Well that was weird.

“Mary Modern,” by Camille DeAngelis, is the story of a young scientist who wants a baby. When Lucy discovers that she’s unable to have children, she decides to clone her grandmother. In her basement.

Like I said. Weird.

Things go awry for our thoroughly unlikeable heroine when GrandmaClone arrives not as a newborn but as a 20-something who has retained all of her memories. Young Grandma Mary is confused and quite unhappy to find herself so swiftly transported from the Roaring Twenties to 2009.

In addition to Lucy and her GrandmaClone, Lucy’s boyfriend and her five boarders live in the family’s ancestral home. The boarders seem for the most part to be meant as comic relief. I found them more annoying than humorous. The boyfriend is one of the few even marginally likable characters in the book.

This was a really odd book, and I didn’t much care for it.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read “The Great Gatsby,” which plays a large role in Chris Bohjalian’s “The Double Bind.” Bohjalian’s book made me want to read “Gatsby” again and maybe revisit “The Double Bind” afterward.

I wish that I hadn’t read anything about “The Double Bind” before I read it. I enjoyed it quite a bit anyway, and I’d recommend it.

If you’re planning to take my recommendation, don’t read any further. Spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned.
Continue reading "The Double Bind" →

I’ve never seen or heard an opera before, and I’ve never really been inclined to do so. In Ann Patchett’s “Bel Canto,” though, the author captures the potential opera has to move and alter a person. It made me want to run to the record store to steep myself in Maria Callas and Puccini.

Beyond Patchett’s proficiency for translating the music to the page, “Bel Canto” is a stunning story. The blurring of the line between good and evil is beautifully paced, and although there is a quite large cast of characters, most all of them are well drawn and memorable. The story is wonderfully romantic and tragic — just what I would imagine opera to be.