The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

The Art of Fielding  is one of my favorite books this year.  Not because of the plot, but because of the baseball.  My favorite parts were the descriptions of Henry Skrimshander's fielding ability, the practices, and the games.  Harbach can romance the action on the field with remarkable clarity, and I love these sections.

Another favorite part--the excerpts from the fictitious book The Art of Fielding by Aparicio Rodriguez:

"The glove is not an object in the usual sense," said Aparicio in The Art of Fielding.  "For the infielder to divide it from himself, even in thought, is one of the roots of error."

"The shortstop is a source of stillness at the center of the defense.  He projects this stillness and his teammates respond."

"To field a ground ball must be considered a generous act and an act of comprehension...." 

Aparicio's book is the only book that Henry takes with him to Westish College, but for him, the book is a mentor and a philosophy.

The first half of the book was excellent, and I enjoyed all of the Melville connections, even the name Skrimshander evokes scrimshaw and images of whaling.  As the complications involving the relationships began taking more precedence, however, I felt much less attached.

Nominated for a Pulitzer (although it did not win), the book has garnered great praise and severe criticism.  I loved the book, but did feel that some of the relationships off the field were a bit forced, nor did the last few chapters work that well for me.

It isn't a book that I'll forget; it will linger much longer than many of the books I read.

Fiction.  Contemporary Lit.  2011.  512 pages.

The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair

The Girl in the Garden  begins with a long letter that Rakhee Singh leaves her fiance before leaving on a flight to India.  On top of the letter sits her engagement ring.

In the letter, Rakhee explains that she cannot marry him until she has  confronted the problems she has wrestled with for years and resolved some issues from her past.

She begins by telling about her childhood, the relationship of her parents in their small Minnesota town, her sense of being different from the blonde and blue-eyed children at school, her mother's unhappiness, and the sudden trip to India when she was ten.

The writing is effortless, and it was easy to fall headlong into this story of a child who visits the ancestral home in India one fateful summer.  Nair's descriptions of the family she meets in India--her grandmother, her aunt and uncle, and her cousins--and the differences between life in India and life in Minnesota are vivid enough to make you feel the scorching heat, the incipient friendships of the cousins, and the feeling of something unsaid and mysterious behind the family relationships.

When Rakhee ventures alone into the jungle and discovers a house with a walled garden, events begin to slowly unravel the intricate secrets the family has been keeping.  Rakhee's courage and persistence bring to light truths that are painful to confront and with which the adult Rakhee is still  struggling and must resolve before she can marry the young man she left behind.

I loved Nair's writing and watching the story unfold from Rakhee's childhood viewpoint.  Of the family secrets that are eventually revealed, there was one that I wished the author had avoided, but it diminished my pleasure in the novel only slightly.

Fiction.  Contemporary Lit./India.  2011.  305 pages.

Summer of the Bear by Bella Pollen

Bella Pollen's Summer of the Bear is my favorite book so far this year.   I finished it well before we left on vacation, but was (and still am) so far behind on reviews that I'm only getting around to it now.

When Nicky Fleming, the lovable husband, father, and career diplomat dies under strange circumstances in Germany during the Cold War, his family is left with too many unanswered questions.  The story examines the terrible grief of his wife and three children as they try to get on with their lives.

Each character, including the charismatic Nicky, is so beautifully wrought that each seems completely real.  Letty, his disconsolate wife, relocates with their three children to a remote island in Scotland's Outer Hebrides where Letty spent the best years of her childhood and feels safe in a community of odd and interesting characters.  Her hope is that the sanctuary of her beloved island will help heal her fractured family.

Georgie, the oldest daughter, has some secrets she is not ready to reveal about her trip to East Berlin with her father.  Alba, the middle child, is angry at everyone and everything.  Jamie, the youngest, never gives up hope that his father, who he has decided is on a secret mission, will return eventually.
Letty struggles with the accusation that her husband was a traitor.

And then there is the bear...

Letty, in her grief, becomes emotionally distant.  Georgie tries to maintain a kind of peace in the family.  Alba's anger finds many outlets.  Jamie trusts that his father will keep his promise.

The writing is beautiful, and I found the plot seamless.  Pollen mixes reality, mystery, coming of age, and myth with consummate skill.

Alba and Jamie take center stage--the girl with no faith left and the boy who subsists on faith in his father.  The two are often in conflict, at least on Alba's side.

"It annoyed Alba that people accused her of hating things indiscriminately.  It wasn't true.  She had her reasons for feeling the way she did and they were good ones.  For example, she despised over-polished furniture, easy-listening music and shiny food, as represented by, say, the glaze on doughnuts or the sweaty sheen of a tomato ring.  She resented fish, loathed any form of sentimentality and strongly believed that doors should be kept either open or shut, never in-between.  This short list, selected entirely at random, did not constitute the sum total of Alba's wrath at life.  Far from it.  Alba incubated a fresh grievance for each day of the week.  In fact, if someone cared to ask her--and God knows, she often wished they would--she could dredge up bona fide irritation for every letter of the alphabet."

Jamie is the most frequent object of her wrath.  And poor Jamie worships Alba.

The lack of communication that occurs after Nicky's death is in large part responsible for the misery his family continues to endure.  The author allows the information to leak out through each family member and through memories of their past in Berlin in such a skillful way that reader eagerly grasps each new piece of the puzzle.

Superbly written and masterfully plotted, Bella Pollen has completely captured me with The Summer of the Bear.  Highly recommended.

Fiction.  Contemporary Literature.  2010.  438 pages.

the map of true places by Brunonia Barry

The map of true places takes place in Salem, Mass., as did Barry's previous novel The Lace Reader.  I received the Lace Reader as an ARC in 2007 and liked it very much, so when I saw the map of true places at the library, I grabbed  it.

   Zee Finch is a psychotherapist in Boston who seems to have everything together, but who has become too involved with one of her patients.  She fears that Lilly Braeddon is being abused and that she has stepped over the line by offering advice.  When Lilly commits suicide, Zee suffers guilt and  self-doubt;she questions her career choice and her prospective marriage.

On a brief visit home, Zee realizes that her father Finch, who suffers from Parkinson's, has gotten much worse.  He has been hiding his decline from Zee, and he has told his long-time partner to move out.

Taking a leave of absence, Zee becomes her father's caretaker and in doing so, learns a great deal about herself.   Yet even removed from Boston, she finds that Lilly's case pursues her.  Zee struggles to understand her relationship with her father and her relationship with her mother who also suffered from bipolar disease and committed suicide.  She attempts to discover why Finch has broken with Melville, his long-time companion.  And she begins a new relationship.

All of things are intertwined in intricate and surprising ways, and there are several little plot twists that keep things very interesting.

Other Reviews:  The Zen Leaf,   GenPlus, Wordsmithonia,   

  Fiction.  Contemporary Lit.  2010.  406 pages.

The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst

Parkhurst, Carolyn.  The Nobodies Album.

An unusual approach to a novel, but for me, ultimately successful.  Parkhurst's protagonist Octavia Frost is a novelist who has decided to re-write the endings to some of her previous novels.  Just as she is to deliver her manuscript to her publisher, she learns that her son has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend.

Parkhurst's prose flows, pulling the reader into an almost poetic narration concerning Octavia's still very present grief over the deaths of her husband and daughter in the past, her concerns about the four year estrangement from her son, and her opportunity to possibly heal the breach by flying to San Francisco to be near him.

Octavia loves her son and has followed him through the press as his career as a rock star has risen, but doesn't know how to go about re-establishing their relationship.  Even her trip to stand by Milo amid the lurid publicity leaves her uncertain as to whether he will allow her presence in his life.

At first the interspersed chapters of original and revised endings to her novels were frustrating and uncomfortable, but  I found them less intrusive after a while and began to appreciate Octavia's need to revise her relationship with her son and to work through the grief over the loss of her husband and daughter in multiple ways, by first writing the novels and then by applying alternate endings.  Eventually, the frustration I experienced was that there just was too little in the snippets she included...I wanted more of those stories.

There is also an interesting discussion concerning whether or not an author should even consider changing a published novel.

 Beautifully written, imaginative and innovative, The Nobodies Album is complex and multi-layered:  a novel about grief, about self-reflection, about the way individuals search for meaning even where there is none, about the accidents of timing, and about redemption. 

another review:  raidergirl3

Fiction. 2010. 312 pages.

American Rust

Meyer, Philipp.  American Rust.

Told from various viewpoints and from different versions of stream of consciousness, American Rust is the story of economic deterioration that affects all aspects of life.  When the prosperous steel industry  collapsed, the small town of Buell in Pennsylvania began a slow death as jobs disappeared, families split apart, and the struggle to survive became more and more difficult.

Isaac English has been caring for his invalid father for years after his mother's suicide.  His sister Lee has always been his father's favorite, but Isaac finds himself the caretaker when Lee goes to Yale.  Isaac has endured his father's disdain and delayed his own dreams.  Finally, Isaac makes up his mind to leave, steals $4,000 dollars from his father, and takes off.

Issac's mental conversations with himself are often in the third person, referring to himself as "the kid."  On his way out of town, he convinces his friend Billy Poe to accompany him part of the way.  Isaac is almost all intellect; Poe is a former high school athlete whose physical capabilities are his strong point.

When the two of them get into trouble with some transients, it is, ironically, Isaac that rescues Poe, but with devastating results that will change the course of both of their lives and the lives of those who love them.

The novel looks at families that may once have been normal, but with the failure of the steel industry, the loss of jobs and self-respect, emotional trauma, and extreme economic hardships have become dysfunctional in different ways.

One strange feature (to me) is that all of the characters (with the exception of Billy Poe's father) take responsibility for their actions, their mistakes, and their failures.   Grace Poe (Billy's mother),  the local sheriff (Grace's occasional lover),  Lee, Isaac's father, and Isaac and Poe...all spend some time recognizing and taking responsibility for some of the choices that over the years have led to the event that affects them all.  I think it unusual that so many of the characters eschew rationalization and self-justification and recognize their own responsibility. 

Not totally dark, but certainly in the dusky realm, American Rust is both disturbing and compelling as it examines the American Dream gone wrong.  It has a particular resonance with the current economic times in which the dreams of a few years ago find themselves confronting unexpected and unprepared for financial realities.

Fiction.  Contemporary literature.  2009.  367 pages.