Review: A Final Arc of Sky: A Memoir of Critical Care by Jennifer Culkin

A brief but affecting memoir, Culkin spent years as a nurse working in ICU's (her specialty was in pediatrics so NICU and PICU) and then on the helicopter flights that oftentimes are the only chance a critically injured person has of making it to a hospital alive and this is her collection of connected essays about her experiences. In between the sometimes devastating, sometimes hopeful tales of life and death, Culkin also shares her own life, hopes and fears. She writes movingly of her mother's death and then her father's. She brings the reader to tears with her paean to her colleagues who have died in crashes while doing their very vital jobs. She doesn't just face the mortality of her patients, she faces of the mortality of those she loves, and even of herself, telling of her own battle against MS, which ultimately makes her give up her job. Her writing is powerful and I defy even the most cynical reader to stay unmoved when reading about the fragility that makes each and every one of us up. There are times the chapters are more clearly seperate essays rather than a smooth narrative but that's minor in the grand scheme of the book. There was one chapter that seemed slightly out of place to me: when Culkin explains her son's need for danger and speed, tracing it back to her own desire to live on the edge. But if taken in the context of the whole balance of life and death theme of the book as a whole, it does fit, although barely. I was generally impressed by the depth and strength of the book, finding it very moving.

Monday Mailbox

Another slow week here in my mailbox but the two books that did arrive look like they'll be real gems.

First, from LibraryThing, I received Looking After Pigeon by Maud Carol Markson. The book flap describes it thusly: Of Maud Carol Markson's first novel, When We Get Home, Andre Dubus wrote, "It may be the best story we have about marital love." In this, her second novel, Markson once again explores the sometimes humorous, and always complex, realm of family and love. Her characters struggle to answer the questions "who will care for me? How will I care for myself?"
One spring day in New York City, five-year-old Pigeon's father disappears, leaving her to face a new and bewildering life with her mother and older siblings in an uncle's house on the Jersey shore.
"Our mother named her children after birds," so begins a new grown up Pigeon as she describes the tumultuous events of this pivotal childhood summer with her brother Robin and her older sister Dove. In the heat and unfamiliarity of a beach town near Atlantic City, each member of her family looks for a caretaker of some kind: Robin in a fortune teller, Dove in older lovers, her Uncle Edward in the feckless owner of a diner, and her mother Joan in a religious cult. All the while, Pigeon, the youngest, searches for her father, believing he will return to the family to care for her. Through the course of the summer, Pigeon discovers surprising and lasting truths about those she loves, and about her own possibilities in the world.

Secondly I received Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie from Picador. I am excited beyond all measure for this one since Shamsie's Salt and Saffron is one of my all time favorite books. Amazon says this about it: Beginning on August 9, 1945, in Nagasaki, and ending in a prison cell in the US in 2002, as a man is waiting to be sent to Guantanamo Bay, Burnt Shadows is an epic narrative of love and betrayal.

Hiroko Tanaka is twenty-one and in love with the man she is to marry, Konrad Weiss. As she steps onto her veranda, wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across the back, her world is suddenly and irrevocably altered. In the numbing aftermath of the atomic bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost. In search of new beginnings, two years later, Hiroko travels to Delhi. It is there that her life will become intertwined with that of Konrad's half sister, Elizabeth, her husband, James Burton, and their employee Sajjad Ashraf, from whom she starts to learn Urdu.

With the partition of India, and the creation of Pakistan, Hiroko will find herself displaced once again, in a world where old wars are replaced by new conflicts. But the shadows of history--personal and political--are cast over the interrelated worlds of the Burtons, the Ashrafs, and the Tanakas as they are transported from Pakistan to New York and, in the novel's astonishing climax, to Afghanistan in the immediate wake of 9/11. The ties that have bound these families together over decades and generations are tested to the extreme, with unforeseeable consequences.


As always, if you want to see what others found in their mailboxes this past week, check out Marcia's blog at The Printed Page.

Review: Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett

I had been coveting this children's book since it was released in hardcover, trying to convince my children that they wanted to read it, thereby granting myself permission to buy it. I haven't managed to convince them yet but when it arrived on the table at the school book sale, it was my duty to buy it to support the school library, right? And now that I've read it, I will be pushing the kids even harder to read it. A truly delightful and inventive tale, this had overtones of From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler or The Westing Game. Calder Pillay is mourning the loss of his best friend, who has moved out of state, when a strange book about unexplained happenings brings Calder together with Petra, a fellow student with a keen eye for coincidences. Petra and Calder build a friendship as they try to unravel the several mysteries: that of an elderly neighbor, that of their teacher's sudden nervousness and distractability, and of course, that of the missing Vermeer painting to which they feel a kinship connection. As the mysteries unfold, Calder and Petra race to find the painting before it is too late as they also seek to explain the other more minor mysteries. The plot abounds with leads, intuitions, and wrong turnings and the reader delights in following these endearing, slightly eccentric kids as they work their way through the clues, both intentionally and unintentionally uncovered. Everything about the book is meticulously done and the puzzle pieces are slotted together so expertly that I only figured out the connections slightly ahead of the characters, which either points to my thickheadedness or their genius (or both). But the true genius here is Balliett, in drawing such an appealing and engrossing story for both boys and girls, one that celebrates intelligence and friendship and perserverence and all those things that can easily cause a less accomplished book to come across as moralistic and dull. This book is anything but that and should be recommended to any and all children in your orbit.

Review: Welcome to the Departure Lounge: Adventures in Mothering Mother by Meg Federico

In this non-fiction account of taking care of her aging mother, Meg Federico has tapped into an experience that more and more people are facing. Over a ten year span of time, Federico faced the nuttiness, the anxiety, the exhaustion, and the sheer terror and heart-break of finally having to parent a parent. Federico acknowledges that for the sake of the story she has minimized her siblings' contributions to her mother and step-father's care and that Addie and Walter were blessed with enough money to live through most of this period of time in their own home under the care of home care aides, unlike many aging folks out there. There are hard truths about aging here but Federico leavens these truths with humor. She doesn't flinch from admitting the toll it took on her, her husband , and her children, to be a long-distance caretaker to two people who not only faced dementia but a litany of other chronic health-care issues as well. Walter started ordering sexual aids through the mail. Addie drank to excess. Both of them waged outright war with certain of their aides. But even at their most bizarre or outrageous, they are, at the end of the day, waging a losing battle against the ravages of time and their children have no choice but to try and conduct them to the end of the war as easily as possible.

This book is both terrible and hilarious. It is well-written and honest. What is very clear throughout all of Federico's dealings with her mother is how much she does what she does out of love and not obligation, even when being there for Addie is its most grueling and difficult. I don't know that we have a choice in how we age, whether we are going to become completely irrascible and cantankerous, or if we will meekly accept what others deem to be in our best interest. Does it depend on our prior dispositions? In Federico's musings on both Addie and Walter's personalities before the ravages of age changed them, we see seeds of the elderly people they become but those seeds were certainly tempered by other aspects of their personalities that seem to have faded under the onslaught of the stronger (and ultimately nuttier) aspects that ruled the last ten years of life. And learning to adjust to and accept these stronger personalities is one of the challenges for a child taking care of her elderly parent. As I read along in this, I couldn't help but laugh, even as I gasped in horror at the indignities incumbent in growing old. There is a card or plaque or bumper sticker out there somewhere that tells us that "Growing Old Isn't For Sissies" and this book certainly supports the sentiment wholeheartedly. In the end, after Addie's death, Federico imagines her response to this difficult and love-filled memoir of the end of life and of the ten year long journey Federico herself took with her mother towards this end. And her imagined response beautifully encapsulates so much of their relationship that it is likely to leave you with a smile on your face and tears shimmering in your eyes.

Review: My Fallen Angel by Pamela Britton

A paranormal Regency-set historical romance opening with a sea battle between hero Garrick Asquith-Wolf and pirate Tully St. Clair, our hero defeats the pirate but pays the price of his bold pronouncement that he is invincible as he is struck by lightning and pitched off the deck of his ship. As the reader finds out once the prologue is over, Garrick is now an angel tasked with protecting Lucy Hartford and the boy she's found and believes to be the long-lost, believed dead heir to the Earl of Selborne. Of course, keeping them safe is not going to be as easy as Garrick hopes given that Lucy is a walking disaster waiting to happen and that he is instantly attracted to her but must not touch her under the terms he's been given in heaven. This historical romance is chock full of wild, madcap adventures from kidnappings, to pirate battles, to visits from the devil and the unveiling of a scheming countess. The physical comedy can be a bit much as Lucy is incapable of doing anything gracefully or at the very least, without incident but at least it keeps the plot rocketing along. The attraction between the main characters is instantaneous (ie there's no development involved, it just is) and their fevered grapplings usually occur right before some other dramatic bit of plot bursts in and cools them down. While there are too many threads to juggle here, overall it's not a bad sort of read: fast-paced, goofy, and generally reasonably entertaining for fans of romances.

Sunday Salon: Book club suggestions and other ramblings

As May is now upon us, I am anticipating the e-mails that will start rolling in as my devoted acolytes ::ahem:: fellow summer bookclub members ask what I've chosen for our mutual delight this June, July, and August. Leaving aside the question of why they continue to allow me to dictate our three months' choices (I am the self-declared Supreme High Book Chooser for the group), I need to think of what these choices will be. I try to choose things that aren't necessarily terribly well known and that none of us, including me, have already read. The books can be new or old, paperback or hardback, fiction or non-fiction. So far I've been lucky and chosen at least one wonderful read each summer. Some summers I hit the jackpot and all three choices are gorgeous reads. Other less satisfying summers, only one is exceptional. I'm really only starting to noodle through my options right now but I know the e-mails will be starting shortly and I want to be prepared. Anyone out there have any suggestions (even if it's just of books to avoid)?

Choosing the summer bookclub books is not the only reading related thing I need to be working on right now. Do you ever get a funk that makes the thought of even beginning to do something that you should do (and even want to do) is completely wearying? I imagine this is how my children feel when faced with the prospect of cleaning their rooms or the basement if I let them go too many days without tackling the chaos. There's just so much to do that it seems interminable and possibly completely insurmountable. Not only is my May determination list making me feel this way (and yes, I totally know it's 100% self-imposed, thank-you very much) but the backlog of books I need to review is also suddenly larger than I feel like I'll ever manage to get through. The only positive is that I do like doing it so I assume that eventually, I will manage to whittle the stack down to a reasonable amount and re-discover the joy of accomplishment. Now if only I could help my kids feel that glow of a job well done when they clean their rooms or finish their homework!

And now you know why the latest book I ordered from the bookstore was called Why Bright Children Get Poor Grades. I haven't cracked the spine yet but one of the three main reasons I bought the book has skimmed it and already informed me that I shouldn't hover over him as he works. The perils of having a child who is a good and advanced reader although I still maintain that me making dinner in the kitchen while homework is being avoided at the kitchen table does not constitute hovering! Maybe I should just make him read the book and report back to me on the salient points in hopes that it will inspire him to change his ways, negating most of my need for the book. Then I could get back to what I want to read instead of what I need to read. (Hmmmmm. Sounds like the argument R. gives me when she's grousing about the AR books she's forced to read, instead of the much more appealing but slightly questionable books she mines from the teen section at the bookstore--and yes, I let her get them since I seem congenitally unable to say no to the purchase of a book.) Do my kids know my weak spots or what?!

May Day book round-up

The first of the month always seems to hold such potential reading-wise. As I did last month, I created a list of books I want to read in May but before I list those, a look back at what I managed to read and review in April. I had 12 books on my April determination list and I read 18. Of course, that doesn't mean I read all of the original 12. Sort of like Nick Hornby's lists in his three collections culled from his columns for Believer magazine, my lists rarely tally very neatly. Of my original 12, I did read 8, leaving 4 to be carried over to this month's list. I reviewed hardly anything at all so there's still a massive backlog on that front, not helped by the fact that I read so much this month (not that reading so much is a bad thing, mind you)! I also have bookmarks sitting dormant in 2 books I'd like to get back to and moving slowly through one book of essays which I'd also like to get back to on a more consistent basis.

Towards the end of the month I had a rather appalling bout of retail therapy and added stacks and stacks of books to my already overloaded shelves (yes, too many to list, as shameful as it is to admit that) but I have a rather large stack I am taking to the Habitat for Humanity bookstore and cafe when my bookclub meets there this month so maybe it'll negate my purchases a bit. Probably not since it'll be a minor miracle if I can leave there without more books of my own. In any case, my overly ambitious month of May is currently set to look like this:

Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad
Godmother by Carolyn Turgeon
With Violets by Elizabeth Robards
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Prague by Arthur Phillips
The Day My Butt Went Psycho by Andy Griffith
The Dogs Who Found Me by Ken Foster
Marriage: A Duet by Anne Taylor Fleming
Presumption by Julia Barrett
Instances of the Number Three by Salley Vickers
East of the Mountains by David Guterson
Divided Lives by Elsa Walsh
Polly by Freya North
The Golden Tulip by Rosalind Laker
44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith
Duke Most Wanted by Celeste Bradley
Sunlight on the Lawn by Beverley Nichols
The Secret Blog of Raisin Rodriguez by Judy Goldschmidt
Do-Over by Robin Hemley
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue
Every Last Cuckoo by Kate Maloy

Yes, you counted correctly. There really are 24 books on that list. Not terribly likely, I know but as you've already discovered, I like a blueprint from which I can then cheerfully deviate, especially when review books come dropping into the mailbox. Any bets on how many books I'll have to carry over to next month? Maybe I should start a betting circle on how many and which ones. You'd all pay to play right? And hey, that would make me an official bookie. I'm kinda liking this idea! Of course, running an illegal betting operation would cut into my reading and reviewing time and heaven knows I'm already going to need Hermione's time turner to accomplish my self-imposed Herculean task for the month. Better get reading!