The Air Between Us by Deborah Johnson

The Air Between Us by Deborah Johnson

Integration is slow to arrive in Revere, Mississippi, population "20,000 and sinking" It's 1966, and Reverend Streeter is still waiting for service at the River Cafe lunch counter, 10-year-old Willie "Critter" Tate still has to drink from the "Coloreds Only" drinking fountain, and the well-coiffed Deanie Jackson can't work at Pearl's dress shop -- she can't even shop there.

However, the larger picture of the segregationist South that Johnson portrays is more nuanced and complicated than these now notorious images of Jim Crow. In The Air Between Us, integration becomes an issue that cannot be satisfactorily resolved through freedom riders, Northern "agitators," or the federal government -- change is inevitable, but the people of Revere have to bring it about themselves if they want to save their town from an equally inevitable ruin.

The book begins with a scene that perfectly captures the cadence of segregation as it exists in Revere. Billy Ray Puckett, one of the poor whites who lives on the outskirts of town, shoots himself in the gut while setting up his tree stand, and is discovered by Critter Tate, who drives him to Revere's hospital. First he tries to drop Puckett off at the hospital's black entrance, and is turned away, then has trouble getting the nurses to admit him to the white side.

After Puckett dies, the Sheriff's department orders an investigation, and begins to uncover the uneasy secrets about the true nature of relationships between Revere's black and white residents. At the center of the story are Cooper Connelly and Reese Jackson, the hospital's two doctors, Connelly is white, Jackson is black. The two work together closely, but have a strained relationship which is explained during the course of the Puckett investigation.

All the while, discontent is brewing over the mandated integration of Revere's hospital and schools, which is soon to take effect. Much to everyone's surprise, Connelly has progressive views on integration, and his efforts to bring about change peacefully draw the venom of reactionaries and racists statewide. As the ugliness builds and turns violent, the people of Revere have to make a decision about the future of their town.

Johnson's thematic thrust is buttressed by a strong cast of supporting characters, like Reese Jackson's unhappy wife, Deanie, and her next-door neighbor, Melba Obrensky, a light-skinned fortune teller with a mysterious past. While the book's idealistic ending may seem a little rushed and fanciful, The Air Between Us is an interesting and engaging look at how a town's black and white residents choose to deal with the ugly legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

If you like...: books about middle and upper class black families set during the height of segregation like Love by Toni Morrison, this book is for you. And if this book sounds up your alley, you might also like the most recent winner of the Bellwether Prize (an award for literature that addresses issues of social justice), Mudbound by Hillary Jordan.

Bits and Pieces

I have a cab to the airport in an hour, and decided it would be more productive to stay up than try to sleep. So, here's what's been entertaining me:

- The American Book Review has compiled a list of the 100 best first lines from novels and the 100 best last lines from novels. The Catcher in the Rye made both lists, and although I liked the book a hell of a lot more when I was 16 than I do now, I have to admit, Salinger totally nails both the take-off and the landing on that book.

- The seven deadly words of book reviewing: I'm guilty of four of them, two in the past week.
UPDATE: Ha! But a great finger in the eye to Bob Harris's Paper Cuts post at CLEWS.

- A Sweet Valley High relaunch? Although I'm disturbed that the Wakefield twins' "perfect size 6" has been done over as a "perfect size 4" (since 6 is apparently no longer "perfect"), I have to say this for the SVH series: it saved my social life. By third grade, I was taller than my teachers. And then SVH taught me about fashion, and I learned that hunched over and awkward was no way to go through life. So, I grant them that.

- The always-up-for-a-challenge Carl has a great one this spring: Once Upon a Time 2, where participants agree to read at least one book from the fantastical subgenres of fantasy, mythology, folklore, or fairy tale... or all of the above, topped off with a June reading of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which I may just do either way.

- I watched one season of American Idol before I realized that I vastly preferred letting others watch it for me. I used to swear by Ang's recaps, but she doesn't seem to be doing them this season. So instead, I enthusiastically recommend Keith's.

Have a lovely weekend -- more when I return from Birmingham.

From the Lab to Macy's: The Perfect Scent by Chandler Burr

The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York by Chandler Burr

While many luxury items -- cars, handbags, designer sunglasses, and the like -- seem utterly gauche to me, there's still something genuinely elegant and luxurious about a bottle of good perfume. Because unlike those other fetish items, a good perfume doesn't scream "Notice me!" (though a bad one does); it turns your head without giving you whiplash.

For this book, Chandler Burr, the scent critic for T: The New York Times Style Magazine, was granted access into the highly secretive world of perfume creators and manufacturers, and follows two very different fragrances from the planning stages to the retail counter. The first is the second fragrance in a series produced by legendary French perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena for Hermes, Un Jardin sur le Nil. The second is a celebrity fragrance, Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely, for Coty, which is unique in that Parker played an active role in all stages of the product's creation.

And though I have no real aptitude for chemistry, no interest in marketing, don't speak French, and have not purchased a bottle of perfume for myself since the 8th grade*, I still found this book completely fascinating.

Burr is extremely knowledgeable, yet also accessible and delightfully opinionated. The discreet, yet barbed comments of industry insiders are fun, but some of the book's best moments come when Burr tells us how he really feels, with the bulk of his contempt reserved for men's fragrances on the market, Hugo Boss in particular. He describes Hugo Boss Number One as follows: "If a cat had morning breath, then ate kible, then licked its anus, then licked your hand, and if you then smelled your hand, it would smell like this."

Meow.

If you liked...: Bringing Home the Birken: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World's Most Coveted Handbag by Michael Tonello, this book is for you.
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* Granted my favorite scents in the 8th grade were Cover Girl's Navy and Revlon's Xia Xiang, I also had a thing for Ralph Lauren's Safari. But alas, I could not afford it on my babysitter's salary, and had to settle for stealing squirts from department store testers. I think this is when I gave up on perfume -- I couldn't go back to the cheap stuff, but couldn't afford anything better.

After reading Burr's book, though, I've decided to use some of my tax refund to go out and purchase something good. I dislike florals, am wary of musks and spicy fragrances, so I think I'm leaning towards something green -- perhaps Estee Lauder's Private Collection, if it's not too WASPy.

Content and Form: The Learners by Chip Kidd

The Learners: The Book After "The Cheese Monkeys" by Chip Kidd

On the surface, The Learners has a lot going for it. Of course, it's no surprise that a book by a designer of Kidd's renown is absolutely gorgeous from cover to typeset. And like Kidd's previous effort, The Cheese Monkeys, it's cleverly written and often extremely funny. Also compelling is the book's setting, a New Haven advertising agency in the early 1960s. And best of all, Kidd situates our hero, the hapless Happy, smack dab in the middle of Stanley Milgram's obedience experiment, where subjects were directed to administer what they believed to be harmful or lethal charges of electricity to another person.

After graduation, Happy is hired by the New Haven advertising firm that employed his former mentor, Winter Sorbeck. And for his first solo gig, he's enlisted to design the newspaper ad soliciting volunteers for the Milgram experiment (a graphic of the ad, accompanied by ironically analytical annotations of the designer's concerns with its form is a highlight of the book).

After a cryptic meeting with his former classmate, the Holly Golightly-esque Himillsy Dodd, and a tragedy that leaves Happy with many unanswered questions, he decides to become a subject himself, and acquires some devastating insight along the way.

Despite its promise, however, the book is badly flawed. Unlike The Cheese Monkeys, which is driven by the charisma of Winter and Himillsy, the characters who populate Happy's ad agency are lifeless and grating. And while Kidd depicts Happy's participation in the experiment and his encounters with the researchers vividly, the scenes in the ad agency never quite gel.

Kidd is at his best when he's going for funny; however, the darker themes addressed in The Learners allow less room for comedy, and Kidd can't deliver the emotional resonance and introspection that Happy's personal tragedies need.

In the end, the book's form is a success, while its content is not. Those interested in graphic design and rabid fans of The Cheese Monkeys should check it out, but other readers probably won't find much to sustain their interest. If you're interested in fictional accounts of famous/notorious scientific and psychological studies, however, I'd suggest T.C. Boyle's The Inner Circle, an excellent and racy account of Alfred Kinsey's research.

Giving the Muse a Jolt

I'm a little bit behind on my stack of brand new shiny books, because I'm currently working on David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, which is as excellent as it is dense. And I'll admit, I'm savoring it, even if it means that the new Chip Kidd book will have to wait until next week for a review.

As I was having trouble thinking of something to blog about in lieu of review, I was reminded of a question someone asked me at the library the other day. The patron had heard there was a writer who, when struggling for the right word or turn of phrase, opened his desk drawer and took a whiff of the rotten apples he kept there for just that purpose. Something about the aroma gave him just the right jolt.

Turns out, this was the German poet and playwright Freidrich von Schiller. During last summer's Zombie Summer Reading Program, I learned that pulp crime writer Edgar Wallace couldn't write without gallons of hot tea with cream and sugar and about 80 cigarettes.

An interesting article by Diane Ackerman, published in the New York Times in 1989 details some other peculiar habits of writers.

D.H. Lawrence indulged in naked tree climbing, while Colette picked fleas off of her cat before sitting down to write. Another cat lover, Poe, is alleged to have written with his cat perched on his shoulder. Truman Capote described himself as "a completely horizontal writer," Virginia Woolf wrote standing up, and Benjamin Franklin wrote in the bathtub.

When you have to write, and nothing comes out, do you have any tricks you use to get yourself going?

Newspaper Lit Blogs: A Study in Mixed Feelings

The book blogs of most major newspapers started off, well, not so good -- infrequently updated, with stale content. I'd written most of them off, figuring I'd stick to Bookslut, Book Ninja, and Shaken and Stirred for my lit world round-ups, and at least they'd amuse me in the process.

However, I've noticed marked improvement on several fronts lately.

Ever since Carolyn Kellogg of Pinky's Paperhaus signed on as lead blogger for the L.A. Times lit blog, Jacket Copy, it has gotten really, really good, managing both international coverage and a strong local flavor.

For awhile there, the NYT's Paper Cuts was among the worst offenders, almost pathologically boring; however, they too seem to have stepped up their game.

The Washington Post's Short Stack doesn't usually write about new books, but its Top-5 list format is fairly irresistible, and a great introduction to overlooked titles.

However, others like the Boston Globe's Off the Shelf seem to be struggling along with a skeleton crew, posting mostly calendars of literary events and bestseller lists. And the Orlando Sentinel called it quits with theirs last year.

I was surprised that many papers, while hosting literally scores of staff blogs, didn't have lit blogs -- the Chicago Tribune (which has blogs on theatre and religion, but no books), the Baltimore Sun, and even the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Not in the famously book-loving Seattle? Shocking.).

As many newspapers are scaling back the book coverage in their print editions, are newspaper lit blogs stepping in to fill the gap, and are they doing a sufficient job? And are there any other good newspaper lit blogs that I've missed?

Escape from East Egg: The Madeline Dare Series by Cornelia Read

A Field of Darkness (2006)
The Crazy School (2008)

Madeline Dare comes from a family whose money "is so old there's none left." However, since her debutante days, she's traded in WASP-y breeding for a working class husband and a home in the decidedly unglamorous Syracuse. She's happy with the former, less so with the latter.

The first book, A Field of Darkness begins when Madeline's beloved, moneyed cousin, Lapthorne Townsend, is linked to a decades-old double murder. She decides to sniff out the evidence before ratting out a family member, and quickly finds herself in over her head. There are plenty of people in Syracuse who'd rather keep the case buried, and Madeline's discoveries prove dangerous, and sometimes fatal, to the people who help with her sleuthing.

Though the prose sometimes gets a little rangy and ponderous, Read's first novel introduces a snarky, sharp heroine made of surprisingly tough stuff. Add to that some really nice observations about how the very rich are different from you and me, and a plot that consistently ventures into the unexpected, and I was eager to see what the lovely Mrs. Dare would get up to next.

In The Crazy School, Madeline and her husband, Dean, have left Syracuse in the wake of events from the previous book, and Madeline is working off her survivor's guilt by teaching at a school for disturbed teenagers.

The school is run by the creepy, yet charismatic David Santangelo, who insists that students and staff alike submit to group and individual therapy and a bevy of odd restrictions -- no caffeine, no use of the "f" word (Santangelo lets them cuss a blue streak in class, but believes the word "fuck" is "fundamentally linked to violence against women").

Madeline cares deeply about her students, but finds herself stymied by colleagues who seem to have drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid, and are only marginally more stable than their charges.

Then a student confides in Madeline about his pregnant girlfriend, Fay. Fay is days away from turning 18, and then the two of them can leave the school and try to start a life together -- but only if their secret stays safe. Madeline agrees to help them, but on the night of Fay's birthday, the couple is found dead in what initially appears to be a suicide pact. However, Madeline thinks otherwise and goes to the police with her suspicions, only to be arrested for the murders.

When she's released on insufficient evidence, Madeline sets out to clear her name and find the real killer, despite the advice of her well-heeled attorney (wealthy connections sometimes have their advantages). With the help of a few colleagues and students, none of whom she's entirely sure she can trust, Madeline begins to dig up dirt on the school, and discovers enough hidden agendas and ugly secrets to fill a truck -- but everything depends on which version of the story is true.

Read does an excellent job of casting suspicion on all of the book's supporting characters, which is especially effective since Madeline isn't the most circumspect of crime heroines. Each time she confides in a colleague or a student, you'll be cringing with worry over which of them will use the information to stab her in the back.

I was introduced to Read's work through her story, "Hungry Enough" in the recent noir collection A Hell of a Woman, a nasty little piece of intrigue about Hollywood wives. In the Madeline Dare books, Read's gift for pithy dialogue, edgy plots, and suspenseful twists can stretch out and get comfy -- although no promises that readers will be. Very tense stuff.

If you like amateur sleuth novels, but prefer them out of the rose garden and into the alley, this book is for you.