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The truth is out there – ‘Nine Shiny Objects’
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America has always been fertile ground for those with … unconventional ideas. That fertility ebbs and flows, to be sure, with one of the high points – perhaps THE high point – being the middle of the 20th century. The odd energy of the post-war period manifested itself in a tendency for people to search for enlightenment in new ways. And once the notion of ETs and UFOs entered the picture, well – things got weird.
People didn’t understand … and people who don’t understand can be dangerous.
That weirdness and its generational aftermath, for those inside and outside alike, serve as the foundation of Brian Castleberry’s debut novel “Nine Shiny Objects” (Custom House, $27.99). This novel-in-stories of sorts takes a long look at the America of the latter half of the 20th century, viewing it through the lens of a short-lived fringe group of UFO fanatics and the traumatic fallout of the years following its collapse.
By following a variety of individuals via their connections to the group, we bear witness as the booming postwar years give way to the counterculture ‘60s, the hedonistic ‘70s and the go-go ‘80s. But even with the growing generational remove, all of the people we encounter bear the psychological repercussions springing from the too-brief life of that initial collective while also dealing with a changing America.
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We’ll all float on – ‘The Lightness’
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We’re all searching for something. The problem is that we don’t always know what that something is.
Our quests for understanding – internal, external or both – aren’t always defined solely by ourselves. Oftentimes, particularly when we’re young, our personal journeys toward knowledge are unduly influenced by the people and places with which our lives are entangled. What we seek becomes conflated and even replaced by the pursuits of those close to us – sometimes without our even knowing that it is happening.
This confusing, convoluted search is central to “The Lightness” (William Morrow, $26.99), the debut novel from Literary Hub editor Emily Temple. It’s a fractured, fascinating look at a teenage girl’s pursuit of understanding – understanding of her circumstances and understanding of herself. Structurally daring and prosaically deft, the narrative moves back and forth across time (though all is past from the perspective of our frank and forthright narrator), capturing the fluidity and futility of memory.
It’s also a story of the complex sociological minefield that is friendship between teenaged girls, delving into the eggshell-stepping delicacy that can come from the deep and not always fully conscious desire to connect with those who may or may not have your best interest at heart … and are perfectly willing to co-opt your journey in order to advance along their own.
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Rock and roll reincarnation – ‘Mighty Oak’
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Movies are rarely kind to prodigies.
Most of the time, when we meet an ultra-talented child on film, we quickly learn about the multitude of difficulties faced by that child. Whether they’re a brilliant mathematician or a chess master or an amazing musician, these kid geniuses unfailingly face significant personal obstacles apart from their gifts.
How those problems are handled, both by the filmmakers and by the characters within the narrative, defines the sort of movie you get.
“Mighty Oak,” a film directed by Sean McNamara from a screenplay by Matt Allen, handles its child genius – in this case, a rock and roll prodigy – with a good degree of care. While the young man’s life is marked with tragedy, that tragedy is offset by a sense of connection – connection to the people around him … and to the universe.
It isn’t the sort of story to get bogged down in negativity; the filmmakers go out of their way to generate a feel-good vibe, an effort helped greatly by a charming cast and some solid musical offerings. It’s a warm and welcoming film, a scrappy, scruffy underdog of a movie that, despite a few issues, will likely leave you with a smile on your face and a song in your heart.
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Hillary minus Bill equals ‘Rodham’
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There are few literary questions I find more engaging than “What if?” I’ve always been drawn to narratives that offer a glimpse at an alternative version of our world, guessing at what might have been had something – anything, really – been different.
These questions tend to be more the purview of speculative fiction, but sometimes become devices used in the telling of altogether different kinds of stories.
That’s the category in which “Rodham” (Random House, $28), the latest from bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld, falls, a book that asks and answers a singular question:
What if Hillary Rodham never married Bill Clinton?
From this fundamental premise, a complex and inventive narrative unfolds, spread over three time periods – the early ‘70s, the early ‘90s and the 2016 presidential campaign – following the career of Hillary Rodham as she works her way through the American political landscape of the last half-century. Sittenfeld offers a portrait of a political life unlived, one that paints an engaging and sometimes surprising picture of what might have been.
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City of lights … and life – ‘The Paris Hours’
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“The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust
There’s an undeniable magic to the city of Paris. And while there has always been a romanticism attached to it – particularly by folks from this side of the pond – one could argue that one of the peaks of that magic came in the 1920s. The arts were alive and thriving, with expatriated folks from all over the world finding their way to the fabled City of Lights.
In his new book “The Paris Hours” (Flatiron Books, $26.99), author Alex George offers a look at the magic of the city through the perspectives of four people who live there. Over the course of a single day in 1927, he shows us some of the ways that a city such as this one can shine, but also recognizes that a place with so many lights casts a multitude of shadows.
Through the eyes of this quartet, we get a sense of the place in terms both general and specific. We get to know them and the challenges they face even as they cross paths – fleetingly or otherwise – with some of the preeminent figures of the era, luminaries like Proust and Stein and Baker and Hemingway. And yet, titans though those luminaries may be, they serve as supporting characters here, moving in service to the stories of our central foursome as they live their relatively everyday lives.
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