Novel Whore

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There are few characters as powerful as Ingrid Magnussen, a striking blond, the kind we all want to be deep down, that floats through life moving wherever the wind, or a shy poet, leads her. She is at once connected to the World, but without any sentimental ties, she doesn’t believe in love. Until she meets “the goat man.” She breaks all of her rules, spends the night with him, and slowly succumbs to the kind of passion she abhors in other women. When the goat man tosses her aside, Ingrid can barely stand who she has become, so she decides to poison him with the White Oleander, by boiling it down and painting his door knob.

Janet Fitch creates an elaborate story built between Ingrid and her daughter Astrid who is sent to multiple foster homes after her mother is convicted of murder. Throughout White Oleander, Astrid struggles to separate herself from her mother, first by establishing a sexual relationship with her foster father, much to the dismay of her foster mother that decides to put an end to things by shooting Astrid. From there Astrid moves from one foster home to another, forming bonds with a high class prostitute, and her perfect fourth foster mother that commits suicide, brought on with a little help from Ingrid. (more…)

Sometimes you need a little levity in your life, and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen fits the bill perfectly. I’ve never been a big fan of the circus, but being able to connect with performers and workmen, and learning the differences that existed on the trains that carried circuses in the early 20th century was fascinating.

One of the things that strikes me in novels set in the past is how much violence actually occurred in everyday life. (more…)

“Where were you when I was 18?” he asked me.

“I was 10,” I replied as I wrapped my legs around him.

Yes, I’m in love with an older man, but I can’t imagine having met my future husband when I was just 6 and he was 36. Clare and Henry meet under extenuating circumstances as he time travels through life at unexpected times in The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. They develop a relationship despite Clare’s age and the expected problems of a man who disappears as suddenly as he appears, and always naked at that.

Niffenegger is able to grasp the complexities of many relationships that deal with one partner waiting on the other, all while knowing that Henry will never be able to stay in the here and now with Clare. Henry of course must deal with the guilt and issues that arise while trying to find a cure that will stop him from time traveling. (more…)

I’ve always been drawn to novels with strong mother-daughter relationships, probably because my relationship with my own mother has been so lacking (thank you psych degree), but what strikes me so throughout this book, is how each daughter is actually denied a relationship due to varying circumstances, and yet each is tied so securely to their mother.

Set in early 20th century china, the characters in The Concubine’s Daughter suffer through standard Chinese torture regiments including foot binding, working in the silk farms with substandard conditions that we Americans can barely comprehend, opium dens, and finally becoming a si-fu studying the Way of the White Crane. Chinese customs that seem so alluring from the outside, remind us of how many women have gone before us through a system that was determined to “cure” our evil souls by making us submit. Yet, in the end, each generation succeeds one step further than the last until at last we triumph. Feminism be damned, this is about finding our true selves, and recognizing that men, real men will always be our supporters, and we theirs.

But you want to hear about the juice don’t you? Of course. (more…)