"Major Pettigrew's Last Stand" by Helen Simonson

Through most of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand I found myself glibly telling myself that I knew what that last stand would be. And I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Numerous lines in this novel will make you laugh out loud, if you enjoy a dry, understated wit. You will also share in the hero’s outrage at his own rather closed society’s prejudices. We the lucky reader are ultimately struck, however, with the very sympathetic, if highly unorthodox, leading couple, and their triumphs and tribulations. This novel features some very satisfying scenes with this couple, and an extremely unexpected and harrowing climax.

Author Helen Simonson sets her story in the parochial society of an English village, in Sussex, and deals extensively with the tension which flows when such a society’s expectations clash with the needs of its citizens. This energy propels the action, and propels the eponymous hero to some surprising conclusions. Ms. Simonson plays with our expectations – toys with them you could say – and the whole is a gratifying, memorable package.

Chief among these memorable features is the hero himself, Major Ernest Pettigrew, British Army,

retired. Even though his grown son already views him as half-enfeebled, the Major proves him wrong time and again, and frustrates his greedy intentions in the process. A staunch and conservative man himself, Major Pettigrew finds it more and more difficult to toe the village’s restrictive line. No, bless him, he proves resourceful enough to follow his heart when it is captured by the charming and long-suffering Pakistani widow, Mrs. Ali.

For the funny lines, for the heartwarming bits, for a knowing treatment of the tragic potential of religious fanaticism and prejudice, take up Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand. It’s mature, sympathetic, topical and lovely.

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"Enon" by Paul Harding

After his stunning, Pulitzer Prize-winning debut Tinkers, Paul Harding follows up with Enon, and it is a companion-piece to his first novel, in more ways than one. It continues the narrative of the same hard-pressed Crosby family, it contains more of the baroque symbolism from the first book – clockwork imagery figures prominently – and the prose is again so artistic and rewarding, that I simply remain in awe of this author. This is rather more than I’d hoped for after Tinkers.

Enon plumbs the depths of Charlie Crosby’s drug-addled grief and despair in a manner reminiscent of Thomas De Quincey. Charlie has lost his adored thirteen year-old daughter Kate in a traffic accident. Anger and grief rule his life for the next year, and he greases the skids with a frightening slide into drug abuse. This bald exposition does nothing to describe the book, though; along with unfolding Charlie’s story, Mr. Harding engages us in a level of thought, of imaginative speculation, that I don’t see other writers attempting.

For instance, an old, spinsterish woman’s house, and more particularly a unique tall clock within the house, become in Charlie’s fevered imagination, the very heart of Enon, Charlie’s home town, and where he still lives. In a particularly lurid

bout of delusion, Charlie saws a hole in his living room wall so that the addle-pated math functions he has scrawled on the wall can flow into it, as though it is a black hole, and maybe is late daughter can somehow be materialized in the process. The episode of the hole occurs while a hurricane bears down on Enon, and while the macro-winds of destruction blow through the town, Charlie loses consciousness while holding a wand attached to his vacuum cleaner, which runs all night in his hand.

This is the sort of construct to which we’re treated in Enon. The author paces the wildness and terror of Charlie’s deterioration beautifully. We are everywhere challenged to comprehend yet another new image, and try to decide whether it reflects everyday fact, or some chimera of Charlie’s mind. By no means do I intend to warn readers off of this high accomplishment – on the contrary, it’s stunning, well worth your time and effort. It’s as breathtaking in its way as Tinkers, and for me, there’s no higher compliment to be paid.

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"Night Soldiers" by Alan Furst

Author Alan Furst calls it “near history.” Night Soldiers provides us a view with near-miraculous clarity of war-torn Europe in the 1940s, and this glimpse comes to us courtesy of Khristo – a nineteen-year-old Bulgarian youth who grows up by a river, watches Fascist thugs murder his younger brother, and falls into the war himself in the clutches of the Soviet secret service, the NKVD. This satisfying excursion into World War II espionage has every feature you’d want: intriguing insights into the tradecraft, a closely imagined story of a Soviet purge of its security service (Khristo is sentenced to life in prison as a result), close-ups of the cruel and genocidal regimes lording it over Europe at the time, and even a dabbling into the hero’s love life.

World War II nearly kills Khristo; he is one of the few survivors from the close-knit group that trained together in Moscow. Mr. Furst spares no effort in portraying the wasted Europe of the time, either. Protagonist Khristo suffers time and again in various circumstances and for various reasons, just like the devastated continent. In fact,

we witness the damage done over time to the man and the place, as in parallel. That’s what remains with me after finishing this book: I remember and feel the near-death escapes, heroic perseverance, and lost opportunities for happiness. Night Soldiers is packed with diverting secondary characters, too, from Khristo’s lover in Paris, to the American adventuress fighting in the Spanish Civil War, to the stout woman who pilots the tug boat that carries Khristo to freedom.

This is an extreme page-turner. Outcomes for characters are always in doubt – some make us sorry we liked a character, but overall, Mr. Furst has cobbled together a highly satisfying yarn of suspense, featuring fully nuanced heavies, and intrepid heroes.

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"Paint the Bird" by Georgeann Packard

Author Georgeann Packard places a quote at the beginning of Paint the Bird that plainly consigns faith to the realm of illusion. And she goes on to describe the crisis of faith suffered by her main character Sarah, who as a practicing minister, has a struggle indeed. The resulting conflict brings a sharp focus on family, loss, weakness, and redemption.

 People and events in Paint the Bird spring before us, like birds spooked into flight. Sarah Obadias, a veteran preacher in an “inclusive, nurturing” church, finds herself in the company of a compelling stranger and gives in to his sensual attractions. She also falls into his life, trapped almost, and his life is rather wretched at the moment. Tall, well aged, with a generous mane of white hair, this man is named Abraham, which is appropriate for this Sarah, and for this book, which purposely echoes Bible narratives. Abraham’s son (named Yago, not Isaac) has died and the events of the novel revolve around the effects of this untimely demise.

The language in this book is vivid and urgent, as are

the issues the characters must face. Ms. Packard engages us fully in this compact but eventful story. She handles the harrowing journeys of her main characters very surely, and strikes a particularly elegant chord with Abraham, the bereft father and artist who strives to understand and perhaps preserve his lost son. This plaintive, elegiac novel tugs at our hearts as it pushes us to come to grips with its human lesson of hope and charity, even if faith comes up a little worse for wear. A very gratifying follow-up to Fall Asleep Forgetting, as Ms. Packard continues to make good on her considerable promise.

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"Topper" by Thorne Smith

Cosmo Topper, nearing 40, functions staunchly as a banking officer in the big city, and a volunteer fireman in the little town where he lives. But then he buys a used and infamous car, comes under the delinquent influence of a couple of ghosts, and goes on an extended debauch in this charming 1920s classic.

Topper (1926) is widely credited with establishing the current comic thread in treatment of ghosts. It led directly to the 1937 movie of the same name, starring Cary Grant, and the 1950s TV series, starring Leo G. Carroll. It led hardly less directly to endless TV and movie treatments too numerous to name. The ghost comedy, with all its permutations, is a hardy staple, with us to this day.

It’s easy to see why this slender work has all the credit. One could call it a harmless fantasy of rebellion, except that Topper doesn’t come out of it unscathed. He has frequent – near daily – hangovers, spends one night in jail that we know of,

and flees the law through unfamiliar wildernesses in the wee hours, on numerous occasions. All through this, he tries without success to explain or hide, the boisterous and mischievous behavior of his ghost friends. His head, his liver, and his reputation all take a beating, and he winds up crashing the car and nearly dying.

But Mr. Topper’s near-fatal vacation expands his life, his opinions, and his social experience. He becomes enamored with, and loses forever, the comely and obliging Marion Kerby, but emerges with a renewed appreciation of his wife. This engaging, light piece completely deserves its place as the seminal ghost comedy. Pick it up and be charmed, like generations of readers before you.

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"The Beach at Galle Road" by Joanna Luloff

Happy families, with bright, live-wire teenage daughters and cricket-mad sons, suffer and become obliterated in Sri Lanka’s endless civil war. The usual family aspirations of university educations and good marriages evaporate as war’s mayhem sweeps the island.  

Joanna Luloff’s The Beach at Galle Road is a series of linked short pieces that one can read as a unified novel. That is certainly the effect Ms. Luloff achieves as the last few stories conclude what is a harrowing story of loss.

The eponymous road, which runs parallel to a beach, becomes a metaphor for risk and change as we read of the sister of a central character driven to madness by her husband’s bizarre need to shame and abandon her. Shame arises from strict societal mores throughout this collection, but these concerns begin to fade as the stories shift to the Tamil population, which bears the brunt of depredation on all sides: war from the government side, and purges from the rebellious Tamil side. The issues escalate to life and death as boys are whisked off to the fighting and their mothers turn up dead and floating in the river.

One theme deals with Westerners who have come to Sri Lanka, volunteering to teach or tend to the sick. The local customs and strictures baffle them, just as their behavior shocks the locals. This idea dominates the earlier stories, but the shift to the Tamil side of the conflict leads to loss, starvation, child combatants, and suicide in a smooth and well-executed swing in the stories.

This collection touches us because we know all too well of the loss and madness of war. These truths are brought home to us in this memorable and very honest collection.

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"Hawk Quest" by Robert Lyndon

In Hawk Quest we follow the epic journey of a small and shifting group of questers literally around the ends of the earth: from England to the west coast of Greenland, over the northern cape of Norway and into Russia by way of the White Sea. The year is 1072 AD, the Conqueror’s Normans remain busy subjugating Britain (through the time-honored means of rape, murder, and arson); the Seljuks have routed the Christians at Manzikert (in present-day Turkey); and Vallon, the intrepid leader of a motley, undermanned party, must try to stay one step ahead of the law.

Historian and enthusiastic falconer Robert Lyndon never lets you rest. One death-defying adventure follows hard on the heels of its predecessor. The small group must escape the British Isles with the law after them, get out of a feud in Iceland, battle North Atlantic tempests just to return east after capturing birds of prey in Greenland, and race the season’s onslaught in the Arctic Ocean. Then the real fun starts.

Through it all, the narrative energy never flags. Mr. Lyndon manages to fill a book three times the normal length and leave the reader ready for more. Because of its incessant tides of trouble and the party’s sometimes miraculous escapes therefrom, you will keep turning page after thrilling page.

What sold me on this book was the promise that Bernard Cornwell fans will like it. It does remind one of Mr. Cornwell’s Saxon Chronicles: it has the same bright verisimilitude; the characters are just as real, and just as highly skilled and heroic.

This is outstanding escapist fare. It will transport you, if I may be allowed to say that about a book portraying an epic journey. And will leave you hoping to see the characters reunited, however improbable its conclusion makes that.

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"Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde" by Rebecca Dana

There are two people the title of Rebecca Dana’s memoir Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde, which is appropriate in this book, for it spins around an axis pulled taut between opposite poles. Rebecca Dana, a reporter for the Daily Beast and Newseek, and formerly with the Wall Street Journal, has assembled not only an unstintingly honest exposé of her searching self, but also an étude on such subjects as life lived “in deferment” and the significance of something called “communities of meaning.” This book surprised me; it swept me up with its soulful exploration of faith and virtue.

Ms. Dana begins by laying out in honest terms her ambition to emulate Carrie Bradshaw, the heroine of TV’s wildly successful Sex and the City. Her dream of capturing and living the glamorous life grows out of a middle-class upbringing long on scholastic achievement but short on familial love. When her ideal urban romance falls apart she finds, against all her instincts, an apartment in a Brooklyn neighborhood dominated by an arch-conservative Jewish sect, the Lubavitchers. Hesitantly she moves in with a larger-than-life young rabbi from Russia, called Cosmo. Cosmo is very dramatic about his sex life (it’s a struggle), his grooming (subject to change), and his faith (quickly evaporating). This character and his milieu allow the author to slow down and understand other facets of life, like home and faith.  

And here we find the axis on which this energetic narrative spins. Ms. Dana’s attraction to Manhattan’s glitz and glamor must suddenly compete with the appeal of the hearthside joys of family, which are a revelation to her. She shows a very discerning eye when it comes to her new acquaintances; she recognizes the degree to which Lubavitcher women are restricted in their lives, but she can also cull wisdom from scholarly men in the community. From one she picks up the concept of communities of meaning, in which groups hold common values and goals, and use common spectra to measure worth. She also posits that her current need to scrimp and work extra hard for a promised payoff has a direct parallel in the Jewish faith, in which believers defer joy in this life for rewards in the hereafter.

The author even manages to structure her memoir like a novel. Late in the story, her boss Tina Brown organizes a high-profile conference of highly celebrated and influential women, focusing on violence against women. Amid talks given by African women recounting rape and mutilation, seminars conducted by Melanne Verveer, United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, and Barbara Walters, Ms. Dana is taken up by how noble and uplifting the gathering is. While imagining what it would be like to go to a picturesque, out-of-the-way corner of the globe to end conflict and free women from oppression, she finds herself seated next to Candace Bushnell, the beautiful and classy creator of Sex and the City. Ms. Bushnell’s attendance at the conference, and her patient suffering of the author’s fawning, unite the book’s two thrusts, and provide Ms. Dana with an understanding and appreciation of her own way forward. The author handles the moment in a very assured and honest way. It’s really gutsy, and it works really well.  

Ms. Dana yolks her superior intellect and her no-holds-barred honesty into a powerful team, and the result is a gratifying ride indeed.

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