Archive for the ‘adventure’ Tag
Full disclosure: R. Cathey Daniels, author of Live Caught is a friend. We’ve fished, played soccer, strummed guitars and much more. Admittedly, that was all years and a common time zone ago. We know of each other’s losses and joys. For me, reading her debut novel falls into the latter category.
Live Caught is about survival, redemption and the journey young Lenny, a one-armed teenager, embarks on toward a new life on his own. Daniels’ writing is poetic and visual. The element of place, rural North Carolina, is as vividly depicted as her characters.
At 14 Lenny leaves his family home with the goal of reaching the Atlantic Ocean via a rowboat with only his fishing gear, stolen cash, his wits and the emotional baggage bestowed upon him by two older, abusive brothers. However, Mother Nature intervenes and he’s washed ashore following a storm where he’s rescued by an old, foul-mouthed priest; someone Lenny is resistant to appreciating or accepting. Lenny’s judge of character is impressive for a teenager.
Herein is an issue: is Lenny credible? The answer is sometimes.
Despite the detour caused by the elements, Lenny hasn’t given up on his goal of reaching the ocean. Circumstances require new plans, which he hopes won’t take long to set in motion. As he helps the priest serve the community through food and clothing drives, the reasons why he left his parents, brothers and girlfriend are explained as Lenny’s backstory slowly comes to the surface.
Meanwhile, a cast of characters, including a corrupt police officer, a drug dealing buddy, an infant child and the priest unwittingly contribute to Lenny’s scheme to get back on the water.
The fast-paced narrative is divided into two parts; the second is set 10 years later when Lenny’s past catches up with him in unexpected ways.
Live Caught
Four Bookmarks
Black Lawrence Press, 2022
300 pages
Of the authors, dead or alive, who’d prompt me to be a groupie is Amor Towles (obviously among the latter category). His newest novel, The Lincoln Highway, is nearly 600 pages and I couldn’t wait to get lost in it. I did have to wait awhile for a copy, but once I held it in hand I felt like a kid on the first day of school: excited and apprehensive about what was to come.
Emmett Watson has just returned to his rural Nebraska home having served time for involuntary manslaughter. He plans to start a new life in Texas with his eight-year-old, wise-beyond-his-years brother, Billy, who has other ideas: to head west. He’s certain they’ll find their estranged mother in San Francisco and insists they travel the Lincoln Highway, a coast-to-coast route.
However, Emmett’s friends, Duchess and Woolly from the work farm, appear having stowed away in the trunk of a car. They have different plans for traveling the Highway, and they steal Emmett’s prized Studebaker to head east.
Emmett and Billy’s story becomes one of reclaiming not only the car but their journey’s purpose; Duchess and Woolly have other goals. All their adventures involve a cast of characters from the sublime to the absurd. What’s initially Emmett’s story soon becomes Duchess’s – his are the first person voice chapters; the others use third person voice.
The Lincoln Highway is an odyssey filled with heroes and monsters. It’s also where friends become family – with some selfish members and some more likeable than others.
The Lincoln Highway
Four-and-a-half Bookmarks
Viking Books, 2021
576 pages
Miss Benson’s Beetle, by Rachel Joyce, is meant to be a charming book, but falls short. It’s predictable and the characters are caricatures.
Margery Benson’s life is a sorrowful one. Her father commits suicide when she’s a young girl and most of her life is spent living with her depressed mother and dour aunts. Before his death, however, her father showed her a book about bugs, which created an interest in beetles, in particular.
As a middle-aged woman whose life is passing her by, she resolves to find the mythic golden beetle of New Caledonia. Before setting off on this venture, Margery decides an assistant is required. She opts for Enid Pretty, a woman she’s never met, whose correspondence suggests dyslexia, in favor of a Mr. Mundic with post-traumatic stress disorder (although that wasn’t identified following World War II).
Enid is the opposite of Margery in style, personality and intellect. Enid, whose lively demeanor is off-putting to her employer, does help keep Margery on track. The two set off on their adventure and, unbeknownst to them, are followed by the rejected Mundic. Actually, it’s outright stalking. His inclusion in the plot does little to help move it forward.
In their travels, the women overcome numerous obstacles and forge a bond. Their search for the elusive beetle is secondary. While their eventual friendship is unsurprising, it is, nonetheless – at times – endearing. Perhaps most enjoyable is the author’s inclusion of an “interview” with the characters at the end of the book.
Miss Benson’s Beetle
The Dial Press, 2020
353 pages (includes Reader’s Guide)
Three Bookmarks
I knew a couple who, after becoming empty nesters, announced they now live in “Naked City.” I appreciated this for its literal and figurative meanings. Not only could bodies be bare, so could parental responsibilities (of course, these never fully disappear, only their dominance over daily life). For many couples the milestone raises the question: what next?
Kim Brown Seely addresses this in Uncharted: A Couple’s Epic Empty-Nest Adventure Sailing from One Life to Another. I learned about it from a friend’s podcast, nuWriters. The hosts discussed the book one week and interviewed Seely the next. Both episodes intrigued me. Seely shares the emotions associated with a new phase of life with honesty and humor, she also provides vivid descriptions of the journey she and her husband, Jeff, undertook aboard a 54-foot sailboat through the Salish Sea and Inside Passage to the Great Bear Rainforest.
The Seelys are successful professionals, married for nearly 30 years when their two sons are both soon to be in college; their youngest as a freshman. As if launching him isn’t enough of a new experience, they magnify it by embarking on a sailing expedition, which serves multiple purposes including to reconnect as a couple and to seek the elusive white bear (known as the spirit bear).
Although her husband had some sailing experience, Seely did not. This doesn’t deter them, and the two learn to, literally, navigate together. It’s not always easy, but even as their relationship is stretched, so does it become stronger.
Unchartered: A Couple’s Epic Empty-Net Adventure Sailing from One Life to Another
Four Bookmarks
Sasquatch Books, 2019
275 pages
C Pam Zhang’s How Much of These Hills is Gold can be read as either a question or an exclamation. It depends as much on the characters’ perspectives as the reader’s, which frequently changes but isn’t distracting.
Two siblings, Lucy age 12 and Sam age 11, of Chinese descent are left as orphans. Lucy’s pragmatic whereas Sam, their father’s favorite, is stubborn. Both are intelligent, but in different ways. The first thing they need to do is bury their Ba, something they must do with some semblance of tradition. Memories of him and their Ma, who is already gone, provide the family history: life as outcasts; how Ba and Ma met; Lucy’s passion for education; Sam’s disdain of the status quo; and more. So much more.
The plot unfolds as the Gold Rush has passed its heyday and railroad lines are being set across the west. Zhang’s writing is beautifully descriptive, not only of the northern California inland but the people inhabiting the harsh environment.
Lucy’s the focus of most of the story, although Sam, Ba and Ma are vividly brought to life. Yet, Zhang has crafted a family portrait full of flaws, loyalty, tradition and equal parts optimism and pessimism. Ba was born in California and was abandoned as a child. He’s Chinese, but doesn’t know the language – something he eventually learns from his wife.
Within this poignant adventure of Lucy and Sam on their own are issues of racism, sexual identity and the meaning of family.
How Much of These Hills is Gold
Four-and-a-half Bookmarks
Riverhead Books, 2020
272 pages
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney has been on my nightstand for years; I’ve lost track of how many. I’m sorry I didn’t read it sooner.
The author evokes the loneliness and bitter cold of Canada’s Northern Territory in the late 1860s. Alternating between the first person voice of Mrs. Ross and that of an omniscient narrator, the scene is set to unravel the mystery behind the brutal murder of a French trapper found in his cabin. Mrs. Ross is the first to discover the body and the first to wonder about the absence of her teenage son, Francis.
The small settlement, rich with gossip, lacks law enforcement, which results in the arrival of Hudson’s Bay Company representatives to investigate. An assortment of characters, from refined gentry to trappers and Indians, among others, figure into the story.
Family histories (and secrets), personal backgrounds, Native American relations with settlers, the stark landscape and unconditional love are given equal weight throughout the narrative. Although Mrs. Ross is the character with whom the reader becomes most familiar, her first name is never revealed. She does not believe Francis is capable of murder, and she has little faith that those searching for him will give him the benefit of innocent until proven guilty.
Thus, she sets out on her own search with the help of William Parker, a half-breed previously held custody on suspicion of his role in the murder.
Doubt and faith vie as the prominent sentiments in this fast-paced whodunit adventure.
The Tenderness of the Wolves
Four Bookmarks
Simon & Schuster, 2006
371 pages (plus summary and Discussion Points)
I wasn’t aware of the 1983 Glen Canyon Dam crisis, nor of an effort to achieve the fastest ride through the Grand Canyon until reading The Emerald Mile. Keven Fedarko presents an engrossing, at times lyrical (and occasionally overwhelming) account of the events that led to three men hurtling down the Colorado River in a wooden boat.
Fedarko introduces a cast of characters from John Wesley Powell to park rangers, from boat builders to hydrologists, from river rats to tourists – among others. Historic, meteorological, hydrologic and recreational elements – again, to name a few – are all addressed. Fedarko’s writing is based on thorough research that serves the purpose of illustrating the myriad of components that made the river run possible while addressing aspects that threatened its fulfillment.
The author is a master of the backstory. His writing is much like the river he describes: full of excitement and the unknown, then calm. And, he apparently leaves no stone unturned. Although this is a work of fiction, it has the feel of a mystery: how is Kenton Gura, the man who captained the small, hand-built dory named the Emerald Mile, going to pull off the adventure of a lifetime? This same sense of intrigue is evident in the passages concerning the efforts to thwart a dam failure while dealing with the effects of a massive snow melt: the effect of El Nino.
This work makes me not only want to revisit the Grand Canyon, but also to tour the dams at either end.
The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in history Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon
Four Bookmarks
Scribner, 2013
415 pages (includes notes and index)
For a minute forget that Elizabeth Gilbert wrote Eat, Pray, Love. It may take a little longer, but the idea is to not let this dissuade you from reading The Signature of All Things. Gilbert’s novel is as different from her memoir as ice milk is from ice cream. The latter is much richer and nuanced; it’s worth every moment of guilty pleasure spent under its grip.
Gilbert transports the reader from London, across the seas (on multiple occasions), and to Tahiti and Amsterdam. Philadelphia provides the lengthiest setting where the brilliant, unattractive Alma Whitaker is introduced to the world: her birth is literally the first sentence of this epic narrative. In Gilbert’s words, Alma’s childhood “was not yet noble, nor was it particularly interesting …” Thus, the focus turns, albeit temporarily, to Alma’s father, Henry Whitaker.
Henry stole his way out of poverty. He didn’t just acquire wealth, he attained knowledge and became a leading botanist and businessman. Alma’s mother, a stoic and harsh parent intent on fortifying her daughter’s intellect, also possessed a great mind and interest in botany.
Through humor, interesting botanical descriptions and strong, insightful characters, Gilbert creates a story that not only spans continents, but also scientific ideas along with notions regarding love and relationships. The vivid imagery of the various landscapes is a bonus.
Alma is a passionate character rich in curiosity (and foibles). Yet, despite the limits placed on her gender, she explores life in miniscule proportions and unexpectedly reveals its grand scale.
The Signature of All Things
Four-and-a-half Bookmarks
Viking, 2013
499 pages
The Blue Page Special 