dutch house

I went to visit my mom in her new little house, and we spent a few hours catching up, playing Rummy 500 (she won) and having a small lunch. Before I left we talked a little about what we were reading. We're a reading family. I was just finishing a David Baldacci book, and she was reading something in the same genre. She asked if I'd like to look through the books to see if there was anything I wanted to read. I was going to grab one; she gave me four.

The first one I started was written by an ex-soldier about some crackerjack team of ex-special forces, run by a secretly funded government group, sent to solve problems for Uncle Sam, with plausible deniability. never heard that idea before Written by Brad somebody. Less than 50 pages in, the leader of this crackerjack team admits to blacking out in anger so badly that he just murders everyone. This is the leader of the most secret, most capable tactical team in America, that is secretly saving us all? Oh, and gay bashing too. So that, and the other book by the same Brad guy, went in recycling. the writing stunk too, so even if you like gay-bashing, secret-police murder-boys, don't bother

Any-HOO...

Why I've brought you here today is to discuss Ann Patchett's The Dutch House. After adding a few of the crime/spy type novels to my arms, Mom passed me this book saying, "I asked Dad to pick out something different for me." Mom's copy has a little gold label on the cover that indicates it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, for 2020. I'm not sure if it was that, or some other reason my dad thought she would like it, but she seemed satisfied with it, so I took it.

Its been a little while since I skipped doing other things so I could spend some more time reading a book. This one pulled me in. The Dutch House is the story of a family, and how it grew, evolved, fractured off, and came together again, around a house. The Dutch House was their escape, their palace, their history, and for some of them it was their misery. Still others, their obsession. Now don't get me wrong, this isn't some melodramatic horror movie about a haunted house, but the ghosts that whisper through the rooms and look down from the gilded frames of the past are almost characters in this story themselves.

What The Dutch House is really about is the love--and a certain amount of resentment--that still binds this little family together through the generations. Its a treatise on the work it takes to love one another. Its a study in delft blue. The characters and their relationships are real, complex and fully formed. By the end of this book, I felt like I would have recognized many of them on the streets of New York, or in a suburb north of Philly.

Patchett's writing is crisp, refreshing, and [sparingly] sprinkled with some perfectly formed phrases. Little gems that I read through, and then a few sentences later, went back and read again. I don't think I've read anything by Ann Patchett before, but looking at the list of her books on her website, I'm pretty sure I've seen some of them on reading lists, and among the recommended at libraries and bookstores. And speaking of bookstores, Patchett has opened her own with a partner, and you can find a link to her store on her website. She's all in.

Patchett also keeps a blog, which is linked to her site, and I noticed that one of the entries is a list of questions and answers from readers of The Dutch House. party on if you want to know more

I'm going to add Ann Patchett to my list of authors to read more of. 

Read this book.

cowgirl blues

My first experience with Tom Robbins was when I was about 25 or so. Skinny Legs and All had just come out in paperback; my Mom and Dad had read it and its was making the rounds in my family. That would been around 1990-91, not long after that book first came out. Robbins is not one of those super-prolific, book a year or four a year kind of writers. Skinny Legs sits at the middle point of his 8 published novels, which span from 1971 to 2003. Robbins is getting close to 90 now, so maybe he has slowed down. I don't have high hopes that we'll see another novel, but who knows, the man is a genius.*

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is Robbins's second novel, published in 1976. So how does this 45 year old book hold up? Wrong question. Sure, you can hear the crackle of Nixon/Ford, the sigh of the ERA's recent passage, the swish of polyester slacks, and the squish of the still young sexual revolution, positively pulsing in the pages of this book. But what sets it apart (other than the quirkiness) is the philosophical undercurrent. 

I don't know enough about Robbins to call him an anarchist or a hedonist, which are two that come to mind, but I think the former is more accurate than the latter. He does seem to advocate free love, but seems more interested in each individual's right to govern what is right for them, and to police ones-self by entering into relationships based on what is right for each of the participants. It seems clear that social constructs such as marriage and monogamy don't appeal to him. He seems to place larger social constructs, such as government and laws, in the same boat, along with more vague notions, like our collective notion of adulthood.  He goes as far as to say that a kind magic exists--or is even brought about by--the relationships that people have with those around them, and all the people, places, and things they come into contact with.

Sissy Hankshaw is the main protagonist in Cowgirls, and she was born with a gift that allows her to excel in her chosen field. So much so, that her understanding of, and her relationship with her chosen field expands to the point where it intersects with everything else. keanu-like whoa  This is another of Robbins's beliefs: it doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you can get there. Its another branch of the same theory: doing what is right for yourself.

Importantly, he ties all of these personal freedom issues together with a ribbon of peace. He clearly believes that the ideas he is advocating are for the self, and while he believes these idea should be shared he does not think they should be preached. he doesn't believe in any kind of preaching it seems Just as he does not think one should fight against what we don't believe in, only ignore it as much as possible. Its the long game: change not by revolution, not by revolt, but person to person. It seems like he believes that we can love one another to change.

Robbins's stories are peppered with strange facts, that he seems to have carefully researched and included in the story, almost arbitrarily; using these little know tidbits as analogies and metaphors for events in the story, in only the most stretched and contorted ways possible. They often come up at the ends of chapters, and there is little breaking of the fourth wall when it happens.

There is really too much to cover in a book review like this. Robbins seems to be winking at us with his impish grin on every page. This is the kind of book I imagine that Rolling Stone, Playboy and National Lampoon, all would have recommended when it came out.**

Surprisingly enough, Cowgirls was adapted into a movie directed by Gus Van Sant in 1993, with Uma Thurman playing Sissy Hankshaw. Not a big hit at the time; and 19% on the Tomatometer as of this writing. All star cast too. Should have been good, but maybe Robbins's ideas are just too difficult to capture in a movie.

Read this book. Then read the others.

* Tom Robbins was born in 1932, so he'll be 89 in July. He published a collection of essays in 2005, a novella about beer in 2009, and what he called an un-memoir in 2014.

** If anyone knows this, let me know in the comments .

end game

Its been a while since I put up a book review. I just finished End Game by David Baldacci. My wife likes this author's books, so we've got some of them around and I think I've read a number of them, but they don't seem as good overall as some of the other folks in this genre.

End Game is the fifth installment in the Robie and Reel series. This is called the Will Robie Series on Baldacci's website, and I assume that is because it started out with him, and Jessica Reel came after. Another quick look at Baldacci's website reveals that Reel shows up in the second book in the series; The Hit.

This is a pretty easy read, and follows our two heroes to a quiet part of the country where folks can live away from the fuss of urban live, and have the freedom to do what they like. Referred to in the book as flyover country. The freedoms here include open carry laws, very little government, and even less oversight, which, in Robie and Reel's case, means very little to prevent unsavory types from setting up shop. So there are skinheads, and Nazis, and cult groups hanging out in the local tavern in the small town they are sent to to find someone. It seems like everywhere they turn, they run into some other odd neighbor, and everyone has secrets.

I haven't read the rest of this series, but I don't think its a spoiler to say that Robie is an assassin, and Reel is a sniper. Given that, I guess I don't see why these two were sent to look for someone, regardless of how dangerous the locals may turn out to be. Seems like someone with some detective skills may have been a better choice.

If you've been reading along in this series, I'm not sure how you'll feel about this one, but that's only because I don't think I've read any of the others. Of course, after I typed that, I went and took a look in The Books section of this blog, and I found that I have read one of these; the aforementioned The Hit, and I apparently enjoyed it. So I'll revise my earlier statement and say that End Game isn't as good as that one.