Baby Got Books

I was on a bit of a non-fiction/science tear at the end of last year. And yes, I’m still posting on the books that I read last year. I’m only a month behind. The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson is a historical narrative, a cautionary tale, and just good science writing.

The book’s subheading tells the tale: “The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World.” I had learned about the epidemic in some course work, but it turns out that I only knew part of the story. The story that gets passed along in classes is about the great public health pioneer John Snow. John Snow was a ground breaking doctor who also pioneered the safe use of anesthesia for surgery. When an outbreak of cholera struck London, Dr. Snow set out to prove once and for all that foul smells were not the cause of the outbreaks (the “miasma theory” was the prevailing wisdom of the time).

Dr. Snow’s best known contribution to epidemiology was the mapping of cases in an outbreak - the map of the title. Through the use of the map, collected data, and statistics, Dr. Snow was able to show that cholera was a waterborne disease and could be prevented through basic sanitation. (Johnson does a great job of breaking down what this means in simple terms - keep people from drinking poop.) He did this years before microscopes would see the bacterium that causes the disease. Too bad it would be another decade before anyone would believe him (that part is not part of the popular “great man” curriculum).

The part of the story is largely unknown is that Dr. Snow didn’t do it alone. A parish priest, Reverend Whitehead, contributed by setting out to prove Snow wrong. As he began collecting data that he intended to use to disprove Snow, he begas to find pieces of information that actually strengthened Dr. Snow’s case. The connections that Whitehead found would have gone mostly unnoticed by Snow, who was not as knowledgeable about the people and geography of the neighborhood.

Sorry if I’ve lost you by now. This is fascinating stuff to me, and Steven Johnson does a great job presenting the historical facts of the case. Johnson’s real contribution in the book is the connections that he makes between this case and its impacts on modern life. At the time of the outbreak, Johnson tells us, it was not a given that packing millions of people into small geographic areas was a good idea at all. In fact, there were many who predicted that the model would soon fail. They needed only to point to the filth and disease of Victorian London as a clear example of why the idea must fail.

The cholera epidemic described in the book lead directly (in time) to sewer, clean water, and other public health reforms that made living in cities possible. Now, for the first time in human history, more of us live in cities than live in rural areas. Johnson’s epilogue focuses on the promise and the challenges that lie in the future for cities. The model of the cholera epidemic point to how quickly a devastating an little understood disease could impact large numbers of people. To day nothing of terror events mounted by small numbers of people. It’s heady stuff.

Needless to say I though the book was excellent, but it was a perfect fit for my non-fiction interests. If it’s your thing, check it out. Cool fact: In modern London, near ground zero of the outbreak, is a neighborhood pub called The John Snow. Next time I’m in London, it’s on my itinerary.

Ghost Map lagniappe:

• The book’s Trailer
• The author’s list of the top 5 plague books (in the WSJ)
• Boing Boing’s interview with the author
• UCLA Epidemiology web site on all things John Snow
• The author’s blog
• My previous posts looking forward to the book (here and here)

A few items on books and music for your perusal:

Those guys at That Truncheon Thing tell me that A Capella books, the indie book store in Atlanta’s Little Five Points, has started their own publishing arm, everthemore books. If the name of the store doesn’t give it away, it quickly becomes apparent when you’re there that these guys love books about music. Their publishing catalog includes: As Far as You Can Get Without a Passport by Peter Case, musician and former front man of the Plimsouls; Party Out of Bounds: The B-52’s, R.E.M., and the Kids who Rocked Athens, Georgia by Rodger Lyle Brown; and The Nashville Sound by Paul Hemphill.

Heather at the spectacular music blog I Am Fuel, You Are Friends has nice things to say about Every Day is Saturday by Peter Ellenby. The book is a collection of Ellenby’s photographs of indie rock bands in glorious action. Heather hosted a contest with the winner getting a copy of the book. The winner was chosen from the best submissions of favorite pieces of rock photography. See the favorites here.

Kerry at the Pickle-Me-This blog was the first to hip me to Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield. Since reading her post, I seem to be seeing things about the book everywhere. Several here at BGB have had mix tapes and CDs foisted on them by me for 20 years or more. Good heavens. Anyway, this book is very much up my alley is what I’m saying.

Yesterday Terry Gross interviewed Colin Meloy of the Decemberists on NPR. The Decemberists, if you don’t know them, are often referred to as a”hyper-literate” band. Their music often uses Victorian and other historical imagery (often of the dark variety) as reference points. They have the prettiest song that you’ll ever hear about the Shankill Butchers. If you’re literate and like music, do yourself a favor and check them out. You can hear a few samples of their music at their web site (click on the birdie). And listen to Terry’s interview for some hyper-literate banter.

Today, my friends, is Independence Day. Meaning I just (finally) finished the book of that name by Richard Ford, and am now free to spend my free time reading something better. Something less . . . well, boring.

With all due respect to Mr. Ford, and to the folks at the Pulitzer institute or wherever it is that sit around and give prizes to books and other works each year, this book bored me to tears. Yes, Mr. Ford can turn a phrase, and every few pages he would manage to articulate a thought or feeling in a creative manner. But there wasn’t a story here. I slogged through 451 pages in the hopes that this character, Frank Bascombe, whose name I’d heard mentioned in awestruck reverie by literary folks, would do something. And when I say do something, I mean something that should take 451 pages to tell the story of. This book could have been a short story. And it would have been a fine one, I bet (although query whether I would have finished it and wondered where the story was).

As those of you who’ve read my prior posts may have gathered, I’m not the most patient of readers. I often start reading books that have garnered critical praise, only to bail on them after thirty pages because they couldn’t engage me. Well, this time I gave the book the benefit of the doubt and kept on going, and I can’t say that I’m any better for it.

My apologies to those of you who loved this book. I guess I’m just not picking up on something that’s there.

In an e-mail from one of the guys at my favorite soon-to-exist book store, Wordsmiths, Russ asked if the BGB crowd had a “physical” book club. The new store will have space for groups to meet, and Russ graciously offered to host our book club at the store. If we had one. The short answer is “No. We don’t have a physical club.” There are several reasons, I suppose. One reason is purely practical. While several of the BGB crowd live here in Atlanta, others of our group live in the Mid-atlantic, the Northeast, the West Coast, and Texas.

Another reason, and maybe no less a logistical nightmare, is that I don’t think it is possible for all of us to agree on a book. I hate going to the video store with more than one other person, because the time spent picking a movie goes up exponentially with each additional person. Picking a book with 10 people would be worse. Maybe I’m wrong.

My own experience with book clubs is shaky at best. I’ve been a member of one actual book club. When I lived in Miami Beach, a Canadian friend of mine asked me to join a book club that she was forming. I immediately said yes and couldn’t wait for my first meeting.

As it turns out, maybe I should have asked some questions first. The point of the book club was to assemble the most diverse cross-section of people possible (easy to do in Miami), read far left political theory (our first book was Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky), and then argue about them. I’m not big on personal conflict as entertainment (and I hate arguing about politics in particular), but as it turns out we were all like-minded people anyway. It only became apparent to me later (when I was told by my friend) that I was invited to fill the role of the White American Man. Despite my qualifications in this regard, I didn’t meet the groups expectations. Yeah.

Most of the book clubs in my area seem to exist for women to get together, drink wine, and read fairly mainstream, non-controversial books. My wife has been invited to join several. There does not seem to be an active book culture for men - at least not that I know about. Reading: the pastime that dare not speak its name.

I had one false start assembling a small reading group known to me to be hard core and dependable readers (a mixed group). We had decided over beers that we were all going to read Absalom, Absalom and get together to discuss it afterwards. I was the only one to read the book. As far as I know, that original group still hasn’t read the book. Not only had I endured some fairly strenuous reading, but there was no one readily available to discuss it.

It wasn’t a total loss. This web site grew, in part, from that failed experiment. The idea being, let’s all just talk about what we’re reading and let’s not count on ever being able to be in the same place all at once. Internet to the rescue.

What has been your experience with book clubs? Anyone have a positive experience with a book club? Ever? Any good negative stories? Anyone belong to a book club with any men in it? What is the secret to maintaining a successful book club over the long haul?

Yes, it is all one word, do not adjust your monitor. WorldChanging. I don’t remember the sequence of events, either I was checking out the WorldChanging web site and decided it was time to read An Inconvenient Truth, or I was reading the book and started to check out the web site. In either case, while reading An Inconvenient Truth, I decided to pick up WorldChanging (the book), which has a foreword by Al Gore (our greatest living President).

The book is subtitled, A User’s Guide to the 21st Century. Their mission, the book and the web site’s, is “to provide the tools, models, and ideas to create a bright green future.” This includes ideas about preserving our environment, lowering your carbon footprint, etc. - but WorldChanging also considers social justice issues. It’s pretty groovy. But this isn’t your father’s smoke-dope-in-the-desert-free-love- -and-macrame-your-own-underpants-style kumbaya environmental movement we’re talking about.

The book is divided into seven sections that move outward from the personal and immediate to the global. The sections are called: stuff, shelter, cities, community, business, politics, and planet. The book is 600 pages (on recycled paper), so there’s lots of stuff to mull over.

Each section has a jillion small articles about anything and everything. It’s a great resource and may work best as a comprehensive reference document for how achieve that “bright green” future. The book is hopeful and upbeat, as the “bright green” future terminology implies. The authors fully believe that we have the technology and the ability to shape a world that is sustainable and equitable. (Social Justice also plays an important role in the WorldChanging world view.)

The book’s approach is also relatively guilt-free. There are a lot of ideas presented, pick those that will work for you and follow through. Easy. Of course, if you drive a Hummer, you’re still a craphead. No getting around it. Sorry.

If you left An Inconvenient Truth feeling hopeless and guilty, this may be the book for you. I highly recommend this book for all you right-thinking positive cats out there.  It would also make a spectacular gift for that  totally “aware” chick or dude in your life.  Proceeds support the WorldChanging org.

The National Book Critics Circle awards nominations were announced. The contenders for best fiction in 2006:

• What is the What by Dave Eggers (BGB Review coming soon)
• The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford (BGB Review coming soon - notes from the Atlanta Reading here)
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy (BGB Review by Dr J)

Read the nominees for the other categories here. Of note to the Atlanta crowd: Atlanta writer Taylor Branch is nominated for the third (and final) part of his biography of MLK, The Edge of Canaan. Part 1, won this award. I think that Branch recently read from the book at The Center for Southern Literature, but there is no evidence of that at their web site. So I may be making that up.

There came a point last year when it was becoming embarrassing to me that I had neither seen the movie nor the read the book An Inconvenient Truth by our greatest living President, Al Gore. I decided to pick up the book (I still haven’t seen the movie).

I had read Al Gore’s previous book on environmental matters, The Earth in the Balance, when I was in college. EitB was well thought out, comprehensive, intelligent, and really, really dry. It was a book about creating a national environmental policy and making intelligent choices. It was supposed to be dry and scholarly. This time around, Gore focuses on only one environmental challenge, global climate change, and brings a focused and engaging approach to the subject. It works.

An Inconvenient Truth, the book, tells its story simply and with a visceral kick. There is no arguing with the images presented here. Gore addresses the skeptics and does a convincing job of dismantling their arguements (unless your name is Frosty and you are immune to logic). The book is a masterpiece on the presentation of difficult scientific material. It will be taught in classes about information design. Seriously.

The books focuses so strongly on explaining the problem that it does not go very deeply into what we, as individuals, need to do to change our situation. I don’t see that as a shortcoming. Getting us to agree that there is a problem is the first step of any good twelve step program. And contrary to what Frosty has told his wife, the book does not have a “bad America, bad America” message. Let’s hope that the Frostys and Senator Inhofes open their eyes soon. Some of the world’s largest corporations (General Electric among them) have begun to call for action. Bush is even rumored to be getting on board with the program. I’ll believe that when I see it.

If you haven’t seen the movie or read the book, I can highly recommend the book (I’ll work on seeing the movie).

Well, the football game could have gone a little better. I can’t be too upset, as it is the best performance the Saints have ever had. Hats off for a fantastic season. There’s always next year (the mantra of the Saints fan).

In other and better New Orleans news, The Ruby Slippers Cook Book, “the little cook book that could,” has been recognized by Gourmand with a Special Jury Award (USA competition). The book will now be submitted for international consideration.

Amy Sins authored and self-published the book after Hurricane Katrina as a way to preserve and/or recreate the recipes that had been destroyed by the floodwaters. Proceeds from her cook book were donated to The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. Amy had hoped to recover her costs and to raise a little money for a charity. She ended up selling out all of her books, and she has begun working on a second printing. Do a good thing and order a copy today. She expects to have a new batch ready to ship on March 1.

Looking ahead, this year Mardi Gras Day is February 20. The New Orleans Jazz Fest will be April 27 - May 6.

This weekend, the New Orleans Saints play the Chicago Bears. In Chicago. If the Saints win, they go to the Super Bowl. If you would have told me that I would type that last sentence in a non-fiction setting during my lifetime, I would have said that you were delusional. Sweet, but delusional. But here we are. Pulitzer winner Richard Ford talked about what the Saints mean to New Orleans on NPR last weekend. I haven’t heard what “Sausage King” Abe Froman has to say about the Bears. Geaux Saints!

If you’ve ever dreamed of opening your own bookstore, check out the new blog for Wordsmiths Books. The “coming soon” independent book store will be opening in Decatur, GA at some point in the near future (they’re shooting for May 18). It doesn’t sound like the location has been finalized yet (please be within walking distance of the Brick Store Pub and Taqueria del Sol). Decatur is just a hop, skip, and 15 minute ride from my house, so I’m looking forward to this. The store’s web site (separate from the blog) is here. Anyway, the blog is just starting out, and it makes for fascinating reading. Geaux, Wordsmiths gang, Geaux!

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier begins with an intriguing premise. When we die, no great mysteries are solved. We end up in a large city, a type of holding area, where we remain for a specific time - as long as there are people in the real world that remember us. Then we move on. As the book jacket helpfully points out, this adds all new meaning to “remember me when I’m gone.”

It’s a nice thought. Families and friends are reunited in the City, just as they were in the real world. Friends wait for each other to arrive at the local watering hole, and pool games resume where they left off. After the initial shock of being dead, people seem to get back to normal life pretty quickly. As people are forgotten in the real world over time, they move on to the next place. Whatever that may be. The population of the city ebbs and flows as the real world suffers disease, famine, and war.
Interwoven with this idea of an afterlife is a plot line in the real world. A deadly epidemic begins to sweep through the real world, and a group of scientists are on a research mission in Antarctica. The Coca-Cola Corporation (headquartered in Atlanta) plays a role in each of these scenarios. The escalating events in the real world begin to have an impact in the next world of the city.

On the whole, I found the parts of the book that focus on the city are wonderfully imagined and romantic. The parts of the book that centered on the real world seemed less plausible somehow. Since communication between the worlds does not exist, I think the book may have worked better as a mystery to be solved by the inhabitants of the city as they wrestle with the problem of their rapidly dwindling population. That the inhabitants of the city were powerless to do anything about it from their end would heighten their suspense. Or something.

However, my main problem with the book (I had a similar problem with Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go) is that the book shirked the nuts and bolts of its basic premise, raising unanswered questions that I think would have made for a better book. The city appears to be inhabited only by Westerners, and English speaking Westerners at that. Do the Quebecois end up in another city? Do African villagers end up in a parallel-world savanna? Is George Washington still around in the city? Plato? Or is the city reserved for people remembered by their contemporaries? Do people band together when their “rememberer-in-common’s” memory begins to go, wondering who will be the last to cling to a fading memory? Is the quality of life in the city related to the strength of the memories in the real world? And on and on.

The book is based upon a short story published in the New Yorker, which ultimately became its first chapter. The short story is excellent, and it reflects the best aspects of this book. In my opinion, the book doesn’t realize the full potential of that short story, becoming bogged down in world-wide pandemics and Antarctic exploration. There are many reviews that believe otherwise, however.

A bricklayer in the UK found out late in life that his family history was not all that he had assumed.  After his mother’s death, his father hinted at an adoption.  It turns out that his birth mother had given him away at a train station via a newspaper ad in 1945.  At the age of 60 he decided to hunt down his real family.  His mother and father had both passed away, but he was able to be re-united with the younger brother he had never met - Ian McEwan.

After the disheartening grief that I received after posting about Only Revolutions, I’ve decided to play it safe. A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon is the complete opposite of OR. It is a straightforward, traditional narrative. It is linear. It is not written in free verse. You read the book from left to write on successive pages. It was not challenging in any noteworthy ways.

Haddon wrote the quirky best-seller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, which I had also read. I knew, more or less, what to expect with this book. It seemed the perfect book for post-Only Revolutions reading. It was. More or less.

The cover suggest the “Three Weddings and a Funeral”-style hijinks that ensue within the pages (although there is no clear role for Hugh Grant). George Hall is the center of the story. He was always a reliable if unexceptional man. He paid his taxes, went to church. He hardly seems to deserve his wife’s affair, his gay son’s snobbery, his daughter’s seemingly poor choice in men, or his slow descent into dementia. The titular spot is an eczema blemish that appears on his hip. George becomes convinced that the spot is the first sign of cancer and that his days are numbered. He begins to behave oddly, nearly killing himself in an attempt to remove the “cancer.” Meanwhile, the family drama plays out around him as George becomes adrift in dementia.

This book was also short-listed for the Literary Review Bad Sex Award. The offending passage involved something about smelling Brass Firedogs. Whatever those are. To his credit, Haddon doesn’t change his British idioms to be intelligible by those of us on this side of the Atlantic. For example, it took me some time to figure out that a character was not using a literal “cake slice” to clean up some vomit. Apparently, a cake slice is a kitchen sponge in England. Or else it is a Brass Firedog-style nonsensical device that I did not follow.

Bad sex aside, the book was an enjoyable read. It lacks the freshness of Curious Incident, but how many truly unique narrators can you have in a career. Haddon has a crisp writing style that makes what he does seem effortless, so you are blindsided when a truly dazzling phrase comes along. If you enjoyed Curious Incident, be sure to check it out. Bottom line: a good book to bring to the beach with you if you’re headed to warmer climes this winter.

I haven’t read 1984 since high school, but I am considering it based upon this educational outreach program.  I saw this while driving through the Krog Street “danger tunnel” in Cabbage Town - always a good place to spot the latest from the graffitisphere.   Please note that in addition to handing out reading tips, Lady Liberty is also giving you the finger.

This weekend will be a long holiday weekend for some of us in the US.  It ought to be a holiday for all of us. (If I had planned ahead, I would have included a link to streaming audio of Public Enemy’s “By the Time I get to Arizona.”)  Here in Atlanta, the banners downtown call the Martin Luther King holiday  “A Day On, Not A Day Off” - meaning we should all do something positive with our day.  Govern yourself accordingly.

For now though, rather than work too hard, I’ll just pass along a few items of interest that are not necessarily book related.

• My friend Frank has just started a new music blog that is going to be one of my daily stops.  It’s called That Truncheon Thing (after a Clash lyric from “London Calling”).  Check it out.
• Another non-book blog that has made for absolutely fascinating reading was started by a family in my neighborhood.  Their kids were in pre-school with Toddler Cayenne, but they packed up their bags and moved to Mozambique to eradicate malaria (Mrs. MoMax works for the CDC).  Check them out at the MoMax in Moz blog.
• Cool parents everywhere will want to pick up a sweet Knuffle Bunny t-shirt.
• As the Idol-ization of America continues, an American Idol-style contest has been cooked up to determine who will become the Taylor Hicks of American literature.  I can hardly wait.  Read about here and here.  Thanks to Nitro who provided the NYT link. She thinks that we should participate as a group.  I’m skeptical.  Let’s vote to see who wins!

At the recommendation of all the best of 2006 reviews as well as DJ Cayenne’s post, I just finished reading Suite Francaise by Irene Némirovsky. DJ’s post pretty much covered the synopsis of the book and the author’s tragic story so I am compelled to just further recommend it.

There are a couple of things that really struck me about this book. This book was translated from the French and written by someone whose native tongue was Russian. The English version was so beautifully and descriptively written that had I not known it was translated, I would have never guessed. I also believe that since Némirovsky was writing this first-hand during the exodus of Paris and the subsequent German occupation, she was able to truly capture the spirit of the French at that time. The version that I was taught in school was that of “bastard French, Nazi sympathizers” but this book cast a whole new light on the events of the times. It made me realize that the French were no different than most people who were suddenly subject to defeat, occupation and humiliation. As a society, they wanted the culture and spirit of the French to survive at all costs; as individuals, this longing to have life continue as it was pre-war resulted in the best and worst of their personalities and inherent rigid class structure to come out full force.

Throughout the book, I just kept thinking what a tragedy it was that this book was never finished and that Némirovsky’s life was cut short. It’s hard to imagine how many other authors, musicians, scientists, were killed during WWII and how the world might have been different had they survived. How many of the soldiers that have been killed in Iraq had the potential to influence this world in a positive way? I don’t want to get on my soapbox but the book was not only wonderful in and of itself but it makes the reader think about the physical and emotional devastation that war inflicts on all who are touched by it.

A Washington State school board has imposed restrictions on showing the movie An Inconvenient Truth in science classrooms, unless a creditable opposing viewpoint is also aired.  Good luck finding one of those.  Here’s the thought process that ruled the day:

The school board imposed the restrictions on viewing the film after Frosty Hardison, a parent who said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old, sent an e-mail to the school board complaining about the film. “Condoms don’t belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He’s not a schoolteacher,” Hardison said. “The information that’s being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is … The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn’t in the DVD.”

“From what I’ve seen [of the movie] and what my husband has expressed to me, if [the movie] is going to take the approach of ‘bad America, bad America,’ I don’t think it should be shown at all,” Hardison’s wife, Gayle Hardison, said. “If you’re going to come in and just say America is creating the rotten ruin of the world, I don’t think the video should be shown.”

This blog celebrates its second anniversary today.  I’m not sure what that is is blog years.  It’s been a fun year.  We’ve made new friends, got a few shout outs in high places, and talked about books for another 12 months.  Our lease on BGB World Headquarters has been renewed for another 12, and we’re looking forward to the adventure ahead.

I knew that I was going to be in for a challenge reading Mark Z. Danielewski’s Only Revolutions. I had read his previous novel, House of Leaves. House of Leaves had three different narrative threads going (in the margins, in footnotes, etc.) that were each unreliable, but together told a story. I enjoyed the workout of HoL, so I pre-ordered Only Revolutions as soon as I got wind of its release. Only Revolutions is a remarkably difficult book to describe, but I’ll give it a shot.

The book is first and foremost all about structure. It is 360 pages long. Each page (with some exceptions due to format) has the same number of words (360) on 36 lines of text. There are two narratives in the book, with each traveling in opposite directions. Think of each page as being divided into four parts. The top central part of the text is either Sam or Hailey’s story, depending on which way you are holding the book. The other’s story is at the “bottom” of the page, upside down. In the margin next to each narrative are short descriptions of historical events that correspond to the date printed at the top of each column. The top part has a different date than the upside down part. With me?

On either Page 1, the main narrative for that side of the book begins in large bold text, while the upside text being read from the other direction is smaller and less pronounced. The main narrative on each Page 1 also has more lines than the upside narrative at the bottom. Over the 360 pages, this reverses itself, with the right side-up narrative diminishing and the upside-down narrative gaining. Does that make any sense? I’ve read that you should consider the text a mobius strip.

Color plays a role as well. On the first page of either end of the book, there is a circle with a “1″ right-side up and an upside down “360″ in another circle. Hailey’s story is indicated with page numbers inside a yellow circle; Sam’s page numbers are inside a green circle. Both numbers are inside a larger multi-hued circle on the yellow-green continuum. (And if you flip the pages, the page number circles make one revolution around the other over the 360 pages inside the larger circle). But wait, there’s more. All of the “o’s” in the text of Sam’s story are green; Hailey’s are yellow. The only other colored text in the story are the dates (purple) and the name of a mysterious character called the Creep (each occurrence of the “The Creep” is also purple).

The first word in Sam’s narrative begins with a large capital “H”. After 8 pages, the first word on that page begins with the next letter in “Hailey” in large, bold capital, and so on. Eventually “Hailey and Sam” are spelled over and over until ending on Page 360 of Sam’s Narrative. The reverse is true for Hailey’s narrative.

Other structural elements include the names of animals being in bold going one direction, and plants printed in bold going in the other. Words like “alone” are purposely misspelled throughout as “allone,” “allso,” allways,” “allready,” etc. And often the text in the top part will “mirror” a portion of the text that is upside-down at the bottom of the page.

Here’s an example, Hailey’s story begins:

Samsara! Samarra!

Grand!

I can walk away

from anything.

Everyone loves

the Dream but I kill it.

Sam’s story, at the bottom of the page ends (and I am giving nothing away):

Everyone betrays the Dream

but who cares for it? O Hailey no,

I could never walk away from you

What? I didn’t mention that the whole thing is written in free verse? My bad. Given the structural constraints alone, Danielewski is some kind of crazed genius.

That said, the hardest part for me was trying to figure out how to read it. I mean that literally. Which end would you start with? Should I read everything on a page, flipping the book all around and then going on to the next page? Should I read the story and the historical markers along the way? After two false starts, I went to the book’s web forum and looked for a consensus and didn’t find one. Reviews had indicated that the book was “meant” to be read one way for eight pages (until you hit one of those big bold letters in “Sam and Hailey” and then flipped and read back the other way. This made no sense to me. Why read the first eight pages of one story and then the last eight pages of another?

Here’s what I did: I began with Sam’s story and read through his 360 pages, then flipped the book over and read Hailey’s story the other way. I quit reading the historical stuff, as it mostly served to distract me. At logical breaking points and every here and there, I would flip the book over for the hell of it to see how the stories mirrored each other - but I didn’t do it too often. The important thing for me was to get into a flow with the free verse and let it “work” rather than analyze the text constantly.

The actual story is about two teenagers who meet and fall crazily in love. They are always sixteen, as those at that age imagine they will always be. Though Sam and Hailey appear to really pull it off. Sam’s story begins in 1863 and ends in 1963 (the Lincoln Assassination to the Kennedy Assassination as our helpful historical tidbits tell us). Hailey’s story runs from 1963 to 2063. Sadly, the historical signposts drop off after our present. No helpful stock tips from the future.

The key to the couple’s longevity is not explained, though the couple eat from mysterious jars of honey. They lead a life of crime, as they are constantly in a different car (once they are invented) and on the road. They may be on a bloody murder spree as well. Violence surrounds their rollicking good time. One reviewer (whose article I can’t seem to find) said that the Dream referenced in the quotes above was “clearly” the American Dream. So you can gather what the book might be saying about us as a whole. Sam and Hailey’s enemy, The Creep, seems to appear at times of turmoil. I don’t think that it’s an accident that the Creep and the dates are signified by the same color (I can’t believe that anything is an accident in this book). Certainly time is as much an enemy to youth as war.

At the end of each narrative, their time together has also ended. Flip the book over and they find each other, fall in love again, and are soon back to the same hi-jinks. Life, and the story, is a circle. The yellow and green used to represent the characters surely represents spring and fall, which is another way to think of the circular and endless nature of their story.

The book itself is beautiful as a physical object. If you obsess about books as objects in and of themselves, get the book just to have on hand. One cover has a large green eye with yellow flecks, the other is a yellow eye with green flecks. Under the dust jacket, there is a “green” book board which features a sort of spring time tableau - green grass, a mouse, butterflies. The “yellow side” has an autumn look - an animal skull, dried flowers, etc. There is a yellow ribbon and a green ribbon sewn into the binding to keep your place in both directions. Pick one up next time you are at the bookstore and check it out. I have no idea how this will be issued in paperback. Or even if it should. Go all in, or go home is what I say.

I have a feeling that readers of this post will have figured out on their own by now if they have any interest in this book at all. This book was so far out of the norm of what I usually read (which has included Danielewski’s previous book) that I was simply amazed that something like this was out there. I’d love to hear from someone else (outside of a forum post) that has read this to compare notes. It is definitely a read that stays with you.

You can listen to the author read from the book on the book’s web site (it sounds spooky - I may play his reading at my house next Halloween).

Now I’m going to check out the KCRW Bookworm’s

interview with Danielewski to see just how much of this book I “missed.” That guy is such a know it all. I love it.

Update: The review that I couldn’t locate above is here.

After seemingly endless mentions about Neal Pollock and his new book Alternadad, our posterior smooching has been rewarded. This here blog has been ranked #1 of the 5 Best Links for posts about Neal and his contribution to slacker parenting. I don’t know anything about BuzzFeed, the site that has bestowed this ranking. They look official. They look accredited to make arbitrary decisions. Obviously they have good taste. We beat out some big names: Salon, Gothamist, and Gawker. The weird thing is that our post is from last March. Whatever. Check out the link and read the Salon article. It is actually an excerpt from Neal’s book (which you might think would trump us). The excerpt, known features an event known as “Peeniegate” in the Pollock household. It is the story of Neal’s choice between 6000 years of Jewish tradition and his (non-Jewish) wife’s insistence that their son not be circumcised. Thank God we had a girl.

Update: The quote on BuzzFeed for our post is about a different book.  Awesome.