I don’t think I’ve ever met a character who annoyed me more than our protagonist Rachel. That said, I see this as a win for the author, Paula Hawkins because even Rachel seemed tired of dealing with herself. Fired for months now, our alcoholic friend spends her days riding the train to and from “work” because she doesn’t want her roommate to know that she has been fired. This is pretty much a metaphor for her life–constantly moving but making no progress. The train pauses […]
The grit and flavor of a Lehane novel, set in Brooklyn
This book by a young Dennis Lehane protégé socked me in the gut. It is about a small tragedy in a depressed and ramshackle corner of Brooklyn, which has reverberations that reach deep into the ethnically mixed population of Red Hook and teaches them—and us, the reader– about loss, grief, redemption and hope. It is a sultry summer night, the bars and street corners are hopping, and teen friends Valerie and June are bored and antsy. They decide to go for a midnight float […]
Like most people, he lied best by omission….
Mary Karr’s award-winning memoir of her early childhood in 1960s East Texas reads like a novel. This poet knows how to spin a yarn, and in this case, a mostly true story that focuses on the years she was about 6-8 years old. Mary and her older sister Lecia lived in a dysfunctional household, to say the least. At the center was their mother, an alcoholic who was battling depression and rages, the origins of which are revealed at the very end. Karr is an […]