Less Gripping Novels

The Fourth Hand by John Irving

While reporting a story from India, New York journalist Patrick Wallingford inadvertently becomes his own headline when his left hand is eaten by a lion. In Boston, a renowned surgeon eagerly awaits the opportunity to perform the nation’s first hand transplant. But what if the donor’s widow demands visitation rights with the hand? In answering this unexpected question, John Irving has written a novel that is by turns brilliantly comic and emotionally moving, offering a penetrating look at the power of second chances and the will to change.

I picked up this book because it seemed potentially hilarious - visitation rights with the transplanted hand?? - and also because it was by the author of The Cider House Rules, though I have neither read the book nor watched the film adaptation.

John Irving's writing style was something new to me; it took some getting used to, but once I got the hang of it, he actually made me laugh-out-loud several times.

There was more mention of sexual relationships than I had expected (I wasn't expecting anything actually). It was interesting how differently a male author described lovemaking, versus how the female novelists did in the romance genre. His was very vivid and arousing. Woo!

A Matter of Loyalty by Sandra Howard

When a bomb goes off in London's West End, Home Secretary Victoria Osborne has a desperate sense of having failed in her duty to protect the public. A young Muslim reporter, Ahmed Khan, also has deep-seated feelings of anger and responsibility. He persuades his editor to let him go back amongst childhood friends in Leeds to

try to find any lead that might help prevent further bombs.

When Ahmed meets Victoria's daughter, Nattie, at a party, he cannot get her out of his mind. They begin seeing each other. But, as he investigates his hometown and finds out uncomfortable facts, his involvement with Nattie has everyone alarmed.

Knowing something catastrophic is being planned and fearing for Nattie's safety, Ahmed becomes obsessively determined to thwart it, whatever the cost to himself.

The plot about Islamic extremism was an extension to my limited range of reading material with a palatable romance subplot. Overall not very engaging, but I flipped through the book anyway just to see how it ended.

Ford County by John Grisham

Number 1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham takes us back to Ford County, Mississippi, the setting of his first novel, A Time to Kill. This riveting collection of short stories features an unforgettable cast of characters: Wheelchair-bound Inez Graney and her two older sons embark on a bizarre road trip through the Mississippi Delta to visit Inez’s youngest son, Raymond—on death row. A hard-drinking, low-grossing divorce lawyer fed up with his wife, his life, and the law plans a drastic escape after an unexpected phone call. A quiet, unassuming data collector sets out to bring down a flashy casino owner with his skill at blackjack—as payback for the theft of his wife. A stalker hunts victims in a retirement home, a lawyer confronts a vengeful adversary from the past, and a young man from a prominent family is driven off by scandal and fear—but finds unexpected redemption on the wrong side of the tracks. Often hilarious, frequently moving, and always entertaining, this collection makes it abundantly clear why John Grisham is our most popular storyteller.

This - Often hilarious, frequently moving, and always entertaining - is not true. But there was one story that did make me laugh-out-loud. The second story entitled Fetching Raymond.

Here are the excerpts:

“How many stories have you sold?” she asked.

“None, because I haven’t written any, and the reason I haven’t written any is because I realize that I don’t have the talent to write. If my little brother would also realize that he has no artistic talents whatsoever, then he could save some money and hundreds of people would not be subjected to his nonsense.”

“That’s very cruel.”

“No, Momma, it’s very honest. And if you’d been honest with him a long time ago, then maybe he would’ve stopped writing. But no. You read his books and his poetry and his short stories and told him the stuff was great. So he wrote more, with longer words, longer sentences, longer paragraphs, and got to the point to where now we can hardly understand a damned thang he writes.”

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“No one understands what he’s sayin’,” Butch said. “That’s the problem with Raymond the novelist, and Raymond the poet, and Raymond the political prisoner, and Raymond the songwriter, and Raymond the lawyer. No person in his right mind could possibly have any idea what Raymond says when he starts writin’.”

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She opened the envelope, plain and white with his swirling cursive writing all over the front, and unfolded two sheets of yellow tablet paper.

Dearest Mother:

It is becoming increasingly obvious and apparent that the cumbersome and unwieldy yes even lethargic machinations of our inequitable and dishonorable yes even corrupt judicial system have inevitably and irrevocably trained their loathsome and despicable eyes upon me.

Inez took a breath, then read the sentence again. Most of the words looked familiar. After years of reading with a letter in one hand and a dictionary in the other, she was amazed at how much her vocabulary had expanded.

Butch glanced back, saw the letter, shook his head, but said nothing.

However, the State of Mississippi will once again be thwarted and stymied and left in thorough and consummate degradation in its resolution to extract blood from Raymond T. Graney. For I have procured and retained the services of a young lawyer with astonishing skills, an extraordinary advocate judiciously chosen by me from the innumerable legions of barristers quite literally throwing themselves at my feet.

Another pause, another quick rereading. Inez was barely hanging on.

Not surprisingly, a lawyer of such exquisite and superlative yes even singular proficiencies and dexterities cannot labor and effectively advocate on my behalf without appropriate recompense.

“What’s recompense?” she asked.

“Spell it,” Butch said.

She spelled it slowly, and the three pondered the word. This exercise in language skills had become as routine as talking about the weather.

“How’s it used?” Butch asked, so she read the sentence.

“Money,” Butch said, and Leon quickly agreed. Raymond’s mysterious words often had something to do with money.

“Let me guess. He’s got a new lawyer and needs some extra money to pay him.”

Inez ignored him and kept reading.

It is with great reluctance even trepidation that I desperately beseech you and implore you to procure the quite reasonable sum of $1,500 which will forthrightly find application in my defense and undoubtedly extricate me and emancipate me and otherwise save my ass. Come on, Momma, now is the hour for the family to join hands and metaphorically circle the wagons. Your reluctance yes even your recalcitrance will be deemed pernicious neglect.

”What’s recalcitrance?” she asked.

“Spell it,” Leon said. She spelled “recalcitrance,” then “pernicious,” and after a halfhearted debate it was obvious that none of the three had a clue.

One final note before I move on to more pressing correspondence—Butch and Leon have again neglected my stipends. Their latest perfidies concern the month of June, and it’s already halfway through July. Please torment, harass, vex, heckle, and badger those two blockheads until they honor their commitments to my defense fund.

Love, as always, from your dearest and favorite son, Raymond