When Madeline was Young by Jane Hamilton

This book had a particularly unusual premise, and Hamilton did a superb job writing a complete story around it. The story is about a family comprising a man, his mentally challenged first wife, his second wife, and the two children from his second marriage. It is told from the point of view of the man's son, and spans about forty years of the family's saga.

Madeline, the title character and first wife, was involved in an accident during their first year of marriage, and subsequently lives as a perpetual eight-year-old. When her ex-husband remarries, she remains in their life, and becomes like a third child in their family. His second wife is unusually accepting of Madeline, calling her "lamb", rarely scolding her, and even allowing her to join them -- chastely -- in the marital bed, as one would a young child.

The book addresses some of the ethical and logistical issues around the care of the mentally ill. There is discussion on long-term care for Madeline, the decision to provide her with an eight-year-old's fantasy bedroom and toys, concern around her relationship with men, and other similar difficulties. However, more central than any of that was about placing the situations and concerns faced by this family into familiar territory. It's a story about a family, not about a family with a mentally ill child.

More specifically, it might be a story about the son, the narrator, more than about anyone else. Several portions of the book focus on the son's life growing into an adult, and how his childhood circumstances informed his own marriage. He makes many remarks about his own life and his impressions of the world, and it is clear to the reader how certain individual incidents as a young adult shaped his worldview. Significant portions of the book discuss his history with his wife, his daughters, and growing into being a man. Some of his most memorable comments relate to how women always reach out to other women, and how his daughters (predictably) despised his wife during their adolescence.

The one weakness in the book was the narrator's daughter Tessa. Tessa was bright, tough, and clearly his favorite daughter. Of her, he writes, "When she looks at you, it is best to clear your mind of insincerity...Tessa is a predator when she listens, the girl taking your full measure." Unfortunately, neither his favoritism of her over his other daughters nor her virtuous irreverence seemed realistic. More likely, Tessa is Hamilton's ideal self or child incarnate and poorly hidden.

That aside, I remain a huge fan of Jane Hamilton's. She has a way of making the mundane stand out as unique and the weird seem reasonably normal, which served her well in this book. At the end of the book, she describes a scene between the husband and Madeline, after his second wife has died, "He gave her a quick pat before he helped himself to an indeterminate kind of sandwich, turkey or ham or egg salad, whatever was most oozing mayonnaise."

I looked forward to picking up this book each night, and I think you will too.

The Uses of Enchantment by Heidi Julavits

This book was unusual, and I'm not sure if I liked it or not. It is about a woman named Mary who returns to her hometown when her mother dies and grapples with some difficult decisions she made while in high school. The book alternated between the present and Mary's high school years. There are also some excerpts from a fictional book written about her interwoven with these sections.

There was a strong backdrop of Freudian psychotherapy throughout the book. Mary sees a therapist (actually two) while in high school, and much of her present-day life is about closure on her relationships with them. Mary also has a questionable encounter with an older man that is "unpacked" throughout the book.

One thing the author was very good at was providing concise but complete descriptions of Mary's relationships with her family members.

She writes of Mary, "She and Gaby, she'd believed, had a sibling closeness based on the unspoken agreement that they would never be close; this shared understanding of the limits of their relationship made it the easiest relationship Mary shared with anyone in her family."

And in describing her difficulties with her mother, Mary says in therapy, "I sprinkled red food coloring on my underwear and left it in the hamper where my mother would find it. That afternoon I found a box of pads on my bed and a pair of cameo earrings. This is how we communicate, my mother and I."

I'd say that anyone with a strong interest in psychotherapy or analysis should definitely read this, otherwise it's a coin toss on whether you'll like it.

Still Life with Husband by Lauren Fox

The cover art and title of this book made it seem like it would be chick-lit, but I thought it was better than that. This story follows a woman named Emily in her early thirties who is doubting her relationship with her husband and contemplating an affair with a man she meets.

Emily was immediately likable and familiar. As I read, I thought of Emily as, if not myself in a different situation, at least as someone I would be friends with. For example, she writes, "I have always fallen for guys the way smart girls do, the way not-beautiful girls do, with my brain." Even her relationship with her mother was familiar: " 'Erica Marchese had twins,' she says by way of greeting, giving first me, then Kevin a perfumey kiss on the cheek...I went to grade school with Erica Marchese, although I haven't seen her in about twenty years. But my mother keeps her finger on the pulse of her thriving, procreating suburban community."

The majority of the book describes Emily's descent into a relationship with a man who isn't her husband and the ensuing exhilaration, guilt, and confusion surrounding this decision. The reason I didn't consider this book pure chick-lit is the intelligence with which Emily (actually, Lauren Fox) comments on the situations she's in. "Later, in bed, it occurs to me that maybe a lie is composed not of the substance of what you tell someone, and not even of its intention, but of the amount of stress is causes you to tell it." These comments are included in the book not as Carrie-Bradshaw-esque interludes, but as continual reflection.

The book was a bit scary, too, in its possibility. Here was a story about a young well-educated woman who married a nice, steady guy, and suddenly felt trapped at a young ago. A little too close to home for me? Probably not. But it was the first book about adultery that I have read in which the main perpetrator was of my demographic. Her description of her husband was sweetly familiar, which was scary: "Poking out of a pocket of Kevin's suitcase, I notice, is the book he brought to read during his free time: Sound Investments for the Careful Planner. I feel a familiar pang of love for my steady, staid husband."

A pretty good book.

Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Sarah Jane Gilman

Mer A strikes again. Woe is me when I've gone through the pile she gave me. This was a memoir about a girl who grows up in a mixed-race neighborhood in New York City during the 1970s with hippie parents. It follows her from some of her earliest memories until her marriage in her early thirties. Disclosure: she went to Brown, like me, so I'm predisposed to like her. See also Caroline Knapp.

As she says in the preface, "I've written this book...because so many of the stories women are currently telling are all about getting a man...while a few stories do involve a boy, a bra, and a booty call, mostly their focus is elsewhere--on other passions and delusions that we all experience in one form or another."

And she succeeds at this. Her stories about growing up are about her interactions with her surroundings, and about the often-hilarious mishaps and misunderstandings that pepper everyone's childhood. About two-thirds of the way through the book, the tone changes from quaint growing-up stories to more of an adult style, which tells the reader about her progression into adulthood. I was never too impressed with her writing style, but I was interested to find out what was going to happen to her; it was more like reading a friend's email than a proper book, but with good grammar and punctuation.

I probably related the most to her description of her expectations around a high school dance. She writes about the iconic story of an unpopular girl with a chance to become well-liked:

"But then, we see montage shots of the dork in training--jogging, sweating, getting a makeover, holding up outfits in front of a department store mirrors while a bevy of salesclerks frown and shake their heads, then nod approvingly--until the Big Night. Inevitably, some school bully or bitch tries to sabotage her plans. And inevitably, last-minute obstacles pop up, theatening to jettison the whole evening. Maybe her limo breaks down. Maybe her father has a pulmonary embolism...[once she succeeds] her nemesis, meanwhile, ends up tearing her hair out in jealousy in the parking lot while a car veers past and platters mud all over her taffeta bubble dress.

The moral of these stories was never lost on me: namely that, with the right makeover, it was possible to reverse years of social ostracism in a single evening."

As an adult, her honesty and commentary on herself is no less present. She says of moving to Europe with her husband, "No doubt, plenty of Swiss citizens would be happy to engage me in lengthy discussions about "Totour and Tristan, the two wooden soldiers" who I'd studied ad nauseum in grade school, then listen raptly as I informed them that "whenever Pierra and Simone go to the market, they purchase a pair of shoes, a cauliflower and a small brown monkey, ... For all my schooling, I hadn't the foggiest idea how to say such basic things as "lightbulb," "extension cord," and "Can you please help me? My husband is stuck in the bathroom."

All told I enjoyed reading this book. The writing is nothing spectacular (although it is funny), but Gilman's honesty and ability to look critically at herself generally make up for that.