Pompeii
Robert Harris
Random House
November 2003
245 pp
Hardcover
$24.95

A review by David Flood

Always. In horror pictures, the hero escapes the haunted house within an inch of his life, only to return to the deathtrap to save the heroine. "No, don’t go back in! You fool!" you yell, but it’s too late, back he goes, only to face more peril. Robert Harris’ latest novel, Pompeii is no exception. It’s 79 A.D., Mount Vesuvius blows with a power "100,000 times that of the atomic bomb," brown skies release dry pumice like hail and young Marcus Attilius Primus narrowly escapes, only to return to the hellfire of Pompeii to save Corelia, our heroine.

British Author Robert Harris, however, is no fool. A Cambridge University graduate and Political Editor of the Observer, he’s got eight books under his belt, three of which are fiction – Fatherland, Enigma and Archangel. All three have sold millions worldwide and have been translated into more than 30 languages. All his novels strive to illuminate history through page-turning suspense.

Now with Pompeii, Harris has found an explosive opportunity to animate this juncture in history, capitalizing on sophisticated Roman politics, extravagant public baths, gross disparities of the upper and slave classes and the co-existence of Greek mythology and early science.

The novel’s initial hook is the dying of an expensive delicacy: eels. An innocent slave is blamed for deaths and fed to the eels to the delight of the slave-owner. A theme of intelligence and cruelty is drawn. Soon, Marcus Attilius, the aqueduct engineer, is summoned by the beautiful Corelias to help solve the mystery of dying eels. Attilius discovers a scent of sulfur in the water, an ominous sign. He travels to Misenum to plead with the scholarly Admiral Pliny to get supplies and sail to Pompeii to fix the aqueduct. The fact that our hero is an engineer is a convenient opportunity to describe the elaborate water systems of 79 A.D. Harris writes:

The great Roman roads went crashing through Nature in a straight line, brooking no opposition. But the aqueducts, which had to drop the width of a finger every hundred yards—any more and the flow would rupture the walls, any less and the water would lie stagnant …

Meticulous research backs a combination of conventional fiction genres—mystery, romance, thriller and suspense. The novel is carefully divided into Roman time over a brisk four days: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus. Mount Vesuvius errupts by the third day, which almost seems late in the novel, but allows for enough building of tension and character to make the blast not only a cinematic spectacle (Hollywood take notice), but one which buries communities we have come to know.

Although many events take place in this short period, the story does not feel crammed and manages to keep the reader wondering until the very last sentence.

The opening quotes create a parallel between the power of the United States with that of ancient Rome. The fact that Mount Rainier is within eye-range of most of us in Puget Sound, I found this book a haunting reminder of what COULD happen. (His lucid descriptions of the blowing volcano worked their way in to my dreams). Bottom line: Harris has not only provided a chilling reminder of what happened in ancient Pompeii, but what happens between civilization and the awesome forces of nature.

As Cool as I Am
Pete Fromm
Picador
October 1, 2003
400 pp
$23.00
Hardcover

A review by David Flood

The setting is Great Falls, Montana. The time is the present. The story is the coming-of-age of a 14-year-old tomboy in a family that’s coming apart.

The tomboy’s name is Lucy Diamond who, despite her boyish buzz-cut, now cuts figure as alluring as her mother’s. Lucy’s newfound "breasts" force a paradigm shift as complex as a jungle gym, causing all concerned—schoolyard chums, bullies, mom, dad--to reposition. And with sexual discovery comes pain, a pain as destructive and grand as Great Falls itself.

Pete Fromm won Pacific Northwest Booksellers awards for three of his earlier books; his one other novel is entitled, "How All This Started." He lives with his family in Great Falls, Montana.

What makes "Cool" unique is that the entire novel is written from the perspective of a teenage girl. Fromm colors the novel’s language with an inventive "teenage-speak" marked by terms such as "gross" and "loogies" and "swingy." Descriptions are as spare and sassy as Lucy’s buzz-cut. My only complaint is that the prose can be too spare, leaving out a fuller sense of environment, namely the vast beauty of the Montana landscape. Also, I stopped counting the overuse of the phrase, "I chewed my lip."

Among Fromm’s strengths is his personification of Lucy. Although a bit too wise for her age at times, one comes to believe in the reality of this person and one cares about her destiny. Plus, this novel packs an emotional punch that sneaks up from behind. An especially powerful scene is when, in the midst of struggle and pain with a failing marriage, the mother brings Lucy to the very spot she was conceived. Fromm pulls this off with unsentimental deft and economy.

A pivotal statement for the novel is Lucy’s observation of "screwing" as having two meanings: sex and messing up. The sentiment is reflected throughout the novel like light through a diamond. Likewise, Fromm creates an engrossing coming-of-age saga that cuts to the essence and shines.

Vancouver
David Cruise and Alison Griffiths
HarperCollins
Publishes August 1, 2003
$29.95
Hardback
749 pages

A review by David Flood

Vancouver is an epic novel in the Michener tradition: lengthy in size at 768 pages, spanning almost 16,000 years, and featuring a host of characters — First Nations people called the "Kahnamut" (a made-up name), Chinese immigrants, German prospectors, Sikh military defectors, Scottish fur traders, even penny-stock promoters. All strut their hour upon the grand Vancouver stage.

An ambitious undertaking, the work is broken into 12 stories, short novellas if you will, each titled with the names of protagonists, such as Gistula or Soon Chong. These main characters are sometimes connected by bloodline, by association or by "green tears" (smooth beads of stone handed down from generation to generation). The novel is framed with with two different forms storytelling, beginning with a creation story as told by Tall Man during the ice age and ending with a present day movie shoot starring a "corporate" Indian in Vancouver’s Stanley Park.

Canadian authors David Cruise and Alison Griffiths, a man-and-wife team, researched and wrote Vancouver in a brisk three years. They have produced six best-selling non-fiction books in Canada, ranging from adventurous historical dramas to investigative exposés. Vancouver is their first sojourn into fiction.

As gargantuan as this novel purports to be, the real question is: will it interest non-Canadians? And despite the fact that this is written by two well-known authors in Canada, do we in the States give a Mountie’s horsetail?

In a word, yes, and I’ll tell you why.

Vancouver and the American West Coast have a common history: native Indian roots, gold rushes, transcontinental railroads, the influx of European and Asian immigrants, clashes with tribes, the conquest of nature. And the novel is not just limited to the circumference of Vancouver, but spills over into California, Washington, Alaska as well as England, Germany, China and others. And when anti-American sentiment or local "color" comes through, it becomes all the more interesting.

And if you believe this book is pedantic, think again. Cruise and Griffiths can write stories with dirt-clad vigor and emotional depth. Although you can learn plenty of history from this novel, the authors manage to telescope character and scene effectively, transporting the reader like a twig down the Fraser River.

Take the story of Gistula. She gets her fingers chopped off by her raging father, keeper of the sacred green tears, as she attempts to enter his canoe. Pregnant with the chief’s seed, pawned off as a potlatch gift, she is tragically left to drown. She later wakes upon a distant shore to find a gift from her father: green tears. She gives birth to a new nation of people, the Kahnamut, in the land later known as Vancouver.

Another hero is Warburton Pike who takes the stage 1600 year later. Inspired by a real person with the same name "Pike," Warburton is a gentleman immigrant from Aldershot, England who voyages to Vancouver and eventually amasses a fortune. He sweatlodges with local tribes and discovers a strange purpose: to collect Indian children taken as slaves by the whites.

Fast forward to the present day story of Ellie Nesbut, a distant descendent of the Kahnamut, who is trapped in urban squalor. She takes a job as an extra in a feature film starring a "corporate" Indian. An earthquake stops the movie shoot and out pops the green tears in a carefully crafted box. The legacy is now in her hands and the endowment of Warburton Pike may help empower her to go to college and, perhaps, reclaim Indian ownership of Stanley Park.

Overall, the story of Vancouver is many stories, or many lives, layered to produce a satisfying complexity. To their credit, Cruise and Griffiths create an anti-pastoral and three-dimensional exploration of the Indian and immigrant experience. I quarreled a bit with the fantastic and ironic finale, where an earthquake in Stanley Park opens up an important symbol in the novel. But then again, this is a work of fiction and a grand climax is in order. Keep this on your nightstand for a time. You’ll never look at Vancouver, or the Northwest for that matter, quite the same way again.

The Newsboys' Lodging-House:
Or the Confessions of William James
Jon Boorstin
Viking
$24.95

A review by David Flood


After graduating from Harvard Medical School, William James was institutionalized for depression. He was said to be conflicted between the medical determinism of his scientific training and his father's mystical experiences. (James' father was a friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson.) He cut out 42 pages of his journal — a crucial period when he clarified his purpose in life — overcame his depression and went on to become one of the foremost thinkers in psychology.

A century later, Jon Boorstin, also educated at Harvard, attempts to fill in the 42 missing pages of James' journal, creating his own imaginative spin in an eloquent, edifying historical novel.

"The Newsboys' Lodging-House: Or the Confessions of William James" by Jon Boorstin Viking, $24.95

Boorstin, who began his career in film, was an associate producer for "All the President's Men" and author of "Making Movies Work." "The Newsboys' Lodging-House" is dedicated to his father, historian Daniel Boorstin.

The novel opens with James in a mental institution contemplating suicide. With nothing left to lose, he decides to leave his pampered life in favor of living in New York's worst district, among the most "oppressed" youths in the city: the Newsboys' Lodging-House.

In Boorstin's imagining, James writes: "If some ineffable force propelled our species toward a better world, then I should find it working its mysterious ways upon these boys."

Influenced by the writings of Horatio Alger, James grows through adversity, making the hard choices that, perhaps, became the foundation of his essays on free will.

Boorstin populates 1870 New York with some famous denizens, including Horatio Alger, author of the best seller, "Ragged Dick," and Madame Restell, an abortionist who was vilified in the newspapers. Alger is often credited with inventing the "strive and succeed" spirit that inspired boys to work hard and attain the American Dream.

To Boorstin's credit, he manages to sustain a rarified 19th-century prose style not many writers can pull off. The music of the novel swings between two key signatures: a personal omniscience and a third-person omniscience.

The shift can interrupt the flow of the novel at times, but the rich language and lively atmosphere of old New York make the occasional stops worth the journey. "Lodging-House" is a credit to the works of William James and Horatio Alger and illuminates an important juncture in American life and thought.

Translated from the French, "A Cleaning Woman" was a best seller in France and has been made into a feature film by producer/director Claude Berri. Oster received the prestigious Prix Medicis in 1999 for his novel, "My Big Apartment." He has written eight novels.

"A Cleaning Woman" is a neat, tidy excursion into a tranquil madness. Jacques, a 50-year-old man, falls for a cleaning woman half his age. Crossing the lines of class and age, Oster narrates the attraction with a concise, deadpan air. He takes a dust-dry approach to a ridiculous courtship between two people who have nothing in common except an aversion to dirt.

Underneath Jacques' cerebral civility lies a deep-seated grief. Having recently lost his girlfriend Constance, he is heartbroken. Like a 50-year-old Charlie Brown, he suffers from low self-esteem and the dull ache of self-pity.

But the hiring of Laura, "expressive from the rear," rekindles a desire in Jacques. Like him, she hides her own pain, the pain of a dying mother and bad boyfriend. Jacques has nothing left to gain or lose by falling for this cleaning woman, and fall he does. The movement toward consummation is not "willed" necessarily but by force of gravity. They are two rocks tumbling down a gentle slope. Refusing to talk about real feelings, this "falling" takes the two to the edge of the ocean ... and their sanity.

This novel is a brief 197 pages, deceptively simple and visual enough for easy film adaptation (ka-ching!). Oster's writing is digested easily, monologue-driven and often punctuated by one- or two-word sentences. The tone? Dry as dust.

"A Cleaning Woman" will be most appreciated by men facing a midlife crisis. Admittedly, the sustained deadpan did not make me laugh out loud or even smile. Humor does not always export well. But Oster's prose is powered with a terse quality with enough emotional depth to make this a brisk, enjoyable read.

Lou Arrendale loved patterns. He saw them everywhere: in parking lots, star systems, organic chemistry books. He held a job working with computations, loved classic music and mastered the art of fencing. He had one "flaw," however, he was autistic.

Science fiction author Elizabeth Moon, nominated for a Hugo award for a previous novel,"Remnant Population," draws upon her own experience in raising an autistic teenager to create a powerful portrait of a gifted, autistic man in his 40s.

Set in the near future when many diseases are eradicated at birth and a cure for autism is on the horizon, Lou is faced with a decision: does he risk it all for an experimental treatment which could make him "normal?" And what is normal?

Written primarily in first person, we are placed into the prism of Lou Arrendale’s mind as he moves through a quasi-normal life. Despite his gift for recognizing complex patterns, Lou is painfully aware of his faults. Since youth, he has been trained to overcome many of them, blending as best he can into the world of the "normals."

His real troubles begin when he falls for a fencing partner, Marjory, a so-called "normal." Behind the fencing mask, he spars with fluency and grace; away from fencing, his confidence falters. Despite his rich, internal world, he is no longer content.

Meanwhile, back at the office, his new supervisor Mr. Crenshaw, a retired colonel (?), has it out for the pampered "auties" who, despite having one of the most productive departments in the pharmaceutical company, also take "trampoline" breaks in a private gym. Bent on saving the company money, Crenshaw threatens them with an illegal proposition: either they take an experimental cure that "might" cure their autism or else lose their job.

Shades of "Flowers for Algernon," the literary device of the "cure," allows Moon to pontificate on the nature of self, and what society defines as normal.

The novel works on many levels: as a fresh view of reality from the eyes of an autistic man, the prejudices of being disabled in a work environment, a "who-done-it" mystery and a serious probe into experimental clinical treatments. Of particular note is in the authenticity of Lou’s "voice." She captures the rich, internal monologues and later a stomach-dropping transition into a collapsed, dementia (no, I’m not giving away the ending).

"The Speed of Dark" is a fast read, a fruitful foothold into the world of autism, and an insightful look into the dark edges that define the "self. I’ll argue that the novel’s ending ties up the package a bit too neatly, belying the more authentic, organic contents. What I found most gratifying, however, is Moon beautifully illustrates how those who are "different" are also the same, magnifying traits in our own being that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Wonderful Tricks
Gregory Spatz
Mid-List Press
Publication Date: September 2002
246 pp
Paperback
$15.00

A review by David Flood

In this magical collection of 10 stories, "Wonderful Tricks" shines a light on the holographic nature of relationships and all their hard-edged fragments, giving the reader a pleasing whole that lingers long after the book is closed.

Winner of the First Series award for Short Fiction, the stories appeared in publications ranging from "The New Yorker" to "Glimmer Train Stories." Author Gregory Spatz attended The University of Iowa Writers Workshop and currently lives in Spokane where he is the director-elect of the MFA program at Eastern Washington University. Also worthy of note, he is a bluegrass violist whose latest CD, "John Reichman: The Jaybirds," was released by Corvus Records this year.

Although Spatz’s fiddling is melodic and upbeat, his prose is hauntingly atonal, single-noted, like Barok or Satie, with bright notes that surprise.

Take the first story, "Paradise was This," about a 12-year-old who practices card tricks on his recently widowed grandmother to lift her spirits. "Magic is change, but the world doesn’t change," rationalizes the boy who must let go of his family farm -- and his youth. The story builds toward a startling final sentence that moved me to tears.

Spatz’s virtuosity continues with "Lisa Picking Cockles," a story that paints a portrait of love – or lack thereof – between a famous abstract artist and his son. The father is able to project his enigmatic perspective onto canvas, but is unable to grasp the perspectives of others, such as his ex-wife and her "system of ideas." The son attempts to care for and understand the father, as the mother once tried to do, but the father tragically withdraws into his art.

Another story, "Zigzag Cabinet," (named after the magician’s illusion where a woman is sliced in half) dissects and re-assembles a man’s relationships with the musicians he has loved. With striking parallels between sex and music, one relationship resonates with the memory of another like overlapping themes in a life-long symphony.

Right down to the sentence level, Gregory Spatz successfully magnifies the realities and illusions of relationships in carefully crafted prose that satisfies.

In the Image
Dara Horn
W.W. Norton & Company
Publication Date: September, 2002
$24.95 (Can. $35.99)
288 Pages

A Review by David Flood

Somewhere between interning for "Newsweek" and "Time" and becoming a comparative literature candidate at Harvard University, Dara Horn has managed to squeeze in a powerful first novel.

In prose that flows like water, Horn tells the spiritual odyssey and coming-of-age story of Leora, a bright New Jersey woman of Jewish decent. Devastated by the death of a high school friend, Leora becomes emotionally and spiritually distant to life. She crosses paths with the grandfather of the best friend, Jim Landsman, also devastated by his granddaughter’s death. Both had become "tourists of their own lives."

The primary story follows Leora from high school through college to career to engagement. Her life seems "separated" as in the panels of a dollhouse. Although career seems to come easily to this protagonist, finding the right man is the biggest challenge. Her high school soccer boyfriend breaks off with her and later becomes a Hasidic Jew. Leora later moves on to a Spinoza scholar who opens her eyes to romance and religious possibility. He tells her: "The times when people really do interact with God are those times when life doesn’t work out fairly, and that’s when people can really feel God’s presence in the world."

As Leora’s search explores Jewish identity in modern America, a look into Jim Landsman’s ancestry is an opportunity to explore Jewish history and religion. Page by page, Horn turns the screw on white-haired Jim Landsman, revealing a suffering akin to the Book of Job. In fact, Job is rewritten into an innovative and moving chapter called, "The Book of Hurricane Job."

At age 24, Dara Horn writes with a sure hand and a keen eye for historic detail. A lively, compelling read, "In the Image" not only underscores Jewish identity in America, but more universally, gives suffering meaning and, in the end, hope.

Life of Pi

Yann Martel
Harcourt
Publication Date: June 2002
Hardcover, $25.00
336 Pages

Review by David Flood

Did you hear the one about the 450-pound Bengal Tiger that got away?

With prose as pristine as the tropical waters he writes about,
Canadian author Yann Martel sets up a survivalist chess game between a
pious Indian boy named Pi and a Royal Bengel Tiger named Richard
Parker - both adrift in the Pacific Ocean. Shipwrecked while
transporting a menagerie of zoo animals, the two co-exist in a raft no
longer than 26 feet. As Pi says, "To be a castaway is to be a point
perpetually at the center of a circle."

Pi's identification with circles began with school. Taking the first
two letters of his first name, Piscine Molitor Patel draws a large
circle on the chalk board, then for good measure, adds ¹ = 3.14. He
writes: "In that illusive, irrational number with which scientists try
to understand the universe, I found refuge."

Pi's circle soon expands into the realm of interspecies and a
phenomenon called "zoomorphism," defined as when an animal takes a
human being or another animal to be one of its kind. Martel gives the
example of a whip-snapping lion tamer who must enter the ring first to
show dominance. "The lion doesn't care to know their leader is a
'weakling human.'"

Yet, through 227 days of sun, storm and squall, 16-year-old Pi must
conquer his own fears and match wits with the Jupiter-headed Richard
Parker.

Each chapter is a well-polished pearl. Points are not obscured, but
shine like aqua skies after the stabbing dots of colons. After the
first 93 pages of Pi's education as a zookeeper's son, the story moves
from religious devotion to a mind in motion, an exhilarating story of
gut survival, of strange islands with people-eating trees and flying
fish that appear like manna.

For all survivalists, escapists and thinkers alike, losing yourself in
this novel is virtually guaranteed, or if anything, it will put all
the tropical colors of the sea into your soul.