Book Review: Second Suns by David Oliver Relin

When I first received my copy of this book as an advanced reader copy, I had skimmed the cover and dove directly into reading the first chapter.  It was only in a brief moment, when I had set my book aside that I head realized that the author, David Oliver Relin, was dead.

Suddenly, what was once a compelling story, became now also a very bittersweet tale, knowing that while the world now knows the bright and hopeful tales of two doctors, it also is the last story for Relin to tell.

At the end of the book, Relin writes "Some books you want to write. Others you have to write."  You don't have to get farther than the first chapter to realize that there is a sense of destiny that brings the American ophthalmologist Geoffrey Tabin together with his Nepalese counterpart Sanduk Ruit.  Tabin, a bombastic character with a sense of adventure, and Ruit, teaming up to bring eyesight to the blind and innovate surgical procedures to be cheap, believing that everyone should have access to eyesight, not just the privileged.

Through the span of time covered, Relin is very adept at weaving their collective tale as they fight against not just less-than-ideal conditions in remote areas, but also political machinations, in order to ultimately build a base for artificial lenses in Kathmandu that makes it possible for them to spread their practices, and provide sight to people in China and Rwanda.

Some other customer reviews I have seen have argued that Relin's account can get a little tedious at times, and to a certain extent I agree.  However, the profound goodness in these stories covers the majority of tediousness, and Relin overcomes slow points with more engaging anecdotes soon to follow.

All-in-all, a beautiful read that reminds you of the amazing amount of good that can be accomplished to bring light to a world shrouded in darkness.

Book Review: And Sons: A Novel

The great part of getting advanced copies of possible book club selections, is that you get to read literature for free that you might not have read otherwise.  The bad part? That it can sometimes be like that literature class where the professor goes nuts over a piece of literature for reasons you can't comprehend because it just isn't that great.

So it is with And Sons: A Novel by David Gilbert.  I wanted it to live up to the pre-publication hype, but absolutely did not.  So I wrote my very honest reviews for Amazon and Goodreads below.   Enjoy.

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Like many contemporary novelists, & Sons is an attempt to capture many of the feelings we want out of literature. While I had not read any of his other works, it is apparent that author David Gilbert is familiar with larger expectations for complex works by interweaving multiple viewpoints, dealing with darker themes in familial relationships, and throwing in the unexpected. In terms of style and tone, Gilbert does come across as different, unique and fresh.

However, Gilbert’s novel has a few detractors that make it have less of a broad appeal. For the most part it is a study of relationships between reclusive, privileged, New Yorker fathers and sons. While I understand the romance with the New York City life, and reflections of a Woody Allen view of the city, I still am not sure how relatable these characters are on the whole. Adding to the problem, is the bouncing weave of storylines and viewpoints that at times is hard to follow, especially when the father is named Andrew, and the son is called Andy. To confuse matters more, Gilbert drops in copies of handwritten letters that are often hard to read but essential in terms of characters reacting to these letters, and sections of the fictional author A.N. Dyer’s novels. 

As well, the novel comes across to the reader as trying too hard. In the course of building this reclusive author’s character, Dyer’s biggest classical piece of literature is called Ampersand and is constantly compared to Catcher in the Rye. Instead of feeling like a natural comparison, the number of times this is mentioned make it instead feel like that one friend who has gotten to meet a few B-list celebrities, and constantly namedrops at the most casual of dinner parties. Add to this a very preposterous plot twist that is played off as reality, and it feels like the whole novel unravels a bit. While the mildly surprising revelation near the end and the very surprising ending work much better, the middle plot twist feels like the biggest negative and turn that part of the novel into that movie that is hilarious when it wasn’t trying to be funny at all.

While the tone and style are interesting, I found the whole novel didn’t live up to the hype. Probably a semi-interesting read for some, but definitely not what I would consider to be an enduring classic.