One Summer, by David Baldacci

Baldacci, David, One Summer, 2011

Spoilers: Throughout

David Baldacci spoke at my town’s literary arts festival one year, and he was interesting and friendly. So I’m predisposed to like what he writes. I have read The Camel Club and Divine Justice—political thrillers that weave and dodge—and enjoyed them as much as any of that genre, certainly more than Tom Clancy books, for example. But One Summer is different. Baldacci is taking a detour into a more reflective type of fiction. One Summer is the story of loss and love and love and loss. It tells the story of Jack Armstrong, a man who cheats certain death while his wife cheats certain life. In a validation of the idea that god is a trickster, the wrong one dies. When Jack finally recovers (it’s a miracle), his family is gone: wife dead, children scattered to various relatives, house and belongings sold. The novel tells the story of Jack’s reclamation and the reclamation of his family.

This book is a good read and rings true. (Keep the Kleenex box handy.) But it doesn’t break any new ground. Jack learns that, hey, life goes on. Pain keeps coming, and so does joy. In the end, the book has almost a fairy-tale quality, wherein wrongs are righted, wounds are healed, and all is well. Love cures all. Well, as many of us know pretty intimately, sometimes wrongs are validated, injuries fester, and life is skewed, or modulated into a different key forever. Love is not always enough.

Supporting the idea that this is a miraculous book, miracles actually happen. The miracle-in-chief is Jack’s healing from certain death through the other-worldly intervention of his late wife’s spirit. The other bit of fantasticalness is when the short in the lighthouse wiring fortuitously reveals itself just in the nick of time. Just having a family from Cleveland inherit land on the South Carolina coast is a pretty big miracle in itself! South Carolina mystically provides all that the family needs.

When he is dying, Jack writes six letters to his wife to tell her the things he can’t say out loud. These letters are a major device in the book, symbolizing emotional growth/change. But the letters are pretty pedestrian, and even a little embarrassing.

I know I’m sounding a bit sarcastic here. If you really view this book as a fairy tale or, better yet, a fable, it is beautiful. I even toyed with the idea that it is Jack’s fantasy from his death bed. But in the end, I find it to be a nice story, but divorced from reality. And the moral of the story is: Men, feel your feelings and love your children. Haven’t we trodden that path before?

Best bits: I liked when the family moved to South Carolina and were first exploring the old house they’d inherited.

Main complaint: The unreality of it all. Maybe I’m just old and cynical, but having the plot all wrapped up with bows is not my style.

Hidden gifts: Jack’s friend Sammy is sort of a guardian angel who makes the plot move in various directions. Without Sammy there would be no book.

Physical description: Book-sized, well put together; 333 pages, with acknowledgments and author bio.

Patterson, James, Tenth Anniversary (with Maxine Paetro)

July 25, 2011

Patterson, James, Tenth Anniversary, 2011 (with Maxine Paetro)

Spoilers in this review: Some.

This book came to me through a book club. My only other experience with Patterson has been books on tape listened to in the car. Tenth Anniversary is one in a series of books involving the “Women’s Murder Club,” which has been adapted for television, I think. The Murder Club is made up of four women—a prosecuting attorney, a police detective, a medical examiner, and a newspaper reporter. This book has a mystery for each of them, with only tangential overlap, in some cases. I found this distracting, not being in tune with the format from prior reading.

There were many distractions—mainly the insanely short chapters, often hardly a full page of text. With the short chapters and jumping story lines, I felt sort of breathless most of the time. The book was episodic, shallow, and predictable. It jangled one of my pet peeves about modern mysteries—I knew that at least one of the Murder Club members would become a victim. In this case, the reporter got kidnapped by the serial rapist, an event that had been telegraphed chapters earlier. I suppose having the mystery solver placed in deadly peril is a way to engage the reader’s emotions, but I don’t want those emotions. The impact of crime and its investigation has enough of an impact on those who deal with it without subjecting them to criminal victimization, and without putting the reader psychologically in the victim position as well.

This book was also burdened with the need to go backward in time to catch up new readers and refresh old readers of how the four heroes got together in the first place and what’s been going on in their lives. That’s another distraction to me, and takes away from the main action. I would prefer that each book be self-contained. That’s just me, who cut my eye-teeth on the great mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers. The murder club was also intermarrying with the men in each other’s lives. Quaint.

The short chapters and the addition of not one but two previews of coming publications makes me think that this book didn’t come in long enough and caught the publisher unawares. Really, about 100 pages could have been knocked out of this book. Then it would not have fit the model for a modern mystery. The reader must have her value! Who knows? I just enjoy speculating.

Best bits: The lesbian biker queen couple wanting to adopt.

Main complaint: Thin content. There just wasn’t much there there.

Hidden gifts: The attorney’s story was the most compelling, capturing my attention with its twists and turns.

Physical description: Book-sized, although thicker than it needed to be; the main book was 395 frothy pages long; bonus content from Patterson’s Now You See Her and Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (a children’s text) ran to about 50 pages.

Ellis, Joseph J., His Excellency George Washington, 2004

July 20, 2011

Ellis, Joseph J., His Excellency George Washington, 2004

Spoilers in this review: None.

It’s amazingly coincidental that I’m immediately reading the biography of another long-lived, tall, skinny, white-skinned man, George Washington. I bet Dick Van Dyke could make that frosty visage break into a smile. It would take a master.

I bought this book on a recent visit to George Washington’s home, Mt. Vernon, just outside of Washington, D.C. (Yes, Washington placed the capital right outside his own front door.) The docents were excellent and one of them recommended this book. His Excellency is well researched and well written, intended to be accessible rather than dense. It traces the hints of Washington’s true personality as revealed by an exhaustive study of his letters. This book is about Washington the man, not Washington the god/king that nearly was. But, don’t worry, it’s not some kind of tell-all or bubble-puncturer. In fact, Ellis explains that knowing what was going on behind the stoic façade of this great leader actually enhances our understanding of his key decisions. And, his key decisions for himself became key decisions for the new nation—and the nation we are today.

His Excellency has chapters on the key events of Washington’s life—his service with the British in the French & Indian War, his establishment of himself as landed gentry (he married well), the War for Independence, and his presidency. I was especially intrigued with the chapter on the French & Indian War. Ellis’s descriptions had my heart racing a couple of times. And Washington seemed protected by an invisible shield. He was the tallest and fairest soldier in the battle and yet remained unscathed. These were the Ohio lands—my home.

I find endlessly fascinating the individual threads that wove together to become this experiment of representative government that is the United States. Washington would not be surprised to see the sticky messes Congress gets into and he was certainly familiar with various smear tactics and propaganda campaigns. People are so “now”-centric—it must be worse now than it ever was. His Excellency is an antidote to that thinking. The maneuverings of Jefferson and Hamilton were as cut-throat as they could get and included buying off the press.

I recommend this book. It is a bit dry, but in the same way that a good white wine is dry. The writing is clear and crisp as Ellis shares his explorations with us. His Excellency refreshed and deepened my high-school-history knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the birth of my nation—as an idea and a reality. I am more committed than ever to exercising my freedoms and celebrating the courage of the Founders. Visiting Mt. Vernon was a welcome confirmation. I look forward to trying some of Ellis’s other books after another foray into my endless children’s literature list.

Best bits: “Instead of going to college, Washington went to war. And the kind of education he received, like the smallpox he had contracted in Barbados, left scars that never went away, as well as immunities against any and all forms of youthful idealism” (Chapter 1).

“…the meaning of the American Revolution, at least as [Washington] understood it, had been transformed during the course of the war into a shape that neither he nor anyone else had foreseen at the start. It was a war not just for independence, but also for nationhood” (Chapter 4).

“…he saw himself as a mere steward for a historical experiment in representative government larger than any single person, larger than himself; an experiment in which all leaders, no matter how indispensable, were disposable, which was what a government of laws and not of men ultimately meant” (Chapter 4).

Main complaint: As a non-scholar, I could have used a bit more background discussion. I was really pulling stuff out of the archives. Maps and a timeline would have been helpful to me and a kindness to any reader.

Hidden gifts: I appreciated the way Ellis tied together the private and public Washington; Ellis’s discussions of Washington’s evolving view of slave-holding were fascinating; I feel like I’ve been walking among the fields of Mt. Vernon, sitting to the side of the Constitutional Convention, watching the signing of Jay’s treaty. All good books should be so transportive.

Physical description: Book-shaped (traditional proportions); published by Vintage Books/Random House; 8 pages of trivial front matter, 12 pages of serious front matter (including dedication to W.W. Abbot, table of contents, and an actually interesting and stage-setting preface), and a half-title page to mark the beginning of the actual text; 2 pages of acknowledgments; 30 or so pages of notes; and index; 275 pages long (text), 320 over all

Typo: None that I found.

Van Dyke, Dick, My Lucky Life in and out of Show Business, 2011

Spoilers in this review: None.

I don’t usually read celebrity bios (celebrity blah-blahs), but this one caught my eye, literally, with its dust jacket photo. I saw the over-long up-kicked leg and big open smile, a photo of fun and action. Who wouldn’t know who it was? Dick Van Dyke! I have been a little bit in love with him my whole life. Even if you are pretty young, I bet you know comedian Dick Van Dyke. He’s the guy who tripped over the footstool at the start of every Dick Van Dyke Show. (He’s the reason I ever learned the word ottoman.) He’s the guy who drew the chalk paintings in Mary Poppins and did the chimney sweep song, “Chim-chim-che-ree.” He’s the one who drove the car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He’s the one your grandmother enjoys so much in Diagnosis Murder. You don’t have to know who he is. But you might get a few good laughs if you did. If he was in it, it’s probably good and funny.

Van Dyke fills this too-slender volume with memories, reflections, confessions, friends, family, and faith. He is “in it” on every page. Of course, he worked with a ghost writer/collaborator (who is in the acknowledgments), but it still sounds like Dick, like Rob Petrie, like Bert. You can almost hear Van Dyke reading to you.

Van Dyke asserts right up front that he will not be dishing dirt or disclosing secrets. That’s not his way and it is consistent with his values. Early in his career he made a conscious professional decision that he would not work on projects that he couldn’t discuss at the supper table with his kids, or those that he wouldn’t want his entire family to see. The reader (or viewer) can trace the evolution of that doctrine through his body of work. Some people classify Van Dyke as a lightweight because he never did “serious” work. Well, it was serious to him. Making people laugh was serious business and hard work. My Lucky Life will tell you all about it. I’m not going to give spoilers in this review.

And gol-durnit, Van Dyke is actually old. What a good time for a memoir! Who’d have thought it? He actually has close to 80 years of experience in the front lines of our culture wars. He has the perspective and authenticity of a man whose retirements (there were many) never lasted longer than a few months. He closes the book reflectively, noting that he agrees now that he will never retire, will never get tired of eliciting a laugh or a grin, will never go over to the “dark” side of comedy. Reading this book made me proud to have a slight life-long crush on Dick Van Dyke. His professional career spans my entire life, as he came into prominence and I came into being in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Best Bit: My favorite bit, which sort of summed it all up for me, was when Van Dyke described a barbershop-style quartet he formed in his late 70s with three other stars (all of whom about 30 years younger). They started singing gigs at fundraisers and hospitals, charity events. The Vantastix, as they were called, sang often at the children’s cancer hospital, City of Hope. He says, “We stopped at the bed of a very sick fifteen-year-old boy. We tiptoed into his room and quietly sang a song. He did not react. Thinking he was asleep, we began to file out when suddenly we heard him ask, ‘Could I hear another one please?’ We turned around and sang a whole bunch of songs. He barely opened his eyes, but after we finished “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” I saw his mouth curl into a faint smile. As far as I am concerned, applause does not get any louder.” He says, “In fifty-plus years of show business, I never had a better audience.”

Main complaint: This book is too short. I would love to hear more about every part of Van Dyke’s life and work. More details! More Details! And, oops, he got me! He did just what Carl Reiner taught him in the early 1960s, when he ended The Dick Van Dyke Show, to leave them laughing and leave them wanting more. Now I’m laughing.

Minor complaint: Not enough photos—the sixteen pages provided don’t do it!

Hidden gifts: (1) There is an index. An indexed book cares about its reader. (2) Generous type size and spacing—yep, if you love Dick Van Dyke, you’re likely to be wearing corrective lenses. (3) Some really smart people helped Van Dyke with this book. (3) An acknowledgment is given to “collaborator” Todd Gold. Good job, Todd.

Physical description: Book-shaped (not squared down, elongated, over-sized or under-sized); published by Crown/Archetype; 16 pages of b/w and color photos; terrific dust jack showing Van Dyke old and new (and also new and old); brief forward by Carl Reiner; Copyright owned by Point Productions, Inc., not by Van Dyke; dedication to his children; table of contents; 28 chapters; 273 pages.

Typo: In the table of contents, it says “Insert Photo Credits.” I think “insert” was an instruction, not a word to be typeset. That’s how we got t-shirts that say “Big Ohio” on the bottom.

True Grit, by Charles Portis

Portis, Charles, True Grit, 1968

True Grit is, truly, sand in your teeth gritty. I was surprised when I learned that the famous movie(s) were made from a kid’s book.  I bought the book thinking, mistakenly, that I might find a classic of juvenile fiction with a strong female hero—something always worth looking for (Pippi Longstocking only goes so far). And I got what I sought. The hero, Mattie, is 14 years old and is the strongest, grittiest person in the book—and the one with the least heart. She takes on the job of avenging her father’s murder and recovering his property. She’s the oldest and that’s how it is. Mattie is pretty cold-blooded, using various aspects and features of her father’s death (and corpse) to get a grub stake for her quest. Her most expensive purchase is the services of a rogue U.S. Marshall, Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn. Rooster is the color in this book, but he is not the main character. There is no main character, really, since Mattie is so detached. They set out into Indian Country (currently Oklahoma) with a Texas Ranger to meet their quarry. The action of the book is exciting and authentic. I felt like I was with them. My stomach growled when they were hungry. My body ached with their injuries.

Unfortunately for modern children’s literature, True Grit is graphic and politically incorrect. People get knifed, hacked, rolled under horses, shot in many body regions, all in detail. Theft, corruption, child abuse, prostitution, hard drinking, smoking, all sorts of other nastinesses, are set along the path of the book with little comment about their immorality. Mattie’s sanctimonious beliefs, spouted from memory from Sunday School pamphlets, come across as silly and juvenile. She breaks the law and the commandments pretty frequently and then magics it away with the self-serving wand of rationalization. It would be funny if it weren’t done so grimly.

Mattie is strangely detached, almost like a machine. She is relentless and focused. But narrator-Mattie is much older, and I’ve heard that flatness in elderly people’s voices. They know the details of a story by heart, by rote, and no longer bring forth the emotion. The flatness of the tone combined with the excitement of the action is part of what makes the book so interesting and makes it feel like a true historical account. (There is also a western character type you see in Clint Eastwood movies and Dust Bowl photographs—the person who is uneducated, bone tired and sees no future but huge amounts of meaningless work. William Faulkner knew these people. Mattie seems to have started young at such hopelessness. Don’t feel. It won’t get you anywhere.)

I liked this book a lot, but I can’t say why. It had a flavor of authenticity, was fast-paced, was set in an interesting place and time, and was peculiar.

BTW: This review will be included in my children’s literature review collection. I have no idea whether young people would like it or whether any librarian would ever think it appropriate to recommend. I might try Portis’s first book, Norwood, to see if it deepens my understanding of the author’s purposes.

 Spoilers in this review: None.

Best bits: (1) Anything and everything having to do with the horses—buying, trading, saddling, feeding, riding, whatever. I’ve read a ton of horse books over the past three years (on my children’s literature project) and True Grit ranks with the best. (2) Mattie’s rescue.

Writer’s note: As a poet, I sometimes try to use one-syllable words and easy words only. For example, one of my favorite of my own lines is “the sky weeped rain” and “look hard, you see trees/look soft, you see rain.” This book adheres to that principle beautifully. Clear, plain language is the rice and beans of writing. Plainness speaks to the heart. Example with multisyllable words highlighted (from page 204):

Rooster said, “Can you hold to my neck?”

I said, “Yes, I will try.” There were two dark red holes in his face with dried rivulets of blood under them where shotgun pellets had struck him.

He stooped down and I wrapped my right arm around his neck and lay against his back. He tried to climb the rope hand over hand with his feet against the sides of the pit but he made only about three pulls and had to drop back down.

Main complaint: I wanted Mattie to be more like a fictional character and less like herself. I wanted Anne of Green Gables without the syrup. What a shock to find out what that looked like in Mattie.

Minor complaint: (1) The type runs too far into the middle of the book. Pull it out of the gutter, folks! (2) The cover is very dark, which is moody, but not at all alluring. (3) I know lots of people who have seen this story on film, but no one else who has read it. I need more points of view on this book.

Hidden gifts: (1) True Grit has a great opening paragraph—you turn a page: you’re in a really bleak Wonderland. (2) I learned a little bit about horse trading.

Physical description: Book-shaped (traditional proportions); published by Simon & Schuster; paperback; front matter includes a dedication page and half-title page (I like that); not a smidge of end matter; three or four unnumbered chapters; 215 pages.

Typo: I found one, but I can’t remember where it was.