Category: Modern Fiction

The Magician’s Assistant

By Ann Patchett

Published 1997           

Read March 2026      

This reader took much time to finally get around to reading this Patchett novel despite enjoying every Patchett book she previously read.  The title suggested the book would involve the business of magicians, which it did, but it’s not clear why that would be a bother.

Fortunately, this reader did finally read this book and was delighted to find that this novel, like other Patchett novels, had an engaging storyline, interesting characters, and universal themes, despite involving a magician. 

Sabine was the long-term assistant of a successful magician who has recently died.  She had also recently become his wife, although there is no need to think that she was involved in the death as a result.  Rather she had been in love with the magician for most of her adult life while she was his assistant despite knowing that kind of love wouldn’t be returned.  The magician married her to enable her financial security upon his death.  Enough background there—read the book to understand the relationship.

The book follows Sabine as she grieves his death.  His will includes bequeaths to his mother and two sisters, whom he had previously told Sabine were dead.  She agrees to a visit from these Nebraska residents to her in California where she and magician have lived throughout their career together. 

Much of the story centers on the developing relationship between Sabine and these family members as they each explore their desire to know the magician better as a large chunk of his life (before CA/post Iowa for Sabine and vice versa for his family).  It includes Sabine’s discussions with her dead husband’s lover’s ghost which are also undertaken to enable Sabine to know her husband better.  Sabine’s choices during the story are sometimes surprising to this reader but quite believable, as are the discussions with the ghost, leading the reader on a course not originally expected. 

So Patchett has found an intriguing story setting to explore grief, family relationships, and what it means to love. And this reader heartily recommends you read this book too.       

Saint Maybe

By Anne Tyler

Published 1991

Read June 2026

This reader adores Anne Tyler.  Anytime this reader needs a reliably durable book about universal themes, she seeks out an Anne Tyler book.  This one, as has been the case for several other Anne Tyler books, was found by this reader in a Little Library.  

Ian Bedloe is the youngest child of three, coming along as a surprise bonus baby.  The Bedloe family has enjoyed years of stability and has created traditions for various holidays that root them but don’t seem to strangle them.  Things begin changing when Ian’s older brother, Danny, brings home a woman, Lucy, and announces he will be marrying.  She isn’t from the area and seems a little older than Danny.  A couple of troubling aspects for the family are the very short time between meeting and marrying (mere weeks) and the presence of two children from a previous marriage, but the marriage moves forward.  Ian is pressed into babysitting the children which he usually enjoys but he begins to wonder what Lucy does while he is babysitting and he begins to think she is having an affair.  He also figures out that Lucy was pregnant when she married his brother as the calendar doesn’t work out that Danny could possibly be the father.  One fateful night Ian’s mother promises Lucy that Ian will babysit despite Ian’s plans otherwise.  Lucy doesn’t come home at the promised time and when Danny arrives home, Ian spits out his concerns about Lucy in anger. Danny proceeds to commit suicide.  Shortly thereafter Lucy dies of a sleeping pill overdose.  Ian’s parents take care of the children while they try to contact the father of the two (known) non-blood children.  Ian receives some spiritual guidance from the pastor of a small local church, with which he becomes a member, and he quits college to help his ailing parents and take care of the children.  The birth father is never found.  Ian becomes a loving father, his apprenticeship with a carpenter enables him to provide for the family, and he abandons his desire for a different life.  The book continues with what happens as the children grow up and launch, or not, into lives beyond the family nest.   

So the book adeptly considers the questions of moral responsibility, family obligation, self-sacrifice, dreams deferred, and more.  The characters are well developed and believable.  We understand Lucy’s actions but aren’t asked to condone them.  We understand Ian’s action but aren’t asked to condemn him for Danny’s death nor congratulate him for the actions he takes later.  Tyler just lays out the paths the various members of this family take and leaves to the reader to make any judgements.  This approach actually challenges the reader to be careful about making any judgement as some paths that one takes are sometimes driven by actions outside of ourselves. 

Kudos as usual to Anne Tyler for telling a complicated story in a simple but powerful way.  Once again.  This reader will continue to read Anne Tyler novels to experience her remarkable gift. 

Three Days in June

By Anne Tyler

Published 2024

Read March 2026

This is a relatively short book (176 pages) but it covers only three days—the day before, of , and after the wedding of Gail Baine’s daughter.  But in true Tyler style, the author commits some of the pages to enough of their backstory in a very efficient manner so that the reader can better understand the actions of the various characters and she can cover some universal themes. 

Sixty-one-year-old divorcee Gail Baine is the center of our attention.  She’s not having a great time as the wedding of her daughter draws near.  She learns the day before the wedding that she’s being replaced in her job, she has been excluded from the spa day that the mother of the groom will be attending, her hair appointment doesn’t have the desired effect, and her ex-husband has stopped by with a rescued cat asking to stay with her as the groom’s allergies prevent him from staying with his daughter.    Then her daughter has inklings from her to-be-sister-in-law that her fiancée has cheated on her.

So some potential drivers of cliched big drama, but as usual, Tyler guides us through a picture of a marriage that was and a discussion of how to deal with the planned marriage to be in an efficient and non-judgmental way.  She even sets us up to decide whether we think Gail and her ex-husband could or should get back together and makes the reader wait until the very end to find out.

Once again, a book that covers universal themes in a non-dated manner that will be accessible and readable for years to come.  Enjoy! 

The Things We Never Say

By Elizabeth Strout

Published 2026

Read June 2026

As usual Strout gives us a character driven novel with characters who are generally ordinary people leading generally ordinary lives.  They are generally good people who have flaws and they’ve suffered some setbacks during their lives.

Our protagonist is Artie Dam, a fifty-seven-year-old man who has been married for thirty-four years, has a married son, has been a history teacher at the local high school for over three decades, and who was recognized as Teacher of the Year at the state level five years ago.  Artie and his wife now live in the costal home that was his parents-in-law.  He enjoys regularly sailing in the bay. 

Despite these accomplishments and seemingly desirable life, Artie is feeling increasingly isolated from many aspects of his community.  He is pondering whether man has free will and tries to engage others in conversation about this, generally unsuccessfully.  He is also pondering suicide although he never reveals this to anyone.  Fortunately for his family and friends, after nearly dying in a boating accident, he decides he wants to live.  

As he continues with new willingness to live, he experiences several changes at work, with friendships, and in society.  His principal, who has held this position during most of Artie’s tenure, requests he change his approach to a specific class due to pressure from students and their parents.  A good friend at school, the English teacher, changes when she retires.   He and his wife had a several decades friendship with another couple.  Artie became good friends with Flossie, the wife.   This friendship changes dramatically when Flossie moves closer to her daughter following the death of her husband.  A positive, however, is that Artie acquires a new friend with whom he has deeper discussions than with anyone else currently in his life despite the newness of their relationship. 

The biggest change for Artie, however, comes when he learns a significant family secret that has been hidden from him.  This knowledge staggers him substantially and he exhibits some strange behavior that is unknown to his family and that scares him a bit. 

The description of this book so far sounds generally like Strout’s territory and the reason her followers read her.  There are a couple of significant deviations, however.  This book is not set in Maine nor does it include any of her previous characters.  These changes are refreshing in many ways—new possibilities for Strout to explore.  The second major deviation is that she firmly sets the “present time” in the fall of 2024 just after the presidential election.   Trump’s name isn’t stated but it’s clear to this reader that the characters are discussing him and the potential impacts he will have. 

This is the second Strout novel in which she explores the impact of specific major historical events on her characters.  Lucy by the Sea was set during the Covid-19 epidemic.  This time she explores how her characters are affected by shifts of US culture concomitant with the election of Trump to a second term.  Interestingly, Artie’s new friend is a “Trumpster”.  Several other characters openly express concern for the future due to this election.   This reader wonders whether these two books will have a lasting a following as Olive Kitteridge enjoys.  Even more importantly for this reader, this firm political vein detracted from the more universal themes and left this reader somewhat disappointed by this Strout book.  However, this reader is very likely to read Strout’s next book which will hopefully arrive soon. 

In the Woods

Published 2007

Read June 2026

The Likeness

Published 2008

Read Jun 2026

Faithful Place

Published 2010

Read July 2026

Books 1-3 of the Dublin Murder Squad series

By Tana French

This reader has enjoyed the first three books of Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series.  The structure of this series is interesting in that although characters from the Murder Squad and other Dublin police units participate in multiple books, the protagonist, through whom the story is told is different in each book.  The corresponding reader of the audiobooks also changes along with the protagonist.    

In both the first and third books, the protagonist’s youth plays a substantial role in the story.

 In the first book, In the Woods, Adam Robert Ryan and two friends, age twelve, go out to play as usual in the woods neighboring their development.  Only Adam Robert Ryan makes it home that day.  Adam Ryan is sent to a boarding school in England to escape the pressures of the situation (thus a British reader for this audiobook).  Decades later our story starts when Rob Ryan, a Dublin Murder Squad member, and his partner and good friend, Cassie Maddox, are assigned to investigate the murder of a little girl whose body is found at an archeological dig site bordering the remains of those woods.  Since the detective goes by “Rob” vs “Adam” no one except his partner knows this history. 

In the third book, Faithful Place, the body of the long missing girlfriend of Frank Mackey, a squad leader in the Undercover Unit, is found murdered in a unit of the neighborhood in which Frank Mackey grew up and in which his parents and brother still live.  Frank is not officially part of the investigation, led by Detective Mick “Scorcher” Kennedy, a Dublin Murder Squad member, but he actively investigates anyway.

In the second book, Likeness, Cassie Maddox is our protagonist.  We had learned in In the Woods that prior to joining the Murder Squad and partnering with Rob Ryan, she had been in an Undercover Unit.  She switched to the Murder Squad after being injured in a case.  She left the Murder Squad after the case we followed in In the Woods for reasons discussed there and not here and is working in a domestic violence unit.  Her boyfriend, Sam O’Neill, was part of the investigative team with Cassie and Rob Ryan in In the Woods and is still part of the Murder Squad.  Their relationship complicates her desire to return to the Murder Squad.    When a woman, who looks like Cassie’s twin and has adopted the identity Cassie used while undercover, is found murdered Frank Mackey, Cassie’s squad leader while in the Undercover squad, inserts himself into the case.  He convinces Sam O’Neill, lead investigator on the case, and Cassie that the investigation would benefit from Cassie posing as the murdered girl under the premise that the police found her injured and she has recovered.  Thus, Cassie returns to the house the dead girl had shared with three other graduate students to determine whether and how they might have been involved in the murder. 

This reader finds the structure of the series interesting, the stories compelling and complex, and French’s writing stunning.   This reader expects to finish this series and likely read the author’s other series. 

Case Histories

Published 2004

Read Jan 2025

One Good Turn

Published 2006

Read March 2025

When Will There Be Good News

Published 2008

Read May 2026

Started Early Took My Dog

Published 2010

Read May 2026

Big Sky

Published 2019

Read May 2026

Death at the Sign of the Rook

Published 2024

Read June 2026

Books 1-6 of the Jackson Brodie series

By Kate Atkinson

Putting these books together for a single essay does not indicate they are all alike or that they are lightweight in any regard.  Rather they are NOT lightweight, and the stories are all quite different.  And as you can see by the “read” dates, this reader has been reading versus writing! 

This reader managed to start with the first in the series quite by accident.  This reader had enjoyed   Behind the Scenes at the Museum and needed an audiobook to read so this reader tried another Kate Atkinson novel noted as part of the Jackson Brodie series.  However, in this book, as with many of the books in the series, running into Jackson Brodie takes quite some time/pages. 

Jackson Brodie is a former police detective and former member of the army.  He is now using his highly honed investigative skills in private practice.  In some of these books he’s been hired to investigate something.  In other books he gets involved in cases nearly accidentally.  In all cases, he is quite knowledgeable about police protocol but doesn’t necessarily follow it.  In some cases, he quite blatantly misleads the police regarding what happened to protect one or more people who stumbled into committing a crime and whom he thinks shouldn’t be prosecuted.  Generally, this reader agreed with his decisions and found them refreshing. 

As mentioned, Jackson Brodie often arrives in the story quite far into the book.  Something characteristic of all these books is that the reader must be patient for the story, or usually stories, to unfold during which time characters are introduced, crimes may be committed or not, story webs become tangled, and the reader becomes thoroughly involved.  If you’re looking for a straightforward power through read, these are not books for you!  Eventually Jackson Brodie arrives and somehow gets involved. 

There are a few characters that show up in several books.  We meet Julia initially in Case Histories as a young girl whose youngest sister disappears.  Jackson Brodie gets involved a few decades later in that book, helps solve the mystery, and by the end of the book there is a connection developing between Jackson and Julia.  In later books Julia is a girlfriend (One Good Turn), as an ex-girlfriend (several books) or as part of a chorus of women in Jackson’s head (several books).   Teen-aged Reggie saves Jackson Brodie’s life following a train wreck in When Will There Be Good News and ends up involved with him in other parts of this book.  Jackson Brodie encounters Constable Reggie in two later books when both of them are older.  Louise Monroe appears in several books as well, sometimes as a pivotal character, sometimes in a supporting role but there is always a little electricity between her and Jackson Brodie that the reader hopes will ignite.  Across the books she rises in position in the police force.    

Most of the stories cover many years, often decades.  There is some to and fro of time setting, sometimes between the early and late parts of these stories, sometimes between times differing in only a few weeks.  It’s easy to follow even when listening to audiobooks (the format this reader used for all of the books).  

Just as the stories within a given book take time to be reeled out, they generally take awhile to be wound up as well.  Patience from the reader is well rewarded, however.  It’s clear that this reader became quite drawn to the series:   a few months lapsed between reading the first and second books, nearly a year until the third book, then followed by rapid digestion of the last three.  This reader was lucky as these books were published over a twenty-year period.  This reader hopes that the next installment appears on the horizon within the 2020’s but it’s not a given as this author finds many other interesting things to write.  So, this reader will likely investigate (pun intended) some of these Kate Atkinson book next.   

American Dirt

By Jeanine Cummins

Published 2018

Read Dec 2025

This book was nominated for a slot on this reader’s book club schedule three times before it was accepted as part of the 2025-2026 schedule.  This reader did not vote for the book the first two times it was nominated due to the controversy that surrounded the book—should a non-Mexican author write this book.  The third time it was offered, this reader did vote for it for two reasons.  First, the person who nominated it thought it was well written and well worth reading.   Second, a comment from this person was very compelling “If I read her account in the newspaper, I would not believe it.  Reading it through her skillful telling made it real, and the more haunting.  I have never felt the same about refugees since I read it.”  Having now read the book, this reader agrees with her statements.

The refugees this book follows are fully middle to upper-middle class.  The protagonist owns a bookstore.  Her husband was a journalist.  Her mother had money in the bank.  The protagonist meets and befriends a man who comes into her bookstore and with whom she has interesting conversations.  It turns out that this man is head of an up-and-coming drug cartel who is wreaking deadly havoc in the city as it asserts itself to become the dominant cartel.  The protagonist’s husband publishes an article about this man and cartel, and the family becomes a target of the cartel leader.  All of the protagonist’s family members except her son are killed during a family celebration.  She and her son survive when they are in the house in a bathroom and go undetected during the slaughter.  The rest of the story follows the protagonist and son as they slowly make their way to the United States, hoping to get to relatives in Colorado. 

This reader was very engaged by the book.  The characters were well developed and believable.  The protagonist makes both good decisions and bad ones; the young son behaves ways one would expect from a young boy.  The descriptions of getting on and off the train they ride are done very well—this reader felt fear along with the refugees as they made these moves. 

This reader does not believe that only “true members of the community” can write about a community or its members.  Certainly, being a “member of the community” may make writing about that community easier.  However, imposing this restriction would limit what is written and so what we can read—historical novels couldn’t be written for instance, as the authors were not alive when the action occurred.   What Massie Knew, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Anna Karenina are examples of novels that couldn’t exist since male authors wrote about female protagonists.  Etc etc.  Perhaps the real issue in this case was how the book was marketed.  In the case of American Dirt, somewhat like the situation in Yellowface, the publisher put a tremendous amount of effort into marketing the book to ensure it’s seen as a hit.  This is not an uncommon situation as is evidenced by books that are “highly anticipated” for some time prior to their publication.  Getting this kind of attention for newcomers, especially those without agents well connected to big publishing firms, is extremely difficult.  This is frankly true for probably 90+% of aspiring writers but the barriers for diverse authors may be especially high.  Hopefully blogs like this one, book discussion groups, and readers of all sorts can spread the word about books that are worthy of reaching a larger audience will play a role in getting less heavily marketed books the attention they deserve and help overcome criticism like that received by this author and this book.   

In summary, get past the criticisms you may have heard about this book and read it.  It will be well worth your time. 

Lonesome Dove

By Larry McMurtry

Published 1985

Read April 2026

This reader recalls there was an extremely popular miniseries on TV called Lonesome Dove.  This reader was aware that the book was a western.  This was the extent of this reader’s knowledge of Lonesome Dove prior to reading The Correspondentt.  The Correspondent somewhat regularly wrote to book authors, and she wrote to Larry McMcurty about the book.  This reader was struck by three things her letter discloses.  1) She was writing after her third reading of this (843 page) book.  2) She was congratulating the author for his courage to cause his characters pain.  3) Despite the pain, the two main characters had great vitality.  These points made this book quite intriguing.

This reader listened to the audiobook read by Will Patton.  This edition had a forward by Taylor Sheridan, a writer and director whose TV series this reader has greatly enjoyed.  He indicates in his forward that 1) he’s read the book countless times; 2) reading this book made him change his life course towards being a storyteller.  So, a second major recommendation for the book.

When this reader started the book, she wasn’t sure she would enjoy Will Patton’s Texas accent, but her worry was quickly felled.  Will Patton is a distinguished movie actor as well as audiobook reader and his acting capabilities were well demonstrated by the voices he gave to the many characters in this book. 

McMurtry created two remarkable lead characters, Captain Augustus (Gus) Macrae and Captain Woodrow F Call.  The men served in the Texas Rangers together for twenty years, “civilizing” Texas by eliminating attacks on white settlers by the indigenous population.  After the US Army took over this role, they started the Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium in Lonesome Dove, a very small-town Texas border town on the Rio Grande. Gus likes the ladies, gambling, and drinking.  Woodrow is happiest working.  Although the two seem unlikely partners, they have been partners for thirty years when we first meet them—20 years successfully fighting Indians and 10 years building this company.  We learn over the course of the book that their partnership is built on a friendship that runs very deeply in the hearts of both men.

The story starts when Jake Spoon arrives at the Hat Creek establishment.  He was a Texas Ranger with Gus and Woodrow but hasn’t seen them since the Rangering days.  He’s also a lady’s man and gambler who dislikes hard work and he’s running away from an Arkansas sheriff of Fort Smith Arkansas who is chasing him after Jake accidently killed the sheriff’s brother who is also Fort Smith’s dentist.  He speaks of marvelous land in Montana and the opportunities that would await the first cattle ranch started there.  Woodrow Call’s interest is stirred, and he decides that the Hat Creek company should be that first cattle ranch.  Thus begins the start of a 3000-mile cattle drive across multiple rivers and through a variety of perils. 

But the perils and adventures are, in some ways, a small part of the book’s attraction.  McMurtry fills the pages with a large, but manageable, cast of memorable characters to whom this reader became attached in addition to Gus and Woodrow.  Some of them, like Jake Spoon, aren’t very sympathetic, generally due to their treatment of other characters.

 Most of the characters, as expected for a cattle drive, are men—Gus and Woodrow of course and their various cowboy cattle handlers and cook. Pea Eye and Deets were Rangers with Gus and Woodrow and have worked with their Hat Creek company ever since.  Pea Eye isn’t very bright but he is kind and loyal.  Deets eventually remembers his first name is Joshua.  As a black man, others on the cattle drive look a bit down on him.  But Deet’s ability to tell the weather, find water, and track anything and anybody makes him invaluable and respected.  Newt Dobbs, a teen-ager, has lived with Gus and Woodrow since his mother, Maggie, a prostitute died when he was a child.  Newt doesn’t know the identity of his father.  Bolivar, a Mexican, is the cook at the Hat Creek company.  He starts out on the cattle drive but leaves to go back to his family in Mexico.  There are a variety of other men that Woodrow recruits for the cattle drive who play various roles in the story, including being killed by some of the perils.

A parallel story develops around July Johnson, the Arkansas sheriff pursuing Jake Spoon.  As soon as he leaves town to pursue Jake Spoon, his wife of only a short time leaves Fort Smith to head north.  Roscoe, Jake’s deputy, is hounded by his sister-in-law to either chase after the wife or find Jake and tell him about his wife.  He pursues the latter course with his horse, pack, and no knowledge of how he will find Jake.  This story eventually intersects the main story in addition to the Jake Spoon connection. 

 McMurtry gives us four notable women characters.  Lorena Wood is a major character.  She is a beautiful young woman who ends up in the “sporting life” and is the only whore in the small town of Lonesome Dove.  She is captivated by Jake Spoon when he comes to town.  She demands Jake to fulfill his promise to her to take her to San Franscico.  They follow the Hat Creek cattle drive for awhile but Jake leaves her and she is captured by Blue Duck, a wicked Indian.  Gus, with whom she already had an interesting relationship—he loves to talk and paid Lorena well to spend time with him after the poke,–rescues her. 

Clara Allen is a second major character although partly because Gus talks about her as much as she is active in the story.  She is still loved by Gus even though she chose a dull horse trader over him to marry.  Gus is willing to go on the cattle drive in part so that he can stop and see her in Nebraska.

Janey plays a role in the Roscoe subplot.  She is a young girl who escapes from the man who bought her.  Her skill with throwing stones keeps alive Roscoe when she joins him.  Finally, Elmira Johnson escapes her marriage to July Johnson, the Arkansas sheriff, when he leaves to chase Jake Spoon. 

Each woman demonstrates strength and courage but in very different ways.  Lorena and Clara are the female characters most completely developed. 

Lonesome Dove is likely re-read by people because it is a character-driven book that has a great story.  The author lets readers in on the internal conflicts that various characters are working through as they face various external issues driven by the geography they are travelling—the weather, the rivers they must cross, the availability of water, the threat of attacks by Indians and bad white guys.  Readers can luxuriate listening to the internal thoughts of Gus, Lorena, Clara, Newt, Woodrow, and others as they move along the trail, or in Clara’s case, make their way through the chores of the day. 

Theme topics abound including unrequited love, loyalty, marriage, friendship, death, betrayal, violence, and more.  McMurtry packs a lot into 843 pages and it’s clear some readers are willing to read it multiple times to bathe in his story-telling that wraps these themes around such believable characters.  This reader committed 36 hours to listening to this book and is glad she owns this book so she can listen again.