Deliberately Short

This is Not an Accident by April Wilder is a pretty great collection of short stories.  It starts with the title story, which actually reminded me a little of one of Malie Meloy's stories from Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It. This was not a great start, since Meloy's stories really didn't move me.  The next story, "The Butcher Shop", also had  familiar feel.  Then I realized that it was familiar because I had read it in McSweeney's 23, back in 2007, when Wilder published it there.  When I read the third story,  "We Were Champions", I felt like I had found a new very best friend.

Wilder is a very talented short story author.  "We Were Champions" is the story of a girl, living in the City of Wrigleyville, State of Chicago, having a pig roast during a Cubs game that she could hear but not see.  She had recently learned that her high school softball coach, who had gone to jail for molesting most of the team, had killed himself.  Meanwhile, her relationship with her current boyfriend is disintegrating before her eyes, one swing at a time.

"It's a Long Dang Life" is a story of lost and found love.  Laney, a grandmother, has reunited with her former boyfriend, who she believed was killed in Vietnam.  Recognizing his shortcomings, and her own failure at an earlier marriage, she refuses to marry him.  In what might or might not be mock despair, the boyfriend, Odd, takes her grandsons hostage in their backyard play house.  A part of him wants to force her to marry him, but another part realizes it's all just a game for the grandchildren.  He thinks.

In both of these stories, the woman is managing a relationship with a man who has a drinking problem.  The topics of codependency, enabling, and relationships slowly ending invade most of Wilder's stories.  "Three Men" is a story told in the format of a musical round.  You know how one side of the room begins singing "Make new friends, but keep the old" and then the other side starts with "Make new friends . . . " while the first side moves on to the next line?  Yeah, like that.  Wilder starts with the story of Jess' husband, an actuary who she calls "The Count".   From there, we move a little backward in time, while still moving forward, to the story of Jess' brother.  Then we go to Jess' father's story, to complete the round.  The effect is really interesting, in that it tells a full story, focusing separately on three different people, all from the perspective of one woman.

Another story, "Me, Me, Me" is about a woman who can't tell her feelings to her boyfriend, but instead writes them down in letters that she mails to herself.  This all seems innocent enough, until she starts refusing to go out, because the mailman is coming, and she needs to stay and see which letter will come to her in the mail that day.  I couldn't help to think that writing letters to oneself is not so different from blogging.  So to me, it didn't really seem all that strange, just a little sad.

The GoodReads reviews of This is Not an Accident were confusing to me.  Some people said that the stories were hilarious.  They were not.  Nor do I think they were intended to be.  Others said that the stories were too dark or difficult to understand.  I have to think that if the reader doesn't normally read either short stories or McSweeney's authors, they might not get Wilder.  However, if Lorrie Moore and Tobias Wolff are on your shelves, April Wilder will fit right in.  So many lines were precisely right, accurate, and true.  Wilder knows the subject of modern American relationships, and calls them like she sees them.

I reviewed this book at the request of Shannon Twomey of Viking Penguin Books.  I received a free copy of the book, but other than that, no payments were received, and no promises were made. 

Next Up:  Where'd You go Bernadette by Maria Semple

Still Listening to:  The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The Typical Book Report - 17

Tonight The Typical Book Group got together to talk about The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer.  There were 6 of us there, and all but one of us had finished the book.  We actually talked about the book more than usual tonight, which I think shows that it was a good book group pick.  One intriguing thing that we talked about was who our favorite character was.  We all had different choices, which was surprising, since I thought everyone would pick Ethan, like I did.  Instead, people picked Jules, Ash, Jonah and Dennis. 

We spent a lot of time talking about Dennis.  He was such a solid character, and so different from the campers.  Our host, Laurie, had an article from "Real Simple" where Meg Wolitzer said something about how Dennis stood out because he didn't "fetishize specialness".  What was great about him was that while he didn't completely understand Jules' obsession with the camp and her friends, he still could appreciate them, and even seemed to be real friends with Ethan, especially.

We liked how Ethan's difficulty in relating to his son gave him a believable and real character flaw.  Without that, he would have been too perfectly one dimensional.  We also found it remarkable that the only intact, traditional family managed to raise the most dysfunctional kids, while the kids raised by single parents seemed to be better adjusted.

While it was a long book, and while there were times when some of the book clubbers weren't sure they could get through it, everyone who finished the book was glad to have read it.  Next month we'll read Where'd You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple.

Still Reading:  This is not an Accident by April Wilder

Still Listening to:  The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Love in the Labyrinth

Long, long ago, before The Typical Book Group even had a name, we had a book exchange.  It was at that exchange, in 2010, that I picked up a copy of The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie.  Ever since then, Labyrinth has been sitting in my nightstand, waiting for me to get around to reading it.  Finally, I jumped in.

The Rose Labyrinth is the story of Lucy, a woman who needed a heart transplant.  Once she received her new heart, she began having "memories" that weren't hers.  She soon came to the conclusion that she was remembering things that had happened in her donor's life.  She began to believe that prior to his death, her donor was attempting to unravel a mystery that tied his British family to John Dee and William Shakespeare.  Meanwhile, she also fell in love with her doctor.  Together they take up the cause of solving the clues that Dee and Shakespeare left, which oddly relate perfectly to their own lives.  At the same time, a group of extremists from the US are also following the clues, believing that Dee had received divine guidance that would bring about the rapture foretold in the Book of Revelation.

This book has a bit of everything, and that may be its downfall.  It's not really historical fiction, but it has historical figures.  It's not really science fiction, but there is some time travel and a futuristic medical storyline.  It's not really a The Da Vinci Code style mystery, but it says that it is on the back cover.  The GoodReads reviews are pretty horrible, and I think that's because people went in thinking that the book would be one thing, and it was something entirely different.  The author also aligned the "bad guys" with right wing Americans, so I could see card carrying Tea Party members being offended.

All told, if you like a little sci-fi, a little historical fiction, and a little action packed puzzle solving, you'll probably like this book.  It had parts that were really interesting, and when I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about the story and wanting to get back to it.  Yes, there were too many coincidences, and yes, it is incredibly unrealistic that this seemingly random group of people would have so much esoteric knowledge that would serve them so well.  If you go in with an open mind, expecting a book that doesn't fit a specific mold, you should enjoy this one. 

This is the third book down for the Rewind Challenge.

Next Up:  This is Not an Accident by April Wilder

Still Listening to:  The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh