2007 offered great reads in fiction, nonfiction

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Dec 28, 2007 | by Dennis Lythgoe Deseret Morning News

In no particular order, here, in my opinion, are the best books of 2007:

Fiction

Richard Russo's "Bridge of Sighs" is an expansive and intriguing story about ordinary people in a small New York town, Thomaston -- encompassing their entire lives, told with flashbacks and different voices. The story starts when the main characters are in their 60s and then works back. Russo's prose is enthralling, and this book is the fictional masterpiece of the year.

* Kate Christensen's "The Great Man" is an ingenious novel about art and aging. The focus is Oscar Feldman, a fictional 20th-century New York painter, who is deceased. Two biographers think his artistic life is worthy of study, so they search for documents and interview the women in his life -- his wife, his mistress and his sister (also a painter). All are past the age of 70 and notable for their intellect and sexiness.

* Colin Cotterill's "Anarchy and Old Dogs" is a delightful tale of 73-year-old Dr. Siri Paiboun, "the reluctant national coroner of Laos," who tries to identify the body of a man who turns out to be a retired, blind dentist, killed by a logging truck in front of the post office. He was delivering a letter written in invisible ink. The coroner's best friend, Civilai, a senior member of the Laos politburo, is also in his 70s. The two bounce off each other with wit and color. Count this one as a happy discovery.

* Carol Muske-Dukes' "Channeling Mark Twain" is a stunning tale about a poet named Holly who volunteers to teach a workshop in a New York women's detention center. Based on the author's own experiences, the narrative is filled with tension, humor and realism. One of Holly's students claims to be a direct descendant of Mark Twain and tries to prove it by speaking in a steady stream of words taken from Twain's writings.

* Christian Jungersen's "The Exception" uses the voices of four women characters who work together in a small nonprofit organization in Copenhagen, where they disseminate information about genocide. When two of them receive death threats, they assume they are being harassed by Mirko Zigic, a Serbian torturer and war criminal, because they have recently written about him. As time goes on, tensions increase among the women and they start to suspect each other of making the threats. This is a brilliant study of conflict in the workplace, masterfully written by a second-time novelist whose work has been translated from Danish.

* Danielle Ganek's "Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him" is a light, conversational novel about a crisis in the art world. After a painter is killed before his artistry is officially appreciated at an art gallery showing, strange things happen. Although the artist is almost completely unknown, his death, combined with an unusual, large painting, sends the New York art world into a spin. The characters are funny and diverse, and surprises keep popping up, giving the book genuine charm.

* James Lee Burke's "The Tin Roof Blowdown: A Dave Robicheaux Novel" is about Katrina, the storm that peeled the face off southern Louisiana. The hero is Jude LeBlanc, a "sojourner in the Garden of Gethsemane." LeBlanc is a priest who is also a morphine addict, and his Lower Ninth Ward congregation is hit hard by Katrina. The story includes looters on boats, refugees on rooftops and black diamonds stashed in drywall. Burke, a master of the crime novel, gives the reader chills with this one.

* Michael Ondaatje's "Divisadero" is this gifted novelist's sixth work, set in northern California, Nevada and, eventually, south- central France. It begins in the '70s with a makeshift family: a father, his daughter and two orphans (a girl and a boy), and it ends with a poet/novelist named Lucien Segura. The book deals in many layers of feeling and memory, and the writing by the author of "The English Patient" is superb.

* Thomas Mallon's "Fellow Travelers: A Novel" is a historical novel that is not only entertaining but of major importance. The book astutely deals with the anti-communist witch hunt of the '50s and enlarges upon it to make clear historically that it was also an anti-homosexual period of American history, a time when anyone who just might be homosexual could be drummed out of any government post.

* Lynn Stegner's "Because a Fire Was in My Head" is a tragic story about a young girl who loses her father, destroying a special bond. After growing up in the tortured environment of an insane mother, she breaks loose to live on her own, but the result is even more tragic as she repeatedly chooses the wrong man, then abandons the children produced by those unions. The author's insight and writing style are mesmerizing.

Nonfiction

* Jeffrey Toobin's "The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court" is the best book yet about the country's highest court and its current justices and some of their more important cases. Toobin discusses the habits and personalities of those who preside over the court. Unfortunately, he cannot reveal his sources, said to be current or former clerks and a few of the justices themselves. Toobin is a little too sure of himself and makes historical judgments that may not stand the test of time -- but it's an enjoyable read.