Books Books Books

I go through long stretches where I can't find any fiction to read that I like. Seems like all I see all over Borders is chick lit and best sellers and neither is especially entertaining.

My Cape Cod vacations are judged successful according to how many times I can get to my favorite independent bookstores and I feel a literary duty to support them because, god forbid, they're not there next summer when I need them.

This year, I was especially helpful in assisting them in staying afloat. I am nothing if not altruistic.

Best book of the summer: 

Birds in Fall by Brad Kessler is about an airline crash that happens just off a remote island in Nova Scotia.  The airline crash is the opening chapter of the novel,and the rest of the book is about the lives and emotions of a few of the family members of those that died, who gather at the inn after the crash to hope for survivors and identify the remains of the dead. But the book is not morbid and the plane crash is merely the impetus that brings about a collection of odd and damages people who find themselves through unlikely friendships with each and the beautiful island and the comforts and healing meals at the inn. The  writing is absolutely luminous. Kessler's prose is beautifully lyrical and the imagery of the migratory birds is magical. The book is deeply resonant with a sense of place and I came away feeling as though I'd been to this inn in another life.

The Girls is the story of conjoined twins, girls born to a girl who wanders into an ER in the eye of a tornado and delivers twins conjoined at the head and then disappears as quickly as the tornado passes, leaving as much devastation and turmoil as the tornado itself. The girls are adopted by the ER nurse who delivers them and they tell their story in the guise of autobiography in this wonderful, rollicking, and ultimately sobering novel.  Their physical conjoinment is but a fact in their lives but their love for each other is the heart of the novel.  I read it in one breathless gulp from morning to night.

The Space Between Us is a story set in contemporary India about the intimate yet divided relationship between a  wealthy widow and her lifelong domestic servant, an older, gaunt woman who has devoted her life to the family she works for. Umrigar's writing vividly brings to life modern day Bombay, both the slums filled with excrement and flies, and the middle class comfortable life of a Parsi family.  The story is not unfamiliar in its tale of the intimacy yet divide between mistress and servant, yet is heartbreaking none the less as both women see their ultimate dreams and worst fears engulf them. Ultimately, the denouement of the novel is the crucible of their relationship.

The best for last. Yes, I said that Kessler's book was the best book of the season, but Eva Rice's novel is well, the book I wish I hadn't read because I want to read it fresh again and again.  I read it after I came home and i only allowed myself to read it for an hour at a time. I would put it down in a remote section of the house ( as remote as you can be in this small house) so I couldn't pick it up. Or I'd bargain with myself that I could read it for ten minutes  if I put it down until I went to bed.   Why all the fuss?   I just fell into this book. It's the story of a young woman growing up in post-wartime England.  She comes from a once wealthy family who reside in a monster of a house, a house that dates back to medieval times, and a house that threatens to subsume their lives and has eaten up all their income. She quite accidentally strikes up a friendship with another teenager that ultimately changes her life.

OK, that all sounds very librarian, let me describe it this way: another novel with a strong sense of place and time. England after the war, the upper class recovering from the damage down to their houses, their families, and their wealth. Girls on the cusp of womanhood trying to figure out their lives, which don't seem to fit into tea at The Ritz anymore. Penelope and Charlotte, unlikely friends who each rounds out the other,  Dior dresses and pumps from Selfridge, literary salons, all night balls with omelettes at dawn, an American movie magnate in his Chevrolet, the tragically glamorous but wounded widow mother, Elvis Presley, a magician, and the house, oh, the house with suits in armor and stuffed zebras and curtains disintegrating from time and dust, crusty housekeepers, barren larders, collapsing ceilings, ghosts, and bibelots and objets galore that are sent to Sotheby's one by one in a ghastly metaphorical bloodletting to pay for the roof, the electric, and food in the freezing cold, achingly empty dining room.

Sigh. Why did it have to end?

Read. Read on. And then read some more. And tell me what you're reading cause I've only one novel left to go!