A PARCHMENT OF LEAVES, by Silas House, 2002.

Recommended by a friend and colleague, I found this novel to be a very moving and somewhat haunting story set in the Appalachian region of Kentucky during World War I. It involves a young man, Saul Sullivan, who is looking for work near Redbud Camp, and falls on sight for Vine, a young Cherokee girl who lives there. Even though his mother, the tiny but strong-willed Esme, is against the idea of mixed marriage, the two are wed and come to live on God's Creek, Saul's homeplace. There, Esme and Aaron, Saul's younger brother, take to Vine very quickly (and she to them) and they form a close family unit. However, Vine has a bad feeling about Aaron, as she realizes over time that his admiration of her turns to an obsession. When Aaron leaves home for an extended period and then returns with a bride of his own, when Saul is forced to do war work in another county for nearly a year, and Vine's parents are forced to move to North Carolina, relationships change and conditions deteriorate within the family until disastrous violence erupts and Vine is forced to live with a terrible secret. Only months after Saul comes home for good  and Esme has died is she able to finally unburden herself by forgiving others as well as herself.
The author has a wonderful writing style--you can hear the birdcalls and smell the mountain air when reading this book. It's poignant and evocative, filled with rich historical details of life in rural Kentucky during the early years of the last century, especially how women lived and worked, gave birth, loved, and died. His characters are real: the hardworking and stable Saul, who loves Vine and his family; the matriarchal and kind Esme; dreamy, bitter, and self absorbed Aaron; the tough talking and funny midwife Serena; Aaron's wife, Aidia, who so much resembles Vine and suffers for it; and Vine herself, patient, loving, faithful, haunted, determined to be true to herself, one who loves nature and her people, yet has to be separated from her people and see her old home destroyed. The novel deals with so many things: the idea of Cherokee culture being slowly destroyed from within by the older people refusing to talk about it as well as from outside forces, lumbering in the mountains and the making of turpentine for the war effort, the isolation of the hollers, religion in the characters' lives, issues of race. The author's use of accurate dialect and his descriptive passages of things natural add so much to the feel of the story, too. One of my favorite lines is "Maybe the trees were God." Overall, an emotional, thoughtful  and beautifully written novel. Highly recommend it.

DOUBLE BIND by Chris Bohjalian, 2007.
Excellently written novel that intertwines the homeless, bipolar disorder, and a mystery involving Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan (from The Great Gatsby). Set mainly in Vermont, the story moves back and forth from the 1920s to present day, and involves Laurel Estabrook, a social worker at a homeless shelter with a horrifyingly violent incident in her past, and an elderly, mentally ill homeless man, Bobbie Crocker, who has a box of photos that he won't let anyone see. After Bobbie's sudden death, the truth about him comes out: before he was homeless, he was a successful photographer who worked with subjects like Eartha Kitt and Robert Frost. Laurel, in looking through the photos, becomes fascinated with Bobbie's life and is convinced that there is a dark secret behind the photos. As she tries to fit the pieces of Bobbie's life together, she becomes aware that it is connecting with her own troubled past, and that someone desperately wants to keep that connection hidden. Interesting characters, an imaginative tie-in to a classic novel, beautiful Vermont scenery, vivid language, suspense enough to keep the story moving at a good clip, and a twist at the end that I didn't see coming. This is a really good page-turner.

Viewed "Doubt" during the past weekend, and I found it so engrossing and unexpectedly intense that I watched it again last night. Set at a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964, the story concerns the vague suspicions and dislike of the school's principal, Sister Aloysius, towards the church's pastor, Father Flynn. She urges the other sisters to be on the lookout for anything that doesn't seem quite right. Sister James, a young and idealistic teacher, reports what she has observed concerning the 12 year old Donald Miller, and sets in motion the chain of events that follow for the rest of the picture. Meryl Streep is excellent as Sister Aloysius, determined, inflexible, and oh so right in her own mind about the doubts she has concerning Father Flynn; Philip Seymour Hoffman provides a wonderful performance as the pastor under attack; and Amy Adams is superb as the somewhat innocent and trusting Sister James.Viola Davis, even though her time on the screen is brief, makes her pivotal character of Mrs. Miller very real. A movie about right and wrong and trust and doubt, very thought provoking and well acted throughout. It just blew me away. One of the best pictures I've seen in quite a long time.

Watched "Sherlock Holmes" over this past weekend with my wife and family. Actually my wife and I viewed it twice, as we wanted to catch stuff that we missed the first time around. Wicked fun, cool effects, convoluted and intense storyline, and interesting characters--Sherlock and Dr. Watson, as portrayed here by Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, are not the literary creations that most of us are familiar with. However, Downey and Law are an intriguing pair, with much witty banter and bickering throughout the movie, as they wend their way through a literally explosive case involving human sacrifice, magic, poison, multiple murders, a secret society, politics and a strange plot to take over the world. With boatloads of action, tremendously skillful fighting, and plenty of humorous repartee amongst the cast, the movie moves mostly at breakneck speed, and you don't really care if some things make sense or not, or if there are holes in the story. Rachel McAdams as the naughty undercover girl Irene Adler (who's being manipulated by the unseen Moriarty) and Mark Strong as the villainously evil Lord Blackwood are excellent in their roles, and it's fun to watch them interplay with Holmes and Watson. This film is a wild ride through Victorian London, with all its grimy back alleys and glittering restaurants and old cemeteries and magnificent halls of government, and replete with heroes and villains and damsels in distress, so hang on and enjoy this wonderfully entertaining picture.