Cream of the crop
I wasn’t going to post any further about my sojourn in the land of Regency Romance, but the last Heyer I reread was so delightful that I just have to share. I have previously mentioned a list of favorites here, and somehow this one didn’t make it onto that list, but I think it may be my new “best-of” pick. It’s The Foundling, written in 1948.
The name of the book is deceptive, because the foundling (orphan) in question is merely one small element in a much bigger story, and most of that story is about Adolphus Gillespie Vernon Ware (“Gilly”), the seventh Duke of Sale. Gilly is 24 years old, one year away from his majority, when he will take over control of his own estates from his guardian and uncle, Lord Lionel Ware. He is beset by irritations, but not the kind to which there seem to be any solution. He was a sickly child who has grown into a sturdy (if small and slight) adult, but his relatives and the raft of devoted family retainers who work for him will never let him forget that they have had good reason to mollycoddle him for his entire life, and he is constantly thwarted in the simplest of plans. He can’t do so much as take a walk to his club without his valet, his butler, or his agent insisting on ordering him a carriage for fear he will unduly exert himself or catch a chill. So when his young cousin, Matthew Ware, comes to him with a problem he is, himself, unable to solve, the Duke decides that he will take care of it without resorting to the advice of others. He will do so while masquerading as a plain “Mr. Dash,” not dependent on the benefits of birth and wealth; he manages to sneak off on his own, with no luggage, no carriage or horse, and no word to his servants or his uncle about either his intentions or his destination.
This incognito journey into the countryside to confront his cousin’s blackmailer leads to some interesting and signficant encounters that include a runaway schoolboy, a divinely beautiful but completely brainless orphan, and some villainous people and perilous situations. Meanwhile, back at his London abode, the hue and cry to discover his whereabouts is exacerbated by the belief by some that he may have run off due to an adverse reaction to becoming engaged to his lifelong friend, Lady Harriet. Others develop the theory that his cousin Gideon, who is his best friend but also his heir, may have “put him out of the way” in order to ascend to his title and massive fortune!
This is one of Heyer’s most complex and convoluted plots, with something happening every moment. Although the book is named after the fair Belinda (the foundling in question), her part in it is minor except as it motivates some of the adventures of “Mr. Rufford,” the name under which the duke is traveling. It is much less a romance (although there is a bit involved) than it is a coming of age of a man who, restricted from all autonomy since birth, finally rebels against all restraints, and his ensuing complicated adventures are the meat of the story.
I got through it in about 36 hours, because I couldn’t put it down. If you are inclined to try one of Heyer’s books for yourself, may I suggest this might be a good one to assay? (Yes, I am, at this point, speaking in the language of her characters. I think it’s time to move on to other literature.)
Escape from…
I have a number of books on my “TBR” list, but about a week and a half ago I decided to forego all of them for now and retreat into pure denial of everything that’s happening in the world and all the trials of my personal existence by rereading (some for the third time) a string of Georgette Heyer Regency romances.
I started out with three of my favorites—The Grand Sophy, April Lady, and The Convenient Marriage—and then took potluck on the public library website by reading whatever was immediately available, since the idea was a continued getaway rather than a long wait on a hold. And yes, most of her books still have holds on them, more than 50-75 years after their publication!
So I continued on after that with Charity Girl, The Unknown Ajax, and False Colours, which I just started. I have hopes, after this, of snagging Cotillion, Sprig Muslin, and The Foundling, by which time I’m hoping that I will have completely sated my appetite for drawing room drama, complicated toilettes, and witty banter, at least for a good while.
If you are, at this point, losing all respect for me as a reader and reviewer, let me tell you that you are “fair and far out” (under a misapprehension) should you believe that there is no redeeming value to these books. I defy anyone to find a contemporary romance writer who can rival their language, the sometimes labyrinthine plotting, the wonderfully droll characterizations, and the descriptive scene-setting, not to mention the perfectly evoked fashion in which everyone, male and female, is attired.
Perhaps I will follow up this binge by reading Everything I Needed to Know About Life I Learned by Reading Georgette Heyer, by Miss Cooke (2016). Although since this “book” is only 55 pages long, I suspect I could do a better job of writing a similarly titled volume!
Boarding-school books
I’m off on my own personal nostalgia kick right now, re-reading Georgette Heyer novels to escape from the depressing real world of politics and sub-optimum health. But on one of the book-lovers’ pages on Facebook, a mom was asking for recommendations for her teenage son who is a reluctant reader, so I combed through my various categories of YA fiction for some and was thus inspired to write about this sub-set of coming-of-age fiction, the boarding-school book.
I think those who have never attended a boarding school are in some way fascinated with the culture—I know I always have been, from the time I read my first children’s book with a protagonist who had been posted off by their parents to “sleep-over” school. And there are a lot (hundreds) of examples out there of the away-from-home scholastic experience, from Harry Potter to A Separate Peace. There are books in every genre, for almost every age, so I thought I’d mark some of my personal favorites and some that seem to be perennially popular.
The boarding-school book is by no means limited to children and teens—there are many written for (and sometimes about) adults as well, especially if you include the college boarding experience. I’ll give age groups and categories and (in some cases) some brief synopses, and if you have the same interest I do, you can gravitate to whichever piques your interest.
For children, a classic example is
A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, about a young girl sent home to England from India, where her father is a successful merchant, because it was believed that the climate of India was not salubrious for British children. They were separated from their families and entrusted to the care of an English boarding school, where they would hopefully get an education and a proper upbringing and be reunited with their families when they were grown. Young Sara Crewe goes from riches to rags when her father disappears and is presumed dead, and Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary can no longer collect hefty fees for her maintenance. I sometimes think of this book as the child’s version of the first third of Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë (although Sara is much better-natured than Jane ever was!). It’s a romantic story with a protagonist who remains upbeat and optimistic in the face of cruelty, guaranteed to appeal to the kind of reader I was at a young age.
There are many boarding-school books with more fantastical settings, the most well known probably being the Harry Potter books, in which gifted children are sent to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to hone their talents. But in the fantasy category are also the Harper Hall books by Anne McCaffrey, which take place on the planet Pern and feature dragons and fire lizards in these stories of children studying to be professional musicians; and The Rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson, featuring another magical school, this time for math geniuses with a little something extra. These are all for younger children and teens (maybe 4th through 8th grades?), although older teens and adults can (and do) enjoy these books as well.
In the specifically Young Adult category, there are fantasies, mysteries, and realistic fiction all set at private academies that either offer the standard schooling or are geared towards inhabitants with a specialty. For the middle school set: One realistic one in which the rule of the bullies and the plight of the bullied are revealed is The Mockingbirds, by Daisy Whitney. Another fairly normal boarding school that is the site of a mystery is the backdrop for the Truly, Devious trilogy by Maureen Johnson, in which death visits Ellingham Academy. And the Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter (beginning with I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have to Kill You) showcases a girls’ school that is supposedly for the upper-crust daughters of the snobby set but is actually a training curriculum for those who wish to become undercover agents for the CIA and like agencies.
Among the boarding-school franchise for older teens, there are also a variety of settings. In the realistic category are such mainstream stories as Winger, by Andrew Smith (at a boys’ school focused on rugby); and Looking for Alaska, by John Green and Saving Francesca, by Melina Marchetta, both with a challenging co-ed population. A fun book in its development of one character from age 14 to 16 as she figures out how to dominate her environment is The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart. Another is the trilogy by Stephanie Perkins that begins with Anna and the French Kiss, following a Georgia girl who is transplanted to an American school in Paris for her senior year.
A huge boarding-school subset is the paranormal category, with vampires dominating and witches coming in a close second—the Vampire Academy books by Richelle Mead, the Hex Hall series by Rachel Hawkins, the Gemma Doyle stories by Libba Bray, and Evernight, by Claudia Gray. One series that I particularly like and admire is Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire, which could arguably be classed as either YA or adult; the books are unusual, smart, and varied in their approach. I reviewed them on this blog when I first discovered them, and continue to find them unique.
Moving on to books more appropriate for adults, there are some in every category. The Magicians (and sequels) by Lev Grossman have been billed as Harry Potter for grown-ups. Mysteries that feature boarding schools include Well-Schooled in Murder, from the Inspector Lynley mysteries by Elizabeth George; The Secret Place, one of the Dublin Murder Squad books by Tana French; and The River King, by magical realism author Alice Hoffman. A book that is written about young people but is (in my opinion) too intense for their age group to read is Brutal Youth, by Anthony Breznican, a co-ed Lord of the Flies set in a Catholic private school in Pennsylvania. I didn’t so much enjoy reading it as remain fascinated and unable to put it down. It’s definitely powerful, and in some ways brilliant, but also stark and frightening. Gentlemen and Players, by Joanne Harris, is written from the point of view of the teaching staff at St. Oswald’s Grammar School for Boys, a cat-and-mouse tale of revenge as one staff member with secret ties to the school tries to destroy it from the inside. Finally, Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, is dystopian literary fiction with a boarding school setting that may not be what you had in mind when you read the initial description, but it’s a fascinating premise with a heartbreaking (and kind of depressing) outcome.
This is a mere drop in the bucket of what’s out there; if you want to research this category further, go to Goodreads, select “browse” and “lists” and type “boarding schools” into the search box, and you will find multiple lists containing all these and many more. But the books mentioned here are a great start if you, like me, enjoy that particular setting for your fiction.
Part of Your World #1
I reviewed Abby Jimenez’s book Just for the Summer in February, noting that it was the third volume of a loose trilogy without a through-story; the books simply share a few characters. This week I picked up the first in that series, Part of Your World, and was immersed in another meet-cute story about a destined couple with huge obstacles to conquer.
Alexis Montgomery is the latest in a formidable dynasty of doctors who have created their own stage on which to shine; they have all (except Alexis) been world-class surgeons whose total focus is continuing this family tradition at Royaume Northwestern Hospital, to which their award-winning research and procedures have brought both fame and financing for almost 125 years. Alexis’s twin brother, Derek, is the surgeon of her generation, leaving her free to choose to be an Emergency Room doctor instead, even though this is looked down upon by her autocratic, competitive parents. But Alexis’s saving grace (to them) is that for the past almost-decade she has dated and then lived with and become engaged to the hospital’s chief surgeon, Neil, who is the doctor they had hoped she would be.
Alexis has recently identified, however, how deeply unhappy she is with Neil; she has been subjected to a systematic program of denigration and gaslighting for most of their relationship, and has finally managed to break free, using the excuse of his affair with his department’s anesthesiologist to kick him out of the house they own together. Through therapy, she is getting a solid idea of how thoroughly warped she has been by his manipulative verbal abuse and is making strides towards being emotionally healthy; but everyone else in her life—Neil and her friends and parents included—expect the two will reconcile.
Daniel Grant’s family has lived in the tiny town of Wakan, Minnesota, for as long as the Montgomerys have ruled the medical community in Minneapolis. His many-greats grandfather built a beautiful home there that Daniel, the last of the family so far, has turned into a bed and breakfast, which he operates during the tourist season when people come for the river rafting, fishing, biking, and other outdoor pursuits. The rest of the year he makes a meager living with his woodworking, building both furniture and ornamental pieces in his workshop apartment over the garage. Daniel is also the mayor of Wakan, although this isn’t so much a position of esteem as it is a combination of social director and arbitrator of petty community issues. He knows everyone and everyone knows him, and they all look out for one another in the precarious atmosphere of a town that depends on its visitors for its living.
There could hardly be two more dissimilar lifestyles or outlooks than these, but when Alexis runs her car off the road on her way home from a funeral in Iowa and Daniel shows up to tow her out of the ditch, there’s an undeniable spark that leads one of them to think there could be something here, while the other resolves that there’s no way this can be anything but a short-term fling. Alexis, 37, has the weight of the Montgomery dynasty on her shoulders and a wealthy city lifestyle to support her long hours at the hospital; Daniel, 28, drives a pick-up truck with duct-taped seats, slaves for every penny, and doesn’t own a suit. It seems impossible that either could give up their world to be with the other; there is just too much baggage and too many extenuating circumstances. But there is that connection…
I loved about 85 percent of this book, and would say it is worth reading. The caveats that make up the other 15 percent are two. One of them is the ending; it was pretty obvious what would eventually happen, but the manner in which it did seemed way too easy after all the angst put into the situation by everyone involved, making it a little anticlimactic.
The other caveat is something I would never have expected would bother me, but it did. There is, in this story, an element of magical realism. I am generally a big fan of that literary device in fiction; I have devoured most of Alice Hoffman’s books, loved Chocolat by Joanne Harris, enjoyed some YA picks by Anna-Marie McLemore, and admired (but didn’t love) the works of Isabel Allende. I like realistic stories that include fantastical elements treated as if they are wholly normal, which is a basic definition of the genre, but in this book, this element was awkwardly handled. The first allusion to the magical nature of the town of Wakan was dropped early in the book by a minor character, but nothing occurred to back that up until about three-quarters of the way through, and then it was so abrupt and unlikely that it felt less like magic and more like one of those phenomena where it’s raining and fish suddenly fall from the sky, miles from any body of water. The whole nature of magical realism is to blend it in seamlessly with the everyday so that it is delightful but doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb, and Abby Jimenez has unfortunately not mastered this writing technique. Far from adding to the story, it pulled me right out of it.
But…I’d still give it four stars out of five (mostly for the totally hot carpenter/mayor).
#Momspringa
I wanted to continue the more lighthearted mood engendered by The Road to Roswell but wasn’t wanting more science fiction, so I decided instead to look for an entry in the “relationship fiction” category. I couldn’t find an available check-out at the library, so I searched my Kindle for a reread and remembered Kelly Harms’s The Overdue Life of Amy Byler, which I read back in 2019 and enjoyed quite a lot.
Rather than re-hashing, I will post a link to my previous review here, but will add that one of the reasons I appreciated this book (in addition to the book- and librarian-related story line and the makeover of “momjeans”) was because it dropped me into a world that, at a naive and hopeful 18, I thought might be a career choice.
At a certain age, we all look back at the possibilities we passed up, the roads we didn’t travel, and wonder what would have resulted had we made different choices; one of my fantasy life stories was to go to New York City to become a book editor or work for a high-end magazine publisher. (Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar had a big effect on me in high school.) Amy Byler’s friend Talia, the chic, single, city-loving editor of a fashion magazine, was the definition of my dream, and the summer Amy spends in the city housesitting her empty apartment while attending theater productions, going to museums, and discovering wonderful restaurants, sounded like a lifestyle I would have loved.
One of the few regrets I have is that I have never made it to NYC, even for a visit. I guess there’s still time left…but my dream was to conquer the boulevards by striding down them in my Reeboks on the way to the office with all the other up-and-comers, not to be a tourist taking the freight elevator to the top of the Empire State Building in my wheelchair. I guess Amy wasn’t the only one with an overdue life! I mostly don’t regret the one I have lived, but I certainly wish I had been more adventurous at key moments and thus had more on which I could look back with satisfaction. Perhaps I will stick with the fantasy fulfillment of books like this one and simply pretend to be the person living the story—isn’t that really what reading is all about?
Indy lassoes some humans
I just read a book recommended to me by my friend Kim, who is as much (or more?) a fan of science fiction writer Connie Willis as I am. I hadn’t heard of this one (and apparently of a few more, once I reviewed the list at the back of the book!), and I’ve been wanting a good new sci fi comedy (my last one was by John Scalzi), so I settled in this past week with Willis’s The Road to Roswell. I was surprised to discover that it was published less than two years ago; when Kim recommended it, I just assumed for some reason that it was an older book, perhaps because Roswell was a lot more popular setting a couple of decades ago than it seems to be now.
There were, contained within this book, both some unexpected and some entirely expected elements. The unexpected one was the nature of the alien. Not a Gray, not a Reptilian, he instead looks sort of like a tumbleweed (good camouflage in the desert!), a round shrub with branch-like tentacles; but when he wants to accomplish something, those tentacles stretch and flex and flatten, and shoot out to grab and hold whatever he is aiming to control. One of the protagonists thus gives him the nickname “Indy” (after Indiana Jones and his bullwhip).
The expected element was the nature and structure of the narrative. Connie Willis creates this peculiar kind of interaction in many of her books—sometimes subtle, more often extreme—in which communication between characters is constantly stymied. People start to say things but get interrupted. People mean to tell other people important information but forget, or get sidetracked, or are ignored. People try to pass on messages through a third party, who misunderstands and misinterprets them or, again, forgets all about them. The result is an ongoing escalation of tension over the missed opportunities, especially as questionable situations are further exacerbated by the ongoing lack of understanding. It results in a story full of dialogue that fails to move the action forward as intended, and when I read one, I find myself needing to take a break now and then to allow the anxiety from the escalating tension to subside!
This book begins with Francie, who has flown into Albuquerque and rented a car to drive to Roswell, New Mexico, where she will (maybe) be serving as maid of honor to her college roommate and best friend, Serena. It’s only a maybe because Francie has been in this position with Serena several times before, but no wedding has yet taken place; Francie’s role seems to be showing up in the nick of time to talk Serena out of marrying whichever oddball nut job for whom she has supposedly fallen head over heels. In this instance, it’s a UFO-obsessed alien-chaser who thinks the best venue in which to celebrate their marriage is the International UFO Museum.
Imagine Francie’s surprise, therefore, when aliens turn out to be real. She finds this out when she and her rental car are commandeered by one, who wants to go somewhere (although he can’t communicate where) and needs Francie to serve as his chauffeur. Soon, while on their surprise road trip, they also acquire a hitchhiker (maybe a grifter), Wade; an hysterical guy obsessed with alien abduction conspiracy theories; a little old lady on a bus trip to the Las Vegas casinos; and a retiree whose enormous RV becomes their new vehicle when Francie’s rented Jeep will no longer accommodate everyone the alien decides to lasso and bring along on this adventure.
Despite the kidnapping aspect, Francie and the others (except for the conspiracy guy, who can’t stop talking about invasions, probing and Men in Black) become convinced that “Indy,” as they call him, is in trouble and needs their help to get out of it. They go from unwilling abductees to a team devoted to understanding and helping their new friend, as they drive all over the southwest looking for who-knows-what and encountering rattlesnakes, Elvis impersonators, and people and aliens who may mean them harm. The book is a frenetic mix of abduction, expedition, and romantic comedy, and it’s fun. Really fun. If you need a silly story that also encompasses the best and worst of human foibles as illustrated by their reaction to aliens in their midst, this is one to read.
Odd mystery series
I was in between loans from the library a few days back, so I browsed the books on my Kindle to see what on there was still unread, or what I might want to reread, and I happened across Charlaine Harris’s Lily Bard mysteries. They are oddly named, and they are oddball murder mysteries—strangely engaging, given their dark tone. They would probably fall under the category of “cozy” mysteries, because they take place in a small town and the lead character isn’t a police officer or a detective, but they are, in fact, the antithesis of cozy in their theme! All five books have the name “Shakespeare” in the title, beginning with Shakespeare’s Landlord, and it’s confusing until you figure out that the protagonist, Lily Bard, was picking a town at random to call home and chose Shakespeare, Arkansas, simply because her last name is Bard. I guess there could be worse reasons for choosing to live somewhere…
Anyway, Lily, the center of all the action, is the survivor of an extremely violent and traumatizing episode in her past and, after trying and failing to get back to normal in her home town, where everyone knows what happened to her and is either pitying or prurient, depending, she moved a few times and finally landed in Shakespeare. She keeps strictly to herself: She makes her living by cleaning houses (preferably while her clients are away at work); she works out at the local gym—lifting weights and taking karate classes so that she is strong and self-sufficient; she avoids friendships and entanglements; and she walks the town at night when she can’t sleep.
When the first book opens, Lily has lived in Shakespeare for about three years, and has managed to remain a mystery to most of the town’s inhabitants, even though gossip in a small southern town is pretty pervasive. All that is about to change, however, because one dark night she witnesses a dead body being dumped in the town’s arboretum close to her house, and the murderer is using her trash bin cart to move the body. Even though she tries her best to stay out of it, an anonymous call to the local police chief, who happens to live in the neighboring apartment building, eventually drags her into the limelight. She soon realizes that the only way she’s going to get back to her peaceful existence is to figure out who killed the police chief’s landlord.
Each of the books features a murder, four of the five in the small town that apparently harbors a bunch of violent people below its deceptively peaceful surface presentation. (The fifth takes place back in Lily’s home town when she returns to serve as maid of honor in her sister’s wedding.) And Lily is somehow connected, if only tangentially by her job, her gym, or her therapy group, to all of the victims. This woman has had and continues to have some stunningly bad luck in life. To counterweight some of that, Harris has her meet a guy in book #2, the first person she doesn’t want to kick to the curb after a single encounter in all the years since her tragedy separated her old life from her new. And although the involvement is slow and cautious with many setbacks, the relationship is a true match.
It’s an weird little series, not only because it’s so relentlessly downbeat but because when I read it, I liked it enough to reread it twice! I can’t say what is so engaging about it—most of the inhabitants of the town are none too nice, and Lily herself, although admirable for her stoicism and self-reliance, is about as loveable as a cactus. Still, there’s something vulnerable about the way Harris writes these people that makes you want to know what happens to them, despite yourself.
Have a gander, as they might say in Arkansas, and see if the Lily Bard series is for you.
Chartreuse
I just finished reading The Grey Wolf, Louise Penny’s latest (#19) in her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, and I am torn.
On the one hand, I found myself thinking, during the course of the extremely intricate narrative in which both the reader and Gamache himself are unsure who can be trusted, who is in the know, and who is culpable, that I was enjoying a complex plot in which I wasn’t sure, at any moment, what was to happen next, or who was responsible. I have been reading too many suspense or thriller novels recently that had about as much subtlety as a romcom and disappointed my need for intelligent thought. From that standpoint, I appreciated the complexities of The Grey Wolf. I also enjoy Gamache’s philosophical musings about people and life, and his lyrically worded observations of nature. So there were definitely things to like.
On the other hand…
I found myself agreeing with another Goodreads reviewer, who said about this plot, “Penny needs to go back to solving homicides, not national security and international intrigue issues.” It seems like she is making a shift to writing thrillers rather than mysteries. I also agreed with several others who opined that although the plot itself is pretty clear—there is a scheme to poison the drinking water of Montréal by a ruthless person or persons who don’t mind killing anyone who knows anything and/or speaks out—the working out of it, with the jaunts to Washington, D.C., Rome and France, to obscure towns in the wilds of Quebec and to cloistered monasteries whose recipe for a well-known liqueur is another red herring, is overly convoluted and, honestly, somewhat ridiculous. I became skeptical that there was literally no one in the government to trust, other than Gamache’s son-in-law Jean-Guy Beauvoir and his compatriot Isabelle Lacoste (this must be the most corrupt government in Canadian history!) and somewhat bored by the round-and-round nature of clues that led to nothing but more obfuscation.
So…although I am always happy to discover a new Gamache mystery, this one left me more dissatisfied than not.
Also, on a separate topic, am I misremembering, or has Penny rewritten “history”? How is Gamache still in his 50s? I can’t recall the specific book, but I thought he had passed into his 60s in a previous story. And didn’t his godfather, Stephen Horowitz, who is referenced in this book, die in Paris, in All the Devils Are Here? And although I did remember the involvement of Gamache and Beauvoir with the Gilbertine monks from A Beautiful Mystery (book #8), all this back story about this “old adversary” who is now assistant to the deputy prime minister—is my memory so bad that I simply don’t remember that plotline, or WAS there no book and Penny is just making up a shared past for them for The Grey Wolf?
I’m not ready to call it a day on the further tales of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec (especially because this book ended on a cliffhanger), but I’m approaching them with less expectation of true love than I used to do.
Learning through fiction
Someone on one of the readers’ pages I frequent on Facebook posted something recently about only wanting to read nonfiction because she “likes to learn while I read.” And it made me think about the fact that I never read nonfiction (since I left school, I can count the number of nonfiction books I have read on two hands), but that I learn many things, nonetheless, from my reading.
One example that I use when people raise an eyebrow in disbelief: A few years ago, one of my friends told me she was suffering greatly from Ménière’s disease, which is “a disorder of the inner ear that can cause vertigo (spinning sensation), tinnitus (ringing or buzzing in the ear), hearing loss, and a feeling of fulness or pressure in the affected ear. It is a chronic condition, meaning it’s long-lasting and can have recurrent episodes of symptoms.” She told me there was no sure-fire treatment and that she simply had to live with it, but that it meant multiple days of lying immobile waiting for the symptoms to go away.
I immediately remembered a scene in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Prodigal Summer. There is a character in that book, a woman who has a little girl who suffers from extreme vertigo, called BPPV. BPPV is “Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo.” It is a common cause of “a feeling of spinning or dizziness. It’s triggered by changes in head position, especially when rolling over in bed, getting out of bed, or tilting the head. BPPV is caused by loose crystals in the inner ear that move into the wrong part of the balance system.” When the wave of dizziness hits, the book describes how the woman lays the little girl down with her head hanging over the edge of her bed (or, if they are out in public, over her mother’s arm), and then has her do a slow, timed series of movements that alleviate the condition. The action is called the Epley Maneuver. Loose crystals (called otoliths) have become displaced into the posterior canal of the inner ear, which makes the brain think that fluid is moving due to a head turn when it is, in fact, caused by the crystals. Since the fluid is moving even though the head is stationary, it brings on extreme dizziness. The Epley Maneuver attempts to reroute the crystals, moving them out of the canal so that the cause of the dizziness goes away. (Here is a YouTube video that explains the maneuver—if you search it on YouTube, you will find multiple demonstrations. https://youtu.be/o4GV-EbnMfI?si=1lzrDemwCgLayCR-)
In the book, the woman has a neighbor, a curmudgeonly old man with whom she has been feuding over various things for many years. But when he himself has an onset of BPPV, she kindly teaches him the Epley Maneuver.
When my friend told me about her distress and how severely this condition was impacting her day-to-day living, I remembered the scene from Prodigal Summer and shared the technique with her. She tried it and, after repeating it a few times over the next 24 hours, her BPPV subsided. From then on, when she felt it coming on, she would use the maneuver to avoid the onset of the attack.
It should be noted that if you google Ménière’s disease, it will tell you that treatments include diuretics (bad for you) and surgery, and that it’s incurable. I would never have discovered the Epley Maneuver if it hadn’t been for this novel by Kingsolver.
I reflected on this today when I was coming to the end of The Grey Wolf, the latest Armand Gamache mystery by Louise Penny. Armand muses on a quote he heard somewhere that, for me, perfectly epitomized the world we here in the States are living through under our current insane and oligarchic regime. It said,
Do not attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
It went on to note that there was plenty of malice to go around (yes, there is!), but that it was far outweighed by sheer stupidity. I am constantly reminding myself of this as political events unfold around us, and trying to hold onto the hope that the readers among us will prevail and both malice and stupidity will eventually subside.
Momfluencers
What kind of word is THAT? Ask Jesse Q. Sutanto, author of the thriller You Will Never Be Me. The book is set in the worst cliché-ridden version of Los Angeles (as a 52-year resident of this city, I beg to differ with the exaggerated depiction!), and its two main characters are social media “influencers” who are also moms touting their lifestyle—thus that ghastly splice.
I had previously read Sutanto’s romcoms (the “Aunties” trilogy) and her delightfully silly mystery Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, so when I was looking for some lighter dark reading, I decided to try one of her thrillers. The library had this e-book on hand, and as a relative novice to Instagram with fewer followers than I would like (this is for my page featuring my portrait-painting), I thought it would be fun to read about some of the people who have made a true success out of their presence in such forums.
In some ways, it was fun; but I felt at a disadvantage with this book because, although the moms were supposedly besties in all things, the truth that they were jealous competitors who had trouble celebrating each other’s wins (particularly when one substantially overshadowed and outperformed the other) made both of them inherently unlikeable. And although I don’t mind villainous characters, I usually like it better when there is one sympathetic person in the story for whom I can cheer. You know, someone with at least one redeeming quality….
In the beginning, Meredith was the popular rising star and Aspen was the eager but slightly gauche fan. Before Meredith met Aspen, there was a friend-gap in her life; she was so busy trying to become popular to legions of online strangers that she didn’t have time to cultivate people in real life. But when she runs into Aspen at a Hollywood pretty-people party and realizes just how out of her depth she is, Meredith takes a shrewd look at Aspen’s potential and, flattered by her naive, awed admiration, decides to help her. She teaches her about hair and makeup, shows her how to make videos to entice both followers and sponsors, and gives her a leg up into Meredith’s world.
A few years later, Aspen’s star has risen exponentially, while Meredith’s influence has waned—her “brand” is a little tired, a little old. Aspen has crafted a new, polished look, married Ben, and given birth to darling twin girls Noemie and Elea; fueled by motherhood and the need to be the breadwinner in an unequal partnership (her husband is in real estate but not a player), Aspen has switched her brand to become a “momfluencer.” She films the daily routine, presenting herself and her family as living an idyllic existence—the twins always dressed in adorable matching outfits, every meal gourmet and served with panache, home decor curated to shine online. When you collect as many followers as Aspen, the deals for product placement follow, and the dollars flow in.
When Aspen gets pregnant with a third daughter, Meredith decides she has waited long enough for Mr. Perfect and chooses to become a single mother with the help of an anonymous sperm donor. While she wouldn’t go so far as to say she gave birth to baby Luca so that she, too, could go the momfluencer route, well…that’s what she has tried to do. But somehow she just can’t pull it off with the seamless brio of the successful and somewhat patronizing Aspen, who is too busy now to hang with her best friend Mer, drinking wine and gossiping as they used to do. The tables are turned; Aspen is on top, and Mer is, well, not either admiring or in awe. She resents Aspen’s success and especially her lack of willingness to share her ideas and methods the way Mer had shared with her when Aspen was the one at the bottom. Meredith discovers it’s not fun to be ditched, and finally, in frustration, she blows up at Aspen and says some unforgiveable things, and the friendship is over.
A few months later, Mer, who has been stalking Aspen (just a tiny bit, right? nothing serious) gets lucky. Little Elea leaves her iPad out on the patio where an enterprising person can appropriate it. Mer isn’t sure why she took it, but when she discovers that Aspen has created an online calendar that updates automatically onto all the family’s devices, she has access to Aspen’s social media schedule. At first she just tweaks things, causing Aspen to arrive late at a lunch date or forget to pick up the dry cleaning; but soon she is erasing meetings with sponsors and turning up in Aspen’s place to sign lucrative contracts. Meanwhile, Aspen can’t figure out what has gone awry—has the pressure of having to (appear to) be the perfect mom in front of millions caused her to lose her mind and her mojo?
Then something happens that turns the relationship on its head and sends Aspen’s and Mer’s story in a whole new direction…
It sounds like big fun, right? And some of it is. But until the twist 50 percent of the way through the book, there is a lot of snark. We don’t get to live through any of the harmonious early days of Meredith’s and Aspen’s friendship, we are instead dumped directly into the bitter rivalry felt by Meredith and the somewhat dismissive, too-busy inattention exhibited by Aspen. And neither of their lives is the shining example they present online because, let’s face it, motherhood is never that easy. Aspen and Ben have grown apart as he has become increasingly resentful of being on camera 24/7 (and having his nose rubbed in the fact that he’s not the breadwinner), while one of the twins is acting out like she’s 16 instead of seven. Mer is constantly exhausted by the unending round of nursing, changing, and being awakened by baby Luca, and upset by her inability to make more money and have the nice things Aspen has already achieved. None of the supporting characters—Ben, Mer’s sister Claire (or Clara? I could swear her name switched halfway through the book)—is a sympathetic one either. So the whole recitation becomes tiring if you are looking for some comic relief amidst all the anger and angst.
But…that twist. It makes things interesting. And there’s another one later on that takes things in an even more extreme direction. So although at 49 percent I was ready to give this book faint praise (not pan it, exactly, but not promote it either), it turned out to be a much better story than I had expected at the halfway mark. And it’s definitely eye-opening about the online popularity that people who want success must pursue. Although I wish I had the 17K followers my friend Phoebe has scored, and that I sold the bulk of my paintings the way she does, I’m certainly not going to be ruining a treasured friendship over it! (Even if I only have 879 people looking at my portraits today…) How DID she do that?
(If you’d like to follow me and save my friendship with the lovely
and talented Phoebe, you can find me at https://www.instagram.com/losangeles_melliott/.
I’m just sayin’…)
The Book Adept 