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Book Reviews:
Hardcover Fiction
A mesmerizing tale of love and jealousy by Portugal's most acclaimed young novelist Jose Luis Peixoto. Set in an unnamed Portuguese village against a backdrop of severe rural poverty, The Implacable Order of Things is told from the view points of two generations of men and women, hardened by hunger and toil and driven by a fate beyond them to fulfill their roles in the never-ending cycle of violence, retribution and death. Jose, a taciturn shepherd, sees his happiness crumble when "the devil" tells him he is being cuckolded. Old Gabriel offers wise counsel, while a different kind of love story develops concerning Moises and Elias, conjoined twins attached at the tips of their little fingers. Unable to live without each other, they find their tender communion shattered when Moises falls in love with the local cook. And, of course, there is the Devil himself. Love may be a luxury, but there are moments of the greatest tenderness among even the most unlikely lovers. Written with subtle prose and powerful imagery, The Implacable Order of Things draws us into this unique and richly textured world. It is a novel of haunting beauty and heralds the arrival of an astoundingly gifted and poetic writer.
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Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose thoughtful companionship is epitomized by Almondine, Edgar's lifelong friend and ally. But with the unexpected return of Claude, Edgar's paternal uncle, turmoil consumes the Sawtelles' once peaceful home. When Edgar's father dies suddenly, Claude insinuates himself into the life of the farm--and into Edgar's mother's affections. Grief-stricken and bewildered, Edgar tries to prove Claude played a role in his father's death, but his plan backfires--spectacularly. Forced to flee into the vast wilderness lying beyond the farm, Edgar comes of age in the wild, fighting for his survival and that of the three yearling dogs who follow him. But his need to face his father's murderer and his devotion to the Sawtelle dogs turn Edgar ever homeward. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is by David Wroblewski who is a master storyteller, and his breathtaking scenes--the elemental north woods, the sweep of seasons, an iconic American barn, a fateful vision rendered in the falling rain--create a riveting family saga, a brilliant exploration of the limits of language, and a compulsively readable modern classic.
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In a triumphant return to the short story, the form in which she made her extraordinary debut with "There Are Jews in My House," Lara Vapnyar gives us a delightful new collection in which food and love intersect, along with their overlapping pleasures, frustrations, and deep associations in the lives of her unforgettable characters. From "Broccoli" to "Borscht" to "Puffed Rice and Meatballs," each of these new stories invites us into the uniquely captivating private worlds of Vapnyar's Eastern European emigres. There's Nina, a recent arrival from Russia, for whom the colorful abundance of the vegetable markets in New York represents her own fresh hopes and dreams. . . Luda and Milena, who battle over a widower in their English class with competing recipes for cheese puffs, spinach pies, and meatballs . . . Sergey, who finds more comfort in the borscht made by a paid female companion than in her sexual ministrations. Each of the women and men who inhabit these witty, tender, and beautifully observed stories needs and longs for the taste and smell of home, wherever--and with whomever--that may turn out to be. Russian in its wit and in many of its rich details, but American in its insistence on the quest for personal happiness, however provisional and however high the cost, Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar, masterfully illuminates a very particular facet of desire with entirely charming results.
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In The Size of the World love and family loyalty meet up with the allure of far-off vistas in elegant new fiction by the acclaimed novelist Joan Silber. A richly imagined novel--set in wartime Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Sicily, and contemporary America--about men and women whose jolting encounters with the unfamiliar force them to realize how many "riffs there are to being human." Travelers, colonials, immigrants, and returned ex-pats meet or pass one another in narratives spanning lifetimes. In the book's opening, an engineer in Vietnam is shaken to discover why his company's planes are getting lost. A modern marriage between a Thai Muslim and an American woman leads to a terrible family fight. In 1920s Siam a young woman experiences the colonial stance of her tin-prospecting brother. The last section returns the brother to the States, older now but ever in love with Asian women. Love, loss, yearning, self-delusion, and forgiveness are here in ways fresh and surprising. And in the tradition of E. M. Forster, seeing the size of the world changes the meaning of home-sickness for all the characters.
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Two boys, two boards, and a roiling surf. It might sound like heaven, but it doesn't work out that way in Breath by Tim Winton. Bruce Pike is an awkward young teenager in the isolated coastal town of Sawyer when he befriends a troublemaker named Loonie. Riding the waves together, the two strike up a friendship with a freewheeling older man named Sando who, they eventually discover, was a surfing champion now living off the beaten path with an embittered American wife herself a leading snowboarder waylaid by serious injury. Winton describes surfing and the sea so thrillingly that even nonswimmers will want to plunge right in.
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