Thirteen of my Keen Fiction Reads in 2013

   These recs are not the only or the most important readings I might urge on others, but they are "worthwhile entertainments."  The commentaries here are just one man's opinion.

                                   

 

I Want To Show You More by Jamie Quatro

   I was knocked out by these stories.  This is the first collection of a major female American talent.  She has a vaulting imagination, e.g., a marathon race in which all runners carry statues, an extramarital affair in which the wife’s lover appears dead in her bed at home but does not decompose.  The stories are not all “magical realism.” Most often it is the quotidian that is fodder for precise language and heart-wrenching courage and pain.  Both will be found in the dilemma of a young teen whose mother is a paraplegic and avoided by guests at a pool party.  Stories about parental and marital intimacy are standouts.  Top drawer literary fiction. 

Transatlantic by Colum McCann

   Not quite as engaging as Let The Great World Spin because the narrative is more tied to historical context.  NonetheIess, I was hooked early in.  My review is posted in Casey’s whollywrit: camsend.blogspot.com

 The Last Child by John Hart

   Hart comes closer than most to combining the suspense of abducted children and the sheen of polished writing.  Adults and children are authentic renderings.  No false notes here.

11/22/63 by Stephen King

   What makes King the king of popular fiction?  An important element is his comfort with goofiness.  There’s no premise he won’t consider and no implausibility that gives him pause.  I got on the coaster car and held on tight.  Because I was happily seduced by the setup of a portal in time that allowed passage to 1963 and a chance to thwart President Kennedy’s assassination.

Middle Men by Jim Gavin

   Gavin is no showboat.  He lays out narratives that are propelled by their own steam, and he has insight into the young in story after story.  The title designates class and the dignity of the ordinary.

 

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

   Harold Fry is old, retired and restless.  He’s more ready than he realizes to step out on a spontaneous sojourn to see an almost forgotten female friend who sends him a letter with grave news.  Harold is one cool dude who walks a staggering distance of English countryside, intent on beating death to the door.

 

The Gathering by Ann Enright

   Having read some of Enright’s stories, I did not realize how she is even more powerful in a longer form.  This Irish female writer has achieved deserved recognition for the power of her voice.  She constructs sentences that have the report of a perfectly aimed rifle shot.  I can think of no other writer who can be so entertainingly contemptuous of family behavior and male sexuality.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

   Barnes is expert at the kind of humor excelled in by the Brits. His story can only be told by forcing the narrator to face his childhood and youth.  Thinking through his early life is his avenue into grasping the mysteries of the present.  As his life grows more serious and complex so does the register of his language.  The reader finds himself haunted along with the teller of the tale.

 

Tampa by Alice Nutting

   Dirty books aren’t often reviewed.  Nor are they often authored by female writers.  Here you have both.  The protagonist is a female teacher who preys on middle school males.  Her thoughts and deeds are sexually explicit.  Nutting’s talent is that she makes the teacher a convincing pedophile, and the boys characters you want to step in and protect. 

The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

   You will not read nor will anyone else write a more startling and riveting account of the mind of the mother of Jesus as she wrestles with the baffling life and death of her son.  A short novel with a lasting impact.

 

The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis

   The heroine is an orphaned young girl who survives sexual intrusion by a peer, and finds that she can achieve because of her powerful talent for chess.  Along the way she struggles with drug dependency, a skewed adoption, and penury.  You do not have to play chess to enjoy this novel.  Elizabeth Harmon is a keeper.

 The Bone Collector by Jeffery Deaver

   This older Deaver novel served as my introduction to Lincoln Rhyme.  What a pip he is!  If you’ve ever worked for someone who was brilliant and an asshole, then you’ll be right at home.  Of course Rhyme is a quadriplegic and needs to be cut some slack for his curtness to other investigators.  There’s a clock running as they seek to find and destroy the bad—very bad—villain.  Deftly plotted and your pulse rate will increase over the last ten pages.

 

61 Hours by Lee Child

 This is not the best of Child’s Jack Reacher novels but it’s a good one, especially for a winter read.  Small cast and a closed in, chill-to-the-bone feel.  The tension is prolonged and the person you’re rooting for will not survive.  That of course means that the killer will be found and painfully dealt with by Reacher.  I like Child because I’m a sucker for popcorn reads where I can imagine I’m the man, the smartest and meanest badass in town.  Imagination serves readers as well as writers.

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