It's a Family Affair

Somewhere I read that the holiday season is close to ten percent of the year, starting around Thanksgiving and ending around New Year’s Day.  That’s an awful lot of good cheer and perhaps, way too much time spent with or thinking about family and all that goes with that.  

 

For some this year, this past season has been exceptionally challenging due to various circumstances, some fairly horrific.  In general, it can be pretty stressful for many, even if it is a happy occasion.  There’s all that extra stuff we do to make the holiday happen.  Decorating, buying and wrapping presents, cooking, sending out cards (though in my case, at least the cat writes the annual letter), and then there's all the extra socializing and traveling many of us do.  It’s all a little tiring and when, finally, New Year’s Day does come along, a lot of us are ready to shut the front door and hibernate for a while. 

Hibernating for me means watching all that I've recorded on the DVR, from Downton Abbey to Fringe, along with a few shows I’d be embarrassed to admit to viewing.  Suffice it to say that those other shows catch my interest for more than their high minded nature.  Need I say more?   

 

It is also the perfect time of year to nestle into my well worn leather chair, a cat on my lap and a cup of tea by my side, with a good book to read.  Though, isn’t it always a perfect time to do just that?  At least this time of year I don’t feel guilty about not working in my garden. 

So what to read? 

Well, if you’d like to read about a family more screwed up than yours, I’d recommend Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann.  Here, we see a family through the eyes of five main characters, each in his or her section.  The story covers a period from the mid 1940’s till the late 1960’s, and though not everyone’s story is from the same time period, they do overlap.  There is a murder at a central point, yet the book is more about family relationships and life choices.  Much of the story is told during the time when everyone is sharing a home on Martha’s Vineyard, a place I've always loved.  Though in this book, the Vineyard is not quite the summer paradise I recall, it’s a bit more Hitchcock.   

I’m not certain I actually liked the book but I was drawn to the characters, all very well created. That alone was worth the read, even if the family was a bit creepy.

Another interesting family, if I can stretch the word a bit, was that of the characters in The Good Dream by Donna VanLiere.  A single woman in her thirties in 1950 rural Tennessee, already dealing with the loss of her mother, stumbles across a brutally abused child in need of a savior.  Though the town is somewhat divided by her choice, which many think is the wrong one, it is a choice that helps two lost souls find a way to help each other.  As vile as certain aspects of this book were, I liked it more than Klaussmann’s book.  Perhaps because it is an uplifting story of how some choose who will be their family, even if their choices mean there are other aspects of life they may lose along the way. 

How does that song go?  Girls just wanna have fun!  After the last two books, that’s what I needed.   

Nobody puts the fun in dysfunctional family life like Janet Evanovich does in her Stephanie Plum novels, the most recent one being Notorious Nineteen.   Don’t get me wrong, I don’t read these for the plots (pretty much unchanged) or for the scholarly writing (not); it is for the laugh out loud break from reality that has me addicted, that and one or two characters I wouldn’t mind knowing a little better.  While I don’t actually know anyone like these people, her books do sometimes remind me of the small Eastern city (aka Scranton) I used to visit when I was younger.  I can think of a number of people there who would fit right in, including a few from my own family.  That makes it all the more entertaining!

I guess with all the holidays just passed, I have family on the brain. What is family, after all?  Is it just those individuals we are related to by either blood or law?  Or is it those we have added to our life along the way?  Perhaps it is a bit of both.   

Something to ponder while I choose my next book, maybe a good murder mystery would be a good choice after this family affair.  Even if there’s still a wreath on the front door, I'll be sure to lock it and put out the hibernation sign in case any of the crazier members of my extended family decide to decamp on my porch.

Mind you, it may be that they think I’m the crazy one…

Ella

Goldilocks and The Three Books

On a recent quest, I was on the lookout for a book that spoke to me outside of my usual mystery series.  Those I love but it’s good to occasionally expand my horizon and try books I might not read otherwise.  It was a bumpy road.   

Have you ever wondered why it is that someone loves a book and others hate it?  I have and I may have even found out part of the answer.  In life, there are observers and participants.  Most of us vacillate between the two.  More recently, I’ve been more of an observer than a participant; probably part of being middle-aged.  Not that I don’t occasionally step out from behind my shield, but I have tended to be more of a watcher in life, until suddenly, I’m not.  

One place I definitely am not is when I read, and then I'm very much an emotional participant.  I actually feel what the book’s characters are feeling, almost like I’m playing their part on stage.  That’s great when it’s good (some of you may remember my story about first listening to a book while driving) but it can be a bit taxing when it isn’t.  Sometimes it can even become a bit hellish for me.    

  

I came across the first book through my book club.  It was The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai and since I had the CD, I listened to it in my car.  Let me first say that it is a well written book.  It is set in both India and New York in the mid-1980s and the story is one that really brings you into the unrest in that part of India as well as the plight of the undocumented workers here in the United States.  I found it to be very gritty, filled with humiliation, hatred, greed and abusive violence.  Nobody really won. 

A friend who had read this book previously had thought about me when she finished it and knew that I would hate the book.  How well she knows me.  It made me wonder how she didn’t feel the same.  What I learned is that some, including my friend, read more as an observer, like watching a play instead of being in the play.  She was able to keep it at arm’s length, enjoy the writing and not be as negatively impacted as I had been.

Isn't it curious how we can be observers in one aspect in life and participants in others? 

I moved on to the next book.  This time I tried a bestseller, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  It was an easy and quick read, almost as if it had been written to become a screenplay.   My guess is that it will be.  Essentially this is a sociopathic 'he said, she said' story about a couple’s downward spiral.  Oh joy!  While I did find it somewhat compelling, I can’t really say I liked the book.  Personally, I’m really not very fond of being inside the mind of a sociopathic killer.  Yet it was interesting, to say the least, and I liked it a little more than the previous book.  

I was beginning to feel a little like Goldilocks. 

Finally, my third choice was one I had previously returned to the library without reading, The Night Circus, a fantasy novel by Erin Morgenstern.  It is a story of illusion.  Along with the beauty and mystery, there is manipulation and cruelty, but there is also love.  There is a circus, though one that is only open at night; a place where illusionists focus on hiding that the magic is real, as opposed to convincing the audience that the false trick is magic.   

Though it can be a little challenging to follow this book, at least initially, with its multiple time lines and questionably connected characters, I found the story to be alluring to both the observer and the emotional participant within me.  Everyone and everything was more chimera than real.  I could never completely grasp onto the illusion.  It was a little like falling in love.  All I could do was meander through the beautiful fantasy and enjoy the ride; which I most certainly did.  Oh, and I also began to crave caramel covered popcorn.  

There’s a line in this book that I love.  It tells of how a tale told may take up residence in someone’s soul, and become their blood and self and purpose.  When I do find a book that resonates with me, like this one, that is exactly how I feel.    

Like Goldilocks, I found the right fit on the third try.  Now, I just need to watch out for bears…

Ella