adult fiction – The Dusty Jacket

The Girl in the Garden by Melanie Wallace (Adult Fiction)

The Girl in the Garden

Melanie Wallace (Adult Fiction)

A widowed landlord. A young, abandoned mother. An elderly woman with a tragic past and her estranged daughter. A Vietnam veteran who bears the scars of war. A town patriarch and sage longing for a family. The lives of these damaged and vulnerable individuals converge in a small eastern town in the 1970s. Bleak, repentant, and tragic, their stories tell of unrequited love, repressed shame, and regret, but as their paths become intertwined, each begins to experience acceptance, forgiveness, and a second chance at happiness.

The Girl in the Garden is a first for me in that this novel—brimming with characters and dialogue—contains no quotation marks. Not a single one. Although Wallace’s writing technique is unique and immersive, this continuous stream-of-consciousness style of writing was both intensive and exhausting:

So, Claire said, the question of the day is: are you a good driver? And that caught Sam off-guard, for it meant she’d learned if not from Leonard then maybe from George—who rarely spoke in sentences that could be understood, his speech being as garbled as his mind, but then Claire had a way of making people intelligible, who knew how?—that Sam wasn’t blind in the eye over which he always wore a patch that also covered his eyebrow and some of his scarred, dented cheekbone.

This book feels more like a mind dump rather than a cohesive story and the constant ramblings often pushed my attention span to its breaking point; however, there are some endearing characters and relationships that keep the story interesting and smooths the rough patches a bit. And although this garden seems to be mercilessly overrun with tangles of ivy and carpetweed, the occasional rose manages to emerge for those readers patient and diligent enough to push through.

Rating: 3/5

* Book cover image attributed to: www.abebooks.com

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The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (Adult Fiction)

The House on Mango Street

Sandra Cisneros (Adult Fiction)

The house on Mango Street wasn’t what Papa had talked about when he held up a lottery ticket or what Mama had dreamed up for our bedtime stories. Instead, it was small and red with crumbling bricks and no front yard. Even a nun, who was passing by the house one day, couldn’t believe that it was actually the home of little Esperanza. It was at that moment that Esperanza knew that she had to have a house. One with stairs on the inside and a front yard with grass. One that was filled with quiet. Quiet like snow. A home all her own.

Published in 1984, Cisneros’s celebrated The House on Mango Street is a coming-of-age story about 12-year-old Esperanza Cordero, a Chicana girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. Comprising of 44 vignettes and being just a squeak above a novelette, Cisneros introduces us to several memorable characters who are the color, texture, and fabric that make up Mango Street. We meet the rotten Vargas kids, Alicia who studies to avoid a life in a factory or behind a rolling pin, Darius the philosopher, Sally with the Cleopatra eyes, and Geraldo who was so much more than a shiny shirt and green pants. But as is the nature of vignettes, our knowledge and connection with these and other characters are superficial and barely scratch the surface. Like a movie trailer, we get the highlights, but not the heart.

In her introduction—which I loved and wished that the rest of the book had been this immersive and rooted—Cisneros wrote that she wanted to write a book “that can be opened at any page and will still make sense to the reader who doesn’t know what came before or what comes after.” I think that was the biggest barrier for me to overcome. While accomplishing her goal, Cisneros sacrificed a connectedness that would have given readers more than just a superficial glance at characters who did have a before and, more importantly, an after. I wanted to know Sally’s after, who married to be free yet ultimately found herself in a different prison. I wanted to understand Geraldo’s before in hopes that someone would miss this charismatic young man who loved to dance.

Although I miss the richness of the novel that could have been, I can’t deny the beautiful and artful way Cisneros evokes raw emotion and vivid images with just a few well-placed words. She describes a family who enters a garden area between her building and a brick wall as “a family who speak like guitars”, equates the entry into womanhood by describing the sudden development of hips as “One day you wake up and they are there. Ready and waiting like a new Buick with the keys in the ignition. Ready to take you where?”, and recalls meeting her three aunts as “one with laughter like tin and one with eyes of a cat and one with hands like porcelain.”

Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, a Danish businessman and the former CEO of the Lego Group, said, “Any creative people are finding that creativity doesn’t grow in abundance, it grows from scarcity.” Now, he was talking about Legos and how having more doesn’t necessarily equate to more creativity, but it does show how a novella, not quite 18,000 words, is beautiful and creative because of its scarcity rather than in spite of it.

Rating: 4/5

* Book cover image attributed to: www.abebooks.com

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The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom (Adult Inspirational)

The Time Keeper

Mitch Albom (Adult Inspirational Fiction)

Before he was Father Time, he had been just another human: a boy who loved to run and had best friends; a young man in love with a passion for measuring things; and a man who had a wife and children. His name was Dor and he was different…and God had noticed for God realized how one different child could change the world. But Dor had angered God and would endure thousands of years of isolation before being released back to the world where he must help two souls: a troubled teen with too much time and a wealthy businessman with too little. To finally finish what he had started, Dor must now teach these two very different people the value of time and to understand the reason why God limits man’s days.

This is the third book by Albom that I’ve read and his words continue to enlighten, encourage, and inspire me. Albom relays how precious time is through Dor, teenaged Sarah Lemon, and elderly Victor Delmonte. The Time Keeper’s short chapters and sparse prose may give readers a false sense that this will be a “quick read”. On the contrary, Albom’s measured words give his story weight and substance that allow readers the opportunity to absorb and ruminate the messages he conveys spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally. Albom is clearly a man of faith, but his words of encouragement and hope appeal to people across all faiths or who are in varying stages of their own religious journey.

Albom adequately develops both Sarah’s and Victor’s characters so that we understand their situation and the reason behind their actions; however, Sarah is by far the more sympathetic of the two given her naivete, background, and age. Her circumstance is more relatable to the vast majority of readers since most have experienced the sting and humiliation of being spurned by a first love while few know what it’s like to live a lifestyle where money truly is no object. Although we may be more emotionally drawn to one character than the other, we share in their common desire to either make any promise or strike any bargain in order to have more power over time.

Although Albom peppers his book with countless memorable quotes, I’m compelled to end this review with a quote from John Lennon who said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” Dor, Sarah, and Vincent all spent their precious days planning, calculating, predicting, and formulating circumstances or situations to their individual benefit. Whether trying to control time, start a romance, or stop an illness, all were missing out on the now and failed to realize the effect their obsessions were having on the ones that loved them most. And although time does indeed fly, we should all take a little comfort in knowing that not only are we in charge of our own course, but also with whom we choose to soar.

Rating: 5/5

* Book cover image attributed to: www.abebooks.com

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The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie (Adult Fiction)

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Sherman Alexie (Adult Fiction)

Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven received the PEN/Hemingway Award for the best first book of fiction and its short story “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” was the inspiration for the 1998 film Smoke Signals, whose screenplay was written by Alexie. This is a collection of short stories which can best be described as autobiographical fiction as Alexie himself admits in the Introduction of the 20^th Anniversary Edition, “This book is a thinly disguised memoir.”

Alexie’s novel contains twenty-two short stories (my anniversary edition had two bonus stories: “Flight” and “Junior Polatkin’s Wild West Show”) that detail the dark, hopeless, sometimes comedic, and harsh reality of life on the Spokane Indian Reservation during the 1960s-70s—a period when relations between Native Americans and the federal government were “strained” at best. Alexie acknowledges the push back he received with this stereotypical portrayal of Indians as drunks, recovering drunks, potential drunks, or being six degrees separated from a drunk and matter-of-factly responded to critics with a mere Yeah, but it’s true attitude…and he of all people should know and has more than earned the right to write about it.

All in all, I wish I had connected more with these stories. Maybe it’s just the very nature of short stories that prevented me from bonding with the characters. The stories and its players allowed me to dip my toe into the water when what I really wanted was to totally immerse myself in their world. Just when I thought I was going to be allowed to plunge headfirst into the inviting water, someone would blow the warning whistle reminding me that diving wasn’t allowed, the story was over, and it was time to move on. Denied yet again.

I did enjoy a few of his stories: “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore” depicts the futility of trying to escape a preordained future (It’s hard to be optimistic on the reservation.); “This is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” (easy to see why this was the basis for a feature film), which has Victor Joseph going to Phoenix to retrieve his father’s ashes with storyteller Thomas Builds-the-Fire (Take care of each other is what my dreams were saying. Take care of each other.); “A Good Story” is a story within a story where Junior Polatkin’s mother encourages him to write a story about something good, a real good story (Because people should know that good things always happen to Indians, too.); and “Witnesses, Secret and Not” where the narrator and his father drive into Spokane to answer questions about a man who went missing ten years ago. On their way home, they see an acquaintance on the cusp of full intoxication and decide to give him some money with no strings attached (That’s how it is. One Indian doesn’t tell another what to do. We just watch things happen and then make comments.)

It is obvious that Sherman Alexie is a gifted storyteller and I will definitely be reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which has been on my To Be Read stack for far too long now. And although this particular work didn’t resonate with me (it’s the magic and mystery of books, folks), it is an important work that explores the hopelessness, possibilities, and reality of life on an Indian reservation told through a witty, authentic, and compassionate lens. In the end, I would like to think that the Lone Ranger and Tonto actually hugged it out after their fistfight, but Alexie would probably just shake his head, call me a hopeless idiot, and then tell me one of his stories about how life actually works. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that as long as he lets me dive in afterwards.

Rating: 3/5

* Book cover image attributed to: www.abebooks.com

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Start Without Me by Joshua Max Feldman (Adult Fiction)

Start Without Me

Joshua Max Feldman (Adult Fiction)

Adam Warshaw is an ex-keyboardist and recovering alcoholic who is muddling along at his job at a bank. Marissa Cavano is a flight attendant who fled an alcoholic mother, married into a wealthy—albeit classist and racist—family, and is currently struggling to save her marriage. Both are heading home for Thanksgiving and their paths are about to intersect in what would be the start of a highly unpredictable and tumultuous day that would send each of their lives in unexpected directions.

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. Well, you can’t judge it by its BACK cover either. Joshua Max Feldman’s Start Without Me is described as A darkly comic novel. Nope. …the quintessential Thanksgiving novel. Let’s hope not. …a unique solidarity between two strangers as they help each other… More like one constantly saves the other one’s bacon. …Feldman’s novel excels in his crafting of extraordinary dialogue. OK. Nailed that one.

This was an extremely difficult book to get through as Adam’s character is insufferable, unrepentant, oblivious, ungracious, selfish, self-absorbed… The list is long and would take me until Thanksgiving to get through them all. I think the difference between Adam and some other awful main characters that have completely destroyed a book for me (I’m looking at you Kathy Nicolo) is that Adam KNOWS he’s a dumpster fire, the author knows he’s a dumpster fire, and everyone around Adam knows…well, you get the idea.

A friend once told me of a co-worker who said that she HATED a certain restaurant (both shall remain nameless) because she got food poisoning there four times. Four. Times. So, at that point, do you blame the restaurant or do you blame the patron? Who’s the knucklehead? The same with this book. Is it Feldman’s fault that I was totally frustrated by his book or is it mine? I mean, just like the knucklehead co-worker, I kept going back expecting a different outcome only to be confronted with the same mess over and over again. Was I thinking that if I JUST ordered the dessert, I’d be safe?!

The good news is that there are a few bright spots. Feldman really is a master at writing dialogue. It was one of the few things that saved this story and if he had done more of this and less of Adam waxing poetic about his past days in his rock band, I could’ve saved myself a lot of time from having to pet the neighbor’s dog in order to get back into my happy place. The only other glimmer was Marissa, whose backstory is an absolute trainwreck. She is the only character worthy of our sympathy and the only true adult in the room. She extends Adam more grace than he deserves and although she’s been the victim of many bad choices, she’s determined to learn from them and move forward stronger and wiser.

Before this book, Feldman wrote The Book of Jonah. After all of the negative emotions still coursing through my veins after dealing with Adam, it might take me some time before I’m strong enough to tackle this book. In the meantime, you better start without me.

Rating: 3/5

* Book cover image attributed to: http://www.thriftbooks.com

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The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Jeff Guinn (Adult Historical Fiction)

The Autobiography of Santa Claus

Jeff Guinn (Adult Historical Fiction)

Think you know everything there is to know about Santa? Well think again. Now, for the first time—in his OWN words—is the true story of Saint Nicholas, Kris Kringle, Father Christmas, or whatever name you call the man in red who travels around the world delivering presents to good girls and boys on Christmas Eve night. We get to know the REAL man—from humble beginnings to worldwide notoriety—whose simple philosophy of it being better to give than to receive has touched the world all over.

Jeff Guinn, the ONLY person (that he knows of) to have ever written a book WITH Santa Claus himself, has finally provided answers to the questions that have been asked for centuries: how did Santa attain his garments of red trimmed with white; why did Santa start giving toys and why were they put in stockings; why does he live at the North Pole; how can reindeer fly; and how can he travel the entire world in just one night? Those and so many other questions are answered, along with some interesting facts that you didn’t realize were even related to Santa such as his historically famous “helpers”, how he helped Charles Dickens restore Christmas in England, and how he inadvertently brought about the end of the American Revolution. Guinn packs a LOT of information into 280 pages, not including Santa’s favorite recipe found at the end of the book.

Guinn takes us from 280 A.D. (the year of Santa’s recorded birth) to present day. Because he’s covering over seventeen centuries of information, the story often gets deep in the weeds with geographical, theological, historical, and social anthropological references; however, Guinn is clever in connecting Santa to everyone from Attila the Hun to Amelia Earhart so we’re quickly drawn back into the story again. What is not mentioned on the cover of the book but is certainly worth mentioning is the beautiful artwork of Dorit Rabinovitch. She beautifully captures the old-world and magical appeal of the jolly old man and gives Guinn’s work an instant classic feel full of warmth and charm.

Through Guinn, Santa reminds us of the simple power kindness and that the real magic of Christmas involves love and a little baby born in a manger on what became the most holy of nights. Upon reading this book, I do feel a sense of obligation to bring to everyone’s attention that Santa is NOT an elf, he does NOT like to be reminded of his weight, and—on Christmas Eve night—if you were to set out some homemade chocolate chip cookies and perhaps some goat cheese, he would be most appreciative.

Rating: 4/5

* Book cover image attributed to: www.thriftbooks.com

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Yesterday’s Sun by Amanda Brooke (Adult Fiction)

Yesterday’s Sun

Amanda Brooke (Adult Fiction)

Tom and Holly Corrigan had only been married for two years when they moved into the gatehouse that sat at the entrance of the once majestic Hardmonton Hall. Holly—an artist—instantly fell in love with the residence despite its many years of abandonment and neglect and finds that she has plenty of free time to make it a home since Tom’s job requires a lot of travel. Their lives, like the gatehouse, is full of possibility and promise. One day while renovating, Holly uncovers a wooden box that contains a beautiful glass ball and soon discovers that it is the missing top of the moondial that sits in their garden. When Holly places the orb on the pedestal on a full-moon night, she realizes that she has unwittingly activated a timepiece that shows her a future full of life and loss…a daughter and a death. When she shares her vision with Jocelyn, her new friend and the previous owner of the gatehouse, Holly soon learns the extensive truth behind the moondial’s power and realizes the terrible decision that she must now make that will not only affect her, but everyone she loves.

Give me a book that begins with a partial peek at the ending and I’m instantly invested in the characters and story. That is what Amanda Brooke does in her Prologue as we see Holly in bed, gently stroking her swollen belly, as she looks at her sleeping husband and whispers, “You’ll be angry with me for leaving you both, but eventually you’ll understand. One day, you’ll look at our daughter and you’ll know what I know. You’ll know that she was worth the sacrifice.” It’s a deeply emotional, intimate, and heartbreaking moment that immediately connects you with Holly and her story that’s just beginning to unfold for us. We know the journey with Holly won’t be easy given the fact that we most-likely know how her story will end, but we’re fully committed now and determined to see this through with her to the end…no matter how painful.

Holly is a fractured and imperfect protagonist. Yes, her waffling between questions of “Should I” or “Shouldn’t I” become a little tedious, but given her sudden and callous abandonment by her mother…HER MOTHER…you can understand the doubts and reservations she has about her own maternal abilities. If you lead by example, then Holly is doomed. Because Brooke takes her time in unpackaging Holly’s history, we clearly give her a pass when it comes to her indecisiveness and it’s why we stay loyal to her as she painfully struggles between self-preservation and self-sacrifice.

Without spoiling any of the story, I do want to comment on the verbiage written on the cover of the book: How can she choose between her child and herself? Oh, gentle reader. If only it were that easy, because as you start to discover and understand the power of the moondial, this goes so much deeper than “well…I just won’t do that and everything will be fine. Right?” When Jocelyn tells Holly that the moondial can be cruel, she isn’t joking.

Yesterday’s Sun is a suspenseful, thoughtful, and poignant read that will keep you engrossed, guessing, and second guessing until the end. It’s a satisfying story that reminds us how we shouldn’t take anything for granted and how important it is to live in the now. American actor James Dean, who was only 24-years old when he died suddenly and tragically, said, “Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.” Holly eventually understood this and hopefully all of us won’t need a moondial to realize this as well.

Rating: 5/5

* Book cover image attributed to: www.amazon.com

Letter to My Daughter by George Bishop (A Fiction)

Letter to My Daughter

George Bishop (Adult Fiction)

Arguments. Mothers and daughters have them often, but this argument was different. This one ended with a mother’s slap and a daughter’s angry exodus into the night. As worry and regret floods her brain, Laura sits down in her quiet kitchen and begins writing a letter to her daughter, Elizabeth. A letter that she hopes will give Elizabeth some insight into her upbringing and past in order to help bridge the divide that has grown between the two of them. Simple and honest words on paper that might heal both of their souls and perhaps lead to understanding and forgiveness.
Anyone who automatically dismisses this book because the author is a man will be depriving themselves of a thoughtful, reflective, and meaningful read. I quickly became lost in this story and often found myself thinking it a memoir rather than a work of fiction as the emotional details are strikingly vivid and the writing is genuine and immersive. Although it’s a quick read, it instantly draws you in and will either make you wish that you had received a letter like this from your own parent or that you had taken the time to write a letter like this to your own child.
Through Letter to My Daughter, George Bishop reminds those of us fortunate enough to be a parent, that our children really don’t realize that we had an actual life before their grand entrance into the world. That whenever they utter, “You don’t get it” and “You just don’t understand” that we truly do get it because we also dreamed big dreams and had our heart broken and were disappointed by those people that we thought we could trust. We also laughed and cried and had horrible (and sometimes humorous) lapses in judgement and so yes, we really do understand because at one time, we were just like them—young, overly confident, woefully unprepared, and ready to take on the world…whatever that meant. And while we beat our heads against the wall trying to impart our hard-earned wisdom into their beautifully thick skulls, we find ourselves saying, “You don’t get it” and “You just don’t understand” and then we realize that just like that, the circle is now complete.

Throughout the book, I kept being drawn to the character of Sister Mary Margaret, a kind and compassionate nun who taught at Sacred Heart Academy where Laura was sent. Laura quoted several of her sayings in her letter and every one of them is a gem in its own right: Never be afraid of the truth; Begin at the beginning; Avoid sentimentality at all costs; and my personal favorite, Be good, and if you can’t be good, at least be sensible. With advice like this, maybe Sister Mary Margaret should consider writing a letter, too?

Rating: 4/5

* Book cover image attributed to: www.amazon.com

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Housekeeping

Marilynne Robinson (Adult Fiction)

Marilynne Robinson’s book about two orphaned sisters (Ruth and Lucille) raised by their eccentric Aunt Sylvie in the dank and judgmental town of Fingerbone is a reminder that verbosity and detail are not the same thing and that more is not always better. Robinson clearly is on the “more” side as every character, mood, and setting in Housekeeping is described ad nauseum. She goes so far into the weeds in noting and detailing every memory, smell, glance, gasp, twitch, rustle, and shiver that when she finally finishes her thought, we’ve totally forgotten the point she was trying to make or where she was taking us. Worse…we no longer care.

I’ve read and reviewed hundreds of books and Housekeeping is the only book—the ONLY one—that I knew right from the very first page that I wasn’t going like it. Here is the fifth sentence where Ruth (our narrator) is describing her grandfather’s upbringing: He had grown up in the Middle West, in a house dug out of the ground, with windows just at earth level and just at eye level, so that from without, the house was a mere mound, no more a human stronghold than a grave, and from within, the perfect horizontality of the world in that place foreshortened the view so severely that the horizon seemed to circumscribe the sod house and nothing more. This level of detail and imagery succeeds in allowing the reader to better understand why Ruth’s grandfather was so motivated to travel, but there are so many layers that you have to dig through that by the time you’ve reached the pearl, you’re so exhausted that you’re unable to enjoy its luster and beauty. Further along in the book, Robinson dedicates seven pages (I counted) describing the sisters’ fishing trip and their having to spend the night alone in the woods. Seven. Pages. It doesn’t take long before you realize that Housekeeping isn’t a cohesive story, but rather a series of lengthy paragraphs that you might find in the Reading section of the SAT: “In line 64, the word simulacra most likely means…”

The story is at its strongest and most interesting when it centers on Ruth and Lucille and their complicated relationship, but these moments are few before we are left with just Sylvie and Ruth and wondering who we should rally behind while we venture down yet another word rabbit hole and pray for daylight. Housekeeping does present several important themes—the illusion of permanence, the cost that comes with conforming to expectations, and how family doesn’t shield you from feeling alone and isolated—but after enduring so many mental gymnastics, we’ve neither the energy nor the interest to fully appreciate these revelations.

I wish I had enjoyed this book more because slogging through a two-hundred-plus-page book only because you’re hoping that everything will come together in the end is a miserable relationship to have with an author and their story. Reading should be a joy, not a chore. However, I am glad that I did finish it for no other reason than to provide an honest review. Besides, I did manage to increase my vocabulary with a few interesting words so not all bad.

If I had to sum up my final thoughts, it would be that more isn’t necessarily a good thing or, as Leonardo da Vinci said so eloquently in just five little words, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

Rating: 2/5

* Book cover image attributed to: www.amazon.com

Once Upon a Time, There Was You by Elizabeth Berg

Once Upon a Time, There Was You

Elizabeth Berg (Adult Fiction)

DISCLAIMER: This is going to deviate a lot from my normal review format because I just can’t bring myself to devote any more time to this book, so here goes…

Synopsis: Two people (John and Irene) who never wanted to get married to each other get married to each other, have a kid (Sadie), get divorced, and are brought together again because their now eighteen-year-old daughter did something ridiculously and mind-numbingly stupid.

Why I read this: I read Berg’s Open House and rated it 3/5. It was okay enough that I decided to take another chance and read The Story of Arthur Truluv, which I rated 4/5. I was feeling pretty good and dived into Once Upon a Time, There Was You. I now find myself in a hate-love-hate relationship with Elizabeth Berg. I blame Arthur for this false sense of security.

Questions: First, What was the actual point of this book?!; Second, What in the world was Berg thinking when she wrote the event involving Sadie that sets the stage for her parents’ reunion? It felt forced and came absolutely out of left field. I don’t mind a shocking event if it’s going to add some depth to the story, but this one felt wildly out of place and came and went faster than promises made on election day; Third and Fourth, Who wrote the synopsis for this book and Did they even read the book? When tragedy strikes, Irene and John come together… Tragedy? That’s REALLY overstating what happened. What takes them longer is to remember how they really feel about each other. That might be the case if it wasn’t for the fact that Irene’s mouth has been estranged from her brain for quite a while so that any relationship involving her is doomed as soon as her lips part. There are more examples, but my brain is beginning to hurt a little bit now.

My rating: Every book I read automatically begins with a star. I mean, the author actually published a book and I haven’t so there’s that. I gave it another star because the relationship between Sade and her father was nice and the ending between John and Irene—unlike other parts of the book—actually made sense and was appropriate.

Moral of the story: Always go with your gut instincts, no matter how terrifying or humiliating the consequences may seem to be. Just suck it up, buy yourself an iced white chocolate mocha, hide under the covers, and wait for common sense to kick in…or the sugar and caffeine, whichever comes first.

Rating: 2/5

* Book cover image attributed to www.amazon.com