Promise Land by Jessica Lamb-Shapiro

Published by Simon & Schuster on January 7, 2014

Once the exclusive province of books, the self-help industry has expanded to seminars, coaches, facilitators, and other enterprises (some resembling Ponzi schemes) that are dedicated to charging fees in exchange for telling people how to achieve goals or live better lives. You can even email questions to self-help advisers who will answer them for a fee. Although it doesn't seem like "self" help if you are paying a coach to tell you what to do, the industry will happily teach you how to self-help your way to romance, popularity, self-esteem, emotional wellness, satisfying sex, good health, a higher income, a more pleasing body shape, well-behaved children, and pretty much anything else you think you need.

Self-help is nothing new. As Jessica Lamb-Shapiro reminds us, Emerson and Ben Franklin provided the kind of advice that is now regarded as self-help. Thomas Jefferson and Thoreau stressed the power of positive thinking. "Success literature" (covering everything from etiquette to proper diet) thrived during the Victorian era and Samuel Smiles' 1859 self-improvement guide, Self-Help, was hugely popular.

The one-size-fits-all advice that self-help books dispense tends to be superficial, if not glib, in denial of the idiosyncratic diversity of human existence. They are filled with advice that is contradictory and flat-out wrong. They encourage unrealistic expectations (no matter how much you want to achieve a goal, some goals are unattainable unless you have talent). They are based on specious theories -- e.g., "the law of attraction": if you think really really hard about something you want, it will come to you -- that are wholly unsupported by evidence or rationality.

Still, there may be (largely hidden) value in something like "the law of attraction," to the extent that it encourages people to focus their thoughts and to understand their desires. There can, in fact, be value in just about anything if you're willing to dig for it. If a self-help book helps you overcome a fear or gain confidence or think about your problems in a new way, perhaps you found the self-help book that is right for you (while understanding that not all of them will be).

As Lamb-Shapiro points out, some people swear by the wisdom they derive from self-help dispensers while others dismiss self-help as, at best, harmless but lame pop psychology or, at worst, unethical and potentially harmful. Maybe the people who thrive on self-help books need a lot of help or maybe they just enjoy (and benefit from) the inspirational stories that are the backbone of the self-help industry. Lamb-Shapiro brings a tone of playful objectivity to her exploration of the self-help industry, concluding that it fills a national need even if individual self-help practitioners can be "flaky, inarticulate, and deceptive."

The book's weakness is its failure to develop a defining theme. At times, it seems to be intended as a humorous dissection of the self-help industry (surely an easy target) but if that was the goal, it isn't funny enough to succeed. At times, it seems intended as a serious analysis of self-help and it does deliver insight, as in her comparison of serious thought (C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed) to self-help fluff (Grieving For Dummies),  but it lacks the intellectual heft and clear organization that scholarship demands. Although subtitled "A Memoir," Promise Land meanders aimlessly from one topic to another and only occasionally touches on Lamb-Shapiro's relationship to father, a psychologist who developed and sold dull, noncompetitive family games that were a form of self-help but who avoided talking to Lamb-Shapiro about her mother's suicide. If Promise Land is meant to be a memoir, it tells us very little about the author's life.  Lamb-Shapiro does manage to present a balanced if scattered overview of the self-help industry that is neither laudatory nor condemnatory, but a stronger and more purposeful focus would have made Promise Land a better book.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Obedient Assassin by John P. Davidson

Published by Delphinium Books on January 7, 2014

The Obedient Assassin is a fictional account of Leonid Trotsky's assassination in Mexico in 1940. Stalin (at least according to the novel) was concerned that Trotsky had divided revolutionary sympathies in Spain and that he might do the same in the coming war with Germany. John Davidson's novel follows the assassin, a lieutenant in the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War named Ramón Mercader, from his receipt of Stalin's orders to infiltrate Trotsky's organization in Paris to the aftermath of Trotsky's death. Stalin's orders are relayed through Mercader's mother, Caridad, who proved her loyalty to the Party when she did not resist the execution of Mercader's brother. Mercader hates his mother for letting his brother die but he nonetheless follows Stalin's directive.

To get close to Trotsky, Mercader must get close to Sylvia Ageloff, an American who has access to Trotsky and supports his Fourth Directive. Posing as a Belgian, Mercader arranges to meet Sylvia in Paris and eventually marries her. He later joins Sylvia in New York and Mexico, playing the dual role of husband and spy.

The Obedient Assassin is of historical more than literary interest. I'm not an historian so I can't comment upon the novel's historical accuracy, other than to note that certain events depicted in the book actually occurred and that several persons who plotted Trotsky's assassination turn up as characters (facts I gleaned from Wikipedia). Mercader often seems to be going through the motions -- "I'm doing this because the history texts say I did this" -- while the novel rarely penetrates beneath the obvious in its attempt to reveal his feelings and motivations. Its portrayal of Mercader's feelings for Sylvia -- along the lines of "I'm supposed to be using her but I've fallen in love with her" -- is trite.

I appreciated the attempt to paint Mercader as a man riddled with doubt and divided loyalties, but Davidson didn't make me feel his passion for the Spanish Civil War or the tension that should precede a political assassination. Mercader's fear and frustration near the end of the novel seem real but the description of the assassination is mechanical and the final chapters are melodramatic. While The Obedient Assassin gets off to a promising start, it loses energy that it never recaptures. It often comes across as the outline rather than the execution of a good novel.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Graveyard of Memories by Barry Eisler

Published by Thomas & Mercer on February 11, 2014

John Rain thinks back to 1972 when, at the age of twenty, he was a bagman for the CIA in Tokyo (a city Barry Eisler paints in vivid colors). Rain's violent reaction to violent circumstances places his life in danger and the only way to remedy his plight (and to earn the continued backing of his CIA handler) is to carry out a difficult assassination of a prominent Japanese politician. Hence begins Rain's life as a professional killer.

It's interesting to contrast the younger Rain, reckless and arrogant, with the mindful man that he becomes later in life (as chronicled in earlier novels in the John Rain series). The younger Rain, if not quite dismissive of morality, is still working out his own code of honor. He is just starting to learn the value of ancient Japanese rituals. He's also starting to learn the tradecraft that will keep him alive in a dangerous profession. He has not yet "come to grips with that ever-present weight" that becomes more burdensome with age (particularly if you spend a lot of your time killing people).

True to form, Eisler makes John Rain a likable guy, which is why readers buy John Rain books even though his profession is less than admirable. It's a neat trick to turn a killer into a sympathetic character. In Graveyard of Memories, Eisler builds empathy for Rain by making him awkward and shy and improbably sensitive in his interaction with a young woman in a wheelchair to whom he is attracted. This is an odd love story, but it works.

As is typical of a Rain novel, the plot is intricate without becoming convoluted. Rain suspects he is being manipulated and possibly double-crossed, but he isn't sure who is pulling the strings. The story eventually focuses on his effort to answer that question. Toward the end, Eisler deftly ties the plot into real-world corporate and CIA scandals. But it isn't so much the plot that drew me into this novel as the characterization of John Rain. It was a refreshing change from the norm to read about a thriller character who realizes that he needs to become wiser. I've enjoyed other Rain novels but this one is my new favorite, simply because it adds new and credible dimensions to a complex character.

RECOMMENDED

Lucretia and the Kroons by Victor LaValle

Published by Spiegel & Grau on July 23, 2012

Consider, if you will, Lucretia Gardner. (I begin with these words because I was hearing Rod Serling's narrative voice while I read this novella.) Lucretia lives in Queens. She just turned twelve. She wants to spend time with her best (and only) friend, Sunny, a girl who is dying of cancer. Apartment 6D (according to Lucretia's older brother) is occupied by the remnants of a deformed and rotting family of crack-addicted child snatchers called the Kroons. Are the Kroons the invention of an older brother who wants to scare his sister, or do they exist? Lucretia learns the answer to that question when her mother and brother leave her alone to spend some time with Sunny.

Victor LaValle writes twisted, nontraditional versions of horror stories. His monsters often behave in surprisingly human ways. Despite the monstrous appearance of the Kroons, there's a sweetness to the story and a large dose of gentle humor (including the suggestion that Shea Stadium is actually Heaven). This might be the only story you'll read in which children smoking cigarettes is a good thing.

As LaValle demonstrated in The Devil in Silver, true horror lies not in the supernatural but in the tangible world. In Lucretia and the Kroons -- sort of a longish short story -- it is the horror of childhood cancer, of saying goodbye to a friend who will never grow up. While LaValle achieved a greater degree of poignancy in The Devil in Silver, this story offers another fine balance of creepiness and honest emotion, showcased by characters who are original and sympathetic.

RECOMMENDED

Bubble by Anders de la Motte

Published in Sweden in 2012; published in translation by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on February 4, 2014

"We create our own realities," Tage tells Rebecca, "small spheres where we imagine we control what happens." Living inside a bubble has been an ongoing theme of the Game trilogy. The final novel makes the point explicitly: "In actual fact the feeling of control is just an illusion, and those spheres are nothing more than bubbles." But all bubbles eventually burst, along with the illusions they contain.

Having escaped it for a time in Buzz, HP is back in the Game. As you would expect in the last novel of a thriller/conspiracy trilogy, the purpose of the Game is finally revealed. The reveal is not shocking or even particularly surprising, but it is more plausible than most conspiracies in thriller fiction. Of course, some of the characters the reader meets in the first two novels play different roles than they first appeared to play, but -- like the conspiracy -- those revelations won't cause most readers to gasp with surprise.

The novels turn out to have a serious point, which has something to do with how easily governments can be persuaded to act against the interests of individuals and in favor of corporate interests when paid noisemakers make disturbing noises about national security and terrorist threats. It's a familiar point but Bubble gives it an interesting twist involving cybersecurity. On a level that's probably more fun, the novels are about how easily individuals can be manipulated, particularly insecure individuals who crave attention and fame, or at least acceptance.

Viewing the trilogy as a whole (and I think that's necessary because neither of the final two work well as a stand-alone), while there is nothing outstanding about the plot or Anders de la Motte's writing style, the story is entertaining, it moves quickly, the action scenes are plausible, and the novels include enough humor to make clear that we're not supposed to take the global conspiracy theme too seriously. That's a plus, since most conspiracy thrillers have become so over-the-top that they are unintentionally comedic. The characters -- particularly HP and to a lesser extent his sister -- are sympathetic and HP experiences some redemptive emotional growth as the novels progress. All of that was enough to make me feel that the novels were worth reading.

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