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THE WOMAN WITH THE BOUQUET by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

In this title short story, “The Woman with the Bouquet,” Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt blends his trademark elements of fairy tale romance, pathos, and fatedness. It radiates mystery and romanticism but also a ghostly bit of menace, and it cuts to a marrow of sorrow. It appeals to our curiosity about the “obsessing” people in this world who will not be moved from their own missions, and simultaneously it reminds us that time spent waiting for something is time not spent doing something else more “constructive.” Loyalty and love would seem to be the motivators of the woman, but perhaps she just is retiring from the world by standing there every day?

September 25, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  · Posted in: France, Short Stories, Translated

NASHVILLE CHROME by Rick Bass

I’ve often thought that being famous must be a horrible burden. There would be the fun bits, of course, but there’s a definite downside: the psycho fans, the paparazzi, and the fact that every little thing you do could potentially end up on the cover of National Enquirer. But perhaps what’s even worse than being famous is tasting fame and then fading into complete obscurity.

Rick Bass’s novel Nashville Chrome is a fictionalized account of the Browns: Maxine. Jim Ed, and Bonnie. At the height of their fame, this singing trio was second only to Elvis, and even the Beatles shared a few jam sessions with their idols. Have you ever heard of the Browns? I hadn’t, and I’ll admit that I was some way into the novel before it dawned on me that this is a story of very real and very forgotten people.

September 16, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , ,  · Posted in: Facing History

LET THE DEAD LIE by Malla Nunn

Swaziland-born Nunn’s second 1950s South Africa novel, LET THE DEAD LIE, opens with a prologue in 1945. Series protagonist Emmanuel Cooper, a major in the South African army at the time, comes across a murdered washerwoman in a Paris doorway and immediately abandons the night’s pleasures to stay with the body until the police arrive: “…it was an insult to abandon a body in a city where law and order had been restored.” The main narrative opens in May 1953 in Durban and while Cooper remains true to his convictions, his life has gotten more difficult.

September 11, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  · Posted in: Class - Race - Gender, Noir, Reading Guide, Sleuths Series, South Africa, World Lit

HUSBAND AND WIFE by Leah Steward

The first person narrator of Leah Stewart’s Husband and Wife is thirty-five year old Sarah Price, who has been married to Nathan Bennett, a fiction writer, for four years. They are the doting parents of an incredibly precocious three-year-old girl, Mattie, and a baby boy. Sarah, who was once a promising poet, is now a busy mother who has a full-time job as a business manager for the Department of Neurobiology at Duke University. She is perpetually worn-out, but considers herself to be relatively fulfilled. One day, Nathan throws a monkey-wrench into their relationship when he confesses that his new book, Infidelity, is not completely fictional. Nathan morosely admits, “I cheated on you.”

June 17, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  · Posted in: Contemporary, Family Matters, Reading Guide, US Mid-Atlantic

COYOTE HORIZON by Allen M. Steele

COYOTE HORIZON continues the story of the human settlers on Coyote, a moon of the planet Bear in the 47 Ursae Majoris system. Hawk Thompson, nephew of former president, Carlos Montero, is on parole after spending time in jail for killing his abusive father. As the story opens, he has a boring, dead-end job as customs inspector at the spaceport.

May 27, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags:  · Posted in: Scifi, y Award Winning Author

THE NEAREST EXIT by Olen Steinhauer

THE NEAREST EXIT, Olen Steinhauer’s follow-up to THE TOURIST, brings back Milo Weaver, a covert operative for the CIA. Miles is one of the elite spies known as Tourists because, like visitors to a foreign land, “they appeared and disappeared.” Tourists are “a secret sect of American agents that required none of the comforts of normal humans. No steady identity, no home, no moral center beyond the virtue of work.” Milo claims that he would rather spend quality time at home with his wife and daughter than traipse around the world robbing, maiming, and killing people. As espionage enthusiasts know, however, it is not that easy to get out of the game.

May 11, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  · Posted in: 2010 Favorites, Thriller/Spy/Caper