E. Lockhart: Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, The
You might think the world doesn't need any more boarding school novels, but if you haven't read this one then you're wrong, wrong, wrong. E. Lockhart has surpassed herself with this fable of a girl coming into her own and challenging the boy's club at her prep school -- while falling in love with its members at the same time. Lockhart never simplifies or skirts gender issues and power dynamics, and lets Frankie be realistic instead of a treatise disguised as a character. The sly omniscient narrator tells the story perfectly, and leaves hope that maybe one girl can change the world. More novels as funny and true and perfect as this one, please.
Kathi Appelt: The Underneath
Appelt's first novel is a beautiful, magical fantasy for younger readers that will instantly become a classic. Seriously. I can imagine this book being in classrooms right alongside Charlotte's Web in a hundred years. The writing is poetic in the good way, and there's a lamia. Children are going to absolutely fall in love with Appelt's equally kind and brutal universe, where love conquers most, and it can take millenia to come to your senses.
Jincy Willett: The Writing Class
With her second novel, Willett matches the perfect pitch and execution of her brilliant short stories. Every writer will want to read this novel--very little wincing is involved, but expect a great deal of laughter. C and I found ourselves reading pieces aloud, after howling provoked the "what's so funny?" question. As with any good writing workshop or class, the characters become more appealing as you get to know them, and ultimately what she has pulled off is a satisfying mystery, and a satisfying exploration of humanity. Amy Gallup is a character to remember.
Karen Joy Fowler: Wit's End
A new novel by Karen Fowler really is something to be excited about, unlike many of the writers for whom such praise gets bandied about. (If you're smirking because you think you know something about her work from the title--not the book--The Jane Austen Book Club, please go sit in the corner and read any of her novels. You're welcome.) This is an unmystery-like mystery, concerned not so much with dead bodies--though there are plenty--as with the mysteries of healing and the heart, politics and people. How is it that a writer gets a lens on the present that's as revealing as the one she employs in historical fiction? Now that's a mystery. Highly recommended.
Steve Erickson: Zeroville
Steve Erickson novels are often like dreams, or revelations, or discovered artifacts, or written just for you. Zeroville's no different, although it is perhaps the most readily graspable example of his work to date. The Rosetta Stone is there; the secret decoder ring is a film projector. The dizzying Hollywood confidential stylings will make your inner film geek happy, but the uncovering of a truly mythic cinematic story--since cinema has existed forever--of sacrifice and redemption is even more memorable. See also: this review.
Ursula Dubosarsky: The Red Shoe (Neal Porter Books)
Set in Sydney during WWII, this wonderful novel travels between the view from inside each of three sisters. Dubosarsky perfectly captures the differences that come from being the younger, older, or middle child. Perfectly conjuring the period, and yet creating a completely accessible story, the narrative contrasts chapters focusing on the family with interstitials from the Sydney newspapers of the time, stories of polio, the H-bomb, and a defecting Russian spy (who happens to be in hiding next door). Nothing here is heavy-handed. Everything is perfectly balanced. It's a beautiful, beautiful novel. See my full take here.
Neil Gaiman also weighed in on the review himself:
"I think that rule number one for book reviewers should probably be Don't Spend The First Paragraph Slagging Off The Genre. Just don't. Don't start a review of romance books by saying that all romance books are rubbish but these are good (or just as bad as the rest). Don't start a review of SF by saying that you hate all off-planet tales or things set in the future and you don't like way SF writers do characters. Don't start a review of a University Adultery novel by explaining that mostly books about English professors having panicky academic sex bore you to tears but. Just don't. Any more than a restaurant reviewer would spend a paragraph explaining that she didn't normally like or eat -- or understand why other people would like or eat -- Chinese food, or French, or barbeque. It just makes people think you're not a very good reviewer."
Then again, a fair number of people are thinking that about Itzkoff already...
Posted by: Fred | February 07, 2008 at 11:47
No kidding, Fred! I figured everybody already seen that one, since it's been linked here and yon, but thanks for pointing the way. Itzkoff has just been a disaster.
Posted by: Gwenda | February 07, 2008 at 12:20
I too was rather horrified by Itzkoff's remarks. As a very public lover of the SF genre, I have been posting blogs on pre-teen and teen reads in SF/Fantasy. Although there is more fantasy over SF than I would wish (I am mostly a SF type), the kids love it, and anything that gets and keeps them reading is a huge plus. And J.K. Rowling, despite what you think of her books (I like them!), got a generation of kids to be unafraid to read a 700-800 page book, and that, having worked with kids and reading, is no mean feat. I have been bemoaning the lack of top-notch authors writing in the field, but Gaiman, LeGuin, and even James Patterson are all contributing to it's success, and adding that indescribale "magic" to the genre. I applaud their efforts, and only wish more would follow, because the kids are out there devouring this stuff - the sheer amount of it is staggering, and to me, fantastic. Kids are reading! - stuff that the previous generation would have struggled with. My 14 yr old is working on The Book Thief. Last year, before reading the Potter canon, she couldn't have begun to make it through such a book; now she and her English teacher are both reading it for pleasure. And she continues to amaze me with her dislike of formulaic fiction, and instead her instinctive reach for quality. So Gaiman and others - stand up and give yourself a pat on the back - this SF mom would if she could.
Posted by: Kristin L. | February 08, 2008 at 13:06
My understanding is that this reviewer has also complained about SF being too geeky and technical as well in the course of giving a sort of positive review to a work. So it seems to be his thing. But it is indicative of the sort of reaction that adult SFF has also indured -- the belief that SFF so often has little worth because it is geeky and juvenile, that it inherently has problems that must be overcome before it can be a form of literature with any worth. And you have to wonder, why, in assigning a reviewer to SFF in the belief that there might be something there worth reviewing, would they pick a person who is not just critical -- which would be welcome -- but believes in the artificial stereotype of the genres?
Posted by: KatG | February 08, 2008 at 15:07
You know how genre fans have been complaining (forever, it seems) that the cultural elite treats genre fiction with prejudiced disdain?
Some time back, I realized that this complaint is pointless. The elite isn't an elite. It doesn't exist.
Again: The "cultural elite" does not exist.
(Maybe it did once, but something happened -- the Internet, perhaps, or the point where a single individual could no longer keep up with the growing output of books.)
Posted by: A.R.Yngve | February 08, 2008 at 15:52