A Life Impossible

Gleason, Steve. A Life Impossible: Living With ALS: Finding Peace and Wisdom Within a Fragile Existence. New York: Knoff 2024. Print.

First Sentences:

I sat naked in the shower while a twenty-four-year-old man washed my armpits.  Across the bathroom, my three-year-old daughter, Gray, sat in the middle of the floor, cross-legged like the Buddha, with one difference. She was wailing hysterically and incessantly. Inconsolable. And I was incapable of helping her.


Description:

It is almost impossible to comprehend living day to day, hour to hour, a life where every voluntary muscle in your body is unable to function. You are robbed of the ability to walk, raise your arms, close your hands, speak, even breathe. Smiling and blinking are denied. 

Yet such is the ongoing existence of author Steve Gleason for the past thirteen years (and counting) since his diagnosis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, i.e., Lou Gehrig's Disease).

He thoughtfully, emotionally, and openly discusses his journey from his boyhood through years as a professional football player, to young married trying to understand his fatal ALS diagnosis, and on then his continuing struggles with his restricted life today in his memoir, A Life Impossible. 

To call him a survivor is too passive a label. He is a battler. Throughout his life he has deeply contemplated his life, his personal situation, his emotions, and his future. His brilliant writing in this book are transporting. Gleason allows readers into the deepest parts of his mind, from denial of the diagnosis as a 33-year-old man to a firm confidence he can beat the disease; from despair as his relationships crack under the strain of his needs for constant, intimate care, to occasional peace of mind as revelations occur to him that give him even temporary triumphs in communication or action.

I'd spent most of my life seeking the sacred and extraordinary, but [meditation] was showing me that the sacred is within us....I'm not sure how much it was improving my "real life," but for a guy who was living with ALS, to have an hour a day of peace and even bliss, it was a welcome change.

During Gleason's New Orleans Saints' football career, he played on special teams. In 2006, he blocked an opposing Atlanta Falcons' punt on their first series of downs which was quickly recovered for a Saints' touchdown. This was an incredibly gutsy play by Gleason which surprised everyone on the field, the stadium, and in the Monday Night Football audience, and led to a Saints victory. 

It was an historic play as this was the first game held in the New Orleans Superdome, a beloved landmark for the citizens, which had finally opened after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Gleason's block and eventual Saints' victory signaled the beginning of the city's recovery. There is now even a statue of Gleason blocking that punt residing in front of the stadium, so important was the symbolism of New Orleans' triumph.

But ALS soon robbed him of his dream to live off the grid with his new wife, Michel, in an isolated spot somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Slowly and unceasingly, he awoke each day to another loss of strength and function. "Most people awake each day from a nightmare. I awake to a nightmare," he stated. 

He also lost all his savings due to an investment with friends in an alternative real estate company which went bankrupt. He repeatedly tried for a different diagnosis, experimented with every type of possible cure from faith healers to diets to meditation. His eventual failures to walk even a few steps, swim, have sex, or swallow forced him to realize that ALS was progressing relentlessly.

But although he writes of his discouragement with his situation, he also created "Team Gleason" with friends and families to explore treatments, medical devices, and opportunities to expand horizons for other ALS patients. 

He wanted to prove to himself and others that life can still be lived, and began to travel, give speeches, fish for salmon in Alaska, and even reach the top of Machu Picchu in Peru sitting in an electronic wheelchair that had to be carried over foot-wide pathways.

Gleason proved to ALS sufferers and others that the world could still be expanded . While he still could speak, he recorded 1,500 English phrases for a company called CereProc which then created a customized voice similar to his own for oral expression of his typed words.

Team Gleason grew and donors contributed to ALS research. The highly popular ALS fund-raising Ice Bucket Challenge was started by a Team Gleason member. Other ALS patients formed discussion groups to share stories, coping techniques, and understanding hearts with each other and the world. Through Gleason, others learned they were not alone, had options, and could lead expanded lives.

Gleason received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest United State Civilian honor, in 2019. Then in 2024 he was presented with the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage given for "strength, courage and willingness to stand up for their beliefs in the face of adversity.” Upon receiving this award, Gleason delivered a brilliant speech (created before the ceremony using only his eye/laser letter-by-letter composition program) verbalized through his synthetic voice to the ESPY audience. A documentary film, Gleason, was recently finished (available on Amazon Prime). His social media site has over half a million followers today.

 

A wonderfully powerful book that spares readers no emotion, thought, or dream that enters author Gleason's mind and world throughout his journey. Highly recommended.

Now I realize this: Life gets ugly at times, so when we have the chance to do something amazing in the midst of ugly, go for it.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Bauby, Jean-Dominique. The Diving Bell and the Butterflyh: A Memoir of Life in Death.   

One man's memoirs, painfully written using only the blinking of his one working eyelid, revealing how he experiences the "Locked-In Syndrome" where nothing on hiss body can be moved, no words can be spoken, yet his mind and awareness are still present in his seemingly lifeless body. Absolutely astonishing and powerful. (previously reviewed here)

 

Clear

Davies, Carys. Clear. New York: Scribner 2024. Print.

First Sentences:

He wished he could swim -- the swimming belt felt like a flimsy thin and it had been no comfort to be told not to worry, the men couldn't swim either. Each time they rose he glimpsed the rocky shore, the cliffs, the absence of any kind of landing; each time they descended, the rocks vanished and were replaced by a liquid wall of gray. He closed his eyes.


Description:

In the 1840s, the Scottish Clearances was a relentless movement by Scot landowners to remove poor tenants from their properties in order to turn the land into cheaper and more profitable sheep production. In Clear by Carys Davies, John Ferguson, an impoverished minister, agrees to take on the job of removing the last man from an isolated island off the northern coast of Scotland. John only takes on this work out of desperation to raise money for his struggling church. 

Of course, John is told by the landowner that the man to be removed will be set up in a better location, so should readily agree to leave his barren, wind-swept isolation for a better life. What could go wrong? In this intriguing historical novel, we soon find out.

On the first day on the island and before meeting anyone, John falls from a cliff, knocking himself out, and waking up in the hovel of Ivar, the very man he is supposed to evict. John does not speak the island's ancient language used by Ivar, but in the ensuing days, he slowly builds a dictionary of the forgotten words.

Ivar lives by scraping out a small garden and raising a few wild sheep, trading wool for his rent although due to the isolation of the island, the owner has not bothered to collect payment for decades. Tragedies in his family have left him to survive on the island alone.

Before the arrival of John Ferguson [Ivar thought] he'd never really thought of the things he saw or heard or touched or felt as words....It was strange to think of a fine sea mist, say, or the cold north-easterly wind that came in spring and damaged the corn ... It was as if he'd never fully understood his solitude until now -- as if, with the arrival of John Ferguson, he had been turned into something he'd never been or hadn't been for a long time... 

This quiet novel slowly unfolds the awkward relationship of the men as John recovers from his injury, living in close quarters in Ivar's sparse hut. And meanwhile, John's wife worries about her husband whom she hasn't been able to contact. She was against the work he was to undertake. Since the next boat to pick up John and Ivar is one month away, she is naturally restless for news of the men.

I loved this book. It is calming, exciting, intelligent, human, and challenging in its very quiet way. There is even an appendix with entries from an actual 1908 dictionary of the Norn language used in the Shetlands of Ivar. (Author Davies notes that the last native-speaker of Norn had died in 1850, just after the time period of this novel.)

Carys Davies is a new author to me, so I'm immediately ordering some of her other works. Fingers crossed they are anywhere near as good as Clear.

 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Davies, Carys. West.   

A widowed mule-breeder hears of the discovery of huge bones in Tennessee and, leaving behind his sister and daughter on his run-down farm, sets off into unknown lands to see whether these ancient giants still exist.

 

Remarkable Bright Creatures

Van Pelt, Shelby. Remarkably Bright Creatures. New York: HarperCollins 202. Print.

First Sentences:

Darkness suits me. Each evening, I await the click of the overhead lights, leaving only the glow from the main tank. Not perfect, but close enough. Almost-darkness, like the middle-bottom of the sea. I lived there before I was captured and imprisoned....Darkness runs through my blood.

 

Description:

Not sure whether Shelby Van Pelt's Remarkably Bright Creatures, title refers to octopuses or humans. You see, a small part of this interesting novel is narrated by an curmudgeonly Giant Pacific octopus, a creature (named Marcellus, of course) held in a tank located in the Sowell Bay Aquarium for the past four years.

"Held" is a relative term. At night, Marcellus is able to squeeze through a tiny opening under his tank's lid, pull himself out, and slip-slide throughout the room, snacking on the other water creatures in adjacent tanks, opening locked doors, and generally exploring everything in the aquarium during the 18 minutes he can survive before he needs to return to water. 

 

Remarkably Bright Creatures focuses of Tova Sullivan, an elderly woman who cleans the aquarium, idly talking to the fish and other waterlife there, including Marcellus, as she mops floors and polishes the glass on the tanks. Tova recently lost her beloved husband to cancer, and also thirty years earlier suffered the loss of her teenage son who disappeared one night under unknown conditions. Cleaning the aquarium gives her something to do and help her cope.

Marcellus hears her kind words of greeting and observes her sadness. And when one evening Tova finds Marcellus accidentally trapped in computer cords outside his tank during one of his wanderings, she rescues him and the two form an secret friendship. Tova even finds she can place her arm inside his tank and Marcellus will wrap a tentacle around it, squeezing it gently, and leaving suction marks that puzzle Tova's friends.

 

It should be mentioned that during Marcellus late-night movements, he collects items and hides them safely under a rock in his tank. And one item, he realizes, might prove how Tova's son died. But communicating this information is far from easy.

It is lonely. Perhaps it would be less so if I had someone with whom to share my secrets. I am very good at keeping secrets. You might say I have no choice. Whom might I tell? My options are scant.

Then along comes a young man, Cameron, who visits Sowell Bay on a quest to look for his absentee father as well as any information about his mother who had abandoned him years ago without revealing Camderon's father's name. An old photograph, high school yearbook, and class ring have led him to Sowell Bay and eventually to work in the aquarium alongside Tova and Marcellus.

Now hang with me for a moment, all you doubters. It sounds like a ridiculous premise: a thinking, observant sea creature who understands English, and remembers every action, word, and creature (aquatic and human) who enter his viewing room? But Marcellus is no ordinary octopus, or maybe he is and we have never gave his species credit for their cleverness and brain.

Well, of course I am intelligent. All octopuses are. I remember each and every human face that pauses to gaze at my tank. Patterns come readily to me....When I choose to hear, I hear everything...my vision is precise. I can tell which particular human has touched the glass of my tank by the fingerprints left behind. Learning to read their letters and words was easy....My neurons number half a billion, and they are distributed among my eight arms....I have wondered whether I might have more intelligence in a single tentacle than a human does in its entire skull.

Author Van Pelt cleverly, convincingly, dreamily explores and eventually ties together the stories of loss and hope of these characters. It is an absorbing tale of realistic figures (including the octopus), who deal with personal and social challenges and heartbreak, but retain hope throughout all their trials. It is an optimistic book, full of positivity and endurance despite the obstacles placed before each of them. A quiet story to absorb you from page one to the very end.

Secrets are everywhere. Some humans are crammed full of them. How do they not explode. It seems to be a hallmark of the human species' abysmal communication skills....Why can humans not use their millions of words to simply tell one another what they desire. 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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

Montgomery, Sy. The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness.

An absolutely fascinating account of the author's varied experiences with octopuses, relating numerous examples of their intelligence, interaction with humans, and lifestyles. Don't miss it.  (previously reviewed here)

West with Giraffes

Rutledge, Lynda. West with Giraffes. New York: Lake Union. 2021. Print.

First Sentences:
 

...I'm older than dirt. And when you're older than dirt, you can get lost in time, in memory, even in space. I'm inside my tiny four-wall room with the feeling that I've been...gone. I'm not even sure how long I've been sitting here.

Description:

 

Lynda Rutledge's West With Giraffes is delightful, compelling, romantic, and thrilling novel rooted in actual historic events. The novel depicts a cross-country journey from New York City to San Diego, California during the Great Depression, transporting two giraffes in a small truck. Rutledge brilliantly re-imagines that trip, backing up her narrative with historical news articles which documented the journey at that time and described the fate of the giraffes to the very interested public. 

 

On September 21, 1938, a hurricane hit New York City. Besides the usual destruction, the storm damaged nearby cargo ships, one of which, the SS Robin Goodfellow, was transporting two giraffes, Miraculously, these animals survived, although they had been abandoned as dead during the storm by the freighter's crew when the crates housing them were crushed.

Woodrow Wilson Nickel, now 105 years old, remembers that day and storm as the start of his adventure with the animals, and thus serves as the novel's narrator. As a 17-year-old orphan, Nickel had fled with Dust Bowl dryness of Texas where his family had died. He landed in New York City only a few weeks before the hurricane hit.

 

The giraffes, judged to be healthy after the storm, still need to be transported to the San Diego Zoo in California. Head Zoo Keeper, Riley Jones, gently talks and strokes the crated animals onto the make-shift truck that young Nickel stows away on. He is familiar with animals and, once he is discovered, is given the job of driving the truck and caring for the animals during the long trip.

Along the way, they pick up a young red-haired woman photographer interested in documenting this unusual journey. The giraffes had caught the nation's attention as hurricane survivors, so any accounts of their health and travels, she felt, would be major news.

Of course, the journey is full of surprises. Traveling across America in an old truck with two gangling giraffes was a sight to see for the people of every small town they pass through. And these gentle giants bring a sense of peace and quiet to Riley, Nickel, and Red, the photographer, as they meander over the back roads.

 

But they are pursued by men with more evil intentions. Percival T Bowles, a cruel circus ringmaster, and Cooter, owner of a decrepit roadside animal zoo, both want the giraffes for their own profit. It's up to Riley, Nickel, and Red to thwart these baddies.

 

West With Giraffes is a wonderful read, full of unexpected events, gentle (and not so gentle) characters, descriptions of life during The Depression, and the calming power of  two gigantic beasts on the people and world they encounter. Need a great, quiet, adventurous, can't-be-put-down read? Here's your answer. Highly recommended.

 

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Helfer, Ralph. Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived

True story of seven decades in the life of a remarkable elephant and the boy who bonded with him, from the giant's early life as a circus attraction, to his survival and  rescue of the boy during the sinking of a boat, to his work in teak forests and eventual stardom in an American circus. Simply a great read.

Go As a River

Read, Shelley. Go As a River. New York: Spiegel & Grau 2023. Print.

First Sentences:

He wasn't much to look at. Not at first, anyway.


Description:

It's an intriguing title to Shelley Read's debut novel: Go As a River. In this compelling story of a young woman's life in the tiny town of Iola, Colorado in the late 1940's and beyond, this phrase pops up to describe a way to survive and continue living:

I had tried...to go as a river, but it had taken me a long while to understand what that meant. Flowing forward against obstacle was not my whole story. For, like the river, I had also gathered along the way all the tiny pieces connecting me to everything else, and doing this had delivered me here, with two fists of forest soil in my palms and a heart still learning to be unafraid of itself.

Victoria Nash, a seventeen-year-old girl, lives with her father, uncle, and younger brother on their generational peach ranch, serving the men in her family and helping with the crops after the deaths of her mother, aunt, and older brother in a auto accident five years earlier. She has no dreams of another life or the world outside her home and nearby woods until a young stranger drifts through town...and she is smitten.

God will bring two strangers together on the corner of North Laura and Main and lead them toward love. God won't make it easy. 

The consequences of her love for this outsider drive the remainder of the story as she leaves her home and family to be with this young man. But soon the reality of life in that era intrudes on the couple's world and both young people and their lives are forever changed.

 

That's all I will reveal of the compelling plot. But please know this is a very special tale of choices, survival, love, and family as seen through the narrator's (Victoria's) eyes and senses. She is passionate about her family and the natural world that surrounds her, and works to nurture and preserve both by whatever means available to her strength and determination. Her voice is true and strong, whether describing her surroundings or contemplating her doubts and obstacles she faces in her present and future life.

The old house smelled like only old houses do, like stories, like decades of buttery skillet breakfasts and black coffee and dripping faucets, like family and life and aging wood.

This is completely Victoria's story, although other major characters are depicted with skill and honesty by author Read. It is a dreamy book in some ways, but always under laid with the reality of the challenging world surrounding this young girl and her later adult years.

I was completely caught up in Victoria and her world, her intense will to survive as well as her heartfelt doubts about whichever road she decides to take. read's prose is simple and clear as the orchard and woods Victoria inhabits, exactly setting the tone on both innocence and gritty determination.

He would teach me how true a life emptied of all but its essentials could feel and that, when you got down to it, not much mattered outside the determination to go on living. 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Doig, Ivan. The Whistling Season.   

A young, mysterious woman takes on work as housekeeper to a man and his sons on a small Montana farm. Along with her brother, she ingratiates herself into the family and community with long-reaching affects. Narrated by one of the young sons, it is a highly descriptive, delightful story of the people and events in a rural town. Absolutely one of the best books I have ever read. Highest recommendation.  (previously reviewed here)

 

The Librarianist

DeWitt, Patrick. The Librarianist. New York: HarperCollins. 2023. Print.

First Sentences:

The morning of the day Bob Comet first came to the Gambell-Reed Senior Center, he awoke in his mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon, in a state of disappointment at the face of a dream interrupted.


Description:

For fans of books about slightly crusty, interesting, but lonely men such as found in A Man Called Ove, here's a much better story (in my opinion): Patrick deWitt's The Librarianist. Of course, I might feel that way simply because the protagonist, Bob Comet, is a former librarian and also because I did not really enjoy reading Ove.

But The Librarianst is a very compelling story with likeable, quirky, unpredictable characters. And this book made me gasp out loud with two words at the end of one section. That's a real rarity for me. You'll have to read it yourself to get those words, but believe me, you won't miss them or fail to be caught completely unprepared for their revelation and implications.

 

Comet, a retired librarian, lives alone after his wife ran off with his best friend decades ago. He enjoys walking aimlessly around his hometown until one day, in a convenience store, he notices an elderly woman staring into a stand-up freezer window, motionless for many minutes. He talks to her without any response before noticing a tag she is wearing around her neck. Her name is Chip and she is a resident of a nearby eldercare home.

 

When Comet walks her back to her home, he is met by a small group of residents and staff who intrigue him right from the start. He wants to know them more and begins volunteering to work in the center, reading and interacting with the people there, however they will let him. 

The book then jumps back to provide a narrative of Comet's early life, why he became a librarian, his marriage, future plans, and disappointments, before returning to his present day life with the senior center's inhabitants.

To be hurt so graphically by the only two people he loved was such a perfect cruelty, and he couldn't comprehend it as a reality. He learned that if one's heart is truly broken he will find himself living in the densest and truest confusion.

One cannot help but like Bob, feel a bit sorry for him, praise his attempts to reach out to the residents and staff, and begin a new life that fills the void he has been feeling since his wife left. He is good guy, a caring person. 

But what the future has in store for him and the residents of the senior center is completely unforeseen, at least to me, especially after those rwo unexpected words. The unknown is what drives the book's narrative and my consuming interest in Bob Comet and company.

 

I really liked it and the characters, odd as they might be, and feel many other readers might respond to Bob Comet and company in a like manner. Hope you enjoy this gem.

Part of aging, at least for many of us, was to see how misshapen and imperfect our stories had to be. The passage of time bends us, and eventually, it tucks us right into the ground.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Jonasson, Jonas. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.   

An old man decides, on the spur of the moment, to escape his senior living home and take to the road. Within minutes, he mistakenly grabs a gangster's suitcase full of money. Chased by the mob and helped by various quirky friends, he has the adventure of a lifetime ... until he slowly reveals his previous adventures experienced in his century of living. (previously reviewed here)

 

Mouth to Mouth

Wilson, Antoine. Mouth to Mouth. New York: Avid Reader 2022. Print.

First Sentences:

I sat at the gate at JFK, having red-eyed my way from Los Angeles, exhausted, minding my own business, reflecting on what I'd seen the night before, shortly after takeoff, shortly before sleep, something I'd never seen before from an airplane.


Description:

Reading Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson was a bit like overhearing a storytelling session with Shahryar, the fictional Persian king as he listened to Scheherazade tell her 1,001 tales to her little sister Dunyazad. Like Shahryar, Mouth to Mouth's unnamed narrator raptly listens to and records for us a long story told to him by a vaguely-remembered college acquaintance. 

 

The well-dressed storyteller, Jeff Cook, and the listening scruffy narrator have a chance meeting in the Los Angeles airport while waiting for their flight to New York. Over drinks and snacks in the first class lounge, Cook unravels a secret he has been carrying for years, one that completely changed his life.

 

Early one morning while walking on a California beach, he relates, Cook noticed a swimmer gesturing from the water, then not moving. He swam out to the man who was now floating face down, struggled to pull him to shore, and then, when he saw the swimmer was not breathing, administered a clumsy CPR, pushing on the swimmer's chest (breaking some ribs) and somehow blowing life back into the victim's blue lips.

 

After the swimmer is helped into an ambulance for the hospital, Cook, then a scraggly-looking figure, was ignored and forgotten by everyone at the scene. But as the swimmer was hauled off by EMTs, Cookthought he saw the victim make eye contact from the stretcher and even tried to wave to Cook with his strapped down arm. 

 

So what were Cook's next choices? Walk away as the anonymous do-good lifesaver? Or find the swimmer and introduce himself? And what did Cook really want? Recognition? Thanks? Money? He admits he was very confused until he decided to try to find the swimmer. 

He was not even sure why he was pursuing this course of action and what the consequences might be, but tracking down the swimmer became his goal. What followed after Cook found the swimmer is completely unpredictable, a wild ride of mystery, skulking around, love, art, and, of course, plenty of lies.

 

Early on, Cook had hinted to the listener that his life story was full of risky chances, missed opportunities, and decisions made that now are viewed with regret. The narrator once even asks Cook:

"If you [Cook] could zero out everything that got you here, to this moment, you really would?

He nodded

"Everything you've just told me about?"

"Without a second thought."

I was completely involved as the listener/narrator recorded Cook's long, sometimes sorrowful, often rambling tale about his past. At the end of each short chapter, I was anxious to hear more, just like Sharryar following Scheherazade's tales. What would happen next? Who else might become involved? What consequences would be faced by Cook and others in this chase after the swimmer? And how would it end? I was kept guessing until the very last sentence of the tale, a twist that makes Mouth to Mouth an even more deliciously-tempting read.

It's a quiet story, a mystery, a thriller, a love story, a series of questionable decisions, and a morality play about the pitfalls and consequences encountered in the pursuit of an all-encompassing  goal: to understand the truth about who the drowning swimmer was and Cook's ultimate role in his life.

 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Highsmith, Patricia. The Talented Mr. Ripley.   

A young man is hired to report on the activities of a wealthy man's son living in Italy. But Ripley begins to envy the son and becomes obsessed with a scheme to kill the rich son and take his place in the life of luxury.  (previously reviewed here)

 

 

The Big Door Prize

Walsh, M.O. The Big Door Prize. New York: Putnam 2020. Print.

First Sentences:

How can you know that your whole life will change on a day the sun rises at the agreed-upon time by science or God or what-have-you and the morning birds go about their usual bouncing for worms?

How can you know?

And why would you think there's another life for you, perhaps another possibility inside of you already, when the walk that you take each dawn is so lovely and safe? When the roads are all paved and the sidewalks just swept and those who move along them, like you, seem so content to re-tread the worn path that they've made?

Why would you think it?.


Description:

These rather long first sentences present the theme of M.O. Walsh's intriguing, whimsical, romantic, and highly compelling novel, The Big Door Prize. Can you change your life, and, if given a bit of an encouraging nudge, would you ? Or would you prefer to stay the steady course of a life that you have carved out over the years, even if it does not always make you feel happy or fulfilled?

One day, in the small town of Deerfield, ("a town so simple it is named for what you might see and where you might see it"), a crude phone booth-like machine called the DNAMIX just appears mysteriously in the local grocery. The sign over the DNAMIX says the machine will tell you what your true potential is.

All you have to do it put in two dollars, insert a swab taken from your inside cheek, and a card is produced with your potential spelled out. Maybe it reads "Magician" or "Cowboy" or "Lover" or "Astronaut" or "Jazz Trombone Player" or "Chair-Saw Sculptor" or even "Royalty." 

The DNAMIX is an immediate sensation in the town. Everyone who tries it begins to completely change their personal lifestyles. New clothes are purchased that are more appropriately suited to their new calling. Jobs are quit. Previously unknown skills are practiced. And eyes are even opened to new possibilities in relationships.

But there are a few skeptics, including a school teacher whose marriage has grown stale; a teen whose wildly-popular twin brother died recently in a car accident; and another dangerous-looking girl who is seeking retribution for some unknown slight.

So what is the power behind this crude machine? Is it really accurate in its predictions? Will people become happier and more content in their new lives? Or will the skeptics somehow prove to townspeople that the machine is a fake and cannot know the future?

For the answers, you will have to read right up to the very last pages. I hope you do as it is a weirdly compelling story with ordinary characters who face the opportunity of completely embracing a renewed love of life for themselves and those around them.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Benjamin, Chloe. The Immortalists.   

If you could know the exact date of your death, would you want to find out? Five children wanted to know this information and whet to a back alley seer to find out. The novel follows each one in their lives as they move closer to their predicted last days. Excellent in every way. (previously reviewed here)

 

The Improbability of Love

Rothschild, Hannah. The Improbability of Love. New York: Knopf 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

Though she often passed Bernoff and Son, Annie had never been tempted to explore the junk shop; there was something uninviting about the dirty window piled high with other people's flotsam and jetsam.

The decision to go through its door that Saturday morning was made on a whim: she hoped to find a gift for the man she was sleeping with but hardly knew.

Description:

Sometimes a random decision spirals a person into a significant, complicated series of activities, similar to falling down a rabbit hole. Here, in Hannah Rothschild's The Improbability of Love, Annie McDee purchases a dingy painting depicting a woman, a man, and a clown in a meadow. Nothing special about it, and it was purchased on a whim.

But the painting just may be a very valuable lost work, "The Improbability of Love," by an obscure 18th century Flemish artist currently recognized in the art world as the creator of the rococo style.

Not knowing or really caring what she might have, Annie takes the painting to a museum to compare it to other similarly-styled paintings and look for a resemblance, if any, exists to other artists. 

Her actions are noticed and she comes to the attention of various characters: Russian oligarchs, museum curators, art auction house directors, restoration experts, fabulously wealthy collectors, and many others who try to ascertain whether this painting is the real deal and how they can get their hands on it.

But above all, this is a novel of romance and passion, whether for another person, a painting, respectability, or just money itself. This passion flows out of every page in so many forms that one cannot help but share or at least sense each character's overwhelming emotions and drive for a specific desire.

What is fascinating about this story is that a few short chapters are narrated by the painting itself, filling us in on its checkered past from creation to its wide range of royal and poor owners.

I can't see too well these days: two layers of varnish and chain-smoking have left my surface more than a little murky....It's a long time since I've been admired properly. I must admit I enjoyed it....As usual I had no say over what happened next, for ever the victim of human whimsy.

So is "The Improbability of Love" a valuable painting or a clever fake? What is the future of the painting? Who will end up owning it (if it survives the turmoil for authentication and claims of ownership)? And what role will Annie, her alcoholic mother, the friendly museum guide, and various other powerful people play in the painting's next act?

So it doesn't matter if I am what I say I am or not. What matters is that you want me. You might not know you want me yet but once I have told my story, once you understand, you will all want me.

A wonderfully written story full of wildly eccentric as well as warmly normal character, including the egotistic painting itself. It is full of passion, both romantic and artistic. Throughout, there is captivating background of artists, paintings, and collecting, as well as gourmet cooking services (for those who prefer book with culinary masterpieces).

I loved this book, one I had trouble deciding whether to continue reading page after page or reluctantly put aside to savory over several days. I hope you give it a chance. It will hook you and never let go until the very last pages, my kind of writing.

All that matters is that artists keep reminding mortals about what really matters: the wonder, the glory, the madness, the importance and the improbability of love.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

More book recommendations

About The First Sentence Reader blog

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

Shapiro, B.A. The Art Forger.   

A young woman artist agrees to copy a famous painting reportedly stolen from a museum. But on closer inspection, she notices that this painting itself may be a forgery, and the original who knows where? Solid, strong characters and intriguing story. (previously reviewed here)

 

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Feeney, Alice. Rock, Paper, Scissors. New York: Flatiron 2021. Print.

First Sentences:

My husband doesn't recognize my face. I feel him staring at me as I drive, and wonder what he sees. Nobody else looks familiar to him either, but it is still strange to think that the man I married wouldn't be able to pick me out in a police lineup.

Description:

I'm a big fan of Alice Feeney's twisty-turny novel, Sometimes I Lie, so was really looking forward to plunging into another of her books, Rock, Paper, Scissors. Well, it was lulu, too, so much so that when I read the last page, I immediately turned to the first pages to start it again, looking with newly-aware eyes at every thought, person, and incident. Not many books will make you do that.

Feeney is the master of the unreliable narrator(s) and edgy circumstances. In Rock, Paper Scissors, husband Adam and wife Amelia have agreed to try to save their marriage with a weekend away at an isolated inn, a converted chapel in the backwoods of Scotland. 

Along with faithful dog, Bob, they suffer a long car trip through a blinding snowstorm and unplowed dirt roads to reach their destination. Constant bickering ensued throughout the drive and memories emerge as the story's narration shifts between each person, unfolding their past lives and personal challenges from vastly differing perspectives.

Sounds like it's going to be a fun weekend, huh? 

To have wasted so much of our lives by not really living them, makes me feel so sad. We weren't always the people we are now, but our memories of the past can make liars of us all.

Add to these two smoldering individuals an environment full of clues that would warn any sane person to get the heck out of there: creepy, dusty living quarters; oddities glimpsed out of the corner of their eyes (or right in front of them); breathy whispers in the dark woods; electrical outages (with no available flashlights, of course); locked and then mysteriously unlocked doors; and, of course, no cell phone coverage. Naturally, a huge snowstorm prevents them from immediately fleeing upon arrival at this freezing spot. 

As they wait in these unwelcoming quarters, the narrators unravel the backstories behind their lives and marriage, although each remembrance is a bit different, tainted by the emotions, desires, and distrust of the other person.

You can feel it when someone you love is lying. What I don't know, yet, is why....

These seemingly rational narrators often do the exact opposite of what any normal person would do. They peer into and enter unnerving spots like the dank wine cellar located in the chapel's crypt. They open the door marked, "Danger. Do Not Enter" and walk right in. They lean on and then almost fall through the tall bell tower's crumbling wall. 

Soon, they begin to realize something very odd is going on besides their unraveling marriage and mounting suspicions about their partner. But don't worry, readers. I'm not one to read or recommend horror stories or slasher tales. Rock, Paper, Scissors, while definitely unnerving and edgy, does not offer a bloodbath, just the impending threat that something unsettling is just about to happen. It's a genuine thriller, one where you constantly say, "Don't go there" and "Don't do that," reading line after line between your fingers that partially cover your eyes.

I cannot reveal any more than this barest of backgrounds to get you absorbed into this tale of sad people trying to figure out what future is best for them, either with the other person or without. The choice to recover their relationship or forget it entirely and start afresh proves a challenge neither seems up to. And the lies continue to flow...

The reason why a person lies is almost always more interesting than the lie itself. My husband shouldn't tell them; he isn't very good at it.  . 

 Happy reading.

Fred

About The First Sentence Reader blog

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

O'Nan, Stuart. The Odds: A Love Story.   

A couple decides to take all the money they possess and use it all to bet on the future of their marriage -- on one roll of the dice. Win and they stay together; lose and they part. Narrated by each person on their drive to Niagara Falls, a reader will probably sympathize with one person, then reverse opinion after hearing the other side. Their fate is revealed only in the very last sentence. "Wow!" is all I can say.  (previously reviewed here)