Short Takes: "Days of Distraction," by Alexandra Chang, and "All Adults Here," by Emma Straub

I am reading (even) more than ever during these pandemic stay-at-home times, and getting behind with posting on what I have read. I don’t always post on every book I read, even in ordinary times, but I want to at least briefly mention the two that I write about today, because I recommend each of them to your attention. First is Alexandra Chang’s novel “Days of Distraction” (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2020), in which a young Chinese-American woman writer in Silicon Valley impulsively decides to move to upstate New York with her boyfriend. There she feels somewhat adrift, but makes some realizations about herself and her gender and ethnicity. I initially was attracted to the part about Silicon Valley (just south of where I live in Marin County and work in San Francisco), but soon was drawn into the story with all its low-key but important daily events and thoughts and new understandings. Chang is an excellent writer, and one cannot help getting caught up in her main character’s story. Next is “All Adults Here” (Riverhead, 2020), by Emma Straub, author of “The Vacationers,” which I wrote about here on 6/8/14, and of “Modern Lovers.” In all three of these novels, Straub writes about families, lovers, and relationships. She often focuses, as she does in this latest novel, on relationships among parents, adult children, and grandchildren. The story is deceptively breezy at times, but then we see some of the darker undertones of the relationships. Interestingly, a New York Times review of Straub’s earlier work compares her work to that of Anne Tyler (“All the pleasure of Anne Tyler’s compelling family portraits”), whose most recent novel I posted about a few days ago, on 6/14/20. I would not have thought of that comparison, and I think the younger writer Straub is excellent but not at Anne Tyler’s level (yet, at least). Still, there is something related in both authors’ preoccupation with, and uncanny understanding of, families and generations and their complex interactions.

"Lost and Wanted," by Nell Freudenberger

I almost didn’t read Nell Freudenberger’s novel, “Lost and Wanted” (Vintage, 2019), because the reviews and cover copy indicated that it had some spiritual-ish, semi-science fiction-ish aspects. Those who know my reading tastes know that I tend (with exceptions) to dislike and avoid both of these aspects/genres. However, something drew me to read the book anyway, and I am glad I did. The aspects mentioned above are embedded in a much broader context and story, where they make sense. In fact, the main character, Helen, is a professor of physics, and is very rational in her thinking. How she deals with what appears to be irrational and supernatural, in the time period after her best friend Charlie’s death, is the crux of this novel. But of course the true focuses are the friendship, the grappling with what a friendship means, and the coming to terms with grief and the finality of death. The novel also addresses romance, marriage, single parenthood, the relationships of young adults with their parents, career paths, and race (Helen is White and Charlie is Black). There is a little too much scientific exposition about physics, astronomy, and related matters for my taste. (I can frame this positively as my complete engagement with the arts and humanities and my comparatively lesser interest in science, or I can less positively but probably more accurately admit a kind of ignorance about such areas as physics.) This is an intelligent, thoughtful and engaging novel. For me, it was also a reminder that I should not dismiss too easily fiction that seems that it will be a little different than what I usually tend to read. In the case of “Lost and Wanted,” it had all the focus on relationships among family members and friends that I could ask for. And as for the other parts: well, it is good for me to stretch my reading choices.

"Redhead by the Side of the Road," by Anne Tyler

There are certain writers whose latest work I will always look for and read as soon as possible after it is published. These authors include, but are far from limited to, Anne Enright, Jane Gardam, Penelope Lively, Alice Munro, Lori Ostlund, Ann Patchett, Anne Raeff, Richard Russo, Zadie Smith, Colm Toibin, Kate Walbert, and Meg Wolitzer. Another, and the one I focus on today, is the wonderful Anne Tyler; I believe I have read, admired, and enjoyed every one of her twenty-two published novels. Highlights include “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant,” “The Accidental Tourist,” “The Amateur Marriage,” “Digging to America” (which I twice taught), and “A Spool of Blue Thread”; I have posted here on several of these. I have just read her newest novel, “Redhead by the Side of the Road” (Knopf, 2020), and it too is excellent. Like most of her novels, it takes place in Baltimore, where she lives. And like most of her novels, the characters are very “ordinary” and down-to-earth (but like all people, more complex than they initially appear). Often not a lot “happens” in Tyler’s novels, and that is true of this one too. The main character, Micah Mortimer, is a middle-aged man with a simple life. He is good to his family, friends, and clients (he has a one-man computer repair service). He likes people, and people like him, but he has trouble connecting in a deeper way. His relationships with women are always pretty good, but somehow the women eventually leave because they feel he is not committed enough, or emotionally available enough. He doesn’t quite understand why they leave, and is rather passive in simply accepting the end of these relationships. Micah reminds me, in his somewhat isolated life, emotional limitations, and passivity, of the main characters in some of Tyler’s earlier novels, including Noah in “Noah’s Compass” (2009). Micah meets some new people and has some new experiences during the course of this new novel; none of these are dramatic, but they ease him toward new insights and new or renewed connections with people. As always with Tyler’s novels, “Redhead by the Side of the Road” is deceptively low-key but very "real" and very satisfying.

"Stray," by Stephanie Danler

I have often, and most recently in the past three months or so, posted here about memoirs of women writers who have dealt with extremely difficult, even traumatic, childhoods and sometimes adulthoods as well. I have just read another such memoir: “Stray” (Knopf, 2020), by Stephanie Danler. Danler is the author of the bestselling novel “Sweetbitter” (about which I posted on 6/8/16), which is about a young woman training in New York City to be a professional in the world of fine dining; although “Sweetbitter” is a novel, it is at least somewhat based on the author’s own experiences. But “Stray” covers a much wider and deeper range of Danler’s difficult life, especially her extremely damaged parents. She, along with her sister, has been greatly scarred by these parents, and has a love/hate relationship (although that oversimplifies her feelings) with each of them. Both are alcoholic and drug-addicted, although they – especially her father after he leaves the family – live an upper middle class life. They both, especially her mother, have extreme health problems, at least partly related to their substance abuse. Fortunately, Danler has other relatives – grandparents and an aunt – who provide more “normal” support and affection. And she has some successes in her own life, both personal and professional. But her own damage causes her to have unhealthy relationships with charming but difficult, unavailable men, including the married lover she calls the “Monster.” This is a harrowing story, with so much pain involved. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but I will just say that her years of therapy and work on herself do help, and do allow her to live a better life by the end of the time period of the memoir.

"Recollections of My Nonexistence," by Rebecca Solnit

The unique writer and activist Rebecca Solnit has just published a fascinating memoir, “Recollections of My Nonexistence” (Viking, 2020). I especially enjoyed her loving and detailed tribute to San Francisco, where she has lived most of her adult life, as have I. In addition, she is a highly original, thoughtful, and inspiring thinker and writer. She has written numerous books and articles. I have always particularly appreciated her attention to gender and feminism, a major topic interwoven throughout this current book. But I have also appreciated and learned from her dedication to engaging with ideas about “nature and landscape and gender and the American West” (p. 146). Solnit always has an original take on a topic, and always makes connections among ideas and experiences in ways that are not obvious. I have read two of her previous books (see my posts of 3/18/11 and 9/10/14 - the latter about the book titled "Men Explain Things To Me," the inspiration for the phrase "mansplaining") as well as many of her essays, and have heard her speak and even briefly met and chatted with her after a talk she gave at my university a few years ago; she is a compelling speaker. She definitely deserves the title of “public intellectual,” although as I write this, I realize that the term is most often by far used about men rather than women, and that the term has certain pompous associations. Still, I want to apply the term to Solnit, meaning it in the best sense of the phrase, and in my very small way, attempting to rescue the term from negative connotations and from sexism.

"Everything is Under Control: A Memoir with Recipes," by Phyllis Grant

Phyllis Grant’s “Everything is Under Control: A Memoir with Recipes” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020) is a small book, and each chapter is made up of a short series of short (usually one to four sentences each) vignettes. This is an unusual but quite effective technique. Grant writes of her life as a dancer at Juilliard, then a chef at prestigious restaurants in New York, then a wife and mother in Berkeley, California. She also writes of her grandparents and her parents, especially her mother. She is candid and generous in writing about problems she has dealt with in her life, especially that of postpartum depression. There is joy too, most notably the joys of family and parenting, and the joys of gathering, creating and eating good food (about which she writes with detailed, vivid appreciation). The last 30 pages of this short book (232 small pages) are given to recipes. As someone who loves going to good restaurants, and who appreciates her husband’s excellent cooking, but seldom cooks herself, I must admit I more or less skipped over this last section. However, rather surprisingly, in this pandemic stay-at-home era I have started occasionally cooking again (as I used to in the early years of my marriage and of raising my daughter). Perhaps one of these days I will try, despite their somewhat complicated nature, some of Grant’s recipes.

"The House of Deep Water," by Jeni McFarland

I admit I was first drawn to “The House of Deep Water” (Putnam, 2020), the debut novel by Jeni McFarland, because it is set in Michigan, where I lived for some years as a high school and college student (many years ago!), and where I continued to visit family and friends for many years after. (I have posted here about going to my late parents’ Michigan lake cottage many summers even long after I had moved to California, and the joys of choosing the books to take for the plane and for reading by the lakeside.) The setting of this novel, in a small town near Kalamazoo, is not anywhere I had lived, but I had been to Kalamazoo and knew people from that area. And there are a few references to Michigan life. But as it turns out, this aspect is not emphasized in the book. Of interest, though, are the social class aspects of the story; social class is a topic I have addressed in my academic research and writing. The small town where the story is set, River Bend, is mostly working class, with residents struggling to get and keep jobs and to make enough money to survive. Within that context, the main focus of the novel is on the complicated relationships among various members of two extended, multi-generational families. One family is white and one is mostly black. But race is only a minor focus. The novel is about the tangles and the troubled yet supportive interconnections among the members of the families. The spine of the story is the return to River Bend by three women family members who were eager to leave the town some years ago, but who are now, separately, either drawn or driven back by their current life circumstances. We learn to know three generations of each of the two main families mentioned above. I was very grateful for the family tree chart at the beginning of the book, and I referred back to it many times while reading. The characters are vividly portrayed. Everyone knows everyone else’s business; even the secrets are often not very secret. The characters are all complex, with various perspectives and quirks; the author isn’t afraid to show some of the characters in a bad light, and yet shows their redeeming qualities as well. There is a fair amount of infidelity within their small circles, and some competition for the attention of one of the characters, Steve, which even the author is puzzled by, as he is unprepossessing (except in a sort of smarmy way), dishonest, often drunk, and completely unreliable. A lot of plot happens; there is constant moving back and forth between the present and the past. In fact, the past is always present in these characters’ lives.