Through the usual vagaries of thrift store shopping, I ended up with an advance reader's copy of Ursula Hegi's 2007 novel The Worst Thing I've Done. Being a fan of Hegi's wonderful novels Floating in My Mother's Palm and Stones from the River, I had high hopes. The plot of The Worst Thing I've Done seemed interesting and difficult, so I was excited to dive into it.
Unfortunately, Worst Thing is one of those novels that made me focus too much on how it was put together. When I read a book, my goal is to be transported. I want to be so involved in what is going on that I don't notice the structure of the chapters too much or see where the seams in the storyline are. I want to be pulled into story and character and language from beginning to end. What this novel has going for it is a suspenseful, driving plot--I really did want to see what would happen--but it was also disappointing because it was not structurally sound. I became impatient with it and, worst of all, found myself wanting to skip paragraphs.
Here is why the plot and many of the characters were engaging: The Worst Thing I've Ever Done is about a love triangle among three friends who have been inseparable since early childhood. Mason, Annie, and Jake are wholly intertwined with each other's thoughts, actions, and emotions all their lives. When Annie inevitably must choose between the two men, she marries Mason. Together they form a marriage with the platonic third wheel, Jake. Hegi further complicates the relationship by killing off Annie's pregnant mother and Annie's father on their way home from the wedding. The baby survives, leaving Annie and Mason to raise the infant they name Opal, with Jake, naturally, being the third parent.
....Hum...did I say the plot was engaging? Now that I look at my description, the plot seems more like a daytime soap opera storyline than a good plot for a novel. (I must admit that occasionally while I read it occurred to me that since I was reading an advance copy maybe the final published product was better put together than the one I held in my hands.)
Opal becomes the center of the friends' lives. They are all young and excited, though sometimes overwhelmed, about raising this little girl. Opal seems to deflect the intense emotional energy the three are entrapped by, but eventually "one fateful night, the three friends goad one another into stepping over a line, with shocking, unforeseen consequences for each of them" (book cover).
I think that Hegi might have pulled this off if the book had been more tightly woven together. At first, it is Annie's story, told in third person. Then Annie's story is in first person, followed by what will be come a common break between chapters, excerpts from Mason's suicide note. (No spoilers here, we learn of his suicide in the 2nd sentence of the novel.) About halfway through the book, chapters alternate among the perspectives of various characters: Opal, Jake, Aunt Stormy, Annie, Mason's excerpts. Eventually, you wonder whose story this really is. The organization is as messy as the friends' lives are, but I don't think Hegi intended this to be some sort of structural symbolism.
Why did I stick with it? Despite it's wacky structure and the heavy handed preachiness in the second half of the book--Aunt Stormy is an anti-war protestor during the 2003 invasion of Iraq--I still wanted to know what would happen to the characters. The Worst Thing I've Done is a novel that has interesting themes running through it, and the suspenseful elements of the plot did their job in sucking me in. And, because it was written by Ursula Hegi, there are many beautifully written passages that beg to be re-read.
But, even with these small rewards, I can't recommend this one: if you want a beautifully written, tightly woven, unforgettable novel by Ursula Hegi, don't read this book. Pick up Stones from the River or Floating in my Mother's Palm (preferably both) and savor them. They are among the best things she's ever done.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Misalignment
Hello, Too Fond of Books readers. Just dropping in to say that a misalignment of the planets has caused me fall far behind on my posting, if not on my reading. Stay tuned...I'll be back within a day or so. Thanks for your patience!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Lush Life by Richard Price
I loved Richard Price's Clockers when it came out in 1992 and then pretty much forgot about him until I recently heard him interviewed on Teri Gross's show Fresh Air on NPR. Price read the opening sequence of his new book Lush Life on the air, and I knew that it was the next book I had to read.
Richard Price is well known for his exceptional ear for dialogue and his ability to set scenes in the streets of New York and New Jersey so vividly that readers feel that they know them intimately. His characters, often street toughs and hard bitten police officers, come to life as individuals rather than as simple caricatures. This is no easy feat in genre fiction, particularly in crime fiction. We have cultural images of police officers and street punks that infiltrate our imaginations to the point that they often become little more than types. While Price allows for certain truths in characterization, his protagonists are so well sketched out that we see them as Tristan or Eric Cash or Matty Clark or Yolanda Bello not as Street Tough #1 or Yuppie #1 or Disgruntled Cop #1 or Token Woman Cop #1.
The storyline of Lush Life seems simple. Eric Cash has lived in New York for almost 10 years and still remains a restaurant manager despite his once youthful dreams of being a successful writer. He hangs on to his "what ifs" though everything tells him that he'll never be anything other than what he has become: a man approaching middle age living in a neighborhood being taken over by twenty-somethings who moved here for the very reasons he did so long ago...the difference being that many of these kids are moving towards success while he has stagnated. Eric is particularly resentful of a new bartender in the restaurant, Ike, a kid who has everything he needs to make it: he's good looking, friendly, optimistic, charismatic.
Eric finds himself out drinking one night with Ike and his friend, unsure of how he got himself into this social mess and looking for a way out. When the three are confronted by two punks, one of whom has a gun, Ike commits the unpardonable crime of not respecting the code of the street. Instead of lowering his eyes and handing over his wallet, Ike looks directly at the kids, steps towards them, and says, "Not tonight, my man." As one police officer puts it, Ike has committed "suicide by mouth." When Eric is questioned as a witness by the police, he inexplicably lies about his actions after the murder; they are small lies, but lies nonetheless. When other eye-witnesses cast additional suspicion on his behavior, Eric is hauled in for questioning by Dective Matty Clark and his partner Dective Yolanda Bello.
All of this action takes place within the first 40 pages of Lush Life. What follows is the story of the aftermath of the murder for all the principals involved. Eric Cash tries to figure out his next course of action...what will he do after being falsely accused of involvement in the murder? Should he disappear or help? Matty Clark battles the higher ups in the department for resources to actually solve the case, while at the same time trying to restrain Ike's grieving father from vigilanteeism. Tristan, the trigger man, alternately proud of and troubled by his crime, attempts to blend into the background of the neighborhood as he watches the investigation take wrong turn after wrong turn.
I am not someone who often reads crime fiction, but when I find a writer like Richard Price who can make it real and complicated and suspenseful and unique, it is easy to become completely immersed. Lush Life, like Clockers, is a lengthy novel, but one that you can't put down. The characters are 3-dimensional, the story is complex without being dense, and the resolution is believable, if not a little predictable. But since the novel is ultimately more about the neighborhood in which the crime takes place and the people who inhabit it than solely about Ike's murder, a slightly predictable ending to the investigation itself is not a problem. As Price, himself put it, “I tend to like crime for a backbone.... An investigation will take you through a landscape.” And the landscape of Lush Life is what you will remember most of all.
Richard Price is well known for his exceptional ear for dialogue and his ability to set scenes in the streets of New York and New Jersey so vividly that readers feel that they know them intimately. His characters, often street toughs and hard bitten police officers, come to life as individuals rather than as simple caricatures. This is no easy feat in genre fiction, particularly in crime fiction. We have cultural images of police officers and street punks that infiltrate our imaginations to the point that they often become little more than types. While Price allows for certain truths in characterization, his protagonists are so well sketched out that we see them as Tristan or Eric Cash or Matty Clark or Yolanda Bello not as Street Tough #1 or Yuppie #1 or Disgruntled Cop #1 or Token Woman Cop #1.
The storyline of Lush Life seems simple. Eric Cash has lived in New York for almost 10 years and still remains a restaurant manager despite his once youthful dreams of being a successful writer. He hangs on to his "what ifs" though everything tells him that he'll never be anything other than what he has become: a man approaching middle age living in a neighborhood being taken over by twenty-somethings who moved here for the very reasons he did so long ago...the difference being that many of these kids are moving towards success while he has stagnated. Eric is particularly resentful of a new bartender in the restaurant, Ike, a kid who has everything he needs to make it: he's good looking, friendly, optimistic, charismatic.
Eric finds himself out drinking one night with Ike and his friend, unsure of how he got himself into this social mess and looking for a way out. When the three are confronted by two punks, one of whom has a gun, Ike commits the unpardonable crime of not respecting the code of the street. Instead of lowering his eyes and handing over his wallet, Ike looks directly at the kids, steps towards them, and says, "Not tonight, my man." As one police officer puts it, Ike has committed "suicide by mouth." When Eric is questioned as a witness by the police, he inexplicably lies about his actions after the murder; they are small lies, but lies nonetheless. When other eye-witnesses cast additional suspicion on his behavior, Eric is hauled in for questioning by Dective Matty Clark and his partner Dective Yolanda Bello.
All of this action takes place within the first 40 pages of Lush Life. What follows is the story of the aftermath of the murder for all the principals involved. Eric Cash tries to figure out his next course of action...what will he do after being falsely accused of involvement in the murder? Should he disappear or help? Matty Clark battles the higher ups in the department for resources to actually solve the case, while at the same time trying to restrain Ike's grieving father from vigilanteeism. Tristan, the trigger man, alternately proud of and troubled by his crime, attempts to blend into the background of the neighborhood as he watches the investigation take wrong turn after wrong turn.
I am not someone who often reads crime fiction, but when I find a writer like Richard Price who can make it real and complicated and suspenseful and unique, it is easy to become completely immersed. Lush Life, like Clockers, is a lengthy novel, but one that you can't put down. The characters are 3-dimensional, the story is complex without being dense, and the resolution is believable, if not a little predictable. But since the novel is ultimately more about the neighborhood in which the crime takes place and the people who inhabit it than solely about Ike's murder, a slightly predictable ending to the investigation itself is not a problem. As Price, himself put it, “I tend to like crime for a backbone.... An investigation will take you through a landscape.” And the landscape of Lush Life is what you will remember most of all.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Lowboy by John Wray
John Wray's Lowboy opens as sixteen-year-old Will Heller eludes his state-appointed handlers and jumps onto a subway train underneath New York City. Will has a plan to save the world from imminent destruction by global warming, and he has been preparing himself for this moment for weeks. Will, who is also known as Lowboy, has been weaning himself from his meds, so upon his release from the psychiatric hospital he is no longer in a "flat space" and unable to act. Lowboy is ready, and he knows exactly what he has to do.
Wray's novel is a short, but very powerful story of a teenager with paranoid schizophrenia, a terrified and deeply troubled mother, and a missing persons detective who tries to find Will among the tunnels of New York's subway system before he either hurts himself or someone else. Though highly intelligent when he's lucid, Will has a violent past and without his medications, there is no telling what he might do. Detective Ali Lateef finds the mother, Violet, both helpful and deceptive in his quest to find out where Will might go and why. She seems to know everything about Will and his possible motivations, yet she offers Lateef only piecemeal bits of information. Violet is keeping something back, and she is withholding it for a reason.
John Wray brilliantly captures the perspectives of all of his key characters by using alternating points of view for each chapter. Lowboy/Will's chapters are both beautiful and chilling as he shifts from an almost childlike fascination with the details of everything around him to a protective self-absorption when he feels threatened or becomes overwhelmed by the voices in his head. It is clear that Lowboy has no control over how he interacts with the world. Violet's chapters reveal the emotional weariness of a parent who struggles with her overwhelming love for her mentally ill son and a guilty sense of relief that he might not be found. Lateef's chapters reflect the outsider's perspective. He finds Violet both confounding and fascinating, which affects his normally astute skills in finding lost persons.
This novel packs a lot into less than 300 pages. It could be seen as a compact statement on the world of the mentally ill, but it is really an action-packed thriller. Will meets dangers and obstacles at practically every turn. The detective closes in on him, loses him, closes in on him over and over again. We wonder whether Lowboy will succeed or fail in his quest, and if anyone will get hurt along the way:
The novel has a thriller-like pace, and Wray keeps us riveted and guessing, finding chilling rhetorical and pictorial equivalents for Will's uniquely dysfunctional perspective...The suspense is expertly maintained, straight through the novel's dreamlike climactic encounter and heart-wrenching final paragraph...The opening pages recall Salinger's Holden Caulfield, but the denouement and haunting aftertaste may make the stunned reader whisper "Dostoevsky." Yes, it is really that good. (Kirkus Review, excerpted on book jacket)
Lowboy is a poignant story of a boy ravaged by mental illness whose quest to save the world seems to be the only thing keeping him going. His is a life that alternates between beauty and terror without warning and without much relief. The medications and treatments meant to help him only serve to drain the color of life away; he'd much rather live with uncertainty, fear, and color than in that "flat place" where he is nothing more than a shell. Wray handles Lowboy's character with great care and affection...he is flawed and lovely and heartrending.
Wray's novel is a short, but very powerful story of a teenager with paranoid schizophrenia, a terrified and deeply troubled mother, and a missing persons detective who tries to find Will among the tunnels of New York's subway system before he either hurts himself or someone else. Though highly intelligent when he's lucid, Will has a violent past and without his medications, there is no telling what he might do. Detective Ali Lateef finds the mother, Violet, both helpful and deceptive in his quest to find out where Will might go and why. She seems to know everything about Will and his possible motivations, yet she offers Lateef only piecemeal bits of information. Violet is keeping something back, and she is withholding it for a reason.
John Wray brilliantly captures the perspectives of all of his key characters by using alternating points of view for each chapter. Lowboy/Will's chapters are both beautiful and chilling as he shifts from an almost childlike fascination with the details of everything around him to a protective self-absorption when he feels threatened or becomes overwhelmed by the voices in his head. It is clear that Lowboy has no control over how he interacts with the world. Violet's chapters reveal the emotional weariness of a parent who struggles with her overwhelming love for her mentally ill son and a guilty sense of relief that he might not be found. Lateef's chapters reflect the outsider's perspective. He finds Violet both confounding and fascinating, which affects his normally astute skills in finding lost persons.
This novel packs a lot into less than 300 pages. It could be seen as a compact statement on the world of the mentally ill, but it is really an action-packed thriller. Will meets dangers and obstacles at practically every turn. The detective closes in on him, loses him, closes in on him over and over again. We wonder whether Lowboy will succeed or fail in his quest, and if anyone will get hurt along the way:
The novel has a thriller-like pace, and Wray keeps us riveted and guessing, finding chilling rhetorical and pictorial equivalents for Will's uniquely dysfunctional perspective...The suspense is expertly maintained, straight through the novel's dreamlike climactic encounter and heart-wrenching final paragraph...The opening pages recall Salinger's Holden Caulfield, but the denouement and haunting aftertaste may make the stunned reader whisper "Dostoevsky." Yes, it is really that good. (Kirkus Review, excerpted on book jacket)
Lowboy is a poignant story of a boy ravaged by mental illness whose quest to save the world seems to be the only thing keeping him going. His is a life that alternates between beauty and terror without warning and without much relief. The medications and treatments meant to help him only serve to drain the color of life away; he'd much rather live with uncertainty, fear, and color than in that "flat place" where he is nothing more than a shell. Wray handles Lowboy's character with great care and affection...he is flawed and lovely and heartrending.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
A Little Bit Jealous....
Take a gander at one of Neil Gaiman's personal libraries at Shelfari. I guess this is the "downstairs" library. Wow. I wonder what the upstairs library looks like.
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