Our book this month was our own Novel Women. The support from the rest of our book club has been incredible. Women working and helping each other to be the best they can be. So inspiring!
September’s Book Club
Author: kim.harwanko
Window Watchers
The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
Looking out windows can be a deadly pastime. As we saw in Alfred Hitchcock’s renowned movie Rear Window. In his debut novel, A.J. Finn added another layer of intrigue by making the protagonist traumatized and suffering from PTSD, which prevents her from leaving her home and making her an agoraphobic.
The protagonist, Anna Fox, not only suffers from agoraphobia but is also heavily medicated washing down many different pills with bottles of Merlot. Can you trust anything she hears or sees?
The unreliable narrator is nothing new to fiction but seems to be popular among current writers. The reader knows within the first few pages that Anna cannot be trusted. But we like her. The author has created a likeable character that we emphasize with. Anna draws us into her crazy life. We want to know why? And slowly, the story unfolds.
By the time the reader finds out what traumatized Anna, we are even more conflicted. Did she see those things she phoned the police about? We so want her to be vindicated. Her pain is piercing. Enough is enough. Or is her mind shattered irrevocably not able to understand what is happening around her? (more…)
The Nightingale
What makes a person a hero? Do they jump right into a situation or evaluate and make a conscious choice to help others?
In “The Nightingale,” by Kristin Hannah, two sisters face World War II in Nazi-occupied France, with very different ideas of how to make it through the war. The oldest sister, Vianne is married with a young daughter, Sophie, when her husband leaves to fight against Germany. Isabelle, the younger sister, is sent to live with Vianne. They both view their circumstances differently – one wants to fight, the other to endure without making waves.
Throughout the story, both sisters make choices that send them on a collision course with the Nazis. Vianne believes that everything will be fine as long as she just does what she’s asked. However, when a Nazi officer is stationed at her home, her belief that she can simply follow orders starts to crumble as she witnesses the wrongs and eventually the atrocities of her captors. She does what she can to insure the welfare of her daughter and their home. Vianne slowly becomes a hero out of necessity and moral conviction.
The Illusion of Certainty
Steven Stosny, Ph.D. wrote an article titled “Love, Marriage, and the Illusion of Certainty https://bit.ly/2wxgid9. “Strong feelings and sensations of any kind carry an illusion of certainty.” When love becomes marriage a certain comfort and belief are held by the couple that they will be together through all of life’s struggles, both good and bad. Even though we all know going into marriage what the divorce rate is.
In the throes of romantic love, we look at our significant other through rose colored glasses. That illusion starts to fade when we start arguing about who is going to clean the toilets and the million other tasks that couples do every day. Some marriages thrive others fall apart.
In Tayari Jones’s novel, “An American Marriage,” she takes on this illusion of certainty with an African American couple. After only 18 months of marriage, Roy is charged, tried and convicted of raping a woman and sentenced to 12 years in prison. His wife, Celestial, knows that he didn’t commit the crime because she was with him that night, but how does any marriage survive a separation that long. Hollywood actors and actresses are always divorcing, and the common cause is separation. However, they’re only separated for a few months at a time, but twelve years?
The author gives us a clear understanding of the two protagonists, Roy and Celestial by their interactions between themselves and with both families. A great deal of that insight comes from letters that Roy and Celestial write to each other during Roy’s term in prison.
Roy, as a middle-class, college-educated African American is not immune to the racism his poorer brethren encounter. The author skillfully weaved discrimination into the into the story and it was quite powerful in its subtly.
Our book club loved this book. We talked about marriage and the way Roy fell totally apart at the end. We talked about the couple and what they should and shouldn’t have done. We talked a little about racism both overt and covert. We talked about parenting and the protagonists’ parents. We talked about love and the illusion of certainty that marriage holds for us.
This is a good book for book clubs.
Rating: 8.0
Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash
Brutal Heat Wave Scorched More than the Land
Punishing heat and murder teamed up for this wonder down under. “The Dry,” by Jane Harper was our selection for our March’s book club. With three nor’easters under our belt in the last two weeks, blistering heat and parched land almost sounded inviting.
The novel opens at the funeral of the Handler family. The protagonist, Aaron Falk, has come back to the town he was forced to leave as a teenager during the funeral of his childhood friend and his family. What makes this tragedy even worse is the belief that Luke Handler apparently killed his young son and wife before taking his own life.
Falk was summoned back home to Kiewarra by a cryptic message from Luke’s father – You lied. Luke lied. Be at the funeral. Falk is haunted by this place and what happened to him and his almost girlfriend Ellie Deacon during his teenage years.
Luke’s father wants Falk to investigate the deaths of his son and his family. Falk is a federal agent in white collar crime in Melbourne, the closest big city to Kiewarra. He told him that his expertise is not in murder and he should get someone else. Luke’s father didn’t care and threatened Falk who finally agreed to stay on for 18 hours to help the local cop, Raco with the investigation.
The townspeople tend to roll along believing the worse in people without looking at their own shortcomings. The dry desolation of the land seems to have crept into them with few exceptions. I’m glad I don’t live there.
The author planted tidbits along the way that will turn out to be of importance so keep your antenna honed. The story traveled down a winding dusty road with twists and turns you’d expect in a good thriller.
We all liked this book a lot. The author did a great job keeping us guessing. We talked about how group mentality influenced the townspeople and charged them up on an emotional level without any rational basis. We also talked about Ellie Deacon. We don’t want to ruin the story, but some of us still think about her.
Rating: 8.5
Credit Photo by Parsing Eye on Unsplash
Life in a Fishbowl
Imagine being so adored that you can’t go anywhere, think Princess Diana times two. Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight in 1927 across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis made him a hero, forever changing his life. But the world’s idolization had a cost to him and his family. Scrutinized at every level, the Lindberghs were revered at times and maligned at others. Melanie Benjamin’s novel “The Aviator’s Wife,” offers a chance to look inside the fishbowl of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s life.
The novel begins with Charles Lindbergh’s last flight home to Maui. He is dying and wants to be buried at their Hawaiian home. Anne, his wife of 45 years, looks back over their relationship trying to find some comfort and understanding. Why Charles? Why?
Anne grieves, loves, shoulders the weight of her family and navigates the best she can in a male-dominated world. Lindbergh was a total control freak! Anne did everything she could to appease him. Almost sounds like an old country western song, and in a way maybe it was. The oddness of the relationship began from the first date with his coolness and calculation and her utter amazement that someone like him would even look at her. Throughout the story, Ann struggled with her self-esteem never thinking much of herself. Her initial detachment from their first-born child, Charley, in his first few months of his life was painful to read knowing that he would be kidnapped and die so young. Anne’s guilt was palpable, and she refocused her attention away from Lindbergh and to her 
children as her family grew. (more…)
A Mystery that Moves Backwards
Photo by Kieran White on Unsplash
With so many novels coming out with unreliable narrators, and other tricks and ploys to keep the savviest reader guessing, it was only a matter of time before someone thought to tell the story backwards. “All the Missing Girls,” by Megan Miranda was our pick for our January 2018 book club. The novel tells the last two weeks before the climax of the story in reverse.
I need to talk to you. That girl. I saw that girl was scribbled on a note sent to Nicolette from her father. The note coupled with a call from her brother, Dan who informed her their dad wasn’t doing well, and the family home needed to be sold to keep up with his expenses, pushed Nicolette to grudgingly go back to Cooley Ridge.
She dreaded returning and had mostly stayed away since high school, making a life for herself in Philadelphia where she looked forward to her marriage. A sense of foreboding creeps into the story during her nine-hour drive home.
Upon her return, all sorts of subtle clues get woven into the scenes. Some, of course, are deceptive. As Nicolette and Dan clear out their childhood home, another girl goes missing. (more…)
Defunct Missile Base and Teenagers – Hmmm, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
I vividly remember nuclear survival drills in grammar school in the 1960’s. The drills began when I entered kindergarten and continued until sometime in seventh or eighth grade. As we got older, it became a time to break the monotony of the day with a little movement and unabashed teasing of whoever looked the silliest under the desk or tables (at some point we were too big to get under a desk.) Maybe those drills affected us more than we realized. They were so common place, so much a part of our life. Today, the reminders of those scary times are evident in the abandoned missile bases that dot the US with their No Trespassing signs and fenced perimeters. I can still hear the siren screaming through my grammar school.
Maybe that’s why our generation became the helicopter parents and soccer moms, shielding our children passionately from every discomfort. Wanting our children to thrive in a stress-free world.
Children, especially teenagers, are never stress free either by their own accord or that of their surroundings, even with all their parents’ best intentions. Harlan Coben has taken that teenage angst mixed with hormones and woven it into a tight whodunit with a closed nuclear Nike base as the background.
Nap Dumas lost his twin brother, Leo, when they were seniors in high school. Leo and his girlfriend, Diana Styles, were
killed by a train. Suicide or accident? Fast forward and Nap is now a New Jersey detective and has been called to an out-of-state case involving the killing of a police officer. Not understanding why he has been summoned, he complains bitterly until he finds out that the fingerprints of his high school girlfriend, Maura, were found at the scene. Maura had disappeared right after Leo had been killed and Nap has been looking for her ever since.
With this new information Nap sets out once again in search of Maura. He turns to his mentor, Captain Styles, Diana’s father for guidance. Nap believes that Maura’s disappearance and the death of Leo and Diana are linked and begins to probe into his brother’s death. Some of Leo’s friends start to die, ramping up the pace and suspense of this story. Nap keeps coming back to Leo’s Conspiracy Club that he started with his friends. The teens wanted to know why the Nike based closed down so abruptly in 1974. Could the closure have something to do with Leo’s death? Is there a government conspiracy?
As a book club, we always enjoy Coben’s books and love the Jersey locale. He has a way of taking suburban life and twisting a little here and there and coming up with a hell of a good tale. We talked about our childhoods under desks in school and how we are glad our children didn’t have to go through that. We also talked about what we really do and don’t know about the people closest to us. We ended up talking about trust and forgiveness.
We Jersey girls love to support our Jersey boy! Go, Harlan – another winner!
Rating: 8.0
Morristown Festival of Books 2017
Another year of joyous reading! What could be better?
I love to hear how an author creates his or her novel. Some of these stories are as good as the book itself. At the annual Morristown Festival of Books held on Friday, Oct. 13, and Saturday, Oct. 14, 2017, I got a chance to listen to Lincoln Child and Tess Gerritsen speak to a packed crowd at St. Peter’s in Morristown about their books and characters and about themselves. Gerritsen has been dubbed the “medical suspense queen,” by Publishers Weekly with 30 million books sold. Her 27 novels include the Rizzoli and Isles crime series, Gravity and her latest I Know a Secret. Child is also a New York Times bestselling author, both individually, and with his co-author, Douglas Preston, for the Pendergast series. His latest book is Full Wolf Moon.
Child began his career as an editor then switched tracks becoming a systems engineer at MetLife. After a few years of programming, Child began writing. He is a New York Times best-selling author of his own books as well as a co-author with Douglas Preston on the Pendergast series.
The series protagonist, Pendergast, is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. With his quirky traits and a surreal quality that almost defies logic, Pendergast is my type of superhero – a smart one. Child and Preston first collaborated on Relic which became the first in the series of novels. In Relic, Pendergast is an FBI agent who works with a NY detective to find out who or what is killing people in the American Museum of Natural History. (more…)
Mayhem in Surburbia
Wedded Bliss. Growing up in the 1960’s I viewed marriage as something easy and gentle, like what I saw on The Donna Reed Show or Father Knows Best. Although my parents certainly didn’t have that vibe going on. As a young child I kept trying to get them to watch the TV show and learn from it. Silly me.
Fast forward forty years. Marriage is neither easy nor gentle and a great place to find all the tension any author could ever need to keep readers reading. Lianne Moriarty gives her readers these telescopic views into her characters’ lives fleshing out all their quirks and traits. Some of them you instantly relate to, some of them hit you between the eyes shocking you, and some are elusive and you can’t quite pin them down. All of her characters have a solid realism to them, like you’ve met these people before.
Truly, Madly Guilty involves three married couples: Clementine and Sam, Erica and Oliver, and Tiffany and Vid. The story revolves around Clementine and Erica who have been friends since Clementine’s mother insisted she befriend Erica in grammar school. The relationship is lopsided at best, with Clementine grudgingly going along with her mother’s request. Even into adulthood their relationship is marred by that request and never blooms, remaining stagnant.
Moriarty loves her mayhem in suburbia and teases her reader about an incident at a barbecue through the first half of the book. She unwinds the story slowly, but with an eye on character development. By the time the incident reveals itself, the characters are well formed. Will the characters behave the way you think? Or act differently?
Tiffany and Vid are neighbors of Erica and Oliver and host the barbecue. Vid invited his neighbors over and asked them to 
bring that fun couple they’re friends with. While the fun people Tiffany, Vid, Sam and Clementine are having a great time together, Erica and Oliver feel left out. As the four fun people are enjoying each other, Tiffany looks at the younger couple thinking:
“Tiffany watched Sam and Clementine look at each other, their faces flushed, their pupils dilated. It would be a kindness. A public service. She could see exactly where their sex life was at. They were tired parents of young kids. They thought it was all over, and it wasn’t, they were still attracted to each other, they just needed a little electric shock to the system, a little stimulus, maybe some sex toys, some good-quality soft porn. She could be their good-quality soft porn.”
Well, that should have you thinking.
After the incident at the barbecue, Sam and Clementine look deeply at their lives and Erica and Oliver make some important decisions. The chaos that spins out of the barbecue will become live-altering for the two couples.
We really enjoyed this book at our meeting. We all loved Oliver. He’s the best husband out of all of them. We talked about marriage, life-trials, hoarding and other mental illnesses, and about the outcome. We were all happy for Erica in the end. Book clubs will enjoy the discussions guaranteed to come out of this book.
Rating: 8.5