Book Smart
courtesy of the author
"The Year That Follow" by Scott Lasser
"The Year That Follows”
Aspen Sojourner readers may be familiar with local Scott Lasser for his wry and sensitive writing in this magazine. He is also a novelist whose work has received national recognition. His baseball-based “Battle Creek” has been widely lauded. The wise and rollicking “All I Could Get,” set during the stock trading frenzy of the early 2000s, reads in some places as if it were written about today’s mess. It drew raves across the country as an “acutely observed modern morality tale.” Now comes his most ambitious and tender work yet: “The Year That Follows,” a deeply moving family-ties novel set in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. Written with his customarily graceful, revelatory economy, precision and wit, it is a sharp, sometimes gasp-inducing discovery on nearly every page. Profoundly impressive, readable and Salter-esque in its spare beauty and poise, it is also unbearably sad at times, especially if you ever hope to be as good a writer yourself. From Alfred Knopf, out June 9. For info: scottlasserbooks.com—Jay Cowan
 | “Well Read and Dead”In her latest novel, “Well Read and Dead,” Cathy O’Connell writes with a stiletto, drawing blood with every description of the moneyed, once-moneyed and would-be-moneyed in her newest romp of high living and mayhem. Her heroine, Pauline Cook, agrees to search for a friend who has vanished when the friend’s husband offers $10 million to track her down. The search stretches from Chicago and Aspen to Thailand and Cambodia, lubricated with cash, sex, champagne and a rogue’s gallery clawing for money and power. O’Connell can be sharply comical and deadly serious; she knows a lot about love, loss and the search for belonging, and it’s great fun to tag along with her and Pauline on their wild ride. For info: catherineoconnell.net —Judith Barnard |
“The Blue Bottle”Just as Courtney, the young female protagonist in the Aspen-set “Fraser the Yellow Dog” books, grew up over the series of adventures, so has “Fraser” writer (and Courtney’s real-life mom) Jill Sheeley. With “The Blue Bottle,” Sheeley moves from the kids’ section to young adult fiction. The story, set in Aspen and the Virgin Islands, features boyfriends, troubled home lives and drug-runners. Fraser, the yellow Lab, gets a minor part, while Courtney steps into the heroine’s role. All part of the maturing process. —Stewart Oksenhorn |  |
