Book Review: "Noir" by Christopher Moore

Well, it's been a while since I've read a book that should have been accompanied by a drum set, in order to generate rimshots after every joke, but this definitely felt like one of those!!

"There are times in a guy's life when he finds himself floating facedown in a sea of troubles, and as hope bubbles away, he thinks, How the hell did I get here?"

It's 1947 in San Francisco. The country has just started putting all of its pieces back together following World War II. Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin is the evening bartender at Sal's Saloon, and he spends his evenings helping the city's denizens bury their troubles with the help of cheap liquor. Sam always has his hand in some other scheme, either because he needs to make more money or he has connections that range throughout the city. (Most often both.)

Then one night, of all of the gin joints in the world, in she walks—a flirtatious blonde, "a size-eight dame in a size-six dress and every mug in the joint was rooting for the two sizes to make a break for it as they watched her wiggle in the door and shimmy onto a barstool with her back to the door." The dame, it turns out, is named Stilton (like the cheese), and she takes a shine to Sammy. And the shine is more than mutual.

As much as Sammy would like to do nothing more than romance "the Cheese" (as everyone refers to Stilton), he's got his hands full. His boss wants him to recruit a group of women to "entertain" a bunch of VIPs. He may have been inadvertently involved in the assault and kidnapping of a somewhat racist policeman. Oh, and he might have also brought a deadly black mamba snake into San Francisco—and the snake didn't waste time before inflicting some damage.

But is that why two dark-suited, sunglasses-wearing investigators are on his trail? Or is there something else?

When the Cheese goes missing, Sammy needs to take action. He recruits a motley group of friends and associates to help him follow her trail, and it leads them into the middle of one hell of a mess, with cross-dressing members of a secret club, government investigators bent on "taking care" of anyone that gets in their way, and, well, there may be a space alien in the mix as well.

Sammy doesn't know what to make of any of it, but he knows he wants the Cheese back, so he'll take on any enemy that comes his way—even if it may be carrying a space blaster.

Noir is a wacky, corny, somewhat disjointed novel that is simultaneously funny, odd, confusing, and downright bizarre. But all of these adjectives perfectly describe the storytelling of Christopher Moore, author of books like The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove and Island of the Sequined Love-Nun, among others. As I saw in the description of this book, "Think Raymond Chandler meets Damon Runyon with more than a dash of Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes All Stars," but I'd throw in a little Men in Black as well.

I was a big fan of Moore's in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but after a while I found myself rolling my eyes more than laughing when I read his books. For some reason I expected something slightly different from Noir, and while it started out that way, by the end there were so many competing storylines, not to mention occasional narration from Petey the black mamba snake, that I just wasn't sure what I was reading.

This is a book that takes on its story with great gusto. I marveled at Moore's creativity, but all in all, Noir didn't quite work for me. However, if zany, no-holds-barred books pique your interest, definitely give this one a try.

Book Review: "My Ex-Life" by Stephen McCauley

In 1987, I read Stephen McCauley's The Object of My Affection. I fell head over heels in love with that book about the often-blurred lines between love and friendship, and how we sometimes confuse security for happiness. I've read it a number of times since then, and it is easily one of my favorite books. (The less said about the film adaptation with Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd the better.)

Through the years, I have read all of McCauley's other books, and he continues to be one of my favorite writers. I love the way his characters never quite have it all together (who does, really), and I so enjoy his commentary on the state of modern relationships, be they romantic, platonic, familial, or all of the above. He is, however, one of those authors who makes me wait quite a long time between books—his last book, Insignificant Others, was written eight years ago, but he generally lets four or five years elapse between books.

Needless to say, I was well overdue for a McCauley fix, and happily, his newest book, My Ex-Life provided a terrific remedy.

David Hedges' life is in a bit of a tailspin. His partner, Soren, has left him for an older, wealthier man, his beautiful rental home in San Francisco is being put up for sale (and he most definitely cannot afford to buy it), and he's gained more than a few pounds recently. And how did he wind up in his 50s?

The last thing David was expecting was to hear from Julie Fiske, one of his oldest and dearest friends—who also happens to be his ex-wife.

"He and Julie had a history, albeit an ancient and complicated one. They hadn't seen each other in almost thirty years, hadn't spoken in more than twenty, and David assumed that their story, like a few other things in his life—his desire to visit Petra; his vow to study piano; his sexual relevance—had ended. This didn't diminish her importance to him. His memories of her lingered, faded by the years in flattering ways."

Life has been a mess for Julie, too. She is in the midst of her second divorce, and her soon-to-be-ex-husband wants to sell their home (which Julie has been operating as a not-too-successful Airbnb property) right out from under her. Julie isn't sure where she can find the money to buy the house herself, although the thought of having to leave the seaside town outside Boston is utterly unappealing. Plus, she may have a little bit of a problem with marijuana.

Julie and David reunite under the request that David, whose job entails helping high school kids pull together their college applications and get into the school of their (parents') choice, help Julie's daughter Mandy with the same task. Mandy doesn't think she's much of a catch for a college, and has more than enough problems with her self-worth to worry about SAT scores and essays. But she knows her mother is in a downward spiral, so she agrees to work with David.

When David agrees to visit Julie, he does so in an attempt to rescue her from her current situation, not to mention escape the current craziness in his own life. It doesn't take long before they've slipped into the comforting familiarity of their relationship, albeit with a more mature (and realistic) eye. But there are some secrets which haven't been revealed in 30+ years, secrets which could damage their relationship—and their view of the path their lives took, not to mention people with designs on hurting all three of them.

Once again, McCauley brings his signature wit, candor, and emotion to a story of two people with a rich and complex shared history. While you've seen characters like Julie, David, and Mandy before, McCauley draws you in and makes you care about them and the mistakes they're making, even if you can predict what might happen. There is humor, frustration, hurt, poignancy, and reminiscences, as well as plenty of instances in which the characters wonder if what they remember is accurate or viewed through the happy haze of reunion.

My Ex-Life is a story about the truths and lies we tell ourselves and others, and how the strength to survive is often within ourselves, but it takes a good push from someone else to find it. It's also a story about friendship, love, and secrets, and how it's still possible to have the first two once you've worked through the third.

I remain a huge fan of Stephen McCauley, and I'd encourage you to read his books. I only hope, if he sees this review, he considers not making me wait another eight years for his next book? (Pretty please? I can type it for you if that would help.)

Book Review: "The Nowhere Man" by Gregg Hurwitz

It's an indication of how many books I read last year that while Gregg Hurwitz's Orphan X, the first novel in his Evan Smoak series, made my list of the best books I read in 2016, I never got around to reading the second book, The Nowhere Man, until now, despite the fact that it came out in early 2017. There's even a third book out. I have to catch up!!

The Nowhere Man is a little bit uneven, so it's not quite as good as its predecessor. But when the book clicks, as it does in places and then consistently in the last third or so, you realize what a kick-ass character Evan Smoak is, and that Hurwitz can write both action scenes that crackle as well as scenes which deliver real emotion.

When Evan Smoak (not his real name) was young, a man rescued him from a troubled life and he trained Evan how to kill. When he got older he became the Nowhere Man, the last resort for a person in desperate trouble. No one knows who the Nowhere Man is, but they know if they call him, he will help rescue them from a seemingly helpless situation.

A call from a teenage girl in a desperate situation leads him to the existence of a sex trafficking operation, which abducts vulnerable young women and sends them into the hands of nefarious characters. As usual, Smoak works to cut the operation off at its knees, but as he tries to determine just how deep its roots are, he is abducted by an utterly unanticipated nemesis, who wants something from Evan, and will stop at nothing to get it.

Suddenly, Evan finds himself captured in an unknown location, under guard by a number of trigger-happy mercenaries, and at the mercy of a sadistic, opportunistic individual with unlimited resources and a real inferiority complex. His captors think they've got the best of Evan, but they don't understand just whom they're dealing with—but outsmarting this clan will push Evan to his very limits, physically and intellectually.

"What did it say about him that he was so easily put back together? He'd long thought that it was a positive attribute, a testament to his durability, but now it felt artificial, unhuman. He was rebuildable, a snap-together Lego toy."

As Evan plots his escape, he is haunted by the need to rescue two different people, and he has his own visions of his surrogate father figure, whose death Evan feels responsible for. And then he realizes that those who hold him captive aren't the only enemies he'll have to defeat.

There are some great twists and turns in this book, and I just love Evan's resourcefulness, and the life he has built for himself, even though it is lonely. There were some fight scenes that literally had my heart pumping as I was amazed at the way he and his enemies kept turning the situation. But Hurwitz also showed his ability to create introspective and poignant moments as well, which gave the book—and its characters—real depth.

Parts of the plot really require you suspend your disbelief, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I kept hoping that Hurwitz wasn't going to get totally bizarre with the story. (Close, but not quite.) My main criticism is that I love Evan when he is doing what he does best—rescuing those in need and making those responsible pay. Given that he spends a significant part of this book captured (although slowly enacting his revenge), it tended to dull my enthusiasm after a time.

If you're looking for a great series, pick up Orphan X and prepare to be blown away. The Nowhere Man is definitely worth a read as well, and I'll need to check out the third book in this series (which I've heard is fantastic) pretty soon. There's lots of violence, so those who don't enjoy that should steer clear, but if you're okay with fictionalized violence, get ready for your pulse to rise!!

Book Review: "Number One Chinese Restaurant" by Lillian Li

Growing up in the New Jersey suburbs in the mid-1980s, my family ate dinner out nearly every Sunday evening, and more often than not, we ate Chinese food, as did many other families in my town. (I used to joke that there were classmates I saw more regularly at the Chinese restaurant than I did in high school!)

While there were several different Chinese restaurants in our area, and everyone had a favorite, we frequently ate at one particular restaurant, whose owners my parents had known for a number of years. The owner and his wife seemed to have a fascinating relationship, and the high school gossip I was then loved to make up stories about what was going on in their lives, as well as the lives of the other employees. Perhaps those memories were what drew me to Lillian Li's Number One Chinese Restaurant—that, and the fact that Li's book takes place in a suburb of Washington, DC known for its Chinese restaurants.

The Beijing Duck House in Rockville, Maryland, has certainly seen better days, but it's still a favorite among the community's restaurants. The creation of immigrant Bobby Han, the Duck House was once a place where presidents and celebrities dined, but Bobby's death left the restaurant caught between his two sons, the more managerially suited Johnny, and the more impulsive, ambitious Jimmy.

Jimmy has dreams of getting away from his father's legacy and opening a fancier Asian fusion restaurant where he'd never again have to serve the dishes which exhaust and repulse him. But to make his dream possible requires striking a deal with the devil, one who has been on the outskirts of their family for years now, and doesn't know how to take the word "no" for an answer.

When tragedy strikes, it may make the achievement of Jimmy's dreams closer to reality, but it also upends the lives of many others. For longtime employees Nan and Ah-Jack, they are forced to confront the so-called elephant in the room, their friendship/flirtation, and decide whether to pursue something more after 30 years. But if they do, how will this affect Ah-Jack's wife and Nan's rebellious teenage son, Pat?

Pat, a dishwasher at the Duck House since being expelled from high school, is in the midst of a flirtation with Annie, the hostess, who happens to be Jimmy's niece. While Annie has very little love for her father or her family's restaurant, she's not expecting to get pulled into a scheme which threatens to destroy both.

As Jimmy tries to hold on to his dream, he must battle his brother, their seemingly ineffective mother, and the family friend whose menacing presence has always kept everyone on edge. But what does Jimmy really want? Is it making a name for himself, or continuing to bask in the spotlight his father built all these years ago.

There's a lot going on in this book, with no shortage of melodrama, family dysfunction, angst, and even a little crime for good measure. While the different situations the characters find themselves in certainly have potential, they never really grabbed my interest as I had hoped. I don't know if there was too much to digest (no pun intended) all at once, or if it was more that the characters weren't particularly sympathetic, but I felt that the plot really dragged, and never picked up much steam.

If you like stories of family dynamics, you might enjoy this one. The one thing I truly appreciated about this book is that Li didn't spend too much time dwelling on the food, so I didn't get as hungry as I often do when reading books about restaurants and cooks!

NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Book Review: "The Line That Held Us" by David Joy

After reading David Joy's newest novel, I've come to the conclusion that writers like him and Michael Farris Smith deserve their own sub-genre of fiction, one that I'll call "bleak-tion."

This sub-genre would contain beautifully written books in which a feeling of despair or doom is quite pervasive, and you know that something monumentally, well, bleak is going to happen. (See Joy's The Weight of This World or Smith's Desperation Road or The Fighter.) I don't mean this in a disparaging way, but you shouldn't read these novels in search of a belly laugh.

In the latest addition to the world of bleak-tion, The Line That Held Us, Darl Moody is a country boy who may not have a ton of ambition, but he has taken good care of his mother as well as his married sister and her family since the death of his father a few years before. He's never done anything worse than drink one (or two) too many, except perhaps try and hunt a deer before the season officially opens.

When he's convinced he has seen a colossal buck roaming another man's land, he needs to find it. He knows that poaching is wrong, and he knows it's even worse when you're hunting off the land of a man who is out of town for his sister's funeral, but this buck could provide enough for him and his family to eat. Although the deer proves elusive, he spots a wild hog and takes aim.

It's not a hog he has killed, however; it's Carol "Sissy" Brewer, the slower, gentler son of the brash, violent Brewer family. Carol was hunting ginseng on the farm when he was shot. Darl doesn't know what to do, so he turns to the only person he has ever been able to count on, his best friend since childhood, Calvin Hooper. Despite Calvin's misgivings, he agrees to help Darl bury Carol, and the two vow never to tell anyone what happened that night, which becomes progressively harder as they become increasingly haunted by the events of that evening.

When Carol's older brother Dwayne comes looking for him, he knows right away something bad has happened, and he will leave no stone unturned until he finds what happened to him, and whom shall be held responsible. This determination to uncover the mystery of his brother's disappearance sets him on a collision course with Darl and Calvin, and threatens to upend all of their lives. Dwayne believes in an eye for an eye, and he will exact his revenge, no matter how many people get hurt in the process.

Needless to say, this isn't a happy read, but it is powerful—even gut-wrenching at times—and you probably can predict how the story will unfold. But Joy is an exceptional storyteller, and even the commonplace becomes more fascinating when seen through his lens. He so accurately evokes the mounting sense of dread, the fear, the unhingedness that his characters feel, and he draws you into a story which only rarely has moments of lightness.

Fair warning: this is a book with some graphically depicted violence (mostly toward humans and once toward an animal) and some pretty detailed descriptions of the process a body goes through once a person's life ends. (It made for a somewhat squeamish read on my red-eye flight, I must tell you.) If those things are triggers for you, you'll probably want to pass this one by.

You may want to have a more lighthearted novel at the ready after you finish The Line That Held Us, but you should definitely read this, if only to see a master of "bleak-tion" at work once again.

NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Book Review: "The Astonishing Color of After" by Emily X.R. Pan

Lyrical, emotionally powerful, even fantastical at times, The Astonishing Color of After is a stunning, poignant look at grief, family, love, and secrets that packs a real punch, and leaves you with gorgeous images in your mind.

"We try so hard to make these little time capsules. Memories strung up just so, like holiday lights, casting the perfect glow in the perfect tones. But that picking and choosing what to look at, what to put on display—that's not the true nature of remembering. Memory is a mean thing, slicing at you from the harshest angles, dipping your consciousness into the wrong colors again and again."

Leigh Sanders has always caught people's attention—for the colorful streaks she puts in her hair, her artistic talent, and her mixed heritage, as her mother is Chinese and her father is Irish-American. But no matter how many times she asked through her childhood, she's never met her maternal grandparents, never heard much about her mother's life before she met Leigh's father while studying in America. It's always a door that has remained closed, and if anything, Leigh's attempts to open it have been met with real resistance from her parents.

Then one day, the bottom falls out. Leigh's mother commits suicide. Although her depression always seemed a part of their lives the last several years, neither Leigh nor her father ever really thought this would happen. Leigh tries to figure out what signs she might have missed, what she could have done differently, while at the same time, she blames her father's withdrawal from their lives, his continual business travels, for leaving her mother so vulnerable.

In the days following her suicide, Leigh believes her mother keeps returning to her in the form of a beautiful red bird, but when she calls out to her, or asks her to stay, the bird flies away. What is her mother trying to tell her? What does she want Leigh to do?

"Once upon a time we were the standard colors of a rainbow, cheery and certain of ourselves. At some point, we all began to stumble into the in-betweens, the murky colors made dark and complicated by resentment and quiet anger."

As if all of that isn't complicated enough, Leigh must also face facts that on the day her mother killed herself, Leigh finally kissed Axel, her best friend and (perhaps not-so) secret crush. How can she reconcile those two events?

Her father finally relents and travels with Leigh to Taiwan so she can finally meet her maternal grandparents. There she hopes that she'll finally understand what her mother is trying to tell her, what she wants her to remember. As she begins to learn more about her mother and the reasons she closed herself and Leigh off from her heritage, she learns powerful lessons about the power of memory, loss, ghosts, and the connections of blood and friendship.

This is a beautiful, heartfelt, somewhat quirky book, which shifts between real and fantasy, present and past. At times it's necessary to suspend your disbelief, as Leigh is able to witness memories she never knew about (or, in some cases, wasn't alive for), and there's a lot of discussion about ghosts, as they're revered and feared in Taiwan. Additionally, being an artist, Leigh tends to reflect and explain moods in color, particularly unusual shades of color, so that may strike some as off-putting.

Those quirks aside, The Astonishing Color of After really is astonishing. Emily X.R. Pan captures teenage angst, grief, and fears perfectly, and the strange unevenness of family dynamics. This is a book that dazzled, lyrically and emotionally, as it made me tear up, which is always a fun thing to do on a plane ride! This may not be a book for everyone, but for those who decide to read it, I hope it paints a beautifully emotional portrait for you as well.

Book Review: "Luckiest Girl Alive" by Jessica Knoll

Well, I think it had been a few days since I saw a book compared to Gone Girl so thankfully we didn't lose a step. Truthfully, though, other than the fact that both books have the word "Girl" in their title, I don't know what they have in common, so maybe someone else can explain the need to compare the two.

Ani FaNelli finally has it all. She's engaged to a gorgeous, wealthy man from a notable family. He makes her feel safe and secure, and allows her to buy the designer wardrobe she needs to fit in. She also has a terrific job, writing for one of the most popular women's magazines, and while she is wearying of writing sex column after sex column, her boss promises a tantalizing opportunity not far in the future.

But in her teenage years, Ani, then known as TifAni, longed desperately to fit in, to be considered part of the popular crowd at the prestigious Bradley School. Her need to belong led herself to be more vulnerable than she would have been ordinarily, and although she quickly was befriended by a sarcastic group of outcasts, she wanted to be invited to the in crowd's lunch table, to be best friends with the girls everyone talked about.

A decision made in a split second made her the target of a humiliating event, and so while she became the talk of the school, it wasn't for the reasons she had hoped. But that event set her and her classmates on a dangerous course, one which will change many of their lives in ways they hadn't expected.

Years later, Ani is invited to tell her side of the story in a documentary. She desperately wants to show her old classmates that she isn't the same girl, that she finally has it all and is a worthy opponent. But what secrets will this documentary lay bare? Will she be able to channel the fear and anxiety she has had since those days? Is she truly a survivor, or a master manipulator?

Jessica Knoll creates a flawed and enigmatic character in Ani, and teases out her plot little by little, so you want to keep reading. There was some suspense, as I wanted to know how Ani's secrets, and how Knoll was going to resolve everything. Some of the twists were predictable, some less so, but while this was a diverting book that I read on a long flight, I don't know that I enjoyed it as much as I had hoped. Knoll certainly can write; I just found some of what happened really implausible, and at times, Ani was so unlikable that I just didn't care.

While I was reading this book on a plane, several passengers told me how much they liked it, so I may be in the minority here. But I just wanted to be wowed a little more, to feel a bit breathless when I finished the book, and that didn't happen.