May 11, 2006

The other night, before I went to sleep I read Once in a Lifetime, a story by Jhumpa Lahari, in the May 8 issue of the New Yorker. Three-quarters of the way through I had an intense craving for a vegetable samosa, which I was unable to satisfy until the following evening since it was after midnight and I live in the Boston area, and not New York where I'm sure I could get delicious Indian food at any hour. One thing I have noticed about books involving India is that food is often an essential part the text. Indian meals (in film as well as fiction, see Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding) are sensual affairs involving complex spices, juxapositional flavors, and elaborate, ritualistic preparation and presentation. The first sentence of Lahari's novel The Namesake, describes an Indian woman living in Cambridge, Massachusetts "…combining Rice Krispies and Planter peanuts in a bowl. She adds salt, lemon juice, and thin slices of green chili pepper, wishing there were mustard oil in the mix." Throughout her pregnancy the narrator has consumed this "humble approximation of the snack sold for pennies on Calcutta sidewalks." The book also contains: samosas, lamb curry with lots of potatoes, thick channa dal with swollen brown raisins, chickpeas with tamarind sauce,and more. Food is an integral part of Manil Suri's, The Death of Vihsnu, where one character has the memory of when she "crushed that first golgappa in her mouth, felt the crisp papdi shards and the soft yielding chickpeas between her teeth, tasted the sweet and fiery chutneys on her tongue, closed her eyes as the gush of tamarind water exploded down her throat." I don't even know what a golgappa is, but that passage makes me want one. I heartily recommend several other novels about India or the Indian--American experience, including: Sister India by Peggy Payne; And the Word Was by Bruce Bauman; The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy; and The Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lumpari's Pulitzer Prize winning collection of short stories.

During the past month I read two extraordinarily poignant books: The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky, a true story by Ken Dornstein, and Halfway House, a novel by Katherine Noel. The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky is the moving story of Dornstein's older brother David, a brilliant and troubled young man who died when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie Scotland in 1988. Dornstein visits Lockerbie, becomes involved with David's girlfriends, and mines the cartons of journals and letters David left behind, as he attempts to understand and reconstruct the life of his brother. Halfway House is the story of an accomplished high school senior, Angie Vooster, who develops a devastating mental illness, and its effect on her and her family as they struggle to understand and cope with it. Noel explores a difficult subject with clarity, intelligence and even humor in this engaging and affecting novel.

I finished Rat Bastards, the Life and Times of Boston's Most Honorable Mobster(mentioned last month),an intense book by John "Red" Shea, who was a major cocaine dealer in Southie, a tight-knit Boston Irish community. While reading, I realized that some of the characters, as well as the time and place overlap with those in one of my favorite memoirs: All Souls, A Family Story From Southie, by Michael Patrick McDonald, the story of a family destroyed by drugs in Southie, the very drugs that Red Shea was bringing into town. I pulled it out and re-read it, which was a really interesting way of looking at and thinking about two versions of the same story.

From the crime shelf I enjoyed Dirty Blonde by Lisa Scottoline, and Prey by Alison Brennan. Scottoline's books are always amusing;like those of Robert B. Parker and Sara Paretsky, they are comfortable, funny, and not creepy. Prey was the most suspenseful book I've read for a long time (although I'm waiting for Lee Child's next Jack Reacher book, which becomes available any minute now) and the characters are compelling.

Last month I wrote about comfort food books, including Julie and Julia, Julie Powell's tale of spending a year cooking every recipe in Julia Childs' 700-page Mastering the Art of French Cooking. This month I read My Life In France, Julia Childs' delightful memoir (co-authored with her grand-nephew Alex Prud'Homme) of moving to France in 1949, falling in love with France and French food, and the nine year creation of Mastering …, and it is a congenial and fascinating read about a marvellous woman.

I adore Jim Fusilli's moody New York crime novels (a series: Closing Time, A Well Known Secret, Tribeca Blues and Hard, Hard City), with their strong evocation of Manhattan and memorable, idiosyncratic characters. Fusilli is also a music critic, and this month I read a moving little book he wrote, called The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, about the album of that name. It's part of a series called "33-1/3" and is the perfect size to fit in your jacket pocket or handbag. Pet Sounds is a touching exploration of the Beach Boys (especially gifted, tormented Brian Wilson), their creation of some extraordinary songs, and how their music changed the life of a little boy from Hoboken, New Jersey.

Jennifer

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