& Sons by David Gilbert

Published by Random House on July 23, 2013

We meet Philip at the funeral of his father, Charlie Topping. Also present is Charlie's childhood friend, the renowned novelist A.N. Dyer, now nearing the age of eighty. Philip gives us lengthy introductions to A.N.'s older sons: recovering miscreant Richard, a screenwriter noticed in Hollywood only because of his family name; and stoner Jamie, whose videos (including daily shots of a former girlfriend while she was dying and after her death) reflect his "almost incandescent urge for the dreadful thing." Philip was the fifth grade teacher of A.N.'s third son, Andy, whose existence came as a surprise to A.N.'s wife and prompted a divorce. At seventeen, Andy is significantly younger than his middle-aged brothers. Andy views his famous father as annoyingly needy while his older brothers have always thought A.N. to be so distant as to approach nonexistence.

Philip provides the novel's narrative framework, telling each son's story, occasionally A.N.'s, and sometimes his own. Philip has current knowledge of the sons because, needing a place to live after his indiscretions cause him to lose his job, he has accepted A.N.'s offer to take up temporary residence in A.N.'s home. A.N. is dying (or perhaps it's just wishful thinking on his part) and the occasion of his impending death gives him reason to insist that his three sons come together. The family gathering will give A.N. a chance to meet Richard's teenage grandchildren, and Richard a chance to meet Andy, for the first time. It also gives A.N. a chance to reveal an improbable secret to his older sons. As A.N.'s ex-wife acidly tells him, the secret "takes narcissism to a whole new level, even for you."

We learn about A.N. Dyer through his own eyes (he describes himself as a "self-pitying writer" who is "easily overwhelmed by the basics of how to live") and those of others, but also through the books he wrote, books that echo his own life. The lead character in Tiro's Corruption has an acerbic view of anyone who lives beyond the boundaries of Manhattan, while Dyer's alter-ego in Eastern Time is a "secret pervert" (albeit a tame one). When A.N. advises Andy not to be "a ghost haunting your own life," he seems to be teaching a lesson learned by the protagonist in The Bend of Light, a "tin man" with an illusory heart who dies alone. Ampersand, A.N.'s celebrated novel about the cruelty of privileged adolescents, imparts critical facts about A.N.'s friendship with Charlie Topping. The use of books within a book to shed light upon A.N. is a clever device that will make & Sons linger in my memory.

To a small extent, & Sons is a typical New York literary novel, the kind that skewers the pretentious while itself being a bit pretentious. A scene depicting a snobbish book party is familiar, but it is enlivened by the attendance of anti-snobs Andy and Emmett (Richard's son), a pair of ultra-cool teenagers who add a healthy dose of comedy to the novel's mix. The novel's best comic moment, however, comes from poor A.N.'s confusion (and mortification) when he appears to meet his best known fictional character at the same party.

More importantly, and as the title implies, & Sons is about fathers and sons, about the distance that grows between them until it is impossible to "reach across the divide." Philip comes to understand his father only in death -- and that (the novel seems to say) is the only time a life can be truly understood. There are aspects of the way Philip tells this story (is he a reliable narrator?) that I found troubling, and an out-of-the-blue event near the novel's end seemed like a bad choice, but it does lead to some poignant moments in the closing pages. Unlike Ampersand, & Sons is never "emotionally claustrophobic" but neither is it melodramatic. While you wouldn't expect a novel about people's lives to wrap up neatly -- because complex lives never do -- & Sons at least ends on a moving and satisfying note.

RECOMMENDED

Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson

Published by Orbit on September 3, 2013

Kim Stanley Robinson is full of ideas. The danger in a KSR novel is that he will develop his ideas with enthusiasm while relegating the plot and characters to the status of afterthoughts. When -- as in Shaman -- KSR decides to tell a story rather than disguising a series of essays as a work of fiction, he is a talented writer. In Shaman, KSR avoids pedantic lectures while achieving a blend of humor and poignancy in a solid, enjoyable novel.

In a departure from the work for which KSR is best known, Shaman looks at the past rather than the future, probing prehistoric characters to reveal the essential and enduring features of humanity. The novel begins with a rite of passage as adolescent Loon, sent naked into the woods on the night of the new moon, begins a wander from which he must not return until the full moon rises. Loon eventually ingests some mushrooms to induce a vision, a necessary step if he is to follow Thorn's teachings and become a shaman. Raised by Heather and Thorn after his parents died, Loon is restless (and like all young men, hormone-driven). He is an unwilling apprentice with little interest in becoming a shaman, although he admires Thorn's cave paintings. Thorn teaches him songs and poems that recall the past but Loon is focused on the future. He looks forward to the pack's summer trek and the festival at which a score of packs gather, in part because it provides his only opportunity to meet new girls.

The plot meanders a bit but it is largely the story of Loon's young life, and since lives meander, it isn't surprising that the plot does. At the novel's midway point, however, a story breaks loose when someone close to Loon disappears, sending Loon on a search to distant northern lands. At some point the story becomes one of hunter and prey; at another point it is a tale of wilderness survival. It's a good (but not a great) coming-of-age story that offers few surprises. Character development is strong and the plot is credible. To create an interesting change of pace, KSR occasionally departs from the main characters to focus on an outsider. Now and then KSR gives us an anthropomorphic look at the world through the eyes of a cat or a wolverine.

Robinson leaves it to the reader to give meaning to the poems of the past, a refreshing change from novels in which he spells out the past and present in excruciating detail. That's not to say that Shaman lacks detail. Robinson is known for his world-building, and his ability to create an imagined Earth of the distant past is just as impressive as his construction of an inhabited Mars of the relatively near future. This is a familiar world of rivers and onions and pine needles, a world abundantly populated by ravens and trout, lions and bears, all having symbolic significance to the tribal people who share the land with them. It is in fact the people -- their social organizations, customs, behaviors, and folklore, the hardship of survival and the joy of friendship -- that make Shaman memorable. From mating to domestic discord, behavior is recognizable, but dissimilar enough to be a convincing account of a distant time. The differences between northern and southern tribal peoples are akin to differing political philosophies: competition versus cooperation (perhaps the forerunners of capitalism versus socialism). Like all of KSR's work, Shaman is a book of ideas, here drawn from anthropology, sociology, ecology, and economics. Unlike some of KSR's novels, however, the ideas are expressed with subtlety, are carefully integrated into the story, and never get in the way of the plot that conveys them.

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The Beginning (Berlin Gothic) by Jonas Winner

First published in Germany in 2011; published in translation by AmazonCrossing on August 27, 2013

Berlin Gothic was released as a seven-part serial in Germany. In translation, it has been divided into two parts, of which The Beginning is the first.

For reasons that are initially murky, young Till Anschütz runs away from a mysterious place called Brackenfelde. A car driven by Julia Bentheim strikes him, but Till resists being taken to a hospital for fear that he'll be returned to Brackenfelde. Julia takes him home, where Till meets her son Max and daughters Lisa and Claire. Max lives in fear of his inability to meet the expectations of Xavier, his domineering father, a writer whose books are so horrifying he can't talk about them with his children. In some unspecified way, Xavier is in the clutches of his wealthy new publisher, Felix von Quitzow.

A dozen years later, a dying woman is found in a pit at a construction site, the victim of an apparent crime. Konstantin Butz investigates. While Butz is exploring a shaft in the pit, he thinks he sees ... something ... before the walls collapse, burying him beneath the muddy earth.

The two timelines are linked by Claire, who has become Butz' girlfriend. Yet Claire is a conflicted woman, inexplicably drawn to a boxer named Frederik, who seems obsessed with her.

Where will the story go? I haven't a clue, which makes The Beginning interesting but difficult to review. Maybe it will go nowhere. Maybe it will be great. What I can say about The Beginning is that it's a good beginning. Jonas Winner generates genuine tension, a sense of foreboding that pervades both plot threads. He creates a strong atmosphere of creepiness and he writes fast-moving, minimalist prose. If nothing else, The Beginning makes me look forward to the ending.

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Bones of the Lost by Kathy Reichs

Published by Scribner on August 27, 2013

Temperance Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who becomes curious about the hit-and-run death of an unidentified teenage girl. Although the case does not require the services of a forensic anthropologist, Brennan is certain that she's more capable of solving it than the assigned homicide detective. Remarkably, the detective takes her along as he investigates, even letting her interview a witness while he sits in the car and broods. In the real world, no homicide detective would tolerate Brennan's condescending attitude or her meddling, much less follow her around like a puppy while she does all the work. Nor would he bring her along while executing a search warrant at a potentially dangerous location -- dressing her in Kevlar, no less -- particularly when he has no reason to believe the search will uncover evidence that requires inspection by a forensic anthropologist.

Even more improbable is a subplot that sends Brennan to Afghanistan, where she is tasked with determining whether a soldier shot a villager in the back a year earlier by examining the villager's skeletal remains. Brennan's daughter happens to be in the military, serving in Afghanistan. This happy circumstance allows Brennan to go shopping with her daughter in a bazaar while dodging mortar rounds. The trip to Afghanistan eventually ties into the primary plot in a way that requires the reader to swallow a series of extraordinary coincidences. I didn't. The Afghanistan interlude is utterly predictable, completely unbelievable, and much of it comes across as filler designed to pad a thin story.

On the plus side, Kathy Reichs writes the kind of clever prose that encourages readers to set aside reservations about the story and characters. Fortunately for the reader, a good bit of medical jargon is translated into simple English, but it's unlikely that the seasoned detective who demands the translation would actually need it. What homicide detective doesn't know the meaning of "lividity"?

Unless you count an unfailing sense of superiority as a personality, Brennan has none. She's a one-note character and the note is irritating. The other characters are bland and boring. Brennan has a stereotypically shallow ex-husband. That relationship, and another failed relationship, like her scattered sister and her daughter in Afghanistan, are presumably meant to add human interest. They are of no interest at all. Brennan's "passion" for issues like "justice for the dead" (as if the dead care), and her frequent climbs onto soapboxes to tell us just how passionate she is (she often feels like screaming at people who care less than she does because she cares sooooo much), come across as narcissistic posturing.

Once Brennan returns from Afghanistan and refocuses on the murdered girl, the story follows a mundane, overused plot, taking a couple of obvious twists before racing to an eye-rolling ending. Despite receiving a series of graphic warnings telling her to mind her own business, Brennan goes charging into danger at midnight, pausing only to leave a voicemail for the detective assigned to the case (but inexplicably forgetting to take her phone with her), when any sane person would have called 911 and left the risky work to people who carry guns. Reichs understands the mechanics of thriller writing, as demonstrated by her snappy (although sometimes overwrought) prose style, but the novel's brighter moments are overshadowed by the story's silliness.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Days in the History of Silence by Merethe Lindstrøm

First published in Norway in 2011.  Published in translation by Other Press on August 27, 2013.

Days in the History of Silence is an unflinching examination of a woman's colorless, regret-filled life, her adoption or acceptance of shared solitude as a shield against pain. As she tells her story, it becomes apparent that the shield is a poor barrier. Other choices might serve her better, but ingrained habits are difficult to unlearn.

Eva has retired from her job as a high school teacher of Norwegian. Her husband Simon is surrendering to a form of dementia characterized by a disturbing silence. "It is not the feeling that he is no longer there," Eva thinks. "It is the feeling that you are not either." Eva has always been afraid that Simon would one day disappear; now she wonders if this is Simon's way of doing just that. Years earlier, Simon suffered from depression, a byproduct of surviving the war as a child by hiding in a concealed room (a time when silence protected him from discovery) and of bearing the guilt of his survival when so many of his friends and family "were crossed out of history." Now he goes days before articulating a random word, as if he is challenging Eva to find its meaning, perhaps to explain to him the meaning of his life.

If Eva is not as deeply depressed as Simon was, she is at least full of woe. She tells us about unsettling childhood and marital experiences. She thinks about the son she gave away. She makes gloomy observations of the life that surrounds her. Although she believes herself to be different from her husband, the reader comes to question the accuracy of that belief. Eva thinks she talks "all the time," but as her daughter points out, she never reveals her thoughts. She might be loquacious but she is isolated, even from her children.

The novel's central conflict arises from Eva's need to decide whether to place Simon in a home for the elderly, to "give him away" as she gave away her son. Eva is clearly capable of acting as Simon's caretaker, but she thinks "our solidarity has something suspect about it now." As the novel unfolds, a secondary conflict develops as Eva tells us about Marija, the undocumented Latvian they hired to help with household chores, a woman whose companionship substituted for friendship in Eva's friendless life. The decision to fire Marija after three years of employment, and the anger it instilled in her three daughters, weighs heavily on Eva's mind. Eva refuses to explain the decision to her daughters, and while that refusal seems inexplicable to the reader, it is consistent with Eva's inability to reveal herself to them.

The reason for Marija's termination goes unexplained until near the novel's end. Given the buildup and the event's centrality to the story, Merethe Lindstrøm must have intended the explanation to have more force than it delivers. Still, this is a novel of striking images and metaphors, particularly Eva's memory of a young intruder who, despite Eva's perception of a threat, may have only been "seeking refuge" or "searching for someone, or something" -- just as Eva and Simon have spent (or wasted) their lives doing. Some moments in the story are exceptionally poignant (as when Eva checks her husband for a pulse even though she can see him breathing). Yet there is no balance here, no spark of happiness or hope to offset the unremitting melancholy, and while some lives are like that, reading about them can be an emotionally oppressive (albeit intellectually rewarding) chore. For that reason Days in the History of Silence is a novel I admire rather than love, but there is much here to admire.

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