Category: FG – Fiction General


Know My Name by Chanel Miller

December 7th, 2022 — 10:45pm

KNOW MY NAME by Chanel Miller

A young woman goes to a party on the Stanford University campus and gets drunk and passes out at the party. While unconscious she is sexually assaulted and raped in a nearby park. Two witnesses identify the guy who did it and there is eventually a trial.

The book gives us a graphic description and insight into the buildup to the courtroom scene, interactions with the district attorney, the story of the perpetrator, all the motions, appeals, background, etc. It is written with great insight, magnificent descriptions, and understandable emotions.

The book is a page turner as we go through the dramatic courtroom scenes, the cross examinations, the plan of the defense attorney, and the numerous characters. Because the author is skillful and insightful, we are able to relive her experience. From the waking up in the hospital, the police interrogations, the pretrial, the trial, cross examination, the witnesses, but most important she gives us a tremendous insight into her own emotions and gut feelings.

You don’t need to just have my recommendation. The book is already a best seller and has been receiving wide acclaim.

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The Personal Librarian

August 29th, 2022 — 11:57pm

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
****

This book is based on the life of a real woman in the early 1900s who became the executive assistant to the extremely wealthy JP Morgan and worked very closely with him in developing in what became the world famed Piermont Library and Museum in New York City. She traveled throughout the world on his behalf accumulating extremely valuable items in both their historical and artistic merit. The secret personal history of this woman and her struggles with her own identity and how she was perceived by the rich and famous in both the United States and throughout the world is the essence of this fascinating book. Although it has nothng to do with religion, one of us was reminded of the story of the Muranos or the “ Secret Jews “who lived in Spain in the 15th century and had to hide their Jewish identities in order to stand a chance prospering in that society . The collaboration of the two authors is a fascinating story itself which is discussed in the interesting epilogue to the book

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Red Island House by Andrea Lee

July 11th, 2021 — 6:10pm

Red Island House by Andrea Lee

A black American woman professor marries an Italian business man and they build a vacation hotel on an island off the coast of Madagascar Africa. They spend part of the year at this house where they entertain guests, vacationers, as well as family members. They develop a relationship with the staff of the Red Island House. The reader becomes acquainted with many of these people including the various activities that go on not only at the hotel but on the island. This includes prostitution of young girls with older men and a very busy night club scene.

Before I go further, I must admit that had I not been reading this book for a book club, I would have backed out and probably would not have finished the book. Not only did I find much of the plot not interesting and repetitive but I found the vocabulary annoying in that I did not know the meaning of various words and I had to tap my Kindle to bring up the meaning, although I might have guessed them by the context (I will give examples later on).

Basically, the book follows the two main protagonists husband Senna and wife Shay (for some reason I thought their names should have been switched) throughout their life time and while I might not identify with their life experience, I did appreciate how the aging process was depicted. In my opinion. Th e most emotionally moving part of the book was where Bertine, one of the senior staff who has known the owners for many years passes away. The impact on Shay and her reminisces was very well done .

I thought any reader of this review might find it interesting to see a sampling of the words I had to look up and how I probably could guess the meaning of some of them from the context:

Maputo- unbelievable Maputo moves
manioc – manioc patches
tsingy grin – tsingy grin at the sky
pinon-watching snow melt on a pinon
memsahib- how a proper memsahib does things
palimpsest- palimpsest of tribal conflicts
crepuscular- directed towards a crepuscular lost dimension of history
bourn – a bourn has been crossed
moraingy- prostitutes moraingy boxers
louche- from the louche life which he was torn
schusses – schusses of the truck
congeries – congeries of discolored huts
lapidary – lapidary prose style
gibe- a word used as a gibe
salegy – a popular salegy trio
vazaha – a vazaha can’t understand
lambas – a woman’s lambas like flag

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Deadly Ties by Aaron Ben-Shahar

June 23rd, 2020 — 1:53pm

Deadly Ties By Aaron Ben-Shahar

The author of this novel, Aaron Ben-Shahar is an Israeli attorney-at-law who has served in highly sensitive positions in the Israeli Secret Service. When I read his first novel, A Minister in a Box (see review), I could not help but believe that his description of mystery, intrigue, murder, secret agents, etc., must have been based on his own real experiences. Now once again, he has produced another novel which takes the reader behind the scenes of the Mossad, the Israeli highly secret intelligence agency as well as an Iranian comparable secret agency. It has an unbelievable plot, which is actually believable because it rings true.

The story features Bonnie, a prominent minister in the Israeli government who after the death of his mother finds a letter for him in his mother’s desk. Early in the story, we have learned that his mother had a onetime sexual fling many years ago. Now the letter tells him that the man he always thought was his father was not actually his biological dad. This leads Bonnie on an adventure to find this man who turns out be an equally high placed Iranian minister. Needless to say, this novel, as was the first one, is filled with mystery, intrigue, and twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It was hard to put down this book; I highly recommend it.

In addition to the entertaining value of this excellent well-written novel, it also deals with an area, which as a psychiatrist and student of human behavior I have pondered over the years; that is the occasion where a person becomes obsessed with the desire to know the nature of their biological identity when it has previously been unknown or in question.

There have been several movies which have dealt with this subject one way or the other. The names of some these films were( see links to reviews): Philomena, The Kids Are All Right, People Like Us, and Stories We Tell. I have also written about this subject on my blog(see link) Psychiatrytalk.com.

At times in conversation, I have asked an acquaintance what they might do if they received communication from the hospital where they were born was computerizing their records and they found out that the person was actually accidentally “switched at birth.” Would you want to meet your biological parent?

What if the situation were that the hospital was notifying you that a child born to you was accidentally switched at birth? Would you want to meet that long lost child? Suppose you were told that the family with your biological child would like to meet you, would you agree to this meeting? Would you tell your child that they were switched at birth? How would you feel if your child was anxious to meet the biological parent? Different people respond differently to these questions. The urgency of meeting the biological parent varies from person to person. Some people feel it would not make a difference in their life. I actually have known people who have discovered a biological parent unknown to them previously and then become very close to them.

These issues are part of the central theme of this intriguing book. Whether or not you would have the same feelings of the main character, I am sure you will find this an interesting and fascinating book well worth reading.

Comment » | FG - Fiction General, FM - Fiction Mystery, FT- Fiction Thriller, Uncategorized

The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

June 8th, 2020 — 4:52pm

The Weight Of Ink By Rachel Kadish

This is an unusual and very interesting storyline. The narrative toggles back and forth between modern day London and Amsterdam during the 17th century. A removable panel in a wall behind the stairs in a lovely home in modern day London is discovered to have a trove of documents written in the 1600s. Helen Watts, a woman professor and a graduate student, Aaron Levy, begin to extract and translate these documents, which are mostly in Portuguese, Hebrew, and English. The majority of these old papers were written by a well-known, blind rabbi’s personal scribe. The scribe allowed the rabbi to carry on correspondence with some of the great intellectuals of that time in various parts of the world. The modern day professor and her graduate student make an amazing discovery that the scribe was actually a young woman by the name of Ester. Of course, it was unheard of that a woman at that time would be well-educated and able to carry on such a high level of intellectual writing and reading. The story gets more complicated as a competing high-powered intellectual team also gains access to the documents and realizes the significance of them. The reader follows the unfolding of the story as each chapter moves back and forth more than 300 years. The modern day translators realize that the young woman scribe had on her own taken up a correspondence with some of the intellectual giants of her time including Spinoza while signing her name with a pseudonym. As the reader is whipped back and forth with alternating chapters being in the past or present, there is an opportunity to learn the details of the private lives of not only Ester and the people around her, but also about the private lives of Helen, the professor and Aaron the graduate student. One aspect of the distant time period is that there was a deadly plague sweeping London and the rest of the world. (Sound familiar?).

This book develops into a page turner, which includes intrigue, romance, death and dying, and a lot more. At times, the language was felt by this reviewer to be somewhat obtuse and even a little difficult to follow. However in the end, we appreciated that we have been taken through an original fantasy, which not only highlighted the intellectual trials and tribulations of a particular time period but also provided insight into the human psyche.

This book not only reflected themes of power and freedom of expression, something that Ester could not do as a woman, but also towards the end of the book Ester struggles whether or not she would want her words to live on, even if not attributed to herself herself but known by the content. This raises an interesting question about how any author looks to the future and how important is their own personal posterity as compared to the creativity they bring to their pages.

Comment » | FG - Fiction General, FH - Fiction Historical

The Other Americans by Laila Lalami

March 3rd, 2020 — 4:44pm

 

The Other Americans by Laila Lalami

An old man who happens to be a Moroccan immigrant and the owner of a small restaurant is killed by a hit-and-run driver in a small California town. The impact on his friends, neighbors, police, a reluctant witness, and a few others is examined. Each person gets to speak multiple times as a chapter is devoted to the thinking of that subject at various times. Since many are immigrants, we get a sense of where they are coming from geographically and psychologically. We see familiar scenarios of parents’ expectations of children and young people trying to find their personal identities as well as exploring relationships. The reader is confronted with prejudice, pride, jealously, love, sexuality and a lot more human experiences.

The story is also a classic “whodunit” mystery. It reminded me of the many episodes I have seen of the popular TV program Dateline where a real mystery is detected and there is an attempt to show how the cast of characters is related and explained in some depth. Here is where the book failed for me. I got caught in wanting to figure out who the killer was, especially since there was an early suggestion that there was a motive and not an accident. Therefore, I became less interested in the in-depth analysis of each character and wanted to see the police solve the mystery. So in retrospect, I did not appreciate the potential value of this book, although it did hold my interest.(2020)

 

Comment » | FG - Fiction General, FM - Fiction Mystery

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

February 16th, 2020 — 1:15pm

 

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

This book, while not written as a psychological drama, will satisfy readers such as myself who look for psychological insight into the actions and life choices made by the characters of books that we read.

On one hand, there is Mr. and Mrs. Richardson and their four teenage children who live in Shaker Heights which is the quintessential upper middle class suburb of Cleveland. They meet the mother/daughter duo of Mia and Pearl who become renters of a small cottage owned by the Richardsons. This duo has led a somewhat nomadic life over the years with Mia being a dedicated mother who also creates artistic photographic pieces as well as doing housework to earn extra money. The daughter Pearl is accustomed to going from school to school as they settle in new places.

The complications of the interaction of these two unlikely families allows the author to guide the reader on an exploration of motherhood, teenage sexuality and love, abortion, adoption and a lot more.

Nothing here is superficial but rather, it is agonizing and real. Whether you agree or not with the choices made by the various characters, you will understand their point of view and be enriched by the insight into all the people you meet in this book.

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The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine

October 31st, 2019 — 7:23pm

The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine

Just about every family has complicated relationships. When you look in- depth into them, you are likely to find surprises and interesting stories. Cathleen Schine, the author, is an excellent storyteller and draws the reader into the lives of her characters. She starts off by introducing us to an elderly couple; Betty and her husband, Josie who have two grown daughters, Annie and Miranda. Josie has just surprised everyone by asking his wife of many years for a divorce since he plans to marry his secretary. He also insists upon living in their New York apartment and relegating his wife to their beach cottage in Westport, Connecticut where his daughters and now single wife will live. Their cousins and other people who live nearby have become an important part of the story. There are also new characters encountered both young and older people who develop meaning relationships with the three main characters. The more we understand about them, the more we can appreciate the impact of events on them and agonize over the decisions that they have to make. The net result is a good story which will probably hold your interest although this may not be one of your unforgettable top reads.

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The Guest Book by Sarah Blake

September 26th, 2019 — 12:23am

The Guest Book by Sarah Blake

This story is about an elite family that has owned an island off the coast of Maine for 3 generations. It started with a wealthy couple Ogden and Kitty Milton in the 1930s. Ogden Milton ran a bank that may have had some secret dealings with the Naizis during that time. Ogden and his wife seemingly had everything until tragedy struck them. In response to their grief, they purchased the island and made a tradition of yearly visits to the island every year as the family would grow with new generations. The prejudices and complex feelings became apparent as time went on. A Jewish man gets a job in the patriach’s bank and he becomes involved with one of the daughters. His best friend from Harvard, a black man, also joins one of the family get-togethers on the island.

The book not only shows racism and power but clearly addresses some of the differences in how various family members accepted others who were different.. The author skillfully lets the reader into the mind and thoughts of each of the characters. Her style included choosing various time periods out of sequence, which I thought made it difficult at times to closely follow each character.

The author’s description of the island and the house and other buildings on it was so clear that I was not surprised to find out that it was based out on a real place and probably some actual people and their experiences.

This is a solid good read that I would recommend for consideration.

 

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Normal People by Sally Rooney

August 24th, 2019 — 11:10am

Normal People by Sally Rooney

One of the most intriguing things about this book is the title. I believe that that author is telling us that every meaningful relationship is built upon complex psychodynamics. In this story, we have a boy and girl who become friends in childhood. She is from a wealthy family with one parent and a brother who is frequently mean to her. He is raised by a single loving mom who is actually a housekeeper for the girl’s family. He is very popular in high school with lots of friends. She is a loner and often didn’t go to classes. They both are very smart. They have their first sexual experience together which is very intense and meaningful. As both of them mature and go to college they develop a different circle of friends and relationships but they still have various meetings and encounters. One of them has a tendency to have a depressive disorder. Both of them have complex dynamics related to needs and preferences influenced by earlier experiences with family members. For example one has certain masochistic needs. These factors all influence their choices and experiments with relationships and the struggles whenever they periodically reconnect. This very well-written book shows us the very complex psychological factors which greatly impact on their pathway in life and their attraction to each other. There is nothing common, typical, or easily predictable, but yet, that is what human behavior is all about. “Just two normal people.”

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Comment » | FG - Fiction General, FR - Fiction Romance

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