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Stuff I'm Reading

 *"Murder at the Vicarage," by Agatha Christie. People say Christie, at her best, was able to write lifelike characters, and "Vicarage" is cited as an example.


I do like Christie's sense of humor in this book. A middle-aged vicar lives with his flighty spouse, Griselda, who can't take an interest in keeping house. "It seems like when I really try, the meals are actually worse than when I'm just phoning it in." When a murder occurs, the men of the town lose their cool, and it's elderly Miss Marple who says, "Everyone has terrible secrets. Human nature is far darker, far more frightening, than you're willing to admit." I also admire Madame Lestrange, who hates having visitors; she just sits in her living room, with the lights out, until the doorbell stops ringing.


*"Yoko," by Rosemary Wells. One wonderful trick in a Wells book is a quiet way of pointing out how adults can be wrong. Yoko's classmates mock her sushi; Yoko's mother is certain that a gift of crab rolls will "help turn things around." But this is fanciful thinking. The children don't suddenly fall in love with crab rolls. The mockery continues. I like how Wells offers "hard truths," even in a picture book.


*"The Best of Me," by David Sedaris. This guy is brilliant and courageous, and the evidence is already front and center in the first pages of the introduction:

There's a lot of talk about "the family you choose" .....I think it's great to have a tight-knit circle, but I wouldn't call that a family. Essential to that word is that the people you're surrounded by were NOT chosen. They were assigned by fate, and now you must deal with them until you die....

There's a Gurganus quote I think of: "Without much accuracy, with strangely little love, your family will decide for you who you are, and they'll keep poking you until you've changed into that simple shape."

Is there a richer or more complex story than that?
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