Just finished "Queen of the Road" by Doreen Orion. Thanks to my book club for selecting it, I never would have found it otherwise. It's a very entertaining travelogue/self-improvement book centered around a 40' conversion bus that a married psychiatrist couple drives through 47 states over 1 year. Doreen is a very funny writer, and spends a lot of time poking fun at herself and her own hangups and prejudices. She only allows the reader to see her character through that comic lens - I would have liked to know her better than that. On the other hand, we see her husband Tim through her great love for him. He is a man's man - can repair any mechanical problem AND successfully talk down a person on the ledge, so to speak.
The bus and the United States throw many problems at the couple on their journey, and we laugh along with them as they work their way through. Gentle self-help text is sprinkled throughout. I was especially struck by watching her love of possessions become less critical as their journey progresses, the highlight being an extensive shopping spree where everything is promptly returned the next day.
I know I found several points in this book that made me stop and think about my own conspicious consumerism, my desire to live a freer life, and building a stronger relationship with my significant other. All done with a light touch and a lot of laughter - I give her a lot of praise for her style and approach.
Another great thing about the book is the things I learned about various places in the US that intrigued me, such as the Crazy Horse memorial and the ferry trip through Alaska. It prompted me to do a lot of research. I discovered Doreen's website, and learned she has another book available, called "I Know You Really Love Me". I'll read that one this weekend, and let you know more about it. It's non-fiction and discusses a patient from her psychiatric career that was obsessed with her.
Last month's book club book was "Child 44" by Tom Rob Smith. Wow! What a different yet familiar sort of book this was! I thought it would be a cold-war type thriller, some espionage, some mystery. It was, but it was also a brutal look at a country's history that I knew nothing about and was not prepared to face. The famine of the early 1930's, Stalin's Gulag, the MGB - which for the longest time I thought was a fictional version of the KGB. Believe me, I did a lot of research during and after this book.
I have to give chops to the author - a first-time novel and he hit it out of the park. He took a genre that was so familiar and made it very harsh and edgy and wove a lot of history into it without slowing down the story. He took us down a path that seemed familiar in the couple's relationship, and then threw back the curtain and said Look! All Was NOT As It Seemed! And then began the difficult task of redeeming that couple to us, with success.
He introduced us to the killer, revealed him, but held enough vital pieces in reserve that I was still surprised by how it all tied together at the end.
And best of all, I finished the book disturbed, intrigued, and ready to see where he takes the characters in the next one. Because clearly there will be one! I can't give a book higher praise than it stayed on my mind off and on for a couple of weeks after as I mulled over various pieces.
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