Day of the Dead: Gone Girl and Faithful Place

It being the Day of the Dead (and just after Halloween), I thought it an apropos time for finally posting about Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, which was quite the riveting read, and Faithful Place, by Tana French, which I really enjoyed. I finished both about a month ago (I really need to get back in the habit of reviewing immediately, but I kind of wanted to let both stories sort of seep into my psyche before saying much) so the details are not as fresh in my mind as I'd like, but they both made quite an impact.

Gone Girl is the mother of all unreliable narrator tales, at least for a while. As a reader, you really have to trust the writer, who leaves several holes and clues to follow, but just enough so that you know you're not getting the entire picture, and not so much that you can easily jump to the right conclusions. Is that a spoiler? I'm not sure. Either way, it's definitely worth a read. One of my favorite sections was one of the character's definition of the Cool Girl, which is too long to quote here, but it's spot on.

To break it down for you,

Read Gone Girl if:

• You want to eat the darkness
• You ate the darkness years ago
• You hate predictable tripe
• Your favorite song is “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads
• You can’t stand Cool Girls

Don't read it if:

• Your favorite song is “Shiny Happy People” by R.E.M.
• You read endings first
• You have to like main characters and must trust your narrators
• You just got married and are still all gooey-eyed optimistic about your soul mate and your new perfect life together (“Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”)
• Your favorite flower is a daisy

Now for Faithful Place: I listened to the audio for this one and it was absolutely delightful. The narrator hasn't done too many audiobooks, but he was perfect for this one. No unreliable narrators here, just a nicely paced piece of crime fiction, set in Dublin. Though I'm not entirely sure why, I was very reminded of Dennis Lehane's Mystic River while I read this. It was more related in my mind in setting and tone than in plot, because the stories themselves differed dramatically. 

Listen to (or read) Faithful Place if:

• You are keen on smart-sounding Irish accents
• You’re in a cold case kind of mood
• You’re feeling like winter
• You are nostalgic about the 80s
• You have an affinity for Guinness and whisky
• You like well-rounded characters

Do not listen to (or read) this if:

• You are afraid of poor people
• You are looking for a light, amusing read
• You can't understand Irish accents (it's really not that difficult here)
• Your favorite sport is synchronized anything
• You are too impatient to enjoy a good Scotch
• You are currently planning to elope with your high school sweetheart (it’ll all end in tears)

Have you read either of these? Gone Girls is infinitely discussable, and Faithful Place also has several points to explore. I'd recommend them both, for different reasons, with the caveats mentioned above.

Buenos Dia de los Muertos! 

A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer duBois: Impressions

Let's just start with: I adored this book. It's going on my list of all-time favorites. It was beautifully written, with hilarity and sarcasm etched in to take the sting out of the overall sadness of the characters' situations and the painful, ridiculous decisions made along the way. To be honest, I decided to read A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer duBois because I loved the title and I loved the cover, and the description sounded unique and interesting. I'm obviously glad I did. 

The story is told in chapters which alternate between the perspectives of two main characters: Aleksandr Bezetov, a world champion chess player turned political activist (who must be based in part on Garry Kasparov), and Irina Ellison, a 30-year-old English lecturer with Huntington's disease and a passive interest in chess. I know, I know: sounds fairly dreary, but it's not! More, poignant and sagacious, with artful yet casual wordsmithery and humor tinged with sadness. 

The novel begins with a description of Aleksandr's move to St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) back in 1978 to hone his chess skills, and admittedly, it takes a chapter or so to get pulled into the story, though we get a glimpse of the main theme - and Aleksandr's latent political leanings - right away: 

He didn't care for the billboards and didn't believe in the slogans, but nobody else did, either. He regarded Communism as a kind of collective benign lie, like the universal agreement among human beings to rarely discuss the fact that everybody would one day die.

Here we have the basic themes - Russia's stifled political landscape, the harsher realities of life we pretend to ignore in polite company. And once we meet Irina, with her fatalistic "practicality" dripping with sarcasm and her oh-cut-out-your-whining Harvard Square chess opponent Lars, the story picks right up. Irina admits her faults openly: 

I liked the bitter cold the best; it narrowed the meandering, self-indulgent courses of my mind into a focused dissatisfaction with what was right in front of me. This, I'll be the first to admit, was an improvement. 

Irina's chapters are told in the first person; she is the messier, more relatable character in the book. We get Aleksandr's story in the third person, and he remains somewhat cold, calculating and distant (which makes sense, since he's surrounded and defined by chess, cold Russian winters, and political conspiracies), though eventually shows more humanity by the end of the novel. They are both dealing with their own fallibility, meeting after Irina determines that her father's letter to the chess player, asking him how to fail with dignity, has not been adequately addressed or answered. 

I'm not doing this book justice, but suffice it to say, you should read it, unless dealing with issues of mortality and consequence makes you squeamish. I can't wait to see what duBois comes up with next - it's hard to believe this is her first novel. Also: it's out in paperback next Tuesday, if that puts you over the edge! 

*I read this book courtesy of NetGalley - and my local public library, after my digital ARC expired!