author:
K.B. DIXON

Fiction
142 pages
Academy Chicago Publishers

Forget stream of consciousness. I don’t know about you, but my stream of consciousness generally consists of fully formed sentences latched together into comprehensive paragraphs, often incorporating plot and lots of action verbs. This may be why The Sum of His Syndromes works so well. Composed of the narrator’s notes from a sixth floor bathroom as he avoids work, K.B. Dixon’s short novel hits life from workplace gossip to the larger questions of love and happiness. And it works. Protagonist David uses blunt emotion and unintentional humor in describing his depression, his frustrating tête-à-têtes with his pill-pushing therapist, his boring and nondescript job, and his budding relationship with a woman he’s pretty certain won’t stick around.

The story with its tenuously connected notes parses out brilliantly, from the thoughtful (“Aren’t you ever afraid of catching something from us – like an overwhelming sense that it is all for nothing?”) through the sad (“We pretend I am brave because I am here, but I can’t believe in our heart of hearts that either of us feels this is true”) to the completely mundane (“Angie Huffman’s four-year-old daughter killed her pet guinea pig, Max. She thought he was cold so she put him in the microwave to warm him up.”) Throughout, the topics return to life, depression, friendship, and relationships as David struggles to align the pieces of his life, but it’s the little jewels of the everyday that make this book both a piece of humor and a fiction that actually relates to its audience. With his neurotics and boredom, David is a modern Everyman, telling a story as familiar as our own lives complete with its drivel, peaks and valleys, and the occasional hint that maybe – just maybe – things might turn out OK. David doesn’t have the answers but he certainly has the questions, and as the book ends with the same inconsequential trivia as has trailed throughout the story, you get the feeling that not having the answers is just fine. David certainly doesn’t have any answers, but frankly, neither do we. And tomorrow will have the same moments of hope and depression and office gossip as today.

Dixon effortlessly captures what it’s like to be human in a relatively uncaring world, but the beauty of the book is in the fact that he makes you laugh while doing so. Don’t look for the answers in The Sum of His Syndromes; look for humanity. You’ll find it.

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author:
BENJAMIN GREENMAN

Fiction
225 pages
MacAdam/Cage

Benjamin Greenman makes me want to be single for the rest of my life. Seriously. Never before has a collection of stories about “love” left me so jaded, miserable and repulsed at the thought of committed relationships. If I had a boyfriend, I would have left him after reading the story about the girl who broke Bigfoot’s heart and made him want to die. Thanks Ben, you have officially ruined my life.

A Circle is a Balloon and a Compass Both is a collection of short stories, all written by Yale graduate, editor, freelance writer, journalist, etc., Benjamin Greeman. Each story is centered around a relationship and loosely based on an aspect of love such as art, music, sports, power and humor. These relationships are anything but functional and most of them end in one character being utterly miserable.

“Clutching and Glancing” is about a young artist who takes a summer job at a hotel with the intention of seducing her way through the season. She begins a brief affair with a married doctor and after meeting his wife, inconspicuously turns him in after wearing her wedding band while she has sex with him on the hotel room floor. We can only assume she goes on to keep breaking up marriages and he goes on to sleeping on the couch.

“The re-education of M. Grooms” is chock full of dysfunctional single adults in the entertainment business, casual love affairs and people who either drop dead or get arrested for seemingly ridiculous reasons. “Black Grey Green Blue” deals with a man who went to bed with the love of his life and woke up on the moon. He writes her heartbreaking letters about dealing with his moon-found despair. My personal favorite is “Contemplating a Thing About a Person,” a story in which a pile of dog crap becomes a major component of the plot. Someone ends up miserable, but not from stepping in poo.

In all honesty, this book captures a distinct sense of truth when it comes to the complications of human emotions and the idea of being broken. It was fun, entertaining, and humorous but in the end disheartening. Some of us escape to literature because we don’t want to face the truth.

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author:
DAVE EGGERS

Non-fiction
342 pages
McSweeney’s

When Dave Eggers publishes a new book, I get pretty excited. Partly because his work rarely disappoints, but also (largely!) because McSweeney’s books are a work of art.

Much like his last book, the cover of Zeitoun in many ways reflects not only the story contained inside, but the prevailing mood. It pictures a man paddling a canoe through the flooded streets of New Orleans. His face looks serene as he glides through calm water, and despite submerged houses and the hood of a car jutting out of the unnatural sea, the scene doesn’t conjure up the sense of devastation that we would expect from a book about the disastrous events of Hurricane Katrina.

The story revolves around a man named Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prominent and well-liked man in his community. Early on, we follow his day to day interaction with family and friends, neighbors and clients, demonstrating not only that he is a likeable and dependable guy, but someone with character – with principles. And so, when things start to go downhill for our hero, it is extremely disenchanting. Infuriating even. Thankfully, this is a game Eggers is well-acquainted with, and it is where he shines. In every calamity, Zeitoun sees opportunities to help. For every disgrace he suffers, he sees a reaffirming trace of humanity. When things seem dark, he never abandons hope. In the dreariest moments, through his eyes we are left with a sense that all is not lost. It’s a nice feeling. In fact, if Zeitoun hadn’t been so steadfast throughout his trials, I probably would have grown discouraged reading; but that is not meant as a criticism – it is largely the charm of this story. Dave Eggers has a definite skill for this type of emotional balancing act.

Honestly, outside of the obvious – the immediate destruction and death, and of course the subsequent toil of rebuilding the city – I wasn’t aware of the arguably larger issue of residents’ civil rights being violated; people who had lost everything being treated more like prisoners of war than human beings in need of aid. The biggest travesty wasn’t the natural disaster, it was how the authorities dealt with the situation in the aftermath (and beforehand). But this isn’t about me getting on a soapbox. Eggers has delivered another biopic that is both socially and politically relevant to our generation. Read the book for yourself. Go for a romantic cruise in a canoe along the quiet streets of a once-bustling city. You may find yourself outraged at times, but you’ll be equally charmed.

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author:
ROY BLOUNT JR.

Fiction
384 pages
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Roy Blount, Jr. shares his passion for words in this delightful, rollicking book. He mixes etymology with anecdote to create as entertaining a book about the origins of words as one could hope for. Blount fairly gushes with enthusiasm for words which he deems “sonicky” that is, any word “whose sound doesn’t imitate sound, like boom or poof, but does somehow sensuously evoke the essence of the word: queasy or rickety or zest or sluggish or vim..” He goes on to state that, “If you were a caveperson earnestly trying to communicate how you felt digestively, you might without benefit of any verbal tradition come up with something close to nausea.” You get the picture. Mixed in with all the wordplay and bon mots are oodles of examples of how slippery and dynamic our language is, as well as how ridiculously silly it can seem. Blount makes no attempt at being objective; though he’s obviously done his research over the years, this is far from a straightforward reference book, though at first glance it looks kind of like one. The book is arranged alphabetically, with each section beginning with a discussion of the letter in question, sometimes criticizing the placement of a letter in the alphabet, such as T (“It ought to be the last in ours”) or merely expressing appreciation (“Let us pause to enjoy the movement between sliding and sidling”).

Blount quotes everyone from Franz Kafka to Wilt Chamberlain, scrambling archaic and contemporary references together to put them into new context. (My only quibble with the book is that his references to more fleeting modern phenomena – often involving the internet – will most likely be lost on future readers.)  I’m not sure I’d always take Blount at his word, however: a cautionary yet playful entry titled “solecisms, contradictions, factual errors, etc.” reads simply, “There are 167 in this book. See if you can find them all.” But factual errors or not, if you’re looking to either spark or renew your love of words and their quirks, this terrific tome will certainly do the trick.

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author:
KATHRYN STOCKETT

Fiction
464 pages
Putnam Adult

In the Deep South of the early 1960s the civil rights movements gained force and the institutions that had held back African Americans for generations fought to keep their laws and traditions in place. It was a time and place of assassinations, lynching, riots, and demonstrations. It was also a place where regular people dealt with racism in everyday lives. This is the Jackson, Mississippi, of The Help, the story of three women, the quiet constraints on them, and the measures they take to rebel.

Skeeter is just back from college and expected to marry, though she chafes under the control of her parents and her upright Junior League friends. Aibileen, a maid, has lost her own child and finds that she can’t raise her white charges after they are old enough to echo their parents’ casual racism. Minny might be the best cook in the city, but her short mouth and temper prevent her from keeping jobs even as she struggles to raise her own children and avoid an abusive husband.

What brings these three to their subtle rebellion? A bathroom. Skeeter’s best friend and Aibileen’s employer builds Aibileen a separate bathroom – outside of the house – so that the family doesn’t have to use the same toilet as she. This one small act, an act of a very domestic and very personal racism, brings the three women together to defy the people around them and tell the stories of the help.

This novel brings a woman’s voice to the civil rights movement in a quiet, home-based way – a way that’s just as personal and meaningful as if the pages were filled with blood and fire. The Help doesn’t ignore the events of the time, but instead the women move through them as they happen almost in the periphery, just as it must have been for thousands of people. The focus here is the home, family, friends, and lives of these women, and the book doesn’t attempt to explain, condemn, or justify – only to tell. In her debut novel Stockett doesn’t take any literary or historical risks but the unique voice of her three heroines tells a quietly moving and deeply personal story – and succeeds.

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author:
KATIE KITAMURA

Fiction
208 pages
Free Press

I will not lie, I bought this book because it had tattoos on the cover and the author and I had the same name. Pathetic criteria for selecting reading material but we all have our methods, and thankfully they led me to this novel. It had been a long time since I read a book so gripping that after I finished I spent the rest of the afternoon continuously re-reading the last thirty pages or so thinking that by some miracle there would magically be more book left to read.

This is Katie Kitamura’s first novel and without a doubt not her last. While her writing style has been compared to the beautiful simplicity brought to literature by the great Ernest Hemingway, I don’t see it. With her there is more of an edge; a greater intensity in her storytelling.

The Long Shot follows a former mixed martial arts star and his trainer over the course of three days as they travel to Mexico and prepare for the rematch of his life, a match that has been ten years in the making against a man who has never lost a fight. Cal is the only fighter ever to take Rivera the distance, going three rounds without a knockout. The book details the mounting tension as Cal and his trainer Riley are afraid to admit to each other and themselves the harsh reality that they might not win the match. The buildup to the climax of this novel is as absolutely electrifying as a ringside seat on fight night. While delving into the relationship between a fighter and his trainer, the book deals with the uncertainty any human may face while charging into life’s many challenges and examines the strength it takes to go into battle knowing that the outcome could bring about an unrecoverable loss.

It’s clear that Kitamura did her research. Her knowledge of both the technical aspects of MMA fighting and her grasp of the emotional difficulty involved are astounding, especially for someone not directly involved in the sport. The writing is so astounding the reader can almost feel every blow.

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author:
MARY ROACH

Non-fiction
320 pages
W.W. Norton & Co.

Nonfiction author Mary Roach tackles the science of the afterlife in Spook, a New York Times bestseller when published back in 2005. Spook is less an examination of the evidence of the afterlife as a historiography of the scientific study of the afterlife, from the 21 grams theory of Dr. Duncan Macdougall, introduced in the early twentieth century, to present studies on out-of-body or near-death experiences at the University of Virginia Hospital. Along the way, Roach touches upon reincarnation, spiritualism, EMFs and telecommunications, ectoplasm, mediums, and the formation of the soul.

Despite all this cool stuff to get into, the book doesn’t quite hit the level of examination or humor that it promises. There’s nothing immediate at fault: Roach’s writing style is breezy and entertaining (her footnotes, encompassing topics such as the underestimation of the sea urchin, the breadth of research topics funded at Harvard, and Occam’s editing pencil, are a complete hoot and reminiscent of Terry Pratchett’s liberal use of the device), the chapters are all on interesting subjects, and the flow is quick and light. The problem is simply that the topic coverage was simply too wide: I could have done without the chapters on reincarnation and the soul-weighing but done much more with spiritualism as a religious phenomenon, ectoplasm, and mediums. This is a matter of personal taste, surely, and others will feel different.

Perversely, what is good about the book is the same as the bad: its broad range of topics and examinations, all of which were undertaken with experts in the field (whichever field it may be.) Say what you like about the supernatural, there are a lot of experts out there that aren’t the folks sitting in their back yard with tin foil over their head or crosses in their hand. No, Roach was tireless in seeking out persons such as physicists from Duke and the director of the Indian International Centre for Survival and Reincarnation Researches. There are no quacks here, and what you’re reading is what’s currently thought or known about the topics by people smarter than you who have labs and departmental funding. Roach’s research – or at least her ability to ferret out who best to speak – is faultless.??

Spook is at best a base-level examination of the topics it covers, but in terms of its quality of examination at that base-level, you probably won’t get much better out there. Read this book if you’re a beginner to the study of the afterlife, or if you’re interested in the historiography of the study of the afterlife; those already well-versed will probably find Spook a lightweight read.

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author:
JONATHAN CARROLL

Fiction
320 pages
Tor Books

According to Benjamin Franklin, “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” And though it’s highly unlikely that author Jonathan Carroll would tackle the latter in one of his novels, he does seem to have a preoccupation with the former. Many of his long-form works deal explicitly with death, but it is in The Ghost in Love, Carroll’s 17th book, that the concept of death itself is turned on its head.

Right off the bat, Carroll does something remarkable in making us care about a protagonist who is a complete dick, and care enough to keep following him through to the end. Ben Gould slips on some ice, hits his head, and is supposed to die, but doesn’t; more weirdness follows, leading to a breakup with his girlfriend. Ben’s ghost, who is supposed to escort him to the afterlife and clean up any unfinished business, must stick around to see what happens next. Ben’s ex-girlfriend, German Landis, keeps coming back into his life, caught up in the side effects of his non-death (including meeting her past selves). Ben’s dog Pilot has the ability to talk (a favorite trope of Carroll’s). The Angel of Death is a plate of runny eggs.

Carroll is at his best when letting his characters experience the weirdness of his books and try to figure out just what the hell is going on. He’s less successful when imparting the truths of the universe directly to the reader, using the voice of the author rather than the erudition of his characters; these moments (that fit in better on his remarkable blog than in the Kunderian intrusions of his fiction) tend to throw the reader out of the narrative with their insistence that you pay attention to how clever they are, but thankfully these moments are not enough to derail the quite ingenious premise. In the end, Carroll’s flawed and very human characters drive the events of the story and make the reader wish they actually existed, for their lives are smarter, sexier, stranger, and more interesting than we may ever know.

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author:
DAMON GALGUT

Fiction
249 pages
Atlantic Books

How many of us have run away from things at some point in our lives? Personal failure is what Adam, the protagonist of Damon Galgut’s “The Impostor” is running from. Moving to the country, he seeks solace in solitude and poetry. Instead he finds himself embroiled, through an outlandish coincidence that still rings true, in a crooked scheme that encompasses a lot of what modern Africa is all about.

The novel never shifts from Adam’s point of view but the character that drives the book is Canning, an acquaintance of Adam’s from boarding school. Adam barely remembers Canning but he considers Adam to be someone that saved his life and calls him his best friend. Galgut weaves the contradictions of post-Apartheid South Africa into the very lives and thoughts of his characters. Canning displays an awkward ambivalence towards his vengeful and corrupt plan to destroy his dead father’s dream, although never towards money. Adam himself pursues an ill-conceived dalliance with Canning’s cold wife, a woman whose past has turned her into a cruel individualist with upward mobility her only goal. And there is Adam’s solitary and mysterious neighbor, a man from South Africa’s ugly past who seeks Adam out as his confessor.

As a South African writer, Galgut will be compared to Coetzee but there’s a personal touch to this book that the detached Coetzee lacks. This is a stellar novel that pulls one in slowly and does not quite let go once the book is finished. Adam and Canning are both ugly in their own ways but they are characters hard to hate, perhaps because they are easy to pity. Race is never very far from the surface in South Africa but Galgut shows that when it comes to corruption, political or personal, we are all much the same color.

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author:
CHARLIE OWEN

Fiction
448 pages
Headline Books

The third in Charlie Owen’s series of excellent police procedurals, Bravo Jubilee is set in the seventies—Owen’s “golden age of vocational policing”—and the fictional North Manchester district of Handstead: a penurious council dumping ground for the city’s most malevolent social housing tenants. Known by the bastardised phonetic “Horse’s Arse,” the division functions as a kind of police penal colony, where officers are transferred “if they had really fucked up somewhere else.” Consequently, Handstead’s cops constitute “an extraordinary collection of misfits, alcoholics, psychopaths, sociopaths, delinquents, sexual deviants, criminal masterminds and violent renegades.” The books chart a running turf war between cops and robbers that have more in common than either side would like to think.

Relentlessly scatological, Owen’s books seem at first like nothing more than a parade of anecdotes, loosely strung together. Uniformed coppers spike their colleagues’ drinks with acid, kill time on the late turn by taking blowjobs from prostitutes, and set fire to people’s cars. The reaction in the reader is that of hysterical and horrified disbelief. Yet Owen, a retired police inspector, adds enough procedural detail to keep you convinced and turning the pages, and what feels like a chaotic mess turns into disciplined storytelling.

And Owen can be lyrical. PC Alan “Pizza” Petty, the sympathetic underdog of the series, tries to explain the feeling of an isolated nightshift: “When you walk, alone, into a dark and apparently deserted car park at three in the morning, I swear you can actually hear the place breathing. If you stand still and listen, I swear you can hear it breathe.” And despite the brutal opportunism of most of Owen’s characters, they really grow on you: they come across as good men, with a curious synthesis of honour and corruption.

If you’re new to Owen I’d advise starting with the first book and working forwards—with his readability, this will take you about a weekend. He is that rare thing, a “politically incorrect” writer with talent.

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