I was happy to see Ron Charles’ enthusiasm for Louise Erdrich’s latest book and it turns out that I share it. This one begins in 2008 in North Dakota’s Red River Valley where the economy centers on sugar beets and gives brief updates to the present time. The last book I read of hers, The Beet Queen, written in 1986, begins in 1932, and has a character Wallace who introduces...
Table for Two by Amor Towles
As usual I will begin by noting how hard I find it to write about a collection of short stories. How do I write about the whole of a disparate mix? Not comprehensively, I fear. “The Bootlegger” tells about a complicated marriage with the backdrop of classical music. The narrator describes her smart and successful husband, a person who was moved to hear classical music at Carnegie Hall...
The Portrait by Antoine Laurain
I am a fan of this author and have read four of his books that I find very clever and quite fun. My favorite was the first one I read, The President’s Hat, that tells a tale of François Mitterrand’s hat changing the lives of the people who happened to have it for a time. I read this one because I discovered it is in the public library. The Portrait is narrated by a man who works as an...
Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
It was the review in Reading Matters that took me to this book and the author’s focus on the importance of precise language that kept me reading. The main character is a translator at “the Court” in the Hague, an unnamed international court that brings charges against those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes. She had left New York after her father died...
James by Percival Everett
After Percival Everett’s visit to the book festival here in Charlottesville, I heard from Laura that she she was moved to read this book and liked it very much. Knowing that it was a retelling of Huckleberry Finn, I decided reacquaint myself with that story especially after she added that there was a notable surprise change in the story. What I did was less reading than skimming. It was as...
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
This one will certainly be on my list of favorites for the year. The story is set in 1910 and 1921 in Malaysia and is told in the style of Somerset Maugham’s stories from that location, and is written by a person whose ethnic group was on the receiving end of the racism of the British. While the casual racism and homophobia of the characters are apparent, they become fully human. The story...
Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs
Sally is a young woman who returns to the small village in England where she grew up when she finds herself “on the rocks.” The book was published in 1915; the war had put an end to her adventures in Paris. It was in response to a letter from a troublemaker in Little Crampton suggesting she could marry Mr. Bingley, the stodgy bank manager, that she returns to the home of her guardian...
Spies in Canaan by David Park
I have previously read two books by the Irish writer David Park and think frequently of one of them, Travelling in a Strange Land. Though I don’t remember where I read about this one, I knew it was about an American CIA operative in Vietnam at the very end of the war and some consequent events 40 years later. Mike describes himself as a “prairie boy” whose family was mainstream...
Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
I became a fan of Jhumpa Lahiri in 2008 when I read Unaccustomed Earth and Interpreter of Maladies. Sometime later she learned Italian and has translated at least one book from Italian to English and writes in Italian which was the case for this book of short stories. I believe my reservations about Ties, the book she translated, were not the result of shortcomings of the translation. I always...
Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser
Thanks to Dorothy for loaning me this 1997 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I was not conscious of either the book or author. We meet Martin as a young teenager working in his father’s cigar store in late 19th century New York. He is a bright fellow, focused on attracting customers, and begins by making a connection with a nearby hotel where at age 14 he begins work as a bellboy...