American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld

I read voraciously, yet it is rare for me to enjoy a book so thoroughly as I enjoyed this one (this blog does not contain reviews of all the books I read; only the ones I consider notable for some reason).

Sittenfeld, after reading a biography of Laura Bush, realized that the former first lady is a complicated person, an interesting person. Her life seems like a novel. So she decided to write it. Yes, it’s fiction, but many of the basic elements of Laura Bush’s life are also in the life of the fictional Alice Lindgren of Wisconsin. By creating this character Sittenfeld has license to explore Alice’s thoughts, her emotions, her character, to bring her alive yet acknowledge, in the end, that she does not really exist.

The parallels are so close as to suggest that Sittenfeld is sorting through events in the Bushes’ lives and trying to create character from the bits and pieces she knows of the individuals. It would be presumptuous to write a biography, inserting the answers, the whys throughout, without even meeting the subjects. But the whys are what are so interesting. Who is Laura Bush and why did she behave as she did in the Bush White house? What caused her to marry George W. Bush?

More than a story of the presidential years, though, this is an investigation into love, and, delightful to me personally, a close look at what it means to grow up in the upper Midwest in the middle of the 20th century. I was born the same year Alice was and I was born in the midwest - Upper Michigan instead of Wisconsin. So much of what Alice experiences, how she reacts, how she feels, reflects how I have felt and experienced life myself much of the time. I think Sittenfeld nailed it, at least what it is like to be a bookish intelligent midwesterner with an open mind. Thus even though we are not alike I was able to understand how she acted, how she felt. Her life makes sense, her actions make sense.

There is much insight in here, in the ways our upbringings might cause us to see others very differently. For example, Alice acknowledges her own deep feelings and sense of obligation towards those in need, yet she can understand and accept that those raised in a privileged household, where they are kept effectively insulated from others, might not have the capacity to care in the same way. She does not blame them, but rather asserts her right to feel differently.

Another interesting insight is in her sense of obligation in relation to her position in the world. She finds herself occupying a position of influence - wife of the president - and realizes that with such privilege comes a greater burden: how much should she do to right injustices, to relieve suffering? How much can she do? What is her responsibility?

The novel offers an answer to the question, how can you love somebody with whom you so often disagree? Sometimes love has nothing to do with agreement; love may not be magic but its elements in this case may be reasonably defined. Alice’s quiet, thoughtful character is in stark contrast to that of Charlie Blackwell, the stand-in for George W. Bush. She is drawn to his essential acceptance of his own flaws - what you see is what you get. And to the fun he represents, that she craves. The story also explains how others might be drawn similarly to a candidate who speaks as plainly as they do.

The development of Charlie’s character is fully as interesting as Alice’s. We see how he comes to value loyalty over truth; how he can see disagreement as almost traitorous. We see how the clannish nature of his family provides a cushion against the world, and a history to live up to, a competition to join. We see, too, how being part of an Ivy League school extends that family, adds some sort of validity to a certain way of thinking.

One recurrent theme comes from mention of the children’s novel The Giving Tree. It is Alice’s favorite children’s book and she reads it in many places to many children. The story of The Giving Tree is of a little boy and a tree. The tree provides everything it can for the boy for his whole life and at the end provides a place to rest and is happy to do it. Did Alice represent the Giving Tree? Did she gladly give of herself to the man that she loved?

It’s a beautifully-written novel with complex, believable and sympathetic characters. Even without the parallels to recent history it stands tall.

House of Sand and Fog, by Andre Dubus III

Oh, the choices we make!

A story of a house that isn't really about the house, but instead about three people from different worlds, all flawed in serious ways. The three become bound together the day one of them, Deputy Sheriff Lester Burdon, shows up at the house of Kathy Nicolo, another of the three, to tell her that her house is going to be auctioned off by the county to pay a bill that, in fact, Kathy never owed.

Colonel Behrani, an Iranian immigrant, now a naturalized citizen, reads of the auction in the paper and sees a way to support his family at last, by buying the house and later selling it for much more. Behrani comes from the elite class in Iran, but barely escaped with his life and family when the corrupt leadership of the country (supported by U.S. arms) was overthrown. He carries with him a sense of entitlement and resentment, even as he also regrets his association with the murderers in that regime.

Burdon has a weight to carry as well. Always the victim of bullies in school, he is finally able to get some of his self-respect back (perhaps that is how he sees it) in his present position. At times deeply-seated anger arises, however. He knows not to make his job personal, yet he does, time and again, taking advantage of the opportunity to stick it to the perps who upset him the most.

Kathy is just getting over her husband's desertion. Worn thin by repeated reminders from her family that she just keeps screwing up, she fails to tell them of this latest event.

So Kathy is kicked out of her house suddenly. She has nowhere to go and little money with which to support herself. She connects with the sometimes-volatile Lester and she becomes increasingly angrier with Behrani and his family, taking her resentment out on this apparently rich family who now live in her house.

It's a setup for disaster, frankly, yet early on I suspected there might be a kind of redemption, a growing understanding of each other's ways, a final, good ending. I felt manipulated when I saw this coming. It seemed too easy. I was wrong to see it that way, though. The story takes some zigs and zags that I never saw coming, all the way to the end. It's the kind of story I had to keep reading, even when, at times, it made my stomach hurt.

Falling, by Christopher Pike

Some might call it a "wild ride", for that it certainly is. But that description leaves out interesting details.

This is a tale where even the good guys can't be trusted. We don't know until the end if they will do the right thing or be caught up in their obsessions. For obsession is the name of the game here. Obsession, love, betrayal. One instance after another of betrayal and prevarication.

Matt Connor loves Amy. When she finally rejects him and marries another, Matt's feelings of love and hate merge into an obsession. He wants to get her back - and he wants to get her back. He wants her to hurt as much as he does. He devises a complex, devious plan that has to make you wonder, what kind of guy is he anyway? A good man turned obsessive by a bad woman? Or something else?

Kelly Fienman (her last name is misspelled on the book jacket) is an FBI agent who is also obsessive. She wants to be the one to track down and capture the bad guys. She goes off the reservation. Not once, but again and again. She is hurt badly in an altercation with a criminal, a serial killer who uses acid to kill his victims. IT is a hurt that could have been avoided if she had followed FBI procedures. In the doing, she creates a rift with her husband Tony, and finally Tony asks for a divorce. She feels betrayed and hurt. To what lengths will this hurt take her?

Jerk by dizzy jerk, we are on a carnival ride that threatens to go bad. I rooted for Kelly, but at the same time was disturbed by her ego-driven quests for fame and recognition. I am not a fan of vigilante justice, and I certainly was not a fan of her actions. I didn't so much root for Matt. Even though he seemed fundamentally a good guy his obsessiveness was deeply disturbing. The book is disturbing, clear to the end.

Running with Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs

I really enjoyed this book. It's a family biography with a sharp edge, tempered by humor.

I read Burroughs' "real" memoir, The Wolf at the Table, before reading this one. The Wolf concerns itself with the early years, the years Augusten spent with both parents, and most particularly with his father. We soon come to realize how cruel his father was. There are episodes in that story that made my flesh crawl.

In this book, by contrast, Augusten is living with his mother as well as with the family of his mother's psychiatrist, Dr. Finch (the names are changed with good reason). He never sees his father, though he mentions him a couple of times in passing. Augusten passes from age 12 to adulthood here, and the book takes a much lighter approach.

Augusten thanks his parents, by the way, for giving him such a memorable childhood, however inadvertently. That childhood certainly was off the charts in strangeness, but I think the reason he remembers it so vividly is that he wrote about it all the time, in his journals. When I think of recording events from my own childhood I draw a lot of blanks.

But back to the book. Augusten's mother is a self-centered poet who is concerned mostly with overcoming what she considers oppression in her life. And just about anything, including a critical comment by her son, counts as oppression. She has a tendency to go off the deep end from time to time. Her son has an unerring sense of when these periods of madness are about to arrive. Thus Augusten eventually finds himself, from time to time, in the home of her doctor. And that life is no less crazy.

No calm, sensible guiding family there. Instead, Dr. Finch believes that when one reaches the age of 13 one has the freedom to do whatever. Further, he believes that most insanity comes from repressing anger. Thus the house is in constant chaos and the family members revel in acting out. At first this exposure is unnerving to the ultra-tidy Augusten, but in time he goes with the flow. And enjoys it, for the most part. Even takes part.

In a way, the book is about Augusten growing up in a crazy world but not being actually crazy himself. He takes on the observer role as much as the participant, and his observations are funny. At times, the events are very funny too, while at other times they hint at madness and horror.

While overall a very funny book, Running with Scissors also hints at the underlying pain in a boy growing up without a caring parent or substitute parent. He learns to take caring where he can get it.

The Brass Verdict, by Michael Connelly

The "Lincoln Lawyer" returns. After a year's hiatus, during which time defense attorney Mickey Haller goes through rehab and stays straight, Haller is abruptly thrown back into the world of law when a fellow attorney is murdered. Haller takes over most of the cases, including the "franchise": a prominent film producer accused of murdering his wife and her lover.

In addition to having to get up to speed quickly, to sort out what is going on in each of the cases, Haller is concerned that his own life may be threatened. In part for this reason and in part because the murdered attorney had been his friend, Haller begrudgingly lets LAPD detective Harry Bosch in. Haller wants the murderer caught as much as Bosch does, but is limited by law in what he can do to help Bosch. Their alliance is an uneasy one but one that seems to develop into almost a mutual respect.

As is the case with other Connelly novels, this one is replete with the details, is exacting in getting them right. Thus we can step right into Haller's shoes and feel the pressure as he takes steps to reconstruct a calendar, to track down clients. We also can breathe with him as he resumes his habit of working out of his Lincoln Town cars (three of them, rotated), watching the Suitcase City pass by as he is driven from one appointment to another.

It was a pleasure to read a Mickey Haller novel in which Bosch figures so prominently. It gives us a different perspective on the sometimes-explosive man-on-a-mission. It was also a pleasure to get to know Haller better, to follow his efforts to get back into the real world and perhaps to take steps to win his ex-wife back.

Away, by Amy Bloom

An extraordinary book. Small and simply written, this tale of Lilian Leyb is also poetic, beautiful, and full of characters we can believe in even as we laugh at their unexpected actions. Most of all, the character of Lillian is solid, strong, far from perfect yet yes, perfect.

Lillian finds herself in Manhattan with nothing but an address pinned to her coat. She speaks no English but does speak Russian and Yiddish and lands in New York in 1924, during the period when to be a seamstress means you can live. She has already been through hell in Russia, losing her family to horrific violence. Perhaps the lessons of that time are part of what keeps her going, adjusting to turns of events and accepting what she must accept, yet single-mindedly doing what she herself knows she must do.

Eventually Lillian sets out to return to Russia to find her little daughter, and her route takes her across the country and up through Canada and beyond. On this "road trip" unlike any other road trip she meets many people, as important as those she left behind in Russia and New York. Each time Lillian sets off again we learn the future, sketched lovingly, of each of these friends, a bonus that usually made me smile.

The details of Lillian's life in New York, her trip across country, her walk into the Yukon, are alive with a sense of reality. We can walk in her shoes even though for us it doesn't hurt.

My Lobotomy: A Memoir, by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming

I expected to like this book. I have done a great deal of reading about mental illness and the horrors that pass as cures, including lobotomy. Seeing lobotomy from the patient’s perspective is a rarity.

The story is certainly compelling. The telling of it is not. I suspect that a combination of the natural talents of Howard Dully and his co-writer, along with the effects of the lobotomy, is why the book is not all it could be. The book is unnecessarily repetitious, which takes away a lot of its power. Much of it is also infused with an adolescent point of view. I had the disturbing feeling that Howard Dully is a 50-something teenager. Or perhaps now a young adult.

I have heard that alcoholics tend to be stuck chronologically where they first became alcoholics. So if they were teens, that’s where they stay until such time as they burst free of the addiction, insofar as one can. It seems to me that the same might be said for this particular lobotomy. It was performed on Howard as a 12-year-old and his thoughts and actions for years afterwards mirror the feelings and impressions of a 12-year-old.

I became impatient with the explanations. Howard, as a young teen in Agnews, the mental hospital, did not know when he would get out. His reaction, therefore, was to “have fun”. Because he did not know nor was he able to control his future, he felt his only option was to have fun. This attitude, along with the lack of any real training for the real world, is what got him into trouble year after year. It also was the reason I had trouble liking Howard as I listened to this CD version of the book.

He recognizes, late in the book, that it was the lack of preparation for work or life outside that got him in trouble so often. Is this a common experience for people in similar situations? Those who are young and placed in mental institutions for a relatively short time? It seems an astounding lack of foresight on the part of the caretakers. How can you expect somebody to do well on the outside without the necessary skills? Even in prison inmates get an opportunity to train for some work.

The part of the book that is especially disturbing is the treatment of Howard by his stepmother Lou. The unfortunate combination of a distant father (emotionally), who does not share significant information or thoughts with his son, and a distrusting, disapproving stepmother who singled Howard out, was bound to have a significant effect on Howard’s behavior as a young child. He was beaten daily by either or both parents, he was not told of his real mother’s death when it happened (she just “left”), and it seemed to make no difference what he did. It makes sense that he acted out, that he rebelled, he made good on what his parents accused him of. When Lou took it upon herself to press for the lobotomy, Howard had nobody in his corner.

As I listened to the CDs I was also affected by the manner in which the book was read. It is not read by Howard, but by a skilled reader, who reads an attitude into the words. I was not fond of the way he read it and wondered if I would feel differently about the book if I had read the paper version. Therefore, I sought out information online, and especially looked for the NPR program featuring Howard. It was easy to find: NPR program

In this radio program we get to hear Howard narrate and talk to lobotomy experts and others affected by lobotomy. We get to hear the real Howard speak. His voice has almost a monotone quality to it, which is something I might expect of a person who has undergone a lobotomy. When he is emotionally caught up we can tell by the hesitation and difficulty speaking, so his delivery is not actually “flat”. I wonder if I would have liked the book better if it had been actually read by Howard. I think it’s possible, because it would have felt more real.

I am glad I had the opportunity to listen to this book, which I had not even heard of before I saw it on the list of books in a virtual book box through bookcrossing. It gave me a lot to think about. I do wish it had been more skillfully written, yet it is hard to see how it could have been done without changing the character of Howard Dully.