"These Precious Days," by Ann Patchett

I –- like many other readers -- am a big fan of Ann Patchett’s novels. I am also a fan of her wonderful essays. On 12/8/13, I wrote of how much I admired her collection of engaging essays, “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage” (2013). I have now just read her new essay collection, “These Precious Days” (HarperCollins, 2021), and was equally enchanted by the new essays. Reading them, I felt that Patchett was speaking directly, conversationally, to me, much as a good friend would do. Of course there is much writerly craftmanship involved, but it doesn’t draw attention to itself. The author is generous in sharing her life, her experiences, and her feelings, but also is always aware of the reader and of the larger world. Her topics include family, travel, why she has chosen not to have children, her love of Eudora Welty’s writing, Snoopy, cutting back on shopping/consumerism, the privilege and joy of spending time with and helping her friend with cancer, flying, and so much more. By the way, if you think you don’t particularly care for reading essays, don’t let that stop you from reading these ones; they are as much memoir and stories as they are what you might consider traditional essays. I know it is a cliché, but I promise that by the end of the book, you will feel as if you know and relate to the author of these irresistible essays.

"Sankofa," by Chibundu Onuzo

“Sankofa” (Catapult, 2021), by the British writer Chibundu Onuzo, is a story about identity, family, and culture. Anna, the main character, lives in London and has a white mother and a black African father whom she has never met, and knows very little about. She now has a fraying marriage and a happy but complex relationship with her a loving relationship with her adult daughter. At the beginning of the novel, Anna’s mother, whom she dearly loved, has just died, and Anna has discovered a trunk that contains the diary of her father, Francis. Francis had been a student in London, boarding with Anna’s mother’s family. After Francis’ and Anna’s mother’s brief affair, Francis returned to his small country in Africa, Bamana, and never knew he was a father. After reading Francis’ diary, Anna finds out that Francis, now Kofi, had become the (now former but still powerful) president of Bamana, and was and is both revered and feared. She decides to travel to Bamana to meet him. Things get complicated; I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but I can say that Anna, who had suffered discrimination in London for being mixed-race, and who had had questions about her identity, learns much about her family, her identity, and herself. The novel is compelling as a story, and also addresses important issues about race, colonialism, family, and the compromises that postcolonial governments often have to make.

"Late in the Day," by Tessa Hadley

Tessa Hadley is an English author whose works I have savored and admired over the years (see my posts of 7/12/11, 7/13/11, 12/18/12, 3/12/14, 2/27/16, and 6/5/17). They mostly focus on relationships of various types: romantic, marital, friendship, and more. They are very character-driven. And the writing seems effortless yet perfectly controlled. All of these characteristics are ones that draw me in when reading fiction. “Late in the Day” (Harper, 2019) is a very “Hadley” novel, in that it follows in her “usual” genre (but I do not mean to imply that her books are predictable). The main characters are two couples who have known and been close to each other for many years. These characters are all devastated when one of the four, Zach, dies (this happens at the beginning of the novel, so my telling you is not a spoiler). Alex and Christine and Zach’s widow Lydia support each other, but their histories and a few secrets come back to complicate their changing relationships. The story of these four -- separately and together -- throughout the years is kept from being too hermetic by the inclusion of the stories of their grown children, as well as by consideration of the characters’ work and art. Hadley is excellent in portraying the contradictions and complications present in any relationships, within couples and families, which become even more complex when close friendships and various entanglements enter the picture.

"Skinship," by Yoon Choi

As it turns out, I have read several books by Korean American writers lately. One that I just finished is a collection of short stories titled “Skinship” (Knopf, 2021), by Yoon Choi. Most of the stories are set in the USA, with brief visits to Korea. The main characters are generally either first or second generation immigrants, and there are often painful misunderstandings and tensions between generations, as is true for immigrants from many other countries as well. Many of the stories are written from the point of view of children of immigrants, and of the many, often delicate, sometimes debilitating balancing acts they learn to perform. Their conflicted relationships with their parents are palpably fraught with both pain and tenderness. Of course the same is sometimes true of non-immigrant families, but there are particular cultural, historical, linguistic, and other factors associated with immigration. The stories are suffused with specific, sharply drawn details about language, food, family, expectations, relationships, silences. Although the stories are embedded in “the immigrant experience,” each story has its own identity, and is about, but also about more than, “just” immigrants’ lives and feelings.