Tag Archives: fiction

Jami Attenberg: The Middlesteins

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Guest Post By: Brendan

Jami Attenberg has captured the zeitgeist in her heartbreaking and life-affirming novel, The Middlesteins.

Edie Middlestein is eating herself to death and Attenberg shows us her sometimes sad life, and the ramifications of her decisions for herself and her family.

Deftly hopping through time, we are situated not with the date but with Edie’s weight at the time. It’s a surprisingly effective device.

The story is told from a variety of perspectives – in one memorable chapter, the Cohns, Goldsteins, Weinmans and Frankens describe the Middlestein b’nai mitzvah.

Full of life and flawed humanity, The Middlesteins reminds me of some favorite novels of the past decade – Next, Last Night at the Lobster, Paula Spencer and Olive Kitteridge.

Attenberg was the subject of a recent interview at Other People with Brad Listi (mp3).

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Molly Ringwald: When It Happens To You

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Guest Post By: Brendan

I expected When It Happens To You to be good… for Molly Ringwald, but thought that perhaps from another author it might be considered a disappointment. I was wrong. This is a remarkable work of fiction with glimpses of brilliance.

The work is described as a collection of interlinked stories, but it felt like a novel to me. When It Happens To You is the story of a disintegrating marriage, of betrayal and hope, only briefly touching on the lives of some who interact with the central couple.

The virtuosity of the title segment, which serves as a centerpiece for the book, is at times breathtaking. Here’s a sample…

“When it happens to you, you will ask him why he would choose to forsake this good, sweet life that you carefully built together for a girl who couldn’t begin to understand him, and then you’ll realize that is partially the point. He doesn’t want to be understood. He wants to be misunderstood because in the misunderstanding lies the possibility of reinvention.”

When It Happens To You is the most pleasant literary surprise of the year.

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Kate Morton: The Secret Keeper

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Kate Morton’s The Secret Keeper is truly a page turner. It’s a rather thick hardback (yes, I still read actual books!), so I was shocked to finish reading it in one weekend.

Morton, author of The House at Riverton, is one of my favorite modern authors. She has a knack for writing prose that is beautifully descriptive and somewhat flowery, but light enough to keep a flowing pace. This is especially true of the very suspenseful The Secret Keeper.

While time-shifting chapters between two generations has become quite a popular construct in contemporary fiction, The Secret Keeper is the rare novel whose two worlds and two protagonists are equally interesting and fully developed.

The central story focuses on the life of Laurel Nicolson, an aging actress who witnessed a disturbing event in her childhood and has kept it a secret from her siblings ever since. No, this is nothing like Atonement. The event happens in chapter one, but it’s a riveting scene I won’t spoil for you. As adult Laura delves into the mysterious history leading up to that event, we are transported back to her mother’s youth.

Laura’s mother, Dorothy, shares equal billing in this tale. She’s a very complex, very human character — at times unlikable, at times sympathetic. Morton deftly takes us back and forth from the blitz of WWII-era London through the 1960′s and into the modern age, weaving a universe of mystery and suspense all along the way. Again, I don’t wish to spoil the story. It’s so well designed and executed that, for once, the twist at the end took me completely by surprise.

I hadn’t planned on doing a Best Books list this year, but The Secret Keeper may be the motivation I need to do just that.

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Lynn Austin: Wonderland Creek

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Wonderland Creek is a charming, cheery little novel by Lynn Austin. Austin pays homage to Lewis Carroll by dropping her fiesty, somewhat spoiled, bookworm heroine, Alice, in a strange, Depression-era, backwoods Appalachia town called Wonderland Creek (hence the title).

I first heard of the book through the review posted on the WV Book Festival Blog by local librarian and all around great gal, Susan Maguire. Susan’s review gives a very good, detailed summary of the plot and I agree wholehearted with her fond assessment of the story.

What I enjoyed most about the novel was the way Austin took very bleak elements – poverty, unemployment, corruption, fueds, the hard life of coal miners and painful memories of slavery – and mingled them with joys of that simpler time – the hospitality, faith, selflessness, hard working closeknit communities and sheer human connection – that are sadly fading in the modern age. I’m not usually a fan of what’s called “Inspirational” fiction, but this one is very well written. The book reminded me very much of Christy. Sentimental and sweet, but with enough touch of the realistic to keep it interesting.

Wonderland Creek is one of those uplifting reads that leaves a smile on your face at the end, though you’ll miss that wonderful little world when it’s over.

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Stewart O’Nan: Everyday People

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Brendan here again. My first attempt to read Stewart O’Nan‘s Everyday People was shortly after I moved to the U.S. from a rural European community, and I guess I just wasn’t ready then for the African-American voices through which this story is told. A decade in America has widened my view and I recently devoured the Pittsburgh-set novel. Everyday People centers on the turbulent lives of the Tolbert Family.

Everyday People is formulated similarly to another favorite of mine, Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, with each chapter capturing a different voice in the story, a different perspective.

Crest Tolbert is adjusting to life after being paralyzed from the waist down. His brother, Eugene, found Jesus in prison and is determined to save the lives of his gang-member friends. Their father, Harold, has given up a lover in an attempt to recommit to his family, but his wife has noticed the distance between them.

Like The Interrupters, Everyday People documents a community in crisis. The characters are vividly realized and the story is heartbreaking – but, as Stewart O’Nan has repeatedly demonstrated, well-written heartbreaking stories can be rewarding and uplifting.

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Stewart O’Nan: The Odds

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Stewart O’Nan has become a favorite author in the Muruch household. I (Vic) first fell for his writing in 1994 when his stark and mesmerizing debut novel, Snow Angels, was released, and Brendan loves O’Nan’s 2007 novel Last Night at the Lobster enough to re-read it every winter. We both recently read (and loved) O’Nan’s new book, The Odds: A Love Story, within a few days. The novel follows a middle-aged American couple on the brink of bankruptcy and divorce on their troubled second honeymoon in Niagara Falls. But all is not what it seems. The true motive for the journey and real causes of their disintegrating romance are slowly revealed through each spouse’s thoughts and actions during their two turbulent days at the falls.


The final weekend of their marriage hounded by insolvency, indecision, and, stupidly, half secretly, in the never-distant past ruled by memory, infidelity, Art and Marion Fowler fled the country. North, to Canada.

The marital plot and short timespan of The Odds reminded me a bit of Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach (one of my Best Books of the Decade). The delicate mix of resigned affection and tension born of unspoken frustrations in particular make O’Nan’s Art and Marion seem to be the aged counterparts to McEwan’s newlyweds Edward and Florence.

Stewart O’Nan’s prose and character insights are so heartfelt, intimate and exquisitely human that even his saddest moments hold a small ray of hope. The Odds is a very quick, enjoyable, beautifully written read.

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Lynn D’Urso: Heartbroke Bay

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Lynn D’Urso’s debut novel Heartbroke Bay is a harrowing tale set in the late nineteenth century gold rush era. Eloquent prose travels with Victorian Englishwoman Hannah Butler from her whirlwind marriage to American prospector Hans Nelson and their seafaring adventure with a motley crew searching for unclaimed gold to their final destination in a remote Alaskan bay.

Landing in isolated Lituya Bay, the greed of Hannah’s companions soon leaves them stranded in the strange and desolate frontier. Tensions build within the ill-prepared group as cruel winter approaches, culminating in a claustrophobic climax with few survivors. Based on a true story, this beautifully written novel is as exciting as it is tragic.

Buy @ Amazon

DVD Review: The Young Visiters

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A satire of Victorian society, The Young Visiters starred Jim Broadbent as middle-aged, lonely Alfred Salteena, who falls madly in love with an ambitious girl named Ethel upon his first glimpse of her on a train. This delightful 2005 BBC film was adapted from Daisy Ashford’s novel, which she apparently wrote when she was just nine years old. In addition to creating an interesting and unique comedy, Daisy had an incredible grasp of class distinction for someone so young.

In hopes of winning the heart of social climbing Ethel, Alfred first invites her to his home with promises of introducing her to his high society friends…of which there are really few, if any.

Accepting an invitation from reclusive aristocrat Lord Clarke (Hugh Laurie), Alfred is soon convinced to enroll in a stern etiquette school in order to become a gentleman worthy of Ethel’s snobbish affections. Little does he know that Lord Clarke will woo his beloved during his absence.

Jim Broadbent is hilarious as Alfred, often showcasing his substantial slapstick talents. Bill Nighy is also very entertaining as the kooky director of the etiquette school. But the strength of the film really lies in the charmingly innocent humor of the story and the fanciful direction, which provides flashes of Lemony Snicket‘s pseudo-Gothic whimsy.

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Helen Simonson: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

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Helen Simonson’s debut novel Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand left me with the deep feeling of elation and satisfaction that only a truly great book can create. I can’t remember the last time I fell so completely in a love with a character as I did with this novel’s stuffy, utterly charming titular protagonist. Author Simonson has managed to write one of the sweetest, most heartwarming love stories I’ve ever read without ever falling into the trap of sappy sentimentality – all the while tastefully and humorously tackling such weighty issues as racism, nationalism, religion, family dramas, class distinctions, and the sharp difference in how various cultures can perceive a shared history.

Set in the small, old-fashioned English village of Edgecombe St. Mary’s, the story centers on aging widower Major Ernest Pettigrew. The Major is introduced as the epitome of traditional values and manners, who clings to the old ways of his village as much as he does to his father’s two antique Churchill hunting rifles. Said rifles have been the objects of the Major’s lifelong adoration and serve as the catalyst for a somewhat comical battle with his greedy relatives over his brother’s estate.

When the Major strikes up a friendship with a widowed Pakistani shopkeeper and kindred bookworm named Mrs. Ali, he begins to see himself and his closeminded neighbors in a whole new light. The delicate, subtle romance that blossoms between the Major and Mrs. Ali grows into a middle-aged, multi-cultural Romeo & Juliet as they face the harsh criticism and prejudice of their respective friends and families, who disapprove of the couple’s dissimilar skin colors, religions, and incomes.

A tense and emotional subplot regarding Mrs. Ali’s nephew and her family’s strict adherence to their religion adds to the forces separating our dignified and hesitant lovebirds, ultimately resulting in the novel’s breathtakingly climatic scene.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand will fit snuggly on any bookshelf filled with classics both old and new. And it would make a wonderful, sophisticated romantic comedy if ever it’s turned into a film.

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James Hynes: Next

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Vic’s husband and fellow bookworm Brendan loved James Hynes’ new novel Next so much, he had to do another guest review…

“By now the plane is empty behind him and the rest of the passengers are trailing away down the long cathedral arcade of the terminal through the pillars of light streaming in the windows: silhouettes fat and lean, major and minor, limping, striding, slouching, swinging briefcases, dangling backpacks, towing wheeled suitcases, in twos and threes, or weaving through the crowd, alone. None of the silhouettes ahead is swaying. None of them is carrying a duffle. None of them is dangling a book at her hip and holding her place with a finger. Kevin can no longer see his slinky seatmate, Ms. Joy Luck Club, the girl in the camisole, the girl with the tattoos, the girl who walks like Lynda.”

Ah, the joy of browsing at the library. I’d never heard of James Hynes, but the colorful cover of Next captured my attention, as did the brief summary on the inside flap. It exceeded my expectations. The author is remarkable at capturing detail and the human condition.

As Kevin Quinn goes through life, his mind returns again and again too the past. And much of the time not spent reliving the past is used up fearing the future – from terrorist attacks to fatherhood. It takes a lot to help him truly experience the present. Kevin trudges through a viscous Austin, following his own selfish longings until he can follow them no further.

Next has been aptly compared to Ulysses. It’s not quite so formidable, but Kevin’s quest through a city in one abbreviated day, his encounters with the people of that city, and his constant reminiscences certainly reminded me of Bloom’s Odyssey.

Next captures the anomie of our modern existence, the constant need for something better, for instant gratification. Only when faced with something momentous does Kevin appreciate the blessings in his life. And what a momentous something it is. The final act of this work will take your breath away.

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James Hynes was recently interviewed at Large Hearted Boy.

James Hynes Official Site