by Sue Miller
CRITIC'S CHOICE
It is hardly surprising that Miller, who first made her name with The Good Mother in 1986, should write with subtle insight about fathers. Miller specializes in mapping the emotional complexities of modern family life, exposing the pockets of ambivalence and self-doubt that hide within the stronger currents of love and duty and resentment.
Two very different fathers dominate Lost in the Forest: Mark, the handsome but feckless vineyard manager who has broken up his marriage by having a careless, almost yearlong affair with a local bartender, and John, the generous, bear like book publisher who then marries Mark's ex, Eva, and becomes a stabilizing stepfather to their two daughters. In the first pages of the book, John is killed by a speeding car, a tragedy that destroys the delicate weekend-dad balance among the survivors.
Nostalgic for the heady early days of their romance, Mark begins to court the grieving Eva. He cannot admit that the quieter, less passionate relationship Eva forged with John could run as deep as their own volatile attraction. "I thought I'd try nice this time," Eva told Mark when he first met John. "I thought maybe I deserved it." Yet it is Daisy, Eva and Mark's 15-year-old daughter, who most acutely feels the loss of John's steadying affection; he had a special sympathy for the sullen gawky girl overshadowed by her pretty sister. When Daisy is lured into a sexual relationship with a cynical, manipulative older man, Mark comes to realize that rescuing his troubled daughter, not trying to lure his ex-wife back to their twenty-something ardor, is the deeper expression of family love. This is a book with few fireworks but a quiet, cumulative power.
NOVEL
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Ishiguro is a miniaturist who dissects the smallest shrugs and pauses to get at big emotional truths. This technique worked wonderfully in The Remains of the Day, his 1989 novel about a butler's yearnings. But it has a dampening effect on Never Let Me Go, a dystopian fantasy about a group of clones replicated from society's "trash"—prostitutes, junkies, criminals—to serve as organ donors. Kathy, the narrator, is midway through the journey prescribed for every clone from student to "career" (someone who tends to those undergoing transplant surgeries) to donor. After donating several organs, most clones "complete," or cease to live. Remembering her golden days at boarding school, Kathy tries to reconstruct when, and how, she and her schoolmates came to understand their fate. She also tries to puzzle out why only the Hailsham students, an envied elite among the clones, received a first-class education rich in poetry and art. The answer is convoluted; the love story that parallels this quest is somewhat flat. Even fantasies must follow their own logic, and this one leaves too many holes between the closely examined conversations.
MEMOIR
by Liz Smith
The venerable gossip columnist cooks up a different kind of dish in this chatty, good-natured book devoted to all things cuisine. Along with celebrity anecdotes (after a great interview, Renée Zellweger begins regularly sending cookies) and Smith's own culinary cravings (there's an entire chapter on chicken-fried steak), Dishing includes mouth-watering star recipes (Katharine Hepburn's favorite brownies, anyone?). The author has dined with just about everyone, and she's clearly at ease relaying each juicy detail, but at times her chapters read like a string of columns served in somewhat disjointed succession. While celebrating good food is always fun, Dishing is a bit like Elvis's recipe for deep-fried Snickers bars: delicious in tiny nibbles, but not quite a meal.
THRILLER
by Adam Fawer
In Fawer's thrill-inducing debut, gambling addict David Caine tries to raise cash by signing on to take an experimental pill that might control his epileptic seizures. The drug has a side effect: Caine starts seeing the future. The government, a crazy scientist and North Korean spies will do anything to control his power, so it's up to an unlikely trio to keep Caine alive: his schizophrenic twin brother; a deadly rogue CIA agent; and Doc, Caine's old college adviser. Fawer occasionally slows his story with lengthy explanations of poker, physics and probability theory. But by tale's end, you'll be pondering the true causes of schizophrenia and marveling at how much a single action can change a life. Improbable is a thriller you can bet the house on.
FICTION
by Marie Myung-Ok Lee
Shortly after landing in Seoul to begin language classes, Sarah Thorson, a 19-year-old Korean-American adoptee raised by Minnesota Lutherans, is called a Twinkie—"yellow on the outside, white on the inside." The taunt hardly fazes her. "In a taxonomy of Hostess junk-food cakes, I went beyond Twinkie. I was a Sno-ball, the coconut treat that's white to the core." Sarah's wry honesty is just one of the pleasures of this wonderfully observed novel. Interspersed with Sarah's adventures in Korea's often-bewildering terrain is the story of Kyung-sook, a shrimp seller haunted by memories of the daughter she had to abandon. Resisting easy resolution, the dual narratives bring to life a country where "everything was changeable in the blink of an eye." Somebody's Daughter is a treat.
JAKE IN PROGRESS'S WENDIE MALICKA "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. It was like reading Salinger when I was in college, I just think he has an amazing voice."
GARCELLE BEAUVAIS-NILON "I just read The Notebook, [by Nicholas Sparks], which I loved. Everybody talked about it, so I thought, 'Okay, let me read it and see what it's all about.' It was so romantic."
EMMY ROSSUM "I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe. I think he's an amazing writer, and this book is an accurate picture--for better or worse--of what goes on in college life today."
- Contributors:
- Lee Aitken,
- Beth Perry,
- Bob Meadows,
- Ellen Shapiro.
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!
