I didn’t care so much for Russell Banks’ “Lost Memory of Skin,” and I probably wouldn’t have checked out had I read the synopsis first. It was the subject matter that bothered me, not the writing. The writing was straight-foward and fine. So I hesitated briefly before I gave it only two stars, but then I remembered that these reviews are entirely subjective, and I didn’t enjoy the book all that much because the subject matter is squicky no matter how well Banks writes about it. It did, however, make me think about the importance of showing your children sincere, focused love and attention, lest they grow up to be dysfunctional outcasts.

Here is someone else’s review of the book.

Years ago, when I was young and carefree, I did a lot of driving. Because I lived 20 minutes away from my high school and then 40ish minutes away from college but also because gas was something like a penny for 17 gallons.

(That’s not entirely true, but it was something like 95 cents a gallon. And sometimes we drove down to Georgia just to fill up, because it was even cheaper there. Oh, but those were the days.)

Anyway, I was young and carefree and spent a lot of my time in my car, and I had one of those great big Case Logic cases full of CDs that travelled along with me. And in that CD case was Paul Simon’s “Graceland,” and it was in my CD player for weeks and months at a time. I loved that album. And even though I hadn’t actually listened to it in years I was sad a few years ago when I realized that the CD had disappeared. But then! I found a copy a few months ago at a drugstore. I would’ve bought it even if it hadn’t been 75 percent off (because it wasn’t just a drugstore, it was a going-out-of-business drugstore!), because it’s such a good album. It’s reclaimed its rightful place as Grand Duke Of The CD Player In My Car ever since.

So clearly the first thing that happens when I read a book in which the protagonist’s name is Fat Charlie is that I spend days with Paul Simon’s “Crazy Love, Vol. II” in my head. And then once I finish the book, I spend a bit of time trying to find out whether it’s a direct reference or not. I don’t find anything conclusive, but based on the lyrics

Fat Charlie, the archangel, sloped into the room.
He said “I have no opinion about this
and I have no opinion about that.

Sad as a lonely little wrinkled balloon
He said “Well I don’t claim to be happy about this, boys,
and I don’t seem to be happy about that.”

I have to concur that there Paul Simon did have some influence, at least, on Neil Gaiman when he wrote “Anansi Boys.” It’s the story of the aforementioned Fat Charlie, the sad-sack estranged son of Anansi. The Spider god-guy from African folklore. Except that Fat Charlie doesn’t know that when we first meet him. He also doesn’t know that he sort of has a brother he doesn’t know anything about. And also there’s a budding serial killer and some bird attacks.

It’s kind of a weird book.

It’s also sometimes tense and frequently funny. It’s the first Gaiman book I’ve read,* but I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last.

(I read “Good Omens” by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett in 2006.)

There’s a pharmaceutical company. A researcher approaches them, saying she can develop a big-bucks drug if they’ll send her to Brazil with gobs and gobs of funding. So they do. And then she’s pretty much out of communication for a few years, so they send someone after her, to find her and make sure she’s making adequate progress. And he dies. So they send someone else after her. Ann Patchett’s “State of Wonder” follows that someone — the lonely, somewhat wounded Dr. Marina Singh — as she navigates a wildly unfamiliar territory.

Reading this book reaffirmed something I already knew: I am not cut out for life in the jungle. The book put me in a weird place, mentally, like I was not quite connected to the real world any longer, and it gave me crazy dreams about fighting giant spiders. (Although, spoilers!, there are no fights with giant spiders in the book. There are, however, more spoilers!, fights with other horrible beasts.) It’s very much a modernized “Heart of Darkness,” and it made me feel like I was falling down the rabbit hole. I know that’s kind of a cliche within a cliche, but reading this made me feel like I was stranded in the jungle right there with Dr. Singh. So at least they’re appropriate cliches, I guess.

I love Patchett’s phrasing —

“There was inside of her a very modest physical collapse, not a faint but a sort of folding, as if she were an extension ruler and her ankles and knees and hips were all being brought together at closer angles.”

for example, and also

“The outside air was heavy enough to be bitten and chewed.”

— and the pace of “State of Wonder” swept me up from the first page. It felt, though, like Patchett was holding the characters at a distance somehow.

So. I didn’t love “State of Wonder” like I loved Patchett’s “Bel Canto,” but I definitely liked it quite a lot.