Michael Chabon's Moonglow

Somehow I missed Michael Chabon's dozen novels and Pulitzer Prize. I know now that this is my loss. His most recent novel, Moonglow, is a delight to read. It is a cross between a novel and "speculative" biography. It reads like great story telling. Theoretically, it is the life story of his normally taciturn grandfather told from his deathbed. Some is real, and much is undoubtedly from Chabon's fertile imagination. I don't care if this came from his grandfather, his uncle, or Chabon's own noggin. I read this as fiction and it's wonderful.

There are powerful hooks for readers of Chabon's age, or any age: from his grandfather's love of rocketry and the future of space travel, to the difficulties of loving complicated people. There are fun footnotes, and more information than I ever dreamed of about our nation's favorite rocket hero, Werner von Braun and his dirty Nazi secrets of the slave labor Mittelwerk V-2 factory. There is also an often humorous dose of well deserved existentialism after his grandfather's experiences in World War II. Do not fear, while WW II is an important back story, it is a small part of the book. The novel is really about passion, love, hidden truths and lies, selective revelation, and protecting love. This is all told with compassion and humor.

You don't need childhood memories of rockets and dreams of spaceflight to enjoy this book. It is great storytelling all on its own.

All the Dead Yale Men by Craig Nova

Craig Nova often writes about good, but flawed, people, who get in jams with very bad people. This happens through his protagonists' human frailties in situations the reader can imagine, but would rather not get stuck in. All the Dead Yale Men is vintage Nova. I sometimes squirmed in my seat in sympathy for Frank Mackinnnon, the all too human attorney at the center of the novel. The title is misleading, there's very little about Yale, and only two dead men, one from a heart attack. So, it's not a blue blood mystery. The novel is about people juggling parenthood, family conflict, & love. Parenthood is seen from Frank's dual vantage point as the son of a very flawed father, who we meet as an elderly, slippery former CIA agent, and as the parent of daughter Pia, who is coming of age & with rebellion in full bloom. In an effort to protect Pia from a manipulative street conman, Frank gets sideways with some small time Russian crooks, who are ready to blackmail him. This is not a good position for a Boston district attorney. Frank is a reader of Roman philosophers, and quotes from them are juxtaposed against the mess he has created with his more or less good intentions. The story unfolds in Franks voice, and in Nova's usual spare and eloquent prose.  He has written eleven other novels, and I've read and recommend most of them. This one is a good place to start.

The Adventurist by J. Bradford Hipps

Many have likened The Adventurist to Walker Percy and that's not far off. This book is wonderfully written corporate existential fiction. The Percy observation is hard to avoid given Hipps' perfectly chosen epigraph from the great 1961 debut novel The Movie Goer: "Businessmen are our only metaphysicians." For me, this is a good starting point, since my library has mint first editions of every Percy novel published.

J. Bradford Hipps spent ten years in the software industry, and he was paying attention. Existentialism aside, he has brought us startlingly vivid insights into the corporate sales culture and life under the gun: tough quarterly sales goals, risk of firing, win or go. This world is brought to life by the steely pragmatic views of the veteran division manager, Keith. The protagonist at the center of the story is Henry Hurt, and the word hero is more appropriate given the big life issues he digs into. OK, maybe his name is a little too obvious, but this is a small price to pay for a very good read. He's a long-time software engineer, who manages a development team. Henry is called into a big marketing push by Keith and his newly hired sales director. But, Henry is adrift: single, he lost his mother to cancer, his father is flirting with dementia & being cared for by Henry's non-profit centric sister. His reponse to all this is to fall in love with a married woman in sales, who is on the big push team. Henry's reflections on life & his boss' comments on corporate life are the joys of the book. Keith's one liner's are priceless. Keith on the phone: "Now he is nodding testily. 'Look,' says Keith, 'My rule? Never carry a salesman longer than his mother did. You're profitable in nine months or you're out.' The receiver goes back into its cradle."  There is one weak point in the novel. While the story's ending is believable, the event that triggers it seems unlikely. This is surprising given Hipps' on-target insights about corporate life. But, I can happily live with that, given how much Hipps has to say about careers, relationships, & the search for meaning in the modern workplace. The writing is superb, and it's a debut novel, so I'll watch for more.

The Red Car - Marcy Dermansky

The prose in The Red Car zooms across the pages, not in a hurry, but careening, almost out of control. Marcy Dermansky's novel is a sort of coming-of-age tale, which I normally avoid like election year politics. But, the reader quickly gains affection for our hero, Leah, as she pings through life. The cadence of Dermansky's prose feels like Vendela Vida's first novel, which I enjoyed. But, this writing is much more free and with a good natured sense of humor. Written in the first person, the story unfolds with a lot of internal monologue. Yes, this can be an annoying affectation, but in this case works very well...We like her. Leah is living in Queens with her husband that she met in grad school, finishing her first novel on her laptop. The marriage might be a green card event. Her boss Judy, from years ago in San Francisco, dies suddenly. Leah had loved her, a confident, brash, mother figure for her, a big support system, wise-eyed, worldly. Leah makes quick plans to go to the funeral, and her husband chokes her as they argue about this...she probably needs to make some changes. Judy left her the red car she died in, a car that Leah always hated. At a mechanic's shop in San Fran, she finds her old journal under the front passenger seat with a letter from her boss taped inside, a suicide note and advice from beyond. Follow the clues, Judy tells her regarding life. And she does. She drives to a speaking engagement of an old boyfriend who is an internet success, with another college friend. By the way, the book opens with quite a scene with him at college, sorry, no spoiler. She stays at an inn that her mother had loved and edits her novel. The clerk at the inn, a beautiful young Japanese girl, a writing student, steals the red car. Leah goes back east for the bat mitzvah of Judy's niece, as requested in the letter, without going home. There are many other characters and twists along the way. Ping ping ping. Amidst this crazy journey, which is fun for the reader, Leah gains insight into herself and the confidence to follow the clues. As the book closed, I wished her well.

Thomas Murphy by Roger Rosenblatt

Roger Rosenblatt is a distinguished essayist, play-write and novelist. I had never read his work until his most recent novel: Thomas Murphy. It is a delightful book filled with insights about poetry, family, aging, and dementia. Yes, it does sometimes border on being a too-sweet dessert, but Rosenblatt always brings it back to earth. The novel is told in the voice of Thomas Murphy, an aging Irish poet who lives in New York, a widower with a loving daughter and grandson. His daughter is pushing him for tests by a neurologist for his memory problems. Murphy's dealings with the doctor, and everyone else, are priceless...and funny.

I know, it sounds like a candidate for another feel-good movie, but it's worth looking beyond the icing. Murphy's tongue in cheek monologues are free from chronology and also free from distinguishing fact from fiction, which can make them wonderful. The reader becomes accustomed to Murphy's stories woven into "the story", and one quickly doesn't care whether it is history or story or both, because it's great story-telling. His observations about life, art, love, loss, are all worth reading and considering.

OK, truth be told, I read this book when I hit a big speed-bump in my life, bang! Despite Murphy's trials, this book was a real pick-me-up, so sue me. I can imagine and hear Thomas saying, "And what could be wrong with that?"

The Last Word, by Hanif Kureishi

I'm always a sucker for novels about writers and writing. Hanif Kureishi's The Last Word hits this target from a number of angles and poses interesting questions. It is also filled with delightfully developed characters who are all colorful, without becoming caricatures. This gives the book a rich balance of pathos and humor.

A hungry and ambitious young writer, Harry Johnson, is given a commission to write a biography of a towering literary figure, Mamoon Azam. His publisher hopes to revitalize Azam's book sales & reputation. The writer has been a life-long hero to Harry. Of course, Harry opens Pandora's box when he begins his research while living at Mamoon's estate, which creates conflicts for him. Exploitative and thoughtless relationships with women and sexual hijinx are revealed from Azam's first wife's journals and an ex-lover's scathing interviews. Mamoon's deliberately incendiary commentary on all aspects of art and life are already well known, having cost him his academic career. As always, the ambition of the young can be counted on to outweigh admiration.

Mamoon's second wife, Liana, a fiery Italian, would like this biography to polish her husband's career, not paint a picture of a selfish, debauched artist. Harry's character explores the contradictions and conflicts of a biographer, in this case, leavened with his own powerful ambition. Liana quickly recognizes that the biographer has his own agenda of using this book to vault his own career, while she would like it to vault Mamoon's artistic reputation. Meanwhile, Mamoon is distant, insulting, and dismissive of Harry, and will barely grant him a conversation. Their brief, oblique discussions of writing and the artistic process, which Harry must tease out of Mamoon, lay out nuggets about art and life from Kureishi. 

To get this biography written, Harry embarks on a complex dance with all of them. On second thought, one of them might be a caricature: the hard drinking publisher, who pushes Harry & bait-&-switches him. The psychology of these, and other characters, is carefully developed by Kureishi, which gives blood to the heady ideas the book explores. A maid in the household, who has a complex history with Mamoon centered on reading, and a complex relationship with Harry, is a rewarding one. 

In an age of 240 character social media, Kureishi has important things to say about the art of writing. However, the author never takes the topic too seriously, and the novel can be quite funny at times. Highly recommend.

I'm going to borrow a phrase from my previous posting: "I don't read a lot of", in this case, thrillers. If I could find more thrillers like Charlie Huston's Skinner, I would read a lot more of them. Huston is a successful writer of edgie mysteries. His most recent novel, Skinner, is a post-9/11 thriller based in the world of the international security industry. It is a compelling story filled with exceptionally well developed characters. The story and the characters are all believable, which adds to the hook. Huston builds a complex story of a credible threat and the response by a large security firm and three ex-employees. Yes, there are good guys who are not so good, lots of double crosses, mixed alliances and a possible loose nuke. Skinner is an infamous agent with a strange resume. He is assigned an "asset" to protect, Jae, a gifted data analyst and robotics expert who is a bit fried. She has been hired to investigate a cyber attack on the U.S. power grid, which leads her to another plot involving what might be a nuke. Or...she is led to the other plot, by another former colleague from the grave. It's quite a  ride.