Deborah Donovan

Ava Dabrowski—eight years out of college and satisfied, if not completely happy, with her well-paying job at a Chicago ad agency—has come to a crossroads. An affair with her boss has “wound down to its inevitable conclusion,” her estranged mother has died and her career has come to a standstill. She still harbors dreams of becoming a novelist, so when Will Fraser, an old college friend, invites Ava to spend the summer with his two aunts at the family home in Woodburn, Tennessee—a quiet getaway where she can work on her first novel—she quickly accepts his offer.

Ava and her hippie mother had moved around a lot when she was younger, but she experiences culture shock when she arrives in Woodburn, a town she soon realizes is “broken up into social classes that resembled Victorian England.”  Southern author Cathy Holton perfectly captures the slow pace and local customs in which Ava immediately becomes immersed: the leisurely breakfasts, garden party dress codes and Toddy Time, held daily at precisely 5:00 p.m.
The more she learns about Will’s aunts, Josephine and Fanny Woodburn, and the story of the mysterious death of Fanny’s first husband Charlie, Ava realizes she has the plot for her novel. But at what price? Will, who is clearly interested in her as more than a friend, is disturbed by her research into his family’s dark secrets . . . and is even more annoyed by her attentions to his estranged cousin Jake, the black sheep of the Woodburn clan.

Holton delves into the flip side of the “moonlight and magnolias” version of Southern life, as she maintains the suspense surrounding not only the demise of Charlie Woodburn, but which of the dashing cousins Ava will eventually choose. Summer in the South is a winning combination of murder and romance, and an engaging summer read.

In her short stories and previous novels, Antonya Nelson has established her niche by portraying the domestic crisis—the tensions between spouses and generations—with a feel for the humor underlying even the direst of events.

Her fourth novel, Bound, continues in this vein, focusing on Catherine and Oliver—he an entrepreneur nearing 70, she barely older than his daughters from two previous marriages. Their relationship is already precarious, as Oliver is seriously entwined with the most recent of a long line of younger “Sweethearts,” and Catherine regularly wonders how she ended up with a humorless husband nearly as old as her nursing-home bound mother.

Then a curious missive arrives notifying Catherine that Misty, her best friend from high school—“fearless, loyal, in love with intoxication, adventure, a challenge,” whom she hasn’t seen or heard from in 23 years—has died in a car accident and has named Catherine the guardian of her teenage daughter, Cattie. Suddenly Catherine’s own nearly forgotten years of rebellion come rushing to the surface—the lying, skipping school, drugs and promiscuity leading to two abortions—things she has never confided to the upright and slightly stodgy Oliver.

Nelson delves into the vagaries of Catherine and Oliver’s marriage and perceptively dissects Catherine’s confrontational relationship with her mother, a former professor who is openly critical of many of Catherine’s life choices. Catherine knows she “would never be the daughter her mother might have wished for.”

Nelson’s only misstep seems to be interspersing her tale with updates on Wichita’s serial killer, known as BTK, who has resurfaced after decades of quiet—a side plot which seems artificial, and never really blends with or adds to her story of relationships renewed or discarded. But she shines once again in her depiction of the many guises of marriage, and family ties both strengthening and coming undone.

Anne Tyler is known and loved for her character studies—delicate and perceptive probings into imperfect, achingly familiar lives. Noah’s Compass, her 18th novel, is the latest in a long line of these profiles of a character exploring, within the boundaries of family obligations, the possibilities of stepping outside an otherwise uneventful existence.

When Liam Pennywell is nearly 61, he loses his job teaching fifth grade at St. Dyfrig, a “second-rate” boys’ school in Baltimore. He’s been downsized, not fired, he’s quick to point out to inquisitive family members, and he never really liked being a teacher anyway—“those interminable after-school meetings and the reams of niggling paperwork.” Liam’s degree and lifelong interest was in philosophy, but “things seemed to have taken a downward turn a long, long time ago.”

Within the week, Liam moves to a one-bedroom apartment near the Baltimore Beltway and begins his own systematic downsizing, tossing out magazines, never-used dissertation note cards and furniture until he can fit all of his possessions into a 14-foot U-Haul truck. The first night in his sparse new home Liam is attacked by an intruder—an event he can’t remember when he wakes up the next day in the hospital, bandaged and bruised.

And so unfolds the next stage in Liam’s quiet life, in which he reopens himself to the possibility of love, while finally accepting the fact that his relationships with his father and daughters are fixed, whatever their flaws may be. Tyler’s acutely perceptive observations of family interactions are dead on, like when Liam realizes that he and his father have virtually nothing to say to one another. “Why,” she writes, “did Liam have to learn this all over again on every visit?” She gradually paints her portrait of this ordinary, uncomplicated man, spending Christmas alone, but with “an okay place to live, a good enough job. A book to read. A chicken in the oven . . . solvent, if not rich, and healthy.” Like Noah without a compass, bobbing up and down with nowhere to go, Liam leaves us wondering about our own later years, and what will bring us peace, or regrets.

Deborah Donovan writes from La Veta, Colorado.

Joyce Maynard’s novels are beloved for their compelling and carefully drawn characters, and this—her sixth—carries on that tradition, with three characters whose lives intersect by happenstance, each one changed irrevocably for the better.

Since 13-year-old Henry’s father left, his only family is his mother, Adele. He feels completely alienated from his father’s new family—his new wife Marjorie, her son Richard (from her first marriage) and their new baby, Chloe. Henry and Richard have nothing in common as Henry enters the throes of adolescent self-doubt.

It’s been a long, dull summer for Henry, the boredom broken only by the occasional outing with this “other family,” and the increasingly unbearable Saturday nights when his father takes everyone (except Adele, of course) to Friendly’s for dinner. Adele actually never goes anywhere since her goal is to remain invisible—for reasons the reader will soon discover.

But then Labor Day rolls along, and the lives of these two damaged souls are changed forever as they cruise the aisles of the local Pricemart for back-to-school clothes. Henry is approached by Frank, a soft-spoken stranger who is bleeding and asks for help. He and Adele, who has always been a nurturer, take Frank in, and hear of the horrific circumstances that led to his incarceration years before—a story that matches the intensity of Adele’s own private struggle. Over the next six days Henry learns the reasons for his mother’s fear of venturing into the world. And as he sees her with Frank, really happy for the first time he can remember, Henry begins to understand the difference between sex (which he has read about in magazines), and love, which he witnesses between them.

At first Henry feels as if he’s “off the hook”—released from the constant pressure of figuring out ways to make his mother happy. Then he becomes worried about the possibility that Frank will take his place in his mother’s affections. He gradually realizes that “Our finding each other . . . was the first true piece of good luck in any of our lives in a long time.”

Maynard deftly pulls the reader into the fragile lives of these three vulnerable characters and their preordained march toward the novel’s denouement. A marvelous read—perfect for one long sitting—this novel leaves the reader wishing it didn’t ever have to end.

Deborah Donovan writes from La Veta, Colorado.

The fifth novel in what was originally thought by critics to be a trilogy, Rhino Ranch appears to be Larry McMurtry’s last foray into the small and dying town of Thalia, Texas.

It all began with The Last Picture Show (1966), in which Duane Moore and his buddies were lovesick teenagers, and Thalia was enjoying prosperity from the oil boom years. In Texasville, the sequel, the town wealth has dissipated with the oversupply of oil, and Duane has gone from a millionaire to an almost-broke father of four incorrigible offspring, and is dealing with midlife crisis in all its many guises.

Duane moves into his early 60’s in Duane’s Depressed (1998), in which McMurtry addressed the issues of aging and mortality, while still keeping his sense of humor, as Duane gives up his car, deciding to walk everywhere, turns the family oil business over to his son Dickie, who is only recently out of drug rehab, and moves to a dilapidated but very private shack outside of town, partly to escape from his difficult and ungrateful grandchildren.

The fourth novel in the Duane saga, When the Light Goes, found Duane’s beloved town of Thalia threatened by urban sprawl, and Duane as an apathetic and listless widower—until a series of young and nubile females ply him, somewhat mysteriously, with their sexual favors.

Which brings the reader to Rhino Ranch. The titular setting is the brainchild of K.K. Slater, a south Texas heiress who hopes to establish a sanctuary for African black rhinos on 120,000 acres just outside of Thalia. McMurtry trots out a beguiling cast of characters including Duane, of course, who strikes up a bizarre friendship with one of the rhinos; his old buddies Boyd and Bobby Lee security officers on the Rhino Ranch who spend most of their time tracking the activities of the local meth dealers from their observation tower; Duane’s daughters, who are “living the life of rich divorcees in North Dallas” and his grandson Willy, a Rhodes scholar tryingto distance himself from Thalia’s narrow minds.

In Rhino Ranch, McMurtry gets back to what he does best: the dead-on depiction of this small Texas town and its quirky inhabitants who immediately engage the reader in their less than perfect lives. As Duane’s lady friends what he might have done differently—but the reader knows that when he, too, is gone, the town of Thalia will be the worse for his passing.

Deborah Donovan writes from La Veta, Colorado