One for the Books: What are some favorite authors up to?
- Mary Louise Ruehr
I thoroughly enjoyed the latest novels from three of my favorite authors. They’re all great reads! Oh, and all of these are great books for both men and women.
If you’ve ever read a Fredrik Backman book, I’ll bet he’s quickly become one of your favorites. His latest is “My Friends,” translated by Neil Smith. I mention the translator because he has done such a remarkable job that you’d never guess it was written in Swedish.
Young Louisa sneaks into an art gallery during an auction with the intention of vandalizing a certain valuable painting. “She’s particularly angry about rich people buying art, because rich people are the worst sort of adults. … They hate the fact that there are beautiful things that are free.” People think the painting, titled “The One of the Sea,” is a painting of the sea, but Louisa, who has studied and loved a copy of this artwork for years, knows it’s really a painting of three teenage boys sitting on a pier.
The book tells the story of those boys and the artist, 25 years before, told to Louisa during a long train trip by Ted, who was one of those boys. He tells her, “The pier was their secret place, forgotten by the world.”
This book is for word lovers, with beautiful phrasing that reminded me of “All the Light We Cannot See,” and with the emotions of a William Kent Krueger novel. It’s remarkable how Backman puts words together: “It weighs so heavily on him it’s a wonder he doesn’t leave footprints in the concrete platform.” Tiny images are sheer poetry, such as “restless as a wasp in a jar,” and some are quietly powerful: “He sighs so deeply that it’s a miracle the fields of wheat outside the train window don’t get flattened.”
It’s a story about the power of art and of friendship. Possible triggers include child abuse and addiction.
This, quite simply, is a wonderful, beautiful book. It’s both heartbreaking and heartwarming.
“Fever Beach” is a fairly typical Carl Hiaasen book, set in Florida. If you know Hiaasen, then you know it’s irreverent, often offensive, and filled with eccentric characters. Such a treat!
Racist activist “Dale Figgo — bigot, slob, conspiracy nut, and hatemonger,” is so extreme that even the Proud Boys disowned him. “Recently he’d formed his own white nationalist group, the Strokers for Liberty.” This guy is not one, but two tacos short of a combo plate. To the reader’s delight, he often gets words wrong, as in “The vote was unanimal” and “I got one a them high-risk conditions. … I’m a type 2 diabolic.”
Enter the lovely Viva, who works for a shifty multimillion-dollar nonprofit foundation and rents a room from Figgo. Then there’s Twilly, an environmentalist who infiltrates the Strokers group. There are quite a few minor players as well, including a rival white supremacist, a crooked politician and a hooker, and one bunch — Claude, Clure and Clay — constantly had me confused.
A violent incident sparks a series of bad decisions on Figgo’s part, and, of course, all these characters — eccentric or normal — eventually interact, with bizarre and hilarious results.
The thing I love about Hiaasen is the details, asides and mini back-stories. They tumble off the page in heaps, usually with subtle humor — completely unnecessary, but oh so much fun.
I don’t think this is my favorite Hiaasen book, but I enjoyed it from page one.
I’ve been in love with stories about the Tudor era in England since my teen years. I especially love the books of Alison Weir, who always tries to be as historically accurate as possible. This year she’s written “The Cardinal: A Novel of Love and Power,” the life story of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who lived around the turn of the 16th century.
Young Thomas is thirsty for knowledge, and he’s lucky to be sent to Oxford. “He longed for advancement, … and the best way to achieve it was through the Church.” But he doesn’t really want to take vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, so he becomes a reluctant priest. He finds a wealthy patron, who helps him advance higher and higher in the Church hierarchy. But “He yearned to be at court, to be at the center of things.”
When he’s finally presented to King Henry VII, Thomas finds he has a talent for diplomacy, and he becomes an adviser to the king, helping negotiate peace treaties and settle arguments. When the old king dies, the young Henry VIII keeps him on, and the two become close friends. With young Henry VIII, “It soon became clear that, by making himself invaluable to the King, Tom ruled all. It was in his power to bring about what he decided was best. … Whatever he advised or asked for came to pass.” But he’s hated by those who envy his power.
And surprise! This priest has a love life — a mistress and several children he can never claim as his own.
Wolsey rises to the position of Cardinal and even aspires to become Pope, but soon the pendulum swings the other way. That is, Anne Boleyn comes along. She hates him, thinking he’s working against her, and she turns Henry’s mind against Wolsey. “Anne and her supporters were constantly with the king, … dripping poison into his ear.”
Weir brings Thomas Wolsey to life, much as Hilary Mantel did with Thomas Cromwell in “Wolf Hall.” The reader is treated to history, political machinations and court “skullduggery,” the building of Hampton Court, and “the King’s Great Matter” — his desire to ditch his legal wife so he can have a son, which causes the eventual split from the Church of Rome.
Weir offers us a new and fascinating point of view of the Tudor Court. She writes in an author’s note, “I have touched briefly on, or omitted, much of the politics to focus on Wolsey the man, a historical figure for whom I have a certain sympathy.”
If you like this one, I can recommend about a dozen more by Weir!
Happy summer reading!
Mary Louise Ruehr
Mary Louise Ruehr is a books columnist for The Portager. Her One for the Books column previously appeared in the <em>Record-Courier</em>, where she was an editor.