Review #3: A Land More Kind Than Home, by Wiley Cash

The library bookstore is my secret addiction. I don't get to go often (at least, not in my county, what with the powers that be cutting library hours to a ridiculous degree), but when I do go, I load up. And I would say that of the books I pick up, I have about a 50% success rate. I donate the rest back, which results in a vicious circle where I've been known to re-buy previous rejects. (Yeah, I know.) Anyway, of that 50% success rate, about half of those are guilty pleasure romance novels that are easily read but easily forgotten, and the other half are knock it out of the park fantastic finds. A Land More Kind than Home is one of the latter.

Set in the shadows of the North Carolina mountains in the mid-1980s, the novel is told from three different first-person perspectives: a nine-year-old boy, the town's midwife, and the middle aged county sheriff. It shouldn't work, but it does, and it does so beautifully. Each narrator has a different thread of the same story, and Cash deftly weaves the tale together, sometimes veering off in to the past, but never in a rambling way (I'm looking at you, Richard Russo). Cash allows the climax of the story to begin in the sheriff's voice, and then at the last minute, smoothly hands it over to the young boy, simultaneously softening the blow of the novel's penultimate scene and devastating the reader even more than had the reader witnessed it from the sheriff's perspective.

I want to be careful what I say about the story, because I fear that even a summary will give too many things away, and this is a novel you need to just immerse yourself in and let the words, and the story, wash over you. This is a tale of a small southern town, its residents ripped apart by a young boy's needless death, a nefarious and shady preacher man, a sheriff haunted by twenty-year-old grief, and an old man left with nothing but a second chance. I would compare Cash to Tom Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter) or John Hart (The Last Child), and A Land More Kind Than Home is a powerful addition to Southern literature.

I've heard it said before that those who don't learn from the past are bound to repeat it, and I just don't know what I think about that. I figure I don't have too much use for it. The past will just weigh on you if you spend too much time remembering.

Review #7: Descent, by Tim Johnston

Boss read Descent about a year ago and praised it quite a bit, but I dismissed it because the way he described it didn't really hold my interest. He gave me the basic premise and just kept telling me that it was good, but I wasn't in the market for a mystery or a thriller, and so I shrugged it off as we tend to not always have the same taste in books. But then I was at Barnes & Noble recently, and nothing else was really doing it for me, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

And boy, was it worth it. 

Descent is the story of the Courtland family - husband Grant, wife Angela, and children Caitlin and Sean - who are in the Rocky Mountains for a last family vacation before Caitlin leaves for college. Caitlin is a championship runner, and early one morning she goes for a long run in the mountain with Sean trailing on his bike. Shortly afterwards, Grant gets a call that Sean has been found injured on the side of the road. Caitlin is nowhere to be found. Immediately the search party goes out, but she is gone.

Caitlin's disappearance tears in to the fabric of the family in countless ways. Grant refuses to leave Colorado, and eventually, the sheriff installs him in the guest house on his father's ranch, although the reader is never quite sure whether Grant is supposed to be caring for the invalid father, or whether the father is supposed to be keeping an eye on Grant. After recovering from his injuries, Sean leaves school and winds up hitchhiking back and forth across the country, going dark for months before surfacing again to his father, and then taking off again. And Angela, back home at her sister's while Grant remains in California, lets go of reality a little bit more every day. 

Johnston's writing is tense and powerful, both in the heart-racing moments and in the quiet afterwards of the destruction that gets played out over and over again on the page, and more than once I found myself letting out a breath I didn't know I was holding. The word gut-wrenching can be used to describe more than a handful of scenes, and it would have been easy to overdo that, but Johnston plays it exactly perfectly, This is a raw and emotional novel. If I have one quibble, it's this: SPOILER - I didn't love the way he redeemed the no-good brother of the sheriff, but I'm also not sure what else he could have done with those scenes. 

“One speck of difference in the far green sameness and he would stare so hard his vision would slur and his heart would surge and he would have to force himself to look away—Daddy, she’d said—and he would take his skull in his hands and clench his teeth until he felt the roots giving way and the world would pitch and he would groan like some aggrieved beast and believe he would retch up his guts, organs and entrails and heart and all, all of it wet and gray and steaming at his feet and go ahead, he would say into this blackness, go ahead god damn you.” 

Read this. But don't go running in the mountains any time soon.

Review #36: The Last Child

This came to me from JB, who has an affinity for coming-of-age stories, and although this mystery certainly doesn't seem like one on the surface, I can't think of a better way to categorize it.

A year ago, twelve year old Alyssa Merrimon disappeared, seen being pulled in to a van by Jack Cross, the son of a local policeman. Alyssa's father, feeling responsible for the disappearance because he was late picking her up, runs off shortly afterward. Alyssa's mother, unable to cope with the disappearance of her daughter and the subsequent abandonment by her husband, turns inward, relying on booze and pills to get her through the day, making her very easy prey for a manipulative and abusive former boyfriend. And Alyssa's twin brother Johnny is left to desperately hold the pieces of his family together and bring his sister home.

Convinced that Alyssa is still alive, Johnny scours the county for her, stalking the registered sex offenders, determined to find her. Running parallel to Johnny is Detective Clyde Hunt, the lead detective on Alyssa's case. Johnny's gotten under Hyde's skin - the whole family has, really - but he's no closer to finding Alyssa than Johnny is.

Then, on the anniversary of Alyssa's kidnapping, another girl goes missing, and Johnny's actions set off a chain of events that will change countless lives.

I can't stress enough how much I enjoyed this book, and more than that, how well crafted it was. Mystery novels are often described as "chilling" or "gripping" or "shocking" or having "edge of your seat drama". All of those phrases seem trite, but they are absolutely accurate in regard to The Last Child. Johnny's story grabbed me from the beginning and didn't let go, and as the novel wore on, the faster I read it, both frantic to get to the next page and reluctant to reach the end. It's extraordinarily rare to find a mystery novel that keeps the reader guessing until the very end, and even more so to find one that so skillfully introduces a B story that surprises the reader as well. Hunt's characters are well drawn, and Johnny - described by one reviewer as "an amalgam of Opie Taylor and Scout Finch with a hint of Huck Finn" (Raleigh News & Observer) - is a boy who will stay with me for a long time to come. This is easily one of my favorite books of the year.

Review #35: Landline, by Rainbow Rowell

I've been sitting on this review for a while because I'm not really sure how I feel about this book. (Well, that, plus I'm lazy. And real life keeps interrupting. And the Kid wants food, like, every day, and Boss expects me to be sort of productive at work, so... book reviews tend to fall to the wayside at times.) In any event, I'm not sure how I feel about Landline. I loved Attachments, which was my first Rowell book, and I feel that if you didn't love Eleanor & Park, you just aren't human. But Landline... I don't know.

By now you know the synopsis. TV writer Georgie McCool and her BFF from college Seth finally have an opportunity to get their own show, the way they want it, which is an opportunity they've been waiting for for years. The only hitch: they have to knock out several episodes in under a couple of weeks, and it falls right over the Christmas holidays, and right over the time where Georgie, her husband Neal, and their two daughters are supposed to be at Neal's mom's house in Omaha. Georgie feels like she needs to stay behind and realize her dream, and Neal takes the girls to Omaha without her. Unsteady and unsure of the state of her marriage, Georgie begins to teeter emotionally and winds up at her mom's house, where she plugs in her old landline phone to call Neal... and when she does, she reaches the Neal of the past, before they were married, before kids and jobs and the history of a million little hurts came between them.

It's an interesting concept, this magical phone, and it's a testament to Rowell's clever writing that at no point does the reader ever say, "What the hell? A magical phone???" You just sort of buy in to it, and you have to know that there's no explanation ever given for this phone, by the way, which sort of irked me, but at the same time, it's a fiction novel, and I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for a little while because it's Rainbow and I love Rainbow (in a totally non-stalker way of course).

At times, it feels like there's nothing really wrong in Georgie and Neal's marriage. Nobody cheated, nobody is running around lying or spending money they don't have. There's just a general malaise. Georgie feels unimportant and unnecessary, and Neal feels unappreciated. But sometimes, that general malaise can be more devastating to a relationship than the nuclear bomb of something like an affair. It's more insidious, I think, and sometimes, I wonder if it's harder to undo. At times, I wanted to grab Georgie and scream at her, telling her she has to realize how unhappy Neal is, and ask how she could possibly choose her career over her family like that. But then I'd think, well, men do that all the time, and nobody would expect Neal to be there Christmas morning if the roles were reversed, so why shouldn't she get to chase her dream? And I got very frustrated with Neal: he made the decision to stay home, to take the role of the primary parent, and if he is unhappy in that role, then it's time to have a conversation with Georgie about it. But he's trying, in his way, to be the supportive spouse, to help her realize her dream, and so he gets points for that.

There are no clear winners here. If Georgie gives up her dream of this show to stay home with Neal and the kids and have a more "normal" existence, then she's giving up something she's wanted for years. And if she chases her dream, she risks losing Neal, the kids, and everything she thought she wanted. And it doesn't appear that there's a compromise available, at least not right now. Because we all know how it goes. One spouse promises that it will "only be for a year", but that one year turns in to two, turns in to seven, and before you know it, you're ships passing in the night, and you can't stand each other, and the marriage goes out not with a bang, but with a whimper. So how do you fix that? Can you fix that? Do you even want to? Or is this just how it's supposed to be? 

I don't know the answer to that. My marriage went out with a bang, not a whimper, but if I'm honest, there was some whimpering before the final implosion. So I'm definitely not the expert here. And I don't think Georgie is either. Actually, I know Georgie isn't, and neither is Neal. Maybe none of us are.

I've written and rewritten this review a hundred times. (Not really a hundred. But a lot.) And I still don't know how I feel about it. A Cannonball reviewer I read awhile ago (and I can't find it now, of course) said recently that a book hit too close to home for her to be objective abut it, and I think maybe that's my problem with Landline. It hit too close to home, but in subtle ways. I certainly am not a show runner, and my former husband is definitely no Neal, but some of the underlying angst and resentment that they felt...I quite identified with that. Maybe Landline just picked at old wounds. I still love Rainbow, but I don't think I'll revisit this one.

Review #34: When I Found You, by Catherine Ryan Hyde

I snagged When I Found You from JB's bookshelf. The book had been a gift from someone, and the inscription inside mentioned that it was a story about true unconditional love. And it is. When I Found You is a story about the bonds between humans, about the unspoken connection we sometimes find in other people, about the strength and patience it takes to love someone, even (and especially) when they are most unlovable.

Accountant Nathan McCann is out duck hunting one chilly fall morning when he and his dog stumble across the body of an infant, wrapped in a sweater and wearing a tiny knit cap, at the base of a tree. Shocked, Nathan assumes at first that the baby is dead, but then notices movement, and as carefully and quickly as possible leaves his shotgun behind and rushes to the hospital. The doctors don't give the baby good odds - he's brand new and it was a cold night - but the baby survives, and Nathan tells his wife he wants to adopt him. His wife flatly refuses, although his desires are rendered moot when the boy's grandmother steps in. Nathan makes the grandmother promise to keep him apprised of the baby's progress, and the grandmother reluctantly agrees, even naming the child Nat in a sort of homage to his savior.

Fifteen years go by, years that see Nathan burying his wife, and checking on Nat, delivering presents on his birthday and Christmas, but never making contact with the boy until one day, the grandmother appears on Nathan's doorstep with Nat, saying that she is washing her hands of him, and surrendering him to Nathan. Nathan simply opens the door wider, pulling Nat in to the house, as the grandmother drives away without so much as a backward glance. Nat is understandably angry, sullen, and scared. He's a fifteen year old boy who has been lied to and abandoned, not just at birth, but again at fifteen, and so he retreats in to himself. Nathan, for his part, is woefully unprepared to deal with Nat's needs, particularly in the first fragile moments, but he approaches the situation with the same calm resolve that he approaches everything else in life. And as Nat grows - often with two steps forward and three steps back - Nathan is there to guide him every step of the way, with his simple advice and his steady heart.

Nathan is an extraordinarily patient man. He loves Nat in the way that parents love their children: inexplicably, and with every single breath. Nat, in the way of teenagers everywhere, throws that love back at him, testing him at every turn, but Nathan is steady, unwavering, and even when a Nat experiences a life-changing event - more than one, actually - Nathan is there. This could have easily turned in to a sappy Hallmark story, full of wise words from Nathan and wise-ass moves from Nat. "Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates," and all that nonsense. But Hyde deftly avoids the Very Special Episode Syndrome and instead gives the reader a story that feels honest and true, and she doesn't shy away from the ugliness that happens when we hurt the ones we love.

Someone once told me that having children is like having someone break your heart in to a million pieces every day, and every day, picking it up, giving it back to them, saying, "Again". To be fair, it's not always like that. Lots of times it's perfectly nice having a child, and lots of times it's about the most awesome experience in the world, but there are also times - many, many times - that my heart has been shattered, and I have picked it up, given it back to the Kid, and whispered, "Again". When I Found You is Nat, breaking Nathan's heart over and over again, and Nathan, picking up the pieces and saying, "Again".

Read this. Have tissues. Lots and lots of tissues.

Review #28: The Giant's House, by Elizabeth McCracken

This book. Oh, this lovely, quiet, little book that wormed its way in to my heart and left me weeping. 

Peggy Cort is the librarian of a small Cape Cod tourist town in the 1950s. She's the very definition of a spinster in her brown tweed and sensible shoes. She's lonely, weary with it, resigned to it, defined by it. "Socks mate for life," she says sadly, and in those words, the reader understands perfectly how desperately Peggy wants to be loved. And then one day, James Sweatt, eleven years old, walks in to her library on a field trip, and her life changes in that instant. James is big - Peggy has heard talk of the boy around town - but until she sees him, over six feet tall at that age, she doesn't realize just how big he really is. And James is a true giant; by the end of the book he is well over eight feet tall.

The novel spans nine years or so, from James' introduction to Peggy at eleven until his death at age twenty. (Don't worry - I'm not giving anything away. Peggy tells us he dies in the first page.) Over those nine years, Peggy manages to forge a friendship with James' mother, the ethereal Mrs. Sweatt, his aunt Caroline and uncle Oscar, and finally, with James himself. She inserts herself into their lives, their family, until she is a necessary part of it, like an important limb that after a time they cannot imagine themselves without. James comes to depend upon Peggy to be his friend, his personal librarian, his company late at night, his traveling companion, his advocate. And Peggy, with all her loneliness, falls into a weird sort of love with James, one she knows she can't act on, one that she isn't sure she wants to act on. James dies, of course - the human body isn't meant to sustain the kind of growth that James experienced - and Peggy is left alone again, locked in her grief and denial.

Can I tell you something? It wasn't so bad. Not so bad at all right then, me scowling at the dirt, James in his bed, the way it always always was. Look, if that's all that happened, if his dying just meant that I would be waiting for him to say something instead of listening to him say something, it would have been fine.

It's difficult to discuss parts of this book without spoiling it, so I'll just say that I had many mixed emotions. There were times I felt that Peggy was wholly inappropriate, a master manipulator, preying on a weakened Mrs. Sweatt and taking advantage of their family. But then there were times I felt that Peggy was just sad, lonely, and so desperate for any semblance of family and love that she intentionally sought out this quirky, strange family, knowing that she herself was quirky and strange, and therefore, they would have no choice but to accept her. On the whole, I felt sorry for Peggy, mourned her loneliness, but then grew angry at some of her behavior after James' death, declaring it selfish and manipulative, but then felt that maybe she had been taken advantage of, and was just trying to make the best of a sad situation. I simultaneously loved Peggy, hated her, and felt sorry for her. And truly, I felt that way about most of the characters, which I think is at least part of what makes this book so extraordinary. 

For years I'd waited for someone to love me: that was the permission I needed to fall in love myself, as though I were a pin sunk deep in a purse, waiting for a magnet to prove me metal. When that did not happen, I'd thought of myself as unlovable....It was this I'd waited for all my life: a love that would make me useful, a love that would occupy all my time.

Review #26: The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

Somehow, I escaped high school without ever having read The Catcher in the Rye. I'm not sure how, since it feels like we read every other book in the world. Maybe the nuns weren't crazy about old Holden Caulfield. And strangely, while I have always been aware of Holden, I never really knew his story.

So I embarked on what is arguably Salinger's best known, and most divisive, work without having any idea what to expect. The novel opens just before Christmas, with Holden at Pencey Prep, a boarding school for boys in Pennsylvania. Holden has just discovered that he's been kicked out of Pencey, which is his fourth school in the last couple of years. Unwilling to go straight home, he makes his goodbyes around the school and then boards the train to Manhattan, where he plans on bumming around for a few days before eventually returning to his parents.

Holden looks up old friends - as much as he can call these acquaintances friends - old girlfriends, and old teachers. Each scene is uncomfortable and strange - for various reasons - but I got the sense that Holden never thought that he was the strange one. And to some degree, I never really did either, although with Holden as the narrator, the veracity of each encounter is relatively unreliable. Eventually, Holden decides he can't go home and begins to plan to run away somewhere "out West", but he must see his younger sister Phoebe first. He devises a plan to meet her at the Museum of Art, where they argue about her coming with him - Holden is understandably opposed but Phoebe is a surprisingly mighty foe -  and they wind up at the zoo, with Phoebe riding the carousel and Holden watching as the rain pours down on top of him. The short epilogue finds Holden in a mental hospital and Salinger wraps up Holden's narrative in a few short, terse sentences. He suddenly sounds tired and bored with the story, ready to move on to something else, and so he's done. 

That's the short version, but the longer version involves lots of teenage boy bravado, more than one physical altercation, and several moments where Salinger painted  Manhattan - as much a character as any living person in the book - with such a vivid brush that I could picture myself standing in the rain in Manhattan, smelling the exhaust fumes from the traffic and the cigarette smoke from the bars Holden haunted. There is also a very uncomfortable scene with a former teacher that hints at the possibility of molestation, but in true Holden fashion, he tells it very matter-of-factly, and then moves on to the next part. Perhaps the sections I enjoyed most were his musings on the opposite sex, which made him seem so very boyish to me, this young man trying desperately not only to figure out people, but women, who I'm sure he, like many boys his age, regards as the world's greatest mystery.

I've read bits and pieces about Catcher over the years. Teenagers, in all their angsty glory, love it. Many adults find Holden insufferable. Everyone has an opinion: he's having a nervous breakdown, he's just selfish and self-absorbed, the writing is brilliant, the writing is bad. Google Holden Caulfield or Catcher in the Rye and one can spend days reading all kinds of theories on what it all means, where the ducks go in the winter, what the true meaning behind the mummies in the museum is. But, and I've said this before, I don't want to dissect every nuanced word. I did that enough in junior year English, with a teacher I will never forget, who marked my answer wrong on a Jane Eyre quiz because I answered true on this true or false question: Jane ripped the bridal veil to shreds in the attic. Turns out, she only ripped in half, and the ripping in half Meant Something Big, so I got it wrong. Not that I'm still bitter about something that happened more than twenty years ago. Ahem. Anyway, I digress.

I don't think Holden was having a nervous breakdown. Honestly, Holden reminded me a lot of Don Tillman (The Rosie Project) and Christopher (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time). His difficulty reading people, his inability to recognize social cues, even the abruptness of the ending...it's hard to not draw comparisons to those characters. And I think when you couple those characteristics with the usual difficulties of being a teenager and magnify them for the purpose of a book, it makes sense that you wind up with someone like Holden Caulfield. Autism and Asperger's were certainly not words that were common in Salinger's day - cursory research tells me that those terms were still in their infancy when Catcher was published - but all throughout Holden's narrative, that was all I could think about. Holden's mind is busybusybusy, bouncing from one idea to the next, and at times it was exhausting. I can't imagine how it must have felt for Holden, and, by extension, Salinger.

Whether Holden was mentally ill, whether he had an undiagnosed disorder, and where the Central Park ducks go in the winter are questions for the English teachers. All I know is that Catcher is indeed a part of American literature, and while it may not be everyone's cup of tea, everyone should discover Holden's story. And if you read it years ago, maybe it's time to revisit it. The more I think about it, the more I think I loved this book, so thanks, JB.

Review #19: Father and Son, by Larry Brown

Set in rural 1960s Mississippi, Father and Son spans a week in a small town after one of their own, Glen Davis, returns from three years in the state penitentiary for running over and killing a young boy while driving drunk. Glen is angry, furious, and the reader senses immediately that this is not a man who has learned his lesson. He's hard-edged, cold and disconnected, and there is no redeeming quality in him.

Glen returns to an elderly father intent on drinking himself to death, a former lover, Jewel, for whom he has very little feelings, a bastard four year old son for whom he has even less, his sainted dead mother's unmarked grave, a hero-worshipping, no account little brother, and Bobby, the sheriff of the town. Glen's hatred of Bobby is more than the natural hatred a criminal has for a lawman, and Brown lets it slip, in a very unobtrusive way, that Bobby's mother and Glen's father once had an affair, and Bobby is the product of that union.

The town is as much a character as the humans, with its run down houses, tiny general store, steamy afternoons, even sun bleached cotton fields. Everyone chain smokes, drinks whiskey, drives with no seat belts, and has a six pack of Old Milwaukee on the bench seat. Young boys are going off to war with stars in their eyes, and it's nearly certain that they'll be returning with those stars burned out, if they return at all. It's a town that is slowly dying, with men eking out a living on dry and dusty farms and women donning polyester waitress uniforms and trying desperately to make ends meet.

Within hours of his return, Glen has assaulted, killed, raped, and robbed, and Brown deftly weaves his actions in with other, more mundane stories of the town and its inhabitants. Sheriff Bobby follows Glen's trail, sorting through the chaos left in his wake, the white knight to Glen's raping and pillaging. Glen rails against his place in this world, even as he clings to it with all his might, so consumed with rage that he is doomed to self destruct. Bobby could have easily been painted as an aw shucks, Andy Griffith kind of sheriff, but he, too, is human and flawed, and quietly, desperately, wants to do the right thing.

Father and Son was a tough read for me. Glen was such a dark character - and the town was so depressing - that I found myself having to step away from the book for a couple of days, needing something light and funny to offset the clouds that had suddenly appeared when reading this. I'm glad I returned though, and I'll be looking for more from Brown in the future.

Review #18: When All the World Was Young, by Ferrol Sams

When All the World Was Young came to me via JB, and I think know why. It's exactly the kind of book he likes - kind of a meandering, character-driven novel that doesn't really have a story, per se, but is more about the human experience.

This is the third installment from Ferrol Sams in a loose trilogy, although it's not necessary to have read the first two (Run with the Horseman and The Whisper of the River). Porter Longstreet Osborne, Jr. is the first of his family to have gone to college and is just about to start medical school at Emory University. It's 1942, and World War II has broken out, so like many colleges and universities across the country, Emory has accelerated its curriculum, and Porter is starting medical school at 19, destined to become a doctor by 22. He survives his first year, but is frustrated at being stuck at home while the war rages on without him. Porter deliberately throws a final exam, failing, and by getting kicked out of the medical program, he's able to join the army, where he is sure that he will be scooped up and put to use immediately in the European theatre.

Porter is stuck stateside for far longer than he anticipated, but eventually makes it overseas, coming ashore at Normandy in the weeks after the famous June 6th invasion. From there he criss-crosses Europe, running in to old medical school friends and basic training buddies, half falling in love with army nurses and French women, playing pranks on commanding officers. There's one running prank in the book about an invented soldier that plays out many times over several hundred pages, and it's a testament to Sams' gifted writing that the threads of that prank were woven so neatly in to the story, coming back up when least expected.

Sams tackles some fairly big topics: racism (both of the small Southern town variety and the veiled xenophobia of the era), feminism, classism, family relationships, the transition from boyhood to adulthood, the idea of family and home. But he does it deftly, so that the ideas that he explores are part of the story and not necessarily Topics To Discuss. Porter struggles with all these, and more, and yet manages to keep his sense of humor, his sense of childlike fun, and his sense of self and home and family. Post reading research reveals an awful lot of similarities between Porter and Sams, who himself was a small town Georgia boy, a country doctor who dropped out of medical school to join the army. If real life Sams was anything like what I think Porter eventually became, I'll bet he was quite a guy.

Review #8: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

I've never read Cormac McCarthy, even though he's on all the Must Read lists. And I've never seen No Country For Old Men, despite the fact that I would probably watch Javier Bardeem watch paint dry. It seemed very Western to me, and Westerns aren't really my thing, The Road isn't really my thing either - let's not forget I'm the same girl who read Beautiful Bastard, not once, but twice - but sometimes you have to read smart books, and McCarthy is definitely on that list.

The Road centers around the man and the boy - no names here, for names are wholly unimportant - making their way down a literal road in a trek to the sea. It feels like they're in America, but it's an America unlike anything we know now. It's cold, it's grey, it's snowing, and there is nothing left. Quite literally, nothing. No power, no food, no people, nothing. Their destination is the coast, with the man telling the boy that if they could just get to the sea, they may be able to get to some sort of salvation and maybe find other survivors, the "good guys". But the man doesn't know that for sure; in fact, he has no idea what they will find there, but he knows that to stay put means certain death.

But there are shadowy dangers along the way. Other people, the cold, the snow, lack of food, lack of water, lack of shelter, lack of humanity threatens their survival. The man and boy are often forced to hide in woods underneath trees that will never turn green, or along the banks of icy rivers, huddled under plastic tarps, desperate for warmth. Added to this, the man has a mysterious cough, tinged pink with blood, and although he tried to hide it from the boy, it soon becomes clear that he is training the boy for life after he is gone.

McCarthy never details what catastrophic event led to the destruction of the entire world. I assume a nuclear bomb, but I have trouble imagining the whole country - or possibly the whole world - affected by that. I also thought of some sort of climate change event, or perhaps a volcanic eruption, and at one point I even entertained a zombie invasion. My guess is nuclear bomb, but my feeling is also that it doesn't matter what the event is, only that it is.

McCarthy's not easy to read. The emotions that pour off the page and in to the reader are far more complicated than his simple, sparse prose would indicate. I found myself sort of mooning about the house or my office after reading this at lunchtime, in such a melancholy mood at times that Boss asked what was wrong with me. "Reading this book," I said. "Ah," he nodded, in perfect understanding of how a book can affect one's mood. 

The Road is bleak and sad and reeks of loneliness, but there are also pockets - albeit infinitesimally small ones - of hope strewn in there. It's hope that keeps us alive, after all, even in the face of utter destruction, and hope that marches forward.

Review #7: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski

I embarked on reading Edgar, knowing only that it was a story about "a boy and his dog". In fact, in the author's own words: "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a boy and his dog story for grownups. If I were looking for this book, the way I once did, that's all I would want to know. Hide the dust jacket away. Don't look at it again until you close the book for the last time. Read the blurbs afterward, like I do, when I need someone to talk to right away. A novel is a daydream machine. I wish for you a long, slow read, a two-week daydream. A double-life, with dogs."

I'm tempted to not say anything more about this book other than, "Go read it. Read it now," but that's kind of a cop out. I'm also tempted to just link to Stephen King's four paragraphs about this novel, but that's a cop out, too. Maybe all I need to say is that Stephen King wrote four paragraphs recommending a novel. A debut novel. I'm thinking that once Stephen King says he wants to reread your book - and is willing to be quoted as saying that - you have officially arrived.

But I digress, and one cannot just steal Mr. King's words and be done with it.

Edgar Sawtelle, born inexplicably mute, lives an idyllic life on his parents' farm in northern Wisconsin. They raise Sawtelle dogs, a breed first created by Edgar's grandfather, and a mission carried on by Edgar's father Gar, who matches the dogs for breeding and places the pups in their permanent homes, and his mother Trudy, who is tasked with training the unusual animals. Naming the pups falls to Edgar, a job he takes very seriously, carefully marking the kennel dictionary with notes on each dog. Edgar's constant companion is Almondine, a Sawtelle dog herself, who recognizes her job in keeping Edgar safe from the moment he is born. (In fact, some of the best chapters were written from Almondine's almost dream-like perspective.)

Edgar is about fifteen years old when his father's brother returns to the farm, and shortly after that, tragedy strikes the Sawtelle family. The events set in motion that day lead to Edgar running off in the night with three of the yearling pups, and Edgar comes of age surviving on his own in the Wisconsin woods. He eventually returns to the farm at the conclusion of the story, again setting off a chain of events that will forever change the Sawtelle family - and the legacy of the Sawtelle dogs.

Amazon shows very mixed reviews about this debut novel, and I think that's because the ending divided readers. Many felt as though the book was perfect, save for the ending, but I loved the conclusion. (In fact, this was my text to the friend who had given me the book: "Just finished Edgar. Loved it. Like, really loved it. The last few chapters were exquisitely done.") Tied in to the worst-ending-in-the-world sentiment is also a heavy comparison to Hamlet, and that may be why readers were so divided on the ending. (Spoiler alert: it doesn't quite end like Hamlet.) There are similarities to the play, to be sure, but Wroblewski also invokes many other classic stories; The Call of the Wild and Watership Down immediately spring to mind.

But I don't like to read books like I'm reading for my junior year English class, dissecting the symbolism of each blade of grass. Like Wroblewski said, a novel is a daydream machine. And I prefer to daydream about Edgar as a story about a boy and his dog. That boy loved his dog, and that dog loved her boy, and sometimes, that's all that needs to be said.