A THOUSAND PARDONS by Jonathan Dee-Sorry Shouldn't Cut It

The gripping & acerbic novel, A THOUSAND PARDONS is a story of a couple whose marriage has come undone in a major way.  The husband Ben, wants out of his mundane existence.  He's a successful lawyer with a wife and teenage daughter.  Ben & wife Helen have an adopted Chinese daughter, Sarah.  The family has been living outside Manhattan in an upscale neighborhood.  The couple seek marriage counseling to no avail.  Ben's attention turn on an attractive female intern who turns the tides & sues for sexual harassment.  Ben is fired from his firm, faces disbarment & prison and  his face gets busted by her boyfriend.  Helen is now faced with the ignominy of her husband's travails and faces financial ruin.  Amazingly, she lands a public relations (PR) job in NYC where  she is surprsingly adroit.  This job leads to a lucrative PR job with a prestigious firm.  She & her daughter gladly move into the city.  Jonathan Dee was Pulitz. Prize Finalist (Privileges) and proves himself a crafty storyteller with a flair for parody.  Dee lampoons the PR trope of apologizing & all is forgiven.  Just own it, apologize (regardless of sincerity) and you too shall receive redemption.  It appears all too easy which is the point.  It's not easy to lable PARDONS merely a family drama, a marriage saga, a tale of teen rebellion or a corrosive satire on our pathetic manuvering in a blameless & litigious society.  The  jest of this shrewd novel is all culpability can be spun away.  

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is a Bibliophile's Reverie

Amer. writer Gabrielle Zevin is a writer of fiction, Y/A fiction & a screenwriter.  She's earned a Good Reads Choice Award for Best Fiction and an Indept. Spirit Award for Best 1st screenplay. Her novel The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry blends adult, Y/A & detective genres into a delightful read that is hard to put down.  There's a charming love story between Amelia, a book seller and A.J., the proprietor of a small book store.  A.J. recently widowed is drowning his grief in drink. His one pleasure is his prized possession of a rare Edgar Allen Poe book.  The book is stolen during a drunken stupor.  Shortly after, he discovers an abandoned toddler, Maya, left in his store with a note asking he assume responsibility for her.  Initially reluctant, he adopts her & raises her with love & devotion.  (An obvious nod to Silas Marner.)  This charming & irresistible novel has characters we care for as well.  It's also an homage to great literary works.  Our inherent need for reading is elucidated. "We read to know we're not alone.  We read because we are alone.  We read and we are not alone."  A.J., Maya, Amelia are all likable characters we're drawn to along with other supporting characters. The local police officer and A.J.'s sister-in-law are play crucial roles.  "Everyone needs back-up."  A.J. leaves a touching collection of notes with literary references for his beloved daughter as she is getting older.  This endearing story is brimming with friendship, wisdom, love and a profound love for reading.  

Tom Barbash's Short Stories STAY UP WITH ME-Had Me Transfixed

Amer. writer Tom Barbash is both a writer of fiction & nonfiction; known for his account of the 9/11 tragedy in "On Top of the World, Cantor Fitzgerald."  Barbash received a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford & the CA Book Award for Best 1st fiction.  This is a writer whose talent's are on par with Updike & Salinger.  Barbash packs an intensity in his short story collection that that is both unforgettable and representative of our era.  Many of the stories are strewn in Manhattan, upstate NY and CA.  His descriptions of locales and weather are blistering.  Some commonalities in topic deal with a death in a family, the ebbs and flows that constitute a family and parent/child relationship.  What makes his stories so intriguing is their voyeuristic nature.  In some, parents are guilty of stalking their children; pushing the boundaries of parental control.  Some have the opposite vantage; parents being scrutinized by their children.  Couples relationships are also examined where love blurs into obsession.  A mother feels an older restaurant hostess is not good enough for her son and the two women come to blows.  A college professor smothers his young lover to where she needs to distance herself.  I could empathize with more than one perspective.  Each story has its own vibrant fascination.  The mercurial, seismic shift in relationships is hard to pinpoint but the aftermath is felt in its fallout.  

BEING MORTAL by Dr. A. Gawande Prescribed Reading: What Matters in the End

Dr. Atul Gawande is a practicing surgeon, prof. at Harvard Med. & bestselling author.  His recent book BEING MORTAL is a compelling read for anyone who has an aging parent, family member diagnosed with a fatal disease and for those in the medical & health care profession.  In other words, this courageous and thoughtful book, is pertinent for everyone and intended to open dialogue to enhance our understanding of what needs to be considered to provide compassionate care and appropriate responsibility for people losing their independence or confronting their own mortality.  Dr. Gawande provides us actual cases of senior citizens who can no longer manage independently and cancer patients, including his own father.  The multitudes of confusing & vital information regarding a patient's options presented tends to be overwhelming.  Dr. Gawande is a pioneer in confronting the elephants in the room, aging & dying.  True, there are no cures for these inevitable stages.  Therefore, it is imperative for us to empathize & provide dignity & self-empowerment for those requiring special consideration at the end of their lives.  Listening, questioning, providing honest information and listening again are life lessons that should not be epiphanies, yet in many ways these are the barriers that need to be re-examined.  Dr. Gawande finds fault in the medical profession where doctors are dedicated to prolonging life but fail to be provide a candid prognosis or explanation of risks/affects of treatments.  The onus also lies with the individual and their family who must be willing to have a timely, serious dialogue as to their wishes & concerns and inform their care givers.  Dr. Gawande has written a book that helps us to navigate at a most difficult period in life; confronting mortality.  This is a powerful resource for opening a crucial & reciprocal discussions.        

OUTLINE by Canadian R. Cusk is Outstanding Do NOT Miss OUT on this Novel

OUTLINE is an engaging novel told through conversations taking place in planes, cars, boats & bistros centered around a novelist/prof. flying from London to Athens to teach a writing class.  While held captive in flight, her seat mate (a.k.a. neighbor) commences a dialogue that diverges into topics of love, marriages (particularly his own,) affluence, failures and the flotsam jetsam in life.  "So much is lost, he said, in the shipwreck.  What remains are fragments, and if you don't hold on to them the sea will take them too." Each dialogue brings fresh and cogent insights into relationships, honesty and the art of conversation.  While seemingly combative, the discussions are astute & candid.  Her loquacious neighbor tells her "Love restores almost everything, and where it can't restore, it takes away the pain."  In esoteric prattle over wine with writers, one commented that we tend to fictionalize our own experiences to convince ourselves our lives have some kind of design and this makes us significant.  Canadian author Rachel Cusk writes with a clear and unique voice.  She's been honored with the Whitbread and Somerset Maugham Awards.  The motley mix of students in the novel learn the craft of writing is born from keen observation.  When listening to others, the novelist becomes transformed. "While he talked she began to see herself as a shape, an OUTLINE, with all the detail filled in around it."  Reading Cusk's novel is a fascinating lesson of our meanderings in life.

NOTHING HOLDS BACK the NIGHT by French Author Delphine de Vigan

Delphine de Vigan has received numerous literary awards for her writing including the Rotary Int'l & Prix des libraries.  De Vigan's powerful novel NOTHING HOLDS BACK the NIGHT, reads as a journalistic memoir of her upbringing with a mother suffering from bi-polar disorder.  To call this work a novel is misleading but to capsulize the format of this edifying work would not do it justice.  De Vigan writes with a journalistic eye and courageous candor.  She uncovers the tragic & glamorous life of her mother Lucille as a young girl and the fractious impacts it had on her & her sister.  Delphine begins with the discovery of her mother's body days after her suicide.  Delphine is compelled to examine what led to her mother's death through family interviews & diaries as she reexamines her own life.  Delphine was burdened with the torment & responsibility of having a mother who battled mental health & hospitalizations. Lucille an admired beauty, earned a substantial income which helped support her large family by modeling.  Tragically, 3 of her brothers died young; 2 by suicide.  Delphine informs us of her mother's life burdened with death, incest, depression & mania.  Lucille frequently moved herself & her girls giving them a nomadic, unconventional lifestyle.  Nonetheless, Delphine writes of mutual devotion and an overriding obligations to care for herself, her sister and her mother.  Mixed in with all the darkness we glimpse an extended & connected family living in Paris and the countryside that is both covetable and forlorn.  Reading this novel/memoir is going down a rabbit hole that provides, if not an understanding of mental illness, a vivid, troubling portrait of what it is like to grow up in a frenetic household of dysfunction.    

A.M. Homes' "May We Be Forgiven" Humanities' Frailties Duly Noted

"May We Be Forgiven" is a novel that is simultaneously repugnant & miraculous.  Amer. writer A.M. Homes novel was awarded the Women's Prize for Fiction ('13.)  The 1st chapt. of Homes' novel was originally submitted as a short story.  Salmon Rushdie declared it one of the best Amer. Short Stories ever written.  I compare Homes' with Bellows, Stegner, Roth & Updike.  These great writers are all zeitgeists and highly crafted artists.  The beginning is gruesome.   Many will be repelled enough to stop reading.  For those with stamina to continue, you will be richly rewarded with rich storytelling in the absurd & the brilliant eye of social commentary.  Harold Silver, a college prof. & Nixonophile is having a Thanksgiving dinner with his family.  Harold's brother George is a successful TV exec. with a beautiful wife, Jane. They have a young son Nate & daughter Ashley.  Claire & Harold are married without children.  Harold has always lusted after Jane.  A lurid affair between them ends with George bashing Jane's head while she & Harold are in bed.  From this horrendous murder forward, the plot  meanders in unexpected direction with bizarre, fully developed characters. George is imprisoned.  Claire leaves him.  And, Nate & Ashley are left under his care.  Harold seems an empty vessel (and "an asshole according to Nate) but after assuming responsibility for his niece, nephew & Ricardo, the child orphaned by his brother's car crash, he becomes a man of substance who rises to meet challenges head-on and fully embraces life's emotional impacts.  "The depth to which I now feel everything, when it is not paralyzing is terrifying."  Harold becomes an excellent listener and care giver for the children.  In turn, Harold reaps a lot from Nate, Ashley & Ricardo "As children can do so effortlessly, we instantly go from the most solemn to joyous."  This novel is a cosmos of wonder.  Ashley, at the following Thanksgiving quotes to those assembled together "Think of the beauty that again and again discharges itself within and without you and be happy." (A. Frank)