Skippy Dies, by Paul Murray

The title says it all....

Well, not really, but you've got to love an author who puts the main event right there on the cover. It's as though Paul Murray just wants to be clear, right up front, that this is what is going to happen. It won't be the end of the story, but it will be a very important factor, and we might as well just get it out there on the table from the outset.

This book is much longer than I realized, being printed on extremely thin paper, and set in very small print. My copy is 660 pages. In this respect it is physically and thematically similar: the story doesn't seem as though it is going to touch on quite so many truths, from quite so many different angles.

To wit: Seabrook is a traditional Irish Catholic boys' school, running full frontal into the 21st century. There is a varied cast of characters: a disappointed futures-trader-turned-history teacher, a boy genius, an altruistic priest, a beautiful girl, a thug, an ambitious administrator, a swimming coach, and many others, all, it seems, with secrets. And of course there's Skippy, who has at least two gigantic secrets.

The story takes place over the course of an academic year. People fall in love, people cheat, restrain themselves, plan clandestine scientific explorations, sneak into the neighboring girls' school, deal and take drugs - the usual school stuff. There is complicated science, and crass pornography, and 19th century poetry. And somehow it all ties in, connects, reflects endlessly.

The most amazing thing about this book is how deeply the reader falls into the lives of the characters. There is a metaphorical hall of mirrors at Seabrook, with each succeeding generation experiencing the same epiphanies, and false starts. They're coming at life from from different angles, but somehow it's all  the same. They're trapped in that hall, inevitably bumping into their distorted reflections, and mistaking them for reality. The themes of impotence, regret and futility are wound around one another, always present but never obvious. Most of the inhabitants of Seabrook are adolecents, and they have that terrible and misguided sense that what is happening at any one moment is the truth.

Did I mention that this book is also really funny? It is. And despite the fact that it took me way longer than I had imagined to get to the last page, I was kind of heartbroken at having to finish. The word I keep thinking of is engaging; the characters are just barely eccentric, the dialogue is always spot-on and hilarious, the many little subplots and interstices and wild imaginings hold your attention just perfectly.One of my very favorite books of the year, thus far.

You can hear all about Paul Murray's life, writing and literary tastes in the Powell's interview.

Jess Walter reviews Paul Murray. What's (slightly) better than reading a great book? Reading another's author's take on it.

Half a Life, by Darin Strauss

I first heard Darin Strauss on This American Life, telling this story. I found it so intensely moving that I listened to it again in its entirety. In short: at the age of 18 Darin hit and killed a 16 year old girl, she on a bike, he in a car. No one blames him, it wasn't his fault. This, of course, hasn't stopped him from feeling guilty, and feeling guilty about feeling guilty, for half his life.

The accident itself was not so very huge - the car didn't suffer any damage past a cracked windshield, and none of its occupants were hurt. Despite the sad outcome, it's the kind of event that you'd read about and then pretty quickly forget. Unless, of course, you happen to be the one in the driver's seat. In which case it colors everything you do for years, maybe forever.

Strauss says in this book that had this episode never occurred, he may not have become a writer. Which is hard to imagine. I kept thinking that another, less introspective person might not have spent so very much time obsessing over his every reaction to the pivotal event in his life; he's not sad enough, he's selfishly sad, he's not demonstrative enough, he's faking it. This is probably naive of me. Probably the truth is really that not everyone in this situation would do such a good job of describing his feelings.
Somewhere in the midst of the story, I realized that this book is not a memoir of Darin Strauss' whole life, but more a very close look at the lens through which he's lived his life. He doesn't tell us about the many times he didn't think about Celine, because that's not the point of this story.

It's hard to imagine living with the weight of having accidentally taken some one's life. This small book serves as a reminder that life can change on a dime; a moment can stretch into eternity. I really recommend listening to Darin tell the story, here.

Another NPR book list!

I'm a sucker for book lists. I can't stop myself from browsing them, admittedly in part to see how many of the titles I've read. NPR just published another one of their readers' choice lists: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books. I was surprised to find that I've read 25 or so - depending on whether you count a couple of series I've abandoned after a book or two. This isn't really what I think of as my genre, but it does include books I wouldn't have thought to put in this category, like Watership Down, The Time Traveler's Wife, and The Handmaid's Tale. I won't get into a discussion of just what constitutes fantasy, because I think that subject has been exhaustively argued by more passionate fans already. It just makes me happy to pretend that I have eclectic taste, after all.

Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby

I love Nick Hornby. I will read anything by Nick Hornby. This, I must admit, is not my favorite of his novels. Luckily, even a mediocre Nick Hornby book is still pretty good.

Duncan is obsessed with Tucker Crowe, a singer-songwriter who turned his back on the world in the 80's, while on tour to publicize his biggest hit. Annie has been Duncan's default girlfriend ever since they both moved to a depressing seaside town where nothing much happens. When a new Tucker Crowe recording turns up, Duncan, Annie and Tucker all confront the limbo they've been trapped in for the past 15 years, with varying results.

Nick Hornby is really great at this kind of writing. He writes women sympathetically; his men are openly flawed. Music is generally the backdrop, and often a kid appears to keep everyone focused. This book has all of these elements, plus a couple of difficult girlfriends to keep the ball rolling.

One thing I missed in this novel was the soundtrack. Tucker Crowe is fictional, and while his genre of music is easy to classify, I couldn't hear his music in my head, since, well, it doesn't really exist. I'm used to a background of hits from my youth accompanying Hornby's novels, and I couldn't quite find it.

The basic idea of this book is a good one - Annie strikes up a relationship with her boyfriend's idol, unbalancing the staid balance of everyone's lives. We get to see how obsession taints its object, how losing your convictions leads to waste of all kinds, why regrets are useless. Really, all the elements of a very satisfying novel. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite come together the way I would have wished. It seems just a little contrived, a little too simple. This could be a summer movie; a romantic comedy, which I might be enticed to see if the stars were of the Cusak/Downey, Jr. variety. There's even a great role for Jack Black. Nick Hornby has had great luck in having his books made into really good movies; maybe we'll see this one on the big screen. It will gain a much bigger audience, have a really good soundtrack, and no one will be bothered by its predictability.

My next Hornby book: 31 Songs, a collections of essays about the songs that have changed his life.

Hiatus!

I'm on a little sabbatical. Here's what I've been reading over the past few weeks:



This book is great - all that hype is really valid. Most prolific and interesting use of colons I have encountered in a novel.



I'd give this one a B. The setting, in Labrador, is an interesting twist on this story of a child who is born a true hermaphrodite. There are a few too many predictable elements, but overall an interesting and nicely written book.



I don't know why I ever bother with crime fiction. This book has an interesting theme: bullying and its extreme consequences. I don't think I learned anything new about the subject, and there wasn't really a conclusion to the story, satisfying or otherwise.



I disliked the last Tim O'Brien book I read, so I returned to this classic to remember how great he is. The war in Vietnam is the backdrop for these connected stories. If you haven't read it, I encourage you to do it now. There is some heartbreak, but these stories are about people, not military maneuvers; it's a war book for the civilian.

The Keep, by Jennifer Egan

This novel is a little bit gothic, and a little bit rock and roll. It is full of rabbit holes and dramatic shifts of perception. There's a ghost story, some romance, life-threatening adventure, childhood trauma, and deep dark, secrets. In short, it's got just about everything crammed into it, and yet it flows along smoothly, and the shocking surprises seem utterly plausible. Very impressive.

Danny, a wannabe New York player, finds himself scaling the walls of a castle somewhere in the no-man's land between Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic - fairy tale land. His cousin is trying to create an experiential vacation spot for tourists seeking inner peace. Or something. There's a traumatic childhood secret binding and repelling these two, and the situation at the castle is fraught with interpersonal dysfunction and possibly a little supernatural shenanigans. I hesitate to say much else, because the twists and turns should really be experienced with the sudden intensity that comes from complete ignorance. There is a second simultaneous story in the novel, about a prison inmate and his writing teacher; I wouldn't call it subplot, exactly, more a concurrent reality.

Suffice to say the complete story is told from the points of view of several different characters. These perspectives are different enough to really pretzel your mind, in a way I found most satisfying. In the end there are several unanswered questions; in fact, the whole narrative seems to be about opening one door after another, wandering down hallways, becoming intrigued more with the path than the destination. There is also an underlying theme of conectedness: Danny, who relies on his digital connections to feel any sense of self, is cut off from the outside world the moment he steps inside the castle grounds. Ray, the lifer, is cut off from the self he left outside the prison walls. Questions about the nature of reality, and communication, and maintaining personal strongholds are intertwined in a manner that makes (this)  reader wonder if she has any idea what these things mean at all.

There's a lot going on in this book, much of it funny, some of it heartbreaking, all of it written with a vividness that makes it seem immediate and real. There's so much story telling going on, you might fail to notice that it's written very, very well.

Here's an interview Jennifer Egan did with the editor of the New York Times Book Review - no spoilers, and she's enviously articulate.

This Is Not the Story You Think It Is..., by Laura Munson

 

This book captivated me. It's so interesting to get inside some one else's head, and hear the details of their thoughts and feelings during an especially fraught and complicated time in their lives. And then to have it edited. Because honestly, although we'll put up with repetition and incomplete sentences and poor timing from our friends when they need us, it's really more interesting to have the clean, thoughtful version.

Laura Munson's husband of twenty years, father to their two children, tells her one day that he no longer loves her, and wants out of their marriage. She responds that she doesn't buy it. She determinedly gives him time and space to consider what he might be giving up, and refuses to react with anger or recriminations. She doesn't tell many people what they are going through over the course of a very long summer, partly because not many people have much patience for a guy who stays out all night and blows off holiday weekends with his kids.

I admire Laura Munson for her clarity of vision, and for the strength of her convictions. I'm inclined to agree with her assessment of her situation, although I don't think that I could have kept my anger and fear contained as she did all those months. This book is at its heart the story of how Munson deals with her own emotions. Her husband's crisis is an arena in which she can practice intentionality. She is constantly mindful of her actions, and refuses to live her life in reaction to events beyond her control. Impressive!

As a single mother, I was a little put off by the author's assertion that if her husband moved out, her children would automatically suffer from abandonment issues, and grow up to have dysfunctional relationships. Ideally, children live in big happy families in which everyone supports one another and nobody ever leaves. But strong, well-adjusted people can suffer greater trauma than divorce and go on to lead pretty happy lives, can even, I've heard, have long and happy relationships. And people who grow up with caring, happy, ever-married parents who stay together for life can end up with lots of relationship issues. Having a mother like Laura Munson probably leads to incredible self-awareness; her children are lucky.

I enjoyed the shared diary format of the book, which invites the reader to really share the experiences as they unfold. There are a lot of great truths in this story of the type that are explored in self-help books, but I for one am more likely to take these lessons to heart because they are told with such immediacy and passion. This woman is very clear about her own shortcomings; if she can do it, I can do it to, right?

In the end, I don't think Laura Munson and I would be likely to be friends in real life. I say this not to be snarky. In fact, I admire her more because of it. It's one thing to want to emulate the person you'd most like to spend time with, and to love her book. It's another to want to emulate someone you think you might find a little bit annoying, and to still love her book.