Deep South by Paul Theroux

Many people want to travel the world.  And Paul Theroux did, going to Africa and Asia.  What he realized though, was that he had never traveled to the South.  The real "deep south".  How can one travel the world and not have traveled within our own country?

The fact is, our country is ginormous.  It's huge.  And each region has its own isms reflected in its food, customs, religions, cultures, music, holidays, celebrations, every aspect of daily life.

Here in New England, summer means carnivals and Six Flags.  Hot dogs and the beach.  Fall means a rainbow of colored leaves, pumpkin everything, and Halloween.  The whole family together on Thanksgiving, with traditional food.  None of this new fangled recipe nonsense in magazines.  Winter is skiing and snowboarding.  Hockey.  Christmas lights and honoring holiday traditions of a plethora of different religions.  Spring time brings baseball and allergies.  Daffodils.  We speak faster than other regions.  We are addicted to Dunkin Donuts.  We mix New York and Boston.  The Cape.  Vermont and New Hampshire.  Yankee Candle.  Long Island Sound.  Clam chowdah and lobstah rolls.  The T and Fenway.  Hunting, boating, fishing.  The 4th of July.

You can see how devoted we are to our homes.  About 5 years ago, my sister decided to move to California.  Then when her fiance, an officer in the Air Force, was transferred to the D.C. area, they settled in Charlottseville, Virginia.  Going to visit her was like visiting a different world.  We stayed overnight in Manassas, visiting the historic Civil War battlefield and watching a re-enactment.  We met an actor playing a New Hampshire doctor.  He told us his character was a very smart man, then whispered "for a Northerner of course", not knowing we were "Yanks".  People open carry and fly the Confederate flag.  We were only a few hours from home, but it was like being transported to a different country.  Driving North, from Charlottesville to Hershey, we went on back roads.  Churches and crosses every where.  The sky was bluer.  The grass was a different shade of green.

Theroux is from Cape Cod and decides to head to the South, somewhat of a midlife crisis.  He's a white, privileged, middle-aged Northerner in a foreign land.

Life moves much slower in the South.  I have a friend living in Georgia for the past twenty years.  I can't talk to her on the phone because. she. talks. so. darn. slow.  People are identified by race and respective church.  Both define one's "people".  Here in the North, we'd think a stranger asking questions was suspicious and would likely ignore them.  Theroux finds people are eager to offer him a meal or drink and talk about the past and present.

Race dominates many of the stories he hears.  Segregation and the Voter ID law come up frequently.  Food is a major thematic topic.

The book is organized into vignettes, which can be read independently of the whole.  This would make a great text in modern regionalism and the study of the disparities between the American people, often o generalized by media outside our nation.  Americans are X and Y, but in reality we run the gamut A to Z.

There is nothing new about the travel story or the journey to find oneself story, which Theroux admits early on.  What makes this different is that is really about the people he meets and what life is like for them, when viewed by an outsider welcomed in without reserve.

I plan to recommend some of the stories to my colleagues for use in English II (American Lit), U.S. History, Issues in Government, Philosophy, and Psychology.

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Early last week I noticed quite a few of the LMC regulars reading a bright orange book.  When I asked, they told me it was for English.  Now, I've only been gone from the department a year, so I was really, ahem, curious about the book.  I ended up in Mrs. Mattson's room at the conclusion of parent visiting to try to fix an attachment she had been emailed.  There happened to be one on a cart she said I could borrow.

I've been laid up at home recovering from minor surgery.  I started reading this shortly after my son got on the bus and was done by noon.  It is a quick read and quite enjoyable.

I can't spill too much here, because like I said, it's in the curriculum, meaning there are going to be assessments and I don't want to be the SparkNotes du Jour.  The main character is either an aspie or an autistic savant.  He's a lot like Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory and Colin in An Abundance of Katherines (see my previous review).  In fact, I was going to suggest Haddon had maybe riffed off John Green's Colin, but this novel was actually published 3 years earlier.

I was Googling for some background info when I found the novel was adapted into a play.  It's currently on Broadway.  Field trip anyone?

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Reckless by Chrissie Hynde

This is a review of Chrissie Hynde's memoir Reckless: My Life as a Pretender.

I know what you are thinking.

WHO is Chrissie Hynde?

She's a Pretender.

And just WHAT is a Pretender?

Open iTunes or Amazon Music.  Search for The Pretenders.  Play songs "I'll Stand By You" and "Brass in Pocket".  That voice?  That's Chrissie Hynde.

I bet you knew at least some of the lyrics to those two songs.  The Pretenders (meaning Hynde's voice) had a unique sound that sticks in the listener's memory.

Chrissie Hynde had two doting parents, a house in suburbia near the dying city of Akron, a college education at Kent State (yes, she was on campus for the Massacre [if you don't know what I'm talking about, Google it or ask Mr. Kirch or Mr. Takach]).  She was not interested in an education, a career, motherhood, or anything really except drugs and music.  She was a happy vegan, a stoned hippie, a music lover, and sorta talented at art and singing.  Then fame happened.

On the dust jacket, above her brief bio clip, is a note that we are living in the age of great rock memoirs.  This is true for Hynde's story.  She doesn't hold back.  As with Willie Nelson's most recent book that I reviewed last June, this is sex, drugs, and rock in the 60s and 70s.  It's not butterflies and rainbows, but it IS a story of finding oneself and our bond with music.

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Dumplin' by Julie Murphy

I'm the fat girl.  I'm probably the fittest fat person you know (or follow as the case may be).  I do power yoga twice a week, Zumba twice a week, and jog 3 miles or more on Fridays (Saturdays if we have a home game).  No, I'm not a Crossfitter or organic health food nut.  I like pasta too much for my own good.  But even my doctor says my weight should mean high blood pressure or diabetes or some other disease attributed to being fat.  Nope.  My blood pressure is actually low (even more surprising since I was once a smoker).  My cholesterol is below normal.  My sugar and insulin are normal.  Yet, here I am.  Size 14/16 on the bottom and 18/20 on the top.

Dumplin' attracted me by the tag line "go big or go home".  Kinda my own mantra, though for different reasons.  My parents were dead at 56 and 53 (cancer took my mother, a heart attack from his own stubborness about smoking took my father), so I really shout YOLO, literally and figuratively.

Willowdean is one of the fat girls.  As if this isn't enough to make high school tough, her mother is the chairwoman of the local beauty pageant.  Will is of course never expected to enter.  One summer though, everything starts to change.  Not one but two boys show interest in her.  They don't seem to be off-put by her figure.  In a chain of events I won't spoil here, Will and 3 other "fat" girls enter the contest.  With the help of two drag queens and Dolly Parton, they are going to take the Clover City pageant by storm.

Running my first competitive 5K was probably my Dumplin' moment.  I did not finish last.  Will doesn't win the pageant, but she wins in other ways.

Definitely a recommend and now available in the WHHS LMC.

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Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

I didn't finish this book.  I got a whopping 58 pages into it and gave up.  I should've stopped 20 pages ago.  Nothing is happening.  Farmer marries former Disney mermaid.  Has two children. Dies of heart attack.  Former mermaid/Cinderella finds God.  Older son is a spoiled rich brat who gets himself sent to boarding school by rebelling with drugs, sex, and alcohol.  He's screws around, might be bi.  He meets beautiful model.  They get married.  Move into a basement apartment in NYC.  He wants to be an actor.  Seriously, that was all 58 pages summed up.  BORING.  No idea where the story is going, and frankly I don't care.  
 

Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

This novel was on Amazon's list of best books of the month.  I am warning you, it's not for the faint of heart.

I've read some of Slaughter's work before, but this one is definitely the creepiest and goriest (is that a word)?  There were a few spots I skipped ahead because I wasn't too keen on the details of sexual violence.  I also considered not writing a review for the blog, but I would bet the ALA would be disappointed in me.  The world ain't unicorns and rainbows.  The reality is that the violence against women portrayed here exists in our world.  Ignoring it doesn't make it go away. 

Julia was nineteen when she disappeared.  She was a college student, out for a few drinks with friends, when she vanished on the walk back to her dorm.  At the time, the police dismissed her disappearance as a free spirited girl off on her own adventure.  Her father never gave up looking for her.  His obsession led to his divorce and estrangement from his other daughters.

Lydia, the next oldest, is the troubled child.  Drugs, sex, alcohol.  She is hooking for drugs when she discovers she is pregnant.  Dee's birth straightens Lydia out.  She uses knowledge from her father's veterinary practice to get a job as an assistant groomer.  A few years later, she owns a home and her own mobile grooming business.  Her daughter Dee wins a scholarship to an elite prep school, she has a steady boyfriend (a mechanic named Rick), and a plethora of pets. 

Claire, the baby, is married to a wealthy businessman, Paul Scott.  He is more computer nerd than Wolf of Wall Street, and Claire finds him "safe" (compared to the men her sisters ran around with).  They do not have children nor pets in their gated mansion.  Claire need not work, but spends her time volunteering. 
   
The sisters have not spoken to each other in nearly twenty years, when Claire and Paul are held up leaving a bar.  Although they give the man their money, phones, and jewelry, he stabs Paul, who then dies.  It becomes clear to the reader something is really messed up when Lydia tells Rick she is happy Paul is dead and then attempts to urinate on his grave. 

Claire returns from the funeral to find her home broken into (as 300 guests are set to arrive for the memorial).  The FBI wants to question her, her husband's business partner is threatening her for files, and the local PD seems to be brushing her off.  As Claire digs into Paul's things, she begins to unravel a web of lies and discovers Paul is not who he says.  It is much, much worse than the embezzlement she suspects. 

I won't spoil anything further.  Just be aware there are some pretty gruesome scenes of sexual violence.  I am happy to say, though, karma wins in the end.

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The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz

I really had to push myself to get through this book.  It was a recommendation from Amazon and is a Newbery Medal winner.  I was waiting for something to happen.  The novel is written in the form of a diary and reads like a memior.  The problem was that nothing exciting seemed to happen in the main character's life.

Joan is a farm girl, replacing her deceased mother as being in charge of the household duties like cooking and cleaning, taking care of her father and brothers.  Her father pulls her out of school, demanding she focuses on her work rather than an education.  When she asks for money (the egg money from selling the chickens' eggs, that typically goes to the woman of the household), her father refuses.  Joan goes on a "strike" and as punishment, her father burns her books.  Joan runs away to Baltimore.

Joan is taken in by an Orthodox Jewish family; she lies about her age and uses the alias Janet.  She finds conflict with her own faith (Catholic) and city versus farm life.

There are definitely some philosophical moments, things like women's rights, intellectual and religious freedom, what makes a family, respect, financial responsibilty.  But nothing happens.  Nothing.

Have to say, not a book I'd recommend!

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The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz

Stieg Larsson died in 2004.  His "Millennium" series, probably better known as the Lisbeth Salander trilogy, was published after his death from a heart attack.  A fourth novel remains unpublished.  I feel this novel is being marketed as that "fourth" novel.  In fact, an entirely separate author wrote this one, hired by Larsson's publishing company, likely to keep the Salander name fresh as the fourth novel remains embroiled in court battles over Larsson's estate and works.  It was a mistake.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remains one of my favorite books. Its sequels, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, were not as good in my opinion.  Larsson died without finishing any of them.  According to his fiance, there are rough outlines of what would be 10 Salander novels on his computer.  I do not believe he intended the novels to be published at all, and that books 2 and 3 were nowhere near complete as thought. 

Now we have a problem in that many questions left unanswered have been, even though they may not fit in with what Larsson had planned!  The biggest being Lisbeth's sister Camilla.

Wholly unimpressed.  Waaaayyyyy too much fluff, not enough Lisbeth.

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Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran.

Eh.  That's my review.  Eh.

I saw this book on display at the circulation desk of WHPL when picking up a hold.  The cover looked interesting, as the dust jacket sounded.  Figured, why not?

Sita is the oldest daughter of a widower in India, prior to British rule, in the mid 1800s.  Treated like a son, allowed an education and physical activity, she has already hit puberty, thus an arranged marriage is likely out of the question.  Her mother dies in childbirth with her younger sister.  Sita's grandmother attempts to sell her into a brothel, but her father rejects the plan and vows she will earn a spot in the queen's all-female guard.

Sita trains with a neighbor and becomes skilled in archery, firearms, knives, swords, and combat.  She swears her allegiance to the queen and passes the trial with flying colors.

Sita is an outcast, as she is from the villages, not the city of Jhansi, like most of the other members of the guard.  Nonetheless, she becomes one of the queen's favorites and guides her mistress through the birth and death of a child, the king's infidelities (with other men), and lastly, wartime.

Here are some of the issues I had in reading:
The novel is written with Indian names and spellings (rightfully so).  I had a hard time keeping straight who was who with the true names, so I gave everyone pseudonyms.
Sita's grandmother pissed me the heck off.  Get off your high horse lady and protect your granddaughters.
Why did the king need to be a closet gay?  Was it really necessary?  Would that not have, in reality, shamed the queen?  Would it not have made Jhansi look weak?  How would homosexuality be OK, but an unmarried daughter not be OK?  It really felt like "here's a current topic, let me throw it in".  The real king (and this is a fictionalized account of a true story) might really have been gay, and frankly, I don't care.  It just didn't feel needed in this particular version of the story.
Shakespeare?  Sita was well-versed in Shakespeare?  The author states this is fact in her notes.  Again, maybe so, but it felt wholly unrealistic. 

So, eh.  Just eh.

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