Wishin' and Hopin'

Last December I read I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb, and then moved straight into holiday reading in a big way. I really loved  I Know This Much is True and did a search on other books by Wally Lamb, and discovered that he had a Christmas novella, Wishin' and Hopin', which I promptly got and vowed to read as part of this year's holiday reading.

It was so much fun!

Felix Funicello lives with his parents and two older sisters in Three Rivers, Connecticut, same town where Dominick and Thomas live in I Know This Much is True, but apart from great writing, including sterling dialogue (and writing realistic dialogue for 5th graders isn't easy!), the two works don't have anything in common really.

Felix is an adorable kid (ala Dondi--I haven't thought of Dondi for probably 40 years!).  He's smart without being precocious or annoying, innocent without being unbelievable.  His best friend is 12-year old Lonny who has been held back and has a tough homelife, and who attempts to educate him on the birds and bees, when his father stumbles in this department.

We have a Catholic school setting, a French-Canadian substitute teacher, a new girl from the Soviet Union, a Pillsbury Bake-off, and an insufferable top-of-class, know-it-all girl with rich parents (Muffy from PBS's Arthur was who I kept thinking of, but she at least had a heart).  Lamb clearly had a whole lot of fun writing this novella and inventing screwy names for his characters, Sister Dymphana is a great example.

Oh, and did I mention that Felix's father is a distant cousin of Annette Funicello, whom the family all worship?

The final Christmas pageant that the school puts on is the best slapstick routine I've read since The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and it had me laughing out loud.

If you're still looking for great short holiday stories to fill out your holiday reading this year, I heartily recommend this one.

I just discovered there was a movie version of this in 2014.  Now, I have to find it and watch, but meanwhile here's a scene from the movie.

I Know This Much is True

I finished Wally Lamb's 897-page tome, I Know This Much is True, two days ago.  And with it completed the TBR Pile Challenge for 2015, leaving unread two of the 14 books on my list, but they're going on some list for 2016 anyway!

I really had no expectations about I Know This Much is True going into it, only that many bloggers whose taste I trust liked it a lot.  It was a rough book at times, but always compelling, and always true and not contrived.  I found the characters interesting, their stories heartbreaking, and their resilience inspiring.  I thought Lamb did a masterful job in developing themes that spanned the various stories, with leitmotifs that connected the different parts together into a coherent whole.

For those of you who don't know the basic outline of the story that Lamb tells in I Know This Much is True, I think this paragraph near the end, in which Dr. Patel, the psychiatrist who helps Dominick, the main character out of the dark forest of his past, describes Dominick's story...

In ancient myths… in stories from cultures as far-flung as the Eskimos and the ancient Greeks—orphaned sons leave home in search of their fathers. In search of the self-truths that will allow them to return restored, completed. In these stories, knowledge eludes the lost child and fate throws trial and tribulation onto his path—hurls at him conundrums he must solve, hardships he must conquer. But if the orphan endures, then finally, at long last, he stumbles from the wilderness into the light, holding the precious elixir of truth. And we rejoice. At last, he has earned his parentage. And for his troubles he has gained understanding and peace. He has earned his father’s kingdom. The universe is his.

This is the story of Dominick, and in many ways, it is also the story of America.  It is a story of race relations, of domination and survival, of the evil of social Darwinism and tribal warfare.  But it is also a story of compassion and love and friendship and family.  I really loved how Lamb allowed each of his characters to be able to tell, in some fashion, his or her story that explained why or how they came to be as they are.  Some people gave in to the dark side more easily than others, but the narrator's compassion helped make some of the really rough stuff more bearable.

And the ending is pure joy.  If you haven't read this book and decide to, don't give up on it midway through.  This is a book where the ending rewards the reader for sticking with it.

Definitely one of the best books I read in 2015.