When you see that certain authors have new books coming out, you just get excited, right? For me, two of those authors are Barbara Kingsolver and Kate Atkinson, so when both recently dropped new books, I couldn't wait to snatch them up.
Before I had gotten very far into Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver's new book, I happened upon a couple of reviews, neither of which sounded much like the book I was enjoying. One called it the "first major novel to tackle the Trump era straight on"--really? It's certainly (partially) set in the present and refers indirectly to Trump (as "The Bullhorn) and discusses his surprising rise, but it's so much more than that. The second review I saw called it a story of mother-daughter relationships--wow! A mother-daughter relationship is certainly part of the story, but so are mother-son, daughter-in-law/father-in-law, husband/wife (two of those), brother-in-law/sister-in-law, grandmother-grandson relationships. Piqued by these two reviews, I looked at what people were saying on Goodreads and found equally (to me) weird comments--"It's too much about plants" and "It's too whiny" are two examples. A reminder that the same book can be a very different reading experience for different people.
So what was Unsheltered to me? A good book about people struggling and the relationships and principles that sustain them in hard times. As I mentioned, half of the book is set in the present, half in the 1870s; both stories feature people living in a town in New Jersey established as a Christian utopian community but hardly offering a utopian home to our characters. In the 1870s, newly married science teacher Thatcher Greenwood is struggling with both a school administrator who restricts what he can teach and a wife who wants a higher status life than Thatcher can give her. Thatcher's house, which his wife's mother has "inherited" from a relative who has moved West is falling down around them and they don't have the money to fix it. Thatcher does have friendships that help him stand his ground, with his young sister-in-law; his nextdoor neighbor, naturalist Mary Treat (an actual historical figure); and the editor of the alternative newspaper.
In the present, Willa (a laid-off journalist) and Iano (a college professor whose employer went out of business due to financial problems) are also struggling with an inherited home that is collapsing, quite literally. While Iano has found a temporary position with a college in Philadelphia, the family doesn't have the resources to fix the house; they must get Medicaid to provide medical care for Iano's diabetic (and conservative) father and their baby grandson, whom their son--mourning the suicide of his partner--has left with them while he pursues business opportunities. Their underemployed daughter Tig, who also lives with them, is often a thorn in Willa's side, pointing out the failures of the older generation. Willa, too, has relationships that sustain her, in this case her marriage and a new friendship with the curator of the local history museum.
My description makes the book sound rather grim, but I didn't find it so--the ways in which Thatcher, Willa, Mary, and Tig find meaning amid difficulty were actually inspiring.
One small quibble: I listened to the audio book, which is read by Kingsolver. At one point when Willa is having an unsatisfying exchange with an African American social worker, she reports the woman saying "aks" rather than "ask" and then makes fun of that pronunciation. Honestly, that should be beneath both Willa and Kingsolver.
I was less enamored with Kate Atkinson's new book Transcription. I loved her two earlier books set during World War II (and before and after)--Life after Life and A God in Ruins, both of which played with the meaning of narrative and what a novel is in thought-provoking ways. Transcription is essentially a spy novel featuring a young woman protagonist; since spy novels have never particularly appealed to me, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I wasn't too excited about this book. The main character wasn't very believable to me--a weird combination of totally naive and very well read. And the twist that came at the end of the book seemed equally unrealistic.
So a thumb's up for Unsheltered and a thumb's down (unless you're a spy novel aficionado) for Transcription. But I'll still be looking forward to Atkinson's next book.
Whose books do you particularly look forward to?
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