The Paris Wife – Review
Posted on: March 25, 2011
By Paula Mclain
The strikingly attractive cover of “The Paris Wife” depicts a glamorous, poised-looking woman perched in a Paris cafe. She wears a belted, tailored dress reminiscent of the late 1940s or early 1950s. Her face cannot be seen, but her posture radiates confidence and freedom. The picture is interesting because it has absolutely nothing to do with the book it is selling.
The heroine of “The Paris Wife” is Hadley Richardson, the athletic, sturdily built, admittedly unfashionable homebody who married Ernest Hemingway in 1921. They were divorced in 1927. Hadley was, by all accounts including this one, a very fine and decent person, but she was the starter wife of a man who wound up treating her terribly. Had she not married him, no novelist would be telling her story.
But Paula McLain has built “The Paris Wife” around Hadley. Or at least she has planted Hadley in the midst of a lot of famous, ambitious people. The advantage to this technique is that it allows the reader to rub shoulders and bend elbows with celebrated literary types: the stay-at-home way of feeling like the soigné figure on the book cover. The drawback is that Ms. McLain’s Hadley, when not in big-league company that overshadows her, isn’t a subtly drawn character. She’s thick, and not just in physique. She’s slow on the uptake, and she can be a stodgy bore.
“Why couldn’t I be happy?” she asks herself at the start of the novel. “And just what was happiness anyway?” She has just met the younger Hemingway at a party in Chicago in 1920; she herself wasn’t all that young during their courtship. “I was 29, feeling almost obsolete, but Ernest was 21 and white hot with life,” she confides. “What was I thinking?” (Come on. We know what she was thinking.) And: “He was a light-footed lad on a Grecian urn chasing truth and beauty. Where did I fit in exactly?”
“The Paris Wife” raises fewer questions about Hadley’s thinking than it does about Ms. McLain’s. This novel draws heavily on research, but it does so in confounding ways. When Hadley describes writing a letter to her sweetheart, for instance, is the book paraphrasing a real letter? Let’s hope so, because if not, she is just being dull. “I made my reply last all day, putting things down as they happened,” Hadley says, “wanting to be sure he could picture me moving from room to room, practicing the piano, sitting down to a perfect cup of ginger tea with my friend Alice Hunt, watching our gardener prune the rosebushes and swaddle them in burlap for winter.”
Hadley’s real voice, at least as quoted in Hemingway’s Paris memoir, “A Moveable Feast,” isn’t dissimilar to Ms. McLain’s version. But in the context of his writing she sounds much livelier. Historically, Hemingway used his first wife as a sounding board as he framed his own ideas. He also invoked her with wit, selectivity and care.
The first third of the “The Paris Wife” is its most cliché-ridden. (“Did you ever think it could be like this?” “I can do anything if I have you with me.”) And it moves ploddingly. (“Grace had me pinned in the parlor, talking about the superiority of European lace, while Dr. Hemingway hovered with a plate of cheeses and beets he’d preserved himself, from his garden in Walloon Lake.”) For the reader’s purposes, these two can’t get to Paris fast enough. They go there from Chicago after the playwright Sherwood Anderson recommends the change of scenery. “Everything’s interesting and everyone has something to contribute,” he says. “Paris, Hem. Give it some thought.”
Once the couple gets to Paris, the book’s real name dropping begins. Along come Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce. And their great works become topics of stilted banter. Here is Ms. McLain’s version of lifelike chat: “ ‘Everyone says “Ulysses” is great,’ Ernest said. ‘I’ve read a few serialized chapters. It’s not what I’m used to, but you know, something important is happening in it just the same.’ ” As for Hadley, she doesn’t add much to these conversations, but she replays them for the reader. And she is very polite: “I spooned up my delicious soup as quietly as a mouse.” “The Paris Wife” turns into a bizarre pastiche when Ms. McLain begins borrowing and repurposing familiar voices. Hadley walks by the Île St.-Louis, goes down to the Seine, watches the fishermen and eats fried goujon — just as Hemingway did in his essay “People of the Seine.” Zelda Fitzgerald paraphrases Daisy Buchanan’s dialogue from “The Great Gatsby.” The noisy, real-life models for characters in “The Sun Also Rises” suddenly drop into the story en masse. And Hadley learns to talk more like her husband. She begins using simple declarative sentences. In the end he says Hadley is “everything good and straight and fine and true.” She says he is “fine and strong and weak and cruel.”
Throughout the book Ms. McLain relies on clumsy foreshadowing, to the point where Hadley can spy a “delicious-looking” baby, then find out on the very next page that she is pregnant. Once the Hemingways’ son is born Hadley’s situation rapidly becomes untenable. Hard-partying bohemian expatriates don’t much like babies. And they don’t like fidelity either. After Hadley makes the dreadful gaffe of losing the valise that held all of Hemingway’s early work, the great man thinks he has an excuse to be angry. His mind and body begin to wander.
At this point Pauline Pfeiffer worms her way into the novel so boldly that even Hadley senses trouble. Pauline, who is as chic as Hadley is frumpy, makes herself an instant fixture in the Hemingway household. She wildly flatters Hemingway about his writing. She gives Hadley the alarming pet name “Dulla,” and then insists on becoming Hadley’s closest chum. She borrows Hadley’s slippers, merrily saying, “You won’t be able to pry them off me.” In a feat of world-class back stabbing she crusades secretly to become Hemingway’s next wife (the second of four).
Was this changing of the guard an end for Hemingway? Or was it a new beginning? Get ready for abundant debate on issues raised by “The Paris Wife,” because what it lacks in style is made up for in staying power. This is a work of literary tourism that expertly flatters its reader. It invokes an artist-packed Paris where “nearly anyone might feel like a painter.” It keeps Hadley so trusting and good-hearted that it’s impossible for the reader not to spot trouble, i.e., get smart before she does. And it heats up a blaze of righteous indignation on her behalf.
Oh, Hadley, you could have been such a fine helpmate to that man if he hadn’t been such a louse. Isn’t it pretty to think so?
Review by Janet Maslin
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
By Stieg Larsson
I just finished reading the final novel in Stieg Larsson’s  Millennium Trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. The book brings to a close the events surrounding the first two novels, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Play With Fire.
If you haven’t read Larsson’s first two novels, then you might want to skip this review and read them first. On the other hand, my review is fairly vague and I don’t give away spoilers (except maybe how the novel ends). My goal with this review is not to rehash the plot, rather, I just want to share my general thoughts about how the novel is written and why or why not it was written well.
First, the big thing that disappointed me with this novel was that the plot became overly complicated. Unlike Larsson’s first book in the series, which had a simple-but-enjoyable plot, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest quickly became bogged down with so many characters that my head was spinning trying to keep track of them all. This was made worse, no doubt, by the long Swedish names that all seemed to sound the same.
The plot had a lot of twists and turns, making it hard to keep all the events straight and to connect them together. On many occasions I had to go back and refer to a specific scene so I could make sense of what was happening.
I also found that the book came to a grinding halt with long-winded narratives providing background information about specific characters or events. On a few occasions, I merely skimmed the pages so I could move on with the story.
It’s hard to say how much of this narrative was actually needed. There’s a very fine line between giving just the right amount of back-story, and giving so much that it takes away from the novel’s main focus. I think Larsson crossed that line here, if only by a little.
However, my biggest complaint was that this last novel in the Millennium trilogy didn’t focus on the two main characters enough, Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. Yes, the plot revolved around them, but much of the narrative focused too much on the other characters and the events surrounding Salander and Blomkvist. The most enjoyable parts of the novel were the scenes with those two characters.
In reading the The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo I came to love reading about Blomkvist’s erratic work habits and the way he throws himself head-first into whatever mess he has himself in. And Lisbeth Salander is such an eccentric character, that one can’t help hanging on to her every word and every move. I simply did not get my Blomkvist and Salander “fix” in the third novel.
Perhaps this novel’s one saving grace was the ending. I’m a stickler for good endings (in both books and movies). So I was pleasantly surprised how Larsson wrapped everything up and resolved the plot in an exciting way that did not feel forced or contrived. The ending vindicated Lisbeth Salander in a big way. And a last minute plot twist kept the pages turning until the very end.
Surprisingly, Larsson ended the Hornet’s Nest novel in such a way that it not only resolved the story, but he left the characters ripe for a fourth book in the series. Sadly, because of Larsson’s untimely death in 2004, I’m not sure if we’ll see a fourth novel.
At the time of Larsson’s died, he had about three quarters of a forth novel on his computer. Whether or not he left enough material behind for the novel to be finished and published remains to be seen. Larsson’s website says that he outlined a total of ten books for this series!
Now comes the big question: Would I recommend this book? The short answer is, despite all its misgivings, yes I would recommend it. The longer answer is that if you have read the first two books, then you pretty much have to read the third novel. I can’t imagine finishing the second book and not wanting to see what happens next.
Review by Brad’s Reader
BUY The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest NOW!
Love You More – Review
Posted on: March 25, 2011
By Lisa Gardner
In Lisa Gardner’s “Love You More,” police detective D.D. Warren has issues in her private life and tries to keep them away from her professional career.
She receives a call and heads to the home of another female officer. The crime scene reveals what appears to be an open-and-shut case of spousal abuse and a woman defending herself.
Were there warning signs that could have prevented this tragedy?
As Warren investigates further, holes start appearing in the story. Those who knew the husband swear he never would have hit anyone. Also, the female officer was involved in another shooting in self-defense years earlier.
And there is the question of a missing 6-year-old girl.
Warren and her colleagues must put aside bias and uncover secrets that, once revealed, might result in other deaths.
Gardner has a knack for tackling uncomfortable subjects mixed with compelling characters and a taut story line. She constructs an emotional rollercoaster that few can emulate.
She won the 2010 International Thriller Writers’ best hardcover novel of the year award for “The Neighbor.”
“Love You More” proves it wasn’t a fluke.
Gardner continues to be at the top of the genre with this gut-wrenching look at what lies beneath the seemingly happy life of a typical couple in suburbia.
Review by Jeff Ayers
Live Wire – Review
Posted on: March 25, 2011
By Harlan Coben
Harlan Coben – a master of the page-turner crime novel – introduced sports agent and private eye Myron Bolitar in 1995 in Deal Breaker.
Sixteen years and nine books later, Myron stars in one of Coben’s most exciting and multidimensional tales yet. In Live Wire, Myron tackles a case that not only involves some troublesome clients but also whose tentacles threaten his own family.
Former tennis star Suzze T arrives at Myron’s office eight months pregnant and distressed. An anonymous posting on Facebook claims that the baby is not that of her rock-star husband, Lex Ryder. Suzze T swears it is.
Myron later runs into his brother’s wife, another former tennis star, who’s looking to score some cocaine. Kitty and her lifestyle caused a rift between Myron and his brother, Brad, and their parents. The last Myron knew, Kitty and Brad were living out of the county, and now, Brad can’t be found.
Meanwhile, Lex’s musical partner, the legendary but elusive Gabriel Wire, appears to be drawing underage girls to his fortresslike mansion, where all the plot threads will merge in an explosive climax. Any physical confrontation, of course, will involve Myron’s longtime friend and strong arm – the dapper and independently wealthy Windsor Horne Lockwood III (Win).
Live Wire‘s plot is its best asset – a weaving of various threads that all revolve around the theme of family. Those who have followed Myron in the previous novels ( Darkest Fear, Long Lost, Promise Me, among others) will learn much more about the star athlete turned crime fighter. The scenes involving Myron’s parents are touching and ring true.
But Coben sometimes has a tendency to overwrite and write cute – especially in scenes involving Win and his Asian girlfriends, Yu and Mee. (“It’s Mee time. … Sometimes I just want to make love to Mee. … Between Yu and Mee …”)
Page-turning has double meaning in this novel: Skip the innuendo and bravado, and focus on the action and the Bolitar family. There lies a gripping tale.
Review by Nancy Gilson
Water For Elephants – Review
Posted on: March 25, 2011
by Sara Gruen
Sara Gruen mines fertile territory in Water for Elephants: the chronic miseries of advancing old age and the terrible years of the Great Depression, when people wandered the country in search of work, their homes and failed business left behind.
As the novel begins, Jacob Jankowski is an old man in an assisted living home, his memories sparked by a nearby visiting circus and a creeping helplessness that assaults his aging body: “Age is a terrible thief. Just when you think you’re getting the hang of it, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back.”
As he falls into fitful dreams, the past emerges. Stripped of everything after his parents’ untimely death, the twenty-three-year-old fails to sit for his veterinary exams at Cornell, grief-stricken and robbed of home and future, the country bartering in goods instead of money.
Hopping a circus train in the dead of night that by belongs to The Flying Squadron of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, Jacob hires on to care for the show’s menagerie, his advanced training in veterinary medicine a ticket into this bizarre world. Uncle Al, Benzini Brothers circus owner-by-default, is a ruthless businessman who cares only for his reputation, engaged in a quest for fame to rival the great Ringling Brothers.
Star performer Marlena, an equestrienne, adores her animals and is quick to notice Jacob but circumspect in her actions. Her mercurial husband, the trainer August, is obsessively jealous and given to unspeakable cruelties toward man and beast. Jacob does his best to protect the animals from their harsh existence, especially Rosie, an elephant purchased to replace Marlena’s lead horse.
Jacob is increasingly attached to Rosie, empathizing with her plight at August’s hands and helpless to change the situation. Because of his growing affection for Marlena, Jacob suffers August’s increasing affronts, caught in a cycle of inevitable violence, certain of a reckoning.
Related in the somber tones of the Depression, the novel addresses the hardscrabble and often unscrupulous practices of a traveling circus, the rowdy carnie atmosphere and the antiseptic corridors of the assisted living home, all viewed through Jacob’s perspective, as he rages helplessly against the decrepitude of old age and the secrets of the past: “In seventy years, I never told a blessed soul.”
In prose both poignant and infinitely tender, Jacob dwells in both worlds, revealing the wounds of the past and the sorrows of the present. In a devastating denouement, as inescapable as the indifferent world that turns a blind eye to the vagrants of the ‘30s, Jacob’s spirit retains the essence of his kind nature, a man who cannot be broken by circumstances. All is redeemed in a coup de grace that will leave the reader richer for having met this raggedy tribe of miscreants and lost souls.
Review by CurledUp.com
Saving Rachel – Review
Posted on: March 25, 2011
Saving Rachel (A Donovan Creed Crime Novel)
by John Locke
“A succession of snippets each leaving you addicted to more,” is how I’d describe the brilliant way John Locke tells his story in Saving Rachel. Just like the old Lay’s potato chip ad, “I bet you can’t eat just one,” I’d say, “I bet you can’t read just one.” Right from the get-go he creates a seductive, sensuous, and seriously entertaining storyline laid out like a storyboard of an action movie being created.
Sam Case is a smart, successful guy, with all of the attainments of wealth and power, including the one that gets him in trouble – the one between his legs. Sam tells the story, as everything happens is seen through his eyes. Quite cleverly, John Locke juxtaposes Sam from protagonist and narrator, to what’s known in grammar as an unreliable narrator; one who gives his own understanding of a story, instead of the explanation and interpretation the author wishes the audience to obtain. It’s like in the movies, when the main character turns to the camera and says something of conversational interest to the audience yet out of character pursuant to the plot. Groucho Marx, for example, was well known for using this technique to amplify his humor. So between watching Sam, seeing what Sam sees, hearing what Sam says, thinking what Sam thinks, and having the comic relief of Sam talking directly to the reader, Saving Rachel transcends ordinary storytelling into a class of genius, a stylishly fresh and energetic genre of writing. Frankly, its books like this that makes my job so enjoyable!
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” (Lord Acton, 1834-1902) Poor rich Sam having absolute power over his money making scheme has succumb to the seductive womanizing world we see so prevalent in our society nowadays. His wife or his mistress – who will it be? If only he could keep his hands on his keyboard and not his zipper his world wouldn’t have been tossed – beyond a rollercoaster – more like into wormholes – and he and Rachel could have lived happily ever after. John Locke tells the truth of how carnal thinking corrupts logic, from the male point of view. The book is a bit lopsided as being written from a man’s point of view, a definite “Guys version of life on Mars.” It is just about as sexy as you can get without springing for a bikini-less photo shoot off on some exotic tropical island and publishing the novel with a fold-out center glossy.
Saving Rachel is a quick witted 147 pages, beautifully hard bound with cover art of a sadly pensive person trapped in a glass cube. It is one of three books currently authored by John Locke. For those who are unfamiliar with Locke’s writing and history, this is a perfect way to introduce you to one of the most creative contemporary talents. I’m certainly now one of his fans for life. So go ahead, pick up this book and read a chapter. “I bet you can’t read just one!”
Reviewed by: Gary Sorkin
The Lincoln Lawyer: Book Review
Posted on: March 25, 2011
by Michael Connelly
Crime-fiction fans know Michael Connelly best for his high-octane series about Hieronymous (Harry) Bosch, an LAPD homicide detective with a streak of melancholy. The author’s demonstrated his versatility elsewhere as well, periodically stepping out with excellent stand-alone novels like “Chasing the Dime” and “Void Moon.”
“The Lincoln Lawyer” is a kind of hybrid: a stand-alone, but with a connection to Harry Bosch (and the potential to kick off a crackerjack series). It’s Connelly at the top of his game, with a plot as solid as cast iron and a crew of lively characters headed by a compelling narrator.
That would be Michael (Mickey) Haller, a Los Angeles criminal-defense attorney known as the Lincoln Lawyer. Mickey doesn’t have a real office; instead, he’s kitted out the back of his Lincoln Town Car (license plate NT GLTY) as a mobile command center. (One of Mickey’s clients works off his fee by acting as chauffeur.) Time in L.A. traffic can thus be usefully spent keeping clients out of jail via phone, fax, e-mail, what have you.
Mickey is a terrific character, funny and smart and interestingly flawed. He’s not too great a family man — he’s got two ex-wives and a daughter he doesn’t see much. On the other hand, they all love him; his second ex-wife even works for him as his case manager.
Mickey is good at what he does, but it’s not glamorous work. He’s not exactly a bottom feeder, though his clientele do tend to be folks like hookers and motorcycle gang members. And he’s got a soft spot for certain lowlifes, which means he does a lot of pro-bono work and isn’t exactly raking it in. So when a case involving a rich kid drops into his lap, Mickey’s eager to take it on.
Louis Roulet, a young and successful real-estate broker, is used to getting what he wants; that includes women, and he’s not averse to paying for their company. When the kid is arrested on charges of raping and nearly killing a high-class escort, a bail bondsman suggests that Mickey could help out.
At first it’s a dream job for Mickey. Louis is spoiled and arrogant, sure, but he also seems innocent. Not that the client’s guilt or non-guilt matters to Mickey; he’ll defend anybody who can pay, and Louis is paying top dollar.
But then things get interesting: The lawyer begins to suspect that Louis may, in fact, be guilty as sin. The plot kicks into high gear just as the trial begins, when one of Mickey’s colleagues is killed and the lawyer becomes the prime suspect.
Not much more can be revealed, except to say that Mickey is caught between a sharp rock and at least one very hard place. He has to rely on his own considerable wits and guts to navigate a way through, trying to save his skin and confronting some basic notions of good and evil.
In addition to its steamroller plot, “The Lincoln Lawyer” boasts plenty of lively anecdotes and smooth prose; a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Connelly knows a lot about nailing details, creating colorful characters and writing clear sentences. Icing on the cake: Mickey Haller is Harry Bosch’s half-brother. A book involving the two of them, rumor has it, is already in the works.
Review by Adam Woog
Heaven Is For Real – Review
Posted on: March 25, 2011
Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back
Todd Burpo
162 pages
Rating: A refreshing attempt, but somewhat offensive (6.5/10)
Personally, I believe in a higher power, but I do not subscribe to ideas from just one religion. Through reading and experiencing a compendium of different religions, I have collected pieces from each one, forming a figurative quilt of love and faith.
As someone who is interested in different interpretations of religion, Heaven is for Real immediately interested me. I took an unbiased approach to reading this work, temporarily accepting each idea presented in its text. After Colton, a four-year-old boy, endures a near-death-experience, he casually mentions to his father that he spent time in heaven. Colton’s father, a minister, gives his son a quizzical look, but decides to take an inquiry-based approach to the subject and he allows his son to proceed. Over time, we learn about the intricacies of heaven through the eyes of a four-year-old. Regardless of faith, the reader adopts a child’s perspective of the world, becoming a more astute observer of human nature and valuing the gift of life.
Colton’s father claims he decided to play the role of the student, never rearranging or subliminally hinting at concepts beyond Colton’s experiences before his visit to heaven. I tried, more than I can describe on this page, to swallow that concept. For the book, it makes Colton’s experiences more powerful and it reveals his father’s sense of supposed honor and self-discipline. If his father influenced his outlook on religion, Colton’s pure perspective would become tainted. I struggle to understand how a minister driven to impart his faith to the masses could resist shaping his son’s ideas, even if only making a slight adjustment or two.
Everything about this book intrigued me and gave me a sense of hope. Everything except one key concept: the narrator assumes Christianity to be the only worthwhile religion. After establishing Colton as an expert, the narrator describes several instances where Colton experiences a state of extreme panic. Essentially, this panic is over whether certain people accepted Jesus before they passed; if they did not, then they’re damned. Once again, I do not have trouble believing everything Colton described about heaven, but establishing the idea that other faiths are destined to be damned is an idea I will never adopt.
Religion gives us hope for the complexities of both life and death. Each religion presents ideas of brilliance and beauty; every religion overlaps, intertwines and reveals the interconnected nature of humanity. I added pieces of Colton’s experiences to my quilt, but I was forced to leave the majority of ideas for the next reader to ponder.
—Reviewed by Richard Vigdor
Buy Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back Now
Is It Really Any Good? 