The Summer of the Bear by Bella Pollen

First published in the UK in 2010; published by Atlantic Monthly Press on June 7, 2011

The Summer of the Bear tries to be many things at once: a mystery (involving possible espionage), a family saga, a children's adventure, a comedy, at least two love stories, a bit of a political/environmental story, and maybe a fantasy (the last could also be read as a story of spirituality). It succeeds at some of those ambitions more than others.

Bella Pollen's novel tells an odd but (mostly) charming story that focuses on young Jamie Fleming and his family. Jamie's father, Nicky Fleming, is a diplomat. When Nicky dies in Bonn after falling from the embassy's roof, he is widely believed to have committed suicide. Jamie's mother, Letty, doesn't quite have the heart to tell Jamie, substituting "he's gone" and "he's not coming back" for the stark language of death. Mildly irritated that his father won't be taking him to the circus to see the performing bear, Jamie becomes convinced that his father is away on a secret mission worthy of James Bond. Jamie's spoken belief that his father is a spy is unfortunately misunderstood; rumors are already afoot that Nicky was actually working for East Germany against the interests of the UK. The rumors stem from a partially written letter to Letty -- found crumpled on Nicky's desk after his death -- that mentions a secret he's been keeping from her. Embassy officials view the letter as a confessional suicide note. At some point Letty starts to wonder whether her husband's death was neither accidental nor a suicide, while at the same time fighting doubts about whether the man she loved did (as some additional evidence suggests) engage in an act of treason.

Nicky's death forces the family to return home to the Outer Hebrides. At about the same time, a bear arrives on the island, escapes from its owner, and takes up residence in a cave. The bear shares its thoughts with the reader (it's quite the philosopher) and has an almost telepathic connection to Jamie. There is also an apparent connection between the bear (which we're told has "a half human heart") and the deceased Nicky -- at least Jamie, having heard tales of reincarnation from the islanders, would like to believe there is.

The bear storyline required more suspension of disbelief than I could muster; I think the book would have been better off without it. The novel works best as comedy. Much of the story is wryly amusing and one scene (involving an incident that caused Nicky's kids to be banned from the embassy) caused me to burst into sustained laughter. I was taken by the island's colorful characters and by Jamie, who has a knack for inventing wild explanations for things he doesn't understand that, in their own way, make a silly kind of sense.

The story also works well as an exploration of a family dynamic following the death of a husband and father. The relationship between the siblings rings true. Each kid reacts to Nicky's death in a different, credible, well-defined way. Letty's two daughters are simultaneously endearing and maddening; that also rings true, as does their resentment of their mother's detachment after their father's death. Finally, the story does a reasonably sound job of building suspense as the characters edge closer to learning the truth about Nicky's actions. The conclusion of that storyline is quite satisfying. The ending of the parallel story involving Jamie and the bear was too over-the-top for my taste, although I'll concede that it was well done. While the result is a mixed review, on balance I recommend the novel because more elements work than fail, and even the elements that didn't thrill me were skillfully executed.

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The Upright Piano Player by David Abbott

Published by Nan A. Talese on June 7, 2011

David Abbott blends light comedy with tragic drama in a first novel that reads like the work of a seasoned writer. The Upright Piano Player begins in 2004 at the funeral of Henry Cage's beloved grandson Hal, a death for which Henry blames himself. The story then begins anew, this time in 1999. Forced into retirement from the business he founded, divorced from Neesa (a documentary filmmaker whose well-publicized affair Henry refused to forgive), Henry's solitary idleness leads to trouble: he's kicked out of the restaurant after a customer complains that Henry has been staring at the customer's girlfriend, and his home is vandalized after he complains that the BBC weather report gives undue attention to Scotland. Not knowing whether the vandalism is connected to the staring or to his criticism of the weather report, Henry resolves to stay awake at night to protect his home -- an endeavor that fails when he falls asleep while a mysterious envelope slides under his front door. The contents of the envelope eventually lead to the novel's most dramatic moment. Much of the story, however, concerns Henry's faltering attempts to make amends with Neesa and their son Tom.

Although the novel's focus is on Henry, other key characters have stories of their own. Neesa is dealing with twin regrets: the cancer that will soon rob her of her life and the fact that Henry is no longer part of it. Tom has had no contact with his father for years until he finally breaks the news that Henry has a four-year-old grandson. Colin Bateman, the anger-driven boyfriend of the woman at whom Henry was staring, ekes out a living taking photographs but his violent behavior undermines his ability to hold a steady job. All of David Abbott's characters are realistic, filled with flaws and idiosyncrasies and difficulties. Even the minor characters, like Henry's housekeeper, Mrs. Abraham, and Maude Singer, Henry's one-time lover and an on-and-off employee of the business that fired him, have carefully honed personalities.

At one point, Henry wonders whether his disconcerting relationship with Bateman is punishment for his "various failings." Henry's most significant failing is his self-centered nature: he blames himself for things that aren't his fault because he believes he causes things to happen when he is actually the random victim of misfortune. It's an interesting take on a common trait, a failure of introspection that I haven't seen explored in quite that way in any other novel.

The Upright Piano Player paints a convincing picture of an uncompromising man. Henry's refusal to compromise the integrity of his business might be admirable, although it ultimately costs him his career. Perhaps, in his personal life, it is the same inability to compromise that damaged his relationships with both Neesa and Tom. My most significant complaint about the book is that we really don't know; little can be gleaned from the text about the true nature of Henry's role as husband and father. My other, less serious disappointment with the novel is the lack of transition between the events of 2004 and the story that begins in 1999. The disconnect between the two time frames struck me as a bit jarring.

Given the serious nature of the subject matter, the tone is surprisingly light for much of the novel, although it darkens toward the end. The misfortunes that bedevil the characters are balanced with enough irreverent humor to keep the book from becoming maudlin. The story is briefly told yet comfortably paced. Abbott's prose style is winning. I look forward to reading his next effort.

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The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai

Published by Viking on June 9, 2011

The premise of Rebecca Makkai’s entertaining first novel is farfetched.  Librarian Lucy Hull takes an unintended road trip with ten-year-old Ian Drake, son of fundamentalist parents who have enrolled Ian in classes held by the notorious Pastor Bob, a “formerly” gay man who conducts classes designed to turn gay kids straight.  To Lucy’s dismay, Ian’s mother seems intent on saving him from the evil world of children’s literature.  The road trip, taken without the knowledge or consent of Ian’s parents, brings Lucy and Ian into contact with the man Lucy is dating (a musician whose most recent composition resembles the Mr. Clean jingle) and her father, a Russian immigrant with a hidden past and shady ties to organized crime who is nonetheless a decent fellow -- at least when it comes to Lucy.  If the road trip happened in the real world, reporters would be asking Lucy “What were you thinking?” as she’s hauled off to prison.  It’s never quite clear, even to Lucy, what she’s thinking, but the unlikely set-up makes it possible for Makkai to tell a funny story.  Makkai somehow manages to make it seem real, or perhaps the story has sufficient charm to encourage the reader’s suspension of disbelief.

As much as I enjoyed the story, I was left with a “Is that all there is?” feeling at the novel’s end, which seems too neat and painless given the improbable events that precede it.  As I finished reading I was wondering what point Makkai intended to make.  Of course, not all novels need to have a point; it’s often enough to tell a good story while introducing the reader to believable characters.  Yet The Borrower seems determined to deliver a message.  In that task, the novel fails -- or, at least, I failed to find a coherent message.  At one point, Lucy decides that it’s impossible for people to save people, but she’s convinced that books can save people (to that end, Lucy encourages Ian to read books that will save him from the closed-minded dictates of his parents’ religion).  I’m not sure that observation makes sense:  if a book opens a reader’s mind, information and advice coming from a trusted friend can likely achieve the same end.  At another point, Lucy observes that people cannot change.  While it’s true that people can’t change immutable characteristics of their birth (such as sexual identity, which Pastor Bob is determined to “fix” in the classes that Ian attends), it is also true that people can change many aspects of their life.  Lucy, in fact, comes to realize that she needs to change her life, but that realization is underwhelming, given that she decides she doesn’t like her job, or more particularly her boss, and concludes she should find a new one.  Since it was clear from the novel’s opening pages that Lucy’s boss was unlikable, it isn’t easy to understand why Lucy took so long to see the obvious.  If the road trip was a journey toward self-awareness for Lucy, it was a long drive to a trivial destination.

Having said all that, I fear I've made my reaction to the novel seem more negative than it actually was.  I appreciated Makkai’s ability to create engaging characters and to incorporate certain devices (like a very funny list of the things a ten-year-old will do while brushing his teeth) that make The Borrower an easy, amusing read.  While I was ultimately disappointed that the novel didn’t have more substance, I don’t regret the time I spent breezing through it.  The scenes that feature precocious ten-year-old Ian work well, and if Lucy’s attempt to learn something meaningful about her own life seems incomplete, that didn’t stop me from chuckling at the funny parts -- and there are a good many of them.  This is a promising first novel, one that encourages me to read Makkai’s next book.  I only hope it carries a bit more weight than this one.

RECOMMENDED

Consequences of the Heart by Peter Cunningham

First published in the UK in 1998; republished by GemmaMedia on May 4, 2011

On the strength of the only two Peter Cunningham novels I've read (this one and The Sea and the Silence), I have become a fan. Cunningham has written some thrillers and there are elements of a sedate literary thriller in Consequences of the Heart, but it is also a love story, a war story, and a generational story of two Irish families. Ultimately, this novel defies categorization other than to say it's a really good read.

Chud Conduit (sometimes known as Chud Church) is a bit of a cad. He has a gambling addiction, a lifelong problem with debt, and a chronic inability to keep his hands off other men's wives (and to be faithful to his own). His life in the small town of Monument, Ireland is inextricably tied with those of his childhood friends, Jack Santry and Rosa Bensey. In 1938, while they are coming of age, the three-way friendship leads Chud to the first defining moment of his life, the nature of which is slowly disclosed as the novel progresses, although the full truth is not revealed until the last page.

After spending some time in a Catholic reformatory, Chud takes a civilian job that leads to a position in the military. He rejoins Jack (who has become a colonel in the Santry family tradition of wartime service) and together they are part of the invading force on D-Day, where Jack's defining moment occurs -- one that, again, does not become clear until later in the story. Jack, Chud, and Rosa continue a difficult and evolving friendship after the war, leading Chud to commit a new life-defining act for the sake of Jack and Rosa.

I apologize for being a bit vague in that synopsis but I don't want to spoil what is quite a remarkable story. It is the story of Chud's life, summarized from interview transcripts that he has edited and arranged in twelve binders. The story begins with Chud's grandfather in the 1890's and ends with the marriage of Jack's granddaughter in 1999, save for a brief concluding chapter that takes place a year later. No synopsis could do justice to the rich tale that Chud tells. The pages are dense with information. Characters come and go, but Chud, Jack, and Rosa are the constants. Most of the novel is written in the first person from Chud's point of view, with a few passages written in the third person, describing events as Chud imagines them to have occurred. Although the novel covers much ground, the pace is often languid, creating the contemplative feel of a memoir. There are nonetheless times (particularly on D-Day) when action is intense and dramatic. Even at its slowest, the story is never dull. At nearly the midway point, when I was beginning to wonder if the novel would be a mostly uneventful chronicle of Chud's life -- a love story or one of love unrequited -- it took an unexpected turn. Dramatic events then began to pile on top of each other without ever reaching the point of melodrama. For the most part, the story feels intensely real.

Family conflicts and buried secrets are familiar turf for novelists, but when Peter Cunningham plows that ground in Consequences of the Heart, he makes it fertile. No matter how many character flaws Chud demonstrates -- and he manages a goodly number -- it's impossible to dislike him. At the very least, Cunningham makes it easy to understand Chud and to empathize with him. The war changed Chud because "if you land at dawn on the shore of a continent and actually take it by force, you are inclined ever afterwards to doubt the merits of caution." Chud is nothing if not incautious; that's one reason he's so likable.

My one quibble concerns Jack's daughter-in-law, who is very angry at Chud for the incident that occurred in 1938. That didn't seem credible to me, given that she wasn't alive when it happened. Her actions and the events that follow at the end of the novel are almost over-the-top, but I forgive Cunningham for that because it makes a good story. An odd story, to be sure, but this tale of lifelong friendships among three people who followed their natures, however unconventional, is one I'll remember.

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Degrees of Freedom by Simon Morden

Published by Orbit on May 31, 2011

It has been about a year since the Americans destroyed Oshicora Tower and buried the Artificial Intelligence known as Michael beneath a pile of rubble, an event that occurred in Theories of Flight, the middle novel of the Petrovich Trilogy.  World governments revile Petrovich, regarding him as a terrorist because of his conduct in that novel and the first, Equations of Life, while the residents of the Freezone regard him as their de facto leader, if not their savior.  Now the Freezone’s actual leader, Sonja Oshicora, is at odds with Petrovich, who has discovered what appears to be a nuclear bomb in the Freezone, apparently an undetonated device installed by the Armageddonists decades earlier.  (At last, the trilogy’s readers are given a meaningful glimpse of Armageddon’s cause.)  Petrovich soon discovers that neither the bomb nor Sonja’s actions are what they appear to be, leaving Petrovich once more to take on the task of saving the Freezone’s residents from internal and external forces that threaten its destruction.  Fortunately for Petrovich, he’s not acting quite so single-handedly this time, having assembled a loyal cadre of friends during the course of the first two novels, not to mention his wife, a deadly ex-nun.

In addition to the interesting question of how one builds a functioning, beneficial government that actually serves its people in the aftermath of Armageddon (a creative and intriguing problem I haven’t often seen science fiction address), Simon Morden takes on a more familiar theme, one that science fiction writers have tackled since at least the days of Asimov:  what is the difference between a human and an artificially intelligent machine?  Petrovich decides that Michael will have to convince the Catholic Church that a machine can have a soul.  I thought it would have been fascinating to see that conversation play out; unfortunately, it all happens offstage.  That disappointing omission makes the story seem incomplete, but that’s one of my few complaints about this surprisingly satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.

Morden delivers a nice blend of drama, action, and comedy in this novel.  Where the second novel seemed to feature violence for the sake of violence, the action scenes in this one are more purposeful.  The comedy that was overdone in the first novel and perhaps lacking in the second is more carefully balanced in this one:  funny little bits pop up here and there, my favorite being a character (Tabletop) who amuses herself by molding Petrovich’s plastic explosives into animal figures.  I was also fond of the character Valentina, a Russian whose zeal for revolution leaves her itching to foment an uprising against the Freezone’s oppressors (she makes sure her followers are supplied with red flags, because it’s the “traditional color of such occasions” and “doesn’t show blood”).

It’s not that often I come to admire a fictional character, but Petrovich is a truly admirable creation:  a self-sacrificing hero, an idealist who refuses to be seduced by power and fame.  Petrovich is the kind of unwilling leader we wish for in the real world:  someone with the wisdom to exercise power nobly for the betterment of society before standing aside to let everyone else do their part.  He’s a character of sufficient complexity to experience guilt about the consequences of his actions without feeling remorse for doing the right thing.  He gives a speech toward the novel’s end about how he’s changed because of the events described in the trilogy, how he’s learned to be unselfish, to value his friends and to be a reliable friend to them, but it’s clear that Petrovich had integrity from the start, and it’s his integrity, his consistent refusal to take the easy path when he doesn’t feel it’s morally correct, that makes him so interesting. 

Perhaps us Yanks should be disturbed that Petrovich characterizes Americans (or maybe just the members of the administration that rose to power after Armageddon) as “a bunch of nuclear-armed fundamentalist xenophobic psychopaths” but there are, after all, some American politicians who fit that description (and some Brits as well).  I don’t mind that Morden made the United States the baddest power on the planet, but Morden’s version of an American president made whacky by religious zeal is a stereotype we’ve seen many times.  That’s a minor quibble, though, and I actually liked the scenes in which Petrovich gets payback against the United States in a relatively nonviolent way.

Ultimately, I think this is the best novel of the trilogy.  I doubt it will make such sense to readers who haven’t read the first two, and so (despite my criticisms of the second novel, a book that in restrospect seems like filler designed to bridge the first and third) I recommend reading them all.  It’s great fun and not quite like anything I’ve read.  If Morden wants to give us more Petrovich stories, I’ll read them.  (Minor point:  If Morden does publish another Petrovich novel with Orbit, he needs to convince Orbit to lay out some cash for real cover art.  The geometric designs Orbit came up with give me a headache.)

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