A Man Called Ove

Photo: the paperback's cover, from its Goodreads page

Outstanding book, alternately funny and sad, wise and silly, that became a huge bestseller around the world via word-of-mouth--a true rarity. The author, a Swede living in Stockholm, hadn't had a bestseller before, but the grapevine took off with this one, and rightly so. You should read it.

Ove is an older man who loses his wife and his job in six months. Like most of us, especially as we get older, his life revolves around those two things, and with them both gone, he's got nothing. Or so he thinks. He spends a great deal of time not living, both before he met his wife and after she died, and this book is a good warning to not live that way. Your life is what you make of it, so you'd better make something of it.

The book is never preachy, but it seems very true. Things turn out pretty well, and almost everyone in it is like the Abominable--good people inside who just need someone to flesh it out. It's a little too nice and neat at the end, but that's the kind of pleasant book it is, and you'll be okay with that, even if you're not normally, in books and in daily life. I'm sure as hell not, and it worked really well for me.

Also true to know is that Ove is an older guy who is the definition of a curmudgeon. I've often been called a little grumpy myself, and the thing to know, this book says, is that such people a) have reasons for being that way, all sad and unbelievable, and b) that's not all who and what they are.

What is also good and rare about Ove is that he is no talk and all action (Stupid is as stupid DOES), and that he has a set standard of morals and life lessons he lives by that seem strict and unbending only to those who don't have them and who don't understand those who do. I speak from experience here. But he is a very strong and steadfast guy, of a high moral compass, even if he does come across as just a tick easier to deal with than Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. But where Melvin Udall (the character name just came to me) has a clinical obsessive-compulsive diagnosis (which Ove may also share), Ove has a life of hard knocks and solitary strength that has led him to become this man. 

Seeing him learn to live life again, and yet stay true to his own character, is a helluva ride that you'll want to take. And you won't forget that you took it. I recommend this book very, very much.

The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr

Photo: Book's cover from its Wikipedia page

Almost as quick a read as its predecessor, this one is told from the point of view of Stevie, from his cigarette shop, as he looks back on his past.  The cast is all here, and a few more characters show up, including one of the all-time bad women you'll ever read about--who unfortunately reminded me of a few people I used to know, but that's a review for another day.

NYC in the late 1890s is brought to vivid life again, but with a bit more of a bittersweet tinge to the tale, as Stevie also writes about his love at the time, a drug addict / prostitute who never had a chance to go straight.  The very strong theme here is the role of females in that world, and, no doubt, in this one, and what, if any, males in a male-dominated era (then and now) may have helped cause some women to kill their children.  The socio-politics described are too complex to go into here, but they are not easily dismissed or ignored, and the reader may recognize some of what is described.  The villainess is almost as much of a victim as the actual victims--so much so that I looked up the real-life women mentioned by the author as topics of research in his acknowledgement section.  These real-life women all killed their own children, and many of their men, to such a degree that you'd have to wonder if anyone in the legal or medical communities were paying attention.  One woman brought one child to the hospital, dead.  Then another.  Then another...until all twelve were dead.  Another woman killed off her children, and literally dozens of men who came to her farm to win her favors--favors that were advertised in area newspapers.  This woman was often seen digging in the middle of the night in her hog pen--and she'd had dozens of heavy trunks delivered to her property.

At any rate, this one has more than a few things in common thematically with my own WIP, including how women are treated in a male-dominated society.  This novel also ends with a slow declining arc, more than a little bit after the main conflict has been resolved, just as mine does.

Anyway, great writing (except for an aboriginal hitman that didn't work for me), great historical detail, and some strong wistful nostalgia at the end that readers older than 30 should recognize, all coalesce in a novel that was quickly read and thoroughly appreciated.

Published in 1997, this has been the last in the series, and you have to wonder why.  Both were tremendous bestsellers, and this second one mentions frequently that the group was involved in many other cases, both all together and, for Sara Howard, by herself, so there's plenty of other potential material to write about...and yet Caleb Carr never has.  Here's to hoping he comes out with another one soon.