The Lonely Hearts Hotel - Heather O'Neill

This book started out okay for me and then just went real downhill. The dialogue, that seemed whimsical and airy when the two main characters, Rose and Pierot, were children gave a really nice distance from the harsh reality of the terrible orphanage life they entered into upon birth. That they had each other and made a bond and a fr.iendship of art and music was really lovely.

But then in The Lonely Hearts Hotel, as children do, the characters got older, and their world got harsher. And Rose, she becomes harsher too. Only Pierot seems somehow outside of the circumstances he has found himself in, except he's not. And neither, even though we've rooted for them since their infanthood, can seem to escape the lives their origins have destined for them. 

Is Rose a model of a strong independent woman, making her way through a traditionally male world? Or is she a vengeful spirit raging against the inequities of her station and sex? Is Pierot a hopelessly romantic artist, or is he a deadbeat addict with no sense of how to be an adult? It doesn't really matter, because in the end, they don't seem to care either. 

At the end of 450 pages I found I did not care about the people I had started rooting for in the beginning of the book. And not even in a literary, "oh I totally understand the tragic transformation that befell these humans that could not shake their demons" way. Which is what I THINK was intended. 

The writing was very reminiscent of the style of Jeffrey Archer in the Clifton Chronicles which I did not enjoy. So if you liked that writing style, you will likely enjoy this book. It just wasn't for me.

2.5/5 Stars. 

The Circle - Dave Eggers

After almost a month, I finally finished The Circle. I didn't love it. 

Let me be clear. I get it. Its Orwellian nature, its cautionary tale of the erosion of privacy rights. It's all there. It all works. But it also tries to be cute. This is possibly a problem with the narration - for starters the male narrator has to work mostly in the voice of the female main character. Sometimes this isn't a problem, but the female characters came off as flippant or whiny. The male characters as stoned or whiny. But I found the dialogue strained and at attempting humor. 

It's not clear if Eggers wants us to be truly terrified, as in 1984, or if he merely wants us to be entertained. Or perhaps he wants us to laugh all the way to our destruction? Either way it sets the mood of the novel off kilter and it never recovers. 

So in a nutshell, the main character, Mae, gets hired at The Circle (think Google has a baby with Apple, Amazon, and Facebook). The Circle, in instituting an online profile that insists on transparency called TrueYou has eliminated trolling online as no one can hide behind anonymity. The Circle campus, made up mostly of millennial staffers is a haven for sand volleyball and outdoor barbecues, even going so far as to offer on campus temporary housing to Circlers who prefer to spend the night on campus after a campus event. 

Mae has a semi-rough transition into the Circle, trying to meet it's every growing demands. She's called into her boss' office when she fails to attend a party she didn't know she was invited to, an invitation she received because of a far past post on her social media profile. She is asked to participate in a survey at work wherein she's expected to answer up to 500 questions a day. 

In the beginning Mae spends time off campus with her parents and out kayaking alone by herself. These activities turn out to be disappointing to the Circle which insists on knowing, well basically everything. So she tries harder and becomes a model employee. Meanwhile she's introduced to a real drip of a guy, Frances, who she decides she does not want to become involved with romantically after he films their first sexual encounter without her knowledge. Instead she becomes attracted to an enigmatic gray haired fellow, Calden, who she meets TWICE. The third time he asks her to meet him in the bathroom (because cameras have now proliferated the campus) and they have sex in a bathroom stall, not saying more than two or three words to each other before he disappears again. 

In the meantime, Mae becomes more entrenched at the Circle, going "Transparent" meaning she wears a camera on her person at all times. She comes up with some slogans Eggers tries real hard to make sure we know are Orwellian, "sharing is caring" "privacy is theft" that are presented to an ever enthusiastic crowd of Circlers. People follow Mae around all day and insist on her engagement in their lives and minor questions.

So then there is this complete stretch of credibility at the end by a character that I won't bother putting down because of spoilers, but if you've read this you get it. And the end is very very predictable. 

So I'm not sure if I'm late to the party on this one or not, but it tries so hard to be 1984 wrapped in a Silicon skin it just fell pretty flat for me even if that whole idea should theoretically work.

3/5 Stars. 

The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse - Rich Cohen

Part memoir, part history, part fan boy, Story of a Curse is a really pleasing trip through Cubs history. From the champion team of 1908 (don't hate on '08) to the incredible drama of 2016's game 7, this book spans all the heartbreak and heroes of the Cubs.

When my parents moved to Chicagoland in 1982, it became clear they were never returning above the border to Canada. So my dad went all in. Falling in love with the 1982 Cubs roster which included future Hall of Famers Fergie Jenkins and Ryne Sandberg. By the time we moved to Ohio in 1984, the Cubs love had stuck. We would go to Cincinnati Reds games and my dad would root for the Cubs (who weren't even in the ballpark). 

After leaving the Air Force for law school in 2007, I was already one year into my marriage to a life long Cubs fan, a man who lived in a western suburb that could just as easily root Southside as North. He's a man who considers Greg Maddux a Cub always even though he gained his legacy as a Brave. He was 9 when Andre Dawson joined the squad with his big heart and 10 when Mark Grace entered the infield and completed many double plays.

These are the types of things baseball does to you. It gets into your history and gives you heroes you never forget. To fall in love with baseball at age 10 is to fall in love with the game forever. And this is the emotion perfectly captured by Cohen in this book. 

So back to 2007, when my husband and I began attending Cubs games in earnest. Buying 15, 20, 25 game packs and joining the season ticket waiting list at position 32,329. This continued until our son was born in 2012, curtailing our discretionary funds and discretionary time. When we moved to Tennessee in 2015, Ricketts had purchased the team (we actually ran into him at a game and thanked him for hiring Theo and ensuring him that we were Cubs fans no matter how bad they had to get before they got better) and the team was right on the cusp of something fantastic. So we watched from the South when they went back to the post-season and we saw something special.

In 2016 we watched as the team won and won and won. It was really marvelous to see. But we watched the post season with the trepidation of all Cubs fans. With the idea that it was always going to be out of reach. That the World Series was against Cleveland was mostly inconsequential, aside from the fact that my friend Blair got to watch his brother play against his beloved Cubs. He was probably asked 1,000,000 times over the course of a week and a half, whether he was conflicted at all about whether he would root for his brother Jason and the Indians or the Cubs. But he's a good guy so it really wasn't even a question. He'd root for his brother. The Cubs could wait another 108 years. But it seems fate is inexorable. 

The book perfectly captures the feeling of a winding spring, coiling and taking on tension that comes with every post season. And although I knew the outcome, I was still stressed reading about it all over again.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I look forward to thinking of the Cubs as a winning club full of champions for years to come.

4/5 Stars. 

Ploughshares Spring 2019 Edition

I finished reading Ploughshares Spring 2019 Edition on the flight home from Canada last week. It was a wonderful visit with family and friends and it reminded me of my entire extended network and the love I'm lucky to have. But my grandmother's house is the one my mom grew up in. We spend weeks during summer and winter breaks visiting as children. I slept in a room with my daughter that I've shared with my sister more times than I can count. If my daughter hadn't been there, I'm not sure I'd know quite how to "adult" in the space.

And so it was only fitting that I read "The Enchanted Tiki Room" by Daniel Chacon while there. In it, a man visits Disneyland where he runs into various versions of himself from the past. As he comes to grips with his own questions and dismay at the priorities of his younger self, his younger selves look for answers from the man. 

I also laughed through Brock Clarke's "One Goes Where One is Needed" about a former American administrator in Iraq who becomes a ski instructor when his skills are no longer needed (or wanted). And because I met a lot of very ineffective civilians in my time there, this was extra funny, but also very sad. 

I really liked the sweet but sad story "A Private River" by Alice Elliott Dark about an elderly couple and all the things the man wishes he could do but can't now that his freedom is limited by his cognitive decline. 

"Malcriado" by Edgar Gomez was a sad story of a young man coming coping with his family's failure to accept his sexuality. That this was nonfiction was touching in its vulnerability. 

"Jose's Girls" by Jonathan Winston Jones, also nonfiction, was also poignant in its analysis of the effects of drug abuse on communities and families. I loved Jones' moments with the Deputy Chief of Police in which the grandfather is seeking a way to extract Jones' sister from a bad situation and the Deputy is not sympathetic. Asking if there is anything the family can do, Jones interjects "I know what we could do. Let's get a working list of all the rich white people in our town who do drugs with impunity and we'll make a mural on Main Street."

Also loved "Color Therapy" by Marie Mutsuki Mockett about the change of color in leaves in Japan. I had never thought about leaves changing color and am woefully uninformed about the climate of Japan in general. So this was informative and really cool as the author seeks out the color red which is also my favorite fall color. 

So basically, I guess I liked all these stories. And this was a great edition. There was some really excellent poetry in this edition as well. Here are some mentions:

Ars Poetica - Sara Borjas
The Vault - Andres Cerpa
Delta Delta Delta - Tiana Clark
After the Breakup, I Encounter My Whiteness Again - James Allen Hall
Two Gifts - Safia Jama
Moon Cricket - Julian Randall
Cover the Mirrors - Callie Siskel

4/5 Stars

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League - Jeff Hobbs

I was really moved by the life story of Robert Peace. Written by Rob's Yale college roommate, Jeff Hobbs, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace does the rare job of showing the 360 degree humanity of Rob. I was so struck by the messy and complicated essence of being fully human that Hobbs manages to capture in this story. Hobbs is clear upfront that he was not one of Rob's closest friends but had been touched by his friendship with Rob and by Rob's death. The book seems like a search for answers by Hobbs to how his friend could have lived a life of such promise only to be killed in such violence. 

Peace grew up just outside of Newark, NJ, the son of a single mother who, though she kept in contact with Peace's father, wished to maintain a distance between the world in which she raised her gifted child, and the drug selling lifestyle led by his father. When Rob was seven, his father was arrested for the double homicide of two women living in the same apartment complex. Skeet's trial was unfairly delayed and badly prosecuted, but the murder weapon having been found on him sealed his fate and he was sentenced to life in prison. Rob's mother Jackie took Rob monthly to see his father and as he got older, Rob maintained the visits on his own, often giving his time and talent in assisting his father in possible appeals.

Rob pushed himself hard, for his father, in assisting with his legal actions, for his mother in excelling at school and later at water polo at his private college preparatory school. Rob managed all this, eventually earning the school's highest honor. His introduction and then speech at a senior banquet caught the eye of a wealthy alumna who offered to pay for Rob's college education. 

While not his first choice a series of unlucky breaks led Rob to miss an application deadline for his preferred college led Rob to matriculate at Yale where he met the author. Rob balanced a course load in molecular biology, a spot on the water polo team, and eventually, a side hustle of selling marijuana to the mostly white co-eds at school. 

Following graduation, Rob was intent on two things: travelling to Brazil and returning home to live among his friends and family. But these two things left him somewhat adrift after a family friend entrusted to keep Rob's college savings safe, spent the money Rob had depended on to get set in life. Without many options, Rob signed on to teach high school biology at his alma mater in Newark. But this endeavor quickly left him dissatisfied as he was not prepared for the limited means such teaching provided and cut short his ambitions to travel. He moved on to a job with Continental Airlines as a baggage handler in order to take advantage of the free standby flights afforded to employees. 

Rob took advantage of this perk for years as he traveled around the world, but a equipment accident led to a request for drug testing which Rob declined having been a habitual user of marijuana since the age of 14. Losing this job was a turning point for Rob as the meager means with which he had been eking out his life withered up and he became desperate for a way to make money. So he went to what he knew, selling marijuana. But with gang front lines and aggressive territory protection, Rob became an instant target. 

His death is tragic but so much more so because of how much he meant to so many people rather than a trope of wasted potential, though that is part of it too. I wonder if he had access to more social capital and a more robust system of advisement following graduation, if he would have been more able to reconcile his desires with his realities. He tried to be a protector and provider to so many, selflessly giving of his time and money even to those who never reciprocated. There is something child-like in this desire of the person Rob wanted to be and the way he tried to go about being that person. What a senseless tragedy that his life was cut so short. What a touching and moving tribute Hobbs has prepared for his friend.

4/5 Stars. 

Every Man a Menace - Patrick Hoffman

I have to admit I wasn't into this one. Every Man a Menace benefits from short declarative and perfunctory sentence structure. It's pace is quick and it moves well. Based in five parts from five different points of view, the book works backward in time, with the first part introducing the character of Raymond Gaspar, a recently released prisoner who has a simple job to perform for his protector on the inside. He needs to figure out which of two people involved in the drug trade have lost their edge. It becomes obvious early on that Raymond is being played by both the distributor, Gloria, and the dealer, Shadrack who are not too keen on letting Raymond in on their well run enterprise. We are told a lot that Raymond is frightened or scared. And then he's dead. 

Part two steps back in time to before Raymond's death to tell us about the two Miami club owners who are the importers of the ecstasy eventually distributed and sold in San Francisco by Gloria and Shadrack. Isaac and Semion are old friends from the Israeli army who have landed in Miami and have cut a nice niche for themselves in the ecstasy game. We are told when their Belgian supplier falls through, they start to wholesale out of Thailand. Determined to remain small, Semion is at odds with Isaac who has grander plans. So we know that's not going to work out well for Semion who is eventually set up and played by a "crazy" Brazilian woman who he knows is lying to him, but doesn't seem to care.

Step back in time to their contact in Thailand, a man who's name I cannot now recall has also been set up by the police as a shake down for a bribe after his grindr date ends up being a plant (by the police). He calls in a favor from the manufacturer of all this ecstasy and the favor ends up being called in right away in the form of forcing the contact to get Semion and Isaac to agree to a bigger order. 

So the last part of the book then fast forwards through all this back to Raymond and Gloria and Shadrack to make some kind of sense of who is cutting out who in this cut throat industry of the drug trade. The book is gritty without texture and full of interesting characters that are a complete blank. 

I'm good with non linear timelines. I'm good with morally bankrupt characters. I like diversity among characters. Check, check, check. But here, it felt like EMaM was merely checking off boxes as I have done here on a list, without taking the necessary steps to weave anything together. The extra piece is missing here to turn this from a page turning crime drama into something in which to become invested.

2/5 Stars.