Serena: a Novel, by Ron Rash
Discussion Date: Tuesday, July 23 at 11:00 PM
Discussion Leader: Edna Ritzenberg
 Traveling to the mountains of 1929 North Carolina to forge a timber business with her new husband, Serena Pemberton champions her mastery of harsh natural and working conditions but turns murderous when she learns she cannot bear children.

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 REVIEWS

BookList:

/*Starred Review*/ Rash's short stories and previous novels are all set in Appalachia and enriched by the region's unique history. This is his most gripping work yet, a sweeping saga of unfathomable greed and revenge that grabs the reader's attention from the first page. The Depression-era tale is centered on newly married George and Serena Pemberton, owners of a logging company in the mountains of North Carolina. Their operation is aimed strictly at maximizing profits, with no regard for either the safety of their workers or the future of the land they're pillaging. The tragic result of environmental disregard looms large in all of Rash's fiction, and the Pembertons are his worst villains to date in that respect—leaving behind a "wasteland of stumps and slash and creeks awash with dead trout." Side plots involve the drastic means, including murder, the couple employs to avoid losing land to environmental groups and Serena's unflagging pursuit of the young girl who bore George's son shortly after he and Serena were married. With a setting fraught with danger, and a character maniacal in her march toward domination and riches, Serena is a novel not soon forgotten. -- Donovan, Deborah (Reviewed 09-01-2008) (Booklist, vol 105, number 1, p48)

Publishers Weekly:

Depression-era lumber baron George Pemberton and his callous new wife, Serena, are venality incarnate in Rash's gothic fourth novel (after The World Made Straight ), set, like the other three, in Appalachia. George—who coolly kills the furious father of Rachel Harmon, the teenage girl pregnant with George's bastard son—is an imperious entrepreneur laying waste to North Carolina timberland without regard for the well-being of his workers. His evil pales beside that of Serena, however. Rash's depictions of lumber camp camaraderie (despite deadly working conditions) are a welcome respite from Serena's unrelenting thirst for blood and wealth; a subplot about government efforts to buy back swaths of privately owned land to establish national parks injects real history into this implacably grim tale of greed and corruption gone wild—and of eventual, well-deserved revenge. (Oct.) --Staff (Reviewed May 19, 2008) (Publishers Weekly, vol 255, issue 20, p30)

Library Journal:

This is a violent story about ambition, privilege, and ruthlessness played out in an Appalachian timber camp in North Carolina during the Depression. The novel opens with the camp's wealthy owner, George Pemberton, returning from Boston with his new bride, Serena. He is met on a train platform by his business partners—and by camp kitchen worker Rachel, who is carrying his child (and meeting the train with her angry father). When George leaves the platform, Rachel's father is dead, and Rachel herself has been spurned and humiliated. The novel is richly detailed, and many of the characters are skillfully drawn by Rash (The World Made Straight ). Unfortunately, though, the Pembertons—who are rapacious and monstrously self-absorbed—often seem one-dimensional and implausible. Serena is particularly hard to believe at times. Still, parts of the novel are superb, particularly the final section when Serena turns violently against Rachel and her son. The Pembertons create a wasteland in these beautiful mountains, and Rash also renders that loss powerfully. Though flawed, this manages to be an engaging read. Recommended for libraries with large fiction collections.—Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT --Patrick Sullivan (Reviewed June 1, 2008) (Library Journal, vol 133, issue 10, p93)

Kirkus:

/* Starred Review */ The latest from Rash (The World Made Straight, 2006, etc.) is a fine melodrama about a wealthy homicidal couple, latter-day Macbeths, in Depression-era Appalachia.The book is an artful expansion of "Pemberton's Bride," the brilliant standout in Rash's story collection Chemistry (2007). The opening is unforgettable. Pemberton and his bride Serena return from Boston to Waynesville, in the North Carolina mountains. Waiting at the train station is Abe Harmon and his pregnant daughter Rachel. Harmon has vowed to kill her seducer Pemberton, but the latter knifes the drunk old man to death as Serena watches approvingly. Pemberton has no fear of the consequences, for he owns the lumber company on which Waynesville depends and has the local officials on his payroll, all except his nemesis, sheriff McDowell. He has a worthy mate in Serena, daughter of a Colorado lumber baron; her entire family died in the 1918 influenza epidemic. No sentimentalist, she burnt down the family home before moving East. Eventually she too will bloody her hands, killing an innocent and strengthening her bond with Pemberton. The mercilessly exploited workers soon realize she is Pemberton's full partner; his former partner is killed in a hunting "accident." When she saves the life of a foreman, Galloway (felling trees is dangerous work), he becomes her lifelong slave, and hit man; the incompetent doctor who causes Serena to miscarry is just one of Galloway's victims. But the novel is not just a trail of blood. Rash also focuses on the quiet dignity of Rachel (now a single parent raising Jacob, Pemberton's son) and shows an unforced reverence for nature, hideously despoiled by Pemberton's relentless clear-cutting. The lumber king's one soft spot is his feeling for Jacob, but that proves too much for Serena. The last hundred pages are thrilling, as mother and son take flight; McDowell supports them heroically; and Pemberton…well, see for yourself. Should be a breakthrough for this masterful storyteller. (Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2008)

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The World Without You by Joshua Henkin

Discussion Date: Monday June 17th at 1:00 PM

Discussion Leader: Candace Plotsker-Herman

Gathering at their Berkshires summer home to mourn the loss of youngest sibling and journalist adventurer Leo, who was killed while on assignment in Iraq, the Frankels endure shared grief and private challenges that shape their views about family.

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BookList:

A year after journalist Leo Frankel’s death in Iraq, his family descends on their vacation home in the Berkshires for a memorial. His parents, still undone by their grief, announce that they’re separating after 40 years of marriage, while his three sisters deal with their own issues. Clarissa, once a promising cellist, is struggling with infertility. Lily, a passionate lawyer who relishes arguments, is angry at everybody. Noelle, a wild child turned Orthodox Jew living in Israel with her husband and four children, feels like an outsider. And then there’s Thisbe, Leo’s young widow and the mother of their three-year-old son, who still feels at odds with her mother-in-law and is afraid to indicate, in any way, that she is moving on with her life. Over the Fourth of July weekend, the family members struggle to get through the memorial ceremony and to understand what being part of a family really means. Henkin (Matrimony, 2007) writes low-key, character-driven fiction, and his latest will appeal to lovers of such family stories as Zoe Heller’s The Believers (2009) and Eleanor Brown’s Weird Sisters (2011). -- Wilkinson, Joanne (Reviewed 05-15-2012) (Booklist, vol 108, number 18, p19)

Publishers Weekly:

/* Starred Review */ Like a more bittersweet version of Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You or a less chilly variation on Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, Henkin (Matrimony) tenderly explores family dynamics in this novel about the ties that bind, and even lacerate. One year after the death of their kidnapped journalist son, Leo, in Iraq, David and Marilyn Frankel, non-practicing Jews, call their entire mishpocha to their summer home in the Berkshires to attend his memorial service: Clarissa and her husband, Nathaniel, who, after years of putting off parenthood, are having a difficult time getting pregnant; Lily, a D.C. lawyer who shows up without Malcolm, her restaurateur boyfriend of 10 years; Noelle, an Orthodox Jew who arrives from Jerusalem with her husband, Amram, and their four children; and Thisbe, Leo’s widow, a grad student who flies in from Berkeley with their three-year-old son, Calder. Over the course of the Fourth of July holiday, David and Marilyn will make a stunning announcement; Thisbe will reveal a secret; a game of Celebrity will cause Amram to drive off into the night; Leo will be remembered; and someone will pee on the carpet. The author has created an empathetic cast of characters that the reader will love spending time with, even as they behave like fools and hurt one another. An intelligently written novel that works as a summer read and for any other time of the year. Agent: Lisa Bankoff, ICM. (June) --Staff (Reviewed April 23, 2012) (Publishers Weekly, vol 259, issue 17, p)

Library Journal:

The Frankel family has gathered at their summer home in the Berkshires to attend a memorial service for their youngest sibling, Leo, who was killed while reporting in Iraq. Parents Marilyn and David are struggling with their 40-year marriage while three daughters wrestle with infertility, unemployment, urban ennui, and assorted relationship tensions. Leo's widow, Thisbe, and young son Calder fly in from California with news of their own. For the few days surrounding July 4, 2005, the family members struggle with their shared pasts, uncertain futures, and each other. VERDICT Henkin (director of Brooklyn College's MFA program in fiction writing, Matrimony; Swimming Across the Hudson ) might gain some new readers with this honest and well-paced look at an American family. Point this one out to contemporary fiction fans of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, or the works of Rick Moody, Richard Russo, Philip Roth, and John Updike.— Jenn B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll. Northeast --Jenn B. Stidham (Reviewed June 15, 2012) (Library Journal, vol 137, issue 11, p70) 

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The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Discussion Date: Monday, May 20, 2013

Discussion Leader: Ellen Getreu

When his mother, a tribal enrollment specialist living on a reservation in North Dakota, slips into an abyss of depression after being brutally attacked, fourteen- year-old  Joe Coutts sets out with his three friends to find the person that destroyed his family. "Written with undeniable urgency, and illuminating the harsh realities of contemporary life in a community where Ojibwe and white live uneasily together, The Round House is a brilliant and entertaining novel, a masterpiece of literary fiction.  Winner of the National Book Award.

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BookList:

/* Starred Review */ In her intensely involving fourteenth novel, Erdrich writes with brio in the voice of a man reliving the fateful summer of his thirteenth year. The son of a tribal judge, Bazil, and a tribal enrollment specialist, Geraldine, Joe Coutts is an attentively loved and lucky boy—until his mother is brutally beaten and raped. Erdrich’s profound intimacy with her characters electrifies this stunning and devastating tale of hate crimes and vengeance, her latest immersion in the Ojibwe and white community she has been writing about for more than two decades. As Joe and his father try to help Geraldine heal and figure out who attacked her and why, Erdrich dissects the harsh realities of an imperiled yet vital culture and unjust laws reaching back to a tragedy in her earlier novel The Plague of Doves (2008). But it is Joe’s awakening to the complexities and traumas of adult life that makes this such a beautifully warm and wise novel.Through Joe’s hilarious and unnerving encounters with his ex-stripper aunt, bawdy grandmothers, and a marine turned Catholic priest; Joe’s dangerous escapades with his loyal friends; and the spellbinding stories told by his grandfather, Mooshum, a favorite recurring character, Erdrich covers a vast spectrum of history, cruel loss, and bracing realizations. A preeminent tale in an essential American saga. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Best-selling Erdrich’s exceptional new novel will be actively promoted with a national tour and a coordinated blog tour as well as extensive print, radio, and social-media appearances. -- Seaman, Donna (Reviewed 08-01-2012) (Booklist, vol 108, number 22, p25)

Publishers Weekly:

/* Starred Review */ Erdrich, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, sets her newest (after Shadow Tag) in 1988 in an Ojibwe community in North Dakota; the story pulses with urgency as she probes the moral and legal ramifications of a terrible act of violence. When tribal enrollment expert Geraldine Coutts is viciously attacked, her ordeal is made even more devastating by the legal ambiguities surrounding the location and perpetrator of the assault—did the attack occur on tribal, federal, or state land? Is the aggressor white or Indian? As Geraldine becomes enveloped by depression, her husband, Bazil (the tribal judge), and their 13-year-old son, Joe, try desperately to identify her assailant and bring him to justice. The teen quickly grows frustrated with the slow pace of the law, so Joe and three friends take matters into their own hands. But revenge exacts a tragic price, and Joe is jarringly ushered into an adult realm of anguished guilt and ineffable sadness. Through Joe’s narration, which is by turns raunchy and emotionally immediate, Erdrich perceptively chronicles the attack’s disastrous effect on the family’s domestic life, their community, and Joe’s own premature introduction to a violent world. Agent: Andrew Wiley. (Oct.) --Staff (Reviewed July 16, 2012) (Publishers Weekly, vol 259, issue 29, p)

Library Journal:

/* Starred Review */ Set on an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota in 1988, Erdrich's 14th novel focuses on 13-year-old Joseph. After his mother is brutally raped yet refuses to speak about the experience, Joe must not only cope with her slow physical and mental recovery but also confront his own feelings of anger and helplessness. Questions of jurisdiction and treaty law complicate matters. Doubting that justice will be served, Joe enlists his friends to help investigate the crime. VERDICT Erdrich skillfully makes Joe's coming-of-age both universal and specific. Like many a teenage boy, he sneaks beer with his buddies, watches Star Trek: The Next Generation , and obsesses about sex. But the story is also ripe with detail about reservation life, and with her rich cast of characters, from Joe's alcoholic and sometimes violent uncle Whitey and his former-stripper girlfriend Sonja, to the ex-marine priest Father Travis and the gleefully lewd Grandma Thunder, Erdrich provides flavor, humor, and depth. Joe's relationship with his father, Bazil, a judge, has echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird , as Bazil explains to his son why he continues to seek justice despite roadblocks to prosecuting non-Indians. Recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 4/23/12.]— Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis --Christine DeZelar-Tiedman (Reviewed August 1, 2012) (Library Journal, vol 137, issue 13, p83)

Kirkus:

Erdrich returns to the North Dakota Ojibwe community she introduced in The Plague of Doves (2008)--akin but at a remove from the community she created in the continuum of books from Love Medicine to The Red Convertible--in this story about the aftermath of a rape. Over a decade has passed. Geraldine and Judge Bazil Coutts, who figured prominently in the earlier book, are spending a peaceful Sunday afternoon at home. While Bazil naps, Geraldine, who manages tribal enrollment, gets a phone call. A little later she tells her 13-year-old son, Joe, she needs to pick up a file in her office and drives away. When she returns hours later, the family's idyllic life and Joe's childhood innocence are shattered. She has been attacked and raped before escaping from a man who clearly intended to kill her. She is deeply traumatized and unwilling to identify the assailant, but Bazil and Joe go through Bazil's case files, looking for suspects, men with a grudge against Bazil, who adjudicates cases under Native American jurisdiction, most of them trivial. Joe watches his parents in crisis and resolves to avenge the crime against his mother. But it is summer, so he also hangs out with his friends, especially charismatic, emotionally precocious Cappy. The novel, told through the eyes of a grown Joe looking back at himself as a boy, combines a coming-of-age story (think Stand By Me) with a crime and vengeance story while exploring Erdrich's trademark themes: the struggle of Native Americans to maintain their identity; the legacy of the troubled, unequal relationship between Native Americans and European Americans, a relationship full of hatred but also mutual dependence; the role of the Catholic Church within a Native American community that has not entirely given up its own beliefs or spirituality. Favorite Erdrich characters like Nanapush and Father Damien make cameo appearances. This second novel in a planned trilogy lacks the breadth and richness of Erdrich at her best, but middling Erdrich is still pretty great.(Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2012) 

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  Long Island Reads 2013

SUTTON

 by J.R. Moehringer

Discussion Date: Monday, April 22 at 1:00 PM

Discussion Leader: Candace Plotsker-Herman 

A fast-paced, fictional account of William Francis Sutton, America's most successful bank robber and the first criminal to appear on the FBI's most-wanted list. Blending extensive research with vivid imagination, Pulitzer Prize-winner J.R. Moehringer (author of The Tender Bar) brings Willie Sutton back to life. 

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BookList:

/* Starred Review */ When Willie Sutton, the Babe Ruth of bank robbers, was released from Attica on Christmas Eve 1969, he had stolen more than $2 million from banks, engineered three dazzling prison breaks, and become a folk hero to thousands of cash-strapped Americans who had weathered three serious recessions while the banks rode high. Sutton was 68 and in failing health but agreed to do an interview. This is Moehringer’s fictional take on that real-life event as Sutton, gruffly addressing the reporter and photographer as “kids,” is driven all over New York City, visiting the places that shaped him for good or ill. As Sutton is consumed by his memories, Moehringer (The Tender Bar, 2005) relays, in electrifying prose, the highs and lows of Sutton’s dramatic life, from the thrill of the heist and his great, doomed love affair to the brutal interrogations by cops and the hell of years spent in solitary confinement. Readers will be riveted by this colorful portrayal of a life in crime spurred by a hatred for banks, but Moehringer, in his first novel, isn’t content to stop there. He takes it several layers deeper, probing the psyche of an enigmatic man who had a genius for thievery and an even greater capacity for self-delusion. -- Wilkinson, Joanne (Reviewed 08-01-2012) (Booklist, vol 108, number 22, p36)

Publishers Weekly:

Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize winner for feature writing in 2000, brings infamous bank robber Willie “The Actor” Sutton to life in his inventive debut novel (after the memoir The Tender Bar). True to history, the ailing 68-year-old Sutton was released from prison on Christmas Eve 1969 and spent the following day with a reporter. Though the journalist’s actual take on that day revealed little, Moehringer uses the excursion as an entrée into Sutton’s dramatic life. The ex-con revisits old haunts, recalls successful and failed heists, and reminisces about the woman he sought always to impress. Alternating between Christmas Day and Sutton’s earlier years, Moehringer stays in the present tense, making the action immediate, but the shifts in time easy to miss. Nevertheless, he paints a mesmerizing portrait of a remarkable man: a talented thief, an aspiring novelist, and a student of the classics (“Dante, Plato, Shakespeare, Freud”) even in prison, where he spent half his life. The author’s eye for detail and sense of place make every stop on Sutton’s internal and external journeys resonate—from smoking a Chesterfield to Sutton’s first sight of the moon as a free man, every scene is saturated with life. Agent: Mort Janklow, Janklow & Nesbit. (Sept.) --Staff (Reviewed July 30, 2012) (Publishers Weekly, vol 259, issue 31, p)

Library Journal:

They called bank robber Willie Sutton (1901–1980) "The Actor" because he committed many of his robberies in costume. Although he spent half of his adult life in prison, Sutton had one of the longest, most successful criminal careers ever, with crimes spanning 40 years and netting $2 million in unrecovered funds. The public loved him; Willie robbed banks, not people, and banks weren't all that popular during the Depression. He was always good copy, articulate and colorful. Writing about Willie's life has its risks: Sutton penned two autobiographies but changed his story so often that he ended up making it more confusing than it was to start. In his fiction debut, Moehringer (The Tender Bar ) brings his considerable skills as a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter to the task and for the most part succeeds. The novel loses momentum toward the end, but this reflects more the murkiness of Sutton's private history than it does Moehringer's talent as an author. VERDICT History lovers will enjoy this fictional biography of a modern icon of crime. [See Prepub Alert, 6/15/12.]— David Keymer, Modesto, CA --David Keymer (Reviewed August 1, 2012) (Library Journal, vol 137, issue 13, p87)

Kirkus:

/* Starred Review */ A "non-fiction novel" that takes us far beyond Willie Sutton's clever one-liners about banks and deeply into his life. Born in Irish Town in Brooklyn, Willie never quite fit into his own family. His father was a taciturn blacksmith at a time when automobiles were starting to become the rage, and Willie's brothers had an unaccountable hatred for their younger sibling. Willie was smart and sensitive but came of age during some parlous economic times and considered banks and bankers the symptom of life as a rigged game. Moehringer also depicts Willie as a hopeless romantic who falls deeply in love with Bess Endner, daughter of a rich shipyard owner. After the brief exhilaration of a robbery at the shipyard, abetted by Bess, Willie and his cronies are caught and sentenced to probation, and thus begins a life on the outside of social respectability. By the 1930s, Willie is the most famous bank robber in the country, known in part for his gentility and the way in which he approaches his craft. He's never loud or violent but instead devoted to artful disguises and making clean and quiet getaways (hence his nickname, the Actor). Not everything works smoothly, of course, for he's incarcerated for many years, but he ironically becomes something of a folk hero for breaking out of several prisons. His final release, at Christmas in 1969, following a 17-year stretch in the slammer, has him retracing his past in the company of a reporter and photographer. Moehringer cleverly presents the antiphonal voices of Willie in the present (i.e., at the time of his release) and Willie in the past to give a rich accounting of his life, including his love for the works of Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Freud, Jung and Joyce. Whatever else you can say about Willie, in prison he got an excellent education. A captivating and absorbing read.(Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2012)

 

 

 

Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr
By Richard Rhodes
Discussion Date:  Monday, March 11, 2013 at 1:00 PM
Discussion Leader: Jane Isaacson Shapiro 
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes delivers a remarkable story of science history: how a ravishing film star and an avant-garde composer invented spread-spectrum radio, the technology that made wireless phones, GPS systems, and many other devices possible.

Beginning at a Hollywood dinner table, Hedy's Folly tells a wild story of innovation that culminates in U.S. patent number 2,292,387 for a "secret communication system." Along the way Rhodes weaves together Hollywood’s golden era, the history of Vienna, 1920s Paris, weapons design, music, a tutorial on patent law and a brief treatise on transmission technology. Narrated with the rigor and charisma we've come to expect of Rhodes, it is a remarkable narrative adventure about spread-spectrum radio's genesis and unlikely amateur inventors collaborating to change the world. (randomhouse.com)

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On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Monday, February 11, 2013

At 1:00 PM

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Discussion Leader:  Ellen Getreu

On their wedding day, a young couple--Florence, daughter of an Oxford academic and a successful businessman, and Edward, an earnest history student with little experience of women--looks forward to the future while worrying about their upcoming wedding night.

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Booklist Reviews

/*Starred Review*/ In previous novels, McEwan has measured the effect of the cataclysmic moment on personal lives. And he has never shied away from full-tilt exploration of the tensions inherent in human sexuality. These two predilections merge, almost gently, in his new novella, which, despite its short length, is anything but small in its creative concept and the consequent poignancy it arouses in the reader. This achingly beautiful narrative, which seamlessly flows between the points of view of the two primary characters, peers behind closed doors, but never lasciviously, at a young married couple on their honeymoon night. The time is the brink of the 1960s, but the young couple's virginity, and their stiltedness in general and certainly with each other (McEwan makes certain to take several glances backward to fill in their separate biographical and psychological profiles), seems a remnant of Victorian times rather than anticipating the free and easy sexuality of the decade to come. The cataclysmic moment here is simply a case of premature ejaculation during the couple's first lovemaking; and from that incident, which under normal circumstances, with normally accepting and loving individuals, would have been a minor glitch in their marital history, immediately arises a deep misunderstanding that proves disastrous to the marriage. Conventional in construction and realistic in its representation of addled psychology, the novel is ingenious for its limited but deeply resonant focus. ((Reviewed March 15, 2007)) Copyright 2007 Booklist Reviews.

BookPage Reviews

McEwan explores the damage done by things left unsaidIn his last novel, Saturday, Booker Prize winner Ian McEwan confined his narrative to a single day, managing to convey a life—a lifetime even—within those limited boundaries. Always a master of concision, McEwan has pared down the parameters of story even further in his brief but incisive new work, On Chesil Beach. The crucial action in On Chesil Beach takes place within just a few hours on the wedding night of a young English couple in 1962. The year is key, for though chronologically part of the decade, 1962 was, culturally, eons away from the "Swinging Sixties" that would usher in new freedoms and laissez-faire attitudes about sex just a few years later. Newlyweds Edward Mayhew and Florence Ponting, not long out of university, are both still virgins on their wedding night, and the overlapping anticipation and anxiety of what they will encounter in the marriage bed provide the drama of the story. They live, we are told, in "a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible." So, as they eat their supper in the room of a Georgian inn on the Dorset coast, just a few hours after their marriage, Edward and Florence each think, but never speak, about what they hope will or will not soon transpire in the adjoining bedroom. For Edward, it promises to be the fulfillment of his long endured abstinence. He loves Florence passionately and without equal, and believes he has been considerate, even noble, in not forcing the physical element of their relationship before their marriage vows. Florence loves Edward with equal ardor, but she plainly fears whatever she is going to encounter, and the information that she has obtained from "a modern, forward-looking handbook that was supposed to be helpful to young brides, with its cheery tones and exclamation marks and numbered illustrations" has only heightened her fears. Their thoughts, and the narrative, flow freely in time, as each recalls the events that have brought them to this point. Edward, the son of the headmaster of a rural primary school south of Oxford, grew up in a loving home clouded by the presence of a brain-damaged mother. Florence's upper-middle-class North Oxford family was far more concerned with creature comforts and keeping up appearances. Florence has broken from convention by studying music. An outstanding violinist, her energies are focused on honing the abilities of her string quartet and advancing its success. Edward, with a first in history from London University, is somewhat adrift career-wise, until his future father-in-law offers him an entirely unsuitable job with the family firm. He can always write history books on the side, he reasons, with youthful optimism. Both Florence and Edward are intelligent, agreeable people with progressive ideas (they meet at a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament gathering), ideally suited for each other in temperament and interests, which makes it all the more painful as we watch their future evaporate because of misunderstandings and unspoken sentiments. McEwan has a knack for getting beneath the skin of lovers, and because we, as readers, are privy to inner thoughts that Edward and Florence never convey—we come to know each better than they can ever know each other. It is this frustrating disconnect that gives On Chesil Beach its cumulative, albeit quiet, power. Really no more than a novella, the book nonetheless has the wisdom and depth that characterize all of McEwan's work. As always, his prose is elegant and restrained, yet knowing in its subtle details. With efficiency, he captures the mood of Britain at a transitional time, with empire and influence waning and a new generation attempting to find its place. McEwan accomplishes much in a deceptively small story that purports to be simply about a few hours on a wedding night in a second-rate hotel overlooking the English Channel. Like Howard's End or The End of the Affair, On Chesil Beach is a haunting book about missed opportunities, misapprehensions and the irreparable damage done by things left unsaid. Robert Weibezahl, author of the novel The Wicked and the Dead, is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Copyright 2007 BookPage Reviews.

Library Journal Reviews

Shy musician Florence and her fianc‚, earnest Edward, look forward to married life, but a momentary misunderstanding on their wedding night changes everything. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal Reviews

It is 1962, and college graduates Florence and Edward, very much children of late 1950s London, are ready to launch themselves as a couple. Musical Florence is hoping for a concert career and looking forward to the wedding she believes will truly define her adulthood. Edward, a budding historian from a troubled family, envisions lifelong domestic joy with his beautiful fiance. However, both are plagued by private anxieties they can't bring themselves to discuss. As Edward plans an idyllic beachside wedding night, he broods about overcoming Florence's physical shyness given his own sparse experience. He has no idea she is terrified of sex but has grimly resolved to do her submissive duty. The results are false assumptions, confusion, and a nightmarish (and graphically described) sexual disaster that destroys the marriage even before it starts. McEwan's (Saturday ) brief, affecting tale of romantic dreams overthrown by adherence to social constructs that are about to change radically is a strong effort from this Booker Prize winner. Recommended for most adult fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/07.]—Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA [Page 82]. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

Not quite novel or novella, McEwan's masterful 13th work of fiction most resembles a five-part classical drama rendered in prose. It opens on the anxious Dorset Coast wedding suite dinner of Edward Mayhew and the former Florence Ponting, married in the summer of 1963 at 23 and 22 respectively; the looming dramatic crisis is the marriage's impending consummation, or lack of it. Edward is a rough-hewn but sweet student of history, son of an Oxfordshire primary school headmaster and a mother who was brain damaged in an accident when Edward was five. Florence, daughter of a businessman and (a rarity then) a female Oxford philosophy professor, is intense but warm and has founded a string quartet. Their fears about sex and their inability to discuss them form the story's center. At the book's midpoint, McEwan (Atonement , etc.) goes into forensic detail about their nave and disastrous efforts on the marriage bed, and the final chapter presents the couple's explosive postcoital confrontation on Chesil Beach. Staying very close to this marital trauma and the circumstances surrounding it (particularly class), McEwan's flawless omniscient narration has a curious (and not unpleasantly condescending) fable-like quality, as if an older self were simultaneously disavowing and affirming a younger. The story itself isn't arresting, but the narrator's journey through it is. (June) [Page 33]. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information. Read Jonathan Lethem's Review in The New York Times  Read a review from The Guardian

 

  

Monday, January 14, 2012

 at 1:00 PM

Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron

Discussion Leader: Edna Ritzenberg

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BookList:

Sheltered within the rural confines of his impoverished Tutsi village, Jean Patrick dreams of one day running in the Olympics. But as he grows stronger and faster, so does the conflict between his tribe and the Hutus. Jean Patrick has an exploitable talent, however. His feet can carry the dreams and demands of his country to the outside world, so he is given privileges and concessions other Tutsis are not. Yet when the violence starts, not even those advantages can protect him, his family, and the woman he loves from the slaughter and devastation of a heinous civil war. Awarded the prestigious Bellwether Prize for its treatment of compelling social issues, Benaron’s first novel is a gripping, frequently distressing portrait of destruction and ultimate redemption. If there is an irony about it, it’s that its pace is often sluggish, which diminishes its emotional impact. Still, Benaron sheds a crystalline beacon on an alarming episode in global history, and her charismatic protagonist leaves an indelible impression. -- Haggas, Carol (Reviewed 10-15-2011) (Booklist, vol 108, number 4, p28)

Publishers Weekly:

/* Starred Review */ Set in the years leading up to the Rwanda genocide, Benaron’s Bellweather Prize–winning debut novel follows Jean Patrick Nkuba, “the jewel in Rwanda’s crown,” a Tutsi boy with a gift for running. Jean Patrick dreams of representing Rwanda in the Olympics, but must contend with abject poverty, an ethnic quota system, and savage bullying. He runs Olympic-qualifying times, moving closer to his dreams as tensions rise between the governing Hutus and the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Force), a Tutsi-led rebel army. Jean Patrick gains the favor of the president, but falls in love with a journalism student participating in antigovernment activism, and finds himself entangled in a vast and calamitous game of political chess. “Something unimaginable is coming,” warns his brother, a rebel soldier, and when the long-smoldering tensions between the Hutus and Tutsis erupt into a hellish conflagration, Jean Patrick must run away from the country he has spent his life running for. Benaron accomplishes the improbable feat of wringing genuine loveliness from unspeakable horror. She renders friendships and families with tenderness and sincerity, and lingers on the goodwill that binds a fractious community, even as those tethers grow taut and, finally, snap. She regards even the genocidaires with clear-eyed charity, allowing moral complexity to color the perversity of their deeds. It is a testament to Benaron’s skill that a novel about genocide—about neighbors and friends savagely turning on one another—conveys so profoundly the joys of family, friendship, and community. This powerful novel recounts inhumanity on a scale scarcely imaginable, yet rebukes its nihilism, countering unforgivable violence with small mercies and unyielding hope. (Jan. 17) --Staff (Reviewed September 26, 2011) (Publishers Weekly, vol 258, issue 39, p)

Library Journal:

/* Starred Review */ We first meet Jean Patrick Nkuba in 1984 Rwanda as he and his family mourn the death of Jean Patrick's father in a car accident. In the decade to come, we follow Jean Patrick through secondary school, where he becomes both a scholar and a gifted middle-distance runner. His dreams of achieving Olympic glory seem assured, but he is Tutsi, and Rwanda's Hutu-Tutsi tensions are steadily increasing. In the violent explosion of 1994 what happens to Jean Patrick and his family reflects the collective experience of Rwanda's 800,000-plus genocide victims. First novelist Benaron, who has actively worked with refugee groups, won the 2010 Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction for this unflinching and beautifully crafted account of a people and their survival. In addition, she compellingly details the growth and rigorous training of a young athlete. VERDICT Readers who do not shy away from depictions of violence will find this tale of social justice a memorable read, and those interested in coming-of-age stories set in wartime will want it as well. Highly recommended; readers who loved Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner will appreciate.— Jenn B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll.-Northeast, TX --Jenn B. Stidham (Reviewed August 1, 2011) (Library Journal, vol 136, issue 13, p81)

Kirkus:

/* Starred Review */ Benaron's first novel, about a young Rwandan runner whose Olympic ambitions collide with his country's political unrest, is the recipient of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for "fiction that addresses issues of social justice." In the 1980s, Jean Patrick Nkuba and his older brother Roger are both talented athletes and scholars living an idyllic existence with their Tutsi parents at the school where their father teaches. Then Jean Patrick's father dies in a car crash just as tensions begin to build between the Tutsis and Hutus. Although the Tutsis are increasingly discriminated against, Jean Patrick's running talent sets him above the fray, especially after his Olympic potential is recognized in his early teens. Even Roger, who has joined the Tutsi Rebels, wants Jean Patrick to do whatever it takes to represent Rwanda in the Olympics. So Jean Patrick follows his Hutu Coach from high school to college. At first Coach arranges for Jean Patrick to have false Hutu identification papers. Then the government decides that allowing a Tutsi to complete internationally will bolster its human-rights reputation so Jean Patrick is made the Tutsi exception and treated like a beloved celebrity. He even attends a reception with the president. Meanwhile he has fallen in love with Bea despite Coach's disapproval--Bea and her journalist father are Hutu dissidents against the repressive Hutu government--and made friends with a visiting professor from Boston. As the conflict intensifies, Jean Patrick must make increasingly difficult choices, a key one being whether to trust Coach. The escalating violence of Hutus against Tutsis becomes a national mania that ultimately controls Jean Patrick's personal destiny. The politics will be familiar to those who have followed Africa's crises (or seen Hotel Rwanda), but where Benaron shines is in her tender descriptions of Rwandan's natural beauty and in her creation of Jean Patrick, a hero whose noble innocence and genuine human warmth are impossible not to love.(Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2011)

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