What if you were an enterprising 29-year-old temp, working a dead-end job, and were offered the opportunity to earn 10 million yen – a small fortune –What if you were an enterprising 29-year-old temp, working a dead-end job, and were offered the opportunity to earn 10 million yen – a small fortune – to bear a child for a wealthy middle-aged couple?
Swallows is a fascinating book. It explores and contrasts the ethics of surrogacy in Japan, a country where the process remains illegal. It asks piercing questions: is surrogacy an exploitive business – poor women selling their wombs – or is it a win-win-win situation where both the couple, the surrogate, and the child all benefit?
The young woman, Riki, who hails from rural Hokkaido, has a hard time making ends meet in Tokyo. She jumps at the chance of earning money as an egg donor at a fertility clinic. But the clinic offers a far more lucrative option. Their clients -- Motoi, a famed ballet dancer who is yearning to pass on his genes and his wife Yuko, who is infertile -- are seeking a surrogate to bear their child. Riki looks very much like Yuko, and they are prepared to offer just about any amount of money to get her onboard.
Immediately, the author delves into the cloudy areas of class, obligation, and morality. The women are encumbered by doubts. Yuko wonders why she’s going along with her husband’s plan, especially since she will not be biologically related to the child. Riki’s issues are more complicated. Is she simply a “womb for rent” or a fully realized person? Is she willing to give up a year of her life for this couple along with her dream of bearing a child of a man she truly loves? To muddy the waters, Motoi will need to divorce Yuko and marry Riki until she bears a child and then reverse the process (re-marrying Yuko) to keep things “legitimate”. How will both women handle that?
There are many twists and turns – including one on the very last page – that I will not hint at or reveal, but they were very thought-provoking. I would have loved this book – certainly, it will stay with me – except for one thing: a clunky translation. Over the years, I’ve developed a real respect for the art of the translator, who is faced with the choice of translating verbatim or translating based on the essence of what the writer is saying (which doesn’t always correspond to the new language). This translator chooses the former, and it’s to the book’s detriment.
I will say that I kept eagerly turning pages, despite my disappointment with the translation. The title of the book made zero sense to me until I googled and found out the original Japanese title was “The Return of the Swallows” (still ambiguous, but less so considering the book’s development). I am very grateful to Knopf Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review.
“Some lost people don’t have the skills but instead they have something else. I don’t know what to call it. Heart. They survive because of their love “Some lost people don’t have the skills but instead they have something else. I don’t know what to call it. Heart. They survive because of their love of life or the dear ones in their mind…Often, when these people are rescued, they report feeling a sense of wonder out there. For the moments they had left. For the privilege of being alive at all.”
In these sorry times when we have lost so much of our humanity, many of us feel metaphorically lost. I know I do. So this book at this time hit me with a wallop. It’s about losing your bearings, longing for safety and permanence, and the fierce desire to endure. It’s about keeping alive a sense of wonder, even after discovering that all relationships are imperfect and all roads don’t lead back to home.
But most of all, it’s about two extraordinary women: Valerie, a small but mighty middle-aged woman determined to hike thousands of miles on the Appalachian trail. Her trail name is Sparrow because, as she lets us know on the first page, “Sparrows are not much to look at, but they’re smart. Canny. Tiny, feathered battle-axes. Sparrows are survivors.” She is the hunted. The searcher is the first female Maine warden, Bev, who refuses to forfeit hope for Sparrow’s rescue, even when all logical signs point against it happening.
There are strong secondary characters as well: Sparrow’s beefy trail-mate Santo from the Bronx, Bev’s team of intrepid searchers, Sparrow’s husband Gregory. Also, there is an unlikely character named Lena Kucharski, a nursing-home resident who is becoming obsessed with Sparrow’s story because of her own estrangement with her daughter who bears some resemblances. Amity Gaige writes her novel by alternating Sparrow’s own words in her notebook to her mother, Bev’s insights along with messages that come in to her tipline, interviews with Sparrow’s trail-mates, and Lena Kucharski’s increasingly relevant ruminations.
For this reader (whose claim to fame was falling headfirst into a mudbank during an attempt to hike just three miles), the story and the setting were haunting and authentic. It is inspired by the disappearance and death of a 66-year-old hiker named Geraldine Largay, who went missing on the same trail in 2013. Through the novel, I learned a lot about how searches are conducted in Maine (and why the Maine passage is so enormously challenged), and I marveled that in reality, wardens located 97% of those who go missing, and do it mostly within the first 48 hours. And I discovered the lengths experienced hikers go to successfully navigate the Appalachian trail and survive.
Most of all, I recommitted to what it means to be human, when all emotions start out as love. Even though that love is worked on by the forces of luck and suffering, love remains the taproot through desperation, fear, even paranoia. To search, Amity Gaige writes early on, is to guess. Yet sometimes, just sometimes, it brings us to the place we need to be.
Over 16 years ago, when I was an inaugural Amazon Vine reviewer, I received a galley of a new book with a zany title about an invented book club on GuOver 16 years ago, when I was an inaugural Amazon Vine reviewer, I received a galley of a new book with a zany title about an invented book club on Guernsey island. I had no expectations of what the reading experience would be like.
I opened to the first page, and within the first five minutes, I was charmed and more than a little bewitched. The novel, set in the aftermath of World War II, was a reader’s dream book, written in epistolary form, and introduced me to some of the most whimsical characters I had ever met within the pages.
There was Juliet, a budding woman in her early 30s, being pursued by a most desirable man, who, out of the blue receives a letter from a Guernsey pig farmer named Dawsey who is besotted with the essays of Charles Lamb. He happens to find Juliet’s name and address in a second-hand copy, and, sensing a kindred spirit, writes to her.
From that tenuous connection, Juliet “meets” others in Guernsey, who, along with Dawsey, comprise the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. The name was made up on the spot when a German patrol comes across these neighbors who have just consumed a forbidden roast pig. Rather than ‘fess up and face punishment, Elizabeth McKenna – the intrepid leader and Juliet’s alter ego if there ever were one -- claims the revelry was a result of a particularly enthusiastic book club meeting.
Soon, Juliet is utterly intrigued. And so was I. I loved these people, and I knew I was going to have to visit Guernsey again. Rereading this book was like meeting up with old friends: Juliet and Adam Dawsey, of course (and if your mind takes you to Pride & Prejudice’s Mr. Darcy, well, you won’t exactly be in error). But also Isola Pribby, a wonderfully eccentric and warm-hearted fixture of Guernsey, Eben Ramsey, whose grandson was on the kindergarten transports, little four-year-old Kit (Elizabeth’s daughter) who is being raised by her town while her mother’s whereabouts are unknown, and many others who reveal themselves through their letters and stories.
At the center is Elizabeth, feisty and courageous, who was taken away by the Germans for misconduct. Her story is gradually uncovered, and it’s hard not to immediately like her and root for the best possible fate.
Mary Ann Shaffer, obviously a lover of Jane Austen, is an exquisite portrayer of small-town mannerisms and culture, and an era where goodness existed in spades. She also causes her readers to absolutely long for the days when the written word – books and hand-written letters – were precious and revered. This was her debut book, and upon falling ill, she relied on her niece, Annie Barrows, to complete the editing process. Fortunately, Annie was up to the task an the reading experience is seamless.
If you haven’t visited Guernsey yet, do yourself a favor. Go there now. The grim reality of life is depicted, yes. But superimposed on that are three dimensional characters that will restore your faith in humankind, and make you laugh as well as cry. Once again, I closed this book regretful that this imaginary book club did not truly exist and these people were not part of my own circle of literary friends.
I have read any number of literary serial killer books in my lifetime – and yes, the category does exist. Those books include Wolf at the Table by AdaI have read any number of literary serial killer books in my lifetime – and yes, the category does exist. Those books include Wolf at the Table by Adam Rapp, about a family harboring a serial killer in their midst, A Tiny Upward Shove by Melissa Chadburn that traces the journey of two of society’s castoffs as they make their way to each other as criminal and victim, and Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka, a novel that explores the aftermath of a serial killer’s actions through the perspectives of women connected to him.
All were quite good. But I have never, ever, read a tour de force like Abigail Dean’s The Death of Us. In a remarkable feat, the author defines what may be the most intimate and enduring relationship a woman might ever experience – the relationship between her and her rapist and potential killer – and how it adds an unwanted third party to a one-time happy marriage.
Abigail and Edward are at a good point in their marriage. Certainly, it is not perfect – no marriage ever really is – but it’s built on love and caring. And then, in the middle of the night, a serial rapist, whose feats have been reported on often by local media, gets into their home in the middle of the night. For over five hours, he brutally rapes and abuses Abigail while Edward is brought to another room. We do not know for quite some time what psychological horrors Edward endured that night.
We meet up with this couple after a few decades, when the perpetrator, who has graduated to killing, is finally brought to justice and the victims are brought together to share impact statements before sentencing. His name is Nigel Wood. We know this because right from the start, Abigail addresses her chapter to him, using the “you” pronoun. For example, she reflects, “There was no exorcising you, Nigel. You changed the way I walked home on a Friday evening. You changed the taste of wine, the plot of a novel, the confidence of Edward’s hands.” As the novel progresses, Nigel is always inside her, constantly directing how she thinks, reacts, feels, and experiences herself. The only one who can possibly understand is Etta, the detective who is initially assigned to the case.
Abigail’s chapters are always written in the past, as she recalls what happened and the resulting years. “I wasn’t friendless, but I was entirely alone,” she says. Edward’s chapters are firmly linked to the present – the up-and-coming victim statements. Through the years, he has given himself back to the business of living, running from the demons that haunt him including his powerlessness that fatal night.
The Death of Us is not a “serial murder” story. It is a story of love, a story of two people who, despite small cruelties and bigger mistakes, in spite of a shattering night that changed everything, manage to triumph. Not completely, of course – nothing will erase Nigel’s connection. But in a most essential way, choosing to live despite him. This novel, filled with psychological insights and complexity, gives us a glimpse of the stories we tell ourselves to struggle forward.
Seduction Theory at first glance appeared to offer a checklist of things I like in a book. Academic setting? Check! Student-professor infatuation withSeduction Theory at first glance appeared to offer a checklist of things I like in a book. Academic setting? Check! Student-professor infatuation with infidelity thrown in? Check! Psychological complexity in the form of a toxic student who becomes obsessed with her advisor and absorbs details of her life? Check again!
To place a fine point on it, I’ve loved books like Susan Choi’s My Education, where a precocious student ends up tangled in the marriage of two brilliant scholars. Seduction Theory has that vibe. Yet although it also contains themes of infidelity (both physical and emotional), obsession, perceived betrayal and power dynamics, there is a certain static quality that keeps me, as a reader, distanced from these distasteful characters (don’t get me wrong, distasteful protagonists are fun to read about when they are also more psychologically complex.)
Right from the start, we know that Robbie, a graduating student, is working on her MFA thesis, and her topic is the nature of infidelity and how it manifests in a long-term, stable marriage. Her unwitting subjects are Simone, her creative writing advisor who is both beautiful and a published star at Edwards University, and her handsome husband Ethan who also works in the department. Ethan is exploring a “friends with benefits” relationship with the department secretary, Abigail. And Simone? She is exhibiting some serious boundary issues with Robbie, her adoring student, and their interactions could be characterized as an emotional affair.
It was hard to believe that Robbie invasiveness could be tolerated, let alone condoned. Or that she, Simone, or Ethan could be readily tolerated in today’s academic climate. The perfectly-suited couple seemed unlikely to risk their marriage on others who seemed – well, unbalanced. Of course, we get their story as perceived and written by Robbie, so we don't know if everything reported is true. Still, the story didn’t coalesce for this particular reader.
I’m careful to add that term – this particular reader – because I do think there will be other readers who view it more favorably. I am grateful for the advance reading copy from Little, Brown in exchange for my honest review and wish them the best with the launch....more
“The history of sound, lost daily. I’ve started to think of Earth as a wax cylinder; the sun the needle, laid on the land and drawing out the day’s mu“The history of sound, lost daily. I’ve started to think of Earth as a wax cylinder; the sun the needle, laid on the land and drawing out the day’s music – the sound of people arguing, cooking, laughing, singing, moaning, crying, flirting. And behind that, a silent sweep of millions of sleeping people washing across Earth like static.”.
OMG! This masterpiece has been sitting on my TBR shelf for a year, and I can’t believe it’s taken me that long to pick it up. It’s simply superb – breathtaking, shattering, radiant, exhilarating. It makes me want to yell from the rooftops, “Stop what you’re doing! You must read this book!”
The characters in these 12 interlinked stories, spanning three centuries, are searching for love, meaning and connection. Six of the stories are puzzles of sorts that are solved by their companion pieces. All are exquisite.
For example, the titular story holds these words: “My grandfather once said that happiness isn’t a story.” And so it’s not. A young man – barely out of his teens -- meets a folk music expert whom he will love for all his life in the early 20th century. They spend an enchanted summer collecting folk songs, “filled with the voices of thousands who’ve sung and changed them” – the stories of people’s lives. We know from the first paragraph that a stranger will appear at the end of his life with phonograph cylinders containing old recordings of the sounds that were captured that magical summer. That story doesn’t reach full circle until we read that story, Origin Stories, set many decades later.
In another, August in the Forest, a man with writer’s block must confront feelings for a woman he regarded as a best friend when together, they stumble across a mystery of a logging crew that met with a sudden death. In a later story, we discover what really happened through a record of a crew whose expedition becomes increasingly sinister.
In another pairing, a photograph of a Great Auk – long thought extinct – is uncovered. The photographer, now deceased, never capitalized on what would have surely led to fame and fortune. Why? In a following story, we learn the truth behind the day the photograph was taken, in a story that is as touching as it is well-crafted.
Every single story is a gem. Each one contains connections from past to present – memories, feelings, journals, paintings, meditations, and evocations. History, Ben Shattuck suggests, is fluid and always there to inform and regenerate us. The sounds of the past still converse with us and often direct us in our search for redemption and closure. This is a marvelous book. Do yourself a favor and get it. ...more
“But that’s how it is with most things. We are all part of a perfect system. Everyone is needed. Except maybe humans. We are the only ones who take mo“But that’s how it is with most things. We are all part of a perfect system. Everyone is needed. Except maybe humans. We are the only ones who take more than we give.”
Consider, for a moment, the simple ant. For most of us, it is an extreme annoyance, no more than a pesty insect that ruins picnics and sometimes invades our homes with its companions. In reality, when ants build colonies, the soil loosens, and nutrients become available to other species. They are part of the greater ecosystem.
And so it is with humans. Each of the seven members who comprise the eponymous colony in this novel is a misfit, but together with the other six, they form something that’s larger than the sum of their parts. Each – a murderer, a bug-obsessed mother who is unable to nurture her child, a dyslexic teenager, a self-appointed “queen bee”, a child raised in the colony who has never been to school, and so forth – has something that can benefit the others. Together, they eke out an existence, at one with their colony and with nature.
The author spends ample time presenting each of them to us, giving us a close and personal look at each origin story. Despite their flaws – and some of those flaws are massive – we become strangely connected to this ragtag group of misfits. And then something happens. Someone from the outside – a burnt-out city journalist – unwittingly stumbles across this group that lives off the grid. And suddenly, fractures begin to appear.
The book asks questions: is it okay to create a life according to your own rules, and whose rules should they be? Is it an act of service to lead people who want to be led by speaking in a way that makes others want to listen? Are we all, in our own way, part of a colony that runs on established rules that someone else creates for us? Are we a danger to our planet and to each other? How much free will do we actually have?
There’s much to love about this book, and I did love it. It’s a provocative and intriguing look at what community is, and how it succeeds until it no longer can. And it’s also an insightful view of how we must consider becoming more than isolated colonies, but part of the greater ecosystem, to survive long-term....more
The Names is a clever book. That’s a compliment to Florence Knapp’s fertile imagination, but at the same time, it’s also a drawback.
The concept is thiThe Names is a clever book. That’s a compliment to Florence Knapp’s fertile imagination, but at the same time, it’s also a drawback.
The concept is this: Cora has just given birth to her second child, a son. Her physician husband, who is controlling and abusive, wants the boy named after him. As she and her nine-year-old daughter Maia make their way through the aftereffects of the Great Storm to register the baby’s name, Cora knows that only one name will do: Gordon, her husband’s name. Still, Cora prefers the name Julian, which means sky father, and Maia? She loves the name Bear, which sounds “all soft and cuddly and kind.”
Can the choice of a name influence the child’s future, and does it have consequences? This book suggests the answer is “yes.” It proceeds through three storylines, in which the baby has been named Bear, Julian, and Gordon. We get to peek into their lives at seven-year intervals to learn how their lives have unfolded.
In some ways, all three have certain plot elements in common. Maia and her brother maintain a close bond and Maia never deviates from who she becomes – a gay woman who has been forced to mature quickly after witnessing her brutal father’s domestic abuse. The three versions of the boy? Each has his so-called cross to bear, dealing with an emotionally fraught past that reaches its crescendo in three very different ways. Each must struggle to find his way to any sort of happiness. And each must live in the shadow of the past before embracing the possibilities that comprise their future.
All that’s good. But domestic violence is serious business and outrunning a traumatic childhood takes intense work. Recently, I read Nesting, a novel by Roisin O’Donnell, who creates an achingly real scenario of a “good catch” of a husband who has something seriously awry – emotionally and psychologically abusive. I felt as if I were twinned with her character because she was so three-dimensional, as was her manipulative husband.
The husband here – Gordon – is frustratingly inert, a cartoon monster. I never really felt the push-pull of all the emotions that a battered woman experiences in this kind of situation, or her overpowering need to protect her children. Further, I didn’t believe that the choice of names influenced the outcome of the three versions of the boy; it seemed more about the implications of their decisions and the outside forces that impacted them. While the structure is inventive, it’s also inhibiting, as the author strives to fit her characters into the future she has envisioned for them from the start. Don’t get me wrong. I read this book to the very last page, curious about how the plot would unfold, and the author is a very good storyteller. I rate this book 3.5 stars, knowing that other readers will easily fall in love with The Names.
“What we call now has no solidarity…We’re always falling through it.”
Oh, where to start. The Book of Records dazzles with its brilliance – intellectua“What we call now has no solidarity…We’re always falling through it.”
Oh, where to start. The Book of Records dazzles with its brilliance – intellectually rich, soberingly meditative, searingly provocative. It is, also in places, riveting, particularly when Thien zeros in on Hannah Arendt, Baruch Spinoza, and Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The book begins in the near future. A teenage girl, Lina, and her sickly father, Wui Shin, flee the flooded Pearl River Delta (and Lina’s mother and brother) and end up in a colossal migrant compound, overlooking “the Sea.” All they carry with them are three volumes of a series entitled The Great Lives of Voyagers. The volumes contain the histories of 20th century German-Jewish philosopher Arendt, 17th century Portuguese-Jewish scholar Spinoza, and 8th century Chinese poet Du Fu – each of whom struggled with authoritarianism and backlash in their own times. As soon as Lin and her father settle in, the doors slide open to their neighbors – Jupiter, Bento, and Blucher, who are the avatars for the three historical figures.
“The only way to really remember is to forget everything and let time fill the story up. To reach it through a different doorway.” So writes Thien. Indeed, the story gets filled up, as we readers begin to experience a more fleshed-out version of the three and what they had to endure – the collapse of their societies -- and ultimately, how taking responsibility for their lives leads to an open door for some sort of truth.
The author herself had this to say, “I always have the sense that Arendt, Spinoza, and Du Fu are thinking beside the reader. It’s as if there’s a hollow in their work and within this hollow there’s room for another person…with whom they are constantly, eternally in dialogue.” My reading experience is testimony to the author’s intention, and in many instances, I thrilled to it.
The Book of Records is chock full of philosophical ideas, but perhaps the most prominent is how to tell the story of the past to an eternally changing world; in short, memory and its altercations. One character says, “Maybe you and I should set sights on a world that emerges between each and every person. Maybe imagination is a way to find that place.” In another instance: “…when people like you and me have the training, expertise, and most of all the memory, should we leave governance to unprincipled fate? The most ethical way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Wow. Just wow. The book is brilliant, but it’s also quite challenging. There were times when I felt a little “lost at Sea”, slowing down, then speeding up, and trying to regain my moorings. I always admired, but didn’t always love, Book of Records. But one thing’s for sure: I’m very glad I read it. It has tendrils into the geo-political challenges we face today and I doubt I will soon forget it or ever read another book quite like it. I can’t thank W.W. Norton enough for providing me with an early copy in exchange for an honest review....more
The author of Mothering Sunday – an ode to the art of fiction and story-telling – can do no wrong for this reader. When I heard Graham Swift had a new The author of Mothering Sunday – an ode to the art of fiction and story-telling – can do no wrong for this reader. When I heard Graham Swift had a new short story collection about ordinary people impacted by historic tragedies, I knew I had to read it pronto!
Several of them are little gems that illuminate the aftermath of war. In the first story, The Next Best Thing, a young private named Joseph Caan, currently residing with the British Army of the Rhine, meets up with a scrupulously polite German functionary who prides himself on his excellent English. He promises to contact Tracing Services to determine what happened to Caan’s Jewish German-born father in World War II. Yet one suspects he is just doing his duty and may actually be coming from a malevolent place.
In “Black”, set in the mid-1940s, the daughter of an abusive father makes a choice to sit next to a Black American airman on a bus in England. She muses, ‘’Her father would kill her? If he would kill her for smoking or, say, for wearing bright red lipstick, then he would kill her, surely for this.” At the same time, she knows that her actions are such an unthinkable extreme of what his daughter should do, she could and would outface him with it.
There is his story Beauty, where Tom Phillips, a recent widower, is also facing the death by suicide of his granddaughter, Clare. As he is being led to Clare’s university room by her attractive dean, Tom suddenly and inexplicably feels desire. Or Fireworks, where the Cuban missile crisis is unfolding in real time, and the father of the bride is determined this frightening event will not ruin his daughter’s wedding. He flashes back to a time when he was a bomb-aimer and he was similarly frightened and yet determined.
Graham Swift is all about reckoning with past selves and finding strengths in current ones, tackling fading memories, psychic scars, and personal conflicts. Not every story works; a couple of them don’t quite make the emotional connection I crave. I am grateful to Knopf for enabling me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review.
“Love is an action word, I thought. It can be committed, like a crime.”
If you’re very lucky in life – as I have been – having a sister means knowing t“Love is an action word, I thought. It can be committed, like a crime.”
If you’re very lucky in life – as I have been – having a sister means knowing there’s someone on your side who will give you unwavering loyalty and support and comfort no matter what life throws your way. In other situations, though, sisterhood might be fraught with jealousy, envy, and rivalry.
Genevieve’s best friend and nemesis, Arin, didn’t appear the way regular sisters did. She was dropped into Gen’s life, fully formed, at age seven. Gen had believed her whole young life that her grandfather had died years ago. In reality, he left her grandmother, started another family, and then died, leaving behind a gaggle of grandchildren. Arin, the youngest, and slated to live with Gen and her parents.
The two – Gen, the studious one and Arin, who is more reticent – become close. But then, Arin wins a story contest through her essay, Land of Opportunity. In it, she reveals her true thoughts: “How many nights had she lain in this new and uncertain home, dumb with terror, how many days had she lived afraid of her own shadow, of being discarded again? What kind of opportunity was this?” Gen is, after all, the original sister; Arin is the bonus one.
As the plot progresses – as Gen’s star fades and Arin’s ascends – the complex nature of their relationship with each other and with their mother shifts and changes. The fact that they live in Singapore, a fiercely competitive country where a college essay exam determines their entire future and there is no room for academic error, heightens the competition between them.
The narration of the book is from Genevieve’s perspective, but it’s not long before we see that she may not be the most reliable narrator. Her bitterness, envy, and building belief that her mother must believe she represents “only a lifetime’s accumulation of disappointment” leads to her to discount sacrifices made for her. Her existence is animated by anger and resentment, yet without the anger, her life feels meaningless.
This is a fine character study of a mother and two daughters in crisis, as the sisters try to negotiate the yawning gap between freedom and ambition with family love. The first half of the novel is stronger than the second, and the author might have done more in drilling down to examine Gen’s inner unraveling. It’s themes, particularly the costs of unbridled emphasis on achievement, should spark much discussion.
"This is how it happens. Your life appears to be about one thing. Then the phone rings, and in a single moment, it is completely and irrevocably about"This is how it happens. Your life appears to be about one thing. Then the phone rings, and in a single moment, it is completely and irrevocably about something else."
Jennifer Haigh explores the intersection between causality and chance in this riveting novel of interconnected lives and connections – true connections, missed connections and sometimes parasitic connections.
It begins with a hit-and-run accident: Lindsey, a young woman living alone in Shanghai, is struck by a car and now lingers in a twilight sleep between life and death. Her divorced parents, Claire and Aaron, race to her bedside. Lindsey’s younger sister, Grace, who was adopted from China, is left at a summer camp, unaware of the precariousness of her beloved sister’s state. Gradually, we learn the circumstances of why Lindsey is living in Shanghai, what she is doing there, and how Claire and Aaron have come to separate.
The title of the novel is instructive. The Moon Rabbit’s story symbolically involves a sacrifice, rewarded by living on the moon, and is associated with eternal life and a higher state of being. As Claire and Aaron struggle to gain bearings in the newly prosperous “miracle city”, they must uncover who Lindsey really is, who the other one is, and most importantly, who they truly are. Grace is given the same opportunity in the last pages of this novel – to discover her authentic self.
“Becoming,” one of the characters reflects, “is a lifelong process.” Indeed, as the oblivious Earth spins in its orbit, can any of us really guess what goes on the inner lives of those we think we know? Is “truth” ever truth, or is it selective, based on what we want to believe at any given time? How do we make sense of a world where one misjudged turn, one meter’s miscalculation, lead to consequences that would have been unimaginable even an hour ago?
Jennifer Haigh does a wonderful job of revealing to the reader important insights that the characters never get to understand about each other. At the same time, she tackles a bigger worldview that touches upon the Chinese cultural revolution, the morality of adopting overseas, the dehumanization of living in increasingly crowded and polluted cities, and the seeking of love where it can’t possibly thrive. My only nitpick is the ending is a little too conveniently plotted. That being said, Rabbit Moon is still earns 4.5 stars from me.
A few years ago, during a low period of my life, I came across a box of handwritten letters that my mother had written to me while I was away at colleA few years ago, during a low period of my life, I came across a box of handwritten letters that my mother had written to me while I was away at college. In one of them, my silly 17-year-old self had written to her about how my life was going to be destroyed forever because I didn’t get into the sorority of my choice. My mother answered with a wise, loving, and empathetic letter, urging me to be more resilient and expressing utmost confidence in my future. Her letter lifted me up at the time and reading it again after so many years, I moved forward, once again enveloped in her love.
That is a testimony to the incredible power of letter writing. Virginia Evans, in her remarkable novel – which I’m sure will be in my Top 10 of this year – captures this power by creating a character readers won’t soon forget. Sybil Van Antwerp is a septuagenarian and retired law clerk, whose life is gradually revealed through her correspondence with her best friend, brother, disturbed young son of a former colleague, dean of her former college, neighbor, authors such as Ann Patchett and Joan Didion, and a few surprises.
Sybil, who is outspoken, blunt, and curiously private, is the mother of two living children, and only has a speaking relationship with one of them. Her daughter is estranged, and her middle son died when he was just a boy. Writing is a solace to her. At one point, Sybil writes, “Imagine: the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle…even if they remain for the rest of time, dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that the very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”
It is through these letters that we learn Sybil is complex (as we all are): a tapestry of errors, hurts, joys, and acts of unspeakable kindness. She has caused pain, yes, but she has also healed aching hearts. And she has gradually gained insights. To her best friend, she writes, “We are thirty in our hearts, before all the disappointment, all the way few thought it would be, but then again, it has also been magic.” None of us get through life scot-free, but maybe, just maybe, life will show us grace if we believe in the healing balms of literature and connections and allow ourselves to self-forgive.
As a writer – as a correspondent – myself, this book made me feel all the feels. By the end, I knew and loved Sybil, and that’s quite a feat for any author to create. ...more
Were it not for belonging to a food-inspired book group at Duke, I wouldn't have picked this up. It is not the genre I usually read.
If I hadn't, I wouWere it not for belonging to a food-inspired book group at Duke, I wouldn't have picked this up. It is not the genre I usually read.
If I hadn't, I would have missed out. Praisesong is written by Kentucky's poet laureate, the award-winning author of Perfect Black and Water Street, and the keeper of her family's stories and cherished recipes. It's a cookbook, a memoir, a lyrical look at the African American influence on Appalachian footways. In short, it's sui generis.
Ms. Williamson found her family's recipes and stories in apron pockets and tucked into the sweet scent of clove and cinnamon. Often, readers get to read and imagine the lives of Black Appalachians (although often, those stories don't even exist since our country too often conflates white with rural), but Praisesong lets us salivate and taste these stories. As a result, the book is great for amateur historians but also for cooks, who will find tons of blackberry recipes as well as Patsy Riffe's Hoecakes, Praising Biscuits, Garlicky White Soup Beans, Pine Lick Mutton Leg and Gravy, Chess Pie -- the list goes on and on.
"I am the one," Ms. Williamson says, "who makes a pot of chicken and dumplings and cornbread, who conjures up the kitchen ghosts of my rural homeland every time I cook." This book is a gem, not only for yourself, but for gifting cooks who feel the power of love in every bite they eat....more
Like many of the books I love best, this one is set in rural Ireland. It’s centered around a few colorful and shady characters: Dev Hendrick, a letharLike many of the books I love best, this one is set in rural Ireland. It’s centered around a few colorful and shady characters: Dev Hendrick, a lethargic giant of a man who lives with his mutt Georgie, two bad hombre drug-dealing brothers and their former partner Cillian (who owes them money), and Cillian’s aimless younger brother Doll.
Linguistically inventive with a dollop of humor and muscular prose, Wild Houses is the kind of novel that sucks you in from the very first paragraph. The bad hombres decide to kidnap Doll and bring him to Dev’s remote safe house location, and then to issue an ultimatum: fork over the $20,000 in drug money or you may never see your little brother again. It’s not exactly the most original premise, but Colin Barrett elevates it to sheer poetry.
Dev is not the ordinary lumpy dullard; rather, he is introspective, has some semblance of a conscience, and is trapped in a sort of stasis. Doll (Donal, whose first strivings to say his name, stuck to this day) is going nowhere fast, but he is wily and involved with a woman named Nicky, a fantastic character who may be the only one capable of escaping her fate. And the drug dealers – the thuggish and unpredictable Ferdia brothers? Not exactly the brightest bulbs and driven by their primitive brains.
Colin Barrett wisely doesn’t go for the cinematic or the “thrills a minute”, which would have cheapened his book. Rather, he breathes life into the dregs of County Mayo – the drug dealers, the bartenders, the neer-do-wells, the kidnappers – and gives readers a peephole into their moral swamp and inaction. Every character – even the dog – comes across as authentic. ...more
Imagine, if you will, being a young mother in Ireland with two toddlers and finding out you are newly pregnant with a third. You are trapped in an emoImagine, if you will, being a young mother in Ireland with two toddlers and finding out you are newly pregnant with a third. You are trapped in an emotionally abusive marriage, your mother and sister are supportive but live away and have little money, and you don’t have the means to support yourself, let alone your little ones. What do you do?
Roisin O’Donnell creates this claustrophobic scenario that keeps readers turning pages. Her protagonist, Ciara Fay, could be any woman. Under other circumstances, she could be you or me. Her husband, Ryan, is a good catch in many ways: handsome, loving when he wants to be, outwardly committed to keeping the family together. He has never struck her or physically hurt her or the children.
But something is awry with him. He scares her. His volatility means his emotions can change on a dime. He is emotionally abusive, psychologically abusive, and sexually abusive. He is never happy, he has isolated her from friends and family, and he has this temper if she “disobeys”. Fortunately, Ciara is intuitive enough to trust her instincts.
We follow her as she tries to navigate the broken system in Ireland (which could be nearly any country) to find temporary free housing. Heavily pregnant, she is forced to live with her two daughters in one bed, eat takeout, wash her meager clothes in the sink, look for a job after years of leave so she can afford a little house, and manage a pregnancy that increasingly becomes high-risk. All the while, Ryan is sending her texts pleading her to come home because he “loves” her. I couldn’t help but wonder: with such an uphill battle, would I have the resilience and fortitude to stay away? Could any woman?
How she manages – if she manages – is something readers will need to discover for themselves. All I’ll add is that although I have not met women in Ciara’s situation, she seems achingly real, and she is a reminder that domestic abuse takes many forms. We need to do better for all the Ciaras in the world. ...more
It’s hard to write a review of The Book of Guilt without paying homage to one of Kazuo Ishiguro’s most famous novels, Never Let Me Go.
From the very fiIt’s hard to write a review of The Book of Guilt without paying homage to one of Kazuo Ishiguro’s most famous novels, Never Let Me Go.
From the very first sentence (“Before I knew what I was, I lived with my brothers in a grand old house in the heart of the New Forest”), the ghosts of Kathy, Ruth and Tommy, Ishiguro’s trio of “different” students at Hailsham are evoked. Like that memorable trio, Vincent, Lawrence and William – identical triplets – suspect something is “different” about themselves but aren’t quite sure what it might be.
We readers know they are orphans. We know they are also societal outcasts and live under the care of a trio of mothers (Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon, and Mother Night). They also are taught, molded, and reprimanded through a trio of books. The Book of Dreams is an ongoing reporting of their nightmares, the Book of Lessons is their “apple of knowledge” and The Book of Guilt – well, that is the book that may very well seal their fate.
Perhaps the author is suggesting an unholy trio, and certainly, very soon, we gain an inkling of why. This secluded home is part of the government’s Sycamore Scheme, and little by little, we learn that that scheme entails and what makes it unholy. Although identical, the three boys deviate in their personalities, but they share a dream: they will someday be sent to the Big House in Margate, which is filled with amusement park rides, plenty of treats, and lots of other kids to play with. The gradual awakening that they exist for a nefarious reason – a reason in which the end justifies the means – is also a haunting reminder of Ishiguro’s work.
Of course, anyone who has read Chidgey’s other works – including Remote Sympathy, Pet, and Axeman’s Carnival – knows she is a superb writer in her own right. Once you begin one of her novels, it’s nearly impossible to put it down and she never writes the same book twice. Here, she tackles subjects that are completely relevant to today’s world. At a time when we are being forced to confront who we regard as human and who is “alien” and therefore, dispensable, we recognize the horror of living under a state that thinks it has the right to dehumanize and denigrate an “unworthy” element.
As in Remote Sympathy, Chidgey asks: what happens if you know the truth but refuse to acknowledge it or act upon it? And she also ponders: Is our genetic coding the key to who we become, or can we change our destiny by being cared for in a loving environment? Is saving some lives worth destroying others? How much of our own humanity do we sacrifice by depriving others of theirs?
The answer to the last question is obvious. The recent revelation of Alligator Alcatraz, where 66% of prisoners are innocent and are slated to live in the most sub-human conditions, is tearing away at our definition of what it means to be human in the 21st century as we inure ourselves to human suffering.
I’m torn here between 4 and 5 stars. The book quicky became unputdownable, and the moral questions Chidgey asks are vital and important. I only wish that Ishiguro’s muse didn’t loom so large. ...more
When I was a schoolgirl, I had to memorize William Wordsworth’s sonnet, The World is Too Much With Us, and throughout reading Stone Yard Devotional, tWhen I was a schoolgirl, I had to memorize William Wordsworth’s sonnet, The World is Too Much With Us, and throughout reading Stone Yard Devotional, the words ran through my head.
This is the story of an unnamed Australian narrator – an atheist who leaves the city life and her marriage behind and takes her place in a small cloistered religious retreat. There she experiences the “unholy trinity” – an infestation of mice, the return of the bones of a nun who left the community to minister to abused women in Thailand and met an untimely death, and finally, the visitation of Helen Parry who has become a superstar activist. Unlike the narrator, Helen Parry is mentioned by both her names and brings back dark memories of the narrator’s unkind actions toward her a lifetime ago.
The novel takes place in the early days of COVID, a time when Australia did indeed face a mouse plague, and when the outside world became even more frightening. Our narrator reflects, “I am filled with mourning…for all the extinctions and threats, flooded once again with the knowledge that nothing outside these abbey walls is well, and no manner of things shall be well. And I know that inside these walls, Helen Parry is the only one who will face that truth.”
At a point of time when our nation – our world – is facing so many existential threats and so much cruelty, Charlotte Wood begs us to consider: is there any place, inside or outside of our mind, that we can truly take refuge? Is abdication of the world the answer or is it more likely that everyone who chooses the path of the narrator has hurt someone by coming? Can anyone truly forgive another who has hurt them badly, and how do we go about finding that shred of forgiveness? Is there meaning in suffering? And most of all, what does it mean to “be good”, given our human nature? How do we ever move from despair to hope?
The mice, which gnaw through the pages of the book and eventually, our minds, are both literal and metaphorical. Not unlike humans, they destroy everything in their path, including their habitat, their deceased brethren, and even the face of a peace dove. This atmospheric and introspective novel deserves its short listing for the Booker Prize and is both profound and timely. ...more
Later in The Imagined Life, our narrator, Steven Mills, watches a cryptic film that subverts the conventions of the mystery genre. He asks himself, “WLater in The Imagined Life, our narrator, Steven Mills, watches a cryptic film that subverts the conventions of the mystery genre. He asks himself, “Why would someone go to the trouble of making a mystery, only to provide no answer to that mystery in the end?”
Steven’s father, a brilliant scholar, is denied tenure, leading to his vanishing from young Steven’s life. The reasons have always been a mystery to him, one he needs to solve as he replicates his father’s pathology. His father’s disappearance has, for many years, left him “consumed by a kind of quiet rage, a nihilism…” Currently, Steven is living out of his car, estranged from his own wife and young son, remote and unconnected.
His quest to uncover his father’s life and motivations takes him throughout the Golden State, ironically, the state where images are crafted, and dreams are sought. In meeting up with his father’s former colleagues and friends, what emerges is a web of contradictions: his father was “insecure and confident, narcissistic and selfless…easygoing and jovial but shy and withdrawn.” From early in the book, we also know that he was in love with a handsome male colleague in an era that did not view these couplings kindly.
As Steven recalls the life his father left behind – the legendary pool parties and black-and-white films on the backyard projector – he also recognizes that life is never just black and white. It is complex, hazy, layered, and often, unknowable to others. The quest for the missing father morphs into a quest for self as well.
In Andrew Porter’s The Disappeared, one of the most flawless short story collections I’ve ever read, the author explores characters who are in the process of experiencing a loss, a disappearance, a need, a defeat, a metamorphosis from a younger self. Certainly, that theme is present here. Here, Andrew Porter holds readers at a bit more of a detached distance (the words “I remember” are frequently used, which puts readers in the position of listening to a narrative as opposed to twinning with the narrator on his journey. That is a personal preference, but one thing’s for certain: Andrew Porter is a sure-footed and masterful writer whose writing is always very, very good.
I rarely start a review marveling about the cover art and chapter separators, but in this debut book, it sets the stage for what to expect on your reaI rarely start a review marveling about the cover art and chapter separators, but in this debut book, it sets the stage for what to expect on your reader journey: a muted and hushed story that nonetheless couches subtle beauty.
The first chapter orients the reader into time and place: the San Francisco of the future, where the rain has been pouring down for seven years and the streets have been transformed to rivers. The residents – including our narrator, Bo – have had to seek higher ground. Read that as a metaphor.
Despite the widespread exodus, Bo hasn’t left (“If I leave, she asks, “how can I be found?” She belongs to the city. And just when she needs it most, she finds her purpose to stay: a woman named Mia, who is 130 years old and in desperate need of home care. She is Bo’s anchor in a watery world and her way back to the specifics, not only of the future, but also of her familial legacy.
Bo’s purpose becomes the art of creation: taking what exists before her time and before the floods and superimposing it on the city’s history – the records and archives, the landmarks and buildings, the challenging history of Asian immigrants (which included the Chinese Exclusion Act, Angel Island, and more), and the disappearing stories of those who moved on.
At its core, this is a novel about the importance of connection: to family and ancestry, to friends (old and new), to our creative muses, and to our need for meaning. I am grateful to BookBrowse and to Pantheon Books for enabling me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review....more