Book review: The Afterlife of Emerson Tang by Paula Champa

Beth Corvid is an archivist who works for the wealthy art collector Emerson Tang. Beth and Emerson are both solitary, private people, and their arrangement suits them both well until Emerson discloses he has a terminal illness. Then Beth takes on a larger role in his life, coordinating his medical care as well as overseeing his collections.

Emerson is only in his early 30's. He is angry that is life is being cut short and thinks that nothing comes afterward. Beth knows better, because she had a near-death experience as a child, and ever since has felt on the outside of things. She pines for the peace she had during her experience and has no idea what purpose she returned for.

Beth and Emerson discuss what will happen to his art collections after he's gone, but he refuses to talk about the vintage car he acquired without her knowledge, a 1954 Beacon roadster. One day, artist Helene Moreau contacts Emerson. Helene is known for the futurist "Speed paintings" she created by running cars over canvases. She is interested in the Beacon and offers to buy it.

Emerson refuses to sell to Helene and furthermore becomes obsessed with the idea of uniting the body of the car with its original engine. During this quest, Beth meets Miguel Beacon, the grandson of the auto company’s founder who is trying to both revive the brand and invision more sustainable transportation. Miguel offers to help find the engine. The story follows the quest for the engine and its aftermath, each character dealing with the effects of longing, loss, and grieving.

The Afterlife of Emerson Tang is an immensely thoughtful novel. Although much of the plot revolves around a vintage car and first-time novelist Paula Champa provides some interesting ideas on the appeal of cars and speed, the novel mainly deals with death and grief. Emerson struggles against death. Beth has never embraced her own life after her narrow escape from death, and she must figure out how to live without Emerson. Helen Moreau has been stuck in grief over a lost relationship and counts on the car to reignite her creative spark. Miguel is striving to deal with the demise of his grandfather’s company by both reviving it and making something new.

Champa's gorgeous, intelligent writing provides many memorable passages. One of my favorites: "What is a vehicle but a private capsule? One in which the mundane errands and memorable adventures of a life are accomplished. By some alchemy, through this constant association, a mingling, a transmutation can occur. In memories alone, a car is capable of encapsulating and entire life. Or more than one."

I found part one of the book ("The Body") completely engrossing, and I loved all the questions it raised. Part two ("The Engine") failed to deliver on the promise of the first for me. The addition of Miguel at this point (he does not appear in part one) and his coincidental relationships was a hindrance rather than a help. I actually wish he had been left out, because all the pieces were in place without him. Beth, Emerson, and Helene’s story, with its philosophical questions about cars, life, and death, was enough for me.

Regardless, Champa’s ambitious debut provides plenty of food for thought. I may never look at cars in quite the same way again.

Book Review: The True Secret of Writing by Natalie Goldberg

Natalie Goldberg is the author of one of the classic texts for writers, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Published in 1986, it has sold over a million copies and has been translated into fourteen languages. She’s back with another book on word craft, The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language.

Goldberg is a long-time Zen practitioner, and her unique contribution is to blend Buddhist principles and practices with the writing life. The retreats she leads combining meditation and writing form the backbone of the book.

Goldberg’s expressed reason for writing this book is to record her retreat practices so others can use them, and this she does. In Part One: Basic Essentials, she describes her methods and the philosophy behind them: writing is for everyone, writing is a practice, writing retreats can be mostly silent and succeed. In Part Two: True Secret Retreat Essentials, she describes daily schedules and more details. (Reading lists and sign-up sheets for routine jobs shared, Zen-style, by students can be found in appendices.)

Part Three: Elaborations, tells retreat stories and provides some sample writing prompts for the reader. In Part Four: Encounters and Teachers, Goldberg describes more of her personal experiences and talks about teachers, authors, students. As the text progresses, more memoir appears.

In the introduction, Goldberg explains that the title “The True Secret of Writing” stems from a joke. Sometimes if a student is late, she will say, “I just gave the true secret of writing, and you missed it.” The joke is that there is no true secret; there is only the practice. And this Goldberg is willing to share in abundance.

Through her stories, Goldberg expresses truth as she understands it. “What is true? Maybe tomorrow I can sift down closer. What is essential? This practitioner’s life. Not to act and react, but to notice, to come close to ourselves--and others--close to all things. And also accept our mind where it is and meet it there.” (p. 160)

Goldberg sometimes comes off in her stories as the crazy Zen master. Spontaneously at a retreat she might say, let’s go walk outside in our bare feet (even in winter). Or she might jump and wave her arms while reading her favorite Zen poems. This is her training. If it’s not what you want in a writing teacher, best not attend her retreats. That doesn’t mean you won’t find her book interesting.

What Natalie Goldberg has done is present her retreat practice for anyone who wishes a sample it. I now feel like I have spent some time at a New Mexico retreat as an observer. I’m sure her methods and views are not for everyone, but I am also convinced anyone can learn something from her life’s journey and accumulated wisdom.

Book review: Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend

Budo is the imaginary friend of Max Delaney, an eight-year-old boy with autism. Imaginary friends look and function as their humans create them. Since little kids are the ones thinking them up, they often are missing ears or eyebrows, for instance, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Budo is very human in appearance and is especially smart and able, because Max has such a vivid imagination.

Aside from other imaginary friends, only Max can see and hear Budo, and Budo watches out for Max, within the limits of being invisible and unable to interact with the physical world. He can’t really help much when Tommy Swindon, a fifth-grade bully, comes after Max. And Budo can’t help Max’s parents, who disagree on how much help Max needs.

Budo is tested when Max disappears from school one day. Budo knows what has happened to his friend, but he can’t communicate with Max’s teachers or parents. Budo must muster all his courage and get more help from other imaginary friends than he has ever dreamed possible in order to do what he must: be there for his creator, his best friend, Max.

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend is a sweet, poignant, and satisfying meditation on friendship and facing fears, with healthy doses of ideas on parenting on teaching along the way. It is also one of the most original novels I have ever read. I was drawn in immediately and loved hearing about how the world of imaginary friends works. The language is childlike, but this aspect lends the book charm and warmth. Because of the uniqueness of this world, I found it hard to guess what was going to happen.

Author Matthew Dicks is an award-winning third-grade teacher with a gift for storytelling. Memoirs is his third novel. His first, Something Missing, focused on a thief who only took items that would not be missed; his second, Unexpectedly, Milo, featured a home-health aid with multiple obsessions and a crumbling marriage. I look forward to seeing what springs from his fertile imagination next.

Article first published as Book Review: Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks on Blogcritics.

Book review: Every Contact Leaves a Trace by Elanor Dymott

Alex is the grieving narrator of Elanor Dymott’s debut novel, Every Contact Leaves a Trace. He begins by saying that his wife Rachel has been murdered, and he admits he didn’t know her very well. He goes on to recount their first meeting, the meeting that lead to their marrying some ten years later, and a great deal in between.

Most of the action took place at Oxford University, where Alex and Rachel were students, Alex studying law, Rachel, literature. Alex was always smitten with Rachel, but the reverse was not true. Rachel had two close friends also studying literature, Anthony and Cissy. Their first two years at school, the three were inseparable and wild (parties at Rachel’s godmother’s house were particularly infamous).

 Told as I imagine a lawyer might (author Dymott studied literature at Oxford but then became a lawyer), the story is laid out slowly and painstakingly, which great attention to detail, too much for my taste. Alex and his Oxford teacher Harry come off a bombastic, and the story moves ahead at a tortuously slow pace. The “people and circumstances are not always what they seem” theme feels beaten to smithereens. I wanted to yell, “I get it already!” I also expected more from the characters. While I applaud the philosophical stance Dymott takes—in the end, we still don’t know what really happened, nor will we ever really know—it all feels very labored.

The book received positive reviews in the UK, so my take on it might well reflect my nationality. Judge for yourself:

• Review in The Independent
• Review in The Guardian (part of  a longer article)

Book Review: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson’s new novel Life After Life follows Usrula Todd, who is born in England during a blizzard in February 1910. She dies immediately, and is born again, same time, same place. This time she makes it to toddlerhood. Each time she is born, circumstances begin the same but small changes allow her life to continue or not, and the same is true for some of those around her. Sometimes they die, sometimes they don't.

Through the apparently inexhaustible rounds of living and dying, Ursula begins to recognize situations she’s experienced before and is able to prevent or avoid some outcomes. The biggest changes come in how she lives her young adulthood, which takes place when the Blitz is on in London.

The retelling of the same person’s life story might sound dull, but it is anything but. Atkinson is able to build up suspense in the reader each time to find out what will change this time. As The Guardian puts it, “Atkinson's knack for retelling – what to repeat, what to change, what to leave out – is satisfyingly faultless.”

The novel is also paints a touching and gently humorous portrait of family life. We spend a great deal of time with Ursula’s family of origin and get to know her parents, brothers, sister, and aunt well. With the exception of her oldest brother Maurice, whom no one in the family seems to like, each person is seen through a loving lens, particularly Ursula’s sister Pam. The bond between the sisters permeates every iteration of Ursula’s life.

There is also a philosophical element to the book. What would you do if you could relive your life until you got it right? At one point Ursula decides to make a huge change, but questions remain. Just what does change, when the world is always reset on her death? And do others in her world also experience any of the premonitions and deja vu that Ursula does?

Life After Life is engaging, beautifully written, and utterly inventive. This amazing novel is a joy to read. Fans of Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie novels will find a departure but should also enjoy the trip.

Article first published as Book Review: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson on Blogcritics.

Book review: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

Stephen King’s sprawling 11/22/63 is addictive. I just wish it wasn't so long.

Jake Epping is a divorced high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine. In June 2011, his friend Al, the owner of a diner with suspiciously low prices, calls him. Al has seemingly aged over night and is clearly near death. The reason why stuns Jake: Al has spent four years in the past. A corner of his pantry is not the wall it appears; it is a portal to September 1958.

Al has been using this “rabbit hole,” as he calls it, for years. He buys meat at the local market (explaining how he can make such a cheap hamburger) but left it that for a long time. Until he heard about a woman crippled in a hunting accident in 1958. He decides to test out what would happen if he saved her.

Al discovers he can change the past but the past is not easy to change; it resists. Still, when he returns to 2011 (only two minutes elapse in the present every time he goes into the past), he sees little difference, except that the woman was not crippled.

Al decides he can use the rabbit hole for real and lasting good if he can stop President Kennedy from being assassinated in 1963. He comes down with terminal lung cancer while in the past, and returns to the present, hoping he can convince Jake to take up the mission. TIme is of the essence, because the lease is up on the diner, and it is scheduled to be replaced by a box store, which no doubt will close the rabbit hole.

Jake first thinks Al is crazy but is convinced when he enters 1958 himself. Armed with what Al was able to prepare for him, Jake takes on the mission and takes the alias George Amberson. Since the past appears to reset with every re-entry, he must accomplish again anything he set straight the last time before heading south and eventually to the Texas 1963 rendezvous.

Jake/George is a truly decent guy who finds it in himself to both love and kill. He doesn’t appear to have any serious flaws, which makes him a little less than three-dimensional. The same can be said of the other major characters; the decent ones, anyway. King paints Lee Harvey Oswald as more complicated, with spots of decency and reasons for being the way he is, but in the end Oswald is a loser who by giving in to it, leaves his humanity behind and becomes evil.

What really drives this massive novel (842 pages) are the questions, will Jake/George succeed? What will happen if he does? In this Stephen King does a terrific job. Except for the period that Jake/George must wait between 1958 and November 1963, the book is a page-turner. Having not experienced that period of time myself, I can’t say for sure, but I think King does a great job of recreating it.

11/22/63 is a must for King fans, Kennedy buffs, and time-travel enthusiasts. Anyone else with enough time and strong-enough wrists should find it entertaining as well.

Book review: Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

Witches, vampires, religion, the supernatural—Max Gladstone's debut novel Three Parts Dead has them all.

Humans have come to dominate after the God wars of a generation ago. Kos, the God of the city Alt Coulumb, was the exception, until he, too, dies. Tara, newly graduated practitioner of Craft, is taken on by one of the large Craft firms. She and her boss have the job of resurrecting Kos before the God's creditors claim what is left of his power. Aided by Abelard, a chain-smoking priest in Kos' church, Tara discovers that Kos was murdered and must make the case in Alt Coulumb's courts, thus adding a legal thriller element.

Three Parts Dead sports a byzantine plot and writing that I found pedestrian. It took a long time for me to be interested in what was going to happen, but even after that point, I still found the story too abstruse to be accessible. First published in hardcover by Tor in October 2012, the publisher must have recognized it as having appeal among hard-core fantasy readers. For a positive review from a receptive reader, see the review at Kirkus Reviews.