Lynne's Book Notes

Review: 'Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 17:04:00 +0000

Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord
By Celeste Connally
Historical Mystery
Minotaur Books
November 2023

Lady Petra Forsyth may be an only daughter of an aristocrat, but she's no simpering society miss. She loves riding horses, speaking her mind and standing up for herself. And she doesn't need a man to prove her worth. Not many in the British aristocracy are like her.

In Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord, a novel that sets up a series of historical fiction equal parts mystery and romance, Petra is her own woman who hasn't let bad things keep her down. For instance, her best friend hasn't spoken to her in three years. This is after she and that friend, Duncan Shawcross, grew up together. He was a by-blow who was farmed out by his lordly father to Petra's household. Their mutual love of horses and daring each other was the basis of such a strong friendship that Duncan covered for Petra and her fiancé when they spent nights together before marriage. Then her fiancé died, and Duncan didn't answer Petra's letter while traveling through Europe.

As a way to avoid her stodgy, complaining Uncle Tobias when he invades her father's country estate to chastise them, Petra and her friend Lady Caroline attend the ball of the Duchess of Hillmorton. The episode is written with precisely the tone of dialogue and people weaving in and out of conversations that are a mainstay of Regency romances. Petra is not there to gossip, but to find out what she can of the untimely death of another society friend. Whose husband doesn't appear to be in mourning.

Her friend wasn't the only one to disappear. An asylum in the country seems to be involved. When Petra arranges to meet her late friend's house servant in the park, he is killed, and Petra hit by a rock. Fortunately, the rock was thrown by Teddy, a street urchin who didn't know he was paid to hit his benefactress.

Petra soon forms a circle of like-minded folk determined to find out what is happening to the disappeared or dying women. She has her society friend Lady Caroline, Baker Street Irregular urchin Teddy, a young woman who trains society dogs and, eventually, Duncan. Even though their misunderstanding continues, as it does in romances, they are soon on the same side in the investigatory side of the story.

When Petra gets closer to solving the mystery, her own life is imperiled. Because author Celeste Connally has created a can-do heroine, don't assume she will be waiting for a knight in shining armor to rescue her.

The novel has two distinct tones. Half of the story is a wittily written Regency romance. The other, even when the whodunit tropes are observed, delves into dark territory concerning the rights of women in a society that dictates how free they actually are -- even women in the higher reaches of society. There also are psychological complexities that are woven into the story involving women sent to an asylum.

More traditional readers may wonder at how enlightened Petra and her circle are. She is not the type to wait for marriage to express how she feels about a lover. In that, she is staying true to her character. The unlikely aspect is that her partner supports her decision. The ways in which some LGBTQ characters lead their own lives fit into the constraints of the society in which they live, as long as there is discreteness.

Connally sets up a second novel at the end of this one that fits in with the characters. As long as she can navigate the dual nature of the circle she has created, Lady Petra could well feature in a long series of entertaining fictions. She is heiress to the early Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters and the Lady Julia Grey mysteries by Deanna Raybourne.

Review: 'Wondrous Animals'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 14:51:00 +0000

Wondrous Animals: Kerby's Selection
By Kerby Rosanes
Coloring Book
Plume
September 2023

In six books filled with intricate illustrations, artist Kerby Rosanes has presented both realistic and whimsical creatures for those who enjoy sophisticated works to color.

Regardless of the subject matter, Rosanes uses shading to add layers to each of his drawings. He now has chosen works from his previous books in a presentation named Wondrous Animals, which is available only at WalMart in the U.S. market.

The illustrations are from his earlier books: Animorphia, Mythomorphia, Geomorphia, Imagimorphia, Fragile Worlds and Worlds Within Worlds. Most of the 58 images in this collection encompass two pages, offering hours of creative exploration.

Using soft color pencils, it is possible to take advantage of Rosanes' artistic ability to combine shades of the same basic color or to deploy a wide range of hues. The colorist has the choice in areas of complex shading to add colors of choice or to allow those areas to offset spaces around them that are colored in.

These examples show part of the scope of Rosanes' work. While the lemurs eating grapes are realistic, the snails carrying various structures on their backs offer a playful alternative to reality.

Rosanes, who is based in the Philippines, is behind the blog Sketchy Stories. Wondrous Animals is a lovely introduction to his work.

Review: 'All the Dead Shall Weep'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 04 Sep 2023 21:55:00 +0000

All the Dead Shall Weep
By Charlaine Harris
Paranormal thriller
September 2023
Saga Press

Through gunfights, magic-wielding skirmishes and battles, a growing family and a man who loves her for herself, Lizbeth has gone from being solitary Gunnie Rose to the center of a growing circle. That was only the first four books in the Gunnie Rose series by Charlaine Harris, including the fourth, The Serpent in Heaven, which focuses on her half-sister Felicia.

In the new book, All the Dead Shall Weep, coming out Tuesday, the action is divided by forces without and within Lizbeth's circle. It begins with her early miscarriage, so early that her family didn't know. Her husband, Eli, the prince, has seemed to turn away from her. Besides losing the baby, does he blame her for his having to move to her one-room shack in the middle of nowhere and give up his life in the Imperial Palace? Even after she rescued him from jail and a false charge of murder?

Lizabeth and Eli need to have some serious conversations.

Her self-sister Felicia is at a crossroad. She came into her own in the last book, which was told with her as the focus. In addition to the threat against the tsar to be solved, she had to navigate Eli's family. That especially meant dealing with his younger brother, Peter, who adores her, a newly discovered family connection to another magic-wielding grigori, the politics of being the new girl in school, and everyone discovering her significant powers as a grigori.

When Felicia and Peter to visit Lizbeth and Eli in their small cabin in Texoma (formerly Texas and Oklahoma), they need to have some serious conversations as well.

The two couples are separated when two buses of apparent soldiers appear in town, searching for a wizard. Everyone is soon on the hunt to discover who is being sought. And why. It doesn't help that soon Felicia will be expected to attend a semi-annual ball/marriage mart among the grigori Elite. For someone in the middle of nowhere, she's getting a lot of company.

During the ensuing mayhem, more than one person in Lizbeth's circle will pay a price while trying to set things right. But more than one also will see a way forward.

Harris, also author of such beloved series as those featuring Lily Bard, Aurora Teagarden, Sookie Stackhouse, Harper Connelly and the residents of Midnight, Texas, presents a fast-paced novel that has room for multiple characters and storylines, and big feelings. All the Dead Shall Weep builds on the stories of several characters. Harris is so adept at making it all make sense that sometimes the story is told from Lizbeth's point of view, and other times from Felicia's perspective. It appears that the two half-sisters are both protagonists in the series, and not just Lizbeth.

This fifth novel in the series brings forward what has happened in earlier books, and breaks new ground that promises developments in stories to come.

Review: 'The River We Remember'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 13:25:00 +0000

The River We Remember
By William Kent Krueger
Fiction
September 2023
Atria Books

Love of family, love of the land, love of that one special person are all chronicled in William Kent Krueger's new novel, The River We Remember.

The author of the Cork O'Connor mysteries has long written about the hold of the land and of loved ones on a person's heart. His Minnesota-set novels are people-centered, where what is important to the characters is what guides their actions. In this stand-alone novel, every character acts according to the dictates of their hearts, with consequences both dire and delightful.

Jimmy Quinn, the biggest landowner in the county and the biggest bully, has been found in the Alabaster River. There's a big hole from a shotgun blast in his torso that the river's catfish have found. They've also found his face. But because of his bright red hair and size, Dern and everyone else knows it's him.

The suspects are plentiful, but the focus right away on Dakota Noah Bluestone, who returned to the county after a military career. To some, it's bad enough that he's an Indian. To others, it's even worse because he brought with him a Japanese wife, Kyoko. Noah and his late father worked for Quinn, who had just fired Noah for allegedly stealing gas.

Dern would just as soon have the case be ruled a suicide or accident. But his deputy, and former boss, won't have it. Connie Graff wants the truth to be discovered, knowing the county is going to be torn up regardless of who is guilty.

Also drawn into the events taking place after Quinn's death are Angie Madison, a young war widow whose past has not destroyed her, who now is a beacon of light in the town diner owned by her mother-in-law. Her teenage son, Scott, has a faulty heart physically speaking, yet his spirit is strong and true. Scott's best friend Del and his mother are knocked around by his stepfather, Creasy, a drunk who belongs to a hard-drinking, hardscrabble family. Creasy accused Noah of stealing Quinn's gas.

And then there's Charlie Bauer. Charlie, born Charlotte, was put down constantly by her widowed father. She left town and went to California, where she became a lawyer for the defenseless. She has come back home and occasionally takes on cases of the defenseless, when not reading on her porch or sipping whiskey. She becomes Noah's counsel, but he does not want to enter any plea. He doesn't want to do or say a thing.

Jimmy Quinn's big family also have stories to tell. Or hide.

As the author of terrific mysteries, Krueger handles the whodunit aspects of the story very well. As a writer who also has demonstrated wisdom about the frailties and strengths of the human spirit, Krueger adds the layers that make some mysteries whydunits. The revelations about many characters that the investigation uncovers create a novel that explores both individual characters and the character of a community. Other measures of his strong writing are the pacing keeps all the characters separate, and he anticipates a whodunit reader's ideas about the clues presented.

The prologue is a work of art on its own. Krueger circles back to it in an epilogue. Both are about the lure of home along the river, how the river is a source of wonder, fun, solace and, on occasion, danger. And how we are all are part of a river and we all have a part to play.

Our lives and the lives of those we love merge to create a river whose current carries us forward from our beginning to our end. Because we are only one part of the whole, the river each of us remembers is different ...

Those differences, as well as things in common, fit together to be a remarkable story told very well.

Review: 'I Did It For You'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 16:45:00 +0000

I Did It For You
By Amy Engel
Thriller
July 2023
Dutton

It's been more than a decade since Greer's older sister and her boyfriend were murdered in their small Kansas town while they were making out in his rig. Greer escaped to Chicago and became a school counselor. But it's been a facade of a life. Then two more teenagers are killed in the same way as Eliza and Travis. Greer knows it's time to go home.

In Amy Engel's latest novel, I Did It For You, Greer's return to Ludlow has a big impact on many people who are still there. Her two best friends since their childhood days are there. Ryan has lately returned after his marriage fell apart. Cassie never left. Her parents have atrophied. Her mother spends all day cleaning and the scene of bleach is on her. Her father, second-generation grocer, sold the store and spends all his time with his best friend, bourbon.

The local sheriff, who was head lawman at the time her sister was killed, warns Greer to not start up again with insisting there is something they are missing. When her sister and her boyfriend, were shot, a teenager from the next town over confessed to their murders. Roy Matthews was executed for those crimes. But Greer is certain that there was more to it, because Roy was a hot head and not very clever. Greer knows there is more because, after Roy was imprisoned, a paper heart was slipped under her family's front door. Inscribed on the heart: "I did it for you."

One day, Greer drives past the house where Roy and his brother, Dean, lived with their grandmother. She sees both of them, and they see her. Soon, Greer and Dean have formed an alliance. They both want to know the truth about the earlier murders, and think the latest are connected. Greer tries to keep her budding friendship with Dean a secret from the rest of town, especially her best friends, but secrets are hard to keep in a small town.

Although there is the mystery to solve of who was behind the original killings, and if the two latest murders are connected, I Did It For You has another well-told story behind the plot. The focus of that story is the connections that people in small towns can have to each other and to the town, to the idea of community and the ties of friendship. There also is the acknowledgement that what happened in the past can play an important role in the present. But there also is the knowledge that the present does not have to dictate the future.

Even without the mysteries to solve, this part of the novel is well done and a pleasure to read. The ways different characters have had to deal with grief, including Dean and his grandmother, is handled with compassion for the living and whether to forgive the deceased. The ways now-grown adults are affected by the way they knew each other as teenagers play strong roles in the plot. The pros and cons of living in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, or thinks they do, is another strong part of the story that fits in the overall narrative.

The only quibble is that Greer suddenly remembers something that is very important to the way the story plays out. It would have worked as well, or maybe even better, had she kept this a secret instead of something forgotten.

That drawback aside, I Did It For You is an engrossing, rewarding story. The novel is scheduled to be published tomorrow.

Review: 'Weasels in the Attic'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 05 Feb 2023 21:31:00 +0000

Weasels in the Attic
By Hiroko Oyamada
Literary Fiction
New Directions

In less than 100 pages, a woman writer, using a male narrator, tells the stories of three couples and their journeys toward parenthood. Whether there is joy or sorrow, what each grouping reveals is how deep and strong the ties of family are, including chosen family.

Hiroko Oyamada's third book, Weasels in the Attic, begins in an oblique way with addressing its focus. The male narrator talks about his friend Saiki, who wants him to go to the funeral of another friend. The narrator remembers when they went to visit the deceased man, Urabe. He came from a wealthy family so did not have to work for a living, and was living above a tropical fish store that he had tried to run, but which failed. Urabe and Saiki are fascinated by the fish; the narrator, far less so.

The men are surprised that Urabe has a very young wife and a baby. She spends all her time with the newborn or tending to the men's food and drink. When the baby naps, she even goes to the store to get more victuals. The narrator is the only one of the three men who considers her needs as a new mother. He has sisters with children and enjoys holding the baby. It's then the reader may remember a throwaway paragraph earlier in the story, that the narrator and his wife are trying to have children but it hasn't happened.

Instead of focusing in that direction, though, Urabe tells them about the time he thought an animal had broken into the fish shop's storeroom. Instead, it was a starving girl. He gave her a packet of dried shrimp food for her and her impoverished mother to eat. When she would show up at night, he would give her another packet. If she showed up when the shop was open, he would ignore her.

It's not made explicit, but what if that starving girl, a few years later, became the young mother in the story. Urabe is not an involved father. Is that a link to his strange way of helping the hungry girl? There is a connection between his off-handed family arrangement (especially when it turns out he didn't marry the young mother, but the baby was his), and his interest in fish breeding? He is trying to see what happens when discus with different markings breed. It's not scientific though.

“So a lot of thought goes into pairing them?” Urabe took a second to think. ... “Maybe. In a way, there’s a lot of intention behind it. At the same time, it’s pretty intuitive.” “It’s too hard to explain,” Saiki added, even though he was barely listening. “It’s the same for people, though.” Urabe stood up and walked over to the tank with his cup in his hand. “We meet at school, or work, or maybe a store. Wherever it is, there’s just a random group of individuals, right? Within that group, you find your mate. If you were in a different group, you’d end up with a different mate, right? But we never dwell on that. We live our lives in the groups we have—in our cities, our countries, even though we didn’t choose them. Know what I mean? We like to tell ourselves it’s love, that we’re choosing our own partners. But in reality, we’re just playing the cards we’ve been dealt.”

The randomness of Urabe's breeding fits right in with his commitment to family.

A few years later, former confirmed bachelor Saiki marries. He and his wife move to the country, and weasels invade their home. Whenever a weasel is trapped, Saiki travels farther up in the mountains to set it free. And more weasels come into the attic. The narrator's wife grew up in the country and tells them what her grandparents did when weasels invaded her parents' home, including drowning one. It's hard to read, especially as his wife witnessed the death of an animal she thought was adorable. It's even harder to read when she says that her grandmother knew the reason for performing the death near the house. It was because of family.

"She said that sound—the mother weasel’s final scream—was a warning to the father weasel and their children. This house is dangerous . . . Don’t stay here or they’ll drown you . . . Leave and don’t come back . . . Goodbye. That’s why we had to do it here, my grandma said. Now they’ll never come back."

The loyalty and sacrifice of the weasel are the opposite of Urabe's care of family.

Later, the narrator relates that Saiki and his wife followed the advice of his wife, and the weasels disappeared. His feelings about his country neighbors improves and he and his wife have a baby. The narrator and his wife visit. An unexpected snowstorm has them spending the night. The baby is colicky and fussy, and Saiki's wife is exhausted with her nursing duties. Saiki, former heavy drinker and devil-may-care man, relishes his role as house husband, taking care of everything else. He turned out the opposite of Urabe, and he loves it.

Where does that leave the narrator? Well, there is a clue at the end about his future. But more important to the overall focus of the story than this revelation is a dream the narrator has. They spend the night in a room filled with aquariums; Saiki has once again taken up the hobby of tending to tropical fish. He may even be interested in Urabe's breeding focus.

In the dream, the juvenile bonyfish that is in one tank suddenly jumps out of it and lands on the narrator's chest. He can't breathe. His wife is no longer in the room. He tries to sit up, to throw the fish off him, but cannot. When he wakes up, the fish has not left its tank and his wife is sleeping peacefully beside him.

Is he trying to throw off the idea of fatherhood, which has continued to elude him? If he ever became a father, what kind of a parent would he be?

Oyamade uses the stories of the animals to show the ways in which the three men react to being part of a family. Saiki not only embraces the idea of fatherhood, he extends his family circle to his neighbors. His wife and the narrator's wife become close friends, creating another familial circle. The narrator is part of these circles, yet distant from them in his descriptions. Is this his way to report what happened? Or is it indicative of how he feels?

One of the fascinating part of Weasels in the Attic is that the focus is on the men. It's an opportunity for a woman, such as Oyamada, to look at the themes of fertility and family that are often relegated to the sphere of women. Her showcasing that not all men react the same is an important consideration.

The translator, David Boyd, deserves mention as well. When a translator does a wonderful job, such as here, it is worth noting how important that work is. He places anyone reading Oyamada's work in English easily in her world as the narrator is placed in homes of the others he is bringing to life.

Review: 'Age of Vice'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 05 Feb 2023 21:22:00 +0000

Age of Vice
By Deepit Kapoor
Literary Fiction
Riverhead Books

In the aftermath of a chaotic, deadly car crash in Delhi, a once-trusted driver is thrown in jail, a once-beloved woman is discarded and the son of a mobster once again finds out his limited options. Age of Vice is more than a story about beautiful and rich people in India. It's a story of how different this nation of old kingdoms is for those in different stratas of society, how the idea of India is admired and abused by foreigners and, mostly, it's a story of love and loss.

Deepit Kapoor's novel is the story of three main characters. The driver, Ajay, comes from abject poverty. His story is a fascinating one of what might happen when one lives to serve and only wants his family back. Wherever he ends up, Ajay learns what needs to be done, and does it. When it seems he is being rewarded for his loyalty and diligence, in truth, he is just ending up deeper in servitude.

What is fascinating about Ajay is that he is not a character to pity. He is not a fool. He knows who he is and what he wants, and he will work as hard as he can to make that happen. His interior journey is a fascinating one.

His abilities lead Ajay to becoming the driver, and basically keeper, of Sonny Wadia. Sonny is a golden boy of hard-partying young India. His father and uncle are renowned criminal masterminds and political bosses. Soon, a woman becomes an integral part of Sonny's circle. Neda is a journalist, yet she is portrayed as aloof from Ajay's perspective. He doesn't understand why Neda is so important to Sonny, and she may be unlikeable to a reader.

But then the perspective switches to Neda, and a lot is made clear about her and her relationship to Sonny. She is at first fascinated by Sonny, and tries to get to know him as part of the investigative journalism pieces her mentor/would-be lover is writing. Neda falls in love with Sonny and wants to protect him from his worst inclinations. Of course this is going to end disastrously.

Sonny's worse inclinations may not be his abiity to ingest great amounts of liquor and drugs. It may be his dual desires of wishing to impress his disapproving father, and wanting to actually do some good in society. These two wishes are mutually exclusive. And they leave Sonny open to being used.

Kapoor does something that I deeply appreciate as a reader. When she is writing Ajay's story, we see both how AJay views things and some clues as to the broader picture. It's the same when she's writing Neda's story, and Sonny's. And as the novel progresses and the points of view change, the reader sees how what she learned before and what she is reading now work together to form a more clear picture of all three characters.

Age of Vice is powerful, violent entertainment. The scope of crime and corruption, the ins and outs of how people use and get used, is portrayed vividly. But this novel also is poignant and shows how important love and loss can be in determining the course of a lifetime. This reader hopes for more from the author, especially regarding these characters.

Review: 'An Island'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 05 Feb 2023 21:15:00 +0000

An Island
By Karen Jennings
Literary Fiction
Hogarth

The notion of being alone or being connected has been prominent in several novels I've read recently. It's also a great factor in society, especially with the ongoing trauma of the pandemic and political upheaval. In An Island, by Karen Jennings, the protagonist goes back and forth between yearning for solitude and to belong.

Samuel has been alone on a small island for years, tending to a lighthouse that is falling apart. The only company he has are a small flock of chickens, especially an aged red hen that the other fowl pick on, and the fellows in the supply boat. Occasionally, a body washes ashore. He used to report them to the authorities as he was instructed to do, but they weren't interested and so he has been burying them within a stone fence he has been building as a sea wall.

When the body of a younger man washes ashore, he think this is going to be another one. If only he wasn't so old and hurting, it would be easier work. But then, the body shows signs of life. This victim of the sea is alive. Samuel is terrified and runs away, leaving the man on the beach overnight. He's alive the next day.

The man's appearance brings back ghosts of the past to Samuel. He recalls the 25 years he spent in prison after an unsuccessful protest against his country's dictator as one day spent over and over, like Groundhog Day. He remembers his father being crippled in fighting for independence against the government that proceded the dictator, and how his entire family turned to begging and subsistence living.

Later on, he remembers how he tried to connect with a group of protestors and how they didn't change each other's lives. He remembers refugees his father befriended, who he helped chase out of the neighborhood when the dictator began using rhetoric Trump and his ilk do.

Whatever he is doing, whatever group he is with, Samuel tries to fit in but there is little sense his heart is really in it. Only once, after years in prison and being ostracized, does he wish for friendship.

He longed to turn to his neighbor, to whisper a few words, to have someone answer him.

But when the stranger appears, Samuel veers back and forth between attempting to communicate and pushing him away. This back and forth continues to the very end, when the reader discovers the one creature for which Samuel stands up.

Samuel tries to prove the opposite of John Donne's famous line that "no man is an island" but his attempts to be cut off prove another part of Donne's Meditation XVII:

any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.

Every death, every loss, diminishes Samuel. He is an island unto himself, but he is disintegrating as surely as the island and the lighthouse he is charged with keeping. The relentlessness of Samuel's reality is one that he faces as if it was the waves crashing onto shore all day, every day.

It's easy to see Samuel as a failure of a human being. And to see that the deck was always stacked against him.

But it's also possible to wonder "what if?" What if any connection he made with another person turned out to not be superficial, but to be real? What would his life had been like? There is a moment in An Island when that possibility is shown. It is a moment of sorrow and forgiveness, and, even if fleeting, a moment of redemption.

Review: 'My Darkest Prayer'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 16:55:00 +0000

My Darkest Prayer
By S.A. Cosby
Thriller
Flatiron Books

While most readers became aware of S.A. Cosby with the publication of the great novel Blacktop Wasteland, and even more with the publication of the remarkable Razorblade Tears, they were preceded by another very good thriller. My Darkest Prayer, first published in 2018, has been reissued so a greater audience can discover it.

Nathan is a former Marine who now works for his cousin, a mortician, for the Black community in a small Southern town. He's also a former deputy who quit after the investigation into his parents' death was botched -- botched because they were run over by the drunk son of a local rich white man.

When the minister of a superchurch is found dead in his home, some church ladies are not convinced this death of a prominent Black man will be treated with care. So they ask Nathan to look into things.

As any reader of thrillers knows, Nathan is soon up to his eyebrows in trouble. And it's not just being threatened by law enforcement and criminals. The Rev. Watkins's daughter returns from her adult film job in California to do her reluctant part in laying her despised father to rest. She is soon sharing more than secrets with Nathan.

My Darkest Prayer does not read like a debut novel. It is fast-paced, all the pieces fit together, and the resolution of the main investigation makes sense. In addition, Cosby weaves in pertinent commentary on the culture in a racially divided small Southern town, the importance of church ladies, and longstanding friendships. Nathan may know too many women in the area too well, but he does have one thing a noir protagonist in a violent story cannot do without -- first-rate banter.

Cosby's debut is definitely a novel for noir fans to savor.

Review: 'Dinosaurs'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 16:56:00 +0000

Dinosaurs
By Lydia Millet
Literary Fiction
W.W. Norton

The idea is not a new one, whether we express it through the words of John Donne -- "no man is an island" -- or even the New Testament notion that "we who are many are one body" because of sharing communion (1 Corinthians 10:17). And when Simon and Garfunkle sing about being a rock, it's obvious how forlorn that idea is.

Gil, the protagonist of Lydia Millet's Dinosaurs, has always been alone. HIs parents were killed in an accident when he was very young. He was raised by a frugal, distant grandmother who died when he was a teenager. The tie he has had the longest with any other person is the attorney who helps manage the vast wealth he inherited as part of a gas and oil family.

And yet Gil has always been one of those searching souls who doesn't curl up into a ball. He volunteers for various charities and ends up friends with two other guys. He falls in love with a woman and they move in together. But things happen and people drift apart. And when Lane leaves him for another man, Gil decides to walk across the country to a new home.

The walk itself is not a pilgrimage and not much time is spent on it. The reader does learn toward the end of the novel why Gil felt compelled to do it, and it fits in with everything we know about his character.

What matters are his new Phoenix neighbors, who live in a literal glass house. Soon, the wife, Ardis, has him hanging out with the young son Tom. The teenage daughter, Clem, is busy trying to make friends. Their father, Ted, is busy at work but genial. Gil volunteers at a women's shelter where another fellow soon becomes part of his circle. A friend of Ardis takes to Gil and soon he and Sarah are involved. Millet tells the reader early on what's really up:

Do your best all your life. What was that? Nothing but self-pity. All it meant was, you expected some surprising change, some exciting reversal, while being exactly who you’d always been. He pictured crowds hunkered down. Committed. Being themselves with dogged perseverance. But all the while they hoped to be interrupted by an unexpected event—deliverance. They dreamed of being lifted up. Being swung out in giddy delight over glittering peaks. Aloft in the sparkling air.

That's Gil. That's who he is to the core. And this passage resonates all the deeper when seen through the lens of what happens to Gil in his new home.

But Gil doesn't see it that way. He sees himself trying to do right by people, trying to justify his existence. He thinks that as a guy who inherited great wealth, he hasn't earned anything. That Millet could create such a character and portray him as forthright and sincere without being maudlin is a marvel. Dinosaurs is a comforting read, especially in as the continuing saga of chaos rages on.

He didn’t want to win. He only wanted to be worthy.

Throughout the novel, there are tidbits about birds and insects. Both existed when dinosaurs did, and both have survived. It's not very forthright until the end, when Gil is loopy after an injury, that the reader sees the connection between the tropes. There are flocks and hive minds in the species that have thrived and survived. They are not islands unto themselves.

And it's not the reality of whether people are connected or not that Millet focuses on, but Gil's realization about the truth of this, that provides the shining moment of the novel.

But being alone was also a closed loop. A loop with a slipknot, say. The loop could be small or large, but it always returned to itself. You had to untie the knot, finally. Open the loop and then everything sank in. And everyone. Then you could see what was true—that separateness had always been the illusion. A simple trick of flesh.

When everything sinks in for Gil, the reader can feel the goodness that is still possible in this crazy world, goodness that comes from being open and being there for others, and letting others be there for you.

Review: 'Trust'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 16:52:00 +0000

Trust
By Hernan Diaz
Literary Fiction
Riverhead Books

On its face, the story of a Roaring '20s stock market titan and his fragile wife is not compelling to those of us who prize honor and integrity over money. But Hernan Diaz's Trust is far more than that.

The novel, which was included in President Obama's list of favorite novels of 2022, begins with the tale of Benjamin Rask. He's the only child of a rich family, more content with numbers than people. When he inherits the family fortunes and businesses, he's content to let things ride because he doesn't care about them. Then he discovers joy in playing the stock market, and increases his wealth many times over. Gradually, he's drug into making a few society appearances and ends up marrying a quiet girl. Helen was drug all over Europe by her society-loving mother and arcane knowledge-loving father, performing memory parlor tricks.

The two loners find a way to not only co-exist, but to co-exist happily.

Intimacy can be an unbearable burden for those who, first experiencing it after a lifetime of proud self-sufficiency, suddenly realize it makes their world complete. Finding bliss becomes one with the fear of losing it.

That this also allows them both to continue to be loners is a contradiction, yet feels plausible.

Turns out this first section of Trust is “Bonds”, a novel written by Harold Vanner. It is dispassionate, no matter what events occur, and removed from the Rasks' inner selves. It is a curious work that recalls Edith Wharton and Thomas Mann without their ability to get to the heart of a matter.

It also, within the universe of this novel, apparently was a work comissioned by an actual 1920s stock market titan who did not approve of the result. The second section of Trust can sneak up on a reader with its first-person account of man with a history somewhat similar to Rask, one Andrew Bevel. There are similarities but also great differences, mainly in the controlled, yet ever-present, conviction of Bevels that he and his wife are the most wonderful and giving of people. It's not his fault the stock market crashed, even though he sold vast amounts of stock short just before it imploded. And that his wife was never known or understood as a paragon of virtue who loved music, books and flowers.

A third, and fourth, section add to the kaleidoscope effect of the whole novel. Who is in charge of his own story? Or her own story? Who gets to do the telling? And who is telling the truth, not just as they may have seen it, but as close to the truth as it's possible for a person to reach?

Diaz uses this structure to ask these questions regarding several ideas, from Wall Street and finance, to partnerships between men and women, from a writer and an interview subject, to family legacies of many kinds, including physical, spiritual and emotional.

The scope is spectacular. The ways the four parts of the novel intersect and inform each other are elegant. It is especially fitting that at one point, a character's love of math and music combine not only to perform well in the stock market, but as a way to advise someone else how to do the same.

They had to become his thoughts first. Call and response: I gave him D F♯ E A so he could think he’d come up with A E F♯ D on his own.

While making another character believe her ideas were his worked for this character, the gambit is shown in a different light by another character:

Later, over the years, both at work and in my personal life, I have had countless men repeat my ideas back to me as if they were theirs—as if I would not remember having come up with those thoughts in the first place. (It is possible that in some cases their vanity had eclipsed their memory so that, thanks to this selective amnesia, they could lay claim to their epiphany with a clean conscience.)

Another character expresses why mystery novels, especially those written by women in the genre's Golden Age, spoke to so many:

I was comforted by the idea of order in their novels. It all started with crime and chaos. Even sense and meaning themselves were challenged—the characters, their actions and their motives seemed incomprehensible. But after a brief reign of lawlessness and confusion, order and harmony were always restored. Everything became clear, everything was explained and everything was well with the world. This gave me enormous peace. And, perhaps more importantly, these women showed me I did not have to conform to the stereotypical notions of the feminine world. Their stories were not just about romance and domestic bliss. There was violence in their books—a violence they controlled. These writers showed me, through their example, that I could write something dangerous. They showed me that there was no reward in being reliable or obedient: the reader’s expectations and demands were there to be intentionally confounded and subverted. They were the writers who first made me want to become a writer.

The need for order is one that is imposed by different characters in different ways, from the Wall Street financier to his wife to a poor typist who is the daughter of an anarchist. Two of the four sections of the novel have the titles of "Bonds" and "Futures". In both instances, they speak to the financial aspect of the story, and to the personal. That's the kind of novel Trust is. And like a well-crafted symphony, the various movements work together to form a whole greater than the sum of their individual parts.

Review: 'Bliss Montage'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 22:47:00 +0000

Bliss Montage
By Ling Ma
Literary Fiction
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Who are we, really? Are we destined to bear the dreams and sins of our families, of our home countries, of our newly adopted homelands? Are we worthy of happiness? What is a facade and what is reality?

These themes are essential to the stories in Ling Ma's new story collection, Bliss Montage. They are sometimes fantastical, sometimes grounded so thoroughly in family that the narrators feel trapped or weighed down. In all of them, the female narrator seeks a way to do more than endure.

The opening story, Los Angeles, gives the reader a sense of what to expect throughout the collection. A woman, married to a wealthy man, spends her days with 100 ex-boyfriends who live in a wing of their huge home. They go for drives, for shopping, for being out and about aimlessly. When her husband returns home from work, they fly up north for a fancy dinner, then return home, often after their young children have fallen asleep. The husband only speaks in dollar signs.

Two of the wife's ex-boyfriends are opposites, and the ones that mean the most to her. Adam abused her, Aaron loved her. "The wound, then the salve. Maybe you don't always know that you're wounded until you receive the salve." It's an idea that surfaces in different ways in the various stories. What do we deserve? When certain events happen, as they seem to inevitably do, how do we respond? Is there a way to outfox destiny?

The story ends with an attempt to catch up to the past, to capture it. In the following story, Oranges, that is what happens. Coming to grips with having been abused is treated in a realistic, searching fashion as far as the tone of the narrator's journey in catching up to her past. In the end, one character is trapped within themselves while the other goes forward.

The story G, the name of drug that makes its user disappear and able to wander freely, is about working to be oneself while anchored by a childhood friend, anchored to their Chinese-Amerian neighborhood where they were firmly anchored by their mothers. It is a tour de force in how the past can define a person, and how a person can feel unseen.

Do you now how easily the world yields to you when you move through it in an invisibility cocoon? No one looks at you, no one assess you.

That would be a dream come true for the narrator and her childhood friend. The idea is tied to the way the narrator, Bea (which can literally be Be in this story), became herself as her friend Bonnie spent hours of their childhood finding out what Bea thinks and feels. "It doesn't take much to come into your own; all it takes is someeone's gaze."

The transformations to come in the story are completed rooted in identity and being seen.

Another take on these ideas is presented in Returning, in which a young Chinese-Amerian wife goes back with her husband to his mid-European country for a traditional festival that is meant to be life-changing. Her husband talks in his college classes about fiction and identity:

Fiction can be a space for the alternate self ... It often serves as a fantasy space for our other selves.

While his book is a successful novel called Homecoming, the narrator's old college friend has published a graphic novel called Arrival Fallacy, a science fiction tale in which explorers return decades after they have been forgotten. The two stories merge in the trip back to the husband's homeland. The narrator's own novel, Two Weeks, is more about stasis after a missed connection and a plan falls apart. It's not surprising to wonder how that, too, is connected to this story in which it is presented.

There is a similar feeling in Office Hours, in which a college student becomes a professor and inherits her old professor's office. There is a passageway to a different world there, much like Narnia. As she begins to explore this other world, and delivers lectures about the journey in The Wizard of Oz, there is an undercurrent of what kind of life she really wanted to live. As her professor once said:

It is in the most surreal situations that a person feels the most present, the closest to reality.

That is a core concept to the fantasy elements and situations in the stories of Bliss Montage. What is real, what should be real, what do we really want? The yearning is explicitly present in the final story, Tomorrow. Another Chinese-American woman is in stasis again with a job, an ex-boyfriend and a baby coming. A baby with an arm already out of the womb. But whether it's because the baby is already itching to get out into the world or not at home in his first home is unsure, just as so many protagonists in these stories are unsure of where they want to belong.

The penultimate story, Peking Duck, is a meditation on the power of mothers to play a role in their children's lives well past the time they grow up. Although it is tied to the immigrant story of the narrator's family, it is not limited. Like all the stories here, this tale involves making stories one's own story, even if they first were heard from others. The connections are strong as chains, sometimes lighter than feathrers and even occasionally softer than silk.

Review: 'The Book of Goose'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 22:34:00 +0000

The Book of Goose
By Yiyun Li
Literary Fiction
Picador

A young woman who grew up in poverty in post-WWII France marries an American and quietly raises chickens and geese in the States. She recently receives word that her childhood best friend has died in childbirth, the same as her friend's older sister. Although the woman, Agnes, is not yet middle aged, her account is as someone whose life has already been lived.

This story of mine expired when I heard of Fabienne's death.

That's because Agnes and her friend, Fabienne, once pulled off what could be seen as a remarkable act of creativity or a stunt with malicious overtones that got away from them. Fabienne was the stronger personality. She was always poking and prodding people. She would do things to people and animals to see their reactions. When not tending to her father's livestock and her motherless brothers, she ran wild. She was not loved, except by Agnes.

After the postmaster's wife dies, the poetry-loving man is on his own. Fabienne decides to poke and prod, so she and Agnes visit him every evening. Eventually, they show him the stories that Fabienne has dictated to Agnes, who writes down the tales of dead children. Devaux, when he reads the stories each night, calls them macabre, puerile, morbid, unbalanced, and waits with greed for each new one.

He knows they are Fabienne's stories, and the two of them frequently spar. When she declares the stories are done, he dictates some editing changes that Agnes copies out in her handwriting. Devaux finds a publisher for them, and Agnes is whisked to Paris as a child prodigy author. Fabienne insists she go, alone, and later to England, again alone.

The rest of the story involves deceptions, betrayals and the fervent wish of Agnes to return home, to the days when she and Fabienne wandered around the countryside. But, of course, we know that even if that happens, it will never be the same again.

Agnes knows that for a time, she was considered a minor myth. And she knows that no one would believe her now. But she says that isn't important:

But is it a myth's jonb to make you believe in it? A myth says, Take me or leave me. You can shrug, you can laugh at its face, but you cannot do anything about it.

That mindset is embedded in everything Agnes tells the reader. She insists that a notable life and a dull life are the same, because both are lives that are being lived.

"Any experience is experience, any life a life."

And yet, and yet. If that is so, why was she so determined to go back to Fabienne and to try to reclaim the past? Agnes is determined that she can only be herself when she is with Fabienne and that the two of them make a whole person. To Agnes, they wanted each other's experiences and to feel as the other felt, to go beyond themselves. For someone who states that "any life a life" Agnes protests a bit too much when the story reaches its climax. As she acknowledges:

Life is most difficult for those who know what they want and also know what makes it impossible for them to get what they want. Life is still difficult, but less so, for those who want but have not realized that they will never get it. It is the least difficult for people who do not know what they want.

The Book of Goose is not a story about contentment. Or love. It is a complex philosophical treatise about myth and reality, friendship and solititude, truth and deception, in the guise of a narrative. Of course this is an unflinching work. Because this is an author who could write a novel about a woman contemplating the suicide of a daughter (Must I Go) that she put aside when her son committed suicide. She wrote an imagined dialogue between her son and herself in Where Reasons End. This is a book to ponder over with its implications of how people consider themselves and others, and the places in which we exist.

Review: 'The Many Daughters of Afong Moy'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 22:20:00 +0000

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
By Jamie Ford
Historical Fiction
Atria Books

That feeling you can't escape destiny? Or that the person you've just met is someone you immediately feel you already know? Or wondering why people in your family feel the same way about things?

Those ideas are explored in Jamie Ford's new novel, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy.

Ford was inspired by his child's taste in music so closely mirroring his own, and wondering what happened to a Chinese woman who was put on American music hall stages as a curiosity in the 1830s to 1850s, only to disappear from history. She was known mainly as the Chinese Lady, but also was identified as Julia Foo-chee ching-chang-king, Miss Ching-Chang-foo, Miss Keo-O-Kwang King, and Afong Moy.

The family connections he explores through the lens of epigenetic inheritance. At a most basic level, we're talking family traits here. Or the way that some identical twins share so many things in common, even some who have been raised apart from each other.

But Ford and some researchers take it deeper, that there may be a connection between family members in which patterns are repeated from generation to generation because of the way individuals react to situations and feel about certain things. This includes intergenerational trauma, in which later generations learn ways to cope from their elders, ways that may not be healthy. There also is the concept of later generations feeling the burden or pain that their elders went through.

I know many of my relatives and I share similar taste in music, food and entertainment. But sometimes I wonder if there's more when it comes to things like a younger relative not getting over a first love, just like my great-grandfather (who made sure his wife knew she wasn't the one; what a rotten thing to do). Or knowing how to get somewhere in a large city when I'd never been there before (or studied the kind of map that would show me where to go).

What if, well not exactly the same two souls, but two souls who recognized each other, kept meeting but also were kept apart, generation to generation?

The women in this novel are the descendants of Afong Moy. The reader learns her tragic story, as well as what happens to succeeding generations of female descendants. The first daughter encountered is Faye, a nurse during WWII who feels an instant connection to a wounded pilot who crashlands his fighter plane and collapses in her arms. Later, she finds a photograph of her when younger, with the words "Find Me" written on the back. It's a photograph she never had taken.

No way was I not going to find out the mystery of that photograph.

Ford goes back and forth in time, dropping a trail of breadcrumbs through the lives of Moy's daughters. They include a programming genius whose work makes a female-based dating app a spectacular success, a poet in near-future Seattle who suffers from depression and a partner with an overbearing mother, a girl with a crush on one of her female teachers at the famed Summerhill school, a young girl sent back to China after a plague outbreak in San Francisco, and Afong Moy herself. Any single one of them would have been the strong lead in a historical novel.

But Ford combines both the historical stories with the metaphysical and emotional searches of each character. It's not just the meeting, and losing, of each one's true companion. It's also the way each character, in her own fashion, strives to devise a life for herself within the restrictions of her time and place. And the way none of them give up, despite the yearning, despite the loss, despite the traumas, no matter how injured they are.

Without spoiling the ending, let's just say Ford knows what to do with the narratives he has created. The Many Daughters of Afong Moy is a most satisfying book to read.

Review: 'Rejoice the Head of Paul McCartney'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 22:02:00 +0000

Rejoice the Head of Paul McCartney
By Adam Braver
Literary Fiction
University of New Orleans Press

When the Beatles' Abbey Road album was released in 1969, a giant billboard with the iconic album cover of the Fab Four crossing the street was put up on Sunset Boulevard. Paul McCartney's head was cut off and never found.

Wondering why that might have happened is a starting point, but not the only point, to Rejoice the Head of Paul McCartney. The novel by Adam Braver has an ensemble cast, all touched in some form by the missing billboard head, to bring to vivid life what an intense time the late 1960s were. There is a young couple who drive by the billboard and wonder, like Leonard Cohen, about the cracks that let the light in a chaotic world. There is a college student confronted by the FBI because a neighbor overheard her and her university friends talking about the billboard head but he thought they meant Gov. Ronald Reagan. There is a photographer in East Germany whose sister is working to get him and his work out. There is a young man whose girlfriend talks him into the performance art of dancing down Sunset Boulevard with only his head showing. There is another young couple who hide in a friend's bedroom after they are assaulted in a drug deal. There is a young woman who insists she is in the background of one of the six photographs taken the day the album cover was shot. And there is a young boy who carries the dream of someday finding Paul McCartney's head.

Some of the characters interact with each other. Some of them bump into each other years later, even if they don't know that they share a moment in cultural history. Some of them find closure, some find a way to carry on, some remain mourned for decades. Mistakes also are carried by souls for years.

Whatever bad things happened to each one of us, as they did, we accepted them as penance for that time in our lives when we might have been so much more courageous.

Braver's construction of writing the novel in suites keeps each story on track and the characters individually memorable. Most seek connection with the greater beauty of life, whether they seek a purpose to their days or not.

Those were the years when all I craved was connection, when you have the sense that any person that you might meet could be the one to change your life.

The author also brings back into focus just how intense that time was.

This was a tough time in our country and the world. We had seen a president shot in the street in broad daylight. We watched soldiers and the Vietnamese die on the nightly news. Police officers in Chicago had beat a young man holding an American flag. Black man targeted by cops and then jailed for defending themselves. For us, grasping at rationales had become a way of life.

It's easy to see parallels to today, when put in those terms.

And because of those parallels, Rejoice the Head of Paul McCartney brings to mind how individuals, whether they drift through life or are determined to follow a certain path, are affected by what is going on around them.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 21:31:00 +0000

Shrines of Gaiety
By Kate Atkinson
Historical Fiction
Anchor

The apex of the Roaring Twenties during which nightclubs flourished and competed with each other for the patronage of the aristocracy, the underworld and those visiting the big city for thrills, girls leaving their provincial lives, a family that depends on each other but doesn't much like each other, a morose copper and the queen of night life released from six months in gaol all feature in Kate Atkinson's latest novel.

Shrines of Gaiety is a twisty tale that has the best features of both her Jackson Brodie novels and her historical works, especially Life After Life and A God in Ruins. This one begins with Nellie Corker leaving Holloway after being sentenced for violating liquor laws. The mother of six and owner of London's most popular nightclubs is greeted by her family, a throng of fans, the press and at least one policeman. With the copper is Gwendolen Kelling, a librarian from York who has come to London in search of two girls who ran away from home, but who really seeks to more fully live. She's going to spy on the Corker empire while searching for the girls.

Nellie's children includea WWI sharpshooter, the mysterious Niven; practical Edith, her mother's heir apparent dealing with an unexpected problem; two sisters who would rival the flightiest Bennet sisters; inept Ramsay who doesn't know who or what he likes; and the youngest, nearly feral Kitty. All play a role in what happens to their family empire after Mum is freed, especially with at least two factions trying to bring her down.

And, because this novel is written by someone who is a master of combining narrative threads of various characters, the relationships they form with Gwendolen and others is fascinating.

The others include that copper who was with her when Nellie Corker came out of Holloway. Detective Chief Inspector Frobisher has been assigned to Bow Street to clean house. He also has his eye on the Corkers. And spends a lot of time working because he doesn't know what to do for his depressed French wife, who is trapped in a world of her own pain.

The girls Gwendolen is looking for have stories of their own that convey what life could be like for girls who wanted more than settling for second best in York. Freda is ignored by her mother and thinks she may have a chance to become a famous dancer, performing in the spotlight every night. She convinces her hapless friend Florence to run away to London with her. Their stories show the dangers of shooting for the stars.

But the heart and soul of this novel is Gwendolen. The former war nurse who became a librarian is an intrepid heroine who shines, even when she's not sure of where her heart is leading her. She represents what once was seen as the best of sturdy English sensibilities. As a portrait of was considered to be the genuine character of a nation, she anchors the serious commentary that in turn anchors the rompish aspect of the narrative. Both she and the novel are delights.

Review: 'The Deceptions'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 20:47:00 +0000

The Deceptions
By Jill Bialosky
Literary Fiction
Counterpoint

Some novels call out to certain readers to find them, so that those readers can be immersed in the feelings and ideas that make up the reason for the story. Such a novel for me is The Deceptions by Jill Bialosky.

The novel begins with notice of an upcoming book that promises to shed light on the relationship between two contemporary poets. The book, by a young woman academic, is entitled Vindication. Echoes of Mary Wollstonecraft are perfecty appropriate. For this is a story about a woman, about creativity, about communing with words and the poet's challenge to use words to make sense of ideas, emotions and events.

The novel then switches to the narration of a nameless woman, a middle-aged teacher whose latest book of poetry will soon be published. She isn't sure whether to look forward to or dread a promised review in The New York Times, especially if a certain misogynist writes the review. She is a person who is wrapped up in words, and has been for most of her life. She teaches classics to boys on the verge of manhood in a private Manhattan academy. Her husband is a research doctor. Their only surviving child, a son, is a college freshman in a small town.

As the story opens, she is anxious and her husband is angry. He focuses on television sports and they do next to nothing together. Of course it's been ages since they were intimate. How much of this is due to her anxiety about her book? About both of their concerns for their son? What about his work, which he doesn't like to talk about? And what about the Visiting Poet who was in residence at her school last year? What role does he play in her regrets?

To help steady herself, our poet spends as much time as possible in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is a place she has frequented for much of her life, and she finds both peace and quests there. During her visits, the reader gets to see the works of art that are her focal points of concentration, and to ruminate on how the attributes of both the artwork and the diety portrayed propel her search for answers to what is causing her internal crises. These interior monologues, and a few conversations with museum personnel and visitors, are outstanding ways to work through the ideas that anchor Greek, Roman and Egyptian classical literature and dieties, and the way these ideas structure our culture today.

The classical references are especially apt because her upcoming book is a series of poems inspired by the myth of Leda and the Swan. That there is more than one way to view the story and Leda is woven into the monologues at the museum and the very fabric of the narrative. It's not an easy subject, but it is one that is tackled with heart and mind.

To compare and contrast our poet's family life, she has a longtime neighbor whose situation at times mirrors her own. Both couples had twins, a boy and a girl. Our poet's daughter died after one day. The other couple's daughter is like a foster daughter to her in their shared love of literature and the written word. Whereas it's not clear what happened between her and the Visiting Poet, her neighbor has fallen for her yoga instructor and knows she is now living her best life.

Before the novel ends, the reader finds out the mystery of the Visiting Poet, what kind of a book review is published in the Times and what our poet plans next. Because of the journeys she has undertaken at the Met, there is a solid foundation to her determination to be her own true self and to not be confined by the way a male-dominated society views the world.

Throughout The Deceptions, the author is willing to confront nuance, more than one way of looking at something and the lies people tell themselves, as well as others. As is noted while contemplating one statue of Heracles, pathos is an important aspect of this novel. Emotions are both acknowledged and projected.

The Deceptions is an engrossing, engaging novel. The reader does not have to be able to relate to every aspect of our poet's situation to connect with her thoughts and feelings. It is a novel that can stay with the reader for a very long time.

Review: 'White Horse'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 20:33:00 +0000

White Horse
By Erika Wurth
Horror
Flatiron Books

The late horror writer Peter Straub once told me, in an online interview, that he decided to write in that genre because of the freedom is gave him to write about all kinds of things. One short story of his in particular, about a boy who was bullied, showed me how true his statement was.

Among the indigeneous authors now writing in the horror genre, doing the same thing, is Erika Wurth. Her novel, White Horse, is ostensibly about what happens when a bracelet with power is brought to the protagonist. But this story is about a lot more, and it is a story told well.

Kari James has reached equilibrium in her once rowdy, rebellious life. She's still no pushover, but she has cleaned up her act and works long hours at two waitress jobs. Time off includes hanging out at the White Horse, a rundown Denver tavern that has a long history of catering to both urban and tribal Indians, reading horror novels and petting the saloon's cats while sipping beer or whisky. She's still recovering from the long ago deaths of her best friend and her mother.

That equilibrium is disrupted when her cousin Debby, who has a history of pestering Kari into not destroying herself, brings her a bracelet that belonged to Kari's mother. Her mother disappeared when she was two days old, and Kari has spent the last 30-some years angry at her. That her father suffered an accident that destroyed his brain in mourning her doesn't help. The moment Kari touches the bracelet, she sees ghosts from her past. First it's Jaime, her best friend who OD'd when they were partying hard, then her mother. Her mother's ghost is accompanied by the specter of evil following close behind.

Wurth is wonderful at describing what Kari and Jaime were like in their wild days, growing up in Idaho Springs, wishing for more, whatever that might be, and why Kari will always love heavy metal rock.

We'd hitched one Saturday night, ready for adventures of the kind that could not be had in a small town that sat at the bottom of a mountain, the trees swaying above our trailers, our dingy houses, our wild, furious hearts.

As the story progresses, Wurth uses the tropes of horror to tell the story of a young Indian woman who disappeared just when it looked like she had everything to live for -- a husband she loved, a new baby, a political cause. And this fits so well. The real-life monsters who abuse women, who kill them, who are frightened of them having a voice, are no less menacing than a grim paranormal creature of death. And because this is a horror novel, just as in magic realism, they are intertwined.

White Horse reaches its full narrative power as it becomes a story of individual indigeneous women and men who form alliances, who forge communities, who recognize their connections to each other as family.

Erika Wurth joins the company of such powerful storytellers as Stephen Graham Jones, Rebecca Roanhorse and Cheri Demiline, and authors who sometimes use the tropes of horror/magic realism such as the great Louise Erdrich, Richard Wagamese, Morgan Talty and Cynthia Letitch Smith.

They acknowledge the spiritual in life as well as the physical and emotional. They take full adantage of the folklore roots of horror storytelling to explore psychological aspects of the indigenious experience. They create characters to care about and insights into their experiences. This is storytelling to treasure.

Review: 'The Marriage Portrait'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 20:12:00 +0000

The Marriage Portrait
By Maggie O'Farrell
Literary Fiction
Knopf

She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Browning's "My Last Duchess" was the first poem I studied in college that caught my attention and imagination. The story it tells of a young woman who seemed kind and interested in the world, who was not appreciated by a world-weary aristocrat, who died and who was not mourned, whose portrait was a curio among many for her widower, floored me.

How could anyone be that callous? How could anyone not appreciate kindness and beauty? How could "a nine-hundred-years-old name" be worth more than those qualities? Is the male ego that fragile? Is is an aristocracy thing?

These questions came back to mind while reading Maggie O'Farrell's latest historical novel. The Marriage Portrait imagines the life of Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici d'Este. The middle daughter of Cosimo and Eleanora de' Medici was married to Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, at the age of 13. This happened after her elder sister, also promised to Alfonso, died before the wedding could take place. Lucrezia died at the age of 16.

She is believed to be the subject of Browning's poem about a dead young wife's marriage portrait. The actual painting of her that inspired Browning, which was on display near his Italian home, although it was apparently painted some time after the marriage, makes one wonder what she was thinking. O'Farrell has some ideas.

In the novel, Lucrezia is unlike her sedate siblings. She is not only the opposite of sedate, she also is curious and desires to know things, to see things, to understand things. As a child, she crept down to the family's courtyard during the night when a tiger her father had commissioned to be part of his private zoo arrived. Mesmerized by the fierce, caged beast, she later gets to visit the caged animals with her older brothers and sisters. As the odd one out, Lucrezia is skilled at fading into the background, and does so to go to the tiger's cage. To stroke its magnificent fur. She is discovered doing so and is dragged away. Later, the tiger is killed when the doors to its cage and those of the two lions already in the zoo are opened.

That part of the story is factual. But like deeds surrounding her eventual husband, whether her father had something to do with what took place is worthy of speculation.

To anchor Lucrezia's fictional character to the real portrait, and subsequent fame through Browning's poem, O'Farrell's protagonist is a talented painter. Brushstrokes, use of color, the fascination of creating underpaintings no one but the artist will see are all fascinating and satisfying to the Lucrezia of the novel. The way that O'Farrell describes how these aspects of creating art giving meaning to her character's inner life show another interpretation to the complaints of the widower in the poem, who is peeved at not being on some mythical pedestal. Instead, the novel's Lucrezia is lost inside her art.

The truth is, though, that she is still caught in the microcosm of her painting: that is the only place she wishes to be. All other sights, all ther worlds, will be dissatisfying to her until she finishes it, until the painting is complete and will release her back to where she belongs. Here, in this salon, waiting for her husband to appear, an embroidery hoop in her hands.

Added into the mix are Alfonso's troubles with his Protestant mother, who has angered the Pope, and his desperation for a child. (The real Alfonso married twice more after Lucrezia's death but had no children.) If Lucrezia feels a bond with a different man, that could well be the last straw for an aristocrat accustomed to getting his way.

It is easy to see that a would-be empire builder, in an age when Henry VIII would be doing the same, only in public, would think murdering a wife could solve some of his problems and perhaps soothe his ego.

How much any of this is true is not the purpose of the story. It is the wondering about what drives people, what inspires or motivates them, what controls them, that makes The Marriage Portrait a fascinating look at how people with so many advantages can fail at life on such a grand scale.

Review: 'Haven'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 19:30:00 +0000

Haven
By Emma Donoghe
Literary Fiction
Little, Brown and Company

Three monks leave a comfortable monastery a thousand years ago to begin their own community. Two were chosen by the third, who dreamed of perfection in worship and contemplation in the wilderness, away from the evils of humanity. They find Skelling Michael and begin the work of making their prior's dream a reality.

In Emma Donoghe's Haven, Artt has traveled the known world and is now visiting an Irish monastery. The food is plentiful, the abbott has a comfortable family life, the monks are hard-working. But he is not content. He eats little and holds himself aloof. As a famous and mysterious figure, he is fascinating to young Trian. The growing lad, given to the monks when he was 13, is a pure soul who loves playing music with one of the older monks. Cormac came late to the religious life, after surviving both battle wounds and the death of his family to the plague. He is content to live out his days with his brothers.

But in his dream of a new brotherhood, Artt sees Trian and Cormac as his followers. Although he resists the title of abbott, it's clear he considers himself the leader because he is the one who was given the dream. While Cormac and Trian want to take care of the basics, such as food and shelter, Artt wants to make a cross of stone and an altar. Because they trust his extreme views as faith, they obey.

As the conflicts between reality (eating, shelter) and divine (worship, copying manuscripts) take root, Donoghe also delves into the practical. She chronicles just how Cormac and Trian solve problems of survival with the little at hand. This fascinating narrative of how people created what they needed to get by in pre-industrial times grounds the overlying parable of how one determined man tries to make his vision real.

And that's what Haven is, a parable that delves into the differences between faith and religious doctrine, between perception and reality, between being in charge and being a leader. As the author gives the reader looks at their situation from each character's perspective, it is clear that all three are sincere in wanting to serve God. But they all three approach this sincere wish differently, because of who they are.

Trian loves being one with nature. The idea of being like a bird, able to exist in air, on water and on land, appeals to him. Having grown up in a fishing family, he is adept at scaling the rocks of Skellig and swimming.

... he finds himself wondering what it would be like to be equally at home on land, in water, and in air. To be powered by the breeze, wheeling and soaring, free from the weight that keeps other creatures shackled to the earth.

Cormac is a builder, a gardener and a healer. He accepts people for who they are.

After recounting a story in which time passed by while a holy man listened to an angel's song, Cormac shows a love of humanity:

It strikes Cormac now what a sad story this is. To be soothed with music and given a heavenly reward, but in exchange you've lost a century and a half in a blink, and all your friends are dead and buried ... If he'd been Mochaoi, he'd have preferred to sweat over every beam of that church than to dream away his whole life in an afternoon. Once childhood is over, don't the years pass too fast already, rollling over a man as fast as waves?

Neither one of them are prone to judge.

Artt is all about judgment. The scores of birds on the island drive him crazy. Cormac's stories drive him crazy. The two monks' wishes to create music, shelter, heat and food sources, to not be adept copiers of manuscripts, drive him crazy. It soon becomes clear that all of humanity and nature drive him crazy. Artt appears to wish, above all, to be pure spirit in worship. His desire leads, of course, to acts of hubris. Does he have a death wish for him and the two men he called to join him in this quest? As he tells one of the monks:

Why dread sickness and death at all, when we should rather trust God to do with us what he will?

Artt's ego is definitely involved:

Artt finds himself wondering if perhaps tales will be told about him. Is it arrogance to think it?

The way he punishes himself also is ego-driven. No wonder when one of the others falls ill, his brother prays:

Don't dare die on me, our first season. Don't leave me here alone with a saint.

The real Skellig Michael has been home to monks for centuries. It's probably better known now as a key location in the last three Star Wars movies. The setting serves the story well, whether Donoghe's initial aim was to explore how and why monks first settled on that beautiful, harsh, remote isle, or whether she set out to explore the differences between love of humanity and love of God. Regardless of the inspiration, Haven is a calm and forceful look at the nexus of faith and love.

Review: 'Marigold and Rose: A Fiction'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 23:55:00 +0000

Marigold and Rose: A Fiction
By Louise Glück
Literary Fiction
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

What is it like to become aware, to start to understand that there are things to see, to hear, to feel, to know?

Those ideas are explored in Nobel Prize-winning Louise Glück's Marigold and Rose: A Fiction.

The Marigold and Rose in the title are twin baby girls. One is thoughtful and already shows she was born to be a writer. The other is beloved by all and draws people to her without even trying. They consider themselves half of a whole person, while always recognizing their differences. That they are different does not mean they are in conflict, and that is a lovely idea to see.

The slim volume begins with Marigold, the writer-in-residence, poring over an alphabet book of animals. It may seem like she is reading, at first, but Glück shows what the real situation is by revealing:

Of course she wasn't reading; neither of the twins could read; they were babies. But we have interior lives, Rose thought.

And oh how lively those interior lives are!

Besides the differences in themselves, they study Mother and Father in detail and love them for the different beings they are. And, just as they seem themselves as both a unit and as individuals, so they see their parents. It's a facile way of describing family dynamics that is more complex than first appearances seemingly reveal.

Marigold is a character who it would be fascinating to revisit throughout her life. Books are her great love, because she has already discovered one astounding truth about them:

Books did not judge you, Marigold thought, because they were full of animals. She knew from the dog animals did not judge you.

As someone who loves books because they don't let you down the way people can, and as a lifelong dog lover, oh how this resonates.

During the course of their first year, the babies disover and muse over the outdoors, incuding bunnies and flowers, Mother's feelings about a house compared to an apartment and going back to work, stairs and learning how to drink from a cup.

As throughout the work, the evening of their first birthday, when the party is over and night has fallen, is both descriptive and philosophical. Glück's poetical prowess shines in her writing and, because of the power of poetry, each word counts.

Review: 'My Government Means to Kill Me'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 23:23:00 +0000

My Government Means to Kill Me
By Rasheed Newson
Literary Fiction
Flatiron

A young man leaves his affluent Indianapolis home in the 1980s, lands in New York City and seeks well, not fame and fortune, but some of the lustier glories of the big city. And since he is a young Black gay man with unresolved sorrow in his heart, a flamboyant attitude and a quick mind, he can only be Trey Singleton in Rasheed Newson's My Government Means to Kill Me.

Trey is a teenager when his life in the Big Apple begins. He knows he stands out. Sometimes, he embraces it and sometimes, he acknowledges that it is not half of who he is. From his first job as a bicycle messenger, Trey knows he doesn't fit in. He also knows he is going to have to take it if he plans to stay. There is an acknowledgement and honesty to Trey that is immediately endearing.

Although he knows that "the average person was never going to bestow pity or mercy on me", he also quickly learns that "We are not so narrowly defined as society would have us believe."

Trey soon discovers Mt. Morris, a bathhouse that has not been closed down because of its mostly Black clientele. There, he cruises for quick sex and becomes friends with Bayard Rustin. This Rustin feels and sounds like the little I know of the real Rustin, whether he would ever have been in such a setting or not. Like all the real people mentioned in the novel, each chapter, or lesson, has a footnote when they are introduced that is factual. (Excuse me for a moment. Footnotes! Oh joy! Rapture! My nerdy little heart was delighted.)

Rustin is one of several characters who serve as anchors while Trey bounces around discovering the ups and downs of life in the big city. Rustin serves as both advisor and Greek chorus, telling Trey and the reader of how far things had come even back in the 1980s.

When Trey and his roommate can't pay rent, Trey plows through the old-fashioned kind of research, when one dug through paper documents in dusty basements. He then finagles his way into a rent strike against the landlord who is, of course, Fred Trump. The portrayal of that despot is both a clue into why his son turned out the way he did and a portend of things to come. It is brilliantly written, as are other setpieces with prominent conservatives of the era.

As Trey becomes more involved in his New York life, he is drawn toward activism. The rent strike is the tipping point. In this and all the outer things that happen to Trey, his observations about himself apply not just to the action at hand, but to him. To wit:

If we never meet our despicable adversaries, we'd never be forced to find out how brave, resilient, and cunning we can be.

This bit of wisdom applies to the trauma Trey carries from his childhood, when something happened that he was at least in part responsible for and which is the main reason he left home. In between episodes that portray 1980s New York City and the explosion of the AIDS crisis, Trey deals with his past. It will affect his future. And it will involve confronting demons, both those in his head and those in his family. But one of Trey's great strengths is his self-awareness and knowledge:

We could blame it all on our families, but then we'd never find the keys to unlock our cells.

This self-awareness and knowledge also leads to one of those big "oof" reading moments when the air can leave the reader's innards and tears may come to one's eyes:

What flesh-and-blood man was ever going to immediately recognize the inner beauty and value in me, then make the effort to machete his way through the thorny thickets of insecurities and defense mechanisms surrounding my heart?

As Trey becomes involved with ACT UP, the reason for the book's title comes to the fore. It is a brutal realization that this is how dire things were. And a reminder that we're not that far from seeing how dire things are close to being again:

The point is to let your bruised and bloodied bodies serve as evidence that the government means to kill you, if you so much as protest its bigoted policies.

The novel is not all doom and gloom though. Through all the ups and downs in Trey's life and those of his friends, there is a cheekiness, an earnestness and an honesty to the story that thoroughly anchors it. My Government Means to Kill Me is not only a brilliant historical novel of those times, it is a bold statement of how someone who could have been an outcast doesn't settle for being left out.

Review: 'Night of the Living Rez'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 15:05:00 +0000

Night of the Living Rez
By Morgan Talty
Literary Fiction Short Stories
Tin House

A young boy, living on the Penobscot reservation with his older sister and mother, gets older but doesn't seem to grow up in a beautifully written set of connected stories. Morgan Talty's Night of the Living Rez centers on David, or Dee, at different ages in a non-linear arrangement. Talty takes advantage of that narrative construction choice to show how, regardless of what is going on in our young narrator's life, there are some constants that affect everything about his life and the lives of his family and friends.

These constants are mostly not positive, which makes the positive parts stand out all the brighter. The stories also show how strongly connected the positive and not-positive are. In "The Blessing Tobacco", a young David visits his grandmother at her house. She is starting to suffer from Alzheimer's and thinks David is her long-dead brother, Robbie.

Grammy keeps passing him cigarettes at the kitchen table. He hasn't smoked and is pretty sure he'd get in trouble if he did, but his mother told him to just go along with Grammy if she wasn't herself. So he smokes them and she keeps passing more to him, getting more insistent that he smoke them. So of course he's soon sick. Turns out Grammy was punishing Robbie for taking something that happened years before David was even born.

His mostly quiet mother and his usually distressed sister nurse him and he is sent back to fill his grandmother's wood box. The slight guilting, the quiet back-and-forth conversation that sends him back and the ensuing chat with his grandmother are realistically and quietly portrayed. It is real life. As they sit back down at the kitchen table, Grammy is herself and tells David a joke he finds so funny that he has her repeat it.

When Grammy has a bad spell later, the arguing that David's mother and sister had been doing is dropped as they unite in taking care of of their elder. She again mistakes David for her dead brother. Later, David dreams that he knew Robbie and has memories of them hunting or fishing together. The way the end of the story is written is indicative of why this book can take hold of one's heart and head:

"... and after all that we walked away through mud or snow until I stopped walking but he kept on going and going and going out there in quiet strides through a dark-pined forest until he was gone."

Gone in more ways than one.

David spends a lot of time with his friends. Whether they're playing an elaborate game of sticks and stones, or smoking, drinking and even doing drugs, the boys are together or looking for each other. They are just as apt to steal from each other as they are to give each other things. It's fascinating that they don't hold grudges and fall right back into hanging out together. David even spends significant time living at their houses when he and his mother cannot abide each other.

His father is mostly out of the picture. David's parents divorced when he was quite young and his dad moved away. He isn't a good provider and doesn't come to visit his kids, but when something goes wrong someone usually reaches out to call him and make him part of what's happening. And one of the other family members shuts him out. Again, the pattern is repeated.

The other major character is Frick, his mother's boyfriend who first appears in his role as a medicine man when Paige has a crisis. His role within the family has a most definitive trajectory:

He was a medicine man who had been forgetting to pray in the mornings and at night, forgetting to feed the spirits once a month.

For the most part, the fights and quarrels and bickering and hurtful things separate the characters. But then something comes up and, for the most part, they are there for each other. Throughout everything that happens to each family member in Night of the Living Rez, that love underneath the trauma holds:

Mom had driven fast. Real fast, and she watched me most of the time during the drive, as if I had been her road the whole way to our new home.

Review: 'Olga Dies Dreaming'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 14:31:00 +0000

Olga Dies Dreaming
By Xochitl Gonzalez
Literary Fiction
Flatiron Books

Olga is a successful high-end wedding planner, daughter of Puerto Rican activists, and sister of a media star congressman. What's most important to her right now? Some dodgy paperwork to present her cousin with expensive, heirloom-worthy linen napkins at her upcoming wedding.

So, is Olga Dies Dreaming, the new novel by Xochitl Gonzalez, a frothy tale about a woman and her familia? Let's just say it has a lot to say about family dynamics.

Olga and her brother, Prieto, were left by their mother, now a fugitive activist fighting for Puerto Rican independence. Their father, a Vietnam vet, died of AIDS as a broken-hearted junkie who loved music and his children, but who loved the needle more.

Their grandmother raised them with unconditional love. Both are accomplished, successful adults who are close to each other. Of course they are both hiding pain. And as the story deepens, the reader learns about the what and why of their pain. And how it affects what happens in the rest of the novel.

Olga has shut her heart up. She has an ongoing relationship with the rich owner of a chain of hardware stores, but she isn't in love with him. Olga had one other serious boyfriend as a young girl. Reggie is now a wildly rich music mogul with diverse investments and a renewed interest in his own Puerto Rican heritage. And now there is a new man who has appeared. Matteo is his own true self, even when it comes to admitting his flaws and fears.

Prieto is divorced and has a young teenage daughter. He's been hiding his homosexuality from even himself, but that's no longer an option. He is afraid of how his family will react, even more than the voters or the media.

Both sister and brother have received letters from their mother over the years, although she's never visited or even called them. She exhorts them to remember who they are and to not sell out. Nothing they do is ever good enough, because they are not as committed to her cause as she is.

By the time the personal, professional, racial and cultural aspects of their story propel each other to some potentially disastrous decisions, it is difficult to not be worried for both Olga and Prieto. It's easy to see how badly things can do. So easy to see that it would be understandable if one decided to put the book down and, say, listen to music for a spell.

But it is so worthwhile to return to the novel. To find out what happens. And so see what happens when even people who love each other acknowledge that they haven't been brave enough to be completely honest in the past, but they're trying now.

At one point, Olga wonders about someone who collects so many certain objects that the word hoarding is apt. What pain caused that hole in the heart that the objects are an attempt to fill it back up? What Olga doesn't know at the time is that she, too, has a hole in her heart. Every main character in the novel does. And the ways in which they seek to fill those holes show both how loving and how wounded, how willing to heal and how wounding, people can be.

Olga Dies Dreaming is a fascinating look at how the personal is part of the larger story -- of a family, of a culture, or a heritage that all can serve as foundational and supportive for someone to become their best true self.

Review: 'Fire Season'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 14:23:00 +0000

Fire Season
By Leyna Krow
Literary Fiction
Viking

Before Washington Territory was granted statehood, a fire swept through downtown Spokane Falls. The cause was never determined and the town was rebuilt larger and more grandiose than before. One way of looking at why the town burned underlies the story in Leyna Krow's Fire Season.

The story of the fire is not the subject of the novel, however. But it does serve to illuminate the story of a woman of a certain kind, as Roslyn is dubbed by her father. The fire also sheds light on how damaged men would control such women, and what happens when they try.

On the eve of the Great Fire of 1889, Barton Heyward runs the only bank in town. He's certain no one likes him, no one respects him and he just got the worst haircut of his young life. Not even his favorite prostitute, Roslyn, likes him more than she likes the drink. So perhaps he'll just kill himself. He chickens out, the town burns the next day and he comes up with a way to enrich himself. If he can't be loved he can find another way to make himself feel better. Writing fake bank notes and charging hidden interest fees makes him feel clever.

That includes keeping Roslyn at his house under the pretense people think she set the fire. People don't actually think this, but Barton isn't just deluding Roslyn. He's deluding himself, convincing himself that she is his great love, that she loves him and that they will go away together to begin a beautiful life. As Roslyn begins to clear her head from its alcohol-fueled fugue, she begins to think for herself.

Soon, another young man arrives in Spokane Falls. He is even less impressed with the people he meets than Barton. Quake Auchenbaucher was sent for because of his reputation for solving fire investigations as a federal government inspector. That's not who he really is, but Quake is ready to once again size up a situation, tell people what they want and make a tidy profit.

Barton seems a ready-made patsy for Quake's scheme. And the sooner Quake can get out of Spokane Falls, the happier he will be. The local police are a drunken gang, the town is full of stupid people and the only thing people seem excited over is the fare of a local waffle shop.

What Quake doesn't know is that Roslyn will come into his life, too.

And what both men don't initially know is that Roslyn, well, she can do certain things. Because she is a woman of a certain kind. Hints about what she can do appear during interludes between the sagas of the two men. Hints about women who can fly, who can intuit, who can have visions and who can levitate beyond their bodies.

As more is revealed about Roslyn and how she ended up in a Spokane hotel, more is shown about the ways in which women have to make the most of whatever gifts they have. And ways in which they can be punished for having those gifts. But Fire Season also shows that for a certain kind of woman who perseveres, grace is possible.

Fire Season does a superb job of portraying the aftermath of the Great Fire. It gives a feel for what Spokane Falls and other Western towns were like, in addition to their people. These portraits serve the greater story very well.

Although there are serious themes displayed, there also is whimsy in this novel.