This Book Is A Bit Of A Bummer (#Read26Indy Book 11: The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter)

The fellow was downright uncanny. People felt themselves watching him even before they knew that there was anything different about him. His eyes made a person think that he heard things nobody else had ever heard, that he knew things no one had ever guessed before. He did not seem quite human.

- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

I've been way, way behind in my reading over the past few months. Life has been a bit of a whirlwind - new job, new place, new pretty much everything in life. Reading fell a bit by the wayside but now that I'm all unpacked (well, mostly) I'm eyeing my unread stacks of books again. 

I actually read this book, Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, for my book group while all the craziness was unfolding, but I wasn't sure quite what I wanted to say about it, or how I felt it as a story or a classic work of literature. I chose this book for our book group to read because it had been on my shelf waiting to be read for some time, but I knew nearly nothing about it other than that it was considered a classic. 

This novel is set around a distinctive collection of characters, set in the 1930s in the south, but the central one is John Singer, who is a deaf mute. When the story begins he lives happily with his friend, Spiros Antonapoulos, also a mute. Life seems fine, until his friend's personality changes and he starts stealing minor items and causing trouble. Antonapoulos is then sent away by his cousin to a facility, and Singer is left alone and bereft in this town where he has no other friends or family. 

Singer takes to spending his evenings at the local 24 hour tavern, where our motley crew interacts. The tavern is run by Biff, who is listless and unhappy, but still going through the motions, along with his wife Alice. Biff has taken an interest in Jake Blout, a vagabond with vague communist leanings who came into town and has been drinking, eating, and sleeping at the tavern, without much ability to pay for it all. Blout is an odd gentleman, prone to drunken ranting at whoever happens to be around. One evening, Blout begins talking to Singer, not realizing for some time that Singer is not speaking to him in return. Blout is fascinated by Singer, becoming convinced that he is the only person that really can understand him. 

Singer has this effect on people, becoming the sounding board for everyone from Mick, a teenage girl who wants nothing more than to be a musician but who is too poor to afford an instrument, to Doctor Copeland, the highly educated black doctor who believes his mission in life is to share his idea of the great work with his community. We follow these characters as they experience misfortunes and their lives deviate from what they believe they want them to be. It's a downward spiral for everyone involved as they slowly succumb to the inevitable, including our central character, Singer, who wants nothing more than to visit his good friend Antonapoulos and have back a small bit of the happiness they once had. 

This book is a bit of a bummer. I suppose I should have inferred that from the cover, with the author looking lachrymose in a field. I wanted someone - even just one - of the characters we come to care for to have a minor victory, escape the snares of everyday banality and the sadness of what could have been. Maybe its the inescapable realism of this book that refuses to give us that - to give us that fiction of a happy ending. Our characters struggle against racism, poverty, a community that does not care about their radical ideas, but in the south of the 30's they cannot win, no matter how much we want them to. And maybe that's more revolutionary than the false hope of a character that triumphs above all odds. 

Being a Teenager Actually Can Get Worse: #Read26Indy Books 9 & 10: XVI and Truth by Julia Karr

Everyone knows what's expected of a girl when she turns sixteen. They don't call it "sex-teen" for nothing. We're all supposed to be so excited about sex and willing to do whatever with practically any guy who asks. But the whole sex thing was definitely not what I wanted. I'd seen more than just the Health and Sociology vids at school. I knew girls hadn't always been treated like that, making me wish I'd been born one hundred years earlier. 

-XVI by Julia Carr

In the future, in a world where we have settled the moon, teenage girls get a XVI wrist tattoo when they turn 16, telling the world that they are now fair game. Mass media tells society girls become boy crazy at 16, and if something bad happens to them, it's probably their fault. Our heroine, Nina, knows better. She knows there's something wrong with the controlling world she lives in, with the societal tiers that determine who someone can be, with the constant surveillance and fear. She also senses something is wrong with a program called FeLS (Female Liaison Specialists), supposedly a way for selected 16 year old girls to move up a few societal tiers and serve as governmental ambassadors, though few of those girls are ever seen again. Nina lives with her mother, her sister, and occasionally her mother's horrible and abusive married boyfriend (and father of her sister) Ed.

Then the worst happens - her mother is murdered. An extreme life support machine keeps her conscious just long enough to whisper to Nina that her father is alive, and that she must keep her sister away from Ed. Nina moves to the city to live with her elderly grandparents, and she starts to learn about the father she never knew, who she believed died on the day she was born. Nina tries to untangle the mystery of her father, while protecting her sister.

I dove into this book and barely came up for air, reading it on my lunch break, and for hours when I should have been sleeping. The moment I finished it, I downloaded its sequel, Truth, from the library's web site, and finished that just as quickly. I chose this book because I heard Julia Karr was another local writer I should check out, and I'm glad I did. It's very much a YA novel, so at times I felt a little old reading it. But I enjoyed it. With all the YA novels being made into films these days, they could do worse than to option this series.

#Read26Indy Book 8: The Last Policeman

The end of the world changes everything, from a law enforcement perspective. 

I was intending to have a productive Sunday, but then I sat down with this book and hours later came up for air. This book has been in my to-read stack for months, after purchasing it over the holidays. I attended a writing tips session held by the author last year, and came away wanting to read his most recent book. This is the first book in a trilogy about police detective Hank Palace, intent on solving what seems to be a suicide by hanging in a McDonald's bathroom but which he believes is a murder. Oh, and an asteroid is going to smash into the earth in about six months and kill everyone. 

Yes, that's right. The scientists have determined that the end of the world is a certainty, and society is starting to fall apart. People are quitting their jobs to pursue their "bucket lists", the internet and phone lines are spotty at best, and plenty of people have given up and committed suicide. This specific death has all the signs of a suicide, but something looks suspicious to Detective Palace. Amid mockery from his peers, who have more or less checked out already, he insists on starting an investigation. 

The detective knows that in the grand scheme of things, that everyone will die, but he's intent on being the best detective he can in the time that is left. What would you do if you knew the world was going to end in a few months? The mystery itself is compelling; the coming apocalypse simply provides setting. I tore through this book, and promptly put myself on the library wait list for the sequel. 

#Read26Indy Book 7: My Sister Chaos

I have to choose between detail and scope, both of which are, ultimately, limited. Even if I choose a large scale--more detail, less scope, smaller area--to try to achieve something approaching accuracy, there is always something missed. All maps are lies. So far, that is. 

In this novel, a woman is obsessed with mapping the contours of her house. A cartographer by trade, she is a refugee from an unnamed war-torn country. Her twin sister arrives unannounced, the first time she's seen her since the twin abandoned her soon after they emigrated. 

There are no names in this novel - not of people, not of places. The sisters are defined by what, and who, they have lost. They are broken and damaged. They escaped, but lost those they loved and lost themselves. The narrator sister is attempting to make a map that precisely depicts the inside of her house, so that she'll know her environment intimately and perfectly, but it is never quite right, never exact enough. 

It's fascinating, as the stories of the two sisters are told - of their escape from the country that was killing those of their ethnic group, as the first sister loses herself to her mapping project and her twin is still chasing her own demons. I don't think I've ever read a book quite like it. 

#Read26Indy Book 6: Boy Meets Boy

The he says, "I'll see you around." 

I want to say I hope so, but suddenly I'm afraid of being too forward. I can flirt with the best of them--but only when it doesn't matter.

This suddenly matters.

Boy Meets Boy was recommended to me in a writing class as a good example of YA fiction. The main character is Paul, a high school boy who is remarkably well adjusted. In his town, the star quarterback is also the homecoming queen, and the only person upset by that is a boy she rejected. Paul meets Noah at a bookstore where his friend is DJ'ing, because that kind of thing happens in this town. But of course it can't be easy and Paul screws it up and has to try to win Noah back. Meanwhile, Paul's best friend Tony is learning how to stand up for himself with his conservative parents. 

It's a quick read, well-written and funny. Throughout the book I was reminded of Francesca Lia Block, in the way that she created slightly improved versions of the real world for her stories. I was pleased to discover, in the afterward, that David Levithan credited her as an influence. I grew up on Block's novels - I can still remember picking up her Weetzie Bat books from the library. It's so nice to know others were as affected by her writing as I was. 

#Read26Indy Book 5: Gaudy Night

Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.

Gaudy Night was my second book club book, after Gravity's Rainbow. It was the perfect polar opposite, being well-mannered and crisp where GR was crude and crass, and so I loved it. 

Gaudy Night is one of a series of mystery novels written in the 1930's featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. Only, Wimsey is barely mentioned in the first half of this book. Instead, this is the story of his companion, Harriet Vane, who is a mystery novelist by trade. Not having read the previous Wimsey novels, I learned in the first chapters that Harriet had once been on trial for murder, which she certainly did not do, and Wimsey's detective skills saved her life. Now, Wimsey is in love with her and occasionally proposes marriage, which Harriet declines politely each time. 

The story begins with Harriet going back to visit her alma mater, a (fictional) women's college at Oxford. She's nervous, because her murder trial was a public scandal and her reputation has suffered as a result, even though she was innocent. But as seems to happen to those who have a history of solving mysteries, a mystery finds her. While at Oxford Harriet finds a note with a crude figure on it. Upon returning home she finds another note tucked into her sleeve calling her a murderer. She brushes it off and tries to think no more of it, until she is contacted by her peers at Oxford asking her to help them find the person responsible for sending crude notes to women on campus and vandalizing college property. It's a mystery without a murder kicking off the story, which I realized is uncommon. 

What is most interesting about this novel is that it is not simply a plot-driven mystery. The plot doesn't truly begin until nearly 50 pages into the book. It was a refreshing change of pace from the breakneck speed of most modern stories. The women at Oxford discuss the scholastic life versus having children, and whether educated women can marry. "I presume that, in bringing children into the world one accepts a certain responsibility toward them," one character says. Much of the discussions they hold about gender and society could easily be held today. It's unexpectedly funny, with a dry humor that made me chuckle loudly at parts. It's no quick read - the book is over 500 pages long, but I enjoyed its long, meandering path. 

#Read26Indy Book 4: You Came Back

And oh he wished for another chance, then. He wished it with all his might. He would give anything. Yes. Anything. The thought went from his brain into his tingling fingers: He would trade, if he could. He would walk away from Allie and his new life, if only he could return, if he could walk through the front door of this house and into his old life again. 

I picked up You Came Back at the Gathering of Writers - Christopher Coake was the keynote speaker. I heard good things about it, and I'm making an effort this year to read more Indiana authors, or at least authors from the Midwest. You Came Back is set in Columbus, Ohio, but makes some side trips to Indianapolis, like the Butler University campus. 

It's the story of a father reeling, years later, from the accidental death of his only child, Brendan. A freak accident, the boy having fallen down the stairs, it tore Mark and his wife Chloe apart. Now divorced, Mark is newly engaged to his girlfriend Allison. He still thinks of Brendan daily, but is slowly making a new life for himself. That is, until a woman arrives to tell him that she lives in his old house, and she believes his son is haunting it. 

This announcement sends Mark into a spiral of grief and anger, disbelief, belief, reconnection with his ex-wife, and throws his new life into turmoil. But this novel is not really a ghost story, at least not primarily. It's really a story of loss, and grief. Not being a parent, I know that I can't imagine the complete and utter loss at the loss of a child, but Christopher Coake paints a vivid picture. It reminded me of The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler, an amazing novel I read years ago but which I think of often, also about the loss of a child and the parents trying to find a way to go on, if that's even possible. Their loss and confusion is what makes the characters feel real. The mystery - is Brendan really in the house? And if so, what will be done? - kept me turning pages late in the night. 

I read this book eating lunch in a Qdoba and had to fight back tears so I didn't seem like the crazy sad woman crying over a burrito. If you are looking for a lighthearted "beach read" this probably isn't your book. But if you want a book to make you feel something, even if that something is love and loss, this is a good one.