Greetings from the cold frontier. It appears February does not really want to cooperate with being friendly. Has your polar vortex disappeared yet? Ours is still ongoing and we look to have our second weekend coming up with well below 0F temps. I’ve been donning my winter space suit to walk the dog, which appears to be working until I have to use my hands and take off my big mitts for brief moments. That can be ouch-worthy. Best bet is to have the husband do the dog-walking on the weekends. As for our yellow Labrador Stella — aka the book assistant — she never fully admits it’s cold outside and duly wants her walks as previously scheduled. She must have some insulation about her. After all, Labs like her are built to retrieve in cold water.
In book news this week, it appears that author A.J. Finn — aka Dan Mallory — sure took a beating after a New Yorker article revealed that the author of the bestselling thriller “The Woman in the Window” has lied about a whole lot of things in his own life …. including that he had cancer, that his mother had died of cancer, and that his brother had taken his own life. All of which are apparently untrue. Yikes. Why does one try to elicit sympathy in such a way? It seems a bit ill. I guess Mallory has admitted his lies and apologized now, but the uproar sure has lit up social media and the like. I wonder if it will put a damper on the movie adaptation of his book due out in October 2019, starring Amy Adams and Gary Oldman. Egads you can’t be too happy if you’re putting up the money for the film. And now I’ll leave you with a few reviews of what I finished lately.
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday (2018) 271 pages, paperback, from the library
Synopsis: The novel has three separate parts to it: The first is about a young American editor (Alice) who’s an inspiring novelist — and her relationship with a famous, much older writer named Ezra Blazer (based loosely on Philip Roth who the author once had a relationship with). The very different second part is narrated by Amar, an Iraqi-American post-doc who, on his way to visit his brother in Kurdistan in 2008, is detained by immigration officers and spends the weekend in a holding room in Heathrow having flashbacks of his family’s past. And the last part is an interview of the same Ezra Blazer that along the way indirectly confirms how the parts of the story correlate.
My Thoughts: This novel — hailed as one of the 10 Best Books of 2018 by the New York Times and various other publications — is quite a puzzle about how the three parts link together. I guess I didn’t really know that going in, so I wasn’t really on the lookout, hunting for subtle clues like I should have been in high school English class. So alas I blew it a bit … that indeed it’s a bit of an exercise or look at the creative process.
Instead I was pulled in by the first section, about this young mid-20s girl — Alice (as in Wonderland) — who’s working in publishing and seeing this famous older author (Ezra) who must be like late 60s or 70. Gosh all I could think about was the author’s one-time relationship with Philip Roth and whether this all was true. Though apparently the author has cautioned against reading this section as total autobiography … so much was invented she says … but still (!) It’s a bit endearing and funny their banter — these two writers of mixed ages who seem to fit well with their preoccupation with fiction, old tunes, baseball watching, and sex. A bit icky or weird though too with their ages and his health issues, and he being a mentor.
The second part of the novel is totally different about this Iraqi-American post-doc (Amar) stuck at Heathrow Airport having flash backs to days with his family in Iraq and the war — I didn’t really see how this fit, but I really felt for him. And the third part about an interview with the author Ezra was interesting too but once again I was a bit clueless to its link… though there are clues, some of which I questioned along the way.
Still it wasn’t till after reading about the novel that its main mystery was revealed to me and what the novel was seeking to do. In retrospect, in understanding it more, I liked it better and thought it was quite clever … about writing and how it can transport one across boundaries. That’s all I will say, if you like literary puzzles then go for it. As one reviewer at the New York Times said: “Asymmetry is not complicated, but it cannot be read complacently. Like it or not, it will make you a better reader, a more active noticer. It hones your senses.” It’s enough to make me want to watch for her next book.
Descent by Tim Johnston (2015) 384 pages, hardback, from the library
Synopsis: The story follows the fracturing of a family following the disappearance of the 18-year-old daughter during a Colorado vacation. Caitlin is about to enter college on a track scholarship when she fails to come back from an early morning run with her brother who is found injured. Over the course of the next two years, the parents and the brother each go through their own troubles as no sign of Caitlin is found.
My Thoughts: This is another missing person/abduction kind of story, whose genre I’m sort of tiring of. I think I picked this one up because of the hype and because the author has a new novel out called “The Current” to compare it with. I was also interested in its Rocky Mountain setting, where I once lived. I read the novel pretty quickly though it does jump around a bit among the characters and the italic parts (some of which it has throughout) are always a bit of a chore on the eyes.
I thought it was a decent thriller though a couple things bugged me along the way: for one, the brother and father stay in Colorado to apparently keep searching for their sister/daughter yet they never seem to do any searching or none is described. I understand the story comes after the initial months of searching, still I was freaked about keeping up the search. I would’ve torn that mountain apart, from top to bottom. Meanwhile the characters sort of whine, meander, get in trouble, and fall apart.
Another thing, there’s so much smoking in the book; everyone is smoking though the missing girl apparently was a great runner and was granted a college scholarship for track, yet all of her relatives are big smokers. Really? I guess it’s to show stress. But blah, one more mention of lighting a cigarette by so-so in the book and I would’ve tossed it across the room into the fire. There’s your cigarette.
Though I guess I liked the part about the town bully guy, Billy, doing some good toward the end of the story, which felt a bit redeeming. The novel has some things going for it that I liked — a suspense that builds around some definable family characters, but I also felt it had some things that hindered it. So for me it was half and half.
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (2018), 240 pages, audiobook
Synopsis: You guessed it, the novel is about two sisters in Nigeria — the pretty, younger sister Ayoola is the one who has a habit of killing her boyfriends (the last three) and the older sister Korede (a nurse at the hospital) is the one who cleans up the mess and keeps it under wraps. But when a doctor, Korede is in love with, falls for her sister, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she’s willing to go to protect her. Uh-oh.
My Thoughts: Yes this novel has made the round on blogs already and I’m on the bandwagon about it being favorable as well. I thought it was clever and I liked its ending. The older sister narrator, Korede, has a sardonic world-weary voice that makes the telling of this “black widow” tale appealing. It’s hard to even explain — how something so awful and serious of a novel about a sister’s killings — can be construed as light and refreshing as well. Say what??? There’s various degrees and emotions in this story, from: deadpan humor to guilt and heartfelt truth-seeking and love. Korede is trying to save the day and come up with answers. She sure can clean a car transporting a body better than those guys did in “Pulp Fiction.” I know I’ll never look at bleach the same way again.
All the while the novel is told in short snappy chapters that keep things moving. By the end, you find out why these sisters are so bound together …. from their childhood. They really have each other’s backs. I was impressed by the sibling aspect of this novel, as well as the story’s wit and its turns, and its Nigerian setting.
What about you — have you read any of these novels — and if so, what did you think?
