The Rail--finished #29

Over the long weekend I finished book #29 for the year.  By the way to mention it again, this really crushes the most books I have read in a year, before this year I had read 18 in 1999 and 18 in 2001, last year was 16.  The one main reason I am figuring this is that I have really started reading 2 or 3 books at a time, before I was always a one book at a time person.  If the book got kind of tough to get through well I just read less and it took me longer, now I switch back and forth between books.  There are probably other smaller reasons as well, like less TV, not as much running and also setting that goal of reading 24 this year--2 a month--back in January.

Well, now onto The Rail, I really kind of liked it.  It was about a former baseball player that had a kind of screwed up life outside of baseball.  Once completely out of baseball, his life went even more downhill.  It was also about his family, that was also just as screwed up.  His birth dad, a well to do in town basically disowned him and his mom was forced to marry a jerk with a business.  Neil--the ballplayer, kind of kept in touch with his step-sister, his real dad's daughter--2nd married kid.  There was a daughter and a son by the son was killed while playing with his sister and their dog after the son ran out in the street.  Blanchard, the sister never really got over this and her life was also screwed up.  Well, there was also Blanchard falling in love with her older step-brother Neil and how Neil protected her thoughout her life.  Well, Neil even went to jail for 2 years for a drunk driving manslaughter charge, that was actually Blanchard driving.  Well, throw this all together along with Neil's son David trying to connect with his dad and you have this book.

I did enjoy how the author only feed the details out piecemeal.  It left the reader trying to guess what blanks were out there and what was still coming.  I had figured early on that Blanchard was the one driving and that Neil took the fall.  I am sure some could have seen this as confusing but I think it added something to a story that might have been hard to swallow all at once.  I don't think the story was all that good, but the characters were interesting. 

I am right now reading The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams.  He also wrote Watership Down and Shardik, both books the really liked.  So far The Plague Dogs hasn't gotten on very fast but I will give it time, Richard Adams has earned that.  As far as the 2nd book, I have pulled out War & Peace.  I might add a 3rd book right away also, a Grisham type--will see about this.