Books
BOOKS
Check out our picks of this month’s page-turners.
The Senator’s Wife
Sue Miller
(Knopf, $25)
Truth be told, this sentiment could fit seamlessly into any of the writer’s novels, all of which focus on the vagaries of time and circumstances. In this case, the speaker is the “wife,” Delia, a woman in her sunset years who has spent most of her married life separated from her wandering spouse. Newly arrived next door is a young couple at the outset of budding careers with parenthood looming. In the author’s gentle, empathetic, unobtrusive way—keenly attentive to a range of details from mere furniture to deep emotions—these figures from across generations grapple on the landscape of the life that’s “caught” them. As the reader peers over Miller’s shoulder, so to speak, she witnesses those changes and responses. What results is an understated, touching novel that can only add to Miller’s already sizable fan base.
Beginner’s Greek
James Collins
(Little, Brown and Company, $24)
Peter, a young employee of a family-owned trading firm, and Holly, a schoolteacher, meet on a westbound transcontinental flight. At trip’s end, she gives him her phone number in LA, and—wouldn’t you know it?—he misplaces it. Th is sets the stage for the kind of sophisticated romantic comedy of coincidences, near-catastrophes and general misadventures—wittily devised and penned—that have wowed movie and theater fans for years, but all too rarely show up in the pages of a book. Backstabbed at work, unlucky in love, married into a dysfunctional family, Peter moves passively through circumstances until the unexpected happens and a force of nature beyond anyone’s control realigns the relationship, necessitating a course correction for everyone. Th e novel, Collins’ debut, has the kind of comic intricacies of Shakespearean comedies. But at nearly 500 pages, it’s a bit sprawling, as well as predictable. Still, it’s gleeful fun—perfect for the type of journey on which Peter and Holly found themselves, and each other, way back on page three.
The Reverend Guppy’s Aquarium
Philip Dodd
(Gotham, $20)
Eponyms—those objects that forever immortalize actual people’s names—fill our daily lives, from the cardigans we wear and the saxophones some of us play to the sandwiches we eat. Th e author, who was drawn serendipitously to the folks behind the eponyms, transports the reader on a delightful global jaunt through history and biography, from the Texas peninsula where Samuel Maverick raised cattle 150 years ago to the Italian countryside roots of Roy Jacuzzi and the lush Trinidadian river valley where Robert Lechmere Guppy’s titular fish thrive. Along the way, he tosses a couple of figurative Frisbees, pinpoints the Argentinian origins of the ballpoint pen, speeds along the byways of Mercedes Jellinek’s family annals, and cuts and shapes the shadows of Ètienne de Silhouette’s rise and tragic demise. Dodd uses these diverting glimpses of what he suggests is “the true randomness of immortal fame” to off er a mesmerizing (Franz Anton Mesmer, 1734-1815) perspective on the era of 15-minute fame.