The Last Town on Earth

Mullen, Thomas. The Last Town on Earth. New York: Random House. 2006. Print.

First Sentences:

The sun poked out briefly, evidence of a universe above them, of watchful things -- planets and stars and vast galaxies of infinite knowledge -- and just as suddenly it retreated behind the clouds

Description:

While the deadly 1918 Spanish Influenza swept the world, in some places entire towns tried to isolate themselves from outsiders to protect themselves from infection. Thomas Mullen, author of the novel The Last Town on Earth, imagines one such barricaded city and what it would it be like to live during these frightening times. 

Mullen's fictionalized town, Commonwealth, is a remote mill town in Washington. Its residents put up barriers on the only road into their town and then armed ordinary citizens to act as guards to turn away any person who wanders too near their borders. But when a starving World War I soldier is shot climbing over the barrier, the town must face the implications of their decisions.

And the fear, isolation, and accusations don't stop with that incident. Commonwealth society begins to crumble under the suspicions of each other and their fear of the influenza. Several Commonwealth citizens are locked up to ensure the health of the majority. But slowly some begin to wonder whether such measures are actually effective and at what cost they have to their town, neighbors, and personal code?

Mullen presents this tale of a seemingly good idea, created and carried out by ordinary, moral people, that spirals to consequences no one imagined, forcing decisions that will haunt everyone involved. An imaginative yet chillingly realistic tale that grips you immediately and hold on to the final pages.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Saramago, Jose. Blindness

Inexplicably, almost an entire town suddenly goes blind. The survival of ordinary people struggling to live without sight and the social interaction between the still sighted people and the blind is chilling. 

China Dolls

See, Lisa. China Dolls. New York: Random. 2014. Print.

First Sentences:

I traveled west -- along -- on the cheapest bus routes I could find

Every mile took me farther from Plain City, Ohio, where I'd been a fly-speck on the wallpaper of small-town life.

Each new state I passed through loosened another rope around my heart, my legs, my arms, yet my whole body ached and I couldn't shake my vertigo. I lived on aspirin, crackers, and soda pop.

I cried and cried and cried.

Description:

So often books idealize friendships between central characters as unwavering through all circumstances and separation, a constant source of strength for times when a friend is needed. It takes a great writer like Lisa See in her newest historical fiction novel, China Dolls, to explore the truth of friendships, the variations and changes that occur between even the closest of friends over the years and events.

China Dolls opens with three young Chinese women meeting in San Francisco for the World's Fair in 1938. All are seeking employment as they try to escape from their current lives of difficult families, abuse, and dead-end careers. The World's Fair offers a few jobs for Chinese dancers, but eventually it is the new Forbidden City nightclub outside the fairgrounds that hires them for an all-Chinese floor show.

The girls become fast friends despite their different backgrounds. Ruby, defiantly ambitious and worldly; Helen, wealthy and traditional who still lives with her extended family; and Grace, the premier dancer who is fleeing from an abusive parent in a small town in the Midwest and has never met another Chinese person.

All of us, in our own ways, were doing the best we could to erase who we were. 

The world of the dance club performer is exciting and tawdry at the same time. Grace becomes an acclaimed dancer, while Ruby develops a Sally Rand-like bubble dance that vaults her to stardom. Helen creates a popular pairs dance act with the handsome Eddie, who has secrets of his own. The love and friendship of these women faces many challenges, and their relationships waver between support and jealousy as opportunities, betrayals, and secrets are introduced.

Each chapter is narrated by a different woman, offering her own thoughts and interpretation of the world she is starting to learn about. From life in a nightclub as a "pony" (chorus line) dancer to headliner stars, from the temptations of San Francisco to searches for individual identities as Chinese women in a Western world, the women reveal the world of 1938 and later years from three completely different perspectives. Each woman has secrets she keeps from the world and her friends, secrets that destroy their individual secure worlds and drive her friends away.

A woman isn't just one thing. The past is in us, constantly changing us. Heartache and failure shift our perspectives as do joy and triumphs. At any moment, on any given day, we can be friends, competitors, or enemies.

See is a talented writer fully in control of her characters and plot. She skillfully interweaves historic locations like the Forbidden City nightclub, the Treasure Island World's Fair, and Japanese internment camps into the story, making the world of the 30's and 40's come alive for those of us unfamiliar with the challenges and opportunities Chinese women faced then. And those women -- Ruby, Helen, and Grace -- become permanently etched in our minds as strong survivors, loyal, ambitious, and willing to live life.

I had made it this far without revealing my deepest secrets, and, for a moment, I forgot that to believe in dreams is to spend half your life asleep.

Great strong characters, interesting historical research and plot, and most importantly honest, clear writing make China Dolls an engrossing, unforgettable read. Dive into that world and you quickly won't want to break the bubble and return to our modern world.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

See, Lisa. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Two young girls in nineteenth century China exchange secret messages throughout their lives via notes on a fan they send to each other, sharing events in their lives, their hopes and loneliness, including the experiences of foot-binding, arranged marriage, motherhood and more. Delicately, exquisitely written.

Yutang, Lin. Moment in Peking: A Novel of Contemporary Chinese Life

Sprawling novel follows the lives of two lovers and their families for forty years in old, traditional China from the Boxer Rebellion to the invasion of Japanese in the early twentieth century. A beautiful book full of love, relationships, Chinese history, and traditions. 

In Cold Blood

Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences. New York: Random House.1965. Print

First Sentences:

The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there."

Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the country side, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes.

Description:

With the recent death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, I decided to re-watch his brilliant Oscar-winning performance in Capote which depicts Truman Capote's research into the murder of four family members in their home in rural Kansas. I had never read the book that Capote created from this investigation, so decided it was time. Luckily, I had a copy on my bookshelf and immediately immersed myself in In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences by Truman Capote. And what a great ride it turned out to be for me.

One quiet, ordinary day in 1959 in a small town in Kansas, four members of the Clutter family -- two parents and their two teenage children -- are found in their home bound, gagged, and shot in the head with a shotgun at close range. There is no evidence of a robbery, no witness, and no suspects. 

Who are these people, both the victims and the killers? What is the motive? What kind of town is this where this could happen? Who is doing the investigation and what are their chances of discovering the criminals and other answers?

It's a bit unnerving to commit yourself to reading about a real life multiple murder. But Capote uses a calm, matter-of-fact style that removes any flaming prose, judgment, and gratuitous details of this shooting to avoid shock for shock's sake. Using his original style of the "nonfiction novel," Capote researches and presents the facts clearly and in detail from reports, interviews, conversations, articles, etc., but fabricates conversations, thoughts, and organizes the actions into a compelling, highly readable narrative.

Like the first sentences shown above, there is a calmness to his words which paint the murder setting as quiet, isolated, and "out there."  But within these quiet descriptions, Capote gives subtle hints of something else, with adjectives of "lonesome area," "hard blue skies," and "barbed" local accent. The narrative lulls you, but its starkness and edge somehow pull you in deeper and deeper. It's as if you are reading the details of a police report or listening in on conversations: completely devoid of emotion, personality, and judgment by the writer. 

Slowly, events in the town and its people unfold as Capote provides background leading up to the murders. Using interviews, statements, news articles, he tells about the people, the actual murders, the killers' motives, and the steps the law took to pursue the murderers. Each family member and town person is carefully fleshed out, their lives, opinions, and goals uncovered. 

When the victims are discovered, townspeople react with natural fear, suspicion, and new locks on every door. Capote skillfully depicts their suspicions about each neighbor, adding locks to their doors for the first time. The book is about facts, but more importantly the feelings and motivations of people who commit a crime, the victims, and those left behind to deal with their new reality.

Also revealed are personalities of the murderers as they drive together to the Clutter farm, commit the violence, and then leave the crime scene far behind. As we ride along with the killers, their earlier home life, families, and criminal activities are revealed. Are they victims themselves or have they simply chosen to be cold-blooded killers? Should we feel sympathy for them or revulsion?

The local police, overwhelmed by the crime, call in the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and its top agent to take over the investigation. But no leads, no witnesses, and no motive frustrate him and his team for weeks. The killers are long gone.

Capote's taut narrative follows first the investigation, then switches over to the escaping murderers, then back again to the investigation to provide tension as to whether there will be a clean escape or an arrest. 

Capote has created a masterpiece of narration, facts, and personalities. He is a skilled storyteller, no matter the grisly subject matter. The style is unemotional, clear, honest - almost like it, too, was written in cold blood.

Fantastic. Riveting. Taut. What else can I say but read it.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Capote, Truman. Other Voices, Other Rooms

Capote's first novel, the sensitive story of a young boy who sets off to meet his father who abandoned him at birth. 

Haruf, Kent. Plainsong

A pregnant high school girls enters the life of two elderly bachelor farmers is the small town of Holt, Colorado on the edge of the plains.  

Regeneration

Barker, Pat. Regeneration. New York: Dutton. 1992. Print

First Sentences:

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

Description:

Sigfried Sassoon wrote the above words to his British commanding officer during World War II in 1917 while on convalescent leave. His entire letter, "Finished with the War: A Soldier's Declaration," was widely distributed, appearing in London newspapers and was read before Parliament. 

The problem was that Sassoon was a war hero, decorated for bravery with the British Military Cross, the Star, the British War medal, and the Victory medals. To have such an anti-war statement issued from one of its leading soldiers was a delicate situation.

Rather than be given a court-martial for his "Declaration" and refusal to return to the Front, Sassoon was deemed to have suffered from neurasthenia (i.e., a mental breakdown or "shell shock"). He was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital, a convalescent facility for military personal damaged by the war, to be treated by the psychologist W.H.R. Rivers. The challenge Sassoon and others faced at Craiglockhart as well as their discussions about the reality of war, it effects on soldiers, doctors, and women, and their personal struggles to respond to these challenges is vividly, poignantly brought to life by Pat Barker in her book, Regeneration.

Focusing on Craiglockhart Hospital and Dr. Rivers, Barker uses the psychiatrist's thoughts, conversations, and treatment of Sassoon as well as other military patients to deftly reveal the fragile state of existence these men now experience as their recollections and actions from the Front haunt their lives.

It is Rivers who controls the fates of these men, since he must make recommendations about their mental fitness to return to the Front. Rivers gently questions and explores their memories, their family life, and their dreams through individual sessions, seeking the underlying causes for each mental breakdowns. These are men who, despite all their efforts, have been rendered mute, who refuse to believe they can walk, who suffer nightmares and screaming fits. Slowly, cautiously, they begin to reveal themselves to Rivers through calm, yet riveting doctor/patient conversations. And hopefully, they begin to heal.  

Barker shows these men not as cowards seeking shelter from the fighting, but who, despite their physical and mental injuries, want desperately to return to the Front and continue the fight. Even Sassoon, once his treatment is completed, grapples with the question of whether to fulfill his promise to serve, or to refuse to return to the Front, abandon his honor and men, and receive a dishonorable court martial for his beliefs. 

These beautifully, powerfully written personal moral dilemmas, these portraits of proud, broken men and their gentle treatment guided by Rivers, make Barker's historical fiction so compelling, so encompassing. What will happen to each man facing a new day, and what does the future hold for them? We readers live and breathe with Rivers and Sassoon particularly/ They are the representatives of duty and belief, of health and shock, of hope and despair. Their conversations parry and thrust at the reality of a world at war and the duty of men to fight or stay true to his convictions.

It is historical fiction at its best, skillfully recounting factual people, documents, and decisions with fictional conversations and relationships. Barker includes the factual interactions Sassoon and Rivers have with famous people of that era. Wilfred Owen, the war poet, met and worked on his poetry with Sassoon in Craiglockhart, poetry that became internationally famous after the War. Bertrand Russell gave encouragement to Sassoon for his pacifistic views. Rivers himself was a childhood friend of Lewis Carroll.

Barker is a master of the quietly disturbing atmosphere of Craiglockhart and its population, both doctors and patients. These are real people undergoing traumatic upheaval in their lives and trying to overcome their current weaknesses. 

And Rivers himself is part of this damaged group, facing his own stuttering and insecurities, questioning his own beliefs and sense of responsibility when working with these young men he must judge fit enough to return to the Front to a War his conscience now questions. Even Rivers admits, after viewing yet another appalling, devastating situation caused by the hopelessness of the war, that "Nothing can justify this, Nothing nothing nothing."

Absolutely engrossing in its setting, dialogue, and historical account of this troubled era, Regeneration is the first book in a long time that I could not wait to read each day. Highly, highly recommended.

Note: I just learned that Regeneration is the first part of a three-book series by Barker. The other two books, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road (which won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1996) follow the lives of these same characters after the close of Regeneration. Guess my reading list has two new additions. Can't wait to hear more about these men.


Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hochschild, Adam. To End All Wars  

Incredibly detailed, yet highly readable account of the events leading up to, during, and after World War I (previously reviewed here)

Rubin, Richard. The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten War  

Rubin finds, in 2003, there are still living veterans of World War I and interviews them. Their 105+ year-old memories are rock solid for details and their narratives are both chilling and revealing of what war in 1917 was like. Fantastic!

Sutton

Moehringer, J.R. Sutton. New York: Hyperion. 2012. Print

First Sentences: 

He's writing when they come for him.

He's sitting at his metal desk, bent over a yellow legal pad, talking to himself, and to her -- as always, to her. So he doesn't notice them standing at his door. Until they run their batons along the bars.

 






Description: 

Willie Sutton was a real bank robber in the Roaring 20's through the 1950s, but what a bank robber he was. He was different from other gangsters: a dapper figure who employed costumes (hence his nickname "Willie the Actor") of delivery boys and policemen to convince staff to allow him to enter banks before they were open to the public. Although he brandished guns, he rarely resorted to violence during his jobs. He was a hero to the public who despised banks during those years of multiple financial depressions. In all, he stole more than $2 million from banks, real money in those days. 

But it wasn't all a romantic romp in the park  He did spend over half his life in jail. 

And when Sutton was finally paroled in 1969 from his life sentence in Attica Prison, he gave only one final interview, spending his first day of freedom revisiting the places of significance in his life with a single reporter and a photographer. The article from this interview was published in The New York Times, but shed little new light on Sutton's life.

What really went on during that Christmas Day interview among those three men? No one knows as all the principals are now dead. But what might have happened, what might have been said, and what might have been revealed at the sites they visited is imagined in Sutton, a highly engrossing history/novel by J. R. Moehringer. 

Sutton follows the bank robber on that day-long exploration of his haunts in New York City. From Sutton's birthplace to the jewelry store of his first job, from the spot where he met Bess (the woman of his dreams), to the jails that housed him, Willie and his two companions drift through the city revisiting his past.

Readers are taken inside Sutton's head to hear his private memories for each site, the people, the robberies, and the repercussions. Sutton's recollections, however, stand in stark contrast to what he actually tells the reporter.

Exactly what really happened and what are only Willie's colored remembrances? 

This is a fascinating, well-paced book about one man's reflections on the world of people and banks and the forces that brought them together to chart his destiny.

Happy reading. 


Fred
www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

Comments 

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
 

Moehringer, J.R. The Tender Bar: A Memoir 

Captivating and endearing memoirs of a boy who spent his formative years in a local bar, talking with the patrons, learning and experiencing life, love, and adulthood.

Carter Beats the Devil

Gold, Glen David. Carter Beats the Devil. New York: Hyperion. 2001. Print

First Sentences:

On Friday, August third, 1923, the morning after President Harding's death, reporters followed the widow, the Vice President, and Charles Carter, the magician.

At first, Carter made the pronouncements he thought necessary. "A fine man, to be sorely missed," and "it throws the country into a great crisis from which we shall all pull through together, showing the strong stuff of which we Americans are made." When pressed, he confirmed some details of his performance the night before, which had been the President's last public appearance, but as per his proviso that details of his third act never be revealed, he made no comment on the show's bizarre finale. Because the coroner's office could not explain exactly how the President had died, and rumors were already starting, the men from Hearst wanted quite desperately to confirm what happened in the finale, when Carter beat the Devil.

Description:

When I was thinking about what book should be the first on presented in this blog, Carter Beats the Devil kept coming back to me as the embodiment of what I hold true: that a great read is exposed in the first sentence or two, and doesn't complacently expect a reader's patience to keep reading until things hopefully heat up. In contrast, a great read immediately grabs your mind with mental pictures, interesting characters, and surprising word usage that compels you to keep reading. It is the author's job to keep you reading, to make you move from one sentence, one page, one chapter to the next. And author Gold does this from page one to the end in Carter Beats the Devil.  

Gold starts Carter with an opening sentence/paragraph containing all the elements I need to keep me going and promise a compelling read. Interesting characters? Check (a president and magician). Quality writing? Check (even got me to look up "proviso" ["A clause in a document making a  qualification, condition, or restriction. according to thefreedictionary.com]. And what exactly is done when you "beat the Devil")? Intriguing situation? Check ("President's last public appearance" possibly connected with a magic act's "bizarre finale" and the quiet statement that the "coroner's office could not explain exactly how the President had died"). I am definitely intrigued to read more. 

And who doesn't like magic? Mysterious death scenarios? Love stories? Intrigue? Carter Beats the Devil has them all, presented in a fast-paced style that will wrap you up like a blanket on a cold night. After Carter, (the lead character is based on the real life historical magician, Charles Carter), gives his last grandiose performance with President Warren G. Harding in the audience, the President returns home and dies mysteriously. The magician, under immediate suspicion, eludes pursuers and disappears. Did he or didn't he? And if he did, how exactly could he have killed a president so ingeniously that history would not mention Garfield's death as a murder? 

After this opening scene of magic performance, death, pursuit, and escape, the book jumps back to the beginnings of Carter's life, his introduction to magic via the book, The Practical Manual of Legerdemain by Prof. Ottawa Keyes, (and yes, I looked it up on Amazon and WorldCat, but couldn't find it). I love exploring new information, definitions, and pathways introduced in a great read such as this one.  

It's delightful to read of Carter's early performances and the people of his life: family, friends like Houdini, and lifelong rivals like Mysterioso. We watch Carter's drive to master old tricks, peering over his shoulder during his early years performing on the road, developing his craft, and eventually creating new illusions until he becomes a figure of international fame, as well as a hated rival and eventual fugitive of the law.

Of course, there is a love interest who emerges for Carter as well as the inevitable final confrontation between him and the embittered Mysterioso, but it is a testament to Gold's skills to make a fascinating read of these familiar conventions. 

This book enveloped me. I loved seeing in my mind Carter's performances, wondering at his illusions, and getting to know the variety of people in his life, ranging from Carter's love to the dogged Secret Service agent always in the wings, seeking to uncover the magician's role in the death of a president.

It's a long book, over 480 pages, but if you are like me, you accept and even relish the time necessary to unfold a great story with interesting characters and actions. So curl up on a weekend and let yourself fall into this novel and explore the lives of unique people and events of life magic, mystery, and love at the turn of the century. You won't regret it. 

Happy reading.  

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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It this book interests you, be sure to check out: 

Steinmeyer, Jim. The Glorious Deception: The Double Life of William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, the Marvelous Chinese Conjurer