Category: Authors

Contemporary fiction with female leads — some might call it women’s fiction. For me, I’m just more interested in stories about women, and these next two novels were definitely very interesting! Lydia Millet and Jojo Noyes come in at #’s 8 & 7 respectively.

 #8 – Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet

Lydia Millet has constructed a complex novel that still serves as a light-hearted, entertaining read while exploring deeper issues along with protagonist, Deb.

While honeymooning in the British Virgin Islands, Deb & Chip find themselves among a small group of tourists who inadvertently discover the existence of real mermaids. Despite their best attempts to share their discovery in a responsible way, various factions such as the tourism industry and religious zealots threaten to turn this spectacular scientific discovery into something frightening or even murderous.

Millet weaves a narrative that includes ironic humor, modern romance, and speculative fiction that works on every level. The slyly subversive ending puts a unique spin on the novel as a whole.

#7 – One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

Jojo Moyes writes romantic comedies that have a bit of a bite and earn any sentimentality that they display. In ONE PLUS ONE, Jess is a hard-working single mom who cleans houses to try to make ends meet. Her daughter Tanzie is at that awkward pre-teen stage, but she is a math wiz beyond compare. She also cares for her ex-husband’s son, Nicky, who is awkward and sensitive, and often the victim of local bullies.

When an opportunity arises that could lead to Tanzie attending an exclusive private school, Jess finds herself with no alternative than to depend on Ed, a wealthy man whose house she cleaned. Ed has hit a rough patch himself, but he finds himself drawn into Jess’s family drama and the two reluctantly find themselves drawn to each other. But life is rarely smooth, despite Jess’ eternal optimism, and the roadblocks these two face are large.

The emotions shared by these characters, both positive and negative, don’t come cheaply and are beautifully played out. This is a fun book to read that will make you laugh and make you cry. It’s got real chops and I highly recommend it.

My top book of 2014 snuck up on me. I read it early in the year, and while I loved it, I wasn’t really expecting it to be at the very top of my list this year. But as I reflected back, I realized that it totally deserved that top spot, for it’s imaginative creation of a society that is based on science and nature, for the intricate plotting, for the gorgeous characterization… and all of that done with a hive of bees.

]#1 – The Bees by Laline Paull

Accept. Obey. Serve.

Laline Paull takes us into the life of a beehive in her extraordinary novel, The Bees where we learn what it means to live that mantra. Flora is a singular hero, born to the lowest caste in the hive hierarchy, there is something special about her. It’s something that’s valued by some of her sisters, and feared by others.

As Flora moves about the hive, transcending her class, we learn all about how the colony operates, all the while thrilling to the search for food by foragers, the defense of the hive from predators like wasps and other fearsome threats, and navigating the internal politics set in motion to insure the hive’s survival. Suspense, intrigue, romance, heroism, mystery, drama, humor… this one has it all.

Whoops! Sorry about that. I got sidetracked by a vacation in Costa Rica and never finished my list of the top books read in 2014.  I’m back with #’s 2 & 3, which come from an international, best-selling author, and a debut, indie novelist respectively. These books couldn’t be more different, really, and I’ve jockeyed back and forth on their positioning, yet while Houck’s novel is more consistently great, Mitchell’s novel has more stumbles, but reaches higher, so it manages to eke out the #2 spot.

#3 – Yield by Lee Houck

Yield really took me by surprise. When I read the jacket copy and found out that the novel revolved around a young hustler in Manhattan, I inwardly groaned. It felt slightly cliched, and oh-so 80’s gay fiction, but I gave it a try. I quickly noticed the quality of the writing, and the care and (yes, I’ll say it) authenticity that permeated this novel. Not a tale of disaffected youth cutting off the world around him, but a coming-of-age story, in the best meaning of that phrase, where a young man slowly opens himself to life and all the joys and pain that comes with it.

Simon does indeed work as a part-time hustler in Manhattan, but he also files medical reports at St. Vincent’s hospital, which is the job that actually leaves physical scars, the endless series of paper cuts along his fingers. The hustling leaves scars as well, although not the type you can see. More like scar tissue, increasingly dulling Simon’s ability to feel and even experience living. When one of his close circle of friends is beaten in a violent gay bashing, Simon is shaken, and when he starts to fall for the hot guy who lives across the street from him, a door deep inside of him that was securely locked, starts to open.

Lee Houck has created a beautiful voice with Simon. He’s emotionally reserved, and frankly, terrified of his own capacity to feel, but there is nothing cliche about Yield, in fact the journey Simon takes is universal and ageless. It’s nice to read a book like this every once in a while, to remind you how rewarding fiction can truly be.

#2 – The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

David Mitchell hit the big time with his book, Cloud Atlas, and his latest tome, The Bone Clocks is the follow-up. It’s a big sprawling novel that begins in the early 80’s and unspools all the way to the mid-21st Century and the collapse of modern technology to a dystopian future. The Bone Clocks chronicles the war between two factions of immortals, benevolent psychics who are continually reincarnated, and spiritual vampires who casually take the souls of innocents to extend their lives in perpetuity. Central to this story is Holly Sykes, who starts the tale as a teenage runaway, and ends as hardened matriarch who helps to save humanity… just to see the technological infrastructure collapse. It’s a new age, science fiction epic that’s great fun to read, most notably for the moments in between the crazy stuff. And this is where Mitchell excels. The novel cycles through a handful of narrators, each telling their part of the story, while our central character, Holly Sykes, treads through all of them. I loved the small, individual details of the lives of each of these narrators that Mitchell carefully and lovingly reveals as time marches inexorably on. It’s also fun to start the novel in the past, albeit the recent past of the 1980’s, and jump a decade or so ahead with each narrator, ending up in the middle of the 21st century. For such a sprawling epic, Mitchell does a masterful job keeping things personal. Some of the more fantastical elements come across a little hokey, but all in all it works well. And despite its heft, it moves right along providing hours of entertainment.

Interestingly enough, the next two books on my list both employ humor to tell their stories.  I admittedly have a somewhat tough sense of humor.  I find a lot of humor to be forced and that always puts me off.  These two authors use humor so deftly, often intertwined beautifully with sadness or real heart.  Here are a couple of really great reads.

#4 – The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick

Characters in novels are often flawed: they drink too much, they’re short-tempered; they flirt a little two much, but the characters in Matthew Quick’s (Q’s) novels suffer from slightly more serious cognitive challenges. What potential mental disorder Batholomew suffers from is never explicitly stated, but it certainly seems like slightly more than a socially-awkward 40-year-old who has never held a job and has lived with his mother all his life. In fact there’s a very angry man in Bartholomew’s belly who rages in frustration and belittles his host with such taunts as “retard,” when Bartholomew is faced with challenges.  As his mother succumbs to brain cancer, Bartholomew begins to channel her favorite actor, Richard Gere, in order to make her happy in her last days. After she dies, he decides to start up a correspondence with the actor, inspired by his mother’s stories about Gere’s kindess and need to help free Tibet.

The Good Luck of Right Now is a remarkable novel; each chapter structured as a letter written to Richard Gere. It’s the story of a damaged man who suddenly finds himself without the person who was his world, struggling to makes sense of what is supposed to happen next. His only help include a self-defrocked Catholic priest, a grad student therapist assigned to help Bartholomew even when she can’t help herself, a similarly troubled man named Max who can’t get over the death of his beloved Alice, and the Girlbrarian, who Bartholomew has watched shelve books at the library for months. Quick’s characters are funny and sad at the same time. They deal with challenges from within and without, and somehow seem truer and more authentic than 95% of the rest of the characters in fiction today. He writes moving prose without seems sentimental, and knows how to keep the pace quick and satisfying. I highly recommend this novel.

#3 – The View From Penthouse B  by Elinor Lipman

Is there a better contemporary novelist than Elinor Lipman when it comes to delivering a charming, witty, modern-day novel about adults? If so, I need to be reading their books. Elinor’s The View from Penthouse B chronicles the lives of two sisters stuck in a bit of social limbo; one widowed suddenly over a year ago, the other a divorcee and victim of a Ponzi scheme. The two sisters become roommates, and take in a boarder in the form of a young gay man, also unemployed, and in his own state of limbo. While the story eventually gets around to the two sisters trying to move forward in their lives, Elinor’s observations and writing are so delightfully witty and honest that it almost doesn’t matter whether or not Gwen and Margot regain their social lives. The journey is so entertaining, so much fun to read that it’s almost enough by itself. Then add a beautifully realized plot that sees a lovely ending that actually moved me enough that I got choked up, and you realize that with deceptive simplicity, Elinor has delivered a masterpiece of contemporary fiction. I adore Elinor’s novels, and look forward to each new one with giddy anticipation.