Contents

Corpse of Freedom by Dax Garner, Lloyd Garner

I am America (and so can you!) by Stephen Colbert

Away by Amy Bloom

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam

The Brethren by Robyn Young

 The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt

 Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiquro

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

Coal Black Horse

The God of Small Things

Peony in Love

Corpse of Freedom by Dax Garner, Lloyd Garner


This book, without a doubt, takes readers along an unconventional narrative-joy-ride at breakneck speed. By overlapping multiple narratives, clues and peripheral characters' stories, Corpse's pace moves a lot like a screenplay, dropping readers in and out of simultaneous scenes and unexpected dream sequences, bouncing back and forth through what feels like a ping-pong game of fun house mirrors complete with car chases, house parties and sex scenes. Maybe it was intended to be a teen-read, but the underlying message ups the ante from intelligent young-adult level to adult-level.

On one hand we have a story about teenaged existential conflict. On the other hand, (if the first isn't full enough for you) we have the exhumation of a corpse. But, instead of reburying him, Ryan chooses (against his friends' pleas) to keep his new "friend" Jeffrey, taking him home, to the park, or along for nights out on the town. Ryan finds Jeffrey's online journal entries written just before his mysterious death and finds himself drawn to their wisdom in a way that has heretofore escaped him in empathizing with the living. Ryan has grown up in this suburban American town whose atmosphere is literally browned by the mundane and confined lifestyles of its dwellers, where colorless corporations are fast taking over. Escape from "Everdale, USA" has been Ryan's only hope in amounting to someone distinctive but before "meeting" Jeffrey, all these hopes and ideas had been buried and unarticulated.

But how long can Ryan hang onto this corpse when a tattooed mystery-man in a devilish souped-up Buick Riviera is after him to claim it? Ryan's life and everyone else's around him is quickly spiraling out of control. Is this corpse cursed?

This book reads like a verbal rock 'n roll video, fast paced and hilariously strange but has a much deeper statement to make that shines through. While wholly unreasonable in reality, in the world Dax and Lloyd Garner create, this story totally works. Of course, we need to forgo our qualms with carrying decayed bodies around, talking to them, partying with them, for the length of two hundred seven pages. Normality doesn't apply here. Irony does. Which is exactly the stuff that keeps you thinking after the book's been set down. It is bold and intense, rooted in what one can only describe as a seriously original way of tackling the subject of existentialism and teenage-angst. It will leave you pondering its pieces for days. By J. Davis ****1/2

 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiquro

A subtle novel, Kazuo Ishiquro (author of The Remains of the Day) seems at first to be writing a simple love triangle between Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy. The novel starts with Kathy at age thirty-one reconnecting with her two best friends from her school days.  Kazuo then takes us back to the school they attended and lived at, the now closed Hailsham School.  Slowly as the novel reveals itself, a disturbing truth begins to emerge.  Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are actually clones and the School was really a warehouse of sorts for spare part.  This science fiction idea (that we’ve seen before in movies like the Island) is used to expose broader questions than just blunt ethics of cloning.  Expect a growing horror while reading this book as the love story becomes second and the exposure of the dystopia society is more fully revealed. This novel is clearly in the lines of Brave New World and 1984 and will leave the reader both disturbed and yet thoughtful. By Staff ****

The Brethren by Robyn Young

The Crusades, the Knights Templar, the Arab lands and cultures, all become the legends of romance and intrigue in this new book by Robyn Young.  Beginning in Jerusalem in the mid 1200 A.D. era we are introduced to Baybars, a true legend, who becomes the scourge of Christianity and hero of the Moslem world around 800 years ago.  We then meet our hero William Campbell, as a boy seeking his place in the world of his father, a Knights Templar.  He is a teen, who of course meets a beautiful and mischievous young lady while learning the skills of a Knight and the discipline of a disciple.  Their journey would take them to different worlds and destinies during this time of great upheaval for the Christians who had made the pilgrimage to the Holy Land and settled there.

Ms. Young has tried to tell a somewhat historically accurate tale of the Crusades during this era, from the Popes and Kings views to that of the Arabs from their many kingdoms.  Seething with hatred for the outrages of the Crusaders during their wars on these invaded lands, a savage warrior emerges in the person of Baybars.  He systematically begins to attack and level the fortresses and cities that are occupied by the Christian invaders and their settlements, seeing them as a threat to his culture and his religion, but having a personal hatred as well for the injustice of his youth.  William Campbell travels a long journey to find his own maturation and purpose in all the intrigues.  He is sent off to regain possession of a Book of the Holy Grail, which could destroy the secret organization that coexists within the Templars with the purpose of trying to bring harmony to a world at war. Prince Edward of England conspires behind the back of the King and sets his evil henchman, Rook, to find this book also.

  There is romance, betrayal, hardship and triumphs and as this is the first of three books the story will continue for some time.  It is a good story told in the framework of a popular theme and well written by a talented author.  If you like epic journeys into the world of Knights and Ladies and a more honest view of the motivations of the Crusades than heretofore told, you will enjoy this tale.  By Pat Moore***

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

His first book in ten years, Mr. Johnson has sent out to the public a massive, ponderous, and yet magnificent opus on the inhumanity of war.  Okay, so we've seen that theme before (and will again, I'm sure), but this book is redeemed with prose to make you set it down and just contemplate the words. For example: "From all around came the ten thousand sounds of the jungle, as well as the cries of gulls and the far-off surf, and if he stopped dead and listened a minute, he could hear also the pulse snickering in the heat of his flesh, and the creak of sweat in his ears. If he stayed motionless only another couple of seconds, the bugs found him and whined around his head."  Sigh.  What a setting description!  This is more a collection of short stories though than a single story about the Vietnam Era.  There are a multitude of characters spanning several years, all spotlighting the various grey areas that surround war.  Expect a bit of an Apocalypse Now sort of experience, variously hallucinogenic and yet wondrous as well. ****1/2 By C.C. Moore

Olmstead’s coming of age story takes place in the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, with scenes of war and mayhem that will chill the stoutest heart. Robey Childs is fourteen when his mother, who has the “gift of sight”, tells him that his father is in danger.  The boy is given a tall, dark horse by a local blacksmith—the horse of the title—and rides off after his father.  He is not too far into his journey when he is shot, captured for being a spy, and made to witness a girl’s rape. Robey survives all this only to find his father dying of a mortal wound, but this is not just a story of suffering and despair, it is one of growth and redemption, a tale of a boy becoming a man.  Robey’s journey has been compared by critics to Red Badge of Courage and Cold Mountain, but I think there is something more like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road in this dark, haunting story. By Staff ****

Debut Novel

17th Century China

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Woven out of the lush setting, with tropical rains and mango trees, Roy tells this story of twins starting with the funeral of their cousin Sophie.  Set in Kerala in 1964, the mystery of Sophie’s drowning and the unraveling of the twin’s family draws the reader deep into the story.  Though sometimes the tale grows too thick, too entangled in it’s own verbosity, there is wisdom and beauty to be found in abundance. By Staff ****

Peony in Love by Lisa See

An absolute gem of a novel that takes the reader back in time. We meet Peony when she's only sixteen and already dead, she's forced to wander as a spirit until she can become an ancestor.  Through flashbacks she tells her story with both innocence and wisdom.  Fated to an arranged marriage, Peony is an intelligent girl smothered by the rules and expectations of China's 17th century restrictive society, attempts her own small rebellions.  Following the 16th century opera The Peony Pavilion, Peony's story is rife with passion and romantic sentiment. The details of life in Qing and Ming dynasty China fill the pages with authenticity. Occasionally the prose is awkward and a few of the characters are questionable in their believability--but this is still a fantastic journey. By Staff ****

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

Set in 12th century England, Pillars of the Earth follows the ambitions of three men across four decades and the social and political upheaval of the aftermath of King Henry I's reign.  Henry's daughter Maude and her first cousin, Stephen of Blois, vie for the throne in what becomes a civil war, making the country a virtually lawless and tumultuous land until Maude's son Henry II ascends to the throne.  Such is the backdrop for this story, centered in the fictional town of Kingsbridge.  Tom Builder, and idealistic master builder runs across the opportunity of a lifetime with the town's church burns down.  His lifelong ambition is to design and construct a majestic cathedral that will stand against the test of time and history--the easily identifiable desire to leave one's mark upon the world. The story follows Tom and a host of other characters whose lives entwine and collide through the forty years it takes to complete the cathedral. The other two main male characters are a dogmatic but compassionate prior and an unscrupulous, ruthless bishop.  To balance the men Follet provides a trio of independent, resourceful women that break free of the stereotypes so often ascribed to female characters across the board in historical fiction. All stand out as memorable no matter what genre they are pitted against.

Pillars marks a departure from the international suspense thrillers Follet is best known for.  At times his preferred style does make a showing--much of the language and psychological makeup of the characters is firmly entrenched in the slightly more modern 20th century.  Die-hard fans of historical fiction may take issue, but the storytelling is so clean that this becomes forgivable.  The author's penchant for using Murphy's Law to add tension does make the cathedral-building process tedious at time. Everything that could possibly go wrong does, but the characters pick up and keep moving despite every tribulation Follet fires their way.

At first glance, the book may seem daunting.  A narrative that covers forty years with little "ten years passed" fast-forward techniques and follows the lives of multiple generations sounds like a long, tough read, but that it is not.  The storytelling brings the day-to-day of the Everyman to sweeping, epic proportions that leaves readers clamoring for more. Follet's work here is an inspiration to readers and writers of all fictional genres, and the evidence of his research shines through in an understated way.  This novel is far from new, but it still stands the test of time as a must-read.  The author has achieved through words what his main character strives to accomplish with stone and wood. The long-awaited
sequel, World Without End, is due for publication October 9, 2007.  Review by Nadja B. Anderson *****

 

Away by Amy Bloom

Lillian is haunted by the pogrom in Russia that claimed the lives of her family.  She is an orphan, a widow, and the mother of a dead child trying to somehow make a new life for herself in 1920s New York.  When news reaches Lillian that her daughter might have survived the pogroms, she drops everything and heads out on a frightening adventure, meeting oddballs and misfortune along the way, but always holding onto hope.  With finely crafted prose, characters that no reader will soon forget, and wondrous detail Ms Bloom has wrought a powerful novel that has impressed critics across the country. By C.C.Moore *****

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam

Following the lives of four young Toronto medical professionals, this novel is actually twelve connected stories.  Lam is an ER doctor himself and brings real details to this intense behind-the-scenes novel.  Fitz gets lost in alcohol; Ming analyzes her driving, immigrant parents with chilly reason; Chen marries Ming after her affair with Fitz; and Sri, a sensitive doctor trying to hold on the best he can, is diagnosed with cancer.  All this drama culminates in the 2003 SARS virus outbreak.   What Lam does best is give fascinating medical drama without ever forgetting the imperfect, human hearts in both the patients and the doctors who treat them.  By C.C. Moore ****