For my first time reading a novel by Louis Erdrich, Plague
of Doves was a great sample. The base of
the novel is the story of a tragic historical murder on a reservation. However,
the beauty, darkness, depth, and excitement of the book comes in the great
development of the different characters whose lives had been directly or
indirectly involved. The book tells many different stories, from the
first-person viewpoints of a handful of awesome characters: the young girl who
was obsessed with romance and grew into a teen with sexual identity issues, the
troubled wife who sleeps with snakes and tries to break free from a life under
the spell of her powerful, charismatic, and totally insane religious leader
husband, and more. The book fascinated and enthralled me and I can’t wait to
begin an Erdrich back-read.
Secret Diary of a Call Girl, by Anonymous (2008):
Being a long-time fan of Anais Nin’s erotic literature,
generally enjoying a good book about women’s romantic/sexual conquests, I
picked up this book at a sale and thought I’d give it a try. Mistake.
The narrator, a call-girl for an upscale London agency,
tries to woo readers with the appearance of a quirky intelligence, a fierce
independence, a witty sense of humor, and sexual details that are meant to, I
don’t know, shock or titillate? Instead the book is page after page of
disengaged sexual descriptions, told with only pseudo-intelligence, a redundant
humor, a formulaic wit rather than true voice, and sexual details that both
appall and leave one wondering how she came to develop sick fetishes; her
narratives lack human emotion or explanation . And this book is supposedly
being made into a series on Showtime. What could that possibly look like, I
wonder while reading of her tales of enjoying a man who would beat her and come
all over her swollen face because she wanted him to, for fun.
I’ll admit, though it’s not good journalistic practice in
reviewing, that I didn’t make it all the way through the book. In fact, I
skipped around for a while looking for story progress or gained insight on the
part of our beloved narrator. Finding none, I gave up spending any more time on
this “gem.”
Zane’s Trace, by
Allen Wolf (2007):
A book geared for teens, Zane’s Trace tells a story
simultaneously sad and uplifting. Written in prosety, the short novel deals
with tough issues such as family abuse, guns, running away, suicide, and
escaping the law. Though these teen issues may sound cliché, the writing so
beautifully and thoughtfully captures the essence of the narrator—reflecting
his wounds, his flaws, and his compassion—that his story and his character
display the unique experience of universal truths. A bit of fantasy and history
intermix with the narrative to create a very entertaining and emotional read.