Etta and Otto and Russell and James
Emma Hooper, 2015
320 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
March, 2015
Funny, touching, and romantic are what come to mind when describing Emma Hooper's debut novel. Hooper has given us a story grounded in realism and a fable tinged with whimsey—and she skillfully blends the two to create a love story.
The story opens one morning when Otto finds a note from Etta on the kitchen table telling him not to worry but that she (at 83) has decided to walk across Canada to the sea. She's never seen it before, and it's something she must do. Thus begins a journey of self-discovery, three in fact: for Etta, Otto, and Russell, friend and neighbor. Oh, and there's James, Etta's traveling companion—a talking, singing coyote.
The Global War on Morris
Steve Israel, 2014
304 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
January, 2015
Who knew U.S. Congressmen could be so funny? On purpose. They're certainly funny when they issue policy pronouncements or cringe-worthy apologies—except those aren't meant to make us laugh.
But Rep. Steve Israel of Long Island has written a hilarious satire that gets us laughing from page one—intentionally. His hero Morris Feldstein is a happless Walter Mitty type, who's spent his whole life playing it safe—in his career, marriage, everything—because he has a severe allergy to trouble.
So there you have the trope behind this parody of the War on Terror. Who else but a schlemeil like Morris could get caught up in the grand sweep of paranoia following 9/11?
Wildfire
Mary Pauline Lowry, 2014
288 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
December, 2014
For me, the draw to this novel was that the author herself had once been a "hotshot," the elite branch of forestfire fighters. These are tough Navy SEAL types, often helicoptered in, who dig ditches at the edge of an oncoming blaze. It's extreme and dangerous work.
What would attract a woman to the hotshots? It's unclear what enticed our author, but her fictional stand-in Julie explains her own reasons: "After my parents died, I started to set things on fire." When her pyromania gets snuffed out by a stern grandmother, she turns to bulimia. So fighting wildfires seems a perfect antidote to Julie's self-destructive urges.
The Mountaintop School for Dogs And Other Second Chances
Ellen Cooney, 2014
304 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
October, 2014
It's been done before—so many times, in fact, that we know the outcome of this book from the get-go. But it doesn't matter because of the pure pleasure derived from Ellen Cooney's charming story of dogs and people—a tale in which healing one leads to healing the other.
The action takes place in a single locale: an isolated mountaintop refuge, known as the Sanctuary, which takes in dogs rescued from inhumane conditions. Traumatized, unfit for adoption, and at the tail end of their journey toward euthanasia, the dogs are given a second chance for rehabilitation—and life.
Delancey: A Man, a Woman, a Restaurant, a Marriage
Molly Wizenberg, 2014
256 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
September 2014
Molly Wizenberg is an accomplished woman: a successful food blogger and published book author. Yet here she is at one in the morning sobbing into salad greens and mopping the floor. She's exhausted beyond measure.
Her problem is that she's co-owner of a restaurant—one she doesn't like and doesn't want. The other problem is that the success of the restaurant is intimately bound up with the success of her marriage—the co-owner being her husband. This is Molly's memoir, and it's delightful.