He's hardly man's best friend

MR. CHARTWELL by Rebecca Hunt

My rating:  3.5 of 5 stars

In Mr. Chartwell, debut author Rebecca Hunt has given life, literally, to the depression that haunted Winston Churchill and members of his family. Churchill called his illness “The Black Dog” and that is the form his depression takes in this book -- a big, slobbering hulk that walks on his hind legs, drinks beer, has a cynical, sarcastic wit, and goes by the name of Black Pat. Despite his human attributes, Pat is all dog as he scratches and circles before plopping down on the floor, licks his forelegs, sucks the marrow out of bones, and tears shoes to shreds. He is at times endearing, most often maddening, and on occasion, simply disgusting.

When the novel opens, Black Pat has arrived at the home of Esther Hammerhans, a librarian in the House of Commons, who is still grieving for her husband as the two year anniversary of his suicide approaches. Pat is there, ostensibly, in answer to an ad Esther has placed for a boarder.  However, it soon becomes clear that he has been sent to try and drag Esther down into the throes of a depression from which she may never recover.  Black Pat also continues to visit Churchill, for whom the dog is a familiar figure, as Churchill prepares to deliver his retirement speech. Their lives intersect when Esther is sent to transcribe Churchill’s farewell address. When Churchill realizes that Esther can see Pat, he tries to give her the will to fight off Pat’s possessive intentions.

There are many hauntingly beautiful moments in this work including a scene in which Churchill describes his lifelong fight against Pat and how the only way he survived intact was to never accept that the depression would win.   Hunt exquisitely captures how depression can descend on a person in the physicality of Pat’s massive bulk as he lays on Churchill and all but smothers Esther.  So too, Pat's habit of slipping in and out artfully mirrors how the depression can come and go.

As a reader, I felt the slow pull Pat exerted on Esther, watched as she teetered on the periphery of Pat’s control, and held my breath that she would not succumb to his inexorable influence. I rooted for Esther as she strove to foil Pat’s advances by forging a relationship with a co-worker that might help her to heal from her grief, even as Pat repeatedly counseled her against the connection.

Hunt has produced a unique and quite touching novel with Mr. Chartwell, and at just over 200 pages, it is the perfect length.  I never once had the feeling that the author had gone on too long. Usually, I draft my review immediately after finishing a book.  In this case, I needed to give myself some time and distance, and in doing so, I have come to realize how good I thought it was.  If you are looking for something different in the literary fiction vein, and like to read works by new authors, I suggest you give Mr. Chartwell a try.

I was given an advance reader's edition of Mr. Chartwell by the publisher, The Dial Press, an imprint of Random House, Inc.  Mr. Chartwell will be released in February of 2011.

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is a weekly event, started by Marcia at  The Printed Page, and hosted this month by Rose City Reader, in which book lovers share with fellow readers what books came into their homes during the week.

This week I received two books, both from the publisher:

My Korean Deli
by Ben Ryder Howe
Henry Holt and Co.
Release Date: March 2011

From the publisher's catalog:
It starts with a gift, when Ben Ryder Howe’s wife, the daughter of Korean immigrants, decides to repay her parents’ self-sacrifice by buying them a store. Howe, an editor at the rarefied Paris Review, agrees to go along. Things soon become a lot more complicated. After the business struggles, Howe finds himself living in the basement of his in-laws’ Staten Island home, commuting to the Paris Review offices in George Plimpton’s Upper East Side townhouse by day, and heading to Brooklyn at night to slice cold cuts and peddle lottery tickets. My Korean Deli follows the store’s tumultuous life span, and along the way paints the portrait of an extremely unlikely partnership between characters with shoots across society, from the Brooklyn streets to Seoul to Puritan New England. Owning the deli becomes a transformative experience for everyone involved as they struggle to salvage the original gift—and the family—while sorting out issues of values, work, and identity.

Sing You Home
by Jodi Picoult
Atria Books
Release Date:  March 2011

From the publisher's catalog:

Every life has a soundtrack. All you have to do is listen.

Music has set the tone for most of Zoe Baxter’s life. There’s the melody that reminds her of the summer she spent rubbing baby oil on her stomach in pursuit of the perfect tan. A dance beat that makes her think of using a fake ID to slip into a nightclub. A dirge that marked the years she spent trying to get pregnant.
For better or for worse, music is the language of memory. It is also the language of love.
In the aftermath of a series of personal tragedies, Zoe throws herself into her career as a music therapist. When an unexpected friendship slowly blossoms into love, she makes plans for a new life, but to her shock and inevitable rage, some people—even those she loves and trusts most—don’t want that to happen.
Sing You Home is about identity, love, marriage, and parenthood. It’s about people wanting to do the right thing for the greater good, even as they work to fulfill their own personal desires and dreams. And it’s about what happens when the outside world brutally calls into question the very thing closest to our hearts: family.

What was in your mailbox this week?

The perils of mixing business with pleasure

IN OFFICE HOURS by Lucy Kellaway

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

In Office Hours tells the story of two romantic liaisons between middle-aged married individuals in positions of power and their young, single subordinates. In one instance, the power holder is a woman, and in the other, a man. Stella is at the top of her professional career with a major energy company when she finds herself attracted to Rhys, a brash trainee who has been assigned to her department. After engaging in seemingly harmless flirtations via e-mail and texts, their relationship eventually evolves into a sexual one. At the same time, James begins an affair with Bella, an administrative assistant, shortly after ending a dalliance with Bella’s previous boss. Not the usual picture of a serial adulterer, James is overweight, bald, and lacking in real charm, making his attraction somewhat of a mystery to the reader at first.

I was unsure what my reaction would be to this exploration of the intricacies of inter-office affairs in the corporate world, having worked for several large institutions and been somewhat disgusted by romantic shenanigans amongst employees both married and single.  Although this novel could have easily devolved into a cheesy, titillating read, Ms. Kellaway manages to deliver an engrossing, authentic portrayal of how individuals can fall prey to a romantic obsession that causes them to risk everything. To put it simply, I very much enjoyed this one.

Ms. Kellaway's considerable experience as a financial correspondent and columnist is reflected in the artful way she captures the machinations of corporate culture.  In addition, she has drawn each of the characters in such a way that the vulnerabilities of all those involved makes their subsequent actions understandable, though nonetheless ill-advised. That is particularly true in the case of the women.  Kellaway manages to make the reader understand Stella’s need to feel the things that her relationship with Rhys provides, and by portraying Bella’s struggles as a single mother, both financial and emotional, Kellaway makes Bella particularly vulnerable to the attentions of an older man who can make her feel cared for and safe. Bella’s poignant observation about wanting not the expensive things that James can deliver, but rather, only the normalcy of driving home together and having dinner, says it all.

As the novel moves along the relationships become more and more destructive while the four individuals pass through differing stages of obsession, desperation and despair.  The pendulum swings of power between the couples feel entirely authentic, as in most romantic relationships there are times when one partner may be more invested than the other.

An intriguing thing about the book for me was to see how the author would resolve the two scenarios. Would it end differently for the woman in power than the male authority figure? You will get no spoilers from me. Suffice it to say, that I found the ending to be entirely satisfying, and the source of interesting conversation at home.

I was provided an advance reader’s edition by the publisher, Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. In Office Hours will be released in February of 2011.

Pure fun

GEORGIA BOTTOMS by Mark Childress

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having seen Crazy in Alabama, in which the main character totes around her abusive former husband’s head in a hat box (yes you read that sentence correctly), I was expecting the unusual from Georgia Bottoms, and I am happy to say that I was not disappointed. This novel is a hoot, plain and simple.

Born Georgia Butts, the title character is a woman in her mid-30’s who has managed to provide for herself and her oddball family by "entertaining" six men (every girl needs a day off), on a rotating basis.  None of the men know about the others, and she keeps the preferences of each straight with the help of a file cabinet housing a drawer for each day of the week. When the minister (Mr. Saturday) threatens to confess all and take her down with him, Georgia sets into motion a plan that buys her some time, but ultimately proves to be her undoing.

This novel is peppered with colorful characters including Georgia’s shiftless brother, her somewhat senile mother (Little Mama) who favors bunny slippers and wields a pellet gun, as well as various members of the small Alabama community over which Georgia holds sway. Childress’ facility with dialogue is such that I could hear Georgia’s voice in my head as assuredly as I could picture her face. Her wry, biting observations, spoken to others, and to herself, are priceless.

Several abrupt plot twists and an ending that will have you crying out, oh no!! while laughing out loud, make this a rollicking good read sure to chase away the winter blahs.

I received an advance reader's edition of this book from the publisher, Little Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.  Georgia Bottoms will be released in February of 2011.

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine in which bloggers highlight what books they are eagerly anticipating.  This week I selected:



Release Date:  February 1, 2011
Published by Zed Books

Amazon.com description:

Chocolate is one of the world's most everyday luxuries, the very word conjuring up a hint of the forbidden and a taste of the decadent. Every year, more chocolate is sold in the West even as obesity and health fears grow. Yet the story behind the chocolate bar is rarely one of luxury. The crop provides a lifeline for millions of farmers in West Africa, which produces about 70% of the world's cocoa and is crucial to the economies and politics of Ghana and Ivory Coast. Chocolate Nations examines the causes of farmer poverty, placing the story of these producers in the context of the commodity producers' global battle to make more money from their crops. Mixing economic analysis with the human stories of the African rebels, advertising executives and industry insiders this book tells the compelling story of how chocolate bars get on supermarket shelves.

What are you waiting for? 

From Trinidad to New York

Minding Ben by Victoria Brown

My rating:  2.5 of 5 stars

Like her protagonist Grace, Victoria Brown, the author of  Minding Ben, immigrated to America from the West Indies at 16 and found work as a nanny in New York City.  Given the author's journey, it is not surprising that the scenes with Grace's own family and her interactions with friends and acquaintances in the West Indian community in Brooklyn are wholly authentic.  The portions of the story describing the obstacles Grace faces as she struggles to establish herself and also help meet the needs of her family in the islands, kept me turning the pages eagerly.  Most interesting to me was the peek into the "politics" of the playground, where queen bee babysitter Evie rules, and no one's business is ever their own. 

On the other hand, when the book shifts focus to the family for whom Grace works, the Bruckners, it somewhat fell apart in that the family members are entirely one-dimensional; they have essentially no redeeming qualities.  Miriam, the mother, is a penny-pinching shrew, who takes advantage of Grace at every turn.  Her husband, Sol, at first seems to be more reasonable, but he too, quickly devolves into a selfish, stingy neanderthal, who quite predictably ends up making a pass at Grace.  Other peripheral members of the Bruckner family are similarly distasteful.  The only remotely appealing characters are Grace's young charge Ben, and Dave, the gay partner of Miriam's recently deceased brother.

In July of 2010 I reviewed a book about an African-American woman working as a nanny for a white family in New York City -- Substitute Me -- and I suppose I could not help but compare the books on some level.  Substitute Me did not speak to the immigrant experience.  The nanny in that novel was an upper-middle class American woman who was taking a break to try and sort out her life, and in that sense, it is a much different book than Minding Ben.  Where I could not help but compare the two, however, is the way in which Substitute Me deftly captured the interplay between nanny and employer without making one side out to be all wrong to the point of caricature.

In all fairness, I recognize that this is a book written from Grace's perspective, and I have no doubt that there are, unfortunately, too many people who treat their childcare providers in the way Ms. Brown depicts here.    As a novel, however, the characterizations just felt too flat.  Ms. Brown included tidbits about Miriam's and Sol's family backgrounds that, if developed, would have added depth to both characters, but they were left unexplored.   I also wanted to know more about Grace's relationship with Ben, which was a very small part of this book.  This might sound odd, but I cannot help feel that if the book had been written as pure memoir, I would have enjoyed it more.

I received an advance reader's edition of this book from the publisher, Voice/Hyperion Books, through the BookBrowse First Impressions program.

Maybe you have to have sisters

THE WEIRD SISTERS by Eleanor Brown

My rating:  2.5 of  5 stars

The Weird Sisters of the title are three adults, Rosalind (Rose), Bianca (Bean) and Cordelia (Cordy), each one different from the other, who return home when their mother is fighting cancer. As with most adults, the women find themselves repeating their childhood patterns of rivalry and angst while living in their childhood home, and yet they remain united by the bonds of family. Each woman has her own demons to fight and disappointments to overcome, and over the course of several months, each begins to find her own way.

I really wanted to like this one. The premise sounded perfect for a book lover -- a drama featuring sisters named by their Shakespearean scholar father for women of the Bard's works, and a family where everyone  takes solace in reading. Unfortunately, while I suspect that I may be in the minority on this, it fell flat for me.

In trying to articulate what was missing I could more easily compose a list of what was good: the dialogue is witty and sharp, with just the right level of sarcasm to elicit an occasional smile. And while the plot moved along slowly, this is clearly meant to be a character-driven novel, not a page-turning action packed read.

My best guess then, as to why I did not like this one more is that I did not particularly care for any of the sisters, although that alone is not usually fatal to my enjoyment of a book. In fact, I have thoroughly enjoyed novels where I loathed all the main characters: Serena by Ron Rash and The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen are two examples. With The Weird Sisters, however, it was not so much that I did not like the sisters, it was that they failed to evoke any significant emotion on my part one way or the other.

There was nothing about Bean, the middle child eternally seeking attention from all the wrong quarters, or Cordy, the flower-child who moves from place to place until she is forced to face responsibility, that made me want to know how their lives would turn out. To use an outdated expression, these women left me cold. Rose, the oldest, who is desperately trying to break out of the pattern of the responsible caretaker but is afraid of losing her identity in the process, was the most interesting. Perhaps it was because she was the sister that seemed most familiar to me.

Curiously, the woman that I did want to know more about was not a woman of the title, but rather, the sisters' ailing mother. Her idiosyncratic approach to motherhood, the lasting relationship she had with her eccentric husband, and the hint of what might have been for her had she taken a different road early in her life all made her an absorbing character.  I wish she had had a more prominent role.

Maybe I just read this one at the wrong time.  I usually like books from this imprint; it published, The Help, one of my favorites from last year. Maybe it is because I grew up with brothers. Maybe you will have a different experience.  Maybe not.

I received an Advance Reader's Edition of this book from the publisher, Amy Einhorn Books, an imprint of G.P. Putnam's Sons, a member of Penguin Group (USA), through the Library Thing Early Reviewers Program. The Weird Sisters will be released in February 2011.

Every picture tells a story

THE BOY: A Holocaust Story by Daniel Porat

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

A photograph of a small boy with a rifle at his back and his hands in the air amidst the chaos of the Warsaw ghetto.Those familiar with Holocaust imagery, which I am not, will recognize this photograph immediately given its iconic status. It captures a moment in time during the liquidation of the ghetto carried out by Nazi soldiers.  There is some debate as to the identity of the boy in the photograph and the author does not definitively resolve that question in his recently published historical narrative.

Instead, Mr. Porat tells the stories of five individuals who were in the Warsaw ghetto at the time:  a young Jewish boy, a teenaged Jewish girl, and three Nazi officers, two of whom actually appear in the picture. One of the primary sources for the book is the detailed report that the officer in charge of the liquidation prepared to document his "success"; that report contains numerous notations as well as photographs, and it is in this material that the outlines of the book arise.

Not surprisingly, this book is not an easy one to read.  The atrocities of the Holocaust do not lessen with time. In this context it  seems inappropriate to say that I "enjoyed" it, but the truth is, is that this work is eminently readable.

It is impossible not to be swept up in the remarkable stories of survival, including that of Rivkah Trapkovits who survives the Warsaw ghetto only to be loaded onto a train bound for a death camp. After leaping from the train, she wanders the Polish countryside, eventually managing to survive in Poland until the Russians arrive in 1944. Young Tsvi Nussbaum, "the boy" Dan Porat brings to life, narrowly escapes Bergen-Belsen and emigrates to Palestine, but not before enduring unthinkable tragedy. Through the use of numerous historical documents, Mr. Porat reconstructs how each of the three Nazi officers came to be part of the Warsaw ghetto operation, and what followed for the men. 

While this is categorized as a work of history, it is by no means dry or academic in tone. Instead, it is a book that grabbed me from the first chapter, and carried me along. As I rode the rollercoaster of emotions this genre of literature inevitably evokes, I found myself fully invested in the lives of Rvika and Tsvi, while continuing to be baffled by those whose inhumanity remains inexplicable even after their stories are told.

As a point of information, this is the first work that I have ever read that utilized the device of imaginative narrative in the context of historical reporting. It certainly made the book a gripping read, but for those who are purists when it comes to their history reads, this may not sit well. I found myself checking the footnotes for sourcing more often than I would usually do, because I was aware that there were parts of the story that may have been subject to the author's extrapolations.


I received a finished copy of this book from the publisher, Hill & Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux.  The book was released in November of 2010.