Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas, maybe’03. Idlewild is a small Quaker school on Fifteenth Street in Manhattan.  Fifteenth, Sixteenth, who’s counting? It would be tempting to treat this novel as a roman a clef, and once in a while communal moments at Friends Seminary do poke through the fictional sc

My Last Days by Lou Rowan ff. When I began reading this autobiography of Superman, I thought of Candide, another of literature’s great innocents who filter their alarm at the evils so prevalent in human behavior through their ever-surprised naiveté. In this case, our wholesome extraterrestrial sup

The Wakeful Wanderer’s Guide to New New England and Beyond by Jim Infantino ’83. The last book I read before this one was Alas, Babyon, an early (1959) apocalyptic book about the world after a nuclear holocaust. Two things have changed dramatically since that time: what we fear and technology. Th

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson ff. Sometimes this book seemed to me to be an early twentieth-century translation of a recently unearthed work of Homer. (“. . .hardly did dawn extend a rosy finger to caress the sky before . . . .” ) Like Odysseus, the hero Demane, a demigod and

Woman on Top by Deborah Schwartz 60’s Novel. If the title of this book were part of a multiple choice question (say, “What does the title mean?) I think that “all of the above” would be the correct answer. But perhaps the most important meaning pertains to the protagonists struggle to find her pla

The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman middle school? Malka (later Lillian) narrates her story, vividly bringing to life the brutal conditions endured by immigrants in the early Twentieth Century, who arrive in America with nothing but their need to survive. The family, compose

End Time by Keith Korman??. Mysterious disappearances, brutal murder, strange, devastating plagues, and visitations from past times pull you in to this scary, wildly inventive adventure where life as we know it is threatened. The menace (beyond anything) is offset by an unlikely team – an American

The Long Haul by Amanda Stern 80’s? A college girl falls for a small time rocker, who pulls her into his murky world of alcohol and petty crime. This trip into the fog of booze has its own fascination, but even more compelling is Amanda’s vibrant use of language. Fresh similes and metaphors tumb

The Beginners by Rebecca Wolff (not sure when. I believe she was at Friends for Middle School). The Beginners has all the trappings of a witchy, ghostly Gothic tale. Ginger Pritt, the narrator and protagonist, is a bright 15-year-old living in Wick, a tiny New England town with roots that stretch b

· Snowball’s Chance by John Reed (?) Though in Animal Farm, Napoleon, the pig, is generally thought to be Stalin and Snowball to be Trotsky, when I read it with my grandson, I saw the story more generically as the corrupting effect of power. In this sequel/send-up, the exiled Snowball returns and

Surrender, New York by Caleb Carr. Having loved the team Caleb put together in his novels situated in the late nineteenth century, The Alienist and Angel of Darkness, I was curious about this novel. What kind of mystery would show up in the twenty-first century and who would solve it?

The Real Presence by Ron Singer te. Demographics are important. The Real Presence takes place mostly in Nigeria, the most populace country in Africa with over 200,000,000 inhabitants. The continent has a population of more than 1.3 billion. I point this out because even though Africa has gained a

Murder at the Columbarium by Emily Gallo ’67. This is the third novel of Emily’s I have read with Jonestown survivor Jed as the protagonist. Having found a way to go forward as caretaker for this facility for cremains, Jed has also maintained a network of friends and a committed partner, Monica.

Grievous by H. S. Cross mid 80’s ff. Grievance takes place five years after Wilberforce in the same British boarding school, where intrigue and rule-breaking lurk behind the austere and punitive surface. John Grieves, the housemaster whose appearance so tantalized us in Wilberforce, now reappears w

Second Growth by Joan L. Cannon ’46. Serge Dziminowitcz, the protagonist of this novel has much to overcome in his quest to become a caring and fully realized human being. His abusive, con artist father plagued his childhood and returns when Serge is an adult to torpedo his budding career as a doc

The Man who Could be King: A Novel by John Ripin Miller ’55. This novel is based on the Newburgh Conspiracy, a plot by the Continental Army to instigate a military coup because of the failure of Congress in Philadelphia to provide wages to the long-suffering troops. The narrator, Josiah, Washingto

Best intentions by Emily Listfield, ’74. Lisa’s marriage is in trouble. Or maybe it isn’t. We discover with Lisa the tantalizing hints of infidelity and their possible logical explanation. While we are being directed and misdirected, we meet Lisa’s two daughters and her best friend from college.

The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr. The same team we found in The Alienist gathers together again to track down a serial baby killer. In The Alienist, the narrator was John Moore, an urbane journalist; the voice in this work is that of Stevie (Stevepipe) Taggart, a young streetwise Huck, who has b

Exaltations by Richard Garfinkle (late ‘70’s?). We first encounter Peter Refton, a biographer, on the battlefield in Afghanistan. When a bullet hits his head, what looked like the end turns out to be an opening into an unfamiliar multiverse with misty archipelagos reminiscent of computer games, whe

· The Parents We Deserve by Ron Singer (te). Where to start. Okay, a rich couple, Paul and Paula, in their thirties decide to place an ad to get replacement parents. They hire Myra and Myron. Then M&M die, and then P&P die. They all four meet up in a very boring heaven. So, they get bumped down t

The Wakeful Wanderer’s Guide : To Disillusionment by Jim Infantino.’83 This is the second volume of the story of the northeast after a giant wave has collapsed civilization as we know it, submerging urban centers and driving people farther west. New trouble was brewing in the first book; now it h

Messenger by Michael Polowetzky 80’s?. The central character of this novel is a girl, Pascale Kedari, from a prominent Middle Eastern family, who finds herself cut off from her own country because of a sudden drastic political situation which prevents her return. Instead of enjoying a brief vacat

The Whole by John Reed 90’s. If malapropisms make you laugh out loud, you will have fun with this book. Thing, the blond hottie and main character, can’t seem to get out a sentence without one. Lewis Carroll’s Alice, who fell down the rabbit hole, was a good bit brighter and a lot less narcissist

Venice Beach by Emily Gallo 50’s. This is the first in a series of novels that features a Jonestown survivor, Jed. Having already read The Columbarium, the second in the series, I decided to begin at the beginning and find out more about the psychological complexity of Jed. I t turns out that Fin

The Columbarium by Emily Gallo late 60’s. As a child, Jed, the fiftyish protagonist, lost his family in the mass suicides and killings at Jonestown in Guyana. One of the few survivors, he ran as fast as he could after witnessing the death of both his mother and sister. This is the backdrop. Now

Frenemy of the People by Nora Olsen ‘9?. We discover this story of complicated young love through the dueling voices of Clarissa, a popular and successful equestrian who has the sudden realization that she is bisexual, and Lexie, a self-styled misfit who despises high school and all its denizens

Maxine Wore Black by Nora Olsen ’93. At nineteen, Jayla, the transgender narrator and protagonist, is propelled into the adult world of love she is anxiously hoping for when she meets Maxine at the Queer Prom. Upfront we learn that this novel, a retelling of Rebecca, is a homage to Daphne Du Maur

· A Mystery’s No Problem by Lou Rowan(ff) This rollicking novel takes place over the wide expanse of the US – coast to coast - as the hero and narrator (coincidentally named Lou Rowan) seeks to find his way. Money and power are the main drivers, though family love can trump both. And so, we are t

· The Mentor: A Thriller by Lee Matthew Goldberg (‘96) He may have innocuous leather elbow patches on his jacket, but Professor William Lancing is no ordinary professor. He thinks he is like Meursault, but whereas Camus’ hero has (if anything) Asperger’s, William has homicidal psychopathology, an

· Waiting to Surface Emily Listfield (’74). In this novelized memoir, a woman copes with the mysterious disappearance of her husband, who took a late-night walk on a Miami beach and never returned. Not only does Emily’s novel explore the poignant plight of a mother having to help her young daught