Short Takes: Three Novels and a Memoir

Due to pandemic shelter-at-home, I somehow am reading (even) more but too busy with work (from home) and everything else to post about the books I read. Some books I don’t post about at all, as they are perfectly fine but don’t stand out (in my humble opinion), but others I want to at least mention, so a backlog has developed. Thus my collective post of 10/20/20, about five books. Today my post covers four books that I recently admired and enjoyed, but am writing about in one post to reduce the backlog. First is the novel “Payback” (Pantheon, 2020) by the always-superb Mary Gordon, whose work I have been reading and been in awe of for many years. “Payback” is a novel of revenge, not against the man who took advantage of the main character when she was a vulnerable teenager, but against the kindly teacher who inadvertently put her into the situation leading to the sexual assault. The main character changes her name, bides her time, becomes a celebrity, and plots the “payback” of the title. It is a very timely and unsettling story. Second is Caroline Leavitt’s novel “With or Without You” (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2020). I have also read and enjoyed several of Leavitt’s earlier novels. This one is about an unexpected and complicated love triangle, precipitated by the illness and two-month-long coma of one of the characters. It is also about the main character’s discovering her artistic and psychological powers. Third is Nick Hornby’s latest novel, “Just Like You” (Riverhead, 2020). Hornby’s reliably sensitive, humorous, psychologically aware, and always entertaining novels are a joy to read. This one is about a fortyish woman and a twenty-two year old man, of different classes, races and educational backgrounds, who somehow unexpectedly fall in love. The path is hard but touching and the story is witty and engaging. Hornby is also an author many of whose prior novels I have read. The only “new” author to me, in this group of four, is Melissa Cistaro, and her book is a memoir rather than a novel: “Pieces of My Mother” (Sourcebooks, 2015). It tells the story of how Cistaro’s mother suddenly left the family when Cistaro and her brothers were children. Thirty-six years later, Cistaro goes to see her mother as she is dying, and finds unposted letters that explain at least some of the reasons for the abandonment. The story is very sad, but at the same time shows how families somehow survive so much, and how resilient people can be. As a side note: the author is (or at least was at the time of this book's being published) the events coordinator of the wonderful bookstore, Book Passage, which is located just a few miles north of where I live in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. I have been going to that bookstore, one of my absolute favorites, for decades, not only to browse and buy books (including almost all my Christmas gifts every year), but to attend many readings by local, national, and international authors.