Good Reads - Fiction

Literary Fiction

FICTION/ATWOOD
Atwood, Margaret - Alias Grace - 1996, 468 p.
In this fictionalized account of an actual double-homicide in 1840s Canada, 16-year-old servant Grace Marks is found guilty of assisting in the murders of her employer Thomas Kinnear and his pregnant mistress. The man convicted of the killings is hanged, while Grace is remanded to prison for life. Many years later, Dr. Simon Jordan, an American physician, arrives to interview the incarcerated Miss Marks, hoping to discern her guilt or innocence; yet he ultimately has difficulty deciding what to make of her incredible story. A thought-provoking and interesting psychological novel. Debbie Deady

FICTION/BROOKNER
Brookner, Anita - Brief Lives - 1990, 260 p.
Narrator Fay Langdon relates the story of her forty-year relationship with Julia, whom she meets through her husband, and with whom she forms a tenuous friendship. Fay continually struggles to please the men in her life, from her father to her husband and even her lover, but only succeeds in feeling unhappy and inadequate. Julia, on the other hand, an obstinate and self-centered woman, cares only for herself and the men in her life are only there to cater to her
wishes. As the women age, they see less and less of each other, but still their concern of over
age and loneliness occasionally brings them together. A well-written novel of women’s relation-ships and their struggle to understand each other as well as themselves. Sheila Guenzer

FICTION/CARROLL
Carroll, James - Secret Father - 2003, 344 p.
The Cold War tensions in Berlin frame this startling novel of loyalty, games, and secrets. A father and son recount three days in May, 1961, that defined their lives. Only weeks before the wall is to go up, three American teenagers, determined to flaunt their independence, travel from their boarding school across eastern Germany to Berlin for the May Day celebrations in the eastern sector. But the students’ lark turns tragic when they became pawns in the cold war game. Terri Williams

FICTION/CISNEROS
Cisneros, Sandra - Caramelo - 2002, 434 p.
Humor and pathos swirl together in this exuberant story of a Mexican-American family. Celaya, the youngest in a family with six older brothers, is the repository of the family stories, and while she relates the family’s history, she also weaves her own version of events, as carefully as her great grandmother created the title’s silk scarf. This rich, often whimsical family saga, set in the years from the Mexican Revolution to the Viet Nam War, offers insights into characters and their secrets. Joyce Saricks

FICTION/DOCTOROW
Doctorow, E.L. - Billy Bathgate - 1989, 484 p.
In the poverty-stricken Bronx during the Depression, gangster Dutch Schultz takes Billy Bathgate, a brash, fatherless teenager, under his wing. Billy recounts his extraordinary education in crime, love, and death in the violent and unpredictable rackets empire in New York. From the dirty politics of the Tammany bosses to Park Avenue socialites, Billy survives the love/terror relationships of the Dutch Schultz gang. A literary novel for readers who enjoy detailed settings, a smart main character, and plenty of action. Nana Oakey-Campana

FICTION/DRABBLE
Drabble, Margaret - The Seven Sisters - 2002, 307 p.
Betrayed by her husband, Candida Wilton divorces him and moves to a small flat in a somewhat seedy part of London. She entertains herself by attending an adult education class studying Virgil’s Aeneid, while also chronicling her new life and examining her past in a journal. An unexpected windfall allows her to take some members of her now defunct Virgil class and two old friends to trace Aeneas’ journey from Carthage to Italy. An absorbing, character-driven novel of a woman in late middle-age trying to understand her past, while looking forward to her future. Sue O’Brien

FICTION/GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ
García Márquez, Gabriel - Love in the Time of Cholera - 1988, 348 p.
Can a forbidden love be rekindled to its full strength after separation by time, society, and other entanglements? When their courtship through secretive letters is ended due to society’s constraints, Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza spend over fifty years without speaking a word to one another. Each deals with the loss in different ways. Fermina marries a prominent doctor and leads a life proper to a woman of her class, but without the passion that she and Florentino shared, while Florentino continues to pine for her daily, drowning himself in the embraces of other women. Through rich details of the South American setting, both social and physical, García Márquez follows the lovers as they each observe the limitless manifestations and trials of love from their youthful infatuation to their satisfying reunion in old age. Heather Booth

FICTION / HOFFMAN
Hoffman, Alice - The Probable Future - 2003, 322p.
Upon turning thirteen, each woman in the Sparrow family develops a unique gift – or curse, depending on her perspective. Elinor can tell a liar when she sees one. Her estranged and recently divorced daughter Jenny dreams the dreams of others. And Jenny’s daughter, the willful thirteen-year-old Stella, is shocked when she wakes up on her birthday and is able to see the manner in which those around her will die. An unfortunate chain of events relating to Stella’s gift leads Jenny and Stella to take refuge with Elinor in the small town of Unity, Massachusetts. There, in a house and town steeped in history and folklore, three strong women at very different stages in life begin to face their common past, their gifts, and their shared future. This story of love and family, regret and redemption will appeal to those who enjoy careful prose with eerie, magical undertones. Heather Booth

FICTION/IRVING
Irving, John - The Fourth Hand - 2001, 316p.
In this quirky, yet touching tale, Patrick Wallingford, a New York television reporter, becomes a celebrity of sorts after his left hand is devoured by a lion at a circus event he is covering, and the grisly film footage is broadcast around the world. Patrick decides to attempt a hand transplant, and so enlists the services of the accomplished but peculiar Dr. Zajac, who sees a successful operation as his chance for personal and professional fame. The only thing that’s needed is the unlikely donation of a suitable left hand, which is strangely made available by one Doris Clausen. However, there’s a catch: Doris will give Patrick her recently deceased husband’s hand, if he’ll agree to give her the baby she has always wanted. As their somewhat strained relationship evolves, it appears there is a real love story in the making (or is Doris really just in love with her dead husband’s hand?). In the midst of this unusual story, Irving also provides an interesting commentary on the often intrusive nature of the press. Debbie Deady

FICTION/MCEWAN
McEwan, Ian - Atonement - 2002, 351p.
The events of a hot English summer’s day in 1935 affect the lives of the upper-middle-class Tallis family, as well as that of Robbie Turner, the son of the Tallis’ cleaning lady. Robbie grew up with the Tallis children and had attended Cambridge with Cecilia Tallis, thanks to Mr. Tallis paying his tuition. On that particular afternoon, the youngest of the Tallis children, 13-year-old Briony, spies her sister Cecilia and Robbie having a provocative private moment in the library. Later that same evening, Briony’s cousin Lola is assaulted in the dark on the grounds of the estate and a confused Briony declares Robbie to be the attacker. Robbie goes to prison for five years and is given an early release to join the British Army and serve at Dunkirk. Cecilia waits for his safe return from the war, while Briony, now a nurse in London, must come to terms with her false accusation. Marianne Trautvetter

FICTION/PÉREZ-REVERTE
Pérez-Reverte, Arturo - The Flanders Panel - 1990, 295p.
While readying a painting for auction, Julia, a young art restorer in Madrid, discovers, by X-ray photography, a hidden inscription “Who killed the knight?” at the bottom of the painting The Game of Chess by Van Huys. The discovery leads Julia, her longtime friend César, and chess expert Muñoz into unraveling the chess game in the painting to identify the murderer of the knight Roger de Arras, one of the chess players portrayed. Past becomes entwined with present as two people close to Julia lose their lives, and Julia herself is threatened. A literary thriller, framed by the game of chess, which keeps the reader guessing until the final checkmate. Sue O’Brien

FICTION/PROULX
Proulx, E. Annie - Accordion Crimes - 1996, 381p
In this thought-provoking novel, the author explores issues of competing cultures in America by following a small green button accordion as it passes from family to family, culture to culture, across the country. The small green button accordion begins the odyssey, across time and cultures, with an Italian immigrant, who arrives in an America that does not reflect his vision of a land of dreams and possibilities. Instead, the Italian finds a foreign land of incomprehensible rules and prejudice. The immigrant’s odyssey ends with his violent death, and the accordion is simply passed on. The accordion passes from man to man, falling each time into the hands of an owner who finds himself grappling, ultimately to disastrous effect, with the competing forces from the culture of his past and the American culture that surrounds him. Terri Williams

FICTION/RUSSO
Russo, Richard - Straight Man - 1997, 391p.
The hero of this witty and engrossing novel is William Henry “Hank” Devereaux, a middle-aged professor and chairman of the English department at a college in Pennsylvania. Since Hank and his colleagues are facing career crises due to budget cuts at the university, the entire department is becoming quite paranoid. On the home front, Hank is also having problems. His daughter is breaking up with her husband, his father is moving back, and he is experiencing a rather embarrassing medical problem. Russo has a gift for describing small town college academia and the lives of those involved with both humor and realism. Sheila Guenzer

FICTION/SHREVE
Shreve, Anita - The Weight of Water - 1997, 246p.
Jean, a professional photographer, comes to a small island off the coast of New Hampshire to shoot a photo-essay about the double murder of two women that took place there in 1873. Jean becomes absorbed in the sensational murder case as she reads the victims’ personal journals and newspaper clippings. A parallel tragedy soon occurs. Jean finds that, in the murder and in her own life, a single action, a single moment in time, changes an entire life forever. Constant changes of time and place keep the reader involved in the suspense of both tragic stories. This powerful book is the story of people who all have some responsibility for the carelessness and resulting sadness, but the complete blame goes to no one. In the end Jean thinks about the hurt that stories cannot ease regardless of how many times they are told. Nana Oakey-Campana

FICTION /SMILEY
Smiley, Jane - Good Faith - 2003, 417p.
Jane Smiley gives us a realistic and often humorous insight into the world of real estate development during the economic boom of the early 1980s. Recently divorced, small town real estate agent Joe Stratford is cautious when Marcus Burns, a former IRS agent from New York, moves into town. Marcus proclaims to know the key to developing Salt Key Farm, a beautiful private estate on 580 acres, into a multi-use golf club housing development that will make fast money for his investors. Not only is Joe taking a risk with his business career, but he puts all caution to the wind when he begins an affair with Felicity Ornquist, the married daughter of his mentor and business partner. Marianne Trautvetter

Prepared September 2004