Suggested: The 158 Pound Marriage

THE 158 POUND MARRIAGE
Written by John Irving
Category: Fiction - Literary; Fiction - Psychological;
Paperback

Publishers thingie:

The darker vision and sexual ambiguities of this erotic, ironic tale about a ménage a quatre in a New England university town foreshadow those of The World According to Garp; but this very trim and precise novel is a marked departure from the author's generally robust, boisterous style. Though Irving's cool eye spares none of his foursome, he writes with genuine compassion for the sexual tests and illusions they perpetrate on each other; but the sexual intrigue between them demonstrates how even the kind can be ungenerous, and even the well-intentioned, destructive.


* Its a tiny book that starts out slow but becomes a page turner. A good story with great character development that will give us lots to talk about. Irving has written a bunch of good novels that were turned into mediocre movies (World According to Garp, Simon Birch Owen Meany, Ciderhouse Rules, The Door in the Floor). If you saw any of those movies, please don't hold that against the the author. * - Rich

suggestions: the book of salt

by monique truong. fictionalized account of alice b toklas' & gertrude stein's manservant.

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Suggested: The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a bleak (yet at times beautiful) story of a father and son, travelling across the burned out husk of a nightmarish, post-acpocalyptic America. Much like A Long Way Gone, this is a "road" book in which the main characters journey thru a hostile environment where death is always just behind them—or waiting just ahead—while at the same time, lurking within their own hearts, waiting for them to stumble or miss a step along their equally mortal inner journies. That may make no sense, but what I'm trying to say is that the two books make quite a powerful pairing and share many similar themes. They both illustrate the depths to which man may sink and the atrocities which he may visit upon his brothers and himself. And yet, they both illustrate the strength of man's humanity and his ability to overcome violence, despair, fear, loss, and death. They illustrate the ability to overcome one's own shortcomings as well as those shortcomings which have seemingly plagued man as a whole, since the beginning of recorded history. The Road may herald the end of human history as we know it. But, in that end, it creates something worth recording and remembering.

As you may be able to tell, I've already read the book, as well as one more by the same author, Blood Meridian. If you don't read if for the book club, I highly recommend reading it for yourself and would love to hear your comments on it. Follow it up by watching Children of Men for a contemporary cross-over of intense, visceral storytelling involving more of the same themes.

BTW, The Road was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction this year. You can read an article about the author from the New Yorker here.

Suggested: Watchmen

While inhabiting the same territory as Orwell's 1984, Gilliam's Brazil, and a number of lesser bleak views of a (then future) society, Watchmen takes full advantage of the graphic novel format to flesh out its characters and plots in ways rarely seen in any medium. Even after 20 years, still probably the best graphic novel out there.