Midwives

Midwives by Chris Bohjalian (1997) 374 pages

Sibyl Danforth is a midwife, living and working in rural Vermont. When something goes terribly wrong during one of her deliveries, on a winter night when the roads have become impassable, she is accused of murder. It's a subject that's fraught with emotion, and is told from the point of view of Sibyl's 14-year-old daughter Connie, with snippets of Sibyl's own voice in journal entries at the beginning of most chapters.

I had never read Chris Bohjalian before, and was directed to this novel as a good place to start. Even though I knew the subject was difficult, when I read a few "test" pages, his writing pulled me in, with no backing away.

Radio Free Vermont

Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance by Bill McKibben, 224 pages

Vern Barclay is your average local talk radio host, discussing high school sports scores, the unseasonably warm weather, updates on the local news, you know the drill. But then his station (the last independent station in Vermont!) is purchased by an out-of-state conglomerate, he's forced to cover the opening of a Wal-mart, and the next thing you know, he's a fugitive from the law, spearheading the shop local movement to end all movements (and eventually a secession movement) through the website, podcasts, and occasional broadcast of Radio Free Vermont.

McKibben has given us a creative, fun way to look at resistance in the current political climate, and I thank him for that wholeheartedly. I loved the characters he created (particularly Perry? The computer whiz who ends each sentence with a question mark?), and the excellent ways they find to stick it to the man. One of my favorites of the year.

The Secret History / Donna Tartt 524 p.

How does an author create a story lacking a single likeable character that keeps you reading frantically to the last page? I can't answer that, but I can tell you that Tartt has done it. Richard Papen leaves his dingy California home for a small, elite college in Vermont. There he becomes enmeshed with a small clique who, the reader gathers, are the friends he's been waiting for all his life - brilliant, eccentric, fabulously wealthy, and entirely exclusive. Papen manages to hide his working-class background and so-so education to penetrate their circle, being accepted into their unique program of study: Greek and Latin classical literature and philosophy, all under the tutelage of Dr. Julian last-name-forgotten, a mysterious figure who looks like Dumbledore but may very well be...well, never mind. These very precious, special young people quote Aristotle like the rest of us toss off Seinfeld references and create their own moral universe, with disastrous results. Tartt sustains Hitchcock-like tension throughout. Just plain amazing writing.