Title: We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down: Memoir of a Gravedigger’s Daughter
Author: Rachael Hanel
Genre: Memoir
Year: 2013
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Acquired: From the publisher for review consideration
Rating:

A Bit of A Tangent: Wow, I read this book a long time ago — the beginning of June, if my review archive is telling me the truth. That’s how pokey I’ve been at reviews lately. #badblogger. Anyway, you probably want to hear about the book….

Review: Rachael Hanel grew up in a small, prairie town in Minnesota, the daughter of the town’s gravedigger. Hanel spent her childhood amid the dead, wandering the graveyards in her community and learning the stories of the people who were buried there. But death took on a whole new meaning to Hanel when her father passed away unexpectedly when she was 15. With his death, her family started to fracture. In We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down, Hanel explores her complicated relationship with death and looks at the role that small town cemeteries play in the history of small communities.

For most of this year, I’ve been on a kick reading nonfiction and memoirs about life in small towns, particularly small prairie towns like the one I live in. When I first heard about this book, setting piqued my interest while the title sold me on reading it (I just think it’s so sad and funny). On the whole, I thought this was a really lovely memoir, simple but effective in the stories it was trying to tell.

Hanel was an imaginative but slightly macabre kid — her favorite section of her elementary school library was the 100s, stories of the occult, paranormal and unexpected. She eventually moves on to the true crime section, picking up Helter Skelter as an 11-year-old in 1986, which is echoed in the imaginative way she approaches some sections of this memoir. When she’s revisiting the stories of older relatives she does a bit of imaginative musing. While that’d feel strange in a more straight nonfiction account, I think it works well in this particular book.

My favorite section of the book is one that talks about obituaries in small town newspapers. Hanel tells the story of how her grandmother sits down each week to read every word of her local newspaper, clipping stories (especially obituaries) and tucks them into a scrapbook:

In Grandma’s scrapbook, the world of the living meets the world of the dead. It’s a “thin space,” a notion from the tribe of ancient Celts from which she descended. In these thing spaces, a person can reach out and almost touch what’s on the other side, whether it be God, angels or the dead. Names and faces live on. The tiny stories in the scrapbook provide a portal.

Grandma isn’t ready to throw these relatives and neighbors away, to crumple them up and throw them in the trash alongside the mundane news. The billing and the snipping each day abate her greatest fear — that she, too, will fade into oblivion after death, that no one will remember he, no one will think of her time on earth, no one will speak her story.

That little snippet is part of the reason I love my job working for a community newspaper. We record history — births, weddings, deaths, and all of the news in between — so that stories are no forgotten. Hanel captures that importance and reverence just perfectly.

That passage also sums up what I think We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down is really about — the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell about our families. For Hanel, these stories come from death, from the dates and memorials on the gravestones that are part of her childhood. For others, from family photos or the newspaper or other sources. But our life and our death make our history, and that history is worth preserving. We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down is a lovely meditation on these themes that I recommend reading.

Other Reviews: Star Tribune | Just Bookin’ Around | My Novel Opinion |

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

My sister, Jenny, and I are spending the summer revisiting the Harry Potter series, some of the most read and most anticipated books of our childhood. You can catch up with our thoughts on Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (we read the British version) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, or just jump right in with us on book three. 

Jenny: For the first time in the re-reading of the series I actually forgot things that happened relating the major plot-line of the story. I did not remember a few key parts about what happens in the Shrieking Shack and when Snape showed up I was just as dumbfounded as I was the first time I read it (or at least I imagine that I was). I love Lupin’s character as well and I wish he did not have to go because I will miss him. He was an awesome teacher and would have proved to be real asset for Harry at the school moving forward.

I really liked this book after I was done with it. I think it is my favorite so far just because it had some of the lighthearted school moments I was looking forward to in the first couple of books and just didn’t find as much of.

My first question for you what did you think overall, and did you catch or notice anything from this book that related to the overall story like you did in the last book?

Kim: I loved this one so much. It was funny — when I talked to a couple different people about reading it, they said it was their favorite book in the series. I can’t say for sure if it’s my favorite just yet, but I loved it a lot more than I did the first two. I think the whole story takes a big leap here — the plot is more sophisticated and Rowling really sets the stage for the conflicts in the next several books even if Voldemort isn’t in it at all.

That was one thing that surprised me. After having Voldemort make an appearance in the first two books, he’s not even really a presence here (other than wondering who his servant is and when they will come back). Other than that, I didn’t pick up on too many hints. But I did forget all about the Snape stuff too, in particular why he hates Sirius (because of the prank) and James (for saving him). Snape’s story has always surprised me, but I think she’s planting the seeds for it early.

Gosh! There is so much to talk about! What do you want to dive into next? Sirius Black? That seems obvious. What do we think of this dude now and into the future?

Jenny: Sirius Black has always bothered me a little bit as a character. He seems like everything you want for Harry and everything you don’t all at the same time. He is there to love Harry and be his family support, and yet he encourages Harry to act recklessly. He encourages him to go out of the safety of school and to grow up quickly. I always wanted him to be a parent but he acts more like a friend. I see why he is this way and how he is using Harry to replace James but he always comes across as shady and reckless — his behavior as a student and his treatment of Snape included. Harry has others in his life to act like parents (Arthur Weasley, Remus Lupin, Professor McGonnagal, Dumbledore, Hagrid, etc.), I just wish Sirius was not such a bad influence.

I read somewhere once that Rowling thought about killing Arthur Weasley instead of Sirus which I am glad she didn’t. While his death saddens me greatly I can honestly say I think it is good for Harry in ways Arthur’s would not have been.

What do think? Do you agree the Sirius is a bad influence and not always a great person for Harry to have as his only wizard family?

Kim: It’s a tough one. My friend Jenny wrote a really interesting post about this in defense of Sirius, pointing out that he’s the only person (of all the adults you mentioned) who consistently makes Harry the most important person in the world. Lots of the other adults try to be parent-like, but they have other priorities that interfere. Sirius does not.

In this book, it’s hard to know yet what to make of Sirus. Clearly he has revenge on his mind and that clouds some of his judgment, but he also tries to be there for Harry and even offers to let him come live with him. I think that’s pretty wonderful. Another wonderful thing about this book is Lupin. I just can’t get over how much I adore him, right from the first moment on the train and then in the first class where he lets Neville — the butt of jokes by everyone — really succeed at something. He might be my favorite character at the moment.

What other characters surprised or interested you in this book?

Jenny: I do love Lupin. He was always one of my favorite characters in the books he is just AWESOME. I read the blog post you recommended and she made some good points and I agree that Sirius is an important character and an important person in Harry’s life.

Other characters who surprised me… Dumbledore surprised me a little, and maybe surprised is not the right word. I think this is the first book where you start to see the personal interested Dumbledore has taken in Harry and how is trying to let Harry live his life, but he knows more then he is letting on. It is also the first time we see him defy the Ministry of Magic and take on authority and power outside of Hogwarts, by helping Harry ad Hermoine set Buckbeak and Sirius free. I think this is a great part of Dumbledore’s character, that he shows Harry how to stand up for what is right and what he believes in even if people around him in authority positions disagree.

I also just want to express my love for the Weasley family as a whole! I love that bunch of crazy redheads!

Title: The Illusion of Separateness
Author: Simon Van Booy
Genre: Fiction
Year: 2013
Publisher: Harper
Acquired: From the publisher as part of a TLC Book Tour
Rating:

Review: Simon Van Booy is quickly turning into one of my favorite authors, both for his lyrical and lovely prose and for the way his stories convey both sadness and optimism in a compact way. I devoured his most recent book, The Illusion of Separateness, in a single sitting, but wish that I could have spent even more time with this story.

It’s hard to summarize The Illusion of Separateness without giving away too much, so I’m just going to use the description on the back of my book. It was the perfect level of detail for this story and exactly what I needed to know before I started:

The characters in Simon Van Booy’s The Illusion of Separateness discover at their darkest moments of fear and isolation that they are not alone, that they were never alone, that every human being is a link in a chain we cannot see. This gripping novel — inspired by true events — tells the interwoven stories of a deformed German infantryman; a lonely British film director; a young, blind museum curator; two Jewish American newlyweds separated by war; a lost child on the brink of starvation; and a caretaker at a retirement home for actors in Santa Monica. The same world moves under each of them, so that one by one, through seemingly random acts of selflessness, a veil is lifted to reveal the vital parts they have played in one another’s lives, and the illusion of their separateness.

Part of the appeal of this book for me was the mystery of the plot. You know from the outset that these characters are connected to one another, but it takes some time to really see how. And even then it never felt like Van Booy took the easy connection or pushed the connections so much that they felt contrived.

The other appeal, as with the other Van Booy book I read, Everything Beautiful Began After, is the writing. Van Booy has a particular style that combines short but lush sentences and grand metaphors in this gorgeous way. I love that his style is so particular and it’s something I looked forward to when I picked up this book to read. This passage, from a section told by Amelia, a 27-year-old woman who is blind, is a good example:

Dave once asked me what blind people dream about. Mostly in sound and feeling, I replied. At night I fall in love with a voice, and then wake to a feeling of physical loss. Sometimes I close my eyes to a chorus of “Happy Birthday!” The smell of cake and the sound of feet under the table. I awake in a body that’s too big. I also dream in motion and sensation. My father’s boat and the snore of the mast; the rough fabric of the safety harness and the rip of Velcro. The sun on my legs. An endless stretch of water impossible to imagine.

I dream when I’m afraid of something I won’t admit.

A recurring nightmare I’ve had for years is a dream of silence. In the dream I am alone — but then I hear people moving quietly past. No matter how loud I scream or how frantically I reach out with my hands — I am incapable of a connection.

My one critique of the book is that for all of it’s grand sentiment it felt a little slight. My copy is just over 200 pages, but I happily would have spent 200 more with the characters to learn more about them and their lives. I suppose their lives aren’t exactly the point of the novel — it’s more about how small moments are connected to larger events — but I think it’s a credit to Van Booy’s writing that he can make them come alive in so few pages.

Still, any number of pages spent with Simon Van Booy and the characters he creates is worth it. I enjoyed this book very much and am looking forward to diving into his backlist even further.

Other Tour Stops: Jenn’s Bookshelves |  Unabridged Chick | Sweet Tidbits | Library of Clean Reads |  Book Dilettante | Tiffany’s Bookshelf | The Blog of Lit Wits | Bibliophiliac | BookNAround | Giraffe Days (July 16) | What She Read … (July 17) | she treads softly (July 18) | Drey’s Library (July 22) | Literary Feline (July 23) | Between the Covers (July 24) | In the Next Room (July 25)

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

One of the best parts of my vacation was getting a bunch of uninterrupted time to read late in the trip when I got to my parent’s cabin. Because I was reading by the lake (and reading while drinking a few gin and tonics), I don’t have a lot of specifics to share. So, reviewletts it is!

Lexicon by Max Barry

I bought Lexicon as a special treat to myself after Book Rioter Rebecca Schinsky raved about it, calling the book “X-Men plus The Magicians with a side of Nick Harkaway.” It was the perfect, rolicking, free-wheeling and smart sort of book to start out a vacation with. I wish I had been paying a little closer attention to the beginning of the story so I had a firmer grasp of the timeline (the book plays with time, but not in a way that became obvious to me until mid-way through), but overall I can’t recommend this one highly enough. I can definitely imagine re-reading it sometime soon because it was that much fun.

She Matters by Susanna Sonnenberg

I snagged a copy of She Matters at a Half Price Books in Madison and immediately started reading it. A big part of my vacation was seeing old friends, so I was feeling some inkling to read more about friendship. The book ended up being a little different than I expected; rather than a collection of essays on friendship, She Matters really is a memoir through friendships — a story about the author framed by the friends she’s made and lost along the way. Sonnenberg writes beautifully and I think there are some universal ideas to pull from this one, but it was also a little more personal than I thought it might be.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Life After Life was my big, exciting book for this trip. I’ve been saving it since March, just waiting for the first full day I had sitting on a lawn chair by the lake. And my goodness, it was as perfect in that moment as I thought it would be. I love books that play with time or take a particular not-quite-realistic concept — in this case, that Ursula Todd is born, dies, and is reborn countless times throughout her life — and go at it with style. This one made me think (and flip back and forth to try and dig into what was happening), but not too hard. If you like books that are a little high-concept, I definitely recommend this one.

The Boys of Winter by Wayne Coffey

After the beast that was Life After Life I wanted something short and entirely different. I’d picked up a copy of The Boys of Winter at one of my favorite bookstores in Madison, A Room of One’s Own, after one of my new favorite authors, Daniel Jame Brown, recommended it in a list of books about the Olympics over at Kathy’s blog. The book focuses specifically on the February 22, 1980 game between the United States and the Soviet Union, but uses it to tell a bigger story about the players and politics connected to the game. I had a little bit of an issue with the structure — if felt a little unnecessarily complicated to jump back and forth in time as much as the book did — but overall enjoyed it quite a bit.

I also finished the audio book of Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (narrated by Lauren Fortgang), but I’m going to save any review of that one for when I finish the second book in the series, Siege and Storm.