The False Friend by Myla Goldberg (Doubleday/Random House, 2010)

Most people have read Myla Goldberg’s first novel Bee Season, AND loved it. I include myself in this category. Well I finished reading Myla’s newest, The False Friend two nights ago. Upon reading the dust jacket I knew that I HAD to read this book. Just the synopsis was incredibly enticing. The story is prefaced on a 32-year-old Chicago resident named Celia Durst remembering a day from her long ago past that she has blocked out from memory. It took place after school with four of her fellow “friends.” I put friends in quotations because the way the girls treat each other is anything but friendly.

Celia and her “bff”, Djuna, are the ringleader bullies of this group. Although they are partners in crime they often had vicious fights. This one ended in Djuna heading out into a locally claimed haunted wood. Celia went in after her and only Celia came out. Fast forward two decades and Celia is living with her boyfriend, Huck and their two dogs in Chicago. Huck comes home from work one day to find Celia already there and laying prostrate on the bed. She tells Huck what she “remembers” from that day. This is not what Celia and the other three girls told the police when they reported Djuna’s disappearance. Oh and by the way, Djuna was never seen again. So that is all I am going to reveal about the story line. You just need to read it to find out the rest. That’s not hard.

This book really brought home a prominent issue of today, BULLYING. While reading this I couldn’t help but remember all the headlines I have seen just within the past year about teen suicides caused by bullying. It really makes you think about what we all could do to stop this cruelty. -Ellen

Nan also liked False Friend; Read her blog here.

Yes, Steve Martin the actor.  He’s actually quite the Renaissance man–actor/comedian, fiction writer, playwright, and he even has his own bluegrass band.  I kind of love Steve Martin so I may have already been a bit biased when I picked this novel up, but I enjoyed it. In my opinion it’s written the way you’d think an actor would write a novel–kind of like it’s already a movie.  I could easily see the narrator in An Object of Beauty voicing over the film version (think Shopgirl, which if you haven’t seen it is a nice little film starring Steve Martin based on a novella written by Steve Martin–see, I told you that I love Steve Martin).

An Object of Beauty is about  Lacey Yeager, a young woman anxious to make it big in the New York art scene. Lacey is ruthless when it comes to getting what she wants, and you can’t help but feel pity for Martin’s nerdy art writer narrator for being mixed up with her.  All in all it’s a quick read with 2-3 page chapters and nice color prints of each art piece that Martin’s characters encounter.  Pick it up because you’re curious about whether or not good ol’ Steve can pull off being a novelist, or pick it up because you, like me, think Steve can do no wrong, or pick it up to learn a little about the New York City art scene.

And after you do so, come in and talk to me about it.  So far I’m the only person I know of who has read it, and that’s just no fun.

P.S. Steve has even written a book for children.  Can you believe this guy?  We have signed copies here.  -Kaycie

In 2000, Michael Cunningham’s The Hours won the Pulitzer Prize. Those who did not read it probably ended up seeing the spectacular movie by the same name featuring many contemporary Hollywood faces. Now, Cunningham has written another novel, entitled By Nightfall, this time based on the life of an art gallery dealer in New York City.

Set in current day times, Cunningham does a great job of describing the SoHo art district and the thin walled loft inhabited by the 40-something protagonist Peter and his disillusioned editor wife, Rebecca.  All rocks along in their rather non-spectacular, often boring existence, until Rebecca’s wayward much younger brother Ethan settles in at their loft for a three week stay. His cunning personality mixed with his inability to “find himself” rocks the status quo and sends chills and questions into the hearts and minds of Peter and Rebecca. This short, but appealing, novel expands on the nature of contemporary wealthy city life, its characteristics  and dilemmas, and the role of all kinds of love in the twenty-first century.

Signed copies are available!

-Nan

True Grit is one of those books that I’ve picked up and put back down over and over. It has hovered near the top of my reading list, but somehow it kept getting leapfrogged. I think I had even set it aside as a possible vacation book, but when it came time to pare down the stack, it got put back on the shelf.

Well, a concatenation of events led me to finally bump it to the top of my list. Two nights ago, as I was watching TV (only to briefly educate myself on what non-readers spend their time doing, I assure you), the trailer for the new Coen Brothers’ adaptation of True Grit came on. Then yesterday, as I was opening boxes of books in the freight room of the store, I discovered the new Penguin paperback edition of True Grit, with

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

DIRECTED BY THE COEN BROTHERS

emblazoned* on the cover. I felt like the universe was speaking to me — it couldn’t simply be a coincidence. (Actually, upon reflection, it was mostly just well-timed marketing.) In any case, I marched (in my car) straight home and sat down to write this, so that you could read it and then come in the store to get your own copy of True Grit. This will enable you to say (at some future date, preferably at a cool party), “Well, of course the movie was alright, but I’m just glad I read the book first — it really kind of ruins the book if you see the movie first, doesn’t it? You HAVE read it, HAVEN’T you?”

Of course, it must be mentioned that some have already had True Grit ruined by the 1969 John Wayne feature film by the same name. The film was generally well-received, with Wayne receiving both the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Actor. The plot of the film did stray on several points from the book (more cool party talking points!). Ethan Coen has said that the 2010 film will be a more faithful adaptation of the novel (but honestly, he could hardly get away with saying they intended to stray as far as possible from the book). Not content to leave things there, John Wayne returned in a 1975 sequel Rooster Cogburn. Plans for a third John Wayne True Grit movie never came to fruition, so in 1978 Warren Oates took over Wayne’s role for a made-for-TV movie called True Grit: A Further Adventure.

It must also be mentioned now that Charles Portis himself ruined True Grit by first publishing it as a serial in “The Saturday Evening Post” with a storyline that deviated from the novel, therefore spoiling it for those readers who had not the foresight to wait for the final (superior) written format. What embarrassed partygoers there must have been in 1968 when they admitted to eagerly reading through the serial form of True Grit instead of waiting for the authoritative novelization.

Consider your True Grit experience ruined:

Hmm.

You know what? That actually looks pretty good. Forget everything I said about the risk of ruining the book. Read the book first, watch the classic 1969 film first, or watch the new film first. It doesn’t matter. Charles Portis created characters, created a story, but he didn’t set it aside to be preserved word for word. The serials were published in 1968, the novel the same year, and the John Wayne film just a year later — each different in detail and in form.

But do come pick up a copy of True Grit. At the very least, you can leave it lying casually on your coffee table for your dinner party guests to notice. And maybe you’ll pick it up after they leave, turn to the first page, and read these opening lines:

People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem to strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.

You can’t ruin that, even if you tried.

*Have you ever noticed there are words that appear frequently in articles and essays and reviews, but you’d get stared at if you used them in everyday conversation? Why is this? What keeps us from speaking aloud words like aplomb, moribund, or emblazoned? And why is emblazoned always past tense? Why do we never hear someone say, “I’m off to go emblazon something bright on the front of my shirt,” or “I’m so tired, I spent all afternoon emblazoning the front of my house”?

Since quite a few of you were interested in my last fairy tale post (which you can read here), this post is here to let you know that I am still very much into fairy tales and have been collecting quite a few more since we last spoke of them.

As of late, my bedside table has been home to a veritable tower of books.  (That’s not to say that I’m talented enough to read all of them at once, though I very much wish that I was.) Living in this book-tower are two books that I’m excited to let you know about right now in this very post, so without further ado….they are St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and  My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me.

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell

You may remember St. Lucy’s from an earlier post by Zita.  I believe she referenced it as “an awesome little book of short stories,” and that could not be closer to the truth.  I recently gifted this book to a friend of mine, who in the middle of writing her honors thesis and finishing up all of the other requisite undergraduate work, found time to read a bit and said that the stories really stuck with her.  Russell was named one of The New Yorker’s “Top 20 Under 40 Writers” this summer and with good reason.  I personally wish that I could crawl into the world she has created—a world of sleep-away camps for “disordered dreamers” where one of the remedies is to fall asleep in a hot air balloon, alligator-wrestling theme parks hidden away in swamplands, and cities made of large, abandoned shells.  I recently received an advance reading copy of Russell’s new novel Swamplandia!  (happy early Christmas to me)and can hardly wait to get started on it.

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me edited by Kate Bernheimer

This book is a fairy tale anthology, but what Kate Bernheimer has done is asked contemporary writers like Aimee Bender, Michael Cunningham, Neil Gaiman, and Joyce Carol Oates (the list of wonderful authors goes on and on) to take a fairy tale “classic” (think La Fontaine, the brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson) and write a new version or spin-off inspired by that classic. It’s a fun book to read, and since it’s an anthology, it’s easy to just pick up and read one story whenever the mood strikes.

Bernheimer is an Associate Professor of English and Writer in Residence at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette and has written several books of her own.  She founded the Fairy Tale Review in 2005 and remains the editor.  Check out her website here.

Gregory Maguire (author of Wicked) writes in the Foreword:

Let’s open the door to the green room and peek to see who is waiting. A bevy of beauties…an evanescence of sprites…an abundance of adversaries…a passel of princes…Maybe we should have brought that bubbly; but there’s something being served here more deeply inebriating than champagne.  Hush.

What are some of your fairy-tale favorites?  The last time I wrote about fairy tales I received some lovely suggestions, and I’d love to add more books to the soon-to-be-toppling-tower on my bedside table.  -Kaycie

I have really had a hard time trying to figure out what to blog about this week. Every book that I am reading and liking it seems so is everyone else in the store–which ultimately means that there are a lot of people in the store with good and similar tastes. So while I was scanning my bookshelves I found a book that I really loved earlier this year and tried in vain to get people to read. Alice I Have Been is a historical fiction book about the real Alice in Wonderland!!! And if that doesn’t interest you than I am at a loss. Everyone loves Lewis Carroll’s classic and if you don’t I bet you are real hesitant to say so in most crowds. It is a staple in every library period!

Alice Liddell is her name and she was the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church at Oxford. She had free roam of those grounds with all that knowledge that surely must cloud the air there. So many students, some even princes, and professors to meet and befriend. Mr. Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll was quite fond of the Liddell girls, especially Alice. He took them on boat rides in the pond, made up stories for them and often photographed them. FYI: Lewis Carroll was quite a fine photographer and I am willing to bet that most are familiar with his photographs of Alice and just don’t know the whole story about the photos.

But of course where there is a closeness between a small girl and a full grown man the rumors will start to materialize. So that is all I feel at liberty to say about this book without spoiling this great read. After I was finished with this book I went back and reread Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and became obsessed with everything about Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell.

Luckily shortly after I read this book I came upon a book about Lewis Carroll in the store with his books, The Mystery of Lewis Carroll. So of course I had to buy it and I went straight home and started to read it. So I truly wanted to do a research project on the whole subject after reading this book!

So I implore you to give into your flights of fancy, but also learn about a fun little snippet in literary history at the same time.

Check out some of the many beautiful editions of Alice in Wonderland.

-Ellen

by Kelly Pickerill

This is book nerddom at its finest. I fell in love with Vladimir Nabokov after reading Lolita in college (no chuckles, now). Humbert Humbert’s perversion notwithstanding, Nabokov’s prose is like a kick in the head for me — when I read a single sentence by him I want to throw the book down and write something myself. Though I lack the discipline required of a writer, the best books — those that come closest to making me feel writing isn’t so much a discipline as it is a tapping into the essence of lyricism, with the perfect balance of playfulness and reverence, make me want to write so bad. And everything I’ve read by Nabokov does. After Lolita I read Laughter in the Dark (or Camera Obscura), then Despair, then Pnin, Ada, and when The Original of Laura — Nabokov’s last, incomplete novel, written on 138 index cards — came out last year in a really amazing format designed by Chip Kidd, I snatched it up. Though I am too rigidly pro first edition to punch out the perforated reproduced index cards, the way the book was put together really is delightful.

So someone came up to the desk the other day to get a copy, and along with The Original of Laura they had a book called The Ada Poems by Cynthia Zarin. It had to be more than a coincidence, I thought, and sure enough: Zarin used as the inspiration for her fifth book of poetry Nabokov’s Ada, or Ardor. It may be my adoration of T. S. Eliot’s poetry that makes me sympathetic to the idea of structuralism, but I think most artists whether they be novelists, poets, painters, are going to agree that the role of tradition, respecting the work that came before theirs and making use of it, is important. In an obvious way, Zarin’s poems brought me back to the experience of reading Nabokov, though not just because the voice of many of her poems was that precocious character, Ada. It was more that her words, their playfulness and precision, reminded me of Nabokov’s. I’m really enjoying reading these poems, and I’ll likely go back and read her earlier collections, as well.

For more on Nabokov read Lisa’s blog on The Original of Laura here.

On the “Today Show” this morning, there was a segment entitled “Is Civility Dead”? I was immediately reminded of the excellent apropos novel that I started over the weekend and from which I am only about 20 pages from the conclusion: The False Friend by Myla Goldberg. Richard Russoo, author of That Old Cape Magic has commented on Goldberg’s newest novel by saying, The False Friend is a riveting read, both compelling and richly satisfying.” I agree. Author Aimee Bender’s comments on Goldberg’s Bee Season, a previous novel, were also very complimentary. So, I am not alone in liking Goldberg’s power in storytelling.

So, how does The False Friend fit in with “civility”? Simply because this captivating novel explores the horrible human characteristic, now more present than ever, of bullying. As we all know, bullying begins often in childhood and progresses in adolescence, as is seen currently in the sad, sad case of the Rutgers students who chastised their classmate on a website, thereby resulting in his demise.

In The False Friend the female protagonist goes back in time, emotionally and physically, when she returns to her small midwestern home town to “tell the truth” about the bullying of which she was apart in the 1960s when she was only 11 years old. The reader learns that she was part of a small group of girls who held power over other young girls and made them wear their hair, their clothes, and shape their lives into a form which was incredibly measured by series of checks and balances each morning on the school bus. Ironically, the ring leader disappears in a forest, and the protagonist sees her simply “fall”, but tells the others that a car took her away. Therefore, a mystery is in the making, fueled more and more each year by the townspeople. The bullying was relentless and in present day haunts the protagonist so much that it begins to affect her relationship with her boyfriend and her parents, all of whom are major characters in this short novel.

When Celia returns to investigate her friend’s disappearance so many years before, no one wants to believe her version of “the truth” about what really happened that day in the woods. She even tracks down the other girls in the group and interviews them about what they think happened that fateful day. Yes, this is a type of mystery, but it is much more. This spellbinding, culturally applicable novel has me itching for the time tonight after my busy, busy day when I can read the final 20 pages to see some resolution.  -Nan