Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library Readers Group

Monday, February 6, 2012

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Discussion leader: Edna Ritzenberg

Monday, March 12

Marina Singh, a medical researcher at a pharmaceutical company in Minnesota, is sent deep into the Amazon basin to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Anders Eckman, her lab partner. Her original mission was to bring back news of Dr. Annick Swenson, a charming but despotic professor who is on the company's payroll working on a miracle fertility drug. The pharmaceutical company wants Dr. Swenson and the new drug tracked down. The widow, Karen, does not believe her husband is dead. Only Marina can perform the mission impossible and bring back evidence for both parties.

Reserve your copy of State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Reviews from the Novelist database:

Publishers Weekly:

/* Starred Review */ Patchett (Bel Canto) is a master storyteller who has an entertaining habit of dropping ordinary people into extraordinary and exotic circumstances to see what they're made of. In this expansive page-turner, Marina Singh, a big pharma researcher, is sent by her married boss/lover to the deepest, darkest corner of the Amazon to investigate the death of her colleague, Anders Eckman, who had been dispatched to check on the progress of the incommunicado Dr. Annick Swenson, a rogue scientist on the cusp of developing a fertility drug that could rock the medical profession (and reap enormous profits). After arriving in Manaus, Marina travels into her own heart of darkness, finding Dr. Swenson's camp among the Lakashi, a gentle but enigmatic tribe whose women go on bearing children until the end of their lives. As Marina settles in, she goes native, losing everything she had held on to so dearly in her prescribed Midwestern life, shedding clothing, technology, old loves, and modern medicine in order to find herself. Patchett's fluid prose dissolves in the suspense of this out-there adventure, a juggernaut of a trip to the crossroads of science, ethics, and commerce that readers will hate to see end. (June) --Staff (Reviewed April 4, 2011) (Publishers Weekly, vol 258, issue 14, p)

Library Journal:

/* Starred Review */ In this superbly rendered novel, Patchett (Run ) takes the reader into the primitive world of the Amazon in Brazil. Pharmacologist Marina Singh from Minnesota works for the pharmaceutical company Vogel. Her colleague Anders Eckman dies in the jungle while trying to locate Dr. Annick Swenson, who has been working on a fertility drug for Vogel by studying the Lakashi people, whose women bear children into old age. Marina's journey to the Amazon to find the uncommunicative and intimidating Dr. Swenson and to discover the details of Anders's death is fraught with poisonous snakes and poisonous memories, malarial mosquitoes and sickening losses, but her time among the Lakashi tribe is transformative. VERDICT Not a sentimental view of a primitive people, Patchett's portrayal is as wonderful as it is frightening and foreign. Patchett exhibits an extraordinary ability to bring the horrors and the wonders of the Amazon jungle to life, and her singular characters are wonderfully drawn. Readers who enjoy exotic locales will especially be interested, but all will find this story powerful and captivating. [See Prepub Alert, 11/29/10.]— Joy Humphrey, Pepperdine Univ. Law Lib., Malibu, CA --Joy Humphrey (Reviewed April 1, 2011) (Library Journal, vol 136, issue 6, p84)

Kirkus:

/* Starred Review */ A pharmacologist travels into the Amazonian heart of darkness in this spellbinder from bestselling author Patchett (Run,? 2007, etc.).Marina Singh is dispatched from the Vogel pharmaceutical company to Brazil to find out what happened to her colleague Anders Eckman, whose death was announced in a curt letter from Annick Swenson. Anders had been sent to check on Dr. Swenson's top-secret research project among the Lakashi tribe, whose women continue to bear children into their 60s and 70s. If a fertility drug can be derived from whatever these women are ingesting, the potential rewards are so enormous that Swenson has been pursuing her work for years with scant oversight from Vogel; the company doesn't even know exactly where she is in the Amazon. Marina, who went into pharmacology after making a disastrous mistake as an obstetrics resident under Dr. Swenson's supervision, really doesn't want to see this intimidating woman again, but she feels an obligation to her friend Anders and his grief-stricken wife. So she goes to Manaus, seeking clues to Dr. Swenson's location in the jungle. By the time the doctor turns up unexpectedly, Patchett has skillfully crafted a portrait from Marina's memories and subordinates' comments that gives Swenson the dark eminence of Joseph Conrad's Mr. Kurtz. Engaged like Kurtz in godlike pursuits among the natives, Swenson is performing some highly unorthodox experiments, the ramifications of which have even more possibilities than Vogel imagines. Indeed, the multiple and highly dramatic developments that ensue once Marina gets to the Lakashi village might seem ridiculous, if Patchett had not created such credible characters and a dreamlike milieu in which anything seems possible. Nail-biting action scenes include a young boy's near-mortal crushing by a 15-foot anaconda, whose head Marina lops off with a machete; they're balanced by contemplative moments that give this gripping novel spiritual and metaphysical depth, right down to the final startling plot twist.Thrilling, disturbing and moving in equal measures—even better than Patchett's breakthrough Bel Canto (2001).(Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2011) Further reading:

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Amy and Isabelle: a novel by Elizabeth Strout

Discussion leader: Ellen Getreu
Monday, February 6, 1pm

A compelling first novel, Elizabeth Strout’s Amy and Isabelle tells the story of alienation from a distant mother and a parent’s rage at the discovery of her 16-year-old daughter’s sexual secrets. Gossip ridden Shirley Falls doesn’t help matters as Amy is discovered behind steamed up windows of a car with her math teacher. Amy discovers the fragility of happiness through the many other dramas that come to her little town. Witty and often profound, this first novel is a promise of more to come from a new, talented writer.

Reserve your copy of Amy and Isabelle on ALISCat

BookList:

/*Starred Review*/ In a New England mill town during the summer, probably, of 1969, a lot of things were going on while Amy and her mother, Isabelle, were circling around the harsh knot of their ties to each other and their terror of them. Isabelle's pinched existence as a single mother belies a spirit that only occasionally flares into desire or pleasure; Amy's shy, desperate adolescence finds furtive solace in the caresses of her math teacher. Each woman has a kind of alter ego; for Isabelle, it's Fat Bev, large and talky but kind, one of the women at the mill's office where Isabelle is a secretary. For Amy, it is Stacy, her foul-mouthed best friend, who is pregnant and angry. A cast of characters find and lose each other, cling to kindness and to the comfort of the daily routine, however uninspired. Strout traces all of this with a precise evocation of pure feeling or glowing truth: "memories danced inside her like a living thing." Sexuality smolders and explodes; women have female troubles; mysteries never get solved; but through it all, Strout's intense scrutiny of what makes us our mothers' daughters is both beautiful and unsettling. Marvelous writing makes the quietest gesture ring loudly: the crashing of a Belleek cream pitcher is the sound of hearts breaking and healing. ((Reviewed November 15, 1998)) -- GraceAnne A. DeCandido

Publishers Weekly:

Stories of young women who suffer the sexual advances of an authority figure (in this case, a high school math teacher) seem ubiquitous these days. But in Strout's gently powerful, richly satisfying debut, the damage shows less within the heart of the teenaged girl in question than in the wreckage of the previously tranquil relationship she had enjoyed with her mother. Amy Goodrow, 16, is the shy only child of Isabelle, a single mother. Isabelle's shame over the secret of her daughter's illegitimacy and her hunger for respectability keep her painfully isolated from the community of the New England mill town where she has made her home. Even before Amy's relations with her teacher become known, her beauty and her burgeoning sexuality arouse uncomfortable feelings of competitiveness in Isabelle, as well as dread at the prospect of her daughter's flight from Isabelle's carefully constructed nest. Amy, meanwhile, is in love; Strout lays out her teacher's charms as clearly as his caddishness, and her portrait of a young woman stumbling on the shattering power of lust--her own and others'--balances delicacy with frankness and breathtaking acuity. In the end, it is Isabelle who stays with the reader; devastated by her daughter's betrayal, riven with regrets over a life left largely unlived, she must somehow make amends to herself. This beautifully nuanced novel steers a course somewhere between the whimsy of Alice Hoffman and the compassionate insight of Anne Tyler and Sue Miller, and is sure to delight fans of all three. Agent, Lisa Bankoff at ICM. (Jan.)

Library Journal:

YA-Isabelle Goodrow thought her move to the small mill town of Shirley Falls would be temporary-just until she decided in which direction she wanted her life to head. Now her daughter, Amy, has fallen in love with her high school math teacher, and he takes advantage of the teen's infatuation. When the relationship is discovered, Isabelle is furious with her daughter but also a little jealous that Amy has found sexual fulfillment while she has not. As mother and daughter try to rebuild the trust and closeness they once shared, the private secrets of many citizens of Shirley Falls are revealed. YAs will relate to the complexities of mother/daughter relationships and to having a crush on a teacher. This is a beautifully written novel with characters so real that readers will miss them at the book's resolute ending. Their interactions are riveting.-Katherine Fitch, Rachel Carson Middle School, Herndon, VA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus:

/* Starred Review */ A lyrical, closely observant first novel, charting the complex, resilient relationship of a mother and daughter. Isabel Goodrow had settled in the mill town of Shirley Falls when her daughter Amy was an infant, reluctantly admitting to those who asked that both her husband and her parents were dead. Amy has grown up knowing little about her father and, thanks to her closeness to Isabel, also knowing little about the rough give-and-take of life. Now, Amy's innocence is under assault from various quarters, and her mother finds herself losing touch with the daughter who has been the focus of her existence. Amy, at 16, has a poised, delicate beauty, and finds herself—at first with alarm, then with a barely suppressed excitement—responding to the flirtations of a new teacher. Part of the novel's power derives from Strout's ability to set Amy and Isabel's painful struggles within the larger context of a small town. Some elements of the life there seem timeless: the steady flow of gossip, the invisible but nonetheless rigid social hierarchies, the ancient disruptions of life (illness, adultery, violence). New elements, however, signal a darker time: UFO's have been sighted, and a young girl is missing and may have been abducted. Strout nicely interweaves these elements within the record of Amy and Isabelle's increasingly charged relationship. She catches, with an admirable restraint, and particularity, Amy's emergent sense of self, the wild succession of emotions in adolescence, and Amy's stunning discovery of sex. She also renders a wonderfully nuanced portrait of Isabelle, a bright, often angry woman who has only imperfectly replaced passion with stoicism. Matters come to a head when Amy and her teacher are discovered in compromising circumstances, and when members of her father's family suddenly get in touch. In less sure hands, all of this would seem merely melodramatic. But Strout demonstrates exceptional poise, and an uncommon ability to render complex emotions with clarity and a sympathetic intelligence, evoking comparisons with the work of Alice Munro and Anne Tyler. (Author tour) (Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 1999)

Further information:

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Room by Emma Donoghue

Date: December 19, 2011

Time: 1 p.m.

Discussion leader: Candace Plotsker-Herman

A 5-year-old narrates a story about his life growing up in a single room where his mother aims to protect him from the man who has held her prisoner for seven years since she was a teenager.

Reserve your copy of Room on ALISWeb

View Readers' Packet prepared by the staff of the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library

Book Reviews from the NoveList database

BookList:: Five-year-old Jack has never known anything of life beyond Room, the 11-square-foot space he shares with his mother. Jack has learned to read, count, and process an imaginary world Outside through television. At night he sleeps in a wardrobe in case Old Nick comes to visit, bringing supplies and frightening intrusion. Worried about his curiosity and her own desperation, his mother reveals to Jack that the Outside is real and that they must escape. She tells him that she was kidnapped by Old Nick and has been held secluded in Room for seven years. Jack is brave enough to carry out their plan, and the two of them are compelled to adjust to life Outside, with its bright lights and noise and people touching. What is reconnection for his mother is discovery for Jack, who is soon overwhelmed by the changes in his mother and a world coming at him fast and furiously. Room is beautifully written as a first-person narrative from Jack’s perspective, and within it, Donoghue has constructed a quiet, private, and menacing world that slowly unbends with a mother and son’s love and determination. -- Bush, Vanessa (Reviewed 09-15-2010) (Booklist, vol 107, number 2, p29)
Publishers Weekly:: /* Starred Review */ At the start of Donoghue's powerful new novel, narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday. They live in a tiny, 11-foot-square soundproofed cell in a converted shed in the kidnapper's yard. The sociopath, whom Jack has dubbed Old Nick, visits at night, grudgingly doling out food and supplies. Seen entirely through Jack's eyes and childlike perceptions, the developments in this novel--there are enough plot twists to provide a dramatic arc of breathtaking suspense--are astonishing. Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful, creating exercise games, makeshift toys, and reading and math lessons to fill their days. And while Donoghue (Slammerkin) brilliantly portrays the psyche of a child raised in captivity, the story's intensity cranks up dramatically when, halfway through the novel and after a nail-biting escape attempt, Jack is introduced to the outside world. While there have been several true-life stories of women and children held captive, little has been written about the pain of re-entry, and Donoghue's bravado in investigating that potentially terrifying transformation grants the novel a frightening resonance that will keep readers rapt. (Sept.) --Staff (Reviewed July 12, 2010) (Publishers Weekly, vol 257, issue 27, p)
Library Journal:: /* Starred Review */ Five-year-old Jack and his Ma enjoy their long days together, playing games, watching TV, and reading favorite stories. Through Jack's narration, it slowly becomes apparent that their pleasant days are shrouded by a horrifying secret. Seven years ago, his 19-year-old Ma was abducted and has since been held captive—in one small room. To her abductor she is nothing more than a sex slave, with Jack as a result, yet she finds the courage to raise her child with constant love under these most abhorrent circumstances. He is a bright child—bright enough, in fact, to help his mother successfully carry out a plan of escape. Once they get to the outside world, the sense of relief is short lived, as Jack is suddenly faced with an entirely new worldview (with things he never imagined, like other people, buildings, and even family) while his mother attempts to deal with her own psychological trauma. VERDICT Gripping, riveting, and close to the bone, this story grabs you and doesn't let go. Donoghue (The Sealed Letter ) skillfully builds a suspenseful narrative evoking fear and hate and hope—but most of all, the triumph of a mother's ferocious love. Highly recommended for readers of popular fiction. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/10.]— Susanne Wells, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty. --Susanne Wells (Reviewed August 1, 2010) (Library Journal, vol 135, issue 13, p67)
Kirkus:: /* Starred Review */ Talented, versatile Donoghue (The Sealed Letter, 2008, etc.) relates a searing tale of survival and recovery, in the voice of a five-year-old boy.Jack has never known a life beyond Room. His Ma gave birth to him on Rug; the stains are still there. At night, he has to stay in Wardrobe when Old Nick comes to visit. Still, he and Ma have a comfortable routine, with daily activities like Phys Ed and Laundry. Jack knows how to read and do math, but has no idea the images he sees on the television represent a real world. We gradually learn that Ma (we never know her name) was abducted and imprisoned in a backyard shed when she was 19; her captor brings them food and other necessities, but he's capricious. An ugly incident after Jack attracts Old Nick's unwelcome attention renews Ma's determination to liberate herself and her son; the book's first half climaxes with a nail-biting escape. Donoghue brilliantly shows mother and son grappling with very different issues as they adjust to freedom. "In Room I was safe and Outside is the scary," Jack thinks, unnerved by new things like showers, grass and window shades. He clings to the familiar objects rescued from Room (their abuser has been found), while Ma flinches at these physical reminders of her captivity. Desperate to return to normalcy, she has to grapple with a son who has never known normalcy and isn't sure he likes it. In the story's most heartbreaking moments, it seems that Ma may be unable to live with the choices she made to protect Jack. But his narration reveals that she's nurtured a smart, perceptive and willful boy—odd, for sure, but resilient, and surely Ma can find that resilience in herself. A haunting final scene doesn't promise quick cures, but shows Jack and Ma putting the past behind them.Wrenching, as befits the grim subject matter, but also tender, touching and at times unexpectedly funny.(Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2010)

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

Monday, November 21 1 p.m.

Discussion leader: Edna Ritzenberg

The novel is set against the backdrop of Rome where the topsy-turvy private lives of the reporters, editors, and executives of an international English-language newspaper struggle to keep the paper, and themselves, afloat. As the era of print news gives way to the Internet age, the future of its employees is unclear. Stumbling upon the rich history of the paper, they learn the surprising truth about its founder's intention.

Reserve your copy of The Imperfectionists on ALISCat

Readers' Packet prepared by the H-WPL Staff

Reviews from the NoveList database:

Publishers Weekly:: /* Starred Review */ In his zinger of a debut, Rachman deftly applies his experience as foreign correspondent and editor to chart the goings-on at a scrappy English-language newspaper in Rome. Chapters read like exquisite short stories, turning out the intersecting lives of the men and women who produce the paper—and one woman who reads it religiously, if belatedly. In the opening chapter, aging, dissolute Paris correspondent Lloyd Burko pressures his estranged son to leak information from the French Foreign Ministry, and in the process unearths startling family fare that won't sell a single edition. Obit writer Arthur Gopal, whose “overarching goal at the paper is indolence,” encounters personal tragedy and, with it, unexpected career ambition. Late in the book, as the paper buckles, recently laid-off copyeditor Dave Belling seduces the CFO who fired him. Throughout, the founding publisher's progeny stagger under a heritage they don't understand. As the ragtag staff faces down the implications of the paper's tilt into oblivion, there are more than enough sublime moments, unexpected turns and sheer inky wretchedness to warrant putting this on the shelf next to other great newspaper novels. (Apr.) --Staff (Reviewed November 30, 2009) (Publishers Weekly, vol 256, issue 48, p25)
Library Journal:: /* Starred Review */ At the Caffe Greco in Rome, circa 1953, Atlanta financier Cyrus Ott makes an offer that can't be refused. He will establish an international English-language newspaper to be run in Italy by Betty, the woman he once loved, and her husband, Leo, a hack writer for a Chicago daily. Within the building's walls an entire history of the print news business plays out over a 50-year span as writers, editors, and accountants grow in professional stature, squander their reputations, and fade into obsolescence. A former editor for the Paris branch of the International Herald Tribune , Rachman makes outstanding use of his credentials to place readers in the center of a newsroom so palpable one can hear the typewriters clacking and feel the uncomfortable undercurrent of professional jealousy among the writers jockeying for position. Navigating the minefields of relationships, parenthood, loneliness, and failure, each realistically imperfect character, developed through intimate, candid detail, becomes a story unto himself (or herself). VERDICT With its evocative Italian setting and its timely handling of an industry in flux, this polished, sophisticated debut can be relished in one sitting or read piecemeal as a satisfying series of vignettes linked by historical references to the Ott family empire. Buy it, read it, talk it up. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/09.]—Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Myers, FL --Sally Bissell (Reviewed January 15, 2010) (Library Journal, vol 135, issue 1, p92)
Kirkus:: An English-language newspaper headquartered in Rome brings together a strongly imagined cast of characters in journalist Rachman's first novel. Lloyd Burko used to be a stringer living in Paris. He's still in Paris, but now he's just an impoverished former journalist who pretends to have a computer and whose latest wife has moved in with the guy across the hall. Arthur Gopal is languishing as an obituary writer until a death in his own life enables his advancement by erasing his humanity. Hardy Benjamin is a business writer, savvy and knowledgeable about corporate finance but utterly hapless in romance. What they have in common is the never-named paper, whose history is doled out in brief chapters beginning in 1953. The novel's rich representation of expatriate existence surely benefits from the author's experiences as an AP correspondent in Rome and an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris; his thoroughly unglamorous depictions of newsroom cubicles and editorial offices will resonate with anyone who's had a corporate job. But, while the newspaper is its unifying factor, the narrative's heart beats with the people who work there. Rachman's ability to create a diverse group of fully formed individuals is remarkable. Characters range from a kid just out of college who learns the hard way that he doesn't want to be a reporter, to an Italian diplomat's widow. Some are instantly sympathetic, others hard to like. Each is vivid and compelling in his or her own way. The individual stories work well independently, even better as the author skillfully weaves them together. Cameo appearances become significant when informed by everything the reader already knows about a character who flits in and out of another's story. The novel isn't perfect. The interpolated chapters about the paper's past aren't very interesting; the final entry ends with a ghastly shock; and the postscript is too cute. Nevertheless, it's a very strong debut. Funny, humane and artful. (Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2009)

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Swim Back to Me by Ann Packer

Monday, October 17
1 p.m.

Discussion leader: Ellen Getreu

Packer's sterling collection of stories is framed by two novellas: "Walk for Mankind" about teenager Richard Appleby and his bittersweet relationship with Sasha Horowitz, a rebellious, risk-taking 14-year-old, who has a clandestine affair with a drug dealer; and, "Things Said or Done" set three decades later, when Sasha, now 51 and divorced, has become her father's caretaker.

Reserve your copy of Swim Back to Me on ALIScat

Book Reviews from the Novelist database:

BookList:: For readers of short fiction, these three short stories and three novellas will be delightful. Packer, author of the novel The Dive from Clausen’s Pier (2002), proves as adept with shorter forms as she is with novels. As expected from a winner of the Alex Award, the young characters that appear in this collection, though few, are well rounded and memorable. But even more memorable are the adults: the Yale graduate who can’t hold a job and is descending the teaching ladder, the apprehensive husband whose pregnant wife lost her first child to SIDS, and the second-time-around wife whose life is disrupted when her new husband disappears. Many of these people live in California, and readers will be almost blinded by the white sunlight and will feel the verdant shade of the forest in Packer’s powerfully described settings. These resonant, memorable stories evoke difficulties in family life and will appeal to those who enjoy such disparate writers as Lee Smith, A. S. Byatt, and ZZ Packer. Delicious! -- Loughran, Ellen (Reviewed 03-01-2011) (Booklist, vol 107, number 13, p28)
Publishers Weekly:: Packer's sterling collection is framed by two novellas. In the opener, "Walk for Mankind," teenager Richard Appleby describes his bittersweet relationship with Sasha Horowitz, a rebellious, risk-taking 14-year-old, who has a clandestine affair with a drug dealer. Sasha's behavior is a reaction to her controlling and hyper-charming father, an English professor who's spiraling downward professionally and personally. "Things Said or Done" is set three decades later, when Sasha, now 51 and divorced, has become Richard's [sic] caretaker, forced to deal with his self-destructive, narcissistic personality while recognizing the ways in which they are alike. Packer's talents are evident in these psychologically astute novellas, and also in the stories in between. "Molten" conveys a mother's grief over her adolescent son's senseless death; "Dwell Time" features a protagonist's happy second marriage—until her husband disappears. In the affecting "Her First Born," a new father finally understands his wife's attachment to the memory of her first child, who died. The only misstep is "Jump," whose lead character, a rich man's son who fakes an underprivileged background to work in a photocopy shop, lacks credibility. Packer (The Dive from Clausen's Pier) presents complex human relationships with unsentimental compassion. (Apr.) --Staff (Reviewed December 13, 2010) (Publishers Weekly, vol 257, issue 49, p)
Library Journal:: This new collection from Packer (The Dive from Clausen's Pier ) is framed by two stunning first-person narratives that introduce readers to two academic families briefly converging in and around Stanford in the 1970s. In each case, the narrator comes from the second generation. The opening story, "Walk for Mankind," captures the viewpoint of the teenage son of an established Stanford history professor, while the closing piece, "Things Said and Done," gives voice to the adventurous daughter of a visiting instructor taking a step down from Yale for a one-year appointment in Palo Alto. In each instance, Packer pulls the strings in such a way that the itinerant father, doomed by his difficult personality to a life perpetually lived off the tenure track, becomes the focal point. Unfortunately, or perhaps inevitably, the other four stories in the volume, though well crafted and engaging, have the feel of problems solved rather than lives fully lived. VERDICT Whereas some great short story writers stumble with the sprawl of a novel, Packer, who occasionally works on a smaller scale, appears to be a novelist at heart. Still, these California stories are expansive and open-ended. It's hard to let them go. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/10.]— Sue Russell, Bryn Mawr, PA --Sue Russell (Reviewed January 1, 2011) (Library Journal, vol 136, issue 1, p92)
Kirkus:: /* Starred Review */ A novella and five stories limn with acuity and empathy the intricate negotiations and painful losses of family life.To Richard, the 13-year-old narrator of "Walk for Mankind," his new friend Sasha's parents, Dan and Joanie Horowitz, seem happier and much more fun than his morose father and his well-intentioned, much-resented? mother, who left her husband and son to move out to Oakland because she "needed to do something useful with my life." But Sasha's escapades with sex and drugs over the course of the 1972-3 school year reveal fissures in the Horowitzes' cheerfully bohemian fa??ade even before Dan loses his job at Stanford—and before the collection's final story, "Things Said or Done," revisits Sasha decades later. There, on the eve of her brother's wedding, she copes with impossible Dan, the novella's charming scapegrace now revealed as a terminal narcissist, and quietly seethes over the disengagement of Joanie, who long ago checked out of the drama. Families are fragile in these gently unsparing stories; the death of a child drives both "Molten," a scarifying snapshot of raw grief, and "Her Firstborn," the tender story of a young father-to-be haunted by the knowledge that his wife's previous marriage was destroyed by the crib death of her 5-month-old son. It's characteristic of Packer's subtle artistry that "Her Firstborn" climaxes with a sentence whose emotional force derives from the insertion of a comma. Her prose is deceptively simple, her insights always complex. "Dwell Time," another portrait of a second marriage, shows a woman realizing that her new husband has not shed all his demons with his divorce and deciding that she will try to live with them. Acknowledging the hurt and sorrow our loved ones bring us, the author never forgets to trace the joys of intimacy as well.Touching, tender and true—short fiction nearly as rich and satisfying as Packer's two fine novels (Songs Without Words, 2007, etc.).(Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2010)

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

Discussion leader: Jane Isaacson Shapiro

Monday, September 19
1 p.m.

Author Paula McLain brings Hadley Richardson Hemingway out from the formidable shadow cast by her famous husband. The Hemingway marriage began with a whirlwind courtship and several fast and furious years of the expatriate lifestyle in 1920s Paris. Hadley and Ernest traveled with the literary giants of the time including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Though eventually a woman scorned, Hadley is able to acknowledge without rancor or bitterness that "Hem had helped me to see what I really was and what I could do."

Reserve your copy of The Paris Wife on ALISCat.

View the Hewlett Readers' Packet, prepared by our staff

Book Reviews from the Novelist Database:

Publishers Weekly:: McLain (A Ticket to Ride) offers a vivid addition to the complex-woman-behind-the-legendary-man genre, bringing Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley Richardson, to life. Meeting through mutual friends in Chicago, Hadley is intrigued by the brash "beautiful boy," and after a brief courtship and small wedding, Hadley and Ernest take off for Paris, "the place to be," according to Sherwood Anderson. McLain ably portrays the cultural icons of the 1920s—Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, and Ezra and Dorothy Pound—and the impact they have on the then unknown Hemingway, casting Hadley as a rock of Gibraltar for a troubled man whose brilliance and talent were charged and compromised by his astounding capacity for alcohol and women. Hadley, meanwhile, makes a convincing transformation from an overprotected child to a game and brave young woman who puts up with impoverished living conditions and shattering loneliness to prop up her husband's career. The historical figure cameos sometimes come across as gimmicky, but the heart of the story—Ernest and Hadley's relationship—gets an honest reckoning, most notably the waves of elation and despair that pull them apart. (Mar.) --Staff (Reviewed December 6, 2010) (Publishers Weekly, vol 257, issue 48, p)
Library Journal:: /* Starred Review */ A young Miss Hadley Richardson, with high spirits and lovely auburn hair, meets a handsome aspiring writer named Ernest Hemingway. They marry and make their way to Paris, living in a squalid apartment and spending time in café society with fellow expatriates Gertrude Stein, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Sylvia Beach. Though the post-World War I years offer a great deal of creative freedom for these idle Americans, self-indulgence is the code of the day. Will Hadley choose to step aside as literary success—and another woman—come to take their place in Ernest's life? In her second novel (following A Ticket To Ride ), McLain creates a compelling, spellbinding portrait of a marriage. Hemingway is a magnetic figure whose charm is tempered by his dark, self-destructive tendencies. Hadley is strong and smart, but she questions herself at every turn. Women of all ages and situations will sympathize as they follow this seemingly charmed union to its inevitable demise. VERDICT Colorful details of the expat life in Jazz Age Paris, combined with the evocative story of the Hemingways' romance, result in a compelling story that will undoubtedly establish McLain as a writer of substance. Highly recommended for all readers of popular fiction. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/10.]— Susanne Wells, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty., OH --Susanne Wells (Reviewed November 15, 2010) (Library Journal, vol 135, issue 19, p60)
Kirkus:: /* Starred Review */ An imaginative, elegantly written look inside the marriage of Ernest Hemingway and Hadley Richardson.Hadley, literary history tells us, was Hemingway's rescuing angel; eight years older than he, she was the woman who lifted him from his postwar depression as a wounded veteran and helped restore his battered confidence. He, of course, was smitten; she was too, charmed by "his grin, elastic and devastating." "To keep you from thinking," McLain's (A Ticket to Ride, 2008, etc.) narrator puts it, "there was liquor, an ocean's worth at least, all the usual vices and plenty of rope to hang yourself with. But some of us, a very few in the end, bet on marriage against the odds." Marriage it was, and from there McLain's story becomes one of battling those long odds. After a sojourn in Toronto, the two head off to Paris—whence the title—at novelist Sherwood Anderson's suggestion, not just to take advantage of the favorable exchange rate but also to plunge headlong into the most active literary scene on the planet. By McLain's account, true to history, Hadley at times verges a touch on the naive but, for the most part, is tough and sophisticated; she holds her own with Ezra Pound ("He's very noisy...but he has some fine ideas") and Gertrude Stein, hangs tough with the bulls in Pamplona, and keeps up with Hemingway when he was young and vigorous and had not yet settled into his boozy "Papa" persona. McLain's Hemingway is outwardly a touch less obdurate than even Hemingway's own depiction of himself, especially at the climactic moment in which his manuscripts go missing, in which McLain puts a slight twist on history; clearly it marks the beginning of the end, whereupon the tale takes on the contour of a Jill Clayburgh vehicle. The closing pages, in particular, are both evocative and moving, taking in the sweep of events over a third of a century and providing a resolution that, if not neat, is wholly in character.A pleasure to read—and a pleasure to see Hadley Richardson presented in a sympathetic light.(Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2011)

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Just Kids by Patti Smith

Tuesday, August 16, 11 a.m.
Discussion leader: Edna Ritzenberg

Reserve your copy of Just Kids on AlisCat.org

Download the Hewlett Readers' packet for Just Kids

It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation. Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. With innocence and enthusiasm, they traversed city and set up camp at the infamous Hotel Chelsea. fueled by their dreams and drives, they would prod and provide for one another during their early hungry years. Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy.