Off My Rocker:

Recommendations from a Book Nut

Autumn Reading
(September 2007)

Ah, lovely Autumn: that time both glad and melancholy when the temperature moderates, the air lightens and turns to gold and we reap the just reward of our Summer’s labor; that time when the days noticeably shorten and we know Winter is coming –but not yet…not yet..

So relax and enjoy some Autumn reading.

EARLY AUTUMN, by Louis Bromfield

Ohio (Mansfield) native Louis Bromfield won the Pulitzer Prize in 1927 for Early Autumn which is the third in his "Escape" series. In its day it was racy stuff!

The series theme is, eponymously, escape…from an increasingly greedy and mechanized society and to (or back to) a more organic and agrarian society.

Olivia who discovered and then married into the old and wealthy New England Pentland family twenty years ago now finds herself dissatisfied with the mores and the sense of superiority and righteousness, born of money, of upper class society.

Her husband is a cold-blooded Puritan and her only sustaining relationship has been with her father-in-law until one Michael O’Hara appears to tempt her from the straight and narrow.

Will Olivia follow her heart (especially considering that few "Pentlands" have been fathered by other Pentlands) or will duty and tradition shackle her?

ABSENT FRIENDS, by S.J. Rozan

Which is more important…the strength and resolve which examples of human heroism give us in time of trouble or the painful truth behind the heroism? If someone has grown into a hero, is it right or fair or necessary to reveal the odd episode of "clay feet" in the interest of truth? What if the "clay feet" episode is the thing which triggered the growth into heroism? Is it acceptable to ruin the peace of the innocent in pursuit of truth?

Harry Randall, investigative reporter for the Tribune believes truth is the ultimate good. When Captain James McCaffrey dies a hero on 9/11, a memorial fund is established in his name. While writing a series of articles on the heroes of that awful day, Randall comes across information which makes him doubt McCaffrey’s ethics; he publishes those doubts and opens a can of worms.

Who really shot gangster Jack Molloy twenty-odd years ago? Was it McCaffrey? Mark Keegan went to prison in connection with that murder and his young family has been receiving mysterious payments ever since. Tom Molloy shut down his father’s gangster "kingdom" in relation to it. Marion, who never had anything to do with it has her name dragged through the mud only because she knew McCaffrey "when" and was asked to head the McCaffrey Memorial Fund.

Learn what happens in this tale of truth and consequences and how both pale against the enormity of September 11, 2001.

For lighter Autumn reading, try Yarrow, by Charles DeLint, Doctor Makes a Dollhouse Call, by Robin Hathaway, or Souvenir of Cold Springs, by Kitty Burns Florey.