Return to Roxaboxen with THEBOOKJEANIE

Recently I took a roadtrip through the desert to the small town of Yuma, Arizona , the setting of Alice McLerran's timeless children's book Roxaboxen. Based on a handwritten book created by the author's mother in 1916, Roxaboxen tells the story of children who built their own magical world out of stones and wooden boxes, amidst the sand and thorny cactuses on a nearby rocky hill. In the town of Roxaboxen, the streets and houses were marked in the sand with white stones but "Frances. . .built herself a new house outlined in desert glass, bits of amber, amethyst, and sea-green: a house of jewels." There were two ice cream parlors - you could eat all you liked - and if you wanted to ride away "all you needed for a horse was a stick and some kind of bridle, and you could gallop anywhere." McLerran takes us back to a time when all that was needed for hours of childhood play was creativity and imagination, those abilities that every child possesses if given the time and encouragement, as well as perhaps the absence of technology. You can visit the area where the children created Roxaboxen, now located at 8th St. and 2nd Avenue. In 2000, Roxaboxen Park was dedicated to the children of Yuma, the site left much as it was 100 years ago, just sand and rocks waiting to be transformed once again into a imaginative place of dreams. 

I would advise any prospective reader of Karen Joy Fowler's new novel, We are All Completely Beside Ourselves, not to read the cover blurb or any detailed reviews of this book. Let the author slowly unfold this story for you -  create your own impressions, make your own predictions. This is an exploration of a family, before and after a devastating loss: a time when decisions were made, rationalizations created, and relationships shattered. Our narrator, Rosemary, shares her own personal unraveling that began at the young age of five and she reveals how each family member caromed off in radically different directions. Fowler makes it clear that Rosemary, her brother Lowell, and their parents love each other very much but that in the wake of this event, they inflict damage on each other as well. "Our parents . . . had shut their mouths and the rest of my childhood took place in that odd silence." Lowell chose to escape and eventually became wanted for domestic terrorism. Rosemary was too young to make any decisions other than to hold close all those memories of the love and close bond that she shared from birth with another individual. As a young adult she actively began to seek out her brother, choosing to attend college in the town where he was last seen. Eventually Rosemary is able to piece together the truth from the past as she attempts to reconcile the actions that impacted so many lives. Fowler successfully engages the reader in an examination of the moral and ethical dilemna posed by the scientific research conducted by Rosemary and Lowell's father as well as in a reflection on the weighty responsibilities and obligations of parenthood. This is a novel that you will want to discuss and will not easily forget. 

Once again Khalid Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner,  proves his masterful skill as a storyteller in his third book, And the Mountains Echoed. As the novel begins, young Abdullah and his baby sister are traveling by foot with their father, Saboor, from their remote home village to the capital, Kabul. Although his father had beaten him and ordered him to stay with his stepmother, Abdullah has run after his father and his three-year-old sister Pari, the child he has taken care of since her infancy. He feels uneasy to be separated from his sister as her protection has been his main focus in life since their mother died giving birth to her. Once in the city, his fears are realized when Pari is given away to a wealthy couple, separating the siblings for half a century. Although she was too young to remember her brother when she was adopted, Pari always felt ". . .the absence of something, or someone, fundamental to her own existence." Although her adoptive parents separated and she spent her life growing up in Paris with her vain and self-absorbed mother, Pari led a privileged life, becoming a respected mathematics professor, wife, and mother of three children. Abdullah too eventually leaves Afghanistan and settles in California with his wife, becoming the father of a baby girl who he names Pari. It is this younger Pari who finally is able to reunite the two separated siblings but the progression of Abdullah's illness makes it a bittersweet reunion. Other stories of siblings are woven into this expansive novel, establishing direct and indirect connections between the various characters. At times I wondered why the author introduced so many characters and veered off in so many different directions; I almost felt that I needed to map out all the characters and their various relationships to keep things straight.  In the end, however,  Hosseini's detailed and evocative descriptions managed to bind this compelling narrative into a cohesive story that kept me emotionally connected to the end. 

Intruiged by the reviews on the back cover, I stuffed Oxygen by Carol Cassella into my brown bag of books at a recent local Friends of the Library sale. Written by a practicing anesthesiologist I expected this to be an absorbing medical drama rather than the extraordinary literary mystery that I discovered as I read this novel almost non-stop. Dr. Marie Heaton dedicated her life to medicine, living a fairly spartan and solitary existence outside the hospital so it is no surprise that when a young patient dies in surgery while she is administering the necessary medications, she questions her own competency as a physician and sinks into an almost debilitating depression. Soon it becomes clear that the hospital is at risk and their legal team attempts to shift all the responsibility and blame for the tragedy to Marie. Although she instinctively withdraws into herself, only accepting the support of her sister Lori via extended long distance phone calls, Marie eventually allows her colleague and ex-lover Dr. Joe Hillary to help her research the circumstances and medical protocols that led to the death of the disabled little girl. As damaging evidence mounts, Marie is asked to take a leave from the hospital and she desperately tries unravel the inconsistencies in the case, discovering in the process that someone she trusted may be hiding crucial evidence. This is not only a finely crafted and superbly paced mystery but also a sensitive and detailed examination of a committed physician facing legal and ethical quesions that are not easily answered. 

On my bookshelf. . . Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi - Memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution written in a black-and-white comic book format.  The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai - A young librarian tries to help a young patron deal with his unbearable home life and finds herself both kidnapper and kidnapped. The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman - Described by one reviewer as "one of the most nuanced and precise portraits of the male muddled mind since Nick Hornby's High Fidelity."  This witty author is one of my favorites. The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Hooman Majd - A writer for the New York Times, The New Yorker, and other publications, Majd returns to his homeland to attempt to explain Iran, its history, and its quirks. Raised in the States, he has an interesting perspective as an American citizen, the son of an Iranian diplomat and the grandson of an eminent Ayatollah. Dirty Love by Andrus Dubus III - Linked novellas of love and betrayal by the author of House of Sand and Fog.  

See you next time and remember . . .

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