Judging solely on the cover of this new paranormal romance anthology, Just One Sip should have been a summer release. All three stories are fun romps filled to the brim with sexy paranormals that, while satisfying, definitely leave you wanting more.

The best known of the three authors is Katie MacAlister. Her story, “Bring Out Your Dead,” fits into the world of her popular Dark Ones. Belle is a tattu (possessing two souls), a counselor for the Society for the Protection of Revenants (zombies) and is now being pursued by a demon lord. MacAlister has introduced some delightful new beings to her universe in this story and this reviewer hopes that Belle, Sally (Belle’s spirit guide) and the revenants, are featured in future works.

Minda Webber’s offering, “Lucy and the Crypt Casanova,” considers what happens when the scoop of your life, which can make your career, is being investigated by the vampire cop who broke your heart. With strongly drawn characters and an interesting setting, Webber’s story holds its own against the better-known authors. Her unique perspective and the crazy characters featured on Lucy’s talk show, help Webber’s playful voice shine.

Of the three stories, the pack leader by a slight margin is Jennifer Ashley’s “Viva Las Vampires.” Her premise is unique; a vampire-themed casino owned by a real vampire in a Las Vegas run by two vampire cartels. Ashley has taken the vampire stereotypes and turned many of them on their head, creating sunbathing vampires who walk around in the Nevada desert. As the lead story in the anthology, her unique perspective is the perfect one to set the tone for this fascinating collection.

New York Times bestselling author Katie MacAlister writes historical, contemporary, paranormal, and young adult romances (as Katie Maxwell), paranormal thrillers, and historical mysteries. Light My Fire, the next Aisling Grey romance, will be published on November 7, 2006 and Last of the Red-Hot Vampires, the next Dark Ones romance, will be published in May 2007.

Jennifer writes historical, contemporary, and paranormal romance as Jennifer Ashley, historical mysteries under the pseudonym Ashley Gardner, and erotic paranormal romance as Allyson James. The Mad, Bad Duke, her next historical romance, will be published in December 2006.

Minda Webber’s first novel, The Remarkable Miss Frankenstein, won Best Historical Vampire Novel from the Romantic Times Book Reviewer’s Choice Awards. The third in the series, The Reinvented Miss Bluebeard, will be published in July 2007.

Read the review at Curled Up with a Good Book.

ISBN10: 050552659X
Publisher: Love Spell
Publication Date: October 3, 2006
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Katie MacAlister’s Website: www.katiemacalister.com
Jennifer Ashley’s Website: www.jennifersromances.com
Minda Webber’s Website: www.mindawebber.net

tags: books book reviews Katie MacAlister paranormal romance Jennifer Ashley Minda Webber

Emily Harada lives a structured yet unconnected life, a solitary existence which suits her perfectly. Her architecture work focuses on restoring historic houses and her personal life focuses on raising her teenage son, Jesse. Emily’s limited social needs are met by her friendship with Sylvia, she has chosen to live contentedly with her singlehood after divorcing Jesse’s father Stewart.

Even contented solitude can begin to wear after a while and Emily begins to question her choices, right around the time when Jesse starts to act like a typical teenager and an attractive former student reenters her life.

Kim Moritsugu’s fourth novel, The Restoration of Emily, showcases a woman in middle life, who at times appears bewildered by everything around her. Even though Emily has a take no prisoners attitude, calls a spade a spade and has at times had difficulty relating to customers and colleagues, she faces the next phase of her life a bit off-centre.

As Jesse becomes a true teenager, distant and unwilling to talk to “Em,” her walls appear to falter. As much as Emily is written as a loner, she still counts on her relationship with her son. Now that he is moving on without her, Moritsugu seems to suggest that it is time for Emily to also grow up.

By nature and preference a loner, Emily moves through life holding others at arms-length. Her sharp tongue is a weapon and she uses it to full advantage. After a lunch party her colleague Danny asks her “What happened to you back there? Demonic possession?” In her first meeting with a new client, Emily has her anti-authority radar on full blast: “We chat briefly about that house and owner, and Stewart gives me no immediate reason to get my back up…but my first impression is that the design of his eyeglasses is too trendy, his dress shirt too white, his jacket lapels too sharply cut, his Italian leather shoes too shiny.”

Moritsugu has created a very strong voice for Emily, whose cutting view of the world ably flows out of Moritsugu’s pen: “This is one of the many things I value Sylvia for: her ability to provide me with timely reminders about how pointless couplehood can be.” Now facing this new phase of life, one as a mother of an almost grown-up son, Emily must follow her own star and determine what is truly important to her. Emily’s restoration, in the autumn of her life, is an enjoyable one when handled with Mortisugu’s consummate skill.

Kim Moritsugu is the author of three previous novels: Looks Perfect (shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award), Old Flames, and The Glenwood Treasure (shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Best Crime Novel Award). Moritsugu teaches creative writing at The Humber School for Writers in Toronto, Ontario.

Read the review at Curled Up with a Good Book.

ISBN10: 1550026062
Trade Paperback
Pages: 223
Publisher: The Dundurn Group
Publication Date: May 6, 2006
Author Website: www.kimmoritsugu.com

tags: books book reviews Kim Moritsugu Canadian Author fiction architecture

On Delia’s birthday her mother died, drowned wearing an expensive new bra, her engagement ring and the earrings given to her by her estranged husband almost fifty years earlier. Desperate to make sense out of the confusion surrounding her mother’s death, Delia embarks on a journey through her native Naples, seeking the truth about her mother, her family and herself.

Troubling Love (L’amore molesto), Elena Ferrante’s second novel to be translated into English, is a meditation on the inherent struggle between mothers and daughters. The struggle between the generations of women within a family is territory oft explored by writers. Ferrante brings freshness to the worn narrative by adding complexity, examining the nature and validity of memory. How valid is anger toward one’s mother if the memory of events isn’t correct?

Ferrante explores the consequences of abuse within the family and attitudes toward domestic violence. Amalia’s brother Filippo believes she had no reason to leave her husband, even though he beat her in front of strangers and her children. Amalia’s husband inflicts harsh punishment on her body for the crime of drawing attention to herself, “protecting her” from other men’s eyes. The abuse was so pervasive that the children felt they must protect her from touch as well, placing their bodies between their mother and strangers, to prevent the violence from erupting at home.

The dichotomy presented, is that despite the beatings Amalia’s husband gave her for men touching her, he painted her repeatedly as a half-naked gypsy, paintings which peddlers sold to anyone with enough money. This inconsistency calls into question his reasons for the abuse. Logically Ferrante must wish reader’s to view the violence as an issue of control, for just days before her death, Amalia’s husband visits her apartment to once more beat her.

Female children grow up wishing to become their mothers, having their mother’s body. In Troubling Love, Ferrante has created children drawn into complicity with their father’s abuse, guarding Amali from his violence while at the same time believing it was justified.

Ferrante asks, in this situation, can a girl grow up without destroying her mother? In the evolution to become a woman, must a girl, who feels she’s betrayed her mother, excise the mother from her life in order to live with herself?

For such a slender volume, Troubling Love is not an easy or quick read. Significant issues are raised which require contemplation and repeated readings. Ferrante’s writing is raw and earthy, describing bodily functions with a level of detail to which North American readers are unfamiliar. Her blunt use of language communicates the urgency and disorder experienced by Delia, drawing readers with her on the journey of discovery.

Elena Ferrante was born in Naples, Italy. Though one of Italy’s most important and acclaimed contemporary authors, she has chosen to keep her identity and wereabouts a mystery. Theories and speculation as to who Elena Ferrante really is continue to circulate but she has not yet been unmasked. The Days of Abandonment (I giorni dell’abbandono) was a national bestseller in Italy for almost a year.

Ann Goldstein is an editor at The New Yorker magazine. Her many translations from Italian include works by Alessandro Baricco, Roberto Calasso, Pope John Paul II, Pierpaolo Pasolini, and Giuseppe Genna. Troubling Love is the second work by Ferrante, which Goldstein translated for Europa Editions, the first being the critically acclaimed The Days of Abandonment.

Read the review at ReadySteadyBook.

ISBN10: 1933372168
Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein

Trade Paperback
Pages: 139
Publisher: Europa Editions
Publication Date: September 20, 2006

tags: books book reviews Elena Ferrante family relationships fiction in translation Italian author Ann Goldstein

Jack Tennant is called home by his mother to reconcile with the father he hasn’t seen in 15 years, after the old man succumbs to a stroke and ends up with “Locked-In” Syndrome. Hahva, his girlfriend and a social worker, is convinced that confronting his family demons will help Jack find peace. However, Jack has never told Hahva what the demons are he’s hiding: about his brother Dexter who died when Jack was five; how his father, the alcoholic, was the killer responsible for Dexter’s death; and that his father broke Jack’s finger, effectively ending his musical career. Hahva also isn’t aware of the circumstances surrounding Jack’s dismissal from his Ph.D. program.

Adam Davies’ second novel Goodbye Lemon, published four years after his acclaimed debut novel The Frog King, shows humanity at its rawest, stripped naked in all its messiness. Jack is angry and emotionally infantile, frozen in time in the moment when he lost his brother, but Davies still engenders the empathy of readers and helps them laugh with the follicly-challenged young man, who calls his childhood home the “Suicide Palace.”

Recently, a number of books have been written dealing with the difficult issue of losing a child. This fundamental loss has far reaching consequences on the siblings who remain, providing authors with a wide range of literary options. Davies chooses to explore the family dynamic resulting from the parental decision to erase every trace of a lost child and shut off emotionally from their remaining children. As Jack states: “I wasn’t just robbed of my brother’s life; I was robbed of his memory…I wasn’t allowed to know the first thing about him.” Later on Jack realizes that he didn’t just have the void left by his brother, the emptiness came from losing his parents as well.

In the Tennants, Davies has created a family where each member exists in their own sphere of isolation and obsessions, only periodically intersecting with one another. For fifteen years, Jack hasn’t returned home or dealt with the loss of his brother. He lives a closed life refusing to acknowledge the void he carries with him and his past, yet chooses a life-partner who is a social worker who makes a career out of determining individual’s truthes. Unable to save Dexter or himself, Jack nevertheless makes choices that hint at his desire to be saved; actions countering his words.

Goodbye Lemon is so effective because Davies writes with a plethora of descriptive language, throwing the lack of real communication among the members of the Tennant family into starker relief. He creates soundscapes out of words, filling up the void with invoked sound and scent, often using obscure vocabulary to invoke the right note or image. For some readers this will be invigorating, causing them to rapidly grab for the well-used dictionary; however, for others Davies’ language choices will have the effect of a wall and may cause them to set the novel aside. This would be a shame, for in Goodbye Lemon, Davies has created a novel whose dark humour and heart is sure to delight.

ISBN10: 1594480710
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Publication Date: August 8, 2006
Binding: Trade Paperback

tags: books book reviews Adam Davies family relationships fiction death of a child

The Piggly Wiggly in Second Creek, Mississippi, supermarket cum community center and town hall, is about to close its doors for good. The Mega-Mart across town has been drawing away customers and Mr. Choppy can’t figure out how to keep his family business afloat.

Riding to the rescue are the “Nitwitts,” a formidable group of the town’s influential widows. Determined to keep their beloved local supermarket in business, the group’s leader Laurie Lepanto comes up with a whimsical solution: the town’s most eligible silver fox and former ballroom dance instructor, Powell Hampton, will dance with the women of Second Creek for two hours each week, while salesclerks do their shopping.

Will the “Nitwitts” ingenious plan save the Piggly Wiggly? Will anyone win the heart of Powell Hampton? And will Second Creek embrace waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly?

The true stars of Robert Dalby’s Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly are the “Nitwitts,” a group of golden-age widows who meet regularly for Bloody Marys, conversation and support. Dalby’s “Nitwitts” are based on a the real life Nitwitts of Mobile, Alabama. According to the Press-Register, the group has “met for Bloody Marys and lunch on the first Monday of each month for the past 30 years. They call themselves the NitWitts, the Witt in honor of Norma Verneuille Wittendorfer, a member of the group who died in 1976.”

Around this core group, Dalby has created a town peopled by the truly eccentric. One of the highlights of this novel is the Annual Floozy contest, which is one of the most outrageous events about which this reviewer has ever had the pleasure to read. The wide cast of characters suggests that Dalby is planning a return to Second Creek in future books, and that is cause for celebration.

Dalby’s novel is light-hearted and fun, about standing up for what one believes in and second chances at love. Despite a few uneven spots in the writing, which most likely will smooth out with time and experience, this book is delightful and certain to bring a smile to reader’s faces. The wide cast of characters leads this reader to suspect that Dalby is planning a return to Second Creek in future books. If you enjoy eccentric characters and southern charm, then Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly is the book for you.

Robert Dalby is a lifelong patron of the Piggly Wiggly and a native of Mississippi. Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly is his first novel.

ISBN10: 0399153675
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication Date: August 3, 2006
Binding: Hardcover

tags: books book reviews Robert Dalby Piggly Wiggly southern fiction

“Are there situations, long-term situations, where conflict does not wait around every bend, where time does not unspool only in anticipation of your errors” – from The Man of My Dreams

Hannah Gavener is fourteen in the summer of 1991, the summer she is sent away to her Aunt Elizabeth, the summer her mother finally leaves her father. Hannah’s childhood is spent trying not to provoke her father’s fury and in 1991, after he throws his wife and his daughters out of the house, Hannah’s mother decides she’s finally had enough.

However, even though Hannah doesn’t live with her father any longer, she hasn’t escaped his control. Hannah isn’t sure people really live happily, if it’s peaceful and they’re kind to each other, how does their life have any direction? Hannah’s life has always been directed by her father and preventing an escalation of conflict. “Every fight is about not just itself but all your massive personal inadequacies, your fundamental disrespect from him.” Now, as she enters her senior year of college, Hannah has done the unexpected and cut her father out of her life. Without her rudder, how will Hannah plot the course for the rest of her life? At what point does she have to stop blaming her problems on her messed-up childhood?

Curtis Sittenfeld’s first novel Prep was a breakout hit, ending up on many critics “best of 2005” lists. The Man of My Dreams is a novel that focuses inward and, as such, is unlikely to be as popular as Prep. Sittenfeld’s choice to move in a new direction was a wise one. Comparisons to Prep will happen; however, the two works bear little resemblance to each other except for Sittenfeld’s deft writing ability.

The Man of My Dreams, while beautifully written, is not a happy novel. Hannah lives in as unobtrusive manner as possible, avoiding anything that may “stir the pot,” as she has since childhood. Her father was “the weather system they all live with, and all of their behavior, whenever he is around, hinges on his mood.” Aversion therapy quickly trained Hannah and her sister Allison into approved behavior. “Your goal is not to instigate, and if you are successful, avoidance is its own reward.”

The sisters deal with the abuse of their childhood in very different ways. Allison, an outgoing and charismatic young woman, invites male attention and marries at twenty-four, although Hannah isn’t convinced that Allison truly loves Sam. Hannah heads to the other extreme by isolating herself and, when she finally does begin to interact with men, chooses those she can never truly “have,” preferring to be denied rather than having to open herself up to being hurt.

Hannah has difficulty believing that relationships exist where one doesn’t have to walk on eggshells. Her assumptions on male and female roles were formed from her early observations: men are strong and confident; women are “a little wimpy.” These stereotypes are born out later in her experiences in college where she observes the guys picking girls who need to be rescued. And so Hannah floats through relationships, taking whatever is offered to her but investing little of her self.

What isn’t clear is whether Hannah idolizes people who cause trouble or dislikes them. She tends toward passivity, but almost worships her cousin Fig’s flaunting of rules.

Hannah’s journey toward maturity is heartbreaking and what resonates with readers is the need to leave the past behind as new relationships are forged. How Sittenfeld shapes Hannah’s awakening will linger in reader’s minds long after the last page is read.

ISBN10: 1400064767
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: May 16, 2006
Binding: Hardcover
Author Website: www.curtissittenfeld.com

tags: books book reviews fiction Curtis Sittenfeld family relationships

“Being an unpublished author is a bit like being an asylum seeker. You know this is where you belong – your Promised Land – but the gate is guarded. You’re desperate to get in, but you don’t know the rules.” – Marina Lewycka, Guardian Unlimited interview

Two years after his wife Ludmilla dies, Nikolai calls his daughter Nadezhda (Nadia) with the news that he is planning to remarry, to a thirty-six year old Ukrainian immigrant with golden hair, charming eyes, and superior breasts. The fact that Valentina is still married and only wishes to marry eighty-four year old Nikolai to stay in England does not matter, he is caught up in saving this woman from the home country.

Worried that he is being taken advantage of by the voluptuous gold digger, Nadia calls her sister Vera, putting aside years of bitter rivalry to rescue their father from his Big Ideas and the sexy Valentina. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian looks at sibling rivalry, the conflicts between east and west, the status of immigrants, family, aging and the tricky nature of memory.

It is difficult to ascertain how one should approach this first novel by Marina Lewycka. Reading the description, readers can be excused for assuming that this will be a farce about a December – May romance between a randy senior citizen and an upstart new immigrant. And readers wouldn’t be that wrong, for the early pages of Lewycka’s novel are filled with farcical aspects: the image of the dyed blonde fiancée sitting on her octogenarian groom’s knees, letting him fondle her superior breasts immediately leaps to mind.

However, this is also a serious novel about family relationships and conflict: about relations between immigrants and their children; the effects of a post-war mentality on one’s view of the world; abuse on both a personal and political scale; and about conflicting ideologies and political states. How then to balance the two sides of this novel? Can they work together to create a cohesive whole?

Like Mary Poppins told us as children: “a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.” By tieing her serious messages up in an entertaining package, Lewycka can make some incisive comments on long-lasting consequences of abuse and certain political systems. Within the characters of Vera and Nadia, Lewycka has presented many opposites. Vera represents the asylum seeker and the immigrant, suffering from the post-war mentality, desperate for the luxuries of the west and believing in the superiority of capitalism to provide security. Nadia represents the child born in freedom, able to live and be idealistic, to work to save the world and make it a better place.

Vera believes that Nadia “can afford the luxury of irresponsibility because she’s never seen the dark underside of life.” Nadia believes that Vera “is out to feather her own nest, and doesn’t understand the value of hard work.” These fundamental differences between sisters represent the central conflict presented within A Short History.

Valentina, although portrayed as a money-grubbing wanton, willing to do anything and take advantage of anyone to be able to stay in England, should in some ways be seen as a sympathetic character. Nikolai forgives her anything, blaming it on the “post-war” mentality:

“Clearly this Valentina, she is of quite different generation…In times of the Brezhnev, everyone’s idea was to bury all gone-by things and to become like in West…New desires must be implanted as fast as old ideals must be buried…It is not her fault; it is the post war mentality.”

Valentina is a victim of the horrors she herself experienced however she carries her rage forward and visits it on others. Nikolai and Vera, also victims of violence, seem to expect such treatment.

This raises an important question: if one lives through violence and abuse in an institutionalized manner (that is from the leadership of one’s country), is the result a belief that it is deserve? Does it lead to an inability to leave an abusive situation or predisposition to impose abuse on others? Nikolai is both abuser and abused and, through his inability to understand or deal with the situation, Lewycka proffers no answer these questions instead leaving it to each reader to reach their own conclusions.

Marina Lewycka was born of Ukrainian parents in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany, at the end of the war, and grew up in England. She teaches at Sheffield Hallam University. She is married, with a grown-up daughter, and lives in Sheffield. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was nominated for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Orange Prize.

Read the review at ReadySteadyBook.

ISBN10: 0143036742
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publication Date: March 28, 2006
Binding: Trade Paperback

tags: books book reviews fiction Ukraine Children of Immigrants Marina Lewycka family relationships

Odair, one of the Designers of All Things and grandson of the esteemed inventor of the rainbow, dreams of creating a cross an animal which flies like a bird and has the beauty of a flower. His dream; however, breaks the one strict line that all Designers of All Things must follow: they are not allowed to mix animals and plants.

Odair is blessed with an overactive imagination and continues to dream up new ways to combine the species, an activity which causes the Ancient Wise Woman to banish Odair and his friends to the insect laboratory. “The order of the cosmos is based on harmony, on rules that are perfect in their simplicity. So that you may learn that even the smallest things are designed with wisdom and that the laws of creation should not be taken lightly, we have decided to transfer you…”

Downcast at being transferred to a division where the designers are shy and the creatures ugly, Odair protests and it is only when the Ancient Wise Woman suggests that insects can be beautiful and fun, that things begin to turn around.

The Butterfly Workshop is a delightful tale about an artist trying to find his way in the world. Children will be fascinated by the whimsical nature of Wolf Erlbruch’s illustrations and the creation of many familiar animals. However, to dismiss Gioconda Belli’s tale as purely a story for children would be a mistake.

Contained within this slender volume is a study on the difference between motivation and obsession. Odair’s pursuit of breathtaking beauty pushes him into working longer and longer hours and further into solitude. His friends and superiors try to help him: “You must be careful, Odair.” The Ancient Wise Woman admonished him. “By trying to design something perfect you might end up creating monsters. Your obsession with making life more pleasant and beautiful might, if you’re not careful, result in pain and fear for the other creatures that inhabit Nature.”

Unfortunately, Odair is not satisfied, “I can’t rest until I design something that is as beautiful as the combination of a bird and a flower.” Belli uses this simple tale to show how today’s obsession with perfection and beauty can create evil. Hard work can bring rewards but can result in unexpected and unpleasant consequences.

Belli shows readers that the simplest lessons can be found if they open their eyes and slow down to see the beauty around them. Dreams should be treasured in balance with the rest of one’s life and as Odair’s friends say, “Never again will we laugh at other people’s dreams.” A lesson worth learning, by which everyone should live.

Gioconda Belli’s novel, The Inhabited Woman, was a worldwide bestseller. Belli was politically active from a young age, involved in the Nicaraguan Revolution and occupied important positions in both the Sandinista Party and the Nicaraguan Writer’s Union. In 1993 she resigned from the Sandinista Party and now divides her time between Nicaragua and Los Angeles. She is married to Charles Castaldi, translator of The Butterfly Workshop, and has four children. Her next novel, The Scroll of Seduction, is scheduled for publication by Rayo in September 2006.

Wolf Erlbruch, the author of over a twenty-five illustrated books, is the recipient of many international prizes. The Jury of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) recently named Erlbruch winner of the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, which will be awarded in September 2006 at IBBY’s congress in Beijing. Erlbruch currently lives in Wuppertal, where he is a professor of illustration at the University.

Illustrator: Wolf Erlbruch
Translated from Spanish by: Charles Castaldi

ISBN10: 1933372125
Publisher: Europa Editions
Publication Date: May 2006
Binding: Trade Paperback
Author Website: www.giocondabelli.com

tags: books book reviews Gioconda Belli Wolf Erlbruch philosophy

Charles D’Ambrosio’s second story collection, The Dead Fish Museum, is a collection of eight short stories, six of which were previously published in The New Yorker. D’Ambrosio has masterfully captured human misery, exposing the darkest place of the human soul to the light of day. Reading some of these stories can be likened to picking up a rock and finding maggots, except in this case, what the reader finds are realities most wish to hide from themselves.

In The Dead Fish Museum, normal lives and healthy relationships are an illusion. D’Ambrosio’s characters are the forsaken, the lost and the marginal of society. A consistent theme found within his stories is despair, often beyond that felt by the “average” person.

Within these eight short stories, individuals are mired in lives where hope barely exists. In ‘Screenwriter,’ the narrator meets a ballerina in rehab, a young woman who burns her flesh to put “the pain in a place I can find it. On the outside.” The narrator suffers from despair; however the ballerina, while appearing to be on the road to recovery, suffers from a deeper anguish which is continually exposed through her attacks on her skin. Ramage, the protagonist of the collection’s titular story, ‘The Dead Fish Museum,’ carries with him a gun which is both his adversary and his passion: “a theater where he poured out his lonely ardor, rehearsing scenarios, playing with possibilities.” While in his mind Ramage still believes he will use the gun to end his life, in reality the gun has become a talisman with all the same comforts a security blanket cedes to a child.

The agony with which D’Ambrosio infuses his stories is almost unbearable, yet there is beauty to be found in his evocative descriptions and word choices. In ‘Screenwriter’ he describes the ballerina’s grandparents: “…with their hopeless, past-tense faces and their old leafy clothes; standing beside them in a gauzy spring dress, the ballerina seemed a mere puff of self, passing like a spirit out of their heavy Old World sadness, whatever it was about.” He shoots out words until their sharp edges almost wound the reader. In ‘Drummond & Son,’ Pete suddenly confronts his father with the statement “Jesus Christ was brain-dead,” a phrase which stops readers dead, like a slap in the face. With one simple, yet aggressive phrase, D’Ambrosio pulls away from the comfort provided by the straightforward narrative, and forces readers to feel Drummond’s despair and loneliness.

Charles D’Ambrosio is the author of two short story collections, The Dead Fish Museum and The Point, as well as Orphans, a collection of essays. A finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award for his first story collection, D’Ambrosio is known to many as a “writer’s writer,” one who continues to plow his own path, writing essays and stories about what interests him in the world. As he shared in an interview with Dan Wickett (Emerging Writers Forum): “Stories strike a more resonant chord in my soul and wrestling with them I usually come out the other end feeling renewed; essays leave me feeling a little ragged.”

D’Ambrosio is not an author who hawks his work, in fact he is leery of the entire business of promotion. For Orphans, he sent copies of the collection to some bloggers: “The only thing I did on my own was share the book with various bloggers. I’d never heard of these things, these blogs, until the book came out, but my name came up on a few, and I got a quick education, and it immediately seemed like a place where the whole conversation of books, largely an underground thing, these days, was still alive and even thriving. I can’t say I sold any books because of blogs but I don’t really care –things circulated, and that’s enough for me.”

The Dead Fish Museum has garnered a great deal of attention in the blogosphere and quickly became a favourite, promoted on most of the highly respected litblogs. However, no litblog explains D’Ambrosio’s standing as a writer as well as this review by Kirkus Reviews: “Though D’Ambrosio is hardly among the most prolific writers of the contemporary American short story, he ranks with the best….”

Read the review at ReadySteadyBook.

ISBN10: 1400042860
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: April 18, 2006
Binding: Hardcover

tags: books book reviews Charles D’Ambrosio fiction short stories The New Yorker

Anonymous Lawyer (AL) is the power-hungry, hiring partner at the Anonymous Law Firm where he is vying with The Jerk for the firm’s chairmanship. In charge of the summer interns, his main focus is ensuring a fresh crew of drones to feed the firm’s insatiable need for billable hours and maintaining the leading position for the chair.

On a whim, AL starts a blog in which he vents his true feelings: about the partners at the firm; about the battle with The Jerk; about employees who expect to have a work/life balance; and especially about the evil ways he dreams up to torment the lowly associates and interns. Quickly gaining a loyal following, AL’s blog threatens to destroy his career when someone inside the firm claims to know his secret.

Jeremy Blachman’s first novel Anonymous Lawyer: a Novel, based upon his satirical blog of the same name, is a scathing look at the legal profession through the eyes of his alter ego. AL has little good to say about his colleagues, his family or the summer interns who populate his blog entries. Some of the nicknames given characters are truly cruel: The One Who Doesn’t Know How to Correctly Apply Her Makeup; The One Who Missed Her Kid’s Funeral; The Guy With The Giant Mole; but Blachman has gifted many of them with distinct personalities, although those of his family are could benefit from further fleshing out. The only people AL shows any humanity toward are Anonymous Niece and Anonymous Son, and his reasons seemed based entirely upon the benefits they offer his career.

Composed of blog entries, email correspondence and an unsympathetic protagonist, Anonymous Lawyer shouldn’t work and yet, it is impossible to put down. Blachman has produced a novel that feels like an evil treat, readers will be secretly rooting for AL to triumph while feeling they are hiding a dirty little secret. Rooting for AL feels as depraved as hoping the Wicked Witch of the West beats Dorothy, and yet this reviewer expects that most readers will be doing just that.

Light on plot, Anonymous Lawyer nevertheless delivers a solid dose of humour and perfectly suited to hot summer days, when readers want nothing more than to be entertained.

Excerpt (to read a long excerpt, click here):
WEEK ONE

Monday, May 8

I see you. I see you walking by my office, trying to look like you have a reason to be there. But you don’t. I see the guilty look on your face. You try not to make eye contact. You try to rush past me as if you’re going to the bathroom. But the bathroom is at the other end of the hall. You think I’m naïve, but I know what you’re doing. Everyone knows. But she’s my secretary, not yours, and her candy belongs to me, not you. And if I have a say in whether or not you ever become a partner at this firm—and trust me, I do—I’m not going to forget this. My secretary. My candy. Go back to your office and finish reading the addendum to the lease agreement. I don’t want to see you in the hall for at least another sixteen hours. AND STOP STEALING MY CANDY.

And stop stealing my stapler, too. I shouldn’t have to go wandering the halls looking for a stapler. I’m a partner at a half-billion-dollar law firm. Staplers should be lining up at my desk, begging for me to use them. So should the young lawyers who think I know their names. The Short One, The Dumb One, The One With The Limp, The One Who’s Never Getting Married, The One Who Missed Her Kid’s Funeral—I don’t know who these people really are. You in the blue shirt—no, the other blue shirt—I need you to count the number of commas in this three-foot-tall stack of paper. Pronto. The case is going to trial seven years from now, so I’ll need this done by the time I leave the office today. Remember: I can make or break you. I hold your future in my hands. I decide whether you get a view of the ocean or a view of the dumpster. This isn’t a game. Get back to work. My secretary. My stapler. MY CANDY.

#Posted by Anonymous at 1:14 pm

ISBN10: 0805079815
ISBN13: 9780805079814

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Publication Date: July 25, 2006
Binding: Hardcover

tags: books book reviews Jeremy Blachman fiction weblogs Anonymous Lawyer