Review: The Good Psychologist

Written by Noam Shpancer
Henry Holt and Company, 2010; 240 pages

This review refers to an uncorrected proof of the novel.

In Noam Shpancer's debut novel, The Good Psychologist, the eponymous therapist finds himself taking on an interesting new patient. Tiffany is a stripper (or "exotic dancer") who has developed an extreme case of stage fright. Her livelihood is threatened, along with her plans to recover custody of her young daughter. The psychologist wants to help the dancer, but as they proceed with her treatment, the woman's problems begin to have a dangerous resonance in the doctor's own private life. As he becomes more and more involved in Tiffany's story, his professional objectivity becomes difficult to maintain, and eventually even his personal life is affected, including his relationship with Nina, the former colleague who is also the mother of the daughter he's never met.

I ended up liking The Good Psychologist much more than I expected to in the beginning. At first, the abundant discussion of the field of psychotherapy began to get tedious and I kept getting the feeling I was reading someone's class notes for Psych 101. And the psychologist's world is tightly circumscribed. Mostly we see him in his office, during therapy sessions; or with his students in the university class he teaches in the evening. Occasionally we see him at home, or engaging in a leisure-time basketball game with a group of friends – although those friends are never allowed a real presence in the book. A couple of times, he has very brief meetings with Nina. But everything in the novel is seen from his point of view; basically, we're in his head the whole time. So things began to feel a little claustrophobic after a while.

I was also a little bothered by the fact that the protagonist is referred to, throughout the book, as simply The Psychologist (or "Professor" by his students). I'm not sure why Shpancer should want to distance us from his main character in this fashion – maybe something about the professional distance therapists must maintain when treating patients? Or just a stab at being clever and mysterious? Whatever he had in mind, I don't think it really works in the context of the novel.

But The Good Psychologist has some unexpected surprises along the way. And somewhere around the middle of the book, I found myself really beginning to like the psychologist and became thoroughly caught up in his story. The book has humor, suspense, and a unique narrative voice that I found very appealing. It's a beautifully written work, and a remarkable achievement for a first-time novelist. I hope it finds a wide audience.

Note: I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher, through Library Thing's Early Reviewer program. No other compensation was received, and no one tried to influence my opinion of the book.

The Daily Tease: The Hills at Home

For today's Daily Tease I have in mind Nancy Clark's wonderful novel, The Hills at Home.


Here's the description from the publisher:

While always well-stocked with clean sheets, Lily Hill is not expecting visitors. At least not in the numbers that descend upon her genteelly dilapidated New England ancestral home in the summer of '89. Brother Harvey arrives first, thrice-widowed and eager for company; then perennially self-dramatizing niece Ginger and her teenaged daughter Betsy; then, [Ginger's brother] Alden, just laid-off from Wall Street, with his wife Becky, and their rowdy brood of four....

As summer fades into fall, it becomes clear that no one intends to leave. But just as Lily's industrious hospitality gives way to a somewhat strained domestic routine, the Hill clan must face new challenges together. Brimming with wit and a compendium of Yankee curiosities, The Hills at Home is an irresistible modern take on an old-fashioned comedy of manners.

The cover of the paperback edition:


First lines of the book:

Outside, the night blew perfectly foul and all of the Hills had stayed home. Rain flung itself by the fistful against the clapboards, rain spangled the windowpanes, and the rain bore down so hard against the roof that shots bounced up from the slates and rained down again in shattery shards and splinters. The wind wheeled round and the startled rain skidded sideways. The rain sought, the rain battered, the rain invaded. This was an extravagant rain, as if somewhere, somehow, someone, miserly and profligate in turn, had been amassing rain until he possessed enough to hurl down fiercely and decisively upon the helplessly spinning earth.

My thoughts and a few quotes:

I started reading Nancy Clark's The Hills at Home in the summer of 2005. I believe I saw one of those thumbnail reviews in the New York Times Book Review when the paperback edition came out – it sounded intriguing, so I picked up a copy and read a bit before getting sidetracked by one thing or another. Didn't get back to the book until a whole year later. But when I picked it up again the next summer, and read a few pages, I could not put it down – read it straight through in just a few days (rare for me), and then went back to the beginning and read huge chunks of it over again (unheard of). It became one of my all-time favorite reads. The writing is elegant and witty, and the book is full of wonderful personalities and funny, unpredictable events. And Lily Hill became one of those fictional characters I'd most like to be able to meet in real life. I think we could probably become great pals (in a weird-old-broad sort of way).

Here's a sampling of snippets:

The Ben Franklin store started stocking flats of seedlings out front on a board bench a month too early but Lily always fell for a few six-packs, not able to resist the petunia colors and the pansies' expressions. Then, overnight, her field was adrift with nodding daffodils. The lilacs would flower next, and then it would be the irises' turn. Lily had begun to work in her garden, kneeling on a square of newspaper and digging with a trowel in her perennial bed, turning up the seeds of weeds that needed only five seconds of sunlight to germinate, she had read. It was foolish of her, Lily knew, but now and then she allowed a trowelful of earth to sit in the sun as she slowly counted to five. (--Chapter 6: "The Hills Take Wing," pp.411-412)

When Miss Angler arrived and approached Harvey and Lily who stuck to the terrace stones as if to a beachhead, she handed Lily a business card at which Lily glanced. Oh dear, Tina was a Teena, which Lily would rather not have known, although Miss Angler's parents were the ones to blame. The last year she taught school, Lily had had a Hidey in class. Lily had known then, the time had come for her to retreat into private life. (--Chapter 6: "The Hills Take Wing," p.433)

. . . . Lily moved from guest to guest shedding feathers from her hat and hugging a ten-pound bag of Northeast Songbird Mixture to her chest and bidding everyone to scoop up handsful of flax and millet and sunflower seeds to throw after [the newlyweds]. What a grand idea, they were all saying, far better to throw seed than to toss rice or confetti or stones, for one of the Happening side claimed to have been to a wedding where colored aquarium pebbles had been cast at the newlyweds. ("What were they, adulterers?" Alden asked Louis and then wished he hadn't). (--Chapter 6: "The Hills Take Wing," p.472)

Booking Through Thursday: Beach Buddies

OK. First things, first. I just want to say this is so unexpected (oops! sorry – that's my Academy Awards speech). I want to say thanks to Deb for using one of my suggestions for a BTT topic. It's sort of a good news/bad news thing, though, because now I have to come up with an answer!

And after a bit of thought, I've decided I'd like to spend my day at the beach with Mary Poppins. She does, after all, come equipped with her own umbrella for keeping the sun off – and since it's a magic umbrella, I'm sure it would expand to whatever size is necessary. Probably has special UV protection built in, as well. And, as Mary is able to float around using the umbrella, we could even use it as transport to find that absolutely perfect spot, away from all the hoi polloi and noise.


Then there's that magic carpetbag, too – perfect for carrying all the paraphernalia I usually schlep with me when I'm spending a day on the sand. Towels, sunscreen, beach blankets, reading matter, even hot dogs, diet soda, iced cappuccino – they could all conveniently materialize right out of that wondrous bag.

And finally, Mary is a Nanny, and a very special Nanny, after all. She'd be the perfect person to have around to apply sunscreen, help with sandcastle building and kite flying, serve refreshments, and keep stray children at bay. She could even read me a story. And wonderful adventures happen whenever she floats into view.

Oh, and maybe we'd finally get her out of those white gloves and flannel nighties. Mary Poppins in a bikini? Now who wouldn't want to get a look at that?

Reading Report: The Daily Tease (Booked To Die)

OK, after yesterday's look at one of the books I read in 2008, today I'll continue the backward stroll, with a glance at 2007. In July of that year I was introduced to John Dunning's Cliff Janeway series of bibliomysteries.

I think I first discovered the books while browsing on eBay, looking for something new and different (and cheap) to read. I hadn't really done much blogging back then, and didn't know about all the great recommendations I could get from book bloggers. Anyway, I managed to find a paperback copy of the first book in the series, Booked To Die, so I was able to get in right at the beginning (which is unusual for me – I generally jump in somewhere near the middle).

Here's the description from the publisher:

Denver homicide detective Cliff Janeway may not always play by the book, but he is an avid collector of rare and first editions. After a local bookscout is killed on his turf, Janeway would like nothing better than to rearrange the suspect's spine. But the suspect, local lowlife Jackie Newton, is a master at eluding the law, and Janeway's wrathful brand of off-duty justice costs him his badge.

Turning to his lifelong passion, Janeway opens a small bookshop – all the while searching for evidence to put Newton away. But when prized volumes in a highly sought-after collection begin to appear, so do dead bodies. Now, Janeway's life is about to start a precarious new chapter as he attempts to find out who's dealing death along with vintage Chandlers and Twains.

And the cover of the paperback edition:


First lines of the book:

Bobby the bookscout was killed at midnight on June 13, 1986. This was the first strange fact, leading to the question, What was he doing out that late at night? To Bobby, midnight was the witching hour and Friday the thirteenth was a day to be spent in bed.

My Thoughts and a few more quotes:

I love whodunits, and I'm a sucker for a book about books. So when I discovered Dunning's Janeway novels, I knew I'd found something of interest. Cliff Janeway is a Denver homicide detective turned rare book dealer who still gets involved in solving crimes. He's not your ordinary book nerd – he's a little rough around the edges, and doesn't suffer fools lightly. But he truly loves the world of books and book collecting.

The novels are a bit more "hard-boiled" and Chandler-esque than I usually like. For instance, in the cozies I generally read, I'm very unlikely to run into passages like this one where Janeway is describing the soothing effect of his apartment with its wall-to-wall books:

"I've been collecting books for a long time. Once I killed two men in the same day, and this room had an almost immediate healing effect." (--Chapter 1, p.12 of the paperback edition)

Or this, from Janeway's description of his fight with suspect Jackie Newton:

I ducked under his next punch and pounded his guts on the inside. He exploded in a hurricane of bad breath. (--Chapter 15, p.156)

One of the nicest things about the novels is the added literary chat and book lore you're treated to, along with the mysteries themselves. Take, for instance, a passage early in this first novel:

It was a quiet day on Book Row. At Seals & Neff a few customers had come and gone and the day was quickly settling into its inevitable, uneventful course. There was a young woman in the store, who had brought in a bag of books. Bookscouts, like dealers, come in all sizes, colors, and sexes. This one was a cut above the others I had seen, at least in the category of looks, but it was clear from what was being said that she had more than a smattering of ignorance when it came to books.

Neff was explaining to her why her as-new copy of Faulkner's The Reivers wasn't a first edition. "But it says first edition," she protested. "Right here on the copyright page...look. First edition. How much clearer can it be than that? Random House always states first edition, right? You told me that yourself the last time I was in here. Now I've got a first edition and you're telling me it isn't a first edition. I don't know what to believe."

"Believe this, honey," Neff said. "I don't need the grief. If you think I'm trying to steal your book..."

"I didn't say that. I'm not accusing you, I just want to know."

"It's a Book-of-the-Month Club first," Neff said, enunciating each word with chilly distinction. "It's printed from the same plates as the first, or maybe the same sheets are even used; that's why it says first edition. But the binding is different, there's no price on the jacket, and the book has a blind stamp on the back board."

"What's a blind stamp?"

"A little dent, pressed right into the cloth. Look, I'll show you. You see that little stamp? That means it's a book club book. Whenever you see that, it came from a book club, even if it's written 'I'm a first edition' in Christ's own blood inside. Okay?"

She sighed. "I'll never learn this stuff. How much is it worth?"

"This book? Five bucks tops. There are eight million copies of this in the naked city." (--Chapter 6, pp.62-63)

Dunning followed Booked To Die with four more Cliff Janeway mysteries: The Bookman's Wake (my favorite), The Bookman's Promise, The Sign of the Book, and The Bookwoman's Last Fling. (There's also Booked Twice – one volume containing both Booked To Die and The Bookman's Wake.) This initial book in the series was first published in 1992, years before Amazon and the Internet started affecting book publishing and collecting. So, to be fair, the books are a bit dated now (something Dunning himself readily admits). But they're still fascinating reads.

Reading Report: The Daily Tease

So here goes another daily tease: time for another little stumble down memory lane. (Didn't post one yesterday because it was Teaser Tuesday, and I figure one tease a day is really quite enough.)

Monday, I talked about a book I read last summer – The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. So today I'm moving a little further back. In 2008 I read Mark Haddon's wonderful debut novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.


Here's the description from the publisher:

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions, and cannot stand to be touched. Gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. "I do not always do what I'm told," he admits. "And this is because when people tell you what to do it is usually confusing and does not make sense. For example, people often say 'Be quiet' but they don't tell you how long to be quiet for..."

At fifteen, Christopher's carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbor's dog, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork and is initially blamed for the killing. Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer and turns to his favorite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the dissolution of his parents' marriage. As Christopher tries to deal with this crisis within his own family, the narrative draws readers into the mysterious workings of Christopher's mind.

At once deeply funny and heartbreakingly poignant, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is one of the freshest debuts in years.

First lines of the book:

2. It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears's house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead.

And a couple more snippets. This is Christopher, thinking about the death of his mother:

But Mother was cremated. This means that she was put into a coffin and burned and ground up and turned into ash and smoke. I do not know what happens to the ash and I couldn't ask at the crematorium because I didn't go to the funeral. But the smoke goes out of the chimney and into the air and sometimes I look up into the sky and I think that there are molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or the Antarctic, or coming down as rain in the rain forests in Brazil, or in snow somewhere. (pp. 33-34)

And here he is, musing about the mysteries of life:

Eventually scientists will discover something that explains ghosts, just like they discovered electricity, which explained lightning, and it might be something about people's brains, or something about the earth's magnetic field, or it might be some new force altogether. And then ghosts won't be mysteries. They will be like electricity and rainbows and nonstick frying pans. (p. 100)

My thoughts:

You can read my full review of the novel here. But long story, short: I loved it. I'd give it a definite A, maybe even an A+. The book is sad and funny at the same time; beautifully written and sometimes excruciatingly honest. Christopher, even with all his problems, was such an engaging character, I felt almost bereft when the book ended, and I had to take my leave of him.

A-Z Wednesday: "Y"

A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Vicki at Reading At The Beach. To join in, just visit her blog for the guidelines and leave your link in a comment.

This week's letter is "Y." So I went to my shelves, and this is what I pulled out.

Your Royal Hostage
Written by Antonia Fraser
First published 1987

Description from Amazon.com:

In her sixth appearance as observant sleuth, Jemima Shore notices details and files them away in her mind for use later on.... Just fired as investigative reporter for Megalith Television in London, Jemima covers the impending royal wedding for Television United States. Princess Amy of Cumberland, aged 22 and poor, will marry French Prince Ferdinand, aged 33 and rich; but a group of Animal Rights people plot to kidnap the princess in order to gain recognition for their cause. The plan goes awry, and Jemima saves the day. Stylishly presented...with a dash of satire.

And the cover of one of the paperback editions:


My Thoughts:

Antonia Fraser has written many fine nonfiction works, including massive biographies of Marie Antoinette, Mary Queen of Scots, King Charles II, and Oliver Cromwell. But, beginning in the 1970s, she also produced a great series of mystery novels featuring TV personality and amateur sleuth Jemima Shore. Jemima is not only beautiful, bright, and successful, she also manages to get herself involved in some wonderfully mysterious (and frequently dangerous) situations. I once read that Fraser (who was married and the mother of six children at the time) tried to make Jemima as different as possible from her own persona. Thus, Jemima Shore is unmarried and childless and has a very exciting and visible career - far removed from Fraser's own life as the aristocratic wife of Scottish MP Sir Hugh Fraser.

There have been, I believe, nine Jemima Shore novels (and one book of stories). Your Royal Hostage is number six, and probably not the most interesting of the lot; but they're all worth reading. My favorite is probably the first one, Quiet as a Nun, which first appeared in 1977, and has Jemima investigating the spooky goings-on in an ancient convent.

The books have also been adapted, twice, as TV series. The shows were done for British TV, but at least one of the series (with Patricia Hodge as Jemima) aired in the US on PBS. Don't know if they're available on DVD or video, but they're definitely worth watching if you get the chance.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Exploding Grandmother

This week my teaser lines come from The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, by Helen Grant. It's a strange book, and I'm enjoying it so far, but it's a bit slow getting started. This snippet comes from the end of Chapter 3 and has the book's main character, eleven-year-old Pia, speaking about her grandmother's death:

My mother was right about a lot of things, but on one topic she was spectacularly wrong, and that was the fascination with Oma Kristel's death. Even now, so much later, and after all that happened that terrible year, I am quite convinced that if you mentioned the name of Kristel Kolvenbach to anyone in Bad Munstereifel, they would instantly say, "Wasn't she the woman who exploded at her own Advent dinner?" (p.14)

Well, that would be a memorable way to exit, now wouldn't it?


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.