Neshama’s Choices for August 19

The titles and links below will direct you to print copies when available.  Click on the title to see all available formats, including recorded versions and eBooks. 

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The Honor of Your Presence by Dave Eggers

This little book caught my eye as a face-out on our shelves and I thought, ahh, a quick read. Helen, a graphic artist, works from her modest home in central California. On a visit, her wild Uncle Peter catches sight of fancy invitations to posh affairs that she’s designed. He proposed that they use a few to crash the events. Introverted Helen balks and worries they’ll be caught but irrepressible Peter urges them on. Delicious satirical scenes ensue, like Helen lurching about in a huge whale costume at an aquarium fund-raiser. Great fun. Note: as his own publisher, Eggers can produce whatever he wants, hence this charming hard-cover novella.

Hope by Andrew Ridker

Dysfunction rears its head rapidly as the Greenspan family’s seemingly solid setup lurches rapidly into chaos.  Scott, a doctor, has made some very foolish investments and needs money to move his outrageously manipulative mother into a home. He provides false results for a compromised research project. His wife Deb goes from an open marriage to moving in with a woman. She’s also consumed by a refugee support project but when she finally gets one family from Syria to Massachusetts, their resettlement is far from smooth.  Daughter Maya, in publishing, reconnects with an old teacher who’d seduced her when she was his student, and their son Gideon drops out of college—he never wanted to be pre-med. So many tumbles from Grace as Scott loses his license, Deb discovers her new relationship won’t allow Gideon to stay with them, Maya loses her job, and Gideon ends up in a perilous setting far from home. Here’s one more book entitled People’s Problems, but very well drawn with a fine dash of satire.

Clear by Carys Davies

In the late 1800s, John sails to a remote island to evict Ivar, its last inhabitant.  John is a young, idealistic Scottish minister who needs money to set up his new Free Church and this job will provide it.  Dropped off on shore, he spends a very uncomfortable night, but before he’s even met Ivar, he falls off a cliff and is nursed back to health by Ivar who’s been very lonely for two decades. They have no common language—Ivar speaks a strange dialect—but out of necessity they learn to communicate and connect deeply.  After John’s wife Mary stops getting letters from John, she sets out to find him. When she witnesses the bond John and Ivar have formed, all three leave the island to make a new life together. This stripped-down, touching tale documents the cruelty known as the Scottish Clearances that uprooted many rural poor in the name of profit. 

The Hunter by Tana French

Cal, a retired PI from Chicago, has settled down in a small village in Ireland and befriended 16-year-old Trey who’s learning carpentry from him. Trey’s charming, ne'er-do-well father Johnny returns from a long absence. He proposes a wild scheme to mine gold, accompanied by a posh Englishman with Irish roots, who supposedly heard tell of this underground bonanza from his relatives, and is ready to provide funding. Of course, the villagers are eager to cash in, but it soon gets dicey and downright scary. Trey has her own agenda, and the action plays out with considerable suspense and surprises. I listened to this, utterly taken with the music of the language, and later realized it was the sequel to The Searcher, so went back and read that with great satisfaction.