Jeffrey Toobin's "American Heiress"-Patty Hearst Kidnapping-Napping is a Better Use of Your Time

"American Heiress The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes & Trial of Patty Hearst" by Jeffrey Toobin should have made for intriguing reading & resolution of what during the 1970's, came to represent the turmoil, economic collapse, rampant depravity & social unrest in our nation.  As iconic an image Patty Hearst holding a machine gun & wearing a black beret remains for many, she has become all but forgotten by anyone born after 1980.  Toobin (b NYC 1960) is an author, attorney & legal analyst for the New Yorker & CNN.  Toobin would be thought to be someone to shed light on the mystery of whether Patty was a mere patsy, unjustly convicted and sentenced, or a willing participate in felonious crimes committed as a member of the Sybanese Liberation Army (SLA.)  The SLA doesn't  resonate today although it was among the militant groups & cults such as the Black Panthers, Charles Mason & James Jones.  Toobin is the author of "A Vast Conspiracy," (00) an investigation into the lurid sex scandals of Pres Bill Clinton.  "American Heiress" tries to be titilating with sexual alliances within the SLA but became tedious along with TMI on individuals in the SLA, the group's movements & helter skelter planning and the minutia of an era overflowing with corruption & disillusionment.  The Hearst kidnapping in 1973 became emblematic of the political culture for the country during Watergate, the Middle East Crisis, civil unrest & the evacuation in Viet Nam.  The Hearst operation was one of the largest & most complex kidnapping investigations in the history of the FBI.  An interesting fact now  forgotten, the coverage of the Hearst kidnapping was the 1st, live national news event broadcast.  What wanted to discover from Toobin's legal viewpoint, was Hearst's guilt or innocence.  Patty was quoted from her autobiography, "The real choice he {DeFreeze} was offering was to join them or be executed."  Toobin stated that Patricia kept asking to be released but "her evolution from empathy to sympathy was gradual but that evolution did take place."  This was mid-way through a turgid biography I had already lost interest in prior to Patty's capture & media, courtroom circus.  DeFreeze, the self-appointed SLA leader's motto was  "Death to the facist insect that prey upon the life of the people."  However, most people don't have any knowledge of the SLA, Patty Hearst or whatever the Hell this meant.   Napping, rather than reading the kidnapping of Patty Hearst would've been time better spent.

British Booker Prize Winner Julian Barnes' "Flaubert's Parrot" for Literary Highbrows

Julian Barnes (b US 1946) is a talented author of novels & non-fiction.  "The Sense of an Ending" received the Man Booker Prize in 2011.  It's soon to be released as a major motion picture. "Levels of Life," (2013) was a memoir exploring his grief over the death of his wife and an intriguing historic triptych.  His unique writing style and humanistic interest are brave, brilliant and deeply stirring.  "Flaubert's Parrot," (1984) is an esoteric, unique form of writing that pays tribute to a writer whom Barnes is obviously in awe.  It's also an attempt at sharing the artistic process of researching & writing a biography with interest & integrity.  Unfortunately, the book reads like a thesis for a Ph.D which became utterly tedious & too buried in minutia pertaining to Flaubert's life, loves, fascinations & peccadilloes.  I chose the book because of my affinity for Barnes' writing & my appreciation of Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" without knowing much about the French author.  I was bored by an overwhelming girth of knowledge about Bovary.  He was presented in various scenarios as rather pathetic with numerous health issues & social pecadilloes.  (His friendship with George Sands was illuminating.)  Barnes juxtaposed the reader into the mindset of a writer focusing on a historic figure,  "So you can take the novelist either way; as a pertinacious & finished stylist; or as one who considered language tragically insufficient."  And with a complicit wink, Barnes quips "all biographers secretly want to annex and channel the sex-lives of their subjects; you must make your judgement on me as well as on Flaubert."  Barnes shares TMI regarding what we want to believe or not about Flaubert's sexual affairs.  I still greatly admired Barnes apt ability for blurring the lines between fiction/non-fiction & creating his own unique & brilliant genre.  However, for "Flaubert's Parrot" unless you have an incessant yearn for a glut of information on Flaubert this novel doesn't fly high in my esteem.  Still, I understand Barnes' homage to a literary genius.  Barnes often quotes from Flaubert's masterpiece "Madame Bovary."  "Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity."

Booker Prize Winning British Author Graham Swift's Mothering Sunday-A Romance

Born in the UK (1949) Swift is a prolific & honored literary figure. His novel, "Last Orders" received the Booker Prize (1996) & made into a movie starring Michael Caine.  "Mothering Sunday-A Romance" is a tender reflection of an affair between a housemaid, Jane Fairchild, & a young aristocract, Paul Sherringham, from a neighboring manor.  This deceptibly diminutive story possesses a fleeting magical aura.  The year is 1924,  post WWI in England.  There's been immeasurable loss & grief permeating the fringes of society trying to recuperate.  It's noted, "WWI suited all business" yet the times were yielding to another age where sticklers for class designations were crumbling.  The blurring of class distinctions still maintain barriers.  "Mothering Sunday" refers to Sundays, the day off for the servants used by most to visit their mothers.  Jane Fairchild is the name given her at the orphanage where she was raised with kindness & education.   She recognizes the freedoms allowed by not having severed ties. This plank sheet lays the groundwork to shape the opportunities for a future without constraints.  Still, her life begins at 14 as a housekeeper.  She is now a young woman in her early 20's & employed as a maid for the Upleigh family.  The Upleigh's & Sherringhams have lost sons in the War & much of their wealth but cling to the appearance & decorum of the aristocracy.  Jane is drawn to books (barely read) at the Upleigh estate & to the handsome & virile Paul who is betrothed to a woman of his station.  Jane's irreverence, curiosity & sexual emancipation are admirable traits although we sympathy arises for her life in service & her subservant role as a sexual diversion.  Graham' artful narrative of a fleeting affair is blended with the art of self-discovery & empowerment.  Jane's tale is told in flashback with a wink to secrecy.  Her reveals are pedaled at a leisurely & enticing pace.   Jane's love for reading flourish & she beomes a successful & revered author.   A writer's thrust is to capture the stuff of life, to capture the very feeling of being alive.  Swift's "Mothering Sunda-A Romance" is  an exquisite ode to self-awakening.

The Truth about Death by Robert Hellenga - A Novella Rift with Grief & Romance with Lots to Tell Yah

Hellenga is a crafty storyteller with lofty goals of grappling with death, religious convictions and life's meaning.  Hellenga has the midwestern sensibilities of his MI, WI, IL upbringing mixed in with a wanderlust for living abroad (especially in Italy.)  Nine stories intertwine around families dispersing and converging.  Families coping with grief together and alone as is demanded by the nature of mourning; particularly the sudden & unexpected loss of a child.  Despite the seemingly macabre themes, this poignant & clever collection is overflowing with fleeting romance, sumptuous meals, absorbing art, humor & life's perfidies.  The 1st story beings with an undertaker embalming his own father & having his daughter at his side learing the mortuary business with the intent of becoming a partner.  When you feel the stories sliding under the grim reaper's scythe, there will appear a detour (possibly by bus) embarking on an uncertain & hidden route.  The unexpected joy ride is filled with surprises, intrigue and desperation.  There's an unremitting melancholy to the stories but they are doused with gayiety and irreverence.  The final story is the most troubling.  A mother loses her young daughter suddenly & loses her grip on reality requiring hospitalization.  Mournfulness is not the prevailing tone or meme of this cerebral & eccentric novella.  Hellenga is a prof in IL, was educated at the Univ of MI & spent ample  time living abroad.  His writes elegantly with stories that resonate leaving one with a hearty appetite for taking a succulent bite out of life.

Sebastian Junger's "Tribe" Dabbles at Anthropological Findings

Sebastian Junber (b Amer 1962) is an accomplished writer, journalist & filmmaker.  His non-fiction book "The Perfect Storm" was made into a film starring Mark Wahlberg (1997.)  His documentary film "Restrepo" was nominated for an Acad Award ('09.)  And, his non-fiction book "Boston Strange" (2007) an investigative exploration of Boston murders earned Junger the PEN/Winship Award.  "Tribe" (2016) tries to be lofty by idealizing older tribal communities to fractious & displaced contemporary society.  Junger warns in his note about combat, and post traumatic stress disorder findings has "…the potential to greatly surprise or even upset some readers."  I was surprised by how poorly written & unsubstantiated Junger presented his findings.  And, I was disturbed by his obvious condescending conclusions that solders are immune to differences in race, religion or politics to form a cohesive, intense bond but return from their tours of duty to find a very divisive & dissociative society.  The book read like a high school senior's thesis that would have been better received as a succinct interview or editorial piece.  "Tribe" tries for noble observations but is mere dribble.  

Atticus Lish's "Preparations for the Next Life" winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award ('15) for Fiction

"Preparations for the Next Life" is titled from a bi-lingual sign (English/Arabic) that hangs above a mosque in Queens.  The lives of an illegal Chinese/Muslim immigrant woman, Zou Lei and a mentally ill Iraqi vet, Brad Skinner, come together in a volatile love story.  Both their broken, stressful worlds of an undocumented immigrant & a psychotic Iraqi vet with PTSD collide on a destructive pathway that is a depthless, black void.  Skinner never felt obligated to anyone who hadn't shared his war.  Zou Lei orphaned since childhood made an onerous migration to the US doing whatever necessary for self-preservation.  Atticus Lish's writing takes us through an unsurmountable tour of duty where instinct & hunger are primal. Life is so brutal for Lei she's forced into hard labor & do many things she would never want in order to survive.  She never felt what it means to be safe or loved.  Upon discharge, Skinner was prescribed medication for his anxiety, psychosis and inability to sleep and left to his own resources.  He has no civilian skills and is fearful of making only disasterous decisions.  He's right in accessing his inability to cope.  Unlike the gun he keeps, his mind has no safety to shut off all his deranged thinking.  Having crossed paths with their own needs, their tribal army of 2 seems the better alternative than being alone.  Their union fails to heal one another.   A greater desert forms between them than either had known from combat or country of origin.  The unbridled abuse & torments for both open a vortex into an underworld that most of us would never see or choose to know.  For both Skinner & Lei life holds no guarantees except unrelenting anguish and abuse.  The promise of a obtaining what is wanted in the next life offers a tempting reassurance of reward for doing everything correct.  Atticus Lish (b Amer '72) is a vet & has worked the uneviable odd jobs of many undocumented workers.  Lish's taut writing enables the reader to feel Skinner's confusion & anger and Lei's vulnerabilities & resilience.  There are other broken characters who know only to inflict pain in this oppressive & effecting novel.   "Preparations for the Next Life" paints a Hellish world that is all too real.

"The Throwback Special" a Nat'l Bk Award Finalist by Chris Bachelder is a Winner

The term chick flick or chick lit denotes a genre geared to the feminine gender.  "The Throwback Special" is a gender bender that seems directly aimed to males that throws a Haily Mary of a story that is caught by readers of both sexes; football fans or not.  Chris Bachelder's hilarious novel was a finalist for the Nat'l Bk Award last year.  This winning novel that is both wry & wise from start to finish.  The novel covers 22 male characters.  Each are given their own playtime in the spotlight.  This motley mix of men convene annually to re-enact Lawrence Taylor's brutal tackle on Joe Theisman in a 1985 game causing a gruesome & career ending leg injury.  Each year these guys feel compelled to gel together as a tribe in hotel to conduct ritualistic customs leading to a simulated short scrimmage of this disturbing play from an NFL Monday night game (co-anchored by OJ Simplson & Frank Gifford?)  Therein lies the quandaries of life - "Life is a precious gift, sure, but usually what life is, is going to the store to buy a stupid piece of shit-ass hardware, and then buying the wrong size."  Bachelder has a scorching talent for satirical calls.  All the men have their hang-ups, wistful envies and astute commentaries; especially on marriage.  "Marriage guarantees that one person is watching," eliminating the possibility that one's own existence might go unnoticed.  The 22 madcap players all tussle to dominate at some point by force or deception.   Individually, they all make scoring observations.  The only black male in the group thinks "white people need to be aware of the subtext of race."   The most morose among the men wonders "How do you enjoy something that has, by virture of being, commenced its ending."  "The Throwback Special" is a hilarious & sophisticated psychological game that succeeds at "converting vast quantities of crude ridicule into tiny nuggets of sentiment."  The competition for the 2016 Nat'l Bk Award had to have been heavily stacked to have gotten the win.