Crane Cavanaugh, the central character in Lucia Nevai’s novel Salvation, is the kind of character that will remind you to count your blessings; that as bad as things are they could be worse.

Crane’s mother, a prostitute living with two former charlatan evangelists/revivalists, tried to end her life in the womb and fails to provide for her in almost every conceivable way after she survives. She lives, along with her half-siblings “Jima” and “Little Duck”, in a squatters shack in rural Iowa trying to scrounge up enough food to live.

As you might imagine, this leaves her with some significant emotional and psychological damage to overcome. She does seem to have, however, a mind attuned to math and science; a useful tool to avoid the cruelty that surrounds her.

Eventually her mother’s activities lead to her being seized by the state. After a short time spent in a convent, she is then adopted by a couple who happen to live in the now developed area surrounding the shack. Her adopted parents - churchgoing Methodists named Ollie and Ray Hopkins - don’t know the darker secrets of Crane’s past, but Ollie nevertheless attempts to give Crane, now christened Princess, a normal life; or something approaching normalcy anyways.

But all of the love and care provided by the Hopkins’ can’t hide Crane’s past and eventually it comes bubbling up and wrecks havoc with Ollie’s best laid plans.

I have a hard time describing Salvation. PW describes it as a “meditation on chance, identity and circumstance” and credits Nevai with creating “a cast of sympathetic, memorable grotesques.” And I suppose this is an accurate literary description.

I suppose it is the rather common technique of exaggerating certain events and characteristics in order to think about larger themes. And Nevai certainly touches on aspects of chance and identity. What would happen if you took a largely abandoned and abused child like Crane and put her in an odd but stable and loving home? Could she overcome that past and blend in? It is the old nature versus nurture debate.

But for me the larger themes involved never quite came together. (In addition to chance and identity there seems to be some exploration of faith and science as well. After all, Crane grew up with people involved in evangelism even if it was of the charlatan variety. And despite the crucial role of science in her survival and success academically, she makes her peace with the faith of the Hopkins.) All of these ideas seem to swirl around in the background, but I didn’t find any of them particular clear or insightful.

What I enjoyed about Salvation was the writing. Nevai skillfully balances the bizarre with the everyday. She has a way of bringing out the way life often lands somewhere in between. Crane is a unique character, with some elements of the grotesque, but Nevai manages to pull it off with believability and poignancy. With a strong start she immediately pulls the reader into Crane’s word and forget about the fantastical or macabre nature of the story. She also brings a sharp wit and a lightness to the writing despite the at times ugly nature of the events involved.

The secondary characters, and the Iowa setting itself, are all developed enough to add to the story without seeming like loose ends or distractions. Crane is the voice that carries the story but the other aspects are not caricatures or mere props. One gets a sense not just of Crane but of the community she is a part of and the time period in which the story is set. Despite its short length - 240 pages - the story doesn’t feel thin.

If there was one aspect that had a tendency to cause the story to drag for me, it was the narrative that focused on Crane’s ant science project. Clearly, Nevai was comparing and contrasting the way Crane felt comfortable and competent in the world of scientific observation but not in normal social settings; and perhaps commenting on the differences and similarities between ant and human development. But these extended reports on the progress of the project were distracting to me. Maybe I missed some larger context or point.

Salvation was certainly not the typical type of book I read, but I enjoyed it and found the writing to be strong even if I didn’t find the various themes all that compelling.

Days of Valor by Robert Tonsetic is a spell-binding account of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade’s actions surrounding the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War.  The author was a captain in one of the Brigade’s battalions during the majority of the fighting covered in the book.  At 262 pages, the book is an excellent memorial to the exploits of this fighting unit.

Tonsetic’s style is to bring the reader into the trenches with the infantrymen and the officers who led them.  His blood and guts descriptions of the many battles that the 199th fought in are wonderfully written and provide the reader with a glimpse of what it was like to hump the jungle-encrusted hills and the open rice paddies of South Vietnam.  He draws upon first-hand accounts of the participants and meshes them together into a wonderful web of writing.

I think that the book is a good balance of the time period covered.  Tonsetic provides enough background on the December and January battles that lead up to the Tet Offensive and then thoroughly discusses the battles the 199th participated in during the 1968 May Offensive.  For example, Tonsetic’s narrative of the events surrounding Fire Support Base Nashua in December of 1967 provides a good example of the caliber of men who fought for the 199th.  The men did not hesitate to start a battle and once the battle was started, they charged the enemy with courage and determination.  In fact, during this time period, the 4/12th Infantry basically made an equivalent sized enemy unit combat ineffective.

The only note of criticism I have about the book is the poor editing.  There were numerous typographical errors that broke up the flow of the text.  This seems minor, but it can disrupt an author’s point.

This book is yet another example of why we should thank Vietnam War veterans for serving their country with such distinction.

This was the topic of some discussion amongst conservatives yesterday:

Beginning today, June 23, 2008, Encounter Books will no longer send its books to The New York Times for review. Of course, the editors at the Times are welcome to trot down to their local book emporium or visit Amazon.com to purchase our books, but we won’t be sending gratis advance copies to them any longer.

If there is anyone still reading this blog, what do you think of this move? Smart marketing and a good idea to save money for a cash strapped publisher? Or lame stunt and a wasted chance to get coverage in the NYT?

I think it makes sense. As the link above makes clear, the type of books that Encounter publishers are never going to get serious treatment in the Times so why bother sending them copies. Far better to save the money and send the books to places with half a chance of producing a serious review - positive or negative.

Both from the Wall Street Journal as it happens. I offer the teasers below in case these books, or the reviews, interest you as well.

–> Original Sin by Alan Jacobs is reviewed by George Sim Johnston:

The idea of Original Sin – that we are all implicated in some terrible aboriginal calamity – does not sit well with the modern mind. But then neither does the idea of sin itself. According to our therapeutic culture, people like Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin may have sinned, but the rest of us are victims of circumstance and maladjustment. Why even talk about sin? As for the idea that we all have to suffer because our first parents chose to sample a piece of fruit – that obviously doesn’t resonate either. One could even define the Enlightenment, which began with 18th-century thinkers like Rousseau and Kant, as a rejection of the Christian doctrine of Original Sin.

And yet, as Alan Jacobs notes in “Original Sin,” his strangely entertaining cultural survey, some very smart people have concluded that there is no better explanation of the darker side of human behavior. Blaise Pascal, who was certainly a genius, thought that without this particular belief we lack any possibility of understanding ourselves. G.K. Chesterton opined that Original Sin is the only Christian doctrine that requires no explanation: Just look around! And the French novelist Georges Bernanos made a point worth pondering, one that has not been disproved by history, that “for men it is certainly more grave, or at least much more dangerous, to deny original sin than to deny God.”

–> Grand New Party by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam is out today, and it was reviewed by Fred Barnes:

Republicans have suffered only one sweeping election defeat in the past three decades. Yet that landslide loss, in the 2006 congressional midterm election, has produced a library of books on what Republicans must do to mend their ways and improve their chances in November and beyond.
 

Two former speechwriters for President Bush, David Frum and Michael Gerson, have offered insider books. Mr. Frum argued for a more centrist GOP policy agenda, including health-care subsidies and a new attention to environmental concerns. Mr. Gerson called for Republican government with a renewed moral mission, at home and abroad. Two more books have come from ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and tax-cut crusader Grover Norquist, each urging Republicans to re-embrace the party’s tradition of limited government. Now, in “Grand New Party,” two young writers for The Atlantic, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, advance their own scheme for Republican revival. It is a simple and sensible plan and, though not always convincing, the most relevant to Republican troubles in 2008.

After a long hiatus for personal reasons, I recently read a book that is relevant for our upcoming July 4th celebrations.  Mark Urban’s Fusiliers is an engaging view of the Revolutionary War from the British perspective.  The book is 400 pages.  Urban describes the exploits of the 23rd “Royal Welch Fusiliers” – one of only a few British regiments that fought in the War from the opening shots at Lexington to the final shots at Yorktown.

This is a fascinating book because of the perspective that Urban takes.  I have read many books on the American Revolution, but none from the British perspective.  Urban brings a clarity of the “other side” that few writers writing from the American perspective can give the reader.  I particularly like how Urban explains the similarities and differences between the American and British armies.  In addition, the reader gets a better idea of what it was like to be a British soldier in an environment where most people despised him and often wanted to kill him.

Urban combines masterful writing with excellent scholarship.  He draws chiefly from primary documents – diaries and letters from officers and rankers.  A wonderful source is Sergeant Roger Lamb’s memoirs.  Lamb is a gold mine of information for the rankers because most of them at this time were illiterate and thus there is not much in primary sources from them.  Lamb was a literate and intelligent man who served with the 23rd after he escaped from his imprisonment after Saratoga.

In summary, the book is an excellent work on British troops during the American Revolution.

I took a US Open/Father’s Day long weekend. I am going to try and get some reviews posted this week, but for now here are some interesting books coming from Serpent Tail Publishers.

–> Castorp by Pawel Huelle

Publisher’s Description:

Picking up on a throwaway line in The Magic Mountain, Castorp tells the story of Hans Castorp’s student years in Gdansk, long before the adventures in Davos described in Thomas Mann’s novel. Pawel Huelle skilfully creates a credible scenario for this influential period in Hans Castorp’s development, imagining what happened when the rational German student was exposed to the Slavonic eastern edge of the Prussian empire. He comes across people, events and ideas that anticipate some of the encounters he will experience in years to come, including an enigmatic Polish woman who becomes his obsession.

Set at the dawn of the twentieth century, Castorp faithfully recreates the atmosphere of central Europe as the storm began that would lead to two world wars. Beautifully written, full of humour, mystery and eccentricity, this is a moving tribute to a masterpiece of European literature.

–> The Pools by Bethan Roberts

Publisher’s Description:

Middle England, mid-1980s. The kind of place where nothing ever happens. Except something has happened. A fifteen year old boy called Robert has been killed, down by the pools. And half a dozen lives will come unravelled.

There’s Kathryn and Howard, Rob’s parents. Kath has been making the best of her second marriage after the love of her life died young. Howard has been clinging onto a family life he hardly expected to have. There’s Joanna, the teen queen of nowheresville. She’s been looking for a way out, escape from her parents’ broken marriage. She thought Rob might take her away from all this, but lately she’s started to think Rob might have other plans. And then there’s Shane, with the big hands and the backward brain and the fixation on Joanna.

Bethan Roberts’ strikingly assured debut novel expertly reveals the tensions and terrors that underpin apparently ordinary lives, and can lead them to spiral suddenly out of control.

–> Small Crimes by Dave Zeltserman

Publisher’s Description:

Crooked cop Joe Denton gets out of prison early after disfiguring the local district attorney, which doesn’t help his popularity. Nobody wants Joe to hang around-not his ex-wife, his parents, or his former colleagues. Meanwhile, local mafia don Manny Vassey is dying of cancer and keen to cut a deal with God. He’s thinking of singing to the DA if this will set him up for a better after life. And he knows stuff that will send Joe down again for a very long time-along with half the local law enforcement.

Set in the pressure cooker of a very small town and following the promise of Dave Zeltersman’s earlier novels (Fast Lane and Bad Thoughts), Small Crimes is an explosive noir that brings the claustrophobic hell of Jim Thompson and James M. Cain right up to date.

–> I was Dora Suarez by Derek Raymond

Publishers Weekly:

Raymond’s ( How the Dead Live ) nightmarish and compelling tale, the fourth in his Factory series, explores London’s sordid underbelly, where the law enforcers have to be as brutal as the criminals they hunt. As the novel opens, an ax-wielding psychopath carves young Dora Suarez into pieces and smashes the head of Suarez’s friend, an elderly woman. On the same night, in the West End, a firearm blows the top off the head of Felix Roatta, part-owner of the seedy Parallel Club. The unnamed narrator, a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police’s Unexplained Deaths division, develops a fixation on the young woman whose murder he investigates. And he discovers that Suarez’s death is even more bizarre than g suspected: the murderer ate bits of flesh from Suarez’s corpse and ejaculated against her thigh. Autopsy results compound the puzzle: Suarez was dying of AIDS, but the g pathologist can’t tell how the virus was introduced. Then a photo, supplied by a former Parallel hostess, links Suarez to Roatta, and inquiries at the club reveal how vile and inhuman exploitation can become.

You will recall that I am a sucker for short books.  My life has become quite hectic with two small children and a job that is unpredicatable.  Throw in the normal distractions and commitments to church, friends, etc.  and it gets harder and harder to make the time for a long read.  I still do it on occasion because I love the experience, but  I also love short books that I can read in one sitting or a couple of night’s bedside reading.

It is for this reason that I first picked up What Now? while at the local library.  My career is also in a bit of flux and so I can relate to titular question.  Upon reading the inside cover flap I found out that the slim book was based on a 2006 commencement speech the author gave at Sarah Lawrence College - her alma matter.

I am not familiar with Patchett’s best selling novels, but it was short enough that I decided to read it.  It turned out to be an that rare thing: an honest to goodness potential graduation gift that would be enjoyable to read and have a chance of being read.  So if you have a graduate to buy for this season, you could do a lot worse than What now?  It is miles better than mst of the hockey and gimmicky things you see on “For Graduates” display tables in bookstores.

But it isn’t just a book for graduates.  It is essentially a meditation on those moments of transition in life when we might be asking that question “What now?”  Pratchett shares snippets of her experiences, from both high school to college and from graduate to career and beyond, to think about the attitudes and actions that might help us think about and prepare for the choices we face.  About how friends and family prepared us for the places we find ourselves in and how even strangers can help us see the world differently.  She finds that life might not play out in a straight line but that even the detours can be important; that being willing to listen and learn is critical.

Even writing this I find myself dangerously close to cliche and truism, or maybe having crossed the line, but reading Pratchett doesn’t feel that way.  She comes across sincere and laid back; not wanting to preach but willing to say what she thinks and letting the reader decide if it is applicable to their life.

I am not arguing that this is a life changing book full of deep wisdom or anything.  But Pratchett brings a fresh and generous tone to the essay that makes it enjoyable and thought provoking at times.  And the way she tells of her own experiences has a way of reminding you of things you probably already knew but that can easily be forgotten in the stress and bustle of daily life.  It might not be life changing but it might change your perspective or bring a little clarity or insight.  And in such a short book, that isn’t too shabby.

So if you have a graduate to buy for, know someone who is in a transition period in their life (or are in one yourself), or if you just enjoy well crafted personal essays this is a book worth checking out.

I am not going to go over my lifelong appreciation for William F. Buckley despite the fact that I seem to open every Buckley book review with just such an appreciation. If you want to know how I feel read this. Or simply put his name in the search box to the right.

With Buckley’s recent passing I was motivated to finish one of his last published works, Cancel Your Own Goddamn Subscription, a collection of his Notes and Asides column. It turned out to be an insightful glimpse into Buckley’s style, perspective, and sense of humor.

Here is the publishers blurb:

Four decades of William F. Buckley Jr.’s famous (and infamous) wit in a volume that will be the political gift book of the season.

Who knew that William F. Buckley Jr., the quintessential conservative, invented the blog decades before the World Wide Web came into existence? National Review, like nearly all magazines, has always published letters from readers. In 1967 the magazine decided that certain letters merited different treatment, and Buckley, the editor, began a column called “Notes & Asides,” in which he personally answered the most notable and outrageous letters.

The selections in this book, culled from four decades of these columns, include exchanges with such figures as Ronald Reagan, Eric Sevareid, Richard Nixon, A. M. Rosenthal, Auberon Waugh, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. There are also hilarious exchanges with ordinary readers, as well as letters from Buckley to various organizations and government agencies

.

I am not sue what it says about blogs that the publisher is trying to use them as a selling point here. Nor am I sure that this is even close to an accurate claim. Since when do blogs follow the form of letters no matter their formality or lack thereof? I suppose you could argue that Buckley used this section in the magazine as a reporter might use a blog today: to post interesting things that might not otherwise get printed. Still, bit of stretch.

But what makes this book interesting is the way WFB’s personality and interests come through. Politics of course, but also language, humor, popular culture, and his many famous and interesting friends. You can learn a lot about a famous person, or at least about how he is perceived and perceives himself, by the letters he gets and how he chooses to respond.

Buckley was tireless in defending his, and his magazine’s, reputation. He never shrank from a fight that would further conservative ends even if that mean legal and financial risk. But he was a happy warrior and valued friendship above everything except his faith and his principles. He had a sharp wit and a instinct for the short but brutal reply.

Andrew Ferguson notes some of these reoccurring themes in his WSJ review:

“You ridiculous ass,” begins one early letter. Another opens: “You are the mouthpiece of that evil rabble that depends on fraud, perjury.” And another: “You are a hateful, un-Christian demagogue.” “You are the second worst-dressed s.o.b. on television.” Mr. Buckley’s responses are equally pithy, though slightly higher toned and always more allusive. To one disgruntled reader who identifies himself, in his righteous indignation, as the Second Coming of Jesus, Mr. Buckley warns: “And I am the second coming of Pontius Pilate.” He sometimes composes his insults in Latin–a bit of one-upmanship that even Eustace Tilley would envy.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. writes to complain about some perceived slight: “I might have hoped that you would have had the elementary fairness, or guts, to provide equal time; but, alas, wrong again.” “Dear Arthur,” Mr. Buckley replies. “I should have thought you would be used to being wrong.”

Not all the exchanges are purely contentious. The literary scholar Hugh Kenner writes in to critique a single sentence–a long, zig-zaggy construction that Mr. Buckley wrote to open an essay in Esquire magazine. Abashed, Mr. Buckley protests that the sentence was “springy and tight.”

” ‘Springy and tight’ my foot,” says Kenner. “Those aren’t springs, they’re bits of Scotch tape.” What follows is several pages of literary dissection, with Kenner attacking vigorously and Mr. Buckley defending his published sentence with slackening strength. If it sounds fussy, it isn’t. It’s a miniature tutorial in rhetoric and style from one of the century’s most rigorous critics directed at one of its most accomplished journalists. You can’t imagine finding it in any other letters column.

Not surprisingly, I came away from it feeling even more found of Buckley and a strong dose of nostalgia for the National Review that was directly under his hand.

Obviously this is a must have for Buckley fans, but anyone with an interest in the unique journalistic practice of Letters to the Editor will find things of interest here. And anyone who enjoys witty repartee or the art of correspondence will chuckle at Buckley and his unique style and sense of humor.

Notes and Asides may not have been the precursor to the blog, but it certainly was a unique contribution to a classic journalistic forum. And like a great deal, it seems to have ended with him. The world is the poorer for it, but it is nice to know that this book has captured a glimpse for posterity.

David Frum on Middlemarch:

What is a woman to do with herself?

That question has inspired probably hundreds of thousands of novels over the past 200 years, but never with more triumphant result than in George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

Middlemarch is a stupendously great book, one of the supreme masterworks of English literature. And yet I sadly realize as I type those words how very offputting they sound. They summon up high-school literature classes, and term papers, and all the dull obligations of reading for credit rather than for pleasure.

So let me put it a different and I hope more exciting way – the 30-second “elevator pitch” that screenwriters are taught to prepare to sell their work in the time it takes to rise from the lobby to the studio executive’s office:

It’s the story of four women, their choices and love affairs, kind of a “Sex and the City” set in England on the verge of economic and social revolution – only it tries to be true rather than to indulge in semi-pornographic shopaholic fantasy … and phhhhht … the elevator doors have shut.

Maybe, reader, you are already gone too? But if not –

If that intrigues you read the rest of Frum’s post.

–> The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won by Peter Navarro

Publishers Weekly

In this comprehensive, contemporary look at the awakening giant that is China, Peter Navarro describes an emerging power beleaguered by both internal and external threats-if the Japanese don’t get them, AIDS and SARS will. This will reassure those readers who are increasingly convinced that the Chinese will eat us for lunch. However, as Navarro points out, China’s human and natural resources make her a formidable global player-and her native, amoral ruthlessness suggests she will win. Still, as a nation undergoing its Industrial Revolution in the Information Age, China has her problems transitioning from Communism to capitalist imperialism, as seems to be her goal. True, government and industry have forged strong bonds (that allow them to exploit slave labor and ignore environmental and economic constraints that hamper other nations), but like any modern nation, China is paying the price of competing in a global economy: pollution; rapacious private medical care expenses; an aging, under-pensioned population; international tensions; and a large and disgruntled peasant working class. Navarro, whose inclination to breathless hyperbole makes even a chapter on dam construction exciting, tellingly devotes 10 chapters to China’s problems and one to their solution-essentially tired policy prescriptions (wean the U.S. from oil dependence and cheap Chinese imports). This informative book will teach readers to understand the dragon, just not how to vanquish it.

–> SIMPLEXITY: WHY SIMPLE THINGS BECOME COMPLEX by Jeffrey Kluger

Book Description

In Simplexity, Time senior writer Jeffrey Kluger shows how a drinking straw can save thousands of lives; how a million cars can be on the streets but just a few hundred of them can lead to gridlock; how investors behave like atoms; how arithmetic governs abstract art and physics drives jazz; why swatting a TV indeed makes it work better. As simplexity moves from the research lab into popular consciousness it will challenge our models for modern living. Jeffrey Kluger adeptly translates newly evolving theory into a delightful theory of everything that will have you rethinking the rules of business, family, art–your world.

–> Oxygen by Carol Cassella

Publishers Weekly

Powered by Cassella’s 25 years in the medical field, this nicely wrought debut follows the travails of an experienced Seattle anesthesiologist after an eight-year-old patient dies while under the knife. In the aftermath, Dr. Marie Heaton is entangled in both her grief and a malpractice lawsuit. As the many meetings with attorneys blur together and autopsy results are awaited, Marie, who regrets having missed out on the “intended stream of marriage and motherhood,” mediates the domestic squabbles in her sister’s family; leans on and gets leaned on by colleague and ex-lover-turned-best friend, Joe Hillary; and tries to come to a détente with her widowed father, who is losing his vision and with it his autonomy. As Marie is increasingly scrutinized, a few unexpected twists slyly work themselves into the investigation of the death, and the ice between Marie and her father slowly thaws. The prose is competent and the plot moves at a brisk pace, but the real hook is Cassella’s knowing portrayal of the health industrial complex’s inner workings; she knows the turf and doesn’t spare readers the nasty bits.