Willoyd's Tour of the States.

[Hayley]

21 hours ago, willoyd said:

still not half way!

Nearly though! Were these last changes just for preference? I know it's considered a classic but I hated In Cold Blood, it made me feel really uncomfortable. 

[willoyd]

On 10/4/2021 at 8:51 PM, Hayley said:

Nearly though! Were these last changes just for preference? I know it's considered a classic but I hated In Cold Blood, it made me feel really uncomfortable. 

 

I'm an inveterate list maker and tweaker!  I set out my criteria, but at the time I made the original list I knew a lot less about American literature than I do now (I still don't know it well!).  In particular, I'm finding out more about where books are set, and which books are 'famous' - America literature appears much more regional, and authors who might be very well known in and around their state may be virtually unknown elsewhere.  Just to give one example, I'd barely heard of Wendell Berry before starting the tour, but he's one of only two (I think) living authors published by Library of America.

 

As a result, I've been shuffling books around on and off.  The latest shift around was triggered by the fact that I decided that 'In Cold Blood' didn't sufficiently fit the criteria.  But that meant shifting around elsewhere too.....

 

My aim is that by the end I'll have read a really good cross-section of twentieth century American literature. I've already read some stonking books - a couple of  six star reads, a fair number of fives, and several authors I definitely want to follow up, or have already started to follow up, further: Willa Cather, Larry McMurtry, Wendell Berry and Louise Erdrich just for starters (oh and, of course, Toni Morrison!).

Edited October 12, 2023 by willoyd

[Hayley]

23 minutes ago, willoyd said:

My aim is that by the end I'll have read a really good cross-section of twentieth century American literature. I've already read some stonking books - a couple of  six star reads, a fair number of fives, and several authors I definitely want to follow up, or have already started to follow up, further: Willa Cather, Larry McMurtrey, Wendell Berry and Louise Erdrich just for starters (oh and, of course, Toni Morrison!).

Your method of tweaking the list as you go is working then! 

 

24 minutes ago, willoyd said:

America literature appears much more regional, and authors who might be very well known in and around their state may be virtually unknown elsewhere.

I do find that very interesting. It's not something I'd thought about before.

[willoyd]

Books (and states!) 23 and 24:

 

#23 Missouri: Mrs Bridge by Evan S. Connell  *****

Completely coincidentally read after The Stone Diaries, and in so many ways so similar: a biography of a fictional woman, playing very much the wealthy wife and mother role in mid-twentieth century midwest America - similar husband, similar children (2 girls, one boy).  Different personality, different mindset, different atmosphere, written rather more sparingly, but the comparison was fascinating. Both books in very different ways say much about the society the women grow up in.  This book was followed up ten years later by a parallel volume, Mr Bridge, with both books combinedi into a film starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.  The second book is already on order!

 

#24 Wyoming:  The Virginian by Owen Wister *****

The original Western, which sneaks in, just, as a 20th century book by barely a couple of years; this is the oldest book on my tour, just pipping Ethan Frome. In some respects, it shows it too, with some attitudes that would look distinctly out of place in a 21st century novel - the west is very Anglo-Saxon for instance! - but putting those aside, it was an absorbing novel, with the caveat that this, as pointed out in the introduction, is a somewhat romanticised view of the cowboy world. On that, I would have preferred rather more of the 'cowboy' story and a bit less of the romance, but the tension between the two was, after all, very much at the heart of Wister's story: masculine vs feminine, West vs East. Having been an avid fan of the TV series in my younger years, I was amazed to find Trampas was the original 'baddie', although a wee bit disappointed that, unlike other characters who were vividly developed, he remained somewhat 2-dimensional throughout.
Overall though, the book stood up well some 120 years down the line from its original publication - a ripping yarn with a strong romantic streak, peppered with humour and pathos, and, very important on this tour, a strong sense of place,  It made an interesting counter-point to Lonesome Dove, a rather more modern take on the West.  I really enjoyed it and can see why it remains something of a classic.

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#25 Wisconsin: American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld ****

(copied across from my reading blog thread)

My first book of the year, a book group choice, but one that nicely satisfies one of my aims this year, to read some bigger books. At over 600 pages it certainly counts as one of those!  Having said that, it proved a fairly rapid read - more to do with the readability than any physical aspect of the book!

With the main character, Alice, modelled on Laura Bush, the wife of George W Bush, it opens with the couple in bed in the White House, and Alice contemplating her marriage: she's betrayed the President (we don't know how) and is not certain how her marriage is going to progress - we then move into flashback and Alice tells the story of her life and how she got to this point.  Whilst Alice is modelled on Laura Bush, it becomes fairly quickly apparent that Alice is not actually Laura Bush: there are enough differences, not least that the story, until it reaches Washington, is set in Wisconsin rather than Texas - which meant that rather neatly but unexpectedly, I found I could slot it in as my Tour of the USA book for that state!.  However, there are some key aspects where the 2 lives coincide, aspects, or events, which inevitably impact massively on the women's respective lives.  It would be too much of a spoiler to itemise them all, but one which has been well-flagged in reviews, and occurs early on enough not actually spoil, is that it's well documented that Laura Bush, at the age of 19, drove through a stop sign one evening, and collided with a car coming along the other road, killing the driver, a boy who she knew well.  A similar incident occurs to Alice, but the circumstances and the aftermath are pure fiction. 

I initially thought that a lot of this book would be about the rise to the Presidency, but in fact that barely features. Three quarters of the book is about the Alice's life before Charlie (her husband) runs for political status, whilst the last quarter (there are 4 parts) jumps to a couple of years after they reach the White House.  But the parts are all strongly connected.  What the book does focus on is Alice's relationship with Charlie: they love each other, but they are political opposites - Alice is a signed up Democrat.  There social background is also very different (as were the real-life couples').  So, how does Alice work this, how does she compromise her political beliefs and principles to handle that relationship.  Or does she?  I have to admit, I did find the book quite hard going at times, not because of its readability (as we know), but because of of the extent of the navel-gazing, or internal monologue, and, to be honest, some of the repetition.  The challenge and its resolution, the moral hurdles Alice has to negotiate make for fascinating reading, but a good editor would have made this even better (interesting to hear only the other day the presenters of the Book Club Review podcast saying exactly the same about Sittenfeld's latest, 'Rodham', another alternative history biography). I never felt the desire to abandon the book, but I did find myself skimming on occasions.

When we came to the book group discussion, I think I was the most positive about the book.  Most felt it overlong, a good proportion found Alice frustratingly annoying ('Why was she such a doormat?' was one's question that summed this up neatly), but I have to say that I never once thought that: rather the opposite: this was very much a woman trying to balance her obvious love for her partner with the fact that they were such diametric opposites in so many areas - how did she handle this.  It may have been the life of an American First Lady, but so much of it reflected the questions pretty much every couple must face at one time or the other.  In her own way, I found Alice to be a rather strong character.

In summary: a generally engaging read, with a few patches of longeuse that would have benefited from a stronger editor, asking some very human questions. It certainly made for a good book club read.  A promising start to the year, with the added bonus that I've taken my Tour of the USA score up to 25 - one off half way! : 4 stars out of 6.

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#26 Connecticut:  The Stepford Wives by Iran Levin **

Well, it took until half-way through the tour, but I finally reached a book that was genuinely disappointing. There have been a couple which were 'alright', and about which I couldn't get particularly enthusiastic, but none, until now, where I came away thinking that was a distinctly unsatisfactory read.  Supposedly this was a satire, and I suspect it was in its day, but reading this fifty years on, it just felt horribly dated, with wooden characters and a plot line lacking in any credibility.  And no, unlike many other books, I found myself unable to suspend my disbelief, not least because it was such an unpleasant read.  In fact, I'm almost talking myself into 1 star, but perhaps better to leave it at that, and just walk away, relieved that it was only 138 pages long, barely an evening's read.  A tedious evening, it has to be said.  2 stars out of 6.

 

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#27 Pennsylvania: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara ******

A small moment of celebration, as filling in this state means that for the first time, I have a complete line of states filled in all the way from "Sea to Shining Sea", Pacific to Atlantic!
After the disappointment of The Stepford Wives (Connecticut), this was a return to the high ratingsthat the vast majority of the books on this tour have so far achieved. The title is a slightly odd one, more reminiscent of a zombie novel, or at least something out of Doctor Who (I think those are actually Weeping Angels!), but there's nothing odd about the book itself, a fictionalised narrative of the Battle of Gettysburg, told mainly from the perspective of General Robert E. Lee and his second-in-command, James Longstreet, but including other 'lesser' players too, including Joshua Chamberlain, a college professor turned regimental commander on the Union side who went on to great things. By fictionalising the narrative, Shaara was able to take the historically factual aspects (and I gather he was pretty rigourous on this front, with mainly just some compression of time and removal of minor characters in places), and bolt on his own interpretations, particularly enabling the inclusion of internal feelings, perceptions and conversations of the characters. They and the place are brought vividly to life, and the result is a superb evocation of battle and the men fighting it. I was gripped, and can well see why it won the Pulitzer. This not a book that features on many 'US Tours', but it should be. I've also spent quite a bit of time on Google Earth whilst reading, exploring relevant parts of the Gettysburg area as much as that will allow, but it's actually somewhere I'd now love to visit. I read James MacPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom a few years ago, but think I need to go and have a reread - or maybe tackle Shelby Foote's trilogy at long last (it's been sat waiting for me long enough!).I've got his novel of Shiloh on my list for one of the other states, and it'll be interesting to compare.

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#28 Minnesota: Main Street by Lewis Sinclair ***

A satirical look at small-town life in mid-West America of the early twentieth century, written in the 1920s. Apparently, this was a major contribution to the author's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature om 1930. Rather oddly, it was initially awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1921, but the board of trustees overturned the decision and gave it to Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence, a not unworthy winner it has to be said.
I found this a pretty straightforward, easy read, and was initially really engaged. It's not just a satire, but does examine the roles and feelings of women in the America of the period, albeit written by a contemporary man. Carol, the main protagonist, quite realistically feels herself being pulled several ways, and sucked into attitudes and stances that she herself is uncomfortable with. However, for me, it felt overlong (at 380 pages) and would have benefited from being rather sharper and leaner - there were times when I thought the commentary was being ladled on rather thickly (for instance, a couple of speeches etc didn't need reiterating in all their verbosity), and things were spelled out rather too ponderously. The third quarter, in particular, dragged, although the writing, and events, did pick up rather towards the end. Overall, a solid read, but I can't say I was completely grabbed, and it took some effort to make it to the end, although I was glad I did.

 

#29 Georgia:  The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers ******

Something of a contrast!  This debut novel, McCullers was only 23 when she wrote this, centres on deaf-mute John Singer, living alone in a boarding-house after the institutionalisation of his close friend and house-mate Spiros Antonapoulos, and the the lives of four people for whom Singer becomes a bit of a lynch-pin: a young girl (12+), a diner owner, an itinerant labour radical, and a local black doctor.  All are isolated and lonely in their own ways, and McCullers examines the impact this has on them, as wel as the influence of Singer, who in his own insular world, doesn't appreciate the effect he has - he remains focused on the remnants of his relationship with Antonapoulos and struggles to understand the world around him.  It's a powerful and immersive meditation that gripped me from start to finish.  McCullers' writing is based on remarkably short and straightforward sentences which paint a vivid picture - the writing feels more complex than it actually is - and gets deep inside the five characters and their lives.  It's not a happy book, but is both thoughtful and thought-provoking.  It's yet another book (or, indeed, author) in this tour that is a local (or at least American) classic, but that is far less known in this country.  It's proving rather an eye-opener!

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#30 Mississippi: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner ******

I approached this book with some trepidation: Faulkner's reputation as a 'difficult' author is positively fearsome, but I needn't have worried.  It's told through a multiplicity of narrators - each chapter recounted by a different character - so even though every one is 'unrelialble', or at least sees events through their own eyes - a rich and detailed picture is built up rather like a patchwork embroidery.  The result is one of the most brilliant reads I've had in ages - totally engaging, immersive, full of character, humour and a strong sense of time and place.  Not in terms of pure geography or history, but as a microcosm - you feel you are there with the characters as and when it all happens.  Just loved it from start to finish, and the finish is a stonker, literally the very last line.  More, please!

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#31 New York: Another Country by James Baldwin ******
Another masterpiece - this project is really producing the goods! It took me a while to decide on which book out of a rather large number I would read for New York. I eventually plumped for James Baldwin simply because I'd never read any of his work, and yet had heard so much about him. I was delighted I did. His style is definitely not on the lean side - it's full, rich, detailed, and digs deep into the mind of his characters - we are directly privy to their thoughts and feelings. So there's a lot of tell rather than show, which usually puts me off, but his telling shows things that are even deeper, resulting in some really strongly developed characters, far richer than many even good writers achieve. I found it hard to tell whether 'Another Country' referred to race, or, as one part of the novel suggested, love. Probably a combination of both, because at the heart of this were the relationships between several mixed race couples. and the tensions created from the differing viewpoints these differences led to. There again, the title could have been referring to literally the influence of another country, Eric (almost entirely absent in the first half of the book) returning to the US after an extended stay in France a very different person to the one who had left, and one whose relationships are thoroughly effected by that change. Or, perhaps, the 'country' was gender, with a lively mix of homo-, bi- and heterosexual characters and relationships? To be honest, it was almost too rich in places, and I was in danger more than once of getting lost in the dense weave of all four of these threads.
It wasn't perfect. I found the first half utterly engrossing, but after dramatic events at the end of the first half, the narrative seemed to take a while to get going again at the start of the second. I'm sure this was deliberate - the pace and intensity changed so dramatically it couldn't have been anything other, but it took me rather longer than I wanted to regain the sense of reading rhythm and level of immersion that I had earlier achieved - a bit like coming out of a particularly vivid dream, desperately trying to hold on to it, but finding it slipping away. Fortunately the new characters (the transition between the two halves of the book sees a dramatic shift in character focus) are quickly well established in their own right, the two halves are stitched together, and the book starts to gather pace again, none too soon!
Overall, this was an intense, rich, immersive, big book (over 400 pages) - a thoroughly rewarding read that will not let go easily, an excellent 'representative' read for New York. Another writer of whom I need to read more.

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#32  Florida: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston *****

My heart initially sank when I realised much of this - all the dialogue - was written to reflect Afro-American dialect, but I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to get into, and I barely noticed this after a while. The protoganist, Janie, is a young Black American brought up by her grandmother, who marries her off at 16 to an older man, effectively, as the grandmother sees it, to protect Janie. The story is of Janie's development and self-discovery through three husbands, only the final one living up to her needs/expectations in spite of being the least secure of the three. Not surprisingly, it's often described as a 'feminist' novel, and it's easy to see why, although some of what happens would strike a modern reader as anything but (feminist), being more typical of what a black woman might expect. it's not overly fast paced (which is actually a good thing in my eyes!), and the character development feels a little bit stereotyped at times, but it was never less than fully engaging, and I surprised myself at sailing through it.

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#33  West Virginia: Rocket Boys / October Sky by Homer Hickam Jnr *****

I read this almost by accident! Last Christmas (2022) my wife's present to me was a box of 12 second hand books, each with a different month in the title. The book for October was October Sky, the name given to Hiram Hickam's memoir Rocket Boys after the film of the book, renamed October Sky because the producers apparently thought the original name wouldn't attract any female audience, came out. Reading my present at one book a month, I've just come to it this month! Initially, I had restricted my US tour to fiction, but this was so good, and it's obviously so much better known in the States than it is here in the UK, that I changed the rules (which are, after all, there to be broken!). So, I'm now allowed to read 'narrative non-fiction'!
Rocket Boys is a wonderful read: in some respects it could have been quite a grim book, set as it is in the mining town of Coalwood just at the cusp where the totally coal-dependent economy of the region started to take the long-term downwards, and this does act as a sombre background, giving the book extra depth and context; it's also a source of disagreement between the author's parents (mine fixated father, far more widely aware mother), which could have loaded the 'misery' up even further. However, this is a world seen through the optimistic eyes of a ten-year old going on teenager at the time when space exploration was starting to take off - and the narrator and his friends are inspired by the challenge of Sputnik to American pride and hero worship of Werner von Braun to set up their own Big Creek Rocket Agency and to develop their own rockets, the Auk series (it eventually reaches Auk XXXI!). It's very much a story of kids making good in adversity (the bulk of male authority figures, including Hickam's own mine supervisor father are initially strongly against the whole idea), supported by the women (mother, teachers) and 'working class' men in their lives who can see where things are going and how this could be a way out for their young, and see the inspiration this project can inspire. It's a very different world from that of today, not least in the tolerant attitude to risk - there are not many children nowadays who would be allowed, even encouraged, to deal with rocket fuel mixes and be simply told 'don't blow yourselves up' (it's not all progress we've made). It's told in a very straightforward, gently self-revealing way. There is an honesty, a generosity and a narrative arc which makes the whole book thoroughly gripping and overall a thoroughly joyful read, even though there are whisps of sadness - far too good to not include here! a no-brainer 6 out of 6 stars, and consideration for 'favourite' rating.

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#34  Nevada: The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark *****

This took me completely by surprise. I know it won the Pulitzer and all that, but I still didn't quite expect such a strongly written, thoughtful, even challenging read: a ranch-hand is murdered, cattle rustled, and a posse (legally very doubtful for various reasons) is off in pursuit; things go badly wrong, and questions of justice (in short supply!), group think and human weaknesses come very much to the fore, in an atmosphere one can cut with a knife and a landscape that is brought vividly to life as winter snows set in. I was enthralled, and galloped through the second half in particular. It was quite difficult obtaining a copy of this - I eventually did so by adding to my Library of America collection with an interesting looking volume of Westerns - but this is a book that deserves to be more widely read today - it's just as relevant to society today - and is a thoroughly worthy 'representative' for Nevada.

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#35  Maine: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout ****
I originally had Richard Russo's Empire Falls down for this, not least because I'd been somewhat underwhelmed by my previous effort at a Strout novel, My Name Is Lucy Barton, but a book group discussion (where I was in a minority of one in my views on the author's work!) encouraged me to give her another go - and given the success of this book (Pulitzer Prize winner) it seemed the obvious one. It's construction is also one that intrigued, the novel being formed from 13 short stories.

Well, I'm very glad to have read Olive and, whilst I can't say I have been completely converted, it was certainly a far more rewarding experience than the one with Lucy Barton. Or, perhaps, 'appreciated' would be a better word, as books as downbeat as this are rarely 'enjoyable'! It's certainly beautifully written: I was caught up in the writing from the outset, and loved the little details, the turns of phrase and the internal monologues; characters and place were strongly wrought. I found the development of Olive herself particularly intriguing, the way she ran as a thread through the 13 stories, sometimes the main character, rather more often introduced sideways, almost a cameo on occasions. The themes of older age, personal isolation (even when surrounded by others) and contrasting perceptions and experiencing of the same events also added to the coherence and interest, making me sit back after each story and reflect on what I'd just read. Characters were not necessarily likeable (far from it - there weren't many that were in fact, including Olive herself), but they were interesting.

And yet, and yet...whilst this worked for me as a collection of connected short stories, it didn't quite make it as a novel in the same way that, for instance, Jonathan Escoffery's If I Survive You did. Whilst there were elements of connection, in the end the stories themselves were just too fragmented to create the coherence that a novel needs. That fragmentation was created in a a number of ways, none enough on their own, but together too much.

Firstly, the story chronology is out of sequence. This in itself isn't a major issue, but when you read in the first story that Olive's husband Henry has retired, and then in the second story that he's thinking of retiring, it just jolts one out of immersion, prompts checking and questioning before settling (slightly uncertain) back in, and leaves one never quite trusting the thread of the narrative after that. It might be a set of short stories, but it's also a novel, and whilst plenty of novels use time shifts etc (often to advantage), there's a reason, and here there seems to be no good reason for doing so.

Secondly, the characters are too fragmented, or at least isolated. The Kitteridge family provide some continuity, with Olive, Henry and son Christopher appearing throughout. One or two other characters appear in more than one story, but in general, once a person has been written about, they largely vanish. Given that this is meant to be a relatively small community (or at least that's the impression), that just didn't work for me - I'd expect people to appear and reappear. It also proved unsatisfactory. If you're going to have a dramatic event in a novel, then one expects, indeed wants, to learn something of the outcome of that event. You just don't have one, and then no mention of it or those involved ever again.

Finally, there's the repetition. In several later stories we are told things that we already know about: we've read all about them only a story/chapter or so earlier. The copyright page tells us that several of the stories have been published previously (over a 15 year period), which is fine, but if they are now being brought together as a novel, then they need editing and co-ordinating. There was also a feeling of sameness to several of the stories - we are dealing with different people (by name), but rather too similar characters/scenarios?

The disjunct between novel and short stories was also driven home by the fact that for a small community, there's an awful lot of drama: murder, hostage taking, suicide (more than one), accidental killings, along with all the other life threatening natural hazards of life. It's not quite Midsomer* but it still seems a bit OTT, and maybe lent to that sameness feeling? Never mind being downbeat about old age, I think most of those inhabitants of Crosby, Maine, would be grateful, even relieved, to make it that far. I think that's partly because one piece of such drama in a short story is fine - it works, it's what the story is centred around. But drama after drama, in each chapter, is too much for a novel. The result was that, whilst some of the drama worked well for me early on, by the second half of the book I was grateful for the stories focusing on the domestic.

However, whilst I feel I've focused rather on the negatives, in the greater scheme of things they are rather more blemishes than deep-seated faults. I found so much of this compulsive reading, not least the character of Olive herself. She's obviously not immediately likeable, if at all, but there's a humanity to her that gives her depth, and makes you wonder quite what you would make of her yourself. There's an ongoing thread around her relationship with Christopher that raises all sorts of questions, discussion points, issues of witness reliability etc worthy of a whole book on its own, never mind everything else - it's superbly handled by the author, and is one of the most thought provoking threads I've read in fiction for some time (not least because it's so relevant to aspects of my life).

So, an involving, interesting book (I rarely write as much as this in review), stronger if treated in its raw form as a collection of individual short stories. I certainly intend to try out more of Elizabeth Strout, and more specifically re-examine Lucy Barton. She may not be a 'favourite' author, but is one that has made me think here, and I'm interested to see what I make of some of her other work.

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#36  Virginia: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett ****
I'd originally got a Barbara Kingsolver down for this state, but having rather fallen out with her books since reading the excellent The Poisonwood Bible, I started looking elsewhere. And then someone mentioned that Ann Patchett's Commonwealth was at least partly set in Virginia. Having read and enjoyed The Dutch House for a book group, and intended to explore her writing a bit more, problem solved!

Commonwealth is the story of two families and how they become intertwined when the father of one 'runs off' with the mother of the other. The six children (4 and 2) become almost a tribe united in their dislike of their parents. The result (and this novel is very much centred on consequences) culminates in tragedy with which the families have to learn to live, and then in the fallout when one of the (now adult) children tells the story to her partner, a famous author in decline, who uses the plot as the basis of what becomes his bestseller, also entitled Commonwealth.

Both story and characters are complex and multi-layered: the chronology shifts backwards and forwards, as do the relationships, and it's not always easy to keep track of the multiple members of the families - it wasn't difficult if I sat down and thought, but I did need to do that sitting back on several occasions to just mentally review who was related to who and how. To be honest, I wasn't overly engaged for the first half of the book, not least because this seemed to be heading down a fairly obvious track, but I suddenly found myself engrossed, and I positively enjoyed both the structure and the character development as they developed into the second half. No stereotypes these!

As touched on above, this is very much a story of consequences, of knock-on impacts, almost of the butterfly effect as it might affect lives - indeed that life as it pans out for all of us is can so easily be influenced, changed, by the smallest of events and actions, and that it's not just how lives are impacted, but how characters are changed. In the end, having not been a huge enthusiast a good way into the book, I found myself really quite disappointed when I came to the end!

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#37  Tennessee: Shiloh by Shelby Foote ****
A novelised story of the battle, a significant turning point and one of the bloodiest in the American Civil War, told by 4 participants, 2 from each side. Shelby Foote is perhaps best known for his fairly monumental 3-volume history of the war (on my shelves to be read!), but this is a slim thing, quickly read. Really enjoyed the writing providing a very human take on what must have been an utterly grim couple of days. Led to quite a bit of follow-up reading as this is a period of history I know little about, but am slowly getting to grips with (having in the past few years read the gripping The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara - also with follow-up reading - and James Macpherson's excellent Battle Cry of Freedom)

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#38  Delaware: West of Rehoboth by Alexs D Pate ****
Edward is an athletic but introverted, bookworm, twelve-year old black boy living in Philadelphia, who spends his summer vacations in Rehoboth, on the coast of Delaware, where his mother has a regular summer job, whilst his father stays at home (having driven them to the resort). It's the 1960s Jim Crow era, and blacks and whites are effectively segregated. Here he develops a fascination, indeed obsession, for his 'Uncle' Rufus, who has been (for some unknown reason) expelled from the house of 'Aunt' Edna (where Edward with his mother and younger sister stay) who herself is a successful matriarchal business woman, more than capable of mainipulating even the local (white) police force. One of Edward's literary heroes is Hercule Poirot, and he determines to investigate Rufus, a hard drinking, messed up man. The bulk of the novel focuses on the development of that relationship, one banned by both Edward's mother and Aunt Edna, and its outcomes, filling in the relevant backstory of Edna's and Rufus's backstory on the way.
Alexs D Pate, who I'd never heard of before researching which book to read for Delaware (there isn't a wide choice), is a great story teller, who gets well inside his main characters: Eddie and Rufus come alive in his hands, although his lesser characters are rather more lightly sketched. There's a liveliness and clarity to the opening scenes which I found immersive. After the family (bar father) move to Rehoboth, the narrative narrows down somewhat to Eddie's burgeoning obsession with Rufus to the exclusion of much else. This is the nature of the story: it is a tale of obsession after all, but I have to admit to feeling that perhaps a little something went missing as a result - this was more of a niggle than a spoiler though, and the thrust of the story still remained compulsive. The last third of the book though....hmmm. All I want to say, because much more would lead to spoilers, is that it was not what I expected, was an admirably different approach, and whilst I'm still not sure if it fully worked for me, certainly made for an interesting read.
Overall, I really enjoyed the author's style: his descriptiive work in particular added a certain richness which made this as much a story of place as people, whilst on the latter, I felt I really learned something about black life at this time; this was a place, a society, a time about which I knew little; I probably still know little, but a few doors and windows have been opened. The story itself, whilst not perfect by any means for me, was still addictively readable - I looked forward to sitting down to read and left it reluctantly, reaching the end satisfied that the story had been fully told, but wanting to know more about Eddie's life beyond. A very enjoyable addition to the tour list.

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#39  Illinois: So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell *****
I had several possibilities for this state, not least Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow and Crossroads by Jonathan Frantzen, two 'big guns', but I opted for this slim novella, barely 135 pages long, mainly because I was intrigued by someone obviously so highly rated (winner of the American Book Award with this novel), but of whose work I knew next to nothing - and even less of the author himself. No regrets either - this was an absolutely captivating contemplation on how we draw our memories together, the impact they can have on our lives, and the destructive impact of an affair between two neighbours on their respective families. I loved the writing, understated, spare even, but all the more vivid as a result: sympathetic if flawed (ie human) characters, the stark environment, the fallout all laid bare: a very human tragedy. It reminded me of Willa Cather's Prairie Trilogy.

In this story, two rather insular boys, neighbours and drawn together almost from necessity, are separated by the murder of a local farmer at the hands of, it turns out, one of the boy's fathers. It very soon becomes apparent that the murdered man had been having an affair with the murderer's wife, both men having been nex door neighbours and close friends previously. The other boy is the narrator, looking back on the event from older adulthood, and trying to reconstruct what really happened from his memories and other still available evidence. And, as the author writes, memory is "really a form of storytelling" that often changes in the telling, not least to help us handle our own emotional conflicts which make our true life stories unpalatable - we (almost) all have something we really don't like looking back on in our past (I certainly do - positively cringe-making even now, over 40 years later). "In talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw".

Reading Maxwell's biography in Wikipedia, I suspect that there are significant autobiographical elements here: the setting is Lincoln, Illinois, Maxwell's hometown; the narrator's mother dies from Spanish flu when he is about 10 as did Maxwell's mother; one of the main characters is an orphan brought up by aunt and uncle, as was Maxwell for some time; the narrator's father remarries and moves to Chicago with his family - Maxwell's father did the same, as Maxwell rejoined him there. These are all key influences within the book. How deep the autobiography goes, I don't know, but it's a book that feels very personal. It's certainly left me wanting to explore his relatively small oeuvre, just six novels, although more short story collections, and a couple of non-fictions, in amongst his main work, almost 40 years as fiction editor for The New Yorker. 5 stars, although I'm not quite sure why I didn't give it 6, so it might change.

Edited January 23 by willoyd

[willoyd]

#40. Montana: A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean ****

Review to follow