What a month it was for readers. In a four-week period, up popped four new books by four award-winning novelists: Isabel Allende, Jane Smiley, Jane Hamilton and Anne Tyler.
In many ways Smiley's and Hamilton's books are the most satisfactory. "The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton, A Novel" and "The Short History of a Prince," offer plot, action and a main character you can root for.Jane Smiley's Lidie is a tomboy, an Illinois farm girl, approaching marriageable age in the 1850s. She's got no prospects in sight until a young abolitionist, Thomas Newton, passes through her county. He's headed for the Kansas Territory. Newton plans to make sure Kansas comes into the union as a free state.
He finds Lidie amusing. He marries her and they set off together on an adventure. "The All-True Travels. . ." is a love story - subtle, sweet and wrenching.
Jane Hamilton's main character is a homosexual teenager. Walter is a mediocre ballet dancer, secretly in love with his best friend, Mitch. Mitch is overtly in love with Walter's other best friend, Susan. The novel is written from two perspectives in time. Scenes from Walter's boyhood alternate with scenes from his adult life as a high school teacher. Grown-up, Walter is as left-out as he was as a boy. The reader aches for him.
Then there is "Aphrodite" by Isabel Allende. It's a memoir, not really fiction - except that this is a book about aphrodisiacs. And there really aren't any foods proven to increase sexual desire, as the author is honest enough to point out.
Her last memoir, "Paula," was the story of her daughter's death. It was a sad book. So this is the best part about her newest work: The human spirit proves irrepressible. Allende is full of joy again. She loves food and loves her husband and is zany enough to choose her mother as a co-author for a book about sex.
Of the four new books, Anne Tyler's "Patchwork Planet " is the one I can't get out of my mind. I don't know what to make of it.
In many ways, her main character is like all her previous main characters. Barnaby Gaitlin is a charming underachiever. What makes him unique is that he is expecting an angel. A miracle, if you will.
And he gets one. A woman comes along who seems able to balance out his faults. He's nosy. She's not. He's a lukewarm divorced dad. She gets him back on the ball visiting his daughter. His parents like her. They trust her more than they do him. (Barnaby was a bit of a juvenile delinquent.)
The reader doesn't particularly like this angel. On the other hand, the reader is quite fond of Barnaby. Tyler imbues him with her usual array of endearing quirks.
But this is a book not about whom you like, but about whom you trust. And Barnaby is Barnaby. He slips.
In many ways, Tyler's earlier books were easier. In "Accidental Tourist" and her Pulitzer-winning "Breathing Lessons," the main characters were devoted people, defined by their ability to love steadfastly. In her previous book, "Ladder of Years," and in this book, family bonds are more frayed. There is more emotional distance between the characters.
Tyler's view of love is not so clear as it has been. Maybe she's saying it is more difficult and more angelic to trust than to forgive.
I don't know. Several weeks after finishing "Patchwork Planet," I'm still thinking about it.