Browsing Archives for Books & Letters

I was introduced to the writing of Frank Schaeffer via his book Crazy For God several years ago. I loved the book and wrote about it here. On that post, a reader left a comment asking me if I had read any of Schaeffer’s fiction books. I had not and I tucked that comment away in my brain in hopes that someday it would resurface at just the exactly right moment when I was in need of a new book to read.  Turns out that this winter was the exactly right moment. It took me a while to get a hold of Frank’s fiction books as the local library and local bookstores did not have any copies.  As a result, I bought used versions of the books online which is one of my favorite ways to get a hold of books anyway and have just enjoyed the ever lovin’ heck out of them.

.

.

.

.

.

.

All three of these books deal with the same family – the Beckers who are Presbyterian missionaries to Europe where their goal is to convert the blackened souls of the European Catholics to their correct version of Calvinistic protestantism. Elsa Becker (the mother) is particularly relentless in her evangelizing of the sooted masses and is always at the ready with her “gospel walnut” or simply a long and loudly spoken prayer in a crowded train or non-stop references to her faith in conversations with every hapless stranger she happens to stand next to in line to bring the lost to her particular version of Jesus.  Her bizarre behavior makes her entire family uncomfortable including her missionary husband who grows more and more frustrated and exasperated with her pretentious martyr-like behavior and occasionally unloads on her in pubic displays that make a family of baboons seem more civilized than this upright and devout missionary family.

The books take place in gorgeous surroundings such as Portofino an Italian beach resort where the Beckers vacation every summer and Zermatt, a Swiss ski resort where an adolescent Calvin Becker encounters a hotel maid who is willing to tutor him for free in the pleasures of her flesh as she delivers his hot cocoa to his room every morning.  And speaking of sex, when Calvin’s mother is not attempting to convert a Speedo clad, well oiled Italian on the beaches of Portofino, she is usually instructing her children in appropriate sexual behaviors giving them at the same time too much information about her own sex life with their father as well as insisting that they must suppress every sexual urge they have until their wedding night. Unfortunately for her adolescent son, her endless instructions both whet his sexual appetite and prove to be impossible to follow.  As a result he spends most of his time lying, manipulating and sneaking around his mother’s strict parameters and probably having bigger and riskier adventures than he ever would have if his parents had just been sane.

My favorite of the trilogy is Saving Grandma which deals with the arrival of Ralph Becker’s (the father figure) invalid mother to the Swiss mission. Grandma Becker is not a Christian and regards her son and his missionary family as bearing “shit eating grins” as they try to convert her to a relationship with Jesus with their oh so kind and humble facades that she believes to be complete bullshit.  The trajectory in this story caterwauls like a glass marble in a house perched on a pointy mountain-top, rollicking back and forth between absolutely absurd scenarios as Elsa Becker tries at once tries to “save” her loud, sick and foul mouthed mother-in-law and also strategically and in her typically martyr like way, to hasten her demise.

But you CAN’T read Saving Grandma without reading Portofino first! It is a great story in itself and sets up the characters and why would you want to miss a beach vacation with a bunch of fundamentalists?  As my Arkansas relatives would say, these books are a hoot and a holler.  You will be hooting with laughter and hollering in pain as you watch Calvin Becker navigate the insanity of his fundy fam.

The instant I heard PD James interviewed on NPR regarding her latest book Death Comes to Pemberley, I knew I was going to have to go to great lengths, possibly even murder, to lay my hands on a copy. Fortunately, the CD saved me from committing any such grisly crime by purchasing the book for me for Christmas. Having never read a PD James book, but being somewhat familiar with her mysteries via Masterpiece Theater, I figured that if anyone could pull off a Jane Austen murder mystery, it might be her. James is a highly awarded author and a popular one as well, plus she loves Jane, is British and it would seem that these two things might work together for the good of those that love Jane Austen and are called for her purposes.

Did I enjoy the book?  Why yes I did! In fact, I read it almost non-stop.  Was I appalled by James’s interpretation of two of my favorite characters of all time, Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, her description of Pemberley and the way she involved most of the principal characters of Pride and Prejudice in her murder mystery?  No, I was not. I generally enjoy it when one artist toys with the work of another. But I must say that as a devoted Austen fan, I was also not entirely pleased with this re-visioning of the work of Austen. I imagine that any devout fan of Austen will experience moments of deep regret and other moments of immense satisfaction while reading this book. It is fun to revisit Mr. and Mrs. Darcy and see them enjoying their married life, raising their children and caring for their estate and their employees. Throughout the book, one is reminded of their great love story and it is fun to think about it again in a new context.

Sadly, all the female characters of Austen’s story are largely insignificant in this book. While the men take firm control of the narrative, hauling bodies around, guarding suspects, attending trials, crashing through the underbrush to find evidence and agonizing over their allegiance to one another, the women can only worry, fret, wring their hands and toss and turn in sleepless nights. The absence of Elizabeth’s perception and wit is especially noteworthy as the story unfolds.

In her interview on NPR, James confesses that Pride and Prejudice is not her favorite Austen book. Instead she cites Emma as the Austen tome most dear to her heart and at the end of Death Comes to Pemberley she weaves in her favorite story in a manner that actually brought tears to my eyes. And though it is a moving moment in the story, the reason I was swallowing back a lump of emotion had nothing to do with the story line. It was more the naked affection of P.D. James for Austen in her determination to bring in her favorite book that caused tears to sting my eyes. For it was not the act of a great writer that joined Pride and Prejudice to Emma, it was the act of a devoted fan and that was something I could relate to on a deeply emotional level.

It happened again. In spite of not posting on this site for months at a time, I got sent another book to review for the blog. I can’t really comprehend this, but who am I to turn down a free book? The only problem is that once the book arrives, I have to actually sit down and read it and that was not as easy as it may sound. I took a few classes at a local university this Fall and was kept very busy reading material for my assignments. In my downtime, I found that instead of reading books, I desperately needed to watch back to back episodes of Inspector Lewis… primarily so I could look at this guy for long periods of time…

Laurence Fox who plays the world’s most laconic detective sidekick – James Hathaway.

An actor that is so long and lanky, I think I could fold him up like a road map and place him in my glove box.

But none of this helps me to tell you about the book I was sent to review on my blog does it?

The Mother Daughter Show by Natalie Wexler.

Similar to the last book I was sent to review, this book is not something that I would have ever chosen to read on my own. It’s way too regular.  Reading it reminded me of all those eighties evening soap operas like Knott’s Landing and Thirty Something. The story revolves around three women who have daughters who are seniors and about to graduate from a prep school in D.C. remarkably like Sidwell, the private Quaker school that Obama’s daughters attend. I kind of wish the book had been more about the school and less about the moms who all seem to be struggling with their own version of a midlife crisis in the form of either re-entering the workforce or marriage infidelity or overbearingitis. Their aim? To produce an end of the year graduation show for their daughters starring themselves and all the other senior moms. The show has to be written, choreographed and directed and all while the three organizers grapple with daughter drama  and their own fading dreams (or something like that).

There were parts of the book I enjoyed and at one point I really did want to know what was going to happen to one of the characters, but ultimately this book reads like a script for The Real Housewives of Washington D.C. Wealthy white women vying for power in an insulated environment that very few people even know exists much less care about.

It wasn’t a bad book – just not really my cup o’ tea.

They can’t all be you know.

Speaking of tea…

It goes quite nicely with back to back episodes of Inspector Lewis.