Books Set in North America: New York, New York

Brazen, by Julia Haart (2022)

Brazen is a whiny memoir about a woman who was born in Moscow, Russia to secular parents.  As a young child, her parents immigrated to America, where they became ultimately joined a large ultra-Orthodox community in New York and were essentially cutoff from the modern world.  Later, as an adult, she left the community to enter the world of fashion and become a shoe designer.

As her family became indoctrinated into the ultra-Orthodox community, Haart was taught to believe that any deviation from the community’s norms would incur the wrath of God.  Because her family was not always religious, her parents were concerned about making a good marriage match.  Although she had some say in her marriage partner, Haart essentially married a young man she had met only 3 times prior to the wedding.  They had little in common and he expected his wife to work and keep the home while he studied Torah.

She described how, at age 19 and with no formal higher education, she taught 17- and 18-year old girls in her community.  The education was limited to religious instruction, as subjects such as math and science were forbidden.  Eventually, her husband gets an outside job and the family moved to an Orthodox community in Atlanta for a few years.

Somehow, the family has money and Haart describes the high-end clothing that she wears, after altering them to conform to the stringencies of the community – long skirts, high necks, long sleeves so no skin is showing.

After Haart left the community, my interest in her life began to wane.  She wanted to be a shoe designer.  Suddenly, everyone she met wanted to both help her and take advantage of her.  She admitted that she was naïve to the outside world, but still …  She also describes in cringy detail her sexual encounters.  Suddenly, everyone wants to have sex with her, and she often seems to have no objection to their wishes.

What she left out, however, is the reaction of the community once she left.  She mentions one instance in which she was invited to a family wedding but was never invited to a family event after that.  She implies that her children have left the community but doesn’t explain what and how that happened.  One daughter married young before Haart had left the community.

The book could have used some better editing.  Some of her accounts of biblical stories seem a bit “off.”

I read the book to the end, but found it very whiny and egocentric.

Read:  March 25, 2023

2.5 Stars

Books Set in North America; United States

Deliberate Cruelty: Trumann Capote, The Millionaire's Wife and the Murder of the Century, by Roseanne Montillo (2022)

 

Deliberate Cruelty is about the rise and fall of Ann Woodward and Truman Capote, two prominent figures in New York society.  Their paths occasionally crossed, and Capote was “deliberately cruel” in his writings of Ann.

 

Ann Woodward (née Evangeline Lucille Crowell; 1915 – 1975) grew up in poverty in Kansas, but she had big dreams.  She changed her name and set off for New York, where she became a model, actress and nightclub dancer.  It was as a nightclub dancer that she met William Woodward, Sr.  They likely carried on an affair until the father introduced her to William Woodward, Jr.  The son was smitten, possibly as an act of rebellion against his tight-laced and monied family.

 

When Ann and William, Jr., married, Ann became the socialite she had dreamed of becoming.  Life was not all she expected, however.  Soon William, Jr., tired of her and the two began having very public fights.  One night in 1955, Ann shot and killed her husband, thinking that he was the prowler who had been breaking into homes in their posh neighborhood.  Although Ann was ultimately not convicted of her husband’s killing (a cover-up by her in-laws to avoid a worse scandal?), she was shunned from her former society life.

 

Truman Capote (1924 – 1984), was also born into poverty and came from a dysfunctional family.  He, too, had dreams of making it big.  With the publication of In Cold Blood, he became a household name and a fixture in New York society.  Capote became the confident of all the high society socialites, or swans as he called them. They spilled all their secrets to him.  Capote imagined his next book, which would be called Answered Prayers, to be a fictionalized account of all the tales that his swans had revealed.  The sordid scandal of the Woodward killing was red meat to Capote.  He took to calling Ann Woodward Mrs. Bang Bang.

 

Capote’s downfall came with the publication and article entitled La Côte Basque, 1965, which was published in Esquire magazine.  The story was a chapter from his incomplete novel Answered Prayers.  La Côte Basque, 1965, was a thinly veiled portrayal of his swans.  Once the story was published he was instantly cut off from high society, that had been so meaningful to him.

 

This was a fast and fun read.

 

Read: March 13, 2023

 

4 Stars

 

Books Set in North America: United States, Massachusetts and California

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin (2022)

 

Sam Masur and Sadie Green met as young children when Sam was in the hospital recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident, that will leave his disabled.  Sam was traumatized by the accident that killed his mother and had been non-communicative.  Sadie, who was bored visiting her sick sister, went into the hospital’s game room.  There she met Sam who was playing a video game.  They quickly bonded over video games, and she got him out of his depressive state.  Years later, they ran into each other again when Sam was attending Harvard, and Sadie was at MIT.

 

As young college students, they renewed their love-hate friendship and their love of video games.  They created their first video game, Ichigo, which quickly launched them into the gaming industry.  The game, however, required a platform created by Sadie’s former professor and lover.  While taking a course in computer gaming, Sadie entered into a destructive relationship with a married professor, who comes in and out of her life.  During a particularly painful breakup with the professor, Sam pulled Sadie out of her depression.

 

Sam and Sadie established a computer game company with the help of Marx, who had been Sam’s college roommate.  At this point, the novel’s focus explained in detail the creation of various games the company created.  Sam and Sadie’s relationship also went through many periods of ups and downs.  Marx is the glue that keeps their gaming company from exploding.

 

The first part of the book kept my interest, but I got bored by the final third.  Sam and Sadie’s relationship began to drag.  They were never romantically involved, but they were constantly feuding.  I ceased being interested in their exploits.  The novel then delved into politically correct issues by creating games where the characters could enter into same-sex marriages.

 

The title of the novel comes from a soliloquy in Macbeth where Macbeth discussed the futility of life.

 

Read:  March 11, 2023

 

3 Stars

Books Set in Europe: England

Disobedience, by Naomi Alderman (2006)

Read: March 3, 2023

3 Stars