Author Archives: Melissa Beck

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About Melissa Beck

My reading choices are rather eclectic. I enjoy reading a wide range of books especially classics, literature in translation, history, philosophy, travel writing and poetry. I especially like to support small, literary presses.
September 9, 2014 · 12:00 am

Review, Giveaway and Author Q&A: The Naive Guys by Harry Patz

I am so excited today to bring you a review of The Naïve Guys by Harry Patz. Thanks to Harry for the advanced copy of the book, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Harry also graciously agreed to let me interview him and I think everyone will appreciate his thoughtful answers.  Harry is also giving away 4 copies of his book (open internationally).  Please scroll down to the end of my review to enter to win your own copy, add the book to Goodreads and to connect with Harry through his website and social media.

My Review:

The Naive GuysVergil, Rome’s most famous epic poet, tells the story of the hero Aeneas who, after escaping the burning of his hometown of Troy, wanders the seas in search of a new place to settle.  At the core of Vergil’s Aeneid is the theme of wandering, new beginnings and finding one’s place in life.  It is no surprise that Mark, the main character in Harry Patz’s new novel The Naïve Guys, has a dog eared and well-worn copy of The Aeneid among his treasured possessions in his childhood bedroom.  Mark has just graduated from Boston College in 1992 and he, like his fellow graduates, believes that the job offers will start pouring in.  But after moving back in with his mother and Uncle Frankie, who serves as a surrogate father, Mark realizes that the “real world” outside of the protective walls of college is a lot harder to deal with than he ever imagined.

When Mark finally lands a job as a software salesman at Fishsoft, an up-and-coming company in the infant technology industry, he is too naïve to realize that he failed to negotiate his salary.    As Mark is trying to navigate the world of office politics, he is also trying to keep in touch with his group of old friends who are a link to the happy and carefree days of college.  Mark and his friends have some very funny adventures throughout the book and the author’s sense of humor was one of my favorite aspects to the story.  I laughed out loud so many times while reading the story that my husband stopped asking me what was so funny.

Mark and his friends engage in some of the most interesting and hilarious conversations in the book especially around the topic of women and relationships.  Mark wants to find a woman who is intelligent and with whom he can have stimulating conversation, but she must also be sexy and “stimulate” him in other ways.  Throughout the story Mark has relationships that only fulfill half of this perfect formula.  One of the reasons why I found Mark to be such a likeable character is that he truly wants to fall in love and have a connection with the right woman.  The fact that he can never quite get it right makes him sympathetic and makes us cheer him on and wish for him to find his happy ending.

Sports, especially football, play a prominent role in Mark’s memories about the early 1990’s.  Another reason that I really enjoyed this book is due to the sports references and history.  Mark and his friends use football games as bonding moments and their attendance at the games keeps them close as a group of friends.  When his favorite teams win, their victories serve as a pick me up, especially when Mark suffers low points in his personal and family life.  I have learned through my own students that, whether they are players on a team or fans cheering on the sidelines, participation in athletic events serves to build their self-confidence and to provide them with a sense of belonging to a community.  Part of what helps Mark to cope in his transition period is the fact that he still feels a part of the Boston College community through sports.

I would classify THE NAIVE GUYS not just as literary fiction, but also as historical fiction because of its accurate depiction of life in the early 90’s in New York.  Mark has to use pay phones, e-mail is a new technology that most people don’t know about, and his “laptop” computer is really not at all portable.  For anyone who was in high school or college during the 1990’s this book is a fun and nostalgic read.  The combination of great characters in which the reader becomes truly invested and an interesting plot kept me eagerly turning the pages of THE NAIVE GUYS until the very end.

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Giveaway: Open Internationally:

Harry is giving away TWO signed copies of The Naïve Guys to someone in US/Canada and TWO ebooks to someone in any other country.  Winners will be notified via email on October 2nd. CLICK HERE TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY

 

About the Author:

Harry PatzHarry Patz, Jr. is a twenty-year veteran of the tech and media industries. He has been a participant of the Nantucket Atheneum Writer’s Group since October, 2013. Harry contributed a short story, “Off Season” for the group’s published anthology collection, “The Moving Pen: A Nantucket Atheneum Writer’s Group Anthology,” published in June, 2014.

Harry holds an MBA from The Johnson School at Cornell University and a BS in Management from Boston College. He resides in Westchester, New York.

Connect with Harry-
Website: www.thenaiveguys.com
Twitter: @harrypatz, @thenaiveguys
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thenaiveguys

Author Q&A:

1. In The Naïve Guys, Mark has a close group of friends that are like family to him. Did you base any of these characters on your own friends?

HP – I definitely drew on relationships from various aspects of my life. Some characters are based on my own friends and acquaintances, some are composites, and many are purely imagined. Some personality traits of my friends were accentuated, while others were combined and deemphasized. And there is a bit of me in each of the “guys,” sometimes from different periods of my life. One of my favorite movies growing up was American Graffiti. I later read that the film’s creator, George Lucas (of Star Wars fame) stated that each of three main characters were based on himself at different stages of his life. His construct made a huge impression on me.

2. Sports, especially football, have a prominent role in “The Naïve Guys”. Why, of all things you could have chosen to explore about the early 90’s, did you decide to include these details in the book?

HP – Mark and his friends are very much trying to figure out who they are, as Mark still lives in his childhood bedroom, with sports pennants of his favorite teams hanging on the wall. In this time of uncertainty, and especially as Mark, Pete and Kostas are all Boston College alumni, the rebirth of that football team provides not only a pastime, but a sense of comfort, belonging and pride for these fellows when they are so unsure of themselves in both the career and (female) relationship aspects of their lives. The nine game winning streak of the BC football team in 1993, including the landmark victory over #1 Notre Dame allowed Mark to push many of the less-established elements of his psyche to the side.

3. Mark is very “naïve” about getting a job when he is fresh out of college. Do you think that young people graduating from college today are just as naïve, more so, or less so about their job prospects?

HP – I am going to cop out here a tad and say both more and less naïve.J On the one hand, today’s college grads, growing up in the age of Columbine and ubiquitous mobile phones, cameras, and “selfies,” are so much more media and tech aware than prior generations. We see brilliant tech founders in high school, let alone those who forego or depart college early. The era of lifetime and long-term employment is dissolving from their parents’ and grandparents’ generations right before their eyes, so they are focused on not just getting a job but acquiring skills, all within a great work environment. And they lead very public lives; it’s just in their DNA.

On the other hand, I’m not sure, in general (to be fair), that they have developed the deepest level of reading, oratory, and critical thinking skills that prior generations had. While every college will extol their first class sushi bar and fitness facilities, I’m not sure they are graduating students with the best foundation to help them lead long-term successful lives, even while working on “the next big thing.”

4. I really enjoyed Mark’s references to the Aeneid in the book. Did you have other parallels in mind between Aeneas and Mark besides the obvious one of transitions ( i.e. both characters at a crossroads in their lives and trying to find their place in life)?

HP – One of the key themes in the The Nave Guys is the balance between fate and free will. What, if anything is predestined, and what is a choice? That choice can be to not make a decision, or to choose a very different path. And it’s not just Mark, it’s Sally, Vinny, Uncle Frankie, and many others who have to grapple with this question.

So for fans of the Aeneid, you may recall that Aeneas is destined to find (create) the Roman race, but he diverges from that path for a dalliance with the beautiful, sexual Dido among other stops on his journey, and we’re not really sure he is going to defeat rival Turnus though it is foretold as such.

I think one can view Mark’s journey through a similar prism. He thinks he is smart and it will all work out for him, but he is unsure if it really will. I always loved that passage in the Aeneid where Aeneas is given three imperatives – establish the peace, spare the vanquished, and crush the haughty. (The passage is much prettier in Latin, by the way). Mark, in his own life and in his own way, with respect to his friends, his family, his work colleagues and the women who enter his life…he tries to do those exact things.

5. At the end of the book Mark mentions traveling the world and alludes to his future. Is there another book in the works about what happens next to Mark Amici?

HP – I was on a long-drive today from Boston to New York and I thought about where the story will pick up for Mark and his friends. So yes, I will continue the journey for them at some point. Like all of us, Mark and the guys will grow in different and unexpected ways.

But to give that next chapter justice, I will take a break from them for a while. I plan to work on a themed short story collection first. Hopefully it is one your readers will enjoy. Thank you Melissa for the time and for sharing The Naive Guys with your readers.

 

 

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September 8, 2014 · 12:00 am

Review: The Story of Land and Sea by Katy Simpson Smith

I am very excited to welcome TLC book tours back to the Book Binder’s Daughter with an historical fiction novel.  Please read my review and look at the other stops on the blog tour.

My Review:

The Story of Land and SeaThis book is profoundly sad from beginning to end.  When the story opens John lives alone with his 10 year old daughter, Tabitha, in the shoreline town of  Beaufort in North Carolina.  John met his wife and married her after his time spent as a soldier fighting against the British in the Revolutionary War.  John’s regiment was stationed near Helen’s home and he courts her and eventually even saves her life.  But their time together, although among the happiest of their lives, is brief because Helen dies in childbirth.  Now John is doing the best he can to raise his daughter on his own.  When Tabitha becomes deathly ill with the yellow fever, he is desperate to save her life.  John believes that the sea can heal his daughter so he boards a ship bound for the Caribbean in the hopes of curing his pathetically ill child.

The second part of the story flashes back to Helen’s early life as she is also raised by a single father.  Helen’s own mother dies in childbirth and her father, Asa, struggles to nurture and provide for his only child.  There are many similarities between John and Asa’s stories.  Although Asa does not approve of Helen and John’s marriage, the two men eventually reach a state of mutual respect which, I believe, is due to a sympathetic understanding of one another’s shared grief.

When Helen is ten years old her father gives her a slave of her own named Moll. Helen and Moll grow up together and the lines between slave and owner are blurred.  The two women act more like siblings than as servant and owner as they play together, fight and share secrets.  Moll is very bitter when Helen’s father forces her to marry another slave named Moses.  Moll goes on to have four healthy babies even though she never seems to have a true affection for her husband.  The juxtaposition of two women’s stories is an interesting lesson in the role that fate plays on our lives.  Moll is a slave and not free to make her own choices, but she has a healthy family and husband; Helen is free to make her own choices and adores her husband, but fate cruelly snatches her away from them too soon.

The final part of the book describes Asa and John’s grief and the different ways in which they deal with their loss.  Although I do not require a happy ending for me to count a story as being successful, I do like to see some positive or uplifting aspects within the plot.  THE STORY OF LAND AND SEA is melancholy throughout and Smith’s message through these characters appears to be that, at least in the 18th century, life is cruel and harsh and rarely has any glimpse of hope.

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About the Author:

Katy Simpson SmithKaty Simpson Smith was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. She attended Mount Holyoke College and received a PhD in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She has been working as an Adjunct Professor at Tulane University and is the author of We Have Raised All of You: Motherhood in the South, 1750-1835. She lives in New Orleans. You can read more about her at her website: http://www.katysimpsonsmith.com/

 

Thanks so much for stopping by. Click here to view the other stops on the tour.

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September 5, 2014 · 12:00 am

Guest Post: Alistair McGuiness, author of Round the Bend (travel memoir)

Today I am excited to welcome author Alistair McGuiness to the Book Binder’s Daughter.  He has put together a preview, with some great pictures of his travel memoir entitled Round the Bend.  This is a stop on his blog tour hosted by Pump Up Your Book.  Scroll down to the end of the post to see all of the stops on this tour.

Round the Bend

Guest Post: 
Round the Bend is a travelogue of adventures, as we,  Alistair and Fran, use redundancy as a catalyst for change. The story starts with a factory closure, which prompts a rethink of life and ends with a new life in Australia.

Australia

Australia

When the factory closed its gates for the final time, we were left with 2 choices. We had come to a fork in the road. The low road meant staying local- playing it safe and never leaving home. The high road meant global travel, migration to Australia and an uncertain future. We chose the high road, not knowing that it would eventually lead us across 3 continents and 13 countries.

Our first stop was Ecuador.

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Map of Ecuador

 

“The five-hour bus journey from Quito offered glimpses of what lay ahead, as the road weaved through small villages that hung close to deep ravines. Gradually, pockets of jungle began to appear, competing with the cleared land littered with scrawny cows that picked at the scorched grass. Some fields displayed single, majestic hardwood trees that for some unknown reason had survived the clearing and stood awkwardly amongst the straggling domestic herds that chewed on the parched scrub. As Tena approached, the humidity on the bus steadily climbed as we entered the heart of Ecuador.”

Within weeks of leaving Ecuador, we were stuck in Bolivian traffic jams.

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Stuck in Bolivia

Months later, we left South America and trekked to the summit of Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. The summit day was painful but the experience was unforgettable.

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The Top of Kilimanjaro

“Tiny pockets of cloud drifted over our feet, following the gentle contours of the crater. To our left stood the shining buttress of Furtwängler Glacier, thicker and taller than imagined. How must this sight have been to early explorers who would have had to traverse its formidable ridges to reach the summit? The first rays of sun touched the glacier, replacing darkness with a stirring blaze of pinks as we moved steadily along the crater to Uhuru peak.”

 

From the snows of Kilimanjaro, we headed across Africa to the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

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Botswana

 

“Papyrus reeds towered over us as we glided through clear waters. At each turn we discovered small lagoons, littered with speckled green lily pads, while the air hissed with dragonflies darting across the millpond. The afternoon was a sensual daze, interrupted by treks onto low-lying islands in search of distant game, which shimmered on the horizon. Open-billed storks churned through mud in search of fresh water mussels, ignoring chatter from white-faced ducks that nested nearby. Before dusk we made camp on a small island, cooking stew on an open fire and constructing a shelter of tarpaulins draped from branches. The sun dripped below the horizon, coating the lingering clouds in a velvety sheen, and our world turned to darkness.”

Happy travels,
Alistair

About The Author:
Alistair McGuinessAlistair McGuiness grew up in the UK in a town called Luton, which lies 30 miles north of London. Family holidays were spent in County Donegal, Ireland, staying with his Grandmother in their large family home where she had once raised fifteen children.

It was these annual trips that made Alistair realise his Great Uncles were Seanachaís (Irish story tellers). After a few pints of Guinness in the family bar, brothers Barney and Francis would entertain the evening crowds with their recitations of life in rural Ireland. As their rustic voices carried across the crowded room, Alistair would watch and listen as the animated tales mesmorised the overseas visitors.

44 countries and four decades later, Alistair now calls Australia home and in the tradition of Great Uncles Barney and Francis, loves to recite stories. He lives between the beach and the forest with his wife, two young boys and a fun puppy called Peppi. After decades of adventurous escapades Alistair is calming down and has decided to write more and bungee jump less!

He works as a Business Improvement Specialist and has just spent three years as a fly in fly out employee at a remote iron ore mine site in Western Australia. As a trainer and facilitator, he has worked in Europe and Australia and is passionate about helping people and organisations to become successful.

A fun family day for Alistair would be fishing from the local jetty with his boys, taking the puppy for a walk along the beach at sunset and cooking a scrumptious curry in the evening with his wife. An ideal adventurous day for Alistair would be a days walking and scrambling in the Lake District with friends, followed by a visit to a village pub nestled deep in the English countryside.

Connect with Alistair-
Website:  http://www.thecreativenomad.co/
Facebook:  www.facebook.com/thecreativenomad
Twitter:  @amcguinness1

Click on the banner below to follow the rest of the blog tour for Round the Bend where you can read reviews of Alistair’s book.  Thanks so much to Pump Up Your Book for hosting this tour.

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September 4, 2014 · 12:00 am

Review: The Moment of Everything by Shelly King

I received an advanced review copy of this book from Grand Central Publishing through NetGalley.

The Moment of EverythingNow that it’s starting to look like fall, especially where I live in New England, I am in the mood for a cozy read with a feel good message.  The Moment of Everything is the perfect book to read on a cool New England night, curled up by the fire, with a warm blanket and a hot cup of tea.

The main character of the book is Maggie who was an English Lit. major in college and was hoping to make a career as a Librarian.  But when her tech savvy best friend, Dizzy, heads off to Silicon Valley after graduate school she tags along with him.  Together they found a tech company called ArGoNet and for a while she is content with her life. Even though she isn’t working around books, which was her original plan, she is making a decent salary and has carved out a unique career for herself in the tech. industry.

When the very company Maggie helped to build downsizes, she is given a pink slip and finds herself at a crossroads in her life.  She is now in her thirties, with no job, very little in her bank account and, in order to avoid reality, decides to hide out and read cheap romance novels at the local used bookstore everyday.

Maggie seems most at home around the messy and scattered books that are all over the store where her good friend, Hugo, is the owner.  Hugo lets her sit in one of the two tattered chairs at the store, the Dragonfly, and read all of the free books she wants while Jason, the only other employee at the store, taunts and annoys her.  Together they make a sort of dysfunctional family and as the book progresses it is Hugo and Jason that help Maggie through tough times and difficult choices.

This cozy book would not, of course, be complete without a romance.  Maggie, because she has witnessed her father cheat on her mother for many years, is afraid of commitment and is never really sure she has ever been in love.  I don’t want to give too much away, but the romantic subplot of the book is clever and is not your typical “love at first sight”, swooning  fairytale ending.

If you are a booklover, you will adore the literary references that are scattered throughout the text.  At one point Maggie is forced by her friend Dizzy to join a snobby book club where they are reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Maggie’s copy is, of course, a tattered and falling apart edition from the shelves of the Dragonfly with interesting notes in the margins.

King nimbly intertwines the topics and themes of the books she mentions with the thoughts and struggles of the characters in the book.  Whereas A.J. Fikry was somewhat of a book snob who only read serious literature, Maggie reads books from all sorts of genres and for that reason she appears genuinely likeable to the reader.

So, my recommendation is that this fall you light a fire (or like me have your husband light one), grab a comfy blanket, a fluffy cat and settle in with THE MOMENT OF EVERYTHING.  I am excited to see what Shelly King has in store for us next.

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September 3, 2014 · 12:00 am

Review: Neverhome by Laird Hunt

I received an advanced copy of this book from Little, Brown and Company through NetGalley.

NeverhomeConstance is a farmer from Indiana who wants to see more of the world outside of her rural farm. She decides that fighting in the Civil War will give her this chance. Her husband Bartholomew would not be a good soldier and so she decides that she will make the sacrifice and march off to war and fight for her country in his place. She puts on the Union uniform, hides her feminine qualities and in this disguise travels down south to the heart of the battleground where she takes on the name of Ash Thompson.

Ash has many interesting adventures that make her a legend among her fellow soldiers. At one point she is given the nickname “Gallant Ash” and a song is written about her. She fights alongside men and oftentimes is a better fighter, and certainly a better sharpshooter, than the men. She is constantly afraid that her secret will be revealed and it is amazing that throughout the entire story only a handful of people suspect her true identity.

NEVERHOME is brilliantly written in Constance’s own voice and we see the horrific landscape of the civil war through her eyes. I admire this book as a well-researched historical novel and Laird Hunt even uses the correct accents and turns of phrase from someone in this era. The dream sequences that Constance has are vivid and haunting and I suspect that she has what we would call nowadays PTSD. She is so disturbed by some of the horrors she witnesses that reality and dreams start to blend together.

One final aspect of the book I want to mention is Constance’s relationship with her husband.  They have a unique marriage in which they seemed to have reversed what would have been the traditional roles of husband and wife in the 19th century.  Constance is the strong and brave partner while her husband is docile, passive, and even weak.

The story is so interesting and captivating that I actually read it in one day. I could not wait to find out what happens to Constance and the ending was unexpected. I would not be surprised if NEVERHOME becomes an instant American classic that all students of history will find on their course reading lists.

There are many historical fiction novels set during the Civil War.  Leave me a comment and let me know which ones you have read and would recommend.

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