Book Review- Matt Logelin's Two Kisses for Maddy

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In March of 2008, Matthew Logelin suddenly lost his high school sweetheart and wife, Liz, to a pulmonary embolism just twenty-seven hours after she had given birth to their first child, Maddy. In his grief, Logelin took to candidly blogging about his emotions and fears.  Logelin's blog ended up becoming a sensation, as readers from all around the world connected with struggles. 

Logelin's memoir Two Kisses for Maddy was made possible through the  unwitting success of his blog. The book is dedicated to Maddy and serves as a more formal approach to documenting his relationship with Liz, her death and his first years as a single parent. Although more structured than a blog, it is not writing without raw emotion. Logelin is not a writer by trade, he fell into this new career through tragedy. He has tons of talent, but it's raw and i feel as a reader, this is what I responded to so strongly. He's not polished, swears often and doesn't sugarcoat or sentimentalize memories. Logelin has a knack for writing in a genuine voice.

I seem to pick a lot of books having to do with loss and grieving. It's therapeutic. Logelin's story had some odd parallel time from to grief that i experienced in my own life.  Liz and Matt are my age. Liz died in Pasadena, just a six weeks after my mom died just miles away in a Glendale Hospital. Just by the descriptions of places, I am fairly certain that they lived in a nearby neighborhood. My heart skipped a beat when Logelin mentioned a doctor Wada on Liz's death certificate. My mom has the same name on hers. Even though the circumstances are very different, there are a lot of commonalities with grief and processes that you need to attend to when a loved one dies. I think knowing that their family was experiencing grief at the same time as mine and  in a local community, gave me pause.

i connected a lot on a different level. My father died when i was four and I really don't remember him. There are so many ways to handle the issue, but i loved  and respected how Logelin used his memoir as a legacy for Maddy. He did Liz and Maddy justice, by writing Liz as a real person, not just letting her death elevate her into a saintly figure. One day, when Maddy is old enough, she will read this and know that she had amazing parents who loved her and each other so much. The stories of her parents courtship will not be distorted through time. i wish that i had more information on my parents and who they were before i came along. I feel like this book is such an amazing gift. it gave me perspective into fears that my mom must have experienced as a single parent, but that i was never privy to. 

Parts of this book were sad and difficult to read, but I ultimately walked away thinking that this was such a positive, uplifting story. Maddy is so lucky to have an amazing father and Matt is so lucky to be blessed with a great kid. I loved the pictures of two of them globe trotting and visiting places that were special to Liz. 

Book Review- Carolyn Parkhurst's The Dogs of Babel

Carolyn Parkhurst's debut novel, The Dogs of Babel has been sitting on my bookshelf for years and i finally decided to give it a shot and devoured it in less than twenty-four hours. it's a quick read, that's impossible to put down. 

Many years ago, i read Parkhurst's second novel, Lost and Found, about contestants on a reality television show and really enjoyed it. It was a fun read and a theme that interested me. Her debut novel is more of a mystery, a theme that i don't often find appealing, which is why i think that i let it languish on the shelf for so many years.

However, this is not so much a straightforward mystery, but told from the perspective of a grieving  husband trying to figure out the details of his young wife's untimely death. Her death is never a question of foul play. Lexy, Paul's seemingly bipolar young wife, has died from falling from the top of a tree in their backyard. in the aftermath, Paul sorts through clues to determine if Lexy accidentally slipped or committed suicide.

in his grief, Paul begins to fixate on Lorelei, the family dog and only witness to Lexy's death. Paul is a linguistics professor and begins to get obsessed with the idea of teaching Lorelei to communicate, specifically to speak. It sounds crazy and may be, but grief can lead to some insane ideas.

 Warning, this novel has a very disturbing, creepy twist. It actually made me feel sick to my stomach to read.

The book has many beautifully written flashbacks, detailing Lexy and Paul relationship. i loved the theme of masks, woven in throughout. The story has many tender moments, but Lexy and Paul feel like a real couple, a couple that has many flaws. it's this rooting in reality, that balances Paul's outlandish behavior as a husband in grief and unreliable narrator. It also makes the reader relate and like both main characters, rooting for them to ultimately have a positive outcome, despite the tragedy of Lexy's death.

A very well-crafted debut novel from Parkhurst. i am excited to read her future novels.

Book Review- An Object of Beauty

I like Steve Martin as an actor, but I really think that his talent shines as an author. While I must admit that his latest effort, An Object of Beauty, is the weakest of his three novels, it's still a strong novel and worthwhile read.

You must love and have a decent knowledge of Art and Art History to love this book. It's clear from this and Martin's other writings, that he has a deep love of art. This story frequently turns into Martin pontificating and often turning into a diatribe about the politics concerning galleries and art collectors. There is a lot of angry ranting, but it's not entirely bitter or without merit. If you do not understand and have a love for the art world, this story will probably not be of interest. Martin does pepper his novel with photographs of art, but he really doesn't explain much for those who don't already have a knowledge of the arts.

Martin is best at writing dialogue and creating subtle moments between characters. He masters writing subtext and this is why I love his books so much.

The only thing that didn't really work for me in this story was the narration. It is told from the point of view of Daniel Franks. Franks is telling the story of his friend, Lacey, who is the central character of the book. She is a highly mysterious woman for whom Franks has had a long time crush. He fills in the blanks for imagining her life as he is not there for many of the scenes in the story. It is similar to the way the narration works in one of my favorite novels, by Jeffrey Eugenides , The Virgin Suicides, where a group of boys recount the suicides of a family of neighborhood girls.  It worked well in Eugenides' novel, but doesn't quite work here. I kept forgetting that Franks was the narrator. His presence would disappear for many chapters and then he would pop back in to remind me that he was still telling the story. I felt very much like Lacey was telling her own story. This drove me a bit nuts.