–Oksana’s parents traveled in a Romani ensemble until she turned 15 and they moved to the United States.

–focusing on the Chilean coup of 1973 and its aftermath for one woman whose lover is murdered

–wine columnist Jean tries to find out who killed her best friend’s wealthy husband

–this novel, beginning in 1929, follows Laura Lamont from small town Wisconsin to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood

–a complicated mystery as Emily St. John Mandel takes the reader from New York to Florida

–this non-fiction book discusses Marie Curie’s two daughters who went on to make their own marks in the world

–re-imagining famed feminist/activist Margaret Fuller’s life

–who doesn’t like to read about the Victorian era? This is a real-life “Madame Bovary.”

–Downton Abbey, the novel? Perhaps. This novel’s setting is one of London’s big houses in the early twentieth century. It focuses on class differences. It’s based partly on author France Osbournes’ own family railway dynasty.

–memoir about getting through the most competitive Ivy in the country

–a novel about family– dysfunction, bonds, sibling love and rivalry

TOUR DATES:
7/20 Houston TX – House of Blues
7/21 Pensacola, FL – Cptn Fun Beach Club
7/22 New Orleans LA – Tipitinas
7/24 Jacksonville FL – Jax Rabbits
7/25 Ft. Lauderdale FL – Revolution
7/26 St Petersbugh, FL – State Theatre
7/27 Orlando, FL – HOB
7/28 Atlanta, GA – Masquerade
7/29 Charlotte – Fillmore
7/31 Silver Spring MD – Fillmore
8/1 Philadelphia PA – Trocadero
8/2 New York NY – Webster Hall
8/3 Boston MA – Paradise
8/4 Rochester, NY – Waterstreet Music Hall
85 Lansing, MI Michigan – Rock and Brew Fest
8/7 Cleveland OH – HOB
8/8 Detroit MI – The Crofoot
8/9 Chicago IL – HOB
8/10 Indianapolis, IN – The Vogue
8/11 St. Louis, MO – Pop’s
8/12 Kansas City, MO – Beaumont
8/14 Denver CO – Bluebird

Toadies Facebook

–sounding a little like David Byrne, here’s another new video from The Spinto Band. great lyrics. cool animation by Phil Davis. very cute.

TOUR DATES:

5.24.12 – Brooklyn, NY @ The Rock Shop
5.29.12 – Philadelphia, PA @ Kungfu Necktie
6.07.12 – Rock Island, IL @ Streaming live from Daytrotter
6.08.12 – Chicago, IL @ Ribfest Chicago [North Stage]

purchase at Amazon: Shy Pursuit

The Singles by Meredith Goldstein. Publisher: Plume (May 2012). Women’s fiction. Paperback. 256 pages. 978-0452298057.

Weddings. Love them or not, they happen all the time. I’ve never enjoyed the one day extravagance that’s often a wedding. I’ve been an attendant in a few weddings but I’m not that “always the bridesmaid” woman. Not that there’s anything at all wrong with that. In The Boston Globe Love Letters columnist Meredith Goldstein’s debut novel The Singles, she chooses to focus on a caricatured group of singles connected in various ways (many were classmates at Syracuse University). The Singles reads quite simply and quickly. It lacks depth and purpose but more importantly, in the end, isn’t all that much fun.

It’s centered around a wedding because the bride chooses to dub those not bringing dates to her nuptials the “singles.” So who are these dateless [pathetic?] individuals? There’s Hannah, a New York-based casting agent, who still seems somewhat obsessed with her college-and-beyond boyfriend Tom. She annoyingly casts everyone she runs into and gets others involved in her little casting exercises as well. It gets tiresome rather quickly. Vicki lives in upstate New York and designs supermarket interiors requiring her to travel a lot. She carries a sun lamp and reads V.C. Andrews novels to keep up her spirits. I think the reader’s to believe that she’s given up on everything. At 29. Rob flunked out of Syracuse and moved to Texas. Phil attends the wedding at the insistence of his overbearing mother, who’s not feeling well enough to attend her best friend’s daughter’s celebration. Then there’s Joe, the amiable uncle of the bride. They all have enviable careers—the casting director, interior design, a lawyer, head of security for the Baltimore Orioles etc. As the wedding progresses, each singles story unfolds and meshes with others. Some of Goldstein’s references are strange and some– Sex and the City episodes, “the book written by the kid with autism with the dog on the cover”– recognizably amusing.

Advising those in and out of love being a central focus of her work at The Boston Globe, you’d expect Goldstein to have heard/ read quite a few fascinating scenarios. Therein lies the disappointment with these undeveloped, roughly sketched characters. With short chapters, a fluffy plot, and characters you’ll forget as soon as you close the book, The Singles is a certifiable beach read or rainy day-with-pot-of-tea read (if you, like I, dislike a lot of sun).

purchase at Amazon: The Singles: A Novel

Going Down: Oral Sex Stories edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. Publisher: Cleis Press (2012). Fiction/erotica. Paperback. 206 pages. 978-1573447898.

I’m not the blushing type when reading sex scenes like those described in this collection. The focus being on something I enjoy immensely, I appreciated these stories. If you too like oral sex, you’ll Going Down: Oral Sex Stories. If you find oral sex strange or gross or something, read these and your mind will surely open to greater possibilities. A woman keeps track of all the ways she can give her guy oral in “The Thousand and One Ways.” When she hooks up with her neighbor’s husband, a woman discovers that this woman she’s envied isn’t the woman she thought she was at all in “Pretty Dull.”

“Lavender” by Cynthia Hamilton details a meeting of strangers at a hotel room told from the man’s point of view—“Then you tease the snug opening with the point of your tongue again, this time drawing her slick cream upward, parting the soft, pliant lips, then flattering your tongue to deliver a slow lick over that sweet little bundle of nerve endings.” In the fun “Dover to Victoria Station,” author Roxy Rogers describes a coupling in the loo—“That is what I want: his undivided attention, his craving. It’s what all women want from their men, whether they’ll admit it or not.” Another I particularly enjoyed [and made me think of 50 Shades of Grey, which I haven’t read and do not plan to read] describes a woman’s secret adventure in the senses and in passion. Blindfolded, she’s pleased by numerous people she can’t see but can touch, feel, smell, taste and hear. “I try to steady myself, gasping from the first sensations, so close to orgasm, still feeling their tongues, fingers, the warmth of their bodies against mine.” Every woman will find several stories in Going Down that will intrigue her and maybe even make her tingle.

purchase at Amazon: Going Down: Oral Sex Stories

My friend Miriam and I took a little road trip down to Fall River to see the enchanting Callaghan perform as she has no Boston-area dates scheduled on her current tour. Well worth the trip! We enjoyed every second of her too short performance. Callaghan shines brightly throughout her songs about love, despair, longing and loss. Her impressive vocal range provides endless emotional resonance to the melodic songs tinged with a little folk, a little pop and a little country.

It’s not often that an opening act can turn up the energy in a room so quickly but that’s exactly what alt-country singer Callaghan did last night. Her voice fills the room. Her infectious enthusiasm for performing and singing becomes inherent during the first few lines of a song.

Playing on an acoustic guitar, Callaghan opened with “Smile,” a song she described as about someone “you might know in your life who just makes you smile.” It showcases her powerful voice and the sweet, emotional core of the song. She then played the upbeat, pop-y “Best Year.” Her intrinsic talent on display as she moved from soft to anthemic. Callaghan’s quite lovely and explains the songs and has a comfortable chit-chat with the crowd in between songs. The slow and introspective “Get Me Through Tonight” truly moves with Callaghan’s breathy vocals. She played keyboard on “It Was Meant to Be” and then performed “The Darker Side of Love,” a title she said she took from a film title she on a poster in the Tube. Finally Callaghan ended with a ripping cover of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues.”

As Callaghan sang, we could see a beautiful sunset out the windows. While I wasn’t thrilled about driving to Fall River—all I’ve really heard associated with the town are drug deals—Narrow Center for the Arts is a delightful space for artists and musicians to share their talents. I’d go back.

2012 TOUR DATES:

5/25 Decatur, GA – Eddie’s Attic (CD Release Celebration, acoustic show)
5/26 Duluth, GA – Red Clay Theater (CD Release Celebration, full band show)
6/8 Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live (w/Matthew Sweet)
6/9 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club (w/Matthew Sweet)
6/11 New York, NY – City Winery (w/Matthew Sweet)
6/13 Nashville, TN – Music City Roots
6/15 Birmingham, AL – Moonlight On The Mountain
7/7 Durham, NC – Casbah (w/Shawn Mullins)
7/13 Three Oaks, MI – The Acorn Theater
7/22 Atlanta, GA – 99X Unplugged In The Park
7/28 Hayesville, NC – Peacock Playhouse

Callaghan website

purchase the album at Amazon: Life in Full Colour

A bit too young for Robin, Barry and Maurice when they were in their prime but I loved the Bee Gees! Saturday Night Fever wouldn’t be the same without the music of the Bee Gees.

Robin died of colon and liver cancer. He recently had intestinal surgery and had been in a coma prior to his death.

read more in Rolling Stone.

purchase at Amazon: Best of Bee Gees

Dirt by David Vann. Publisher: Harper (May 2012). Literary fiction. Hardcover. 272 pages. 978-0062121035.

In David Vann’s short story collection Legend of a Suicide, the introspection and gloom impressed me. I became an immediate fan. His debut novel Caribou Island gracefully explored many of the same emotions: isolation, regret, settling. The storytelling flows with honesty and grace. His simple writing provides depth, empathy and a glimpse into the thoughts of each character. When I found out Vann wrote a new novel I wanted to immediately read it.

To label Dirt eccentric would be an understatement. It’s Grey Gardens bizarre. It’s 1985. 22-year-old Galen lives with his mother in an unusual world filled with emotional dependency and varying types of abuse. Galen spends his days contemplating New Age philosophy and his taboo attraction to his 17-year-old cousin. His mother makes cucumber sandwiches for tea daily and they visit her mother [and Galen’s grandmother] in a nursing home. Suzie-Q, her daughter, just didn’t want to have her mother interrupt the idyllic existence she’s established with her adult son. Both suffer from varying degree of mental illness—Galen more prone to manic/angry episodes. Galen and Suzie-Q live off a trust fund established by Suzie-Q’s hard-working father but according to her it only allows for subsistence living—no college, no travel, no extravagances.

“It really is that bad. It’s like being no one. You think you’re something now, but it’s only because you can put your memories together. You put them together and you think that makes something. But take away the memories, or even scramble them out of order, and there’s nothing left.”

When Galen and Suzie-Q travel to the family cabin with Aunt Helen and her daughter [the object of Galen’s fantasies] and grandmother, everything crumbles. Helen’s after the money and always has been. Galen gets seduced by his cousin. Suzie-Q can no longer control her son or retain him in the bubble she’s had them living in for years. As Galen and his mother’s fighting escalates beyond reason or control, Vann delves into every psychoanalytical fantasy imaginable.

“It explains everything. It explains the truth about men, the truth that they only care about themselves. And you’re no different.”

While this is a creepy, dark story, Vann writes with a smart, captivating style. Dirt becomes immediately engrossing. I admire Vann’s ability to write about unpleasant/ difficult characters and situations in such a compelling manner. Reflections on the permanence of dirt and explosive power of the sun propel the story to its final tragic denouement. Dirt is disturbing and unnerving but David Vann is a superb storyteller and keeps you flipping pages wondering what atrocities will be uttered and performed.

purchase at Amazon: Dirt: A Novel