Karen’s Blog

The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari

I loved this book. I didn’t pick it up right away, as I remember the biblical Book of Job not to be a rollicking good time, and this book also has a dragon on the cover. My brain has a hard time reconciling the two.



Turns out to be an excellent book. It combines a wager between God and Lucifer with Arthurian legend, and is set in present day. But it works, honest! The main characters are three kids who grow up together - Joby Peterson, his best friend Ben, and their friend Laura who becomes the only girl to join their “Knights of the Round Table” club after falling from a tree and breaking her arm trying to be part of the games. Joby bases the club on a book his grandfather gave him on arthurian legends, and they try to do good deeds, and help kids in trouble around school.



Of course Lucifer has his own minions at play, and the book follows the kids as they grow, change, grow apart when they leave high school and come back together as adults after a tragic event in Joby’s life in San Francisco.



The cool part is that these characters are actually Arthur, Lancelot and Gueneviere, but it is done so subtly that they never suspect, and they don’t follow the same paths the original versions did, either.



As for the dragon, well, there’s quite a bit of “magic” that happens, particularly in the town Joby remembers visiting as a child and moves back to, where, unbeknownst to him, they are invisible to Lucifer, and many of the residents are former followers of Lucifer, fallen angels but no longer on his side, or descended from them, so have abilities beyond normal humans.



It’s a long book, over 600 pages, but is amazingly good and complete. It tells the whole story, and is interesting, satisfying and well-written. And not at all pedantic, either, which is cool.



I highly recommend this book to just about anyone who enjoys a good read and something to think about.

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

This book is fascinating if pretty confusing at first. It’s the interwoven tale of a modern young man, raised in a polygamous Mormon sect - the Firsts, as they call themselves, to differentiate from the Latter Day Saints that call themselves Mormons and thrown out when he was a young teenage boy, and history - a fictionalized account of the life of Ann Eliza Young, a historical figure who was born and raised in Mormon church in its early years, who eventually becomes one of the many wives of Brigham Young. Though she counts many more predecessors, she is told she’s his nineteenth wife, and the union is not a happy one.



It is hard at first to figure out what is happening and when. Jordan, the young man, and his dog Elektra travel back to the small desert town where he was raised after his mother - one of many sister wives, is accused of murdering his father. But the book jumps back and forth in time. Ann Eliza’s story - apparently she published an autobiographical account also called The 19th Wife, and lectured widely after leaving both Brigham Young’s house and her marriage is interspersed with Jordan’s. It would be helpful is the chapter heads in this book said “June, 1975″ or “May, Present Day” to give us a clue. Eventually you get the hang of it, but it’s rough going at first.



Both stories are interesting, Jordan, who has made a life for himself as a carpenter in California, has long separated himself from The Firsts. After all, not only is he no longer a believer in their Prophet, he is male, and homosexual. But even after his estrangement, he loves and feels sorry for his mother, and is determined to get her out of the charges for a murder he knows] she could not have committed.



The history part, and Ann Eliza’s tale, are interesting because they are based on actual events, and she was never a rosy, sunny or passive creature. And the novel is interesting on its own as Jordan tries to reconcile his upbringing, what he now knows of the world, and his mother’s current situation and what he can do to change it.



I recommend it to anyone interested in Mormon history, fans of “Big Love” the TV series, or just who has an interest in religion and how it effects people’s lives.

Burning of the Marriage Hat by Margaret Benshoof-Holler






I just read a whole book today - pulled it out of my box of signed books from the 2007 Book Expo. Burning of the Marriage Hat is an odd sort of book. It’s a novel, but doesn’t feel like one. It feels more like a memoir, and I suppose that’s what the author intended.



The main character in the book is Wyoming, and the mind set of the upper plains and small-town America on the dry and windblown northern plains. Okay, the narrator is actually a woman named Katherine, one of four daughters of an abusive marriage, and the family scapegoat. The story is her journey trying to find out the truth about the women in her family, and simultaneously trying to figure out her own life, and her relationship with Cynthia, the daughter she was forced to give up for adoption when, in 1966, she was an unmarried pregnant teenager. She is driving over much of the book to the fictional town of Brown Rock, and worries about the cowboy in the pickup truck who seems to be following her. But the feel of the terrain is ever-present.



Wyoming was the earliest state to give voting rights to women, in an effort to draw more women to move there, but Katherine believes not only did it not work then, but that many of the men of Wyoming today don’t understand women and how to relate to them. It certainly holds true for her own father, and from all reports to her grandfather, who is rumored to have killed her grandmother Naomi when her father was a child.



Bothered by visits from Naomi’s ghost, Katherine travels to the town in Wyoming where Naomi lived and died. The more she learns of her grandparents and their relationships, the abuse and attitudes of the people, the more she wonders how her own choices in life are a result of her family’s difficult and tragic history.



Unlike most novels, there is no neat, tidy ending, just an ending. And in the back is a list of other works on women’s rights, domestic violence and other relevant topics. That’s the only time the book feels like a “Women’s Issues” book - otherwise, it feels like a memoir of a life still unfolding. There’s not a lot of closure, or a big dramatic climax, just a steady unfolding of events and discoveries.



Doesn’t make me want to move to Wyoming, though.

The Only Suspect by Jonnie Jacobs

 
Hmm, can there be any mystery without twins as the answer? Okay, I know, there are plenty, but it seems all-too-common lately.

Anyway, this is a good page-turner, and a classic murder mystery. The main character, Sam Russell, is a doctor in small-town California who wakes up one Sunday morning with his car in a ditch, his wife of two years missing, and he has no memory of the night before.Nothing is as it seems. Sam lost his beloved first wife to a murder years before in Boston. He was accused and went to trial for that murder, but was freed because of one juror. His in-laws never believed his innocence then, and contested the custody of his daughter in a bitter battle. Afterwards, he descended into an alcoholic stupor for a time, but is now sober. His first assumption is that he had been drinking, the only explanation he can come up with for not remembering anything.

As Sam and the local police detectives - one hostile to him, and the other, a sympathetic female who seems to believe him despite herself - try to both find his missing wife, and in Sam’s case, figure out what happened during that blank period, the plot takes turn after turn until near the end you almost want to take notes. As I said, nothing and no one but Sam and his immediate family are who they first seem to be.

A good page-turner if you like mysteries, you’ll like this one! And no, I’m not gonna tell you which character is the twin of who! Moral of the story - you should really ask a few questions of someone before you marry him or her!

The Nature of Monsters by Clare Clark






The most interesting part of this book for me - excellent book - was the fact that medical science had things so completely wrong so very recently. The book is set in 1718, in London, and follow the life of Eliza Tally. She has grown up North of London, the only surviving child of a now-deceased father and a mother who is the midwife and provider of herbal remedies for the local village. ‘Ma Tally” is shrewd and poor, but sees opportunity when the son of the local wealthy family takes an interest in Eliza. A “jumping over the broom” wedding happens, and so sex is then permitted, but when Eliza becomes pregnant, the wealthy family quickly disagrees that the two are married. The son is sent of on a ship bound far away, and Eliza, through maneuvering by her mother and the wealthy family, Eliza is sent to be a maid for an apothecary in London. Then the story really starts.



Eliza only wants to be rid of “the worm” as she calls it, and assumes the apothecary will induce a miscarriage and she will work for him for a year to repay him. She knows her mother knew herbs that women took for that, so figures the apothecary would, too. But when she arrives, she finds a strange and tense household. Mr. Grayson Black, the apothecary, is of the belief - common at the time - that a pregnant woman’s emotions effect the child’s development. After all, he has a large birthmark that we call a “port wine stain” disfiguring much of his face that he attributes to the fact that his own pregnant mother fled the Great Fire of London in 1666, and turned to watch. He is bitter, driven, and also an opium addict.



The dark and unpleasant household is comprised of Mr. and Mrs. Black, Edgar - the lewd, conniving and opportunistic apprentice, and another servant Mary, who is mentally retarded and born with a hare lip. But the room Eliza is given to share with Mary under the eaves of the house looks out on the grand dome of St. Paul’s cathedral, and she marvels at that, and keeps it as a point of hope and wonder. She gradually realizes that she will not be “getting rid of the worm” but instead that Mr. Black is studying her pregnancy, in great detail, and means it to carry to term. She delivers, and is told afterwards her baby died. When Mary becomes pregnant, the realizes her own son was probably dissected by Mr. Black, and he means to do the same to Mary, whom she has come to love.



The book draws you along, and is interspersed with Mr. Black’s notes and correspondence to colleagues, and one can watch his mental status deteriorate as the opium addiction progresses. It is quite gruesome, and does not spare us any details of medicine at that time, and the strange things people quite seriously believed and did to others in the name of “medicine” and “scientific advancement.”



How Eliza matures, learns and is determined to save both her simple friend and herself make for a fascinating story, but not, as I have said, one for the squeamish.



Aren’t you glad you live now, when no one believes in the “four humours” (phlegm, blood, black bile, and yellow bile), gives you expectorants and emetics and just daily bleeds you for “health”? Ewww, yuck. And I know my asthma is an inherited condition, not something I can blame my mother for looking at during her pregnancy, or feeling or thinking!

The White Mary by Kira Salak

Okay, it is a novel, and has nothing to do with Rudyard Kipling’s classic, but the most striking part of this book is the very real and very difficult journey the protagonist undertakes through the jungles of New Guinea.


That protagonist, Marika Vecera, is no Victorian princess, and not always entirely likable. But you have to admire her perseverance and heart. She’s not someone accustomed to an easy life - in fact, not someone even comfortable with one. She’s a journalist who survived growing up first in Communist Czechoslovakia, then as exile living in America with her schizophrenic, suicidal mother. Her father, a dissident Czech journalist, died when she was 6. Shuffled off to foster with her American cousins whenever her mother was hospitalized, she basically has been fending for herself since 13. Having made it through school, she becomes a journalist specializing in the hard stories in dangerous places, priding herself on being truthful even when it is politically unpopular.


Settled in Boston, thinking of writing memoirs and forming a relationship with Seb, a sweet, understanding guy who happens to be a recovering addict and a doctoral student in psychology. Long a fan of her articles, they meet at a conference, and her life seems to be, for once, settling into something that passes for normality. Then she receives word that her idol, a journalist named Richard Lewis, whom the world thought had committed suicide, has been seen in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, and she feels compelled to find him.


The book bounces back and forth between the journey and the events leading up to it, but the characters and atmosphere of the jungle seem quite real, very visceral and not always pleasant. It is fascinating to learn more and more about Marika - whom the natives refer to as the [i]wait meri[/i] - the white mary - the crazy pale blonde woman who insists on being guided further into the jungle, despite the injuries, annoyances, sickness and very real dangers she encounters.


It is all quite engrossing, and learning from the cover that the author was the first woman to traverse Papua New Guinea makes it all even more interesting. Watching the dynamics of her relationships - with Seb and with Richard Lewis, unfold as the books goes on is just as interesting, and I heartily recommend this book to anyone who wants an unflinching look at humans - both the “civilzed” kind and the more “primitive” and nature.

Babylon Rolling by Amanda Boyden

Set in New Orleans in August of 2004, Babylon Rolling is a good story full of well-developed characters, and a rich tapestry of ethnicities and origins and attitudes that populate one neighborhood in the storied city.


The main characters are all neighbors in one of those neighborhoods that was both old and new, with black, white, and Indian families. Their lives begin to intersect in more than a normal, casual way, and events and circumstances snowball gradually into the climax of the tale, and beyond.


Fearius (real name Daniel) - 15 and just out of lock-up, and his hilariously-named sisters are the children of an African-American family that has been in the neighborhood forever. His family hopes that he is done with the trouble that got him into Juvie in the first place, but he’s still figuring out who and what he’s going to be. Contrasting with him are Ed and Ariel Frank and their two small children - a young white family that moved down from Minneapolis for her job as a hotel manager. Ed is being a stay-at-home parent, and there is tension as Ariel sees him as being too soft, and weak, without ambition. Older neighbors Cerise Brown and Philomene Beauregard de Bruges and their husbands are long-term residents but not exactly friends, but everyone is a united in their suspicious of the Guptas, a perfectly friendly family but with exotic accents and highly fragrant foods that scent the neighbor’s air.


All in all, the struggles of each character and their interactions leading up to the non-event of Hurricane Ivan - which spared New Orleans, unlike Katrina in 2007, and their struggles with mental illness, identity, and how to make their way in the world make an engrossing tale, and a fascinating read.


As the book was published in 2008, there is a brief epilogue concerning Katrina, and that just adds to the feeling that these could be real people, living in a very real neighborhood in the mixed bag of life that is New Orleans.


I do recommend it, it’s a quick read and a satisfying story. And I didn’t review this when I first read it, as we had hurricane after hurrican this summer rolling into the Gulf of Mexico. It really has very little to do with the storms, and I didn’t want to leave that impression. It’s totally about the people, fascinating in their own right. And of course, now Hurricane Paloma is active in the Atlantic.

The Fifth Floor by Michael Harvey

You take one look at this cover, and you know what you are getting: a detective/murder mystery story set in Chicago. That doesn’t make in any less enjoyable, though.


You have your classic cynical, hard-bitten-but-with-a-heart detective, Michael Kelly. The setting is Chicago, notorious for corrupt politics, and The Fifth Floor is named for that level of City Hall where all the “business,” good, bad and otherwise, goes down. Michael is, of course, a single guy. This story revolves around an ex-girlfriend of his, Janet, who is caught up in an abusive marriage to one of the thugs - I mean city employees - who wokrs for the city on paper, but does his own thuggery with deep mob connections.


Complicating the situation is Taylor, Janet’s daughter from a prior relationship. She’s a teenager, lies about her age, and is as scared, smart, tough and cynical as they come. Tired of watching her mother’s abuse, she approaches Michael on her own, and asks him to kill her step-father. That would make her and her mother’s lives so much easier ….


And so is launched a good, convoluted story, involving, at its core, the Great Chicago Fire, the controversy over who or what started it, real estate speculation, the current and future mayors of Chicago, and believe it or not, The Emancipation Proclamation.


Nothing is simple in this tale, which starts with one dead body, adds another, and sheds light on events long-ago past, and better - some thinks - forgotten. It was a quick read, and has a satisfying ending, which leaves our detective still single, but with a nagging question in his heart.


I recommend it to any detective story fans.

Pretty glad this election will soon be over and done with. Voted today, met a sweet greyhound - we had a ballot initiative to ban greyhound racing commercially in Massachusetts,  and even went to donate blood. I don’t ever recall an election that has seemed as long and drawn out as this one.  More book reviews will commence tomorrow. 

Yes, I love to read. I read books, magazines, cereal boxes - everything. I love a good book, regardless of subject matter or genre. And if I start a book, I will almost inevitably finish it. I always figure, maybe it will get better next chapter even halfway through a book. But sometimes they just don’t, and sometimes what starts as a good book gets worse.

Two Moon Princess by Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban 

This was a book was okay. But just okay. It starts out in a promising fashion, with the title character, Andrea, a Princess who would rather be a knight. Or at least a squire. The fourth of her father the king’s daughters, she has been allowed to train with the boys, and wins the big Archery competition they have been training for. Andrea, about to turn fourteen, is sure this will convince her father to let her continue with the training, and not to become a lady like her mother and sisters are. Set in a medieval kingdom, it seems a decent start.

And when the book takes a science fiction/fantasy turn, who could complain? By accident she ends up in modern California, and realizes her Tio (uncle) Ramiro travels there regularly when she finds his house not far from the beach she lands on. Still interesting enough, right? We then go through the expected culture shock and transition, and the expected tension when her uncle insists she return to her own world as soon as possible.

But it all kinda goes downhill from there, with Andrea and her sisters dealing with battling kingdoms, a deceitful suitor, princes, soldiers, romance, and what is proper and what is not. And I guess the story disappoints me, because in the course of all this action, Andrea is obviously supposedly falling in love with one character whom she dislikes. And it isn’t until the end of the books that she realizes this, and it just seems too dumb for a girl who is supposed to be strong, smart, and clever enough to get away with all sorts of stuff and travel secretly between worlds, but not to figure out her own feelings at all.

So, eh, don’t bother with this one. I am sure the author meant well, and it appears to be aimed at young teen girls, and is supposed to be empowering, I am sure, but it just loses steam. By the end, I was just mildly annoyed by Princess Andrea’s obtuseness, and didn’t even care if she lived happily ever after.

Oh, and by the way, I have always hated cover art that doesn’t quite fit the story. You can’t see her father’s castle from the beach archway she’s standing in - for goodness sake it’s far from the castle, down a large cliff and at the base of a rocky beach, and as the story begins her hair is short, not long enough for a long braid, and the “golden arrow” is supposed to be large and sharp enough to hurt someone with, and is hidden in her hair, not a cute little ornament like the cover illustration shows. I know, the artist was probably not given the actual story to read, but should have been!