Greta and Valdin, by Rebecca K. Reilly.

 

 

           Children of a Russian refugee and his Maori wife, Greta and Valdin Vladisavljevic (try saying that in a hurry!) are gay siblings, sharing Valdin’s apartment in central Auckland.  Valdin spent eight years studying to be a physicist before he decided he hated it and is now the presenter of a TV show.  Greta studies Russian and comparative literature at Auckland University, and makes minuscule wages tutoring as well:  on the face of things, they should be reasonably satisfied with life, but as we all know, life, especially when connected to love, never cooperates – pitfalls, potholes and pratfalls abound to trip us all up when we least expect it.

            Valdin has recently broken up with the love of his life Xabi, who is the formerly straight brother of Giuseppe, married to Valdin’s uncle.  (Got that? Fortunately, there is a very helpful list of characters and their relationship to each other.  I consulted it often.)  Valdin is often inclined to tears;  he’s feeling mentally fragile and worries endlessly and needlessly about nothing at all;  Greta is made of sterner stuff, but she yearns after Holly who is one of those cruel witches who Lead People On.   Holly tutors at the University too, but relies a lot on Greta to take over her tutorial work when she wants to go on holiday – eventually with someone else!  So – life is rather less than satisfactory at the moment, but how to change things so that the road ahead is clear, with not a pothole in sight?

            Ms Reilly has enormous fun plotting the course of the siblings’ romantic adventures, and so does the reader – I don’t know how many times I laughed out loud at Greta’s wit and Valdin’s haplessness;  they take turns at narrating the chapters, endearing themselves effortlessly to us with their humour and honesty.  Their convoluted family history – not to mention the dysfunctional but charmingly singular family to which they belong made me wish that my family background could have been similarly exotic, such is the power and persuasiveness of Ms Reilly’s characterisations.  There’s not a single dud among them and we all are tremendously relieved that her great story has a happy ending – as it should:  characters like that deserve happiness.  I certainly felt happy while I was reading ‘Greta and Valdin’, not least because Auckland, that great messed-up metropolis, is the setting and my old home (yep, I’m a Jafa!), but even better still:  the book has made the Fiction prize short list for the Ockham Book Awards.  Watch this space!  SIX STARS. 

 

The Party Crasher, by Sophie Kinsella.

 

   

       Aahh, Chick Lit:  where would we be without it? – the stories that are lighter than air, have predictable, clearly-defined characters (you always know who the heroine is going to end up with), and a compulsory happy ending.

            And there’s nothing wrong with that!  As far as I’m concerned, Chick Lit plays a very important part for the Dedicated Reader:  after wading through some very serious, worthy stuff lately, it was great to have a complete change of scene – to be entertained.  And Sophie Kinsella is just the writer to do it. 

            Effie Talbot is still not over the recent breakup of her parent’s marriage, even though she and her siblings are adults in their 20’s and 30’s. The fact that her dad has recently acquired a girlfriend fills her with fear and dread – not to mention loathing, for new girlfriend Krista seems to be ruling the roost, the roost being the old family home, a local eccentric landmark that everyone adored, full of secret cupboards, hidey-holes and attics, the perfect place for children to create wonderful childhood memories – but not any more:  Krista has put it up for sale, along with various beloved items of furniture that the siblings believed to be theirs.  And because Effie is known for speaking her mind (in a Bull-in-a-China-shop way) she has fallen out with dad, and no longer visits the family home.  Worse still, she hasn’t received an official invitation to the ‘House-Cooling’ party to which absolutely everyone (including her beloved ex-boyfriend) has been invited. 

            What to do?  For Effie has a little treasure that she wants to retrieve from the house herself, something most precious that she hid after her break-up with Joe:  can she sneak in while the neighbourhood is carousing, find her keepsake, then sneak out again undiscovered like cat-burglars do in the movies?

            Of course not.  Effie’s presence is almost revealed several times, and only prevented by her expert knowledge of all the various hidey-holes she still remembers – but along the way she is forced to eavesdrop on some very frank conversations regarding her character, and the real reasons for the sale of their beloved home.  And there are previously unknown revelations about her brother and sister’s lives that come as a shock – she isn’t the only one who has had it rough lately.

            Sophie Kinsella pulls off an impossible plot beautifully because her characters are so funny that the reader is happy to suspend disbelief;  she’s one of the Queens of Chick Lit:  long may she write and reign!  FOUR STARS.    

 

Winter Counts, by David Heska Wanbli Weiden.

 

            This is Lakota Author Weiden’s debut novel. It is a worthy addition to the Thriller genre, but there is so much more to read between the lines, and the lines themselves can be brutally honest about the Land of the Free, especially in South Dakota on the Rosebud Indian Reservation – the Rez.

            Virgil Wounded Horse is the local Fixer:  because the tribal police are paper tigers and the Federal authorities are not interested in prosecuting rapes, child abuse, domestics and all the usual ‘minor’ crimes, he is seen as the Last Resort, the real law, the rough justice who, because of his superior size, speed and nous, always gets a fitting revenge for his clients.  Money well spent, and if the cause is particularly close to his heart (like child abuse), he’ll rearrange his quarry’s features (and future) for free.

            When he is hired by an ambitious tribal councilman to find the source of new sales of heroin entering the Rez, he regards this latest job as strictly business – until his 14 year-old nephew nearly dies of an overdose.  Now, it is frighteningly personal:  whichever sumbitch started this ball rolling will wish he had never been born – as he dies a horrible death.

            Virgil’s detective-work eventually leads him to Denver where he discovers that the Mexican cartels are interested in flooding northern Reservations with heroin, aided by local criminal Rick Crow, a Lakota who bullied Virgil mercilessly at school for being a ‘half-breed’.  Yes, there is very old bad blood here, but new problems arise:  the FBI, famous for their lack of interest in anything connected with Rez crime unless – unless – it’s connected to murders and drugs, want Virgil’s nephew (his only family member still alive!) to wear a wire, and buy black tar heroin on the high school grounds from Rick Crow and his gang. Then they can make an arrest.  It’s almost more than Virgil can bear to think about and, if it weren’t for his nephew’s agreement to go along with the FBI’s plan, he’d send that boy off to Mars, rather than consent to such a scheme.

            As always, things go horribly wrong;  there is a mighty twist to the tale that I never saw coming, and Virgil learns yet again how power and ambition can banish the finest dreams – BUT.  What also comes through loud and clear is the struggle to build a decent existence for the first inhabitants of their beautiful land, and the enormous difficulty in retaining their precious native identity, essence, ageless customs and spirituality in the face of The American Dream.  A dream that is broken.  Weiden and Virgil, telling it like it really is.  FIVE STARS.   

              

 

Crossroads, by Jonathan Franzen.

 

   

          It is the end of 1971 and Pastor Russ Hildebrandt is a conflicted man:  he has been a faithful and devout Christian all his life (he is now 45), but God has lately been sending him challenges – and temptations, in the form of a comely, recently widowed parishioner who displays a vulnerability that touches his heart, something his wife has not done for many years.

            He has also fallen out with Rick, one of his assistant pastors who runs ‘Crossroads’, the youth section of the Parish;  Rick has long hair, eyes like burning blackcurrants and a newly fashionable foul mouth, but is majorly successful at spreading the word of God to young people searching for answers to life’s big questions – ‘he’s SO cool, man!’  Whereas Russ is not:  he’s totally not cool, and embarrasses his children if he turns up at Crossroads meetings and takes over the prayer sessions in an attempt to assert his seniority. 

            Yes, there are aspects of his calling that are less than satisfactory, but his home life gives him no pleasure at all;  his wife Marion – who runs his house, mothers their four children and writes his sermons – has gained a huge amount of weight and is succumbing to a distressing mental instability, caused not least because she misrepresented herself to Russ when they first met;  now her secrets are causing her to unravel.  His children, three of whom are teenagers, have their own problems and insecurities to deal with, in fact Perry, aged 15, is working on a strong drug habit – but none of them would ever think of confiding in Russ or - God Forbid! -  being councilled by him.  They are all pretty much a mystery to him.

            Which means that celebrated author Jonathan Franzen has created the perfect straw man as his main character –BUT!  As each member of the family tells their side of the story, we are drawn inexorably into the Hildebrandt ethos:  which characters are justified in acting as they do, which ones are taking everyone else for a ride, and why.  The fight between Good and Evil, God, the Devil, and Temptation has never been told more cleverly, convincingly – or humorously.  Were we really like that back in the 70’s? 

Russ and his family have arrived at the Crossroads of their lives in a decade that contains Vietnam and the draft, and very little Peace and Love.  As this is the first book of a trilogy, I am looking forward to Mr Franzen showing us which direction they travelled.  FIVE STARS.