The Fable of Bing by Tim Sandlin

I’ve been reading a lot of new (to me) authors lately and this week’s read was no exception. The Fable of Bing by Tim Sandlin is a hilarious novel about a young man, Bing, who was raised by bonobos in the San Diego Wildlife Park. This book falls into the Absurdist Fiction category along the lines of Tom Robbins and Christopher Moore. Talking cans and spoons anyone? A new look on the life of Jesus Christ from the perspective of his crass and crude childhood pal? You get the idea.

Bing, who is seemingly invisible inside the zoo and goes undetected for many years, has amazing healing powers that, once discovered, have people heralding him as the New Messiah. Absurd. But in a totally good way. Bing gets discovered by a young woman, Rosemary, who works for a New Age radio station. The head of the station, Turk, is an ego-maniacal fame-seeker who sees Bing as his ticket to glory, as according to him to only worthwhile endeavor in our current society is the pursuit of fame and fortune.

Turk sets Bing up for a massive public healing miracle involving Rosemary’s ill sister. When things don’t go as planned, everyone, including Rosemary, turns on him and he is cast out of favor (and into Tijuana!). Sandlin gets a lot of mileage out of Bing’s ignorance to the ways of our world, and what his reaction to our culture and norms are. There are many things that he cannot ‘fathom’, and by the end of the book you can’t blame him. Overall we are a pretty nasty society, and ultimately Bing chooses his ape family over (most) other humans.

The book is full of satire and comedy, and will leave you contemplating if whether we weren't better off before we descended from the trees and started walking upright. 

Stay by Allie Larkin

I bought this book on recommendation from my sister, and started it one night after putting my sick five year old to bed. I read for a couple of hours, fell asleep for a few more, and then was awoken at 2 am by said child getting even sicker. After some medicine and a cool washcloth I lay down next to him and proceeded to read until dawn. So yes, I stayed up all night reading this book, something I haven’t done in a long time. (Motherhood exhaustion has made it easy for me to fall asleep most nights no matter how great the book is.)

While I can’t say it was the most original plot idea (Savannah ‘Van’ is in love with her best friend’s boyfriend and her life is stalled out, funnily enough a side plot in my previous read The Husband’s Secret), Allie Larkin writes in a clear and fast-paced way and makes you want to find out how Van breaks out of her rut to find true canine and human love.

One night, while drunk and in despair that her best friend and secret love are on their honeymoon, Van orders a $6000 dollar German Sheppard ‘puppy’ off the internet. Hello! Who knew a dog could cost that much? Much hilarity ensues when the puppy arrives fully grown and extremely large. Van’s never owned a dog before and ends up taking him (frequently) to the local hot single vet guy. You can guess the rest.

Parts of the plot are predictable (Van “breaks up” with bestie and new hubby, they make up. The hottie vet breaks up with Van, and they make up as well), I still wanted to keep reading to see how all the pieces would fit together. There is also a touching backstory about the loss of her mother and the sacrifices she had made for her Van.

This book is a great example of ‘chick-lit’ at its best: Funny characters, fast-paced and easy reading. I’m surprised it hasn't been turned into a rom-com, yet. I’ll definitely be adding her second release, Why Can’t I Be You, to my reading pile.    

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

I read this book recently for my book club. I hadn’t heard of it or Liane Moriarty before, and when my friend Meredith sent out the group text informing us that this was our next selection, I shuddered due to the title. I shuddered even more when I saw the disintegrating rose petal on the cover.  Something about the title and the cover just threw me off from the get-go. I procrastinated buying and reading the book, and was formulating my get-out-of-book-club excuse when my library request came through in the nick of time. With only three days to read it before the next meeting, I went to work.

So, while I began the book trepidatiously, once I actually started it I jumped right in and devoured it in those three days. What a lovely surprise was waiting for me between the off-titled/pictured cover! The intertwined world of several Sydney families harboring secrets and tragedies unfolded in a delightful way. Sure that the "secret" would be infidelity, I was surprised to find that it was a different (though much darker) secret. Infidelity is still a theme in the novel though.

Once the secret(s) are revealed, the questions arise. Can life ever return back to normal? Are we better off not knowing? Moriarty used the toppling of the Berlin Wall as a metaphor in the novel, and at the end suggested that some people would have preferred the Wall to stay up, their lives not great but at least predictable. Some of the characters in this novel most certainly would have preferred the secrets to stay buried, as once the truth came out there was no way to erase it and go on about their daily lives in the same easy-going way.

The idea that someone you know, trust, love, lived with for 15 years and have three kids with could be harboring dark secret is fundamentally disturbing. It’s also easy to pass off as only belonging in the realm of fiction but the reality is this stuff happens in real life all the time. This might be classified as contemporary fiction but in some ways it’s a horror novel!

The only part of the book I wasn’t thrilled about was the ending, as circumstances took a predictable ‘karma-is-gonna-getcha’ turn.  But overall (cover excluded) I thought this was a great read and very well written, which brings me to the book club discussion. Several other members echoed my thoughts about the title, but when we asked ourselves “What would you call it?” no one could satisfactorily answer.

I was left wondering what would be a better title for this book? Since I have never had to come up with a book title before, I asked author Catherine McKenzie what she would have called it. She suggested simply Secret in accordance with her preference for one word titles. I thought even just The Secret would have been better but I guess that’s already been taken. It's probably a good thing I don’t have to name books for a living.

So in this case the case the old adage is true—never judge a book by its cover! I've learned my lesson.   

(Final note—the UK cover of this novel is GORGEOUS!! They must know what they’re doing over there.)