In one sense, Stewart O'Nan's novel Wish You Were Here is Seinfeldian. That is, nothing happens in it. This is not to say, however, that it is funny. In fact, it is mostly sad, or perhaps it would be more precise to say it is wistful, nostalgic, regret-tinged. . .I read it because a friend recommended O'Nan's Emily, Alone, which is its sequel. Wish You Were Here is the story of an extended family's final week at their lakeside vacation home in Chautauqua, New York. Emily, the seventy-something matriarch, has sold the house in the wake of her husband's death.
I can't think of another book that tells the story from the point of view of as many characters as this one does. In addition to Emily, there is her husband's sister, a retired teacher who never married; Emily's two grown children, Ken and Meg; their children, a boy and girl apiece; Ken's wife, Lisa; and the dog, Rufus. O'Nan masterfully moves from the point of view of the widowed Emily, whose children's fates both disappoint and confound her, to those of the two ten-year-old boys, one of whom is reeling from his parents' recent separation and his mother's alcoholism, while the other is driven to petty theft by forces beyond his control. He is equally comfortable describing the inner lives of the teenaged girl cousins, one of whom is tormented by the sudden development of a huge crush on the other, her first-ever attraction to the same sex. The coverage of the characters is spread pretty evenly, with Emily's son Ken perhaps receiving slightly more than the others. Ken is a weak, people-pleasing type of person who is pulled in many directions--his mother is depending on him to fill in for his dead father; his sister has always relied on him and needs him more than ever now that she is facing becoming a single parent and trying to live without alcohol; and his wife is terribly jealous of his closeness with his sister. For his part, Ken would just like time to indulge in his beloved pastime of photography, which is at a kind of crisis point, his mentor having challenged him to try to do it differently, with more spontaneity and less analysis. O'Nan's narration of Ken's thoughts about arranging shots and the descriptions of, for example, the way the light hits them, are cinematic tours de force.

Unfortunately for the characters, it rains continuously for the first half of the week, confining them to the house and keeping them from getting away from the family members they want to avoid. As I said, very little "happens" in the usual sense of the word in this book. The story is more about the conversations that various pairs of characters have about life's momentous events, the things that are said and unsaid and the ways in which loved ones do and do not react exactly as one knows they will. There is a bit of drama around the question of whether Emily will go through with the sale of the house after it emerges that neither her children nor her sister-in-law want her to, and she herself can barely endure the idea that this is their last time there.

Even when it is not describing one of Ken's potential photos, O'Nan's writing in this book is extremely precise in terms of detail, reminding me of Jane Austen's quote about working on a two-inch-wide bit of ivory with a very fine brush. Once or twice I felt almost claustrophobic and thought of not finishing it--this is a thick book, longer than O'Nan's other novels. At the same time, though, when I wasn't reading it I wanted to get back to the lake house to find out how the very small dramas would continue to unfold. And I do want to find out what more will be revealed in Emily, Alone.

While traveling this spring, I visited one of the many Borders that are, alas, going out of business. The only good news in that situation is the tremendously great buys available as they reach the end of the line. Among the few mysteries left on the shelves was one with a yoga theme, by Diana Killian. It wasn’t the first in the series, so I had to procure that one as an e-book. Corpse Pose was a rather lighter mystery than I usually read, as themed series tend to be, but it was perfectly suited for what I needed at the time, just a bit of a diversion while waiting for airplanes and during lonely moments in hotels and at the occasional solo restaurant dinner. Happily, Killian has another series featuring a scholar of English literature. High Rhymes and Misdemeanors is the first one of those, and judging from the first few chapters, these are also very light entertainments, but they are also pleasingly literate.

Also on that trip I read the eighth Maisie Dobbs mystery, A Lesson in Secrets, by Jacqueline Winspear. I can hardly believe there have already been eight entries in this series, and even more amazing is that they are of uniformly high quality, in terms of both the mystery plot and the character development of the protagonist and those around her. Here’s an illustrative passage from the latest book:
“Sandra was in a sort of limbo, where a past with meaning and promise was gone, and the future as yet held nothing she truly wanted. It was a feeling that demanded to be controlled; otherwise it would wreak havoc in the soul, a sense of angry pointlessness. Hadn’t that been why Maisie herself leaned on her work to bring a meaning that would ground her days? Her relationship with James, the intimacy of connection, was a spark that caught fire—could it all be gone now that she doubted him? Priscilla was right—and wrong. Yes, she controlled her feelings, keeping the dragon at bay with a carefully self-chaperoned life, a protected heart. But Priscilla made letting go sound like a simple task, as easy as a yacht slipping away from the harbor with the wind in its sails. Yet there was always a rock upon which to run aground, and Maisie knew it was her habit to keep a keen eye out for the rocks.”

Susan Hill continues to be one of my favorites among mystery writers. The Shadows in the Street, her fifth Simon Serailler mystery, is the best to date, and that is saying a lot! As is true of many thrillers, the personality and life of the detective are as compelling as the murder mystery, but Hill gives us not just Serailler’s life but that of his immediate family—his sister and her children, his father—and following them from book to book is part of the joy of reading this series.

I recently read an article in the New York Times Book Review that concluded as follows:

“Since we are all mortal, none of us will experience love without also experiencing loss. This book has done what no other has for me in recent years: it has renewed my faith in the redemptive power of love, the need to give and get it unstintingly, to hold nothing back, settle for nothing less, because when flesh and being and even life fall away, love endures. This book is proof.”

The book being reviewed was Diane Ackerman’s One Hundred Names for Love. The reviewer: Abraham Verghese. Verghese’s novel Cutting for Stone has been on the print paperback bestseller list for 64 weeks and the e-bestseller list for 12. The latter number probably corresponds to the number of weeks the Times has had an e-bestseller list. At least one person kept urging me to read Cutting for Stone. I had enjoyed his nonfiction pieces in the New Yorker some time back, so I had no particular resistance to the idea of reading his novel, but every time I read the little squib about it—“Twin brothers, conjoined at birth and then separated, grow up amid the political turmoil of Ethiopia”—I just wasn’t moved to seek out a copy. Its bestsellerhood gave me a bit of pause as well. Not infrequently is there a book that the rest of civilization appears to have bought and loved that I and a few friends are simply unable to appreciate (Reading Lolita in Tehran comes to mind). Thankfully, my resistance eventually melted away, and I am here to say that Cutting for Stone is one of the best books I have read in quite a while. Saying it is about “two brothers…” is, as the cliché goes, like saying Moby Dick is about a whale. The quote I began with gives you an idea of the depth of feeling Verghese is capable of. Yes, the book is about two brothers, but actually quite a bit of the action takes place before they are born. The story takes in the entire community of people who work at a charity hospital in Ethiopia. The vividly drawn characters are of different nationalities and temperaments. Their common goal is to give medical help to the poor, but the intensity of their setting leads, inevitably, to intense emotions and relationships. Which have consequences, like the aforementioned twin boys. Enough said without spoilers. Just read it. This is one of those times that the masses are right in terms of the book they have bought and keep buying.

I’ve got hold of Verghese’s two memoirs and am savoring the thought of curling up with them. A friend says that they give insight into some of the background for the novel.

Snow Angels, by Stewart O’Nan

Pity the dear friend of mine who recommended this title to our book club. It was roundly criticized as so unremittingly bleak that there is not a lot to say about it except that O’Nan is a masterful portrayer of the lives of sad, dysfunctional people with no hope of recovery or redemption. Perhaps if we had read this in the midst of a beautiful summer we would have found something positive in it, but given that we are experiencing what has been called Snowmageddon, it didn’t have a chance. Still and all, this is an extremely well-written book by a very talented author, other works by whom I’ve enjoyed and even  recommend. 

Noah's Compass, by Anne Tyler


Published in 2010, this is Anne Tyler's 17th novel, and I enjoyed it every bit as much as her most highly acclaimed works, Breathing Lessons and The Accidental Tourist. Tyler is a kind of  alchemist, whose compassionate vision allows her to take the saddest, most poignant aspects of life and magically convert them into humor. Liam Pennywell, the protagonist of Noah's Compass, is a typical Tyler misfit. He's 60 years old and doesn't have a success to his name, professionally or personally. He is knocked unconscious on the very first night he spends in the shabby Baltimore apartment into which he's been forced to downsize and wakes up in a hospital with no memory of the blow. Liam's family and few friends, who find him a puzzling curiosity (or worse) in the best of times, do not understand why the fact that he cannot remember the incident troubles him so desperately. To say much more would be to give away the delightful twists and turns of quirky Tylerian fate to which this leads. Suffice to say that Liam stumbles upon a woman who is every bit as much of a misfit as he is; however, thanks to Tyler's fidelity to life's messiness, that does not mean we get an ending that is neatly tied up with a bow.    

The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman

I know that I read and liked at least two of Allegra Goodman's previous novels, Intuition and Paradise Park. If I haven't read her first novel, Kaaterskill Falls, the reason is, inevitably, that I own it. With print books--not so with e-books so much, so far--I have the tendency to relax once I have bought them and not actually read them--whereas when I borrow books from the public library I tend to actually read them. I guess that's because the due date becomes a kind of deadline. But I digress from my point, which is that, as much as I may have liked her previous works, they did not prepare me for how much I would love love love her latest novel, The Cookbook Collector. Since I read it, I learned from a friend that it is on the list of independent booksellers' top 10 of 2010. I'd better check out the rest of that list.

It's true that the book's two subplots center on things of such interest to me and like-minded folk (who in this context I would characterize as fiction-, computer-, and food-loving librarians, I guess), that it had a very strong chance of winning me over even before I had read beyond the flap. But it's nearly 400 pages long, and after I got into it I could hardly put it down, Goldman accomplished much more than merely assembling components that would draw in a certain reader demographic. 

The story, which centers on two sisters, is infused with a special poignancy because of the skillful way Goodman conveys the way the childhood loss of their mother affected them, both as individual personalities and the way they relate to one another. The elder one, Emily, is the CEO of an Internet startup goes public during the course of the novel, promising truly inconceivable wealth for her and her colleagues, even while causing discomfort in her romantic life because her fiance's similar company lags behind hers in the timing of its IPO and its wealth. Where Emily is practical, her younger sister Jess has her head in the clouds, both literally as a vegan member of a Save the Trees coop, and figuratively, as a graduate student of philosophy. Jess's life is changed by her part-time job in a used bookstore, which is where the cookbook collection comes in. Enough said.

Warning: the number of characters in this book, each of whom Goodman provides with a vivid physical and psychological characterization, is positively Dickensian, and at first it can be a little overwhelming as she switches between plots and people. But once the plot and the principal characters take hold of you, the book is hard to put down and, when you are finished, forget. She also grounds her story very solidly and satisfactorily into its places--Berkeley and Cambridge, Mass.--and its time, 1999-2002, and the cookbook collection itself is thoroughly and delightfully portrayed. I'll have to find my copy of Kaaterskill Falls and dig into it, finally.

I have occasionally fantasized about what my dog might say if she suddenly became able to talk. I imagine that she would reveal that she has a deeper understanding than we humans do of everything she has observed during her lifetime.

A variation on this scenario, involving a feline, was executed marvelously by the Japanese novelist Natsume Sōseki  in I Am a Cat (Wagahai wa neko de aru), and David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle does an outstanding job with the canine point of view.  In the latter vein, there is also The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein, which is narrated by a very perceptive dog named Enzo. If you love dogs or car racing or both and need a brief, light entertainment, read this book.

Stein skillfully ties Enzo’s astute observations to a compelling plot. However, his attempt to extract a Buddhist-like philosophy from the human protagonist’s extraordinary ability to race cars, especially in the rain, becomes a bit heavy-handed at times-- or perhaps it just feels as if it was contrived with too close attention to what might appeal to the most book buyers and sellers. Nevertheless, the story’s heart is in the right place, and if you are in bed with a cold or your spirits are a low, this is just what you need to get through. 

Julia Glass is amazing! Since the publication of the National Book Award-winning Three Junes in 2002, she has cranked out three more novels, most recently The Widower’s Tale. Although I was not as impressed as many were with Three Junes, its 2006 sequel, The Whole World Over, enchanted me with its descriptions of a character running a bakery and the achingly poignant sections written from the point of view of a woman who has suffered slight brain damage. Then in 2008 came the very impressive and quietly affecting I See You Everywhere, which explored the lives of those left behind by a suicide.

Now we have The Widower’s Tale.  As in her other books, Glass tells this story in chapters that alternate the point of view among several characters, but what is astonishing here is how convincingly true each voice rings despite the huge range among them in terms of age, class, and other key characteristics. At moments the pomposity of the voice of the eponymous widower almost verges on caricature—would anyone alive today, even a retired Harvard University librarian, begin sentences addressed to his female offspring with “Daughter”?—but we soon understand that this affectation is a necessary part of the armor that he has donned to cope with the hand he has been dealt by life.

But what makes Glass a master of her craft is her ability to make the possessors of these unique voices come together as actors in a plot that makes you rush to turn to every next page as soon as possible, while at the same time feeling regret in advance as the dwindling number of dots at the bottom of the e-book reader screen indicate that the story will be ending too soon. The hints about how the destinies of characters will collide are such that there is a moment when the reader might think, scornfully, that the plot twists are too obvious, but just as in “real” life, there are plenty of surprises in the details.  

I read two really great books this past week. What they had in common was beautiful writing that conveyed a deep understanding of and compassion for this dilemma called life, as well as the kind of page-turning suspense you'd expect from the best mystery. But in every other way--setting, characters, style--they were as different as could be. William Trevor's Love and Summer, which takes place in the Irish countryside, centers on the life of a young woman who, after her upbringing in a Catholic orphanage, is sent to be the maid to a widowed farmer. I surveyed reviews of it after reading, to see if it was as appreciated as it deserved to be, and was relieved to discover that there was considerable angst when it was long- rather than short-listed for the Man Booker Prize.

It's hard to write about Scott Spencer's Man in the Woods without giving part of the plot away, so suffice to say that it is set in the northeast United States in our time (around the year 2000) and delves deeply into the question of how and why we live. But far from being heavy-handedly philosophical, Spencer keeps you guessing, until the very last page, how these questions will be resolved for one man and his makeshift family--himself, a woman, child, and dog.

"Found in Translation," Michael Cunningham's New York Times op-ed piece of Sunday, October 2, begins with insightful musings on the translation process but quickly plunges into the heart of the matter to discuss writers, readers, and creativity. You must read it all, but here's a sample sentence: "We, as a species, are always looking for cathedrals made of fire, and part of the thrill of reading a great book is the promise of another yet to come, a book that may move us even more deeply, raise us even higher. . ."