| December 25,
1998 Winter Birds by Jim Grimsley (1994). In the tradition of the Southern Gothic novel, Jim Grimsley writes about a South
that is stark and searing. His is a world of sad boys, long-suffering women, and sick men.
Yet a harsh beauty pervades his books, and his language and voice brings a shock of
recognition. This is a world of unbearable cruelty and unexpected kindness, a world where
dreams can provide a potent escape from life's ugliness.
Winter Birds, his first novel, is the story of the
Crell family, a poor Southern couple and their five children. Danny, the dream-lost and
sickly eldest boy, is the focal point of the book - and the story is told in the second
person, as if "you" are Danny. Grimsley makes this unusual style work better
than some writers use first- or third-person narrative, and it's a tribute to his skill
that the story engages the reader as it does. The novel traces Danny's life with his
family and his life in the dream world of River Man, contrasting the reality of the poor
white south with the richness of a child's interior life. Like Grimsley's Dream
Boy, the novel unfolds like a terrible secret that leaves you spinning - but the
experience is well worth the taking.
What Girls Learn
by Karin Cook. Sometimes a writer seems to capture the secret heart of childhood, the wonderful,
frightening reality of growing up. Anne Lamott did it in Crooked Little Heart.
Karin Cook has done it in What Girls Learn, her first novel.
The story of Tilden and Elizabeth and their mother, What
Girls Learn traces Tilden's passage through her early teen years. The novel
chronicles truthfully the difficulty of moving to a new home, the challenge of learning to
love a new father, the trauma of making friends and meeting boys, and all the emotional
changes of this time. Tilden's life is further marked by her mother's illness, and it is
that against which she comes to measure herself - her love, her fear, her greed and
hunger. Her honest, naked need for her mother is balanced by her own growing strength in
the face of difficulty.
This is a heartwrenching and beautiful book, fast to
read but hard to let go of. I held it in my heart, and ached for Tilden long after I'd
read the last page. I'll return to this chronicle of growing up, and look forward to Karin
Cook's next novel.
Good Omens
by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (1992). I
recently reread this book and was - yet again - struck by the humor and intelligence of
the writing, the story, and the characters. As other readers have noted, this is the
funniest book you will ever read about Armageddon.
Crowley and Aziraphale, a demon of hell and an angel of
heaven, are the earthly representatives of their respective homes. Their relationship is
only one of the best things about his book. Almost equally wonderful is the
witch, Anathema Device, and her meeting with her own personal witchfinder, Newton
Pulsifer. Then you have the Four Horsmen of the Apocolypse - and right behind them, the Other
Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse. Finally, there's Adam Young, the Antichrist, who steers
the world around Armageddon with all the wisdom and experience of a very smart, very
powerful eleven-year-old boy.
This is a delight of a book. Irreverent and funny - and
serious too - all at the same time. What kind of a world do we want to live in? We make it
what it is. Good Omens chronicles the worst and the best that is within our
reach. |
