"Bearpond Books

Jennifer Egan has written another brilliant and entirely original novel showcasing not only her compelling writing but also her keen sense of where modern technology is taking us. A Visit From the Goon Squad is made up of chapters about different people in the music business. While each chapter can stand alone, this is not a collection of short stories. The stories are fully related to one another with the same characters showing up in different contexts, sometimes at different times in their lives for a result that is truly greater than the sum of its wonderful parts. Main characters include Sasha, a kleptomaniac, her record producer boss Bennie and Lou, another record producer whose life clearly peaked in the 70’s with drugs, sex and teenage girls.

The “Goon” of the title is time and leaves few of these characters better off but the storytelling transcends what could be depressing tales. One chapter is written in the form of a Power Point presentation created by Sasha’s teenage daughter. What could have been gimmicky is instead transformed by Egan’s wonderful writing into a surprisingly touching and effective story.

The final chapter that takes place in the near future is such brilliantly creative yet deceptively simple storytelling that I didn’t want it to end. In fact, I found myself wanting to read about those characters in a full novel by themselves. Anyone who is interested in the best of modern literature needs to discover Jennifer Egan. I also highly recommend her earlier novel, Look At Me.

Powerful, heartbreaking and unforgettable: I am quite simply mesmerized by Yann Martel’s new book, Beatrice and Virgil. The power of Martel’s imagination and storytelling is on full display here. After a slightly awkward but not unappealing start, I was drawn right in to the stories of Henry, Beatrice and Virgil. There’s a passage early on about pears that I think will win over many readers. At under 200 pages, Beatrice and Virgil is a deceptively simple read and more straight forward than Life of Pi. I’m glad it was short because at no point did I want to stop reading it even for a few hours.

Henry is a successful author whose most recent book is “an artful metaphor” of the Holocaust. About his unusual approach he reasons “was there not a danger to representing the Holocaust in a way always beholden to factuality?” His publisher disagrees and rejects his book. Henry has given up on writing when he receives by mail a little-known story by Flaubert, the first pages of a play and a note that says “I need your help” with a return address in his city. At that address he finds Okapi Taxidermy and the severe play-writing taxidermist who owns it. Yet plot is not what this book is about.

The reader’s attention is drawn to the relationship between Henry and the taxidermist and by the play about friends Virgil and Beatrice, a howler monkey and a donkey. (Yes, a howler monkey and a donkey. Trust me it works). While the taxidermist reads bits of his play aloud, Henry learns that Virgil and Beatrice were named for characters in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Beatrice and Virgil guided Dante through hell and purgatory to reach paradise. Henry and the reader are left with the question of who the monkey and donkey are guiding in this story. This book is not about the Holocaust, rather it’s about storytelling and representations of history through art. Beside the very beginning and end, the Holocaust is little mentioned. As Henry tells his editor “the event is gone; we are left with stories about it. My book is about a new choice of stories.” Martel brilliantly explores the limitations of language in explaining history’s horrors and the way that art portrays historical events both effectively and ineffectively, both to tell stories and to hide them.

A hilarious and moving memoir–in the spirit of Anne Lamott and Nora Ephron–about a woman who returns home to her close-knit Mennonite family after a personal crisis.

An unknown man is brought to a mental hospital in modern-day Spain claiming to be Christopher Columbus. The staff knows he’s not Columbus, but who is he? He starts telling his story to Nurse Consuela – the story of how he labored to obtain three ships from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to sail to the new world. Very soon Consuela is wrapped up in his stories of women, romance, sex, intrigue, navigation and 16th century politics. While the hospital doctors want him to finish up his story and reveal his true identity, Consuela finds herself wishing the stories and her time with Columbus wouldn’t have to end.

As this story progressed I found myself agreeing with Consuela – we know he’s not really Columbus, but his stories are so ethereally beautiful I didn’t want them to end. I kept looking forward to sitting down and immersing myself in the fake Columbus’s world. And then I’d begin to wonder: does he need to know who he really is if he has such a rich life in his mind? Why uncover a true identity that could be too painful to live with? The reader will start questioning whether living in reality is really always necessary. Why court sadness in an already difficult world? This book has wonderful plot and pacing and will captivate you with the way it honors love and the human spirit.

The Writing Class is another wickedly funny novel by the author of Winner of the National Book Award. Our protagonist is a former literary darling, the too-smart-for-her-own-good Amy Gallup, who hasn’t published in years and spends too much time alone with her basset hound. Bitter, funny, and full of contempt, she’s now teaching creative writing at the local college Adult Ed program. Her new crop of students is the usual literary wannabe sort with one notable exception: someone’s making threats to the other students. Soon one student is killed and then another. In a modern twist on the Drawing Room Mystery genre, the students are determined to find out who among them is the killer. I loved the characters in this juicy story, especially Amy (and you’ll even get a lesson in writing). In the best mystery tradition, you never know quite who to suspect in the group and there’s just enough plot twists to keep you hanging without ever feeling like you’re being manipulated (my pet peeve about a lot of mysteries). Jincy Willett has a sly, dark sense of humor that makes for a very entertaining read. I recommend Winner of the National Book Award, too!