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BOOK NOOK
2007's best fiction
By Vick Mickunas
Sunday, December 30, 2007
As we turn the last few pages of 2007, I'm looking back at my favorite books from the past year. Here are the works of fiction that gave me the most reading pleasure:
"The Yiddish Policeman's Union" by Michael Chabon. This clever novel merges detective mystery thriller with alternate history. After the state of Israel collapsed in 1948, a Jewish enclave was created in Sitka, Alaska. Chabon's grizzled homicide detective Meyer Landsman lives in a fleabag motel. When a neighbor down the hall is murdered, Landsman takes it personally. As he seeks out clues he gets entangled in a sinister web of crime syndicates and deadly chess games. Chabon soars across literary canyons with exuberant abandon in this noir plot boiler.
"Canaan" by Donald McCaig. It took a long time for McCaig to pen this sequel to his Civil War novel "Jacob's Ladder." It was well worth the wait. "Canaan" unfolds during the two decades between the end of the Civil War and Custer's Last Stand at the Little Big Horn. This prodigious imagining of the lives of soldiers, former slaves and the last remnants of American Indians fleeing the encroachment of railroads and white settlers is splendidly wrought. McCaig has written a western of monumental power.
"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz. This story bounces across the pages. Oscar is intelligent, overweight and obsessed. He's a Dominican kid living in New Jersey with his comic books and a fantasy of one day finding the woman of his dreams. The action shifts to the Dominican Republic, where Oscar becomes enamored with a dangerous female. This inspirational tragedy unfolds with diabolical precision among astonishing footnotes.
"Diary of a Bad Year" by J.M. Coetzee. Published this week. Coetzee is a South African who resides in Australia. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. His main character, Senor C, is a distinguished author living in Australia. He hires an attractive young woman from his apartment building to help out with a writing project and more. Senor C expresses lacerating opinions like: "democracy does not allow for politics outside the democratic system. In this sense, democracy is totalitarian." Coetzee tantalizes readers into learning a new way of reading.
"The Ministry of Special Cases" by Nathan Englander. Set in Buenos Aires during Argentina's "Dirty War." The young people of Argentina were being abducted and swallowed by Argentina's state security system. Most were never heard from again. The Poznan family experienced this national nightmare when their son was arrested for possessing banned books. His parents searched for him and they were drawn into the maze of "The Ministry of Special Cases." The things they found out were chilling. A whole generation of children simply disappeared.
Honorable mentions: Laura Lippman's "What the Dead Know." James Lee Burke's "The Tin Roof Blowdown." Garrison Keillor's "Pontoon."
Book reviewer Vick Mickunas blogs daily about books
at www.DaytonDailyNews.com/booknook.
Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
Reviews
"The Yiddish Policeman's Union" by Michael Chabon, Harper Collins, 414 pages, $27
"Canaan" by Donald McCaig, Norton, 426 pages, $25
"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz, Riverhead, 335 pages, $25
"Diary of a Bad Year" by J.M. Coetzee, Viking, 231 pages, $25
"The Ministry of Special Cases" by Nathan Englander, Knopf, 339 pages, $25
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 1/15/08; 12:23:16 PM
from the dept.
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