The Cue Card

Happy Remembrance Day. We took this past long weekend away, thinking it would be good after the U.S. election to relax a bit and get out and walk in the woods with the dog and see new sights, which was all well and good.

Little did we know politics as usual would still be going on when we returned and the election results not conceded. How crazy and disheartening. The vote is clear, so let the democratic process stand and the next administration get ready. Meanwhile Covid cases seem to be surging everywhere … so I guess stress still abounds. It’s best to stay safe, vigilant, and escape whenever possible into various books and discussions. Below are reviews of three I finished lately. 

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson / Penguin / 1962

This was my Halloween read this year and it did not disappoint.

From the beginning you know that: Merricat, age 18, and her older sister Constance Blackwood are living with their feeble Uncle Julian in a large mansion on an estate and the rest of their family is dead. Merricat who narrates the story loathes the villagers who bully her and mock their family, and only leaves their locked gate to shop in town twice a week, but Constance, who cooks and tends to their vegetable garden, hasn’t left the place in six years. 

It’s an unsettling start … and something or all feels amiss. Merricat, who has her superstitions of burying coins, nailing up items, and repeating her safe words, worries change is in the air and that something is coming that will disturb her and her sister’s safe, confined world. And indeed cousin Charles Blackwood arrives out of the blue to stay, but seems only interested in their money. Uh-oh. Merricat is not pleased and wants him gone.

Little by little you come to understand what happened to the rest of the Blackwood family and why the girls keep to themselves — being two close sisters who rely on one another and want to continue living undisturbed in their large house …. which comes to some ruin in due time. Uh-oh. 

Merricat is quite a character, like a feral cat, who hides in the woods on their property, and seems much younger. She loves only her sister Constance, and Jonas, her cat. Her cousin Charles poses a problem for her and she feels he must be dealt with. 

It’s epic Shirley Jackson … unsettling with a building dread of what will come and has happened. There’s a feeling of isolation, of being an outsider, and being persecuted by the villagers … which reminded me of Jackson’s famous short story “The Lottery.” It also reminded me slightly of the excellent 2009 HBO film “Grey Gardens” (starring Drew Barrymore & Jessica Lange) — although there it was with a mother and daughter and here it’s with two sisters — but both feature two close relatives living in a ruined state and eschewing things beyond their walls. It’s both creepy and something you can’t turn away from.

Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road by Kate Harris / 2018

This is a book I read for Nonfiction November and which gained considerable praise when it came out in Canada a couple years ago. 

What It’s About: Part memoir, part travelogue, this is about a Canadian girl Kate who dreams about being a scientist and an astronaut on a mission to Mars but instead ends up bicycling the Silk Road from Europe to Asia with her childhood friend Mel. In 2006 between her stints at Oxford (as a Rhodes scholar) and then MIT as a microbiologist, Kate had cycled with Mel part of the Silk Road and got a taste for the adventure. Then later when Kate bails on her MIT lab life, the two head back to finish the Silk Road from 2010 to 2011. 

It’s quite an undertaking that had interested Kate ever since reading about explorer Marco Polo when she was young and his travels along the Silk Road around 1271 to 1295. And as a cyclist myself I was interested in Kate and Mel’s long-distance biking through such rigorous terrain … as they pedaled east across the Caucasus and Central Asia, and then south across Tibet, and west across Nepal then north into India, ending at the Siachen Glacier in the Himalayas at the edge of the Tibetan plateau. 

It’s an epic journey across some incredible lands and plateaus, where they encounter various people from different countries who are mostly helpful to them long the way. It’s not all about the biking, quite a bit of the book includes the author’s thoughts on exploration, geography, history, science, borders, ecology, and geo-political landscapes. Much of it I found interesting and well-paced with some beautiful writing at times of the sights and places, though there are some slower parts later that I found a bit denser.  

Still I marveled at Kate and Mel’s travels and was interested in their lives and the countries, people, and cultures they encounter along the way. I learned quite a bit (especially about Kate’s focus on the relations between China and Tibet … as well as what “the stans” are like (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, etc.) of Asia, and it sparked my interest in long distance bike rides. I think Kate (along with Mel) are quite the adventurers, naturalists, badasses, thinkers, and in general do-gooders towards people they meet and the planet. I’ll be interested to see what the author puts out next from her life off the grid in a log cabin in northern British Columbia. 

Monogamy by Sue Miller / Harper Books / 352 pages / 2020 

What It’s About: Annie (a photographer) and Graham (a vivacious bookstore owner) have had a long marriage in Cambridge, Mass., which is the second marriage for both. Annie is friends with Frieda (Graham’s first wife) and their married son Lucas who now works in publishing in NY … and Annie and Graham also have a grown daughter Sarah who lives in San Francisco. All seems fairly happy and close until something happens to Graham … which sends Annie spiraling down … and even more so after she learns something about his life — which makes her wonder if she ever really knew him. Uh-oh. 

This is a slow-burn of a novel — that you know with a title like that is likely not going to be about a marriage that has been always faithful. The novel swirls around with Annie’s grief and thoughts about marriage and monogamy (even in her past) and there’s also chapters from the perspectives of the ex-wife Frieda, and the two adult kids Lucas and Sarah that round out this character-driven novel about long-lasting love. 

The beginning half with Graham I thought was the most interesting, but after that … things eventually begin to wallow a bit with Annie. There are some interesting thoughts on marriage and relationships, but it’s quite an internal journey on getting Annie back on her feet … and her evolution on thinking about Graham and their love. 

There’s not a lot of action, which I was okay with for most of the novel — which I listened to as an audiobook read by the author — though towards the end I sort of started to tire of Annie. Maybe it was just me or the fact that it’s so internal and swirls over the situation that it got a bit tiring. But still I’m glad I listened to it and the author Sue Miller does an excellent job of reading it for the audio. 

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these books or authors and if so, what did you think? 

Well we are getting ready for Halloween, but we’ve had an early start to winter. It’s unusual the amount of snow we’ve gotten so early, but I think next week warmer temperatures are supposed to return, so it should melt away.

I admit I haven’t read anything spooky this month, as many other bloggers have, leading up to Halloween, though I have my sights on a quick read of Shirley Jackson’s 1962 gothic tale “We Have Always Lived in the Castle.” Last year, I read her 1959 classic “The Haunting of Hill House” so I’m trying to continue my education of all things Shirley Jackson. Sometime I’d like to read Ruth Franklin’s 2016 award-winning biography of her called “Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life,” which looks quite good. Have you read it, or any other of Shirley’s tales? 

Meanwhile I’ve been studying for my Canadian citizenship test. I’m not sure when it will be, but my application is in and I’ve been told to study the guidebook for the test. I’m honored to live in this country. If all goes well, I’ll have dual citizenship.

My very first visit to Canada was in 2003 — I was dating this guy, you see, whom I had met in the States but who lived here. Eventually I moved here in 2008, and married later. Hmm so my move wasn’t (exactly) for political reasons, though now I’m scared out of my wits about the upcoming U.S. election. It seems an ulcer in the making. I just want to say: Vote Early everyone, if you haven’t already done so. As Joe said in the debate: “Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president.” Especially considering he knew early on and did nothing, and didn’t even forewarn the American people with the particulars. So what more do you need to know?!

And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately. 

I Give It to You by Valerie Martin / Nan A. Talese / 304 pages / 2020 

This was my first Valerie Martin read and it did not disappoint. If you want to escape with a story about an interesting friendship that starts in Italy over various decades — this novel is for you. It has sort of a memoir-travelogue feel to it, which drew me in from the start, as if these two women were real friends, who had met through travel and continued to stay in touch over years through visits, jobs, travel, and correspondences. 

The narrator Jan is an American writing professor who rents an out-building at a beautiful rural villa in Tuscany during the summer of 1983. She hopes to research and write a book about Mussolini … but instead becomes fascinated by the aristocratic family who owns Villa Chiara where she’s staying, notably her host Beatrice Salviati, also an academic.

Beatrice is an elegant independent divorcee and mother of one son, who soon brings Jan into her confidences about the villa property, the war, and her family’s history there, revealing details about her cousins and mother who still live there, their employees, as well as two deceased uncles — one a Fascist supporter during WWII, and the other who was put in an insane asylum and later killed in the family’s driveway — all of which Jan begins to investigate and piece together.

Captivated, Jan gets Beatrice over time to share more episodes about her upbringing in Italy, the war, college in Boston, her marriage, and changes afoot at Villa Chiara … with Beatrice obliging, “I give it to you.” The two friends’ lives, jobs, and travels go on as they correspond periodically through postcards later in life … with Jan eventually considering whether to use Beatrice’s rich stories about her family to write a novel lightly based on them. You’ll want to stay tuned to see … what becomes of Villa Chiara and their friendship.  

I liked Beatrice who I found quite magnetic with her verve and wit and I really fell into all the episodes she reveals about her life and family. She has troubles with all her relatives really: her son, mother, cousins, uncles, and former husband — still you don’t really blame her. She’s an independent woman who gets things done for herself and the villa. The narrator Jan, whose personal details are not revealed, is more nondescript, just a person interested in her work, and her friend’s life. It’s a tale about friendship, family and writing … that makes you wonder about trust, different perspectives, and whether what you share with each other is there for the taking. 

Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha / Ecco / 320 pages / 2019

Whoa … this crime/family drama novel involves two families — one Korean and one black — whose lives collide right as tensions in Los Angeles are about to boil over after the police shooting of a black teenager. Shawn Matthews remembers a similar kind of pain and anger all too well … since his teenage sister’s death at a convenience store in 1991 shattered his family’s life. He’s an ex-con from his younger years, but now is working for a moving company and doing his best to keep the past behind him.

Grace Park, meanwhile, is living in the Valley working long hours at her Korean-parents’ pharmacy and trying to figure out her sister’s rift with her mother. But then all changes when a drive-by shooting at the pharmacy ruptures Grace’s family, and the investigation into who did it brings up … old links between Shawn’s and Grace’s families. 

Uh-oh. This story is based on a violent killing that happened in Los Angeles in 1991, just a couple weeks after the videotape police beating of Rodney King came out. I didn’t remember it, but boy the author potently re-imagines the events, alternating chapters between Shawn’s and Grace’s perspectives as long hidden, dark family secrets begin to unravel … all the while renewed social unrest is brewing.  I can’t say too much more … 

But whoa, this author deftly re-creates the charged atmosphere in L.A. from 1991 as well as with the recent police protests. Her dialogue, too, and emotions of Shawn and Grace cut across lines and ring true … as they navigate their feelings of grief and culpability to protect the ones they love. Each side at times seems empathetic — as you go back and forth between the families hoping for answers and wondering how it will be resolved … though such killings seldom offer any real closure. Kudos to Steph Cha, a young writer (age 34) out of Los Angeles, for writing such a taut, stirring, and multi-dimensional crime story. She appears to have a very bright career ahead of her.  

That’s all for now.  What about you — have you read these books or authors — and if so, what did you think?

Hello. It’s a long weekend here. Happy Canadian Thanksgiving. This morning we have been treated to a few snowflakes, sleet, and rain, which is quite nice after a dry fall. Yesterday my husband, dog, and I had a beautiful hike with pretty views outside of town. We were pleased not to run into any hunters (or hear their guns) and had the hike mostly to ourselves. We walked through the fallen yellow leaves on the trail and made it up a few buttes to the end, where this photo is taken from. It was a nice way to celebrate Thanksgiving and now my husband is preparing a turkey dinner (I’m to stay out of the kitchen, ha). It’s still strange for me to have the holiday before Halloween, but that’s the way it goes up here … on a peaceful Monday without the telly or radio tuned in to the Supreme Court ruckus.

Meanwhile in book news, congrats to poet Louise Glück for winning the Nobel Peace Price in Literature last week. Wow, nice to have a poet win it. I want to get more familiar with Glück’s poetry so I’ve put myself on the library wait list for a few of her works, including a collected volume called “Poems 1962-2012.” Are you a fan of hers? She’s been called a confessional poet (somewhat similar to Sylvia Plath) but says: “I look for archetypal experience, and I assume that my struggles and joys are not unique. They feel unique as you experience them, but I’m not interested in making the spotlight fall on myself and my particular life, but instead on the struggles and joys of humans, who are born and then forced to exit.” Check out the rest of her interview with the New York Times here.

And now I’ll leave you with reviews of a few novels I finished lately.

A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet / W.W. Norton / 229 pages / 2020

Yeah author Lydia Millet might be smoking some strong weed with this odd little blistering tale that has a bit of dark humor thrown in. Like this one, her last novel “Sweet Lamb of Heaven” also included some biblical messages and allegory about it. This latest one reminded me a bit of Lord of the Flies for today’s world … mixed in with a little Walking Dead and Twister … and yet it recently made the fiction shortlist for the National Book Award, whoa.

What It’s About: A group of families go to a lakeside mansion … where all the parents do is laze about and drink and the kids (mostly teens) who are disgusted with them … veer off and go on their own. Then a major storm (or rolling storms) hit and the kids row away and end up meeting some Yacht Kids to party with … then come back to the parents’ mansion, which is flooded … then head out again with a man they meet named Burl in a van to an inland farm … and some roving bad guys with guns come and all feels like curtains — Uh-oh — then the mysterious farm owner shows up …

There’s some witty dialogue among the teens in this tale … which seems an angry generational divide kind of story with the group of kids on the one side … and their irresponsible parents on the other. It’s a world ravaged by climate change … which the parents have left to the kids to deal with. And the main protagonist/narrator is teenage Evie (or Eve, it’s biblical right?) who is trying to cope with what is happening and protect her younger brother Jack — who is trying to keep animals safe amid the storms (sort of like Noah).

It’s slightly odd, provoking stuff that has some interesting facets about generational divide and climate change to it, though perhaps I would’ve liked it a bit more if I felt more connected to some of the various teen characters — an irreverent rebellious bunch that Evie hangs with — including Sukey, Juice, Low, Jen, Terry, Rafe, and David. Whoa, they are not often a happy lot.

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali / Gallery Books / 320 pages / 2019

I didn’t know much about the story of the novel going in though somehow I conned my husband into listening to it with me as an audiobook on our long cross-country drive to the lake. He usually only listens to nonfiction so this was quite a coup (wink wink). Little did I know how sweeping the story would be …

What It’s About: It’s a story of young love told against the backdrop of political upheaval in Iran in 1953 — idealistic Roya, 17, meets Bahman Aslan, a young political activist, in Mr. Fakhri’s stationery/book store every Tuesday afternoon. They fall for one another (both hoping for democracy for Iran) and become engaged to be married though his mother is against the marriage and has someone else picked for her son. Then Roya and Bahman plan to elope, but on that day she waits for him in the town square, where political violence is enfolding, he never shows and she is told in a letter from him she should move on with her life. Sixty years later in 2013, Roya now in Massachusetts finds out that Bahman is living in a retirement home not far away and she has a chance to ask him what happened. And so the whole story of their lives unfolds … and the secrets not known.

I admit I was caught up in Roya’s and Bahman’s love for one another over many decades … (as we drove over hill and dale) and trying to figure out what happened and why things changed. I liked how it was set in Iran during the political upheaval in 1953 when the coup d’etat happened … and the story has a good flavor of that and who they were. Towards the end, the coincidence of Roya and Bahman coming to know and see each other in Massachusetts late in life seems a bit of a stretch … and the writing about their love at times becomes a bit over-wrought, but still I was the softie who was eagerly swept along and took it all in … a bit like a Dr. Zhivago kind of tale … that aims at the heart strings.

What’s Left of Me Is Yours by Stefanie Scott / Doubleday / 352 pages / 2020

From the outset in the prologue — you learn most of the plot about the story: that a married woman (Rina) is dead and a man who had an affair with her (Kaitaro) is on trial for the murder. Rina’s husband (Sato), you learn, hired Kaitaro to have an affair with his wife Rina in order to break up their marriage so he could get a divorce. Rina’s father (Yoshi), an attorney, is following the trial, while raising Rina’s daughter Sumiko age 7.

Once you learn all this — the story takes you back in time — alternating chapters among these main characters as to how and why it happened … as well as to the present some 20 years later when Rina’s daughter Sumiko (a newly minted attorney) begins to investigate her mother’s death, which she comes to learn was not accidental.

In time you find out that all these main characters are hiding truths from one another in attempts to protect those they love from getting hurt … but in the process they end up making matters worse… and ultimately contribute to the tragedy.

It’s a slow-burn of a family drama somewhat similar to a Celeste Ng type of story/novel … that unfolds in its details as it goes along. I give the Singapore/British author points for setting the whole story — which I listened to as an audiobook — in Japan and shedding light on Japan’s legal system surrounding trials, imprisonment, and especially divorce and child custody issues. Among other things, I had no idea about the covert industry “wakaresaseya” in Japan that is used to try to break up marriages … and I also didn’t realize that Japan has no joint-custody system after divorce, and that court-ordered visitation rights are often ignored. My, it seems not a great place for kids or parents of divorce … which is mixed into the plot.

Throughout the novel, the descriptions of the Japanese landscapes and atmosphere made the story interesting. My only problem with it was that since most of the plot is known at the beginning (and the rest can be pretty much surmised) … there isn’t a lot of suspense left to the story and so in places I felt it sort of plodded along … and goes on at times bordering on getting a bit tiresome and melodramatic. I felt a tauter telling or perhaps knowing less about the plot might have helped keep me more engaged. There was some fine dramatic writing at times, though other times it plodded for me. So in that way it seemed a bit uneven. Still it was an interesting debut and I liked finding out about the Japanese system and its rippling effects.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these books or authors, and if so what did you think?

Greetings. I hope everyone is well. I meant to post sooner, but we’ve been on the road. My husband is taking his first work break since February and we are spending my bday week in British Columbia, along Kootenay Lake just east of the small city of Nelson, which is about 3.5 hours north of Spokane, Washington. It’s been smoky from the wildfires in the Northwest for a few days but now it’s starting to look better and we can breathe a bit once again. It’s a lovely area — woodsy and scenic around the big lake — and we’ve been bike riding and taking some walks. There’s two bald eagles near a huge nest just down the road and we are spying on them. 

Not much else but we are staying a bit away from the news while here and after hearing of Justice Ginsburg’s sad passing. I can only imagine what that will lead to before the election. Meanwhile in book news: political readers should gear up for President Obama’s 700+ page book “A Promised Land” coming out Nov. 17. If you thought Michelle Obama’s memoir was excellent and quite a bookselling event, then perhaps you can imagine that her husband’s book will likely be similar. Wouldn’t it be nice to get a signed copy? What about you — do you plan to read it? And now I’ll leave you with a couple of reviews of what I finished lately. 

Pachinko by Min Jee Lee / Grand Central / 480 pages / 2017

Oh “Pachinko” I finally got to you. I knew I would. I was saving the long family Korean/Japanese saga for a time when I could really sink into it, which in the end was during a 14-day quarantine back in August when I innocently started it … and then weeks later hesitantly turned the last page in September. Though long, I found the novel’s writing style and chronology straight-forward and quite readable.

Many know: it follows the story of various family members of a Korean family starting during Japan’s occupation of Korea in 1910. One of the main characters teenaged Sunja — whose parents own a boarding house — gets pregnant out of wedlock to a rich fish broker and her reputation is saved when a young pastor (Isak) agrees to marry her and to move them in 1933 to Osaka, Japan, where he has a job lined up and they will live with his brother Yoseb and his sister-in-law Kyunghee in their shack in an area where other impoverished Koreans live. 

From there Sunja has her son Noa, and later she and Isak have a second son Mozasu, before Isak is imprisoned during WWII for his Christianity, and Sunja and her sister-in-law seek to sell kimchi to keep the family afloat. And so begins the story of their lives and travails as Koreans in Japan through WWII and the Korean War right through to the 1980s when Mozasu’s son Solomon decides after an incident to forgo his western career path and join his father’s pachinko business — a slot-machine type of game.

“Pachinko” was much ballyooed when it came out — and was named one of the best novels of 2017 (it barely lost out to Jesym Ward’s novel “Sing, Unburied, Sing” for the National Book Award), and I was not disappointed. Just the historical research alone for the novel — and the situations each of the the family members face as their lives, work, spouses unfold — bowled me over. The ideas for the novel apparently took root over 30 years … and the author rewrote many drafts while living during years in New York and Tokyo, where she interviewed Koreans who had lived in Japan for many decades. 

My main take-away from it was how poorly Koreans were treated in Japan … and the discrimination they faced over the past century there … and how immigrants with dual nationalities — like the Korean Japanese — felt torn between the two and out of place and not accepted in either country. And yet Japan occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945 and brought Koreans to their shores. The whole pachinko metaphor — how Koreans were kept to inferior menial jobs like running these slot-machine type parlors — works for the entire novel. The family members keep getting pulled back to the business of pachinko as one of the few job venues open to them. 

Many themes run through the novel: such as identity and worth, family, and being an immigrant …. and the back-breaking work the family members (especially the women) endure, and the historical events of war and change and how Korea becomes divided and there’s no where to return. I found the whole story — which pulled me into each family members’ life — very readable and eye-opening and heartbreaking too. There’s struggles, tragedies, and twists along the way — Noa’s biological father continues to stir the pot in ways that are at times helpful yet also detrimental to the family.   

The author is said to be interested in writing about Korean diaspora, and her first three novels (Pachinko being her second) focus on that, so there is another (third) novel in the works (yay). I’d like to go back now and read her first novel from 2007 “Free Food for Millionaires” — about a Korean-American in Manhattan. Have you read it? And if you’re wondering … “Pachinko” is being made into a TV series on Apple, release date so far is unknown, hmm stay posted.

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich / Harper / 464 pages / 2020 

After all these years of Louise Erdrich’s books … this is my first of hers and I can say I enjoyed spending time with it. I listened to the audiobook read by the author herself … and I’m sure no one could have read it better than her — she infused it with all she knew about these Chippewa characters, giving it all the emotions (both hard and light) of their everyday lives. 

It’s a story set in 1953 that has two main protagonists and storylines — starting with Thomas who’s a night watchman at a jewel bearing plant and his niece Patrice (or Pixie) who also works at the plant near their native reservation in North Dakota. Thomas is a council member of the Chippewa tribe and is trying to organize to stop a U.S. congressional bill that would terminate the rights of Native Americans to their land and to treaties signed long ago. And Patrice, valedictorian of her high school class whose family is challenged by an alcoholic father, is soon on a mission to find her sister Vera who has gone missing in Minneapolis. Along the way, she becomes enamored with a young Chippewa boxer named Wood Mountain. 

In addition to the two main protagonists (Thomas and Patrice) … there’s many other characters attached to them who are apart of the story: like Patrice’s tragic sister Vera, and Patrice’s friend at the jewel plant Valentine, also Wood Mountain and his coach Stack Barnes who likes Patrice, and Wood Mountain’s mother Juggie Blue, as well as grad student Millie Cloud who comes to help Thomas in his efforts to testify in Washington. 

It’s a story that gives a bit of a panorama feel for these Chippewa characters and their lives on the reservation and historical events that shaped them during the early 1950s. Thomas is inspired by the author’s own grandfather back then … and I was taken with Patrice as she comes of age and is trying to navigate hard realities with her dangerous alcoholic father and tragic missing sister. She has a mother that is smart and good … and a would-be boxing beau that seems kind.

The chapters as it goes on jump around a bit among the characters and some are long and others are short. You can’t be in a hurry I learned with Erdrich, you must let her imagery and storytelling work their magic. Perhaps it might not be for everyone, but I enjoyed her renderings of life among the Chippewas … and of what happens to Patrice and her missing sister and to the group that goes to Washington to testify against the U.S. bill and senator set on terminating them.

I’m not sure why I never picked up an Erdrich novel before: perhaps I was intimidated in some way by life on the reservation, but her story and characters drew me in early on and her writing about their lives was both earthy and lyrical, she gives much humanity and hope to them despite at times bleak and harsh circumstances. What is your favorite book of hers? 

ps. I didn’t realize Louise Erdrich (like Ann Patchett) owns a bookstore — Birchbark Books, which is a small indie bookstore in Minneapolis that focuses on Native American literature and the Native community in the Twin Cities. That’s another plus for her.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these books or authors — and if so, what did you think? 

Hi. I hope everyone is doing well and settling in to September. The days are going quickly now. The kids around town here are in school, which sort of surprises me. They are trying to control the Covid outbreaks. Meanwhile we woke up to our first frost on Tuesday morning but luckily had our tomato plants covered. Now the warm afternoons have returned and the days are pretty here. I feel for the Western states that are contending with wildfires and terrible smoke. It’s awful to see. San Francisco looks dark with an eerie red tinge. My sister is sending us updates of conditions there … and my brother’s place luckily just missed a wildfire in Montana. Yikes. 

Meanwhile it’s a bit hard to believe Labor Day has passed and summer is pretty much over.  I’ve been looking back and thinking about which novel seemed to be the must-summer read of the season this year … and which novel I saw most talked about around the blogosphere. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb to say that Brit Bennett’s novel “The Vanishing Half” is likely one I saw a lot of. It was everywhere for a while: on blogs, book-author virtual talks, Bookstagram, TV and newspapers. It came out in early June and pretty much took off. Many readers it seemed wanted to see how Bennett followed up her 2016 debut “The Mothers” … and this one proved to be as good if not even better. 

But what makes a book a must-summer read? It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best book of the year … I think it just means it usually conjures up issues and perhaps has a couple surprises. It has to be quite readable and a bit of a page-turner. I don’t think it necessarily has to be a thriller or popular fiction … even though it’s summertime.  But for whatever reason word about it has to get around and spread. It has to have momentum. And I think for “The Vanishing Half” it did … and the timing was right … in a summer with current events leading to renewed calls for racial justice and equality.  Someone on Goodreads called it the essential book club book … and perhaps it is.  I just finished it and my review of it — along with another novel — is below.  But first:  What did you think was the most read and talked about novel this summer? Hmm. 

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett / Riverhead / 350 pages / 2020 

I can’t say I knew a lot about the experience of “passing” … in terms of one person of a certain race passing for another, or in this case, a person of color assimilating into the white majority to escape the legal and social conventions of racial discrimination … but I have read novels that touch (maybe even if tangentially) on such themes, such as Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” Ralph Ellison’s “The Invisible Man” and last year’s novel “We Cast a Shadow” by Maurice Carlos Ruffin. 

“The Vanishing Half” is another that really opened my eyes to what it means to “pass” racially as another. The novel makes a compelling story surrounding the identities of twin sisters from a small Southern town (Mallard, Louisiana) known for its very light skinned blacks, who run away at 16 (haunted by their father’s lynching in the 1940s) and eventually go their own separate ways: one living as herself a black woman (Desiree), and the other secretly passing as white (Stella) and reinventing herself in Los Angeles. 

The story goes on to explore how their daughters are also affected by skin tones and Stella’s secret: Desiree’s daughter Jude is dark and self-conscious (and falls for Reese a transgender male), and Stella’s daughter Kennedy, unaware of her mother’s secret, is blond and blue-eyed and becomes an actress (like her mother, who is superb at play-acting who she really is).

It’s a story that shows the toll “passing” can take on a close-knit family and generationally. Yet it’s hard to blame Stella totally for wanting the freedom she feels passing as white … though her choices are frustrating and painful along the way (at one point she’s at a party of whites publicly castigating African American neighbors who move into the house across the street … who she’s actually befriended in private to play with her daughter).  

It’s a story that’s well told and and each of the four main characters — Desiree and Stella and their daughters — propel the story forward through the decades from the 1950s to the ’90s … as you follow them where they live and with their jobs and love interests. Their partners are given interesting shrift — Mr. Early with Desiree and Reese with Jude — are particularly alluring. And you start turning pages in a flurry to see how the lie of Stella’s race will play out … and whether there will be a public or family reckoning … or what will happen. 

All around it’s an excellent read, and its themes and various layers: about identity, race, and reinvention are thought-provoking without being overly heavy. Perhaps reinvention never seemed so possible. See what you think, if you haven’t already.

Ps. I did catch the author’s book chat with the Los Angeles Times Book Club and it was enjoyable to listen to Brit Bennett speak about the themes and the characters and how she wrote about them in the novel. You can catch it here.

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue / Little Brown / 305 pages / 2020 

A lot of research into the 1918 Flu in Dublin and obstetrics must have gone into the writing of this novel, and I admire how much the author put into the time period. The story takes place in a maternity ward where several pregnant woman are quarantined with the Flu at the hospital. There’s Nurse Julia Power, who in time is joined by volunteer helper Bridie Sweeney who was raised and ill-treated as an orphan at an Irish-Catholic convent, as well as Dr. Kathleen Lynn (the story’s only real historical figure), an activist involved with the radical Sinn Féin party. Together they work to bring babies and mothers through harsh deliveries … where birth and death often seem never too far apart. 

This one is quite a medical novel and realistic depictions of birthing babies during the much more rudimentary days of medicine are evident on every page. I’m not exactly quickly squeamish, but I almost went down a few times reading parts of these harsh deliveries. (It seems the flu enhanced premature births.) Early on, I thought is there more of a story here or is it just a medical journal of what happened during that 1918 pandemic in Dublin? Luckily the characters unfold a bit more and you get a sense of Nurse Julia, who is grappling with who she is on her 30th birthday and where her life is headed … during a pandemic that was much worse than ours. The story balances Julia’s inner thoughts with her relations with Bridie and Dr. Lynn as they’re in the thick of things at the hospital.

Scary days for sure. I read at the back of the book … that the author wrote this novel before the Covid pandemic started so the timing was purely coincidental. But the similarities are there … and I was interested to read the novel because I wanted to hear more about the 1918 Flu … in light of what we’re facing now and get a view from healthcare workers who really are on the frontlines of saving us in times like these. They are the heroes … and have been every day since this began … as they are in this novel.

This was my first Emma Donoghue read (who describes herself as Irish Canadian) … and I hear her books are all a bit dark and gruesome but her research and writing are exquisitely done. “The Pull of the Stars” felt sort of like a slim slice of life novel that puts you right into the time and setting without sugarcoating much of what you’re going to face. The novel’s title comes from an old Italian belief — where influenza gets its name — that it was the influence of the stars that made you sick. “As if, when it’s your time, your star gives you a yank,” explains Julia to Bridie. I can’t say the novel was entirely enjoyable (as it is medically a bit dark), but it was quite an eye-opening and affecting story and I’m glad I read it.

Just a footnote: the author doesn’t use quotation marks in the novel … and on the whole it didn’t bother me too much. Most times it seemed evident when there was dialogue and who was talking … but there were just a few times when I had to reread a passage to make it more clear to me. For more on the novel and the author, check out this recent Zoom interview with her here.

What about you — have you read these books or authors, and if so, what did you think?

Hi. I hope you all are well. Sorry I’ve been AWOL from the blog lately as I went through a time where I didn’t finish much reading. I was busy while at my parents’ place in Southern California trying to get things done and where it was sweltering at 112 F. Though since I’ve returned to Canada a week ago, there’s been a hint of fall in the air and also some smoke from wildfires west of us in British Columbia, Idaho, and Oregon.

Hmm … I haven’t experienced too much as the quarantine rule after international travel means I have to stay on our property for 14 long days (see my office gym at left, ha). Ugh, it’s like prison, I can’t even walk the dog, but it’s the price I pay for flying. Honestly, I’d rather just get tested, but they require the 14 days regardless. Interestingly I see the CDC in the U.S. has just dropped this quarantine-travel rule, but I don’t think it will go away here anytime soon as Canadians mean business about keeping Covid spread low.

It’s okay I’ll make it. I already have one week in the bag and each day I’m closing in on the finish line. I have no symptoms and I’m cleaning out drawers and doing yard work, see our lovely cherry tomatoes and cucumbers from the backyard. We’ve been getting a daily haul of these.

Luckily pro tennis has returned to the TV and so I can avoid the diabolical RNC convention. It’s hard listening to most of these speeches, is it not? Seems like terrible nails down a chalkboard to me. Meanwhile I finished a couple crime novels as audiobooks. I’m not usually a big crime / thriller kind of reader but in summer I’ll pick up a couple, especially after “The Great Believers” and a few others — I needed a lighter palate cleanser. When you need something fast and not too deep, they can hit the mark. Here’s my reviews of a couple below.

Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby / Flatiron Books / 304 pages / 2020

This is quite the crime heist, high-octane novel and from its tagline: “A husband, a father, a son, a business owner… And the best getaway driver east of the Mississippi” … you know you’re in for a wild ride.

The protagonist is Beauregard “Bug” Montage, an African American man who’s a good father to his three kids and husband to wife #2 and owns a garage in Virginia where he works on cars with his cousin Kelvin. As the story begins, he gets in debt on numerous bills for his family members (including for his mother’s nursing home), and he’s soon lured back to the kind of crime activity he learned from his long-ago disappeared father, racing cars. For Bug, being the getaway driver in a jewelry store heist seems to be the answer to his problems, but he soon finds out that the heist with a couple not too bright local bros, didn’t go down all as planned and there’s a lot of unfinished business that comes knocking. Uh-oh.

There’s some raw storytelling here and some strong Southern grit that touches on areas of poverty, racism, and the underbelly of Virginia. It’s a story that is rated R if you’re squeamish to bad language and violence, which comes mostly near the end. I got caught up in Bug’s family story and plight and the characters who interact with him and seek his help. He’s a true “car head” and family man, but the memory of his father and his demons are never too far behind. Like his second wife, I wanted him to stay clean but he gets pulled back in … to earn the cash … and then Bug is no longer the squeaky clean guy we hoped … but is one heck of a driver and one smart, mean fighter.

The ending has a couple car chases and violent scenes that will make you run for cover! There’s a lot of action that is really well told. I was pretty gripped. I had sympathy for Bug and his wife and kids but then parts of him seemed a bit violent too, so he’s sort of a protagonist whose choices make you not love him unequivocally. He’s got baggage and is quite the flawed anti-hero. I’m thinking maybe Bug might return for another book. This appears to be a breakthrough for author S.A. Cosby, who expanded on the character from a short story in 2015, and who hails from southwestern Virginia.

I listened to “Blacktop Wasteland” as an audiobook read by Adam Lazarre-White, who does a terrific job with all the characters — the bad guys and the good ones — and leads you on a chase that will leave you crawling through the broken glass and ashes … wherever you are.

Girls Like Us by Cristina Alger / G.P. Putnam’s Sons / 288 pages / 2019

I needed something quick and not too heavy after “The Great Believers” and a couple other reads and the audiobook of this novel fit the bill. It’s a crime story set on Long Island about an FBI agent (Nell Flynn) who returns home from DC after her father dies in a motorcycle wreck and she ends up getting involved in solving a case there … of two working girls who are found murdered.

I liked how the story becomes personal to Nell … whose mother was murdered long ago, and whose father — a homicide cop killed in a recent crash — she wonders about his involvement with in the current case. It involves the collision between the poorer sides of Long Island (where Nell grew up) with the rich sides with their mansions and lavish parties.

The story was all well and good, but it didn’t overly stand out to me amid other crime novels … it kept me entertained for a while and then eventually it was over … and could be tossed behind me. Some of the plot reminded me a bit of Jeffrey Epstein’s luring of young girls … and crimes … and I wonder if the author took it from that. Perhaps she did … as I recall reading the author’s 2012 novel “The Darlings” about a Ponzi scheme and the Wall Street financial meltdown that reminded me of the Bernie Madoff scandal. She seems good at these stories ripped from the headlines. You recall them, so you’re a bit tuned in, waiting for more.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read any good crime novels or thrillers this summer, and if so which ones? And how are you doing in your neck of the woods?

Hello. I hope everyone is doing well. I finally made it to my parent’s house in Southern California and have been enjoying my stay with them, so I have been a bit busy and away from the blogosphere. It’s inland on the way to the desert so it is very hot here … not a drop of humidity … just pure blistering heat. It’s beautiful though and the views of the mountains are awesome. Luckily we are not too near the “Apple Fire,” which broke out more than a week ago and isn’t yet contained. It’s burning thousands of acres (east of us) in the San Gorgonio mountains and also destroyed four homes in Cherry Valley. Hmm. But we carry on here as the water fire-fighting planes fly over head. Cross your fingers the fire season doesn’t get worse. I have another week here then will fly back North. Meanwhile below are a few reviews of backlist novels I recently finished. You might have read these. 

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai / Viking / 432 pages / 2018 

Yea, I finally got to this big (!) novel, which many considered one of the best novels of 2018. Indeed it’s an epic AIDS saga that captures the early days of the epidemic in the mid-1980s … as well as years later showing the devastating impact of the disease on survivors whose loved ones died from it. 

It was interesting to me to read and revisit the peak of HIV/AIDS during the 1980s while we’re experiencing the new Covid pandemic. During the 1980’s rise of AIDS, the infected (most of whom were mainly gay men) were often ostracized and left to die. The discrimination and suffering that HIV/AIDS patients faced was often so brutal, which this story captures so well and reminds us.

I listened to “The Great Believers” for two weeks as an audiobook (read superbly by Michael Crouch) and at first its story and characters didn’t really reach out to me but as it went on I became increasingly drawn into their plight. Maybe it didn’t grab me initially because the plot is less action-filled and more filled with character development, setting, and the interaction … among a close-knit group of friends and lovers in Chicago who gather as the story begins at a funeral for one of them who has died of an AIDS-related illness. 

The story features a colorful cast of young men who you soon get to know well: none more than the protagonist Yale Tishman, who in 1985 wants to buy a house with his longterm partner, Charlie, and is trying to acquire a set of 1920s paintings that he hopes will put the Chicago gallery he works for on the map.

There’s also a second alternating storyline set in 2015 about Fiona Marcus, who was a part of the 1980’s Chicago group — the sister whose beloved brother had died — who comes to Paris looking for her estranged daughter who disappeared years ago into a cult. While there, Fiona struggles with how AIDS impacted her life and her relations with her daughter.

This second storyline, which I gather from Goodreads reviews many readers didn’t like as much as the main Yale Tishman story, grabbed me in ways because of Fiona’s internal search as a mother and how the storylines intertwine and eventually connect. I liked Fiona quite a bit (perhaps my favorite in the novel) though her daughter Claire, who’s pretty awful to her, is really strangle-worthy. 

I also liked how the storylines incorporated events that happened during those years, such as the Space Shuttle disaster of 1986 and the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. It puts you right there and by the end of the book I was sure these characters were real. Author Rebecca Makkai  outdoes herself bringing them to life through perceptive dialogue, great lines, and the feel and facets of those times.  

As it goes on, the story delves into the relationships, betrayals, and interactions among the Chicago group as many in their gay circle begin dying from the disease. It’s harsh, sad, and  powerfully unfolds (amid the two alternating storylines) to be an emotional story that builds and delivers a cumulative heart punch by the end. 

“The Great Believers” is quite an impressive book, which surprised me a bit since I wasn’t a big fan of Rebecca Makkai’s 2014 novel “The Hundred Year House” … which sort of lost me along the way amid its multi-timelines and many characters. My only warning about the “Believers” novel and author is that she likes to write long and she goes on at length during chapters you thought were on the verge of ending quite awhile back … so one can not be in a hurry with “The Great Believers.” You have to lap up the novel slowly and let its wake wash over you. If you do, your heart will be squeezed and you will remember all too well the crises and pain that AIDS wrought. 

PS. This novel is being made into a TV series, but so far I haven’t seen any mention of who will be in it …or when it is due out. It is still in development. 

The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar / Atria / 368 pages / 2018

Much is absorbing and rich about this novel that alternates storylines and chapters between one modern-day story about a girl named Nour and her family fleeing the Syrian civil war … and the other about a 12th-century girl (Rawiya) who disguises herself as a boy to apprentice with a famous mapmaker who plans a long journey to chart regions and routes. Both storylines follow the same geographical areas though are 800 years apart! 

The story of the 12th-century mapmaker is based on an actual historical figure and was a favorite story of Nour’s father who has recently died from cancer as the novel begins in New York City.

After his death, Nour’s mother moves the Syrian-American family with older sisters Huda and Zahra back to Homs, Syria, where they have relatives to help out. But then the war ensues and they flee on a long dangerous journey from Syria to try to get to Ceuta, Spain through: Jordan, Egypt, Libya, and Algeria. Oh my, their travels are not easy … as are the parallel story’s of the map apprentice’s 12th-century journey.

I liked how the novel brings an empathetic spotlight to the plight of Syrian refugees (such as Nour’s family) on the run. And much of it brings home all the dangers and injustices they face — as well as the countries/regions they travel through, whose whereabouts I followed along with thanks to the book cover’s inside map. 

Nour — who misses her father and former life in New York — is a pretty captivating young protagonist navigating the journey and trying to protect her family. The other 12th-century storyline (about the disguised girl and mapmaker) was interesting as well but in the long run didn’t grip me to its chapters as much as the modern-day Syrian storyline. Both storylines also wrap up at the end a bit too tidy and too much … and there were parts to me that seemed unbelievable. Perhaps the novel had too much stuffed into it or tried to do too much to finish. Still I liked its analogy and symbolism of mapmaking or drawing maps in order to find one’s home … for the two inspiring female protagonists who had lost theirs.

PS. I just learned that this author is transitioning as transgender — so he goes now by Zeyn Joukhadar, which happened after the 2018 hardback came out. Apparently a trans boy will be a bit in the storyline of his next novel “The Thirty Names of Night” due out in November. 

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey / Reagan Arthur Books / 400 pages / 2012

Yes, yes and yes. I finally got to this debut novel that was much talked about when it came out in 2012. Its story swept me up into the cold Alaskan wilderness with all its harsh splendor and struggle for survival (while I read it strangely enough at the beach!). The story is set in the 1920s about a married childless couple (Mable & Jack) who come to a remote outpost in Alaska from back East to live in a cabin and try their hand at farming but have no idea how hard it will be. 

It almost breaks them and sends them packing but for the help of neighbors (the Bensons) and a magical young nature girl who appears to them apparently from the woods after one snowy night the couple spends building a snow figure in their front yard. From early on, you don’t know if the girl the couple sees in glimpses around their cabin and woods (who often hunts with a red fox by her side) is really real or if she is in their imaginations from having cabin fever and losing a child of their own. But on and on the story goes of their lives near the woods and with their neighbors, the Bensons, who sort of tease the couple about their talk of such a girl. 

The story has a fairy tale quality to it … a bit like the fairy tale book the woman (Mable) treasures from her youth called The Snow Maiden. The couple so badly wanted a child so this snow girl is the light of their lives. I won’t say anymore about what happens as they all grow older — though one of the Benson’s boys grows fond of the girl too — but will say it’s a story that touches on the older couple’s marriage and being a parent, and about the wilderness girl or fairy who comes into their lives — all set against the Alaskan wilderness, which is described so fully and wonderfully in this novel. 

You can feel the cold and remoteness and the trees, weather, and seasons. I will warn some that the story takes its sweet time as it ambles along at its own pace, playing out in short chapters of their lives farming and trying to get by, but I was captivated from beginning to end. I liked the outback and survival feel to it … as well as its fairy tale aspects. It’s just a good story, plain and simple.

It makes me want to read Eowyn Ivey’s 2016 novel “To the Bright Edge of the World,” which apparently is another enticing adventure-ish tale. 

That’s all for now. What about you — what’s going on in your neck of the woods? And have you read any of these — and if so, what did you think?