Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 10/1

-- Publishers Weekly, 10/1/2007

NONFICTION

Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People
Jon Entine. Grand Central, $27.99 (432p) ISBN 9780446580632

Jewish law is quite clear on the question “Who is a Jew?” (anyone whose mother is Jewish), yet the question remains vexing, calling up issues of religion, history, culture and sometimes politics. In his second foray into the world of genetics and race, Entine (an American Enterprise Institute fellow and author of Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It) shows the degree to which genetics has been thrown into the mix. He presents fascinating evidence from DNA studies: the genes of Jewish males around the world can be traced back to the ancient Middle East; the genes of Jewish women cannot. Among Africans who claim Jewish ancestry, the Falashas of Ethiopia do not have Jewish genetic markers; but the less well known Lemba of South Africa do. A majority of cohanim, or priests, have a common genetic marker, but Levites (of whom priests are supposedly a subset) do not. But Entine can be sloppy (his grasp on the respective roles of high priests, priests and Levites is shaky; he seems unclear whether the Pilgrims were Quakers or Puritans), and he digresses from science to potted history, myths about the 10 Lost Tribes and an account of his trip to the West Bank. More problematic, his account of genetic science and DNA analysis is vague. Entine’s final chapters broach the contentious topics of whether one can speak genetically of race and whether “Jewish genes” confer intellectual superiority on Ashkenazi Jews. While he cites scientists, some of the assumptions and conclusions (such as that medieval Jews’ role as moneylenders contributed to a high IQ) are speculative. (Oct.)

America Beyond Black and White: How Immigrants and Fusions are Helping Us Overcome the Racial Divide
Ronald Fernandez. Univ. of Mich., $29.95 (296p) ISBN 9780472116096

Fernandez, a professor of sociology in the criminal justice department at Central Connecticut State, discusses the impact of immigration on America’s economy and culture, proposing that rampant racial bigotry, rather than the unchecked influx of immigrants, is what threatens to tear society apart. After covering the history of U.S. immigration law, the economic role of immigrant labor in maintaining large-scale agriculture, and the cultures of Latin America and the Caribbean, Fernandez contends that as long as whites are the “designer originals,” while the rest of the population are “knockoffs,” immigrants will not be assimilated into U.S. culture. Dedicated to his grandson, “a fantastic fusion of Columbian, French, Irish, Japanese and Spanish heritages,” Fernandez’s book suggests that the prejudice that sustains the dominance of whites can be undone by racial mixing, ultimately making Americans “one race, united in peace and driven by our desire to celebrate a nation of all-American fusions.” Utopian perhaps and confrontational certainly, but definitely thought provoking. (Oct.)

Anne Mccaffrey: A Life with Dragons
Robin Roberts. Univ. Press of Mississippi, $28 (240p) ISBN 9781578069989

Robert’s intriguing biography of the legendary Dragon Lady of Pern provides a fascinating overview of Anne McCaffrey’s life along with some keen insights into how her career developed. A trail blazer, McCaffrey, now 81, says she “put romance in science fiction.” Roberts counts her among authors such as Ursula K. LeGuin and Joanna Russ who helped change the face of a once male-dominated genre. In a chatty, chronological format, Roberts sketches McCaffrey’s life as a perky student, frustrated young mother and wife, SF insider (including her brief affair with Isaac Asimov) and expatriate. Her post-divorce move to Ireland came as a surprise to many but soon led to tremendous success, despite her longing for the company of friends such as her mentor and agent, Virginia Kidd. McCaffrey was the first woman to win each and both of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, and in 1978, she became the first author to have a science fiction book (The White Dragon) on the New York Times bestseller list. This is not an “authorized” biography, and though McCaffrey gave Roberts her blessing and access to crucial papers, she appears to be an elusive interview subject. The result is an authentic but sometimes enigmatic portrait. 30 b&w illus. (Oct.)

Augie’s Quest: One Man’s Journey from Success to Significance
Augie Nietro and T.R. Pearson, intro. by Mitch Albom. Bloomsbury, $21 (224p) ISBN 9781596914681

A business mastermind who helped revolutionize the personal fitness industry, Nieto recounts his struggles with ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Having pushed for cardiovascular equipment in gyms across the country, Nieto himself was a paragon of athleticism until his diagnosis of ALS at the age of 47. Along with his wife, Lynne, Nieto championed “Augie’s Quest,” a campaign to raise financial support for the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s research into ALS. Beginning with his success as a businessman in the fitness industry and tracing Nieto’s continued struggles with the obstacles posed by his disease, this is one man’s story of transformation from the face of fitness to the face of ALS research. Yet as intriguing as this personal story is, the book reads not only like a cry for help but like a marketing ploy. In the end, Nieto hasn’t reached the end of this “Journey from Success to Significance”—he’s hoping the readers will help to get him there. (Nov.)

Brandscapes: Architecture in the Experience Economy
Anna Klingmann. MIT Press, $29.95 (378p) ISBN 9780262113038

The principle behind this book is that buildings aren’t just buildings, but rather iconic symbols that reflect who we are as people, cities and economies—in that sense, they represent a “brand” of sorts. Carrying that logic several steps short of its logical conclusion, architect and writer Klingmann looks at the “brandscapes” that cityscapes have become: “[A]s a strategic tool for eliciting a relevant experience, architecture has an immediate impact on social relations and economic transactions… What counts in a building is not so much how it looks but how it comes to life for people.” The problem with these and other statements throughout is that they come off as either vague or self-evident (perhaps as a result of her immersion in the subject—she’s the founder of a New York agency “for architecture and brand building”). There is no doubt that Klingmann has passion and knowledge to spare, and that the general idea behind the book is valid, but esoteric, faux-academic writing (“The equation of Experience = Drama + Diversity + Detail can be discerned in the Parthenon almost as clearly as it can in contemporary commercial structures”) too often substitutes for well-developed argument and clear-headed analysis. 100 illus. (Sept.)

Desire: Women Write about Wanting
Edited by Lisa Solod Warren. Seal, $15.95 paper (280p) ISBN 9781580052146

This uneven collection ranges from sublime reflections on the death of a friend to embarrassing musings about blow-jobs. In a memorable selection, 74-year-old memoirist Jane Juska (Unaccompanied Women) examines, with biting humor, why women want to look young, while journalist Warren, the volume’s editor, describes the intimacy she found only after leaving her first marriage. But far more transgressive and startling than the predictable pieces about sex is contributor Janice Eidus’s (The War of the Rosens) frank declaration that what she desires most is money, though she eventually casts this desire in traditionally feminine terms by explaining that the money is to help provide for her daughter. K. W. Oxnard’s ode to babylust is powerful and funny, but it concludes with the same unsatisfying vagueness as the collection as a whole. Warren’s introduction lacks the crucial assessment of the commonplace notion that women are trained to ignore or subvert desire. Despite leaving unexamined her conclusion that the range of desires expressed in this collection is “just skimming the surface,” Warren has collected an enjoyable and thought-provoking variety of essays. (Nov.)

Discovery!: The Search for Arabian Oil
Wallace Stegner. Selwa (IPG, dist.), $24.95 (320p) ISBN 9780970115744

An undistinguished writing professor at Stanford when he was commissioned by the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) in 1955 to write “an approved history of the oil venture’s early days,” future Pulitzer Prize-winner Stegner (1909-1993) makes a fabulous tale out of what could have been a sterile (or sycophantic) history of the early years of Middle Eastern oil drilling, replete with Texas wildcatters, British nobility, Bedouin raiders and Saudi princes. After initial negotiations between Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud and the Standard Oil Company of California, which had an odd hunch that oil might be found in King Saud’s barren, backward land, Stegner chronicles the construction of the first wells (which, strangely, produced disappointing yields), the political and corporate skirmishes (with occasional bombing) that followed, World War II and the end of the “frontier” in 1945. Though one wonders at the verisimilitude of the writing (many accounts fit quite neatly into Stegner’s world, a folksy blend of Mark Twain and Ogden Nash where “a breed loud, tough, strong, rowdy, good-natured, [and] superbly adapted” safeguard the outposts of civilization), a notable lack of corporate boosterism (which apparently led Aramco to bury it) gives the account a veneer of honesty. Published for the first time in the U.S., this account should prove fascinating for historians, industry insiders and anyone who wants a closer look at the source of their last fill-up. 16 pages of b&w photos. (Sept.)

A Great Day to Fight Fire: Mann Gulch, 1949
Mark Matthews. Univ. of Oklahoma, $24.95 (280p) ISBN 9780806138572

In his retelling of how a slowly escalating fire ravaged 5,000 acres, killed 13 firefighters and left indelible scars on its survivors, Matthews (Smoke Jumping on the Western Fire Line: Conscientious Objectors During World War II) relies on interviews and testimony from the three surviving smoke jumpers who parachuted into Mann Gulch to combat the 1949 blaze. Trapped within the confines of the narrow landscape, several of the men were consumed by the fire; some perished immediately, others were rescued but later died. The book’s first half can be slow-going, with Matthews introducing firefighters and their families. Things pick up dramatically in the harrowing second half, which covers the growth and devastation of the fire, the search-and-rescue mission and the aftermath. A poignant subplot involves Julie Reba, who eventually committed suicide after her husband perished in Mann Gulch. Reader interest will likely be regional, though outdoors and survival buffs may want to give it a look. (Oct.)

Have a Nice Doomsday: Why Millions of Americans are Looking Forward to the End of the World
Nicholas Guyatt. Harper Perennial, $13.95 (304p) 9780061152245

Historian and author Guyatt, an Englishman, takes a relatively even-handed look at the American movement of fundamentalist Christians eagerly awaiting the Rapture, the literal and instantaneous transportation of the faithful to heaven that signals the beginning of the Apocalypse. Consisting primarily of lengthy interviews—with everyone from prophetical heavyweight Hal Lindsey, author and host of a long-running prophecy newscast on Trinity Broadcasting Network, to a relatively moderate Mel Odom, author of three Left Behind novels—the book presents the tenants and prophecies of Rapture theology according to those who espouse it; with breathtaking feats of scholarship and logic, his subjects prognosticate on who will be raptured, what everyone left on Earth should do afterwards, who the Antichrist might be (the President of Iran?) and Israel’s vital role in the end times. Guyatt (Providence and the Invention of the United States) uses careful questioning and a mastery of American history to trace the path of the apocalypse now crowd, and how it has gained purchase among millions of Americans. Though one can’t help wishing the polite Guyatt would probe his subjects more deeply and provide some commentary from non-fundamentalists, his civility brings a welcome sense of fair play to a sensitive and fascinating topic. (Oct.)

Leading Ladies: American Trailblazers
Kay Bailey Hutchison. HarperCollins, $25.95 (416p) ISBN 9780061138249

Texas senator Hutchison follows American Heroines with an inspiring volume that highlights women who helped to pave the way for subsequent generations. It includes obligatory profiles of suffragists and First Ladies, but the book’s merit is in the sketches of women who have made significant contributions to the arts and sciences, as well as those who made inroads in areas historically dominated by men—battlefields and boardrooms among them. A chapter on women in the military looks at women who have fought in wars dating back to the revolution, while a wide array of women’s contributions to public health get a nod in another chapter. Profiles of novelists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Pearl S. Buck, Toni Morrison and Amy Tan are fascinating, though readers may find themselves flipping past the sections dedicated to women who have won household name status (Susan B. Anthony, Hillary Clinton, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jacqueline Kennedy and the like). There’s enough here to pique almost any reader interested in women’s history. (Nov.)

Lost In Katrina
Mikel Schaefer. Pelican, $18.95 paper (368p) ISBN 9781589805118

In this powerful work, Schaefer talks with residents of the New Orleans parish he was raised in, St. Bernard, which was among the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina, suffering a 25-foot storm surge that wiped out schools, businesses and thousands of homes. An executive producer at New Orleans CBS affiliate WWL-TV, Schaefer uses the residents’ own words to tell harrowing, moving stories from the first seven days of the disaster. He includes personal stories from unsung heroes and average victims, as well as accounts of more well-known scenes of tragedy like St. Rita’s Nursing Home, where 34 bodies were found. Alongside dozens of stories from the ground, Schaefer’s day-by-day account also relates his own impressions as an eye-witness; for the better, he leaves criticism of the government’s rescue effort between the lines, letting the deteriorating situation speak for itself. Among struggling rescue crews and government administrators, residents clinging to rooftops, undersupplied evacuees and ferocious weather (one evacuation center volunteer “kept waiting for the roof to get blown off”), Schaefer focuses on neighbors helping neighbors, ordinary folks doing the extraordinary and, of course, what the residents lost. Infuriating and inspiring, Schaefer’s chronicle is a beautifully wrought up-close-and-personal examination of the worst natural disaster in recent American memory. With 7 maps and 46 photos. (Sept.)

LIFESTYLE

Dancing Through Life: Lessons Leard On and Off the Dance Floor
Antoinette Benevento with Edwin Dobb. St. Martin’s, $23.95 (240p) ISBN 9780312370855

Though the title might evoke thoughts of spinning lithely around life’s troubles, anyone who has participated in dance can tell you things get bruised and broken along the way. Benevento, a former national ballroom dancing champion, knows all too well that, despite the elegance of the Waltz or the energy of the Cha Cha, anyone can find themselves flat on their butt. So how does one recover? A few of Benevento’s to-the-point tips will certainly help: “[b]e gentle with yourself,” give yourself “permission to begin again—and again and again” and “[t]o keep trying is to succeed.” Though her take on “energy” is happily offbeat (“[d]esire is the energy that moves us forward,” dance is “energy in motion,” and “motion can alter the mind”), chapters on “Silencing the Inner Critic,” “Dancing Solo” and “Taking the Lead” may not give readers much new information; still, Benevento’s straightforward statements and analogies make her lessons encouraging and easy to follow, and she doesn’t waste time on tear-jerking anecdotes or elaborate philosophy. Though it’s more re-affirming than inspiring, Benevento’s fleet-footed self-help is a good way to feel better about the unavoidable missteps of life. (Sept.)

The Tokyo Look Book: Stylish to Spectacular, Goth to Gyaru, Sidewalk to Catwalk
Philomena Keet, photography by Yuri Manabe. Kodansha, $29.95 (224p) ISBN 9784770030610

Armed with a PhD in Tokyo street fashion, anthropologist Keet hits the pavement to interview and profile several distinct tribes of fashionable Tokyo youth in this eye-catching style guide. Keet combines her findings with bold graphics, more than 200 color photographs, information on popular shops and brands, and interviews with several Tokyo-based fashion designer to “take the reader beyond the outer layers of clothing and into the minds of the wearers.” Starting in the “street fashion epicenters” of Shibuya and Harajuku, Keet introduces the fast-paced trends of the teenage gyaru, the panda-like make-up of yamamba street kids, the “Little Bo Peep” dresses of the Lolitas and the colorful costumes worn at the biggest anime and manga convention in Tokyo. Beyond the highly visible “extreme minority fashions,” Keet also covers the more sophisticated clothing of upmarket Ginza and the Marunouchi business district, showcasing “style tribes who are little known outside of Tokyo, but who represent what is probably the dominant fashion aesthetic.” While Keet’s method of spontaneously meeting and interviewing subjects gives the book a you-are-there feel, similarly impromptu photography can be frustratingly repetitive (many one- or two-shots playing stiffly to the camera), and occasionally out of focus. Still, with its cheerful format and knowledgeable commentary, this book is sure to catch the eye of young fashionistas around the globe. (Nov.)

Welcome To Michael’s: Great Food, Great People, Great Party!
Michael McCarty. Little, Brown, $40 (240p) ISBN 9780316118156

Chef/owner McCarty (Michael’s Cookbook) has served celebrities, media executives and foodies at his self-named Santa Monica and New York City restaurants for more than 25 years. In this attractive, chatty volume, he proudly presents a distinctly bicoastal collection of 85 of his favorite dishes. Employing quality ingredients, McCarty uses relies on simple preparation and last-minute garnishing with fresh herbs. Classic examples of California cuisine include a simple goat cheese and beet salad artfully dressed in a white wine-Dijon vinaigrette and a dash of fresh chives, and dungeness crab served with a Meyer lemon butter. His east coast roots shine through in dishes like Baked Clams Casino and Soft Shell Steamers, as well as a trio of dishes featuring ramps sautéed with peas and morels, fiddlehead ferns and spring onions, and a assorted spring vegetables. Enthusiastic and patient, McCarty frequently takes time to extrapolate on topics such as charcuterie, lobster and mushrooms; his passage on choosing and opening oysters will prove a Godsend for frustrated fans of the bivalves. Liberally peppered accolades from famous friends and customers, on the other hand, prove little more than distracting. Those looking for a handy and accessible guide to creating elegant seasonal dishes will find a lot to like. Full-color photos throughout. (Oct.)

ILLUSTRATED

Design: Intelligence Made Visible
Stephen Bayley and Terence Conran. Firefly, $49.95 (336p) ISBN 9781554073108

Design experts Bayley (Imagination, General Knowledge) and Conran (Ultimate House Book, Designers on Design, etc) offer readers a crash course in design in this impressive, coffee-table-ready resource. After a brief narrative history of design from the 18th century to the present (the rise of consumerism and mass production, the Arts and Crafts movement, the Bauhaus ethic, etc.), the design and pop culture heavyweights delve into an alphabetical listing of design figures, themes and products. The artful confluence of the societal, artistic and architectural is what sets the book apart: rather than relying on key figures, Conran and Bayley’s wide net enables the reader to see both the forest and the trees, no small achievement. Though the sheer number of subjects restricts most entries to a paragraph or two, this is no staid or simplistic survey; Conran and Bayley inject plenty of colorful editorial comments, characterizing fashion icon Pierre Cardin, for example, by his “monomania,” which can “infuriate or bore.” The book assumes a familiarity with most styles and designers, though movements such as surrealism and modernism are well-explained. Bayley and Conran’s experience with and enthusiasm for the material, coupled with up-to-the-minute coverage (the iPhone is included), make this a thoughtful contemporary look at an often mercurial subject. Color photos and illus. throughout. (Oct.)

Take Me To Your Leader: Weird Facts, Bizarre Stories, and Life’s Oddities
Ian Harrison. DK, $25 (360p) ISBN 9780756632021

From recipes for the world’s biggest sushi roll to a survey of man-made islands to the surprising mating habits of animals around the world, author and “part-time inventor” Harrison (The Book of Firsts) doesn’t leave anything out of this illustrated roundup of the strange and unlikely. Filled with all kinds of photos, charts, diagrams and illustrations, the volume contains entries on a number of broad subjects: food and drink, customs and etiquette, sports and leisure, myths and legends, technology and communication. The book’s structure is itself amusingly bizarre: none of its seven chapters are named, or even themed, but rather used as a placeholder for a list of trivia on that chapter’s number (which jump from three to seven to nine to 12). Though it’s not entirely appropriate for the whole family—parents may want to keep young children away from sections on “90’s Booty” and “Backhanders” (an index of volleyball behind-the-butt hand signals)—this colorful book makes up in presentation and scope what it lacks in restraint, and makes for great coffee table browsing. Color illus. throughout. (Oct.)

FICTION

Beirut in Shades of Grey
Dana Kamal Mills. Ameera (ameerapublishing.com), $13.95 paper (316p) ISBN 9780971545175

In Lebanon-native Mills’s first novel, 25-year-old Rasha Halwani, daughter of a conservative Muslim family in war-torn 1981 Beirut, suffers through a joyless, stressful life in too-close proximity to the ongoing civil war. She takes a summer vacation to Paris from her job teaching English, and finds herself, within the span of 10 days, falling in love with Reuters photojournalist Luke Elliot. Luke is as rootless as Rasha is connected to her deeply traditional mother and father. So when Luke shows up unannounced at Rasha’s door just after the conclusion of an Israeli incursion, Rasha’s father immediately and correctly suspects the worst. Consorting with Westerners can also bring unwanted attention in sectarian Beirut, and Rasha’s father forbids her from doing anything that would disgrace or endanger the family. She tries to abide by his command, until Luke, out of sheer callow imprudence, makes it impossible. The love story itself is lightweight and conventional, but the smaller intervening scenes—abrupt peril in a taxi; boredom waiting for a bombardment to end; anxiety and paranoia in any public place at all—make this a vivid portrait of a country in turmoil. (Sept.)

The City in Crimson Cloak
Asli Erdogan, trans. from the Turkish by Amy Spangler. Soft Skull, $14.95 paper (176p) ISBN 9781933368740

Turkish author Erdogan vividly captures the life and sin of underclass Rio de Janeiro in this darkly atmospheric novel, published in Turkey in 1998. A native of Istanbul, Özgür has spent the past two years barely surviving in Rio, a city overflowing with debauchery and violence. Lonely, penurious and hungry, Özgür’s only solace is writing, and she has committed herself to staying in Rio until she does the city justice in her own book, The City in Crimson Cloak, which here becomes a novel within a novel. On the city’s Fireworks Day, she makes her way through the favelas, or slums, gathering impressions of the chaos and carnality while recalling pieces of her autobiographical novel and journal entries. Özgür’s battle to hold on to her own reality makes for a stark, nightmarish journey. (Oct.)

The Compleat Ova Hamlet
Richard A. Lupoff. Ramble (www.ramblehouse.com), $18 paper (256p) ISBN 9780977452774

Lupoff (Marblehead: A Novel of H.P. Lovecraft) skewers such authors as Fritz Leiber and Barry Malzberg as well as such better-known literary figures as Kurt Vonnegut and J.G. Ballard in this collection of 14 parodies. There are flashes of ingenuity and wit throughout, but perhaps the most successful entry is “The Horror South of Red Hook,” which viciously and cleverly mocks the ponderous prose H.P. Lovecraft was sometimes prone too, complete with suggestively italicized words. A send-up of Stephen King, “Phannie,” is the one previously unpublished tale in the volume. Each story is illustrated with an amusing line drawing by Trina Robbins. (Sept.)

It was Like My Trying to Have a Tender-Hearted Nature: A Novella and Stories
Diane Williams. FC2/Univ. of Alabama, $17.95 paper (132p) ISBN 9781573661409

One doesn’t expect the author of Some Sexual Success Stories Plus Other Stories in Which God Might Choose to Appear and of This Is About The Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time, and Fate to be completely serious, or slight. This short book is neither, and it harnesses Williams’s essentially comic sensibility to highly sophisticated, highly satisfying ends. The book opens with “On Sexual Strength (A Novella),” which consists of 36 titled prose pieces of half a page or less, all fuguing around a Mr. Bird; his wife, Blanche; and a first-person narrator, Enrique Woytus: “I am the neighbor.” Its opening lines—“Mr. Bird was sexually strong. That sounds good”—set the tone: its parody of genre fiction and of Beckett-like writerly self-reference continues throughout. As Woytus and Mrs. Bird get into compromising situations, Woytus’s narration takes on a self-help-like quality (“Both physical and emotional elements almost forced me to have moderate satisfaction”) and his own marriage is affected. The remaining 40-odd pieces continue in the same vein (veins are a favorite here), with surprising and explicit juxtapositions throughout. Williams’s irony never feels forced or distancing; instead, it allows her to get into some very messy facets of human desire as it gets rammed through American life. (Sept.)

The Phoenix Unchained: Book One of the Enduring Flame
Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory. Tor, $27.95 (400p) ISBN 9780765315939

This entertaining series opener takes place more than 1,000 years after events depicted in the Obsidian Trilogy. The city of Armethalieh is no longer ruled by mages, and High Magick itself is forgotten. Elves and dragons are known to exist, but live in distant lands and are never seen. Wielders of Wild Magic are extremely rare. Characters familiar from earlier books have become legends from a dim past. Then Tiercel Rolfort, the scholarly son of lower nobility, rediscovers High Magick. Beset with visions and physically weakening, Tiercel decides his best hope is to take a journey to find a Wild Mage. Meanwhile, Wild Mage Bisochim has become convinced of his calling to set the balance aright by bringing darkness back into the world. Having found and bonded with the dragon Saravasse, he plans to draw on her power to further his dark goals. This beguiling beginning promises a highly readable epic combining vivid characterization with an interesting exploration of how past heroics are twisted over centuries into something both more and less than they were. (Sept.)

Soucouyant
David Chariandy. Arsenal Pulp (arsenalpulp.com), $16.95 paper (194p) ISBN 9781551522265

Said to wear the skin of an old woman by day and take the form of a wandering fireball by night—sucking the blood of her victims—the specter of the Soucouyant haunts Adele, the Trinidad-born mother at the center of Vancouver novelist Chariandy’s debut. Her story is narrated by her unnamed son, 15, who is growing up Canadian suburb with his mother, his elder brother and his South Asian-descended father, Roger, as Adele slides into early-onset dementia. Within 40 pages, Roger is killed in an industrial accident, and the narrator’s brother, an aspiring poet, leaves home after Adele ceases to recognize him. After the narrator himself tries to leave but returns, he finds Adele now cared for by a dubious caretaker named Meera. In an embedded narrative, Chariandy unravels the hidden tragedies of Adele’s youth, which included an encoutner with the spectre of the book’s title. As the narrator seeks a sense of his family’s history and an understanding of what his mother’s Soucouyant experience actually amounted to, he grows closer to Meera, who brings baggage of her own. Adele’s, Meera’s and the narrator’s relationships with their mothers intersect affectingly in this haunting coming-of-age story. (Sept.)