Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann

A few years ago my husband and I watched "Man on Wire," the documentary film about Philippe Petit, the man who walked between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. I kept remembering that movie as I read Let the Great World Spin, as that breath-taking feat is the centerpiece of this novel. This was my take on the film:

It was a fascinating story of how they engineered this legal and amazingly daring feat, but in the end I was gravely disappointed in Petit's personal character. At times I felt it moved too slowly and jumped back and forth...and I wanted to cheer for Petit but was disappointed in the way the experience changed him.

This is not the type of novel I'm typically drawn to, because I tend not to prefer short stories. But one of the benefits of being in a book group is being exposed to the types of books one wouldn't normally read. Well written, with a wonderful sense of setting, Let the Great World Spin tells the stories of a variety of different characters, many of whom encounter each other at some point in the day or in their lives.

But one of my major gripes with novels is when each chapter starts from the different perspective of a different character (can you say Game of Thrones?). And as soon as I grew to love a particular character or story (like the Irish priest John Corrigan and his brother Ciaran--the most interesting story), that story ends and we move onto someone else. So I found it a bit hard to sink into this novel, with all that moving around.

On the other hand, the novel tells the story of New York City in so many different slices...of the priest Corrigan who works amongst the prostitutes and dealers in the Bronx ghetto and loves a Latina single mom...of the prostitutes themselves, whose children become prostitutes...a Park Avenue mom befriending a black mother, both grieving their sons who died in Vietnam...a drug-addicted artist who finds herself involved in a hit and run...and a prostitute's daughter who was raised in love and stability, who returns to New York full circle...beautiful individual stories woven together...

A few of the stories didn't work for me...the hackers in California who call pay phones in New York to quiz passersby about what's going on between the towers, and the young graffiti artist who is also a photographer. I found these stories to be the least interesting and engaging.

I'm glad I read this novel, though...it was especially poignant to read this book during September, as we all remember the World Trade Center and 9/11.

The Girl Next Door: An NYC apartment building full of drama

The Girl Next Door, by Elizabeth Noble

The Girl Next Door takes place in a Manhattan apartment building. The book starts with Eve, who has been transplanted from England because of her husband's job. Soon Noble begins adding a large cast of characters, most of whom live in that same apartment building. Fortunately, she includes a list of characters in the beginning, which is helpful.

I do struggle at times with books that have too many characters. For the most part, this device works here, but some characters are thrown in for unknown reasons and we hardly hear about them at all (the Stewarts, the Piscatellas, Dr. Hunter Stern, Arthur Alexander, the Gonzales, and the token gay couple Todd and Gregory). I'm not sure why she felt it necessary to include all of these people--they do not really serve much of a purpose. Other characters felt one dimensional, shallow, or unlikable.

It didn't help my reading of the book that I found an error in the List of Characters before I even began! Cath Thompson is listed as "Emily's sister," when in fact she is Eve's sister.

Another thing that really bugged me was that Noble clearly didn't do her research about Oregon. One of her characters, Emily, is supposedly from Wilsonville, Oregon, which she refers to as "small-town America." Anyone from Oregon knows that Wilsonville is in fact an affluent suburb of Portland, with a median family income of $65,172. It's full of retail shops and corporate headquarters and it's on the I-5 corridor. It's definitively NOT "small-town America."

The character Eve has a premature baby, born at 27 weeks and weighing one pound, two ounces. This is extremely small for a 27-weeker. (My son was born at 24 weeks and weighed one pound, six ounces, around the typical weight for that gestation. A 27-weeker would have been bigger unless she had been suffering from intra-uterine growth retardation.) For the most part, Noble did a fine job describing the extreme stress and trauma associated with having a child in the NICU, although she talked about how parents didn't talk to others in the NICU, saying that "everyone was on their own in the NICU." This might have been true for some, and especially for shy and reserved Brits, but for us meeting and commiserating with other parents was a lifeline. Most NICU parents feel that way.

I did enjoy reading about the blossoming women's friendships, and in particular about the friendship between Eve and Violet. The book had me in tears during the NICU chapters. (Spoiler warning: A baby dies in this book. I want to warn people about this, because many people do not like to read about childhood death.) Noble also deftly and sensitively handled the issue of grief and the comfort in shared experience.

Years ago I read one of Elizabeth Noble's earlier books, The Reading Group, and I didn't like most of the characters. I liked The Girl Next Door much better.

Attack of the Theater People: Marc Acito's second novel

Attack of the Theater People, by Marc Acito
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I read the first in this series (How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater) in 2009 while we were at our beloved Sylvia Beach Hotel. In that book, Acito tells the story of Edward Zanni, who is so desperate to go to Juilliard that he and his friends--mostly theater people--resort to embezzlement, money laundering, identity theft, forgery, and blackmail to help him achieve his goals. It's over the top madcap farce with a theatrical twist.

Attack of the Theater People picks up the plot two years later, when Zanni has been kicked out of Juilliard for being too "jazz hands." He ends up becoming a party motivator for bar and bat mitvahs and business events, and soon he's participating in insider trading deals. It's not that Edward does not have any ethics...it's just that he can't keep himself from getting sucked into unethical and illegal arrangements.

I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the first...at times it was just a bit too over the top for me. But what I found especially fascinating about this book is that since I read the first one, I learned that I know one of the inspirations for one of Edward's extremely loyal, creative friends. (Much of Acito's storytelling is based on his life experiences, obviously spun way beyond what really happened.) This put a whole new spin on the book for me.

Here's Acito--who until this spring lived in Portland but has since moved back to New York--talking about the novel:



You can read more about Acito on his web site or blog.

Girl in Translation: Chinese immigrant girl student by day, sweatshop worker by night

Girl in Translation, by Jean Kwok
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I moved from affluent Chinese mother writing a memoir about Chinese parenting to this wonderful novel, which is a more heartwarming story of Asian parental love. It was a terrifically quick read, too, and highly compelling.

Kimberly Chang leaves Hong Kong to move to Brooklyn, New York, with her mother, and neither of them speak a word of English. They, like so many other immigrants, expect to find a wonderful land of promise waiting for them. Instead they find themselves buried in debt (owed to Kimberly's aunt and uncle), living in a roach- and rat-filled hovel without any heat, and working night and day--for pennies--in a sweatshop.

Kimberly is determined to escape, and she focuses all of her energies on learning English so that she can get back to being an outstanding student as she was in China. After she's finished with school, she goes to the sweatshop to work side by side with her mother, who had been a gifted music teacher back in Hong Kong.

Because of Kimberly's determination and innate intelligence, she is able to win a scholarship to an elite private high school. While there she constantly struggles with fitting in and managing to keep all the balls in the air. In the meantime, her mother struggles to learn English and has to work constantly to keep a filthy roof over their heads.

As Kimberly becomes a young woman, she falls in love with a young man, Matt, who also works in the factory. She's faced with a terrible choice between love or ambition.

Much of this novel is based on Jean Kwok's own experiences--she too was an immigrant from Hong Kong whose family ended up working in a sweatshop. Her family lived in a filthy, heatless, vermin-infested apartment. She too relied on her smarts to get her out of that difficult environment. Here is a video of Jean Kwok speaking about the novel:





Warning: SPOILER AHEAD!!




Many reviewers have commented that they did not like the ending. I'm guessing that they believe Kim should have chosen love instead of continuing to follow her path of pulling her family out of deep poverty. At the beginning of the book, I was concerned that she would have forsaken her ambitious dreams. What Kim only alludes to at the end is that she would not have made Matt happy.

This is a feminist novel to me, because the protagonist makes choices for her own independence. Never again does she want to have to rely on someone else (as she and her mother have been indebted and abused by her aunt and uncle). She is determined to change her life and give her mother the life she deserves. Matt is one of those traditional Asian men who would never abide his wife making more money than he does. I agree that it is sad that he never knows about her son...and sad also that Kimberly ends up alone...but I think it would have been far sadder had she given up her dreams.

Final Jeapardy: Inspiration for Law & Order SVU

Final Jeopardy by Linda Fairstein

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When looking for novels set in New York City (preparing for our trip there), I discovered this writer--a former sex crimes prosecutor who writes books about the sex crimes unit in NYC. This is the precursor to "Law & Order: SVU" and her first novel. I will read more.



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Likely to Die: Sex crimes in NYC

Likely to Die by Linda Fairstein

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the second of Fairstein's books I've read, and I'm finding that I enjoy them more than Patricia Cornwell's because of the NYC setting. I just can't imagine how she finds time to write, given that she's also the head of NYC's sex crimes prosecution unit!



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The Ivy Chronicles: Working with snobby parents

The Ivy Chronicles by Karen Quinn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Very light and shallow read, in the vein of "The Nanny Diaries," about a NYC rich woman who loses high-powered job and husband in one day and decides to become a consultant advising parents on how to get their tots into the city's finest private schools. Funny and entertaining, but not very deep!



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Fabulous Nobodies:

Fabulous Nobodies by Lee Tulloch

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Billed as "Sex and the City" before Carrie Bradshaw came on the scene, this is a parody of the New York fashion and club scene in the 80s. It received rave reviews, but I found it a bit difficult to get through. Perhaps because of my overall lack of interest in fashion and what's "in" at the time. Or maybe I'm just picky about parodies!



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Please Excuse My Daughter: Spoiled rich kid has child and tries to excuse her bad behavior

Please Excuse My Daughter: A Memoir by Julie Klam

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I would give this one 2-1/2 stars. I did keep reading, and I finished it. The writer was brought up as a pampered, privileged rich kid and was not taught to be independent or self-reliant. As an adult, she stumbles again and again, but someone is always there to bail her out (even though she doesn't feel that way). Despite the fact that she hardly ever went to school as a kid, she somehow ended up getting through college (and getting good grades), and lands two coveted entertainment jobs: (1) working as an intern for David Letterman, and (2) working on a VH1 show called "Pop-Up Video."

She and her husband reached rock bottom and were not able to pay their bills (or their $2,500+/month rent), but she still had a group of people around to bail her out, and she was still had privileges, which she doesn't really acknowledge. She does recognize what a great community of family and friends she has, but somehow I can't help but feel that she still wishes she could be a princess and not have to work for a living...and have her mom buy her designer goods like she does for her granddaughter.

Klam's daughter was born prematurely (at 33 weeks), which I found interesting. She seemed to handle that crisis much better than many less-important problems in her life. Otherwise, I found much of this book difficult to relate to (not having been raised in the NYC designer/celebrity environment) and not really what I expected.



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Dumbfounded: Big Money. Big Hair. Big Problems. Or Why Having It All Isn't for Sissies

Dumbfounded: Big Money. Big Hair. Big Problems. Or Why Having It All Isn't for Sissies. by Matt Rothschild

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A few other reviewers have called Rothschild a "spoiled, rich kid." In reality, he was starved for unconditional love as a child (his mom dumped him with his grandparents when he was a baby), and any child starved of parental love is not rich or spoiled.

He grew up on the upper east side, raised by eccentric grandparents who did love him but didn't quite know how to show it all the time. For example, his feisty grandmother would ask him: "What have you done to deserve a hug?" and Rothschild would have to convince her to give him a hug. As a mom myself, this makes me so sad!

The first time Rothschild encountered his real mother, he overheard her telling a friend of hers that she was going to abort him but had been persuaded not to by her father (who threatened to disown her if she did). Later on, when his beloved grandmother dies, his mom didn't even let him know (he was away at college).

Through childhood he desperately craved attention and ended up rapidly cycling through New York's finest schools. He also strongly suspects that he is gay, but doesn't know how to deal with this...and is not able to talk openly to any of his family members about his suspicions.

Rothschild did grow up in a moneyed family, but in the end of the memoir he reaches a level of independence as he develops his own life.

So no, it's not The Glass Castle or Angela's Ashes, but a down-to-earth, honest memoir about what it's like to grow up in a pampered way of life, yet lacking the feeling of being truly wanted or loved.



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