Wrapping up the Year's Reading

This year I read more than 300 books, which is definitely a record for me (at least since childhood). I would feel it was more of an achievement, if so many weren't mindless mysteries that I listened to while packing/unpacking, doing jigsaw puzzles, etc. 

As usual at this time of year, I have started "working on" the list of books that appeared on the most "Best of 2021" lists that Lit Hub puts together (https://lithub.com/the-ultimate-best-books-of-2021-list/). I had read a measly seven prior to seeing the list, but the first book I got from it--Hummingbird Salamander, by Jeff VanderMeer--definitely made me question the worth of this endeavor and my reading skills. The book literally made no sense to me. 

I noted recently that authors are starting to write about the pandemic. Some (e.g., Ann Patchett and Jodi Picoult) are also discussing how difficult it has been to write during the pandemic. I appreciate this, both as a freelance curriculum writer who right this minute is avoiding writing (although I can't really blame the pandemic, as avoidance has been a lifelong issue for me) and as a reader who has sometimes found it difficult during the pandemic to focus on print and/or more serious reading.

Anyway, since I've written about so few books this year--mostly my favorites--I'm not doing my own "best of" list--just commenting on the best (and most disappointing/annoying) books of the past couple months. Somewhat weirdly, I didn't have any real favorites the past few months in the two genres I read most--fiction and mystery.

Short Stories

Most of the stories in Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket, by Hilma Wolitzer, were written in the 1960s and 1970s, but her examination of women's lives remains relevant. About half of the stories trace a couple named Paulie and Howard as they navigate their marriage from the unplanned pregnancy that prompted them to marry to the coronavirus pandemic. The title story depicts a pregnant mother who wants to help a mother with two small children who becomes paralyzed in the supermarket aisle; it is sad and timeless. Highly recommended.

Five Tuesdays in Winter, by Lily King, is a collection of ten stories, many of which are about adolescents with problematic parents. King gives them unique voices, puts many of them in sad situations, but also offers redemptive moments. King is such a talented writer who has become one of those authors whose books I really look forward to, and this collection did not disappoint.

Young Adult

The One and Only Bob, by Katherine Applegate, is an entertaining story, but I'm including it here primarily because the audio book was so awesomely narrated by Danny DeVito. The best narration of the year!

Nonfiction

Smile: The Story of a Face, by Sarah Ruhl. Just after giving birth to twins, Sarah Ruhl was struck by Bell's Palsy, which distorted her face and limited her ability to show emotions. Her decade-long fight to regain control of her face prompted reflections that lesser intellects/people would definitely not have had. Her book and Kate Bowler's lovely No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) were life affirming--but also serve as a powerful indictment of many medical professionals. Some of their stories would be unbelievable, except that you know they happened. The fact that both women not only survived these experiences (and their illnesses) but somehow used them to help the rest of us understand illness and humanity is remarkable. And the amount of work the two of them have produced while battling illness is truly stunning.

The Writer's Library: The Authors You Love on the Books that Changed Their Lives, edited by Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager, includes interviews with 23 authors, from Louise Erdrich to Charles Johnson to Dave Eggers. The individual interviews in this book are moderately interesting, but I found the patterns across interviews fascinating. Many of the authors described themselves as indiscriminate readers as kids, which I loved (I am still something of an indiscriminate reader)--Nancy Drew and the "Little House" books were mentioned by several. Certain authors and books were repeatedly mentioned as influences--James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Invisible Man, Phillip Roth, Maxine Hong Kingston. In terms of what the authors appreciate in someone else's writing--many mentioned writing at the "sentence level" (earlier this week I found myself commenting on a book's writing at the "sentence level," which freaked me out a bit). They also appreciate voice and character--but most don't care much at all about plot. It seems to me this puts them at odds with average readers, who in my experience care deeply about plot. Does this difference matter? I don't know, but it is food for thought. 

Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter, by Kate Clifford Larson, is not a book I would have read if my book group hadn't picked it, but it was quite thought-provoking. We had a great discussion of attitudes toward mental disabilities, ambition, family dysfunctions, and more. I don't think it's necessarily a great book, but it's great for book groups.

Annoyances, Disappointments, and Observations

In her two most recent books, Jodi Picoult has tried to break out of her previous pattern of family drama/legal battle--but I don't think her efforts have been entirely successful. Wish You Were Here is a pandemic novel; I was enjoying it until we got to the twist, which I found absolutely infuriating. Really, Jodi Picoult? 

As someone who grew up within a few miles of the Lincoln Highway, I was looking forward to The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles. It did not live up to expectations; despite many twists, they all seemed unpredictable. This is actually the book I described as well-written at the sentence level, but overall it was disappointing. 

After reading The President's Daughter, by Bill Clinton and James Patterson, I could not help thinking that Clinton, the draft evader (I don't blame him--I might have done the same had I been a man), secretly wishes he had been a Navy Seal. If you have read it, did you get that vibe? 

Favorite Passages

My statuesque figure had given way to random bulges, as if my curves had been rearranged by an inept or sadistic sculptor.

--Hilma Wolitzer, Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket

No matter how much time went by, I would fear your treachery had only moved into the shadows. What is love but rust, and how can I have that now?

A beautiful coherent speech lies somewhere for someone to make in a moment like this, a collection of words to balm exit wounds. But she can't make the speech, she can't find it anywhere inside herself. 

--Carol Anshaw, Lucky at the Corner (good at the "sentence level"!)

In the waiting room of the NICU, Orthodox Jewish men prayed. I can still seem them now, in prayer shawls, davening. It was the only thing that made all the machines bearable, the human swaying to the internal sound of hope. I wished I could pray in a visible way. I wished I could pray.

Food is one part memory, one part ritual, and one part sustenance. . . . food is who makes it, and why. 

--Sarah Ruhl, Smile: The Story of a Face

Everybody pretends that you only die once. But that's not true. You can die to a thousand possible futures in the course of a single, stupid life.

--Kate Bowler, No Cure for Being Human

Tricks and Treats of Early Fall Reading

 So it turns out that time spent packing up all your belongings and then unpacking them at your new abode is ideal for listening to audio books, particularly audio books that aren't tremendously serious. Ergo, September and October's reading featured a lot of fluff but a few more serious titles. So here are the best of early fall, along with some that annoyed or disappointed me.

Fiction

Apples Never Fall, by Liane Moriarty. For me, Moriarty may never match the brilliance of Big Little Lies, but Apples Never Fall is far superior to her last offering (Nine Perfect Strangers, which I actively disliked). Stan and Joy Delaney are skilled tennis players who pushed all four of their children to become Australia's next big star--but none of them reached the heights their parents hoped for, and all of them have issues, at least in part prompted by their childhoods. When Joy suddenly disappears after a fight with Stan about a mysterious young woman who showed up at their house one night--and stayed--everyone ends up suspected of something nefarious. The ending is disappointing, but overall the book is entertaining.

The Other Bennet Sister, by Janice Hadlow. Hadlow focuses on Mary, the middle Bennet sister in Pride and Prejudice. The story works within the framework of the original story and even mimics Austen's writing style but gives Mary an authentic life of her own rather than playing her as a pathetic charmless foil for the livelier/lovelier Bennet sisters. It's a good reminder that in fiction, as in life, the people who are the butts of our jokes are still people--possibly interesting, intelligent, motivated people. 

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout. I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Strout, but didn't really care for My Name is Lucy Barton, the first book in which Lucy appeared (but I loved Anything Is Possible, an Olive Kittredge-style collection of linked stories in which Lucy is mostly an un-present presence). She reemerges here, older and perhaps wiser--or at least more self-aware. Her first husband, William, calls to ask her for help dealing with a family problem; she's somewhat at loose ends, still mourning the death of her second husband, and she agrees to travel to Maine with William to investigate. As is common in Strout's books, Oh William! deals with themes of family, trauma, forgiveness, and grief. It's not my favorite Strout book, but I enjoyed it.

How Beautiful We Were, by Imbolo Mbue. It took me a while to get into How Beautiful We Were, the story of a fictional African village in which an oil company is literally killing the people, through a massacre and environmental degradation. A journalist tries to help by raising awareness of the problem in the United States, but despite years of effort, Americans are actually of little help. I became really engaged with the story when Thula emerged as a major character. A brilliant young woman Thula won a scholarship to study in the US, where she stayed for a decade, all the while supporting the young people in the community who were running a guerrilla operation against the oil company. She was a compelling character who brought the story into focus. How Beautiful We Were is a harsh reminder of the ways in which Western nations and companies have abused African communities in order to profit from the continent's national resources. 

Mystery

I often say I don't really know what qualifies as science fiction, but I'm starting to think the same about the mystery genre. What is mystery as compared to psychological suspense or thriller or even horror? I have seen the two books I've listed here categorized differently, but I'm going with the generic mystery.

No Exit, by Taylor Adams (yes, it takes some courage to re-use one of Sartre's titles), is set along I-70, which is one of the reasons, albeit a fairly dumb one, that I liked this book. During a blizzard in the Rockies, college student Darby attempts to drive from Boulder to Utah to visit her dying mother. Unfortunately, the storm strands her at a rest stop with a small group of highly untrustworthy folks. I actually felt scared while listening, which is pretty unusual for me. 

Girl A, by Abigail Dean isn't exactly a mystery either, although as a reader you are trying to figure out what is happening with Girl A, the oldest daughter of abusive hyper-religious parents. Girl A, Lex,  orchestrated the children's escape from their parents' prison--but not all the siblings have similar feelings about their childhood and thus don't agree with her plan to turn the family home into a center for abused children. The book provides some insight on all of the children's lives following their removal from the home and adoption into different families, all from Lex's perspective. It's dark and sad but also has mysteries embedded.

Poetry

Shocking myself, I read two books of poetry in September and October. Granted, both were pretty slim, but still . . .

Let's Be the Awake Ones, by Meg Hutchinson. Hutchinson is a singer-songwriter, poet, mental health advocate, and chaplain--in other words, something of a Renaissance woman. Her mother is also remarkable--she has written a poem every morning for almost 20 years; during poetry month (April), she issues a daily prompt that folks can use to craft their own poems each day. This book is the product of Meg's efforts from one recent April. She writes about animals--especially her dogs--but also about a wide variety of topics. My favorite one is the title poem, which ends 

Wherever you are right now, find the nearest door
and walk through it

Let's go down to the river
Be gathered up into the grace of it all

Let's be the awake ones. 

Poems to Live by in Uncertain Times, edited by Joan Murray. Murray put this collection together after September 11, 2001, and the same kind of comfort seems equally needed today. Some of the poems are indeed comforting while others, for me at least, deepened feelings of sadness. One of my favorites is "September," by Jennifer Michael Hecht, which captures the beauty and melancholy of autumn: 

Tonight there must be people who are getting what they want.
I let my oars fall into the water.
Good for them. Good form them, getting what they want.

The night is so still that I forget to breathe.
The dark air is getting colder. Birds are leaving.

Tonight there are people getting just what they need.

The air is so still that it seems to stop my heart.
I remember you in a black and white photograph
taken this time of some year. You were leaning against
a half-shed tree, standing in the leaves the tree had lost.

When I finally exhale it takes forever to be over.

Tonight, there are people who are so happy,
that they have forgotten to worry about tomorrow.

Somewhere, people have entirely forgotten about tomorrow.
My hand trails in the water.
I should not have dropped those oars. Such a soft wind.

I also found compelling Seamus Heaney's repeated use of the idea of justice rising up when hope and history rhyme, as in this stanza from "The Cure at Troy":

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

Beautiful!

Nonfiction

In Search of the Color Purple, by Salamisha Tillet. A lover of The Color Purple, Tillet essentially writes its biography, from novel to film to Broadway musical. At each stage, she examines a key character, Alice Walker's thinking, and the response to the work in a deeply thoughtful way. While I knew The Color Purple had been controversial, I underestimated the racism and sexism that underlay the criticisms. I found it particularly galling the extent to which black women are expected to protect black men who are acting badly. I understand (at least to the extent a white person can) that black men deal with a ton of horrific treatment from white people and systems, but black women should not be constrained from being honest about their lived experience. And, if you want to explore that issue (as well as misogyny more generally), check out the four-part podcast Tillet co-anchored, "Because of Anita." It's amazing and infuriating.  

Annoyances/Disappointments

Alex Michaelides's first novel, The Silent Patient, was a highly entertaining twisty mystery-thriller. His second, The Maidens, is just dumb, and I particularly found annoying that he slipped in a reference to the mental hospital that played an important part in The Silent Patient. Seems a little early in his writing career to be self-referential.

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead disappointed me. I loved The Underground Railroad so much that every other Whitehead novel has been a disappointment. This story of a man caught between the straight life and more profitable criminal pursuits in 1960s New York City was a bore to me, although other reviewers found it "dazzling" and "a joy to read." I am about to give up on Whitehead. 

In my ongoing effort to read Pulitzer and National Book Award winners, I've made my way through several titles that made me wonder how the heck they won a major award. A Summons to Memphis, by Peter Taylor has joined that group. Phillip Carver, who lives in New York, receives a call from his two sisters, who are beside themselves because their widowed father is talking about remarrying. They want Phillip to come home to Memphis and straighten things out. There's backstory, but not much happens in the present. So dull. 

Hostage, by Claire Mackintosh. This mystery/thriller is dumb and predictable and has two twists at the end that I found disgusting in two different ways, both related to their depiction of a child. Ugh.

Favorite Passage

That was the problem with coming home: you also had to come home to the self who resided there.

--Abigail Dean, Girl A

I am not invisible no matter how deeply I feel that I am.

--Elizabeth Strout, Oh William!

What I Read on My Summer Vacation

My mostly junky reading continued throughout the summer--I feel confident that when the weather cools off, I'll be reading only intellectually challenging works (LOL).  Meanwhile, here are my favorites from the dog days.

Fiction

Rachel to the Rescue, by Elinor Lipman. I have, in the past, compared Elinor Lipman to Jane Austen--her books satirize the culture but always end with a happy coupling. In Rachel to the Rescue, she for the first time gets political (though the book still ends with a happy couple!).  Rachel works in the Trump White House, taping together papers that the president has ripped up so they can be archived. When she mistakenly hits "Reply All" and sends an email critical of the president to the wrong people, she is fired. On her way out of the office, she is hit by a car driven by an eye doctor who is allegedly speeding to the White House for a tryst with Trump. From there, the story gets even crazier. Though the political commentary is not deep, it is amusing (if you don't like Trump). A fun read. 

Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss, by Rajeev Balasubramanyam. Although I hate the phrase "follow your bliss" (long story), I was entertained by following Professor Chandra as he tried to recover from the annual insult of not winning the Nobel Prize in Economics. His journey involves quite a bit of time in Colorado, including Boulder, where his ex-wife lives with her second husband, a granola-y type, and Chandra's youngest daughter is going off the rails. He also spends a weekend at Esalen, checks out his son's highly successful business seminar, and tries to reconnect with his oldest daughter at a monastery in the Colorado mountains. The characters are mostly flawed but endearing; they have some deep conversations as well as some ridiculous adventures--it's funny and rather heart-warming.

Should We Stay or Should We Go? by Lionel Shriver. I found Shriver's book to be the opposite of fun, although I did read one review that described it as "rollicking." Here's the set-up: When they're in their 50s, Kay and Cyril are exhausted from watching their parents and patients (both work in the medical field) deteriorate in old age. So they decide that, when they turn 80, they will commit suicide together. However, when the time comes, they're not so sure it was a good decision. Shriver presents 12 possible outcomes--sometimes one commits suicide and the other doesn't, sometimes neither does, etc. Some of the scenarios seem far-fetched (a nursing home that is worse than prison, a cryogenic option) and only one that I can remember could be described as positive, which leads me to wonder if Shriver is actually suggesting all of us should kill ourselves at 80. While I'm not with her on that, the book kept me reading, and I admired Shriver's inventiveness. I've never read anything quite like it.

Baby Teeth, by Zoje Stage. Baby Teeth is even less fun than Should We Stay--but it definitely keeps you reading. Hanna is an electively mute 7-year-old who torments her mother, Suzette, both physically and mentally. Suzette, a frustrated artist, has suffered from Crohn's disease for many years; her own mother did not get her adequate treatment for the problem when Suzette was a child. When Suzette's husband Alex is home, Hanna, while still mute, acts the loving child. As the situation between Suzette and Hanna deteriorates and the Alex remains mostly in denial, the reader believes firmly that Hanna is a psychopath but also starts wondering about Suzette. It's creepy and disturbing--but I liked it.

God Spare the Girls, by Kelsey McKinney. When you're a Southern girl whose father is the beloved pastor of a Texas megachurch, what do you do when you learn he has been unfaithful to your mother? That's the question sisters Abigail and Caroline face the summer that Abigail is to be married and Caroline is to leave for college. What they experience, how they feel, and what they ultimately do makes for a fascinating story. 

Mystery/Thriller

While Justice Sleeps, by Stacey Abrams. I greatly admire Stacey Abrams, but I couldn't help wondering if her novel would be any good (when did she find the time to write?). I'm happy to report that, though While Justice Sleeps isn't a great book, it's a decent legal thriller replete with conspiracies. Since it features a young clerk to a Supreme Court justice and a conspiracy involving the Court, it was somewhat reminiscent of John Grisham's Pelican Brief. But the main character, Avery Keene, also reminded me of the bad-ass Olivia Pope from the TV series Scandal. If you like Grisham or were a loyal viewer of Scandal, you'll definitely enjoy Abrams' book. 

Science Fiction

The 22 Murders of Madison May, by Max Barry. Why is Madison May murdered 22 times, you might ask. The answer: a deranged stalker-killer loose in the multiverse. Journalist Felicity Staples is reporting on the murder of real estate agent Madison May when she accidentally does a little universe hopping herself and discovers that Clay Hors is repeatedly killing Madison. As Felicity pursues Clay, with  a cast of other characters who sometimes help, sometimes obstruct (and sometimes, like Felicity's cat, disappear in some worlds). Like Rachel to the Rescue, the book is not deep, but it is fun. May belong in mysteries, but I wanted more than two categories, so I'm calling it science fiction.

Most Disappointing

Whereabouts, by Jhumpa Lahiri. A few years ago, Lahiri fell in love with Italian and decided to begin writing in Italian rather than English, because she didn't feel truly at home in English (or in Bengali, her parents' native language).  I think this is her first novel since she made the transition--I, of course, read her English translation of the Italian text. The novel lacks the intricate plotting of her other books--it's basically a series of vignettes in a professor's life. She seems to be stalled but decides to make a change by the end of the book. The book also lacks the rich, complex language of her earlier novels. Of course, I could not write a blog post in another language; that said, the switch to Italian has not enhanced Lahiri's expressiveness. A lot of more knowledgeable people than I have reviewed the book positively, but I was unmoved.

Favorite Passage

In God Spare the Girls, the father in the story pours his wife a cup of coffee to show his caring for her. His daughters watch as it becomes clear he doesn't know how his wife of 25 years takes her coffee. There's nothing fancy about the language, but it was a moment that hit hard:

"He tore open a couple of Splenda packets for his own. Caroline then waited for him to reach for the fridge. He didn't. He stared at his wife's cup as if it might tell him the answer. "

--Kelsey McKinney, God Spare the Girls

Spring Reading Highlights

When I posted in early April, I felt like my brain had emerged from its pandemic ennui and I was able to do some more serious reading. However, of late, I am back to reading way too many mysteries--don't know if it's the heat or some sort of mental relapse or the deep sense of being old precipitated by turning 71, but it's a thing. Nonetheless, some books I read in spring and early summer are worth talking about. 

Fiction

The Children's Bible, by Lydia Millet. This post-apocalyptic (climate change) novel starts out as though it were a satire about the idiocy of parents on holiday as seen by their teen-aged children but it turns serious when a terrible storm wipes out the large house where all the families are staying and the parents do not respond well. The young people take to the road, ending up a few miles from their parents with challenges of their own--but they are generally committed to working hard and helping one another. One of the younger children, Jack, has a children's Bible that he studies relentlessly, looking for meaning. He eventually decides the Bible is coded--God equals nature and Jesus equals science. I'm not doing a good job describing the book, but it's definitely worth checking out. 

The End of the Day, by Bill Clegg. The End of the Day is another book that is hard to describe. It involves four main characters who had first seem to have nothing to do with one another--all are at a crossroads in their lives. As events unfold, their relationships to each other, as well as their secrets, are revealed. Remembering and forgetting, how our choices shape our lives and others, and the meaning of family are all explored. I didn't love it quite as much as Clegg's previous novel--Did You Ever Have a Family?--but it has a similar humanity that enriches the reader.

Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata. This brief novel about a woman whose family thinks she is a failure because she is still working at a convenience store in her 30s caused me to think about cultural differences and similarities and, in particular, the ways that different cultures label people who aren't "mainstream." I have no doubt the title character would be labeled as "on the spectrum" if she were a character in an American novel, but she's seen somewhat differently in Japan.  

Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

The Plot, by Jean Hanff Korelitz. The Plot is about a novelist who steals a plot from one of his students in an MFA program and, when it becomes a best-seller, starts getting notes from someone who claims to know that the book was stolen. It's not a terribly original idea (though it does pose some interesting questions about what authorship means), but I wanted to mention it here because Korelitz has a gift for creating a cast of unlikable characters that you still want to keep reading about (and I usually need a character I like). She did the same thing an earlier novel, You Should Have Known, which became the HBO series The Undoing. An unusual gift.

Dear Child, by Romy Hausman. In this German novel, a woman and two children live in a windowless shack in a forest. The father/captor sets the rules for the family. The woman may be a girl who disappeared 14 years ago--or she may not. When the woman and one of the children escape,  the missing girl's parents and the police try to find the shack and figure out exactly how the woman and children came to be living there. It's a little bit reminiscent of Room, but that doesn't stop it from being spell-binding.

Before She Knew Him, by Peter Swanson. Bipolar artist Hen, newly ensconced in the suburbs, suspects that her next door neighbor Matt is a killer. Because of her mental illness and an earlier accusation that may or may not have been false, the police--and Hen's husband--don't take her seriously so she must do some sleuthing herself, potentially threatening both her mental and physical health. There's a kind of dumb twist at the end (just finished another mystery with the same twist), but it's still an entertaining read, especially because Hen's artwork plays a role in the plot. I just wish we could see it!

Science Fiction (Kind of)

The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey. I'm never sure what constitutes sci fi, but this book revolves around cloning. First genetic researcher Evelyn Caldwell discovers her ex-husband Nathan, the less competent scientist, has cloned her--with tweaks to make her a more biddable wife. Then she and her clone find themselves . . . well, don't want to spoil things but suffice it to say there's more secret cloning and rather cold destroying of clones that don't quite meet the required standards. Entertaining. 

Nonfiction

Notes on a Silencing, by Lacy Crawford. In 1990, the author was raped at an exclusive boarding school, St. Paul's in Concord, New Hampshire (Google the school to identify some of the prominent folks who went there). The book details the assault and the after effects, both physical and psychological, suffered by Crawford. Perhaps most horrifying, however, is the way in which the school manipulated the situation to protect the boys and vilify Crawford. I cannot recommend this book, along with Missoula and Know My Name, highly enough; until we accept the truth of rape in academic settings, nothing will change.

I'll Be Seeing You, by Elizabeth Berg. This book is a memoir about the period when Berg's parents were declining, moving from their home of many years to assisted living, and presenting Berg and her siblings with a variety of challenges. As someone whose mother exhibited some of the same personality traits of Berg's mother (but without the husband suffering from dementia), I found the book both sad and reassuring--we can all only do what we can do. If you still have your parents with you but they're driving you crazy, you might find reading the book somewhat therapeutic.

Seriously Annoying Book

The Lost Boys, by Faye Kellerman. This is a fairly typical Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus mystery, except that it basically stops with very little resolved, acting as a set-up for no. 27 in the series. Cheap and annoying.

Favorite Passage

People came to the door with sorrow and lasagna.

    From The First Mistake, by Sandie Jones

My Favorites of the Year So Far

So I tried Goodreads and didn't (for unarticulated reasons) care for it, but I'm suffering too much pandemic and blogging fatigue to post as regularly as I used to. However, I just finished my 75th book of this year and thought I might do some favorites so far (most of which, as I peruse what I have written) are somewhat depressing. 

Fiction

Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam. A Brooklyn family of four arrives at their vacation AirBNB--a lovely home in the "wilds" of the Hamptons--it's a fabulous house and the mother Amanda is enjoying imagining the house is hers. But then one evening early in their vacation week, there's a knock at the door. It's an older African American couple who claim to be the owners of the house; Amanda and her husband Clay immediately suspect them of nefarious purposes, and you think you know where the story is going. But that's not really not where it's headed. The owners of the house, G.H. and Ruth, tell them they have come to their vacation home because there was a blackout in Manhattan and they had a vague feeling something serious was amiss--plus they didn't want to walk up to their apartment in a high-rise building. Amanda and Clay let them in, and the two families settle in, albeit not exactly comfortably. Strange things occur, and it's increasingly clear whatever happened was catastrophic and extended far beyond Manhattan--but it's never quite clear exactly what did happen. The book is creepy, sometimes funny, and not like other disaster or dystopian novels. I liked it a lot. 

Short Stories

I am not a huge fan of short stories, but I really enjoyed Danielle Evans's The Office of Historical Corrections: A Novella and Short Stories. The idea behind the title novella--that employees of a government agency would travel around correcting historical misunderstandings and inaccuracies--intrigued me, and the novella lived up to the promise. Two historians, childhood frenemies, arrive in a small town in Wisconsin to try to uncover the true story behind a black man's death in a fire started by a white mob. The answer they discover is complicate and painful and causes them to reexamine their lives and how they place themselves in both history and the present. The short stories are also excellent, exploring African American lives and the racial tensions that simmer and erupt in the United States.  In "Boys Go to Jupiter," a college girl's picture is posted on Facebook by a boy she barely knows; in the picture, she is wearing a bikini featuring the Confederate flag. Black students at her college are outraged, and Claire, angry, makes all the wrong decisions as the situation gets progressively worse. Well worth reading!

Mystery

I read a lot of mysteries, and I often quickly forget them. That might be why I picked the most recently read mystery as my favorite so far this year: A Nearly Normal Family, by M.T. Edvardsson. The book is narrated by three members of a Swedish family--the father, a pastor who knows his daughter has problems but believes they can be solved; the teenage daughter, who is accused of killing an "older man" with whom she and her best friend were involved; and the mother, an attorney who feels more compatible with her daughter's best friend than with her daughter. It's twisty -- some of the "surprises" you can guess, but others were unexpected. Different enough to be memorable (I think--one never knows at my age). 

Nonfiction

Hidden Valley Road, by Robert Kolker, is one of those books that I have told numerous people about because I found it so fascinating. It is the story of a Colorado Springs family with 12 children, 6 of whom eventually were diagnosed as schizophrenic. The first 10 children (and all of the mentally ill members of the family) were boys; the two youngest were girls, who were subjected to various forms for abuse and violence from their brothers (some of the brothers were also victimized). One of the most fascinating parts of the story to me was how the two sisters, in adulthood, have dealt with their family: one, though she lives several hours away from her surviving brothers, has taken on a caretaker role, helping them access resources, making sure they have health care, etc. Meanwhile, for the sake of her own mental health, the other sister distances herself. The author also does a good job of tracing various "theories" about the causes of schizophrenia, as well as providing information on research and treatments. Fascinating. 

As I did last year, I've found more nonfiction titles interesting than novels --Barack Obama's A Promised Land; Hood Feminism, by Mikki Kendall; and Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson are just some of the excellent nonfiction books in my first 75 of 2021.

Most Disliked Book So Far

Rodham, by Curtis Sittenfeld--ugh, ugh, ugh. This fictionalized account of what Hillary's life might have been like had she not married Bill presents her as a woman tormented by her inability to find a man who appreciates her. She makes a variety of stupid decisions based on her search for love/appreciation, but does end up as president. It's insulting and trashy--and I'm not even a particular fan of Hillary's. Don't waste your time! 

Cleanness by Garth Greenwell is a close second in the disliked category, mostly for its protracted and overly detailed scenes of BDSM sex. And it was very positively reviewed in places like NPR and NYT! Again I say: Ugh!

Favorite Passage

Radical empathy, on the other hand, means putting in the work to educate oneself and to listen with a humble heart to understand another's experience from their perspective, not as we imagine we would feel. Radical empathy is not about you and what you think you would do in a situation you have never been in and perhaps never will. It is the kindred connection from a place of deep knowing that opens your spirit to the pain of another as they perceive it. 

Isabel Wilkerson, Caste

Zooming with Barbara Nickless

My book group had a Zoom meeting with author Barbara Nickless yesterday. The author of the Sydney Parnell series, Nickless was charming and informative--many thanks to her and to group member Jan, who set it up. 

Some tidbits from the conversation:

• When she was hospitalized at age 3, she "wrote" stories on the back of the cards she received. She couldn't actually write, but she tried to imitate her mom's writing. Then when her mom came to visit, she would make up stories to go with the "writing."
• Her first book, written at age 11 or 12, was Blackie the Wolf Dog, a revenge tale! 
• Nickless began seriously writing after her family's home burned in the Waldo Canyon fire in 2012--sometimes a terrible event can stimulate something good!
• According to her publisher, sales of series books drop after the fourth book (as an inveterate series mystery reader, I question this, but I'm sure they've got data!). As a result, her next book will be a spin-off from the Sydney Parnell series. 
• I asked about the epigraphs she places at the beginning of each chapter. They are excerpts from fictional primary sources (e.g., Sydney's journal, articles in the Denver Post). I wondered if she kind of sketched out the "sources" in advance and then came up with suitable quotes to go with the chapters, but that is not at all how she does it. She just makes them up as she goes along and doesn't pay particular attention to whether they match the chapters. She said she really enjoys writing them, although she forgot to do it for one book and had to write them all at the end.
• She doesn't outline before she writes. She said she'd like to be the kind of writer who outlines, but when she tries to do that, she gets bored! 
• She's developing a course to be taught at DU on the "History of Mystery Fiction." Would love to take that course. 

Thanks again to Barbara!

Trying Goodreads

 I am giving posting on Goodreads a try. I may still do some posting to Novel Conversations (for example, my book group is zooming with author Barbara Nickless this week, so I might post about that), but I'm not sure at this point.