A Word About Awards

PURSUIT OF THE PRODIGAL  by Louis Auchincloss   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1960   Date Read: June 30, 2021   This being my first novel by Auchincloss, I found this to be intelligent pulp fiction – a perfect book to read on vacation. As I’m in Mexico right now, all the stars aligned for a juicy experience.   Reese Parmelee is a well-bred, well-educated, upper-class white dude with a whole lot of angst. He is determined to live his life by a rigid set of morals (more power to him) than the upper-crust circle he is surrounded by is committed to. He wearies of everyone around him clinging to status and money and he desperately wants something more from life than the life he has created can provide.   Reese’s belief that Esther, Reese’s first wife, is trying to trap him in a life of domesticity is a lazy argument at best. He didn’t need to propose or go through with the marriage or impregnate her. He made all those choices on his own. Acting shocked that he ended up with the vanilla

ACCORDING TO QUEENEY by Beryl Bainbridge   Nomination: Booker Longlist 2001   Date Read: June 27, 2021   This historical novel focuses on the personage of Samuel Johnson, famous in real life for the precursor to the Oxford English Dictionary, a critic, a poet and an intellectual. We experience his assets and weaknesses through the eyes of Queeney, the daughter of his benefactors, Henry and Hester Thrale.   A well-to-do family, the Thrale’s hosted Johnson for the last twenty years of his life, managing his living arrangements, travel and social calls. History has noted his “jerky” and erratic movements which modern medicine would most likely diagnose as Tourette’s Syndrome. During the last years of his life living with the Thrales, Johnson became increasingly drawn to Mrs. Thrale and upon the death of her husband Henry, had hoped to take his place as her husband. He was devastated when she secretly married the musician Mr. Piozzi.   While you couldn’t construe this novel as “action pack

THE TROUBLE OF ONE HOUSE by Brendan Gill   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1951   Date Read: June 25, 2021   I am always in awe of how much society has changed since the 50’s. Doctors wouldn’t tell women what was wrong with them because they didn’t need to know. Grieving was a series of steps to be followed, rather than emotions to be felt. Women were judged by the wake that they threw, going all out to impress other women.    The insistence on pretending Elizabeth isn’t sick seems to cause more harm than good. Everyone is supposed to pretend like what’s happening isn’t happening, to deny reality, which doesn’t allow anyone to feel anything about what’s happening. It prevents everyone from being real with each other. What a waste of an opportunity to be utterly, nakedly human with each other.   I can’t think of a single instance in this novel where the couples actually love each other. Thomas has stopped being intimate with Elizabeth a long time ago, believing she prefers their chil

LUSTER by Raven Leilani   Awards: Center For Fiction Winner 2020, Kirkus Winner 2020, National Book Critics Circle Winner 2020   Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2021, PEN/Hemingway Finalist 2021, PEN/Jean Stein Longlist 2021,  Women's Prize Longlist 2021   Date Read: June 22, 2021   Edie is in her mid-twenties and at sea in her own life. She drifts from job to job, relationship to relationship with nothing to tether her to the world. She is black, poor, and suffering from IBS but she’s beautiful, infinitely capable and artistic. Over the course of several months, she flirts and then meets in real life Eric Walker, a married man over twice her age.   There are rules, though. His wife, Rebecca, is aware of Eric’s proclivities and has drafted a set of rules to ensure their relationship doesn’t infringe on her turf. Yet, the rules keep changing until Rebecca changes them completely by having Edie deliver soup and a bone saw to her work, a medical examiner specializing in autopsy. Edie a

4321 by Paul Auster   Nominations: Booker Finalist 2017, Carnegie Longlist 2018, Dublin Longlist 2019   Date Read: June 20, 2021   4321 is essentially a coming of age story set against the massive cultural evolution and churning world events of the 50s-60s. What makes this novel unique is that Auster took one character, in this case Archie Ferguson, and imagines four different lives. Ferguson’s personality and behavior change depending on the circumstances he and his family find themselves in.   “One of the odd things… was that there seemed to be several of him, that he wasn’t just one person but a collection of contradictory selves, and each time he was with a different person, he himself was different as well.”   The one thing all of the Fergusons hold in common is the desire to write. Whether it be novels, poetry, literature or journalism, all the Archies possess the inherent desire to create. In Ms. Monroe’s classroom, Ferguson’s favorite English teacher, reads a sign above the bla

CASE HISTORIES by Kate Atkinson Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2006, Women's Prize Longlist 2005 Date Read: June 17, 2021 From all the hype on the first several pages and a woman approaching me in the pool and remarking how good this book was, I was slightly disappointed. While the writing was good and the story absorbing, I wasn’t overwhelmed but simply enjoyed it.   Jackson Brody is a former police detective who has retired from the force and hung out a shingle as a private investigator. The charm of this book, for me, was its being set in England. Brody is working on a number of cases, including: -     Olivia Land, a three-year old girl was abducted from a backyard tent 34 years ago. Her older sisters, Julia and Amelia, discover her favorite stuffy with the passing of their father. A third sister, Sylvia, has long ago taken the veil and is now in a convent. Jackson tries to discover if the father is responsible. -     Laura Wyre, an 18 year old daughter of Theo Wyre, was randomly

ROGUE MALE by Geoffrey Household   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1939   Date Read: June 10, 2021   Rogue Male appeared to me a rough-and-tumble book about a hunter mistaken for an assassin and then spends the next year on the run. And it is just that. This rollicking journey is well-told and while I typically don’t go in for those types of stories, I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller/adventure novel. I further appreciates that Household avoids gruesome details but simply alludes to the tortures this poor man endures. He provides the terror without the nightmare.   The beginnings remind me of Lord Grizzly where he drags himself across the plains after a bear attack. Our male hero, who is never named, endures much the same fate after falling off a cliff. Those who put him on that cliff had hoped the fall would end him but he was able to scurry off on his belly like a snake and ever so slowly recover from that terrible fall.   Our hero runs so far and wide and long that after a time I

HOW GERMAN IS IT by Walter Abish   Award: PEN/Faulkner Award 1981   Date Read: June 9, 2021   I am not quite sure what to make of this novel. At times entertaining, I am not sure these characters are interested in growing as people as they are in growing in social status. Each of the profiles presented seem obsessed with their own endeavors, whether it be wealth, a new tryst, or just to keep on keeping on. Since each character is German, I thought the legacy of the war would come to play in their own self-assessments but it surprisingly doesn’t cause a batted eyelash.   All of the characters here seem desperate to shed their atrocious past and jump on the social ladder with the highest rungs in mind. But there are a few reminders that just can’t be shed. Franz, the waiter at the Pflaume, is still fascinated by the legacy of his town and has set himself to the tedious task of building the Durst concentration camp out of matchsticks. And, as if laughing at their desire to simply move for

BLACK & BLUE by Anna Quindlen   Nomination: Oprah Book Club 1998, Women's Prize Longlist 1998   Date Read: June 5, 2021   I personally have no experience with spousal abuse but I believe all of the complexities, heartbreak and love would look very much like this account. What a messy and complicated state this is – the choices to be made, the guilt, the powerlessness, or worse yet, the false belief that you have power to be perfect and, therefore, change the outcome or appease your partner into non-violence. And then you add a child or children into the mix and the whole situation is so much worse.   We have a tendency to look upon abuse survivors as weak and place so much blame on their already fragile shoulders. What we all fail to recognize is that these women (and sometimes, rarely, men) are in an impossible situation that very well could end up in death or the feeling of death if you lose your child the way Francis did here. Losing your child is a fate almost worse than de

THE NAZARENE by Sholem Asch   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1939   Date Read: June 3, 2021   Although The Nazarene is a work of fiction, the portrayal of Yeshua, his life, his teachings and his ending are humanized in a way I have never encountered before. Whether someone is a believer or not, encountering Yeshua in this light is beneficial and insightful. The premise by which the reader is introduced to the major players in the rise and fall of Yeshua is through Pan Viadomsky, an ironically Jew-hating researcher and procurer of dubious artifacts.   Viadomsky seeks out a Jewish assistant to help him translate a rare text in his possession which no one has ever seen. The translator is never named. Eventually we learn that Viadomsky believes himself to be Hegemon Cornelius, one of the persecutors of Yeshua, who continues to reincarnate again and again never achieving the peace of death. I admire Asch for being so bold as to delve into the controversy of reincarnation in a Judeo-Chri