Berkshire Arts Almanac

Reviewed by Lesley Ann Beck

In her new literary thriller, A Stranger Like You (The Viking Press/Penguin Group), Elizabeth Brundage (whose two previous novels were set in Albany, N.Y., and Stockbridge, Mass.) gives us a gritty, authentic Los Angeles as the backdrop to her taut, suspenseful story. Hedda Chase is a powerful Hollywood film producer, who, intent on eschewing gratuitous violence in her movies, cancels production of a screenplay filled with the kind of brutality she finds objectionable. When the writer of the cancelled script, Hugh Waters, an insurance company employee from New Jersey, learns that Hedda Chase killed his dream, he flies to L.A. and accosts her, drugging and locking her in the trunk of her BMW—the same fate as the character in his screenplay. This well-crafted novel offers clever plotting; complex and troubling characters; and a provocative look at the depiction of violence in film and in fiction.

 
In her latest book, novelist and part-time Northampton, Mass., resident Elinor Lipman concocts a contemporary comedy of manners. The Family Man (Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) revolves around Henry Archer, a gay New York City lawyer who has taken early retirement and is feeling a little lonely—until an unexpected phone call from his appalling ex-wife (a brief mistake long ago) brings his long-lost stepdaughter, Thalia, back into his life. Helping Thalia manage her complicated relationships, Henry soon realizes that his own love life is far from over. All of Lipman’s considerable skills are at work in this book: witty dialogue, engaging characters, and humorous situations. Lipman often places her characters in awkward social situations, but with charm, heart, and a measure of sly wit, she shepherds them along to a satisfying conclusion.

Dani Shapiro’s beautifully written second memoir, Devotion (HarperCollins Publishers), mines her very personal search not so much for the big answers as for the right questions. Shapiro, who lives in Litchfield County, Conn., grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home, but abandoned those rituals in college. In her forties, married and with a young son, her need to discover her true beliefs becomes compelling. She visits synagogues and affixes a mezuzah on her front door; spends weekends at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Mass.; goes on a silent meditation retreat. There is no single epiphany, just a series of quiet realizations that, for her, aspects of Judaism, yoga, Buddhism, and meditation all have a place in her life. Shapiro’s tale of her transformative journey is moving, intimate, humorous, and honest.

Reviewed by Lesley Ann Beck

A society matron schemes to have her estranged husband appear at their daughter’s wedding; a socialite awaits the reviews of her first published novel with dread; and a woman shunned by society for being a divorcé returns to New York City from her exile in Florence, Italy, only to realize that she is still an outcast.

These characters appear in the three short stories—“The Last Asset,” “Expiation,” and “Autre Temps”—included in Edith Wharton on Audio, Volume 1, the first audiobook from the Wharton Audio Project, a collaboration between Berkshire Media Artists (BMA) and The Mount Press. The selected stories were written between 1902 and 1911, when Edith Wharton, the first female author to win a Pulitzer Prize, lived at The Mount in Lenox, Mass., and all three feature characters dealing, in some way or another, with the strictures of “polite society.” 

 Wharton was known for penning “biting social satire,” says Jason Brown, who produced and directed the project at his BMA Studios in Monterey, Mass. “I wanted short stories that were written while she was at The Mount,” he adds, “and these were my favorites.”

The stories are read dramatically by Jonathan Epstein, Tod Randolph, and Tara Franklin, accomplished actors familiar to Berkshire theatergoers. In fact, all three have either acted in or read from Wharton works at The Mount.

 “The Last Asset,” the tale of an American newspaperman on assignment in Paris who is enlisted to find a missing father-of-the-bride, is read by Epstein with just the right inflection of humor. “Expiation” is read by Franklin, whose youthful voice is ideal for the story of Mrs. Fetherel, the would-be author of a scandalous exposé. And Randolph does a marvelous job with “Autre Temps,” the poignant tale of a woman whose own long-ago divorce makes her worry for her beloved daughter, about to risk her status in society.

Musical interludes buffer the excellent recordings of Wharton’s stories, which lend themselves to being read aloud, an activity often enjoyed by Wharton and her guests at The Mount. Edith Wharton on Audio, Volume 2, which features a selection of ghost stories, is due in spring 2011.

Edith Wharton on Audio Volume 1  the audio book is on three CDs; listening time is three hours and fifteen minutes. For more information, visit www.bmaaudio.com.