Book Review: The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton

 

The Last Train to Key West

Author: Chanel Cleeton

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Date of Publication: June 16, 2020

Page: 320

     I am a sucker for any book written about Key West.  We have vacationed there several times and the combination of charm, history, climate, inclusiveness, and just plain fun are hard to beat.  I have documented one such trip in a previous blog post.  The restaurants are world class as well!  There are many attractions there besides the beaches and the bars, including The Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory.  When this book was selected by our new neighborhood's book club, I couldn't pass it up.

     This is a novel of three women in crisis.  Their stories are told in alternating chapters.  The author does an incredible job tying these stories together at the end of the book.  The first woman is Helen, a native of Key West who finds herself trapped in an abusive relationship.  She married young, works as a waitress and is pregnant with her first child.  She dreams of her fisherman husband's death which she sees as her only means of escape. The second is Elizabeth, a former debutante from New York who is also trapped in an engagement to a New York mobster.  This marriage is the only way she can see clear of a mountain of debt her family is buried under after the stock market crash of 1929.  She has come to Key West in search of a lost brother, a WWI veteran working in a labor camp.  The third woman is Mirta, a Cuban who is on her honeymoon, having married an older man of dubious reputation.  This marriage was brokered by her father in order to improve his political position.  All three of these main characters are very well developed by the author.  They are all sympathetic and likable.  As these women are introduced and the plots are taking shape, we find that there is a hurricane threatening the area.  This hurricane is, in fact, the famous 1935 Labor Day storm, the strongest hurricane to make landfall in North American history.  This storm had sustained winds of 200 mph and virtually destroyed the village of Islamorada on Matecumbe Key.  At least 250 of the veterans sent to work camps in the Keys were killed.  The storm and its aftermath are the thrilling conclusion to this novel and the crisp, articulate writing comes to a crescendo.

     This is a story of survival.  The three women successfully navigate their personal and actual storms, each in their own way.  The novel tells of some very interesting history as well.  The plight of the World War I veterans, chased from Washington, D.C. by President Herbert Hoover as they protested delayed pension payments is touched upon.  The plight of both the rich and the poor during the Great Depression is alluded to as well.  Mr. Flagler's railroad from Miami to Key West plays a role throughout the story, although details of engineering and construction difficulties are not elaborated upon.  The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 is central to the entire novel.  Its devastation is expertly described and those chapters are nothing short of riveting.  Although it may have detracted a bit from the main plots, a little more historical detail as it pertained to the veterans and some more details regarding the railroad would have given the novel a bit more depth.

     All in all, this was a very enjoyable book to read.  It sparked my interest in learning more about Henry Flagler and his Florida Overseas Railroad as well as the veterans' work camps in the Keys during the Depression.  Entertaining and thought provoking is a great combination!

     

Book Review:Later by Stephen King

Later

Author: Stephen King

Publisher: Titan

Date of Publication: March 2, 2021

Pages:272

     Summer books or "beach reads" are supposed to be brief, entertaining, and not too taxing on the brain.  This book fits these criterion perfectly.   This is the story of  Jamie Conklin, a young boy who can see dead people.  It is different from the 1999 movie The Sixth Sense in that the boy can communicate with the dead and his ability dissipates the longer the person is dead.  Initially this only sets up awkward situations for Jamie and his single mom.  As the story progresses, his gift becomes known by his mother's girlfriend, a New York city detective.  She uses Jamie and his gift to further her career and places the boy and his mom in increasingly compromised situations.  

    The story is told by an adult Jamie and moves right along.  One underlying subplot is Jamie's desire to know who his father is/was.  His mother refuses to discuss it and there are no photos, letters, or other clues to his identity.  This issue is neatly resolved at the end of the book with a surprise twist which I did not anticipate.  The characters are incredibly well developed (as is typical for Mr. King) and even the minor characters pop to life in brief appearances.  Jamie's elderly neighbor is a wonderful example of this.  

    As with other Stephen King stories and novels, this stands as an allegory for facing your fears and accepting yourself for who you are, even if that means becoming comfortable with your ability to see dead people.  Maybe I sold this brief novel a bit short in my opening sentence.  It is a quick read and is very entertaining.  It does, however, make you think a bit, especially about confronting one's fears.  I enjoyed this, recommend it, and not necessarily just for the beach!

Book Review: The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

 

The Maidens

Author: Alex Michaelides

Publisher: Celadon Books

Date of Publication: June 15, 2021

Pages: 352

     The Maidens is book number 2 for this author following his wildly successful The Silent Patient.  This book has a different premise and setting but lots of the same psychological backdrop.  The main character is Mariana Andros, a young but recently widowed group therapist from London.  She rushes to Cambridge to be with her niece whose classmate has just been murdered.  She decides to stick around to continue comforting and counseling her niece and try lending the police a hand in solving the murder.  Potential suspects are introduced on almost every page.  First there is the creepy guy on the train who stalks Mariana, then a misogynistic but charismatic literature professor, the victim's boyfriend who happens to have a criminal record and deals drugs, and a quiet but suspicious custodian.  One by one more young girls are killed.  These victims are stereotypical privileged elite class young women.   Like the first girl, each new victim belongs to a select study group led by the literature professor.  Mariana becomes more involved and feels the wrath from both the police, who feel their toes are being stepped on, as well as from suspects who feel wrongfully accused.

    There is a lot of great character development here, much like in The Silent Patient.  The psychological histories of many of the characters are similar: distant and/or abusive fathers who these characters are either trying to escape from or live up to.  There are a lot of "daddy issues" in this novel.  The setting is like another character, with detailed renderings of the Cambridge campus.  The plot is where this novel falls a bit short, though, in my opinion.  The story tends to drag as Mariana has dinner at the professor's home or drinks in various college bars with other characters.  The ending is wrapped up nicely with a twist that I did not see coming, although in retrospect, I should have.

     All in all, this is an entertaining read with a great setting.  For me, the plot could have used a faster pace with a little less psychology.

 

   

Book Review: The Sirens of Mars by Sarah Stewart Johnson

 

The Sirens of Mars

Searching for Life on Another World

Author: Sarah Stewart Johnson

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

Date of Publication: July 7, 2020

Pages: 288

     The Sirens of Mars is a unique amalgam of history, science, philosophy and memoir.  Sarah Stewart Johnson is a planetary scientist and an assistant professor at Georgetown University.  In this book she gives us the history of man's interest in and study of the planet Mars.  This starts with early attempts to describe and then map the planet's surface.  It culminates in today's sophisticated rovers, complete with equipment to analyze soil and rock samples in attempt to find conditions compatible with life.

    This book chronicles the many successes and failures of Mars expeditions as well as the surprises which have come from these missions.  The author does an amazing job of explaining complex scientific concepts and creates very understandable commentaries on how this research is conducted and, more importantly, why this research is necessary.  Exploration of a planet thought to be similar to ours but not contaminated by homo sapiens is essential to our understanding of the beginnings of life on Earth.

   The author weaves a parallel narrative of her own burgeoning childhood interest in science, her college and graduate school experiences and her subsequent participation in the male-dominated field of planetary science.  She cleverly juxtaposes her own personal milestones (career advancements, meeting and marrying her husband, and her first pregnancy) with landmark events in the history of Mars exploration.  The chapter where she describes the birth of her first child while at the same time the Mars rover Curiosity (a project with which she was critically involved) successfully navigated the Gale Crater looking for simple organic compounds, the "building blocks" of potential life, was captivating.

     I found this a very readable, entertaining, and educational book.  The author does an outstanding job of bringing complex science to a non-science audience.  It gave me new insights into the importance of  this kind of research.  I enjoyed The Sirens of Mars much more than I anticipated and recommend it to anyone curious about scientific investigation, space exploration, and/or planetary science.

Book Review: Chasing My Cure by David Fajgenbaum

 

Chasing My Cure: A Doctor's Race to Turn Hope into Action

Author: David Fajgenbaum

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Date of Publication: September 10, 2019

Pages: 230

     Finding a cure for a rare disease about which little is known is challenging to even the most seasoned medical researcher.  Imagine if that researcher was an inexperienced medical student who is also suffering the ravages of this obscure disease and you have David Fajgenbaum's Chasing My Cure.  This plot line sounds like something out of an implausible, syrupy TV show, but this riveting story is true.

    Chasing My Cure begins with David's early life in Raleigh, North Carolina.  His father was a successful orthopedic surgeon and team doctor for the North Carolina State Wolfpack.  David was an excellent athlete and was a high school football star.  He went on to play quarterback at my alma mater, Georgetown University.  David's interest in medicine began with an unfortunate turn of events involving his mother.  Unfortunately she was diagnosed with a glioblastoma during his freshman year of college and died fairly quickly.  We get an early glimpse of this young man's organizational skills as he forms a support group for grieving college students, first at Georgetown but soon at many campuses nationwide.  David decided to pursue oncology to try to help patients like his mother.

   While attending medical school at the University of Pennsylvania he begins experiencing severe fatigue which he blames on his rigorous schedule.  He becomes severely ill, is admitted to the hospital and proceeds to plummet downhill from a process no one can diagnose.  He is thought to have an autoimmune disease and is treated as such but continues a downward course of multiple organ system  failure.  He is even given his last rights, a sacrament for Catholics who are felt to be close to death.  He finally responds favorably to therapies and a diagnosis of Castleman Disease is made.  This is a rare disorder where a patient's lymphatic system overproduces interleukin-6 causing an intense systemic inflammatory response.  

    The remainder of the book chronicles David's quest to find out all he can about this disease and improve treatment.  In between four near-fatal relapses he is able to complete medical school.  He then studies for an M.B.A. at the Wharton School of Business in order to better organize an international collaborative effort to study and defeat Castleman Disease.  He is aided by a very supportive family and group of colleagues.  He falls back on his experience in sports to foster teamwork and achieve goals.  This is a fascinating study of one individual's tenacity, will to live, and capacity to enlist a myriad of different doctors, medical researchers, and even patients to get a handle on this disease.  At one point he writes:

                    "Fear disintegrates, Doubt disorganizes.  Hope clears the way."

     That reminded me of the little poem by Emily Dickinson:

                                  

     This book is a tribute to one man's grit and determination.  It is also a tribute to hope, that most fragile of human emotions which is often so easily dashed.  This man has remained in remission for a number of years now, utilizing a therapy that he was able to help create.  He is an assistant professor of Medicine in Translational Medicine and Human Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania, Associate Director, Patient Impact of the Penn Orphan Disease Center, Founding Director of the Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment and Laboratory, and Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN).  In December of 2020 Dr. Fajgenbaum published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine about cytokine storm in covid-19 patients.  His efforts at collaboration have paid off handsomely.  This is truly an inspiring story,.    

Book Review: Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

 

Miracle Creek

Author: Angie Kim

Publisher: Picador

Date of Publication: April 7, 2020

Pages: 384

     This is a marvelous novel which succeeds on many levels.  First, it is a top-notch "who-done-it".  Four patients and parents of two of those are in a sealed multi-place hyperbaric chamber when a fire erupts.  One pediatric patient and another child's parent are killed in the mishap.  This event is told in the opening of the book and the background is all revealed through the murder trial of the dead child's mother.  Did she intentionally set the fire as all of the circumstantial evidence would suggest?  Could the perpetrator be any one of a number of other characters?  The reader has suspicions, but they change multiple times as details are elicited during the trial and through flashbacks.  The plot of Mystery Creek is a variation of the "Closed Circle Mystery" genre: a limited number of suspects are presented, all with motive, opportunity, and means to have committed the crime.  The reader needs to sort through this increasingly tangled story to try to figure out what exactly happened.

     Miracle Creek is also a series of extremely well drawn character studies.  The operators of the unlicensed hyperbaric chamber are a Korean immigrant family (the Yoos): a father (the chamber operator), his wife, and their teen-aged daughter.  The author calls on her own immigrant experience to portray these folks as flawed but tremendously sympathetic characters.  The other patients include a medical doctor with infertility, a child with cerebral palsy, and two children with different degrees of autism (and their mothers).  The prosecutor and the defense attorney are central to the story also, even as minor characters. 

     This book also succeeds in painting a very realistic picture of the immigrant experience in America.  These folks come to America looking for opportunity and often find exploitation, misunderstanding, and frustration instead.  The Kims fight prejudice, racial and ethnic stereotyping, and bullying in their workplace and in school.  It is not an easy path and the author questions the risk vs. benefit ratio in deciding to abandon their native country.   

    Finally, the author does a fantastic job of describing the frustrations and difficulties of parenting a special-needs child.  The parents' whole lives are consumed with therapy appointments, treatments and hands-on control of these very needy children.  The tasks take their toll, often causing relationships to splinter.  Is all of this turmoil, self-doubt, and aggravation enough to make a mother want to kill her own child?  Would she really strike a match and intentionally cause a fatal chamber explosion?  That is the question the court is trying to answer and the book addresses so adroitly.  

     This book intrigued me from the very start.  I am a retired hyperbaric physician and have experience as a hyperbaric facility accreditation surveyor, so I am very familiar with the risks of hyperbaric therapy, especially in unlicensed, non-hospital affiliated settings.  The author certainly did her homework in that regard and understands the issues quite well.

     This is a very well written book which is entertaining as well as informative.   It is very deserving of the Edgar Award it was awarded in April of 2020 as the Best First Mystery Novel.

Book Review: A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

A Good Neighborhood

Author: Therese Anne Fowler

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Date of Publication: March 10, 2020

Pages: 320

     This is a novel for our times.  It is set in a bucolic racially integrated neighborhood in a classic Southern city (the author lives in Raleigh, North Carolina).  When intolerable nouveau-riche white people invade with their gentrification and scorched earth attitude towards the environment, conflict arises.  The characters are a bit stereotypical, but that sets the stage for the struggles which ensue.  The basic conflict involves a stately oak tree which is irreparably damaged when a huge home is built next door.  Racial, class, religious, age discriminations, and unfounded fear add dimension to and accelerate the tensions between neighbors.  

     About half way through this book, I couldn't decide whose story it was.  Was it the story of Valerie Alston-Holt, a college professor who happens to also be a black single mother with a talented, mixed-race teenaged son?  (She also owns the home with the oak tree.)  Was it the story of Xavier, her gifted musician-son who has earned a prestigious college scholarship?  Was it the story of Brad Whitman, the narcissistic good old boy who tears down an older home and builds the McMansion next to Valerie, in the process destroying her pastoral back yard?  Was it the story of Juniper, Brad's step-daughter who is drawn to her new neighbor, Xavier, like a moth to a flame despite the Purity Promise she has made at her evangelical church?  After reaching the book's heartbreaking conclusion, I realized that this is OUR story: America's story.  It's the story of what happens when events transpire based on false assumptions, age-old stereotypes, and ingrained prejudices.  It reminds me a bit of Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere, in that the underlying theme is race, but so much more is layered into the story.  Hypocrisy abounds, self-centered agendas rule, and the common good gets thrown under a bus.

 

     The author uses an interesting technique: she introduces some chapters with unnamed omniscient third person narrators.  This Greek chorus of un-named neighbors are witnessing events unfold while trying not to be involved.  Some narrations are told with a retrospective feel, hinting at the story's eventual outcome. The interesting effect which this technique has is that it makes the reader feel a part of the neighborhood.  It makes you think "What would I be thinking or doing if this was going on down my street?"

     A Good Neighborhood is an excellent book.  It has a terrible sense of dread which propels you through the chapters.  The writing is crisp and economical - no wasted words.  The story really is a parable for our times.  There is much here to make the reader stop and ponder.  It makes you look at your own "good neighborhood" in a different light.  It is one of those books which entertains but at the same time teaches.  It is remarkable.