Books Set in North America: United States

The Abstinence Teacher, by Tom Perrotta (2007)

Ruth Ramsey is the sex education teacher in a small town somewhere in the northeast. She believes in teaching the high school students the truth about sex.  All was going well until the growing and ultra-fundamentalist church in the community objected.  Suddenly, the lines between church and state became blurred.  The Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth convinced the school board to institute an abstinence curriculum.

Ruth is sent to re-training seminars to learn this new focus on sex-ed.  Although she tries to teach the new course, she makes known to the students that her heart isn’t into the new curriculum.

Ruth is divorced with two young daughters.  One of her daughters, Maggie, is on the soccer team, which is coached by Tim Mason.

Tim is a former rock musician, alcoholic and had serious drug problems.  He, too, is divorced, with a daughter, who lives with her mother and wealthy step-father.  Tim joined the Tabernacle and believes that it turned his life around. At the behest of Pastor Dennis, Tim married Carrie, a fellow church member, who is much younger.  Thus, Tim entered into a “good Christian marriage”, albeit one with an unsatisfactory sex life.

All seems to be going well with Tim until after a big soccer game, he leads all the girls on the team into a Tabernacle prayer.  This was the last straw for Ruth, who was dealing with the Tabernacle’s interference in her sex-ed class.  Ruth is also struggling with young teen daughters, who are ready to rebel against their mother.  When Maggie begins to show an interest in joining the Tabernacle Church, Ruth really becomes concerned.

Ruth confronts Tim with the issue of his proselytizing.  Although they have an initial mistrust, they have an unmistakable attraction.  Tim begins to re-evaluate his life and question the structure of his life within the Tabernacle.

In one scene, Ruth’s daughter was required to write an essay on the woman and man who made an impression on her.  When Ruth asked her daughter who the man she wrote about, the daughter answered “Donald Trump.”  Remember this book was written in 2007!

I’m not sure what to make of this novel.  His description of JoAnn Marlow, the “virginity consultant”, seemed like a caricature.  The descriptions of the pastor at the Tabernacle Church was always reminding Tim not to slip back into sin, thus Tim was constantly worrying about whether or not he was a good Christian.

It was a quick read, but will not be added to my top favorites.

Read: September 25, 2018

3 Stars

Books Set in Europe; Spain

By Fire, By Water, by Mitchell James Kaplan (2010)

By Fire, By Water is a historical novel about the Spanish Inquisition.  Many of the characters in the novel, including the main character, Luis de Santágel, Hernando de Talavera, and Cristóbal Colón, were real people.

Luis de Santágel was the royal chancellor of Aragon, and a converso, a Jew forced to convert to Christianity.  De Santágel retained an interest in his Jewish heritage, although that was becoming more dangerous with Tomás de Torquemada’s views on anyone not believing in the “true faith.”

De Santágel was influential in the court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, however, he knew that his role in the court was tenuous due to his Jewish background. After the murder of the Inquisition’s Chief Inquisitor, Pedro de Arbués, de Santágel realizes that Torquemada’s tactics are much more horrific than previously encountered.  After the Inquisitors arrest both Luis’ son, Gabriel, and his brother, Estefan, Luis sees just how far Torquemada will take his pursuit to extract confessions of faith from non-Christians.

Religious issues become even more complicated when the Catholic monarchs descend into Granada and force out the Moors, who had built a large and peaceful society.  Spurred on by religious fervor, Queen Isabella issued an edict expelling all Jews from the kingdom.

In the meantime, Cristóbal Colón, has De Santágel ear and needs an advocate to convince the Court to help fund an exploration to India across the expanse of the ocean.

No story would be complete without a love story.  De Santágel met the beautiful Judith Midgel, and her nephew, Levi, who are secret Jews.  All of this leads him to explore his abandoned Jewish faith.

This novel brings this period of history to life and the characters are seem very real.

As a side note, in the novel, Levi accompanied Cristóbal Colón on his voyage to be a translator.  He was the only non-sailor on the voyage.  In fact, there was a non-sailor translator listed in Colón’s logs whose name was listed as Luis de Torres, a transliteration of the Hebrew name, Levi Midgel.

Read: September 16, 2018

4 Stars

Books Set in Europe and the United States

The Fortunate Ones, by Ellen Umansky (2017)

This novel travels back in time between the life of young Rose Zimmer, who was a young girl living in Vienna at the beginning of World War II, and the mid-2000s, when she is an old woman living in Los Angeles.  One of her earliest memories is of her mother, who, after suffering a miscarriage, asked that the painting The Bellhop, by Chain Soutine, be brought to her room.

At the time, young Rose thought the painting was ugly and couldn’t understand her mother’s attracting to the painting.  The image of her mother and the painting, however, stayed with her.  By 1939, it was dangerous for Jews living in Austria.  Although her parents couldn’t leave the country, they were able to get their children, Rose and her older brother, out via the Kindertransportto England.

After the War, Rose married and moved to Los Angeles.  The painting, however, was lost.  

Enter Liz Goldstein.  She came from a broken family and lived part time her mother until her death.  Then she moved to Los Angeles to live with her father.  Hanging in his elaborate home was the Soutine.  One night, when Liz’s father was out of town, the teenage Liz decided to take advantage of his absence and threw a wild party in his house.  Come morning, the Soutine was missing.  Liz held herself personally responsible for this loss.

Liz grew up and was living in New York when she learned her father had passed away. She returned to Los Angeles for the funeral, where she met Rose.  Rose was an acquaintance of Liz’s father.  They became friends over the lost Soutine, which each had lost in their own way.  Liz decided to reopen the case of the lost painting and promised to help Rose get restitution for the loss.

The lost painting causes both Rose and Liz to feel guilt over the lost painting and reminisce about their dead parents.  Is there a mystery over the second theft of the painting?

The book started out strong, but lost steam mid-way.  I wanted to know more about Rose’s life after arriving in England. We learn that she and her brother are separated, and get the feeling that she didn’t fit into her new family very well.  This wasn’t well developed, however, and later in the book, we learn that her adopted family took pains to see that she was well educated.  Liz’s relationship with Max, her father’s former business partner fell flat.

This was a quick read, but ultimately, I was left unsatisfied.

Read: September 8, 2018

3 Stars

Books Set in the United States: New York City

Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles (2011)

Rules of Civility begins when a middle-aged couple are viewing a retrospective exhibition of Walker Evans photographs, taken during the 1930s.  They come across two portraits of a man taken years apart.  The first shows a handsome young man who appears as a man of wealth. In the second photograph, he appears down on his luck.  The man, whom the wife recognizes as Tinker Gray, was once an important figure in the her past.  Seeing the photographs causes the woman to reminisce of her life back as a young woman making her way in New York City.

Katey Kontent is the narrator.  She remembers back when she first moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan and worked as a secretary in a law firm and lived in a boarding house.  On New Year’s Eve 1937, she and her friend Eve, went out on the town and in a chance encounter met Tinker Grey.  He was a handsome young banker, and both Eve and Katey fall in love with him.  Soon the three of them were inseparable until a car accident occurred and Eve was seriously injured.  She recovered, and soon after she and Tinker set off for Europe.

Through Tinker, Katey was able to rub elbows with the wealthy and highly connected in New York society.  She landed a plum job as an assistant to the publisher of a hot new magazine, which allowed her to further enter the world of the rich and famous.  Tinker and Eve were always on her mind, however.  When Eve suddenly returned to New York, having become bored with Tinker, Katey looked to renew her relationship with Tinker. But was he who she thought he was.

There is a mystery surrounding Tinker and there were vague hints to his “situation”, which Katey had never explored before.

I enjoyed this book, but found it a bit hard to get into at first.  The author certainly painted a vivid picture of life amount the young inherited wealth in New York in the 1930s.

Read: September 2, 2018

3 Stars