RODIN’S DEBUTANTE by Ward Just
Ward Just is a writer’s writer, as straightforward and gritty and no-nonsense as Chicago—the city from which he hails. His solid 17th novel carries a seemingly enigmatic title – Rodin’s Debutante – a curiosity, considering the book has nothing to do with Rodin or debutantes.
But wait – as in much of Ward Just’s work, there is complexity and hidden meaning behind the seeming simplicity.
March 2, 2011
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Judi Clark · 
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Tags: 20th-Century, Art, Chicago, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt · Posted in: Contemporary, Literary, US Midwest, y Award Winning Author
GHOST LIGHT by Joseph O’Connor
GHOST LIGHT by Joseph O’Connor is a brilliant and complex book. It is one of the best books I have read in the last five years. The language is poetic and hallucinatory and this is a book where one can’t skip passages or lines. Every word is necessary and the whole is a gift put together with the greatest care and love.
February 1, 2011
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Tags: 20th-Century, FSG, London, Real People Fiction, Time Period Fiction · Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Facing History, Reading Guide, United Kingdom
DEATH INSTINCT by Jed Rubenfeld
In Jed Rubenfeld’s sexy, moody, Hitchcockian-cum-Freudian-cum-Jungian literary novel, THE INTERPRETION OF MURDER, Dr. Stratham Younger narrates a story within the framework of a fictional journal, focusing on his experiences with Drs. Jung and Freud on their revolutionary visit to the United States in 1909. Rubenfeld braided historical fact and fiction in this Manhattan corkscrew murder mystery, centering on Freud’s pioneering “talking therapy” and penning some biting dialogue between the three psychoanalysts. Younger’s skepticism and attraction to Freud’s theories enhanced the mesmerizing story of his attempt to cure a damaged, neurotic, and mute woman. The novel was peopled with a sprawling cast of doctors and louche politicians, drawing the reader into a lush, dissecting mixture of cerebral scrutiny and emotional desire.
Rubenfeld’s second and very ambitious novel also weaves fact and fiction, with extensive scope, while adopting some of the motifs and themes from his debut work. This time the author is tacitly paralleling events in the novel to the economic depression of contemporary times, as well as the 9/11 tragedies.
January 21, 2011
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Tags: 1920s, 20th-Century, Freud, Real Event Fiction, Real People Fiction · Posted in: Facing History, Mystery/Suspense, New York City
THE BEST AMERICAN NOIR OF THE CENTURY edited by Otto Penzler and James Ellroy
At almost 800 pages and around $20 the anthology THE BEST AMERICAN NOIR OF THE CENTURY is guaranteed to please noir fans. The book is the no-brainer choice for anyone interested in crime fiction, but even more than that, anyone even remotely curious about the delineations under the umbrella term “crime fiction” must read Otto Penzler’s inspired introduction. As a reader of crime and noir fiction, there’s nothing more annoying than to see the word “noir” bandied about; its misuse threatens to render the term meaningless, so here’s Otto Penzler on this “prodigiously overused term” to set the record straight.
January 16, 2011
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Tags: 20th-Century, 700+ Pages · Posted in: Noir, Short Stories
THE COUNTERLIFE by Philip Roth
Long though it is, this quotation sums up just about everything about Roth’s magnificent novel of 1976: its strange title, its grand theme, its somewhat simplistic view of history, and its humor that jumps cheerfully into offensive self-mockery. A long section of the novel takes place in Israel shortly after the Yom Kippur War, when the stereotypes were indeed being turned on their heads, and conversely significant criticism of the state was beginning to be heard from the West. But Roth’s principal subject is not the engaged Jews who assert their selfhood either through Zionism or religion, but the countless secular Jews like himself, living securely in a distant country; how do they establish their identity, especially in mid-life when the question of “Is this really all I am?” typically arises.
January 7, 2011
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Tags: 20th-Century, Identity, Jewishness, Time Period Fiction · Posted in: Contemporary, Facing History, Israel, Literary, Man Booker International Prize, National Book Critic Circle (NBCC), y Award Winning Author
THE LAST RIVER CHILD by Lori Ann Bloomfield
The setting is Walvern, a small village in rural Ontario, where everybody knows everybody else. Or they think they know them, for acquaintance can turn easily into gossip and suspicion. Peg Staynor, the heroine, becomes a victim of it, even as a child. For her curiously pale grey eyes and solitary manner play into local suspicions that she is a “river child,” the reincarnation of someone previously drowned, who will bring them bad luck. It is a barely credible device (and unfortunately not the only example of somewhat strained plotting), but it works well as a metaphor for a loneliness that gradually turns into independence and strength. For this is essentially a coming-of-age story with a sweet touch of romance, and Peg makes a heroine who is very easy to care about.
December 3, 2010
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Tags: 1910s, 20th-Century, Ontario, Second Story Press, Small Town, Time Period Fiction · Posted in: Canada, Coming-of-Age, Debut Novel, Facing History, Family Matters
