April-May 2008
The Office of Desire by Martha Moody. Martha Moody writes about a background in which she functions. The author of “The Office of Desire” is a practicing physician in a medium sized Ohio town. The office of the novel is a small internal medical practice made up of two physicians and three medical/clerical staff. Their office building is directly across from an Ohio mall, so leaving the parking lot can be very difficult at Christmas time. The office is run by the ABC’s, three people who become close friends while working in the small office. In a compact working environment, the workplace becomes an extension of family, where everyone has a certain role to play. Alicia, the office nurse, is a single mother. She has been through two failed marriages, but devotedly focuses on her brilliant teen-age son. Brice is the office manager, who lives with his elderly mother. Caroline, the office receptionist, is a cancer survivor who has an artificial leg. She is the center of the emotional action, trying to hold together the interrelationships as the choices made by everyone destroy their previously cordial working environment. Dr. Hap Markowitz and Dr. Will Straub met in medical school and drifted into practice together.
The novel is written using alternating voices of Hap and Caroline who are the more detached observers of the group. The smooth working relationship is damaged when the newly divorced Dr. Straub becomes sexually involved with Alicia. They quickly marry and office dynamics change radically. Tension develops between the two doctors over billing procedures. Dr. Straub wants to increase the practice’s financial yield because Alicia demands that he send her son to an expensive debate camp. We get to learn how billing codes and the amount a doctor earns will differ based on the questions we are asked by our doctor. The two doctors even argue about whether or not a patient should be charged specifically for cleaning out ear wax.
Soon the marriage is in difficulties and Dr. Straub becomes involved with a fundamentalist church. Caroline, who has had some commitment issues, starts a new relationship with a 72 year-old patient named Fred. Both Brice and Hap must deal with serious health problems of their mother and wife, respectively. These are all changes that cause the participants to stop filling each others needs. The nuances of their close friendships are lost. Staff no longer has time for each other. When the personal connections are lost, something very precious is destroyed. [5/28/08]
Windy City: A Novel of Politics by Scott Simon sounds like it might be a boring rehash of Chicago politics, but it definitely isn’t that. Scott Simon is an award winning print journalist who has covered the world’s hot spots from 911 to Kabul to Cuba. Much of his work has been with NPR, but he has also worked in TV journalism. In 1977, he joined NPR as the Chicago bureau chief. In this novel he gives the diversity which makes Chicago such a vibrant town, a humorous tweak.
The main character of the novel is Sundaran “Sunny” Roopini, a Chicago alderman of the forty-eighth ward. His mentor has been the mayor of Chicago, a hysterically funny character who loved the sport of politics, food, and language. He explains his appetite for sampling the food of whatever part of Chicago he finds himself in by saying “A man has to consider the consequences before he keeps his mouth shut.” No politician can be accused of not liking someone’s food. That commitment to avidly sampling any offered foodstuff causes the mayor to develop a routine. After eating so many things which he may not have liked, he would reward himself at the end of the day with an extra large, extra cheese and prosciutto pizza from Quattro’s. Then one night he is found in his office, dead, face down in his pizza. It is quickly determined that he has been poisoned by his pizza.
Sunny had been the vice mayor, so he now becomes the interim mayor for two days until the City Council can select a new mayor. He is the owner of an Indian restaurant and is currently the single father of two teen-age daughters. A year ago his wife was killed when she was a bystander at a hold-up. The family is still trying to work through their grief. As Sunny guides the council while they juggle for supremacy in the choice of a mayor, he must cope with the search for the mayor’s murderer and deal with a US District Attorney who is trying to indict almost any one of the aldermen. The multiculturalism of Chicago is parodied by the names of each of the aldermen. Virtually every one has been given a name that would easily identify the ethnic make up of their ward. Almost every page of this book has a funny line, but it still is a loving portrait of Chicago. [5/20/08]
Hard Call written by John McCain with Mark Salter, is an exploration of decisions made by influential people who had the power to change either political or cultural history. Perhaps McCain has focused on what a book called “Profiles in Courage” did for John Kennedy’s reputation and has hoped to duplicate that positive spin for himself. McClain and Salter do a credible job of a book that can be read as entertaining social history. Their premise is that there are six qualities usually present when the best decisions are made. Awareness, timing, foresight, confidence, humility, and inspiration must be present to make a good decision. Each discussion of a significant change in the world focuses on the presence of these factors, and accents how one or two qualities, present or not, takes the decision on to success or failure.
At the very beginning of the book, McCain literally walked through one of the more consequential decisions he made in his life. As a fighter pilot, he was familiar with what is called “situational awareness”. This is the ability to fully evaluate everything that is happening to the plane and its surroundings. On his last combat run in Vietnam, he admits his ego developed to a point where he felt he could mistakenly depend on luck.
The events that led to the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel were a matter of timing. Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel had each known so much violence and destruction both personally and in their country’s history. They were each ready to attempt to secure a level of peace for their country. Although they represented countries that had suffered so much, they were able to conceive of peace, not despite their history, but because of it. The peace these two leaders created between Egypt and Israel has endured. The time was right.
I thought the most historically interesting segment was the chapter about King Gillette and the invention of the safety razor. I had no idea that the use of a straight razor was so difficult. Infection from a slight nick in the skin was also much more dangerous in a time before antibiotic creams. The success of this product depended on the ability to see the advantage of a safety razor and the progress of technology which enabled sharpening machines to produce a blade thin enough to be disposable. [4/29/08]
The Romanov Prophecy by Steve Berry is a historical thriller that features the restoration of the Romanov dynasty in post-Soviet Russia. Miles Lord is an African-American lawyer working in Moscow for an Atlanta law firm representing the interests of Stefan Baklanov, a possible claimant to the tsarist throne. Lord is suddenly a victim of a murder attempt, possibly by the Russian mafiya. He has no idea why anyone would attempt to kill him. He had been researching archival material about the Romanov family and had discovered a letter from Alexandra, the tsarina, which described a prophecy of Rasputin concerning the fate of the Romanov family.
Nicholas and Alexandra, the Romanov tsar and tsarina of Russia, and all their children were assassinated by the soviets during the revolution in 1918. Their only son had been the victim of hemophilia, a bleeding disease that was untreatable at that time. The only person who seemed to offer the family some hope was Rasputin, an uneducated monk. The influence which Rasputin had over the imperial family disgusted the aristocracy and he was assassinated by Youssoupov, a cousin of the imperial family. Miles Lord’s job is to thoroughly investigate Baklanov, a distantly related Romanov, to make sure there are no negative blots on his claim. There are wheels within wheels, so Miles has no idea who is promoting Baklanov’s claim. Communism has been a failure and the Russian people are ready for an imperial restoration. A Tsarist Commission has been appointed to select a new tsar and Baklanov is a strong candidate. The mandated check and balance is that all the seventeen commissioners must agree on a choice. The commission requires that the successful claimant must meet several criteria of the laws of tsarist succession. Any pretender must be male, as long as there is an eligible male. He must be Orthodox, his mother and wife must have been Orthodox. Any marriage must be to a woman of equal rank from a ruling house.
As Lord crosses Russia searching for documentation about any of the tsarist family who may have survived the assassination, he is joined by Akilina Petrov, an acrobat with the Moscow Circus. The novel is an absorbing mix of genuine Russian history and the supposition that direct descendants of the Tsar may still be alive. Even Faberge Easter Eggs provide clues. If you have never heard of these eggs before, I think you will research them after you read this novel. [4/29/08]
by Helen Davis