If you watch The Tonight Show, you've probably seen a segment called "Jaywalking" in which Jay Leno questions average Janes and Joes about history, current events, and other topics. I'm not one who keeps up with that kind of stuff, so I'm often as clueless as Leno's victims, but still ... their ignorance makes for some hilarious tv. With Sarah Palin in the news, Leno recently queried Americans about Alaska. One of the questions stumped me - from whom did The United States buy the frozen state? After reading Dancing at the Odinochka by Kirkpatrick Hill, I'm proud to say I know the answer. In fact, I know heaps more about Alaska than I ever did before. Read on and you, too, will be prepared for Leno's peppering.
The novel tells the story of Erinia Pavaloff, a young girl living at an odinochka (trading post) in Alaska about 150 years ago. At that time, the land belonged to Russia and was known as Russian America. Our heroine actually lived - in fact, she was related to the author's stepfather - and this novel is based on a memoir she wrote in 1936. When the tale opens, Erinia is a young girl who loves her life at the odinochka on the banks of the Yukon River. Although she never wants to leave her home, she's curious about life outside the trading post. Luckily, the odinochka receives a fairly steady stream of visitors - from family members, to other Indian tribes, to the American soldiers who come to install a telegraph line. Through them, she sees, tastes and learns things that amaze her. Someday, she wants to see exotic items like carpets and horses and cities with perpetual sunshine. It's all so foreign to her, especially when all her actions are governed by her father's Russian ways and her mother's old, impractical traditions.
Erinia's family develops a close relationship with the Americans, even teaching them Russian and giving them animal skins to keep them warm. They welcome the new, exotic presence of the jovial soldiers. Despite the friendshp, Erinia's family and the other natives do not welcome the news that comes several years later - Russian America, now called Alaska, belongs to the U.S. Tales of native mistreatment at the hands of American soldiers in other villages makes them wary. Progress seems to be stepping all over tradition, something which plagues Erinia's mother especially since "she's known all along that one of the new things would take her sons, that nothing could hold them since they learned how wide the world was, and how many interesting things there were to see and do" (208).
As if her new identity isn't enough to deal with, Erinia's world tears apart even further when her brother commits an act that puts them all in danger. Suddenly, her odinochka is under attack on more than one front. Will her life ever be the same? Or will the world she knows disappear forever?
Like all historical novels, Dancing at the Odinochka boasts vivid period detail. I loved learning about early Alaskan culture, especially through the eyes of inquisitive little Erinia who views her world with as much wonderment as an outsider. About halfway through the book, though, the facts lost some of their luster. I was ready for some good, old-fashioned fiction. Unfortunately, the plot really doesn't begin until 3/4 of the way through the book. The last 1/4 moves along pretty quickly, but I'm not sure how many readers will endure long enough to reach the action. I realize the story is based on Erinia's real life, so it might have worked better as a non-fiction book. Even a diary-type format might have made it more exciting. I'm not saying it's a bad book - it just gets a little dull. The period detail really is fascinating, I just needed a little more story to keep me awake.
Grade: B -

If you're looking for a breezy beach read, you're not going to find it in Entertaining Disasters by Nancy Spiller. In fact, you won't find a lot of things in this book. No thrills, no action, no adventure, no romance, no real plot. However, if you don't mind a slower pace, a little melancholy and a lot of introspection, then this book should be in your hands. It won't demand a lot of your time or keep you up at night flipping pages, but its sharp observations on life will make you pause. And think. And identify. And laugh. And possibly cry.

The book features an unnamed foodie, who writes about her elaborate, celebrity-studded dinner parties for L.A.'s culinary magazines. In her articles, she describes the food she prepares, the guests she entertains, and the memories she made baking with her mother. Her expertise speaks for itself. So, why does an upcoming dinner party with a well-known food editor have her quaking in her boots? The truth is, she hasn't entertained in over a decade. Her mouth-watering menus have been prepared only in her head, her guests invented in her imagination. One upon a time, she did entertain, but now, the thought makes her tremble. Paranoia has her questioning everything - will anyone show up for the party? What will she talk about with them? Will her guests like her food? Will they be bored to tears? Can she find a good excuse to cancel? Her grandmother has only died twice and she hasn't come down with a good flu lately ...

As our heroine obsesses about the party, she contemplates the terror that paralyzes her in social situations. She muses over her disfuctional family, her less-than-passionate marriage, her culinary education, and the crushing effort that goes into planning a real, live dinner party.

Although the book drags under details only hard-core foodies will find interesting, it's buoyed by the authenticity of the narrator's voice. The novel lacks swift pacing, careful plotting and lively dialogue, but our heroine will entrance you with her vulnerability. Her paranoid, sarcastic views on life keep the book interesting, while her true memories of childhood make it absolutely riveting. Since the narrator's sharp, poignant musings really make the book, I offer you a sample of her thoughts*:

On family: There isn't a place for a family like ours in the grand scheme of American dreams, and no one, least of all us, knows how to respond to it.

Sometimes I fear that if I stop mourning its loss, this family will cease to exist altogether. That my sorrow is the only thing keeping it alive. Or possibly that this family never existed at all.

On dining together: At this point in the process it invariably dawned on me that the real hunger in all of this was not merely for food, but for the company of others. When none of us seemed to have time for anything, including a sit-down, well-prepared meal, and everyone appeared trapped in a solo chase after things we were not even sure existed, companionship and community could be the first things cut from the to-do list. The thought of a dinner amongst friends took on the backlit glow of a Platonic ideal.

On the rat-race: I wasn't trying to make this a business evening, but I wasn't an idiot, either, and when you went to this much effort in Los Angeles, it had better, like the freeways, lead somewhere. That's why they called it the City of Angles. Most of the population was running on a biofuel based on fear-borne angst, and it took too much of the stuff to not turn every event into a golden on-ramp. Marisa would be mine that night.

You get the picture. Come January, you'll definitely want to get the book.

Grade: B+

*Quoting from an ARC is a big no-no for reviewers, so I have to justify my actions by saying that (1) I didn't think you could really get the essence of the book without quotes, (2) I can't check the text of the ARC against a final copy, because those won't be available until January, and (3) Spiller's publicist never emailed me back to verify the quotes. So, there. I'm safe, right?