Great Books for March, 2005
Runaway, by Alice Munro
    I think that it can be safely said that Alice Munro is one of the pre-eminent masters of the short story, if not the first in the firmament.  She has been writing perfect jewels for as long as I can remember, and even though the short form is not really my first choice, I would never miss the chance to read one of her collections.  Her women characters, their predicaments, and their behavior within those predicaments are always new and surprising, and utterly human and recognizable.  The characters in these stories are every bit as compelling.  One of them, the title character in three stories named "Julia" is particularly interesting as we meet her at three different stages of her life.  In the first she is a young intellectual teaching in a girls' school who suddenly leaves everything behind to rush into a passionate love match.  In the second, she returns to her parents' home with her own child and sees them in an entirely new light, and in the third she finds herself alone, her beloved daughter having vanished inexplicably into a religious cult.  Each story is remarkable in its observance of the details of an individual character's life and habits.  It would be hard to overpraise this work.
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The Memory of Running, by Ron McLarty
    Ron McLarty, a reasonably successful character actor who wrote his novels in obscurity, awash in rejection slips, had a change in his personal script that would do any fairy tale proud.  Suddenly, after years and years of failure, a sympathetic publisher read this manuscript and decided to put it novel on tape.  As fate would have it, Stephen King is an avid listener to books on tape, and happened to hear this novel read by its author and set out to help it get published in print.  The rest, as they say, is history, with McLarty gleaning favorable reviews in all the major venues and ascending to best-sellerdom, or close to it.  I would say that although I had some criticisms of its linear nature (it is after all a road trip taken on a bike), I was truly compelled by the writing and read it straight through in one sitting.  Smithson "Smithy" Ide is at first blush a lovable loser - his candor about drinking, eating and smoking is refreshing - but after we get to know him and hear the story of his family we find a character with a heart so big and full of feeling that he has to hide behind all of these things to keep from breaking apart.  When his parents are killed suddenly in a car accident, Smithy finds himself taking a drunken bike ride one night (as a child he rode incessantly, as an adult his physical activity consists of walking to the refrigerator from the couch) and riding straight through to California from Rhode Island, searching for his long-lost sister Bethany who disappeared some twenty five years before.  On the way he meets some predictably quirky characters and has some scary and humorous experiences.  By the time he reaches his destination, Smith has lost some weight and gained a life.
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The Chrysanthemum Palace, by Bruce Wagner
    Bruce Wagner has mastered the Hollywood/LA novel.  He knows the entertainment business inside out and strikes a perfect satirical note without losing either heart or soul.  In this, his latest, our narrator is Bertie Krohn, the only child of a show business titan.  His father, Perry Krohn, is the creator of television's longest-running 'space opera' "Starwatch:  the Navigators" (both Jennifer Aniston and Donald Rumsfeld are obsessed fans), and after trying for some twenty years to make it as an independent writer/film-maker, Bertie has thrown in the towel and gone to work as an actor on his father's show.  One night at an AA meeting, Bertie sees Clea Freemantle who, after being a short-lived adolescent girlfriend of his, enjoyed some stardom and recognition before spiraling out of the public eye because of substance abuse.  Clea was the daughter of another screen legend , Roosevelt Chandler, who famously drank herself to death in the Seventies, and Bertie hasn't spoken to Clea since the tragic night in their fourteenth year that one of their friends died tragically.  After their encounter, Bertie and Clea get close but soon conclude that friendship is their best option, and Bertie gets Clea a job on the show.  When Thad Michelet comes to town it becomes obvious that Clea hasn't really leveled with Bertie about her past.  Thad Michelet is a walking time bomb - son of a Norman Maileresque literary titan, he is also an author and an actor with an enormous personality, a violent temper, and a huge drinking problem.  Clea hasn't told Bertie that not only was she romantically involved with Thad, but that she was the subject of a book by Thad's father that Bertie's dad Perry is trying to make into a movie.  The three of them form a crazy clique, and when Thad and Clea team up on the Starwatch show things begin to spiral out of control.  Bertie gains wisdom and so do we in the process of watching his friends disintegrate.  Again, Bruce Wagner is amazing in his ability to portray the sublime ridiculousness of modern Hollywood without losing his characters' humanity.  Even Bertie's uber-producer father -- who could have been as one-dimensional as a paper doll -- comes through with the humanity we all at least hope everyone possesses.
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Beautiful Inez, by Bart Schneider
    It is 1962, and 32-year od Sylvia Bran has moved to San Francisco.  She is enjoying her rather Bohemian life, living alone, playing piano in a piano showroom, and moving beyond the long sad years she was alone with her mother before her mother committed suicide.  One day she finds herself in possession of a ticket to the symphony courtesy of her boss at Myerson's -"The grand piano store of the West" - and seated in a box of her own.  When a lovely blonde violinnist appears on the stage with her violin, Sylvia's life is permanently changed.  The attendant informs her that this is "Inez Roseman:  beautiful Inez", who has been with the symphony for over 20 years and is married to Jake Roseman, an attorney who's creating "all the fuss with the colored."  Jake's father was in the symphony and was Inez's teacher.  Instantly obsessed, Sylvia later constructs an elaborate ruse, introducing herself to Inez as a reporter, getting into her home, and spending time with her.  Inez is beautiful, complex, and as miserable as she is talented.  She is married to a famous attorney and has two children but really has no wifely or motherly feelings.  Jake is unfaithful to her but she hardly cares, and soon she and Sylvia begin an intimate and strange relationship which overtakes both of their lives.
    To me, what is most remarkable about this eminently readable story about two fascinating women is the material about the music they both love and cherish.  While Inez is a virtuoso who knows nothing so well as the music she has played her entire life, Sylvia - who plays popular music all day for a living - has her own passion for music that is just as strong.  The other characters in the novel are also well-drawn, especially Inez's young son who wants to play violin (against his mother's wishes), and Sylvia's wonderful, generous boss, Myerson.
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