Before, I get to the reviews, I need your help! My mom’s birthday is coming up, and while I’ve already gotten half of her present, I also want to buy a book. And you know that feeling when you all you want is toothpaste, and the store has six shelves of toothpaste, and you just can’t figure out if you need the whitening, or the extra fluoride, or what? Well, that’s about where I’m at. So I’m asking for some reader advisory stuff. Here’s what my mom loves: probably her very favourite series is Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander one, though she thinks the first four were much better than the later ones. She read Pillars of the Earth earlier this year, and really liked it. (Before you point out that there’s a sequel, it’s still in hardcover, and my mom preferes p/b.) She’s also a fan of mysteries, but I got her some of those for Christmas, so I’d like to try something different. However, her favourite mystery series are also historical, if that helps. She used to read a lot of fantasy, . She’s really picky about the writing: she hates clunky dialogue, lol. She reads quickly, so big books are welcome. And she prefers books that don’t have really sad/tragic endings. Right now, I’m entertaining ideas about The Thirteenth Tale (but I’m worried it might be too gothic for her; she tends to read more down-to-earth stuff or straight-up fantasy), Remains of the Day (because it’s just so beautiful), or Confessions of a Teen Sleuth (I haven’t read this one: it’s a parody of Nancy Drew, and since my mom gave me her childhood Nancy Drews when I was 11, it’s always been something that connects us. Has anyone read it? Is it any good?). On the non-fiction side, she enjoyed Queen Noor’s autobiography. So I thought about getting her a book on Gertrude Bell or some other powerful woman. Now suggest away, even if the book has nothing to do with anything I’ve talked about here! The only requirement is that it’s available in paperback.

Since I spent yesterday talking about the South, I might as well continue the theme with two short books by Southern authors, even though they’re about as far from the thriller category as you can get!

Truman Capote’s “Summer Crossing” was my substitute Year of Reading Dangerously choice, since I couldn’t find Other Voices, Other Rooms anywhere. After Capote’s death, this manuscript was found and published. It was obviously written when he was very young, and he obviously didn’t intend to publish it. Keeping that in mind, I still enjoyed it. It’s actually set in New York, but the characters have Southern roots, and there’s definitely a Souther gothic flavour going on. If you add a bit of The Great Gatsby, that kind of recklessness in entitled youth, and remember that a teenager wrote it, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what it’s like. Seventeen-year-old Grady is left by herself when she refuses to accompany her parents on their summer vacation to France. She gets up to all sorts of mischief, with the help of her best friend, Peter, who is also wealthy but has never quite fit in, and the ‘common’ boy she’s fallen in love with. The only other Capote I’ve read is In Cold Blood, which did not impress me, but I see the potential for quite a good fiction writer in this novella, so I’ll definitely be looking into his later books now. All in all, a worthwhile way to spend a couple of hours, but don’t expect anything mind-blowing.

Then there’s Carson McCullers’ “The Ballad of the Sad Cafe”. This one is absolutely incredible, and you haven’t read it you should go do it as soon as possible. It’s less than a hundred pages, so it won’t take long, but McCullers manages to put more in those pages than a lot of authors do in full-length novels. It’s essentially a love triangle between Miss Amelia (a quite masculine, hard-hearted woman), Cousin Lymon (a hunchback, with all of the characteristics of an old court jester), and Marvin Macy (Miss Amelia’s ex-husband). The narrator is a fourth character, who often intrudes into the story, to say things like

But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes. The heart of a hurt child can shrnk so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach. Or again, the heart of such a child may fester and swell until it is a misery to carry within the body, easily chafed and hurt by the most ordinary things.

I love these kinds of narrators, and this one perfectly fits the story’s tone. Not only are the characters the kind that stay with you forever, but the story itself lends itself to so many different interpretations. It’s obviously about love, but it also concerns women’s empowerment, and revenge, and how humans deal with poverty, and all sorts of marvelous things. Really, you should just go read it, and decide for yourself what it means. I’d bet every reader has a different interpretation. If McCuller’s other works are half as good, I’ll be flying through them.