An Ode to Nicci French

If you aren't reading Nicci French, I have only one thing to ask you.  Why the heck not!?!?  For the uninitiated, Nicci French is a husband and wife British psychological suspense writing team.  First of all, I find it fascinating when two people can write a novel together. I mean, how does that work?  I, of course, went to wikipedia to find out.  Apparently, they write in alternation, and then they edit each other's work.  It's completely amazing that there never seems to be a hiccup with a change in styles.  An interesting tidbit, yes, but that's not why you'll want to read these books.  You'll want to read these because you won't be able to put them down.  It's like book crack.  You'll be addicted.  I always deliver a few warnings to anyone who is picking up a Nicci French book for the first time.  One, start it on a weekend, because you won't go to bed on time on a week night and will likely be late or exhausted at work the following day.  Two, do not pick this up when you have other plans in the immediate future.  You will cancel them.  

My favorite two are Land of the Living and Secret Smile.  Until It's Over was good, and I definitely didn't want to put it down, but it's not as fantastic as these other two.  

The main character is always a vulnerable young girl, typically with no family connections or a bit of a distance from her family.  You will doubt yourself, doubt the characters, and be completely compelled to turn the page.  You'll love it.  Unless, of course, you're just weird.  Yep, I just said that.     

Forget the Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright

The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright was our book club selection for August, and it was uniformly panned. The primary criticism was that we hated all of the characters, particularly the narrator. That's a hard one to get past.

This is the story of a woman who is married to a man who is never really painted in a negative light. That woman falls in love (we all though it sounded much more like lust though) with a married man who has a little girl with some sort of mental disability who also suffers from seizures. The woman eventually leaves her husband and treats him worse than you would treat your worst enemy despite the fact that she is the one who has been cheating and despite the fact that she also really sounds like a bit of a drunk and not such a great catch. The married man who is wildly in love with her (according to her) moves in with her but doesn't really leave his wife. In fact, on Christmas he goes home to his family and leaves some flowers and booze in the toolshed for her to find after he sends her an afterthought of a text message late that night. It's melting your heart, right? And that's it. End of story. 

I actually think I liked it more than some of the other members of our club. Wouldn't have guessed that from my review, huh? Enright is clearly a talented writer. The problem was that I felt like she wanted me to sympathize with the narrator, and I just didn't. She was kind of a bitch to everyone - her husband, her sister, the child of her lover, and she seemed to justify it all because of this magical love affair. I know what it's like to have magic, to be truly, madly, head over heels in love. I don't think Enright does. This so clearly wasn't it. A married man who likes having sex with someone who is not his wife does not a love story make.  

Marilynne Robinson's Gilead - 2005 Pulitzer Winner

Alright, so I know that I'm TERRIBLY behind on my blogging. Pregnancy seems to have turned me into a single minded bump on the couch, much more interested in reading reviews of strollers and cribs than actually reading literature. But you read it here first, my brain (at least the part of it not controlled by these crazy hormones) is staging a comeback! So here goes, I'm finally reviewing my Grand Cayman reading list.

I have to confess that I was REALLY dreading reading Gilead. Take a look at the description from amazon: 

In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle. Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father--an ardent pacifist--and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son.

Let's be honest, it sounds unbearably boring. Iowa? Preachers from Maine? Don't tell me you're hooked by the description. You'd be lying. Worse, you'd be one of those people that my girlfriend A in Houston and I roll our eyes about when they say their absolute favorite book is ________ (pick the most pretentious, least likable book you can think of, and insert title here). Aren't those people the worst? But I digress.... 

Despite the snooze-fest of a synopsis, the reviews for this book by actual readers on sites like amazon or goodreads were pretty outstanding. I must say, however, I did suspect some of those reviewers came from the aforementioned group of literary snobs.... So, it was with great trepidation that I plunged into this book. 

However, I was again pleasantly surprised. It turns out the Pulitzer Committee may know a thing or two about great fiction (despite what my mother has to say on the matter). True, the subject matter is not as captivating as the latest gripping thriller, but the prose are beautifully written and the narrative voice is unique and so believable. As a soon to be first time parent, I also enjoyed the musings on parent-child relationships and the narrator's attempts to leave a legacy for his young son who he knows he will never truly know.  

John Ames is very much a simple man. He remained in his small hometown in Iowa his entire life and entered into the family vocation (preaching) without giving either much thought at the outset. He does not believe himself to be an outstanding man or even a particularly talented preacher. He is simply a man who knows he will soon die and knows that his little boy will never have the chance to know him. With this knowledge, he attempts to capture a bit of his own family history, nuggets of advice he wants to pass on to his son, and the simple truths of his own life. In this way he hopes that his son will someday get to know him posthumously. It's a simple idea that is beautifully executed. 

There were so many wonderful passages in this novel. I am typically not an underliner, but I found myself marking short passages on my Kindle while reading this book. I guess I was just drawn to John Ames' voice. As he begins his exploration of the father son relationships in his family, he muses:

You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.    

See what I mean about the style and the narrative voice? I think this captures so many father and son relationships perfectly. Ultimately, Ames' son will likely know more about his father from the journal his father leaves behind for him than he otherwise would have known had he lived. 

Ultimately, I came away from Gilead with a great admiration for Robinson as a writer, but I'm not running out to buy her other books. I still need a bit more of a story.