Review of The Good Neighbor: A Novel (Hardcover)

I've read all of William Kowalski's novels since he immediately became one of my favorite contemporary American authors with his stunning debut, "Eddie's Bastard".
"The Good Neighbor" is a surprisingly accomplished and mature work for an author of Kowalski's still young age and marks a departure point for him.While his earlier books seem written from overpowering talent and passion, "The Good Neighbor" is clearly the work of an author who has grown into conscious mastery of his craft.While his prose is as expressive and flows as effortlessly as ever, "The Good Neighbor's" plot is masterfully constructed, and every element of the story falls into place with the precision of a Swiss clockwork.The characters are alive and drawn with astounding psychological accuracy, particularly Francie, the unlikely hero of the novel.Kowalski is not preoccupied with the fleeting moments of pop-culture.Instead he is an author of substance, concerned with the humanity of his characters in which we all recognize ourselves.In the case of "the Good Neighbor" is Francie Hart's courageous and inspiring story of self-discovery that will leave no one untouched.



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Review of The Happy Pigs: A Novel (Hardcover)

Louise Barrat has been on the London police force for six years going from a street bobby to a member of the child protection unit.She has seen and heard all the misery an adult can do to a child and is dangerously close to suffering from total burnout.Her latest case is one of the worst cases she has ever witnessed.Ten-year-old Candy was raped and tortured and it is Louise's job to look after the child's best interests by steering her gently through the judicial system.

One day Louise is talking to two hookers, trying to find out if any underage prostitutes has come into the area.While conversing, a John comes over and Louisa walks away.The next thing she knows is the John has her in a back alley trying to force himself on her because she walked away from him.It's clear he doesn't know she's a police officer and since she has no proof to share with him, she flips him into the ally and walks away very upset.That incident although she doesn't know it yet, will change the rest of her life.

This first person narrative will grab the attention of the reader from the very first page because the protagonist is such a sympathetic and likable character.Lucy Harkness is able to use the written word to make the audience feel the pain and suffering police officers go through in pursuit of their job. THE HAPPY PIGS is a refreshing and unusual work that stimulates the readers' intellect as much as their feelings.

Harriet Klausner



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Review of Chango's Fire (Hardcover)

There is something simultaneously appealing and frustrating about Ernesto Quinonez's second novel, a marked improvement over his highly-flawed debut, Bodega Dreams, but in the end, still something of a disappointment. This time, the problem lies in his biting off more than he can chew with too many subplots rolling around what is essentially one man's coming-of-age story at its heart.

He's inexplicably combined the systematic burning of Spanish Harlem, insurance fraud, organized crime, gentrification, Santeria, pseudo-socialism, illegal citizenship papers, a shady government agent and a few other random nuggets into a muddle-headed plot that rests precariously, and unsuccessfully, on a straight-out-of-Hollywood interracial romance...and frankly, he's just not up to the task. When the cliches aren't jumping off the page at the reader, the heavy-handed didacticism is smacking them in the face.

His protagonist, Julio Santana, is a philosophizing arsonist yearning for the old days while trying to turn his life around after the proverbial "last job." Almost every other character is either an archetype or a stereotype, none ever fully coming to life beyond the "issue" Quinonez has chosen them to represent. After some hit-or-miss character and plot 'development' in the first two-thirds of the book, the hasty climax gets sloppy and, just like in Bodega Dreams, includes an out-of-left-field occurrence to wrap things up. The too-convenient epilogue only makes matters worse.

That said, Quinonez is no hack and with a less ambitious plot that focused more on the characters he obviously had a connection to, especially the engaging babalawo Papelito, he could have had something really special here. Personally, I could see a viable sequel springing from this effort, focusing only on Julio's journey to his Asiento, his strained relationship with his parents and a fleshed-out romance with Helen and the issues that arise from it. The first two things represent the strongest aspects of Chango's Fire, while the latter's potential got buried in melodrama.



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Review of An Affair of Honor (Hardcover)

Thepageturner's review (below) inspired me to get this book, and Marius's hypnotic writing kept me reading it, almost non-stop. This is a huge, panoramic novel of 1950's Tennessee, set in Bourbonville, also the setting for After the War, and involving later generations of some of the same families. Hope Kirby's killing of his wife and her lover start the spiralling action in this thoughtful, but exciting, novel and provide the forum for the author's extended study of the different ways we define justice and seek retribution.

Charles Alexander, a college student and newspaper reporter who accidentally witnesses the double murder, escapes being executed by Kirby only because he promises not to tell what he's seen.Charles, however, eventually becomes overwhelmed with guilt and confesses to the sheriff that he was a witness.While this action might seem on the surface to be clearly a correct action, it is not so simple in Bourbonville, where many believe the "code of the hills" is inviolate and Charles's breaking of his word of honor to be a serious betrayal.Even the clergy get in on the action, some advocating that he retract his statement, and Charles finds himself with few friends and even fewer supporters.

Plenty of drama, and even melodrama, keep the reader going, and the pages fly by, as we become totally caught up in the plot and in the lives of the characters, all of whom face demons of some sort.Marius is a master of keeping mysteries alive and making us understand and care for these characters, even those we dislike or consider misguided, because he makes us share their experiences, often through flashbacks. The complexities of religious faith, which we see as Charles and many other characters battle their doubts, are brought into sharp focus as we also share the traumas many characters have experienced during World War II, traumas still affecting both their earthly and spiritual lives.Marius takes on the big questions and provides a fascinating novel in which love and justice sometimes seem ineffable goals in a society which often honors tradition and shared community values far more than humanity and individual worth.Mary Whipple



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Review of Modern Ranch Living: A Novel (Hardcover)

Poirier's latest book returns to the Tuscon setting of his excellent previous novel, Goats, to meander through a long, hot summer in the lives of two somewhat strange neighbors in a suburban gated community. Kendra Lumm is a fitness-obsessed teenager, spending hours every day running, swimming, weightlifting, and eating right. Aside from her body, her main concerns are her genius/nerd older brother, her anger management therapy sessions, her strange (and hilarious) verbal syntax, and the mysterious disappearance of the boy down the street who kinda-sorta-not really used to be her boyfriend. Also down the street lives Merv Hunter, a 30 year old water park manager who shares his insomniac mother's home. He's the only one of his prep school friends who never went on to college, and although he's very good at his job and likes it, feels the stigma of never having left home and gone on to bigger and better things.

Over the course of the summer, both will meet new people, learn things about themselves, and ultimately grow and mature. There's not much of a plot, per se, rather the book drifts along like the summer, as the reader gets drawn into Kendra and Merv's routine. Hovering the background, and occasionally stepping forward, is the plotline revolving around the the missing boy. A renown huffer of magic markers, he'd last been seen hanging out with some seedy, BMX-riding tweakers (methamphetamine addicts) who also happen to hang out around Merv's water park. However, for the most part, the book just meanders through the summer. Kendra grudgingly goes to her therapy sessions, attends a summer class where she makes a good friend, ponders her brother's sexual orientation, and heaps scorn upon his loser girlfriend. Merv attends to the daily routine at the park (including helping out a rich wheelchair-bound patron who has a debilitating muscular disease), and worries about his mother. A trip up to Phoenix to hang out with his old high school buddies (now pudgy cubicle-bound ex-dot commers) leads to a woman entering his life, and the possibility of a new relationship.

There a great deal to enjoy here, from little details about Kendra (for example, like other fitness compulsives, her first evaluation of a person is based of muscle definition and tone), to the way the desert heat comes alive. Characters are constantly in and out of pools, flipping air-conditioning on, and always in search of something to drink. The supporting cast is universally vivid, from the water park's ex-jock security squad, to Kendra's ex-punk parents turned vintage toy seller and golf pro. Interestingly, virtually every adult in the book has some kind of character flaw or problem, and there's a distinctly satirical aspect to anyone who has lots of book learning (examples include a poetry professor, and Harvard Business School grad, and Kendra's therapist). It's all part of Poirier has a skeptical take on traditional authority figures as well as the utility of dominant mass cultural trends and mores. The book's humor is a little hard to convey properly, one hesitates to use the word "quirky", because that implies a shallowness that the book is far beyond. Yes, there are some over-the-top strange events in the book, and yes, the protagonists are a little strange--but mostly Poirier's people are very human, and the way they act and react to the world around them is very real. Another strong work from one of the most talented young writers around.



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Review of Rabbit Is Rich (Hardcover)

Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, John Updike's monumental "everyman" creation has reached middle age, and we find him ten years after the previous book comfortably ensconced in his mother-in-law's home, running Springer Motors for her and Janice, and actually in love with his wife at last.The Angstroms have achieved the American dream and are even the center of their own little clique at a country club established for the nouveau riche.

If you remember the Carter era, gas shortages, Cheryl Ladd replacing Farrah Fawcett in "Charlie's Angels" and Toyota's "Oh, what a feeling!" commercials, you will love this look back at America in 1979 and into the early 80's.

A fatter, richer Rabbit dabbles in gold and silver, plays golf, and wages war with his son Nelson, now a student at Kent State.When Nelson drops out of college and returns home, Rabbit says, "I like having Nelson in the house.It's great to have an enemy.Sharpens your senses."Nelson is the worst of Rabbit, scared and running, torn between two women, impregnating and marrying one while too young to handle the responsibility, and taking off.

Rabbit, though outwardly-satisfied and enjoying his affluent life, has never ceased mourning for what he cannot have. A young girl who enters his Toyota dealership reminds him so much of himself and Ruth, his lover from RABBIT, RUN, that he is convinced she is the daughter he never knew and is restless until he can confront Ruth about her.Janice, on the other hand, has matured into a suburban wife, playing tennis and lolling about the country club pool and in general convincing Rabbit to admit that the decade past has taught her more than it has taught him.

The secondary characters in this installment are brilliant.We see Charlie Stavros progressing into old age and running off to Florida with a young girl, but it is the Angstroms country club friends who provide the most decadent insight into the times as a group trip to the Caribbean becomes an adventure in wife-swapping and brings Rabbit nearer his dream of possessing the wife of his good buddy.

Rabbit himself neatly sums up his existence when he says "At my age if you carried all the misery you've seen on your back you'd never get up in the morning."But get up he does, to strut another day at Springer Motors, to chase one more woman, to fight one more battle with Nelson, and in the final page to possess his heart's desire----but I'll leave that up you, good reader, to discover on your own what that desire is.




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Review of What Doesn't Kill You: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm not saying I didn't like the book, but sometimes it's just a little bit too much realism to read about somebody's adjustable rate mortgage going up, or the fact that they can't afford to get their car fixed.Some days, I'd just rather read about someone being swept off their feet and whisked off to some tropical island resort where they can run across the beach, you know?

Tee, the main character in this novel, is extremely well-drawn and engaging, and the book is actually a fun read -- despite the serious subject matter.The book opens with her attending her daughter's wedding, and then details how her life kind of spirals out of control in the year that follows.Just when you think nothing else bad could possibly happen to Tee (medical accident with no insurance, mortage problems, job loss, car trouble, romantic problems), something does.Meanwhile, everyone else's life appears to be going so well.Have you ever had a year like that?I have.What's fun about this book is the way in which Tee resolves her problems herself -- she doesn't win the lottery, no one else swoops in and saves her.She saves herself.I personally would have liked a little more suspense and drama, since at least for me, it felt like I knew where the book was going pretty much from the get-go.Would I read another book by these writers?I'm not sure, but maybe . .



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Review of The Financial Lives of the Poets (Hardcover)

Jess Walter writes here in the tradition of James Thurber, E. B. White, and Peter DeVries.This is one of the very best books of 2009, at once a mid-life crisis novel, a work of social and political criticism, and a comic romp.

The prose is constantly engaging, witty throughout, sparkling here and there with gems of insight, fresh and delightful turns of phrase, irony within irony.The story is built around the economic downturn and the ensuing consequences that rain down on individual families, a parable for our time.There are several surprising twists in the plot.Don't read reviews that will give them away, but wait to discover them in the book.

The picture on the face of the dustjacket is of a man in free-fall toward the dark land below against the sunset-orange of the October sky.Fittingly the narrative takes place in October, traditionally the month of market crashes and Halloween.It is much more attractive than the Amazon picture suggests, a treat to behold, easy to open and easy to read.

When the awards are passed out for best novels of the year, this one should be on the short list.



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