A Swim in the Pond in the Rain (more about this later) made clear to me what a careless reader I am, and I decided to take more notes when I am reading and to post more often on this blog thinking it will keep me better focused to know I am going to write about a book. So here I am, posting (maybe) twice a month. Here's what I've read so far this year.
Fiction
The previous three books by Rachel Cusk that I had read employed an unusual technique--essentially they were comprised of the stories of the people the "protagonist" encountered as she rebuilt her life after a divorce. It was an unusual approach that I found interesting. Second Place does not use that approach--here the protagonist (known only as M) is telling her story in retrospect to someone named Jeffers. We don't know who Jeffers is or why she is recounting the story, which I found somewhat irritating. Why include this layer between the narrator and reader unless it serves a clear purpose? The story M tells focuses on M's years-long obsession with a painter referred to as L. During the pandemic, L asks to stay with M, her husband Tony, and M's adult daughter in the guest cottage (the "second place"), bringing along a young woman. They welcome the visitors, but suffice it to say what ensues is not pleasant. Perhaps because I found the secondary characters more appealing than M and L (and characters are important to me), I did not really enjoy this book although I can appreciate aspects of what Cusk does.
Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, is also a pandemic novel, but it opens some years before with the narrator, Tookie, explaining how she ended up in prison for ten years, not exactly an innocent woman but not exactly guilty either. This part of the book doesn't seem to have a lot to do with what happens once Tookie gets out, marries the cop who arrested her, and starts working at Louise Erdrich's book store (Louise is a character who makes a few appearances in the book). And a lot happens in Tookie's family and in the broader culture. Examples: Tookie is haunted by a former customer, her stepdaughter comes home with a newborn, the pandemic strikes, George Floyd is killed and Native Americans like Tookie decide how to support the BLM movement while seeking justice for their own people killed by police. It's a lot, maybe too much. But it's Louise Erdrich, so it's worth reading!
Caul Baby, by Morgan Jerkins, is like nothing I've read before. It's set in Harlem, starting in the 1990s and covering 20+ years. It involves a powerful yet deeply dysfunctional family, the Melancons, who have made a business of selling pieces of caul (the amniotic sac in which some babies are born), purported to have healing powers. They exercise their power by refusing to sell to some people. When they refuse to sell a piece of caul to a woman named Laila, who has had multiple miscarriages and whose baby ultimately dies, her niece Amara vows to become a lawyer and take down the Melancons. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, the child she placed for adoption is being raised by the Melancons--everyone in the book is somehow entwined with everyone else. While I recognize that the stuff about the caul was a form of magical realism, it still creeped me out (literary term). But the exploration of Black motherhood (and daughterhood) rewards the reader with insights and questions to ponder.
The Other Black Girl, by Zakiya Dalila Harris, is sometimes classified as a thriller, which does make me wonder about why we have "genre fiction" because the author's intent is definitely more than thrilling the reader. Nella, the only African American professional at a New York publishing company, is excited when another black woman is hired as an editorial assistant. But Hazel is not the supportive "sis" she originally presents herself as. She's a climber who sucks up to the editors, undercuts Nella, and hands out a "hair grease" as though it could change lives (spoiler: it can). I won't say more but it's thought-provoking and entertaining. I did wonder if the African American editor and writer who had been well-known 20 years previously were necessary to the story, but that was a small blip. Recommended.
Short Stories
I've often said I am not a short story person. and The Souvenir Museum, by Elizabeth McCracken, reminded me of why. The short stories in the collection are grim, have quirks for the sake of being quirky, and leave me saying "hunh?" at the end. I say this knowing that the collection was very positively reviewed, with many critics finding the stories funny. Certainly McCracken goes for funny and she is a skilled writer, so sometimes I did find myself smiling. Upon reflection, though, I would generally think "that doesn't even make sense" or "that's not really funny." As an example, here's a sentence from the story "Two Sad Clowns," in which two characters who recur in five stories have their first date: "Nobody whose mother ever truly loved them has ever taken pleasure in playing the tambourine." When you first read the sentence, you might chuckle because it's a clever insult, but then you realize it's a nonsensical connection--of course people who were loved can enjoy playing the tambourine and not being loved would certainly have more serious consequences than becoming a tambourinist (is that a word?). Perhaps I'm so old that I am losing my sense of humor, but I offer as evidence that this is not the case that I recently binge-watched Ricky Gervais's After Life and laughed and cried in equal measure. So, yeah, I'd recommend that Netflix series over The Souvenir Museum any day.
Mysteries/Thrillers
Razorblade Tears, by S.A. Cosby, tells the story of two fathers who set out to avenge their sons. The sons, one white and one black, were married and had a young daughter, and the fathers at first think the murder was a homophobic hate crime. As they investigate, the picture becomes much more complex. The plot was interesting and the fathers were engaging characters, but the story was too violent for me to enjoy it without reservation. "Heroes" who end up killing a lot of people doesn't sit well with me. If that won't bother you, then I recommend the book for you.
The title character of Verity, by Colleen Hoover, is a thriller writer who has been incapacitated in a car accident, possibly a suicide attempt following the death of her two daughters. Her husband Jeremy hires Lowen to complete the last three books in the series. When Lowen arrives at their home to look for notes for the books she is to write, she discovers a memoir written by Verity, which suggests that things in the household are not as they seem. You know a twist is coming, but when it does, it's not very believable. I wasn't crazy about this book (but, as a side note, there is a lot more sex in it than in most mysteries/thrillers).
The Madness of Crowds is Louise Penny's latest in the Armand Gamache series. It deals with serious content--a statistician hired by the Canadian government to analyze pandemic-related data recommends a horrifying program of "mercy" killings and abortions. This report brings out "the crazies" and murder ensues. It could have been a good book--but instead it is repetitive and circular and, ultimately, rather boring. I think Louise Penny has worn out the Gamache character (this is book 17) and should perhaps move on to a new character.
The Stolen Hours, by Allen Eskins, is a so-so mystery about an aspiring prosecutor who pursues a serial rapist/murderer. Meh.
Nonfiction
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is subtitled In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, but it is in fact author George Saunders who offers the master class. Indeed, it is essentially Saunders's Syracuse class on 19th-Century Russian Short Stories in book form. If you listen to the audio version, Saunders reads the analysis and a cast of amazing actors read the seven stories (Glenn Close, Nick Offerman, Phylicia Rashad, BD Wong) by Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, and Tolstoy. After each story, he provides his analysis, attempting to answer the question: If a story drew us in, kept us reading, made us feel respected, how did it do that? He takes the stories apart in a minute way that made me feel like the most careless reader in the universe; he points out the decisions the authors made as they constructed the work, suggests how the story could have been totally changed by the smallest decision, and sees meaning that totally escaped me. Reading the book was simultaneously humiliating (why do I notice nothing?) and inspiring (I'll start noticing more). I probably won't start noticing that much more, but I can dream. Worth a read if you want to think about reading in a different way.
Favorite Passage
"These days, it's easy to feel that we've fallen out of connection with one another and with the earth and with reason and with love. I mean: we have. But to read, to write, is to say that we still believe in, at least, the possibility of connection."
George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
"Small bookstores have the romance of doomed intimate spaces about to be erased by unfettered capitalism."
Louise Erdrich, The Sentence
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