Web Exclusive Reviews: 6/8/2009

-- Publishers Weekly, 6/8/2009

NONFICTION

Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story
C. David Heymann. Atria, $26 (288p) ISBN 9781416556244
Pulitzer-nominated biographer Heymann delivers a gawk-worthy beach read with this fascinating look at Jackie and the Kennedy clan in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Life for JFK and Jackie was less than perfect; one story finds him cheating on Jackie during their 1953 Acapulco honeymoon, leaving the new Mrs. Kennedy “by herself on the verandah.” Still, Jackie's devastation was real; afterward, her love for his brother Bobby was equally genuine. Unable to find peace (her Georgetown home had become a stop for all D.C. tour buses), Bobby gladly volunteered to play surrogate father to her kids; before long, an affair began. According to Truman Capote, it was “perhaps the most normal relationship either one ever had.” It was not necessarily simple, however; both saw a number of people while together. Promiscuity aside, the Kennedys were also notoriously “chintzy” in their personal lives—they didn't tip and employed undocumented workers at home— though Jackie fares marginally better. It’s anyone’s guess how the affair would have ended if Bobby hadn’t been killed; just four months later, she married Aristotle Onassis. Heymann’s research is top notch, with plentiful attributions, making this train-wreck love story a substantial guilty pleasure and a sizzling reminder of how the rich are different. (June)

Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story
Evan I. Schwartz. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28 (374p) ISBN 9780547055107
Author and former business journalist Schwartz (The Last Lone Inventor) presents the life story of L. Frank Baum, focusing on the invention and development of his classic 1900 children’s tale, The Wizard of Oz. Schwartz reveals how Baum’s early interest in theatre, tall tales, and entertaining an audience led the restless young man through a string of doomed careers, including actor, playwright, castor oil salesman, and shop owner (trading in knickknacks and toys). In spite of pressure to support his family (his mother-in-law was the radical women’s rights activist Matilda Gage), Baum maintained a passion for the fantastical, and sought pleasure in every venture he undertook, often by way of his talent for yarn-spinning (famously embellishing the properties and popularity of his dismal castor oil). Falling on hard times again and again, Baum had little to keep him going besides love for his growing family and for storytelling; fortunately, those were just the ingredients necessary to find his place as an author (he published the first Oz title when he was 44) and, ultimately, as a children’s lit icon. A dad himself, Schwartz tells Baum’s story with understanding and wit, perfect for anyone with fond memories from over the rainbow. (May)

 Fool’s Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe
Gillian Tett. Free Press, $26 (304p) ISBN 9781416598572
At once a gripping narrative, an education in derivatives, and a most lucid origin-story for the current financial meltdown, it’s no surprise the author of this volume is an award-winning Financial Times journalist. Taking readers back to the invention of credit-derivative obligations (CDOs) at J. P. Morgan in 1994, and the subsequent exponential growth of that market, Tett (Saving the Sun) deploys a remarkable sense of pacing, generating real suspense over rapidly inflating debt on bank balance sheets; by the time Lehman Brothers fails, the book has become a bonafide page-turner. Tett explains how credit derivatives seemed a win-win for the financial world, freeing up capital, increasing profits, and diversifying risk, but makes the missteps equally clear as the industry hurtles toward a largely-unforeseen wave of loan defaults (the worst since the Great Depression). Interestingly, J.P. Morgan was one of a handful of banks sufficiently prescient to imagine this “perfect storm” of simultaneous defaults, and so never became over-reliant on CDOs. Ignoring the tacked-on, preachy epilogue (in which Tett advocates her specialty, social anthropology, as a way to avert future such crises), Tett’s explosive, illuminating narrative is the one to read for anyone confused by the present financial mess. (May)

 Live Nude Elf: The Sexperiments of Reverend Jen
Reverend Jen. Counterpoint/Soft Skull (PGW, dist.), $14.95 paper (256p) ISBN 9781593762445
In this lively memoir, Troll Museum creator, mail-order Reverend and all-around creative type Jen (who has a quirky fondness for wearing fake elf ears) recounts a two-year series of “sexperiments” performed for her online Nerve magazine column. Though common wisdom asserts there’s nothing new under the sun, Reverend Jen gives the cliché a run for its money, with material to make a sailor blush: she witnesses a jar of mayonnaise violated, attends an S&M “reform school” and hosts a “sex toy Olympics,” in which she puts an untold number of appliances and rubber goods through rigorous trials. Happily, Jen’s candor, well-developed sense of humor and honesty prove endearing; she’s a hard narrator to dislike, with enough charm for anyone with an opinion on Sex and the City—there’s enough wry cynicism and disbelieving-but-nonjudgmental attitude for lovers and haters. Genuinely curious and game for just about anything, Jen’s more conventional quest for love, especially near the end of the book, feels tacked-on despite its sincerity. Still, this narrative is a rarity in its field: a hedonistic nonfiction sex romp with an enormous heart. (June)

The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo and the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld
Tom Folsom. Weinstein, $24.95 (288p) ISBN 9781602860810
Mobsters are infinitely entertaining, but in TV producer Folsom’s (co-author, Mr. Untouchable) chronicle of the infamous Gallo brothers who ruled Red Hook, Brooklyn in the 1950s and 60s, there’s not only gang war, mayhem and murder, but the media sensation that was leader Crazy Joe Gallo. Immortalized in Jimmy Breslin’s The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, the Gallo brothers really did keep a lion in the basement to encourage payments, and broke with the rules of the Mafia by including outsiders like Mondo the Dwarf and an Egyptian nicknamed Ali Baba. In crisp prose that can veer into the tabloid, Folsom expertly captures the color of Crazy Joey and his times. Joey, who did time in psych wards and prisons (he read up to eight books a day in Attica), mugged for the cameras while being questioned by Attorney General Robert Kennedy at the McClellan Hearings in 1959, appeared on the cover of Life magazine, held court at Elaine’s with Ben Gazarra and Bruce Jay Friedman and became best friends with actor Jerry Orbach. At the time he was gunned down (at Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy) at 43 years old, Joey had a book deal from Viking: “There’s something suicidal about publishers,” he said later, “paying a lot of greens for the big nothing.” (May)

Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town
Nick Reding. Bloomsbury, $25 (288p) ISBN 9781596916500
Using what he calls a “live-in reporting strategy,” Reding’s chronicle of a small-town crystal meth epidemic—about “the death of a way of life as much as... about the birth of a drug”—revolves around tiny Oelwein, Iowa, a 6,000-resident farming town nearly destroyed by the one-two punch of Big Agriculture modernization and skyrocketing meth production. Reding's wide cast of characters includes a family doctor, the man “in the best possible position from which to observe the meth phenomenon”; an addict who blew up his mother’s house while cooking the stuff; and Lori Arnold (sister of actor Tom Arnold) who, as a teenager, built an extensive and wildly profitable crank empire in Ottumwa, Iowa (not once, but twice). Reding is at his best relating the bizarre, violent and disturbing stories from four years of research; heftier topics like big business and globalization, although fascinating, seem just out of Reding's weight class. A fascinating read for those with the stomach for it, Reding's unflinching look at a drug's rampage through the heartland stands out in an increasingly crowded field. (June)

Panicology: Two Statisticians Explain What’s Worth Worrying About (and What’s Not) in the 21st Century
Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey-Williams. Sky Horse (Norton, dist.), $24.95 (304p) ISBN 9781602396449
Briscoe, the statistics editor at The Financial Times, and science writer Aldersey-Williams (The Most Beautiful Molecule) join forces for a wide-ranging appeal to “worry less” in about public health, social policy, terrorists, declining resources and other sources of media-generated hysteria (except for earthquakes and cars, which we could stand to worry about more). While these British reporters turn up a few surprises (some demographers now worrying about “negative momentum,” when “a shrinking population goes into an every-steeper spiral of decline”) and some cheeky bits (the Continent prefers the bidet while Anglo Saxons don’t, “the French buy less soap”), many of their themes are well-worn: the “obesity plague,” flu scares, environmentalism gone awry, and health scares implicating power lines, cellular phones and genetically engineered foods. Despite some familiarity, Briscoe and Aldersey-Williams demystify a huge list of tricky subject matter with precision and humor. (June)

Portrait With Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked
Ivan Vladislavic. Norton, $14.95 paper (208p) ISBN 9780393335408
In a post-apartheid world, the city of Johannesburg is a complicated place: racial divides still run deep, inextricably interwoven with crime and poverty, and endlessly complicated as the haves and have-nots negotiate new arrangements defined in terms of protection, invasion, and a tenuous level of common feeling. Novelist and Johannesburg resident Vladislavic recounts his day-to-day experiences and examines them from a step removed, watching as his city grows more obsessed with security: walls grow higher, neighbors more suspicious, private security forces more prevalent (hired even for middle class dinner parties). Vladislavic is exploring revolutionary ground, providing one of the most detailed looks yet at the post-apartheid city, helping define it as he ventures through it. Vladislavic can ramble, but does so with humor and care, while offering much insight on class and race relations, and urban survival in general; neither does he resort to overheated righteousness. While a certain amount of fluency in South African culture may be necessary to fully appreciate it, this book with intrigue any reader with its intense, you-are-there depiction of a city in flux. (June)

Step By Step: A Pedestrian Memoir
Lawrence Block. Morrow, $24.99 (365p) ISBN 9780061721816
Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Block has been writing for more than 50 years and walking slightly longer, according to this memoir notable for frequent flashes of the author’s keen wit. In the introduction, he accurately and honestly advises the reader that the book is as “every bit as self-indulgent as it wanted to be.” Block goes on to provide lengthy details of his various forms of ambulation, from long solo walks as a seventh grader to a walk across Spain to Santiago de Campostela. Mostly he recounts his experiences as a runner and a racewalker in races ranging from 5Ks to marathons and 24-hour races. Runners or walkers will enjoy Block’s accounts of his trials and triumphs, including a strange hiatus of more than 22 years. (Block was in his 40s when he stopped racing and in his 60s when he resumed walking marathons.) Mystery fans, unless they’re Block completists or running enthusiasts themselves, may want to take a pass. (May)

Strange Telescopes: Following the Apocalypse from Moscow to Siberia
Daniel Kalder. Overlook, $26.95 (416p) ISBN 9781590202265
Like his first book, Lost Cosmonaut, this travelogue trips through the dark side of the former Soviet Union, finding curious societies and characters everywhere. Intrigued by a story about a Moscow group called “the Diggers,” who live in a sub-city network of tunnels and secret bunkers, Kalder (a Scotsman who lived in the former S.U. for 10 years) decided to track them down; the “anti-climactic” endeavor found the Diggers hanging out in the underground maze, but living terrestrially. Inspired anyhow, Kalder decides to penetrate the “massed army of dreamers, artists, hippies and musicians that arose after perestroika.” His next foray takes him to witness exorcisms “where the reality of demons was already beyond dispute,” in the company of an independent film maker who is himself obsessed with Satanism. Back in Moscow, Kalder’s drawn to a group leading “almost heroic” lives of discipline and self-sufficiency on a commune, led by the “Jesus of Siberia.” He also pursues an odd man with an unfinished monument to freedom, who claims responsibility for inventing perestroika. Calling his trek a “metaphysical-existential-cosmic quest,” Kalder can be terminally chatty and unfocused, but provides rare glimpses into the odd afterlife of a collapsed superpower. (May)

What’s Next?: Dispatches on the Future of Science
Edited by Max Brockman. Vintage, $14.95 paper (256p) ISBN 9780307389312
Editor Brockman, an agent at a “literary and software agency,” approached some of the world's rising science stars in a disciplines to explain how they're “tackling some of science’s toughest questions and raising new ones.” The 18 new essays that resulted evoke a fantastic cross-section of societal concerns, focusing largely on issues of ethics and the human mind. German neuroscientist Christian Keysers explains how mirror neurons, located in the brain's center of voluntary action and body-control, allow us to have vicarious experiences and use them to choose “good and not evil” when dealing with others. Psychologist Jason Mitchell expands this idea to “social thought,” in which humans achieve sophisticated coordination with the actions of others in order to, for instance, “design, construct, and operate an airplane.” Biologist Vanessa Woods and anthropologist Brian Hare team up to explain how dogs evolved an ability to read human minds superior to even our closest primate relatives. Other articles cover quantum field theory, climate change, the ecological niche of viruses, social insects and interdisciplinary science. This absorbing collection makes easy-to-read but thought-provoking material for even casual science buffs. (June)

LIFESTYLE

 The Complete Book of Pickling: 250 Recipes, From Pickles and Relishes to Chutneys and Salsas
Jennifer MacKenzie. Robert Rose, $24.95 paper (336p) ISBN 9780778802167
Home economist MacKenzie (The Dehydrator Bible, Complete Curry Cookbook) gives kitchen canners plenty of reasons to get their water boiling in this terrific collection of 250 pickles, sauces, chutneys and relishes. After a thorough explanation of canning techniques, MacKenzie rolls up her sleeves and gets to work with seven variations on dill. In addition to popular pickling candidates like cauliflower, carrots and garlic, MacKenzie shows readers how the technique can be applied to sweet foods like cherries, peaches and pineapple, as well as the ultimate DIY for the avid pickler, canner or drinker: martini olives (brine-cured green olives married with gin and dry vermouth). Even readers without an appreciation for the tang of a good pickle will appreciate MacKenzie’s 50 chutneys, including variations such as Sangria Citrus, classic cranberry and peach, pineapple ginger and spiced tomato; six chili sauces; 18 salsas; and home-made ketchup. If the prospect of keeping five pints of taco sauce on hand is intimidating, MacKenzie at least offers preserving methods for all the recipes, as well as suggestions for complementary dishes. (July)

Getting Past Your Breakup: How to Turn a Devastating Loss Into the Best Thing that Ever Happened to You
Susan J. Elliott. Da Capo, $14.95 (256p) ISBN 9780738213286
An estimated 43 percent of marriages in the U.S. end in separation or divorce, a grim reminder that most all of us experiences at least one painful breakup in our lifetimes; speaker and certified grief therapist Elliot has come to understand that many aren't successful in overcoming that pain, which can stall anyone's personal and professional life indefinitely. Using her personal experience and stories from her practice, Elliott provides sound advice for those still driving by the ex's house or obsessed with self-blame. She advises a cold-turkey, "No Contact" blanket rule, but doesn't ignore the reality of situations involving mutual friends or a shared workplace, and provides seven rules for making things easier on the kids. As the end of a relationship can be much like the death of a loved one, Elliott also reviews the grief process and its importance in processing loss. While working through grief and putting time into serious self-examination won't necessarily “transform your life into everything you've always wanted it to be,” the payoff should be steady progress toward a mended heart, a clear conscience and a stronger sense of self. (June)

Make Your Life Prime Time
Marie Celeste Arranas. Atria, $23 (272p) ISBN 9781416585817
Determination and drive were critical to the success of Telemundo/NBC talk show host Arranas, the secrets to which she shares in this empowering self-help memoir. Offering breezy but sincere advice rooted in her own challenges, including a dictatorial father and two broken marriages of her own. Her first, foundational lesson is independence: “Love shouldn't be the sole master of your destiny.” Arranas insists that women must always be able to take care of themselves financially, preserve their integrity and avoid mediocrity while sharing the personal stories that brought her to the conclusion—including a cheating husband and a personal assistant who stole thousands of dollars from her. Her methods for coping, learning and moving on are her most important lessons, warning readers that “ignorance is not bliss but rather a brutal teacher.” Advice aside, this celebrity memoir is obviously aimed at an audience already familiar with her TV persona, and makes an entertaining, if light, read. (May)

Mrs. Rowe’s Little Book of Southern Pies
Mollie Cox Bryan. Ten Speed, $16.95 (128p) ISBN 9781580089807
Writer and poet Bryan follows up 2006's Mrs. Rowe's Restaurant Cookbook by zeroing in on the Virginia establishment's highly lauded desserts. Bryan's compilation of 65 recipes hits all the sweet spots, offering reliable standards like peach, blueberry, coconut cream and sweet potato pies, as well as caramel coconut, german chocolate and watermelon variations. Though most of the recipes are basic, achieving the perfect crust isn’t; Bryan offers patient tutelage and step-by-step photos, but acknowledges that Mrs. Rowe’s technique took years to master. Even experienced pie makers should pick up a trick or two; Virginia’s Almost Impossible Coconut Pie, for instance, has no crust—the custard filling creates a firm outer layer when baked. Those looking to tweak their crust might want to consider cream cheese, which makes a tangier product than butter and flour alone. Bakers stymied by weeping meringues, meanwhile, will be comforted by the restaurant’s “weepless” version, bolstered with salt and cornstarch. Seasoned pie pros and newbies will both find this ode to southern desserts a helpful and lasting resource. (July)

FICTION

The Hound Hunters: A Southwestern Supernatural Thriller
Adam Niswander. Hippocampus, $20 paper (302p) ISBN 9780981488844
A tag team of Native American medicine men band together to thwart otherworldly monsters with designs on Earth in this thrill-packed third novel of Niswander’s Shaman Cycle (after The Charm and The Serpent Slayers). Shortly after Pima Witch Tom Bear is warned by his spirit counselor of “intruders who wait by the door” of our world, dismembered corpses begin turning up on the outskirts of Phoenix, Ariz. They turn out to be the remains of abusers of Tohu-Bohu, a criminally-synthesized street narcotic dubbed “the chaos drug” because it supposedly elevates victims to the realm of the gods. In truth, the drug opens portals hitherto closed to hound-like monsters (a nod to Frank Belknap Long’s Hounds of Tindalos) that have been waiting for eons to bolt through transdimensional doors and sate their ravenous appetites on human victims. Though these entities ultimately prove too humanized and vulnerable to a climactic shaman slugfest to sustain the reader’s suspension of disbelief, this novel succeeds through its intelligent fusion of cosmic horror and Native American mysticism and tripwire pacing that keeps events hurtling energetically to the finale. (May)

Scared
Tom Davis. David C. Cook, $14.99 paper (304p) ISBN 9781589191020
Nonfiction author Davis (Fields of the Fatherless) makes his fiction debut with a story about two people worlds apart who help each other find redemption. An orphan girl in Swaziland faces abuse by her uncle but endures through visions of “the illuminated man” who she believes will take her to her dead mother’s side. When photographer Stuart Daniels discovers the girl near death, he enlists a pastor and a village chief to help her and her two siblings. Facing floods, confronting fraud by an aid agency, and absorbing a brutal attack by one of many desperate starving people may be the only path toward atonement for Stuart’s past life. Davis shows insight into African cultures and his writing is vivid, but the novel is weakened by shifts in tense and point of view and lack of patience for character transformation. The novel is the first of three; the series could become popular if the quality of the writing can improve to do justice to the passion with which the author champions his cause. (June)

This Little Mommy Stayed Home
Samantha Wilde. Bantam, $12 paper (400p) ISBN 9780385342667
New mother Joy McGuire, the put-upon heroine of this mixed mom-com, considers herself a martyr: all her body parts are either sagging or swelling (conditions she describes in great detail), she has an annoying mother-in-law, her husband spends all his time trying to save the private school where he’s headmaster, her mother is marrying a man who can’t possibly be as saintly as Joy’s long-dead father, she suspects she missed the boat by not marrying her old college boyfriend, and she’s lusting after her manipulative yoga instructor. Fortunately for Joy, her comfortable suburban New York friends are willing to discuss her woes at length. For those who enjoy soliloquies about poopy diapers, sore nipples and reproductive anatomy, Joy is an amusing character, though her one-note self-absorption can become grating. Wilde, a yoga instructor and mother of two young children, writes with an authenticity that will both entertain and irritate. (June)