With the return of "stay home" orders (stated a little less stridently) and lots of mindless tasks that are great for doing while listening to books (putting up Christmas decorations, wrapping gifts, addressing Christmas cards--yes, I'm trying to get ready early), I got through a lot of books in November. A number of them were light enough to float and I may have chosen a few too many featuring millennial protagonists--but there were also some good ones!
Fiction
Anxious People, by Fredrick Backman. I'm not a huge Backman fan, but I really enjoyed this book--it was the right combination of humor and uplift for the ninth month of a pandemic. A bank robber is foiled when the targeted bank has no cash. In desperation, the robber flees into a nearby apartment where a real estate agent is conducting a showing with a diverse group of quirky people (it is Backman, after all). Meanwhile, a father-son pair of police officers, struggling with the mother/wife's death and their very different approaches to policing, try to figure out how to get the hostages out safely. Running beneath the humor is the story of two suicide attempts--one completed, the other not--that took place on a bridge visible from the apartment where the robber and real-estate "buyers" are holed up. This aspect of the novel gives it some depth that it wouldn't otherwise have. Overall, the epitome of the phrase "a good read."
Monogamy, by Sue Miller. I like Sue Miller. Sometimes I love her. With Monogamy, I'm stuck at like, but like is good too. Annie wakes up one morning to find her husband Graham dead next to her. Over the following days and weeks, she, their daughter, Graham's first wife Frieda, and his son with Frieda all grapple with their relationships to Graham and to each other. The book causes the reader to consider questions like how, even in good marriage, one partner can be subsumed by the other or how the best-intentioned parent can inflict pain on their children or how two women who loved the same man can forge a friendship. Like I said, I like this book--and I recommend it.
The Accidental, by Ali Smith. Ali Smith is a darling of the critics, but I don't find her work compelling in any way. It includes narratives from four family members--husband/stepfather Michael, mother Eve, children Magnus and Astrid--and an uninvited guest at their vacation house, Amber. Amber's role seems to be to point out the cracks in the family, which are many and which she, in fact, widens. But, with the exception of Magnus's agony about his role in a bullying incident in which the victim committed suicide, I found the family members' stories unmoving and Amber's sections are incomprehensible to me. Not recommended. By the way, I was tempted to read this book after not liking a couple of other Ali Smith's by its being part of the Rooster Super Tournament, meaning a group of authors chose it as the best book of the year when it was published (for more about this, see https://themorningnews.org/tob/); they were wrong.
The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick DeWitt. Affirming that the Rooster and I are out of synch, I thought The Sisters Brothers was just dumb. It's about two hit men in the West of the mid-1800s, in search of a man their boss wants dead. They encounter various quirky people (and are pretty quirky themselves) on their "road trip"--I assume it's supposed to be funny. But even if I am wrong, I can't see how this was the best book of any year.
Father of the Rain, by Lily King. The white protagonist of this novel, Daley, is about to drive to Berkeley to take up a faculty appointment in anthropology at Berkeley. Her African American fiance will join her there shortly. Then she receives news that her alcoholic father is in the midst of a health crisis; she rushes to his side, intended to staying just a few days. But the days drag on, as she reflects on how her father disrupted her childhood and why she even as an adult cannot confront his retrograde attitudes on race and gender. There's some interesting exploration of the father-daughter relationship, but I was so irritated with Daley's decision-making that I couldn't find empathy for her.
The Institute, by Stephen King. I don't think I've ever read a Stephen King novel before and I'm not going to start binging his oeuvre, but I did find The Institute quite interesting. Children with telekinetic or telepathic powers are kidnapped and taken to "The Institute," where their abilities are tapped for nefarious or admirable purposes depending on your perspective. Half of the book focuses on what happens to the children at The Institute, half on the events that transpire when one young man, Lucas, escapes and attempts to rescue his friends. Definitely worth reading.
What Are You Going Through? by Sigrid Nunez. Nunez here continues her exploration of death, begun in The Friend. The unnamed narrator is asked by a friend to help her die. They will live together in a vacation rental until the (also unnamed) friend becomes ill enough to decide to commit suicide. They share good times, deep conversations about life and death, and tension; at the same time, the narrator is also interacting with her ex-husband, who lectures about the approaching end of the world due to climate change--death at another level. The book has been very positively reviewed, although I didn't find it find it terribly engaging. Would definitely recommend The Friend over this newer work.
Afterland, by Lauren Beukes. It's another post-pandemic novel! This time, the disease that sweeps around the world causes men, following recovery from the virus, to come down with a deadly form of prostate cancer. As a result, any boys and men who do not succumb are being "protected" in camps where they are subjected to medical experiments. At the same time, traffickers seek to kidnap boys for sperm harvesting. Cole, a native of South Africa, is trying to get her son, disguised as a girl, across country to escape the United States (evidently, the situation in other countries is not as bad). Among their other adventures, they get involved with a female religious cult. There are better post-pandemic books but this one was enjoyable.
The Party Upstairs, by Lee Conell. Ruby has just been dumped and lost her job; she's also got serious debt. So what does she do? Moves back into her parents' apartment. Her dad Martin is the super in a NYC apart building, so that apartment is in the basement, figuratively miles away from the people who live upstairs, including Ruby's old "friend" Beth, who is planning a party for the evening of the day in which the story unfolds. Ruby and her dad face an array of challenges during the day (her mother is conveniently away at a librarians' conference) that send them both into tailspins and prompt them to reflect on their relationship as well as the class structure the apartment building represents. Recommended.
Oona Out of Order, by Margarita Monitomore. On her 19th birthday, coincidentally--or not, New Year's Day--Oona wakes up to find herself a 51-year-old woman. She learns that she experiences life in random order and that she is a wealthy woman as a result of investments made using knowledge gained through her "time travel." Many years, she receives a letter from herself at the previous age; the letters help her navigate the situation but there are mysteries the letters do not answer. Oona Out of Order is reminiscent of The Time Traveller's Wife; while perhaps not as good as that book, it's still inventive and enjoyable.
Days of Distraction, by Alexandra Chang. This apparently autobiographical novel follows a young Chinese American woman as she kvetches about her job at a San Francisco tech magazine, leaves to travel cross country with her Anglo boyfriend who is moving to Ithaca for grad school, becomes interested in the history of Chinese American women, and travels to China to visit her father. The structure She's rather an annoying character but the book has an interesting kind of random structure and explores intriguing questions about race, ethnicity, families, and love, so I give it a qualified recommendation.
Mystery
Eight Perfect Murders, by Peter Swanson. I had never heard of Peter Swanson and was excited to find a new mystery author to check out. Plus Eight Perfect Murders has the big plus of having a literary element--the mysteries in the book are modeled on eight classic murder mysteries. Although there was a bit too much explaining at the end, I enjoyed the book enough to cause me to pick up Swanson's All the Beautiful Lies. This mystery revolves around whether Harry Ackerman's father committed suicide or was murdered. There is again a book connection--Mr. Ackerman owned a rare book shop--and there are some rather weird sexual encounters. Not as good as Eight Perfect Murders, but good enough that I will likely try another Swanson book.
Nonfiction
I often say I don't like memoirs, but I have to admit that a good memoir is rewarding--and Memorial Drive, by poet Natasha Tretheway, is a very good memoir. Tretheway writes about her childhood as the daughter of a black mother and white father, the dissolution of her parents' marriage, her mother's eventual re-marriage and divorce, and the mother's murder by her ex-husband. The book is not simply a straightforward narrative. One chapter, in which young Tasha reports her stepfather's abuse to a teacher is written in second person, as though the author simply could not bear to write this material in her own voice. She also includes transcripts of telephone conversations between her mother and stepfather, as well as a document written by her mother. It's a devastating portrait and exploration of trauma and its effects, as well as a way to look at what it means for African American women to seek freedom and how writing can heal. It's about more than Natasha Tretheway--it's about life. And, of course, it's beautifully written.
Stray, by novelist Stephanie Danler, seems to be the opposite. It is all about Stephanie Danler--her difficult childhood, her escape from NYC after selling her novel, her struggles to figure out what she wants to do with her life and how she wants to incorporate her problematic family into her life, and her romantic struggles. It could be a meaningful account, but it's all about her, it's not about how her life could inform others' understanding of their lives. It's a great example of what I dislike about memoirs.
Poetry
How to Fly, by Barbara Kingsolver. Poetry is not Kingsolver's best genre--that would be fiction, followed by essays. But she's a competent poet and some of the works in this collection offer rewards. The poems include "How to" poems ("How to Shear a Sheep," "How to Survive This," "How to Be Married"), poems about a pilgrimage to Italy, poems about Southern families and experiences, and poems about the natural world. There are a couple of references that bothered me (one about slavery struck me as particularly wrong). One of my favorites was "Walking Each Other Home," a brief portrait of two friends walking together between their two homes. It ends:
I walk from my house to hers
and then together we speak of things--
or don't, we are often quiet--
all the way back home to mine. Or she
walks here first, collects me for her return.
Either way, this is the road where we live.
Always we walk each other home.
And always we walk some of it alone.
Also Read
- A Star Is Bored, by Byron Lan. Really did not like this book written by a former assistant to Carrie Fischer because it feels like he is using her mental problems for comic purposes.
- The Searcher, by Tana French. Sorry to say, this stand-alone from the Irish author is just boring.
- The Lying Room, by Nicci French. Other French books I've read are very dark and psychological. This one about a woman who finds her boss/lover dead is complicated but (IMHO) dumb.
- The Lightness, by Emily Temple. Uses the trope of girls doing bad things at camp/school but puts the girls in a Buddhist retreat where they are trying to achieve levitation. Ugh.
- Forever, Interrupted, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Weird to say an exploration of a new husband's death could be lightweight, but this one is.
- Blue Ticket, by Sophie Mackintosh. A dystopic novel in which girls receive either a blue ticket (can have children) or blue ticket (will not have children) that determines their fate. But the thinking behind the society's structure and other aspects of that structure are unarticulated.
- Broken People, by Sam Lansky. Some aspects of the insecure main character's story were interesting, but the stupid central plot device--a wellness retreat where, under the influence of drugs, you sort through your memories and magically emerge more balanced, ruined the book for me.
- All My Mother's Lovers, by Ilana Masad. After her mother's death, a woman finds letters to five men and investigates who these men were to her mother. Interesting but wrecked by a terrible ending.
- Self Care, by Leigh Stern. This often funny book about three women running a self-care "feminist" website for bougie millennials also suffers from a bad ending.
- The Authenticity Project, by Clare Pooley. An elderly man leaves a notebook in a coffee shop, urging the next person who finds it to write their authentic story. Sweet but shallow.
- The Wives, by Tarryn Fisher. Thursday claims to be a happily married wife whose husband just happens to have two other wives who live in other cities. When she begins to question her husband's veracity and finds the other two wives, strange things happen and the book takes a twist that ruined it for me.
- A Minute to Midnight, by David Baldacci. The second in the Atlee Pine series, the book is annoying because no progress is made in solving the mystery that starts the book.
- Sadie, by Courtney Summers. One sister is dead, one is missing, and a true crime blogger is trying to find the missing girl and find out who killed the other. Already tired of the crime blogger trope.
Favorite Passages
They say that a person's personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn't true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we'd never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we're more than the mistake we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.
. . . we weren't ready to become adults. Somebody should have stopped us.
Fredrick Backman, Anxious People
In the narrative of my life, which is the look backward rather than forward into the unknown and unstoried future, I emerged from the pool as from a baptismal font--changed, reborn--as if I had been shown what would be my calling even then. This is how the past fits into the narrative of our lives, gives meaning and purpose. Even my mother's death is redeemed in the story of my calling, made meaningful rather than merely senseless. It is the story I tell myself to survive.
Natasha Tretheway, Memorial Drive
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