Dog Days Diversions and A Few More Serious Works

It may not quite be the dog days of summer yet, but lately it has felt like it--and I amused myself with the alliteration. After all the nonfiction I was reading earlier this summer, I decided to go for some fluff--mostly but not entirely mysteries (the mysteries ran to the very dark with a strong dysfunctional marriage theme, so not as fluffy as I might have hoped). And I read a few nonfiction books, too (what is happening to me?).

Fluff

Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman. This Lippman stand-alone is the story of two Baltimore women in the 1960s. Madeline Schwartz is white, wealthy (until she leaves her husband), and trying to find herself by becoming a newspaper reporter. Cleo Sherwood is black, scraping by, and trying to find a man who can fulfill her. Along with these differences, Madeline is alive, and Cleo announces her own death early in the book. We get to know both Maddie and Cleo well, but we also hear from numerous other characters whose lives intersect with Maddie's as she tries to establish herself and determine who is responsible for Cleo's death--a story that is of little interest to the editors at her paper. The racism and sexism of the time are clear in the challenges that Maddie deals with and Cleo had to face in her brief life. There's one spot near the end that I thought was a weak way to do some explicating, but otherwise I really enjoyed this book.

The Chain, by Adrian McKinty. This book, which has gotten a lot of positive ink, has a very disturbing premise: A child is kidnapped. The parents are told that to get their child back, they must pay a ransom and kidnap another child, who they hold until the parents of that child pay a ransom and kidnap another child, and on and on. They do get their children back, but sometimes they may be required to do additional "jobs" for the operators of The Chain and risk their families being annihilated if they refuse or tell anyone. While reading the book, one cannot help asking oneself: What would you do to get your child back? The answer for the protagonist, a recently divorced woman just out of treatment for cancer, is completely transform herself into a ruthless person. I can't say I exactly enjoyed the book, but it held my interest.

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors, by Sonali Dev. This is not a mystery, but it is rather delightful fluff. It's a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, set in an Indian-American community in Northern California with the gender roles reversed--the female protagonist is a neuro-surgeon from a wealthy, well-educated family, whose oldest child is running for governor, while the male character is a chef with a desperately ill artist-sister who paints vaginas. It's utterly predictable but still fun--and perhaps the only book I've read in which eating is depicted as an orgasmic experience.

Big Sky, by Kate Atkinson. Atkinson is a serious writer, but her Jackson Brodie mystery series, of which this title is a part, is up and down. Big Sky was more down than up--there are a lot of characters (not unusual for an Atkinson book), many of whom are unlikable and seem to have little to do with each other. Most of them come together at the end as Jackson solves years-old and current child trafficking cases. Unfortunately, by then I didn't much care--but Atkinson is always merits a few sentences. Maybe Jackson should retire and the writer should focus on her more serious writing, which has produced some exemplary work.

Not worth a complete sentence:

The Tale Teller, by Anne Hillerman -- A decent entry in Hillerman's continuation of her father's series.
The Silent Wife, by A.S.A. Harriss -- Shame on Kate Atkinson for giving this a glowing blurb.
Since We Fell, by Dennis Lehane -- Shares with The Silent Wife a really dysfunctional marriage.
Blood Orange, by Harriet Tyce -- See comment on Since We Fell.
Watch Me Disappear, by Janelle Brown -- Ditto.
My Lovely Wife, by Samantha Downing -- Is a lovely couple who kidnaps and kills women together by definition dysfunctional? Hmmm. (Sorry that was a complete sentence.)
The Sleeping Beauty Killer, by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke -- Dumb and predictable.
The King Tides, by James Swain -- Nonsensical.
Crosstalk, by Connie Willis -- Indefensibly long (and so silly).

Non-Fluff

If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? by Alan Alda. Alda, a truly remarkable human being, discusses the need for better communication in general and in science and medicine particularly. He also shares  research on communication and looks at how acting exercises (particularly improv) can be useful in developing communication skills. He also describes the work he and others have done at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University. It's fascinating and well-communicated--and the audio version is read by Alda, who charms as he communicates.

Shout, by Laurie Halse Anderson. Shout is a memoir that examines the traumas of Anderson's youth--she was raped at 13 and lived in a home with alcoholic parents (her father also had PTSD). A year in Denmark as an exchange student may well have saved Anderson's life. She built a family and a successful writing career. Because her best-selling YA novel Speak dealt with teen rape, she is a frequent speaker at schools. Shout recounts one experience when a school principal pulled the fire alarm to prevent her from speaking to a second group of students after he heard her first presentation--denial that allows rape culture to continue is alive and well! Some of the short poems that comprise the book are moving, some less so--but the book is well worth reading. 

Working, by Robert Caro. Caro's career has been dedicated to documenting the lives of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson (he is still working on the fifth volume on Johnson). This book allows him to insert himself into that work, something he normally tries not to do. He does this by documenting how he conducted the research on the biographies and how he responded to what he learned. One of the most compelling stories he tells is about an interview with Lady Bird Johnson in which he asked her about a woman named Alice Glass, who was not only LBJ's lover but had enormous influence on the man; Caro recounts being unable to look at Lady Bird as he asked questions and she responded. What he makes clear about Johnson is what a complex and flawed man he was--he stole at least one election, manipulated people cruelly, exacerbated the mess in Vietnam, and yet his accomplishments domestically were unparalleled. Caro, like me, finds Johnson's civil rights speech one of the greatest presidential speeches ever--it's tragic that the "better angels" of his nature could not prevail over his other side.

Favorite Passages

untreated pain
is a cancer of the soul
that can kill you

Sisters, drop
everything. Walk
away from the lake, leaning
on each other's shoulders
when you need
the support. Feel the contractions
of another truth ready
to be born: shame
turned
inside out
is rage.

Shout, by Laurie Halse Anderson

What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.

Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.

And we shall overcome.

Lyndon B. Johnson, quoted by Robert Caro in Working

"Creative" Plot Devices: What Makes Them Work or Not?

Two books that I just finished have set me to thinking about "creative" plot devices and why some work and others don't (though they seem like good ideas).

Given the current popularity of podcasts, it's not surprising that they are showing up as plot devices in novels. I had read at least two other novels that used fictional podcasts as a source of text for a novel before reading Conviction, by Denise Mina. In the latest title from mystery-writer Mina, on the morning that Anna McDonald learns her partner is leaving her for her best friend, she has just started listening to a true-crime podcast (she's an aficionado). To her surprise, the podcast is about the death of someone she knew a decade ago, a man named Leon Parker. She decides the conclusion reached in the podcast can't be right and sets off on a madcap road trip with her former best friend's husband Fin (an anorexic over-the-hill rock star). As they investigate Leon's case, they are also pursued by hit men from Anna's past, who believed her to be dead but are alerted they were wrong about that by a picture posted on social media. Fin decides they should start their own podcast about the case, which only leads to more trouble.

Conviction has gotten some very positive reviews, but I found it to strain credulity. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems unlikely someone who has been trying to stay anonymous for a decade would, on the day her partner left her, set out on a crazy investigative road trip (with someone she barely knows) that is bound to stir the beehive. And the links between Leon's case and the trouble in Anna's past are also rather difficult to swallow. In this case, the podcast just seems like a way to get out a lot of information about the case--and it's not particularly effective. I didn't hate Conviction, but I don't think the rave reviews were justified. 

Lorna Landvik, in Chronicles of a Radical Hag (with Recipes), uses an analog device that might seem dated in today's digital news environment. but I found it much more effective. Haze Evans has written a newspaper column for 50 years. When she suffers a stroke and lapses into a coma, the newspaper's editor Susan decides to republish selected columns and reader responses from Haze's long career. She enlists her teenage son Sam to assist with the job, and the process turns out to be transformative for Sam--and for others in the community. It's a little bit corny but also funny and moving. The newspaper columns are an effective device because they create a distinct voice that makes a nice counterpoint to Susan and Sam's perspectives. And they offer Landvik the opportunity to comment on virtually anything that has happened in the past 50 years that she wants to opine about.

So what's my conclusion about why some "creative" plot devices work and some don't? I guess the main (and perhaps obvious) reason is that if a book has other flaws that cause you to discount it, a clever device is not likely to redeem it. In addition, if the device doesn't serve a particular purpose for which it is uniquely well-suited, then it's not really functional and not likely to be engaging. But I could be wrong!

Being a U.S. Attorney, a Chef, and an Environmental Activist: More Nonfiction

My nonfiction reading has continued, not without some struggle. But the three recently completed titles are worthy of mention here.

I am a big fan of Preet Bharara's Stay Tuned with Preet podcast so expected to enjoy his (much-plugged) book Doing Justice:  A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law. And I did--though I somehow hadn't really grasped what it is about. In essence, it's a look at the ethical and practical decisions prosecutors must make in four phases of the process: inquiry, accusation, judgment, and punishment. Bharara combines case histories from his years as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York with his own analysis and even family anecdotes. The result is both entertaining and educational. Perhaps the oddest thing in the book is his use of the Menendez brothers' case as something of a touchstone for the idea that sometimes you miss the most important thing that is happening. You may not agree with all of Preet's conclusions, but you will learn something about the system and be challenged to think.

I am also a big fan of Top Chef so approached the memoir from a show alum with interest. While I have read enough other chefs' memoirs to know that life in the kitchen can be brutal, Notes from a Young Black Chef, by Kwame Onwuachi (just named a Food and Wine Best New Chef), was an eye-opener in terms of the racism still rampant in restaurants, both in the front and back of the house. Onwuachi has an interesting background, particularly in terms of the influences on his cuisine (I don't mean to be dismissive about the challenges and missteps he overcame--I'm just so old I'm more interested in food than youth). Although his rise in the culinary world seems very rapid from the outside, from his perspective, a lot of effort, anguish, and abuse (from chefs and investors, in particular) went into that rise. It's worth understanding what that experience involved. 

I struggled to finish The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks, by Terry Tempest Williams (of whom I am also a fan). Each chapter of the book is set in one national park and deals not only with the park but with a topic concerning Williams. Since she is a well-known environmental activist, many have to do with the ways in which humans are threatening earth's very future. While I agree with her about the problem and admire her work to seek solutions, these chapters became tedious (sorry--shallow!). Other chapters were more engaging. The chapter on Grand Teton National Park takes a historical approach and is built around a poem Williams was asked to write for the dedication of the Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve. I liked this chapter a lot, as I did the chapter on Alcatraz, which highlighted her visit to that historic site at the time art by Ai Weiwei was being exhibited. Also interesting was her discussion of the politicization of history at Gettysburg and her description of being in the path of the biggest fire ever at Glacier National Park. Williams is a gifted writer, so it's hard for me to stop reading a chapter for fear I'll miss a beautiful turn of phrase. For other readers, I'd suggest a pick and choose approach to this book.

Favorite passages

Humility is born in wildness. We are not protecting grizzles from extinction; they are protecting us from the extinction of experience as we engage with a world beyond ourselves. The very presence of a grizzly returns us to an ecology of awe. We tremble at what appears to be a dream yet stands before us on two legs and roars.

And the simple, undeniable fact: all wars are political. We will fight for the myth that will support and sustain our point of view at all costs.

. . . the best response to intimidation is joy and resolve.

"We forget the place of anger in the work of love."  quote from Dylan Schneider

All from The Hour of Land, by Terry Tempest Williams

These Truths and An American Summer

I read much more fiction than nonfiction, but lately I've been on something of a nonfiction kick and have recently finished two works of nonfiction that I recommend.

These Truths: A History of the United States, by Jill LePore, is a political history of the nation--and in considering whether we have lived up to the ideals laid forth in our founding documents covers much of the dark side of our history. Even as a social studies nerd (so dubbed by my nine-year-old grandson), I learned a great deal from this book. From the fact that explorers prior to Columbus did not claim lands they "discovered" for their patrons to the similarities between Harding and Trump to the role of women's clubs in creating the conservative movement and the shocking fact that 90 percent of Americans now refuse to participate in polls, I encountered more new facts and ideas than I could absorb. I particularly would like to reread the latter sections of the book, which provide some new ways (for me) to think about how we have arrived at our current state of miasma.

Trying to "summarize" this rather massive book in any meaningful way is impossible (at least for me), but I can say that reading it will be edifying for virtually anyone. All of that is not to say the book is perfect--LePore has been roundly criticized for not dealing with how "these truths" applied to indigenous peoples throughout U.S. history. But it is still a worthwhile starting point for opening one's mind to new ideas.

An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago, written by Alex Kotlowitz, is an example of long-form journalism. Kotlowitz also wrote There Are No Children Here, a book that profoundly affected me back in the 1990s. In that work, Kotlowitz followed closely two brothers living in public housing in Chicago; over the course of three years in the 1980s, the author observed and interviewed the boys, their family members, friends, and others who came into contact with them. The resulting narrative demonstrated how poverty and society's inadequate response to it affected every aspect of Lafayette and Pharoah's lives, in essence destroying their innocence and childhood.

In An American Summer, Kotlowitz 's reporting is broader but shallower. He examines how violence affects Chicago's poor, particularly those who are African American and Latinx. While he intended to tell the story of violence that occurred during one summer, he found it impossible to do so without going both backward and forward in the stories of the mostly young people affected by Chicago's epidemic of violence, violence that is often deadly or disabling. One of the most compelling stories is Marcelo's. Marcelo was a 17-year-old who had "straddled two worlds," his South Side neighborhood, where he had been shot and gotten into trouble with the law, and the world of the Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, where he had begged to be admitted and was known as a hard worker and good student. Marcelo ends up on "house arrest" in Mercy for more than two years, a strange and isolating experience for a young man struggling to find a path forward.

But Marcelo survives, which many of the people Kotlowitz profiles do not. It's heartbreaking and infuriating--but it doesn't provide a way forward. Kotlowitz allows us to see how violence devastates lives, families, and communities; to find solutions we must look elsewhere. Some reviewers have chastised Kotlowitz for not discussing that the murder rate is lower than it was in 1990--but a safer city overall does not do much for the young people in the neighborhoods the author observed in his four years reporting the book. I recommend reading the book--and then learning more about what can be done to help and taking action to make sure it does.

Favorite passages:

To study the past is to unlock the prison of the present. The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden. It can't be shirked. You carry it everywhere. There is nothing for it but to get to know it.

--Jill LePore, These Truths

Violence has a way of catching up with you. Best not to stand still. Best to keep moving. Violence has a way of making you feel sullied. Best not to raise questions. Violence has a way of taking over your narrative. Best not to let it shape who you are. Violence has a way of exposing cracks in your universe. Best not to speak of those you love. Cathlene Johnson, who owns Johnson Funeral Home with her sister, once told me she might of added, on everyone around you as well.

--Alex Kotlowitz, An American Summer

Feast Your Eyes and The Friend

In the past couple weeks, I’ve read two interestingly structured novels about art, friendship, family, memory, and more.

 Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg is structured as an exhibit catalog written by the artist/photographer’s daughter Samantha Jane and also incorporating excerpts from her mother’s journal and interviews with people from her mother’s past. Lillian knew as a girl in Cleveland in the 1940s that she would move to New York and be a photographer, despite her parents' wish that she lead a  more traditional life. In 1951, after graduating from high school, she takes off to pursue her dream. By 1955, she has had her first show, given birth to her daughter (never telling the father that she was pregnant), and met Ken, with whom she will move to Brooklyn, free for a few years to pursue her photography without the constraints of making a living. But then Lillian becomes pregnant; she wants an abortion but Ken wants the baby, and the rift destroys their already-troubled relationship. Lillian has an abortion and a photograph of Sam and herself that she takes in the aftermath shocks viewers when it appears in an exhibition titled "The Samantha Series"; the ripples from this event permanently alter Sam and Lillian's relationship.

This brief synopsis does not do justice to the complexity of the plot; I have not even mentioned  Lillian's two significant friendships, the relationship that develops between Sam and her maternal grandparents, the court case revolving around the Samantha Series, and more. The story of these deeply realized characters--even the minor characters are three-dimensional--is moving. In addition, the descriptions of how Lillian worked and the resulting 100+ images included in a posthumous exhibition gave this non-artist a window into photography and the creative mind. 

I loved Goldberg's first novel, Bee Season, and Feast Your Eyes is similar in its originality, its complexity, its insights into art, and its spot-on portrayal of a young female character, and yet wholly different. Highly recommended.

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez is presented as a letter from the nameless narrator to her nameless friend, a well-known writer, her former teacher, and a recent suicide. Her friend was a womanizer who seduced and sometimes married his students. His third and final wife convinces the narrator to take in his dog, a Great Dane named Apollo. Since the narrator lives in a New York apartment, a Great Dane presents numerous challenges but also offers solace. Apollo's role in the novel provides the closest thing to a plot that the book has; most of the book is more a reflection on writing, memory, friendship, loss, and grief. I can't say I loved The Friend but it was interesting and thought-provoking, and well worth reading.

Favorite passages:

When we disagreed, Lillian's eyes stayed on my face, as if to remind me that our friendship would always have a place in the world.

Feast Your Eyes

If reading really does increase empathy, as we are constantly being told it does, it appears that writing takes some away.

The Friend, when the narrator hears another writer say about her friend, "Now he's officially a dead white male."

Well-Read Black Girl, edited by Glory Edim

Well-Read Black Girl started as a t-shirt given to Glory Edim by her partner. Then it became an Instragam, an on-line community, a national network of face-to-face book groups, a literary festival, and now this book, subtitled Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves.

As a 68-year-old white woman, I am not exactly the book's target audience, but I totally enjoyed the essays by African American woman writers, reflecting on the books that were significant to them as young people, books in which they first felt represented or seen. The essayists include women working in a variety of genres--novels, memoir, poetry, drama; among them are recognizable names like Jesmyn Ward, Tayari Jones, Rebecca Walker, Stephanie Powell Watts, Zinzi Clemmons, Lynn Notage, and Jacquelie Woodson. The works they cite as important to them (although not always in a completely positive way) include some of the works one might expect--Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Sula by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall, the poetry of Lucille Clifton and Nikki Giovanni. But there are also surprises--Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg and Boy, by Roald Dahl to name two. One of the gifts of WRBG is the book list of every work mentioned by the essayists.

Another of its gifts is the inspirational writing about reading and writing. A few examples:

“Jamaica Kincaid taught me that the women I loved might not have been known to many people in the world but they were opera singers. They had beauty in their voices; great dramas were at the cruxes of their lives. And if I could catch their voices—the way they loved, the way they taught, the way they turned their faces away in pain, and how they stood in their own power—then their words on the page might become a song worth singing.”—Veronica Chambers

“Baldwin is a moral philosopher. His work does not merely describe and analyze oppression, but relentlessly asks the reader to examine their individual relationship to evil, to cruelty, bigotry, and white supremacy, and whether they are ready to change.” —Barbara Smith

“At the end of the day, the job of the Black woman writer is the same as the work of the well-read Black girl. We are to be curious and determined, committed to life and all of its many permutations. We are to look to the words of our sisters for knowledge and uplift, camaraderie and support. We are to seek beauty and find ourselves. We are to live and tell the story.”—Rebecca Walker

“So much depends on us remembering our past. We live in a country that likes to forget—likes to forget who was here before us, likes to forget who built the country, likes to forget who this country was stolen from.”—Jacqueline Woodson

I know that’s a lot of quoting, but perhaps one of these brief excerpts will inspire you to pick up this book—it’s well-worth your time. Meanwhile, I can’t help wondering where Glory Edim will take WRBG next.

Great YA Novels, Classics, and Other April Reading

YA Novels

The Poet X, a YA novel written as the title character's poetry journal was a wonderful way to kick off my National Poetry month reading. The Poet X celebrates the power of poetry while grappling with religion, identity, family, sexuality--pretty much all the big issues teens deal with. Author Elizabeth Acevedo is a former middle school English teacher whose use of language is lovely. Here, the protagonist Xiomara writes about her new-found love, Aman: 

Every time I think about Aman
poems build inside me
like I've been gifted a box of metaphor Legos
that I stack and stack and stack.

The author reads another of X's poems here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAKiLr__ppM&fbclid=IwAR0MBrzbABFLAU6KwagBM1HR9l28Ukk8dXOpfGjbI95Yd1cw2AjWEElxa_A

Highly recommended.

I also recommend Words in Deep Blue, by Cath Crowley, a teen love story with a twist--parts of the story are told in notes left in books in the Letter Library, a section of a charming book store owned by Henry Jones's family. Henry's childhood friend Rachel Sweetie is hired to create a catalog of everything written on or left within the books in the Letter Library--this cataloging is occurring because the book store may be sold in the wake of Henry's parents' separation. Rachel and others have secrets that only gradually emerge--while the characters do suffer pain, the ending is life-affirming.

Reading Classics

I read two "classics" this month, neither of which I had read before. I actually liked White Fang, by Jack London, more than I thought I would. It's a vivid portrayal of a wolf's life in the wild and then in domesticity; the reflective reader may be prompted to consider what is lost and what is gained when humans become "tamed."  The book begins with the trek of two men across the Yukon, beset by a pack of wolves. After one man is killed and the other survives, the narrative follows the wolf pack. I didn't really think the switch in narration from humans to wolves worked, although I guess it provided a context for the travails of the wolves. Notwithstanding Theodore Roosevelt's having called out London as a "nature faker," the writing is compelling.

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, my book group's selection for the month, was another story. Although I really appreciated the analysis that our discussion leader Linda led us through, I really disliked the book. The characters were, in my opinion, entirely despicable, I could not understand Bronte's choice to put two unreliable narrators between the reader and the story, and, in sum, I disliked the book intensely.

Some Sci-Fi

I feel unjustifiably proud of myself when I venture out into some science fiction, and I enjoyed both of the speculative works I tried this month. The Dispatcher is a novella by John Scalzi that was one of Audible's free originals this month. In Scalzi's future Chicago, murdered people suddenly disappear from the scene and reemerge at home, naked and alive. Building on this miraculous development, an entirely new career develops--dispatcher, people who patrol hospitals to dispatch people beyond medical help so they can live. The book's story develops from the free-lance work that dispatchers do so that people can, for example, engage in risky activities and survive. It's both thought-provoking and entertaining.

Here and Now and Then, by Mike Chen, is a time-traveling adventure and, like all time-travel adventures occasionally confused me--but it's entertaining nonetheless.  Kin Stewart was a time-traveling agent from the year 2142 who becomes stranded in the 1990s. He decides to build a life there, marrying and fathering a child. After 18 years, rescuers from 2142, where only a few weeks have passed, arrive to rescue him, whether he wants to be rescued or not. Back in  2142, he has a fiance who no longer understands him and the ability (though forbidden) to find out what happened to his wife and daughter after he left--what he learns is not good and he sets out to change his daughter's future. The book is, in essence, a testament to the power of love, and I recommend it.

Rant

I've gone on about this before, but Anna Quindlen's Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting brings an old complaint to the fore: there are a lot of silly books that get published simply because their authors are well-established. At the time she wrote this book, Quindlen had one grandchild who was still a toddler and, honestly, she doesn't have anything of much interest or value to share about grandparenting. Her advice is, at best, common sense that few need to be told--and it comes from her privileged position as a member of a functional family unit with exceptional means. Advice from that perspective does not go down well.