The Brothers K: The Best Novel You've Never Read

The Brothers K - David James Duncan

Author's note: republished to celebrate the 2023 release of David James Duncan's first novel in more than two decades, Sun House.

 

It's a fairy tale. It has no sleeping princess, no handsome prince, no troll under a bridge, no voracious and avaricious giant. Or perhaps it does. It's a story of the Chance family - a father, a mother, four sons and two daughters - and how they all grew up (even the parents) during the turbulent 60s. It's a story of the strength of love; a fable about the force of faith; a parable of the power of one's dreams. But most of all, it's a saga of the strength of the ties that bind a family. And, yes, it is a story about baseball.

Would You Turn Your Back on this Librarian?

How Can I Help You - Laura Sims

Call me old-fashioned if you like, but the style of entertainment that includes television shows like “Dexter” and “Breaking Bad,” content built around deeply flawed protagonists, just leaves me cold. In the same vein, I’m perfectly happy to say that if I don’t like the characters in a book, it’s a pretty safe bet I won’t like the book. That’s the reason Laura Sims’ How Can I Help You just didn’t click with me at first: I wouldn’t turn my back on either of the protagonists.

Please Tell Me This Isn't the Last Orphan!

The Last Orphan - Greg Hurwitz

It’s not normal for Evan Smoak, otherwise known as Orphan X, to find himself shackled to a bench in a prisoner transport. Truth be told, it took a large, well-coordinated, and very well-trained team of America’s finest to land him in this predicament. In fact, the only way that even worked is that X’s only chance to slip the trap would have been to gun down an innocent FBI agent… and he doesn’t do that to innocent people. That’s how he ended up talking to the person who put the whole capture operation in motion, Victoria Donahue-Carr. You’d think the POTUS would be more grateful, given that X is essentially the only reason she’s sitting in the oval office.

So Much Can Happen in Just Two Nights in Lisbon.

 Two Nights in Lisbon - Chris Pavone

After reading the first pages of Chris Pavone’s latest, Two Nights in Lisbon, a more skeptical reader might feel that buzz somewhere deep of their brain that suggests, “There’s something off about this.” I know I did… but once I found myself immersed in the urgency of Ariel Pryce’s desperate search for the husband who walked out of their Portuguese hotel and disappeared into the morning sunlight, I forgot about it. Mostly.

A frantic Ariel reaches out to the Lisbon police and the American embassy, certain that her husband has been kidnapped. Despite police assurances that her (much younger) husband has probably just gone on for drugs or hooked up with one of the many beauties Lisbon boasts, Ariel is sure that he’s been taken. A demand for three million euros’ ransom makes her point.

Overall, I prefer Driving a Tacoma to Reading About One

The Russian - Ben Coes

Some days the willing suspension of disbelief goes only so far... and today was one of them. Well, actually, the last few days – even I couldn't read The Russian - Rob Tacoma Series, Book 1 in a single day. One of the main reasons I couldn't is that I had to keep stopping to puzzle through author Ben Coes' bizarre word choices and strange notions about science and everything else. 

Coes is the author of a slew of Dewey Andreas novels, none of which I've ever heard of, much less read. FWIW, Andreas makes a cameo appearance in the final chapter as a, to be quite frank, half-assed deus ex machina. More on that later. Coes' bio says he served under two presidents (an intern under Reagan and a speechwriter for a Bush I cabinet secretary). But we're here to talk about the book...