One
Claire Tomalin's The Invisible
Woman, a non-fiction work about Nelly Ternan, the supposed
mistress of Charles Dickens [not enough evidence to confirm it, but
the speculation runs high], does a thorough business of looking at
this nineteenth century actress and her relationship with Dickens,
but Tomalin's not convincing.
Since most of Dickens personal letters
were destroyed at his request, what little remains of his
correspondence has been studied extensively, not only by Tomalin but
by others who desired to determine that Dickens had a mistress.
Why did they care? Did it affect how he
wrote? What he wrote? His characters?
*shrugs*
Tomalin divided
her work into three parts. The first division, and the most
interesting, covered the background of the Terman family with an in
depth look at nineteenth century English theater and stage. The
second section, and the least compelling, delved into the supposed
two year intense relationship between Dickens and Terman, and the
last documented the life of the Terman family after the death of
Dickens.
Nelly Ternan led a
strange life that's for sure, but what influence she had, if any, on
Charles Dickens sure encouraged Tomalin to write a long book about her.
As much as I love
the work of Charles Dickens, this book is a skip her.
Ha.
BTW: I now have
Tomalin's book on Thomas Hardy.
*shakes head*
Two
Published in 2009,
Abraham Verghese's Cutting for
Stone seemed to be on the reading lists of everyone I knew
who was in a book club at the time. So many people asked me, “Have you read
Cutting for Stone?” I'd answer in the negative.
Now, I have read
it, and --- well...
Marion and Shiva
Stone, born to Sister Mary Joseph Praise and Thomas Stone in Addis
Ababa in 1954, are immediately orphaned. Their mother dies on the
birthing table – the boys are co-joined, and their father, a gifted
surgeon, flees the scene and abandons his children. Another doctor,
Dr. Kalpana Hemlatha, known as Hema, and Dr. Abhi Ghosh take on the
young boys and raise them. Thus begins the saga of the twins, a story
told mainly in flashback by the oldest of the twins, Marion.
A hefty novel
chronicling in detail and sometimes almost day by day events of
Missing Hospital and the lives of the four main characters, the
graphic violence and turn-the-stomach surgical procedures caused me
to scan pages to get the gist of it since the descriptions were too
much.
The title of the
novel comes from the Hippocratic oath, but I think it's a pun. That's
just me, though.
Eh.
Three
As much as I
enjoyed Richard Russo's memoir Elsewhere about his mother, the
story made me ache.
Growing up as an
only child of a single mother in upstate New York, Russo considered
his unusual circumstances normal. After all, his father, a gambler,
a WW2 veteran, and a drunk, stayed nearby, and his maternal
grandparents lived downstairs. His mother had a decent
job, provided for him, and what she couldn't do, his extended family, an aunt and uncle,
pitched in as they lived two streets over.
So what's wrong?
According to Russo's absent but around the corner father, “you do
know you're mother is nuts, right?” This statement delivered to
Russo when he was twenty sent him reeling.
What? Nuts?
And “nuts” it
seemed Jean Russo was. Intertwining her life with that of her son's
didn't seem too odd to Rick until he applied for a college
scholarship to the University of Arizona. When he received it, she
announced to him that she was going with him ---not to college but to
a town close by where she would get a job and be nearby. Packing up
all they had, they drove cross country to their “new” life.
Nearby Russo
became where his mother was and had to be for the rest of her life -- another almost thirty years.
As crazy as Jean
Russo seemed, her son wrote her sympathetically. Each time Jean Russo
went into breakdown mode, her son came to her rescue and nursed her
through her “fugues.”
His dutifulness
becomes admirable, and his mother's weakness only heart wrenching.
A powerful memoir,
full of stories of loyalty and love, Richard Russo's narrative of his
mother and her “condition” made me sad but proud of him for sticking with her.
Four
A beautiful story
of a friendship between two women, let's take the long way home by
Gail Caldwell covers the author's relationship with Carolyn
Knapp, a fellow writer, who will die young of lung cancer.
The memoir
recounts how the two women met, bonded over their love of dogs, and
then with time discovered that their commonalities ran much deeper.
Just when the friendship seems at its strongest does the news of
Knapp's illness and demise brutally sever it, and Caldwell's grief
becomes palpable. As sad and real as it was, its honesty makes the brief journey with these two women worth it.
Five
Almost any
resident of the state of Georgia knows of the powerhouse of high
school football that lies four hours south of Atlanta. Valdosta High
School, the home of the Wildcats, holds state and national records
for the most championships won. It's a bunch, and you can look it up if you care. :-)
In Must Win, journalist Drew
Jubera spent the 2010 season following the legendary team and its new
head coach, Rance Gillispie, as he attempts to put the floundering
program back on track. For the previous ten years, the once renown
football dynasty had posted losing seasons and had fired a succession
of coaches for not maintaining the winning legacy of Valdosta High School
football. The year before the once mighty football team had been routed by cross town rivals and upstarts Lowndes County.
An in-depth look
not only at the history of the area, Jubera does an excellent job of
capturing the game, the players, the fans, and the town
that loves it all.
