"The Nest," by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

I recently (4/7/16) wrote (once again) about enjoying novels about families and their relationships, including family “sagas.” I just read another such novel, mostly about just two generations, titled “The Nest” (HarperCollins, 2016), by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney. This one, a current bestseller, is a bit snarkier than most, and features mostly overly entitled characters. Four siblings have been waiting for years for the disbursement of the trust their parents set up for them, the “nest” of the title, to be received when the youngest sibling turns 40. Just before that time, the oldest, least responsible sibling, Leo, has an accident caused by alcohol and drugs and, ahem, sexual activity while driving. (This last sentence may be the most risqué sentence I have included in this blog over the years….) Leo's mother, who is in charge of the trust and is allowed to make decisions about it up until the time it is disbursed (his father has died), chooses to use a huge chunk of the nest to pay off the young woman who was hurt, as well as Leo’s wife, who immediately makes high financial demands in the course of a divorce case. The other three siblings, all of whom have made unwise financial expenditures and commitments based on their expectations, are angry to find out that their share of "the nest" will be dramatically smaller than they had expected. They try to put pressure on Leo to pay them back (in the past, he had made a lot of money, and they believe he has either money salted away, or the capacity to make more), and he claims he will, but the story becomes complicated. The interesting part is watching the four siblings (and their rather cold and detached mother, as well as various spouses and significant others) interact, with the money issue front and center. Although it doesn’t seem to be true for this mother, the scenario, or any other such scenario involving family money, trusts, inheritances, loans, etc., is one that gives many parents pause, and even nightmares. They want to help their (adult) children, but they also don’t want the money to become a source of contention and division among their progeny. The characters in this story, especially the four main ones, are, to various degrees, self-centered, entitled, whiny, and pathetic, but also very human and sometimes redeemed by flashes of decency and, yes, love. The novel is both entertaining and squirm-inducing, and I never once considered not reading it to the end.

"As Close to Us as Breathing," by Elizabeth Poliner

Readers of this blog have probably figured out that I am easily enticed by family sagas. I just finished a novel that fits in this category: “As Close to Us as Breathing” (Little, Brown, 2016), by Elizabeth Poliner. The family in question is the Leibritskys, who have a cottage on the “Bagel Beach” (Jewish) section of the Woodmont, Connecticut shore. Three sisters have inherited the cottage from their parents, and love to see each other and bring their families there every summer. The women and children are there all week, and the men come on the weekends. The main part of the story happens in 1948, when ethnic and religious groups were still very separate. For example, when one teenaged Jewish character dates an Irish girl, he keeps it from his family because he knows they will consider the relationship completely unacceptable. The story roams back and forth in time, with much family history continuing until the early twenty-first century. The focal point of the story is a terribly tragic event affecting one member of the family and therefore all the family members. The consequences reverberate for years to come, and some changes are irrevocable. The portrayal of this family and this community at this time in history seems very authentic. And the portrayal of the tensions, connections, love, dissension, pain, and comfort associated with this specific family also seem on some level universal. That combination (the specific and the universal) is, of course, what makes the best literature. I admire the way the characters are drawn. I also am interested in the way the book reflects the lives of women during the early second half of the twentieth century. This novel manages to draw on the pleasures of the family novel, the beach novel, the (recent) history novel, the Jewish novel, and the thwarted-romance novel, yet (mostly) not get caught up in the clichés of any of these.

Parnassus Bookstore's "Bright Blue Bookmobile"

What a wonderful idea! Parnassus Books, beloved novelist Ann Patchett’s and Karen Hayes’ co-owned Nashville bookstore (a terrific story in itself) has set up and sent out into the world a “bright blue bookmobile” that will “roam about town, stopping at food truck rallies, farmers’ markets and outside restaurants” (according to Alexandra Alter, New York Times, 3/24/16). Some public library systems have bookmobiles, a great thing for people who cannot easily get to libraries, or who just love the idea of these libraries-on-wheels, but bookstore bookmobiles are a rarity. Besides making books more accessible and increasing sales, the roving library is good advertising for the bookstore. This one carries about 1,000 books, and includes padded blue benches where customers can sit and browse. The New York Times article about Parnassus’ bookmobile also brings us the excellent news that “independent [book]stores are thriving again, after years of decline." This is one more reminder that there is nothing like an independent bookstore. Let’s all keep supporting the ones in our areas, and exploring others when we travel as well.

"Mr. Chartwell," by Rebecca Hunt

In “Mr. Chartwell” (Books on Tape/Random House, 2011, read by Susan Duerden), Rebecca Hunt animates the famous “black dog” (his own words) of depression that Winston Churchill suffered from his whole life. The metaphorical concept here becomes a huge, real, speaking black dog, one whom only a few people can see and hear. The dog haunts Churchill and others, including the other main character of this book, Esther Hammerhans, a librarian at the House of Commons in London. She has lost her beloved husband to suicide, and when the black dog, variously called Mr. Chartwell and Black Mac, comes to stay as a lodger with her, she comes to understand that he had haunted her husband and now wants to move in with her. The rest of the story is about her struggle to resist him, despite his occasional charm and persuasiveness. At one point Esther meets the elderly, about-to-retire Churchill, and they each realize that the other can see and hear the dog; Churchill knows he can now never escape the dog and the depression himself, but he tries to give Esther encouragement and psychological weapons to fight off the dog and the depression while she is still young and before it is too late for her. I have probably told you too much of the plot, but honestly I don’t really recommend the novel, so I don’t feel bad about telling you this much. For one thing, the story is, well, depressing. And second, the dog character is a weird mixture of person and dog, and is rather disgusting at times. The depression-as-an-actual-black-dog is an interesting conceit, the story made for an entertaining-enough listen during a road trip, and of course I enjoy stories of England and especially London. But otherwise I would have had no reason to read the novel, or to urge you to read it.

"The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend," by Katarina Bivald

I always feel a sense of caution when a novel is billed as “HEARTWARMING and utterly CHARMING,” as is “The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend” (Sourcebooks, 2016, translated from the Swedish by Alice Menzies), by Katarina Bivald. And the blurbs on the first page and on the back cover (which I always check when deciding whether to read a book) are mostly by relatively unknown or non-literary writers and reviewers. But the novel is about books, an unlikely bookstore arising out of an unlikely friendship, reluctant readers being turned on to books, small town America, an appealing main character who is in love with books, and --- yes, of course -- an unlikely love affair that encounters obstacles that are overcome with the help of the quirky, lovable townspeople. How could I resist? The writing is competent but not polished, those quirky characters are a bit too charmingly eccentric, and the story is quite predictable. Despite all this, I read the book and enjoyed it. The plot involves a young Swedish woman, Sara, who comes to visit her elderly American pen pal, Amy, in a tiny town in Iowa, called Broken Wheel; the town is -- at least outwardly -- as broken as its too-symbolic name suggests. When she gets there, Sara finds that Amy has just died, but this unusual visitor is welcomed, almost adopted by the local people, and improbably ends up setting up a bookstore with their collective assistance. And then the initially confusing, somewhat star-crossed romance begins, with its faint echoes of Elizabeth and Darcy’s initial misunderstandings. There are a couple of side stories of other romances and connections too. All are just too darn heartwarming for words. And sometimes there is nothing wrong with that.

"The Narrow Door: A Memoir of Friendship," by Paul Lisicky

Paul Lisicky has written a memoir about a very close friend, a longtime lover-then-husband, and his mother, and how he loses all three of them in the 2000s. In “The Narrow Door: A Memoir of Friendship” (Graywolf, 2016), the author mostly focuses on the period of 2007-2010, but with dips into the past. The three stories of his three losses are interwoven, with the stories of his friend and of his husband paramount. Although his stated main focus is on his friendship with the late novelist Denise Gess, with whom he has an unusually close friendship, and although she is an intense, vivid person, I never felt that I could see her clearly. The stories from her illness (cancer), treatment, and death are heartbreaking, but Lisicky himself still seems to be at the center of the stories. It is somehow easier to know Lisicky’s partner, the poet Mark Doty (known only as “M” in this memoir). Their breakup after more than a dozen years is also heartbreaking, and it is surprising that Lisicky, although devastated, seems to take it without much protest, almost as if, having been the junior partner (both age-wise and in professional status) in their relationship for so long, he feels he has no agency, no equality in the relationship or the breakup. In addition to losing the relationship, he loses the life the two have led together, including an apartment in New York and a vacation house, and financial support; he briefly but poignantly states that he has very little money or property himself after the breakup. The third loss, of his mother upon her death, is quieter and less an element in the story, but nevertheless, a real loss as well. Although the author shows us that he has gradually gained professional status, he does not emphasize his own achievements, except to speculate that Denise may have felt a bit left behind, as she had little success after her well-received first novel. Interspersed with these stories (thoughtfully introduced with the year in which each happened, a real aid in understanding the back-and-forth of the episodes) are stories of, and meditations on, natural disasters and climate change. Lisicky seems to have a sincere fascination with, and worry about, these unfortunate natural events, but the passages about them seem a bit too self-consciously to match the storms and disasters in his own life. Undergirding, and sometimes undercutting, the stories of strong connection and terrible loss is a strong current of ambivalence about the three people he has lost. He loves them all, is fiercely connected especially to Denise and M, yet at times rebels against the connections and even, in Denise’s case, is semi-estranged from her for periods of time. Of course these are normal shifts and fluxes in human relationships, but sometimes they appeared unexpectedly. I found this memoir quite compelling, and I am glad I read it. However, I have to admit that at times I felt that the author was somewhat too self-conscious about what he was revealing to readers, and that added a layer of separation or distance that he may or may not have intended.

"Station Eleven," by Emily St. John Mandel

Readers of this blog will know that I have always been completely uninterested in science fiction. OK, I have read a few of Ursula Le Guin’s stories, which are wonderful, and a little more fiction from the genre, including some of the famous utopian and dystopian novels, but overall very little. In fact, I will admit, while acknowledging its place in literature, and that some of it is written at a very literary level, I have been somewhat dismissive of it. (I know, I know…this was highly presumptuous of me.) Recently, during a conversation with my friend J., it came up that I had liked Emily St. John Mandel’s novel “Last Night in Montreal,” (see my post of 11/1/15) but had not read her perhaps more famous novel “Station Eleven” (Knopf, 2014) because it was labeled as science fiction. J. told me that in fact, despite its science fiction aspects, the book was much more than that, and was a compelling book about character, relationships, and choices. Because I trust her judgment, I thought, “Well, I should at least give it a try,” and obtained a copy of the book, thinking I would at least start it and see whether I wanted to continue reading it. Well, J. was right! I was immediately swept up in the novel, and never considered stopping reading it. It is set in the present and the near future, and starts at a Shakespeare performance in Toronto, during which we are introduced to some of the main characters. Soon after, a terrible virus becomes pandemic. The rest of the book tells of the lives of the survivors in a world without infrastructure, electricity, media, etc. The group of people most focused on in the novel forms a traveling combination symphony and theater group, and performs wherever they go. There are some flashbacks to pre-pandemic days, giving us more background about some of the characters. The reason I liked this novel, despite my anti-science fiction preferences, is that the focus is (as J. had told me) still on human behavior, characteristics, and relationships, in a stripped-down version of our modern world. By the way, I am very aware that this is the second recent post in which I have needed to eat some humble pie and acknowledge that I was wrong about my preconceptions about a book. It reminds me of the importance of pushing myself to stretch beyond my immediate responses to hearing about a new book that others are telling me is excellent. Sometimes that first response is right (for me, at least), but I need to give such books more consideration, and maybe at least leaf through them, or read their first couple of chapters, before deciding whether to continue reading them.