Book-Review 8 | unobtrusive lucidity

A Review of “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The advantage to being in a book club with a group of friends that have widely eclectic reading tastes is that you find yourself exposed to books that you probably would never have heard of otherwise, to say nothing of actually reading. This is the case with “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” a book that I didn’t know existed until it became my book club’s reading choice for September. I feared it was a children’s book at first blush, and it is, in fact, a young adult novel. A close inspection of the cover told me this would be a suspense story, and a scan of the synopsis told me it would a mystery. So, we have a mysterious suspense story. Or so I thought.

This novel was absolutely nothing like I expected. And I loved every page of it.

We’re introduced to our protagonist, Jake, the son of a wealthy family in Florida who really has no friends to speak of. His uncle is a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, and tells Jake stories about his time in a home for peculiar children, where his companions held mysterious and altogether odd abilities, and were chased by monsters. Jake spends his childhood looking at old photos that his uncle shows him, photos that are too strange and mysterious to believe. He grows up knowing, as does his family, that his uncle is senile. Until one afternoon when his uncle makes a frantic phone call that “they” have found him, and Jake goes to see what is wrong, only find his uncle brutally murdered. Then, Jake sees the monster. From there, we’re propelled into a search for a home for peculiar children as Jake realizes that the fantastic stories were true, exploring themes of acceptance and heroism along the way, along with love interests and a good dose of time travel thrown in, as well.

What Riggs does that is ingenious is that he takes authentic photographs, black and white images from collectors that he has painstakingly researched, and compiles them here as central to the narrative. These are the sorts of old photos that we’ve seen, and at which we’ve laughed: a teenage boy lifting a huge stone with one hand, a young girl levitating above the ground, a girl standing over a pool with two girls reflected below her. These are the sorts of photos that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you first see them. They make you question, “that can’t be real, can it? They didn’t have the means to alter photos back then…did they?” Then Riggs builds a story around the photos (which are reproduced strategically throughout the book, and credited in the end, if you’re interested), asking “what if?” What if those images were real, and weren’t altered? What sorts of events…what sorts of people…would make up the story behind that? That story, as Riggs sees it, is the novel. While none of his ideas here are particularly new or groundbreaking, combining them under this premise is one of the most creative exercises I’ve seen in recent memory.

To make the novel more fascinating, Celtic mysticism lies hidden throughout, with veiled references to “thin places,” as well as a Celtic holistic view of Creation that runs as an understated through-line to the time travel plot device that Riggs uses so adeptly. In fact, the portal between realms lies inside of a cairn…and, while this felt a bit like he might have taken the idea from Stephen Lawhead, the fact remains that you can’t get much more Celtic than that.

Riggs has done his research, not only with the photographs, but also with the species of birds that develop into character types (no more on that lest I leave you with spoilers). While his writing is not astounding in its complexity, keep in mind that this is a YA novel, and he’s writing to that demographic. Still, his prose is punctuated with a dry wit that will leave you laughing, and occasional flashes of descriptive brilliance that made me stop to re-read the sentence.

As much as I’ve read critiquing how the plot devices are not overly original, the book still moves the reader through an unpredictable arc, and what I particularly love is that it doesn’t tie up all of the loose ends. In fact, the journey is only truly beginning for these characters by the final chapter, leaving me wondering if another novel might follow. Fans of the superhero genre will appreciate the exploration of duty to others and responsibility that comes with power, and fans of the suspense genre won’t be disappointed with scenes that are outright creepy if you’re reading late at night with only a single light in your apartment.

Whether or not YA generally suits your palate, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” is a book that I would recommend to anyone. A delicious read that just leaves you smiling in the end…and perhaps wanting more…it is not a book that pretends to be more than it is. But it does what it sets out to do well, and is a refreshingly original way to construct a novel. Add this book to your shelf…and please let me know what you think.

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You can purchase the book here.

A Review of “A Visit from the Goon Squad”

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was hesitant to write a review of the novel that won the Pulitzer prize for fiction this year, partly because I don’t have the space for the analysis that I’d love to see this book receive here (not that I would be capable of that even if I did), but mostly because I’m just not sure I have the chops for it. My interest in A Visit from the Goon Squad was piqued by the title, and solidified by its winning the Pulitzer. Now that I’ve finished it, though, there is simply too much to say about this novel, which is nothing short of phenomenal and left me nothing short of breathless with the completely satiated feeling that comes when you recognize that you’ve just read something better than the last two years’ worth of books all put together. So, while others will and have doubtlessly reviewed this better than I will, this one, at the end of the day, is just too good to keep.

“Time’s a goon,” or at least that’s what more than one character says through the course of this book, and this, apparently, is the important thing that Egan is attempting to say in her novel. To narrow this down as the only theme would be a mistake, however, but it appears to at least be the characters’ most obvious and existential struggle. We begin with Sasha, a kleptomaniac who works for a record producer named Bennie in New York City. Sasha remains the closest thing to a single protagonist that we’ll get in the novel, as the novel is actually a collection of short stories through which Egan deftly and creatively switches protagonists as easily as she does time periods. The incidental character in the chapter you’re reading will become the protagonist in the next chapter, and some mental gymnastics are occasionally required to keep up with who has said what to whom and when several chapters previously. The stories jump backward and forward in time, gently revealing how each of the characters impact each other throughout their lives in a manner that calls to mind Salinger’s Nine Stories, and with wildly improbable events occurring (like someone being mauled by a lion during an African safari, or the futuristic addiction to handsets that appears in the end of the novel) that actually don’t feel quite so improbable at the time. What remains constant, though, is that time and age are profoundly impacting the characters’ lives, and they all struggle to survive and thrive in one way or another, some to more success than others. Some even manage to do so redemptively. Sasha and Bennie remain the constants, and, while not appearing in every story, are the obvious connections between the characters. This is especially true of Sasha, who leaves her mark on both the other characters and the reader as a girl you just can’t help but love, despite her shortcomings, as she searches for herself and somehow manages to bring out something good in those around her.

Early in the book, I started to realize that things were beginning to sound familiar, and found myself thinking that I had read this before. I then remembered that I had, as short fiction in The New Yorker a little over a year ago. I remembered the story because, standing alone, it made no sense to me other than being a well-crafted portrait of teenage angst. That, however, is part of the beauty of Egan’s craft. Each chapter can stand alone as a self-contained story. The genius, though, is how each one interweaves with all of the others in ways that you never quite expect but that you can’t help but love. Again, this is what leaves me reminiscent of Salinger, and may be part of why I loved this book so much.

Perhaps a deeper theme that lies not so subtly beneath the surface of Egan’s writing is that of a culture of public relations, which becomes very apparent about halfway through the novel when we are introduced to one of our characters who does public relations for a living. Manufacturing an image is something that all of these characters do to simply survive, growing their personal brands now and struggling to resurrect them when they die, as if doing so is to resurrect themselves. This exploration of image management ends in its logical conclusion in a futuristic New York City as Egan abruptly launches her final chapter into the realm of speculative fiction while losing none of her unique, literary zest.

And did I mention the music? The music that rings through this novel is a self-contained tour of rock history that will just bring smiles to your face as you recall these amazing songs. One reviewer wrote that he regretted that the book didn’t come with a soundtrack. I have to echo that sentiment, but also point out how the rhythms of music, right down to the pauses (which will play a major role as Egan explores the mind of an Autistic child…yes, she does that too) seem to move the plot along with the rise and fall in tempo that’s the mark of any good album. There’s music to Egan’s prose. The plot centers around the music industry and its peripheral components, following characters that become involved with music as children and follow it through their lives as the goon that is time fights them, some to more success than others. One of the most poignant moments for me was the character who, becoming a custodian in his later life but still playing his guitar and writing music, recognizes that there is no difference between the record producer in the shiny office building and the school custodian, that both are people, and both are equal.

There really isn’t much that Egan doesn’t tackle here. To list the themes and ideas with which she experiments would leave the reader shaking her head at first blush, thinking that it is too much, that no author can explore that many things in one novel, at least not well. Never once, though, did I feel that while reading. Somehow, Egan does it all well, in exactly the right amounts, as though mixing just the right sound for her album. And, even though each chapter left me pausing to digest what I had just read, the book also moves easily, because you’ll find that you really can’t put it down once you’ve started until you’ve reached its end, back where it started, glimpsing the characters with whom we started as they are in the future, somehow still managing to survive and re-invent themselves in the face of that goon. In fact, they’ve even managed to make a difference, to change the world around them for the better despite their previous mistakes. That redemption is what left this one in the realm of the amazing for me.

A Visit from the Good Squad is one of those works that dispels the myth that real literature isn’t written any more. No matter your taste, you need to read this book, because you will be better for having done so.

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You can purchase A Visit from the Goon Squad here.

A Review of “The Accident Man”

The Accident Man by Tom Cain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fictional stories that spin off of historical events are always fascinating. I don’t mean fictional accounts of the lives of historical people…although those are fascinating as well. I mean novels that take a historical event and ask, “what if?” That is what Tom Cain does with The Accident Man, and he chooses a particularly sensitive subject historically: the death of Princess Diana. Specifically, Cain uses the fictional premise (although he specifically denies attempting to set forth or support any sort of conspiracy theory in his preface) that Princess Diana’s death was not accidental, but rather an assassination. His protagonist, Samuel Carver (who will debut here and will recur in future novels), is the assassin. He specializes in making his hits look like accidents, and only assassinates people whom he deems to truly deserve their fate, without knowing from whom his orders come. With this job, however, Carver has been double-crossed, and unknowingly murders one of the world’s most loved public figures, in order to further the political and financial goals of his employers. The rest of the book is about his discovery of this, his employers’ attempts to in turn kill him when he displays a conscience, and his quest for revenge.

I’ve always loved the espionage and suspense genre, and have gravitated toward books like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or the Bourne trilogy. I grew up devouring the entirety of the James Bond library, from Ian Fleming’s original works forward. What strikes me the most about this book is the consistency between Cain’s world and Fleming’s world for Bond. For example, when Carver takes a shower, he first takes a steaming hot shower, followed by an ice cold shower. This was a trademark of James Bond when Ian Fleming wrote him; Bond always took his showers this way. I was also struck by the female character’s (an unwitting spy who is drawn into a job she hates by people she hates) line after they sleep together, something to the effect of “it’s never been like that before.” I thought to myself, if that wasn’t a James Bond-like line, I don’t know what is.

The reason that I find this fascinating is because this is the first of Cain’s books featuring Carver’s character. He is creating a character much like Bond, and doing it well. However, he is creating a darker version of Bond, one that doesn’t function with patriotic allegiance, but rather with allegiance to the highest bidder, justifying his relativistic ethics with a survival instinct. This can be taken as an interesting commentary on how our world is now as opposed to the Cold War era of Fleming. In essence, Cain is asking a second question in this novel: what would James Bond look like in a modern world of blurred lines between nations where patriotism is no longer an acceptable motive and anyone or anything can be purchased, including life and death?

Cain develops his protagonist fully as he follows a very Bond-like plot, mastering what Fleming did so well with his master spy: balancing his human vulnerability with his deadly professional expertise. Carver’s backstory is interspersed well throughout the book, never bogging the reader down and always contributing to what Carver is doing at that moment. Cain uses interesting language choices for his narration, drawing emotional analogies to the sorts of physical items that would appear in a spy’s life, for example. Cain also develops his other characters, although his villain is not nearly as original or even as memorable as a Bond villain. He makes up for this, however, in the brutality of his villain.

And therein lies part of the problem. The story absorbs the reader breathlessly until around page 300. From that point until the end of the book, Cain moves the plot in a direction that is decidedly like Casino Royale, with some notable differences: the twist with the female character doubles back on itself, the torture scene is even more savage (as unbelievable as that sounds), and the protagonist is not pictured as recovering well. In fact, we wonder how he will return in future books at all after the abuse he survives and the condition in which it leaves him. The interrogation and torture scene goes on for multiple chapters, and left me disturbed well into the next day. I found this to be un-necessary (especially as other characters undergo interrogation during the course of the book, with significantly less graphic descriptions) and so long that it completely robbed the story of its momentum in the closing chapters. The plot line for these adventures, after all, is relatively predictable: we know the protagonist will be captured and interrogated. That’s just part of the genre. This is one area, however, in which Cain shouldn’t have attempted to out-do Fleming, especially as Cain had done so well at making his violence succinct and effective up until this point.

Cain’s dark, post-modern version of Bond is worth reading, if only to experience this contemporary take on the master-spy character in literature. If you like the genre, and can handle the graphic violence in the closing chapters, this would be a good book for you. Tom Cain has given us a character to consider, and Samuel Carver may well be a spy that will be mentioned in all future discussions of the genre. Time will tell. Will I read another Samuel Carver novel? Only time will tell that, as well.

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You can purchase The Accident Man here.

A Review of “Incendiary”

Incendiary by Chris Cleave
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Epistolary books aren’t generally my taste, but this one surprised me. As with most books that take me aback, I read this at the suggestion of friends…it was nominated by popular vote in a book club in which I participate. First off, the narrator of the audiobook version adds an amazing amount of depth to the book, even to the point of leading me to pick up on some British humor that I might otherwise not have grasped. The book is a relatively quick read, weighing in at just over 300 pages in paperback, or 8 hours in audio.

And it is funny!

In fact, Cleave is amazingly adept at stepping between dry, witty humor and poignant explorations of loss that leaves the reader wanting to cry. The narrator, during a sexual romp with her lover, loses her husband and son to an al Queda terrorist attack on London. This book is her letter to Osama bin Laden following that attack. As you can see, the premise is humorous from the beginning, and it only gets funnier…and more heartbreaking.

On the surface, this is a gripping story about a woman who has lost everything to a senseless act of terror, and, while traveling a grief-stricken journey to determine who to blame, slowly loses her grip on her sanity. At a deeper level, there is cultural critique here: not just on the barbarity of terrorists, but on the barbarity of the civilized world’s response. As Cleave’s protagonist loses her sanity to grief, the world around her (read: us) loses its sanity to fear. The image of a dark, near-future London with balloons hanging over the city bearing painted images of the dead haunts the reader for some time.

The fascinating development of characters runs even deeper, however. The protagonist’s lover’s girlfriend is nearly a mirror image of our distraught narrator, and the juxtaposition of a woman who loses while holding onto her core values against another version of herself who wins through self-serving, opportunistic means is amazingly well done. This, I think, is what stayed with me the longest from this book.

Incendiary is a quick read that will take you through an emotional journey that is well worth your time. The mirror that this novel holds to a post-September 11 world is provocative, and the conspiracy theorist twist at the end…well, let’s just say that it is all too believable.

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You can purchase Incendiary here.

A Review of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Should you find yourself in search of a good audiobook for traveling over the Holidays, I would recommend “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Whatever medium in which you choose to read the book, however, you should do so, especially if you enjoy mysteries. The “whodunit” factor of the plot kept me entertained, and there are enough turns and unexpected twists to keep you guessing. Also, one of the great contributions of reading this in audiobook format is that the narrator had a great sense of the characters, and the voices added a great deal to helping me visualizing them.

The mystery, however, isn’t what stayed with me the most.

The original title of the book (pre-translation, it’s “Men Who Hate Women”) seems appropriate, as that’s certainly the over-arching theme of the book. My wife commented that Mikael is a foil to this theme. There are basically three types of attitudes toward women presented here: hatred, love, and uncertainty, all represented in different characters. In fact, Mikael seems to be a participant on further inspection, as a passive “hater” in his failure to respect the women in his life through an intentional lack of commitment and willingness to use them for his own gratification.

Lisbeth’s character is heart-wrenching. She’s a great depiction of Asperger’s Syndrome, combined with a healthy dose of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This poor, brilliant woman has no clue how to have a normal, functioning friendship with someone without permitting herself to be objectified. We see her exist in a perpetual loneliness brought about through events beyond her power, and watch as her coping mechanisms lead her to assume a role of subtle but great power over others.

I saw two other themes at work here: justice and forgiveness. Justice, in that Lisbeth is a sort of data vigalante who is unrestrained by societal norms and free to mete out justice of her own variety and in ways that she sees fit. Yet, we never question her ethics, because of what she has experienced. Are we right to view her in that sort of victim mentality? Are we wrong to oppose her?

Also, to piggyback on some discussion I listened to about the book (the Kindlings Muse podcast discussed this at length), the theme of forgiveness and second chances is strong. Lisbeth reprents the secrets that we all want to hide. In an era where someone with her skills can get their hands on every dirty secret we’ve ever typed or recorded anywhere during our lives, can we ever be offered any sort of grace? Is forgiveness possible in a world where nothing can ever be forgotten?

The book caught my attention through it’s heavy marketing in bookstores and on iTunes. I was actually sort of surprised that it is a mystery novel, as I thought it would be more of an espionage novel at first blush. I was in no way disappointed, however. The life of the late Larsson and how it influenced his writing make this book even more fascinating. There are violent sequences in the book, some of the specific details of which could perhaps have been spared the reader without losing any of the impact of the events. I found them to be slightly gratuitous at times. Larsson dwells in his details (perhaps a bit exhaustively in the first chapters), even during the action of the book, and right into the poignant ending. He chooses his words well, and this is an excellent translation from the original language. I’m left aching in sympathy for Lisbeth while cheering her on, and looking very forward to reading the rest of the trilogy.

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