Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell

If you’re a bettor, place your money on Once Upon a River for the National Book Award; it’s that good.  On the first page Bonnie Jo Campbell clearly defines Margo Crane as an intrepid heroine. “When Margo swam, she swallowed minnows alive and felt the Stark River move inside her.” Her grandfather taught her to fish and trap and he appreciated that she could sit without speaking for hours in the prow of his boat. “He called her Sprite or River Nymph.  Her cousins called her Nympho, though not usually within the old man’s hearing.”

Many are comparing Margo to Huck Finn and that’s accurate but Margo’s also an original defined by her actions yet resolute in remaining true to her convictions. Like her hero, Annie Oakley, she’s a great shooter and a survivor.  She lives “outside” both literally and figuratively – outside on the river and outside convention as a young girl on her own without a home or an education.  Her mother abandons her, her grandfather dies, and her uncle rapes her so when her father is killed in a vivid scene in which she uses her sharp-shooting skills to shoot off the top of her uncle’s penis, fifteen-year-old Margo feels compelled to escape to the aptly named Stark River outside Kalamazoo, Michigan,

Margo lives for the river and for shooting and preparing what she’s shot.  “She’d be fine after that initial cut, after she turned the deer from a dead creature into meat. It had come as a surprise that killing was the easy part.”  She's extraordinarily beautiful and is as attractive to males as the majestic deer she herself tracks. Her beauty makes her the ideal woman for many of the men she meets and even her absent mother sees her only as a vessel of her beauty and its ability to attract. Margo, though, learns to use her beauty and her skills to survive.  When she needs cash she shoots muskrats with a shot through the eyeball carefully embedding the bullet into the brain to save the fur so she’ll get top dollar for it.

As Margo navigates her boat down the river she hooks up with Brian whose food and cabin provide the essentials she needs and the sex that comforts her. Brian claims her, calls her Maggie and tries to make her the person he needs.  After his brother attacks her she moves across the river to a more upright gentleman: 28-year-old Michael, who has a real job, attends church and believes in doing the right thing. Michael calls her Margaret Louise and she lives comfortably with him until she does something so unconventional that she can no longer remain.

She next meets an Indian who never gives his name.  “He had come to her for help, and she had helped him.  She had fed him, and he had paid her for the food.  Sex with him had been like nothing she had known, but if he had stayed any longer, they might have hurt each other.” Margo appears to be the victim in her encounters but each person she meets teaches her skills she needs to survive.  

The novel portrays the consequences of living in a rough world when you have no protectors and become prey.  It shows that the costs of living free without the protection of family or state are so high that anyone desiring total freedom in this world is doomed to pay for its consequences.  Just when those consequences seem too dire, Margo meets Smoke who needs her as much as she needs him. Smoke and Margo accept each other as outsiders and Margo begins to grasp that survival may be more than just having food and shelter.  Campbell intricately balances her themes of freedom, community, consequences, and living with the “sins of the fathers,” while portraying the natural world and the humans inhabiting it with absolute precision.

This novel is a page-turner so it demands two readings to appreciate the author’s incisive language especially her descriptions of the river and the natural world.  I expect teenage girls to be reading and talking about Margo Crane for many years and I hope that school boards allow teachers to assign this book despite its depiction of a teenage girl who confuses sex for security.  Once Upon a River begs to be read alongside The Scarlet Letter and what I wouldn’t give to hear teenagers compare Margo Crane to Hester Prynne.

Summing it Up:  Read it first for the plucky heroine and her journey then return to it to savor the beautiful depictions of the natural world and the unforgettable characters.  Force your book club to choose it as you’ll want to discuss it the minute you put it down.

Rating: 5 stars    Category: Fiction, Gourmet, Book Club

Publication date: July, 2011

Author’s Website: http://www.bonniejocampbell.com/

Read an Excerpt: http://books.google.com/books?id=LgbCgcdKktUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

What Others are Saying:

Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2011/0726/Once-Upon-a-River-by-Bonnie-Jo-Campbell

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/books/review/once-upon-a-river-by-bonnie-jo-campbell-book-review.html?pagewanted=all

Publisher’s Weekly:  http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-393-07989-0

Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/books-once-upon-a-river-by-bonnie-jo-campbell/2011/06/27/gHQAv3xozH_story.htm

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

When I decided to write a blog, I read over 250 book review blogs and resolved to leave my personal life out of my reviews after reading far too little about books and much too much about cats and grandchildren.  Having neither, I thought it’d be an easy resolution to keep but I’m breaking it because telling how profoundly The Summer Book touched me is impossible without explaining the turn my life took this spring.

After Heidi Durrow, whose book The Girl Who Fell From the Sky was my favorite book in 2010, recommended The Summer Book in a piece on NPR: http://www.npr.org/2011/03/21/133866201/three-books-to-rescue-nordic-lit-from-the-dark-side, I purchased it.  I had just begun it on April 12 when I got a phone call that my husband was in a hospital in Arlington, VA, after having a significant stroke while on a business trip.  As I packed to fly east, I tossed The Summer Book into my suitcase. A few nights later when I moved into a narrow chair bed next to my husband in the hospital, I began falling under its spell.  This novel comforted me and made me smile just when I most needed it.  This summer I’ve reread it in a happier time as my husband’s therapy leads him on the path to full recovery.  Once again it swept me away, made me laugh out loud, and helped me ponder its wisdom.

Six-year-old Sophia and her impervious grandmother portray a world awakening to life and nature on a miniscule island in the farthest reaches of the Gulf of Finland in the late 1960s. Sophia’s mother has died and her grandmother quietly guides her to conquer her grief and gain confidence in a series of simple events.  Any book about a girl as impish and unique as Pippi Longstocking, as bold and audacious as Tom Sawyer, and as insightfully witty as no one but herself would be enough to savor.  But when you add a distinctive archipelago that I long to visit and a grandmother who builds a replica of a Venetian palace out of bark and twigs while smoking and wryly commenting on outrageous situations, you have a classic that American audiences will love if they’ll just give it a try.  Told in a series of brief vignettes, the little treasure imparts sage philosophies that will appeal to those who enjoyed The Elegance of the Hedgehog as well as to those just wanting an enchanting story spare enough to allow room for imagination.

In a chapter that must be read aloud, Sophia, horrified by an earthworm she’s cut in half with a spade, learns that it’ll grow into two beings.  To grasp the concept, Sophia writes a book about the process of growing separately.  She dictates to her grandmother: “They realized that from now on life would be quite different, but they didn’t know how, that is, in what way.” Obviously that line spoke directly to my situation in the hospital but I now realize that, like everything else in this novel, it speaks to the entire human condition.

Our Book Club’s Discussion:

Over thirty people packed into the book store where our spirited book discussion began with the question: “Did The Summer Book comfort you or unsettle you?”  It comforted the majority but some found the sparse language and the uncertainty of the grandmother’s fate unsettling. Others noted that the spare language enhanced the setting. One grandmother commented that she loved that the grandmother wasn’t a “Hallmark grandma” but a real person. As we read various sections aloud, laughter ensued along with vigorous debate about the many themes. All concurred that the book was great for discussion and should be read aloud almost in its entirety. We pondered whether “city folks” could appreciate the portrayals of living in nature or whether they’d seem too foreign. One woman revealed that she planned to read it every summer to see which themes resonated at the time.

Summing it Up:  Make this your next book club selection and get ready for a dynamic discussion.  Read it to enjoy Sophia’s witticisms, to visit to an enchanting island, and to allow it to impart its wisdom however and whenever you need it.  This is truly the perfect summer book.

Rating: 5 stars    Category: Fiction, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Soul Food, Book Club

Publication date: 1972, NYRB Classics reissue in 2008

About the author: Tove Jansson was most famous for her comic strips and books about Moomintroll, a hippo-like character.  The Moomin family has spawned theme parks and an array of clothing and accessories in Finland and Japan where they rival Hello Kitty’s popularity.  Visit these sites to learn more about this unique author: http://www.moomin.com/tove/  and http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/tjansson.htm

What Others are Saying:

The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-summer-book-by-tove-jansson-540567.html

New York Review Books:  http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/the-summer-book/

The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield

Readers who love southern-fried characters suffering a heap of misery alongside precocious children who lead their elders into doing what’s right will devour this beach book.  Fannie Flagg and Dorothea Benton Frank aficionados will fly through the pages while enjoying the humor and the fact that the “good” people triumph.  I don’t happen to be one of those readers. I appreciate the author’s ability to describe the land cinematically. She’s a screenwriter who wrote The Man in the Moon and The Outsider and I like the dialogue that moves the book along but I wanted more fully developed characters.  Other than Swan Lake (yes, that truly is the name of the child protagonist – and no, the reason she got the moniker isn’t explained), a Huck Finn of a 1950s girl, the characters all seem to be cardboard caricatures of good or evil Southerners.

Samuel Lake, a preacher who’s lost his pulpit due to speaking the truth, moves to the farm where his wife’s family is grieving a loss that should cause them to question themselves but seems only to make them want to preserve the past. Daughter Swan finds Blade, a neighbor boy who needs her help, as she avoids Blade’s “Old Testament” evil father.  The sins of the fathers of both families hover over the action like a smothering fog that threatens an evil storm.   If you like action, this book has it with rape, suicide, wife beatings, adultery, murder and even kitten killing.

Summing it Up: Read this if you like good-old Southern charm, engaging children and evil characters who get what’s coming to them.  Skip it if you prefer more literary fiction.

Rating: 3 stars   

Category: Fiction, Grits and Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Publication date: July 12, 2011

Read an excerpt: http://www.randomhouse.com/book/196784/the-homecoming-of-samuel-lake-by-jenny-wingfield/9780385344081/#excerpt

What Others are Saying:

Kirkus Reviews: http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/fiction/jenny-wingfield/homecoming-samuel-lake/
Publishers Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-385-34408-1
USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2011-08-11-samuel-lake_n.htm

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

Erik Larson’s newest historical saga transports readers to 1933 Berlin, an almost too-familiar time and place that Larson makes compelling by introducing an American family’s view of Hitler’s rise to power.  Just as Larson’s Devil in the White City evoked the unreported evil surrounding 1890s Chicago, this account delves into a little known historical figure and his role in the unfolding drama leading to World War II. William Dodd was a quiet University of Chicago professor when Roosevelt appointed him ambassador to Hitler’s Germany, a position none of the usual ambassadorial suspects desired.

The unassuming Dodd took his wife, son and reckless daughter, Martha, with him to Berlin and Martha, an assistant literary editor of the Chicago Tribune, immediately ingratiated herself within Berlin society and with the burgeoning Nazi leadership. Her sexual liaisons and friendships offer a rare view of the increasing tensions as Americans and German Jews suffer brutal attacks without consequence. Martha’s naiveté and her father’s essential fair-minded approach afford readers a clear view of America’s isolationism and of the dilettante foreign service of the time. Larson also offers a clear, unvarnished portrait of American anti-Semitism and its ultimate cost.

The Dodds’ chatty correspondence with Carl Sandburg, Thornton Wilder and other historical figures was my favorite aspect of the book.  Larson also captured my interest with his discerning depiction of the cut-throat tactics some American diplomats used including compromising diplomatic pouches in order to undermine Dodd’s position.

Summing it Up:  Larson defines the term narrative nonfiction by offering simple stories of relationships that show rather than explain how Hitler and his band of miscreants assembled power so quickly.  Read this historical account of the rise of Nazi Germany for its insight into why the world failed to see what Hitler was doing.  Enjoy it for its almost gossip-column glimpses of Berlin society in 1933.

Rating: 4 stars   

Category: Nonfiction, Super Nutrition, Book Club

Publication date: May, 2011

Author website: http://eriklarsonbooks.com/

Reading Group Guide: http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/14-non-fiction/8375-in-the-garden-of-beasts-larson

Interview with NPR’s Terry Gross on Fresh Air: http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/135922322/william-dodd-the-u-s-ambassador-in-hitlers-berlin

What Others are Saying:

Chicago Sun Times: http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/books/5142857-421/review-in-the-garden-of-beasts-by-erik-larson.html

Kirkus Reviews:  http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/non-fiction/erik-larson/garden-beasts/#review

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/books/review/book-review-in-the-garden-of-beasts-by-erik-larson.html

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

On a scale of one to five, this wonder deserves a ten.  It’s both a swashbuckling adventure and a compelling metaphoric symphony.  When word comes that Anders Eckman has died of a fever in a remote Amazon region Marina Singh, his pharmaceutical company lab partner, is dispatched to find his remains and it seems that a Jamesian journey to the “heart of darkness” is about to begin. Yet, this reader found it more like Dorothy’s trek through Oz especially with Marina’s former mentor, the elusive and mysterious Dr. Annick Swenson hidden behind the curtain of the Amazon jungle.  Marina’s boss and lover, a man even she calls Mr. Fox, had sent Anders to bring back news of Dr. Swenson’s progress in developing a drug that would allow women to remain fertile their whole lives but the odd doctor remained uncommunicative and resistant to leaving her secreted village.   

Patchett plots the action as if it were an elaborate mosaic with each piece precisely scribed to fit its neighbor.  Marina arrives in the decaying city of Manaus, Brazil where she spends weeks trying to ingratiate herself with a slapstick cast including Milton, a major domo figure, who seems to have the entire country at his beck and call and the Bovanders, a fey couple who hold the key to locating Dr. Swenson.  

When Marina finally begins her river journey, Easter, a deaf boy Dr. Swenson has rescued, pilots them literally and figuratively into the ever narrowing darkness of the Amazon. They arrive to find the Lakashi tribe carrying torches and ululating in welcome while Marina’s luggage and more importantly her malaria medicine and global phone go missing.  Forced to dress as the tribal women and lacking any contact with the world, Marina quickly assimilates into the tribal village Dr. Swenson rules.  

In a pivotal scene rivaling the best Indiana Jones movie, Marina, Easter, another native and a giant anaconda battle aboard a small pontoon boat.  I hate snakes and have refused to read some fine books because of their presence but I was glued to the page during this mesmerizing skirmish. Soon after, Marina visits the area where the Lakashi women chew the bark of trees that allows them infinite fertility and protection from other diseases and she later performs a chilling operation that makes her seem indispensible to the village. 

Meanwhile Marina forms a bond with Easter and begins to question the imperturbably caustic Dr. Swenson.. A raft of adventures awaits and builds to an unexpected yet thoroughly believable climax.  The book has a perfect ending that brings the entire tale full circle and makes me want to read this adventure again to savor the intricate language and plotting. I flew through it completely captivated by the cast and sat in wonder as I contemplated whether Marina would ever be able to click her heels and return to Minnesota. 

Summing it Up: State of Wonder is a wonder that will transport you to a grown-up “Land of Oz” where native dancers, miracle drugs, incredible dreams, and a jungle so thick and hot it makes you want to shower await you.   You’ll beg your book club to abandon their next selection so you can discuss it.  If I could I’d adopt Easter, a character I’ll carry with me forever.  I adored Patchett’s Bel Canto but this may just top it.  

Rating: 5 stars     

Category: Fiction, Gourmet, Book Club 

Publication date: June 7, 2011 
 
Author website: http://www.annpatchett.com/ 

Reading Group Guide: http://www.harpercollins.com/author/authorExtra.aspx?authorID=20650&isbn13=9780062049803&displayType=readingGuide 

Interview with Diane Rehm: http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-06-08/ann-patchett-state-wonder 

What Others are Saying: 
The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/state-of-wonder-by-ann-patchett-2293017.html 

Kirkus Reviews: http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/fiction/ann-patchett/state-wonder/#review 

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/books/state-of-wonder-by-ann-patchett-book-review.html 

Publishers Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-06-204980-3

Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/books-state-of-wonder/2011/05/30/AGQicRLH_story.html

South of Superior by Ellen Airgood

Mining the Lake Superior shores of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Ellen Airgood creates McAllaster, a hamlet filled with eccentric characters similar to those found in Richard Russo’s forgotten mill towns.   Airgood infuses an unlikely blend of rascals and saints with a spirit that seems to come only in remote locales.  Madeline Stone, a Chicago waitress about to marry a professor and begin to live her dream of art school, abandons it all to move five hundred miles north to help care for Arbutus, an incapacitated woman she’s barely met.  Elderly sisters Gladys and Arbutus are two of the most engaging women to populate a town since the novel Broken for You introduced a disparate cast that made the word community meaningful. Toss in a man with a dream, a mentally challenged uncle, a messed up single mother and her charming son and you’ll be ready to head north to meet this crew yourself.

The town is the true main character though as Madeline notes: “McAllaster was a kind of a tribe.  This wasn’t cozy or nice. She sensed that it was an equation, that membership would exact a price: the loss of privacy, anonymity, certain freedoms she’d taken for granted in Chicago, maybe the loss of the right to selfishness.  Everybody in the tribe didn’t love each other. They disagreed and gossiped and argued; they laid traps for each other and rejoiced when the trap was sprung; they relished placing blame wherever it would stick and took pleasure in one another’s mistakes.  But when there was trouble, there was help.”

Airgood’s novel is predictable in the way that we want summer reads to be predictable. This predictability makes it flow as the characters behave as real, caring people do when they’re broke, hurt, or damaged yet still manage to do the right thing most of the time.

Small town life isn’t for sissies nor is surviving in northern Michigan’s harsh, economically impoverished areas but this novel depicts the troubles and the rewards of opening yourself to others regardless of where you live.  I flat out fell in love with these characters and flew through this wonder of a novel determined to drive north to eat at the diner the author runs.  Her interviews of several lifelong residents and what must be her keen ear as she serves those who eat at the diner surface in the dialogue that both sings and carries the plot.

Summing it Up:  Take this feel-good book about a group of unforgettable characters to the shore of your favorite lake for a perfect summer escape.

Rating: 5 stars   

Category: Fiction, Grandma’s Pot Roast

Publication date: June,9, 2011

Author website: http://ellenairgood.com

What Others are Saying: 

Kirkus Reviews:
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/fiction/ellen-airgood/south-superior/

Publishers Weekly:     
http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59448-793-4

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

Okay for Now is ostensibly a sequel to Schmidt’s delightful Wednesday Wars but it stands alone beautifully. Doug Swieteck’s Dad is such a jerk that he gives other jerks a bad name.  He drinks, hits Doug and his brothers, and loses his job and the family’s home.  Lucas, Doug’s oldest brother, troubled as a teen is now in Viet Nam.  Brother Chris, a smart mouth, hangs out with the wrong crowd.   Because of his incorrigible family, Doug is assumed to be a bad kid and he can’t make friends in the upstate New York mill town where they relocate.  

Lacking friends and fearing home, Doug visits the town library and sees an Audubon folio open to an arctic tern. The vivid nature of the tern enthralls him and the librarian encourages Doug’s interest and teaches him to draw.  Soon Doug learns the significance of the portfolio and that it’s being sold off bird by bird, page by page. 

Home life worsens as Doug’s beloved Joe Pepitone memorabilia is taken from him, brother Chris is arrested and brother Lucas comes home from Viet Nam with significant injuries.  All these problems pale when an insensitive gym teacher exposes Doug’s deepest secret.  Doug’s friend Lil and a few adults recognize the fortitude, talent and intelligence that Doug possesses and they support him as he strives to save the Audubon folio and himself.

This book is humorous enough for the most jaded boys to love and it’s smart enough for well-read adults to savor.  Even world-weary readers will shed a tear or two then cheer for Doug to overcome the obstacles facing him.   Nothing should keep this from winning the Newbury Award as best children’s book this year.  Book clubs that loved discussing The Book Thief or The Giver will want to add this to their lists.

Summing it Up: Buy this for boys ages ten to fourteen and make sure you read it yourself.   It’s sure to be an award winner and a classic. The characters in this affirming novel will stay with you for a long time.

Rating: 5 stars    

Category: Fiction, Diet Coke and Gummi Bears,  Peanut Butter and Jelly, Book Club

Publication date: April 5, 2011                             

Publisher’s website: http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=1051989

What Others are Saying:

Chicago Tribune: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-04-12/entertainment/chi-okay-for-now-by-gary-d-schmidt-20110412_1_audubon-gary-schmidt-life-changing-moments

Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2011/0509/Okay-for-Now

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/books/review/childrens-books-okay-for-now-by-gary-d-schmidt.html

School Library Journal: http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/afuse8production/2011/02/12/review-of-the-day-okay-for-now-by-gary-d-schmidt/