September 12. I am on an airplane returning from Dresden where I attended the World Congress on Huntington’s Disease. Since I have eight hours ahead of me with nowhere to go and no internet access, I thought I would take the opportunity to catch up on my reading, or rather on writing about the books I have been reading. Catching up seems to be a constant theme with this blog.

One of the great things about my book club is that it often motivates me to read books I might not have chosen otherwise. Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl is one of those books. Though it appeared on several “best of 2006” lists, the length of the book and the wordy, stream of consciousness style, and thousands of references seemed a little daunting and not that attractive. But I stuck with it anyway and was rewarded with a great read from a new, extremely talented young author with a distinctive and original voice.

First of all, it has nothing to do with physics. It’s a coming of age story about a young woman being raised by a charismatic, brilliant father who has some rather odd ideas about child raising. After her mother is killed in a car accident when she was four years old, Blue and her father begin an odyssey throughout the United States, never spending even a full academic year in any one place. While on the road, they read an discuss all the great literary works as well as political science, history, etc. Finally, Blue’s father decides that for her senior year in high school, she should settle in one snooty private school so she can apply to and get admitted to Harvard, which she does because, like her father, she is sort of a genius.

Blue is, of course, totally out of place, but she is taken under the wing of another charismatic and unusual person, the film teacher Hannah, who tries to draw her into a crowd of privileged, snotty, and somewhat deranged students. This all makes for an interesting plot with a lot of twists and turns, humor, and pathos. There is one scene where the young man she fancies tells her group of friends that she kisses like a tuna. I could feel her pain as she buries her head into her pillow and sobs. Her intellect and unconventional upbringing, however, give her the tools to deal with all manner of strange and crazy situations. Ultimately what comes through is that despite her extraordinary life circumstances, Blue is just a teenager with the same angst and desires that we are all familiar with.

Help, my battery is starting to run down and I still have 3 books to write about!!!

These three books fall into my old favorite genre, historical fiction. These seem to be the books I fall back on when I can’t think of what I want to read next.

I had picked up Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks because I has so much enjoyed reading March. I was not disappointed. Year of Wonders takes place in 1665 when the Plague is raging through England. Brooks does what she did so well in March, creating a great story with rich characters within a historical context. There may not be any truth to the “story” but she uses it to draw the reader into a time and place far distant from our world. The voice is especially effective and Brooks never strays from telling the story in this voice.

Only on Sunday did we cease from the constant round of gathering and gardening, making and visiting. And of all days of the week, it was Sunday that I now dreaded. What had been my favorite day was now accursed to me, for it was on Sunday, in church, that our failure to arrest the Plague's ravages was apparent in the emptying pews and missing faces.

Of course, she creates wonderful memorable characters. The story revolves around a small village where the charismatic priest convinces the townspeople to quarantine themselves as a means of preventing the spread of the bubonic plague. This is the historically true incident around which the novel is built. The protagonist, Anna starts out as a young, naïve, uneducated and poor young woman, who loses everything but gains enormous strength as the plague ravages her town. She learns to read from the vicar’s educated wife Eleanor, and as their friendship develops her horizons expand far beyond the small town she has never left. Yet she must still deal with the fear, discrimination, and ignorance that infests the town and threaten its survival even more than the plaque does. Again, these problems are rooted in history.

As in many of the historical fiction books I have read, this book strays into a passionate romantic relationship that seems just a little too contemporary to be believable, but I am totally captivated anyway. I don’t find it hard to believe that people have always had passion, but wonder if the way they act upon it has changed throughout history. I doubt the historical record is all that revealing in this regard.

For example, I felt similarly about the book I just finished, The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. This is the story of Mary Boleyn, the court of Henry VIII, and of course, Anne Boleyn, the older (or younger by some historical accounts) sister of Mary. More than most historical fiction I have read, this book made me constantly want to know what really happened and I found it distracting that the story Gregory creates seems at odds with what is generally accepted as true. The Boleyn family comes through as ruthless and conniving and Henry, a megalomaniac. From the other things I have read, both of these characterizations may be accurate, and I guess it’s the prerogative of the author to fashion a story that conveys this without worrying about the truth. But in the end the book reads more like a romance novel than history. I think I'll try reading some real history about this time period instead.

Sandwiched in between Wonders and Boleyn, I read Triangle by Katherine Weber, which concerns the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City in 1911. The structure of this book is different from most historical fiction, in that as the story of the fire is told through the remembrances of Esther, one of the survivors, there are competing stories about Esther’s granddaughter Rebecca, Rebecca’s lover George, and the annoying feminist herstorian (not HIStorian) who interviews Esther as part of her research. The problem, for me, is that there is just too much going on. George is a musician and a fascinating character, but the things that make him so remarkable are completely separate from the story of the fire. The attempt to pull these stories together by having him compose a symphony (opera) about the fire seems really contrived.

However, when my bookclub discussed Triangle, I came away with a totally different perspective. One of the subplots of the book involves George being is at risk for Huntington’s disease (his mother had it), and Rebecca is a genetic counselor. I thought this was a red herring until my friend Ruth pointed out that since George and Rebecca are related in some way (it gets complicated but has to do with Esther's parentage!), perhaps she too is at risk. Oh my, this book has a lot going on. It's interesting and quite challenging, but at times somewhat frustrating and repetitive. I sent an e-mail to Katherine Weber to find out more about the HD/genetics angle. I just can't imagine why she made this so obscure that it could easily go unnoticed. I read several reviews, and no one even mentions this, but it does seem to tie the subplots together. I may even have to go read this book again!