Colm Toibin, Kate Atkinson, Michael Connelly, Ethan Hawke

From the Stacks I

 

I once foolishly believed that the emergence of digitization meant I could stop building skyscrapers of novels in my office and dams upon every flat-bottomed piece of furniture in the house. I love books assembled from pulped-wood, it’s just that: (a) There are only a handful of novels I’m likely to re-read and (b) I’m getting older dagnabbit and I can make the print bigger on my iPad!

 

Then two things happened. First, I started going to League of Women Voters book sales in both Amherst and Northampton: hardcovers for a buck and 50 cents for a paperback. Then, a book buyer friend offloaded cartons of preview books. Once again I suffer from piles of the non-proctological variety. Here’s a few capsules of old and new books whose reading order was determined by gravity, not gravitas.

 

 

 

I’m a Colm Tóibín fan. I wasn’t disappointed by Long Island  (2024, 296 pages) but I wasn’t blown away by it either. It’s a sequel to Brooklyn (2009) and picks up the story of Irish lass Eilis Lacey. Brooklyn is often reckoned as one of top 100 novels of the 21^st  century. If you read it or have seen the Saoirse Ronan film adaptation you might remember that Eilis was in love with barkeep Jim Farrell but the village machinations of tightknit village Enniscorthy, family tragedy, and a lack of employment opportunity sent her packing to Brooklyn with choice # 2, Italian-American plumber Tony  Fiorello. Long Island moves the clock forward 20 years. Eilis has been successful economically–as evidenced by living in the ‘burbs of Long Island–and she has two children, but the whole modern kitchen, extended Italian family, accounting job, middle-class, unfaithful husband, thing has worn thin. Especially the latter. Most of her Irish kin in America are in Birmingham, for Pete’s sake, and if truth be told, she misses her youthful free-spirited self. She opts for a reverse journey, a trip of indeterminate length to Ireland. Uh oh; you know what Thomas Wolfe said about you can’t go home again. There are lots of rels, a few old friends, and Jim is still around. Like Brooklyn, Long Island is steeped in what might be called quiet tragedy and has a delicious ending, but as is often the case of sequels Long Island sparkles, but didn’t quite catch fire. ★★★

 

 

 

That last line sums up how I felt about a new book from Kate Atkinson, another author I generally admire. I felt that her new mystery Death at the Sign of the Rook (2004, 302 pages) was more of a genteel wren than an aggressive corvid. It’s another Jackson Brodie novel and I find him too mannered. I get it that Atkinson is trying to channel Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie, but if you’re going to give me another declining manor house, more upper-class toffs, stolen art work, antique guns, and people with names like Sir Lancelot Hardwick, Countess Voranskaya, Dorothy Padgett, Reggie, and Simon, at least give me some impolite murders and truly dastardly characters. This is a literary mystery and though I am impressed by that, I grew bored it. I’m sure hardcore Atkinson devotees will disagree, but I struggled to finish it. ★★

 

 

 

Now for something old. Michael Connelly is among the best mystery writers of recent memory and The Black Box (2012, 464 pages) is a gripping example of his prowess. Back in 1992, the beating of black motorist Rodney King by Los Angeles police touched off riots and protests that presaged contemporary responses to police brutality. Back then, Harry Bosch was part of an LAPD Watch team that investigated the slaying of Danish journalist Anneke Jesperson,. It was never solved, and the very investigation caem under fire for its presumed white focus. Flash to 2012 and Harry now investigates “cold cases” when new evidence arises. Jesperson was slain using a very specific gun with an unusual signature. Twenty years later a new murder occurs using the same weapon. New questions arise, including why Jesperson was even in LA in 1992 given her previsit to Stuttgart, Atlanta, and San Francisco beforehand. Did LAPD ask the wrong questions in 1992? Was something non-racial occurring alongside the King riots? Harry (with assists from his daughter) seeks to build a network the stretches from Denmark to Germany to Vietnam to various U.S. cities, but that’s a widespread set of dots to connect. It also involves retired cops, corporate heavyweights (of a sort), and several very unexpected suspects. Harry needs the namesake black box that’s key to explaining what went wrong. The Black Box is complex, fast-paced, and unafraid to tackle uncomfortable realities. Loved it! ★★★★★

 

 

 

I had heard that actor Ethan Hawke was a decent writer, so I paid the end-of-the-day LoWV $5 a bag price and threw in Hawke’s Ash Wednesday (2002, 221 pages). I wouldn’t call Hawke a great stylist, but like many actors he does his homework. In 2022, he was a young whelp of 32 and something of a Generation X icon. Ash Wednesday could be seen as a dressed-down version of the role he played in the 1995 film, Before Sunrise, though no one would necessarily confuse the novel’s Christy with Julie Delpy. Both Before Sunrise and Ash Wednesday, though, are about the heat of romantic passion and the desperation felt by the realization that the respective relationships are inherently doomed. Jimmy is a working class kid who falls hard for Christy, messes things up, gets her pregnant, and gets her back by going AWOL from the Army. Theirs is a high-speed road trip romance in a souped-up Chevy Nova that begins in Albany and ends up in  Texas via New Orleans. Jimmy’s inexperienced and perhaps not all that bright and Christy is a wild child who might be bipolar. Neither is ready for adulthood. The language is rough in places, but Hawke had an ear for Gen X ‘Tude-speak. Not fine literature but a breeze of a read. ★★★ ½