Currently Reading

Reading: My Two Polish Grandfathers, by Witold Rybczynski.
Listening to: Blasphemy, by Douglas Preston.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Review: Swim to Me

Swim to Me, by Betsy Carter.
(Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007, ISBN: 1565124928)

Once upon a time, before Disney World and Universal Studios became defining destinations, visitors to Florida found unusual attractions down every road. One of them was (and still is) Weeki Wachee Springs, featuring a "city of live mermaids." The author's story is an invention that fits snugly into the real history of the site and its performers.

Delores is a girl from the Bronx who loves to swim and who dreams of becoming a Weeki Wachee mermaid. She finds more success than she ever imagined, becoming a weather girl for a local TV station (forecasting from a bathtub in her mermaid tail) and, ultimately, the star of a combination circus/aquatic show. The fairy tale quality of the book is balanced by the back story of her unhappy family life and the breakup of her parents' marriage.

The novel takes place around 1970, and it is full of product and song placements that will make readers of a certain age smile with recollection.

Disney World has just opened as the story comes to its climax, and Walker chooses to focus on the success that Weeki Wachee Springs achieves in putting on a fabulous new show that produces jealousy in Walt Disney himself. Left unspoken is what every reader knows: that Disney's creation will come to dwarf attractions like the one in the book.

An excellent choice for book clubs.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Review: This Must Be the Place


This Must Be the Place, by Anna Winger
(Riverhead Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59448-997-6)

The main characters in this "coming of middle age" novel are Walter, once a German TV heartthrob, now the German voice of Tom Cruise, and Hope, an American living not very happily in Berlin with her traveling businessman husband. A third character is the city itself, where past and present live side by side -- modern structures alongside bombed-out lots and once-glamorous buildings.

Walter, at nearly forty, is still trying to reconcile the pieces of his life: an American mother, whom he later learns was Jewish; his German father; his estranged grandparents; his early success on German television; and his failed attempt to make it in Hollywood.

Hope has followed her husband to Berlin after the events of September 11. The novel examines her growing dissatisfaction with her marriage and the loss that has her sleepwalking through her life. Her friendship with Walter grows, as her husband leaves her alone for weeks at a time, while he pursues his business dealings in Poland.

First novelist Winger has a great sense of humor. Hope's husband congratulates himself for building up the economy of Poland by sponsoring late night pay-per-view naked wrestling matches, featuring former Polish prostitutes, on German television. Walter's courtship of Hope is filled with scenes both comic and touching. My favorite quote: "[Walter] felt pleased with himself; he had never dated a woman old enough to remember REO Speedwagon, let alone dislike them."

The book I read was a prepub version. According to the back cover, the novel is due out in August.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Vacation Reading

Tomorrow is my last day at work before two weeks of vacation. I've been storing up books for a while now, and I'm really looking forward to having time to read for hours and hours. I picked up Swim to Me, by Betsy Carter, at the library today to add to the pile. Pre-vacation, I'm still reading This Must Be the Place, by Anna Winger, with an aging German actor who dubs Tom Cruise's lines, and I'm listening to Rage, an Alex Delaware novel, by Jonathan Kellerman. I'll share the vacation stash with you in a future post.