SHROUD, by John Banville

I recently discovered the very talented Irish writer John Banville. The first novel I read by him was Shroud. It's an extraordinarily well-written novel structured as two alternating narratives - the main one a first-person narrative of the protagonist, "Axel Vander" and the second a 3rd person telling of the story, mostly related to Vanders' emotionally disturbed would-be blackmailer. Anders is a complex character who has a considerable degree of self-knowledge. Earlier in life, in the midst of the chaos of pre-WWII Belgium,  he took the identity of a rich townsperson to hide his Jewish identity. Reinventing himself in London and then America, he became a famous literary critic by bluffing his way into high circles of academia. He confronts the deception that has been his life when he receives a veiled blackmail threat from an unknown woman. The story plays out in Turin, where he meets and becomes involved with the woman, Cass, who seems to be some sort of schizophrenic with unclear motives. The novel has some very lyrical and sometimes astonishing stylistic elements and is truly poetic. I later read Banville's earlier novels The Book of Evidence, and The Sea, which was long-listed for the Booker Prize, and found many thematic links and protagonists who shared  asocial characteristics. All-in-all, I found Shroud to be a more subtle and mature work and enjoyed it more.

For a review of the book from The Observer, click here: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/oct/05/fiction.johnbanville

HOW TO BE GOOD, by Nick Hornby

How to Be Good is a clever comedy by British writer Nick Hornby. It works well as social satire and also explores the ethical question of what it means to be a good person and do good. Hornby skillfully narrates the story from the perspective of the wife of a dysfunctional couple. Her husband, a cynical "rant-author" with a column in the newspaper, is callous, rude, satirical and self-centered. The wife is a hardworking, frustrated doctor. She is also not exactly a saint, as she is having an affair out of desperation. She decides to divorce as the novel opens. When the husband comes into contact with a kind of new-age healer-type figure (who seems not to fit our stereotype of that sort), he undergoes a personality change and becomes obsessed with "doing good" with schemes like giving away the family's "excessive" material perspectives and having the neighbors house homeless runaway teens. The wife finds that she is even less satisfied with the "new" husband and struggles to understand the concept of being good. It's a frequently funny story with deeper meaning.

For a review of the book from NY Times, click here: http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/07/01/reviews/010701.01queenat.html