A Solitary Blue

This is the story of Jeff the guitar player in the Tillerman books.  His mother abandoned him when he was young.  She’s trying to get back in his life somewhat.  However, she’s cruel and manipulative.  He just wants to stay with his father, a professor.  Dicey from the previous Tillerman cycle book doesn’t come into the last third of the book.  It turns out that Dicey and Jeff have more in common than what was assumed in the previous books.  This was a good book although I have to admit I was hoping for the focus to be more on the Tillerman family.  

Expensive People

Joyce Carol Oates really knows how to start a novel.  She begins this book with the narrator saying that they are a child murderer meaning that they are a child who does murders.  This book shows the character as he goes to private school and his home life.  Joyce Carol Oates decides to include a short story in the middle of the book which I thought came across as a bit awkward and showed less focus on the novel itself.  The specific murder did come across as somewhat of a surprise for me although I should have seen it coming.  I’m more impressed by her short stories but I’m going to read more of her early novels.  

The Bronte Myth

This is not so much a biography but an examination of the myth that surrounds the Brontes.  It says that rather than focusing on the lives of these three women (Anne, Emily, and Charlotte) that people should focus on their literary efforts.   It tears apart Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte which domesticated her.  It contradicts itself when it says that Anne is ignored but doesn’t even contribute a chapter of her to the book.  Charlotte gets the majority of the book and Emily has a few chapters devoted to her.  I’ll just have to read a biography of Anne’s life myself.  I agree with the book that the movie Devotion from Hollywood in the 40’s wasn’t that good.  I never heard about the myth that Branwell, their drunken brother, wrote Wuthering Heights.  Daphne Du Maurier (Rebecca) even wrote a book about that so I’m planning to read it sometime. 3/5

The Love Object

I never heard of Edna O’Brien until goodreads came out with a list of the best short story collections ever.  A comment suggested that this should be put on the list.  I found it a rewarding collection and will read more of O’Brien.  Sister Imelda reminded me of Madchen in Uniform.  It’s a story about a student who has a crush on a nun.  The Connor Girls was probably my favorite story about a girl’s recollection of two strange sisters and their love lives.  The Doll was also interesting about a teacher stealing a doll away from one of her students.  

Eyes of the Killer Robot

This is like the billionth book I’ve read from Bellairs. He’s a fun writer. It’s about a robot that when you put eyes into it, it becomes evil.  The professor and Johnny Dixon’s original intent was to receive 10,000 from a baseball contest from this robot.  However, there’s more on their plate now with the inventor of the robot on their trail.  I’m really hoping that the upcoming The House with a clock in its walls movie is good.  If it is it could introduce John Bellairs to a generation of new readers.

Jean Stafford The Savage Heart

I’ve read the Collected Stories of Jean Stafford and The Mountain Lion. (I still need to read The Boston Adventure.)  She is a pretty much-forgotten writer from the 50’s which is sad as she was quite good.  I decided to read a biography of her since I was curious about her.  This book concentrates on her turbulent marriage to poet Robert Lowell and her problems with alcoholism.  It’s sad to read the final parts of the book as she was suffering from writer’s block for years.  I liked how the biographer went into detail about many of her short stories including ones which for some reason weren’t put in the Collected Stories of Jean Stafford.  Some of them sounded cool.  I don’t think we’ll be seeing a complete stories collection though. Unfortunately, the biographer didn’t put the short stories mentioned in the index.  I was thinking in the future that I might want to read the collected stories again and contrast the stories with what the biographer had to say but I can’t do that. 

Agnes Grey

This was the first novel written by the underrated Anne Bronte.  It discusses the life of a governess.  The first family she has are cruel people.  Agnes gets outraged when she sees the boy mistreat a bird.  She teaches him a violent lesson with the birds which results in her getting fired.  With the next family she steadily becomes friends with the flirtatious Rosalie who Agnes feels for after she ends up in an unhappy marriage.  Things are all right in the end as Agnes gets the man you want for her as well Mr. Weston, a parson.  Anne’s masterpiece is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall but this is a promising start.   I hope that Masterpiece Theatre does a production of it one day.