Long Live the King

Long Live the King
By Fay Weldon (352 pages)
Published by St. Martin's Press
Bookish rating: 3.5

This second novel in oh-so-witty Fay Weldon's Edwardian trilogy continues to help Downton Abbey fans cope with the Downton off-season.

All of British aristocracy is caught up in preparing for Edward's coronation, and here we again meet the Dilbernes. A comedy of manners that's light on plot but heavy on wit, the novel pretty much delivers what you'd expect: unflinching mockery of people who far care vastly about how long one's dress train can be for the coronation than orphaned relatives.

Weldon bounces happily from one character's head to the next, drolly revealing their rationalizations, weaknesses, and motivations. And again, we get to see the servants' points of view as well.

Typical Weldon fare, this is a fun, jolly ride. Recommended, just for the fun of it.

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
By Lorrie Moore (147 pages)
Published by Vintage
Bookish rating: 4

As Berie travels in Paris with her not-spectacular husband, she remembers, through a series of flashbacks, a youthful summer in 1972 and her relationship with her ballsy BFF, Sils.

Moore brilliantly captures the neurosis and optimistic anything-can-happen! nature of adolescence, along with the adult realization that life really isn't as sparkly or exciting as you had thought when 15 years old. Moore is witty and unbelievably clever with words--but in a way that benefits the text rather than showing off her ability twist words.

Although I understood Moore contrasting Berie's hum-drum stagnant marriage in what is supposed to be one of the most beautiful, exciting cities in the world--Paris--with her surprisingly MORE exciting existence in a small Adirondack tourist town, I couldn't quite figure out what the instigating reason was for Berie suddenly having all these 1972 flashbacks.

This was my second Lorrie Moore novel (having already read A Gate at the Stairs), and I love the originality and wry wit-plus-depth of Moore's writing style.

The Unseen

The Unseen
By Alexandra Sokoloff (328 pages)
Published by St. Martin's Press
Bookish rating: 3.75

It being the spooky month of October and all, I just can't help but dive into darker reading. I'm a Sokoloff fan, and The Unseen is a fun ghost (well, poltergeist) tale of the Rhine parapsychology experiments at Duke University (a real thing).

I actually worked--briefly--for the University of Virginia's School of Medicine's perceptual studies department (one of my multiple jobs in grad school), doing tasks related to paranormal research. For reals. So, Sokoloff's portrayal of the academic approach to and treatment of parapsychology actually seemed pretty accurate to me. Well, sort of. Sure, my disc man (yes, THAT long ago) never seemed to properly work around there, but that was the limit of any poltergeist activity I saw. Bummer.

Anyway, our heroine--Laurel--investigates a mystery as to why the Duke lab was shut down, eventually deciding to recreate what appeared to be the defining experiment--holing up with some sexually charged college students in a haunted house. Of course.

I liked how Sokoloff--like Shirley Jackson's classic The Haunting of Hill House (my all-time favorite ghost story)--uses the suggestion of evil or creepiness rather than just the overt icky to generate the thrills. Also, I'm partial to academic settings, which made this a fun book to read. The ending left me wanting  a little something and seemed rather rushed or incomplete, so I docked a quarter star from what would've been a 4.

So, bookish peeps: This is a well-crafted ghost (sorry! poltergeist) story, perfect for late October reading. Really, that's all you need to know. Recommended.

Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers

Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers
By Lois-Ann Yamanaka (276 pages)
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Bookish rating: 3

Here's the thing with books published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux: You feel really obligated to really like the book. If you don't, you must entertain the possibility that you are not a very capable, sophisticated reader. And no bookish girl wants to believe THAT.

Here, Yamanaka's collection of stories is nicely done, providing some intensely creative insight into the back woods (does Hawai'i have woods?) of the Hilo area on the Big Island in the 1970s. It's a blue-collar area, and Lovey Nariyoshi comes of age with her BFF Jerry. Her family is Japanese-American, but Lovey longs to be and do things like the haole (translation: white) kids. Her parents, of course, mock this (understandable) adolescent yearning for something perceived as better, and the poor girl has a rough time reconciling identity with her burning desire to have a particular clothing item or a tape recorder.

Together, Yamanaka's stories successfully give a stirring impression of adolescence, Japanese-American assimilation in Hawai'i, and the almost-poverty of some of its inhabitants and exposes the fact that, like any tropical place colonized in one way or another, the islands are not all about surfing and suntan oil.

All that said, reading this book was slow going and tiresome at times. I could see the literary tricks Yamanaka pulled off, but I really felt like I was reading this for class. Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers is a good book--just not one that I enjoyed much.

A Likely Story

A Likely Story: One Summer With Lillian Hellman
By Rosemary Mahoney (273 pages)
Published by Doubleday
Bookish rating: 3.75

A Likely Story is an autobiographical account of one poor (literally poor, actually), hopeful teen girl's summer spent working for the, at that point, elderly, poor-sighted Lillian Hellman (playwright) in the 1980s in Martha's Vineyard. 

Mahoney ended up hating Hellman and complains relentlessly about her. A decade or two later, she's still pissed. Now, I've read/studied/worked on a LOT of Hellman history and lit, and Mahoney's account has a ring of truth as to how Hellman likely behaved, but a good deal of her criticism stems, I think, of Mahoney's disappointment in that her visions of Hellman seeing Mahoney's own genius and mentoring her instead of criticizing her inability to properly chop onions or whatever is hugely at play here.

The autobiography is overwritten and achingly self-conscious, which actually gives an effective boost to portraying Mahoney's younger self as so very insecure. For a book with "Lillian Hellman" in the title, too much time is spent on the details of Mahoney's past and childhood, which are rather unimportant, from a literary point of view, except for the heartbreak of her mother's alcoholism, polio-disabled leg, and early death of her father. 

I felt bad, truly, for the too-smart-for-her-circumstances Mahoney, and I'm sure writing this book was cathartic for her. My feelings are mixed. For a book about Hellman, there was too much Hellman-free Mahoney memoir. And yet? That part did inform so much of why Mahoney took everything SO personally. Recommended for Hellman buffs.

Maine

Maine
By J. Courtney Sullivan (509 pages)
Published by Vintage
Contemporary fiction
Bookish rating: 4.5

Maine is a slow-developing (in the best sense), unhurried tale of four flawed, strong-willed women of the Kelleher family: Maggie, who's knocked up with her a-hole boyfriends spawn; Anne-Marie, a Kelleher by marriage who wants desperately to be just perfect family-wise and thus projects this anxiety onto a dollhouse obsession; Kathleen, who detests everything her family stands for and thus is (of course) living in California on a worm farm in a hippie-esque existence; and Alice, the alcoholic matriarch of it all, with a past that would drive anyone to drink.

The story (stories?) are absorbing and enjoyable--I loved reading this book. The characters are fantastically and fully developed, warts and all, and Sullivan's ability to show how perspective is everything just shines as these women interact and judge each other.

Unlike other reviewers, I didn't get a strong sense of place with Maine. Perhaps this was due to so much being told in flashbacks (and thus not in Maine) or something. It just didn't seem coastal. I had no desire to put on a plastic bib and eat lobster like I expected. So, a half point docked there.

Ultimately, though, no matter. Maine is a thoughtful, entertaining read that shows how freaking complicated families are. Highly recommended.

Untold Story

Untold Story
By Monica Ali (259 pages)
Published by Scribner
Bookish rating: 4

So, I admit it. My decision to read Untold Story, a novel that explores identity and the what-ifs had Princess Diana faked her death and now worked at a kennel in a small American town, might have been slightly influenced by the recent royal birth across the pond.

My snobby side thinks the very bad reader reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are a result of mediocre readers who expected a non-literary, sensationalistic piece of crap and were thus disappointed that this novel was done so much better than that. Fortunately, I suppose, I had read Ali's Brick Lane, so I knew what sort of author she is: a good one. In other words, I suspected Ali would create a thoughtful novel that didn't scream OPPORTUNISTIC. She succeeded.

Ali presents the story from the perspectives of Lydia (Diana), her dying confidant and bodyguard (which ensures she ends up utterly alone), and a paparazzi photographer. We go deep inside her mind and internal conflict, which explores whether leaving her entire life behind was worth it. I wondered how Ali would handle making Lydia's decision to leave her sons, certain she'd come up short. What mother could actually do that, especially such a hands-on one? Well, Ali pulled it off.

Ultimately, Untold Story makes you seriously consider what sort of selfhood an entirely public figure might have. Where do the evening gowns and tabloids leave off, and where does real identity begin? At what point do you lose your mind?

Anyway, this is a thought-provoking, insightful read. Recommended.