THE FRIEND by Sigrid Nunez

The friend in the title could be a Great Dane named Apollo, or it could be the narrator’s writer friend—a man who has recently committed suicide.  The dog belonged to the writer until the writer’s death, and now our female narrator, a self-proclaimed cat person, reluctantly takes ownership of Apollo, despite the fact that the lease on her tiny apartment prohibits dogs.  She and Apollo bond over their shared grief, and they become virtually inseparable, initially because Apollo becomes destructive on the one occasion where the narrator leaves him alone for too long.  Call me crazy, but I loved the image of the 180-lb dog lying in bed with her on his own pillow.  The narrator also shares with the reader quite a few fascinating opinions about writers, including what they write and why they write.  She herself teaches writing and has abandoned writing a book about human trafficking.  The narrator peppers her musings on writing with a fair amount of cynicism regarding fiction today, especially when quoting her deceased friend.  She offers a scathing criticism of James Patterson’s claim that anyone can write a bestseller and his selling of videos that promise the viewer the ability to do just that, as if he didn’t already have an obscene amount of money.  This book is funny at times, but mostly it is incredibly touching, and I had to remind myself constantly that it was fiction and not a memoir.  One chapter threw me for a loop until I realized that it was basically a detour into magical thinking, ending in sort of a guilt trip.  At least, that’s how I interpreted it.   This is so much more than a dog book, and yet it addresses so beautifully why we accept the constant violence against humans, in movies and in real life, but cannot bear the mistreatment of animals. 

11/22/63 by Stephen King

Now seemed like a good time to read a really long book, and I’m so glad I chose this one.  I laughed, I cried, and I lay in bed thinking about it even after I had put it down for the night.  It’s a time-travel adventure and a beautiful love story all bundled into one.  The premise is that Jake Epping, a 35-year-old teacher in 2011, time-travels to September, 1958, and plans to hang out in the past until he can change the course of history by preventing JFK’s assassination.  Those five years make up the bulk of the story, and, oh, what a story it is.  With about 80 pages remaining to read, I imagined three or four ways in which Stephen King could wrap up this novel, but none of my scenarios matched what he came up with.  The novel is full of danger, violence, heroics, and edge-of-your-seat suspense.  It’s also packed with what-if scenarios and moral dilemmas, particularly as Jake has to grapple with how his actions, or decisions not to act, will impact, not only his mission, but the future in general.  Jake also wants to verify that Oswald acted alone.  In other words, he can’t take out Oswald and then discover that someone else did the deed.  The heart and soul of the book, though, is a love story that develops while Jake is in Texas keeping an eye on Lee Harvey Oswald.  Sadie and Jake click right away, but Jake’s secrecy is a constant source of conflict.  Not only does he not want to get her involved in his perilous plans, but he knows the truth would require a huge leap of faith on her part.  The most unbelievable thing about this book is that it took me so long to decide to read it.

THE WINTER SOLDIER by Daniel Mason

Lucius is a young medical student in Austria when WWI breaks out.  He enlists and finds himself as the only doctor in a makeshift hospital in a church in the Carpathian Mountains.  He learns to perform amputations and to treat other battle wounds, with the very competent help of Sister Margarete.  His job is to patch these soldiers up and send them back to the front, but one soldier completely captures his attention.  That soldier appears to have some sort of PTSD or brain injury, and Lucius, in his efforts to cure him, makes a decision that ultimately has tragic consequences.  His relationship with Sister Margarete deepens, and then the plot takes off in a different direction.  This book has a few moments of frivolity, but they are sandwiched in between horrific moments, including one involving a vicious conscription officer, reminiscent of Confederate conscription during our Civil War.  Lucius is admirable in many ways, but he tends to get carried away at times, and these bouts of passion do not always result in a positive outcome.  Author Daniel Mason is very effective when it comes to planting the reader in a particular time and place, and he depicts Lucius’s bewilderment very vividly when he first arrives at the field hospital.  Lucius eventually becomes a man on an obsessive quest, and again, Mason makes the reader feel Lucius’s anxiety and fervent determination.  The best part of this book, though, is the ending, which is a bit of a surprise in more ways than one.  I really liked The Piano Tuner, but not the ending, and I was steeling myself for a similar finish here.  The ending of this book, however, is much more satisfying.

THE PIANO TUNER by Daniel Mason

This book is extremely reminiscent of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, including a river trip to meet up with a man with an outsized reputation.  The British colony this time is Burma, and the country has an intoxicating effect on Edgar Drake, an English piano tuner.  He has been summoned to tune a rare grand piano that has been shipped to Anthony Carroll, a doctor who has become an almost mythical figure, trying to negotiate peace between the indigenous Shan warlords and the Brits, partly through music.  His strategy seems to be effective, but the mystery that surrounds him brings his motivation and methods into question.  Drake falls under his spell, as well as that of a beautiful Shan woman, who may be Carroll’s mistress.  Some reviewers have complained that the pacing is slow and tedious at times, particularly Drake’s journey from England to Carroll’s camp, but I viewed this section as more of a buildup for what was to come.  I found more frustrating Drake’s lingering in Burma, long after his assigned work there is done.  This very civilized man seems to gravitate toward the Burmese landscape and develops a sense of belonging in this exotic and dangerous land.  His beloved wife in England awaits his return, but we never get a sense of how she is faring while Drake is away.  The ending leaves several unanswered questions, but that seems to be par for the course with many novels these days.  Also, there is a tragic hunting accident in the first half of the book that seemed gratuitous to me.  I am not sure what the author’s purpose was, unless perhaps he is painting the Brits as bloodthirsty, reckless  and without concern for the native people.  I think his portrait is consistent with how we currently view imperialism in general, and he makes his point even more emphatically later in the book.

NORMAL PEOPLE by Sally Rooney

This book is not a page-turner per se, but I found it to be completely addictive.  It’s a classic story of two teenagers who don’t move in the same social circles but become close anyway.  The girl, Marianne, comes from a wealthy family but is basically a brainy wallflower.  Connell is also very bright, as well as very popular and athletic, but his mother is Marianne’s family’s housekeeper.  Marianne comes from a dysfunctional family whose unimaginable torments render her emotionally handicapped in her ability to sustain a loving relationship with Connell.  He, on the other hand, was born to a 17-year-old unwed mother, who nonetheless is a perceptive and loving parent.   Connell and Marianne have a falling out after he has already decided to go to the same college she is attending.  At Trinity they have a role reversal; she blossoms, while he is out of his comfort zone.  Their relationship ebbs and flows throughout college, often depending on which one is in another relationship and which one is in need of being rescued.  Sometimes I just wanted to give them both a good shake.  This storyline may sound melodramatic, but I found myself very invested in these two people, who struggle to find their way in the world, sometimes together and sometimes not.  They both make some horrific choices and fail repeatedly to express themselves to one another honestly.  I found myself more drawn to Connell, partly because I found Marianne difficult to nail down, despite the fact that her story fills more pages.  The timeline is straightforward, and the writing, particularly the dialog, just drew me in.