A FINE BALANCE by Rohinton Mistry

There's a sentence in the book that refers to the fine balance between hope and despair. Set in India in the 1970s, the book addresses other dichotomies, such as male/female, haves/have-nots, and lucky/unlucky. The four main characters are Dina, Maneck, Om, and Ishvar. Dina is a 40-something widow in India renting out a room in her ramshackle flat to Maneck, a college student. She also employs 2 untouchables, Ishvar and his nephew Om, as tailors to help make ends meet. Gradually, this foursome becomes a loose family, as Dina throws caution to the wind and offers living space on her veranda to the tailors. She succumbs to this inevitable arrangement to save them from the constant peril and uncertainty of living in the slums or on the streets. I think that this book could be reduced in length by a few hundred pages without serious harm, but I will say that I became immersed in the lives of the characters after spending so much time with them. Oddly enough, hope and despair do not align naturally along caste boundaries. Maneck has no real barriers to success, financial or otherwise, but he is somewhat morose and constantly at odds with his father. Dina occasionally has to stoop to relying on the good graces of her brother, who treats her like a servant, but at least she'll never be completely homeless. Om and Ishvar, on the other hand, despite their sewing skills, are invariably on the fringe, precariously teetering between an almost tolerable life and unimaginable suffering at the hands of those in power. Maneck sees life as a game of chess, but the tailors cannot comprehend a stalemate, much less the no-way-out concept of checkmate. Ishvar, the least showy character, is the one who keeps trudging forward, hoping for a better life for himself and Om, but thwarted at every move.

THE BODY ARTIST by Don DeLillo

This slim enigmatic novel provides a way to get a taste for DeLillo's writing without investing too much time. The first chapter is just about a couple's thoughts during breakfast, but it's more like two soliloquies, and it's my favorite section of the book. Actually, it's more like each person is having a dialogue with him or herself. Then Lauren's husband commits suicide at this ex-wife's house, to "spare Lauren the mess," and the book gets somewhat cryptic. A little man appears in the house who nonsensically parrots conversations, both past and future. How long has he been there? Is he real or a figment of Lauren's imagination that stems from her grief? Lauren is a chameleon herself--a performer who seemingly changes her gender and size on stage. The author switches to second person narration for descriptions of universal activities, such as recognizing the sound of a paperclip hitting the floor. White Noise was a much more straightforward book, and its discussion between father and son about how to know if it's raining is priceless.

THE MAN OF MY DREAMS by Curtis Sittenfeld

If a girl has to kiss a lot of frogs to find her prince, then Hannah has a long way to go. Still waiting for her first kiss in college, she has a beautiful sister Allison and a beautiful cousin Fig. Hannah herself, however, according to Fig's ex-boyfriend Henry, is the kind of woman that men marry rather than date. She's smart and spunky with few relationship role models. During Hannah's childhood, her dad evicts his wife and two daughters from their home during one of his temper tantrums, and Hannah spends the summer with her aunt and uncle, whom she hardly knows. Hannah is more likeable than the protagonists of Sittenfeld's Prep and American Wife, and we share her pain as she attempts to hide from her sister the fact that she's seeing a shrink. Then we bask in the irony that Allison and her husband, who seem to be the perfect couple, are seeing a marriage counselor. The book, however, as is obvious from the title, focuses on Hannah's candidates for the perfect husband. Despite her aunt's warnings that such a person doesn't exist, Hannah becomes involved with Mike, who adores her but doesn't excite her, then Oliver, who flagrantly cheats on her. Still, she carries a torch for Henry, with whom she can share everything, except perhaps a bed. The final chapter is classic—a reflective letter from Hannah to her psychiatrist that just made me want to congratulate her on the wise perspective it's taken her so long to achieve.

WE ARE ALL WELCOME HERE by Elizabeth Berg

I did not enjoy this as much as I did Elizabeth Berg's earlier book, The Art of Mending. The author's note at the beginning explains that the book was inspired by a true story, and that put me off. I would have preferred this information to have been presented as an acknowledgment at the end. The story takes place in Tupelo in the 60's, and the discrimination and hardships that a woman paralyzed from polio experiences are told side-by-side with the civil rights struggles of the era. The woman's daughter, who was born while the mother was in an iron lung, tells the story from her fourteen-year-old point of view. The standout character, however, is Peacie, the no-nonsense African-American caregiver, who performs some of the motherly duties that the disabled mother is unable to. The Tupelo setting also foreshadows an Elvis intervention that makes for a tidy but unlikely ending.

LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN by Colum McCann

If you saw the documentary Man on Wire, then you know that Philippe Petit strung a cable between the towers of the World Trade Center in 1974 and walked, skipped, and hopped across in the wee hours of the morning. This day and event tie together the stories of several New Yorkers, and even an amusing group of California computer hackers. Petit broke a few laws to accomplish his feat, and Sol Soderberg, one of a diverse cast of narrators, is thrilled to be the lucky judge who will preside over Petit's case. Meanwhile, Sol's wife Claire is clandestinely hosting a support group for mothers who have lost sons in Vietnam. Her Park Avenue apartment sets her apart from the other members, but in some ways she is the most tragic character in the book, in her lonely, desperate attempt to bridge the gap between herself and Gloria, an African-American woman from the Bronx. Gloria's neighbors include Corrigan, a monk struggling with his celibacy vows, a mother/daughter pair of prostitutes, and Corrigan's brother, recently arrived from Ireland. In this case, Gloria is the one walking the tightrope as she careens between the poverty of her neighborhood and her new friend Claire's opulent life. This started out as a snoozer, but I became more wrapped up in it as the narrators' intertwining stories started to click. At the end I felt as though I had definitely spun full circle, but I thought that Lark & Termite was more deserving of the National Book Award.

OUTLIERS by Malcolm Gladwell

We all know that being in the right place at the right time has a lot to do with success. Malcolm Gladwell gives us plenty of examples, the first of which is about being born in the right month if you aspire to professional hockey in Canada. He also stresses the importance of ambition, hard work, and the influences that shape our lives. The most disturbing section has to do with cultural influences and the devastating airline tragedies that occurred partly because of a co-pilot who was overly deferential to the captain and to air traffic controllers. The author often reminds us that it's not necessary to be exceedingly smart to be successful; it's just necessary to be smart enough. He gives the example of a man whose IQ is in the 190s but didn’t finish college because of his inability to negotiate a class schedule that would allow him to continue. In contrast, another man attempted to murder a professor and still went on to become immensely successful. Near the end, he takes a linguistic approach to explaining one of the reasons Asians excel at math. I had never really considered how the English language makes arithmetic more difficult than it needs to be. He also presents a strong case for year-round school.

THE DOCTOR'S WIFE by Elizabeth Brundage

I gobbled this book up with relish. Somewhere buried in it is a statement against extreme fundamentalists who are willing to kill the abortionists to save the unborn fetuses, but it's such a page-turner that the creed of the crazies is not really a factor. The victims are not exactly blameless, either, although the only thing that Michael, an OB/GYN who moonlights at an abortion clinic, can be faulted for is his severe neglect of his family. His wife Annie, on the other hand, becomes involved with Simon, an artist and colleague, and is the real cause of the wrath that is brought down on her family, since Simon's delusional and demented wife Lydia is one of the extremists. This may not be great literature, but the frenetic pace, not to mention the sleazy motel sex scenes, kept me eager to resume reading it. Despite the title, I thought that the amazingly beautiful Lydia was the central figure. Simon became her guardian when she was 14 and married her when she was 19, and we know more about her past than about Annie's privileged upbringing. Simon gained fame and fortune, thanks to a series of paintings of the teenage Lydia. He manages to shield her from the general public until he lands a job as a professor in a small New England college. Lydia doesn't disappoint, as I held my breath when she is unleashed on Simon's educated and well-to-do friends. Lydia's hold on Simon, however, is somewhat of enigma, and I never quite got a grasp on their relationship. His affair with Annie belies his love for Lydia, but he continues to provide a smokescreen for Lydia's increasingly violent criminal activity. Perhaps he feels guilty for having profited from her total dependence on him.