willy wonka in b&w

The Doctor's House, Ann Beattie--A woman, her brother, and their mother tell more or less the same events from their respective points of view. This is fine, albeit not groundbreaking, but the woman is obviously the main character and gets about half the book to herself, and I found her POV more interesting. Generally, doing various takes on the same events is intended to show the reader how radically perceptions differ, but the accounts weren't quite as different as they could have been, so the book kind of fell flat on that angle.

Ann Beattie is better at short fiction than at novels. She wrote one of my favorite passages ever, and since I have motive and opportunity, I will share it with you. This is from "The Burning House," 1979:

     "You picked the house, Frank. They're your friends downstairs. I used to be what you wanted me to be."
     "They're your friends, too, " he says. "Don't be paranoid."
     "I want to know if you're staying or going." (This first bit is just context.)
     He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and continues to lie very still.
     "Everything you've done is commendable," he says. "You did the right thing to go back to school. You tried to do the right thing by finding yourself a normal friend like Marilyn. But your whole life you've made one mistake--you've surrounded yourself with men. Let me tell you something. All men--if they're crazy, like Tucker, if they're gay as the Queen of May, like Reddy Fox, even if they're just six years old--I'm going to tell you something about them. Men think they're Spider-Man and Buck Rogers and Superman. You know what we all feel inside that you don't feel? That we're going to the stars."
     He takes my hand. "I'm looking down on all of this from space," he whispers. "I'm already gone."

When I was a junior in college and I read that, I felt it explained a lot.

American Woman, Susan Choi--I enjoyed reading this, but it's built around the concept of a 70s revolutionary-in-hiding who is called upon to hide the equivalent of three members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, including Patty Hearst. By "equivalent," I mean that the group in the novel is different in name only, as is the heiress; we don't know her real name, only her revolutionary name, but her family owns a newspaper empire, etc. I found this a bit distracting, although I can see why that type of character was necessary to the story, in which case maybe making the connection blatant is better than trying to use the same idea (kidnapped heiress identifies with revolutionaries) with a different set of circumstances, because then I'd still be thinking, hey, this is just like Patty Hearst.

The Behindlings, Nicola Barker--I'm sure I would've gotten more out of this book if I'd read it more slowly, but it was such an odd book and I so wanted to figure it out that I ate it in just a couple of huge bites. Think of Willy Wonka, without the bright colors, in a bad mood and this time, strictly for adults, and you're halfway there.

Ten Little Indians, Sherman Alexie--Alexie's short stories are always a joy, always have some Cracker Jack prize in them. This is the book you should read, out of this quartet of tomes.