Skip to main content

Secrets of Eden--Chris Bohjalian -- finished

I liked this very much and found the ending satisfying.  The final section is the daughter's.  As with Rev. Steven Drew's section, she reveals herself to be an unreliable narrator . . . or at least an unreliable witness when speaking to our prosecutor.

I noticed that this has lower ratings than other Bohjalian books.  Not sure why--maybe not as suspenseful in the traditional way, but I found the characters to be quite believable, and the depiction of spousal abuse convincing. Maybe that's why it's not as popular--it's too good.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Puppy, Story by George Saunders

PUPPY  Dysfunctional family has puppy that they need to get rid of.  Mom places ad; family is coming over. Description of family.   Mom:  husband changed from long-haired attractive to stooped old man. Husband: talks constantly of living on a farm and doing what needs to be done, though he never lived on a farm.   Conversations together:   Sell and move to Arizona, get hooked on phonics for kids, buying a car wash. . . wonderful randomness. Straight-laced suburbanite comes to look at puppy.  Seems like she will buy it, even though she is repelled by house.  (Dog turds on carpet, filthy.) She is proud of how accepting she is until she looks out window and sees white trash's son tied by harness to a tree.  Reader knows he is a menace to himself, darting across I-90, for example.  Suburban mother beats hasty retreat, leaving dog to be (probably) drowned by dad who does what has to be done.   Suburbanite remembers her own pathetic ch...

Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler

Bryant & May--Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery, Book 1 Lots that I liked.  Crime novel that is also historical fiction.  Fowler gives insight into London during the blitz.  Danger from street cars, some looting during blackout, stiff upper lip British still going to theaters, etc.  Fowler also takes reader backstage into the workings of a theater.  I learned a lot about the physical complexity of a major theater--production is a tremendous production.  I liked both the main characters.  Bryant, the eccentric loner who thinks out of the box. May, the more traditional "bright" guy, who is able to appreciate Bryant and help by keeping him in the real world, a little. Plot revolves around murders committed while cast rehearses and then performs Offenbach's scandalous version of Orpheus and Eurydice.  The murders are on the gruesome-detail side given the general British coolness of the rest of the text.  Spoiler coming.  The denouement wa...

Lily by Jane Smiley

Lily has two guests from her college days to visit.  Lily has been in a non-dating, virginal netherworld she doesn't like.  Her guests are married.  They are also fighting--the woman is having an affair, the man is crushed by it.  Description of love gone wrong is very good--the woman is repelled by her husband.  Nice scene where he dives and is attractive again.  They all drink some wine.  The man asks Lily:  Does she still love me?  Lily, quiet at first, finally says no.  (The wife is sitting right there.) The couple leaves the next day.  The friendship of the three is clearly at an end -- did Lily overstep her bounds? Yes.  Did the wife want her to?  Probably.  Now they have someone to blame.  Lily, the gorgeous, brilliant poet, is once again alone with her literary prizes but no prospects for love in her own life. Nice story.  It had an autobiographical ring to me.  The couple visiting to confirm...