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Jenny Alexander is a free spirited single mom raising her two teenaged daughters alone in the San Juan Islands of Puget Sound after leaving behind a troubled relationship on the mainland. She finds peace and solace in the arms of this close-knit community, but, alas, not much love...until, that is, a group of Shakespearean actors arrives for a summer production of The Tempest. Jenny and her daughters audition for a part in the play and are cast as Juno, Ceres, and Iris. A handsome actor in the troupe catches Jenny's eye, but also catches the eye of her eldest, thrill-seeking, bohemian daughter Lilly. Unfortunately, her naive younger daughter Frankie ends up suffering the most as a result of the conflict between her mother and sister and when she decides to explore her own past, goes missing. If they are to save the innocent Frankie, Jenny and Lilly must put aside their differences and follow Frankie's difficult journey into a past neither wants to revisit. The twists and turns and misunderstandings that resulted kept me turning the pages and the writing was beautiful, especially the fascinating island and ocean descriptions. I look forward to reading Lise Saffran's next book!
In an Uncharted Country is an enchanting collection of stories set in the fictionalized small town of Rugglesville, Virginia, a place inhabited by locals named Alice and Hank, Walt and Betsy, but also girls with pink hair, boys with tattooed flames burning across their backs, and antique dealers who talk to their wing chairs. There are stories of loss and new life, of identity and longing, discovery and home. More than just a slice of one human community, these stories also give us dogs and deer, vultures and mysterious winged beauties. From the opening flood to the closing fireworks, this is a gorgeous debut collection filled with the struggles and redemption of families at once familiar and exotic.
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Ru Freeman’s gorgeous debut novel A Disobedient Girl opens with eleven-year-old Latha enjoying her daily indulgence—an afternoon wash at the well using a rose-scented soap. The soap is a symbol of status and she has stolen it from the Vithanages, a family raising her to be a servant for Thara, their same-age daughter. The two young girls become as close as sisters, but as the years pass and Latha’s duties to Thara increase, she begins to bristle in her role as servant. When she and Thara flirt with a pair of local boys, Ajith and Gehan, the obvious class disparities rise to the surface and Latha fumes with resentment. Thara proclaims Ajith her ideal mate and Latha comes to care for Gehan, a gentle, lower-caste boy who obviously cares for her. But the course of love (as they say) never runs smoothly and the romantic lives of Latha and Thara are no exception. A simple desire to show that she is more than just a servant girl, and to be rewarded for her years of service, sets Latha on a path that will affect the lives of everyone she touches.
Throughout the novel, Latha and Thara’s story parallels that of Biso, a young mother of three who flees an abusive husband as well as a scandal in her small village that she helped to create. How these two stories will intersect is unclear for much of the book, but the author’s steady hand and gorgeous prose lead us along with full confidence that they will eventually come together. A pair of gold earrings, a red sports car, and a series of mysterious explosions give us tantalizing glimpses along the way, but things are never quite what they seem. And the life-changing secrets that bind these women together are the very secrets that tear their lives apart. Moving with the characters through love lost and love gained, through surprise insights and tragic misunderstandings, the reader is enticed forward to a thrilling denouement that is the perfect combination of shock and sudden understanding. Days later, I’m still savoring the bittersweet longing delivered by A Disobedient Girl’s exquisitely resonant final chapter.
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(3 of 5 readers found this comment helpful)
In the opening scene of Ron Rash’s excellent new novel Serena, George Pemberton, ruthless and land-hungry timber baron, returns by train to his holdings near Asheville, NC in 1929, with Serena, his wife of two days, in tow. There to meet them at the station are Rachel Harmon—a former camp employee who is carrying Pemberton’s unborn child—and her angry father, bent on revenge. At Serena’s urging, Pemberton quickly settles the score, leaving his opponent disemboweled, the young girl fatherless, and the witnesses at the depot speechless.
Upon returning to camp, the first thing Serena does to establish her own ruthless authority is to size up a nearby cane ash and make a public bet with the skeptical cutting-crew foreman as to the total board feet the tree will yield. Unfortunately for the foreman, he takes Serena’s bet. When the tree is cut and timbered and the results publicly revealed, his fateful bet loses him not only two weeks’ pay, but also his job—leaving no doubt among his fellow timber men as to who is in charge.
From that day forward, woe to any partners, employees, lawmen, or doctors who dare to desert, mislead, or challenge the rising Pemberton dynasty. Serena, as a sideline to her day job of overseeing the cutting and transport of timber, proceeds to import and tame a wild eagle, teaching it to hunt and destroy the area’s deadly timber rattlers, launching its aerial attacks from an imposing perch atop Serena’s forearm, while she sits astride her white Arabian stallion. When the eagle drops one of its victims, and a six-foot venomous snake falls from the sky, landing at the feet of the camp’s preacher, the man goes mad and is removed from his position, attracting unsavory interest and speculation from his fellow workers for months to follow.
The story of the Pembertons’ rise to power takes an even more violent turn when Serena—who wears jodhpurs and boots like a man—becomes pregnant, carries to term, then tragically loses the child, as well as her ability to conceive any future children; on the surface she copes, but underneath it all her vengeful and vindictive tendencies thrive.
When Serena’s quick tourniquet saves the life of a loner/worker whose hand is accidentally severed, she wins the blind loyalty of both him and his mantic mother, gaining a devoted henchman to do her diabolical bidding. Twenty-six months after the honeymoon train ride from Boston, Serena sets out to kill the child her husband fathered before they met. Her first foray into the surrounding hills fails to reveal the child’s whereabouts, but Serena manages to carry out her first longed-for murder: the innocent Widow Jenkins who had been caretaker of the boy. “We’ve both killed now,” Serena tells her husband urgently. “What you felt at the depot, I’ve felt, too. We’re closer, Pemberton, closer than we’ve ever been before.” And for the first time, we get a glimpse of the Lady Macbeth she has become, and the latent tendency that had been there all along. After her sinister pronouncement, her husband muses thusly:
"Madness, Pemberton thought, and remembered the first evening back in Boston, the walk down the cobbled streets to Serena’s lodging, the hollow sound of their footsteps. He remembered the moment he’d stood on the icy step as Serena unlocked the door and went inside, pressed the front room light on. Even when Serena had turned and smiled, Pemberton had lingered. Some dim troubling, almost visceral, keeping him there on the step, in the cold, outside the door. He remembered how he’d pulled off his gloves and stuffed them in his overcoat pocket, brushed some snow flurries off his shoulders as he delayed his entrance a few more moments. Then he’d stepped inside, stepping toward this room as well, into this moment."
When her latest obsession reveals itself (“just us” she says, passionately kissing Pemberton before setting out under cover of darkness) her husband’s own desire to save the child who already bears such a striking resemblance to his father, initiates the slow unraveling of their marriage leading, ultimately and cataclysmically, to a conclusion so shocking that even though we sense it coming we think “no!” as we read—“no, surely not.” But readers can rest assured, under Ron Rash’s masterful pen and meticulous unfolding narrative, the dramatic conclusion is both thematically and cinematically right for the story. We arrive there breathless, incredulous, but strangely and supremely satisfied.
This is a finely crafted, beautifully rendered, and classically tragic tale of human ambition run amok. I have been a fan of Rash’s work for years, but this surely is his best, most artful novel yet.
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(5 of 8 readers found this comment helpful)
In his new memoir, Something for the Pain: One Doctor's Account of Life and Death in the ER, Paul Austin takes a clear-eyed look at the profession he has chosen---that of a doctor in a metropolitan Emergency Room, who frequently works what other (less superstitious) professionals might term "the Graveyard Shift."
Within the covers of this thoughtful and moving debut, Austin graciously allows us an insider's look at the struggles and rewards of his job, as well as the toll it can take on a growing family, especially when the detrimental effects of persistent sleep-deprivation fray nerves and breed frustration. (When the author finds an innovative way around these struggles, we silently cheer for his ingenuity and for the sake of his patient, empathetic wife, herself a former nurse.)
Unlike many of our nation's first responders (and ER doctors are definitely first responders), Austin and his ilk often don't get the respect that a fireman (which Austin has also been) or a paramedic might, and they certainly don't receive the full measure of respect they're due. (Have you ever tried staying up all night, on constant alert, dealing with bleeding, vomiting, angry people---many of them drunk and violent---or patients with chest pains and grisly car crash wounds that need immediate attention and split-second medical decisions? All this, while frequent understaffing creates delays that in turn create patients so angry that once they are finally seen it can complicate the process of diagnosis? ...I thought not.)
With equal measures of honesty and empathy, Paul Austin has created a timeless memoir that deserves a wide readership. As Richard Selzer's "Letters to a Young Doctor" helped to open the public's eyes to the general practitioner, so can "Something for the Pain" give us important insights into the working conditions for an ER physician. I do know that without a doubt, the next time I visit an ER, no matter my circumstances, I plan to extend a measure of empathy to the doctor on duty and not just expect it. And I plan to be thoroughly grateful--and definitely sober.
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(3 of 5 readers found this comment helpful)
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Juno's Daughters by Lise Saffran
Mary Akers, February 9, 2012
Jenny Alexander is a free spirited single mom raising her two teenaged daughters alone in the San Juan Islands of Puget Sound after leaving behind a troubled relationship on the mainland. She finds peace and solace in the arms of this close-knit community, but, alas, not much love...until, that is, a group of Shakespearean actors arrives for a summer production of The Tempest. Jenny and her daughters audition for a part in the play and are cast as Juno, Ceres, and Iris. A handsome actor in the troupe catches Jenny's eye, but also catches the eye of her eldest, thrill-seeking, bohemian daughter Lilly. Unfortunately, her naive younger daughter Frankie ends up suffering the most as a result of the conflict between her mother and sister and when she decides to explore her own past, goes missing. If they are to save the innocent Frankie, Jenny and Lilly must put aside their differences and follow Frankie's difficult journey into a past neither wants to revisit. The twists and turns and misunderstandings that resulted kept me turning the pages and the writing was beautiful, especially the fascinating island and ocean descriptions. I look forward to reading Lise Saffran's next book!In an Uncharted Country by Clifford Garstang
Mary Akers, March 31, 2010
In an Uncharted Country is an enchanting collection of stories set in the fictionalized small town of Rugglesville, Virginia, a place inhabited by locals named Alice and Hank, Walt and Betsy, but also girls with pink hair, boys with tattooed flames burning across their backs, and antique dealers who talk to their wing chairs. There are stories of loss and new life, of identity and longing, discovery and home. More than just a slice of one human community, these stories also give us dogs and deer, vultures and mysterious winged beauties. From the opening flood to the closing fireworks, this is a gorgeous debut collection filled with the struggles and redemption of families at once familiar and exotic.(2 of 4 readers found this comment helpful)
A Disobedient Girl by Ru Freeman
Mary Akers, March 23, 2010
Ru Freeman’s gorgeous debut novel A Disobedient Girl opens with eleven-year-old Latha enjoying her daily indulgence—an afternoon wash at the well using a rose-scented soap. The soap is a symbol of status and she has stolen it from the Vithanages, a family raising her to be a servant for Thara, their same-age daughter. The two young girls become as close as sisters, but as the years pass and Latha’s duties to Thara increase, she begins to bristle in her role as servant. When she and Thara flirt with a pair of local boys, Ajith and Gehan, the obvious class disparities rise to the surface and Latha fumes with resentment. Thara proclaims Ajith her ideal mate and Latha comes to care for Gehan, a gentle, lower-caste boy who obviously cares for her. But the course of love (as they say) never runs smoothly and the romantic lives of Latha and Thara are no exception. A simple desire to show that she is more than just a servant girl, and to be rewarded for her years of service, sets Latha on a path that will affect the lives of everyone she touches.Throughout the novel, Latha and Thara’s story parallels that of Biso, a young mother of three who flees an abusive husband as well as a scandal in her small village that she helped to create. How these two stories will intersect is unclear for much of the book, but the author’s steady hand and gorgeous prose lead us along with full confidence that they will eventually come together. A pair of gold earrings, a red sports car, and a series of mysterious explosions give us tantalizing glimpses along the way, but things are never quite what they seem. And the life-changing secrets that bind these women together are the very secrets that tear their lives apart. Moving with the characters through love lost and love gained, through surprise insights and tragic misunderstandings, the reader is enticed forward to a thrilling denouement that is the perfect combination of shock and sudden understanding. Days later, I’m still savoring the bittersweet longing delivered by A Disobedient Girl’s exquisitely resonant final chapter.
(3 of 5 readers found this comment helpful)
Serena by Ron Rash
Mary Akers, May 9, 2009
In the opening scene of Ron Rash’s excellent new novel Serena, George Pemberton, ruthless and land-hungry timber baron, returns by train to his holdings near Asheville, NC in 1929, with Serena, his wife of two days, in tow. There to meet them at the station are Rachel Harmon—a former camp employee who is carrying Pemberton’s unborn child—and her angry father, bent on revenge. At Serena’s urging, Pemberton quickly settles the score, leaving his opponent disemboweled, the young girl fatherless, and the witnesses at the depot speechless.Upon returning to camp, the first thing Serena does to establish her own ruthless authority is to size up a nearby cane ash and make a public bet with the skeptical cutting-crew foreman as to the total board feet the tree will yield. Unfortunately for the foreman, he takes Serena’s bet. When the tree is cut and timbered and the results publicly revealed, his fateful bet loses him not only two weeks’ pay, but also his job—leaving no doubt among his fellow timber men as to who is in charge.
From that day forward, woe to any partners, employees, lawmen, or doctors who dare to desert, mislead, or challenge the rising Pemberton dynasty. Serena, as a sideline to her day job of overseeing the cutting and transport of timber, proceeds to import and tame a wild eagle, teaching it to hunt and destroy the area’s deadly timber rattlers, launching its aerial attacks from an imposing perch atop Serena’s forearm, while she sits astride her white Arabian stallion. When the eagle drops one of its victims, and a six-foot venomous snake falls from the sky, landing at the feet of the camp’s preacher, the man goes mad and is removed from his position, attracting unsavory interest and speculation from his fellow workers for months to follow.
The story of the Pembertons’ rise to power takes an even more violent turn when Serena—who wears jodhpurs and boots like a man—becomes pregnant, carries to term, then tragically loses the child, as well as her ability to conceive any future children; on the surface she copes, but underneath it all her vengeful and vindictive tendencies thrive.
When Serena’s quick tourniquet saves the life of a loner/worker whose hand is accidentally severed, she wins the blind loyalty of both him and his mantic mother, gaining a devoted henchman to do her diabolical bidding. Twenty-six months after the honeymoon train ride from Boston, Serena sets out to kill the child her husband fathered before they met. Her first foray into the surrounding hills fails to reveal the child’s whereabouts, but Serena manages to carry out her first longed-for murder: the innocent Widow Jenkins who had been caretaker of the boy. “We’ve both killed now,” Serena tells her husband urgently. “What you felt at the depot, I’ve felt, too. We’re closer, Pemberton, closer than we’ve ever been before.” And for the first time, we get a glimpse of the Lady Macbeth she has become, and the latent tendency that had been there all along. After her sinister pronouncement, her husband muses thusly:
"Madness, Pemberton thought, and remembered the first evening back in Boston, the walk down the cobbled streets to Serena’s lodging, the hollow sound of their footsteps. He remembered the moment he’d stood on the icy step as Serena unlocked the door and went inside, pressed the front room light on. Even when Serena had turned and smiled, Pemberton had lingered. Some dim troubling, almost visceral, keeping him there on the step, in the cold, outside the door. He remembered how he’d pulled off his gloves and stuffed them in his overcoat pocket, brushed some snow flurries off his shoulders as he delayed his entrance a few more moments. Then he’d stepped inside, stepping toward this room as well, into this moment."
When her latest obsession reveals itself (“just us” she says, passionately kissing Pemberton before setting out under cover of darkness) her husband’s own desire to save the child who already bears such a striking resemblance to his father, initiates the slow unraveling of their marriage leading, ultimately and cataclysmically, to a conclusion so shocking that even though we sense it coming we think “no!” as we read—“no, surely not.” But readers can rest assured, under Ron Rash’s masterful pen and meticulous unfolding narrative, the dramatic conclusion is both thematically and cinematically right for the story. We arrive there breathless, incredulous, but strangely and supremely satisfied.
This is a finely crafted, beautifully rendered, and classically tragic tale of human ambition run amok. I have been a fan of Rash’s work for years, but this surely is his best, most artful novel yet.
(5 of 8 readers found this comment helpful)
Something for the Pain: Compassion and Burnout in the ER by Paul Austin
Mary Akers, May 9, 2009
In his new memoir, Something for the Pain: One Doctor's Account of Life and Death in the ER, Paul Austin takes a clear-eyed look at the profession he has chosen---that of a doctor in a metropolitan Emergency Room, who frequently works what other (less superstitious) professionals might term "the Graveyard Shift."Within the covers of this thoughtful and moving debut, Austin graciously allows us an insider's look at the struggles and rewards of his job, as well as the toll it can take on a growing family, especially when the detrimental effects of persistent sleep-deprivation fray nerves and breed frustration. (When the author finds an innovative way around these struggles, we silently cheer for his ingenuity and for the sake of his patient, empathetic wife, herself a former nurse.)
Unlike many of our nation's first responders (and ER doctors are definitely first responders), Austin and his ilk often don't get the respect that a fireman (which Austin has also been) or a paramedic might, and they certainly don't receive the full measure of respect they're due. (Have you ever tried staying up all night, on constant alert, dealing with bleeding, vomiting, angry people---many of them drunk and violent---or patients with chest pains and grisly car crash wounds that need immediate attention and split-second medical decisions? All this, while frequent understaffing creates delays that in turn create patients so angry that once they are finally seen it can complicate the process of diagnosis? ...I thought not.)
With equal measures of honesty and empathy, Paul Austin has created a timeless memoir that deserves a wide readership. As Richard Selzer's "Letters to a Young Doctor" helped to open the public's eyes to the general practitioner, so can "Something for the Pain" give us important insights into the working conditions for an ER physician. I do know that without a doubt, the next time I visit an ER, no matter my circumstances, I plan to extend a measure of empathy to the doctor on duty and not just expect it. And I plan to be thoroughly grateful--and definitely sober.
(3 of 5 readers found this comment helpful)
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