Wallace Stegner, Wolf Willow ****

Wolf Willow's subtitle is "A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Frontier," which reveals the book as a hybrid. In part, it is a memoir about Stegner's childhood on a Saskatchewan homestead from 1914 to 1920, but he expands his focus to include the (natural and cultural) history of the northern Great Plains and inserts a novella set during the horrible winter of 1906. The pieces work together to paint a rounded portrait of a place that looks to most people like a huge blank area on the map.

The first few chapters, in which Stegner returns to the town and ponders the significance of his memories, are totally five-star awesome. The broader historical chapters are more conventional and somewhat less compelling, but the fictional story of the T-Down cattle outfit makes me cold just thinking about it.

P.S. I first read Wolf Willow many years ago, and my copy has chew marks from our first basset hound, Lolita, to prove it.

Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies ***

Meh. I liked the idea of Fates and Furies –– the story of a marriage told from the very different perspectives of the husband and wife –– and the reviews were solid, including a recommendation from Barack Obama. However, I found both perspectives to be too obviously literary with dramatic characters instead of realistic ones. (The mythological names and references didn't help.)

The book falls firmly in the John Updike / New Yorker school of fiction. The main characters come from privileged New England schools and pursue careers in the arts. Numerous sex scenes are used to reveal their temperaments. Highbrow cultural references mingle with lurid plotting.

Patrick O'Brian, The Letter of Marque ***

The placeholder 12th entry in the Aubrey-Maturin series, The Letter of Marque moves the story forward without an undue amount of excitement. The main distinction of this book is that the Surprise is now a privateer rather than a Navy ship, due to Aubrey's expulsion from the service in the previous book. The daily routines shift accordingly.

The naval action is concentrated in a long sequence where Aubrey and his men sneak into a French-held harbor and "cut out" an important ship (that is, board it, cut its anchors, and sail it away). This feat of derring-do, preceded by the taking of a big prize and followed by Aubrey inheriting his father's estate, sets the stage for a return to the service and to the series status quo.

The book ends with Stephen Maturin visiting his estranged wife Diana, so they can at last work through the misunderstandings that have piled up over the past few books. The unlikelihood of Maturin's character (surgeon, naturalist, and spy) notwithstanding, I have to say that Diana and her relationship with Stephen are the least convincing aspect of these books.

John Richmond, Dead and Alive *** 1/2

The cover description and first chapter of Dead and Alive lead you to expect a murder mystery. The protagonist Will comes home to find an unknown man dead on this couch. The dead man's hands are purple, his face is white with a bruise on his forehead, and there is a glass of whiskey on the coffee table in front of him.

But Dead and Alive is not a murder mystery. Whole chapters go by without any mention of the dead man. Will repairs his relationship with his girlfriend, goes sailing on San Francisco Bay, and goes to work as a "quant" at a trading firm. The real mystery is not who killed the man but rather who exactly is Will. Will's motivations are a mystery even to himself. We see him struggle to understand why he feels the way he does and wonder if he should be doing things differently. Dodging the persistent detective and researching the dead man's life are just part of it.

I found the character study far more engaging than a simple murder mystery would have been.