Eating Heaven by Jennie Shortridge

Eating Heaven by Jennie Shortridge

304 pages
Published September 2005 by Penguin Books

Eleanor Samuels, a writer for food magazines, has an food issues, a possible weight issue (at least her mother thinks she's overweight), and a narcissistic mother. Then Eleanor's beloved "Uncle" Bennie, becomes ill and Eleanor's life is tossed upside down when she becomes his caregiver. Soon Eleanor is uncovering long-buried family secrets, dealing with fallout from her sisters' problems, and beginning a flirtation with a new chef in town.

I read this book as part of the Manic Mommies Book Club and you can find a great discussion of the book at: http://www.manicmommiesbookclub.blogspot.com/.

I really enjoyed this book which is full of memorable, although not necessarily lovable, characters. Eleanor's mother, Bebe, has had her share of tough breaks but she is so self-centered that she cannot be an effective mother. As you begin reading the book, you imagine Eleanor as quite a heavy person until you come to understand that she is not really that large, it's just the self-image that Bebe has saddled Eleanor with. Anne, Eleanor's older sister is dealing with a crisis in her professional life. Christine, Eleanor's younger sister, is married to a man who is almost as self-centered as Bebe, is a bit of an earth child and she's just discovered she's pregnant. Uncle Benny isn't really the girls' uncle at all but a long-time friend of their mother's who suddenly became a big part of their lives when they were little girls. His relationship with Bebe has clearly been closer than merely friends. Eleanor's father was a very cold and distant man. He certainly had reason to be that way with his wife but he was an uncaring father as well.

Shortridge does a an excellent job of weaving together the episodes from the past with the current story and of weaving together a lot of different story lines. I liked that Shortridge didn't wrap things all up neatly. You were left with the feeling that life would continue on for these characters without really knowing how. My only problem at all with the book was Eleanor's relationship with Henry, the chef. That part was a bit chick-litish and wasn't necessary for the story except to help Eleanor feel better about herself.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It is a quick read despite dealing with some very heavy subjects. Eleanor is an incredibly real character with whom most women will be able to relate.

The Mascot: Unraveling The Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazi Boyhood by Mark Kurzum

[This is a guest post from my father, who was a History and English teacher for 38 years and is an avid reader. I'm hoping that both he, and my mother who has also provided her feedback on this book, will be willing to keeping sending me reviews. They both a read a wide variety of genres and provide thoughtful feedback on everything they read. To them I owe my great love of reading.]

The Mascot: Unraveling The Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazi Boyhood
by Mark Kurzum
418 pages
Published October 2008 by Plume Books
An elderly Australian, who has never given his family, friends, neighbors, et. al. more than minimal information about his life, abruptly decides to recount his past, as well as he can remember it, to his oldest son. And a remarkable story he tells. Alex Kurzem describes having, at the age of 5 or 6, escaped from Nazi troops in his European village in 1941, watching from a distance the massacre of his family and many others, and fleeing blindly through the forest for days before being captured by the soldiers. Then, astonishingly, rather than being shot along with everyone else who's been rounded up, he's been adopted by the soldiers and turned into their mascot, their "good luck charm." Decked out in a scaled-down SS uniform they've had tailored for him, he's been taken along as the troops moved across the countryside, fighting partisans and slaughtering townsful of people.

Kurzem, in the book written by his son, Mark, has extraordinary memory of some details, but also some huge blanks. He remembers no other name for himself than the one the soldiers gave him, and no name at all for the village in which he grew up.. He doesn't know what country he's from. Although he had watched the deaths of his family, he can't remember their names or faces.

One memory is particularly clear, however; that of the occasion on which the sergeant who saved him from the firing squad, pulled down his pants and underpants, and, after a quick look, warned him against ever letting anyone else see him naked. Though no more than a child, he figures out that being circumcised ,must mean that he's a Jew. So, a great anomaly: in the midst of a squad of men going around killing Jews, here is this Jewish boy, whom they hail and fuss over as one of their most beloved comrades. He's even used as the centerpiece of a German propaganda film, the theme of which is how happy and contented are the children of the Reich.

Most of the book involves detective work by the two Kurzem men, as they try to fill in the details of a forgotten life, a forgotten person. Adding to the pressure are serious threats from Latvian nationalists and Israeli Intelligence, concerned that the Kurzems might turn up something that could be embarrassing to someone.
The writing is not extraordinary. It tells the story on a level that anyone would be able to read and enjoy. I did have the feeling that the father remembered things too clearlyand wondered if some of the things may have been added by the writer. That was okay with me, as I enjoyed the story.
The reviewer for the New York Times wrote of THE MASCOT: "Part mystery, part memory puzzle, written in the polished style of a good thriller...spellbinding." Both readers here agree and recommend.
[Since both of my parents had read the book, I asked my mom for her opinion of the book as well. She felt that the book was, for the most part, well written. Kurzum, she said, writes in a way that pulls the reader in without revealing too much too soon. She would have liked more on Kurzum's siblings' reactions to the story about their father.]

Sunday Salon - Famlies

Today my family attended the annual family reunion of my maternal grandfather's side of the family. When my mom was growing up the family all lived nearby and she was very close to the family. But for years after she and my father married they didn't attend the reunion. Some years back, it became important to her to attend again. Therefore, it became important to us, although rather than going to see family, we were walking into a room full of strangers. What I have discovered in the years since is that blood does not necessarily make a group of people a family. It takes some effort on everyone's part to become a family including making yourself walk into that room year after year until those people become familiar faces, until you know the names of their children and grandchildren, until you celebrate their joys and sorrows together. It also helps tremendously to have family members like my mother, who is the glue that holds not just her immediate family together but her very extended family as well, for which we are all grateful.

All of which got me to thinking about families in literature. It seems like so many of the families we read about today in literature are dysfunctional. Is this because most families are dysfunctional? Or are they just more interesting to write and read about? I've been reading a lot of books about families this year, including Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons and Home by Marilynne Robinson, but I think I'm still sticking with the Bennets of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and the Marchs of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott as my all time favorite families in literature. Which family is your favorite family in literature?

Friday Favorite

My favorite this week is E. L. Doctorow's "Ragtime," a brilliant exploration of a moment in time. Doctorow weaves fiction and reality in this novel and explores issues that resonate even today. Weaving in historical figures, including Harry Houdini, Sigmund Freud, and J P Morgan, with some of the most memorable characters in literature, Doctorow explores racism, sexism and class structure at the turn of the last century.

In "Ragtime," Doctorow chronicles the lives of three families, initially telling them as separate stories then gradually weaving them together. The families include a rich white family, a black family from Harlem and a Jewish immigrant family. Jandy, at http://www.jandysbooks.com/, wrote this synopsis: Father runs a fireworks and arms factory in New Rochelle and Mother stays at home with their children. Mother's Younger Brother works for Father but has yet to find his purpose. Father is also a wanderer and joins Perry on a trip to the Arctic.
Mother's Younger Brother falls in love and thru his lover meets the widower Tateh and his daughter in the Jewish slums. But she is notorious. When Tateh discovers this, he and his little girl leave New York. After Mother's Younger Brother's lover leaves him for another man, he returns to New Rochelle still searching for his purpose. While father is gone a Negro girl, Sarah, and her newborn son are taken in by Mother. After a few months a Negro man starts visiting every Sunday. He is the baby's father and wants to marry Sarah. Coalhouse Walker Jr. is a jazz musician from New York and owns an automobile that he drives back and forth to New Rochelle each week. Trains are king and automobiles are still a novelty. Racism gets ugly when some of the white men in New Rochelle decide they have to do something about that uppity Negro who drives through every week. No one could have predicted the results their nasty prank had.

Milos Forman directed a wonderful movie version of the book in 1981 which starred, among others, James Cagney, Mary Steenburgen and Mandy Patinkin. I highly recommend it as well. I've also recently picked up the book "American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White: The Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century" which tells the story of several of the real characters in the book. I post a review on that when I finally get to that spot in my to-be-read pile!

Everything Austen Challenge

Stephanie, at Stephanie's Written Word (http://thewrittenword.wordpress.com/), is hosting an Everything Austen Challenge. It's just the thing for an Austenphile, such as myself. The challenge will run for six months (July 1, 2009 – January 1, 2010)! All you need to do is pick out what six Austen-themed things you want to finish to complete the challenge. Stephanie has a lengthy list of things you can choose from to complete the challenge. Just for signing up for the Everything Austen Challenge you will qualify to win a copy of Lost in Austen on DVD. To win, post about the Everything Austen Challenge on your blog and sign up with Mr. Linky by July 15th. Your six things can be any combination of Austen's books, movies based on those books, or any of the sequels.

Here is what I'm planning on doing for the challenge:

Reread "Mansfield Park"
Watch "Sense and Sensibility" starring Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson
Read "Austenland" by Shannon Hale
Read "The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen" by Syrie Jones
Watch "Bridget Jones' Diary"
Watch "Emma" starring Gywenth Paltrow

This may change based on whether or not I'm able to find sequels that interest me or other versions of the movies based on Austen's books.

Stephanie will be offering more prizes throughout the six months of the challenge so check back with her often!

"The Garden of Last Days"

By Andre Dubus III
544 pages
Published June 2008 by Norton, W&W Company Inc.

Synopsis: April's usual babysitter, Jean, has had a panic attack that has landed her in the hospital. April doesn't really know anyone else, so she decides it's best to have her three-year-old daughter close by, watching children's videos in the office while she works.

April works at the Puma Club for Men. And tonight she has an unusual client, a foreigner both remote and too personal, and free with his money. Lots of it, all cash. His name is Bassam. Meanwhile, another man, AJ, has been thrown out of the club for holding hands with his favorite stripper, and he's drunk and angry and lonely.

My Thoughts: "Garden" in the title refers to the fact that this book is set in Florida in the week leading up to 9/11. And that's about as far as that image goes in this novel. Every thing else is gritty and dark, filled with very complex characters who are nearly all deeply flawed. The majority of the story in set in one night and Dubus alternates the narrative between the different characters. And this is where I started to get both frustrated and drawn in. As each character moves to the forefront, Dubus moves the action between that character's current actions and his/her past. Just as I was really starting to connect with a particular character's story, Dubus would move on. Usually this helps to pull me along in a book as I become eager to get to each character's next section. But these were very long sections and the reader is likely to lose momentum. And did I mention that this book is gritty and dark? Very gritty and very dark--as, I guess, you would expect from a story set in a strip club. AJ has abused his wife. The club bouncer has a long history of violence. April is gang banged in a flashback to her early stripping days. You might think that with people like this, it would be hard to feel anything for any of them. But Dubus does so an excellent job of making these people, whose lives have led them down this path, two dimensional.

For another opinion (three actually), check out this review at threeguysonebook: http://threeguysonebook.blogspot.com/2008/06/jason-chambers-im-glad-to-be-finally.html

Be forewarned if you are thinking of listening to this book on CD--it is narrated by a man who struggles with capturing the voice of a female and there are many of them here that he tries to find individual voices for. It does take something away from the story.

Interviews With Miram Gershow

In a follow up to yesterday's post about Miriam Gershow's "The Local News," I wanted to let you know about a couple of places where you can get more about the book and Miriam Gershow.

Mari, of Bookworm with a View posted her interview at http://manicmommies.blogspot.com/. You can find a second interview posted by Lisa, of Books on the Brain at http://lisamm.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/from-books-to-babies-how-i-stumbled-upon-the-biggest-decision-of-my-life/.