Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

"'The night,' Joe said. 'Tastes too good. You live by day, you play by their rules. So we live by night and play by ours. But, D? We don't really have any rules.'"
                           -from the novel

This book was chosen for our Page Turners group partly because it was a "book bundle" (several copies available in a set) and partly because the author attended college in our home state of Florida. I must say it is far different than any we have read. The language was strong and the violence was intense with more graphic sex than we are used to seeing. I am giving the book a 4; it was pretty well written, a definite page-turner but not really enjoyable. If this were a movie, you could close your eyes at the bloody, sadistic parts but, of course, that's impossible with a book! A fellow reader described Live by Night as more of a "guy book" and I agree.

Joe Coughlin is the wayward son of a Boston police captain, a self-described outlaw as opposed to a gangster. He gets mixed up with crime boss Maso Pescatore while in the Charlestown Penitentiary. When they are both released, Maso sends Joe to Ybor City in Tampa to run his illegal businesses, rum running and others. It isn't long before Joe finds he has become a gangster. (Outlaws do illegal things, gangsters kill!)

Part I was set in Boston, 1926-1929 but I particularly liked Part II where the action moved to Tampa, FL, 1929-1933. I knew about the cigar industry in Tampa and Henry Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel, called "Plant's Palace" but I didn't know that Ybor City was named for Vicente Ybor, a cigar magnate. I really didn't realize the racism of that time and place, though I should have. There was serious prejudice against blacks and Cubans and a dangerous presence of the KKK. By Part III, Joe is working in Cuba.

Joe was not a respectable citizen but I found myself rooting for him when he found his true love and stood up, at great risk, to the Boss as he refused to kill his longtime friend and right-hand-man. There certainly are plenty of characters to hate in the novel. I look forward to hearing what our group members think about the book tomorrow so I will be back.
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Park Lake Page Turners met this morning, always an enjoyable occasion. The average rating for Live by Night was 3.4, no 5's and no 1's. There was plenty to discuss, in fact with 18 questions from the publisher found on litlovers.com, more than we could get around to. Some talk centered around main character Joe and his seeming to have some good in him which he kept hidden much of the time. We found it interesting to speculate about his upbringing, particularly the loss of his mother, and how he became  an outlaw. Being Floridians, we liked the Tampa setting with Ybor City in the forefront because many of us have been there. We pretty much agreed that Graciela was a refreshing character amidst so many heartless criminals and we thought she brought out the best in Joe. To say much more would possibly spoil the plot so I will sign off here.

Emma A Modern Retelling by Alexander McCall Smith

"Emma looked at Miss Taylor. She felt the tears welling up in her eyes. Jane hated her; that had been spelled out to her. Frank took the view that she had grossly complicated his life through her indiscretion. Harriet regarded her as a rival, and Philip no doubt blamed her for his downfall and disgrace. Nobody, it seemed, liked her---apart from her father, and possibly George, and even then he had been cross about her rudeness to Miss Bates, even if he later gave her credit for trying to make amends.  All of these people, she thought, could so easily see me as an enemy."
                             Emma's revelations, from the novel

I was not familiar with the original Emma written by Jane Austen so after reading this novel, I found the following on Wikipedia:

"Emma, by Jane Austen, is a novel about youthful hubris and the perils of misconstrued romance. The novel was first published in December 1815. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively comedy of manners among her characters. Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, 'I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.' In the first sentence she introduces the title character as 'Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich.' Emma is spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; she is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives; and her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray."

Except for the modern day setting, this describes Smith's Emma quite well. I was especially struck by "comedy of manners" and by Austen's intention that the reader wouldn't much like the heroine at the start. This updated Emma does seem very self-centered and a bit snobbish but by the end, this reader somehow ended up rooting for her. My quote at the beginning of the post comes from near the end of the novel when Emma discovers some unflattering facts about herself, partly due to the ever-so-wise, Miss Taylor, her former governess. By choosing this quote I thought I could pique your interest in the plot without any actual "spoilers."

I found this version of Emma to be quite entertaining---light reading, to be sure, but with some challenging vocabulary thrown in from time to time. I will rate it a 4 and recommend it to ladies, particularly.

The Great Santini by Pat Conroy

"From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli,
We will fight our country's battles on land, on air, on sea.
First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean,
We are proud to claim the title of United States Marines."
                         -from the Marines' Hymn

I have recently discovered Pat Conroy and love his writing but I must say this novel was not entirely enjoyable. In its 536 pages there were some touching moments and some humor but a lot of physical and verbal abuse to get through. I will rate it a 4.

Ben Meecham is the oldest son of Lt. Col. Bull Meecham, a Marine fighter pilot,"The Great Santini." He is at best rigid and dictatorial in his parenting and at worst, cruel and abusive. These qualities are most often visited on Ben, a gifted athlete who also has many of the softer qualities of his mother---kindness, compassion, the love of words. The entire book is really the family story in the year 1962.

In reading the biography from the author's website, I learned some interesting things related to the author and this novel:

".... the Conroys moved to Atlanta, where Pat wrote his novel, The Great Santini, published in 1976, and later made into a film starring Robert Duvall, that explored the conflicts of the author's childhood, particularly his ambivalent love for his violent and abusive father. The publication of a book that so painfully exposed his family's secret brought Conroy a period of tremendous personal desolation. This crisis resulted not only in his divorce, but the divorce of his parents; his mother presented a copy of The Great Santini to the judge as "evidence" in divorce proceedings against his father."

I guess the plot seemed very real because much of the story was autobiographical. I certainly gained an appreciation for not being born a "Marine brat"!  Also I didn't know there was a movie. Now I have to decide if I really want to see it. I do have a copy of The Death of Santini that I look forward to reading soon.

Murder at Ford's Theatre by Margaret Truman

"That was one of many reasons I got out of the business, Yale. Criminal law is easy, provided you don't have to deal with people. Like most everything else in life."
                    -Mac Smith, from the novel

This is the second murder mystery in Truman's Capital Crimes series that I have read. The other was Murder at the Library of Congress. I enjoyed them both. I will rate this one a 4.

Obviously Margaret Truman knows her way around Washington, D.C. It is particularly interesting to read one of her who-dunnits that takes place somewhere you have actually visited. I have been to the Library of Congress but not Ford's Theatre so I was more involved with the former. I will definitely read more of her novels.

Early in the novel a young intern is found murdered outside Ford's Theatre. Detectives Rick Klayman and Mo Johnson discover several unique suspects as they investigate. They have serious doubts about the guilt of the one eventually arrested, Jeremiah Lerner, the son of a powerful senator and his ex-wife who is the head of Ford's Theatre and in line for the top spot in the National Endowment for the Arts. I found myself conflicted as to who to root for. I really liked the two detectives but also identified with Georgetown professor/defense lawyer, Mac Smith. I even felt sorry for Jeremiah even though he was not very likeable. It seems Truman is pretty skilled at character development.

The book becomes a page turner as the plot thickens. The ending is surprising but isn't that what we want in a murder mystery?

Angel City by Patrick Smith

"A few miles north of Homestead, Jared thought he recognized the spot beside the highway where they had stopped to let the radiator cool on the day they arrived in Homestead. He remembered the lunch of sausage and crackers and hot Coke, and the conversations about the fruit stand and the ocean and fishing and bathing suits and things to come. He knew now that all those dreams they had talked about were only dreams, and they had been washed away like a sandcastle in a mountain stream."
                                  -from the novel

This novel was very much a page turner, mostly because of the emotional intensity. I am giving it a 5 but not really because I enjoyed it. If you read it, you will know exactly why I say that!

To begin the novel Jared Teeter and family must sell their failing farm in West Virginia and they plan to try their luck in Florida. By a terrible twist of fate, they end up near Homestead, Florida, picking tomatoes and living in a labor camp called Angel City, a misnomer if ever there was one! Though wife Cloma is very pregnant and cannot work, Jared, daughter Kristy and son Benny put in brutal hours in the fields. The boss is Silas Creedy, a character reminiscent of Simon Legree. Jared tries to stand up for himself and his family only to be defeated at every turn, often violently. He cannot seem to find any way out of the situation; they are prisoners by another name.

I felt such sympathy for the characters---Jared, with his self-proclaimed mountain-man integrity, and his sweet family, and also Cy, a black man and fellow worker who shows himself to be a wonderful and faithful friend.

The book reminded me of a mission trip I took with our church youth group several years ago. Part of our time was in Immokalee, Florida, cleaning a building that would become a community center and learning about the plight of the migrant workers who lived there. They were tomato pickers working so very hard for so little. Their lives were likely better than the workers in Angel City but far from comfortable. Perhaps the memory of that made the theme of this novel even more personal.

I understand the author lived as a migrant for a time to get a true picture of life in such a camp. Later "Angel City," a CBS Movie of the Week starring Ralph Waite, further publicized the evils of such labor camps and forced some positive changes in laws and policies. What a blessing for an author to feel his writing has made a positive difference in people's lives!

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

"In truth she did not care. She did not care that the Lakashi were having 3.7 times the number of children as compared to other indigenous Brazilians over the course of their lifetimes. She didn't care where they lived or if they were happy or if they wanted the children they had. What she did care about, cared about very much in fact, was that her employer, who had virtually proposed marriage and then sent her off to the equator after one of Vogel's employees had died there, now refused to share with her the basic information of the research question."
                      -Marina's thoughts, from the novel

For a number of reasons, I'll rate this book a 2. I found it tedious with its long chapters, some over 35 pages and long paragraphs, often a whole page. I also found the premise rather hard to believe---a drug to extend women's reproductive years into their 70's. Who would want that? And I kept wishing there would be a "little less talk and a lot more action."

Main character Dr. Marina Singh works for a pharmaceutical company which has researchers working on a potentially valuable drug in the Amazon. Chief scientist on the project, Dr. Annick Swenson, will not respond to requests for updates. Mr. Jim Fox, Marina's boss (and lover) sends Anders Eckman, another Vogel employee to locate Swenson, and report on the progress of the research. Later Swenson writes that Eckman is dead but provides no details. Marina is sent to uncover the mystery and hopefully disclose to Fox how the project is moving forward.

Marina finds Brazil both beautiful and potentially dangerous. The insect-infested jungle with anacondas and cannibalistic natives possessing poison arrows would have been enough to have me on the first plane back to the USA! After Marina finally locates Swenson, she finds her challenging to work with, to say the least. Swenson's sarcasm and my-way-or-the-highway attitude is very unpleasant.

Patchett's character development is good. I came to like Easter, Milton and Barbara, especially. I found it very odd that Marina called her boss, and lover, Mr. Fox, whether in a professional setting or not. The Lakashi culture was interesting also. I suppose Ms. Patchett did some extensive research there.

I will stop here rather than risk revealing any spoilers. More after our Page Turner meeting and discussion. I am predicting few in the group will like this one.
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Our group average for this book was 3.2. There were no 5's at all, but only two 2's (one being mine, you may recall). Several members liked the writing style and enjoyed certain aspects of the novel but most of us thought it was slow getting started. We had an interesting discussion about having children later in life but most in our group are retired and were horrified to think of having a baby at our age. I can tell you not one of us was ready to go do research in the Amazon after reading this book! One lady in the group has been on a medical mission in the region and could shed some light on the native culture. She had not encountered cannibals, thank goodness!

Allapattah by Patrick Smith

"Allapattah. Old long snouts. You may be called allapattah by some, but your real meaning is death. You would like to eat me, heh? You would kill all you touch, like instant death. But in the end you'll die too. You'll see. Only four of you are left, and someday soon there will be none. They will kill you, just as they are killing me, and there's nothing for both of us but death."
                     -Toby Tiger, from the novel

I am teaching an adult class using Patrick Smith's novel A Land Remembered. Until recently it was the only book by the author that I had read. Earlier this year I read Forever Island which also involves the plight of the Florida Seminoles. Allapattah was a short read at a mere 200 pages and it did get better the more I read. I will rate it a 3, enlightening but no fun at all. If you read it, you will see what I mean.

In the novel, Toby Tiger, a young Seminole is very bitter toward white men. He blames them for the destruction of his homeland and the death of his parents. He is married to Lucy Cypress, a Seminole whose father is a Christian pastor. Toby sees even Christianity as a threat to his way of life. His anger causes him to make some rash decisions and his poor judgment brings on more and more trouble. Even with good friend Josie Billie trying to talk sense into him, he is heading down a road of despair.

Toby's story is sad and one cannot help hoping that it is more exception than rule among these Florida native people. But, alas, I suspect it is all too common. With an elderly grandfather and pregnant wife to take care of, he loses his job and is forced to wrestle alligators and carve cypress figures for the tourists. Luckily Big Jim Bentley, owner of a small café/grocery store and the only likeable white man in the story, gives him a job. Unfortunately, Toby still tries to retaliate for the hurt he's experienced and the law is not on his side.