Accidental Southern Belle: My impassioned plea for you to read Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen

I finally made my way through this vast, amazing epic of a book. I know that I often say that I loved books here. But this one is different, for one thing, it convinced me that Jonathan Franzen is a prescient genius (something I was decidedly not in agreement with before I picked this up). The writing is so precise and dense, yet compelling and readable at the same time. The issues he tackles are huge (coming of age after college, love, commitment, the relationships between parents and their adult children, abortion, corporate greed, environmental hazards), but the characters that he uses to portray them are uncommonly deep.

There are echoes of so many things in here, most clearly (to me in any case, I am so sure that Franzen is eighty million times smarter than I could even ever THINK myself to be that I won't even begin to dissect what he has actually DONE here because it's really undissectable) White Noise and Henry James, but all of those echoes are so well-placed that they make the book feel more alive than derivative (like my least favorite "reference" book The Hours which is just a stupid gimmick pulled off by a smart writer in my opinion).

I think this book should be required reading for everyone graduating from college, and everyone who has ever felt lost, small, identity-less and powerless. So, anyone smart should read this book. And spend lots of time with it. I am notoriously impatient and I have spent the last month with this novel to great effect.

Caveat: there is a good bit of whining about "what will I do with my life" kind of things and one can kind of feel the author going through this dilemma as his characters do. If this BOTHERS you, then perhaps wait on this book. If you are said "what will I do with my life" dilemma time (I know I'm old for this...but what can I say? I peaked in maturity at 17 and it's all been downhill since.)

Well worth the time it requires of you.

November 2008

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T. R. Pearson: Polar
Funny, sharp writing. Highly recommend this author.
Julia Glass: I See You Everywhere
I read this in two days. I really adore Julia Glass' writing style.It's so smooth and full of beauty. I was surprised to see that the pieces in the book had originally been published as stories in other places, because they feel so cohesive. The only peeve I have with it, which is why it doesn't get 5 stars is that the first chapter has these really annoying POV shifts between the two sisters, both are in first person and the name of one of the characters is, bothersomely, Clement. So it is really, really distracting. But don't let this put you off. The rest of the book is a beautiful account of what it's like to be sisters.
Ethan Canin: America America: A Novel
Especially interesting in the election year, this is a novel about politics, ambition and family secrets. It kind of plods along and yet is suspenseful at the same time. I've been savoring it over the past few weeks (it is SO OVERDUE at the library) and enjoying dipping in and out of it. Interesting narrative technique and lovely writing, coupled with suspense makes it the kind of book I love. Definitely check this one out.
Nanci Kincaid: Eat, Drink, and Be From Mississippi: A Novel
Not what I was expecting, but it is an interesting meditation on what it means to be Southern, race and how life can throw strange situations at you but it's what you make of them.
Charlaine Harris: Dead Until Dark (Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 1)
A kind of silly vampire story.
Curtis Sittenfeld: American Wife: A Novel
Great plane reading. I was totally engrossed. Fell apart a bit at the end...but who can complain? It kept me company on the way to Seattle.
David Wroblewski: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel
Completely gorgeous. No complaints about this one.
Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers: The Story of Success
A completely fascinating account of why some people succeed and some don't--from when a person is born to the number of hours they go to school to circumstance. This will be of interest to anyone who is thinking about when to start their kids in school, people interested in education policy, ok, everybody. But I'm DEFINITELY sending one to my dad who was an elementary school principal and now is a mentor to principals. The stuff about how schools in the US are run and how just changing how vacations are handled could change how the lowest achievers achieve is told simply and compellingly.
Isaac Bashevis Singer: Enemies: A Love Story
Not at all what I expected, it is the story of a man who moves to New York after the Holocaust, thinking that his old wife is dead and ends up with three wives. And then the story is about how he juggles them all. It is almost other-worldly although it isn't actually. It totally drew me in though, made me think it was like a literary description of PTSD before they had a term for it.
Haven Kimmel: Iodine: A Novel
Haven Kimmel is a genius. This is oh-so-different than anything she's written before. But it is EVEN BETTER than anything she has written before. Please buy it right away.