One Of These Four Books Will Make "Book Of The Year!" But Which One???????????????????????

                                                                                     

                                                                                      

Talk about an abundance of riches, darlings.  I had spent three quarters of  the year--as David can tell you--griping about the lack of quality fiction.  Then, suddenly, comes a deluge almost too impossible to keep up with. But kept up I have.  Never has there been a year, since writing this blog, where four equally qualified titles vie for the top number!  I really am  not sure what to do.

I finished "Crossroads" yesterday, and can happily say it is Jonathan Franzen at his most....well, Jonathan Franzen.  No one dissects an American family quite like  he does,  and here,  the Hildebrandts,  whose patriarch is a  minister--get roasted, probed examined, as does organized religion, drugs, mental  illness, post menopausal sex and...wow!   What an improvement, after "Purity."  Franzen  is back where he belongs, and, as this is the first of a planned trilogy, I cannot wait to see where it  picks up from!

A personal favorite, of  mine, was Franzen's mentioning of two  board games I was familiar with; one  I hated, one I enjoyed.

"RISK" was the game I hated.  I was more fascinated by the packets of colored cubes, which I would build things with, like blocks.  The older I became, and more self-aware, the more convinced I was  that "RISK" was a game for straight boys, and gays did not like it.  Are there any gay RISK players out there?  If so,  please let me know.

Not to contradict myself, but, during the mid to late Sixties, I had "STRATEGO," and I loved it.  Maybe it was because of the pieces, maybe the red and blue, maybe the bomb tokens, or maybe I had more testosterone in me than I wanted to admit.  It was a war game, a sort of lower brow version of "CHESS," but not as complicated and more colorfully designed.

Franzen's book almost made me want  to go out and rediscover these games again.

Now, "The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles, happens to be set in the America of my birth year, 1954, so already I was favorably disposed.  Not to mention being fond of his earlier works,  "Rules Of Civility," and "A Gentleman  In  Moscow."  This book is epic in length and scope, and reads like a boys' adventure book.  The Watson Brothers, Emmett and Billy, plan an excursion to find happiness  in California,  their mother having  walked  out on them years before, their father recently deceased, and Emmett, at 18, having just aged  out of a reformatory.   These well intentioned plans are foiled by two of of Emmett's cohorts, the duplicitous Duchess, and the tragic Wooly Martin, scion of a wealthy Eastern family, whose story is  heartbreaking.  Starting out in Nebraska, and ending up in Manhattan, this is a moving, action packed novel that never lets up.  I devoured the last 100 pages in a single sitting.

"Cloud Cuckoo Land," from Anthony Doerr, author of "All The Light You Cannot See," is a work  where, like Towles, the author succeeds in equaling his previous work.  Blending all  sorts of generic elements--history, fantasy, and sci-fi--I am not especially partial to into a carefully structured narrative, Doerr gives a work  guaranteed to satisfy anyone who  loves reading, language and literature.

You've already heard me  on  "The Magician," by Colm Toibin.  It is even better than "The Master," and tells of the life of Thomas  Mann in all  its fascinating, but tragic glory.  A  must read literary fictional  biography that left me considering tackling the Mann works I haven't yet.

So, girls, there you have it.  Four books, equally good.  Only one can be "Book Of The Year."  Which one shall it be?  I have several  weeks--around the first  or second week in December--to decide.  At this point, I have no more  idea than any of you.

But stay tuned, girls!  More shall be revealed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!