What I Liked in 2010 (Part II)

Um, it's March 7, and I probably should be moving on...but here's the second part of my What I Liked in 2010 (the year I read only adult fiction) post.

John le Carre continues to have something new to say with each novel. Our Kind of Traitor is particularly interesting because le Carre has not missed the changes that have occurred in the former Soviet Union and beyond its borders where many of its former citizens live. The young British protagonists of Our Kind of Traitor stumble into a Russian "family" living in Switzerland and end up being hired to broker a deal with the wealthy leader of this clan on behalf of the British government. To the end of the novel it is not clear who is good and who is bad, who is moral and who is amoral, and the protagonists are both drawn to and repelled by the Russian family with whom they negotiate.

Crossover Potential? Some. This novel might appeal to the teen well versed in spy novels, but Our Kind of Traitor is a quiet spy novel, concerned more with moral ambiguity than with high-pressure negotiations and chase.

Ian McEwan's Solar was the funniest book I read in 2010. McEwan's protagonist, Michael Beard, is a Nobel prize winner in Physics and a mess. As the book opens, he's losing his fifth wife to his builder. This humiliation leads him to accept an invitation to the Arctic, where he nearly loses his penis when peeing outdoors. (Strangely enough, Solar was one of two books from 2010 featuring grave penile injury.) After his return home, Beard accidentally kills someone, steals his scientific work (on purpose), and heads out on a series of misadventures, one of which involves a solar energy project in Arizona. Other women, a child, and disastrous business deals ensue. Beard is a loathsome character, but one absolutely worth following to the bitter end.

Crossover Potential? Not really. But if you're an adult, don't miss Solar.

Lionel Shriver's So Much for That is one brutal book. Shriver takes an unflinching, merciless look at health care in the U.S. through the lives of two couples--Shep and Glynis Knacker and Jackson and Carol Burdina. Shep dreams of escaping the U.S. with the money he made from selling his business when he learns that his wife has mesothelioma. The novel marks time by the shrinking of Shep's escape fund, dollar by dollar, as he cares for his "insured" wife. Jackson and Carol parent a chronically ill and disabled daughter, whose care takes up all their resources and time. This is not the stuff of happy marriages, happy families, and happy novels. (So Much for That is the second novel of 2010 in which penile injury plays a significant role.) Despite, or perhaps because of, the trauma it inflicts, So Much for That is a novel that makes you think. I loved its brutality and its honesty.

Crossover Potential? Honestly? I don't think anyone younger than 40 should read this book.

My favorite novel of 2010 was Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story. Set in the near future, when everything about one's life (cholesterol levels, weight, credit score) is available for the world to see and when immortality is nearly achievable, Super Sad True Love Story is narrated by hapless lovers Lenny Abramov and Eunice Park. Abramov is the 39-year-old son of Russian-Jewish immigrants who works for an international corporation in the business of keeping people young. Park is in her early 20s, and after a stint in Italy is not sure what she is going to do with her life. Park and Abramov end up together, Abramov more invested in the relationship than Park. Super Sad True Love Story is indeed a sad story about the collapse of America, the futility of clinging to youth, the emptiness of consumerism, and the weight of an endless stream of information. But it is, in the end, a love story narrated by two compelling individuals unable to overcome body, history, generation, and time.***

Crossover Potential? Some. Shteyngart gets Eunice Park's voice just right. She sounds like a young adult and lives as a young adult might a few decades into the future.

Everyone loved Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad. Heck, Judy Blume tweeted her appreciation for Egan's innovative novel just today. Told in a variety of voices and from different points in time, A Visit from the Goon Squad has its genesis in the 1970s music scene in San Francisco. It's difficult to describe Egan's novel, as the story and the storytellers shift locations, relationships, and places in time. Time, ultimately, is the center of Goon Squad--a center that can't be fixed.

Crossover Potential? Some. I think teens will appreciate Egan's approach to telling a story. In particular, I think they will find the concluding power point presentation intriguing.

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NOTES

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*** I listened to Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story. This is a good choice for audio; Voice is the strength of the novel. However...bad accents in audio books drive me crazy. I really only know Russian well enough to be annoyed by how badly it is rendered in an audiobook, but if the Russian drives me crazy, I can only guess how badly Chinese, or German, or any other language is spoken in audio. Why don't publishers hire people to read who actually speak the other language present in the book? Why? Why don't they?

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Okay, I am truly done with 2010. Time to move on. This week I will finally get to the mission of this blog and review YA fiction from Mal Peet that adults should read and two adult novels by Heather Gudenkauf teens will love.

What I Liked in 2010 (Part I)

As mentioned, I didn't read Young Adult fiction in 2010, but I did read many adult novels I enjoyed, some of them with crossover appeal for the teen reader. I'm going to run through them in two posts and in alphabetical order. Here's the first set:

Faithful Place, by Tana French. Faithful Place is French's third novel, and as in In the Woods and The Likeness, French places her detective-protagonist in a fascinating setting where he or she must solve a case involving several complex and difficult personalities. Faithful Place's detective, Frank Mackey, finds his mystery in his own claustrophobic, dysfunctional childhood home when the body of his first girlfriend is found two decades after her disappearance.

Crossover Potential? Some. The Likeness (2008) has the most appeal of French's novels to date for the teen reader. The detective-protagonist in The Likeness, Cassie Maddox, goes undercover to discover who killed a teen she had impersonated before. The main suspects are a group of university students living together in a house, former friends of the murdered girl.

A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore. A twenty-year-old university student narrates Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs and her innocent and biased view on the world will be of interest to teen readers. Tassie, the student, is hired as a nanny by Sarah, a middle-aged restaurateur who doesn't yet have her baby. In fact, Sarah's in the process of adopting a child, and Tassie travels with Sarah all over the upper Midwest to meet prospective birth mothers. As Tassie spends more time with Sarah--while Sarah adopts and then raises a biracial child--Tassie's views become more nuanced and complex.

Crossover Potential? Reasonably High, especially for teens who have spent some time babysitting in another's home.

Mary Karr's Lit was my favorite memoir of 2010. In Lit, Karr writes about becoming a poet, a wife, a mother, and an alcoholic. Karr discusses the fits and starts of her recovery, one that is ultimately successful. Lit is a beautifully written and sometimes difficult read (Karr can be tough on herself), but one well worth your time, if you're older than twenty five or so.

Low Crossover Potential for the non-addicted teen.

And, book #4 for this post...Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson.

Simonson's debut novel centers on widower Major Ernest Pettigrew, an elderly Englishman, who is finding life a bit difficult in his later years. His son is materialistic and annoying and the Major also is fighting with his sister-in-law over inherited items. In the midst of all the familial stress, Pettigrew becomes friends and falls in love with Jasmina Ali, a local shop owner and a widow herself.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand takes on generational divide, racism, and class in today's England and manages to do so in a quickly-paced, humorous love story. If you're in need of a lift and a laugh, then Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is a great choice.

Crossover Potential? Sadly, I think Major Pettigrew's Last Stand will not appeal to most teen readers, because, let's face it, teens don't really like reading about grandparental romance.

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So in conclusion...hand Tana French's The Likeness to a teen and see if you can hook him or her on the best new mystery novelist of the 2000s. Also, recommend A Gate at the Stairs to the perceptive teen babysitter.

Up tomorrow: Our Kind of Traitor, Solar, So Much for That, Super Sad True Love Story, and A Visit from the Goon Squad.

What I Did Not Love in 2010

With one exception, I did not read a Young Adult novel in 2010. I didn't read a Middle Grade novel. I suppose I was on sabbatical from novels for young readers.

I did read many novels written for adults, a few of which will crossover for the teen reader quite well. I will write about these tomorrow in a "novels I loved in 2010" post.

Those of you who know me know that I rarely post a negative review or comment. If I don't like a book, I just don't write about it. At least not extensively. It's an energy thing, I guess.

However...the book I did not like in 2010 was THE book--Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. And I've thought for months about writing a review of Freedom and have decided, as usual, not to do so. Instead, I will provide the two main reasons I disliked Freedom.

1. If you happen to be a woman, Freedom is one disheartening read. As in War and Peace, which Franzen refers to directly in Freedom, the novel's main protagonists are two men and one woman. They're all fairly unlikable, a feature of the novel Laura Miller refers to and defends at Salon**, but the male characters, serious Walter (Andrei) and unfocused Richard (Pierre), have redeeming qualities the reader either admires or finds charming. (Oh, that rogue!)

The female center to this contemporary love triangle is boring, self-centered, untalented Patty. She's no Natasha, that's for sure. There's no life to her, but for narcissistic bitterness, and it's hard to see why Walter, her husband, and Richard, her occasional lover, would ever find her intriguing enough to pursue, let alone argue over.

I think I might have enjoyed Freedom if the secondary characters did not follow this same pattern. I suppose there is one "positive" female character, Walter and Patty's daughter, but she's such a stereotype ("good girl," recent graduate from a prestigious college, "selfless" job in publishing) that she serves mostly as a plot device.

2. The sex scenes. I'm not sure I've seen mention of the sex scenes in Freedom in the reviews I've read, but I just can't let this novel go without mentioning them. The sex between Walter and Patty and Patty and Richard is forgettable or, sadly, very like rape. And, the phone sex shared by Walter and Patty's ne'er-do-well son, Joey, and his girlfriend Connie is ridiculous.

Crossover Potential? None. Teens do not want to read about the pathetically middle aged.
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Other Books on My "Did-not-Love" List:

I've already mentioned that I was underwhelmed by Mockingjay. This was probably due to high expectations, however.

And, while I really wanted to enjoy Steve Martin's An Object of Beauty, I just didn't. But, as I will read Franzen's next novel (I liked The Corrections), I will read Martin's as well.
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**I absolutely agree with Laura Miller that there is no reason at all a novel's characters must be likable. I just couldn't get past how universally unlikable Franzen's female protagonists were in Freedom.

Review: Missing, by Karin Alvtegen

Missing
By Karin Alvtegen

Adult-->Teen

Missing, by Karin Alvtegen, is a psychological thriller published for adults that will entrance teen readers as well. Missing is perfect for teens for two primary reasons: 1) The central mystery alternates with flashbacks to the heroine’s teen years and 2) the heroine, Sybilla, resolves Missing’s unique mystery with the help of a 15-year-old schoolboy.

Sybilla Forsenstrom lives on the streets in Stockholm, a life she has chosen since escaping an emotionally-abusive mother, neglectful father, and a stint in a mental institution. Every so often, Sybilla cleans herself up, dresses in a professional suit, and charms wealthy businessmen into buying her dinner and a room of her own in a fancy hotel. One night her luck runs out: a traveling businessman, who treats her to dinner and books her a room in Stockholm’s nicest hotel, is murdered and brutalized during the night. Sybilla becomes the prime suspect and begins a life on the run.

Sybilla’s run from the police becomes more complicated as three more men are murdered—in locations she’d never visited. One night, while living rough in the attic of a school, she meets a schoolboy named Patrick, who believes in her innocence, only because the fourth man was murdered when they were sharing the same attic space. (Patrick wanted to experience “living rough.”) Together they figure out who really committed the murders and set out to clear Sybilla’s name.

Sybilla’s life on the lam is interspersed with vignettes from her childhood and teen years. The cold horror and loneliness of her childhood provide insight into Sybilla’s fascinating character and her choice to live on the streets as an adult. Missing moves along at breakneck speed and is perfect for a rainy afternoon or an (enforced) family trip.

(Cautions: There is one sexual encounter in Missing Sybilla is reluctant to participate in, but it is also one that makes sense within the context of the story and her life on the streets.)

Missing
By Karin Alvtegen
Translated by Anna Paterson
Felony & Mayhem Press (New York)
2009 paperback edition
Copy purchased.