The Flying Troutmans

Miriam Toews
2008

Hattie comes back from Paris to take care of her mentally ill sister. She checks her sister into a hospital and then collects up her sister's kids and goes on a road trip to find their absent father. They take a shit areostar van through the states and get into all sorts of shenanigans. That's the plot in a nut case, typical road trip plot, we all get it.

What I really like is the way Toews develops her characters. Hattie is clearly the straight man who has a bunch of bad and weird things happen to her. Her niece Thebes is a crazy little girl with loads of emotions and blue hair. She's lots of fun and she does a bunch of really neat and unpredictable things. Hattie's nephew Logan is the sullen teen with loads of angst and poetry. The sister Min is just crazy (ok I know she's more than that but it just wasn't worth describing).

The thing that bothers me about the kids is that they are super well spoken and aware of worldly things. Not saying kids aren't that aware, but come on. Especially young Thebes, she has so much self awareness, besides being completely creatively wacked she's way older than she should be.

Although it does follow the typical road trip plot, Toews spices things up with weird flashbacks into Min and Hattie's childhood. Usually they come when Hattie is telling the kids about why their Mom is so crazy. I think the most admirable thing about this book is how it takes on mental illness. We don't ever spend anytime with the person who is ill but we see it reflected in the rest of the characters. We see the way it makes the kids feel helpless and frustrated as there is nothing they can do for their mother, and we see how Hattie has run away and come back so many times. Toews gives the full and complex picture of mental illness.

But yeah, I know what you're probably thinking. Miriam Toews, didn't she write "A Simple Meanness"? No dumby it's called "A Complicated Kindness" (I may have made that mistake before), is this book as good as her other awesome one? The answer of course is no. Is it a good book if you like really internalized plots, zany road trips, and mental illness? Yes, yes it is. So all in all I'll give it a 3.5 lightning bolts, a really good 3.5, almost a four, but for some reason not a four.

Reviewed by Meg!

Hark! A Vagrant

Kate Beaton
2011

Kate Beaton has a History degree and in more clever than the rest of us. She's so smart and witty that she has to explain why some of her jokes are good. I know what you're thinking, if you have to explain your jokes then you're probably not very funny. But if you're Kate Beaton then you will have to explain your jokes because you're able to make more historical and literary references in one book than most of us will in a lifetime. So instead of being all grumpy that I had to read the joke explanations, I was just able to enjoy the jokes more thoroughly.  Which means that when I got the jokes without the explanation I got to feel like Kate Beaton and I were best friends and were equally smart. I may have a complex.

To be clear, this is a comic book. No, not a graphic novel, it's a comic book that's full of different strips. There's lots of fun Canadian history strips, and fun classic literature jokes. If you like history and literature and still manage to have a sense of humour, you'll love it.


Here's a sample:

I guess what with being a comic book I should talk about the art. It's good. Not high end graphic novel good, more comic strip good. She changes it up every now and then depending on her subject matter, which makes for a nice variety when you're reading the book in one sitting because it's so funny.

I think by now you should know that this book is getting five lightning bolts, the first book of the site to cause such a big storm (heh) so go read it! If you can't get yourself to the book store/library right now get over to harkavagrant.com.

Reviewed by Meg!

Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War

Hal Vaughan

2011

By now I hope you know that Meg is the funny one if this book/blog relationship and that I am the historical one. It’s a characteristic to my character in this novel called life….. apparently I am also very dramatic. Do you know who is also dramatic … COCO CHANEL is DRAAAAMATIC.

In Hal Vaughan’s book Sleeping with the Enemy he outlines just how dramatic Coco Chanel was and that drama is NAZIS. Yes, World War Two (The Great War the Sequel) Nazis. Hitler Nazis. Apparently Coco Chanel was an anti-Semite and extremely supportive of the National Socialist Party and the down with communist vibe it had. So supportive that she let them into her bedroom, no not  Hitler but a hansom Nazi spy (drama) named Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage. The book supports how Coco Chanel may have been a spy for the Nazi Party, and when France was liberated only narrowly missed execution thanks to her dear pal, the ever so dreamy, Winston Churchill.

This is the plot and the drive of the book, to uncover this secret (and not so secret) world of Coco Chanel. However this is a hefty 300 + page book that includes not only the Nazi drama but also the entirety of Coco Chanel’s rise to fame and glory. I am not one who is typically interested in fashion but being that she was a historical figure I was intrigued. I learned that Coco loved men and that men loved Coco. I learned a few flirting tips. I learned a plethora of the who's who of the 1920's through to the 1940’s.  I learned that Coco had a hard life, and a sad life, one where she needed to be loved to feel independent and needed to be loved to feel alive. I learned that she may have had relationships with women and that she developed a serious drug habit near the end of her life. I learned that I pitied Coco. I learned about fashion.

This book was suggested to me by a friend who loves fashion and while I feared those bits would be dull, the fact that the author includes photos (that do not interfere with the story) of some of the clothes he is talking about and chooses well known and revolutionary pieces (like the little black dress and its history) I actually found myself enjoying or at least tolerating the fashion excerpts. However it was the DRAMA and historical tid bits (Churchill in a bathing suit people!) that won me over.   

The timing of this book just couldn't be better, starting in the roaring 20s, arching into WWII and ending in a Cold War World. Chanel is one of those names that most people know, yet not a lot of people know about her; her life or anything other than the fashion house. I am glad that I have rectified my ignorance. I didn’t find myself staying up until all hours to read just one more chapter but I found it to be an interesting leisurely read and I will most definitely be introducing this book into my dinner party conversation (drama people, draaaaaaama) for that I award this 3 ½ lightening bolts out of 5. 

 

Reviewed by: Lorenda!

Martin Sloane

Michael Redhill
2001

This is Redhill's first novel and it took him something like ten years to write. When your first novel takes you ten years to write, hopefully it'll be pretty good (and I mean actively write, not like that novel you've been writing for ten years where you just tell everyone that you're writing but never actually put pen to paper). So yeah, it's pretty good (and it has a woven plot! if you've read any of these you know that's what I love)

It's good, it's well crafted, it's smart. I didn't really like it. Jolene falls in love with an artist (Martin) who is much older than she is. They seem to be in love, but then Martin leaves her in the middle of the night and she never sees him again. Years later she goes looking for him and unveils bits of his mysterious past. It's good. Good story.

Here's what drives me crazy:
Martin isn't that awesome of a guy. And yeah ok, girls like broken things and want to fix everybody. Ok. But that's boring, and he's not that broken. He's just empty enough to be mysterious and I just don't see the appeal. Jolene is kind of nuts, why did he even go for her? She wallows for years, she loses her job, she goes kind of nuts. Come on girl! Pull yourself together. These two characters are just awful and frustrating, I wanted to rewrite them both - but that was the point.

Here's what is amazing:
This novel delves a lot into story telling, who is telling this story and why. Well, it's Jolene. So that woven plot that is either Jolene's voice or an unknown voice telling Martin's story, is really just Jolene. Wikki What!? So the real question here is how can Jolene know all the intricate details of Martin's life? She can't! What? So she's gotta be making it up. So as she quests after Martin she's learning about what Martin made up, but then because Martin's story is also Jolene's story we don't know if she just made it up and can't remember that it was her! Now we have an unreliable narrator who has a potentially horrific memory!

Redhill also throws in a bunch of ekphrasis (see I done did school) to head up every chapter. These bits of ekphrasis are describing Martin's artwork. The artwork as dates and is formatted like an art show exhibit description, which make them feel like the only solid details in Jolene's messed up narration. The descriptions give solid facts into Martin's life (which you'll get if you go all nuts on the novel and try to figure them out). The ekphrasis weaves in with the narration to show even further inconsistencies in Jolene's narrative.

The inconsistencies jive into Jolene's past and the way that she treats people. Her childhood was crazy messed up and it's easy to see how that would influence her relationship with Martin. So the novel is full of details that will completely drive you mad in a good way, if you're into that kind of thing.

So What's the verdict?
It's amazingly well crafted, with too many layers to talk about here. But the characters drive me freaking crazy! So well crafted, but I wanted to smack both Martin and Jolene in the face the entire time. Frustration in literature is good, but this frustration was too frustrating and it just made me not care. So Redhill gets three lightning bolts and a shurg.

Reviewed by Meg!