Mules and Men

Mules and Men is described as “a treasure of black America’s folklore,” but what I found even more impressive that the many, many “big old lies” Zore Neale Hurston compiled is the way that she captures everyday life in and around her hometown of Eatonville, Florida. From the cypress swamps and sawmill camps to, eventually, New Orleans, this book recalls times and places that are long-vanished from the American landscape.

This book is divided into two sections, the first of which focuses on the collection of traditional folklore, or “lies” as they are regularly referred to throughout the book. These are collected in Polk County, Florida, currently home to spring training for many and MLB team. The “lies” are fitted into a narrative of life, from weddings and card games to fishing, logging, and itinerant preaching. The second part of the book is focused on Hurston’s time learning Hoodoo, or Voodoo, in New Orleans. I preferred the first, but both offer lively windows into ways of life about which I knew little.

Four stars. 

The Air You Breathe

I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and have been ruminating on it since, but ultimately, I'm just not a fan.

Dores is a 95-year-old woman, samba royalty of sorts, and the book opens with her reflecting on her life and especially the shadow of her greatest friend and also her rival (in music, love, and life), Graça. Graça, the readers learns (early and often) has been dead going on 70 years. The rest of the book fills in the pieces.

The two women met as girls, when Dores was a kitchen girl and Graça the spoiled only child of a wealthy sugar baron in early 20th century Brazil. Their friendship deepens through a series of shared misadventures and a love for music. Running away to Rio, they build new lives in Lapa, surrounded by a cast of likely (though, I'm sure, only too true to life) characters. Here, their fame grows and their rivalry deepens, as only one of them can fully become a star in the volatile years of dictatorship leading up to World War II.

The Air You Breathe is well-written, and Frances de Pontes Peebles does a remarkable job of capturing the zeitgeist of the era. Unfortunately, I didn't like either Dores or Graça (I actually really, really disliked both of them). While it's a credit to de Pontes Peebles that she created characters who evoked such strong feelings, it meant that reading was a bit of a slog, and I only finished it because, as much as the characters grated on me, I did enjoy reading about the time and place, which nearly jumped off the pages. 

Two stars.

Homer and Langley

On the surface this would seem like a depressing book. Homer and Langley Collyer were actual people - brothers, scions of an old-money family - living in a Fifth Avenue manse, two men on their own, consumed by blindness (Homer) and madness (Langley), eventually cut off from the world and unable to move about in cold, dark pile that would literally become their tomb. Yet, E.L. Doctorow's writing is so engaging, his touch so light, that Homer and Langley actually feels snappy and light.

The novel is told entirely from the perspective of Homer, who, though blind, witnesses his brother's departure for the first world war, his return after being gassed, and his total descent into madness, reclusivity, hoarding, and paranoia. Through Homer the reader learns of the years of newspapers, the Model T, the bits and bobs of Army surplus, and the jazz musicians, gangsters, and hippies who all come to reside, some permanently and some as transients inside the stately mansion. The writing is poignant, yet humorous, pithy, but wise, and above all it is human. Doctorow has deftly captured their lives and experiences in ways that feel authentic and kind.

This is an original work, in every sense of the word, and one that should appeal to a wide array of readers.

Five stars.

Bertie and the Tinman

Bertie and the Tinman is a fun, quick read wherein Bertie, eldest son of Queen Victoria, heir to the throne, Prince of Wales, and all that jazz, takes a turn as a detective investigating the suicide of Fred Archer, the greatest jockey of the age. As an avid Turfite, Bertie would know. In any event, Archer's suicide doesn't sit well with Bertie and he begins to dig into the Archer's personal life to uncover what or who drove him to kill himself. (Fred Archer was an actual jockey, and he really did commit suicide. The Price of Wales, of course, was never involved, at least not as far as anyone knows!)

Quirky and rather endearing, this is a book that doesn't ask much of its reader, other than a bit of indulgence as far as Bertie is concerned. Peter Lovesey's premise is that Bertie is recording his memoir shortly after solving the case, and addresses his dear reader secure in the knowledge that all involved will have met their maker long before the manuscript is released. It sounds contrived, but it works, and makes for a fun and lighthearted diversion. In a world where something as solid and anchored to the past as Notre Dame can be consigned to history in a matter of hours, there's something to be said for that.

Four stars.

American Duchess: A Novel of Consuela Vanderbilt

American Duchess could be said to capitalize on the current duchess fad (I'm thinking Lady Almina, although a certain American duchess undoubtedly also feeds the frenzy), but it reminded me more of novels such as Paris Wife or The Aviator's Wife in the way that it so thoroughly assumes the life and drama of the protagonist, Consuela Vanderbilt Marlborough Balsan.

Unfortunately, I didn't particularly care for or about Consuela. Part of this may owe to the structure of Karen Harper's American Duchess, which alternately raced through the years and slogged through the days (think: the days are long but the years are short), but also that one of the most memorable scenes in the book occurred early, when young Consuela was bemoaning her fate to her longtime governess. Her fate, I'll add here, wasn't particularly pretty. She was essentially auctioned off to the highest bidder, that is best title holder, by her scheming, conniving mother, against whom, rather inexplicably, Consuela could never fully turn. In any case, she is lamenting to Miss Harper that she wants more from life, "[her] own life to live," and Miss Harper reacts viscerally to that, asking young Consuela, "Do you think this is the life I would have chosen for myself?" That conversation stayed with me through the rest of Harper's pages and Consuela's years, and certainly tempered whatever sympathy I might have had.

That said, there can be no question that Consuela lived a rich, varied, and fascinating life. She befriended a bevy of royalty and was particularly close to Winston Churchill. Her second husband was the brother of Etienne Balsan, whom I recalled as one of Coco Chanel's lost loves, though more by her choice than his, if my memory serves me.

Consuela's life spanned the better part of a century; she was married in the Victorian era and the book concludes in the throes of World War II, some 20 years before Consuela's death. From dining with the Czar to fighting for suffrage, she left her mark on her era, and it on her - the events of the time provide as much fodder for Harper as the woman herself. And, Harper has been true to Consuela's personality and life, at least as much as one can glean from a Wikipedia article, which is always gratifying to a reader.

Four stars.