I’ll give you a brief book report on my recent reads.

I’d read Foolscap by Michael Malone years ago, and, as I was recently trying to get myself out of research mode, I decided to pick it up to ease the transition. I think Malone’s Handling Sin is one of the really fantastic novels of the 20th century, if you don’t mind my hyperbole. It’s picaresque, hilarious, and quite moving. Foolscap is good, although not nearly as strong. It’s an academic novel (a favorite genre of mine) involving an English professor, a Great American Playwright who’s rather like a combination of Horton Foote, Faulkner and Hemingway, I suppose, all rolled into one, and a forged play passed off as the work of Sir Walter Raleigh. It’s funny and and astute.

Kings of Infinite Space is by James Hynes, whose previous claims to fame have also been academic novels, but with a horror twist thrown in. Entertaining and interesting and aptly metaphoric. This one deals with a failed academic who’s stuck as a temp in some Texas bureaucratic hell. How hellish he doesn’t know at first, but it turns out to be, basically Office Space meets Night of the Living Dead. At times hilarious, with some dead-on characterizations, but with a rather unnecessarily protracted climax..which I think I remember thinking about his previous novel, as well.

Little Children, a widely hailed novel by Tom Perotta, known for, among other works, the satiric novel Election. This one takes on the suburbs and, most particularly parents and children in the suburbs. I can’t hail it as widely as others have – I sort of thought the primary undercurrent concerned how the obsessions and priorities of modern parents ultimately victimize kids…but I’m not so sure after finishing it. It sort of left me feeling rather ambiguous and unconcerned about any of the characters.

Finally, apropos of our religion/spirituality in fiction discussion, today I read Unveiling by Suzanne Wolfe, an editor at Image Journal. It’s about a art conservator who….”travels to Rome to direct the restoration of an old triptych amid politics of the art world that threaten her integrity, she dares to hope she might learn to love and trust again. With beautiful prose and an extensive, fresh vocabulary that doesn’t succumb to showiness, Wolfe guides the reader through the mechanics of art restoration while chronicling Rachel’s emotional and spiritual healing.” (from a review at Amazon.) It bears a strong spiritual dimension, but without being neat or obvious in the process. I’d recommend it.