Review: Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue

There was a different world in 1970’s America. Plenty of average, run of the mill teenagers were growing their hair long, doing drugs, preaching peace,  while some joined underground organizations bent on revolution and world salvation, their ears ringing from the reports of Vietnam and civil rights. The world, it has been said, was never to be the same, despite older generations’ desperate attempts to preserve life as they knew it.

Margaret Quinn had a quiet, rural Pennsylvania life; structured, simple, and average. Simple, that is, until her daughter Erica runs off with her boyfriend, Wiley, to travel across the country to join the underground movement of the Angels of Destruction whose goal it was to destroy the known world and recreate it in their vision. Erica disappeared without a trace, and left to her own devices Margaret slowly loses her composure and her grip on life.

Ten years later, the appearance of a ragged orphan on her doorstep one freezing cold night brings a new sense of purpose to Margaret’s life. But is this child, newly renamed Norah Quinn and passed off as Erica’s daughter, sent to live with her grandmother while her parents mended their relationship, an answer to Norah’s prayers? Readers follow a trail of mystery and tragedy throughout this work, all the while seeking answers to the same questions that plague the characters: Who is Norah Quinn? Where did she really come from? What has become of Erica during the past ten years? Is it possible that Angels walk among us, guiding our path through life and helping to atone for our sins?

The imagery and style of this book is beautiful. Paragraphs worth of descriptive material are so vivid and filled with wonderful comparisons that it is hard to remember one is reading a novel. The characters, as in any great work, appear so well crafted that it wouldn’t have been surprising to see them appear from the pages and walk about on their own accord. The story itself is fresh, creative, and portrayed extremely well. Divided into three sections, readers get a wonderful blend of back story and new action, and the story benefits greatly from this.

It’s hard to find much to fault in this book, and the only improvement I could even think to suggest would be that some conclusions were a little too loose for my liking. Two pivotal characters disappear fairly abruptly and without much explanation. The rest of the story is so well written that it’s easy to accept these instances as part of the natural fabric of the tale. However, Angels of Destruction is such a complex tale that I needed a day to digest what I had read, which gave me time to realize that I felt pieces of the puzzle were missing. It’s a bit unsettling to come to that conclusion, and I wonder if maybe that wasn’t the point Donohue was trying to make. If it’s possible for anyone to understand the puzzling sense of loss Margaret Quinn experienced without losing a child under such circumstances themselves, perhaps these loose ends accomplish such a feat.

4.5 of 5 stars.

The Secret Life of Bees: Conflicted

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The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Paperback: 336 pages

Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (January 28, 2003)

ISBN-10: 0142001740

This is the second time I’ve read this book. The first time was about four years ago, and what a difference four years and some personal growth makes.

The Secret Life of Bees follows Lily Owens, a 14 year old girl in 1964 South Carolina, during the year the Civil Rights Bill was signed. She lives with her father in rural farm country, growing peaches and being miserable. She’s not one of the popular kids, she’s not pretty, and she’s too smart for her father’s peace of mind. Her father, T. Ray, is verbally abusive and emotionally distant, and closed-mouthed about the events leading up to her mother’s death when Lily was four years old.

After an incident between Lily’s African-American nanny Rosaleen and a group of white men, Lily lands in trouble and Rosaleen lands in jail. In a fit of pure spunk, Lily breaks her out and they run away to Tiburon, a town who’s name Lily finds on the back of a picture of a Black Madonna that belonged to her mother. Once they reach the town, they meet the Boatwright sisters, a trio of independent African-American women who raise bees and stand as pillars in a community that worships the Black Mary. August, June, and May Boatwright may hold the secrets of Lily’s mother and her troubled past, and the ability to heal Lily of years of self-doubt and parental abuse.

When I first read this book, I loved it, and I still don’t think it’s a bad book. It has many thought provoking and touching moments, and I do believe Sue Monk Kidd wrote from the heart. Lily is a believable character, and her troubles, large and small, are things many teenagers go through, regardless of what point in history they live. And as a feminist, I like this book a lot because it’s all about women young and old taking charge of their lives as well as they can. But I don’t think the overall story is believable, and I don’t think it’s necessarily right that it was told from the perspective of a white girl.

I can very much see Lily’s personal narrative happening, in that she runs away and ends up staying with generous female figures. But I don’t think, during that time, they would have been black. If they had been black, I don’t see them wanting or having the ability, to take in a young white girl. In that day and age, I just don’t see that as being smart on the part of otherwise highly intelligent characters, or allowed by the white citizens of the town for that matter. And the ending, which I won’t spoil, is not realistic. I feel that there would have been too many repercussions to the final ending for those characters to make those choices.

I can truly see the history and lore of those women occurring during that time, but I don’t really like how that story has to be told out of the mouth (and eyes) of a white girl. If Sue Monk Kidd wanted to explore the feminist theology of the Black Madonna, why couldn’t she write it from the perspecitive of a young black girl being initiated into the society around her? Or being rescued by it, in a similar situation to Lily’s? Jump on me if you like, but the Boatwright sisters were turned into a trio of Magical Negros for the benefit of Lily. (Ah! Lily! As in lily white!!)

Every twist and turn of the story became a learning experience for Lily, to the detriment of the stories being told about the black women involved. Every event was an Event! that is there to teach Lily, and through her, the reader, a lesson about racial tension during the Civil Rights Era, or about inter-racial relations, or about people in general. The Messages were so loud sometimes that it was hard to hear the story.

These things don’t kill the book for me, but they were a constant thought in the back of my mind as I read. As I said, it’s still a good book, and I’ve been conflicted about this review for days now. I’d recommend it, just to get someone else’s opinion on it. Please, let me know what you think in the comments.

Book Review: The Time Traveler's Wife

Niffenegger, Audrey. The Time Traveler’s Wife. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2003.

Henry DeTamble is not an ordinary man. He has what a geneticist later describes as a kind of defect that makes it so that he inadvertently time travels. It leaves him in all sorts of predicaments, having to find clothes after each episode (which he describes almost as epileptic in nature) as he never can take a stitch of clothing or anything with him when it happens. A young girl named Clare encounters an older Henry when she is 6, and he convinces her he is a time traveler who stumbles by chance upon her. Over the years, she comes to know and love this older Henry… whose older self knows that eventually she will be his wife. He leaves her dates that he will appear because, although Clare lives her life chronologically, Henry is not bound by time. The book is pretty much the story of both of their lives, of the chaos of being an uncontrolled time traveler, and yet the classic story of how love overcomes all things. 

It was beautiful. For all its constant time and perspective changes, it reads very well. It’s somewhat like science fiction, but not quite. The characters are deep, and fully dimensional, the details incredibly real unlike some of the shallowly drawn fiction we commonly accept. It is pain and beauty- the bittersweet of reality married to fiction. My only criticism is that it contains a lot of graphic detail when it comes to numerous sex scenes. It’s not that they aren’t well written or don’t add to the depth of the love between the two main characters, but it’s just something I’d rather not read. This book is deep and well-educated, rich with allusions, details, and a well-constructed plot. I liked it overall. It leaves me a bit sad and wistful for my own love… but only the best really do that. 

Paper Towns - John Green

Quentin has lived his entire life next to Margo Roth Spieglemen, and have been secretly in love with her. One night Margo shows up at his window begging him to help her sneak out of her parents house and help her with her plans for that night. For some reason Quentin agrees and what ensues is a revelation about Margo and ultimately himself.

The next day after Quentin and Margo’s secret night escapades. Quentin imagines that this is the renewal of his friendship with Margo, and perhaps even more. However, Margo doesn’t show up that day, and later Quentin discovers that Margo has run away from home again.   Margo had always left clues before, by chance the Quentin discovers a poster on her blind that faces his room. As Quentin tries to investigate the poster he realizes the clues lead him through a few discoveries about Margo he never new.

“…And I could picture her again: she unravels the carpet halfway each night so her hip isn’t against the bare concrete as she lies on her side. She crawls beneath the blanket uses the rest of the carpet as a pillow, and sleeps. But why here? How is this better than home? And if it’s so great why leave? These are the things I cannot imagine, and I realize that I cannot imagine them because I didn’t know Margo. I knew how she smelled, and I knew how she acted in front of me, and I knew how she acted in front of others, and I knew she liked Mountain Dew and adventure and dramatic gestures, and I knew she was funny and smart and just generally more than the rest of us. But I didn’t know what brought her here, or what kept her here, or what made her leave. I didn’t know why she owned thousands of records but never told anyone she even liked music. I didn’t know what she did at night with the shades down, with the door locked, in the sealed privacy of her room…”

Once Quentin solves all the clues he realizes he has two days to meet Margo before she moves on again. So after graduation, all his friends help in driving non stop so he can meet her once more.

I really enjoyed this book for many reasons, but I guess the reason I liked it most was the not knowing of how it would turn out, as well as the process Quentin goes through realizing he never really new Margo. Something that makes me remember that there is a lot more to people than the small pieces we see everyday in our interactions with them.

A LIFE OF ONE'S OWN by Hilda Bernstein

A LIFE OF ONE’S OWN by Hilda Bernstein

This human interest story, contextualized by political and historical influences in Russia, reveals the hardships and tragedies experienced by Hilda’s father and her sister. 

Hilda was one of three sisters, born in England to non-practicing Jewish immigrants from Russia.  When she was only 10 years old, her father – a committed Bolshevik – returned to Russia, leaving his wife to raise the three girls alone.  Hilda would never see him again. 

A decade later, for entirely different reasons, Hilda’s sister would follow in her father’s footsteps and visit Russia.  Unforeseen circumstances and events beyond her sister’s control meant it would be 12 years before she returned home.

Through her father’s many letters she writes an account of his deep political convictions and his longing to see his family.  Hilda pieces together her sister’s account through the numerous essays she wrote while in “exile”. 

In hindsight everyone has clear vision, but for this family, while the events unfolded, lives were being changed and time together was lost forever. 

Against the backdrop of the First and Second World War the book captures the pain of loss and suffering, years of separation, the anguish of not knowing, trapped in a political regime where one has no control.  Despite the adversities experienced by her father and sister, it is also the story of determination and the survival of the human spirit against all odds.

First copyright dates: 2002

ISBN: 1-919931-08-02

White Fang

White Fang by Jack London

White Fang by Jack London

Originally published 1906

Airmont, 1st printing, 1964

192 pages

Genre: adventure, literature

Two men travel through the frozen Northland, intent on delivering their cargo-a fallen compatriot—to Fort McHenry. Death stalks them through the Wild in the form of a wolfpack, starving and implacable. One particularly cunning member is a she-wolf, who lures the pair’s sled dogs away from the safety of the fire into the pack’s ravening maw. One by one the dogs disappear, and one of the men succumbs. At the last moment, as the pack closes in on the last man, rescue comes.

From there the novel follows the she-wolf, running with the pack’s leader, One-Eye. When she whelps, he hunts for their family, until he is caught and killed by a lynx. After that, the she-wolf raises the puppies alone, through a famine that takes all but one of her cubs. The two are caught one day by the brother of the she-wolf’s former owner, Grey Beaver, and so the she-wolf—Kiche—and her cub leave the Wild to live with Man. In the Indian camp, the cub—named White Fang by Grey Beaver—learns the rules of Man, but is shunned by the other dogs, who view him as a wolf. White Fang learns to defend himself, becoming more savage and implacable than the other dogs who band against him. White Fang grows into a ferocious creature and  makes a name for himself as a killer of other dogs when Grey Beaver takes him on trading journeys along the Mackenzie River. When Grey Beaver heads to Fort Yukon for trade, White Fang accompanies him, becoming famous among the white men of the Gold Rush, too. It is here that White Fang catches the eye of Beauty Smith, a man ugly in both body and spirit. Coveting White Fang, Beauty offers Grey Beaver a trade, but is summarily refused. Cunningly, Beauty offers Grey Beaver alcohol, and when the Indian has exhausted all his resources buying and drinking more, Beauty returns; in his desperation, Grey Beaver trades White Fang for a bottle of liquor. Thriving on pain, Beauty torments White Fang, whipping him into an ever-greater frenzy of hatred, pain, and savagery. Fighting for Beauty, White Fang is reduced to his most primal state before the intervention of one Weedon Scott, who sets out to salvage him.

Due to their animal protagonists, London’s White Fang and The Call of the Wild are often viewed as juvenalia; indeed, I first read them in elementary school. However, London vividly depicts an unrelentingly savage world in both the wild and in man’s cities. Violence is common, whether it is the hunt for survival or cruelty as an exercise of power, but London does not moralize. Both White Fang and Beauty Smith are products of their environments; neither could have turned out any other way, and London condemns neither of them for behaving as such. A stark, largely unsentimental view of nature and civilization, White Fang exhibits the indomitable will to survive that London saw as essential and laudable, but survival is not the sole theme. When rescued by Scott, White Fang learns to temper loyalty with love, and is effectively civilized by Scott in California, just as Buck was de-civilized in the North. White Fang offers redemption, demonstrating that though circumstances shape us, as they change, so can we.

Cover: A totally bitchin’ painting depicts Kiche taunting the sled dogs she would later devour. Yeah! Fuck yeah!

Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness–a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.

16 May

Review-The Gathering, by Anne Enright

A Twist of the Grave

Anne Enright’s narrator in The Gathering, Veronica Hegarty, initially seems to be a petty, bitter woman, a woman who’s lost her way in a gaggle of siblings. She vibrates with anger over past hurts, and it seems she’s embarking on a journey to wallow in those hurts.  She doesn’t seem to know her true north, and her musings come across like gropes in the dark.  She is obviously grieving over her brother, Liam’s, suicide, and she reveals that she is not “properly alive” (80); that, like her former lover, Michael Weiss, she merely exists.  The difference between them, she says, is that he chose “just to exist [to] see what came his way” (81).   Most striking is her rage at her mother for bearing so many children, which the reader may, at first, interpret to actually be anger that her mother doesn’t know her name.   This notion is dispelled when Veronica inwardly erupts after dealing with the undertaker.  She considers her “child-battered body [and is] proud of it…for the people that came out of it, feeding the grave.  Feeding the grave!” (79)  A-ha, says the reader.  This, then, is a story about grief.  But no—and yes.   Yes; Veronica moves through the stages of grieving; she speaks of her memories and current experiences as though she is remembering them right now, going back and retracing the memory if she realizes she doesn’t have it right, or if she is lying to herself and the reader, and Enright presents the story as though it were a dialogue between two close friends.  However, Veronica is also on a quest for the truth of her past, for the truth, period, for, as she says, the dead require it.  Her quest begins in a haze of denial, not just regarding the fact of Liam’s death, but regarding their shared past; it begins with feeding the grave and ends with cam reilige, a twist of the grave that unexpectedly and ironically offers hope.

After Veronica breaks the news of Liam’s death to her mother, she muses about her grandmother’s romance with Lambert Nugent.  Here, she says, is where the seeds of Liam’s death were strewn.   She concocts a story about Ada’s and Nugent’s first encounter, and it isn’t until she’s moved through this short tale to the end that the reader realizes that she’s invented it, and then the reader wonders why.  It seems odd, and it creates a surreal sense that the narrator is about to lead us on a labyrinthine path to nowhere.  Can Veronica be trusted to tell us the truth about anything?   This surreal quality is embedded throughout the entire narrative, and for good reason:  this is how the mind works when working through the grieving process, and we are there with Veronica each step of the way.

Veronica brings us home to her husband, whom she alternately despises and loves.  She’s almost apologetic about this, but defiantly honest.  Her mind jumps to other childhood experiences, then it’s back in the present, dealing with everyday minutiae and funeral arrangements, then it’s back in the past again.  And she ruefully acknowledges that she sucks:  “If someone sucks, then they are the worst possible type,” she says, then she ends up “sitting still while the loud world passes by, with a long coffee spoon in my mouth, sucking” (83).

Veronica’s persistence in rooting out old memories is a means to survive.  “This is how we all survive,” she says.  “We default to the oldest scar” (97).   But as it turns out, Veronica’s oldest scar does not lie in Ada’s past but in her own, although she believes it is Liam’s wound:  at first she remembers seeing Liam molested by Nugent, but later on the memory turns out to be her own.  Again, there is a surreal quality to the memory, and neither the reader nor Veronica is certain whose memory it is.  Perhaps the memory belongs to Veronica, Liam, and Kitty, since all three of them lived in the house where the abuse occurred.  Perhaps, in fact, it belonged to all of the children.  This is left to the reader to decide.

In the beginning, Veronica is railing against her mother’s incessant breeding, and it seems this is her wild grief talking.  She’s just lost her brother, and is now faced with both her own mortality and that of her siblings.  In the end, however, Enright tantalizes the reader with the possibility that Veronica may either be pregnant or would welcome it.  This is ironic because of Veronica’s refusal to attend the funeral of another relative when she was pregnant with her first-born, Rebecca; she was afraid of cam reilige, the twist of the grave, because it could have a decidedly negative effect on her baby.  That Veronica is now “falling into [her] life” after dealing with Liam’s death is indeed, a twist of the grave.