Monthly Archives: May 2010

May28

The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman

Posted on by
Standard
The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman

Silverman, Sarah. The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee. Harper Perennial, 2011. ISBN 978-0061856457 240 pp. $16.99

****

I tried to resist Silverman’s memoir The Bedwetter. It isn’t particularly remarkable writing in terms of eloquence, but it is highly engaging and appealing in spite of (or perhaps because of) the toilet humor. The short cleverly titled chapters are punctuated with sub-headed section breaks and photos and realia like diary entries, email exchanges and photos. I chuckled aloud at some of her stories and only the photo on page 209 gave me reservations.

May27

Wisenheimer: A Childhood Subject to Debate by Mark Oppenheimer

Posted on by
Standard
Wisenheimer: A Childhood Subject to Debate by Mark Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer, Mark. Wisenheimer: A Childhood Subject to Debate. Free Press, 2009. ISBN ‎ 978-1439128640 256 pp. $

I got about 75 pages into Wisenheimer and stopped–I put it down because I felt that for someone who is supposedly so gifted with a huge vocabulary and inquisitive nature, this was sort of a dull read–and I WAS the sort of kid that Mark was.

Wisenheimer is about a boy who can’t keep his mouth shut and loves to argue–he finds a home in debate club, and regales readers with stories of how he got into trouble for being a smart aleck in his youth. There is some humor, some pathos, some blow-by-blow accounting of debate matches… but I didn’t find anything particularly dramatic or engaging, even in for example, his retelling of how a prank phone call landed him in hot water. A sense of “lessons learned” is missing from the narrative thus far.

May23

The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni

Posted on by
Standard
The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni

Bognanni, Peter. The House of Tomorrow. Penguin, 2010. ISBN 978-0399156090 368 pp. $

House of Tomorrow reads like a YA novel. Sixteen-year-old Sebastian has grown up in a Geodesic dome, built by his eccentric and visionary grandmother, a follower of futurist architect Buckminster Fuller. When she collapses during a home tour, Janice and Jared, the mom and son on the tour aid Sebastian in getting her to the hospital and he forges a friendship–his first with a peer–with Jared, a wise-cracking heart transplant recipient who introduces Sebastian to punk music. Punk music leads Sebastian to lying, smoking, sneaking out of the house, using the computer for something other than homework, and forming a band on the sly.

Gran’s stroke leads her to a vision to paint the globe onto the Geodesic dome, and in a flash of brilliance, she invites a local reporter to cover the story, but his spin isn’t quite the one she hoped for, and in an angry moment, she kicks Sebastian out of the dome. With no where else to turn, he ends up at the Whitcomb’s home, convenient for both band practice, his first crush (on Sebastian’s misunderstood sister) and his growth from socially awkward teen to a self confident one who brings a splintered family a little closer together.

Like the structure of a Geodesic dome, the story depends on a triangle of Bucky’s philosophy, punk music, and the Whitcombs to give it structure for Sebastian’s development. The story weaves an arc shape, as it begins and ends with Sebastian scaling or about to scale the dome. At one point, I questioned whether a teenager might use words like pellucid or “cyan” to describe his grandmother’s scarf, but decided it was an indication of the way Sebastian speaks–very formerly, compared to his peers.

The narrative voice is well crafted, consistent and tremendously appealing, like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. In fact, Sebastian’s language is a perfect foil for Jared’s words, designed to alienate even as he is desperate for companionship “Your writing is worse than your talking. It makes me want to pound you” he says in an email reply to Sebastian’s formal message.

In addition to careful construction, the writing itself is an excellent blend of humor and pathos and drama: “I’m hurt and befuddled” says Sebastian, as the boys try to write their first song “Punk songs are not about hurt, okay? That’s country,” says Jared. “Punk is about anger and and not taking any shit and living how you want to, and catching an awesome buzz from some beers, and being a shit-head, but a great shit-head.”

This is Sebastian and Jared’s tale, but supporting characters (Meredith, Gran, Janice) are complex, real and not what they seem on the surface. Although the House of Tomorrow reads like a YA novel, the subplots about Janice’s struggle to keep her family together, and Gran’s backstory, flesh out the story and keep it from being a traditional teen problem novel, while still having strong teen appeal.

May12

The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine

Posted on by
Standard
The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine

Schine, Cathleen. The Three Weissmanns of Westport.  Sarah Crichton Books, 2010. ISBN 978-0374299040 pp. $25

When septuagenarian Joseph falls for his company’s VP and asks his wife of 48 years for a divorce, she and her two grown daughters (a librarian and publisher with problems of their own) move to a seasonal rental in Westport while the fate of the 3-million dollar Upper West Side apartment–and that of the marriage–is determined. Mom Betsy copes with alcohol and the pretense that her estranged husband is deceased, librarian Annie falls for an older gentleman who is an accomplished author, and after a scandal that rocks the publishing world (her memorist authors are making up their tell all biographies) Miranda lands back on her feet by being swept off them: she is rescued from a kayaking accident and then seduced by a divorced father and aspiring actor.

Schine shines at balancing the comedy and pathos of family drama. Protagonists grow and each has an gently unexpected conclusion to their problem. Supporting characters sometimes devolve into caricatures such as “the eccentric uncle” and “the other woman.” The writing is fairly literary and engaging, but I didn’t develop a lot of sympathy for the characters. Loosely based on Sense and Sensibility, this may have appeal for fans of Jane Austen.

May11

The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion Cooking Manual by Frank Falcinelli

Posted on by
Standard
The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion Cooking Manual by Frank Falcinelli

Falcinelli, Frank. The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion Cooking Manual. Artisan, 2010. ISBN  978-1579654153 256 pp. $30.00

****

When I heard a publisher booktalk this at the MA Library Association’s “Speed Dating With the Publishers” session, I made a note on the handout to read this title–it was heralded as being about the history of how a New York restaurant came to be, generously filled with favorite recipes integrated with family stories. In fact, this primer of simple Italian cooking covers classic techniques (like tying up a braciola to toss in your sauce) and new trends (the slow food movement, using fresh local ingredients).

The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion Cooking Manual is most useful for tips on how to do restaurant cooking at home: how to roast a pan full of vegetables and repurpose the leftovers; how to make a cipollini onion dressing that you can use on salad, veggies and sandwiches; a shortcut for palatable eggplant (instead of cooking for four hours, salt and let sit for a half hour to draw out the bitterness); a reminder to make sure the pasta water is heavily salted (it should taste like the sea!).

Much of the focus is on slow foods. There is a recipe for pasta from scratch with instructions for mixing by hand like Grandma, or using your stand mixer (everyone has a stand mixer right? and a cavatelli maker?), but also a note about when to use dried and why.

Like most cookbooks, The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion Cooking Manual begins with equipment and pantry items and concludes with a section on entertaining. Extras like choosing cheese for a cheese course, pairing wine and food, and entertaining are appended to the traditional soup, salad, entrees & desserts chapters. I consider myself to be something of a gourmand, and live with a classically trained chef who graduated from a Le Cordon Bleu affiliate–but I’d never heard of cheese broth, didn’t know that real Italian sausage is fermented, discovered some new cheeses and wines to try, and thoroughly enjoyed the fried versus simmered in sauce throwdown of the best method to cook meatballs (I’ve fried, baked, and simmered, and prefer simmered, like my Ma made).

Helpful charts direct aspiring cooks to purchase produce seasonally, roast vegetables to their appropriate doneness, and plan a Sunday Sauce “hang” (a large leisurely meal with extended family & friends). The hand-drawn illustrations add charm and character, from the daguerreotype style portraits of the chef-owners to the ingredients starring in the recipes. Diagrams of how to compose a plate of antipasti platter or tie off a hunk of beef extend the instructions of selected recipes.

The book did inspire me to action. First, I got hungry reading it. Then, I decided I needed to see how the Sauce recipe stacked up against my mom’s. The recommended San Marzano tomatoes were not “just about $.25 more” than what what one might normally use, as the text stated. The recommended cooking time for the sauce is four hours–and THEN you can put your meatballs in! Even after cutting the amount of olive oil in half, it seems too oily. It lacks a depthness in flavor, as it’s just olive oil, garlic, salt, red pepper flakes and whole (hand crushed) canned peeled (not seeded) tomatoes, but I think simmering some pork chops on the bone in it in the future will give me what I’m trying to achieve. help. I added wine, more salt & pepper and a pinch of sugar (my Italian friend Chris would say to put in some balsamic) and some red wine and will cook my meatballs in it later.

The published version will include photos and presumably, a table of contents and an index. I can see this purchase being a good choice for a college grad, newlyweds, or foodies.

This is a good choice for vegetarians, with many recipes that don’t include meat.

May10

Scherbenpark by Alina Bronsky

Posted on by
Standard
Scherbenpark by Alina Bronsky

Bronsky, Alina. Scherbenpark (Broken Glass Park). Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH, 2008. ISBN 978-3462040302 268 pp. $

****

This revenge novel opens with a Russian girl who wants to murder her step-father, who killed her mother and her mother’s boyfriend two years ago. Many details of European life for a Russian immigrant living in Germany are translatable to an American audience, and this becomes a fast-paced coming-of-age story.

One of the things I really liked about Broken Glass Park was the voice of 17-year-old Sascha, who is tough and vulnerable and funny and passionate and insightful and moody, within short time frames. Sascha has had a lot of turmoil and upheaval in her life. The story is engaging, and I found the book easy to read in one sitting, perhaps because there are no chapter breaks. I wasn’t wowed by the structure and I sometimes found the stream of consciousness style unfocused. There was a lot of information delivered the first 20 pages or so and at times the narrative felt overwhelming–too much going on, too many characters introduced, characters dropped in favor of advancing other characters–BUT this style felt right for the book.

Recommended for larger collections.

May9

The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin

Posted on by
Standard
The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin

Gwin, Minrose. The Queen of Palmyra. William Morrow, 2010. ISBN 978-0061840326 pp. 390 $15.99

The Queen of Palmayra was Zenobia, a Syrian warrior queen who led a revolt against Rome and conquered and ruled over Egypt. She was said to be beautiful, intelligent and hold her own against men. Her story fascinates young Florence, the protagonist of the novel, The Queen of Palmyra, who relates it to events she doesn’t fully understand–her father’s inability to hold a job, her mother’s drinking, the racial tensions of the deep South in the 1960s.

After a year on the move, this dysfunctional family returns to Mama’s hometown of Millwood, where she resumes her in home business baking the best cakes in the neighborhood, and Daddy sells insurance by day and slips out for secret meetings on select nights. Much of Florence’s raising is given over to her grandparents and the black housekeeper, named Zenie for the famous queen. When the housekeeper’s lovely niece Eva also returns home, with aspirations to sell insurance to the folks who live in Shake Rag (the “colored” neighborhood) to fund her college education, the civil rights movement moves from television to the local’s living rooms–and things get ugly.

Like one of Mama’s cakes, the story is layered with metaphor sandwiched between similes. It gets a little over the top in places, and in some places, it’s just beautiful, like when she compares some hurtful words to being like yellow jackets (“you know that if you swat at them, they’re going to dig right in and sting the fire out of you. So you sit still and quiet until they take a notion to lift off… I stood there for awhile waiting for Mama’s words to lift.”)

The writing is vivid, with memorable scenes and fine attention to detail, especially where Mama’s cakes and Mimi’s (her grandmother’s) hats are concerned. The idea of story is almost another character in the novel; the narrator goes so far as to characterize different types of stories as different types of people. And, woven in with her own tale, Florence retells stories of Uncle Wiggly, from her father, from Zenie, and from Eva, as well as the bits of advice about baking passed down from her mother that are thinly veiled as insights into human nature. For example, when talking about icing, Florence relates: “She said icing was like some folk’s lives: Timing is everything and when things go bad, they go really bad. They settle into sludge. They cannot be undone.” This is on page 29, and it becomes foreshadowing for how dark the story is going to get.

I especially loved Florence’s voice from the get go, and how nuanced it was–it’s eleven years old with an adult’s hindsight, subtly crafted, and the author doesn’t break from it until near the end, when she decides that Eva needs to be heard.

I love stream of conscious narratives, but not everyone has the patience for them. While things do eventually come full circle, a plot device like the box mentioned on page 3 not reappearing for many pages, and not explained until almost 200 pages in, may be frustrating to some readers.

May3

The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker by Leanna Renee Hieber

Posted on by
Standard
The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker by Leanna Renee Hieber

Hieber, Leanna Renee. The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker. Leisure Books, 2010. ISBN 978-0843962970 321 pp. $

**

I thought this might be like a Soulless sort of book–it’s a supernatural fantastic fiction debut novel reminds me of a cross between A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray, and Sabriel by Garth Nix.

19-year old Percy can communicate with the dead and is part of The Guard, a 7 member group that fights against the forces of darkness. She discovered her powers while away at a school for girls–part of the plot revolves around her impending marriage to her professor, Alexi, who is part of the The Guard. She is being watched over by two spirits from the Underworld who are former members and on the “good” side.

I read about 100 pages. This is not a stand-alone sequel, because of all the referrals to events in the previous book, such as Percy & Alexi’s courtship. Percy is recovering from some ordeal in the team’s last adventure which is part of an epic good vs evil type war that will destroy their world if the Guard doesn’t triumph. I kept wanting to flip back to see if I missed something. There is some indication that Percy, with her unusual talents, might be a god or goddess (or related to one).

Percy’s relationship with Alexi is tinted with her doubts about her appearance and attractiveness (she’s very pale, nearly albino, with piercing eyes) and her lack of experience (she’s gone from no friends or lovers to an engagement to an older man).

The historical setting didn’t really add anything to the story, except for some dress details and concerns over Percy’s reputation if she was alone with her beloved.

The omniscient point of view wavers from focusing on Percy to focusing on one of her guardians to focusing on Alexi, and there isn’t time or attention for a lot of character development. I’m not sure if reading the first book would help or make me feel more connected.