February Reads and Recommendations

If you're on my Facebook, you know that I whined interminably about the length of January this year. It took too long, cost too much, felt too miserable, and is now, happily, nothing but a dim blip in the rearview mirror of my life.

However, because it seemed to be comprised entirely of excess hours, January afforded me the opportunity to read 13 books, most of which were amazingly good. February, unlike its predecessor, whipped along in an ever-lightening frenzy, hurtling us all toward spring as if the planet spun extra-fast in sort of cosmic meth trip. Accordingly, I didn't read nearly as much. I did, however, follow my rule of reading stuff that excited me and inspired me to encourage others to pick it up, too. Here it is, a list of what I read in February, again with the title of the one book I recommend most highlighted in red just in case you don't have time for more.

A Thousand Cuts by Simon Celic
High school teacher Samuel Szajkowski enters a school assembly one day with a loaded gun and proceeds to take aim, killing three students, a colleague, and himself. The crime is then dissected from various angles, most of which take the form of first person narratives delivered to Lucia May, the police detective assigned to investigate the crime. May's inquiries into the cause of the event, however, make her superiors uncomfortable, as she discovers hints that the tragedy might have resulted from something other than just the deranged and psychotic impulses of a sick and twisted man. Instead, as she interviews his students, his colleagues, his former lover, and others, she learns that Samuel was tormented by students about his appearance, his teaching style, and just about everything else--bullied much like students who don't fit in are bullied--and that the mistreatment he suffered may have led to his eventual outburst. The novel offers a unique look at a crime and its potential genesis, as well as presenting an angle on bullying that isn't often handled in fiction (or otherwise).

All About Lulu by Jonathan Evison

Evison is a Seattle writer whose latest novel, West of Here, about generations of families on the Olympic Peninsula, is receiving all kinds of acclaim, but I haven't read it; I read All About Lulu instead after seeing it on display at Village Books. Set in the 80's, it's narrated by teenager Will Miller, who starts the story sounding a bit like Holden Caufield, but (thankfully) that voice doesn't persist and we get instead a smart and likeable young man slightly adrift in a family where he doesn't fit. His mother has died of cancer, leaving Will alone with his father, Bill Sr., (a.k.a. Big Bill), a competitive body builder, and his two younger brothers, Doug and Ross, identical twins who are also weightlifters and (in Will's estimation) not so smart. Family dynamics change dramatically when Big Bill meets and marries Willow, who moves into the Miller residence with her daughter Lulu. Lulu and Will become inseparable--a closeness that veers close to and eventually becomes obsession on Will's part--until one summer when Lulu returns from her grandparents' home mysteriously distant. The story follows Will through high school and beyond as he tries to solve the mystery of Lulu's disconnect and re-establish their friendship. I found myself cheering for Will, enchanted by the multi-dimensional Big Bill and his body-building younger sons, amused by the 80's setting, and entertained by the novel in more ways than I can count.

Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Michael Pollan
I'm really lazy about reading sometimes, so I haven't ever finished Pollan's opus, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and so this brief pocket-sized guide to eating is the perfect refresher on what to eat and why. Basically, his message is simple: eat food, mostly plants, not too much. These three rules are broken down in more detail, creating a list of 64 rules total that are still pretty easy to follow, emphasizing the need to avoid processed foods, eat mostly vegetables and fruits, and to eat less. Only the exorbitantly confrontational person could find anything to argue about here; Pollan's list is based on common sense and science, and while it will undoubtably piss off the fast-food and packaged food industry, it's really tough to claim that he doesn't know what he's talking about or that he isn't right. Buy a copy and keep it in your kitchen.

How to Become a Scandal by Laura Kipnis
Kipnis deftly, and briefly, analyzes why we are obsessed with--and in many cases, gleeful about--scandals. She examines four recent, well-known scandalous events in the headlines: the case of Lisa Nowak, an esteemed astronaut who traveled 950 miles by car to confront her ex-lover's new girlfriend; the downfall of Judge Sol Wachtler; the betrayal of Monica Lewinsky by her "friend" and confidante Linda Tripp; and the exaggerations that led A Million Little Pieces author James Frey to humiliation. Rather than just summarizing the salacious events, Kipnis writes intelligently about human nature and carefully dissects why scandalous stories have such appeal, and why public interest in them reveals more about the public than it does the one who committed the offense. Timeless, entertaining, and thoughtful.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

Here it is, the monthly missing-person novel. Larry Ott is living alone, tending his chickens and minding his auto shop when he is ambushed in his home, shot and left for dead. Accused years earlier for the disappearance of a local teenage girl, Larry has spent his life living in the shadow of suspicion created by the event, and now another girl has vanished and Larry is again suspected in her disappearance. Larry's shooting is thought to be self-inflicted: unable to live with his crimes, the townspeople think, Scary Larry has finally decided to kill himself this time. But he doesn't die, and the investigation into his near-fatal shooting is headed by his old childhood friend, Silas, now the town constable. As Silas investigates Larry's attack and the missing girl, he, himself, is forced to confront his past friendship with Larry and the secrets he keeps about what happened years earlier. Dynamic, original characters paired with a gripping storyline kept me reading this through the weekend!

Some Girls: My Life in a Harem by Jillian Lauren

At 19, Jillian Lauren had worked as a high-paid prostitute and stripper, and was pursuing a career as an actress when a friend in the escort business offered her an opportunity to travel to Brunei, where she would be one of about 40 young women in the harem of Prince Jefri. Eager for adventure and money, Lauren accepted the offer and spent a couple of years living among beautiful women from around the world who were competing for the attention of Prince Jefri, one of the wealthiest men on the globe. Her experience was disheartening, of course--despite the money, competition among the women was soul-crushing, privacy was non-existant, and there was little to do, as the women were allowed no personal freedom. Lauren's story is fascinating, if a little sad, and her writing is admirable. Flashbacks into her past reveal just enough about her to partly explain why she agreed to participate in the harem, but I would have liked a little more analysis and introspection.

Day for Night by Frederick Reiken was an absolutely fabulous read that reminded me in some ways of Jennifer Egan's book A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I recommended last month. Told by ten narrators, Reiken's novels pieces together a series of interlocking mysteries that weave characters' lives together. Included among the characters and their connections are Beverly Rabinovitz, who escaped Poland in WWII; her boyfriend, David, who is dying of leukemia; their children; an odd couple of musicians, Tim and Dee, who have a loose connection to a woman on the run from the FBI, and Dillon, Dee's 21-year-old comatose brother, and a bunch of other minor players. Somehow Reiken manages to blend these characters' stories together within a plot that involves the Holocaust, Satanic ritual abuse, manatees, and a bunch of other seemingly random topics to create a beautifully written, thoroughly engaging story that kept me riveted.

When She Flew by Jennie Shortridge is the second novel I've read that is based loosely on the true story of a man and his adolescent daughter living in a Portland Park. My Abandonment by Peter Rock, was reviewed here awhile back, and is the more literary of the two books, both of which focus on "Frank and Ruth," who in 2005 were ousted from their wilderness camp by authorities but received much support from the community at large. Shortridge's version of events switches between two point of view: that of Lindy, the 12-year-old girl who's found living in the woods, and Jess Villareal, a police officer assigned to the case. Lindy's observations are told in first-person, and reflect her love of her father and nature and aher angst at being torn from the home she's known for five years. Jess's perspective is third-person, which is unfortunate, because her side of the story feels more like something we're being told, rather than something she's telling us--her emotions are narrated, rather than shown. In addition, Villareal's response to the events hinges upon her discord with her own daughter, which worked in a Lifetime-movie-of-the-week kind of way but frankly, felt sort of artificial.

It's March now, and I've got a lot of reading to do.