The Initiates

As a literati that recently moved to an up and coming wine country, I was both very excited and just a tad nervous. You see, I am a beer drinker. A malty stout, a crisp and fruity hefeweizen, a mouth puckering IPA, these are my nomenclature. I have read about them, brewed them, and of course, drank them in large quantities. Wine though, not so much. So naturally, in the past year, I have embarked on some research.

Slowly but surely, my wife and I have been making our way around Leelanau county's plethora of vineyards and I have enjoyed nearly every experience. However, despite countless descriptions and tastings of this or that variety, something was still missing. What I needed, was a book. Then I found "The Initiates" by Etienne Davodeau. Now, "The Initiates" is not a guide to how to drink and taste wine. Far from it in fact. Instead, Davodeau's marvelous work is a graphic novel both depicting and describing a cross initiation of sorts. More precisely, Davodeau, who is an award winning graphic novelist that lives in the Loire Valley of France home to the Coteaux du Layon vineyards, spent one year making organic, biodynamic wine with his vintner neighbor. In return, this neighbor, Richard, spent a year learning how to produce a graphic novel. While this doesn't sound like the education in wine I was craving, trust me, it is that and more.

With 265 pages of muted but breath-taking black and white illustrations and dialogue, Davodeau manages to not only thoroughly depict much of the process of making small batches of wine, but he also provides a look into the process of graphic novel creation and publication and the cultures and communities both exist within.

Yet where Davodeau truly shines, is his examination of craft. For both Davodeau and Richard are not only well known and respected within their trades, but both are also meticulous experts that pore their souls into what they do. It is the conveyance of exactly this depth through small moments and snatches of conversation amongst the display of both professions day-in-day-out tasks that makes "The Initiates" a spellbinding work that will capture any that takes the time to pick it up.

Swimming Home

It began with Arundahti Roy's novel that moved me to tears, lots of them. Her book, "The God of Small Things" was assigned to me in a class and when I, being so moved, went to my professor's office hours to commune with a kindred spirit, she casually mentioned that it had won the Man Booker literary prize and that I ought to peruse other such winners. On this advice I found my way not just to a few of the other winners, but to many of the books that had made the short list of finalist. This is a habit I have continued and rarely have I been let down.

Deborah Levy's "Swimming Home" was a 2012 Man Booker short list finalist that like many such others before it, was oh-so-satisfying. Now "Swimming Home" is not satisfying in that warm cup of tea on a cold night sort of way. Instead, it is most decidedly a cerebral shiver of secret joy for it is dark, deranged, erotic as well as strangely funny and nearly impossible to put down.

The tale takes place in a weeks time in France. Two couples that don't seem to particularly like each other have rented a villa for the summer. One couple's lives are spiraling into disaster due to the bancruptcy of their London antique gun and jewelry shop while the other couple's marriage is a facade held together by a thread. This second couple and their 14-year-old daughter are the main players in the story. They anyways, and the mentally unstable, naked nymph they all find floating in the pool when they arrive. Strangely, Isabel the wife, who is a famous television war correspondent, invites Kitty Finch the nymph, to stay. This invitation serves as the mechanism that turns the wheels of Levy's book as Kitty is in fact a mentally ill stalker of Isabel's husband Joe, or J.H.J, or Jozef, a famous philandering poet with deep troubles of his own.

All of the characters and indeed the whole of the story Levy creates is pulled together bit by bit in brief snatches of scenes that are at once rich and lean, expressive of the whole while never quite giving it to us until the end when she triumphantly and beautifully shocks us. Levy is a surgically precise master packing her sentences with layer upon layer of meaning yet also manipulating us through nuance and language. This skill, along with a story that shrewdly twists a standard plot makes "Swimming Home" a true treat.

A Monster Calls

Crafted out of an idea young adult author Siobhan Dowd was not able to bring to fruition before her death, A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness introduces us to numerous monsters as well as to Conor, the boy they both plague and may ultimately save. One of the beasts Conor faces is amorphous and duplicitous. It is his mothers cancer and it has turned Conor’s life into a shell of what it once was making him the target of both bullying and pitied ostracism at school as well as an adult in responsibility while still a child mentally. Yet it is also the cancer that brings the other monster calling. The literal monster.

Part Conor’s nightmare, part terror of the natural world given face and form, the monster is an ancient, craggy Yew tree from the cemetery next door come to life.  Awesome in size, anger, and power, this beast strangely arrives promising to help Conor. This help comes in the form of three stories that the monster will tell Conor one by one as he becomes ready for them.  In return though, Conor must tell this monster the truth. A truth that may be his undoing.  

A Monster Calls is a supernatural thriller, folktale, and despairingly realistic tragedy woven together. Although this combination sounds both ominous and out-there, it is precisely the marvelous pairing of these disparate elements that counters the difficult and depressing realism that a losing battle with cancer presents. It is also this unique combination that allows Ness to portray the emotional, mental, and physical complexities that a 13 year old in such a difficult situation must face. 

Told with a proliferation of staccato sentences and paired nearly page by page with deeply malefic and almost abstract black and white illustrations by Jim Kay, A Monster Calls importantly though, does not provide easy answers. Instead, Ness asks Conor and the reader to interpret truth, to pick from the better of multiple evils, and to realize that life is not simple. It is this crucial lesson that in the end not only helps Conor but will leave all readers and especially teens with a broader, more realistic look at the hard decisions and situations that life sometimes places before us.

The Dark

We all have unique fears. After not one, not two, but three separate incidents in which I cracked pistachio shells and then threw large bugs rather than nuts in my mouth, I now have a lingering fear of pistachios in the shell. This doesn't stop me from eating the tasty buggers mind you, but now I crack, cautiously examine, then gobble. Despite this and a handful of other quirky phobias, the fears that occupy the more prominent spots in my consciousness are those that I share with so many others. Indeed, it almost seems as if some fears are universal. And the dark is one of them.

Thus it was part morbid curiosity and part excitement that lead me to Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen's picture book The Dark. The excitement stemmed from the fact that two great talents had come together to craft one book. The morbid curiosity, well, that came from my fear of the dark, a fear shared not just with many of you, but also with our main character, Laszlo.

Seen throughout the tale in a simple pair of blue footy pajamas, the somewhat austere Laszlo lives in a big house with "a creaky roof, smooth, cold windows, and several sets of stairs." Yet, he doesn't live there alone. Perfectly personified, Snicket has given portions of Laszlo's house over to the living, breathing, and talking dark. Sometimes the dark hangs out in the closet, sometimes behind the shower curtain, but mostly, it is found in the basement in a "distant corner...pressed up against some old, damp boxes, and a chest of drawers that nobody ever opened." That is until half way through the tale when the dark visits Laszlo in his room and calls him to the basement.

I won't give away the ending but I also won't leave you... in the dark. Instead, I will simply state that despite some wonderfully built tension and anxiety, Laszlo manages to conquer his fear in a manner that will help any young reader feel a bit more snug not just in the dark but also in a creaky house or strange closet.

This ending is a fitting culmination of the just-right, simple, and satisfying narration. However, it is not just the perfectly paced tale that makes this book a great read but rather, it is the pairing of this story with Klassen's clean illustrations that elevate it to a worthwhile read for those old as well as young. Klassen's spreads contrast abundant dark space with a minimal color pallete and simple lines that truly make the dark come alive and grow and in the end, recede. Together, this artwork and Snicket's story meld into a beautiful book that deserves a prominent and bright spot on any shelf.

The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food and Drink

I am not an ardent lover of poetry. In fact, by and large I find it all too easy to simply forget about this, as Wordsworth described it, spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. Yet, every year as the snow melts and the plants, animals, and even humans that have slipped into dormancy begin to arise and sing, so too does my soul and that is when I find myself searching out this expressive genre. Perhaps that is why every spring I so look forward to the month of April designated as National Poetry month. 

However, likely due to my status as an infrequent reader, without fail I find myself struggling year after year to know where to turn.  And that is why this April, I was utterly elated to discover "The Hungry Ear" a collection of poems focused on, related to, and in praise of food and drink edited by Kevin Young.

I first picked up this collection simply because I was intrigued. Food and poetry? Where do these two seemingly disparate things meet I wondered? My intrigue was quickly quenched as even from a brief first reading, it is apparent that food and poetry not only meet again and again but are indeed, seemingly made for each other. As Young states in his introduction to the collection "food and poetry each insist that we put our own twists and ingredients in the mix: we make each dish, like a good poem, our own. With any luck, the result is both surprising and satisfying, exactly what we wanted, perhaps without even knowing it."

And this collection is most definitely surprising and satisfying. Organized first seasonally and then further broken down by activities that occur within each season, wonderful selections such as Ruth Stone's "Pokeberries" and Billy Collins "Osso Bucco" are found underneath categories like First Harvet and Meat and Potatoes. Those though, are just two of the many categories and poems and there are certainly oh-so-many more. To be sure, this thick collection, like a good meal, presents a vast array of tastes to be savored bit by bit. Fortunately for me, April is just getting started and who knows, perhaps this year my poetry diet will last just like the "Hungry Ear."

In Zanesville

Like everyone else, I enjoy books full of action, books portraying astounding characters, books that take me to a foreign place, books that fill me with suspense, and books that put me in situations I will never actually find myself in. However, the books that frequently strike me most deeply do none of these things. Instead, many of the tales that stick to my ribs and leave me full long after I have finished them, portray life as it is lived by the most of us; a process of experiencing, navigating, and learning from both small horrors and more importantly, small wonders. "In Zanesville", a 1970s coming-of-age tale by Jo Ann Beard is precisely one of those books.

A 2012 Alex Award winner, an award given to books that appeal strongly to both teens and adults, "In Zanesville" is indeed so much about the average life, that the main character is never given a name. She could be me, or she could be you. But who she really is, is a watcher and a follower making it through her 14th year of life, the ninth grade, an alcoholic father, and a mother on the edge of meltdown by doing what many of us did during our teenage years. She hangs out with her best friend known as Flea, she babysits, she spys on the neighbors and at the center of this novel, she experiences life's constant but humble wonders and horrors. 

These wonders and horrors include discovering boys as well as how wrong one can be; suddenly realizing that marching band is for dorks and quitting right at the start of a parade; getting noticed by the popular crowd and nearly losing one's best friend because of it; and being overjoyed to see your father because his depressive drinking made you worry about suicide.

Yet perhaps the greatest wonder of all, is Beard's ability to make every character full, utterly believable, and true. This is accomplished by a pitch perfect tone, a dry sense of humor, and by the author spending time developing every character readers come in contact with. It is a remarkable feat and it is this as well as Beard's celebration of life as most of us know it, that sets "In Zanesville" apart. 

Dust to Dust

Call it a twist of fate or more likely, call it simple coincidence, but not half way through my last read, Bruce Catton's history of Michigan, our state Library released the 2013 List of Notable Michigan Books. This annual list presents a fantastic mix of adult and children's fiction and nonfiction written by Michigan authors or set in our wonderful state. And in yet another... twist of coincidence we'll call it, it just so happened that one of the listed books that most intrigued me, Benjamin Busch's "Dust to Dust," was currently displayed on our new nonfiction shelf. So I grabbed it. Then devoured it.

And indeed, "Dust to Dust" is a book for devouring, digesting, and breaking down to its elements. For that is precisely what Busch does. His memoir does not simply present the recollections of a life lived according to the strictures of time but instead, bends and blurs a life of memories around a series of elements of his own - arms, metal, water, soil, bone, stone, blood, and ash. Busch uses these constituent particles to tie together his memories but also to get at the core of life and more specifically, the impermanence of life. 

For instance, in discussing his childhood in upstate New York, a location and temporal period that a large portion of the book is focused on, he details at one point, his attempt to overpower nature and a river by building a stone damn across it only to eventually watch his days work wash away.

Impermanence, power, and of course nearly all of his elements including dust, blood, and ash are key players in what is another central role in Busch's life and book, that of a Marine serving two tours in Iraq. Much like Busch's childhood that was spent alone digging and building forts in the woods, his adult Marine life finds him doing the same as the ideal soldier yet still isolated and now, wondering what it is all about.

Finally, after his tours and then years spent reprising his combatant role as an actor on shows such as the Wire, Busch brings his family to Michigan and it is here we come to both Busch's final waypoint and our reason for its inclusion on the Michigan Notable Book List. As a current resident of the state, Busch ends his book spending his time cleaning up the detritus from an old farm in the heart of lower Michigan as well as cleaning out the same from his now dead parent's home. 

If all of this sounds a tad depressing, it is. Busch's book is truly a pensive rumination on a life slowly returning to its very make-up. But, like many great warrior poets before, Busch spins a story that is as much elegy as memoir and it is this poetic elevation of the basics and decay of life that is "Dust to Dust's" greatest strength.