Seattlest Book Club: Red Weather

Irritatingly, this turns out not to be the case, as Toutonghi somewhat sloppily reveals. On page 73, a presumably teenage Yuri groans:

“Dr. Graham described his Thursday night reading group – a Stalinist version, it seemed, of Oprah’s book club.”

As someone who was 15 in 1989, that didn’t sound right to me, so I googled Oprah’s book club and, sure enough, “On September 17, 1996, Oprah announced the start of Oprah's Book Club.” Without giving too much away, the epilogue of the book has Yuri talking about events that happen in 1998, so, technically, the moment of Yuri’s entire narration actually occurs at least ten years after the fact, when the character would be in his mid-20s, if not later. This not only conflicts with the inherent teenage qualities of the narrator’s voice, but also only explains the jarring, anachronistic Oprah reference without excusing it, like having Yuri, in a time-stamped chapter from 1989, comparing his culturally backward Soviet cousin to Borat.

James Callan:

I know I'm supposed to be counterpoint, but I can't argue with that. Toutonghi muffs some period details like that. The Oprah reference caught my eye, though I didn't run down the actual date, but the one I did catch: Yuri several times refers to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. I double-checked my Milwaukee-native memory with Wikipedia, and I was right: in '89, the Journal and Sentinel were still two separate papers. They didn't merge until '95.

To me, though, that's evidence that Toutonghi's editor was slacking off, not that Toutonghi messed up. (Take back that thank-you in the acknowledgments, Pauls.) He's a Seattle native, so it's not a shock that his grip on Milwaukee culture is off. According to a few reviewers on Amazon, he gets some details of Latvian history and culture wrong, too.

But, frankly, so what? Red Weather doesn't succeed or fail on the accuracy of its details -- Toutonghi's not trying to be Nabokov or Tolkien. The novel's strength is how well it captures the feeling of a first-generation American who's awkward, has a homelife most of his classmates would consider odd, and (as it turns out) hasn't lived nearly a dramatic a life as his close relatives, particularly his father.

I admire that Toutonghi sets up several plotlines that could be an episode of Perfect Strangers -- then ignores them to focus on the heart of the book, Yuri's relationship with his father. Oh, the son of the rabid anti-Communist falls in love with a socialist girl! Hijinks could ensue, but that resolves in a relatively realistic fashion. When slapstick does rear up, the slaps hurt and the sticks draw blood.

We’ll be back next Friday with more.

TO JOIN IN: Visit Bailey Coy Books on Capitol Hill or Santoro's Books in Greenwood, and ask for the Seattlest Book Club discount.