The Silver Star

Novel by Jeanette Walls

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I AM BACK IN THE GAME.

And by that I mean I like reading again. Apparently. It was so sad to me that I didn't enjoy most of the books I read this summer. What was that? Who was I? I'm going to chalk it up to pregnancy and forget it ever happened.

So I'm getting my mojo back and I LOVED this book. Jeanette Walls is the author of The Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses, both of which I also loved but were memoirs (ok, HBH was sold as a true novel, but really it was her grandmother's story as told to her by relatives and then with dialogue added, so family memoir). This is Walls's first novel and it is stunning.

The premise is it's 1970 and two adolescent girls are temporarily abandoned by their loving but wild card mother, so they go across the country to live with a crotchedy old uncle in Virginia, encountering integration issues, the joy and strife of extended family, and one horrible encounter that changes their lives. The real story, though, is that Walls has experienced this kind of abandonment and mistreatment by adults and her voice shines through as the young narrator, twelve year old Bean. She's a character you just LOVE. She reminded me of the main characters in Sandra Kring's books How High The Moon and The Book of Bright Ideas. Those books have the same low level simmer created by innocent voices in turbulent times. You ache for the girls yet love their spunk. And I think this one is even a little darker due to Walls's real life experience with distrusting adults in authority. Read The Glass Castle and you'll see why.

I've been thinking about why I love the voice of Bean so much and I think it comes down to two things. First, she is truly elegant in her simplicity. She tells her story with just the right amount of fact, description, commentary, history, slang, and beauty. It's such a difficult balance to strike as a writer and I think Wall nailed it. Maybe writing in a younger voice gives her that opportunity, or having been a journalist helps her keep it simple, but I think it's masterful. Second, I love Bean just because I love Bean. She calls it like it is, holding her own with adults, both the well-intentioned bunglers and the true creepers. Bean tells one teacher, when reprimanded for not respecting her elders, that respect is earned by doing your job and none of the teachers are doing their job to protect kids from bullying. Zing. Love her.

So have you read the word "love" enough to get my message here? If not, here's another glimpse: I almost told my dad, who's on vacation with my mom, to order this on his Kindle for her to read RIGHT NOW. But I don't think they share books very well, since once on vacation they ripped one in half when one of them couldn't wait for the other to finish it. (I honestly don't remember which was which.) Not wanting that fate to befall my dad's Kindle, I didn't send that text. Let's hope they don't read this; they're still on vacation.

Inferno

Novel by Dan Brown

No, I didn't read Dante's Inferno. That is probably going to happen...never. With that kind of classic, if I wasn't assigned to read it in college then I am not going to choose to read it now. There are too many other good books out there. Sorry, dead Italians.

This kind of book is also an unusual choice for me, isn't it? I don't often find myself reading books by male national bestsellers. The James Patterson, Stephen King, Tom Clancy kind of action and thrillers don't really do it for me. I have enjoyed Grisham and Crichton in the past but it all starts to kind of sound the same after a while. Plus I'm just a snob about mainstream literature, admittedly a hypocritical one since I enjoy most of Oprah's book club selections.

The reason I like Dan Brown books, though, is the same reason I liked Ken Follett's medieval and World War II books; there's so much about art and history in them along with the mystery and suspense. This one takes place in Florence, Venice,and Istanbul and takes you through famous museums, cathedrals and other sites in a race against time to stop a madman from starting a new plague. It's fun to get caught up in the story line but I really need the added incentive of the European settings and the art and literature references, too. Snobbish, I know.

Actually, it's probably unfair to compare Brown and Follett because their writing is so different, in that Follett is a good writer and Dan Brown is just a guy with a good imagination. Really. He uses so much cliched characterization and completely clunky story advancing strategies. Professor Robert Langdon, his main character, always has a sweet little female side kick and frequently says to himself, "I remember when I was lecturing on this last year," which is his way of giving us back story. And all five books I've read by Brown have a similar twist at the end in who is really the bad guy and a connection to some kind of controversial issue (Jesus's wife? What?). They are imaginative in individual scope but very formulaic as a set.

Yet I've read FIVE of his books, so I can't complain too loudly. And I did stay up until the unheard of (for me) hour of eleven o'clock at night reading this book. So yeah, it's a good read.

In other good news, I just read that an absolute GLUT of my favorite authors have new books out: Ann Patchett, Anita Shreve (hers got to be all the same too so I've taken a break but am ready for more now), Amy Tann, Fanny Flagg...happy reading to me!

Two by Isabel Allende

So I eat a lot right now. Maybe always, but at this juncture in time, I am staying home from my teaching job for a semester with my two year old and two month old sons. The fridge is just so...there. I tried putting the chocolate in the freezer. It didn't work. I tried not buying sweets. I end up eating frosting from the way back of the fridge by the spoonful. Now I'm just chalking it up to post-partum and nursing and giving myself grace. I'll lose these last 18 baby pounds...later.

Which is maybe why, when I thought of writing about Isabel Allende, I started comparing her in my head to different foods. I love Isabel Allende. She is a go-to author for me, and after a streak of disappointing books, I needed something trustworthy, a sort of literary comfort food. Allende, though, is no meat loaf or macaroni. She is sweet and spicy, like those nuts people make for the holidays. She is a really great mole sauce, leaving you wondering how chocolate can go on top of chicken and not be weird. And for me, she's timeless, a good smelly cheese that just gets better the bluer it is. So when I needed a pick me up, I picked up an oldie that I've never read plus her newest and read them back to back,you know, like those peanut butter M and M's that you just can't walk away from.

City of the Beasts (young adult)

Has anyone even heard of this before? I'd seen it listed in the front pages of her other books, along with the other two novels in this trilogy, but never seen the cover or heard it discussed. I read somewhere that she wrote it after making up stories to tell her grandchildren aloud. Lucky kids. This is a completely fun, easy to read adventure story that still manages to serve up Allende's two signature dishes: magical realism and South American politics. She's a master at making me interested in the sociology and history of her country (in this case continent, since she's from Chile and this is set in Brazil). An American teenager, Alex, goes on an expedition to the Amazon with his travel writer grandmother. They are searching for a legendary beast, although others in their group have different motives. What they find is a bit of magic, a bit of political maneuvering, and a whole lot of growing up for Alex. I'd be interested to see what Alex learns about himself in the next novel in the series, and I may request it from the library when I've finished the stack on my nightstand. The adventure part of the story reminds me of Michael Crichton books and the fact that it's written for young adults makes it a super fast, fun read. If you have a young adult, I'd read it first or with her so that you can discuss some of the heavier themes of greed and cultural annihilation.

Maya's Notebook (adult novel)

If you haven't read any Allende before, I think this would be a great place to start. While still including her trademark magic realism and heavy literary passages, the plot and young characters make this the most contemporary and mainstream of any of her novels to date. She tells in first person the story of a young woman who goes really, really, really deep into defiance, depression, and drugs after the death of the grandfather who raised her. Simultaneous to the dive into the deep end, the girl is telling how her grandmother plucked her out of danger and shipped her off to a remote island in Chile to escape the consequences of her past year. It's beautifully woven together, making me jealous as a writer. Some of the language seems a little more awkward than usual, and I wonder if Allende had trouble getting into the soul of a younger character and using contemporary slang, or if the trouble was in the translation. Allende writes all her books in Spanish. Either way, it's not that noticeable compared to the fast pace of the plot and loveliness of the people and place.

After I'm calling it: the bad book slump is officially over! Oh no, did I just jinx myself?