BLOOD AND TEA

I just spent two days at BLOOD AND TEA, a Mystery Writers conference in Ludington -- and enjoyed every minutre of it.  The presenters were Elizabeth Buzzelli, Aaron Stander, Lev Raphael and Dan Johnson.  I definitely learned some thing from each one of them.  As well as being published authors, all of them (except Johnson, I think) are also teachers of creative writing.  I learned not only about writing, but also about a dizzying array of publishing options.  As more people acquire Kindles and other E book reading devices, I'm thinking maybe its time I consider some of these new fangled paperless ways of publishing my work.   

The Marriage Plot

I have now read three novels by Jeffrey Eugenides and this, his newest book, takes second place in my personal rating system. The enigmatic title derives from the fact that Madeline, the main female character, is an English major writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot.  Books of this genre, she notes, were all about unmarried women and their search for a suitable husband.  With marriage the story is over because no one ever, ever gets divorced. 
Fast forward from this fictional-idyllic time to life on a modern college campus.  Madeline is part of a love triangle and the lives of  her two men, Leonard and Mitchell, are dealt with in the same detail as Madeline's.  One loves her;  one she loves and eventually marries;  but in the end -- well, I won't give away the ending.
When I put this book in second place, I am comparing it to Middlesex, Eugenides' fascinating story of a hermaphrodite. His other book, The Virgin Suicides, I found a disappointment ..  still it managed to get made into a movie, which I have not seen -- yet.  I probably someday, will out of curiousity.   

Thunderstruck

The book is Thunderstruck by Erik Larson and it is non-fiction. Larson has certainly done his research. Set in and around the year 1902, the book follows two seemingly unconnectd narrative lines: one is about Guiglielmo Marconi inventing the wireless telegraph; and the other is about a man called Hawley Crippen. I enjoyed reading about Crippen and his flamboyant wife, who aspired to be an actress and singer, first in the US and later in England. The story of Marconi's travails is also interesting though I confess to skipping a few portions about the technical details and business rivalries surrounding his invention. Finally, around page 300, the two narratives converge. Crippen is accused of a grisly murder and tries to escape England via steamship. It is Marconi's new device that proves his undoing.

Motherless Brooklyn

The book is Motherless Brooklyn and the author is Jonathan Lethem. To my knowledge, this is the first full length work of fiction that features a narrator with Tourette's Syndrome. Besides the Tourettes's, our hero, Lionel Essrog, was raised in a Brooklyn orphanage which earned him my immediate sympathy and undivided interest. The author has definitely done his research on the condition. With a brain that constantly mangles, twists and interchanges words, Lionel takes the reader along on his tortuous journey as he tries to solve the murder of his long time mentor. Luc Sante called the book "funny, dizzying and heartbreaking". I agree.

The Paris Wife

The book is The Paris Wife and the author is Paula McLain. Though I am not a big fan of Hemingway's work I thoroughly enjoyed this book, much of it set in Paris in the 1920's. Presented as fiction, the book does a thorough job of getting into the psyche of Hadley Richardson during the period she was Hemingway's wife. The book provides glimpses of their friendships with Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and the hard drinking eccentrics Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. The narrative takes us to Pamplona for the running of the bulls and into the mountains for skiing. I empathize with Hadley as she struggles to maintain equilibrium while trying to keep up with this crowd and still be a mother. The author has done her research and spun it into an engaging story. I am ready to read A Moveable Feast, Hemingway's own account of that period in his life.

IDENTICAL STRANGERS

The book is "Identical Strangers; A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited" and the authors are Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein.
The book is non fiction with alternating entries by the two authors, identical twins who were adopted and raised by diffferent families. Elyse is in her mid-thirties and living in Paris when she begins to search for information about her birth mother. She never finds the mother but she does discover her identical twin. The two women meet and discover that they have much in common-- so much so that their chronicle is an important contribution to the dialogue about whether we are shaped more by nature or nurture.
Should twins be separated? How different would their lives have been if they had been raised together? These are the recurring questions that haunt these two women as they struggle to forge a new bond. Fortunately they are both articulate writers and have produced a fascinating, self written case study.

Unfamiliar Fishes

The book is Unfamiliar Fishes and the author is Sarah Vowell. The author writes about history -- and achieves the unlikely result of making it funny. This story begins with the arrival of US missionaries in Hawaii, followed by the development of sugar plantations, and finally the deposition of the last native ruler, Queen Liliuokalani. Vowell takes an ironic look at the benefits brought by the haoles (whites) -- such as literacy, balanced against the native Hawaiins loss of culture and autonomy. She is unsparing as she recounts the foibles of both sides in the many conflicts involved. Somebody once commented that an author is well on the way to fame when his/her name appears on the book cover in larger print than the title. If this is true, then Sarah Vowell is on her way.