The Book Nook: ?Sparky and Me? by Ron Kaplan and ?A Wedding in Haiti? by Julia Alvarez

Wednesday May 23, 2012

Ever craved a good book and just not been inspired by anything you see? Or felt annoyed that you bought a book that was merely so-so? Or closed a book and JUST wanted to talk about it? Or wished you had a place to discover new books?

The Book Report Network aims to solve these reader dilemmas, with thoughtful book reviews, compelling features, in-depth author profiles and interviews, excerpts of the hottest new releases, contests and more every week. The organization can be found online at bookreporter.com.

Now, the Book Report Network is bringing its insight to The Advocate! Every week, The Advocate?s website, advocateweekly.com, will feature two or three reviews from the Book Report Network. Reviews will be posted every Thursday morning. Up this week:

* "Sparky and Me: My Friendship with Sparky Anderson and the Lessons He Shared About Baseball and Life" by Daniel Ewald, reviewed by Ron Kaplan

A caveat before we begin.

When I first started as a freelancer, I was asked to do an interview with Sparky Anderson following the publication of his 1998 memoir, "They Call Me Sparky," which happened to be written with the assistance of Dan Ewald, a sportswriter who worked as public relations director for the Detroit Tigers for almost 20 years; he co-authored two other

books with Anderson as well and eventually became his business manager. They developed a friendship that lasted until Anderson?s death in November 2010.

As this was my first celebrity encounter, I was fairly nervous. Why should Anderson waste his time with a nobody like me, writing for a scholarly baseball journal? But I committed to the project and made the phone call.

Anderson, the former manager of the Tigers and Cincinnati Reds, could not have been nicer or more generous with his time. We spoke for almost an hour, and after reading "Sparky and Me," Ewald?s deeply emotional memoir, I find much of his philosophy reinforced.

Anderson -- who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000 -- never believed his status merited him special treatment, nor was he overly impressed by the celebrity of others. As Ewald writes (and as Anderson said in our conversation), he believed that the sportswriter with a small-market outfit was worthy of the same courtesy and consideration as members of the national media.

Anderson was the friend of the caddy, the parking valet, the grocery cashier. He probably could have run for public office if he had chosen, but he wouldn?t have won. A cynical electorate would think him too good to be true, like a character out of a Frank Capra movie.

"Sparky and Me" is basically set during the three-day visit Ewald made to Anderson?s home in California when he learned his friend was dying. They spent the time reminiscing about the good times and realistically considering what lay ahead.

According to Ewald, Anderson was not necessarily a formally religious man. But like many good people, he lived by the Golden Rule: treat others the way you would want to be treated. There are dozens of anecdotes the author shares that serve as examples of such a lifestyle.

It must have been a heartbreaking experience for them both, but Anderson?s bravery shines through, even as they shed tears together. When Ewald left, he had plans to come back in a couple of weeks? time; unfortunately, Anderson passed on before he had that chance. At least they were able to have those three days. We all should be so lucky to have that kind of friendship at least once in our lifetime. * "A Wedding in Haiti" by Julia Alvarez, reviewed by Jana Siciliano

Julia Alvarez has always seemed quite comfortable with reality. Even in her other books, filled with the stories of intertwining relationships between people and the government, there is the sense, the hope, that someday things will work out. Torture and corruption may be on the menu today, but tomorrow it could be filled with cooperation and strength. "A Wedding in Haiti" is a memoir, but it follows the same trajectory; even amidst the rubble of destruction, there is a chance for redemption and rebuilding.

When Alvarez and her husband first bought and then built up a larger coffee plantation in the Dominican Republic, from where the novelist hails, they had no clue that one worker on their land would turn out to be the reason they experience the adventures put forth in this remarkable memoir. A young man named Piti is a great help on the farm and is filled with a joy of life that compels everyone around him to love him. At some point, so taken is he with Alvarez and her husband that he tells her he will be expecting them at his wedding someday. She puts it out of her head until one day, back in Middlebury, Vt., where the couple lives most of the year, she receives a call from Piti, claiming that his wedding has been arranged and she and her husband should come down for it.

Alvarez takes him up on it and finds herself, days later, taking a nine-hour trek through the Dominican Republic to Haiti to experience Piti?s big day. He also asks them to be the godparents to his 4-month-old daughter, a stunner named Ludy. It is love at first sight, but the rough tides in Haiti sweep them into strange and exotic and often frighteningly sad situations. Piti?s relatives take good care of their visitors, and years later, when the earthquake strikes in January 2010, Alvarez once again becomes enmeshed in the lives of her friends in Haiti.

Their families OK because they lived so far from the epicenter, Piti and Eseline draw Alvarez into a detour to Port-au-Prince, where the devastation is experienced firsthand. She fills her story with the amazing resolve and strength of the survivors there as well as pictures of the before-and-after days of the island. And, as Haiti continues to rebuild and redefine its life in so many ways, Alvarez uses this as a way to also examine the experiences of her aging parents, both suffering from Alzheimer?s, struggling in and out of the waves of lucidity like the tumultuous waves of the Haitian seaside.

A heartfelt and pointed look at a world where good and bad are constantly in a lock for the title, "A Wedding in Haiti" is so much more than a love story. Still, that love story -- the one between life and death, between hope and giving up -- is the soul of Alvarez?s life experiences. No one will walk away from this book without having had a compelling and memorable trip to the brink of death and back, a journey actually made fascinating by the beautiful language and open heart of Julia Alvarez, one of the world?s great novelists.

dobie gray bruce springsteen grammy nominations lil boosie new edition austerity rihanna and chris brown back together