In One Person / John Irving

I've read enough John Irving books by now that I think it's safe to say that if you pick up nearly any of his novels, you will inevitably find one or more of these motifs in it:

• boarding school
• wrestling
• the Northeast
• Austria
• fatherhood issues (usually involving an unknown father)
• the narrator's reflection on his life from the vantage of old age
• the Bildungsroman (a coming-of-age novel)

I say that not to deter you from his stories, which are wonderfully written, but to point out that it takes a talented author to keep things fresh when he repeatedly returns to what are obviously subjects that are dear to his heart. Irving makes them dear to you, too, with his trademark storyteller's touch and his subtle but incisive sense of humor.

You'll find all of his favorite motifs in full force in his latest novel, In One Person (FIC IRVING and AD FIC IRVING). The protagonist, writer Billy Abbott, reflects on his life and and how it has shaped his sexual identity as well as the other way around — how his sexual identity has shaped his life.

Billy, we soon learn, is a bisexual man; he is attracted to both men and women. As a boy growing up in a small Vermont town, he struggles with the notion that he has "crushes on the wrong people." He grapples perhaps most of all with his infatuations with the callous but charismatic star of the wrestling team at his school, First River Academy, as well as with the town librarian, the mysterious Miss Frost. So it's no surprise that Billy's interactions with both his objects of desire prove unerringly formative.

Irving populates his story with a colorful cast of characters, each of whom leave their mark on Billy Abbott: The caustic Winthrop women of Billy's family and their patient, genial husbands, including the cross-dressing Grandpa Harry. There's Billy's best friend Elaine and her compassionate, unflappable mother Mrs. Hadley. Even Billy's biological father, curiously absent from his life, plays a role.

We follow Billy as he makes his way in the world, from small-town New England to Austria to the Big Apple. Irving does not shirk from exploring the HIV epidemic of the 1980s and the heartbreak it inflicts on Billy and many of his friends. We see Billy in his many forms: a writer, a lover, a friend, a son, a man — a person of many facets, his sexuality being but one of them.

A Prayer For Owen Meany / by John Irving

New England is one of those places where good writers seem to flourish. Not that there aren't other places in the country where literary prowess is concentrated, but the region's seemingly always had an endless supply of talented bards. John Irving is one of them. An Exeter, New Hampshire native where his stepfather and uncle were on the faculty of the local high-profile prep school, Irving grew up never knowing his biological father, an Army Air Corpsmen killed in WWII. After attending Exeter, he went on to the University of Pittsburgh with the hopes of continuing a successful amateur wrestling career but ultimately matriculated back home and the local state university. In the mid-sixties he attended several prestigious writers workshops including the noteworthy University of Iowa gig as well as one in Vienna, a location he would later tab for his first novel. By the 1970's he was writing moderately successful novels and teaching English at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. In 1978, The World According to Garp became a bestseller and an international sensation, initiating a decade of success for the writer whose 1980's novels (and one short story) were all either bestsellers or award winners--1985's The Cider House Rules would later net Irving an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. A Prayer For Owen Meany is likely the author's most autobiographical work and though not as wildly popular as 'Garp'--its subject matter is much tamer and more solemn by comparison--is still one of the most widely read books around.

By any standard, Owen Meany is small. It's not just his diminutive stature which distinguishes him from all his peers, or even his fawn-like build and bone structure which projects a alarmingly vulnerable quality. It's his voice. Always a bit of a high pitched squeal several octaves above normal, it's never changed with age, a damaged larynx responsible for the son of a New Hampshire granite mason's conspicuously awkward speech. His size or lack thereof and his quirky, atonal articulations aren't really what sets Owen apart though. It's something else altogether, something especially remarkable. For John Wheelwright, it's not really something about his best friend as something which is him, a fated and fatalistic phenomenon which underlies a particularly critical truth in both their lives. Owen possesses a prescient, almost clairvoyant insight into the future. But it's not so much a psychic power or mystical foreknowledge of things to come as it is an unmistakeable ability to gauge the nature of reality, to foresee a culmination of events based off calculations and intuitions made from an especially brilliant mind. And yet Owen's neither a cold intellectual nor a cynical forecaster of doom. There's a spiritual side to the boy, a very serious spiritual side.

A particularly odd and tragic accident has inadvertently illuminated this fact: the death of John's cherished mother from a foul ball which Owen hit--the only connection the boy ever made with a baseball--during their last little league game. The death is very sad of course. But instead of driving the boys apart, the tragedy actually brings the 12-year-olds closer. After all, Owen loved John's mother as much as John did. The event marks an almost cathartic transformation in Owen who senses a hidden destiny behind the oddly peculiar incident. As the two transition from childhood to adulthood amid a world going from bad to worse in the 1960's, what's already becoming clear to Owen is slowly revealed in tragic and devastating fashion before John's eyes. Although by the time it manifests in full, it just may be too late for John to salvage the life and legacy of his best friend.

Not everyone likes John Irving. Need it be said that he doesn't care for a few of his peers either. His plots are rather atypical and complex, many of them more than a little 'all over the place' with characters demonstrating a propensity towards odd choices and peculiar behaviors. More than a few critics have called his novels Dickensian marking the author's twisting narrative style, quizzical personalities and multiple settings. He writes well though, with a style that's very engaging and accessible to readers. 'Owen Meany' isn't quite as outlandish a plot as 'Garp' or Hotel New Hampshire in which some truly oddball characters cross paths in small town America and Central Europe. John Wheelwright and Owen Meany are relative down to earth types, John a somewhat lazy New Englander descended from founding fathers and Owen an unusually intelligent, especially dynamic product of the working class. That the story is especially grounded in spiritual principles, fervent Protestantism at that, is rather uncharacteristic of Irving. This is after all the same guy who wrote the characters of 'Roberta' Muldoon, the transsexual ex-football star, and radical feminist Jenny Fields into the same story ('Garp'). 'Owen Meany' has nothing so eccentric which may be why it's one of the author's most universally accessible novels. At the same time it's hard to see the story working as well in another's hands. Written by someone else, Owen might come off as something of nerdy outcast or a fledgling sidekick. He's neither of these, really not anywhere close though to call him a hero in a realistic sense wouldn't be too far off. No, the character of Owen is likely one of Irving's greatest achievements, a "small wonder" who's very much the classic visionary as well as an imperturbable charismatic, a cherished friend and magnanimous martyr and, penultimately, every bit a human being. Because of him, the book is a truly captivating work. (FIC IRVING)

Deep Down True / by Juliette Fay

Homemaker Dana Stellgarten has a tendency to be a little too nice. Consequently people, even the ones she loves, take advantage of her open, companionable nature and generosity, something which seems especially evident now at a particularly volatile time in her life. Her husband Kenneth recently left her for another, younger woman and now she and her two kids--Morgan, 12, and Grady, 7--have to get by on the meager monthly alimony checks. When Dana's teenage niece Alder shows up on the front door, wanting to move in after another falling out with her mom, it seems things can't get any worse. They do though. Before long, Dana learns that her daughter (only a sixth grader) is bulimic and Grady, whom she knows has been deeply wounded by the divorce (but how deeply?), has been fighting and causing trouble in school. Alder too, still sleeping on the couch a month after her arrival, has something going on which Dana suspects may not be entirely respectable. And what is she going to do now that her ex-husband's just told her that he's working at half his normal salary? A weaker mother might be reeling from the seemingly endless succession of woes but strangely, with Dana, that's not the case at all.

When Juliette Fay's debut novel Shelter Me, published in 2009, managed to distinguish itself from the other, always endless proliferation of domestic fiction novels, many readers and critics chalked it up as a one-hit wonder. It wasn't. With the same effortless storytelling of Anna Quindlen and the striking familiar-ness of Elizabeth Berg, Fay's Deep Down True attracts the reader with a welcomed magnetism, managing to do what so many other similarly written novels can't avoid: lose the interest of the reader mid-way through leaving the anticlimactic conclusion just that--a disappointing anti-climax. Dana as a character is both sympathetic but flawed, limited yet capable, thoroughly revealing that the disproportionate amoung of careless offenses and injuries tossed her way are very much felt and internalized like anyone else would feel them. There's a curious, yet entirely accurate, way in which Dana is affected by and reacts to her life circumstances. She's subjected to the very same social threshing floor her kids are confronted by, misled by her own judgments, plagued by her desire for acceptance and inept at expressing her emotions. And quite a bit of the book is devoted to just the type of extremely uncomfortable emotional navigation faced by people at all levels, a world of untrustworthy peers and awakened sensitivities which, as Fay is so apt at detailing, changes little with age. As it follows through very well on the world seen through Dana's eyes, the novel conveys a colorful portrait of an imperfect yet not despairing, broken-hearted yet willing-to-work-at-it character who grows up a little in her own way right alongside her kids. (FIC FAY)

Ghost Story / by Peter Straub

In the small town of Milburn, four old men share a tradition of telling ghost stories to pass the time on the long, cold winter nights. The four--Dr. John Jaffrey, Lewis Benedikt, Sears James and Ricky Hawthorne--have been friends all their lives, the quartet known as The Chowder Society, all well-recognized as upstanding citizens of their community. Until recently, the foursome had a fifth member named Ed Wanderley who passed away a year previous under some rather strange conditions. Ed had been found dead in an upstairs bedroom of Dr. Jaffrey's home during a party, his grey hair completely white and his face frozen in a look of shocked horror, as if he'd been frightened to death.

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The the year succeeding their friend's death has not been pleasant for the remaining Chowders who've all suffered horrible nightmares and other unpleasant occurrences. When Jaffrey dies only days after the one-year anniversary of Ed's death of an 'apparent suicide', thought to have jumped off a bridge, terror really strikes the hearts of Lewis, Sears and Ricky who decide to take action against whomever or whatever is seemingly out to get them. Wanting to keep things secret, they summon the nephew of their late friend Ed, Donald Wanderley, an expert on the occult and other paranormal phenomenon, to investigate what's plaguing them and hopefully put an end to the growing presence of terror in their lives.

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Straub's Ghost Story, originally published in 1979, is one of the most thrilling--and chilling--horror novels of the twentieth century. Combining elements of the paranormal and occult with long dead and buried secrets, it is a book rich in both character detail and terror-driven suspense. The real strength of the story lies in the bond between the friends, the close-knit group confronted by a mutually regrettable past and a present evil coming back to haunt them. The plot, though complex at times, does include all of the key devices necessary for a classic ghost/horror tale: subtle warning signs, death, eerie links to the afterlife and the 'principle of evil' embodied within demonic forms and/or otherworldly beings. It's a great book to get into during say, a really rainy weekend. (FIC STRAUB)

Every Last One: A Novel / by Anna Quindlen

"Always is such a very long time." (p.186)
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Mary Beth Latham enjoys a good life. Residing in the same pleasant New England town she grew up in, she's a loving wife to all-around good guy husband Glynn, devoted mother and successful entrepeneur who strives to maintain quality business ethics. By all accounts she's faired a great deal better than her older sister Alice who's latest brainstorm netted a test tube baby and a disproportionate amount of stress and paranoia. The same goes for most of her friends, many of whom she's known all her life and are frequently divorced, cruelly discarded or otherwise tagged as "a mess", and always clamoring to Mary Beth for support.
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Though her time and attention are heavily in demand, things are more concentrated on her kids' lives (and her kids' friends) at the moment, each a teenager and embattled with their own dilemmas. 17-year-old Ruby is (for the most part) an all-around great kid, so much so that Kiernan, her sensitive, emotionally damaged and pathetically clingy boyfriend, is decimated by Ruby's honest and dignified decision to dump him. As the aftermath of the young couple's breakup gets ugly, Mary Beth's already strained emotional stamina becomes taxed while meanwhile twins Max and Alex, an alarmingly different pair, are both 14 and enduring their own complicated trials of youth. Max, the unathletic, indoor type, is seriously depressed enough for Mary Beth to engage the use of a therapist and Alex, though visibly the more well-adjusted, is actually the one growing more distant with each passing day. So it goes for Mary Beth (who wouldn't trade it all for the world) until the day everything changes.
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Quindlen is very good. Intuitive and substance-driven, she's tapped into the far less intact and far more amiss world of everyday lives, emotions, personalities and problems. It's the facile, gentle nature of her writing which most engages. Her stories are easy: easy to read, easy to follow, easy to identify with and, most importantly, easy to believe. As dramatic as the story gets (and it gets pretty intense), readers sincerely buy into the concepts and situations elicited. Everything's really a tradeoff in Quindlen's world; every life has its perks and pitfalls, peaks and valleys. People are often ill-equipped for failures and disappointments, are often marred by tragedy beyond repair. At the same time these same souls are realized as complete human beings, fitted with stronger attributes and capable of overcoming the many sad and troubling times though it's never guaranteed they will. (FIC QUINDLEN)

Secrets of Eden / by Chris Bohjalian

A Brooklyn native, Chris Bohjalian and his wife decided to move away from the city to Vermont after a harrowing experience inside a taxi cab driven by a terrorist permanently ended any plans for raising their two young children in New York City. Their subsequent years lived in peaceful suburban tranquility would ultimately enmesh itself into much of Bohjalian's later fiction. A novelist since the late nineties, he's been critcally acclaimed for his books Before You Know Kindness, Skeletons at the Feast and The Double Blind--all New York Times bestsellers--as well as Midwives, an Oprah Book Club selection. His most recent novel, Secrets of Eden, examines mental and emotional dissolusionment of a small town pastor, Rev. Stephen Drew, after one of his parishioners is murdered.
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"Believe no one. Trust no one. Believe all of our stories are suspect." p. 16

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Rev. Stephen Drew thought it a bit odd the way Alice Hayward, a 35-year-old married mother of one, had behaved at her baptism--a little too morbid. A few hours later, after the bodies of both Alice and her husband George had been found dead of an apparent murder-suicide, Stephen knew he wasn't mistaken. Shock and dismay inevitably follow in the immediate wake of the tragedy and, as well might be expected, Stephen himself is confronted with a severe crisis of faith as the theological doctrines and long-attenuated personal convictions of divine sovereignty are replaced by doubts, fears and perpetuating uncertainty. His angst and tormented soul are only somewhat quieted after meeting Heather Laurent, the author of several humongously popular books on alternative spirituality. Heather, coincidentally, witnessed the murder-suicide of her own parents and is fittingly in a position to relate to Katie, Alice's now orphaned adolescent daughter who may seem to know more than she's telling. Heather is also able to proffer some encouraging words and comforting inspiration to Stephen, and with time the pair develop an unlikely bond.

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But just as Stephen and Heather's relationship begins to blossom into something more and Stephen (a bachelor) begins to see the world and his life with a different outlook, new questions arise in the case, particularly about whether Alice's husband George actually killed himself after all? Was George murdered as well? Were both Alice and George killed together with the act only arranged to look like a murder-suicide? When the state's attorney uncovers new evidence, strange illegible passages in Alice's diary, which link Stephen himself to the crime, it seems the true nature of things may run a bit deeper than originally thought and more than one person may share responsibility for this horrible tragedy.

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Bohjalian hasn't turned out a bad book yet and this effort keeps the streak alive. The storyline more than the characters, who at times can come off a bit flaky, gives the book its appeal, employing the similar but no-less-likable tactic used in Before You Know Kindness and Skeletons at the Feast of an initial traumatic event highlighting the beginning pages and allowing the multi-perspective narrative to work in the context. Readers unfamiliar with Bohjalian will find his themes and featured topics fit the same mold as Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve, who share an affinity for New England serenity and domestic disquietude. The mood reflects a more removed setting, and conversely, a more personalized atmosphere. Despite the grisly nature of the proceedings and accompanying investigation, the novel's neither mystery nor hard-boiled crime fiction and could barely be categorized as a thriller with the action focusing more intensely on intuitive reflections, character observations and relationships.

Labor Day: A Novel / by Joyce Maynard

13-year-old Henry leads a rather dismal life. His parents are recently divorced (his father's remarried with another family), he's underdeveloped, no good at sports, his social life's non-existent and he's completely ignored by girls. Plus, living at home with his seriously depressed mother Adele is far too emotionally taxing for a kid his age to deal with. But everything changes one Labor Day weekend when a mysterious drifter named Frank, an escaped convict, serendipitously becomes an intimate part of Henry's world.

Through a sequence of events in which Frank basically holds Henry and Adele hostage, the threesome get to know each other on very intimate terms. In addition to making Adele feel needed (though with admittedly unorthodox tactics) Frank teaches Henry about life, lessons he's seemingly primed for learning. In the course of their five days together, Henry learns how to throw a baseball, the trick to getting a piecrust just right, some cryptic secrets about the opposite sex, what family really means and the ageless rule of selfless love.

Maynard, author of To Die For and Where Love Goes, writes a very readable book. Labor Day, as a story, is as accessible to teenagers as it is to seniors, retaining its authenticity and timeless themes while entertaining its audience with a tender, but not too sappy scenario. Henry is like many youths just on the brink of adolescence--timid, awkward and confused. And while his first-person narration gives more details than interpretations, the fundamental truths of his predicament are well-implemented and ultimately revealed as the story is played out in the course of his encounter with Frank, a fairy godmother/guardian angel of sorts, who orchestrates a marked turning point in Henry's life. (FIC MAYNARD)

The Woman Next Door / by Barbara Delinsky

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Cozy suburban neighborhoods are meant for families; not young, buxom, recently-widowed women who've mysteriously become pregnant. For Amanda O'Leary, the news that her beautiful but reclusive next door neighbor Gretchen Tannenwald is suddenly with child--father unspecified--carries some twisted irony. Since their wedding day, Amanda and her husband Graham have tried everything imaginable to have a baby, a fact made all the more unbearable by her knowledge of Graham's ambitions for multiple children and Graham's family's equally fervent affinity for lots of kids. Now with a mystery baby next door, Amanda can't keep away the nagging suspicions that Graham just may have fathered Gretchen's baby. After all, from what Amanda's observed, Gretchen is convincingly friendlier with men than she is with women, never hesitating to ask Graham for assistance on more than one occasion.

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Amanda's friends Karen Cotter and Georgia Lange, also neighbors in the same cul-de-sac, have too begun to speculate on the parentage of Gretchen's baby, each possessing reasons enough to suspect their own husbands in with the pool of potential candidates. Karen, a stay-at-home mother of three, has already stood witness to multiple incidents of infidelity by her husband Russ and Georgia's husband Lee, while more trustworthy, also spends the most time around the house acting as the surrogate "mom" to the couple's two kids during Georgia's lengthy business trips. As the months pass and Gretchen's belly swells, Amanda and company endure the irritation of not knowing the origin of the pregnancy, a secret offsetting problems within each woman's lives, families, friendships and marriages.

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A lifelong New Englander and former cancer survivor, Barbara Delinsky has been a prominent writer since the 1980's, taking up the craft after reading a magazine article on writing your own novel. She has since authored dozens of domestic fiction books, all with relavent themes, well-crafted stories and intriguing characters. Knowledgeable about personal insecurities and internal pressures within relationships, Delinsky excels at creating context, authenticating the characters with appropriate enough conditions and capabilities to fully illuminate each's situation. The Woman Next Door, with its captivating plot, multi-dimensional characters and endearing protagonist, creates an alluring, well-rounded story which is sure to satisfy its audience and resonate with readers.

We all float down here . . .

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STEPHEN KING'S IT

Derry, Maine is like many towns. Families live there, jobs are adequate. Generations come and go with the years. Yet things are far from normal as hidden beneath the surface--indeed, under the very town itself--lurks a venomous evil. A creature of unearthly power and dimension, it's been a scourge of mankind for centuries, periodically sustaining its strength from the men, women and children of Derry.

Needless to say, 10-year-old Bill Denbrough knows of the terror plaguing his town. He'll never forget his brother's yellow slicker and galoshes worn the day Georgie went out to play in the rain. "Don't worry about me . . .". But Georgie was never seen again. Only in the following weeks and years will Bill piece together the fragments of what happened that day. He's not alone though. Bound by a common peril, he and his loyal friends--"the losers club"--are united in their quest; traversing space and time to unearth the ageless evil haunting their lives.

Simply put, this book is addictive. Effortlessly it entices the reader; alluringly exploring the complexity of a child's world paralleled against its (often familiar) adult antithesis. All is revealed amid the impermeability of trial-forged friendships, the trademark impressions of youth and the ugly, but redeeming reality of humanity. Maybe King's most ambitious work, this enthralling epic's not just a horror classic, it stands among the noted works of contemporary literature in recent decades.

Body Surfing / by Anita Shreve

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Fortune hasn't exactly smiled on Sydney Sklar of late. At 29, she's been divorced once, widowed once and employed at several teaching jobs only to be left still contemplating her destiny. So when a unique opportunity courts her in the form of Julie Edwards, the beautiful but mildly-challenged daughter of a well-bred New England couple, Sydney sees nothing to lose. Hospitable people despite some characteristically WASPish airs, the family--Sydney in tow--is currently summering at their New Hampshire beach house where surf, sand and sea air provide a welcome break from routine, even more so when the Edwards' two sons--Ben(35) & Jeff(32)--arrive for weekend visits.

Both single yuppie-types, they make no pretense about their interest in Sydney whose amiability to both at first starts to favor Jeff as the summer progresses. As if reinforcing her convictions, even brief distractions like Julie's sudden disappearance fail to waver Sydney's strengthening feelings as, shortly after the girl's safe location, wedding plans are swiftly set in motion. Rejoicing for the happy couple is overshadowed by family tension, however, as restrained animosity between both brothers plus Mrs. Edwards' increasingly irritable behavior start to impose on the occasion. With Julie (legally 18) choosing to live separate from her parents, a steady stream of repressed emotion seeps into an already disquieted atmosphere, unleashing a tidal wave of bad blood by the story's end.

Anita Shreve is quite a well-known author in contemporary circles, penning bestsellers A Wedding in December, The Pilot's Wife and Weight of Water prior to Body Surfing. Exposited with extreme intuition, the author's focus remains largely on the predisposition(s) of Sydney's character, more or less negating any objective view of the Edwards clan. It's not long before the reader is lured into unsuspecting waters whereby some surprise bombshells promptly shake things up. Shreve's writing is esteemable enough and the story won't disappoint most readers even if some may be let down by the ending.

Blessings / by Anna Quindlen

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A journalist for the New York Times, Anna Quindlen won a Pulitzer for her column "Public and Private" in 1992 just prior to becoming a full-time author. Blessings focuses on the intersecting lives of two isolated individuals when an infant girl is dropped at the doorstep of a wealthy widow.

In the wee hours of a summer morning, a teenage couple drives up to an unknown house, stopping only to leave a small object near the entrance before taking off again into the night. . .

Only 19, Skip Cuddy's already done time in the big house. Well, not exactly, more like ten months in the municipal jail and then only because he took the fall for a "friend" after a routine prank gone awry. Now back into things, his new life as caretaker of a large estate is no pie in the sky; but it could be worse, his dad might come around again.

The casualty of a bygone era, Lydia Blessing's no stranger to sadness. Its been years since the passing of her husband and she's steadily learned to accept the unalterable despondency inhabiting her secluded life. It's not that she misses him exactly, just that other life, that "before" life which had or seemed to have some semblance of taste, some substance at least to balance the creeping monotony at her gloomy New England estate house.

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Blessings might capture the charm of 'cozy' fiction, but it's far more insightful than your prototypical domestic lit. A rare book that manages to balance sentiment and realism, it recognizes that imperfections continue and errors are repeated even with maturity of the characters. Sympathetic as they are, Lydia and Skip still epitomize everyday society (flawed) rather than resemble anything noble or distinguished. Smart and worldwise Skip lacks the experience to deal with adult-type issues while Lydia, as one confronted with repressed memories (masked by irascibility), sees her emotional void as a product of external circumstances rather than an internal inability to adapt. Not that there's much 'dark' about the book; heavy on compassion, the style--with its skillful prose--remains permanently sensitive to the reader, delivering the story at a steady pace eloquently interweaving descriptive narrative and genuine dialogue.

Needful Things / by Stephen King

All is well in the town of Castle Rock until a storm comes bringing with it a strange individual and his curious boutique shop--"Needful Things". The store has something for everyone; in fact, it has just the right thing for anyone. No one entering the shop leaves empty-handed as Leland Gaunt's assortment of items satisfy even the deepest desires; a cherished baseball card, sunglasses worn by Elvis, even beauty tablets all purchased for a convenient price. But sinister motives conceal the shop’s true enterprise as Leland Gaunt is more than he seems and he trades in more than earthly wares. What makes you pick up a book (even really thick ones), read the first page and keep going? Try to pin it down. So, to say King is a master of macabre is almost to neglect his real strength at storytelling; a literary magnetism worthy of Harry Potter. The intangible quality of his characters, emotional intrigue and plot structure seem to make his stories almost addictive. Needful Things is one of those books; one in which it doesn’t matter what genre you like, you just enjoy it. (FIC KING)