There's nothing like an excellent food memoir to redeem a month of reading--thank you, Stanley Tucci! A couple of novels also "came through"--though there were also lots of disappointments. More below.
Fiction
Less Is Lost, by Andrew Sean Greer, picks up several years after the events of Less. Our hero's former boyfriend whose marriage to a younger man sent Less off on his worldwide journey, has divorced and returned to his relationship with Less. This time, the impetus setting Less off on a trek across the U.S. is the need to make money fast to pay years of back rent he didn't know he owed. The book is occasionally funny and maybe has something to say about love and literature, but mostly it felt unnecessary. Didn't hate it but won't read another sequel should Greer be tempted to churn out Less Is More (or whatever).
The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O'Farrell, is the reimagined story of Lucrezia, the daughter of a nobleman in 16th-century Italy, who is married off to a duke at 14. Inspired by the famous Browning poem "My Last Duchess," O'Farrell opens the book with a scene in which Lucrezia is convinced that her husband is going to kill her (reason not provided); as a result of that set-up and some rather florid writing, the backstory we then proceed through comes across as overwrought. While portraiture and artists are a part of the story, O'Farrell doesn't give us anything approaching the moving demonstration of the power of art that she created in Hamnet. A disappointment.
In Mad Honey, written with Jennifer Finney Boylan, Jodi Picoult returns to the formula that she has gotten away from recently: a hot topic (challenges faced by transgender teens), a teenage protagonist (or two), and a court case. The book has two narrators--Olivia Levy, the mother of Asher, who is accused of killing his girlfriend when he learned she was transgender; and Lily Campanello, Asher's girlfriend. Obviously, the two narrators tell their stories on different timelines, which adds some suspense to a story in which we already know one character is dead. Although occasionally the book feels a little bit like a nonfiction work on transitioning, I enjoyed it. In an author's note, Picoult says that she had wanted to write a book about transgender rights for some time but knew that she would likely not have the insight of a person who is transgender. She also noted that transgender authors can still have difficulty getting their work published, so her writing on this issue might keep a transgender author from being published. Thus, she ended up co-writing the book with Boylan who is a transwoman (a published author so not unknown--but still probably benefitting from the marketing and buzz that accompanies a Picoult book). Picoult wrote the Olivia chapters, Boylan the Lily chapters. I thought it was an interesting approach.
I generally like Elizabeth Strout, but her Lucy by the Sea is a totally unnecessary "what I did during the pandemic" story that offers no insight into the pandemic, human relationships, or, well, anything. We all lived through the pandemic and know what the isolation was like; unless you have something to offer that will help us understand what we experienced, don't write about it! ,BTW: Lucy Barton spent the pandemic in Maine with her ex-husband William, who has been conveniently emasculated by a botched prostate surgery and become the saint who puts up with her! Please, Ms. Strout, no more Lucy books!
We All Want Impossible Things, by Catherine Newman, explores the process of dying, friendship, and grief--but it's not entirely sad. Edi, dying of cancer, is discharged from the hospital--but all the hospices near her are full, so she says good-bye to her husband and son and goes to a hospice near her best friend Ash's home (this seems unlikely for multiple reasons). They reminisce, Edi deteriorates, and Ash cares for her and her own family while having sex with Edi's brother and her hospice doctor (and possibly others--I lost track). Yeah, it's a little bit crazy and unlikely but still manages to be life-affirming.
Mysteries/Thrillers
Too many free listens from Audible this month (free for a reason) -- The Couple on Cedar Close and The Stranger's Wife, by Anna-Lou Weatherly; The Killing Time, by T.J. Brearton; and Immoral, by Brian Freeman. But they're good for falling asleep to and my expectations are generally low.
I had much higher expectations for The Heights, by Louise Candlish, whose books I've enjoyed in the past--this one not so much. Very short summary: it's about a woman who wants to wreak vengeance on the boy who was driving the car when her son was killed. She's unlikable (as is her target) and the other people in her life are not well developed as characters. There's an unnecessarily complicated structure in which the woman is writing her own story, which is then being written about by a journalist. Not recommended.
In The Deepest of Secrets, Kelley Armstrong finally finishes off Rockton in the midst of murders involving the revelation of secrets from the residents' pasts. I found it curious that, as a reader, I knew a lot about the characters that others in their fictional town did not and thus did not find the various revelations shocking. Must work on empathy. Armstrong will be launching (or perhaps already has) a series based in the new town Casey and Eric are going to start.
Nonfiction
If you saw his film Big Night or his CNN series on the food of Italy, you already know Stanley Tucci likes food, especially Italian food. This is confirmed in his memoir, Taste: My Life Through Food, a book that delighted me. He starts with memories of his mother's spectacular Italian cooking and proceeds through wonderful meals he has eaten and prepared. He shares anecdotes from his professional life (he once ate sausage that tasted like poop . . . with Meryl Streep), as well his family cooking adventures/ misadventures. And somehow, I am touched to read about the help of his famous friends when he had cancer (Colin Firth and Ryan Reynolds and Oliver Platt held him up in a terrible time). But most of all, Tucci describes food and meals and the company enjoyed around the table so lovingly, that it makes me want to write a memoir. Just kidding--but I did really love this book!
By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners, by Margaret A. Burnham, is basically a litany of African Americans killed in racially motivated homicides in the South during the Jim Crow era. Some of the homicides were killed by law enforcement officers, others were essentially sanctioned by the justice system because no one was held responsible. It's a difficult accounting, but a necessary one that gave me a new understanding of why many African Americans have a different view of the law that those of us with the privilege of believing that justice is possible, if not likely.
Favorite Passages
Losing a beloved family heirloom is a very real personal loss; they're things that cannot ever be replaced or re-created. But perhaps the most precious heirlooms are family recipes. Like a physical heirloom, they remind us from whom and where we came and give others, in a bite, the story of another people from another place and another time. Yet unlike a lost physical heirloom, recipes are a part of our history that can be re-created over and over again. The only way they can be lost is if we choose to lose them.
--Stanley Tucci, Taste
Life is messy. I certainly don't expect tidiness from yours or anybody else's.
--Catherine Newman, We All Want Impossible Things
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