CommonwealthAnn Patchett hits the trifecta with “Commonwealth”–great writing, great story telling and great insight–all told in a matter of fact style with a touch of humor.

“Commonwealth” is about family–which means it’s about love and hate, betrayal and forgiveness, expectations and disappointment, life and death. The story begins when deputy District Attorney Albert (Bert) Cousins crashes Franny Keating’s christening party, meets and immediately falls in love with Franny’s extraordinarily beautiful mother Beverly and two separate families suddenly become intwined. Bert leaves his pregnant wife Teresa and their three children and Beverly leaves her police officer husband Fix. Beverly and Bert marry and along with Beverly’s two daughters, Caroline and Franny, they move from Los Angeles to Virginia. Teresa is left with four children to raise on her own in Los Angeles, although Bert does suggest that she move with them to Virginia. “That was all it took for Teresa Cousins to spend the rest of her life in Los Angeles.”

The Cousins children (Cal, Holly, Jennette and Albie) come to Virginia every year and the six children together wreak the kind of havoc that only six children very close in age with very little parental oversight can create. “The six children held in common one overarching principle that cast their potential dislike for one another down to the bottom of the minor leagues: they disliked the parents. They hated them.” When a tragedy strikes, the summers together come to an end, although a few years later, after setting fire to the art room at his school, Albie is sent to live in Virginia.

The story is told in alternating chronology. We learn about the family pasts and their presents, and their changing relationships, mostly, although not exclusively, through Franny’s life story. Fix encourages his daughters to go to law school and Caroline becomes a successful lawyer while Franny drops out of law school and, struggling to find her place, works as a cocktail waitress at the Palmer House in Chicago. “For someone who had no skills and no idea what she wanted to do with her life other than read, cocktail waitressing was the most money she could make while keeping her clothes on. Those were her only two criteria at this point: not to be a lawyer and to keep her clothes on.” While working as a cocktail waitress, she meets legendary author Leon Posen and they begin a life together (despite the fact that he is more than 30 years older than Franny and married to someone else).

Franny shares her life story with Posen, who turns it into a National Book Award winning novel and ultimately a movie. Of course the story is modified and interpreted from Posen’s perspective, causing the family to react with horror, shock and offense, mixed with what appears to be indifference . “A film of life would definitely be better than this, even if there had been a camera behind them every minute recording the entire disaster of childhood, all the worst memories preserved, it would still have been better than having to watch these strangers making some half-assed attempt to replicate their lives.” The story makes you stop and wonder what your life might look like from a detached observer’s perspective.

Beverly ultimately divorces Bert and remarries, adding another family to the mix. People age, get married, have children, suffer regret, become ill and die.  The characters look back on their lives with a mixture of regret, detachment and resignation. “All the stories go with you, Franny thought, closing her eyes. All the things I didn’t listen to, won’t remember, never got right, wasn’t around for.”  And Teresa, many years after her divorce from Bert muses that “The things you really need are never there when you need them.” The book addresses the thought provoking questions of how the randomness of events influence a life and how to ensure that the experiences of the past become part of the future without losing your own story in the process.

I laughed through the first half of the book and cried through the second. Ann Patchett tells a great story but reminds you that life is as it is and not as you would wish it would be. The book is due to be published in September and I will be buying my own copy. You can reserve it at the Cuyahoga County Public Library by clicking on http://encore.cuyahoga.lib.oh.us/iii/mobile/record/C__Rb11213351__SCommonwealth__P0%2C3__Orightresult__X7?lang=eng&suite=mobile

The Vegetarian“Her life was no more than a ghostly pageant of exhausted endurance, no more than a television drama. Death, who now stood by her side, was as familiar to her as a family member, missing for a long time but now returned.” This quote sums up the misery that is Han Kang’s “The Vegetarian”, inexplicable winner of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize.

The story begins with Yeong-hye becoming a vegetarian and her husband’s growing concern over her refusal to eat meat, particularly after a disastrous business dinner with the husband’s boss and others.  “[H]er husband had decided that her vegetarianism was proof that she would never be ‘normal’ again.” Her family tries to convince her to eat meat and after numerous brutal encounters, physical, emotional and sexual, she rapidly devolves into insanity. Her sister, In-hye tries to bring her back from the brink.

In-hye spends a great deal of time pondering how she could have changed the direction of her sister’s life. She also analyzes how easily she could have been the one to break down instead of her sister, but for certain family obligations that forced her to focus outside herself. The book addresses certain issue of medical care for the mentally ill and how easy it is to go from lucidity to insanity. The book’s main theme is that life is an endurance test–an experience to be tolerated while struggling to avoid crossing the very thin line into insanity.

While well written, the story is so bizarre and so depressing that the best thing I can say about it is that it is short–just like this review. If you want to punish yourself for some reason, you can reserve this book at the Cuyahoga County Public Library by clicking on http://encore.cuyahoga.lib.oh.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb11177384__Sthe%20vegetarian__P0%2C2__Orightresult__X7?lang=eng&suite=gold

Heat and Light“Heat and Light” is a story about small town life in Pennsylvania, the impact of fracking and other energy extraction activities and the hypocrisy and opportunism on both sides of the energy debate.

Rich Devlin has spent his entire life in Bakerton, Pennsylvania and works as a prison guard and sometime bartender at his father’s bar. Rich’s goal is to farm the land once farmed by his grandfather and he buys out the interests of his brother and sister, but does not have the financial means to get the farm up and running. Rich is married to Shelby and they have two children, the chronically ill Olivia and her younger brother, Braden.

Kip Oliphant is the founder and CEO of Dark Elephant Energy, which, among other things, is a giant in hydraulic fracturing. Dark Elephant sends its best salesman to Bakerton, Pennsylvania to start signing up leases so that it can accumulate enough land to begin mining shale. Rich immediately signs, accepting Dark Elephant’s first offer, thinking only about the money he will receive to enable him to realize his dream of farming.

Unfortunately, Dark Elephant is unable to start drilling because some of Rich’s neighbors have not agreed to terms. The properties need to be bundled and the owners of the acreage in the middle of the bundle refuse to agree. One of those properties is Mackey Farms, run by a lesbian couple (Rena and Mack) who have rejected Dark Elephant, the result of which has been threats and vandalism to their property. Mackey Farms supplies some of Pennsylvania’s finest restaurants and markets with organic products from their farm. When the owner of one of the properties who has refused to sign a lease conveniently dies of a heart attack, his property is leased to Dark Elephant and the drilling begins.

The book describes the varying impact of the drilling. First is the presence of many workers from out of state, creating additional traffic, higher rents and crowded amenities, although notably, none of the local residents are hired to work on the rigs. Relationships develop between the workers and the residents, which of course are only temporary. The well water becomes contaminated with methane and vendors do not want to purchase animal products raised on farms either directly or indirectly impacted by the drilling. The noise levels are unbearable and the land is effectively ruined. Ultimately, the energy company’s sole interest is making money and when it becomes clear that the drilling is a losing venture, they simply clear out leaving their mess behind. Throughout it all, the book describes the varying impact of the activities on Rich and his family, Rena and Mack and Kip and his family .

During the height of the drilling in Bakerton, a community activist, Lorne Trexler, comes to town in an effort to encourage the community to reject the drilling and pursue legal action. Lorne develops a relationship with Rena, who finds herself attracted to Lorne and works directly with him. One of the children in the community is ill and they believe it is due to the water contamination. When a highly regarded physician determines that the illness is likely not the result of the water and may be the result of something more nefarious unrelated to the drilling, Trexler’s reaction is indifference for the child and disappointment for the potential the loss of an emotion laden opportunity to make his point. When he later realizes that the cause of the child’s illness is still unclear, “He exhales audibly. ‘All right, then. It’s still possible the water is to blame. For our purposes, that possibility is enough.'” Lorne’s activism is simply a different type of opportunism, also taking advantage of the impacted community.

In addition to the focus on fracking, the book goes back to the impact of coal mining and then to the melt down at Three Mile Island. There is a focus on the small town experiences of domestic violence and drug addiction, in particular Methamphetamine, of which nobody who lives in the community seems to be too aware. “It’s the fundamental problem of a life lived in one place: sooner or later, everything becomes invisible.”

The book is good, not great, but it is an enjoyable read and gives you some insight into the business and impact of fracking. You can reserve this book at the Cuyahoga County Public library by clicking on http://encore.cuyahoga.lib.oh.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb11195716__Sheat%20and%20light__P0%2C2__Orightresult__X7?lang=eng&suite=gold

The Little Red ChairsEdna O’Brien’s “The Little Red Chairs” is a disturbing yet compelling account of the direct and peripheral impact of a charismatic genocidist. Beautifully written, the book takes its title from the 11,541 red chairs laid out in rows in Sarajevo on April 6, 2012, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces. “One chair for each Sarajevan killed during the 1425 days of siege.”

The story starts in Cloonoila, Ireland, when a bearded man in a long dark coat from Montenegro shows up at a local bar, seeking lodgings. Vladamir Dragon was, according to his business card, a “Healer and Sex Therapist.” He makes himself welcome in the little town and sets up a clinic announcing Holistic Healing in Eastern and Western Discipline.  At the request of the town priest, he removes the reference to being a sex therapist from his card. His first patient is a nun who, after the treatment marvels that “her energy was prodigal, a wildness such as she had not known since her youth.” Vlad becomes a part of the town’s community, taking students on nature walks and participating in the local book club and poetry readings.  “His name is on everybody’s lips, Dr. Vlad this and Dr. Vlad that. He has done wonders for people, women claiming to be rejuvenated.”

Vlad’s clinic is located in what had been a boutique owned by beautiful Fidelma. Fidelma and her significantly older husband Jack agree to lease the space to Vlad “because the new doctor’s praises were increasingly hailed.” Fidelma’s marriage to Jack is not a happy one and they have been unable to have children. Fidelma eventually takes up with Vlad and becomes pregnant with his child.

The town has a five star hotel known as The Castle, where most of the workers are from somewhere else and share their stories of escape and trouble. All except Mujo, who is described as mute. When the castle has two major functions, Mujo refuses to do his job because the man at Table 17 is a bad man “who has done evil”.

Vlad’s identity becomes known when a bus hired to take the book club to Ben Bulben for a poetry reading brakes suddenly and two uniformed guards board and approach Vlad asking for identification. He is arrested and removed from the bus, ultimately identified and sent to The Hague, to be indicted for crimes that included genocide, ethnic cleansing, massacres, tortures and more.

Fidelma leaves Jack and moves to London, where she learns about the trials and tribulations of a variety of immigrants who have fled their countries due to poverty, intolerance, violence and/or fear, seeking safety and better opportunities. Many of the people she meets through The Centre, a place where refugees gather to talk and tell their stories. She goes to The Hague to observe Vlad’s trial, and to confront him about their romantic past. Through that extremely difficult experience, she learns of the historical conflict in Bosnia and all the horrors he inflicted, and that he truly has no conscience.  Her life in London and her experience at the trial teach her about ethnic and racial intolerance and hatred.

A lot happens in this relatively short book, which ends with a Christmas performance at The Centre of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” where the word “Home” is symbolically sung and chanted in the thirty five different languages of the performers. “You would not believe how many words there are for home and what savage music can be wrung from it.”

This dark, yet hopeful and thought provoking book is worth reading, if not for its beauty and story, then as a reminder of the dangers of hatred based on ethnic, racial or religious intolerance. Edna O’Brien, along with Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin), will be at The William N Skirball Writers Center Stage, hosted by the Cuyahoga County Public Library Foundation, on Tuesday March 21, 2017. You can order tickets by clicking on http://www.cuyahogalibrary.org/Donate/Writers-Center-Stage.aspx

You can reserve The Little Red Chairs at the Cuyahoga County Public Library by clicking on http://encore.cuyahoga.lib.oh.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb11180299__Sthe%20red%20chairs__P0%2C3__Orightresult__X2?lang=eng&suite=gold

Nobody's FoolRichard Russo’s most recent novel, “Everybody’s Fool,” was just released. It is a sequel to a book he published in 1993 called “Nobody’s Fool”. I thought I should read Nobody’s Fool before I read Everybody’s Fool and so this is my review of Nobody’s Fool.

In Nobody’s Fool, the main character, Donald Sullivan (Sully) is a 60-year-old juvenile, haunted by his father’s memory and limited by his own self-destructive behavior. Sully lives in the upstairs flat of the home owned by his retired 80 year old 8th grade teacher, Beryl Peoples. Beryl spends much of her time talking to a picture of her deceased husband and to an African spirit mask she picked up on her travels. She spends her remaining time pondering her lack of maternal love for her banker son Clive Jr, whom she describes as a cynical optimist, and her indifference toward her best friend Mrs. Gruber. Clive Jr spends most of his time focused on the development and promotion of an amusement park, trying to convince his mother of the virtues of his unlikeable fiancée and the removal of Sully from his mother’s life.

Throughout the book Sully is working with his lawyer, Wirf, who is also Beryl’s lawyer, trying to obtain disability benefits for a knee injury. Wirf is an interesting character who seems to spend most of his time drinking excessively and whom Beryl describes as “not so much incompetent as unambitious, a character trait almost impossible to find in a lawyer.”

Sully’s life story is best described as a series of character flaws. His romantic entanglement of almost 20 years involves a married woman who likes to pretend that her daughter with her husband is actually Sully’s daughter. He works for the community’s relatively well to do but sleazy contractor while obsessing over the contractor’s beautiful wife, stealing his snow blower and automobile and shortchanging his projects. In exchange, the contractor refuses to pay him for certain projects, constantly insults him and yet they spend a lot of time together and have an inexplicably codependent relationship. Sully spends a great deal of his time drinking and brawling.

Sully has a best friend who can only be described as smelly and pathetic and whom Sully treats as poorly as a person could treat someone he or she calls a friend. Sully’s long estranged PhD educated, professor son, Peter returns into his life. Peter has failed to get tenure, has no job and as a result of an extramarital affair and pending divorce, finds himself estranged from two of his three children, turning out to be more like Sully than anyone, particularly his mother (Sully’s ex-wife) could have believed possible. This commonality with Sully causes his ex-wife such great distress that she literally has a nervous breakdown. Even Sully is concerned about his son, musing that “his momentary pride in Peter’s accomplishments had leaked away into serious misgivings about his character.”

Overshadowing all of the story is Sully’s obsession with his long deceased violent father and his difficult childhood. As people grow old, die and evolve throughout the story, Sully’s reaction is befuddlement. “As always, to Sully, the deepest of life’s mysteries were the mysteries of his own behavior.”

I am a Richard Russo fan but I have to say that I was disappointed with Nobody’s Fool. It is well written and it is a well thought out story with very little depth, absolutely no subtlety and left me feeling empty. I suspect that the best part of Nobody’s Fool was the 1994 movie starring Paul Newman (the movie had to be great- it starred Paul Newman!!) I am hoping for more out of “Everybody’s Fool” and you will be the first to know what I think! If you want to read “Nobody’s Fool” you can reserve it from the Cuyahoga County Public Library by clicking on http://encore.cuyahoga.lib.oh.us/iii/mobile/record/C__Rb10280791__SNobody%27s%20fool__P0%2C2__Orightresult__X7?lang=eng&suite=mobile

A Strangeness In My MindTo say that Orhan Pamuk’s “A Strangeness In My Mind” is one of the best written and enjoyable books I have read all year is overshadowed by my embarrassment that it is the first of the Nobel Prize winner’s novels that I have read. Believe me I will be going back and devouring all of them.

A Strangeness In My Mind is the story of Istanbul, its traditions, politics, history and evolution over more than a 45 year period as told through the eyes and lives of Mevlut Karatas and his family. Mevlut’s life began in 1957, in a small Turkish village where he lived with his mother and sisters. Mevlut’s father had gone to Istanbul with his brother, Mevlut’s uncle, to make his fortune. In 1969, at the age of 12, Mevlut joined his father in Istanbul, went to school and learned the trade of selling yogurt in the streets by day and boza (popular fermented beverage) in the streets by night. Mevlut’s school experience in Istanbul was a difficult one. Poor students like Mevlut were not well treated by educators and ultimately Mevlut dropped out.

Mevlut’s uncle had experienced enough financial success to bring his wife and three sons to Istanbul and to build a house while Mevlut’s father lived in a one room dwelling and was only able to bring Mevlut to Istanbul, but not his wife and daughters. Mevlut’s father was very envious of his brother and did not want Mevlut to develop a close relationship with his cousins or aunt and uncle. Ownership of land in those days was very loose and Mevlut’s father’s relationship with his brother deteriorated over land disputes and envy.

Despite his father’s admonishments, Mevlut became fairly dependent on his cousins throughout his life. At his cousin Korkut’s wedding, Mevlut falls in love with the younger sister of Korkut’s bride. With the help of his cousin Suleyman, Mevlut courts the younger sister through numerous love letters and ultimately, contrary to custom and acceptable religious behavior, elopes with her. From there begin many surprises.

Throughout the book Mevlut has many jobs, including street vendor, cafe worker, parking attendant, cafe owner, and tea seller. Through his various jobs and his constant struggle with poverty we learn about Istanbul’s cruelty, class distinctions and corruption. The corruption he encountered took many forms, including residential theft of electricity, cafe workers theft from owners, bribes to government officials from street vendors, and gang activity in all aspects of Istanbul life and trade.

Despite his many jobs, Mevlut always goes back to selling boza on the streets of Istanbul at night. Through his travels on the street we learn about the history of Istanbul and its politics, its ultimate development into a large city and movement away from tradition and we meet interesting characters along the way. Selling boza was almost a religious experience for Mevlut. “…every time he shouted ‘Boo-zaa’ into half-lit streets, he wasn’t just calling out to a pair of closed curtains that concealed families going about their lives…he was also reaching into the world inside his mind…he would discover the world within his soul reflected in the shadows of the city.”

“A Strangeness Inside My Head” is a grand combination of family saga and intrigue combined with Turkish history and tradition, that draws you in to a different time, place and world and makes you wonder whether the world you thought you understood before you started the novel is real. Its almost 600 pages seem too short and certainly left this reader wanting more. You can reserve this book at the Cuyahoga County Public Library by clicking on  http://encore.cuyahoga.lib.oh.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb11163985__Sa%20strangeness%20in%20my%20mind__P0%2C2__Orightresult__X7?lang=eng&suite=gold.

Guess what readers? I am going on vacation! “What” you might say? “Why are you telling us this and why do we care? We’re not going on vacation and we don’t really want to hear about you having fun in the sun”–or something like that.

I am telling you because I will be gone for one week and I am taking seven books with me. I intend to do nothing but read, run and sun (although there might be a rum punch or two in there somewhere)! I hope to flood you with reviews from my trip and I wanted to warn you in advance.

I will be back soon. Get ready for the onslaught!

The American Lover“The American Lover” is a collection of 13 short stories with certain common themes and moods. There are no happy stories in the collection and the commonality includes stories depicting parent child relationships, parental expectations and disappointments, misguided and disloyal love, the cruelty of nature, World War II and wasted and beleaguered lives. Yet despite the despairing nature of the tales, some of the stories are just so wonderful and powerful that when you finish you just have to sit back, take a breath and ask yourself, “how did she do that?”

My favorite story in the collection is “Lucy and Gaston”, which feels a little like Anthony Doerr’s “All the Light We Cannot See”, only much shorter and with a different twist. In this story we meet Lucy at age 36 sitting on a beach in England but refusing to enter the water. Lucy has a daughter and a husband, but she lost her first husband (and the father of her daughter) when he was shot down over the ocean while on a flying mission in France during World War II. His body was never recovered. Next we meet Gaston, a 50 year old farmer in France, who lost his father during the war. As the story unfolds, the interrelationship between Gaston and Lucy creates a moving and emotional story that draws the reader directly into their lives.

The title story, “The American Lover”, was perhaps my least favorite in the collection because it is so dark and hopeless. The story, however, reflects a recurring them that runs throughout the stories–bad choices, unrequited love and betrayal and parental expectations leading to inevitable disappointments.

One of the most interesting stories focused on unrequited love, disappointment and betrayal is “The Housekeeper.” In this story, Mrs. Danowski is the housekeeper for the wealthy and widowed Lord de Whithers, in his home known as Manderville Hall in Great Britain. Her life is going along smoothly until in the summer of 1936, she meets author Daphne du Maurier, who is a luncheon guest at Manderville Hall. Mrs. Danowski and du Maurier strike up a relationship and Mrs. Danowski’s life is forever changed. In fact, Mrs. Danowski becomes the inspiration for Mrs. Danvers, the evil, scheming and ultimately murderous housekeeper at Manderley in du Maurier’s 1938 novel, “Rebecca”. Mrs. Danowki is simply baffled about the portrayal, noting that Miss du Maurier “stole my name and my soul and made me bad.” The story is awful and wonderful all at the same time.

Rose Tremain has an amazing imagination and is an extremely gifted writer. If you like short stories (or even if you don’t), and you don’t mind a little tragedy (ok, a lot of tragedy), you should definitely pick this one up. You can reserve this book at the Cuyahoga County Public Library by clicking on  http://encore.cuyahoga.lib.oh.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb11129301__Sthe%20american%20lover__Orightresult__X7?lang=eng&suite=gold

LaRose by Louise Erdrich“We are chased by things done to us in this life…We are chased by what we do to others and then in turn what they do to us. We’re always looking behind us, or worried about what comes next. We only have this teeny moment. Oops, it’s gone.”

LaRose, by Louise Erdrich, is a story about how the big things and the little things change the directions of lives. When Landreaux, an Ojibwe Indian father of five shoots at a buck and accidentally kills his neighbor’s five year old son, Dusty, a series of life changing events occurs–some obvious and some not so obvious. Following an ancient Ojibwe Indian tradition, Landreaux and his wife, Emmaline, give their youngest child, LaRose, to Dusty’s grieving parents, Nola and Peter Ravich. Nola and Emmaline are half sisters and Nola and Peter have a daughter, Maggie. The families did not exactly get along before the shooting, but LaRose’s unexpected and welcome presence in The Ravich’s lives results in a collision of the two family’s worlds.

While the families are adjusting to this new normal, we meet Landreaux’s boyhood friend, Romeo, as he is siphoning gas out of Landreaux’s car. Romeo and Landreaux’s lives are intertwined in unexpected ways and as the gas siphoning would suggest, Romeo has fallen on hard times, which he blames on Landreaux. Romeo spends much of the book trying to track information that would ruin what is left of Landreaux’s life.

The name LaRose is a family name going back five generations in Emmaline’s family. Emmaline and Landreaux’s son is the fifth and each LaRose has been special in his or her own way. The first part of the book alternates between current day events and the events surrounding the life of the first member of Emmaline’s family to be known as LaRose, dating back to 1839. Through this alternating history we learn a little about some of the family lore and history.

The story is well written and has a certain appeal, but it attempts to take on too much. Romeo and Landreaux are both fighting alcohol and drug dependencies, there are issues between the Indian community and the community outside the reservation, there is a physically attractive priest suffering from postraumatic stress disorder, the planes hit the Towers, the Iraq war starts and one of the children enrolls in the National Guard. This is in addition to the normal issues which the story addresses that result from the tragic death of one so young, such as grief, complexity in family relationships, children coming into their own, guilt and sorrow.

At the same time Louise Erdrich approaches the story with humor. One of my favorite examples of her bemused approach to aging is the irreverent group of old women in the book who love to talk about sex and embarrass and torment the younger men and women. And there is not one, but two separate bodiless rolling heads, relentlessly pursuing and tormenting living full bodied humans.

All in all, it is a good enjoyable read, but it could have been more focused and the ending is bit too neat. The novel will be released in May and can be reserved at the Cuyahoga County Public Library by clicking on http://encore.cuyahoga.lib.oh.us/iii/mobile/record/C__Rb11178525__SLarose__P0%2C3__Orightresult__X7?lang=eng&suite=mobile

TheManWithoutAShadow

Joyce Carol Oates, a prolific writer, has a very distinctive style and her books address societal issues in a consistent and often disturbing manner. Her story lines usually address issues of gender inequality, include some sort of sexual impropriety and the lead character frequently devolves into mental illness. These are the JCO constants which revolve around a unique story and “The Man Without A Shadow” is no exception.

The Man Without A Shadow begins with an introduction to Margot Sharpe, a 24 year old neuropsychology graduate student who has the good fortune to have been accepted into Professor Milton Ferris’s neuropsychology lab at the university in Darven Park, Pennsylvania. Professor Ferris is a highly renowned and rather intimidating expert on memory issues and is conducting testing on Eli Hoopes (E.H.), an amnesiac. E. H.’s amnesia is the result of brain damage from encephalitis, contracted when he was 37 years old. E.H. can remember things that occurred prior to the onset of encephalitis but has no short term memory of anything that occurs after. He believes that he is perpetually age 37, even as he ages throughout the story.

The story unfolds over a period of almost 40 years, during which Margot Sharpe and others subject E.H. to a variety of memory tests at Darven Park on a regular and frequent basis. Joyce Carol Oates tells the story of E.H. and Margot Sharpe in layers, with each layer of the story building on the last.

E.H is a highly educated man from a wealthy family whose education and upbringing are still present in his interactions with others. He has an interesting past, and periodically can be found sketching scenes which represent some of the troubles of that past. He is described as a man who “feels keenly his disabilities without being able to comprehend them.” At one point E.H. wonders aloud, “Can there be a person without a shadow? Without a memory is like being without a shadow.”

Margot Sharpe is from Michigan but has looked forward to “beginning her life” away from Michigan and her family. She turns her back on her Michigan roots, dedicating her life to the study of E.H. and memory. She becomes a highly renowned and awarded expert in the field over the 40 year period of the book. Her obsession with E.H. presents itself in her isolation and her inability to live in the world external to her work, a parallel to E.H.’s inability to live in the world outside his past.

The book poses interesting questions about the ethics of human experimentation and the opportunism of scientific progress dependent on human misfortune. If you are a JCO fan, then you will understand when I say the book is highly disturbing and yet deeply compelling. Somehow you just have to read it. You can reserve “The Man Without A Shadow” at the Cuyahoga County Public Library by clicking on http://encore.cuyahoga.lib.oh.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb11199362__Sthe%20man%20without%20a%20shadow__P0%2C2__Orightresult__X7?lang=eng&suite=gold