Farewell, Dorothy Parker by Ellen Meister (audio)

Posted on October 29, 2013 by pagesofjulia

farewellI “like” the Dorothy Parker facebook page, available here, which is run by Ellen Meister and posts Parker quotes and anecdotes regularly. This is how I became aware of Meister’s new book, a nod in novel form to the feisty one.

In wrapping up this audiobook experience I am a little conflicted. I was alternately spellbound and greatly entertained, and exasperated, with the novel’s protagonist, Violet Epps. Violet is a movie critic in present-day New York, and her verbal wit on the page is razor-sharp (as they say), in the spirit of her acknowledged hero, Dorothy Parker. But in real life, she’s petrified of everything, rarely finding the voice to ask for a seat at a restaurant; in the opening scenes (quite frustrating) she is trying to break up with a dirtbag loser boyfriend but can’t. And then she obtains a book signed by Dorothy Parker, and discovers – gasp – that she can summon the dead writer at will. This changes Violet’s life enormously.

Violet needs a helping hand in several areas of her life: dumping the boyfriend and fielding a new one; dealing with a horrible bratty new underling at work; and fighting a custody battle for her recently orphaned niece. Mrs. Parker (as she insists on being called) is a great help – or sometimes a great interferer – in these matters, giving Ms. Epps (as she insists on calling her) the backbone she needs. Sometimes this takes the form of encouragement (or even feeding her lines); but Mrs. Parker also has the ability to enter Violet and take charge of her body, which can be messy. There is always the questions of where to give credit (or blame) – how much is Violet in control of herself? She is apt to give Dorothy Parker the credit, but she’ll have to learn how to stand up for herself by herself in the end, of course. The satisfying flip side to Violet’s growth is that she has something to offer Mrs. Parker, as well.

On the one hand, Meister’s characters were well-developed and believable (with the possible exception of a rather ogre-ish grandmother), and I cared about them. Dorothy Parker was wonderful, everything you’d want her to be, realistic, heroic but humanly flawed. I was honestly desperate to get back to this audiobook when I had to shut it off. I needed to know what was going to happen next; I was excited or anxious for Violet, who I liked.

On the other hand, Violet’s behavior was often infuriating. She was so slow to learn, so allergic to speaking up for herself in even the most obvious of needs, that I wanted to shake her. We spent what felt like eons in situations where she should have just done something. Now, I’m not a person who typically struggles to speak up for herself; I don’t suffer from social anxiety except in the most exceptional of circumstances. Perhaps I should be tolerant of this portrayal because perhaps it is entirely realistic for people who truly fight these issues. [Although, the explanation for Violet’s social anxiety – a trauma involving her recently-deceased sister when they were small – I found rather trite.] But even if this was a realistic portrayal, I found it tiresome.

Similarly, perhaps I should give allowances for this part because I’m not a romance fan – but in the thread of this story that was a romance novel, there occurs that maddening trope wherein the woman wants the man but pushes him away, and it takes far too long for them to reconcile their totally obvious mutual desire. My patience was tested. But, romance fans, you should like that part.

I know I sound harsh here, but I point out again, the plot’s action had me riveted and I am going to miss Violet Epps (and Dorothy Parker!) very much now that this book is finished. I just want to communicate that I had conflicting moments throughout.

And in the end, I was silly putty in this book’s hands. I was so pleased for the happy endings and for all the characters that I forgot my earlier quibbles. Had I been I overreacting? Or did the later success of this novel simply wash away the memories of my frustration? Whatever it was, my patience with this book was rewarded and I’m won over. Three cheers for Violet and Dorothy, both.

Rating: 6 edits.

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams

Posted on October 25, 2013 by pagesofjulia

photo (2)Arguably Tennessee Williams’s best-known or best-regarded play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof may be familiar to some of us for the 1958 film starring Elizabeth Taylor (shown on the cover of my copy from the local library) and Paul Newman. It won Williams the Pulitzer in 1955.

The action takes place in a few rooms and on the full-length upstairs gallery of a Mississippi Delta plantation home. In the opening scene, young wife Margaret is complaining to her husband, Brick, about his family: his brother Gooper (what a name!) and Gooper’s wife Mae are obnoxious people, with five children and a sixth on the way, bent on securing the plantation for themselves as inheritance, as Big Daddy is dying of cancer. Brick is no longer sleeping with Margaret, for reasons that go unexplained, at least by Brick himself. Margaret (and the rest of the family) are concerned with Brick’s drinking; and there is much innuendo directed towards his relationship with a now-dead friend named Skipper. The play, in three acts, with no break in time – so that the action of the play takes the same time as the playing of it – portrays discussions between various family members around these issues. Brick drinks too much; he doesn’t sleep with his wife; they’re expected to have a baby, at least one, to try and compete with Gooper and Mae’s outstanding performance in that department, despite which Brick is still the favored son. Big Daddy has been told he does not have cancer, but this is a lie to protect him, a lie that Brick exposes.

The nastiness of Mae is perhaps the least subtle element of this play – she is every inch a schemer – but overall it’s very well balanced in terms of what is said and what is left unsaid. The greatest victory Williams scores here, in my opinion, is atmosphere. It’s hot; there isn’t enough air flow, and the characters are mostly anxious to keep doors closed so that other family members don’t hear what is said. There are many secrets: the extent of Brick’s drinking; Margaret’s infidelity with Skipper (intended to prove his sexuality); the question of Brick’s sexuality; Big Daddy’s diagnosis of advanced and inoperable cancer. The secrets and the hot, still air are claustrophobic; and add to this “Maggie the Cat”‘s sensuality, her desire for her still-attractive husband, and her attempts to get him back into the marital bed, and we have a sultry, charged scene.

I observed about this play – but I think it’s true of all Williams’s work – that he writes quite lengthy and detailed and imaginative stage directions. There is almost a novel living within this play, so much does he put into his narratives about scenery and the manner the actors should take. It also occurred to me that some of his directions to the players were fanciful and difficult to act out; for example: “Big Mama has a dignity at this moment; she almost stops being fat.” How is Big Mama’s actor supposed to play that out?? On the other hand, Williams often releases his characters (more typically of a play script) into dialogue or monologue and lets them run. I think the characters we meet here are very well matched to help one another release truths, or hide them, or release untruths, as they will.

There’s no question that this is a beautiful piece of artwork, and another that I would very much like to see performed.

Themes include “mendacity,” as Brick continually refers to it: most overtly in regards to Big Daddy’s prognosis, but also relating to the inheritance that Gooper and Mae want so badly; Brick’s relationship with the late Skipper; and his relationship with his wife, and their likelihood of having children. A more understated theme, but one that shouldn’t be overlooked in the face of Williams’s own relationship with alcohol, is Brick’s alcoholism. This is something he doesn’t work particularly to keep hidden; the family is aware that he drinks a lot, but Big Daddy is surprised to hear about the “click” in Brick’s head that he needs before he can feel all right, and that can only be achieved by drink. I didn’t bother counting the drinks Brick takes before he feels the click, but it’s quite a few, and I believe was finally reached by three shots in quick succession. The poor guy. Adding to the claustrophobic, anxious, heated atmosphere I described above, Brick is on crutches, having twisted an ankle recreating his youthful athletic triumphs while drunk the night before; and instead of sitting and resting it, he’s jumpy, can’t stop moving. The people who want to communicate with him (Margaret, Big Daddy) try to take his crutch away to still him, but he continues to hobble. I think there is clearly some symbolism there. This wouldn’t be the same play if Brick weren’t crippled, or if he were to sit docilely and put his foot up on a pillow.

Another achievement for Tennessee Williams; and can someone produce this one locally for me, please?

Rating: 8 trips to Echo Spring.

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The Black Monk and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov (audio)

Posted on October 23, 2013 by pagesofjulia

blackmonkI am tagging this as a did not finish, although I did, in fact, finish two short stories (and barely started a third). I DNF’d the story collection, though. Meaning, I don’t seem to be a Chekhov fan. It’s funny when things turn out that way: when I turn out not to like an author who is Classic, or in this case, revered as one of the best short story writers of all time (I can’t remember where I’ve heard this, but I have. More than once. sigh). But it does happen.

I listened to The Black Monk and Gooseberries. It was remarkable to me how much these stories reminded me of Tolstoy (who, if you recall, I also did not like). I don’t know if it’s Russian writers with shared characteristics, or that they both evoke the same world and that’s what bothers me. At any rate, the Russian society on the estate felt very much like the same background, transferred from Anna Karenina to Chekhov’s short stories.

In The Black Monk, our protagonist visits the estate where he was raised family-like by non-relations. The father figure encourages him to marry the daughter of the estate (so, the sister figure?), and he does. At a party somebody shares the legend of the black monk, who is imaginary but shows up… sometimes, some places. Our protagonist sees the black monk, talks with him, and uses their conversations as fodder for his own writing (oh yes, he is a writer by profession). He gets caught talking to himself (as it seems – he’s talking with his imaginary black monk) and “treated” for his “illness,” which frustrates him. He and the wife split up. The end. This is a story in which nothing much happens, and the black monk bits I found uninteresting. Is this minimalism as a stylistic statement, or something? Is it not what’s there, but what isn’t there? (Like action, personality, conflict?) This is a well-regarded piece of literature, but it passed me right by.

In Gooseberries, a few friends gather and sit around and tell a story: the brother of one of these men, having grown up in the country but found work as a bureaucrat in a city, dreams about retiring to the country. He will have a farm, or something like it; and he will have gooseberry bushes. In time he accomplishes this: he has a country estate, and gooseberry bushes. The brother (who is telling the story, to his friends) visits, and is served gooseberries. The country-aspiring brother praises them highly, but they are in fact bitter. I assume this is the grand symbolic conflict of the story that is meant to impress me, but again I found it banal. Oh, there is some social commentary on the fact that this bureaucrat-brother now professes to be a nobleman and high-handedly distributes buckets of vodka to the peasants on special occasions, pretending grandeur. But again, this is a story in which nothing happens, and I am bored. So I stopped listening.

In many literary cases, we praise the understated. I’m thinking of Cheever’s short story, The Swimmer, and Hemingway’s, Hills Like White Elephants. The under-context of these stories remains pretty well hidden, but they are praised as masterpieces. (I enjoyed both, for the record.) In Hemingway’s story, nothing really happens; but it is still thought-provoking and oh, so emotionally evocative. In Cheever’s, a little more happens; nothing is said about what Cheever really wants to say; but it still works. I wonder if there’s something hidden in The Black Monk that, if explained to me, would make it so much more enjoyable? I suspect not.

Funnily enough, this audiobook I picked up right after The Gunslinger is read by the same narrator, George Guidall. That was an interesting experiment in the different voices and moods a good narrator can evoke. When I thought to notice, I could tell – obviously – that the same man read the two books; but it never would have occurred to me mid-story, because he does a fine job of bringing to life two such different worlds. The fantastic, dramatic made-up world of King’s fantasy series couldn’t be more different than Chekhov’s staid, frustrated Russian society, and Guidall did well by each, so none of my criticism falls on him. I was annoyed by the characters Guidall read; but I think he read them as they were written.

Rating: 2 empty comments.

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The Gunslinger by Stephen King (audio)

Posted on October 21, 2013 by pagesofjulia
This is my 1000th post! Thanks for your support, friends!

gunslingerI so very much enjoyed The Wind Through the Keyhole from Stephen King’s Dark Tower series that I had to find The Gunslinger, book one in that series. I was captivated by King’s own narration of the former, and disappointed to find that he didn’t read this one himself; but narrator George Guidall did a fine job, and I shouldn’t punish him for not being Stephen King.

In a fantastical spin on the western genre, we open with Roland Deschain walking alone with his mule, his guns holstered at his hips. He is pursuing “the man in black”, with an eventual destination of “the dark tower.” These terms are archetypal and possibly metaphorical. He has to cross a desert. He talks with a lone farmer (accompanied by a talking crow), and tells the man a story. (The story-within-the-story is repeated in The Wind Through the Keyhole, very enjoyably.) In the gunslinger’s story we experience the town of Tull, where Roland had also stayed for a spell, in pursuit of the man in black, with some nasty consequences. This is the first of the gory-bloody bits in The Gunslinger, but not the most extreme. We are also learning something of the magical nature of this world that the gunslinger inhabits. The man in black casts spells to entrap Roland; time doesn’t flow normally. At a glance, however, this could be our own world – possibly following war or other disaster.

Next, Roland meets “the boy,” Jake, who has himself come from some other world. As he describes it, Roland thinks he must be making things up; but the reader recognizes modern-day New York City. Jake and Roland travel together for a spell, still across the desert, and then have to climb a mountain, and then go into the mountain. I’ve put off saying this for long enough: The Lord of the Rings is strongly present. The dark tower, the linguistic touches, the lone-ranger type which is borrowed both from western books & movies and from Tolkien, and now the trip into the evil mountain with the ghoulish parahumans threatening them along the way, are all clearly inspired by that exemplary world-building trilogy. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I referenced Tolkien in my review of The Wind Through the Keyhole, too.

Anyway. They’re traveling, and Roland tells Jake a story, too – another story-within – this time about his training as a gunslinger, and the climactic, life-determining moment when he fought his teacher. This is the truly gory bit: it made me cringe a little, and I don’t consider myself a squeamish reader, so take note. This is Stephen King, after all. Horror joins western and fantasy-epic in King’s genre mashup. Roland and Jake will have a final meeting with the man in black; and I shall leave you there.

I enjoyed this book very much. Stephen King is, without question, expert at world-building and believable, fully-wrought, finely detailed backgrounds. Roland is both an archetype and a real person I easily learned to care about. The tension, suspense, and dramatic action are engaging and had me sitting up straight waiting for the next blow. The boy Jake is sympathetic. There is a mystery surrounding the man in black, and the final confrontation – I said I wouldn’t go there. On the other hand, The Gunslinger felt to me grittier, grainier, less literarily refined than The Wind Through the Keyhole, which in my memory, at least, was a superior book; but not by much. And for that matter, a grainier, less refined beginning feels like it suits this series. I am enchanted by the pulling together of genres, as I stated: western, horror, fantasy, and epic adventure. I don’t think I’m doing it justice in this review, but this is fine work, friends. I’ll be seeking out book two.

Rating: 7 slow mutants.

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Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

Posted on October 18, 2013 by pagesofjulia

It was over a year ago when I discovered a preview of this book, and I’ve been anxiously looking forward to it ever since. How lucky was I to get a review copy!!

The long-awaited sequel to The Shining lives up to its heritage.

king

As a sequel to 1977’s The Shining, Doctor Sleep has unspeakably large shoes to fill, but Stephen King is more than able to follow up on the thought-provoking and deliciously shivery thrills of that novel.

Several decades after the events of The Shining, Dan Torrance is haunted by the ghosts of his childhood and deep in the ugly throes of his father’s disease, alcoholism. He lands in the small town of Frazier, N.H., where he finds meaningful work, a few good friends and Alcoholics Anonymous. Finally his life seems to be on track–until a little girl named Abra is born, whose “shine” is astronomically brighter than his ever was. A community of not-quite-humans is zeroing in on Abra; to live, they need what she has, and they balk at nothing, including violence toward children, to get it. Thus, Dan is again embroiled with the monsters he couldn’t drink away, but thought he’d learned to store in a lockbox on a dusty shelf in his mind.

King continues to show a mastery that extends beyond genre. Doctor Sleep has The Shining‘s spooky intimate authenticity, 11/22/63‘s grasp of pop cultural references and sense of time and place, and Carrie‘s uncanny understanding of youth. Where The Shining took place in a single claustrophobic setting, Doctor Sleep roams wide both geographically and topically, through paranormal concepts and King’s prodigious imagination. Themes of family and personal struggle persist, but perhaps most enjoyable are the page-turning suspense and terror for which King is so deservedly famous.

This review originally ran in the October 4, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 8 screams.

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Stretching by Bob Anderson, illustrated by Jean Anderson

Posted on October 17, 2013 by pagesofjulia

I received my copy of Bob Anderson’s iconic Stretching on my 16th birthday, as you can see here:

stretch

That inscription reads, “Happy 16th Julie. May you always keep on stretching mind, body & soul – 7 years & beyond! Love, Dad.” You see I was Julie rather than Julia and he was Dad rather than Pops – it’s been a little while! (The 7-year part is a reference to my aunt (my father’s sister) Laura Kastner’s book, The Seven Year Stretch.) I was a young athlete and my father was a slightly older one, and he wanted to pass on the important lessons communicated here.

stretchingStretching was originally published in 1980, before I was born; my copy was printed in 1997, but this book has been through multiple editions since. I still see posters on the walls at gyms and the like with Jean Anderson’s recognizable illustrations, teaching Bob Anderson’s stretches. Paging through this book now, I am impressed at how well it stands up. We mostly still use the concepts outlined here. I showed it to my physical therapist’s intern (hi, Percy!) and he thought it still looked pretty solid.

The book opens with chapters on who should stretch (hint: he’s pretty inclusive), when to stretch, why to stretch, etc., and then begins on the stretches themselves, which are heavily illustrated. The illustrations, by the author’s wife, are perfect: simple line drawings that show the positions used, with cross-hatching to indicate where I should feel the stretch.

I hope the Anderson's won't mind my sharing of this one page (click to enlarge)

I hope the Anderson’s won’t mind my sharing of this one page

A good portion of the book is dedicated to these text-and-illustration teachings; and then come combinations of stretches, like stretching routines for times of day and while watching television, and for various sports. As a soccer player I wore out that two-page spread; as a cyclist I keep a photocopy of the corresponding two pages handy. Then there are exercises for developing strength; a note to teachers and coaches; and advice on nutrition, back care, and running and cycling techniques. The nutrition part is a little more apt to be dated – possibly outdated, depending on what you believe, but mostly dated in the sense that today a person could read copious volumes on any one of several dozen faddish, extreme dietary programs (yes, I’m looking at you, Paleo), and Anderson’s advice is old-fashionedly simple. Also charmingly dated is the bit on cycling technique; nothing I found in a quick skim is wrong, but as with nutrition, it’s a far cry from the laser-heavy methods of precision bike fitting we use today. Frankly, I miss Anderson’s matter-of-factness and simplicity, but there you are.

In a word, this is a great reference manual for anybody – literally – but possibly of special interest to athletes, because of the sport-specific advice offered. Although old, it’s still gold. Thanks, Pops! Still stretching!

Rating: 9 deep breaths.

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did not finish: A Killing in the Hills by Julia Keller (audio)

Posted on October 16, 2013 by pagesofjulia

killing in the hillsI made it less than 20% of the way through this audiobook (28 of 156 tracks, if you like to be precise), so on the one hand I should go easy on it, not having read it to completion (or even close). But on the other hand, the fact that I quit so early does indicate my feelings about it.

I read good things about this debut mystery novel – somewhere – but can’t add to those praises. The setting in the West Virginia hills (or mountains) was promising at the start, and I liked the idea of our small-town female prosecutor and her troubled past; likewise her friendly, almost filial relationship with the much older sheriff. But there the character development ended. Our prosecutor hero, Bell, turns rather flat, and her teenage daughter Carla is far worse: a cariacature of the worst kind of whiny teen girl, she speaks in overly-self-aware brattiness, as if she were her own psychoanalyst which – hello – obnoxious teenagers are not. Similarly, the early bad guy is so hideously ugly in every feature as to be a cartoon – how easy to identify bad guys if they all looked like this! And he somehow simultaneously is a stark idiot, and shares Carla’s preternatural self-awareness. The dialog felt like nails on a chalkboard. And so I gave it up. The mystery remains unsolved, for me, and that’s just fine.

Narrator Shannon McManus was sometimes amusing, but sometimes a little overly dramatic (although a certain amount of that falls to the author, for sure). Her rendition of Carla I found unbearable, but that’s squarely on Julia Keller; that’s how Carla was written, I fear.

I’m happy for those who enjoyed this novel, but I am not among them.

Is it fair to rate a book I read this little of? Probably not.

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Clothes for a Summer Hotel by Tennessee Williams

Posted on October 14, 2013 by pagesofjulia

clothessummerhotelHere’s how I got here. First, the disappointing Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, as a consolation prize, renewed my interest in the Fitzgeralds. (I have purchased, used, two biographies of Zelda based on the interest piqued by Z – the ones by Cline and Milford, respectively.) And next, I read an excellent book called The Trip to Echo Springs by Olivia Laing (sorry, it’s not published til January; you’ll see my review closer to then), about the alcoholism shared by, among others, Fitzgerald and Tennessee Williams. From Laing I learned that Tennessee’s last play, entitled Clothes for a Summer Hotel, dealt with the Fitzgeralds, with Zelda at center stage. And here we are.

Apparently this is not one of Williams’s better-regarded plays, and I suppose it does lose out to the likes of The Glass Menagerie; but I found it a fine work. It is first and foremost dreamy – Williams calls it a “ghost play,” referring to the chronological liberties he takes with the Fitzgeralds’ lives. Scott visits Zelda in the North Carolina asylum, Highland Hospital, where she died; his visit takes place just before her death, at which point he would have been dead more than 7 years. But this is no great concern, because many of the characters who take the stage are dead at different times, and yet walking and talking. The extent to which they are aware of this fact varies, or is unclear. The timing is not chronological; they zoom backwards from the asylum, to Paris of the 1920’s, and then forwards again. Zelda’s death is outside the action of the play, but heavily foreshadowed throughout. She died in a fire, locked in her barred room on the top floor; Williams, and his Zelda, are here obsessed with fire, and wind, and refer to both throughout.

I found Scott and Zelda here to be true to what I know of them, and I found Williams’s portrayal to be nicely fair in accusing them both of madness or alcoholism, and yet sensitively making allowances at the same time; which seems to me to be the proper treatment. With Williams’s stage directions, even though I was merely reading a written play, I could picture the stage set, treated with wavering ribbons, wind, and smoke (from dry ice, Williams notes), and I could feel the effect these props would have of blurring the lines between past and present for the half (or more) crazy characters onstage. I found it all rather magnificent, and I would like to see it performed, although I suppose that’s unlikely, with Williams plays like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire to compete with. Ah well.

Tennessee Williams’s reputation as a fine playwright is confirmed here. And my interest in the Fitzgeralds continues.

Rating: 7 rubies.

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Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (audio)

Posted on October 11, 2013 by pagesofjulia

go tell itI come away with the impression that this book had a large, sweeping scope. It is on the surface the story of John Grimes, and takes place in the present over the course of just a day or three, on and around his 14th birthday. His father Gabriel is a deacon in a black church in New York City in the 1950’s, and appears very pious, but beats his wife and children; as his sins add up from there, he comes clear as a hypocrite. The story begins and ends with John and focuses on his relationship with the church or with God; the first and last lines of the book are concerned with his eternal salvation. But in between, we ramble in space and time, and get to know Gabriel in his youth in the South; John’s mother Elizabeth in her youth in the South and in New York City; Gabriel’s sister Florence, who introduced him to Elizabeth; and a surprise character I’ll leave unnamed here. As such, although John is the focus that bookends all the action, this turns out really to be the story of a family and even of a shared experience. I was glad to have the background I gained by reading The Warmth of Other Suns, because like that work of nonfiction, Go Tell It on the Mountain is the story of black Americans moving north in the mid-20th century. It’s concerned with black society’s relationship with the church, and family patterns, and race relations. And it’s for these focuses that I call it “sweeping.”

John is a likeable character in that he feels like a real boy of that age, and my heart goes out to him for the challenges he faces: an overbearing and violent father with the significant authority of the black church in Harlem behind him is no small thing, and the question of his immortal soul and eternal salvation is weighty as well. Clearly I bypassed some of the weight of the religious question, not being able to sympathize with those parts, but I did appreciate the atmospheric nature of the church and the power of that institution in John’s society and in his family life.

Baldwin’s writing is undeniably lovely. I feel a little inadequate because I’m afraid I missed some of the depth of this story, mainly in the religious vein. But what I got, I appreciated, and part of that in this case meant just letting the language flow over me. The narration by Adam Lazarre-White is powerful, dynamic, and dramatic to the right extent; the phrasing feels accurately portrayed, and the cadence of the prayers is well executed and adds a lot to the feel of the story. Full marks for audio performance, and having such a fine narrator read such beautiful words was a grand experience.

Rating: 7 calls to the alter.

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The Edge of Normal by Carla Norton

Posted on October 7, 2013 by pagesofjulia

A true-crime journalist shifts to fiction with a disturbing and authentic tale of kidnapping–and recovery.

normal
The Edge of Normal, Carla Norton’s fiction debut, clearly draws upon the expertise she gained writing Perfect Victim, a 1988 true-crime book about a survivor of kidnapping and captivity. In the novel, kidnapping victim Reeve LeClaire has spent the six years since her escape in therapy and is progressing in tiny, painful increments. The family of Tilly Cavanaugh, another rescued abductee, asks for Reeve’s help in beginning their own process of recovery. This mentorship looks like the most challenging task she’s been offered in years, but will turn out to be the beginning of another nightmare.

Tilly’s kidnapper is behind bars, so why is Tilly still so skittish? What is she not telling the police and district attorney who want to prosecute her case? Pulled into a confidence that may break her, Reeve becomes the only person who can help Tilly and two girls who are still missing.

The reader is privy to the inner workings not only of Reeve’s tortured mind, but that of Tilly’s kidnapper, so there is less mystery in The Edge of Normal than sheer terror and wild, horrified urgency. Norton’s sense of pace is perfect, and her characters draw upon readers’ sympathies skillfully. Norton’s expert understanding of captivity syndromes goes far beyond Stockholm Syndrome (which, she writes, “isn’t actually in the diagnostic manuals”); she renders Reeve and Tilly’s experiences visceral and believable, as The Edge of Normal indulges in all the action and adrenaline thriller fans crave before building to an explosive finish.

This review originally ran in the September 13, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 6 scars.

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