Review: "Hemlock Grove" by Brian McGreevy

I must say, these last few weeks of reading have been depressingly underwhelming. I have not read any books that have been bad, but none have really shook me and made me glad it was summer and I have nothing but time on my hands. Maybe it might be because I am in an awesome English class this summer where we get to read comic books and I cannot focus enough on novels, or I have had really bad luck picking what books to read, but either way, it has been kind of rough. This one in particular, Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy, is another book that I just liked, even though I thought I was going to love it. It seemed really cool, it comes from an imprint I like quite a bit, and had two very different blurbs on the back from Eli Roth and Philipp Meyer, and for the most part, the book is breathtakingly original. It takes tropes like Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolfman, and puts them in the modern gothic setting of a small Pennsylvania town. The premise, which deals with the murders of young girls being investigated by two very different personalities with really messed up back-stories, has endless possibilities. But it should not be this hard to read. The stream of consciousness narratives really are a stumbling block in moving things along, and getting to the good stuff. Not to sound unintellectual, but if a book promises these kinds of things, I expect a little less showboating than this. But the story is quite interesting once you get used to it and it is awesome when you find out each connection to classic horror. Despite its flaws, I really dug what this book was, and cannot wait for the series to hit Netflix.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "The Lazarus Project" by Aleksandar Hemon

One of the better writers in the field of American immigrant fiction, which is a term I have made which includes any writer who writes about the experience of moving to America from another country, would be Aleksandra Hemon, and his second novel, The Lazarus Project, is a good example of why he is a step above many other writers in this field. I have said in the past that these kinds of stories are really more hit than miss for me most of the time because it has, as its focus, something that has been done so many times before, and it is so difficult to make it work and be fresh and new. Luckily, Hemon is able to do that most of the time with this novel, even if you get lost in details and obscure history. This is quite the departure from his first novel Nowhere Man, which really acted as his introduction to the fiction world. The Lazarus Project is a more straight-forward novel compared to Nowhere Man. Gone are the funny ways he used his newly found grasp of English to overcompensate for his lack of experience, but he does have two different stories being told at once, that overlap quite intricately. The first one deals with a young immigrant named Lazarus who is shot outside the chief of police’s house in Chicago and is labeled an anarchist assassin, and how this event affects the life of his sister. The modern day story deals with a writer named Brik, travels with a friend to Bosnia to research Lazarus life for a book. Both storylines are quite interesting, with enough action to counteract some of the confusing historical details and blatant symbolism (one character is literally named Bruno Schulz, which made me laugh). You could read worse, and for the most part I’d suggest you read it.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "The Ask" by Sam Lipsyte

If Celine were alive today, he still would not be someone you would want to spend too much time with, but if he had a slight sense of humor to go along with his pessimistic vision than he would probably write something like Sam Lipsyte’s The Ask, a novel that makes up for a lack of originality with maybe the funniest writing you are likely to come across in the modern literature. Lipsyte, or, I hope, Lipsyte’s characters share a very strange view of the world, one that might have a lot in common with Schopenhauer, where life really has no meaning, but we still must go on (a truncated, bastardized version of his philosophy, for sure, but he was the first guy I thought of when reading this). This is a very bleak view of the world, one that offers no comfort or way out, and I shudder to think of people actually thinking this way, but at least it goes about it in a humorous way. The loose plot of the novel deals with Milo Burke, who after getting fired from his job as a developmental officer at a crappy university, is called back with an opportunity to regain his job if he can convince an old friend who became wealthy after college to donate a large sum of money to the school. From there, it is kind of a mish-mash of characters who have no real place in the novel than to provide funny quips and turns of phrases, which, although are quite funny, really drag the novel down. Every character has a cardboard personality so they can look stupid in the mind of Milo, and ultimately the reader. But it is quite funny, and it will make this novel better for a majority of its readers.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "Everything Matters" by Ron Currie Jr.

Everything Matters, the debut novel of Ron Currie Jr., is a book that I have very few problems with, and overall liked despite what it does at the end. But most importantly, I liked how this books core message was one that was a positive one, and did not resort to easy cynicism in the face of its existential plotline, and it did so without forcing sentimentality down our throats. I liked his first short story collection, God is Dead, for a similar reason, where it takes a concept like god dying, which, in the hands of someone who is arrogant and cynical, would turn into something very depressing, and somehow made it life affirming. It is nice to come across a writer whose sense of warmth and optimism outweighs his need to seem cool, ironic and pessimistic. I can tell that Currie is a great humanist, and too some that may be too wholesome, but I find it to be a trait lacking in the intellectually astute of today. The novel tells of the birth of Junior Thibodeau, who, from the moment of conception, knew that the world was going to end when he was 36 years old. Throughout his life, Junior must decide if everything he does is really worth it, from his family where his brother is a baseball savant thanks to a youthful coke addiction and his parents are addicted to alcohol and work respectively, and the love of his life, Amy, who he met during the Challenger crash and who relationship is with Junior is irrevocably changed when he tells her of the end of the world. It is a novel full of suspense and great human interaction, despite the ending section, which goes back in time unnecessarily to give Junior another lifetime. Having read it, it is a very moving book that I hope you enjoy.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "Citrus County" by John Brandon

This book, Citrus County by John Brandon, is a very different book to come out of the publishing house at McSweeny’s. Usually, they publish offbeat novels that do not adhere to conventional novelistic trappings like a linear plot or narrative, and instead have a stylish flare about them that is very but very hit or miss with your average reader. A good example would be The Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian, which was very difficult and hard to remain interested in, but was nonetheless a one of a kind novel that you do not always see. This is the total opposite of what to expect of McSweeny’s style of fiction, and may be a sign of a new direction for them, having published the epic John Sayles novel A Moment in the Sun, which, from what I have read is a straight-forward novel. Brandon’s novel has more to do with Lansdale than it does Barthelme, telling a nourish tale in the old south of Florida. We first meet Toby, as he expounds on life and death while a little kid listens, from there, we see how little he cares about life and what he is capable of. He comes in contact with his teacher, Mr. Hibma, who cares very little about teaching, and more about how to murder one of his co-workers. He finally meets Shelby, who seems to be the only one who cares about life, that is until Toby does something horrendous that turns the town upside down, and brings into question each characters moral ambiguity. Think of this as the prequel to life of Lou Ford in Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me, albeit with a lighter edge. A slightly flawed work, that verges on self-absorption, but is interesting and caring enough not to go that route, John Brandon is a new talent to watch.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine" by Thom Jones

Going from a book that was hard to write about one that I cannot wait to talk about, Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine by Thom jones is staggeringly good. I read his first collection, The Pugilist at Rest Last year and still find it to be one of the best collections of short stories that has come out in the last thirty years. And I am happy to say that this collection is much better than that one. Jones writes like a double tough Hemingway minus all the posturizing macho cynical bullshit. Instead of hunting and World War I and II, it is boxing and the Vietnam War that become obsessions throughout these eleven magnificent stories. The characters in Jones’ stories always suffer horrible twists of fates either before or during the stories events, but they always find some way to weather them, even if the antidote for their despair is frighteningly counterproductive or painfully brief and short term. For these characters, nothing could be worse than death and defeat, and it is better to go forth into an uncertain future than too fall too your knees. With the exception of maybe one story, everyone in this collection is as good as any short story you are likely to read. The first story, which is the title story, deals with a young boxer whose upcoming fight to a guy he lost too last year is his only solace from an indifferent family life and the real world, which he knows will destroy him once he cannot box anymore. The ending is quite sad, but there is a strange sense of heroism in the way the fighter finishes the fight. Next there is a trilogy of stories surrounding a troop of Marines in Vietnam, which ends with the sweet little story “Fields of Purple Forever”, where the only way a surviving member of this troop can survive after the war is by constantly pushing himself to the zero-point of life, this case, by swimming the English Channel. Another great story is “I Love You, Sophie Western” where one young man’s journey toward actual love ends in violence and forced sexual favors. These stories infuse a lot more sex and gross-outs than The Pugilist at Rest, but it adds to the relatability in some strange way. Finally, the longest story here, which closes out the collection, is “You Cheated, You Lied” which tells the story of two clinically insane lovers who take a trip to Hawaii that will make even the loneliest person thankful they are single. These stories are more honest and thoughtful than almost anything Hemingway wrote, not too mention that Jones; prose would run circles around Hemingway’s. It is a shame this was the last thing Jones has published to date, because he is a true original and one of America’s best practitioners of a seldom recognized art form nowadays. Pick up any of his books and I promise you will find something great in them.

Rating: 5/5

Review: "The Borrower" by Rebecca Makkai

The Borrower by Rebecca Makki, above all else, is just a plain book that does not realize that it is a plain book. It tries to be great in many ways, ways in which I like and some that I do not like, but it never reaches past anything but a book that is read out of a faint sense of curiosity and is forgotten almost as soon as you place it on the book shelf (or if you are like me, sell it at Half Priced Books in order to make more room for books you may want someday). There is very little I know about Makki, but judging from her writing style and, superficially, her author photograph, she seems like a smart confident woman who may verge on the wrong side of smugness, but, giving her the benefit of the doubt for this review, she seems nice and I will not be too harsh, because this book is not bad, just generic. The main character in this novel is a young librarian who becomes fast friends with an eager young boy enchanted with the world of fiction. Seeing this boy, who shows latent signs of homosexuality, become the subject of his parents psychological abuses (which involves taking him to a sexual reassignment camp, if that is what they are called), she submissively engages in his plan to run away, leading a journey that unlocks secrets in her past. If this was a straight-up road novel, I could see myself enjoying it. The Family Fang was nothing new, but I really liked that. This book tries to be profound when it should have stuck to the entertainment and suspense. Stops that involve the librarian’s parents and their move to America, which reek of second rate Malamud, really derail this book, making the journey of reading it prolonged and boring. Not much to see here sadly.

Rating: 3/5