The Dinner / Herman Koch

Herman Koch's The Dinner (FIC KOCH and AD FIC KOCH) is a meal best served piping hot, with no spoilers to distract you from the author's masterful reveal of one family's inner life and what that family's choices say about privilege, violence and modern-day parenthood.

The tale, already a bestseller in Europe, brings to mind Yasmina Reza's darkly comic play "God of Carnage," which gives audience members ring-side seats to the slowly devolving discussion between two couples over a spat between their two young sons. (Find the film version of the play, called simply Carnage, in our DVD collection.) Here's the trailer:



Similarly, Dutch author Koch brings together two married couples over a meal at a fancy restaurant. The polished setting contrasts greatly with the altogether grim subject matter they have convened to discuss. But whereas Carnage is liberally seasoned with helpings of humor, The Dinner is laced with menace and foreboding.

Without revealing too much, we learn that the men in both couples are brothers: Paul, a former teacher, and Serge, a prominent politician. Both have teen-aged sons. The Dinner is told through the eyes of Paul. On the surface, he comes across as an educated man and a devoted father living a comfortable life with his wife and son. But over the course of the dinner, Koch peels back layer by layer, and every onion skin adds another disturbing element to the mix.

What makes The Dinner such a delicious treat is the thoughtful pace at which Koch writes, dropping a nugget here and a morsel there, tempting us further into dark recesses hidden by civility. It's also a terrifying read for its complete plausibility, forcing us to ponder our own moral boundaries. How far are we willing to go to preserve the peace of family? What transgressions are we willing to overlook for that, and what transgressions are we willing commit?

The Middle Place / by Kelly Corrigan

Growing up, Kelly Corrigan was always a daddy's girl, the youngest child in a happy, well-balanced Maryland family that cherished togetherness and bonding. Her father, an ad man and high school lacrosse coach, was the quintessential paterfamilias, a caring, compassionate man whose emotional support helped Kelly through many sad and troubling times. It may have helped things that she was the youngest, the only girl with two older brothers who got a lot of the defacto attention. So when the 36-year-old happily married mother of two young girls found a lump in her left breast which soon translated into cancer, among the first persons she called was her father. Then she found out that her father George also had the disease, his a form of prostate cancer which later also spread to his bladder. Their struggle, equally shared through grueling chemotherapy and false hope, helped bring about a greater bond between them and a new understanding of life in "the middle" for Corrigan.

Corrigan, a freelance magazine editorialist, pens a readable memoir of about a common subject which affects about a third of the population. The parallel journey traveled by both she and her father adds something to the mix, even as they lived on opposite ends of the country--Kelly in California, George back at the family home in Maryland. And while the book's not terribly original, the author manages to blend the issues involving her emotionally rigorous time dealing with her own fate and that of her father well enough to keep the interest of the reader. Interspersed between her present battle with the disease are segments she recalls from her childhood, charming incidents from middle school through college which do a good job of fleshing out Kelly's character and perspective. On the other hand, how many of these types of books can there be, seriously? (362.196 CORRIGAN)

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit / by Sloan Wilson

In post-World War II America, Tom Rath is just another New York City businessman. His life revolves his job to which he commutes by train every morning, his wife Betsy and their three young children. As modest middle-class Americans, Tom and his family are just trying to make ends meet. So when an offer for a riskier but higher paying job comes his way, he takes it. The gamble pays off. Before long Tom catches the eye of his new boss Ralph Hopkins who wishes him to be his personal assistant, a prestigious but far more rigorous position meaning Tom will now have to choose between becoming a workaholic businessman or be just another 9-to-5-er who at least has time for his family. As he mulls his options, his homelife becomes more complicated. His only living relative, a grandmother, has died and left her estate home to Tom who now has to decide if he and his family should live on the property or accept the offer to sell the land as a potential housing project.

There's something else too. Even ten years later, the war is never far from Tom's thoughts. On his way to and from work, he reminisces about his harrowing combat experience as an Army paratrooper, the violence involved in killing enemy soldiers at close range and the loss of his best friend (partly of his own error). There's also a girl he knew in Rome, an Italian refugee named Maria, whom he'd had an affair with while on leave. When by chance he meets an old Army buddy and learns that Maria gave birth to his son after he left Italy, he must decide between keeping the love child a secret, hoping he can somehow forget about it, or letting his wife know and hope she'll understand. For Tom Rath, just another man on the street in a gray flannel suit, it seems like the entire world is held in the balance.

Penned in 1955, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is the quintissential 1950's story, one which entails the baby boom of the post war years, the suburbanization of American families, expanding American enterprise and the still lingering after effects of the war itself. Rath is a great character (Gregory Peck as Tom in the 1956 film version gave a sound performance). A man of admirable qualities, he's also plagued by many problems. Reading about Tom, the time and place he inhabits and the life which pulls him in so many different directions, creates intrigue about every aspect of the book right down to the peculiarly sad life of mega-mogul Ralph Hopkins. Here we see an individual feeling the grind of the corporate sinkhole, the decentralization of home and work, the burden of an ambitious wife and, not to be sold short, the first real problems confronting American veterans in quite some time. The book is a solid snapshot of an American decade more associated with conformity and standardization than indecision and uncertainty. Touching on the kind of America Updike would depict a decade later, it is one which brilliantly concentrates all of the trials and inadequacies, the ambiguity and suspicion inherent in post-war life into one identifiable character and condition. (FIC WILSON)

Ravens / by George Dawes Green

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The Boatwrights of Brunswick, Georgia are typical (though not stereotypical) southerners. Not establishment, not country club, not new money but not trailer trash. They're small towners with customarily demure small town ways. But like all Americans, they dream big. Especially mom Patsy, whose weekly devotion to the state lotto drawing is a religion unto itself, and college-age daughter Tara whose more modest ambitions include community college and moving out of the house. Dull-but-honest father Mitch, owner of a copy shop, and 8-year-old Jase tend to go with the flow orchestrated by their female counterparts. Their lives all change one Saturday night when Patsy's dream (unbeknownst to Patsy initially; Tara possessing the winning ticket) inconceivably comes true--to the tune of $318 million.

Friends since way back, Shaw and Romeo are two jobless nobodies escaping their dingy Ohio roots and heading south where ambitions of a better life in sunny Florida await their pending arrival. But when, by chance, they stop off at a gas station where a winning lotto ticket was recently purchased, their palm-tree dreams are delayed just a tad so they (particularly Romeo) can cook up an extortion scam to get at least a piece of all that money; of which the winner, being from this podunk nowheresville, would never know what to do with anyway. And so, using a some quite orthodox methods of finding their prey--a hint overheard at the gas station leading to some savvy cross-referencing of a few online business directories and social networks--the pair are in a position to execute what they feel is a convenient enough heist. But when their amateurish plan is put into motion, unforeseen variables inevitably create a far more complicated scenario than originally anticipated.
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Green, author of Caveman's Valentine, knows how to write characters. The story's four or five primary people are well-enhanced, each fleshed out enough to keep the reader interested and reinforce the authenticity in what's really an oft-conceived premise, providing welcomed simplicity and a straightforward method to executing the plot. Books about lottery winners can easily become outrageous or ridiculous, but Ravens executes the story with more practicality than most. Tara's reactions, especially, are refreshingly realistic, mirroring most people's vision of what they would do if it happened to them--calmly and discretely going about their business as if nothing special happened all the while excitedly plotting a long-subdued fantasy life. Part black comedy, part thriller and part love story, the book's multiple narrative style handles things well. What's intended to be a critical crisis situation comes across in pragmatic but unpredictable fashion, the reader in on things with a good feel for the primary players involved, but still pleasantly surprised by twists and developments along the way.

Rachel Simon has been writing since she was a child, and presently makes a living from her writing and public speaking. This is her second memoir. The first was “Riding the Bus with my Sister”, which is about her mentally challenged sister, Beth. That book relates how Rachel built a relationship with Beth by giving up her own life (temporarily) to share her sister’s total commitment to riding busses as a way of life. It was made into a “Hallmark Hall of Fame” television movie in 2005.
Ms. Simon is a “chatty writer”, and is not hesitant to “spill the beans” at any moment, which means she describes what’s going on but at the same time is directing your attention to her personal gut reaction to events. The memoir relates how she and her husband “build” a home together. They actually “renovate” the home her husband bought some years ago when they were in the midst of a split, but the renovation is so extensive it amounts to a “rebuilding” of the inside. Her husband is an architect, and his design is perfect in mirroring their individual and communal spirits (although a lot has to be given up to stay in the projected budget.) By the time the renovation is over, you know all about Ms. Simon’s relationships with all of her family, and all of her friends (at least the meaningful ones). Ms. Simon is Jewish but not a believer, and her husband is a Zen enthusiast. Both of their spiritual resources come up dry on occasion, but sober yet positive realism helps them get through conflict, along with healthy doses of humility. There’s a lot of detail in the emotionally inventory-taking, but the narrative manages to carry the weight without becoming maudlin or moribund. What’s important in the end is to notice things enough so you can stop and experience an art installation (Detroit airport’s lighted tunnel) and say hello to a stranger who’s special (How the author met her husband).

New Christmas Fiction

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The Gift: A Novel / by Cecilia Ahern

Hard-nosed workaholic Lou Steffen doesn’t have time for sentimental Christmas festivities until Gabe, a mysterious homeless man, subtly teaches Lou what truly matters and how precious the gift of Christmas really is.

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The Christmas Dog / by Melody Carlson
Betty Kowalski is feeling more alone and wretched than usual this Christmas with the lack of friends or relatives to celebrate with and her neighbor’s home renovations driving her up a wall. But when a cute dog shows up on her doorstep one night, she gets quite an unexpected Christmas surprise.
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The Christmas List / by Richard Paul Evans
One day just before Christmas, James Kier reads his own obituary in his hometown newspaper. At first he thinks it must be a joke until certain events prompt him to take the situation seriously.
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Home In Time For Christmas / by Heather Graham
Melody Tarleton never expected to become close with a strange hitchhiker she almost runs over with her car. But a peculiar brand of Christmas magic soon helps her discover a love which transcends all boundaries.
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The Memory Quilt: A Christmas Story for our Times / by T.D. Jakes
It’s Christmas time in Chicago and Lela, a single woman down on her luck, finds solace in her church’s Virgin Mary themed bible study and soon begins to look life through with new eyes.

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A Christmas Blizzard / Garrison Keillor
Wealthy loner James Sparrow intends to spend Christmas in Hawaii until he’s abruptly summoned to his North Dakota hometown where his Aunt is deathly ill. Permanently detoured after a blizzard leaves him stranded at his childhood home, James is suddenly confronted by ghosts from his boyhood past.

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A Wish For Christmas: A Cape Light Novel / by Thomas Kinkade & Katherine Spencer
This season the people of Cape Light confront their past while looking hesitantly toward the future: David is a war veteran returning home after the death of his mother, Jack has remarried and now must try and to reach out to his new stepdaughter, and crabby old Lillian Warwick may feel independent but circumstances soon force her to reach out to those she would otherwise shun
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Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Secrets and Growing Up in the 1970's / by Margaret Sartor

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"If memory stores the spirit of our experience, then a diary, in its bona fide physical existence, surely retains the flesh and blood." (p.9)
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In a memoir that will have a great many heads nodding in recognition, writer and photojournalist Margaret Sartor looks back on her youth in small town Louisiana during the 1970's. By all accounts, Sartor's was a very typical adolescence characterized by school, peers, dating, church and outdoor activities. The adventuresome middle child of a physician father and a homemaking mother, she and her family ("dysfunctional in the normal way") got along amicably in their comfortable estate house, a remnant of plantation days, embedded on the Ouachita River. It was here under cover of the moss-hung live oak trees scattered along the riverbank where much of the business of growing up took place--beer, cigarettes & making out as much a part of life as church youth group and prayer meetings.

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The very capable resource of Sartor's own teenage diary comprises most of the book's content; the original text, formatted into mostly one or two-line entries, employed as the primary means by which the author tells her story. Undoubtedly, her depiction of life between the years 1972-1978 (her own ages 12-18) gives a very open, unadulterated viewpoint of class, gender, race, love and relationships as well as the more at-large issues of the day like the tail-end of Vietnam, Watergate, desegregation and price goudging. It's the personal revelations which will interest readers though, Sartor's captivating, intimate and above all honest disclosures on the one period in everyone's life which remains unavoidably memorable and inescapably well-preserved.