I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections, by Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron is a funny woman; in I Remember Nothing she once again brings her wit to the subject of aging (she can't remember things or people--one day she didn't recognize her sister when her sister approached her, arms outstretched, in a mall) and some of what she does remember about her earlier life. She also rants on subjects as diverse as egg-white omelets, e-mail, and the ubiquity of Thomas Friedman.

Some of my favorite pieces:

In "Journalism: A Love Story," she describes what it was like to start at Newsweek in 1962 when male college grads were reporters and female grads worked in the mailroom; happily, she found a journalistic "home" (the New York Post) where women were given greater opportunities. She loved journalism: "I loved the city room. I loved the pack. I loved smoking and drinking scotch and playing dollar poker. I didn't know much about anything, and I was in a profession where you didn't have to. I loved the speed. I loved the deadlines. I loved that you wrapped the fish."

"Christmas Dinner" is indeed about a meal, but it's also about what happens when the glue holding a group of friends together dies and they try to continue on without her--things don't go well for Ephron's group because Ruthie "was the thing that gave us the illusion that we were a family, she was the mother who loved us all so much that we loved one another, she was the spirit of Christmas. Now we were a group of raging siblings; her death had released us all to be the worst possible versions of ourselves." It's funny and sad and ends with the recipe for Ruthie's Bread and Butter Pudding--her contribution to the annual dinner.

Ephron once chronicled the story of her divorce from journalist Carl Bernstein in a humorous novel. In "The D Word," she revisits that era (and her earlier first divorce), admitting that the break-up was far from funny at the time. The calls divorce the "slice of anger in the pie of your brain"--ah, yes!

She ends the book with lists of "What I Won't Miss" and "What I Will Miss"--fun and a challenge to get rid of the things on our own "won't miss" lists and find room for more of the "will miss" list. Like the lists, I Remember Nothing is a quick and rewarding read.

Favorite passage (in addition to those quoted above):
...every time one of my friend says to me, "Everything happens for a reason," I would like to smack her.

The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson

Last week, Novel Conversations discussed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Since I had read the book a year or so ago and could not bring myself to reread it in preparation for our discussion, I decided to start The Girl Who Played with Fire instead. Unfortunately, by the time we met, I had only read about 200 pages--a mere third of the book and a third in which little of interest happened. Salander, who has been wandering around the world, returns to Stockholm, gets a new apartment, and starts spying on a variety of people. Blomkvist is working with a freelancer on a book on the sex trade. Somehow, Salander and some of the subjects of the inquiry seem to be linked.

Then the freelancer and his girlfriend, who has written her dissertation on the sex trade, are murdered and Salander emerges as the leading suspect. The narrative switches from the police investigation, to Blomkvist's research, to Salander herself, to her former employer's efforts to learn more about the case. Slowly, ever so slowly, the truth emerges. I had to force myself to finish the book and, although the truth of the case is revealed, the ending is clearly a set-up for the third book in the trilogy--but at least this time there aren't 75 pages on a subplot after the main plot wraps up.

I recognize that my boredom with this series puts me in the minority of readers. Most of the members of our book group gave The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo high marks, and several said they liked the second book even better. They found Salander to be an interesting character and thought that Larsson conveyed a sense of place particularly well. The violence against women disturbed some, but others found the intricate plotting to be a plus. For me, none of the pluses raise this book above mediocrity.

Favorite passage:

That's the crux of almost every fight, the moment when the strength drains out of you and the adrenaline pumps so hard that it becomes a burden and surrender appears like a ghost at ringside.

Innocent, by Scott Turow

Like Terry McMillan in Getting to Happy, Scott Turow returns to characters he first wrote about 20 years ago in Innocent--Rusty Sabich, his bipolar wife Barbara, their son Nat, and prosecutor Tommy Molto. When we last heard from these characters, Rusty had discovered that his wife had committed the murder he had been accused of and Molto had been disgraced for mishandling Rusty's trial.

As Innocent opens, we learn that Rusty, who is now an appeals judge, and Barbara, who is still crazy, remain married. Really? An attorney/judge stays with a woman who not only murdered his former girlfriend but framed him for the crime? It strains credulity, as does the fact that Rusty doesn't call anyone for 24 hours when he finds Barbara dead in their bed one morning. Even without a history with Rusty, we have suspicions...so why wouldn't Tommy Molto? (And I haven't even mentioned the unlikely scenario involving Nat falling in love with Rusty's former law clerk and lover, Anna.)

Turow writes courtroom scenes as well as anyone, and Rusty's second trial for murder--told mostly from Nat's perspective--makes good reading for a fan of legal thrillers. Overall, however, revisiting the story of a mentally ill but crafty wife and prosecutors with an ax to grind is hardly fresh.

Reading these two "sequels" in close succession causes me to wonder why authors decide to revisit characters after 20 years. While Turow and McMillan are not the most serious of authors, they aren't series authors who make a living leading the same cast of characters through a series of adventures. I expect more from them. Perhaps I was overly influenced by the TA in a freshman English class at the U of I back in 1969--"Don't ask what happens next," he used to say. "Nothing happens next. They're characters in a book. When the book is done, they cease to exist. Focus on what is in the book." Unless the second book has something important or at least interesting to say, reviving characters from a much earlier book actually seems, to me, to cheapen the first book.

Favorite passage: None

I'd Know You Anywhere, by Laura Lippman

I'd Know You Anywhere, one of Laura Lippman's stand-alone novels (she also writes the Tess Monaghan mystery series), is a psychological thriller that finds its tension in the interplay between a woman and the man who kidnapped and raped her 20 years earlier.

Eliza Benedict and her family have just moved to the DC suburbs after six years in London when she receives a letter from Walter Bowman, the man who kidnapped her, held her captive for 40 days, and raped her when she was a 15-year-old known as Elizabeth Lerner. Bowman, who is soon to be executed for a murder that occurred while he was holding Elizabeth, wants to talk to Eliza. Understandably, Eliza, who has spent years trying to stay out of the spotlight, is at first resistant. But over time Walter and a rather strange anti-death penalty activist named Barbara LaFortuny wear her down. Believing Walter is going to confess to other unsolved murders, Eliza agrees to meet with him. Meanwhile, Walter has a plan to get Eliza to recant the testimony that helped convict him. As these events progress, Lippman fills in the back story, providing details of Eliza and Walter's early lives and the crime that linked them.

While this book is certainly not the most nerve-wracking thriller I've ever read, it is an interesting look into one criminal's mind and the impact of crime on victims and their families.

Favorite passages:

She imagined her body covered with little Post-its, each one marking a specific area of decline--the creaking knee, the popping hip, the stiffening shoulder. She pictured a suit of Post-its, sharp yellow edges riffling in the breeze, at once stiff and pliant. She would like such a suit, an outfit that would announce her edges to the world.

She was appalled that Iso was one of those popular girls who derived power by excluding others. But, still--was this grounds for suspension? Children needed a little grit in their lives, environments that fell somewhere between velvet-lined egg crates and Lord of the Flies.

Getting to Happy, by Terry McMillan

When Waiting to Exhale was published in the early 1990s, I enjoyed the story of four African-American thirty-somethings who were "casualties of love" (perhaps because, at the time, I was in the process of getting divorced and shared their views on the generally dog-like nature of men--and the book was funny). So I had some hope that Terry McMillan's return to the four friends--Savannah, Bernie, Robin, and Gloria--would be equally resonant with my now 60-year-old self. Unfortunately, I found it more soap operatic than insightful.

Each of the women, now about 50 (the book is set in 2005, apparently so the women can be appalled by and responsive to Hurricane Katrina), has a problem. Savannah, married for 10 years to a contractor, is bored in her marriage and angry that her husband has an apparent porn addiction. Bernie, betrayed by her second husband, pops tranquilizers and sleeping pills. Robin, a single mom with a boring career in insurance, has a shopping addiction. And Gloria's world is shattered when her husband Marvin is an innocent victim of a gang shoot-out.

Not much really happens as the women try to find their way to happiness that is less rooted in men than in self-realization, and their experiences don't add anything new to my understanding of what makes a rewarding life. While McMillan is a competent writer, the fact that the chapters from two of the women's perspective are written in first person and two in third annoyed me (I don't remember whether Waiting to Exhale was written similarly).

Favorite passage: None

World and Town, by Gish Jen

Hattie Kong is a in her late 60s, living in a small New England town where she has retreated following the death of her husband and best friend (whose sarcastic voice rings in Hattie's head) and her retirement as a public school teacher. She was born in China to a Chinese father and American missionary mother and was sent to her mother's family in Iowa at age 17 because of the danger posed by Mao's revolution. Ever since, she has felt like an outsider, a feeling reinforced by the betrayal of her first love, Carter Hatch, when she was trying to establish herself as a research scientist.

Sad and lonely, Hattie becomes interested in the family of Cambodian refugees who have recently moved in down the hill from her. The family is clearly struggling, and Hattie reaches out to help them, but her help is met with varying degrees of acceptance. At first she is most successful with teenage daughter Sophy (we later learn two other daughters are in foster care in another state), to whom Hattie offers Chinese lessons, cookies, and a dog. But Hattie is not the only one who takes an interest in the girl; Ginny, a member of an evangelical church, targets Sophy and the community cum family that the church offers appeals to the girl, whose own family is struggling. Meanwhile, Ginny has left her husband Everett, who is not taking it well. Sophy's brother is expected of terrorism in the wake of 9/11. And Carter Hatch has moved to Hattie's town.

While my description makes World and Town sound like a soap opera, it's actually much more. Told from the perspectives of Hattie, Sophy, and Everett, the story is an exploration of family and community--of what it means to belong. While Hattie gets more "air time" than the other narrators, all three are rich characters that the reader cares deeply about.

Recently, I seem to be finding a lot of books too long--and this one was no exception. The first 350 pages drew me along, while I felt like I was slogging through the last 30, only to find the ending just a bit too pat.

Despite my misgivings about the ending, I enjoyed the book, the characterizations, and the dark wit with which Jen infuses the story.

Favorite passages:

A call! Will everything involving her child remain an event forever?

In what you are proud of, Lee used to say, you can see in what way you are nuts.

By Nightfall, by Michael Cunningham

Late in By Nightfall, gallery owner Peter Harris and his brother-in-law Mizzy (short for "The Mistake," because he came along nearly 20 years after his three sisters) enter a client's home, described as "a perfect imitation of itself." Peter, the protagonist of Cunningham's new novel, might be similarly labeled. Peter appears to be a happy 44-year-old with an art gallery, a loft in Soho that is a "great space" bought before real estate prices skyrocketed, an accomplished wife Rebecca, a problem daughter, and a large social circle. But unhappiness is Peter's "realm," and the happy facade is just that...a facade.

Peter wants to be deeply moved by the art he sells, but representing artists who produce foul-smelling installations made of glue and horsehair or paintings displayed in brown wrapping paper is not rewarding. Thus, perhaps we should not be surprised when Peter feels himself drawn to Mizzy. Mizzy is an aimless twenty-something with a drug habit, but he also has a "pale, princely beauty." How Peter decides to handle his feelings is somewhat startling, however.

Most of the book takes place in Peter's head--with forays into his childhood in Milwaukee, his brother's death of AIDS in the 1980s, the first time he met Rebecca's family, and other seminal events. In the present, the book takes place over just a few days while Mizzy is staying with the couple. As readers, we come to know Peter well--and, although it's hard to actually like him, I could empathize with his angst about his career, his marriage, his role as a father. Rebecca and Mizzy we know less well, of course, and yet the "surprises" that they spring on Peter at the end of the book seem not exactly predictable, but logical within the way their relationships with Peter are depicted.

As with all Cunningham's novels, there are many literary references--Gatsby and Death in Venice prominent among them--but they are not as central to the book as Mrs. Dalloway was to The Hours or Whitman's work was to Specimen Days. Here visual arts assume a central role; fortunately, you do not need sophisticated knowledge of modern art to understand Peter's ruminations on beauty, creativity, and significance. While the construction of the novel is perhaps not as complex as either of those earlier Cunningham works, the writing is just as beautiful. As a character study and an examination of how a person might be affected by the lack of beauty in his/her life, By Nightfall is successful.

Favorite passages:

Peter has gotten better over the years at dressing as the man who's impersonating the man he actually is. Still, there are days when he can't shake the feeling that he's gotten it wrong. And of course it's grotesque to care about how you look, yet almost impossible not to.

Here is the terrible, cleansing fire. Peter has been too long in mourning, for the people who've disappeared, for the sense of dangerous inspiration his life refuses to provide.

They do, of course, each of them, carry within them a jewel of self, not just the wounds and the hopes but an innerness, what Beethoven might have called the soul, that self-ember we carry, the simple fact of aliveness, all snarled up with dream and memory but other than dream and memory, other than the moment (crossing a street, leaving a bakery); that minor infinitude, the private universe in which you have always been and will always be buzzing along on a skate board or looking or coins in the bottom of your purse or going home with your fussing children. What did Shakespeare say? Our little lives are rounded with a sleep.