Book Review: Heresy

By: Carrie Donovan

The front of the novel Heresy, by author J.S. Parris, states that the book is a ‘historical thriller.’

Perhaps "historically-based, occasionally kind of intriguing work of fiction" was too long to fit on the cover.

The novel is based on the story of Giordano Bruno, a 16th century Italian monk, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher whose insistence that the Earth orbited the sun and that the universe extended infinitely into space proved a bit too radical for his Catholic contemporaries.

It would be hard to imagine a more interesting or tumultuous setting than post-Reformation England, nor a more fascinating character than the rebellious Bruno. Perhaps then, it is Parris’ rigid structure alone that manages to transform her lovably free-spirited protagonist into the pawn of a formulaic plot that reminds the reader of a Dan Brown concept gone stale.

We are first introduced to the main character, affectionately known as Bruno, when he is caught in the monastery's latrine reading Erasmus' banned "Commentaries,” a crime punishable by death. After his escape to nowhere in particular, save wherever the Inquisition will not be, Bruno finds himself in London, where he receives a mission from Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster, Francis Walsingham, to root out Oxford University Catholics who may be plotting to overthrow the Protestant queen.

But apparently Bruno is also on a mission independent of the crown. He is aiming to uncover the whereabouts of a missing manuscript that purportedly contains the lost wisdom of the Egyptians, and a “secret that could destroy the authority of the Christian church.” Alas, both his official and unofficial missions are driven off course by a series of dramatic killings on the Oxford campus, which further complicates the Protestant-Catholic divide that threatens to destroy both the college and the kingdom as a whole.

Parris wastes no time in suggesting that things are not always as they seem. Not suggesting, so much as having various cryptic characters lay it out in painfully obvious terms. “No man in Oxford is as he seems, Doctor Bruno,” says the spiky and gnomic man in the corner.

Perhaps the art of foreshadowing could simply be left to the every-other-paragraph description of the weather, which always seems to be as gray and bleak as Bruno’s hopes of solving the murders before that cryptic-but-eerily-familiar symbol or Latin phrase that the unknown stranger slid under his door in the nighttime translates into that next we-should-have-seen-it-coming murder.

Then again, perhaps it is this predictability and comfortably familiar storytelling style that has propelled the novel from obscurity in the first place. It may not be wholly satisfying, but beneath the layers of exaggerated code-breaking ah-ha moments lies an underlying message that represents what Bruno was all about in the first place; a truth above the politics of religious difference.

Indeed, the bulk of the novel’s underlying message is probably easiest summed up by Bruno’s near death declaration that he only wants “to be left in peace to understand the mysteries of the universe in his own way." To which his adversary mockingly replies, "Ah. Tolerance." Whether it is worth tolerating the previous 430 pages to arrive at the moral fiber of this remarkably lackluster caper is another question entirely.

Collection of short stories highlights black youth

By Kelundra Smith

In her debut, short-fiction collection "Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self," Danielle Evans gives voice to black, middle-class, young adults in stories of identity, sex, parent-child relationships and love. She covers a lot of material in these eight stories relating to the formation of racial identity, yet slides the effects of racial identity in so smoothly that they are relatable across color lines.

Sex and its complications are themes in almost all of the stories, especially in “Virgins,” which was previously published in Paris Monthly and "Best American Short Stories 2008." This story is about teenage girls experimenting with sex without the maturity to handle its consequences. Evans addresses these issues again in “Harvest,” this time using white, college girls selling their eggs to pay for tuition or buy designer clothing as its context.

Evans poignantly writes how the build of this resentment starts for “barely middle-class black families where the girls were always called Courtney or Kelli or Lindsay or Brooke, and the family forgoes vacation and savings and stock for a nice house in a nice neighborhood in the hopes that the neighbors will forget they are black.” In both stories sex, and the desire for it, is a dividing point between friends, and men are seen as predators to be loved and feared for their ability to take and protect.

Biracial identity, family and mental health are all subjects explored in perhaps the best story in the collection — “Snakes.”

This story is about a biracial girl named Tara reflecting on the summer she spent with her white cousin Allison and grandmother Lydia in their Florida country club neighborhood. The girls busy themselves by playing in the lake behind their grandmother’s home, until, in a moment of frustration, Grandma Lydia tells Tara that there are snakes in the lake. This seemingly small lie engulfs the entire family, changing their relationships and shaping their futures in unforeseen, pitiful ways. This is also the only story in the collection that does not use college as a pivotal point that characters are striving to, or from which they are recovering.

Evans even infuses the male perspective into these stories in “Someone Ought to Tell Her There’s Nowhere to Go,” about a soldier trying to re-integrate into civilian life after serving in Iraq, and in “The King of a Vast Empire,” about the damage divorce and trauma have caused a dysfunctional brother and sister. These are both good stories, but Evans’ female voice infiltrates the narration of “The King of a Vast Empire” in a way that makes one question the narrator’s sex until it is revealed in the story, and not in a good way.

“Robert E. Lee Is Dead” is a wonderful ending to an overall well-crafted collection of short stories. It is a new take on a classic tale of being from the “wrong side of the tracks,” with its narrator Crystal like a black, more educated Maniac Magee. In this story, white flight and the need to be accepted are set against the football game between Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee high schools. In this environment, black students are trying to thrive in a glorified old South legacy that reaches its pinnacle at the height of black oppression.

This story is especially well-written, because the narrator’s language changes as her identity changes “…I’d slipped through our school’s de facto segregation...” she says about being criticized for being smart and as a result losing social acceptance.

And as screwed up as some of these characters are, it is refreshing to read literature about black people that are educated, middle-class and passionate in spite of themselves. Evans has mastered the art of a good build while also examining the psychology of middle-class, black youth. "Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self" is a book of untold stories, crafted in a way that makes them each worth reading a few times.


Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self.
By Danielle Evans.
Riverhead Books. 232 pages. $25.95

Brutally honest bio recounts post-divorce obstacles

By Kari Quill

If you’re one that seeks thrill from reading someone else’s diary, I highly suggest hijacking Rhoda Janzen’s memoir of going home. ”Mennonite in a Little Black Dress" falls nothing short of a brutally honest account of the most challenging obstacles Janzen has overcome as a recent divorceé. Sure, self-help books, family, friends and faith have helped along the way, but her introspection trumps all. Intrigued by Janzen’s constant e-mails about bunking up with her old-fashioned Mennonite parents at 44 years old, her friends finally urged her to share her hilarious tidbits with the world. You are going to wish you had your very own “Pee Bag” like her when laughing out loud is taken to the next level.

Not only can I taste the braised cabbage in one of her five “shame-based” foods from her childhood lunchbox, but also I cringe at her mother’s “Moses of all farts” in the grocery store that soils the page. Her tone similar to Cathy Lamb’s wit, Janzen’s consistent ability to make the words jump off the page turns this confessional into a conversation with your best friend. Without whining, she explains the grieving process of losing her husband of 15 years to Bob, a man he met on Gay.com.

While she admits her continued bouts with her abusive husband were a result of her idiocy, she doesn’t drown in self-pity or even blame him entirely. Where there is a moment to dwell on the unfortunate hand she was dwelt, she surprises readers with newfound wisdom.

While living at home, she comes to accept her parents’ devoutness to the Mennonite doxy, simultaneously creating her own belief system. Though she recognizes the Bible’s “toxic charm,” she believes: “When you’re young, faith is often a matter of rules. But as you get older, you realize that faith is really a matter of relationship — with God, with the people around you, with the members of your community.” Despite the social rejections of the conservative Mennonites, she highlights the relationships she cherishes within her religious community.

However, one can’t help but first wonder the significance of her interaction with a slightly deaf elderly neighbor, Mrs. Friesen, obsessed with cat books with titles such as "The Cat That Dropped a Bombshell." But, as no good deed goes unpunished, Janzen’s visit leads her to Mrs. Friesen's Mennonite grandson who appreciates her "real nice shape" and generosity just as his grandmother does.

Now heavily immersed in academia at Hope College in Michigan, Janzen presents new logic that prompts a reader of any age to reflect upon one’s character. She presents arguments that make even flaws seem understandable. As she tackles the human condition, she raises the simplest of questions rarely considered by all of society: “And since even the most virtuous among us displays this adiaphorous morality, what if we agreed just to let people be who they are, since we can’t change them anyway?”

While she explains that only patterns of behavior can explain virtue, I realize it is all in your foundation, not necessarily your “genetic gift basket,” but how you add value to it everyday. For some, it’s adding ingredients of your mom’s cooking to your past knowledge and coming up with something all your own.

Instead of meandering through the self-help aisle at the bookstore, I urge you to immerse yourself in conversation with Janzen. An articulate, poignant and refreshing woman, Janzen can sympathize with just about anyone.

Keep working, keep laughing message in new biography

By Nate Thurman

America should be worried about Tina Fey. She’s not in any kind of trouble, but she really does seem to be working too hard. In addition to writing, acting and producing the television show "30 Rock," she has now written a biography. She makes it clear in her book that she is aware of this, but doesn’t care too much about it. She loves her work too much to care.

"Bossypants" is an autobiography of sorts. It’s made up of stories from Tina’s life that span her growth from a girl who is a bit scared of her dad to a woman who was once scared of her boss. The chapters vary from a tribute and meditation on her father and her lack of understanding of him as a child, her disastrous honeymoon, all the way to her thoughts about having a second child.

"Bossypants" is in some ways a feminist look at the life of a woman trying to make it as an actor and writer, the challenges built by society and the things she did (or didn’t) do to deal with them. The feminist aspect isn’t anything preachy. It’s not the focus of the book, but Fey’s sharp mind allows for her to comment on gender issues and sexism in a very intelligent, sarcastic and sometimes hilarious way. Her voice is funny but maintains a level of serious frustration about inequality regardless of the humor, which adds a truly thought provoking side to this very funny book.

Did I mention these chapters have great jokes in them? Some of them are horribly rough (that is to say harsh), many are off-color and most of them are just side splitting. I found myself laughing aloud in the book store I was reading in. A sample “You could put a blonde wig on an old radiator, and somewhere a guy will [have sex with] it.” This comes in the middle of Fey’s idea that we should start calling blonde hair yellow, because that’s really what it is.

Her humor is natural and her subject matter too, it’s usually about routines, stress in day to day life. As a male fan of Fey I can fairly say that this book is not 100 percent written for me (biggest no Duh ever, why should it be?). Ninety percent of this book is for everyone. Its generally funny anecdotes about life that human beings should be able to relate to in one way or another, but there are parts of this book that some male readers aren’t going to make it though.

She has a chapter of simple beauty tips, which is worth reading for the skin pointers but mostly is over my head as I know very little about the process of beauty and make up and what not. I feel bad even mentioning this, because how many times has a women HAD to read a book about a troubled male youth/youths. I’m looking at you "Catcher in the Rye," and "Lord of the Flies," and "Hamlet" and just about every book ever. So really I should be quiet about this. Sorry, Tina.

If Fey comes off as the East Coast Liberal Elite she often jokes about being, I would be surprised. Because of the honesty and candidness of her recollections, we are reminded in so many ways that we are all the same, or at least very similar. She came from a similar same high school we went to in a community that’s equally American. We have funny, crappy jobs sometimes. We stress out about work and family. Our vacations don’t always go as planned. What Fey’s message seems to be is to keep your head down and working, and remember to laugh.

Bossypants

By Lauren Ellison

Tina Fey’s book "Bossypants" is a treasure trove of sarcastic wit, shameless honesty and even the occasional (and surprising) vulnerable revelation. Fey carefully tailors each phrase in the most hilarious style, ensuring countless laugh-out-loud reactions to even the most banal accounts. Fey’s strengths lie in her uncanny ability to recount her teenage loserdom and current insecurities in a hysterically self-deprecating, yet not self-pitying, way. She begins the book with a wild rant about the ridiculous acclaim “yellow” hair receives. Incensed and disturbed that her young daughter already prefers her yellow-haired Sleeping Beauty doll to the brown-haired Snow White doll, Fey finally concedes to the yellow-hairs. “Let’s admit it,” she writes, “Yellow hair does have magic powers. You could put a blond wig on a hot-water heater and some dude would try to fuck it.” Fey’s book is a wonderful mash-up of valuable lessons learned and inconsequential personal reflections that would even garner a chuckle from Sarah Palin, Fey’s most loyal hater.

The book’s most entertaining chapter, appropriately titled “Dear Internet,” features crude blog posts that Fey has chosen to personally address. The fact that Fey is capable of wittily, but not bitchily, replying to a blogger who calls her “an ugly, pear-shaped, bitchy, overrated troll,” puts her in a comedic league of her own: “To say I’m an overrated troll when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair.” While she laughs off her haters and imperfections, Fey is also unafraid to admit her weaknesses. She unabashedly admits to the difficulties of being a bossypants, a wife and a mother, confessing that she enjoys a “triannual torrential sobbing.” She’s only human, after all.

The book starts from the beginning, chronicling her summers among the gays at theater camp. She relives the heartbreaking realization that though she loved her gays for entertainment value, she was a little disgusted when she really thought about what went on behind closed doors. Fey gives us a laugh here, but at the same time reveals a character flaw she’s truly ashamed of. It’s raw, honest and something she doesn’t need to share with us, but she does anyway. The book is rifled with obscure over shares and embarrassing questions that usually go unspoken, which make the book stand out for me. I take moderate comfort in the fact that Fey ponders the same off-kilter, often politically incorrect, thoughts that I entertain from time to time. Maybe I’m not so screwed up after all. Or maybe we’re just two freaks.

There’s a delightful chapter where Fey discusses the pros and cons of Photoshop. With all of the emaciated celebrities declaring war on Photoshop (clearly because they are all a Size Negative Five and don’t need it anyway,) Fey is the first to say, “What’s the big deal?” When Fey makes a point, her diction is fearless. “I feel about Photoshop the way some people feel about abortion,” she writes. “It is appalling and a tragic reflection on the moral decay of our society … unless I need it, in which case, everybody be cool.”

Her stories make trite moments such as a painfully awkward run-in with a high school ex seem equally life altering as the first time she hit the "Saturday Night Live" stage as Palin. Fey entertainingly recounts her journey from an undesirable partially-permed college female to the best days of her life at the improv company, The Second City. Fey proves that a woman can be funny without playing the pretty girl and reveals that you don’t have to be a mannish ballbuster to be a successful boss and entrepreneur. "Bossypants" truly has something for everyone, with chapters touching on everything from breastfeeding to job searching to a laundry list of her bodily flaws. She considers no story too ordinary to share with us, and though some accounts are more laughable than others, the book in its entirety is absolutely worth reading. Her life encounters are reminiscent of an uncomfortably amusing "30 Rock" episode, each page packed with smart, perfectly constructed gems.

"Bossypants" puts Fey as a frontrunner for one of the greatest comedians of our time. “Do your thing and don’t care if they like it,” Fey writes. I think I’ve found my new motto.

Fairy tales reveal truth of loved one's past

By Courtney M. Holbrook

Do you remember sitting on your grandfather’s knee, listening to stories of the past?

Half reality, half folk tale, those stories developed our lives, teaching us lessons while entertaining our childhoods. They were fairy tales.

Yet, entwined amongst elves and Aesop-like animals were morsels of truth, waiting for us to grow up and recognize their worth.

Téa Obreht’s “The Tiger’s Wife” is the story of Natalia, a young doctor vaccinating orphans in the Baltics, and the fairy tales her now-dead grandfather told her. The grandfather, Dr. Stefanovic, has passed away after leaving his home for a strange town. His copy of “The Jungle Book” — which never left his side — has gone missing.

It is in Stefanovic’s fairy tales that Natalia will discover the truth of his past — and the horrors of the Baltic Wars.

To understand both Stefanovic and the destruction of the Baltics, one must understand “the story of the tiger’s wife, and the story of the deathless man. These stories run like rivers through all the other stories of his life.”

This is a devastating novel, one where truth lies thinly veiled beneath the twists and turns of myth.

At 25 years old, Obreht’s ability to play with language and fantasy is remarkable. Though Obreht left Yugoslavia at 12, she has a keen sense of the damage wrought upon an entire people trapped in the aftermaths of war.

Obreht’s talent lies in her vivid writing style and sense of youthful optimism, which keeps such dark material from drowning in turgid prose. Her ideas of war and blood surprise you. They are not mindless evils, but things that trap you through “hate, and the long, slow progression of people who feed on it and are fed it, meticulously, by the ones who come before them.”

“The Tiger’s Wife” is not told in a linear fashion, but through stories. This may turn some readers away — at times it is difficult to hold onto the plot when Obreht gets going.

However, these literary flights are not signs of an overeager young writer, but a classic tool of Baltic writing. Obreht has clearly absorbed the stories of her own Yugoslavian culture, where animals do speak and men live forever.

The magical elements of the tale are placed in stark contrast to Natalia’s own experiences. Orphans die and men dig up dead bodies to appease superstitions.

After reading “The Tiger’s Wife,” one realizes that it’s not just a story of war or a girl coming of age, but of how a way of life can vanish.

That is why Natalia’s grandfather tells his stories.

That is why our grandfather told us his own tales.

Our elders narrate their stories so that we can glimpse the lives they once lived, the loves they once had — and for a moment, understand a past that will never return.

Fictional travel book doesn't really go anywhere

By Colin Frawley

Road novels can be great fun – pick up Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” or Thomas Pynchon’s “The Crying of Lot 49” for a look at the merits of tetherless adventuring.

These types of stories provide boundless opportunities for zany encounters of every variety. It’s a great setup for a tale, allowing a character to drink in a bounty of culture while in pursuit of a singular goal.

Unless there’s no culture.

Unless there’s no goal.

So, what happens when a travel book fixes its gaze on its own feet? You get Joshua Ferris’ “The Unnamed.”

Ferris’ follow up to his debut novel, 2007’s National Book Award-nominated “Then We Came to the End,” starts off as a domestic drama with a pathological twist. New York City lawyer Tim Farnsworth is doing exceptionally well compared to most men in their late forties: He has settled comfortably into partnership at his longtime law firm, looks great for his age, and has a relatively solid relationship with his wife Jane. At the novel’s outset, however, he walks into the couple’s house wearing a grave expression and simply announces, “It’s back.”

What’s “back” is Tim’s long-dormant but inexplicable disease, which causes him to walk uncontrollably over excessive distances. He might be sitting in his corner office, meeting with a client or preparing a report, when he will simply shoot up and out of the building and begin a long jaunt to nowhere. It’s an original concept that leaves the door open to a multitude of possibilities for Tim. Unfortunately, the whole thing becomes repetitive almost instantly – all of Tim’s early journeys just end with Jane picking him up late at night.

Ferris characterizes Jane mainly by showing us how she deals with Tim’s affliction. In this light, she is a fantastically sympathetic character: Despite the annoyance of having to continually fetch her husband from odd places at odd hours, Jane is unflaggingly supportive and faithful. Through all of her patient suffering, Ferris manages to avoid drawing her as a submissive, do-all China doll: Jane works in real estate. Jane keeps the couple’s pissy teenage daughter on track in school. She goes to incredible lengths to make sure her husband is comfortable. Strong and prudent and always believable, her character is one of “The Unnamed”’s greatest triumphs.

This little victory demonstrates that Ferris is more than capable of getting down to ground level and really living inside his stories. As such, it’s a little tragic that he doesn’t perform this task more frequently throughout the novel. While the first half of “The Unnamed” provides the reader with a nuanced, detailed picture of a strained family situation, the book hits cruise control halfway through and never puts its foot back on the accelerator.

Three days after finishing this novel, I’m still wondering why Ferris bothers to give us a cast of such authentic characters. All he does in the second half of “The Unnamed” is remove us from them. It’s not giving away all that much to reveal that Tim eventually takes off for good, backpacking aimlessly around the U.S. with nothing but his next camp site in mind (supposedly for the good of the family, which I don’t buy for a minute). Meanwhile, the reader is stuck in his consciousness, which never grapples with anything more than garden variety existential angst – mind vs. body, religion vs. secularism, etc. The novel’s promising setup gives way to an excruciatingly cyclical journey through cardboard landscapes featuring throwaway characters. It’s as though Ferris needed a novel-length story, but didn’t know what to do with his protagonists, his premise or his talent. I have a hard time believing this is the most careful work of a National Book Award-nominated novelist.

I would love to see a rewrite of “The Unnamed” that preserves the first half and takes the rest in a new direction. There is too much emotional investment here to be wasted on such a lazy and unsatisfying ending. “The Unnamed” shows that Ferris still has the chops to hold a reader’s interest – but it also shows that those chops aren’t hot enough to let him sleepwalk through a project without people noticing.

People still read, Joshua. Next time, please – give us a little something for the effort.

'Anarchy' has substance, but too much style

By Rebekah Baldwin

Justin Taylor falls prey to many of the pitfalls encountered by first time novelists in his “The Gospel of Anarchy," published by Harper Perennial this year. The book is replete with indulgences, omissions and, at times, incoherency. It did, however, keep me interested with vivid detail, mysterious plot lines and unique storytelling approaches.

“The Gospel of Anarchy” tells the story of a group of anarchist kids living in a run-down house in Gainesville, Fla. called Fishgut. From the beginning, the main characters have differing ideas about what life as an anarchist looks like, but they all live in harmony, allowing each to his own. But peace in the house is disturbed after several of the young anarchists start a cultish religion that’s a kind of twisted off-shoot to Christianity. They call it Anarchristian, and it is based on the journal of an old housemate, Parker, who has gone missing.

The story begins with David right before he meets the Fishgut crew in the summer of 1999 and drops out of college to join them. It seems that he will be the book’s main character, but four other characters are the center of perspective for different chapters, and some chapters are told through a third-person omniscient narrator. Some of the story lines overlap, and it is helpful to see situations from multiple angles. This writing technique leads to a more complete picture of Fishgut than seeing it from one person only would. Also, it gave readers more of an opportunity to connect. Maybe I identify with Anchor, the young girl who becomes part of the scene for a summer but returns to school once classes start again, but someone else might relate to Katy, the powerful, alluring nymphomaniac. This story-telling approach was a welcome surprise.

Another unexpected element to “The Gospel of Anarchy” that I enjoyed was how mysterious it is in parts. After an intense description of a dream, that Katy and Anchor have simultaneously, was left as a cliff-hanger, I just had to read the next chapter to find out what they saw. The mystery surrounding Parker held me in suspense, also. Who was Parker? Would he return to Fishgut?

Just as soon as I would get into the story, I would be stopped in my tracks by confusing, nearly incoherent sentences. I would re-read them to try to make some sense, but usually came up with nothing. For example, “If we could create a world in which everything that is possible is also desirable, then there would be no possibility of hypocrisy or conflict between desires” — I've read that several times now and I'm still not understanding it.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind having to read something multiple times to decipher its meaning. In fact, I enjoy it every now and again. But Taylor’s philosophizing came across as total bullshit. Can anyone tell me what, “Desire is a strange attractor. Your longing warps the arc of the world's emergent truth,” means? Perhaps it went over my head. There were some clear ideas, but they were greatly outweighed by the nonsense.

Another thing that annoyed me about “The Gospel of Anarchy” is what seemed to me to be indulgences by Taylor — namely the lengthy descriptions of internet porn and the many vivid accounts of orgies. I wasn’t bothered by their inclusion in the plot — I understand that both served to further the story — but the length of time spent describing them seemed gratuitous and unnecessary. I don’t know if Taylor thought he needed the graphic sexuality to keep his reader’s attention, or if he just really enjoyed writing it, but I, for one, was turned off by it.

On top of that, “The Gospel of Anarchy” was highly unrealistic in places. Call me crazy, but I find it hard to believe that a bunch of kids in their late teens and early twenties are participating in orgies and polyamory. Even if they are, how are they not teeming with STDs? Why hasn’t anyone gotten pregnant? I would say it’s safe to assume that they aren’t using birth control or condoms, since they only live off of what they can scrounge out of dumpsters.

The detail with which Taylor describes Gainesville and its locales do help bring the story back to earth, at least. “I walked past the library, out to where East University becomes Hawthorne Road, and the sidewalk grew cracked and weed-split, and the homes needed paint jobs they wouldn't get,” he writes. I can picture the setting, and thanks to Taylor’s vivid depictions, I feel like if I were to drive to Gainesville I could find them.

This dedication to detailed description and other elements of Taylor’s writing style lead me to believe that he has potential. Overall, “The Gospel of Anarchy” is well-written and interesting, however, the fact that it is unintelligible, unrealistic and unnecessarily lewd make reading it a fairly unpleasant experience.

'The Imperfectionists' is perfectly imperfect

By Ashley Bene

When you’re bored at work, have you ever tried to imagine what your coworkers’ lives may be like outside of the office? Tom Rachman’s comic novel, "The Imperfectionists," appears to be his inter-office day dreams in print; it’s like a book version of TV’s "The Office," but about journalists instead of paper salesmen.

Broken into sections, each named for the person it is about, the novel explores the lives of the workers who are all connected to an English-language newspaper in Rome. We see a cranky corrections editor, a has-been foreign correspondent, a copy editor who fights sexism in the office every day and a young stringer who makes one mistake after another trying to land a job with the paper.

At the end of each of these sections, there is another story in italics. These are chronological as the novel progresses and tell key events of how the paper started and inevitably died. The last of these sections ties the novel together, as it sums up what happened to each person we read about after the paper shut down. It leaves readers with the beautifully described, yet haunting image of an empty newsroom, the perfect way to wrap up the story.

The layout of "The Imperfectionists" allows you to enjoy it in episodes, only needing to remember who characters are when they are mentioned in other sections. Each section could stand alone as a short story, but since the characters lives are all intertwined and linked through their work at the paper, the stories work together to make a greater whole. The majority of the action takes place outside the newsroom, and it becomes apparent to the reader how little these coworkers know about each other and how wrong their assumptions about each other are. Perhaps this is Rachman’s way of commenting on the increasing lack of communication among colleagues.

On the surface, "The Imperfectionists" is about the death of a newspaper and what happens to its employees in the years and days leading to its demise. Much deeper than that, this is a carefully constructed study of the human psyche that so thoroughly understands each and every one of the variety of characters in the novel it is astounding.

Rachman explores everything about the imperfections of these human beings, down to little quirks like feeling the need to put a hand up in the background of someone’s photo, locking yourself into their memories forever or needlessly popping hard candies in your mouth to get through the day.

One of my favorite sections of the novel is on the Cairo stringer, Winston Cheung. Cheung is trying out for the position as a stringer with the paper, and one mistake after another later, he ends up letting his competition for the position, a much older Rich Snyder, stay with him in Cairo, taking advantage of his young naivety. Snyder gives the kid hints and tells Cheung, “You are getting this job. I have total faith in you,” all while running off with Cheung’s laptop for several days at a time and convincing Cheung to stop working on his application piece to help Snyder research his. Pitying Cheung but laughing all through the section, anyone who has fumbled through the beginnings of a career can relate.

Rachman’s perfectly imperfect characters live and breathe on the page like the coworkers you see in the office every day, making "The Imperfectionists" a must-read for anyone who has ever made an assumption about one of their colleagues.

The title doesn't say it all

By Daniel Suddes

Books such as Paul Murray’s 'Skippy Dies' increasingly feel like the exception rather than the norm. Here is an intelligent book about teenage life that rewards its readers. Naturally, it has not made as big of an impact as it should. I can only hope that changes. This is one of the best novels I have read in quite some time, a novel that combines the best elements of J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon yet manages to be universal in its themes. That alone shows some hope for literature. In a world that has been saturated by the "Twiligh" saga, "Skippy Dies" represents some hope for the future of literature.

"Skippy Dies" does not have a plot in a conventional sense — rather, it has a framing device. Each of the characters have their own stories, but are all connected to Skippy and the events that led to his suicide at a donut eating contest (spoilers be damned, it’s the title of the work). The novel takes place in the fictional Seabrook College, an Irish boarding school, where the titular character, 14-year-old Daniel “Skippy” Juster (whose nickname is derived from a kangaroo on a children’s TV series) resides. He has several friends, including his science whiz roommate, Ruprecht, who dreams of discovering parallel dimensions, and Mario, a sex-obsessed youth who carries around a lucky condom. Skippy falls in love with a girl named Lori after seeing her at a Halloween dance. However, he suspects that Lori is secretly seeing the school bully and drug dealer, Carl, and this suspicion leads to disastrous consequences for all the characters.

The most striking thing about the paperback version of the novel is how it is divided. The novel is in three parts, and each part is packaged as its own separate novel. This makes the contrast between the various parts incredibly pronounced. The third part, which deals with the aftermath of Skippy’s death, contrasts mightily to the first part, which deals with teenage angst. While the presentation may appear gimmicky, it actually does help emphasize the passage of time and the changes in the characters.

Unlike other works of meta-fiction, which depend far too much on their gimmick, the ploy actually works.



This is one of the few books published recently about youth that seems to actually understand the tribulations of youth. It is not condescending (as "Twilight" seems to be), but sympathetic. Lori’s chapter discussing a blowjob she gave and her pregnancy scare is exquisitely written. For example, Lori describes the invading sperm as an army that is invading her body. This sort of simple analogy works in the minds of teenagers who are still confused about what their bodies can do. The scenes with the schoolteachers are also well done, particularly that of Howard Fallon, a depressed history teacher who has become infatuated with a substitute teacher. Each of these characters literally leaps off of the page, burrowing into a reader’s consciousness. That alone makes it a great book.

But Murray wants to push the boundaries of what is typically found in such novels. That is why, immediately after a discussion of drug abuse and sexual frustrations, characters talk about the multiverse theory and even try to set up bizarre experiments. These moments still feel as organic as the moments of teens selling drugs. It is very rare for a single novel to achieve such a wide variety of teen life — from kids who do discuss such scientific matters to the school bullies who make the long lasting emotional impact that real bullies make.

"Skippy Dies" is only Murray’s second novel, but he has already demonstrated a considerable talent that some authors never seem to possess throughout their entire careers. Murray has demonstrated himself to be highly creative, very erudite and knowledgeable of human nature. It will be exciting to see what Murray will create next.

Take pleasure in rejecting 'The Discreet Pleasures of Rejection'

By Chantai P. Meadows

French author Martin Page’s latest offering, "The Discreet Pleasures of Rejection," is disappointing. This, his second novel to receive an English translation following the success of the critically acclaimed "How I Became Stupid," is a sophomore slump embodied.

Although full of intelligent and inventive writing, "The Discreet Pleasures of Rejection," lacks one fundamental element — an interesting story arc that entices readers.

"The Discreet Pleasures of Rejection" follows Virgil, a socially awkward yet self-absorbed loner who is thrown into a journey of self-discovery after a stranger coldly dumps him on his answering machine. The novel’s premise is interesting enough to warrant a thumb-through, but after a few chapters, the slow-moving plot becomes dreadfully tedious. Each chapter, ever so sluggishly guides readers from one scene to the next with no deliberate intention to entertain.

Along the way, readers are invited into the dull world of Virgil that, coincidentally, is filled with out of the ordinary elements that rarely translate into stimulating plot.

Virgil is a peculiar fellow who is obsessed with maintaining the stability provided by his orderly routine. Despite his greatest efforts, his life is marked by curiosities that are more conducive to a life of spontaneity and excitement. Everything in Virgil’s life contradicts his fixation with normalcy: his residence in a whorehouse, his lesbian best friend, his thriving career in advertising and his remarkable sense of style. Even so, Page manages to fit all of these factors neatly into Virgil’s boring world, making them seem just as inconsequential and dreary as Virgil himself.

The only thing encouraging readers to tread on is the sheer possibility that Virgil and the illusive woman on the machine, Clara, will meet.

Beyond a very mild change in Virgil’s personal outlook, nothing happens. That’s right, nearly 200 pages of prose: no action. It was like reading a suspenseful murder mystery sans suspense. It was without climax and a resolution that felt more like a literary surrender (on behalf of the author) than a deliberate ending to a story.

The only thing "The Discreet Pleasures of Rejection" did deliver was mystery. I’m still wondering who Clara is and why she broke up with Virgil in the first place.

Then again, perhaps the novel doesn’t aim to entertain, but instead to provoke thought and self-reflection among readers. In which case, it is successful. Virgil’s character, though terribly boring, is everyman. Beneath his self-assured shell of confidence is an individual who questions virtually everything he does. He is confused, unsure and in constant conflict with his self-perception and the guise he shows the world.

Virgil’s journey reflects a universal experience that everyone endures. In his efforts to find Clara, he evaluates his childhood, relationships, goals and identity. Ultimately, he finds himself, so to speak. In that case, I suppose the discreet pleasures of rejection are the hard lessons experience teaches us.

Perhaps this novel’s real meaning got lost in translation along with the brilliance that made Page’s first book a critical and commercial success.

"The Discreet Pleasures of Rejection" is like a bad episode of "Seinfeld" in novel form. Instead of witty banter between quirky characters facilitated by the humor of everyday life, there’s slow moving, intimate, self-evaluation that’s neither humorous nor entertaining. It’s just plain boring.

"The Discreet Pleasures of Rejection" Review
Martin Page
Penguin Books 2010
182 pages

Hope is unexpected find in Super Sad True Love Story

By Hal Tift

Gary Shteyngart has carefully examined the palm of our contemporary United States, and in "Super Sad True Love Story" he tells us, in hyperbolic fashion, just where this runaway train could be heading.

In Shteyngart’s dystopian world, an indistinct near future, people are more connected than ever thanks to powerful descendents of smartphones called äppäräts. An äppärät is a phone, computer, television and streaming video camera wrapped into one tiny mobile contraption (the newest version, the äppärät 7.5, is a pebble-sized pendant worn around the neck).

Protagonist Lenny Abramov, an unassuming, somewhat pathetic soul on the brink of 40 years old, would be the first to admit that for all their interconnectedness people are often lonelier, more isolated than ever. As he dines with a colleague, for instance, any eye contact is filtered by a “data fog” of äppärät projections, hovering over their table.

The notion of privacy is all but archaic. The common way to socialize at bars is to FAC (Form A Community), which in defiance of its name means to flash statistics about yourself for all to see, concerning mostly your sexual attraction to others in the bar and, of course, their sexual attraction to you; any need for physical interaction with others is essentially gone.

While Shteyngart doesn’t give us a precise year or even decade, there are hints that Lenny’s world is not so far removed from the contemporary world we readers know. Lenny’s parents were adults during the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, for instance, and he occasionally references then-extinct 2010 staples like NPR or Starbucks. At one point, a rival colleague looks at Lenny’s out-of-date äppärät and scoffs, “What is this, an iPhone?”

Lenny is the bridge to ourselves, to an earlier time and civilization that made sense. He owns and occasionally even reads books (or “nonstreaming Media artifacts”), items that baffle most characters who are confronted with their existence. Even he cannot completely transcend his era though, as he proclaims elegantly in his journal, “I’m learning to worship my new äppärät’s screen, the pulsating mosaic of it, the fact that it knows every last stinking detail about the world, whereas my books only know the minds of their authors.

But before one ever opens the book, there is the inescapable impression that Lenny’s earnest pursuit of happiness is fleeting. The words Super and Sad hang heavy like dark titular clouds over the entire story, injecting even the happiest moments with a deep pathos

You expect their relationship to be as broken as the country is, especially given the age difference and Lenny’s overwhelming shortcomings as they are publicly perceived in this future, but their love for each other consistently amazes you for how genuine it is, especially the love that Eunice returns to Lenny, which catches you off guard; it is an oasis of hope for the reader in a mostly hopeless America. The question is whether the reader can really embrace that hope with such a title looming.

This vampire romance sucked, and not in a good way

By Jennifer L. Johnson

In the fictitious Caldwell, New York, boots are called shitkickers, rhetorical questions end with “true” and every vampire is at least 6’5.

With "Lover Unleashed," the latest installment of the "Black Dagger Brotherhood" series by J. R. Ward, the author proves entirely incapable of crafting a male character that is any different from the ones she’s already written.

I suppose after penning eight books with similarly-speaking hard-assed vampire warriors that listen to hardcore rap and fight bad guys that smell like baby powder (I kid you not), the author may be a little too used to writing this kind of dialogue.

The "Black Dagger Brotherhood" series is rife with violence, dark humor, foul language and — for many of her characters — sexual proclivities that are nothing short of taboo. That a series that takes these risks would become popular enough to warrant a hardcover publication — the second for the series — is very unusual for the contemporary and paranormal romance genres.

Fans may have flocked to Ward’s saga for the noble yet aggressive characters, but it was the complex plotlines and narrative arcs that often developed into a single cohesive unit that kept readers eagerly anticipating the shocking climaxes that left them emotionally twisted and desperately seeking the resolution that would make it all OK.

That is, until this novel.

If you had even the slightest hope of understanding what was happening if you skipped one of Ward’s massive, meandering tomes, I would tell you not to read "Lover Unleashed."

Even though I’ve been a loyal reader since book one, I found it hard to jump back into the Brotherhood’s complex world and keep up with exactly what was happening. You know that the author doesn’t care about the casual reader when it takes her a full 100 pages to remind you how the main character was paralyzed in the final three pages of her last novel.

The main character of "Lover Unleashed" was only introduced to readers in the last book. Payne, twin sister to the Brother Vishous, has just crossed over from the Sanctuary, a heaven-like safe space for the deity of the Vampire race, to receive care for an injury that left her paralyzed. When Vishous’ mate Jane reaches into the human world to enlist the help of a former coworker, the mutual attraction of patient and doctor threaten the bond between Vishous and Jane, as a band of warriors enters the Brotherhood’s territory seeking revenge for the death of their leader, the twins’ father.

Though the three plotlines seem thick with strife, very little seems to happen in the novel's 500 pages, partly because the principle characters that Ward uses to carry the saga forward are so wooden. Payne is barely more than a stock character. Ward expends too much effort trying to make her speech antiquated with more ‘verily’s’ than you can shake a stick at, when instead the author should have spent more time developing Manuel “Manny” Manello, the incidental character she yanked out of book five and placed in a starring role as the wannabe-lover.

In a disappointingly lazy move, Manny’s language and thoughts are just as dark as any of the Brothers: “Candace was one of those Manhattan social types who was nothing but a pimp away from being a prostitute, and in a lot of ways, she was like any other wasp — ignore the nuisance and it’ll go land on something else. Or someone else, as it were.”

Ward could have easily given the celebrated surgeon his own, more appropriate vernacular. As someone who has read — enjoyed — each of her other books, it seems like she ran out of Brothers to speak the lines she wrote for them.

Though this book focuses a great deal on Vishous and Jane (who had their own 450-page novel earlier in the series), Ward ignores many of the Brotherhood characters that made the books as engrossing as every single one until Unleashed has been.

This was a mistake, true?

"Lover Unleashed" (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 9) by J. R. Ward
Hardcover, NAL, $27.95