Category: book-review

Black Experience, book-review, Family Drama, literature

The Vanishing Half

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What would it be like to have a twin that makes choices as different from yours as possible? 

This is the premise of this book written by Brit Bennet.  In a town that was founded by black people that were striving to be light, two girls were born to the family of one of the founders.  Although the founders of this town considered themselves “better” than those with darker skin, it was no real “protection.” A group of white men stormed into their home, pulled their father out by the ankles and hung him for something that he had not done.  From then, the fragility of being light was shattered.  With the family in financial peril, they were pulled out of school at the age of 16 to work cleaning white people’s home.  There they saw first hand how anyone with any color was treated.

The girls run away to New Orleans, looking to build a new life.  It was then that they were again confronted with the reality of opportunities that were available to white women that were not available to black woman, even those with light skin.  In order to get a job, Stella “passed” as white, making choices to change herself into another person.  She selected “white” on the job application, became a secretary, married her boss, and built a new life that she managed to hide from everyone including herself.  

Desiree, however, took a different path, marrying a dark black man that ended up beating her. Fleeing her husband’s fists back to Mallard, with her small dark skinned daughter became an outsider in the light black town.  As a child, Desiree had been most likely to leave, always restless to be somewhere else.  Yet it was Stella that continued to live her lie and not return. 

The story traces how each life was different based upon choices that were made when they were young.  A choice led Stella to a larger life, yet it was a life of lies.  She never felt comfortable being herself until a black woman befriended her and she had to choose all over. 

The truth that you can deny your history, but it shapes you anyway, and the acceptance of those that love you for all their flaws and choices, makes this a story of discovering who you are at the core, so you can not only love yourself, but allow yourself to be loved.

Within the story, questions explored include what does it mean to be black? What does it mean to be poor? What is a woman’s place? What makes a man? What does it mean to stay? And ultimately, how do you live with the choices you have made?

Each choses their own path and lives with the consequences. 

book-review, literature

By the Book

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Did you ever feel like you have heard a story before – often?  It seems as though there has been a number of “reboots” happening in the storytelling world. 

10 Things I hate About You is based on The Taming of the Shrew;

A Thousand Acres is King Lear;

The Lion King is Hamlet;

The Madwoman Upstairs is Jane Eyre;

The Lost Child is Wuthering Heights;

On Beauty is Howards End;

Bridget Jones’ Diary is Pride and Prejudice;

Clueless is Emma. 

Adding to this list is a retelling of one of one of my favorites – Persuasion.  By the Book, by Julia Sonneborn, as with many retellings, notes the book as a favorite of the protagonist’s (Anne with an E – a nod to another beloved book).  Though many names are similar, Lady Russell became Dr Ellen Russell, others are new to the telling.  As the original – Anne’s father cut her off when she didn’t go to law school, her sister Lauren’s attacks Adam as someone who would never be successful, and Dr Russell pushes that Anne follow her mentor’s footsteps to Yale’s MFA program. All these combined to put pressure on an impressionable young college woman that was not sure how to do anything other than fight for her books, her constant comfort.

With modern twists and turns that are inevitable in a Victorian love story, even if told in the 21st century, there is always comfort in knowing that all will end well.  Especially in the crazy COVID world we live in. 

Well written, a fun read that kept my interest. 

book-review, literature, Middle Eastern, read around the world

Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak

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There are spoilers here, but I tried to keep them to a minimum.  This book was translated from Turkish.  While many times a book can lose something in translation, I was amazed that I felt no stilt or stumble along the way that happens in so many translated works.  This was an amazing story that unfolded in surprising and extraordinary ways.  Well worth the read. 

This story starts off in a way that does not prepare you for its depth.  It is modern Istanbul and the country is simmering in the duality of the world -– is it Secular or Religious? Rich or Poor? East or West?  A woman is driving her daughter through the city which teems around them as they are stuck in traffic.  This woman, Peri, uncharacteristically leaves her bag in the back seat of her car, and it is stolen.  Also uncharacteristically, she runs after the thief to retrieve it.  As she runs through the alleys of Istanbul, she is faced with the dark underside of the city.  She is wounded, and almost raped, but is able to survive with only a knife wound to her hand, and a photo from another lifetime.    Peri then returns to the car with her daughter, drives on to her original destination – a dinner party with the elite of Turkey.

You will not be aware until you have finished the story, that this is a metaphor for her life. 

The story is told starting now, and flashing back to Peri’s history.  With a bit more told each time, the woman becomes more visible.  Her mother, a religious woman, believes that there is darkness in Peri’s soul, and Peri had not faced it in years before she was following the child that stole her bag.  It is this darkness that has led Peri to live between her mother and her father, non-religious, that fight each other for everything.  Peri has spent her life being conflicted because she didn’t want to take sides, even if she was leaning toward her father’s.  He had placed all his hopes for the future of the family on her going to Oxford.  Peri was successful in getting there.

Once there, however, she continued to remain outside everything.  Her suite mate, a fully assimilated woman from Iran, suggested that Peri take a lecture with Professor Azur on Gd.  Initially not interested, she warms to the idea.  Once accepted to the selective seminar, the challenges that Azur puts in front of her continue to perplex her.  Another woman Peri befriended in the college, Mona, a religious Egyptian, joined her in the class.  The suite mate, Shirin, ended up convincing them all to live together.  All along, Peri was warned by some that Azur thought he was Gd, and Shirin who swore he was.  Throughout the story, you see the twists and turns of the pathways of Peri’s mind, just like the pathways she ran after her purse.  The wound on her hand continued off and on to bleed and throb, just like Peri’s emotions.  The duality of choices, to be or not, and the reality of Peri’s which was in the middle, are reflected throughout the country, and even within all the people at the party.  As Peri is faced with inquiring minds that hear she went to Oxford, she speaks out for herself, timid at first.  She reviews and revisits the past during this dinner, and she comes to a conclusion.  She asks her mother for a phone number.  Once dialed, she faces the first of many steps toward reconciling herself.  At the end of the call Shirin tells Peri to call Azur.  Peri, during this phone conversation, had been hiding in a hall.  She then hears and sees masked men enter the house, and she hides in the closet behind her.  In the blink of an eye, she calls Azur, and hears he is not angry.  She then begins a seminar on Gd, teaching the teacher.  As the power runs out on the phone, Peri stands and opens the door.  She is finally ready to come out of the closet, figuratively and metaphorically, to face her destiny.  She is no longer hiding from herself or anyone else.

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, reading

Lost and Found

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Each person leaves things behind, sometimes on purpose others, not.  These items can be keys to moments that change our lives.  This is the basis of the story behind The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan. Throughout the book there are strings of stories of how mementoes are kept or lost, with them all coming back together in the end. 

There are two stories that this is based upon.  The first, a woman, Laura, who comes to work for an author and the second a woman, Eunice, who comes to work for a publisher.  Both women are brought into these men’s lives and become for them the way to fulfill their own destinies.  It is through the stories of people around them that show the six degrees of separation. 

Ultimately, the truth is told by a young woman with Downs Syndrome. It is through this girl’s ability to see and feel the things around her with no preconceived filter that helps her lead others to their own truth.  This girl, her given name is Sunshine, sits in the park observing those who live around her, including the author across the way.  As she realizes he has died and the woman who came each day to work with him moves in, Sunshine decides that this is her opportunity to make a new friend.  She comes around often, and at times Laura hides in the cupboards when she doesn’t want a visitor.  The gardener, Freddie asks why Laura doesn’t just explain to Sunshine about the times she wants to be alone.  After an old girlfriend comes around for Freddie, who also hides, the both come clean to those pursuing them with the reasons why.  Sunshine pragmatically states “why didn’t you just say so?” 

If we could only listen to this advice in our real lives.  How many times have we twisted ourselves into knots to avoid something instead of facing it straight on?  If we had been honest with ourselves and others, how much energy and heartache could be avoided?

As the stories continue, Sunshine later states that she is never listened to.  Again, Laura and Freddie stop and realize that there is truth to what she says.  Once they listen, they take steps toward solving a mystery at the heart of the story.  As the story progresses, tales of lost objects – how they came to be lost and how they came to be found – continue to show hints of how they are intertwined. 

When at last Sunshine puts a bet out for Freddie, the ending for both stories becomes apparent.  Sunshine has again predicted it through her simple but perceptive observation.  The tale is of love and loss, finding and discovering, and being honest to oneself.  If you are true to yourself, observant and open, you will find your happiness. 

book-review, books, read around the world, reading, time travel

Time travelling

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If you were able to go back in time, would you? What if there are all sorts of rules that you need to abide by to do this? You have to sit in a specific cafe, at a specific chair, and not get up. You can only meet someone who had been in the cafe, and the present will not change. And you only have as much time there as it takes for the cup of coffee you were served to go cold.

That is the truth about a small cafe in Japan that has been serving coffee for over 100 years. Urban legend has been published, but most are scared away by the rules. This book, Before the Coffee Gets Cold translated from Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Japanese best seller by Geoffrey Trousselot, tells the story of four people who are driven to make the choice to sit in this chair. Each has their own reasons for doing this. One goes back to confront a man who left her, one is seeking to receive a letter from her husband’s early onset Alzheimers, another to see her sister one more time, and the last to meet the daughter she has not been able to meet. All while knowing they need to wait for the seat to be empty, as it is occupied by a ghost that didn’t drink her cup of coffee in time.

The beautiful reasons why they choose to go, and the unexpected ways these visits unfold are nothing short of love stories. Written tenderly, even in translation, each woman that goes is motivated by love – unrequited, romantic, familial and maternal. Each visit, while not changing the present, has significant impact on each of these women.

The way the stories unfold is comforting and the language evokes a dark and cool underground cafe in Japan. A gentle read of love and the possibilities of reliving a moment in time.

It may be an ironic way to end 2020, but it does bring hope.

Biography, Black Experience, Family Drama, Indigenous American, literature, memoir

Year End Summary

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In this difficult year for us all, I have surprisingly been able to read.  While certainly not at the same pace as I am used to, especially since it took me three months to read 20, five months for the next 20 – which included a number of books in the 90-150 page length – and then 10 in the past 3 months.  Either way, I made it to my goal. 

This year’s reading included a number of books, non-fiction, that captured my time.  The Library Book and The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu stand out.  Both are stories of how books formed the basis of the area they were made, and how the impact of the threats to them have continued throughout time.  Destruction of books can kill a community.  The numbers of people that step up and help in LA and Timbuktu that put themselves in real danger to save these are nothing short of inspiring. 

Inspiration also came from Young Woman and the Sea as well as The Memo.  Both Gertrude Ederle and Minda Harts are victims of the society they are brought into.  As a girl in the early 1900s, not only was swimming not in fashion, but a woman’s ability to swim was questioned.  Trudy not only broke all the women’s swim records but also the men’s.  While she failed in her first attempt to cross the English Channel, it is widely documented that she believed she was poisoned by her coach to keep her from completing the feat.  Minda, on the other hand, discusses the need for women of color to not only lean in, but to bring your own chair. 

I read about people coming into their own understanding of the place they hold in their life, their family, society, and more.  Some were laugh out loud, others brought tears, and more were in between. 

From a fiction standpoint, as I look back on the titles, all seem to be searching for a place to feel fulfilled.  People trying to connect, being brushed off, being hurt, just trying to survive.  My favorites this year include:

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats: A lovely story about the strength of real love.  This book was an amazing love story, while a bit unsettling about the legacy it left his daughter.

The Painted Drum: The history of Native Americans is something that has not been valued by the invaders.  When a woman comes in to catalogue a home of a deceased man, she encounters items he stole from a tribe when he was their “representative”.  Her journey to herself and her tribe, which was called to by the drum, was a lesson in the history of a people calling to its next generation, giving strength to carry on.

Where the Crawdads Sing: A compelling story, especially the isolation, that resonated due to the lock down.  The ending was worthy of Chris Bohjalian.

The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek: The concept of “colored” people in Kentucky is taken a step further when there is a group of “blue” people that are part of the community.  A real thing, this was a genetic quirk that actually existed.  The gradation of the color impacting the lives of people is amazing – there is always someone you can decide is lower than you. 

The Queen’s Gambit: After hearing about the TV adaptation, I pick up the book.  I have no idea how this book can be easily put into film, as the majority of the book is a metaphor of a game of chess, the game in question.  The Queen’s gambit is a move to start a game, similar to the first step to life.  As the story continues, each step in life becomes how Beth Harmon approaches the game.  To her, life is chess. 

Other titles that have left a lasting impression:

Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpen

Lilith’s Brood (Xenogenesis 1-3) by Octavia E. Butler

The Great Alone by Kristen Hanna

The One and Only by Emily Griffin

Elsewhere: A Memoir by Richard Russo

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal

Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts

The Dutch House by Anne Patchett

In the coming year, my focus will be to read books I own.  The titles may be a bit older, but I feel the need to do my bookshelves and brain the favor of slowing down the pace. 

book-review, Historical Fiction

As the year winds up

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As I look back at the last installment of this blog, I realize I have not been reading much at all. My near constant review of Goodreads.com or the library website available ebooks has significantly fallen off. One friend just posted they made their goal of 50 books, and I realize that I had been within striking distance for months but have not gotten over the line. That was when I started to have the desire to read come back.

As I started to feel this way, I started at my own bookcase. I have a few “easy starters” ready, but they actually were put aside when I started planning and cooking for Thanksgiving. Yes, I made a 15 pound turkey with all the sides, got out the good china and set the dinning room table for just my four. We have these, so we need to use them. More stress from work, and I finally started to get bored with the holiday movies on Hallmark. It was inevitable. I usually ban these things until after Thanksgiving, but I started to indulge much earlier this year – early to mid November. The shorter days, lack of vacation, and general lack of leaving my house is getting to me. I needed a book to get me out of myself. One book group I have fallen behind on this year had just read Finding Dorothy, which I had recommended. I found it at the library and read the first chapter. I was engaged, but fell asleep. The exhaustion of life has been getting to me and I am sleeping fitfully if at all, so when it happens I go with it.

Then I start to knit again. My friend had a baby at 24 weeks, and we have all been on pins and needles. He is growing well, and is now over six months, breathing on his own, but not yet home from the NICU. I start to knit his baby “lovey” and blanket in hopes I will be able to finish before he makes it home in late January, early February. As I sit doing this, I go to hoopla and download The Queen’s Gambit. Again, this captures my attention, and with the novice knitter I am, I have plenty of time to listen to the book.

The listen is absolutely worth it. I may need to pull apart three days of work because I can’t figure out how I have extra stitches, and I have no idea what row I am on, but at least I have this book as my outcome from all the effort.

The story could have gone in many directions, but remained focused on the main character and the insular world she has built herself. The other avenues, while they are ways I would love to explore, are closed to us, as the protagonist has closed them to herself. She has control only on the chess board, and does not allow herself to explore much outside that. Taking from that, also, the writing shows options of how choices are reviewed and examined, but as the pieces of life move, you respond based upon the plan you have made. Beth’s actual playing is reflected in the choices she makes in the book, each mirroring back to the other. When things go differently than expected, she acts rashly and ultimately learns that bad choices can take her farther from herself and any goals she may have. She also learns that it is not enough to want something – you need to work for it.

This all makes more sense after you read the book, but I don’t want to give away too much here. Suffice this to say, it was an engaging book, with characters you care about but not too much, a game that most don’t fully understand, and a metaphor for how to live a life.

Biography, book-review, memoir, Non-Fiction

Non-fiction in the air – even with a mask on.

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In the strange world we are living in, I am amazed that I am able to concentrate at all on any book.  It has been harder than ever for me, but every few weeks I try to pick up something new.  I tried The Water Dancer, American Dirt and Little Fires Everywhere, but I just couldn’t handle the difficult topics, even if they were so well written.  I will return to them when I feel more grounded.  Instead, I have spent the last few weeks reading books of real people, living real lives. 

This first book, after having sat upon my bookshelf for years, is The Year of Living Biblically, by A.J. Jacobs. It was surprisingly engaging.  As A.J. went through his quest to learn more traditions and live closer to the letters of the biblical law, I saw a man striving to find himself in so many ways.  This was just the method he was currently using.  I saw in myself the understanding I have always tried to have around religious rules, separating those from traditions and determining what these meant and why I would either to continue to observe it or not.  I felt light after reading this.  Somehow closer to myself and the “greater being” I believe in. 

After finishing this book, I found The Library Book by Susan Orleans.  I was expecting a novel, and jumped right in.  This is absolutely not a novel.  I found an intriguing story of how the Los Angeles Central Library was created and grew, only to be devastated by fire in the 1980s.  Hearing the story as we are taken through the halls of the rebuilt library, with a mystery of how the fire was started and how the institution has changed was fascinating for a self-proclaimed library lover.  This simply highlighted the unique and special place libraries, their caretakers, and their contents are. 

I followed this up with The Young Woman and The Sea by Glen Stout.  I was drawn to this after I heard him in a book group for my employer talking about the book.  The way he explained the world of the time, jumping in and out of the space, and the context of swimming within the larger woman’s movement made me seek this out.  Learning about Trudie Edele, the first woman to cross the English Channel, was not all I gleaned from his pages. While this was a bit long with suppositions on things going through Trudie’s mind when swimming, the details on how she was instrumental in breaking so many barriers simply by being herself was refreshing and exciting.  I had never seen her in that light before, and I gained additional admiration for her ability to put sportsmanship first and swam for the joy of it.

Who knows what I will pick up next?  Could be from the library, Amazon Prime or even my own bookshelf.  I will go where the spirit pulls, and do my best to share with you some highlights.

book-review, Family Drama, literature

A return to reading

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This year has been very different from anything anyone has ever experienced.  The COVID-19 life has been full of fear, isolation, and stress.  Many people with kids (of all ages) are watching them struggle with the new normal of not seeing people they care about, more screen time then we ever thought we would allow, and generalized anxiety about how this impacts them.  That last one will tip you off that I have teenagers.

In this atmosphere I am working to maintain my own identity.  My brain has not been able to process things as well as I used to.  I am spending hours playing solitaire; I pick up books just to put them down; and I don’t even spend the time finding new titles online.

Then we went on vacation.

I should tell you now that I have been known to not move for a week, except to turn pages.  I spent a week on Martha’s Vineyard and read 8 books while still spending time with the group of people I went with.  We were headed to the ocean with my in-laws, so I needed to make sure I had things to do.  I packed a book and an eReader.  First, I read The Ambassador’s Daughter by Pam Janoff.  The characters seemed familiar but I couldn’t place them until I posted on goodreads.com.  This is a prequel to The Kommandant’s Girl and The Diplomat’s Wife.  Each story can stand on its own, and I read them years apart.  Each was an interesting take on the world, but nothing was earth shattering.

Then I started reading the only other thing I had downloaded – The House by the River by Lena Manta.  The story of a strong woman who followed love, made a life for herself and her five daughters, and watched them grow and leave the small village under Mount Olympus.  The story of each child is then told, each left with their own goals and choices, and lived their lives.  In the end, the power of love, and the hope to start anew bring the women all together again, wiser and more aware of the good place they came from.

This has stuck with me.  My mother made so many choices for her three daughters, and we have all gone away to live our own lives.  Each of us, in our own way, has found our way back to mom and the comfort of the love and familiarity of where we came from.  The women’s lives were lived full of passion and adventure, either by direct path or not.  Born from love, they sought that out, if at first or not.  The stories of these sisters have pointed me back to myself.  In order to survive and thrive I must live fully with the choices I have made and the places it has taken me.  If I do not, I would not be true to the parents that raised me to be fearless.

Now, I am fearlessly reading books again, even if I have been stopping the heavier reads and going to more non-fiction, it is reading.  And I feel better.

 

book-review, books, Family Drama, reading

Glass Houses

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Choosing a book, I went to my bookshelf and found Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander. After that was finished I found A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindberg. Then my colleague Nigel suggested I read The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde. Each of the books, a scientific search for understanding a near death experience, a reflection on life and its every stage, and a tale of giving of yourself to heal others all pointed me on a path away from sadness, and toward a purpose. Then, as if by magic, the library’s electronic version of Emily St John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel was available.

If you don’t know by now, Ms. St John Mandel’s Station Eleven has been on many “To Read” lists because it was a novel that predicted a pandemic like the flu that decimated the economies of the world and killed millions. It was a brilliant story, well written and so believable that it was eerie when COVID-19 showed up. I was eager to read her new novel. The story is written over a number of years, by a number of characters. The story weaves them in and out of each other’s lives. At the core is Vincent, a woman from Vancouver who lost her mother to a canoeing accident when she was about 12. Her half brother, Paul, comes into her life after a stint in rehab for drugs, running from the law because he shared some bad drugs with someone who died from them. Through back and forth stories we next see them at an exclusive Hotel Caiette on an island in British Columbia. The place is owned by Jonathan Alkaitis, who works in finance and owns the hotel. One night someone writes in acid ink “Why don’t you swallow broken glass” on the window of the hotel, shaking a guest, Leon Prevant, to his core. As time continues, we find that Paul, who worked at the hotel as a cleaner, was accused of the graffiti and left the next morning, and Vincent, his sister was working as a bartender that night. That night was when Jonathan gave her his business card with money as his tip.

As the story unwinds, there are small and large choices that are made by each of the players. Knowingly or not, or as one person states – knowing and not knowing together – each is faced with a question. How easy is it for you to cross the line? Some choose to stand on the morals they claim to have, while others are surprised when they cross them in hind-sight. It is this struggle between our actions and out beliefs that are the moral of the story. That, and the interconnectedness of each person to another. Throughout the changes and years, each remains connected bringing into question the idea of coincidence – is it real or is there a cosmic plan?

In the end, it is those with self-knowledge that are aware of the impact others have on them and the price to be paid for not crossing the line.

By the way – I don’t believe that it was a coincidence that these books came to me in that order.