in the stacks | a prayer for owen meany

A Prayer for Owen Meany was published in 1989; I'm more than a little late to the party. Even so, picking it up around 15 years after its heyday, it's still relevant. It's still piercing and nuanced, beautiful and profound, complicated in all the ways that John Irving likes to complicate his novels (early sexual encounters that shape psyches, dysfunctional families, male protagonists who become writers in some fashion, missing fathers). Owen Meany is often hailed as Irving's greatest work next to my personal favorite, The World According to Garp. But even as I type that, I wonder if Owen didn't steal my heart straight away from Garp.

I picked up a novel in the Atlanta airport as Zan and I were about to board our flight to Ecuador. I really didn't enjoy it and quickly swapped it out for a tattered and torn copy of Owen Meany at a guesthouse. It took me the majority of the first 100 pages to really get into this heavy, lengthy read. The long opening delves into religion - the differences between Christian denominations, to be specific. I found myself skimming just to skip over what felt like a parallel to long lineal passages in the early books of the Bible.

But once I was invested - that is, when Johnny, the main character, and Owen, his best friend, start playing a larger role, I couldn't put the book down. Owen is an addictive character - placed on a pedestal by half of the characters in their small New England town and despised by the other half. He's pint-sized with a voice that never lowers with puberty. He's a force of nature - quick-witted, seemingly prophetic, manipulative when he wants (or needs) to be, and persuasive to a fault. The novel overflows with comedy - from situational to word-play. At the heart of it all is Johnny and Owen's enigmatic, three-dimensional relationship. 

I can't tell much more of the plot without giving key points away. And, for the book lovers out there, I probably don't need to. I can't say anything about this book that hasn't already been said in numerous reviews.

While writing this post, I got distracted reading interviews with John Irving about the novel. I find it fascinating that he speaks very highly of Johnny - a character that is somewhat understated and aloof compared to how well readers get to know Owen. Irving seems to identify with Johnny, though he says Owen Meany is not his most autobiographical novel.

Another thing Irving said that I find riveting concerns Johnny's sexuality. He says, "I wanted to make it evident that Johnny loves Owen Meany, but I wanted to keep it unclear — or unstated — that Johnny is (or is not) gay." It seems clear if you read more of the interview that Irving does think of Johnny as gay. Johnny, he says, is heartbroken and never gets over Owen.  

I can sympathize. I can't get over Owen, either. That, to me, is the magic of Owen Meany - Irving created a character that millions of people around the world can't get over. Even 15 years later.   

Just for fun - here's the 1989 book review from The New York Times 

in the stacks | orange is the new black

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I spent the first half of Orange is the New Black: My Year In a Women's Prison disappointed that it wasn't as scandalous as Netflix's version. I felt bad saying it out loud - I told Zander that it lacked excitement - there was no crime, no drama, and certainly no lesbian shower sex scenes. But I shook myself out of it, thank goodness, and really delved into the last half of the book for what it was, instead of what the show is. And it's so much better than the scandalized account. It's a real, deeply personal account of life inside the US prison system.

Piper Kerman was in a serious, committed relationship with a drug dealer 10 years prior to her stint in prison. For her, Piper agreed to deliver a suitcase of drug money across international borders. After that experience, she chose to leave the relationship and rebuild her life.

Piper and her boyfriend move to New York from San Francisco, where she has a booming career. Her life is interrupted when federal officers bring charges against her for the crime she committed 10 years ago.

Piper agrees to a deal but spends years battling in court, growing increasingly anxious about serving jail time. She's eventually sentenced to 13 months in Danbury Federal Correctional Institute, a women's prison.The rest is her story of living in prison.

Piper is so honest in this book. She talks openly about her privilege as a white and well-educated woman and how that made her stay infinitely more bearable than for many of the other women. She often received better treatment because she was seen as an anomaly, someone who "shouldn't" be in there. Piper uses her privilege for good. She writes appeals letters, shares the abundant supply of books and magazines she gets from friends and family, and even helps a woman earn her diploma.

She brings the inmates to life. She gives every woman in the prison system a voice and imbues them with the deepest humanity. She talks about the struggle for uneducated women to receive their high school diplomas and learn skills that could help them enter the workforce when they leave. She heartbreakingly tells accounts of women that don't have a support system so when they are released they have nowhere to go, struggle to find jobs, and end up back in jail. Jail becomes more of a family than some of the women have elsewhere.

Piper discusses how backwards our prison system is. For instance, she describes women who are in jail for drug charges who were forced into it, their lives threatened. She talks about the need for rehabilitation, prison services that prepare women for the world, and the sheer despondency of pregnant inmates whose children are taken away once they're born.

I cried throughout the entire ending of Piper's story. She owns her crime, she accepts the punishment, and she's able to move on with her life - marry a man she loves and pursue her career ambitions. But what about the women inside? What happens to them? Long after I closed the last page, their stories ran through my mind. Where are they now?

in the stacks | what i talk about when i talk about running

Synopsis
Renowned Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami focuses his narrative inwards in a non-fiction, memoir-esque book of essays about his life as a runner and a writer. He says himself that he doesn't quite know what this book is other than a way to simply talk to his audience and fans about what it is that crosses his mind when he crosses the finish line at marathons, triathlons, and even an ultra-marathon.

Quotes
"So the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets. Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent."

"I've always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I'm wrong, but I won't change."

"I'm often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I'm running? I don't have a clue."

My thoughts... 
Melanie got me What I Talk About When I Talk About Running for my birthday this year, and what a great gift and how very thoughtful - it's about writing and running by a Japanese author, and those are three things that mean something to me. I'm ashamed to say that this is the first of Murakami's books I've read, but I can promise that it won't be the last. Murakami is a bit of a loner, humble, and also very confident. His essays seem flowing and uneventful, even, and then when I finished one, I found myself inspired to create routines that build on my talents, to utilize my time in ways that make better sense for my productivity, and to look at writing as a marathon instead of a sprint. I write in bursts, and Murakami says bluntly - that's not how to sustain writing talent. Talent he says, must be divvied out slowly and steadily, must be nourished every single day. He says, too, that the well of talent in many writers dries up, and when that happens, if they don't have discipline to fall back on, they're left with blank pages. On running, too, Murakami does it easier than I ever will, but I left the book inspired to be my own runner, whether that means running at my own pace, setting goals, or even ditching goals and doing it just because I am capable. Reading Murakami almost feels like he's lending an ear to listen to me, instead of the other way around. 

in the stacks | the roundhouse

Synopsis
A Native American woman is brutally attacked, and her family deals with with the emotional and physical ramifications. Our protagonist is 13-year-old Joe, the woman's son. He and his three closest friends ride bikes, sneak cans of beer, fall in love with girls - or the thought of girls - for the first time, and work together to solve the mystery of Joe's mother's attack. Joe comes of age in the context of the brutality that tears his family apart. His eyes are opened to the inequalities and injustices of the legal and justice system on a reservation. He learns the limits of how far he will go to protect his mother and family.

Quote
“Now that I knew fear, I also knew it was not permanent. As powerful as it was, its grip on me would loosen. It would pass.” 

My thoughts... 
The Roundhouse has been called the Native American To Kill a Mockingbird, and such high praise is warranted. I'm ignorant of Native American culture, life, legal processes on reservations, etc. That said, I'm fascinated by it. Joe is an inviting, smart narrator and protagonist who forgives the audience for their ignorance of political and social injustices in reservation life. He's a real teenage boy, too - controlled by his emotions, easily swayed by his friends, and questioning his own identity and place in his family and community. After his mother barely survives a violent attack and retreats within herself, Joe's pursuit of vengeance leads him to law books as quickly as it does remote areas of the reservation. He's a conscientious, loving teenager who wants the best for his family. We watch him come to terms with the limitations of the law because the crime took place on or near the reservation. I honestly can't say more about this book than has been said in so many well-written, articulate reviews, but I can say that I learned a lot about the inequalities Native Americans face, especially when women are victims of rape. I loved the humanity, the moral question of justice versus vengeance, and the Erdrich's elevated, erudite prose. I had to really read this, to take it in and twirl the words around, and I liked being asked to think. I highly recommend The Roundhouse.

in the stacks | into thin air

Between reading a practical blog post on how to take better photos in Nepal and the Himalayas and a Sherpa's account of the dangerous fight that took place on Everest in April this morning, I have Nepal on the brain. To be fair, I always have Nepal on my  mind... it's not always at the forefront, but it's there, lingering, waiting to be brought back into the limelight. Seeing a single mention of my favorite country that I haven't visited sends me down an internet rabbit hole, feasting my eyes on every bit of news, history, and Sherpa culture that I can find. I've had a love affair with Nepal since some time in 2009, when I read an article about trekking the Annapurna Circuit before it's completely paved over and commercialized. I may have missed the boat on that one, but I still desperately want to trek in the country that houses the roof of the world. I want to get a peek of that roof. Which brings me to reading Into Thin Air, journalist Jon Krakauer's harrowing account of his 1996 Mt. Everest summit climb. I can't believe it took me so long to read this book. I read it in three days, and I might re-read it. It's that... well, before I ascribe adjectives to it... let me review it.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Summary 
John Krakauer is a world-renowned writer and journalist, but before he was all that, he was an avid, respected mountain climber. He has summited some of the world's highest and most dangerous peaks. After getting married and growing a little gray, he thought those days were behind him. When Outside magazine asked him to join an expedition to Mt. Everest Base Camp in Nepal, his love of mountaineering and dream of one day summiting the world's highest mountain returned with ferocity. He told the magazine he'd do it - but only if he climbed the whole way up. The magazine agreed, and he found himself on the mountain in 1996, the year a dangerous storm took the lives of eight people on the mountain, including four members of his expedition. The book is his account of the events that took place.

Quotes
“Above the comforts of Base Camp, the expedition in fact became an almost Calvinistic undertaking. The ratio of misery to pleasure was greater by an order of magnitude than any mountain I'd been on; I quickly came to understand that climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain. And in subjecting ourselves to week after week of toil, tedium and suffering, it struck me that most of us were probably seeking above all else, something like a state of grace.”

“We were too tired to help. Above 8,000 meters is not a place where people can afford morality."

My thoughts
I don't remember the disaster on Mt. Everest in 1996. I was in 5th grade, so it's easy to imagine the news passed me by. I have a hard time putting in to words what this book made me feel: remorse for the lives lost, captivated by the beauty, loneliness, and strife wrapped up in the lonely peak of Everest, entranced by Krakauer's story and the adventure of it all, and deeply moved by his honesty and pain. Krakauer wrote the book six months after the blizzard took the lives of his fellow climbers and guides that had become his friends, and his experience and memories and feelings are still raw. He writes in his usual investigate, fact-telling style of journalism, but pours more of himself into it than in anything else of his I've read. Krakauer introduces every member of the Adventure Consultants 1996 expedition with care and gratitude, humanizing them in what amounts to beautiful memorials of their experience, drive, and hope. He is honest about his own shortcomings, as well as the seemingly simple but fatal mistakes made that day on the mountain. He blames himself at times and heartrendingly admits that May 10-12, 1996 will haunt him for the rest of his life. I recommend this book to anyone interested in adventure travel, hiking, mountaineering, Nepal, Sherpa culture, or investigative and memoir writing.

in the stacks | wwII germany & communist north korea

The Book Thief 
Markus Zusak

Summary 
Nine-year-old Liesel Memminger watches her brother die on a train heading to Mulching, Germany before the start of World War II. At his funeral, she steals a book even though she can't read. Her mother is taken by Nazi's, and she's raised by her foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. She meets a poor neighborhood boy named Rudy Steiner in her first days in Molching, and the two quickly become best friends, stealing fruit to have enough to eat, playing soccer, and negotiating their way through a war that threatens to tear them, their families, and their town apart. The book is narrated by Death, who grows fascinated with Liesel on his many encounters with her while carrying off the souls of those she loves.

Quote(s)
"I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant."

My thoughts 
Markus Zusak has written a compelling, entrancing work of experimental fiction. It took me 50 pages or so to get into it and to understand the unique format - words are bolded, Death dedicates pages to definitions, inserts commentary about Liesel's life, and spoils parts of the ending. Death as a narrator offers an interesting paradigm shift - an opportunity to see humanity from 'the other side' so to speak. Liesel is a shy, quiet girl by most measures, but she has a ferocity and tenacity that builds throughout the novel and culminates in her being one of the truest heroines of modern literature. Zusak is a poet, too - there were entire passages I read and re-read to soak in them. Every character is developed with careful consideration, and I cried for Liesel, for Rudy, for Hans and Rosa, and for everyone I got to know and would miss when I closed the last page of this beautiful novel.

The Orphan Master's Son  
Adam Johnson

Summary 
Pak Jun Do swears he's not an orphan - a member of North Korean's lowest class. He believes his mother is a famous singer kidnapped to Pyongyang, the nation's capital, and his father runs the orphan camp in which he works as a child. He's later sent to work in underground tunnels, clearing pathways to the DMZ, and endures pain resistance training. The state regime detects his loyalty and picks him to rise in the ranks. He's sent to Japan as a kidnapper, taught English and sent to spy on American ships in international waters, and eventually picked to accompany a team of diplomats to Texas to recapture an item "stolen" from the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. Upon his return, he must decide what he's willing to do in order to stay alive and to save the woman he loves - Sun Moon, including challenging the Dear Leader himself.

Quote 
"I wonder of what you must daily endure in America, having no government to protect you, no one to tell you what to do. Is it true you're given no ration card, that you must find food for yourself? Is it true that you labor for no higher purpose than paper money? What is California, this place you come from? I have never seen a picture. What plays over the American loudspeakers, when is your curfew, what is taught at your child-rearing collectives? Where does a woman go with her children on Sunday afternoons, and if a woman loses her husband, how does she know the government will assign her a good replacement? With whom would she curry favor to ensure her children got the best Youth Troop leader?"

My thoughts
Adam Johnson visited North Korea as research for a short story he intended to write. He envisioned a fantastical, satirical account of a story that could be told over mandatory loudspeakers in homes across North Korea. As the original conception turned into a novel, he kept the short story, interspersing it throughout: the novel tells the protagonist's version, and the story told to citizens is North Korea's account of it. It's a powerful novel that shines light on the gross human rights violations in a country for which so little factual information is available. What's fiction and what's real, about the country itself, can only be imagined; Johnson admits that even after visiting, it's impossible to know what daily life is like for North Koreans outside of the areas of Pyongyang that the government allows visitors to see. While there are some fantastical elements to the novel that give it a lightness I didn't often feel it needed, it's a moving, captivating, engrossing read that I thoroughly enjoyed. It won the 2013 Pulitzer Price for fiction for a reason; it's that damn good. 

in the stacks | nonfiction reads

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Short synopsis
Cheryl Strayed's memoir of walking 100 days on the Pacific Coast Trail is a story of self-redemption and renewal. After experiencing the untimely death of her Mom in her early 20s, she loses sight of who she thought she was and indulges in heroine and extramarital affairs. She decides to hike the PCT without any knowledge of what she's doing or equipment she needs after signing divorce papers from a man she still loves dearly.

Quote 
"Uncertain as I was as I pushed forward, I felt right in my pushing, as if the effort itself meant something. That perhaps being amidst the undesecrated beauty of the wilderness meant I too could be undesecrated, regardless of the regrettable things I'd done to others or myself or the regrettable things that had been done to me. Of all the things I'd been skeptical about, I didn't feel skeptical about this: the wilderness had a clarity that included me.”

3-sentence review
The exposition reads as self-indulgent, as though Strayed needs validation and understanding from her readers. Somewhere around page 60 or so she loses that self-consciousness and writes like it doesn't matter, and that's when the book becomes a poignant, intense journey that's as much about you, the reader, as it is about Cheryl. Wild is beautiful, heartbreaking, heartwarming, and makes me want to pack a bag and hit the Appalachian or PCT alone for long enough that I can't tell the difference between the fresh air and my breath.

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman

Short synopsis 
"NurtureShock" is a collection of essays debunking popular myths about children and teens from researchers and writers Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. Chapter/essay titles include, "Why Kids Lie," "The Sibling Effect," "The Science of Teen Rebellion," and "Why White Parents Don't Talk About Race." The authors compare research, studies, and results to offer new perspectives on parenting.

Quote 
"'Nurture shock' refers to the panic that the mythical fountain of knowledge is not magically kicking in at all."

3-sentence review 
NurtureShock isn't just a book about child rearing, it's a book that explores why we as children and teens did what we did, how we learned our behaviors, and how we can change them. The first chapter is on intelligence, and how kids who are told they are "smart" don't often try as hard or work as hard as kids who are told they showed "effort." It resonated with me, and I found myself analyzing my own behaviors. If I ever have kids, I'll read and re-read this book.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Short synopsis
Chris McCandless, also known as Alex Supertramp, graduates from college, sells all of his possessions, abandons his car, and lives as a hobo and tramp. He wanders into the Alaskan wild, determined to experience life stripped down to its most basic, raw components and never returns. His body is found frozen in an abandoned bus with journals and pictures from his long journey.

Quote 
"The core of mans' spirit comes from new experiences."

"I now walk into the wild."

3-sentence review 
In Jon Krakauer's introduction to the book, he says that some people think Chris McCandless was a foolhardy idiot who wandered unprepared into Alaska's wilderness, and others think he's a brave seeker and explorer who tried to fulfill his dreams. He asks the reader to decide for yourself. Chris McCandless was a seeker, a searcher, an incredibly intelligent man whose heart was light and dark, at once, and one whose story will forever keep me searching for a little piece of wilderness and solitude of my own.

in the stacks | mile high reviews

Since the beginning of 2013 I've been to Chicago, Atlanta, Mexico, Denver, and Keystone, Colorado. I've spent about 18 of the last 60 days traveling. It feels great... it also feels like exhaustion is one with my bones. It's an exhaustion I'll accept any day, though.

When I'm spending this much time in airports and in the air, and even on the ground when I have time to relax, I fly through books. Reading is one of my favorite parts of travel. Instead of the 3-5 short pages I cram in on metro rides to and from work here in the city, I have time to devour and get lost in whole chapters and entire novels. I've paged my way through five books since the beginning of the year, and am oh so close to finishing a sixth. If there were a mile high reading club, I'd be the president ( (oh wouldn't that be such a nerdier mile high club?!).

Here are short overviews/reviews of 4 of the best novels I've read this year; the idea for the formatting is courtesy of Candice Does the World. I love her blog, don't you?

Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)

Fast (and possibly furious) overview
Cal Stephanides, an Greek-American living in Germany, tells his story of being born with unnoticed ambiguous genitalia and raised as Calliope Stephanides. That's the simplest form of the plot, but in its truest sense, it's a play on a Greek epic, complete with a genealogy of the Stephanides family that spans back to Cal's great-grandparents, siblings, making the voyage to Detroit, Michigan with nothing but silk worms and memories. Cal follows his family through the industrial revolution, learning English, getting their first automobile, and on up to his birth and life spent living as a girl in a hermaphrodite's body.

Quote(s)“We're all made up of many parts, other halves. Not just me.”

“It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.”

3-sentence review
Eugenides is long-winded, and the novel has troughs and peaks - reads like a history text book on one page, and like an addictive soap opera on the next. I wanted more of Cal's story of transformation and self-realization through adulthood. I struggled through the first half of the novel, but knew I loved it immensely as a whole when I closed the last page.

Talullah Rising (Glen Duncan)

Fast (and possibly furious) overviewThe sequel to Duncan's The Last Werewolf, Talullah Rising follows heroine Talullah, pregnant with the now-deceased Jake's werewolf baby. She quickly gives birth, and her son is taken by vampires. She finds unexpected help in former werewolf hunters, who are on a mission for vengeance themselves.

Quote(s)
"My dead moaned and throbbed. My dead. My restless tenants. My forced family of thirteen. Those ghosts, yes, of course, as many as you like. The only way to be sure of never losing the ones you love. The Dahmer Method. Extreme, but effective."

3-sentence review:
I have to wonder if Duncan's publishing contract included a sequel he didn't want to write. Talullah Rising reads like a bad fantasy novel, ripe with tropes and cliches and uninspired sex scenes. The novel's only thrilling, beautiful moments come when Duncan quotes from Jake's journals, simply copying and pasting the splendid writing in The Last Werewolf.

The Sisters Brothers (Patrick DeWitt)

 Fast (and possibly furious) overview
It's the old west at the onset of the California Gold Rush, and the Sisters brothers are famous cowboys... and killers. They're contracted by a powerful baron named The Commodore, to find and terminate a prospector called Herman Kermit Warm. Told from the point of view of Eli, it's a western chock full of deadpan humor, wit, and intrigue.

Quote(s)
 “...I am happy to welcome you to a town peopled in morons exclusively. Furthermore, I hope that your transformation to moron is not an unpleasant experience.”

“It is true, I thought. I am living a life.”

3-sentence review
"This isn't my grandfather's western," I thought at least 15 times laughing my way through this novel. It's one of my favorite books of the year, and for good reason - DeWitt is hilarious, readable, and makes you earmark so many pages with so many great quotes you want to remember that soon your copy of the novel is just one big folded down hunk. I'd go anywhere the psychopathic, lovable Sisters brothers wanted to take me.

The Stonecutter (Camilla Läckberg)

Fast (and possibly furious) overview
A novel of intertwining stories - spanning from current day to the early 1900s, The Stonecutter is yet another intriguing Swedish mystery. Agnes is the daughter of a wealthy businessman - arrogant and beautiful, and finds herself unhappily married to a poor stone cutter. Her story somehow, someway intersects with the present day murder of a young girl, and a detective's journey to find the killer.

Quote(s)
 N/A

3-sentence review
This works as a beach read. It works so well as a beach read that I forgot about it the second I finished it and went back to enjoying the sunshine in Mexico; it's entertaining but forgettable. Anyone have recommendations for quality, literary mystery?
------

I'm currently reading Snow Falling on Cedars - it's one I've picked up twice before and am finally making myself finish. On literary deck for me is Nurture Shock, a book club read, and then I'm looking forward to Into the Wild, which may coincide with my next trip in April (Atlanta again!). What are you reading?

tgif | highlights

I, even now, persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if I keep writing I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar. 

jeffrey eugenides, middlesex

previously on travel, hike, eat. repeat... 

you're never alone when you travel - my first solo trip was to mozambique
a recipe for chocolate chip banana bread

early next week, i have a post about a new local business in d.c., complete with a discount code. i hope you're as excited to read it as i am to post it.

have an incredible mlk/inauguration weekend. i hope it's long for you. it is for me. tgif!

in the stacks | billy lynn's long halftime walk

A couple of years ago, I got pretty close to a group of Marines stationed in Iwakuni, Japan. My girlfriend was talking to one of them, you know, romantically, and he asked her to the annual Marine Corps Ball. She accepted, and he set me up on a blind date to the same ball with his best friend. The ball turned into an after party, and the after party turned into all night dancing in Hiroshima, and all night dancing turned into a 7am train ride back home. In this one night, Callie and I spent 12 hours with these guys. I learned more about the men behind the uniforms than I ever expected.

In between celebratory drinks and boys cutting in for another dance, these guys opened up to me about their fears, mindsets on America's wars, duty to their country, and what I mean to them as an American citizen. Every one of these guys, alone, away from their friends, told me in their own words that their life is less than mine, that they exist so I can teach safely in Japan, so I can go home to America and feel safe in my house and neighborhood. They had their own opinions on the Marine Corps - it's harsh, brutal, but a brotherhood stronger than blood. The ferocity in their eyes when they told me, over and over, they'd die for each other and would never leave a brother's side, no matter what they faced - well, it scared me a little, but it also humbled me. These men and women, our troops, are soldiers. And that means something to them.

I was reminded of this experience while reading Ben Fountain's bestselling novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, a novel about the heroic Bravo Squad, back in the US from Iraq for a short media-intensive tour after a video of them in a ferocious firefight goes viral. The entire novel takes place in the Dallas Cowboys stadium, where the Bravos are invited to attend a game. Billy Lynn is 19-years-old, and has a massive hangover from partying the night before. As the novel opens, all he wants is some Advil that everyone is too busy to get for him.

As his headache wears on, exacerbated by the lights and sounds in the stadium, we're taken back in short snippets to the firefight that brought him here. We experience Billy's PTSD terror alongside him - the lights are being ambushed in Iraq, the sound of the players warming up kicking are shots that he can't stop, the frenzy of the pre-game activity is him on a battlefield, moving through the chaos without thought, relying on his training.

In the time span of one Dallas Cowboys game, Billy hobnobs with the team's wealthy owner and his colleagues, a Hollywood producer that's determined to make the Bravos's story into a mega-hit at the box office, and in the midst of it all, falls hopelessly in love.

Like the Marine friends I made, Billy's thoughts are complicated and nuanced and intense. He questions the Army, America's role in Iraq, his life and existence, what he could be when, or if, he returns. He's thoughtful and bright. Above all else, he always comes back to what it means to be a soldier. To be a soldier, a brother, a member of the Bravo Squad means something to Billy. Being a soldier is an intrinsic part of his identity, and his search to understand what that means is why the novel and the Marines left such an impact on me.

in the stacks | The Last Werewolf & Talulah Rising

Full moons make me want to do a few things: read in an over-sized chair, or under covers against mounds of pillows on my bed; hike with only the moon as my light; and fear my transition into a werewolf.

Well, that last one hasn't happened. Yet. But it could, and if it did, I know that it will be painful. Jake, the werewolf, taught me that.

Several months ago - I guess we're talking 6 or 8, I read Glen Duncan's novel, The Last Werewolf, on recommendation of a close friend with a great literary palette. I scrunched up my face when she suggested it. Why would I read a werewolf novel? I (1) curl up in the fetal position, plug my ears and hum if someone so much as jumps out of an unexposed place in a movie, and (2) am as interested in science fiction as I am physics. Which is to say, only when I'm watching The Big Bang Theory.

But Mel, my friend, said, "Trust me," and I did. And holy crap, werewolves are AWESOME. At least in Glen Duncan's world.

The Last Werewolf tells the story of Jake, a philanthropic man of considerable wealth with a proclivity for eating humans when the full moon strikes. He never intended to become a werewolf. He found himself in need of shelter in the 1700s and stumbled into a small cottage. An attractive woman took care of him, and in the process, turned him.

The novel opens with Jake knowing that he is the last known live werewolf. An evil clan wants to exterminate all werewolves and comes after him. He flees, and takes the reader with him on his adventure. The great twist of the novel comes when he meets the love of his life, Talullah, a female werewolf that no one, not even Jake, knew existed. They negotiate their love against the moral qualm of killing and the physical necessity of it. Their dialogue, action sequences and love story take the reader to a place I never expected - belief. I believed their story, and I fell into it as hard as they fell in love with each other. When I closed the last page of the novel, I wanted more.

Thankfully, Glen Duncan is giving us more in his new sequel, Tallulah Rising.

I've ordered the novel, but I haven't read it yet. In fact, I had almost forgotten about Jake and Tallulah and the controversial sub-genre in which they live, until I stole out of my apartment one evening last week, a bottle of wine in hand, and got caught in the gaze of a full moon.

I could almost hear Jake's notoriously long-winded thoughts and 19th century speech and demeanor coming through his words, and Tallulah's laughter bringing him down from a philosophical wandering. I suddenly couldn't wait to get my hands on my copy of Tallulah Rising and find out what happens next in this dark tale of moon-crossed lovers.

I'll report on that one just as soon as I - (page turn).