Review: Greasewood Creek, by Pamela Steele

This book was pure poetry. I started reading it like a standard novel and found myself a little befudled, but a few chapters in I caught on and really started to enjoy the language. The story was a bit depressing, though. Avery is just a child when her younger sister dies, followed close after by her father’s desertion and her mother’s slide into alcoholism. Surrounded by family and friends she is able to stay and grow up on the Oregon ranch where she was born. As an adult she finds constancy there, but cannot escape the guilt she feels over her sister’s death. She hopes for happiness finally in the child she is expecting with her life partner, Davis, but when their newborn son dies the same forces of grief that tore apart her childhood engulf her again. Avery’s inability to escape the past is palpable in this fragmented narrative that mixes the present with flashbacks to her childhood and teen years, and Steele’s poetic style brings the beautiful Oregon ranch setting to life. Steele has depicted the depression, grief, and guilt of living after a loss with expert clarity, making this a powerful and faithful story of finding the inner strength to move forward and be reborn.

Book 44 on my way to 52.

Review: The Millennium Series, by Stieg Larsson

I already reviewed the first book in this series, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but it took a while to get around to the other two books in the trillogy. I really enjoyed the first book, which was a stand-alone, but the second two fell a bit short of the mark for me. The Girl Who played With Fire picked up where Tattoo left off, then immediately started to delve into the past of the most intriguing character. The mystery that follows through both remaining books touches on the issue civil rights as they stand in the shadow of government power. As with his first book, Larsson approached the mystery from multiple angles so the point of view changes from time to time, setting the stage for plenty of dramatic irony. My complaint about these second two books is that they seem to spend an unfortunate amount of time going nowhere or reiterating information from too many directions. Still, the characters are true and enjoyable and the end delivers enough of a payoff to make the reading worth while.

Books 39 and 40 on my way to 52

Review: Married but Looking, by Daniel S. Libman

The short story can be a difficult thing to master. I was skeptical about this collection, but about the third story in I realized I was really enjoying myself, and Anaïs Nin came to mind more than once, and I love Anaïs Nin. The stories are definitely out there; a man using an escort service after the death of his wife, a couple reevaluating their basic belief system after being relocated to a different country and stumbling upon head harvesters, a best man attending a wedding solo, failed vasectomies, attempted affairs—these are just some of the subjects in this collection of short stories that center around relationships and sexuality. As in Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus, from the mundane to the surreal each story in this collection is a well written and intense character study, the main character being most often a relationship or marriage. Be they a suburban father who desires to possess a Tantric prostitute, or a couple riding a tandem bike together to overcome perceived infidelities, Libman’s characters are very real in their everyday lives and flaws. Yet Libman's tales are anything but predictable, and they keep the reader hooked from one story to the next. With tones that vary from dark to light, these stories are cynical examinations of life and relationships that make up a truly enjoyable read.

Book 43 on my way to 52.

Review: Broadway Baby, by Alan Shapiro

This is a debut novel. A somewhat depressing one at that.
Miriam wants nothing more than to become famous on Broadway. Her love for the stage begins during childhood, living with her grandparents in pre-World War II Boston, but it lasts all of her life. When she becomes distracted by marriage and then children she projects those dreams of stardom onto one of her sons instead. The struggle to achieve her goal through him, and the damage it does to herself and to the rest of her family, is painful to witness. Shapiro has written the story of Miriam’s life much like a true memoir, the focus being on Miriam, but he has also created a book full of caricatures that reflect back to the reader recognizable personalities. Though tedious at times the story has something to say to everyone who has ever had a goal and failed to reach it. Far from being just a life story, this novel is about dreams and their sometimes tragic intersections with reality.

Book 42 on my way to 52