Dancing at the Rascal Fair

Doig, Ivan. Dancing at the Rascal Fair. New York: Scribner 1987. Print.

First Sentences:

To say the truth, it was not how I expected -- stepping off toward America past a drowned horse.


Description:

Intriguing first sentence, isn't it? Bodes very well for an unexpected backstory, and Ivan Doig's Dancing at the Rascal Fair, comes through, delivering a wonderous story on every level: writing, characters, setting, and plot.

 

I picked this novel up out of desperation during a visit to my sister-in-law's house where I had run out of compelling books to read. Having recently finishing Doig's wonderful English Creek about turn-of-the-century life in isolated Montana, it was delightful for me to come upon Dancing at the Rascal Fair on her shelves just waiting to be read. And it turned out to be my favorite novel of the entire year.

 

The first book chronologically in Doig's "Montana Trilogy," Dancing depicts the tale of two young boys who immigrate from Neithermuir, Scotland to Gros Ventre, Montana. This tiny town is where Angus McCaskill, one of the boys and the book's narrator, has a distant uncle. The story follows Angus and his best friend, Rob Barclay, on their journey by boat, train, truck, and foot to end up in the mountainous, newly settled "town" (i.e., tents and two log saloons) of Gros Ventre. Here, Angus' uncle Lucas owned one of the two rustic saloons. It was Lucas who encouraged them to settle in the wide open valley nearby despite their lack of homesteading experience. As Lucas put it:

The Scotch are wonderful at living anywhere but in Scotland....At least Montana is the prettiest place in the world to work yourself to death, ay?

From there, we follow the boys as they explore and eventually settle on land worthy of sheep-raising, the livelihood they agreed to undertake as partners, pooling the work and any profits. They slowly become part of the community made up of early settlers who are both quirky and guarded in accepting new homesteaders. Their sheep-raising proves a challenge as well.

Rob and I were having to learn that trying to control a thousand sheep on a new range was like trying to herd water. How were the woollies? Innocently thriving when last seen an hour ago, but who knew what they might have managed to do to themselves since.

Rob and Angus slowly, surely establish a toehold in both their sheep and personal enterprises. They prove to be stubbon, hard-working, resiliant, and at times volitle, the exact combination of traits needed for survival.

Rememberd joy is twice sweet. Rob's face definitely said so, for he had that bright unbeatable look on him, In a mood like this he'd have called out "fire" in a gunshop just to see what might happen.

And that is just the beginning of their story about this wonderous Montana land, the people, the adventures in living, and the dreams they cling to throughout long winters, droughts, isolation, and disasters. And even through love.

You won't find it in the instructions on the thing, but for the first year of a marriage, time bunches itself in a dense way it never quite does again. Everything happens double-quick and twice as strong to a new pair in life -- and not just in the one room of the house you'd expect.

It is not a book about sheep-raising, although that is the background of all endeavours. It is a book about people, relationships, hard living, and dreams. There is plenty of action, loves, excitement, travels, and local wisdom filling every page to make this book my favorite of the year. It's so easy to fall in love with these characters and their lives, to breathlessly await their next adventure with interesting men and women, and the emotions that drive this community of settlers to survive and prosper.

Dancing at the rascal fair,

devils and angels all were there,

heel and toe, pair by pair,

dancing at the rascal fair.

Awarded my "Highest Recommendation."

 

[P.S. You can read more about the history of Scotch Valley, Montana and the descendents of the McCaskill and Barclay families in Doig's English Creek and Ride With Me, Maria Montana.]

 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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

Doig, Ivan. The Whistling Season.   

A Chicago woman in 1909 answers an advertisement for a housekeeper for a widower and his three young sons living in an isolated Montana town. She writes that she "Can't cook, but doesn't bite," and gets the job sight unseen (by both of them). She brings her brother with her on the train and he reluctantly becomes a unique schoolteacher. Simply wonderful, a great read not to be missed.  (previously reviewed here)

 

And Again

Chiarella, Jessica. And Again. New York: Touchstone. 2016. Print

First Sentences:

Maybe it's like being born. I don't know. It's impossible to compare it to something I cannot remember. When I finally come back to myself, it takes me a moment to realize I haven't died.


Description:

 

Four adults, Hannah, David, Connie, and Linda, are given a chance of living illness-free lives in Jessica Chiarella's debut novel, And Again. Through an experimental medical DNA procedure, each of these people has been transplanted into genetic duplicates of their original bodies, bodies which now are without the deadly diseases, paralysis, or tumors found in their previous bodies. All their memories have been preserved into these new clones, allowing these first human guinea pigs to resume their previous lives in unblemished, healthy bodies. 

 

If they can.

I would be either cured, or I'd be dead. Both options were preferable to remaining as I was.

In the first weeks and months following the procedure, each finds his or her new substitute body perfect, youthful, and marvelously alive ...but with several unexpected quirks. Because their bodies have lost some muscle memory, Hannah the artist, no longer can paint. Linda, who spent the last eight years in a hospital completely paralyzed and isolated following an automobile accident, now must re-join her husband and children who are definitely uncomfortable being around her. David, the politician, still has his same unsavory interpersonal habits, while Connie, the actress, stricken with AIDS scarring and looming death, now tries to recapture her Hollywood charisma.

It's been my experience that life has a way of ripping the rug out from under you just as you're finding your footing.

The four meet weekly with a therapist as part of the transplant program to discuss what they feel, how they are adapting to their new bodies, and what challenges they are facing. Together and separately, the patient address unexpected situations, thoughts, and emotions which might scuttle this experiential program and threaten potential funding needed to expand its availability to the general population.

 

And besides experiencing the world through new eyes and substitute bodies, their relationships with each of the test group and their old friends also changes, grows, lingers, and is seemingly forever modified for better or worse.

It's a challenging concept, one that subtly asks readers how they might deal with receiving a new, perfect, younger version of themselves. Given a second chance, what would you do? How would you change? Whom would your continue to be close to and whom might you move away from? 

 

This new world and body, they find, are not all good nor all bad. Faced with difficult choices throughout the book, these characters whom readers grow so close to, struggle and move onward in their new lives. Maybe not as we readers might have done, but the test group's choices and decisions seem genuine and all too human. A great, interesting read from a new author I plan to read more from.

And I wonder if someone can be homesick for herself, for the person she was just months ago.   

Happy reading.



Fred

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Watson, S.J. Before I Go to Sleep.   

A woman awakens one morning with no memory of who she is, who the man is in bed next to her, nor any details of her life over the part 30 years. She finds she can remember things which occur throughout the day, but then those memories are erased each night. As the days pass, she begins to suspect people around her are not who they say they are and might be taking advantage of her.  (previously reviewed here)

 

Sometimes I Lie

Feeney, Alice. Sometimes I Lie. New York: Flatiron 2018. Print

First Sentences:

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me:

1. I am in a coma.
2. My husband doesn't love me anymore.
3. Sometimes I lie.

Description

Here is a complicated story told by a woman just waking from a coma. She can hear everything within earshot in her hospital room, but remembers nothing of how she arrived in this condition other than a vague recollection of being in a car accident. Her other memories are clear right up to that incident. Oh, and she is completely paralyzed, so cannot speak, move, or respond to anyone who comes near her.

Alice Feeny's Sometimes I Lie is a ripping good set-up with a wonderfully untrustworthy narrator (note the book's title) who is trying to unravel a very twisty plot. Her husband, Paul, and sister, Claire, spend time in her hospital room. Although Amber is completely unresponsive, the visitors are all kind, talking to her without expecting a response. Yet somehow, as Amber listens to their words, she realizes each is part of the puzzle she is struggling to remember surrounding her accident. 

My husband and my sister sit on either side of the bed -- my broken body forms the border between them. The stretch-out time the three of us endure is coated in the silence of unspoken words. I can feel walls of them, each letter, each syllable piling up on top of one another to form an unstable house of unanswered questions. Lies form the mortar, holding the walls together.

The narrative switches frequently from Amber's musings about her current situation, to her earlier memories of her husband, to quotations from a diary kept years ago. Each chapter reveals new information about Amber and her former life, as well as about the people around her, but only grudgingly provides any solid clues as to what exactly happened, who is responsible, and what her future holds. And believe me, there are some completely unexpected turns of events that will change your entire perspective on everything about these people and their world.

I won't reveal any more of the novel, but suffice to say that if, by this time, you are intrigued, I urge you to follow your curiosity and settle into a comfy chair to read this delicious story. Absolutely absorbing, challenging, and unpredictable on so many levels. Very highly recommended.

I think about time a lot since I lost it. The hours here stick together and it's hard to pull them apart. People talk about time passing but here, in this room, time doesn't pass at all. It crawls and lingers and smears the walls of your mind with muck-stained memories, so you can't see what's in front of behind you. It eats away at those who get washed up on its shores and I need to swim away now, I need to catch up with myself downstream.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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

True memoir by the author who was completely paralyzed by a stroke and experienced the locked-in lifestyle where his brain and senses are completely intact, but he can only move one eyelid. Through a special Yes/No code for each letter of the alphabet, Bauby painstakingly dictates this beautifully-written memoir. Unforgettable.

The Lamplighters

Stonex, Emma. The Lamplighters. New York: Viking 2021. Print

First Sentences:

When Jory opens the curtains, the day is light and gray, the radio playing a half-known song.

He listens to the news, about a girl who's gone missing from a bus stop up north, and drinks from a mug of brown tea.


Description:

Emma Stonex's The Lamplighters is based on an incredible, true mystery. According to the Author's Note section, in December, 1900, three lighthouse keepers disappeared from a remote rock lighthouse on the island of Eilean Mor in the Outer Hebrides." They were never found. 

The Lamplighters is a fictionalized view depicting a similar occurrence. Set in the 1970s, author Stonex creates the world of life on a lighthouse island, of three keepers and their lives, their routines, and their secrets, all building up to a similar disappearance of all three men just like the historic incident from the 1900s.

The book opens with the scheduled relief boat trying to land on the lighthouse island in high seas. The lighthouse door, the relief men discover, is locked from the inside. The interior of the tower is neatly in order, but Arthur, Bill, and Vincent, the lighthouse keepers, are eerily not seen or answering to the relief men's calls. 

There had been no recent communication from the light tower, so this was deemed a "rescue mission" rather than a "relief" mission. In reality, the relief men felt they would be looking for bodies. It was inconceivable that the three keepers could have escaped the island without a boat. The door locked from the inside seemed to confirm the three keepers (or their bodies) had to be inside the tower or on the island someplace.

But they weren't.

There was no indication of a getaway, no sign of flight, nothing to suggest the keepers have gone anywhere at all...The table is laid for a meal uneaten. Two places, not three -- a knife and fork each, a plate waiting for food...The clock on the wall has stopped at eight forty-five.

So what happened? That is the ticklish, locked-room question that, twenty years later, an adventure writer, Dan Sharp, wants to try to answer. Sharp tries to dig into the circumstances that led to the men's disappearance by examining letters, old news articles, and interviewing the surviving wives, girlfriends, family, and town acquaintances. No source provides more than a few meager clues. 

Alternating between Sharp's investigation in the present with the daily routines of the lighthouse keepers twenty years in the past, The Lamplighters quietly keeps you closely involved with this mystery, forcing readers to examine every detail to try to predict what happened to these three men, and why?

Intriguing? To be sure. Tense? Of course. And engrossing? Of the highest order. I strongly predict this will be a book for a quiet, compelling read that keeps you wondering about the circumstances and people, and whether author Stonex will possibly reach any ending that proves satisfactory..

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Stedman, M.L. The Light Between Oceans.   

A lighthouse keeper and his young wife live on a small island off the isolated coast of Australia. Childless in their young marriage, they are surprised when a rowboat washes ashore carrying a dead man and a living three-month-old baby. The lighthouse keeper's young wife is adamant, after several miscarriages, that they keep the child themselves without revealing the source of the baby, but the morally principled husband feels they should seek out the infant's family.  (previously reviewed here)

 

Insomniac City

Hayes, Bill. Insomniac City. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017. Print

First Sentences:

I moved to New York eight years ago, and felt at once at home. 

 

In the haggard buildings and bloodshot skies, in trains that never stopped running like my racing mind at night, I recognized my insomniac self. If New York were a patient, it would be diagnosed with agrypnia excita, a rare genetic condition characterized by insomnia, nervous energy constant twitching, and dream enactment -- an apt description of a city that never sleeps, a place where one comes to reinvent himself.


Description:

From these very first words, I loved Bill Hayes's Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me  Who could not fall in love with such captivating language to describe a unique environment? Clearly, this book promised to be full of wry, thoughtful and unique observations, so I was all in.

 

Author Hayes moved to New York from San Francisco after the sudden death of his long-time partner, Steve. As an insomniac, Hayes began to wander his new city in the late and early morning hours, both observing and conversing with people who were similarly sleep-challenged.

In the summertime, late into the night, some leave behind their sweat-dampened sheets to read in the coolness of a park under streetlights. Not Kindles, mind you, or iPhones. But books,. Newspapers, Novels. Poetry. Completely absorbed as if in their own worlds. And indeed they are.

Hayes also brought along his camera, his "travel companion," during day and night city walks. He shot photos of people for his own private enjoyment. Unwilling to intrude on some intimate scenes, Hayes shot body parts that reflected the person's essence.

Couples captivated me -- on the Tube, on park benches, arm in arm on the street. Couples so in love you could see it in their faces....Their smiles were heartbreaking. I took pictures of their hands, laced together as if in prayer, or their feet -- the erotic dance that is a prelude to a kiss.

Hayes records these episodic meetings, observations, and photos in his diary, entries which he compiles into Insomniac City. And oh, the joy, hope, and humanity each piece presents to us lucky readers fortunate enough to share his everyday sights, elegant writing, and imagery. 

Sometimes I'd sit in the kitchen in the dark and gaze out at the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. Such a beautiful pair, so impeccably dressed, he in his boxy suits, every night a different hue, and she, an arm's length away, in her filigreed skirt the color of the moon. I regarded them as an old married couple, calmly unblinkingly keeping watch over one of their newest sons. And I returned the favor; I would be there the moment the Empire State turned off its lights for the night as if to get a little shut-eye before sunrise.

But there is yet another part of this wonderful book besides late night observations and photographs. Hayes meets Dr. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and best-selling author. The two men connect and become romantic partners, a first for Sacks in decades. Their loving relationship is also reflected on in Hayes' diary as he records bits of their conversations, random thoughts from Sacks, and a peak at the new life they spend together.

...last night the clock chimed,..O[liver] and I counted the chimes carefully. A big smile broke out on his face. "Oh! That's very eccentric! Earlier, it did ten chimes at four o'clock, and now, seven at nine."

We laughed how this is like having an aging parent in the house, one who's a little "dotty," gets a little lost, misremembers, from time to time ... 

I could keep on giving examples of Hayes' narrations, but I have to stop and leave so many more for you to experience. Suffice to say, I fell in love with both these men, New York City, and the beauty of descriptive writing that will stay with me for a long time. Highest recommendation.

I have come to believe that kindness is repaid in unexpected ways and that if you are lonely or bone-tired or blue, you need only come down from your perch and step outside. New York -- which is to say, New Yorkers -- will take care of you.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: and Other Clinical Tales.

Highly unusual cases recorded and commented on by Sacks, detailing his experiences in a New York neurology clinic depict some of his patient' symptoms and treatment, including: a man with no recollection of any events in the last sixty years; a man who cannot recognize faces (including his own); an autistic, but brilliantly gifted artist; a woman who has Irish songs from her childhood constantly running through her head; and of course, the title character who grabbed his wife's head and tried to put it on his own head. Incredible, readable, and wonderfully entertaining as you try to imagine the reality of these patients.

 

Endless Night

 Christie, Agatha. Endless Night. New York: Dodd, Mead. 1967 Print

First Sentences:

In my end is my beginning ... That's a quotation I've often heard people say. It sounds all right -- but what does it really mean?

 

Description:

Sometimes you just need a good suspense novel to satifsy your reading itch. Not bloody, overly graphic, or even terrifying. Just a plot and characters that strike your curiosity so much that you have to keep reading, sometimes peeking out between your fingers which are hiding your eyes. You don't want to know what is going to happen but you cannot stop reading. Delicious!

Enter Agatha Christie's Endless Night. This is a simple story of a man, wandering between jobs and relationships, looking rather vaguely for the perfect woman, a beautiful home, and wealth to fall intoUp in his lap.

I could feel all the feeling surging up in me. I wanted a wonderful woman and a wonderful house like nobody else's house, and I wanted my wonderful house to be full of wonderful things -- things that belonged to me. Everything would belong to me.

Incredibly, that all his dreams actually happen, almost without him even realizing it. He meets and falls in love with a woman who turns out to be ultra-wealthy and in love with him as well. They set out to buy the perfect lot of hillside land and build their dream house, well, almost a castle.

Their plan is despite warnings from locals and a specific gypsy woman that the land is cursed. Years ago the owner had chased gypsies from squatting on his land and received a dreadful curse aimed at anyone trying to settle there. You as a reader cannot wait for something eerie to happen to this nice couple and then see how they escape or succumb to it.

What a mysterious thing sleep is. You go to bed worrying about gipsies and secret enemies and detectives planted in your house and the possibilities of kidnapping and a hundred other things, and sleep whisks you away from it all. You travel very far and you don't know where you've been, but when you wake up, it's to a totally new world. No worries, no apprehensions.

But being an Agatha Christie novel, this curse and its results are just the surface. The novel's ending reveals twist upon twist on the plot and characters as they struggle to confront the curse and live their love-filled lives. The conclusion was completely unexpected by me and maybe will be for you as well. 

Wonderful tenseness and anticipation to this seemingly quiet plot and couple awaits readers on every page. Impossible to put down to the very last page, my favorite kind of story. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca.   

A young bride it taken to live with her husband in his sprawling mansion, Manderly. Unfortunately, it is not those supportive environment for her, from house to housekeeper to the looming memory of her husband's first wife. Suspense at its best.

The Scapegoat

Du Maurier, Daphne. The Scapegoat. New York: Doubleday. 1956. Print

First Sentences:

I left the car by the side of the cathedral, and then walked down the steps to the Place des Jacobins. 

It was still raining hard. It had not once let up since Tours, and all I had seen of the countryside I loved was the gleaming surface of the Route Nationale, rhythmically cut by the monotonous swing of the windscreen wiper.

Description:

Sometimes just the premise of a book is enough to hook you into at least picking it up to read. Examples? A man inadvertantly left all by himself on Mars (The Martian). A trip down the Nile River from origin to mouth in a kayak (Kayak Down the Nile). Creating a sport fishing spot in the desert (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen). The auction of the furnishings from a luxury apartment in Paris that has not been opened in seventy years (A Paris Apartment). And, of course, the history of the library card catalog system - be still my heart - (The Card Catalog). In the hands of a talented author, you have a compelling read.

It is on such an interesting premise and masterful writing that I stongly recommend Daphne du Maurier's The Scapegoat. 

Here is the set-up. A Englishman, John, desperately depressed as his vacation in Europe ends and knowing he must return to his dull teaching position, happens one night to meet another man, Jean, the wealthy Comte de Gue. They are strangers to each other, but soon realize they are not ordinary strangers. The men immediately see that they could be exact twins.

I realized, with a strange sense of shock and fear and nausea all combined, that his face and voice were know to me too well. I was looking at myself.

Over drinks and later in Jean's hotel room, they talk about their lives before John passes out. And when he awakens the next morning, he is alone in the room with only Jean's suitcase, clothes, and possessions. Jean is gone along with John's clothes. The hotel staff immediately mistake John for the other man and when Jean's family car arrives to take "Jean" home, John decides to play along and see what living like the wealthy Jean would be like ... and whether he can pass as another person with a stranger’s family and friends.

What an opening premise! From then on, every page is a nail-biter as to whether this counterfeit Comte de Gue will be unmasked. Each sentence “Jean”/John utters, each person he pretends to know, each family business transaction he oversees puts him in peril of discovery along with the unimaginable consequences. 

And where is the real Comte, John continues to wonder? What will happen when he shows up in his own home?

There it is. A deliciously devious plot with danger and cleverness on every page, masterfully related by the skilled storyteller, Daphne DuMaurier. How can you possibly resist? Well, don't resist. You won't be sorry.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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DuMaurier, Daphne. Rebecca  

Classic Gothic fiction story of a newlywed couple who returns to the husband's home to live, only to be constantly reminded of his beloved first wife, Rebecca, whose spirit permeates the estate.

Plainsong

Haruf, Kent. Plainsong. New York: Knopf 1999. Print

First Sentences:

Here was the man, Tom Guthrie, in Holt standing at the back window in the kitchen of his house smoking cigarettes and looking out over the back lot where the sun was just coming up.

When the sun reached the top of the windmill, for a while he watched what it was doing, that increased reddening of sunrise along the steel blades and the tail vane above the wooden platform.


Description:

Seventee miles outside the tiny town of Holt, Colorado live two elderly batchelor farmer brothers, Raymond and Harold McPheron. They keep to themselves, tending their fields and animals in quiet seclusion, barely speaking to each other much less anyone else. They've lived all their lives since their early teens when their parents died.

But their familiar world changes suddenly in Kent Haruf's Plainsong when they are asked to accept into their household a pregnant teenage girl, Victoria Roubideaux, who has nowhere else to go and no one to care for her. These gruff, unpolished men now must deal with this tiny, quiet girl and her coming baby, privately and in their own inexperienced manner.

[Harold said]...why, hell, look at us. Old men alone. Decrepit old bachelors out here in the courtry seventeen miles from the closest town which don't amount to much of a good goddamn even when you get there. Think of us. Crotchety and ignorant. Lonesome. Independent. Sent in all our ways. How you going to change now at this age of life?

I can't say, Raymond said. But I'm going to. That's what I know.

But in a small town, no one can long keep their lives private. In Holt, that holds true of other stolid townspeople who quietly carry their own burdens. For example, Tom Gutherie, the high school teacher, trying to raise his sons alone while his wife chooses to remain alone in her room upstairs in their home. He also suffers the trials of recalcitrant students and the wrath of their parents.

You get to know and even partially understand the lives of other characters: Maggie Jones, the teacher who befriends Victoria and introduces her to the batchelor brothers; Mrs. Sterns, the ancient woman living alone amongst the items she has hoarded for years: Dwayne, the Denver boy who is the father of Victoria's baby; and Russell Beckman, the school bully.

The descriptions of this landscape and these seemingly ordinary people sets Plainsong apart from almost every other book. Take Haruf's description of Tom's sons sleeping together in one bed:

...the older boy had one hand stretched above his brother's head as if he hopes to shove something away and thereby save them both. They were nine and ten, with dark brown hair and unmarked faces, and cheeks that were still as pure and dear as a girl's.

Then there is simple, moving description of the town doctor who examines Victoria so tenderly:

The old doctor reached up and took her hand and held it warmly between both of his hands for a moment and was quiet with her, simply looking into her face, serenely, grandfatherly, but not talking, treating her out of respect and kindness, out of his own long experience of patients in examination rooms.

These are characters that make you want to cry for their realness, determination, and inner passions. Their lives intertwine as they must do in small towns. To watch their interactions first occur, then blossom, wither, or triumph, all beautifully written by Kent Haruf, makes Plainsong a truly wonderful book. Please read it. It has my highest recommendation.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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

Doig, Ivan. The Whistling Season.   

A Chicago woman in 1909 answers an advertisement for a housekeeper for a widower and his three young sons living in an isolated Montana town. She writes that she "Can't cook, but doesn't bite," and gets the job sight unseen (by both of them). She brings her brother with her on the train and he reluctantly becomes a unique schoolteacher. Simply wonderful, a great read not to be missed.  (previously reviewed here)

The Accidental Tourist

Tyler, Anne. The Accidental Tourist. New York: Random House. 1985. Print

First Sentences:

They were supposed to stay at the beach a week, but neither of them had the heart for it and they decided to come back early.

Description:

Sometimes, like everyone else, I get into a slump with my reading. So many books I've picked up to peruse recently simply didn't cut it for some reason. Book after book I put down after the first page or, if convinced by a respected friend to continue reading a particular gem, put down after a bit more time... say, about a chapter. Discouraging.

So what did I do? Well, I fell back on a proven solution: give another reading to old favorites that you haven't read in years. Books that you've laughed over, bit your nails during, or simply wallowed in the wonderful writing of a captivating story. 

Thus it was in a time of desperation that I searched my bookcase and came up with Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist from 1984. A real oldie, so ancient that a Hollywood movie had been made of the story, distributed, and quietly forgotten except for Prime Video.

And it was just what the doctor ordered for me.

It's really a simple story beautifully told, with uniquely quirky characters simply  interacting with each other. That's it. No danger, no murders, no real comic situations. Just interesting people dealing with the world's personal challenges in what most of us would consider unusual ways. And of course, an unlikely romantic plotline.

Take the main character, Macon Leary, a writer of travel books for businessmen. His books are not ordinary guides, but are written for people who must travel for business but hate being away from American comforts, foods, lodgings, etc. Macon reluctantly visits major cities around the world to review hotels, restaurants, air travel, packing, and other necessities which offer amenities to foreign visits almost like staying home. 

He admittedly has his own peculiarities, such as washing his clothes during his nightly shower and sewing his sheets together into a sack-like bag to prevent untucking. At the beginning of the book, his wife has just left him in part due to these quirks and also the devastating trauma their family has recently experienced which neither Macon or Sarah can deal with.

Macon moves in with his two adult brothers and sister, all equally eccentric in their techniques to manage daily life, from an unusual method of preparing potatoes for meals to their made-up card game that no one outside the Leary family can comprehend. 

Then Muriel enters this world. She's a thrift store clothes-wearing, flamboyant, non-stop talking dog trainer who takes a shine to Macon while working with his dog. There is a relationship possibility there, but Macon is hesitant to become too involved, secretly hoping his wife Sarah will someday come to her senses and return to him and his carefully planned life. And then the story  unfolds.

That's it. A simple tale, interesting characters, clever writing and unexpected plot turns. The perfect book. I cannot believe how much I enjoyed this wonderful book and can only hope that others like me, struggling to find a great, heartwarming and heartbreaking read, will turn to The Accidental Tourist. It will restore your faith that captivating books are out there despite your recent run of bad luck with unsatisfying works.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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

Simsion, Graeme.The Rosie Project.   

Here's another guaranteed spirit-boosting book. A highly quirky geneticist, Don Tillman, decides to create a 100-question test to help winnow women as potential wife material. Rosie Jarmen, a grad student who meets none of Tillman's requirements, somehow is mistaken for a future mate candidate and an unusual relationship develops that is as unpredictable as it is funny. Highly recommended (previously reviewed here)

The Ten Thousand Doors of January

Harrow, Alix E. The Ten Thousand Doors of January. New York: Redhook 2019. Print

First Sentences:

When I was seven, I found a door.

I should capitalize that word, so you understand I'm not talking about your garden- or common-variety door that leads reliably to a white-tiled kitchen or a bedroom closet.


Description:

I'm not much of a fantasy book reader unless it happens to be about a hobbit or boy with a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. However, I found myself totally engrossed with Alix E. Harrow's The Ten Thousand Doors of January with its journeys into parallel worlds through randomly-placed doorways scattered over the Earth.

January Scaller is a seven-year-old girl living in 1901 as the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke. January's father works for Locke, travelling extensively around the world to purchase (or steal) exotic treasures for his employer's pleasure. One day January stumbles on an abandoned door in the scrubby landscape of a deserted Kansas farm. Just an ordinary door, she discovers as she walks through it ... that is until afterward when she sits down to write a story about the door in her diary.

"Once there was a brave and temeraryous (sp?) girl who found a Door. It was a magic Door that's why it has a capital D. She opened the Door."

As these words hit the paper, suddenly January smells a salty fragrance of the ocean that draws her back to the door. This time when she steps through it, she finds herself on a bluff overlooking a world of a vast ocean and exotic smells. 

After stepping back into her own world, of course no one believes her tale. But the next day she finds that the door is gone, burned away to ashes. Later, January finds an ancient book called The Ten Thousand Doors tucked away in a box sent from her world-traveling father. In it, she reads a story describing other doors and the worlds behind them. It is a beautifully written, albeit sad, love story telling of a chance encounter between a boy and girl from different worlds who, after separation, spend their lives independently searching for another door that will lead them to the other person's world. 

When her father disappears, it is up to January to puzzle out the truth behind the book, to pick up the lovers' search for hidden doors, and to understand what role, if any, she plays in the story.

Maybe this plot line sounds too corny, too romantic, or simply too fantastical to bother with. But believe me, as a man with little time for such tales, The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a page-turner that simply swallows you up into new worlds of stubbornly strong characters and a secret society with an agenda of their own.

I became deeply involved with this book and characters. Writing, plot, character, and setting - my four criteria for great books - were all delivered in to the highest degree of skill. Naturally, it gets my highest recommendation. 

There are ten thousand stories about ten thousand Doors, and we know them as well as we know our names. They lead to Faerie, to Valhalla, Atlantis and Lemuria, Heaven and Hell, to all the directions a compass could never take you, to elsewhere. A dividing point between here and there, us and them, mundane and magical.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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

Lewis, C. S. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.   

Four children find, in the back of an old wardrobe, a doorway that leads to the secret world of Narnia where they have heroic adventures galore and even rise to become royalty.

Silver Sparrow

Jones, Tayari. Silver Sparrow. Chapel Hill: Algonquin 2011. Print.

First Sentences:

My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist.

He was already married ten years when he first clamped eyes on my mother. In 1968, she was working at the gift-wrap counter at Davison's downtown when my father asked her to wrap the carving knife he had bought his wife for their wedding anniversary. Mother said she knew that something wasn't right between a man and a woman when the gift was a blade.

Description:

Thus begins Tayari Jones's highly engaging, challenging novel, Silver Sparrow. James Witherspoon was happily married to Laverne with a daughter Chaurisse. Then he met and fell in love with the beautiful Gwen. Knowing full well James was already married, Gwen married James anyways and produced a daughter, Dana. It is Dana who narrates the first half of this unusual family situation.

James doesn't hide Laverne and his original family from Gwen and Dana, but he does conceal his new second family from Laverne and Chaurisse while living his double life in the same city, splitting time between the two families. James chooses to give Laverne and Chaurisse an affluent lifestyle while relegating Gwen and Dana to second class status. He is loving, but simply cannot make public his illegal second family, nor afford to support both in the same grandiose manner. 

But fifteen-year-old Dana, as the "outside" child, decides to change things. She befriends Chaurisse, knowing they are sisters but keeps secret that information from Chaurisse. Together, without revealing their new friendship to their mothers, Dana and Chaurisse explore each other's home and family. Their interpersonal relationship drives each one to new levels of understanding of the complexity of separate families, boyfriends, and lifestyles. But only Dana know the truth about their shared father.

Then, just as you have everything figured out and personalities neatly explained, Chaurisse takes over the narration of the second half of the book. It is a unexpected twist to see the same story from her very different perspective. She becomes a much more complex character than we readers formerly believed, and her questions about Dana and her own confusing lifestyle build to a surprising climax.

Author Jones is a wonderful writer, portraying interesting characters in situations that are both unique and yet highly believable and engrossing. Her writing style is clean, almost breezy, despite the difficult subject matter. The strength of the book is in each of the characters: James, Gwen, Dana, Chaurisse, and many more friends and family members. All are completely human, sympathetic in many ways yet sometimes difficult to accept for the questionable decisions they make. No heroes or villains here, just ordinary people trying to deal with a difficult situation.

I loved the book as I enjoyed An American Marriage also by Tavari Jones. Definitely a writer to read now and hopefully in many more books in the future.

Love is a maze. Once you get in it, you're pretty much trapped. Maybe you manage to claw your way out, but then what have you accomplished?

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader

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

Jones, Tayari. An American Marriage  

Celestial and Roy, newly married, are thrown into chaos when Roy is falsely accused and jailed for twelve years for a crime he didn't commit. Of course, both people and their friends and family adapt in different ways. Excellent. (previously reviewed here)