Friday, December 27, 2019

"Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father," by Alysia Abbott

“Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father” (Norton, 2013), by Alysia Abbott, is a very San Francisco story. The author writes of, after her mother died in an accident when Alysia was two years old, living with her gay poet/writer/journalist/editor father Steve Abbott in the Haight Ashbury section of San Francisco. While her father was becoming involved in the (intersecting) literary and gay and activist scenes in the San Francisco of the 1970s and 1980s, Alysia was very close to him but also hid her father’s gayness from her friends. Tragically, as was far too common in the early 1980s, when Alysia was a young adult, Steve contracted AIDS and eventually died of it. This is a sad yet loving and life-affirming memoir of an unusual (especially for that time period) upbringing. While not being afraid to be critical of some aspects of her father’s parenting, the author writes with great affection for him and great appreciation of all he did for her in difficult and sometimes lonely circumstances as a single gay dad at a time before this situation was common. Besides being a poignant memoir, this book portrays an important and vibrant time in the life of the city of San Francisco: the political, social, and literary movements of the times. Although I was only very tangentially involved in these movements (mostly as an onlooker), I well remember the changes in the city at the time. The university where I taught then and still teach is only a few blocks from the Haight, and the LGBT movement was growing and becoming more public at around the same time as the women’s/feminist movement that was (and still is!) so important to me. I went to some readings and other literary and political events involving San Francisco writers at the time, including some of the beat era. "Fairyland" actually mentions my university, and at least two of its faculty members whom I knew (one a well-known poet); Steve Abbott taught writing there for a few years, but I did not know him. The memoir also mentions the memorable occasion, which I attended, when Alan Ginsberg did a dramatic (at times scatological) reading in front of a packed audience at the Jesuit university; I still remember the mixture of laughter and applause on the part of some in the audience and a kind of stunned silence on the part of others. And of course I knew, as everyone in San Francisco did, some people (almost all gay men) who suffered from and then died of AIDS. I also knew a few admirable doctors and nurses who worked with HIV/AIDS patients despite concerns about possible contagion. Additionally, I knew a few HIV-positive men who lived long enough to benefit from new treatments that kept them alive and relatively healthy for decades more, many into the present. An educator friend of mine falls into this category, and is still teaching at another institution in the Bay Area; he recently posted on social media, on the occasion of a "big" birthday, that he never thought he would reach his current age. Steve Abbott, like far too many of his contemporaries, died a couple of years too soon to benefit from these treatments. His daughter’s memoir of his life honors him and brings him to life for readers.

Friday, December 20, 2019

"March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women"

I, like so many girls and women, read and adored Louisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women” when I was a child and many times afterward; I also taught the book in women’s literature classes. I was, upon re-reading the novel as an adult, a little put off by how didactic it was about its moral lessons. But I know Alcott felt that, at that time, she had to include such lessons. In any case, this is a novel that continues to be read and discussed and analyzed and celebrated and filmed. (A new film version, directed by Greta Gerwig and with a cast of stars including Saiorse Ronan, Emma Watson, and Meryl Streep, is due out on Christmas Day of this year, and of course I look forward to seeing it.) A new book, “March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women” (Library of America Special Publication, 2019), features four new essays by four well-known contemporary writers on the four sisters in “Little Women.” Each writer focuses on one of the sisters of whom she is a fan, and on the writer’s own relationship to that sister (because we know that we do have relationships with certain fictional characters, almost as if they were “real” people in our lives). Each writer gives us a “fresh” take on “her” character. The authors sometimes also compare or contrast the characters with the originals, Alcott and her sisters, on whom they were loosely based. Kate Bolick writes about Meg; Jenny Zhang discusses Jo; Carmen Maria Machado gives her illuminating view of Beth; and Jane Smiley provides an original, feminist perspective on Amy. Each author has clearly had a long, deep, and personal connection to the novel, and each is generous in sharing her own related experiences. I found all four essays bracing and occasionally provocative, in the sense that they made me think at least a little differently about the four characters, and indeed about the novel itself, not to mention about Alcott. This book will be of interest to anyone who has read, enjoyed, even loved the novel, and perhaps especially to anyone who has thought about which sister is their own role model.

Friday, December 13, 2019

"Olive, Again," by Elizabeth Strout

Olive is back! I, along with -- I am sure -- her many fans, am thrilled. Both Elizabeth Strout’s novel “Olive Kitteridge” (2008 – was it really so long ago?) and her cranky, eccentric, yet ultimately heartwarming (in a good, not saccharine, way) character Olive, are vivid, quirky and compelling. And then there was the excellent 2014 HBO mini-series, with its perfect casting of Frances McDormand as Olive. Now we Olive fans have Strout’s new novel, “Olive, Again” (Random House, 2019), and it is as good as or better than the original novel. It is a sequel in that it follows Olive’s life about ten years after the end of the earlier novel. Olive, now a widow, and Jack Dennison (also a character in the earlier novel) become friendly and eventually marry; much of the novel is about their happy, loving, yet often uneasy marriage (nothing is easy with Olive). There are also scenes showing the complex, fraught relationship that Olive and her only child Christopher (and his wife and children) share. Various other events ensue, and we see Olive having to face the often-difficult realities of aging, a major theme in this novel. As with the first novel, there are many chapters focused on the stories of others in her community (small-town Maine), in some of which Olive is an important character and in others of which she is only peripherally involved or even barely mentioned. Some of the stories include people we remember from the first novel, such as neighbors and former students from her long-ago teaching days. Some might find this focus on other characters for pages at a time distracting, but other readers probably agree with me that these stories are fascinating in their own right, and also help to create a whole world that provides context for Olive’s story. But the intense center of the novel remains the character of Olive herself, who practically jumps off the page in the way she keeps the reader’s attention. We keep wondering what will happen next, and what she will think and say next. The central situation and theme of the novel, as mentioned above, is the process of aging, and its effects on one’s life, health, emotions, connections, and more. The author does not hold back on portraying the painful, humiliating, frightening aspects of loss, illness, and decreased autonomy that so often accompany aging. The details of some of Olive’s experiences (e.g., with the reactions of others around her, with hospitals and medical personnel, with changes in housing, and with declining independence), strike me as just right (in some cases echoing what I observed in my late mother’s last years, although my mother’s personality was far, far more positive than Olive’s). Strout also, however, allows the aging Olive occasional flashes of epiphany and of unexpected and fleeting but real happiness. Olive is both a unique character and a universal character. Highly recommended.

Friday, December 6, 2019

I Have a Bone to Pick with Andre Aciman

Andre Aciman, the author of the novels “Call Me by Your Name” (2007) and “Find Me” (2019), among other books, believes that Virginia Woolf’s novel “Mrs. Dalloway” is “an overrated novel that I don’t find particularly gripping or interesting. I’m not even sure it’s well written” (New York Times Book Review “By the Book” interview, November 3, 2019). REALLY??? Of course everyone has the right to her or his own preferences in literature. But to go as far as to say this brilliant, breakthrough novel is overrated and not necessarily well written? I strongly suspect that this is at least partly a gendered opinion, based on the facts that the main character is a woman, that the novel takes place in one seemingly ordinary day(the much-maligned "domestic fiction," which is usually written by women, but when written by men, is much more laudatorily received) and that much of the novel takes place in the mind and memory of that woman. The added fact that the main event of Mrs. Dalloway’s day is a party may also be partly the object of Aciman’s disdain. Woolf’s prose is known for its experimental-but-still-true-to-realism quality. And although the main character is from a time past, and from an upper-class life, these facts in no way undermine the essential consciousness and preoccupations and inevitable realities of her life, and of the lives of many women (and, for that matter, some men). I understand that Aciman has written novels that, among other things, speak to and about the lives of gay men, and this is a good thing. But it does not excuse his almost contemptuous dismissal of one of the great novels of the twentieth century and indeed, of all time. Perhaps it adds context to note that in the same interview, Aciman also expressed disdain for “Anna Karenina,” stating that Tolstoy’s writing is “[e]pic, panoramic and gushy, but ultimately simple” and that the novel “did not change me.” One could take this as evidence of Aciman’s equal-opportunity scorning of great writers. However, note that in the NYT interview he only favorably mentions (with the exception of Djuna Barnes’ novel “Nightwood") male writers, including Dostoyevsky, Pascal, Racine, John le Carre, Joyce, Eliot, and Gogol. I had recently been considering reading Aciman’s new novel, “Find Me,” but after his diss of “Mrs. Dalloway,” I don’t think I will. (That’ll show him, right?)

Saturday, November 30, 2019

"Middle England," by Jonathan Coe

As readers of this blog may remember, I love “big,” sprawling nineteenth-century novels. Occasionally a contemporary British novel promises some of the same pleasures as those earlier novels provide. Jonathan Coe’s new novel, “Middle England” (Knopf, 2018), seemed that it might be one of these. Yet I hesitated about whether to read it, perhaps because according to descriptions and reviews I read, it seemed to be very much about politics, and in particular about Brexit. I of course am interested in these topics, but I usually don’t prefer novels in which politics are the main focus. I decided to read a chapter or two and see how I felt. Well, you can see what’s coming here: I was immediately drawn into the novel, and finished this 429-page book in a few days. The reason I found it so compelling was its masterful blend of the main characters’ stories, its description of English politics and culture in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, and its portrayal of how England has changed – and in some cases, not changed – over the past few decades. I know that I have a romanticized view of England in some ways, but I know too that my view is unrealistic in many ways. Another reason for my enjoying this novel is that I am always drawn to descriptions of the English countryside (remembering my own wonderful train rides through that countryside at its most idyllic), as well as of London (of course I love London!). Of interest was that the novel took place in several places: London, Birmingham, several smaller cities and towns, and the countryside, giving a wider view of England than many London-centered novels do. Although not as masterful as the novels of George Eliot or Charles Dickens (but that is a very high bar!), this novel is a worthy if lesser successor. The novel also, obviously purposely, shows how changes in the British public and British politics are related to similar changes in the United States. But I can’t end this post without going back to the characters in the novel. They are mainly, although not only, a group of friends in their forties and their families and associates. They are of all age and genders, and several ethnicities and races (although mostly white) and social classes (although mostly the upper middle class, educated class). There are fascinating family and marital relationships, as well as generational conflicts. The characters’ stances on Brexit, and on immigrants, are often dividing lines among them, but dividing lines that reflect more basic differences, even between husband and wife and between parent and child. The story lines are well drawn, and the writing itself is excellent. I am glad I read this novel about my beloved (you may remember my Anglophile leanings) but troubled England.

Saturday, November 23, 2019

"Modern Love"

“Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption” (Broadway Books, 2019) is a revised, updated version of a 2007 book also titled “Modern Love.” That book in turn is a collection of true stories from the New York Times column of the same name. These stories are written by readers, not New York Times writers, and are chosen from among thousands that are submitted. The definition of modern love includes many varieties of love: between lovers, between spouses, between parents and children, and more. Likewise, the stories cover many stages of love, including the search for love, failed love, successful love, unexpected love, thwarted love, interrupted love, late-in-life love, and others. The stories are short, powerful, evocative, poignant, funny, sad, sometimes whimsical…in other words, they are like life itself, which of course is what makes them so appealing to readers. There is now a television show based on this column, also called “Modern Love." I read both the 2007 and the 2019 versions of the book, watched the first season of the television show, and enjoyed all three very much.

Friday, November 15, 2019

"Dutch House," by Ann Patchett

Who doesn’t love Ann Patchett’s novels? Many of us were immediately won over by her first big success, “Bel Canto,” and also relished “State of Wonder” and “Commonwealth.” Then there were her nonfiction books, also wonderful, such as her memoiristic essays in “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage.” Patchett is one of the not-large group of contemporary writers who are critically acclaimed as well as beloved by wide audiences. The other thing that many of us love about her is that she didn’t just speak about the problem of the closing of many independent bookstores, but went much further and opened her own such bookstore – Parnassus Books, in Nashville, Tennessee. Talk about walking the walk! The reason I am writing about her now is that I have just read her most recent novel, “Dutch House” (HarperCollins, 2019). As with all her novels, her knowledge of and caring about her characters are palpable. We too care about them from the first few pages. The main characters are a brother and sister, Danny and Maeve, who are extremely close; Maeve is a few years older and has always taken care of Danny. They grow up in a fanciful, unusual, fairy-tale-like house, the Dutch House, but later are cast out by a stepmother (the proverbial “evil stepmother” adds to the fairy tale aspect of the house and, in part, the story). This sudden, cruel eviction is devastating to Maeve and Danny; although they manage to survive, they are permanently affected, even scarred, by the event, and by the ensuing revelation that they have been financially cut off by the stepmother. The narrative follows the siblings’ lives over decades, always somewhat under the shadow of the Dutch House. Their family story gets more complicated as they later encounter various inhabitants of the Dutch House, and as they connect with various friends and lovers. But the absolute spine of the novel is the connection between Danny and Maeve. In addition to all the other reasons for being completely caught up in this novel, I found it refreshing (and not common) that the novel explores the sibling connection. Patchett is at her best when family is one of her focuses. Her writing is inviting and accessible, and sometimes we readers rush headlong into her books, enjoying the plot and characters, without realizing we should slow down to savor the gifts of that writing. Highly recommended.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

"Red at the Bone," by Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson, the acclaimed author of many books for children, and of a bestselling memoir, “Brown Girl Dreaming,” was also widely praised for her 2016 novel for adults, “Another Brooklyn,” about which I wrote here on 2/5/17. The latter is a powerful novel about young African American girls and adolescents, and portrays the severe sexism and racism they endured. Just as I recommended that novel, I now recommend Woodson’s new novel, “Red at the Bone” (Riverhead, 2019). This is the story of a teenaged mother, Iris, pregnant too soon, and her daughter, Melody. Iris’s well-to-do parents disapprove of Iris’s pregnancy, but fall in love with their new granddaughter and raise her, while Iris goes to college, as she had always dreamed. She dearly loves her daughter, but is not willing to give up her dreams for her, and their relationship is fraught because of this. There is a complex and vexed, although loving, relationship among these three generations, as well as with Melody’s father, Aubrey. There are themes of women’s aspirations, social class, race, and family relationships. This spare book is beautifully written and thought-provoking, never oversimplifies the issues, and never lets the issues overshadow the characters themselves. Woodson is now on my list of writers whose novels I will always read.

Monday, October 14, 2019

Please forgive the gap

I apologize for the gap in time since my last post. There has been a death in my family which I am deeply mourning, so I have fallen behind with many things unrelated to that death, or to my absolutely necessary work and life obligations. I am writing now to let readers know why I haven't posted for about three weeks. I also want to say that one thing that has provided me comfort, besides the wonderfully kind support and love from family members and friends, is -- as always -- reading, especially novels. In particular, I have been re-reading all of Barbara Pym's novels (for at least the third time) and find them immensely comforting. I'll be back posting soon.

Sunday, September 22, 2019

"Maybe You Should Talk to Someone," by Lori Gottlieb

“Maybe You Should Talk to Someone” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019), the title suggests, just as so many people (including, to her credit, Dear Abby and other advice givers) have suggested to those struggling with various issues. The author, Lori Gottlieb, writes from the perspective of the therapist she is, as well as the perspective of a person in therapy herself. This book gives readers fascinating close-up insights of what really happens in therapy sessions. Gottlieb is a wonderful storyteller and writer, and her vividly told stories draw us in. Of course she protects the confidentiality of therapy; she disguises the identities of, and some details about, her patients. Her own visits to a therapist are not the usual ones required during the training of psychiatrists and psychologists, but are in response to a crisis in Gottlieb’s own life that she can’t seem to process in healthy ways. The stories of her patients and of her own therapy are interwoven in this book, and Gottlieb writes so well that we look forward to hearing each new installment of all the stories. There are also some unexpected twists in the stories and at times in the overlaps that occur. Equally important as the “what happened” aspect of each story are the people, the characters. Gradually, during the course of the accumulating fifty-minute sessions, we get to know each of them better, and sometimes we change our initial opinions about them, just as Gottlieb herself does. We find ourselves pulling for them, wanting them to figure out how to manage or transcend their issues, and to find peace despite problems, some rooted deeply in their pasts. This book is revealing, compassionate, deeply human, with many welcome touches of humor. And -- on a personal note -- I am reminded of my late father, a psychiatrist, and of all the good he did; some of his patients spoke at his memorial service, and in correspondence to my family, of how much he helped them.

Sunday, September 15, 2019

"Educated," by Tara Westover

I am embarrassed to admit the reason that I did not read Tara Westover’s memoir, “Educated” (Random House, 2018), which has been a huge critical and popular success, sooner. The reason: I heard an extensive interview of the author by Terry Gross on Fresh Air, and I felt that I had already heard the whole story. I often hear authors interviewed, and don’t have this response, so I don’t know what it was about this particular interview that made me feel that way. OK, there was another reason I didn't read this memoir earlier: I really didn’t feel like reading about a religious fanatic/survivalist, especially one who dragged his whole family into his fanaticism, as Westover’s father did. I don’t know what changed my mind; it was probably the recommendations from several good friends whose judgment I trust. Now that I have read it, I am very glad that I did. It is an absolutely fascinating and unusual story, giving readers insight into a world we rarely read about. Westover and her six siblings grew up very isolated in the mountains of Idaho, working hard for their parents, not attending school, not seeing doctors even for severe injuries, cut off from most other people, and always preparing for the worst. Somehow, despite much hardship and resistance, she (like two of her older brothers) almost miraculously made her way to college, and then to graduate school at Harvard and Cambridge. She did this with pure grit and determination. Along the way, she mostly felt like an outsider, as there was so much she did not know about “normal” American life. Gradually she learned more, made friends, had romances. But the cost was that her parents and some of her siblings cut off relationships and communication with her. Fortunately, three of her siblings did not do so. Still, it was a huge sacrifice for this young woman, and she struggled and suffered greatly as she came to terms with the situation. Westover is a compelling teller of her own story. Despite everything that happened with her family (including a disturbed and violent brother), she tells her story with remarkable restraint; this is not a “tell-all” in the sense of payback, nor a rant, but rather a genuine attempt to be fair, to understand, and to acknowledge that she still loves her family but needed very badly to leave and build a better, saner, more fulfilling life for herself. The story is psychologically and sociologically of great interest, as well as being well-written in an almost novelistic style.

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

"Chances Are...." by Richard Russo

What more can I say about Richard Russo and his wonderful novels (as well as his short stories, memoir, essays, and other writings)? I read most of his novels published before I started this blog, and have written here about his work (novels, short story collections, a memoir, and essay collections) since then. I have always been deeply impressed with his work, and with his profound understanding of life, families, relationships, and so much more. The word I have often used about his writing and his understanding of his characters and of life is “humane.” So of course I had to read his new novel, “Chances Are…” (Knopf, 2019). It tells the story of three men who were friends in college in the late 1960s, and now, decades later, after not keeping much in touch in the meanwhile, have met for a sort of mini-reunion on Martha’s Vineyard. They are happy to see each other, despite feeling they both know and don’t know each other any more. They are now 66 years old, and much has happened in each of their very different lives. A central focus during this reunion is trying to figure out what happened to the fourth in their college friendship group, a young woman named Jacy who mysteriously disappeared from Martha’s Vineyard shortly after they all graduated from college. Each of the three men was at least a little in love with Jacy at the time. There are many revelations in the novel, most especially toward the end, where there is a very big reveal. Russo’s brilliant ability to portray characters in depth, and to portray their relationships and interactions with each other, is -- as always -- impressive. He is an author who reminds me that sometimes I just don’t have enough words, or the right words, to convey how good a writer he is, and what a rich experience it is to read his novels. I am reduced to wanting to say “Just read this novel! And all his novels! You won’t be sorry!”

Monday, September 2, 2019

"Sixth Man," by Andre Iguodala

Readers of The New York Times (Sunday) Book Review will know the weekly feature “By the Book,” which consists of interviews with famous writers, and will recognize one of the questions almost always asked: “What book would we be surprised to see on your bookshelves?” Readers of this blog -- knowing that I write almost exclusively about the (mostly literary) novels and memoirs that I predominantly read -- may be surprised to learn that I read -- and loved -- “Sixth Man,” by Andre Iguodala, one of the preeminent players on our local (and very famous all over the world) championship professional basketball team, the Golden State Warriors. Of course I am not comparing myself to the famous writers being interviewed in the NYTBR, but if I were asked the question, I would reveal that I am a big fan of the Warriors, especially the past few years when they have been winning, and love to read about them. (My interest in them even led me to become a regular reader of the San Francisco Chronicle sports section, a section I used to skip in the past.) The team not only wins, but also is a particularly functional team with admirable players and coaches who respect and support each other. Thus I was very happy to hear that Iguodala, who is known not only for his playing but for his leadership on the team, his intelligence, his thoughtfulness, his wide range of interests, his business and technology acumen, and his philanthropy, had written a memoir (with some help from the writer Carvell Wallace). This memoir is fascinating, well-paced, and well-written. The author writes of his sometimes difficult childhood, which however was always anchored by his remarkable mother. He writes of, and gives credit to, all the coaches and mentors he had along the way, throughout school, various leagues, college, and the NBA. Iguodala is now 35 years old, and he predicts that he might not play much longer, because of the various aches and pains and injuries he has suffered, despite taking extremely good care of his body. While completely appreciative of all he has been able to do because of his career as a professional basketball player, he is clear about the cost to his body, as well as the emotional cost at times. He writes not only about how this affects him, but about how it is a larger issue for professional athletes. He writes insightfully about such social issues as ever-present racism. He writes of the way black men who form the majority of players are often exploited and mistreated. I admire that he writes about these difficult issues. I also like that he takes every opportunity to praise and support his teammates and other players he has known during his professional career. A bonus for this reader: He is also a great reader, and writes about what he reads. You can see that I respect and admire Iguodala not only as a great player, but as a person. “Sixth Man” is of special interest to those of us who support the Warriors (and who will continue to support and admire Iguodala in the future, even as he has very recently been traded to another team), and who have watched Iguodala’s career for some years, but I think it would be of interest to anyone who is interested in sports as well as social issues.

Sunday, August 25, 2019

"The Most Fun We Ever Had," by Claire Lombardo

Family, family, family, family, and more family! Claire Lombardo’s debut novel, “The Most Fun We Ever Had” (Doubleday, 2019) consists of 544 pages focused on one family over about four decades. As readers of this blog may remember, I truly appreciate and enjoy novels focused on family, as I do this one. I just note – not as a criticism – that the focus is closer up and more exclusive than most such fictional portrayals. Sure, we see various family members’ interactions with the outside world, and the novel engages with issues of gender and class, but mostly we see, very specifically, how this family (and their spouses, partners, and children) engage with each other. This does not mean the family members are always cozily happy with each other. Not at all. But despite all the difficulties they go through, individually, collectively, and in various combinations, the family is always the true subject. The parents, Marilyn and David, meet in 1975, soon marry, and have four daughters: Wendy, Violet, Liza, and Grace. Each character has her or his own combination of gifts and troubles. The story is anchored in the present, when a big secret in one daughter’s life is revealed, and we see how everyone in the family responds. But the whole story goes back and forth in time (occasionally a little confusingly), with stops at various points between the 1970s and the present. Some of the issues that arise are alcoholism, pregnancy (both wanted and unwanted, both difficult and relatively easy), infidelity, work pressures, sibling rivalry, and eating disorders. One particularly interesting, and quite central, aspect of the story is that Marilyn and David (the parents) have a very, very close marriage, and everyone around them believes it is a perfect marriage. As it turns out, they have their own issues, but overall it is in fact a remarkable marriage. The daughters (and their partners, and even their children – the third generation) derive much strength and comfort from their parents’ marriage, but it is also daunting, seemingly impossible, for them to try to achieve the same kind of marriage. This is a novel that shows a high level of sensitivity to, and understanding of, family dynamics. There are times when the points being made are a little too obvious, a little too close to psychological or sociological “lessons.” But the interweaving individual stories, like branches impossible to separate from the sturdy tree trunk of the original nuclear family, are satisfying and compelling. I loved all 544 pages of this novel.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

"The Gifted School," by Bruce Holsinger

If there was ever a fictional indictment of overly-invested, status-conscious, out-of-control middle-to-upper-middle-class parents, it is “The Gifted School” (Riverhead, 2019), by Bruce Holsinger. This novel tells the story of the fierce competition for spots at a newly-opening public magnet school for “gifted” children, and the lengths to which ambitious parents go to make their children stand out among the thousands of applicants for places in the school. The setting is an affluent suburb of Denver. The main characters are members of five families. Four of the families are connected by close friendships among the four mothers; the fifth family is from Mexico and does housecleaning for some of the other families. The novel, indirectly and sometimes directly, addresses themes of class, race, gender and privilege. The parents’ hopes and struggles for their children’s achievements and “leg up” in the world are evident even outside of the school competition. One family’s twin sons, for example, are soccer players, and due to their father’s ambitions, they are pushed into competing in ever bigger and more prestigious soccer leagues, no matter what the cost -- financial, physical, and otherwise. There are many twists and turns to this novel’s plot, and it is hard to look away. The characters are drawn well, whether they be female or male, children or teenagers or adults. Holsinger is sharply observant, and makes good use of telling details. A compelling aspect of the novel is the four-way friendship among the main characters, the moms. The author shows how important the friendships are to each woman, and the many ways in which they support each other; he also shows the complexities of the friendships and even betrayals among the friends. “The Gifted School” is horrifying in some ways, taking a hard look at human weaknesses and at issues of privilege, yet very believable, and at its heart, humane in its recognition that we are all complicated, with both problematic and redeeming qualities.

Sunday, August 11, 2019

RIP Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison died on August 5, at the age of 88. It feels shocking to type that sentence. Several commentators have stated that they thought that somehow she would be immortal. This eminent African-American writer, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature and many other literary prizes, wrote so originally, imaginatively, and powerfully, and her work was so deeply influential, that it is hard to find words adequate to describe her work. Let me borrow some words from black writers who were influenced by her. Tracy K. Smith, in The Guardian (8/11/19), says that Morrison’s novels “chose black lives as their central subjects, enthralling readers with her commitment to the inner lives of black characters.” Jason Reynolds, in the same Guardian article, praises Morrison for her “audacity,” and states that she “up-ended” all the things that black writers had been told; she told black writers that they were “free – free to write however and whatever they wanted to write.” Morrison herself said she wanted "black people writing for black people." Many writers and critics agree that it is impossible to fully express how much Morrison influenced African-American writers and writing. Even before she started publishing her own work, Morrison influenced the literary world during her approximately 20 years as an editor for Random House, when she nurtured and promoted the work of many African and African-American writers. She published her own first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” in 1970, followed by “Sula,” “The Song of Solomon,” and her most well-known and critically-acclaimed novel, “Beloved” (1987). She received the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1988, only after a letter signed by well over 40 notable black writers urged the awarding of that prize. Morrison went on to publish several more novels, as well as essays and children’s books; she also taught for years at Princeton University. In 2012, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. Through her writing (and editing and teaching), this towering American figure deeply influenced writers and readers of all backgrounds. I was one of her millions of readers, was deeply affected by her novels, and taught some of her work as well. Toni Morrison’s legacy will always live on.

Monday, August 5, 2019

"Grub," by Elise Blackwell

“Grub” (Toby Press, 2011) is a compelling and convincing satirical novel, an “updating" of George Gissing’s satire,"New Grub Street" (1891). It draws on it, borrows from it, and could never have been written without it,” author Elise Blackwell says in her acknowledgements. Note that one does not have to have read Gissing’s book to enjoy “Grub.” Blackwell also thanks her fellow writers who have told her some of their worst stories about the writing world. “Grub” features five main characters, all young, aspiring writers. They all struggle to various degrees with the writing itself, with figuring out which kind of writers they want to be, with wavering self-confidence, and with how much they are willing to compromise in order to succeed (in the cases of three of the five characters, they compromise quite a bit). Blackwell employs all the usual stereotypes about writers, with humorous effect. There are set pieces about MFA programs, writing conferences, MLA Conference job interviews, obscure literary journals, writers' jockeying with and backstabbing each other, has-been writers and critics, hangers-on, poverty, alcoholism, and more. There are roman a clef aspects as well, such as allusions to “the Jonathans,” and in particular to one of the Jonathans who refused to go on the top-rated television show, as in real life Jonathan Franzen some years ago famously refused an invitation to appear on Oprah Winfrey’s show. There are discussions of literary versus commercial novels, and of categories such as “chick lit.” The two writers who do not compromise are Henry, who believes in “New Realism” and the “open novel,” and who lives in poverty (almost starving himself) because of his purity of focus, and Margot, who writes because she loves writing, and is unwilling to do what she needs to do to become well-known (e.g., book tours, networking, self-promoting). The other three characters are most interested in success, fame, and money, and are willing to write whatever they need to in order to gain those goals. All of these characters and conditions seem quite believable, albeit exaggerated for satirical effect. The one truly unrealistic aspect is that all five of the main characters do publish at least one book each, and in some cases several, while they are quite young, unlike the legions of would-be writers, often with completed novels in hand, who are never able to do so. All of us who love literature have read and enjoyed novels about writers; this purposeful and cheerfully cynical lampoon takes all the stereotypes a bit further, producing a novel both hilarious and at times sad. The repeated recognitions it induces also let readers feel like insiders who know the real scoop…always a heady feeling! I recommend “Grub” to anyone who loves the world of literature and writers, and also has a sense of humor about the absurdities sometimes found there.

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

"Excellent Women," by Barbara Pym

Following up on my post of 7/20/19 about my visit to Main Street Books in St. Helena: The other book I picked up there (besides the Nina Bawden novel that the owner so kindly insisted on giving me, because I was the only one visiting her store who had been interested in it) was Barbara Pym’s “Excellent Women” (originally published 1952, several editions). I have written about Barbara Pym here before (e.g., on 7/7/13, 8/13/13, and 1/7/14); she has been one of my favorite writers for perhaps 30 years. As a quick reminder: Pym was English, and wrote about a certain kind of educated, usually single woman who was helpful to those around her, active in her local church, had flirtations and even romances that usually came to nothing, and were dutiful but also extremely, albeit understatedly, perceptive, verging on satirical. It appears from biographies that these characters shared many qualities with the author herself, although the author lived in a somewhat wider, less restricted world than did many of her characters. The writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has called Pym and her characters “prim but subversive,” which is a wonderfully concise summary. When I was in the small bookstore in St. Helena, I suddenly and rather randomly wondered if there were Barbara Pym novels available; I asked the knowledgeable owner and she immediately put “Excellent Women” in my hands. I have read that novel – probably Pym’s best-known and perhaps best one – several times (along with most of her novels, also often-read by me), but not for a few years. As soon as I got home, I started reading it again, and it was as wonderful as ever. Funny, sad, laser-like observant, a little acerbic, and unlike any other writer’s work that I know of. Her main character, Mildred, an example of the titular “excellent women,” is a person whom others rely on, and assume will help them; she herself assumes it is her duty to do so, but has wry conversations with herself about this quality of hers. Some of the other characters are the local clergyman, Father Malory, his sister Winnifred who keeps house for him, the dashing couple of Helena and Rockingham Napier who have moved into the flat downstairs from Mildred, and the anthropologist Everard Bone. Their interactions are low-key but fascinating. [Side note: those old-fashioned names! When I was a child of missionaries in India, two of the wonderful "single lady" missionaries there were named Mildred and Winnifred. They were independent and courageous, but the names seemed old-fashioned even then, and had the scent of spinsterhood.] So here I am yet again asking you (if this sounds like your kind of fiction, and if you have not already done so) to consider reading Barbara Pym’s wonderful fiction. You can start with any of her novels (although perhaps not “Quartet in Autumn,” which is very good but somewhat darker than the others); I suggest starting with “Excellent Women.” I don’t think you will be sorry.

Thursday, July 25, 2019

On Not Posting Here on "Just Fine" Books

I post here about a high proportion of the books I read, but definitely not all. In some cases a book is too “light” (e.g., the beachiest of “beach reads”), or just doesn’t seem to warrant a post. And in a few -- very few -- cases, I haven’t posted about a book because it was so good that I thought I couldn’t possibly do it justice! But most often the reason I don’t post is that the book is “just fine,” not great but not at all "bad" (in my opinion – of course many would disagree with some of my opinions.). If the book is good to excellent, or at least has notable or intriguing qualities, I do generally post about it, with pleasure. Occasionally, if the book is very bad or very disappointing, I write about it, because there is a disconnect between what I was expecting (based on reviews, or on my liking of earlier books by the author) and what the book was actually like (again, in my humble opinion). But those “just fine” books are the ones I fairly often don’t write about. Here is a list of some books I have very recently (within the past few weeks) read but have not posted about, for that reason. “Laura and Emma,” by Kate Greathead. “Conversations with Friends,” by Sally Rooney. “Normal People,” by Sally Rooney. (I know that these two novels by Rooney have received high praise, but I just didn’t like them very much.) “State of the Union: A Marriage in Ten Parts,” by Nick Hornby (mildly interesting). “Rules for Visiting,” by Jessica Francis Kane. (I thought I would love this novel about reconnecting with old friends, but it was too low-key for my taste, mildly depressing, and even a little dull.) “Trust Exercise,” by Susan Choi. (I have read a couple of Choi’s other novels, and always end up feeling slightly disappointed with them.) “Nobody’s Looking at You,” by Janet Malcolm. (I have been reading Malcolm’s work for many years, and like it very much, but I had already read some of the essays in The New Yorker and elsewhere, and the topics of others were not particularly interesting to me). “The Altruists,” by Andrew Ridker. (I read this novel less than a month ago and I have already completely forgotten what it was about, so that says something….) “The Other Americans,” by Laila Lalami.” (This novel admirably addresses important social topics, but I just didn’t get particularly caught up in it.) Again, I have to say that in many cases my feelings about these novels are very much a matter of individual taste, and I can easily imagine other readers might value and like them more than I did. I also have to say what I have occasionally said before on this blog and elsewhere: I sometimes feel that it is presumptuous of me to judge these perfectly fine novels when I couldn’t possibly have written them myself, not having the gift for fiction writing. But I remind myself that writers need readers, and that readers need to hear the views of other readers, either to help them decide what to read, or to compare notes when they have read the same books. Thus the necessity and usefulness of book reviews, criticism, literature classes, word of mouth, book clubs, and yes, book blogs!

Saturday, July 20, 2019

A Very Special Independent Bookstore in St. Helena

(NOTE: Apologies to those of my Facebook friends who also read this blog; you may have already read a version of this story a couple of days ago on FB. This is the first time I have “cross-posted”!) During a very recent short outing to St. Helena, in the Napa Valley, I stumbled across a wonderful small independent bookstore, Main Street Books. It sells new and used books, and despite its small -- actually tiny -- size, has an extensive and very well curated selection. I was browsing, and the person working there (I think she is the owner) was very helpful in answering questions and finding books for me. Her depth of knowledge about books in general, and about the specific books in her store (she seemed to know practically every book, and where it was shelved), was obvious and impressive. We had a great conversation about books, women authors, reading habits, and other book-related topics. And when I was about to pay for the two books I chose, she said that she wanted to give me one of them, because she loved the author (Nina Bawden), had had the book a long time without anyone choosing it, and was glad it had finally found someone interested in reading it. This experience reminded me, yet again, of how important and special independent bookstores are. Apparently, from what I read online about the bookstore after I got home, it is a longtime and well-loved St. Helena institution; I hope it will be there giving readers pleasure for many, many more years!

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

My Very First Kindle

The Kindle e-reader was first sold in 2007. Stephanie Vandrick bought her first Kindle in 2019. Yes, 12 years after the Kindle’s arrival, and way after most of my family and friends did so, I finally did what I had resisted doing for a long time. At first I resisted adamantly, on the grounds that I want to hold and read books only in their original paper form. Then gradually I resisted less adamantly, for two reasons. First, I began to be slightly persuaded by my daughter and others who spoke of how convenient e-readers were, especially for travel. And second, I knew that it was probably inevitable that at some point I would give in and buy one, and I didn’t want to be too embarrassed by having to eat my words. The event that convinced me to get the Kindle, finally, was that I was invited almost a year ago by my editor, at a press I have published with in the past, to contribute a book to a new and innovative series that will be available only as e-books. This series will be inexpensive and accessible to more academics and students around the world in our field of English language education. While writing the book (still in process), I suddenly realized (I can be slow to put two and two together sometimes!) that in order to read my own book and others in the series, it would be quite helpful to have an e-reader myself! It turns out that I could download e-books on my laptop as well, but I decided that this was the time to finally take the plunge and buy a Kindle. After a quick survey of friends about which type I should buy, I purchased one. I can’t say I am totally taken by it; I am still very much wedded to the traditional hard copy. But after reading a few books on the Kindle, I somewhat begrudgingly understand its value. I can’t imagine, though, that it will ever become even close to my primary mode of reading. But I won’t say this too strongly, because what I have learned is to “never say never.”

Friday, July 12, 2019

"Henry, Himself," by Stewart O'Nan

Stewart O’Nan is one of my most-admired contemporary writers, a true student of human nature. My favorite book by him is “Emily, Alone,” about which I wrote here on 5/17/11. His new novel, “Henry, Himself” (Viking, 2019) is also a masterpiece. This novel is a prequel to “Emily, Alone,” depicting the life of Emily and her husband Henry before he died. Henry is a sort of Everyman who lives in Pittsburgh, is an engineer, and tries to live an honorable life. He is somewhat limited in his thinking at times, but is (usually) self-aware about his limitations, and tries to overcome them. He does his best at work and at home, and as he ages, wonders if he has done the right things in life. His style, and the style of the writing, is plain, simple, and understated. It is through the abundant small details, the descriptions of the routines of Henry’s life, that we build up a picture of him and other men of his type. This novel reminds me of Evan Connell’s “Mr. Bridge” and of John Williams' “Stoner.” The main characters in all three novels are somewhat trapped by society’s expectations of men, and all three characters stolidly and without drawing attention to themselves try to fulfill those expectations. They are all flawed but good men. I highly recommend this novel.

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

"At the End of the Century: Stories," by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I have been drawn to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s fiction for many years (actually decades) now. One reason is her identity as a Polish/German woman who married an Indian architect and lived much of her adult life in India (although she also later lived elsewhere, most notably New York City); thus she is one of those insider/outsider people who are so interesting to me, and who are representative of so many people in the world. And there is the India connection; as regular readers of this blog know, I spent much of my childhood there. She also wrote screenplays adapting such wonderful novels as “Howards End” and “A Room with a View” for films that were produced and directed by the famous team of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. These three were wonderful collaborators and friends, even living in the same Manhattan apartment building for many years. Of course the main reason I appreciate and enjoy Jhabvala’s fiction so much is that it is very, very good. I just read “At the End of the Century” (Counterpoint, 2017), a collection of many of her short stories published over the years, some in periodicals such as the New Yorker, and some in earlier story collections. The author died in 2013, and her family chose the stories (among the many she had published) for this posthumous collection. The settings for the stories are in various areas of Europe, India, and the United States; the main characters are often travelers between countries and cultures. Each story is compelling, and the author’s knowledge of and portrayals of human nature are impressive. The collection is further enhanced by its thoughtful introduction by the (also excellent, also one of my favorites) writer Anita Desai (who, too, has a mixed identity and has lived in various countries including India). Desai notes some very insightful descriptions of Jhabvala by various writers: Caryl Phillips said that “she was postcolonial before the term had been invented,” and John Updike called her “an initiated outsider.” And the author, a Jewish refugee from Europe, said about herself, “Once a refugee, always a refugee” who was “a chameleon hiding myself in false or borrowed colors.” For anyone who is interested in insider/outsider/refugee/mixed identities, and who at the same time loves wonderful and revealing literature, I highly recommend Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s novels and short stories. This volume is a good place to start.

Sunday, June 23, 2019

"Joy, and 52 Other Very Short Stories," by Erin McGraw

The pleasures of short stories include the compacting of plot, character, and themes into a small space (compared to the luxurious open spaces of novels). I love novels most of all, but I also have a very real appreciation of short stories, especially collections of stories by one author, as there are often connections among the stories, even if not explicit. Now imagine compacting short stories even further, into “very short” stories, as Erin McGraw has done in her new collection, “Joy, and 52 Other Very Short Stories” (Counterpoint, 2019). The stories are mostly between three and five smallish pages long. Readers get a clear sense of the characters; there is always a defined and intriguing plot; there are compelling themes; the language is carefully chosen and very effective, sometimes even lyrical; and we readers finish each story with satisfaction. One of my favorite things about these stories is the way a critical plot point or character revelation often appears in one sentence, just when and where one does not expect it. The stories often engage with social class, in that they mostly reveal the lives of people who are getting by, but just barely – working class people, or people who have somehow gotten off-track. There is often a feeling of despair, or of reluctant resignation. One aspiring songwriter concludes, in the brilliant but sad story with the brilliant but sad title “Nobody Happy,” that “My talent is a kid with his nose flattened against the toy-store window, wanting what he can’t have.” But there are moments of happiness, as in the story “Joy,” where the character writes that “These times come for no reason and too rarely, days and evenings that quiver like a bee’s wing…Nearby, a bobwhite whistles, and my skin wants to dissolve and let something pure slip free.” But then the character tells us, in a flat, straightforward voice, all the ways in which her life has been hard and disappointing. The concluding sentences capture the complexities of grief and joy: “Maybe this is grief. Who cares what we call it? Joy comes in waves, and will not hear no.” This story collection is full of insights, sad moments, jolting truths, and, yes, at times, joy.

Thursday, June 13, 2019

Local Bookstore News

An article in the 5/25/19 San Francisco Chronicle tells of a new, smaller, “more focused” Barnes and Noble store opening in Concord in the East Bay (of the San Francisco Bay Area). I never thought I would be glad to see another chain bookstore opening; when Barnes and Noble, as well as Borders and other chains, expanded rapidly, they drove out many independent bookstores, to my dismay and that of other readers. Eventually, Amazon, in turn, drove many chain bookstores out as well, even completely vanquishing the Borders behemoth (which I loved way back when it was one very special store in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I visited it from time to time when visiting my good friend M. in Ann Arbor). But eventually I realized that it was better to have chain bookstores than no land-based bookstores; I also realized that although I live in an area with many independent bookstores, many other readers do not, so it was selfish of me to deprecate chain bookstores. Well, the landscape keeps changing. Barnes and Noble still has 627 stores in the United States, and now it is opening these new smaller stores, like the one in Concord, hoping for them to become community centers as many independent bookstores are. And in the best bookstore news of all, the Chronicle reporter Shwanika Narayan tells us that independent bookstores continue their recent comeback; the number of such bookstores in the United States “increased 50% between 2009 and 2019, from 1,651 to 2,470.” Hurray! (But, showing that we can never relax or celebrate too much, I just heard – after writing this post but before posting it – that the Sausalito store in our much beloved very local and very small “chain,” Book Passage, is about to close. It is disappointing and sad news.)

Saturday, June 8, 2019

"Out East: Memoir of a Montauk Summer," by John Glynn

Readers of this blog may remember that I am easily seduced by books about beach towns on the East Coast, especially those on Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Cape Cod, and the like. So when I saw the book “Out East: Memoir of a Montauk Summer”(Grand Central, 2019), by John Glynn, I was sold. The only thing that stopped me from checking it out of the library, just for a minute, was – being honest here – that it was by a male author; most such books are by women. But I quickly got over that. In fact, I read the whole book in a four-hour sitting (OK, the last two hours I was lying in bed). The book, as the title says, is a memoir, rather than the usual novels in this genre. (Yet another memoir, like the last three posts here! But very different than two of them in that it is about a fairly privileged, young white man, in contrast to the two memoirs about young African-American men who, despite their talents and ambitions, have had to struggle with racial discrimination.) It has some of the same elements as the aforementioned summer/beach novels: many scenes at the beach, in beach houses, and at bars and restaurants. There are also a few scenes “back home” in New York, but even those scenes are filled with thinking about, planning for, and talking about one’s time in the beach town. Montauk is, as the book helpfully explains for those of us (let’s say, those of us who live on the West Coast) who know the mystique of the place but are a bit unclear on its actual location, on Long Island, a sort of extension of the fabled Hamptons. The author, Glynn, is a man in his mid-twenties, loving living in New York as he starts his career and life there. He is thrilled to be invited to join in on a “share house” in Montauk, where some old friends (mostly from his Boston College days) and many new ones have an elaborate schedule of who can be there which weekends (eight weekends per guest) and holidays, along with a list of fees, rules, responsibilities, and room assignments. I can summarize the share house participants’ activities in Montauk as follows: going to the beach, eating, drinking, partying, and hooking up with various others in the house or that they meet in bars. I must say -- not judging but just observing -- that a huge part of the book has to do with the constant drinking. Glynn is in heaven; he loves the people, the partying, the feeling of belonging. But he is also lonely because he doesn’t have a partner. Although many of the house members are gay, Glynn sees himself as straight. However – and readers can see this coming a mile away, so I am not giving away suspenseful plot points – he falls for a male housemate, and realizes that he is either gay or bisexual. The setting in Montauk becomes the context for Glynn to finally confront his own sexuality. Glynn writes well about the experiences of being a house sharer, and more generally about being a young person starting off his adult life. He also writes well about his gradual understanding of his true self. The author interweaves these aspects very well. He is in essence taking a generally lightweight (but great fun to read) genre and delicately infusing it with important life realizations.

Tuesday, June 4, 2019

"Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir," by Kwame Onwuachi

I seem to be in another memoir-reading phase, as I have been more and more often in the past few years. Today’s post -- on Kwame Onwuachi’s “Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir” (Knopf, 2019) -- is the third post in a row about memoirs. Interestingly, two of these three – Laymon’s and Onwuachi’s – are about the lives of African-American men who write of the difficulties and discrimination they have experienced, but also of their ambitions and successes; one becomes a professor and writer, the other a chef and restaurateur. Their successes, of course, do not cancel out the discrimination and pain each endured and still endures. In another overlap, two of the three memoirs – Reichl’s and Onwuachi’s – are about lives in the world of restaurants and food. These of course are only broad connections among the memoirs, and each of the three stories is completely individual and quite different from the others. Turning to Onwuachi’s memoir (which is co-written with Joshua David Stein) specifically: I was drawn to it on both the counts listed above, and was pulled into it because of its compelling story. This young chef has gone through so much, and accomplished so much, and was still only 29 at the time of writing. He grew up in New York, Nigeria, and Louisiana. He got off track for a while, including selling drugs, but gradually his love for food and cooking, and his incredible entrepreneurial spirit and confidence, led him to start a catering company, work as a chef on a oil-cleanup ship, study at the Culinary Institute of America, go on the television show “Top Chef,” work in top restaurants such as Per Se and Eleven Madison Park in New York, and then start up not one but several of his own restaurants. Although some restaurants failed, he learned from each experience. He has always believed in the power of food to evoke family, bring people together, and reflect history and cultures.

Saturday, June 1, 2019

"Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir," by Ruth Reichl

Regular readers of this blog may remember that I am a “foodie” (although I have very mixed feelings about the label…). Mainly this means, of course, that I -- like most of you, I am sure -- enjoy eating good food, especially at good restaurants, but it also means that I like to read about and learn about good food, especially restaurant food, and the restaurant world. So finding and reading excellent memoirs about the world of food and restaurants is an enjoyable experience in which my foodie side intersects with my reading side. Usually these memoirs are by those who work in the restaurant business; in the case of Ruth Reichl’s books, we learn about the experiences of someone who has spent most of her adult life writing about food and restaurants. Among the books (and other writings) I have read by her are three terrific and engaging memoirs, “Tender at the Bone,” “Comfort Me with Apples,” and “Garlic and Sapphires.” These tell the stories of her growing up as a child and young adult unusually tuned in to the tastes and pleasures of food, and later of her time as the restaurant critic of The New York Times. Reichl’s newest memoir, “Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir” (Random House, 2019), recounts her experiences during her ten years as the editor of Gourmet Magazine. It is a fascinating story, well told, with detailed explanations of and insights into the workings of the magazine, the personalities involved, Reichl’s own feelings along the way, and of course depictions of some wonderful food and food-related experiences. Her descriptions of food are inspired, almost poetic. Speaking of poetry: Poetry readers may note that this book's title refers to the iconic William Carlos Williams poem, “This Is Just to Say,” which, because it is short (and just plain wonderful!), I will include here: “I have eaten/the plums/that were in/the icebox///and which/you were probably/saving/for/breakfast///Forgive me/they were delicious/so sweet/and so cold.” What could be simpler yet more vivid and evocative? Reichl’s new memoir, like the poem, is also simple (in the sense of accessible and also primal), vivid, and evocative, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I think you would too.

Monday, May 27, 2019

"Heavy: An American Memoir," by Kiese Laymon

Kiese Laymon’s gripping, sad, revelatory book, “Heavy: An American Memoir” (Scribner, 2018) is the story of a black child and then man growing up in Jackson, Mississippi, and his going out into the world, needing to get away yet never forgetting his origins there. His life is fraught with discrimination, early sexual violence, fear, ambivalence, love, hate, and ambition, both in Jackson and in the northern cities where he had imagined that things would be better, less discriminatory, but found he had thought wrong in expecting that. The book is largely addressed to his mother, a professor and single parent, who Laymon addresses as “you.” Her main goal in life seems to be to keep him safe and to help him succeed. She is steeped in the civil rights movement and in teaching and writing and speaking about the condition of black people in the United States. She is both strong and yet vulnerable to unsuitable men and bad habits. Laymon loves her deeply but is also afraid of her at times, and afraid of disappointing her. Son and mother are very close, yet they each have major and often destructive secrets from the other, as each tries to protect the other. His grandmother is also a major figure in his life. The title of this memoir, “Heavy,” refers both to Laymon’s life long struggle with weight, and to the weight of his life circumstances and of the pain and discrimination he and other black men and women and children experience. It is not a spoiler (since it is in the cover flap material) to reveal that, fighting difficulties all the way, Laymon becomes a successful professor and writer. Still, we readers are not let off the hook with a sense of “well, the story ended well,” as it is clear that the problems have not all gone away, for him or for those he cares for, or for black Americans as a whole. This is an intense book, sometimes difficult to read (or in my case, difficult to listen to, as I did on CD as read by the author himself), but that is part of why it is important. I highly recommend this compelling memoir.

Thursday, May 23, 2019

"This Is How It Always Is," by Laurie Frankel

I have a bit of a negative attitude toward books that are too much “about” a social or political topic. I am probably contradicting myself here, because I am sure I have written here in the past that literature can and should take on important social issues, and some of the greatest novels have done so. It is just that there is a fine line between engaging with such topics, on the one hand, and being didactic or even preachy about them, on the other hand. I can’t decide where Laurie Frankel’s novel (which I recently listened to on CD during my commute and a road trip), “This is How It Always Is” (Flatiron Books, 2017; Macmillan Audiobooks) falls on that spectrum. The book describes a family in which the youngest of five boys, Claude, says, at the age of five years old, that he wants to be a girl. His parents and his older brothers are all completely supportive, but stymied about the best way to respond. They allow him to dress as a girl and at certain points to “pass” as a girl, but they are hesitant about more intrusive and perhaps permanent medical steps. The whole family is on a journey regarding Claude, his present and his future, and they are all strongly affected by the situation. We see them over the course of several years, one major cross-country move, many events, a long trip abroad, and much more. Claude’s father is a writer, and his fairy tales, told to all the boys, are a way of helping everyone understand and frame the dilemmas and the emotions they are all dealing with. The book puts the reader right in the middle of a situation that most of us have not experienced directly, and pushes us to imagine all the feelings and necessary decisions and consequences that the family and child face. The novel is not preachy, and not didactic, except in the sense of being obviously educational; there are times when the prose is quite expository, such as when the parents read aloud to each other from their research on transgender children and lives. But the overall feeling of the novel is that we are privileged to see into the heart of a family and a child with a particular life experience, and to walk along the road that they walk along, at least for a little while. The characters and the plot are compelling, and the author involves us readers throughout.

Friday, May 17, 2019

"Dreyer's English," by Benjamin Dreyer

I have an ambivalent relationship with “usage” and “style” books about writing and, especially, grammar and vocabulary. I love language, literature, reading, writing, and even grammar, which is, after all, the structure of language. I also think a lot about language and style in the course of my teaching of writing. I am wary of usage guides that are too prescriptive (linguists don’t believe in prescriptivism) but also of guides that treat the whole topic as a sort of inside joke. “Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style” (Random House, 2019), by Random House executive and copy editor Benjamin Dreyer, sounded from reviews like it would be a good balance. I got it from the library (not wanting to commit enough to actually buy it until I had perused it more), and then it stayed on my “to-read” pile until it was almost overdue. Fiction and memoirs were always more immediately attractive at any given time I had for reading. A couple of days ago, spurred by a fast-approaching due date, I thought I would just skim the book and see how I liked it. To my surprise, I became utterly absorbed in the book, and read almost every page. My first reaction was that the book is genuinely useful; it answers the kinds of questions that many readers and writers (including this reader and writer) have. Topics discussed include overused words, misused words, spelling, grammar, and style. The book is also organized in an attractive and useful way. Best of all, the author’s tone is spot on: authoritative, friendly, witty, but a little bit self-deprecating when appropriate. He is teaching us, yet doing so as if we readers are equally intelligent and knowledgeable; we don’t feel condescended to. (Related confession: As I was typing the prior sentence, I suddenly couldn't remember how to spell "knowledgeable" correctly, and had to look it up; this happens to me occasionally despite my years of extensive reading and writing and teaching.) At times Dreyer is prescriptivist, but almost always acknowledges that the language is flexible and changing, and that that is okay. He manages the balancing act of taking his material very seriously and yet not appearing to take it TOO seriously. In fact, the book is sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. There are so many ways that this balance, and especially the latter aspect (not taking it all too seriously), can go wrong, yet Dreyer (mostly) avoids missteps. I also enjoyed his occasional brief stories and examples from his work as an editor. In short, the book is a delight, and readers will definitely learn from it.

Sunday, May 12, 2019

"The Risk of Us," by Rachel Howard

It is a familiar story. A couple desperately wants to have children “naturally,” but is unsuccessful. They decide to try fostering a child, with the idea of eventually adopting her or him. Thus a seven-year-old enters their lives, and thus their complicated, difficult time with little Maresa begins. The focus of this novel (which seems almost memoiristic), “The Risk of Us” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), by Rachel Howard, is their coming to terms with the child’s acting out, caused by the trauma she has already endured in her young life. The would-be parents struggle mightily, and we the readers feel torn between sympathy for the parents and heartache for the child. The hardest part for the reader is, perhaps, knowing that the child has very real reasons for her more-than-challenging behavior, yet feeling overwhelmed and even at times even repulsed by her behavior, and then feeling guilty about our negative feelings. We read about it all in excruciating detail. Does the couple stick it out? Does Maresa’s behavior improve? What does the future bring? You have to read the novel to learn the answers. It is sometimes a tough read, but the topic is important and the writing is compelling.

Sunday, May 5, 2019

"A Wonderful Stroke of Luck," by Ann Beattie

I have always read Ann Beattie’s stories in The New Yorker and elsewhere, as well as her books of fiction. I have always admired them, and sometimes enjoyed them, despite their often somewhat distancing tone. (I know -- "minimalist.") Her most recent book of fiction, the novel “A Wonderful Stroke of Luck” (Viking, 2019) has a sort of sour vibe, and although I did read the whole novel, I had to push myself a little to finish it. It is the story of Ben, a student at a boarding school in New England, his fellow students, and his teacher who is billed as charismatic and influential, but who actually doesn’t seem particularly impressive or intriguing. Ben’s progress through life is rather aimless. When he reconnects with his vaunted teacher, we are set up to expect some kind of drama and revelation, but what happens is anti-climactic. Or, rather, the revelations don’t seem earned. Some of the characters are sympathetic, and the reader may care, a bit anyway, what happens to them. But overall this novel is disappointing, at least to this reader.

Saturday, April 27, 2019

"The Balcony," by Jane Delury

The inside cover teaser prose about “The Balcony” (Little, Brown, 2018), a book of connected short stories by Jane Delury in her debut book, promises revelations set in “a French village,” which attracted my attention. Like so many of us, I easily fall for the fantasy of a lovely, blissful life in a gorgeous house in a beautiful setting in the countryside of France (but near a charming village with nice cafes, outdoor markets, and wineries). The author immediately, in the first story, breaks that bubble and tells us that the village of Benneville is – despite what readers, and the character visiting from the United States, might think – NOT the vision we have of a “village of church bells and cobblestone streets.” Instead, it is “an industrial wash of smokestacks and faceless apartment buildings that ringed a center of ratty stucco storefronts.” However, the stories are actually set in a “manor” and accompanying “cottage” a five-minute drive from the village, nestled in a sort of forest. The stories range throughout the years that the estate has been there, from the late 1800s to the present. Although each story is a stand-alone, there are mentions of characters and scenes from other stories in each as well, although not at all in chronological order, and readers can start to discern the history of the place over the years. Although the place is in some ways idyllic, many of the stories deal with pain, discomfort, self-questioning, alienation, wartime suffering, and other difficult situations and emotions. Children feel lonely, couples are unhappy together, people have affairs, people suffer from political and economic events in the larger world, some experience mental illness, others realize the sting of prejudices. Some love the estate as it is, and some are constantly changing or “improving” it. Delury is particularly good at drawing child characters, as well as at portraying the varieties of women’s dissatisfactions. There are some characters from the United States, and some experience the conflicted feelings of those who belong partly in two or more places and partly nowhere at all. But there is also love, loyalty, decency on the part of many characters. Human nature in all its variety is on display. Delury’s stories are well written, and each one has a “bite” or “charge” of some sort.

Thursday, April 18, 2019

"The Italian Teacher," by Tom Rachman

I wrote a glowing review (12/12/10) here of Tom Rachman’s 2010 first novel “The Imperfectionists.” When his next novel, “The Rise and Fall of Great Powers,” came out in 2014, I started it but couldn’t get caught up in it, so I didn’t finish it. Now I have read his new novel, “The Italian Teacher” (Viking, 2018), and like it very much. Its themes of art, creativity and family, especially the father-son relationship, are powerfully and originally presented. The main characters are the larger-than-life artist, Bear Bavinsky, and his son, nicknamed Pinch, always in the shadow of his father. Because Bear does not stay long with Pinch’s mother (or with any woman – he is married several times and has innumerable affairs), the son only sees his father occasionally, but is always longing for more time with him, and always eager for his approval. He hopes to be a painter himself, and also to write a biography of his father. Bear is enthusiastic when he he is with Pinch, but never seems to give him his full attention. Pinch becomes the Italian teacher of the title. The job is far from glamorous, but he gets some pleasure from it, while still yearning for something more, something artistic, something that connects him with his father. Toward the end of the novel (but with foreshadowings), a secret is revealed, and there is a resulting major plot development, neither of which, of course, I will divulge here; I will only say that although in one way these are surprising, in another way they are perfectly consonant with the rest of the story, and with Pinch’s complicated relationship with his father. An added pleasure of the novel is the various very specifically described settings in the United States, England, and France.

Sunday, April 14, 2019

"Friend of My Youth," by Amit Chaudhuri

I am often drawn to novels about India, partly because they remind me of my childhood there. Amit Chaudhuri’s “Friend of My Youth” (New York Review Books, 2017) is a novel set in Bombay (now Mumbai, but Chaudhuri mostly continues to call it Bombay, as he remembers it from his youth there). In an apparently quite autobiographical novel, the author tells of his main character’s two visits to Bombay in his fifties. The character (and narrator) grew up in Bombay but escaped it as soon as he could, studying in England and eventually moving to Calcutta. His former infrequent visits to Bombay were to see family and a close friend, Ramu. The first visit is scheduled as part of a book tour. Ramu, the friend of his youth of the title, has always lived in Bombay, and has had lifelong struggles with substance abuse, cycling in and out of treatment facilities; fortunately for him, his family money allows this. On the narrator’s first visit, he is not able to see Ramu, because he is in a rehab facility, but on a later visit, the narrator and Ramu see each other and spend time together. They are always immediately comfortable with each other, and share a preoccupation with the city of Bombay. The narrator, both alone and with Ramu, is nostalgic about the city, and each time he returns, he, sometimes with Ramu and sometimes alone, wanders Bombay, remembering areas, buildings, and experiences. He notes which areas are now gentrified, which buildings survive and which have changed. Much of this slim novel consists of the main character's musings on the city and on what stays the same and what changes. One of the major focuses of the visits and the novel is “the Taj,” the iconic hotel that has always been there, and that has recovered from the disastrous attack on it some years before. (Side note: on my own visit to India many years ago, about ten years after I had returned from living in South India as a child, but long before the attack, my trip included a visit to Bombay, where I treated myself to a stay at this landmark, unforgettable hotel.) In a visit toward the end of the novel (the visit during which the main character sees Ramu), the narrator and his family splurge and stay in the hotel, marveling at its complex structure, its history, and its survival of the attack. A reader could easily feel that not a lot “happens” in this novel, but the theme of connections to, and sometimes alienation from, the places of our pasts is a compelling one, one that many of us can relate to. The narrator’s walks through the city, meandering as they are, are full of fascinating observations. Chaudhuri’s writing is evocative. This novel is perhaps not for everyone, because of its slow pace; however, for anyone interested in the passing of time, the changes we experience in our own lives and in the places we care about, this is a meditation that might very well appeal, as it did to me.

Monday, April 8, 2019

"All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf," by Katharine Smyth

There is a newish mini-trend toward memoirs intertwining an author’s personal stories and her stories of her connections with a certain well-loved classic novel, exemplified by Rebecca Mead’s wonderful 2014 book, “My Life in Middlemarch” (about which I posted here on 3/4/14). I have just finished reading another book in this genre, “All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf” (Crown, 2019), by Katharine Smyth. Smyth finds Woolf’s novel “To the Lighthouse” full of wisdom and comfort, especially as she struggles with her beloved father’s too-early illness and death. Woolf represents her own traumatizing and life-changing experience with the death of her mother through the character of Mrs. Ramsey in this novel. The more that Smyth reads, re-reads, studies, and researches the novel and its author, the more she finds connections with her own experiences and feelings. She does an admirable job during the course of this book of balancing her own experiences with those portrayed in the novel, and with providing context for that novel through her extensive research. Smyth’s book is moving, and as someone who also greatly admires Woolf and "To the Lighthouse,' I could relate to much of what Smyth writes about. In addition, I strongly believe in the possibilities for great fiction to make readers feel connected to something larger, deeper, even transcendent, and I can see that that magic happened with Smyth and “To the Lighthouse.” This book is a living testimony to the power – and I do not use that word lightly – of literature in our lives. My only small quibble with Smyth’s memoir is that at times it seems a little repetitive, as well as a bit overwritten. But I am glad I read it, and now I want to re-read (for perhaps the fourth or fifth time) “To the Lighthouse.”

Monday, April 1, 2019

RIP Nina Baym

Nina Baym was one of the important pioneer scholars who researched and publicized forgotten American women writers. She was, in a sense, part of the women’s movement of the 1970s and beyond, and in particular, one of the women scholars who re-examined the American canon, saw how biased it was, and determined to resurrect books by women writers. Baym died on June 15, 2018 at the age of 82, and this is a belated but heartfelt tribute to her. I was one of the longtime readers and English majors who was also starting to realize how male-dominated the world of literary fiction was, and who welcomed the women scholars who were trying to change this bias. I remember reading Baym’s work with excitement. She was a professor at the University of Illinois who started off by researching Nathaniel Hawthorne’s work, but in the 1970s became curious about the many lost women’s novels, and began to do research to rediscover women writers of the 19th Century. She explored the question of how it is decided which writing is significant, and realized that male critics heavily favored male writers and “male” topics. I am so deeply thankful to Nina Baym and the other women scholars of the 1970s and onward who made sure that women writers’ works were not lost to history, and who reminded us that the biases of critics in power can affect which writers are considered “good” writers who deserve to be read, studied, and remembered. The work of these women scholars was more of a revolution than is perhaps now acknowledged; is it a good thing, or not, that their conclusions are now taken for granted? In any case, it is important to remember that although Baym’s work and that of others changed the literary world forever, there are still biases that need to be fought in the world of literature.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

"A Song for Lost Angels," by Kevin Fisher-Paulson

One of my favorite columnists in the San Francisco Chronicle is Kevin Fisher-Paulson. He is a gay white Sheriff’s Deputy married to a gay white male dancer; the couple has adopted two African American boys with various special needs, who are now early teenagers. The column is humorous and touching. The columnist writes about his unconventional family’s life in the “outer, outer, outer, outer Excelsior,” an unfashionable but family-oriented area of San Francisco. The family stories are personal, unflinching, detailed, and full of unconditional love. After reading the column for some time, I realized that this couple had a sad back story about fostering premature triplets, born drug-addicted. Then I learned that Fisher-Paulson had written a book about that experience, and of course I had to find and read that book. It is titled “A Song for Lost Angels: How Daddy and Papa Fought to Save Their Family” (Two Penny Press; Second Edition 2015). The writing is clear-eyed, and although the author describes how hard it was to take care of these three babies, he demonstrates at every turn how much he and his husband loved the children and were willing to do anything for them. They were fortunate to have (then and now) a wonderful network of extremely supportive friends, but still, this was an enormous challenge, gladly taken on. Unfortunately – and this is not giving away anything that the column had not already mentioned, and that becomes clear early in the book – the birth mother comes back into their lives when they are about one year old and – in league with her mother – claims the babies and wants them back. The mother is incredibly careless and unloving with the babies on their short visits, and the grandmother seems more interested in how much money they would get from the government in support of the children than in the actual children. Sadly, as a result of some social workers who believe that the birth parents should always prevail, and who are also nastily homophobic, the triplets are given back to the birth mother and grandmother. The Fisher-Paulsons never see them again, and don’t even know where and how they are. It is an absolutely heartbreaking story. One would think that after such an experience, a couple would be afraid to ever try again, but within months, they adopt the two boys that I mentioned earlier, the ones that the couple has now raised to adolescence, and that the author writes about in his column. The author never claims credit for his and his husband’s amazing love and care of the triplets and then of the two boys, but the reader cannot help but be filled with admiration for their dedication to these children. This story is compelling and well told, with sincerity, humor, and a light touch. And yes, you will both laugh and cry while reading it. And you will come away from the book with awe at the unselfish dedication of these two men, “Daddy” and “Papa.”

Sunday, March 17, 2019

"Maid," by Stephanie Land

Regular readers of this blog may remember that I am very interested in (and have published on, in the context of language education) issues of social class, and of how those issues affect so many lives so deeply. In the U.S., too many people are slipping from the middle class into financial struggles and even poverty. Stephanie Land’s new memoir, “Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive” (Hachette, 2019), describes such a situation. The author had a more-or-less middle class upbringing, but an unexpected pregnancy and then a breakup with the child’s father kept her from attending college as she had planned, and dropped her into poverty. Her parents (divorced and each with new partners) had also slipped financially, and were not able to help her. She became a housecleaner, working hard for very low wages, having to leave her child in less-than-ideal day care for long hours, living in small uncomfortable apartments (including one with black mold that made both her and her daughter sick all the time), constantly worried about money. Her situation was very difficult. We readers suffer with her through the painful jobs, the pinching of pennies, the embarrassment about taking government assistance. She always kept writing, though. And she writes insightfully and occasionally entertainingly and humorously about the different houses she cleaned and their owners. Some of the owners treat her as if she is inferior to them; others are more egalitarian and caring. She shares vivid details about the jobs, the houses, and the residents. Meanwhile, she dreams of visiting and living in Missoula, Montana, which has somehow become her magic ideal. Throughout, we see Land's determination to keep going and to improve her living situation for the sake of her daughter, Mia. I won’t let slip any spoilers, but a hint is that things do get better for the author eventually.

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

"The Wife," by Meg Wolitzer -- A Novel and a Film

Meg Wolitzer is one of the best contemporary American novelists. She is known for writing strong women characters, and focusing on families, friends, and relationships. She does so in original and compelling ways. She has also written thoughtfully and candidly – both in her fiction and her nonfiction - about her concerns about gender bias in the literary world as well as in the larger world; I appreciate so much her willingness to do so. Her novels include “The Ten-Year Nap,” “The Interestings,” and “The Female Persuasion,” all of which I have read (and many more of her novels as well). Her novel “The Wife” (which I also read) is now in the news because this past year it was, 14 years after publication, made into a major movie starring the wonderful actress Glenn Close. Ms. Close plays the wife of a man who wins the Nobel Prize in Literature. I don’t want to say more about the plot, for fear of providing spoilers. Her performance is restrained, and the most compelling part of the film is watching her face as she reacts to various events and feelings. Close was up for best actress at the Academy Awards a couple of weeks ago, for this film; unfortunately (in my view), she didn’t win. In any case, it was a pleasure to read the novel and a pleasure to see the film. And the feminist message in both is important.

Sunday, February 24, 2019

RIP Diana Athill

Flipping through radio stations about a month ago, breezing through a little bit of BBC News, I suddenly heard the name Diana Athill, and gasped as I realized that this great English author and editor had died (on 1/23/19). Although she was 101 years old, I was shocked; somehow, as I enjoyed and savored her wonderful books, especially her memoirs, over the years, I had come to believe at some level that she would never die. Athill was a respected, even legendary, editor for the publisher Andre Deutsch in London for 50 years, working with such writers as Jean Rhys, Philip Roth, John Updike, Simone de Beauvoir, V.S. Naipaul, Margaret Atwood, and many more. In later years she wrote a series of memoirs, including “Stet,” “Somewhere Towards the End,” and “Alive, Alive Oh!” (See my blogposts of 3/5/10, 6/9/12, and 2/11/16 about Athill and her work.) Her writing provides a fascinating and revealing window into her literary life, as well as her complicated and in some ways unconventional personal life; this writing is wonderful, candid, vivid and generous. Athill was a strong, independent woman, and wrote fearlessly. She was, among other things, a great model of how to age; she was honest about the ups and downs of that process as she was about everything else. I admired her greatly, and her writing gave me great pleasure. I am sad that there will be no more books from her.

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

"A River of Stars," by Vanessa Hua

I read journalist/short story writer/novelist Vanessa Hua’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle (my longtime and well-loved “local” newspaper) every week and enjoy it. She writes about San Francisco, family, childhood, culture, ethnicity, gender issues, and much more. She is also the author of a collection of short stories, “Deceit and Other Possibilities,” about which I posted on 2/21/17. Those stories were gripping and somewhat shocking at times; they were different than much of the literature about immigrants, and especially Chinese American immigrants, that I had read before. Now I have read Hua’s next book, her first novel, “A River of Stars” (Ballantine, 2018), which also focuses on Chinese American immigrants, and which paints a detailed and fascinating picture of the lives of the main characters in China, Los Angeles, and – mainly – San Francisco’s Chinatown and surroundings. The main character, Scarlett, has been sent from China to Los Angeles by her boss and lover, Boss Yeung, where she stays at a house for pregnant Chinese women who want their children to become American citizens by reason of birth there. Other characters include Mama Fang, proprietor of that house; Daisy, a teenaged pregnant woman also at the house; Uncle Lo, Boss Yeung’s best friend but also nemesis; Viann, Boss Cheung’s daughter; and a large cast of characters in San Francisco, where Scarlett and Daisy end up in hiding, as a result of complicated events. These characters are vividly drawn, and we care about what happens to them. There are many themes here: the difficulties of immigration to the U.S.; the still inferior role of Chinese women in many ways, especially for those not wealthy; the class system in China; poverty; Chinese men’s desire for sons; the ways that struggling immigrants, new and longtime, both help each other and sometimes distrust each other; the ways that motherhood can transform women’s lives with great love, but also complicate their lives beyond measure; the ways that cultures mix in the U.S. Hua does not beat readers over the head with these themes, but they are very evident at every turn.

Thursday, February 7, 2019

"The Friend," by Sigrid Nunez

Sigrid Nunez’s novel “The Friend” (Riverhead, 2018) will be a (complicated) joy for most readers to savor, but will be of extra interest to those who love dogs. The main character’s longtime dear friend and mentor dies and leaves his huge and unruly Great Dane to her. She lives in a small apartment in New York where tenants are not allowed to have pets, and although initially she thinks it will be impossible to keep the dog, she reluctantly gives it a try (not being able to find anyone else to take him). One by one she overcomes the many obstacles to having a dog, especially such a large one, in her situation. The main character is a writer and a writing teacher, and somewhat depressed. Gradually she becomes very fond of the dog, and he of her, apparently, and she feels very protective toward him. He also eases her depression. She is reminded of the poet Rilke’s definition of love: “two solitudes that protect and border and greet each other.” Soon she is building her life and schedule around him. Nunez writes with engaging detail about her main character’s relationship with the dog. One such detail that caught my attention was that the main character realizes that the dog was used to being read to, and so she starts to read to him, a happy experience for both of them. In the process of telling the story, the author takes some literary side trips, bringing in tales of the dog’s deceased owner and the literary conversation he and the book’s main character used to have. About now, readers of this post may be envisioning a sort of inspiring, heartwarming, perhaps overly sentimental paean to dogs and to human-dog friendships, with a literary twist. Certainly those aspects are there, but this book is much more complex than that. This short novel is a bit quirky, and doesn’t immediately reach out to invite the reader in, but it soon offers a thoughtful, original story that will, I think, engage many readers.

Saturday, February 2, 2019

"Evenings in Paradise: Stories," by Lucia Berlin

Lucia Berlin’s posthumous collection of short stories, “A Manual for Cleaning Women” (2015) was a huge success both critically and popularly. I wrote about it here (2/20/16) with great admiration and enthusiasm. Now I have read an even more recent posthumous collection by the same author, “Evenings in Paradise” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), and am equally bowled over by the quality of the stories: the writing, the insights, the slices of real life, the fearlessness. These stories, like those in the earlier book, are largely drawn from the author’s own tumultuous and often very difficult life: her brilliance and talent were hampered at various times in her life by poverty, alcoholism, and failed marriages and relationships. She managed to overcome these obstacles and became a great writer and professor; in addition, she raised four children, mostly on her own. As I wrote about her earlier collection, her stories are bursting with life, vivid, gritty, and sublime. They take place in multiple settings and at various times in the usual main character’s (i.e., Berlin’s) life. I of course especially liked reading the stories set in Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco, “my” territory, but also liked and savored them all, whether set in Albuquerque, New York, or Europe, among other sites. Readers will admire the main character’s -- and the author’s -- courage, but also her joie de vivre. Highly recommended.

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

He Lost All His Books in the Fire

On 1/20/19, I wrote about going through the books in my home, and giving a few bags full of books to my local library for its Friends of the Library book sale/fundraiser. I was recently reminded that I was fortunate to be able to consider carefully which of my many books I would relinquish, and make my own decisions about when to do so. The journalist Jaime O’Neill was not so lucky. As he wrote in the 1/6/19 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle Datebook, his house in Butte County, California, was destroyed by the horrific wildfires of November 2018, and one of the losses he most mourns is the complete destruction of his personal library of about 2,000 volumes. (Interestingly, many of these books were bought at his local library’s book sales, institutions –- both local libraries and their book sales to raise money for the libraries -- of which I am a great fan.) He writes of books used for long-ago college classes, newly purchased books, books he was in the process of reading when the fire forced him and his wife to evacuate, books he and his wife had given each other, signed editions, books in their closet intended for Christmas gifts for their daughters. O’Neill acknowledges that the loss of his books is “a long way from the worst of losses” suffered during the fires. But for him, the loss is very painful. “Nearly every book title evoked a memory, either of reading or of acquisition. Some reminded me of things I know, and the source of a particular shard of knowledge. Some of them contained inscriptions from the people who had given them to me, and some of those people are now gone, too.” Anyone who loves books, and especially their own treasured volumes, cannot help but ache with sympathy for O’Neill’s loss of his precious books and all that they meant to him.

Thursday, January 24, 2019

"A Life of My Own," by Claire Tomalin

Once in a long while, I love a book so much that I hesitate to write about it here, because I worry that I won’t do it justice. Claire Tomalin’s recent book, “A Life of My Own” (Penguin, 2017) is an example. Tomalin is a well-known English literary editor, critic, and esteemed biographer of great figures of British literature such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Samuel Pepys, Shelley, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and Katherine Mansfield. So you already have an inkling of why I am so drawn to this writer. But to be more explicit: she is English (as you may remember, I am a bit of an Anglophile); she is a woman; she has been involved in literary matters her whole life; she has terrific taste in writers (several of the subjects of her biographies are among my favorites – in particular Austen and Hardy); she has lived a long and full life outside of her literary work as well, with a complicated and fulfilling – if sometimes difficult -- family life, including two marriages and four children. After being a biographer of so many others, in this book, at the age of 80-plus, she writes about herself. One of her themes, about which she is clear but not didactic, is the question for all women who want to “balance” a life in literature and a full family life of just how to do that; she does not shy away from describing how hard that balancing act sometimes is, but she also does not dwell on it. She writes engagingly about her family, her childhood, her education, her romances, her marriages, her travels, her various literary jobs, her own writing, the other writers she has known personally, her children, and much more. But what I am afraid of not being able to convey is what a wonderful, wonderful writer she is. She also strikes me as a fascinating (although unpretentious and down-to-earth in some ways) person, and her autobiography makes me wish I knew her personally. I loved reading this book, and I highly recommend it to you; do please consider reading it.

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

RIP Mary Oliver

The poet Mary Oliver died a few days ago, on January 17, 2019, at the age of 83, of lymphoma. This is a great loss, and she is being deeply mourned by her many, many readers and admirers. Actually, “admirers” is not a strong enough word for those who love Oliver’s poetry, and whose lives have been directly influenced by her poems. Some years ago, when I didn’t know Oliver’s poetry particularly well, I went to hear her read here in San Francisco. The venue was full, mostly of women, and there was something in the air that immediately indicated that the audience was thrilled to be there, almost worshipful, and that they felt a deep personal connection to her and her work. At that time, Oliver already had some problems with mobility, and had to be helped to and from the podium. But her presence and voice were strong, and from the moment she started speaking and then reading, she had the audience rapt. After this experience, I sought out Oliver’s poetry and saw why it was so popular. She writes about things that matter to her readers: how to live, how to observe, how to relate to nature, how to know what is most important, how to appreciate life. Some critics have been suspicious of her popularity (being popular seems to be automatically regarded as a defect) and have called her poetry lightweight or simplistic. They are simply wrong. (I can’t help wondering if some of the condescension shown to her work is because she is a woman, and because so many of her readers are women….) Her most famous line, in her most famous poem, “The Summer Day,” is “Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?” This line has resonated with huge numbers of readers, and with good reason. But there are so many more poems that are also wonderful, beautifully written, aesthetically pleasing, and meaningful, even healing, to her readers. The stature and value of Oliver’s work have also been validated by her Guggenheim, her Pulitzer, and her National Book Award, among other prizes and honors. Goodbye, Mary Oliver, and thank you for your quietly stunning poems, which I am sure will be read by many, many more people for many, many more years.
 
Site Meter