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Everyone’s familiar with the concept of the road novel. Take one average joe hero, add a personal crisis, filter it through a physical journey and average joe undergoes a bit of spiritual growth, the end. Joanna Kavenna’s fiction debut, Inglorious, is something akin to the traditional road novel. It features an average joe (or jane in this case) protagonist at a crossroads striving to achieve a spiritual change. The only difference is there’s no road and therefore, no destination.
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The average jane of Inglorious is Rosa Lane, a successful young journalist living in London. As the novel opens we find Rosa, distraught over the death of her mother, unable to find any substance in the things she once thought gave her life meaning (her job, her relationship, etc.). So she quits her job, subsequently loses her relationship and apartment and embarks on a self-obsessed search for enlightenment, employment and a place to stay.
And that’s it. Rosa’s entire journey consists of a struggle between trying to function as an adult and being sabotaged by her towering insecurities. While it’s a struggle that’s eminently relatable, it’s also incredibly boring.
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Throughout the novel Rosa is unable to get started on her journey towards enlightenment, constantly false starting due to a self-defeating outlook illustrated by an inner monologue of self-deprecating witticisms.
Initially amusing, the device soon wears thin and renders Rosa an annoying and petty character. Incapable of detaching herself from her own self-obsession, Rosa is unable to glean any insight regarding herself or her situation throughout her journey.
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Even worse, it prevents any true physical journey at all as a great deal of the novel deals with Rosa wandering the streets of London without a true destination or goal and ultimately results in the novel’s ambiguous and unsatisfying conclusion.
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While Rosa’s situation may be reflective of the true nature of depression, wherein self-criticism is abundant and self-revelation is minimal, it hardly makes for good reading.
Much like its protagonist, Joanna Kavenna’s Inglorious is a meandering and joyless narrative, unsure of where it wants to go and what it wants to do and eventually goes nowhere and does nothing.
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Written by DougG - Visit Website
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In the past year, having graduated college and been thrust head-long into the "real world," I’ve come to learn a number of lessons that I failed to pick up during my four years of higher education. Most notably, I’ve learned that the "real world" costs a hell of a lot of money. And it’s a lesson I’ve learned quicker than any other as the job opportunities have failed to materialize but the bills still show up right on schedule (there’s something about choosing between eating or making rent that’ll drive home knowledge far more effectively than highlighting passages in a textbook).
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Unable to find a job I desired, I had started to feel bad about myself and wondering if maybe I should have spent more time in school studying instead of sleeping off hangovers. But apparently I’m not the only one feeling the post-college squeeze.
In his incisive debut, The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America, author Daniel Brook argues that America’s exploding income gap has made it virtually impossible for well-educated young people to support themselves following a career in their chosen field of study. The rising costs of education, housing and healthcare have forced the country’s best and brightest to choose between following their passions or accepting high-paying corporate positions to enjoy what were once considered middle-class comforts.
And when people are unable to afford to follow their passions in the arts, education and public service, Brook concludes that not only does the whole of society suffer but the promise of the American Dream is proven false.
In The Trap, Brook argues for a break from the current conservative-minded policies which have dominated politics since the Reagan era and a return to the socially and economically progressive policies of post-World War II America.
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He leaves no stone unturned as he charts how America’s policies regressed so much since the time after World War II and the crippling effects these current policies are having on society. He covers a multitude of professional positions which have suffered, from would-be entrepreneurs who can’t afford to run their own businesses and cover healthcare costs to young lawyers that wish to serve the public good but are unable to repay their school loans.
For every position Brook provides examples, conducting interviews with people attempting to reconcile their dreams with the staggering costs of attaining them, something almost 100% of his interviewees are unable to accomplish. He further documents the detrimental effects this has on society as a whole, citing the most current available economic data to argue that American society has regressed from a democracy to one dominated by a rigid class structure reminiscent of imperial England.
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Effectively utilizing bold language, revealing interviews, and shocking statistics Brook’s argument is more than convincing. His argument is clear, direct and well-served by an oft-employed insightful wit (such as when he notes the irony of a public reading of Allen Ginsberg’s "Howl" being sponsored by a credit card company). His case is further advanced by a notable passion he exhibits in his vilifying of conservative ideals and their defenders, particularly Ronald Reagan.
His is hardly a one-sided view, however, as he is equally critical of the left and their cowardice in opposing the right. Above all, it is the compassion Brook clearly feels for those he interviews and his heartfelt belief in the democratic ideals of the American dream that make his writing so compelling.
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With upcoming presidential election, Daniel Brook’s The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America is as timely a work as there has ever been, addressing a critical inequality in American society that a precious few seem to be mentioning. Buy it, read it and go tell all your friends. It’s that good.
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Written by DougG - Visit Website
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Written by a newcomer and with a back cover sporting a disheartening plot synopsis (A main character that’s an ex-soldier turned gangster? His beautiful yet dangerous femme fatale partner? Their search for a long lost Da Vinci painting? UGH), I came into this book without much in the way of expectations. In fact, I was more than prepared to dismiss it as just another uninspired thriller reworking the same tired act we’ve seen a thousand times before.
But I can’t.
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Brent Ghelfi’s debit, Volk’s Game, is just too damn entertaining and its protagonist Alexei Volkovoy (y’know, that war veteran-cum-gangster that I wanted to hate) is just too captivatingly violent to ignore.
From the novel’s outset the reader is immediately immersed in the grim and desolate world inhabited by its hero Volkovoy. Known as Volk for short he is a man who is the most anti of anti-heroes: a veteran of Russia’s war with Chechnya now surviving in Moscow as both a covert agent for the Russian military and a major player in the Russian mob, Volk is as mean and vicious as they come.
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The book opens with Volk and his partner Valya, (the good looks/bad intentions femme fatale I mentioned earlier), commissioned for the same job, the theft of a long-lost Da Vinci painting, by both his mafia and military bosses. From here the novel takes off like a rocket as Volk is drawn into one deceit after another and he finds himself in a constant struggle to survive just long enough to find out who is pulling his strings (and then make him pay afterwards).
But all of that is beside the point. The plot and overall structure of Volk’s Game is, for the most part, fairly conventional thriller fare and mainly serves to give Volk things to do. And that’s plenty fine by me because the brutally efficient manner in which Volk gets things done makes for some darkly engrossing reading.
The character of Alexei Volkovoy is what really makes Volk’s Game stand out. Battle-hardened from his time spent as a soldier at war, Volk is a masterful engineer of human pain and suffering. You get in his way and you’ll get killed; you get in his way while on his bad side and you’ll get maimed, then killed. Indeed, Volk is a hero that is more often than not monstrous rather than heroic.
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Yet Volk is more than a mere monster. For every act of vicious brutality there is a desperate attempt at reconciliation with his humanity and it’s this constant internal struggle between the monster that he is and the humanity he wishes to posess that makes Volk such a fascinating character. Ghelfi imbues Volk with such a vivid multi-dimensionality that it’s impossible to not be enthralled by him and his struggle to survive not only physically, but spiritually as well.
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In fact, it’s hard to not be enthralled by all of Ghelfi’s prose. He keeps the novel moving at a frantic pace, piling twist upon turn and lining his pages with vivid descriptions and a score of colorful characters.
An incredibly sharp debut that introduces an unforgettable character, Volk’s Game by Brent Ghelfi is definitely worth a look.
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Written by DougG - Visit Website
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In contemporary American society people divide and identify themselves along numerous lines, most notably race, gender, sexuality and religion. With a population so diverse you would think discrimination would often rear its ugly head and infiltrate all aspects of American life from job and school applications to simply shopping at the supermarket. Luckily, the liberal philosophy of political-correctness, with its emphasis on respecting instead of ridiculing the differences of others, serves to limit the risk of people facing discrimination for their differences.
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In fact, it strongly encourages diversity in all its forms as corporations regularly sponsor diversity training, colleges proudly announce where they rank in terms of a diverse student body and the federal government devotes months of the calendar to honor the history of different cultural groups. But such an emphasis on celebrating diversity has masked the problem concerning the one difference in American society that truly matters: the widening economic gap between the upper and lower classes.
This idea that anti-discrimination policies are contributions to injustice is the central argument to Walter Benn Michaels’ latest book The Trouble With Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality.
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With precise language, the latest available data, and examples drawn from literature, current events, and pop culture, Michaels successfully argues that by encouraging diversity in all its forms we have also accepted economic inequality. Michaels breaks his argument down into six parts, each discussing a separate aspect of why we are obsessed with identifying ourselves along different cultural lines and how the liberal emphasis on respecting these cultural differences ignore the real problem of inequality. He first breaks down our society’s preconceived notions about race, citing the latest scientific evidence to argue that race has since become a cultural or social identity as opposed to a physiological one.
Michaels then goes on to explain why we favor an attachment to these cultural identities because they are easier to acquire and defend than economic equality. He then spends the rest of his argument further citing how the principles of diversity contrast with the principles of equality, drawing from multiple resources to reiterate his statement that diversity functions mainly as a program to ensure the comfort of rich people of different colors.
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Michaels’ writing is clear and compelling. His argument is well-served by precise statements which exhibit a thougthful insight and incisive wit. His argument comes across as urgent and accessible due to his excellent use of relevant examples drawn from current events and popular culture.
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Michaels further seals his argument air-tight with his book’s structure. Each chapter builds on the one that preceded it and he continually constructs upon the solid arguments presented within his introduction until the reader finds himself fully in league with his ideas by the book’s end.
Far from simply an attack on liberal ideals, Walter Benn Michaels’ The Trouble With Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality is a brilliant look at how both sides of the political spectrum have used the principles of diversity to appease American society’s need for identity while ignoring its need for economic equality.
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Written by DougG - Visit Website
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With its striking images of an oppressed and riotous people razing a prison to the ground and of swift justice doled out to both the rich and poor by the cold, unsympathetic edge of a guillotine blade, the French Revolution is a period oft-romanticized by historians and story-tellers alike (even I couldn’t help myself just now).
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But even more mesmerizing than the Revolution’s violence are the larger-than-life personalities who dominated its politics and acted to steer the Revolution toward their own ideals through fiery speeches, incendiary writings, and shadowy conspiracies.
Of all the political personalities that emerged during the Revolution, none came into as much prominence as Maximilien Robespierre, the provincial lawyer who rose in power to become the embodiment of the Revolution and its ideals when the Revolution was at its bloodiest.
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Yet for all his notoriety gained during the Revolution, Robespierre remains its most enigmatic figure and therefore the most vulnerable to debate by historians. Was he simply a blood-thirsty dictator or was he a staunch defender of democratic ideals far-ahead of his time? In her book, Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution, historian Ruth Scurr attempts to abandon this love-him-or-hate-him attitude towards Robespierre and instead approaches her subject as objectively as possible.
Exploring his character through historical fact and always giving his motivations the benefit of any rational doubt, Scurr accomplishes her intended goal of providing as fair an account of Robespierre as possible. Unfortunately, it’s at the expense of providing any truly illuminating material about the man that can’t be found outside any historical textbook.
Scurr’s text opens with the early stages of Robespierre’s life and here she provides the book’s most interesting material. Relatively little is known of Robespierre’s life before he became embroiled in the politics of the Revolution and this dearth of facts allows Scurr more interpretive liberty in her writing.
She speculates on how a number of occurrences in his formative years (the death of his parents, his growing up poor, his discovery of the works of Rousseau, his choice of cases as a young lawyer in the province of Arras) may have shaped his revolutionary ideals and his tenacity to never waver from them. In these opening chapters Scurr presents the reader with a Robespierre that lives and breaths; a character with emotions and motivations illustrated through deft interpretation of fact.
Unfortunately, as Robespierre becomes involved in the Revolution this character is lost amidst the constant flurry of Revolutionary events and the text moves from interpretive to narrative. Scurr seems to prefer to let the facts speak for themselves in these later chapters, her writing resembling the straightforward timeline of events one finds in a history textbook.
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She hardly dares to offer any interpretation regarding Robespierre and his actions and instead simply details the events of the French Revolution and the extent of Robespierre’s involvement. After the book’s conclusion with his death, the reader certainly knows what Robespierre did but is still unclear as to the actual nature of the man himself.
Ultimately Ruth Scurr’s book, Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution, is a well-written history of the life of Maximilien Robespierre and an excellent introduction to the subject of the French Revolution for readers who may be unfamiliar.
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However, one hoping to find a more in-depth or new interpretation on who Robespierre was and why the Revolution took the horrific turns that it did should look elsewhere.
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Written by DougG - Visit Website
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As the son of two best-selling authors, Jonathan and Faye Kellerman, Jesse Kellerman entered the literary world facing daunting expectations from critics and fans alike. He’s since met and surpassed such expectations, proving himself a highly capable and accomplished writer in his own right, winning the 2003 Princess Grace Award for his playwriting and receiving heaps of critical praise in 2006 for his debut novel Sunstroke.
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In his latest book Trouble, a cross-genre work that’s one part psychological thriller, one part character study, Kellerman again immediately displays his formidable writing ability. From the story’s opening sentences he lines his pages with vivid descriptions, multi-dimensional characters and a slow-burning sense of suspense and impending dread that keeps the reader turning pages with increasing rapidity.
Unfortunately, for all of the skill on display Kellerman seems uncertain of what to do with it and the book slowly loses momentum and focus. With its plot meandering between the two genres it attempts to encompass, the story finally grinds to an unimpressive and unsatisfying conclusion.
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Trouble tells the story of Jonah Stem, a twenty-something medical student living and working in Manhattan. Overworked and a bit of a pushover, Jonah’s life is upended when he comes upon a woman being stabbed in the street and makes the fateful decision to intervene. In the process of saving the woman’s life he accidentally kills her attacker, unleashing a Pandora’s Box of troubles: he’s overwhelmed by guilt, interrogated by the district attorney, and slapped with a lawsuit from the dead man’s family.
The only positive appears in the form of the woman whose life he saved, as a thank-you drink leads to a passionate love affair. Jonah’s happiness is short-lived however, as her masochistic tendencies rise to the surface and are only further inflamed when Jonah attempts to end their relationship. Finding himself relentlessly stalked, Jonah’s life quickly begins to unravel, rapidly descending from complicated to all-out nightmare.
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It’s hard to argue with the quality of Kellerman’s writing. His descriptive accounts are near-cinematic. His characters come across the page naturally and effortlessly through their interactions with one another, and his pacing (at least initially) ebbs and flows perfectly between moments of tension and moments of perceived relief.
Unfortunately, good writing does not always make for good storytelling, and where Kellerman fails is in his seeming inability to decide what kind of story he wants to tell: is it a suspenseful cat-n-mouse thriller or a psychological study of one man’s loosening grip on his sanity? For the first half of the novel Kellerman seems to prefer the former and ably crafts a narrative of mounting tension that envelopes both the reader and his protagonist Jonah Stem.
Yet in the second half he abandons this track for the latter, allowing the story’s tension (as well as the reader’s concern for Jonah) to slowly deteriorate to near nothing, rendering any attempt to portray Jonah’s wavering grip on his sanity as forced. By the time Kellerman comes to the novel’s abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion, the reader is so far removed from the characters that little, if any, of the emotional impact Kellerman is reaching for is felt.
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Ultimately, in his latest novel Trouble, Jesse Kellerman shows he has all the tools to be an effective storyteller, he just needs to decide which story he wants to tell.
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Written by DougG - Visit Website
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