The Return

Review: Lullaby Road: A Novel James Anderson Crown 2018 I’d read The Never-Open Desert Diner from this author, and when I found this book I knew I had to read it too.   This author has a way of constructing his stories that really works for me.   Easy reading narrative, simple narrative, belies its power.   I have not read any other I like better in quite a while.   He can weave so many colors and patterns without losing a thread or the reader along the way.    Ben, a single, amiable, independent trucker with a bit of a past who lives in a Utah desert town, lets himself be talked into babysitting for a neighbor girl who is OK with him taking the baby with him while he makes his deliveries.   She was desperate, and Ben couldn’t say no.   Sounds a bit unusual, but they have the history that makes it work.   Within a few minutes he also has gained two more passengers for the run, an abandoned child and a dog. ...

Review: The Blue Guitar John Banville Vintage Books 2015 It’s pretty brazen of me to write any sort of review for an accomplished author, but I had to because some of the reviews for this book confuse me.   For me this author portrayed so many of the people I know right this minute, young and old.   They live the good life until it craters and then wonder how they ended up in the mess they find themselves.   Maybe the objections to the protagonist have something to do with looking into the mirror?   Others think another of his books has a better plot.   That may be the case for that other book, but is this book designed to have anything like the other?   It doesn’t seem that way to me.    Whatever the case may be I liked this book for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Banville’s writing itself.   I found it a joy to read and intend to re-read it in the near future.   Yes, Orme drifts into painterly type la...