The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher

A massive, character driven novel that follows two families who lived their lives in neighboring homes. Forgiveness is a theme that subtly shows itself regarding couples, parents, and people's relationships with themselves. Epic in scale, Hensher's novel spans decades and follows the intricate weave of lives in a small community. The characters are fully realized and immaculately written, and the characters' actions--some seeming small, some seeming large at the time--have overwhelming effects on daughters, sons, husbands, wives, etc. Timothy, who grows from a snake-obsessed child to a radical politics-obsessed professor, first takes and then gives cold, cruel, irrational treatment, and proves to be particularly fascinating. Each character has his or her own arc throug life, and Hensher writes each life with such care and precision, and never ceases to surprise.

Blue Genes: A Memoir of Loss and Survival by Christopher Lukas

While exploring the decades of his life, Christopher Lukas focuses on a central question: is depression genetic? His family's history is tragic, and frightening because of the relevance to questions I often ask about my own genes.

Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg

A father's memoir of his daughter's first manic episode. A smart, well-written account of a horrible affliction and the uncontrollable changes it brings.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

A teenage boy has an affair with a woman twice his age. She mysteriously disappears, and the next time the boy sees her, he is a young man in law school and she is on trial. While the man observes a Nazi trial for one of his classes, he is shocked to find out that Hannah, his first love, was a Nazi. Hannah kept a secret that she found even more agonizing, and it is that secret that is supposed to shock the reader. Hannah is illiterate; she can neither read nor write. In an effort to toot my own horn, I must write that I figured this out very early on in the book.

I cannot figure out if the following idea was meant to be Schlink's main point or if it was just a bi-product of his story: Illiteracy is one of society's great crimes, capable of leading people to even greater crimes. There are questions of shame, love and reparation in this novel, which approaches the aftermath of possibly the most written about atrocity in human history from an entirely fresh angle.

Carefully chosen wordings and images pulled from the man's memory are showcased throughout the novel. Schlink writes cleanly and beautifully, allowing his story to tell itself without any unnecessary verbosity.

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

I was intrigued by the concept of this book: Sittenfeld borrowed the outline of former First Lady Laura Bush's life and built a novel on top of that frame. Laura Bush has always been a more likeable public figure than her husband, and the same proves true for their fictional representations, Alice and Charlie Blackwell. But, somehow, the intimate look at the president makes him more likeable, not less, despite his obvious failings and Alice's disappointment in his actions.

When Laura Bush was a teenager, she was at fault in a car accident in which the other driver was killed. Sittenfeld chose to give this event, and the other driver, central roles in this novel. The other driver is portrayed as Andrew Imhof, and Sittenfeld makes it clear that Alice would have married this boy had he not died. Alice devotes much time to imagining a life in which she never left her small town, in which she never met Charlie Blackwell, and in which she was never complicit in the larger failings of the Blackwell administration. Using the death of Andrew Imhof as a focal point of the novel was an interesting approach. It allowed Sittenfeld to compare the accidental taking of one life with the taking of many lives, via a prolonged and mishandled war. Sittenfeld's ending takes a likeable Alice and makes her complicit in Charlie's war.

Again, I was intrigued by the concept of this book. Unfortunately, Sittenfeld's language is a bit repetitive, and she leans on the same tricks over and over again. How often was I brought back to the present from flashback by a statement such as "In the car, Ella said. . . "? Plus, there were some descriptive paragraphs that were far too wordy, or even totally unnecessary.

I'm glad I read this book, as I am always fascinated by the goings-on within the White House. The story was fascinating, and I was impressed with Sittenfeld's rendering of the beginning of Alice's life--her time as a young girl, with her parents and eccentric grandmother. The imagined details of the life and inner workings of Laura Bush were stellar. Good story, mediocre writing.

Halflife by Meghan O'Rourke

This book, by the extremely young poetry editor of the Paris Review, has been on my "to read" list for quite a while. I finally got my hands on it, and I'm impressed. O'Rourke's poems are not like the poems of many of the other poets I like a lot, many of whom happen to be women. I learn towards somewhat nostalgic poetry that has a bit of a bite to it. O'Rourke's poems are a bit more clearer, brighter, less shadowed by memory, even though many are looking backwards. Her series of poems about a stillborn twin do seem nostalgic though, and are chillingly sad. Overall, I approve, and I look forward to following her development as a poet.

Night by Elie Wiesel

I re-read this book in order to refresh my memory, as I'm teaching it. Still intense, still horrifying, still painfully sad. I read it for the first time in high school, and I'm excited that now I get to teach it to high schoolers. I hope I can help them get something meaningful from it.