The Ruth Gallagher mystery novels, by Elly Griffiths

I won't belabor here, yet again, my lifelong on-and-off relationship with mystery novels. But I will say that I have just had a prolonged "on" period, reading the Ruth Galloway mystery novels of Elly Griffiths. These were recommended to me by my dear friend Mary V., and once I started reading the series (in order, of course!), I couldn't stop! I have now read all fifteen novels in the series, ending with "The Last Remains" (Mariner Books, 2023), which Griffiths has told us is the final book in the series. I wish there were more! Ruth Galloway is an archeologist and professor, and is often consulted by the police when they find bodies buried, sometimes ancient and sometimes recent, as happens often -- at least according to these novels -- near the sea in Norfolk, England, where there is so much history and so much mysterious, even mythic, atmosphere. I like Ruth, who is smart and accomplished, confident yet modest and unpretentious. She loves her cottage in the marshlands and her cats. She is good with people but really loves solitude as well. She has an unplanned but dearly loved young daughter with DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Harry Nelson, the result of a brief affair, but as he is married, they have an unsettled relationship except for sharing a love of that daughter, and except for working together on many cases where police work and archeology overlap. Let's say their relationship is "complicated." There are other interesting and believable characters in the novels, such as Ruth's friend the druid Cathbad, her other friends, her lovers, her colleagues at the university where she teaches, and Nelson's family members and detective colleagues. A real bonus of this series is that if one reads several or all of the books, one has the pleasure of seeing the characters and storylines develop, although each book also stands alone. The mysteries are well-plotted and intelligent, and in each one I learn (in a non-didactic, "goes down easy" way) interesting things about areas of England, about English history, mythology, architecture, and culture, and how English police departments work, as well as, of course, about archeology. I highly recommend this mystery series.

"Banyan Moon," by Thao Thai

My friend SM, who recently recommended the novel "Bellies," by Nicola Dinan, to me (see my post of 1/27/24), also recommended "Banyan Moon" (Mariner Books, 2023), by Thao Thai. This is a novel about three generations of Vietnamese American women and their fraught histories and complex relationships with each other. Although Minh and Hoang originally came to the U.S. from Vietnam in the wake of the "Vietnam War," the bulk of the book is set in the Florida family home, Banyan House, where the grandmother, Minh, lived and died, and where the mother, Huong, who lives nearby, and her daughter, Ann, who lives in Michigan, came back after Minh's death. These three women had all had difficult relationships with men, and with each other. The two older women each raised a daughter mostly on her own, and now Ann is possibly on the same path. The novel is about family, but family greatly complicated by historical, cultural and social forces. Each chapter is told by one of the three women; we see their different perspectives and learn about the devastating secrets that formed them and divided them. "Banyan Moon" is at times painful to read, as readers are taken on a difficult journey through the family's history, individually and collectively. But despite the elements of anger, misunderstanding, and self-protection, there are also threads of fierce love throughout. This is a powerful and compelling book, one which I am glad I have read.

Three (More) Books about Loss and Grief (by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Paul Auster, and Joan Didion)

Regular readers of this blog know that my beloved husband died just over two years ago, and that since then I have read quite a few books about loss, grief, and mourning. I have posted about some of these (e.g., 2/22/22, 12/1/22, 2/24/23, 11/7/23, 11/15/23). Reading these books is always painful, and at first I could not read them, but after some time I found that they were sometimes comforting, in the sense of connecting me with others' experiences of loss, and experiencing the universality and community of bereavement and grief. I have just read three more books about grief, and will describe each one very briefly here. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Notes on Grief" (Knopf, 2021) is a slim volume, an acute cry of pain at the recent death of her dear father, one which also celebrates the person and father he was. "Baumgartner" (Grove, 2023) is a novel by Paul Auster in which the title character deeply mourns his wife Anna, who died nine years before, and cannot seem to get past his grief and pain. Auster explores the intertwining of pain and happy memories, and the nature of memory itself. The third book is one I read almost twenty years ago, soon after the death of my dear father: Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" (Knopf, 2005; Vintage, 2007), about the death of her husband John Gregory Dunne (and the illness and later death of her daughter Quintana, about whose death Didion later wrote a book titled "Blue Nights," which I have also read). I was struck at that time by Didion's description of her feelings and actions during the year or so after her husband's sudden death, many of which resonated with me about my father's death, especially such aspects as disbelief/denial, numbness and confusion. I tried to re-read the book about a year ago, but just couldn't; I have just now finally read it again, and found it as powerful and resonant as ever, now in light of the profound loss of my husband of decades. Among other aspects that Didion describes well is the terrible tangible loss of the dailiness, the ongoing conversations and habits, of a long-married couple's life. These two nonfiction books and one novel are all extremely difficult and sad to read, but also insightful and reassuring in a strange way: they remind us that although each death is unique, it is also part of all deaths, and that all mourners have many things in common. We who are left behind are part of a huge community of the bereaved, those who are grieving loved ones.