A Word About Awards

IMAGINE ME GONE by Adam Haslett   Award: LA Times Winner 2016   Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2017, Kirkus Finalist 2016, National Book Longlist 2016, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2016, Pulitzer Finalist 2017   Date Read: April 25, 2021   Imagine Me Gone is a brilliant delve into the world of mental illness that runs in a family. From the very beginnings of the parent’s, John and Margaret, meeting and courtship in England, to Margaret’s discovery of John’s undiagnosed mental illness, abandoning their relationship seemed never to occur to Margaret. She loves John and their marriage seems inevitable.   Fast forward to their times in the States, a future they never envisioned for themselves seemingly preferring England, their three children, Michael, Celia and Alec, grow into adolescence. Yet, for the kindness and openness this family seems to inhabit, there still seems something missing: warmth and tenderness. Celia and Alec form a close bond as Michael, precocious and highly v

THE DUTCH HOUSE by Ann Patchett   Nominations: BookTube Longlist 2020, Carnegie Longlist 2020, Pulitzer Finalist 2020, Women's Prize Longlist 2020   Date Read: April 22, 2021   Some kids go from rags to riches but the Conroy kids, Maeve and Danny, go from riches to rags and then kind of back to riches again. With their mother having abandoned them years ago and a father largely absent and aloof, the Conroy siblings have learned to rely on one another, filling the gaps that their parents have left behind.   The Conroys live in the Dutch House, an impressive and historic mansion that their father purchased, toothbrushes, dishes and all. They literally moved into someone else’s life. Prior to this, Cyril and his wife Elna were living in a postage stamp apartment, eating beans to save money. Elna had no idea that Cyril had the money to purchase a home like the Dutch House. To add insult to injury, he never showed it to her before purchasing it, choosing instead to “surprise” her with i

THE GRASS HARP by Truman Capote   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1952   Date Read: April 21, 2021   Having always been enamored with the South, I found this novel a slow drawled homage to a South most will never know. Collin, a twelve year old orphan, goes to live with his two female cousins, Verena and Dolly Talbo. While Dolly is regarded as crazy, Verena is a force of nature who becomes involved with a questionable character named Morris. Add in Catherine, a black house girl and Collin is veritably smothered in the fluttering attentions of southern affection.   Drama ensues when Dolly is unsupportive of the idea of Verena and Morris bottling and selling Dolly’s very own dropsy remedy, essentially stealing it out from under her nose. In sheer protest, Dolly, Collin and Catherine go to live in a tree house, where they are sought by Verena and the law. The three, however, find long-sought adventure and entertainment. Morris, of course, is nowhere to be found, having absconded with a

ARARAT by Elgin Groseclose   Award: National Book Winner 1939   Read: April 19, 2021   Among the shadows of the mountain Ararat, most known for the supposed landing place of Noah’s ark, massacre, joy, suffering and compassion flow by through the sifting years. Always in the background is the immovable Ararat.   In a duplicitous slaughter, the Armenians living in Turkey who survive the genocide flee to a small village in Russia named Bartzan, in the shadow of Ararat. Though living there for 13 years, they are never provided formal permission to occupy the land. As the community feels rejected and still without roots, many depart in search of more permanent and welcoming lands.’   The one person that constantly remains is Amos Lyle, an American missionary who dedicates his life to caring for orphaned children, the byproduct of constant war and strife. He takes as his own daughter the orphan Sirani who works tirelessly beside Lyle as she grows to assume more and more responsibility. The o

THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES by Tom Wolfe   Nominations: National Book Critics Circle Finalist 1987, NY Times Finalist 1987   Date Read: April 14, 2021   Wolfe’s satire of the excess of the late 80’s in New York centers around Sherman McCoy, a self-professed Master Of The Universe. On the surface, he has it all – the high-paying career, a penthouse apartment in Manhattan and a weekend house on Long Island, and a beautiful wife, daughter and mistress. Yet even as the reader walks through the halls of his life, before everything goes to hell, you can’t help but hear the echo. Sherman’s life is long on appearances but short on substance.   For all the power and prestige flowing through Sherman’s life, Wolfe highlights just how precarious and unstable those pillars are. With the right set of circumstances and with the people around you succumbing to their base instincts, the mighty can be toppled with the shift of a gear. In this case, shifting into reverse on an onramp in the Bronx.    Wol

TINKERS by Paul Harding   Award: Pulitzer Winner 2010 Nomination: LA Times Finalist 2009   Dates Read: June 24, 2010 & April 10, 2021   Tinkers is a beautiful, whisper of a book so good that I have read it twice. I find it even more enchanting the second time around. To me, at this stage in my life, Tinkers is about the beauty of the natural world and the humility of living every day with integrity, knowing full well the limits and vastness of the human experience.   So many quiet moments of grace abound here. Two generations of men, Howard already deceased and his son, George, on his death bed with mere hours to live. George experiences moments from his life and his story is interwoven with those of his father. Both are tinkers in a sense, Howard in a horse-drawn cart selling household items door-to-door is a capable tinker and makes minor repairs for the housewives he encounters. George tinkers with clocks, appreciating their reliability and complex moving parts.   Neither man ev

MAO II by Don DeLillo   Award: PEN/Faulkner Winner 1992   Nomination: Pulitzer Finalist 1992   Date Read: April 5 2021   Trapped by an unfinished novel and an ambivalent love triangle, reclusive writer Bill Gray finds a way to escape his circumstances and confront his own individuality, shortcomings and the fate he has stumbled into. Through this vehicle, DeLillo explores the legacy of Mao, the violence in the Middle East, the fate of the writer and how it infiltrates the mind of the reader and what, exactly, can serve as a catalyst for change.   The unfinished novel Gray has been plugging away at for decades is like a ghost haunting and plaguing him, offering no respite. Gray becomes obsessed with not only the language but the idea that this novel, instead of inspiring the reader, will haunt them just like it has the author. This husk of a novel has become a curse, a little albatross around Gray’s neck. The only option he has is to abandon it but it’s seeped into every nook and cranny

THE CITADEL by A.J. Cronin   Award: National Book Winner 1937   Date Read: April 2, 2021   Andrew Manson is young, idealistic and armed with a medical degree. His first post is in a small town in the Scottish countryside where he is essentially an indentured servant to a doctor whose health is failing. Yet, in this small community he learns the practicalities of his profession and falls in love with Christine, who he ultimately marries.   His passion is so intense that Andrew, along with lifelong friend Denny, determine to blow up a sewer they know is infected with typhoid. Since money is so scarce in this remote village, they know that only in destroying it entirely will the Ministry be forced to deal with it. This is just one of the small scenes throughout this captivating novel that will stay in my mind.   As with all youth, Manson is swept along to bigger and better things and, like youth, his idealism and passion are eventually supplanted by the necessities of living, desire for p

THE SEA OF GRASS by Conrad Richter   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1937   Date Read: April 2, 2021   Conrad Richter has a gift for getting his point across without a long, drawn-out narrative. Prior to this, The Waters Of Kronos came to mind. But here, Richter does it again. In sparing detail, he describes the ranching of New Mexico towards the end of western homesteading. While the prose about the land is gorgeous, I found the characters got lost among the sea of grass.   Colonel Brewton finds himself married to a mail-order bride, Lutie, who arrives from the East and is immediately at odds with the rough and tumble of the Southwest. Regardless, she is revered by the men in her life, which I never quite figured out why. She ends up abandoning her family, including her children, to pursue a more exciting life in the city.   Colonel Brewton is a rancher of the old-school variety and he finds himself at odds with the farmers or “nesters” who try to tame the land and grow crops. In t

THE SISTERS BROTHERS by Patrick deWitt   Nominations: Booker Finalist 2011, Carnegie Longlist 2012   Date Read: April 1, 2021   I generally don’t go in for “Westerns” but this book was captivating, charming and sad in a way that was surprising and delightful. The Sisters brothers, Charlie and Eli, are two mercenaries that stumble through an odyssey in order to fulfill their boss, the Commodore’s, request to murder a man named Warm. Warm has developed a chemical concoction that can highlight any gold in a stream at night.   During their trip from Oregon to San Francisco to find Warm, Charlie and Eli encounter a multitude of challenges that highlights not only their murderous renown, but also their frailty. I found their journey at times humorous, scary and tiring. They encounter a witch, a bear, a dead Indian, a parlor of sporting women, and a gang of fur trappers hell-bent on killing them. And in the end, they find Warm himself, as well as his partner Morris.   While Charlie is the mor