Book Number Six

I have a co-worker with whom I swap books. It's fun, helps us both with our limited shelf space, and it's just nice to have someone at work with whom you can connect on more than a business level. I've introduced her to the fun of Charlaine Harris' vampires, and she's gotten me into reading mysteries again.

It may not even be middle brow level reading, but it's enjoyable, and as a writer, I've found that good mysteries can really teach you about plot development. Too often I've figured out whodunit early in the book, but when a mystery makes you want to skip ahead and read the last few pages, you've got a good one. That was the case with Shiny Water by Dr. Anna Salter, a clinical psychologist known for her work in the field of sexual abuse.

Like the author, the main character of Shiny Water is a psychologist in this field. Michael Stone is a dedicated, female psychologist who has testified in a custody case where the care of the children was awarded to the father. Stone is convinced that he is a molester. The day the children have been given to their father, the children disappear are found dead in their mother's house. Since she had testified on behalf of the mother, Stone finds both her personal and professional abilities questioned by others and herself. As she delves deeper into this murder, both to find if she did miss something and to help find who murdered the kids, she finds herself at risk from both the law and the murderer.

It's a good story line, but what makes this story really work is the excellent character development of Michael Stone. You can easily visualize how this woman lives, and her internal life is revealed gradually. The wonderful tension created by Stones' efforts at self-control among predators who try to control others and their victims keeps you reading.

My friend found this book on the sale rack at a dollar store. The price ($1.25) was printed on the cover. It's a good reminder about the thing about books and covers.

Book Number Five

Just minutes ago, I finished reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett. This is a book that's worth staying up until 3:00 a.m. to read. I first heard of The Help on NPR's All Things Considered and knew that I'd have to read it. This is a story about black maids and their white employers in Jackson, Mississippi in the the 1960s. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, the stories are intimate, personal, unsettling, uplifting and deeply, deeply moving. The Help captures these complicated relationships beautifully -- the ill treatment, the kindnesses from both sides, and the depth of the connections. This book excels in showing the heirarchies of the Southern social class system, all the lines that are drawn between the many levels of haves and have nots. Only a Southerner could have captured these nuances so accurately.

Told primarily in the voices of maids, Aibeleen and Minnie, the novel is centered around the relationship that develops between Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan and Aibeleen. Skeeter is a new graduate of Ole Miss returning to her family's plantation without the MRS expected of southern college girls in the sixties. She plays bridge and tennis with her old sorority sisters who now run the local Ladies League and grimly follows her mother's advice on how a tall, ungainly, frizzy headed girl can catch a man while she dreams of becoming a writer. When Skeeter lands a job writing the housekeeping advice column for the local paper, she turns to Aibeleen for information, because having had a maid all of her life, she knows nothing about keeping house.

Aibeleen has spent her life raising and loving white women's children and seeing them grow to hold racial prejudices, even though some still show their love for her. She has also recently lost her own son. That loss, including how he was treated because he was a black man, is close to the surface.The relationship is awkward. Aibeleen is scared of the potential consequences of getting too close to her employer's friend, but when Skeeter gets the idea of writing a book about the stories of black maids, the relationship grows in fits and starts. Aibeleen, who is also a writer, feels the need to tell her story, even though she knows if it gets to the wrong people (of whom Skeeter might be one), the consequences for her could be literally deadly. Over time, she brings in more maids to tell their stories, and in the process, she, Skeeter, and most particularly, Minnie, Aibeleen's closest friend change and grow.

Ever since I started reading this book, Verleen, the maid who worked for my family when I was a small girl has been on my mind. I don't even know if I'm spelling her name correctly, but I know I loved her with the intensity and purity only a small child can possess, and I still remember the last day she worked for my family and how sad her leaving made me. I'm remembering Letty, who followed Verleen. She had such great dignity and a smile that just glowed. I'm remembering the few times we would drive them to their homes after work and how they had to ride in the back seat. That is not a comfortable feeling, and it stayed with me all through the whole book. The Help made me think, remember and feel, and it will stay with me for a long, long time.

This year's first

Last night, I finished my first book of the new year. OK, I started it last week, but it's still the first book of 2010. I just loved Julie & Julia by Julie Powell, so I had to check out her new book Cleaving: A Story of Meat, Marriage and Obsession. It's a strong follow up to a damn good first book, and it continues on with the themes of food, self-discovery and marriage. One of the things I really enjoy about Powell's writing is her willingness to present herself in a much less than flattering light. In Julie & Julia, her tale showed her as quirky and obsessive, sometimes a bit over the top. It was endearing in the book and cute in the movie.

In Cleaving, I got the impression that Powell could be a real piece of work, but one definitely worth knowing and enjoying. This book begins after Julie & Julia has made her a success. In it, she's pursuing an apprenticeship in a charming hippie run butcher shop. It follows her learning curve as she learns how to break down sides of meat into the cuts we carnivores enjoy. It's honest and descriptive without being unnecessarily gory, even though it does describe the entire process of a living animal becoming dinner. At the same time, she's describing an affair she had, its effects on the marriage that seemed so perfect in her first book, how the end of the affair affected her, a journey across the world, its different meats and what she found in herself. She gives the same careful, unflinching eye to her infidelity and marriage as she gives to the skill and craft of preparing meat.

This book just isn't as easy as Julie & Julia. It contains a good share of tears, and the story of a woman with a good marriage committing adultery and finding a taste for rougher sex can be just uncomfortable sometimes. I'm sure living it was even more so. As a reader, I just didn't want that to have happened. I wanted the character Julie to be easily, seamlessly married, but Powell is basically an autobiographer. Life is more complicated and richer than fiction, and Powell shows that well. The elements that inspired me so in Julie & Julia, finding a passion and becoming more sure and confident in one's self, carry on in this book. It just shows some of the darker aspects of the journey, and they're important as well.

I can't see Cleaving becoming a movie. Separating meat from bone just doesn't create as sexy an image as magnificent food coming out of an oven. Two people hurting each other while they love each other isn't as warm and fuzzy as being encouraging and supportive. It's just not Hollywood, but it's a good read that I highly recommend.

Coincidentally, a couple of days before I finished the book, a good friend gave me a roast, some beef liver and hamburger. Her father raised the Black Angus cattle they came from. It's organic, free range, grass and grain fed, top of the line beef. (Do I have good friends or what?) After Cleaving, I appreciate it even more, and I'm look forward to using Powell's recipe for liver.

I've started my second book of the year. It's Swallowing Darkness by Laurell K. Hamilton. I plan on writing about it as well.