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. 

The Best of 2020

Just the headline "The Best of 2020" makes me shake my head. What a year it has been--but it's been a year with time for reading (particularly reading via audio book, since reading print seemed to become more challenging whenever our degree of lockdown went up). 

At any rate, it is always fun to look back at what I've read during the course of the year. I note that I don't have much patience for millennials in fiction. I did turn 70 this year, so perhaps that's not surprising--though I have enjoyed a number of books about teenagers, so . . . 

A few days ago, my friend Jan asked our book group members to name their three favorite books of the year. I surprised myself by listing three nonfiction books--as always, I read way more fiction than nonfiction, but there were some really great nonfiction titles this year. 

Fiction

I once again had trouble choosing a favorite--nothing stood out in the way, say, The Underground Railroad or Life After Life did a few years back. But there were some good ones--and my favorite really could have been any of the ones I listed as honorable mentions.  

Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha. This book was both timely and well-done. It is a fictionalized account of an killing that took place in Los Angeles at the time of the Rodney King riots--a Korean American shopkeeper shot and killed an innocent African American teenage girl. The novel looks at the long-range impacts through Shawn, the cousin of the murdered girl, and Grace, the daughter of the shopkeeper-killer. Both want to do the right thing while dealing with complicated family and cultural dynamics. 

Honorable mention: 

• The Gifted School, by Bruce Holsinger
• Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid
• Goodbye, Vitamin, by Rachel Khong

Short Stories

As readers of the blog know, short stories aren't my thing, but I read two collections I really enjoyed this year:

Sabrina and Corina, by Kali Fajardo-Anstine, features young women of Mexican American or indigenous heritage. Most of the stories are set in and around Denver, which added to their attraction for me. But even if they had been set elsewhere, I would have found these stories of young women dealing with illness, isolation, injustice, violence, and loss moving, memorable, and instructive. 

Honorable mention:

• Fools, by Joan Silber

Mystery

Yesterday by Felicia Yap, is a mystery with sci-fi/fantasy elements. The mystery is set in a time/place where people have only one or two days of memory, and the "Monos" are discriminated against by the "Duos." Indeed, the police detective tasked with solving the murder of a beautiful woman has hidden the fact that he is a Mono for his entire career, and the murdered woman's unusual memory is key to her fate. I thoroughly enjoyed the imaginative and twisty nature of this mystery though I should probably share that my sister did not care for it!

Honorable mention: 

• Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

Young Adult

Both of my favorites in this category were novels in verse.  

One, by Sarah Crossan, which came to me via a recommendation from my granddaughter, is the story of conjoined twins, Grace and Tippi, who start attending school for the first time as teens. They make two amazing friends but also suffer ridicule -- and they face a health crisis when Grace's heart begins to fail. The poetic form seems especially appropriate to the exploration of identity in a highly unusual situation. 

Honorable mention:

• Clap When You Land, by Elizabeth Acevedo

Poetry

As usual, I didn't read as much poetry as I think I should have, but I did have a favorite.

An American Sunrise, by Joy Harjo, poet laureate of the United States, links the Trail of Tears to the current treatments of migrants on the Southwestern border. Many of the poems, which are interspersed with text passages providing historic perspective, are a form of literary resistance. 

Nonfiction

I can't choose between my two favorites, which are extremely different -- and any of the honorable mentions could just as easily be in the "winners" category.

The Library Book, by Susan Orlean, is ostensibly the story of the devastating fire at the central Los Angeles Library in 1986. And it does explore many aspects of the fire and recovery in fascinating detail, but it's also a history of libraries and their role in the community; a love song to books, libraries, and librarians; and a memoir of the author's relationship to libraries at various points in her life. It might seem the book could fall apart under the weight of so many different stories, but it doesn't. I loved it. 

Memorial Drive, by Natasha Tretheway (a former poet laureate), is wonderful in an entirely different way. Tretheway writes about her childhood as the daughter of a black mother and white father, the dissolution of her parents' marriage, her mother's eventual re-marriage and divorce, and the mother's murder by the second ex-husband. It's a devastating portrait and exploration of trauma and its effects, as well as a way to look at what it means for African American to seek freedom and how writing can heal. And it's beautifull written. 

Honorable Mention:

• Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, by Lori Gottlieb
• Know My Name, by Chanel Miller
• Supreme Inequality, by Adam Cohen
• Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama

Favorite Passages

I always look for themes in the quotes I especially loved during the year. There are definitely themes in 2020. One is love and what that means. Another is harder to describe, but perhaps it is self-examination or reflection. I know this is a lot of quotes, but somehow it feels like we need a lot of inspiration as we leave 2020 behind. 

**

How do we become who we are in the world? We ask the world to teach us. But we have to ask with an open heart, with no idea what the answer will be. 

We call such a limited number of relationships love in our lives, but there is always love around us--it's as ubiquitous as oxygen. It lives in the houses where we've slept, the kitchens where we've cooked, in the food we've prepared for the people we love and in the walls we've shaped with our hands. 

--Pam Houston, Deep Creek (a wonderful nonfiction book that didn't even make it into the year's best!)

**

"Break My Heart" (excerpts)

The heart is a fist.
It pockets prayer or holds rage. 

It's a timekeeper.
Music maker, or backstreet truth teller.

--Joy Harjo, An American Sunrise

**

What imperfect carriers of love we are, and what imperfect givers. That the reasons we an care for one another can have nothing to do with the person cared for. That it has only to do with who we were around that person, what we felt about that person. 

--Rachel Khong, Goodbye, Vitamin

**

The unexamined life is not worth living, as the aphorism goes, but perhaps an honorable an dinformed life requires examining others' lives, not just one's own. Perhaps we do not know ourselves unless we know others. 

Comfort is often a code word for the right to be unaware. 

--Rebecca Solnit, Whose Story Is This?

**

In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned. When I first heard the phrase, I didn't understand it, but over time I came to realize it was perfect. Our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences and emotions; each individual's consciousness is a collection of memories we've cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived. 

--Susan Orlean, The Library Book

**

They say that a person's personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn't true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we'd never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we're more than a mistake we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.

. . . we weren't ready to become adults. Somebody should have stopped us.

--Fredrick Backman, Anxious People

**

In the narrative of my life, which is the look backward rather than forward into the unknown and unstoried future, I emerged from the pool as from a baptismal font--changed, reborn--as if I had been shown what would be my calling even then. This is how the past fits into the narrative of our lives, gives meaning and purpose. Even my mother's death is redeemed in the story of my calling, made meaningful rather than merely senseless. It is the story I tell myself to survive.

--Natasha Tretheway, Memorial Drive

**

And these two don't fit the themes but I like them:

He cares about other people . . . Most men don't know the pleasure.

--Kali Fajardo Anstine, Sabrina and Corina

Black people are apparently responsible for calming the fears of violent cops in the way women are supposedly responsible for calming the sexual desires of male rapists.

Racist ideas love believers, not thinkers.

--Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

Wrapping up the Year with Transcendent Kingdom, Supreme Inequality, and More

This is the time of year when I start looking at various "Best of " lists and trying to read some of the titles I haven't read (or even heard of). My favorite list, mentioned numerous times before, is the LitHub list that identifies which books appeared in the most end-of-year best of lists (https://lithub.com/the-ultimate-best-books-of-2020-list/). I have started working on that list; that will continue for a couple months in 2021, and then I will give up and move on. At any rate, the results so far have been mixed.

Sorry this is such a long post--I read a lot this month and seem to have a lot to say. I am, once again, thinking about ending the blog or changing the format somehow. We will see in January. 

Fiction

Transcendent Kingdom, by Yaa Gyasi (from the LitHub list).  One of the things that I appreciated about this book is how different it is from Gyasi's previous (and very good but utterly depressing) book, Homegoing. Transcendent Kingdom's protagonist is Gifty, the daughter of a family of Ghanaian immigrants. The story is told in two tracks, with Gifty's childhood in Alabama up to her brother's death due to a  heroin overdose providing one track and the other track focusing on her present life as a neuroscience graduate student at Stanford (with her mother suffering from depression and essentially living in Gifty's bedroom). Gifty's research focuses on work with mice that may reveal the secrets of depression and addiction; as she pursues science at the highest levels, she also reflects on her childhood in her mother's evangelical church. It's a fascinating weaving together of a range of themes. I thought it ended rather abruptly but still found it a rewarding read. 

Followers, by Megan Angelo. Followers explores the implications of our current entertainment and social media culture, particularly "influencers" and reality television.  Orla and Floss are a wannabe author and wannabe singer respectively. They launch a successful scheme to become influencers (Orla is the brains of the scheme and Floss the more public face), but their friendship endures some extreme difficulties and their popularity eventually fades. Then a technology apocalypse happens--I'm not sure what exactly the apocalypse was (I probably spaced out on the tech explanation) and, as a result, the government takes over management of the Internet. Thirty years later, a young woman named Marlow lives in a community in which the lives of the inhabitants are completely public (think Ed TV). She decides to break out of the community to find out more about a family secret. Darkly funny but also somewhat hopeful. I enjoyed it.

The Book of Two Ways, by Jody Picoult. This book about a woman who gave up a potential career in Egyptology to care for her dying mother, marry, and become a death doula--and comes to regret it-- differs from other Picoult books because there is no legal conflict! Parts of the books read like mini-lectures on a variety of topics, particularly related to Egyptology (think of Kathy Reichs teaching us about forensic anthropology in the guise of a mystery). Plus, the main character is not likeable, and Picoult packs in too many topics--fat shaming, physics, death, Egyptology. These factors make the book somewhat tedious, and not recommended.

Tokyo Ueno Station, by Yu Miri. This book won the 2020 National Book Award for translated works (translated by Morgan Giles). In it, the ghost of a Korean-Japanese laborer recounts the difficulties of his early life and his observations of life in the park near Tokyo's Ueno Station, where he lived in a homeless village for the last years of his life. The book has been lauded as an exploration of hidden Japanese lives and it is that, but as a novel it didn't engage me. 

Enter the Aardvark, by Jessica Anthony. This book is a somewhat weird satire about a young Congressman who idolizes Ronald Reagan and has huge ambitions. Things start to go wrong when a stuffed aardvark is delivered to his apartment; the source of the aardvark is his gay lover, who seems to have sent it immediately before dying. From that point on, things go haywire rapidly. It's a funny book (especially if you like to make fun of conservative Republicans). 

Friends and Strangers, by J. Courtney Sullivan. This novel, somewhat like Such a Fun Age, revolves around the relationship between a mother and the babysitter she hires to care for her son while she "writes." While Friends and Strangers does not have the racial element of Such a Fun Age, it does explore the ramifications of class differences. Both characters have a lot going on in their lives outside of their relationship. Notably for the mother, Elisabeth, are a wealthy father whose assistance she steadfastly refuse to accept though it could save her in-laws from losing their home and a husband who has moved them from Brooklyn to a small upstate college town so he can pursue his idea for a solar-powered grill (and who wants another child, which she does not). For Sam, the babysitter, there are her obnoxious and older British boyfriend and the people she has worked with in the college cafeteria, whom she wants to help through activism. The book was okay, but I would have liked it more if Elisabeth had been less obnoxious and Sam more level-headed (but it's a good reminder of the dumb decisions made at 20). 

Just Like You, by Nick Hornby. Hornby is one of those authors who sometimes knocks it out of the park and sometimes leaves me feeling, as the saying goes, meh. Just Like You was definitely a meh. It's basically a romance novel about an older divorced mother and a younger black man. For me, it didn't provide any particular insight into race in the UK or single motherhood. I'll be waiting hopefully for the next Hornby work.

Luster, by Raven Leilani (from the LitHub list). It was weird to read this just after the Hornby book because it's about a love affair between a young African American woman and an older (married) white man. The twist in the story is that the woman Edie, whose life is in shambles after she has messed up repeatedly at work (if this weren't the case, it seems unlikely she would be in a relationship with Eric, who appears to have few, if any, redeeming qualities) ends up living with Eric's family, helping his adopted African American daughter Akila adjust to the family. The book is really well-written and includes some sharp commentary on race, class, and gender, but I just couldn't get past my dismay at Edie's self-destructiveness to enjoy it. 

The Sweeney Sisters, by Lian Dolan. When the three Sweeney sisters arrive home for the funeral of their father, a larger-than-life novelist, they learn there is a fourth Sweeney sister, born from an affair their father had with the woman next door. The novel is the story of how they deal with this news, as well as the messiness of their own lives and the sibling conflicts and rivalries that have persisted for years. This isn't a great book but it was the right book for the moment, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Britt-Marie Was Here, by Fredrick Backman. Because I enjoyed Anxious People, I decided to try another Fredrick Backman. Britt-Marie was a rather up-tight busy body who appeared in my least favorite Backman (My Grandmother Told Me . . . ) but this is her redemption story, as she is forced to find work in a small town when her husband leaves her. Through her contacts with a bevy of quirky characters, including a youth soccer team for which she accidentally becomes a coach, she opens her heart--although she doesn't entirely give up her obsessive behaviors. Feeling fairly positive toward Backman after this one. 

Mystery

The Blackhouse, by Peter May. My sister-in-law Kathy, who has a love for Scotland, recommended the series that launches with this title, not coincidentally set in the Scottish Hebrides. Our hero, Fin Macleod, has just lost his son to a car accident when he is sent to his home town on the island of Lewis to investigate a case similar to a recent one in Edinburgh. The victim on Lewis was a notorious bully with whom Fin had history in his school days. It's a very dark story, but complex and intriguing enough to justify moving to book 2 in the series. 

Sometimes I Lie, by Alice Feeney.  Amber is paralyzed and in a coma--but she can hear what is happening in her hospital room and she's afraid--of her sister, her husband, and an ex who has turned up as a doctor in the hospital. Alternating between accounts of what she hears in the hospital, a narrative of the events leading up to the accident in which she was injured, and excerpts from a childhood diary, the book weaves a twisty psychological tale in which you're unsure who the good guys are--if there are any. Entertaining.

Nonfiction

Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation, by Andrew Weissmann. Weissman led one of the three investigative teams that working under Robert Mueller. In this book, he recounts how the work was done and the decisions that shaped the final product. The Mueller report is actually quite damning (I have read it), but Weissmann makes clear that it could have been so much stronger. Of course, AG Barr could still have lied about a stronger report, but perhaps some of the agony of the past year could have been avoided. Infuriating but recommended. 

Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court's 50-Year Battle for a More Unjust America, by Adam Cohen. While I think I am fairly well informed about the Supreme Court, I learned a lot from this analysis and was forced to think in a longer term way about the Court's role in injustice and inequity in the United States. The first takeaway was that the Court has had a conservative Chief Justice and a conservative majority since the Nixon administration; we may have thought of the Court as being somewhat evenly divided when O'Connor and then Kennedy were the swing votes--and certainly it is more conservative with Roberts now in that position--but it was actually always conservative. (And Richard Nixon and his Justice Dept. manipulated things to achieve the initial conservative majority, just as McConnell and likely Trump [I believe we will eventually learn more about how Kennedy was compelled to retire]). Further, that conservative majority has actively sought cases that allowed them to favor the rich, business, and by association Republicans while harming working class and poor people, people of color, immigrants, and basically anyone who is not a member of the economically elite. One of the most telling parts of the book compares the way in which the Court interpreted the Eighth Amendment when when punishment involved poor people and people of color (e.g., upholding three strikes laws for petty offenses) compared with corporations (e.g., striking down as unreasonable damage awards rendered by juries). But the trend extends to cases in many different areas of the law, including education, campaign finance, voting, workers' rights, and more. And, should someone be foolish enough to believe that only liberal judges are activists, they really need to read the analysis of the excessively broad decision in the infamous Citizens United case (along with the rest of the book). 

Also Read

• Topics of Conversation, by Miranda Popkey. Similar to Rachel Cusk's work in its reliance on recounting stories from people talking to the main character rather than narrative development around the main character. 
• Rebel Chef: In Search of What Matters, by Dominique Crenn. Some parts of this memoir are interesting, but overall it was disappointing because it didn't really inform the reader about how Crenn's food became so unique. 
• Sex and Vanity, by Kevin Kwan. If his other books are anything like this one, I can't understand how Kwan has become so popular. 
• I Found You, by Lisa Jewell. A single mom comes across a man sitting on the beach near her home and invites him to stay with her family. At that point very early in the book, I lost my ability to suspend disbelief, so the rest of this intricately structured mystery just didn't work for me, but I'm sure many people would like it. 
• Killing Season, by Faye Kellerman. Once again, Kellerman goes into some detail describing teenage sex, which I find creepy in a mystery for adults. 
• The Guest List, by Lisa Foley. A marriage is taking place on a remote island and it turns out multiple characters have reason to hate the groom. Hints of Murder on the Orient Express. 
• Recipe for Persuasion, by Sonali Dev. Once again, Dev applies elements of a Jane Austen novel to romance among Indian Americans, with a foodie subtheme.
• The Silent Wife, Karen Slaughter. Typical Will Trent mystery.
• The Night Swim, by Megan Goldin. Another mystery using the true crime podcast as a trope.
  
  

Favorite Passages

The truth is we don't know what we don't know. We don't even know the questions we need to ask in order to find out, but when we learn one tiny little thing, a dim light comes on in a dark hallway, and suddenly a new question appears. We spend decades, centuries, millennia, trying to answer that one question so that another dim light will come on. That's science, but that's also everything else, isn't it? Try. Experiment. Ask a ton of questions.

--Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom

. . . passion is worth something, not for what it gives us but for what it demands we risk. Our dignity. The puzzlement of others and their condescending, shaking heads.

--Frederik Backman, Britt-Marie Was Here

Grateful for Good Books . . . Memorial Drive and Anxious People

With the return of "stay home" orders (stated a little less stridently) and lots of mindless tasks that are great for doing while listening to books (putting up Christmas decorations, wrapping gifts, addressing Christmas cards--yes, I'm trying to get ready early), I got through a lot of books in November. A number of them were light enough to float and I may have chosen a few too many featuring millennial protagonists--but there were also some good ones! 

Fiction

Anxious People, by Fredrick Backman. I'm not a huge Backman fan, but I really enjoyed this book--it was the right combination of humor and uplift for the ninth month of a pandemic. A bank robber is foiled when the targeted bank has no cash. In desperation, the robber flees into a nearby apartment where a real estate agent is conducting a showing with a diverse group of quirky people (it is Backman, after all). Meanwhile, a father-son pair of police officers, struggling with the mother/wife's death and their very different approaches to policing, try to figure out how to get the hostages out safely. Running beneath the humor is the story of two suicide attempts--one completed, the other not--that took place on a bridge visible from the apartment where the robber and real-estate "buyers" are holed up. This aspect of the novel gives it some depth that it wouldn't otherwise have. Overall, the epitome of the phrase "a good read." 

Monogamy, by Sue Miller. I like Sue Miller. Sometimes I love her. With Monogamy, I'm stuck at like, but like is good too. Annie wakes up one morning to find her husband Graham dead next to her. Over the following days and weeks, she, their daughter, Graham's first wife Frieda, and his son with Frieda all grapple with their relationships to Graham and to each other. The book causes the reader to consider questions like how, even in  good marriage, one partner can be subsumed by the other or how the best-intentioned parent can inflict pain on their children or how two women who loved the same man can forge a friendship. Like I said, I like this book--and I recommend it. 

The Accidental, by Ali Smith. Ali Smith is a darling of the critics, but I don't find her work compelling in any way.  It includes narratives from four family members--husband/stepfather Michael, mother Eve, children Magnus and Astrid--and an uninvited guest at their vacation house, Amber. Amber's role seems to be to point out the cracks in the family, which are many and which she, in fact, widens. But, with the exception of Magnus's agony about his role in a bullying incident in which the victim committed suicide, I found the family members' stories unmoving and Amber's sections are incomprehensible to me. Not recommended. By the way, I was tempted to read this book after not liking a couple of other Ali Smith's by its being part of the Rooster Super Tournament, meaning a group of authors chose it as the best book of the year when it was published (for more about this, see https://themorningnews.org/tob/); they were wrong. 

The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick DeWitt. Affirming that the Rooster and I are out of synch, I thought The Sisters Brothers was just dumb. It's about two hit men in the West of the mid-1800s, in search of a man their boss wants dead. They encounter various quirky people (and are pretty quirky themselves) on their "road trip"--I assume it's supposed to be funny. But even if I am wrong, I can't see how this was the best book of any year. 

Father of the Rain, by Lily King. The white protagonist of this novel, Daley, is about to drive to Berkeley to take up a faculty appointment in anthropology at Berkeley. Her African American fiance will join her there shortly. Then she receives news that her alcoholic father is in the midst of a health crisis; she rushes to his side, intended to staying just a few days. But the days drag on, as she reflects on how her father disrupted her childhood and why she even as an adult cannot confront his retrograde attitudes on race and gender. There's some interesting exploration of the father-daughter relationship, but I was so irritated with Daley's decision-making that I couldn't find empathy for her. 

The Institute, by Stephen King. I don't think I've ever read a Stephen King novel before and I'm not going to start binging his oeuvre, but I did find The Institute quite interesting. Children with telekinetic or telepathic powers are kidnapped and taken to "The Institute," where their abilities are tapped for nefarious or admirable purposes depending on your perspective. Half of the book focuses on what happens to the children at The Institute, half on the events that transpire when one young man, Lucas, escapes and attempts to rescue his friends. Definitely worth reading.

What Are You Going Through? by Sigrid Nunez. Nunez here continues her exploration of death, begun in The Friend.  The unnamed narrator is asked by a friend to help her die. They will live together in a vacation rental until the (also unnamed) friend becomes ill enough to decide to commit suicide. They share good times, deep conversations about life and death, and tension; at the same time, the narrator is also interacting with her ex-husband, who lectures about the approaching end of the world due to climate change--death at another level. The book has been very positively reviewed, although I didn't find it find it terribly engaging. Would definitely recommend The Friend over this newer work.

Afterland, by Lauren Beukes. It's another post-pandemic novel! This time, the disease that sweeps around the world causes men, following recovery from the virus, to come down with a deadly form of prostate cancer. As a result, any boys and men who do not succumb are being "protected" in camps where they are subjected to medical experiments. At the same time, traffickers seek to kidnap boys for sperm harvesting. Cole, a native of South Africa, is trying to get her son, disguised as a girl, across country to escape the United States (evidently, the situation in other countries is not as bad). Among their other adventures, they get involved with a female religious cult. There are better post-pandemic books but this one was enjoyable. 

The Party Upstairs, by Lee Conell. Ruby has just been dumped and lost her job; she's also got serious debt. So what does she do? Moves back into her parents' apartment. Her dad Martin is the super in a NYC apart building, so that apartment is in the basement, figuratively miles away from the people who live upstairs, including Ruby's old "friend" Beth, who is planning a party for the evening of the day in which the story unfolds. Ruby and her dad face an array of challenges during the day (her mother is conveniently away at a librarians' conference) that send them both into tailspins and prompt them to reflect on their relationship as well as the class structure the apartment building represents. Recommended.

Oona Out of Order, by Margarita Monitomore. On her 19th birthday, coincidentally--or not, New Year's Day--Oona wakes up to find herself a 51-year-old woman. She learns that she experiences life in random order and that she is a wealthy woman as a result of investments made using knowledge gained through her "time travel." Many years, she receives a letter from herself at the previous age; the letters help her navigate the situation but there are mysteries the letters do not answer. Oona Out of Order is reminiscent of The Time Traveller's Wife; while perhaps not as good as that book, it's still inventive and enjoyable. 

Days of Distraction, by Alexandra Chang. This apparently autobiographical novel follows a young Chinese American woman as she kvetches about her job at a San Francisco tech magazine, leaves to travel cross country with her Anglo boyfriend who is moving to Ithaca for grad school, becomes interested in the history of Chinese American women, and travels to China to visit her father. The structure She's rather an annoying character but the book has an interesting kind of random structure and explores intriguing questions about race, ethnicity, families, and love, so I give it a qualified recommendation. 

Mystery

Eight Perfect Murders, by Peter Swanson. I had never heard of Peter Swanson and was excited to find a new mystery author to check out. Plus Eight Perfect Murders has the big plus of having a literary element--the mysteries in the book are modeled on eight classic murder mysteries. Although there was a bit too much explaining at the end, I enjoyed the book enough to cause me to pick up Swanson's All the Beautiful Lies. This mystery revolves around whether Harry Ackerman's father committed suicide or was murdered. There is again a book connection--Mr. Ackerman owned a rare book shop--and there are some rather weird sexual encounters. Not as good as Eight Perfect Murders, but good enough that I will likely try another Swanson book.

Nonfiction

I often say I don't like memoirs, but I have to admit that a good memoir is rewarding--and Memorial Drive, by poet Natasha Tretheway, is a very good memoir. Tretheway writes about her childhood as the daughter of a black mother and white father, the dissolution of her parents' marriage, her mother's eventual re-marriage and divorce, and the mother's murder by her ex-husband. The book is not simply a straightforward narrative.  One chapter, in which young Tasha reports her stepfather's abuse to a teacher is written in second person, as though the author simply could not bear to write this material in her own voice. She also includes transcripts of telephone conversations between her mother and stepfather, as well as a document written by her mother. It's a devastating portrait and exploration of trauma and its effects, as well as a way to look at what it means for African American women to seek freedom and how writing can heal. It's about more than Natasha Tretheway--it's about life. And, of course, it's beautifully written.

Stray, by novelist Stephanie Danler, seems to be the opposite. It is all about Stephanie Danler--her difficult childhood, her escape from NYC after selling her novel, her struggles to figure out what she wants to do with her life and how she wants to incorporate her problematic family into her life, and her romantic struggles. It could be a meaningful account, but it's all about her, it's not about how her life could inform others' understanding of their lives. It's a great example of what I dislike about memoirs.

Poetry

How to Fly, by Barbara Kingsolver. Poetry is not Kingsolver's best genre--that would be fiction, followed by essays. But she's a competent poet and some of the works in this collection offer rewards. The poems include "How to" poems ("How to Shear a Sheep," "How to Survive This," "How to Be Married"), poems about a pilgrimage to Italy, poems about Southern families and experiences, and poems about the natural world. There are a couple of references that bothered me (one about slavery struck me as particularly wrong). One of my favorites was "Walking Each Other Home," a brief portrait of two friends walking together between their two homes. It ends:

I walk from my house to hers
and then together we speak of things--
or don't, we are often quiet--

all the way back home to mine. Or she
walks here first, collects me for her return.
Either way, this is the road where we live.

Always we walk each other home.
And always we walk some of it alone.

Also Read

• A Star Is Bored, by Byron Lan. Really did not like this book written by a former assistant to Carrie Fischer because it feels like he is using her mental problems for comic purposes. 
• The Searcher, by Tana French. Sorry to say, this stand-alone from the Irish author is just boring. 
• The Lying Room, by Nicci French. Other French books I've read are very dark and psychological. This one about a woman who finds her boss/lover dead is complicated but (IMHO) dumb.
• The Lightness, by Emily Temple. Uses the trope of girls doing bad things at camp/school but puts the girls in a Buddhist retreat where they are trying to achieve levitation. Ugh.
• Forever, Interrupted, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Weird to say an exploration of a new husband's death could be lightweight, but this one is. 
• Blue Ticket, by Sophie Mackintosh. A dystopic novel in which girls receive either a blue ticket (can have children) or blue ticket (will not have children) that determines their fate. But the thinking behind the society's structure and other aspects of that structure are unarticulated. 
• Broken People, by Sam Lansky. Some aspects of the insecure main character's story were interesting, but the stupid central plot device--a wellness retreat where, under the influence of drugs, you sort through your memories and magically emerge more balanced, ruined the book for me.
• All My Mother's Lovers, by Ilana Masad. After her mother's death, a woman finds letters to five men and investigates who these men were to her mother. Interesting but wrecked by a terrible ending. 
• Self Care, by Leigh Stern. This often funny book about three women running a self-care "feminist" website for bougie millennials also suffers from a bad ending. 
• The Authenticity Project, by Clare Pooley. An elderly man leaves a notebook in a coffee shop, urging the next person who finds it to write their authentic story. Sweet but shallow.
• The Wives, by Tarryn Fisher. Thursday claims to be a happily married wife whose husband just happens to have two other wives who live in other cities. When she begins to question her husband's veracity and finds the other two wives, strange things happen and the book takes a twist that ruined it for me. 
• A Minute to Midnight, by David Baldacci. The second in the Atlee Pine series, the book is annoying because no progress is made in solving the mystery that starts the book. 
• Sadie, by Courtney Summers. One sister is dead, one is missing, and a true crime blogger is trying to find the missing girl and find out who killed the other. Already tired of the crime blogger trope.

Favorite Passages

They say that a person's personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn't true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we'd never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we're more than the mistake we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.

. . . we weren't ready to become adults. Somebody should have stopped us.

Fredrick Backman, Anxious People

In the narrative of my life, which is the look backward rather than forward into the unknown and unstoried future, I emerged from the pool as from a baptismal font--changed, reborn--as if I had been shown what would be my calling even then. This is how the past fits into the narrative of our lives, gives meaning and purpose. Even my mother's death is redeemed in the story of my calling, made meaningful rather than merely senseless. It is the story I tell myself to survive. 

Natasha Tretheway, Memorial Drive