The Odds by Stewart O'Nan

Published by Viking Adult on January 19, 2012

Art and Marion have serious financial and marital problems.  After thirty years of marriage, they are returning to Niagra Falls, not for a second honeymoon but for a final hurrah before their bankruptcy and a divorce that they hope will shelter their assets.  Art and Marion are not a happy couple.  Art views a minor bus accident as a missed opportunity to die.  Marion has perfected the art of ignoring Art.  Although Art adores Marion, she has never forgiven his affair with Wendy Daigle twenty years earlier, while he never even noticed her retaliatory fling with her friend Karen.

Although they plan to divorce, Art and Marion may or may not continue seeing each other -- deciding their mutual fate seems to be one of their reasons for taking this trip.  Art loves Marion and clearly wants to be with her.  Marion doesn’t seem to know what she wants as she vacillates between doing nothing to encourage Art and (less successfully) doing nothing to hurt him.  The novel’s hook is a gambling scheme that might rescue their finances and perhaps their marriage, although the scheme is, for the most part, relegated to the final pages.  Throughout most of the story, Art and Marion are sightseeing or getting ready for dinner.

The narrative is like an intricate dance as Art and Marion move around each other, approach and then distance themselves, rarely saying what they are thinking, topping off thirty years of imperfect communication with a last effort to rekindle a connection that may no longer exist.  If Marion is finally ready to start forgiving Art, he can’t read her well enough to overcome his wariness:  so many of his overtures have been rejected during her “long, bitter stretches of indifference” that he hesitates to risk another.  Marion is maddening in her “now I love you, now I don’t” approach to her relationship with Art, making it difficult to understand what Art still sees in her.  They both have “a genius for self pity.”  Art is driven by guilt of twenty years standing while Marion’s life is largely defined by regret.  Is that enough to sustain a novel?  Barely.

The Odds is more interesting than captivating, in part because it’s difficult to form an emotional connection to Art and Marion.  Stewart O’Nan convincingly illustrates the stagnation of marriage but it’s almost painful to read about two people who, after thirty years together, are either unable to communicate or communicate all too well.  Art needs to grow a spine while Marion needs to give her grievances a rest.  It becomes wearisome to read about two people who are so entrenched in misery, although O’Nan makes the story bearable with his snappy prose and lighthearted approach.  He fills the novel with pithy remarks like “His idea of gallantry was ignoring her shortcomings, which only drew more attention to them.”  The ending is a bit abrupt, the story of their marriage unresolved, but that’s life.  On the whole, this is a novel I can recommend for its funny moments and for the shrewdness of O’Nan’s observations and but not so much for the story it tells. 

RECOMMENDED

Kurt Vonnegut: The Last Interview by Kurt Vonnegut et al.

Published by Melville House on December 16, 2011

Kurt Vonnegut's last interview was fairly short, not nearly long enough to fill a book. It is joined in this volume with five other interviews that span thirty years. Not surprisingly, this leads to some redundancy; Vonnegut liked to tell the same stories and interviewers tended to ask the same questions (who wouldn't, after all, want to ask Vonnegut about the firebombing of Dresden?). Vonnegut discusses his family in nearly every interview; at least four times we hear that his brother patented the process for making rain with silver iodide. On the other hand, we hear almost nothing about the bulk of his fiction, an omission I found disappointing.

The first interview is actually a compilation of four separate interviews that were cobbled together by Vonnegut himself and published in The Paris Review in 1977. Vonnegut talks about his service in World War II, his imprisonment by the Germans in Dresden, and, in general terms, his writing. My favorite quotation from that interview (responding to critics who considered him "barbarous" because he studied chemistry and anthropology rather than classic literature): "I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far."

The second interview was published in The Nation in 1980. It focuses on the firebombing of Dresden (the subject of Slaughterhouse-Five) and on nuclear weapons (featured in Cat's Cradle). Vonnegut's most interesting thought concerns his belief that most people lack enthusiasm for life.

A Playboy interview from 1992 -- the best in the book and the most overtly political -- pairs Vonnegut with Joseph Heller. The discussion is wide ranging and features a fair amount of literary (and non-literary) name dropping. Heller and Vonnegut were both World War II veterans; Vonnegut makes some interesting points about the difference between that war and the bombing in the first Iraq war (including the observation that WWII soldiers hoped they didn't have to kill anyone while modern bomb droppers tend to have no such qualms). Here's Vonnegut on censorship and the First Amendment, a statement I applaud: "your government is not here to keep you from having your feelings hurt."

A 2006 interview from Stop Smiling is notable for Vonnegut's discussion of the artwork he did in collaboration with Joe Petro (he saw it as "protesting the meaninglessness in life"). It also updates his political thinking (suffice it to say that he wasn't optimistic about the direction in which the country was moving). Vonnegut saw the extended family as a solution to the nation's problems, but given the impracticality of the extended family in modern America, he advocated having fun. His most telling statement: "I've said everything I want to say and I'm embarrassed to have lived this long."

A condensation of four interviews between 2000 and 2007 (the last a month before his death) is more of the same, but I was struck by how such a big-hearted man, so in love with people despite his continual disappointment in their actions, was so gloomy about his own existence. In a comment worthy of Mark Twain (with whom he had much in common), Vonnegut said: "As you may know, I'm suing a cigarette company because their product hasn't killed me yet."

The final interview, two months before Vonnegut's 2007 death, appeared in In These Times, for which Vonnegut occasionally wrote. Vonnegut was not well; consequently, the interview is very brief. He discusses religion (Vonnegut was a humanist who came from a family of freethinkers) and politics, including a very funny letter he wrote to Iraq describing the path it should follow on the way to becoming a democracy.

Vonnegut was a national treasure. His fans will surely enjoy these interviews, but those who are looking for insight into his thinking beyond his novels might want to pick up his various books of essays, which capture his worldview in greater depth, including his last, A Man Without a Country.

RECOMMENDED

Once a Spy by Keith Thomson

Published by Doubleday on March 9, 2010

Charles Clark, a less than successful racetrack gambler, always thought his father, "Hum" Drummond, lived up to his nickname: a dull, plodding, colorless man. Now that Drummond is afflicted with Alzheimer's, however, someone seems intent on killing him. Charles doesn't understand why anyone would want his hapless, harmless father dead. Watching his father avoid assassination, Charles is amazed to discover that Drummond has hidden talents: he is adept at spotting surveillance teams, hotwiring cars, and disarming attackers. Soon Charles learns that Drummond's life as a washing machine salesman (and as a father) was simply a cover for his true vocation: Drummond is a spy. Unfortunately, unless he is having one of his rare lucid moments, Drummond doesn't remember being a spy and can't recall the identity of his employer. It falls to Charles to help his father stay alive long enough to uncover (or remember) the truth.

From this clever premise Keith Thomson weaves a surprisingly funny story. I took it in the spirit in which it is written, as a humorous look at clandestine service. Don't expect a serious spy novel; the reason that Drummond's life is in danger is just short of preposterous, as are many of the events that occur while the fast-moving plot unfolds. Still, this spoof of a spy novel isn't played entirely for laughs. Drummond is set up as an authentic operative, unlike Maxwell Smart or Austin Powers. The story delivers the sort of action that befits a thriller without ever taking itself too seriously.

Keith Thomson's clean prose style is well suited to the subject matter: it isn't flashy and it doesn't get in the way of the action. The story moves quickly to a satisfying conclusion. I wouldn't call Once a Spy memorable (either as a spy story or as comedy) but it's the sort of light, quick, enjoyable read that clears the mind between weightier books.

RECOMMENDED

The Evening Hour by A. Carter Sickels

Published by Bloomsbury USA on January 17, 2012

Cole Freeman grew up with the Bible and little else.  Now almost thirty, he’s the only one of his friends who feels no inclination to escape from the mountains of West Virginia -- not by moving or joining the military or using the drugs he sells to supplement his income as a nursing home aide.  Cole feels a connection to the land despite the explosions that ravage it as mining companies destroy the mountain tops that surround him.  He has no connection to his mother, condemned as a harlot by his grandfather before she walked out of Cole’s life.  How will Cole respond when a death in the family brings her back to the mountain?

The strength of The Evening Hour lies in the careful construction of its central character.  Cole is a man of unvoiced thoughts, a man who rarely uses more than three words and a grunt to answer a question.  He nonetheless has complex feelings:  about growing up without a mother; about the serpent-handling, scripture-spouting grandfather who raised him; about his former best friend, Terry Rose, who left the mountain before returning to take a job at Wal-Mart; about the women with whom he has on-and-off relationships; about the government and the mining company and the environmentalists he can’t bring himself to trust.  He wants to be a nurse and likely has the aptitude and intelligence to attend college, but can’t muster the belief in himself that he would need to change his life.  His grandfather told him many times that he needed to be saved, that he should surrender himself to the Holy Ghost, but salvation eludes him.  He understands the appeal of religion but doesn’t have much use for it.  He’s frustrated and isolated, confused and tired.  He’s nearly thirty but he’s still growing up … or maybe he’s stuck, unable to grow beyond the crabbed, stifling life he’s always known.

Carter Sickels writes vividly of Appalachia:  dirt poor people living hardscrabble lives, powerless to contend with the mining companies that poison their water and flood their land; the defiant pride that keeps them rooted in their homes; the lies and threats that mining companies wield to induce landowners to sell their property; their silent fears and fading hopes.  The environmental devastation and human suffering inflicted by mountaintop removal (or, more aptly, mountaintop destruction) is movingly depicted.  Sickels’ portrayal of the media is insightful:  when national news teams arrive to report a catastrophe on the mountain, they focus not on the problem’s cause but on the impoverished state of the mountain’s residents.  “See how they do us?” one of the characters asks.  “Any time we get attention, it’s to show how backward we are.”

While it is never dull, The Evening Hour is not an action-filled, plot-driven novel.  It is the story of one man learning about and coming to terms with his life, a man faced with difficult decisions who is trying to make peace with himself.  That’s not to say that the story is uneventful.  Cole experiences a life-changing trauma a bit past the novel’s midway point, described in several chilling, unforgettable pages.  But the story is more about Cole’s reactions than his actions, more about his thoughts than his deeds.  It’s sort of a delayed coming-of-age novel (some people take longer than others to crawl out of adolescence, to make the hard choices demanded by adulthood).  Dramatic tension builds as Cole faces a critical decision.  His grandfather regarded the mountaintop as proof of God, but the mountain is disappearing.  Will Cole share that fate?  That question drives the novel, and it kept me engrossed from the first chapter to the last.

RECOMMENDED

Voices of the Dead by Peter Leonard

Published by The Story Plant on January 17, 2012

Harry Levin and his father were at Dachau in 1942. Harry escaped; his father was executed. In 1971, Harry is a scrap metal dealer living in Detroit. His daughter is killed in Washington D.C. by a drunk driver who is released from custody because he has diplomatic immunity. When the State Department refuses to identify the diplomat, Harry does some snooping. Assisted by a D.C. police detective named Taggart, Harry learns that the German diplomat is Ernest Hess. Rather coincidentally, Taggart is also investigating the murder of a Jewish dentist and his wife. The reader knows (but Taggart doesn't) that Hess is the murderer. He goes on to commit similar crimes in Germany as Harry trails behind him, looking for an opportunity to avenge his daughter's death.

If you can swallow the premise -- a respected member of the German parliament who is expected one day to run for the office of chancellor is visiting the United States for the purpose of committing murders -- the story that Peter Leonard constructs around it is moderately entertaining. The premise itself is so implausible -- and for the sake of avoiding spoilers I haven't mentioned its least credible aspect, a coincidence so unlikely it made me laugh out loud -- that I found it impossible to suspend my disbelief. Thrillers often skate on the edge of credibility but this one skates out of the rink.

The story has the feel-good quality of a revenge fantasy and if that's what floats your boat, this one will certainly be satisfying. My preference for thrillers to be at least slightly grounded in the real world didn't stop me from cheering for Levin. Of course, I still cheer for Bugs Bunny as he outwits Yosemite Sam -- a fair comparison in that Voices of the Dead has about the same degree of depth as a Warner Brothers cartoon, and an even sillier ending.

Unfortunately, the weak premise isn't redeemed by strong characters. Harry, Hess, and an American soldier (dishonorably discharged) who turns up in Munich to give Harry an assist are all caricatures, predictable personalities substituting for complex characterization. In fact, Hess and the soldier are such obvious (and offensive) stereotypes (Hess as the sadistic German, the soldier as the jive-talking, drug-dealing African American who wears pastel leisure suits, has multiple girlfriends, and orders fried chicken as soon as he returns home) that it is impossible to take the characters seriously. (Why Leonard thought it was important to emphasize the race of the African American judge who gives the soldier a "get out of jail free" card at the end of the novel is beyond me. If Leonard seriously thinks that black judges give breaks to black defendants, he needs to spend some time hanging around courthouses.)

There are promising moments in Voices of the Dead but not enough to merit a recommendation. A quick pace is the best feature of Peter Leonard's writing style. Leonard randomly omits pronouns, definite articles and other useful words from sentences in an apparent effort to achieve a punchy style. I found the incomplete sentences more annoying than punchy. An introduction by Elmore Leonard claims that Peter has found his own voice but it sounds to me like Peter is trying to find Elmore's voice. I haven't read Peter's other novels but nothing about Voices of the Dead encourages me to do so.

NOT RECOMMENDED