Summer a time for twists

Sun., June 29, 2008

Dan Zak Washington Post

OK, get reading

» To herald the beginning of beach-book season, we've come up with our own list of eight reads from the past 100 years that still possess enough snap and crackle to complement any day in the sun:

•"Riders of the Purple Sage," Zane Grey (1912): Set in southern Utah in 1871, its heroine, Jane Withersteen, realizes she must break with her oppressive church with the help (and love) of the gentle, roguish Lassiter, the prototype for all literary gunmen who followed.

•"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," Anita Loos (1925): Loos' comic novel – parlayed into a 1949 Broadway show starring Carol Channing and the beloved 1953 movie with Marilyn Monroe – is composed of the ditzy diary entries of Lorelei Lee, an American flapper who slingshots herself into the ritzy social orbits of Europe.

•"From Here to Eternity," James Jones (1951): Set in Hawaii's Schofield Barracks during the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the dialogue-heavy novel follows two soldiers (one who refuses to join his company's boxing team, one who's having an affair with a superior's wife) as they contend with the brutality of peacetime Army life in a beautiful oceanside setting.

•"The Spy Who Came in From the Cold," John le Carre (1963): A British agent is assigned one last mission: to take on the guise of a disgraced agent, get back behind the Iron Curtain and position himself as bait to bring down the head of East German intelligence. Le Carre (who once worked in British intelligence) goes for truth of character over mechanics of plot, and quality of writing over hard-boiled linguistics, seeking to define a political era instead of merely offering an absorbing yarn.

•"Rosemary's Baby," Ira Levin (1967): Levin's delicate writing style propels his horror story of a woman who is, as luck would have it, impregnated by the devil soon after moving into New York's fancy Bramford Building. The beach seems the perfect place to read this novel, if only because pleasant weather might provide a little relief from its scares.

•"The Thorn Birds," Colleen McCullough (1977): For an accessible, operatic family saga, journey down under to the Australian Outback, where the Cleary clan contends with forbidden passion, hollow marriages and a whole boatload of other feelings. People die in each other's arms, and mysterious kinships are revealed. In other words, it's the perfect scandal-as-drama treat.

•"Devil in A Blue Dress," Walter Mosley (1990): The first in an 11-book series starring Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, an L.A.-based war veteran who unwittingly becomes a private detective. Rawlins, having just lost his job and facing a looming mortgage, finds himself accepting a task from a mystery man in a white linen suit: Find a woman named Daphne Money.

•"A Thousand Splendid Suns," Khaled Hosseini (2007): The follow-up to "The Kite Runner," which remained atop best-seller lists for two years, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" tells the story of two generations of characters swept up in the earthshaking events of Afghanistan's past three decades, from Soviet occupation to life after the Taliban. Whereas Hosseini's previous book focused on Afghan men, this one tells the story of two girls who live near each other and eventually are brought together by marriage to the same man.

– Dan Zak, The Washington Post

Summer is a season that demands a certain kind of book – a time for beach reads, not for “Finnegans Wake” or “Gravity’s Rainbow.”

But what does “beach read” mean, beyond bonanza sales? Is it a whimsical Maeve Binchy? Is it a legal potboiler by John Grisham, or a sprawling saga by James Michener? Or all of the above and more?

We dialed up some best-selling novelists to ask.

“It’s a page-turner,” says David Baldacci, who specializes in political thrillers. “Fast plots. Engaging characters. Twists and turns. You don’t have to think a whole lot about serious things.”

“It’s an indulgence,” says mystery writer Janet Evanovich. “It’s usually a well-crafted book written by an author that consistently delivers. Something you can count on.”

“It’s sort of paradoxical,” says Diana Gabaldon, author of the sci-fi/romantic/ historical fiction “Outlander” series. “A great beach read has to have two attributes: really absorbing so you want to read it, but it also has to be interruptible so you can put it down and chase your kids.”

If the 1970s gave birth to the summer movie blockbuster, the ‘60s were about blockbuster books. “Valley of the Dolls” (1966), “Rosemary’s Baby” (1967) and “The Godfather” (1969) flew off the shelves as books before they sold out theaters as movies.

” ‘The Godfather’ was the first of the superbooks that totally dominated beach reads,” says Albert Greco, a marketing professor at Fordham University who specializes in the publishing industry.

“And then in the ‘70s you see the next round of superbooks: ‘Jaws,’ ‘Roots.’ Then in the ‘80s, you see `Bourne Identity,’ `Princess Daisy’ (by Judith Krantz), Danielle Steel.

“In the ‘90s, we start to see a slight shift: The emergence not of the big superstar book, but the big superstar author.”

These superstars hit the Top 10 lists year after year: Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, James Patterson. They are brands unto themselves, and their devoted followings count on consistent delivery.

Every June, for example, Evanovich releases her newest Stephanie Plum story in hardcover – this year, “Fearless Fourteen” – and last year’s title (“Lean Mean Thirteen”) in paperback.

“I love being thought of as a beach read,” she says. “It makes it easy for the consumer because they know to look forward to this at the same time every year.”

The popular perception might be that a beach read is somehow deficient compared with whatever’s nabbing the Booker Prize.

But writer and critic Thomas Mallon draws a distinction between a beach read and an “airplane read,” a thinly crafted book that seems designed simply to tranquilize flight anxiety.

“The beach would actually seem to me the perfect time to read something really serious, because your mind would be clear enough and untroubled enough to take it in,” says Mallon, whose novel “Fellow Travelers” was published last year.

“The beach sounds perfect for that ambitious run at Proust or Gibbon.”

She’s not Proust, but if there’s one person installed on the beach-read throne by both the publishing industry and the public, it’s probably Mary Higgins Clark, the queen of suspense who has sold 80 million copies in the United States alone.

“I think it’s defined as sort of light, entertaining reading, as opposed to having a heavier tone,” Clark says. “You sit on the beach with a book by an author who has so far pleased you, and you know what to expect.”

Does she see herself as a beach-read goddess?

“I’m called a good beach read,” Clark hedges. “I hope I’m a decent read the other 10 months of the year.”