Little Kunoichi’s life and culture is made to feel special. This thoughtfulness extends to the backmatter, as a concluding page explains Japanese words and cultural references. Stunning artwork, full of warmth and pizazz, presents a lovable heroine who will win hearts with her perseverance and humor. (Picture book. 3- 7)
JUST FOR TODAY
St. John XXIII Illus. by Landmann, Bimba Translated by Watkinson, Laura Eerdmans (34 pp.) $16.00 | Apr. 27, 2015 978-0-8028-5461-2
Landmann illustrates the decalogue of Angelo Roncalli, probably best known as Pope John XXIII and now St. John—a simple set of 10 precepts to live by. Each day, he would be polite, he would not criticize, he would spend 10 minutes in silence listening to God. “Just for today, I will make a plan: perhaps I will not follow it perfectly, but still I will make it. And I will guard against two evils: haste and indecision.” He concludes knowing that it is hard to think of doing those things for a lifetime, but for 12 hours? Surely one can do that. The original Italian is not quite so stiff, although it is as formal; the advice in any language is strong but gentle, as the man himself was. Landmann has made a near-magical series of images illustrating this prayer: of a boy, of a city of turrets and domes, of a classroom in which each child has an animal companion like a guardian angel (or one of Philip Pullman’s daemons), of rooftops and forest and ocean. Her surreal approach is ideal for the ethereal subject. The palette is blue and gold, and the line is delicate. The credo is a bit too wordy for very young children, but they might be taken by the images, and the repetition of “just for today” has a comforting, rhythmic weight. There’s plenty of wisdom here for older children and adults of many faiths. (Picture book. 6-10)
For Little Kunoichi, ninja school is hard, but with practice, friendship, and humor, she flies high at the Island Festival. Tucked away on a secret island, Little Kunoichi lives with her ninja family, attending a supersecret ninja girls’ school. But scaling cliffs and using nunchucks and throwing stars don’t come easy. Everything changes when she spies Chibi Samurai, a small boy with middling skills, practicing with great determination. Inspired, Little Kunoichi applies herself, and when the two meet, their dedication to shugyo (“training like crazy”) 94
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As in her smash debut (and basis for the movie of the same name), The DUFF, Keplinger creates vivid, believable characters that are full of spunk and joie de vivre. lying out loud
RHINOS DON’T EAT PANCAKES
its doom, and finally, the line is drawn in a park sandbox. Claws and fangs at 20 paces. Henry’s retro-style mixed-media illustrations—pencil, watercolor, and digitalized watercolor—neatly suit Kent’s spunky, lighthearted, fully bilingual story. Lugo’s translation appears in red type beneath Kent’s English text, paragraph by paragraph. A nifty bilingual treat. (Picture book. 5-10)
Kemp, Anna Illus. by Ogilvie, Sara Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-1-4814-3845-2 978-0-85707-643-4 e-book A purple rhino moves in and the adults are oblivious. What’s a kid to do? Daisy’s parents never listen to her anyway. So when she tries to point out to Mom and Dad that a huge, purple rhinoceros is strolling into the kitchen, chomping a pancake, and heading upstairs, they mishear and dismiss her. The creature makes himself at home. He hangs out in the yard; he keeps Daisy company while she dons her roller skates; he even sits on the toilet. Steadfast Daisy, unalarmed, decides that since her parents are too busy to pay attention to her, she’ll talk to the rhino instead. They become fast friends. Ogilvie uses pencil, pastel, ink, paint, monoprint, and digital tools to create lighthearted illustrations full of loose lines, enlivening the matter-of-fact, sometimesbland text. Fanciful colors, overlaps of media, and colorings-in that escape their outlines make for a 1970s vibe. Humor and sadness blend: the rhino’s single tear is poignant as he expresses his longing to go home (“a million miles away”), but Daisy’s possible solutions include a hot air balloon and a bicycle, rejected because “the helmet would never fit.” Only outside proof of the rhino’s existence conquers Daisy’s parents’ denial, and the text dulls as Daisy reconnects with them, but the last page upticks in wit. Amusing and whimsical. (Picture book. 3-6)
EL PERRO CON SOMBRERO A Bilingual Doggy Tale Kent, Derek Taylor Illus. by Henry, Jed Translated by Lugi, Gabriela Revilla Henry Holt (40 pp.) $17.99 | May 5, 2015 978-0-8050-9989-8
Keplinger breathes new life into what it means to LOL. Seventeen-year-old broke-ass Sonny (nee Sonya) can’t bring herself to tell the truth, especially when it means playing a sort of twisted Cyrano via her BFF, Amy, to nab the hot, new hipster boy at her school, Ryder. She finds herself up all hours of the night chatting and instant messaging with him under the guise of Amy, at whose house she’s crashing since her mom has kicked her out of her own house. At first it’s all fun and games (neither girl really wants to go out with him), but when she finds that she truly does have feelings for Ryder, the truth begins to come out, and the cost is high. As in her smash debut (and basis for the movie of the same name), The DUFF (2010), Keplinger creates vivid, believable characters that are full of spunk and joie de vivre. She plunges them into an utterly realistic work that feels familiar and contemporary. The plot moves like lightning, and Keplinger’s keen ear for teenspeak will keep readers laughing (and sometimes crying) up to the very end. Just like the recipients of Sonny’s fibs, readers will find themselves duped by her creativity, unabashed courage, and hilarious snark. Until it all blows up. Fierce, fresh, total fun. (Fiction. 14-18)
WITH A FRIEND BY YOUR SIDE
Move over, Puss in Boots and Cat in the Hat; now there’s el Perro con Sombrero and el Gato con Zapatos. Pepe is a homeless, hungry, and very sad dog until a fancy sombrero lands on his head. Almost immediately, a grocer spots him and is so impressed by this handsome canine that he gives Pepe a bone. A movie director in a flashy sports car then demands that Pepe star in his movies. From Westerns to comedies, Pepe’s a box office hit. But despite the monetary windfall and fancy digs, he still yearns for a family and a real home. Enter el gato—the jealous movie star Pepe has displaced. Wearing fabulous, zoot suit–ready purple shoes, the cat steals the sombrero. The chase is on! Apples tumble down supermarket aisles, popcorn rains over movie theater seats, a wedding cake meets |
LYING OUT LOUD
Keplinger, Kody Scholastic (304 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Apr. 28, 2015 978-0-545-83109-3 978-0-545-83111-6 e-book Series: DUFF, 2
Kerley, Barbara National Geographic (48 pp.) $17.99 | May 12, 2015 978-1-4263-1905-1
The concept of friendship earns itself another tribute picture book, this time with crisp, stunning photographs to match. “There, in the crowd, is someone— / who likes the things you like.” Brief text reassures readers that there’s a friend somewhere out there for everybody and then lists all the things such a pal could do as well as the additional benefits of what such a friendship would bring. All told, the text is a pep talk to the
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The story tackles questions about religion, family, and intimacy with depth and grace. the porcupine of truth
lonely, promising great companionship to come. Its near platitudes are ameliorated by the book’s eye-popping photographs of children and adults in 18 different countries. The backmatter includes a map of the world indicating where the photos were taken, quotes on friendship by Ralph Waldo Emerson, C.S. Lewis, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and a note to parents and caregivers that includes Web resources with “ideas on helping your kids make friends” as well as “resources on bullying.” The result is a book that seems to hope to serve a very specific type of reader—the lonely kind—while also reaching for universality. Perhaps surprisingly, in the end it works, the world photography going a long way toward supporting its overarching goal. Though it treads perilously close to inspirational blandness, this book will serve to comfort those seeking friends of their own and inspire others to expand their friendship circles. (Picture book. 6-8)
PAKKUN THE WOLF AND HIS DINOSAUR FRIENDS
Kimura, Yasuko Illus. by the author Translated by Roberts, Aoi Taniguchi Museyon (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 1, 2015 978-1-940842-04-2
Children who dote on silly, googly-eyed monsters need look no further than this imported tale of a wolf chasing an errant chicken egg. When one of Mrs. Hen’s eggs rolls out of the nest and down a hole, helpful Wolf Pakkun dives down in pursuit and fetches up facing a huge fossil skull. Yikes! But then: “ ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ a little voice laughed, ‘Welcome to the Land of Dinosaurs!’ ” That’s Ptera, a beaky, comically cross-eyed new friend. Kimura stocks said land with oddly proportioned, loudly colored cartoon beasties loosely based on recognizable prehistoric creatures and placed in alien-looking settings featuring strange plants and clumps of jagged volcanoes. Pakkun searches for the egg over land and under the sea until, at the suggestion of Mrs. Saurapod [sic], he comes at last to a large pile of eggs—all of which hatch into a teeming, diverse swarm of smiling baby dinos plus, for sharper-eyed viewers to spot, one tiny chick. The 1982 original’s transition to this edition has not been smoothly accomplished as, along with uncertain spelling (see above) and switches at odd moments between present tense and past, the text starts up on the title page and runs to a final sentence shoehorned onto the last page with the copyright fine print. But the storyline is too spare to be more than a pretext for a parade of daffy dinosaurs anyway. A bland tale for diaper-clad dinophiles, mildly spiced with visual pleasures and surprises. (Picture book. 2-4)
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INTO THE DORKNESS
Kloepfer, John Illus. by Edwards, Nick Harper/HarperCollins (256 pp.) $12.99 | $8.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-0-06-223104-8 978-0-06-223105-5 e-book Series: Galaxy’s Most Wanted, 2 Earth is again in danger from the galaxy’s most vile criminals. Can the team of STEM summer campers called the Extraordinary Terrestrials save all? In series opener Galaxy’s Most Wanted (2014), Kevin, Tara, TJ, Warner, and their unfortunately shrunken friend, extraterrestrial cyborg cop Klyk, trounced outer-space criminal Mim, whom the kids inadvertently called to Earth with the galactoscope they invented. Now, Mim’s cronies, Zouric and Nuzz, have arrived. After freeze-bombing the camp, they set about taking over the planet with nanotech mind control. The kids escape but soon lose their new ally, Marcy, recruited from the girls’ soccer camp next door. Can they escape a brainwashed army of reptilian soldiers, find their comic-book–writer idol (who presciently creates comics detailing the dangers they face), and save the world? Kloepfer’s second humorous sci-fi adventure turns on the action on the first page and does a good job sustaining it all the way through. Edwards’ goggle-eyed, goofy line drawings extend the fun (final art not seen). Readers could actually skip the first book, which was slow to start, and begin here. The satisfying conclusion nicely sets up Volume 3, likely to be a less-terrestrial escapade. Fans of Kloepfer’s Zombie Chasers series will find this outing less gross but just as imaginative. Good, loony science-fiction fun. (Science fiction. 8-11)
THE PORCUPINE OF TRUTH
Konigsberg, Bill Levine/Scholastic (336 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-0-545-64893-6 978-0-545-64894-3 e-book A straight, white wisecracking atheist from New York City finds both his mind and heart opened when he spends a summer in Billings, Montana, with his estranged, dying father. On his first day in Billings, Carson meets Aisha, a fellow wisecracker from one of the few black families in Billings. Aisha’s religious Christian father has kicked her out of their home for being a lesbian. Carson impulsively offers her a place to stay, and his mother and father reluctantly agree. The four of them sharing a home—Carson, Aisha, Carson’s mother, who communicates almost exclusively in therapy-speak, and Carson’s father, sometimes bitter, sometimes vulnerable, usually drunk—could fill a book on its own. But when Carson and Aisha discover evidence that Carson’s grandfather, who disappeared
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when Carson’s father was a child, might be findable, the two embark on a far-reaching road trip. The pacing is occasionally uneven, and some of the devices that keep Carson and Aisha on their journey are a bit too convenient, but the story tackles questions about religion, family, and intimacy with depth and grace. The mystery of Carson’s grandfather is resolved with bittersweet thoroughness, and Aisha’s storyline comes to a hopeful, if also painful, resolution of its own. Equal parts funny and profound. (Fiction. 14-18)
MAZEL TOV! IT’S A BOY/MAZEL TOV! IT’S A GIRL
Korngold, Jamie Photos by Finkelstein, Jeff Kar-Ben (32 pp.) $17.95 | $7.95 paper | $6.99 e-book May 1, 2015 978-1-4677-1957-5 978-1-4677-1958-2 paper 978-1-4677-6206-9 e-book
The joy of welcoming a new baby into a Jewish home is portrayed in this dos-à-dos, dual-gender photo essay. A big sister takes readers through her family’s experience from the time a new baby is expected to its arrival and ultimate welcoming ceremony. For a little girl’s naming, big sister explains the brit bat or simchat bat, done on the eighth day of the new child’s life. Similarly, a little boy’s naming is called a bris or brit milah. Friends and family join a rabbi for a little girl and a mohel and rabbi for a little boy. Presumably as the book is intended for very young children, the mohel’s performance of a circumcision is quietly left out, along with its religious significance. Instead, the rationale behind the choosing of names is described. Both babies are given names honoring a family member, and in both situations, the family gathers for a small reception “in the hope that our baby’s life will be sweet.” Korngold’s simple approach to this vital topic works well and is nicely coupled with clear, color photography of the same family documenting the activity of these two very special days. Each ceremony is depicted separately, with the stories converging in the middle with one large double-page circular view of a culminating festive family gathering. A joyful and eminently useful book. (Picture book/religion. 2- 7)
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ARCHIVIST WASP
Kornher-Stace, Nicole Big Mouth House (250 pp.) $14.00 paper | May 12, 2015 978-1-61873-097-8 A ravishing, profane, and bittersweet post-apocalyptic bildungsroman transcends genre into myth. In a desolate future, young girls marked by the goddess Catchkeep fight to the death to become Archivist, needed but feared and shunned for her sacred duty to trap, interrogate, and dispatch ghosts. After three years as Archivist, Wasp is weary of killing, of loneliness, of hunger, of cruelty, of despair, so she barters with a supersoldier’s ghost to find his long-dead partner in exchange for a chance at escape. But looking for answers in the land of the dead only reveals that everything Wasp knew was a lie. Equal parts dark fantasy, science fiction, and fable, Wasp’s story is structured as a classic hero’s journey. Her bleak and brutal world, limned with the sparest of detail, forges her character: stoic, cynical, with burning compassion at the core; in contrast, the rich and mosaic (if capricious and violent) underworld overflows with symbol and metaphor that tease at deeper meanings never made fully explicit. Meanwhile, the nameless ghost’s history, told through disconnected snatches of memory, encompasses heroism, abuse, friendship, and betrayal in a tragedy only redeemed by the heart-rending convergence of their separate narratives. Names (and their absence) form a constant leitmotif, as identity is transformed by the act of claiming it. Difficult, provocative, and unforgettable—the most dangerous kind of fiction. (Science fiction/fantasy. 14 & up)
BUCK’S TOOTH
Kredensor, Diane Illus. by the author Aladdin (64 pp.) $12.99 | $9.99 e-book | May 12, 2015 978-1-4814-2382-3 978-1-4814-2383-0 e-book Buck is a beaver with just one front tooth—but it’s a big one! Though Buck is an adorable beaver with a loving family and lots of talented friends, he is distracted and frustrated by his tooth. It gets in the way, making it hard for him to do just about anything. It’s talent-show time in Beaverton, and Buck and his buddies are finally old enough to compete in the big show. But what will Buck do? He has no idea. The only person in his family who looks like Buck is his uncle Henry, a sculptor who uses his one tooth to great advantage. Everyone thinks that Buck should follow in his footsteps, but Buck wants to find his own way. Things get really interesting when Buck decides to pull his tooth out, leading to squeamish scenes with a doorknob and a pile of unshelled walnuts. When Buck surrenders to his true talent, he finds happiness, too. Buck’s situation is just silly enough
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for young readers, who worry about teeth and just about everything else, to laugh at, raising this above the many other books about self-acceptance that populate the shelves. Lots of sight words, full-color cartoon illustrations, easy-to-read speech bubbles, humor, and lots of likable characters add up to a surefire hit for new readers. (Early reader. 4-8)
LAST PANDA STANDING
Krosoczka, Jarrett J. Illus. by the author Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins (256 pp.) $12.99 | $8.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-0-06-207168-2 978-0-06-207169-9 e-book Series: Platypus Police Squad, 3 You don’t need a gun in Kalamazoo City. When a candidate for mayor is attacked by a masked intruder, the weapon is a boomerang. And when the Kalamazoo police squad takes on a gang of criminals, they’re all throwing boomerangs. That gives the story a genteel, civilized feel, but sometimes the device gets a little silly. Near the climax, Detective Zengo—who’s guarding the candidate—is grabbed by a thug and feels “the cold steel of a boomerang, placed at his temple.” Of course, in a novel in which the assailant is a squirrel and the candidate is a panda, a boomerang doesn’t seem that odd. Most of the time, the story isn’t nearly silly enough. For a long stretch in the middle of the book, the detectives do nothing but tour a factory. It’s remarkably dull even though they’re variously disguised in wigs, cowboy boots, and a purple velvet sweatsuit. The small touches do work, like a business called Frank’s Franks and a five-star nightclub that serves root beer floats. It’s all a little quaint, like the old sitcoms where married couples slept in separate beds. In the end, readers may wish the book were a little more exciting and a little less genteel. (Mystery. 8-12)
CHARMED
Krys, Michelle Delacorte (368 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | $20.99 PLB May 26, 2015 978-0-385-74339-6 978-0-449-81312-6 e-book 978-0-375-99111-0 PLB
Picking up just weeks after the events of the first novel, Indie has returned home from her warlock boyfriend Bishop’s house. Though panicked about her friend Paige’s whereabouts since she was kidnapped by a sorcerer, she’s still expected by her aunt and legal guardian, Penny, to attend high school and abide by house rules. Swift pacing moves the action along quickly, and the emotional drama between Indigo and her aunt is convincing and provides balance. Romance fans will find Bishop and Indie’s chemistry swoon-worthy, though descriptions of his tangled hair, tattoos, and leather jacket feel repetitive. A romantic subplot involving Indigo’s attraction to Cruz, another guy who helps her in Los Demonios, resolves abruptly, feeling tacked on rather than integral to the story. Still, Krys’ ear for the good quip continues to please: “Sorry I took so long. Dude just wouldn’t die.” Snappy dialogue, a satisfyingly epic battle, and unexpected heroes make for a conclusion that will satisfy readers of the first installment. (Paranormal romance. 14 & up)
JOEY AND THE GIANT BOX
Lakritz, Deborah Illus. by Byrne, Mike Kar-Ben (32 pp.) $17.95 | $7.95 paper | $6.99 e-book May 1, 2015 978-1-4677-1953-7 978-1-4677-6205-2 paper 978-1-4677-6205-2 e-book
Beware of books about good role models. Kids hate it when their parents say, “I spend a fortune on a toy, and all the kids want to do is play with the box!” It sounds like an excuse to stop buying toys. But a box is still pretty terrific. In this book, Joey uses a carton as a spaceship and a fort. The problem is that the box takes up his entire room. When he tries to store it under the bed, it lifts the bedframe a yard into the air. (Byrne’s illustration is hilarious. Joey looks equally delighted and terrified.) Inspired by a food drive at the supermarket, he decides to turn the box into a gigantic donation bin and collect food for the needy. This is touching, but not every reader will find it convincing. Joey sounds a bit mature and formal for a small child: “Please don’t recycle my box yet....I want to collect food for hungry people—just like at the grocery store.” Lots of children’s books are propaganda (even—perhaps especially—Green Eggs and Ham), but the moral lesson in this book is more than a little heavy-handed. Joey would be more sympathetic if he didn’t sound like an ad. He’s about as believable as a parent who says, “My child would rather have a box than a toy.” (Picture book. 4-8)
Los Angeles teen witch Indigo returns in this follow-up to Hexed (2014), honing her magic skills rapidly as she uncovers information about Los Demonios, an other-dimensional prison used by both the Family, a society of witches and warlocks, and their sworn enemies, the Priory, who are sorcerers. 98
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This whip-smart, determined, black Muslim heroine brings a fresh hard-boiled tone to the field of teen mysteries. scarlett undercover
SCARLETT UNDERCOVER
Latham, Jennifer Little, Brown (320 pp.) $18.00 | $9.99 e-book | May 19, 2015 978-0-316-28393-9 978-0-316-28389-2 e-book A 16-year-old gumshoe’s new case reveals ancient—perhaps magical—family secrets. Intrepid sleuth Scarlett has tested out of the last years of high school, founding a detective agency instead of going to college. Ever since the deaths of her Egyptian father and Sudanese mother, Scarlett’s insisted on taking care of herself. Her older sister, a doctor, is too busy to spend much time at home, so Scarlett is proudly independent. When she takes a case from a frightened 9-year-old, Scarlett discovers a terrifying conspiracy that’s endangered her own family for generations. As she investigates clues pointing to an ancient myth that the children of King Solomon are at war with the descendants of the jinn, she stumbles upon a cult of true believers. Scarlett is supported by a crew of irregulars that would make any private eye proud: a loving sister; a handsome Jewish best friend who’s becoming something more; and solicitous neighbors from bakers to cops. Meanwhile, she must come to terms with her feelings about her sister, her memories of her parents, and her unobservant relationship with Islam. With some secrets left unresolved, dare we hope this is not the last mystery Scarlett will solve? This whip-smart, determined, black Muslim heroine brings a fresh hard-boiled tone to the field of teen mysteries. (Mystery. 12-15)
A DAY AT GRANDMA’S
Lee, Mi-ae Illus. by Choi, Yang-sook TanTan (34 pp.) $16.95 | May 1, 2015 978-1-939248-10-7
After an overnight at Grandma’s house, little Yujin looks forward to seeing her mother at the end of the day. To a young child, waiting a whole day seems impossibly long. Understanding this, Lee and Choi illustrate in words and pictures the concepts of dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, dusk, and night. Morning time is described by rubbing sleepy eyes and hearing the birds sing. Shadows grow longer in the afternoon, and it is time for a nap. The evening drive home is long and filled with traffic. The bond between the Asian mother and child is central to the story, a Korean import, with alternating scenes of the two missing each other throughout the day. Yujin’s day is very busy, illustrated by Choi in sunlit watercolors. Although she knows her daughter is having fun, the mother still expresses her yearning at every moment. “Yujin,...even though |
you have been gone just one day, I miss you so much. Hurry home to me!” That change of perspective from child to mother, along with the emphasis on being apart, adds a layer of complexity that may get in the way of teaching the time concepts. Multiple pages at the book’s end provide adults with ideas for engaging children in discussing time. Part storybook, part parental resource; the lack of a clear purpose hurts this title. (Picture book. 3- 7)
AMAZING PLANT POWERS How Plants Fly, Fight, Hide, Hunt, and Change the World
Leedy, Loreen & Schuerger, Andrew Illus. by Leedy, Loreen Holiday House (32 pp.) $17.95 | $17.95 e-book | May 15, 2015 978-0-8234-2256-2 978-0-8234-3364-3 e-book
Spike E. Prickles and his friends show off a wide variety of plant adaptations. This colorful book opens with an introduction to plant parts and needs—light, water, air, and minerals—and a diagram of photosynthesis. Then, spread by spread, the text introduces complications: plants need water, shade cuts off light, soils may not be ideal, seeds need to travel, hungry bugs and animals are threats, for example. Captioned photographs show numerous examples of plants solving these problems. Four smiling, talking cartoon plants add comments. The style of these digitally created, outlined illustrations will be familiar to readers of Leedy’s many other informational titles for the very young, as will her cheerful approach. The captions use larger fonts to highlight the different coping methods, emphasizing main ideas. The photographs are clear, but they often show only a very small part of the plant, decontextualized. Young readers may lack the background knowledge necessary to figure out just what’s shown. The illustration of a wild banana shows the bananas on a stalk that ends with its flower and is captioned, “Wild bananas have large seeds.” Readers could easily assume the flower is the seed rather than the true seeds invisible inside the fruit. A strong demonstration of plant powers but a weak teaching tool. (plant projects, glossary) (Informational picture book. 5-8)
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Clear, readable typeface and familiar sight words are the order of the day. good night, knight
GOOD NIGHT, KNIGHT
Lewin, Betsy Illus. by the author Holiday House (24 pp.) $14.95 | $6.99 paper | $14.95 e-book May 1, 2015 978-0-8234-3206-6 978-0-8234-3315-5 paper 978-0-8234-3340-7 e-book Series: I Like to Read Knight and Horse follow their dreams— literally. Horse and Knight are exhausted when readers meet them, collapsing upon returning to their castle. But when Knight has a dream of golden cookies, he (or she—readers never see Knight with visor up) wakes the sleepy steed, and they go questing for the treasure. They look everywhere—hollow trees, the bushes, and a pond—only to find the cookies at home in a jar on the kitchen table. The loony plot and the spirited pen-and-ink–andwatercolor illustrations elevate this book above most for emerging readers. Knight’s metal suit, astonishingly, betrays emotions and energy level, whether tired, curious, or energized. (Even the armored feet look tired.) Watching Knight sleep with tush in the air will certainly elicit giggles from the youngest readers. Horse, too, is metal-clad, but its armor does not cover its skeptical eyes, allowing readers to laugh along while the near-asleep rider falls out of the saddle. Clear, readable typeface and familiar sight words are the order of the day. Repeated words (especially “good,” “night,” “horse,” “knight,” and “sleep”) punctuate the humorous story, making it easy to decode. When Horse has a dream of its own at the end, smiling readers will have no choice but to wonder where the pair are off to now. Clear text, amusing illustrations, and a captivating easy-to-read story make this a winner for horse-loving emerging readers. (Early reader. 4-6)
RATSCALIBUR
Lieb, Josh Illus. by Lintern, Tom Razorbill/Penguin (192 pp.) $16.99 | May 5, 2015 978-1-59514-242-9 Series: Chronicles of the Low Realm, 1 A young New York City newcomer becomes a rat and then a hero in this tale of knightly derring-do. Transformed by the bite of dying Ragician (“Man does Magic. Rats do Ragic”) Gondorff the Gray, Joey finds himself in the ankle-height kingdom of Ravalon, where he instantly earns widespread awe by pulling a plastic spork from a dried biscuit: “He’s drawn the Spork from the Scone!” A quest into Central Park to seek help from the renowned but difficult mage Squirrelin the Squagician against a shadowy menace leads to furious battles with crows and Berzerker rats, devastating treachery, courageous acts aplenty, and 100
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even a kiss from princess/apprentice mage Yislene. Appearing on nearly every spread and ranging from small spot portraits to full-sized melees, Lintern’s finely detailed drawings place Joey— intrepidly wielding his glowing utensil—and the rest in urban nooks and crannies only rarely noticed by crowds of human passersby. Along with the parodied names and puns, Lieb slips in gags of more than one sort with a ratcentric view of odors and foods (“Mmm, there’s a cockroach leg stuck to the cheese. Bonus!”) and a broad range of species-specific “-agics.” A crowd-pleasing mix of quick action, true valor, clever wordplay, and gross bits. (Animal fantasy. 9-11)
THE WORLD IN A SECOND
Martins, Isabel Minhós Illus. by Carvalho, Bernardo P. Translated by Miller-Lachmann, Lyn Enchanted Lion Books (56 pp.) $18.95 | Apr. 15, 2015 978-1-59270-157-5 Even “while you turn the pages of this book, the world doesn’t stop....” So what happens in the very busy titular second? A container ship struggles in a storm on the Baltic; an elevator gets stuck in New York City; a driver honks impatiently in a Mexican traffic jam; a volcano erupts; “a very old woman closes her eyes to sleep.” Even as Martins’ spare text describes the action with poetic restraint via Miller-Lachmann’s translation (“In an island barbershop, a man bids farewell to his mustache”), Carvalho’s double-page spreads invite readers to linger to understand each of the 23 stories. Boys on a terraced, urban soccer court watch in alarm as a “ball flies toward a window” of an adjacent apartment building; behind a police barrier, a man in a furry hat depresses a plunger and demolishes another apartment building, next to a nuclear power plant. The flat, posterlike art features bright, matte colors and shapes defined by sure, black lines. In sequencing, the book resists easy, time-zone chronology, taking readers from Papua New Guinea to Portugal to Angola to Turkey with successive turns of the page, creating an experience that is at once disorienting and immersive. A concluding map provides a key to each picture’s location and time of day. The book’s extra-large trim is the perfect format for this mesmerizing vision of a thrillingly expansive world. (Picture book. 4-8)
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THE NOVICE
Matharu, Taran Feiwel & Friends (368 pp.) $18.99 | May 5, 2015 978-1-250-06712-8 Series: Summoner Trilogy, 1 A young orphan makes friends (and enemies) at a magic school in this solid series opener. Fifteen-year-old Fletcher assists blacksmith Berdon, haggles with the town guards, and dodges bullies daily. The Hominum Empire is at war with elves in the north and orcs in the south, but Fletcher can do little to help...until he releases a demon bound to an orc scroll and proves himself a summoner. Fleeing a criminal sentence, Fletcher lands in cultural center Corcillum and, after another fortuitous intervention, arrives at Vocans Academy. Previously closed to females, commoners, and members of other species, Vocans now grudgingly accepts all adepts, to Fletcher’s delight and the noble students’ horror. In between rescuing friends from mobs and entangling himself in the dwarves’ rebellion, Fletcher attends class and trains his adorable but deadly Salamander demon. Plot, dialogue, and characters recall other school-set fantasies, but Fletcher is appealing precisely because of his Everyman qualities: he is not the smartest or the strongest, but he is a loyal friend and a fierce fighter against injustice. The detailed setting is a hodgepodge of arrows and ammunition, medieval and industrial, but the few anomalies do not impede the action. Debut author Matharu tackles class inequalities and racism (in the form of speciesism), mixes humor with violence, and plays with fantasy conventions, with varying success. Fantasy readers should enjoy this entertaining, comfortably familiar-feeling adventure featuring an earnest soldier-schoolboy and his demonic sidekick. (Fantasy. 12-18)
3, 2, 1, GO!
McCully, Emily Arnold Illus. by the author Holiday House (24 pp.) $14.95 | $6.99 paper | $14.95 e-book May 1, 2015 978-0-8234-3288-2 978-0-8234-3314-8 paper 978-0-8234-3346-9 e-book Series: I Like to Read In the newest of her early readers, McCully (Little Ducks Go, 2014) nails a common childhood scenario: a twosome is playing school and won’t let a third play. Ann is the bossy rule-setter, naturally the “teacher.” Bess is a follower. Less enthusiastic, she agrees to be the student. Min is the odd girl out—but bright and creative. When Ann says Min can’t step across the line she draws in the sand, Min appears to acquiesce. McCully takes an unusual but useful approach when she depicts the characters as juvenile elephants on the savannah, |
for Min is not just strong-willed, but strong. Min begins gathering materials for a project—a rock, a board, a tube, some rope— all clearly delineated in the illustrations, making it easy for youngsters to successfully “read” the correct words and phrases. Anticipation mounts as curiosity grows. What is Min building? A rocket with a seesaw launch, allowing her to cross the line by flying over it! Impressed, Bess suggests they play rocket scientists, and although the end is a bit ambiguous, it appears all three will join in. Young readers will want to, too; and while adults won’t want children trying this trick at home, they may well want to replicate a smaller model for a physics lesson. A sure hit. (Early reader. 3-8)
THE BOYS OF FIRE AND ASH
McIsaac, Meaghan Delacorte (352 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB May 12, 2015 978-0-385-74445-4 978-0-385-39013-2 e-book 978-0-375-99167-7 PLB A group of boys leave their primitive home to save one of their own in this dystopian debut. Urgle has grown up in the Ikkuma Pit, a volcanic trash crater, with his Brothers, a tribe of abandoned boys who have raised one another since infancy. Each member of the tribe vacates the pit on his Leaving Day, when he comes of age, and another baby is mysteriously left at the pit’s edge to replace him. Urgle has never heard of anyone returning after leaving, so he is suspicious of Blaze, a wounded adult stranger who tumbles over the pit’s edge one day. When the monsters who chased Blaze over the edge kidnap Urgle’s little brother, Cubby, Urgle is forced to trust Blaze, as he is the only person who has knowledge of the outside world. Blaze and Urgle organize a ragtag rescue party, encountering several different communities on their journey to find Cubby, including a society of warrior women whom they recognize as their lost Mothers. How and why the women have abandoned their male children is the basis for an invented mythology with political ramifications that challenges everything Urgle believes to be true. The prose is rife with densely written descriptions, and the overlong action sequences can be confusing, but the compelling mythology and dystopian setting will appeal to genre readers. Fans of James Dashner, Margaret Peterson Haddix, and Patrick Ness need look no further. (Dystopian adventure. 10-15)
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THE TELLING STONE
McQuerry, Maureen Doyle Amulet/Abrams (368 pp.) $16.95 | May 12, 2015 978-1-4197-1494-8 Series: Time Out of Time, 2 Timothy James Maxwell and his friends continue their adventure in cosmic realms. Think of The Dark is Rising and A Swiftly Tilting Planet: when Celtic forces of good, evil, and the fairy folk come together, snow flies, winds rise, and mere mortals are caught off balance. McQuerry dives right in, picking up where she left off in series opener Beyond the Door (2014). The one-eyed evil representative of the Dark, Balor, wreaks havoc on the Marketplace out of time, while armies of trees and birds join to beat back his reptile and insect forces. An enigmatic map and a Christmas (when “the Light comes into the world”) trip to Edinburgh set the stage for another mythic encounter between good and evil. McQuerry borrows freely for her tropes, tossing in ancient tales, the Scottish regalia, Macbeth’s Dunsinane, the Wild Hunt, and fairy folk with a great deal of scope and ambition. Though she slides distractingly from one point of view to another in early chapters, she sticks with young Timothy for most of the rest, engaging readers in his predicament and the web of cosmic tension. The overlap of mythical and present is nicely realized, with adults especially not what they seem, whether representative of good or evil. Uneven yet at moments exceedingly exciting: readers who stick through to the end will be looking for the next in the series. (Fantasy. 9-13)
DAYLIGHT STARLIGHT WILDLIFE
Minor, Wendell Illus. by the author Nancy Paulsen Books (32 pp.) $17.99 | May 19, 2015 978-0-399-246623 An album of contrasts introduces diurnal and nocturnal animals. The attraction of this invitation to explore daytime and nighttime worlds is visual: appealing gouache-and-watercolor animal portraits display Minor’s characteristic use of light and color, meticulous detail, and appreciation for nature. An opening spread shows most of the creatures described. Then each one is introduced, usually paired with contrasting animals on a spread, though there are occasional expansive double-page images. A red-tailed hawk is followed by a barn owl; rabbit and possum families face each other, as do a tiger swallowtail butterfly and luna moth, and so forth. Two or three lines of text explain each luminous painting, identifying the creature, the activity, and, often, the time of day: “Sprightly deer mouse scampers / down a log and finds a firefly. // As the sun rises, 102
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stealthy bobcat and her / kitten scope out the summer landscape.” The line breaks support the design rather than the sense of the text; these are captions, not poems, but the language is interesting. Curiously, the introductory spread shows a bat, but the airborne nocturnal mammal described is a flying squirrel—a better companion for the gray squirrel that “scurries / all day.” The book concludes with a spread of “fun facts,” not seen. For storytime or laptime, another beautiful rendition of the natural world. (Picture book. 2- 7)
THE ETERNAL CITY
Morris, Paula Point/Scholastic (304 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-0-545-25133-4 978-0-545-66294-9 e-book Teens visiting Rome become embroiled in a battle between ancient gods. Laura loves learning about the ancient world, so her Classics class trip to Rome is a natural for her. But it’s even more exciting than she’d expected. Statues and paintings seem to move, and she sees a boy with wings on his feet. Could he be Mercury? Tension mounts when someone tries to steal Laura’s bracelet. It holds a star sapphire that her grandfather had found in Rome during World War II. Oddly, she finds in her backpack another stone almost identical to hers. As the story progresses, mayhem develops, starting with a volcanic eruption that blankets the city with ash. Sea gulls attack, while crows seem to be defending the teens. It seems that the ancient Roman gods are still around and still fighting. Laura becomes the epicenter of the battle and soon learns the supernatural importance of her two stones. Morris weaves history and mythology into the story but focuses mostly on action, ratcheting up the violence of the supernatural events. Laura continually comes across as uncertain, finally forcing herself to a snap decision that leads to an exciting battle and the story’s climax—but then to a rather anticlimactic ending that doesn’t seem to follow through on the novel’s potential. A passable supernatural adventure for the summer break. (Paranormal suspense. 12-18)
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Saturated digital illustrations have a hand-drawn feel that creates a warm, homey atmosphere. the cowboy
MARKET MAZE
Munro, Roxie Illus. by the author Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | $16.95 e-book | May 15, 2015 978-0-8234-3092-5 978-0-8234-3358-2 e-book With an interactive maze/map, Munro demystifies for children where all the items for sale at the farmers market originate. Readers must navigate each page’s directions and maze to collect and ship the items. “Guide the boat to the dock’s loading area. Transfer the catch to the FISH truck, go to the fish-packing plant, and drive toward town.” Readers also collect apples, milk, cheese, corn, flowers, eggs, veggies, baked goods, and kids (going on a field trip to the greenmarket). Less a map than an aerial view of different areas, the illustrations lack any compass or map key, so children will need their powers of observation and deduction to notice the only dock and the only boat out to sea, the truck marked with a fish, and the building with the same sign out front (the challenges seem to grow in difficulty with page turns). Arrows mark one-way streets (not correct paths!), and readers must puzzle the shortest way to get from one page turn to the next. Lists of items to find in the bright, busy, detailed India ink and colored acrylic ink illustrations extend the fun. The backmatter includes thumbnails marking both the shortest routes and the hidden items, and a paragraph under each goes into more detail about the featured market item. A great way to introduce kids to their foods’ origins and to prepare them for a greenmarket visit of their own. (Interactive informational picture book. 4-8)
THE COWBOY
Müller, Hildegard Illus. by the author Translated by Maccarone, Grace Holiday House (24 pp.) $14.95 | $6.99 paper | $14.95 e-book May 1, 2015 978-0-8234-3202-8 978-0-8234-3316-2 paper 978-0-8234-3344-5 e-book Series: I Like to Read In this German import, Little Anna and her dog have an adventure at the beach. Anna loves her dog, Toto. When she takes him to the beach, Toto’s scarf matches Anna’s skirt and kerchief: red with white polka dots. As Anna heads toward the water, she passes “a boy in a very silly cowboy hat.” Readers may feel that Anna is a bit silly herself. Toto is not a live dog but a wooden Dalmatian on wheels that must be pulled by a rope. When Toto “learns to swim,” he’s dragged out to the deep water by a wave, and Anna is bereft. Luckily, that silly cowboy has more than a hat with him, and |
Toto is saved, opening the way to friendship. Saturated digital illustrations have a hand-drawn feel that creates a warm, homey atmosphere. The droll storyline respects the young readers who will no doubt chuckle when Toto is subtly revealed to be a beloved toy rather than a real pup. Even the cowboy, whose body and rope are hidden behind the grown-up beachgoers, is a pleasant surprise. His eyes might be concealed beneath that enormous hat, but his good spirit is clear. It’s rare to find a real story in a book that brand-new readers can tackle alone—Anna and Toto and the cowboy certainly deliver. (Early reader. 3-5)
WE ARE ALL MADE OF MOLECULES
Nielsen, Susin Wendy Lamb/Random (256 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB May 12, 2015 978-0-553-49686-4 978-0-553-49688-8 e-book 978-0-553-49687-1 PLB A nerdy boy and a queen-bee girl become stepbrother and -sister in this
comedy/drama. Hilarity ensues when 13-year-old Stewart learns that he and his dad are moving in with Caroline and her 14-year-old daughter, Ashley. Stewart copes well enough, thanks to his outstanding intelligence, precocious emotional maturity, math skills, and the calm outlook with which he assesses his successes and failures. He’s excited to have a sister. Ashley, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about school and wants nothing to do with her new almost-stepbrother—who, to her mortification, has been bumped up a year and is now in her class. She’s also terrified that people will learn her estranged dad is gay. Ashley scores big when she lands the handsome Jared as a boyfriend, but Stewart knows Jared is a bully because he’s trapped in physical education class with him. The psychodrama is narrated by the two kids in alternating chapters, leavened with constant, wry humor that should keep readers chuckling even as the story grapples with serious emotional issues. Stewart comes across as absolutely adorable. He knows he’s a complete geek with imperfect social skills. His disarming honesty about his intelligence and especially about his weaknesses holds the entire book together, allowing readers to take self-absorbed Ashley with a grain of salt as she goes through what her mother terms the “demon seed” stage. This savvy, insightful take on the modern family makes for nearly nonstop laughs. (Fiction. 12-18)
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In its relative eventlessness, the book is a lot like life, but with more bears, as well as mice in nightshirts. mrs. noodlekugel and drooly the bear
ALCHEMY’S DAUGHTER
Osborne, Mary A. Illus. by McHan, Rachael Lake Street Press (274 pp.) $16.95 paper | May 14, 2015 978-1-936181-17-9
When a headstrong, intellectually curious 17-year-old living in 1344 San Gimignano, Italy, becomes a midwife’s apprentice, she embarks on a harrowing journey to discover her true vocation. While her sisters focus on marrying appropriate husbands, Santina’s besotted with Calandrino, a brilliant but poor scholar. After Santina’s father discovers that she and Calandrino are in love, he dismisses the scholar, who departs for Spain to pursue his alchemy studies, promising Santina they will meet again. Distraught, Santina turns to the local midwife, who urges her to forget Calandrino and do something useful with her life. Against her father’s wishes, Santina works as the midwife’s apprentice until the midwife’s accused of witchcraft. Fearing for her safety, Santina abandons midwifery and reluctantly agrees to marry an arrogant jewel merchant, though she secretly corresponds with Calandrino. When plague strikes, Santina nurses the afflicted, enraging her fiance, who accuses her of witchcraft, forcing her to flee in a surprising finale. Brimming with details of life in Italy during the plague of 1348, this well-researched story incorporates historical information about medieval alchemy, midwifery, and the conflict between science and superstition, providing a rich context and arresting contrast for Santina’s thoroughly modern attitudes. This medieval love story and its memorable heroine are likely to resonate with contemporary teens. (maps, historical timeline, glossary, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 14-18)
ADVENTURES WITH WAFFLES
Parr, Maria Illus. by Forrester, Kate Translated by Puzey, Guy Candlewick (240 pp.) $15.99 | May 12, 2015 978-0-7636-7281-2
Next-door neighbors in a small Norwegian town share mishaps and mischief. Spanning a year in their lives, this lively tale details the escapades of Trille and his neighbor, Lena. Through the voice of pragmatic 9-year-old Trille, Parr deftly portrays her narrator’s earnestness and Lena’s insouciance as together the friends carry out their schemes with often humorous and occasionally regrettable results. Though they live in quiet Mathildewick Cove, the friends’ dynamic imaginations lead to several exhilarating—and a few precarious—escapades, which range from seafaring ventures to a mountainside helicopter rescue. Amid these antics, Parr subtly reveals Trille’s and Lena’s innermost worries. Although Trille considers the 104
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irrepressible Lena his best friend, he wonders whether she reciprocates those feelings. And beneath Lena’s vibrant exterior, she longs for a father, a dilemma that she attempts to resolve in her indefatigable, quirky fashion. Through several well-nuanced characters, Parr delineates Trille’s extended family support and reveals the familial closeness that Trille so cherishes. Trille’s relationships with his grandfather and his beloved “Auntie Granny” celebrate these multigenerational connections. With simply rendered illustrations that zero in on key elements of the story, Forrester extends the charm of this tale. Filled with both rollicking escapades and poignant moments, Parr’s notable tale portrays a young boy’s heartfelt appreciation of family and friends. (Fiction. 8-11)
MRS. NOODLEKUGEL AND DROOLY THE BEAR
Pinkwater, Daniel Illus. by Stower, Adam Candlewick (96 pp.) $14.99 | May 12, 2015 978-0-7636-6645-3 Series: Mrs. Noodlekugel, 3
Is there a Mr. Noodlekugel? Apparently the answer is yes. Capt. Noodlekugel is described as “a little man with wonderful whiskers.” He’s just come back from the sea to visit his wife, and his whiskers are pretty spectacular. They’re an endless series of white waves, and they stretch several inches past the end of his face in the illustrations, as though Stower couldn’t stop drawing. They look as if they might float off into the sky, like an altostratus cloud. Along with the whiskers, Pinkwater has given the artist all sorts of wonderful things to draw: cake with delicious mushrooms on top and the titular Drooly, a long-snouted bear that the captain is teaching to dance. There’s not much plot: the bear is lost and found again. Though nothing really happens in the book, it is hilarious. Even when the characters are just eating dinner, they eat it backward, starting with vegetable cake for dessert and ending with chocolate soup. In its relative eventlessness, the book is a lot like life, but with more bears, as well as mice in nightshirts. The appeal is the loopy conversations about sardines—and the pictures. The artist has surpassed his work in the earlier books, with tightly detailed drawings of things that could never exist and glorious, textured gray ink washes everywhere. Also, the mice wear tiny glasses. Utterly, endearingly ridiculous. (Fiction. 5-9)
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UNTIL THE BEGINNING
Plum, Amy HarperTeen (336 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-0-06-222563-4 978-0-06-222565-8 e-book Picking up right where it left off, the story that started with After the End (2014) continues. In trying to find her vanished clan, Juneau has met and fallen for Miles, the son of a wealthy pharmaceutical company owner. At the book’s opening, a gunshot Miles has died, but Juneau performs her clan’s Rite to bring him back to life and possibly extend his life for hundreds of years, disease-free. As she mentally Reads the emotions and surroundings of her distant father and others, Juneau begins to detect where her kidnapped clan is being held. She travels the Southwest, finding a hidden reserve where billionaire Hunt Avery has imprisoned her clan, but she learns something new: Avery really wants Juneau. Plum keeps tension high as she follows Juneau across the country, mixing in enough romantic spice to satisfy genre fans. Juneau’s old mentor, Whit, offers scientific explanations for the clan’s superpowers, but Juneau, secure in her mystical spirit connections, holds to her beliefs. After flirting with Whit’s explanations, Plum comes firmly down on Juneau’s side. Of note is Juneau’s relationship with the clan’s special raven messenger, named Poe, adding some intertextual fun. Although she concludes the series plot, the author leaves some latitude for future adventures. Different enough from all the rest to keep genre fans reading. (Paranormal suspense. 12-18)
LEARNING THE ROPES
Polak, Monique Orca (168 pp.) $9.95 paper | May 1, 2015 978-1-4598-0452-4
Fifteen-year-old Mandy dreams of becoming a rope-climbing aerialist in the circus and flies off to Montreal to attend circus camp despite her father’s fears. Mandy’s grandfather was killed while working as a professional stuntman, so her dad worries constantly that Mandy could get hurt as she pursues her dream. When she arrives at camp, Mandy meets Genevieve, another aerialist but one who uses the more popular tissu, a colorful fabric climbing medium. At first Genevieve seems friendly but soon loses no opportunity to show off her superior talent. Mandy gets on better with Hana, a shy, homesick Korean girl struggling to learn English. As the first week passes, and the students learn difficult stretches and maneuvers, Genevieve behaves more like a spiteful schoolgirl than a professional, but she also keeps nailing her aerial routines while Mandy struggles. When a circus rope climber is killed |
nearby, the stakes and suspense increase. Part of the Limelight series from Canada, this is one of a growing number of novellas focused on teens trying to become professional entertainers, and the choice of the circus as its subject certainly pops the book out of the norm. Full of interesting and varied characters, the story stands up well, and the author describes the difficult aerial maneuvers vividly. A quick read with a fascinating focus. (Fiction. 11-14)
ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD
Pommaux, Yvan Illus. by the author TOON Books & Graphics (56 pp.) $16.95 | Jun. 2, 2015 978-1-935179-84-9 This spare, graphic retelling of the myth features illustrations that underscore
its pervasive sadness. Not that the story’s tragic events sit heavily on this rendition. In Pommaux’s neoclassical-style drawings, slender, pale Orpheus looks so fetchingly ethereal it’s no wonder that when he plays for the ladies, one sighs: “He’s so dreamy.” Arbitrarily right-handed in some scenes and left-handed in others, he produces music—represented by odd airborne flurries of dots and hinky abstract symbols—from a lyre with a turtle-shell soundbox that likewise switches sides on occasion. When Eurydice, fending off a grabby wedding guest, is fatally bitten by a snake, Orpheus cuts a wrenchingly lonely figure as he makes his way to Hades’ eerie otherworldly realm in an almost successful effort to bring his love back to life. Later, after he is dismembered by incensed female groupies (“Get over her already”), his stillsinging head and other parts (unillustrated, unfortunately) are gathered for burial by the Muses. In an apparent effort to keep it from competing with the art for attention, the text is printed in widely spaced blocks of microscopic type, with obtrusive asterisks that accompany the first iterations of every proper name throughout. Both a final spread of “character cards” and the index include explanatory annotations about the tale’s mortals, immortals, and locales. Though it’s well-stocked with context-building features, the tale’s flippant dialogue and inconsistent visual details sound discordant notes. (map, bibliography). (Graphic mythology. 10-13)
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WHERE TRIPLETS GO, TROUBLE FOLLOWS
Poploff, Michelle Illus. by Jamieson, Victoria Holiday House (96 pp.) $16.95 | May 15, 2015 978-0-8234-3289-9
The Divine triplets, Lily, Daisy, and Violet, are alike in some ways and different in others, but they agree about their troublesome new puppy. This chapter book introduces the three girls: Lily, who loves to read and dares to write and recite a poem; Daisy, who loves baseball and plays even better after she gets glasses; and drama queen Violet, who makes up for her science failures with a project about the ways the three of them take after different members of their family. And then there’s Grandpa Dash and Grandma Rose. The girls’ habit of jumping to conclusions leads them to assume that their dad’s father and mother’s mother are getting married, but the big announcement turns out to be the gift of a new dog. The third-person narrative is dialogueheavy, with amusing, age-appropriate wordplay: Violet calls a science fair project about electricity a “shocker” and uses words like “ridonculous” and “matchy-matchy.” There’s no sense of place and no clear indication of the girls’ age; this is an episodic story of people and relationships. In the end, these characters don’t come alive, and readers may find it difficult to distinguish them—just as sometimes happens to triplets in real life. Grayscale illustrations help (final art not seen). An appealing idea for a chapter book but undistinguished in execution. (Fiction. 7-9)
KISSING IN AMERICA
Rabb, Margo Harper/HarperCollins (400 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-0-06-232237-1 978-0-06-232239-5 e-book Best friends leave New York City for the first time and take a transformative road trip to Los Angeles. Sixteen-year-old Eva Roth’s penchant for reading romance novels (118 at last count) is termed “your ultimate rebellion” by her mom, a women’s studies professor. Eva is a poet, and she used to write alongside her beloved father, but when he died in a plane crash two years earlier, she stopped writing. Rabb eloquently gets grief right in this compassionate, perceptive, and poignant story, deftly leavened with irreverent humor, of a girl in conflict with her mother. Poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich, Nikki Giovanni, Marie Howe, and others are so beautifully integrated into the first-person narrative that the poetry comes alive. Eva’s burgeoning, heart-stopping relationship with senior Will Freeman initially helps her begin to find a way out of grief, as does 106
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her smart, empathetic best friend, Annie Kim, with whom she can share the absurdity of it all. But Will unexpectedly moves to California, and with Annie’s participation, Eva comes up with a truly creative road-trip plan—one in which America, land of endless possibilities, serves as a backdrop for unexpected love. And love is really what this remarkable story is all about. Wise, inspiring, and ultimately uplifting—not to be missed. (Fiction. 14 & up)
CAKES IN SPACE
Reeve, Philip Illus. by McIntyre, Sarah Random House (224 pp.) $12.99 | $9.99 e-book | $15.99 PLB May 26, 2015 978-0-385-38792-7 978-0-385-38794-1 e-book 978-0-385-38795-8 PLB Series: Not-So-Impossible Tales, 2 The American debut of an acclaimed British comedy. Astra’s family sets out on a 199-year journey to planet Nova Mundi. To survive the trip, the passengers will spend the voyage sleeping in a cryogenically frozen state. But before going nearly two centuries between dinner and breakfast, Astra wants a bedtime snack. The ship’s food synthesizer’s so much fun that she requests the ultimate cake—which apparently breaks the machine, sticking it on a “WORKING” message. Astra dodges responsibility and goes to bed, only to wake up early as the only conscious human on the ship. She soon encounters the monstrous, sentient cakes the synthesizer has spent decades evolving—and worse, the synthesizer’s malfunctions have put other essential ship functions at risk! While evading the hungry cakes on her quest to get to the ship’s control room and set things to right, Astra encounters a terrifying-looking extraterrestrial lifeform that’s boarded the ship and is then caught by spoon-loving outer-space salvagers (who have mistaken the sleeping people for dead and declared the drifting ship abandoned). Astra must clean up her mess by stopping both the cakes and the aliens. Vibrant, lively illustrations highlight the ludicrousness of it all. The resolution’s weird enough to fit in perfectly with the rest of the story. Campy, 1960s-style science fiction mixes with zany, kid-friendly ridiculousness for extreme fun. (Science fiction. 7-11)
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In her newest exploration of animal-human relationships, Rorby’s lonely, mature heroine faces tough but realistic situations. how to speak dolphin
ANNA, BANANA, AND THE FRIENDSHIP SPLIT
Rissi, Anica Mrose Illus. by Park, Meg Simon & Schuster (128 pp.) $15.99 | May 5, 2015 978-1-4814-1605-4 Series: Anna, Banana, 1
Jealousy threatens to tear best friends apart. The story opens with best friends Anna and Sadie celebrating Anna’s birthday with her family. While all is well at first, Sadie’s behavior gets stranger and stranger—starting with general bossiness and escalating into a demand to wear Anna’s special birthday necklace before claiming it as her own. Empathetic Anna doesn’t understand why Sadie is so angry that she’s acting out, reflecting, “Even though I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d done wrong, I could still apologize, since I definitely was sorry that Sadie was mad.” There’s a surprising amount of tension as Anna struggles with her bafflement, narrated in an emotionally sensitive first-person voice. Anna’s parents eventually help their daughter understand that despite spoiled Sadie’s outward enjoyment of her divorced parents’ laxity and indulgence, Sadie is actually jealous of Anna’s close-knit family. Fairly realistically, the girls resolve their problems not through words but through actions—an exchange of kind gestures reconciles the friends. Children may wonder why Anna’s dog, Banana, gets such prominent billing, as although he is her boon companion, he does not figure much in the plot. A realistic story for sensitive kids. (Fiction. 6-10)
PARANORMAL
Robinson, Gary 7th Generation (160 pp.) $9.95 paper | Apr. 15, 2015 978-1-939053-08-4 Series: Billy Buckhorn The young Cherokee seer struck by lightning in Abnorma (2014) acquires more extrasensory powers after a neardeath experience in this partial sequel. Rashly opening a long-sealed chamber in a cave he is exploring with his friend Chigger, Billy is bitten and knocked off a cliff by a flock of strange bats. Following a spirit conversation with his long-dead grandmother Awinita (her presence is signaled by whiffs of apple cider and pumpkin pie) about his “unfolding gift” for helping others, he wakes up in a hospital bed with an ability to see into people’s pasts and also to perceive evil. This is fortunate, because opening the cave also released the ancient, life-sucking Horned Serpent known as Uktena from the lake of soporific herbal tea it’s been held in and left Chigger, who had carried away a violet crystal once embedded in the serpent’s tail, possessed. These promising developments may help readers past the unvarnished infodumps and |
continual references to Cherokee characters and traditional practices that the author shoehorns into the story. With help from a gathering of “medicine people and stomp dance leaders,” Billy seems about to prevail—but then Robinson cuts off abruptly, leaving most of the conflict and all of the resolution for future episodes. A dramatic tale—or the first part of one, anyway—heavily steeped in tribal lore. (Paranormal suspense. 11-13)
HOW TO SPEAK DOLPHIN
Rorby, Ginny Scholastic (272 pp.) $16.99 | $16.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-0-545-67605-2 978-0-545-67608-3 e-book Is dolphin-assisted therapy so beneficial to patients that it’s worth keeping a wild dolphin captive? Twelve-year-old Lily has lived with her emotionally distant oncologist stepfather and a succession of nannies since her mother died in a car accident two years ago. Nannies leave because of the difficulty of caring for Adam, Lily’s severely autistic 4-year-old half brother. The newest, Suzanne, seems promising, but Lily is tired of feeling like a planet orbiting the sun Adam. When she meets blind Zoe, who will attend the same private middle school as Lily in the fall, Lily’s happy to have a friend. However, Zoe’s take on the plight of the captive dolphin, Nori, used in Adam’s therapy opens Lily’s eyes. She knows she must use her influence over her stepfather, who is consulting on Nori’s treatment for cancer (caused by an oil spill), to free the animal. Lily’s got several fine lines to walk, as she works to hold onto her new friend, convince her stepfather of the rightness of releasing Nori, and do what’s best for Adam. In her newest exploration of animal-human relationships, Rorby’s lonely, mature heroine faces tough but realistic situations. Siblings of children on the spectrum will identify with Lily. If the tale flirts with sentimentality and some of the characters are strident in their views, the whole never feels maudlin or didactic. Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals. (Fiction. 10-13)
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In clear and straightforward prose, less adorned than his recipes, Samuelsson chronicles growing up in Sweden, going to school, playing soccer, and becoming a chef. make it messy
AVALON RISING
Rose, Kathryn Flux (384 pp.) $11.99 paper | May 8, 2015 978-0-7387-4489-6 Series: Metal & Lace, 2 Steampunk mechanic and former handmaiden Vivienne seeks the Holy Grail and her true love, Marcus, in this sequel to Camelot Burning (2014). With Arthur dead, Guinevere gone, and the knights dispersed, Camelot is a ghost town. Vivienne toils in Merlin’s ruined mechanical workshop, missing her mentor and her (chaste) boyfriend, until an unexpected alliance allows her to finish her aeroship and set out on a convoluted quest. Vivienne soon locates the Fisher King and reunites with Marcus, but she also becomes a target for the Black Knight— here, a Spanish rogue with a mind-reading mechanical eye—due to her knowledge of Avalon’s coordinates. Vivienne’s melodramatic relationship with Marcus brings welcome depth to otherwise flat characters primarily defined by their destinies. Action is abundant, but the life-or-death stakes are undermined by the impermanence of death in this amalgamated world. The arbitrary separation between Middle Eastern–derived mechanical arts and British-born magic—centered on the “science” of alchemy—blurs as Vivienne dabbles with spells and duels with demigods. Rose aims for but fails to capture either the magic of Arthurian legends or the logic of steampunk: Arthurian elements (names, settings, plotlines, and religion) are superficial, while the steampunk core (inventions, empire, and fashion) falters in a nonindustrial, feudal time period. An incongruous blend of medieval mythology and steampunk action; only for fans of the first book. (Fantasy. 14-18)
I WISH YOU MORE
Rosenthal, Amy Krouse Illus. by Lichtenheld, Tom Chronicle (40 pp.) $14.99 | Apr. 1, 2015 978-1-4521-2699-9
A collection of parental wishes for a child. It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it’s not clear whether he’s floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there’s a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won’t hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line 108
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reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic. Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)
MAKE IT MESSY My Perfectly Imperfect Life
Samuelsson, Marcus with Chambers, Veronica Delacorte (224 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB Jun. 9, 2015 978-0-385-74400-3 978-0-385-37419-4 e-book 978-0-375-99144-8 PLB Based on Yes, Chef (2012), a memoir for adults, this young readers’ version offers insights into the life and food of one of America’s top chefs. During a tuberculosis epidemic in 1972 in Ethiopia, Samuelsson’s mother walked 75 miles with young Marcus on her back to a hospital in Addis Ababa. She died there, but he and his sister survived and were adopted by a Swedish couple. In clear and straightforward prose, less adorned than his recipes, Samuelsson chronicles growing up in Sweden, going to school, playing soccer, and working his way up the hierarchy in various restaurants on his way to becoming a chef. This is not exactly a linear “pursue your dream” story since Samuelsson originally had wanted to be a professional soccer player but was too small. Soccer went off the table, and food took its place. In adapting the adult memoir for young readers, the authors have adopted the motivational tone of a coach before the big game: “Step up to the challenge; don’t avoid it. Win or lose, take the shot.” But many young people have seen Samuelsson on television’s Chopped and will be eager to learn about the journey that got him there. Now a world-renowned chef, Samuelsson neatly serves up inspiration and food for thought for the many young people interested in cooking. (Memoir. 12-16)
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MR. HAPPY AND MISS GRIMM
Schneider, Antonie Illus. by Strasser, Susanne Translated by Maccarone, Grace Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | $16.95 e-book | May 15, 2015 978-0-8234-3198-4 978-0-8234-3360-5 e-book
Attitude rubs off in this peculiar German import first published as Herr Glück & Frau Unglück.. When the perennially cheerful Mr. Happy moves into the cottage next door to No. 13, which squats under an ever present black cloud, Miss Grimm is not at all pleased. She looks down her long, sharp nose at all that her new neighbor does, from planting a garden to his morning and evening rituals: “Every morning Mr. Happy greeted the sun, / every evening the moon and the stars.” In the latter illustration, Mr. Happy climbs a ladder extending from a rooftop hatch with a match to light the moon’s lantern; Miss Grimm pokes out a similar roof hatch swatting the moon with her broom. Though Mr. Happy’s attempt to greet Miss Grimm ends with a door slammed in his face, the black-clad, melancholy woman does come around eventually, the cheerful garden next door bringing about an amazing transformation (in more ways than one) that seems to happen all too quickly for a satisfactory ending. Strasser’s mixed-media, monoprint, crayon, and digital collage illustrations mix muted jewel tones with interesting textures, and the dichotomy between the two houses is visually effective. While Schneider seems to be going for a power-of-nature-to-changelives sort of message, children may miss it altogether. Stick with the old standby: Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Happy (1980). (Picture book. 4- 7)
EXTRAORDINARY MEANS
Schneider, Robin Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (336 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-0-06-221716-5 978-0-06-221718-9 e-book When Lane’s drug-resistant tuberculosis lands him in a sanatorium, he finds that one of the other residents is a girl he met at summer camp years ago. College-bound Lane is in denial about his illness, assuming that he can keep up with his AP work and go home soon. Sadie’s condition is neither improving nor getting worse; she’s been at Latham House long enough to have formed a group of friends who go on nighttime excursions to buy contraband in the nearby town. In alternating chapters, Lane and Sadie narrate their gradual interest in and eventual love for each other as they await an upcoming drug trial that could mean an end to their quarantine. The teens’ voices are authentic, and there’s enough humor to keep this from becoming maudlin, even though the miracle drug doesn’t quite make |
it in time. A lengthy author’s note spells out Schneider’s intention to write about a nonexistent form of TB to “fix” what she sees as teen literature’s lack of medical narratives “that humanize the illness experience.” Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t necessarily make for good storytelling, as the message takes over, leaving readers to muse on Sadie’s philosophy that “living and dying are actually different words for the same thing, if you think about it.” Readers will do better to seek out The Fault in Our Stars. (Fiction. 14 & up)
BLOOD OATH
Scott, Dan Scribo/Book House (208 pp.) $6.95 paper | Jun. 2, 2015 978-1-908177-48-3 Series: Gladiator School, 1 An upper-class Roman teenager trains for gladiatorial combat after his family suddenly falls on hard times in this imported opener. Readers primed for lots of arena action from the melodramatic cover are in for disappointment. Left destitute after the abrupt disappearance of their father, meek Lucius takes a job as a messenger in his uncle Ravilla’s gladiator school, and his older brother, Quintus, enrolls as a “novicius,” or novice fighter. Scott folds in colorful references to life in the first-century city (“a meat vendor who was selling piles of fresh red lungs was splattering everyone in the vicinity with blood”), Latin words with, often, explanatory footnotes, and many specialized terms for gladiatorial gear. Despite this, he provides only occasional glimpses of fighters on the training grounds and just two actual bouts—neither featuring Quin. Instead, most of the story is given over to the brothers’ bickering over whether their father is guilty or not of espionage for the previous imperial regime and Lucius’ fretting as he sees Quin becoming more attached to the gladiatorial “familia” than his own. Worse yet, though Lucius confronts Ravilla after finding out that his uncle is up to no good, the episode cuts off abruptly sans resolution, revelation, or even cliffhanger. Isolated splashes of gore notwithstanding, an angsty, anemic setup volume offering little incentive to look up sequels. (overview map, appendix of gladiator types) (Historical fiction. 10-12)
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THE GIRL IN THE TORCH
Sharenow, Robert Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (304 pp.) $16.99 | May 26, 2015 978-0-06-222795-9 When her mother dies in quarantine at Ellis Island, 12-year-old Sarah has no hope of being admitted to America on her own. Since no family members can be found to sponsor her, she is placed on a ship for deportation back to Russia. In desperation, she jumps into the icy water and swims for Bedloe’s Island and the Statue of Liberty. There, she survives by hiding among the trees, eating tourists’ discards, and sleeping in the Lady’s torch at night, all the while evading the night watchman, Maryk. But when he catches her, he proves to be a friend. He takes her to his boardinghouse in Chinatown, where she becomes part of a very diverse and eccentric group of outsiders. Sharenow presents a mixed picture of the experiences of immigrants and other outsiders in turn-of-the-20th-century New York, vividly describing what Sarah sees and hears, tastes and smells amid the reality of grinding poverty and nearly constant fear. Sarah’s support network of Chinese, Irish, African-American, and Native American friends is unusual and highly unlikely, though comforting for young readers, who may well need it. In an epilogue, readers catch up with Sarah 20 years later as she revisits the Statue. The book concludes with two author’s notes, a variety of research sources, and a timeline. Exciting if at times disquieting in its realism. (Historical fiction. 9-12)
BILLY SURE, KID ENTREPRENEUR
Sharpe, Luke Illus. by Ross, Graham Simon Spotlight (160 pp.) $17.99 | $6.99 paper | May 26, 2015 978-1-4814-3948-0 978-1-4814-3947-3 paper Series: Billy Sure, Kid Entrepreneur, 1 Billy Sure is the envy of his peers, a whiz-kid who has turned his invention into a moneymaking success story. What could go wrong? The title opens as Billy and his best friend and business manager, Manny, prep for an appearance on a national TV show, Better Than Sleeping. As the All Ball creator and CEO of Sure Things, Inc., 12-year-old Billy is getting a lot of attention from all quarters. Billy’s excited but anxious when people begin to expect a lot out of him due to his fame. Everyone’s high expectations tug on his conscience as he does not know how he got the final plans for the All Ball. Could he be a fraud? And now, ever enterprising Manny wants to know what their next product is going to be. Can Billy figure out how to make the Sibling 110
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Silencer work, or will he let everyone down? Sharpe creates characters with high child appeal. The story is quickly paced, matching the urgency to constantly impress and create another wildly successful product. Ross adds comic details with his spot art that takes its cue from student sketches and doodles. Just when readers sense a satisfying ending, the last two pages point to a new mystery and a sequel. Put this page-turner in the hands of those who appreciate a light read with a touch of mystery and humor. (Fiction. 8-11)
SHEEP GO TO SLEEP
Shaw, Nancy Illus. by Apple, Margot HMH Books (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 5, 2015 978-0-544-30989-0
Count the sheep as they fall asleep.... It’s bedtime, but this familiar flock of sheep (Sheep in a Jeep, 1986, etc.) is not quite ready to take a snooze. Sweet, lilting rhymes and charming colored-pencil illustrations hit all of the right notes and blend together flawlessly as a friendly border collie tries his best to shepherd his wooly charges off to sleep. Armed with patience, a hug, a drink, a song, a teddy bear, and a quilt, he just might manage. Young listeners will relish the pictures’ gentle humor, spot the details in the illustrations (including the bird who appears throughout the tale), and appreciate the calming effect of the hypnotic text as they are lulled off to sleep, practicing their counting as each sheep begins to doze in turn. The collie’s responses are full of kindness and encouragement, providing toddlers with just the right amount of soothing warmth as they drift off. “But where is the dog who looks after the sheep? / He’s under the haystack, fast asleep.” The combination of formula and subject is such a natural it’s a wonder Shaw and Apple waited this long to put them together. A beguiling bedtime book and a nice choice for just before nap time. (Picture book. 2-5)
THE TRUTH ABOUT MY SUCCESS
Sheldon, Dyan Candlewick (352 pp.) $16.99 | Jun. 9, 2015 978-0-7636-7272-0
A struggling waitress trades places with a spoiled-brat TV star in this comedy. Sixteen-year-old Paloma doesn’t know it yet, but her tantrums are jeopardizing not only her own income, but, much worse, that of her greedy mother and agent. Paloma’s emotional maturity is on par with that of a toddler, and the sponsors of her once-popular TV series just might pull the plug on future seasons. Her mom, Leone, and agent, Jack, concoct a plan. They
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The type—usually just one sentence—is in a different flavor on each page. ice cream summer
have met a girl, Oona, who looks remarkably like Paloma and offer to pay her big bucks to impersonate the star while they send the real Paloma off to “brat camp.” Oona has difficulty with the exacting Leone, but she finds her acting duties to be easy. The show improves, and the sponsors are happy. Meanwhile, Paloma learns that her tantrums won’t get her what she wants at problem-teen rehab, so she decides to cooperate until she can get out. However, just when Leone and Jack believe their plan has succeeded beyond their dreams, events take a different turn. Sheldon writes sophisticated, droll humor throughout, balancing comedy against the character development of the two girls. Writing in alternate chapters for each, she weaves the story together from two quite different viewpoints. Descriptions of Paloma’s ultraluxurious, superficial Hollywood lifestyle meet Oona’s real world, and real emotions result along with the laughter. Constantly funny, splendidly witty: a bull’s-eye. (Fiction. 12-18)
THE CAGE
Shepherd, Megan Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (400 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-0-06-224305-8 978-0-06-224307-2 e-book Six teenagers face a life of captivity in an alien-designed human zoo. Cora awakens in a most unusual land, one divided into disparate environments stitched closely together: a desert, a beach, a farm, a city, and more. She certainly isn’t in Virginia anymore. Terrified, she runs, quickly encountering Lucky, a cute stranger who knows far more about her than he lets on. Cora reluctantly teams up with him, and together, they find three others inside a strange city filled with candy shops and toy stores. All around them are murky, black windows with shifting shadows behind them. Soon enough, an ET appears, looking much like an alluring figure from Cora’s dreams. He calls himself their Caretaker. He’s one of the Kindred, and it’s their mission to protect humans—an endangered species. The cost of their protection is compliance with their rules. However, Cora isn’t the type to be caged in. The narrative perspective shifts between her and far more thinly characterized cohorts; Cora’s pulses with her fiery resilience, outshining the others. A love triangle that frustrates at first delivers both a swoon-worthy and thrilling cliffhanger that will compel readers to the sequel. A riff on a Twilight Zone plot unfolds into a richly drawn alien dystopian replete with romance and horror. (Science fiction. 13 & up)
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THE SEARCH FOR BABY RUBY
Shreve, Susan Levine/Scholastic (224 pp.) $16.99 | $16.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-0-545-41783-9 978-0-545-82572-6 e-book
After her niece is kidnapped from a hotel room, 12-year-old Jess must find the baby and get her back. Jess, the youngest in her fractured family, is the responsible one, the one everyone depends on. So when her feckless adult brother bullies her into babysitting so he can go to sister Whee’s wedding rehearsal dinner (which means that Jess can’t), she dutifully acquiesces. Feeling resentful and uncharacteristically rebellious, Jess leaves Baby Ruby on the bed while she goes into the bathroom to try on Whee’s wedding dress and play with her makeup. When Jess comes out, the baby is gone. Convinced that the kidnapper is a man she saw hanging around the hallway, Jess goes to investigate, telling only her older sister Teddy what she’s up to. The plot, which youngsters should find suspenseful, is wildly preposterous, with each turn more ludicrous than the one before. But Shreve’s main interest is in the family dynamic, particularly Jess’ close connection to her troubled but devoted sister Teddy. Their relationship, supported by the solidly centered, paternal detective (a canny foil for the girls’ more solipsistic parents), is the strongest part of the novel and rings true. An entertaining thriller with a feel-good ending that, despite its over-the-top plot, showcases the emotionally resonant ties that bind sisters and families. (Thriller. 8-12)
ICE CREAM SUMMER
Sís, Peter Illus. by Sís, Peter Scholastic (40 pp.) $17.99 | May 26, 2015 978-0-545-73161-4
In ice cream colors, Sís delivers an encomium to summer, to the power of learning, and to that beloved, creamy-
cold treat. A little boy, his red baseball cap on backward as is proper, gets a letter from his grandpa and writes back telling him all the things he is doing for the summer. He is learning new words and creating his own book. He is making maps and researching history. He is even practicing equations. The pictures, however, expand the story in most delicious ways. He is learning new words from the ice cream stand: “mango explosion” and “cherry tornado”! Maps include features named “blueberry hill” and “ice land.” History includes Marco Polo bringing recipes from China to Italy and President James Madison serving ice cream (with strawberries from Dolley Madison’s garden). In every one of the exquisitely detailed images, ice cream appears in many guises: waves on the beach are scoop-shaped, and sandcastles
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Small details make each setting come alive, such as the Mexican imagery decorating the restaurant walls. finding the music
have cone turrets; the bases on a ball field are ice cream sandwiches; even Lady Liberty holds a cone aloft in place of her torch. The type—usually just one sentence—is in a different flavor on each page, and the endpapers are a blue sea of cones and ice cream bars. Oh, yum. (author’s note, further reading) (Picture book. 4-10)
THE SKY IS FALLING!
Teague, Mark Illus. by the author Orchard/Scholastic (32 pp.) $16.99 | Jun. 30, 2015 978-0-545-63217-1
The age-old “Chicken Little” story, but with a change-up. An acorn falls on Chicken Little’s head in the barnyard, and, as in the iconic original, she cries, “The sky is falling!” Squirrel points out that it’s just an acorn, but soon all the chickens in the farm are flapping their wings, taking up the cry. Squirrel, Rabbit, and Cat can’t believe how dumb the chickens are, but then they notice that the chickens are actually dancing, not running around in a panic as they first supposed. It looks like fun, and soon everyone joins in, except Fox, who is baffled that his plan isn’t working (since it was he who lobbed the acorn in the first place in an attempt to lure panicked chickens to his den). The message—celebrate surprising experiences instead of panicking—is an apt and worthwhile one. But where the book bogs down is an occasional too-self-conscious cleverness (“Soon, all the chickens were in a tizzy. Chickens are like that”) and the disconnect between Teague’s carefully rendered illustrative style and the lighthearted story. The pages are well-designed, but the scenes often seem more stodgy than lively. Though this twist on the familiar tale is somewhat heavy-handed in both narrative and image, its sense of fun comes through clearly nonetheless. (Picture book. 2-5)
FINDING THE MUSIC En Busca De La Música
Torres, Jennifer Illus. by Alarcão, Rentato Translated by Romay, Alexis Children’s Book Press (40 pp.) $18.95 | May 15, 2015 978-0-89239-291-9
Reyna’s abuelito was a mariachi musician, and today his prized vihuela, a small, high-pitched guitar, hangs in her family’s restaurant. When Reyna accidentally breaks the vihuela, she knows Mamá will be crushed, as the instrument brings back joyful memories of her father. Reyna decides to take it upon herself to fix the instrument before her mother discovers what has happened, reaching out to several adults in the community to 112
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ask for help. Though no one is able to help her exactly as she wishes, each contributes a memento that brings the memory of Abuelito and his mariachi music to life. She returns with her grandfather’s sombrero, a photo of the mariachi band, and a record of their music. Mamá and Reyna revel in the memory of Abuelito as they share his music with restaurant diners. Lee and Low New Voices Award winner Torres makes a charming debut. The adults in Reyna’s neighborhood are as caring and helpful as Reyna is tenderhearted. The illustrations are equally joyful, presenting a bustling, colorful, and diverse neighborhood. Small details make each setting come alive, such as the Mexican imagery decorating the restaurant walls. Bright colors and warm faces create a welcoming and inviting atmosphere. An uplifting celebration of family, community, and culture. (author’s note) (Bilingual picture book. 6-9)
THE SOUND OF LIFE AND EVERYTHING
Van Dolzer, Krista Putnam (272 pp.) $16.99 | May 5, 2015 978-0-399-16775-1
All that’s left of Ella Mae’s cousin Robby, killed in combat on Iwo Jima, are his bloodstained dog tags, but a California scientist claims that using the DNA it contains, he can reconstruct him. Dr. Franks succeeds—except that the person he reconstructs is a young Japanese soldier, Takuma, not Robby. After Robby’s mother refuses to take responsibility for Takuma, Ella Mae’s mother brings him home over her husband’s objections (Ella Mae’s older brother, Daniel, also died in the war). Every family in their Orange County town lost a member in the war, and most blame Takuma for their loss. He’s either shunned or subjected to vicious racist taunts. Only plucky Ella Mae, her mother, and cousin Gracie offer friendship and compassion, even as Takuma’s reconstructed body fails. With her folksy narration, both Ella Mae and the rural town’s simple, white Protestant inhabitants lack credibility as Californians. This illconceived novel is more than just ludicrously simplistic in its science; it portrays 1952 California as devoid of Japanese-Americans. Neither the text nor the author’s note mentions the thousands forced from their homes across the western United States, including towns and farms in Orange County, and incarcerated in concentration camps (two in California), nor do they mention the heroic 442nd Infantry Brigade, whose highly decorated Japanese-American soldiers fought for the Allies while their own families were imprisoned. Numerous omissions and inaccuracies work against the earnest “war hurts everyone” message. (Historical fantasy. 10-13)
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THE STARS NEVER RISE
Vincent, Rachel Delacorte (368 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | $20.99 PLB Jun. 9, 2015 978-0-385-74417-1 978-0-385-38393-6 e-book 978-0-375-99135-0 PLB A girl learns that she has the ability to fight the demons that threaten the world in this series opener. Soon to be 17, Nina struggles to keep herself and her 15-year old sister, Melanie, out of the hands of the Church, which has become the new, tyrannical government a century after the war between humans and demons wiped out most of America—and the rest of the world. She might have succeeded, but Melanie turns up with a secret that will destroy any real future the girls have. The Church, however, discovers another secret, something Nina did not know about herself: Nina is a natural exorcist, able to dispatch demons to hell with only the fire that glows from her hand. This makes her a target of the Church, and her new friend Finn, one of a group of young exorcists and other freedom fighters, steps in to help her escape. In no time, Nina becomes public enemy number one on the national news. Jammed with dramatic tension, this post-apocalyptic paranormal thriller will keep readers flipping pages. Vincent maintains suspense with fights against demonic degenerates and near-miss encounters with the demonstrably evil Church. One of Finn’s group has a so-far-unexplained supernatural ability that makes their efforts much easier, and there are hints of future romance. Vincent’s a pro: large parts of this are un-put-downable. (Paranormal suspense. 12-18)
WILDER BOYS
Wallace, Brandon Aladdin (240 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | May 5, 2015 978-1-4814-3264-1 978-1-4814-3265-8 e-book After their mother is taken to the hospital, two brothers decamp from their home outside Pittsburgh in order to find their estranged father in a remote area of Wyoming. Thirteen-year-old Jake and his younger brother, Taylor, are pathetically unprepared for a journey, and their decision to bring the family Jack Russell terrier, Cody, adds complications. Pretending to be older and having absconded with funds belonging to their mother’s boyfriend, Bull, the boys are incredibly lucky at times but eventually find the wilderness to be more challenging than they expected. At a crucial point they meet wolverine tracker Skeet, who graciously shares his knowledge and gear. But even as their confidence grows and they begin to feel that they are on their way to finding their dad, their past choices |
come back with a vengeance. Wallace maintains the book’s pace by providing menacing peril at regular intervals; realistically, as the boys perceive some dangers as more threatening than is actually true, but they underestimate others. (“Wilderness Tips” in the backmatter serve to clarify these points.) The continuous seesaw between urban settlement and wilderness, threat and safety, luck and skill might turn off hard-core survival fans, but it will be attractive to adrenaline junkies. The action may sometimes be implausible, but it sure doesn’t stop. (Adventure. 9-14)
CLOSE TO THE WIND
Walter, Jon David Fickling/Scholastic (304 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-0-545-81662-5 978-0-545-82298-5 e-book Walter’s debut novel is a profile of innocence maintained in the face of war. Malik and his grandfather, Papa, are running from soldiers to a port, where they hope to board a ship to safety. Malik believes they will meet his mother there, although Papa is suspiciously (at least to readers) circumspect. To keep him distracted, Papa teaches Malik a trick to make small items disappear; this new sleightof-hand talent will come in very handy later on. When former business associates and fellow refugees steal a diamond from Papa meant to fund passage to and start-up costs in a new country, escape seems impossible. The tension is palpable, and if the lack of details about place and time may frustrate some, it also serves to keep the focus on character types. The threat posed by the soldiers is not explicit but ominous all the same. Unethical opportunists arouse a sense of injustice. Papa, a wheeler-dealer, gets Malik on the boat, but Malik is crushed to learn that his mother is not onboard. It all seems for naught until a sympathetic foster parent aids Malik’s search for his family. The rollercoaster ride of experiences and emotions, taking Malik and readers from fear, despair, loss, and grief to love and hope, is accurately drawn. A good choice for sensitive children not ready for more pointed accounts. (Fiction. 8-12)
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ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN
Walton, Will PUSH/Scholastic (288 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | May 26, 2015 978-0-545-70954-5 978-0-545-70955-2 e-book Falling in love with your best friend can’t turn out all right, can it? Fifteen-year-old “Tretch” Farm goes by his nickname since he’s the third generation of Richards in the family. He realizes one Sunday in church that he’s in love with his best friend, Matt Gooby, who just happens to have two dads but who also happens to be straight. Matt’s a great friend, standing up for Tretch whenever necessary, especially against Tretch’s dad’s business partner’s son. Tretch’s mother’s still leery of the Goobys even though they are legally married, so Tretch can’t talk about the depth of his affection for Matt with his parents. He deals by being a good friend and helping Matt land the girl of his dreams. Tretch leads his mother to believe he’s dating a girl (who actually does have a crush on him), but he comes out to his supportive older brother, Joe. If only it were all as easy as that. Tretch, the narrator in Walton’s debut, successfully navigates the landmines of his life while learning about the secrets that adults keep. The whole is a wee bit melodramatic and perhaps a bit too rosy as well. However, LGBT teens can use more “a bit too rosy,” and the message that “it gets better, but it’s good now” is nicely communicated without being maudlin or preachy. Realistic and at times touching, a nice addition to the literature. (Fiction. 12-16)
THE LAST GOOD DAY OF THE YEAR
Warman, Jessica Bloomsbury (288 pp.) $17.99 | $12.99 e-book | May 12, 2015 978-0-8027-3662-8 978-0-8027-3664-2 e-book Ten years after the widely publicized kidnapping of Sam’s baby sister, Turtle, Sam and her family return to live in the home where the abduction took place. In a detail-rich, nostalgic narrative voice, Sam describes the fateful night and its aftermath. It was 1986; Sam was 7 and Turtle, 4. Alternating chapters take readers to 1996, when Sam and her altered, numbed family return to Shelocta. Sam’s older sister, Gretchen, whose much-older boyfriend was eventually convicted of Turtle’s murder, has come back to Shelocta from Texas; Hannah, the 5-year-old sister everyone agrees is serving as Turtle’s replacement in her parents’ minds, flits innocently through the action, unaware of her family’s history. Tension among family members and with old neighbors, former acquaintances, and Sam’s childhood best 114
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friend drives the largely atmospheric story forward. Interspersed throughout are excerpts from the book an investigative journalist has written about Turtle’s case. These interview transcripts and outsider descriptions of family members add to the pervasive sense of distance and fragility in a community blown apart by trauma. Oddly, the resolution is far more plot-based than the lead-up would suggest. Many of the character-based questions (When will Hannah learn about what happened to Turtle? What sort of relationship will Sam and Remy have now?) go unanswered. Hauntingly written but leaves readers wondering, what now? (Mystery. 14 & up)
BEAR COUNTS
Wilson, Karma Illus. by Chapman, Jane McElderry (32 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | May 12, 2015 978-1-4424-8092-6 978-1-4424-8093-3 e-book Having tackled one concept in Bear Sees Colors (2014), Bear and his charming woodland friends now address the numbers from one through five. Buddies Mouse and Bear start their day together, sharing breakfast and counting: “One sun floating high. / One giant dragonfly. / One robin on her nest. / Only ONE berry left!” These counting spreads begin with a page turn that will have kids yelling out the next number and end with more opportunities for them to participate: “Numbers, numbers everywhere. / Can you count along with Bear?” The friends soon run into Hare, who has two apples to share, and the friends and numbers increase up to five, a perfect amount for new counters. As in the previous book, the rhythms and rhymes are not always spot-on: “Bear cries, ‘Look, it’s Badger, / Mole, and Gopher by the shore! / Badger has his fishin’ pole.’ / And the bear counts....” (Confusingly, this spread introduces four, which rhymes with “shore” but doesn’t match the number of friends met.) Chapman’s acrylic illustrations offer lots of opportunities for children to count, and not just the items named in the text—look carefully for the tiny animals. Bear’s fans may get practice counting the number of times they ask for this again. (Picture book. 2-5)
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Round Gerard, tall Lucy, and impossibly thin Walt are distinct personalities beyond their physical attributes. ellie
BEYOND SUSPICION
Winn, Catherine A. Poisoned Pencil (230 pp.) $10.95 paper | $7.99 e-book | May 1, 2015 978-1-92934-510-6 978-1-92934-511-3 e-book Series: Whispering Springs Mystery, 1 When someone kidnaps her baby brother, the police accuse 15-year-old Shelby of his murder, and the national media run with it. Shelby gets hate email and death threats, and the press besieges the family, but nothing can stop Shelby from slipping out the unwatched back way to do her own investigation at the park where the kidnapping occurred. There, she gets into more trouble with the police but meets Matt, who may or may not become a romantic interest. Offering to help, Matt takes her out to look for the white van Shelby insists was involved in the crime. (Why is it always a white van?) Events finally take some pressure off Shelby, but she’s determined to solve the crime. She thinks ahead of the police at every step, possibly at her own peril. Winn’s writing moves along nicely, although she relies on more than one credulity-straining incident to solve major problems. Her initial portrayal of the police detectives comes across as outrageous with their over-the-top persecution of Shelby, but she later redeems them with words if not with their actions. Her characterizations of Shelby’s parents are equally one-dimensional, initially portraying them as selfish and uncaring and then instantly switching their portrayals to sympathetic after the kidnapping. Still, if the plot and characterizations don’t make much sense, the story has enough suspense to satisfy undemanding mystery fans. (Mystery. 12-18)
ELEPHANT JOE, BRAVE FIREFIGHTER!
Wojtowycz, David Illus. by the author Random House (32 pp.) $3.99 paper | $12.99 PLB | May 26, 2015 978-0-385-37406-4 978-0-375-97203-4 PLB Series: Step into Reading Comic Reader Animal friends save the day when a dragon’s birthday party gets out of hand in this graphic-novel addition to the venerable Step into Reading line. Elephant Joe and Zebra Pete hide in the bushes so they can jump out to surprise their friend Dragon. However, instead of appreciating the birthday surprise, Dragon flies into a tree and becomes entangled in the branches. The two friends suddenly turn into firefighters, complete with a ladder truck, for the rescue. After saving him, the friends present the birthday cake, but Dragon sets it afire while blowing out the candles. With no fire |
hydrant for water, Dragon picks up Elephant Joe and flies to a lake, where the pachyderm’s handy trunk sucks up water to save the day. While the cartoon illustrations will draw young readers in, the story is hard to follow. How did these two buddies instantaneously become firefighters? It might be a game of pretend, but to literal-minded young readers, that premise will be unclear. Though the speech bubbles are fun, including a frog who seems to act as narrator is another point of confusion, as it’s not always clear from its dialogue whether it’s interacting with the characters or describing the action. For a comic-book early-reader to succeed, the speech bubbles and graphic elements need to make sense. The digital art is colorful and amusing, with the animals’ expressions and eye movements telling much of the story. A visual muddle makes for an early-reader fail. (Early reader. 4-6)
ELLIE
Wu, Mike Illus. by the author Disney-Hyperion (40 pp.) $16.99 | May 5, 2015 978-1-4847-1239-9 When Walt the zookeeper announces the zoo will be closing for good, all the animals pitch in to save it. But shy Ellie the elephant cannot see how she can help. How can she help save the zoo? Gerard the gorilla is clever and always has good ideas. Lucy the giraffe can clean up all the places no one else can reach. Even the penguins and monkeys are sprucing up the gray and ramshackle zoo. Everyone but Ellie has a job to do. With big, round eyes, sweet Ellie is clearly sad that she cannot help save her home. With a “brighten the corner where you are” attitude, Ellie picks up a paintbrush and gives it a try. Like Dorothy arriving in Oz, the world changes when the paint hits the walls. In his first picture book, Pixar animator Wu creates watercolor illustrations that are reminiscent of classics like Harry the Dirty Dog and Curious George. Round Gerard, tall Lucy, and impossibly thin Walt are distinct personalities beyond their physical attributes. There is a timelessness that draws attention to these gentle figures. The storyline, however, meanders like the little elephant as the book proceeds. Is the kernel of this book about contributing even if you are little? Or saving the zoo and becoming famous? Luckily for Ellie and readers alike, it is the pictures that matter. (Picture book. 3- 7)
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Layering cyan, magenta, and yellow—and eschewing black—Yoon produces crowded, eye-popping images that will draw children’s attention. beastly verse
BEASTLY VERSE
Yoon, Joohee—Ed. Illus. by the editor Enchanted Lion Books (48 pp.) $18.95 | Apr. 14, 2015 978-1-59270-166-7 Using just three impossibly bright colors, printmaker Yoon illustrates a collection of animal-themed poems of vary-
ing familiarity. There’s a nostalgic feel to the collection, as many poems date from the 19th century—William Blake’s “The Tiger,” Christina Rossetti’s “Caterpillar,” and Lewis Carroll’s “The Crocodile” among them—and none dates later than the mid20th century. For all that they may be old, however, the poems have a real child friendliness, from the light verse of Ogden Nash (“The Eel”) and Hilaire Belloc (“The Yak”) to the weightier stanzas of D.H. Lawrence (“Humming-bird”) and Walter de la Mare (“Dream Song”). If the poetry delights, the prints dazzle. Layering cyan, magenta, and yellow—and eschewing black—Yoon produces crowded, eye-popping images that will draw children’s attention. There’s a studied, childlike crudeness to her stylings, full of scribbly lines and overlap, that yields great energy. Carolyn Wells’ “Happy Hyena,” its bright pink head wildly out of proportion to its body, wears a green jacket and a yellow waistcoat, playing the concertina as it walks through town. The book’s design offers further surprises. A pink telephone jangles imperiously in a seemingly empty room in Laura Richards’ “Eletelephony,” but a gatefold opens to show an enormous teal-and-purple elephant hopelessly entangled in the telephone’s cord. Gleefully distinctive stylings, fluorescent colors, and beautiful bookmaking should make an eager new audience for these old poems. (Picture book/poetry. 4-10)
LOLA CARLYLE’S 12-STEP ROMANCE
Younge-Ullman, Danielle Entangled Teen (368 pp.) $9.99 paper | May 5, 2015 978-1-62266-785-7
A spoiled celebu-spawn fakes addiction to worm her way into rehab and follow her crush, but she finds that it isn’t as she expected (gasp!). Full of sass and witty banter, Lola Carlyle, daughter of an esteemed (though largely absent) father and a soap-opera–star (and hypercritical) mother, hasn’t a clue how she’s to spend her last summer before she turns 18. However, when she learns from her best frenemy, Sydney, who is in rehab, that her crush—the handsome actor Wade Miller—is a patient there, Lola is determined to get herself admitted. Once she concocts a lie passably large enough, she is indeed admitted. Instead of the spalike environment she envisioned, Lola quickly 116
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discovers that rehab—and keeping up her pretense—is harder than she thought. To add another wrinkle, Lola’s mentor, Adam, is annoyingly cute and seems to be taking a special interest in her. Playing this premise—Lola’s faking alcoholism to satisfy a schoolgirl crush—for laughs is more than a bit disconcerting, as is the blossoming relationship between mentor and (supposed) patient. The presumed love triangle, which should buoy this frothy fare, plummets when Lola makes a clear choice long before the conclusion. While some of the love scenes do have some sizzle, ultimately, there just isn’t enough spark to save this. A marginal beach read only for die-hard chick-lit fans who can overlook its multiple stumbles. (Chick-lit. 13-16)
baseball picture books THE BASEBALL PLAYER AND THE WALRUS
Loory, Ben Illus. by the author Dial (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 24, 2015 978-0-8037-3951-2
A lonely baseball superstar finds a new friend and rethinks his priorities. He’s talented, popular and very rich, but something is missing that he just can’t name. On a visit to the zoo, he is fascinated by a walrus’ antics. He decides to buy it, but he meets with great resistance from the worried zookeepers. He is so determined to demonstrate his ability to care for the walrus that he completely reconfigures his huge backyard with all the accouterments a walrus could possibly need. He’s ecstatic when the zoo authorities finally agree to let the walrus go. He grooms the walrus, reads him stories and even plays catch. He is so happy that he quits baseball, but eventually he runs out of money and the walrus must go. Of course there’s a happy ending, and the two friends are reunited. It’s not really a baseball story, for the unnamed hero could just as well be a rock star or actor or business mogul. The important part is that he gives it all up for friendship and companionship. Loory builds the tale nicely with sympathetic portrayals of the hero’s loneliness and the walrus’ endearing traits. Young readers will find it all sweetly believable. Latimer’s computer-enhanced cartoons carefully follow the text and add an extra touch to the characters’ emotions. The denouement could come straight out of Field of Dreams, if that film were set in a zoo. A bit treacly but wistful and charming. (Picture book. 4- 7)
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QUEEN OF THE DIAMOND The Lizzie Murphy Story McCully, Emily Arnold Illus. by the author Farrar, Straus and Giroux (32 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 17, 2015 978-0-374-30007-4
A very determined girl in turn-ofthe-20th-century Rhode Island decides that she will play baseball. Lizzie’s brother, Henry, plays on local amateur teams, and Lizzie wants to play as well. When she plays catch with Henry, she throws strong and true. Her father and brother both support her, although her mother wishes a more normal, expected future for the girl. When she is 8, she wangles a place on the team as a batboy. At a game against a rival town, she is the only one who remembers to bring a ball and talks her way into playing first base. Through insults and jeers, she plays well on the field and at bat, earning everyone’s respect. At 12, Lizzie begins work in the mill alongside her family; she plays and excels at other sports, but baseball is her special love. Later she continues to defy expectations regarding a woman’s place, joining semipro teams, playing for many years and always demanding her fair pay. McCully does not make comparisons to modernday professional baseball, carefully keeping the tale true to the time period, but she obviously admires the daring young woman who paved her own path. The syntax is modern but with a hint of old-fashioned cadence. Bright, light-filled, expressive illustrations complement the action beautifully. Readers will root for Lizzie all the way. (author’s note, sources) (Picture book/biography. 6-9)
1999 the brothers both won games in the playoffs, causing dancing in the streets in the Dominican Republic. Tavares builds the story one incident at a time, employing the present tense in brief, poetic sentences. He describes the baseball action with enthusiasm but keeps the focus on Pedro’s gregarious personality, his work ethic, his generosity and his special relationship with his brother. Watercolor, gouache and pencil illustrations depict the emotional fervor of the action. Oddly, the Red Sox’s long-awaited World Series victory in 2004 and Pedro’s dedication to improving conditions in his homeland are only mentioned in an author’s note. A warm portrait of a modern baseball icon. (statistics, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 8-12)
GROWING UP PEDRO How the Martínez Brothers Made It from the Dominican Republic All the Way to the Major Leagues
Tavares, Matt Illus. by the author Candlewick (40 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 10, 2015 978-0-7636-6824-2
Throughout his career Hall of Famer Pedro Martínez acknowledged his brother’s encouragement as a major factor in his success. They grew up poor in the Dominican Republic, throwing rocks at mango trees and using makeshift equipment. When the Dodgers signed Ramon, Pedro tagged along to the practice camp, playing catch with his brother and getting noticed by the coaches. When he eventually played for the Dodgers, alongside his brother, it was a dream come true. After one very good season, he was traded to the Montreal Expos, where his prodigious skills make him a superstar. He went on to the Boston Red Sox, where he and Ramon were again teammates for two seasons. In |
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Sh e l f Spa c e Q&A with Chuck Robinson, Co-Founder of Village Books By Karen Schechner
What is Village Books famous for?
Photo courtesy Kelly Carbert
I think most people in our area would say we’re famous for our connections with so many segments of the community. We have a presence at many community events, in addition to the 300 or so book events we do inhouse. We’re partners with Whatcom Community College in the Chuckanut Writers Conference and have just extended that partnership to co-produce yearround writing classes, conferences, and retreats.
If Village Books were a religion, what would be its icons and tenets?
Years ago, a detractor called me a First Amendment fundamentalist, not knowing she was paying me a compliment. I guess we would be a fundamentalist religion, meaning that we believe in ensuring people’s access to what they want to read and have little tolerance for those who would block them from reading what they wish. Our icons would be the pen (does anyone still write with one?) and, at my age, perhaps reading glasses.
Which was your favorite all-time event and why?
Wow. After three decades, with scores of events each year, that’s a tough question to answer. So, here are a few that rank pretty high on my list. I still remember our first event with Tom Robbins (Dec. 7, 1980) with great amazement. The store was less than 6 months old. We had a mob and made the front page of the paper the next day. Garrison Keillor’s appearance on our Chuckanut Radio Hour a few years ago was a highlight, especially since our show is pretty much a rip-off of his program.
Can you give us two or three highlights of the bookstore’s history?
It seems remarkable now that we founded the store in the midst of a recession (June 1980) when interest rates were above 20 percent. We created a separate, adjacent card and gift store two years later and, in 1985, were one of the early bookstores to have an attached cafe. Having one of the first Espresso Book Machines launched us into our own publishing imprint and into Chuck Robinson helping others publish books.
Photo courtesy Kelly Carbert
Chuck Robinson, born and raised in a small Illinois farming community, co-founded Village Books in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife, Dee, in 1980. Robinson has served as president of the American Booksellers Association and was the founding vice-president of the American Booksellers for Free Expression. Village Books, with its glorious three stories of books within a redbrick building, is Whatcom County’s “Community Bookshop for Browsing.” It’s also where local commercial fishers buy stacks of books before venturing out to sea.
According to the ABA, indie bookstores have increased their numbers in the past five years. What gives your bookstore and indies in general their staying power?
A number of years ago, Tom Peters said that the two main factors that distinguish excellent companies are 1) staying close to the customer and 2) being innovative. I believe he was right, and we’ve tried to do both. I also see that other stores across the country who seem to be thriving are doing this as well. Being nimble and embracing change go a long way.
What are some of the bookstore’s top current handsells?
You’d be hard-pressed to get out of our store without someone putting Tony Doerr’s book All the Light We Cannot See in your hand. I can remember very few books that have been embraced by so many of our staff. The Good Lord Bird by James McBride and Mink River by Brian Doyle are other favorite handsells, and quite a few of us are big fans of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. I’ve told lots of folks about Tom Robbins’ “memoir” Tibetan Peach Pie.
Anything else you’d like to mention?
Before we opened the store, when we were traveling around talking to booksellers, we were told that running a bookstore was not a good way to get rich but that it was a great way to make a living. Not only have we been able to make a living, but we’ve made a great life. I can’t imagine how the last 35 years could have been any better.
Karen Schechner is the senior Indie editor at Kirkus Reviews. 118
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indie PROMETHEUS REBOUND The Launch of the Gryphens Duology
These titles earned the Kirkus Star: Godkiller, Vol. 1 by Matt Pizzolo............................................... 132
Akers, R.L. CreateSpace (498 pp.) $17.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Oct. 12, 2013 978-1-4927-0143-9
SIGHING WOMAN TEA by Mark Daniel Seiler.............................. 136
SIGHING WOMAN TEA
Seiler, Mark Daniel Xlibris (390 pp.) $22.99 $15.99 e-book Oct. 15, 2014 978-1-4990-6362-2
This impressive debut novel—the first installment of the Gryphens duology—is a highly palatable blend of alien invasion thriller, apocalyptic fiction, and military sci-fi. Set in modern-day America, the story revolves largely around Kara Dunn, a former video game developer who is now teaching computer programming at a university and finishing up her doctorate degree. But when she and her housemate, Viviane, are attacked while jogging in a park—an assault Kara was warned of by a mysterious cellphone call minutes before it happened—her entire life is turned upside down, and everything she believed to be true is suddenly put into question. Soon after the attempted assault, the government essentially kidnaps and coerces her into joining the Air Force to work on a top-secret project known as Prometheus. Now based in the Nevada desert, Dunn soon realizes that much of her work on a space combat video game called “Rampant” is the foundation for the Air Force’s covert training of pilots to do battle with an alien orbital attack, which was prophesied by a wounded alien the government captured decades earlier. But that’s just the beginning of an audacious storyline that includes more than a few bombshell plot twists. Everything about this novel is polished to a shine, particularly the tightly plotted narrative. Although some of the middle chapters drag a bit as the author attempts to simultaneously move forward several plotlines, sci-fi fans will find this page-turner utterly readable. Powered by a courageous and endearing heroine at world’s end, like Ender’s Game for the 21st century.
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fan fiction: writing for the love of it Fan fiction has become a true phenomenon. Websites such as FanFiction.net and Archive of Our Own boast millions of self-published stories, written by fans and set in the fictional worlds of book series such as Harry Potter and Twilight and TV series such as Star Trek, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, and many others, with more added every day. As Anne Jamison points out in her 2013 history Fic, some of the first modern fan fiction appeared in Star Trek fanzines in the early 1970s, continuing the adventures after the original series’ cancelation. These stories were written (and often selfpublished) by and for fans. Then, as now, fanfic often ventured into territory that the established canon didn’t explore—expanding on minor characters, addressing plot holes, and including LGBT themes. Cassandra Clare It also notoriously delves into erotica; one Twilight fanfic was later expanded, reworked and published as Fifty Shades of Grey. E.L. James isn’t the only famous author to have fanfic connections: Cassandra Clare of the bestselling YA series The Mortal Instruments previously wrote Harry Potter fan fiction, for example, and S.E. Hinton, the iconic writer of The Outsiders (1965), has written Supernatural fanfics. At least one major publishing player has taken note of fanfic’s possibilities. Last year, Amazon.com launched Kindle Worlds, in which S.E. Hinton authors can sell works set in The Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars universes, among others, through a licensing arrangement. There’s no doubt that the popularity of fan fiction is growing, and many more new writers will come from the vibrant fan fiction community. And its DIY ethic may attract those who might later go the self-publishing route. —D.R. David Rapp is an Indie editor. 120
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INTENTIONAL
Arbor, Lynn Spring Forward Publishing (280 pp.) $15.00 paper | $2.99 e-book Jan. 22, 2015 978-0-9862206-0-9 In this novel, a woman’s friends and family deal with the aftermath of her suicide as they try to understand her reasons and their own roles. The last Lily Cummings hears from her best friend, Dust Steward, is a text message: “I love U. Be.” Be what? Dust (shortened from Dusty) can never tell her, because she shoots herself with her husband’s gun in the fancy bathroom of their home’s luxurious new addition. Lily, 37, together with Dust’s husband, daughter, mother, and neighbor, struggles with her grief, confusion, and guilt. Dust left no note and had apparently been planning the suicide for some time. Why? A passionate environmentalist, Dust hated the house extension and its enormous carbon footprint—concerns that her husband, Robert, with his conservative political ambitions, dismissed. He also threatened to keep their daughter, Grace, from her if she tried to divorce. Now, he must face up to his role: “I’m not innocent....Everything she believed in, I smacked down. I did it.” With good cause or without, everyone wonders if they could have done more. Dust’s suicide becomes a catalyst for other major life changes elsewhere—a collapsing marriage, rapprochement with a long-gone mother, etc. Throughout this intelligent and perceptive novel, Arbor traces with strength and delicacy the many strands leading up to and away from a suicide. She brings out the textures of people’s lives through their in-jokes and little customs so that readers can feel the web of living connections that Dust was part of and left behind. The childhood friendship between Lily and Dust is shown to be full of the shared fears, hopes, and joys that kept them friends into adulthood, which helps define the scope of loss. Though everyone tries to play detective to understand Dust’s suicide, the answers are messy. After Dust’s death, one of her jigsaw puzzles, unfinished, lies gathering dust, the pieces never put together. A thoughtful, sensitive, but never saccharine exploration of what suicide leaves behind.
SNAYGILL Slithery Temptations
Assor, Michelle B. Papricca Publishers Jan. 1, 2015
This YA fantasy stars a pair of snake princes who must navigate a world of wonder and deception. In the snake-filled realm of Snaygill, King Amar, a king cobra, summons all of his serpentine subjects to the Tree of Spiritus to witness the birth of his heirs. After hatching, two
young sneyklings named Neddris and Ophis survive an attack from a bird of prey called the earruda; Neddris escapes with a crescent-shaped wound on his head. Once home at the Evanescent Palace of the Nagas, King Amar charges Zahra, a nanny, to watch over his princes, since their mother abandoned their nest. Soon, the princes begin studying meditation and yoga with Sage Raja at the School of Deception. They also learn the Ten Vindications, the first of which is “Good and evil are a part of us, as our forked tongues imply.” They also play Snakes and Ladders, a mystical game that unleashes the witch Hisskates; she warns Ophis against trusting the number three and Neddris about taking his royal crescent imprint for granted. In further adventures that test the brothers’ willingness to deceive, they encounter Helianthus the hissing sunflower, Ratto and his Gorgonzola gang, and Mallicegai, the lovely gypsy. Of course, Ophis and Neddris realize that only one of them can inherit Snaygill’s throne. Debut author Assor uses the narrative potential of snakes to great creative (and comedic) effect, building a world that should awaken the herpetologist in any reader. Peppered throughout the tale are snake facts, as when Neddris begins shedding: “Your eyes are ‘milky’ as we say. That is why it is difficult for you to see.” Assor’s conceit that Snaygill is a world similar to ours, but populated by snakes, results in frequent puns and pointed absurdities, like Zahra’s use of a “handbag.” These moments are balanced by wonderful messages that humans can benefit from: e.g., “Use...your imagination to explore your virtues and not your vices.” The calamitous twist ending guarantees readers will be slithering back for the sequel. A fanciful, thought-provoking adventure.
FALLING OFF BROADWAY A Memoir Black, David Mezzo Books (157 pp.) $15.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Dec. 29, 2014 978-1-63192-325-8
Black (The Magic of Theater, 1993, etc.), in his new memoir, offers a colorful account of his life in the Broadway theater. People in show business always seem to have the best stories. Maybe it’s the strength of their personalities or the heightened cultural setting or the chance that someone famous might pop up at any time. All these things are true in Black’s memoir, which gives readers a behind-thescenes look at the Great White Way (with requisite appearances by celebrities big and small), as well as an examination of the complicated life of a theater professional. Black details his childhood as the son of an influential atheistic minister, his marriage into the upper crust of Boston society, his time as an opera singer in Europe, and his long career in the fast and fickle world of Broadway. The most interesting sections detail his work in the 1960s, producing shows such as the musical George M!, a revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and most surprisingly, Richard Nixon’s 1969 Inaugural Gala in
Washington, D.C. Just as engaging, though, are his relationships with his family and his lovers, and his personal trials define him even more than the professional ones. At just over 150 pages, it’s a short volume, as Black is no completist when it comes to his own memory; he provides only the moments he wishes to discuss. He writes in a highly anecdotal style, one story following the next, yet the memoir somehow manages to avoid feeling digressive or directionless. Instead, his life unfolds in brief but meticulous fables that, together, present a quirky but comprehensive biography. Some stories are poignant, but most are simply funny, and Black’s wonderfully dry humor and inclination toward self-deprecation truly carry readers through the book. Overall, he seems to have enough respect for life and art to know not to take either too seriously. In theater, there are tragedies and there are comedies; Black has thankfully interpreted his life as the latter. A quick, humorous memoir about storytelling, on and off the stage.
Hacienda A South American Romance Charlier, Marj CreateSpace (280 pp.) $12.95 paper | $2.99 e-book Oct. 2, 2014 978-1-5025-9703-8
A lighthearted comic tale about three friends who move to a South American villa and get more than they bargained for. Charlier’s (Drive for Dough, 2014, etc.) latest short novel features a trio of Iowa friends: practical, cerebral Katie, high-strung Lisa, and compassionate, thoughtful narrator Monica. They met in group therapy in Des Moines, Iowa, two years earlier; after getting to know one another, they decided to uproot themselves from their settled, slightly boring existences and take a chance. It’s an adventure that will be familiar to readers of books such as Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence (1989) or Frances Mayes’ Bella Tuscany (2000): they travel to a foreign land to have a go at a new life. Five years before, Monica bought Hacienda Nusta in arid, south-central Bolivia, but when she and her friends decide to go there to turn it into a tourist destination, it’s fallen into discouraging ruin: “The courtyard itself was nothing but weeds, bare dirt, and broken paving stones. The fountain I had taken pictures of five years before was missing.” As the three women grapple with the protracted repairs to give their hotel dream a chance of success, they try to adapt to their new surroundings. At the same time, the inherent tension of the situation brings strong emotions to the surface and tests the bonds they formed back in Iowa. Charlier effectively peppers her familiar scenario with plenty of plot complications, including an alluring stranger who’s camped out on the hacienda’s property (and quickly becomes Monica’s love interest) and rumors of a “werecat” prowling the chaparral. The author’s keen ear for dialogue is reliable and enjoyable, and she has sure instincts when dramatizing the spiky nature of adult |
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friendship, relating the women’s story with natural pacing and humor. At one point, when most of the plot complications have settled down, one character asserts that “[y]ou have to learn to look forward in your life for joy.” In this novel, Charlier has crafted a confidently joyful story. A very human, very pleasing makeover of the standard Americans-abroad narrative.
THE OPERA SINGER
Costain, Keith M. FriesenPress (472 pp.) $29.99 | $24.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Mar. 18, 2014 978-1-4602-2682-7 An often intriguing novel about a young man growing up on the Isle of Man in the 1940s, in which World War II is at once distant and ever present. In the beginning of Costain’s debut, Erik, the young narrator, stumbles through a familiar trifecta of school, church, and family, living a more or less unexceptional (but enjoyably written) childhood among the fellow residents of his island home. Among these semimythic figures are eccentric gossips, elderly Elizabethan remnants, and most notably, British soldiers. These troops are entrusted with guarding the continental prisoners held in Mooragh Internment Camp, which is located, somehow both prominently and unobtrusively, in Erik’s small hometown of Ramsey. Soon, Erik’s uneventful life takes a turn when he meets one of the prisoners there: Jacob Weiss, an Austrian Jew who fled the continent during Hitler’s rise. Although the novel gets off to a slow start, the narrative hits its stride once Erik meets Jacob and starts to learn his story, and the alternation between Erik’s everyday adventures on the Isle of Man and Jacob’s recollections of his continental past offers an effective, and moving, contrast. Throughout, Costain layers the novel with evocative historical details and oddities. For example, aside from occasional eruptions of violence, the war often remains quite far away: the only victim of German bombing on the Isle of Man, Erik writes, was “a small dead frog,” which was displayed, years later, in the Manx Museum as part of an exhibit on the island’s role in the war. For Jacob, on the other hand, the conflict keeps forcing its way into his life despite his best efforts: “We had all gone quietly to bed and were wakened to this nightmare in a country we thought we could trust; in a place we thought we were safe,” he remarks, reflecting on the shock of his sudden arrest and internment. A convincing account of a forgotten injustice, given strangeness and power by its uncanny, incantatory World War II setting.
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The Wounded Yellow Butterfly A Story of Loss, Friendship and Hope Diaz, Linda Linda\Diaz-Murphy (50 pp.) $14.95 paper | Nov. 17, 2014 978-0-615-76139-8
In this illustrated kids’ book, a dark storm disrupts the garden animals’ idyllic lives, leaving an injured butterfly wondering how to go on. A group of animals—a yellow butterfly, a bluebird family, a pair of squirrels, two wasps, and other fauna—enjoy their peaceful lives in a beautiful, sunny garden. Then a storm arrives and wreaks havoc on their world. Cyclones, torrential rain, and dark clouds roll through, damaging the waterfall, breaking branches on the apple tree, and dotting the garden with trash from area homes. The animals are scared and sad as they survey the damage, but they’re all most upset when they realize that the yellow butterfly’s two wings were injured during the storm. As they show concern for him, he says, “This is a ‘why me?’ day.” Each subsequent page and colorful illustration tracks the butterfly as he has similar thoughts: when the animals begin to clean the garden, it’s a “cleanup day”; when the butterfly worries he won’t ever fly again, he’s having a “challenging day.” But after the butterfly thinks of making a kaleidoscope with his garden friends, he eventually summons the strength to fly again, with the book ending on a positive note. Diaz explores themes of loss and coping through her garden metaphor, which makes these themes more accessible to young readers. Indeed, the second section of the book helps explain what happened in the text and offers questions that parents or teachers can ask children about the story to help them understand their own feelings of fear, sadness, anger, and hope: “What do you think the butterflies, animals, and insects felt before the storm? During the storm? After the storm?” She also describes metaphors in the text, such as the garbage scattered around the garden, which “provides a symbolic representation of things or thoughts that a child may want or need help recycling, reframing, or getting rid of to allow him or her to move from trauma to recovery.” Overall, the relatable butterfly gives an important life lesson by turning tragedy into beauty—something readers young and old should appreciate. An accessible animal story that helps kids understand their difficult feelings.
Doumani avoids pomposity, delivering a coherent story grounded in consistent practices and self-awareness. a spacious life
A Spacious Life Memoir of a Meditator
THE GATEKEEPER’S SON Book 1
Doumani, Narissa Palmer Higgs Pty Ltd. Mar. 18, 2015
A young woman writes of her spiritual evolution in an insightful debut memoir. The “spacious life” of the title refers to the “immeasurable spaciousness” evoked when the author, a model and actress, practices meditation and mindfulness. Doumani was born well-off, “ensconced in the comfort of a heavenly suburbia” in Sydney, Australia, to loving parents (Thai mother, Lebanese father). An “inner restlessness” fueled her spiritual quest. The result here is not a dreary rehashing of her past but a thoughtprovoking look inward that includes fascinating mystical experiences and dreams. Writing in a strong, clear voice, she describes an inner journey augmented by travel and exposure to other cultures in places like Bangkok and Bangladesh. Her spiritual adventures weren’t as expansive as those of, say, Shirley MacLaine, nor do they veer into cosmic revelations, yet both authors question reality and their individual circumstances. In addition to a mentoring relationship with a Buddhist master, Luang Pu, the author had a series of male friends, three of whom are profiled here: the Italian, the Businessman, and the Fighter. These relationships aren’t portrayed solely as romantic interludes but rather as mirrors of her spiritual process, each representing a particular set of challenges. The Italian, a “livewire” whom she met at university, was possessive and ultimately obsessed with her. The Businessman was given to “maximising opportunities,” a process that didn’t necessarily match Doumani’s wishes (he remained on the sidelines during her cancer scare). The most compelling association was with that of the Fighter, who was in pain due to a freak accident; his physical suffering, sometimes moderated by overmedicating, greatly impacted the author. In time, she came to view relationships as “ultimately ephemeral, like a hologram.” Using established spiritual staples— “Sitting quietly by myself, doing nothing special, and grasping at nothing in particular, that is what the forest taught me”—the author crafts an engaging story, keeping the relationship with self top of mind and ending many chapters with an enticing hook. The result is a tale of heightened awareness and compassion. Despite her Mensa-level IQ, Doumani avoids pomposity, delivering a coherent story grounded in consistent practices and self-awareness. Intelligent, contemplative spiritual memoir by a fine writer with a rich interior world.
Fladmark, C.R. The Shokunin Publishing Company (348 pp.) $15.99 paper | $3.99 e-book Oct. 2, 2014 978-0-9937776-0-8 The adventurous tale of one boy discovering his true destiny. On his 16th birthday, James Edward Thompson, aka Junya, is literally knocked off his feet after spying a beautiful, mysterious Japanese girl sitting in the park across from his grandfather’s mansion. Soon after, he is once again thrown for a loop when his billionaire grandfather announces that James will be the heir to the family business— a company his grandfather built from scratch and whose success is held as a deep, dark secret. Raised in a Japanese culture in the heart of San Francisco, James is used to his mother’s little quirks, from her ninjalike skills in the dojo to her uncanny ability to always know what he’s thinking. But when company insiders threaten his life, James realizes that his grandfather isn’t the only one with something to hide. As the truth begins to unravel, James isn’t sure whom to trust, and with the help of the mysterious girl in the park, he learns about strange worlds he never knew existed and power he never knew he had. Fladmark’s freshman offering starts off strong and progresses at just the right tempo. Adept worldbuilding further enhances the storyline, while skillful character development—aside from an occasional hiccup in terms of voice and personality— creates intriguing, relatable characters with a variety of ages, abilities, and social stations. Additionally, the clear, accessible prose ably depicts not only the various cultures of contemporary San Francisco, but also the magical hidden lands of Japan and the dangerous Mojave Desert. Filled with magic, mayhem, and intrigue, Fladmark’s series is off to a solid start.
TILLIE AND P-TRAP THE PLUMBER
Foley, Patrick C. Illus. by Chamness, Julia CreateSpace (34 pp.) $11.99 paper | Oct. 22, 2014 978-1-4974-3423-3 Who says girls can’t learn to be plumbers? In this picture book by debut author (and heating, ventilation, air conditioning engineer) Foley, young Tillie shows she’s got what it takes to be a plumber’s assistant. When Tillie brushes her teeth one morning, the sink overflows. She and her grandmother have to figure out how to solve the problem while Tillie’s grandfather and father are off camping. Grandma’s solution? Bring in the pros. After P-Trap the Plumber arrives, Tillie jumps to help him; what follows is a |
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It isn’t often such an unabashed endorsement of free markets also includes reservations about Ayn Rand. why we bite the invisible hand
step-by-step retelling of how to unclog a drain. While that may not sound like promising material for a kids’ book, Foley adds excitement by showing Tillie’s eagerness to help—which sometimes leads to mistakes. (“A wave of water splashed out of the sink and bounced off of the mirror and onto Tillie and P-Trap. What a mess!”) Overall, Tillie makes a great helper, and the story leaves the impression that she might be able to fix the next clog herself. P-Trap, as a mentor, makes sure to mention that he works with women plumbers so that Tillie knows that her gender is no bar to her dream. The spare illustrations include a small mouse on almost every page, making an excellent search-andfind feature for lap readers. Tillie’s shirt randomly changes color, as do the bathroom walls, but that stylistic choice is unlikely to bother the tale’s target audience of preschoolers. While there’s not much action here, the solid story of a girl learning how to do the things normally reserved for Daddy and Grandpa may be a winner among girls—and a good reminder for their brothers, too. The text may be too dense for newly independent readers, but patient lap readers will be rewarded. This unusual topic for the storytime set makes for a surprisingly good tale.
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand The Psychology of Anti-Capitalism
Foster, Peter Pleasaunce Press (503 pp.) $24.95 paper | $7.99 e-book | Apr. 7, 2014 978-0-9921276-0-2
Philosophical defense of capitalism combined with a psychological critique of its detractors. Foster is no stranger to contentious economic dispute. A veteran financial journalist, he’s also the author of Self-Serve: How Petrocan Pumped Canadians Dry (1992), which won Canada’s National Business Book Award. In his latest effort, he ambitiously attempts a rehabilitation of capitalism, both as a motor of prosperity and as a moral account of human relations. While the book begins polemically, criticizing the populism of President Barack Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, it is far more historically and philosophically oriented than centered on contemporary political debate. Foster aims to revive the spirit of Adam Smith, who, in the 18th century, defined our understanding of capitalism as a “system of natural liberty.” Astutely, the author fleshes out the basic theoretical underpinnings of capitalism, often oversimplified in public discourse, and explains the intended meaning of the notorious “invisible hand” of market decision-making. Foster also tries to explain the motivational psychology behind the vehement resistance to capitalism despite its global success as well as the persistence of those who, following the likes of John Maynard Keynes, remain devoted to the view that government intervention is the primary stimulant of economic growth. Sometimes his accounts of those opposing capitalism can seem reductive, belying the book’s overall rigor: 124
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“Income and wealth gaps are inevitably the object of envy, a moral sentiment that evolved to express disapproval of, and motivate action against, those thought to have more than their ‘fair share.’ From this perspective,” he says, “envy of those who grow wealthy in relatively free capitalist societies through their success in serving others amounts to a cognitive ‘error.’ ” Overall, though, the book is admirably free of ax-grinding political allegiances; it isn’t often such an unabashed endorsement of free markets also includes reservations about Ayn Rand. Lucid, thoughtful defense of free market competition.
DANCING FOR FUN Group Dancing for All Ages
Greathouse, Mark L. & Greathouse, Helena iUniverse (96 pp.) $16.95 paper | $3.99 e-book Nov. 25, 2014 978-1-4917-4750-6 In this first volume of a two-part series, a husband and wife step up with choreography and original piano compositions for fun group dancing. This friendly how-to guide, created by the Greathouse couple from Portland, Oregon, contains 12 original music scores with corresponding instructions for dance choreography. With a background in music and dance—he’s a composer who plays the accordion; she’s a dancer who also sang on Czechoslovak National Radio—the Greathouses describe their dances as “folkinspired, contemporary.” Eye-catching black-and-white photos are included with each musical score in this slim, easy-to-flip edition, and the original compositions range from peaceful pieces such as the aptly titled “Riverflow” to the whimsical “Rainbow.” For more traditional personalities, there’s also a waltz. The book doesn’t have to be used in order, but music teachers may find some engaging pieces for seasonal themes, such as the songs “Spring Rain” and “Fall Calypso.” There are no words included with the songs—this is all about movement—and it could be a great resource for physical fitness programs in schools (children as young as early elementary age could follow the dance instructions with practice) or adult group settings, including community or senior centers. Choreography with each piece is meant to match the music exactly and, for the most part, is simple to understand: for instance, the beginning of the piece “Stepping Along” prompts dancers to “start in a circle holding hands facing center of circle.” A glossary gives clear definitions, such as the succinct explanation for arabesque: “The position of the body supported on one leg, with the other leg extended behind the body, both knees straight, torso vertical.” For a visual supplement, readers can watch the dances on the authors’ website, greathouseofmusic. com, which has easy-to-find, conveniently labeled videos of every dance in the book. Internet links to each video are also included at the end of the print book. The dances here are intended for fun, and music teachers or group leaders who can read music will appreciate this duo’s energy and enthusiasm for movement. A viable, enjoyable dance resource.
Café Noir
Hardy, Ross Self (174 pp.) $2.99 e-book | Feb. 10, 2015 Consumerism runs wild in a chaotic, violent future dominated by the corporate superpower Krater Koffee. After an attack on his franchise, employee Argo Jones goes from frontline server/soldier to company commando. After the ruinous Brand Wars, Krater Koffee is the most powerful corporate superpower in this polluted, privatized, brutalized, and thoroughly GMO’ed consumer-capitalist future. (The mega-business may remind readers of a certain real-life, ubiquitous coffee chain.) Krater refined how to give the teeming masses their coffee fixes via vapor-inhalers—to the point that drinking liquid in an old-fashioned mug is considered a dangerous, rebellious act sometimes enjoyed in underground competitions—“Very illegal, very dangerous....It was an ugly game: two jukers with more bravado than brains sat across from each other and drank freshly brewed coffee. Actual coffee.” In this dystopia, barista Argo Jones is a lifelong Krater employee and true believer, having been sponsored out of childhood poverty by the company and given Krater’s cybernetic implants and combat training to work the front line as a coffee tech/server. But when his franchise location is devastated by a lethal product contamination, management orders Jones into the chaotic streets—where average folk are bombarded by holographic commercials and neuro-implant ad blockers are a necessity—in order to draw out the shadowy subversives thought responsible. The rather basic narrative is largely a running battle between Jones and a South African supersoldier/ assassin who, like the Terminator, seems unstoppable. Fortunately, Krater taught Argo how to fight dirty. On this slight framework the author pours bracing swigs of detail, such as Krater corporate memos, PR releases, and employee psych exams. In this nightmare society, cat meat is a fast-food staple, intelligent (and insulting) sea gulls are employed as couriers, and actors are lab-grown in vats. Fans of the cult sci-fi Jennifer Government (2003) will find a similar taste in first-time novelist Hardy’s blend. A fairly small portion, but don’t be surprised if this bitter brew keeps you up all night.
LIBRA ROAD
Hargreaves, Paul Temerity Press 978-1-32-020905-2 A financially strapped advertising executive faces murder charges after a stranger approaches him with a disturbing proposition in Hargreaves’ debut novel. Jeremy Grey is nursing a drink in a bar when a gray-haired man, watchful of the surveillance monitors, enters. Grey tells the man, “I just
don’t think I can do it.” The man appears displeased, inquires about Grey’s son, and tries to convince Jeremy otherwise. When Jeremy hands him back an envelope, the man creates a scuffle, pulling out a gun and then a knife. Grey manages to grab the dropped gun and shoots the man dead. The police soon discover that the victim is District Court Judge Danton Harwell. Grey admits that he knew the man but only as “Bill”; they first met in the hospital, where Grey was visiting his critically ill son. Bill told Grey that he had terminal cancer and would pay Grey to kill him in an arranged self-defense incident so that the man’s sick wife could get insurance money for medical costs. Grey admits he needs funds for his son’s heart transplant and to fight a partner’s power grab of their ad agency, but he was handing back Harwell’s starter payment in the bar. The police believe him, especially as they uncover various discrepancies and oddities in Harwell’s life and judicial dealings. Meanwhile, Grey draws ever closer to assistant Marsha, who has been helping him deal with the recent death of his wife and other son, killed a few weeks before in a car accident. Once Harwell’s will is read, Grey is arrested. When surprisingly allowed out on bail, he finally learns the twisted role Harwell has played in his life. This first novel by Canadian advertising professional Hargreaves has an intriguing Strangers on a Train–type setup and suspenseful sequences of flashbacks and forward-moving activity featuring Grey and several other key players. While the setting of the novel remains a bit hazy (it appears to be Toronto), this investigative puzzle is largely well-paced, much like a Law & Order episode, with a few overly detailed subplot detours before its nifty wrap-up. Overall, an accomplished debut. A clever, intricately plotted thriller.
INGA TELLS ALL A Saga of Single Parenthood, Second Marriage, Surly Fauna and Being Mistaken for a Swedish Porn Star Inga CreateSpace (342 pp.) $14.99 paper | $7.99 e-book Nov. 6, 2014 978-1-5023-0386-8
An irreverent debut collection of essays on the quotidian details of family life. Earlier generations of readers had the homemaker humor of Erma Bombeck and Jean Kerr, but the pieces in this collection offer a different kind of wit. Expanding on her ongoing newspaper column, the author works behind a thin veil of anonymity: While temporarily living in Sweden, she and her second husband “dubbed ourselves Inga and Olof.” The names stuck and provided her with the freedom to write about family and personal matters while also maintaining her privacy. Sometimes, though, it led to confusion; many fans, she writes, “must have been deflated (literally) to have come upon my Inga blog site expecting a Scandinavian hottie with...a power rack and instead found the memoirs of a middle-aged Swedish wannabe.” These short essays, arranged |
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Interviews & Profiles
David Black
Some of the magic of Broadway lands on the pages of the producer’s memoir By Gordon West
Photo courtesy Francis Hill
I meet David Black at 7 W. 43rd St., one block from Bryant Park and a world away from the salad bar that tends to command my noontime attention. This is The Century, a self-proclaimed association of over 2,000 authors, artists, and amateurs of letters and fine arts. It’s one of those you-have-to-be-invitedto-be-a-member clubs (Black was invited by Angela Lansbury’s brother) with the kind of polished mahogany, hallowed oil paintings, and creaky floors that make preservation societies quiver. This is a historical, handsome spot, steadfast in its address in arguably one of the world’s grandest cities. As solid and commanding as the environs are and as prestigious as Black’s decadeslong career has been, I expect someone aloof, maybe even un-relatable. Like The Century, this man is native to the magic that is New York and, having been a Broadway player, 126
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is part of the incomparable fabric of a city reputed to chew people up and spit them out. But the man I meet in the lobby is kind, endearing, and the twinkling sort of persona you’d expect to portray Einstein (which he has). After introductions, Black graciously guides me to a private study, where we discuss his third and latest book, Falling Off Broadway. Detailing his life from staging a production in his grandfather’s apartment as a child to his most recent endeavors as a fine artist, the book can be generalized as a memoir. More specifically, it is a comedic stream-of-consciousness recalling of the collective coincidences that drew Black toward and then thrust him away from a career as a Broadway producer. “You couldn’t make this story up,” says Black. “And I didn’t make it up—but I did put it down. That’s what I’m discovering. It’s just the nuttiest story you’ve ever heard in your life.” Black went from pursuing opera to finance to Broadway to painting, with dismissive parents, a blueblooded American wife, a fleet of prolific performers, and astonishing coincidences peppering his path. “So you have a father who doesn’t believe in God, a mother who leaves you out of her autobiography, and a therapist who invites you out on dates and invests in your Broadway shows, and you live through that,” says Black. “You’ll have something to talk about at least. Right?” Right. He talks about all of that and in particular his foray into producing Broadway shows. After being told by a friend that a producer “finds a play, hires a star and a director, raises the money, and becomes rich and famous,” it seemed inexcusable not to shuck his job on Wall Street. So Black jumped at the chance, and with little training (as in nil, zero, zip), it was trial by error, with errors happening more often than not;
he was once sued by an audience member after an encounter with a mechanical bird and was twice saddled with the anguish of losing $950,000 on flop shows. It was his desire to be better acquainted with actors and learn how their auditions predicted their future stage performances that ultimately led him to his first book, The Actor’s Audition (1990). This and his second book, The Magic of Theater (1994), were both published traditionally through his thenagent, Diane Cleaver. “[Diane] got Random House and Simon and Schuster bidding against each other for the rights to The Actor’s Audition and then she got Macmillan to publish my second book,” says Black. Cleaver has since passed away, and with the publishing landscape having evolved significantly since Magic, Black was unsure how his memoir would be published. Then another one of those nutty, storymaking coincidences surfaced. “It just so happened that the editor of The Magic of Theater, Mark Chimsky, heard about my third book, and he said he would like to edit it,” says Black. Chimsky reached out to a few agents who admitted they wouldn’t know where to start with getting the book published, so Black, now equipped with an editor, turned to Book Baby as a platform for printing, a process about which he can’t speak highly enough. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he asks after confirming that I have a copy, which features cover art and internal illustrations by Black. “I couldn’t ask for anything more.” Regardless of the platform for printing the pages, Black has been pleased with the reception of his book, even if he doesn’t fully comprehend the enthusiasm. “I’m trying to figure out what the excitement is about. I think it’s a combination of things. Not all of it has to do with me,” he says. “New York is the most magical city in the world. That has nothing to do with me…. And the magic word in New York is Broadway. No one has ever really written about Broadway.” With his undercurrent of comedy amid brow-slapping disaster, I can’t help but see commonalities between Falling and the highly lauded film Birdman. As with the film, in Black’s recollection of his life as a producer, everything goes wrong behind the Broadway scenes before everything goes right but only because everything has gone wrong first. Regardless of comparison, Black imparts wisdom he has gleaned about the creative process. “If you do whatever you’re
doing honestly, then you will not create something that I’m familiar with personally, but you will create something that I can use to say something to me personally,” explains Black. In other words, an honestly performed play will honestly resonate with an audience. The truths for all parties involved, like light refracted through a prism, will be different depending upon the angle. But Black’s most treasured insight into creativity came from one of the classes he taught at the New School when he asked William Hurt how he prepared to enter a stage. “ ‘I become very quiet because I have to prepare for that which comes unbidden,’ ” Black quotes Hurt as saying. “And that is the greatest description of the creative process I had ever heard.” Gordon West is a writer and illustrator living in Brooklyn. He is at work on his own picture book and teen novel. Falling Off Broadway: A Memoir is reviewed on p. 121.
Falling Off Broadway A Memoir Black, David Mezzo Books (157 pp.) $15.99 paper | $9.99 e-book | Dec. 29, 2014 978-1-63192-325-8 |
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in 14 sections, cover Inga’s years as a single mom (including multiple “Disastrous Date All-Stars” and a large section titled “Kids, Part 1: A Question of Who Survived Whom”) as well as her later life (“The Perils of Spoiling the Granddog”). Overall, they’re full of solid writing and engaging wit. They aren’t exactly happy-housewife tales, however, and Inga is always honest about her limitations: “I never did learn knots, in spite of spending considerable time using the rabbit-goes-around-the-tree-andthrough-the-hole method. (My rabbits always...got tangled up, and hung themselves).” There’s no doubt that Inga’s humor runs in the family; Olof ’s note to a neighbor about a new computer mouse, for example, explains that “[o]ptical mice have no balls,” and recommends turning off the computer when installing them, as they “can experience ‘amputational shock’ when one of their members is removed.” Her sons, Rory (“Parental Terrorist in Training”) and Henry (“The X-Rated Three-year-old”), also provide plenty of additional fodder. For example, Inga and the adult Rory exchange emails after he reserves several unusual titles for his mother at the local library, including The Book of the Penis. Not to be outdone, Inga provides Rory with a thorough review of the book—along with suggestions for dinner-party conversation. This engaging essay shows the essence of Inga’s collection: clever and contemporary and even a little bit naughty. Inga joins the leagues of essayists who make the mundane truly entertaining.
THE BOOK OF BARKLEY Love and Life Through the Eyes of a Labrador Retriever
Johnson, L.B. Outskirts Press Inc. (254 pp.) $13.95 paper | $2.99 e-book | Jul. 21, 2014 978-1-4787-3434-5 Debut author Johnson enters the literary scene with a beautifully penned eulogy to the Labrador retriever who taught her to appreciate life in the moment while helping open her fractured heart to the joys of love. By the time Johnson was ready to bring a puppy into her life, she had shouldered a lion’s share of emotional baggage: she lost her mother to cancer at an early age, was abandoned by the father of her unplanned baby (given up for adoption), and had freed herself from an unhappy marriage. Along the way, she became a jet pilot. She had hung up her wings and taken a wellpaying job (as an unspecified federal agent) and was about to purchase a new house. “It was time for a black lab.” Even before Barkley was old enough to leave the litter, he picked Johnson out to be his mother. As the other puppies ran around frolicking over new people and smells, Barkley sat quietly and studied her. Then he made his decision, coming over to check out her shoelaces, never leaving her side. This memoir is the story of the 10 years Johnson and Barkley shared. But it is much more. Johnson’s writing borders on the lyrical, her prose meandering gently to and fro through a lifetime of recollections and musings, always coming back to rest in the safe harbor of the love, 128
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trust, and protectiveness she and Barkley had for one another. She’s a fan of lengthy, free-flowing sentences, and some readers may occasionally wait a bit impatiently for her to put aside the philosophizing and return to Barkley. He was always there—the inspiration for her thoughts, the validation that life is worth living. And there are plenty of Barkley tales to satisfy. Right up front, readers will know they need a box of tissues: the book opens just after Barkley has died. So buck up for this tender work full of humor and charming misbehavior. An unusually full-bodied love story that will wrap itself around the heart of anyone who has been fortunate enough to experience life with a dog.
CHRISTIANITY IN STAINED GLASS
Kogel, Lynne Alcott Scriptoria Codex, LLC (168 pp.) $65.00 | Oct. 28, 2014 978-0-9896637-1-7 Kogel documents the extensive stained glass of Michigan’s Grosse Pointe Memorial Church in her debut photography book. Readers in this literate age may forget how important religious art was for centuries of parishioners, as it illustrated for them the stories and symbols of their faith and embodied the concepts they believed in. Stained glass is perhaps the most sublime example—a marriage of color and light that seems to emanate the very notion of grace. Grosse Pointe Memorial Church, a neo-Gothic Presbyterian church in a Detroit suburb, contains an array of translucent stained-glass windows created by the Willet Stained Glass and Decorating Company from the 1920s to the ’60s. Inspired by the storyboard windows of European churches, such as France’s Chartres Cathedral, the Willets led a revival of translucent stained glass, instead of using the opalescent glass that was popular at the time, and created narrative window pieces for many American churches. To move from window to window is to observe the theology and symbology of Protestant Christianity, from the Old Testament to the New, through the European Middle Ages and into the North American period. Presbyterian minister Kogel serves as both a photographer and historian, presenting brilliant full-color shots of the glasswork as well as accompanying information on relevant biblical passages and religious traditions. She shares the Willets’ passion for comprehensive narrative and their belief that religious art exists not simply to inspire and to awe, but also to teach. In addition to her own photographs, Kogel provides comparative examples from art history, as well as some of the original Willet drafts. The result is reminiscent of the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages: photography and text in equal parts, both in the service of communicating a religion’s central ideas. The details of each window piece, and the enthusiasm Kogel displays in celebrating them, will deepen readers’ appreciation for the work of all parties involved. Is the Grosse Pointe church the Sainte-Chapelle? No, but this book is a wonderful testament to a great achievement of American stained glass. A striking volume of remarkable art and informative commentary.
His missives are...filled with philosophical insight that’s sometimes delightfully idiosyncratic. the german friend
THE GERMAN FRIEND War and Postwar Letters from German Anti-Nazi Prinz Hubertus zu Löwenstein to American Hans Christian, 1942-1947 Larson, John W. CreateSpace (738 pp.) $24.95 paper | Oct. 10, 2014 978-1-5027-9167-2
A collection of letters written by a prominent but largely forgotten historian during the World War II era. Larson, a historian who worked for the U.S. Defense Department, is uniquely qualified to edit an assemblage of letters written by Prince Hubertus Z. Löwenstein: the correspondence in question is addressed to him. (The subtitle is somewhat confusing: Hans Christian is a nickname Löwenstein bestowed upon Larson, as is helpfully explained in a foreword written by Löwenstein’s daughter, Margarete von Schwarzkopf.) Larson met Löwenstein when, in 1942, he entered Hamline University in Minnesota, where Löwenstein—a German exile forced to decamp for the U.S. due to his anti-Nazi convictions—was a lecturer at the time. The letters are arranged chronologically, from 1942 until 1947, and while they cover a wide range of topics, they are understandably dominated by the specter of Hitler’s designs on European domination, the prosecution of the war, and the complex peace that followed. Löwenstein’s letters are often driven by an “anxiety over the fate of the Occident,” but they are not cynical; he hoped for a renewed, even further consolidated Europe to rise from the detritus of the war’s destruction. His missives are also filled with philosophical insight that’s sometimes delightfully idiosyncratic: “to hell with Aristotle, this source of all evils in the human mind!!!” He tells Larson, in 1945, that he’s planning a book on Hegel that rescues his work from its appropriation by Marxists. Supplementing the letters is intermittent commentary by Larson himself, who provides colorful historical context and makes a case for taking Löwenstein seriously as a prescient critic of authoritarian government in all its guises. Sometimes Larson’s curation seems odd: a few of the letters are more personal than political or philosophical, seeming a bit out of place. The collection will, of course, largely be of interest to professional scholars, but it could also be fruitfully read by any reader with a deep interest in Europe during a perilous time, as interpreted by an unusually incisive mind. A fascinating look into the thoughts of a historian whose career deserves to be revived.
Night Falling On The Tree Of Cups
Margetson, Evan K. CreateSpace (182 pp.) $12.95 paper | $8.99 e-book Aug. 24, 2014 978-1-5009-6280-7
Margetson, in his debut novel, explores the fates of two interwoven families against the backdrop of Brazil’s 1964 coup d’état. Two families, one rich and one poor, anchor this fictional look at the ways that society fractures along lines of class, race, fortune, and ambition in Río de Janeiro. There, life is as colorful as it is fleeting, and the heat is as oppressive as the police force. Nothing highlights the disparity quite like the column of army tanks that appears in the streets one morning in 1964, during the season of carnival. The lowly bartender Afonso, who serves as the reader’s guide, is a quixotic figure in the most literal sense, driven by some childhood malady (or defense mechanism) to see the world in his own poetic terms. He diminishes the threat of the tanks, for example, by determining them to be a pack of elephants. His young nephew has inherited the practice; the boy calls himself “the Wolfman” and wears a carnival mask that he believes renders him invisible. Such poetic actions transmogrify the violent life of the favelas (urban slums) into something manageable, even beautiful. Meanwhile, the Wolfman’s grandmother Zoilma works for a wealthy family that includes teenage photographer Agnes, her blind mother, and her absent, politically active father. Most of the characters are emotionally scarred, and the sins of the previous generation may determine the fate of the current one. Margetson effectively imagines the sweat and samba of Río de Janeiro from half a century ago and, perhaps more impressively, sheds American notions of novelistic structure, pacing, and expectation. The book lingers and leaps with a Latin American rhythm and a heightened tolerance for horror that feels significantly more immersive than the majority of American fiction set in the Third World. The author’s prose keeps readers’ attention locked in the minutiae of his characters, even as events of greater objective importance unfold at the story’s margins: “She kept time, struck the match. Still keeping time with her foot she blew out the match and quickly put it in her mouth, removed it, then exhaled a single smoke ring.” The book is full of these rhythmic moments, which are somehow more vibrant and enduring than the background political events. The author captures not just the facts of a moment in history, but also the humanity at its center. A wondrous novel of trauma, individuality, and poetry.
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Love, or The Witches of Windward Circle
McFadden, C.A. Manuscript
Love, lust, and the occult combine in McFadden’s deliciously humorous debut novel. A small cottage in Venice, California, 1912. The household matriarch—a witch with a nefarious past—is dying and looking for absolution. She leaves behind three daughters: a pair of beautiful and narcissistic brats and one ugly, forgotten young girl. The youngest becomes the novel’s woeful protagonist whose misadventures form the backbone of this unique tale. In an unexpected twist on “Cinderella,” the nameless and voiceless girl becomes the household slave. Shunned from infancy, she has been kept in a crate, reviled by her family, and forced to care for her ungrateful half sisters. While the older sisters enjoy raucous satanic parties, cavorting with scores of dark creatures, the youngest sits at home and is told that if only she would clean more, maybe she could make it to the next demonic ball. As the years drag on, the nameless woman becomes increasingly obsessed with a desire to become young and beautiful, stumbling along as she attempts to achieve her goal. The novel’s strength is its humor, a tongue-in-cheek examination of all things occult. McFadden juxtaposes the grotesque and the absurd, with often hilarious results. Readers are treated to the scene of a mother berating her youngest for ruining her prized curtains as she’s literally being dragged into hell. The novel is full of these moments in which characters fervently pray to God that their evil, murderous plans will be successful. It’s darkly funny, but at times, gratuitous violence blurs the line between humor and gore: child sacrifices, multiple beheadings. A multitude of richly drawn characters adds color, such as a demon with a penchant for lipstick who helps his mistress in her quest for youth. Readers with an interest in Southern California history will enjoy subplots that look at Venice’s beatnik past as well as the rise and fall of The Gas House, a real landmark. A decidedly dark tale for those with funny bones, strong stomachs, and open minds.
ICARUS FALLING The True Story of a Nightclub Bouncer Who Wanted to Be a Fucking Movie Star and Ended Up Just Being Himself
Meyer, Christopher Paul Amazon Digital Services (360 pp.) $3.99 e-book | Dec. 22, 2014
A promising young actor becomes a bouncer at the Standard Hotel in downtown Los Angeles in this debut memoir. Taking his talent agent’s advice, Meyer, a former prison chaplain, auditioned for a part in a television pilot—only to discover that he disliked his leaden female costar. Rejected, freshly single from a long-term but stultifying East Coast romance, and utterly broke, he drifted out of the acting business and into the violent, hierarchical world of security at an LA hotel. He started by manning the elevators at closing time, gathering drunk partygoers and transporting them down to the lobby. He eventually graduated to a supervisory position, but along the way, he had to log hours on the pool deck in the hot afternoon sun, interrupt couples midcoitus in their rooms to “keep the noise down” for other guests, and weather gorgeous partygoers who were either trying to dodge him or sleep with him for kicks. But the party had to stop sometime, and as Meyer explains, “scanning the strung-out, greased-up Caligulas on the rooftop, I realized I’d just found my limit.” Although this memoir lacks any kind of cohesive narrative structure, it’s a fascinating, punchily written chronicle of fights, boozing, and the author’s often cold and lonely search for love. Meyer keeps the numerous brawls from becoming repetitive with his humorous language: “Now Nacho Libre was cracking my skull with everything he had—and he had the salt shakers....[M]y noggin was getting both tenderized and lightly seasoned.” His engaging style and nuanced character portraits make this book a fast and loose Canterbury Tales for weary hospitality workers. Reader will enjoy this insider’s glimpse of the boozed-up wee hours of a major city. A memoir with humor, compassion, and a sharp eye for detail that vividly depicts the rigors and pleasures of working security at a metropolitan hotel.
MAD RANDOM Claiming Life Out of Chaos
Miller, Donna Northshire Bookstore (218 pp.) $17.95 paper | Aug. 25, 2014 978-1-60571-225-3
In this memoir, a mother shares her struggles raising her emotionally disabled son. At 41, after a series of failed pregnancies, Miller and her husband of 19 years brought Jack into their lives via private adoption. Jack was a physically beautiful baby, but it soon became apparent that he 130
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A stirring account of a historically significant time and a deep comment on the nature of Scripture itself. logos
had severe emotional difficulties. Jack became a “changeling” before Miller’s eyes; she writes that he “played with a slow, restless energy, never glancing in my direction, his back rigid and unwelcoming.” She began a fruitless, yearslong journey through doctors, consultants, and drug trials that yielded no specific diagnosis or cure. Although Miller attempted home schooling, Jack was largely handled, albeit barely and sometimes badly, by the local school system. He was put into separate classes—what he termed the “dummy dump”—and by middle school, administrators claimed that they could no longer control him after he supposedly threatened to jump out of a closed second-story window. Miller’s lawyer husband discovered that his son acted violently toward Miller, and Jack was eventually sent to a residential school for boys with emotional disabilities, where he stayed for three years. He returned home somewhat more controlled but was then a troubled teenager with new challenges; he was soon expelled from high school. Miller began to realize that she had to accept Jack as he was, not as she wanted him to be, and support his own pace and progress toward adulthood. Miller has written an affecting, candid account about raising an enigmatically disabled child. She offers critical commentary on the flaws of various medical and educational systems that she navigated yet also acknowledges how she had to modify her own behavior and expectations. She adds a healthy dose of humor, including Jack’s rather pithy perceptions and observations. While certainly not a comprehensive resource guide, Miller’s memoir offers insight and support to parents in similar situations. An honest, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting account of parenting a child with severe emotional difficulties.
LOGOS A Novel of Christianity’s Origin
Neeleman, John Homebound Publications (378 pp.) $19.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Mar. 10, 2015 978-1-938846-26-7
A fictional account of the birth of Christianity. First-time author Neeleman has pulled off a staggeringly impressive feat: a rigorously researched historical novel that carries its scholarliness lightly and grips the reader with personal drama. Jacob was raised to be an intellectual, reading both Greek and Latin, as well as Hebrew and Aramaic, but also to love his native Jerusalem. He chafes under the oppressive, sometimes-capricious rule of the Roman Empire, however, despite the security such tyranny brings to the Jewish people. Still, he clings to his family, reluctant to endanger them and the quiet life he enjoys. After a ferocious massacre leaves his parents and sister murdered, Jacob’s desire for revolution and the autonomy of Jerusalem grows, plunging him into a war for liberty. Neeleman depicts the ensuing drama with a powerful prose that evokes the spirit of the time without devolving
into historically archaic vernacular: “Beyond the gates were ranks of torch carrying soldiers marching two abreast, man after man in gleaming helmet; they formed a bristling, seething, shining, gigantic serpent. He heard the tramp of a hundred thousand armor-clad feet and the serpent’s awful roaring, joyful in its bloody work: victorious, violent, unbridled.” Despite its theological content, the story brims with sensual imagery. Overcoming his original antipathy to Christianity, Jacob eventually becomes the unnamed author of the original Gospel, bearing witness to the extraordinary transformation wrought by Jesus. Sometimes, the Job-like suffering of Jacob can be challenging to weather, and the tale could have been enlivened by a few more lighthearted moments, but this book remains a stirring account of a historically significant time and a deep comment on the nature of Scripture itself. Especially for those interested in theological history, an extraordinary amalgam of fiction and fact.
TRANSGRESSIONS AND OTHER STORIES
Orbach, Hilary Xlibris (250 pp.) $26.95 | $16.95 paper | $3.99 e-book Jul. 29, 2013 978-1-4759-8047-9 A moving debut collection of stories about the underside of ordinary relationships. In this collection, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, and mothers and daughters yearn to stretch beyond their family units. Throughout, Orbach focuses on strained relationships and transgressions—the threatening steps that people take across unspoken boundaries. The author has a flair for character, and even her shortest stories pulsate with vibrant people who are smart enough to know where their actions might lead. In “Crossing Over,” Martha and Jerry, both divorced from others, take their first road trip as a new couple. They drive in uneasy silence until Martha presses Jerry about his divorce-court proceedings and stirs up once-settled emotions: “Suddenly she imagines them seated backward in the speeding car, their faces not toward the road ahead but turned helplessly toward the ruined landscape behind them.” In “Snow Falling on Upstate New York,” Alec reflects on his childhood, his three siblings, his asthmatic, alcoholic mother, and his father, “trudging doggedly” to maintain a semblance of normalcy. A subsequent story recalls the same family from a different point of view: Alec’s younger sister, Miranda, finds refuge from her mother’s alcoholism in the colorful kitchen and easy conversation of her friend’s family. Although she should seek comfort from her classmate, she’s instead drawn to her classmate’s mother—and their summer relationship shapes Miranda’s life. Miranda’s selfawareness and discerning morality—typical of Orbach’s characters—bring depth to the relatively short story. Indeed, many characters seem too large for their stories—they nudge against their stories’ ends, threatening yet another boundary. Miranda’s |
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Wieszczyk and Templesmith’s artwork is enchanting....Characters are etched in chaotic scratches as if carved in stone. godkiller, vol. 1
tale, for example, like many in this fine collection, stops too quickly, too neatly, for the brilliance of her personality: “That’s all I want to say about that summer or any other.” A skillful collection of stories featuring beguiling plots and characters.
ORDINARIES Shifters Book II
Pershing, Douglas & Pershing, Angelia CreateSpace (376 pp.) $13.40 paper | $2.99 e-book Oct. 24, 2014 978-1-5029-2104-8 In this sequel to Shifters (2014), a pair of superpowered siblings prepare for war against an empire of fascist aliens. Teens Ryland and Tanner Ascunse of Wethersfield, Connecticut, have just learned that they are Shifters, originally from the planet Gaia. They possess superspeed (among other powers) and belong to a race of aliens that wants to destroy its own children thanks to a prophecy claiming that a child causes the downfall of the Shifters and the rise of the powerless Ordinaries. After defeating an invasion force of adult Shifters in Washington, D.C., Ryland, Tanner, and their small band of superpowered teens are publicly branded as terrorists and blamed for the attack. Once they escape government lockdown, they drive toward their friends’ home, where an army of Shifter kids has gathered to train. Clay, a competent (and gorgeous) pilot, informs them of the step-by-step strategy to wage war against the adult Shifters; this first involves flying to the mining world Six to disrupt the Shifter empire’s fuel supply. Ryland and Tanner, meanwhile, have vengeance on their minds. The villainous Navin slaughtered someone dear to them, and Tanner’s girlfriend, Devon, has been taken hostage. Going on the offensive, the siblings also realize that one of them is surely the child mentioned in the prophecy—and the other is expendable. In the second volume of their epic YA sci-fi series, the Pershings crank up the emotional intensity and violence while trying to keep their protagonists lovable. The teens still mock each other as they trade narration duties; Tanner, for example, tells Ryland, “You can’t just start with us on another planet without explaining how we got here.” There’s also a suitable amount of jaw-dropping detail, like the mention of a Shifter battleship that “creaks and moans as it...stands angled high in the air, impossibly on its end.” Frequently, however, too many supporting characters rotate in and out of focus, and the story feels like a Doctor Who episode on fast-forward. Nevertheless, the fallout from a savage climax asks fresh questions that will lure readers back for the next volume. Gun battles and gore invigorate this amped-up sequel.
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Godkiller, Vol. 1 Walk Among Us, Part 1
Pizzolo, Matt Illus. by Wieszcyk, Anna & Templesmith, Ben Black Mask Comics (128 pp.) $9.99 paper | Apr. 7, 2015 978-1-62875-054-6 In Pizzolo’s stellar graphic novel— the first three issues of his debut comicbook series—an orphan boy braves a desolate, post-apocalyptic land in search of a heart for his sister. Tommy Stark and his 14-year-old comatose sister, Lucy, live in an orphanage in a world that’s barely survived a nuclear holy war. The markets for clean blood and fresh organs are thriving, and Dr. West is ready to give up on Lucy to harvest her organs for profit. Tommy hopes to save Lucy by finding her a new heart, but tracking a couple of organ thieves takes him to Outer City, a savage region where undesirables crave his exceptionally clean blood. Dr. Mulciber, who has the power of insight, sees something special in the boy and enlists prostitute Halfpipe to help save Tommy from the likes of Beezal, a vicious pimp. There’s a lot going on in Pizzolo’s wonderfully bizarre story, but its most distinctive feature is a barren, nearly dead world. The outside world is filled with decrepit, abandoned buildings, and even characters’ bodies are in disrepair, adorned in lacerations and stitches. The people, too, are lost souls: Tommy defies the reputedly civilized Republic in Silver City and swears an oath to the Burnt, an order he’s only read about in comic books (he took a hot iron to the face, the corresponding bandage serving as a constant reminder of his want for independence). The decidedly adult novel features a good amount of sex and violence, though never in a typical fashion. Characters tend to walk away from bloody assaults, and sex isn’t always for personal gratification: Angelfuck, an organ thief, claims her orgasms are weaponized, and sexual indulgence for Mulciber unlocks his extraordinary gift. Wieszczyk and Templesmith’s artwork is enchanting and a true visual companion to Pizzolo’s story. Characters are etched in chaotic scratches as if carved in stone, and pages are saturated in a rusty hue, like the soot and dirt corroding the atmosphere. The ending, of course, saves plenty for the second volume. Deftly unorthodox and wickedly delectable; not so much a story as an experience.
CrossOver
Proffet, Paul CreateSpace (232 pp.) $9.99 paper | $2.99 e-book Nov. 24, 2014 978-1-5031-6430-7 In this urban-fantasy adventure, a 44-year-old professional criminal decides to help a mysterious young woman—and gets pulled into a supernatural battle. Len Doyle is a killer with standards who dislikes today’s nastier crime bosses. He’s plotting retirement until a troubled homeless girl named Briar warns him that “[a] blue suit might kill you today if you let it.” Using this tip, he beats up a Russian boss and his goon who were planning to kill him, then retreats with the mysterious Briar to a country hideaway. He soon discovers that Briar visits a supernatural plane in her dreams, where she’s attacked by demonic monsters and suffers real-life injuries. He also finds that by touching her, he can cross over into her dream and defend her, summoning weapons with his mind. He soon recruits some tough, reliable friends from the old days, and together, they fight a two-front battle with mundane but deadly Russian thugs on one side and nightmare demons on the other. In his debut novel, Proffet offers a brisk, exciting blend of crime action and fantasy warfare. The latter involves magic users, healers, warriors, and cool armor, as in a role-playing game; in both, the fighting is vivid, bloody, and often leavened with black humor. Running jokes, such as a succession of destroyed tea kettles, also help lighten the mood, as does Proffet’s slangy, punchy dialogue, which adds characterization and depth. For example, here’s Doyle’s response when a terrifying, 7-foot-tall, burning demon says that he can smell his fear: “If that’s what passes for an insult around here ya need to modernise, ya deep-fried lanky sack of dog shit.” The novel has some rough edges, but Doyle and his friends are unlikely but apt heroes—exactly who you’d want in a fight—and their camaraderie provides the novel with a big, beating heart: “Bravery and brotherhood above all, that was their creed and they would die to defend it. To them the choice was simple.” A promising, deeply satisfying debut full of action, wit, and heart.
LEAVING WADEN
Rider, Jordan C. CreateSpace (270 pp.) $11.99 paper | Oct. 10, 2014 978-1-5003-6547-9 Rider’s debut novel follows two high schoolers who impulsively leave their hometown of Waden, Oregon, on a trek across the country. Jake Holden Barnes is depressed. He’s only a few months away from graduating high school, but his inattention and indifference have put him at risk of failing both gym and art—unfortunate, since Jake is one of the most prolific and talented artists at school. When the principal gives him the option to paint a mural on the school grounds to make up his art grade, Jake jumps at the chance. When he finishes, however, something is still missing from the piece. “You forgot to sign it,” he is informed by Smoke, the mysterious, attractive girl who is a guitarist in a local band. When the two see each other again at a party after prom, Smoke entices Jake to drop everything and go on a road trip in her van. They set out on an adventure that takes them clear across the country, along the way picking up a circus worker, a hitchhiker, and a fainting goat. They also learn more about each other and about themselves: Smoke reveals painful demons from her past, while Jake struggles with the crushing weight of his depression. Against a backdrop of the changing natural beauty of the American landscape, the two form a remarkable bond that transcends friendship. Rider’s realistic characters are complex, flawed individuals. Her portrayal of Jake’s depression is subtle and authentic, due in large part to the author’s personal experience with the affliction. Rider develops a clear sense of place with her depiction of the changing landscape between Oregon and New York. Some readers may feel that Rider dwells too much on introspection, as both Jake and Smoke seem to philosophize more than the average teen, and the prose can be repetitive, with the phrase “to be honest” almost reaching the centennial mark. However, readers will quickly forgive these minor infractions in favor of Rider’s memorable characters and vivid atmosphere, and many will hope for more from this promising young author. An accomplished debut that will resonate far beyond a YA audience.
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An edifying comment on the limits any modern democracy faces in acting swiftly and effectively. disasters and the american state
FLOWER OF IOWA
Ringel, Lance Smashwords May 15, 2014
American soldier Tommy Flowers deals with his unexpected attraction to English Pvt. David Pearson and the horrors of World War I in this debut historical novel. In June 1918, Flowers, newly arrived in France, follows Pearson from a tavern, apologizing for his fellow American soldiers’ anti-British remarks. The young men, both around 18, take shelter from rain in a stable. They hold each other for warmth, then report to their units in the morning. Tommy keeps seeking out his new friend and also befriends Jamie Colbeck, an older Australian assigned to American forces. He soon begins soldier duties in the trenches. Later, David stalks off when Jamie, who’s bitter about British bungling at Gallipoli, speculates how David’s soldier brothers really died in the war. Tommy again follows David, dodging dogs and a swooping airplane, and is drawn to kiss him. Still later, while helping Jamie clean up the tavern following a soldiers’ scuffle, Tommy and Nicole, niece of the proprietress, both virgins, run off to have sex, which displeases Jamie, who’s also attracted to Nicole. Then David is injured, and Tommy—unaware of his friend’s injuries—endures friendly fire in the battle of Hamel. Afterward, Jamie rewards Tommy with travel to London, where David is recuperating. Tommy accompanies David on the latter’s visit to his family, where they consummate their relationship, vowing love but also secrecy as they return to the front. They join up for a dangerous mission to transport an injured officer and, by novel’s end, experience more joy and ultimate heartbreak. Ringel packs a remarkable amount of flavor and detail into this debut work. In addition to providing a compelling love story, he serves up gripping depictions of the war’s horrible, often absurd battles and the male camaraderie and army bureaucracy that accompanied them. While some trysts stretch the imagination—lovemaking in an occupied ambulance?—Ringel has created an overall appealing romance with memorable characters, particularly open-hearted Iowan Tommy, “a lad who speaks his mind, and keeps the rest of us honest—maybe even human.” Accomplished, touching historical fiction.
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Disasters and the American State How Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Public Prepare for the Unexpected
Roberts, Patrick S. Cambridge Books (232 pp.) $90.00 | $72.00 e-book | Oct. 28, 2013 978-1-107-02586-8
A scholarly investigation into the factors that have boosted the U.S. government’s role in managing natural disasters as well as an account of the limitations of such oversight. A professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a political scientist trained at Harvard, Roberts tackles the contentious issue of how well-suited the government is to lead the response to catastrophe. In a work characterized by impressive rigor and circumspection, he contends that a variety of social and political factors have created an administrative state more willing—but not necessarily more competent—to rise to such a challenge. Part of the problem is a function of democracy itself: though public expectations regarding the federal stewardship of emergency relief have steadily increased, the fractured nature of governmental supervision greatly impairs its effectiveness. The book helpfully draws out the history of administrative relief management, from President Herbert Hoover’s “centralized relief policy and decentralized implementation” following a destructive flooding of the Mississippi River in 1927 to the Hurricane Katrina debacle of 2005. Roberts’ balanced handling of the much misunderstood response to Katrina is magisterial; while he faults the federal government for its many failures, he also points out that state and local floundering, as well as infrastructural obstacles, made success all but unachievable. Moreover, Katrina, he argues, is not best understood as a result of “managerial lapses” but rather as an example of the “limits of what federal government disaster agencies can do to prepare for extreme events.” This is not only a powerfully argued, relentlessly fair account of the troubles that plague the federal management of disaster, but also an edifying comment on the limits any modern democracy faces in acting swiftly and effectively. A thoughtful, provocative contribution to a timely debate.
If You Were Me and Lived in...Greece A Child’s Introduction to Culture Around the World Roman, Carole P. CreateSpace (30 pp.) $9.99 paper | $0.99 e-book Sep. 23, 2014 978-1-4975-2618-1
An overview of Greek life and culture that offers readers a virtual tour through the country, as told from a child’s perspective. In this latest installment of her children’s book series, Roman heads to Greece to take her readers on a whirlwind trip through its young narrator’s homeland. Much like her previous books, which focused on Hungary, France, Mexico, and other lands, this one presents an engaging look at a foreign country while also considering topics that kids will find relatable. The book opens with a map of Greece, and the narrator points out where it’s located on the globe. The narrator then describes Athens, the capital city, noting its vital role in the creation of democracy, as well as how Plato and Aristotle taught there and continue to have an enduring legacy. From there, the book moves on to everyday life, covering common Greek first names, the terms for various family members, and important tourist attractions. It also notes important moments in Greek history, such as the establishment of the Olympics, which may help kids understand why Greece is a particularly important country. The narrator describes iconic Greek foods in detail: “Tzatziki is a tangy sauce made from yogurt and cucumber to put on roasted lamb....You will always ask to finish your meal with loukoumades (loo-ka-mad-es), which is a doughnut covered with honey and cinnamon.” These descriptions, along with the helpful pronunciation key at the back (and phonetics scattered throughout the text), will make it easy for kids to imagine how the foods taste as they also add to their vocabularies. Overall, Roman’s engaging, concise writing style, combined with colorful illustrations and photos, provides an easy-to-follow summary of Greek culture. It’s an excellent place for kids to start if they’re researching Greece for a school project or if parents want to help them understand the similarities and differences between American and Greek societies. A look at an important world culture that will show kids just how similar they are to others around the world.
RELAX, IT’S JUST GOD How and Why to Talk to Your Kids About Religion When You’re Not Religious Russell, Wendy Thomas Brown Paper Press (192 pp.) $16.99 paper | Mar. 31, 2015 978-1-941932-00-1
Written for secular parents from a nonreligious perspective, this guide explores methods of teaching youngsters about God, religion, and spirituality. Russell is the polar opposite of secular writers such as Richard Dawkins. Avoiding an in-your-face style, she emphasizes the golden rule and tolerance. She suggests incorporating religious trappings—places of worship, holidays, books, prayer—into family regimens; she even flirts with the possibility of sending a child to a religious school. For the skeptical, some of this may seem a tad too touchy-feely. “Make a collage using pictures of famous religious leaders—and non-religious ones—and then leave it up for a few months in your child’s room. See if it sparks conversation.” However, while Russell at times seems to be out-Flandering Ned Flanders, this is, after all, a book about dealing with children, and Russell is skilled at relating to kids on their own terms. For her, the God discussion has supplanted the dreaded “birds and bees” talk for secular parents. In fact, the inspiration for the book was when her 5-year-old blurted out, “Mommy...you know what? God made us!”—a statement that made Russell feel “like a cartoon character being hit...with a frying pan.” Her own investigations to address the situation resulted in this well-written, thoroughly researched work that mixes advice, humor, and history. It also includes footnotes, an appendix of major world religions, recommended readings, and facts and figures on atheism in the United States. Chapters deal with a variety of topics such as reactions of grandparents and other relatives, mixed-faith marriages, kids being harassed at school, and how to handle discussions of death. At the same time, her easy-to-read style is down to earth and conversational: “When it comes down to it, ‘tolerance’ is just a way of asking people not to be total dicks to one another.” Contains a wealth of information for secular or mixedreligion families preparing for the God talk with kids.
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A unique and flavorful blend, by turns comic, poignant, philosophical, and romantic. sighing woman tea
Me, Rain, and a Hired Taxi
Safdarian, Davoud AuthorHouseUK (200 pp.) $30.51 | $18.24 paper | Oct. 16, 2014 978-1-4969-9004-4
Tactile, thoughtful quatrains celebrating individual identity and experience, translated from Persian. For most Western readers, Persian poetry might conjure few associations beyond Rumi or Edward Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Perhaps aware of this, Safdarian (I Want to Follow the Sun, 2011) makes sure to honor his own indebtedness to his better-known forebears: “What I need from the universe: a nice time...yes, / a bit calm, and a friend with a flute, / that we may read The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam / and drink together a little wine.” This vignette also serves as an invitation and instruction on how best to enjoy Safdarian’s poetry. Composed in the traditional Persian do-bayti couplet style and set with the original Persian facing Safdarian’s English translations, these 192 quatrains feel simultaneously foreign and familiar. There’s a touch of exoticism in Safdarian’s soft mysticism—“and I have to be beyond my body. / I have to be the power of thoughts from all varieties”—and in his references and cadences: “He was looking for you from Shiraz to Rasht / in alien roads and fields. / Although he could not find you during daylight, / he continued to look for you even at night.” His English translations can
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strike both the eye and ear as distinctly non-native, a problem he acknowledges: “A living person gave birth to a poem. / A translator killed the poem through translation.” Nevertheless, Safdarian’s primary mood is passion, and passion, it seems, does translate well. Though he writes about a myriad of subjects—war, poetry, racism, the importance of honoring the individual—this passion ensures that his romantic poems, of love gained and lost, are the best of the bunch. Even the unsure English that emerges can be read as an understandable loss of coherence by the stricken narrators. His take on loss is often powerfully direct and always felt in a deeply corporeal way. In “End,” the narrator, crying, laments the loss of a lover—“My eyes left me after you. / My heart stayed in my chest and decayed”—while in “The Time 2,” the narrator’s undoing is the appearance of the beloved: “I saw you; my heart unclenched, was lost.” The translations are not without their awkward moments, but when writing about those moments that transcend language, Safdarian seems to find exactly the words he needs.
SIGHING WOMAN TEA
Seiler, Mark Daniel Xlibris (390 pp.) $22.99 | $15.99 e-book | Oct. 15, 2014 978-1-4990-6362-2 In this seriocomic novel, a large corporation tries to take control and threaten the traditional way of life in a tiny tea-producing island nation. Viridis, also known as Green Island, is a tiny fictional nation founded in the 12th century by a mixed-race crew whose ship was blown off course while returning from Canton. Thomas Burke, descendant of an island founder, left home to pursue a career in mathematics, specializing in prediction theory; Viridians call him “Figas,” patois for “Figures.” Now, a foundation director has tapped him to return and warn the gentle islanders that Viridis’ tea—more expensive per ounce than gold—is in danger of attracting greedy attention. When an occupying force takes over Viridis, Figas and the locals face an enormous challenge: how to find an island way of protecting themselves. They call on sacrifice, patience, showmanship, and the spirit of the island—and readers will join the cheering section. In his accomplished debut novel, Seiler deftly sketches memorable, diverse characters while drawing on fascinating historical background. Witty, idiomatic dialogue provides many pithy lines: “a fox is a wolf who sends flowers”; “The Buddha would play viola....It’s the middle way.” The opening setup—not to mention the novel’s charm, wit, and underlying seriousness— recalls The Mouse That Roared by Leonard Wibberley, but this is— like Sighing Woman tea—a unique and flavorful blend, by turns comic, poignant, philosophical, and romantic. As the book progresses, it gets tighter, funnier, and more deeply emotional. Seiler never condescends to his islanders; they may act in comical ways, but they, the island, and their tea are to be taken seriously. Nor are
the invaders uniformly evil: an Irish soldier’s good heart makes an excellent counterpoint to the blockheaded Cmdr. Prescott. Seiler nicely handles the islanders’ tricky maneuvers to outwit the invaders, holding enough back for suspense and providing several well-done set pieces that reveal the islanders’ gifts with satisfying payoffs. Steeped in the charm and traditions of tea drinking and underlaid with serious thought about compassion, this novel is simply wonderful. A delight to read from start to finish.
Once it clears some initial hurdles, Swain’s labyrinthine novel moves effortlessly from each wicked deception to the next.
Alicia’s Misadventures in Computer Land Hackers and Heroes
Vasquez Garcia, Belinda CreateSpace (190 pp.) $10.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Nov. 16, 2014 978-1-5029-1390-6
SISTINA
Swain, Brian Kenneth iUniverse (298 pp.) $28.95 | $18.95 paper | $3.99 e-book Nov. 12, 2014 978-1-4917-4710-0 In the centuries-spanning saga from Swain (The Curious Habits of Man: Essays and Effluence, 2013, etc.), a brotherhood of Rome’s most powerful men struggles to keep a secret that could undo Catholicism. According to the Bible, Jesus rose three days after his Crucifixion and once again walked among the living. The prologue to Swain’s novel paints a different portrait: five of Jesus’ followers—including Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus—form the Guild of the Cloth, which hides Christ’s body and perpetuates the resurrection myth. Successive Guild members guard Jesus’ resting place without any trouble until 1512, when Bishop Galimberti, worried that French invaders might uncover the Guild’s secret, moves the body to a new location without his brethren’s consent. Poisoned soon thereafter, Galimberti leaves the Guild a letter explaining his actions. The name of the new hiding place, he writes, has been inscribed “among the artworks that adorn His Holiness’ sanctuary.” A few chapters later, the novel leaps to 2008, when an earthquake shakes loose plaster fragments from the Sistine Chapel ceiling. As tourists flee the church, antiquarian book dealer Christof von Albrecht makes “the most fateful decision of his life” and steals several pieces of Michelangelo’s masterpiece. Tasked with the chapel’s restoration, a Harvard fresco expert discovers a mysterious message scrawled underneath the ceiling’s plaster—but pieces containing the rest of the message have gone missing. Thus begins a race between the Guild and the Vatican to track down von Albrecht and solve the puzzle Galimberti left behind. Swain crams many of the novel’s early chapters with historical exposition that does little to advance the story: “[It] is an exciting time for [Florence], both politically and creatively, with names like Michelangelo and Machiavelli on the minds and lips of nearly every citizen.” Once the plot gets rolling, however, Swain’s grip never lets up as he deftly unveils each double cross. His prose likewise abandons cliché in favor of rich, haunting descriptions, including monastery walls that “admit heat only grudgingly” and a dead man found with a “pen clutched so fiercely in his twisted hand that the fingers must be broken to release it.”
A modern, middle-grade take on the Lewis Carroll classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that combines puns and wordplay with video games and computer terminology. Sixth-grade smart aleck Alicia loves hacking into computers, and she’s the president of the Chaos Computing Club at her school. She never takes responsibility for anything she does, though, whether it’s losing her glasses or breaking a window; “It’s not my fault!” is her constant catchphrase. When she neglects to turn in her homework on time, she convinces her clueless teachers that computer-gnomes ate it and congratulates herself on getting away with a lie. But one evening, much to her surprise, real gnomes come out of her computer and take her through a hole in its camera—and into a virtual dream world. Alicia is transformed into a two-dimensional, miniature version of herself, trapped on the wrong side of the monitor. As she ventures deeper inside Computer Land, she meets the “bugs,” “worms,” “mice,” and other creatures that live there. K i r k us M e di a LL C # President M A RC W I N K E L M A N Chief Operating Officer M E G L A B O R D E KU E H N Chief Financial Officer J ames H ull SVP, Marketing M ike H ejny SVP, Online Paul H offman # Copyright 2015 by Kirkus Media LLC. KIRKUS REVIEWS (ISSN 1948- 7428) is published semimonthly by Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Road, Austin, TX 78744. Subscription prices are: Digital & Print Subscription (U.S.) - 12 Months ($199.00) Digital & Print Subscription (International) - 12 Months ($229.00) Digital Only Subscription - 12 Months ($169.00) Single copy: $25.00. All other rates on request. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Kirkus Reviews, PO Box 3601, Northbrook, IL 60065-3601. Periodicals Postage Paid at Austin, TX 78710 and at additional mailing offices.
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She also inadvertently introduces a virus, hidden inside a real Trojan horse, which threatens to destroy the computer from the inside out. With the help of her avatar, White-Rabbit; her hacker friend, Caterpillar; and her video game–playing brother, Alicia must stop the virus before it erases her virtual self. She also learns how to take responsibility along the way. Vasquez Garcia (The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation, 2012, etc.) has created a zany mashup of elements from Alice and The Wizard of Oz, illustrated with well-known images from art and children’s literature, combined with pencil drawings. The story is crammed with clever puns based on computing terms, and a helpful glossary explains unfamiliar words (“spaghetti code”; “wormflu”). Barreling forward at a frenetic pace, the nonsensical plot resembles that of a video game. However, its abrupt ending may leave readers wondering whether it was all a dream. A fun middle-grade story that will appeal most to kids who already love computers.
AN UNCONVENTIONAL LEADER
Wallace, Neill Archway Publishing (124 pp.) $28.99 | $11.99 paper | $6.99 e-book Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-4808-1022-8 Applying his experience in business as an “unconventional leader,” debut author Wallace offers his insightful personal perspective in a book that is as much about a life philosophy as leadership. Wallace begins with a discussion of typical business leadership, suggesting that leaders tend to follow convention largely because things have always been done the same way: “Today many of us just accept that the leadership pathway is not only unchallengeable but also unchangeable.” Wallace’s view is that great leaders need to challenge convention. As examples, he uses two polar explorers, Roald Amundsen and Ernest Shackleton, who “were both, in their own ways, rebels with a strategic cause.” Wallace explains how these explorers exhibited unconventional leadership and succeeded as a result, contrasting them with a more traditional explorer, Robert Scott, whose conventional thinking spelled doom for his polar expedition. “Like the Antarctic,” Wallace writes, “the business environment has its freakish weather, uncertain conditions and hidden dangers.” Just the fact that Wallace references polar explorers in a business leadership book demonstrates his own lack of convention—and it’s a welcome breath of fresh air. In short, easily readable chapters, Wallace informally lays out a strategy for breaking convention, acknowledging that fear of something new and unfamiliar may be the biggest barrier to success. He urges readers to follow their inspirations and embrace change. He also offers some specific advice for being a more effective leader, including tips for keeping employees engaged, acting fairly, being a real team player when the going gets tough, listening to what team members have to say, caring for people’s health, 138
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and instilling a sense of personal belief in your colleagues. Wallace closes with a “Revolution Plan” that is also unconventional. Though it lists action items in bullet form, “there are no actioncompleted boxes because outside of completing perhaps the self-assessment, none of these actions really will be completed.” After all, challenging convention is a continuous process. Deftly written, thought-provoking, and pointed; a refreshing challenge to conventional business thinking.
OPTIMAL AGING A Guide to Your First 100 Years
Winter, Jerrold Manuscript
A comprehensive guide to the complex world of modern medicines and nutritional supplements. In his second book on nutrition and healthy lifestyles, Winter (Pharmacology and Toxicology/Univ. of Buffalo; True Nutrition True Fitness, 1991) takes sharp aim at big pharma and the dietary supplement industry. The elderly are overmedicated, he argues, despite well-documented side effects that can be lethal to already fragile patients. Additionally, he says, too many seniors buy into fabricated promises of “natural” supplements, which are only minimally regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. With meticulous detail, the author discusses the benefits and dangers of some of the most popular drugs marketed today— specifically antipsychotic, anti-depression and anti-anxiety medications—before moving on to analyze a multitude of supplements, including many familiar vitamins. He debunks claims that these supplements can prevent cancer, slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, increase bone density, or generally get one through old age with a spring in one’s step. So what should seniors do? Mostly, Winter says, it comes down to balance and moderation: be informed, and be skeptical. If you have an elderly relative, know what drugs they’re taking and understand their risks. Obtain your nutritional requirements from your diet, he says, not from a bottle of vitamins, and maintain a regular schedule of exercise to raise your heart rate and build muscle strength. There’s a wealth of information in these pages and also many cautions; after all, this is a field in which recommendations regarding treatment or nutritional advice can change with the release of a new research paper. Winter references copious studies and incorporates a good dose of technical material, but his final product is surprisingly readable, conversational, and compassionate. He consistently remains an ardent advocate for the individual, whether he’s discussing the need for opiates for pain relief or poignantly calling for the right to die with dignity: “I look forward to the day when physician-assisted dying will be available to all who desire it,” he says. A valuable reference tool that will likely be most appreciated by aging baby boomers.
Appreciations:
William Golding’s Neanderthal Interlude B Y G RE G OR Y M C NAMEE
Neanderthals get no respect. Just try calling someone a Neanderthal, and you’ll see. The very name has been a byword for backwardness, conjuring up an Alley Oopish simpleton who, red hair ablaze and prognathic brow furrowed, is on the fast track to extinction—and, of course, has no idea that the Grim Reaper resides just a cave or two away. Fresh from Lord of the Flies (1954), a novel that insistently argued that civilization is just a hair north of savagery, the English novelist William Golding decided to explore that notion a bit more with his second novel. Published 60 years ago, The Inheritors opens in a primeval setting straight out of the earlier novel, but with a twist: we are tens of thousands of years in the past, and the first character we meet William Golding is a fellow who is very often puzzled by the things he encounters in the world. The first of them is a log that has gone missing. His mate looks accusingly at him when he voices his puzzlement, to which he replies, “No, no. I did not move the log to make the people laugh. It has gone.” So Neanderthals have a sense of humor, too. But more: even though they bear monosyllabic grunts for names— Lok, Fa, Nil, Mal—the grown-up Neanderthals of The Inheritors have talents that few modern humans share. For one, they are preternaturally sensitive to changes in their environment, whether missing logs or a snapped twig. But more important, they have the ability to communicate silently, not by sign but telepathically; they share, Golding seems to be telling us, a group mind that valued each hominid that contributed to it equally, without the caste and the class that so dominated the England of the author’s time. The Neanderthals are evolving; we can tell this by the simple fact that one of the band’s children bears a two-syllable name. But no matter. People—real people, that is— arrive in their forested valley, and soon it is more than logs that go missing, and every premonition in the Neanderthals’ hyperactive consciousness points to the danger so aptly summarized by the oldest and wisest of them: “That is a bad picture.” Themselves fresh from the bloodbath of World War II, Europeans of the 1950s found fascination and comfort in the simpler time evoked in places such as Lascaux and Altamira, in the pre-technological Eden of the distant past. William Golding was less sure of all that. We have learned a great deal about Neanderthals since Golding wrote The Inheritors, which he considered his best novel. We know that they buried their dead, and we hazard that they had some idea of an afterlife. We know that they followed the movements of animal herds and the stars, understanding these to be natural, regular processes. And we know that Homo sapiens did them in, just as Homo sapiens now seem bent on doing in the rest of creation. Our knowledge of the fine details is deeper, but as for the main outlines of the story—well, no one has done it better than William Golding in The Inheritors, all those years ago. Gregory McNamee is a contributing editor. |
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At the Water’s Edge:
Life from Scratch:
The Dream Lover:
The Water Knife: A Novel
The Gracekeepers:
A Novel A lush historical novel from bestselling author, Elizabeth Berg. Aurore Dupin leaves a loveless marriage and her family’s estate in the French countryside to start a new life as a writer in Paris. She gives herself a new name— George Sand—and embraces an unconventional and, in the nineteenth century, scandalous lifestyle. Brilliantly written in luminous prose, The Dream Lover tells the unforgettable story of a courageous, irresistible woman considered to be the most gifted genius of her time. Perfect for fans of Nancy Horan and Lisa See.
I’m a sucker for dystopian fiction so I couldn’t resist this book’s description: a scorching thriller born out of today’s front-page headlines preying on our worst fears about potential catastrophic failures awaiting us in our resource starved future. This novel from multi-award winning author Bacigalupi is action packed, cinematic at times, and unputdownable. Not just for dystopian fans, it reads like a thriller. It is an intriguing look at a future that seems all too possible. And there is a steamy love story too—I ended up with a book crush on the “bad” guy.
978-0-8129-9315-8 | $28.00/$34.00C 75,000 | Random House | HC | April
978-0-385-35287-1 | $25.95/$30.00C 150,000 | Knopf | HC | May
E 978-0-679-64470-5
E 978-0-385-35289-5
Inspired in part by Scottish myths and fairytales, The Gracekeepers tells a modern story of an irreparably changed world: one divided between those inhabiting the mainland (“landlockers”) and those who float on the sea (“damplings”), several generations beyond the catastrophes of global warming. North works as a circus performer upon the Excalibur, a floating troupe. As a Gracekeeper, Callanish administers shoreside burials, where she has exiled herself to escape a long-ago mistake. Both young women are caught up in a sudden storm that brings change to their lives. For fans of Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter; readers of The Night Circus, The Snow Child, The Age of Miracles, and The Dog Stars.
A Novel
When a colleague described Sara Gruen’s newest novel as having the feel of a Scottish Downton Abbey, I knew I had to pick it up. Like her phenomenal bestseller, Water for Elephants, At the Water’s Edge is a spellbinding period piece, one that captures the opulence of The Great Gatsby and the charm of Guernsey. A gripping and poignant love story about a privileged young woman’s awakening as she experiences the devastation of World War II in a tiny village in the Scottish Highlands, this is a novel perfect for fans of historical fiction and page-turning novels of love, war, family, and class. 978-0-385-52323-3 | $28.00 150,000 | Spiegel & Grau | HC | March
A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness As Sasha Martin unlocked the memories of her tumultuous childhood and the loss and heartbreak that came with it, she became more determined than ever to find peace and create her own new beginning. Her journey culminates into a challenge that took 195 weeks to complete; she cooked a meal from every country in the world. The cooking is more about healing than eating, and her story is more about love than food. A book that breaks your heart, heals it, and makes you hungry all at once. For readers of Comfort Me with Apples and Julie and Julia.
978-0-385-66448-6 | $32.00C Bond Street Books | HC
978-1-4262-1374-8 | $25.00/$25.00C 75,000 | National Geographic | HC March
E 978-0-8129-9789-7
E 978-1-4262-1375-5
] CD: 978-1-101-88938-1 ] AD: 978-1-101-88939-8 978-0-804-19481-5
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A Novel
978-0-553-44661-6 | $25.00/NCR 50,000 | Crown | HC | May
E 978-0-553-44663-0