So many books, so little time — the true book hound’s lament. Such was the case in 2003 when, even though recent years’ flood of slop from major publishers continued, enough good books were still published every week to make a reader weep for lack of time to digest them all. Following is a list of some of our favorite books of the year, most of which were reviewed in Creative Loafing. Now, if only we all had time to peruse every single one. . .
FICTION
Leaving Maggie Hope By Tony Abbott (Novello Festival Press). The winner of the annual Novello Press Award, poet and former Davidson prof Abbott produced a gem of a debut novel. Abbott based the story on his own life, and the strength of his memories breathes real life into the fictional story of David Johnson Lear, his fragmented family, and his boarding school experiences. Author Lee Smith says the book is “the most moving coming-of-age story I have read in many years.”
Jennifer Government by Max Barry (Doubleday). This over-the-top satirical crime novel about the takeover of everything by multi-national corporations is oddly delightful. People’s last names are now the same as the name of the company they work for and government is a for-profit business. When Jennifer Government investigates a murder that implicates Nike in a homicidal conspiracy, all hell breaks loose between the two “superpowers.” This is hilariously creative satire that, like all good satire, is uncomfortably close to where we stand today.
Blacklist by Sara Paretsky (Putnam). This mystery with Paretsky’s popular detective V.I. Warshawski is a penetrating look at 1950s blacklists and current attacks on our civil liberties through the Patriot Act. The story involves secrets from the 1950s Communist witch hunts and reactions and overreactions to September 11. Fueled in part by Paretsky’s own reaction to the aftermath of 9/11, this is a terrific example of how passion and dedication can contribute to the development of a great novel.
Our Lady of the Forest By David Guterson (Knopf). When a scruffy teenage runaway has visions of the Virgin Mary, she unleashes reactions inside and outside her ragged little logging town. Guterson lets loose with examinations of how religion gives hope to, and perverts, people’s lives. More than that, the novel is a good albeit rambling story about the roles of women and the commercialization of just about everything.
Great Neck by Jay Cantor (Knopf). This 700-page epic about growing up in the 60s and 70s is almost an old-fashioned “big novel,” filled with chutzpah, wide scope and grand themes, covering just about anything you can think of that happened during those two pivotal decades: first love, Civil Rights, guilt, murder, comic books, drugs, Warhol, radical politics, psychiatry, mysticism. . . all of them, and more, blended into a literary concoction of history, fantasy, comedy and social reality. It doesn’t always work, but it works often enough.
Video by Meera Nair (Anchor). The latest in the wave of Indian writers reaching our shores is also one of the liveliest. The usual Western Influence On The East & Vice Versa theme is here in these short stories, but the cultural cross-references are treated with a ruthless honesty that creates a uniquely hardboiled but humorous mix of the two cultures. Not real easy going down, but somehow enchanting.
Judge by Dwight Allen (Algonquin). At the center of this imaginative, skillful novel is the late William “Bill” Dupree: Louisville Republican, husband, father, Episcopalian and devoted enthusiast of old-time railroads. Respected, and compassionate, the judge spends a lifetime following his faith and addressing his frequent doubts concerning the nature of God and man, while his profession demands that he weigh the standards set forth in the law, as well as how those standards shape the fate of living men and women. This novel marks the arrival of a seasoned author.
The Mammoth Cheese by Sheri Holman (Atlantic Monthly Press). Holman masterfully juggles three storylines involving a rural Virginia town where a woman gives birth to 11 babies; a cheesemaker/single mom who captures the heart of her co-worker, a Jefferson devotee; and the cheesemaker’s daughter’s rebellious coming of age. When the media lose interest in the 11 babies, the townspeople re-enact an historical event, in which dairy farmers crafted a 1,235-pound handmade cheese, then carted it to Washington.
You Back The Attack! by Micah Ian Wright (Seven Stories Press). Wright, a former US Airborne Ranger who’s also an award-winning animator and comic book author, created this thin but rich collection of powerful protest art by “adjusting” classic war posters, most from the WWII era. Wright respects the original artwork but has changed the text to create a series of incendiary protest pieces that confront the war-and-obedience nature of the current US regime.
The Clearing by Tim Gautreaux (Knopf). Louisianan Gautreaux’s second novel (he’s also author of two short story collections) shows maturity without giving up any of the drive and flair of his previous work. His tale of a brutal power struggle between veterans/victims of the Great War, placed amid the bayou’s cypress swamps, is suspenseful and riveting. What’s new is that Gautreaux evinces a morally complex view of humanity and nature that approaches the likes of Styron or (yes, we have to say it) Faulkner. This is a major work, and a personal milestone, for one of the South’s finest writers.
Candy: A Novel by Mian Mian (Back Bay Books). A young Chinese writer who’s already an icon in her homeland (even though her work has been banned by the government) wrote this gracefully harrowing novel that gives a revealing look at a segment of the country’s population — China’s “lost generation” of apolitical teens and 20somethings who’ve dropped out of government-controlled society and disappeared into scattered big-city subcultures of prostitution, organized crime and drugs. These disaffected young people with rock & roll hearts and rotting livers spend their days and nights having unfulfilling sex, shooting heroin, and listening to American oldies. This is raw, powerful stuff and worth the effort.
NON-FICTION
Wrapped In Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd (Scribner). This energetic, eloquent biography of one of the cornerstones of the Harlem Renaissance brings to life Hurston’s vivid, extraordinary spirit, strength and talent. Her fieldwork in black folklore was a turning point in American lit’s view of its own native culture, and remains a model of artistic courage. Boyd is swept up by her subject and does her justice by treating Hurston not as a cultural oddity but an inspiring example of a free spirit creating a remarkable body of work against all odds.
Under The Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer (Doubleday). The chilling, well-told, true story of two Mormon fundamentalist brothers who, in 1984, believing they were obeying orders from God, murdered their sister-in-law and her baby. Krakauer, an excellent reporter who wrote the best-selling Into Thin Air, draws a clear historical line stretching from today’s fundamentalist/polygamist subculture back to the early, i.e., polygamous and violent, history of Mormonism. The book enraged mainstream Mormons, who disavow any connection to present-day fundamentalists. Nonetheless, Krakauer’s book is a welcome albeit gruesome glimpse into how spirituality can be twisted into its murderous opposite.
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon). One of the year’s most striking surprises was this comics form memoir of growing up in an intellectual, politically liberal family in Tehran during the days of the Shah, his overthrow, the stifling repression of life under the ayatollahs, and the eight-year war against Iraq. Persepolis moves quickly, carried by Satrapi’s simple, dynamic style and her focus on how historical events are played out on a personal level. Harrowing, funny and ultimately inspiring, the book makes it clear that there’s no real difference between a political system run by religious fundamentalists and any other modern totalitarian state.
Over The Edge of the World by Laurence Bergreen (William Morrow). Bergreen brings to life the exhilarating story of what was possibly the ultimate “adventure story,” the 16th century journey around the world led by Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan. Politics, mystery, greed, mutiny, orgies, suffering and raw courage wind through this story, providing a richness of detail and presence that put Bergreen’s book head and shoulders above others in the popular “true tales at sea” genre.
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken (E.P. Dutton). Thanks to rightwing blowhard Bill O’Reilly and his instigation of a failed, bullying lawsuit by FoxNews, this biting (make that “mauling”) satire hit the top of the bestseller lists. Franken is a progressive’s dream comic and a conservative’s nightmare: an intelligent liberal blessed with razor wit, a vivid sense of the absurd, and utter, mocking contempt for the far-right’s nonsense.
The Maya of Morganton by Leon Fink (UNC Press). Fink tells the compelling story of a decade-long union struggle at a poultry plant in Morganton, NC, where a coalition of Guatamalan Maya refugees, Mexican immigrants, various supporting progressive groups and other local allies joined forces to fight for better-than-abysmal working conditions and pay. The book provides a fascinating peek at the close cultural ties that sustain immigrant communities. A very revealing look at a struggle that happened nearby, even though 90 percent of Charlotteans have probably never heard of it.
Jarhead by Anthony Swofford (Scribner). The best battle memoir since Michael Herr’s Dispatches. Swofford was a Marine sniper in the Gulf War and he makes no bones about the fact that most of the time he and his mates were scared, bored or drunk. Frank prose and a wonderful dark humor permeate Swofford’s exuberant narrative. This is a needed, straightforward look at modern combat, those who fight it, and those who are under the impression they’re leading the battle, all told with a razor sharp wit and an eye for the telling detail.
Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi (Grove Press). In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, a young Iraqi going by the pseudonym Salam Pax began posting his weblog reports of everyday life in Baghdad on the Internet, in English. He became a worldwide Internet sensation, writing about pop culture, his CD collection, and the brutal absurdities of the Hussein regime. As war drums beat louder, Salam’s blog gave real-time glimpses into the anxieties large and small of regular people trying to live their lives under the simultaneous threat of invasion and repression. Salam’s irreverent, hip sense of humor and obsessions with pop culture were an unexpected, fascinating peek into a culture portrayed by our “leaders” as alien. As commentator Peter Maass of Slate eloquently put it, “Salam Pax was the Anne Frank of the war. . . and its Elvis.”
From The Land of Green Ghosts by Pascal Khoo Thwe (HarperCollins). A beautifully written memoir, subtitled “A Burmese Odyssey,” offering loving descriptions of life growing up with 10 siblings in the pre-modern world of rural Burma, in passages that at times seem like dreams. When Khoo Thwe went off to school, he became involved in government reform efforts, and in 1988, at age 19, was forced to flee to the jungles bordering Thailand. While working as a waiter, Khoo Thwe was “discovered” by a Cambridge don who brought him to England, where he now lives.
Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King (Walker & Co.). A masterful and very accessible look at the immortal artist’s struggles to paint what turned out to be one of the great masterpieces of human history. Michelangelo emerges here as a fully three-dimensional flesh-and-blood man, not the quirky myth that’s been handed down to us.
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories of a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman (Simon & Schuster). A powerful memoir by a NC writer tells how, one year after the 1974 Patty Hearst kidnapping, her mother — slipping into schizophrenia and believing she’d been inducted into a secret army — kidnapped Holman, then age 8, and her one-year-old sister, to live in the family’s small Virginia cottage and set up a “field hospital.” They lived there over three years. This is a harrowing tale, yet it still respects the humanity of everyone involved while taking the reader on a galloping narrative ride.
Game Time: A Baseball Companion by Roger Angell (Harcourt). This collection of some of the best essays and reporting by The New Yorker‘s resident baseball scribe rarely fails to delight. Angell loves baseball; what makes his passion all the more enjoyable is the absence of sentimentality. Unlike some more flowery baseball writers, he doesn’t believe baseball mirrors life or represents a higher ideal. For him, it’s just a marvelous game fraught with the frailties, faults and variations of any human endeavor.
An Unfinished Life by Robert Dallek (Little Brown). Information gleaned from previously sealed Kennedy medical records reveals just how poor John F. Kennedy’s health was, and throws a new light on his service as President — which included his clear-headed decision-making in some of history’s most intense foreign policy crises, his gradual awakening to support of the civil rights movement, and his management of a nuclear test ban treaty. The eternal playboy turns out to have also been a model of courage, stoic resolve and public service.
12,000 Miles In The Nick of Time by Mark Jacobson (Atlantic Monthly Press). New York writer Jacobson and his wife, two daughters and son lived in Greenwich Village, yet he still despaired over the shallow values his kids picked up from American techno-pop culture. So he cashed in his savings and traveled, family in tow, around the world; specifically, to some of the greatest, longest lasting works of the human race in places like Nepal, Thailand, India and the Middle East — while reliving old travels with his wife in their pre-kids hippie days. They stay in seriously Third World accommodations, get to really know people who are vastly different from themselves, continually explore the differences between East and West. . .and argue nearly every minute they’re awake. This is an alternately enthralling and maddening book about a family of hardcore individualists whose search for something more than snapshots from their travels reminds us of how exhilarating and difficult real traveling, as opposed to being tourists, can be.
This article appears in Dec 24-30, 2003.
