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Spooner by Pete Dexter
Pete Dexter won the National Book Award for his novel Paris Trout. He's a brilliant writer who began what was once my favorite novel of his, The Paperboy, with a terrific first line, one of my all-time favorites, ever: "My brother Ward was once a famous man." With his new novel, Spooner, he's written my new favorite. Spooner is an autobiographical novel that will share pride of place on my bookshelves with books like John Irving's The World According to Garp, Steve Tesich's Karoo, Merle Miller's A Gay and Melancholy Sound, and Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole.
Spooner tells a coming-of-age story that is funny and heartbreaking, frequently at the same time. It's the story of a boy from Milledgeville, Ga., becoming a man, and how that man best learns to accommodate himself to the vagaries of the world. It's filled with unforgettable characters, both human and canine: Spooner's stepfather, Calmer; his friend Harry, a would-be boxing champion who follows Spooner where common sense shouldn't take either one of them; and a series of dogs (one named Lester Maddox) who share Spooner's life. Each one of them (even the dogs, I suppose) could become the main character in another novel, and I found myself wanting to know what happened next — I wanted more about Harry-the-boxer, Spooner's sister Margaret, and other characters. Dexter's narrator is a born storyteller, and as he spins one episode into another, I found myself just wanting more. Here's a description of Calmer, as he confronts Miss Sandway, one of Spooner's high school teachers, a woman who assigns her students to memorize the poem "Trees" by Robert Frost, though Calmer, a science teacher in the same school, has shown her that Frost did not write that particular poem:
And Calmer, who admired Robert Frost above all other poets, and had fixed broken things all his life, making do with what was on hand, who had once landed an airplane using the wind against his open door to steer after the ailerons cable broke, who had delivered a dozen breeched babies from the wombs of animals on his father's farm, and who had undertaken to mend the life of a woman for whom misery itself was a comfort — Calmer looked at the hulking figure of Miss Sandway, and punted. Some things could be fixed, some things couldn't.
Spooner is one of the very few novels I have read in a long time that I wished were longer; as someone said to me recently, telling me her positive reactions to the book, it's the novel Dexter was born to write.
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel
It was difficult to read David Finkel's book The Good Soldiers for more than a chapter at a time, because I found myself weeping so often. But of all the books I — and we — have read about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — all the excellent and not-so-great "we were there" accounts and reports from embedded journalists — Finkel's account stands head and shoulders above the rest.
We are with the 2-16, an Army Rangers battalion, that was sent to Baghdad at the beginning of the "surge" in 2007. Finkel has a terrific journalistic eye (he won the Pulitzer Prize as a reporter for The Washington Post) and he shares with us the soldiers' experiences as they attempt to bring a kind of peace to Baghdad. The trauma of being away from friends and family, the daily boredom of patrolling a city that is all too frequently punctuated by the terror that comes with an attack or a suicide bomb, the lack of trust of the civilians — all this comes through in writing that is both vivid and visceral.
Finkel is fully aware of the irony that this group of young men, who are fighting what appears to be a rear guard — and losing — battle, are led by Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, whose lifetime motto has always been, "It's all good." After reading about the reality of life lived under the constant threat of death and bodily injury, it's not hard to come to the conclusion (and I have to believe that Finkel did) that a better motto would have been, "None of this is good." Finkel's fine book offers readers a deeper understanding of both the physical and mental risks we are subjecting our soldiers to.
Liar by Justine Larbalestier
I am generally not fond of books with unreliable narrators — they simply seem to add to my already abnormally high level of anxiety. Call me naive, but I usually want a narrator I can believe. Which makes it all the more interesting that I fell for Justine Larbalestier's Liar, in which the main character admits right away that she seldom tells the truth, can't be trusted and may (or may not) be guilty of a horrendous crime. And that's all that I can tell you about the plot of the book without giving away too much. I want everyone to experience it just as I did, one page at a time. I will say that it's a spectacularly imaginative and gripping story, and the narrator is a young woman whom I won't soon forget. If your adult book group is interested in trying a teen novel, this will make for a great discussion.
Going Bovine by Libba Bray
Another novel that I suspect teens will enjoy a lot is Libba Bray's Going Bovine. I don't love the cover (we all know you can't judge a book ... etc., but isn't it hard not to?) but the plot hooked me right away. The story begins when the book's 16-year-old narrator, Cameron Smith, is diagnosed with "mad cow" disease. As his doctors search desperately for a cure, Cameron spends his time trying to save the world (and himself) by trying desperately to locate a mysterious Dr. X. He's aided on his journey by his classmate Gonzo, a Mexican-American hypochondriac dwarf, a punk rock angel named Dulcie, and a lawn ornament who was once (perhaps) the Norse god Balder. Based loosely on Don Quixote (a comparison I didn't get until near the end of the book), Cameron's complicated quest is both comedic and tragic. This is another novel that will leave readers talking about what really happened: how much of Cameron's trip is simply a delusion caused by his disease and how much really happened. I know which of the two I'm hoping for.
Travels in a Thin Country by Sara Wheeler
I'm working on a new book — Book Lust to Go — which will include armchair travel, explorers, history, all that sort of thing. It should be out sometime in the fall of 2010. One of my great discoveries in all the reading I've been doing is the author Sara Wheeler. I both admire and worry about her fearless attitude toward travel. Her Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile is definitely not to be missed by any armchair traveler, someone on his or her way to Chile or with an interest in the country. Chile is approximately 2,600 miles long, and is never more than 250 miles wide (its average width is 110 miles); Wheeler makes her way from the arid north to the islanded south.
Here's a brief example of her writing: "I woke up on my thirty-first birthday in a seedy hotel very close to Argentina, and John the Alaskan tried to wish me a Happy Birthday in Spanish, but by the time he had worked it out we had both lost interest."
Before reading Travels in a Thin Country, I never really considered visiting Chile; now it's on my list of must-see places. Note to political junkies: Wheeler's book is one of the few books about the country that aren't centered on its terrible history under the dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Now for the worry: I have one very adventurous (seemingly fearless) daughter, who, like Wheeler, has an amazing gift for friendship and instant closeness with nearly everyone she meets. At one time in her life she, like Wheeler, had a tendency to drop whatever plans she had in order to go rock climbing with a group of strangers, have her passport confiscated on a train between Florence and Budapest, fall out of touch from her parents for weeks on end, and generally make me very nervous. As a result, all the time I was reading Wheeler's wonderful book, I was feeling dreadfully sorry for her mother.