Familiar, J. Robert Lennon

This slim novel is a haunting tale of identity and memory, by an author new to me, J. Robert Lennon. Elisa Brown is driving home from her annual visit to her son's grave, as the story opens. She notices that a crack in her windshield has disappeared. By the time she returns home she has become aware of many other changes. The basic outlines of her life are the same, but important things have changed. She keeps this disturbing event a secret from her husband, and gingerly navigates her same/changed life: a different job, a marriage counselor that she did not have before, and two sons, who are now estranged, and both alive. She struggles with the fear that she has gone mad and in desperation visits the world of pop-physics to learn about parallel universes. But, she is inextricably living in this one, and slowly comes to terms with who she is and her old memories. We all are dealt surprises in our lives, some more dramatic than others. These can change our lives and who we are. If this has not happened to you, then continue to enjoy your good fortune! Familiar casts a troubling look at this phenomenon.

On the Floor, Aifric Campbell

I rarely read novels or non-fiction based on the world of finance & investments. I had enough of the real thing for 35 years, and I have other interests! But, this book was well reviewed and I gave it a shot. Aifric Campbell spent 15 years at Morgan Stanley and became the first woman managing director on their London trading floor. She left to earn a PhD in creative writing and now teaches. The novel is set in 1991 and is the story of a successful trader, Geri Molloy, and her journey to get there. It captures the frat house, mostly male, world of trading at that time, & what that meant for a smart woman who wanted to succeed.  She evokes this world with humor, and also leavens it with Molloy's judgments of the highly paid, heavy drinkers working the phones. Campbell also develops the trader's broken family, her years of hiding remarkable mathematical abilities, & the viciously serious manipulations of her biggest client. One weakness in the story was Molloy's destructive drinking after a heartbreak, which became cloying. The ending of the novel is a bit unlikely, but choices made on the last page redeem that. There are flashes of great writing, & I look forward to reading Campbell's next novel.

Tim Parks: Sex is Forbidden

Catchy title, eh? Tim Parks again delivers his dry humor and wry observations on the human condition. This was not always an easy read for me, likely due to my own Buddhist-vipassana-fatigue, combined with the structure of the book. It's likely that you do not suffer from my affliction, so this well written novel might be quite enjoyable for you. The story is told by a wild rocker, Beth, whose life is in crisis. She goes to a meditation retreat in Britain and stays as a server in the kitchen for 9 months. It happens to be a Buddhist center teaching vipassana meditation. So, much of the book is the stream of consciousness observing and thinking in Beth's head: about her boyfriend in the band, her older married boyfriend, her family, her life of excess, meditation, the teachers & servers at the retreat, and the tragic incident that led her there. Beth is a very entertaining character, who by the way, breaks most of the rules at the Dasgupta Institute. She wanders into the men's dorm, forbidden, and reads the diary of troubled man, reading & writing forbidden. On her next trip into the dorm she writes in the man's diary, "You love your pain too much." ! I loved thinking about his reaction to finding these words in his diary. While their lives don't intersect, their stories do begin to intertwine via Beth's reflections. A nice conceit. If you meditate, Buddhist or not, you might enjoy Beth's questions and observations as she pushes herself deeper into her practice.

Tim Parks' journey as an author is an interesting one. He has written 16 novels, and also became well known for his memoirs as an ex-pat Brit living in "domani domani" Italia. He has lived near Verona since 1981. The first of his books that I read was Italian Neighbours, 1992, quite humorous. In 2010, he published another memoir, Teach us to Sit Still, A Skeptics Search for Health and Healing. Here Park describes his struggle with long-term chronic pain and his frustrating encounter with the medical machine. In the second half of the book he begins to consider meditation to help himself heal. I'm guessing that his latest book grew out of that experience. 

Don't just do something, sit there....and read this book.

Jane Gardam, Last Friends

Last Friends is the last book in Jane Gardam's Hong Kong trilogy. It was published in 2013 when she was 85 years old. Gardam has an extraordinary touch for creating eccentric characters without letting them tilt into caricature. Old Filth was the popular first book. It is the story of Edward Feathers, who became a giant in international construction law, overcoming a bizarre childhood that I will not try to describe. Filth is an acronym for "Failed in London Try Hong Kong." His wife Betty is developed in The Wooden Hat, as is her love for Feather's rival lawyer, Terry Venering. She is a not particularly attractive woman who creates great passion in men. At this point the reader knows little of Venering other than that he is a brash, handsome, successful lawyer. His very humble roots & strange journey to Hong Kong are revealed in Last Friends. Much of this book is from the viewpoint of an elderly friend of the three main characters, who has left Hong Kong and is living in rural England. She is living in the same small village in which the two foes somehow retired. Memory and its unreliable flashes are part of the tale here. There are many very original characters who orbit the three key ones throughout the trilogy. They are often delightful.

Recital

Our first house concert was not elegant chamber music, but rock/blues/jazz offered by...me. Twenty-two good sports came to hear forty-five minutes of my compositions performed on piano and electronic keyboard. I was quite nervous, so I cannot say that I had fun playing the music from memory. But, hearing people's reactions was indeed fun. No one had any idea what to expect, especially those who had heard Debbie's concerts. The pieces had diverse moods and a wide range of sounds from the keyboard, and I think this is what most people reacted to. For example, the recital began with a slow, dark jazz piano piece that evoked its title, Film Noir. This was followed by a few short vignettes that showed off the keyboard's sound banks. Then, rocking electric guitar, jazzy electronic harpsichord, blues piano, and what one guest described as "science fiction music"! I've taken a break from the keyboards and performance anxiety since then and have been painting. 

J.M. Ledgard's Submergence

I finished my 2013 reading with a strong novel, J.M. Ledgard's Submergence. It is a tightly told double-helix of a British intelligence officer in east Africa and a biomathemetician who works on ultra-deep sea research. They meet on a brief vacation & fall in love, an emotion which is unusual for both of them. James More is then kidnapped in Somalia by Jihadists and begins a long period of brutal captivity. Danielle Flinders prepares for and begins a dive in a submersible to the abyssal deep of the Greenland Sea. They have both been loners in their worlds of espionage and advanced mathematics. In their journeys in the story they are both quite alone again. This gives Ledgard a platform for their reflections on many global issues, from Jihad to long-term ecological concerns. Ledgard has been a foreign correspondent for The Economist in Africa since 1995. 

This is definately not a spy novel.  There is very little time spent describing More's life in intelligence before the kidnapping. His treatment during the rest of the book is not remotely martini-glamorous. Ledgard's insights into the men and boys who are fighting the Jihad are subtly made, when he could have been heavy handed, a nice touch. His observations and speculations about the nearly-alien life forms in the deepest seas are thought provoking. Submergence is a short ride that will stay with you for some time to come.

David Gilbert: & Sons

David Gilbert's second novel, & Sons, is a gift to readers of novels: good story, insights and characters, all painted with great writing and a deft touch. This novel is chock full of wonderful one-liners that display playful word-smithing while bringing meaning to the passage. Gilbert keeps the gloves off and the prose is never over-written. & Sons is the story of two families, fathers & sons, husbands & wives, friends, love & meanness, and...writing. The aging A.N. Dyer is a hugely successful novelist, and a not very good father or friend. His lifelong friend, Charles Topping, loved him, and was dominated & hurt by Dyer. Their children are more or less dysfunctional or bruised, each in their own way. They are lovingly and honestly drawn by Gilbert in all of their frailties & faults. Some of these characters are more aware of their own brutality, others blind to it, and some of their love and need. It is not a coming-of-age novel, thankfully, and has none of Jonathan Franzen's sophomoric vignettes of childhood & parents, thankfully again. Each year I read many novels, snooze through too many and am captured by a very few. In 2013 there were two highlights: The Dinner by Herman Koch,  a very dark and very human story, and & Sons, a very human and unblinking story of fathers, sons & friends.