Books: Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander (2012)

Solomon Kugel and his wife, Bree and their son have moved from Brooklyn in an old farmhouse in Stockton, New York. Nervous, fearful and bit odd, Kugel is disturbed by the tapping noises coming from the attic. He has hope that it’s nothing but mice, and not the arsonist who is attacking various farmhouses around Stockton. But he is surprised to find that it’s neither mice nor an arsonist, but an old woman typing on a laptop; an old woman that just happens to be Anne Frank.

Kugel is, of course, surprised, and author Aslander laments “while there’s never a good time to find Anne Frank in your attic, this was a particularly bad time” for our protagonist. As mentioned, the Kugels are recent transplants from New York City to the countryside. To help pay for the farmhouse, they take on a tenant, who becomes nosy when he reminds Kugel that he’s paying for the attic space, but is living in another room, next to Kugel’s own mother, who is pretending to die and who believes, as a Jew, she must suffer for all the millions who died in the Holocaust because she lived a very good life. When Kugel considers calling the cops about his unwanted Holocaust survivor who everyone thought was dead, he can hear his mother voice asking him “What’s the matter, you didn’t have Dr. Mengele’s number?”

The gist of the tale is, as Anne Frank has spent decades writing a novel, would her “fans,” both Jewish and those who are not, see her differently had she really survived the Holocaust. Is she only famous, in the end, because she died there? Would anyone care about her diaries had she lived to see them published? 

This is, in the end, an absurdist tale, written with some hilarious and biting satire. It is filled with guilt and pessimism, yet it never wallows too much in either of them, with Auslander handling the tale with aplomb. It’s a great humorous read, and kind of reminded me of what Mel Brooks might have done after History of the World, Part One.

Books: What in God's Name by Simon Rich (2012)

In his second novel, What in God's Name, author Simon Rich takes on God and creates a funny, touching novel about a deity who is the CEO of Heaven, Inc. 

The biggest problem with Heaven, Inc  is that it’s a grossly mismanaged corporation. For as long as anyone can remember, the founder and CEO (known in some circles as "God") has been phoning it in. Lately, he's been spending most of his time on the golf course. And when he does show up at work, it's not to resolve wars or end famines, but to Google himself and read what humans have been blogging about him. When God decides to retire (to pursue his lifelong dream of opening an Asian Fusion restaurant), he also decides to destroy Earth. His employees take the news in stride, except for Craig and Eliza, two underpaid angels in the lowly Department of Miracles. Unlike their boss, Craig and Eliza love their jobs and they refuse to accept that earth is going under. Inspired to save Earth, Craig and Eliza tells God if they give them thirty days, they will create the greatest miracle seen in centuries: getting two socially awkward humans to fall in love. But true love has never been more difficult as both Sam and Laura –despite being “perfect” for each other- seem destined never to find the course of true love.

A better and more rewarding novel than Elliot Allagash, despite the plot sounding a bit precious, the young author is great with using some hysterical and very sharp dialogue. He’s also able to prevent the novel from becoming gimmicky in many ways due to his ability to create more emotion than one might expect. A quick and fun read.

Books: Putting on the Ritz by Joe Keenan (1991)

The cast of Blue Heaven return in another madcap screwball comedy that takes on the magazine industry and the rivalry between two exceedingly rich Manhattan publishers who hate each other. 

It’s been several months since the events of the first novel, but Philip and Claire's latest efforts at breaking onto Broadway have flopped. Still, fate intervenes, but their efforts have not gone unnoticed by Gilbert's employer, Tommy Parker. Tommy is a gofer for billionaire Boyd Larkin, who wants to insert a spy into the household of his arch-rival billionaire, Peter Champion. Peter's wife, Elsa, is seeking to launch a singing career and needs just the right songwriting team. Gilbert, on the other hand, is hoping that helping Parker and Larkin pull off their scheme will advance his own chances at snagging the world's wealthiest sugar daddy.

Philip and Claire are soon hired. Unfortunately, Elsa can't carry a tune and her acting abilities are nonexistent –this plot stolen, me thinks, from Orson Welles Citizen Kane. Nonetheless, they have to make her look good: Champion could destroy their careers if they don't. But if they manage to pull it off, they'll be on the fast track to fame. It's not long before Philip and Gilbert are caught spying, which leads them to become double-agents, double-double agents, and triple-agents. 

Much like Keenan’s scripts for Fraiser, the novel resemble the old comedies of the 1930s with a lot going on –mostly booze and one-liners zinging by faster than the speed of light. The book peters out long before the end, but it’s an enjoyable romp through the fog of remembrance of things past when screwball comedies of the bygone era ruled and the most important thing –besides paying the rent- was how to get a good paying job that required as little work as possible.

Books: Double Feature by Owen King (2013)

In his debut novel, Double Feature, Owen King creates a darkly humorous look at family and low-budget film making, along with doses of screwball comedy.  The youngest son of best-selling author Stephen King, the writer shows a deft hand at creating odd characters that are sympathetic and very real.

The novel is about filmmaker Sam Dolan, who always had a difficult relationship with his father, a B-movie actor/director Booth Dolan—a boisterous, opinionated, lying lothario whose screen legacy falls somewhere between cult hero and pathetic. Sam has a half-sister Mina, who is, at times, violent yet endearing as well. While she sees the faults of their father, she loves him despite Booth’s tendency to screw-up repeatedly –though Mina’s mother is alive, while Sam’s mother Allie is dead, their relationship is strained due to the possible issue that Sandra may be a bit crazy. 

While still young, Sam makes his first film, "Who We Are." But the money man, who is also the first AD, hijacks the film in post-production, altering the film and destroying almost everything else. With his film irrevocably ruined, he’s trashes the only known copy. But as he tosses the DVD into the bin, it misses and lands on the ground. Too depressed to make sure it’s gone, he leaves.

And that little misstep sets in motion a ten years odyssey for him, as the film develops a cult following. Meanwhile, he toils at Brooklyn video store and doing wedding videos. But one weekend in 2011, Sam is forced to come to terms with his failed opus, "Who We Are," his dad and his messy life –which includes seeing two women, one who is married. Along the way we are joined by Mina, Wesely –his housebound roommate who has become famous on the internet- and Sam’s Godfather Tom, a contractor who can’t seem to stop adding additions onto his house. 

As a long-time reader of his father, Stephen and also now a fan of his brother Joe, Owen King’s turn into the realm of such authors who deal with family –John Irving, Jonathan Tropper- in a humorous way is great. While his dad has done the same, the elder King’s family dysfunction has always been sort of mean. Here the younger King takes a more real (maybe) look at regret, resentment and ambition. And he creates real people, who speak real words of everyday people –a hallmark of what I like about the elder King’s novels. 

While I felt the story petered out towards the end, I was still impressed with the novel, as King’s prose is different from his famous father and rising star of a brother; it seemed wilier, I guess. Finding the human condition is always difficult, but Owen King’s perceptive about people is sometimes what is best about the book; it’s very funny and always charming.

Note: 

Now that I've joined the working world again, I'm bound to slow down my reading time. The last week has been awfully tiring, and while I'm not sure I want to stay with this new company, I also realize I'm in no position to turn it down as well. I fully intend to get back to the Setting Free the Bears, but I needed to read this first. 

Still, until I can find a happy balance of not being so exhausted when I come home from work that all I want to do is watch TV, I might end up reading one or two books a month.

Books: The Company of the Dead by David Kowalaski (2012)

I’ve always loved time travel stories, and while the “what if” plot lines of changed history can be fun, I find myself still intrigued more with the mechanisms of time travel than anything else. Books that deal with time travel have always had two big hooks to have fun with,

Beyond Einstein’s theory that states time-travel is not possible –and even with people like Stephen Hawking sort of agreeing with it – it has never stopped science fiction writers from writing books about, or Hollywood cranking out TV shows and movies about the ability to change our past or future. 

Big historical events are the fodder for this “what if” scenarios. The assassination of John F. Kennedy almost fifty years ago remains a watershed moment. Many writers of science fiction –and many others- have always wondered what might have been had not an assassin struck in Dealey Plaza on that late November morning. Stephen King, most notably of late, pondered that in his novel 11/22/63. 

Australian novelist David J. Kowalski explores similar themes in his debut tale, The Company of the Dead, about someone trying to change the history of the ill-fated Titanic in 1912. But unlike King’s tale, this one opens in an altered world, where the action of one man from 2012 who ends up in 1911 changes the course of our recorded history. While this Jonathan Wells prevents the Titanic from striking the iceberg in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, there is some sort of predestined aspect happening, and the Titanic still hits an iceberg, only a few hours later and sinks. This small change, and the survival of a few people who died originally, unwinds the causal nexus plunging the planet into a different timeline –one where Germany and Japan control the world, where America is divided like what almost happened in the Civil War and where modern technology –like mobile phones and the internet- don’t exist and everyone smokes like they’re in an old movie from the 1940s. Then we meet a group of people –one being the grandson of Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr who really died in World War II, leaving no heirs, but because of the shift in time, went on to live- who discover a journal stored away in Titanic’s safe (just like in real life, the remains are found and artifacts, like the safe, are brought to the surface). The journal, written by a man named Jonathan Wells, states he was born in 1964 and using a device found in the wreckage of some space ship that landed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 travels back in time to 1911 and decides to change the fate of Titanic. These people are convinced that they must travel back and prevent Wells from changing history. Because they also know if they fail, the timeline they are currently living will cease to exist because of rising tensions all over the planet. 

Kowalski throws every time travel trope in, along with exploring a potential alternate universe where America never entered into World War I – a genre Harry Turtledove has been doing for the last decade or so. The book also shifts into a spy novel –which would be fine, if this was a spy novel. 

The author does some great world-building here and obviously spent a lot of time in research, as this book is highly detailed –though I’m curious if never intended the book for American audiences, as the book is rift with different spellings of words like tyre, coulour and carriages (trucks). It’s not distracting, but I was amused by it. The characters have little or no personality, which does become distracting as it sometimes hard to understand who is talking. 

I think the book starts out strong, dismissing some of my unintentional feelings that the book might be a bit too long at 750 pages –after all, you have to know that the team who decides to stop Wells has to succeed. 

But if you are doing an epic novel like this, sometimes the pages are justified. 

And the pages flew by –and it helped, maybe, that Kowalaski kept the chapter’s short- so I was anxious to see what happens. But the problem is, I read this book for the time travel conundrum and not have it mostly be a spy novel about an alternate history of the United States. So there's too much confusion on just what the book wanted to be, and the ending –while clever- does not payoff for the investment of the reader because what it really becomes is an over-long spy novel masked as a science fiction novel and I don’t think science fiction readers will like that.