Author Archives: tracys2cents

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson

Warning: this story is not for the faint of heart, but don’t miss it because it is a brilliant book. Adam Johnson’s orphan gives us a bird’s eye view of what it might be like to live in the world’s most secretive society: North Korea. 

The main character , Pak Jun Do, is an orphan (though that might not be true ) who goes from tunnel rat, to kidnapper of Japanese citizens from their beaches, to one who spies by listening to radio transmissions for “Dear Leader”, Kim Jong-il,  and finally impersonating a General. It is a strange voyage and one that leaves you anxious because nothing is permanent or safe in this society. The torture, the prison camps, the starvation and the rules are very real. Through Jun Do, we watch his transformation from soldier carrying out the orders of this repressive regime to becoming a person we root for with his final selfless acts.( NY Times Book Review, Michiko Kakutani, January 12,2012)

Pak Jun Do goes from being an instrument of the state to a victim in this Kafka like story. The facts of  the moment are subject to a rewrite later today or tomorrow in North Korea. This is a Stalinist society where anyone can be an informant, your mother, brother, husband, or child.  The citizen who does the good deed for the state  can be rewarded with life in prison, or a labor camp- it is an insane, unsafe place.  The North Koreans are bombarded daily with broadcasts promoting the greatness of the regime and the limitations of the outside world.  As a part of the ongoing propaganda by the North Korean government, their starving people are told  food aid will be sent to the citizens of the United States  who are victims of imperialistic America.

I had the honor of hearing Adam Johnson speak about his new book and at the conclusion I learned enough about North Korea that made me think this story is more  non fiction than fiction.  That’s my 2 cents.

A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion by Ron Hansen

A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion by Hansen is based on a true story set in the 1920’s. It involves an affair that leads to the murder of one of the spouses- a common tale. I am not giving away the plot as it opens with the murder but flashes back to the circumstances that led to the murder of Albert Snyder, Ruth’s husband.  Ruth is an unhappy wife and is portrayed as a seductress, who has “been on more laps than a dinner napkin” reports Hansen. Judd Gray is a bra and corset salesman, with a reputation for being a player with a weak will and in a dull marriage. Ruth and Judd are both married to others when they began a torrid affair in 1925 and then decide to murder. Supposedly the movies The Postman always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity are based on this murder. The lead characters are knuckleheads and screw up  quickly, but I was mesmerized and recommend the book.

Apparently this crime marks the beginning of the tabloids in the 1920’s, the crazy paparrazi trying to cover the story. There were twelve major newspapers in New York City then, and each found its circulation double when there was an article about Ruth and Judd.  And so the couple became the focus of endless stories.  Palm-readers discussed the lines in Ruth’s hand that hinted at this horrible fate; their faces were examined by phrenologists to determine the hidden malignancies that caused the lovers to murder.  “The title comes from an editorial in the New York Daily Mirror written by Cornelius Vanderbilt III  in which he castigated the couple for the homicide based on ‘a wild surge of guilty passion,’ a phrase so juicy and apt that Hansen adopted it as his book’s title” ( by Janet Maslin,NY Times Review, June 5, 2011)

Another aspect of the story was how quickly the death penalty is implemented in those days- no wasting time. The readiness to betray each other was pretty astounding- confessions and accusations are quick to follow the murder. One reporter called the trial the Dumb Bell- Murder. Judd is conflicted about the murdering Albert, weak in so many ways, but once “Ruth-less” he finds God and religion in his prison cell.

Hansen had the facts but makes it a fiction tale because ” there was a great deal to be imagined.  We know they first met in Henry’s Restaurant on 36th and Sixth Avenue in June, 1925, but what was said there?”  Hansen fills in the blanks. The period of the 1920’s is fascinating, check out Ordinary People- Extraordinary Times @ joharaf.wordpress.com/author and then read the book.That’s my 2 cents, Tracy.

You Know When the Men are Gone by Siobhan Fallon

You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon is a great book of short stories! (see her comments). All connected by their location at the military base of Fort Hood, Texas, the chapters are told by the women who are waiting for their men to return home. Fort Hood housing, like all army housing is very intimate, “you hear through the walls… you learn too much”. The base becomes very quiet when the men are gone. But life continues – bills have to be paid, “babies still cry, telephones ring, Saturday morning cartoons screech, but without the men, there is a sense of a muted life” (Fallon).

I love that Fallon shares that when you leave Fort Hood, the sign by the gate warns, You’ve Survived the War, Now Survive the Homecoming. Homecomings are not easy, husbands and wives getting to know each other again and shifting responsibilities.The author speaks from experience, she is a military wife and her husband has deployed three times to the Middle East. The stories are fiction but are based on true experiences.

I learned so much about the lives of army wives and the rules established by the military order. One surprising story was a woman who believed her husband was having an affair with another woman soldier in his battalion and she can appeal to the commander at the base about her suspicions. The commander can order a transfer of any soldier from a battalion in order to preserve the marriage and the unit. It makes sense. If you have an unhappy marriage it can effect the soldier and thus the safety of the whole unit. But the level of control by the military command over your lives on the base and in the military was unknown to me.  She captures the experience, the mood, the ups and downs for the military family. Another fact I did not know is that if your husband / wife dies in the line of duty, the family gets a special parking spot. It is an honor to have the parking spot but who would really want that “award”? Try this book, it is now in paperback and it is a window into a world of silent heroes, the wives and their families.

Tracy’s 2 cents!

Even Silence has an End by Ingrid Betancourt

Even Silence has an End by  Ingrid Betancourt  (Born in Bogotá, raised in France, Betancourt at the age of thirty-two gave up a life of comfort and safety to return to Colombia to become a political leader in a country that was being slowly destroyed by terrorism, violence, fear, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness. In 2002, while campaigning as a candidate in the Colombian presidential elections, she was abducted by the FARC. Nothing could have prepared her for what came next. She would spend the next six and a half years in the depths of the jungle as a prisoner of the FARC. Even Silence Has an End is her deeply personal and moving account of that time. Chained day and night for much of her captivity, she never stopped dreaming of escape and, in fact, succeeded in getting away several times, always to be recaptured.) Took my breath away. I can’t imagine her experience and the days of waiting for rescue. The betrayal of her to the rebels is also an insight into petty and dangerous politics. Some of her comments are worth noting here from an NPR interview:

“We discovered that the jungle was another prison,” she says. “It was impossible to just get out.” But she kept trying, five times in all. And after her fifth attempt, the guards had had enough; they beat her severely and kept her chained by the neck to a tree, 24 hours a day.

The brutal treatment did not break Betancourt’s spirit. Over the six years of her captivity, her fellow hostages learned to adapt. They began to answer to numbers rather than names. They did what they could to survive. But Betancourt remained stubborn. “I had a problem,” she says. “I had this belief that I couldn’t just accept to be treated as an object. It was a problem of dignity.” She says her fellow hostages saw her behavior as arrogance or troublemaking. “But it wasn’t that. It was just that I couldn’t accept that they would call us by number, because I thought it would make it easier for them to kill us if they had to kill an object, a number.”

Betancourt didn’t want to make it easy on her captors, she says. She was fixated on the idea of escaping and returning to her children. But there were times, Betancourt says, when she thought she’d be stuck in the jungle forever. “The relationship with time changes when you’re captive. In the free world, your days pass very quickly because you have so many things to do, and you’re in control of your life.” But with the FARC, she says, the days were eternal.There were two states of extremes: boredom and the anxiety of what could happen. Betancourt says her time in captivity dispelled any romantic illusions she had about the FARC and their mission. “I am of a generation where we like Che Guevara, you know, the very romantic kind of revolution thing,” she says. “And in a way, I thought that the FARC was kind of a romantic rebellion against a system that I didn’t like either.”But in captivity, she says she came to realize that the FARC was nothing more than the military wing of Colombia’s drug cartels. “It was as corrupt as the system; it wasn’t a response to the problems we have in Colombia.” ( NPR, 9/ 25/10)

A review of Shadow Divers by Kurson

In addition to the next book to recommend, please note the link to our local independent bookstore: Book Passage. This is a terrific book store owned by Elaine & Bill Petrocelli, the staff are well read and make excellent suggestions. If you like any of my recommendations or books on my booklists- go to the Book Passage link. The BP link will connect you with the BP personal shopper who can arrange to send the books to you or any variation of  book selection to you or someone of your choice. I know there is Amazon, Google & Barnes & Noble- but think about supporting our local book store.

A non fiction book is is my next recommendation: I am revisiting a book I read a few years ago and have been surprised at the number of people who do not know about this book and should check it out- it is called Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson.

Kurson tells the true story  of the discovery  of a mysterious submarine shipwreck located off the coast of New Jersey. It is dangerously deep and accessible to only those who are experienced deep diving specialists like John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, wreck diving enthusiasts. These guys with a handful of other people ( all real characters) become committed to solving this unidentified submarine. The adventure takes us through the details of deep sea diving ( the risks and dangers), the history of WWII submarines, and all that is gained and lost in the pursuit of solving the identification of the U-boat. There is death, triumph, loss and satisfaction as they are able to return items to the relatives of the dead. Loved reading this story, riveting and wished it did not end.

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

Turn of Mind by Alice Laplante is about  a former surgeon who has Alzheimer’s. She might not remember that her husband has died or what she had for lunch, but Dr. Jennifer White has not forgotten her  skills as a hand surgeon. She becomes a suspect when her busybody best friend, Amanda, is found murdered with four of her fingers surgically amputated. Did she do it?  She cannot remember.

Suspenseful, the novel  builds through her fractured memories a story of secrets and clues that all is not as it seems.  Events seem to trigger flashbacks of the past and  her friendship with Amanda and their husbands. One revealing memory demonstrates the extent of her friend’s treachery all done in the name of being a friend who honors truth above all else.

“Alzheimer’s is bleak territory, and to saddle Jennifer with suspected murder seems cruel and unusual punishment. But in LaPlante’s vivid prose, her waning mind proves a prism instead of a prison, her memory refracted to rich, sensual effect” ( NY Times Book Review, Slutsky, 7/15/11). I thought the author did a excellent job conveying the feeling of loss and confusion when in a state of dementia. The doctor’s strategy of keeping a notebook which she and others write down the conversations, events in her daily life is brilliant but leaves you wondering – what is real?  A great read….

Busy Tracy

The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. See what John Green has to say about his book.

It is a young adult book but easily read by adults, should be read by adults. The story is about teenagers who meet in a cancer support group- Hazel Grace (terminal) and Augustus Waters (80% chance of survival). The dialogue is near perfect, the storyline riveting, and their friendship amazing. It is insightful and echoes with all the themes that saturate our lives: how to leave your mark on this world, will we be remembered, the need to be valued, how to live and die. Hazel has used up her “wish” but Augustus will share his and they are off on an adventure with twists, laughs and tears. I can’t stop thinking about  this book!

Busy Tracy with her 2 cents

Hello Bookies

My first post.… my purpose with this blog is to share with you the books I love. As most of you know for the past 5 years I have been making summer and winter lists of my best book picks – in Adult Fiction & Non Fiction and now it has expanded to include Young Adult Books. Now I can share it all here  with you  and anybody else who is interested in what I am reading. Eventually, I will show you my working book for your feedback and pleasure ( I hope).

In addition to my book review posts, check out my book lists. If you recognize any books on my lists that you enjoyed, typically the rest of the list will appeal to your reading taste. I am always looking for book recommendations so send them my way! Thank you for visiting my site and listening to my 2 cents.

Tracy