The Patron Saint of Liars

Just finished another Ann Patchett book, The Patron Saint of Liars. One more (Taft) to go in my campaign to read all of Patchett’s work! This one’s from 1992, and it has Patchett’s signature style: great storytelling that draws you in, richly-drawn characters, and beautifully-crafted sentences.

The book begins in the early 20^th century with a prologue in which a farmer discovers on his property a spring which appears to have healing powers, healing his animals and ultimately & miraculously saving the life of his young daughter. This draws crowds and a wealthy couple who build a fancy hotel at the site, which for many years is a popular destination. When the Great Depression hits, the spring dries up, as do customers for the hotel. The couple donates the hotel to the Catholic Church which uses it first as a convent and then as a home for unwed mothers.

Fast forward to the mid-1960s where we meet Rose, a nineteen year old Catholic girl lighting holy candles and praying for her sign from God to tell her what to do with her life. She meets a guy she thinks she’s meant to marry, marries him, and soon discovers her mistake. A few years later she finds herself driving away from life as she knows it. She’s leaving, she’s pregnant, and she’s heading for St. Elizabeth’s Home for Unwed Mothers, the above-mentioned former spa and hotel.

When Rose arrives at St. Elizabeth’s, the author carefully describes the somewhat shabby grandeur of the place. I picture a huge white-washed cedar-shingled Victorian, a quiet oasis where guests relax and read and ponder life. Sounds like a great place to be—I could use a retreat like that!

The book is in three sections, each narrated by a different character (if I tell you who the three characters are I’ll totally give away the plot!). Rose is the thread throughout, Rose the perhaps-failed Catholic who is the title’s patron saint of liars, who covers her tracks as she goes through life, sharing as little as possible about herself with those with whom she shares her life.

Rose, as presented through her own voice and then from the point of view of two other characters, is an interesting character. I liked her, while at the same time wanting to smack her on the side of the head and say “come on, give a little – a word, a hug – something!” Rose makes so many choices that seem so wrong. In fact, now that I think of it, I’m pretty mystified by many/most of Rose’s choices. This would be a great book club book, because it bears talking over. I need someone to discuss Rose with!Anyone out there read it?

My New Book Friend

I made a new friend yesterday.

A few months ago I joined a website called Paper Back Swap (www.paperbackswap.com). Someone in my classes had mentioned she gets lots of books from this source. Once you establish an account, you can post any books you have that you want to trade (and that are in good condition). If you post ten right away, you get two extra credits. After that, you get one credit for each book you post that someone wants. If someone requests it, the site sends you a PDF of a mailing label, and you mail the book and pay for the postage. Once the recipient posts that it’s received, you get your credit. And you can request any book you want that they have listed as available. Shipper always pays for the shipping and you send it Media Mail.

The first two books I got this way were a disappointment. The first one was rather shabbier than I would have liked, and the second, while in fine condition, clearly came from the home of a smoker. But then the fun began.

It’s easy to send an e-mail to the sender or recipient through the site, and everyone seems very polite. They always write a note to say “thank you” when they get the book! When someone requested a copy of a book I had posted by Native American writer Paula Gunn Allen, I sent her an e-mail asking what she knew of Allen’s other books, and mentioning that I had worked with Allen as her editor and later as her literary agent. This woman, Zoe, wrote back to tell me about a new non-profit she’s launching, Talking Leaves, which “gathers and donates books by and respectfully about Native Americans to Native communities and the institutions/organizations that serve them (e.g., schools, libraries, clinics, community centers) and active military and veterans." Isn’t that cool?

Yesterday I requested a copy of The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett. I’m determined to read all of Patchett’s books and I have only two left! The sender e-mailed me back to say she’d be sure to ship the book by Saturday. I wrote her back and asked if there was any way she could send it sooner, as I’m teaching Patchett’s new book, State of Wonder, in my Hot Off the Press class next Tuesday and I’d like to read it before then. She wrote back to say that she’d send it right away but that she hoped I was a fast reader because the book is 330 pages and by the way Bel Canto was her favorite Patchett book. And I wrote back to say that yes, I’m a very fast reader, and Bel Canto is also my favorite but what does she think of the ending because I was always troubled by the way Patchett wrapped the book up.

I’m still waiting for the reply from my new book friend Dona. This is fun!

Moving Backwards... (or perhaps Baxter-wards)

Finally finished First Light by Charles Baxter. (Yes, loyal reader, you are correct in noting that I began reading this book months ago. Life, and other books, intervened. But I persevered!)

Hmmm… shall I give away the concept? Yes, I think I shall. The book begins when Dorsey, her husband Simon, and their deaf son Noah are on a visit to Hugh, Dorsey’s brother, in the small-town Michigan house in which they both grew up. Hugh now lives in the house with his wife Laurie, who seems not too fond of him, and their children. It’s July 4^th. They buy fireworks. They think and talk a bit about their dead parents, and about the quirks of Dorsey’s husband, which Hugh finds annoying and Dorsey finds endearing. Dorsey wonders why Hugh’s wife doesn’t want him to kiss her; Hugh doesn’t want to talk about it. We learn that Hugh works in a Ford dealership and that Dorsey is a brilliant physicist.

In the next chapter, Dorsey, Simon, and Noah are on their way to Hugh’s house for the July 4^th holiday. In the chapter after that, Hugh is at work at the Buick dealership, anticipating Dorsey’s visit, which is still a few weeks off. And so we move backwards through the life of the siblings, and the book ends at the moment of Dorsey’s birth, when Hugh is brought to the hospital by his father to meet his new baby sister for the first time.

It is brilliantly done, this backwards movement in time (in a book whose main character is a physicist obsessed with the movements of astral bodies in space and time). And well before before the film Memento! (The book was published in 1987; the movie came out in 2000). As we go along, we learn details big and small: why Hugh’s wife is cold & why Dorsey’s husband is odd; why Noah is deaf & why and where he bought his uncle a sea shell; when and why the parents died & what life was like for the siblings when they were young. Each new detail adds meaning to something we read earlier but did not, when first reading it, realize was significant (the motel key on Hugh’s keychain, for example, or the photograph on Dorsey’s wall).

I waited along the way for stunning revelations, skeletons in the closet. I don’t think they were there. It was just the gentle and gradual unpeeling of lives back to the point where they began, where a relationship began, the innocent point where all that was to come was unknown and unanticipated – except by us, the readers, who, by the time we get to the end (which is really the beginning) know all that is to come.

This is Baxter’s first novel, which followed two published short story collections. His strength as a short story writer is evident in this book, where each separate chapter could stand solidly on its own, so packed with nuance and detail is it. Baxter has since published several more books, including novels and books about writing. This past January he published Gryphon, a collection of short stories, some of which are new.
http://www.amazon.com/Gryphon-Selected-Stories-Charles-Baxter/dp/0307379213/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306165405&sr=1-1

See the rave front page New York Times Book Review by Joyce Carol Oates http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/books/review/Oates-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=charles%20baxter&st=cse

I think Baxter is a writer to add to your reading list!

More for Moms (and a belated Happy Mother’s Day to you all!)

Two more books discussed in my Mom Salon class over the last month…

Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood by Michael Lewis

http://www.amazon.com/Home-Game-Accidental-Guide-Fatherhood/dp/B004R96SAQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1305562525&sr=1-1

Lewis is well known as the author of such bestsellers as Liar’s Poker and The Blind Side. This book comes from a collection of essays he did on slate.com. Lewis’s wife, Tabitha Soren, suggested he write these pieces, saying something along the lines of: If you’re going to be such a slacker Dad, you might as well make some money on it and do some writing about your experiences! (Ok, I’m totally making that up, but the columns were her idea. And I’m glad to hear they were ok with her, because he does expose quite a lot of their private family life.)

Lewis is an excellent writer, and he crafts a beautiful essay, so it’s a pleasure to read this book, for starters, because it’s so well-written. And even though it’s a book about fathering, I chose it for my Mom Salon so we moms could have a chance to see things from another point of view. (One of the students said her husband saw what she was reading and said “Why are you reading that book?!”)

Lewis begins by telling us that he didn’t have much by way of a role model for fathering, and that his own father, though beloved by his children, was rather absent from family life, particularly when things needed to get done (as they always do when children are involved). So throughout the book, he presents himself as kind of muddling along, taking instructions from his wife – a sort of second string parent who is expected to muck up rather than succeed (sports metaphors are rampant in the this book, and they are apt). He says he is one of these new modern dads who must be forgiven their incompetence.

And so as he begins to father after the birth of their first child, Lewis is not really certain what he is meant to be doing, or what he should be feeling, and he notes:

“. . . this persistent and disturbing gap between what I was meant to feel and what I actually felt. Expected to feel overcome with joy. . . I often felt puzzled. Expected to feel outraged, I often felt secretly pleased; expected to feel worried, I often felt indifferent.” (p. 14)

He notes that:

“. . . all around me fathers were pretending to do one thing, and feel one way, when in fact they were doing and feeling all sorts of things, and then engaging afterward in what amounted to an extended cover-up.” (p. 14)

Lewis’s pieces take us through a multitude of fathering experiences as he and his wife parent three children. He describes an entertaining visit to a French Gymboree class, an attempt to “Ferberize” his child, the jealousy of the older child when a younger sibling appears, his own trip to the hospital after an ice skating mishap, and more. While I don’t always agree with his parenting choices, his pieces are mostly entertaining—many laugh-out-loud—and often insightful. To the degree that I suppose I will be able to understand what it feels like to be a father, I have learned something from this book.

Next book was The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels.

http://www.amazon.com/Mommy-Myth-Idealization-Motherhood-Undermined/dp/0743260465/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305562478&sr=1-1

This book, published in 2004, describes something the authors call “the new momism,” which is the idea of a perfect mother that surfaced in post-feminist America, and how the media contributed to creating this unattainable image.

The book is smart, packed with supporting information from a variety of sources, and includes smart and interesting analyses of popular culture. The tone is amusing and often, as one Mom said, “snarky,” so it makes for entertaining reading (although the pop cult references are a bit dated by now).

Some of what the book is saying also overlaps in some ways with Ayelet Waldman’s Bad Mother, the idea being that there is this image “out there” of what a proper mother ought to be, and if you don’t match up, well then, you’re not a good mother (you may even be, as Waldman says, a bad mother). Douglas & Michaels describe how they think this new image developed, a model that is in some ways a throwback to the non-working 50s housewife, and why it is so frustrating. According to this image, mothers are supposed to love what they do, all of it, every minute of the day. They take great joy in their roles, and they need no other reward or occupation. If so if you don’t feel this way, well then surely something is wrong with you, so bring on the guilt!

This is, of course, a great oversimplification of their message, but we found it rang true, and that we all struggle with figuring out how to take on the Mom role in a way that works for us and for our families, even if we don’t think we’re matching up to some societal ideal.

The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

Hello blog readers! Sorry I haven’t posted for a while. I actually went a few weeks without reading a book, which is odd for me. But I’m back!

Today’s question is, when a book has been critically acclaimed from coast to coast, need I add my voice to the clamor? When even Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times, that famed eviscerator of authors, has sung a book’s praises, what more is there for me to say here? That I disagree? I tried that recently with West of Here, when for a long time I was the only one standing on my lonely little platform here at Blogspot saying “wait a minute, didn’t anyone notice…?” What’s that advertising slogan that used to say “it’s lonely at the top?” Well, it’s lonely at the bottom too, out here by myself in cyberspace.

The book to which I am referring that has critics goggling is The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht, who is twenty-five years old (damn her!) and the youngest writer chosen for last year’s New Yorker “20 under 40” group of fiction writers (http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/20-under-40/writers-q-and-a). The story is set in the war-torn Balkans, weaving folklore and myth into a central contemporary tale of a young doctor searching for the mysterious reason for her grandfather’s death. (And yes, tigers are very popular these days, but I am talking about the tiger’s wife here, not the tiger mom!)

This week I discussed this book with my “Hot Off the Press” book discussion class. Overall, we’re not actually that far off what the critics are saying. We really do think the author is phenomenally talented, and many of us admired the writer’s writing style and storytelling abilities. But prominent raves notwithstanding, we did have some problems to point out in this book. The author weaves back and forth a lot in time, and some of us, myself included, found this confusing at points. And I usually enjoy this technique. The complicated plot of The Time Traveler’s Wife thrilled me and I loved putting the pieces in chronological order. I especially enjoyed putting pieces together in Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Good Squad, which is a terrific book. But in The Tiger’s Wife I often found the switches in time disorienting.

I think the author has a wonderful ability to create quick and colorful character sketches in the folklore/historical sections of the book, as when she gave us the stories of Luka the butcher, Darisa the bear, and the Apothecary. Given this ability, I wondered why her central character, Natalia, the doctor who searches for the missing pieces of her grandfather’s story while she tends to war orphans, is so flat. Natalia is admirable as a character and her observations are insightful, but as for personality and emotion, my readers and I found her lacking. And while we do get some sense of Natalia’s grandmother, Natalia’s mother, although she is referred to numerous times, is not developed at all as a character.

One brilliant aspect of this book is how it is a war story that never mentions war. By giving us war’s shadow, the life that happens or has been obliterated in the unseen spaces war leaves behind, we are left with a clear sense of the toll war has taken on this part of the world.

I expect more beautiful work from this author in the future, and expect her to grow in skill. In this instance, however, while she has turned out a significant work of fiction, I wish she had gone back to the drawing board one more time. I believe I read that she said she worked on the novel for three years, and in the life of a twenty-five year-old, that’s a lot of years, but a bit more reworking might have addressed the book’s flaws. David Wroblewski worked on The Story of Edgar Sawtelle for fifteen years. The difference in literary polish and command shows.

And so, to get back to my initial question, which was whether the [literary] world needs yet another critic? Well, hopefully I’ve added some thoughtful and even useful comments to the mix. If I can say something interesting or unique, raise a good point, even make you smile, sure, why not?