"A Window Opens," by Elisabeth Egan

“A Window Opens” (Simon and Schuster, 2015), by Elisabeth Egan, is a light-ish, moderately enjoyable, but fairly predictable novel in the growing “women trying to balance home and work and everything else” genre. Alice Pearse refers to the difficulties of trying to do it all and have it all, but because of the cushion of an almost unbelievably excellent nanny, a flawed-but-basically excellent husband and father, back-up support from Alice’s parents, seemingly extremely well-adjusted children, and slight money problems that turn out not to be too serious, the difficulties are somewhat diluted. As a committed feminist, I would be the last to dismiss the problems encountered by women (and men) balancing careers and families, with woefully inadequate societal support systems that the United States should be ashamed of. It is just that this story doesn’t really make readers feel how hard this situation can be. There is also a whiff of building the story around issues: not only the work-life balance issue, but also that of soul-less corporate America (tech version), here in the guise of something ostensibly, initially, positive but then not (a business about reading electronically that turns into a business about video games), but that the author (rightfully) depicts as clearly completely inauthentic and hypocritical. Other issues addressed include how technology is affecting our world and especially children, sometimes negatively, and the dangers of alcohol addiction (although the novel seems to downplay the latter problem, and makes it seem easy for a person to stop drinking excessively). Alice is also facing the serious illness and then death of her beloved father. All of these are certainly very real parts of the life of a contemporary woman in New York City (living in the suburbs, working in the city) and elsewhere, and perfectly legitimate plot points and themes, but somehow it seems that they are a bit artificially inserted into the story as representatives of various issues.

"Mary Coin," by Marisa Silver - What Was Behind that Famous Photo?

Usually I decide what to read by reading (many) book reviews, and by choosing the latest books by my already favorite writers. But of course I also browse in bookstores and libraries and sometimes find books that surprise and impress me. That is how, when I wanted a book-on-CD for a recent short road trip, I found in my local library the novel “Mary Coin” (2013, Penguin Audio) by Marisa Silver. What initially caught my attention was the (slightly altered) photo on the front of the CD case: the famous 1936 Dorothea Lange photo, titled “Migrant Mother,” of a poor woman and her children in the agricultural Central Valley of California, working as pickers, during the Depression era. The actual woman in the photo was later found to be Florence Owens Thompson; she and her family had very mixed feelings about the fame of the photo. Marisa Silver takes this basic story and tells a novelized version of it from the perspectives of three main characters over many years, before, during, and after the taking of the photo. The first is the woman in the photo, here named Mary Coin. The second is the photographer, here called Vera Dare. The third is a professor, Walker Dodge, who is, he finds, probably connected to the story through a long-ago secret, and who is now investigating the background of everyone involved, out of both academic and personal interest. The novel ranges back and forth among these stories, and back and forth in time. The story is often sad -- especially about the brutal poverty that some of the characters experienced -- but compelling, and the characters held my interest. It is of particular interest to see how women at the time, with and without money, often had to take on much of the burden of survival for themselves and their families. In their own separate ways, both of the two main women characters were incredibly courageous. The reminders of this painful time period -- for women, men, and children -- in American history are chilling.

"The Prize," by Jill Bialosky - Too Much Angst about Too Little

Sometimes I am about to post a less-than-enthusiastic review of a novel, and then question my right to pronounce judgment on a kind of writing that I would never be able to do myself. I write academic articles, books, and conference papers, and I write book reviews, including in these posts. But I don’t have the gift of being able to write fiction. (I wish I did! But I long ago accepted that I do not.) So if someone has produced even a decent effort at a novel or short story, it seems presumptuous of me to criticize it. But then I tell myself that everyone has her or his own role, and the role of the book reviewer or critic or blogger is to provide a sense of a book and its strengths and weaknesses, along with one’s personal response to the book. This is a conflict I have struggled with before, but from time to time I revisit it. This time it is a prologue to saying that I need to critique the novel I just finished, Jill Bialosky’s “The Prize” (Counterpoint, 2015), as it is a rather unsatisfying book. It is set in the art world, and the main character, Edward Darby, is a partner in a leading New York art gallery. The novel does provide a window into some of the workings of that world, which is of interest. But mostly it consists of the ditherings of that character, Edward. He is, perhaps, having a midlife crisis. He questions the meaning of his work, he sulks about his most famous artist’s work and her betrayal of him, he worries about his marriage and his wife, and simultaneously has an affair with another artist, but not without much guilt, much back and forth about whether he should or shouldn’t be having that affair. All of this is very angsty and trite, accompanied by anguished conversations that seem essentially lightweight and predictable, walks through Manhattan in the rain, various sojourns in various European cities, and plenty of time spent in hotel bars drinking and dissecting his feelings. But all of this just doesn’t amount to much, as nothing truly serious seems to be at stake. “The Prize” is reasonably well written, but just doesn’t seem to matter very much. (But I still feel a little nervy being so “judgy” about a reasonably decent novel that I could never write myself….) (Some readers might say it is a little late to be worrying about that, after a fair number of negative or at least less than positive reviews over the almost six years I have been writing this blog….) (I could even be accused of doing a little angsty dithering myself, right here in this post….)

"Last Night in Montreal," by Emily St. John Mandel

I had never heard of Emily St. John Mandel’s “Last Night in Montreal” (Unbridled Books, 2009) until the recent spate of accolades about Mandel’s newest novel, “Station Eleven, which has received very positive reviews and won, or been a finalist for, several literary prizes and “best of” lists. Because “Station Eleven” is of the postapocalyptic genre, I am not interested in reading it, but a brief mention of this earlier novel, the author’s debut, attracted my attention. It is a sort of mystery (although not of the mystery genre), combined with the story of a young woman’s growing up years. Lilia has been abducted by her father from her mother’s house at the age of six, and spends the next ten years on the road, hiding from the law, with her father. She loves her father and (mainly) does not resent the life they lead. But of course such a life has enormous effects on her. Even when her father finally settles down in one place, Lilia’s life is unmoored, and even on her own, she feels compelled to move on from place to place again and again. A sort of parallel story is that of the private detective, Christopher, who has looked for and followed Lilia for years, and the strange fascination he has developed with the case, to the detriment of his own wife and daughter, Michaela. Christopher and Michaela’s semi-estranged relationship, and Lilia and her father’s attached but unusual relationship, form a sort of contrapuntal interweaving connection. The fifth main character is Eli, Lilia’s boyfriend who she has most recently abandoned in her need to keep moving on, and who goes to search for her in Montreal, where he has been told she is now. There are a lot of missed connections, characters’ outmaneuvering other characters, and delays and frustrations on everyone’s part. Toward the end of the novel there are some revelations that change our perceptions of some of the events in the novel, and to some extent explain some of the characters’ behaviors, in some cases toward a more positive interpretation and in some cases more negative. Despite all the pain and difficulties encountered by all of the characters, there are connections, and there is love. This is an unusual novel, and one that I had trouble with at times, especially when I felt plot revelations were artificially delayed. On the other hand, the writing is strong, and the author’s voice fresh.

"Fates and Furies," by Lauren Groff

Fierce! That is the word I thought of when reading, and especially when finishing, Lauren Groff’s novel about a marriage, “Fates and Furies” (Riverhead, 2015). Even the title sounds fierce, doesn’t it? And of course mythic. The marriage is that of Lotto, a renowned playwright, and Mathilde, who both supports him and needs her own identity. They have an extraordinary, and extraordinarily intense, connection. The first half of the novel, “Fates,” describes the beginnings of their love affair and then their marriage and life together, mostly from the point of view of Lotto. The second half, “Furies,” focuses on Mathilde’s experiences and perceptions. Lotto tends to have a positive if somewhat fatalistic view of life, and is happy to benefit from Mathilde’s fierce contending with life on his behalf. Mathilde herself, we find out in the second section, has her own “furies” against the unfairness of life, and against, at times, Lotto’s serene acceptance of fate and his taking for granted of her (Mathilde’s) constant fighting and advocacy for him and his career. Mathilde, in other words, is not always or completely the loving and supportive wife (artistic version) that she appears. Is this good or bad? This is actually an irrelevant question; the description is exactly that: description. Neither character is clearly right or wrong, good or bad, but this novel looks way beyond such categories. Of course feminist readers, myself included, will interpret the story of this marriage, and in particular of Mathilde’s blend of love, work, and fury, through a feminist lens. One thing that slightly bothered me was the assumption, and frequent reiteration, that these two characters are unique, special, extraordinary; readers are supposed to take this on faith. However, this novel is certainly compelling, although sometimes uncomfortable and even unsettling, with its aspects of love, passion, art, success, failure, competition, secrets, betrayal, and more. The portrayal of the world of art and literature is part of the draw of this novel. Most important, perhaps: The writing is powerful, and at times surprising, which is a wonderful quality in fiction.

"Between the World and Me," by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Please read this book! “Between the World and Me” (Spiegel & Grau, 2015) is Atlantic writer Ta-Nehisi Coates’ powerful, wrenching, heartbreaking letter to his fifteen-year-old son about race in America, and specifically about the lives of black Americans. There is a strong element of memoir, as Coates writes of his own poor and sometimes frightening childhood in Baltimore, of his years at Howard University (which he calls his “Mecca”), of his becoming a great reader and then a writer, of the still pervasive bone-deep knowledge of racism and its consequences, and of his fears for his son. Even as a “survivor” who didn’t get killed and didn’t get jailed, and who has become a successful writer, he has observed and experienced the pain and the dangers of being a black man in the United States. Besides his own story, Coates writes of many black leaders and writers, of the stories of other young black men, of the liberation he felt when he traveled to France, and of his interview with the mother of his Howard friend who was killed by a police officer, among other subjects. There are so many powerful sentences in this short book, but just to provide an example: “To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before all the guns, fists, knives, crack, rape, and disease. The nakedness is not an error, nor pathology. The nakedness is the correct and intended result of policy, and the predictable upshot of people forced for centuries to live under fear” (p. 17). And now he and his son live in the age of Trayvon Martin and all the other “destruction of black bodies” (p. 44). This book is despairing, but there are notes of hope as well, as every parent must hope against hope that his child, and all the children, will have safer, better lives. Seriously, please read this book.

"After the Parade," by Lori Ostlund

Although I finished reading it a couple of weeks ago, I have been putting off writing about Lori Ostlund’s wonderful novel, “After the Parade” (Scribner, 2015). Why? Because I liked it so very much that I am afraid of not being able to do it justice in this short post. But I have decided to just plunge in, and try to convey a little bit of how compelling and truthful this amazing novel is. I read and was so impressed by Ostlund’s collection of short stories, “The Bigness of the World” (about which I posted on 12/21/10), so I was primed to like this novel, her first, and it more than lived up to my high expectations. The main character, Aaron, is (like Ostlund herself) originally from the Midwest, which both influenced him greatly (for better and for worse) and made him realize he had to escape it. He was “rescued” by his much older mentor and lover Walter, had a good life with him in New Mexico (also a place that Ostlund lived for some years) but eventually felt he had to establish his own life as a separate person, and left, rather suddenly and alone, for San Francisco (where Ostlund now lives). In San Francisco (here I shift to the present day) he works as an ESL teacher in a fly-by-night type school, and lives in a rather dismal apartment in a renovated (just barely) garage. He is alone much of the time, and very lonely (loneliness is a dominant theme in the novel), but he also at last feels free to explore and discover the kind of life he will lead from now on. He alternates between sadness and a pronounced interest in what he sees as he moves about the city. The novel, too, alternates, in this case between the present day and the past, allowing the readers to gradually understand what has made Aaron the person he is. The scenes in the past and in the present are both powerful. But because the past was in some ways so painful, so quietly dramatic, those scenes are perhaps more intense than those in the present. Aaron’s abusive father died dramatically in a fall from a parade vehicle (thus the title of the book) when Aaron was a young child, and his mother, although loving, became vaguer and vaguer and finally disappeared from his life a few years later. So he was essentially abandoned and on his own, although there were people who took care of his basic needs. How does a young person recover from such abandonment and from the claustrophobia and scrutiny of a very small town, especially when he is different, not only in his sexual identity but also in his love of language and books, and his sense that there is a bigger world (note allusion to Ostlund’s first book’s title) out there? Aaron has escaped his past, but has not yet recovered from it. Moving to San Francisco is his attempt to forward that process, but once he has made the move, he does nothing dramatic; that is not his style. His tendency is to walk, think, observe, and of course read. He has friends, but only in a sort of politely remote way. He enjoys his teaching, and is fond of his students and worries about them, but there is of course a distance between him and them (although some of them share his outsider status, for various reasons), and in any case they cannot fill the void in his life. Only at the very end of the novel do we see a glimpse of a possibly more connected future for Aaron. Words such as “precise” and “attentive” have been used about Ostlund’s writing, and these are very apropos. Her writing is not flashy (that’s not her style), but her characters, settings, and events are so carefully observed that each word, each description matters. Her control over her material is impressive, a gift to her readers. At times, too, the writing is suffused with a sort of wry, low-key humor, especially when Ostlund focuses on some of the minor characters, or on Aaron’s everyday life. “After the Parade” has been well reviewed and well received, and I am so pleased that it has been getting the level of attention is has. The fact that it is set in San Francisco is of course a bonus. Oh, and that beautiful confetti-strewn cover.