{"id":7872,"date":"2019-04-11T07:04:24","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T11:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7872"},"modified":"2019-04-11T07:04:33","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T11:04:33","slug":"a-trio-of-fascinating-reads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7872","title":{"rendered":"A Trio of Fascinating Reads"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

*****The Surfacing \u2013 <\/strong>literary\nfiction <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cormac James tells the story of the dangerous 1850 voyage of\nthe Impetus<\/em>, which sailed north of\nGreenland to find and rescue men who\u2019d been lost while searching for the\nNorthwest Passage. The story is told from the viewpoint of Impetus\u2019s<\/em> second in command, Mr. Morgan, and his doubts about the\njudgment of their captain are growing. Captain Myer has a monomaniacal desire\nto push on, even though it\u2019s late in the season, and his ship risks being\ntrapped in the ice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s ice and snow and wind and water and more ice\neverywhere. Such conditions might seem likely to become rather tedious, but\nJames surprises with his inventiveness and acute perception, expressed in\nbeautiful prose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite conditions, there\u2019s good humor among the crew,\nespecially between Morgan and his friend, the ship\u2019s doctor. The woman with\nwhom Morgan had a dalliance in their last port-of-call has been smuggled on\nboard, pregnant, and he must contend not just with an incompetent captain and\nimplacable weather, but with the unexpected pull of fatherhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conditions so far north put everyone to the test. As the darkness of another winter descends, they must each face their fate in their own way. Order from Amazon here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

****No Happy Endings \u2013\n<\/strong>comic thriller<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won Angel Luis Col\u00f3n\u2019s novella at an event where he did a reading, and I have mixed feelings about recommending it. Readers may have trouble with a couple of disturbing scenes in a crazy sperm bank. Those aside, protagonist Fantine Park is funny and engaging. She\u2019s a thief, a safecracker, and a good daughter. To protect her father living in a nursing home, she agrees to steal some of the sperm bank\u2019s \u201cproduct.\u201d So much easier said than done. As Joe Clifford wrote for the book jacket, Col\u00f3n \u201ctakes the time-tested trope of retired robber on a final heist, and delivers one of the most weirdly original, satisfying, and unexpected capers of the year.\u201d Order from Amazon here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

****The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial \u2013 <\/strong>non-fiction<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifty years ago, the murders of seven young women rocked Ann\nArbor. Maggie Nelson\u2019s book tells the real-life story of one of those deaths. Her\naunt, Jane Mixer, a law student at the University of Michigan, put up a\nbulletin board request for a ride home. She found one. Though at first believed\nthe third of the \u201cMichigan murders,\u201d her death did not fit the pattern of the others.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 2004, 35 years after Jane\u2019s death, Nelson\u2019s mother received a call from a Michigan State Police detective who said, \u201cWe have every reason to believe this case is moving swiftly toward a successful conclusion.\u201d DNA evidence had at last identified Jane\u2019s killer. This is the story of the family\u2019s reaction to reopening these old wounds, of attending the trial of a now-62 year old man, of seeing the crime scene photographs, of dealing with the media. It traverses the landscapes of grief, of murder, of justice, and the importance, even after so many years, of bearing witness. Order from Amazon here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: maxpixel.net, creative commons license.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*****The Surfacing \u2013 literary fiction Cormac James tells the story of the dangerous 1850 voyage of the Impetus, which sailed north of Greenland to find and rescue men who\u2019d been lost while searching for the Northwest Passage. The story is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A Trio of Fascinating Reads - an 1850s ship lost in the Arctic, a sperm bank thief. a family opening old wounds when a killer is found after 35 years. Such different books, such powerful prose!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[52,366,40,266,126,359,32],"tags":[1526,1542,1541,1544,1543,1540],"class_list":["post-7872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-drama","category-fiction","category-history","category-reading-2","category-review","category-thriller","tag-angel-luis-colon","tag-ann-arbor","tag-cormac-james","tag-maggie-nelson","tag-the-red-parts","tag-the-surfacing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Arctic-Ship.jpg?fit=640%2C440&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-22Y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7874,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7872\/revisions\/7874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}