Review: "The Maid's Version" by Daniel Woodrell.

(Note: Sorry about the photo. I checked it out from work, and they keep the dust jacket, so I snapped this picture of another copy we have. It should suffice.)

I am very torn about my feelings toward Daniel Woodrell. I wholeheartedly agree with the consensus of his small fan base that he is one of America’s undiscovered gems, and his prose style is second to none, accomplishing the feat of being both polished and humble in its execution. But I find his stories to be very weak in narrative, like I am looking at fancified skeleton of an incomplete building, to crib a quote from Hemingway. The first novel I read of his, The Death of Sweet Mister, may be in my top ten, and still has the power to devastate even when I am just reminiscing about it. Luckily, his first novel since Winter’s Bone, The Maid’s Version is a close second to Sweet Mister, even more so than Woe To Live On. But it still lacks a cohesive and easy-to-follow story arc, which is an important aspect to my enjoying a novel. The plot tells of a dance hall explosion that happened in 1929 in West Table, Missouri. The facts of the case are skewed, cause we are told it by a man who heard it from his strange grandma, whose sister died in the explosion that killed 42 people. They never learned who did, whether it was mobsters, zealots, or just bad luck. But we do see many versions of what might have happened, like a crazed preacher who was a main suspect who meets a brutal end, or a notorious bank robber who isn’t so notorious who might have a clue as to what might have happened. It is a little hard to follow, since Woodrell loves to decorate with his words, leaving little else as a driving force that can elevate the story. But it is damned pretty to look at, and if that is enough for you to warrant a reading, check out this relatively slim book, or any of Woodrell’s other offerings.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "Fellow Mortals" by Dennis Mahoney

It is a bit disappointing when a book you just wanted to like ends up being kind of a dud. While my feelings toward it are mostly innocuous, Fellow Mortals by Dennis Mahoney fails to deliver the emotional resonance that is implied by its premise. There are shades of quality in this novel, enough so to put Mahoney on my radar, but there are too many missed opportunities in the layout and execution, that I am not putting him to high on my radar. The premise itself is still very good, as is promised by the synopsis on the back, which was one of two things that led to this impulse buy, the other being it is published by the FSG Originals imprint, the same one that put out both of Frank bill’s books. It just never really gains the wings it should have when emotions boil over into physical actions, making them seem rather toned down in order for neater prose. The premise, as I said is really good; a fire, inadvertently caused by mailman Henry Cooper and a mis-thrown cigar match, devastated a small suburban neighborhood after it claims the life of one of it’s residents, a young wife. The reactions differ; Henry is guilt ridden, and it forces him to make rash decisions that harm his shaky marriage to Ava. Billy, a man also in a floundering marriage, wants revenge at any cost. And Sam Baily, who lost his wife in the fire, has retreated to the woods to carve out a life, literally, after his loss. This novel does have a hearty theme about the ways in which we cause harm to others when we can’t let things go, but it is just too neat and tidy in the way it is written, so much so that when a shattering death occurs, I totally missed it because I was kind of bored, and had to go back and read it again. Even the third part of the book, which contains the most lasting image of the novel, fails to deliver the emotional gut-punch. While it left me feeling incomplete, you might think differently.

Rating: 3/5

Review: "Let the Games Begin" by Niccolo Ammaniti

While it is a major departure for what he is mainly known for, Niccolo Ammaniti’s new translated novel, Let the Games Begin, and is no less wonderful and stunning. Having said that, I expect people who know and love him for books like I’m Not Scared and I’ll Steal You Away to dislike this book, or put it much farther down on their list of favorites. It fits into my category of “personal favorites”; books that I like, but won’t defend too much if someone doesn’t agree with me due to the book’s glaring problems that I choose to ignore for its more favorable attributes. Books like Murakami’s Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World and Richard Russo’s Mohawk are both books I really liked but was by no means perfect. Let the Games Begin is really one of those novels. Even if you don’t like it because of it, he does something here completely different and unexpected with the direction of the story. If I can make a presumed assumption, this book is really Ammaniti’s attempt at a comedy, although a rather black one, since he does utilize many of the traits he is known for, such as multiple storylines colliding with each other through violence and how small betrayals can cause big rifts in the human heart. There is a little more action in this book than even his most intense thrillers, but if you can find the meaning behind the action, you might be in a similar camp as I when you finish this book. The novel’s central piece concerns a lavish, hysterically over the top gala in a park in Italy thrown by an eccentric millionaire, complete with three different kinds of safari hunts. Into this asinine (in a good way) situation come two very different groups. One is the writer Fabrizo Ciba, a famous author whose case of writer’s block is not helped by his endless pursuit of women and booze. He comes to the party, and falls in love at first sight with the famous singer Larita, whom he sees as an intellectual, as well as physical match to be his mate for life. The other story thread might stop that from happening, which centers on a group of halfwit Satanists who plan on executing the singer in the crowded venue to obtain immortality, lead by the long-suffering Saverio, whose relationship with his wife being more scary than his satanic plans. They enter the party under disguise, and somehow knock out all the power letting loose all the wild animals, as well as a few nefarious entities that are a little too hard to believe. It really is an absurd turn of events once the bodies start flying toward the last 50 or so pages, but you just have to give yourself over for the ride completely. Once everything dies down, Ammaniti leaves you with a bitter ending readers are used to, but an epilogue that lets us know that true love can survive. If you can handle the absurd with an open mind and open heart, this ride worth taking.

Rating: 5/5

Review: "The Kindly Ones" by Jonathan Littell

The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell is easily one of the hardest books I have ever had to read and that isn’t such a good thing. It takes up quite a lot of time and is filled to the brim with esoteric details about German army, historical facts and the mechanisms about World War II. By the end you are drained, by the intense details the reader can get bogged down in, as well as the appalling acts our narrator commits throughout it’s 975 pages. For while this book is a chore to read for far too many pages, within them lie scenes that are shocking and gruesome, and are destined to leave a mark long after reading them. It also does the amazing thing of asking certain questions about morality and culpability about a dark time in history that many people won’t ask, or are afraid to. Our narrator, a Dr. Max Aue, is, at the beginning of the novel, living a life as a French factory owner with a loving family. He soon tells us this is in fact a façade he has intricately fabricated for himself after the things he did for the Nazi’s during the war. We learn he is very smart man, knowing a lot about books, history and philosophy. We also learn, through his many heinous acts, that he is a brutal, yet rather empty psychopath whose tendencies were brought forth out of him by the kinds of atrocities that the Nazi’s perpetrated. The main problem with this book is how long it is. Littell rarely leaves any details out, and the narrative gets lost in the long shuffle through many unindented lines of prose. But the real treats in the novel deal with the little scenes of cruelty we witness, from the sad death of a boy piano prodigy, to the disgusting thing he does with a sausage in a refrigerator in one of his flashbacks. And it asks questions about what kind of punishment he should have received. Was he psychopath, or did this world without conscious or love simply make him a harmful monster instead of a harmless one? If you can get through (some won’t), this is a very thought-provoking novel.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "The Risk Pool" by Richard Russo

Reading a Richard Russo novel, especially one of his first three, is kind of like being wrapped in a warm blanket during a cold fall or winter evening, even if the things he writes about are far from being warm or comforting. He writes about such devastating topics as loneliness, isolation and the marginalization of an individual in a small town, but he does so in a way that is completely optimistic and loving, that you just can’t help being entranced by the stories he weaves and the people he crafts, even in a novel like The Risk Pool, which isn’t as good as his other two novels in his first three published, Mohawk and Nobody’s Fool. Russo, while a great storyteller second to none, he is not without his weaknesses, which show a little to often in this novel, with them being his tendency to throw around exposition a little too freely. The title of the book is very misleading, with the story focusing mainly on the life of Ned Hall, whose adolescence is stuck between to parental figures who are anything but shining examples of stability. His mother, a manic-depressive, is pushed to the breaking point by a love life that is constantly in a state of flux. His father is even worse, coming off like Sully from Nobody’s Fool with zero sympathy. He gambles, beats up his wife’s lawyer, and refuses to divorce is ailing wife, driving her to be committed to an insane asylum, with little remorse that is kind of forgiven through his self-awareness, but not really. Like all of Russo’s fiction, it is very light-hearted even if it shouldn’t be, and it is impossible not to fall in love with it somehow. But he can be a bit long-winded with his explanations of events. It was okay in Nobody’s Fool, but here, it gets really old and tarnishes the books. Still, this is a very fun and loving book by a writer who is never afraid to face the harshness of the world with a loud smile.

Rating: 4/5