***August 28, 2017, Lauren Groff, “Dogs Go Wolf”: Two unnamed girls, ages four and seven, are abandoned at a fish camp on a Florida island and must fend for themselves. ¶ This story unfolds as any living nightmare might, with the consciousness of the two girls running wild like the story’s dog which keeps returning to camp then running into the woods: revealing their squalid nomadic past, the unnurturing nature of their mother and all her friends, the everyday search for food when sources run out, boiling stagnant pond water to stay hydrated until they run out of charcoal and must gather wood. The abuse of abandonment multiples tenfold each hour they are without loving, adult care. When other people arrive on the island—after what must be weeks—the girls don their mother’s shifts and apply lipstick to greet them. The older girl

Haunting, yes, haunting that a child would still think fondly of a parent after being treated so harshly, but that’s exactly what many of us do, find it in our hearts to forgive. Groff’s most recent novel is Fates and Furies.
Photograph by Rose Cromwell

NEXT TIME: My Book World

Keene, Jennifer D. World War I: The
     American Soldier Experience. Lincoln: U
     of Nebraska, 2011.
 
I was drawn to this book by way of C-SPAN’s Book-TV, when I viewed the author’s presentation. At the time I was writing a piece about my grandfather who served in World War I. He’d left behind a number of letters and other documents about his experiences, but he talked little about what happened in battle, even when interviewed. I sought out this source to see if Keene might fill in some blanks for me and was not disappointed.
 
At the beginning Keene offers a fine timeline of WW I events from 1914 to 1936, when Congress finally votes to award the veterans their war “bonuses.” (The problem of post-war care for veterans has reemerged for those returning from the current wars in the Middle East.) She offers a map so one can see how European boundaries are drawn at the time. Among other topics, Keene covers the role the United States plays in the First World War, that it does not enter until 1918. She discusses the role of conscription and how that first draft operates. She also covers the role government plays in attempting to influence soldiers’ moral fiber while boosting their morale. She sheds light on the role that women, African-Americans, and foreign-born citizens play in the war—how they are mistreated and not always recognized for their important roles. She discusses the wounds of war, not just from the American point of view, but with regard to the French, Germans, the Russians, and others. And finally, the author covers the delays troops experience returning to the U.S. once peace has been brokered. The army sets up huge embarkation centers in France to make sure, among other things, that the troops are healthy, have been deloused, and been given new uniforms for their transatlantic crossing to the New York harbor.
 
Throughout the book Keene traces the effects of two important decisions President Woodrow Wilson makes at the time. One, he determines that the U.S. shall send a large conscripted group of soldiers to Europe. The fact that the French have been fighting for over four years means that they need reinforcements that will endure against the Germans. And two, Wilson instructs General Pershing to keep the US Army separate from the French and British troops. Wilson doesn’t like the idea of the Americans being subsumed by French or British forces, and his demand may help to win the war, because Pershing brings several innovations to combat, including the idea of open warfare, driving the enemy out into the "arena" between both armies.
 
I am bothered, however, by a number of troublesome errors in the text. One wonders if these errors appear in the original Greenwood Press edition or if only in the University of Nebraska edition. Some of these amount to more than mere spelling typos; there are poor word choices, additional words inserted where they do not belong, all representing sloppy copyediting, particularly for an academic press:
 
“The anger that British propagandists formented in the United States against Germany . . .” (8). [Fomented is the word the author probably intended to use.]
 
“In either case, the ability to effectively [to] move goods and men overseas was critical . . .” (9).["To" is extraneous.]
 
“Over the next few weeks, recruits lined up for the rest of their standard army [entire] attire, including olive drab wool pants and jacket” (45). [Author must mean "attire," not "entire."]
 
“Lack of sympathy between black troops and their white officers was a [reoccuring] recurring problem throughout the war . . .” (96) [“Reoccuring” is not a word.]
 
“Black officers only served in combatant units, where they faced constant charges of cowardice and ineptness” (97) ["Ineptitude" is probably a more elegant choice here.]
 
“Sometimes a soldier did not know that he had been exposed to mustard gas until it was too late and he [became] began vomiting . . .” [Author must mean "began," not "became."]
 
“There was some evidence that the stress of war caused the return of a previous mental [aliment] ailment in a grotesquely exaggerated way” (170). ["Ailment" is clearly misspelled.]
 
“In veterans’ hospitals, men learned to use prosthetic limbs, underwent reconstructive surgery, and received care for [reoccurring] recurring respiratory ailments” (177).
 
“The American Legion was formed to help men with some of these endeavors . . .” (182). [“Was” is not necessarily needed, as it creates a passive construction, yet it may make the sentence easier to understand.]
 
The fact that so many errors appear in a document issued by an academic press is a bit worrisome. If it is part of a trend, rather than existing as an anomaly, I think it would tend to weaken the reputation of the press.

NEXT TIME: New Yorker Fiction 2017

​***​August 21, 2017, Garth Greenwell,  “An Evening Out”: A man celebrates the end of his seven-year teaching career in Bulgaria through a drunken night out in Sofia with two former students, both male. ¶ Perhaps the nameless narrator (except for Gospodinut, male teacher), Z., and N. are emblematic of the shame the story engenders when, in an unseemly display, he gropes and ogles one of the men on the dance floor of a noisy night club. Perhaps the excessive clamor, the excessive liquor, the excessive jubilance numb Gospodinut’s shame, but in the soberness of morning he is positive it will overwhelm him. Yet as he staggers toward his campus apartment, Mama Dog, a mascot, approaches him and becomes symbolic of a subtle change about to take place in Gospodinut’s life. This story achieves what most writers of gay stories would kill to achieve: both a specificity and universality that arrive in harmony on the page. Greenwell’s first novel, What Belongs to You, came out in 2016.
Photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans c/o David Zwirner Gallery

NEXT TIME: My Book World

Evans, Harold. Do I Make Myself Clear?
    Why Writing Well Matters. New York,
    Little, Brown, 2017.
 
The field of English grammar can be a pedant’s paradise (or nightmare), what with Twitter and texting divining their own rules, and for over 400 pages noted wordsmith Evans sounds off about his favorite peeves. He also, if readers take away nothing else, reminds us that the passive voice (not tense) can bloat a sentence, whereas active voice (subject+verb+object) allows for clearer and briefer writing. Evans takes governmental babble and rewrites it so that one can understand it:

The author reduces the passage’s bloat from 68 words to 46, without reducing its meaning; in fact, he clarifies its meaning. And this goal becomes his overarching purpose. As a journalist Evans hasn’t much use for other inflated language, including what he calls flesh-eaters. One should, for example, use “although” instead of the flesh-eating “despite the fact that” or “like” instead of “along the lines of.” He reiterates what every good eighth-grade English teacher tries to teach: “Don’t pad your writing.” He might have followed his own advice when explaining “flesh-eating” by reducing his verbiage from half a page (plus a photograph of Zoophagus insidians) to a sentence or two. His metaphor is self-explanatory.
 
Overall, Mr. Evans provides a fine review for persons who write or wish to. He directs his writing to the journalist, who is attempting to reach as many readers as possible, but his “Ten Shortcuts to Making Yourself Clear” (Chapter Five) alone are worth the price of the book, and could assist all writers in making themselves clearer, regardless of the genre. Kudos to Evans.

NEXT TIME: New Yorker Fiction 2017

Eisinger, Jesse. ​The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives. New York: Simon, 2017.
 
I’m always a sucker for a provocative title, but I’m particularly drawn in when the content of the book delivers on the title’s punch. In a recent C-SPAN Book-TV presentation of his Chickenshit Club, Eisinger takes readers into the bowels of the 2008 financial meltdown and explains why neither the CEOs nor the corporations they headed were ever prosecuted, why individuals responsible for such bad deeds never went to prison.  Not to give away too much, Eisinger’s explanation is at once simple and complex.

Simply, Department of Justice officials are afraid of certain aspects, for example, so-called collateral consequences, in which innocent employees lose their jobs when a corporation is put out of business. To explore the complexities, Eisenger lays out the history of why our country has arrived at this point where the financial-sector tail is wagging the law. He concludes that without individual accountability reforms are meaningless. Hedge fund managers and CEOs continue their heinous practices knowing they have an excellent chance of not going to prision.

In a perfect world the author would recommend, one, paying prosecutors much more money so they will have the incentive to work as hard as they would for private law firms that can pay more. Two, he recommends diversity in hiring, not merely more women and persons of color, but individuals from different parts of the country, who have graduated from a variety of law schools, not just the elite ones. Also, he would hire older, esteemed attorneys with a track record and a wider vision of the world, as well as those who have experience in consumer protections. Eisinger’s book expounds on what Matt Taibbi introduces in his excellent book, The Divide. Read both if you’re concerned about the fragile yet powerful world of finance.
 
NEXT TIME: My Book World

​***August 7 and 14, 2017, Don DeLillo, “The Itch”: Robert T. Waldron, forty-four, possesses a body that itches symmetrically (both thighs) and when he takes his shirt off. ¶ Of course, his problem is more complex than that. Robert has itched with his former wife and now with Ana, a new lover. He sees three different seemingly eccentric dermatologists, each prescribing different yet ineffective remedies. One even asserts that the itch will always be with him. Just a gut feeling, but I believe Robert’s itch is a metaphor for his desires. What desires? Any and all of them. All persons itch for something or someone their entire lives. Though this story is not entirely appealing it is one I do admire, carried off with great aplomb by a skilled fiction technician. DeLillo’s latest novel Zero K, came out in 2016.
Illustration by Richard McGuire.

NEXT TIME: My Book World