I met Alix Strauss, author of Based Upon Availability, while I was in New York City for BEA. I immediately loved her, and had already jumped across the table to snatch her book when I was visiting with some folks at HarperCollins. The book was described as “dark”, and I think what I heard was “covered in chocolate and dripping with diamonds.” That’s how fast I grabbed Based Upon Availability. Meeting Alix was awesome, though I then worried about the possibility of not liking her book. It’s happened before, that I met an author first, read their book, and didn’t like it. It was awkward (for me), and the author eventually unfollowed me on Twitter (surely not because I didn’t like the book…I’m sure my tweets were boring). So there was a certain amount of trepidation surrounding this book for me. But guess what?

I loved it.

I found myself staring off into space thinking about the book, which is what I do when I love a book. And there’s this one scene that I can’t get out of my head, and the scene just reverberates over and over. I admit to having a terrible memory, the kind that you expect in your 104-year-old grandma, but I will not forget the scene. It’s not because the scene is horrific or shocking or gruesome, but Strauss sets up the whole story for this very last thing that happens, so it definitely leaves an impression.

The strength of Based Upon Availability is in the author’s ability to convey a character’s deepest fears, anxieties and insecurities within a few short pages. Robin aches to have a good relationship with her sister. Sheila wishes she could find a man. Trish wants the old days back with her best friend, her best friend who was once fat but is now skinny. Franny wants to connect with someone, anyone, and finds a connection with her neighbors when there’s a fire in their apartment building. Lou, a washed up singer who hasn’t been sober for almost 20 years, would do anything for the golden days again.

These are short, interconnected stories, held together by Morgan, the manager of the Four Seasons, the hotel that these women have in common. Morgan goes into guests’ rooms and takes a pill that they have, whatever it is. She pokes through their luggage, always careful to leave things as they were. She’s stunted in that she still thinks and talks to her dead sister every day, who died when Morgan was only six years old. She thinks about how better her life would be if her sister hadn’t had cancer.

There wasn’t a single woman that my heart didn’t reach out for. It’s such a cliche to say how ‘raw’ the book was, but I really felt like the emotions and insecurities were so close to the surface that if I reached out, I might be able to touch them and see what they feel like. I was almost embarrassed by Morgan’s attempts to reach out to Trish. I wanted to tell her to not let her feelings be so naked. But what’s wrong with putting yourself out there, letting yourself be vulnerable?

Trish’s story, and particularly the ending to that story, is what has stayed with me. Strauss hits on a theme in society that continues to frustrate and sadden me: “When everyone has left you, at least you’ll be thin.” I just want to cry over that statement.

Common through all of these stories is each woman’s need for connection, but they’re unable, for one reason or another, to make that connection. It reminded me of the need that everyone has of being loved, of having a friend, of mattering to someone else. Trish could see that Morgan was reaching out to her, but she was too wrapped up in her own problems to reciprocate. I couldn’t help but think how much better off they might have been if they’d at least had each other.

Even scenes that are silly and funny belie a deeper meaning. Morgan, in one of the hotel rooms, steals a sex toy and then prances around her apartment with it on. It’s a brace that holds her rigid, but ironically gives her the ability to breathe deeper than she can during the day. It releases her somehow, gives her a freedom that she feels when she has it on that she doesn’t feel when she has it off.

My only complaint, like any good book of short stories, is that I’d love to see Strauss write a novel about one person. I would have liked more time with each character, and I wonder what Strauss could do with one person over the course of 300 pages.

Rating: 92 out of 100

You might want to also see what Raging Bibliomania said, as I think she captured the essence of the book quite well.

Alix Strauss’ website

One of my favorite books in high school was The Handmaid’s Tale, so I chose that as the book I wanted to lead the discussion on over at Classic Reads Book Club.

Here’s how it works: I’ve set up a schedule to read The Handmaid’s Tale over six weeks. Each week, we all read the same sections, and then we go to the Classic Reads Book Club site and discuss it. It should be a lot of fun; kind of like a book club, only in slow motion. This is the schedule:

August 23 – Sections I – IV
August 30 – Sections V – VIII
September 6 – Sections IX – X
September 13 – Sections XI – XII
September 20 – Sections XIII – XV
September 27 – Wrap up

See! Easy! You cahn doo eet!

Please?

I definitely have been known to talk to myself (and the older I get the more I do it! Someone make me stop!), but I’m hoping I’m not talking to myself in late August/September.

If you’re still on the fence, here’s a few words/phrases that might spark your interest:

• Dystopian
• Only a few women have menstrual cycles
• Straddling another woman while she gives birth so it’s as if YOU gave birth to that baby (which now belongs to you)
• Margaret Atwood
• This is crazy shit.

Who’s coming with me?

Whew! That’s a long title! But I wanted you to see this really cool new button that Daniel made for me. Daniel Jennewein is an illustrator whose first illustrated book, Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten, was just released on June 22, 2010. I’ve already bought a copy for my nephew who will start kindergarten next year, as well as a copy for, uh, myself.

(Daniel’s married to Lenore, who I adore. To the core. Forevermore. She’s not a bore. Do you want more?)

::cough::

ANYway, Daniel made this freaking awesome button for the Peeing My Pants With Book Anticipation thing, and I didn’t want you to miss it. Drumroll, please.

Is she not the cutest thing ever? There *is* a ‘cleaner’ version, but, well, what can I say? I have the humor of an 8-year-old boy.

(Gosh, this is getting kind of off track.)

So! About that book.

The book I chose this week was picked because I knew about this book before I went to BEA, and one of the few goals I had at BEA was to snag a copy of this book. I *was* able to get a copy of the book, and I’m seriously peeing my pants as I wade through other commitments before I read it.

This book was raved about on Twitter by two people who have impeccable taste in books. The first is a friend, Michele http://twitter.com/readandbreathe), and the other person doesn’t even know who I am (@joebfoster), but I love when he talks about what he’s reading, because he has a way of making me excited for upcoming releases.

Sidenote: this book is being published by Other Press, who “…publish novels, short stories, poetry, and essays from America and around the world that represent literature at its best.” I highly recommend that you sign up for their newsletter (see it on the right sidebar)…though I have to warn you that I’ve only received two newsletters so far, and it’s caused me to buy a book each time. So don’t subscribe unless you want to know about FREAKING AMAZING books.

Here’s the book I’m dying to read:

The Wrong Blood by Manuel de Lope

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Other Press (September 28, 2010)

In the Basque Country in northern Spain, just before the Civil War, three men in dinner suits stop for a drink at a bar before continuing on their way to a wedding. Their trip is interrupted when their leader, the wealthy Don Leopoldo, has a stroke in the restroom.This event, bizarre and undignified though it is, begins to weave together the lives of two remarkable women: the bride, the beautiful and distinguished Isabel Cruces, and María Antonia Etxarri, the bar owner’s adolescent daughter. Shortly after the outbreak of the war, María Antonia is raped and Isabel’s newlywed husband, Captain Julen Herraiz, is shot. Both women find themselves violently altered, alone, and pregnant. A crippled but wise local doctor is the only witness to the mysterious, silent agreement these women conclude in the loneliness and desperation of their mutual suffering. Many years later, a young student, grandson to Isabel, returns to the scene of the events to spend an innocent summer studying for law exams. As he goes about his work, he unwittingly awakens the ghosts haunting both María Antonia and the doctor, and through their memories the passionate stories of the past unfurl before the reader.

De Lope brilliantly reveals his incredible story through flashes of memory and emotion, told in a winding torrent that expresses the cumulative nature of both history and nostalgia.

Pre-order The Wrong Blood by Manuel de Lope!