The Last Girl: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)I'll give this novel three stars for effort, but that's about it. Collishaw tries to piece together a story that spans three generations of Vilnius, hoping to make some sense of the Holocaust which took place in Lithuania. Only problem is that it took him some 170 pages to finally get around to the heart of his story, in which the narrator retells his time in Vilnius during the height of WWII.
I thought it was presumptuous, to say the least, for Collishaw, a young Brit, to take the point of view of a Lithuanian penshioner. The book drags lethargically for the first two parts as Collishaw tries desperately to get into the mind of his character and offer some background on mid 90's Vilnius. It seems that Collishaw had been reading too much Kafka and not taking enough notes of what he saw in Vilnius at the time, as Collishaw paints it as a dank, dark, depressing place, which I suppose fits the mood of his anti-hero, Steponas Daumantas. He might as well have called him St. Stephen.
Eventually Collishaw gets around to telling what he set out to tell, and that is a story of the Holocaust. Collishaw draws heavily on poetic and painterly metaphors, creating a very naive version of the Holocaust in Vilnius. It moves along well enough, with a cross-cultural love affair, a good Polish pal, and enough intrigue to keep you interested. But, like the rest of the novel, it doesn't say much about Vilnius. It is simply someone trying to empathize with the history of this city.
I guess one should credit Collishaw for making a game effort. But, that's all it is. He obviously lacks the where-with-all to deal with the material he is trying to assemble in this novel. He covers over it with reasonably compelling characters and an atmospheric setting that will be new to most readers, but in the end this is no more than a bowl of milky soup.

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The Satanic Verses Review

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(More customer reviews)Being a Moslem, and having recently returned from an extended stay in India, I read The Satanic Verses with keen interest and found that both of these experiences contributed immensely to my enjoyment of this complex work. It was a clever showcase of Rushdie's typically brilliant prose, and a thoroughly compelling read. But be warned: many of the jokes and references probably would escape the average Western reader (by average, I mean one not familiar with Islam or Indian culture).
That being said, I noticed that many reviewers here say they do not find the book offensive to Moslems, while simultaneously admitting their own lack of knowledge regarding Islam. As a fairly well-versed Moslem, I can impartially state that Rushdie repeatedly criticizes, and even ridicules, the Islamic faith, in ways both subtle and overt, throughout this entire book.
Did Rushie's criticism bother me? Not at all. Did it justify a Fatwa by the Ayatollah? Of course not. But can the book be reasonably interpreted as being offensive to some Moslems? Those who know the Islamic faith would be hard-pressed to argue otherwise.
Nevertheless, realizing that this is just a work of fiction by a gifted novelist, I enjoyed reading the book and recommend it to all my friends.

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There You Are: Writings on Irish and American Literature and History Review

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(More customer reviews)There are scholars and there are critics, and then there are enthusiasts: Thomas Flangan falls somewhat into the latter camp. While this collection of pieces on Irish and Irish-American cultural figures he wrote for The New York Review of Books is often quite fine and imaginative, at times Flanagan is severely hampered by his inability to maintain a critical distance from his subjects, especially when it's someone he greatly admires, like John Ford or James Joyce or F. Scott Fitzgerald. The first two may be worthy of such high and unadulterated praise, but Fitzgerald? Even when dispelling popular myths about the latter, Flanagan has trouble reining in the gush, e.g. on THE GREAT GATSBY's status as a novel about the American Dream, Flanagan writes, "Scholars exchange their learned articles on the subject, and generations of college freshmen are told about it. If you whispered into a reader's sleeping ear the words 'Scott Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY,' she would murmur drowsily, 'and the corruption of the American dream.'"
There's a pretty unhelpful introduction by Seamus Heaney that's more of a personal memoir of Flanagan than a way to orient oneself with regard to Flanagan's writings.

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Thomas Flanagan became famous as the author of a trilogy of novels, starting with The Year of the French, about Ireland from the rebellion of 1798 to the civil war of the 1920s. But the novelist who began by reimagining the mental and physical world of eighteenth-century County Mayo had long been immersing himself, as a scholar, essayist, and reviewer, in the literature and history of his ancestral land.In the nonfiction writings collected here, many of them unpublished in his lifetime, Flanagan brings what Christopher Cahill calls his "keen eye and strong gaze and sharp tongue" to reassessments of key figures of Irish culture. They range from Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, through W. B. Yeats and James Joyce, Charles Stewart Parnell and Michael Collins, to contemporaries and friends like Brian Moore and Frank O'Connor, and American Irish like the Molly Maguires and the director John Ford.Flanagan probes the tragically intertwined origins of celebrity and literary modernism in the careers of Irish-American writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eugene O'Neill, and John O'Hara. He reflects on what his own novels have taught him about the possibilities of historical fiction. And his thoughts on Irish-American identity sum up the long-pondered mixture of experience and scrutiny he brought to his heritage.Witty, lively, and learned, this collection reveals that Thomas Flanagan was not only as a master of the historical novel but a writer who meditated broadly and deeply on the Ireland he once described as "a complex, profound, historical society, woven of many strands, some bright and some dark."

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Growing Up Nigger Rich Review

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(More customer reviews)I took Gwendoline Fortune's new memoir-as-novel Growing Up Nigger Rich to read on the plane to San Francisco this weekend. Once started, I could not close it up to sleep, but read straight through start to finish. It is a rich and complex novel, well-wrought and fascinating, especially for someone like me who did not grow up in the South, or in America at all, but in Australia.
The story centers on Gayla Tyner, daughter of a respected Black doctor in Carolton, South Carolina, who comes back home to the painful task of confronting, and eventually overcoming, old hurts. As Fortune says, 'It takes a lot of weight to break open the stones.'
Gayla's story gives us a different perspective on growing up in the segregated South. It gives us the world of the educated, upper-class Black, showing us what it was like to feel equal, even superior, to the white people who, by reason of their whiteness, felt free to call her 'nigger coon,' 'jigaboo,' 'darky,' 'tarbaby,' 'old yellow thing,' a world where even the compliment of being asked to sing for wealthy white groups, 'who thought nobody could sing like "the Colored,"' was an insult, a world of dislocation, of not knowing 'exactly where we're from in Africa,' of 'white relatives who don't come to Christmas dinner.'
Gayla's world is richly peopled by characters who walk right off the page into the heart. Their stories wind in and out of each other, turning back to look behind, leaping forward to peer into the future, a kaleidoscope of past, present, and hoped-for all happening together, the way they do in all of us.
Much in this rich layering is dark, but the reader is not left in darkness. With her keen eye for the telling detail, Fortune gives us glimpses of the hope that has grown up since desegregation: a black hand in a white, a passing smile from white to black, a reference to the easiness together of black and white in her children's generation.
Running through Gayla's story is the story of her husband, George, a compulsive and eventually doomed philanderer, who 'loved women . . . Tall, short, light, dark, young, or a little mature. The only ladies George ignored were ugly ones.' Fortune shows him, a newly minted PhD, applying for his first real job, as an Aeronautical Engineer, and being redirected to 'Altman's Custodial Placement.' His story gives Fortune the vehicle to voice her concern for the plight of her generation's Black man who, 'knew how it felt to be invisible,' and as a result, 'can't move forward, and . . . will not move backward.'
Nigger Rich has a strong visual and tactile impact. Gayla's neighborhood comes alive with wonderful details of food and clothes and customs, the sound of voices. She gives us a place where dogs 'wag their tails in simple pleasure for a clear, warm day,' a place of old women, the 'grandmothers, who nurture all the children of their neighborhood.' Here is a funeral feast set out on 'the round, oak dining table, baskets of golden, hot, homemade rolls wrapped in large, white, starched, cotton napkins, a buttery aroma announcing their entrance . . . Silver platters high with home-fried chicken, cut-glass bowls of creamy potato salad edged with slivers of oily pimiento, and sliced boiled eggs sprinkled with paprika, lined the dining table and sideboard. Coconut, pecan, and sweet potato pies filled two card tables because there was no room for them anywhere else.'
Fortune spends some time considering the concept of how to name her people: Black? Negro? Colored? African American? She comes down to the delicious notion of 'People of Color.' What a lovely phrase, and so apt. Never have I read a story with such a feast of skin color: yellow, high-yellow, molasses, umber, caramel, black-as-night, coffee, honey, cocoa, taupe, bamboo-brown, copper, buttered toast, henna, ebony, tea, chocolate. It's like a poem, or as one of her people says, "There's nothing prettier than a roomful of us, all decked out . . . A flower garden with all the colors of the rainbow. Yes, ma'am."
Growing Up Nigger Rich is a lovely book: an engrossing story, an education, and a finger pointing toward hope for true and lasting amity between the races.

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An intricately crafted novel of homecoming and the South. Gayla Tyner is haunted by the South, what it means, has meant, and is becoming, as she struggles to find her place as professor, mother, wife, and daughter.

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The Translation of Dr Apelles: A Love Story Review

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(More customer reviews)Treuer's "Dr Apelles" is a powerful tour-de-force. The writer proves himself well-read and well-stocked with echoes from western literary tradition as well as Native American storytelling content and structures. The novel assembles all of the parts into a splendid love story--love of stories and storytelling, romantic love, and caustic love of self and of other. Brilliant as the writer proves himself I believe Treuer goes a bit too far. Clearly a reader's writer, the author overextends his hand with too much repetition. The doubling of character ideas, actions, gestures, and phrases are necessary to weave this complex tapestry through motifs and modalities. However, additional editing would have been helpful to move Teuer's brilliance forward. Lots of high notes in this novel, but more ideas through less words were needed.

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Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet Review

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Sky Burial is a novel that transcends the centuries, as a young Chinese wife, Shu Wen, a physician, joins the army in search of her husband, Kejun, reportedly killed in Tibet. A doctor as well, Kejun volunteered to aid to the Chinese soldiers, fighting for dominance of Tibet. Unlike the other soldiers killed in action, there is no information as to cause of death, no acclaim for the fallen man as a hero. His bride refuses to believe Kejun has perished, traveling the same route her husband took. Shu Wen has no idea at the start of the journey that she will spend the next thirty years looking for traces of her love.
In 1958, when Shu Wen joins the army to follow Kejun, China is recovering from decades of civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists and Mao is rebuilding the motherland. The Communists have had control of the country since 1949, nurturing patriotic extremism; loved ones are often separated in service of the country. Shu Wen starts out with a contingent of soldiers and eventually they come across a stranded woman, Zhuoma, a Tibetan who will prove a trusted friend and guide for a young woman far from home and family, a bride who does not speak the language.
Zhuoma has her own fascinating familial tale, which she relates to her new friend, as the two set out in the direction Kejun traveled. The women are beset by a number of trials, separated from the soldiers during a skirmish, rescued by a nomadic Tibetan family who take them in, caring for Shu Wen as she recovers her strength. It is through this family that Shu Wen learns the patterns of Tibetan life, the spiritual nature of their days and the rituals that have accommodated their needs for generations. Far from the world she has known, it is possible to exist in this rarified state of prayerful existence, lost in the centuries-old daily routines. One of Tibet's most profound religious ceremonies, the Sky Burial "manifests the harmony between heaven and earth, nature and man". This ritual reflects the Tibetan philosophy concerning the connectedness of all things, the natural flow, the great design of the spiritual universe. While Shu Wen is absorbing these time-honored traditions, her country is changing from one decade to another, rendering the China of her memory virtually unrecognizable.
Shu Wen's odyssey is related by a journalist who learns the story firsthand in an interview; soon after, the woman disappears once again into history. In thirty years of wandering, dear friends are lost and found and a human spirit awakened, as a woman continues her quest with incredible tenacity, the love of her mate filling the pages of this book with transcendent moments and indelible images. Time falls away, days reduced to the most essential elements, families immersed in Tibetan culture and religious ceremony, spending their every waking moment in prayer. Sky Burial is a poignant testimony to the power of love, commitment and spiritual awareness. Luan Gaines/2005.


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The Oxford Book of Exile Review

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(More customer reviews)The Oxford Book of Exile is clearly written from the prospective of The Englishman abroad. These choices of different ex-pats feelings conjure up that nostalgic sense that the old country is never very far from the soul. The range of choices is not confined to the Brits but their thinking seems to dominate. Like all foreign corresponents,John Simpson, the editor touches on the fact that in seconds the journalist covering a foreign country becomes an expert on arrival. Graham Greene who is quoted in the anthology would be proud of the choices. Peter Robinson,editor of San Francisco Books and Travel.

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Family Matters Review

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(More customer reviews)As Mistry makes clear in this novel, the "one important story [is] of youth, and loss, and yearning for redemption...Just the details are different." With these themes as the bedrock of his story, he depicts the world of a multigenerational Parsi family in Bombay, their world changed forever when Nariman Vakeel, a 79-year-old former professor and sufferer from Parkinson's disease, falls and breaks his leg, effectively ending any possibility of an independent life. His stepchildren, Coomy and Jal, quickly dump Nariman in the two-room apartment of their younger half-sister, Roxana Chenoy, her husband Yezad, and two sons, supposedly for only three weeks, while his leg heals. Beset with financial problems, lack of space, and resentment of Coomy and Jal, who remain in their father's 7-room apartment, the family does its best, but tensions rise and slowly erode their relationships, precipitating intense personal crises for each family member.
Concentrating more on the world writ small than on the broader, more expansive views of A Fine Balance, Mistry creates a number of vibrant and fully drawn characters. Nariman Vakeel, recalling his dreams and disappointments, his 11-year love for Lucy Braganza, and his disastrous arranged marriage, is touching in his neediness and in his apologetic helplessness. His grandchildren delight in his stories and seek ways to help out; Roxana makes do in every way possible, tending to Nariman's most personal needs; and Yezad, frustrated by the lack of financial support from Coomy and Jal and a job in which he is underpaid, feels jealous of the old man's claims on Roxana. Mistry's dialogue, the subtle and not-so-subtle undercurrents it reflects, the often humorous interactions, the honest but naïve motivations of some of the characters, and the meticulously depicted and subtle decline of the family are the work of a master.
The one jarring note for me was the use of Shiv Sena, a fanatic political/religious group, as a motif thoughout the novel, their threats, extortion, violence, and fundamentalist rhetoric intruding periodically (and often dramatically) on the lives of the characters. While this obviously broadens the scope of the novel and offers a context in which to evaluate Coomy's religiosity, the fears of small businessmen like Yezad and his boss, and Yezad's eventual conflicts with one of his sons, it felt contrived to me, too strong and too obvious in what is otherwise a novel of more subtle interactions. Mary Whipple

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Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)Do you remember that magic moment when you first open a book and realized you've met what will be an old friend, one of those books you know you will think about for ages, that you will reread over and over again (if you read like that, which I do), and that stands a chance at actually changing your life? Do you get all tingly inside? Do you walk around with a goofy grin on your face? Do those feelings of new love make you glow?
Yeah, that might be a bit much, but my feelings for Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English are pretty extreme. I have met my favorite book of the year my dears and... well... I'll try to keep the gushing to a minimum.
Jack Rosenblum, his wife Sadie and their daughter Elizabeth have fled Nazi Germany for the safety of England before World War II. Upon their arrival, they are given a pamphlet on how to fit into England's world. Jack is a diminutive man, standing only five feet three and a half inches, but don't let his size fool you. Inside there is the heart of a lion-hearted Englishman and Jack is determined to prove it. So he takes the list, takes it to heart, and begins to live by the list. So when Jack is arrested as a "Class B Enemy Alien" and thrown into prison, Jack's hopes for life in England are almost crushed.
Lucky for Jack, his friend Edgar gets him declared a "Class C Alien," which means he is no threat to the country, and he is released. Jack, feeling more exposed and threatened than ever, begins to add new items to the list. Jack's list grows and grows, until it is well over 100 items of What it Takes to be English. He obtains all these items except one. The last item on his list is membership in an English golf club.
"For Jack membership of a golf course was the rebuilding of Jerusalem, Atlantis and the perfect salt-beef sandwich all at once-but it was proving troublesome."
They wouldn't admit him because he's Jewish and German to boot. So he decides he will build one himself.
"If you couldn't get milk from someone else's cow, you had to get your own. No golf course would admit him and so he must build his own."
So Jack takes Sadie and moves her to Bulbarrow Hill, the new acreage and cottage Jack build for his golf course. A Jewish business man with a thick German accent is an anomaly, to say the least, in their new village and, not surprisingly, the village folk don't know what to think of Jack. Jack is so desperate to change, to fit in, to be safe, that he will move mountains. He wants assimilation, to "seep unnoticed into village life, like rain into the damp earth, and he did not like" the "scrutiny" of the village folk. However, he doesn't let this deter him and he begins to work on his course alone.
Sadie doesn't know what to think of Jack. She is stuck in the past, with the mother, father and beloved brother she had to leave behind in Germany. She cooks, day in and day out, from her Mutti's cookbook. All the recipes she grew up with are her way of remembering; of saying I love you, to those who are dead and gone.
"Once Sadie tried writing down her memories, attempting to preserve them in a nice book to pass on to her daughter but it did not work. The meaning kept disappearing in the spaces between the words, and her story was written was never quite how she remembered it. Now Sadie wondered whether it would be better for her to cook her way home to them. Perhaps she would find them in the smell of slowly simmering cholent or cinnamon rugula."
One cake in particular, a baumtorte, that Sadie bakes, takes time, patience, and love and remembrance for those gone, and was bittersweet to read about.
Sadie has so much patience for her cooking, but very little for Jack. When Jack declares that he will build the course by himself, Sadie retorts:
"My mother warned me that craziness ran in your family. I should have listened but no, I was young and foolish and easily impressed by your red bicycle and your thick hair."
Isn't that great? I hope you can tell how much I adored these two characters. I am absolutely in love with Jack. He reminds me of my grandmother's family; small, short, and furiously stubborn. And Sadie. Oh, how I just want to scoop her up and give her a hug. Knowing that Solomons based these characters on her grandparents makes me adore them all the more. The writing is utterly charming. Solomons does an excellent job of shaping these characters, of presenting their flaws and their strengths, their humor and sadness, their complete will to survive, to thrive! It's simply gorgeous. This book made me laugh, cry, scream in frustration for these two people, and hug myself in rapturous contentment at their successes. I feel as proud of Jack and Sadie as I'm sure Ms. Solomons does for her own grandparents.
I hope I have convinced you that reading Jack and Sadie's story is something you want to do. The book will be out June 21st. Thank you, Reagan Arthur, for sending me this unexpected treasure.
This book is called Mr. Rosenblum's List in England.

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Trout Madness Review

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(More customer reviews)This book relates simple tales of a lawyer gone mad with trout fishing. What is so unique about this book is the simplicity in the stories told, they feel so close to the heart that the reader can almost touch them. Reading this book will show you how to appreciate the simple things in life and to take notice of the vast array of people who inhabit this world. Even if you have never fished for trout you're sure to enjoy this book

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Trout Madness was John D. Voelker's (aka, Robert Traver) fifth book (to be followed by his equally popular, Trout Magic). Here, for the delight of his many fans and friends, are twenty-one stories gleaned from the lifetime of glorious fishing - as true as can be expected of a fisherman. They cover the whole range of the trout fishing season, from The First Day ("Entire expedition got half shot and retired in vast disorder") to The Last Day ("Only eight more months to the magic first day"). There are hilarious stories that make one laugh out loud and stories that have an undercurrent of deep emotion. But each one carries that special kind of oblique humor and canniness that were John D. Voelker's special mark. And though this is no "how to" book, the author cannot help divulge in his stories some of the tricks of a lifetime of wily fishing.Here are a few of the stories: "The First Day," "Fish Car," "The Haunted Pond," "Trout Heaven," "The Old and the Proud," "The Old Fox," "Spots Before the Eyes," and "The Last Day." (71/4 X 101/4, 196 pages)

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The Raj Quartet: The Jewel in the Crown, The Day of the Scorpion (Everyman's Library) Review

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(More customer reviews)Paul Scott is one of the greatest, and (it seems) most underrated, novelists of the 20th century. The Raj Quartet is complex, engrossing, moving, and deep. When you are done with all four volumes, there is always the wonderful _Staying On_, the 'comic coda' to the Quartet; I actually read it first. The Everyman's Library edition is beautiful: well printed, and nicely bound. Worth it.

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(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)With a New Introduction by Hilary SpurlingThe Raj Quartet, Paul Scott's epic study of British India in its final years, has no equal. Tolstoyan in scope and Proustian in detail but completely individual in effect, it records the encounter between East and West through the experiences of a dozen people caught up in the upheavals of the Second World War and the growing campaign for Indian independence from Britain. The first novel, The Jewel in the Crown, describes the doomed love between an English girl and an Indian boy, Daphne Manners and Hari Kumar. This affair touches the lives of other characters in three subsequent volumes, most of them unknown to Hari and Daphne but involved in the larger social and political conflicts which destroy the lovers. In The Day of the Scorpion, Ronald Merrick, a sadistic policeman who arrested and prosecuted Hari, insinuates himself into an aristocratic British family as World War II escalates.On occasions unsparing in its study of personal dramas and racial differences, the Raj Quartet is at all times profoundly humane, not least in the author's capacity to identify with a huge range of characters. It is also illuminated by delicate social comedy and wonderful evocations of the Indian scene, all narrated in luminous prose.The other two novels in the Raj Quartet, The Towers of Silence and A Division of the Spoils, are also available from Everyman's Library.

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The Condition: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)As a woman with turner syndrome and as a librarian, I found this book to be extremely well written and researched. The author gets the details about turner syndrome right without failing to make the character Gwen fully human. She is neither overly sympathetically portrayed, or used as a foil for the other characters. Some curious readers may find themselves running to Wikipedia to find out more details about the biology referenced in the story (phenotype, knockout mice?) but this doesn't distract from the main story and adds interest. This isn't a book about turner syndrome; it's about the Human Condition (as the jacket blurb says) that we all have. I would heartily recommend "The Condition" to anyone interested in an engaging, realistic read.

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Turbulence: A novel Review

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(More customer reviews)(4.5 stars) Set in London and Scotland from January through June, 1944, this unusual and fascinating novel may change the way you think of the weather and how long-range forecasts are made. Henry Meadows, a young academician at Cambridge with a doctorate in mathematics/physics, has been studying fluid dynamics and the idea of turbulence--complex and constantly moving flows which create unpredictable effects and which have, to date, made long-range forecasting of the weather virtually impossible. Wanting to help the country's war effort, he joins the Central Forecasting Unit of the Meteorological Office, and is eventually sent to Scotland. His job is to help forecast weather patterns over a five-day period for fifty miles of German-occupied French coastline so that an invasion can be planned and a window of opportunity identified for D-Day.
The foremost expert on turbulence and its seemingly "random" effects is Wallace Ryman, a famed mathematician whose "Ryman number" could help with long-range weather forecasting, but Ryman is also a pacifist who does not want his research used for warfare. Henry Meadows hopes to convince him to share the application of his "Ryman number" in the pursuit of a weather equation to aid in meteorological forecasting. Setting up several hundred weather stations on land and sea from Iceland to the French coast, a distance of twelve hundred miles, scientists hope they can gather enough information that, with the application of the Ryman number, they can then predict the weather accurately five days in advance. Over 2.5 million men and three thousand landing craft are depending on the accuracy of this forecast.
Foden uses real people as his models for the characters in the novel. Main character Wallace Ryman is the fictional equivalent of a real man, Henry Fry Richardson, whose real life (and "Richardson number") closely parallels that of Ryman (except in the manner of his death). The other named characters (including Geoffrey Pyke and Sverre Petterssen) are also real. Where the novel may raise some questions for some people is in the subplots. Some "researchers" here believe that the formula for dealing with turbulence in the weather can also be applied to problems in sociological and interpersonal relationships--from the tendency of countries to go to war to the disagreements among lovers. This makes the subplots seem sensational and unrealistic, at times, an attempt to show that the "random" events and coincidences in our personal lives may not be random at all.
The opinions of a cleric with whom Ryman argues about God's will, scientific issues which have not yet been resolved (a solution for the problems of the Rh factor, for example), and the desire to find one formula which will explain the as yet unexplainable future, raise serious metaphysical questions but do not necessarily provide insights or answers. Filled with vibrant descriptions, an assortment of characters whose views of the world differ greatly from that of the twenty-first century, a setting that reflects a critical moment in time, and philosophical/scientific themes and insights very unusual in fiction, Turbulence is a novel which manages to raise questions and explore them in dramatic new ways. Mary Whipple
Ladysmith: A Novel
The Last King of Scotland
Zanzibar


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A Miracle of Catfish Review

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(More customer reviews)'A Miracle Of Catfish' was unfinished when author Larry Brown died unexpectedly. Because the book was almost finished, publication of Brown's last offering to his fans was possible. The book uses ellipsis to show where editing was done, and though unfinished, includes the notes that Brown left behind as to how he planned to wrap up the novel.
In Brown's languid southern prose, he explores the lives of several people living in the quiet, countrified outskirts of a small town. Cortez Sharp, a 72 year old man who's wife is disabled, decides to dig out a large pond on his property and stock it with catfish. He lives a solitary life, preferring to be left alone with his vegetable patches and herds of cows. His daughter Lucinda lives in Atlanta with her boyfriend Albert, who suffers from Tourettes Syndrome. Cortez calls Albert 'The Retard', driving a wedge between him and his only surviving child. Cortez carries a dark secret with him, one of horrible proportions.
There's Jimmy, a ten year old boy with bad teeth, who lives near Cortez's farm in an old trailer. Jimmy struggles with his father's temper, his two half-sisters Evelyn and Velma, and his desire to fix the go-kart his daddy built for him. Jimmy's Daddy (known only in the book as 'Jimmy's Daddy') is a typical redneck loser. He drives around in his old '55 drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, fights with himself over trying to treat Jimmy better, and has an affair with a woman at the stove factory where he works that turns out bad (in pregnancy) which threatens his life and marriage to Jonette.
And then there's Cleve, an old black man who used to work for Cortez, mean as a polecat, and murderous to boot. He's been in prison twice and though he swore he'd never go back, he's not quite done committing crimes.
Typical of Brown's unhurried and languorous prose, there's lots of smoking, beer drinking, and driving around. There's surprises like DUI's, tractor accidents, unwanted pregnancies, affairs, fishing, hunting, and a young boy worried about having puppies.
These aren't exactly people you would want for neighbors, but Brown brings them out fully fleshed and alive, and you know there are people out there just like Brown's characters. Everyday folk struggling with everyday problems, inner monologues that both repulse and enchant, and scenes that will suck you into the story despite their slowly building climaxes.
While I highly recommend Brown's work, I would recommend 'Joe', 'Fay', and 'Father And Son' as a warm up to 'A Miracle Of Catfish', simply because this is an unfinished work and may leave the novice Brown reader feeling flat at the abrupt end. It's sad that this is the last time we will hear Brown's voice in the literature world. Enjoy!


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The Still Point: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)This novel is so beautifully written and so evocative that reading it was almost a sensual pleasure. The author's knack for description brings sounds, scents, and sights alive and reminded me of pleasures I haven't contemplated in years (the feel of wood under bare feet, for instance.) It's been several months since I read it, but I find myself continuing to recommend it! While the plot isn't of earth-shaking import, it moves along nicely, giving the reader plenty of contemplate in the process. It's a book definitely worth your time.

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Bayou Samurai Review

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(More customer reviews)The year is 1971. American involvement in Vietnam is winding down and the United States prepares for reversion of Okinawa back to Japan. Enter Indiana Jones-like Captain Rast, fresh from his tour of duty in Vietnam, ready to begin his next adventure on "The Rock." Assigned to the top-secret "Operation Red-Hat," the removal of WMD's from Okinawa, Captain Rast is catapulted into a world of military cover-ups, renegade officers, CIA operatives, sinister drug lords, murder, firefights, and (Oh, Yes!) steamy sex.
Rast's first-rate novel, filled with colorful and sometimes loony characters, snappy and witty dialogue, and biting political commentary, is an exciting and action-packed book from beginning to end. --Diana J. Dell, author, "A Saigon Party: And Other Vietnam War Short Stories."

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July, 1971. American involvement in Vietnam winds down. But other sinister events are surfacing in Asia that could lead to global conflict. United States prepares for reversion of Okinawa back to Japan. Strategic military bases are in jeopardy of being shut down after it becomes public chemical weapons have been secretly stored for years on the island along with nuclear weapons. "Operation Red-Hat" is initiated so they can be removed before reversion. There are covered-up fatalities when nerve agents leak. To complicate things, a renegade American colonel assigned to the project steals a nuclear suitcase bomb along with thirteen pounds of plutonium. Fleeing across Southeast Asia with CIA, Soviet GRU, and special "Black-Code" operatives in hot pursuit, he plans selling them to a powerful Burmese drug warlord. Teeming with firefights, drug-smuggling, love, murder, a clashing of cultures, and steamy sex coupled with off-beathumor, the gut-clutching action never ends creating an exotic atmosphere as convincing as the plot is intriguing.--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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The Best American Short Stories of the Century Review

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(More customer reviews)One of the things I have always liked about Updike is that he is willing to undertake something like this--even though it will inevitably make him vulnerable to criticisms like the ones raised in other reviews here. I can see why some omissions rankle: but, but BUT! Look at what's here! Almost all of the stories are nothing short of brilliant. Yes, "The Lottery" was probably amongst the best of the century, but it is anthologized everywhere in the universe: many of these are not. Many are not-so-well-known works by the best writers the 20th century had. I could quibble about many of the selections. For instance, I wouldn't have chose "Greenleaf" to represent one my favorites, Flannery O'Connor, or "The Killers" to represent Ernest Hemingway. But they're still great stories, worth including and worth reading.
The best I think are those from the early part of the century, but that's probably my own bias talking. I'm not a fan of many of the representatives chosen for the latter half of the century, and the selection for 1999--yuck! But I'm willing to trust Updike's judgment over my own for a little while, and if he thinks Annie Proulx is worth reading...ok: It's worth a few pages of my time to find out.
The anthology also does a good job of tracing in fiction the transformations of American culture: the first are immigrant stories, the next are primarily rural-based farming stories (A Jury of Her Peers--great story), and then the last are urban, ex-urban, and suburban stories.
Read and enjoy.

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