Book Review: "The Dinner" by Herman Koch

Are children truly destined to repeat the sins of their parents? Are parents' protective instincts so ingrained that they'd stop at nothing to ensure their children's futures aren't harmed? These questions are addressed in Herman Koch's intriguing yet frustrating novel, The Dinner, which has sold millions of copies in The Netherlands (where Koch originally published the book) and across the world.

Paul and Claire Lohman have agreed to have dinner with Paul's politician brother, Serge, and his wife, Babette, as they do from time to time. Always wanting to impress, Serge chooses a trendy restaurant at which you can rarely get reservations unless you call months ahead, the type of place where the host explains the origin of every ingredient, and the food is expensive and fussy. It's the last thing that Paul and Claire want to do, but they have an important topic to discuss.

After the talk about vacations and the latest Woody Allen movie has died down, after a prolonged emotional outburst or two, and even a photo request from a restaurant patron and his daughter, the discussion hits its target. Both couples have a 15-year-old son, and the two have been involved in a horrific act of violence which has sparked a police investigation and affected each boy differently. Each couple has a very different idea of how things should proceed, but one couple is far more determined to ensure their son's future is protected.

The core idea of this book is tremendously intriguing, and Koch draws out the suspense as he reveals detail after detail, much like peeling an onion. What the boys did is so disturbing that it's fascinating—and repulsive—how the parents are treating what has happened. The dynamics of the two couples, borne by both the protective nature of parents and the resentment of brothers, is very interesting; what remains unsaid is just as compelling as what is. My frustration with this book, however, is it takes far too long to get to the discussion about how to address what the boys have done. The narrative meanders all over the place, and while everything it touches on—Paul's own history of violence and anger, his fractured relationship with Serge and Babette—is relevant, I just wanted to know what would happen and found everything else a little distracting.

You may be able to predict some of how the book will conclude, but I was surprised by part of it as well, and I didn't feel it all worked. I can't figure out whether Koch, too, is commenting on the fierce instincts of parents and the lawless nature of teenagers today, or whether he believes, as he has Paul express, that some people deserve to be victims.

For me, The Dinner had tremendous potential that wasn't quite realized, but it is still a book worth reading, for both the way Koch lets the plot slowly unfold, and the shocking nature of the story. I would just keep in mind that the plot moves as slowly as dinners often do, and much like some dinners, it might not completely satisfy you in the end.

Cool cover song of the week...

Roberta Flack's hit song, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, is an iconic 1970s hit (although it appeared on her 1969 album, First Take). It was featured in the Clint Eastwood movie Play Misty for Me, and won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1973. Flack's beautiful voice begins in a quiet, almost spare way, and builds to a beautiful crescendo.

I've always loved this song—music, lyrics, and Flack's soaring vocals—but, as always, I appreciate a good cover. Which is why I've enjoyed this somewhat faithful version recorded by Welsh band The Stereophonics, with the Jools Holland Orchestra. Lead singer Kelly Jones might not have the pipes Flack does, but I still really like their version.

Here's The Stereophonics' version of the song:


Here's the classic, with the amazing Ms. Flack:


And, for a bonus version, just because I've always been a huge fan of his, is American Idol Season 7 winner David Cook's version:


Check out my previous Cool Cover Songs of the Week:

Borderline by The Counting Crows

How Deep Is Your Love by The Bird and The Bee

Life in a Northern Town by Sugarland, Little Big Town, and Jake Owen

I Don't Want to Talk About It by The Indigo Girls

Only You by Joshua Radin

Pure Imagination by Maroon 5

I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) by Blake Stratton

What a Fool Believes by Neri Per Caso

Poker Face by Daughtry

Back to Black by Ronnie Spector

I Will Survive by Cake

Book Review: "Bear is Broken" by Lachlan Smith

As much as I love reading new books by my favorite authors, I really enjoy finding new writers, new voices to savor. Lachlan Smith is such a find, thanks to a recommendation from Amazon. His first thriller (the start of a series), Bear is Broken, might not break any new ground, but his characters are well-drawn and compelling, and I look forward to reading his future work.

It's 1999 in San Francisco. Leo Maxwell just found out he passed his bar exam. He has always lived in the shadows of his older brother, Teddy, a defense attorney beloved by the city's criminals and reviled by the police and those in positions of authority who have crossed his path. One day while Leo, Teddy, and his entourage are at lunch, just before Teddy is supposed to deliver closing arguments in a spousal abuse trial, he is shot in the head, in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Yet the shooting is so well executed (no pun intended), the shooter gets away without anyone seeing him. And Teddy lies in a coma, with a bleak prognosis—if he even survives.

Leo realizes that because Teddy made an enemy of the police, they're not too eager to track down the shooter. Torn between wanting to become the lawyer he knows he can be—like Teddy but perhaps without the questionable ethics—and wanting to find out who tried to kill his brother, Leo starts digging into some of Teddy's cases, and finds himself coming face to face with an odd assortment of clients and others with whom Teddy had relationships. At the same time, Leo struggles with his feelings for Teddy (who took care of Leo after their father was imprisoned for their mother's murder) and unresolved feelings for Teddy's ex-wife and ex-law partner, Jeanie.

The more Leo tries to uncover the truth, the more trouble he seems to find himself in, and the more uncertainty he faces. At points in the book, he's pretty much convinced everyone in Teddy's life had something to do with his attempted murder. But the scattershot approach to investigation doesn't help him—it only threatens his potential law career, and his life.

I really enjoyed the depth Lachlan Smith gave to Leo's character, and the way he fleshed out the details of his relationship with Teddy and others. While the outcome of the book isn't necessarily surprising, there was enough uncertainty about who to trust that made the book compelling the entire way through. And while there may have been one red herring too many (I guess Smith needed to set up some threads for the next book in this series featuring Leo), it didn't detract from the book's appeal.

This isn't quite a legal thriller, and it isn't quite a mystery, but it is a well-written and fascinating book, so if you like those genres, give it a try.

Cool cover song of the week...

Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive is one of the ultimate disco songs, and it's amazing how much staying power it's had over the decades. This 1979 anthem of empowerment and survival certainly helped resurrect Gaynor's star power after her first hit, Never Can Say Goodbye, hit the charts in 1974.

The band Cake was a staple of the mid- to late 1990s and early 2000s. Their quirky beats and vocals were on terrific display in songs like 1996's The Distance, Never There and Let Me Go in 1998, and 2001's Short Skirt/Long Jacket. They brought their trademark style to a 1996 cover version of Gaynor's hit, and while it's vintage Cake, it doesn't veer too far from the original.

Here's Cake's version:


And for a trip down memory lane, here's the incredible Ms. Gaynor's version:


Check out my previous Cool Cover Songs of the Week:

Borderline by The Counting Crows

How Deep Is Your Love by The Bird and The Bee

Life in a Northern Town by Sugarland, Little Big Town, and Jake Owen

I Don't Want to Talk About It by The Indigo Girls

Only You by Joshua Radin

Pure Imagination by Maroon 5

I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) by Blake Stratton

What a Fool Believes by Neri Per Caso

Poker Face by Daughtry

Back to Black by Ronnie Spector

Book Review: "The Promise of Stardust" by Priscille Sibley

Wow. Here's a book that will make you think, and make you want to discuss it with others.

Matt Beaulieu has known his wife, Elle, since right after she was born when he was two, as their families were close friends. He's loved her since he was 17 and she was 15, and although they weathered many challenges to their relationship (there were years they barely spoke), they finally had everything they've always wanted—except a healthy baby.

One day everything changes. Elle sustains a severe brain injury in a freak accident and will never be able to recover. Knowing how much she feared being kept alive by machines after watching her mother die of cancer when Elle was a teenager, Matt prepares to take her off of life support. And then he finds out Elle is pregnant again, despite her inability to carry a baby to term. He knows how much this child would have meant to Elle, and how much she would have wanted to fight for it, but he faces a difficult decision—should he keep her alive on the off chance the baby is able to survive, despite the fact she never wanted to be kept alive in this way, or should he let her—and their unborn child—go?

Matt's decision is further complicated by the fact that members of his and Elle's families come out on both sides of the issue. Some want Matt to do everything he can to keep Elle alive, especially if there's a chance the baby can survive, while others feel he is contradicting Elle's most fervent wishes and is simply blinded by his grief. No one feels as strongly toward the latter than Matt's mother, Linney, who was Elle's godmother and her mother's best friend. Convinced she knows better than Matt what Elle would have wanted, this emotional battle is taken to the courtroom, where the case becomes a bellwether for pro-life and right-to-die advocates, and the effects ripple far beyond one family.

Switching back and forth between the present and reminiscences of Matt and Elle's relationship through the years, this is a thought provoking, emotionally powerful book. While it clearly leans toward one point of view on this issue, it doesn't discount the views of the other side, and it illustrates how the issue blurs the lines between whose interests should be thought of first and foremost in cases like this. Priscille Sibley has clearly done her homework, and she also has created a beautiful love story between Matt and Elle, one that choked me up from time to time.

Many of the reviews I've read of this book have likened it to a Jodi Picoult novel. While I don't think that's a necessarily negative comparison, I don't think it's entirely accurate either. Sure, at the heart of this book is the question about whether or not a woman should be kept alive if there's a chance she could deliver a healthy baby, but I feel that Matt and Elle's relationship, how they nurtured and challenged each other, is as much a focus of this book as the controversial issue.

In the end, I don't know if this book breaks any new ground, but that doesn't matter. For me, it was tremendously compelling (I read the entire book on a flight from Albuquerque to Washington, DC) and beautifully written, and that's more than enough. I don't know where you stand on this issue, but I'd encourage you to read this with an open mind—and a full heart.

My favorite movies of 2012...

Okay, so I know that a year-end best-of list is a little tardy given it's early February, but here's the deal. I'm not a movie critic, so I don't have the option to see every movie that's released in time for Oscar consideration before the end of the calendar year, plus I don't live in New York or Los Angeles, so many of the "big" movies don't make it here until some time in January. So humor me, please!

We saw 45 movies that were technically released in 2012. The truth is, we saw very few awful movies, a lot of reasonably good ones, some really good ones, and some pretty freaking fantastic ones as well. I couldn't pick just 10, so you'll have to settle for a list of my 15 favorite movies from last year. For the most part, I tried to review every movie I saw, although I didn't get to a few I saw earlier in the year. When I did write a review, you'll find a link to the full blog post.

In random order, my favorite movies of 2012 are:

Les Misérables: Well, of course. It was one of two movies I had been anticipating since they first announced the casting, and despite all the hype, and the fact that I have seen the musical more times than I can count, the movie more than lived up to my expectations. Beautifully filmed (at times even a little disturbing), spectacularly sung and acted by nearly everyone in the film (cough, Russell Crowe, cough), and it made me sob more than a few times. Almost certain to net Anne Hathaway a Best Supporting Actress Oscar later this month, I hope it makes a star out of Samantha Barks, who made her film debut as Eponine. Read my original review.

The Hunger Games: This was the other movie I absolutely couldn't wait to see, having devoured all three of Suzanne Collins' dystopian trilogy. Director Gary Ross (Seabiscuit) brought Collins' vision to life so vividly, with exceptional performances depicting characters exactly the way I pictured them. Jennifer Lawrence dazzled as Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, while Josh Hutcherson overcame the objections of tween girls all over the world as he skillfully inhabited the character of Peeta Mallark. Cannot wait for movie number two, Catching Fire, later this year.

Argo: Ben Affleck really came into his own as a director with this gripping, tautly emotional thriller about six State Department employees who escaped the Iran hostage crisis to take shelter in the Canadian ambassador's residence, and the daring yet outlandish effort undertaken to rescue them. Well-acted and terrifically directed, the movie is tremendously suspenseful even though you know what will happen. Affleck should have been nominated for a Best Director Oscar (he should have for The Town as well, but the film deserves every accolade it receives. Read my original review.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower: Maybe it's because I identified far too well with the desire to fit in but never really feeling that way through most of high school, or maybe some of the wounds I have from those years have never quite healed, but this movie utterly knocked me out. Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his fantastic novel is poignant, funny, tragic, and enlightening, with fantastic performances from Logan Lerman, Ezra Miller and, in her first post-Harry Potter "grownup" role, Emma Watson. May hit a little too close to home, but so worth it. Read my original review.

The Dark Knight Rises: Once you strip away the tragedy of the Aurora movie theater massacre, you realize that Christopher Nolan once again struck cinematic gold from the purported end of his Batman trilogy. It's the return of the players we love—Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine—along with the introduction of a new hellacious villain (Tom Hardy's Bane has the soul of darkness and the voice of Darth Vader), a new hero (the always amazing Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and some twisted new characters, including Anne Hathaway and Marion Cotillard. Beautifully done, bleak, violent, and hopeful. Read my original review.

Lincoln: Not thinking about Daniel Day-Lewis' breathtaking portrayal of our 16th president, which is so authentic you expect him to step off the penny, Steven Spielberg's movie is still a triumph. Whether it's because of passionate performances from Sally Field (as Mary Todd Lincoln) and Tommy Lee Jones (as abolition-supporting Thaddeus Stevens), the dialogue which is funny and surprisingly on target for today's politically charged world, or the way you get so invested in the film you still hope it ends differently, the movie is far more than a long history lesson. Far more entertaining and emotionally compelling, too. Read my original review.

Moonrise Kingdom: This charmer from the king of quirk, Wes Anderson, should have been on the list of Best Picture nominees at this year's Oscars. A sweetly odd little movie set in 1965 on an island off the coast of New England, the movie follows young Khaki Scout Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman), a foster child struggling with fitting in with the other scouts, as he disappears one night to meet his pen pal, Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward), who has run away from her tumultuous home life to meet Sam and set off on a new life together. Anderson gives the runaways' encounters the right amount of humor, awkwardness, and poignancy, that moment when you realize there is someone out there who feels exactly the way you do. The movie definitely has its slapsticky moments, but it also has a lot of heart. Read my original review.

Django Unchained: Combining an homage to the old spaghetti westerns with the blaxploitation theme Quentin Tarantino loves to revisit, Django Unchained is amazingly violent (more so than Inglourious Basterds but less so than Kill Bill), hysterically funny, surprisingly astute, and unbelievably foul-mouthed. The story of the unlikely pairing of bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (the always magnificent Christoph Waltz) and Django, a slave (Jamie Foxx), on the hunt for Django's wife, who was bought by the odious plantation owner Calvin Candie (a loathsome Leonardo DiCaprio), the movie is a little too long but it's still worthy of a place in the Tarantino pantheon. Read my original review.

Book Review: "Fellow Mortals" by Dennis Mahoney

This is a book whose beauty and power crept up on me and took me by surprise. And I stumbled onto it while browsing in an actual bookstore, so I hope they don't all close, because how else am I going to find these gems?

Henry Cooper is a friendly mailman, always quick to lend a smile, even a hand. One beautiful afternoon while on his mail route on Arcadia Street, he lights a cigar (forbidden by his wife), and absentmindedly tosses his match to the ground. In just a few minutes, that careless action lights several houses on fire, damaging the homes of people he has come to know on his route. Henry actually saves some people from the fire, but that doesn't lessen the impact of what he has done, as a young wife is killed.

While on suspension from his job awaiting the results of an investigation, Henry wants nothing more than to help those whose lives he has affected. He and his devoted wife, Ava, take in elderly sisters Joan and Nan Finn, while they try to decide what to do next. While he is snubbed by some families, the one person he tries reaching out to most of all is sculptor Sam Bailey, whose wife, Laura, died in the fire. Sam is practically rudderless and unsure of what to do with his days, but he is revived by his work, sculpting mysterious figures from the trees near his house. Sam doesn't know how to react to Henry—he wants to be angry and hurt, even vengeful, but Henry's affability and his need to make Sam feel like he belongs wears him down.

Fellow Mortals is both a story about many different kinds of relationships as well as how people deal with the aftermath of a crisis. Ava is frustrated by Henry's openness and need to help those affected by the fire, but most of all, she wants to protect him from himself. There's the angry and overprotective neighbor, Peg Carmichael, who cannot forgive Henry and blames him for everything that goes wrong in her life. Billy and Sheri Kane, a young couple down on their luck both financially and emotionally find that the fire has damaged more than part of their home. And Sam tries to lose himself in his work while fending off advice from those who seem to know better.

This is a beautifully spare, tragic book. It has the potential to veer into melodrama but Dennis Mahoney's writing ability keeps the story engaging and surprising without sacrificing authenticity. At first there were so many characters to keep straight and no one seemed particularly sympathetic, but the story quietly grew on me, and really affected me. It's amazing how one simple, careless action has the potential to ripple throughout so many lives, and cause a chain of events to occur long after the first action happened. And one thing that truly appealed to me about this book is that there was as much power in what remained unsaid and undone as what the characters actually said and did.

This is a book that will make you feel, make you think, and maybe even make you cry. It's definitely one worth reading.