“Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love. If it is love, then it is love.”
I hope one day to catch up on all ElizabRecording Lives
“Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love. If it is love, then it is love.”
I hope one day to catch up on all Elizabeth Strout’s work. I have enjoyed the last few releases and love her down-to-earth characters and the relationships they wrap themselves in. With “Tell Me Everything” she brings her two most well-known characters together, Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge. These two remarkable women are centerpieces in earlier acclaimed novels– but we have a new star here, Bob Burgess. He has been present in a few of the books, but here, well, the very first line tells us, “This is the story of Bob Burgess."
“He thought: God, we are all so alone. BUT—LUCY. SHE DID not make him feel alone.”
Right away Olive and Lucy are brought together. Olive has discovered that Lucy is a writer and wants to share an unusual story with her. The two exchange stories over time, with a general theme being the mysteries of “unrecorded lives.” What is the point of an unfulfilled life?
Now Bob and Lucy have been the closest of friends for a while. They each love their respective partners, but find immense satisfaction with their walks, their communications. There never seems to be any sort of jealousy from the partners. Bob’s wife is a minister who encourages the friendship. Lucy lives with her ex-husband, William (of the “Oh, William” book), who feels completely comfortable confiding in Bob. Lucy and Bob’s relationship serves to fill in gaping holes from home, holes preventing a fulfillment each one craves.
“It makes me glad to be with you, Lucy. You give me a break from … well, you know, life.”
More than once, the topic of “sin eater” arises. Bob is clearly the sin eater. He is the ultimate nice guy. He takes the death of his brother’s wife as hard as his brother does and accepts the burden of mending their family’s conflicts. Despite his recent relative inactivity as a lawyer, he is compelled to defend a hopelessly misunderstood client accused of murdering his own mother. Anytime someone is struck by disaster, Bob rushes to their side. This admirable trait takes a heavy toll.
The obvious question to be answered is, can Bob and Lucy’s relationship rest in its platonic state? “I’m just so glad you’re in my life,” she said. And he said, “Me too.” They repeat these sentiments often. One version would have them run away together– but at what cost? Bob wonders if this might cause his wife to die, if William, even, might die. Another version would line them up as candidates in one of Lucy and Olive’s “unrecorded lives.”
This is the skeleton of the story, but it does not convey how Elizabeth Strout connects her characters in deeply realistic tapestries. The interpersonal relationships are authentic and thought-provoking. She is a master of these complexities, "Olive Kitteridge" having won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It is always a delight to return to this world.
Thank you to the Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #TellMeEverything #NetGalley...more
“A western, with Irish accents,” is how Kevin Barry described his new novel, “The Heart in Winter.” In tone and settingAt This Moment His Heart Turned
“A western, with Irish accents,” is how Kevin Barry described his new novel, “The Heart in Winter.” In tone and setting, you can think the HBO series “Deadwood,” although told from a pair of young lovers' hearts rather than saloon owners or lawmen. This is 1891 wild west Butte, Montana, a town where 10,000 men have immigrated from Cork, Ireland to find work in the copper mines. Tough and gritty times.
A rough young degenerate poet, Tom Rourke, is spending his days drenched in alcohol and opium, unsure whether to leave town or just end things altogether. He is earning a few bucks assisting a photographer when a newly married couple come in for a portrait. Tom is floored by the bride, Polly Gillespie, and the world pinwheeled.
“...she got a portrait done and that boy was looking at her so hard it was like he just discovered eyes.”
Instantly in love, there is nothing to do but cast their fate to the wind. Tom robs a brothel, sets fire to it to cover his tracks, and the two of them journey headlong into Montana’s wilderness with only the vaguest of notions how to survive a trek to San Francisco.
Kevin Barry writes like no one else. Paragraphs may be pages long, but it flows smoothly as the poetry, the dialogue, and the humor are just the slightest bit off expectations– it all blends together and creates an odd but authentic world. Tom and Polly are unforgettable characters, too– naive lovers who have gone all in– shrugging off the knowledge that there will probably be consequences to their blind faith. They speak of death often– more of its inevitability than its threat.
I mentioned the TV series Deadwood. That is probably a good barometer if you are unsure if this is your type of reading. The violence, raw humor, and multisyllabic array of curse words will be triggers to some. “Heart in Winter” also shares many of that show’s treasures, as well.
While approaching this book with some optimism, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. Ready for a western adventure, I was enchanted by the prose and the world Kevin Barry conjured. I was probably most impressed with how Tom Rourke began as such an unlikeable stain, only to develop into such a fascinating character over the course of time.
Thank you to Doubleday Books and Netgalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #TheHeartInWinter #NetGalley...more
Oisin McKenna’s debut novel “Evenings and Weekends” is loaded with remarkable characters. Early on I had to jot down a roster, a famiBeached In London
Oisin McKenna’s debut novel “Evenings and Weekends” is loaded with remarkable characters. Early on I had to jot down a roster, a family tree of sorts, as these people came on the scene. It was worth it. The cast here is amazing, populated by fascinating three-dimensional players. Strikingly, there are no bad guys here, just souls figuring out who they are and what they need for their lives.
London. Cities or locales are usually integral to the story– here London is a big player. The city charges and feeds those here. We feel the promise, the excitement, everyone’s expectations pumped up. The intensity is magnified by the sensation over a whale trapped in the Thames, an event drawing most of these players in.
There are couples scrambling to determine the futures of their relationships. Maggie is pregnant with Ed’s child, and they are planning on raising the baby outside of London. Ed is afraid Maggie is going to find out secrets in his past. Maggie’s close friend, Phil, has had a sexual experience with Ed and may tell Maggie. Phil is in love with his housemate, Keith– who also has a boyfriend, Louis (who may be harboring feelings for Phil!).
So, there are a lot of characters and interweaving relationships going on here… a little reminiscent of a movie like “Love, Actually.” My favorite is Rosaleen– Phil’s mom. She has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She has to find the right way to let Phil know. She has to make sense of her life’s journey. She also has to embrace Pauline, her close friend whose death years ago has haunted her.
Yes, it was a little difficult to keep track of these people as they first appeared. With so many different threads going, it would seem likely to be the stuff of a soap opera. Somehow, the pages kept turning rapidly and I bought into each character’s struggle to navigate a future. An inspired novel by a new voice.
Thank you to Mariner Books and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #EveningsandWeekends #NetGalley...more
“Quickly, While They Still Have Horses” is a wildly robust collection. Short story compilations are often such a mixed bag. It More Than Just Troubled
“Quickly, While They Still Have Horses” is a wildly robust collection. Short story compilations are often such a mixed bag. It can be dizzying making the adjustment from one selection to the next. Even with a master like George Saunders, I remember reading “Tenth of December” and loving one, only to lose a step when reading the next. Sometimes it is the shifting tone, sometimes a question of quality; some pieces are brilliant, some are just so-so. Here, I admit I kept expecting to write off an upcoming story as a clunker… or, at the least, one that was not going to land with me. Happily, I was wrong. I was drawn into each one right away.
These are set in Northern Ireland, and while this is not a book about The Troubles, life here is lived in its echoes. In “Grand So,” I was struck by a phrase one of the characters used, “He holds his silence like a riot shield...” This was said casually, but of course, this reflects how the conflict still permeates this world. I never had occasion to use that description while growing up in suburbia.
“Grand So” was my first favorite among these. We have a grumpy spirit, of the Catholic persuasion, still riding in the back seat of what was his car. The driver is a Protestant grandmother, oblivious to the ghost, selling homemade jam to people, regardless of what neighborhood they live in. Her granddaughter sees and communicates with the ghost, melting his heart and dissolving the lines that have divided these people for hundreds of years.
In the first offering, “A Certain Degree of Ownership,” we find a woman watching an infant crawl its way into the sea, justifying it with the belief it has nothing to do with her– that the parents did not deserve the baby or this beach. The final entry, “Family Circle,” also has an infant in danger with equally harsh characters withholding vital assistance.
Not all of these people are as despicable. “Caravan” is about a ten-year-old girl who throws herself into refurbishing an old caravan, making it all her own. What we witness is her learning some life lessons and redefining her relationship with her parents. “Tinged” has a family struggling with a mother’s cancer, their religious convictions versus the hopes that superstitions tempt them with. There are sixteen stories total, with not a bad one in the bunch,
And here is the caveat I find myself inserting into quite a few Irish literature reviews: This stuff is funny. With all the heartbreak and suffering, there is always a saving sense of humor running through. In Colin Barrett’s fantastic collection, “Homesickness,” we have story after story of hard times, but the people never lose that twinkle in their eyes, never lose their way of lightening the seriousness of it all. Last year’s “Queen of Dirt Island” by Donal Ryan centered around a woman and her mother-in-law, women under a lot of pressure who constantly bickered and fought in what would seem a miserable existence– remarkably, this turned out to be the most loving and joyous relationship.
So, “Quickly, While They Still Have Horses” delivers a variety of slices of life in Northern Ireland, showing glimpses of a land trying to define itself as more than The Troubles.
Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review....more
You can’t make this stuff up– and it is heartbreaking that this isn’t fiction.
Jim Gordon played drums on so many importHearing What No One Else Could
You can’t make this stuff up– and it is heartbreaking that this isn’t fiction.
Jim Gordon played drums on so many important hit songs it was ridiculous. He was a member of Derek and the Dominoes and was even credited for co-writing “Layla.” one of rock’s seminal pieces. He was the most in-demand studio drummer, he was well connected, he was good looking– he was on top of the world.
On June 3, 1983, he took a hammer and butcher knife and brutally murdered his 71-year-old-mother.
This is a gut-wrenching story. Jim appeared to be the nicest guy in the world, a little shy, and blessed with an intuitive talent that had the greatest drummers in the world, including Hal Blaine and Jim Keltner, shaking their heads in astonishment. There is a playlist at the back of the book showing work with the Beach Boys, Phil Spector, Neil Young, John Lennon, George Harrison, Tom Petty… the beat goes on and on.
And then the voices came. The lone way to keep the voices at bay was to smother them with increasing amounts of drugs and alcohol. As his behavior slowly became more erratic, people chalked it up to another rock star’s tango with drugs– just an occupational hazard. No one was aware of the voices he heard in his head, not his girlfriends, not his coworkers, not even the psychiatrists he eventually turned to.
Rita Coolidge, at one time his girlfriend, tells of the time they were part of Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, and Jim asked her to step out into the hallway with him. Things had been going so well with the two that she guessed he might be asking her to marry him. Instead, he punched her in the face so hard she hit the wall and lost consciousness. He nonchalantly walked into the next room and told people, “I hit Rita.”
Later, as the voices became louder and more frequent, Jim would suffer unbearable pain if he tried to ignore them… a “white hot cruelty pain” encircling his head. His career started collapsing as his performance and dependability became increasingly unstable. The self-medicating with liquor and drugs only masked his condition to friends and doctors. Complaints of depression, anxiety and fatigue were never linked to schizophrenia. No one knew about the voices.
The voices came from many people, with his mother’s becoming more prevalent. He believed she “...was a truly evil person who had a hand in the deaths of Karen Carpenter and Paul Lynde.”
Joel Selvin has written a captivating account flowing as quickly as the best of novels. While it is hard to have any sympathy for someone responsible for such a gruesome act, the overwhelming perception is that Jim Gordon was doomed, a victim tormented by his own illness. A tragic tale.
A couple side notes: This book opened my eyes (or ears) to so many details going into drum performances I was never sensitive to– I will listen with enlightenment now. The other note is it seems, although Layla is credited to Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, the piano portion was composed by Rita Coolidge who was never recognized creatively or financially. When she confronted Clapton’s manager, Robert Stigwood, he slammed her with, “Who do you think you are? You’re a girl singer– what are you going to do?”
Thank you to Diversion Books and Edelweiss for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review....more
Author Sloane Crosley had her apartment broken into and lost jewelry, most of it relatively inexpensive, some of it tied to strong Tangling With Grief
Author Sloane Crosley had her apartment broken into and lost jewelry, most of it relatively inexpensive, some of it tied to strong family sentiment. She took this hard; this was a violation. Her closest friend and former boss, book publicist Russell Perreault, was the shoulder to cry on and the one person she felt comfortable confiding in. His reassurance: “If it’s any consolation,” he said, “you can’t take it with you when you go.”
A few nights later he committed suicide.
Unexpectedly, she forges the two events together. If she can solve the robbery and recover the jewelry– somehow it can turn events back. The first portion of the book has her working around the ineffectiveness of the police and doing her own investigation. This all-consuming mission acts as a protective cloak hiding her denial over the sudden loss of her friend. She even fantasizes about Russell, in death, recovering the jewelry for her.
As the title states, “Grief is for People,” not possessions. As the jewelry issue fades, Sloane deals with the guilt, the post-traumatic stress disorder, and the thousands of questions this loss brings out. We get that she loved Richard dearly as a friend and desperately searches for a way to bring him back, that by her continued living she is leaving him behind. She does paint a loving picture of his quirkiness and we do get a sense of why he is so missed.
We are not smothered in a solemn gloomy mess, though. There is a lot of witty humor in this book, which is a good thing because it helps balance out an underlying anger Sloane expresses. “We have all committed the sin of not being able to bring him back.” This does not profess to be a self-help book– she actually mocks the rigidity of a lot of those and challenges the traditional ‘five stages of grief,’ they are not as neatly divided as put forward. Everyone wears their grief differently.
I was drawn to this book as a way to address some of my own recent grief issues, and, although the suicide focus is not something specifically relevant, a lot of chords were struck that rang true. I have just ordered Joan Didion’s “Year of Magical Thinking,” her moving account of how she attempted to function in her world soaked in grief. That book is referred to a number of times here and when I first read it I was not looking at these issues from the same vantage point.
Please don’t be put off by the darkness you may associate with the subject matter. This is an excellent exploration of a place we are all bound to dwell in at some point. Again, serious questions addressed with an appropriately humorous slant. It is the tragedy comedy tradition.
“I still want to know where everything I loved has gone and why.”
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, thank you to NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review....more
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