The Fine Print – 5/6/10
May 10th, 2010 | By administrator | Category: EC Book Reviews
New in hardcover non-fiction
Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang
By Chelsea Handler
Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group, 2010, $25.99
I thought I’d travel to extremes in my bi-weekly book recommendations this week, and take you on a journey from total raunch (thank you, Ms. Handler) to the sublime (see below). I’ve never completed a Chelsea Handler collection before, because I’ve known what to expect — sex, giggles, self-reflexive jokes. I had no intention of really reading this new one, either. Perhaps I’m becoming slightly more tolerant in my bookish ways, but I opened the book and laughed out loud, literally, at the first sentence: “I was eight years old and in third grade at Riker Hill Elementary School when I fell head over heels in love with myself.” It gets funnier and much, much dirtier when you read on to find out that she’s talking about masturbation. Again, though, this is the sort of humor I expected. What pleasantly surprised me was the chapter about her dog, Chunk — the furry guy looking up her skirt on the jacket photo. My personal form of stereotyping would predict Chelsea Handler of buying a Chihuahua to bedazzle and drag around with her in a Fendi bag. In fact, she adopted Chunk because he was on the chopping block at a shelter and she saved him from being euthanized. The chapter, aptly entitled Chunk, is almost heartwarming, in a cynical, self-obsessed, booze-laden sort of way. If you like your humor dripping with acid and diamonds, then congratulations, you’ve just found your perfect summer reading.
New in hardcover fiction
An Unfinished Score
By Elise Blackwell
Unbridled Books, 2010, $24.95
Elise Blackwell is a writer’s writer, for sure. Her books are noticeably well-researched, her characters complex and fleshy, and her subjects and vocabulary full of nuance and acrobatics. They’re not necessarily easy reads, and I respect that. If you’re the type of reader who doesn’t like having to do some guesswork and reading between the lines, this might not be for you, though I would encourage you to take the challenge. In Blackwell’s new novel, a married woman loses her long-time lover in a plane crash. He was a world-renowned (married) composer and she’s a concert violinist. Stuck in a house in which she lives with her staid husband, her needy best friend and her needy best friend’s deaf daughter, Suzanne, our protagonist, is a spinning compass and unanchored boat; she is cut adrift. The book raises more questions than it answers: who is allowed the right to grieve? How many different layers of love can one wear, and how, and why? What is music without a listener?
