"A day at the races is thousands of stories," Leo, a die-hard bettor, explains to his son. "Men and horses go out and line up and start running, and the next thing you know, you are in mystery-land." In this wise, spirited novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Smiley (A Thousand Acres) plumbs the wondrously strange world of horse racing as she chronicles two years on the circuit from Hollywood Park to Saratoga to Paris. There's trainer Farley Jones, trying to maintain his dignity and Buddhist detachment, and the profane Buddy Crawford, whose religious awakening doesn't stop him from trying the big swindle. Billionaire owners flaunt their trophy wives (including Rosalind Maybrick, who succumbs to her lover's exquisite touch with horses and women). And there is greenhorn jockey Roberto Acevedo, blessed with the soft hands to let his mounts run like the wind.
But it is the hearts of the magnificent thoroughbreds that Smiley describes most movingly. Epic Steam, a savage monster of a stallion, knows that he's "the son of a son of a bitch." Lovable Justa Bob forgives his manhandlers even as he makes a sad descent from the winner's circle to oblivion. And the aging, comforting Mr. T.—"a horse to ride into the world upon" for Joy, his lost soul of an exercise girl—does find equine heaven on earth. Smiley's story isn't about victory and defeat, but people striving to bond with their animals—and each other. (Knopf, $26)
Bottom Line: A sure bet
by Michael Gross
Can one writer make sense of "fifty years of sex, drugs, rock, revolution, glamour, greed, valor, faith, and silicon chips," as this history of Americans born between 1941 and 1963 is subtitled, in a single (albeit hefty) book? Journalist Gross, 47, author of the bestselling Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women, gives it the old boomer try. Focusing on 19 figures—from Donald Trump to spiritual guru Marianne Williamson—Gross concludes that some fundamentals haven't changed since the idealistic '60s: The Internet is simply one more way of giving "power to the people," while an obsession with prolonging youth is "a hedge against the ultimate authority, mortality."
Gross's reach here exceeds his grasp. His attempt to catalog an entire era gives the text a perfunctory feel, and he often drops people's stories just when they get involving. Still, tidbits like this do liven things up: "I didn't look favorably upon [hippies]," mogul Trump tells Gross, cause they were always very dirty." (HarperCollins, $25)
Bottom Line: Talkirr 'bout his generation a little too much
by John Updike
It is winter in Denmark, in the soon-to-be haunted castle of Elsinore, which, we are told, sits in a "foggy hinterland, where the sheep look like rocks and the rocks look like sheep."
To bleat or not to bleat? In this ingenious prequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet, National Book Award winner John Updike dazzles with plenty of wordplay before the swordplay. Instead of fussing with a clever plot that dovetails with the Bard's, Updike tells a simple love story and offers brilliantly nuanced portraits of two characters Shakespeare merely sketched—Queen Gertrude (Prince Hamlet's mom) and King Claudius (Hamlet's uncle turned wicked stepfather). This is a new perspective—that of a middle-aged queen falling for her husband's darkly mysterious younger brother. Tragedy broods in the wings, of course. But for the space of this short, sly novel, the guilty couple share sweet romance. (Knopf, $23)
Bottom Line: Rich reimagining of classic characters
by Lisa Scottoline
"Jack Newlin had no choice but to frame himself for murder." That's a terrific opening line for a hard-boiled, Grishamesque murder novel, which this is supposed to be. But too often, Scottoline (ITALIC "Mistaken Identity"]) lapses into sappy, bodice-ripper prose. Newlin's V neck, we're told, is "deep enough to reveal a light tangle of chest hair" and "show off sinewy biceps."
Newlin, by the way, is an estate attorney at a prestigious Philadelphia law firm. His socialite wife has been stabbed to death, and he confesses to the crime to protect his 16-year-old daughter, a bratty model who hated her mother and has a tacky, drug-dealing boyfriend. Newlin isn't sure what happened, but he knows his daughter is pregnant and wants to preempt any charges against her.
Unaccountably for a big-time lawyer, however, Newlin hires two inexperienced defense attorneys, women who gossip, giggle and bicker like teenagers at a pajama party. It's a common problem for Scottoline's characters. The author, herself a Philadelphia trial lawyer, does sustain interest by holding out the details of the crimes until the end of the book. But her characters need more realism to make them matter. (HarperCollins, $25)
Bottom Line: Moments of truth are just what's missing
by Merrily Weisbord and Kim Kachanoff
Not all dogs spend their days gamboling on the lawn or taking up precious couch space. Some actually work for a living—and not just in traditional canine occupations like sheepherding. Mas, an 11-year-old Newfoundland, assists Italian sea rescuers by hauling in drowning swimmers (and sometimes boats in distress). Aj, a black-and-tan blood-hound, hunts for missing pets in California with Rachel, his weimaraner partner. And Endal, a 3-year-old Labrador retriever in the English village of Clanfield, helps paralyzed Gulf War veteran Allen Parton live a fuller life—even taking him to the local pub, depositing his wallet on the bar and barking for service. Weisbord and Kachanoff traveled the world to find dogs with work ethics—or at least with serious jobs. So why is that cat still snoozing? (Pocket, $24.95)
Bottom Line: Does the phrase working like a dog ring a bell?
by Stephen King
Page-clicker of the week
The darndest things seem to happen to King's characters. College boy Alan Parker is hitching a ride home to see his stricken mother when he winds up on the exit to uh-oh land with a guy who "was more than dead; he was crazy." Bullet, a novella available only as an Internet download (rabid demand logjammed many a Web site after the e-book became available March 14), is a ghost story with a twist, which is: There is no twist. Instead, King uses good-scary (a theme park ride called the Bullet) throughout the story as a metaphor for bad-scary (dying). As in The Green Mile, a decent man is forced to make an awful choice—in this case, your mommy or your life. King has written more about death than any noncoroner in the land, but in his first tale since he was nearly killed by a van last summer, he uses the macabre to gloss the mundane: hospitals, aging and saying goodbye. Good-scary or bad-scary? Readers may differ, but it's good to report that King's storytelling craft is undiminished. (Scribner/Philtrum Press, $2.50; free on Amazon.com and other Web sites)
Bottom Line: High-caliber chills
>A CONSPIRACY OF PAPER David Liss
This historical thriller—set amid the financial markets of early 18th-century London and packed with period detail—will likely appeal to fans of The Alienist. (Random House, $25)
ROUND ROBIN Jennifer Chiaverini
A sequel to last year's cult bestseller The Quilter's Apprentice, this novel reintroduces Sarah McClure, whose life was sew perfect at the end of the last installment—and now is anything but. (Simon & Schuster, $20)
LINDA MCCARTNEY: A PORTRAIT Danny Fields A close friend of his subject's from 1966 until her death in 1998, the biographer, an ex-music manager, offers an insider's look at one of rock music's most enduring marriages. (Renaissance, $24.95)
>Billie Holiday
Whenever Billie Holiday sang "Strange Fruit," her haunting antilynching ballad, at New York City's Café Society, it was always the showstopper. Afterward, the club's owner insisted that the lights be turned out. "And when they'd come back on, she was gone," says David Margolick, whose book Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights (Running Press) hits the stores April 7, the singer's 85th birthday. "The owner wanted people to think about it for a while."
People have been thinking about it ever since. Last year, TIME named "Strange Fruit" as best song of the 20th century. Written in the mid-1930s by Lewis Allan (a pen name for Abel Meeropol, a leftist schoolteacher), "Strange Fruit" was a radical statement for its time. "It still packs a wallop," says Margolick, a four-time Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and lawver. "It hasn't lost any of its sting after 60 years."
Neither has Holiday's music. In March, the singer, who died in 1959, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence. "For a black woman to sing that song in 1939 was an act of colossal courage," says Margolick, 48. "More than we can ever imagine."
- Contributors:
- Paula Chin,
- Kim Hubbard,
- Adam Begley,
- Ralph Novak,
- Mike Neill,
- Kyle Smith,
- Debbie Seaman.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
