I have read a few books by Dennis Lehane. Mystic River, later made into a decent movie, was quite a good thriller, but I was disappointed with Shutter Island, which was more of a psychological thriller. For some reason, I was expecting another thriller when I picked up The Given Day, but it is definitely not that.
A primary character in this novel, Danny Coughlin, is a police officer in Boston in 1918 from an Irish American family. Danny is asked to infiltrate some suspected terrorist groups and in the process becomes interested in blue collar workers’ rights and very involved in trying to start a policemen’s union. This does not go over particularly well with his police captain father or district attorney brother.
Another main character, Luther Laurence, has to leave his wife and unborn child in Oklahoma after becoming involved in a murder. He ends up in Boston with some distant relatives and is hired by Danny’s father, as a houseboy. His predecessor leaves him an interesting letter about working for the Coughlin family.
“If you are reading this, I am dead. If you are reading this, you are also Negro, as was I, because the white folk on K, L, and M, Streets only hire Negro housemen. The Coughlin family is not so bad for white folk. The Captain is never to be trifled with but he will treat you fair if you don’t cross him. His sons are mostly good. Mister Connor will snap at you every now and again. Joe is just a boy and will talk your ear off if you let him. Danny is a strange. He definitely does his own thinking. He is like the Captain, though, he will treat you fair and like a man. Nora is a funny thinker herself but there is not any wool over her eyes. You can trust her. Be careful with Mrs. Coughlin. Do what she asks and never question her. Stay well clear of the Captain’s friend, Lieutenant McKenna. He is something the Lord should have dropped.”
This letter really sets the stage for what happens next. Nora is a servant that the family took in five years ago and she becomes an important figure in both Danny and Luther’s lives. Friendships across racial lines are unusual for this time in Boston. Also, Luther does get on Lieutenant McKenna’s bad side with serious repercussions.
The third story that is interwoven between these two is that of Babe Ruth. This story is loosely tied in with the Babe meeting Luther at the beginning of the novel and Danny at the end. It is always interesting to me to take a historical figure and attribute various actions or thoughts to that person. And, for the record, I don’t know if Luther or Danny are historical figures as well or simply fiction.
The Given Day is a relatively long novel with many characters. Each character is so distinct that I never had to remind myself about who was who or who had done what. I think this is a significant and complex work that gives you a glimpse of Boston during a tumultuous time.
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Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
The Worst Hard Time is a non-fiction book describing the impact of the depression on the area in the United States hit hardest by drought. Unlike Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which fictionalizes a family’s migration out of the Dust Bowl, Egan focuses on the families that stayed. Many stayed because they could not afford to move, whereas others were optimistic and initially believed this was only a temporary condition. After a few years even the most optimistic were fleeing, if they could.
I did not realize before reading this book how devastating the dust storms were or how many people died of dust pneumonia. Here‘s one description of the storm that happened on what became known as Black Sunday, April 14, 1935:
“The front edge of the duster looked two thousand feet high. Winds were clocked at sixty-five miles an hour. A few minutes earlier there had been bright sunshine and a temperature of eighty-one degrees, without a wisp of wind. Drivers turned on their headlights but could not see ahead of them, or even see the person sitting next to them.”
There are multiple descriptions of this storm from many different towns and people. The hardest to read is that of a mother who had just buried her baby and attended her grandma’s funeral.
There are some interesting politics going on during this time. FDR was elected president in 1932 and immediately began giving some relief to farm families. Before this there was no safety net at all. Hugh Bennett, head of the Soil Erosion Service during the Roosevelt administration, wanted to try and restore the grasslands and ensure against future dust storms.
“… as the dusters picked up in ferocity, Bennett was one of the first in Washington to try and convince people it was not just another natural disaster or an epic drought. It seemed like something caused by man, a by-product of hubris and ignorance on a grand scale. Maybe some of it could be reversed. But to do so, people would have to think anew about how they used the land.”
Bennett found Congress a hard sell. He planned his next presentation for five days after Black Sunday. That afternoon during his presentation the day turned dark and dust from that storm fell on Washington DC. Bennett got his funding.
The Worst Hard Time does a good job of illuminating the individual lives and the families that are hard hit by this tragedy as well as giving an overview of the whole time period. I did find the book a bit longer than necessary, but appreciated the historical photos included.
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I did not realize before reading this book how devastating the dust storms were or how many people died of dust pneumonia. Here‘s one description of the storm that happened on what became known as Black Sunday, April 14, 1935:
“The front edge of the duster looked two thousand feet high. Winds were clocked at sixty-five miles an hour. A few minutes earlier there had been bright sunshine and a temperature of eighty-one degrees, without a wisp of wind. Drivers turned on their headlights but could not see ahead of them, or even see the person sitting next to them.”
There are multiple descriptions of this storm from many different towns and people. The hardest to read is that of a mother who had just buried her baby and attended her grandma’s funeral.
There are some interesting politics going on during this time. FDR was elected president in 1932 and immediately began giving some relief to farm families. Before this there was no safety net at all. Hugh Bennett, head of the Soil Erosion Service during the Roosevelt administration, wanted to try and restore the grasslands and ensure against future dust storms.
“… as the dusters picked up in ferocity, Bennett was one of the first in Washington to try and convince people it was not just another natural disaster or an epic drought. It seemed like something caused by man, a by-product of hubris and ignorance on a grand scale. Maybe some of it could be reversed. But to do so, people would have to think anew about how they used the land.”
Bennett found Congress a hard sell. He planned his next presentation for five days after Black Sunday. That afternoon during his presentation the day turned dark and dust from that storm fell on Washington DC. Bennett got his funding.
The Worst Hard Time does a good job of illuminating the individual lives and the families that are hard hit by this tragedy as well as giving an overview of the whole time period. I did find the book a bit longer than necessary, but appreciated the historical photos included.
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Saturday, July 18, 2009
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu
This main character in this novel is Sepha Stephanos, an immigrant from Ethiopia who’s been living in Washington DC for the past seventeen years. He runs a small store in a rundown area in Logan’s Circle. His store is not particularly successful and he has lots of time to dwell on the past.
“Left alone behind the counter I was hit with the sudden terrible and frightening realization that everything I had cared for and loved was either lost or living on without me seven thousand miles away, and that what I had here was not a life, but a poorly constructed substitution made up of one uncle, two friends, a grim store, and a cheap apartment.”
Stephanos and his two friends, immigrants from two other African countries, meet regularly. Joseph is a waiter in an exclusive restaurant and Kenneth is an engineer. They all met many years ago working as bellboys at a hotel. Their usual pastime while drinking in a bar is to name a dictator and match it to the country and year of the revolution or coup.
Stephanos has a brief period of hope for more from his life when Judith and her daughter Naomi fix up an abandoned house next to his store and move in. Stephanos spends a great deal of time with Naomi and hopes to spend more with Judith. However, he seems to deliberately sabotage this relationship. And, to make it more difficult his neighborhood is not ready for gentrification.
If you’re looking for an uplifting immigrant story, this is not it. It is, however, a look into what it is like to be lonely in America. Stephanos is obviously not happy. His family in Ethiopia, his mother and his brother, are financially doing better than he is and it makes me, at least, question if he wouldn’t be happier living with them. It is also an interesting look into what happens to a neighborhood when people with money move in. I naively assumed that would be a good thing, but it does not seem to be for the long time residents. I’m looking forward to more novels from this author.
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“Left alone behind the counter I was hit with the sudden terrible and frightening realization that everything I had cared for and loved was either lost or living on without me seven thousand miles away, and that what I had here was not a life, but a poorly constructed substitution made up of one uncle, two friends, a grim store, and a cheap apartment.”
Stephanos and his two friends, immigrants from two other African countries, meet regularly. Joseph is a waiter in an exclusive restaurant and Kenneth is an engineer. They all met many years ago working as bellboys at a hotel. Their usual pastime while drinking in a bar is to name a dictator and match it to the country and year of the revolution or coup.
Stephanos has a brief period of hope for more from his life when Judith and her daughter Naomi fix up an abandoned house next to his store and move in. Stephanos spends a great deal of time with Naomi and hopes to spend more with Judith. However, he seems to deliberately sabotage this relationship. And, to make it more difficult his neighborhood is not ready for gentrification.
If you’re looking for an uplifting immigrant story, this is not it. It is, however, a look into what it is like to be lonely in America. Stephanos is obviously not happy. His family in Ethiopia, his mother and his brother, are financially doing better than he is and it makes me, at least, question if he wouldn’t be happier living with them. It is also an interesting look into what happens to a neighborhood when people with money move in. I naively assumed that would be a good thing, but it does not seem to be for the long time residents. I’m looking forward to more novels from this author.
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Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Admission is really the story of Portia Nathan, who just happens to work in the admissions office at Princeton. Portia is dealing with the end of a sixteen year relationship and the idea that her mom has taken in a pregnant seventeen-year-old and might end up adopting the baby. She has a breakdown that coincides with these events, but seems to have more to do with a long held secret from her own college years.
I did find the insight into the admissions process of a highly selective college interesting. It must be great to be at a place with need blind admissions. I wonder what percentage of private colleges can still operate that way. Portia spends the fall visiting high schools and encouraging students to apply while the winter is spent wading through thousands of applications to find just the right students.
“It was an oddity of her work that she might know these young men and women so intimately from the records of their accomplishments, their confessed secrets, their worries and ambitions, and yet when the flesh-and-blood applicants arrived on campus a few months later, they were always strangers. Somehow, the folders turned into these bodies: high-spirited, intense, beauteous, or plain, usually clever, but sometimes quite dull. They looked like teenagers walking the campuses of Notre Dame or Texas A&M. They sounded like kids at the mall or on the subway. The special, unique eighteen-year-olds, whose applications had so thrilled Portia and her colleagues, or made them argue passionately for admission over wait list, or wait list over rejection, had somehow morphed into these strangely ordinary beings.”
Admission is a good length to pack for vacation or a long plane trip. It is not a light beach read, but slightly longer and more in depth. It might remind you of your own college admission essays, and give some insight into how the process has changed over the years. The story of Portia, her colleagues, her boyfriend(s), and the potential Princeton admitees is intriguing – slightly too many coincidences to be believable, but still a good read.
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I did find the insight into the admissions process of a highly selective college interesting. It must be great to be at a place with need blind admissions. I wonder what percentage of private colleges can still operate that way. Portia spends the fall visiting high schools and encouraging students to apply while the winter is spent wading through thousands of applications to find just the right students.
“It was an oddity of her work that she might know these young men and women so intimately from the records of their accomplishments, their confessed secrets, their worries and ambitions, and yet when the flesh-and-blood applicants arrived on campus a few months later, they were always strangers. Somehow, the folders turned into these bodies: high-spirited, intense, beauteous, or plain, usually clever, but sometimes quite dull. They looked like teenagers walking the campuses of Notre Dame or Texas A&M. They sounded like kids at the mall or on the subway. The special, unique eighteen-year-olds, whose applications had so thrilled Portia and her colleagues, or made them argue passionately for admission over wait list, or wait list over rejection, had somehow morphed into these strangely ordinary beings.”
Admission is a good length to pack for vacation or a long plane trip. It is not a light beach read, but slightly longer and more in depth. It might remind you of your own college admission essays, and give some insight into how the process has changed over the years. The story of Portia, her colleagues, her boyfriend(s), and the potential Princeton admitees is intriguing – slightly too many coincidences to be believable, but still a good read.
Escape to Books
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
What a great title! This novel, set in Seattle during World War II and 1986, follows Chinese American Henry Lee. Henry is twelve years old in 1942 and has recently had his parents tell him to speak only English. This is difficult as although Henry goes to an all white school on scholarship, his parents only speak Chinese. His father follows the war effort closely and has significant interest in seeing the Japanese defeated in China. He has Henry wear a button that states, “I am Chinese.”
In Seattle at the time Chinatown and Japantown were very close geographically but separate entities, and when a Japanese student, Keiko Okabe, starts at Henry’s school he is unsure what to make of her. They soon become good friends as they are both scholarship students and have to work together at the school. The story revolves around their growing friendship, Henry’s clashes with his dad over this friendship, and the impending internment of Keiko and her family.
I’ve read a few books about the impact of Japanese internment camps on Japanese Americans, including the novel Snow Falling on Cedars and more recently the non-fiction book Stubborn Twig. This novel addresses a few more issues I’ve never considered. There were thousands of Japanese Americans living in Seattle. How were they relocated? What happened to their property and their belongings? The descriptions of the temporary camp at the Puyallup Washington State Fairgrounds and the more permanent one in Minidoka, Idaho seem unreal.
The story of Henry as a young teen during World War II is interspersed with Henry’s life in 1986. He’s now widowed and has a college age son. Henry hears about belongings from World War II found in an old hotel and that starts him on a search to find out what happened to Keiko. I highly recommend this book. It is much more readable than Stubborn Twig and also gives some insight into what other ethnic groups felt about the Japanese relocation and internment.
In Seattle at the time Chinatown and Japantown were very close geographically but separate entities, and when a Japanese student, Keiko Okabe, starts at Henry’s school he is unsure what to make of her. They soon become good friends as they are both scholarship students and have to work together at the school. The story revolves around their growing friendship, Henry’s clashes with his dad over this friendship, and the impending internment of Keiko and her family.
I’ve read a few books about the impact of Japanese internment camps on Japanese Americans, including the novel Snow Falling on Cedars and more recently the non-fiction book Stubborn Twig. This novel addresses a few more issues I’ve never considered. There were thousands of Japanese Americans living in Seattle. How were they relocated? What happened to their property and their belongings? The descriptions of the temporary camp at the Puyallup Washington State Fairgrounds and the more permanent one in Minidoka, Idaho seem unreal.
The story of Henry as a young teen during World War II is interspersed with Henry’s life in 1986. He’s now widowed and has a college age son. Henry hears about belongings from World War II found in an old hotel and that starts him on a search to find out what happened to Keiko. I highly recommend this book. It is much more readable than Stubborn Twig and also gives some insight into what other ethnic groups felt about the Japanese relocation and internment.
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