Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The Fiction Class by Susan Breen

This is a novel where the main character, Arabella Hicks, teaches a fiction writing class to adults. She has been doing this for a number of years while she is also trying to finish her own novel. It is evident at the beginning of the book that she is a rather burnt-out and slightly bitter instructor without a lot of empathy for her students. Her worries are more about herself. After a student asks a question she has the following response: "She has the discouraging feeling that this woman is going to be getting her into trouble for the next ten weeks. She can almost picture the evaluation forms that the students will fill out at the end of the semester. Was the instructor receptive to new ideas?" (pgs 11-12) This does indicate the author’s familiarity with teaching and the idea that anything you say in class may come back at you on a student evaluation. Arabella’s feelings toward her students change dramatically over the course of the book and there is even a romantic entanglement.

The main reason that this becomes such a unique class for Arabella is that at the same time she is teaching she is also dealing with her ailing mother. Her mother is in a nursing home and Arabella feels tremendous guilt over that. She visits her every week right after her class. Her relationship with her mother includes equal amounts frustration and love. Initially, they spend a lot of time arguing. It seems that they have such a history that even a small, seemingly innocuous comment can cause a lot of hurt. Some of the history that they are dealing with includes the aftermath of Arabella’s deceased father’s long-term illness. They begin to argue less and talk more when Arabella starts discussing the class she is teaching.

The book is set up in a unique way. There are chapters about Arabella’s life interspersed with chapters about the class she is teaching. In the chapters about the class you learn right along with the students. For example, the first class is about getting started and at the end of the chapter there is writing prompt to make a list of your obsessions. I thought this was a really neat writing prompt and so true that if you write about something you really know and have a passion for that will show. Arabella explains it this way, “Write about the thing that sets up a commotion in your mind, and you will find that words come flowing.” (pg 9) The writing prompts throughout the book are equally good. Also, included are chapters from a story that Arabella’s mother begins to write.

I enjoyed the book. Arabella’s teaching and her relations with her students deepened as she brought more of herself and her life into the class. I looked forward to each new class topic and the insight that the author gave. Arabella’s example of omniscient point-of-view in class four is very good. I found it harder to relate to Arabella and her interactions with her sick and elderly mother, but maybe that is because it is not a place I have been. This book does give some insight into dealing with nursing homes, guilt, and resolving issues with your mother. I think this book will appeal to anyone who likes to think about writing and the craft of writing, and people who are interested in end-of-life issues.

The Fiction Class by Susan Breen is currently on a blog book tour. Go to Blog Stop Book Tours to learn more about the author and what other bloggers have to say about The Fiction Class. This is the author’s debut novel and I hope to see more from her soon.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

The Language of Elk by Benjamin Percy

Benjamin Percy is another author that was invited to Bend for The Nature of Words last fall. I intended to read something by him then, but the library did not have his two collections of short stories at the time. They do now and The Language of Elk is well worth reading.

I think what Benjamin Percy does that is unique in his writing is to take a piece of Central Oregon that seems normal to people who live here and then add a twist. In the short story entitled, “The Iron Moth” Big Boy describes his hometown of Cairo, Oregon where he was a high school football star.
“Now rather than earning your tan, moving irrigation pipe and bucking hay bales into a pickup bed all afternoon, you get inside some capsule that glows like a bug-zapper and has about the same effect in frying you to a crisp. Now, every time I turn around there’s a new microbrewery or sushi joint or European car dealership, all of them springing up overnight like mushrooms.
Now, most everybody who lives here is from someplace else.”
Big Boy kills time with a friend by shooting anvils off the cinder cone in the center of town. Obviously, he is referring to Pilot Butte in Bend and it is quite a picture to imagine that going on in the center of town. The obvious discomfort and trouble for Big Boy to fit into his changing hometown are issues many people must deal with daily. I rarely meet anyone who identifies themself as a Bend native in my everyday life. I guess considering there were only 10,000 people here a decade ago and there are more than 75,000 now that is not too surprising.

Many of Percy’s stories bring up aspects of the local area that you might not think about or be exposed to if you just go about your daily life. There is the father and son in “Unearthed” who spend their time, after the death of the wife/mother, digging up Indian artifacts in the deserts of Eastern Oregon. That story takes a rather uncomfortable turn. The title story is set on a farm where hunters pay a fee to come in and shoot farmed elk. I recently read about a local ranch that does that. The characters that Percy draws are somehow sympathetic even while doing some unusual things.

I read the best story by Percy yet in the Fall 2007 issue of GlimmerTrain. I picked the journal up just to see what was in it and reading this short story reminded me of The Language of Elk that I had yet to read. The local paper here does a story about every other year on a family who has a house over a lava tube. It is always interesting to read and the family talks about using the natural cooling of the cave and having slumber parties in it. Percy takes this rather odd situation and turns it into a dramatic short story of a couple living over a lava tube in “The Caves in Oregon”. I also find it interesting that often the people in his short stories are professors at the local college, the woman in this story is a geology professor, or somehow connected.

I hope Percy puts his talents to use in writing a novel soon. I’m sure it would be entertaining and slightly edgy.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Billy Straight by Jonathan Kellerman

Billy Straight is a young kid on the run. He heads for Los Angeles and while living on the streets witnesses a murder. What is interesting about this book is the insight that Kellerman, a former child psychologist, brings to Billy. The choices that Billy makes, like to leave his family or to live on his own rather than with other runaways, seem believable. Billy runs into people who want to help him as well as those who want to take advantage of him and it becomes easier to understand why he just wants to be left alone.

The police trying to solve the murder eventually come to realize they are hunting for a 12-year-old as their witness. Petra Conner, a young LAPD detective, is a well-developed character and I wish she appeared in more of Kellerman’s novels. The frustration of trying to solve this high profile case, which involves an actor and the crazy bureaucracy of the LAPD, are highlighted here. Petra can see that some bad decisions are being made in the handling of the case, but can’t do much to stop them.

Here’s Billy at the beach once he knows the police are looking for him, and that possibly the killer could be too: “It’s stupid to even be thinking of a plan. I have no future. Even if I survive for a few months a year, two years, so what? I’d still be a kid, no schooling, no money, no control over anything.” Billy’s despair and desires clearly come through. I think this is one of Kellerman’s best books as he really delves into the characters’ psyches.

Kellerman is well-known for his lengthy mystery series with psychologist Alex Delaware and LAPD detective Milo Sturgis. The mix of police action and psychological speculation generally make for a good read. If you want to see what I think of his most recent book in this series, Compulsion, check out my review at Curled up with a Good Book.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens

I picked this book up last fall and read the first few chapters. It is a novel set in Ireland in 1846 during a potato famine. It is also about 400 pages and at the time I decided I would have to come back to it. I am glad I did. It is an engrossing read. It is tragic, as you might expect, but beautifully written.

The story follows the main character, Fergus, as he sets off on his own after horrifically losing his family. Here is a sample of Behren’s writing as he describes Fergus’s thoughts when he leaves a newly made friend to die and hitches a ride out of town. “You had to stay alive; every instinct told you. Stay in your life as long as you can. If only to see what would happen. Every breath told you to keep breathing.” (pg 64)

Fergus lives in a workhouse and also with children and a deserter hiding on a bog, he travels to Liverpool, works excavating rock, and eventually makes his way to Canada. Each move is precipitated by tragedy. You can’t help but imagine what it must have been like to have been born in Ireland in those days.

The book is such that you can open to almost any page and find an intriguing piece of writing. Here, on the crossing to Canada, a trader tries to tell Fergus about life, “Life comes running at you, trailing gaudy streamers, and you can’t make them out until it’s too close – are those ribbons, or is that blood?” (pg 303)