Firmin begins life at a disadvantage. Born the runt of the litter to an alcholic mother sheltering in the basement of an independent bookstore, Firmin begins to eat pages of books in order to survive. When Firmin realizes the books he’s digested have given him the ability to read, his love affair with literature is born. Existing through a daily diet of nourishing classics, Firmin quickly becomes an outsider existing in a no-mans land between what he is (a rat) and what he wishes to be (human). Sam Savage’s Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife can be read as a quirky little tale about the book-loving rat in all of us, or as a philosophical look at life. It is a witty novella and a powerful homage to a life lived through and around books and the enduring influence of great writers.

Firmin’s initial consumption is rather indiscriminate, one book tasting much like any other. Soon however, Firmin notices subtle flavour differences between works and as his understanding of literature develops, his need for literal consumption diminishes. Firmin reads and “lets the books center my dreams, and sometimes I dreamed myself back into the books.” Any true booklover has often wished to disappear into a book; the weak becomes strong, the housebound travels and the voiceless thunders speeches to the masses. Firmin finds relief from his outsider status by becoming the characters, “I must constantly remind myself, sometimes by means of a rap on the head, that Eisenhower is real while Oliver Twist is not.”

The name Firmin comes from the Latin Firminus meaning “firm” and is the name of several early saints, but Firmin the rat is anything but firm or saintly. He worships at and is torn between two temples; Pembroke Books and the Rialto movie theatre; knowledge and lust; sages and his “lovelies” (the ethereal actresses that parade nude through the late night movies at the Rialto).

Savage positions before the reader these two elemental aspects of humanity; the earthy nature of the body and the spiritual realm of the mind. By casting this dichotomy into the body of a conscious rat, he is able to mock our delusions and perceptions. Holding a mirror up to our souls in the character of Firmin, we question our essential selves and our understanding of reality. Should our perceptions be taken as true or, like Firmin, do we delude ourselves into believing we are other than what we are?

Both of Firmin’s temples offer an escape from reality and the pull from both is strong. By casting the theatre into the role of seducer, Savage resurrects the worry that movies will destroy books. While today it is clear that books have survived the assault of movies and television, the concern for the relevance of the great works of literature in modern society continues.

Savage holds a doctoral degree in Philosophy from Yale University so it should come as no surprise that this slim volume is full of more questions than answers. Whether Firmin, capable of consciousness and immersion into the great works of fiction, is a better mirror for humanity’s frailities because he is a rat is difficult to state. What is apparent is that Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife merits repeated readings for Savage has filled its pages with much food for thought. This gem of a book should be a treasured addition to any bibliophile’s bookshelf.

See the review posted at ReadySteadyBooks – Firmin.

Daniel Musgrove’s family has moved six times in 10 years. That’s what happens when your Dad is a saleman for TriDex, a company that moves its sales force around every year or two to keep them on their toes. Daniel’s mother is thrilled to be moving home to the south, closer to family and a place where her toes will finally be warm, but the Musgrove children are decidedly unhappy.

Things quickly go from bad to crazy in characteristic Mark Childress style. On the drive to Mississippi the van carrying all the Musgroves’ belongings is destroyed in an accident. Daniel and his siblings start at their new school on the first day of court-ordered integration. A few months later their Granny dies and crazy Uncle Jacko comes to live with them. All of these are minor happenings compared to Arnita Beecham, a beautiful black girl, winning Prom Queen and, later the same night, being run down by another student as she bicycles home. Suddenly the hidden tensions rise to the surface, spiraling ever further out of control. The match that finally sets it all alight – Arnita comes out of her coma believing she is white.

One Mississippi carries on in the trademark narrative style of Crazy in Alabama and Tender, a form descended from generations of front porch storytelling sessions – luminously descriptive, yet full of caustic wit. Childress peoples his novels with exaggerated characters, misguided do-gooders and desperate loners, all in their own way demanding the reader’s empathy and understanding. The South is a strong character by itself in Childress’ novels, for it is only in these expertly crafted settings that his novels can exist. Time and place demand as much attention as the people strolling casually across the page.

Childress writes coming of age stories particularly well, effortlessly transporting the reader to the awkward days of adolescence.

“In high school it’s all about how you walk down the hall – whether you stroll through the flow or dart along the edges, whether you hold the stack of books on your hip with one hand (guys) or press them two-handed to your chest (sissies and girls.) Notes are scribbled and passed, rumors fanned and blown down the hall.”

One Mississippi feels like you’ve stepped into a world where the air is thick enough to chew, the lemonade is tart enough to kill a three-day thirst and the neighbours are friendly enough to invite y’all over for some southern fried chicken. This is the perfect read for the long, hot days of summer.

See the review at Armchair Interviews: One Mississippi.

“…stimulating the memory was as much a manipulation of the past as banning it.”

The Ministry of Pain (Ministarstvo boli) explores what it means to be a refuge, to live in exile from your country. Told through the eyes of Tanja Lucic, a temporary teacher in the Department of Slavonic Languages at the University of Amsterdam, Dubravka Ugreši?’s novel follows Tanja’s journey as she and her students explore their memories of a lost country, language and the meaning of language.

Throughout The Ministry of Pain, Ugreši? invokes the idea that the life of an exile is like living in a fairy tale or a parallel world. Early in the novel Tanja states:

“I had the feeling I might well – if like Alice I should lose my footing and fall into a hole – end up in a third or fourth parallel world, because Amsterdam itself was my own parallel world. I experienced it as a dream, which meant it resonated with my reality. I tried to puzzle it out just as I tried to interpret my dreams.”

Fairy tales provide resolution, heros winning and justice prevailing. In a world of chaos, Ugreši? expresses that the simple plots and “literary heroes who are brave when ordinary people are cowardly, strong when ordinary people are weak, noble and good when people are mean and ignominious,” are what appeal in a country where “languages were used to curse, humiliate, kill, rape, and expel.”

For émigrés, exile means defeat and dysfunction. On her return from a trip to Zagreb, Tanja meets another émigré who councils her to forget anything as a way to create a new life for herself. Through his voice, Ugreši? suggests that for émigrés time moves slower than reality. Those left behind have moved on and adapted to the new reality while émigrés are still stuck in their own time. The return home means a return of the memories, and a search for a fairy tale land that no longer exists. To achieve peace and a release from the past, émigrés must forget using the “miraculous little erasers we all have in our brains.”

Ugreši?’s fundamental questions appear to be these: For those lost in time and place, does forced remembrance equal torture? Can pain lead to reconciliation, a penance that allows émigrés to live outside their former country without guilt? Ugreši? has created a novel that leaves the questions without answer, compelling each reader to search inside for an answer.

In The Ministry of Pain, there is much discussion among Tanja’s students on the value of Yugonostalgia: the yearning for a country and culture that have vanished into the maw of history. Ugreši?’s gift is in creating a novel that functions both as Yugonostalgia and a paean to the resilience of the human spirit.

Dubravka Ugreši? was born in the former Yugoslavia (Croatia), left her homeland in the 1993 and currently resides in The Netherlands. A novelist, essayist, and literary scholar, The Ministry of Pain is her seventh work to be published. Her books have been translated into over twenty languages. Ugreši? has received several international awards, including the Italian Premio Feronia 2004 (previously awarded to José Saramago, J.M. Coetzee, Günter Grass, Ismail Kadare, and Nadine Gordimer).

Michael Henry Heim, a professor of Slavic languages and literature at UCLA, translates works written in Russian, Czech, German, Serbo-Croatian. The Ministry of Pain is the fourth work by Ugreši? in whose translation he has been involved.

See the review posted at Curled Up with a Good Book – The Ministry of Pain.

In 2004 the London International Book Fair held its inaugural “Lit Idol” contest modeled on the popular “Pop Idol” television show. Submitted as a 10,000-word manuscript, with accompanying two-page story outline, Paul Cavanagh’s After Helen was selected as winner out of a field of 1,500 competitors. Cavanagh’s completed novel (substantially more than 10,000-words) was picked up by HarperCollins Canada and released with a relative lack of fanfare when compared to the publicity surrounding his “Lit Idol” win.

After Helen is the story of the relationship between Irving Cruickshank and his daughter Severn, as they deal with the death of Helen. Irving, still reeling from the loss of his wife, has no idea how to deal with a teenage daughter. Severn, walled up inside herself with grief and anger, is quickly spinning out of control.

The match thrown into this powder keg is the reappearance of famous author Jack Livingston, Helen’s old lover. He is in town to promote his new novel – a tale of a young girl’s search for the truth about her bloodline, and a mother who has left her, set against the backdrop of Sir John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition. After meeting Jack at a book signing, Severn disappears and Irving’s memories of Helen come brilliantly to life as he chases the daughter he fears lost to him forever.

The question critics and readers will ask is this – does this “Lit Idol” winning, debut novel measure up to the bar set by its early promise?

Cavanagh chose to structure his novel in a discordant manner, alternating chapters told in the past and present. The reader is on a journey of discovery with Irving; however, we have only the briefest hint of current knowledge against which to position the flashes of his developing relationship with Helen. This disjointed narrative is unsettling for the reader, pushing one into feelings of anxiety and unease that invoke an immediate empathy for Severn and Irving.

Despite the deep connection the reader feels with Irving, the roller coaster of emotion brought on by the flashes between the birth of his relationship with Helen, and life after her death, quickly becomes overwhelming. Empathy turns to frustration as Irving’s tendency to function as an emotional doormat becomes more apparent. Just as the reader wants to leave the ride behind, Cavanagh pulls the book back onto the rails by having the storylines of the past and present converge.

Like the fictional author Jack Livingston, Cavanagh has taken a true-life plot and used it to cast light on modern day relationships. Whereas Livingston used Helen’s story to cast light on Franklin’s doomed expedition, Cavanagh has used the obsession of the explorer with the frozen north to look at the emotional wastelands that exist after a family member dies.

“Severn and I are no different. We’ve both become lost searching for Helen in a landscape of bitter emotions that we can barely begin to understand. It’s about our own survival now.”

Emlyn Rees, one of the “Lit Idol” judges, commented on Cavanagh’s eye for the little details that bring characters to life. It is his skill in evoking the sense of a character that distinguishes After Helen.

“I claw my way to the edge of the bed. I can’t summon the energy to sit up, so I lie on my belly and let my legs slide off the bed until I’m kneeling on the floor, my face still planted on the mattress…I feel like a little kid saying his bedtime prayers.”

Cavanagh has shaped engaging, realistic characters and, despite some irritation with Irving and Helen, After Helen is a promising debut. The little details show his developing ease with his craft, and vindicate Cavanagh’s win of the inaugural “Lit Idol”.

See the review posted at ReadySteadyBook: After Helen

In a complete departure from her previous novels, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s third novel is a modern retelling of Richard Strauss’s comic opera Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose). Set in Manhattan and the Hamptons, The White Rose is the story of Marian Kahn, a professor and discoverer of the eighteenth-century adventuress, Lady Charlotte Wilcox, and Marian’s much younger lover Oliver, son of her oldest friend. Married for many years, and comfortably settled in her relationship, Marian is stunned to discover the passion that explodes when she meets a grown-up Oliver. Their relationship is a source of joy and misery for Marian, one that is made more difficult by the arrival of Marian’s cousin Barton, in town to announce his engagement to Sophie, a young graduate student in Marion’s department. As the lives of the four become increasingly entwined, Korelitz has many opportunities to meditate on love and its relationship to time.

Compared by many reviewers to Edith Wharton, Korelitz has a keen eye for the vagaries of the privileged classes. Reexamining New York Society’s views on adultery, social climbing, wealth and status, Korelitz presents the old money position through the characters of Marian and Caroline, Oliver’s mother, and the cutting views of gossip columnist Valerie Annis. The satire on this position is represented by Marian’s cousin Barton and contrary views are portrayed through Oliver, with much of the commentary coming in the voice of the adventuress Lady Charlotte.

One of the central points explored in The White Rose is whether happiness can come from wealth or status. Marian suggests that if people followed the example set by Lady Charlotte, they’d be happier.

“If she [Lady Charlotte] had gotten too attached to the idea of happiness coming from wealth or status, she would have spent most of her life feeling that she’s lost her chance to be happy, but she never linked those ideas together.”

Marian seems to be questioning herself in this passage, raising the question of why she can’t be free like Lady Charlotte and be happy with Oliver, overturning the status quo and walking away from society’s expectations of her. The characters in The White Rose fall out on two sides of this entrenched debate, lined up in the camps that fit with their place in New York Society’s hierarchy. Caught up in Society’s expectations, Marian seems unable to stir from the torpor induced by her wealth and position. Her minor rebellions from this set role – her affair with Oliver, publishing her work on Lady Charlotte and her relationship with Soriah, a fan of her book – still are not enough to enable her to follow the lead set by the adventuress.

Despite Marian’s mundane existence, she seems to exist in a world apart, her own “Aubergine Time”:

“There is a time in each day that is neither afternoon nor evening but something breathless in suspension between them when every particle of air is briefly infused with fierce, fierce color, one instant so utterly there, than gone.”

The White Rose provides a window into this time in Marian’s life, that moment when she is poised to choose between what is comfortable and a chance at happiness. Marian’s story causes us all to question what we would do when faced with our own “Aubergine Time.”

Jean Hanff Korelitz is the author of a book of poems, The Properties of Breath, and two previous legal thrillers, A Jury Of Her Peers and The Sabbathday River. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey with her husband, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon, and their children.

See the review as it is posted at Curled Up with a Good Book: The White Rose.

The Seas, Samantha Hunt’s debut novel, relates the coming of age story of a nameless 19-year-old young woman as she struggles to free herself from small town life and a terrifying destiny. Branded by her father’s suicidal walk into the ocean eleven years earlier, and by his insistence that she is a mermaid, the narrator is consumed by her love for the Gulf War Veteran Jude – to the point that it begins to affect her vision. Terrified that her mermaid self will destroy the object of her love, and isolated from a mother who “collects silence inside her”, the narrator spends her time waiting:

“Waiting to grow up. Waiting for my father to return. Waiting for Jude. Waiting for something big to happen.”

Caught in a place between reality and myth, her delusions lead to actions that ensure she will never escape the ocean’s pull and her increasing separation from reality.

Hunt has created a poignant yet creepy novel, filled with images of water that seem to overwhelm the narrator. Desperate to fulfill her destiny, yet caught by her obsessive love for Jude, this young woman is caught by the dilemma faced by Undine, the Elemental of Water and goddess portrayed by Homer. Her love for Jude threatens her true destiny as a water spirit, only through loving him and giving herself to him can she truly become a woman and gain a soul. Isolated from her mother, the young woman has only her father’s mythology and her own desires to guide her into womanhood.

Capturing the essence of mermaid, or water spirit, legends in The Seas helps Hunt create a truly unique tale that illuminates her personal views on being a young woman in modern times. Hunt describes her choice of topic thus:

“Mermaids, as of late, have been co-opted by Hallmark, Disney, and the like. But mermaids are terrifying…They are gruesome distortions of the female form that speak to the human fear of females, particularly females as sexual beings. I thought using a mermaid as narrator would be helpful in explaining how truly awkward it feels to grow from adolescence into a woman in America.”

Hunt creates a mythology that suggests by remaining cold, a true mermaid, the narrator can gain freedom. She must put her father and Jude behind her, and adopt the attitude of the ocean, which “is full of everything except mercy.” If she doesn’t she is destined to suffer a fate similar to Undine, drowning her love with her kisses.

Words have power in The Seas – literal power. The narrator, falling on type, finds the letters have formed words in her bruises. Words also are the narrator’s only connection to her perceived reality, represented by her grandfather and his fascination with dictionaries. Her mother, used to silence, finds words too precise. The narrator finds water full of words with many possible meanings. It is here that Hunt leaves the reader – a novel that is open to whatever ending each finds within the words.

Samantha Hunt, an artist, writer and teacher at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, spent four years writing The Seas. As she explains in an interview with Powell Books:

“First I wrote this book as a collection of two-hundred-fifty-word stories. Two hundred of them. Then I put it aside and I had the bad idea to write it as a book of poems, which is around somewhere still. But I put it aside again, and when I went back to it I made it into The Seas. That’s why the novel took four years.”

Her next novel – The Invention of Everything Else – on the life of Nikola Tesla and early electrical experiments in America, is to be published by Houghton Mifflin in Spring 2007.

See the review as it is posted at Curled Up with a Good Book – The Seas.

“I learned the constellations when I was little…At one time, I believed the mythological creatures and objects were truly there, held in place by giant pins. The light points of their configurations, you see. I thought if any of those pins came loose, they would be at the mercy of thin air – and they’d fall to the ground and crush me. So for a couple of years, I’d only go outside on cloudy nights. I decided that would give them something on which to land, other than me.”

An astonishing novel is always a gift to readers but, when that gift comes as a debut novel, the reader is left floundering. How can this illuminating author be so in tune with her craft so early in her career? Ronlyn Domingue has gifted the world with a literary novel that is unique on so many levels; a novel that compels the reader to think and to challenge their conception of reality and love, as well as the construction of the novel itself.

The Mercy of Thin Air is first and foremost a novel of discovery. Set in the past, present and “between”, on the surface level, it tells the story of Raziela Nolan, who dies before experiencing most of life. Razi reflects on growing in the 1920s as a woman determined to become a doctor and who becomes a fierce advocate for women’s emancipation and reproductive rights. Through her narration, readers are slowly drawn into the story of her love affair with Andrew and the circumstances of her death. Interspersed into these reminiscences, Razi spies on the turbulent relationship of Amy and Scott, a young couple whose home she currently inhabits.

On a deeper level, this novel delves into philosophy, on the nature of love and loss, existence and memory. Grief defines characters in The Mercy of Thin Air. It is a buffeting force that polishes some into individuals who are lean in emotion, able to withstand the all-consuming nature of grief. Others give into loss and live in the pit of despair. Domingue provides readers with subtle examples of the role this enigmatic emotion can play in our lives and beyond. Emotions, for some, are the mooring that holds us in place – the pins – which can be dislodged by an overflowing of strong feelings, leaving us in a free-fall where anything can happen. This theme – “the mercy of grief” – creates a strong foundation in the novel.

The Mercy of Thin Air also provides an interesting insight into the history of women’s rights. Both Razi and Amy are heavily involved in activism and it is this political aspect of their natures which draws Razi to explore the mysteries surrounding Amy’s life. Domingue cleverly utilizes this plot line to force readers to confront their personal views on reproductive and gender issues.

The Mercy of Thin Air began as a short story, with the second draft being submitted as Domingue’s thesis at Louisiana State University. The comparisons to Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones are inevitable but, as Domingue states in an interview with Cynthia Harrison (February 12, 2006):

“As for The Lovely Bones, it wasn’t an influence. The Mercy of Thin Air began as a short story in January 1999, and I started to work on it as a novel shortly after that. I didn’t read Sebold’s novel until I was nearly done with the last draft of The Mercy of Thin Air. I was curious about her novel but didn’t read it so that it wouldn’t interfere with my creative process. I knew comparisons would be inevitable, and I wanted to be prepared when agents and others asked.”

The character of Lionel, someone Razi meets “between”, acts as the “chorus” – asking the questions Razi is unable to and focusing the reader’s mind on the nature of existence. What is the nature of those “between” and how is it that they still “are”? Domingue has addressed that question by researching quantum physics and various religions and philosophies, all of which play a part in shaping this extraordinary novel. She allows the question to exist throughout and she forces readers to draw their own conclusions, rather than taking the easy way out by answering.

In the end, The Mercy of Thin Air is a different novel for every reader. For some, it relates the quantum physics answer that all possible actions/lives exist at once. For others, it is the Buddhist concept that the past, present, and future are all found in the present moment. Still others will find it to be, as Domingue states, “…about how fragile we are as physical and spiritual beings.”

See the review as it is posted at Curled Up with a Good Book – The Mercy of Thin Air.

This is a list of the novels (non-category) that I’ve reviewed to date.

* The Virgin of Flames – Chris Abani

* Haunting Bombay – Shilpa Agarwal

* Chicago – Alaa Al Aswany

* The Blood of Flowers – Anita Amirrezvani

* The Annotated Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen, annotated and edited by David M. Shapiro

* The Brooklyn Follies – Paul Auster

* Samedi the Deafness – Jesse Ball

* The Way Through Doors – Jesse Ball

* The Butterfly Workshop – Gioconda Belli

* Anonymous Lawyer: a Novel – Jeremy Blachman

* Warrior and Witch – Marie Brennan

* The Brief History of the Dead – Kevin Brockmeier

* The View from the Seventh Layer – Kevin Brockmeier

* Boomsday – Christopher Buckley

* Wonderful World – Javier Calvo

* My Lady of Cleves – Margaret Campbell Barnes

* Famous Writers School: a Novel – Steven Carter

* After Helen – Paul Cavanagh

* One Mississippi – Mark Childress

* The Nature of Monsters – Clare Clark

* The Rain Before It Falls – Jonathan Coe

* Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee

* The Book of Lost Things – John Connolly

* Out of Character – Vanessa Craft

* The Saffron Kitchen: a Novel – Yasmin Crowther

* The Dead Fish Museum: Stories – Charles D’Ambrosio

* Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly – Robert Dalby

* House of Many Gods – Kiana Davenport

* Goodbye Lemon – Adam Davies

* The Thin Place – Kathryn Davis

* Spinning Dixie – Eric Dezenhall

* The Mercy of Thin Air – Ronlyn Domingue

* The House of Paper – Carlos María Domínguez

* The Stolen Child – Keith Donohue

* The Best Place to Be – Lesley Dormen

* The Memory Keeper’s Daughter – Kim Edwards

* The Ministry of Special Cases – Nathan Englander

* Troubling Love – Elena Ferrante

* Enchantments – Linda Ferri

* My Name is Bosnia – Madeleine Gagnon

* Contagion – Patrick M. Garry

* The Dodecahedron or A Frame for Frames: a novel of sorts – Paul Glennon

* Queen of the Underworld – Gail Godwin

* Three Views of Crystal Water – Katherine Govier

* The Uncrowned Queen – Posie Graeme-Evans

* The Color of a Dog Running Away – Richard Gwyn

* Austenland: a Novel – Shannon Hale

* The Rhythm of the Road: a Novel – Albyn Leah Hall

* The Priest’s Madonna – Amy Hassinger

* The Secret of Lost Things – Sheridan Hay

* Ticknor – Sheila Heti

* The Exquisite – Laird Hunt

* The Seas – Samantha Hunt

* The Friday Night Knitting Club – Kate Jacobs

* The Marble Orchard – Paul Johnson

* The Attack – Yasmina Khadra

* Mission to America – Walter Kirn

* The White Rose – Jean Hanff Korelitz

* Kabbalah: a Love Story – Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

* The Girls – Lori Lansens

* The Boat – Nam Le

* Lavinia – Ursula K. LeGuin

* A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian – Marina Lewycka

* The Inhabited World – David Long

* Family Planning – Karan Mahajan

* Foreign Tongue – Vanina Marsot

* Remainder – Tom McCarthy

* Church of the Dog – Kaya McLaren

* The Brambles – Eliza Minot

* The Rest of Her Life – Laura Moriarty

* The Restoration of Emily – Kim Moritsugu

* Natural Flights of the Human Mind – Clare Morrall

* Wizard of the Crow – Ngugi wa Thiong’o

* The Feline Plague – Maja Novak

* Gods Behaving Badly – Marie Phillips

* The End of the Alphabet – CS Richardson

* Homeland – Paul William Roberts

* The Rent Collector – B. Glen Rotchin

* Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife – Sam Savage

* Black & White – Dani Shapiro

* Was She Pretty? – Leanne Shapton

* Work Shirts for Madmen – George Singleton

* Maddalena: Book One of The Golden Tripolis Trilogy – Eva Jana Siroka

* The Man of My Dreams – Curtis Sittenfeld

* Salmon Fishing in Yemen – Paul Torday

* The Ministry of Pain – Dubravka Ugreši?

* Petropolis – Anya Ulinich

* Innocent Traitor – Alison Weir

* Angelos – Robina Williams

Enchantments, originally published in Italy (1997) under the title Incantesimi, is Linda Ferri’s debut novel. Told in a series of 25 short vignettes, it is narrated by an unnamed Italian girl in the style of a memoir, from the toddler to early teen years. The narrator and her family move from Italy to Paris during the opening scene of this small novel. What follows is an intimate tale of a family whose dynamics are illuminated through summers in Italy, a visit to America and winters in Paris.

Making a cohesive whole out of such a small book is a challenge for any author, but to carry it out in a debut novel and have it result in such a strong voice is a trademark of a gifted new author. Everything about this book is intimate, from the size of the book (measuring only 7.4” x 4.7”) to the length of each vignette to the fact that the narrator is never named, although the reader learns the names of all her family members.

Ferri captures the dreamy sense of wonder that permeates a child’s life. She uses language to tantalize the reader, drawing one into the world she has created. “…so the fear dissolved, reduced to a bit of a mystery I carried in my pocket when I made a foray up to the attic or down to the cellar.” Alone the words don’t have much meaning, but the feeling they evoke is of being privy to a private world and language, one inhabited by a creative child who enjoys making words dance and play.

The distinct chapter titles also add to the dream-like state engendered by this novella. Titles such as “the castrator,” “perfidy” or “dame dame” add to the mystery, impelling the reader to journey with Ferri just a little longer until, suddenly, the narration ends and the reader is shaken rudely awake.

Woven throughout the vignettes is the narrator’s dynamic relationship with her father. She loves him, fears him, is embarrassed by him, and even though she is fond of him, she “would like him better if he were a woman.” Here too, in describing these moments of tension, Ferri’s masterful use of language is present. “…and I know the chain has snapped: he’s not barking anymore, he’s ready to bite.” Seen through the eyes of a child, this novel provides masterful insight into a marriage created by two volatile personalities.

Originally published in Italian, Linda Ferri did her own translation for the French edition. For this English edition she called upon John Casey, one of the pupils she tutored in Italian. Casey (whose first translation was Alessandro Boffa’s You’re such an Animal Viskovitz! – Knopf, 2002) is a gifted translator – he has maintained Ferri’s distinctive voice and playfulness of language yet provided a work that flows as gracefully as if it was written in English.

In her other life, Ferri writes screenplays and this has definitely influenced her stylistically. Her use of language in Enchantments has a cinegraphic quality, painting pictures in the mind of the long, hot summer days of childhood when the worst that could happen was stubbing a toe.

See the review as it appears at Curled Up with a Good Book – Enchantments.

The shrinking population of the Aboriginal Fulfilled Apostles (AFA) has led to a crisis – new bloodlines must be introduced into the community if they wish the community to continue, as it has done for more than 147 year. This isolationist sect has lived apart from mainstream society, tucked into the hills of rural Montana and led by matriarchs, who follow the edicts of their Seeress to maintain a life of modesty and nutritional vigilance called Edenic Nutritional Science. The only wealthy member of the faith, Ennis Lauer, has hand-picked a group of young men to prepare for an unheard-of mission – seeking out “brides” in mainstream America. Mission to America tells the story of one of these pairs of young men, Mason LaVerle and Elder Stark, as they leave Bluff, Montana and travel to Colorado in a decrepit van, bringing their message of clean living and healthy digestion to world-weary Americans.

Walter Kirn’s fifth novel focuses on Mason, a naif bewildered by the choices and depravity all around them as they begin their journey. Dressed to look like Jehovah’s Witnesses’ younger cousins (to take advantage of the good will that group has engendered), they follow the techniques taught by Ennis Lauer – essentially sale closing techniques used by con men and used car salesmen.

Where Mason’s overriding characteristics are naïveté and a calm presence, Elder Stark’s are all sharp edges and chaotic energy. Asserting his leadership in their relationship early on, Stark quickly develops a maniacal appetite for reality television and the worst of America’s junk food. His character soon belies the images created by his name, becoming the polar opposite – a beast controlled by his appetites. These appetites are what make him the natural choice as Lauer’s ambassador in his bid to usurp leadership of the AFA.

When lampooning America’s hunger for spiritual gurus, Kirn is at his best. Using Mason to mirror America’s lack of moral compass works to illuminate the fear and dearth of spirituality at the core of most of the selfish choices made each day. In a post 9-11 world, this novel can be read as an indictment of the spiritual journey upon which many Americans claim to have embarked although in reality, they are caught up in the soulless world of reality TV and idle consumerism. Occasionally he gets bogged down in describing the belief system and mythology of the faith he has created but at its core, this is a strong, thought-provoking and humourous novel.

Mission to America leaves the reader questioning the nature of faith, the quest for understanding and wondering how much of Kirn’s early childhood experiences with the Mormon church are reflected within the character of Mason.

See the review as it appears at Armchair Interviews – Mission to America.