Book Chatter

I’ve been saying it for weeks but summer never quite hit me this year. The weather kicked in late and the “summer” that I had painted in my mind never materialized. I’ll admit, I was sort of depressed about it but the good thing is that I went right into fall, which is my favorite time of the year anyway.

School shopping (supplies and clothes) was completed yesterday. I buy clothes all summer long but I still had the shoes to contend with. Bought ’em all on sale and everyone is happy. Right afterward I plopped down with a glass of Australian Shiraz and read a good chunk of Cutting for Stone. The book has nothing to do with Australia but it’s what I had on hand and it met my criteria for drinking. It was red and mellow and wonderful.

This morning, The Girl and I got up early to make a stack of gluten-free pancakes, sausage and her famous eggs so we are all stuffed now.

Later this afternoon I am going to see Cowboys & Aliens. I heard that it got horrible reviews but my ticket is already purchased so I am hoping that Ford and Craig will make it worth my while. After the movie, I am going to Sisley for dinner. Should be a nice, relaxing evening.

Hope you have a wonderful day. I am about to pour myself a second cup of Joe (French Roast today), so all is good here.

The Upright Piano Player
By David Abbott
(Nan A. Talese/Knopf , Hardcover, 9780385534420, June 2011, 272pp.)

The Short of It:

Quietly haunting and tinged with loneliness.

The Rest of It:

The books that I love are typically quiet books, in that the characters and storyline follow a rather plain, yet interesting path. Domesticity fascinates me. So for this reason I thought I would love The Upright Piano Player. Although parts of it were lovely and beautifully crafted, the narrative structure didn’t work for me.

The story is about Henry Cage. Forced into retirement by his own company, he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. His wife ends their marriage after having an affair, and his grown son, although “around,” is not on terribly good terms with his father. As Henry struggles to make sense of this new life, a violent encounter with a stranger on New Year’s Eve forces him to make a decision.

This in itself is a lot to deal with but the story opens with a different tragedy and then goes back five years to when he is first retired. Normally, I don’t have a problem with knowing the outcome of a particular situation before reading the story, but this outcome was so bleak, and depressing that as I was reading, it left me feeling hopeless about Henry’s situation.

Plus, I expected the story to at least circle back to the tragedy that it mentioned in the beginning of the book, especially since it had the potential of devastating Henry and his family, but it doesn’t. The decision to “not go there” made it a random tragedy and although events are often random in everyday life, this was too significant to ignore.

As lovely as the writing was, there was no payoff for me. I don’t need a happy ending…I am not about being perfect, but I didn’t see a point to that tragic opening, and that is what I was thinking about at the end of this novel. There’s no epiphany…no “aha” moment.

As harsh as that might sound, I will absolutely read another novel by Mr. Abbott. The Upright Piano Player is a debut novel for him, and shows a great deal of promise. I look forward to seeing what he writes next.

Source: Borrowed