Tenth of December - Rates a 10 & Earns the Short Story Prize '13

George Saunders' short story collection "Tenth of December," was a Nat'l Book Award Finalist and winner of the Short Story Prize '13.  Saunders is a gifted writer who captures the human psyche in all its torments, despair & disconnect from reality.  His innovative style is prescient sic-fi, insightful psychological distress and poses ethical questions.  ""Can goodness win? Or do good people always get shafted, evil being reckless?"  How far will a young teen go to defy his parents in order to protect a friend?  What are the ramifications of testing & observing new mind & libido altering drugs on the participants once the effects have worn off?   His sinister stories are not for the timid.  They are  rewarding for those prepared to enter the twilight zone & the realms of the unhinged mind.  "Seriously, is life fun or scary.  Are people good or bad?"  I recommend Saunders fresh examination of mankind's plights that are simultaneously entertaining & disturbing.  Tenth of December is an assemblage of piercing stories and exceptional prose.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, a Labor of Love

Graeme Simsion's delightful debut novel is about the pursuit of love against the odds and the power of friendship & human connection.  Don Tillman is a brilliant geneticist seriously lacking in social graces.  Don accepts his Asperger's diagnosis not as a fault but as "a potentially major advantage."  Despite Don's weak interpersonal skills, his desire to find a life partner, is strong; hence the wife project.  Don's best, and only friends, Gene a fellow Prof. & womanizer & his wife, Claudia, a psychologist and major source of friendly advice, aid Don in his quest to find his ideal mate.  Enter Rosie, a no nonsense, PhD candidate who is totally unacceptable according to Don's predetermined criteria.  However, Don unexpectedly discovers "my assessment of what would make me happy was totally incorrect." Anyone who enjoyed "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night" will thoroughly enjoy "The Rosie Project," about an adult on the Autism scale striving to conform to social norms to solve the mysteries of romance.  Rosie turns to Don for his expertise in genetics to help her determine her birth father.  Their collaboration leads to powerful feelings for each other that often defy logic.  As the stalwart & supportive Claudia says "when you really love someone, you have to be prepared to accept them as they are."  Be prepared to be thoroughly charmed by this bewitching tale of friendship & love.

HER LAST DEATH, Please Lay to Rest Mommy Dearest Memoirs

Susanna Sonnenberg's memoir, HER LAST DEATH, is hopefully, the end all to end all memoirs of family dysfunction (as if there haven't been enough already.)   HER LAST DEATH is Sonnenberg's airing her dirty laundry of abuse, perversion & emblazoned sexual promiscuity.  Sonnenberg (b. 65) is a published journalist in "O," "Oprah" & incredulously, "Parenting."  Daphne, Susanna's mother, makes Joan Crawford look like Mother Theresa.  Daphne is a drugged out nymphomaniac and pathological liar whose perverse, inappropriate behavior molded her daughter into a lewd, misguided Lolita.  Susanna's encouraged promiscuity is the only mother/daughter bonding they share.  Be forewarned, do not read this disturbing, degenerative & dysfunctional psycholagical family melodrama.  Sonnenberg may have been published in Oprah's mag. but her bio would not have aired on her show.  The censors would not allow it.  She is a clever, readable writer with the skill to draw in her reader.  Therein lies her treachery.  Her memoir begins as a happily married mother of 2 when she receives a call telling her mother was in an accident, & on her deathbed.  She calls her sister saying she won't be flying to their mother's bedside.  She chooses to retain the barrier to prevent further toxicity and damage inflicted by  their mother.  What caused this irreconcilable rift and how did she survive?   It's not worth being mired in the slime to find out.  Should you read past the opening you'll be shocked, appalled & likely hooked on the ultimate violations of mother/daughter relationships.  Please, let HER LAST DEATH kill the Mommy Dearest genre.

MARY COIN-the Photo/Woman that Defined the Great Depression

Marissa Silver's historic & enlightening novel unveils the life of the woman whose gaze is fraught full of bewilderment has personified the era of the Great Depression.  Mary Coin is the woman in the photo whose children's heads are seen leaning into their mother as Mary's pensive gaze depicts her striving to  solve how to maintain food & shelter for her children during this deperate time of poverty.  It is deeply  significant to learn of the life Mary Coin whose face has come to represent so many migrant workers also struggling to provide for their families.  This is a story of destitution, of brutal treatment & hard labor so many endured during the Depression.  It also depicts the societal strata that perpetuated an impoverished work force.  Vera Drake is the photographer whose life is told entwined with the woman from her iconic image.  The novel delves with how history is revealed through photos.  A photo is a relic that captures the death of a precise moment.  The rare photo has the ability to enshrine an image in time that represents life concisely & meaningfully.  MARY COIN reminds us life is forever changing, creating new perceptions and questions.

Mindy Kaling - Hang with Her NOT Her Book

IS EVERYONE HANGING WITHOUT ME? (AND OTHER CONCERNS) is Mindy Kaling's likable non-commendable succinct account of her life experiences and other minor details.  I'm happy for Mindy, she contends "…my parents are perfect and so am I."  Her childhood was basically innocuous.  She was content being on the outside looking in and for the most part, inside watching comedy on TV.  She sums her preadolescence by saying "it all added up to a happy, memorable time."  Her college years at Dartmouth kept the good times rolling and close friendships were formed.  After graduating, she & her college buddies became roommates in a cramped Brooklyn apartment to pursue their dreams; or take any job that paid the rent.  Her path to a successful career in comedy writing & acting was not particularly compelling.  I'm getting the sense that comics memoirs are intended as tributes to their favorite comedians & comic bits perhaps in hopes of reciprocated admiration.  Mindy did share some amusing observations.  I agree, "So much can be excused if you're just funny enough."   Mindy's book, IS EVERYONE HANGING... is not funny enough to recommend.  However, I would like her to be my friend which is highly unlikely.  My chances are now further diminished when she reads my review (as if.)  But, who needs a friend that might punch them in the face & break their nose.

Maeve Binchy's A WEEK in WINTER, Dull Reading Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall

Perhaps it is sacrosanct for me to malign the writing of beloved Irish author, Maeve Binchy, on her last novel completed shortly before her death ('12).   Nevertheless, I found by A WEEK in WINTER a tedious read.  I read only 100 pages of this novel but these were 100 pages of tedium.  Her novel is outdated & trite.  The story is set in Stoneybridge, a small Irish village, mid-20th C.  Stoneybridge has dim prospects for the future & very astringent moral conventions.  Carnal relations outside of wedlock is so disgraceful, young women become forsaken by their families.  Chicky & Orly are 2 such women whose promiscuous behaviors ("it isn't fitting,") send them from their homes onto diverging paths that    intwine decades later.   Chicky follows her lover to America.  She returns home to Ireland under fraudulent accounts.  Back inside the local parish, Chicky "wondered if there really was a God up there watching and listening.  It didn't seem very likely."  I questioned why Binchy's writing has been so highly honored.  She was eulogized as "Ireland's best loved & most recognizable writer."  Ms. Binchy had been awarded both the British & Irish Book Awards for Lifetime Achievement.  Even the omnipotent Oprah chose Binchy's TARA ROAD as one of her Book Club Selections.  Perhaps these should entice me to finish A WEEK in WINTER or attempt another of her novels.  However, this will not  happen in winter, spring, summer or fall.  Instead, I highly recommend Alice McDermott's CHARMING BILLY or works by Irish writer Colum McCann.

Dirty Daddy - Bob Saget's Funny & Poignant Memoir

As I read this laugh out loud funny autobiography which is stupefyingly awash with grief,  I questioned whether there was a ghostwriter somewhere between the sheets.  Bob had no qualms hanging out his dirty laundry.  He also unabashedly wears his love for his family & friends,  especially his 3 daughters, on his sleeves.  In fact, there is no attempt at restraint in sharing his life & lessons learned.  Nor is there any filtering to all the thoughts racing through his eccentric & razor sharp mind.  Saget's book jumps loudly off the pages; as if he's doing standup directed specifically at you.  Told with zany humor is Bob's iconic career in entertainment made all the more incredulous knowing the many tragedies within his family.  Bob embraces his Danny Tanner character for the steadfast friendships that stemmed from the family friendly Full House sitcom.  Reading Dirty Daddy reveals Bob's true potty mouth & comedic genius.  From Bob's CHRONICLES of a FAMILY MAN TURNED FILTHY COMEDIAN you connect with a person who embraces life and "how humor helped {him} survive."  For the gifted, gutsy, irreverent comics who are able to make us laugh, thank you for making our lives brighter & more bearable.  Bob ends his book addressing whether or not he used a ghostwriter.   "The answer is yes.  It was Ernest Hemingway."  Bob, thanks for the memories.