Take Your Book Outside and Read

Hang the Moon by Jeanette Walls—You may remember Walls from her memoir Glass Castle about growing up in the Appalachians with her off the grid parents. Her father was a bootlegger and that’s where she gets much of her material for her latest novel.

Sallie Kincaid is the daughter of The Duke, a big man in a small town in Virginia. This family saga spans from WWI through Prohibition. Sallie’s mother had died in a violent argument with Duke and he promptly marries Jane and has a son, who is nothing like the firebrand that is Sallie. After an accident with Eddie, Sallie is sent away to stay with her aunt. But when she returns it is to care for her half-brother after the death of Jane. Not even a month goes by, and Duke is married once again. This novel is full of marriages, affairs, secret children that pop up when you least expect them and deaths… lots of deaths.

The legacy of Duke hangs heavy over Sallie as she fights to retain control of Kincaid Holdings. And when yet another family member appears after Duke’s untimely death, Sallie is sent to make sure all Prohibition laws are adhered to. In small-town Virginia that is a tall order.

I will leave the reader to find out how Sallie befriends and protects the bootleggers and leads the law on a merry chase. Feisty, determined to lead her own life, Sallie is an interesting character to follow. Somehow, I can see this as a movie and Barbara Stanwick (that’s how old I am) plays the role of Sallie.

The Librarianist by Patrick DeWitt—Bob Comet, 71 years old and a retired librarian (of course I had to read it) lives alone, has no friends and basically reads. He is not unhappy or lonely. When he meets an obviously lost lady in a pink sweater, he guides her back to the Senior Center where she lives, but often wanders around Portland. When he meets Maria, manager of the center, he decides to volunteer, even against her warnings.  Ah… the reader thinks, he and Maria…but DeWitt’s story goes far afield. Bob is a bland character, but his life has been far from dull. We return to his life as a librarian when he meets both his wife and his best friend. We return farther back to his 12-year-old self when he runs away and spends a week with two strange old actresses in an old hotel. The thing about Bob is that he hardly ever really talks, and we depend on the quirky characters he meets to make the conversation more interesting. And I loved the other characters.

There are many times in the novel that I thought that this is the place where it ends…he dies or he becomes fulfilled and happy…or he finds love…but I was wrong.

His memories of the library though, were true and sometimes very funny. And that is one reason that I would recommend this book.

Fresh Snow on Bedford Falls: Second Chances by G.L. Gooding—Well this is a different book…Who hasn’t watched the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life”? And if you have, who hasn’t wished for a more definitive ending, much like the SNL skit where a group of very upset citizens beat up Mr. Potter. https://youtu.be/vw89o0afb2A

But Gooding takes this in a very different direction. Starting the day after the movie ends, an “investigator” arrives in Bedford Falls to really find out what happened to the missing $8000. And when he finds out, he does a deep dive into Potter’s past to find out what made him the way he is. Most of the novel takes place in London where he meets his future wife, and the reader follows his sad trail to the future.

The writing is not the quality I was searching for, but the story is captivating…and the ending…wait for it!

With My Little Eye by Joshilyn Jackson

What is stalking and what is just extreme curiosity? It certainly depends on the stalkee. In With My Little Eye these are questions worth exploring. Maribel Mills is a semi-well-known actress known for a small part in a series years ago. She does not feel that she warrants a stalker. but somehow, she has one…and he is getting closer, until she literally smells his distinctive odor on her sheets. She then takes her daughter Honor and they move from LA to a place she swore she’d never return…Atlanta where she has a past. 

For a while she thinks she has outrun him. She has a job; she makes a friend and her almost 13 year old autistic daughter seems to have a friend as well. But then the letters start coming again and her ex-boyfriend from LA mysteriously arrives. Oh, by the way, she is also following or is she stalking her ex-husband, while her new friend Cooper seems to be following his ex-girlfriend. 

There are several plots in this fast-paced thriller. Who are the good guys and who is the stalker? There are several choices, and I was wrong about most of them. Joshilyn Jackson continues to provide her readers with wonderful characters, and with especially real problems. I particularly appreciated the depiction of her daughter.

And here’s something again from my Gaithersburg Gazette (RIP) “Check It Out” column from last century (1998) proving I hope that old books and old columns are just as readable.

A Widow for One Year by John Irving—This very literary novel (all four main characters are writers) cover enough issues to keep the reader busy for all 537 pages—the death of children (a staple of Irving’s work) a dysfunctional family obsession with older women and prostitution as well as literary angst.

We follow Ruth Cole as she grows up in the specter of her two dead brothers and missing mother. Like her father, Ruth becomes a writer as is her mother, Marion, and the young man obsessed with Marion. All their writings become part of the novel.

This is a work of incredible emotional force and because of the characters’ strength and believability, it is Irving’s most readable opus to daten(1998 that is.)