Happiness Sold Separately

I can't believe it's taken me forever to finish writing about this book, which I really enjoyed. (but there was the hospital stay, and recovery, and generally feeling that writing one blog was taxing my remaining brain cells.)

I liked it because it drives home the reality that marriage+career+family isn't the modern woman's happy-ever-after any more. It takes a heck of a lot of hard work and luck to make all three possible, let alone even a happy situation, and so many people are challenged in one department or another.

It's been a while since I returned these to the library so I've actually forgotten the characters' names!! The couple in the story are dealing with infertility and failed attempts at assisted reproduction, and it takes a bitter toll on their marriage. He turns to another woman's comfort to deal with her anger and resentment, which is inexcusable but so human. They still love each other, they try to work things out, but eventually she decides that their differences (beyond just the infidelity) will keep them unhappy with each other.

The End of California

This has to be one of the most compelling bits of fiction I've read in a while. It's set in Loring, Mississippi, the home town of a former football star and once-successful doctor who returns after suffering professional and personal disgrace in California.

Pete Barrington brings his wife Angela and their daughter Toni back to start their lives over. Their lives quickly intersect with Tim (Pete's best friend in high school), Mason (who becomes enamored of Toni) and his father Alan (who like Tim has a history with Pete but not in a similarly amicable fashion).

There is a lot of lust, repressed anger, secrecy, deception, retribution and small-town intrigue that culminates in tragedy.

The end is satisfyingly real and gritty, and not easy for readers who hope for happy endings. But it is beautifully written, and there is a small smidgen of hope on the last few pages.

Armed Madhouse

LTNE!! (Long time no entry.) Not that I haven't been reading--I've actually read tons over the past 3 weeks. This book kind of depressed me though and I lost my drive to write about what I've been reading.

Greg Palast is famous for having detailed exactly how Al Gore "lost" the presidential elections of 2000. (Michael Moore talked about it in his book, Stupid White Men, but he relied mostly on Palast's research.) His new book spends a lot of ink on figuring out the reason the US is involved in Iraq (it IS the oil, but not the way most people think), a fair amount on how Kerry "lost" the election of 2004, some on how more election shenanigans will take place in 2008, some on the state of the nation.

He couches a lot of his disturbing assertions in humor, which I enjoyed initially then began to find irritating. Come on, man--this is serious shit you're talking about!! Be serious about it!!

He backs up his statements with references to documents and interviews with key witnesses and I had no reason to believe that he would fabricate this entire book. (I found his last book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, really well-grounded in fact and do trust in his credibility.)

His assertions on American involvement in Iraq are a little hard to follow (because they do go round and about) but completely plausible. I feel though that the value of the book is in its discussion of past and future election fraud. I think Americans should read this book if only to have their eyes opened to the possibility that their democracy has been shanghaied. I come from a country where electoral cheating is the norm rather than the exception, so I don't have any difficulty believing that people are capable of twisting the system to benefit one political party or another. I feel that if more people were ready to question the electoral process and their elected leaders America will probably be able to rectify many of the mistakes it's made in the last half-century.

I brought up the issue of possible electoral cheating with some of my American friends. Their general reaction (in spite of being mostly avowed Democrats) is that their faith in the electoral system is steadfast, that it's still worth trusting in.

Sadly, any electoral system--even in this great democracy--isn't designed, maintained, or executed by God--which is the only way it can be considered infallible and foolproof. Human minds and hands are responsible for seeing that the system works. And Palast makes it clear that if the human minds and hands are determined to subvert the system, the system can be gamed.