Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Penumbra sells used books, and they are in such uniformly excellent condition that they might as well be new. He buys them during the day--you only sell to the man with his name on the windows--and he must be a tough customer. He doesn't seem to pay much attention to the bestseller lists. His inventory is eclectic; there's no evidence of pattern or purpose other than, I suppose, his own personal taste. So, no teenage wizards or vampire police here. That's a shame, because this is exactly the kind of store that makes you want to buy a book about a teenage wizard. This is the kind of store that makes you want to be a teenage wizard.

-Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Now that I'm writing about them back to back, I'm finding that Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is an excellent book to weigh against The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.  While the former doesn't have the vaguely timeless nature of the latter--Google is a significant part of the story, after all--it was more inventive and definitely more absorbing, while maintaining elements of the classic quest. I didn't like the love interest as much as I suspect I was supposed to, but I enjoyed the writing quite a bit and would be happy to read more by Robin Sloan.

Up next: Messy by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely

GOALS AS A NOVELIST:

1. FAME--Realistic amount. Enough to open new avenues of sexual opportunity. Personal assistant to read my mail, grocery shop, and so on.
2. FINANCIAL COMFORT--Never have a job again. Retire. Spend rest of life lying around, pursuing hobbies (boating? skeet shooting?).
3. STATELY HOME BY OCEAN (OR SCENIC LAKE)--Spacious library, bay windows, wet bar. HD TV, discreetly placed. Comfortable couch.
4. HUMILIATE POLLY AT HER WEDDING.

-How I Became a Famous Novelist

As always, I have a formidable stack of unread books sitting on my shelf--a bit of an obligation, but mostly a comfort, since not having a book to read is a none-too-secret terror of mine. Thus I had no reason to pick up How I Became a Famous Novelist at St. Vincent de Paul a few months back, except I thought that I would regret it if I didn't.

How I Became a Famous Novelist is the story of Pete Tarslaw, a twenty-something living in Boston and working as a professional polisher of school admission essays. He's--and I don't think there's a way to put this nicely--a loser. When he gets an invitation to his ex-girlfriend's wedding, though, it spurs him to action. Not for any particularly selfless reason: he just wants to win the breakup.

He hits upon his plan of action while watching a soft news piece on folksy novelist Preston Brooks. He quickly sizes up the man, who never met a platitude he didn't like, as a con artist--and decides there's no reason that he can't write a book like that. No point in trying to make it good, mind. He creates a list of what elements he would need to include to make his story popular, and dreams of the fame and fortune to follow.

To his credit, he does write a book. A terrible book, from all the evidence provided, but nonetheless a book with a beginning, middle, and end. (As a NaNoWriMo participant, I realize just that is an accomplishment). How I Became a Famous Novelist then charts Pete's new career, with its highs and--more often--its lows. It's a funny ride, particularly when author Steve Hely pokes fun at the modern book scene. (His imagined titles and plots for New York Times bestsellers were amusingly believable.) While Pete himself is not particularly likeable, he's self-aware enough that the reader doesn't tire of his company, and I found the book overall to be pretty enjoyable.

Up next: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente. (Whew, that's a mouthful.)

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

It begins with absence and desire.
It begins with blood and fear.
It begins with a discovery of witches.

-A Discovery of Witches

I think I must begin by saying that A Discovery of Witches is an excellent title for a book. I know we shouldn't judge books by their covers, but I think it's fair to be enchanted by a good title. Well played.

A Discovery of Witches is the story of Diana Bishop, a historian working at Oxford. She is also, as it happens, a witch, though she does her best to suppress her natural abilities. Nonetheless, one day she calls up a most unusual book from the stacks at the library--a clearly magical book--and despite her best efforts, she can't deny her heritage any longer. She quickly becomes the center of the magical world, with witches, vampires, and daemons alike clamoring to get a hold of the book, long thought lost.

One vampire, Matthew Clairmont, takes a particular interest. He's an esteemed doctor at Oxford, an expert in multiple fields. He's also devastatingly handsome, bien sûr. His destiny is quickly tangled up with Diana's, to an extent that seems preordained. The story becomes one of supernatural romance and intrigue.

The romance develops quite rapidly--clearly an intentional move by Deborah Harkness. It's not supposed to feel like a traditional romance, but I think the rush made it a little harder for me to understand Diana and Matthew as characters. At a certain point I just went with it, and the last couple hundred pages flew by. Harkness also did an excellent job setting up her sequel, which does sound quite intriguing. I will certainly be on the lookout for it once I've put a bigger dent in the pile of books I already have.

Up next: Made in America by Bill Bryson

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon

Archy felt blood in his cheeks, the shame of the ponderer in a world that urged decision. A deliberator nipped at and harried by the hounds of haste. Professing in his heart like some despised creed the central truth of life: The only decision a man will never regret is the one he never made.

-Telegraph Avenue

It's nice to have a history with an author, isn't it? Not just having read a lot of books by that author, but to have memories connected with them. That's how I feel about Michael Chabon. I remember picking up The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and being so absolutely wowed by it that I emailed him. It was the kind of ridiculous, flowery email that you might expect a 19-year-old to write, and he very kindly responded. I remember taking The Mysteries of Pittsburgh with me when I went to Italy later that same year. I remember when he did a reading at my college and signed my copy of Summerland, which I had bought at the university bookstore. That's a history, I think.

When I was thinking about what I wanted to say about Telegraph Avenue, I remembered all of that. From page one, the writing was everything I could have wanted--on a sentence-to-sentence level, Telegraph Avenue is beautiful, funny, and true. Just on that first page, there's this description of Archy Stallings--"moonfaced, mountainous, moderately stoned." I didn't intend to wax rhapsodic here, but that's pretty near perfect if you ask me.

The story--of Archy and his partner Nat, their wives and kids, and their business, Brokeland Records--shares a lot of the hallmarks of other Chabon stories. There's the obsession (with vinyl here, as opposed to comics or baseball), the quirky characters (shades of Wonder Boys), the sexual exploration. I think I might have been more absorbed in the story of I'd connected to any one part of it better--jazz, Berkeley, kung fu--but I still enjoyed it. The characterization is particularly good--I'd love to have a follow-up just about Nat's son, Julie. Regardless of what Chabon does next, I'll be along for the ride.

Up next: Dead Ever After, the last of the Sookie Stackhouse novels.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

"I don't know what I'm looking for," Tara responds, and for a moment her face crumples as though she might burst into tears, but then she composes herself. "Ethan, do you sometimes feel like you are dreaming, all the time?"

"No, I can't say that I do."

"I am finding it difficult to discern between asleep and awake," Tara says, tugging at her lace cuffs again. "I do not like being left in the dark. I am not particularly fond of believing in impossible things."

-The Night Circus 

The Night Circus tells the story of two unusual people, Marco and Celia. As children, they were selected to participate in a game--game doesn't seem like exactly the right word, given the nature of the thing. They spend years training, enduring gloomy, lonely childhoods in order to further their accomplishments in a very specialized field: magic. Not sleight of hand, but true, proper magic. Turning paper into birds, conjuring landscapes out of thin air. Magic.

A stage is set for them to compete. It's called the Night Circus, designed to be a spectacle like none other. Not just one tent, it's a series of tents, each more marvelous than the last. Only Marco and Celia know the true purpose of the circus, a chance for them to show their talents. They construct ever more elaborate illusions, but more to marvel at each other's skill than to really try to best their opponent. For Marco and Celia don't hate each other, far from it. Instead they find that the tie that has bound them for so long has bloomed into True Love (You know, The Princess Bride kind. Pirates and fire swamps and even death cannot tear them apart kind of love.)

I tried to keep my expectations low going into The Night Circus, because it had been fairly hyped and, even though I was quite intrigued by the premise, it seemed like a difficult concept to fully realize in execution. Kudos to Erin Morgenstern, though, for some amazing work. She really created a whole world that I loved visiting. I find it really remarkable that this is her debut novel, and must admit that I find it particularly cool that she initially developed it as a NaNoWriMo project. It's pretty inspiring stuff for any wannabe writers out there.

Up next: Just Kids by Patti Smith

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I go downstairs wearing a thick Christian smile. Living at home, whenever I want to leave Longleaf, I have to ask Mother if I can borrow her car. Which means she'll ask me where I'm going. Which means I have to lie to her on a daily basis, which is in itself enjoyable but a little degrading at the same time.

-The Help

As snobby as it sounds, I must admit that I've grown wary of bestsellers. For every Kite Runner, worthy of the good word of mouth, it seems that there are three treacly tales full of trite, mediocre writing. (I'll be kind and avoid naming names.) Thus it took me a while to get to The Help--and indeed I wasn't convinced I should read it until the movie started getting good buzz as well.

The Help centers on the lives of women living in Jackson, Mississippi in the throes of the civil rights movement. One of them, Skeeter Phelan, is an aspiring writer in search of a worthy subject.  She hits upon an idea: interview the women who work in the homes of her upper-class white peers. It's a good idea, but a dangerous one. The Help chronicles Skeeter's journey to interview these women, as well as the lives of two women who will become her most important contributors: Aibileen and Minnie. Strong, thoughtful Aibileen has weathered the death of her only son, and has grown weary of the injustice she's seen in her life. Headstrong Minnie is more reluctant to talk to Skeeter, but her story of sweet revenge becomes essential to the book. Together, the three women offer a compelling look into another world, a world that would be almost unbelievable if it hadn't actually existed.

Perhaps because it seems both so familiar and so alien, I find that chapter in American history to be fascinating. I became utterly absorbed in the stories of Skeeter, Aibilieen, and Minnie, and had a hard time putting The Help down. I recently watched the film as well, and while it (unsurprisingly) had to sacrifice some of the novel's detail to achieve a workable running time, it was still quite enjoyable. A pleasant surprise in every way.

Up next: After a couple of false starts with other books, I'm currently enjoying Deadwood.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Sasha tipped back her head to look at him. She made a point of doing this now and then, just to remind Coz that she wasn't an idiot--she knew the question had a right answer. She and Coz were collaborators, writing a story whose end had already been determined: she would get well. She would stop stealing from people and start caring again about the things that had once guided her: music; the network of friends she'd made when she first came to New York; a set of goals she'd scrawled on a big sheet of newsprint and taped to the walls of her early apartments:

                                    Find a band to manage

                                    Understand the news

                                    Study Japanese

                                    Practice the harp

-A Visit from the Goon Squad

It now seems appropriate that I procrastinated for a week on writing this review, as Sasha's set of goals up there looks not unlike a list of resolutions. Also gives my blog that classy--albeit slightly dated--touch to start the year with 2010's Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, dontcha think?

A Visit from the Goon Squad tells the story of--well, what exactly? A bunch of people, a city, an era, their music. It encompasses a lot, really. Egan spends each chapter with a different character, and these characters weave their way in and out of each other's stories; this method that must have involved a heck of a lot of notes, I'd imagine. The bulk of the story takes place in the first decade of the 21st century, but jumps back as far as the 60's and forward into the near future. It's a pretty impressive feat.

It's also a pretty easy story to get wrapped up in, and I found myself regretting that I hadn't saved it for my recent travels--I finished it sitting in an airplane right before takeoff, actually. There's something about the world that Egan creates that really draws the reader in, even though I wouldn't describe it as a particularly warm book. There wasn't a character I really loved, but the format of the book helped to engender sympathy with all of them, which is a pretty nifty trick. It's not necessarily a book I see myself returning to--although having said that, a reread probably would allow me to make connections between characters I'd missed the first time around. It's a bit hard to imagine rereading anything right now, with more new books on my shelves than ever. Lucky me!

Up next: World War Z, which I just finished yesterday and hopefully will be back to post about relatively soon.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

A letter. For me. That was something of an event. The crisp-cornered envelope, puffed up with its thickly folded contents, was addressed in a hand that must have given the postman a certain amount of trouble. Although the style of the writing was old-fashioned, with its heavily embellished capitals and curly flourishes, my first impression was that it had been written by a child. The letters seemed untrained. Their uneven strokes either faded into nothing or were heavily etched into the paper. There was no sense of flow in the letters that spelled out my name. Each had been undertaken separately--M A R G A R E T L E A--as a new and daunting enterprise. But I knew no children. That is when I thought, It is the hand of an invalid.

It gave me a queer feeling. Yesterday or the day before, while I had been going about my business, quietly and in private, some unknown person--some stranger--had gone to the trouble of marking my name onto this envelope. Who was it who had had his mind's eye on me while I hadn't suspected a thing?

-The Thirteenth Tale 

Margaret Lea, the heroine of The Thirteenth Tale, receives a mysterious letter. The sender, to Margaret's surprise, is one of England's most beloved authors: the reclusive Vida Winter. Vida has long prided herself on obfuscating her past in interviews, using her gifts as a novelist to invent her own history, each version more colorful than the last. Finally she is ready to tell her true story, and she's plucked Margaret from obscurity to be her biographer.

Margaret is reluctant at first. She's never even read a book by Vida Winter, for a start--she's not one for contemporary fiction. And while she has written some biographical accounts, they weren't about living people. She doesn't have much use for living people in general, really. She spends her days in her father's antiquarian bookshop, happily surrounded by books. But she overcomes her reservations and makes the trip to Yorkshire, then sets to sharpening her pencils. Vida's story awaits her.

Everyone has a story, Vida says, and hers is a doozy.  It's every bit as Gothic as the 19th century novels Margaret holds so dear--there's incest, and illegitimate children, and plenty of intrigue. Oh, and murder--of course there's murder. Margaret finds herself more and more pulled into the story, especially when it becomes apparent that even in Vida's most honest retelling, there's much that's being left unsaid.

The Thirteenth Tale is a great, absorbing read. I read the bulk of it traveling to and from Chicago recently, and I couldn't have asked for a better book to pass the time. In fact, I finished slightly before the end of the flight, so I lingered over the Reader's Guide, which I often pass over. I quite enjoyed the interview with Diane Setterfield, whom I identified with--especially when she talked about the panicky sensation one can get if one needs a book and doesn't have it at the ready. A terrible problem, to be sure, though one I'm unlikely to have in the near future, given the number of unread books currently piling up in my apartment.

Up next: What's better in the summertime than a nice, fat Dickens novel? I'm about 80 pages into Little Dorrit--that is to say, a little less than a tenth of the way through. Excellent.

The Infinities by John Banville

Of the things we fashioned for them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works. When darkness sifts from the air like fine soft soot and light spreads slowly out of the east then all but the most wretched of humankind rally. It is a spectacle we immortals enjoy, this minor daily resurrection, often we will gather at the ramparts of the clouds and gaze down upon them, our little ones, as they bestir themselves to welcome the new day. What a silence falls upon us then, the sad silence of our envy. Many of them sleep on, of course, careless of our cousin Aurora's charming matutinal trick, but there are always the insomniacs, the restless ill, the lovelorn tossing on their solitary beds, or just the early-risers, the busy ones, with their knee-bends and their cold showers and their fussy little cups of black ambrosia. Yes, all who witness it greet the dawn with joy, more or less, except of course the condemned man, for whom first light will be the last, on earth.

-The Infinities 

When I was growing up, one of my favorite books was D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. I read it cover to cover, over and over again. I didn't grow up with organized religion, so while other children learned Bible stories, I knew the tale of Persephone by heart. Even though the Greek gods seemed both formidable and alarmingly capricious, I was secretly disappointed that they went unworshipped in modern times.

All that is to say, I have a particular affection for Greek mythology, so when I heard about John Banville's The Infinities, I was intrigued.  A story about Greek gods meddling in the affairs of an Irish family--what could be better? I had been watching Battlestar Galactica, in which Greek mythology plays an important part, so I was especially ready to enjoy some Zeus & Hermes action. Unfortunately, while I found the prose of The Infinities to be beautiful, its story left me cold.

The Infinities is a fairly short novel--less than 300 pages--so I anticipated that I would finish it quite quickly. The story, which takes place over the course of a single day, never really drew me in, though. Patriarch Adam Godley is in a coma, and his family has gathered around him to ready themselves for his presumably incipient death.  The day's events are narrated (for the most part) by Hermes, who makes note of his father's lusty advances (shock!) toward a woman in the house, as well as his own mischievous interference. The story is short on plot and long on description, unsurprisingly given the parameters of the novel, with Banville particularly seeming to relish a certain earthiness that I could have done without. I was intrigued by some of his characters (fragile daughter Petra and her would-be beau Roddy, to name two), but I found the gods themselves to be surprisingly...human. And while, as I noted above, the Greek gods have always had human traits writ large, never before have I found that that made them common or boring, as unfortunately I did here.

The Infinities is quite an admired book--made a number of top book lists last year, as I recall--and it does seem like the kind of book that would benefit from a deeper reading. (Maybe then I would better understand the ending, which seemed to come out of nowhere.) I believe, though, that the best books are those that can be enjoyed purely from a story standpoint. You might want to find the deeper meanings if the story is good, but you shouldn't have to do so to enjoy the book. That is probably essentially why I was not an English major, right there.

Up next: Another critically-acclaimed book, The Age of Wonder, which thankfully I'm enjoying much more so far!

An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

At Sotheby's, she started to look at paintings differently. She became an efficient computer of values. The endless stream of pictures that passed through the auction house helped her develop a calculus of worth. Auction records were available in the Sotheby's library, and when a picture of note came in, she diligently searched the Art Price Index to see if it had auction history. She factored in condition, size, and subject matter. A Renoir of a young girl, she had witnessed, was worth more than one of an old woman. An American western picture with five tepees was worth more than a painting with one tepee. If a picture had been on the market recently without a sale, she knew it would be less desirable. A deserted painting scared buyers. Why did no one want it? In the trade, it was known as being "burned." Once a picture was burned, the owner either had to drastically reduce the price or sit on it for another seven years until it faded from memory. When Lacey began these computations, her toe crossed ground from which it is difficult to return: she started converting objects of beauty into objects of value.

-An Object of Beauty 

Man, did I need a book like this one. I've had a steady string of good, but not great books in the last six weeks--I don't think I've read one I found truly absorbing since Mockingjay. An Object of Beauty came along at precisely the right time.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting to like it so much. I read Steve Martin's novella Shopgirl and felt that, while it was technically good, something about it left me cold. It was an aloof sort of book, if that makes sense. An Object of Beauty is similar in a sense. Lacey Yeager, the character whom we follow as she climbs the social and corporate ladder of  the New York art world,  is ambitious and cunning, not particularly easy to warm up to. But it doesn't really matter--you don't need to like Lacey to enjoy the story. Because while Lacey is the chief personage we get to know in An Object of Beauty, she's not the book's true main character. Art is.

And art--well, that I love. I studied Art History in college, but now it would be a rare day indeed when someone asked me my opinion on Joseph Beuys, or even Picasso. But this story is full of people with opinions on these and other artists, and spending time with them was like getting to know people with whom I have mutual friends. It doesn't matter if I like them or not (and I would not choose to spend time with a Lacey in real life), but we do have something in common. Martin is clearly extremely well versed in modern art, and his tale of Lacey's rise from lowly Sotheby's drudge to gallery scenester is note perfect. There's a vicarious thrill in getting access to this world, and as little as I truly sympathize with Lacey, I absolutely understand the power that a painting can hold over a person.

Story time: When I was just about to graduate from college, I applied for an internship at a very prestigious art gallery in Manhattan. The time came to schedule an interview, and I panicked--I didn't have the money to fly to New York from an interview, much less to live there on a meager stipend. But it's one of the moments that makes one wonder, what if? When I did finally move to New York, my parents most thoughtfully gave me the gift of a membership to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, probably my favorite place in New York City. (Central Park is a close second. These places are iconic for a reason.) I've lost track of the number of times I've visited the Met. At least twenty. Over time, there were certain paintings that I began to identify as "mine." I sought them out every visit, filled each time with the sense of joy that comes with seeing an old friend. They once temporarily removed a favorite Monet* and I was quite incensed. That was my Monet, didn't they understand?  I felt like I loved it more than anyone in the world could, and, selfishly, I would have taken it with me if it had been offered. So yes, all that is a way of saying that I suppose I do understand part of the way that Lacey appreciates art. But, going back to the excerpt I chose, I never made the transition that Lacey did--I don't see paintings as objects of (monetary) value. And for that I'm glad.

Would one like An Object of Beauty if one doesn't care about art? I wondered that as I read. I've certainly read my fair share of books that involved subjects that I had little interest in or knowledge about. In this case, I think an appreciation for art would certainly heighten one's enjoyment of the book. I mean, Martin includes little reproductions of some of the paintings under discussion. If that's the kind of detail that makes your heart go pitter-patter (or at least spares you a trip to Google), then I think this book would be a winner. But even if that idea provokes an overwhelming meh, I think that it's worth a try all the same. It's a pretty classic tale of the pleasure and pain inherit in gaining access to the most elite part of society, when it comes down to it. Joyce Carol Oates has compared it to an Edith Wharton novel (specifically, The Age of Innocence, which I haven't read); I myself thought of Vanity Fair's Becky Sharp. I was surprised to see there were very mixed critical reviews, as I (obviously) thought it was quite good, and could even see myself rereading it in the future.

Up next: American Nerd by Benjamin Nugent. Dang, there goes the title for my autobiography.

*And yeah: I'm a huge fan of art, but I'm definitely no snob. I love Monet.

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Krishnan has raised the idea of going back to India to visit and perhaps adopt another child, but Somer has resisted. She seems intent on preserving Asha in the little cocoon they have woven around her. It's not the way he sees family, as a precious thing that needs to be protected. For him, family is a wild sprawling thing, a strong thing that withstands years, miles, even mistakes. For as long as he can remember, there have been minor transgressions and major feuds erupting among his big clan, and it doesn't affect the endurance of their family's bond.

-Secret Daughter

In Secret Daughter, Shilpi Somaya Gowda traces the story of two families. There is the story of Jasu and Kavita, living in poverty in rural India. In 1984, Kavita gives birth to a daughter. As female babies are considered less than desirable, she makes the difficult journey to an orphanage in Mumbai. Losing her baby that way, while incredibly painful, is better than the other possible outcome: she's already seen one of her daughters killed shortly after birth.

There is also the story of Krishnan and Somer. Krishnan, from India, meets Somer when studying at medical school in America. He falls in love with her and with his new country, and they begin to make a life there together. When Somer discovers she is infertile, Krishnan hits upon an idea: to adopt a child from India. Somer is reluctant at first, but eventually they make arrangements and travel to Mumbai in 1985. They adopt a young girl: Kavita's daughter.

Gowda shows us how these two families weather the next twenty years. Kavita and Jasu decide to try for a better life in Mumbai, only to discover that it will be far more difficult than they ever imagined. Somer and Krishnan gradually grow apart as their daughter grows up, their relationship in part weakened by Somer's inability to accept the importance India has in her husband's and daughter's lives--and thus in her own life as well.

This really is a character-driven novel, and luckily I liked most of them. Things got off to a bit of a slow start, but after that I became invested, mostly in Kavita and Jasu. Krishnan I liked as well, though not much of the story is told from his point of view. The problem is Somer. While I was sympathetic to her early difficulties in becoming pregnant, once she traveled to India she managed to burn through a lot of goodwill very quickly. She's breathtakingly narrow-minded--I really hope her lack of understanding of Indian culture and her complete unwillingness to share in any of it reflects only on her character and is not representative of Americans in the 1980's, because that would be really sad. It was very frustrating to watch Somer handle things so poorly, though I appreciated that Gowda was able to tie up her story fairly well. I think overall Gowda provided the happiest ending she could within the bounds of realism, but the book was somewhat on the sad side. Interesting, though.

Up next: A Trace of Smoke by Rebecca Cantrell

More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

[Tales of the City spoilers ahead]

She was not moving back to Cleveland. She was not running home to Mommy and Daddy. She knew that much, anyway. For all her trials, she loved it here in San Francisco, and she loved her makeshift family at Mrs. Madrigal's comfy old apartment house on Barbary Lane.

So what if she was still a secretary?

So what if she had not met Mr. Right...or even Mr. Adequate?

So what if Norman Neal Williams, the one semi-romance of her first six months in the city, had turned out to be a private eye moonlighting as a child pornographer who eventually fell to his death off a seaside cliff on Christmas Eve?

-More Tales of the City 

When I was reading More Tales of the City, words to describe it kept popping into my head: soapy, fizzy, fun, &c. Although the book has its share of dramatic moments, they're all so overblown that I can only describe this as a light read--and a thoroughly enjoyable one.

More Tales of the City picks up just weeks after the events of Tales of the City. All of our favorite characters are ready to embark upon new (and often exciting) adventures. Some friendships and relationships blossom, while others are tested. Mary Ann Singleton and Michael Tolliver go on a Mexican cruise, courtesy of her late boss, Edgar Halcyon. Edgar's widow Franny is struggling to find herself after his death, and their daughter DeDe tries to cope with her thoroughly jerky husband Beauchamp and the imminent arrival of her twins (not Beauchamp's, naturally). Meanwhile, Mona Ramsey goes to Winnemucca, Nevada to find herself, leaving behind landlady Anna Madigral, whose mysterious past is finally starting to come to light.

There is quite a lot of plot, and if you took it terribly seriously, it would never be plausible--amnesia! Sudden paralysis! Being drafted to work as a receptionist in a whorehouse for a week!  When you put it all together, it doesn't sound at all likely, but that's really beside the point. More Tales of the City is a fast and engaging read because you can't wait to see what happens next--and really, experience has shown it could be anything.

Up next: Still have a lot of choices here. I will probably go with Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda, which ought to be a change of pace.

The Night Villa by Carol Goodman

Once, when Ely had locked himself in his study to meditate and chant, I pressed my ear to the door to listen to what he was chanting. At first all I heard was a low rhythmic hum and then, when I realized when there were actual words beneath the hum, I couldn't recognize their language. I thought for a moment that he'd added speaking in tongues to his repertoire of miracles, but as I listened I realized he was chanting three repeated lines of Greek hexameter verse. It took me another hour to transcribe and translate the three lines. I don't know what I was expecting. A summoning of Satan? A prayer for help? An invocation to the dead. Certainly not these three questions:

Where did I go wrong today?

What did I accomplish?

What obligation did I not perform?

-The Night Villa

I've read several books by Carol Goodman, though The Night Villa is the first I've read since beginning this blog. Her books, which I've usually enjoyed, tend to have similar elements: a connection to the past, an exploration of mother/daughter relationships, a strong elemental presence (usually fire or water), a main character who is a scholar or an artist, a super-dramatic denouement. With The Night Villa, Goodman continues to stick closely to these familiar ideas. I didn't find it to be her most successful outing, but it still had its moments.

The Night Villa tells the story of Sophie Chase, a UT Classics professor who is recruited to join an excavation at Herculaneum after an unexpected tragedy almost derails the project. Sophie is hoping to learn more about 1st century slave Iusta, the subject of her thesis, who once lived in the villa that was buried by the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius. Scrolls have been discovered at the site that promise to shed new light on Iusta's life, and, despite some misgivings, Sophie can't resist their siren call. Why misgivings? The project seems troubled from the start, but she's more concerned with the man she'll be working with: her former professor and former paramour (always a winning combination), Elgin* Lawrence.

If Lawrence's presence weren't enough to make the situation difficult, Sophie discovers that the project has a connection to the Tetratkys cult, which is devoted to the worship of Pythagorean principles. Her own ex-boyfriend left her to live with the cult a few years back, and when she starts to receive mysterious coded messages in Italy, she wonders if Ely could be behind them.  Things are even further complicated when Lawrence confides that one of the members of the team--which also includes Sophie's student, the fragile Agnes; artist Simon; Christian scholar Maria; tech-wizard George; and the excavation's financial backer, John Lyros--is a member of the Tetraktys cult.

 I actually liked the plot of the book well enough, and the characters, too. My problem with the book was largely one of exposition. There is a lot of information that Goodman wants to convey, mostly about mythology and history, to her readers. The issue is that in order to do so, she sometimes makes her characters, who are well versed in these subjects, talk in a manner that I found clunky and unrealistic. Example:

"Well," Agnes says, taking a deep gulp of air and refastening her ponytail, "for one thing, the newly excavated frescoes haven't been photographed yet, but, most important, they've also found charred papyrus rolls in the villa. The little taggie things on them--"

"Sillyboi," I suggest, providing the Greek term for the tags that ancient librarians used to identify papyrus rolls.

"Um, yeah." She giggles nervously. "I guess I should use the Greek term, but it always makes me laugh..."

 I don't know about you, but that whole passage could have replaced with a dictionary definition of sillyboi and it would have been about as subtle. Either use the word or don't, in my opinion. There's nothing wrong with sending your reader to a dictionary or Google, as long as we're not having to put the book down every other line. I think if Goodman had trusted the reader a little more, she wouldn't have had to be so long-winded and unnatural with the exposition in general.

Similarly, the supposed passages from the ancient texts they uncover at the site strike me as unusually candid--and again, exposition-heavy. But since Goodman has studied classics and I have not, I will assume she has a better ear for this sort of thing than I do, and maybe that is how people wrote at the time. She does make one reference to how remarkably open the author seemed in his writing, which does help to make the passages seem somewhat less glaringly modern. After a while, I got over how unlikely these passages seemed, and tried to just focus on the story, which made the book more enjoyable.

In short, not my favorite of her books, but I've read enough that I would still be interested in looking into her next one. (Just checked Amazon and discovered I'm actually one behind; Arcadia Falls comes out in paperback February 8th and sounds quite promising. )

Up next: More Tales of the City

*You'd think I might be tempted to go off on names again, but I was actually rather charmed when the back story for Elgin's name was revealed. Also I was terribly pleased that there was a minor character named Sam Tyler, a name shared by the main character on Life on Mars.

Jane by April Lindner

"So. Passing as a sex symbol. Can I?"

I weighed my words carefully. "You might not be movie-star handsome," I said finally, "but you're good-looking for a rock star."

Mr. Rathburn's eyes widened. "That's three times you've hurt my feelings in one conversation," he said a bit gruffly.

-Jane

Spoilers for Jane Eyre (& thus Jane) ahead.

Retellings of classic novels have become so popular that it's almost surprising that it took this long to get a modern take on Jane Eyre. April Lindner admits in her author's note for Jane that there were some challenges in imagining the story in our times; it doesn't  lend itself to the modern day quite as easily as something like Pride and Prejudice, for instance. Lindner figured out a way around these problems, though, and by and large I think she wrote a successful adaptation.

In Lindner's story, Jane Moore applies for a position as a nanny after her parents die in a car accident, leaving her financially destitute and forced to drop out of college. The agency finds that her complete lack of pop culture savvy makes her the perfect candidate for one of their plum positions: nanny to reclusive rock star Nico Rathburn*. She accepts, then pours over old tabloid stories to learn about her new employer. Rathburn is a legendary musician with a notorious history of drug use and womanizing, including an ill-fated marriage to a drug-addicted model. She's a bit taken aback, but nonetheless soon finds herself at his secluded estate outside of New York City, wondering if she's made the right choice.

Lindner hits many of the same beats that Jane Eyre does: the roadside run-in with her  boss (far less plausible here, though she does try to explain her lack of recognition of this man whom she's seen in dozens of pictures), the "Do you think me handsome, Jane?" bit (the excerpt above), the guests coming to Thornfield, etc. I enjoyed seeing the parallels.

 I found Lindner's handling of Rathburn's secret to be among the most interesting parts of the adaptation. In some ways, the news should come as less of a surprise to Jane Moore than it did to Jane Eyre: JM knows a lot more about her employer's past than JE ever did, which is one reason why the rock star twist on Rochester didn't quite work for me. JM knew Rathburn was once married, at least. It's been a while since I read Jane Eyre, but I don't think JE finds that out that until the whole crazy story comes out. Still, you don't expect to find people holed up in attics nowadays any more than you did in Charlotte Bronte's time. JM's reaction is, unsurprisingly, similar to JE's, and though it does seem extreme, she does eventually come to realize that she didn't handle it terribly well.

I enjoyed Jane Moore as a character, but oddly I didn't care much for Nico Rathburn. I love Rochester**, so perhaps it was inevitable that his modern update would seem like a pale imitation. On the other hand, I enjoy both Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy and Helen Fielding's Mark Darcy, so I don't think that's exactly it. Part of what made Rochester so interesting was that he had a hidden dark part. He alluded to it when talking with Jane, and even confessed to some parts of it. However, it wasn't like Jane could look him up on Wikipedia or something to get more information. Nico Rathburn, despite the fact that he's supposed to have been out of the media spotlight for some time, is just not mysterious enough. Also, he's a middle-aged guy with earrings, which, let's face it, is a hard look to pull off, even for a rock star.

Even with those reservations about Mr. Rathburn, though, I sped through Jane in a day. I couldn't really see reading it again, but it was pretty enjoyable. It didn't quite pack the punch of Jane Eyre, though; it definitely lacks that dark, Gothic tone that makes Jane Eyre so captivating. I'm interested in rereading some of those classics with a weird bent (The Turn of the Screw, Rebecca), and maybe I'll add Jane Eyre to the list--or at least make sure I see the upcoming film adaptation, which looks great.

Up next: The Night Villa by Carol Goodman, set in my new hometown of Austin and my beloved Italy, which bodes well. 

*I just can't with that name. When I was in middle school, I had a book called Building Believable Characters. In that book, the author mentions the importance of matching a character's first and last names (and then provided long lists of names by ethnic heritage, which was probably my main motivation in buying the book. I'm fascinated by names.). Nico is a great first name for a rock star: kind of quirky, kind of edgy. Rathburn sounds super posh (it makes me think of Basil Rathbone, for one) and, while it works well as a name that sort of evokes Rochester without being Rochester, it clashes horribly with Nico to my ears. Just so fake sounding, you know? Anyway. End tangent.

**When I was in high school, my friends and I used to go blazer bowling on a semi-regular basis. I found a favorite ball at the lanes, a pinkish one with a slight lump on it. Being a weird sort (surprising, I know), I named the ball Hurricane Rochester. (Hurricane was the brand of the ball). True, super dorky story.

Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

The Halcyon-Day courtship had been whirlwind. DeDe and Beauchamp were married in June 1973 on the sunlit slopes of Halcyon Hill, the bride's family estate in Hillsborough. At her own insistence, the bride was barefoot. She wore a peasant dress by Adolfo of Saks Fifth Avenue. Her maid of honor and Bennington roommate, Muffy van Wyck, recited selections from Kahlil Gibran, while a string quartet played the theme from Elvira Madigan.

After the wedding, the bride's mother, Frannie Halcyon, told reporters: "We're so proud of our DeDe. She's always been such an individualist."

-Tales of the City

(I don't know about you, but now I'm picturing Frannie Halcyon as Helen Morgendorffer from Daria.)

In Tales of the City, author Armistead Maupin weaves together the lives of a number of quirky characters living in San Francisco in the 1970s. Central to this cast is Mary Ann Singleton, a naive Cleveland transplant who is bowled over by the more colorful aspects of life in her new home. She finds an apartment at 28 Barbary Lane, where she meets hippie landlady Anna Madrigal (she thoughtfully leaves a joint for each new tenant), strong-willed Mona, playboy Brian, and flamboyant Michael. Each in turn has his or her own coworkers, friends, and lovers, and gradually their lives begin to intersect in many different ways.

Tales of the City is often light and soapy, and also pretty darn enjoyable. Maupin has divided the book into many short chapters, making it easy for the reader to get sucked into reading just a few more pages...then a few more after that. There's enough suspense to keep the reader invested as well—one character's mysterious past, another's affair, another's shadowy motives, etc. None of the characters is particularly multidimensional, but they're mostly likable all the same. It's no wonder that Maupin's written a series to follow Tales of the City; it seems like almost all of these characters still have plenty of story in them. They certainly haven't worn out their welcomes yet. 

I'm not sure that I'm ready to get invested in the series quite yet, but I enjoyed Tales of the City enough that I could see picking up the next book in the future. It's perfect for when you're in the mood for something fun and frothy--brilliant beach reading, I'd imagine.

Up next: Finished Catching Fire in a day, so I suppose I will be back to review that soon!

Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

The train rolled past Thirty-fourth Street, where tourist families with fanny packs and matching smiles piled into the car. Their blond children held on to the poles, swaying this way and that, thrilled by every jolt and bump of the train. Celia thought for a moment how strange it felt to simply live—to work, and go to the gym, and buy groceries, and wait for trains—in a place where so many people were visiting and in awe of their surroundings.

-Commencement

Commencement, as its name suggests, is a novel about beginnings. One beginning is the first day at Smith College for four young women: headstrong Celia, radical April, sheltered Bree, and seemingly flawless Sally. They form the kind of friendships it seems you can only form when you're young, when you can devote all your spare time to getting to know people. They go to wild parties and get their hearts broken and sing into their hairbrushes. They become each other's family.

Much of the action of Commencement takes place four years after their graduation. Graduation, of course, is an end and beginning unto itself, but that entire post-college period is marked by the possibility of many beginnings. (I should know, I'm still in the thick of it.) It's a time of finding your footing in the world, and the women of Commencement choose different paths. Celia lives in Brooklyn and dreams of being a writer. April is ready to embark on a dangerous endeavor to bring awareness to women in need. Bree is wrestling with the end of a long-term relationship. And Sally's getting married, which provides the perfect excuse to get the four of them back together—although they soon discover that picking up where they left off isn't as easy as they would like.

I didn't particularly identify with any one character in Commencement, but I think J. Courtney Sullivan created four realistic young women. It seems clear that Sullivan, a Smith alumna herself, has drawn on her own experience in writing. It's certainly interesting to take a peek behind the curtain of a women's college, a place which seems subject to so much speculation and stereotyping. Although the college experience of the women of Commencement was fairly dissimilar from my own, I couldn't help but feel a touch nostalgic.

I also keenly understood the transitional period that the women were in, four years after graduation. Commencement really came at a great time for me, since I am navigating my own transition right now, one that is far more complicated than anticipated. It certainly helped me to understand what the characters were going through, even though their individual circumstances were different from my own. I also appreciated that, although Commencement dealt with very serious issues, Sullivan wrote with a deftly light touch that prevented the book from getting too dense or preachy. It would be a fantastic beach or traveling read.

Up next: I have many choices at my disposal right now, but I think I'm going to go with A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

In Brooklyn reality had been empty and meaningless - whatever inferior stuff it was made of, meaning had refused to adhere to it. Brakebills was different. It mattered. Meaning - is that what magic was? - was everywhere here. The place was crawling with it. Out there he had been on the edge of serious depression, and worse, he had been in danger of learning to really dislike himself. He was on the verge of incurring the kind of inward damage you didn't heal from, ever. But now he felt like Pinocchio, a wooden boy who was made real. Or maybe it was the other way around, he'd been turned from a real boy into something else? Either way the change was for the better.

-The Magicians

I've not read every review of Lev Grossman's The Magicians, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find one that doesn't refer to Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia. The Magicians, a coming-of-age story featuring the moody Quentin Coldwater, draws heavily from both sources. Like Harry, Quentin is plucked from his ordinary life and sent to a school for magic - though Quentin, who was set to interview for Princeton, is significantly older. And what is our hero obsessed with? The fictional land of Fillory, as detailed in the series Fillory and Further, which chronicles the adventures of the Chatwin children. The oldest Chatwin, Martin, discovers a portal to Fillory in a grandfather clock. I think it's pretty clear that Grossman isn't trying hard to hide his influences.

But the story of Quentin Coldwater is very different. For one, it's absolutely not a children's story. It's really not even a fantasy, primarily. Or it's the most realistic fantasy ever. Grossman's magic is very much grounded in the real world, and a lot of that probably has to do with Quentin himself. Upon arriving at the magical school of Brakebills, Quentin discovers learning spells is tedious work. He's surrounded by competitive overachievers like himself, and it takes him a long time to make friends. Unlike Harry Potter, Quentin never really delights in magic. There's none of that euphoric sense of wonder that in Rowling's universe can be found in everything from Chocolate Frogs to Quidditch. Despite the passage I quoted above, Quentin is often desperately unhappy.

Wasn't there a spell for making yourself happy? Somebody must have invented one. How could he have missed it? Why didn't they teach it?

And then he graduates. Imagine the world of Harry Potter if there had been no Voldemort. Sounds idyllic, perhaps, but magic often requires epic, good-versus-evil confrontation. In Quentin's world there are too many magicians and not enough monsters. Quentin encountered one, known only as the Beast*, during a classroom spell gone awry. But after Brakebills, cushioned by a private fund set aside for young magicians, Quentin is aimless. He joins some other Brakebills alums in New York City, then spends his nights spiraling out of control and his days recovering. His unhappiness, never long absent, begins to engulf him.

The world shifts again. Quentin gets proof that, against all odds, Fillory is real. Surely, this will be it: the one thing that can really make him happy. But Fillory, it turns out, is nothing like Quentin imagined.

Quentin is a difficult character. I often found him unsympathetic, but I also found him to be quite realistic in his reactions to the world around him. And one afternoon, feeling grumpy after a long day at work, I pulled out The Magicians and sympathized with Quentin immensely. So perhaps it just depends on your mood. It's really not a happy novel, though. Well-realized? Yes. Clever? Absolutely. Happy? Not in the slightest. Bear that in mind.

I realize I haven't touched at all on the other characters in the novel. I thought Grossman assembled an interesting bunch, particularly brainy, quiet Alice and arch, oft-drunken Eliot. I sometimes wondered how the story might have played from their perspectives.

I am someone who, after disliking Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on first read, rediscovered it after loving the film adaptation; I then complained when the follow-up film wasn't dark enough to suit me**. In other words, after a rough transition to Rowling's darker world, I preferred it that way, and found the early gee-whiz aspect a bit childish. (No real complaint, though, they are children's books, and I love them.) I thought I would love a darker, more adult twist on Potter. Instead, though I did like The Magicians, I gained a new appreciation of Rowling's sense of whimsy. Interesting book, in the end, and certainly one that left me thinking afterward.

Up next: So excited to have Nemesis, Jo Nesbø's follow-up to The Redbreast!

*It's worth noting that The Beast is insanely terrifying and one of the best aspects of the book. Scary stuff.

**See, I'm a sucker for muddying the Potter world up a bit. Like this video, which is a montage of clips from the films set to "The Funeral" by Band of Horses. Oh so nerdy, and I love it - especially when the drums kick in and it all goes to hell.

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

Not one of us descended those stairs having come to the conclusion that life was a beautiful and precious thing; if anything, we were slightly more miserable on the way down than on the way up, because the only solution we had found for our various predicaments was not available to us, at least for the moment. And there had been a sort of weird nervous excitement up on the roof; for a couple of hours we had been living in a sort of independent state, where street-level laws no longer applied. Even though our problems had driven us up there, it was as if they had somehow, like Daleks, been unable to climb the stairs. And now we had to go back down and face them again.

-A Long Way Down

Four people on a rooftop, contemplating suicide. A a scandal-plagued television presenter, a foul-mouthed teenage girl, a never-was wannabe rock star, and a woman caring for her profoundly disabled adult son. Their problems vary, but they've all arrived at the same conclusion: they need to jump. They need to end their lives.

Hardly sounds like the premise for the most cheerful of novels, does it? The thing of it is, though: they don't jump. They don't leave the rooftop having come to an epiphany, nor do they necessarily feel even a tiny bit happier (as demonstrated in the passage* I excerpted). But they don't jump, and that's a start.

I can't say I was particularly enamored of any of the four main characters (the story alternates between all four parts of view). Jess, the teenager, was the most annoying - which is not to say she wasn't realistic. They all were, even if I found the American J.J.'s slang to be somewhat affected and silly-sounding (an over-reliance on "man" and "dude," which, I'll admit, is not impossible for an American). In general, Hornby portrays four pretty plausibly depressed people. Doesn't mean you necessarily want to spend any more time with them than you're given, though.

While it is about depressed people, I wouldn't call A Long Way Down a depressing book at all. It has its entertaining moments, though I would say it has at least as many when I was just annoyed at Jess. Really bothersome character, that one - one of those who says and does whatever she wants, no matter how it might affect others. It shows a core of self-loathing, no doubt, which makes her intermittently sympathetic, but man**, would she be annoying in real life. It's certainly a realistic-seeming idea of how depression could manifest; I thought Hornby was particularly successful in drawing distinct depressions for each of his characters.

Hornby is a good writer, but I feel this is the least engaging of his books that I've read so far***. I think this is partially based on how I feel about the characters, but also because of the plot, which basically follows their improbable time together. Although I think Hornby does an admirable job of avoiding any quick fixes for the characters, the plot still seems rather awkward (particularly the angel bit, for anyone who's read it). I can't see myself revisiting this one, but it certainly hasn't put me off looking into his other books in the future.

Up next: I've started the first Wallander mystery (my third), Faceless Killers. I was so engrossed in it coming home from work that I missed my subway stop. Whoops! (Excellent sign for how good the book is so far, however.)

*I did pick this passage because of the Daleks, yes. It's just such a great image, using those terrifying little pepper pots to represent someone's problems.

**Yes, I realize I am using "man" in an entry where I speculated that Hornby had overused it when in the speech of his American character. Oh well.

***And I've read quite a few: High Fidelity, About a Boy, Fever Pitch, The Polysyllabic Spree, and his story "NippleJesus." (The Polysyllabic Spree is a month-by-month account of all the books he reads, so, naturally, I loved it.)

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

"I just wanted to say to him, 'Oh my god, Chris - you don't work here anymore. Give the fund-raiser ads up. Leave the building. Proofread your own frickin' resume!['] But my God," she said, "he wouldn't stop talking. He says to me, 'Can you believe I can't stop working in my head? I keep working and working and working - isn't that sick and twisted?' Well, yeah. Yeah it's sick and twisted. You don't work here anymore! But I didn't say that. I was trying to be nice. I do try to be nice sometimes. So even though he didn't know my name I went on proofreading his stupid resume, which had so many mistakes. How did we ever hire that guy to be a copywriter? I'm pointing them out to him, all these misspellings and typos and things, when he says, totally out of the blue - I mean, I have no idea where this comes from. I know something's wrong, though, because he's not talking talking talking, he's just looking at me, so I look up from his resume and I says [sic], 'What?' and he says, 'It'll happen to you, too, you know. Don't think that it won't.' And I says, 'What will happen to me?' 'Getting fired,' he says.

-Then We Came to the End

Then We Came to the End tells the story of a group of people working at a Chicago advertising agency whose glory days have come and gone. With only one pro bono campaign to work on, they have a lot of free time nowadays. Time to gossip and tell stories, as long as the boss is out of sight. And, more importantly, time to manufacture a sense of busyness and importance; an illusion of being a valuable member of the team instead of someone terrified that he'll be the next to "walk Spanish" - popular office parlance for getting fired.

There's no one main character in Then We Came to the End; rather, there's a company of players that the reader comes to know in the same shallow and yet sometimes oddly specific ways that one might know a coworker. You know what she has for lunch every day, maybe, but not what she's like for the 2/3 (hopefully) of her day that she's not at work. The entire story is told in the first person plural, creating the illusion that you're part of the team - this is our office, these are our coworkers, and these are our shared stories and aspirations and fears. They're not, of course, but they're close enough that anyone in the working world will recognize them.

I've heard Then We Came to the End described as a funny book - a literary version of The Office. I don't think funny is the right word (with apologies to Nick Hornby, who describes it as such in his blurb), but it's certainly entertaining. The style is breezy and conversational - with the exception of a rather different middle passage that will make sense by the book's end - and it's easy to get wrapped up in the minutiae of this world. I particularly admired Ferris's ability to transition from an event to a character's retelling of that event to a coworker (such as Marcia's story about Chris, part of which is included as the excerpt at the top of this post). Ferris juggles a lot in terms of characters, subplots, and chronology, but everything stays aloft and I thought things came to a fitting conclusion.

Next up: About halfway through Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down. I have mixed feelings about it so far, so it will be interesting to see how it progresses.

Drood by Dan Simmons

In this manuscript (which, I have explained - for legal reasons as well as for reasons of honour - I intend to seal away from all eyes after his death and my own), I shall answer the question which perhaps no one else alive in our time knew to ask - "Did the famous and loveable and honourable Charles Dickens plot to murder an innocent person and dissolve away his flesh in a pit of caustic lime and secretly inter what was left of him, mere bones and skull, in the crypt of an ancient cathedral that was an important part of Dickens's own childhood? And did Dickens then scheme to scatter the poor victim's spectacles, rings, stickpins, shirt studs, and pocket watch in the River Thames? And if so, or even if Dickens only dreamed he did these things, what part did a very real phantom named Drood have in the onset of such madness?"

-Drood

When I read the excerpt above, which is in the first few pages of Drood, I was left gaping - then smiling. A novel in which Charles Dickens is a potential murderer? Certainly a promising premise for a Dickens fan such as myself. The manuscript that is mentioned, which forms the substance of the novel Drood, is framed as the work of real-life author Wilkie Collins, a contemporary of Dickens. In his day, magazines containing serialized versions of Collins's books, such as The Moonstone*, actually outsold issues that featured Dickens, although it is my impression that Dickens was both more critically acclaimed and more popularly beloved. Collins, though, could tell a ripping good tale.

In Drood, Collins is not doing so well. In terms of his stories, yes, he's on the top of his game. But he's consuming more and more laudanum to deal with bouts of rheumatic gout, and his domestic situation is growing ever more fraught with tension. Plus, there's the pesky side-effect of all that laudanum: paranoid delusions (or are they?), such as his doppelgänger (whom he calls the Other Wilkie), which make him a decidedly unreliable narrator.

Collins is also increasingly unhappy with his relationship with the man who is publicly considered to be his mentor, Dickens. I'm surprised that I was almost all the way through the novel before I thought to compare their relationship to that of Salieri and Mozart in Amadeus, a film I love. Like Mozart, Dickens basks in praise while his fellow artist (Salieri/Collins) stews, becoming increasingly agitated by his perceived lack of respect. It does make me a bit uncomfortable to see a real person portrayed in this way - in Amadeus, Salieri is painted as a would-be murderer, which is unsubstantiated by history; similarly, Collins...well, I won't give that away, but needless to say, if this is how Wilkie Collins ends up being remembered, it's far from flattering (to put it mildly). All the same, I was actually quite sympathetic to Collins, despite some of his more egregious behavior (and it is pretty egregious) and his attacks on Bleak House (the nerve!).

One probably could have written a novel about Collins and Dickens that didn't involve the supernatural, but Dan Simmons invented the monster called Drood. I hesitate to say too much about the devilish Drood, because a novel of suspense is naturally weakened by an early revelation of too many details. I will say that Drood involves mesmerism, a creepy section of London known as Undertown, an enormous detective named Hibbert Hatchery**, and scarab beetles. My God, the scarab beetles. There was a certain point when I realized that my internal monologue while reading some scenes was along the lines of Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. One of the opening scenes in particular, which describes the aftermath of a train disaster Dickens survived at Staplehurst, is incredibly vivid and intense. Simmons certainly does know how to ratchet up the tension - if I hadn't been simultaneously working on NaNoWriMo, I certainly would have been flipping Drood's pages far more quickly.

There is the matter of length, by the way: Drood is nearly 800 pages long. I must say, I can't imagine keeping a novel of such length and complexity together, not to mention actually pulling off a satisfactory ending, as I think Simmons did. I also admire the way that things were resolved with sufficient ambiguity, which leaves one with a fair amount to mull over after finishing the story (although there's at least one bit I wish were a little tidier). There was a certain point, though, about 200 pages from the end of the book, when I rather wished I was done with it. Not that I wanted to put it down, just that I would have been satisfied had the novel reached a conclusion by that point. That having been said, this feeling may have been influenced by the dream team of books that I have acquired recently***, which are just calling out to be read.

Speaking of...Up next: It was difficult to decide, but I went with the 4th Sookie Stackhouse, which has quite the juicy premise - Eric has amnesia! You've gotta love it - or, actually, I suppose you don't have to, but I for one appreciate a good amnesiac vampire yarn.

*Unlike many people, I suspect, I actually have read The Moonstone. Sadly, I really don't remember any of it. (Sorry, Wilkie!)

**One does imagine that Dickens would be proud of that one - it actually is a spin on his own Dick Datchery from The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

***The 4th Sookie Stackhouse, a Wallander mystery, and the latest Jackson Brodie novel from Kate Atkinson. Terrifically exciting lineup for me.