"Browsings," by Michael Dirda

I usually savor books about books and reading. For example, I recently read and posted (1/5/17) very enthusiastically about editor/writer Robert Gottlieb’s book memoir “Avid Reader.” My enjoyment of that book reminded me anew to keep an eye out for related books. I then picked up Michael Dirda’s “Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books” (Pegasus, 2015), a collection of short essays that he had originally written for The American Scholar. Dirda, a “longtime book columnist” for the Washington Post, as well as a writer for various periodicals and author of several books, here writes on a miscellany of books and book-related personal stories. It is the type of thing I would normally enjoy, but I did so only intermittently in this case. Why? First, Dirda mostly (in this collection, at least) writes about science fiction, thrillers, obscure popular fiction, and other genres that are not of much interest to me. Second, he focuses on his collecting of books, with many stories of all the bookstores, auctions, sales, conventions, etc., that he attends, and how he keeps buying more and more books despite not having room for them in his house. He describes himself as an addict, but clearly finds no problem with his obsessive collecting. Which is of course absolutely fine, but to be honest, rather dull and even off-putting to read about in such detail. Third, his style and voice are a bit too “hail fellow well met,” jokey, and faux-modest for my taste. Of course I have favorable feelings about any one who loves books as much as Dirda does, and who reads as extensively as he does. But these other factors got in the way of my enjoyment of the book, and I was happy to reach the end of it (with a little judicious skipping along the way).

RIP Bharati Mukherjee

RIP Bharati Mukherjee, who died January 28th at the age of 76. This wonderful Indian-American writer was part of the exciting and long overdue burst of multicultural writing of the 1970s and beyond. She, along with writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan, were true pioneers who broke the boundaries and opened up American fiction to a much broader range of writers and topics and experiences, and fiction has been the better for it ever since. It is perhaps hard for younger readers to realize the huge contrast between the pre-1970s and now, when we perhaps take for granted the much wider and more inclusive universe of writers and writing available in the U.S. now. Mukherjee’s writing was generally about immigrants, many Indian-American but also many from other backgrounds. This author was born in India, studied at the famed University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, lived and taught at several places in Canada and the United States, notably UC Berkeley, and spent many years in San Francisco, where I live. I heard her read at least twice. My friend J. was her colleague and friend at a college in the East where their teaching overlapped for a while, and spoke highly of her. Mukherjee was scheduled by her parents for an arranged marriage, but she made her own decision when in Iowa and married the writer Clark Blaise; they were married for 53 years, and he survives her. Her fiction includes “The Tiger’s Daughter,” “Wife,” “The Middleman and Other Stories,” "Jasmine," and “Desirable Daughters,” among other books. I read most of her books, always with great interest and pleasure. She was a terrific writer and an influential one. On a personal note, I feel connected to her and her work not only through the San Francisco connection but also because of my childhood in India. But most of all, as a longtime voracious reader of English and American literature, I was thrilled when at last there were more books being written and published in the United States by women and more books by people from various national and ethnic backgrounds.

"Another Brooklyn," by Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson is known as a prize-winning and bestselling author of children’s and young adult fiction, as well as for her memoir (written for children/young adults), “Brown Girl Dreaming.” With “Another Brooklyn” (HarperCollins, 2016; audio version -- to which I listened -- by Blackstone/Harper Books), she writes a novel that can be appreciated by either adults or young adults; the subject matter and level of writing are too mature for children. This short novel takes place in the Brooklyn of the early 1970s, when the section of Brooklyn where the main characters live is changing from mostly white to mostly African American, because whites are fleeing. The main character, August, is a young African American girl who, along with her father and younger brother, moves to Brooklyn from a rural area of Tennessee, where they seemed to have had an idyllic life, until the children’s mother died, a suicide. The children do not accept that she has died, believing (or convincing themselves to believe) for years a fantasy that she will soon be coming back to them. Meanwhile, August becomes part of a group of four girls who are extremely close friends, and who sustain each other through the years of late childhood into mid-adolescence. The story is a paean to, and reminder of, the closeness that girls’ friendships can achieve. But it is also, like Roxane Gay’s short stories (see my post of 1/24/17), a powerful and terrible reminder of the fragility of young women’s lives. The girls learn early on that they are objectified and vulnerable as females. At first they are confident that their female friendships can protect them against the boys and men who leer at them, or molest them, or pressure them for sex. But sadly, they learn that as life comes at them, there are some things that friends cannot protect against. This book captures very well the mixture of feelings and experiences that so many young girls and women experience in a racist, sexist society (although the novelist does not use those terms explicitly). It also captures the way that some young women are able to escape or overcome the difficult and even traumatic parts of their lives, and some are not; it is not always predictable which ones will be which.

"The Mothers," by Brit Bennett

"The Mothers” (Riverhead, 2016) is a very strong debut novel by Brit Bennett. Set mostly in Oceanside, California (near San Diego), the story revolves around the members of a middle-class African American church, Upper Room Chapel. The main characters are Nadia, Aubrey, and Luke, who at the beginning of the story are aged 17 (in the case of the two girls) and 21 (Luke); the story takes place over a period of about 10 years. They have each experienced both love and sadness in their childhoods, including the suicide of Nadia’s mother. Each of the three main characters is close to each of the others, but there are important secrets among them, secrets that rend their relationships. In the background is a chorus of a group of older women from the church, known as “The Mothers.” They observe, they talk, they advise, they comment, with both judgment and, sometimes, mercy. All of the characters are strongly portrayed, and the writing is powerful and assured. I generally am attracted to novels about families, mothers and daughters, female friends, and other relationships, and I was to this novel’s stories as well. But one hesitation I had, and this was mentioned in at least one review of the novel, was about the tendency of the novel to verge on being an anti-abortion screed. The biggest secret in the book involves an abortion, and it seems the author will not allow the young woman to ever get over this event in her life, despite gaining an education at a prestigious university, traveling extensively, and in general being successful. Of course the author has the right to include such a theme, and to represent what she believes some young women have experienced; some readers will agree with this perspective and others will not. In any case, Bennett’s is a vivid new voice on the literary scene, and I look forward to seeing her future writing.

"Difficult Women," by Roxane Gay (And the Seventh Anniversary of This Blog)

A horrific event in the childhood of two sisters changes their lives forever; the sisters suffer unendingly, yet unwaveringly, taken to extremes, support each other through childhood and into adulthood. This story, “I Will Follow You,” is the first in Roxane Gay’s new short story collection, “Difficult Women” (Grove Press, 2017). The book ends with an equally violent, shocking, and heartrending story, “Strange Gods.” The stories in this book are deeply disturbing, troubling, even brutal at times. They vividly illustrate the widespread abuse and violence that many girls and women experience. Yet there is a vein of humanity, caring, strength, resilience running through them as well. The main characters are all women, as the title indicates, and they tend to be bruised (often literally) and beaten down by life, but somehow are still strong, stubborn, and autonomous. The women are damaged, but still in charge of themselves and their lives. These characters are complex and believable. I do not mean, however, to make this point in any kind of redemptive way; no matter how well the women cope with sexual abuse, it is a terrible thing, and it leaves lifetime scars. These are complex stories, never simple narratives of violence or, on the other hand, of inspiring “we shall survive and flourish” sentiments. Some other (interrelated) elements of the stories: great love, great lust, great loss, much sex, much infidelity. There are many marriages that feature deep connections, sexual and otherwise, yet are fraught with difficulties. Although these are common elements of much literature, Gay’s stories contain many twists and turns, many psychological byways, many surprises. There is the woman who pretends not to know that her husband and his twin sometimes switch places. There is the couple that both knows the other is having affairs. There are the intersecting lives of rich and poor families in a subdivision in Florida. There is the black scientist who works in Northern Michigan and feels totally isolated; well-meaning but ignorant people keep asking her if she is from Detroit (as if that is where all black people come from). These stories are fierce (but not didactic) meditations on race, class, and, especially, gender. Gay, also the author of “Bad Feminist,” a collection of essays (discussed here on 10/29/14), is a truly compelling writer, whether of fiction or nonfiction. She is an important voice who should be widely read. Now I am eagerly waiting for the upcoming publication of her memoir, “Hunger.” (And on another note: This post marks the seventh anniversary of the StephanieVandrickReads blog.)

"The Secret Place," by Tana French

Apparently my substantial time away from mysteries has ended for the present. (I have written more than once here about how I go in phases or cycles regarding mysteries: sometimes I binge on them, and other times I am completely uninterested in them for months or years at a time.) This recent "return" to mysteries started with "discovering" Louise Penny (thank you, KS!) and then I finally tried the Donna Leon mysteries I had been hearing so much about for so long, partly because I was reminded of them by my friend Mary (see my posts of 11/12/16 and 11/25/16). Most recently, I have read new (to me) author Tana French’s fifth mystery, “The Secret Place” (Viking, 2014). I had vaguely heard about her work, and had read a couple of good reviews of her newest (2016) novel, “The Trespasser.” “The Secret Place” takes place at a girls’ boarding school in Ireland, and I am drawn to novels about girls, women, girls’ schools, women’s colleges, and such. A major focus of the novel is the friendships of a group of four teenaged girls at the school, and of their “enemies,” another group of four girls. The girls’ school is next to a boys’ school, and of course there is much going back and forth, licitly and illicitly. The murder that precipitates the story is of one of the boys, but on the grounds of the girls’ school. The case has gone cold, when a year later one of the girls brings a big clue to a police detective, who talks his way into being part of the reinvestigation of the case. The two main detectives, one male and one female, are a quirky, eccentric pair who had never worked together before. The case is slowly unveiled, as layers and layers of clues are revealed. As with all good mysteries, the careful plotting is very important but is not enough; the characters have to be interesting, there has to be more at stake than “whodunit,” and the writing must be strong and compelling. These are all characteristics of "The Secret Place." I was impressed by the novel, all 452 pages of it, and am now very inclined to read more of French’s work. So now I have a pleasant problem: how to fit in reading more of these three “new” (to me) mystery novelists’ work with my usual reading.

"They Came Like Swallows," by William Maxwell

A mention of William Maxwell in Robert Gottlieb’s memoir, “Avid Reader” (see my 1/5/17 post) reminded me of what a wonderful writer he was. He was a masterful novelist and short story writer, as well as a longtime editor, including being fiction editor of The New Yorker for almost 40 years in the mid-twentieth century. This reminder of Maxwell, some of whose work I have read, but very long ago, prompted me to find his early novel “They Came Like Swallows” (Vintage, 1997, originally published 1937). This slim novel describes a Midwestern family of which the mother, Elizabeth Morison, is the center and the focus. Much of the story is told through the eyes of the young boy Bunny, who adores his mother. His father James is a good man, and his older brother Robert, although they fight as siblings do, supports and defends Bunny when needed. Something terrible happens that changes everything for the family; we are shown the family both before and after this event. The setting of the Midwest in the early part of the twentieth century is beautifully portrayed, and the characters are drawn with careful observation and affection, as well as a hint of lyricism. The portrait of Bunny is particularly masterful and touching. Maxwell based much of his fiction on his own life, although of course transformed by art. I was moved by the story, and impressed by Maxwell’s restrained but powerful depiction of this small but absorbing family and world, long ago but in many ways timeless and universal.