The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride is the winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction. A historical novel set in an extremely difficult and violent period in our nation’s past, it tells the story of abolitionist John Brown and his single-handed, single-minded effort to end slavery in the United States. In the late 1850’s John Brown led a small band of armed raiders into Kansas, intent on kidnapping slaves and freeing them. The narrator of this book is Henry Shackleford, a young slave boy taken by Brown after a gun fight kills both his father and master. Because Henry is dressed in a sack, common attire for slave children, Brown believes him to be a girl and no amount of argument can dissuade him. This delusion symbolizes Brown’s fatal flaw: “He never remembered nothing but what he wanted to, and didn't tell himself nothing but what he only really wanted to believe.” Eventually Henry (Henrietta) embraces his girlhood because it keeps him out of the violence and battles Brown seeks out. For nearly four years, Henry travels with Brown and his group of abolitionists. He grows to know Brown well. He sees him clearly for who he is— a sincere, deeply religious, self-righteous, well-intentioned, dangerous man who had no doubt about his mission. He listened to the counsel of no man, only that of his God. And his God always told him what he wanted to hear. Eventually Brown abandons his raids to free slaves and plans instead to start a war for this cause. He tries to raise an army of Negroes. Blind to the fact that most of the Negroes, slave and free, have too much common sense to follow a mad man’s folly, he persists with his plan. His first move is to raid the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry to secure rifles and ammunition for his troops. This is also his last move. His delusions finally catch up with him. Out manned and outgunned, most of his “army” is killed and Brown is captured. Henry, still disguised as a girl, manages to escape and lives to tell his tale many years later. John Brown was imprisoned and hung but the fear he inspired among Southern whites is believed to have been a cause for the later secession and Civil War in the United States.  It is not easy to write a humorous book about tragedy and suffering, but James McBride manages the right ironic tone to successfully tell John Brown’s story. 

Check out The Good Lord Bird @ the library!

(Or over at the Morning News Tournament of the Books...)

Middle C by William H. Gass

Middle C is unlike any other novel I have ever read.  The storytelling doesn’t unfold in typical linear fashion and because of this the reader becomes increasingly curious about how our narrator, Joseph Skizzen, gets from point A to point Z.  Joseph’s tale begins before he is even born, with his parents and sister living in their native Graz, Austria just before the dawn of World War II.  Sensing that the Nazis will soon be creating more than their fair share of problems in his homeland, Rudi Skizzen flees to London with his family by pretending that they are Jewish refugees.  Joseph is born shortly after their arrival and the Skizzen (now called Fixel) family manages to survive the Blitz.  Joseph’s father “reinvents” or renames himself several more times and then disappears mysteriously after the war.  After desperately searching for her husband, Joseph’s mother Miriam then manages to relocate herself and her two children to a small town in rural Ohio. 

And here is where Joseph’s story takes off.  We can see the two Skizzen children grow into their new lives as Americans.  Joseph is quiet and not particularly book-smart while his sister Debbie becomes a cheerleader and wants to be a part of all things fashionable.  Joseph begins to enjoy his piano lessons with a local teacher, but it is apparent that he is self-taught in playing popular tunes than anything else.  We are then shown a look at Joseph as an older man, one who has used the entire attic of his large home to house what he calls his “Inhumanity Museum” which is host to countless newspaper clippings spotlighting all manner of man’s terrible acts.  We bounce back and forth in time to see Joseph working as a high schooler in a music store, then as a college professor, then a college student, then as an assistant in a small town library.  Each sector of Joseph’s life creates another layer of lies he tells himself to continue on his way. 

I began this book thinking (due to the title) that it was about music.  And in many ways, music plays a big role in Joseph’s life.  But the result of Gass’s novel is so unlike any story I’ve seen told that it is hard to place my finger on what the biggest point of the narrative truly is.  Middle C  is a fascinating, careening tour through the mind of a seemingly ordinary man who lives a seemingly ordinary life but it is certainly an extraordinary novel. 

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

In That Old Cape Magic, Richard Russo steps away from his usual working class towns in upstate New York, focusing instead on college professor Jack Griffin and his relationships with his wife, daughter, parents and in-laws. Trips to Cape Cod to attend two weddings, a year apart, mark the beginning and end of this story.  Cape Cod had played a big part in Griffin’s life. He’d spent his childhood summers there with his horrible parents, both college professors at a Midwestern public university. Incompatible and snobby, thwarted in their ambitions to teach at a more prestigious Eastern college, these two were experts at making themselves, their son and everyone else around them miserable. Yet Griffin loved the Cape all his life. He and his wife honeymooned, took jobs, bought a house and started a family in the area. The first wedding is that of his daughter’s best friend. In the second Griffin’s own beloved daughter marries. But a lot happens between weddings.  Griffin and his wife attend the first as a couple, a couple that has been married for thirty years. To their own daughter’s wedding, they each bring a date.  Griffin uses his time driving to and from his daughter’s wedding to examine how his own shortcomings have brought him to this state of affairs. With a little introspection, he realizes that he has not fallen as far from the family tree as he previously thought and admits to his own fault in his damaged relationships. Skilled writer that he is, Russo is able to turn all this family angst and anger into a very funny book. 

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Headlong by Michael Frayn

Martin and his wife and baby daughter have arrived at their country home so Martin, a philosopher, can work on his book. But, when he visits the neighbors and sees that they have recently purchased some old paintings at a rummage sale, he convinces himself that they have unknowingly purchased the missing work of an old master. Rather than inform the neighbors of this possibility, he plots and connives to get the painting for himself. Avarice takes control of his life. His obsession causes him to neglect his book and aggravate his wife (an actual art historian). To prove his own hypothesis, he delves deeply into the study of the paintings of Pieter Brueghel, a Dutch painter of the sixteenth century. And he undertakes some ridiculous shenanigans (including the promise of an affair with the wife of the art buyer) to acquire the painting. Just when it seems that Martin has successfully acquired the painting, a series of disastrous events bring him crashing (literally) back to reality.  Farcical humor makes this book uproariously funny. 

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A Curious Invitation by Suzette Field

A Curious Invitation is an unusual but interesting book. Suzette Field has studied forty great parties in great literature and compiled her critiques of them in this book as a sort of Society Page for the literary minded. For each party she discusses the hosts, the venue, the invitation, the guest list, the dress code, the food and drink, the conversation, the entertainment, the outcome and the legacy. The parties are chosen from a wide selection of literature, including such diverse works as The Book of Daniel, Winnie-the-Pooh, The Tale of Genji, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’ Nest.  Many, but not all, of these parties are given by and for the rich and powerful (or wannabes). They stretch throughout history, from ancient times to the science fictional future. England, the United States and Russia are the sites of the most parties in this book, but Peru, Japan, France, Middle Earth and Ancient Rome and Greece are also represented. All the parties are interesting and make for fun reading.  The writer, Suzette Field, proclaims herself to be the “world’s greatest writer.” Perhaps this is a stretch, but her comments on the parties are pithy and amusing. Be it the grandeur of Vanity Fair and Mansfield Park, the glitz and glamour of Hollywood Wives or the common celebration of Cold Comfort Farm, there is a party in this book to interest every reader.

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The First Phone Call from Heaven by Mitch Albom

How would you like to receive a phone call from one of your loved ones who passed away?  Well the townspeople of Coldwater are able to do just that.  Many of the members of this small town are getting frequent calls from their loved ones that have passed away.  This event leaks to the media and everyone wants to head to Coldwater to learn more about this miraculous happening.  One member of the town, Sully Harding becomes suspicious of these phone calls and decides to investigate what is happening.  Are these phone calls a hoax or are the townspeople really getting phone calls from their loved ones? Find out for yourself in this novel written by the author who also wrote, The Five People you Meet in Heaven.  This novel will leave you at the edge of your seat wanting to learn the truth.  As a reader you become attached to the characters while they are all trying to make sense of this phenomenon.

 

The audiobook version of this novel is read by Mitch Albom and who better to read the story than the author himself.  This moving story comes to life as the author takes you through this emotional story. With a surprise ending, this is a must read for anyone who believes in the afterlife or is curious about how the world could react if their loved ones are calling from the dead. 

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Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

Spoiler alert…In this book Skippy dies on page 5. Skippy dies while engaged in a doughnut eating contest with his friend Ruprecht. The rest of this funny book is devoted to informing the reader how he came to this end.

Skippy is a fourteen year old student at a boys’ boarding school in Ireland.  He is surrounded by boys his own age, adolescents with the usual adolescent problems and personalities. They inflict one another with cruel nicknames. (Skippy, whose given name is Daniel, is so called because of his resemblance to a kangaroo on a television show.) They play cruel pranks and threaten each other with violence. They regale each other with lies, stories laced with sexual bravado and brave defiance of authority. There are also, of course, teachers. Many are graduates of this same school. They inflict one another with cruel nicknames, such as Howard the Coward. They play cruel pranks and threaten each other with violence. They regale each other with lies, stories laced with sexual bravado and brave defiance of authority. Some are well-meaning but incompetent. Some are consumed with ambition and incompetent. Parents are self-absorbed and indifferent except when their child’s success might reflect back on them. Adolescent girls have their own school and their own forms of cruelty which they inflict on boys, parents and teachers. Drugs are rampant on both campuses.

Skippy falls in love with a beautiful girl from the nearby all-girls’ school.  At first he can only worship her from afar as he watches her play Frisbee. He finally meets her and learns her name (Lori) at the ill-fated Halloween Hop mixer held at his school. The beautiful Lori allows him to think she is his girlfriend, but she is mercurial and manipulative and unworthy of the sweet-natured Skippy. Meanwhile history teacher, Howard Fallon, is just as infatuated with Miss McIntyre, the new substitute teacher, as Skippy is with Lori, and his actions are just as immature as Skippy’s (or more so.)

After Skippy becomes infatuated with Lori, his behavior changes. He becomes forgetful.  He daydreams in class and outside of class. He gets physically ill. He, against his father’s and coach’s wishes, quits the swim team. The teachers notice his uncharacteristic behavior but none step up to properly investigate his problem. Skippy asks to come home for a visit but his father refuses. In the end, the indifference of the adults charged with protecting Skippy is far crueler than any nickname or violence or broken heart a fellow teen could inflict on him.

Skippy Dies is a bittersweet book, a dark comedy with, despite its title and theme, a hopeful end. 

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Oxymoronica by Mardy Grothe

An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction. In Oxymoronica, Dr. Mardy Grothe has compiled 1400 quotations which appear to be self-contradictory but actually are not. Crafting such a statement takes the utmost skill in wit and wisdom, so the thinkers quoted in this book are some of the most talented representatives of their age. From Aristotle to Shakespeare to Groucho Marx, these writers have something important to say and they say it in a most concise and entertaining style. Perhaps the most ubiquitous statement of this type is some version of, “Less is more.” This book is full of such sayings divided into subjects such as “Romance,” “Artistic,” “Ancient,” “Political,” “Literary,” “Insults,” etc. There is a good table of contents (so the reader can choose a subject), and also a thorough index (so the reader can look for particular writers.) Oxymoronica is a book that will amuse word lovers, joke lovers and wisdom lovers.

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