I returned recently from a quick weekend trip to San Francisco, where I met up with my parents, aunts Barbara and Marjorie, cousins, and good friends Steve and Amy. The time with them really made me thankful that despite its assorted weirdnesses (Aunt Barbara's collection of seasonally attired Barbie dolls, for example, and my dad's trunk full of glow-in-the-dark ephemera), my family and its extensions have really good juju.Besides traipsing around Chinatown, Haight, and NorthBeach, I also read a lot. On the plane, on BART during an extended tour of Oakland (I took the wrong train at one point), and at SeaTac during my three-hour layover waiting for a flight home to Bellingham (and yes, I realize I could practically walk home in that amount of time. Thanks, Horizon!) At any rate, here's a wrap-up of some of the best I've read recently:
Quite possibly the funniest book I've read this year, Tropper's novel features a family with a little more baggage than mine. The four adult siblings gather to sit shiva for their recently dead father, and bring a load of issues, resentments, and current FUBAR life scenarios with them. Narrated by thirty-something Judd (whose wife has recently left him for his boss), this novel brims with spot-on dialogue, loads of physical comedy, a simple plot that nevertheless twists and surprises, and intelligent insights that had me folding down corners. "You can sit up here," Judd muses, "feeling above it all while knowing you're not, coming to the lonely conclusion that the only thing you can ever really know about anyone is that you don't know anything about them at all." Amen.
Songs for the Missing by Stewart O'Nan
If you're a regular reader of this blog (and who isn't, really?), you may be familiar with my appreciation for missing person stories. I love the intrigue and the tension of stories about people who've vanished, and Stewart O'Nan's latest novel, Songs for the Missing, has both, plus a whole lot more. The plot revolves around the disappearance of Kim Larsen during the summer before she's about to leave home for college. Like The Lovely Bones, the story focuses on the impact of the mystery on Kim's family and friends, and their struggle to cope with their bewilderment, grief, and (for some) sense of guilt. Could not put down. Gripping, with a satisfying ending.
Mary Pols, at 39, gets pregnant after a one-night stand with a much-younger guy, decides to write a book about it, the book gets optioned for a TV show and she probably has way more money now. As much as I liked the story and Pols' writing, I couldn't help but feel a little sad throughout, because even though her adorable and sexy baby-daddy carries through on his promise to stick around and help raise their son, he isn't a partner in every respect, and despite his love for their boy, he doesn't love Mary, and that emptiness echoes throughout the story. It's enough to make a person rush out to Fred Meyer and buy condoms.
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
The protagonists of Hornby's novel, Annie and Duncan, have been together for fifteen years, but their relationship is ending, in part because of Duncan's obsession with a reclusive musician named Tucker Crowe who hasn't recorded an album in 20 years.When Annie intercepts a recording that has been sent to Duncan by a fan of his Tucker Crowe fansite, she discovers it is a raw recording of the songs on Crowe's most famous album, Juliet. In listening to it before Duncan does, she violates his trust, angers him, and their relationship ends--not entirely to Annie's disappointent. She's grown weary of Duncan's obsession, wants to have a baby, and is ready to move on with her life. So she contacts Tucker Crowe herself, and the two strike up an email friendship...and that's when things really get interesting.
This is what planes, trains and airports are good for: getting me caught up on the towering pile of bedside table books...and now I am. Almost. Honest.
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