Every week, we'll be letting you know about new releases the
editors at O and Oprah.com couldn't stop reading. On
sale tomorrow, the memoir...
Then Again
by Diane Keaton
Why the book is more than a celeb fest: Keaton tells a two-part story, that of her life and that of her mother's as they struggled to find themselves artistically and personally—using first person diary entries and letters.
Why the book is a celeb fest: Keaton describes her relationships with Woody Allen, Warren Beatty and Al Pacino, but in way that's honest and honorable—and painful at times (especially, say, if you've ever tried to make somebody marry you who didn't want to). The love letters from Woody, where he calls her "Worm" and "Lamp-head" are bewitchingly original with lines like "Last nite I had a tender dream about me & my mother...I wept in the dream & ate my laundry."
The idea she poses: That our lives aren't just our own. They're made up of the people we connect with—lovers, family, or even grandfathers who walked out the door.
The moment that shows this actress can write: "When I was nine, Dad taught me how to open a pomegranate...Inside was a chestful of garnets—my birthstone. I bit into the pomegranate. Fifty red gems came crashing into my mouth all at once. It was like biting into both heaven and earth.
Then Again
by Diane Keaton
Why the book is more than a celeb fest: Keaton tells a two-part story, that of her life and that of her mother's as they struggled to find themselves artistically and personally—using first person diary entries and letters.
Why the book is a celeb fest: Keaton describes her relationships with Woody Allen, Warren Beatty and Al Pacino, but in way that's honest and honorable—and painful at times (especially, say, if you've ever tried to make somebody marry you who didn't want to). The love letters from Woody, where he calls her "Worm" and "Lamp-head" are bewitchingly original with lines like "Last nite I had a tender dream about me & my mother...I wept in the dream & ate my laundry."
The idea she poses: That our lives aren't just our own. They're made up of the people we connect with—lovers, family, or even grandfathers who walked out the door.
The moment that shows this actress can write: "When I was nine, Dad taught me how to open a pomegranate...Inside was a chestful of garnets—my birthstone. I bit into the pomegranate. Fifty red gems came crashing into my mouth all at once. It was like biting into both heaven and earth.
I like to give the objects in my life names. My station wagon is named Louise (as in: "Please start, Louise"). My rocking chair from childhood is named Baby (as in: "Why is it when Mommy sits down in Baby and relaxes with a nice quiet book, everybody suddenly wants a glass of milk in a Cars 2 cup with a straw?"). My slow cooker is named Sanchez. This is because the first authentically delicious dinner I ever made in it was an adobe-covered pork shoulder that I shredded with a fork and served on warm corn tortillas with a homemade mango salsa. This is also because I need to thank my slow cooker for nourishing my kids and saving my dinners on a daily basis. "Thank you, Sanchez!" sounds a lot better than "Thank you West Bend 5-Quart Oblong-Shaped Slow Cooker."
There was another time, however, when Sanchez and I did not connect. For one long painful year, I made about 52 dishes (one per week) in it, all of which tasted the same. There was tender bland saddle with gravy, tender bland saddle with white wine, bits of tender bland saddle with garlic and mushrooms, and whole tender bland saddle with egg noodles. Some weekends, I would even invite guests over and brag about how easy using a slow cooker was—"Guys, you can sit around drinking wine and cracking jokes with your friends, and when it's time to eat, you just open up the cooker and slop it onto your plates!" But there was always that illuminating moment when we all had sat down, bit into our first forkful of so-called meat and chewed and chewed and chewed, trying to discover any taste in the food at all or any polite adjective that we could use besides "bleck!." Occasionally, I would ask brightly, "Who want seconds?" just to watch the whole table gasp in horror and look guilty down at their still full plates.
It wasn't as though I was in denial about my slow cooker fiascos. I simply had no solution. My life is too insane to spend long hours at the stove, where things catch of fire if you don't pay attention. So I approached the problem the way I do when I have to fix the DVD player—I plugged in a bunch of stuff. I tried ingredients after ingredient into the slow cooker, as well as called in some experts, trying to figure out what kind of foods not just bring out the flavor of dish, but also amp it up to downright delectable. The 7 magical answers (here) will surprise you.
Read More:
The Secret Ingredients to Transform Your Slow Cooker
Rediscovering the Crock Pot
Anchovies in a stew?
| Photo:Thinkstock |
There was another time, however, when Sanchez and I did not connect. For one long painful year, I made about 52 dishes (one per week) in it, all of which tasted the same. There was tender bland saddle with gravy, tender bland saddle with white wine, bits of tender bland saddle with garlic and mushrooms, and whole tender bland saddle with egg noodles. Some weekends, I would even invite guests over and brag about how easy using a slow cooker was—"Guys, you can sit around drinking wine and cracking jokes with your friends, and when it's time to eat, you just open up the cooker and slop it onto your plates!" But there was always that illuminating moment when we all had sat down, bit into our first forkful of so-called meat and chewed and chewed and chewed, trying to discover any taste in the food at all or any polite adjective that we could use besides "bleck!." Occasionally, I would ask brightly, "Who want seconds?" just to watch the whole table gasp in horror and look guilty down at their still full plates.
It wasn't as though I was in denial about my slow cooker fiascos. I simply had no solution. My life is too insane to spend long hours at the stove, where things catch of fire if you don't pay attention. So I approached the problem the way I do when I have to fix the DVD player—I plugged in a bunch of stuff. I tried ingredients after ingredient into the slow cooker, as well as called in some experts, trying to figure out what kind of foods not just bring out the flavor of dish, but also amp it up to downright delectable. The 7 magical answers (here) will surprise you.
Read More:
The Secret Ingredients to Transform Your Slow Cooker
Rediscovering the Crock Pot
Anchovies in a stew?
Every week, we'll be letting you know about new releases the
editors at O and Oprah.com couldn't stop reading. On
sale tomorrow, the short story collection....
Tales of the New World
by Sabina Murray
This collection of ten unsettling, lavish stories has a potent link—each one brings to fictional life to the true story of a historic explorer. Murray, a previous PEN/Faulkner winner, ranges wide on this theme, profiling famous and expected adventurers like Magellan and Balboa (a trip back for the reader to 4th grade history class) as well as the completely unknown, such as Captain Coffin, a soft-hearted, turn-of-the-last century whaler who roams the Atlantic or Jim Jones, the cult leader from the 1970s who led his flock into the jungles of Guyana. No matter what the period, the historical details here are fascinating: quince jam will save you from scurvy on the high seas; trained hunting dogs make excellent, soulless soldiers.
It's a brutal frontier world Murray investigates, one she questions in all its dark detail (what are the motives of these people who roam the earth blindly? what kind of cruelty or generosity did they inflict?). Often these investigations come at the very end, allowing you to cruise along though the story, binging on exotic foreign jungles, wondering at times where this adventure is going, when, boom, you're slapped with an idea that makes you gasp. Just as Magellan and his best friend are about to be killed by a so-called heathen, for example, they laugh, seeing "no reason to be morbid in this morbid situation. Soon it will all be over and there will still be love." Some the tales are more riveting that others, say Balboa and On Sakhalin. But the masterpiece is Fish, which could have been a book on its own.The story honors an English spinster named Mary, who not only sees and speaks with fairies, but explores the globe on her own in the late 1800s, collecting scientific specimens. She may not have been celebrated in the annals of history, but her journey to independence and competence in wilds of Africa —coming from a grim, London universe that so regularly informed her that she possessed neither quality—is the kind of discovery that will stick with you for life.
Read More:
Memoir: An honest look back on motherhood.
33 must-read books for fall
Tales of the New World
by Sabina Murray
This collection of ten unsettling, lavish stories has a potent link—each one brings to fictional life to the true story of a historic explorer. Murray, a previous PEN/Faulkner winner, ranges wide on this theme, profiling famous and expected adventurers like Magellan and Balboa (a trip back for the reader to 4th grade history class) as well as the completely unknown, such as Captain Coffin, a soft-hearted, turn-of-the-last century whaler who roams the Atlantic or Jim Jones, the cult leader from the 1970s who led his flock into the jungles of Guyana. No matter what the period, the historical details here are fascinating: quince jam will save you from scurvy on the high seas; trained hunting dogs make excellent, soulless soldiers.
It's a brutal frontier world Murray investigates, one she questions in all its dark detail (what are the motives of these people who roam the earth blindly? what kind of cruelty or generosity did they inflict?). Often these investigations come at the very end, allowing you to cruise along though the story, binging on exotic foreign jungles, wondering at times where this adventure is going, when, boom, you're slapped with an idea that makes you gasp. Just as Magellan and his best friend are about to be killed by a so-called heathen, for example, they laugh, seeing "no reason to be morbid in this morbid situation. Soon it will all be over and there will still be love." Some the tales are more riveting that others, say Balboa and On Sakhalin. But the masterpiece is Fish, which could have been a book on its own.The story honors an English spinster named Mary, who not only sees and speaks with fairies, but explores the globe on her own in the late 1800s, collecting scientific specimens. She may not have been celebrated in the annals of history, but her journey to independence and competence in wilds of Africa —coming from a grim, London universe that so regularly informed her that she possessed neither quality—is the kind of discovery that will stick with you for life.
Read More:
Memoir: An honest look back on motherhood.
33 must-read books for fall
| Photo:Lorenzo Bevilaqua/TBS, Inc. |
When I was younger, unmarried and idealistic, I had—oh dear, this is embarrassing—an idea. In the future, when I was married, I was not going to shout at my husband, which would only make him upset. Instead I was going to yell a chair. My husband would watch me chewing out this chair and be able to listen and understand the point of my view, since my fury would not be directed at him. He, of course, would do the same thing to me. He would yell at a bedside table or a lamp or a toothbrush. And I would listen.
Now of course I am older and married and clomping around the house, yelling at everything except our chairs—creating a kind of dark mommy Muzak that is understandably ignored by all of us. I need no more yelling in my life and neither does my furniture—a problem which, of all people, Conan O'Brien has solved by inventing a sofa that hugs you. You sit down on the bright red seat and the arm physically moves to embrace you, while a robot voice says, among other things, "Let's hug it out." Meanwhile, the pillows massage your derriere and back.
Right now, the sofa has been set up in the Time Warner Center in New York City as part of Conan's Coco Moca Museum which features very funny but also surprisingly well executed art that pays homage to his face, but I am thinking that the genre of furniture should join the great panoply of standard furnishings that comes in every home. Imagine the real estate agent, moving from room to room of your empty new townhouse, saying "And here is your microwave. And your light fixtures. And your bathtub....and of course, your love seat that loves you."
Read More:
Take a seat on the Soul Pancake's conversation couch
At last: a song that will put you right to sleep
Every week, we'll be letting you know about new releases the
editors at O and Oprah.com couldn't stop reading. On
sale tomorrow, the memoir...
Blue Nights
by Joan Didion
Blue Nights does what memoirs can do best: illuminate a crucial portion—and not the entirety—of a human life. In this case, prose master Joan Didion focuses on her relationship with her daughter, Quintana Roo, who she adopted in the late 1960s. Quintana grew up in the rarefied world of Malibu and movie-making. Despite the advantages—the closets full of Liberty lawn dresses, the bassinet from Saks—she struggled with the discovery of her biological parents, grappling with mental issues known collectively as "borderline personality," and using alcohol as a way to cope. Her struggle to recover from brain surgery was covered in Didion's previous book The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir that examined the extraordinary and excruciating loss that Didion suffered when her husband died and Quintana was hospitalized for many months. Blue Nights picks up a few years later after Quintana too has died. The lens of the story is less jaw-dropping in terms of fast-moving, tidal-wave events—and that is its power.
By concentrating on her daughter's life instead of her death, Didion examines her role as her a parent: what she caught, what she missed, what she caught and misinterpreted. She is relentlessly truthful, admitting for example that at Quintana's christening, "I actually believe that somewhere between frying the chicken to serve on Sara Mankiewicz's Minton dinner plates and buying the Porthault parasol to shade the beautiful baby girl...I had covered the main 'motherhood' points." As Quintana grows up, developing some charming if disturbing eccentricities, say, diagnosing herself with cancer when she really has chicken pox or calling an mental hospital to see if she can check in, Didion is not afraid to ask, "Did we demand that she be an adult? Did we ask her to assume responsibility before she had any way of doing so?" It is a courageous thing to look at how you have behaved as a mother, to question this in retrospect. What comes through, however—not despite of, but because of Didion's brutal self-examination—is the intense and singular love she had for her daughter. Yes, this is a book about aging and about loss. Mostly, though, it about what one parent and child shared—and what all parents and children share, the intimacy of what bring you closer and what splits you apart. "I know that I can no longer reach her. I know that should I try to reach her... should I lull her to sleep against my shoulder, should I sing her the song about Daddy gone to get the rabbit skin to wrap his baby bunny in—she will fade from my touch," say Didion. "Yet there is no day in her life on which I do not see her."
Read More:
Fall fresh reads.
Mysteries to honor this Halloween
Correction: When this piece was first published we incorrectly stated that The Year of Magical Thinking chronicles Didion’s experience after Quinana's death. The Year of Magical Thinking includes Quintana’s illness, and Blue Nights begins after Quintana's death.
Blue Nights
by Joan Didion
Blue Nights does what memoirs can do best: illuminate a crucial portion—and not the entirety—of a human life. In this case, prose master Joan Didion focuses on her relationship with her daughter, Quintana Roo, who she adopted in the late 1960s. Quintana grew up in the rarefied world of Malibu and movie-making. Despite the advantages—the closets full of Liberty lawn dresses, the bassinet from Saks—she struggled with the discovery of her biological parents, grappling with mental issues known collectively as "borderline personality," and using alcohol as a way to cope. Her struggle to recover from brain surgery was covered in Didion's previous book The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir that examined the extraordinary and excruciating loss that Didion suffered when her husband died and Quintana was hospitalized for many months. Blue Nights picks up a few years later after Quintana too has died. The lens of the story is less jaw-dropping in terms of fast-moving, tidal-wave events—and that is its power.
By concentrating on her daughter's life instead of her death, Didion examines her role as her a parent: what she caught, what she missed, what she caught and misinterpreted. She is relentlessly truthful, admitting for example that at Quintana's christening, "I actually believe that somewhere between frying the chicken to serve on Sara Mankiewicz's Minton dinner plates and buying the Porthault parasol to shade the beautiful baby girl...I had covered the main 'motherhood' points." As Quintana grows up, developing some charming if disturbing eccentricities, say, diagnosing herself with cancer when she really has chicken pox or calling an mental hospital to see if she can check in, Didion is not afraid to ask, "Did we demand that she be an adult? Did we ask her to assume responsibility before she had any way of doing so?" It is a courageous thing to look at how you have behaved as a mother, to question this in retrospect. What comes through, however—not despite of, but because of Didion's brutal self-examination—is the intense and singular love she had for her daughter. Yes, this is a book about aging and about loss. Mostly, though, it about what one parent and child shared—and what all parents and children share, the intimacy of what bring you closer and what splits you apart. "I know that I can no longer reach her. I know that should I try to reach her... should I lull her to sleep against my shoulder, should I sing her the song about Daddy gone to get the rabbit skin to wrap his baby bunny in—she will fade from my touch," say Didion. "Yet there is no day in her life on which I do not see her."
Read More:
Fall fresh reads.
Mysteries to honor this Halloween
Correction: When this piece was first published we incorrectly stated that The Year of Magical Thinking chronicles Didion’s experience after Quinana's death. The Year of Magical Thinking includes Quintana’s illness, and Blue Nights begins after Quintana's death.
Monday is too stressful. Wednesday is already hump day. But Tuesday
is "you" day: a day when you have the energy to do—or plan—something
fresh and unexpected that might just turn your whole week around.
The World Series has taken over our world. How to ease the tension of the next game with a ballpark cotton candy martini.
The Northern lights showed up in last night's Southern skies. How to understand why the celestial event migrated and why its colors morphed into such a rare blazing red.
Halloween isn't the only upcoming holiday; Saturday is National Cat Day. How to prepare for the two monster events by whipping up a costume that won't totally irritate or humiliate your kitty: chic yet evil cat bat wings.
The World Series has taken over our world. How to ease the tension of the next game with a ballpark cotton candy martini.
The Northern lights showed up in last night's Southern skies. How to understand why the celestial event migrated and why its colors morphed into such a rare blazing red.
Halloween isn't the only upcoming holiday; Saturday is National Cat Day. How to prepare for the two monster events by whipping up a costume that won't totally irritate or humiliate your kitty: chic yet evil cat bat wings.
Every week, we'll be letting you know about new releases the editors at O and Oprah.com couldn't stop reading. On sale now, the lovely enlightening art book:
Oak
by Stephen Taylor
Some books show you how to laugh, some show you how to think, but, every once a while, one will show you how to live. The exquisite Oak: One Tree, Three Years, and Fifty Paintings follows of the story of artist Stephen Taylor who decided to paint the same oak tree in the English countryside every day for three years. The titles of his ensuing works reveal the detail with which he pursued his vision: Oak With Crows, Oak After Snow, Oak At Night in Winter, Oak in Early Spring. There are no abstract oaks or evocative splashes of ink meant to suggest an oak. The trees are realistic, some with an almost photographic precision—revealing the larger point. As the oak changes by the month or hour, the surrounding environment changes. Barley field are cut down and rise again; jets stream by through the sky; blue tits forage in the leaves; and damsel flies swarm below the branches. A singular plant becomes a talisman for the passage of time and seasons—and you, as viewer—begin to change too, becoming more observant and aware of the tiny yet enormous natural transformations that take place each day and minute. Seeing—in the truest sense—is the lesson here, one that's taught with such elegance that you'll be bewitched into stopping and contemplating the birch or maple in your own yard that's serving—as T.S. Elliot once described trees—as "the still point of the turning world."
Read More:
The Entire Oprah Book Club List (Read it now!)
Last week's book: Scenes from A Village Life
Advice for Aspiring Writers...from Toni Morrison.
Oak
by Stephen Taylor
Some books show you how to laugh, some show you how to think, but, every once a while, one will show you how to live. The exquisite Oak: One Tree, Three Years, and Fifty Paintings follows of the story of artist Stephen Taylor who decided to paint the same oak tree in the English countryside every day for three years. The titles of his ensuing works reveal the detail with which he pursued his vision: Oak With Crows, Oak After Snow, Oak At Night in Winter, Oak in Early Spring. There are no abstract oaks or evocative splashes of ink meant to suggest an oak. The trees are realistic, some with an almost photographic precision—revealing the larger point. As the oak changes by the month or hour, the surrounding environment changes. Barley field are cut down and rise again; jets stream by through the sky; blue tits forage in the leaves; and damsel flies swarm below the branches. A singular plant becomes a talisman for the passage of time and seasons—and you, as viewer—begin to change too, becoming more observant and aware of the tiny yet enormous natural transformations that take place each day and minute. Seeing—in the truest sense—is the lesson here, one that's taught with such elegance that you'll be bewitched into stopping and contemplating the birch or maple in your own yard that's serving—as T.S. Elliot once described trees—as "the still point of the turning world."
Read More:
The Entire Oprah Book Club List (Read it now!)
Last week's book: Scenes from A Village Life
Advice for Aspiring Writers...from Toni Morrison.
| Photo: Think Stock |
My idea was that babies were like Pavlovian guinea pigs. If they associated a song with sleep, they would fall asleep the minute they heard the first few phrases of music. I had a lot of ideas about babies at the time, most of the them exhausting, dopey, and just plain embarrassing, but the song one worked. I could make my baby fall asleep with one round of Bateau Sur L'Eau and I used to do for it pure sport during lunches with my friends, so that I would look like The Best Mother Ever as well as spooky mind-control master, when in fact, I just wanted the child to take a nap so I could eat my Cobb Salad.
Many a late night, when I have been up, unable to sleep, running through panic-inducing daydreams and to-do lists, I have tried to sing my children's old songs to myself—to no avail. They do nothing for me. Now, however, the British Telegraph has announced there is song that's been scientifically engineered to relax us adults—if not knock us out. The tune is called Weightless and it contains eight minutes and sixteen seconds of " carefully arranged harmonies, rhythms and bass lines help to slow the heart rate, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol."
A study by David Lewis of Mindlab International found that listening to Weightless caused a 65 per cent reduction in overall anxiety and made many women drowsy . "In fact," he said. "I
would advise against driving while listening to the song because it could be
dangerous." I agree. But I do have to wonder what would happen if the song was played in supermarkets and banks, replacing the traditional Muzak. Would we all fall asleep mid-errand? Or would we just move a little slower and behave a more pleasantly to each other? It's hard to be rude when you're relaxed—even artificially.
Listen to Weightless (accompanied, inexplicably, by an image of a woman floating in a pool)
Monday is too stressful. Wednesday is already hump day. But Tuesday
is "you" day: a day when you have the energy to do—or plan—something
fresh and unexpected that might just turn your whole week around.
Honor National Chocolate Cupcake Day this afternoon. How to make decadent mini versions—with scooped-out centers filled with liquid butterscotch.
Virgin Galactic opens its doors—the new space complex built by Richard Branson, which is soon to offer shuttles to ordinary folk for a mere $200,000. How to celebrate by making a paper space shuttle (for free).
Turn a new corner this Wednesday, Evaluate Your Life Day. How to figure out who you were meant to be.
A lost Leonardo Da Vinci painting may—or may not—have been sold for $21,000. How to understand the other mystery of this artist's past—the secret behind Mona Lisa's smile (hint: clowns?)
Honor National Chocolate Cupcake Day this afternoon. How to make decadent mini versions—with scooped-out centers filled with liquid butterscotch.
Virgin Galactic opens its doors—the new space complex built by Richard Branson, which is soon to offer shuttles to ordinary folk for a mere $200,000. How to celebrate by making a paper space shuttle (for free).
Turn a new corner this Wednesday, Evaluate Your Life Day. How to figure out who you were meant to be.
A lost Leonardo Da Vinci painting may—or may not—have been sold for $21,000. How to understand the other mystery of this artist's past—the secret behind Mona Lisa's smile (hint: clowns?)
Every week, we'll be letting you know about new releases the editors at O and Oprah.com couldn't stop reading. On sale tomorrow, the riveting short story collection:
Scenes from Village Life
by Amos Oz
In fiction, there are usually two kinds of mysteries. The first is when we, the readers, don't understand what is happening because it defies the logical course of reality (example: a woman flies over the town) but eventually we get some kind of a explanation by the author (oh! she's an angel). The second is when we don't understand what is happening (example: a woman is flying over town) and we don't get an explanation, which can be very frustrating, enough so to put the book down—except in the case of a master storyteller such as Amos Oz who knows how to leave the mystery in the mysterious, while still breaking your heart.
Take his first story, Heirs, in which a greasy, wheedling cousin shows up at a man's door and tries to get him to sell his elderly mother's house. We're never sure if this cousin is real or just some kind of psychological ghost who represents all the less-than-admirable daydreams of the son. The same goes for a digging sound that a schoolteacher hears under her house at night: Is she going crazy? Or is she being haunted by the past? Either explanation works—due mostly to dreamlike prose which slides you right into these seven tales as if you'd spend your whole life in a country village in Israel, dotted with fig trees, dusty sunlight and roaming cats.
The same characters turn up again and again—each dressed in the kind of details that make you remember them as flawed but lovable friends, like Danny Franco "who looked like wardrobe set on stick legs" or Adel the young Arab student who "walked around the yard wearing a Van Gogh straw hat and an expression of wonderment." One of the most moving is Gili Steiner, the town doctor, who wanders through one foggy night, searching for her nephew who was supposed to arrive on a bus from the city but who did not, or who was perhaps never supposed to arrive—yet another case of the unexplained. The point, luckily, is not what actually happened to her nephew. The point is: The nephew is not there. And Gili Steiner's disposal of the baked fish dinner which she had cooked for him, her few rough minutes sitting at the kitchen table with his childhood stuffed kangaroo, crying until the moment she abruptly "stopped, took the laundry out the dryer, and...ironed and folded everything and put it way," is one of the most realistic portraits of the mystery of love and loneliness ever written.
Read More:
This fall's freshest new books.
The newest, don't miss non-fiction.
Scenes from Village Life
by Amos Oz
In fiction, there are usually two kinds of mysteries. The first is when we, the readers, don't understand what is happening because it defies the logical course of reality (example: a woman flies over the town) but eventually we get some kind of a explanation by the author (oh! she's an angel). The second is when we don't understand what is happening (example: a woman is flying over town) and we don't get an explanation, which can be very frustrating, enough so to put the book down—except in the case of a master storyteller such as Amos Oz who knows how to leave the mystery in the mysterious, while still breaking your heart.
Take his first story, Heirs, in which a greasy, wheedling cousin shows up at a man's door and tries to get him to sell his elderly mother's house. We're never sure if this cousin is real or just some kind of psychological ghost who represents all the less-than-admirable daydreams of the son. The same goes for a digging sound that a schoolteacher hears under her house at night: Is she going crazy? Or is she being haunted by the past? Either explanation works—due mostly to dreamlike prose which slides you right into these seven tales as if you'd spend your whole life in a country village in Israel, dotted with fig trees, dusty sunlight and roaming cats.
The same characters turn up again and again—each dressed in the kind of details that make you remember them as flawed but lovable friends, like Danny Franco "who looked like wardrobe set on stick legs" or Adel the young Arab student who "walked around the yard wearing a Van Gogh straw hat and an expression of wonderment." One of the most moving is Gili Steiner, the town doctor, who wanders through one foggy night, searching for her nephew who was supposed to arrive on a bus from the city but who did not, or who was perhaps never supposed to arrive—yet another case of the unexplained. The point, luckily, is not what actually happened to her nephew. The point is: The nephew is not there. And Gili Steiner's disposal of the baked fish dinner which she had cooked for him, her few rough minutes sitting at the kitchen table with his childhood stuffed kangaroo, crying until the moment she abruptly "stopped, took the laundry out the dryer, and...ironed and folded everything and put it way," is one of the most realistic portraits of the mystery of love and loneliness ever written.
Read More:
This fall's freshest new books.
The newest, don't miss non-fiction.
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