Two More From the Road (Reviews that is!)

Stella Baine by Anita Shreve (2013. Hachette (audiobook). ISBN 9781478953647)

Unfortunately for fans of Shreve’s fiction her latest effort is no Pilot’s Wife or The Weight of Water, both well written, thoroughly engaging literary novels depicting human relationships and emotions. The premise of Stella Baine, that a woman loses her memory working as a nurse on a battlefield during the Great War, is an intriguing concept. And, for the first third of the book, Shreve had me engaged as the author uncovers Stella’s identity and past. But once the true name of the wounded woman is discovered (after a diagnosis of shell shock by a local physician dabbling in the newly minted specialty of psychiatry), the plot becomes less driven by mystery and passion and more driven by the author’s need to find a story arc that comes to plausible resolution. In a word, Shreve is working too hard at her writing and it shows.

This book doesn’t stand at the apex of Shreve’s work, like the two titles mentioned above. It is more a middling effort, one akin to Sea of Glass. I don’t think the author is “phoning it in”. I think she has simply exhausted her storytelling catalog. Time to rest, recharged, and begin anew. Of course, a middling Shreve effort beats most contemporary genre fiction in terms of dialogue, writing style, and character establishment. It’s just that the plot kind of petered out long before the last word was typed. That having been said, my wife and my son Jack and I listened to this book in our blue Pacifica on the way to visit our second eldest son in Williston, ND. The story had enough going for it that it kept us entertained during the long drive. I’d listen to it again if I run out of other options. But I don’t think that’s the sort of acceptance Ms. Shreve was aiming for when she penned this novel.

3 stars out of 5.

Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand. (2008. Hachette (audiobook). ISBN 101600242340)

I really do think that Elin Hilderbrand has assorted copies of Beaches, the quintessential “girl with cancer” film starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey (the girl, unfortunately, with the cancer), tucked away in her Nantucket home. There’s a tone to Hilderbrand’s novel that reminds me of the sad, sad story told in the 1988 movie, a movie which stands the test of time with repeated viewing (mostly because of the spot on acting of Midler and Hershey). This is the first of Hildebrand’s work that I have listened to (or read) and, as with the above effort from the better known Anita Shreve, I followed this story on a family drive from Williston, ND  to our home in Duluth. I was impressed.

The three main characters, sisters Vicki (the cancer girl) and Brenda ( a college prof who slept with a student and got fired), and their friend Melanie (who just found out is pregnant and her husband is having an affair) all come to Nantucket to stay at a family beach house for a well-needed vacation. A young local man, Josh, with future dreams of his own after enduring a languid summer on the island, becomes entwined in the relationships between the three women. The interesting feature to the tale is that the three women are all considerably older than Josh. There’s a certain “take that, guys, older women can successfully negotiate the world of passion with a younger lover” aspect to Hildebrand’s tale that is refreshing, believable, and compelling.

This is not feminine fiction of the same depth or sweep of say, Jane Hamilton’s finest (Map of the World or A Short History of a Prince). (Notice I didn’t call these books “chic lit”. I view that label as pejorative and judgmental.) But there’s enough here that my wife and I were eager, after potty, lunch, and gas stops, to get back to the story to find out what happens next. Well crafted in its plot, characters, and dialogue, this book isn’t going to rock your world but it will certainly entertain you on a long, long drive over very boring country.

A final thought. This is the first of Hilderbrand’s titles I’ve read and looking at Amazon, it appears all of her published work is set on Nantucket and all the books share beach themes. She’s a good enough writer that it’d be interesting to see what she can do with a story set, say, in Taos or Helena. Bravery, my fellow authoress, bravery.

4 stars out of 5.