The Bone People is a difficult book about identity, love, and belonging. Hume tells the story of three tough-as-nails characters: Kerewin, an isolated artist who can no longer paint; Joe, a Maori workman struggling to raise his adopted son alone; and Simon, the mute little boy Joe found washed up on the seashore.

The style is difficult because the point of view switches around among the three main characters without warning; Hulme uses Joycean made-up words as well as Maori words; and it is hard to tell when the adults are speaking their own words or thinking out loud what they think the mute little Simon is trying to communicate.

The story is difficult because of the child abuse at the center of the plot. The ambivalence with which Hulme treats the topic makes the story incredibly interesting, but absolutely distressing.

The characters are difficult because none of them are likable. Simon is sympathetic, for sure. But even he has his moments of maliciousness, although these are less convincing than Hulme may have intended.

Joe, on the other hand, does not deserve the sympathy Hulme seems to want the reader to give him. Yes, he gets his comeuppance in the end, but it does not seem sufficient punishment. His role is key to the story because he is the hinge between Simon and Kerewin, but the ultimate resolution seems a little unrealistic, given the prior conflict.

Kerwin is particularly prickly and seething with anger. She is quick to lash out verbally, and if angry enough or drunk enough, physically. She has cut herself off from her family and her community, preferring to live in an isolated tower by the ocean. She has even isolated herself from her own sex, considering herself to be a third gender – a “neuter.” But Kerwin’s story makes the book worth reading. She is one of the most complex and intriguing characters in contemporary literature.

The Shack is a novel about a father who, devastated by the death of his daughter, spends a weekend with God (literally) and re-learns about God’s love. The theology is nothing radical, but the presentation really shakes things up and gets you thinking.

In Foreigners, Caryl Philips, presents three profiles of black men in England: Francis Barber, the servant and companion of dictionary creator Dr. Johnson; boxer Randy Turpin, who beat Sugar Ray Robinson for the world middleweight title in 1951; and David Oluwale, who’s 1968 racially-motivated killing by police scandalized Britain. Although technically novellas, the main characters were real people and the profiles combine fiction with biography and journalism.

The three pieces are united by the theme of “foreignness,” examining how each of the three men were outsiders in their worlds, but vary in their style and impact. “Dr. Johnson’s Watch,” about Barber, is a formal, first person account. “Made in Wales,” about Turpin, is straightforwardly biographical. The final piece, “Northern Lights,” about Oluwale, entwines multiple narrative voices with excerpts from public records. The lack of stylistic continuity – especially the radically different style of the last story – is distracting and weakens the thematic coherence of the book.

Of the three, I prefered the second piece. Turpin’s rags-to-riches-to-rags story really dragged me in. On the other hand, the final story about Oluwale was too disjointed and abstract for my taste.

None of the profiles is fully sympathetic. The main characters are shown with all their faults and weaknesses, and from a historic perspective that distances the reader. While this adds to the idea that the three men are foreign from those around them, it lessens the reader’s ability to fully engage with the book.

On Chesil Beach is a perfectly crafted tragedy that describes the way a life can go so easily astray. Through the eyes of the omniscient narrator, we watch the excruciating, awkward wedding night of Florence and Edward who, in 1962, are too freighted with history to breach the cusp of the sexual revolution. The consequences are heartbreaking.

Scavenger Reef is more than a typical “Florida noir” mystery. In addition to a clever “whodunit?” plot, the requisite host of quirky characters, and plenty of colorful descriptions of hot weather and tropical vegetation, it explores bigger issues like the nature of friendship and the meaning of art. It gets you thinking about more than the next umbrella drink.

It is hard to say why this short novel is so unsatisfying. It has definite moments of entertainment, a few evocative passages, and a couple of really interesting story ideas. The idea of a novel spun out of the Cairo Peace Conference is a great one. In 1921, luminaries like Winston Churchill, T. E. Lawrence, and Lady Gertrude Bell met in Cairo to create the modern Middle East. Narrator Agnes Shanklin gets caught up in history and lives, or dies, to tell us about it.

But after the initial premise, the book falters. For one thing, the story of the historic events in Cairo are flanked by lengthy sections that have nothing to do with Britain’s “Great Game” in the Middle East: the influenza epidemic that leaves Agnes an heiress on the front end and the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression on the back end. These events and eras, worthy of novels of their own, are given short shrift and merely distract from the main events that get lost in the middle.

For another, the book does not explore its main theme in any detail. It is well researched in peripheral details, such as what Lawrence of Arabia wore, or what it is like to ride a camel, but the intricate workings of the Peace Conference and the complex facets of Britain’s foreign policy following World War I are glossed over. Other than to make the facile point that what happened in Cairo in 1921 greatly affects the Middle East we face today, the book does not delve into particulars. Russell spends more time on the heroine’s wardrobe and the bathroom habits of her dog than on the supposedly central international maneuverings.

Finally, the narrative gimmick is annoying. From the get go, the narrator tells us that she is dead, but writing in present time. The explanation for this, when it finally comes, is either too silly to tolerate or worthy of yet another novel, depending on your point of view.

All in all, Dreamers of the Day tries to accomplish much more than it can deliver.

Dang! I just finished the audio version of Naked—it came as part of the boxed set that I checked out of the library. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that the audio version is abridged until I was finished with it. The other “books” in the boxed set were unabridged, but there is no unabridged version of Naked. Because I’m too compulsive about finishing a book if I start it, I never listen to abridged versions. Now I’ll have to go get the book and read the whole thing.

The Pirate’s Daughter spans generations of a Jamaican family, focusing first on Ida Joseph who, as a teenager, has an affair with aging movie star Errol Flynn and bears his daughter May Flynn, the focus of the second half. Usually, I find novels using real people as characters to be irritating, and I am not a big fan of mother/daughter novels, so I had trepidations about reading this hefty first novel.

My worries were put to rest within the first couple of chapters. The Pirate’s Daughter turned out to be a surprisingly delightful read. It has an elegantly constructed plot, complex characters, steady pacing, and a satisfying resolution. The book is about the story, not the writing, which is clean and unobtrusive. Even the author’s use of Jamaican dialect is so natural it blends right into the narrative.

At one point, May is talking with her would-be lover, a character based on novelist and ex-pat Jamaica resident, Ian Fleming, about writing books. He tells her he is thinking of writing a book that would be “Lolita, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Rebecca all mixed together and set in Jamaica.” Cezair-Thompson may not have accomplished such a lofty goal, but she made a respectable effort. The Pirate’s Daughter is a good book.

I read this odd book over vacation last week. It is mostly commentary on food and cooking, with a few recipes in the back—sort of like an MFK Fisher book, but without the cache. I do not know anything about the author, George Jacobs, or why he wrote a book about cooking. He is not a chef. I gather that he is some kind of bon vivant, artist, occasional ex-pat who enjoys food. His musings are mildly interesting, but nothing memorable. Maybe I could write a book about food?

I tried to make burre blanc sauce following his directions. It didn’t work at all. It was melted butter with some shallots and a slight vinegary flavor. It never got thick.

I’ll try again someday.

Despite its title, I was surprised by how myth-centric this novel is. It is the story of a high school science teacher and his student son. It is also a re-telling of the myth of the centaur Chiron who, wounded, gives his life (his immortality) to Prometheus.

This is a book I may appreciate more in the recollection. While reading it, I was distracted by the allegory. Sometimes, the mythical references were too vague or convoluted to catch and I had to refer to the index at the back to make sure I wasn’t missing something important. But at times, the myth is more than allegory, it takes over the story (Updike sometimes refers to the hero as Chiron and describes his hooves clacking on the school stairs, for instance) which I found jarring. Also, the hero was annoying, not just to me as a reader, but to his son, wife, and co-workers in the story. I can’t figure out how this ties in with the myth of Chiron.