The Hottest State

AUTHOR: Ethan Hawke (yes, that Ethan Hawke)

PUBLISHED: 1996

GENRE: Fiction

Just something to know: I really like Robert Sean Leonard.  I saw him on stage once, in a Moliere play at McCarter Theatre.  It was the highlight of my French language learning experience.  And supposedly, Robert Sean Leonard is really good friends with Ethan Hawke.  Which, to get around to my point, is why I picked up this book.

This book, to put it succinctly, is exactly the story you would expect an Ethan Hawke character to write.  It’s from 1996, but is timeless in that way that mournful, emo love stories of skinny dudes in tight jeans will unfortunately always have a place in culture.*  The main character – Michael? Paul?  No, William.  It doesn’t really matter – is a sometimes actor from Texas living in New York when he meets Sarah.  She wears green dresses with matching shoes!  She sings in a band, but is terrified to perform in front of people!  She won’t have sex with him!  It’s looooove.  Until she dumps him.  The love remains on his end but it’s not enough for her, even though she has begged him to never leave her, begged him to basically force himself on her no matter what she says.  You can see how he might be a little confused by it all.

This isn’t a spoiler because he tells you all this in the first few pages, about how she broke his heart and it shattered in to a million pieces and now he doesn’t know if he could ever love again and GET A GRIP, man, pull yourself together.  It’s so stereotypically hipster, beat poet, struggling artist who wants to be Jack Kerouac or Bob Dylan, that’s it’s almost a farce.  The painting she gives him, see, it’s a bleeding heart, because he’s wounded, man, he’s so wounded.  (The fact that she has invited him over to give him birthday presents after they’ve broken up and she’s told him she never wants to see again leads me to believe she’s not an artist, she’s just a bitch.) 

William’s sexual dysfunction is of particular interest to Hawke (he can’t perform with a condom on! Ooh, deep!), as is his parents’ divorce, his mother having been knocked up at 16 and divorced by 20, and his and his mother’s move hundreds of miles away from his father.  It’s all supposed to come together – the fear of condoms, the fear of kids, the scars from his childhood traumas – but it’s just a jumble of facts and whiny emotions, meaning nothing.  He falls in love, she falls in love, she breaks it off.  He calls her, calls her again, calls her again.  She threatens police action, invites him over for birthday presents.  He sits, so very alone, in his threadbare apartment.  Cue a ballad from the Cure.  I’m over it. 

LENGTH: 208 pages

MAINSTREAM OR NOT?: No.

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: Ehhhh… If this sounds like your sort of thing, then sure, why not.

*The same cannot be said for the book-jacket picture, which I’m pretty sure is his cast photo from Reality Bites.  It’s so angsty-looking.  All that’s missing is Winona Ryder in a sundress and Doc Martens and some Lisa Loeb playing in the background. 

Heads You Lose (Not Heads Will Roll, as I kept calling it, which is a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song)

AUTHOR(S): Lisa Lutz and David Hayward (although Lutz never hesitates to confirm that SHE is the lead author)

PUBLISHED: 2011

GENRE: Crime thriller

Warning: Bad language ahead.  The author’s, not mine.  I would never use bad language.*

Heads You Lose is, on its face, a pretty typical crime thriller.  Lacey and Paul are twenty-something siblings living in their childhood home, growing weed and laying low.  Until a headless body gets dumped on their lawn.  Given their profession – which is a badly kept secret among the community, given that most of them are customers, but still – the siblings choose to dump the body in the forest instead of calling the cops.  But, much like the proverbial cat in the hat, it comes back the very next day.

What’s different about Heads You Lose is that it’s written by two authors – but not in tandem.  Lutz reached out to Hayward (apparently there’s some history there, if you know what I mean, which will come as no surprise to anyone who reads this thing) and proposed this: Lutz would write the odd chapters and Hayward, the evens.  More interestingly, they would not edit each other’s chapters and would not share storyline notes, meaning neither would know where the other was going.  Hayward might set up a new character, intent on him being the killer, only to have Lutz kill him in the next chapter.

We know all these because of these author interludes in between each chapter, and the snarky footnotes that appear occasionally (i.e., “Hmmm.  Does the cat really need a back story?”).  The interludes are full of raw emotion, far more real than anything in this book or, actually, most others.  Lutz harps on Hayward relentlessly about his language, characters, and lack of movement.  Hayward reacts with ever more passive aggressiveness, which results in a 2 and a half page Dick-and-Jane chapter (“Terry was cutting the pretty plants.  Cut, cut, cut, went the scissors”), to which Lutz responds with this.  To quote:

My thoughts, in chronological order.  1. Fuck you.  2. Seriously, fuck you.  3. I wonder what John Vorhaus is up to these days.  I never did call him.  4.  What was I thinking collaborating with an unpublished, narcissistic poet?  5. We’ve sunk three months into this and there’s still a mystery to solve.

See what I mean about the emotion?

The ending is kind of lame, but the rest of it is fairly interesting, especially watching how the two parts come together as one.  But the interludes remain the absolute best part of it.  It takes a lot of courage to put that all out there like that, and I don’t think they could ever recreate it.  And that’s reason enough to read it.

LENGTH: 301 pages

MAINSTREAM OR NOT: The crime stuff, yes.  The rest of it, no.

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: Yes, if only for the pure emotion between the authors.  That is some crazy sh- I mean, stuff.

*And if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.

The Night Circus

AUTHOR: Erin Morgenstern

PUBLISHED: 2011

GENRE: Fiction; Fantasy

This book was a recommendation from the wonderful Jan Sparrow at Words! bookstore in Asbury Park (go check it out!).  And what a recommendation it was.  There’s only one problem with reviewing a book like this.  Its plot is so intricate, its characters so sensuous, its landscape so flowing that the only thing a reviewer can really say is read it.  Anything else seems lacking in the face of it all. 

Morgenstern’s debut novel (debut!) is set in the wondrous world of Le Cirque des Reves, a circus that arrives without warning and disappears just the same.  The black-and-white world of Le Cirque is open only at night, when customers come to wander the never-ending tents, each housing its own special act – a contortionist, a fortune teller, an animal trainer.  But not all the tents are traditional circus acts.  Some house fantastic illusions – an entire room frozen in snow, even in the heat of summer; a staircase of clouds; a burning cauldron that never goes out and where the flames change colors on cue.  At the heart of the story are Celia and Marco, who are connected to each other in ways they themselves do not even understand, and a contest, one with deadly consequences, one that takes over the circus and everyone in it.

Perhaps the best word to describe Morgenstern’s prose is fluid.  Her words flow over the page, drawing the reader in.  Fantasy novels are notoriously hard to write convincingly, and generally appeal to a small, devoted audience.  And yet The Night Circus breeds no disbelief or hesitation the reader’s mind, even for a moment.  The world is so complete as to prove completely believable.  You can almost hear it: the rustle of a silk skirt, the whipping of a tent flap, the clink of fine glassware being met in a toast.  In contrast of all those times where I questioned the logistics of a story, The Night Circus is proof that I am still able to get lost in a book enough to not worry about the specifics of it all. 

It is hard to explain unless you have read it, but Morgenstern’s world is lyrical and luxurious, an enchanting dream from which you dread having to wake.  I cannot imagine how long it took Morgenstern to write The Night Circus.  I can only hope she can find the strength to build another world soon.

LENGTH: 400 pages

MAINSTREAM OR NOT?: Not particularly.

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: Yes.  I don’t care if you don’t like fantasy, or romance, or beauty.  Read it anyway.  Maybe it’ll warm up your cold, cold heart.

The Way of Baseball: Finding Stillness at 95 MPH

AUTHOR: Shawn Green (Shawn Green, outfielder, not to be confused with Sean Green, pitcher, not to be confused with Sean “I was a Giant when all that happened” Estes, pitcher)*

PUBLISHED: 2011

GENRE: Non-fiction; Sports

I first heard about this book during an interview with the author. Green started in the ‘90s playing outfield for the Toronto Blue Jays, then moved to the Los Angeles Dodgers and eventually my New York Mets.  I never particularly thought much about Green – he was only around for a few years - and probably would not have read his book if I hadn’t found it had a reference in it to my favorite player of all time, John Olerud.**  It turned out there were only a few sentences about Olerud in the book, but by the time I figured that out, I had already bought the thing, so I kept reading.

Green isn’t your typical jock, even in baseball, where the players tend to be slightly more erudite then those in other sports (see Dickey, R.A.).  He credits a large part of success to the practice of meditation and of deeper thinking – the separation of ego from the self and the mind from the body.  When the story begins, he is a struggling rookie, desperate to impress his teammates and his manager, but failing miserably.  It’s only when he begins an intensive regimen on a tee in the batting cages that he begins to see a difference.  The repetition of placing the ball on the tee, swinging the bat, and hitting the ball, then starting all over again, for hours at a time, allow him to quiet his thinking and to slow his actions mentally, if not physically.  Eventually, he acquires one of the greatest skills a hitter can have – the ability to decipher what pitch the pitcher is throwing as it leaves his hand.  He suddenly can feel when his foot’s lifting too high or his arms are extending too far, and is able to correct for it.   As a result, his career explodes, and the skinny little kid from California becomes a power-hitting star. 

But it’s not all sunshine and happiness.  Green acknowledges that he frequently allowed his ego to sneak back in and the pressure to get to him, leading him to force his swing.  His sudden celebrity status and a trade from sleepy Toronto to loud Los Angeles wear on his good habits and set him back.  Each time, he must return to the basics and find his peace again.  It’s actually a really great story, and I respect Green a lot for his methods and for his willingness to admit his own faults in written form.  But the book is basically the same pattern over and over again; by the third chapter, it has lost all its momentum.  Green also never offers up any tips on how to apply his practices to the reader’s life (presuming the reader is not a Major League Baseball player).  I know this isn’t a self-help book – “How to Hit a Home Run in Your Life!” – but it kind of leaves you thinking, “well, gee, great for him, but what about the rest of us?”.  It would have made a great magazine article (Sports Meditations Illustrated, perhaps?).  But ironically, for a book about a power-hitter, it just doesn’t have enough pop.

LENGTH: 224 pages

MAINSTREAM OR NOT: No.  It’s too much baseball for non-fans and too much meditative thinking for hardcore sport nuts.

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: As much as I want to say yes, no.  I have a new appreciation for Green and like his thinking, but it just really isn’t that interesting.

*Remember when all that stuff went down between Roger Clemens and Mike Piazza during the 2000 World Series (you know, when Clemens ‘roid-ed out and chucked a bat piece at Piazza)?  The next time the Mets faced the Yankees, pitcher Sean Estes was left with the task of defending Piazza’s honor.  But Estes had been a Giant when the 2000 nonsense went down and quite obviously wasn’t very enthusiastic about being pulled into it.  So he “accidentally” threw BEHIND Clemens – a rather large target – when he came up to bat, which just left the Mets looking like a bunch of fools.  And since Sean “Punk-Ass” Estes isn’t suitable for mixed company, he is now known as Sean “I was a Giant when all that happened” Estes. 

**Olerud was around for the length of time as Green – 2 years – but made a significantly different impression.  Much like the one in his forehead.  HI-YO!†

†John Olerud underwent emergency brain surgery in 1989 when doctors found an aneurism.  The surgery left him with – appropriately enough – a baseball sized dent in his forehead where they removed some skull, which is why he wore a helmet at bat and on the field.  So yes, that was a brain surgery joke.  And yes, that was my best Ed McMahan impression. And yes, this is a footnote to a footnote.

The Curious Case of Sidd Finch (not to be confused with the Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

AUTHOR: George Plimpton

PUBLISHED: 1987

GENRE: If it was film, I’d call it a mock documentary.  What do you call a book version of that?

In April of 1985, an article ran in Sports Illustrated touting the skills of New York Mets prospect Sidd Finch.  It was a straight-forward enough concept, and probably wouldn’t have generated much buzz, except for the fact that Finch was an English-born Buddhist monk who didn’t know anything about baseball but happened to throw 168 miles per hour.  (He learned to pitch throwing rocks at Himalayan mountain goats.  As one does.)  Fantastic, to be sure, but the article came complete with scouting reports, enthusiastic endorsements from Met management, and even pictures, with outfield Lenny Dykstra* and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre.  People believed Finch was the real deal.

Two weeks later, SI admitted it was all an April Fools Day hoax.  But the story had taken on such life that Plimpton decided to develop it in a book.  Thus, The Curious Case of Sidd Finch was born. 

It’s a quirky little tale, and includes such memorable scenes as Stottlemyre, then-owner Frank Cashin, and others huddled together in a blimp, dropping baseballs to the waiting catcher on the ground, which is the only way they can think of to simulate the speed of Finch’s pitches.*  The story is narrated by reclusive writer Robert Temple, who gets swept up into the world of the contemplative, meditative Finch as he tries to decide between baseball and enlightenment.  Set in the balminess of spring training Florida**, it’s a meandering tale, but fun, and a good reminder of when Major League Baseball – and the rest of us – didn’t take it all so seriously.  It’s also a perfect example of a world before Google and scopes.com and the instantaneous information of the internet, when someone could play a fun joke on the public without instantly being found out and denounced.  Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Wikipedia.  But Sidd Finch is a good example of the changes brought by the internet age.

LENGTH: 296 pages

MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Not only non-mainstream, but completely unthinkable in our Wikipedia-obsessed world.

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: Yes.  It’s a very strange little story but it’s lots of fun and will bring back good memories of the Amazin’ teams of the mid-80s for the Met faithful, back when they didn’t suck.  Good times. 

*Poor, poor Lenny Dykstra.  I never liked him much – I much preferred Mookie Wilson myself – but the New York Times picture of him behind bars was horribly depressing.  He really should have just stuck to the car washes. 

**For some reason, this book always reminds me of the Tom Wolfe novel, The Right Stuff, probably because the descriptions of south Florida are so similar.  But really, who wouldn’t link the stories of a fake baseball-playing phenomenon and the beginnings of the space program.  Practically the same book!

The Dewey Decimal System

AUTHOR: Nathan Larson
PUBLISHED: 2011
GENRE: Fiction

Dewey Decimal is a shortcut man.

Wait, I feel like I've been here before.

A series of Valentine's Day attacks, described only as "the Occurrence" or "2/14", have left most of the world in ruins.  New York stands decimated, with only a small percentage of its population, its buildings, and its infrastructure still standing.  One building that remains is the New York public library on 42nd street, complete with its lions out front.  This is where we find our hero - well, protagonist, if nothing else - Dewey Decimal.*  Decimal is a former army man who can't remember much beyond his old apartment number and who has an insane System (always with a capital S.  Once again, we've been here before) for survival that includes no left turns before 11 a.m. and lots and lots of Purell.  Decimal freelances as a fixer - or really, an assassin - for DA Daniel Rosenblatt, one of the few authority figures left in the city.  As the story begins, Rosenblatt assigns Decimal to kill a Ukrainian union leader.  Easy enough - until the Ukrainian decides Decimal's going to do some work for him too.  After that, it's 100 pages of I-believe-him-no-I-believe-her back and forth that leaves a bunch of people dead and a bunch of questions unanswered.

This is Larson's first book, and you can tell he was going for a very definitive style, which you have to give him props for.  (The dedication, not the style.)**  He likes to leave his subject out of his sentences rather than connect the two clauses with an and ("I look right and left.  Start moving just to put some distance between me and the storefront"), which is something I actually like to do in my writing.  However, reading it here has given me serious doubts about its effectiveness.  He also really, really, REALLY likes his commas.  Oh, the commas.  "I check my front pants pocket, feeling her eyes on me, finding only a key, feeling the panic making its way up my spine."  And that's one of the better strings.  Seriously, this guy really hates the word "and".  Like I said, it's a stylistic choice, and he sticks with it whole-heartedly.  I'm just not sure it's a good one.

The story wanders around some, back and forth, until finally coming to a less-than-satisfying conclusion right where it started.  In the end, it probably would just be better not to start.

LENGTH: 251 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Kind of, in the sense that post-apocalyptic tales are become more and more popular
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT: It's not bad per se, but I can't help thinking there's something better out there.

*Get it? Cause he likes the library? That's the level of wit we're going for here.
**Larson looks extraordinarily like Daniel Faraday from "Lost", most famously known for going to the past and getting shot by his own mother.  Oh, whoops.  Spoiler!

Y: The Last Man

AUTHOR: Brian K. Vaughn (with Pia Guerra, illustrator)

PUBLISHED: 2002-2008 (60 issues in all)

GENRE: Graphic Novel

For me, graphic novels have long been one of those things you keep meaning to check out but never worked up the nerve for.  Eventually, I screwed up my courage and picked up Brian K. Vaughn and Y: The Last Man.*  Most people seem to avoid graphic novels for a few core reasons: they feel that there’s no difference between a graphic novel and those Archie comics you used to buy at the corner store, they refuse to see anything with illustrations as “real” writing, or, like me, they don’t want to start mid-stream in 50 years of back story.  Y refutes all three of those excuses easily.  First off, it’s an isolated story, unlike traditional comics like The X-Men or Superman, where alternate universes and series reboots mean nobody stays dead.  The writing is exciting and real and, almost more importantly, the illustrations are amazing, meaning you both want to read quickly to find out what happens next and move slowly to take in the artistry.  This is not the Richie Rich comic of your youth.  It’s quality stuff, up there with some of the most acclaimed new work on the market.

The series branches off into quite a few storylines, but the primary plot is this: in middle of a very normal day, something spontaneously and instantly kills everything on Earth with a Y chromosome – except amateur escape artist Yorick and his Capuchin monkey, Ampersand.  Yorick just wants to track down his girlfriend, but ends up on a cross-country journey with geneticist Dr. Alison Mann, whose work in cloning technology may or may not have something to do with “the plague”, and Secret Agent 355, who has been tasked by her superiors – whoever they may be – with protecting Yorick at all costs.  It’s entertainment, but it also asks a pretty big question: when everything changes – everything – which relationships do you keep, and which become unimportant?  Do you unify with your fellow woman simply because you are women?  Do you continue to serve the nation that no longer exists?  Gender, nationality, race, family – what of these things still matter?

The primary problem with the series has nothing to do with the writing, and is probably a common one among this genre: at $14 a pop, with 10 editions in all, these things are expensive, and libraries often don’t carry them.  But much like Lost, once you start, it’s over.  So get yourself a Barnes & Noble membership card or an Amazon Plus account.  You’ll be using it. 

LENGTH: It varies from edition to edition, but generally about 125-150 pages

MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Graphic novels are making their way into the general consciousness, but I wouldn’t call them mainstream.

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: Yes.  It’s a great introduction to an often misjudged genre. 

*Not because of the content, mind you, but because Vaughn was heavily involved in that almighty mind-suck, the TV show Lost.  Ah, Lost.  At the time it seemed like the most important thing in the world.  Now watching old episodes just reminds me of all those questions they never bothered to answer.  And I’m not even one of those that hated the final episode.  Yeah, the whole “walk into the light” thing was beyond stupid, but Vincent and Jack in the cane field was beautiful, and Sawyer and Juliet ended up together eventually, so who am I to complain.  Hmmmm, Sawyer.  BUT ANYWAY.

About a Boy

AUTHOR: Nick Hornsby
PUBLISHED: 1998
GENRE: Fiction

Round two of well-known, prolific writers that I've never read: Nick Hornsby.  He got picked because he also falls under that strange category of guy lit.  Hornsby has a knack for writing books that are later turned into good movies: "Fever Pitch", "High Fidelity", and this one,"About a Boy".  The movie version showcases Hugh Grant at his Hugh Grant-iest, which is to say full of quips and cadish and all, "by gum, I seem to have fallen in love".  Hugh Grant - at least public figure Hugh Grant - is kind of the same person as Will Freeman.

If you've seen the movie, you know the story: Will Freeman is an island, too cool for school, too rich for a job (due to his father's one musical hit, an obnoxious Christmas song).  Marcus is an incredible awkward 11-year old with a suicidal mother who even if the best of times thinks Joni Mitchell is completely normal listening for a pre-teen boy.  A strange series of events - including a dead duck, a fake son, and a new pair of sneakers - bring them all together.  Whether or not they stay friends or go their separate ways is a matter of debate.

The book and the movie follow very close paths, diverging only at towards the end - in the movie, Will accompanies Marcus on stage to sing Roberta Flack, but in the book, Will must accompany Marcus's mother to go get him from a police station and deal with Marcus's father.  Both situations work well.  The mood of both versions is very much the same - the same language, the same long paths of thought.  Book Marcus sounds and acts just like movie Marcus.  It's a testament to Hornby's writing that his works translate to both mediums. 

Now, this is guy lit worth reading.

LENGTH: 307 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Hugh Grant in the late '90s?  Definitely mainstream.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: Yes.  It's a rare case of a good book and a good movie.

SMACKDOWN: Krakauer v. Krakauer!

Here it is, for one day only!  Krakauer v. Krakauer!  Privileged white kids in Alaska v. obsessed mountain climbers in Tibet! It's the smackdown of the century!
Well, maybe not.  And it's not for one day only, either.  But it sounded good.
This the first in (hopefully) a series of podcasts about whatever book needs talkin' about.  Join me and my sound engineer, emcee, and dear papa Albert Martella as we discuss great literature.  This week, it's two of Jon Krakauer's more well-known books: "Into the Wild", the story of Chris McCandless, and "Into Thin Air", the tale of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster.  Enjoy!

The Ex-Boyfriend's Handbook

AUTHOR: Matt Dunn

PUBLISHED: 2010

GENRE: Fiction

As you may have noticed, my forays into the world of chick lit have not gone particularly well, so I figured I would try the other side: guy lit.  Before reading this, I had always thought of guy lit as, oh, I don’t know, Chuck Palahnuik.  But apparently there’s a whole counterculture to Bridget Jones’ Diary and Confessions of a Shopaholic.  Apparently, men want to read about love, too.*  Hey, there’s a market for Amish romance novels, so why not sappy guys in love?

Edward Middleton (no relation to the Duchess of Cambridge, as far as I know) is perfectly content just floating along in life, until the day he comes home to a cleaned-out apartment and a Dear John letter from his girlfriend of ten years, Jane.  But Jane hasn’t pulled the old “it’s not you, it’s me” card – she’s blatantly told Edward it’s him.  More specifically, it’s the way he’s let himself go and become a boring old man – so boring she had to go to Tibet for 3 months.  When she comes back, though, if he’s made a change… well, then just maybe, there will be hope for them.  So Edward, with the help of his metrosexual friend Dan, a trainer named Sam, and lots of money, sets out to make himself the man Jane will want.

Everything about this story is literal; there' no depth or subterfuge anywhere.  The people around Edward are nothing but stereotypes: Dan, the suave minor celebrity who beds a different woman every night and kicks then out every morning with no remorse; Wendy, the sassy bartender who’s always available to give a real woman’s opinion; and Samantha, the spunky personal trainer who doesn’t take any gruff.  Edward’s not all the much better himself – a portly, sad-sack 30-something who just wants his old life back.  Over time, he loses a little weight and gains a little self-respect, but that’s about it.

Dunn is another one that suffers from the impression that having his characters speak exactly like real people is a good idea.  It’s not.  It’s boring.  His idea of fleshing out an idea is to have one character not get it, so that the other character has to repeat it multiple times, which does nothing but make his characters seem extraordinarily dim-witted.  His word choice also leaves a lot to be desired.  In one dinner scene, he writes that Dan “speared a piece of chicken on his fork” (as opposed to on his spoon?) “and popped it in his mouth”.  It’s not grammatically wrong per se, but those two verbs don’t go together.  I spent the next 5 minutes trying to figure out the angle and speed at which he’d have to flick his fork to get the chicken piece to “pop” into his mouth.  That’s not what you want you reader to be focused on.  Unfortunately, it happens a lot.

Despite its label of “guy lit”, I cannot imagine a man wanting to read this book.  Even though it was written by a guy, it reads like it was written by a woman trying to emulate a man’s thinking.**  Worse than that, it doesn’t go anywhere.  I actually cared less about these characters on the last page than I did on the first.  At that point, it really doesn’t matter who’s writing for whom. 

LENGTH: 368 pages

MAINSTREAM OR NOT?: I really don’t see guy lit taking over the market like chick lit has.

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: No.  This story was about as deep as the paper it was printed on. 

*It does explain James Patterson and Sundays at Tiffany’s. 

**I know, I know.  I’m engaging in all sorts of gender stereotyping right now.  My sociology professor would be horrified.  Oh well. 

The Tsarina's Daughter

AUTHOR: Carolly Erickson
PUBLISHED: 2009
GENRE: Historical Fiction

Warning: Spoilers ahead!  If you don't want to know what happens... well, I was going to say skip to the end, but in the end I'll tell you not to read it, so it really doesn't matter much, does it?

When we were in high school, and I would drift off into my own little world, my awesome friend Jen would respond to the question, "what's up with her?" with this answer:

"She's recreating the Russian Revolution in her head."

The life and deaths of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, and 5 children has long been a obsession of mine, especially the stories of the 4 beautiful girls: Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and the infamous Anastasia, long believed by many to have survived the massacre of her family.  For a long time, Robert Massie and I were very close friends.* I still have Anastasia, the 1956 classic starring Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner, on VHS.  So when I saw a fairly new novel about Tatiana, the second of Romanov daughters, I was all over it.  Unfortunately, Erickson doesn't seem to know what to do with the history she's been given.

Erickson's story is a what-if tale: what if a young grand duchess, long sheltered from the world, makes friends with a poor factory girl and becomes immersed in the poverty outside the palace walls?  And what if that girl somehow escapes the tragic fate of her family?  It's an interesting concept, and I have no problem with fiction that strays from the actual history.  If I did, I'd still be reading Massie instead of this.  But Erickson is so anxious to tell her story that she shoehorns the history into the story, making it seem out-of-place.  When Alexis, the heir to the throne is born, he is alive for only a few pages when Tatiana tells the reader that he has hemophilia, the bleeding disease that inflicted the inbred royal families of Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  There's no build up, no episode that introduces the disease, just he has it.  I half-expected her to give a genetic breakdown of it - "Alexia had clotting factor VIII deficiency, the most common form".** It's all very awkward, and it happens over and over.

Erickson makes her characters very unsympathetic - Nicholas is a whiny drunk, and Alexandra is disturbed.  For all her claims that she will protect her mother at all costs, Tatiana does little to aid her sick mother, and in fact seems to spend virtually no time with her.  Tatiana is too busy running around the streets of St. Petersburg unattended, or hanging out with Daria, the revolutionary living in the attic.  (Daria is the sister of one of Tatiana's maids, and is brought to work at the palace after she loses her job and her fiance.  But she also hates the royal family and actively campaigns for their overthrow.  And yet Tatiana lets her stay?  It doesn't make any sense until the end when Daria takes Tatiana's place and is killed along with the royal family.  And even then it doesn't really make sense.)

The basic premise is not a bad idea, but instead of working with what she was given, Erickson writes out her tale and then adds in bits and pieces of history when it's all over.  It would have been better for her to start with her own characters and let them act as they naturally would.

LENGTH: 352 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: No.  It's historical fiction meets romance novel.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: No.  She tried to force her story in where it didn't fit, and it's obvious.

*Robert Massie wrote a number of books about the Romanovs, including Nicholas and Alexandra and The Romanovs: The Final Chapter.
**I wrote a paper on the disease in a science class in college.  It was supposed to be about the genetics of hemophilia but turned into a dissertation on how the disease affected the fall of Europe's monarchies, which is how a history major deals with her 3 required science credits.