Virginia Kress

Next To Love
Ellen Feldman
Spiegel & Grau
Publish date: 2011-07-31
$25.00
Hardcover
Review date: 10/27/2011

Next to Love is a story of love, war and loss written from the perspective of three young women, in small town America.  Beginning as their men are called to duty, the story extends thought the difficulties of raising children in uncertain times.  While some men lost their lives in WWII, many returned mutilated or mere shells of their former selves.  Entire families struggled as returning soldiers experienced frantic mood swings and plaguing nightmares.  But this is not just a story of fear and loss, but rather, it is a story of enduing friendships and perseverance of the human spirit when faced with great mental, physical and emotional adversity.

Along the Watchtower
Constance Squires
Penguin Group, Inc
Publish date: 2011-07-05
$15.00
9781594485232
Trade paper
Review date: 09-14-2011

Along The Watchtower is the beautifully written coming of age story of Lucinda. Set against a European backdrop as the cold war draws to a close, the reader is granted a rare and intimate glimpse into the lives of a military family.  Frequent moves, lost friends and seemingly no sense of ‘home’, Lucinda is set adrift to gorge her own way.  Yet as difficult as it is to witness the betrayal that befall her, this is still a powerful story of hope and what it means to fight for the things we believe in.

Craig Jones

The Fourth Assassin
Matt Beynon Rees
Soho Crime
Publish date: 2011-02-01
$14.00
9781569478851
Paperback

This is the fourth in the series of mysteries that takes place in the Palestinian occupied territories, and features Omar Yussef, an aging teacher in a UN school. The Fourth Assassin, however, takes place in New York City, and deals as much with the Palestinian immigrant experience as it does with internal Palestinian politics.

Yussef is in NYC to attend a UN conference, but takes the opportunity to visit his youngest son Ala, who lives with several roommates in a largely Palestinian neighborhood in Brooklyn. When he first arrives at the apartment, he discovers a headless corpse. Ala is subsequently arrested for the murder, prompting Yussef to try to unravel the threads of the story involving illegal drugs, politics, and the difficulties of immigrants from a traditional Arab culture in adapting to a modern Western metropolis.

Matt Beynon Rees, having been a journalist in the Middle East for over a decade, has an intimate knowledge of his subject, and no illusions about the major players. This is a highly readable addition to this series which has taught its readers much about what it’s like to be an ordinary Palestinian, a perspective that has been in short supply in the West.

Doc
Mary Doria Russell
Random House
Publish date: 2011-05-01
$26.00
9781400068043
Hardcover

John Henry “Doc” Holliday is an historical figure around whom much mythology has gathered. Mary Doria Russell has applied her considerable research skills to discover the true figure, and she has brought to life a remarkably well-bred and educated character. That he appears complex and sometimes mysterious is a tribute to her skill as a writer.

He was a skilled dental surgeon raised among Georgia aristocracy, who contracted tuberculosis at a young age thus compelling him to relocate to the Southwest, among the brawling miners and cattlemen of the mostly lawless western frontier. Russell chooses to omit the famous gunfight at the OK Corral from her narrative, presumably because it is already well documented. She refers to it obliquely several times, but her story essentially ends before it takes place. The author is clearly more interested in portraying the dying man as a gentleman among frontiersmen, and her portrayal of the Earp brothers and other historical figures gives sharp contrast to her portrait of Holliday.

I am not especially fond of this period of American history or its icons, but I have admired her writing for a long time, and was not disappointed. Doc is as absorbing and well written as any of her previous novels, and adds considerable depth to the stereotypes that are often applied to these well-known names.

Amy Mazzariello

From the Land of the Moon
Melina Agus
Europa Editions
Publish date: 2010-12-28
$15.00
Trade Paperback

From the Land of the Moon is a set in Sardinia, Italy, and tells the story of a beautiful, yet peculiar girl.   The narrator is an unnamed and loving granddaughter who through clean, rich prose recounts the life her grandmother. 

As a young woman, Grandmother was in search of true love, but as a result of unusual behavior was denied the freedom to explore her desire without retribution.  Out of pity and to make good on a debt, a widower agrees to marry Grandmother.  She is sent to the mainland to undergo spa treatments to relieve her body of kidney stones, which inhibit the couple from becoming pregnant. There she meets and falls into forbidden love with an ill WWII veteran.  The treatments work and 9 months later Grandmother gives birth to a baby boy. 

The plot may seem as though it might mirror many other stories, but this particular saga is unique because of its brevity.  The author has captured the essence of her characters in a concise manner that invokes a level of richness often found in thick, mighty tomes.  I would be doing the book a disservice if I did not take a moment to bring light to the story’s rocky, sun baked setting, which, too, is a character brought delicately to life.

Drive Me Out of My Mind
Chad Faries
Emergency Press
Publish date: 2011-06-07
$16.00
Trade Paperback
Review date: 11-28-2011

Drive Me Out of My Mind is a coming of age memoir about a boy growing up in Michigan’s UP during the 1970s.
Raised by a young mother in search of herself, Chad took her hand (and his Barbie) and followed her in and out of 24 houses in10 years.
Home became a feeling rather than a place.
Unconventional? Yes.
Unfortunate? Not in the least.
The poetic thread that runs through this gritty, patchouli soaked, smoke filled memoir is delicately strong, sensually wry, and always beautifully. 

Morgan Tuff

The Emerald Atlas
John Stephens
Alfred A. Knopf
Publish date: 2011-04-01
$17.99
9780375868702
Hardcover

Ages: 8 to 13.

               One night ten years ago Kate, Michael, and Emma were taken away from their parents in order that they be protected from a force of unimaginable evil. After being tossed from orphanage to orphanage, they arrive in Cambridge Falls. Cambridge Falls is a completely downtrodden and very eerie town. The orphanage itself mirrors the rest of the town; it is a huge old mansion with no other children and run by a strange old man.

            Before meeting this man, they explore the house until they come upon a mysteriously appearing door through which the three enter into a room that seems to have no walls. On the desk they find an old leather bound emerald book that appears to have all blank pages. Right as they are about to leave, Michael accidentally drops a picture into the book’s pages and suddenly they are transported into the past of Cambridge Falls. This Cambridge Falls is a place where humans live alongside magical creatures. However, it is also a town in trouble. An evil Countess rules with violence and the children of the town are under attack. Before long, Kate, Michael, and Emma realize that the fate of this town depends on them.

            The Emerald Atlas, the first of three novels, is full to the brim with magic, suspense, and adventure. John Stephens weaves a tale that will make people of every age crave more.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky
Heidi Durrow
Algonquin Books
Publish date: 2010-12-21
$13.95
9781616200152
Paperback

Told from multiple perspectives, this jewel of a novel examines what it is like to grow up biracial in America.  Rachel, the sole survivor of a violent family tragedy, is sent to live with her grandmother in a predominantly black community in Portland, Oregon. After growing up in Europe, the blue eyed daughter of a Danish citizen and an African American G.I., she had never seen herself as anything other than a loving daughter. This all is challenged as she faces growing up without her parents and being perceived as black for the first time.

Spanning over ten years of Rachel’s life, in this book the reader can feel her bewilderment and frustration as she deals with boys, school, memories of her family, and stereotypes forced upon her by the outside world.  As questions are slowly answered about her past, the reader begins to look up to Rachel for dealing with the problems of her past and the questions of her future with immense wisdom and patience.

The thoroughly deserving winner of the Belafonte Prize for fiction, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky will haunt readers for months after they finish absorbing it. Through agonizingly beautiful prose, Durrow’s novel is not only a modern coming-of-age tale but also becomes significant social commentary.