98 (2009 #23). Every Boat Turns South

by J. P. White

I received an advance copy of this yet-to-be-published book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. It's the tale of 30-year-old Matt Younger, who has returned to his parents' home in Florida after an adventure in the Caribbean, just in time to tell his dying father his story.

The main tale, of Matt's harrowing adventures at sea and in the Turks and Caicos and the Dominican Republic, was intriguing. Some of the plot twists caught me by surprise. The secondary family-trouble tale, with his father's slow death as background, was not so interesting, but became important as it tied to the main tale by the end with an interesting twist.

I had two problems with this book. First-time author J. P. White writes lovely prose; his background as a poet is evident with his copious use of similes and metaphors. I've been sailing and to the Caribbean, and his writing made me feel I was there again. At times, however, there is too much description, and it draws attention from the plot.

I also had difficulty with both narrative lines being told in first person present tense. I think it would have been easier to make the shifts between the plot threads if the sailing adventure story had been told in past tense, as befits telling a tale to one's dying father. Using past tense for the main story might also have allowed Matt to do a little more reflecting on his actions and develop his character a little more.

Every Boat Turns South is a good - but not great - first novel, enough to make me interested in reading a future work by J. P. White.

97 (2009 #22). "The Good War"

by Studs Terkel

Subtitled "An Oral History of World War Two," this was the selection of my local book club this month. I've always meant to read one of Terkel's books, because oral history fascinates me. I only wish the book selected had been Terkel's Hard Times - partly because the Great Depression would have been a more relevant topic today, and partly because it was shorter - 462 pages instead of 589. If my husband hadn't been in the hospital with a duodenal ulcer, I probably would not have finished the book in time - it was a slow read.

Terkel interviewed over 120 people for this Pulitzer Prize winner, with most of the interviews occurring in the early 1980s, about 40 years after the war. The interviews are not verbatim, as can be determined by comparing the text to the recordings available at this Chicago History Museum web site. Terkel edited the interviews, deleting and rearranging material, so one has to wonder if he sometimes did so to emphasize his own left-wing political views. It's quite a contrast to Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation. But then, one has to wonder if Brokaw's interviews were also edited, and if both authors cherry-picked their interviewees to present the message the authors wanted to give.

Nevertheless, "The Good War" is very interesting. Although there are interviews with some famous people - among them former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, Maxene Andrews of the Andrews Sisters, Chicago columnist Mike Royko, and cartoonists Milt Caniff and Bill Mauldin - most of the interviewees are common folk, including a few from Russia, Japan, and Germany. Some soldiers' stories are told (although only two from top brass - an admiral and a general), but the women and men back home are also included. By his choice of interviewees, Terkel is not afraid to point out some of the dark side of "the good war, " such as discrimination against blacks and the emergence of the Cold War.

The title of the book is supposed to be inside quotation marks. In a short foreword note, Terkel says, "The title of this book...is a phrase that has been frequently voiced by men of...my generation, to distinguish that war [WW2] from other wars, declared and undeclared. Quotation marks have been added, not as a matter of caprice or editorial comment, but simply because the adjective 'good' mated to the noun 'war' is so incongruous." Many of the interviewees, although they recognized the need to fight in World War Two, express regret about lives lost and city damage in bombings, and concern about the Vietnam War.

My library has a vinyl recording of the original tapes on which Hard Times was based - I'll have to listen to that. I wish all of Terkel's interviews were readily available to listen to - I would love to hear the interviewees' original, unedited responses to Terkel's questions.

96 (2009 #21). A Flickering Light

by Jane Kirkpatrick

I hesitated before requesting this book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. The premise of the book – the story of a 15-year-old female photographer’s assistant in 1907 Winona, Minnesota, based on the life of the author’s grandmother – was intriguing. My husband is an excellent photographer; I consider myself a pretty good one, and we have everything we need (except the energy!) to set up a darkroom in our laundry room. But the book was published by a self-described “evangelical Christian” press, so I was a bit leery. I figured the lack of Christian fiction in my LibraryThing account would probably mean I wouldn’t get the book anyway. I guess the prevalence of historical fiction and biographical novels tipped LibraryThing’s algorithm my way.

On the bright side, I am pleased to report that the story does not push Christian themes on its readers. The main character, Jessie Gaebele, and her family are definitely conservative Christians – they don’t dance or drink or want to associate with people who do, for example. Jessie fights her attraction to her married boss, the older photographer FJ Bauer. Yet Jessie is spunky enough to pursue a profession at a time when few women did, in a field even fewer females occupied. She often “slants truth” with lies of omission, when she knows her thoughts or actions will disappoint her parents.

Jessie, her family, the Bauers, and a number of other characters are based on real people. The author includes a map of Winona from the early 1900s and locates the homes and businesses of these real people on it. Even better, the book includes five photographs taken of or by the real Jessie, from her glass negatives. According to the author’s blog, “My grandmother is the narrator for these photographs but the rest of the story is told in third person through her eyes, her employer's eyes and the eyes of his wife.”

The only complaint I have about the book, and the reason I only give it 4.5 stars, is that there could have been more information about photographic methods and processes of the era. For example. Bauer suffers from recurring mercury poisoning, which is never really explained. In those days, apparently mercuric chloride (formerly called corrosive sublimate, perchloride, or bichloride of mercury) was used as a bleaching agent to increase density or contrast (called intensification) in negatives, according to a reprint of the 1911 edition of Cassell's Cyclopaedia of Photography.

All in all, I really liked this book. I didn’t feel like the author or her characters were trying to be preachy or shove their faith down my throat. In an interview, the author says “there is a sequel to A Flickering Light called An Absence so Great that will be out next April and will finish my grandmother’s story as far as I decided to take it.” In her blog, she says this book will again include actual photographs by/of Jessie.

A Flickering Light was well-written and fascinating. It can be enjoyed by fans of Christian and inspirational fiction as well as fans of historical fiction such as myself. I look forward to the sequel (even though, based on some hints in this book and a little research, I think I know some of what happens).

95 (2009 #20). Overtreated

by Shannon Brownlee

Subtitled, "Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer," I read this book on the recommendation of a friend who is a librarian and has a medical background as well. My husband's right carotid artery is 70% blocked, and the doctors (internist, cardiologist, and vascular surgeon) all recommend an endarterectomy. However, the surgery is not without risks, and 70% falls right in that borderline area where, if asymptomatic (for strokes and TIAs), you could go either way. This book specifically mentions this procedure (on pages 204-205), which was why she suggested I read it.

It's an eye-opener. Author Shannon Brownlee has a master's degree in biology and writes on medical and health care topics. On page 9, Brownlee says her book "is an exploration of three simple questions. What drives unnecessary health care? Why should we worry about it? And once we understand how pervasive it is in American medicine, how can we use that knowledge to create a better system?"

Brownlee shows how doctors, hospitals, and drug and device manufacturers are rewarded (mostly by health insurance systems) for how much care they deliver rather than how effective it is. Coupled with most Americans' tendency to want SOME kind of treatment when they go to a doctor, either medication or tests, even when unneeded, Brownlee shows how costs are driven up while quality of care usually does not improve.

Brownlee uses numerous (often scary) examples throughout the book to illustrate her points, and concludes with a chapter that recommends some changes in current health care practices - but not socialized medicine. She gives the Veterans Administration hospitals as an example of a system to model - which surprised me, simply because I did not know they were that good. She also recommends electronic medical records, something that I am surprised is so slow to be adopted in the medical field.

The book is easy to read and understand - EXCEPT for the horrible end notes! She doesn't use standard footnotes, nor any numbering at all in her end notes, and it is difficult to find the sources for some of her statements. And some of those you can find don't make sense. For example, when she states on page 204 that "vascular surgeons performed about eighty-eight thousand unnecessary carotid endarterectomies in 2002, thereby causing an unknown number of strokes," the end note references personal communication with a British neurologist, and a published study that compares the outcomes of endarterectomies with another procedure, stenting. It's not at all clear what, if anything, supports her 88,000 figure - and that, in my opinion, is the biggest weakness of this book. I would certainly recommend reading it, but keep this weakness in mind.

94 (2009 #19): Matrimony

by Joshua Henkin

I won this book in a ReadingGroupGuides.com giveaway, and it includes a chance to do a chat (via conference call) with the author in a book club meeting.

However, I'm not sure if I will be recommending this book to my book club. It was...just okay. I'm not sure there is a lot to talk about, especially for our members, who are all pretty much my age or older, especially when the book is about a couple who are 17 in 1986 when the book begins.

They are Justin and Mia, attending fictional Graymont College in Northington, Massachusetts, where they fall in love and marry right about the time they graduate, mostly because Mia's mother is dying of cancer. Flash forward about four years, and now they are in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Mia has earned a masters degree and is now working on a doctorate to become a psychotherapist. Julian is trying to write a novel and teaching English composition on the side. Julian flies out to Berkeley, California, to visit his old Graymont roommate, and learns he and Mia slept together. Julian leaves Mia (but they don't divorce) and goes to Iowa City, Iowa, to participate in the famous Writer's Workshop there. They get back together and wind up in New York City, where Mia is a practicing therapist and Julian is still working on his novel. The book ends in 2005 when they are 36, back in Northington for a reunion. Julian is about to have his first novel published, they have a dog and are expecting a baby.

That's most of the plot. The book is mostly a character study. Perhaps it was the characters' generation, perhaps it was the fact that Julian was wealthy enough to afford to take 20 years to complete his novel, but I just couldn't care about these characters. I'll have to see if anyone else in my book club has read the book and if they are interested in discussing it. (Now, if I'd won one of the grand prizes, 12 copies of the book plus an author chat, we'd definitely be discussing it!)

I did think it was interesting that this book had a similar structure as American Wife, with parts designated by where one or both characters were living/visiting at the time. I'm also intrigued by the cover. My paperback has the design above, with the pairs of shoes that bug me, because the woman's blue shoes look like that of a little girl (although perhaps that is because my feet and those of my husband are about the same size). I find I prefer the cover of the hardback edition, with the toothbrushes:

93 (2009 #18). American Wife

by Curtis Sittenfeld

I got this book from the Random House Readers' Circle program - it was a surprise. It's a thinly veiled novelization the life of Laura Bush. Of course, the names have been changed, as has the location (they're from Wisconsin, not Texas). Of course the book has been made more "scandalicious": Alice Lindgren Blackwell, the future First Lady, has a lesbian grandmother, her first sex with the brother of her high school boyfriend (after he dies when she crashes into his car – the fact that Laura Bush had a similar accident at 17 is true), and an abortion. Oh, and her childhood best friend accuses her of boyfriend-stealing (although to me it seems to be the other way around).

Some facts are altered - her father-in-law was only a former governor, not a former vice-president and president, and her mother-in-law is a snob whose own children (four boys, one a Congressman, no girls) call her "Maj," short for "Her Majesty," a nickname she apparently likes. (This was puzzling to me, as I always thought of Barbara Bush as mild-mannered - perhaps "Maj" was based more on Barbara's mother-in-law, based on hints in a July 2000 article in the New York Times). Charlie and Alice Blackwell only have one daughter, not twins. But Charlie does become co-owner of a baseball team (the Milwaukee Brewers, not the Texas Rangers) and governor of his state, and eventually United States President.

The reader (should) know this book is fiction, but there’s enough fact in it to make one wonder...what if?

Author Curtis Sittenfeld, who described herself as “a 28-year-old woman, a registered Democrat, and a staunch enough liberal,” first wrote of her admiration for Laura Bush in a 2004 Salon story. In an interview in the same journal shortly after American Wife was published in 2008, Sittenfeld describes the book as “loosely inspired by Laura Bush and that Laura Bush's life is a point of departure.” She cautions, “If you don't know if something in the book has some real life parallel to the Bushes, then you should assume it's made up…. I feel like 85 percent of this book is made up.”

She had read Ann Gerhart’s Laura Bush biography, The Perfect Wife, and “I just started writing based on what I recalled from that. I'm obsessed with structure in writing, so I conceived of this book as having four sections, each one built around a major real-life event that happened to Laura Bush. Everything else is made up. So I felt that I was creating a character, and didn't need to research Laura Bush's soul.” The four sections are designated by addresses: Alice’s childhood home, her home in Madison while a young teacher and librarian, her home with Charlie in Milwaukee, and of course 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I liked this book much more than I thought I would. I especially enjoyed the plot twists with Alice’s former best friend and the dead boyfriend’s brother. I admire both George and Laura Bush (I think his intelligence is underrated), but I can see how some conservatives will be bothered by this book, particularly when they forget it IS fiction. Sittenfeld also doesn’t do a very good job of masking her personal dislike of Charlie/George, particularly in the last section, although even she has said, “I think Democrats are as likely to find it too sympathetic as Republicans are likely to find it too unsympathetic....I see Bush as a president and as a person separately....I understand that there are people out there who either can't or don't want to make that distinction.”

92 (2009 #17). The Graveyard Book

written and performed by Neil Gaiman

This 2009 Newbery winner was better than I expected. I didn't really care for Gaiman's American Gods, and I'm not much of a fan of horror or fantasy - The Graveyard Book has a little of the first and a lot of the second. But so many people were so happy about this book winning the Newbery that I decided to listen to the audiobook right away after purchasing it for our library's collection.

A toddler wanders away from his home after his parents and older sister are murdered, and into a nearby graveyard, where he is adopted and raised by the mostly-ghostly residents and renamed Nobody Owens, "Bod" for short. There are a number of similarities to Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. Indeed, in an interview with The New York Times published January 26, 2009, Gaiman stated that he used to take his son to ride his trike in a graveyard across the street from their yardless house:

“I remember thinking once how incredibly at home he looked there,” Gaiman said. “I thought you could write something a lot like The Jungle Book and set it in a graveyard.”

Bod has a number of amusing adventures as he grows up (I especially liked his playmate at age 5, Scarlett Amber, whose parents think Bod is her imaginary friend), but the story eventually turns dark when he is 14 and the murderers of his family come back to do in Bod as well. This was actually the weakest part of the book for me, as Gaiman doesn't explain the backstory very well. It's never very clear why Bod's family is murdered and why he is still targeted, nor just who (or what) his two main protectors (Silas and Miss Lupescu) really are.

Still, I can see how this book would be really popular with children who are fans of Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, and the like. With its cast of eccentric characters, many with wonderfully old-fashioned names, it will probably make a great movie. And Gaiman did an outstanding job reading his book aloud. This book would work as a read-aloud for about fourth or fifth grade, and an easy read for middle-schoolers.