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Good books, old friends

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By Kara Kvasnicka

Tuesday, November 29, -0001

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Consider adding to your summer reading list these titles which have kept me out of the garden this spring.

Ruth Reichl's Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures at the Table (Random House, 2001, 302 pages, $24.95) is intended for adults.

In this sequel to her first culinary memoir, Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (Random House, 1998), Reichl produces yet another tantalizing blend of recipes and stories about her life that will awaken all your senses.

Tender at the Bone ends with Reichl's decision, after much soul searching and uncertainty, to become a food writer. Comfort Me with Apples shows the life-changing ramifications of actively pursuing this career.

Again, Reichl keeps her readers' attention with mouth-watering descriptions of her culinary experiences and wins their sympathy with dry, self-deprecating humor. However, there are notable differences in the way Reichl chooses to structure this section of her resume.

While Tender at the Bone is a collection of separate stories in which Reichl's quirky and eclectic set of mentors is given as much weight as the development of her love for food and her critical palette, Comfort Me with Apples is one long, continuous narrative stream in which Reichl is no longer too self-conscious to make herself the main and most interesting ingredient.

Likewise, while she duly notes the professional attainments that mark this chapter of her life, she focuses much more on the startling and unexpected events that lead her to personal fulfillment.

When we left her at the end of Tender at the Bone, Reichl seemed happy enough. She had a good marriage to the artist Doug and good times in the Berkeley commune she shared with him and several other free spirits. I'll leave it up to you to read between the recipes why appearances are deceiving. Trust me, before you have devoured the second chapter's instructions for making crab cakes, you will be reaching for the phone to make reservations at your favorite restaurant and hoping Reichl has planned yet another savory sequel.

Frank Rich's Ghost Light (Random House, 2000, 311 pages, $24.95) is intended for adults.

You will need Reichl's recommendations for comfort food after reading journalist Rich's overwhelmingly depressing memoir of his childhood and youth in 1950s and 1960s Washington, D.C. It is one of those sad-tales-well-told that you know will keep you up at night with its disturbing information. Nevertheless, you cannot resist the pull of its narrator's haunting voice and expert storytelling powers.

Rich, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, was the paper's chief drama critic from 1980 to 1993. Given my own love of theater, I eagerly delved into a kindred spirit's autobiography hoping for a gossipy backstage pass to what it was like to grow up during one of Broadway's most productive eras. I was not prepared for a provocative expose of the serious social dysfunctions that lurked beneath the conventional surface of a middle class American family during what we sentimentally cling to as a more innocent time.

Indeed, Rich does share with us the magic of attending his first Broadway shows and getting to see the out-of-town tryouts at Washington's National Theatre of "Fiddler on the Roof" and other now legendary hits.

But any happy recollections are quickly crowded out by his painful memories of his parents' divorce and the abusive stepfather that followed. In unsettling detail, he relives the psychological impact of his parents' failure to explain to him the reasons for their split, the physical and verbal violence he endured from his stepfather and the stigma of being labeled a kid from a "broken home" in times when divorces were still few and far between.

Theater starts out for Rich as just another favorite pastime he shares with his parents while they are still seemingly happily married. Ultimately, it becomes a refuge from realities with which no child should have to cope.

Alice Hoffman's Aquamarine (Scholastic Press, 2001, 105 pages, $16.95) is intended for young adults.

Hoffman is one of my favorite writers. I lose all track of time when cast under the spell of her intriguing characters and effortless fusion of the odd with the ordinary. Of course, like other critics, I expect her, with each new novel, to live up to the high standards she has set for herself.

With a texture that puts me in mind of an ice cream sundae, Hoffman's first book written specifically for a young adult audience is worth the hour or so needed to read it. It does not merit the shelf life of her adult novels, but it does succeed in providing teen readers with an enticing introduction to the unique genre of magical realism she has perfected.

The themes of this book are those of summer itself. Twelve-year-old best friends Hailey and Claire learn just how precious and fleeting time is as they spend their last summer together at their favorite haunt, the derelict Capri Beach Club.

As we all do during vacations, Hailey and Claire spend most of theirs dreading the future. Most of us have merely the worries of work or school to send shivers down our spines. However, with Claire's permanent move to Florida and their beloved hangout's demolition both scheduled for the end of the season, Hailey and Claire face the grim reality that nothing in their lives will ever be the same.

Then, they are distracted from their melancholia by the unlikely discovery of a mermaid with attitude named Aquamarine at the bottom of the Capri Club pool. By helping Aquamarine meet her dream date and return to the ocean before she evaporates, the girls share an adventure to remember each other by.

Unfortunately, the mystical transforming forces of the universe, symbolized by the mythical creature from the sea, are not as convincing as in Hoffman's other works. The imagery with which she creates setting and mood is dazzling, as usual. The plight of her heroines is heartbreaking and credible. But somehow she misses the mark with her rude and sassy mermaid. Motivated only by her own desires, Aquamarine does not deserve the love and admiration she inspires.

Still, Hoffman off target is much better than many other authors when they are on target. If nothing else, she reminds us to make the most of every season before they all too quickly melt away.

I know I should enjoy my annuals and everyone else's as much as possible before autumn and its first frost arrive. But they will definitely have to compete for my time with the promising stack of books beside my sofa. Perhaps, I should pray for more rain so I will not be forced to choose between them.

Kvasnicka, a former East Village Magazine news editor, has been the magazine's contributing editor and research consultant since 1989. She is the children's librarian at the Genesee District Library's McFarlen Branch.

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