Jun 18, 2017 6 min read

Beset by traffic, smog and other distractions, it’s easy to forget that driving a car is an act of free will, in theory transcending race, class and gender.

Then imagine what life would be like if American women weren’t allowed to drive. Need to go to the hospital? No. Pick up kids after work? No. Visit family or friends? No. The only options are call a driver or wait for a male relative.

Manal Al-Sharif illuminates the insidious nature of that reality in Saudi Arabia. “Daring to Drive” is a brave, extraordinary, heartbreakingly personal story of one woman’s battle for equal rights, told through the minute details of an everyday life that boiled over after years of frustrations.

Al-Sharif was arrested for driving; afterward, people bombarded her with both abuse and praise. The story of her time in a filthy jail is riveting, but “Daring to Drive” does far more than explore that episode and its aftermath.

The book provides a rare glimpse into Saudi society, and especially into the lives and emotions of women. Rules – especially for women – are everywhere, and so are the punishments for breaking them.

“Every public and most private spaces were saturated with radical books, brochures, and cassette sermons … (and) these pieces of religious propaganda were overwhelmingly intended to enforce the compliance of women,” she writes. “Taboos included wearing pants, styling one’s hair and even parting one’s hair on the side – because doing so causes a woman to resemble the infidels.”

Al-Sharif’s father and mother beat her; teachers beat students; her husband beat her; and other men beat their wives, usually with few consequences. Those passages are searingly painful to read, but Al-Sharif has the rare ability to put her suffering in context. Her family was poor, and her mother and father worked incessantly to provide the barest necessities. They are overbearing, yet absolutely determined to see Al-Sharif get a good education so she can escape the poverty that plagued them.

Despite Kafkaesque obstacles, Al-Sharif manages to become a pioneering computer professional. At school, male professors taught young women by closed-circuit TV, since they couldn’t be face-to-face. The women had no way to ask questions, either.

Al-Sharif deftly uses a wide storytelling lens. During a year working in Boston she is shocked to meet so many young Americans overwhelmed by college debt – her education was free in Saudi Arabia.

The book ends with a blow-by-blow account of her arrest in May 2011 as part of a larger protest against the driving ban. That November she filed a lawsuit challenging the government refusal to give licenses to women. Soon afterward, leading religious scholars warned that doing so would lead to a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce. The experts proclaimed that “within 10 years, there would be no more virgins” in the country if women were allowed to drive.

Maine’s backcountry is being invaded by feral hogs. Hordes of drunken, half-naked college students are partying up and down the winding Saco River. A teenager who disappeared years ago is about to be declared dead. And a retired state trooper remains irrationally obsessed with her case.

All of the above may or may not be connected to a muscle-bound rich kid who preys on women, the half-buried remains of a baby girl, two mysterious women in red wigs and a rural slumlord whose shacks have an unfortunate habit of exploding in flames.

“Knife Creek,” Paul Doiron’s eighth crime novel featuring Maine game warden Mike Bowditch, begins innocently enough when the hero is assigned to shoot the invasive hogs. But when his hunt turns up the hog-chewed remains of the baby girl, all hell breaks loose.

As always with a Doiron novel, the characters are so well-drawn you can almost reach out and shake their hands, and the rural landscape is so vividly portrayed that the reader can smell wildflowers, marvel at the swarms of fireflies and feel the sting of the blood-thirsty insects. But the author’s finest achievement is the evolution of Mike Bowditch himself.

Doiron’s hero has come a long way since “The Poacher’s Son,” when he was introduced as a hot-headed, insubordinate rookie game warden struggling to keep his personal demons in check. As the series has progressed, Bowditch has gradually matured, coming to terms with his troubled past, finding love and finally earning the respect of supervisors who once longed to be rid of him.

- By Bruce DeSilva

Associated Press

A woman drinks iced tea on the veranda with her weary parents. A husband and wife select attire for an out-of-town wedding. An uncle drives his niece to dinner. In each scenario, it seems as though things will progress normally until a heart attack, a punch to the jaw, a robbery or a sudden pouncing upon by an ex hiding behind the Christmas tree occurs.

In Ann Beattie’s newest collection of short stories, “The Accomplished Guest,” the author transforms even the most familiar situations into jarring episodes.

From Manhattan apartments to Key West porches, characters visit, celebrate, mourn and reunite along the East Coast. Meanwhile, Beattie crawls so deeply into the psyche of her players that the simple act of arranging flowers proves hilarious, insightful, deep.

While some writers forget to endear us to their flawed protagonists, Beattie dishes out oddly mannered ladies and gentlemen for whom we root instantly; and with choice words, she expertly lures us into loathing any foes. In one story, we learn Ned is the “less nice” of twin grandsons, and that is all we need in order to adequately despise him.

Brimming with details of the very best kind (like a lounging dog’s ear resembling a given-up origami project), these tales deliver a precise look into what happens when, in the midst of aging and thorny relationships, guests arrive.

Beattie mixes biting humor, refreshing prose and unexpected detours to create a gratifying, relevant read. Keep this one around, as you can easily revel in these pieces – filled with several pairs of expensive boots, a couple of greyhounds and at least one woman selling Avon in a coffee shop – more than once.

- By Christina Ledbetter

Associated Press