All The Devils Are Here

Such mixed emotions... I just finished reading the newest Inspector Gamache novel written by Louise  Penny, All The Devils Are Here.  I could hardly wait to get my hands on the book and dive in.  Then totally absorbed in the world Armand and Rene Marie as they travel this time to visit their children and grandchildren in Paris.  Then I stayed up until one o'clock int eh morning to try and finish the book because I could not wait to find out what happens at the end.  Now I am sad that it is over.. I keep playing over and over the ending scenes in my head, but I am sad that I will have to wait for another book to be written and published before I can visit with the Gamaches again.

As always Penny writes with beauty and a flair for poetry, human closeness and love that is astonishing.  As readers will tell you we have become attached to the characters in this series and feel like we know them personally.  So that toward the end of this book, even though I really thought things would turn out well, I cried as I read the feelings expressed between Gamache and his son, and between Gamache and his wife.

These books are categorized as mysteries and there are murders in each one, but it does not feel like you are reading a mystery when you are in the middle of these books.  They feel more like a great novel, with intrigue, suspense and relationships.

The Chief Prefecture of Police in Paris explains that he attended the funeral of his predecessor and when he went to the man's home after the cemetery and saw how he had lived he had second thoughts about his own future, "  I went back to their apartment.  It's a small two bedroom walk-up in the Eighteenth.  Neat, tidy. Orderly, like the man. And I saw my future. All the sacrifices, Armand.  My own.  My wife's. My children's. What we gave up for people who didn't notice and didn't care.  A two-bedroom walk-up."

These themes are much bigger than just a whodonit and a murder to solve, the plots have been getting more intricate, in each novel, and this time are even more current and relevant with the idea of money, power and lives at stake.  What is the price of a human life?  Would someone in power sell their soul for money?  When does a company need to make sure they are not harming the environment or the lives of the people and should their bottom line be more important than life?
These are not light topics.  This is an intense mystery novel!

Hope: A Tragedy

In Hope: A Tragedy, Auslander has written his first novel.  The story of  Solomon Kugel, an eco-friendly-goods salesman, who excels at his job.  He moves his family, a wife and young son to a farmhouse in a rural town for a fresh start on life.

But Kugel is a worrier, and hypochondriac and things quickly begin to unravel.  His mother, who imagines herself a Holocaust victim moves in with them and though doctors have said she does
not have long to live, she seems to be thriving.  Kugel cannot seem to keep everyone satisfied, not the tenant who is renting the spare room to help make ends meet, his wife or his mother.

Then he finds a surprise in the attic.  When he hears mysterious tapping in the heating vents, he traces it to the attic.  There he finds a “hideous, horribly disfigured terribly old” woman typing on a computer.  She claims to be Anne Frank and she says she is writing her next book.
In some of the most humorous parts of the book Kugel tries to explain why he cannot throw
Anne Frank out of his attic even though his wife threatens to leave him if Anne stays.

Auslander tells us that the book is a story about history, both personal and cultural and our inability to escape it.  “Kugel”, he says, “the protagonist, is hopeful.  It’s his main character flaw.  He can’t help being hopeful, despite all he knows.  That, to me, is funny.”
But, says Auslander, “This isn’t a novel about the Holocaust.  It is about a guy living in Upstate
New York, trying to believe in a positive future.”

Kugel struggles with the idea of hope throughout the book.  He has been seeing therapist Professor Jove, who tells him, “it was knowing that there was a happier time, a place for joy and peace and security, that made the sudden absence of it all so agonizing...Not the agony of what was, but the agony of what was no longer: this was the source of life’s pain - not fear of a hell to come, but rather the knowledge of an Eden that was no more.  Hell isn’t the punishment, said Professor Jove, Eden was.”

My Fat Dad

Another memoir I read this month, My Fat Dad, written by Dawn Lerman.  This one on the surface seems a bit lighter read but there is again the underlying tension of growing up in her family that makes an impression that affects her career path and her relationship to food.  This is also a book full of recipes that look delicious.  Dawn grew up in the 1970s moving from Chicago to New York City with her parents and sister.  Her father, very overweight had a love hate relationship with food.  He worked in advertising and was like the Mad Men a copywriter, famous for such slogans as, Coke Is It, This Bud's For You, and Leggo My Eggo.  Dawn writes about her father's love of eating, her grandmother's love of Dawn and teaching her how to cook good, healthy, natural foods.  Her mother was at her best when surrounded by admirers.  It is interesting to see how growing up in this environment helped make Dawn the person she turns out to be as an adult, how her upbringing shaped her connection to her family.  How both of her grandmother's Jewish heritage informed their message and feelings about food.  How satisfaction can come from feeding the ones you love.

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Hello Darkness My Old Friend is a memoir written by Sanford Greenberg.

OK so you may think this book is about Art Garfunkel or maybe the duo Simon and Garfunkel, but in effect though Art Garfunkel plays an enormous role in the story this is really not a book about or by Garfunkel.

This is Sanford Greenberg's story.  Not to take anything away from  his story, it is, it turns out an interesting story full of perseverance and determination.  It is the story of a young man who overcomes adversity and is very successful in his life.  But also Greenberg does admit in the end that the circumstances of his childhood and medical disadvantage probably drove him and still makes him work as hard as he does.  He wants to prove to himself that he is not  handicapped and that may not be such a positive trait.

Sanford Greenberg was born and raised in Buffalo New York,  At an early age he lost his father and when his mother remarried her brother-in-law they set up house in North Buffalo.  It was the 1940s.  Sanford talks about his childhood as the son of a junk dealer, whose family had emigrated  to the United States from Poland via Germany as the war was breaking out in Europe.  After High School Sanford heads off to Columbia where he meets his new friend and roommate, Art Garfunkel, who is there to study architecture.  They become close friends.  As Sanford is going attending classes he is having trouble with his eyes.  Different incidents that he brushes aside and does not seek out an eye doctor for.  But as time goes by these problems become worse and more pronounced.  Finally he heads home to Buffalo and his mother, as he is literally becoming blind. 

HIs blindness at first seems like it will be an obstacle, but the message of the book and what makes this an amazing story is what Sanford Greenberg has accomplished in his life. 

Dr. Greenberg received his B.A. as Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University in 1962.  He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard and his M.B.A. from Columbia University.  He was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford and attended Harvard Law School.  Dr. Greenberg is Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Johns Hopkins University Wilmer Eye Institute.  President Clinton appointed him to the National Science Board.  The list goes on.

Greenberg admits that he has spent his life creating and keeping up an image he wants to portray, "Since becoming blind, I have been very conscious of the need to be healthy and strong.  As a result, I do a lot of exercising.... In part this regime has to do with my insistence on looking sharp.  But it all belongs to the determination not to be blind."   He is also very driven he writes to make his parents proud.  Visiting the graves of his parents he thinks about the hard lives they led, about himself and the kind of life he las led.  He writes, "Their judgement was massively important to me. I felt that they would be proud of me. But I sensed no response. (from the graves). " But," of course, he writes, "the response would have to come from inside myself."

The Postmistress

I was not planning to pick this book to read... By author Sarah Blake, published back in 2010 it was not on any of my to read lists.  So I am glad it was brought back to the forefront with my book discussion group.  It is one of those books that we all came in saying was not a favorite but it led to a terrific discussion.

It is a fast paced story..an easy read.  But there are multiple plot lines working at once.  There are quite a few characters to keep track of , many of the villagers who live in the small Cape Cod town, out at the end of the neck.  The main characters living out there are Iris James, the Postmistress and Emma Finch, the doctor's wife.  We also met a number of the town's people who interact with these two women throughout the book and play the important roles of showing the reader what life was like in 1940 as President Roosevelt tried to keep us out of the emerging war in Europe.  Trying very hard to share with Americans what is happening in Europe is the fictional character Frankie Bard, a
young woman journalist working with the very real Edward R Murrow in London.  She is witnessing the London Blitz and as  her apartment is bombed and her roommate is killed she insists on traveling across the continent to share with her audience what is really happening.  Though her audience may not really want to know the truth.

Some characters are more likable than others and draw you into their story. Frankie is the most likable and well developed character.  She is the most impassioned and determined person in the book.  Some of the other minor characters really give the reader the best idea of how people's thinking during this time in America, Otto, a refugee from Austria, who keeps to himself as much as possible and is disliked just because he has a foreign accent.   We see how their lives will become entangled both with each other and the war, though far away. Henry, the car mechanic who is always watching with his binoculars for German U-boats to come ashore on American soil.

This is an intriguing and fast paced storyline, some more engaging than others.  There are letters written and mailed some received and some not.  There are ethical decisions made to protect people from the horrors that are so very real in the world.  These decisions can lead to some personal thought and definitely great discussions among book groups.

Bronzed Betrayals

Bronzed Betrayals is the fourth book in A Bodies of Art Mystery series.  Though author, Ritter Ames says in her interviews that she writes her books to stand alone, I did not find this to be the case. I started with reading this book and constantly felt like I was missing some important information that was constantly referred to.

This is the story of Laurel Beacham, who I gather, is an art thief who steals back stolen art.  So in this novel we meet Laurel and her boyfriend and team member , Jack seems to work for the British intelligence.  As a worker for the honest side of the police, he is supposed to recover lost or stolen art.  They work together, but sometimes he turns a blind eye to Laurel's methods.  Fo course there is a murder and Laurel's life seems to be in danger.  As they work with Nico and Cassie two more members of the team, they are running against time trying to find out who stole the bronze before getting killed themselves.  There is also a side story which seems very complicated, about Laurel childhood.  Her mother died in a car accident, or was she murdered?  Her father, is he her real father or not , is there matching DNA?  Did he die or is he in hiding?  These sub plots are confusing and lead you down roads that don't seem to meet up with the main plot.

Unfortunately I will not be going back to start at the beginning to find out what I missed.  This series did not capture my attention enough, I did not connect with the characters so that I want to find out what happened to them either before after this novel.