"Sankofa," by Chibundu Onuzo

“Sankofa” (Catapult, 2021), by the British writer Chibundu Onuzo, is a story about identity, family, and culture. Anna, the main character, lives in London and has a white mother and a black African father whom she has never met, and knows very little about. She now has a fraying marriage and a happy but complex relationship with her a loving relationship with her adult daughter. At the beginning of the novel, Anna’s mother, whom she dearly loved, has just died, and Anna has discovered a trunk that contains the diary of her father, Francis. Francis had been a student in London, boarding with Anna’s mother’s family. After Francis’ and Anna’s mother’s brief affair, Francis returned to his small country in Africa, Bamana, and never knew he was a father. After reading Francis’ diary, Anna finds out that Francis, now Kofi, had become the (now former but still powerful) president of Bamana, and was and is both revered and feared. She decides to travel to Bamana to meet him. Things get complicated; I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but I can say that Anna, who had suffered discrimination in London for being mixed-race, and who had had questions about her identity, learns much about her family, her identity, and herself. The novel is compelling as a story, and also addresses important issues about race, colonialism, family, and the compromises that postcolonial governments often have to make.

"Late in the Day," by Tessa Hadley

Tessa Hadley is an English author whose works I have savored and admired over the years (see my posts of 7/12/11, 7/13/11, 12/18/12, 3/12/14, 2/27/16, and 6/5/17). They mostly focus on relationships of various types: romantic, marital, friendship, and more. They are very character-driven. And the writing seems effortless yet perfectly controlled. All of these characteristics are ones that draw me in when reading fiction. “Late in the Day” (Harper, 2019) is a very “Hadley” novel, in that it follows in her “usual” genre (but I do not mean to imply that her books are predictable). The main characters are two couples who have known and been close to each other for many years. These characters are all devastated when one of the four, Zach, dies (this happens at the beginning of the novel, so my telling you is not a spoiler). Alex and Christine and Zach’s widow Lydia support each other, but their histories and a few secrets come back to complicate their changing relationships. The story of these four -- separately and together -- throughout the years is kept from being too hermetic by the inclusion of the stories of their grown children, as well as by consideration of the characters’ work and art. Hadley is excellent in portraying the contradictions and complications present in any relationships, within couples and families, which become even more complex when close friendships and various entanglements enter the picture.

"Skinship," by Yoon Choi

As it turns out, I have read several books by Korean American writers lately. One that I just finished is a collection of short stories titled “Skinship” (Knopf, 2021), by Yoon Choi. Most of the stories are set in the USA, with brief visits to Korea. The main characters are generally either first or second generation immigrants, and there are often painful misunderstandings and tensions between generations, as is true for immigrants from many other countries as well. Many of the stories are written from the point of view of children of immigrants, and of the many, often delicate, sometimes debilitating balancing acts they learn to perform. Their conflicted relationships with their parents are palpably fraught with both pain and tenderness. Of course the same is sometimes true of non-immigrant families, but there are particular cultural, historical, linguistic, and other factors associated with immigration. The stories are suffused with specific, sharply drawn details about language, food, family, expectations, relationships, silences. Although the stories are embedded in “the immigrant experience,” each story has its own identity, and is about, but also about more than, “just” immigrants’ lives and feelings.

The Fiction of English Author Elizabeth Taylor

During difficult times, I often find myself revisiting old friends: authors and books that I have loved and admired greatly, and that I have frequently re-read. One such author whose books I have turned to again lately is the mid-20th century English writer Elizabeth Taylor. I have read and re-read almost all of her fiction, and have written here before (2/23/10, 6/27/15, 7/31/15), highly appreciatively, of her novels and short stories. I just re-read Taylor’s first novel, “At Mrs. Lippincote’s” (1945), and read for the first time her last book, completed while she was dying of cancer, and published posthumously, “Blaming” (1976). I won’t repeat all that I have written about Taylor’s work before, except to say that it is low-key in plot, highly focused on character, especially of women, and meticulously observant of the daily lives, thoughts, and feelings of her characters. Taylor does not shy away from portraying the less admirable aspects of her characters’ thoughts and behaviors, but always makes us understand them. She does not sentimentalize or dramatize, yet we readers are drawn in, mulling over and savoring each passage, each minute revelation.

"Small Pleasures," by Clare Chambers

Being something of an Anglophile, I regret that some fiction published in the UK is not published in the U.S. But when a really good novel published only in the UK makes its way into U.S. book reviews, and/or libraries or bookstores, it feels like a gift. My latest “discovery” of an author is a case in point. Clare Chambers’ 2020 novel, “Small Pleasures” (Weidenfeld and Nicolson) received glowing reviews in several U.S. periodicals. Don’t be put off by the main plot catalyst, that the protagonist, London-based journalist Jean Swinney, is investigating a woman’s claim that her daughter was the result of a virgin birth. I was almost put off myself, reading the reviews that revealed this unlikely plot point. But when I got a copy of the novel, I was completely seduced by the book blurbs (I know, one can't always trust book blurbs, but sometimes they are helpful in getting a general sense of a novel), partly because so many of them made comparisons between Clare Chambers and some of my very favorite authors: Barbara Pym in particular, but also Anita Brookner, Elizabeth Taylor, and Dorothy Whipple. I did read the book, and enjoyed and admired it thoroughly. Plot, character, originality, and the high quality of the writing drew me in. It turned out that “Small Pleasures” was Chambers’ first novel in ten years. Of course I then looked for her earlier novels, which were not easily accessible, but I did find some in my local library and online. The other two I have read so far, “Learning to Swim” (Arrow Books, 1998) and “The Editor’s Wife” (Century, 2007) are also excellent. I will keep looking for more of her fiction.

"By the Book" Column in The New York Times Sunday Book Review

I always thoroughly peruse The New York Times (Sunday) Book Review, and jot down titles that are reviewed there that I want to read, or at least to further investigate. One feature of the NYTBR that is always fun to read, and sometimes surprising, even provocative, is the column “By the Book,” in which an author or other prominent person (scientist, politician, actor, etc.) is interviewed about what she/he reads. Questions usually include, for example, “What books are on your nightstand?”, “What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?”, “Which writers…working today do you admire most?” “How do you organize your books?”, and “Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t?” Naturally I tend to especially like reading the answers of authors that I like and whose work I have read. But I also enjoy pushing my own literary boundaries by reading the replies of authors whose work I have not read, or have read and not particularly liked. I also note the tone of the answers, which is sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes humorous, sometimes charming, sometimes self-deprecating, and sometimes critical and even a little cranky. No matter the tone or content, “By the Book” is consistently rewarding and entertaining.

"What About the Baby?: Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction," by Alice McDermott

Sometimes I am so struck by a book, so thoroughly impressed, and so enchanted, that I put off writing about it here, for fear of not doing it justice. Such is the case with Alice McDermott’s terrific book “What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021). I have thoroughly enjoyed several of McDermott’s novels (e.g., “That Night,” “After This”), so I was drawn to this current book, read it a couple of months ago, and basically fell in love with it. Today I realized that if I put off posting about it any longer, I might just not do it. So although I have lost the immediacy of writing about this book just after I read it, and the clear memory of the specifics therein, now I simply urge any writer or reader of fiction to read this book. It is wise, helpful, entertaining, and full of wonderful advice, personal stories, and beautiful writing. McDermott tells of her own writing experiences, her teaching of writing, her feelings about writing and reading, and much more. Specific authors whom she discusses include (in no particular order) Welty, Faulkner, Woolf, Roth, Cheever, Naylor, James, Olsen, Tolstoy, Melville, Morrison, Nabokov, Porter, Joyce, Hellman, Robinson, Forster, Flaubert, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, O’Connor, Cisneros, and so many more. She is generous with passages from the novels of these and other authors, and her analysis of the passages is precise, insightful, and revelatory. “What About the Baby?” is utterly engaging, and although I know I am not doing it justice here, I again beseech anyone interested in the world of fiction to seek out this book.