PECKERWOOD BOOK CLUB: Are Certain Books Better Now Or Later? Plus Sedating Elaine!

Greetings, Manor hors, and welcome to another edition of the Peckerwood Book Club, a place where we can giggle, gab and exchange suggestions about the books we've been reading, which ones we've enjoyed, and which ones we'd very much like to set aflame or use for target practice. Hopefully it's not too much of the later!

Meanwhile, have you ever picked up a book, read a few chapters and thought, "Meh," then tossed it aside, picked it up later and found it compelling? This has happened to me a few times, once with Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go," which made me shrug and think, "So what? Who cares?" after the first two or three chapters. I tried again several months later and found it riveting. And, no, I have no explanation for this, other than maybe I wasn't in the mood for it the first time around, or maybe I didn't think there would be anything more to the story once I understood the premise, which at first seemed like a pretentious "Twilight Zone" episode. It happened to me again with Marilyn Robinson's "Gilead," which, I'll be blunt, bored the hell out of me after only 20 pages or so. An entire year passed before I cracked it open again. I had just smoked a joint and was positively entranced by the author's language and consumed the book in just one sitting. Soon after, when I was decidedly not high, I opened it again. It still cast a  spell. 

Sometimes I think books are ready for us, but we're not at all ready for them, or it's simply not the right time in our lives for whatever story's being told. Or, in the case of "Gilead," maybe we need something external - in my case, a wee bit of weed - to slow us down in order to appreciate what's before us. Have you ever returned to a book you initially didn't like and found it newly fantastic? 

Meanwhile, how often does a book make you laugh? Not snort or smirk or smile, but laugh out loud? It's not an easy thing to pull off, but I found myself openly chuckling - between gasps - while reading "Sedating Elaine." 

The publisher describes it as "a dark comedy about one woman’s harebrained scheme to tranquilize her voraciously amorous girlfriend for a few days so that she might pay off her drug dealer, make soup, and finally get some peace and quiet," which is both accurate and understated, the later in terms of how much I adored this author's nimble, whip-smart writing and humor. The woman in question, or on the verge, to borrow Almodovar's parlance, is Frances, who has so many internal and external obstacles that, initially, at least, it seems like too much. But “too much” turns out to be this novel’s bat out of hell calling card. In addition to being haunted by her mercurial ex-girlfriend, Adrianna, as well as her deceased mother, there’s Dom, her enraged drug dealer who wants to be paid - right now - and Betty, his fearsome thug who’s known to scorch the nether-regions of non-paying customers. 

Yet above all, Frances must contend with Elaine, her amusingly hyperactive and overbearing lover whom Frances one day decides to sedate - if only for brief peace of mind. It’s to the novel’s credit that we both like Elaine, and, yes, fully understand Frances’ need to shut her the hell down. The brightly-drawn supporting characters include Jennifer, Elaine’s snooty mother who regards Frances as “a bit of rough;” and Adrianna, Frances’ femme fatale ex, who briefly returns to Frances’ life in one of the novel's more jaw-dropping displays of cruelly pointed black-comedy. The story’s abrupt tonal shifts - from comedy to drama to outright tragedy and back again - come at you like bumper cars, which means you scarcely know what you're in for from one moment to the next. "Sedating Elaine" is a terrific ride. 

Speaking of terrific rides, your Bibliophile Bendy Boy™ has hurled aside a novel after only three chapters - which he may or may not get back to - and needs you to do him a solid. Or rather, give him good recommendations for what to read next, but please, no "Fifty Shades of Tacky" or suchlike. He may be bendy, but loves a good tale!

Photo Credits: Penguin Random House