Mother’s Day Book Selections

Saturday 7 May, 2011 By 1 Comment

Due to a family emergency I had to schedule these in advance sans my reviews, but I wanted readers to be able to view these books before Mother’s Day.

Title: Mothers & Daughters
Author: Rae Meadows
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: March 29, 2011
Hardcover: 272
ISBN:978-0805093834
Genre: Fiction

From the Publisher:

A rich and luminous novel about three generations of women in one family: the love they share, the dreams they refuse to surrender, and the secrets they hold

Samantha is lost in the joys of new motherhood—the softness of her eight-month-old daughter’s skin, the lovely weight of her child in her arms—but in trading her artistic dreams to care for her child, Sam worries she’s lost something of herself. And she is still mourning another loss: her mother, Iris, died just one year ago.

When a box of Iris’s belongings arrives on Sam’s doorstep, she discovers links to pieces of her family history but is puzzled by much of the information the box contains. She learns that her grandmother Violet left New York City as an eleven-year-old girl, traveling by herself to the Midwest in search of a better life. But what was Violet’s real reason for leaving? And how could she have made that trip alone at such a tender age?

In confronting secrets from her family’s past, Sam comes to terms with deep secrets from her own. Moving back and forth in time between the stories of Sam, Violet, and Iris, Mothers and Daughters is the spellbinding tale of three remarkable women connected across a century by the complex wonder of motherhood.

To learn more about author Rae Meadows please visit her website and she can also be found on Twitter.

I received a complimentary ARC of Mothers & Daughters by Rae Meadows from Henry Holt and Company to offer my honest review of the book. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned book.


Title: A Song For My Mother
Author: Kate Martin
Publisher: Vanguard Press
Publication Date: April 5, 2011
Hardcover: 224 pages
ISBN: 978-1593156565
Genre: Fiction

From the Publisher:

Kat Martin brings readers back to the charming town of Dreyersville for another compelling story of love, loss, and hope in second chance. Years after leaving Dreyersville “for good” with her boyfriend right after high school, Marilys Hanson returns to her hometown at the behest of her daughter, Katie, a brain-cancer survivor, who’s never met her grandmother, Marilys’s mother, Winnie. Now divorced from her husband, Marilys has a past she wishes she didn’t have to face there. Living next door to Winnie is the handsome young sheriff (and widower), Reed Bennett, and his son, Ham. Ham and Katie become fast friends, and when their parents finally meet, they hit it off quickly as well. But Marilys is insistent that her time in Dreyersville be limited. She’s accepted a teaching position back home, and while she’s willing to spend some of her summer putting up with her mother, she’s intent on heading back and making good on her commitment. But will Marilys finally come to realize that her true destiny and, ultimately, her happiness, lie in coming to terms with her past?

To learn more about author Kat Martin and her books, please visit her website.

I received a complimentary copy of A Song For My Mother by Kat Martin from Vanguard Press to offer my honest review of the book. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned book.

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Book Review: City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell

Wednesday 24 November, 2010 By 13 Comments


Title: City of Tranquil Light
Author: Bo Caldwell
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: September 28, 2010
Hardcover: 304 pages
ISBN: 978-0805092288
Genre: Literary Fiction

From the Publisher:

Will Kiehn is seemingly destined for life as a humble farmer in the Midwest when, having felt a call from God, he travels to the vast North China Plain in the early twentieth-century. There he is surprised by love and weds a strong and determined fellow missionary, Katherine. They soon find themselves witnesses to the crumbling of a more than two-thousand-year-old dynasty that plunges the country into decades of civil war. As the couple works to improve the lives of the people of Kuang P’ing Ch’eng— City of Tranquil Light, a place they come to love—and face incredible hardship, will their faith and relationship be enough to sustain them?

Told through Will and Katherine’s alternating viewpoints—and inspired by the lives of the author’s maternal grandparents—City of Tranquil Light is a tender and elegiac portrait of a young marriage set against the backdrop of the shifting face of a beautiful but torn nation. A deeply spiritual book, it shows how those who work to teach others often have the most to learn, and is further evidence that Bo Caldwell writes “vividly and with great historical perspective” (San Jose Mercury News).

My Review:

A beautiful masterpiece, City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell takes the readers back to 1906 China through the eyes of missionaries Will and Katherine Kiehn. Caldwell weaves in the voices of Katherine and Will by alternating the narration, with Will reflecting back as a widower and with Katherine. Through her diary the reader comes to know these two remarkable people and to traverse through China with them during the best and worst of times, their faith unshakable and their love pure and undeniable. Caldwell’s depictions of life in China is exquisitely mastered so the reader does not have far to imagine being with Will and Katherine during the many changes of a country and the culture the two come to love. Filled with passion, tension, tumultuous times, and periods of relative calm the reader is taken on a beautifully written journey that will not soon be forgotten by the reader. I highly recommend City of Tranquil Light to all readers and think it would make a wonderful discussion group choice.

About the Author:

Bo Caldwell is the author of the national bestseller The Distant Land of My Father. Her short fiction has been published in Ploughshares, Story, Epoch, and other literary journals. A former Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing at Stanford University, she lives in Northern California with her husband, novelist Ron Hansen.

I received a complimentary copy of City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell from Henry Holt and Company Publishers to review. Receiving a copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.

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Book Review: What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn

Friday 8 October, 2010 By 3 Comments


Title: What Was Lost
Author: Catherine O’Flynn
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks;
Publication Date: June 24, 2008
Paperback: 246 pages
ISBN: 978-0805088335
Genre: Fiction

From the Publisher:

A tender and sharply observant debut novel about a missing young girl—winner of the Costa First Novel Award and long-listed for the Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, andThe Guardian First Book Award

In the 1980s, Kate Meaney—“Top Secret” notebook and toy monkey in tow—is hard at work as a junior detective. Busy trailing “suspects” and carefully observing everything around her at the newly opened Green Oaks shopping mall, she forms an unlikely friendship with Adrian, the son of a local shopkeeper. But when this curious, independent-spirited young girl disappears, Adrian falls under suspicion and is hounded out of his home by the press.

Then, in 2003, Adrian’s sister Lisa—stuck in a dead-end relationship—is working as a manager at Your Music, a discount record store. Every day she tears her hair out at the outrageous behavior of her customers and colleagues. But along with a security guard, Kurt, she becomes entranced by the little girl glimpsed on the mall’s surveillance cameras. As their after-hours friendship intensifies, Lisa and Kurt investigate how these sightings might be connected to the unsettling history of Green Oaks itself. Written with warmth and wit, What Was Lost is a haunting debut from an incredible new talent.

My Review:

The disappearance of a 10 year old is a rather bleak topic and yet Catherine O’Flynn pulls it off quite well in her debut novel What Was Lost. The reader is introduced straightaway to Kate a 10 year old whose father has recently passed away and lives with her neglectful grandmother. Kate spends her time trailing suspects at the local mall to help prepare her for the detective agency she dreams of running. Despite all of the hardships, some quite dreadful, faced by Kate as well as her friends Kate is a rather happy child. Kate’s story is a delight to read about and her sense of humour is quite refreshing as she views the world better than most adults. The story then flashes forward 20 years and the reader is introduced to Kurt and Lisa, two very unhappy people, each in their own way. While I preferred reading about Kate’s life, it was interesting to see what direction O’Flynn would take her story. At times it seems a little tedious which I think is the point, Kurt and Lisa have tedious jobs. O’Flynn has a mastery over her characters and we see both Kurt and Lisa transform as they try to figure out what happened to Kate Meaney. What Was Lost is a stunning debut filled with tragedy, loss, love, and redemption. O’Flynn expertly ties up the two parts of the story with a beautiful and unexpected ending. What Was Lost is an extraordinary look at so many lives that were and to some extent still are lost. I truly adored this book and recommend What Was Lost to anyone looking for a beautiful, witty, sad, and redemptive novel.

About the Author:

Catherine O’Flynn was born in Birmingham, England, in 1970, where she grew up in and around her parents’ candy store. She has been a teacher, Web editor, and mystery customer—and this, her first novel, draws on her experience of working in record stores. After spending several years in Barcelona, she now lives in Birmingham.

I received a complimentary copy of What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn from Henry Holt and Company. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.

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Book Review: Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe by Jenny Hollowell

Saturday 7 August, 2010 By 4 Comments

Title: Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe
Author: Jenny Hollowell
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Publication Date: June 8, 2010
Paperback: 256 pages
ISBN: 978-0805091199
Genre: Fiction

From the Publisher:

A young woman caught at the turning point between success and failure hopes fame and fortune will finally let her leave her old life—and her old self—behind

Birdie Baker has always dreamed of becoming someone else. At twenty-two, she sets off to do just that. Walking out on her pastor husband and deeply evangelical parents, she leaves behind her small-town, small-time life and gets on a bus to Los Angeles.

Nine years later, Birdie’s life in Hollywood is far from golden, and nothing in the intervening years—the brutal auditions, the tawdry commercials—has brought her any closer to the transformation she craves. Caught between success and failure, haunted by guilt about a tragedy in her long-forsaken family, Birdie is at the brink of collapse when she meets Lewis, a beautiful but naïve young actor with his own troubled history, whose self-destructive impulses run dangerously parallel to her own.

When her big chance finally comes, Birdie must reconcile the wide-eyed girl she once was with the jaded starlet she has become and try to find herself and her future somewhere in between. Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe is the story of a young woman’s struggle to make her own way in the Technicolor land of make-believe.

My Review:

Finally a book that is not filled with sunshine and happiness, Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe by Jenny Howell breaks the mold of “girl changes her life and becomes tremendously happy”. Howell presents a sad, and confused protagonist who is looking to escape her deeply religious upbringing and become famous, offering the reader a satirical look into Hollywood through the eyes of Birdie, who leaves her husband and her past behind and reinvents herself in Hollywood. Birdie alternates present day with bits and pieces of memories, real or imagined from her past in an attempt to better understand Birdie, to see how far she has come, and to realize she has not come far at all, save becoming an accomplished liar. From her earliest memories, Birdie has wanted to be someone she was not. Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe is an intriguing look at a young woman’s yearning to find happiness and what she finds is the superficial nature of Hollywood. Birdie is a character that either the reader will like or dislike, but either way I think all readers will be able to identify with at least some aspects of Birdie. Witty, satirical, sad, lonely, and utterly fabulous, Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe is a book I would recommend to everyone.

About the Author:

Jenny Hollowell’s short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, Scheherezade, and the anthology New Sudden Fiction, and was named a distinguished story by Best American Short Stories. She received an MFA from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns Fellow in Fiction and recipient of the Balch Short Story Award. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. This is her first novel.

I received a complimentary copy of Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe by Jenny Hollowell from Henry Holt and Company Publishers to review. Receiving a copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.

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Book Review: The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller

Friday 30 July, 2010 By 4 Comments

Title: The Land of Green Plums
Author: Herta Müller
Publisher: Metropolitan Books; First Edition edition
Publication Date: November 15, 1996
Hardcover: 256 pages
ISBN: 978-0805042955
Genre: Fiction

From the Publisher:

Set in Romania at the height of Ceauescu’s reign of terror,The Land of Green Plums tells the story of a group of young people who leave the impoverished province for the city in search of better prospects and camaraderie. But their hopes are ravaged, because the city, no less than the countryside, bears everywhere the mark of the dictatorship’s corrosive touch. All the narrator’s friends—teachers and students of vaguely dissident allegiance—betray her, do away with themselves, or both. As they do so, we see the way the totalitarian state comes to inhabit every human realm and how everyone, even the strongest, must either bend to the oppressors or resist them and thereby perish.
Herta Müller, herself a survivor of Ceausescu’s police state, speaks from intimate experience. Scene by scene, in language at once harsh and poetic, she constructs a devastating picture of a society and a generation ruined by fear. In simple images of hieroglyphic power—policeman filling their pockets and mouths with green plums; girls sleeping with abattoir workers for bags of offal; a docile proletariat making things no one wants—”tin sheep and wooden watermelons”—Müller anatomizes a country and its citizens and the corruption that has rotted the core of both.

My Review:

Rich, symbolic and full of lyrical prose, The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller takes the reader to Romania and through the oppression suffered by the people under Ceausescu’s totalitarian regime.  The narrator does not tell the story in a linear pattern, rather in bits and pieces that become interwoven to bring forth a masterful tapestry, rich, deep, and dark.  The reader learns about Lola and the days leading up to her apparent suicide, which is what brings the narrator together with Edgar, Georg, and Kurt.  The four speak of freedom and hope without ever uttering the words.  The narrator refers to the proletariats as sheep and wooden melons and speaks of barbers, graveyards and ailing mothers, all seemingly random topics, yet deeply symbolic of a life that offers little happiness or hope.   Müller has once again created an intensely intellectual novel, filled with the bleakness that comes from living under such a brutal regime, yet Müller offers up blooms of hope.  The Land of Green Plums is a short novel, yet deeply intense, symbolic and intellectual, commanding the reader’s full attention.  While the subject matter of those living in oppression is neither light nor cheerful, I strongly recommend this novel to anyone looking for a deeply intellectual read.

About the Author:

Born in Romania in 1953, Herta Müller lost her job as a teacher and suffered repeated threats after refusing to cooperate with Ceausescu’s Secret Police. She succeeded in emigrating in 1987 and now lives in Berlin. The recipient of the European Literature Prize, she won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for The Land of Green Plums.

I received a complimentary copy of The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller from Henry Holt and Company Publishers to review. Receiving a copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.

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Book Review: Elegy for April by Benjamin Black

Saturday 24 July, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Title: Elegy for April
Author: Benjamin Black
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1 edition
Publication Date: April 13, 2010
Hardcover: 304 pages
ISBN: 978-0805090918
Genre: Fiction, Mystery

From the Publisher:

Quirke—the hard-drinking, insatiably curious Dublin pathologist—is back, and he’s determined to find his daughter’s best friend, a well-connected young doctor

April Latimer has vanished. A junior doctor at a local hospital, she is something of a scandal in the conservative and highly patriarchal society of 1950s Dublin. Though her family is one of the most respected in the city, she is known for being independent-minded; her taste in men, for instance, is decidedly unconventional.

Now April has disappeared, and her friend Phoebe Griffin suspects the worst. Frantic, Phoebe seeks out Quirke, her brilliant but erratic father, and asks him for help. Sober again after intensive treatment for alcoholism, Quirke enlists his old sparring partner, Detective Inspector Hackett, in the search for the missing young woman. In their separate ways the two men follow April’s trail through some of the darker byways of the city to uncover crucial information on her whereabouts. And as Quirke becomes deeply involved in April’s murky story, he encounters complicated and ugly truths about family savagery, Catholic ruthlessness, and race hatred.

Both an absorbing crime novel and a brilliant portrait of the difficult and relentless love between a father and his daughter, this is Benjamin Black at his sparkling best.

My Review:

Set in 1950s Dublin, Elegy of April by Benjamin Black is a rather suitable title for this dark novel, part mystery and part social commentary of the time.    Phoebe Griffin approaches her father, Quirke, who is about to be released from a detox programme, with her concerns about Dr. April Latimer’s strange disappearance.  While Quirke does not think it too odd an adult would go away for a week without telling anyone, he contacts his friend Detective Inspector Hackett to help him poke around and make inquiries about April.  At the same time Phoebe has taken it upon herself to make inquiries as well.   April’s prominent family is not at all concerned their daughter has not been heard from in over a week, but rather put out that they should even be questioned.  The novel is beautifully rich in description and character development, enough so that I wanted to learn more about the characters.  The mystery, the disappearance of April Latimer, seemed to be almost an aside, rather than the main focus of the novel.  The reader learns about Quirke’s time in a detox programme, his desire to buy a car and learn to drive and then about the car itself, an Alvis.  The relationships in the story are equally dark and mysterious and while the ending is a bit of a surprise, it leaves many questions left unanswered.  I would recommend an Elegy for April to those who enjoy Irish literature, dark mysteries or simply looking for a mystery that is far removed from conventional mysteries.

About the Author:

Benjamin Black, the pen name of acclaimed novelist John Banville, is the author of Christine Falls and The Silver Swan. Christine Falls was nominated for both the Edgar Award and Macavity Award for Best Novel; both Christine Falls and Silver Swan were national bestsellers. Banville lives in Dublin.

I received a complimentary copy of Elegy for April by Benjamin Black from Henry Holt and Company Publishers to review. Receiving a copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.

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Book Review: The Appointment by Herta Müller

Wednesday 21 July, 2010 By 4 Comments

Title: The Appointment
Author: Herta Müller
Publisher: Picador
Publication Date: September 7, 2002
Paperback: 224 pages
ISBN: 978-0312420543
Genre: Literary Fiction

From the Publisher:

WINNER OF THE 2009 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

From the winner of the IMPAC Award, a fierce novel about a young Romanian woman’s discovery of betrayal in the most intimate reaches of her life

“I’ve been summoned. Thursday, ten sharp.” Thus begins one day in the life of a young clothing-factory worker during Ceaucescu’s totalitarian regime. She has been questioned before; this time, she believes, will be worse. Her crime? Sewing notes into the linings of men’s suits bound for Italy. “Marry me,” the notes say, with her name and address. Anything to get out of the country.

As she rides the tram to her interrogation, her thoughts stray to her friend Lilli, shot trying to flee to Hungary, to her grandparents, deported after her first husband informed on them, to Major Albu, her interrogator, who begins each session with a wet kiss on her fingers, and to Paul, her lover, her one source of trust, despite his constant drunkenness. In her distraction, she misses her stop to find herself on an unfamiliar street. And what she discovers there makes her fear of the appointment pale by comparison.

Herta Müller pitilessly renders the humiliating terrors of a crushing regime. Bone-spare and intense, The Appointment confirms her standing as one of Europe’s greatest writers.

My Review:

The Appointment by Herta Müller is an absolute masterpiece of literature. The narrator is on a tram, once again heading to face another interrogation by Ceausescu’s secret police, and while she heads to this appointment she recounts various moments in her life, allowing the reader an inside look into another world, one that is difficult to imagine, yet Müller’s descriptions are spot on. With breath-taking beauty, Müller details with precision the simple, the mundane, the everyday scenes of life to show the reader a world of deprivation and a certain acceptance to maintain sanity in a society filled with black marketers, long lines for drink and food, plenty of one yet not the other, government owned shops, and the utter helplessness brought onto the people under such a regime. Müller’s writings brought back to me the sights, sounds and smells of the Former Soviet Union, the grays and blacks, the oneness and lack of free will. While The Appointment does not take place in the former USSR, rather Romania, it was not difficult for me to envision. I fear I have not done justice to this literary masterpiece. I would recommend The Appointment to anyone who would like a look into another culture and what it is like to live without the freedoms so many of us take for granted. As for myself, I plan to read a non-translated version to see what, if anything was lost.

About the Author:

Born in Romania in 1953, Herta Müller lost her job as a teacher and suffered repeated threats after refusing to cooperate with Ceausescu’s Secret Police. She succeeded in emigrating in 1987 and now lives in Berlin. The recipient of the European Literature Prize, she has also won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for her previous novel, The Land of Green Plums.

I received a complimentary copy of The Appointment by Herta Müller from Henry Holt and Company Publishers to review. Receiving a copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.

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Book Review: The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim

Saturday 17 July, 2010 By 7 Comments

Title: The Calligrapher’s Daughter
Author: Eugenia Kim
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Publication Date: March 30, 2010
Paperback: 416 pages
ISBN: 978-0805092264
Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction

From the Publisher:

In early-twentieth-century Korea, Najin Han, the privileged daughter of a calligrapher, longs to choose her own destiny, though her country—newly occupied by Japan—is crumbling, and her family, led by her stern father, is facing difficulties that seem insurmountable. Narrowly escaping an arranged marriage, Najin takes up a new role as a companion to a young princess. But the king is soon assassinated, and the centuries-old dynastic culture comes to its end.

Najin pursues a coveted education and is surprised to find love. After one day of marriage a denied passport separates her from her new husband, who continues alone to America. As a decade passes and the world descends into war, Najin loses touch with her husband. Will the love they share be enough to sustain her through the deprivation her country continues to endure? The Calligrapher’s Daughter is a richly drawn novel about a nation torn between ancient customs and modern possibilities, and is a “vivid, heartfelt portrait of faith, love and life for one family during a pivotal time in history” (Bookpage).

My Review:

The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim is a beautiful tale told primarily by Najin Han, however several sections are told through her father Han, the calligrapher as well as through her mother. The story begins in 1915 when at age of five, Najin learns she was not given a name. Her mother was referred to as “the woman from Nah-jin” and a missionary thought Najin would be a beautiful name and thus she became known as Najin Han. The story takes the reader through the tumultuous times of Korea fighting for its own identity while under Japanese influence as well a lot of missionaries, both of which are prominent in the novel and Najin’s life. Kim weaves together a beautiful tale broken down into smaller sections of time, a certain year or several years that prove important to the story. Each section is a self-contained short story but smoothly transforms into a fascinating story of a young Korean girl coming of age, of family, traditions both old and new, and the struggle of identity and faith. Kim is quite descriptive in her writing allowing the reader a glimpse into the first half of the 20th century in Korea. Beautiful prose accompanies well-developed characters and the reader would be hard pressed to not find Najin a charming character. The Calligrapher’s Daughter was Kim’s debut novel and proves to be a brilliant debut; I am looking forward to reading more of her works. I highly recommend The Calligrapher’s Daughter to all readers and think this would make a wonderful discussion group choice.

About the Author:

Eugenia Kim, an MFA graduate of Bennington College, has published short stories and essays in journals and anthologies, including Echoes Upon Echoes: New Korean American Writings. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and son. The Calligrapher’s Daughter is her first novel.

I received a complimentary copy of The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim from HarperPerennial to review. Receiving a copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.

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Book Review: The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn

Saturday 10 July, 2010 By 5 Comments

Title: The News Where You Are
Author: Catherine O’Flynn
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Publication Date: July 6, 2010
Paperback: 272 pages
ISBN: 978-0805091809
Genre: Literature, Fiction

From the Publisher:

Frank Allcroft, a television news anchor in his hometown (where he reports on hard-hitting events, like the opening of canine gyms for overweight pets), is on the verge of a mid-life crisis. Beneath his famously corny on-screen persona, Frank is haunted by loss: the mysterious hit-and-run that killed his predecessor and friend, Phil, and the ongoing demolition of his architect father’s monumental postwar buildings. And then there are the things he can’t seem to lose, no matter how hard he tries: his home, for one, on the market for years; and the nagging sense that he will never quite be the son his mother—newly ensconced in an assisted-living center—wanted.

As Frank uncovers the shocking truth behind Phil’s death, and comes to terms with his domineering father’s legacy, it is his beloved young daughter, Mo, who points him toward the future. Funny and touching, The News Where You Are is a moving exploration of what we do and don’t leave behind, proving once more that Catherine O’Flynn’s writing “shimmers with dark brilliance” (Chicago Tribune).

My Review:

Appearances can be deceiving as evidenced in Catherine O’Flynn’s novel, The News Where You Are. On the surface, the novel is about local news reporter Frank Allcroft and how his life has changed since the death of his predecessor, Phil Smethway, and to a degree it is, but that is only the surface. Frank is rethinking much of his life and his future while going through the day-to-day motions of being a good husband, father and son as well as being the best local news reporter he can muster.
Six months after Phil’s death, Frank is noticing the void left by loss. The demolition of the buildings his deceased father was the architect for, his visits to see his perpetually melancholy mother, and most concerning to his wife, Frank’s newest obsession of attending the funerals of those who have passed away, whether broadcasted or merely overlooked. To add to Frank’s firm belief that there must be something left behind after one ceases to exist, is the question of Phil’s death and how could it have been possible for it to have been an accident when the road is wide and flat? Frank is not the only one wondering about the past and leaving a mark on the world. Michael, a chum of Phil’s has found himself wandering to places that are no longer and reminiscing about the past.
O’Flynn writes several stories interwoven into one, which on the surface seem akin to midlife crises, workaday observances, and the dichotomy of the optimism of youth in Frank’s daughter Mo verses the pure melancholy of the elderly as seen in Frank’s mother Maureen. And yet, O’Flynn takes the reader far deeper into the story, beyond the everyday, even beyond the mysterious death of Phil, to a philosophical discussion, and at times, debate about life. The News Where You Are is a deeply moving, heartwarming and often witty look at life and how what matters is often the things we leave out. The characters are exceedingly realistic and one is easily drawn into the novel, fully absorbed and thinking about life and death and what is truly important in life. I would not hesitate to recommend The News Where You Are to anyone looking for a brilliantly written novel that will entertain, enlighten and make one give pause. The News Where You Are would make for an excellent discussion book.

About the Author:

Catherine O’Flynn’s debut novel, What Was Lost, won the Costa First Novel Award in 2007, was short-listed for The Guardian First Book Award, and was long-listed for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. She lives in Birmingham, England.

I received a complimentary copy of The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn from Henry Holt and Company Publishers. Receiving a copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.

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