bookpagedev

LiteratureArts & Culture

Writers’ colony

Review by bookpagedev

Many of the literary masterpieces of 19th-century American literature were written within a relatively short span of time by writers who lived in Concord, Massachusetts. This assemblage of intellectuals continues to American Bloomsbury, Susan Cheever’s spirited, perceptive and clear-eyed portrait of literary icons Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau, the author writes that she discovered "more and more coincidences of greatness being the result of proximity to greatness." Cheever, author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, has firsthand knowledge of life with a famous writer and is perhaps best known for her exquisite and acclaimed memoir, Home Before Dark, which tells of her life as the daughter of novelist and short story writer John Cheever.

American Bloomsbury covers the period from roughly 1840 to 1882, the year Emerson died. It was he who was most responsible for the gifted group of writers being in Concord; he encouraged and, more importantly, financed them. Although his lecture fees helped, it was Emerson’s inheritance from the death of his first wife—a settlement he had to contest in court—that made a significant difference. According to Cheever, "without this obscure lawsuit in 1836, it’s hard to know what would have happened in Concord, if anything."

Despite these writers’ progressive thinking on other issues, Cheever notes that "one of the beliefs of the age, one that had a deep impact on the Concord community, was that women were inferior to men, not just in physical strength, but in emotional strength and intelligence." The presence of the brilliant Margaret Fuller should have been enough to convince everyone of the absurdity of this kind of thinking. Fuller was, as Cheever tells us, "both erotically and imaginatively entangled" with Emerson and Hawthorne, although they were married to other women. She was committed to bringing about a revolution for women’s place in society and took jobs that heretofore only men had done. In the 12 years following Fuller’s death, Cheever writes, Hawthorne memorialized her in his fiction, which included "four of the greatest American novels ever written."

Other Concord women played more traditional roles. Emerson’s second wife, Lidian (she changed her name from Lydia at Emerson’s request), for example, found life with him to be extremely demanding; she felt Thoreau was "the one human being on earth who seemed to see her clearly." Louisa May Alcott, who spent much of her life taking care of her family, had doubts about writing Little Women, but "without intending to," according to Cheever, "invented a new way to write about the ordinary lives of women, and to tell stories that are usually heard in kitchens and bedrooms."

Cheever’s enthusiasm for her subjects comes through on every page of American Bloomsbury. She introduces us to these writers as human beings rather than literary monuments. After reading her book, many will be inspired to read or reread the works of this extraordinary group of writers.

Roger Bishop is a retired Nashville bookseller and a frequent contributor to BookPage.

Many of the literary masterpieces of 19th-century American literature were written within a relatively short span of time by writers who lived in Concord, Massachusetts. This assemblage of intellectuals continues to American Bloomsbury, Susan Cheever's spirited, perceptive and clear-eyed portrait of literary icons Louisa May…

History

At the displeasure of the president

Review by bookpagedev

Joseph Wheelan raises serious questions about Thomas Jefferson’s legacy as a wise, elegant and eloquent Founding Father in Jefferson’s Vendetta: The Pursuit of Aaron Burr and the Judiciary. “Belying his carefully constructed image of benevolence was Jefferson’s dark history of vindictiveness,” Whelan writes. That aspect of the third president’s character is the focus of this book about Jefferson’s efforts to rein in the power of the federal judiciary, which he believed had overreached its authority, as well as his zeal in tracking and prosecuting his former vice president on a charge of treason.

Aaron Burr was bright, energetic and from a distinguished family. A skilled politician, he came close to being elected president in 1800. Although he was on the Republican ticket as its vice presidential candidate, the electoral system at that time gave him the same number of electoral votes as Jefferson. The tie in the House of Representatives was not broken until a Burr supporter switched his vote to Jefferson in exchange for the latter’s commitment to certain Federalist policies. Burr’s refusal to bow out of the presidential race, after having agreed to do so, fueled a hostility that created an irreparable breach between the two men. In 1806, when Jefferson learned that Burr was pursuing an ill-advised attempt to appropriate Spanish territory in North America, the president led an effort to bring him to trial. Wheelan’s narrative skillfully weaves together political, legal and diplomatic history leading to the most important of Burr’s trials at Richmond, Virginia, in 1807. The re-creation of this lengthy trial, which occupies a considerable portion of the text, is masterfully done. It was the “trial of the century” with appearances by some of the country’s best lawyers, including William Wirt, whose published text of his speech for the prosecution became an “instant classic” according to Wheelan. Wheelan says this speech “probably single-handedly did more than anything else to fix Burr’s villainy in the public memory.” For the defense, Luther Martin spoke for 14 hours over a two-day period.

The presiding judge was Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. A Federalist appointed by John Adams and under threat of losing his position, Marshall rendered his opinion in a four-hour presentation which found that the prosecution had not made its case; the jury found Burr “not guilty.” Jefferson’s extraordinary efforts to convict Burr included a national manhunt, a dragnet for evidence and a trial with 140 witnesses, though the president knew his adversary was not guilty.

Wheelan’s stimulating book, with its finely drawn portraits of Burr, Marshall and Jefferson, among many others, helps us to better understand a crucial episode in the early history of the country.

Roger Bishop is a Nashville bookseller and frequent contributor to BookPage.

Joseph Wheelan raises serious questions about Thomas Jefferson's legacy as a wise, elegant and eloquent Founding Father in Jefferson's Vendetta: The Pursuit of Aaron Burr and the Judiciary. "Belying his carefully constructed image of benevolence was Jefferson's dark history of vindictiveness," Whelan writes. That aspect…
Biography

Beatrix Potter and friends

Review by bookpagedev

Beatrix Potter’s characters have been loved by generations of children and adults since the early 1900s, but, as former professor Linda Lear reveals in her new biography Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature, she was also a scientific illustrator, mycologist (person who studies fungi), businesswoman and conservationist. Lear also a biographer of environmentalist Rachel Carson spent a decade researching Potter’s life, becoming intimately acquainted with her journals, sketchbooks, story ideas and letters. The resulting book does an excellent job of giving the reader a sense of the time and place in which Potter lived and the real-life locations and people featured in her stories, and includes family photos and a peek at Potter’s scientific illustrations.

Potter introduced Peter Rabbit and his friends in illustrated letters she sent to children of her acquaintance. Initially a self-published author, she wrote and illustrated 23 books by the time of her death at age 77. Children’s books were just one chapter in Potter’s life, however. In her early 20s, she was an avid toadstool hunter and scientist. Her conclusions (initially pooh-poohed by the male scientific establishment) were later proven and accepted and her illustrations are still used today for the study and identification of fungi.

Amid all her work and study, Potter fell in love, and when her fiance her London publisher and editor, Norman Warne died a month after their engagement, Potter left London and bought a farm. There, she embarked on what Lear calls the third act of her life, and deepened her appreciation for and knowledge of the natural world. When she died in 1943, she left significant parcels of land to England’s National Trust.

Lear paints an appealing, revealing picture of an independent, accomplished and loving woman who used her art and research to educate herself and a host of readers. The publication of this biography coincides with the release of Miss Potter, a biopic starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor, but read the book first! Linda M. Castellitto still has her Peter Rabbit coloring book.

 

Beatrix Potter's characters have been loved by generations of children and adults since the early 1900s, but, as former professor Linda Lear reveals in her new biography Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature, she was also a scientific illustrator, mycologist (person who studies fungi),…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Did she or didn’t she?

Review by bookpagedev

<b>Did she or didn’t she?</b> Pam Lewis’ suspenseful first novel, <b>Speak Softly, She Can Hear</b>, opens with an incident that spirals into the macabre. Two teenaged girls who attend a posh school in New York have planned to use a ski trip to Stowe, Vermont, as a cover for a liaison with an aspiring actor who has agreed to deflower them. Carole Mason is an intelligent but self-conscious girl. Her friend Naomi is the edgy product of a flamboyantly dysfunctional family. The actor is named Eddie, and from the start it’s clear that he’s bad news.

After Eddie and Carole have had sex at a seedy motor lodge, another woman named Rita shows up. Eddie tries to involve the drunk Carole in a threesome, but she ends up instead crouching clumsily at the head of the bed, more in the way than intimately involved. Suddenly, Eddie breaks through Carole’s drunken haze, announcing that Rita is dead and claiming Carole has somehow broken her neck. After Naomi shows up, the three of them drag Rita’s corpse into the woods behind the motor lodge, where they bury it in the deep snow.

Carole can never clearly reconstruct how she might have killed Rita, and since the story is told from her point of view, the reader shares her confusion. For the rest of the novel, Carole tries to get away from the memory of that night and from Eddie and Naomi, but she somehow keeps circling back to it and to them. Without any explanation to her parents, she drops out of Vassar, goes across the country to the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, and then comes back to settle in Montpelier, Vermont. There she opens a restaurant called Chacha’s and falls in love with a black man named Will. The author cleverly integrates the suspense elements of the story with a perceptive depiction of the social and political tumult of the ’60s. The dramatic climax is not entirely a surprise, and the resolution is a little too neat, but Lewis’ skill in depicting character, incident and milieu make this a very promising debut. <i>Martin Kich is a professor at Wright State University.</i>

<b>Did she or didn't she?</b> Pam Lewis' suspenseful first novel, <b>Speak Softly, She Can Hear</b>, opens with an incident that spirals into the macabre. Two teenaged girls who attend a posh school in New York have planned to use a ski trip to Stowe, Vermont,…

Fiction

The sins of the mothers

Review by bookpagedev

At the beginning of Vendela Vida’s second novel, Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, Clarissa Iverton’s mother informs her that she was named Clarissa in order to rewrite history. Though it will be years until Clarissa fully comprehends this statement, Vida explores whether such a revision is, in fact, possible. Throughout the novel, she poses the question: Can we escape who we are? Her answer, quite simply, is yes, we can.

From the time her mother forever turns her back on her family during a holiday shopping trip to the mall, Clarissa views herself as the opposite of her mother’s daughter. After years of trying to bask in the fickle spotlight of her mother’s love, with her mother’s absence Clarissa becomes caring, responsible and trustworthy in short, the antithesis of her mother. This idea, however, is abruptly shattered after the unexpected death of her father and a grief-fueled trip to Lapland. In the outer reaches of the Arctic Circle, she discovers not only that she shares similarities with her mother, but also that their lives are eerily parallel. Confronted with knowledge concerning both her mother’s past and her own, Clarissa is faced with the option of correcting the mistakes of both. In doing so, she realizes that the sins of her mother are surprisingly easy to replicate or to avenge. It is up to Clarissa, however, to determine which path to choose.

An editor of the literary magazine The Believer (and wife of novelist and McSweeney’s editor Dave Eggers), Vida has a clean and crisp writing style, almost staccato in the way it punctuates details and illuminates emotions. As she sweeps through different stages of Clarissa’s life, Vida changes the narrative style, capturing both the warped logic of a teenager and the jaded attitude of an almost-30 woman with equal skill. Her language does not compete with her story, yet it is not rare to pause over a particularly well-crafted phrase or description and turn it over in one’s mind with delighted approval. Through the stories of Clarissa and her mother, Vida explores the notion of how much of our past we are able to escape and how much we are burdened to repeat. Meredith McGuire writes from San Francisco.

At the beginning of Vendela Vida's second novel, Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, Clarissa Iverton's mother informs her that she was named Clarissa in order to rewrite history. Though it will be years until Clarissa fully comprehends this statement, Vida explores whether such…
FictionHistorical Fiction

Nightmare in the North

Review by bookpagedev

Books about exploration often inspire our armchair fascination no matter what the destination, but the real stories emerge in the character of the intrepid explorers. In the hands of a lesser writer than the Hugo Award-winning Dan Simmons, The Terror might well have dissolved into a series of frigid days and three-dog nights. But Simmons is too good a writer to ignore the real gold in his story its beleaguered cast.

Told from multiple points of view that include a doctor’s journal, the novel blurs the line between fact and fiction in the story of the ill-fated 1845 Franklin Arctic Expedition and the 129 men aboard its two ships HMS Terror and HMS Erebus. Their objective was to chart the Northwest Passage, but when ice imprisons the ships and the men for two years, goals change drastically and the expedition reverts to mere survival.

Simmons provides us with an amazing scale of the human spirit courage, tenacity, cowardice, deceit against conditions that are grim at best, hopeless at worst. And then, as if these stranded men don’t have enough to reckon with, a supernatural monster begins to stalk them with a methodical villainy. Never has the sanctuary of our reading chairs given us such a feeling of safety, for this is truly a frightening novel. Capt. Francis Crozier emerges as our flawed hero, but there is no dearth of fascinating characters, from murdering mutineers to a mystical Eskimo woman called Lady Silence because her tongue has been removed.

Simmons’ writing is unflinchingly superb, and while he has a loyal following from his previous works (most recently the sci-fi novels Olympos and Ilium), The Terror should bring him an even wider audience. Just make sure there’s nothing lurking behind your favorite reading chair when you embark.

Michael Lee is the author of Paradise Dance and will publish a collection of essays, In an Elevator with Brigitte Bardot (Wordcraft), in March.

Books about exploration often inspire our armchair fascination no matter what the destination, but the real stories emerge in the character of the intrepid explorers. In the hands of a lesser writer than the Hugo Award-winning Dan Simmons, The Terror might well have dissolved into…

Power broker: David Bodanis plugs into the wonders of electricity

Review by bookpagedev

A powerful conception of electricity surges through David Bodanis’ fascinating new book, Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity it is a hidden force as ancient as the cosmos, unleashed only yesterday (in geological terms) by human ingenuity, with profound and ongoing consequences. The book’s recurrent image of countless random electrons, at last given purposeful direction by scientific invention, makes an apt analogy for the volume of ungovernable facts and ideas brought into fascinating shape by the author’s synthesis of science, biography, military history and cosmology. Bodanis is certainly not one to shy away from such challenges: his previous, bestselling book of popular science is called (with heroic simplicity) E=mc2. Bodanis was born in Chicago, taught for many years at Oxford University and now lives in London. He responded to BookPage’s questions about Electric Universe on a blustery, rainy day in the British capital.

BookPage: Your history of electricity radiates wonder and affection for the men and women who made it happen. Is there one person in your pantheon of electrifying heroes who stands out above the rest someone whom you could call your favorite? If so, what makes him or her so special? David Bodanis: I’m touched by [Michael] Faraday for his earnestness in sticking with his religious belief, but not in a dogmatic way, rather using it as a guiding lens or spectacles through which to find empirically provable truths about the universe. Also his vision that image of zillions of invisible waves all around us was great.

I also liked [Alexander Graham] Bell, for his goofy puppy love.

BP: I just realized that “affection” would be the wrong word to apply to the extremely unlikable Samuel Morse (of Morse code fame). Was it fun to write about this scoundrel? DB: Yep, for so many like him are constantly being produced! A few are seen on their way to federal penitentiaries; most, alas, in Bush’s America are praised in the Wall Street Journal.

BP: The cumulative effect of your narrative is an overwhelming sense that nothing in the universe exists apart from electric forces. How did this insight come to you? Is your consciousness of the electric universe something that you arrived at gradually, or was it an epiphany? DB: It took a while to come clear. To some extent the book follows from my earlier E=mc2. There I noted that E=mc2 explains how the stars are powered, and how they gush out the stuff we live on. But that book didn’t say what happened to all the stuff in the universe, in the long interval between being created, and then being swallowed up by black holes or otherwise disappearing far in the future. Electricity is probably the most powerful force in explaining the details of what happens to it along the way.

Note also that gravity of course is also super-important for overall matters and could be the topic of a book on its own. But electricity is better at details.

BP: Even the outstretching of God’s finger to Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling becomes, in your telling, a process of “opening sodium channels” and “starting electrical surges.” Is such a description an act of demystification? A new kind of mystery? Something different altogether? (Whatever it is, it’s great.) DB: I suppose I was kind of teasing. I think it was John Ford, the great director, who said you can make fun of people, but you shouldn’t be mean. It’s that sort of level. Think of I.B. Singer’s “Gimpel the Fool.” We tease, but by doing so, we’re also sharing, also saying that we really do care about these fallible beings. For, a) if we didn’t care, we wouldn’t bother to tease, and b) those fallible beings are also us! BP: From Hertz to Watt to Turing, you show how successive breakthroughs in the harnessing of electricity empowered the 20th-century war machine. Is there a moral to this story? DB: Yep. Watch out for extra powers being unleashed . . . in a world where political or emotional controls are still very primitive. It’s similar to how money can make people’s ordinary intentions get magnified. Technology does the same. That’s fine if they’re good intentions less fine if they’re bad.

BP: The devastating bombing of Hamburg in 1943, made possible by advances in British radar technology, stands unforgettably at the center of Electric Universe. Was this event hard to write about? What do you hope your readers will learn most from this account? DB: Yes, it was hard, and I did the main draft very quickly, in one go (listening to Eve Cassidy). The conclusion should be: watch out where your drive leads you. Thus readers were led along by the fun earlier chapter on Watson-Watt to be rooting for what he was producing. The result is that we’re really startled and feel a bit guilty when we see how it could be used.

BP: One of many astounding passages in the book concerns Nancy Ostrowski’s research on endorphins through her decapitation of mice while they were having sex. Where did her idea for such an outrageous experiment come from? You make one sly suggestion yourself when you tell us that she once considered becoming a nun! DB: All I know is that one anecdote about her; it’s in a book by a woman (Candace Pert) who was important in the discovery of endorphins. That book simply stated her experiments, and also separately her background. I was teasing a bit in suggesting the link: an effort to have a change of pace.

BP: You explain the complex world of electrical physiology with extraordinary clarity, beauty and charm. What sort of challenge is it to write about difficult scientific subjects? Do you have an authorial secret for making your writing both brilliantly accessible and faithful to the subject’s complexity? DB: Such kind words! I grew up the last in a big family five big sisters and like small mammals generally, learned to be extremely clear for survival! Also, I like people; I’ve really enjoyed in the past when people have made stories or insights clear for me, and so it’s a great pleasure to work to make things equally clear for others. Michael Alec Rose is a musician, composer and associate professor at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music in Nashville.

A powerful conception of electricity surges through David Bodanis' fascinating new book, Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity it is a hidden force as ancient as the cosmos, unleashed only yesterday (in geological terms) by human ingenuity, with profound and ongoing consequences. The…
Fiction

The psychology of evil

Review by bookpagedev

How does someone like Adolf Hitler become who he becomes? Like everyone else, once he was a child, going to school, trying to get his parents to love him, and dealing with the questions and disappointments of life. What makes someone like Hitler do the despicable things he did, while other people, even within his own family, go on to live normal lives? Norman Mailer wrestles with these sorts of questions in The Castle in the Forest, his first new work in a decade. The novel begins by tracing Hitler’s lineage, a family tree plagued with the rot of inbreeding. After her first three children die in a diphtheria outbreak, Adolf’s mother places all her hopes in him, at least until a more charming child is born. His father is a distant and often harsh civil servant who is constantly having affairs with any woman at hand. When he retires to the country, he takes up beekeeping, and young Adolf is smitten with the neighborhood wise man and resident beekeeper, known as Der Alte, or the Old Sorcerer. Meanwhile, Adolf plays war games, is jealous of his little brother whom everyone loves, and starts getting the feeling that he is meant to be an important and powerful figure.

In a supernatural twist, Mailer’s tale is narrated by a demon who has been put in charge of Hitler’s development by the devil himself. The demon proudly proclaims his part in the drama, but whenever something that sounds like foreshadowing happens (such as when Hitler’s father gasses a box of bees in front of him), readers are told not to think too much of it. This novel is classic Mailer, full of gripping detail and colored by an immense amount of research (a lengthy bibliography is included in the book). Mailer’s fans will eagerly pick up this book and will not be disappointed. Those new to Mailer will find his dark story is full of imagination, and it may well change the way they think about this reviled figure. Sarah E. White is a freelance writer and editor living in Arkansas.

How does someone like Adolf Hitler become who he becomes? Like everyone else, once he was a child, going to school, trying to get his parents to love him, and dealing with the questions and disappointments of life. What makes someone like Hitler do the…
Graphic Novels & Comics

Tributes to a legend

Review by bookpagedev

Will Eisner, the man who created what’s widely considered the first modern graphic novel (1978’s A Contract with God) and coined the term “sequential art” to describe the medium, died Jan. 3 at age 87 after quadruple bypass surgery. This new book from DC Comics provides indisputable evidence of the impact Eisner had on the comic-book universe.

The Will Eisner Companion, by N.C. Christopher Couch and Stephen Weiner, subtitled “The Pioneering Spirit of the Father of the Graphic Novel,” collects essays about the artist’s work and influence and is an A-to-Z who’s-who of The Spirit and glossy color reproductions of the Spirit’s origins and the famous episode “Gerhard Shnobble.” Written with enthusiasm and authority, it’s as entertaining as it is encyclopedic. BECKY OHLSEN

Will Eisner, the man who created what's widely considered the first modern graphic novel (1978's A Contract with God) and coined the term "sequential art" to describe the medium, died Jan. 3 at age 87 after quadruple bypass surgery. This new book from DC Comics…
FictionHistorical Fiction

Looking for answers in Victorian London

Review by bookpagedev

Lady Julia Grey is the type who does her duty. Except, of course, when she is adhering to the family motto audeo, or I dare. Apparently, she comes from a long line of upper-crust miscreants, which saves the gripping Silent in the Grave set in the late 1880s, from being just another Gothic mystery or Victorian romance.

When Julia’s husband Edward dies suddenly, she thinks his death was the natural result of an inherited heart ailment he’d had since childhood. But months later, she finds a note that indicates her husband was being threatened, and she decides to accept the offer of help from a mysterious private investigator, Nicholas Brisbane. The sexual tension between these two is pleasingly taut. Julia is remarkably broad-minded for a Victorian aristocrat, and as the novel (and her character) develops, she is pulled slowly but surely from the restrictions of her priggish social sphere, revealing a more daring personality.

Together, Julia and Nicholas come upon clues that lead them to a seamstress’ cottage, a gypsy camp and her servants’ quarters. The entertainment factor is high, and the characters are so appealing that I devoured the book to find out what would happen to them next. The final resolution is anything but predictable a true puzzle that in turn delights and appalls, with a nod to Wuthering Heights. Author Deanna Raybourn lures the reader in like a skilled hunter. Early on, period details of fashion, etiquette, flowers and servants lull you into believing this is a delightful tale about a widow bent on having some investigative fun. However, these soon give way to dark, lurid accounts of the most un-Victorian behavior, as Julia and Nicholas discover truths about Edward that she never could have imagined. The ending screams sequel I’ll certainly look for the next one. Linda White is a writer in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Lady Julia Grey is the type who does her duty. Except, of course, when she is adhering to the family motto audeo, or I dare. Apparently, she comes from a long line of upper-crust miscreants, which saves the gripping Silent in the Grave set in…
Graphic Novels & Comics

Tributes to a legend

Review by bookpagedev

Will Eisner, the man who created what’s widely considered the first modern graphic novel (1978’s A Contract with God) and coined the term “sequential art” to describe the medium, died Jan. 3 at age 87 after quadruple bypass surgery. This new book from DC Comics provides indisputable evidence of the impact Eisner had on the comic-book universe.

Will Eisner’s Spirit Archives, Vol. 14 is a beautiful clothbound, full-color book collecting issues of Eisner’s classic The Spirit from Jan. 5 to June 29, 1947. A weekly newspaper supplement that started in 1940, The Spirit reached five million readers through 20 newspapers. The hero, detective Denny Colt, was supposedly murdered by crooks but was actually buried alive, allowing him to continue his crime fighting incognito. His milieu was full of subway muggings, domestic violence, hard-eyed dames, pickpocketing street urchins and other (at the time shockingly) realistic details of urban New York life. This was no kids’ stuff; Eisner was clearly out to establish comic books as a serious art form, and it worked. We have him to thank for everything from Sin City to American Splendor. BECKY OHLSEN

Will Eisner, the man who created what's widely considered the first modern graphic novel (1978's A Contract with God) and coined the term "sequential art" to describe the medium, died Jan. 3 at age 87 after quadruple bypass surgery. This new book from DC Comics…
Fiction

A love affair to remember

Review by bookpagedev

It’s always satisfying to encounter someone who consistently makes worse decisions than you do even if that person is fictional. The narrator of Patricia Marx’s novel is just such a person: in other words, a total disaster. She’s smart, she’s funny and she’s completely scatterbrained. She’s trying to tell us about her ex-boyfriend, Eugene Obello, whom she met while studying abroad at Cambridge and with whom she is obsessed. But this might be the most tangent-heavy book since Tristram Shandy. This is not a bad thing; the tangents are a lot more fun than Eugene, a wholly unworthy object of affection. His job is to be brilliant and insufferable and make us wonder why our likable heroine can’t see how awful he is. Marx used to write for Saturday Night Live and was the first woman on The Harvard Lampoon. So you can guess that when she writes about heartbreak, it’s hilarious. Despite all the tangents, our heroine cannot let go of Eugene, even long after he’s let go of her, married someone else, moved away and had a kid. The extremes of denial she engages in are so sad that you can’t help laughing. Almost nothing about Eugene justifies this devotion; it’s only about halfway through the novel that we even hear the narrator’s brief laundry list of things she likes about him. But the book’s not about him, anyway. He could be anyone. (Well, anyone terrific-looking with an outsized vocabulary, fake English accent and encyclopedic knowledge of classical mythology.) This book is about a smart, gung-ho girl who is consistently thrown off track by an undeserving guy. Half of the time you want to kick her for being so stuck on this obvious cad, but she’s such a crackup that you can’t stay mad and besides, who hasn’t been stuck on a guy who didn’t deserve it? Still, as common as the experience may be, the book is a rare creature: an entertaining romp of a novel whose sass and smarts elevate it well above the chick lit label. Becky Ohlsen writes from Portland, Oregon.

It's always satisfying to encounter someone who consistently makes worse decisions than you do even if that person is fictional. The narrator of Patricia Marx's novel is just such a person: in other words, a total disaster. She's smart, she's funny and she's completely scatterbrained.…
Graphic Novels & Comics

Manga and more

Review by bookpagedev

Manga has produced yet another innovation and a sensation with Tokyo Tribes by Santa Inoue. It’s a tongue-in-cheek take on the Tokyo hip-hop scene, complete with rival gangs, rap-inflected slang, plenty of bling and, of course, major problems caused by stolen girlfriends. It was a huge hit in Japan when it came out and is sure to get mad props here as well. Becky Ohlsen writes from Portland, Oregon.

Manga has produced yet another innovation and a sensation with Tokyo Tribes by Santa Inoue. It's a tongue-in-cheek take on the Tokyo hip-hop scene, complete with rival gangs, rap-inflected slang, plenty of bling and, of course, major problems caused by stolen girlfriends. It was a…

Sign Up

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Trending Features

All Features