Some Luck by Jane Smiley

Posted on August 14, 2015 by bseat

Some Luck_Life on a farm in Iowa from 1920 to 1953 wouldn’t seem like a great topic for the first of three novels, but Jane Smiley proves that memorable characters, a deep understanding and appreciation for the rhythms and values of the farming life, meticulous research and great writing can make for an exceptional novel and raises my anticipation for the other books in the trilogy, Early Warning and Golden Age.

Walter and Rosanna Langdon begin farming in the early 1920s on a farm not too far from his family’s farm. Life on the farm is hard. Plowing,planting and harvesting are done with the help of horses. Livestock is kept so there is milk, and butter, eggs and meat. Their garden provides vegetables, and what they can’t eat is canned so that they have them for the winter. Going to town is a luxury and is done only once a week to take in eggs and butter to sell to raise cash for the things they cannot make themselves. Although some people in the cities have electricity, in rural Iowa, kerosene lanterns are used for light. But Walter and Rosanna are happy and work hard and begin to make a go of the farm. Soon they have children, Frank, the aloof golden boy is first and then Joe, the quiet plodder and Rosanna has her hands full trying to keep the children safe from all the dangers on the farm. Later after a tragic loss, Lillian, Henry and then  her father’s favorite, Claire are born.

This sweeping story follows the effects of the dust bowl and the change in weather that brought dry years with little rain or snow, leaving crops withered in the fields and drying up wells which forced farmers to abandon their land. This is followed relentlessly by the stock market crash and the Great Depression, leaving everyone vulnerable and impoverished.  As World War II looms, they begin to see the first glimmers of hope that the long hard years of want are over, even as a new threat emerges, this one from overseas. Smiley uses this arc of history as the backdrop to her story of the Langdon family, helping us see through their experiences the actual effects of these historical events.

Smiley captures the cadences and thinking of the farmer and the farming community, where weather is a constant concern and topic of conversation, Where thrift, and cleanliness are seen as essential to survival, and danger and loss are always present. This is not a bucolic vision of  life on the farm but rather an honest and unflinching look at the harsh realities generations of farmers have faced with courage, honesty and resilience, making me grateful for my relatives and ancestors who faced equally challenging odds that allowed me to be alive today!

Brenda’s Rating ****(4 out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: Keith, Ken, Sharon and Marian

Book Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.

 

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Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon

Posted on August 7, 2015 by bseat

Leaving Berlin_Alex Meier has made a devil’s bargain. In exchange for making the McCarthy Committee’s investigations into his youthful fling with communism before World War II go away, the CIA wants him to return to Berlin and act as their spy.  They want him to accept the invitation of the Kulturbund Committee of Berlin, who want to gather all the anti fascist authors, playwrights and artists who fled Germany during the war, to celebrate their art and hope it will fuel a renaissance of art now that the war is over.  Alex, a socialist Jew, who is the author of several books that were highly regarded and was expelled from Germany because of his anti fascist themes, has just the right credentials to create a good cover for the spy the CIA needs.  Returning to Berlin to see if he can find some of his relatives and friends is attractive, but the promise that this would remove any doubts abut his communist past and allow him to have visitation rights to see his son after his divorce is what ultimately makes him willing to go.

Alex returns to a Berlin that he can scarcely recognize. Even four years after the war, the rubble of former homes still remains, food is hard to find and people struggle to find work and normality in this city that is in the hands of competing interests. He quickly realizes that things are also much more complicated that he was lead to believe. The person they want him to spy on is Irene, the woman Alex loved but abandoned when he left Germany.  A simple visit to his former family home implicates him in the death of an East German spy and soon Alex begins to suspect that he cannot trust anyone, not even his own CIA handlers.

Kanon is masterful in recreating Berlin in 1948. The horrors of war are still all around, but somehow life must go on. and he describes these competing interests vividly. Kanon develops his characters well, and Alex grows in complexity as he faces mounting pressures and morally complex choices. This is a thinking person’s spy novel, filled with moral ambiguity, difficult choices, and imminent danger. Known for Istanbul Passage and The Good German ,which was made into a popular movie, Kanon is claiming his place among the greats of spy literature!

Brenda’s Rating ****( 4 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Ken, Marian and Keith

Book Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.

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Friday Nights by Joanna Trollope

Posted on July 31, 2015 by bseat

Friday Nights_Eleanor is retired and noticing her own loneliness, now that she is cut off from the normal social interchanges she had while going to the office. Over several days,while drinking her tea and looking out the window, she notices that two young women, both with children, are continually passing each other in front of her house with out even noticing each other.  Eleanor, who is getting sick of her own company, decides that she is going to change that. So the next time she sees the two women, she invites them to come to her house on Friday night and they do, although rather awkwardly. Eleanor leaned that Lindsey’s husband had died suddenly before she even knew she was pregnant and Paula had a complicated relationship (he’s married) with the father of her child which prevents them from living together. Soon Jules, Lindsey’s sister joins them on Friday nights and then Blaise, a single business woman who lives next door comes along with her friend and colleague, Karen. And thus “Friday Nights”were born: a time to talk about the challenges they each face in their lives and to help and support each other as best they could.  For Eleanor it was a chance to be a part of a family and younger children since she didn’t have any of her own, and to help these younger women navigate life’s choices.

And all was fine until Paula met Jackson and wanted to bring him to a Friday night gathering to introduce him to her friends. It wasn’t exactly his fault, but somehow he was the catalyst and everything began to change in ways none of them could have expected.

Trollope is always insightful, entertaining and a joy to read! If you haven’t read her yet, this is a good place to start.  Each of these characters with their different concerns, fears and hang ups are people we can identify with and understand. Trollope is able to work with the usual dichotomy of career vs. having children in such a way that each choice seems valid and having both, while not easy, is at least feasible with some sacrifices. Spunky, no-nonsense, Eleanor is really the glue that keeps the group together. The “wise woman,” of the group, she is both discerning and helpful as she elicits the answers from within each woman so that they can move forward. This a wonderful book about friendship which transcends age, economic circumstances, careers and children and celebrates the joys and challenges of being a woman.

Brenda’s Rating:****(4 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Sharon, Marian and Lauren

Book Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.

 

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Heresy by S. J. Parris

Posted on July 24, 2015 by bseat

Bruno Giordano, a former priest and now excommunicant, has been running from the Heresy_Inquisition in Italy because of his proclivity for reading books that are considered heretical, like Erasmus’ Commentaries or Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. Finally, after many narrow escapes he has found refuge in England, where Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s spy master sees much potential in Giordano’s insights and logical thinking.  So on a spring day in 1583, Bruno finds himself as a  traveling companion to a Polish potentate who has lost favor in the Queen’s court, and Sir Philip Sydney, an aristocrat who also works for Walsingham, who are on their way to Oxford. There Bruno has been asked to be part of a Disputation with the rector of the Lincoln College about the nature of the universe, but he has also been tasked with confirming the truth of various rumors indicating that there are unrepentant Catholics, in Oxford who are practicing the old faith and plotting treason and sedition against Queen Elizabeth.      

Although the Disputation goes very badly, Bruno’s disgust at the lack of true academic curiosity on the part of his opponent and embarrassment from not being able to make his points very well, is eclipsed on his return to the college by the screams of a dying man locked in a small garden courtyard being mauled by a half starved hunting dog.  This gruesome death is quickly followed by another, staged to look like one of the martyrs in Fox’s Book of Martyrs and soon Bruno is in the middle of trying to solve the mystery of these deaths which seem to point to being the work of an underground Catholic cabal.

Parris is able to recreate the mindset of Elizabethan times with great clarity.  The uncertainty of who believes what, the lack of freedom to worship God the way you want, and the arrogance of the church who claims that science must bow to its understandings even at the expense of scientific progress, are vividly portrayed. Parris also spends time developing each of the various characters and even the lowly gate keeper comes to life and adds realism and a bit of humor to an otherwise serious story. I loved all the historical descriptions: the food people ate, the way they did laundry, and the descriptions of the town of Oxford where I lived for a few months during college. If you like history, this is a great read!

Brenda’s Rating: *** (3 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Marian

Book Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.

 

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The Hour of the Cat by Peter Quinn

Posted on July 17, 2015 by bseat

The Hour of the Cat_It is 1939 and Fintan Dunn, is a PI, struggling to find work in New York City. He had a great lead on a divorce case; a woman wanted him to catch her husband in flagrante delicto in order to improve her case for divorce. But alas, just that morning his potential client was found, literally, holding a smoking gun at her husband who was dead lying next to his hysterical nubile lover. So maybe that is why when he met the beautiful Miss Elba Corado in his office, he actually listens to her request to help exonerate her brother, Walter Grillo, who was convicted of rape and murder and is now serving time on death row. Usually he wouldn’t have given her the time of day. People who think their relatives are innocent are a dime a dozen, but there was something about Miss Corado and her story that made Fintan a bit curious.

Across the ocean in Germany, Adolf Hitler is consolidating his power.  Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, as head of Military Intelligence, has discovered a group of Wehrmacht officers who are plotting a coup against Hitler, something Canaris is duty bound to report to the head of the Gestapo, Rudolph Heydrich. But Canaris is reluctant to report the conspiracy, especially as he sees more and more of Hitler’s volatile nature and claims of destiny. Things might have stayed in this uneasy equilibrium indefinitely, but Canaris soon discovers another plot, this time on foreign soil and it is so provocative and dangerous that he is forced to act.

How these very disparate story lines come together is what makes this book so interesting. Based loosely on historical facts, this book fleshes out the period before World War II, giving us insights on the significant events leading up to the war. Quinn really knows his history and he seems equally at home talking about what happened in New York or Germany. He also does an excellent job in fleshing out his characters so that we can see both their strengths and weaknesses as well as their motivations. Their dilemmas seem real and the choices they must make are in some cases extraordinary.  Fintan Dunn is quite an interesting character, who although initially seems almost  like a caricature of the strong silent PIs of the movies, quickly becomes more nuanced as we learn about his service in WWI and the intelligence work he did during that time. If you are interested in history, particularly of this time period, this is a fascinating read!

Brenda’s Rating ***1/2 (3 1/2 out of 5 Stars

Recommend this book to: Ken and Marian

Book Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.

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The Dealer and the Dead by Gerald Seymour

Posted on July 10, 2015 by bseat

The Dealer and The Dead_The villagers knew that they could not survive if they didn’t get help. Their little town was in the path of the advancing Serbian paramilitary forces and the villagers knew only to well what happened to the inhabitants of the villages the Serbs conquered in this never ending war in Bosnia.  Hoping to avoid their fate they sent the local school teacher, Zoran, with all of their money and jewelry to buy anti tank missiles to be used against the Serbs on the narrow road coming into the town. The deal was struck and the weapons promised, but the guns never came and the town was overrun and the villagers were killed or suffered horribly at the hands of the Serbs.

Eighteen years later, Petrar a farmer in the village, inadvertently uncovers a mass grave as he plows a field that had only recently been certified as free of land mines.  When the UN forensic pathologist comes and begins the task of identifying the dead, he finds Zoran’s body and in his pocket the carefully preserved receipt for the guns along with the name of the dealer who took their money and destroyed their hope. The village, led by the women, makes a plan for revenge and decides to arrange for the assassination of the arms dealer who betrayed them.

Harvey Gillot, the arms dealer whose name appears on the piece of paper, is completely unaware of the plot against him. Safe in England, far from the wars that feed his above average lifestyle, he cannot even begin to understand the implacable hatred and animosity that is now directed against him through the sights of an assassin’s gun.

Robbie Cairns is a young hitman who has already gained a considerable reputation for the efficiency and precision of his hits.  His jobs up till now have been local. His grandfather negotiates the deals and his sister and brother help with transportation and reconnaissance while Robbie goes where he needs to go and does the job.

Mark Roscoe a detective sergeant in the Flying Squad, an elite force with in the police service that protects those who became the targets for assassination.  Their “clients” are mostly bad guys-drug dealers, suppliers or somehow connected to organized crime who for some reason are now slated for execution. He and his team will need to protect Harvey Gillot against Robbie Cairns.

Every time I read a book by Seymour I am so impressed with his ability to make characters come right off the pages and his ability to take situations like the war in Bosnia and humanize them in all their complexity. You feel the villager’s implacable hatred and determination to seek revenge on the gun dealer, you feel the terror of Harvey Gillot and you realize that Robbie Cairns cannot give up even as he faces mounting odds. The complicated history, the diplomatic strategies are all told with an emphasis on understanding what motivates these characters. This was another impressive book and a great read for the beach!

Brenda’s Rating: **** (4 Stars out of 5) 

Recommend this book to: Keith, Ken and Marian

Book Study Worthy: Yes

Read in ebook format

 

 

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Descent by Tim Johnston

Posted on July 3, 2015 by bseat

Descent_Sometimes, even though a book is well written and has believable characters, the subject matter may be so challenging that all you want to do is look away. It is a mark of a good writer, then who in spite of wanting to look away, you are compelled to read until the very end, just to find out what happens! Descent is such a book.

The story opens with a brother and sister sneaking out of the cabin where they are staying on vacation with their parents, to go running. The girl has just finished high school and will be going to college in the fall. She is an athlete, a runner, and the mountains where the family is vacationing will provide a great way to increase her endurance and prepare her for the competition at college.  Her brother follows on his bike trying to pace her as they go up and up the mountain road. Suddenly out of nowhere a truck comes careening down the road and hits the boy on the bike.  Stunned and bleeding, he is barely conscious, but he can hear his sister debating with the man whether or not to go with him to get help. She chooses to go in the truck and that is the last they see of her.

The boy is found, but he can remember little about what happened. The family desperately tries to find their daughter, but the summer passes, the boy is released from the hospital and still they cannot find their daughter. The mother returns to their home with the son, hoping that by returning to their home and picking up their normal life they too can return to normal, but that does not happen. The father remains in the mountains, not able to give up hope that his daughter still lives. The family is scattered and broken.

Meanwhile the man in the truck takes the girl to his remote cabin. There he chains her in the cabin like he has other girls before her. She is afraid, lost and at his mercy.

Johnston is an an amazing writer. His insight into this family as their world falls apart is cringingly real and each characters actions seem believable and understandable. His pacing and ability to keep the suspense taut makes this a page turner that you can’t put down! However, the subject matter is brutal and horrific and you keep wanting to turn away and not confront the fact that such evil exists, and yet Johnston is able to compel you back to the story, which is the mark of an  excellent writer. This book is not for the faint hearted, but the rewards are great, since it is a story about resilience in the face of no hope, courage when only meekness is rewarded, and the love of a family under impossible circumstances.

Brenda’s Rating: ****(4 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Ken, Sharon, and Marian

Books Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.

 

 

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The Bone Tree by Greg Iles

Posted on June 19, 2015 by bseat

The Bone TreeIn this second installment of a trilogy which began with Natchez Burning, Iles takes us deeper into the morass of racism, hatred, violence and corruption that lies underneath a thin veneer of southern gentility in Mississippi.  Penn Cage, who is now the mayor of Natchez and his girlfriend Caitlin, who is the editor of the Natchez newspaper, have been following leads trying to exculpate Penn’s father, Dr. Tom Cage , the city’s beloved doctor accused of murdering his long time friend and nurse, Viola Turner.  Penn is convinced that his father is being framed by the Double Egles, a vicious sect of the KKK, and had hoped that when their leader, Brody Royal, died that his father could be exonerated. But that did not happen and now his father is also accused of killing a police officer and has disappeared.  FBI Special Agent John Kaiser, warns Penn that the Double Eagles, far from being leaderless are in fact being led by Forest Knox, the chief of the state’s Criminal Investigation Bureau, giving him access to enormous resources and manpower to use for his own ends.

Penn now has to decide whether to pursue his efforts to expose Forest Knox and the corruption within the police themselves or to take the devil’s deal that Forest Knox has offered him. Meanwhile Caitlin has begun to get some traction in her investigation of two civil rights era murders in Natchez. As she pursues various leads she learns about the Bone Tree, a place of punishment used during the days of slavery and more recently as a place of punishment and death used by Forest Knox and the Double Eagles; a place that may have the answers to the civil rights era murders and shed light on Forest Knox’s interest in Dr. Tom Cage.  With the inevitable conflict that arises from pursuing different agendas,  Penn and Caitlin must reevaluate their relationship adding to the stress and uncertainty between them.

Iles is masterful at keeping the tension taut throughout this book, which at 804 pages is quite a feat! Both Caitlin and Penn have different goals which they are pursuing, but ultimately they both want the same thing: to find the truth. Iles is quite good and getting to the conflicted emotions they both have throughout even as they make choices that seem inimical to the others’ goals.  Iles also continues to develop the other characters. For example, Penn’s mother becomes more vivid in this book, contributing to a deeper understanding of Tom and Penn. Mostly however, this is a book about racism, and the ugliness and brutality that such a mindset exerts on everyone not just those who live in the south. It is a corrosive that permeates our whole society and as the news recently makes clear, we still have a long ways to go to heal those wounds.

Brenda’s Rating: **** (4 Out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: Sharon, Ken. Keith and Marian

Book Study Worthy: Yes

Read in ebook format.

 

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The Prophet by Michael Koryta

Posted on June 12, 2015 by bseat

The Prophet_Michael Koryta is one of a few writers who shifts from genre to genre even though it is considered career suicide to do so. Koryta however, seems to actually thrive on it!  Known as a crime/suspense novelist, Koryta shifted into supernatural novels like So Cold the River or The Ridge but in The Prophet, he returns to his roots of crime and suspense.

Adam and his brother Kent couldn’t be less alike. Adam, a PI  and a bail bondsmen, lives a life that is not much different than the criminal element he works with. His life experience makes him wary, suspicious and untrusting. His brother Kent on the other hand is the head coach for the local high school team and is loved and respected his staff, his team and his family. Hardworking and religious, Kent believes in people’s goodness, even his own, even though, ironically, he has not spoken to his  own brother in years.

On the eve of the playoffs, the girl friend of one of the team’s best players goes missing and is eventually found murdered. As the details of the murder come to light,  Adam and Kent are implicated and inexorably caught up in the investigation.  Eerily similar to the murder of their sister years ago, Adam and Kent now have to face their long suppressed memories while also trying confront this new evil that is trying to destroy their lives.

Koryta’s characters, especially Adam and Kent, are realistic and act from motivations that seem true and consistent with their personalities. Delving deep into the murderer’s mind Koryta makes his insanity seems rational which makes him all the more creepy and maniacal.  Koryta spent a year with a high school football team doing research for this book and the way he writes about the relationship of the coach with his team and how the individual boys of the team relate to each other clearly shows the insights he gained from that research. Koryta ensnared me again with a wonderfully written suspense novel that is also an ode to brothers and football: it is a perfect summer read. Enjoy!

Brenda’s Rating: ****(4 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Sharon, Ken, Keith and Marian

Book Study Worthy: yes

Read in ebook format.

 

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Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Posted on June 5, 2015 by bseat

Rules of Civility_It is 1966 and a woman and her husband attend the opening  at MOMA of a photographic exhibit by Walker Evans. The exhibit is of portraits Evans took of ordinary New Yorkers on the subway using a hidden camera. Among the pictures are two portraits of the same man. The woman knew him as Tinker Grey and her husband knew of him as well, although they were not intimate friends.  The one portrait, taken in 1939 shows a dirty, raggedy, thin, yet smiling young man and the other taken just a year earlier in 1938 shows a serious and elegantly dressed man in expensive clothes. The husband murmurs, “Riches to rags,” on seeing the two portraits. “No, not exactly,” the woman responds.

Switching to New York in the 1930s we meet two roommates, Eve and Katie, trying to make their way in the big city. Working in a law office as secretaries, Eve and Katie are slowly making progress towards their dreams even as they enjoy the swirl of night life in New York.  Accidentally, one evening at a nightclub they meet Tinker Grey, and soon are caught up in the swirl of money and high society that is seemingly his milieu. Imperceptibly at first, their competing attractions to Tinker Grey and his lifestyle begins to change Eve and Katie’s relationship and quickly their choices lead them in very different directions. Yet the impact of Tinker Grey remains forever etched on their lives.

Insightful and sympathetic, Towles story allows us to sink deeply into what it means to be young, with seemingly endless choices ahead of you. His characters are fully realized especially Katie, whose role as narrator allows us a deeper look at her inner motivations. The other main character is 1930s New York City with its jazz and nightlife. Towles knows his subject well and he makes New York shine!  Yet it is the mystery of who and what Tinker Grey is and what became of him that is the thread that pulls us along and we come to understand and even celebrate that smile in spite of his outwardly ragged appearance.

Brenda’s Rating: ****( 4 stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Marian, Lauren, Sharon and Keith

Book study worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.

 

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