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Christian Century, July 27, 2004

If you are searching for a book to take along on summer travels, or simply for an excursion to the back porch, the editors have some recommendations:

Debra Bendis: Cohn Toibin's fictional biography of Henry James, The Master (Scribner), is a convincing recreation of the novelist's life and artistic zeal. It conveys empathy both for "the master's" commitment to writing and for his extreme and often painful (for him and others) detachment from relationships.

With a convincing mix of research and imagination, Toibin displays the James family in all its glory: the volatile, brooding Henry James Sr., who was constantly uprooting his family; older brother and star intellectual William James; sister Alice, whose sharp intelligence apparently had no outlet except in the illnesses that led to her death at 42. The experience of surviving long after parents, siblings and peers succumbed to disease or war may have exacerbated James's emotional isolation.

In social settings, James was a quiet, guarded guest who would parry a question or sit silent in the midst of conversations. Rather than revealing anything, he listened. James was often seen as passionless, and was accused more than once of neglecting those he claimed to love. His self-imposed isolation extended to romantic involvements, which he declined, and may have led to the betrayal of his closest friend, novelist Constance Fenimore Woolson, whose despondency led her to suicide after James canceled plans to move closer to her.

Toibin understands that James guarded his privacy because he lived for his art. He turned down emotional engagement in order to create. He would reimagine conversations the next morning as he began his day of writing. Those who had been with him might find, as they read his books and stories, that he had appropriated with uncanny astuteness the traits and personalities of everyone in the room, intuited their crises and dilemmas, and recast them into fiction.

John M. Buchanan: A friend handed me a book a while ago and said some thing like: "You won't think so at first, but you will love this book." Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America (Harvest Books), by Stephen G. Bloom, is the unlikely, fascinating story of a group of Lubavitchers, an Orthodox and zealous Jewish sect, who open a kosher slaughterhouse outside Postville, Iowa (population 1,465). The business becomes a success and Postville's initial hospitality turns into suspicion and anger. It is a good human-interest story, but it is also about community and cultural diversity.

The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations (Continuum International), by Jonathan Sack, Britain's chief rabbi, is a carefully researched and very readable counterpoint to Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations.

We are midway through the baseball season and there are lots of good books on the subject, beginning with The Teammates (Hyperion). David Halberstam describes the extraordinary friendship between four Boston Red Sox players that began during their playing days in the 1940s and '50s. And who could resist Baseball and Philosophy (Open Court), an anthology of "out of the batter's box" essays edited by Eric Bronson, with titles like "The Ethics of the Intentional Walk," "Socrates at the Ballpark" and "Baseball, Cheating, and Tradition: Would Kant Cork His Bat?" Michael Lewis's Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (Norton) is by my bedside. The author suggests that winning is not merely a matter of having the highest payroll--something that Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics, seems to understand best.

Trudy Bush: Though it's a memoir, Ann Patchett's Truth & Beauty (HarperCollins) has many of the qualities of excellent fiction--unforgettable characters, a dramatic plot recounting a heroic struggle, love put to the test, and a bittersweet ending. It's the story of Patchett's friendship with Lucy Grealy, whom she got to know at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Grealy had lost part of her jaw to childhood cancer, and most of her teeth to a long series of unsuccessful surgeries. She had intelligence, wit and charm, as well as the conviction that she would redeem her suffering by becoming a noted writer.

Patchett, best known for the novel Bel Canto, uses the fable of the grasshopper and the ant to characterize their 20-year friendship. Grealy was the grasshopper: she had enormous vitality, capacity for friendship and appetite for life, but was given to bouts of loneliness, depression and despair. Patchett was the ant: responsible, capable and steady.

The book is in part the story of writers' lives--about the competition for fellowships, prizes and publishing successes. The disciplined Patchett succeeded at the craft first, steadily publishing her novels. Grealy had a brief moment of fame with The Autobiography of a Face.

Patchett quotes extensively from Grealy's letters, which evoke a vivid sense of the writer's personality. But the book turns dark as Grealy's surgeries continue (she had 38) and as Patchett finds herself unable to save her friend from drug addiction and self-destructiveness. This is a moving account of a complex, difficult and rewarding relationship of unusual closeness and perceptiveness.