Title: You Know When the Men are Gone

Author: Siobhan Fallon

Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, January 2011

Summary: Siobhan Fallon has written a collection of loosely connected short stories revolving around the lives of Fort Hood, TX army wives. The women in these stories are easy to relate to, as they deal with problems that other people face every day. What sets these women apart is their loneliness and the constant fear for their husbands who are serving in Iraq. Each deals with the separation in different ways, and it makes the reader wonder how they would react in the same situation. Fallon, herself a Fort Hood army wife at one time, knows how army life can test those serving and the loved ones left behind. These stories are beautifully written and truly moving.

Who Might Like This?: Anyone who enjoys short stories, especially those that like realistic fiction. Anyone who wants to know what life can really be like for military families.

Recommended by: Sue B, Circulation Coordinator

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Title: Bill Warrington’s Last Chance

Author: James King

Publisher: Viking, August 2010

Summary: This well written and entertaining debut novel is from a local writer (Wilton). Bill, an elderly curmudgeon is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s and wants to force a reunion of his fractured family. April is his headstrong, rebellious teenage granddaughter and together they set off on a cross country trip. The bond between them grows as April becomes his caretaker as Bill slips further into mental fogginess. Their family rises above their dysfunction and band together to find them. Funny, warm and touching with flawed, but likeable characters.

If you like this, try this: I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman and How to be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway

Recommended by: Cindy B., Children’s Department

Title: West of Here

Author:  Jonathan Evison

Publisher: Algonquin, February 2011

Summary: In his newest novel, West of Here, Jonathan Evison blends past and present to create a mythical story filled with love, adventure and family dysfunction. Set in the fictional town of Port Bonita, Washington, the novel alternates between the late 1880’s when the town is striving to become a destination in the west to rival Seattle, and 2006, as Port Bonita readies itself to shed its past and move on to an uncertain future.

Evison has populated both eras with wonderfully developed characters. In the 1880’s, James Mather is an adventurer seeking to conquer the rest of the Washington Territory on the eve of its statehood. Ethan Thornburgh is a businessman determined to harness the power of the Elwha River by building a dam to bring electricity, people, and prestige to Port Bonita. The Klallam Indians have seen their traditions vanish and are struggling to co-exist with the settlers. In 2006 the descendants of these settlers are still contending with the consequences of decisions made by their forefathers. As Port Bonita makes plans to tear down the dam, the town must begin to reinvent itself. It is the perfect time for some of its residents to do the same.

I have to admit that it took a few chapters to draw me into this story. Looking back, I have no idea why because once I was in, I loved it. There is a great sense of place in this novel; I was transported back more than 100 years by Evison’s rich detail of the culture and geography of the Northern Pacific. The characters are larger than life while remaining true to life. My personal favorite is Dave Krigstadt who, in 2006, is employed by the High Tide salmon processing plant. Struggling with garnering respect or even consideration from those around him, Krig may be the one to finally break free of his family’s legacy of indifference from others.

Who will like this book? Anyone who enjoys historical fiction and  adventure stories.

Recommended by: Sue, Circulation Coordinator

Title: Father of the Rain

Author:  Lily King

Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, July 2010

Summary: Daley Amory is eleven years old when her mother leaves her father. Caught in the middle between her social activist mother and her bigoted, alcoholic father, Daley struggles to find a balance in her life. As her father’s bitterness leads him to the bottle more and more, the emotional abuse he unleashes on Daley increases. As an adult, Daley rejects her father’s values (or lack thereof), and starts her life far from his anger and prejudice. When her father’s lifestyle catches up with him and he hits rock bottom, Daley’s brother leaves her with the burden of picking up the pieces.

The subject matter may be difficult for some, but this is a thoroughly engrossing and satisfying story. The writing in this novel is mesmerizing, and the characters are so well developed I frequently thought to myself ‘thank God I don’t know anyone like them”.

Recommended by: Sue, Circulation Coordinator

Title: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Author:  Aimee Bender

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group,  June 2010

Summary: This is the type of book you can’t put down once you start it – it’s not because you’re loving it so much, it’s because it’s so complicated, odd, and twisted.  The first line of the book “it happened for the first time on a Tuesday afternoon…” sets the stage for this engrossing novel.  The author’s narrator is a young girl named Rose.  On this particular Tuesday afternoon, when she is turning twelve, the favorite birthday cake her mother makes her suddenly doesn’t seem as good.  Rose can taste, to her surprise, her mother’s emotions with every bite.  She quickly learns that she can literally taste the emotions of whoever prepares her food, giving her unwanted insight into other people’s secret emotional lives.  Rose’s brother and father also possess odd gifts and as we follow this family’s lives from Rose’s third grade year to adulthood we become watchers of a family in distress and the sadness it brings to them. 

Recommended by: Nancy, Deputy Town Librarian

Title: Room

Author:  Emma Donoghue

Publisher:  Little, Brown and Company, September 2010

Summary:  This is a raw, astonishing story of a boy and his mother who live as prisoners in a single, small room. It may be a reminder of headline grabbing kidnapping cases, but as narrated by the child, it is a testament to a mother’s love and resiliency. Sometimes very disturbing, the horror is darkly beautiful as Ma creates a life for her son. Jack’s innocence and curiosity builds as Ma’s desperation forces them both to confront a certain reality. Very inventive and poignant, Jack is so endearing, that his voice will stay with you for a long time.

 Recommended by : Cindy B., Children’s Department

Title: Red Hook Road

Author:  Ayelet Waldman

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing, July 2010

Summary:  A young couple is killed on the way to their wedding reception in coastal Maine. Red Hook Road takes the reader on a journey with the surviving members of their families over four summers.  Iris and Daniel Copaken are the parents of the bride and they are native New Yorkers who summer in Maine; they are “from away”.  Jane Hewins, the groom’s mother, is their cleaning lady who was never happy with the union of the young couple. Emil Kimmelbrand, Iris’ father, is a famous violinist who discovers that Jane’s adopted Cambodian niece is a musical prodigy.  There are many layers to this novel but rather than being complicated and confusing Waldman manages to build each story gradually and thoroughly.  The relationships between husband and wife, mother and daughter, father and daughter, mother and son, brothers and sisters are all so believable that you can relate to their tensions, their frustrations, their joy and their pain.

Waldman is a skilled writer whose descriptions of Maine and its inhabitants are so real that she had this reader yearning to visit this fictional place.  Although a story of loss and grief it is also a story of possibilities and hope. This book is a quick read that will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

Whi will like this book? Readers of Jodi Picoult, Chris Bohjalian, and Anna Quindlen.

Recommended by: Claudia, Technical Services Department

Title: Swift as Desire

Author:  Laura Esquivel

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, August 2002

Summary: Swift as Desire focuses on Lluvia, a middle aged mother desperately trying to replay her entire life in order to understand her parents’ mutual anger for one another. Júbilo, her father, was born with an unmatched ability to communicate and understand through feeling rather than words, but is now confined to a bed and unable to speak due to Parkinson’s. Lluvia’s mother Lucha was a privileged beauty who gave up everything in order to marry Júbilo, but has now become cold and calculating. The story finds Lluvia desperate to understand her parents’ past and reconcile them before her father’s imminent death.

The story skips around in time, leaving the reader on edge throughout the entire book. The characters develop smoothly, and leave a deep impression. Nothing is as it seems with the family, which makes an unforgettable read. If readers are looking for another Like Water for Chocolate, they won’t find it here. Instead, they will find a brutally honest look into the closed doors of a marital relationship and a couple falling apart.

Who will like this book? Readers who are looking for a relatively short but still very engaging story. Those who are prepared to love and hate each and every character, sometimes at the same time, but still hope for a happy ending

If you liked this, try this: Like Water for Chocolate also by Esquivel

Recommended by: LB, Circulation Assistant

Title: The Lonely Polygamist

Author: Brady Udall

Publisher: W.W. Norton, May 2010

Summary: Golden Richards is in a bit of a pickle. With four wives, 28 children and a failing construction business, he doesn’t see how he can lead his struggling brood through the next few months, let alone into the glory of eternal life. Heartbroken over the loss of a beloved daughter, he finds himself drifting further away from the responsibilities of life at home, staying at his distant job site for longer and longer stretches of time. Each day seems to bring a new challenge that  tests Golden’s faith – the only work he can find is building a brothel in the Nevada desert and the unexpected temptation he finds there is surprising. Devastated and desolate, Golden teeters on the edge of the abyss, all the while knowing that if he fails he will drag his immense family with him.

Set in the 1980s, this funny, heart-wrenching story, told in the voices of Golden, questioning newest wife Trish, rambunctious young son Rusty (a boy nicknamed ‘The Family Terrorist’) and the Richards’ house itself will  delight the fans of Udall’s first book The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint. It is a surprising, beautifully written story about reconciliation with your hopes, dreams, family, and place in the wider world.

Who will like this book?: This is a great book for all fans of family fiction, and serious literary readers. Anyone looking  for a long, engrossing book to savor this summer.

If you like this, try this: Udall’s debut, The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint. The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff.

Recommended by: Nicole, Teen Librarian

Title: The Nobodies Album

Author:  Carolyn Parkhurst

Publisher: Knopf, June 2010

 Summary: Writer Octavia Frost and her son Milo had a game they used to play together when he was a young boy.  He’d ask “have you ever heard the Beatles version of I’ve Been Working on the Railroad?” And she’d say, no, I didn’t know they’d ever recorded that.  He’d respond “they didn’t, it’s on The Nobodies Album.”  So “The Nobodies Album” is an album made up of songs that don’t exist.  It also happens to be the working title of Octavia’s yet-to-be published book, which is made up entirely of the last chapters of all her previous novels, completely rewritten with the purpose of taking her characters in the exact opposite direction she’d originally taken them – a book made up of endings that don’t exist.

It seems that Octavia is a woman who’s trying to bring many things into existence, and trying to change lots of original endings. Octavia’s relationship with her son and her career as a writer are at the top of the list, and the two are woven together brilliantly in this novel.  It is when Octavia’s on her way to deliver the manuscript of “The Nobodies Album” to her publisher that she sees her son’s name displayed in the news crawl in Times Square – Milo, a successful musician, has been accused of murdering his girlfriend.  This is the beginning of her journey back to Milo – they haven’t spoken in four years.  And it’s also the beginning of the reader’s journey through Octavia’s fiction.  The novel is interspersed with the last chapters of her previous books, both the original and the revised endings.  The family drama, the short story and the classic mystery all come together in Parkhurst’s incredibly creative, inventive and unforgettable book.

Recommended by: Mary, Branch Reference