Fever by Mary Beth Keane

Published by Scribner on March 12, 2013 

Fever reads like a well-written biography. In fact, had Fever been written as nonfiction rather than a novel, I would be more enthusiastic about it. Despite her fluid prose and her ability to create atmospheric scenes, Mary Beth Keane's attempt to dramatize the life of Typhoid Mary falls flat. Perhaps that's because the novel remains true to the figure upon which it is based, a stubborn woman whose disagreeable personality makes it difficult to summon the empathy that the most memorable novels inspire.

In 1907, a doctor in Manhattan investigating typhoid outbreaks noticed a common link that joined many of the afflicted families: Mary Mallon had been their cook. Although Mary appears to be healthy, she is forced into the typhoid ward of a hospital. She refuses to believe that she could be a carrier of the disease. When doctors try to coerce her into consenting to the removal of her gallbladder, she reacts with understandable hostility. The authorities respond by quarantining Mary in Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island. She eventually seeks her freedom in court, loses, and spends three years on the island, steadfast in her belief that she is not a typhoid carrier.

At its best, Mary's story becomes one of an isolated woman who is on the losing side of class warfare, a headstrong worker who refused to accept the moralistic piety of her employers, who protested the ill-treatment of cooks, who dared to wear a hat identical to one owned by the lady of the house. Certainly, if Mary had been a well-educated daughter of a prosperous family rather than an Irish immigrant who lived with a man to whom she was not married, her treatment by the public health authorities and by the courts would have been less callous. The impact of class and social identity on public health decisions is one of the novel's important themes. Another is the conflict between the need to protect society from disease and the obligation to protect the liberty of American citizens. The evidence that Mary was a typhoid carrier is convincing, but the same evidence suggests that she only transmitted the disease by cooking for others. It clearly wasn't fair to Mary to hold her in quarantine when other carriers were allowed to retain their freedom.

Mary was released in 1910 on the condition that she work in a laundry, a position that Mary regarded as a backward step in her life. Given her denial that she made anyone ill, it isn't surprising that Mary abandoned the laundry for a job in a bakery, a job that she kept until health authorities found her. Fearing arrest, Mary changed her name, stopped checking in with the Department of Health, and found a job as a cook in a maternity hospital. Taken into custody after a typhoid outbreak in the hospital, Mary was quarantined at North Brother Island again in 1915.

Although Keane appears to be meticulous in her devotion to historical accuracy, she tells Mary's story with a curious absence of passion. There are moments of drama in Fever (a devastating fire is one of the best) but they are collateral to Mary's plight. The legal proceedings that took place after Mary had been quarantined for more than two years are reported with the dispassion of a journalist, as are Mary's experiences in quarantine.

The fault undoubtedly lies with the character Keane chose to write about. Mary is stubborn and abrasive, qualities that do not endear her to the reader. Part of the novel involves Mary's on-again/off-again love affair with Alfred, but Alfred is no prize. While it's no surprise that such miserable creatures were drawn together, reading about their relationship is almost painful.

It's difficult to make an emotional investment in such a depressing character. It's equally difficult to generate sympathy for someone who doomed herself by refusing for so long to accept the obvious truth about her condition, and by failing to follow the simple rule that would have assured her continued freedom: don't work as a cook. Still, Keane gave me the sense of knowing Mary, of understanding her as a person, and she makes an effort to humanize Mary in the final chapters. Had the novel been written with less detachment, Keane might have been able to make me care more about Mary. Perhaps understanding her is enough (it would be in a work of nonfiction), but a truly great novel would have made me feel more empathy for Mary, despite her disagreeable nature.

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Solo Pass by Ronald De Feo

Published by Other Press on March 5, 2013

After two months in a psych ward, a patient who identifies himself only as Ott is given a solo pass that will let him spend part of a day outside the hospital. He earned the pass by learning to play the game, to say enough without saying too much, to gain the trust of the doctors and nurses who probe him with questions. "The trick is to be chatty yet discreet."

Although Solo Pass is written in the first person, it's not clear that Ott is a reliable narrator. He believes he once visited "a quaint little village" in the Cotswalds, although he may have constructed that memory from photographs in a magazine. He vaguely recalls looking bruised and haggard before he came to the hospital but he doesn't remember why. He is careful not to tell staff his true feelings about Prodski, the therapist who "ruins lives." He wants revenge against Prodski but he dismisses those urges as "the leftover thoughts of a once sick mind." Does that kind of self-awareness suggest that Ott has largely recovered, or is he fooling himself? He wants to be the person he once was, but he can no longer trust his life. Whether others should trust Ott is doubtful.

Ronald De Feo deftly portrays the inner turmoil of his mentally ill protagonist. Ott is just a little off in his conversations with others, a little inappropriate, always guarded, never quite achieving the relaxed, natural interaction of people who have less troubled minds. One of the novel's best scenes involves a conversation Ott has with his uncle, as he desperately tries to underplay his obsession with Prodski and to pass off as humor a reference to the gun he left in his apartment. On his journey into the city, Ott is disoriented; nothing is quite as he remembers it. He tries to choke down his fears, fights to suppress his ill-tempered impulses, but it is obvious that he is torn between the rational and the compulsive. The realism with which Ott is sketched is impressive.

In contrast to the novel's narrator, the supporting characters might be on loan from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. They cover the gamut of mental illnesses. Maria is paranoid. Tommy is delusional and hyperactive. Mandy suffers from schizophrenia. Carl stares at the wall. Staff members are insensitive and self-contradictory (at least from Ott's perspective). None of them add much value to the story.

The drama and humor and poignancy that make Cuckoo's Nest so memorable are muted in Solo Pass. That doesn't make it a bad novel, but it isn't as powerful as it could have been, given its subject matter. The first part of the novel, during which Ott is an enigma, is more interesting that the beginning of the second half, which is largely an information dump about Ott's past. The story regains its momentum in the final quarter, as Ott struggles to make his way through the city.

Given the anticipation that mounts as Ott prepares to leave the ward, his actual taste of freedom is anticlimactic. I did, however, appreciate Ott's keen observation in the concluding pages that most people function too well, that they deserve no respect because their lives are too easy. They are untested, "oblivious to everything that could go wrong." That's an interesting way to look at the difference between people who are fortunate to have good brain chemistry and those whose have become unbalanced. Solo Pass reminds us that what happened to Ott could happen to any of us, and that people shouldn't be judged (as they so often are) for being mentally ill.

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Angel's Gate by p.g. sturges

Published by Scribner on February 26, 2013 

Angel's Gate lampoons Hollywood and parodies crime fiction. If you're looking for a serious thriller, look elsewhere. Angel's Gate is more comedy than thriller. It isn't what you'd call deep literature, but it's funny and fast moving and written with an insightful eye for human foibles.

Any good Hollywood story has its share of obnoxious (and wealthy) producers and directors, as well as aspiring actresses who do their best work on their backs. So it is with Angel's Gate. A producer (Melvin Shea) plays the role of part-time pimp and drug dealer, supplying the roguish studio head (Howard Hogue) with cocaine to snort and actresses to shag, including Rhonda Carling. Badly behaving director Eli Navaria is notorious for abusing women. Devi Stanton, a tattoo-covered ex-Marine and current housemother at Ivanhoe Studios (Howard's place), is a less conventional character. She gets into a bit of trouble involving Melvin, Eli, and Rhonda, and needs the sort of cleanup help that only someone like the Shortcut Man can provide.

The novel's second plotline involves Ellen Arden, whose sister hasn't heard from her in years. The Shortcut Man is hired to find her. That plot thread appears early in the novel and then submerges until it resurfaces at the very end. Naturally, the two stories are connected in an unlikely way. The connection is a little too cute but it's not completely outrageous.

The Shortcut Man is Dick Henry, an ex-cop and "freelance opportunist" who specializes in solving problems in unconventional ways. Henry isn't the sort of morally stalwart hero who struggles to make ethical choices, although he occasionally struggles with just how unethical he wants to be. Should be earn a fee by blackmailing a bad guy? He has to think about that one.

Angel's Gate is a satisfying novel in that the bad guys get what's coming to them (more or less), often in ways that are quite fitting. Karma is in the air.

Some of the characters are sexually adventurous. Some are kinky. Some use foul language. If that sort of thing troubles you, this probably isn't the novel (or writer) for you.

At one point, The Shortcut Man compares Charles Bukowski's direct, minimalist writing style to Malcolm Lowry's erudite prose and announces his preference for the former because Bukowski leaves unspoken content between the lines while Lowry puts everything in the lines. I'm not sure p.g. sturges leaves much content between the lines, but he's adopted the "simple and clear" writing style that he attributes to Bukowski and it works for him. His prose is intelligent without being pretentious. The same can be said for the plot. It's light but smart.

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The Magic of Saida by M. G. Vassanji

First published in Canada in 2012; published by Knopf on March 5, 2013 

Martin Kigoma, a publisher in Tanzania, meets Kamal Kunja in a hospital in Kilwa. As Kunja recovers from his sickness, he tells his story to Kigoma. Kunja's story interweaves with the story of Kilwa, its people and its myths.

Kunja was born in Kilwa to an African mother and an absent Indian father. He was the childhood friend of a girl named Saida, the granddaughter of Mzee Omari, a renowned poet who doubled as a national historian. The second part of the novel recites the history of Kilwa as it was understood by Omari, beginning with Kunja's ancestor in India who, in the 1870s, answered the call of jihad against the Germans who claimed the right to lead the Africans out of darkness (at gunpoint, if necessary). Omari tells how his own life is shaped by betrayal and forgiveness as Kilwa moves from the harsh rule of Germans to the gentler oppression of the British.

After her grandfather's death, Saida becomes a mganga (spiritual healer or advisor). She gives Kunja a tawiz (locket) in which is sealed a prayer. Although Kunja eventually studies medicine in Uganda and becomes a physician in Canada, he never parts with the tawiz and never forgets his promise to return to Saida. As he continues his search for her -- a difficult task given the reluctance of villagers to discuss her -- Kunja recalls his life after his mother sent him from Kilwa to Dar es Salaam. The final chapters, in which Kunja finally learns about Saida's fate, have the flavor of a supernatural soap opera.

Kunja's trip from Canada to Kilwa ultimately becomes a journey of self-discovery. As he explores his past, Kunja contemplates his sense of rootlessness (not quite African, not quite Indian, certainly not Canadian), and begins to question whether he wants to be buried under several feet of snow on a continent to which he does not belong.

As much as it is Kunja's story, The Magic of Saida is the story of Kilwa. We learn enough about Kilwa's history and culture to understand the place, but not so much as to bog down the story. Celebrated in Milton's Paradise Lost and ruled by Persian sultans before becoming an important port in slave traffic, M. G. Vassanji describes the modern Kilwa, its culture and its people, in terms that are alternately loving and stark. It is a place possessed by djinns, haunted by the spirits of the dead who were hung from mango trees. Vassanji contrasts the old and the new Kilwa, questions whether the changes it has experienced are entirely for the better. What has become of tribal pride, Kigoma asks, now that Tanzania depends so much on foreign generosity? Even Kunja, who can well afford to be generous, doubts the value of charity as a response to "the outstretched hand of Africa." The tension between change and tradition and the struggle for African independence are the novel's strongest themes.

Unlike the chapters that take place in Kilwa, those that are set in other locations are less compelling. The frequent flashbacks to Kunja's life after leaving Kilwa interrupt the narrative flow while doing little to advance the reader's understanding of Kunja. His ill-treatment as a half-caste Indian is well illustrated in a couple of powerful scenes, but too many chapters seem determined to relate the history of Tanzania and Uganda. Kunja's time in Canada and a visit to India are covered in a whirlwind of words. The uneven pace and unnecessary scenes mar an otherwise enjoyable novel. The Magic of Saida is nonetheless worth reading for the picture it paints of Kilwa and for its intriguing story of a man struggling to connect his present to his past.

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The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper

Published by Simon & Schuster on March 5, 2013

Does the world really need another novel about demons and the Vatican? I'm not a big fan of books in which Satan is a character. I am, however, a fan of Andrew Pyper. I loved The Wildfire Season, a thriller with sharply drawn characters that has nothing to do with the supernatural. Based on my admiration of that book, I decided to give The Demonologist a try. It turned out to be a good decision. Yes, the plot involves a demon, but this is fundamentally a book about flawed mortals.

In the novel's first thirty pages, Pyper gives more life to his protagonist than most authors can manage in three hundred. David Ullman is a faculty member in the English Department at Columbia, specializing in mythology and religious narrative with a particular expertise in Milton's Paradise Lost. Ullman suffers from depression, which may be why his wife is openly having an affair with a physics professor. Ullman wants his floundering marriage to work and does his best to be a good husband to Diane, although, like many men, he can't remedy her complaint that he is rarely "present in the moment." His platonic friend, Elaine O'Brien, is Ullman's "clear-thinking inner self" but she has been diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer. His eleven-year-old daughter, Tess, alienated from both her parents, seems to share his melancholy. David is alone in the world. But does he need to be?

A mysterious woman appears in Ullman's office on behalf of an employer that wants a demonologist to investigate a phenomenon she refuses to describe. The next day David and Tess are off to Venice. What he encounters there rocks the foundations of his belief system. As much as he would like to ignore it, he can't. He is given a task -- to "find and retrieve the dead ... from darkest limbo" -- that his life, and his daughter's, will hinge upon. Whether David will survive may depend upon whether he is "vulnerable to becoming convinced of impossibilities."

Throughout the novel, David is manipulated by unseen forces. He's being chased, but is his pursuer working for the Devil or the church? Or, as O'Brien sees it, has David created his own mythology, a delusional reaction to grief? While The Demonologist has the action and the pace of a thriller, this is also the story of a man reinventing himself. David takes a road trip to North Dakota ("a version of hell in itself") and then south and back north, a journey that advances the plot while giving David time for introspection. It is a journey of self-discovery that forces David to confront the part of himself that refuses to engage with the world. To battle the Devil, David must open his mind to horror. He must remember the past while learning how to think and feel at the same time. He must understand the death of his brother and confront his feelings about his father. The Demonologist is ultimately the story of a very personal hell.

Pyper has mastered the art of building fully shaped characters into plot-driven stories. Not just in its horrific subject matter, but in the intensity of its prose, the realism of its supernatural elements, and the intelligence of the story, Pyper has crafted a chilling tale of good and evil. The Demonologist reminded me of Joe Lansdale at his best. It is a book that will appeal not just to fans of horror, but to all readers who appreciate a thought-provoking story told with literary style.

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