Review: The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides

I really enjoyed The Virgin Suicides, and loved Middlesex, both by Jeffrey Eugenides, so when I caught wind of this release I preordered the book. I'm shameless that way. Unfortunately I found it not as good as Middlesex, but that isn't actually saying a whole lot because I was such a big fan of Middlesex. The Marriage Plot is almost a modern (eighties anyway) version of The Portrait of a Lady, an intelligent young college senior torn between worldliness and two different men makes a difficult decision, and finds herself wrong and trapped in the end. Told from three different view points, the young lady's and each of the young men in turn, the story is engaging and enjoyable. Being set in the eighties, this will be especially enjoyabe for anyone who lived through that decade. Eek. So I didn't find it as good as Middlesex, it was still a fantastic read.

Book 46 on my way to 52.

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: 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: Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to always tell the difference." - Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five

I was surprised by two things reading this book. One, I had no idea that this was the origin of the above quote. Two, this was a very different book from Cat's Cradle. I'm not sure why I expected the books to be more similar than they are, maybe I've read too many one note authors, but while Vonnegut's voice is still clearly present, the two books are talking about very different things in very different ways. Slaughterhouse Five actually reminds me a lot of Joseph Heller's Catch-22, which I read last year and enjoyed. The post-modern anti-war flavor is strong in both books, and there's a pretty strong similarity between their loose play with time, too; These are not linear books. Catch-22 is more darkly humorous, though, like Cat's Cradle in that respect, while Slaughterhouse flirts with science fiction in a way that leaves the reader wondering what really did and did not happen. I love being left with that question. I also enjoyed the way Vonnegut called out the hypocrisy of war. I didn't care for this one as much as Cat's Cradle, and between them I think I liked Catch-22 better, but this was a good book. And it introduced me to the book I picked up to read next, Celine's Journey to the End of the Night, which I understand may have influenced both Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse and Heller's earlier Catch-22.

Book 13 on my way to 52 in 2011