The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride

Henry Shackleford is a young slave boy living in Kansas, when John Brown enters the tavern where Henry's father works. In the ensuing set-to, Henry's father is killed and Brown mistakes Henry for a girl, declares her free, and sweeps her up to join his ragtag army as something of a good luck charm. Henry is afraid to admit he is a boy (although some people he meets along the way figure that out) and travels with Brown for several years, dressed as a girl and responding to Henrietta (or Onion, his nickname). Onion's adventures rival those of Gulliver--he takes part in raids that end up with the beheading of pro-slavery Kansans, spends months in a Missouri brothel, acting as servant to a beautiful black prostitute; travels to the Northeast and Canada on a fund-raising trip with Brown, meeting Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass along the way;  and is sent ahead to Harper's Ferry to "hive the bees"--recruit slaves and free blacks to take part in the planned attack. All the while, Onion struggles with his identity as a young black man involuntarily freed from slavery and living as a girl. This struggle takes place in the shadow of a man so certain of his identity as the liberator of the slaves that he risks his own life and that of his sons for the cause. Brown is portrayed as a mad man for God and the cause, and McBride's depiction helps the reader understand how delusion and passion mingled in the man.

The Good Lord Bird won the National Book Award for 2013, so it was obviously well-received on some fronts, with many reviewers lauding it for its humorous treatment of a serious subject.  As I think I've said before, I fear that I am losing my sense of humor with age, as the book simply wasn't very funny to me.  I did appreciate the depiction of Brown's complexity, at once admirable and pitiable and respected McBride's attempt to explore issues of racial and gender identity through the character of Onion. On the other hand, I had some quibbles with the writing in the book. Foreshadowing--which, given the historical nature of many of the events, was generally unnecessary--was heavy-handed (there was a point at which I thought if I ever read the phrase "I never saw him/her again," I would scream). Some of the slang terms used seemed out of place for the time (e.g., something was a "hot mess," people "sucked up" to those in authority)--an odd error considering that McBride must have done tons of research for the book. I also did not understand why McBride put the book in an awkward frame: an elderly man died and, in his effects were found interviews he did with Henry Shackleford; the narrative is presented as the contents of the interviews. Through the introduction we do learn that Henry lived at least part of his adult life as a woman, so perhaps that is the purpose, but since we never return to the later years of his life, it seemed like a waste.

The most serious reservation I have about the book is its presentation of Frederick Douglass as a hard-drinking, womanizing (or perhaps more accurately child-molesting) coward. Undoubtedly, Douglass had his flaws, but this characterization goes well beyond what is documentable (at least as far as I know) and, as an admirer of Douglass's better self, I resented it. It concerns me that people who read this book and don't know much about Douglass may go away with a negative view of this important figure in U.S. history--which is one of the hesitations I have about historic fiction in general. When it is vividly written, it can become more real than reality.

Favorite passages:
This is what happens when a boy becomes a man; you get stupider.  (Okay, there were some funny bits.)

It occurred to me then that you is everything you are in this life at every moment. And that includes loving somebody. If you can't be your own self, how can you love somebody? How can you be free?

Delicious! by Ruth Reichl

Billie Breslin has dropped out of college to take a job at the eminent cooking magazine Delicious! Possessed of a remarkable palate--she can identify ingredients in a dish that most people have never heard of--but afraid to cook, she also gets a weekend job at an Italian deli. At both jobs, she builds friendships among her colleagues. Then the publisher closes Delicious! but keeps Billie on to handle the Delicious! Guarantee--if someone tries a recipe from the magazine and it fails, the publisher will pay for the ingredients. With the magazine's former travel reporter Sammy, Billie begins exploring the library in the mansion where the magazine offices were located; the library had previously been off-limits to employees. The two discover a hidden room where old letters to the magazine are filed and become obsessed with the correspondence between a young girl in Ohio named Lulu and the legendary James Beard. Although they only have Lulu's side of the correspondence, the letters are charming. When Billie finally quits her job, she decides she needs to track down Lulu and find out what happened. As all of this is going on, Billie undergoes a makeover from frump to edgy hipster, falls in love with a customer at the deli, and begins to resolve her feelings about a tragedy in her personal life.

And that description leaves out myriad characters, plot lines, and topics, which is one of the problems with the novel. Reichl touches on the problems of print magazines in the electronic world, the challenges of growing up with a more beautiful and accomplished sister, discrimination against gays in the 1950s, World War II, the Underground Railroad, the difficulties of selling historic buildings, and more. There are so many topics/issues thrown into the story that none of them are developed in much depth.

Reichl was the editor of the now defunct Gourmet and the restaurant reviewer for The New York Times,  so she certainly knows the world of culinary magazines and food and she writes beautifully about food and cooking. The letters included in the text--Billie's letters to her sister Genie and Lulu's missives to James Beard--are also delightful. Reichl seems to excel with a specific voice speaking via the informal style of the letters. The straight text is sometimes rather stiff--it sounds to me like a nonfiction writer's early attempts to try fiction (which I guess it is); if Reichl continues with fiction, I expect her writing will become more natural/authentic.

Despite these criticisms, I did enjoy Delicious! It could be more focused and more consistently well written, but it's still a good read.

Favorite passages:
They weren't buying food: They were finding their way home.

. . . sight is not a gift but an act of will.

The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared, by Alice Ozma

Any reader would want to like The Reading Promise. After all, it's the true story of a single father who, afraid that his 10-year-old daughter would soon stop wanting him to read aloud to her (as her older sister had), started a challenge: he and his daughter Alice would see if they could make time for reading aloud for 100 days in a row. "The streak," as the two called it, ended after 2,318 days, when Alice went off to college.

The book, however, is more a collection of vignettes of Alice's childhood than an in-depth look at the reading promise. Some of the vignettes--especially those about reading and Alice's relationship with her dad James--are charming. For example, when Alice discovers that her father has heavily edited the dialogue in Cynthia Voigt's Dicey Song because he does not want to read aloud about puberty, it is touching and funny and real. Many of the stories, however, are seemingly random events from her childhood that are not especially unique--her fish died, the family visited the Franklin Institute and she became interested in an acrobat who was performing, Alice and her dad ate pancakes to celebrate achieving 100 days of reading, etc.  The author's tone in relating these stories suggests that she thinks they are funnier (and she more amusingly eccentric) than I did. This effect may have been heightened by the fact that I listened to the book read by the author, and she uses a voice that seems designed to sound like her 10-year-old self (at the end of the book, when she reads in her adult voice, it is quite different than the voice in which she reads the bulk of the book).

After "the streak" ended, James retired from his job as an elementary school librarian because he was told not to read aloud to the students. I do not doubt that this actually happened, although in my work with schools, I have never come across an elementary school whose staff did not believe in reading aloud to students. They may no longer be able to afford a school librarian, but they believe in reading aloud. So that piece of the story was a disconnect for me.

The book ends with a list of some of the books that James and Alice read during "the streak," which may be useful to some parents.

Overall, the book was disappointing, although I would recommend it for selective reading--i.e., read the vignettes that interest you, skip those that don't.

Say Nice Things about Detroit, by Scott Lasser

David Halpert has taken a leave from his law firm in Denver to help his aging parents, who still live in suburban Detroit. He learns that his high school girlfriend Natalie and her older half-brother Dirk have recently been murdered, and he calls on her family to pay his respects. He becomes involved with their younger sister Caroline, who is visiting from Los Angeles.

Much to his own surprise, David decides to settle down in Detroit--since his son was killed in a car accident and he and his wife divorced, there is little to hold him in Denver. He gets a job at a Detroit firm, buys Dirk's home in a black neighborhood (David is white), and offers shelter to a young hoodlum whom Dirk tried to help before his death. When Caroline discovers that she is pregnant and a DNA test proves her husband is not the father, she too decides to return home to Detroit with her son.

Lots happens in Say Nice Things about Detroit, but the plot isn't what matters. Rather, it's the exploration of what can go right and wrong in individuals' lives in a racially divided and economically depressed city like Detroit and the search for home, to fill the holes that the trials of life have left in one's heart. I'm always surprised when a male author writes an essentially romantic book, but Say Nice Things about Detroit is also that--indeed the happy ending is a bit too pat, but the issues explored give the book depth as well.

Favorite passage:
He thought that if your neighbors wanted you around, then maybe you were home.

The Secret Place, by Tana French

In each of her titles, Tana French picks a secondary character from a previous book (always a Dublin cop) and makes them the primary character. Two books ago, I predicted that Detective Stephen Moran would be next--and I was wrong, but only by one book. I also mentioned that Stephen did not seem to have the serious personal problems the other members of the Dublin Murder Squad harbored--and he still doesn't (okay, he has a problem with intimacy, but it's not serious compared to what we've seen in the earlier books), which may be one reason this is my favorite French book to date.

Moran is at work in the Cold Case Squad when Holly Mackey, daughter of Detective Frank Mackey from Faithful Place, comes in carrying a clue to a year-old case. Chris Harper, a handsome student at a nearby boys school, was found dead on the grounds of St. Kilda's School, where Holly and her three best friends are boarders. The evidence is a card found on "The Secret Place," a bulletin board intended to subvert cruel websites by giving students a place to anonymously voice their insecurities, worries, dislikes, etc. The card sports a picture of Chris and the line "I know who killed him."

Stephen takes the evidence to the homicide detective on the case, Antoinette Conway, and the two head to St. Kilda's, where they will spend a grueling day investigating the eight girls (including Holly) who had the opportunity to kill Chris. The story of their investigation is intercut with a chronological account of the months before and after the murder, told from the perspectives of the eight girls, who comprised two tight-knit foursomes. French does an excellent job portraying the importance of friendship to teenage girls (and to cops), as well as their profound insecurities and potential for cruelty and manipulation. By focusing on the interrogations of the girls, she also demonstrates the importance of questioning style and intuition, as well as logic and evidence, to police work.

While there are some semi-supernatural elements to the story that didn't seem necessary, I thought this book's exploration of friendship and teenage angst elevated it above French's earlier works. Once again, French's prose sometimes sings and is always readable.

Favorite passages:
The Court [a shopping mall] pulls like a towering magnet and everyone comes. Anything can happen here, in the sparkling slice of freedom between classes and teatime; your life could lift right off the ground and shimmer into something brand-new. In the dizzying white light all the faces glimmer, they mouth words and crack open in laughs you can almost catch through the cloud of sounds, and any one of them could be the heart-stopping one you've been waiting for; anything you can imagine could be waiting for you here, if you turn your head at just the right second, if you just catch the right eye, if the right song just comes spinning out of the speakers all around you. Sugar-smell of fresh doughnuts drifting out from the kiosk, lick it off your fingers.

She hears all the voices from when she was little, soothing, strengthening: Don't be scared, not of monsters, not of witches, not of big dogs. And now. snapping loud from every direction: Be scared, you have to be scared, ordering like this is your one absolute duty. Be scared you're fat, be scared your boobs are too big and be scared they're too small. Be scared to walk on your own, specially anywhere quiet enough that you can hear yourself think. Be scared of wearing the wrong stuff, saying the wrong thing, having a stupid laugh, being uncool.. . . Be scared terrified petrified that everything you are is every kind of wrong. Good girl.

Letters to a Young Contrarian, by Christopher Hitchens

Audible from time to time offers a $10 coupon if you order a certain number of books at once. Then you have to find something that costs less than $10 on which to use your coupon. This is how I came to listen to two Christopher Hitchens works--Mortality, which I found interesting and admirable, and Letters to a Young Contrarian, which was dull enough to put me in a fugue state while listening. Perhaps it is because I am not young or am insufficiently contrary (unlikely) or not well educated enough to understand his allusions or appreciate his name-dropping. Perhaps it was the condescending tone of the narrator. Or perhaps there just wasn't much "there there." 

A few of the letters held my attention. As a civic educator who has spent a lot of time encouraging teachers to engage students in discussion of controversial issues, I enjoyed his appreciation of talking with those with whom you disagree: "Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence." His examination of humor and the notion of living "as if" were also interesting. Overall, however, this collection left me unmoved.

Favorite passage: 

. . . if you really care about a serious cause or deep subject, you may have to be prepared to be boring about it. 

Divergent, by Veronica Roth

My sister suggested that, as a political science major, I would be interested in the dystopian young adult novel Divergent, so I decided to give it a whirl. Since I assume anyone who is in the least interested in this book has already read it, I'm not going to bother with a plot summary and just make a few comments instead.

--I wish authors of dystopian novels would explain what happened to create the havoc and destruction that preceded the establishment of the post-apocalyptic society. Readers need the context to evaluate the situation in which the characters find themselves (IMHO).

--I found it interesting that the five factions were not formed because people who had the various characteristics were perceived as bringing value to the society but because people who lacked those characteristics were blamed for the ills that befell it. Unfortunately, it didn't really make sense that having just one value could be the solution to a society's problems--who would actually believe that? Furthermore, Roth did not explain why the boundaries between the factions were so impenetrable. There did not seem to be a logic to the system--it was just created for story-telling purposes (and I understand this is a story, but a story with internal logic would be better).  And why were those who had strength in more than one area called divergent?  Wouldn't they be convergent?

--It was interesting that the group chosen to wield governmental power was the abnegation (selfless) group--perhaps a commentary on the absence of that quality among our current leaders (but not necessarily a good choice for the polity).  The choice may also reflect the author's Christian beliefs, as may the choice of the erudite (intellectual class) as the evil-doers of the novel. While I saw a relevant message in the erudite manipulating the dauntless, I rebel at the notion that the educated are the ones a society should fear most.

--I really hate when a book is so obviously setting up a sequel (or two sequels in the case of the currently popular trilogies).

So did I hate Divergent? No, but I won't bother reading the subsequent books in the trilogy. I don't really care what happens to the society or, for that matter, to the main characters Tris and Four. I continue to be disturbed by the dystopic trend in YA novels--I guess they give young readers a chance to follow the exploits of heroes their own age, but at the same time they seem to pretty consistently present young people as victims of the societal structures that emerge following major ruptures in the social/environmental/governmental fabric. When I expressed this concern about the Hunger Games, only one other member of Novel Conversations agreed with me (and it might be said that others scoffed at the view as naive). Nonetheless, I hope a new trend for YA readers emerges soon.

Favorite passages:
"Welcome to the day we honor the democratic philosophy of our ancestors, which tells us that every man has a right to choose his own way in the world." Or, it occurs to me, one of five predetermined ways.

His absence will haunt their hallways, and he will be a space they can't fill. And then time will pass and the hole will be gone . . .