More Beach Reads

It turns out that Ricky's family are shell collectors extraordinaire, so every day they walk the beach, eyes frequently cast downward and troll the waters, net in hand, to capture the best sea shells.  There are piles and bags of shells occupying tables and stuck in corners ready to head back inland with various family members.

Each morning family members take long walks along the beach, which sounds heavenly but I soon found out my right knee did not like the slipping and sliding of walking in the sand.  Swimming in the ocean is another favorite activity of everyone, except me--so I--well, I watch the  waves and read.

Benny & Shrimp, by Katarina Mazetti. New York: Penguin Books, 2009 (US publication)

This Swedish novel published initially in 1998, was translated into English and published in UK in 2008 and made its way to US in 2009.   Loaned to my by my sister, the novel has made the rounds in my family, and Benny and Shrimp has currently found its way to the beach with me.  The book garnered positive reviews, and I enjoyed it, although not as much as some of the other reader reviewers.

Katarina Mazetti

 Shrimp, the diminutive Desiree Wallin, is a thirty-something, young widow with a ticking biological clock who meets Benny, a shy milk farmer,  at the cemetery.  Desiree is there to visit the grave of her deceased husband in order to understand her marriage and process her grief.  Benny visits his mother's grave out of familial duty and a sense of propriety, though he would not characterize it as such.

Benny and Desiree are initially repulsed by each other, then captivated by each other's smiles, and finally each other's bodies, although they appear to have little in common otherwise.  This is their story, told by them, the two main characters in alternating chapters.  There aren't many other characters to capture your interest except for the crazy librarian, Inez Lundmark.  If Inez had Facebook, she wouldn't have needed the rows of file cabinets where she amassed and cataloged data about the lives of people who crossed her path.  This is the story of Benny and Shrimp's courtship.  How it ends is left to the reader of this book.  Apparently Mazetti has written a sequel in Swedish that hasn't been published in English.

Act of Betrayal, by Edna Buchanan.  New York: Hyperion, 1996.

Author Edna Buchanan

My beach read mystery is Edna Buchanan's Act of Betrayal, a book I found here at the cottage.  I know I've read some of Buchanan's books in the past, but this one was new to me.

Set in Miami and featuring crime reporter Britt Montero, Buchanan crafts a good tale.  Because of the Florida connection it seems right to read it here at the beach.  Of course Miami is a different world from the Gulf Coast.

Buchanan describes the newspaper life that is fast disappearing.  The New Orleans Times Picayune just fired half its staff and is going to three-day-a-week publication schedule.  I find the demise of newspapers and the savvy reporters of yesteryear to be a tragedy, so it is doubly enjoyable for me to read about the newspaper life of past decades.  Buchanan herself earned her stripes in the trenches, covered the Miami police beat for 18 years and won a Pulitzer Prize for general news reporting.  

Buchanan features Cuban exiles and their fanatical desire to regain their island from Castro in this Miami tale.  Crime reporter Britt Montero, half Cuban herself, is pursuing a story and trying to help parents find their missing sons, some missing for years, and she suspects it is the work of a serial killer.  However, she is just as intent as finding the key to her own past, her dead father's missing journal.  The mystery part of this book was easy to figure out, so I found it difficult to believe it wasn't obvious to a seasoned crime reporter.  However, I still consider this to have been an enjoyable beach read, 16 years after its initial publication.

The Language of Flowers, by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.  

New York: Ballentine Trade paperback, 2012.

Given to me by my friend, Beth, this book was another enjoyable beach read.  The most recent publication of the books that I brought with me to the beach, The Language of Flowers is a critically acclaimed book, popular with book clubs.  The topic is a serious one--the fate of older foster children.

Victoria is a foster child who is emancipated at age 18 after a life in foster care and a long history of unsuccessful attempts at adoption.  She is a difficult child whose one placement that would have given her happiness didn't quite work out.  Her foster mother, Elizabeth, had issues of her own that contributed to the failure of the placement and doomed Victoria to another 8 years of tough group homes.  The last group of girls tried to set Victoria's mattress on fire, but Victoria was no helpless victim.  She, too, communicated through violence.

The plot is believable once you immerse yourself in Victoria's world.  The book is written with chapters that often alternate between past and present.  Besides engaging characters that kept me reading--Grant who reappeared in Victoria's life from an earlier time; Elizabeth who ultimately failed Victoria and herself during the year Victoria lived with her; Renata, the florist who hires the 18-year- old Victoria; Renata's mother Marina and sister Natalya.  The other main characters are the flowers that the Victorians used to communicate messages, because flowers form the centerpiece of the novel.

Happily, the book provides a satisfactory ending to a rather horrific set of life circumstances. The author, Vanessa Diffenbaugh is a foster parent who has formed a foundation to help the foster kids who age out of the system.