The Rabbit's Paw Book Reviews

  As A Visit to the Goon Squad illustrated, our culture changes constantly, and it doesn’t take long for anyone to look around and think–how did we get here?  Computers in our pockets are now a given. Social media has made it possible to communicate with millions of people, all at once, in seconds. We can now look up any information that comes to mind–except our own memories. But wait, what if a technology existed that allowed us to transfer all the memories in our minds to a device that showed us our lives, like a movie? The price? We’d have to share our memories to a collective. One more invasion of privacy.  Bix Bouton, of Mandala fame, has a new idea: Own Your Unconscious ™ .  Many people will find this fascinating, then tempting. . Eventually, most people will happily accept this and their memories will become part of the collective.  Jennifer Egan creates a world in which we the people have been so minutely studied that there are algorithms that can pred...

A Tiny Upward Shove is a stunning debut novel by Melissa Chadburn, a rich tapestry that weaves together the stories of innocent lives and dreams torn apart, the disjointed threads of the child welfare system, and real life crime, along with some colorful Filipino folklore and tradition.  The story is told by an aswang, a shape-shifter being well-known in Filipino folklore, who is presently inhabiting the body of Marina Salles, an eighteen-year old young woman who has just been murdered by a pig farmer named Robert "Willy" Pickton. (He is a real person). The aswang gives us a flashback story into the life Marina started with, and how her life took such a devastating turn. During her early childhood, Marina Salles lived with her mother, Mutya, and her loving Lola, or grandmother. Marina is very close to her Lola, and the two have a strong bond, but when Mutya decides to follow a man to another county in California, she takes Marina with her. It is obvious, quickly, that Mutya ...

  Hammer , by Joe Mungo Reed, is a nicely written novel that is billed as a thriller, but reads more like a drama. It takes place mostly in London in the years 2013-14.  The first character we meet is Martin, an ambitious youngish man working at a London auction house. His backstory is meticulously drawn, including his eccentric parents and best friend James. Later, during an important auction, Martin reconnects with Marina, an old friend, who is now married to Oleg, a Russian oligarch.  This connection with a rich oligarch is an exciting development in Martin's career, but while he is dazzled with dealing with Oleg, he is also drawn into an affair with Marina.    Oleg's story is partially shrouded in mystery--we know that many people in his native country consider him to be a crook, that he obviously took advantage of difficult, chaotic times in Russia to make his fortune. After Oleg's mother dies and he goes to visit a cousin still living in his hometown,...

  Mecca is a novel that will stay with me for quite some time. Not only is the writing beautiful, but I got attached to the characters. Several stories come together to create this wonderful work by Susan Straight, and they show a diversity that is hidden from the eye and describe some of the presumptions and bigotry present in our society. The title of this book is apt, since Mecca is both an actual place in California, and a mecca for some, for different reasons. Each character has an intricate, well-told story, some of them connected to each other in ways the characters themselves are often not aware. This makes these life stories, the types so seldom examined, all the more intriguing.  Straight is able to recreate the landscape for us, the beauty of the mountains and canyons, along with the wind, the dryness, and the heat. We are there to witness the struggles of people living in another California (without beaches and mansions), who are often caught between two worlds– th...

  This clever novel starts out masquerading as pure comedy, before morphing into a more serious drama about an unusually fractured family.  The narrator is Jake Barnes, who has his own particular origin story that the reader learns about in careful installments. Then, towards the end, Jake the writer looks upon what he has written, and the story becomes the story of the story of Charles Barnes, a metastory.  Let me back up, though. Charles Barnes has been married multiple times, tried on many lives, involving some hilarious get-rich-quick schemes. However, poor Chuck’s general direction, financially, is downward, owing to the funny, delusional choices he makes. At the age of sixty-eight, he has four children, with whom he has complicated relationships, owing to divorcing their mothers and finally settling down with a woman none of them like. Oh, I should mention that these wives have Dickensian last names. That’s a nice touch. The important, poignant thing about this stor...

  Parties and poisons, oh, my! I had to pick up this novel, with a title like that. Something ghastly is going on in the botany department at the University College of London, and it is 1923.  The protagonist of this story is Saffron Everleigh, the only female research assistant at the college, and it goes without saying that this was a hard road in 1923. One evening, at a dinner party, a professor’s wife is poisoned, and Saffron is a witness. When her elderly boss, Dr. Maxwell, is accused of and arrested for this poisoning, Saffron is determined to find out what really happened, and to clear the name of a man who has been very dear to her.  Meanwhile, the botany department is preparing for an important expedition to the Amazon, and Saffron must assist another scientist, Alexander Ashton, in his preparations for the trip. Gradually, she finds a friend and confidant in Alexander, and persuades him to help her piece together the mystery of the poisoning of Dr. Henry’s wife...

Here is a novel with a very interesting premise: what if it were suddenly impossible, the world over, to commit physical violence against another person? For instance, bullets from guns just hang in the air, bombs might damage property, but do no one , and people are unable to strike others.  What would people do?  We know enough about human behavior, especially through social media, to expect that some folks would start performing some dangerous experiments. Those who are filled with hate would surely try to find other ways to affect pain and hardship on others.  In The Damage Done, author Michael Landweber presents this interesting premise, along with well drawn characters I found to be either likable or intriguing. This is well-written,  with good pacing, and I enjoyed it.  My one reservation about this slim novel is that it just skims the surface of its topic. This may be as intended, however, since this does create food for thought. Would there be a period ...