Synopsis: An aging minister writes a letter to his young son, telling him all he’ll never have the chance to tell him when his son is a man. Review: “Just now I was listening to a song on the radio, standing there swaying to it a little, I guess, because your mother saw me from the hallway and she said, ‘I could show you how to do that.’ She came and put her arms around me and put her head on my shoulder, and after…
Synopsis: When elderly Ginny’s sister returns home for the first time since she was a girl, old memories surface that threaten Ginny’s carefully ordered existence. Review: I’m incredibly thankful for the Queens Library for getting The Sister to me so quickly–I can’t remember the last time I read a book so recently published. The review in the New York Times made me think that it’d satisfy my aching desire for more books like Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale. Gothic intrigue. Family secrets. Opaque narration. Superfast…
Synopsis: A mother’s love is tested when she gives birth in 1943 to a daughter who is, in the lingua franca, is a “Mongolian Idiot.” Review: I picked up Jewel because I’m going to be participating in a writing workshop on Thursday led by Bret Lott. I figured I would read Jewel because it was the book picked for Oprah’s Book Club, and therefore his most well-known work. The book follows the life of Jewel, a Southern woman born in 1904 who spent her formative…
Synopsis: Deanna’s lived under a dark cloud ever since her dad caught her having sex when she was just 13, and her dreams of getting out just might expire under the weight of his disapproval. Review: I’m a latecomer getting to Sara Zarr’s National Book Award Finalist novel Story of a Girl, though it’s been on my radar for quite some time. I’m so glad I finally carved out some time to read it. I’ve often criticized young adult literature for piling on the woe,…
What’s your favorite book that nobody else has heard of? You know, not Little Women or Huckleberry Finn, not the latest best-seller . . . whether they’ve read them or not, everybody “knows” those books. I’m talking about the best book that, when you tell people that you love it, they go, “Huh? Never heard of it?” A Candle in Her Room by Ruth Arthur tells the story of several generations of a family haunted by a charismatic and evil doll. It scared me silly…
Synopsis: To fulfill an ancient prophecy, dark magic is woven around a baby girl so that she will appear to be a boy, but the cost is the life and soul of her twin brother whose ghost now violently haunts the castle. Review: For some reason I thought The Bone Doll’s Twin was a one-off, so towards the end I got impatient when I realized that the story wasn’t going to wrap up anytime soon. I wasn’t in the mood to commit to a new…
Synopsis: Fearful of her husband’s sexual advances, a young mother falls into a spectacular case of hysteria–that might not be all in her head. Review: Angelica is yet another neo-Gothic tale, set in a Victorian England conjured more from literature than from history. It has all of the elements you’d want: repressed sexuality, midnight visions, hysteria and a spiritualist, all rendered in gorgeous, sumptuous prose from four different points of view.
Synopsis: Having grown up with a controlling, secret-keeping mother, a young man yearns to know his family’s history and meet his letter-writing lover in person, but his journey takes him face to face with madness and murder. Review: Thank you, thank you, thank you to Eva for recommending this book! The Ghost Writer is a straight up Gothic tale, no revisionism here, thank you very much. It’s a tangled labyrinth of memories, letters, and unfinished stories that builds to a creepy, frightening climax that draws…
Synopsis: An Indian-American immigrant named after a Russian writer struggles to find his place in the world. Review: I know the month is only 2 days young, but The Namesake might be my favorite read of October. Sprawling and intimate, Gogol Ganguli’s story riveted me in a way that I wish Zadie Smith’s White Teeth had. Though perhaps that’s just that I’m an American and not British. I found Gogol’s world and struggles to be accessible, and I connected with him even though he’s very…
Synopsis: Hired to be an au pair to a schizophrenic man, a Swedish girl watches as interfamilial tensions come to a boiling point, with deadly results. Review: Barbara Vine (the alter ego of best-selling crime novelist Ruth Rendell) has carved out a niche as deft portrayer of tightly interwoven groups of people who are all set to go poof! in spectacular and surprising ways. The Minotaur concerns a family that revolves itself around the supposed schizophrenia of the only son and heir to the family…