Someone - by Alice McDermott

I like Alice McDermott's work. But this one never really engaged me. I don't know why. It is the story of Marie Commeford, a life in glimpses. Somewhere in the middle she says she wants to find someone who will love her. Perhaps this is the "someone" of the title, but more likely it is Marie herself, an ordinary person who is still "someone". Perhaps we all want that more than anything else: to be "someone". We follow Marie as she weathers tragedy and disappointment, into her life working in a funeral parlor, work that seems to suit her, her personal life with a troubled brother, her life as a mother. Somehow I didn't connect this time but I suspect many others will and have.

Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

You could call this a different kind of coming-of-age novel. Or a historical novel. Or whatever Mendel's Dwarf is called. Curiously, my copy of Mendel's Dwarf was classified as a "romance" by the library it came from. I don't think this is the right category, although both books do involve romance.

Calliope Helen Stephanides was born twice, you'll read in the first line of the book. Cally was a girl until age fourteen, when she learned that in fact she was born with a condition sometimes called pseudohermaphroditism. She was born with the XY chromosome, identifying her as a male, but she had elements of both sexes. How does this happen? Eugenides is happy to tell us, in this case, that it was a rare genetic disorder passed on down from Cally-Cal's grandparents. They were brother and sister and carried the gene(s) for this condition.

We get to meet Cal's grandparents first, when they were young and lived in a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus, not far from the old city of Smyrna. In 1922, after the end of the First World War, when the area was occupied by the Greeks, it was invaded by the Turkish army. Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna died in what became known as The Great Fire of Smyrna. Desdemona and Lefty, Cal's grandparents, barely escaped. They ended up in the U.S., in Detroit, living with relatives.

It is not uncommon in these cultures for cousins to marry and have children. Sister and brother, not so much. When Desdemona learned that there is a good reason for this ban, she feared what her offspring might become.

We thus get to know her children as well. And finally, their children.

Cal's story is interwoven with the tales of his antecedents and their lives. Their stories are laced with a healthy dose of history. And so it is that while the book is 529 pages long (paperback edition) the story of Cally-Cal is actually pretty light.

I do find it interesting when actual historical events are included in good novels, particularly when those events are not well-known. I am less interested in lives set in a general historical period, where a lot of guesswork goes on. So I found the lives of the grandparents and their silk "farm" and the Great Fire, and the lives of their children in the U.S., interesting and informative. But my curse is that I want so much from characters, and I felt that while there certainly are well-rounded characters there are just so many of them!

It's an absorbing book, worth reading for the atmosphere and events, the sense of history, and for the information on "hermaphrodites", however they are called. It leaves open where one would go from here, having been both female and male.

City of Bones, by Michael Connelly

One of Connelly's best.

Harry Bosch is sent out to see a bone unearthed by a citizen's dog. The discovery leads to the remains of a twelve-year-old boy, at least 20 years old, in the hillsides of the Santa Monica mountains.

As with all cases, Harry is impatient and wants to find the apparent killer immediately. He works night and day to identify the body,then track down possible suspects. In the course of the investigation he meets Julia Brasher, rookie cop, and finds a soulmate in her.

The investigation leads down one alley and then the other, at each turn encountering snags big and small. As usual, he is dogged by upper levels of police management wanting quick solves and willing to bend the truth to get there. The pursuit of image never interests Bosch and he insists on telling the truth every time.

More than once in the course of the story Bosch asks himself or is asked by others - what does he believe in? He says he believes in the "blue religion". The pursuit of the killers, the pursuit of justice, the truth. He is, however, as Deputy Chief Irvin Irving says, a "shit magnet". Bad things happen to Harry. Perhaps more so in this novel than in others.

IN the end the case is solved. But not particularly satisfactorily. We never really find out what happened, exactly, and the ending is ugly.

I have lived in Harry's body, in a way, for many months, as I read through this series. He would probably not find me interesting but I find him fascinating and very real. That reality comes from Connelly's attention to details. He doesn't have to trot out every injury in a homicide. Describe it fully. He doesn't have to tell us what a rich woman's house appears like to Bosch. He doesn't have to take us into the paperwork. But he does. And that's why I buy it all.

Note: I wrote this in 2009. I don't usually post reviews of mysteries here but I make exceptions.

Bone by Bone, by Peter Matthiessen

There is a lot to recommend this book. It provides remarkable pictures of the US, in particular Florida, during the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. It provides one way to view the world of E.J. Watson, a legendary character in Florida in that time. It offers a bit of a cautionary tale about ecology, albeit in the background. Yet for me its story of Watson was almost relentlessly awful. That is, the things Watson did and the things that were done to him were almost all bad. The small lights in his world did not shine brightly enough to turn his character around, and his actions led to retaliation of the worst sort.

Watson was a real person. The people surrounding him were based on real people, including his three wives and I-forget-how-many children. However, this is not history. It is not even fictionalized biography. It is the author's effort to explain the little he was able to find out about this man. 

Watson's start in life did not bode well for the future. He fled from an abusive dirt-poor home when he was sixteen. He had a powerful work ethic, which helped him build a sugar cane plantation in Florida, along with other efforts. He fell in love seriously with his first wife, who died young. Perhaps his loveless childhood and the loss of this wife were contributors to his view of the world. Try as he might, he was unable to maintain an ethical, decent manner toward all. Instead, when pushed he would push back, and worse. He "did right" by a few people but even in those cases there was a limit to what he could offer. He put himself first.

The book is written in an interesting way, almost, in some places, like a book on the environment or a historical nonfiction book. As Matthiessen has written nonfiction as well, I think it was natural for some of that style to slip in here. The passages about Watson himself are well-drawn, yet I was never able to be fully sympathetic. Not having that connection made it difficult at times for me to push on.

Certainly it is a remarkable book. The author has taken what little he could find and pulled it together in not one but three books. This is the third of a trilogy on the Watson saga. This is the one that gets into the flesh and blood of the man. I found I was less impressed by it than were others because of the constant beating of awful awful awful. It was hard for me to swallow some of his actions and to continue wanting to know what would happen next. I sincerely hope that this book finds other readers who do not find it as much a chore as I did. 

Atonement, by Ian McEwan

I finally got around to reading this. I saw the movie version a few years ago and loved it. I remembered it perhaps too well, so wondered if I would enjoy the book, knowing the ending.

It really is very different. The book is long - 480 pages in my paperback version - so covers a great deal more ground.

As in the film, the book essentially starts out with 13-year-old Briony Tallis viewing, by accident, an incident involving her older sister Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of the family's housekeeper. It is 1935. Cecilia's father favored Robbie and was happy to pay his tuition to top schools. Cecilia is home from college for a break and has uncertain feelings about Robbie.

Briony misinterprets events. Not just the triggering incident but later events. As a result, she tells tales about Robbie, and her actions reverse Robbie's promising future. As we follow members of the family, and Robbie, into later years, we find that both Cecilia and Briony have gone into nursing, but are separated, have not seen each other in years. Robbie has gone into the military and is wounded. As a young student nurse, Briony steals time to write, her love from years ago. She later regrets not writing down the details of her days in nursing, but instead inventing stories that glide over the details. When we visit her again in old age, she is a famous writer and is celebrating her birthday with remaining family members, and she thinks back on these days.

Did she ever atone for her bad judgment as a thirteen-year-old? I leave it for you to find out. 

Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn

Dark places, inhabited by unstable, unpredictable characters.

The main character, Libby Day, is 31 at the opening, a bitter, angry young woman not given to trusting others. Or even having others in her life. She's always been a bit standoffish but events in her early life sent her down a road of manipulation and guardedness.

At the age of seven, in early 1985, Libby was in the house when she heard others being attacked. Although she did not see anything, she head enough to make her afraid. She managed to slip out of the house and hide in the nearby woody area. She heard her brother Ben calling for her a little later but remained hidden.

Her mother and two sisters were killed that night: her mother was knifed, then shot in the head, her sister Michelle was strangled in her bed, and her sister Debby was axed to death. Libby herself stayed out all night, made it to a gas station to call for help, and ultimately lost two toes and a finger to frostbite.

Ben was charged with the murder, and in part because of Libby's testimony, he was sent to prison for life. Libby grew up with her aunt, the subject of much attention from the press, and at age eighteen inherited a large amount of money from collections made for her. In her twenties she was persuaded to co-author a self-help book, a pop survival book, but she herself didn't believe much that was in it.

At age 31 she learns she is almost out of money. Getting a regular job just seems too much to her. She feels too tired and she doesn't get along well with others. So when the opportunity to earn a little money by talking to a group of "murder fans" comes along, she takes it. She meets this odd assortment in an old building, where they are split into interest groups - interest in various sensational murder cases. Her case draws interest because many people believe Ben to be innocent. They want to locate the real killer.

Eventually, although she is upset to find that everyone in the group believes Ben to be innocent and her to be complicit in his conviction, she comes up with a plan to get more money from them. She will talk to various key players in the episode, ask them questions that possibly only she can ask. And thus she sets off on a journey that takes on a life of its own.

The chapters alternate between 1985 and "now". Libby's chapters are in first-person, the others in third. Gradually we creep up on the actual night of the murders, inch by inch, through the experiences of Ben, Libby's mother Patty, and a few others, with breaks for Libby's current travels. The technique builds suspense to the point where I found it almost unbearable to go on. Or to not go on.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, by Nathan Englander

This collection of short stories is varied in style and point of view but all represent Englander’s perception of his Jewish faith. One story tells of his investigation into his own family history. Others approach the Jewish holocaust experience. Others let us into the lives of those who experience prejudice. And there are insights into just what it is to be a “good Jew”.

There is some wit or humor in each, though in some cases it is hidden. And not a little irony. As a whole, the collection informed and entertained me. My favorite is the title story. In this story, two Jewish couples get together for dinner. One couple is Hassidic and is visiting from Israel. They have taken new names and do not touch each other in public. The other is of a more relaxed faith. The two had known each other before the first turned Hassidic, and the narrator (the man of the second couple) refuses to think of them in their new names.

Discussion turns on a “non-game” that the wife of the second couple has played in her mind since childhood. If you were non-Jewish and your Jewish friends were threatened, would you risk your life by providing shelter for them?

I liked the idea of this “non-game” as well as the ultimate end of the story, and the insights into the couples it offers. Of course it gives me something to think about myself, about how I would react depending on who the persons are who need help, what they represent to me. Would I be able to ignore what they are to me?

The second story is a bit of a fable, about a woman who is part of one of two families who settled Israel many a year ago, and how through the years fate did not shine kindly on her. In this one we discover some of the basis of the belief in the God-given Jewish state, the unwritten promise. And we can make of it what we will.

“Camp Sundown” I found to be hilarious, if edgy hilarious. The camp has two parts: for elderly folks and for young folks. At times the twain do meet. The conflict that throws it off kilter happens when one elderly couple accuses an elderly man of having been a Nazi in WWII. The camp director, Josh, can’t believe it, as the old man seems to come alive only when playing bridge. Josh takes great pleasure in seeing the man’s eyes light up.

It’s a voyage of discovery, in a way, this collection. Entertaining and biting at the same time. Revealing and confessional. 

Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward

I found this book, at times, difficult to read. But ultimately highly rewarding.

The story features fifteen-year-old Esch, living with her family in New Orleans, who discovers that she is pregnant. Her father, who drinks too much, doesn't have a lot to offer the family, other than the land held by his family over generations. Her older brother Randall is hoping for a career in basketball, hoping that he will be chosen to go to basketball camp this summer. He is a solid family member, helping with the younger members as needed. Junior is the youngest and mostly hangs around hitching rides on others' backs or riding a bicycle without a seat. The other primary character is Skeeter, a year younger than Esch, who has a dog, China.

Skeet enters China in dog fights. This is where the novel became difficult for me. I worried about the dog, who is pregnant at the beginning of the book, and I worried about the place dog fighting has in the story. I found a different kind of view of these dogs than the one we often hear about, the Michael Vick type story. We find that Skeet loves China, perhaps more than any other creature. This love is not inconsistent with the fighting that she does: pitbulls are known for their desire to please, which may be even stronger than that of other dogs. This is the real reason they make good fighters.

Of course I found it difficult, still, to think of these dogs facing horrible injuries and of the owners having few resources for helping them with their wounds. Skeet does an admirable job in this regard. But I could imagine there would be many instances when his skills would not be up to the task.

We follow this family through the days leading up to the day Hurricane Katrina hits. By the time it does its worst we know them. We understand why they did not leave their home. We understand why it would be so difficult to understand what a category 5 hurricane, particularly this one, would be so different from the hurricanes they have experienced in the past.

I found the book enlightening both in the way that it describes how a very poor southern family sees the world and in the details of living through Katrina. In all the coverage I read and saw of that hurricane I never before heard it described as it is here.

Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny

Complexity! And lots of it!

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache (of the Surete) is pulled into a strange case while taking a leave of absence. An amateur archeologist, bent on discovering the grave site of the founder of Quebec, is found murdered in the basement of the Literary and Historical Library, an old and treasured library of books in English. The local police ask Gamache's informal assistance. Although he tries to stay out of it Gamache cannot help himself. His mind churns endlessly, searching for answers.

Meanwhile, he is haunted by memories of a recent confrontation with the kidnappers of a young subordinate. Bits of the final scene and the hours before it play in his mind like a tape, stopping and starting seemingly without his control. His broken memories gradually reveal to us the mistakes he made and the consequences of his actions, as well as those of others in command, until we finally get the full picture.

But that isn't all. A previous case has been kept alive in his mind as well. The partner of a convicted man remains unconvinced of the guilt of his friend. He writes a note to Gamache every day, asking "Why did he move the body?" When Gamache finally decides the case deserves another look, he sends Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir in to Quebec to investigate quietly, informally. Neither man is particularly convinced that they got the wrong guy, but Beauvoir is willing to do his best to find out.

These three cases run alternately through the book, to the setting of Quebec and particularly Old Quebec City. I did have to pay some attention to the description of this lovely city and to think about visiting myself some day. Or at least looking at it in Google Earth. For Ms. Penny seems determined to impart some of her own love of the city to the reader.

We learn, too, of the uneasy alliance between the French and English in Quebec, where the English are a decided minority. Although their fighting times are long over, memories seem to span generations.

An interesting introduction, for me, to Chief Inspector Gamache. I felt I got to know him a little in this long book, to know his heart, as well as that of his mentor and a few of his subordinates. The case of the dead archeologist turns out to take many different turns, while Gamache does a great deal of reading at the Lit and His and beyond. I am wondering how he behaves in more familiar stomping grounds now.

The Red Door, by Charles Todd

A different kind of mystery, at least to me. Shortly after the end of WWI, Inspector Ian Rutledge is assigned two investigations: into a man who has been attacking people at night, and into the disappearance of a prominent citizen. He sets his own pace, however, not always showing up where he is expected to be.

The disappearance is of a former missionary, Walter Teller, followed his hospitalization for a mysterious illness. He apparently came out of the paralysis that siezed him and took off out of the hospital, sight-unseen. Teller and his brothers were "assigned" their vocations by their overbearing father, and while they complied with his wishes none of them found their careers satisfying. Some people suspect that Walter was reacting to a call from his church to return to the field, a return he clearly did not want to make.

But there is a wrinkle in the whole family story. A woman is found dead in another community, and it turns out her last name is Teller also, and that she married someone named Peter Teller, the same name as Walter's brother. Coincidence? After all, Peter already has a wife. IS this a relative or is it bigamy or what? This is the question Rutledge has to answer.

We get to know Rutledge in part through his work on these cases. We learn that he is suffering from "shell shock"and hears the voice of a former subordinate in his head. He has bad memories of how this person died and is careful not to let anyone know that he is talking to him. I found his investigative method a little odd. Perhaps I expected more of a standard procedure to be followed. Nonetheless, he followed his own instincts and got there in the end. It's as much a story about Rutledge as it is about the people he investigates. I am always on the side of stories that dig into characters like this.

Freedom - by Jonathan Franzen

The main character of this large book appears to be Patty Berglund. Her husband Walter figures prominently as well, as do several other characters. But Patty is the only one who gets to write portions of her own "autobiography", oddly in the third person.

Patty was an athletic young girl who got knocked off the track to a basketball career when she injured her knee. She changed her dreams, married Walter, had children, did her best to become a super housewife. She knew all along that she was not as nice as others thought she was, but there was much she did not know about herself.

Patty was originally attracted to Walter's best friend, Richard Katz. Katz was a musician, womanizer, who initially did not respond to Patty's hints. Patty, however, found herself increasingly attracted to Walter anyway. Walter was almost an anti-Richard. Thin, geeky, an environmentalist. Something in him, though, responded to something in Patty, the ex-athlete who was not much aware of the environment.

We follow Patty and Walter through many years, dipping into the lives of their children and parents as well. Until comes a time when something has gone out of their marriage and Patty is dissatisfied in general. She has become less and less fun to be around for just about everyone. In spite of which Richard is drawn to her.

What is "freedom" in this context? The freedom to do as we please? The freedom to be away from others, to be alone? We watch as Richard continues his self-destructive life, as free as can be. We see Patty and Walter's son free himself from the nest, then later engage make some questionable choices in his career, free from interference. Patty and Walter live their own lives, essentially free of each other.

Some reviewers have called this a novel of its time, and as I think of it I can agree. In a way, it sums up life today in the US for many in the upper middle class in a way that reminds me of John Cheever. There is a lot of humor but underlying that is real warmth. Something you don't see so much in Cheever. 

Started Early, Took My Dog - by Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson's novels just delight me. I get great pleasure reading them. There are books that I like but these I love.

As in the others, this novel features a range of characters, some central and some peripheral. Jackson Brodie is again featured, former detective now supposedly retired. He falls for one more case: to find out who gave birth to a woman, Hope McMaster, a woman who now lives in New Zealand but who was born in England. Jackson figures it shouldn't be that hard, considering he's already traveling. Wandering, really, not settling anywhere. Might as well look into the case while he's on the road.

Another major character is Tracy Waterhouse, former police detective, present head of security for a retail store. Tracy is an amply-built woman who has made her job her life, for the most part. She is not married, has no children. When she spots a familiar woman on the street, pulling a small child, she can guess what will happen to that child when she gets home. She confronts the woman, a drug addict Tracy had arrested when she was with the police. On the spur of the moment she does something highly unusual and unexpected, which changes the course of her life.

When Jackson starts to hunt down birth and adoption records he runs into a blank wall. The presumed birth parents do not appear to exist. So who really did give birth to Hope?

There are other minor characters whose lives are intertwined with these and whose actions surprise and delight at times. It's like a full, satisfying meal that left me feeling just right. 

The Secret River, by Kate Grenville

Curious story. A kind of historical fiction that I can live with.

In 1806 William Thornhill, illiterate waterman, is convicted of theft and sentenced to hang. By paying for letters pleading his case to be sent to authorities, he manages to get his sentence commuted. He is sent to New South Wales (now Australia), along with his wife and small children, to live out a life sentence there.

The system in New South Wales allows Thornhill to work his way out of his life sentence. He is still "branded" as a former convict but is able to be free on the continent. Working on the water again, he discovers a piece of land that is fairly remote from any kind of civilization, and he covets that land. In time he moves his family there and they take on the task of creating a home and growing food, while he continues to run his boat.

Throughout this time he encounters "savages". There is a conflict, because they were there first, although they don't tend to have the same concept of property ownership. Thornhill and eventually his convict workers push against the land, forcing it into submission. He even makes a kind of peace with the savages, an uneasy one.

His wife Sal is strong and capable but not in love with this land. Thornhill is deeply in love with his wife and struggles with his two loves: the land and Sal. Eventually the savage situation comes to a head, an ugly and violent one. Throughout the book the tension is almost unbearable. In a way the ultimate "resolution" was almost a relief.

I read The Fatal Shore years ago. It impressed me with its details of convict life in early Australia and the settling of the continent at the expense of the aborigines. I remember life for the convicts being harder than indicated in this book, but there were different settlements. I have no reason to doubt the details in this book, written by an Australian writer and praised by fellow Australians. This fiction story fills out the story I read so long ago.

State of Wonder. by Ann Patchett

Ah, to have another novel with the same sense of wonder as Bel Canto! And even named "State of Wonder" to boot.

Dr. Marina Singh, employed by a pharmaceutical company, follows fellow scientist Anders Eckman into the Amazon at the behest of her boss (and lover), Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox had received a letter from a field scientist, Dr. Swenson, saying that Eckman, who had come to urge her to provide more frequent reports of her progress, had gotten a fever and died there. Swenson's work is part of an effort to develop a fertility drug for the pharmaceutical company.

There are complications. Not least of them is the fact that Swenson is notoriously difficult to find and to persuade. She wants to do things her way and not be hurried or harassed. She has a young couple set up in her "town" apartment whose main job is to divert those who are interested in meeting with Swenson.

Marina was chosen in large part because she was a student of Swenson's years ago. Supposedly she knows how to get through to her. Marina is not so sure but allows herself to be persuaded to go. The main reason she decides to go is that Eckman's wife wants to be absolutely certain that her husband is dead. She wants Marina to find proof. She prefers to believe that he is still alive until she is given that proof.

The first many days in the little town are spent trying to connect to Dr. Swenson. When she is finally successful she follows the good doctor into the Amazon, on her boat. There she is soon absorbed by Swenson's work and by meeting and learning about the natives.

Marina's character is caring and giving, and also very human. It is easy to relate to her and to want the most for her and even to want her affair with "Mr. Fox" to go well in spite of the large difference in their ages (Fox is many years older.) There is a warmth and kindness not only in Marina but in many of the other characters as well, even, to some extent, the unyielding Dr. Swenson. Is it this that attracted me to this book? Yes, but there is more. There is the way Marina faces her life in the Amazon, how she makes her decisions, what she actually does, that is just delightful, although that word may not seem appropriate at times. As in Bel Canto, there is unexpected pleasure throughout. What more could you want?

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. by Alice Munro

Short stories by a master. This collection features stories about man-woman relationships, as the title suggests. Some of the stories have unexpected and delightful endings. All of them are rich with detail and humanity. 

The Grandmothers. By Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing used to be one of my favorite writers. Perhaps she still is, with reservations. Over time I found some of her work to be heavily imbued with her political positions, and they were positions I did not especially like. Perhaps if I were on the same track I would have liked them more.

In this case, just one of the stories - The Reason For It - reeks of a kind of moral position. It is the story of a civilization from long ago, where education and work become of little interest to the primary leader and over time to the citizens. Little by little the fabric of the community becomes frayed and there is nobody to care, except "the old ones", including the last of "the twelve".

I can't disagree that a lack of intelligence and learning and a lack of appreciation for work is going to send a community down the tubes. The story does seem heavy-handed, though.

I rather liked the title story - the Grandmothers - in spite of the subject matter, which I admit is a little out there. There is a nice sense of the characters and an emotional charge that's hard to forget. I liked the other two stories as well, perhaps most especially A Love Child. In his youth, a WWII soldier is sent to India to keep the peace (not where he would prefer to be given that the actual war was elsewhere). He is a bit naive in the world of love, and when he falls for a young married Englishwoman there, he believes it is forever. Over the years he cannot get her or her son (clearly his son) out of his mind. Twice he travels to India to find his lover and his son, the second time with his understanding wife. With this kind of single-minded focus, though, can this man ever find peace?

Man Crazy. by Joyce Carol Oates

I have read many books by Joyce Carol Oates. She may be the first contemporary writer that I have accorded a special position in my mind. That's because she can create characters and situations that touch me, that I can recognize, identify. Characters whose lives sometimes make me cry. I don't usually leave a book behind if it was written by her.

This one differs from many of her others in that it is surprisingly short. The chapters are short and announced with full-page separators, making the number of words total even smaller than you'd think from hefting the book. She is capable of creating whole worlds full of intimate detail, thus drawing me in and captivating me. I can't say that about this one, although it does contain some elements of the others that have held my attention longer.

As most of her novels are, this one is set in upper New York state, and involves a young girl, then woman, whose origins are less than ideal. Oates herself grew up in a family of few means. Even if she did not herself experience the same kinds of pressures her characters do, she was undoubtedly close to those who did. The young woman in this story is naturally beautiful, similar to her striking mother, but she works hard to destroy that beauty.

Why? I think it all begins with her father. Something of a larger-than-life character, Ingrid Boone's father flits in and out of Ingrid's life, appearing out of the blue and then disappearing just as fast. A veteran of the Vietnam War, he learned how to pilot a plane and how to kill, and he uses both skills back in the "civilized" world. As a young girl Ingrid adores her father and can't understand why he keeps leaving her. Eventually it becomes clear and Ingrid's eyes are no longer clouded by her love. Yet there is always something there.

Ingrid's mother brings other men into their lives as a way of helping to stabilize their household. Usually she cares for them but we are not fooled into thinking she loves them unconditionally. Her presence represents a threat to married women in the different small towns where they live, and then move from. She has few women friends, many men.

As Ingrid grows and becomes more attractive, she becomes obsessed with friends. She takes to counting her friends in her mind, even as she suspects that none are true friends, that they talk behind her back. She finds popularity of different kinds, yet is always suspicious. An intelligent girl, she is nonetheless careless about her homework and thus is valued only by one teacher. This one sees the promise in Ingrid's poetry. When Ingrid wins a prize for one of her poems, she does not think the poem worth it, and when she is chosen to read it in front of the school the idea frightens her into committing a strange act. Poetry has not given her a way out.

Meanwhile, she digs at her face. Pimples, blackheads, mosquito bites, imagined or real. Her fingers cannot keep from seeking them out and digging, until her face is a moon surface. Yet it comes and goes: sometimes she looks like any other teen plagued with acne.

In this state she meets Enoch Skaggs, the leader of a strange cult of often-murderous followers who will do anything for him. Skaggs has three "wives" already when he takes on Ingrid as a lesser lover, to be loaned to other men from time to time. In spite of the dirty, unsanitary, often cruel conditions, Ingrid is drawn to Enoch like, as they say, a moth to the flame. She accepts his cruel treatment, the abuses and uses of others, until a time comes when she is thrown into the basement of the house where they all live, and left there with little food or other attention for many days, as punishment for some action of hers.

By then heavily into drugs, she has few resources. But she has some. Perhaps from memories of good times with her father, even perhaps memories of some small affection from her mother. Somehow, in spite of the hands she was dealt she has something inside her that wants to live. 

Blindness. by Jose Saramago

A remarkable book in several ways.

One by one, the citizens of an unknown country (or perhaps the world) are struck blind, with a "white blindness". The first to go blind is at a stoplight when it happens. A stranger takes him home in his car, where he waits for his wife. The following day he goes to see an opthamologist, who can find nothing physically wrong with his eyes. He calls a fellow eye doctor to consult, and promises to do further tests.

But the tests never take place. The doctor is struck blind. One by one, the persons in the waiting room go blind. The doctor notifies the board of health of what appears to be a kind of epidemic, and the government takes swift action. Those who are blind are rounded up, as well as those who have been exposed to the blind, and brought to a former mental hospital, quarantined. The two groups are separated, but whenever one of the exposed persons goes blind he or she is sent over to the blind wards.

All does not go well. Soldiers guard the hospital and threaten to shoot anyone who gets too close. They bring food three times a day, but refuse to provide any medical assistance for those who may need it. The hospital quickly descends to a kind of chaos, with only one person able to see it: the doctor's wife, who joined him in the van, saying she had just then gone blind. For some reason, she retains her sight, but does not tell others, except her husband, at first.

More people are dropped off at the hospital, the soldiers become more fearful, violence breaks out. Conditions are terrible and food deliveries sporadic. Worse, one of the wards gets hold of a gun and makes demands of the other wards in exchange for the little food that does come.

Eventually a small gang leaves the hospital, led by the doctor's wife. They encounter a sea of blindness everywhere. Nothing is working, everyone is blind. The country has completely fallen apart.

How the group manages is a gripping part of this story. In that sense I was on pins and needles.

Yet this is in no way a suspense story. It isn't even written in a normal way. The author writes run-on sentences, with little punctuation beyond commas. Sometimes it is difficult to determine who is speaking. Yet after a while this style seemed to fit the subject. The persons in the book are never identified by name. More than once they point out that names are not necessary for the blind (I never quite understood this). They are identified by certain attributes: "the doctor's wife", "the girl with the dark glasses", "the boy with the squint", and so on. If this book had been written in a standard way, I can imagine it would have been tedious and not as effective.

It's an allegory, which is why I did not fret too much at the obvious questions: why no medical supplies, why quarantine, why this or that. It isn't meant to be super-realistic (although references to bodily functions lend it gritty realism that is inescapable). These could be any people anywhere. Suddenly blind. In this story we see the best and the worst in human nature.

Interestingly, the author followed up with a book called "Seeing", that begins, at least, with the same core characters. hmmmm.... 

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski

I had no idea what this would be about when I got it. I thought it would be about a photographer in the 1800s who specialized in photographs of Native Americans. I don't know why I thought the name was Sawtelle- I think the name I really meant was Curtis. In any case, I thought this would be an account of this photographer, nonfiction.

Not so. It is a lengthy first novel, finely crafted, about a boy and his family in northern Wisconsin. I may have missed references to the time frame. My guess is it takes place in the 1950s or 1960s, maybe 1970s.

Edgar Sawtelle was born without a voice. He could hear but could not speak. Doctors could not determine the cause or a solution, so he learned sign language. Over time, he modified sign language to include his own idiosyncratic signs, which his mother and father, Trudy and Gar, learned easily.  The family business is the breeding of dogs - a special breed - "Sawtelle dogs". When Edgar's grandfather began breeding, he did not care about pedigree. Instead, when he saw a dog with characteristics that he found special, he would acquire the dog to breed with his stock. He did this over the years, hoping to impart special qualities to his dogs.

Another aspect that set the dogs apart from traditional breeders is that the Sawtelles realized that too many dogs are "ruined" by incapable owners in their first year. So they did an unusual thing: they did not sell puppies. Instead, they sold fully trained young dogs, trained to their exacting specifications.

Edgar loves the dogs and loves working with him. One special dog, Almondine, was there when Edgar was born and became almost his other half. They did everything together.

The small family is doing reasonably well when Gar's brother Claude shows up out of the blue. He had been in prison and Gar lets him stay for a while. The two have conflicts, however, and in time Claude is invited to leave. He moves into the small town nearby and does odd jobs.

Then Edgar and Trudy's lives are turned upside down. Edgar is there when his father has some kind of seizure and falls to the floor. Edgar is unable to use the telephone, although he tries. He even damages it in the process of trying to make himself heard. Gar dies before anyone can get to him.

Trudy and Edgar are then in a precarious position. It is difficult to manage the home and business between the two of them, and harder still when Trudy becomes very ill and has to stay in bed. During this time Claude offers some help, and gradually works his way into the family. Edgar, however, never accepts him. In fact, after a time he has a memory of seeing something that makes him wonder about Claude. It is here when the story takes on more than a hint of Hamlet. Complete with ghosts.

When there is another accident and the vet dies in their barn, Edgar takes off with three of the dogs. He manages to make his way through the northwoods without being spotted, existing on very little at first but eventually finding a way to feed both himself and the dogs. It is then that the small group has an emergency that results in their meeting Henry, a lone man who lives in a remote cabin, and a tentative friendship develops.

And finally, a dramatic finish worthy of Hamlet, very suspenseful in the last pages.

The story caught my attention but I never fully embraced Edgar. I know that part of my difficulty is with the breeding. I am very opposed to the breeding of dogs. Any breeder has to destroy animals that do not come out right. There are many missteps in deliberate genetic manipulations. It's not simple science. I am also disturbed by the belief that purebred dogs are superior to "mutts". I have never known this to be true in real life. But that's, of course, for another dissertation. The point here is that this large aspect of the story disturbed me. It was hard for me to ignore it, to separate my personal ethics from the story.

The training was another aspect that at times made me suspicious. The author consulted training books ad infinitem and I am sure that much of what he writes is what many trainers do. I just did not like all that I read. But I feel that this is an area of evolving practice, and here in 2012 I learn about types of training that probably did not exist at the time of this novel. What is clear is that the dogs matter to the family, that they are special, that they are loved.

I was enough attached to Edgar to want better for him, to want his suspicions to be verified to others. I wanted more than a tragic ending, frankly, after getting to know him and his dogs for so many pages.

Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson

I put off reading this because of the title. I had it on my list because it has received honors from several places. But the title made me think of...stealing horses....and I did not like the idea. I thought maybe it would be cowboyish, that horses would come in for some ill treatment.

 But the title doesn't mean what it says. It has more than one meaning in the book, but neither has to do with actual stealing of horses. Trond Sander, 67, has chosen to live the rest of his life alone, in a remote cabin in snowy Norway. He'd had his city life and family but now he just wants to be alone with his thoughts. And his dog. His thoughts bring back memories of his youth, in particular the most significant events of that youth, the time his father left him.

The young Trond, 15, is on vacation with his father for the summer. The two travel by train a long way to a cabin in the country, near the border with Sweden. His father had acquired the cabin long ago, initially a mystery to Trond because the family's finances had never been great. But he loves being there, working side by side with his father on the cabin, on other tasks, and just being there by himself. He becomes friends with a neighbor boy and the two do everything together, until one day Trond says something that triggers a response in the other boy, making him suddenly remote.

It isn't long before he discovers what caused his friend to go quiet. But although Trond had nothing to do with the tragedy, he has still lost a friend. It is only later that pieces start to come together, glued by what a friend of his father's tells him. The story is both simplified and made more complex. And now, in his later yet still fit years, Trond has chosen to live with nature. But it doesn't end there. He meets his nearest neighbor by chance and discovers that he actually knows him from those many years ago. In a way, the circle closes.

 Elegantly and simply written, a story of love and loss. Isn't that what life is?