Tall Houses in Winter – Doris Betts

(No copy of the cover for this one – so a picture of the author will have to do.)
I have a small affection for North Carolina authors – especially when their stories are set in my backyard. There’s something about reading a work of fiction and fully understanding the small town dynamics, the connections between people, and the mutual love of place that heightens the literary sensation. As a bookslut, I’m all about heightened sensations.


When I was in undergrad, I often heard talk of Doris Betts. Going to UNC and being involved in the creative writing program made it impossible to not know the woman’s name and influence. I picked up The Sharp Teeth of Love (1997) one day when the Bulls Head was having a sale in the pit. (I loved those sales -tables and tables of books, discounted to the point of thievery. I missed many a class due to those sales.) I fell head over heels in love with the novel, mainly because of the role UNC’s campus played. There was something special about sitting on a bench by the Old Well reading about Luna’s feelings of leaving the campus and the Old Well behind.

“They drove the loaded van on one last ceremonial sweep through the green and blooming Carolina campus, up the hill behind Kenan Stadium between gaudy azaleas, past the functional ugly new library and the handsome old one, then slowly by the Old Well-university trademark-surrounded now by pink crab apples. The scene filled up her passenger window to its edges like a colored slide, and then clicked out. Luna, who had sketched several views of this scene for U.N.C. stationery, said, “Did you know they built the Old Well to look like the Temple of Love in the Garden of Versailles?”
“Nope,” said Steven. But he was in a good mood and yanked her toward him to demonstrate. “Good-bye South Building,” he said with false gaiety as he braked lightly for every stop sign along Cameron Avenue. “Good-bye Memorial Hall and Peabody and Swain.” Across the flourishes of his too-white hand he gave Luna a speculative look to see if she was still indulging in advance homesickness.
“Good-bye Franklin Street,” he said more softly.”


It was an excellent opening that hooked this Carolina girl.

I recently acquired through library sales Betts’s first novel, Tall Houses in Winter (1957). While UNC does not factor into the novel, the setting of Stoneville instantly captivated me. What captivated me most, however, was the character of Ryan Godwin – a Stoneville native who made good and escaped to the North. An academic, Ryan teaches at an all girls college in Massachusetts. He returns home, the prodigal, because he’s dying of cancer – a secret he keeps to himself. The opening of the novel reminds me of how I feel sometimes about Gates County:
“He had always said the only he would ever come back to Stoneville would be in a pine box, one of the plain rough-hewn frontiers kind, so that people seeing it unloaded at the train station might just once, just briefly, wonder if there were other more vigorous lives being lived in other places than this one.”

The story itself is simple in plot. Ryan is the youngest of three – Asa is his spinster older sister – she’s in love with the reverend, but she’s spent so much of her life molding herself into being the business-minded son their father wanted and hiding sentiment, that she is simply an angry old lady. Avery, the slightly dim-witted brother spoke nearly entirely in clichés, played the organ at church, and managed to marry Jessica, the only love of Ryan’s life. Asa was pleased with the marriage – her life is controlled by the acceptance of others and the appearance of the Godwin family is of the upmost importance to her. Ryan and Jessica begin an affair that is mostly done through letter writing and brief moments of passion when he comes home for the holidays. The only one in the beautiful Godwin house who is aware is Lady Malveena, the black house keeper who pretty much raised Ryan. She’s very Mammy-like in nature and she’s the only one who understands what exactly is happening in that house.

A son is born, Fen, and not knowing if Fen is his eats away at Ryan. Jessica angrily tells him that Fen is not his. She will not leave Avery; she will not put that stain on the family name or the boy. She says he may biologically belong to Ryan, but Avery is the child’s father. Ryan is enraged. This woman loves him, may have carried his child, but she is too concerned with the thoughts of those in Stoneville, with what Asa and Avery would say, to act on her love and ensure a happiness. Avery and Jessica are killed in a car accident when Fen is two and the boy is left with Asa. Ryan runs from them all, which is fine with Asa who realizes what had been going on in her house and thinks it a skeleton best left to collect dust in the closet. The prospect of death, a decade later, brings him home.

Mixing the past with the present, Betts details a heartbreaking story of life and love in a small town. There are no easy answers, no truly happy endings. It’s life realized – a true peek behind those picket fences of the respectable. One of the themes that is carried throughout the novel is the homecoming – the reasons we leave, the reasons we have to come back. Thomas Wolfe would be proud.

Doris Betts is a very fine example of a North Carolina author we should be ever so proud to embrace. Born in 1932, this former UNC creative writing professor has been lauded for many more years than I’ve been alive. Her list of awards and fellowships is extensive, but one should not base the quality of her work on these alone – I suggest picking up a book by Betts and allowing yourself to fall face first into small town North Carolina.

The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova

How is it that I had not heard of one of America’s most bestselling female authors in the literary genre and only stumbled across her first novel by accident when perusing the bargain bin at Borders? I suppose I was too deeply entrenched in my thesis in 2005 to do much outside reading. Whatever the reason for my delayed discovery, I am very pleased Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian found its way in my hands.

A little research into the novel and Kostova reveals the impact this novel had on the publishing world. It took Kostova a decade to finish the 642 page novel and she received an offer from a company a mere two months after submitting the manuscript. She refused the offer and a bidding war ensued. The result? She sold the manuscript for two million dollars. In the publishing world, this is simply unheard of -she was an unknown author. But the powers that be in the industry saw exactly what I saw – this could be the next The Da Vinci Code. As of 2005, it was the fastest-selling hardback debut in US history – I haven’t checked to see if it still holds this remarkable title. It’s made Kostova filthy rich and secured her a pretty sweet place in the literary world. Sony purchased the movie rights for 1.7 million and Kostova’s baby should be on the big screen at some point. I am quite pleased with this as the entire time I was reading the novel, I was thinking about what an awesome movie it could be. Kostova has urged those in charge to make sure an unknown face plays Dracula – I think this would be wise.


In short, The Historian is The Da Vinci Code with better writing, amazing descriptions, and vampires. The novel focuses around the idea that Dracula is still very much alive and that he actually follows (and urges) scholars to investigate him – when they get too close or they have exhausted their usefulness, they’re done away with. The unnamed female narrator has picked up the story from her father, who had gleaned several bits from his advisor and colleague at Oxford. Dracula chooses his scholarly victims by planting a book in their possession. The book is void of words and contains a die-cut dragon that awakens the natural curiosity of a scholar. The narrator finds her father’s copy and some other documentation and convinces him to tell her about it.

In the search to unravel her father’s past and find Dracula, the story also becomes a search for the maternal figure and a sense of individual identity. The novel also focuses and emphasizes the importance of story-telling and maintaining history through writing – it brings to life the idea that the pen truly is mightier than the sword. As a scholar and bookslut, I adored that theme and actually may have developed a bit of a crush on Dracula.

The novel is, at times, long and drawn out. Kostova combines the father’s story with present time and occasionally the novel teeters on boring as the process of discovery is slow. I can see why some readers abandon the book because it’s not as action packed as some of the other thrillers out there. But Kostova has a lot going for her in this novel, and The Historian is not just another thriller – it’s actually a pretty strong literary work that has the appeal of a summer thriller read. Genius. I love finding a novel with mass appeal that is more than mere fluff and formula.

I consider The Historian an amazing accomplishment and applaud the work and research that went into making this novel nearly flawless.

Child of My Heart — Alice McDermott

Alice McDermott is known for crafting her stories in simple but powerful ways. Her novels are void of bells, whistles, and pretty packaging. Her prose is strong, sure and intense in its brevity; literary tricks and fancy poeticism are not necessary to carry her work. She’s a remarkable writer, one America should be quite proud to claim, and one you should give a glance at. While I was not the biggest fan of the novel I just completed, I cannot deny McDermott’s talents.

Child of My Heart (2002) is McDermott’s fifth novel. At less than 250 pages, it seems as if it would be a quick, pleasant read, but don’t let its size fool you. What remains unwritten, what McDermott cleverly places between the lines and in her readers’ heads, makes this novel quite weighty. Taking place over one summer, the novel is told from the point of view of Theresa, a beautiful fifteen year old girl caught in that awkward crevice between childhood and womanhood.

Theresa’s parents, while not wealthy, had moved out to Long Island in the hopes that their beautiful child would mingle with the rich and important, that she would be able to get a toehold in society. They pushed her services as dog-walker and babysitter on the movers and shakers, the doctors and famous artists, and her beauty and saint-like reception by children and animals alike kept her in high demand.

The novels opens, “I had in my care that summer four dogs, three cats, the Moran kids, Daisy, my eight-year-old cousin, and Flora, the toddler child of a local artist.” Daisy, the title character, is a quiet child who seems to have been forgotten in the chaos of her many siblings. Theresa has invited her to spend the summer because she understands the need for individual attention. Not long after Daisy arrives, Theresa notices the bruises. Dark and angry, they appear at the slightest touch and never seem to improve. Theresa realizes the serious implications and attempts to heal her cousin through various rituals. She does not alert her parents to the illness – she knows they will only send her home and deep in her heart, she seems to accept that Daisy’s time on earth is precious. She sets out to give her cousin the best summer imaginable.

I didn’t care for Theresa’s character. She seemed too polished, too perfect. The novel touches on her blossoming sexuality; she undresses on the beach, with her charges, and seems unaware of her teenage body until someone comments on it. After that comment, she realizes the power her sexuality grants her. The calculated way in which she loses her virginity, the start of what propels her into adulthood, was heartbreaking. As a reader, I wanted her to hold on to her innocence. (But McDermott wanted her readers to be aware that Theresa’s innocence as already at stake with Daisy’s worsening state.) She sleeps with Flora’s father, an old man, well into his 70s, whose attraction to her was carefully detailed in looks and the slightest of touches. She later finds a piece of canvas, cut from the bed she’d given herself to him on, with just the slightest smear of blood. Someone had cut it out and put it with Flora’s mother’s scarves. (Scarves that had been used to bind Flora at one point.) This scene is only a couple of sentences, but I was amazed at how powerful those sentences were – of what they said without saying.

The novel concludes after Daisy’s death, with Theresa taking three newborn rabbits into her care. These rabbits were mentioned in the first paragraph and the reader already knows their fate, they know how hopeless a cause it is. But there is something of a glimmer of hope in the face of sorrow – something McDermott manages to work into her novel seamlessly. Child of My Heart is a novel of loss, sorrow, and growing up, but it somehow manages to also be a novel of hope, release, and magic.

Child of My Heart is a sharp intake of breath followed by a shaky exhale.

The God of Animals – Aryn Kyle

There are some books that just surprise you. I’m finding more and more that this happens with the novice author and their first novel; when I finish the book, close its pages and stroke the spine, I wonder how the author can possibly top it. Zadie Smith left me with that feeling – as did Jonathan Safran Foer and Arundhati Roy. When I read a book by a first-time novelist and am so wowed, that novel and author immediately find a secure place in my heart and on my shelf. I recently added The God of Animals to my stack of loves.

Published in 2007, this first novel by Aryn Kyle touched me in a way I haven’t been touched in a quite a while. Something in her words struck a chord so deep in me that days later, I’m still reeling. I know that’s crazy talk for most of you, but for the select few true booksluts out there, you know it’s a feeling we crave with every book we open. This book made me cry. Hot tears dripped from my cheeks to the pages as Kyle broke my heart with brutal honesty and beautiful prose. This book’s haunting qualities will linger with me very many a year, impossible to forget.

Kyle’s leading lady is twelve-year-old Alice Winston. A book reviewer called her a cousin to Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird. I would support that connection. I also found myself thinking of Vada from My Girl. All three works are typical bildungsromans, following the maturation of a girl into a young woman. The life lessons Alice, Scout, and Vada learn about love and loss forever change their worlds and the reader/viewer witnesses a transition so relatable, they feel as if they’re suffering with them.

Alice Winston and her family live on a horse farm in Desert Valley, Colorado. Her mother is “sick” and a shut-in. (There’s a paper begging to be written about the comparisons to be drawn between the women and the horses.) Her father is a salt-of-the-earth sort, struggling to make-ends meet while still dreaming of bigger and better. Nona, her sister, the beautiful golden child, has run away to marry a rodeo star. The family is broken.

The novel opens with “Six months before Polly Cain drowned in the canal, my sister, Nona, ran off and married a cowboy.” Polly was Alice’s classmate and Alice fabricates a friendship between herself and the dead girl. She carries this lie with her throughout the novel, garnering sympathy and creating a relationship with the advanced English teacher Polly had crushed on. She convinces herself they were brought together by Polly and that they are in love. It’s her first crush and Kyle fosters the relationship almost to the point of making the reader uncomfortable.

The horse farm setting is one I am unfamiliar with. I know nothing of showing, breeding, or boarding horses. But I’ll be damned if Kyle didn’t have me mucking those stalls with Alice. The world she creates is captivating. She does not romanticize it; the life is hard and brutal on the Winstons and Kyle doesn’t shy away from the dirty side of the horse world. Alice’s father buys a horse at an auction, a beautiful mare of racing stock. She is wild, untamed. Her name is Darling. He attempts to break her and fails at every turn. Alice’s grandfather insists they breed her, claiming that forcing her to stand pregnant in the hot desert heat will take all the fight out of her. When they take her to be bred, Alice watches. She grew up on the farm and breeding was just a way of life. They hobble the horse’s feet so she won’t kick. When the stud mounts her, she goes crazy, breaking the hobble and bruising the stud’s “muscle.”

“And I wondered, now that it was all over, if he had watched Darling as closely as I had. I wondered if he had seen the same look in her face when the stud climbed on top of her, if he understood what happened with the clear, centered certainty that I did: she never would have kicked if they hadn’t tied her legs” (144).

They eventually break Darling, and how she is broken effectively broke my heart.

I won’t ruin this novel for you because I want you to read it. I want you to love it. I want Aryn Kyle to find a spot in your heart and on your shelf; if she keeps writing like this, I may have found my new favorite American author.

Lost on Planet China — J. Marteen Troost

This may prove difficult for me to write as I have been in love with this author, and I am a little disappointed in him at the moment. He let me down.

I’ve written about J. Maarten Troost’s first two novels with passion and excitement. I urged the masses to run to the nearest bookstore and buy Getting Stoned with Savages (2006) and The Sex Lives of Cannibals (2004). I even excitedly ordered his third book, Lost on Planet China: The Strange and True Story of One Man’s Attempt to Understand the World’s Most Mystifying Nation, or How He Became Comfortable Eating Living Squid (2008). I waited to read the book because his other two works had been such a laugh-out loud fantastic read that I wanted to save his third attempt for when I needed a read that would make me smile. Unfortunately, Troost did not do for China what he did for the South Pacific. His words made me angry. I don’t know if it’s the fact he is married with two kids now, in his mid-thirties, or if he really is a culturally blind as this book makes him seem, but the way he talked about China made me want to yell at him.

I suppose my intense reaction could be due to the fact that I have lived in Asia and my experiences in Southeast Asia mirror many of the experiences he had in his 3 months spent in China. But I loved Asia. Yes, Bangkok is very polluted and crowded – driving there is a real bitch – and the modes of transportation and their bathrooms leave much to be desired. Based on his descriptions, China is very similar, though I will admit the pollution and traffic are probably worse. Yes, tonal languages are INSANELY difficult to master; I feel your pain, Troost. And I will say that there are places in Thailand where you can escape the hustle and bustle of a city inundated with western influences and karaoke bars; apparently China is lacking in this. So maybe I’m pissed off because he doesn’t seem to even try to understand China or enjoy his stay. I know people, tall white people, who lived in China and loved every moment of it. They weren’t blind to the obviously glaring concerns, but they also weren’t blind to the wonders of this Asian world. Troost seems to have missed the ball on this one. He should call this novel: “SOS – Lost on Planet China – The Story of One Man Bitching and Moaning his Way Across the World’s Most Mystifying Nation.”

Another issue I took with this work is how he seems to be force feeding a history lesson. History is important and, for a book like this, necessary; however, Troost seems to just want to increase his page count. Additionally, I have read some reviews that claim his facts are inaccurate. (One such a “fact” was his confident assertion that no one alive in China still has bound feet. A quick Google search indicates otherwise. If he meant that no one in China currently practices foot binding, he would be correct, but that is NOT what he writes.) He also constantly reminds the reader of his previous two books, the fact he is a writer, and his time of the South Pacific. I think success has destroyed him; he has lost his touch and become what appears to be a white privileged, conceited old man. Yes, 35 is OLD if you’re going to bitch and moan about every single blasted thing.

He opens the memoir/travelogue with an interesting piece on how Mormons and Chinese businessmen are everywhere. (I can support this argument. Except for the interesting fact that Mormons are not in China – which I don’t believe Troost actually acknowledges at any point. I would think that would be an interesting fact to work into his argument, but alas.)

He does still have a way with telling a story, I just wish he wasn’t so bitter about China. Some of his stories made me chuckle, a bit begrudgingly as I was/am annoyed with the work overall, and some of his descriptions are simply well done. Below is such a description from Lhasa.

“The late-afternoon light was ethereal, a darkening blue, but the mountains flared with sunlight. If Mars had been colonized by Buddhists, it would look like this” (287).

The story that had me chuckling the most was when he went to the pharmacy in an attempt to find lip balm. The high altitude had dried his lips and he was in desperate need of some Chap Stick.

“In the morning, when I awoke, the mountains were dusted with snow. But the air was very dry, dry enough to elicit the need for lip balm. I’d never felt the need for lip balm before. I am not a lip balm man. But here, up here, way up here, I had a need, and so I wandered into a Chinese pharmacy. The attendants were dressed all in white, as if this were a sanatorium, or possibly a lunatic asylum. I mimed what I needed and she understood completely. I was in need of a skin-whitening cream for hands” (288).

Now Troost goes on to complain about the Asian desire for white skin, which I also experienced in Thailand, but that’s not what struck me about his story. One of the few times I went into a pharmacy in Thailand was after a pretty bad motorcycle wreck on the way to Pai. I don’t even know what town we were in, but Budge and I set off to get bandages and medicine for Loren. A Thai pharmacy is apparently very similar to a Chinese one; all the attendants were dressed in white and we mimed what we needed, she pointed us to birth control. Like Troost, we eventually found what we needed. The difference between me and Troost is that I didn’t bitch about the misunderstanding. (And Loren healed up quite nicely.) I will say this novel makes me even more desirous of writing my Thailand story – though I’m not sure that I still want Troost to write my blurb.

Troost finally loves China and longs for her embrace, but only after the motor on the boat dies just 6 feet from North Korea soil and as much as he hates China, he is pretty sure he’ll hate North Korea more. And that is how the novel ends, with Troost begging China to save him from North Korea.

Troost is currently working on a book about India. In a recent interview, he clearly stated he did not like China but loved India, so maybe that book will bring back the writer I enjoy.
On a final note, I did thoroughly enjoy his jabs against Dan Brown’s novels.

Chang-rae Lee — ALOFT

Chang-rae Lee is a first generation Korean American. He graduated from Yale and teaches at Princeton. (ohhh fancy pants Ivy Leaguer.) His first novel, Native Speaker (1995) won the PEN/Hemingway award. The publication of A Gesture Life in 1999 seemed to secure his position as an Asian American author whose beautiful prose appropriately painted the disjointed nature, the nervous condition, of split cultures – the struggle for an Asian American identity. I knew of Lee’s work, and I expected Aloft (2004) to have similar themes ESPECIALLY with the title. I know judging a book by its cover and/or title is taboo in a bookslut world, but we’re all guilty of it.

Aloft is Lee’s first novel that does NOT have an Asian American protagonist; Jerry Battle is an Italian American and while the Italian heritage does feature in small snippets (the family’s real name is Battaglia and was changed “for the usual reasons immigrants and others like them” have), it is not a central struggle in the novel. There is nothing wrong with a Korean writing about an Italian American. There is nothing wrong with a woman writing from the POV of a man. But I would be lying if I said the identity of the author does not factor into the reading of the text. A good author can make you forget that she’s a woman writing about a man. Or a Korean writing about an Italian. Unfortunately, I could not resolve Chang-rae Lee with Jerry Battle, especially with Jerry’s take on race. I couldn’t understand what Lee was trying to do – what role he wanted race to play.

There is an Asian American and it doesn’t take a genius to say that Chang-rae Lee is kind of making fun of himself with the character Paul. Paul is the prose poet boyfriend of Jerry’s daughter, Theresa.

“But apparently Paul is somewhat famous, at least in certain rarefied academic/ literary circles, which is great if true but also means that no one I’ve met on a train or plane or in a waiting room has ever heard of him, much less read his books. And I do always ask. I’ve read his books (three novels and a chapbook of poetry), and I can say with great confidence that he’s the sort of writer who can put together a nice-sounding sentence or two and does it with feeling but never quite gets to the point. Not that I’ve figured out what his point might be, though I get the sense that the very fact I’m missing it means I’m sort of in on it, too. I guess if you put a gun to my head I’d say he writes about The Problem with Being Sort of Himself – namely, the terribly conflicted and complicated state of being Asian and American and thoughtful and male, which would be just dandy in a slightly different culture or society but in this one isn’t the hottest ticket.”(74)

Oh. Well, it would seem Lee knows exactly how he is perceived and what I was expecting with this novel. Interesting move. I kind of like it. I will readily admit that Paul was by far my favorite character and ironically, the most alienated and alone by the end of the novel.


Jerry seems too concerned with race. His first wife was Asian and his second long-term, lasting love interest, Rita, is Puerto Rican. The couple he buys the airplane from is biracial. Jerry’s son’s wife, Eunice, is English-German. I find the whole race issue over acknowledged but under developed. It was a bit disappointing and just one of several flaws with the novel.

It’s too ambitious for what it is. There is suicide and attempted suicide. A business fails. There is sexual harassment and a high stakes tennis match. There is a run-away father and a daughter dying of cancer. There’s death and birth and ethnic food. There are honey colored breasts and “fuck me” clothes. There are large diamond rings and Ferraris. There is a plane named Donnie. There is so much in this novel. So very much.

Aloft was too caught up in itself, too lofty and hard to pin down, and too rambling. It really could have been a ploy on the part of Lee, but it didn’t work. And the fact it didn’t work has nothing to do with the protagonist being Italian-American. While beautifully written, the novel just doesn’t fly.

It’s official….

your resident bookslut is sick. Could be the piggy flu. *weeps* She feels horrible – too horrible to even read. And she’s currently reading a great book by Chang-rae Lee that will prompt a fantastic multicultural response on “the other” writing from the POV of the white man. Be patient… your bookslut has not forsaken you.

Edit: Not the piggy flu. Feeling better. Football is taking up my time though. My apologies.

Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak


Published in 1963, Where the Wild Things Are quickly earned a permanent place in the BEST BOOKS EVER. Maurice Sendak has said that the monsters were originally horses but he couldn’t draw horses but that he could draw a “thing” – he even modeled his things after relatives. It is and always has been a book close to my heart – “I’ll eat you up I love you so.”

When I learned about Spike Jonze’s movie, I was a little skeptical. But now I’m just smitten. I can’t wait. Add the fact that Dave Eggers help adapt the screen play and Sendak served as one of the producers, and I think it’s worth the price of admission. (I’m even interested in Egger’s ficitonal novel, The Wild Things – excerpt here: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/08/24/090824fi_fiction_eggers)

See the trailer below – couldn’t embed for some reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–N9klJXbjQ