Oh, the joy--after what felt like a long spell of not finding many great books, summer has been bountiful, so bountiful I'm posting when the season is only half over. I hope the second half of the season will be equally rewarding.
But before we get to my favorites, a mini-rant: It's odd when you see your town (okay, Denver's not exactly my town, but close enough) portrayed in a novel in a way that is nearly unrecognizable. That's the case with the Adrian McKinty's Hidden River. Granted, it's set in the early 1990s, when gang violence was in the headlines, but its portrayal of Denver as seedy and drug-ridden doesn't reflect my memories of the era. Also, the notion that a drug-addicted former Irish cop could come in and solve a crime that mystified the Denver police seems ridiculous (McKinty mentions more than once that the JonBenet case was never solved as a justification; of course, that was in Boulder but whatever, Adrian).
Fiction
The first novels I really enjoyed so far this summer are from authors whose first novels I thought were great. And, as far as I'm concerned, there's no sophomore slump.
The first one may have had particular resonance because I started listening to it while on vacation with my teenage granddaughter, who had some "mean girl" stories to share--and meanness among young women is one of the aspects of Come and Get It, by Kiley Reid. The book's primary setting is a transfer student dorm at the University of Arkansas, with some detours to provide backstories on the three main characters: Agatha, a visiting professor who writes creative nonfiction; Millie, a resident advisor in the transfer student dorm; and Kennedy, a student who transferred to UofA after an incident at the University of Iowa that caused her to become a social media pariah. A variety of other students in the dorm also play significant roles, as Agatha decides to write about them, Millie tries to counsel them and control their shenanigans (as well as the other RAs, who are barely older/more mature than the students), and Kennedy tries to make friends. In the end, they all make some serious errors that culminate in a nerve-wracking incident. I've read reviews that focus on Reid's presentation of American consumerism as the major theme of the book, but I see it as something broader--the ways in which people (perhaps particularly young women) fail to connect at a meaningful level and the ways in which consumerism, economic differences, race, sexual politics, social media, parenting, and a host of other factors contribute to that failure. Kiley Reid is definitely becoming a favorite--and the audiobook narrator Nicole Lewis is also someone I would look for again.
The second, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, by Xochitl Gonzalez, focuses on sexism and racism in the art world--but in a very entertaining way. The story is told in two different time periods with a different Latina woman featured in each. In the mid-1980s, Cuban immigrant Anita is working hard to advance her art career when she meets and falls in love with prominent minimalist sculptor Jack, an ego-maniac who affects her life and career negatively--eventually to the max, throwing her out the window of his apartment (this isn't a spoiler as we know early on she is dead). In a magic realist twist, she can still operate in the world after death as long as her work is still seen--but Jack does what he can to make sure that it isn't. Meanwhile, in the late 1990s, Raquel is an art history major at Brown University, where she feels out of place among the children of the upper class who attend the Ivy League school. She is planning to write her senior thesis on Jack, her professor's idol, when she meets and falls in love with an older student who is also an admirer of Anita's former husband. I'll leave the rest of the plot to be discovered along with how Anita's and Raquel's stories come together--but I enjoyed it. Again, I listened to the audiobook and have to say that the narrator who voices Anita is at times so over the top she's unpleasant to listen to.
Joyce Maynard's How the Light Gets In is a sequel to her family drama, Count the Ways. She picks up the story some years after that book ended, with matriarch Eleanor returning to the family farm to care for her dying ex-husband, Cam. After he dies, she stays on to care for their son Toby, who suffered a brain injury in the earlier book. As Toby moves toward greater independence, Eleanor's daughter Ursula, from whom she is estranged, is experiencing her own crisis--her husband and the father of their two children is becoming a drunk and a right-wing MAGA nut. Eleanor's son Al and the son of Cam's second marriage play lesser roles here, as do a number of other characters whose lives intersect with Eleanor and Toby's. Maynard deals with a number of social/political issues and events--parental alienation, climate change, school shootings, police killings of black men, COVID, the election of Donald Trump. Generally these events aren't dealt with in depth, though descriptions still managed to resonate--Eleanor's party on election night 2016 reminded me of being at a friend's house, watching returns in disbelief, and her sorrow at the death of John Prine during the pandemic brought back how sad his loss was and also brought home the seriousness of the disease. Some things that I suspect the author intended as surprises didn't really surprise, and everything was wrapped up a bit too neatly at the end--but I still found the characters' deep love for each other and their individual growth moving. Maynard reads the audiobook herself and she is fabulous.
I often question the quality of my education because there are so many classics I haven't read. Often, I lack the motivation to address this lacuna in my reading, but this month I picked up Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, and am happy that I did. Set in a small, gossipy English town in the 1830s, Wives and Daughters is the story of Molly Gibson, a 17-year-old doctor's daughter whose mother died when she was very young. When one of the doctor's apprentices expresses romantic interest in Molly, Dr. Gibson decides he must marry to provide a chaperone for Molly. His choice is the narcissistic social climber, Hyacinth who has a daughter, Cynthia, about the same age as Molly. Cynthia is beautiful and leaves a trail of jilted men behind her, but Molly loves and protects her. Like Jane Austen, Gaskell develops complex characters and presents social commentary within a romantic story. The book was originally published as a serial in the 1860s, which accounts for what I perceived as odd chapter breaks; sadly, the author died before she finished the last chapter, but it was completed by Frederick Greenwood, who apparently had knowledge of the author's plans.
Mysteries/Thrillers
Bright Young Women, by Jessica Knoll, is a fictionalized retelling of the Ted Bundy story (known here only as "the defendant") from the perspectives of one of his Washington victims, a young lesbian named Ruth, and Pamela Schumacher, the president of the Florida State University sorority where two women were killed and two severely injured. The narrative flows between the two women and from the 1970s to the present; the two women are linked not only by their encounters with the defendant but also through Tina, Ruth's lover who befriends Pamela in the wake of the sorority attack in an effort to link the Washington, Utah, and Colorado disappearances and killings with the Florida murders. I found interesting the depictions of the long-term impact of violence on loved ones of victims, as well as the cavalier way that law enforcement officers, the justice system, and the media treated (and treat) women. The book isn't exactly a mystery or thriller, although Knoll is known to write in that genre, but I did find it compelling.
Poetry (and More)
Why Fathers Cry at Night, by Kwame Alexander, is a unique collection of poems, essays, letters to Alexander's loved ones, conversations with himself, and even recipes. Written in the wake of his second divorce, his mother's death, and his estrangement from his older daughter, the book is quite often heartbreaking as he delves into his feelings toward the women in his life and his evolution as a husband, son, and father. Some parts are lighter--how he evolved from a student who believed his teacher Nikki Giovanni hated him (she gave him a C) to a close friend of the older poet. I intended to share the title poem on FB during poetry month, but I decided it was a little close to the bone for son #1, the father of a teenage girl. He won't read this, so . . .
Ten Reasons Why Fathers Cry at Night
By Kwame Alexander
1. Because teenagers don’t like park swings or long walks anymore unless you’re in the mall.
2. Because holding her hand is forbidden and kisses are lethal.
3. Because school was “fine,” her day was “fine,” and yes, she’s “fine.” (So why is she weeping?)
4. Because you want to help, but you can’t read minds.
5. Because she is in love and that’s cute, until you find his note asking her to prove it.
6. Because she didn’t prove it.
7. Because next week she is in love again and this time it’s real, she says her heart is heavy.
8. Because she yearns to take long walks in the park with him.
9. Because you remember the myriad woes and wonders of spring desire.
10. Because with trepidation and thrill you watch your daughter who suddenly wants to swing all by herself.
No matter whether you like Brittney Griner or approve of the exchange that secured her release from a Russian labor camp, her book Coming Home is an informative read, casting light on the Russian "justice" system under Putin and the emotional and physical toll of being held in a foreign country with limited contact with family and friends (grueling in every way). One of the pleasant surprises (maybe the only one) is that Griner's Russian attorneys, while ultimately destined to fail in her case, were supportive and kind to her, as were a few women with whom she was imprisoned (others essentially spied on her or tried to use her fame to their own benefit). A brief description of Griner's subsequent work on behalf of other Americans detained in other countries ends the book.
As you read the first essay in Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees, you realize that author Aimee Nezhukumatathil is doing something unusual, as she somehow connects rambutan, hairstyles and styling products of the 1980s, and identity--all in poetic language. Some subsequent essays do similar work linking specific foods to events and people in the author's life--some in a touching manner, some humorously--while others are more focused on the joys of the actual food she is describing. All are delightful.
In writing King: A Life, Jonathan Eig had access to many sources not available to earlier biographers, perhaps most notably the voluminous recordings the FBI made of King speaking with friends, family members, and colleagues. Eig also interviewed numerous people who knew King, including his children, and reexamined well-known sources, such as Alex Haley's Playboy interview with King. In the latter case, by comparing the recording of the interview with the published article, Eig found that King's assessment of Malcolm X was much less negative than portrayed by Haley. The result of Eig's research is a "warts-and-all" portrait of King. There's an interesting discussion of plagiarism and how the traditions of the black church might have played into this practice--but Eig doesn't excuse King's plagiarism in his dissertation, though he does place some responsibility on his dissertation advisor for not catching and correcting the problem. Having only ever read a biography by Coretta Scott King, I had always discounted the FBI's portrayal of King as a philanderer--but his behavior with women was, indeed, problematic in the extreme. His friends abetted his affairs while wondering why he behaved as he did (Eig briefly considers the similarities in this regard between Kennedy and King, speculating on the possibility that their fathers' influence was paramount). In addition, we learn that King was often hospitalized for "fatigue" that was actually depression. Warts notwithstanding, we also see clearly that King, an accidental leader in the civil rights movement (his dream was to become a college professor), was more radical than he is typically portrayed and pushed on despite everything he faced. We also see the complicity of a variety of public figures in the FBI's intrusion into King's life and J. Edgar Hoover's attempts to portray him (falsely) as a Communist. While Bobby Kennedy later became a King supporter, his earlier actions are deeply troubling; I hope Doris Kearns Goodwin reads this book and is reminded that Bobby was not quite the paragon she portrayed in her recent book. An excellent narration by Dion Graham.
Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood is an eyeopener. Author Gretchen Sisson has been researching adoption, particularly the effects of relinquishing a child on birth mothers, for more than a decade. She positions her interviews with these mothers in the problematic history of adoption in the United States, a history shaped and scarred by slavery and racism, imperialism, religious beliefs, and exploitation based on class. Sisson reveals that the profile of the relinquishing mother is not what we normally think--drug-addicted minority women or scared teenagers--a majority of relinquishing mothers are white and many already have children. And they are overwhelmingly poor--some would be likely to make the decision to parent their child if they had access to more resources. Meanwhile, adoptive parents are more financially stable, and the adoption system is set up to serve their needs (and, through doing so, make a profit). The result is that pregnant mothers who are unsure of what to do are often not given good (or any) information about their options but are pressured to relinquish their children. And the subsequent experience is not as it was marketed; open adoption agreements are not legally enforceable in most states and contact often diminishes or ends soon after the adoption is finalized. (Adoptive parents are also not given useful information, such as the benefits of maintaining a relationship with their birth family for the children being adopted.) This book probably had a particularly strong impact on me because, in reading it, I realized I was involved with early in my professional career was creating a tool for the marketing of adoption (viz., a curriculum Adoption Builds Families designed to normalize adoption for K-12 students). Of course, adoption does allow people unable to have children to build families, often happy families, but the deep-seated societal inequities that underlie the adoption system are worth learning more about.
Favorite Passage
. . . every time I cooked, I felt a little bit closer to her [his mother], perched on a branch of her life.
--Kwame Alexander, Why Fathers Cry at Night
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