Hello, my name is Andrew Getman, and I'm a new contributor to this column on Recommended Reads, which Elizabeth has been writing. I have worked for Olsson's for a little over four years in four stores, most recently managing the National Airport location since August 2006. I also recently joined the Olsson's Book Buyers' Circle so I am gleaning a little extra insight into the upcoming releases from meetings with the publishers' representatives and the catalogs we use for ordering.

For this first submission, I've decided to share a few noteworthy books that have the common element of journeys, in which the principle characters are on the road to some destination and also making profound personal discoveries. Perhaps this is subconsciously motivated by the reissue of Jack Kerouac's Scroll Edition of On the Road, or the success and attention drawn to Cormac McCarthy's The Road; however, it also just happens that these are new releases that caught my eye. All of them are colored by the brutal realities of American struggles for survival, and are richly poignant in their scenarios and character portrayals.

In Away, Amy Bloom writes a tale of immigration and desperation, of hope against all odds. Lillian Leyb loses her family and most importantly her daughter Sophie in a Russian pogrom, and attempts to create a new life for herself in 1920s America. She comes to this new land with no English language and no marketable job skills, and must rely on her wits and her luck to see her through. She gets word that her daughter may have survived and decides to journey across the country to reach the far East of Russia in order to attempt to find her, subjecting herself (and the reader) to the mercy of a harsh landscape and variably brutal and kind treatment at the hands of strangers she encounters.

Redemption Falls is the new novel by Joseph O'Connor, who previously astounded readers with Star of the Sea. He turns his attention to a panoramic saga of the Irish experience in America after the Civil War, and has created a novel of Faulknerian and Joycean complexity as he leaps from character to character, several of whom seem to have been driven mad by the trauma they have experienced in their quests for survival. It takes effort to read, but is well worth the time placing yourself into this richly unfolding world.

Soul Catcher by Michael White follows Augustus Cain, a young southerner raised by a harsh father, who finds that his only marketable skill is tracking runaway slaves. This anti-hero, an alcoholic gambler, who seems to only disappoint those who care about him, attempts to live an honorable life. He has run from his duties to his family's farm, lost and betrayed the woman he loved, and finds himself working with brutal men he can't respect, while he intuitively understands the escaped slaves' pursuit of freedom. He reads Milton's Paradise Lost, and reflects on human nature and the struggle between another anti-hero - Satan - and God. Discovering whether this is because he conceals his true, corrupted identity from himself, or because he is actually a better man than circumstances and fate have made him, is a central theme.

Also noteworthy is Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's, a memoir by Augusten Burroughs' older brother John Elder Robison. Growing up with the same crazy parents, John was six years older than Augusten, and their mental instability did not reach the force or crescendo that put Augusten at such risk until after John was reasonably independent and able to care for himself. Moreover, since he was an undiagnosed case of Asperger's Syndrome, the workings of his brain insulated him a bit from the emotional manipulation of those around him. His book does not provoke the overwhelming sense of shock, crisis, and concern that one gets when reading of the neglect that Augusten experienced in Running With Scissors, but it portrays with remarkable clarity John's profound confusion while growing up. It also speaks to his resilience in charting a course for himself as someone who could not fix the lives breaking apart around him, but discovered a talent and marketable skill fixing machines - notably and to huge success in crafting Ace Freehly's exploding guitars for the Kiss concert tours, and later rebuilding luxury European automobiles. It also gives the reader insight into the experience of an Asperger kid and how he eventually creates techniques to overcome this obstacle and establish meaningful emotional relationships.

I hope many of you will appreciate these selections as I have, and I look forward to sharing more books with you over the coming weeks.

-Andrew

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