Mockingbird by Chuck Wendig

Posted on September 14, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Wendig does it again! You know, it says a great deal about how well his stock is doing at pagesofjulia when I pick up his new book immediately upon its release – this, in a world where my TBR shelves are three and the stacks on the desk are… many. He’s right up there with Tana French.

We left off with Blackbirds, you will recall. Miriam Black, that foulmouthed psychic badass bad girl, had decided to try to settle down with Louis and ignore her (dubious) “gift.” We meet here again here in Mockingbird, and the informed reader will not be surprised to learn that things don’t go so smoothly for her as she’d hoped. In the opening scene, she foresees a bloody death in the immediate future and intervenes… and her life with Louis, rocky at best, comes apart. The lesson Miriam learned in the last book was how to interfere with fate for the cause of Good. Which raises a question: can murder ever be righteous, virtuous, redeemed? The question this book raises is, does the same answer apply when the roles are switched around?

I don’t want to say anything more about plot here (and hopefully I’ve been vague enough), but I will say that this continues in the gritty, grainy badass vein established by Blackbirds. Miriam is her old self, and I love her for it. Louis is rather his old self too, and he was pretty charming. A new and likeable character is born in a certain schoolteacher undaunted by mortality; and we meet a … there’s a villain. And the villain is interesting, too. And there are little girls.

The strengths of Blackbirds are all present: pacing, characterization, and loads and loads of atmosphere. I am crazy for Miriam’s brand of crazy. She undergoes a change here, something that feels alarmingly like altruism; she almost seems to be capable of forming bonds. And like Blackbirds, it ends with a twist. I’m afraid I can’t say much more about the book without feeling like I’m giving something away… the plot really needs to be revealed in your reading. What I can say is about style. Wendig is almost Hemingwayesque (what? roll with it), but even punchier, and harsher. Come to think of it, maybe I could say the same about Miriam.

Forgive my brief review; but please be impressed by the fact that I will, again, pick up the next book as soon as it’s released. Apparently that will be Cormorant. Get with it, Wendig.

Rating: 7 psychic visions.

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The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White by Daniel Sharfstein

Posted on September 13, 2012 by pagesofjulia

I recently read Isabel Wilkerson’s very impressive The Warmth of Other Suns, about the migration of black Americans out of the south throughout the 20th century. And then I immediately read Henry Wiencek’s Master of the Mountain, about Thomas Jefferson and the more than 600 slaves he owned throughout his life, and his treatment of them. (That review will post closer to the book’s publication date in mid-October.) This was a neat coincidence, and had me on a roll, thinking about slavery in the United States and the aftermath for freed slaves and their descendants; so I moved smoothly on to The Invisible Line, in which Daniel Sharfstein follows the transitions made by three families from being seen as black to being seen as white. It raises some interesting questions about the lines we draw and our tendency to think of race as having sharp corners and firm divides.

The mixed-race men and women Sharfstein tracks and studies in this book include “colored aristocrats” in Oberlin, Ohio and Washington, D.C. who hold public office, practice law, and exercise great influence on local politics. They also include back-woods residents of Appalachia whose lifestyles resemble those of hundreds of years ago, and Confederate soldiers and commissioned officers. Sharfstein follows these families to the present day, when their descendents represent a great range of professions, levels of education, and lifestyles. Some are more aware of their heritage than others, and they have different reactions to being accused of having “black blood.” Their experiences raise a number of interesting questions. It seems that it’s always been easy to view race as having cut-and-dried boundaries; but this book makes it equally clear that nothing could be further from accurate.

I liked that, like The Warmth of Other Suns, this book followed three individual stories – in this case, three families rather than three individuals, because it spans more than a lifetime. Again, this approach made the subject personal. It allowed Sharfstein to show the diversity of ways in which the process under discussion – the crossing of the color line – took place, and the diversity of ways the protagonists saw their own lives. The three families here represent different starting and finishing points in geography and in social and economic standing; and they represent different understandings of their own pasts. The book opens with a very powerful short scene involving a present-day white man who confesses to being a racist, and then discovers in his genealogy research that, what do you know, his own great-grandfather was a black man, a former slave.

My impression of The Invisible Line is that it includes solid research, and I thought it fairly and thoughtfully tackled this subject – one that has not been well-examined, or at least that I was not much aware of. I liked the personal element of the individual families. It made me think about some things I hadn’t considered before: how intertwined we all are, for one thing, and – not for the first time – how sad are certain elements of our national history. This was an excellent follow-up to my recent reading, and I recommend it if you’re interested in the subject matter.

Rating: 6 branches on the family tree.

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Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson (audio)

Posted on September 12, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A.Word.A.Day recently sent me, among other valuable tidbits, a quotation that perfectly describes Einstein (thought I, being in the middle of his biography):

A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.– Charles Caleb Colton; Lacon: or Many Things in Few Words; Longmans; 1837. Quoted by A.Word.A.Day, August 31, 2012.

And here’s the poster child for that very thought: hilarity and cheerfulness (among other qualities) combined in one of the geniuses of the modern era.

Walter Isaacson is a well-respected biographer. (His other works include biographies of Kissinger, Ben Franklin, and most recently Steve Jobs.) This well-regarded biography of Einstein appears to be very well-researched and thorough, and I thought the audio narration by Edward Herrmann was well-done and well-suited.

What I liked best about this book was its characterization of Einstein, the charmingly rumpled, distracted, unique genius with the twinkling eyes and the mad wild hair who rode a bicycle. There were times I didn’t like Einstein, too: in the course of separating from and later divorcing his wife, he didn’t treat his two sons very well. It felt like he expected them to behave like little adults – or perhaps more accurately, he behaved like a child. He wasn’t entirely sweet to his wife, either, which is of course common in divorces but no less charming for that. But Isaacson’s portrayal of of Einstein’s mental style was lovely to read: how he thought in pictures, in objects in action, in “thought experiments” and not in words; the way his aversion to authority and accepted truths freed him to think such outlandish thoughts that he revolutionized science; these are the singularities that made Einstein Einstein, and that was an important lesson to take away. Also, it was fun to read the story of his life with the advantage of hindsight – that this is Einstein we’re talking about here – and see all the rejections and belittlings he underwent, and sort of chortle at the irony. (Correction of a well-known myth: Einstein did not, in fact, fail math. He did rather well. However, there was that teacher that said he would “never amount to much.” That part is true.)

I observe that my decision not to pursue a subject like theoretical physics was a very, very good decision. I can follow all sorts of things, grasp all sorts of concepts, but not this. My eyes glazed over within moments of the science-talk beginning (dangerous for driving). I positively cannot “get” Einstein, and I’m comfortable with that. But it made this book a little more difficult than I would have liked, because the book is rather science-heavy. I think there are different ways to do this job, of writing a biography of a scientific figure, or other science-based nonfiction. I think of Soundings or even The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, both lovely narrative works about science and people that treated the people more heavily, and in more depth, than they did the science. The science was there, present (necessarily), and well explained, made accessible by explanation, but the people shown brighter. That worked for me. Here, in Einstein, it was Einstein himself that I was most interested in, and I liked it when his personality, his public image, his family dealings, etc. were at the forefront. Isaacson lost me entirely and quickly every time he wandered into physics and relativity. One way is not better or worse, but different; and it’s clear which style I prefer for my scientific nonfiction.

That said, the man played a starring role, and I believe Isaacson’s intention was to put in the science needed to place Einstein in context. I learned a lot about Einstein, I was entertained by his foibles and eccentricities (the not wearing of the socks! oh my), I was charmed. I was provoked to contemplate some of the troubling moments in world history that Einstein witnessed and participated in (Germany in the 1930’s, fascism, McCarthyism, the atom bomb, on and on). In a nutshell, Isaacson captures well the humanity of Einstein: his charm, his flaws, and his genius, all in one. This biography is moving, entertaining, and very informative. If you’re so inclined, you might even learn some physics from it. 🙂 I can see why Isaacson’s stock as a biographer is high, and I forgive him for baffling me here and there.

Rating: 7 quanta.

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Teaser Tuesdays: The Invisible Line by Daniel Sharfstein

Posted on September 11, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

I’m reading an impressive work of nonfiction today; but for my teaser I’ve chosen an especially *fun* quotation for you. It’s not entirely indicative of this book’s content, but it’s such a neat picture of another sort of writing that I couldn’t resist.

His plays were a garish parade of socialites, bounders, frauds, thieves, and gold diggers. Unhappy husbands tried to hang themselves. Long-lost lovers were reunited. The embraces were always “passionate,” the kisses unfailingly “violent.” A pistol placed on the mantel on page six was fired by page thirteen.

Isn’t that precious? Just a few sentences but I think it perfectly communicates exactly the sort of plays this man wrote!

And what are you reading today?

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Life in Literature

Posted on September 10, 2012 by pagesofjulia

All right, I’ll bite. I was so charmed by Meg‘s post (here) that I couldn’t resist. Without further ado: my life in titles of books I’ve read this year.

I am: A Difficult Woman (Bike Snob would have been a good second choice)

I feel: Almost Somewhere

I currently live in: Houston: It’s Worth It

If I could go anywhere, I would go: Down the River to Mountains of Light

My favorite form of transportation is: Racing Through the Dark (darkness optional)

My best friends are: Bad Luck and Trouble

My friends and I are: Dream Team

The weather is: Fire on the Mountain

My favorite time of day is: Jeeves in the Morning, Before the Rain

To me, life is: The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic

I fear: Death of a Valentine

The best advice I could give: Touch

Thought for the day: Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, Hayduke Lives!

How I would like to die: Walking It Off, To the Last Breath

My soul’s present condition: Personality, Prehistory and Place

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Almost Somewhere by Suzanne Roberts

Posted on September 7, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A contemplation of women relating to one another in nature, nestled within the tale of a backpacking trip.


In 1993, Suzanne Roberts was a college graduate lacking a firm plan for the future when she agreed to hike the John Muir Trail with two other women. Almost Somewhere is a travelogue of that month-long hike, but it’s also a woman’s foray into the male-dominated worlds of hiking and nature writing and a contemplation of the cattiness and competition that limits women’s attempts to connect with one another. Roberts is not gentle to herself or her companions as she describes their flaws and failures to support one another; she is frank about the bounds of their friendship. But she has a triumphant story to tell, because despite swollen joints, bugs, infighting and the doubts of fellow trail users, these three women hiked the John Muir Trail in its entirety and lived to tell about it.

Roberts writes plainly about gender issues, as the women (“we had gone through puberty a long time ago and, really, we were no longer girls”) consult a guidebook written by a man filled with language of “conquering” or “assaulting” mountains. She seeks not only meaningful relationships with other women, but also a feminine understanding of nature, having read nature writing only by men (Muir, Thoreau, Edward Abbey) up until this point. Her understanding of her experience is clear-headed and self-aware in retrospect, and she is considerate of her companions even in her criticism. Almost Somewhere is a contribution to the growing body of women’s nature writing, and a worthwhile, entertaining and occasionally funny story of the California wilderness.

This review originally ran as a *starred review* in the Sept. 4, 2012 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 small but important steps.

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Broken Harbor by Tana French

Posted on September 6, 2012 by pagesofjulia

I consider this to be another great hit from Tana French, author of The Likeness, In the Woods, and Faithful Place. Her mysteries are atmospheric, have a strong sense of place (that place being Dublin and the surrounding suburbs), and look back toward the past. Ireland’s economic depressions and the inheritance of related difficulties with employment and housing also play a role in each book. These four books are a series, loosely, in the sense that certain characters overlap; but each stands alone so well it’s almost a disservice to link them together. By no means would I recommend worrying about reading them all, or reading them in order.

In Broken Harbor, Mike “Scorcher” Kennedy is the reigning bad-ass murder detective on the Dublin squad, but the mistakes of a recent case, never described in detail, have him under a shadow; so he’s relieved and excited to get the latest gruesome, media-intensive case. He’s got a partner, Richie, a brand-new rookie from the wrong side of the tracks, which suits Scorcher because he’d just as soon work alone, and an easily-led rookie is the closest thing to working alone. A family of four named Spain – mom, dad, and two little ones – have been attacked in their home; three are dead, and the mom is in intensive care. Their home is in Brianstown, a fancy new development that got left unfinished in its earliest stages by the failing of of the housing boom; it’s not a pretty place after a few years’ decomposition since construction ceased. And, importantly, Brianstown used to be the seaside village of Broken Harbor, where Scorcher vacationed as a child with his family.

The important elements are several. The mystery of who nearly wiped out the Spain family is, on the face of things, the central plot, and it does keep Scorcher, Richie, and the reader busy for the entire book; the solution isn’t revealed until the final pages. A mystery within the mystery is what’s made all these holes in the walls of their home, and what force was haunting the Spain parents, otherwise poster children for a perfect life, right down to the magazine-worthy interior decor. The economic recession that killed Brianstown before it got out of the gate is an important detail that we attend to throughout, and is part of what makes Dublin & its suburbs the only place this story could be set. And then there are Scorcher’s demons: as we’ve seen in French’s other novels, his childhood connection to Broken Harbor will follow him through this seemingly unrelated case. This is a thriller not just because of the awful fate of the Spains, but also because of Scorcher’s family drama, still playing itself out. His training of the rookie, Richie, is poignant: the detective who never wanted a partner finds himself yearning for the camaraderie he’s observed in other partnerships, wondering if Richie could be “the one.” And finally, Scorcher is forced to do some philosophical questioning. The deal he’s made with the universe, his understanding of the source of the world’s evil, will be challenged.

The tone of this novel is one of my favorite parts. It’s dark, lush, and almost dreamy. Scorcher feels real to me even as he approaches caricature (hey, call me credulous, I’m enjoying this). He’s fatalistic, relying in part upon physical feelings that tell him when he’s getting close; we get hints that he knows what’s coming. His tortured persona, his tendency to distance himself even when he’d like to get close, is a recognizable genre type, but well-done all the same. I always appreciate French’s evocation of Ireland, its culture and the impact its economy continues to have. And the psychological drama of the Kennedy family had me on the edge of my seat. Certain elements are a little formulaic, sure, but beautifully wrought; and the lovely writing puts it in such a package that I don’t mind a bit. This is a great example of why I love Tana French.

Rating: 7 unpleasant memories.

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Kept in the Dark by Penny Hancock

Posted on September 5, 2012 by pagesofjulia

An enchantingly disturbing tale about an older woman and a younger man, with shades of Lolita.

Sonia is slowly withdrawing from the world, from her marriage to an older man who travels a great deal, from her relationship with a daughter who has left home, and into the River House, her family estate on the Thames. When 15-year-old Jez knocks on her door, she is charmed by his youth, which reminds her of another time in her own life and another young boy. The pull of the river and her memories prove too strong for her, and Sonia decides to keep Jez in the River House, where she feels he belongs. As the outside world mounts a search for the missing boy, Sonia becomes convinced of the rightness of what she is doing, and her fractured grasp on reality slides further downhill.

In Kept in the Dark, Penny Hancock’s twist on the timeworn male kidnapper and young female victim, Sonia and her delusions are deliciously, convincingly creepy. The fantasy of her relationship with Jez, who is increasingly frightened and ill, gradually reshapes the rest of the world into the enemy of Sonia’s happiness, until her connection with her own past overrules the present. The reader’s willpower is tested as the stakes grow higher, along with the temptation to flip to the final page of the book. Will Sonia let Jez go as promised? Or will the force of the river, the River House and the power of obsession keep him captive? Jez’s fate and the dark secret of Sonia’s childhood are left hovering, teasing, until the closing moments of this delightful debut novel.

This review originally ran in the August 31, 2012 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: 7 goosebumps.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Broken Harbor by Tana French

Posted on September 4, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

My excitement about Tana French has only grown as I’ve read her books, culminating with the first she wrote but the last I read, The Likeness. So I was very anxious to get my hands on her new book, Broken Harbor. My review is coming in a day or so, but for now I will tell you that she does not disappoint! Here’s an example of why:

It was October, a thick, cold, gray Tuesday morning, sulky and tantrumy as March.

The plot and the characters are wonderful, too. But I love the evocative tone of that one sentence. Doesn’t it help you picture Dublin (and surrounding areas), and feel the cold? The strong sense of place is one of my favorite elements of French’s mysteries. I’ll go ahead and give her points for “tantrumy,” too, although I’m sure some purists will be offended. 🙂

How’s your Tuesday, and what are you reading?

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The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson (audio)

Posted on September 3, 2012 by pagesofjulia

I didn’t really know what this book was about when I picked it up – only that it was well-regarded. I’m so glad it found its way into my hands. Isabel Wilkerson has taken on a large-scale, ambitious subject here, and rendered it beautifully. And the audio reading by Robin Miles is lovely to boot.

The “great migration” in the subtitle refers to the movement of black Americans out of the South and into the northern and western United States in 1915-1975. Wilkerson starts from the very beginning, looking at the experiences of former slaves just after Emancipation in an impoverished region struggling to rebuild with a new order of things. The creation and expansion of Jim Crow laws designed to hold blacks down took time after the end of the Civil War to take effect. In the new caste system, former slaves and their descendents were unable to move up in the world and were in constant fear for their lives if they were to misstep around Southern whites. By 1915, they had begun to move out of the South, in what became a mass migration along lines so distinct that enclaves of blacks from specific towns and states were recreated in new locations.

Wilkerson shifts between two ways of studying the Great Migration. Sometimes she takes a broad view of history, in which she cites her own interviews (she states that she did over 1,200) with migrants and their descendents as well as a number of historical sources, to render the story of the Migration generally. And sometimes she follows the specific personal stories of three individuals who she interviewed at great length over a long period of time, traveling the country with them and becoming part of their lives. (In this respect, the journalist/author becoming part of the family of her subject, I was reminded of Rebecca Skloot’s amazing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.) George Swanson Starling moved from Eustis, Florida to New York City, later sending for his wife Inez to join him there. He had to leave Florida suddenly because a friend tipped him off that a lynch mob was coming for him; he had been involved in organizing his fellow citrus pickers to demand higher wages. Ida Mae Brandon Gladney moved with her husband George and their two children, with a third on the way, from Mississippi where they had been sharecroppers. They would eventually end up in Chicago, by way of Milwaukee. And Robert Joseph Pershing Foster was an ambitious surgeon and veteran from Monroe, Louisiana, with his heart set on Los Angeles. Known as Pershing in Monroe, he would resettle as Robert (or Bob, or Doc) in LA and send for his wife and daughters to join him there, where he built a new life in high society with the big house and booming practice he’d always wanted.

I found this shifting back and forth between the broad view and three personal histories extremely effective. Anecdotes from the lives of Southern blacks drove well home the misery of their bottom-rung status there; some of these stories are horrific, but important to show the desperation some migrants felt when they left their homes in the South. National trends played a role – for example, during WWII demand for Florida’s citrus was high while the supply of labor to pick the fruit was low, with everyone off at war, and this imbalance led to George Starling’s ability to demand higher wages. And the history of Chicago’s race relations and residential segregation puts Ida Mae Gladney’s home ownership into the proper perspective. You get the point. The history is well-documented and, I’m convinced, well-researched; and the personal stories make it all, well, personal. I was deeply involved with our three representative individuals by the end of the book and, yes, I cried.

I love that Wilkerson brought such a large-scale, important trend, that has had such huge effects on American history, to life the way she did. I also like that she examined the broad effects of the Great Migration, in terms of the cultures of both white and black residents of the North and the South, and took the time to show that black migrants were really far more like immigrant groups in history than like migrants within their own country. I recommend this book as part of a study of American history – but one need not be an academic to appreciate it. The story of the Great Migration is made accessible here, and I’m glad I know more about it now. This 19-disc audiobook (over 600 pages in print) went by easily. This is how I like to take my history lessons. Check it out.

Rating: 8 train rides north.

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