Indiscretion - Charles Dubow

'Carelessness is the handmaiden to tragedy. Cataclysmic events often have their origins in the mundane. We turn left when we had meant to go right, and the world changes forever.'

Harry and Madeleine (Maddy) Winslow are a beautiful, charming couple in their forties living an enviable and very comfortable life. Harry is a successful, award-winning writer and Madeleine is his charismatic, warm and admired wife, and attentive mother to their fragile son, Johnny. We meet them in their home in the Hamptons, but they also spend time abroad in Rome and at their home in Manhattan. Everything speaks of ease, wealth, and a good life. They attract others who enjoy being in their company and basking in the glow that seems to emanate around them. One weekend, a woman in her twenties named Claire travels over from New York City to the Hamptons, invited by a boyfriend, and meets Harry and Maddy whilst there. Having met them, she is entranced by the couple and their lives and world. 'It's hard not be caught up in the beauty of life from a summer lawn in the Hamptons', we are told. It is when this attraction and excitement becomes a stronger sort of desire that danger starts to loom on the horizon, and then one night, there is a conversation, nothing more, but Walter warns us that the 'wax seal of a secret letter has been broken. Nothing can make it whole again.'

There are four main characters here though, and the fourth of them is the one who is telling this story. Walter Gervais grew up next door to Maddy and has always loved her; to Maddy they are the best of friends but nothing more. 

'Every story has a narrator. Someone who writes it down after it's all over. Why am I the narrator of this story? I am because it is the story of my life - and of the people I love most. I have tried to be as scrupulous as possible in my telling of it. I wasn't a participant in everything that happened, but after I knew the ending, I had to fill in the missing pieces...'

In Walter, a very memorable narrator has been created. He guides us through the story that he himself is so intricately involved in. For me, he made it a compelling read. Despite his words above though, I was reminded of the words of the novel's prologue, how we can be guilty of 'casting a roseate glow over our memories. Some memories burn brighter, whether because they meant more or because they have assumed greater importance in our minds...' and he goes on to advise that 'I have forgotten so much ...and to fill in the gaps, I conflate the past or make it up entirely...After a while it becomes real.'

This distinctive, involved and biased omniscient narrator had my attention throughout, and had my belief despite my reasons to doubt his reliability sometimes. It's been mentioned that 'the narrator is akin to Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby', and I feel this is a fair comparison in some ways. 

The author sets the scene, illustrating the established friendships and allowing the newcomer Claire to gradually become part of their lives. As the narrative progresses, the suspense increases and I began to feel an impending sense of the sadness that was surely to come as a result of what happens, but like a voyeur I couldn't look away; I was too engrossed by this tangle of lives which was becoming increasingly, inextricably messy. 

I formed pictures of the main four characters in my mind's eye from the rich way they were described; they became fully formed, human and deeply flawed. At times I found these creations attractive and enviable, but I also despaired of them and judged them harshly.  Through them the writer cleverly spins an entrancing yet cautionary tale of the different ways in which humans love. 

It's an emotional read, with lives that are ostensibly full, with much wealth and successful careers, a feeling of looking in, via Walter, on how the other half lives (including him), yet in Walter's case there is such emotional emptiness. For Claire there is the eagerness of youth seeking out new experiences; the author really captures the urge to be part of something, and the sense that feelings and desire are everything, dominating the life and thoughts of someone at that stage of their life, with no responsibilities and only a short-term outlook. There is a marriage between two golden people, and a friendship and trust that seems so strong. Their marriage is at the heart of this tale throughout. There are passionate, sexy episodes that were convincing; human desire that rises above all sensible, rational reason. 

The novel speaks of the contentment that we think we have in life, or even actually have, and yet that element of human nature, the flaw that means we experience a nagging greed for something else that seems to be missing, that is different and appealing, and yet it often leaves us unhappy even if we reach for it, and we realise the true value and worth of what we already had; 'We want what we want. The bitter truth is that it rarely makes us happy once we get it.' I can't write about what happens here without including a spoiler, but you'll see, when you read. 

I read this story very quickly, gulping down the story and swiftly turning the pages. I had to know how it would all end. I was sad at how it all ended, in fact I felt quite drained after all the emotion. Part of me wonders at a different ending but perhaps what happened was what had to happen.

I thought this was a brilliant, captivating and addictive debut novel, about beautiful people with seemingly perfect lives, and what results when an outsider breaks in on all this and exposes the weakness, changing it irrevocably. It made me think a lot about people and how they behave. It's about love and families, contentment versus temptation, friendship and unrequited love, wealth and envy, greed and lust, fate, guilt and tragedy. I enjoyed it very much indeed. 

Published by William Morrow Paperbacks*

Thanks to the tour host and publisher for sending a copy of this novel to read and give an honest review.

Visit the other tour stops here

About the author:

Charles Dubow was born in New York City and spent his summers at his family’s house on Georgica Pond in East Hampton. He was educated at Wesleyan University and New York University. He has worked as a roustabout, a lumberjack, a sheepherder in New Zealand, and a congressional aide, and was a founding editor of Forbes.com and later an editor at Businessweek.com. He lives in New York City with his wife, Melinda; children, William and Lally; and Labrador retriever, Luke. This is his first novel.

You can find the author on twitter @CharlesDubow

*UK readers, please note - this novel is published in the UK too, by Blue Door, but I have featured the US cover and publisher as this is the edition I have read in this instance and the edition featured in the book tour I am taking part in. 

Walk Me Home - Catherine Ryan Hyde

This moving story had me intrigued and asking questions straight away; who are Carly and Jen, why are they walking such a long way, just the two of them, so young? What has happened? Who is Teddy and why is Carly so determined that he is the one to help them?

Sisters Carly, 16, and Jen, 12, have set off from New Mexico and are trying to get to Teddy in California. They soon become hungry and tired, and it becomes increasingly difficult for them to continue and to stay safe and not risk it being discovered that they are on the run alone together; the threat of being taken in by the authorities and potentially separated keeps them walking and reluctant to reveal the reality of their situation to anyone. 

Then the novel takes a step back further in time, a few months earlier, and we meet Teddy, their mother's ex-boyfriend, and we meet the girls' mother, and their recent past slowly reveals itself. The sisters have had a difficult, unsettled childhood and experienced much disappointment; and now their world has been turned upside down. They travel so many miles, struggling along together, desperate and starving at times, and as I read, I feared for them, but I was also heartened by the kindnesses that they encountered from people too. 

It is primarily Carly whose thoughts we follow, and it's a very emotional as well as physical endurance test that she goes through on her journey. It is very clear that she has lost her trust in others and lost her belief in her self, and her self worth; she has convinced herself that she doesn't matter and that 'everyone likes Jen better'.  As I read, I willed things to change for the better for Carly because she had been so strong, I didn't blame her for having lost trust in people because of her past treatment, but she needed to take the risk of trusting again; the story illustrates how sometimes we have a new, unexpected chance for happiness in life and it is the ability to let go of fear and accept this chance, to take the risk of trusting again, that we need. This was such an important theme running through this story; who can the girls trust and believe in, who has their real interests and welfare at heart, who isn't all that they seem to be, and who cares more than they realise. 

I've really enjoyed novels by Catherine Ryan Hyde in the past and I found in this new book the same warm-hearted and honest portrayal of people who find themselves facing the challenge of coping with huge difficulties and setbacks in their lives that I have admired before. She creates rounded characters, and the relationships they share feel very real; I cared about the sisters. The author has sensitively and thoughtfully incorporated a little of Native American culture into this story, and created two special characters in particular that I would love to meet. The sense of place was well conveyed, and this setting was important too, the intense heat of the desert landscape adding to the struggle as the girls were walking. 

I liked the author’s note at the end of the book that clarified an aspect of the story that I had wondered about whilst reading. I think this novel would be really enjoyed by young adult and adult readers. 

I felt this was an engrossing, well-paced story about being honest with yourself and having to admit to the truth, and learning to accept kindness from unexpected places. It is about loss, loyalty, truth, courage, and the hard decisions people have to make, the strength we have to find sometimes even when we are only a young age.  

Published by Black Swan, July 18th 2013

Thanks very much to the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance ebook copy of this novel via netgalley. 

You can visit the author's website here find her on facebook here or follow her on twitter @cryanhyde

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? - Maria Semple - Guest review

 

Bernadette is a complex woman still trying to come to terms with thwarted hopes and dreams from twenty years earlier.  Avoiding contact with anyone outside her immediate family (husband Elgin and her fourteen-year-old daughter Bee), she conducts her life almost entirely via the internet, even outsourcing most of her personal admin to a virtual PA based in India.  When her life appears to spiral increasingly out of control, she suddenly vanishes and it is left to the bright and precocious Bee to piece together the reasons for her disappearance and discover where she might have gone.  Along the way, several of those around Bernadette, including her husband Elgin and her neighbour and nemesis Audrey Griffin, have to confront uncomfortable truths about themselves in the process of learning to understand Bernadette and why she has come to shun the world.  As Bee says, "Just because you think you can't ever know everything about another person, it doesn't mean you can't try."  

This a very lively read that it's impossible not to devour in huge chunks.  Much of the narrative consists of emails, faxes, memos and blog entries between the various characters, as well as conventional narrative by Bee; this use of multiple viewpoints is a terrific shorthand way of giving insight into the different characters, and filling in details that Bee herself clearly couldn't be privy to.  At the same time, the technique of skipping at short intervals from one viewpoint to another means the book trips along at a very brisk and breezy pace, particularly through the first two-thirds of the book in which Bernadette's life lurches from one comic disaster to another giving rise to some very funny scenes, sometimes verging on slapstick, which reflect the mounting chaos and near hysteria felt by Bernadette.  However, there are darker strands running through the novel: Bernadette is clearly not a woman who is in control of her life, and by the time she does her apparently miraculous vanishing act, it seems she has almost lost her sanity. Equally, the effect of her disappearance on her husband and daughter is naturally devastating, and the high comedy of the early chapters gives way towards the end of the book to a more sober and reflective narrative.  For the most part I felt that Semple does a terrific job of steering the narrative carefully between comedy and tragedy, keeping the overall tone witty and bright, but just at times the darker strands show through quite starkly, like Antarctic rock through the snow.

One aspect of the book that didn't sit altogether comfortably with me was the trenchant satire directed at Seattle, and Seattle's biggest corporate entity, Microsoft.  While the digs at consumerism and at aspirational and ultra-competitive "hockey-mom" mothers (or gnats as Bernadette calls them) were spot on (as I can testify from personal experience of American schools) and highly amusing, I did find myself baulking occasionally at the sharpness of Semple's attacks on Seattle generally: a city whose designers "never met a beautiful view they didn't block with a twenty-storey old folk's home with zero architectural integrity.... [a city] overrun with runaways, drug addicts and bums...", a city where there are just two hairstyles, "short gray hair and long gray hair".  Microsoft comes in for similar attacks on its ethics and corporate style, and although the satire is laced with a large dose of humour, I did begin to wonder how many fans the book will find either in Seattle or among Microsoft employees!

Having said that, though, I neither live in Seattle nor work for Microsoft so despite feeling slightly uncomfortable at times for people who do, I nevertheless found the book an extremely enjoyable read overall and an impressive debut novel: lively, witty, great fun and very engaging. I think Maria Semple could be the new Marina Lewycka and I'll be watching out for her next book with great interest. 

Reviewed by Penny Tattersall - guest reviewer

Many thanks to Penny for writing this lovely, perceptive guest review for The Little Reader Library. 

'Where'd You Go, Bernadette?' is published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson

Northwest Corner - John Burnham Schwarz

Northwest Corner revisits the characters from John Burnham Schwartz's earlier novel, Reservation Road, twelve years on. Whilst this offers readers of that book a chance to find out what has changed and developed for the characters, equally I don't think it's necessary to have read that book to enjoy and get a lot out of this one. However, if you are intending to read Reservation Road first, the review below may 'spoil' it, so please bear this in mind.

It's 2006, and Dwight Arno is working as a manager in a sporting goods store in Arenas, California, living alone and reflecting on his life. Now 50, he was involved in a tragic accident twelve years earlier, and went to prison. He is dating Penny, who he hasn't told about his troubled past. His son Sam is feeling very negative about himself, and troubled. He is at University in Connecticut, but after an incident in a baseball game, he heads to a bar, and gets into a serious fight; 'something inside him has ruptured; something hideous has come out of hiding,' and then he flees far away to California, to his father. Sam's unexpected appearance is a complete shock for Dwight, who hasn't seen his son since the accident all those years before, and his arrival means that Dwight's steady existence is shaken up, his hidden past has suddenly caught up with his present, and the guilt resurfaces.

Ruth, Sam's mother, is fighting a private battle of her own, when she learns of Sam's disappearance. Penny wonders whether Dwight will open up to her. Emma, the sister of Josh Learner, the boy killed by Dwight in the hit and run accident twelve years' previously, has a complex relationship with Sam.

This novel is written in short chapters, with the narrative moving from character to character. Dwight's point of view is given in the first person, the others - Sam, Ruth, Penny and Emma - are all in the third person, so to me Dwight felt like the anchor at the centre of the story, whose life and actions impacted on all the others.

This is a fairly slow-moving novel, a contemplative look at people's lives, their relationships, the everyday struggles that people face. I felt that the characters all seemed to have a lot of issues, to dislike themselves at times. They are looking back on their pasts, the mistakes and the missed opportunities., and trying to work out the way to move forward, because that's all they can do. The way the author tackles these relationships, where family haven't seen each other or spoken for years, but how the bonds are never broken no matter how far apart you are physically and emotionally is very convincing. The tension is palpable as Dwight tries to reconnect with Sam but finds it incredibly difficult; 'my son beside me yet miles distant...to build a solid, lasting bridge between two people, let alone a father and son with a history like ours, is a mighty human endeavor...' Dwight observes his son, 'a muscle twitching in his jaw, biting down furiously on all the words he'll never say,' and for me, this is at the heart of the novel, and the characters; I found myself thinking, are any of them going to say what they actually feel towards each other?

This is not to say that the story is told without humour. I loved this bittersweet passage about Ruth and Sam, which sums up the gulf between the idyll and the reality:

'She makes her mother's meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and thin coaster-size disks of grilled eggplant with extra-virgin olive oil, and they sit down to Sunday supper as if it's old family times. The only missing ingredients are: (a) conversation, (b) appetites, (c) a bottle of good red wine, and (d) old family times.'

The quintessentially American love of baseball provides a lovely metaphor of how Dwight wishes things could be between him and his son, as he had imagined it when he was younger and Sam was little:

'My sense of things then was of an extended warm-up between two teammates old and young, the sweet early innings of what would eventually become a long, meaningful game stretching through the afternoon hours and into the starlit evening of our lives...Of course, for many reasons, things did not turn out that way.'

I really like this sort of novel, which gets to the heart of difficult, mixed-up lives and relationships, and I would recommend it.

Published by Corsair, an imprint of Constable and Robinson, on 19th April 2012.

Thank you very much to the publisher for sending me a proof copy of this novel to read and review.


4/5

The Proof of Love - Catherine Hall

It’s the long hot summer of 1976 in England, and Cambridge University mathematician Spencer Little comes to spend the holidays working as a farm laborour in the Lake District, after an indiscretion at University during the previous term (the nature of which is revealed to the reader later in the novel), leaves him wanting to get far away from academic life for awhile. Enquiring at the farm of brothers Hartley and Thomas Dodds, he is taken on there, and works with them voluntarily in exchange for lodgings in a hut on the fellside, befriending Hartley’s young daughter Alice and his wife Mary. He plans to work hard during the days, and then study hard on his thesis, his mathematical proofs, in the evenings. He knows he has shown promise of being one of the best in his field, but he must make a breakthrough with his research to secure his future at the University. He is shy, lonely and quiet and keeps himself very much to himself. He gradually forms a sweet friendship with young Alice, with him encouraging her in her ambitions to be a ballet dancer and to learn about mathematics, and her being the most welcoming of those he meets in the Lakes, sharing her ideas and activities with him. She finds a figure she can trust in him, who supports her dreams and is kind to her, less harsh than her father. After an event during which Spencer proves to be a hero, he is welcomed more readily by the villagers, but as the summer moves on, and Spencer meets others, events and people conspire against the outsider, as the novel moves towards it’s conclusion. 

This is a brilliant, atmospheric tale of loneliness, friendship, love, betrayal and tragedy. As well as being attracted by the storyline, I was also drawn to this novel in particular due to it being set predominantly in the Lake District. Beautifully and intelligently written, capturing everything from the rural setting in the Lakes, with those who have worked for generations on the land and are now struggling to make a living, to the fondness and friendship between Alice and Spencer, to the stifling summer heat and the pursuit of passion, and the suspicion, gossip and mistrust amongst the villagers of an outsider in their midst when events take a tragic turn. The book highlights the pure and logical nature of mathematical questions and answers, as opposed to the uncontrollable, heady nature of passionate love, the uncertainty of relationships, and the question of who we can and can’t trust to stand by us. I loved this novel and couldn’t put it down, though I read it with a growing sense of foreboding. I found Spencer an intriguing character, disappearing from the world he knows and finding himself when living this unfamiliar life, and I was deeply moved by what happened to him. I kept thinking about the novel and the characters after I had finished it. 

5/5

Cold Light - Jenn Ashworth

A dark, bleak, tragic tale of three fourteen-year-old girls in a northern town in the late nineties, with them delving into the adult world and getting hurt and damaged. There is a flasher around, and girls in the town are on their guard. Laura, known as Lola as a teenager, values her friendship with Chloe, despite it’s difficulties, because she now has someone to hang out with, someone she likes being in the company of. But when Chloe starts seeing Carl, in his late twenties, and when she also becomes more friendly with another girl at school, Emma, Laura experiences jealousy and wishes things could be like they were before. Laura is the first person narrator and so it’s through her eyes that we see everything, and it’s her thoughts that we are privy to. Thoughts about her schooldays, her life at the time all the things happen involving Chloe, Carl, Emma and herself, her relationship with her mother and father, and her thoughts now, in her twenties, looking back on that period of her life, as a new event occurs that relates to that time in her past.

Despite the grim premise and storyline, and the undisputedly sad turn of affairs, this is an intriguing read and I found it compelling. It is tense and atmospheric, and I was very drawn in by the voice of Laura narrating the story. I had to know what had happened. It’s a clever novel with all-too-true observations about how teenage girls are still young girls with immaturities and naiveties on the one hand, but on the other they are creeping ever closer to the adult world, discovering the disappointments and realities of life, trying alcohol and sex, and the line between the two worlds of adolescence and adulthood becomes blurred like here, where their experiences tip over into that adult world and they find it can be a very dark, cruel place. It’s also about how someone can affect the lives of others, whether knowingly or unknowingly. I love the author’s writing style, and I think I liked this novel even more than her first, A Kind of Intimacy. Looking forward to her next book.


4/5

Every Last One - Anna Quindlen

I was very impressed by this well-written, character driven novel. The plot summary and description on the back cover made me want to read this, and looking back it was definitely my kind of read. A wonderful yet ordinary middle class family living happily together in modern day USA, with the usual mixture of happiness and everyday annoyances, we have Mary Beth Latham and her husband Glen and three teenage children, lovely daughter Ruby and twin sons Max and Alex. The twins are so different, Alex is athletic and popular, whereas Max is introspective and quiet. Ruby is on the verge of adulthood and thinking about how her feelings have changed for Kiernan, her boyfriend who has become like part of the family around at her house all the time, but about whom she no longer feels the same. A wonderful, normal family set-up comes across. Max begins to feel low and starts to talk to a therapist, and the family think things will work out for him.

Then, one night, everything changes forever, for the worst. What follows is the aftermath of this, dealing with how life does and must go on, and the shock and numbness following a tragedy, continuing to live despite immense grief.

This was a compelling, stunning read, I was so drawn into the characters and was incredibly shocked by the turn of events, but it made for a great novel.