Picks of the Week

AWAIT YOUR REPLY, by Dan Chaon

(originally posted on September 6, 2009)

I suppose all I can really do is repeat everyone's near-universal praise of the book, but such repetition is necessary because I marvel at how Chaon can juggle so many storylines and merge them together at differing points, letting the reader discern connections at his or her leisure instead of force-feeding strands down the proverbial throat. The payoff is great but AWAIT YOUR REPLY is less about how things resolve and more about how life defies resolution, instead hanging in a balance like a perpetual dominant seventh chord that begs to reach the tonic, but never quite does.

THE ANTHOLOGIST, by Nicholson Baker

(originally posted on September 6, 2009)

Why do I love this novel so? Well it's Nicholson Baker, so that's kind of a given; it beautifully portrays the casual delusions one Paul Chowder has about meeting certain deadlines and not succumbing to permanent distraction from work (not to mention a personal life that, in the mind, is increasingly complex); and it reminded me of the joys, too often forgotten, of poetry, meter and rhyme. But mostly I love THE ANTHOLOGIST because Baker drops in musical notation here and there, setting poems to Chowder's imagined music and activating my sight-reading and vocally-minded brain. I wish more novels did that. 

THE LONGSHOT, by Katie Kitamura

(originally posted on September 6, 2009)

How does Kitamura understand the complicated and unspoken dynamic between two men, not to mention the blood-curdling violence of mixed martial arts? By remembering that less is always better than more, stripping her sentences down to the bone shattered and uncovered by the punches Cal must endure in the ring and his trainer (and closest confidant) Riley must watch with sinking heart that Cal may not necessarily make it through this 41-second round. Suffice to say, Kitamura has the goods and she lands squarely on my own must-read list.

L.A. NOIR, by John Buntin

(originally posted on September 6, 2009)

A good non-fiction book reframes what you thought you knew into a story that makes you realize you never really knew it in the first place. And so Buntin does with his dual portrait of LAPD Chief Bill Parker (for whom Parker Center, the main cop building for decades, was named) and Mickey Cohen, the large-living gangster who could only wish for a fate like (his sort-of namesake) Meyer Lansky at the end of his life. Through them Buntin tells the story of a Los Angeles of vice, corruption, race riots and controversy that was both larger and smaller than the two men so pivotal to the changing city. There are so many great stories here - and that's the key reason to visit with LA NOIR.

ORDINARY INJUSTICE, by Amy Bach

(originally posted on September 6, 2009)

My chief complaint is that I wish the book had been longer, because the 250-odd pages of carefully reported and researched accounts into exactly how the American justice system fails far too many people are absolutely brilliant. From the crushing case backlog of Greene County to the insidious failures in Troy, N.Y., to other courthouses all across the country, Bach illustrates how justice depends on deals, plea-bargains, and settling for mediocrity - and devastatiingly, shows how every cog in the justice wheel is complicit. What is to be done? Bach has some ideas (and some positive results on a micro level) but the changes needed must be massive and sweeping to be anywhere near effective.