Longhorn Reviews

By: Gonzlez Nohra, Fernando

La primera publicación de Fernando González Nohra se compone de seis relatos. Lo curioso es que puede funcionar como una novela elíptica, plagada de silencios en los que el lector es envuelto y las respuestas le son concedidas en pequeñas referencias que interconectan temporalmente los cuentos. Así, vemos una evolución temporal de la obra como un sucedáneo de capítulos que no traicionan el sentido de ninguno de ellos. Por ello, a diferencia de otros libros de estilo semejante, es preferible leerlo en el orden trazado por el autor y no adelantarse «… para no perder el paso».

En Por favor, no empujen el humor ácido es el pretexto para mostrar la verdadera soledad de Gonzalo, personaje principal y narrador de sus desencuentros, que vive en una ciudad como Lima, donde es testigo a diario de «cómo la neblina que subía por el acantilado se iba tragando de a pocos la ciudad». Un lugar en el cual todos parecen caminar en su contra: «Los pocos que caminan en mi dirección lo hacen tan lento que se convierten también en un estorbo, tengo que esquivarlos para no perder el paso». Un reflejo vital de lo que significa vivir en un país divorciado de sí mismo. Donde los conflictos no sólo habitan en lo hondo de la pobreza, sino que se presentan a cada esquina como reiterando, una y otra vez, que permanecerás «vivo y vacío» (paráfrasis usada por Gonzalo con respecto a Henry Miller).

El estilo narrativo del autor es frugal; no ahonda en extravagancias. Su lenguaje transmite el habla limeña sin ambages. Para el autor es vital que se deje hablar a los personajes, y esto se logra en Por favor, no empujen. Gonzalo jamás deja de ser él, jamás permite que la vida y los personajes estrafalarios —sátiras de una sociedad exagerada como la limeña— mellen en él. Seguirá intentando escribir, que en este caso es lo mismo que intentar sobrevivir.

Reviewer: Longhorn Reviewer

By: Finch, Charles

Set in London in 1865, it’s true to the language and milieu (as far as I can tell) and has an amalgam of elements of the classic British detective story and 19th century novel: an aristocratic amateur detective and his valet, gentlemen’s clubs, old boys, country houses and town houses, balls and bridge and afternoon tea. The London winter is palpable and the understated romance between sleuth and lady sweet.

Reviewer: Janice Duff

By: McCarthy, Cormac

There is nothing funny about Cormac McCarthy’s latest novel. It is a compelling, provocative story about a man and his boy trying to survive in a post-apocalyptical environment. It is so real and so frightening, it seems that McCarthy displays prescient tendencies. Has he been there and back? Can he see the future? Is it this bleak? Reading this novel is a spiritual experience. I am deeply indebted to Reggie Akers, Fine Arts Library circulation supervisor, for recommending it to me. My vision of the future has been transformed.

Reviewer: Laura Schwartz

By: Wilson, Cintra

My friend Stephanie recommended this book to me. She picked it up in the Bay Area where the author is a local celebrity. Turns out Wilson is also a performing artist and arts critic, even more reason for me, as Fine Arts Librarian, to delve into this novel. It is another coming of age story, this one of Liza Normal (who is anything but normal). Her raison d’etre is to become a successful actress and/or singer. The book is the trials and tribulations of this quest. The characters that surround Liza include her loudmouth mother, reclusive brother, and a whole host of bizarre and endearing characters. Wilson’s book is hilarious. From the first few pages, until the very end, I was completely engaged and amused.

Reviewer: Laura Schwartz

By: Tanney, Katherine

I love fiction especially coming of age stories. I was having lunch with Nancy Schiesari, a Radio-Television-Film professor and lauded cinematographer earlier this Spring and she recommended Carousel of Progress to me. The story is about a teenage girl growing up in L.A. whose parents are getting divorced. There is so much truth and honesty in this tale, the characters are so real, and the dynamics of the relationships so complex. Tanney grew up in L.A. and now lives in Austin, just like me. Schiesari knows Tanney personally because
Tanney is also a cinematographer. The story was so familiar, it was hard to put down.

Reviewer: Laura Schwartz

By: Thomas, Ross

Lines in the first paragraph pull you into a story that never follows a straight line: “The pretender to the Emperor’s throne was a fat thirty-seven year old Chinaman called Artie Wu who always jogged along Malibu beach right after dawn even in the summer. It was while jogging along the beach just east of the Paradise Cove Pier that Artie Wu tripped over a dead pelican, fell and met the man with six greyhounds.” This book is about the ultimate con. You’re never sure until the very end who is actually being conned and why.

This is a character driven story and there are is an amazing list of characters from Otherguy Overby, to the folk singing trio of Ivory, Lace and Silk, though a former CIA agent who’s gone out on his own, to big time record producer and the head of a criminal syndicate.

Reviewer: Susan Ardis

By: Boyle, T. Coraghessan

This is T.C. Boyle’s seventh collection of short stories. Since 1979, Boyle has published 19 works of fiction all of them fully engaging the human condition with hilarity and compassion. I am continually drawn to his short stories because his ruminations on and illuminations of our human plight are so intense. Boyle is what I would call a lunatic-humanist-surrealist who can elicit laughter and tears simultaneously. This collection assembles 14 of his darker stories, all gems and not to be missed. From the story of an unlikely romance between a fetching American ornithologist and a spinster Scot on the isle of Unst to the tale of a drive-time radio host’s attempt to break the world record for continuous hours without sleep, Boyle fascinates while enlivening his characters with frailty, humor, compassion and odd heroics.

Reviewer: Tim Strawn

By: Margaret Drabble

Written and set in Swinging London in the mid-1960s, The Millstone is a story of a common predicament, told in an uncommon manner. Rosamund Stacey – attractive, intellectual, conscientious, and self-sufficient – is intimidated by the idea of sex, and has successfully managed to avoid it altogether until her late twenties. When her first sexual encounter leaves her pregnant, her life contracts and expands in unforeseeable ways, as her perceptions are heightened and her preconceptions softened. Structured as a coming-of-age novel, but slightly inverted, The Millstone presents the true awakening of a young woman who had already considered herself enlightened. Drabble’s sensitive, humane portrait of the 1960s sexual revolution in Britain is as fresh and relevant as if it came off the presses today.

Reviewer: Missy Nelson

By: Richard Russo

I am really recommending any of Richard Russo’s works. All of them are great and you can follow a rise in the quality of his writing as you read newer and newer works. The basic premise seems to be the same in each of his novels (at least the 4 of his 5 which I have read): they’re all set in a small town in the American Northeast and full of wacky characters — some in dire situations, some suffering for caring about those in dire situations, and some suffering at the hands of those in dire situations. Either way, the characters are what are great about Russo’s writing. He makes you believe that these unreal folk are real and he makes you suffer along with them, while at the same time you often want to give them a smack-in-the-head wake-up call. This title won Russo the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for 2002. Basically, it is a chilling commentary on Columbine, but the plot, as in his other works, is almost incidental to how the characters react to what is occurring. Russo is always funny and often at the same time heart-wrenching. His books are quick reads and all wonderfully realized.

Reviewer: Beth Kerr

By: Maile Meloy

In beautiful stark prose, Maile Meloy tells the story of the Santerre family, following the complex relationships among four generations from World War II and the family’s arrival in California to the present. As the story shifts from one generation to the next and one decade to the next, Meloy competently shifts the tone of the novel to match the tone of each era and provides insight into the effects of social change through time on the structure of the family. While it dabbles in the realm of literary soap opera and has its moment of melodrama, the characters and the family secrets they share provide an engaging and compelling story of heartbreak, Catholic guilt, and sexual temptation.

Reviewer: Meghan Sitar