Alice LaPlante's Knockout Debut

Trust me, you will not be able to forget Dr. Jennifer White! This woman once excelled in her chosen field. As a renowned orthopedic surgeon who did not suffer fools gladly, she was a formidable presence in the OR, in the classroom, and even at home. She commanded respect and, no matter how brittle, she received love from her husband James, her kids Mark and Fiona, and a semblance of that complicated emotion from her best and only friend Amanda, a woman with whom she had a long-standing, prickly relationship, yet trusted with godparenting her children.

I speak of Dr. White in the past tense though Alice LaPlante presents Dr. White as the present tense narrator in her outstanding, unique, and yes, deeply disturbing debut novel, Turn of Mind. Dr. White suffers from early onset Alzheimers disease but is still able to live in her family home with a permanent care-giver as long as the money holds out and she behaves relatively well.

But readers learn, through Jennifer's stream of consciousness narration, that she is losing ground daily, a trait of early onset vs. the more dementia type alzheimer's which attacks later in life. What is sinister and devious about the disease is the roller coaster nature of conscious thought, capable of recalling exact details of long ago incidences yet unable to recognize Fiona or Mark when they come to visit. Her addled mind though, is still able to discern who means harm and who is caring or neutral in terms of her well being.

It's a remarkable, realistic, terrifying journey that LaPlante takes us on. The author's research into diseases of the brain must have been inordinately in-depth to create such a multi-faceted character, imperious, hard nosed, funny, and oh so sympathetic, even if we believe that she murdered her friend Amanda and surgically removed four fingers from one hand.

The police investigation of Amanda's death, with Dr. White at its core, is the ostensible subject of this book, but the subtext is what really keeps you reading late into the night. Family secrets are alluded to in snippets of Jennifer's memories, in the diary that visitors write in when they come so that Jennifer can keep a handle on her days, and in the tense conversations she often has with her troubled son Mark or with Fiona, who holds the purse strings.

LaPlante teaches creative writing at Stanford, no surprise there. She doles out clues, stirs in a few red herrings, throws us off the scent (though I managed to sniff it out), presenting us with a novel that's difficult to classify and all the better for that. It's a psychological thriller, a murder mystery, a character study, and a dysfunctional family drama, rolled into one knockout book. Unlike Lisa Genova's Still Alice, it isn't really about the disease per se, though it still convinced me to run, not walk, to a lawyer and get that will updated.

When She Woke - Be Very Afraid

I was having such a love/hate relationship with this book that I almost cashed it in. I'm so glad that I didn't! Without a doubt, it's one of the most terrifying novels I've ever read. Though reviewers are saying it's supposed to be a modern day Scarlet Letter, I'm thinking that it's much more akin to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, a book, I might add, that can still give me nightmares twenty some years after reading it.

Hannah Payne (initials H.P. like Hester Prynne) awakens in a hospital ward/prison as a "red." She is under 24 hour video surveillance by anyone in the entire country who wants to witness her shame and tragically, like a reality TV show, people do.  She has been chromed.

You see, in the not too distant future - just imagine Rick Perry as your President - the United States (this particular novel begins in Texas) has become an evangelical Christian nation with laws that make Sharia look loosey goosey. The only problem is that the prisons are just too full and costly to maintain - sound familiar?
 Criminals are treated with a drug that changes the color of their skin to match their crime. Hannah has had an abortion and to add to that sin, she has refused to give up the name of her lover or the doctor who took mercy on her and performed the procedure. Her red skin is now the outward symbol of her treachery, putting her at the mercy of vigilante groups like The Fist who can monitor her every move through advanced gps technology.

In this eerie time in our nation women are relegated to being seen and not heard. Their education consists of mastering the domestic arts, sewing, cooking, and raising a family. Their opinions are not solicited and, if offered, are ignored. Over a few generations, a woman might not realize what she's lost. But Hannah, who spends a horrifying few weeks in a halfway house undergoing "enlightenment" treatment, meets other women, in particular a college educated woman named Kayla, who offers her  the possibility of another kind of life.

With the help of an underground railroad of activists called It's Personal, Hannah embarks upon a journey of self discovery, an awakening if you will, an arduous trip to safety and reversal treatment for her skin pigmentation.  The question is, will she have the moral courage to proceed?

I just realized that I haven't yet mentioned the outstanding young author of this incredible novel, Hillary Jordan, whose first book, Mudbound, received all kinds of kudos. I suspect that, with this second endeavor, she has cemented her position as another one of these talented young writers who will be producing glorious works of literature for years to come.
http://www.hillaryjordan.com/

Europa Editions, You've Done it Again

My love affair with this publisher continues unabated as they persist in putting out the loveliest looking books from Europe's best, I would guess, mid-list authors. No slam bam James Pattersons for Europa, no sir. The latest of their impressive releases is Laurence Cosse's An Accident in August, an absolutely stunning examination of the effects of guilt on the human psyche.



Like foreign films, these novels translated into English, are meant to be savored. They begin slowly and build gradually so that when you're hit between the eyes with the action it's shocking, unexpected and fabulous. This particular book would make a terrific movie. All the camera would have to do is follow Lou around for a week trained on her face. With the right actress for the role, the entire novel would be to told through her expressions.

Lou is a victim of Fate with a capitol F. At the wrong place, the entrance to the Alma tunnel in Paris, at the wrong time, the exact moment that Princess Di's Mercedes is barreling away from the hotel, her slow moving Fiat is clipped by the Mercedes as it rams out of control into a cement piling, resulting in the accident of the decade.
Lou is so stunned and shaken that she just continues to drive away, unaware of the famous victims she's abandoning in her wake, until the next morning, that is, when the media frenzy changes the direction of her life.

As Lou changes before our very eyes one wonders why her lover, Yvon, doesn't force her to unburden herself of the guilty load she's carrying. Cosse gets the reader inside Lou's head as she plots and schemes to cover her tracks and erase all evidence of her presence at the scene of the crash. One bad decision after another brought to my mind that old saying "oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive."

Cosse, whose A Novel Bookstore, I wrote about here last year, has outdone herself with this small but incisive character study that managed to shock me more than once by taking off in directions I never would have expected. This is a very satisfying read.

 I'm sorry that I can't say the same for the madly far-fetched novel, The Informationist, which I also finished this week.  Can someone who read this, Linda perhaps, tell me how early in the book you were able to surmise who the bad guy was? OK, admittedly, I stuck with it to its conclusion but Michael/Vanessa was without a doubt the most unbelievable character I've ever encountered in literature.

 I almost laughed out loud at some of the deadly predicaments she managed to fight, slash, and shoot her way out of. Shades of 007 abound and the willing suspension of disbelief is a requirement if you intend to hang with Taylor Stevens to the end of this debut thriller. But don't take my word as the be all and end all, the Amazon reviewers went mad for this novel, comparing Michael Vanessa Monroe to Lizbeth Salander and pre-ordering the follow up due out in December.

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree....

...of Forgetfulness. Not that long ago I raved here on this blog about Alexandra Fuller's story of her African childhood http://readaroundtheworld-sallyb.blogspot.com/search?q=don%27t+let%27s+go+to+the+dogs+tonight and now she's going to force me to do it again! I read the new book about her mother, Nicola Fuller, in a record two days and, though I was fully prepared to be appalled at the arrogance of these people who go into Africa and expect to make it their own with no concern for the people whose lands they are adopting, I was surprised and pleased to discover that Tim and Nicola Fuller did finally come to terms with the new Africa and made their peace with black rule.

Ms. Fuller had to face her mother's wrath after she opened her family up to criticism in Don't Let's go to the Dogs.... Her mom continues to refer to it as "that AWFUL book." Yet, Ms. Fuller's respect and love for her mother's resilience glows from every page of her latest reminiscences. Some of the stories I remembered from the first book. I knew that Nicola Fuller suffered from extreme bouts of depression and mania that caused her to over imbibe in alcohol. I knew that she was tough on every one around her, including her husband, daughters, and servants. Still, she never expected more of any of them than she expected of herself.

Under the tree of forgetfulness the now grown up Alexandra questions her larger than life mother Nicola about her dreams and regrets. Nicola Fuller's Scottish family had settled in Kenya during colonial rule. Africa was in her blood from a very young age so that the prejudices that she developed over time had trickled down through generations and would require time to dispel. When she met the like-minded Tim there was no doubt that they would settle on a farm in Africa despite the hardships, of which there were plenty.

Besides being a book about her mother, this is also a clear, understandable, brief history of the end of colonialism in parts of Africa. As a land owner in the former Rhodesia, Ms. Fuller's father was drafted into the army, often gone fighting for months at a time while Nicola kept the kids, the cattle and the crops under control, fending off stray soldiers who wanted them off what they considered their land.

Rhodesia eventually gained independence, becoming Zimbabwe, but still the Fullers would not be moved. "People often ask why my parents haven't left Africa. Simply put, they have been possessed by the land. Land is Mum's love affair and it is Dad's religion," says Alexandra, and though she currently lives in the United States, one senses that she too is constantly struggling against the pull of that continent. She has penned a beautiful love story to her parents and to the land where humanity began, a place that has mesmerized explorers for better or worse for centuries.

As someone who's recently returned from Africa and from weeks of talking with native Africans and Afrikaners like our guides Henk or the gun toting Max whose families have also lived in Africa for generations, I've tried to put myself in their shoes. I love my home, my little piece of land that I've cultivated and made my own over the past nearly thirty years.

The question is, would I feel justified in fighting for it if I was suddenly confronted by the unfortunate truth that this land belonged to the Seminoles, who were pushed further and further into the Everglades by northern developers generations ago. Hmmmm - it gives one pause, does it not?

Faith

A five letter word so fraught with meaning that there are some who will refuse to even discuss it,  faith is a powerful thing. What does it conjure up for you? As a kid being raised a Catholic, if we entertained doubts about the catechism and dared to openly question it, we were simply told that we had to believe, it was a matter of faith. When you're eight or ten years old that might be a good enough answer but as you mature you might think that it just doesn't fly. Personally, I'd prefer to entertain faith in the innate goodness of my fellow man, though that's been taking a beating lately too!

As it does in Jennifer Haigh's outstanding new novel, Faith. You don't need to be a Catholic, recovering, former, or otherwise, to appreciate Ms. Haigh's examination of the pedophilia scandal that's been plaguing the church for the past century, but it certainly added to the sense of familiarity I had while reading. You see, my Irish family had a deeply troubled priest in our midst so this novel really hit home.

Arthur Breen is a wonderfully complicated character, a popular and by all accounts successful priest, practicing (you've got to love that word) in a south Boston parish where his days are filled with hospital visits, council meetings, and long, comfortable silences with his loyal housekeeper and cook, Fran. But beneath this tranquil surface run longings and doubts long held in abeyance that bubble to the surface when Fran begins to supervise her grandson after school.

In 2002 in the Boston archdiocese all hell broke loose when it was discovered that abuse of children was running rampant throughout the priesthood and was being covered up by those in authority. Suspicion and accusations abounded in a "his word against mine" atmosphere that was difficult to counter. But this isn't really what Haigh's novel is about as much as it is the catalyst for a heartbreaking novel about family secrets, a failure to communicate, and that word again, faith.

When Arthur is accused of molesting Fran's grandson it seems an outrageous lie, especially to his mother, steeped in the rigors of Catholic tradition, and his half sister Sheila, the one person with whom Arthur can normally be himself. But when Sheila rises to his defense Arthur withdraws even from her, planting seeds of doubt that will plague her conscience as she tells the story in flashbacks.

Every single character in Haigh's brave, tragic novel is so nuanced, so believable, that I felt I knew each one of them. Their motivations, actions and reactions make perfect sense and I love that she doesn't judge them or make caricatures of them. From Arthur's half-brother Michael, former tough guy who married up and made good, to his once bullying step-father, now suffering from dementia, to Aiden's mother Kath, a barely recovering addict wounded over and over by wrong men and wrong choices, Jennifer Haigh has penned a novel that cries out to be a movie with the scope of Mystic River.

I hope that my customers at the library feel the same way since we'll be discussing this novel in a few weeks as our 2011-2012 season gets into full swing. I'll also be tackling Ann Patchet's new book State of Wonder, Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife, and Please Look After Mom by Kyung-sook Shin.