“We’re never gonna escape this,” Paps said. “Never.”

Book Review:

Review by Poornima Apte  (SEP 22, 2011)

We The Animals in this wonderful debut novel refers to three brothers, close in age, growing up in upstate New York. They are the Three Musketeers bound strongly together not just because of geographical isolation but because of cultural separateness too. The brothers are born to a white mother and a Puerto Rican father—they are half-breeds confused about their identity and constrained by desperate and mind-numbing poverty.

This wild and ferocious debut is narrated by the youngest of the three, now grown, looking back on his childhood. It’s a coming-of-age story told in lyrical sentences that are exquisitely crafted. And while there are many moments of beauty in here, there are also ones of searing violence.

The boys can do nothing but stand back and watch as the intensely abusive relationship between the parents plays out everyday and it’s almost worse because the evidence creeps up after the fact. One day, Mom’s eyes are swollen shut and cheeks turned purple “He told us the dentist had been punching on her after she went under; he said that’s how they loosen up the teeth before they rip them out,” the narrator, barely aged seven, recalls. The severe abuse is compounded and made even more heartbreaking by the boys’ innocence and gullibility—they buy this lie and many others, whole.

The daily struggle for survival is heart wrenching yet without melodrama. “We stayed at the table for another forty-five minutes, running our fingers around our empty bowls, pressing our thumb tips into the cracker plate and licking the crumbs off,” Torres writes about one of the many evenings when one can of soup and a few crackers would have to make do for all of them. The boys don’t quite understand why their parents are seemingly happy one moment and why their mother slips into deep bouts of depression the next.

One of the many beautiful chapters in the book is one called “Night Watch” (each short chapter in this slim volume has a name). In it, the boys accompany Dad to work when he finds work at a night job. They have to sleep on the floor in sleeping bags in front of the vending machines, out of plain sight. They are here (and not home) because Mom is at her job working the night shift at a local brewery. The next morning, when a white man comes to relieve Dad of his duties, he spots the three musketeers and can guess at the situation. From the argument that follows, the boys already know that Dad has probably lost this job too. The family’s otherness, especially as perceived by the boys, is just beautifully rendered here.

As the boys enter adolescence, the narrator immediately knows he is separate and apart from his brothers. “They smelled my difference—my sharp, sad, pansy scent,” Torres writes. It wouldn’t be a reveal to say that the difference lies in the narrator’s sexuality, which can be glimpsed early on, if one pays close attention.

In a recent interview, the author Justin Torres has said: “I think that everybody struggles with family in some way and I hope that they can come away realizing that you can go back to those experiences and find something beautiful in everything and that you can make art out of your experiences.” With We The Animals, Torres has crafted just that—a beautiful and memorable work of art. This slender novel packs a powerful punch.

Justin Torres proves you don’t have to pen a giant volume to write precociously about huge themes such as family, race, adolescence and sexuality. Of course Torres writes so beautifully that you almost wish that he did.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 49 readers
PUBLISHER:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (August 30, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Poornima Apte
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	An interview with Justin Torres
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Bibliography:

• We the Animals (August 2011)

“The world was a terrible place. She solved each murder only to move on to the next. Put away a child abuser, watch a wife beater get released the next day. And on and on it went.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (MAR 15, 2011)

In Lisa Gardner’s Love You More, Tessa Leoni has a great deal on her plate. She has been a Massachusetts state trooper for four years and has a beautiful six-year-old daughter, Sophie, whose father’s name Tessa does not even know. Leoni has an inner toughness that she will desperately need as she faces an uncertain future. Her husband of three years and Sophie’s stepfather, Brian Darby, has been shot to death, and the evidence points to Tessa as the perpetrator. Worse, Tessa’s little girl, Sophie, has disappeared. The detectives soon suspect that not only did Tessa gun down her husband in cold blood, but that she also killed and buried her daughter.

Handling the case is Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren, a forty-year old, ten-year veteran of the Boston Police Department. Assisting is Bobby Dodge, her former lover, who is a Massachusetts State Police Detective. D. D. is married to her job; she is sharp, aggressive, and ambitious, qualities that she shares with Tessa. Nevertheless, she has contempt for Leoni, whom she considers to be a conniving and selfish monster. D. D. is determined to nail this pretty and petite woman and put her away for a very long time. On the home front, D. D. has been dating Alex, a teacher at the police academy, for over six months. She is not sure if she has the temperament to make their relationship last.

D. D. and Bobby work the Leoni case, and it is a thankless task from the get-go. The forensic evidence is muddled, and Leoni, who is less than cooperative, has a battered and swollen face. Apparently, someone has beaten Tessa to a pulp. Will she claim that she shot Brian in self-defense because he was an abusive spouse? The situation becomes steadily more complicated and ambiguous, and D. D. is furious when she suspects that Tessa has been lying to them from the beginning.

Lisa Gardner, whose fans are legion, is the undisputed queens of the domestic thriller. The reasons for her popularity include: tough heroines who are even more macho than their male counterparts; byzantine plots in which the truth is carefully veiled; gripping scenes of suspense and violence; and conclusions that always include an extra, unforeseen twist. Although Love You More contains all of these elements and more, Gardner may have gone a bit overboard this time. Tessa Leoni is a character we can and do root for. However, the author would have us believe that this woman is a master of weaponry, strategy, and hand-to-hand combat, and is so self-possessed that she can think clearly while navigating the most arduous and hazardous obstacles. When it comes to her personal life, on the other hand, she is woefully naïve and a terrible judge of character.

Still, this is a page-turner that will appeal to aficionados of escapist fiction. Readers will realize fairly quickly that Brian’s death is anything but a straightforward homicide, and it is fun to follow the clues along with the high-strung D. D. Warren and Bobby Dodge. There is plenty of action to keep us engrossed; the roller-coaster ride never slows down until the final pages. Even though Love You More is a bit over-the-top, Gardner is a skilled enough writer to keep us engaged. She includes fascinating details about prisons, police procedure, and the challenges faced every day by overworked and harried homicide detectives. Gardner leaves us satisfied and eager to follow the further adventures of the intrepid D. D. Warren.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 42 readers
PUBLISHER:	Bantam (March 8, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Lisa Gardner
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	More mystery series set in Boston: Ice Cold by Tess Gerritsen Among Thieves by David Hosp

Bibliography:

• The Other Daughter (1999)
• The Survivors Club (2002)

FBI Profiler Series

• The Perfect Husband (1998)
• The Third Victim (2001)
• The Next Accident (2001)
• The Killing Hour (2003)
• Gone (2006)
• Say Goodbye (2008)

Detective D.D. Warren Series:

• Alone (2005)
• Hide (2007)
• The Neighbor (2009)
• Live to Tell (2010)
• Love You More (March 2011)

“Reacher was spending no time on regret or recrimination. No time at all. The time for ruing mistakes and learning from them came later. As always he was focused in the present and the immediate future. People who wasted time and energy cursing recent errors were certain losers.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (OCT 24, 2010)

Those who enjoyed Lee Child’s 61 Hours were prepared for a breathtaking follow-up. How sad that Worth Dying For is a throwback to a more one-dimensional Jack Reacher, a far less interesting protagonist than the one in 61 Hours. In the previous installment, it was thrilling to see a new version of Reacher—a man with flaws who made mistakes and was not able to win every battle. He also revealed a bit more of his background during telephone conversations with a woman named Susan whom he never meets. Since 61 Hours ended in a cliffhanger, many of us expected that Child would pick up where he left off, perhaps heading in even more new directions.

Unfortunately, that does not happen. Almost all of the threads left dangling at the end of 61 Hours are referred to only in passing. This time around, an injured but still functional Reacher finds himself in a motel in Nebraska. He overhears a drunken physician blowing off a patient named Eleanor Duncan, who has a severe nosebleed. Relying on his sixth sense and experience as a military policeman, Reacher infers that Mrs. Duncan is a victim of domestic violence. Since the doctor is too inebriated to drive, Jack insists on chauffeuring him to the Duncan residence. This turns out to be a huge mistake, since Eleanor Duncan’s husband is a brute whose repulsive family runs the town as if it were their personal fiefdom. When someone has the temerity to cross the Duncans, a team of goons—hulking but not terribly bright former football players—rough them up. The malevolent Duncans have the citizenry in an economic stranglehold, and they have succeeded in covering up their sordid and illegal activities for decades.

Most readers will find the plot rather predictable. Reacher, operating more or less on autopilot, takes on the Duncans, the football players, and three pairs of thugs (two Lebanese, two Iranians, and two Italians, a veritable United Nations without the peacekeeping force). Jack uses semi-mystical powers to predict what his opponents will do and then tries to outmaneuver them. There is enough violence in these pages to satisfy even the most bloodthirsty thriller fan. In fact, there are so many scenes of torture and mayhem that the gore quickly loses its shock value. There is no character development, the dialogue is stilted, the staccato prose quickly becomes tedious, and the story breaks no new ground in a genre that is already filled with tough guys who act as judge, jury, and executioner. If you liked Death Wish with Charles Bronson (a cult classic about an urban vigilante) then you will probably love Worth Dying For. One only hopes that Child takes a breather and puts a great deal more thought into his next installment.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 579 readers
PUBLISHER:	Delacorte Press; First Edition edition (October 19, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Lee Child (and Jack Reacher!)
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Affair 61 Hours Gone Tomorrow Nothing to Lose Bad Luck and Trouble The Hard Way The Enemy

Bibliography:

• Killing Floor (1997) /
• Die Trying (1998)
• Tripwire (1999)
• Running Blind (2000)
• Echo Burning (2001)
• Without Fail (2002)
• Persuader (2003)
• The Enemy (2004)
• One Shot (2005)
• The Hard Way (2006)
• Bad Luck and Trouble (2007)
• Nothing to Lose (2008)
• Gone Tomorrow (2009)
• 61 Hours (2010)
• A Wanted Man (2012)
• Never Go Back (September 2013)

Movies:

• Jack Reacher (May 2013)

“I sat at my bedroom window after I changed; the cashew tree was so close I could reach out and pluck a leaf if it were not for the silver-coloured crisscross of mosquito netting. The bell-shaped yellow fruits hung lazily, drawing buzzing bees that bumped against my window’s netting.”

Book Review:

Review by Vesna McMaster (AUG 29, 2010)

From the first few pages this novel leaves no room for doubt as to how the narrative will unfold: the struggle of the “outside” and more natural world against that of domestic oppression and enforced sterility. As the book opens with a domestic crisis which overwhelms the narrator in its almost silent enormity, she retreats to her room.

The netting in the above quote is the perfect simile for the walls and boundaries, real and invisible, which surround the narrator. Whom do they keep out, and whom do they keep in? In an instant, we know from this passage alone that although they may keep the mosquitoes out, they also enforce a separation between the narrator and the leaves and bees: a separation decidedly unwelcome.

I found it extraordinary that the message was so clarion, as both the novel’s physical setting (post-coup Nigeria) and spiritual setting (stringently Catholic) are subjects I am personally completely unfamiliar with. I felt I ought to be reading the book with a full-scale guidebook to Africa, so laden is it with unknown phrases and concepts, scents, sounds and sights. It is proof of the superb writing that the unfamiliar and the unknown are in no way alienating, but entirely tantalising in a heady, spicy, dusty mix, making the uninitiated want to touch, taste and feel what the words set before us.

The narrator is Kambili Achike, a girl born to a wealthy family headed by her despotic and sadistic father, Eugene. Her fellow sufferers within the house walls are her mother Beatrice and her brother Jaja. Eugene is well respected within the community: he donates money to churches and the poor, he runs a politically subversive newspaper at tangible physical danger to himself and is seen as no less than a hero. At home he enforces his will on the inmates of the house without a chink of mercy, and with the help of torture and battery at regular intervals.

When the two children manage to escape from the immediate clutches of the household for a short while to Eugene’s sister, Aunty Ifeoma’s residence, the wheels of change start to turn. Ifeoma’s household is an almost pantomime foil to Eugene’s; they are poor but liberated, they have fun. Once they have put the initial chips into the glass coating that keeps the children from admitting their abuse to anyone (including themselves, mostly), there is no return and Eugene’s family starts to disintegrate.

While the physical world and settings may be unfamiliar to many readers, the central core of sadistic domestic abuse and subjugation transcends all cultural boundaries in its immediacy and intimacy. The psychological bullying from her father produces palpable physical effects on the narrator – she develops a fever in response to a crisis, or her legs feel “loose-jointed.”  When she gleans some approval, the joy and relief are also physically palpable: her mouth feels “full of melting sugar;” the abused’s gratitude for sops of “kindness’ shown to them by their abusers. The problems of the nuclear family are mirrored in the larger world, with the omnipotent bullies in power invading every waking and sleeping moment of their subjects, exerting almost complete control.

There is no doubt that in reaching an international audience, Adichie is acutely aware that many of her readers will be as unfamiliar with the Nigerian element (which is the core of the book) as I am. By an impasto technique with the symbolism and parallels, Adichie counters this problem by explaining the state within the country with reference to the domestic situation.

Both nature and the social structure join forces in elucidation. The sadistic “Papa” is the drying, dust-covering Harmattan wind, the (typically female) positive forces have moisture-laden imagery – again, juxtaposing sterility and fertility. This is a central theme both in the family life and at the State level. The narrator’s mother faces possible divorce and destitution for producing insufficient children, but the fault of this lies with her husband Eugene and his physical battering of his ever-pregnant wife.

One aspect that has been noted to be omni-present in this book is the prevalence of food. Its smells, textures, preparation, effect, quality, quantity, power, implications; some readers find it overwhelming. This insistence is directly tied to the sterility/fertility male/female theme. In Eugene’s wealthy household, food is plentiful and good, but there is no contact with the preparation of it, no knowledge of where it comes from. By contrast in the poor household of Aunt Ifeoma, food is scarce and takes a lot of time and effort both to procure and prepare, but appears to be relished more. (No prizes for guessing which is portrayed as the happier state). Most importantly, the enforced separation which the narrator has endured at home from the “womanly” dealing with food is shown as a type of disabling, a condition that debilitates, a sort of castration of abilities. Learning about food empowers the narrator much more than merely to the extent of being handy in the kitchen. It is as if her whole outlook on life changes (albeit incrementally) by learning how to peel a vegetable properly. In peeling it, she learns how to peel herself, to remove the casing to just the right degree.

This brings us back to the walls and boundaries we started off with. The uncrossable boundaries of the family life are admitting to the tyranny and abuse that is being inflicted. The narrator and her brother “speak with their eyes” to each other, as they dare not speak otherwise. As the status quo in the household starts to dissolve under the influence of external forces like Aunty Ifoema and Father Amadi, this method of communication becomes jammed, blocked. The change that heralds this blockage is one for the positive, but it involves great pain. The implication is that this pain cannot be avoided, nor will it ever be eradicated.

Here, we are taken back to the implied view on Nigerian politics Adichie is making. Kambili is not the only protagonist forced to embrace change. When the inspirational Aunty Ifeoma herself is targeted as a trouble-maker by the University authorities, she is extremely reluctant to leave the country which she loves but which tortures her, in favour of an alien one that will offer relative sanctuary from persecution. The argument is mooted in the household: if all the brains leave, who’s going to pick up the pieces? For this, there is no answer.

It perfectly mirrors the escape from tyranny on the domestic level. From the conclusions drawn there, one can only assume that the author sees this situation as inevitable. In the aftermath of the ultimate domestic collapse, the erstwhile victimised members of the family attempt to rebuild a life. They have however been permanently “expelled” from the state they had known hereto, and their efforts are uncoordinated and wandering. The lasting blame which lands on all of them, but particularly the mother (who has possibly been shown to have suffered the most) is drawn with such absolute precision that it is impossible to sidestep the implication that the wronged commoners will nevertheless carry the burden of their oppressors with them wherever they go. Through the telescope of the immediate and intimate, Adichie elucidates the political and cultural situation for outsiders.

But it seems that she has portrayed the abuser only too convincingly for some readers. Many reviewers opine that Eugene is “not all bad” and that the family’s love for him is “genuine.” In fact, the overwhelming majority of reviewers suggest that poor Eugene, he’s got terrible faults but he means well, bless him. This is both a frightening testament to how household bullies get away with what they do, and a homage to Adichie’s skill in portraying the process. Perhaps also it is a more reassuring reflection that the average reader is thankfully shielded from acute domestic violence, physical and psychological. Any “love” the abuser appears to show to his victims is self-directed, his good deeds in political and economic circles are all salves to his own background of abused childhood and repressed impulses. The abuser cannot see his family (and by extension, anyone who comes within his field of power) as anything but reflections and facets of himself. They have no rights or individual standing in his view, and as he forces his own view onto his victims, his view becomes theirs. This is not to say that Eugene does not suffer for his misdeeds: the disfiguring rash that keeps coming up is like a reflection of the myriad wrongs he has inflicted, which no amount of dabbing away with money will erase – and his body knows it, even if he doesn’t.

But by the very process that she has created to explain the Nigerian situation, is seems Adichie might have overdone herself. The excuses which so many readers see in Eugene’s behaviour make the politicians by implication less culpable, and the love of their subjects less conditional. I am sure Adichie’s message is that patriotic love should be conditional, and if the relationship between state and citizen turns abusive then those conditions should be enforced, even if the citizens feel pain and regret at the process.

In a final reinforcement of the parallel, Kambili’s hidden talent which emerges towards the end of the narrative turns out to be:  running. The symbolism is not veiled. From a domestic situation like hers, the best one can do is run, as fast as possible. Perhaps this is what the writer feels is the ultimate fate of the Nigerian people.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 202 readers
PUBLISHER:	Anchor (September 14, 2004)
REVIEWER:	Vesna McMaster
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie website
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Americanah The Thing Around Your Neck: Stories

Bibliography:

• Purple Hibiscus (2003)
• Half a Yellow Sun (2006) )
• The Thing Around Your Neck: Stories (2009)
• Americanah (May 2013) 

“On June 21, 2006, at seven a.m. in a malarial crossroads named Hope, Florida, the thermometer old Mrs. Hickok had nailed to the Welcome to Hope sign fifteen years prior read ninety-two degrees. It would get a lot hotter that day, and there was plenty of time for it to do so, this being the summer solstice. But ninety-two at seven a.m., sunrise occurring only three hours earlier, suggested a harsh reckoning was in store for this swampy southern outpost.”

Book Review:

Review by Terez Rose (MAY 2, 2010)

Clarissa Burden is having a bad day. It’s hot, her marriage is stuck in a bad place, her writing is even worse. A two-time bestselling novelist, she hasn’t written a decent sentence in thirteen months. Instead she pours her mental creativity into fantasizing about the accidental (but not necessarily unwelcome) death of Iggy, her verbally abusive artist husband, sixteen years her senior. After seven years of marriage, Iggy largely ignores Clarissa and instead focuses his attention on photographing and sketching young, pretty nudes in Clarissa’s back garden. He hasn’t touched his wife in years. He resents and scorns her commercial success even as he milks the financial benefits. Things are not good.

Iggy and Clarissa are not the only occupants of the majestic old house Clarissa bought six months earlier. Nearly two hundred years earlier a Spanish woman, Olga Villada and Amaziah, her common-law husband, a free black under Spanish law, lived here with their young son, but were brutally murdered. Now, their spectral presences roam the house. Mysterious sounds—the strains of violin playing, the rolling of a child’s ball upstairs—distract Clarissa, as does the one-armed tree-cutter at her door, who is not what he appears to be. Even the fly in the kitchen (whose thoughts the reader is privy to) won’t leave her alone today.

Iggy, ignoring Clarissa, takes the car and flits off to lunch with the models, leaving Clarissa with only the decrepit old pick-up for transportation, which holds four months’ worth of decomposing trash. A trip to the dump commences a chain of bizarre events that will serve to change her life. A detour to a cemetery populated by the mournful, murmuring spirits of women and children who died from abuse and neglect. A stop at a roadside restaurant that produces a new friend and soon after, a new car. There is an encounter with a boy and his pet rattlesnake, the spectacle of a dwarf carnival being unloaded and set up outside town. Another visitation from the ghost family back at the house, where Olga Villada spectrally nudges a dossier into view, citing her as the original owner of hundreds of acres of land, the house, and including other burning facts, previously unknown to Clarissa.

One of Fowler’s particular skills as a writer is the interweaving the spirit realm within her stories. All get their chance to speak: the spirit women and children at the old cemetery; Olga Villada, Amaziah and their young son; the one-armed tree cutter, whose identity and purpose are ultimately revealed. Even the fly becomes a ghost here and has his say (a case of unrequited love toward Clarissa, even after she squashed him dead).

Despite this, however, there are times when the story comes off as curiously un-magical. Granted, the language is always polished and descriptive, with Iggy a convincing, if one-dimensional villain. The situations and secondary characters are quirky and lively. But the breezy humor, which has worked so well in Fowler’s other novels (notably in The Problem With Murmur Lee ) falls flat here. Sometimes, in truth, the prose approaches chick-lit goofy. Clarissa is counseled throughout the story by her “ovarian shadow women” a chorus of advisors whose voices alternately resemble Bea Arthur, Christiane Amanpour (a CNN correspondent, in case you’re dim like me and didn’t catch the analogy), the Wicked Witch of the West and a hero version of herself called Super Dame. They are soon joined by an inner Deepak Chopra who sports big red sunglasses studded with ruby rhinestones and spouts soothing New Age platitudes. Deepak and the Greek chorus of girlfriends are funny for the first few references, but soon lose their novelty and efficacy. And the fly’s digressions? They grow so annoying you just want to kill the damned thing to shut it up, only it’s a ghost so you’re pretty much stuck with it.

It’s as if Clarissa—and perhaps the writer—are caught up in jokey, digressive prose as a way to avoid exploring a bigger story here, the painful, difficult-to-tell one. Only the side stories of Olga Villada and her family, the trip to the cemetery, and references to Clarissa’s childhood under an abusive mother seem to reveal true heart.

Fowler has proven herself, in past efforts, to be a magical, wondrously talented writer, fearless about plumbing the depths of painful issues, including domestic abuse, alcoholism and death, but never without that touch of magic and redemptive love that tempers the story so well. Sugar Cage, her 1991 critically acclaimed debut, is deserving of all its praise. The voodoo mysticism, the humanity of the characters, the inviting way the prose allows you into each of the several narrators’ stories, all heralded the arrival of a talented writer, which she continued to demonstrate in ensuing novels. Before Women Had Wings (1996) is a riveting, bittersweet story with its young protagonist who allows us to witness the magic of youth right along the girl’s hardship and unspeakable pain. The Problem With Murmur Lee (2006) uses humor and lively characters to explore the life and tragic death of Murmur Lee, hitting such a pitch-perfect note that the reader can’t help but read and read. No easy feat, any of these. Difficult acts to follow.

In the end it takes Clarissa’s visiting writing friend, Leo Adams, a former student and admirer, to break the meandering, digressive bonds that seem to be holding both character and writer back. Over a shared meal of burgers and fries, Adams and Clarissa leaf through the dossier that reveals the full story behind Olga Villada’s house, the violence, destruction, racism and hatred. “This is your story,” Adams tells Clarissa. “This is what you ought to be writing.”

“She looked at him; his eyes appeared lit with a certainty that Clarissa could not bear. How could she explain that he had no idea what a dark and dangerous place her internal landscape really was? She wanted to agree with him. He would like that. It would make for nice chitchat. But she couldn’t. She could not lie about her current capacity—which was zero—to immerse herself in horrors committed by monstrous men. What amounted to a hypersensitivity to torture or cruelty […] prevented Clarissa from agreeing with Adams or admitting to herself that perhaps the story of Olga and Amaziah Archer was what the blank, mocking virtual pages of her word processor were waiting for. In her mind, the letters lined up: RISK. And then she revised the one-word directive, turning it into a two-word warning: TOO RISKY.”

In this passage, I felt like I was seeing Clarissa—and the author—the real ones and not the jokey, digressive ones, understanding their issues and fears, for the first time. Boom. Magic. And in the ensuing scene, the confidences exchanged with Adams, his words of support and empowerment, we find the redemptive love Clarissa’s story so sorely needs, giving her the power to finally confront the now-despicable Iggy and spread her wings and fly.

How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly is a very different book from Fowler’s other efforts. It’s like Connie May Fowler Lite. She is, nonetheless, a worthy writer to read, and while this effort might disappoint some fans, others might find this lighter touch to be more to their liking. Because, in truth, the full octane writing in her other novels can be heavy stuff indeed. But they are all treasures. They are a product of writer who has mined her inner landscape, probably at great personal cost, to produce some real gems.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 17 readers
PUBLISHER:	Grand Central Publishing; 1 edition (April 2, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Terez Rose
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Connie May Fowler
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our short reviews of: Sugar Cage Before Women Had Wings

Bibliography:

• Sugar Cage (1992)
• River of Hidden Dreams (1994)
• Before Women Had Wings (1996)
• Remembering Blue (2000)
• The Problem with Murmur Lee (2005)
• How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly (2010)

Other:

• When Katie Wakes: A Memoir (2002)

Movies from books:

• Before Women Had Wings (1997)

“Most individuals on this planet have a religion they approach with some degree of earnestness,” I said. “And what is a religion but a belief in the unseen and a faith in the impossible? Remember what Jesus says in Mark? ‘For all things are possible with God,’ Magic is about the endless ways in this world that the impossible becomes possible–just like religion. Religion, in essence, is ritualized magic.”

Book Review:

Review by Doug Bruns (MAR 15, 2010)

There are no Secrets of Eden, at least not by the time you finish the last sentence of this page-turner of a novel. In all likelihood, you will probably rush to discover them all, they are presented so deftly constructed and poised.

Stephen Drew is a minister in the small Vermont town of Haverill. He is loved by his congregation, and performs his ministerial duties with grace and diligence. The novel opens as the minister is performing an outside, pond-dunking, baptism on a congregant, Alice Hayward. As he lifts her arching back out of the water she utters one word: “There.” “I’d nodded,when Alice had said it,” relates minister Drew, in the first person account that kicks off the novel. “She was thinking of John, and of Christ’s three words at the end of his torment on the cross; she was imagining that precise moment when he bows his head and gives up his spirit.” And then the chapter closes, “It is finished, said Christ. There. And Alice Hayward was ready to die.”

And die she did. That night, in an apparent murder-suicide, at the hands of her abusive husband George. But perhaps everything is not what it seems.

The story is told in four voices, the first being that of Minister Drew. He relates the story of the baptism, and the haunting word There, at the end of it. But more to the point, he relates his self anger and frustration at not being more insightful and protective of his parishioner, Alice. He knew her husband beat her. He should of been all those things, should have been looking out for her–he should have been the good minister watching over his flock. But his insight into Alice and what she was suffering at home was deeper and more complex. He was also her lover. (This is not a spoiler. Drew tells us just a few pages into the narrative.)

Bohjalian sets himself the task of exploring abuse in a work of contemporary suspense and mystery. Women get beat, some are killed. How does that happen? Particularly, how does it happen when the plight of the victim is known to some in the community and to her family (Alice has a fifteen-year old daughter, Katie)? One way it happens is when those who know do nothing. And that is the context in which Stephen Drew moves. He knew, and he illicitly loved Alice, yet did nothing to protect her. As a consequence, he comes off as diffident, if not haughty. Or, to a greater extreme, in the word of deputy state’s attorney, Catherine Benincasa, as a “dirtball.”

Catherine Benincasa’s is the second voice we encounter. Her opinion of Drew by this point is well founded. She finds him repellant, a parasite feeding on the innocence of the meek, a man exploiting his power for sexual gain. She pursues the theory that Drew, discovering his dead former-lover Alice, takes justice into his own hands and kills George, who is drunk and passed out. He sets the murder up as a suicide. It sounds plausible, the evidence does not contradict the theory, and oddly, Stephen Drew does not do a lot to help himself convince her otherwise. In fact, to the contrary. Minister Drew turns in his sacred clothes and hi-tails it out of town, pronto. Prosecutor Benincasa thinks he sends off a “serial-killer vibe” and wonders if perhaps he killed them both. But evidence is lacking and the Benincasa narration ends up seeming more like a dead-end down an alley than an illumination.

Thrown into this mix is the third voice in the narration, that of Heather Laurent, best-selling new-age author of books on all things angelic–or, as she says, “Angels. Auras. The quality of vibrations we emit and how they affect our relationship with the divine.” Laurent, herself a victim of domestic crime–her mother died at the hands of her father, who then hung himself–finds opportunity for healing in the tragedy and enters the scene as a concerned bystander. She arrives from New York hoping to bring healing and understanding to the residents of the small town, it’s once-spiritual leader, Minister Drew, but most of all to Katie Hayward, the now orphaned child of Alice and George. Heather and Stephen Drew become mixed up romantically, a fact that sets prosecutor Benincasa salivating.

The novel ends with the adolescent voice of Katie Hayword. The last secrets of Eden are revealed with her narration and it would be unwise for me to reveal much of Katie’s musings. I did find her voice to be awkward at times, sounding more like a middle-aged male author trying to sound adolescent, principally, like, by throwing in gratuitous likes and you knows. (“Once Mom explained it to me, I chilled, but I gather it was pretty gnarly there for a couple of minutes.”)

I think it must be difficult to address current social concerns, like domestic violence, using the vehicle of modern popular fiction. I commend Bohjalian’s effort. Any dialogue to raise awareness of the challenges facing the victims of such crimes, to better understand how such actions even occur in a community of concerned individuals, is to be commended. To successfully wrestle with such topics in the framework of a suspenseful mystery is quite a high-wire act. Bohjalian succeeds on all accounts.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 154 readers
PUBLISHER:	Shaye Areheart Books; First Edition (February 2, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Doug Bruns
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Chris Bohjalian
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Night Strangers The Double Bind Before You Know Kindness

Bibliography:

• Hangman (1991)
• Past the Bleachers (1992)
• Water Witches (1995)
• Midwives (1997)
• The Laws of Similars (1999)
• Trans-Sister Radio (2000)
• The Buffalo Soldier (2002)
• Before You Know Kindness (2004)
• The Double Bind (2007)
• Skeletons at the Feast (2008)
• Secrets of Eden (2010)
• The Night Strangers (2011)
• The Sandcastle Girls (2012)
• The Light in the Ruins (July 2013)

Other:

• Idyll Banter: Weekly Excursions to a Very Small Town (2003)

Movies from books:

• Past the Bleachers (1995)