I’m still woefully behind on logging my 75 Books Challenge. I hope to get to the ten or so books I’ve read in recent weeks as soon as I can. But in the meantime, to offer some positive thoughts to combat the sad news over the weekend, I must report an astonishing development! I think I may have read the best book of 2006 (so far).
Book #? was Dana Spiotta‘s Eat the Document. It’s a stunning novel: taut, deeply perceptive, mysterious, mildly satirical, and wistful. I read it in one sitting. I could not stop. Imagine if Don DeLillo actually wrote from the gut again and rediscovered that sense of playfulness he lost after Underworld and you have perhaps one fifth of what makes Spiotta such a fine novelist. Eat the Document tells the tale of a radical who committed some unknown crime in 1972 and contrasts her disappearance against a group of activists and bohemians in the late 1990s. There are fantastic parallels and even the playful hint of a nuanced allegory between the two ages, as we encounter a mysterious man named Nash who works in a bookstore and lives off the grid, while organizing meetings for extremely eccentric and, in some cases, outright nutball political movements (complete with crazed acronyms), the 1972 activist’s son, who has a great affinity for the Beach Boys, and a number of young ragtag activists who may or may not be true to their ideals.
Without coming across as didactic, Spiotta has important and often provocative things to say about the nature of political protest. At what personal cost does one rage against the machine? Surely, dissent is needed. But is a hard-fought battle for a tiny advancement truly worth it?
One of this novel’s delights is how Spiotta keeps you guessing about how she’s going to tie everything together. Sure enough, it all lines up as neatly as a Buckminster Fuller dome at the end, but Spiotta is good enough to leave lingering questions that will likely keep you up late and perhaps typing in theories on Internet discussion forums.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
Thanks Ed. I actually enjoyed her debut, Lightning Field (i believe), but wasn’t sure if I wanted to delve into this one – sounds like I do.