Author: Jennifer Graham

Hour of the Witch, by Chris Bohjalian (Doubleday, 400 pages)

I do love me some Chris Bohjalian, but I had forgotten how riled up I get by his stories, which always focus on some aspect of social injustice. Such is the case with his newest release, Hour of the Witch.

This piece of historical fiction centers around a young woman, Mary Deerfield. who lives with her abusive and alcoholic husband in 17th-century Massachusetts. Mary is much younger than her husband. She is worldly, having come from England with her parents, is well-spoken and well-read, and she speaks her mind. Boy, does she speak her mind.

After five years of marriage Mary is barren but not devoid of sexual desire. The guilt from that makes even her question her worthiness — a bad situation that is soon made worse.

After hitting her on several occasions, Mary’s husband impales her hand with a fork (the three-pronged tool of the devil), after which Mary moves back in with her wealthy parents and decides to divorce her husband. Not unheard of at the time, but certainly not considered the norm.

It wasn’t exactly the best time in history to stand up to male oppression, especially when women around you were being tried as witches. But Mary would rather take her chances with the courts because she knows her husband is wrong.

Because we are privy to Mary’s reasoning we understand why she makes the decisions she does. Her community, a male-dominated society, does not. Instead of people understanding that she is abused, it is far easier to think that her husband has his hands full with such a strong-willed young woman. Surely Mary deserves any kind of “fatherly correction” that is administered to her by her husband.

And besides, while her husband does tend to drink a bit, he’s such a nice guy.

Mary tries to ease a deathly ill young boy’s agony by administering herbs; people use that to call her a witch. Mary finds those three-pronged forks planted in her garden and after confronting her servant and husband makes the decision to replant them, in the hopes that maybe they can make her fertile, because why not give it a try? She is clearly a witch. Mary is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t.

And when Mary tells her side of the story of her abusive situation, she is doubted and called a liar and sinner — traits of a witch or certainly a woman who deserves to be punished. Many of her neighbors end up siding with the husband, praising him for putting up with a woman who doesn’t know her place.

Eventually the divorce proceedings turn into a full witch trial with the very real threat that Mary might hang from the gallows for the crime of not wanting to be married to an abusive monster.

Hour of the Witch is a hefty book — at 400 pages you’ll want to set aside time to read it — but the plot moves so quickly and the details are so realistic that you will find yourself sailing through the story. Bohjalian is known for doing a tremendous amount of research for each of his books, and the effort shows in this one. It’s convincingly written and it reads like a current story about abused women — how they are doubted, mistreated and made to feel like they are at fault for the actions of others. On one level, reading Hour of the Witch can be depressing — it felt to me like very little has changed since 1662 — but on another level it’s a skillfully written story worth the read. Put it on your list. A

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Books

Author events

• PAUL DOIRON Author presents Dead by Dawn. The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth. Thurs., July 1, 6 p.m. Tickets cost $60 to $180 per table. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• TERRY FARISH Meet-and-greet with picture book and young adult author. Kingston Community Library, 2 Library Lane, Kingston. Thurs., July 8, 3:30 p.m. Registration required. Visit kingston-library.org.

• CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE Author presents The Exiles. Hosted by The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Tues., July 13, 7 p.m. Virtual. Tickets cost $5. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• MEGAN MIRANDA Author presents Such a Quiet Place. Hosted by The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Tues., July 20, 7 p.m. Virtual. Tickets $5. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

Poetry

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

Featured photo: Hour of the Witch

Overloaded, by Ginny Smith (Bloomsbury, 325 pages)

Science writer Ginny Smith’s Overloaded, while not the most sparkling prose you’ll read this year, does a yeoman’s job at explaining, in understandable language, the workings of the brain and what controls it. Mindfulness has its place, but in fact, our thoughts, emotions and memories are the sum of what Smith calls “a turbulent sea of neurotransmitters.” And sea is not just a figure of speech. “It seems to me that the answer lies not in the wiring of our brains, but in the chemicals that bathe them,” Smith writes.

Smith starts by assuming that we have forgotten everything we learned in high school and teaching a sort of CliffsNotes class in Neurology 101: the differences between sensory and motor neurons, the duties of the synapse, how electrical signals flow. Along the way, like a good professor, she introduces some interesting people, such as Luigi Galvani, the Italian scientist who figured out how to make the legs of dead frogs twitch (inspiration for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), and two European scientists who shared the Nobel Prize in 2006 even though each disagreed with the other’s work. (Nice to know that even Nobel Prize winners can bicker like crows.)

From there Smith delves into eight typical areas of interest regarding the brain: memories, motivation, mood swings and fear, sleep, hunger and satiation, decision-making, love and attraction, and pain.

In the chapter on memory she darts from treatments for PTSD to imprinting in ducklings to the long-term effects on the neglected children in Romanian orphanages. It’s a skillfully woven collection of stories, but unfortunately, offers no significant or surprising information on how to maintain our own memory.

The chapter on motivation delves into research on primates and mice and does a good job of explaining how dopamine works and why its effects decline over time. Again, however, the chapter held more promise than it delivered. Any real-life application might have to do with drug or alcohol withdrawal, not how to get motivated to exercise or clean the house.

By “Mood Swings and Scary Things,” I’m on to the pattern. Smith dangles an interesting topic in front of me — sharks! — and then swims away. After a quick dip in the mechanics of the fear response, she’s suddenly musing about the moods of a childhood tortoiseshell cat. And on it goes.

By the time we come to sleep, which Smith considers the brain’s greatest mystery, I’ve given up on getting any practical application for my life, and I’m only here for the anecdotes. Admittedly, they are good, such as the story of a strange illness that spread throughout Vienna in 1916 and came to be known simply as “sleepy sickness.” (People would feel generally unwell at the start, and then, as the illness progressed, spend more and more time asleep. Eventually they fell into a coma and died, basically sleeping themselves to death.)

The illness killed about one million people over 10 years and eventually disappeared, and there still is no consensus on the cause, although it must have had something to do with hypothalamus, which is the part of the brain that controls sleepiness and wakefulness.

Here, too, we finally get to Alzheimer’s disease, and theories about sleep deprivation might be connected, since during sleep, a sort of rinse cycle of the brain sweeps out waste that is believed to be involved in the development of dementia.

By now we know that in “Food for Thought” we’re not going to get any dieting tips. In fact, unhelpfully, Smith even writes, “There is currently only one really effective treatment for obesity: bariatric (or weight loss) surgery.” Also, she confides that when she is quite reasonably attracted to the pastry tray at a breakfast buffet, she deals with temptation by: filling her plate with fruit and yogurt. At this point, she reveals herself to be some freak of nature, sort of like the aliens in suits in Men in Black, so she has diminished cred in the ensuing discussion on eating disorders.

Finally, you’ve probably heard of St. Elmo’s fire, but how about St. Anthony’s fire? That’s another strange disease, this time in medieval France, in which poor people were afflicted with severe pain in the extremities. (Eat the rich — they never got it.) It turns out that the people were getting sick from a fungus that grew in the rye used in bread and beer. Even stranger, this discovery eventually led to a substance that is much more familiar today — oxytocin.

Overloaded suffers from an overload of English spelling (Smith teaches at the University of Cambridge), an overload of the author’s personal anecdotes and, most egregiously, an overload of exclamation marks. It won’t be the best book you read this year; in fact, let’s hope it’s the worst. But it’s a serviceable summer read for the intellectually curious. C

BOOK NOTES

With Father’s Day upon us, can we reflect on the problem that there is no equivalent of “chick lit” for men?

That said, we have scoured the internet and solved your gift-giving problem. Pair one of these with a box of Wicked Whoopies and you’re done.

For dads who love golf:Best Seat in the House, 18 Golden Lessons from a Father to His Son, by Jack Nicklaus II and Don Yaeger (Thomas Nelson, 224 pages). The son of PGA champ Jack Nicklaus reflects on his dad and the sport.

For dads who love cars:A Man and His Car, Iconic Cars and Stories from the Men Who Love Them, by Matt Hranek (Artisan, 240 pages)

For dads who watch Fox News: Tales from the Dad Side, by Fox personality Steve Doocy (William Morrow, 224 pages). This one’s been out a while, but genuinely funny, and the stories about son Peter (now a White House correspondent) are a hoot.

For dads who hate Fox News: Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, by Brian Stelter (Atria, 368 pages). The author is not without bias: he’s an anchor on CNN. Paperback version is out this month, too.

For dads of a certain age: Sinatra and Me, In the Wee Small Hours, by Tony Oppedisano (Scribner, 320 pages). The singer’s longtime confidante spills the tea.

For dads of a certain age more into rock than Sinatra: The Collected Work of Jim Morrison, edited by Frank Lisciandro (Harper Design, 584 pages). He was only 27 when he died, but the Doors’ front man left 28 handwritten journals, which are among the private and public writing assembled here.

For dads who like humor: Daditude, by Chris Erskine (Prospect Parks Books, 180 pages). A popular syndicated columnist writes on the “joys and absurdities of modern fatherhood.

And finally, not that we’re typecasting, for dads who like to grill: How to Grill Everything, by Mark Bittman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 576 pages). A famous food writer shares his secrets on grilling everything from steak to desserts.

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Book fairs

Author events

• STACEY ABRAMS Author presents Our Time is Now. Hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Virtual, via Zoom. Tues., June 22, 7 p.m. Registration and tickets required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• PAUL DOIRON Author presents Dead by Dawn. The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth. Thurs., July 1, 6 p.m. Tickets cost $60 to $180 per table. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• TERRY FARISH Meet-and-greet with picture book and young adult author. Kingston Community Library, 2 Library Lane, Kingston. Thurs., July 8, 3:30 p.m. Registration required. Visit kingston-library.org.

• CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE Author presents The Exiles. Hosted by The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Tues., July 13, 7 p.m. Virtual. Tickets cost $5. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• MEGAN MIRANDA Author presents Such a Quiet Place. Hosted by The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Tues., July 20, 7 p.m. Virtual. Tickets cost $5. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

Call for submissions

• NH LITERARY AWARDS The New Hampshire Writers’ Project seeks submissions for its Biennial New Hampshire Literary Awards, which recognize published works written about New Hampshire and works written by New Hampshire natives or residents. Books must have been published between Jan. 1, 2019 and Dec. 31, 2020 and may be nominated in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children’s picture books, middle grade/young adult books. All entries will be read and evaluated by a panel of judges assembled by the NHWP. Submission deadline is Mon., June 21, 5 p.m. Visit nhwritersproject.org/new-hampshire-literary-awards.

Poetry

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email elizabethw@goffstownlibrary.com or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email bookclub@belknapmill.org.

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email information@nashualibrary.org or visit nashualibrary.org.

Featured photo: Overloaded

Great Circle, by Maggie Shipstead (Alfred A. Knopf, 589 pages)

Sometimes, even if you are looking forward to it, a hefty book can seem overwhelming. It’s going to be such an effort to get through this, you think to yourself. But that’s not the case with this well-written, inventive book. Instead of feeling like work, reading this story propels your imagination forward making it one of those books that’s so darn difficult to put down. This one is a joy from beginning to end.

The book begins with twin infants, Marian and James, who are rescued from a sinking cruise ship in the early 1900s. Their mother is presumed drowned. Their father is the eventually disgraced captain of the ship who chose to protect the babies’ lives by accompanying them on a lifeboat, thereby abandoning the ship and crew. He goes to jail for dereliction of duty and the children are sent to be raised by a distant and detached uncle. James shines with his artistic and compassionate traits, while Marian, who is fearless, becomes infatuated with adventure and “flying machines” which she sees as a method of obtaining freedom. She decides she wants to be a pilot who will circle the globe someday, achieving the “great circle” that will connect everything, including the seemingly isolated events in her life.

After struggling to assert herself and to be heard in a male-dominated world, Marian does become a legendary pilot, fulfilling her life’s dream. She is seen as a leader, a role model and an inspirational teacher to other women.

Though her plane crashes and Marian loses her life, her lessons and joy at following adventure live on to impact future generations of women looking for the courage and bravery to persist in their own dreams. Marian is the Thelma and Louise of her generation, living life and dying on her own terms.

Meanwhile in the 21st century Hadley Baxter is an actress playing the role of Marian Graves in a biographical movie. Hadley is also an orphan and like Marian was also sent to live with her emotionally detached uncle. She has lost her way in life, a little too much drug use, a little too much freedom as a child, and a little too much abuse by the male-dominated Hollywood community. As a child, she read a book about Marian and was grabbed by her life, her fearless adventures and her courage.

Of course she agreed to play the role when asked. In recreating Marian’s life story on screen Baxter borrows from her lessons and learns to fight back against many of the patriarchal and societal restrictions on women in the film industry.

In the end, Hadley uses Marian’s courage and conviction to overcome frustration and emotional blocks in her own life. So yes, in its truest sense, this is a story about girl power done right. Marian’s message to Hadley, heard loud and clear over the years, is one of empowerment. You are brave for even trying. Forget what they say and go for it.

“Her very favorites, though, are the accounts of the far north and the far south, where ships’ rigging sags heavy with frost and blue icebergs drift freely, arched and spired like frozen cathedrals…. Bravery at the poles seems appealingly simple. If you go there, or try to, you are brave.”

One of the things that make this book so delightful to read is the amount of research that went into each chapter. The exquisite detail makes this historical fiction seem as real as any event you’ve heard about. You want to know more about the characters, the connections, and what’s going to happen next. It’s got adventure, lovers, bootleggers, hunters, bush pilots and artists. Shipstead takes us to Prohibition Montana, Alaska, Seattle, wartime London, wartime Alaska, a German POW camp, the South Pacific and finally an around-the-world flight. Even though the book takes us on so many separate journeys, they all work together and are eventually connected, like points on a circle.

It’s not easy for an author to jump between one storyline and another, and it’s even more difficult to connect those storylines when they happen almost a century apart, but Shipstead manages to do this with literary style. Even when they make poor decisions, you cheer for the main characters to continue. The enthusiasm and personal empowerment in each timeline is addictive. You end up caring about the women and their lives and you begin to connect the dots — it turns out it’s all related. Even though we may feel separated, we are all in this together. Women’s struggles over the ages have more in common than we might think.

Great Circle is a lovely, fascinating and inspiring, fast-paced read, perfect for the beach or just as a book that will keep you entertained and intrigued until its last page. Very highly recommended. A

BOOK NOTES

If there’s a graduate in your life, they are hoping you will send them a gift. You can be lazy and just send money, or be classy and send them money in a book. But you can do better than Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life.

For starters, consider How to Change, the Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman (Portfolio, 272 pages). She’s a behavioral scientist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business who promises evidence-based strategies for success.

More challenging but equally on point: Becoming a Data Head by Alex J. Gutman and Jordan Goldmeier (Wiley, 272 pages). This new book promises to teach us how to “think, speak and understand data science, statistics and machine learning.”

In Making College Pay (Currency, 176 pages), economist Beth Akers argues that a college education is still worth the money, if done smartly. She offers some controversial advice, saying that your major matters more than your school, and that it might be smart to finance your education even if you can afford to pay as you go.

For high school graduates, consider 175+ Things to Do Before You Graduate College(Adams Media, 240 pages) by Charlotte Lake. A little silly in places (one “bucket list” suggestion is to spend a day pretending you go to a different school), some of the suggestions are a nice antidote to collegiate stress.

It’s a little edgy for high school grads, but college graduates might enjoyYear Book (Crown, 272 pages), a collection of biographical essays about comedian Seth Rogen’s early life and career.

Then, of course, there’s the perennial favorite The Naked Roommate (and 107 other issues you might run into in college) by Harlan Cohen (Sourcebooks, 560 pages). Now in its seventh edition, the book and its derivatives (e.g., The Naked Roommate, For Parents Only) could probably pay Cohen’s bills for the rest of his life, but he also published a new one this year: Win or Learn: The Naked Truth About Turning Your Every Rejection into Your Ultimate Success (Simple Truths, 152 pages). — Jennifer Graham

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Book fairs

Author events

• CAROL DANA Penobscot Language Keeper and poet presents. Part of the Center for the Arts Lake Sunapee Region Literary Arts Series. Virtual, via Zoom. Tues., June 15, 5 p.m. Visit centerfortheartsnh.org/literary-arts-series.

• LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA, QUIARA ALEGRIA HUDES AND JEREMY MCCARTER Authors present the launch of their new book, In the Heights: Finding Home. Hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Virtual, via Zoom. Tues., June 15, 8 p.m. Registration and tickets required. Tickets cost $40 to $44. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• STACEY ABRAMS Author presents Our Time is Now. Hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Virtual, via Zoom. Tues., June 22, 7 p.m. Registration and tickets required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• PAUL DOIRON Author presents Dead by Dawn. The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth. Thurs., July 1, 6 p.m. Tickets cost $60 to $180 per table. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

Call for submissions

• NH LITERARY AWARDS The New Hampshire Writers’ Project seeks submissions for its Biennial New Hampshire Literary Awards, which recognize published works written about New Hampshire and works written by New Hampshire natives or residents. Books must have been published between Jan. 1, 2019 and Dec. 31, 2020 and may be nominated in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children’s picture books, middle grade/young adult books. All entries will be read and evaluated by a panel of judges assembled by the NHWP. Submission deadline is Mon., June 21, 5 p.m. Visit nhwritersproject.org/new-hampshire-literary-awards.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email elizabethw@goffstownlibrary.com or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email bookclub@belknapmill.org.

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email information@nashualibrary.org or visit nashualibrary.org.

Featured photo: Great Circle

Love Like That, by Emma Duffy-Comparone (Henry Holt and Co., 211 pages)

Novels can be bruising in their own way, but a good short story hits you like a closed-fist punch to the face. Steel yourself, then, before picking up Love Like That, Emma Duffy-Comparone’s utterly abusive collection, which you will not want to give anyone for Father’s Day.

The men in these nine stories are spectacularly broken or absent, either by virtue of divorce, separation or dying on the living room floor for their young daughter to find them. They make questionable choices, such as leaving their wife and kid for a student 25 years younger or using an old chainsaw to try to take out a stump. The men’s assorted miseries spill over to the women they love, protagonists described by the publisher as “misfits and misanthropes, bickering sisters, responsible daughters and unhappy wives.”

As the chainsaw-bearing man is prone to say, “Good times, huh?” Surprisingly, however, the answer is yes. With one significant and painful exception, for the most part, we get the sense that everything will eventually turn out OK for these memorable characters; that despite the everyman struggles and despair, there is something still valuable to be recovered in the ruins. Which is the best gift that art can give.

Duffy-Comparone teaches creative writing at Merrimack College in Boston and all these stories are set in New England, two on the Granite State coast. (She has said, drolly, that there is something about New England “that can make a person a bit sensitive, a bit brittle. You can feel — or at least I can — sort of jerked around by the seasons.”)

The first story, and one of the strongest, is “The Zen Thing,” which slyly begins, “Every year, the family unpacks itself for a weekend on a beach and pretends to have a good time.”

From there, Duffy-Comparone introduces the family and friends of Anita, gathered on a Rhode Island beach: her 13-year-old sister with Down syndrome; Anita’s much older live-in boyfriend whose daughter still thinks he’s away on a business trip; her grandmother and the new husband she met at a casino; and other assorted relatives, who are nothing like anyone you know, but exactly like everyone you know, in that sleight-of-hand trick performed by exceptional writers.

Not much happens in this story, beyond the usual fraught conversations between family members and a small accident involving a colostomy bag, but to borrow from Walt Whitman, it contains multitudes, much like a David Sedaris family story, and is an ultimately moving snapshot of the complexities of family life.

Similarly, “The Package Deal” is an extraordinary glimpse into the difficulties faced by a single, childless person who becomes involved with a person with a child.

“You tell yourself, ‘Kid, schmid.’ You tell your friends, who ask why you’re doing what you’re doing, ‘It’s not a big deal.’ You tell your mother, who grips your biceps and whispers with soupy eyes that entering a child’s life is a very, very big deal, ‘I know, Mom, Jesus!’

This story is vaguely autobiographical; Duffy-Comparone has written about dating a divorced man with an 8-year-old son, who, on the first time he saw his dad kiss her, left the room and started sobbing. She brings all that pain — for the man, woman and child — into this story, which lays bare how a child experiences an innocent party as a malign interloper, as well as the shock of encountering children, up close and in person, for the first time:

“… The hooflike footfalls, the vinegary socks, the alley smell of aim-anywhere urine, the plump slugs of toothpaste stuck to the side of the sink, the wet towels seeping into beds or stripping the varnish from dining room chairs, the shirts used as napkins, the shirts used as Kleenex, the whining, the moping, the deafening absence of please or thank you, not to mention the sensory violation that is mealtime.”

As for the punches, the first comes in “The Offering,” a disturbing story that does not reveal the reason for the title until its smart but terrible conclusion. It’s about a fourth-grader whose wretched home life is only occasionally lightened by a strange student teacher. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

Before you can recover from that, Duffy-Comparone cuts us off at the knees with “Exuma,” which is set in Portsmouth and begins benignly enough: “Gina wasn’t big on kids, but on an individual basis, like dogs, they could be all right.”

Gina has a checkered work history, so she takes a job as the nanny of a toddler who “shrieked all day like a bad oboe.” She loses that job, too, and goes on to take another as a projectionist at a century-old theater, where one night she has a panic attack related to a shocking thing that happened before. I will say only that I read this three days ago, and I’m not sure that I have fully recovered from this, or the tragic event in the titular “Love Like That.”

But that speaks to the power of Duffy-Comparone’s skills as a storyteller, that she can punch us and we keep coming back for the next story, bruises and all. A

BOOK NOTES

One of the most interesting pre-publication publicity blitzes in recent times is playing out on Twitter, where a 1980s pop star has shown up with a mouth like a machete.

Richard Marx, best known for hits like “Endless Summer Nights” and “Should Have Known Better,” has been slashing and burning his way through the MAGA crowd like a frontman for the Democratic Party. Sen. Rand Paul accused him of inspiring someone to send a suspicious package to Paul’s house, and he is insulting countless people on Twitter, including some who profess to be fans.

Why? Maybe he’s a really angry guy. But it’s more likely that he’s seeking attention for an upcoming book promoted in a pinned tweet with a pre-order link. The memoir is calledStories to Tell(Simon & Schuster, 320 pages) and isn’t coming out until July 6, but pre-publication sales make a difference in how a book performs overall. It’ll be interesting to see how this strategy plays out. As of this writing, Marx has amassed more than 309,000 followers on Twitter, but the abject nastiness of some of his tweets may backfire.

That said, Marx’s book may be more interesting than the new children’s book by Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex (illustrated by Christian Sullivan). It’s calledThe Bench (Random House Books for Young Readers, 48 pages) and is promoted as a story “that captures the special relationship between father and son, as seen through a mother’s eyes.”

An excerpt: This is your bench, Where you’ll witness great joy. From here you will rest, See the growth of our boy.

Devoted Meghan and Harry fans may well love it, but the duchess isn’t likely to fill the shoes of the beloved Eric Carle, who died last month at his home in western Massachusetts.

Carle’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Henry Holt and Co., 28 pages), published in 1996, remains the No. 1 best seller on Amazon among “children’s bears books,” which is a surprisingly competitive category, what with Corduroy, Blueberries for Sal and, of course, the Berenstain Bears

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Book fairs

• NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND BOOK FAIR Featuring 45 rare, used, and collectible book and ephemera dealers from around New England and beyond. Everett Arena, 15 Loudon Road, Concord. Sat., June 6, and Sun., June 6. Visit nornebookfair.com.

Author events

• ANNETTE GORDON-REED Author presents On Juneteenth. Hosted by The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Thurs., June 3, 7 p.m. Virtual. Tickets cost $5. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• CAROL DANA Penobscot Language Keeper and poet presents. Part of the Center for the Arts Lake Sunapee Region Literary Arts Series. Virtual, via Zoom. Tues., June 15, 5 p.m. Visit centerfortheartsnh.org/literary-arts-series.

• LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA, QUIARA ALEGRIA HUDES AND JEREMY MCCARTER Authors present the launch of their new book, In the Heights: Finding Home. Hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Virtual, via Zoom. Tues., June 15, 8 p.m. Registration and tickets required. Tickets cost $40 to $44. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• PAUL DOIRON Author presents Dead by Dawn. The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth. Thurs., July 1, 6 p.m. Tickets cost $60 to $180 per table. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

Call for submissions

• NH LITERARY AWARDS The New Hampshire Writers’ Project seeks submissions for its Biennial New Hampshire Literary Awards, which recognize published works written about New Hampshire and works written by New Hampshire natives or residents. Books must have been published between Jan. 1, 2019 and Dec. 31, 2020 and may be nominated in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children’s picture books, middle grade/young adult books. All entries will be read and evaluated by a panel of judges assembled by the NHWP. Submission deadline is Mon., June 21, 5 p.m. Visit nhwritersproject.org/new-hampshire-literary-awards.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Online. Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. Bookstore based in Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email elizabethw@goffstownlibrary.com or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email information@nashualibrary.org or visit nashualibrary.org.

Featured photo: Love Like That

The Audacity of Sara Grayson, by Joani Elliott (Post Hill Press, 400 pages)

Imagine if Stephenie Myers had died right after Bella Swan got pregnant.

The Twilight books reached a new peak of tension as Swan, the angsty human who married a vampire, began to swell with a mysterious new life. What would have become of the series if Myers, the author, were no longer around to complete the story? Would fans be satisfied with a finale written by someone else? Or would the final book become a great public unhappiness, like the final season of Game of Thrones?

Utah author Joani Elliott tackles such a quandary, minus the vampires, in her debut novel, The Audacity of Sara Grayson. In it, an enormously successful author — think Myers or J.K. Rowling — dies of pancreatic cancer, just 12 weeks after her family finds out she is sick. Cassandra Bond is almost as famous as the actress who plays Ellery Dawson, the star of a five-book thriller series, of which only four books have been written. She leaves her sizable estate to her two daughters — and the task of writing the fifth book to the youngest, Sara.

Sara is a writer, too, though one with no commercial success. She teaches English at the University of Maryland and supplements her income by writing copy for greeting cards. (“They loved her work and thought she had a real knack for cancer cards, and could she please send more?”)

Sara did write a novel, once, but had given it to her mother’s gruff editor to review, and his savage assessment drained her of ambition. So, too, had her recent divorce from a man who had abruptly left after six years of marriage to go on an Eat, Pray, Love-type journey. She had a good enough relationship with her mom, but as she comes to learn in the months after Cassandra’s death, did not truly know her. She is shocked and dismayed to learn she is the designated author of the final book in the series — even more so because she hasn’t read the four previous books. (“I saw the movie,” she says defensively to her sister, Anna Katherine.)

Sara intends to say no, until she goes into a meeting with lawyers and publishing executives and an editor insults her into changing her mind. She emerges from the meeting with the assignment to write a best-selling book that will explain the series’ biggest mystery, what had become of Ellery Dawson’s father, who was presumed dead and may or may not have been a traitor.

As it turns out, that is a story line that is disturbingly close to Sara’s own life. Her father had died when she was 7, and while she has warm memories of him and a good childhood, her mother’s will left a disturbing hint to doubt the narrative of Sara’s memory: an unusual bequest to a mysterious woman and her daughter in Europe.

This establishes a parallel path that runs along the main track of the story, which is Sara’s struggle to write the book. It adds a nice complexity to a story that could otherwise be too simple, as does Sara’s evolving relationship with her mother’s editor and, eventually, his son.

While The Audacity of Sara Grayson fits nicely within the oft derided genre of “chick lit” — it will appeal primarily to women and also could qualify as a beach read — it also surprisingly morphs into an inspirational book for writers, particularly in the last section, which is primarily set in Maine.

While relationships are at the heart of the story, it is also a novel about the difficulty of writing a novel, and the main characters are all involved in publishing. Elliott begins each chapter with a real-life quote from an author about writing — familiar ones from the likes of Toni Morrison and Stephen King, as well as some from lesser-known writers — and while this felt bothersome at first, the interruption of fiction with reality, I grew to enjoy them. I also liked how the story pulls back the curtains on the writing process and exposes the secrets of inspiration. Especially memorable was when Sara visits Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park to see the sunrise. (It’s the first point of sunlight in the U.S. — Google it and go.)

It was a turning point for Sara, when she realized she had never watched a sunrise. “And to think this happened every day. Everywhere. While people mixed creamer into coffee and ate their cornflakes and checked their email.”

The Audacity of Sara Grayson is not a complicated novel; in fact, the language sometimes seems a bit too simple, too easy, like a knife sliding through butter that’s been sitting out for hours. But it has a gangbuster premise and truly memorable characters and deserves to break through in the noisy throng of summer fiction. A

Featured photo: The Audacity of Sara Grayson

Freedom, by Sebastian Junger (Simon & Schuster, 147 pages)

In 2012 Cheryl Strayed hit publishing paydirt with a memoir of her three-month solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. That book, Wild, was an account of how Strayed fought her way through both a literal wilderness and a wilderness of grief after her mother died from a cruelly rapid onset of lung cancer.

In his new book Freedom, Sebastian Junger also takes to the wild, with dramatically different style and intent. Best known for the commercially successful The Perfect Storm (published in 1997 if you want to feel old), Junger set off to walk a long distance along railroad lines, which happens to be illegal. This gives the account a thin tension. Will Junger and his comrades — a photographer, two Afghan War veterans and a dog — be arrested? Run over by a train? Eaten by bears? That is the extent of the mystery in this meandering account that reads at times like the collision of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books and the “N” volume of the World Book Encyclopedia — “N” for the emphasis on Native Americans.

Strayed covered 1,100 miles; Junger and his companions, 400, going from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. He admits in an afterword that the journey was “done in stages and not always with the same people,” which somewhat diminishes the accomplishment. But the slim book is still a surprisingly engrossing reflection of what “freedom” really means in a primitive sense, not the patriotic one, and why there is so much appeal in these stories of people who temporarily cast off the shackles of civilization for the perils and hardships of the wild.

The book is divided into three sections, titled “Run,” “Fight” and “Think.” In the first, Junger jumps right into the journey, taking no time for the formalities of explaining why he was doing this, and quickly launching into encyclopedic mode with a discourse on the freedom Native Americans had before Europeans arrived to chase and slaughter them. By the close of the section, we are weeping for the Apaches, even though Junger makes clear that brutality was not unique to the invading Europeans.

As Junger writes about the European settlers, “If you were willing to risk being captured … then you could make your way up the finger valleys of the Juniata and find a secluded spot to build a cabin and get in a quick crop of corn. … The risks were appalling and the hardships unspeakable, but no government official would ever again tell you what to do.”

In taking the journey, Junger attempts to experience not only the travails of Native Americans and the early settlers but the lifestyle of our ancestors, millennia-past. “The poor have always walked and the desperate have always slept outside. We were neither, but we were still doing something that felt ancient and hard.”

He writes vividly of the stresses of the body when moving constantly: “Sometimes you enter a great blank space where a whole hour can seem to go by faster than some of the minutes within it, and the loyal dog of your body trots along as if the entire point of its existence is to expire following your orders.”

For food, the men made fires and grilled meat and vegetables they bought when they ventured into towns, and occasionally wolfed pancakes and eggs at diners where people looked at them with a mixture of suspicion and envy. They carried a single machete, which they stuck in a tree while they slept, counting on Junger’s dog to serve as an alarm if something evil came their way.

In the second section, “Fight,” Junger returns with dismaying insistence to tales of Native American cruelty to settlers. Then he segues into stories about how the railroads were built, with equally horrific random tales of carnage. (The book could have been subtitled “1,000 horrific ways to die in early America.”) The takeaway: Trains and settling a wilderness are dangerous, as was the trip that Junger and his companions were, somewhat inexplicably, taking,

“The towns, the cops, the freight companies — no one wanted us on the lines, which was understandable. In fact, over the course of four hundred miles, we failed to come up with a single moral or legal justification for what we were doing other than the dilute principle that we weren’t causing actual harm so we should be able to keep doing it,” he writes.

In the final section, “Think,” and throughout a frayed thread that runs through the book, Junger wrestles with the perception of freedom and real freedom’s uglier realities. “People love to believe that they’re free,” he says, although flag-waving Americans “depend on a sprawling supply chain that can only function with federal oversight, and most of them pay roughly one-third of their income in taxes for the right to participate in this system.”

In the end, it’s unclear what Junger accomplished other than pulverizing his feet to something the consistency of pink oatmeal. The trip had been an escape of a 51-year-old in the middle of a divorce and was “a temporary injunction against whatever was coming” next. It’s definitely not the triumphant finish of Wild.

Except for one thing: Like Strayed, Junger got a film out of his exceedingly long hike. Called The Last Patrol, the HBO documentary came out in 2014. The book is as uneven as the territory the men crossed, but intriguing enough to make us want to see the footage. B-

BOOK NOTES
When Andy Warhol said that in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes, he left something out: that in the future, everyone will write a novel, whether anyone wants to read it or not.
I was reminded of this recently when listening to Four-Hour-Work-Week guru Tim Ferris interview author Steven Pressfield (A Man at Arms, W.W. Norton, 336 pages) on a podcast. Ferris, who has made a ton of money writing nonfiction, mused that he was thinking of writing a novel. Of course he is. Who isn’t?
That is clear from new fiction offerings from former President Bill Clinton and Georgia politician Stacey Abrams, not to mention a forthcoming novel from Empty Nest star Dinah Manoff.
Abrams, to her credit, is dedicated to the craft. She wrote her first novel in law school and has published eight romance novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery. She’s also written two nonfiction books. Her newest is While Justice Sleeps (Doubleday, 384 pages), billed as a thriller set within the U.S. Supreme Court.
Clinton teams up with superstar author James Patterson again for The President’s Daughter (Little, Brown and Co./Knopf), which, at 608 pages, brings to mind Clinton’s 35-minute speech in 1988 and how the crowd went wild when he finally said “In conclusion.” Somewhat predictably, it’s a thriller about the kidnapping of a president’s kid. The previous Patterson-Clinton book was The President is Missing (Little, Brown and Co., 527 pages). Apparently the president goes missing.
Less promising is Manoff’s July release of The Real True Hollywood Story of Jackie Gold, billed as a coming-of-age story set in Hollywood (Star Alley Press, 338 pages). Right now it’s only offered on Kindle and it appears to be the first book published by this company, which may be a cover for self-publishing. If it flops, it doesn’t take away from Manoff’s other talents (she did, after all, win a Tony) but only suggests that maybe, just maybe, everyone doesn’t have a novel in them.
Andy Warhol, by the way, thought he did. Though famous for his pop art, Warhol wrote something that he called a novel — literally. A, a Novel (Grove Press, 451 pages) was not especially well-received in 1968 and, being largely a transcript of recordings, can barely be called a novel, but a first edition is going for $6,500 on Amazon. If you’ve got one somewhere, get thee to a book dealer, fast.

Books

Author events

• MEREDITH TATE AND CAMERON LUND Tate presents Shipped. Lund presents Heartbreakers and Fakers. Hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Virtual, via Zoom. Thurs., May 20, 7 p.m. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• GLENN A. KNOBLOCK Author presents Hidden History of Lake Winnipesaukee. Hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Virtual, via Zoom. Wed., May 26, 7 p.m. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• KEVIN KWAN Author presents Sex and Vanity. Hosted by The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Thurs., May 27, 7 p.m. Virtual. Tickets cost $5. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• JAMIE DUCHARME AND JEFFREY KLUGER Ducharme presents Big Vape: The Incendiary Rise of Juul. Kluger presents Holdout. Hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Virtual, via Zoom. Wed., June 2, 7 p.m. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• ANNETTE GORDON-REED Author presents On Juneteenth. Hosted by The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Thurs., June 3, 7 p.m. Virtual. Tickets cost $5. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA, QUIARA ALEGRIA HUDES AND JEREMY MCCARTER Authors present the launch of their new book, In the Heights: Finding Home. Hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Virtual, via Zoom. Tues., June 15, 8 p.m. Registration and tickets required. Tickets cost $40 to $44. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

Call for submissions

• COVID POETRY ANTHOLOGY New Hampshire residents are invited to submit original poems for review and possible publication in COVID Spring Vol. II,an anthology of poetry about the pandemic experience in New Hampshire, to be edited by New Hampshire Poet Laureate Alexandria Peary and published by Hobblebush Books this summer. Youth age 18 and under may also submit original poems to be considered for the anthology’s new youth section. Submit a poem or poems (up to three) by Sun., May 23, through the online submission form at hobblebush.com/anthology-submissions. Poets will be notified of the editor’s decision by June 15.

• NH LITERARY AWARDS The New Hampshire Writers’ Project seeks submissions for its Biennial New Hampshire Literary Awards, which recognize published works written about New Hampshire and works written by New Hampshire natives or residents. Books must have been published between Jan. 1, 2019 and Dec. 31, 2020 and may be nominated in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children’s picture books, middle grade/young adult books. All entries will be read and evaluated by a panel of judges assembled by the NHWP. Submission deadline is Mon., June 21, 5 p.m. Visit nhwritersproject.org/new-hampshire-literary-awards.

Featured photo: Freedom