Atlantic Monthly Books

The Long Night of White Chickens is a rich stew of interwoven memories and perceptions. It works from both the inside out and the outside in to create its characters, and at the same time paints an unforgettable picture of Guatemala. All this, plus a sort of mystery plot!

This was one of the books I assigned as "summer reading" to myself, a year ago. I am so glad I did it. Francisco Goldman juxtaposes magical realism, humor, human tragedy and sexuality into one amazing epic of a novel. I was first introduced to him when I read "Half and Half," a book filled with accounts of bicultural and biracial writers, recalling their experiences growing up in two factioned worlds in society. For Goldman, it was the Jewish world of his father, and the Guatemalan world of his mother. He transposes his experiences loosely, in the perspective of Rogerio, the main character and (sometimes) narrator of "The Long Night of White Chickens."

Rogerio is biracial/bicultural young man, plagued by illness, as a young boy, and living between the middle class world of his Jewish father, and the village life of his Guatemalan mother. It is through a remarkable twist of fate that he comes to know Flor, the beautiful heroine of the book, who is his nanny/companion, throughout his childhood and into adulthood. Flor haunts many people with her memory, after a horrendous tragedy that leaves all she touched stricken by sadness.

This book is really hard to describe, but hopefully my little review encourages you to check it out!!!!

I enjoyed this book, although I must admit that after hearing the author on BBC radio I was predisposed to liking his books. I was not disappointed when I read this.
This book is not for anyone interested in linear narrative or a whodunit? detective story. The facts concerning the mystery of Flor de Mayo are given slowly and at times vaguely. Mr. Goldman is superb in his descriptions of place, and much of his imagery will stay with you after you have read the last page. Throughout the novel Flor often feels like a ghost, though this very well could have been the author's intent. The characters are vivid and the reader can feel himself becoming entangled in the knot of their relationships to the extent that he wonders if he will ever be able to untie it.
If you enjoy moral uncertainty, then this is a book for you. This novel is also illuminating on how Latin Americans perceive their nothern neighbors and vice versa. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys William Faulkner or Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Like most readers, I was confused my the crazy timeline. The story is told out of sequences with flashbacks that last forever. It can be confusing. But once you let go of that it becomes easier to surrender to the story. The characters are lovable. It is a long read but every time I put the book down I missed Roger, Flor, Mora, and the rest.

Just enjoy it!

I've worked in Guatemala as a human rights observer as well as with many Guatemalan asylum seekers in the United States.

This book, in evoking what Guatemala is like, with its beauty and cruelty and silence, is the best I've encountered. Sometimes a fictional narrative can explain the truth of a situation better than any recitation of historical facts. This is one of those rare books.

While you could obviously read Rigoberta Menchu, the Guatemala Nunca Mas Report (REHMI, which got the Archbishop killed in 1998), the Historical Clarification Commission Report, or Fear as a Way of Life by Linda Green, Goldman's book probably explains best the complexity of Guatemala.

I don't want to diminish the great literary quality of the book, but what impacted me the most was how Goldman had put into words my most complex feelings about my time in Guatemala, the amazing draw and beauty, and this sense of silent horror penetrating the entire place.

This book is one of the main reasons I could not bring myself to vote for former LAPD police chief Bernard Parks, in our most recent mayoral race. Seems we were so worried about more negative press in this city, we too often just looked the other way. One of the better documented works on the subject; the background info on L.A. street gangs, Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. are worth the cost alone. Will keep you glued to the pages.

I recommend this book for several reasons. First off, it is extremely well-written. There's no rambling, it's very well researched, and the way the stories and facts are expressed are not dry at all. The writer, Randall Sullivan, writes for Rolling Stone magazine, so it's presented in that style. Even if you aren't interested in the Tupac/Biggie story, this book still goes deep into the origins of the Bloods and Crips, East coast and West coast rap feuds, and especially, just how corrupt the LAPD was(and probably still is). I've read other books on these subjects, including the recently released book by "hip-hop cop" Derrick Parker, but this book is by far the best. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

If ur a fan of either tupac or biggie GET THIS BOOK .....russell poole blows the lid on how death row was really run. He explaines the level of corruption within the LAPD, and how and why the investigations into their murders remain unsloved. After reading this book, and watching the Nick Sullivan Biggie and Tupac dvd, its plain and obvious to all who was behind their murders!

As a fan of both Tupac and Biggie, I was very interested in learning more about what really went down. Former Officer Poole seems to think he has the answers so I was eager to learn what he knows draw my own conclusions. I was very disappointed.

First of all, to my absolute surprise, nobody else seems to have picked up on the author's extreme bias. For example, on page 14 of the hardcover version, Sullivan notes that "[In the early 1960s], as now, black males committed a hugely disproportionate amount of crime in Los Angeles and across the country." WHAT? I can't even believe that went to print. Question: do black males commit a disproportionate amount of crime in this country or are they accused and convicted disproportionately? At the very least, if you're gonna make such outrageous comments, back it up. With no statistical data, I consider Sullivan's comment to be hearsay. Then, just a few pages later, on page 18, Sullivan gets a little diatribe going about how the LAPD hiring process has become less stringent over time, noting that "liberals had successfully argued that [baring applicants with juvenile records] limited the number of blacks and Hispanics who could join the LAPD." I'm not even 20 pages into the book, and my reading of the author is that he really doesn't like minorities or "liberals," whatever the latter term means to him because he sure doesn't define anything. Yet I decided to take these and similar comments with a grain of salt and press forward with the book.

If one-tenth of what's written in these pages is true, Biggie and Tupac were just as despicible as Suge Knight, the LAPD, the affiliated gangs, the attorneys and just about everyone else who graced the pages of the book. And that made me really sad because it's hard for me to listen to the music the same way. Tupac and Biggie were not innocent; they were just greedy [...] who courted violence successfully. Truthfully, none of the stuff about the LAPD or any of the other authority figures surprised me. Money and testosterone--bad combination. Lest you think I'm a man-hater, the women in this book are appalling, too. I hate to say it but Tupac and Biggie got what they deserved.

I do think that Sullivan's style is extremely readable and engaging. I also like the way he attempted to provide background on the LAPD history, the history of the Crips and the Bloods, etc. If you're not likely to be critical going into this book, it's not bad for escapism. Unless you were living in a plastic bubble or don't keep up w/ current events, I doubt that you'll be blown away by the overall picture Sullivan paints.

An outstanding book. Very well researched and a methodical investigtion of the underworld that the rap music business has become. To the few people who thought that this book was a waste of time I can't imagine that you read the same book. There is so much evidence that the top brass of the LAPD covered up certain investigations that it is overwhelming.

No real heroes here, but some tough characters, whose amorality overwhelms the reader. A fascinating start for a new author. The next one should be interesting.

I love discovering new authors...well, new to me anyway. The Narrowback is a great debut and a must read for noir fans. Those reviewers who critisized this work for having unsympathetic characters have little or no understanding of noir fiction. The writing will hook you from page one, even though there are descriptive passages that could have been trimmed a bit, this is easily overlooked as the impact of the work is mezmerizing.

Farrell, an Irish-American (nickname "Narrowback") dishonorably discharged ex-Marine and criminal, spends his first year out of prison constructing a brilliant plan to raid the safe and safety-deposit boxes of a premier New York hotel. All of his research pays off in a flawlessly executed bloodless crime and yields him $150,000 - more than enough for him to escape his gritty and depressing past in the Bronx and head out west for a new life.

A betrayal by one of his gang as they're getting rid of their getaway vehicle tips Farrell into a bloody Newtonian world of action and reaction. More and more parties get involved - first the IRA and then the Albanians - and as they clash Farrell is always on the receiving end.

Ledwidge has painted a stark picture of events and counter-events with characters trapped into acting as they must yet in horribly detrimental and brutal ways. The beauty of this thriller is that it challenges you to think about how Farrell would have had to have been different in order to step aside from the "freight train of consequences" bearing down upon him.

This book is great. I grew up on Bainbridge and in my humble opinion Mr. Ledwidge seems to have done his research for this one.

I really liked the book. It was right in line with all of the established writers out there today - an excellent 1st book. I just ordered "Bad Connection" & I hope it's just as good. Being a fellow tech (for the same company), I must say that I am a little biased, however. Keep up the good work and you'll be a stress free (once you leave the phone company), full-time writer. Good luck Michael.

A horrifing serial killer is loose in the north Indian state of Assam. He has claimed 38 victims. Horrible murders, all have literally been beat into pulp. Additionally,some are impaled-some receive a final crushed head. The killer is most cunning. He lays ambushes, he is even capable of tracking a victim to his home,destroying the house to make his kill. For some he will bury his evidence,others are left to rot so others will see what may await them. The populace is powerless to stop the killer and demand relief. The government decides that these killings will end. There will be no need for a trial. An execution contract is put out for bid. Who steps forward but India's greatest elephant hunter- Dinesh Choudhury. Elephant hunter? Yes, that's right, our serial killer is a terribly cunning and dangerous rogue elephant! Choudhury assembles a seasoned team including a war decorated Gurkha tracker and elephant professionals-mahouts- with their own trained elephants. While Choudhury has accepted the execution contract,he is not sure he will complete the killing. He wonders why the rogue is bent on this road of human destruction? Is it possible to reform the rogue..to separate him into the wild? If not, will he have the strength to finish the rogue before the elephant can kill him?Choudhury endeavors to learn the elephant's story and move toward a final decision all the while closing in on the killer. You see not only is Choudhury India's greatest elephant hunter but he also deeply loves and respects them all. To this strange crime story comes a British journalist-Tarquin Hall- our author. Indeed a strange tale,but true none the less. As the mystery unfolds,Hall fills in the atmosphere of the crime scene. He tells of Northern India, it's people,sights,history..just like a good traveloge. He also tells us much about elephants and what they mean to north Indians,so there's a little zoology. There it is.... a zoological traveloge murder mystery hunting book. I can't say I've ever read such an odd mix of ideas. But it all melds well and in the end it's a surprisingly pleasant read.

Let me say first of all that I'm really fond of elephants, India and travel writing, separately or together, and quite frankly this book is an affront to all three. It's one of the worst books I've read recently, both for style as well as content.

Mr. Hall's narrative suffers from "Dr. Watson Syndrome." No matter how trivial or well-known a piece of information is ("Yes, elephants can swim"), he responds with the stunned equivalent of "Holmes, you astound me!" Upon catching sight of the rogue elephant and seeing a broken chain still on one of its legs, he is absolutely stumped for any explanation at all until his companion tells him the animal obviously used to be captive. ("Holmes...!)

On the other hand, he swallows whole the most blatant bunk: "I can turn myself into a tiger (for 800 rupees)!" "Sure, there's an elephant graveyard! I'll take you there right now!" "Yes, I saw the elephant run away from my house carrying a whole case of my Scotch!" In one passage, Mr. Hall reports that the footprint of the rogue elephant, measured right in front of him, is over four feet in diameter! That would make the poor animal about the size of a Seismosaurus! (Perhaps he misunderstood his informant, who might have been referring to length of stride.) I got the distinct impression, though, that many of his companions on this journey were having some fun with him at his expense, as when a mahout encouraged him to come climb aboard a kneeling trained elephant. During the process, the elephant mysteriously stands up, leaving the author dangling from its side with both hands painfully snarled in the rope harness. I suspect the mahout -and possibly the elephant - worked that one out beforehand. And I don't blame them.

I say that because Mr. Hall's "gee whiz" style is not the only problem here. For the most part, he shows contempt for most of the Indians he meets. "Plump Punjabi aunties with flabby midriffs bulging from their polyester saris gobbled down ...chicken as their undisciplined children chased each other..." They're filthy, their food is disgusting. One of them, born with the wrong number of toes on one foot, is "hideously deformed." And one of the most egregious passages in the book: "I guessed that he was a Marawari, a term used to describe businessmen...who are said to own half of India. ...Indians despise them as a class for their ...materialism and legendary stinginess. They are...the Jews of India."

I did enjoy some examples of his prose style because they were unintentionally comical: "An old mahout...was preparing an herbal mixture for the wounded elephant in the pot over the fire." How do you suppose they got the elephant into that little pot?

In short, if you love elephants and books about elephants, please do not choose this one. Mr. Hall's motivation may have been of the very best (his Author's Note, on the last two pages, is the only worthwhile part of the book), but it's poorly written and fairly offensive, plus it insults your intelligence. There are many beautifully written, informative books, such as "When Elephants Weep," by Masson and McCarthy, and "Elephant Memories" by Cynthia Moss. Please enjoy them!

It is a great travel book that, as one review says, 'wonderfully hits on all cylinders'; and I, being from the sate of Assam, can vouch for that. Mr Hall ventured into Assam, the remote North-East corner of India, and accompanied Mr Chaudhury, the Assamese Elephant Hunter in his wild journey across the roads and paddy fields of Assam. In the process, Mr. Hall not only gave a gripping portrayal of his close encounter with elephant hunting in Assam, a state famous for elephants from ancient days, but he also described about Assamese life and culture. He narrates his meeting with Mr Gaela, the greatest elephant catcher (bor-phendi) of Assam, in whose house he ate authentic Assamese dish, 'patot-diya-mas'(fish cooked in banana leaf). He also described his brief encounter with the some ULFA insurgents of Assam in its reality. Mr Hall did not forget to capture the scinic beauty of Assam. I liked his following narative which seem to capture Assam in its totality:
"Despite the staggering beauty and rich folklore, India's North-East is a part of the world avoided by even the most intrepid backpackers. As such there was little in my guidebook about Assam: it has been off-limits to tourists for many years. However it did say thay that the word Assam is derived from the Sanskrit word 'asama' meaning 'peerless'. or 'unequalled'. It was so named by the Thai or Shan invaders called the Ahoms who conquered the valley in the thirteenth century and loved it so much that they never left. I was beginning to appreciate why. Whenever I looked, the landscape was lush and green. Rickety wooden bridges spanned streams and brooks whose surfaces were covered with sweet smelling water lilly blossoms. Peepul trees, their branches straining under flocks of white birds that suddenly lifted intothe air at the sound of our approach, lined the road. In the distance, hills bristling with jungle rose up above the fields, mist crawling across the foliage and pouring down into the valley like amoke brimming off a witch's cauldron,"

Mr Hall is also keen to catch a lively conversation with Rudra, the betel nut chewing driver as noted in the following excerpt:
"Rudra, the driver of the Hindusthan Ambassador, had been chewing paan all night. He kept his stash in a stainless steel dabha, an Indian lunch box, in his glove compartment and periodically would ask me to take it out and open it for him. Keeping an eye on the road, he would first extract a lump of lime paste with index finger and smear it into the space between his teeeth and his bottom lip. He would then pop one or two choice chunksof betel nut into his mouth. Finally, uttering a satisfied grunt, he would start to chew.....By Indian stadrds, Rudra was a good driver - that is to say, we only came close to death once during more than six hours on the road....
By now, I was in no mood for conversation. All I wanted to do was sleep. I tried conveying this to Rudra, but even when I closed my eyes and pretended to snore, he kept up his one sided, tedius conversation. His main interest in life, apart from betel nut and playing chicken with oncoming heavt vehicles, was the vital statistics of Bombay's Hindi film actresses. The latest goddess to grace the Indian screen, Karishma Kapoor, had won a special place in his heart - and, no doubt in his fantacies.
"She is the most beautiful pearl of our continent!" he boasted, pushing the Ambassador into fourth gear around a tight bend.
He slapped me hard on the thigh and guffawed, grunting and breathing through his nose and mouth simultaneously, a feat that would have been remarkable had it not been so revolting.
"You should see her dance! Her legs go all the way up! And for her breasts - they are big! As big as mangoes!"
I reccommend this book to anyone who wants to know about Assam or wants to travel to Assam.

Rajen Barua, Houston, Texas

This is the kind of book I usually love, where a writer brings you into intimate contact with another human culture, and at the same time acquaints you with the behavior of a fascinating animal.

However, like other reviewers here, I found the prose clunky, shallow, and rather egotistical and condescending. Maybe that's due to the youth of the author.

There are occasional bright spots, where Hall weaves in information about Asian elephants, and historical and cultural information about the Assam region of India.

As you can tell from my moniker, I am a lover of elephants. So it was with some trepidation that I bought this book (against my wife's advice) to read about a modern version of George Orwell's short story "Shooting an Elephant." Here, it seems that a rogue elephant has gone berserk in India and is killing a number of Indians for no apparent reason.

The narrator, an AP reporter, catches up with the hunter who has been retained by the local government to kill the elephant. The hunter, Mr. Chowdhury, is, strangely, a lover of animals, especially elephants. There is some nice discussion of why he nevertheless takes tasks like this one.

The book takes Hall (the narrator), Chowdhury, and others (mostly elephant riders) on a hunt for the rogue throughout northeastern India. They have a number of interludes, some of which are funny, others tragic, until the final confrontation. Along the way, we learn a bit about why the elephant was going berserk.

Hall has a nice, unobtrusive writing style. It's not flashy, and he knows enough to let the narrative momentum carry the book, although he throws in occasional travel- or history-related discussions of the local Indian culture. For example, he recounts the myth of why the Indian god Ganesh has the head of an elephant. (The gods had to replace his head after an accident, and an elephant was the first creature they saw.)

I was afraid that I would find this book incredibly sad and painful (see Barbara Gowdy's "The White Bone"), but instead, it was very saistfying. It's still sad about the rogue elephant, but maybe because it's not as senseless as poaching, the story, while sad, is understandable.

It is a satire about Godzilla. It is great. The whole story is told from Gojiro's point of view. He is a suicidal monitor lizard who lives on Radioactive Island with all of the Atoms. He is that way because he is one of a kind and he can't die. Komodo, his life-long human friend, goes with him on all of his adventures. This is an extremely serious book, with a lot of philosophy involved.

It's really unfortunate that I can't find another book by this wonderful author... When I first picked up the book, I as well was expecting a grim sci-fi Nuclear War deal, but, like other readers, I was also pleasantly suprised. The characters actually *do* undergo great development, and a big plus is that this book isn't hung up on logical obstacles- that's the great originality behind this book... I definitely recommend this title to anyone with a love for reading. If your one of those people who reads only to criticize, then that's *really* sad. Just get passed that, and read a book for fun... That's what this book is all about ^_^

This books is so self consciously hip and cool that it gave me a headache. I loved the premise that a Godzilla like creature could exist, but the matieral was so ineptly handled that I grew more and more depressed. The ending was pretty good, but the beginning was so sloppy I almost didn't make it to the ending. Just because you think you're hip and aware does not make it so.

What a great book this could have been!

The idea that Gojiro not only actually exists, but is also a deep and cynical thinker at the center of a quasi-religious cult is very creative. Unfortunately, there are two problems that prevent it from being the book it could have been.

The first problem is the story, or lack of one. Nothing really happens in the book. In it's 300 plus pages there is so little action and character growth that it's easy to find yourself dozing off if you read it at night.

The second and biggest problem is the over-pretentious, forced writing style. Jacobson tries so hard to be hip and trendy that the story (what little there is of one) becomes difficult to follow and the book just becomes painful to read.

"Gojiro" has some great philosophical ideas regarding God and Man, and Nature and Science, but it lacked the cohesion to pull any of those ideas together. Instead we're left with a rambling story with no focus written in a heavy-handed, fake ultra-cool narrative. It's clear that the author had something to say. I just wish he would have said it in English.

This book has touched me as few others have. It really is an awesome and engrossing novel, unusual and eccentric as it may be.

I'm aware it's not for everyone, as I can see by the other reviews posted here. And, to tell the truth, it's not really a genre sf novel, so people looking for long-winded physiological descriptions of Godzilla, leave now.

Frankly, this is NOT a Godzilla book. It is NOT an action-packed thriller or a pretentious hard sf novel filled with technobabble. This is a deeply philosophical work that uses the image of Godzilla, a mistake of human technology becoming the defender of humanity, as a symbol of evolution; mutation becoming adaptation becoming progress. The author freely edits scientific and historical details for the purposes of the story, which is more like an epic poem or painting than a straight narrative; characters, while on one level being very real people, also serve as symbolic archetypes, and the many seemingly-impossible events, while reinforcing the otherworldly atmosphere of the story, also all have a point behind them, once you look. (For example, the creation and growth of Radioactive Island through seemingly haphazard chance serves as a strong metaphor for evolution throughout the story.) The premise, a Godzilla-like creature developing a sort of religious cult philosophy that becomes inadvertently broadcast in a series of movies, seems silly at first, but the thing is, it works. More than that, it works so well that it strongly colored my perceptions of the real-life Godzilla; I'd been aware that he was a symbol of the Nuclear Age before, but this really brought it home to me.

The contrived slang, the "hip" lingo, the monster's cynicism... While some might be turned off by it, it worked for me. If you can start to accept the novel on its own terms, try to understand the beautiful alternate world and belief system it depicts rather than judging it, then before long the internal logic of Gojiro becomes clear, and concepts and events that initially seem silly become poignant and touching. The novel purposely uses unfamiliar, strange-sounding language to get us to see difficult issues in a new light, and get us to think from the monster's perspective. Somehow it all works, it all comes together, and it does make its own mutant kind of sense. Which is really what the novel is about, at heart, evolution and change, misfits from the old order becoming the seed of the new one, mutants making their own mutant kind of sense, and prospering.

The novel's ultimate message was uplifting and optimistic while at the same time remaining realistic and consistent with the cynical points it made earlier; it seems corny and weird, but, in the end, I believed it. It brought the whole novel together masterfully, and the touching epilogue left tears in my eyes. This novel made a huge impression on me, and I'd recommend it to anyone willing to keep an open mind and experience serious ideas from a different point of view.

Although this book is well written, the plot itself holds little magic, at least, not enough to warrent its length. The characters are not as 3-dimensional as a reader would expect from the author of In The Fall, and the situations resolve themselves without much in the way of tension or suspense. I wish I'd liked it better than I did.

A male revenge fantasy, pure and simple. He finally gets to stick it to the girl that jilted him (and thought he would never make it as a writer). At the ripe old age of 43, with marginal achievement and assets -- in other words just because he's a terrific person, in fact -- he gets himself a trophy bride. Younger, smarter, funnier, prettier and a whole lot better in bed.

This is where the book ends up. The first half promises so much more that it's all the more frustrating and -- to use the only-buddy's description of the younger, booze-addled protagonist -- pathetic that it all boils down to this. You actually feel sorry for the woman that he sticks it to, who has herself turned into a total bore.

A writer's currency is in his youth, they say. Not this time. But Jeffrey Lent is such a talented writer that you are spellbound up until the page where it's finally revealed why his girlfriend jilted him. Not to give anything away, you learn that she had good reason. Which doesn't ease the pain of being jilted. Quite the opposite. It makes you all the more determined to be a better person or at least get a trophy bride.

Author, husband, and father Jeffrey Lent presents A Peculiar Grace, novel about coming to terms with life. Set in the art scene of postwar New York, a commune of the early seventies, and modern-day small-town New England, A Peculiar Grace follows Hewitt Pearce, a blacksmith of forty-three years of age, who lives alone in his family home and overlooks a collection of art remaining from his late father. When a troubled young homeless girl named Jessica suddenly shows up on his property, his hermit-like existence begins to change. Furthermore, he learns that Emily, the love of his life from twenty years ago, has been widowed. As he gradually seeks to earn Emily's trust and discover the secrets of Jessica's past, he must confront the soul-burdening loss that scarred his own history and reexamine his desire for human connection. A deeply insightful portrait that explores the role that faith and art can have in healing the human heart.

Jeffrey Lent's previous novels deal savagely with the past. This one takes a turn in the present with less of a punch that I have come to expect from Lent. A romance between teens turns sour, causing the hero of the book to turn melancholy and pitiful. Somehow unable to break away from an idealized version of his past love, he suffers from family desertion, isolation, and apparently, alcohol dependency. Faced with this girl-turned-woman many years down the road, he realizes (finally) that she isn't the one for him after all. The young girl who appears unbidden at his secluded farm has more of a past than he can initial deal with, but even she doesn't bring any of the cutting edge action that I was hoping for. I can only hope Lent returns to his fine, if somewhat bloody, historical fiction in his next endeavor.

Forty-three-year-old Hewitt Pearce is a blacksmith content with living alone in his family home in rural Vermont, where he watches over his late father's artwork and pounds hot iron to create custom ironwork for clients of his choosing. Except for occasional visits with neighbors and a few friends, he minds his own business and expects others to do the same.

Then, one morning in early June, when "the sun was up over the eastern ridge and striking the top of the western ridge, the young leaves of the treeline illuminated more golden than green, glowing," Hewitt decides to check out a vehicle that had passed through his yard in the middle of the night.

After driving his old red Farmall tractor into the woods, he discovers a Volkswagen Beetle with a Mississippi license plate. The crudely handpainted Beetle is sitting in the middle of the road and is packed full of clothes and belongings. Nearby, a young woman with black hair, badly cropped, sits perched on a rock in front of a small fire. Jessica is out of gas, out of money and on her way to Texas. Her pretty voice is "deep but dragging sweet over the syllables as if words others took for granted were savored and valued throughout their possible peaks and valleys."

Jessica is a confused, fragile waif, yet she knows how to handle a car being towed. After Hewitt removes the Beetle from the woods, he feels a strange connection with her and convinces her to stay with him until she is able to move on. At first, her untamed ways and unsettling presence upset the gentle balance of his artistic and hermetic way of life. But he slowly becomes accustomed to having her around and discovers how much his solitary existence has prevented him from enjoying everyday companionship.

Hewitt's life becomes even more unsettled after he learns that Emily, his first love and the woman with whom he once lived in a commune, is now a widow. He tries to reconnect with Emily to ask her forgiveness for a long-ago transgression and is surprised when he discovers that Emily's life isn't what it appears to be. He is torn between pursuing the love he lost and always hoped to regain and his growing attachment to the unpredictable and mysterious Jessica.

As he gradually uncovers the reason for Jessica's secrecy and state of mind, Hewitt feels an even stronger connection to her but is shocked when he learns from her a secret related to a tragic loss suffered by his father decades earlier.

Hewitt and Jessica are intriguing and complex protagonists, but secondary characters also shine: Walter, the disabled Vietnam veteran and loyal friend; Mary Margaret, Hewitt's strong-willed, Irish-immigrant mother; and Thomas, Hewitt's long-deceased father whose influence, along with his art, is not far from reach.

Like Hewitt, the blacksmith who pounds hot iron to shape intricate works of art from his unique vision, author Jeffrey Lent uses his distinctive writer's voice to craft a painfully elegant story about love, art and second chances that is a joy to behold and one that is not easily forgotten.

--- Reviewed by Donna Volkenannt (dvolkenannt@charter.net)

I really wanted to love this book. It came highly recommended. The first 15 pages were great--I thought this would be a seminal read. But then things took a nosedive. Ultimately, this book felt to me like a self-indulgent intellectual ramble, and excuse for author to vent her bitterness toward Amherst College and get even by airing her story. (Which she has every right to do, but I thought I was reading a different book.) In the end, my only takeaway is that wearing multiple hats, perhaps in succession, can be a positive thing. I still don't understand what the plight of the homeless has to do with figurative improvisation. Perhaps I'm just not smart enough to appreciate the nuances--but I definitely didn't. Original? Yes. Uplifting/inspiring? Nope. I really tried!

I agree with the previous reviewers that mentioned the scope of the book is narrow focused, in that it certainly deals with the life of 5 successful women all middle to upper class. Still, if you are in the situation of dealing with multiple tasks at the same time - and so many women nowadays are, independent of the country where they live or how they came into it - this book is really helpful in giving a different and flexible approach to the way we ought to view our career and marriage choices, and what not to think when faced with adversity.
The novelty for me (and the help in it) was the author's approach in the fluidity of our choices, and how deleterious the idea that we should always be doing the same thing (job, marriages, etc.) might be. The main point of the book is that change and fluidity are the normal standards for a succesfull and fulfilling life in the 20 (21) century, and how the idea of always doing the same thing for the rest of one's life is generally doomed to failure. So, the author focuses on the changes these women have made to come to terms with their (very succesfull)lifes. Very interesting read.

This book examines the lives of five of the author's friends, all highly educated, high-achieveing women from the East Coast who went through the normal ups and downs of life that the rest of us share. It is well written, but the focus is so tight--how many of us get entangled with academic politics at elite Eastern colleges?--that is tells more about the writer and her choice of similar friends than about the rest of us. It does a fine job of focusing on issues of gender and race of 20 years ago.

How refreshing - a book about 5 entrepreneurial women who had 'normal' lives - marriages, children, divorce, earning an advanced degree in their 40's! This is real life - and each of the stars in this book invited life to get in the way rather than lamenting how life's events prohibited achievement of dreams, goals and aspirations.

A great read for every woman contemplating her future!

Susan Bock
Business Coach
Susan Bock Solutions
[...]

This book was, I'm sure, timely 20 years ago, but you will struggle to get anything out of it this day in age. Plus, the author states in the introduction that she is not bitter about her time at Amherst, but the text of the book makes her seem extremely bitter.

The book was a gift. I listened to it on tape, and didn't know which way it was going. It was smart and insightful. Fascinating. I had no idea how she was going to end it; pull it all together. I found the ending acceptable and bought two for gifts.

I was up way too late last night reading this book. It was both enjoyable and well-written. The author does a wonderful job of character development for the most part (definitely with Vida and Peter, thought Tom could have used a little more fleshing out). Various scenes also seemed so real - the dialogues in Vida's classroom and her private thoughts and reactions as a teacher, the party scene with Peter and his adolescent insecurity. I will look for more books from this author.

I couldn't put this book down after I got a third of the way through. The undeniable intersection of Vida's past with her brand-new present was stunning and painful and true, as was the depiction of the newly merged family. This novel is a joy for anyone who truly loved English class or felt out of place in adolescence. It's also extremely well-crafted, and the shifts between points of view are seamless. I am still thinking about this book days after finishing it.

Lily King's second novel is called THE ENGLISH TEACHER, and that's what her main character, Vida Avery, is. And that's about all Vida is; it's her whole identity, what she's built her life on. Fifteen years ago, Vida came to Fayer, an island off the coast of Maine, pregnant and with a terrible secret trailing her all the way from Texas. She got a job as an English teacher at the island's prestigious private school, and she gave birth to a son, Peter. For fifteen years, mother and son live in isolation (isolated from each other, and isolated from the rest of the world), until one day, a man named Tom Belou, a widower with three children, enters their lives. He asks Vida to marry him--and although she wants to refuse, she says yes. Peter, for his part, couldn't be happier about the marriage. For years, he's been trying to understand his mother, to forge some kind of relationship with her, to be a family with her--and he believes that, with the addition of a father figure and three new siblings, he and his mother will finally become a real family.

But Peter hadn't counted on the lingering presence of the former Mrs. Belou in their new home; her picture still graces the bathroom wall, her clothes are still in the basement, she lives on the lips of her three children. Still feeling isolated, Peter slips into daydreams of Mrs. Belou--of what it would have been like to have her for a mother, instead of his withdrawn, unstable one.

During the first month of her marriage, Vida begins teaching TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES to her sophomore English classes. She's taught the book for fifteen years, but suddenly she's seeing the parallels to her own life clearly. Vida, paralyzingly scared of living life, collapsing from within, retreats farther into a comforting bottle of bourbon; but rather than seeming farther away, her past seems to haunt her even more--and now Peter's demanding to know the devastating truth about his father.

THE ENGLISH TEACHER is startling in its simplicity, yet astonishing in its depth. It's an intense character study and a study of the complicated relationship between a mother and her son; it's Peter's coming-of-age story; it's the story of Vida's renewal. Both of King's protagonists are brilliant creations, and she keeps her focus tightly on them throughout the novel. Peter is an endearing teenage boy, confused and sexualized and curious, trying desperately to fit in with his stepsiblings and his peers. Vida is angry, detached, and desperate, a woman who's more attuned with the characters she reads about than her own life. Like the Iranians who are taken hostage on Vida's wedding day in 1979, Vida is a hostage, trapped in her own life. Vida has her alcohol, and Peter has his dreams of Mrs. Belou; but the one thing they can't escape from is each other.

King prose is understated but powerful, intimate, almost sensual. Her parallelism is brilliant. THE ENGLISH TEACHER is a novel rife with allusions to other novels and just the right amount of metaphoric language. While I would have liked to see more focus on the relationship between Vida and Tom, I thought King's portrayal of a blended family was spot-on. Her characters are perfectly nuanced; her prose is beautiful. THE ENGLISH TEACHER is definitely a novel to be reckoned with in the contemporary women's fiction genre, and I'd definitely recommend it. Lily King has captivated another reader, who will wait with excitement for her next offering.

Here's another winner from Lily King, author of The Pleasing Hour. Her second book doesnt disappoint. At first I thought it would be about the difficulties of merging two families in second marriages--which to an extent, it is. Vida marries Tom, but she seems terribly uncertain about it, while he couldn't be more sure he's done the right thing. Vida teaches English at a private school, and her seniors are learning Thomas Hardy, specifically Tess of the d'Urbervilles. All of Hardy's books are dark, but Tess is the one that will really send one reaching for the antidepressants. The students get angry when Vida seems to take an unsympathetic attitude toward Tess. As the story goes on, Vida's life is revealed as paralleling that of Tess in many ways. Vida can't deal with what really happened, and is happening to her, and this causes tremendous problems for her teenage son Peter, who is demanding to know who his father is. At the end, everything comes to a head, but unlike Thomas Hardy's books, the story ends on a hopeful note. The only criticism I have is that the book could have been longer and gone into more depth about some of the other characters.

This is a difficult book to recommend. The problem is that the author's tone is painfully self-conscious and at times off-puttingly pretentious. Adding insult to injury, her writing style is awkward and convoluted, and her love of breaking up already lengthy sentences with ellipses only exacerbates the situation. She plays fast and loose with some of the historical facts she tosses out, too. And some of her observations seem so far-fetched that I swear she's just making up some of this crap for dramatic impact. I mean, I've been to Italy several times, and I've seldom encountered shop-clerks who are as outspokenly rude and negative as those that are depicted in abundance here. I found myself skipping occasionally large passages of her self-indulgent, meandering drivel in an attempt to stick to the meat of this book, which can actually be somewhat compelling.

When she is able to put a lid on the pretentiousness and unengaging cynicism, the book paints a colorful and vivid (and brutally honest) portait of Italy, its society, and culture. Some of her thoughts and observations are truly poignant. Basically, with some hardcore Occam's Razoring, this book could've been profoundly improved. It almost reads as if it simply wasn't edited. I'm kind of surprised it even got published. As it stands, however, lengthy portions are a rambling mess seemingly aimed at pseudo-intellectual snobs brimming with unchecked ennui and bile. Which is sad since some readers might let that get in the way of the passages that really are worth reading.

I've never been promt to write a review until I read this book. I have read 79 travel and historical books on Europe, 36 on Italy. This is the only one I've disliked. I would give it zero stars but that isn't an option.

This book came very highly recommended, and I have to admit, I was disappointed. I found it self-absorbed and opaque, inscrutable. Grizzuti Harrison's Italy sounds like a place I would never want to go -- indeed, nothing like the place I've been to -- full of peevish storekeepers, American-hating townspeople, predatory men. I found nothing to love about the Italy depicted in this book and couldn't imagine why the author would subject herself to further months spent there.

The writing is very strange. The sentence structure loops archaically, and the asides that are often inserted into the sentences not only make the reading more difficult, but do nothing to enlighten the reader.

I also took issue with the book's tone and diction. Grizzuti Harrison spends pages and pages on high-flown quotations -- so many that it seems like she's padding her book because she has no thoughts of her own -- yet brings the reader crashing down from these utterances with a few strangely-placed "f-words."

I didn't understand this book. I prefer my own memories of Italy to this author's.

The first two-thirds of this book is a superb travel guide to Milan, Venice, Rome, and Campania. Barbara Grizzuti Harrison is very conversant with the best travel literature of the past (and thoughtfully provides us a useful bibliography) and -- more rare by far -- has a great deal to add as an Italian-American confronting the land of her birth.

After her chapter on Naples and Campania, the book takes an entirely different tack. The author goes to visit what remains of her family in rural Molise and Calabria. Big mistake. You can't mix pleasure with unfinished family business and expect to get anything other than heartsick.

I remember taking a visit to Hungary and Slovakia to visit my relatives some years ago. Their reaction: Why haven't you visited us before? Why aren't you staying longer? When are you coming back? Let us introduce you to your third and fourth cousins! It was interesting, at times even exhilarating, but it was no vacation. And you need a vacation from your vacation when you return.

Although Harrison's family visits break her book in two, it conveys a sense of truth missing from most books of the sort -- especially of the nefarious Tuscan villa genre. Our ancestors left their homes for a reason. They may not tell you the reason; but those left behind nursing their grudges will gladly set you straight -- possibly to your intense discomfiture.

So in the end, I have nothing but praise for this book. Especially if you are an Italian-American going back to the "Old Country" for a first visit, you must read this book. Like the author, take your vacation first -- then go face the music with your relatives.

After reading "Italian Days" I feel as if I actually know Barbara Harrison. I enjoyed reading about the travels of someone of my own age and sex, who notices and enjoys the same things as I would if I were lucky enough to make a trip to Italy. She generously reveals much of herself in her writing. Through her stories, I also feel as if I have experienced Italy, tasted the food, crowds in Rome, natural beauty, art, architecture and people. The book is thick and full of sensuous detail. Reading it made me hungry for the wonderful food she described.

What could be more boring than a book about the history of trade? This may well be the thought that passes through most people's minds when they contemplate the rich cover of Bernstein's latest tome. Yet such an expectation turns out to be totally incorrect. A Splendid Exchange is also A Splendid Read.

Bernstein has a remarkable ability to inter-leave arcane details with big-picture perspectives and the result is a work that delights as it informs. I personally learned something new on almost every page, even though I thought I was already fairly well informed about several of the subject areas covered in the book. Second-rate writers often try to impress with displays of recondite learning or excessive verbosity; Bernstein does neither. His prose is light and assured and carries the flow of his thesis forward as on a bubbling ever-cresting wave.

He superbly illustrates a general historical point with the specifics of an individual life, as when he notes almost in passing that the first human to circumnavigate the globe was not a well-known historical personage such as Magalhaes (Magellan) or Drake, but rather a slave who has hitherto largely remained absent from the annals of nautical history.

As Bernstein points out, humans are the only species to engage in trade. It is a fundamental characteristic of our species, and all the rest of human nature comes into play in its furtherance. The rapid expansion of Islam is partly explained by the fact that Muslims were under religious injunction not to pillage fellow believers, but could consider pillage an almost blessed act when perpetrated on non-believers. Not surprisingly, upon learning of this useful distinction the non-believers rapidly converted, thus sparing themselves further depredations - but forcing the might of Islam to push its boundaries ever-forward in search of new people to loot and slaughter. And lest we fall into the lazy trap of equating Islam alone with violence and intolerance, there's a salutory chapter of the Portugese expansion into the East, which amply demonstrates that no religion, nationality, or ethnic group has any monopoly on repellant behavior.

Equally interesting is Bernstein's observation that the Boston Tea Party, far from being all about "no taxation without representation" as faithfully portrayed in the Disneyesque world of American school text books, was actually cant to disguise the protection of middle-men and thus ensure the continuation of overly-high prices for the hapless American consumer of tea.

Despite the catalogue of stupidities, atrocities, and double-dealings that is inevitably a large part of any history of humanity, this book ultimately is an optimistic work. Trade, as Bernstein enables the record to show, has been almost single-handedly responsible for the fact that the vast majority of humankind no longer has to grub roots out of parched ground nor resort to trying to bring down the occasional ruminant with wooden spears. Just as today finds no shortage of anti-globalisation protesters, so throughout history people have complained that this wicked invention called trade has been upsetting cozy monopolies and creating social unrest. In the process, it has also created opportunity and wealth and well-being for the vast majority of humankind. This really should be a basic text book for anyone at undergraduate level who has any curiosity at all about why humans have been able to construct this modern world in which we live.

If there were only three books I could take into exile, this would be one of them. The other two would be The Constitution of Liberty by Hayek and the History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. All three shed important light on the human condition in realms both large and small, and all three are a pleasure to read and re-read at one's leisure.

Unfortunately, this is not a serious work of history, and is full of contradictions of 'facts' in addition to mistakes. The list of references is impressively long, but often irrelevant. There were many passages in which the author seemed to have suspended incredulity of his references. The subtitle "How Trade Shaped the World", while perhaps not chosen by the author, leads the reader to believe that the explanation will be found in the book. However, those expectations were dashed. There are major international trade goods that are not even mentioned, nor is there any attention given to the development of currencies and the impact on the barter system of trade. It also becomes apparent that global trade and transportation are joined at the hip, yet the author doesn't seem to understand how sails and ships operate, contradicting himself regarding the merits, and thus trade advantages of owners of square-rigged ships versus dhows (relating to the ability to sail into the wind, very important for 2,000 years of sailing). Then there are the nitpicking things that a good editor should have caught, like rounding the Cape of Good Hope and sailing westward to the Spice Islands.
Great theme, but not well executed.

It is not often that the history of the world is told by an economist in such a readable and entertaining fashion.

Much of popular history is written for us from the point of view of political power, military conquest, religious conversion or ideological domination. The roles of consumption and trade in shaping the course of history is often forgotten because economic historians rarely produce popular reading and popular historians rarely mention economics.

Bernstein's book is a wonderful journey through time and the basic trading relationships between civilisations - silk, porcelain, coral, coffee, opium, tea, sugar. It also shows us how control of the trade in these various commodities led to wars, the movement of slaves (of both caucasians to the east and negros to the west) and the rise and fall of the wealth of nations.

Many of the criticisms in the reviews seem focused on factual errors, non-standard conventions and accusations of political bias (curiously enough, of being both left and right). Bernstein has played it loose in his story telling style and there is no way one would mistake this book as an attempt at a thorough and conservative piece of academic work.

But it is the often speculative nature of the narrative and the attempt to pull together a grand picture that makes this book so engaging. Many of the criticisms have missed the forest for the trees I'm afraid and there few books that tell the tale of the economic history of the world in so engaging a romp.

This possibly is one of the best books i read on influence of trade on society as a whole. This book traces trade back to thousands of years BC. What is so revealing is how smart decisions and dumb decisions by leaders/societies have such profound impact. What we see in today's world have lots of parallels to older times . This is very useful book and i recommend this to any one interested in business

For those who like their history on a broad canvas, this book will certainly satisfy. William Bernstein, who has written books on finance and economics, including The Birth of Plenty : How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created, takes a look at global trade from ancient Sumeria to the present day. He has written in the words of David Landes a "big history," taking one idea or observation and tracing through the ages.

That trade has always existed and that it is beneficial is not exactly a new idea, but in Bernstein's account he gives it a new primacy. Trade can be said to be war by other means. Countries can acquire goods and materials peacefully rather than belligerently. Bernstein emphasizes that trade has always been and always will be a great deterrent to war. If wars have loudly made history, trade has done so quietly in influencing its course.

This book can be read a resounding defense of the principle of comparative advantage in that trade always benefits all parties involved. (Granted that this principle is still debatable.) It shows how countries, regions, and individuals sought to possess goods and resources that they could not produce or acquire locally. The history of global trade is vast, but Bernstein focuses mainly on the pre-modern age, dealing more with the commodities of the pre-industrial world.

Toward the end of the book, Bernstein discusses some of the issues of global trade today. He concedes that globalization has not benefited everyone uniformly, indeed many of the workers of the industrial world have lost their jobs to offshoring. However, in the aggregate, trade has created economic growth and wealth. It is still better than protectionism and isolationism. The eponymous splendid exchange has brought a bounty of goods and reduced the chances of war. Not a bad deal when one considers the alternatives.