The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian.
Shaye Areheart Books, 2007. 368 pages.
It's a lovely June afternoon on JKL's sun-dappled patio: we sip iced drinks, partake of treats, and discuss a worthwhile, if unsettling, read. After surviving a vicious attack while biking in foreshadowy well-shadowed woods, Vermont college student Laurel Estabrook therapeutically volunteers at a homeless shelter and becomes obsessed with Bobbie Crocker, a mentally ill homeless man who claims to have been a famous photographer. The book is about photographs, memory, mental illness, emotional and real homelessness, and Vermont. It's a psychological thriller, a crime novel... and there's that whole Great Gatsby thing going on, too. Cellar Door Book Society member BJM opines that the novel's not-completely unsurprising surprise ending amounts to cheap literary trickery. She recalls that that this is not the first time Mr. Bohjalian has pulled a stunt of fiction treachery: remember Midwives? She does not wish to be duped in her reading.
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.
Viking, 2008. 372 pages.
Hanna Heath, rare book expert and rebellious adult child, discovers a bunch of tiny-whimsical-sort-of-squished-up artifacts in the binding of a rare fifteenth-century Hebrew manuscript. Intrigued by these tiny-whimsical-sort-of-squished-up artifacts, Ms. Heath (guided by the steady literary hand of Ms. Brooks) embarks on an intellectual, spiritual, and physical journey to decipher and unravel the Mysteries of the Book and the Dramatic History of the People of the Book. Along the way, Ms. Heath, Ms. Brooks, and the Cellar Door Book Society also decipher Hanna's tiny-whimsical-sort-of-squished-up mother issues and unravel the dramatic history of Hanna's tiny-whimsical-sort-of-squished-up paternity. This book about the Book is meticulously researched, eminently readable, and admirably crafted-- with the exception of museum shenanigans in the penultimate moment more suited to a Nelson DeMille offering than to this moody, sensitive, sweeping novel.
Meanwhile, Cellar Door Book Society member BJM lugs out an Ancient and Unwieldy Ten-Pound Family Bible, successfully illustrating bookbinding technique while simultaneously revealing impressive family eccentricities. Yellowed newspaper articles featuring colorful curmudgeons and scoundrels from a Central Pennsylvania past break free from the pages of the Book and flutter to the Cellar floor... tiny-whimsical-sort-of-squished-up leaves from a family tree.
The Moonflower Vine: A Novel by Jetta Carleton.
Harper Perennial, 2009 (1962). 318 pages.
We stumble upon this unassuming story of a Heartland farm family in The Library of Forgotten Books... a rediscovered classic, written with intimacy and simplicity, infused with autobiographical texture that allows it to accomplish more than many celebrated sagas and elaborate epics we have read over the years.
In the first half of the twentieth century, Matthew and Callie Soames build a life for themselves and a home for their four compelling, strong-willed daughters: Jessica, Leonie, Mary Jo, and Mathy. As the family narrative slowly uncoils and reveals itself—not unlike an evanescent moonflower from the title—we witness moments of betrayal, deceit, heartbreak, and escape. But there are also ample expressions of loyalty, honesty, healing, and homecoming: timeless and understated testimonies to the inscrutability of the human heart and to the inevitability of the family.
Jetta Carleton’s only published-during-her-lifetime novel invites us to contemplate that everyone has at least one breathtaking story in them, maybe just maybe… Slowly at first, then faster and faster, the green bud unfurled, the thin white edges of the bloom appearing and the spiral ascending, round and round and widening till at last the white horn of the moonflower, visible for the first time in the world, twisted open, pristine and perfect, holding deep in its throat a tiny jewel of sweat. We like the way the moonflower vine climbs across the Soames’ front porch and the way The Moonflower Vine twines into our reading lives.
The Farmer's Daughter by Jim Harrison.
Grove Press, 2010. 308 pages.
Even for those of us who rarely read fiction, Harrison consistently amuses with his unconventional characters and his thoughtful descriptions of settings in which real people lead real lives. In that sense, there is no escapism involved in enjoying these three novellas-- few of us would aspire to live the life of the ubiquitous and unburdened Brown Dog-- rather, there is joy in Harrison's mastery of nature and in the day-to-day particulars of life. We consider ourselves true fans.
Cutting
for Stone by Abraham Verghese.
Vintage
Books, 2010. 667 pages.
We
resisted this book for the longest time, suspecting that the narrative’s political
upheaval would equal stomach-turning violence and that the author’s medical
insight would translate into gratuitous anatomical gore. Well, there is violence and there is gore,
but there is also, most memorably, the exquisitely crafted story of Marion and
Shiva Stone, twin brothers growing up in Ethiopia, sharing a bond that endures
the loss of their parents, a connection that survives chaos and instability
in their homeland. When the brothers fall in love with the same woman, however,
the sibling relationship is tested, and Marion and Shiva travel different paths—until
a crisis draws them together in a transcendent moment of family, faith, and forgiveness.
