Freedomland and some others that I barely read

I half-assed my way through three books in a row. It's just been a terrible month for books. First, my book club was reading American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. Now this is a book that I was very eager to read about 8 months ago and then, well, Obama won the election, we saw the backside of the Bush dynasty and suddenly, I didn't really care about a fictionalized account of the former first lady. Still, it was book club, so I gave it a shot. My overall reaction was:WHY BOTHER? Why write this? I feel like Sittenfeld (and I rather liked her book Prep) was just trying desperately in real life to understand why someone like Laura Bush could possibly marry someone like George Bush and this book was the result of her therapeutic musings. I think friend Corinne summed it up best at school pick-up when she said, "It's kind of trashy." We tried to think of another word, but that sort of fit it. A weird expose about a woman we don't really know or care about (anymore). Also it was creepy because the character isn't really Laura Bush (duh). But hey, satisfy yourself--youthful car crash, abortion (gasp!), pyramid schemes, white trash friends...there's a little of everything, but probably not much real insight into the former occupants of the White House. I didn't read every word and most of it out of sequence, though I still intend to talk a lot and forcefully at book club.

Next book I didn't really read: The Bloodstone Papers. Wow. The writing in this was great. I was marking all sorts of passages. I think my favorite was:I was hello loved on Barrow Lane y a bleach blonde prostitute in a purple vinyl mac and white stilletos.
But then I got bogged down. This is one of those stories that moves back and forth in time (too much for my little brain, Time Traveller's Wife notwithstanding). I was really interested at first because it's the story of Anglo-Indians in the forties and in present-day(ish) London. I learned interesting things like that Anglo-Indians are an actual race. That is, the narrator has to explain that his parents and his parents' parents and their parents were all Anglo-Indian (formerly known as Eurasian) and that he himself is not simply the product of a mixed-race marriage. There's great political stuff, but there's also a mystery I didn't care about and much beating up of poor horse-and-buggy cab drivers. I prefered Glen Duncan's Death of an Ordinary Man which I read years ago on a washed-out weekend getaway in a cozy inn in Camden, Maine. I may have been influenced by my surroundings then, but remember, Duncan's writing is lovely.

And finally, Freedomland, by Richard Price, which I actually count as a book I read because I read more than 3/4 of it. Price is a writer who has a brilliant ear (or eye) for a scene. Half his perfect scenes in Lush Life were throw-away, having little to do with the plot, but were brilliant local color. Freedomland is no Lush Life. Also, I never, ever want to go to New Jersey again. Just kidding. Still, it's like watching The Wire (with which Price was also connected). You can't help but think of Baltimore as a horrible place. Freedomland takes place in the ghettoized housing developments similar to the setting for Price's book, Clockers (also a good book and a good movie, though I read/saw that years ago, so who knows?)Freedomland is about a missing child. Another topic I'm not super-keen on reading. White, damaged woman accuses black carjacker of making off with her child asleep in the back seat. Now, having grown up near(ish) Boston and remembering the infamous Charles Stuart incident, I was primed to doubt her story even without the flap information. This book was just sad, in the end, without enough great characters to make it a good read. Credit to Price for capturing the heat and irritation and sense of community that exists in these marginalized neighborhoods. He just does it better in Lush Life (One of my top 2008 reads, btw).

Here's hoping for some better luck with reads in June.