summer bookshelf BOOK REVIEWS FROM THE OWNERS & STAFF OF BRIDGTON BOOKS
justin’s list
When it came out in 2013, I wrote about a brilliant, but tragic debut novel set in Chechnya during the Russian Occupation entitled A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. Nearly ten years and one forgettable short story collection later, Anthony Marra has returned in force with an epic novel entitled Mercury Pictures Presents. In the 1940s, Maria Lagana and her mother leave Mussolini’s Italy to live with her three comical aunties in Los Angeles where eighteen-year-old Maria gets a job as a typist at Mercury Pictures, a B-list movie studio. She soon proves her worth to her boss Artie, a man with a toupee collection and a soft heart for recent emigres. Maria’s boyfriend Eddie, a Shakespearean actor, is forever cast as the Japanese villain due to his ChineseAmerican heritage. Don’t miss this homage to the Golden Age of Hollywood when it’s released in July. Crime stories from the criminal or excon’s point of view can work well if the author instills enough empathy for the characters. In Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby, Beauregard “Bug” Montage has escaped the life of crime, and is married and running a legitimate auto repair business. Money troubles loom, however, pressuring him to take one final job which goes totally awry. Now Bug will need all his old skills and talents just to stay alive. Cosby’s gritty descriptions and streetwise knowledge are reminiscent of James Lee Burke at his early best, and Razorblade Tears, Cosby’s second novel, is just as good. In this story, two ex-cons team up to find their sons’ killers after the murders appear to be dismissed by local law enforcement. Also check out Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle if you like this genre. Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier, by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin, separates fact from fable in this true saga of the life and times of the legendary woodsman. In the 1700s, pushing the outer limits of the frontier was not for the faint of heart, and Daniel Boone and his family were always at the forefront of this movement. The authors do a great job connecting Boone’s story against the backdrop of the geopolitical struggles of The French and Indian War and The American Revolution. They neither sugar 20 lakelivingmaine .com
coat nor demonize the atrocities committed by the settlers and indigenous tribes. It was what it was; a part of our shared history, making it a captivating read. Sometimes a good historical novel can serve to illuminate a previously forgotten event or injustice, for example Lisa Wingate’s Before We Were Yours, which exposed the corrupt Tennessee Children’s Home Society. The Foundling by Ann Leary reveals another dark blemish of our past. In the early 1900s, young Mary Engle is hired as the secretary to the superintendent at The Nettleton State Village for Feeble Minded Women of Childbearing Age. It is only when she recognizes one of the residents of the Village as a childhood companion, who is not in the least bit feebleminded, that she begins to question the role of the Village. Asylums like the one in the story were founded in the U.S. when the Eugenics movement was prevalent in our society, and women were often involuntarily committed by their husbands or other male members of the family for “Moral Feeblemindedness.” See Sue’s review of The Woman They Could Not Silence for a real life account of what happened to one woman. Travel writer Colin Thubron knows Asia well, and his latest foray takes him (and the reader) down The Amur River, also the title of his book. The river is the tenth longest in the world, beginning in Mongolia and emptying into the northern Pacific Ocean 1800 miles later. Over 1000 miles of the river constitute the boundary line between Russia and China. The contrast between the two countries is striking, with the Chinese side bustling with energy and commerce, and the Russian side dying a slow death of decay; a shell of its former self. Thubron goes by horseback, bus, cab, train and boat,
and is guided by interesting people with their own back stories. The last two wonderful stories are paired together because each requires the reader to take a leap of faith. The beauty and creativity of the novel Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel invoked in me a sense of wonder and inflection I’ve seldom felt. Beginning in the Canadian Woods of 1912, to the present day, and then three centuries later on the moon’s second colony, a similar event occurs which questions the fabric of reality in this novel of time travel. In Crossings by Alex Landragen, natives of a small island in the South Pacific have evolved and learned how to cross over to another person’s body. When the first European trading ship arrives in the 1700s, an islander sees an opportunity to escape and see the world, setting an epic, multigenerational tale in motion. This clever, unique novel can be read two ways; either cover to cover, or in the “Baroness Sequence” suggested by the author in the prologue.
sue’s selections
The Personal Librarian, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, is an outstanding novel about the woman who was instrumental in making the Pierpont Morgan Library a repository for the most important collections of rare books and manuscripts in the U.S. Belle de Costa Greene, hired as the first librarian of Morgan’s private library, was a savvy business person who gained the admiration and respect of many in her field, most importantly, J. P. Morgan. To retain the job she cherished, however, she had to keep a very important secret about her background. This novel is rich with history and facts about Belle and her accomplishments and is a delight to read.
