THE FLAMETHROWERS

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The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner, Scribner, 2013, 383 pp

Rachel Kushner's new novel is perhaps too literary to appeal to some readers, but it is literary in the best way. Her first novel, Telex From Cuba, addressed the Cuban Revolution primarily through the eyes of American businessmen and their families living in Cuba. In The Flamethrowers, revolution in terms of workers uprisings in 1970s Italy, works as a comparison to the decline of industry in America seen through the eyes of avant-garde artists in New York City. 

Political and sociological change is always complicated. Kushner treats these complications with a subtlety that can demand more than a reader looking for a good story may want to invest.

Then there is Reno, an aspiring artist in her early 20s, nicknamed after her hometown. She is a complex character, raised among working class people, who gets off on speeding motorcycles and danger but lacks self esteem and an ability to stand up for herself when dealing with men and older people in the art world.

Despite my frustration as a reader with Reno's passivity, she became for me one of the more interesting protagonists I have met in fiction so far this year. During her time in New York City, as she hooked up with one dubious character after another, I kept thinking of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe in Just Kids. Reno, however, lacks any sort of moral compass. She is just adrift and goes along with whomever she is hanging around, having a bad time and being distracted from her art.

Reno reminded me of myself. I was her age in the 1970s, trying to break free of a family and moral background I no longer believed in but clueless when it came to men; active but clueless. I am not certain that young women today realize how hard it still was back then to be taken seriously as an artist of any kind if you were female.

My personal take on this novel is a sense of amazement that a woman who is at least two decades younger than myself could capture what it was like in those years. When Reno finds herself at the end of the novel once again waiting for some man to give direction to her life and begins to awaken to the idea that she is going to have to find that direction within herself, I felt redeemed for all the hours I had spent reading about the miserable time she was having. Many women (and many artists) never have that awakening.

I admire Kushner for having made me wait so long. If all the scenes and characters and all the pages describing Reno's inner state, which is written about in exquisite prose, had not come before, the beginnings of change in Reno would have had no impact.

It seems like I have been reading many books lately where I don't see the reason for the plot until the end. If I had given up on these books after 100 pages, as I felt tempted to do, I would have missed so much. Not once was I sorry to have continued to spend my reading time and every one of these novels enriched me.

(The Flamethrowers is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES

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We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler, Marion Wood Book/Putnam, 2013, 308 pp

Having been forced to read Fowler's The Jane Austen Book Club for a reading group and being the only one who didn't like it, I only decided to read this one based on some very glowing pre-publication reviews. It was like reading a completely different author. I loved every page and especially was captivated by the narrator.

Then I got the opportunity to review it for BookBrowse. My review is accessible for the next several days without having a subscription. It begins thus:

          "Karen Joy Fowler's new novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is a story about a family torn apart by the loss of one member. While that is not an unusual occurrence in novels about families, never have I read one in which the lost member was a chimpanzee..." Read the rest here.

(We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE HARMONY SILK FACTORY

The Harmony Silk Factory, Tash Aw, Riverhead Books, 2005, 378 pp

I don't believe I have read a novel set in Malaysia before. I admit I was a little vague on where that country is and had to look it up. Tash Aw made a big splash with this first novel. His third, Five Star Billionaire is being published in July and I decided it was time to investigate this author. It was a good decision.

The Harmony Silk Factory is the textiles store of Johnny Lim who came to Malaya with his peasant family from China in the early 20th century and rose up in business and politics. The novel is made up of three sections, each of which tell Johnny Lim's controversial story from a different perspective. Was he a hero of the people or a collaborator? What did he really sell from his imposing structure?

His son Jaspar, whose mother died during childbirth, sees his father as dishonest in both business and politics. Snow, the wife who died, left a diary in which she portrayed a man who loved his wife dearly but whose love was unrequited. Finally, Johnny's only true friend, Peter Wormwood, presents another side of the man from the viewpoint of an Englishman who had gone native.

At times I felt a bit adrift but could tell that the story of Johnny would come together like a jigsaw puzzle by the end. And it did, though I understood that knowing any individual is a matter of one's own perceptions and that others will see that individual in various other ways. The novel is a brilliant examination of that truth.

For me, the story was also another piece of the puzzle concerning life in the Far East during the 20th century. I suppose I could read more history books about the area but it is working just fine for me to use a historical timeline found somewhere on the web while I read novels. The interrelations of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Malaysians, etc, come alive through the characters and their stories in novels as they rarely do for me when I read history.

It is the stories of the people that I find gripping and we are so fortunate to have had a publishing business to bring us these stories now for hundreds of years. Tash Aw was born in Taiwan to Malaysian parents, grew up in Malaysia, moved to England for university, became a lawyer and then a writer. He does not write like a lawyer, but like the great storytellers of the ages. 

His next novel, Map of the Invisible World, 2009, is already on my shelves. I can't wait.

(Unbelievably, The Harmony Silk Factory is out of print. I found a copy at my local library. Hardcovers and paperbacks are available from used booksellers.)

A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME

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A Land More Kind Than Home, Wiley Cash, William Morrow, 2012, 325 pp

Wiley Cash's first novel is not great but it is really good. It evoked a wide-ranging and deep discussion at the reading group for which I read it. I acquired my copy as an ebook from my library. I like getting to borrow an ebook but it vanishes on the day it is due. Now it is three weeks later and I took no notes so must rely on my memory to write about it.

In a small North Carolina town tucked into the mountains, nine-year-old Jess lives with his parents and his autistic brother Stump. They have a unique relationship because Stump does not talk. Dad grows tobacco and Mom goes to her Pentecostal church. She is looking for answers because of Stump. 

Believe it or not, these people are so cut off and backward compared to modern life that they don't know anything about autism. Some of them fall for a preacher who has them handling snakes and practicing the laying on of hands for curing illness or casting out demons. All I will say is that something very bad happens to Stump in that church.

I know this stuff goes on in the American South. A few years ago I read Robert Hellenga's Snakewoman of Little Egypt, a better book by the way, and did some research on Pentecostal churches. It seems that oftentimes these churches that go in for snake handling and all the other strange practices are led by preachers who have crossed over into a psychopathic zone and wield some freaky power over their congregations. Such is the case in this novel.

I like dark southern tales. This one was marketed as a literary thriller, it won the British Crime Writers Association Dagger Award for a first book, and is in the coming-of-age genre as well. All quite ambitious and successful.

What worked for me were the characters and the plotting. Jess, his grandfather, Adelaide Lyle (who serves as the town's midwife and is the true healer there) are all so well drawn, you feel you could touch them. The evil preacher, the mom and actually every character just jump off the page in equal measures of description, dialogue, and action.

It is the excellent writing that make the book as good as it is. Underlying that is a kind of religious tone about faith and redemption. I don't doubt the author's awareness or belief or whatever it is he has grappled with but his execution just made me a little squirmy. It is not that I don't like novels with religion in them, but as in writing about sex, it has to be done well.

(A Land More Kind Than Home is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

SET THIS HOUSE ON FIRE

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Set This House on Fire, William Styron, Random House, 1960, 507 pp

I read this as part of my Big Fat Reading Project and also because ever since I read Sophie's Choice so many years ago and had my mind completely rearranged, I vowed to read all of Styron's novels. In a way, it's a good thing he didn't write too many because each one is such a heavy dose of human anguish and Faulkner-like rambling complete with long philosophical passages run through some character's mouth. Reading too much Styron in a row could induce suicidal thoughts at least, maybe worse.

In fact, Set This House on Fire does include a possible suicide and an artist trying to drink himself to death. After reading The Bone People just two weeks earlier, another novel full of fall-down-drunk scenes was almost too much. 

I am having trouble here writing a coherent review. Possibly a certain incoherence in the novel was contagious. So I'll give a little plot summary and then mention some observations.

Peter Leverett had been doing the ex-patriot thing in Paris (it is the late 1950s and the Marshall Plan created plenty of jobs for Americans in Europe in those days.) On his way back to the States he stops in Sambuco, a small Italian coastal town, to see an old friend from boarding school named Mason Flagg. Within two days, Peter has hit a pedestrian who ends up in a coma; Mason Flagg is dead; Cass Kinsolving, the drinker, is involved up to his inebriated eyeballs in the death of Flagg; and Peter finds himself embroiled as only an innocent bystander can be.

Where Styron fell down is in the structure. Peter Leverett, at the beginning of the book, has invited himself to visit Kinsolving some years after the Sambuco incident, making the entire novel a back story. The intimations of violence and madness hinted at in the first few pages are not fully revealed until almost the end of 500 pages, requiring a large amount of patience in the reader as well as the attention span so missing in our current society.

By the time this somewhat lame attempt at a murder mystery is fully solved (and mind you, Kinsolving who knows what really happened, was drunk and blacking out during most of the incidents) I hardly cared anymore who had done what. Except that I kept reading to find out.

You see, I just cannot write succinctly about what became a tangled, endless, reflective story involving the examination of so many heavy themes: evil, domination, art, redemption, love, and violence.

Putting Set This House on Fire into the context of 1960 novels, there are certain parallel topics. Irwin Shaw's Two Weeks in Another Town featured an American in Italy mixed up with the movie business. There was a whole side story in Styron's book involving movie business folks.

Another recurring theme that year was young men trying to make sense of the late 1950s drive for affluence, the power of business versus the relevance of art. Two examples are Ourselves to Know by John O'Hara and Rabbit Run by John Updike. As I come to the end of my 1960 reading list, it turns out to have been quite the pivotal year in literature. Styron was clearly immersed in the thinking of the times as he wrote his novel.

One last observation: Peter Leverett serves almost completely as a sounding board and observer. Stingo served that function in Sophie's Choice as did Jack Culver in The Long March. 

Despite all these quibbles, not once did I consider abandoning the book. I was impelled by wanting to know what happened in Sambuco even while I felt impatient to find out. Styron made me care whether or not Kinsolving got the redemption he sought. This is in the end a good dark Southern saga, though it probably appeals only to a certain kind of reader, of which I am one.

(Set This House on Fire is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

DREAMS OF JOY

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Dreams of Joy, Lisa See, Random House Inc, 2011, 349 pp

Dreams of Joy is the sequel to Shanghai Girls, at the end of which Joy runs away from Los Angeles to find her real father in Shanghai. When I finished Shanghai Girls, I couldn't wait to read the sequel but as it turned out, it took one of my reading groups to put it in front of me two years after its publication.

Dreams of Joy takes place in China and follows Joy as she finds her way around Shanghai, eventually locates her father, and becomes a member of a communist village. Pearl, the mother who raised Joy, also arrives in Shanghai determined to find her daughter and keep her from harm.

It is a dramatic story set during the challenging times of the New Society in Red China. For Pearl, the changes in the city she fled twenty years earlier are heart breaking. Joy has all of her hopeful illusions about communism and her father shattered. By the end, the mother and daughter have retraced new versions of the horrors experienced by Pearl and her sister May in their first escape.

Pearl and May finally come to terms with their mutual love for Joy's father, the conflict that powered the earlier novel. The man in question, a self-centered and successful artist whose life and talent were ruined by the communist regime, grows up at last. (Not spoilers because the way in which all this occurs is what matters in the novel.)

Lisa See's depictions of China during Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward are grisly. She has never shied away from the gritty realities of life in China, no matter the period of history. And if she resorts to melodrama, she does it well, in the tradition of the 19th century classics. I am glad I read Dreams of Joy. I wonder what she will do next.

(Dreams of Joy is available in paperback on the shelf at Once Upon A Time Bookstore. It is also available in other formats by order.)

TRANSATLANTIC

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TransAtlantic, Colum McCann, Random House Inc, 2013, 262 pp

Part family saga, part historical fiction, and a big love song to Ireland, TransAtlantic is an emotional journey of a novel. Interwoven with the lives of four women are tales of historical figures. 

Lily, a housemaid who escaped the Irish Potato Famine in 1845, was inspired to find freedom in the United States by Frederick Douglass when he visited Dublin. Lily's daughter Emily, a journalist, eventually sailed for Britain with her female offspring, Lottie, after covering the first transatlantic flight made by Jack Alcock and Teddy Brown. Lottie settled in Belfast with her English husband and in later years met ex-senator George Mitchell, sent by President Clinton to help broker the Belfast Peace Agreement. Lottie's daughter Hannah lived through and suffered during The Troubles and ends the matrilineal line in true 21st century style.

Perhaps I shouldn't have made the above paragraph so orderly because Colum McCann's story does not fall out in linear fashion. Much of the pleasure found in this novel is due to the way he structured the tale. He opens in 1919 with the transatlantic flight, establishing an imagery of ocean crossings that plays throughout, then shoots back to 1845 and Frederick Douglass. 

 

Lily Duggan sets the tone for the four women: feisty and tough with endless reserves of courage. These women are ancient Celtic goddesses reincarnated into roles of the last century and a half. The whole thing is like a rock ballad from the acoustic intro through heartfelt verses to power chord choruses that build to the climax and final fadeout.

I first fell in love with Colum McCann when I read Dancer, his fictional tribute to Rudolf Nureyev. History, tragedy, and passion lived in the dancer's very veins. He suffered it all, danced it, reveled in it. TransAtlantic is a full 75 pages shorter yet encompasses at least eight fully developed characters as it touches on several major historical events. An economy of prose, shorn of any unnecessary verbiage, brings each character to life and shows the impact of history on the people who live through it.

The story grows, the intensity ebbs and falls but never fades. Facts and locations and episodes bloom into emotional significance. Is it an Irish thing? By the end, I felt I was floating in eternity, feeling the never-ending influence on the present of what has come before even as our lives flow into and create what will be the future. 

For the epigraph, McCann quotes Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. "No history is mute. No matter how much they own it, break it, and lie about it, human history refuses to shut its mouth. Despite deafness and ignorance, the time that was continues to tick inside the time that is." Not an Irish thing, a literary thing.

(TransAtlantic is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE BONE PEOPLE

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The Bone People, Keri Hulme, Penguin Books, 1985, 545 pp

This amazing novel has been described by readers as difficult, unusual, strange, impossible to read, all time favorite, impressive, beautiful. It won the Booker Prize in 1985 and was reprinted as part of the Penguin Ink Series in 2010. It is a book readers either love or hate and it won't go away.

The three main characters, a woman, a man, and a child, are each in their own ways ruined by loss. Kerewin Holmes, an artist who can no longer paint, lives in a tower she built on the New Zealand Sea. Estranged from her part Maori, part European family, she drinks to avoid her despair. Despite her alienation and self-destructive habits, I found her sympathetic and intriguing. 

Kerewin's hermetic existence is invaded by a mute and troubled child, Simon, who capriciously worms his way into her heart. I think she sees herself in him. Though he can't speak, he is intelligent, wily, desperate for affection, untrustworthy and out of control. 

Along comes Joe, Simon's foster father. He is another Maori/European mix and surrounded by the Maori side of his extended family. Having lost a beloved wife and child, he has a charged and complicated relationship with Simon. His personal faults drive him to physically abuse the boy.

The story about these three is a sometimes unwieldy mix of love story, cultural confusion, and mystery. Unbelievable alcoholic consumption and emotional devastation combine with achingly beautiful and poetic description to create an exploration of New Zealand life that is nothing like any novel I have read lately.

Reading about how these characters act out their troubles and their hopes, I became involved with them as deeply as the people I grapple with in my own life. Despite some very grim scenes involving cruelty and abuse, I found myself hoping their humanity could overcome their demons.

The very factors that make The Bone People difficult to read (the poetic and reflective writing, the horrors, and the tumbling, twisted form of the plot) are what make it amazing and beautiful. There are plenty of novels that celebrate the resilience of the human spirit. Keri Hulme balances the hope of that resilience with the perils. In a culture where ancient values have been almost obliterated by Western views, the hardships of life put these characters to ever more difficult tests.

The author shows all of this with compassion, even humor, and made me think about the vast amounts of wisdom mankind has lost in our race for dominion over each other and the world. I feel honored to have read The Bone People.

(The Bone People is currently available in paperback on the shelf at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

TO THE END OF THE LAND

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To The End Of The Land, David Grossman, Alfred A Knopf, 2010, 576 pp

I've been wanting to read this book ever since it came out three years ago. I kept putting it off and finally formed the world's smallest possible reading group with one other person, a woman from one of my regular reading groups. We set a date to discuss it and encouraged each other along. I am so glad we did that. 

Ruth is Jewish and has visited Israel twice. She is the mother of two grown sons, as am I. We met for lunch and talked about the book for three hours!

To The End Of The Land is about so many things. It is about an endearing but torturous love triangle. It is about motherhood in all its glory and suffering. It is about love and family in war-torn Israel. It is about lost causes. And much more.

Ora is the mother. The novel opens with a 43 page long prologue that I had to read three times before I grasped what was going on. In 1967 three very sick victims of an illness consisting primarily of high fevers, meet up. They are in hospital with only one nurse to care for them. War is raging nearby but these three quarantined teens are too delirious to understand what is going on. Ora falls in love with the other two, Ilan and Avram. Their destinies are forever entwined due to the alchemical crucible of fever, fear, sex, and love.

Eventually they recover and go back to their lives. Everything that happens thereafter is embedded in the eternal conflict that is the modern state of Israel.

Ora marries Ilan; Avram is captured and tortured by Egyptian soldiers. Ora has a son by Ilan and a son by Avram. The constant war and mandatory military service, the threat of death and all that stems from these factors are the only sure things in their lives. But for Ora, her sons, as well as her husband and her lover (who by the way are best friends and soul mates) are the central facts of existence.

It is hard to explain the emotional power of this novel. That a man could write so truthfully about a woman is one of those feats of literature; almost proof to me of our basic essence as spiritual beings who in any life take on the role of male or female. Ora is a wild and primal force as a mother, a lover, and a woman. But Ilan and Avram and the sons are no less than she.

Once again I have read the story of motherhood and its basic truth that no matter what, your children grow up and leave you. Though this has also been my experience, I have yet to come to terms with this paradox and neither does Ora. What mothers will do to maintain themselves as protectors of their children involves a level of sacrifice AND power transcending any amount of aggression and destruction that men can wreak on life.

The wonder of this particular story is how eloquently and thoroughly David Grossman has revealed all of the above. His book has the reputation of being a difficult read and I imagine that means different things to different readers. I found it difficult in terms of its length and its emotional impact but ultimately for me it became one of those books that I will never forget and that was an important step in understanding many questions I have had about life. 

I want every mother I know to read it. I want the President, Secretary of State, and anyone else in our government who has to deal with the Israeli/Arab conflict to read it. I want all the leaders of the world to read it. I know that won't happen.

Just like the besotted and determined Ora, I will not stop hoping and talking and cajoling and pleading and living for a future that honestly only women can create. David Grossman must have an incredible mother because he clearly understands this.

(To The End Of The Land is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

MARY COIN

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Mary Coin, Marisa Silver, Penguin Press, 2012, 261 pp

I did like this partly historical novel; not as much as I liked Marisa Silver's last novel, The God of War, but I liked it. She used the famous Migrant Mother photo by Dorothea Lange to create her own fiction, changing all the names and telling an adapted story about Dust Bowl migrants. She tied those historical characters to people in the present.

She circles around between the lives of the migrant mother, the photographer, and a young man from one family of big planters who employed migrant workers, with regular jumps into the present. In interviews, Marisa Silver freely admits to doing all the research on the characters and then making up her own story about them. So it is hard to know what is fact and what is fiction, but it makes for a good tale.

I once did a writing exercise that required me to study the photo of the migrant mother and compose a few paragraphs about what I imagined was going through her mind. It was a bit eerie to read the novel and hear some of my own thoughts being echoed.

My reading group mostly discussed the art of photography, the differing roles of photographer and subject. I was not much conscious of that topic as I read.

Instead I became immersed in the two women themselves and the ways that circumstances had shaped their lives, especially as mothers. Both had to make hard decisions due to the Depression. Both had to assume full responsibility for their children and each one reacted in different ways. 

Then there is a modern day male character whose passion is history. He discovers the past by means of artifacts and documents and photographs and eventually traces his family history back to the Dust Bowl days. In some ways, his life parallels the lives of the historical characters, allowing the reader to ponder the ways we make sense of the present by reconstructing lives of people who came before us. Since most of my writing currently is in the memoir genre, that was interesting or at least curious to me.

The writing in this novel veers back and forth between deeply personal accounts of the characters and somewhat emotionless recounting of historical events. Every time she switched from one style to the other was a jolt for me and kept me from ever fully sinking into the book. I think her characters were compelling enough to have shown the history, obviating the need for all the telling.

(Mary Coin is available in hardcover and eBook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

DEFENDING JACOB

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Defending Jacob, William Landay, Delacorte Books, 2012, 421 pp

I read this for one of my reading groups. It was a fast, sometimes disturbing, but essentially for me, mediocre read, along the lines of Jodi Piccoult. I felt the author did not ever quite decide what kind of book he was writing.

If Defending Jacob had to fit into a genre, it would be either Crime Fiction or Legal Thriller. Indeed, William Landay was educated as a lawyer and has worked as an assistant district attorney. In the novel, Andy Barber, father of Jacob, is an assistant district attorney. When his son is accused of murdering a classmate at his middle school, Andy's position becomes a liability. 

We discussed long and hard at the reading group meeting. It is never made completely clear in the book whether or not Jacob committed the murder. Three of the eight members of my group thought he did not, five were convinced he did! I imagine that the author would be curious to know that because the main theme of the novel was the laughable but horrible inability of the legal system to determine the guilt or innocence of individuals who go to trial. Underneath that failing are the investigative shortcomings of law enforcement bodies.

Even though Landay attempts to meld the above with family issues, societal patterns and questions about whether or not antisocial violence is an inherited trait, I perceived that he was really gnawing away on this question: how many murderers and other vicious criminals are at large in society and how many innocent people are sitting in our jails?

I had some problems with all aspects of Landay's writing including his style, his plotting, and his characters. But in the end I realized that I am not critical of Sara Paretsky or even Janet Evanovich on those points. If a crime/mystery/legal thriller tells a good story and raises important points about our live, that is fine. But Sara and Janet write from a well worked out stance. I am not so sure about Mr Landay.

(Defending Jacob is available in mass market paperback on the shelves at Once Upon A Time Bookstore. It is also available in other formats by order.)

THE BACHELORS

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The Bachelors, Muriel Spark, J B Lippincott Company, 1960, 219 pp

 

 

 

The Bachelors couldn't have been written by anyone but Muriel Spark. However, it was not as great as other novels of hers I have read. The central characters are all confirmed bachelors and are loosely friends. I could not imagine being married to any one of them without a shudder, which I suppose is the point.

These men are brought together by a legal case, though only one is a lawyer. Patrick Seton, a spiritualist medium but really a con man, is on trial for "fraudulent conversion." (Yes, I had to look that up. It is a civil crime of defrauding a family member or personal acquaintance.)

As is often the case with a novel by Spark, there is not one redeeming character, including the females. I am not bothered by that and these characters are as well drawn as always. It is a braided tale and not particularly compelling, so I wasn't always wanting to remember who was who and who did what.

The best chapters come at the end when the stakes get higher and the trial is held. Sometimes novels are dated yet carry little historical import. This was one of those for me.

(The Bachelors is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS

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The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham, Doubleday & Company Inc, 1951, 216 pp

I first learned about this book through Jo Walton, whose heroine in Among Others read it, among many other books. (Here is a list.) Naturally I then kept coming across the title on blogs, etc. My husband saw me reading it and remembered seeing the movie. (1962, British film.)

The book is short. Pretty good 1950s science fiction. I was struck by the way Wyndham interwove ideas with the plot, but then realized that was the way it was done in most of the 1950s sci fi I have read. Some authors do it better than others; Asimov was the best but Wyndham is not bad.

The triffids are odd plants that can move. Somewhere just before I read the book, I came across an article (probably on the web) about trees that can "walk" by putting down roots ahead of them and letting go of roots behind them. Now I can't remember what they are or where I read it. The wonders of the reading life!

 

Triffids are carnivorous, except they kill people first with a poisonous sting, then eat them when they are fully dead. Technically they are carrion eaters which is actually more gross.

Otherwise The Day of the Triffids is about the aftermath of a planetwide disaster and the ways people figure out where to go from there. It was never exactly clear how the green flashes of light from a meteor shower were connected to the menace of the triffids. Nor was it clear where the triffids came from, though they became a menace when men began to farm them and use one of their byproducts for fuel. 

I see why it became a classic and how it influenced many later sci fi books. If you intend to be or are a writer of science fiction, you must read John Wyndham. But he is more than historically relevant. The Day of the Triffids is a good read.

(The Day of the Triffids is available in paperback and eBook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

NO LONGER AT EASE

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No Longer at Ease, Chinua Achebe, Ivan Oblensky Inc, 1960, 170 pp

Chinua's second novel, following Things Fall Apart, jumps several generations in time. Obi Okonkwo, an Ibo from eastern Nigeria, has returned from university studies in England and takes a position as a civil servant in Lagos.

Obi was the brightest boy from his village and had been granted a scholarship by the Umuafia Progressive Union, a social group that keeps current and former inhabitants of the village connected even after they move to other towns. He is a young man to whom much has been given and much is expected. But it is the mid 1950s and rapid change is the order of things.

Soon enough, despite a salary beyond the wildest dreams of anyone from Umuafia, Obi finds himself short of funds, as he tries to keep up with a higher standard of living. In addition, he is engaged to a young woman who will never by accepted by his family or village because of an ancient curse that haunts her family. Tragedy looms and finally arrives.

At first I missed the powerful story of Things Fall Apart. By the end I realized that it could not be the same. The tragedy is the same: the loss of certainty and the surrender of old tribal values in an effort to mix with the White Man. But the times are so different that Obi mistakenly hopes his modern views and education will see him through.

Thus, it seems the story is more tawdry, less shocking. Not only have native Africans lost their spiritual center, so have the English and indeed much of the world. The horror of colonialism has become the commonplace. Yet Obi's efforts to carry on as an African while trying to assimilate into modern times are just as tragic as the headman's failure in Things Fall Apart. Things have fallen apart further.

(No Longer at Ease is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

AMERICAN RUST

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American Rust, Philipp Meyer, Spiegel & Grau, 2009, 367 pp

Oh my. Oh my. This is a dark depressing novel. I was already depressed when I started it and more so when I finished. A small town near Pittsburgh, PA, in the early years of the 21st century, consists of the people who have remained after the demise of the steel industry in America. All is rundown: the people, the structures, the restaurants, even the police department. It is as though the apocalypse already happened.

Meyer's seamless conjunction of the personal, the political and the sociological does more than any documentary or series of news reports to make the effects of America's loss of manufacturing comprehensible to readers.

 

The protagonists, Isaac English and Billy Poe, are 20-year-olds who have missed the ring that young men must grab in order to make a life as adults. They both have their reasons, which forms the back story. Isaac has a crippled father and a mother dead by her own hand. Billy has a mother full of broken dreams and an unreliable father. 

 

As these two young men get themselves into a world of trouble, as they each try to outrun it, the story builds with unbearable tension. About two thirds of the way through I gave up hope that any sort of redemption or happiness was possible for any single character.

 

I read American Rust because I have meant to read it since it came out. (Philipp Meyer has a new novel, Son, coming out later this month and I wanted to read this one first.) My father worked for US Steel all his adult life until he retired around 1980. My comfortable middle class upbringing and my inheritance were paid for by that corporation. My father's dreams were crushed by it, even though he worked in offices at headquarters in Pittsburgh and then on Wall Street in New York City. I can't ask him now because he has passed from this life, but I wonder if he took early retirement because he saw what was coming.

Another theme in American Rust is the innumerable ways that parents fail their children and are in turn disappointed by them. A hard hit for me because I am dealing with all that in my own life at this time. As painful as it was to read about, I did realize that this theme is ancient; it happens to us all. I also became aware that in times of accelerated change, the generational conflicts are magnified.

This is a novel that obliterates any boundaries between fiction for men versus fiction for women. It is not for the faint of heart, but it is for those of us who care about what is happening to our lives and our country.

(American Rust is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

WOKE UP LONELY

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Woke Up Lonely, Fiona Maazel, Graywolf Press, 2013, 323 pp

The publisher's letter to the reader in the front of my review copy of Woke Up Lonely suggests there are two ways to read the novel: speedily while being propelled by the action or taking one's time to savor Maazel's precision, wit, and prose. In my first reading I attempted the speed method but kept being foiled by the prose. I got to the end feeling supremely annoyed. Who is this Fiona Maazel anyway, I thought, and why is she considered to be so hot?

She tells us the story of Thurlow Dan, founder and leader of Helix, a cult that promises to cure loneliness. The opening pitch in Dan's words:

"Here is something you should know: we are living in an age of pandemic. Of pandemic and paradox. To be more interconnected than ever and yet lonelier than ever. To be almost immortal with what science is doing for us yet plagued with feelings that are actually revising how we operate on a biological level. Want to know what that means? I'll tell you."

Of course, in the way of people who found cults in an effort to solve their own problems, Thurlow Dan is hopelessly disconnected from other people. He deserted his wife and year old infant nine years earlier after being serially unfaithful and has wound up rich, famous, under investigation by the American government for possible acts of terrorism, still in love with his ex-wife, and lonely as hell.

Esme, the ex-wife, is a freelance agent working for Homeland Security. She does her best to raise her daughter Ida in her spare time while secretly trying to save Thurlow from himself. Time is running out though because the cult leader's misguided attempt to test his theories on North Korea's Dear Leader has landed him in some very hot water. The lunatic fringe of his cult harbors terrorist leanings and if Esme doesn't pull off something brilliant, the man she still loves is going down.

My problem was that I did not figure all this out until I had almost finished the book. Due to the author's impressive vocabulary, I had to keep stopping to look up words. Nothing wrong with that; I love words. But I kept losing track of the plot as Maazel's brilliant set pieces, such as the speed dating as procurement method for Helix and the creation of Esme's elaborate disguises and the mother/daughter scenes with Ida, kept flashing like rooms from a fun house. Not to mention that at least six of the main characters each has his or her own plot.

The advance-praise blurbs for Woke Up Lonely left me sputtering with refutation. "I may have bruised ribs from laughing." I didn't remember laughing. Once. "This is a book you need." Why do we need to be told how lonely and disconnected we are? "It leaves your ears, mind and soul ringing for days." Well, actually a few days later I had to admit it did. So I tried the second suggested reading approach. I began again, taking my time, paying attention, letting Fiona Maazel talk to me.

Sure enough, like meeting someone who at first comes across as despicable and later becomes a great friend, the whole thing fell out and I got it. This author writes with the absurdist sense of early Iris Murdoch. She comports herself with the linguistic showmanship of Michael Chabon. Woke Up Lonely is a satirical social critique, a modern day romance, a literary thriller, and a tragedy that as it turns out, is also comedy. In my second reading, I am laughing.

I am not worried about bruising any ribs though. I've come through denial, anger, and bargaining. We are in deep trouble. I am depressed and don't plan on achieving acceptance. In the final scene comes the ultimate mockery of achieving acceptance. Instead, I challenge readers to finish this book and report back.

(Woke Up Lonely is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE MAGICIAN OF LUBLIN

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The Magician of Lublin, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Noonday Press, 1960, 243 pp

Yasha Mazur, magician, lover, free spirit in prewar Poland, "could never understand how other people managed to live in one place and spend their entire lives with one woman without becoming melancholy." He had a dutiful and loving Jewish wife in his hometown, but most of the year he traveled the country. A woman in every town, a young female assistant for his act, an industrious agent, all assure Yasha money, variety and freedom from melancholy.

He could open any lock, escape from any enclosure, walk a high wire. His master plan was to escape Poland by converting to Catholicism and marrying one of his lovers. They would move to Italy and he would perform in the capitals of Europe amassing riches and fame.

Singer makes you admire this fellow with his carefree outlook, his allegiance to no particular God, woman, or country. Yasha reminded me a bit of Franz Liszt, the first world famous, touring musician.

But like Liszt, his wanderlust masked the deep melancholy and fractured conscience that was Yasha's true character causing a life of indecision, worry, and depression. The Magician of Lublin is a moral tale about the consequences of rejecting the faith of one's family and the country of one's origin. Or it could be seen as a creative example of the human condition.

Oh the writing! So evocative of location and times. So perceptive with regard to the protagonist, his friends, and the women. It is as if the entire story walks a tightrope and when the inevitable fall comes, everyone falls with this energetic, lovable, inspiring freedom seeker into the pit of darkness and retribution.

(The Magician of Lublin is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

SOUTH OF THE ANGELS

South of the Angels, Jessamyn West, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1960, 564 pp

I read this book while going through extreme emotional distress due to a family matter. I love Jessamyn West and she is one of those treasures I've discovered while pursuing My Big Fat Reading Project. South of the Angels is her longest book so far. Due to the state I was in it took me over a week to read, but whenever I would let her have my heart and mind, I would come away feeling blessed and healed.

Jessamyn West is about as far from sappy as you can get. She writes about people and families from a wise and wry perspective. Her characters may be fictional but they are so much like real people, with all their graces and faults, that I trust her insights implicitly. She was raised a Quaker in Indiana, then relocated to California, so became known as a Western writer.

The time is just prior to and during the outbreak of World War I. A less-than-upright businessman based in Los Angeles is developing a property south and east of LA in what is now Orange County. He has sold lots to all kinds of people promising sun, irrigation, no frost--a Garden of Eden waiting to be turned into orange groves.

Sylvester Perkins, the developer, is the first character we meet, but his purpose in the story is to be a foil to the settlers of what is called The Tract. These settlers are united only by a common dream: to start a new life away from whatever had made them unhappy so far. Otherwise, each is unique.

Without much of a plot, the first two years on The Tract meander along as these people and families live in tents, build houses, endure water shortages, Santa Ana winds, killing frost and blazing sun. Today this would be a reality TV show like Survivor, but in Jessamyn West's hands it is almost an instruction manual for life. Babies are born, people fall in love, children rebel, men compete. By the end everyone is changed in many ways.

The world abounds with pioneer novels but South of the Angels stood out for me as something special. I wish Ms West were still alive so I could write her a lovely note. Instead, I can post this review and hope that a few more readers discover her and find the peace of mind I did.

(South of the Angels is out of print. It is available from used booksellers. I found a copy in the library.)

THE CHILD BUYER

The Child Buyer, John Hersey, Alfred A Knopf, 1960, 258pp

This was an odd book. John Hersey has a theme in most of his novels: the juxtaposition of individuals with societal/government actions. In this case, a Mr Wissey Jones arrives in a small American town with the intention to literally buy a child. Barry Rudd is that child, 10 years old, from a somewhat poor and uneducated family but showing signs of genius. Mr Jones is a consummate salesman with that ability to ferret out the true objections, fears, and wants of people in order to get said people to agree with what he wants them to do.

Mr Wissey Jones, it turns out, works for a secret United States government department. I have no idea if the story is based in fact and I don't really want to know. The government is looking for young geniuses in order to train them for specific uses related to defending democracy. Jones is authorized to pay significant reimbursement to any family who will turn over a child to him.

What a creepy idea! Especially in a "democracy." Unfortunately Hersey frames the story within a series of hearings by a state senate committee appointed to investigate the case of Mr Jones and Barry. The book is written as the transcript of those hearings. Inventive though this approach may be, it made for some strange reading.

I give Hersey credit for creating a pretty good satire attacking the wacky ideas on education which grew out of the communist scare and the space race as well as the involvement of psychology in American education. I wonder how many people read this book when it was published in 1960.

(The Child Buyer is out of print. It is best found through used book sellers. It was not even in any of my libraries.)

BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK

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Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, Ben Fountain, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2012, 267 pp

I enjoyed reading this novel. Ben Fountain won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, was a contender in the Tournament of Books, and had written daily for 18 years before his first book was published. He knows about dreams, struggle, and delayed rewards.

Billy Lynn is one of several novels to come out recently about the war in Iraq. I haven't read any of the others so I can't say it is the best, but it is a good one.

The eight soldiers in this novel are the survivors of a firefight with Iraqui insurgents. Because a Fox News tape of the battle went viral, Bravo Squad became America's most famous heroes of the moment. Due to falling public support for the war, they have been dispatched on a nationwide media "Victory Tour" and for Billy Lynn and his comrades it is a Magical Mystery Tour as surrealistic as anything ever conceived by John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

I can't imagine what this would be like, being feted and fawned over, fed and boozed and drugged, back in the USA with full blown PTSD and knowing all the while that you would return to the war to finish your tour of duty. Yes, you survived but you still stand a 99% chance of being killed.

Ben Fountain imagined it for me. Billy gets to have an early Thanksgiving dinner with his mother and sister, he and Bravo Squad spend a hungover day at the Dallas Cowboys stadium and participate with nearly disastrous results in the halftime show alongside Destiny's Child. Billy, who has a crashing headache all day but can't find a single aspirin, falls in love/lust with a cheerleader. A Hollywood agent has come along on the tour, trying to get a movie deal for the squad, promising untold riches, if it happens, if they live to see it.

Billy Lynn is a 19-year-old Texas native. He is just a guy with no prospects, barely any experience except as a soldier and tries to process what he sees. It is equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking.

The novel could be called anti-war, anti-American, anti-big business, and I suppose it is. Fountain portrays us as we are and it's not pretty. When the Dixie Chicks protested the war, it ultimately ruined their career. Billy and his buddies are faced with a similar quandary but enough time has passed that Ben Fountain made his career instead.

What a country. What a world. When will we ever learn?

(Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE SAND CHILD

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The Sand Child, Tahar Ben Jeloun, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc, 1987, 165 pp

Although something is always lost in translation, I love reading novels by authors from other countries. Tahar Ben Jeloun is Moroccan and writes in French. His style of storytelling is curvy, almost circular, with repeating motifs and multiple tellers, making it a challenging proposition for all of us in the reading group who chose it.

But it was provocative, poetic writing about a female child whose father decided to claim was a boy. Desperate for a male heir after his wife had presented him with seven daughters, without a single thought about the effects it might have on this child, he just faked it. Those effects were myriad and devastating.

The book encompasses several levels or themes: gender, post-colonial conditions in Morocco, Islamic mores, and storytelling itself. 

As I read, I could feel the grit of the sand, smell the dung and spices of the market place, and reel in the confusion of this unfortunate female as she grows up and grapples with her identity. It was like taking a trip to a foreign land where nothing at all feels American.

THE MOTHERS

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The Mothers, Jennifer Gilmore, Scribner, 2013, 275 pp

There is a new word in the zeitgeist: Fertility. It appears to be a problem aligned to a socioeconomic level.  Middle class women who put off baby making for careers, who rack up stress out in the cold, hard, competitive world of the workplace, then find it hard to conceive and/or carry a baby to term.

The story telling in Jennifer Gilmore's novel about mothers encompasses the ones with children, the pregnant ones, adoptive mothers looking for babies, and birth mothers looking for other mothers to take their babies. What grabbed me by the throat was the voice of Jesse.

Jesse's voice is a raw and naked scream of anger, anxiety, and longing. Because Jesse's mother was so busy flitting around the world working for social justice, Jesse and her sister were mostly raised by an African American nanny. Now approaching 40 and having endured years of fertility treatments and In Vitro Fertilization, she and her husband Ramon have resigned themselves to adoption. The process only gets more complex and nerve wracking as it sends them into new roller coasters of hopes raised and dashed.

Rarely have I read any dialogue of marital fighting that sounds so much like real life. Still more rare is the re-creation in fiction of female emotion as it really and truly feels. You see, we've been quelled, we've been told over and over to calm down. Jesse says to Ramon, "Do not tell me to calm down. A word of advice? Don't tell any woman to calm down. Ever."

Ramon is not a bad guy or a bad husband. He is in there pitching all the way. He has his own hurts on the father side of things. But he is not ever going to be a mother. Jesse is. She will not be denied.

I think The Mothers is not a universal story. It is about an array of particular mothers and their particular experiences. Most of all, it is Jesse's story. There could well be women who would hate this novel. I know for sure there are men who would tell Jesse not only to calm down but also to shut up already.

I read, impelled by this woman's anger, anxiety, and longing. I emerged at the end emotionally ravaged, not convinced that Jesse would be a good mother but certain that she would raise a daughter who had free emotions. We don't find out. The book ends.

(The Mothers is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

BRING UP THE BODIES

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Bring Up The Bodies, Hilary Mantel, Henry Holt and Company, 2012, 410 pp

Just great! Hilary Mantel is hands down my current favorite historical fiction author. In her sequel to Wolf Hall (and her second in a proposed trilogy about Thomas Cromwell) she continues her fascinating study of a man who served Henry VIII, doing most of the king's dirty work for him, and who lived in conflict both internal and external.

This volume concerns the elimination of Henry's second wife, Anne Boleyn. She had also failed to give him a male heir, but worse she was wildly, recklessly adulterous, opening the door to Cromwell when it was time for her to go.

Anyone who claims that Bring Up The Bodies can be read with enjoyment and full understanding without having read Wolf Hall is probably just trying to sell you the book. Not possible!

You need to know Henry VIII in all his megalomaniac obsession with obtaining a male heir. You must be one with Mantel's version of who Thomas Cromwell really was. It is required to have lived with Katherine, the first wife, and Anne Boleyn in her early days as the usurper. Not to mention having the background on the Seymours of Wolf Hall and why they would even agree to put forward the virginal Jane as the next queen.

As Cromwell goes about his work of being the henchman, wending multiple paths between the gossip, self-seeking, and power struggles, I felt his every self doubt and his sense of impending doom. He never loses his cutting edge but knowing the outcome and knowing the stakes takes nothing away from the intrigue, tension, and danger of his machinations.

Waiting for and watching the progression of events that lead to Boleyn's exposure, trial, and final demise is deliciously excruciating. It is Mantel's triumph that she can wring so much drama and insight from what has been recorded history for almost 500 years. She deserves all the acclaim and prizes she has won.

(Bring Up The Bodies has now been released in paperback. It is available also in hardcover and eBook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

ONION JOHN

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Onion John, Joseph Krumgold, Thomas Y Crowell, 1959, 248 pp

THE SUNDAY FAMILY READ

 

 

What a difference six years can make, at least in writing for children. Joseph Krumgold won a Newbery Award in 1954 for And Now Miguel, a book written in what I would call the old style of kid lit. In 1960, he won again with Onion John. Despite the somewhat off-putting title and a truly odd dust cover illustration, this middle grade novel is as hip as Beverly Cleary was in her day.

Original dustcover

Andy Rush, Jr is coming of age in a small New Jersey town. His father owns a hardware store where Andy works after school when he isn't running with his gang of friends. The boys are into baseball and roaming the town. The tone is completely late 1950s and makes the story clip along.

Krumgold however is really following the same theme as he did in Miguel: that cusp of childhood dealing with the awareness of adults as people with their own flaws and worries.

Onion John is the community's nickname for a Polish immigrant who lives in a rundown house on the edge of town, barely speaks English, and survives by means of odd jobs and finding stuff at the dump. Andy learns how to understand what Onion John is saying and they become friends. 

In fact, Onion John becomes a hero to Andy. The boy falls under the spell of this man's folk wisdom. Of course, Andy Sr, has big plans for his son and they don't include a weirdo like Onion John. Worse, Andy Sr enlists the whole town in a project to make Onion John into a "normal" guy, with disastrous results.

That is the conflict and Andy must work his way through his loyalties and love for two very different father figures. This is a well told story with great characters and no preaching. I liked Andy's friends as much as I liked Onion John. Actually Onion John rocks, both the man and the book.

(Onion John is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

WHERE'D YOU GO BERNADETTE?

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Where'd You Go Bernadette?, Maria Semple, Little Brown and Company, 2012, 221 pp

 

 

 

A Tournament of Books contender recommended by a friend whose tastes often parallel mine, this is an easy entertaining read that makes humor out of many contemporary foibles but has the offbeat Bernadette, who keeps it from being trite.

The story takes place in Seattle with side trips to LA and Antarctica. Bernadette, who used to be one of only a few famous female architects, suffered a "big, bad thing." She and her Microsoft genius husband are raising a daughter in an odd decrepit "home" that used to be an asylum for disturbed girls. Bernadette is not as bad a mother as the one in The Glass Castle, but I kept thinking of that deranged artist as I read. Bee, the daughter, is precocious and self-sufficient; not surprising given the parents.

I had fun reading it but it faded fast from my memory. Maria Semple has been a successful screenwriter which explains to me why reading her book felt like watching a movie. I don't usually remember movies unless they have a huge impact on me.

The use of documents (emails, faxes, letters, articles, journal entries) is I guess a modern version of the epistolary novel. Semple does it well but it felt somewhat precious or contrived to me.

Actually I liked Bernadette and was kept engaged as her story revealed why she ran away but I felt bad for Bee. She deserved better parents. I suppose most kids do.

To summarized this disjointed review, I had mixed feelings.

(Where'd You Go Bernadette? is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE DISSIDENT

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The Dissident, Nell Freudenberger, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006, 427 pp

This is her first novel. I liked it much better than her second, The Newlyweds. I see now why she got such glowing reviews her first time out and was chosen as one of Granta Magazine's best young novelists.

The writing is excellent: tight, witty yet serious, with a plot that moves and pulls you despite frequent doses of back story.

Yuan Zhao is a young Chinese artist on a one-year residency in Los Angeles. Because of his past links to radical movements in late 20th century China, he is called "the dissident." For reasons not made clear, he is being hosted by a wealthy Los Angeles family, living in their guest room, and teaching a class at their daughter's private school.

The American family is almost a caricature of upper middle class dysfunction except that each family member is so clearly drawn, especially the self-deluded mother and wife. What impressed me even more was the author's authentic grasp of the sections set in China.

Best of all, as I read along, getting more and more involved, it suddenly dawned on me that for Yuan Zhao something quite fishy was going on. By the time I reached the amusing but happy ending I was amazed by the intricate and sure handed way Freudenberger had led me through a maze I hadn't fully recognized I was in before I knew I might have gotten lost.

Great read!

(The Dissident is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

STARSHIP TROOPERS

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Starship Troopers, Robert A Heinlein, G P Putnam's Sons, 1959, 263 pp

Starship Troopers won the Hugo Award in 1960. (Until 1965 when the Nebula Award was created, the Hugo was the only major science fiction award.) I have also learned that a sub-category of sci fi is called military sci fi. This book falls in that category and has a reputation of being Heinlein's most controversial work.

As far as I could tell it is a story in praise of soldiers: their toughness, bravery, and loyalty to each other and to the country, planet or intergalactic entity for which they fight. Heinlein took his experiences in the US Navy and made up a story about a soldier named Rico who trained with and fought for a futuristic military branch called the Mobile Infantry.

These guys wore atomic powered armor and were dropped on enemy planets with orders to wreak as much destruction as possible. The enemy against mankind was an intelligent arachnid species nicknamed the Bugs.

I belong to that much maligned segment of humanity called pacifists. I am staunchly antiwar. My spiritual heroes include Jesus, Buddha, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr, etc. I was educated to understand that as Americans, we fight for democracy, we always win, and we have God on our side. As far as I can tell, in any war, each side feels justified by some kind of spiritual belief that they are in the right and should be proud to kill and destroy the enemy for the good of their own portion of mankind. Sounds like insanity to me.

Therefore I pretty much hated this book the whole way through. It is an age-old quandary. If someone or some group of someones is out to conquer or destroy you, what should you do? Is mankind doomed to a tooth and claw existence or do we have abilities which should enable us to rise above such animalistic tendencies and find a more constructive method of resolving differences?

If we spent as much money and sacrificed as much human life as we do on war to create a harmonious existence with each other, I don't see how we could fail. But where is the fun and excitement in that, eh?

Heinlein was a consummate storyteller and a fine writer. I suppose his curse was that he was also a deep thinker but failed himself to find answers. He wrote it all down in his stories and if Starship Troopers was controversial, his next book went beyond controversial to provocative. Within two years, Heinlein won the Hugo Award for Stranger in a Strange Land. I am eagerly anticipating my rereading of one of the hippy manuals I read in my youth.

(Starship Troopers is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)