Deal's Picks

My favorite mysteries involve lost books, manuscripts, or lettesr, and in The School of Night it is a lost letter that is of concern.  A lost letter from the sixteenth century that holds the promise of treasure.  A lost letter which originated from one of the five members of the School of Night, which met to discuss God, politics, astronomy, and the black arts.  And, in our current time, there is an Elizabethan scholar who is searching for the lost letter.  There may be some others that want it as well.  Louis Bayard has crafted another elegant mystery, and what a surprise awaits the reader at the end.

Obreht was born in the former Yugosloavia and has lived in the US since she was twelve.  The Tiger’s Wife is set in an unnamed Balkan country.  Natalia is a young doctor, as her grandfather was before her.  While in the country on a mission of mercy, Natalia misses the strange death of her grandfather, who may have been trying to meet her, or may have been trying to meet up once again with “the deathless man”.  And who, or what, was the “tiger’s wife”, and where did the tiger come from.  It all interweaves, and it all come together in a tale that can’t be put down till the end has come.  

Thirty-two year old Dinaw Mengestu, originally from Ethiopia and now living in Paris, has crafted an excellent novel of the immigrant experience in America as he tells the story of parents who came over on the boat, trying to fit in to a foreign land, and a son of immigrants trying to fit in with immigrant parents.  How to Read the Air is an amazing family saga about trying to figure out just where one really belongs, and why.

Oxford, Mississippi author Tom Franklin carries on the writing tradition so well-grained in his area of the South.  Franklin has written one book of short stories, Poachers, and the novels Hell at the Breech and Smonk.  Smonk was one of the most alluringly strange novels I ever read, and I tremendously enjoyed selling it to people.  The unanimous verdict from those who read Smonk agreed with mine:  that was really good, but, God it was strange; do you have anything else by Franklin?

And now we do.  Compared to Smonk, Franklin’s new novel, Crooked River, Crooked River, is practically mainstream for a literary work coming out of Mississippi.  It is the story of two young men, one white, Larry, one black, Silas, who grow up as friends, neighbors, and classmates in rural Mississippi.  Larry takes a young lady out on a date and she is never seen again.  The incident causes a split between Larry and Silas, and Larry is forever ostracized from the community, though, unlike Silas, he never leaves.  Years pass, Silas returns as the local Constable, and then another young woman disappears.  To say that terror, accusations, and old wounds surfacing occur is to put it mildly.

Franklin handles the story of Larry and Silas adeptly and engrossingly.  Crooked River, Crooked River kept me gripping the book, turning the pages, more than curious and anticipating the climax, for I knew it would be far to pat to make Larry the culprit.  Or could it?  How much is coincidence and how much is fate?  Written like the best mysteries, yet so much more, because Franklin writes a true Southern literary novel.  A thriller, yes, but a true Southern masterpiece as well.  With Crooked River, Crooked River, Tom Franklin moves up even higher in the ranks of true Southern literati, a place he well deserves.

Classic Bill Bryson at his best, this time Bryson takes us on a tour of his home in Norfolk, England.  And what a tour it is.  Once a Victorian parsonage and remaining as one for many years after its construction in 1851, Bryson’s home once set in open fields where now it resides in woodland, was once new but has now aged 160 years, and now has a few minor conveniences, like electricity, which were not common when the home was constructed.  But, in most respects, Bryson’s home is much the same as it was when the Reverend Thomas Marsham first occupied it, though the home was not built exactly according to the architectural drawings of the original design.

Now, we all know and love the fact that anything Bill Bryson writes is going to lead off in an array of tangents, and, even if this is not why Bryson writes, it just might be why we all so enjoy reading him.  When Bryson talks of the setting of the house, the reader will learn a bit about archeology, but, only back as far as Roman Britain, or perhaps only as far back as when first human settlement occurred on the island.  When he talks about the house, you will also learn something of the Crystal Palace in London, about living structures in general, about brick, about basic architecture, and about the sociology and anthropology of the clergy in Britain.

At Home, once in the house, begins in the hall, which is the natural place to begin, for all houses were once just halls.  The book traces the evolution of halls and how they provided the basis, or the trunk, from which additional rooms of the house grew out over time.  Natural progression leads us to the kitchen with scullery and larder, the drawing room, the dining room, and the bedroom.  But, along the way, we visit the cellar, the passage, the stairs, the attic, the bathroom, and rooms in between before heading out to the garden.  And all the way we receive lessons in history, in building and decorating technique, in sociology, and a few good biographical sketches thrown in for good measure.

So along the way we visit with John Ruskin, Frances Trollope, Jacob Riis, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Jane Austen and Alexander Graham Bell, among many others.  We learn of early books on cooking, on manners, on the keeping and tending of domestic help.  We find out about the spread of disease, the spread and retreat of agriculture, the industrial revolution, and a touch or so of medicine, astronomy, and urban engineering.  At Home does not stay at home; Bryson leaves no stone unturned in his, and our, pursuit of knowledge.

Bryson has taken an old brick house, shaken and rattled it around inside his magic pen, and given us a story.  At Home is a wonderful story full of zigs and zags meandering through the interesting tidbits of life as once lived and as it is lived now.  As with all Bill Bryson works, the reader gains an encyclopedia of knowledge about the oddest things and enjoys every page and minute of it.  Even at the end, this reader at least finds fascination in reading the bibliography of the book, picking out the titles of books already read, and wondering when those unread might be gotten to.

After a long wait we finally have the new novel from Water for Elephants author Sara Gruen, Ape House, and a rollicking good story it is.  An emotional and action packed story, Ape House throws together various factions of the animal rights movement, primate research ala Jane Goodall, secret laboratories of nefarious institutions and individuals, and a cast of highly lovable and less-than lovable characters, not excluding the bonobo apes that are the central theme of the novel.

Gruen throws all of these elements into the mix and weaves a tale that only in the America of the present age could be believable, and it is very believable.  Gruen develops her characters into mostly believable human beings, tosses out threads in various directions and follows them, tying them all into a tidy package the becomes an almost true story of the day.  With much more action, and faster paced, than Water for Elephants, Ape House moves the reader right along toward what is expected to be a dynamite conclusion.

And, that is the only problem I had with Ape House, the dynamite conclusion.  After carefully plotting out and developing an awesome story, everything comes together and concludes in a very few pages.  There is a back story to Ape House.  Originally scheduled to come out two years ago, it was postponed for a year.  Then it was postponed for another year.  Then there was a publisher change.  So, did Gruen simply run into writer’s block, and finally just get tired of writing this book, rushing through the conclusion, or did some editor at Random House say, alright, enough already, give us what you’ve got and be done with it?  Whatever the reason, an extra thirty or sixty pages added to the end would have made the end as good as the beginning and middle.

Bottom line is that Ape House, despite the abbreviated ending, was worth the wait, and I highly recommend it as an outstanding fall novel to put on your list to read.  And, I will put forth my wish that Gruen, who for those who don’t already know, is now a resident of North Carolina, in the Asheville area, will return to former publisher and North Carolina based Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill for her next book.  I think Algonquin’s editors will force a better ending out of her!

Imagine if Einstein and Bohr had been much closer friends early in life, say in their university days, and later, found themselves at odds to the point where they were mentally, emotionally, and physically a danger to each other.  Then, theoretically, you might have In Free Fall, German Juli Zeh’s novel most excellently translated by Christine Lo. 

In this story of distrust in the rare air of physics, set in Germany and Switzerland, Oskar and Sebastian were both at one time candidates for the Nobel Prize in Physics.  The closest of friends during their University days, later they built a distance between them as each progressed with their own quite disparate theories.  Oskar, who has devoted his entire life to his pursuit of his theory, is convinced Sebastian abandoned his own devotion to the theoretical world by marrying, by having a child, and even by teaching.  When Sebastian’s son Liam is kidnapped, the divide widens perceptively and sickeningly.  But, the problem is, was Liam kidnapped?  And, as this story unfolds, as stakes are raised and irreversible decisions are made, as forces that perhaps no one person truly controls are let loose to run their course, events occur that will not let everything go back together as they began. 

In Free Fall is a novel of awesome depths and subtleties that keeps the reader in suspense and anticipation.  It is a novel of physicists, not physics, so no scientific training is required to delve into its deceptively intricate workings.  Full of surprises, it is storytelling at its best.  No wonder this novel has become an international sensation; it deserves and demands to be read now that it has finally reached our shores.

The Invisible Bridge, Julie Orringer’s debut novel, is an epic, romantic, holocaust novel that excels in the genre of literary fiction.  The body of the novel occurs between 1937 and the end of European action in World War II, with a short epilogue set post-war in the United States.  The European setting moves between Hungary and France, Budapest and Paris, and is the accounting of two Hungarian families as their lives interact both with each other’s and with others around them. 

Andras has come to Paris from Hungary to study architecture at the Ecole Speciale d’Architecure; his brother Tibor, after a short while, passes through on the way to Italy to study medicine.  Youngest brother Matyas is left behind with the parents who operate a small lumberyard.  In Paris there is another family from Hungary, among them Klara, who now goes by the name Claire, and teaches dance; her high school aged daughter, and, off in a different part of the city, the nephew Jozsef.  Each of these parties carries with them their own mysteries and their own emotional and romantic entanglements, some of which will become intertwined as The Invisible Bridge moves forward. 

Complications ensue from the very beginning for virtually all parties involved, not the least of which is the threat of coming war with Germany.  All is made more fragile by the issue of Jewish heritage, of which all major parties and many of the minor characters are a part.  As German influence grows greater both in France and in Hungary, expatriates are recalled for “visa renewal” and find themselves virtually imprisoned in their native Hungary.  Although Hungary does not early on participate in the “ultimatesolution” to the “Jewish problem”, there are increasing restrictions on life, and as Germany begins its march across Europe, Hungarian Jews are assigned to non-military work details which are one step removed from slave labor.  And, of course, things continue to worsen until Hungary is actually invaded by Hitler’s troops.  In the end, Hungary does not escape the Holocaust. 

The Invisible Bridge follows Andras, Klara, their neighbors, friends and kin through the nightmare of pre-war and war-torn Hungary.  There are small triumphs, there is hope, there is birth, and there is love.  But, there are defeats, despair, and death as well.  And, in the final epilogue, Orringer lets us see where some of the survivors have alighted, and that, as we all know, life can and does go on though the horror of memory never goes away.

In the year 2071 cloning has been in force within the United States for many decades, so that there are now a quarter of a billion clones in existence.  Clones are kept in an area called The Clearances, which is comprised of what used to be the states of North and South Dakota.  They are kept for primarily one purpose, to provide spare parts for their originals.  This is a government sponsored program, a program which no other country in the world condones, and participation by originals is required if one wishes to have health insurance.  There are also those within the United States who oppose the idea and the practice of cloning, and they have watched The Clearances for many years, attempting to find out what goes on within the borders of The Clearances and how the program might be stopped. 

One of the clones has escaped and been found by those opposed to the cloning.  The Bradbury Report, authored by “Ray Bradbury”, a sixty-six year old retired teacher, is the accounting of a year with the escaped clone, on the run from the government through the US and Canada, as he and Anna, a woman Ray had not seen or heard from since college, attempt to teach and socialize the clone so that he may be brought before the world for an expose of the world inside The Clearances. 

The Bradbury Report is certainly science fiction, but it is so close to being borderline reality that it somewhat shifts the genre over.  Within this book the world has not changed from what we know in 2010 with the exception of the cloning issue.  There have certainly been more than several books in the last decade that have rather realistically dealt with potential issues of cloning (Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro) and harvesting of body parts (again, Ishiguro and also The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist), but The Bradbury Report takes us to a different level:  the cultivation of an entire cloned underclass with one purpose in life, to keep the original alive.  Well done. 

I thought this book was going to be an argument as to why those not necessarily fit for college should take shop in high school, and in some respects it is.  However, Shop Class as Soulcraft is much more philosophical than that.  Crawford states, and rightly so I think, that work with ones hands provides a certain reward and life fulfillment that is lacking in work only done with the mind.  Further, he argues that work with ones hands on a project which sees the particular job move from start to finish is exponentially more valuable than being simply a cog in a wheel, such as an assembly line position.   

Crawford knows from which he speaks.  The author has a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago; no small chops.  He is currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.  Perhaps most importantly for a perspective on this book, Crawford also owns and operates Shockoe Moto, an independent motorcycle repair shop in Richmond, VA.  Before you make the comparison, yes, in some respects Shop Class as Soulcraft is a modern day version of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.   

Crawford makes many excellent arguments in his book, and also goes on to explain how, even in the top white-collar world, it is only the leaders and innovators who can truly get satisfaction from their work.  For the millions of workers that come after and below them, the white-collar job is just more dumbed-down work waiting to be outsourced, just like so much assembly-line manufacturing has been outsourced.  There is no creativity involved anymore; there are no challenges to pushing the mouse anymore than pushing the wrench when you are only a cog in a wheel. 

I can personally identify with most of what Crawford says, as I have been in most places he has been at or talks of.  Just as I once, for a brief period, worked on an assembly line, I also once completely maintained the two Volkswagens I owned.  I have started several businesses and know first-hand the creativity involved.  I have worked for myself for the past thirty-one years.  And, when I sometimes tire of the daily routine of bookselling, which is truly a passion for me, I retire to my shop and build bookshelves or other useful objects for the bookstore, the house, or for fun.   

Did I take shop class in high school?  No.  Yet I have been building things now for over forty years.  Did I go to college?  Yes.  And in many respects it improved my thinking and perhaps my way of thinking.  But I never really “used” my college to make a living or a thing.  And, when I walked away from college, I couldn’t find my soul.

Ah, another apocalyptic novel.  How I love them.  Well, I’m not necessarily that morbid, but, I do enjoy seeing the scenarios some authors can come up with to forecast the end of the world, or of humankind, as we know it.  Cold Earth, by Sarah Moss, is much better crafted than most novels of this small genre, and actually has a very believable and quite theoretically possible storyline in light of events of the past few years. 

Cold Earth is set in Greenland where a group of six archeologists from around the world have gathered for a dig at an old Viking settlement.  As they arrive for their expedition a pandemic has begun sweeping the world, and due to communications issues the group will have gradually diminishing contact with the outside world as they progress through their task at hand. 

Conditions in the camp are both physically and mentally taxing for the six, as they must deal with personal issues between themselves as well as perceptual issues of what may have transpired in the past within the Viking settlement that resulted in the settlement’s demise.  Further, there is a ghostly sense of presence within the old settlement that is more obvious to some members of the group than others. 

Cold Earth’s narrative is told through the voices of the past, but, mostly through the thoughts and writing of what may be last letters home from the various expedition members, told in first person form and forming the basis of the six sections of the book.  It is a haunting story filled with personal fears and demons, hope and lack of hope.  A literally and figuratively chilling thriller of survival, Cold Earth moves on my list into the top bracket of apocalyptic novels.

Ah, a good, literary Southern novel that I can like.  It has been several years since Gautreaux’s The Clearing, which was a great, rollicking Louisiana swamp novel, and I needed a new fix from him.  He didn’t disappoint me with the just out The Missing. 

The Missing is back in Louisiana, set post WWI, with a vivid cast of characters and a lot of riverboat action.  There is a stolen child, kidnapped from a fancy department store, and much of the continuing action is the store dick’s search for the missing child.  So off he goes, often accompanied by his wife, traversing the Mississippi up from New Orleans and off into the wild running into outlaws and in-breds, searching for the child.   

The Missing covers a good bit of history and mayhem in a way that is pleasing to read and satisfying to the era.  Gautreaux has a wonderful way with words, can tell a story quite well, and develops characters that are believable to every facet of the story.  He can be somewhat compared to Jeffrey Lent, or the Southern version thereof.  Louisiana has a fascination for many, and not just because of Mardi Gras or New Orleans.  In many respects the state embodies aspects of one of America’s last frontiers, and one can plainly see this in the novels of Gautreaux.  Spend time with The Missing, and allow the book to transport you to a different time and place.

Louise Erdrich always impresses me; with Shadow Tag she also surprised me.  First off, Erdrich strays across a psychological boundary which she rarely crosses, yet she does it with confidence and the fine ability she has as an awesome author.  Last in, she gives the reader a quite unexpected ending in the final chapter of the book; normally, and not negatively said, Erdrich endings can usually be predicted.  In between, the author gives us an in-depth personal story of a young family living in trouble and in suspicion.   

In a nutshell, we have a couple with children.  Gil is an artist; Irene is a Ph.D candidate attempting to complete her dissertation on George Caitlin.  Gil has been reading Irene’s diary.  Irene knows this, and begins to keep a duplicate diary.  The diary she keeps hidden is accurate while the diary she makes certain is always found is filled with all of the worst fears Gil can imagine in a marriage.  This is the outline of Shadow Tag, and Erdrich fills in all the blanks with a very credible and enthralling story, joining everything together for a shattering climax. 

I also consider Louise Erdrich a must read, and she never disappoints.  Shadow Tag takes her writing to a slightly different dimension, and it was a satisfying visit.

What an awesome novel of Africa, of the medical profession, and of the ties of family which can be sometimes hidden and remote, but, can then surface and be remarkably restored when the chips are down.  Primarily set in Ethiopia at the fictional Missing Hospital, Cutting for Stone is the story of twins, barely conjoined at birth by a slim stalk from their heads (and quickly disconnected), who are the offspring of an Indian nun and nurse, and an English surgeon.  Conceived in a rather dramatic single sexual encounter, the father flees when faced with their traumatic birth and the mother dies from results of an emergency C-section.  The boys grow up at Missing, become field-trained surgeons in their own right, and through further dramatic events come to leave separate lives on different continents before coming back together, and being joined by their father, in a lead up to the conclusion. 

Verghese has brought the reader a telling story of Africa in the troubled times of Haile Salassie and beyond, and there are parts of this novel which will be difficult for the light of heart.  At the same time, the novel shows the perseverance and strength that those who chose to enter Ethiopia, and other African nations, to work in remote areas and bring bush medicine to those that did not have it, were remarkable people who chose a life of service and vocation which few Westerners can fathom.  Cutting for Stone is a novel of strength and sacrifice for a land, a people, a profession, and ultimately, for our brothers, be they related by familial kinship, or by circumstance. 

Previously only a non-fiction writer, Verghese has done a remarkable job moving to fiction with Cutting for Stone.  Extremely well-written and put together, the novel moves at the pace of Africa through the narration of the oldest (by seconds) of the twins.  Every one of the 560 pages is worth spending time with, and at the end the reader will know they have made their time well spent.

Set in the lands that will become Iraq once the partitions have been made following World War I, Booker prize-winning author Unsworth gives an intriguing novel of spies, sabotage, archeology, and religious zealotry.  An archeological dig which promises great revelations and discoveries about the Assyrian empire is threatened by the steady progress of a German-engineered railway, deals are made for protection and diversion, but, underlying all bets is a three-way struggle, mostly well behind the scenes, for the ultimate prize – oil.  Unbeknownst to some of the central characters, all bets are off in the race for the oil that will determine so very much about the coming future of two world wars and the future of the modern world, from who drives what to who builds nations. 

Unsworth manages to incorporate a modest Arab love story, a Western assignation, a good bit of deceit, a touch of spy thriller, as well as a relatively accurate background cover of what really was happening in the future Iraq prior to onset of WWI.  He weaves these entire lines well, turning some heroes into villains and vice-versa, in a story that becomes more and more necessary to continue without stop as the reader gets caught up in the excitement of the novel.  And, in the end, Unsworth brings everything to a conclusion in a very explosive way.  The reader may be a little surprised to see who walks out of the smoke! 

Unsworth did not win his Booker for nothing, and Land of Marvels gives us evidence why.  Land of Marvels is not only a satisfying novel, but, it is a novel of the times.

We haven’t seen much of British writer Andrew Taylor’s work published in the United States, and what little has been published has been out of print for some time.  Hyperion began to change this situation with the publication of An Unpardonable Crime, and now continues with the new Bleeding Heart Square.   

Bleeding Heart Square is set in a not too desirable area of London in 1934 and is filled with an odd assortment of characters from various social strata, many of whom are related in peculiar and unexpected ways. Much revolves around central character Lydia Langstone, but there is an array of important sub-characters here that make everything come together.  And, of course, moving the action forward from chapter to chapter are the diary entries of Miss Penhow, who appears to be missing, or off to the United States, or, perhaps, dead.  It is all a big British mystery. 

Yes, a big British mystery, more of which we need imported into the United States.  And, they will be.  Hyperion will be republishing some of Taylor’s other works in the near future, and, I expect, we can look forward to regular, simultaneous releases of his forthcoming books if Bleeding Heart Square is received with the acclaim that An Unpardonable Crime was when it came to the US.  Do we in the U. S. need another British mystery writer coming ashore?  Yes, if he or she is of the caliber of Andrew Taylor.