Happy 125th Birthday, New York Times Book Review

The New York Times Book Review (NYTBR) is 125 years old this year. I have been reading it for decades, and it is an absolute essential in my life. Sadly, I don’t have time to read the paper version of the New York Times, although I do subscribe online and skim it, but I was excited, many years ago, to discover that one could subscribe separately to the NYTBR and have it delivered by mail. I read book reviews and stories about books and authors elsewhere as well: in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post; in magazines such as the Atlantic, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Ms., the Nation, the Progressive, and Mother Jones; and on various online sites. (I used to subscribe to the New York Review of Books, but at a certain point I grew tired of it. I have occasionally subscribed for a year or two to the London Review of Books, the Threepenny Review, and other such publications, and enjoyed them but not enough to continue subscribing.) But the most focused, consistent source of reviews is the NYTBR. It comes weekly, and it is full of reviews as well as interesting features (e.g., “By the Book,” with its interviews of authors and others) that give booklovers an inside glimpse into the world of books and authors. When I receive my latest copy, and notice that it reviews a book by one of my favorite writers, or on a topic of interest to me, I get excited. Yes, I am a book nerd. But you knew that already. Naturally, like any periodical, the NYTBR has not gotten everything right. In a recent (2/26/21) NYT article, critic Parul Sehgal explores the archives, and finds numerous examples of racial and gender imbalance, stereotypes, and worse, especially far in the past, but even recently. For example, a survey of 2011 reviews showed that 90% of the 750 books reviewed were by White authors. Throughout the years, books by Black authors were often judged by different standards than those by White authors. Books by female authors were reviewed with condescension and double standards. There is also a history of negative reviews of books by queer authors, and/or with queer characters. These disparities and prejudices make me angry and upset. I can only take solace in the fact that more and more attention has been drawn to the disparities, not only at the NYTBR, but by publications and authors elsewhere, including in academe, and that awareness has led to change…still not enough, but tangible and increasing change that I have observed in my lifetime (and I have been observing closely and with strong feelings!). Despite everything, I treasure the NYTBR, and am grateful for all I have learned from it, and for all the enjoyment it has given me. Here’s to many many more years of reviews, features, and the ever-more-inclusive celebration of the world of books.

From "At the Edge of the Haight" to "Running the Tides" at San Francisco's Sea Cliff

As regular readers know, I live in San Francisco (well, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge), and work there (except during these pandemic times, during which I work from home). I love the city and the Bay Area. I am always happy to read novels set in San Francisco. Very recently, without planning it, I found myself reading two new novels set there. Both are about girls/young women living in San Francisco, but their lives are very different. The main character in “At the Edge of the Haight” (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2021), by Katherine Seligman, is 20-year-old Maddy, who is homeless, estranged from her family, and lives mostly in Golden Gate Park. The novel portrays her life, and those of her young companions, in a (seemingly, at least) realistic way that such lives are seldom portrayed. Although one worries about Maddy, she is strong and admirable in many ways. The story contains a mystery - a death to which Maddy is a witness - and is compelling. The other novel, which I read immediately after the first one, is “We Run the Tides” (Ecco, 2021), by Vendela Vida, who is active in San Francisco literary circles. Her young heroine, Eulabee, aged 13, lives in the affluent Sea Cliff neighborhood of San Francisco, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and the ocean. Although from a middle class family, less affluent than many of their neighbors, she attends an elite private girl’s school, a barely disguised version of an actual school in that area. She and her friends are privileged. But, as with Maddy, there are undercurrents, problems, and frightening situations in their lives. Both novels deal with young women’s lives, families, friendships, entanglements, insecurities, and fears. Both girls/young women are strong. Eulabee’s life is certainly not as hard as Maddy’s, and she is fortunate not only in her schooling and friends but also in her close family. But in some ways the similarities, especially their vulnerabilities as young females, jump out at the reader as much as the differences. Both novels and, especially, their settings felt very familiar to me in some ways. The setting of the first one, in the Haight and the East (grubbier) end of Golden Gate Park, is only a few blocks from the university where I teach. The setting of the other novel is also familiar to me from when I lived in an adjacent (middle-class) San Francisco neighborhood, many years ago, before I moved north of the Bridge. The school that Eulabee attended is known as the rival of the other best-known all-girls private school in the city, the one that my daughter attended. Both writers allude to well-known areas and personalities (e.g., Danny Glover, the late Robin Williams) in the city. But I admire both books not just because of their familiar San Francisco settings, but mainly because each is well-written, and “gets” the lives of young women, no matter their socioeconomic status.

RIP Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Many of us thought, with a kind of magical thinking, that Lawrence Ferlinghetti would always be with us. But the wonderful Beat poet, publisher, free speech advocate, bookstore proprietor, and longterm resident of San Francisco’s legendary North Beach, died February 22, 2021, at the age of 101. He is famous not only for his own poetry, but for such highlights as publishing Allen Ginsburg’s incendiary “Howl and Other Poems” in 1956, for which action Ferlinghetti was tried for obscenity but fortunately won the case due to a judge’s saying the poem had “redeeming social significance.” Ferlinghetti was enormously supportive to fellow poets. Perhaps his most powerful and lasting legacy is the City Lights Bookstore, opened in 1953 and still drawing visitors (pilgrims, in a sense) from all over the world. The bookstore was and is a center for literature and political activism. He received many honors over the years, including being chosen as San Francisco’s first Poet Laureate, and having the alley behind City Lights named for him. He will be honored and missed by those around the world who love poetry. His poetry collection, “A Coney Island of the Mind,” is still the most popular poetry book in the United States, with more than one million copies in print. He will always have a particular place in the heart of San Franciscans. To honor him upon his death, San Francisco Mayor London Breed spoke of “the immense power of his work” and of “his commitment to this city and its people,” and ordered the flag at City Hall to be flown at half mast. Countless people have been influenced by Ferlinghetti. I remember that when I moved to San Francisco as a young adult, decades ago, one of the first places I wanted to visit and pay tribute to was City Lights Bookstore. I was in awe of the place, with its vast variety of literary and political works, and its welcoming atmosphere. Thank you, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, for all you did and all you meant to so many people for so long. (My thanks to the San Francisco Chronicle for the information provided in its several articles about Ferlinghetti’s life and death.)

Three Enjoyable if Undemanding Novels

Sometimes we, or at least I (and I don’t think I am the only one) just want an enjoyable but undemanding novel to read. It doesn’t need to be “great literature,” but it has to be reasonably well-written, with interesting characters and a satisfying story. Some genres that might fit these requirements for some people include mysteries, thrillers, Westerns, and romance novels. The ones I like (besides mysteries, sometimes) might be called, regrettably, “chick lit.” As regular readers of this blog may remember (or guess), I dislike that term very much. But without getting into the reasons why (probably obvious), I will say that people understand something about books with this label. Without further ado, and so readers will understand the type of book I read when I feel this need for something enjoyable and undemanding, I will list three I have read recently. The first, and most obviously proximate to, if not in, the category of romance (one I usually stay far away from) is “Royal Holiday” (Jove, 2019), by Jasmine Guillory. This popular author has several bestsellers with titles like “The Proposal,” “The Wedding Date,” and “The Wedding Party.” The current title is endorsed by Reese Witherspoon for her book club. It involves a middle-aged African-American woman who goes to England with her daughter, who has an assignment to “style” a Duchess. Sure enough, the heroine meets a handsome man who works for the Queen. How will these two manage their romance when they live on different continents? It is an easy and fun read, made especially enjoyable (for this Anglophile) by the English setting. The second book in this category is Lori Nelson Spielman’s “The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany” (Berkley, 2020). The sisters in question are in an Italian-American family in which for generations the second-born daughters have not gotten married, which is considered a curse. This novel explores family stories and romances, thwarted and otherwise, that occur over the years; many family secrets are revealed along the way. The setting in Tuscany, where three of the “cursed” sisters in the extended family – one old and two young – go for a trip together is an added pleasure of this novel. The third novel is “Little Wishes” (William Morrow, 2020), by Michelle Adams. It tells of a doomed love affair that began on the Cornish Coast of England, and of how Elizabeth’s lover Tom once a year comes from London and leaves flowers and a note with a wish on her doorstep, but they never actually see each other or communicate except for this gesture that means so much to Elizabeth. But after 50 years, something changes. I won’t give away any more. What I will say is that, knowing these novels are not “great literature,” I still thoroughly enjoyed each one, and loved that they were undemanding. They are not what I would want to read as a steady diet, but they are what I occasionally need, especially in these difficult COVID lockdown days.

"Likes," by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum

“Likes” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020), by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, is a collection of very different short stories. Most of them are contemporary and take place in California, but one is the mythic fairy tale “The Young Wife’s Tale.” The stories focus on families, friendships, longings, love and romance, successes and failures. This author captures readers’ attention with her vivid, carefully etched prose and her gift of creating highly original yet relatable characters. My personal favorite is “Many a Little Makes,” a long (over 40 pages) exploration of the friendship of three girls that begins in childhood and continues for more than two decades. As readers may remember, women’s friendships are one of my favorite topics, and this story is insightful, realistic, and engaging. Another of my favorite stories is the title story, “Likes,” as in “likes” that one’s posts on Instagram or Facebook or other such social media sites are accorded. This is a delicately told story of a barely teenage girl and her family, told by her father, who wants so much to understand and help her when she is sad, and when she doesn’t have many friends; yet he knows she will not appreciate it if he addresses these feelings head on. The story is full of love, and very touching. There is also an insightful and a bit heartbreaking story -- “Bedtime Story” -- about a marriage, one in which there have been problems, yet there is also so much love and history.

"Group," by Christie Tate

I have very mixed feelings about “Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life” (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 2020), by Christie Tate. It is an extremely up-close description of a therapy group (actually several groups with the same unconventional therapist) the author participated in. Normally what happens and what is said in such groups is meant to be confidential, but in this case, part of the nontraditional therapy is that everyone – therapist and fellow group members – is free to talk openly about these matters, inside or outside of the group. Perhaps I am being too conventional, but this openness made me a little ambivalent, even queasy. Yet I have to admit that the details of what was said, and especially the extreme candidness of the author, which in many cases was far from flattering to herself or others, were fascinating, if sometimes almost too raw and unfiltered (details about sexual behavior, bodily functions, various forms of misbehavior, and more). I felt that we as readers were put in the position of voyeurs, which made me uncomfortable, yet I have to admit that I kept reading. The main point was that this therapy did work for the author, and for at least some of the other group members. Also on the plus side, it was clear that the group members were often very supportive of, and helpful to, each other.

GUEST POST: "The Song of Achilles" and "Circe," by Madeline Miller

I am very pleased that my colleague and friend Cathy Gabor has written a guest post on two books by Madeline Miller. Thank you, Cathy! Here it is: "I recently read two books by Madeline Miller, both retellings of—or, more accurately, elaborations on—Greek myths: The Song of Achilles (2011, winner of the Orange Prize) and Circe (2018). They are roughly analogous to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey but with clear departures. If people know anything about Achilles, it is most likely that he was a hero in the Trojan War. And, indeed, a good part of Miller’s Song of Achilles takes place during that war. Despite the title, the book’s main character is Patroclus, not Achilles. Readers may remember Patroclus as a minor character in Homer’s Iliad, known as Achilles’ trusted friend. Miller’s telling of their lives starts when they are both young boys. Achilles is a demi-god, fated to become Aristos Achaion: the best of the Greeks. He is handsome, lithe, and as talented with the lyre as he is with the sword. Patroclus, conversely, is a pudgy youth, awkward, striving to find what he might be good at. In a word, Patroclus is unnoticeable. But Achilles notices him—and falls in love with him. Song of Achilles is a tale of war, yes, but it is mostly a poignant story of young lovers discovering themselves and each other. In the end, Miller’s book does not celebrate heroes; it celebrates the fumbling, fallible humanity of Patroclus, and all of us. Although Song of Achilles is markedly different from the Iliad, it does follow the same narrative arc. Circe, on the other hand, intersects with Homer’s Odyssey much less often and less neatly. If readers know anything about the minor goddess Circe, it is probably that Odysseus spent time on her island while traveling home from the Trojan war. Homer’s story is about him; Circe is but a chapter in his journey. For Miller, Circe is the main character: an immortal witch involved in many different stories from Greek mythology, some familiar and some created anew. When I had read roughly one-third of the book, I felt as if I were at the end of a narrative. Miller had successfully woven Circe into the myths of Daedalus and the Minotaur, and had seemingly concluded. I wondered what could possibly fill up the next 285 pages. In the middle of the book, Miller delivered another episode of Circe’s millennia-long life, this time paralleling Homer’s familiar tale, ending with Odysseus leaving her island. Now two-thirds of the way through the book, I feared a 100-page long denouement. Not so: Miller conjured up a creative sequel to the Odyssey, starring Circe and Odysseus’ wife Penelope. Circe’s greatest strength is its greatest weakness: it is three stories (more, really) in one. In the most interesting part of the book, Miller fabricates a female-centered myth, pitting mortal Penelope, magical Circe, and the Goddess Athena against one another. I recommend these books to readers who know Greek mythology well: you will nod at unexplained allusions, surely, and enjoy the backstories Miller paints for some of the most beloved myths. I recommend these books equally to those who could not name one Greek god or hero. These books stand on their own: they are tales of love, heartache, aging, parenthood, and pride. While the characters are fanciful and ancient, their stories are our stories. Read, and recognize yourself."