The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni

 If you remember the TV show “TheWonder Years” you have a good idea of the narrative voice of Robert Dugoni’s book, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell. The story is told through memories of the protagonist detailing the years of torture he endured as a child.  The reason for his bullying and mistreatment even by adults is unique indeed. We find that Sam was born with a rare eye condition known as ocular albinism which causes the eye to appear to be red in color.  Called “Devil Boy” and treated as a pariah, Sam was a lonely, scared little boy.  His mother, his champion, was convinced that her son was born to live an extraordinary life and her total devotion carried him through many difficult times.  When teased and called ugly names his mother would lovingly tell him, “Our skin, our hair, and our eyes are simply the shell that surrounds our soul, and our soul is who we are. What counts is on the inside.”  Sam did not, however, really believe this or even accept himself or his worth for most of his life.  Sam always felt he was unloveable and unworthy of  pride in himself.  He went from failed relationship to failed relationship even though his two lifelong friends tried to tell him he could and should stand up for himself. He eventually decided to leave his depressing life choosing instead to dedicate himself to helping others working as an eye surgeon with a group like Doctors Without Borders.  It was on one of these tours that Sam met a young orphan with the same eye condition as his own who was being treated as a outcast just as he had been.  Realizing he could change this child’s life, Sam removed his brown contacts and showed the little boy that he was not alone and that he could be extraordinary too. In the end Sam accepted that each of us has the ability to make our lives extraordinary even if we may not all be the first man on the moon or a famous personality.  We all are extraordinary when we reflect back over our days and remember the intimate moments that mark not our calendars but our hearts. This was a sweet, heartwarming book that offered a powerful lesson.  Really good uplifting read.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

 I almost regret writing this post because it means that I am moving on from the book Anxious People and I really hate to leave it. Fredrik Backman is a genius as far as I am concerned.  His novel is the most intricately written book that I have read in a long time.  Crafted in a nonlinear style that just seems effortless, the story line centers around a hostage situation that we are told in no uncertain terms contains  hostages that are the worst in the world.  A group of strangers at an open house are taken by surprise by a bank robber/hostage taker who is acting out of fear and desperation but with little real thought of the dangerous consequences. These characters we meet are quirky, curmudgeonly and most of all desperate for love. They are, however, able to bond. The reader learns as the police surround the building and try to ascertain how bad the situation is that people inside are connected in one way or another to a suicide that had happened ten years previously. This other plot feature was woven beautifully into the story.  Backman brilliantly adds layer after layer to the story, and with each layer we are given insights to the characters that allow us to build real relationship feelings.  This is a story about “idiots” we are told by the narrator, but we learn as the stories progresses that these people are anything but idiotic.  Clever and resourceful to a person, they manage to find a solution to their predicament and even save the bank robber/hostage taker in the process.  

I laughed out loud at many of the scenes we witnessed and at the conversations that were had by different characters throughout.  This novel does have several serious themes such as suicide, depression, marital problems and even that of the world economy and its effects on the ordinary man.  These themes were treated with such humanity and thoughtfulness that we are drawn in without realizing we are thinking about such heavy issues.  Truly a story that will stay with me for a long time.  Maybe the best of Backman to date.

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

 Tara Conklin’s examination of the Skinner family in her book The Last Romantics begins in the dystopian future where Fiona Skinner, 102 year old poet of renown, is speaking and answering questions about her body of work and more particularly, her famous piece “The Love Poem.”  A young girl’s remarkably familiar looking face sends Fiona’s mind back in time to 1981 when her life and the life of each of her siblings changes forever.  It was in 1981 that Fiona’s 31 year old father dies suddenly hurtling the family into chaos.  This was the beginning of “The Pause”  a three year period where Fiona’s mother goes to her bed and rarely emerges.  The four children were for all intents and purposes left to care for themselves and remarkably they survived.  That is not to say they thrived as they were all damaged by this time of their life.  It actually seemed that they devolved into more of a wolf pack than a family.  The oldest sister took total control of the siblings much like the alpha wolf controls their pack. As the alpha, Renee secured the food, determined the pack territory and oversaw its safety; she was in the position to demand complete respect.  Caroline, the second oldest, became the caregiver/mother and was dependent on Renee for confirmation and direction. Joe, the lone son, was the darling of the family, the golden child, but he was also the warrior/protector. Fiona, only 4 years old at the time of her father’s death, was the “baby” and therefore not given responsibility.  So, for three years this group lived nearly a feral life. Unfortunately, they were so scarred they never really recovered.  The description of their lives as they became adults was a picture of estrangement, distance and avoidance.  They all seemed to want to be left alone to live disconnected from people even though they were caught up in self destructive lifestyles. This novel was interesting and yet there were too many anomalies in the structure that took away from the overall storyline.  Why, for instance, did we have a vague and yet disturbing connection to global warming in the bookend future time at the beginning and ending of the novel? Why the title The Last Romantics when there was little in the book that demonstrated deep love.  It seemed the opposite was much more apparent.  These characters did not know how to love because they had been forced into a life of survival as children where sadly love was not demonstrated to any of them by the adults with whom they came into contact. This was a book that was a split decision at the very least.  The writing was very good, the descriptions were jarringly realistic, but the overall structure left something to be desired. 

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

 I have really scratched my head over Mary Beth Keane’s book, Ask Again, Yes and how to best summarize it.  It is really a difficult book to pin down in a short paragraph.  I finally decided to just put it out there and let the chips fall where they may. The novel is a well written, compelling character study.  You will learn much from this novel about love and hate, mental illness and addiction, jealously and control, abuse and obsession and families with dysfunction.  That seems very bleak I realize and much of the story is heartrending at best, but the strong central theme found throughout is that there is love in spite of all the pain.  The father figure after his own near death experience, after seeing his daughter struggle with a husband’s alcoholism and after watching most of his friends suffer through tragic life experiences agrees with his wife when she says, “I think we’ve been luckier than most.”  Our lives are not promised to have only good times, our lives are not promised to be stress free and our lives are not under our control most of the time.  But, we can look back like Keane and say “we have been lucky.”

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

My recollection of what happened to the slaves after the end of the Civil War is vague at best.  I do not remember talking about these people as individuals but only as a whole....”the slaves.”  Lisa Wingate has written a wonderful historical fiction novel in which she delves into the life that remained after the emancipation. She has chosen to tell this story through two women.  Hannie’s story lies back in 1887 and Benny’s story is current and starts when she comes to teach at the school that is close by the old plantation where Hannie was born and raised.  What Benny finds is a poor town with many secrets that she is determined to uncover. The 1887 storyline begins with Hannie who is working as a share cropper for her former owners in order to reach her goal of land ownership. Because Hannie has a good heart and curious mind she is caught up in the lives of two other women, Missy and Juneau Jane, the daughters of her former master.  These three are brought together as they search desperately for the girls lost father. It is while on this mission that they discover the “Lost Friends” articles that are being published in newspapers. Written by former slaves,  the articles show the pain of people who are looking for their family members who were sold off.  Hannie and the other women begin their own collection of “lost friends” as they travel to Texas looking for Mister.  Wingate masterfully ties the two time periods together when Benny finds the girls handwritten memos and collected notes in the old plantation library and then uses them to enrich her students and awaken in them a sense of purpose and connection.  The story humanizes the freed slaves, highlights their plight and clearly shows pain they feel over the loss of family members.  The storyline movement from past to present also adds to the awakening that you feel as the reader.  As we read the articles, we see people instead of “the slaves” and this makes a huge difference. This is really a book that we all should read.

A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe

Over the years, our book club has noticed that the phrase “It’s All About the Money” comes into play in just about every book we read.  Karin Tanabe in her historical fiction novel, A Hundred Suns, delivers a clear picture of the imperialist French in Indochina.  Centering her story around Jessie an American married to Victor who was a member of the French Michelin dynasty, Tanabe reveals to the reader the cruelty of the French rubber plantation owners to the native people who were forced into a slave like lifestyle working in inhuman conditions on plantations.  The rich expats lived like kings on the labors of the poor people who were not earning enough money to survive.  The storyline was more than just an expose on the living conditions of the poor however.  The development of labor unions organized by the communists gave evidence to show how these radical antigovernment political groups were able to fight the imperialists and to begin the push to remove all foreigners.  The impoverished natives were easily persuaded to join the militant communists who promised to make everyone equal.  The devious plans of empathetic supporter and communist members made the book more of a suspenseful mystery than just a history book.  The treachery of servants, supposed friends, and crooked police added to the tension and hooked the reader from the beginning.  In the end, mysteries within mysteries were uncovered in a most satisfying way.  Tanabe truly has a gift in story telling and revelation of historical periods that ought not to be forgotten.

Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

I am always inspired when I read historical fiction books with strong female characters.  It seems that our history books left out the accounts of many truly remarkable women.  Jojo Moyes uncovers  just such a “strong woman” story in her book, Giver of Stars, a novel about four fictional women who volunteered in the 1930s to take up the challenge of Eleanor Roosevelt to become part of the pack horse librarians of eastern Kentucky. Although these women were different in every way, they valiantly headed out into the coal country mountains of Appalachia in the hope that they would open up the world to many less fortunate people.  Often the librarians would ride nearly 20 miles a day on horses or mules carrying as many books as they were able.  Many times the families they visited were illiterate and so these librarians would take time to read to them or they would spend time teaching the children to read on their own.  This remarkable retelling of an historical time would have made for a truly interesting novel, but in true Moyes fashion the fictional storyline for these women was filled with conflict, loveless marriages, male dominance and repression and racism.  The determination of these four women to keep the library going even in the face of constant and in some cases dangerous resistance was inspiring.  Moyes added a touching romance to the plot just to put a ribbon on the package.  Historical fiction is not always written in a way that draws you into the time, but Moyes has a gift and she shared it in Giver of Stars.