Books
words by > Michael J. Bandler
A Miracle of Catfish
Larry Brown
An uncommon Southern literary voice was stilled just over two years ago, when novelist Larry Brown died suddenly at 53. Influenced by the likes of William Faulkner, Walker Percy and Eudora Welty, this singular talent—a late-bloomer who gave up firefighting for literature at the age of 30—produced fiction that was rough, rowdy, arresting and sometimes violent. More often than not, it was downright hilarious and always imbued with affection and compassion. At his passing, he left this unfinished narrative—one rooted in fatherhood. Moving back and forth among four quite different dads,. Brown portrayed this quartet and assorted relatives, young and old, with riffs and vignettes on weekends of guns and flies and catfish, letting verbal gushes of language and imagery waft onto the page. He offered a thoughtful and unwittingly prescient reflection on “watching each season pass and wondering which one would finally get him.” The book remains unfinished, ending with the author’s notes for his final chapter. We can only imagine how he would have brought them to riveting, energizing life. (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $26.95)
The Secret of Lost Things
Sheridan Hay
These are the times that try book lovers’ souls—with public librarians in some places tossing out volumes at the rate of 700 a month, with independent bookstores’ survival in peril nationwide and with readership reportedly on the decline. It’s quite refreshing, then, to come across Sheridan Hay’s The Secret of Lost Things, an elegant first novel centered on a young woman—newly arrived in New York City from Tasmania— who goes to work in a bookstore famed for its used and rare tomes. “Our business is to find homes for books with the hope they will be loved as we have loved them,” one staffer says, summing up the enterprise. Hay dots her story with pungent descriptions not only of selling and collecting—the clash between commerce and preservation—but also of the city streets and their denizens.
The apparent surfacing of a lost Herman Melville manuscript that could lead to a reassessment of the 19th-century author is the scrap of literary intrigue that serves as the dramatic foundation of the story. It’s a quiet book that makes the case for us to read, experience and treasure the past in the present—and protect it for the future. (Doubleday, $23.95)
Mahalia Mouse Goes to College
John Lithgow
John Lithgow, who has acted, sung and danced onstage and onscreen, is known among a y ounger audience for something completely different: his series of jaunty, zany picture books with unlikely heroes, incredible adventures and clever rhymes. This latest installment, adorned by Igor Oleynikov’s imaginative full-color depictions of H arvard’s classrooms and campus (which as an alum, Lithgow knows well), affords a wondrous read-aloud experience. And with terms like “imp rudence,” “self-reliance” and “jubilation,” it’s not just f or kids. When it’s lights-out for your little one, start reading it all over again—just for yourself! (Simon & Schuster, $17.99)