The Other Susan

editor February 1st, 2008

Happy Valentine’s Day! February is also winter break month, the perfect time to read a new book. Perhaps one of the following would appeal.

Now You See Him by Eli Gottlieb is a suspenseful novel narrated by Nick Framingham, a man whose life has fallen apart since the by suicide of his childhood best friend six months ago. Rob Castor, a brilliant writer known for his critically acclaimed book of short stories, didn’t just kill himself—he also murdered his estranged author girlfriend, whose recent work had started to eclipse Rob’s own. Rob’s death shakes the foundations of Nick’s life, and his ten year marriage to Lucy is crumbling under the weight of Nick’s obsession with finding out what drove his friend to such extremes. His search for the truth about the end of Rob’s life leads him back to his childhood haunts; he visits Rob’s mother, an alcoholic who taunts him with a secret about Nick that she refuses to reveal, and resumes his high school/post-college affair with Belinda, Rob’s sister, when she comes back to town to clear out some of Rob’s belongings. He visits his parents in their retirement home in Arizona to explore some recently surfaced childhood memories. Lucy’s attempts to bring Nick back from the brink of disaster are fruitless; nagging, fighting, and marriage counseling are useless against his desire to know how he and Rob ended up where they did. As Nick gets closer and closer to the deeply buried secrets of his past, the mood becomes darker and more suspenseful. Lucy finally has enough and throws Nicks out; the shocking revelations about his past and the truth about Rob’s death that are finally revealed will have readers reeling at the train wreck Nick’s life has become.  If you enjoy literary thrillers, you’ll enjoy this book.

Lauren Groff’s debut novel The Monsters of Templeton is set in a town modeled on Cooperstown, where Groff grew up. In it, Wilhelmina (Willie) Upton has just returned to town from an archeological dig where she was pursuing both her doctorate and her married professor. When the professor’s wife shows up, Willie realizes that her affair will have no happy ending, and she returns to her hometown to lick her wounds and to decide how to deal with her unintended pregnancy. Willie herself never knew who her father was; her mother’s free-spirited hippie days resulted in Willie’s birth, and Vi’s reaction to her daughter’s return and pregnancy is disappointment that her daughter should have followed in her footsteps. And then, the bombshell—Vi does know who Willie’s father is, and he is a prominent citizen of Templeton who is also descended from Marmaduke Temple, the town founder (Willie’s grandparents were both descendants of his), thus making Willie even more related to the town’s founding family. Furious at Vi for keeping her in the dark for so long, Willie turns her prodigious research skills towards finding out who her father is by going to the local library and examining their genealogical records. As her research progesses, we hear from her various ancestors the stories of their lives and how their actions affected the town of Templeton. Actual photographs from Cooperstown are interspersed in the novel, making the characters seem real. Also intertwined in the novel is the legend of Glimmey, the counterpart of the Loch Ness monster that resides in Lake Glimmerglass. When a dead creature, presumably Glimmey, is dragged from the lake, the town is infested with reporters and scientists eager to investigate its origins, while the Templeton natives would prefer to mourn Glimmey in peace. Lauren Groff does a masterful job of keeping the many strands of the story woven together. Anyone with an interest in Cooperstown will enjoy the local flavor of this novel, and book groups will enjoy discussing the literary devices Groff uses liberally throughout. 

Last year I reviewed Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin, describing it as “a twelfth century CSI.” The author has written another mystery featuring Adelia Aguilar, who is called out of retirement to investigate the death of Rosamund Clifford, Henry II’s mistress, who was poisoned by a person or persons unknown. Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry’s estranged queen, is the prime suspect. Once again, Adelia must put her forensic skills to work in service to the English king. Franklin has written another thrilling page-turner. If you haven’t yet read the first in the series, it will be out in paperback this month.     

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susan January 1st, 2008

 
Whether or not you belong to a book club, you will enjoy Kathy L. Patrick’s new book, The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara-Wearing, Book-Sharing Guide to Life. Patrick worked happily as a publishers’ sales rep, traveling to independent bookstores and selling them books, until 1999, when chain store depredations decimated the ranks of locally owned stores; her position was eliminated and she was out of a job. When she emerged from her post-layoff funk, she had to find other employment. In a brilliant, if quixotic, move, she decided to combine her two passions and opened Beauty and the Book, a combination beauty salon and bookstore. Shortly afterwards, she started the Pulpwood Queens book club, which grew into a nationwide phenomenon and made Kathy Patrick a well-known champion for literacy. Her new book tells the story of how she managed to find her purpose, create her dream job, and help her empower other women to do the same thing. Her book is filled with stories of her childhood, her love of books, her wonderful girlfriends, her supportive family, and it is seasoned with quotes from her favorite authors and Pulpwood Queens from all over America. Every chapter ends with a list of recommended reading, slanted heavily towards Southern authors, since Patrick lives in Texas and supports her regional authors whole-heartedly..Despite its religious overtones, this is a fun, quick read, likely to inspire both book clubs and general readers. Take a chance and move beyond Oprah books!

Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker by Stacy A. Cordery, is a terrific biography! Everyone knows about Alice’s needlepoint pillow emblazoned with “If you haven’t got anything good to say about anyone, come and sit by me” and her father, Teddy Roosevelt’s, resigned comment, “I can be President of the United States—or—I can attend to Alice, I cannot possibly do both!” These well-known stories are merely the tip of the iceberg of the fascinating life of Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Her birth in 1884 to Teddy’s much-loved first wife was followed by her mother’s and grandmother’s (TR’s mother) deaths two days later. By the time her father became president following McKinley’s assassination, Alice had a step-mother and a crew of half-siblings competing for her father’s time; when she became First Daughter and “Princess Alice” in the newspapers, she managed to get the attention she’d wanted all her life. In addition to her taboo-breaking behavior (smoking cigarettes, speeding in her little red roadster, spending extravagantly on clothes), Alice became a helpful, non-official goodwill ambassador for her father, who appreciated her political acumen.  She married Nicholas Longworth, a congressman from Ohio who later became Speaker of the House, and continued to put her political abilities to good use. She and her husband entertained many prominent politicians; Alice’s salon was the place to see and be seen in Washington, DC. Cordery drew on recently unearthed letters and diaries to research this biography; the intimate details of Alice’s love affairs and the paternity of her daughter are confirmed for the first time. The political divide between the Republican Roosevelts and the Democratic Franklin Roosevelts are also explored at length; Alice backed Republican candidates all her life, although she managed to be good friends with the Kennedys despite their political differences. Cordery does an admirable job of bringing Alice to life; her writing is crisp, slear and compelling. Like Katherine Graham’s autobiography, Personal History, this is a well-written tale of a DC insider that will interest readers who are not DC insiders. Thoroughly enjoyable!

Continuing the political theme, we have Sue Miller’s newest novel, The Senator’s Wife. It really has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with marriages and how they are conducted between two people, no matter what their friends’ and family’s opinions are. Meri is a newly married woman, just moved with her husband to a town house in a staid New England village. Their new next door neighbors are Delia Naughton and her husband, the famous senator Tom Naughton. There is something odd about the marriage next door, though—Tom doesn’t appear to live there.  When Delia leaves town for her annual sojourn in Paris, Meri keeps an eye on the house, does a little snooping, and finds out a secret about Delia and Tom’s relationship. How that secret and her illicit knowledge of it almost breaks up both marriages is at the core of this compelling novel. Sue Miller does a great job of exploring the nuances of marriages, both old and new. This novel is likely to be a big book club choice when it comes out in paperback.

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editor December 1st, 2007

It is the holiday season once again! Instead of reviewing a few new titles (who has time to read in December?), I’ll write about recent books that would make wonderful gifts for  someone on your list. Perhaps after your shopping is done you’ll be able to settle yourself down with your own good book—good luck!

Don Rittner has been a very busy man this year. 2007 not only saw the release of his Schenectady Than and Now in June; in October his newest book of local photographs, Troy Then and Now, was released. Either of these books would make a great gift for the local history maven in your life. They feature old photographs from Schenectady and Troy paired with current photographs taken from the same perspective, so that you can compare the views and see what has changed in the intervening years.  They provide a fascinating overview of each city for both long-term residents and newcomers alike.

Last year a big holiday hit was Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in Song by Les Beletsky, featuring audio enhancement from the Cornell Lab of Orinthology.  Each entry  features a different bird, including a beautiful drawing,  descriptions of its habits, habitation and call, plus the actual audio of its songl. Bird lovers will salivate this year over the team’s next project, Bird Songs from Around the World. It has the same format, but it features 200 birds from all over the world. The well-traveled (or would-be well-traveled!) bird watcher will spend hours reading and listening to this book, and it is a great way to introduce kids to the delights of bird watching.

To continue the sequel theme, last year’s Rejection Collection, edited by Matt Diffie, spawned this year’s The Rejection Collection, Volume 2: The Cream of the Crap. Once again,  we are presented with a collection of cartoons rejected by the New Yorker, penned by some of the magazines most familiar contributors, Sam Gross, Roz Chast, David Sipress and Gahan Wilson, to name a few. Why didn’t these  (mostly) very funny cartoons make it? Various reasons—too salacious, too scatological, too weird, too disturbing, and the odd case of just not funny. Perfect for New Yorker fans who flip through the cartoons first every week!

Last year’s candidate in the Letters of Famous People That We’d Love to Read category was Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford edited by Peter Sussman. This year brings us  The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters, edited by Charlotte Mosley, the daughter-in-law of Diana Mosley, the third eldest Mitford sister. If you are a woman with a sister or someone with an interest in twentieth century English history, or someone who enjoys Nancy Mitford’s novels, or maybe you just enjoy reading the correspondence of others, this is the book for you. Charlotte Mosley selected these letters from the twelve thousand extant between the sisters; they span from 1925 to 2002, and mention as intimates many of the political and literary icons of the twentieth century. While they are primary source material for historians, they are also an amazing view of sororal relationships in a large family. Nicknames, family jokes and gossip abound, making this collection a joy to read. The connecting essays give the details of the sisters’ lives that the letters don’t necessarily provide so that they may be read without undue confusion; they are clear and well-written.  This book isn’t for everyone, but if you have a literary woman on your gift list, this might be just the ticket. 

A really cool little book is Transit Maps of the World by Mark Ovenden. Subtitled The World’s First Collection of Every Urban Train Map of Earth, it is a quirky collection of public transportation maps from around the world. Some rail systems, like those of New York City, Paris, and London, are older and have some historic maps included so the reader can compare both styles and scope. Some are newer, with sleek production values and modern graphics. The last chapter gives an overview of smaller/newer/future systems from around the world. Anyone who travels, takes public transportation, or has an interest in design will find this volume intriguing; even non-map lovers will enjoy broadening their horizons.  

Technology is coming to a book near you—the bird song books mentioned above are not the only ones with sophisticated sound effects. Obsessed with Baseball: Test Your Knowledge of America’s Pastime by The Baseball Guys and Obsessed with Hollywood: Test Your Knowledge of the Silver Screen by Andrew J. Rausch are quiz games in a  book.  Each book has 2500 questions, so they will keep you busy for a good long time. Trivia buffs obsessed by movies or baseball will be kept busy for hours, and the game keeps score if two people want to compete.

I hope this list helps you with your shopping. Thanks for reading, and may you and yours have a happy and safe holiday season. 

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editor November 1st, 2007

Happy November! It is the perfect month to give thanks for the bounty of wonderful books coming out. This month we have a new mystery, a book of humorous essays by a successful cartoonist, and a biography of a beautiful American woman who married into the British aristocracy and became the mother of arguably the greatest English statesman of the twentieth century. Die With Me by Elena Forbes is a debut mystery that takes place in present-day London. Our protagonist is Mark Tartaglia, a homicide detective whose newest case involves a series of presumed suicides (including suicide notes) that are actually meticulously planned murders. Complicating the investigation are the appointment of a new inexperienced supervisor eager to assert her authority, the addition of a supremely confident crime profiler whose interpretation of the crimes is diametrically opposed to Tartaglia’s, and the recent dissolution of his affair with Fiona Blake, the forensic pathologist assigned to the case. Tartaglia’s partner in crime-fighting is Sergeant Sam (short for Samantha) Donovan, an appealing character whose slight crush on her partner is kept firmly in check. When a young girl is found dead after a fall from a church balcony, the death is ruled a suicide until a witness who saw the girl with an older man.

Shortly before her body was discovered comes forward with her information. Acting on a hunch, Tartaglia investigates recent suicides to see if any others fir the profile and finds out that they have a diabolically clever serial killer on their hands. Scenes of painstaking police work are interspersed with scenes of the murderer meeting up with his next victims and reflecting on his past kills. As Tartaglia and Donovan get closer to their quarry, tension mounts, and the climactic scene is thrilling. The politics of the homicide squad and the criminal investigation are deftly handled; the characters are interesting and multi-dimensional. Fans of police procedurals will enjoy Die With and will be happy to know that Elena Forbes is currently working on a sequel. 

Is there anyone who works in an office that doesn’t have at least one Dilbert comic strip posted on their cubicle wall? Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert and author of several management books, has just published a collections of his short essays entitled Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Ignores Helpful Advice. You should be very happy he ignored that helpful advice because this is a laugh out loud funny book. Not every essay is a winner, but enough hit the mark to make this a fun book. Some standouts include Winning, a moving piece about the comeback of tennis player James Blake; What Would Trump Do?, in which Adams wonders how wealthy Christioans rationalize have so much while other people are struggling to survise; and Small Pleasures, in which the cartoonist expounds upon the simples joys of life after recovering from the flu. Other topics he touches upon are Dilbert cartoons that never made it into the newspaper and why, his preparations for his wedding, and why the choice of some cirizens not to vote is not the worst thing in the world. If you do not suffer fools gladly, posses a geeky/nerdy side, and can handle a certain amount of vulgarity, this is your book. And even if it isn’t your cup of tea, I bet you know someone who would love to have this book in his bathroom library.  It will appeal to cubicle dwellers and non-cubicle dwellers alike.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the British aristocracy was beginning its financial downslide. Keeping up the ancestral estates was an expensive proposition and revenues were falling. Enter the “dollar princesses”—young American heiresses eager to marry titled husbands. One such woman was Jennie Jerome, whose story is chronicled in American Jennie: The Remarkable Life of Lady Randolph Churchill by Anne Sebba. This is not a dry, scholarly biography; it includes excerpts from Jennie’s letters and gives a broad picture of the society in which this independent American woman found herself after her whirlwind courtship and marriage to Randolph Churchill. At first her marriage is a happy one, but when her husband’s political fortunes fall and their finances become strained, Jenny focuses her energy on her son, Winston, and encourages him in his military and political endeavors. After her husband’s death, Jennie’s career became more colorful; she was rumored to have several lovers, remarried, started a magazine, became a nurse during the Boer war, and continued to be a controversial figure in London society. Her championing of the special British-American relationship influenced her son’s views, and thus the course of World War II. Jennie Churchill was a woman ahead of her time and this biography gives her her due.

And just a brief mention: If you are looking for something to read now that Jan Karon’s Mitford series is concluded, I highly recommend Gail Fraser’s Lumby series. She is not only local, she is a terrific writer of  small town drama and humor. The first two titles are The Lumby Lines and Stealing Lumby, and the third one,  Lumby’s Bounty, will be out in January. Happy reading!

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editor October 1st, 2007

October brings us rock and roll,  spirituality and a wonderful new novel from a local boy whose novels have won the Pulitzer Prize and been made into movies. With the obvious exception of Harry Potter, publishers produce their biggest titles in the fall, and choosing what to review was a pleasant challenge. I hope you find something appealing!

Rock and roll is in the air this season—David Cassidy has an autobiography out, Pattie Boyd’s Wonderful Tonight about her life as a super-model and wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton is climbing the bestseller list as I write, and Pamela Des Barres has a new book out. Her name might not be familiar, but if you’ve seen Cameron Crowe’s movie Almost Famous, you’ve seen a character based on her and others like her—Penny Lane, the super-groupie played by Kate Hudson. Miss Pamela’s glory days are chronicled in her first book, I’m With the Band, which was first published twenty years ago. She was obsessed with music from childhood, swooning over Elvis records and Dion until she became a Beatlemaniac and tried desperately to meet them in LA in 1964. Although she was unsuccessful, she’d been bitten by the rock bug and was determined to have a place in that world. From flower child to rock wife, Pamela encounters Gram Parsons, Jim Morrison, Frank Zappa, Don Johnson and many others, both famous and infamous. Her writing style is chatty and intimate, and the book contains many excerpts from her journal, only adding to the “you are there” vibe. The original book ends when she and her husband-to-be, Michael Des Barres, begin their lives together; the new edition has a last chapter that updates her life up until 2005. Let’s Spend the Night Together, her most recent book, isn’t a memoir. Instead, she traveled the country visiting groupies and collecting their reminisces of Elvis Presley, Iggy Pop, Van Halen, Mick Jagger and countless other rock icons. Covering sex, drugs and rock and roll, this alternately impressive and appalling narrative is never boring! Beginning with Tura Satana, the exotic dancer who taught Elvis how to dance, kiss and more, and ending with Static Beth, a woman whose website features rock stars nether regions, the compilation mirrors the history of rock itself, from the innocence of the 50’s and 60’s through the decadence of the 70’s and 80’s and into the “anything goes” philosophy of the 90’s and today. The first two thirds of the book contains the   groupie stories that everyone will be interested in—the really famous rockers like Elvis, Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, Jackson Browne, Steven Tyler and Mick Jagger. After that the girls get younger and wilder and the bands are lesser known. The epilogue is an interview with Cameron Crowe, who expounds on Almost Famous, his definition of groupie, and his first meeting with Miss Pamela in 1973 while he was interviewing Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin; it neatly encapsulates the author’s view that groupies were and are an integral part of the rock scene. If you love VH1 Behind the scenes, you should read this book.

Breakfast with Buddha is a novel with spiritual overtones by Roland Merullo. Otto Ringling, the protagonist, is an upper middle class publishing executive living the good life with his wife and children in a wealthy New York suburb. Any niggling thoughts he might have about the true meaning of life are buried under the minutiae of everyday matters, but when his parents are killed in a car accident, those questions bubble to the surface. In order to settle his parents’ estate, he decides to drive to North Dakota and see to matters in person; his new age, mystic sister who intended to accompany him changes her mind and sends her guru along in his place. Here the adventure begins. How can a conventional, successful, practical man spend a week on the road with a holy man he suspects is out to defraud his sister of her inheritance? And yet, as the trip progresses and Otto starts to see his world through the guru’s eyes, he begins to grasp that there might be more to life than he ever dreamed of. Through bowling, miniature golf, yoga and meditation he learns what is important. This is a wonderful book on spirituality for those who prefer their lessons coated in fiction and an uplifting read for those looking for a good story. It could be the Jonathan Livingston Seagull for the new century.

In Richard Russo’s new book, Bridge of Sighs, he returns to New York state to the economically depressed towns made famous in his earliest novels. In it, he traces the entwined destinies of a small town homebody, an expatriate painter living in Venice, and the woman who loves them both.  Moving from the present back through childhood, and shifting through several narrative voices, Bridge of Sighs is a wonderful story, certain to be Russo’s next bestseller. If you loved Nobody’s Fool and Empire Falls, you have a treat in store.

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