One Day by David Nicholls

Chapter 1: ‘The Future’

Friday 15th July 1988
Rankeillor Street, Edinburgh

‘I suppose the important thing is to make   some sort of difference,’ she said. ‘You know, actually change something.’

‘What, like “change the world”, you mean?’

‘Not the whole entire world. Just the little bit around you.’

They lay in silence for a moment, bodies curled around each other in the single bed, then both began to laugh in low, pre-dawn voices. ‘Can’t believe I just said that,’ she groaned. ‘Sounds a bit corny, doesn’t it?’

‘A bit corny.’

‘I’m trying to be inspiring! I’m trying to lift your grubby soul for the great adventure that lies ahead of you.’ She turned to face him. ‘Not that you need it. I expect you’ve got your future nicely mapped out, ta very much. Probably got a little flow-chart somewhere or something.’

‘Hardly.’

~ from One Day by David Nicholls

What a delightful read this was. I read this book as part of my book club, and when it was first selected I assumed that it would be the ultimate ‘chick lit’ – entertaining and sweet, but vapid. Thankfully I was pleasantly surprised.

This novel has a clever frame – we meet the two main characters, Emma Morely, and Dexter Mayhew, on July 15, 1988 when they’re in their last year of university. They have a one night stand, but end up starting a meaningful friendship that seems to catch them both off guard. The novel then goes on to show us July 15th (one day) in their lives for the next 20 years.

What makes this book special is that despite its romantic pretense, it never edges into sentimentality. The writing is quick and quirky, and Emma Morley is one of the most engaging women you’ll likely ever read. Dexter Mayhew on the other hand is a point of contention. Many of the people I know who’ve read the book experienced some major apathy during Dexter’s sections of the story because they didn’t like him. I, on the other hand, was still riveted by what was happening in Dexter’s life, because although I didn’t agree with or “like” much of his behaviour, I thought he was a fascinating and muti-layered character.

It was a joy to read this book. I always wanted to know what was going to happen next, and particularly towards the end I literally couldn’t put it down. It did feel very cinematic and I can see how it’ll make a terrific movie (I think it’s coming out relatively soon), but I would definitely recommend  read. It’s a great one to pick up after you’ve read something quite heavy, or if you’re craving a book that is smart, entertaining, and grabs you from the beginning.

Happy Reading,

Amber

next up: the blog about the book I read following this, On Beauty by Zadie Smith.

My Fairy Uncle by Kat Lanteigne

Ok, so I have to be up front. Kat Lanteigne is a good friend of mine and someone who I very much admire and respect, so enjoying her children’s book – My Fairy Uncle – was almost a given. That being said I was a little nervous to blog about a book written by a friend…what if I didn’t like it? What would I write about??

Well, I’m happy to say I don’t have to worry about that dilemma because I LOVED Ms Lanteigne’s debut book.

My Fairy Uncle is the story of Eden, a little girl who is a little different from all the other kids she knows – she was born with one blue eye and one green eye, and that seems to be only the first in a series of ways in which is stands out from her peers.  She walks hunched over and wishes she could just disappear, that is until her fairy uncle Maurice comes to visit.  The conceit of the story is that Eden’s parents have never introduced her to her uncle Maurice because they “have very different lives”.

Lanteigne’s inventive story is a take on a recognizable structure found in lots of children’s stories, but what makes her book stand out is its depth. On the surface it’s a simple story of a sad, self-conscious little girl who learns to look at herself and the world a little differently through the help of a wonderful new mentor. Underneath it’s a beautiful look at the importance of acceptance, especially with regards to sexual orientation.

Madeleine Simson’s rich illustrations illuminate Lanteigne’s well crafted narrative and invite us into Eden’s world. This is a book I can’t wait to share with all the children in my life, and future children of my own. This read was a lovely reminder of how simple it is to choose acceptance and love whenever possible. I’m delighted to recommend it to you!

Next up: Peace Like a River by Lief Enger (book club pick for October)

Happy Reading,

Amber

Remembering the Bones by Frances Itani

“Sometimes I talk to Elizabeth, though she’s never heard my conversations. The fact that my life and hers were following a pattern early on did not escape my notice, and I began to think fondly of her as Lilibet, a kind of parallel life mate. Once, I even saw her up close. She was visiting Canada and her limo was driven all the way from Ottawa with a police escort and had to pass through Wilna Creek. She waved directly at me from the back seat as if we were old friends. She wore a bemused look on her face: look where we find ourselves today.

Well, look where I find myself today. Mouth dry, lips that feel like parched earth cracking. Is this the day of Lilibet’s celebration? And who refuses the Queen? I’d gladly march to the palace if only someone would help me to get up. My thoughts creep from their shelter. My family riffles like cards through my head. My history peers back at me. Who is dead? Who is not? With a mother as old as mine, you want to know your stories. The endings, I’m not so sure of. People die holding their secrets, their loves, their pains. Family history is rewritten. I know that Case hasn’t taken the time yet to hear the stories, but maybe someday she’ll want to know about the family that came before her.”

~from Remembering the Bones by Frances Itani

Remembering the Bones is the story of Georgie, and 80-year-old woman from small town Ontario who shares her birthday with the Queen. She’s been invited to England for a special birthday celebration with Elizabeth herself, but on her way to the airport her car careens off a cliff and sends her spinning down into the bottom of a ravine. Thus begins her real journey, struggling to stay alive by remembering the bones of her body that she memorized from her beloved copy of Gray’s Anatomy as a child.

With such a gripping start it was hard for me to imagine not get totally invested in this novel from page one. Right away I felt swept into Georgie’s world and immediately I cared about what happened to her. Of course, the literal lying at the bottom of a ravine only accounts for a fraction of the novel. The majority of the time Georgie takes us back through her life and the result is a raw, compelling, and totally engaging portrait of someone you might call an ordinary woman.

As with most “ordinary” women, however, Georgie’s life is actually quite extraordinary. Especially touching is the story of her young marriage, her early years as a mother struggling to raise a daughter, and the crystal clear character of Grand Dan, her grandmother and mentor. 

I felt certain I would at least moderately enjoy this book as Deafening, Itani’s older novel, is a favourite of mine. Frances did not disappoint. Remembering the Bones is honest and captivating without delving into the sentimental. This is a smart author drawing a picture of a smart woman with incredible detail and skill.

My one complaint is minor, and that is that as the novel begins to move there are less cuts back to the reality of Georgie’s situation in the ravine. I wanted to experience a few more ups and downs of her plight, but that in itself is a testament to how engaged I was with this character – I cared how she was doing in the present.

This one is definitely worth your time, and good for summer. Not too light and fluffy, but not too dense.

Happy Reading,

Amber

Next up: My Fairy Uncle by Kat Lanteigne, and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.

Nikolski by Nicholas Dickner, amongst others…

Magnetic Anomaly

My name is unimportant.

It all started in September 1989, at about seven in the morning.

I’m still asleep, curled up in my sleeping bag on the living-room floor. There are cardboard boxes, rolled-up rugs, half-disassembled pieces of furniture, and tool boxes heaped around me. The walls are bare, except for the pale spots left by the pictures that had hung there for too many years.

The window lets in the monotonous, rhythmic sound of the waves rolling over the stones.

Every beach has a particular acoustic signature, which depends on the force and length of the waves, the makeup of the ground, the form of the landscape, the prevailing winds and the humidity in the air. It’s impossible to confuse the subdued murmur of Mallorca with the resonant roll of Greenland’s prehistoric pebbles, or the coral melody of the beaches of Belize, or the hollow growl of the Irish coast.

The surf I hear this morning is easy enough to identify. The deep, somewhat raw rumbling, the crystalline ringing of the volcanic stones, the slightly asymmetrical breaking of the waves, the water rich in nutriments – there’s no mistaking the shores of the Aleutian Islands.

I mutter something and open my left eye a crack. Where can that unlikely sound be coming from? The nearest ocean is over a thousand kilometres away. And besides, I’ve never set foot on a beach.

I crawl out of the sleeping bag and stumble over to the window. Clutching at the curtains, I watch the garbage truck pull up with a pneumatic squeal in front of our bungalow. Since when do diesel engines imitate breaking waves?

Dubious poetry of the suburbs.

~from Nikolski by Nicholas Dickner

I took Nikolski by Nicholas Dickner out of the library because it was the Canada Reads winner for this year.  I stuck with it (which seems to be significant for me these days) mostly because of its quirky, imaginative style. It’s a world of strange, semi-magical happenings: modern day pirates, archeology, fish shops, and garbage dumps.  Dickner’s voice is fresh and eccentric, but that wasn’t enough to convince that this book is worth its laurels.

I quickly recognized this book as a story about three individual and seemingly unconnected narrators who all end up in Montreal. My expectation was that these three individual lives were somehow meant to intersect in a way that would illuminate something about each of them, yadda, yadda, you know how it goes. Well, without giving too much away, the three protagonists do end up being connected in a loose way, but (in my opinion) their connection amounts to nothing! There is a no major revelation or cathartic “ah ha” about their link to one another. Dicker’s big finish is: “surprise! they’re all connected in this vague and possibly meaningless way!” I put it down and immediately said, “I feel like nothing happened”.

So that’s my two cents. I did enjoy some of his creative turns of phrase – the voices of all his characters came through  quite clearly, but I felt like I stuck with it and there was no pay off.

I read this book alongside several non-fiction books. Usually I like to stay firmly rooted in fiction, but lately I’ve been wondering. Mostly I’ve been perusing or re-reading:

…and now you all think I’m crying myself to sleep every night! But I can assure I’m not…well, not every night…and all three of these books have had a significant impact on encouraging me to take each day as it comes. Check them out.

Currently I’m working on Remembering the Bones by Frances Itani. So far it’s gripping, beautiful, and everything I expected after reading (and loving) her earlier book Deafening.

Also the radar: My Fairy Uncle, a children’s book by the amazingly talented Kat Lanteigne. It’s been staring me down, waiting for me to read it for over a month. It’s happening. Also, my new found book club is reading Sense and Sensibility this month. Am I an awful book blogger if I just rent the movie?

Happy Reading,

Amber

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

“GhettoNerd at the End of the World

1974-1987
the golden age

Our hero was not one of those Dominican cats everybody’s always going on about – he wasn’t no home-run hitter or a fly bachatero, not a playboy with a million hots on his jock.

And except for one period early in his life, dude never had much luck with the females (how very un-Dominican of him).

He was seven then.

In those blessed days of his youth, Oscar was something of a Casanova. One of those preschool loverboys who was always trying to kiss the girls, always coming up behind them during a merengue and giving them the pelvic pump, the first nigger to learn the perrito and the one who danced it any chance he got. Because in those days he was (still) a “normal” Dominican boy raised in a “typical” Dominican family, his nascent pimpliness was encouraged by blood and friends alike. During parties – and there were many many parties in those long-ago seventies days, before Washington Heights was Washington Heights, before the Bergenline became a straight shot of Spanish for almost a hundred blocks – some drunk relative inevitably pushed Oscar onto some little girl and then everyone would howl as boy and girl approximated the hip-motism of the adults.”

~from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

My latest read, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2008. It also has a very clever title and holds the promise of a new voice, a new style, and an exceptional reading experience. Or maybe I just had lofty expectations.

The story follows the life of Oscar, an overweight, geeky, Dominican, teen from New Jersey, and the curse (the fuku) that has plagued his family for generations. The novel jumps between Paterson, New Jersey and the Dominican Republic. The narrators shift throughout the book, starting with Oscar and jumping alternately to his sister Lola, and then Lola’s boyfriend, Yunior.  There are also chapters that recount the story of Beli, Oscar’s mother, and Abelard, Oscar’s grandfather, both narrated in third person.

The book started out feeling clever and quickly left me wanting more substance and less style. Diaz gives us multiple foot notes throughout the story, mostly referencing Dominican history. I found that these antidotes quickly became obnoxious. I never wanted to real the whole footnote, but then I’d move on and felt like I’d missed something.  I couldn’t help but think, “if it was really important to the story your telling, why wasn’t it embedded in the narrative?!”

My other beef was that Oscar, the main character and the closest thing we have to a protagonist, is so unbearably sad. I mean, we all have our teenage sadness, and his is particularly isolating, but then his luck never picks up. And yes, there is this thing about fuku, the curse on the family, but when this is the guy who you’re most engaged with and he’s so completely, unrelentingly shit out of luck, it’s just a downer.

I can’t really grasp the fact that this book won the Pulitzer. I can understand how it’s originality and offbeat charm would catch the eye of readers, but to hold this up as an exceptional piece of writing for generations to come? Not so much.

If you start this one you’ll probably finish. It’s got enough going on to keep you interested in the story, but ultimately it left me feeling just ‘meh’.

Next up: I’ve joined a book club! So I have a book that has been selected for me. How will this fage, you ask? We’ll see…this month’s book is: Obasan by Joy Kogawa. I’ve also taken out Nino Ricci’s The Origin of Species from the library with hopes to tackle it soon. And last by not least, look for an upcoming review of the children’s book My Fairy Uncle by Kat Lanteigne.

Happy Reading,

Amber

Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott

1. Left turn

Thinking about herself and the state of her soul, Clara Purdy drove to the bank one hot Friday in July. The other car came from nowhere, speeding through on the yellow, going so fast it was almost safely past when Clara’s car caught it. She was pushing on the brake, a ballet move, graceful–pulling back on the wheel with both arms as she rose, her foot standing on the brake–and then a terrible crash, a painful extended rending sound, when the metals met. The sound kept on longer than you’d expect, Clara thought, having time to think as the cars scraped sides and changed each other’s direction, as the metal ripped open and bent and assumed new shapes.

They stopped. The motion stopped. Then the people from the other car came spilling out. The doors opened and like milk boiling over on the stove, bursting to the boil, they all frothed out onto the pavement. It seemed they came out the windows, but it was only the doors.

~ from Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott

This is the way Marina Endicott’s novel starts, and after this event, nothing is the same.

The story follows Clara Purdy – a single, forty-year-old woman who works for an insurance company and minds her own business. After the car accident that begins the book, Clara learns that the family of the other vehicle was living out of their car, en route to Fort McMurray where the father, Clayton, had a job lined up. They are all sent to the hospital to be checked over, and it becomes apparent that the mother Lorraine, is extremely ill, and it isn’t because of the car accident. She is diagnosed as having stage four cancer, and Clara is presented with a choice: allow the family, including father Clayton, 10 year old Darlene, 6 year old Trevor, baby Pearce, and Grandmother Mrs. Pell to hover at the hospital for an undetermined amount of time, or open her home to them all.

Clara opts for number two, and almost immediately Clayton steals her mother’s old car and some money and takes off. She is left with a nasty grandmother with an inclination towards shoplifting, and three helpless children to care for.

And so begins Endicott’s central question: what is goodness? What are the limits of goodness?

This book captivated me not so much because of its writing style, but because of the moral questions it asks of its readers. I think that the genius of Endicott’s story telling is that you (or at least, I) can’t help but make gigantic moral judgements of these characters without even realizing it. About half way through I felt so fiercely defensive of Clara and what she was doing and how selfless I thought she was being and how brave and good and it suddenly smacked me in the face that I hadn’t considered the other character’s points of view.

If this novel doesn’t get you thinking about the class system in Canada and about how quick we are to label certain people or circumstances, then I don’t know what will. Endicott has crafted a cast of characters that will move you and cause you to ask yourself some tough questions.

All in all it’s not a novel I’ll dog ear and read phrases from over and over again, but it’s a book that sits in your gut and forces you to wrestle with your own (often subconscious) prejudices.

Next up: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.

Happy Reading (and sorry it’s been so long!)

Amber

February by Lisa Moore

Ok, I know I haven’t been keeping up the blog at the speed I set for myself a few weeks ago, but it’s because it’s spring time and that means I ride my bike almost everywhere which means my subway time has been significantly cut, meaning a slash to my reading time too! Sigh. That being said, I am sad/excited to be finished Lisa Moore’s February. Sad to let it go and excited to share it with all of you!

Now I’m not sure if I am uniquely poised to feel emotionally wrecked by this book, but I often found myself pretending I had something in my eye while on the streetcar because I was secretly weeping. The novel follows Helen, a mother of three with one more on the way who loses her husband in a horrific Valentine’s Day storm that capsized an oil rig off the coast of Newfoundland leaving 83 men dead.  The narration cuts between that devastating February and the surrounding time in her marriage, and present day where Helen is in her late fifties.

In Lisa Moore’s skillful hands the relationship between Helen and her late husband Cal is so intimate it hurts. She describes their simple exchanges, their little routines, without ever giving over to sentimentality. Their marriage, as viewed through the lens of disaster, is made up of the smallest moments that appear to Helen in super size, blindingly bright.  As Helen makes small attempts to “get out there again”, Moore reveals just how broken her heart still is. Here is a passage that really got me, as Helen contemplates internet dating:

If she had been honest she would have asked: Could you be my dead husband for an afternoon. Could you put on his clothes, I still have them. Will you wear the cologne he wore. Will you smoke Export As, just for an afternoon. Will you drink India beer and burn the steaks on the barbecue, will you be funny and tell jokes and leave groceries for the family down the road who have no groceries. Could you be Cal?

~from February by Lisa Moore

This is a beautiful book about real people by a brave writer.

Next up: Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott.

Happy Reading,

Amber

February by Lisa Moore

I just started February by Newfoundland author Lisa Moore, so that’s what will be up next (for those of you who were waiting with bated breath).  I just felt compelled to let people know because she is such a captivating writer and I’m already dog earring pages like crazy (sorry Toronto Public Library). I read her earlier novel, Alligator several years ago and loved it.

I want to share a little excerpt with you as a teaser. This is Helen’s description of some of the older ladies in the community at the funeral service for 84 men (including her husband) that all died when their oil rig sank off the coast of Newfoundland (don’t worry, this happens right at the beginning!) Maybe some of you will read along!

Happy Reading,

Amber

“The wavering high-pitched voice of the old ladies in the front. Those voices are distant, they don’t blend, they’re on key but reedy, and they just don’t ever blend or harmonize or join in; they lead is what they do, old ladies who come to church every morning, walking up from Gower Street or King’s Road or Flavin Street after putting out some food for the cat and a dishtowel over the tan bowl with bread rising in it. They come rubber boots with zippers up the front, boots that slide over indoor shoes and used to belong to the husbands, who are dead, and the old ladies have plastic rain hats they tie under their chins and wool coats with big buttons and permed hair and rosary beads in their pockets beside balled up tissues. Those old woman couldn’t believe they had to look at so much sorrow so late in their lives. That kind of thing should have been over for them. ”

–from February by Lisa Moore

Fall by Colin McAdam

There is a fork in the road at a certain point in Colin McAdam’s novel Fall where you aren’t sure which way he’ll choose to go. Past this juncture it becomes an entirely different kind of story. I know that must sound incredibly vague, but I hate giving away major plot points when I write about books.

The story is set at a boarding school in Ottawa. Our two narrators are Noel, a quite, strange, loner with a lazy eye and his unlikely roommate Julius, a handsome, popular son of the American Ambassador. McAdam has written the novel so each chapter flips from Julius to Noel (with the exception of a couple random chapters from the perspective of Julius’ dad’s chauffeur, but we’ll address that later). McAdam’s writing puts each boys thoughts to the page, so what we’re getting is an inner monologue for each. This nicely draws the stark contrast between Julius’ teenage boy brain and Noel’s eccentric, spinning mind.

The essence of the story is the boys relationship with each other and the odd intimacy that begins to form between them, and also their relationship (or lack of one) with Fall. Fall is the most beautiful girl at school and has been the object of Noel’s affection for years, but of course, she’s dating Julius.

The nice thing is that although McAdam’s framework for this story is quite simple, his ability to lay out a slice of each character’s inner workings makes this a worthwhile read. The one place he lost me is when he throws in two or three random chapters from the perspective of William, Julius’ father’s chauffeur who often lends Julius his car for alone time with Fall. The first time there was a chapter narrated by William I had to rack my brain to remember who William was. Once it fell into place I thought – what does this add? Wouldn’t it be more interesting to have a chapter or two from Fall’s perspective? She is, afterall, talked about ad nauseum but we never have a chance to hear her thoughts.

To Fall’s credit, I did move through it at a rapid pace and found myself thinking about it as I went through my day – a sure sign that a novel is having an effect on me. That being said, I don’t know if its impact will be all that lasting. I would love to hear from anyone that’s read it to compare notes on what they felt about the ending. I raced to the finish line last night only to feel as though not much actually got wrapped up.

Next up: undecided! I’m waiting for a couple of books to come into the library. In the meantime, I’m on the lookout for new reads. Any suggestions out there?

Happy Reading,

Amber

1

The days that made me, that were supposed to change me, that didn’t actually make me, are showing me now what I was. My days in the room with Julius. Years have provided some safety.
That was not a school with pipes and dons and tweeds.

It wasn’t a place where people spoke like people don’t speak.

It wasn’t in the Highlands of Scotland or the hills of New
England.

It was a place of traditions but the traditions weren’t old.

Like most private schools it was part fantasy, part reality, and therefore all reality. A place where stories happened, not fables, where there was learning, not lessons, and no one came away with memories of neat moral episodes. I came away with memories.

There were too many contradictions for there to have been any sense, and my life has always been so. We were boys who wore suits, monkeys with manners. We didn’t have parents but were treated
like babies. We were left on our own but had hundreds of rules to abide.

We were eighteen years old, as grown-up as we could be.

My memories are twitching like morning in the city.

– from Fall by Colin McAdam

Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden

 When there was no Pepsi left for my rye whisky, nieces, there was always ginger ale. No ginger ale? Then I had river water. River water’s light like something between those two. And brown Moose River water’s cold. Cold like living between two colours. Like living in this town.When the whisky was Crown Royal, then brown Moose River water was a fine, fine mix. 

You know I was a bush pilot. The best. But the best have to crash. And I’ve crashed a plane, me. Three times. I need to explain this all to you. I was a young man when I crashed the first time.The world was wide open. I was scared of nothing. Just before Helen and I had our oldest boy. The first time I crashed I was drunk, but that wasn’t the reason I crashed. I used to fly a bush plane better with a few drinks in me. I actually believe my eyesight improved with whisky goggles on. But sight had nothing to do with my first crash.Wait. It had everything to do with it. Snowstorm. Zero visibility. As snow blinded my takeoff from the slick runway, I got the goahead with a warning from the Moosonee flight tower: harder snow coming.

~ from Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden 

I finished Joseph Boyden’s Through Black Spruce last night and I cried because it was over. 

I loved this book, and I have to say that I knew that I would from page one. The story follows Will Bird, a retired bush pilot living in Moosonee, Ontario. Will is in a coma and at the start of the novel we don’t know why. The chapters switch between Will speaking to his nieces,  Annie and Suzanne, and Annie speaking to her Uncle Will. Through their individual stories, Boyden weaves together a skillful and riveting account of the events leading up to Will’s hospitalization. 

The first thing I was struck by when I began this book was how clearly drawn each of Boyden’s characters were, but unlike Alissa York’s Effigy, Boyden’s strength in is letting his characters do the talking. Through Black Spruce was akin to reading a great play in the sense that I gathered my understanding of Boyden’s characters by the way they spoke and interacted with each other rather than through dense description. 

I also found Boyden’s voice as a writer to be incredibly unique. I haven’t read any of his other work, but the way he is able to capture the atmosphere of this community through the smallest details of Will or Annie’s life is remarkable. The book also spans a great distance. Much of it takes place in Northern Ontario, but there are also sections containing just as much authenticity set in Toronto, Montreal, and New York City. 

Similarly to Lawrence Hill’s Book of Negroes,  Through Black Spruce doesn’t just tell you a story, it asks you to step inside of a story. I can’t recommend this book enough and the more I talk about it, the less justice I’m doing it, so just get out there and borrow or buy your own copy!   

Happy Reading,

Amber

p.s. – Next up: Fall by Colin McAdam.