On Immunity: An Inoculation by Eula Biss

Summary from Goodreads:
Why do we fear vaccines? A provocative examination by Eula Biss, the author of Notes from No Man’s Land, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Upon becoming a new mother, Eula Biss addresses a chronic condition of fear—fear of the government, the medical establishment, and what is in your child’s air, food, mattress, medicine, and vaccines. She finds that you cannot immunize your child, or yourself, from the world.
In this bold, fascinating book, Biss investigates the metaphors and myths surrounding our conception of immunity and its implications for the individual and the social body. As she hears more and more fears about vaccines, Biss researches what they mean for her own child, her immediate community, America, and the world, both historically and in the present moment. She extends a conversation with other mothers to meditations on Voltaire’s Candide, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Susan Sontag’s AIDS and Its Metaphors, and beyond. On Immunity is a moving account of how we are all interconnected—our bodies and our fates.

When I saw that Eula Biss was coming out with a book of essays about vaccination - and I couldn't tell whether she was yea or nay on the topic - I tracked down the Graywolf Press people and asked for a review copy of On Immunity.  As someone who is both a bookseller and works in the field of epidemiology and has had to deal with the fallout when someone decides not to vaccinate and then catches and spreads a vaccine-preventable disease, well...let's just say I felt uniquely situated as a reader of this book.

On Immunity is an excellent book of short chapters exploring the nature of vaccination as both a concept and a practice.  Beginning with the Greek myth of Achilles, whose mother attempted to prevent his death by either burning away his mortality by sacred fire or dipping him in the River Styx (depending on the version you read) leaving behind his heel as his only vulnerability, Biss meditates on the reasoning behind anti-vaccination, the history of compulsory medicine, the nature of scientific research, language/semantics, skepticism, community versus the individual, the undying nature of stuff that gets on the Internet, and the anxiety that comes with being a parent.  She touches on feminism, classism, and racism in examining compulsory vaccination policies.  And, yes, there are vampires - particularly the Victorian construct of the vampire as metaphor for sex, disease, and contagion (aka, moral disintegration).

The structure of On Immunity is a bit different than Biss's previous collection, Notes from No Man's Land.  Notes consists of discrete essays on the topics of culture and race.  On Immunity, in contrast, only appears to have chapters that stand alone, except when you get right down to examining them they actually need the rest of the book to work.  Each chapter introduces a theme but calls back or looks forward to other sections of the book similar in ways that the individual body is part of a collective and can never be completely separate from community.

The reason I was so interested in this book - setting aside the fact that Biss is a wonderful essayist - is that she isn't a scientist.  Her perspective comes from a much different place than mine and, given that I respect her writing, I was willing to read her perspective even if I disgreed with it in the end.  I think the greatest compliment I can pay a book is to say it engaged me with the text.  I have notes scribbled all throughout my copy for things I need to look up, notes where I did check something in a biology/epidemiology text book, or straight up responses (I have a note "That's a BS statement" next to a quote from an anti-vaccine "expert" - and I use "expert" only in the politest sense).  Biss explores both sides of the compulsory vaccination debate as objectively as she can.  By the end of the book, she has made her decisions about vaccinating her child - since I haven't had a snit in this review you can probably guess what it was - and it was a delight to read the connections she drew between science and the humanities.

A recommended read for everyone.

Dear FTC: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran

Summary from Goodreads:
What do you do in your teenage years when you realize what your parents taught you wasn't enough? You must go out and find books and poetry and pop songs and bad heroes—and build yourself.

It's 1990. Johanna Morrigan, fourteen, has shamed herself so badly on local TV that she decides that there's no point in being Johanna anymore and reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde—fast-talking, hard-drinking gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer. She will save her poverty-stricken Bohemian family by becoming a writer—like Jo in Little Women, or the Brontës—but without the dying-young bit.

By sixteen, she's smoking cigarettes, getting drunk, and working for a music paper. She's writing pornographic letters to rock stars, having all the kinds of sex with all the kinds of men, and eviscerating bands in reviews of 600 words or less.

But what happens when Johanna realizes she's built Dolly with a fatal flaw? Is a box full of records, a wall full of posters, and a head full of paperbacks enough to build a girl after all?

Imagine The Bell Jar—written by Rizzo from Grease. How to Build a Girl is a funny, poignant, and heartbreakingly evocative story of self-discovery and invention, as only Caitlin Moran could tell it.

In deciding to read How to Build a Girl for review, I gave myself a fatal flaw: I read the novel immediately after reading Moran's memoir How to Be a Woman.  I couldn't resist: the memoir was $1.99 on Nook and I love Caitlin Moran on Twitter.  She's such a funny, badass, cool lady.

Unfortunately for her fictional alter-ego, Johanna on the page does not measure up to Caitlin on the page.  How to Be a Woman feels soul-bearing, eviscerating at times in its honesty.  How to Build a Girl has so much perfectly autobiographical detail that it felt like I was reading draft #2 of her memoir rather than a new novel.  Moran has a great writing style and she gives Johanna a fabulous voice but when read so close together real-life wins out over fiction.  She does throw in a great bit on cynicism near the end of the novel, though.

I'd say go for How to Build a Girl if you haven't read Moran's memoir very recently - I loved it. But if you have read How to Be a Woman recently then I'd give it a few months or so before trying out her novel.

(Related: I honestly didn't realise there were hippies in England. I thought that was a US thing and were called something else in the UK)

Dear FTC: I purchased a copy of How to Be a Woman on my nook and was given access to a digital review copy of How to Build a Girl from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Summary from Goodreads:
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur's chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.

Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten's arm is a line from Star Trek: "Because survival is insufficient." But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.

Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.

This is the elevator pitch that sold me on Station Eleven: A travelling troupe of musicians and Shakespearean actors in a post-superflu pandemic North America try to stay alive.  Think David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas but less structured or spread out in time.

I'm in.  I liked Cloud Atlas, I like multiple narratives/perspectives, and I was down for a post-apocalyptic world caused by an influenza super-bug because I'm an epidemiologist and I'm weird like that.

There are three things that stand out for me in this novel.  First, Mandel ever so deftly weaves together the stories told by each narrator into a web centered on one character, Arthur Leander.  The allusion to Cloud Atlas makes so much sense, the way that characters are either Arthur's wife, or ex-wife, or lover, or fellow actor, or child, or EMS provider or extended contacts of those characters.  There doesn't seem to be a formal structure, like the nesting Mitchell used in Cloud Atlas, but it does resemble the chaotic jumble of a puzzle, each piece informing the reader how it fits into the broader narrative of the book.  Second, I completely loved the way in which Mandel realized the gradual breakdown of society as more and more people fall ill and die.  How are supplies transported around the world or even between cities? How is electricity supplied? If the apocalypse comes in the form of disease, who are the first to die and who are the last?  How do survivors form communities?  She created this world so brilliantly - it's anchored in reality and set just enough in the future to be unsettling.  Finally, the idea of the Station Eleven comic books was brilliant.  I agree with karen on Goodreads: if someone doesn't join up with Mandel to actually illustrate the books and make them a real thing there is a missing opportunity.

I have read some criticism that the inclusion of a religious cult/fanatical cult leader was cartoonish or unnecessary.  I have to disagree.  Given the information that we are supplied with through the narrative, the emergence of such a character is not out of the realm of possibility in an end-of-the-world situation.  Look at the Doomsday cults that crop up even now.  I found it very easy to reverse the situation and believe in the creation of a cult for the duration of the novel.

Station Eleven is on track to be one of my favorite books of 2014.  Bravo, Emily St. John Mandel.

Dear FTC: I received access to a digital review copy from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Once More, My Darling Rogue by Lorraine Heath (Scandalous Gentlemen of St. James #2)

Summary from Goodreads:
They are England’s most eligible bachelors, with the most scandalous reputations. But for the right woman, even an unrepentant rogue may mend his ways…

Born to the street but raised within the aristocracy, Drake Darling can’t escape his sordid beginnings. Not when Lady Ophelia Lyttleton snubs him at every turn, a constant reminder he’s not truly one of them. But after rescuing her from a mysterious drowning he realizes she doesn’t remember who she is. With plans to bring her to heel, he insists she’s his housekeeper—never expecting to fall for the charming beauty.

While Ophelia might not recall her life before Drake, she has little doubt she belongs with him. The desire she feels for her dark, brooding employer can’t be denied, regardless of consequences. So when her memory returns, she is devastated by the depth of his betrayal. Now Drake must risk everything to prove she can trust this rogue with her heart once more.

Lady Ophelia Lyttleton is so high in the instep that she can barely be polite to Drake Darling, even at a family wedding.  She would prefer to rub his nose in his gutter birth and then toss him out onto the street where he belongs.  So it is little wonder that Drake would relish the opportunity to take Ophelia down a notch or two.  When he rescues her from certain drowning in the Thames, and Ophelia can't remember who she actually is, Drake informs her she is his new housekeeper.

Now, this is where I have problems.  Amnesia plots are very hard to pull off, particularly when one character gains some power over the other.  And then you throw in the issue of consent...  I was iffy on Miranda Neville's The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton.  Mary Balogh did a superb take on the amnesia plot in Slightly Sinful, even having the hero and heroine acknowledge that he many never regain his memory or, if he does, what he remembers could pull them apart.  Here, in Once More, My Darling Rogue, the deception is carried on by Drake far longer than it should have to the point that one could argue that she could not fully consent to any sort of sexual activity - and it is only after that that Ophelia regains her memory.  I don't care how much he castigates himself...I would have shot him or worse.  Even though the characters reconcile, and we learn about Ophelia's past, and the HEA is good, the amount of deception in this plot left a bad taste in my mouth.

Dear FTC:  I received a DRC of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.

A Good Debutante's Guide to Ruin by Sophie Jordan (The Debutante Files #1)

Summary from Goodreads:
The last woman on earth he would ever touch . . .

Declan, the Duke of Banbury, has no interest in ushering Rosalie Hughes, his stepsister, into society. Dumped on him with nowhere else to go, he's determined to rid himself of the headstrong debutante by bestowing on her an obscenely large dowry . . . making her the most sought-after heiress of the Season.

. . . is about to become the only one he wants.

But Rosalie isn't about to go along with Declan's plans. Surrounded by fortune hunters, how is she supposed to find a man who truly wants her? Taking control of her fate, Rosalie dons a disguise and sneaks into Sodom, a private club host to all manner of illicit activity—and frequented by her infuriatingly handsome stepbrother.

In a shadowed alcove, Declan can't resist the masked temptress who sets his blood afire . . . any more than Rosalie can deny her longing for a man who will send her into ruin.

The set-up for A Good Debutante's Guide to Ruin is good: neglected heroine dropped on her step-brother's doorstep without so much as a by-your-leave; step-brother hero, not having seen her for ages nor in a charitable frame of mind, decides to get her married off as soon as possible.

Declan can do that.  He's a duke and he's rich so the obstacles of Rosalie's poverty and questionable upbringing can be overcome with a little town polish and a gaggingly large dowry (supplied by himself).  Of course, Declan falls in love with her himself.

This, unfortunately, where the novel starts to fizzle.  Declan and Rosalie have some chemistry, but they don't quite come off the page for me.  I didn't buy the Sodom plot element - the tantalizing sex club seemed over-the-top and anachronistic...also less than tantalizing.  Rosalie's mother is caricature-bad mother terrible.  I like the book well enough to hope the follow-up is an improvement.

Dear FTC: I received an advance digital copy from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Unboxing Riot Read #2!

I recently joined the "book-tube" community.  Yeah, I'm a little behind the curve on that, but I decided to make an unboxing video for the Riot Read #2.  Enjoy!

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

Summary from Goodreads:
Finally, a novel that puts the "pissed" back into "epistolary."

Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the midwest. His department is facing draconian cuts and squalid quarters, while one floor above them the Economics Department is getting lavishly remodeled offices. His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels. His star (he thinks) student can't catch a break with his brilliant (he thinks) work Accountant in a Bordello, based on Melville's Bartleby.

In short, his life is a tale of woe, and the vehicle this droll and inventive novel uses to tell that tale is a series of hilarious letters of recommendation that Fitger is endlessly called upon by his students and colleagues to produce, each one of which is a small masterpiece of high dudgeon, low spirits, and passive-aggressive strategies. We recommend Dear Committee Members to you in the strongest possible terms.

Jason Fitger writes a lot of letters.  Letters of recommendation, letters of complaint, emails of the persuasive variety.  He writes letters for a writing student for whom Fitger seems to be the only one with visions of promising output.  He writes letters for one of those students for whom everything she touches - from law school to medical school to writing retreats - turns to gold.  He writes letters to the dean/chair/university president complaining about dwindling resources, fellow faculty members, and the din of construction.  You sympathize with the sheer number of letters.

But as humans go, he's also a dick.  He praises an institution in one paragraph and then undercuts with snide comments in the next.  He calls a colleague colorful names in one letter and in the next he's asking that colleague for a favor.  He's mined his personal life for fodder to mock in his novels and burned nearly every, last bridge (his writing career/reputation is currently non-existent).  His social filters are non-existent.

This short, epistolary novel is wry and uncomfortable.  We laugh at Fitger's tone while knowing all the while that his wording would likely get him fired in the real world (or maybe not; tenured faculty can have a lot of rope with which to hang themselves).  We sympathize with the letter recipients, even if we don't get to read their responses (if any - Fitgers letters might be the ones consigned immediately to the circular filing cabinet).

Dear Committee Members is a quick read, perfect for those who are looking for something similar to Amis's Lucky Jim.

Dear FTC: I received access to a digital review copy via the publisher.

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

Summary from Goodreads:
A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay.

“Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink—all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I’m not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue.”

In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture.

Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better.

Caveat: I follow Roxane Gay on Twitter, have done so waaay before I read Bad Feminist so I am happily attuned to the way she goes about things.  She's pretty awesome.

So, the glue that holds Bad Feminist together is the actual title essay.  In it, she basically says, "Look, when we put someone on a pedestal as the epitome of feminism and they fuck up in some way, we then shame the hell out of them, remove them from the pedetal, and find someone else to be the ideal.  Which is stupid.  We all screw up.  We should try to be better."  (That's all my paraphrasing.  Roxane says it much better)  Which is true - everyone can, and should be a feminist, no matter that someone might like pink high heels, or have a secret stash of Chris Brown CDs, or just really, really like to wear a frilly apron and cook a whole lot. (alert: if you follow Roxane for any length of time she lurrrrrves Ina Garten on the Food Network.  Hardcore.)  And just because you like those things doesn't mean that you also shouldn't be respected for who you are and given a fair shake.  She also writes so well about race and culture - she brought up aspects of The Help that I hadn't thought about - and has a fantastic essay about being a person of color in academia.

Some of the essays get extremely self-referential - there's one about playing competitive Scrabble, which I didn't even know was a thing - but so well-written.  Get a copy and settle in to read.

Now, where can I get a Bad Feminist pin?

Dear FTC: I received a digital advance copy of this book from the publisher.

The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla (Pink Carnation #11) by Lauren Willig

Summary from Goodreads:
In the latest Pink Carnation novel from national bestselling author Lauren Willig, rumors spreading among the ton turn deadly as a young couple unites to solve a mystery....

In October of 1806, the Little Season is in full swing, and Sally Fitzhugh has had enough of the endless parties and balls. With a rampant vampire craze sparked by the novel The Convent of Orsino, it seems no one can speak of anything else. But when Sally hears a rumor that the reclusive Duke of Belliston is an actual vampire, she cannot resist the challenge of proving such nonsense false. At a ball in Belliston Square, she ventures across the gardens and encounters the mysterious Duke.

Lucien, Duke of Belliston, is well versed in the trouble gossip can bring. He’s returned home to dispel the rumors of scandal surrounding his parents’ deaths, which hint at everything from treason to dark sorcery. While he searches for the truth, he welcomes his fearsome reputation—until a woman is found dead in Richmond. Her blood drained from her throat.

Lucien and Sally join forces to stop the so-called vampire from killing again. Someone managed to get away with killing the last Duke of Belliston. But they won’t kill this duke—not if Sally has anything to say about it.

The Pink Carnation series is one of those book series where you didn't even know you wanted the novels in the twisting path it takes to the end (i.e. the novel where our beloved Pink Carnation finds her match) but you do. I certainly do. And none more so than the newest installment, The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla, because the heroine is the high-energy little sister of our favorite Regency vegetable.

That's right: Sally Fitzhugh, sister of Turnip, has elbowed her way to the head of the Pink Carnation heroine queue and claimed this book for her own.  (Sally would say she hasn't elbowed anyone, just been very, very determined.)

Sally, having made her debut on the marriage market, is finding herself a little bored with it all.  She has grown a little apart from her two best friends, Lizzy Reid and Agnes Wooliston, whom we met in Turnip's book, The Mischief of the Mistletoe, and subsequently had their own road-tripping adventure complete with crazed French spy in Miss Gwen's book, The Passion of the Purple Plumeria (and I should really start calling Miss Gwen "Mrs. Reid" before she comes after me with her parasol).  At a ball held at the Vaughns' Lizzy dares Sally to walk through the garden into that of the Duke of Belliston (who is rumored to be a vampire, of all things, aside from a recluse). Sally being Sally takes her up on it, determined to reclaim some of the "recklessness" the trio once prided themselves on.

And there is a presence in the mysterious garden, Lucien, the Duke of Belliston, who is amused to find a young lady who, though startled, is feisty and full of words and completely not at all the sort to faint dead away when catching sight of him.  Lucien is a much different sort of gentleman than Sally is used to finding in the ton's drawing rooms. He is reserved, severely understated in his personal attire (particularly when compared to Turnip), has a delicious accent from spending the last however-many years in Louisiana with his decidedly un-tonnish Martinque-descended mother's family, and is in possession of a true family scandal: his parents were killed by poison from the manzanilla tree, attributed to his mother who was acknowledged to be a skilled botanist and not at all liked among Society's matrons.

For his part, Lucien has no time for tonnish young ladies, no matter how pretty or matter-of-fact or unafraid.  He has returned to London to revenge himself on his parents' murderer.  However, when Sally saves him from a situation that would have easily landed him in the hangman's noose - Duke or no Duke - their fates become entwined.  And the outcome is predictably delicious (but don't eat those manzanilla apples, those aren't for eating).

The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla is adorable, as I expected Sally Fitzhugh's book to be, but it also feels a teensy bit unsatisfying.  It is disconnected from the Pink Carnation/spy plot that developed in Purple Plumeria even though "spies" are introduced into this novel and Mrs. Reid loans our couple the use of her extensive spy-finding experience. It was hugely satisfying to see Turnip as a doting daddy (the scene with Parsnip, Arabella, and jam was so adorable) but I wasn't happy with only name-dropping for my favorite couples - Geoff and Letty, Miles and Hen, Vaughn and Mary - without any actual interaction with the characters since this is rumored to be our last novel to feature any of them (although the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale does get in a fabulous line).  Readers of Gothic literature will be absolutely delighted with all the bits Lauren has dropped in from Mrs. Reid's The Convent of Orsino.  

On the Colin-Eloise front, Eloise is back in the US, teaching at Harvard, with Colin visiting for Halloween (in the timeline of the books, we're still in 2004-2005 in these sections so the Twilight craze is just beginning).  I was really delighted to see Lauren working in the very harsh realities/baises of academia - particularly the possibility that Eloise's work will be side-lined because it doesn't read as interesting as her very stuck-in-the-mud, male adviser.

Excellent addition to the Pink Carnation series!  (If you've not yet encountered any of the Pink books, start with The Secret History of the Pink Carnation).

PS: there is a great shout-out to The Princess Bride - you'll have to be looking for it. My copy also had a sneak peek of The Lure of the Moonflower, the last in the Pink Carnation series (for now, although Lauren hasn't ruled out revisiting side characters in novellas or specials) and, augh, must wait 'till next summer!

Dear FTC: I won an ARC of this book in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

The Empathy Exams

Summary from Goodreads:
From personal loss to phantom diseases, The Empathy Exams is a bold and brilliant collection; winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize.

Beginning with her experience as a medical actor who was paid to act out symptoms for medical students to diagnose, Leslie Jamison’s visceral and revealing essays ask essential questions about our basic understanding of others: How should we care about each other? How can we feel another’s pain, especially when pain can be assumed, distorted, or performed? Is empathy a tool by which to test or even grade each other? By confronting pain—real and imagined, her own and others’—Jamison uncovers a personal and cultural urgency to feel. She draws from her own experiences of illness and bodily injury to engage in an exploration that extends far beyond her life, spanning wide-ranging territory—from poverty tourism to phantom diseases, street violence to reality television, illness to incarceration—in its search for a kind of sight shaped by humility and grace.

I started hearing buzz about a new collection of essays from Graywolf Press back in the winter.

"But I don't believe in a finite economy of empathy; I happen to think that paying attention yields as much as it taxes. You learn to start seeing."

Holy who knows what this book is amazing go read it now yes please thank you.  Because I don't think that I can write a cohesive review.  All the essays are amazing, particularly the title essay.

The Hundred-Year House

Summary from Goodreads:
Meet the Devohrs: Zee, a Marxist literary scholar who detests her parents’ wealth but nevertheless finds herself living in their carriage house; Gracie, her mother, who claims she can tell your lot in life by looking at your teeth; and Bruce, her step-father, stockpiling supplies for the Y2K apocalypse and perpetually late for his tee time. Then there’s Violet Devohr, Zee’s great-grandmother, who they say took her own life somewhere in the vast house, and whose massive oil portrait still hangs in the dining room.

Violet’s portrait was known to terrify the artists who resided at the house from the 1920s to the 1950s, when it served as the Laurelfield Arts Colony—and this is exactly the period Zee’s husband, Doug, is interested in. An out-of-work academic whose only hope of a future position is securing a book deal, Doug is stalled on his biography of the poet Edwin Parfitt, once in residence at the colony. All he needs to get the book back on track—besides some motivation and self-esteem—is access to the colony records, rotting away in the attic for decades. But when Doug begins to poke around where he shouldn’t, he finds Gracie guards the files with a strange ferocity, raising questions about what she might be hiding. The secrets of the hundred-year house would turn everything Doug and Zee think they know about her family on its head—that is, if they were to ever uncover them.

In this brilliantly conceived, ambitious, and deeply rewarding novel, Rebecca Makkai unfolds a generational saga in reverse, leading the reader back in time on a literary scavenger hunt as we seek to uncover the truth about these strange people and this mysterious house. With intelligence and humor, a daring narrative approach, and a lovingly satirical voice, Rebecca Makkai has crafted an unforgettable novel about family, fate and the incredible surprises life can offer.

Old houses seem to have a life of their own.  Laurelfield, the crumbling Chicago estate of an estranged offshoot of the Canadian Devohr family is no different.  The Devohrs seem to be a cursed line, plagued with suicides and mysterious deaths.  The last of the Devohrs are Gracie and her daughter Zee, born Zilla. Zee has returned home (reluctantly) to teach at the local college.  She and her husband Doug live in the Laurelfield carriage house, soon shared by another couple Case and Miriam, Zee's step-brother and his wife.  Things seem fairly orderly: Zee will teach (and try to get Doug hired at the college) and Doug will finish his monograph of Edwin Parfitt.

Then things start to go weirdly wrong.  Zee is obsessed with forcing out her elderly colleague, then imagines Doug and Miriam are having an affair. An old dress re-appears in a wrong place.  Doug writes and writes but not on his monograph - he is ghost-writing Baby-sitters' Club-type books.  Case suffers a series of accidents.  Gracie becomes fanatical about guarding the arts colony files from Doug.  Bruce begins hoarding supplies to survive the Y2K meltdown.  Is the house causing all these things to happen?  The ghost of Violet Devohr?

As the wheels begin to come off normality we find that the characters wear their identities like cloaks, one under the other, much like the history of the house reveals that it has been a home, a prison, and a haven of creativity.  Lies are created and lies are uncovered.  Relationships are made and broken.  At the end of each section we step through a doorway in time as the house sheds another layer to let us out into another one of its secrets.  It's a bit like a counter-part to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.  How much crazy is lent by the environment and how much is lent by the inhabitants?

Makkai's progression through Laurelfield's history is very interesting.  A reverse first-half of Cloud Atlas, if you will.  I only have one very minor bone to pick and that has to do with a very short (perhaps 10 pages) section where Makkai does a very neat wrap-up of all the previous characters' lives.  It's redundant, in my opinion, because readers who pay attention have already pegged what happened, it pulls you out of the established narrative of the book just before you get the very last bit of information that you need.

The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai is available from Viking Adult on July 10.

Dear FTC: I received a DRC of this book via the Penguin First to Read program.

Landline

Summary from Goodreads:
Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble;it has been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems beside the point now.

Maybe that was always beside the point.

Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn't expect him to pack up the kids and go home without her.

When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything.

That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts . . .

Is that what she’s supposed to do?

Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?

In one of those random happenstances, we got a review advance of the audiobook for Rainbow Rowell's new novel, Landline, at the store.  I liked Eleanor & Park and looooooved Fangirl so I decided I would give this one a try.

So, actual novel first.  I don't like this as much as either of the two YA novels (and we can debate until the cows come home whether we can also put them in "New Adult" which I think should be a much more inclusive category than what it's currently used for), primarily for the reason that Georgie annoyed the crap out of me with her seeming inability to get her head out of the sand and actually realize how she's managed to treat her very nice husband as part of the furniture.  And also allow her douche-y, controlling so-called best friend Seth to become the third member of her marriage.

I do not like Seth. At all.  From his first appearance in the book.  I'm pretty sure that was Rowell's intention but ugggggghhhhhhhh he needs to have his ass kicked repeatedly.

But I did really love the magical-realism of the landline telephone and all the flashbacks Rowell employed to establish her relationship with Neal.  They were in college right around when I was in college so I enjoyed wallowing in all the early-to-mid 90s pop culture stuff.  So that was enjoyable.

There's a surprise at the end of the book if you've read one of Rowell's other books (not going to say which one).

As to the narrator....it was OK.  Her voice fit Georgie but I didn't particularly care for her "Neal" or "Seth" voices.

Dear FTC: I listened to an advance listening copy provided to my store by Macmillan Audio.