Review: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

I am a huge sucker for epistolary novels under any circumstances. I have written letters off and on my whole life to friends and to pen pals I have never met, and likely will never meet. Finding something personal in the mail, as opposed to bills and junk mail, is always a thrill. So when you combine that thrilling feeling with the slightly illicit feeling of reading someone else's letters as you do in an epistolary novel, it almost guarantees a good reading experience. Virginia Evans' novel, The Correspondent, was a delightfully good reading experience.

Slightly different than other novels in letters, this tells the entire story through the letters of Sybil Van Antwerp without supplying the reader almost any of the replies (with just a couple of notable exceptions). The reader learns who Sybil is, about her relationships, what she is most proud of, what she is most ashamed by, the way her life spun out of control only to be wrested back with determination and steel, and the sorrow and guilt she feels for something that happpened a life time ago. Sybil's accomplishments were many and her correspondence impressive. The people with whom she communicates, including contemporary authors, famous people (although we are only told of these letters), her family and friends, a thoughtful neighbor, the Dean of a local college, and more show different facets of the complex character that is Sybil. This is a quiet novel, very much character driven, rich and rewarding.

Review: The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sherriff

I am packing up to head home from my annual summer vacation and I picked up R.C. Sherriff's The Fortnight in September as a final read of the season. It turns out that this gentle look at an ordinary, middle class British family's yearly seaside vacation to the sea was the perfect accompaniment to the end of my own summer, capturing as he does, the anticipation and flurry of getting ready for vacation, the pleasure of the vacation itself, and the melancholy of leaving mixed with the rightness of being once again at home.

Centered on the Stevens family of five, Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, twenty year old Mary, seventeen year old Dick, and ten year old Ernie, this charming novel shows the small pleasures of daily holiday living in a happy, familiar place, bathing in the sea, walking on the boardwalk, playing cricket, flying a kite, and so on. The Stevens go to Bognor Regis every year for two weeks in September. They stay at the same guesthouse and cheerfully follow roughly the same schedule during their time there. There are, of course, small changes each year, like choosing to splurge on renting a bathing hut this year or the increasingly noticeable shabbiness of their chosen guesthouse, but their fondness for the place, loyalty, and pleasant memories of past years keep them coming back, especially this year when there was a question of whether Mary and Dick, both out of school now and working, would join the family again or if they'd go off with their friends. There are no large dramas here, only small ones easily (and for the most part happily) navigated.

The novel is almost entirely character driven with little plot to speak of but it captures the appeal of the familiar, comfortable everyday life in a place the characters love and look forward to all year. The writing is old fashioned (although likely not so when it was published in 1931) and nostalgic feeling, and the story is warm and engaging, following each of the five family members on their own and together, giving the reader more insight into each of their thoughts and hopes both on vacation and in their usual life. It's a slow, quiet novel of annual rituals and small, contained pleasures that makes for an enjoyable reading experience.

Review: Lost in Michigan's Upper Peninsula by Mike Sonnenberg

Since I spend every summer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I picked this book up with the thought that I might find new places to visit around me and across the UP. Disappointingly I'm not entirely certain I found exactly what I was looking for though.

The locations highlighted here are arranged by general area in the UP and give not only street addresses but also geographical coordinates. Each place is followed by a short history of the attraction and recommendations of things to do (for example to bring jugs to fill up at a certain spring). The tone of the writing is folksy and conversational but I have to question Sonnenberg's enthusiasm for many of the sites he highlights, especially when it takes a good long time to reach a particular location and all a visitor can do is park their car and gaze at abandoned ruins. He misses including interesting information about some of the highlighted sites (at least in my area), such as unique geological features or the potential to see endangered flora. I'd have loved to see more quirky things included like the troll in Germfask (although Benny the Beard Fisher might be too new to be included in this edition, this gives a sense of the kinds of hidden gems I was hoping to find) rather than including little towns that he's deemed to be good places to get gas, sandwiches, and cell service. Honestly, reading through this didn't make me want to travel throughout the UP, which is a real shame and the exact opposite of what this book was striving to do.

Review: BIg Gay Wedding by Byron Lane

We can have hopes and dreams for our children but in the end, they are the only ones who get to choose what their lives look like. Sometimes this is hard for a parent to reconcile with what that parent wanted or had envisioned. This is especially true of Chrissy Durang, the mother in Byron Lane's novel Big Gay Wedding.

Chrissy has been running the Polite Society Ranch, a petting farm full of rescues, ever since she was widowed. She expects her only son Barnett to come home one day and take over the farm. Barnett is Chrissy's sun and moon and she can even semi-accept his homosexuality as long as he just keeps it quiet. But it turns out that Barnett's latest visit home isn't to tell his mother he's ready to take over, but to introduce her to his fiance, Ezra. And as for keeping his sexuality quiet, well, that's out too as the men want to hold the wedding on the ranch in this small Louisana town. There's a lot that will have to be overcome to make this wedding go off without a hitch, not least of which is Chrissy's and the town's homophobia.

Although the novel tackles some deep and important topics like homophobia, parental expectations, and acceptance, there is also a decidedly zany side to it as well. Barnett's grandfather, Paw Paw is a delight, loving and accepting his grandson as he is. Ezra's sister Nichole is completely over the top, especially in her wedding planning. Ezra's mother Victoria is crazy and has her own issues. Even Chrissy's constant elaborate checklists earn a giggle, with the checklist of things she doesn't like about Ezra coming back around positively in the end. Chrissy's struggle with her son's sexuality and his life choices, including not taking over the farm she's taken care of as his inheritance for so long, is hard and sometimes repugnant but realistic feeling. Seeking guidance from others on her struggle showcases the similarly misguided feelings of others in town but instead of reinforcing her feelings, seeing the homophobia in others helps her to reckon with and confront her own. Ultimately this ends up being a feel good novel with heart, even if it's not the most realistic you'll ever read and once you get past your anger at Chrissy's attitude in the beginning.

Review: The Trouble with Twins by Kathryn Siebel

What better time to read a middle grade book than during back to school season? I am not much of a middle grade reader in general but when I was cleaning out my kids' books I found a small stash that looked fun so I kept them to read myself. Kathryn Siebels' The Trouble with Twins was one of the books I saved in the last purge. It's a cute story and was a nice change of pace from my usual reads.

Twins Arabella and Henrietta are very alike, except Arabella is somehow prettier, tidier, and more popular than her sister. Arabella is unquestionably their parents' favorite. Mostly this has been fine because the girls are each other's best friends. But when Arabella gets annoyed with Henrietta, flaunting her popularity and ignoring her sister's loneliness, Henrietta decides to do something she can't take back. Banished to live with her eccentric and intimidating great aunt Priscilla, Henrietta misses her sister desperately. Back at home, Arabella too, is discovering that living without Henrietta is sad and lonely. While Henrietta is making her first friend outside of Arabella, enduring her great aunt's appalling dinners, and generally trying to make her downhearted best of everything, Arabella sets out on an adventure to reunite her with Henrietta.

The story is told in a similar manner to The Princess Bride with a mother recounting the story to her daughter and the text including the asides and brief conversations they have over the contents of the story. The parents (and nanny) here are pretty reprehensible in the way that they neglect Henrietta and favor Arabella so clearly. Most of the other adults, with the exception of Inez, the bookstore owner, come off as bumbling ding-dongs, reinforcing the quirkiness of the novel. There are a few plot lines that receive the briefest of treatments and deep, loyal relationships with others happen too quickly in many cases. As is though, this is a pleasant fairy tale-ish read that will appeal to many middle grade readers.

Review: Mrs. Lorimer's Quiet Summer by Molly Clavering

Dean Street Press is publishing some wonderful long out of print books from women writers of the early and mid-twentieth century. Molly Clavering's Mrs. Lorimer's Quiet Summer is one of these delightful reprints.

Lucy Lorimer is the middle-aged mother of four grown children and several noisy grandchildren, and a rather commercially successful writer. She is married to husband Jack, also known as the Colonel, who, at first blush, appears to leave all domestic dramas and organization to his wife. Her best friend Gray Douglas lives across the village from Lucy and is also a writer. The novel opens as Mrs. Lorimer is preparing to have her whole family descend on her for a visit and the logistics of where everyone will sleep is the biggest of her concerns. Of course, as the summer goes on, the adult children's problems, a health scare, and the unexpected reappearance of an old flame will complicate Lucy's life, leaving her to have anything but a quiet summer.

The novel really centers on Lucy and Gray's supportive friendship and the comfortable, respectful marriage between Lucy and Jack in this gossipy, quaint Scottish village. The stakes aren't terribly high, the worries and domestic difficulties small in the scheme of things, but they give just enough drama to keep the story moving forward. The result is an enjoyable and comfortable read with characters you can't help but smile over.

Review: Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger

If you ask me, I will tell you that I am more than a little tired of books set around World War II. I will also tell you that baseball bores me silly. And yet somehow, I picked up Steve Kluger's Last Days of Summer this summer (I've had it untouched long enough that I discovered Borders bookmarks in the front) and thoroughly enjoyed this warm, delightful, hilarious, and ultimately heartbreaking epistolary novel.

It's 1940, and twelve-year-old Joey Margolis lives in Brooklyn with his mother and his aunt, his father having remarried and abandoned his son. Joey is the only Jewish kid on the block and he's bullied pretty badly so he and his best friend Craig Nakamura cook up a way to get the bullies off Joey's (and Craig's) back. Joey sstarts writing to Charlie Banks, an up-and-coming star third baseman, albeit a hot-headed one, on the New York Giants asking him to hit a home run for Joey. But Joey doesn't just ask for the home run, he claims to be dying of every malady under the sun as each of his letters to Banks only gets him a signed photo of the slugger rather than a radio broadcast home run dedication. Finally Charlie snaps and writes back telling Joey to cut it out with the letters. And somehow thus is born one of the most entertaining letter-writing relationships ever. Joey is precocious and highly amusing (and smart and Machiavellian) and no adult who comes into his orbit can resist him for long, not President Roosevelt's press secretary, not Charlie's teammate Stuke, not Charlie's singer girlfriend Hazel, not the rabbi in charge of Joey's Bar Mitzvah, not even his principal (although he might give his teacher a nervous breakdown). The letters that Joey sends and receives are priceless and his correspondence gives the reader a close look at what a boy his age was thinking and worrying about in the run up to WWII. In addition to hounding Charlie, he watches and interprets the situation in Europe writing to advise the president based on his deductions, and he and Craig keep eyes on their elderly German neighbor, convinced she's a spy.

All of the characters here are written convincingly and the reader will be as taken in by Joey's charm as all the other characters are. The news clippings score cards, school papers, and other ephemera included in and amongst the letters add to the period detail. Kluger includes difficult subjects here, such as the Japanese internment camps and Hitler's unchecked military advances in Europe, with a light touch but doesn't minimize them. And while the reader can see the ending coming many pages before it actually arrives, the book has to end that way. This is a book of both laughter and tears, each completely earned. You'll be touched by both Joey and Charlie and will continue to giggle when you think of them and their relationship long after you close the cover.