A Man Called Ove

Fredrik Backman

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman is a feel-good story about an elderly curmudgeon with a heart of gold.

Ove is a widower who has just been forced into retirement. His rigid adherence to a code of rules alienates many of those who interact with him. He is grumpy and intolerant of just about everything, including rule-breakers, young people, children, incompetents, pets, technology, and owners of foreign cars. His wife, Sonja, with her cheerful and compassionate spirit, used to balance him out and keep his grumpiness in check. But now she is deceased, and Ove misses her with a passion. He revisits his life with Sonja in a series of very touching flashbacks.

Depressed and lonely, Ove repeatedly tries to kill himself to join his beloved Sonja in the afterlife. But life has a habit of getting in the way. Initially, interruptions come in the form of new neighbors—a young man, his indomitable Iranian-born pregnant wife, and their two young daughters. Ove finds himself sucked into their lives. Before long, he also finds himself mired in the lives of others: his neighbors and former close friends; one of his wife’s former students; a young, gay man estranged from his father; and others. He saves the life of a man who falls on the tracks of an approaching train and reluctantly becomes a local celebrity. No matter how hard he tries, Ove can never manage to get the deed done until, finally, he gives up completely. He recognizes he is needed and loved by those around him. Meanwhile, those he has helped appreciate that under the gruff, rough exterior beats a tender heart of gold.

This is a light, feel-good novel peppered with a lot of humor. We can’t help but laugh as we hear Ove ranting and raving about all manner of things. His portrayal is realistic and relatable. The characters are authentic and uniquely drawn. The novel moves at a brisk pace, interspersed with scenes of hilarity. And although the outcome is predictable, this is an enjoyable and entertaining read that celebrates life and the importance of community.

Betty Boo

Claudia Pineiro; translated by Miranda France

Betty Boo by Claudia Pineiro, translated from the Spanish by Miranda France, is a crime novel with a twist. The novel opens with a cleaning lady entering an exclusive gated community and country club in Buenos Aires. Her employer is a wealthy businessman. Much to her horror, she finds him with his throat slit. He has died in the same manner and is in the same chair where his wife’s body was discovered three years before. The murder fuels a range of theories, not least of which is that this is a revenge killing since he is a suspect in his wife’s murder.

Enter Nurit Iscar, nicknamed Betty Boo because she shares the same black curls as the cartoon character, Betty Boop. Nurit is an investigative reporter, turned novelist, turned reporter. She is hired by her former lover, the editor of the newspaper, El Tribuno, to write background features on the case. Her employer sets up accommodations for her to live in the gated community so she can be close to the action.

Nurit teams up with two reporters from El Tribuno—a seasoned crime reporter who has since been demoted to the society pages, and a young trainee assigned to the crime pages, known only as Crime Boy. Working together, the three of them unearth a series of linked murders, all of which relate to a crime committed years before. Their discovery of the culprit leads to more questions than answers.

Pineiro’s style poses an initial challenge due to its lengthy, page-long paragraphs; dialogues with no quotation marks; shifts from introspection to vocalization, and from one character to another. But it doesn’t take long to become familiar with her style. Perseverance is amply rewarded because the novel has much to recommend it. The narrative moves at a brisk pace. The characters are multi-generational, well-rounded, unique, and relatable. This is especially true of Nurit Iscar and her three spirited female friends. Conversations are interesting and ring true to the characters’ ages. But the real strength of the novel lies in the narrative voice, which is engaging, funny, confident, and thoroughly entertaining. Pineiro has a unique way of creating the impression of simultaneity by shifting between different characters and scenes with words such as, “While this is happening . . .” and then switching to a different character or scene. This technique speeds up the action and layers the narrative, giving it a cinematic feel.

Although this is a crime novel, the crime component is not overriding. The narrative is replete with digressions and opinions on various issues, including dating; the effects of aging on the human body; a satire on gated communities and their mind-numbing security arrangements; the need for journalists to tell the truth; the internet; second chances, especially for the middle-aged; and various other observations about life.

Is it a crime novel? Yes. But it is more than that. The writing, characterization, and pacing make it highly entertaining and more than simply a novel about a crime.

Enuma Elish: The Babylonian Epic of Creation

Johannes Haubold, Sophus Helle, Enrique Jimenez, and Selena Winsom

Enuma Elish, eds. Haubold, Helle, and others, inaugurates the groundbreaking series of the Library of Babylonian Literature. The aim of the series is to make Babylonian literature accessible to a wider audience.

The volume is in three parts. Part 1 is an introduction to the Enuma Elish which provides a general overview of the epic and highlights some of the points to be explored later in the volume. Part 2 is a transcription of the text with a translation on the facing page. Variations in translation and gaps in the material are signaled in extensive footnotes. The transcription and translation are based on the electronic Babylonian literature (eBL) platform which hosts other Akkadian texts. Part 3 consists of a selection of critical essays by leading scholars in the field. These essays offer an extensive exploration of different aspects of the epic, including its historical context; the historical and current reception of the epic; textual and gendered analysis; literary and cultural significance; intertextual resonance; diction, rhythm, and style; connection with Babylonian astronomy; major themes; and various interpretative approaches. Each essay is followed by suggestions for further reading and an extensive bibliography.

The volume is illuminating, inspiring, and breath-taking. The translation, highlighting as it does the multi-layered meanings of some of the words, is eye-opening. Each essay in the anthology deconstructs the epic, opening it up to new readings and understandings. The quality of scholarship is of the highest order with each scholar building on the work of previous scholarship and grounding his/her in-depth analysis and interpretation on historical context and the words in the text. The notes, suggestions for further reading, and extensive bibliographies are indispensable.

This brilliant, groundbreaking work will serve as an indispensable resource to those seeking to explore the literature, culture, and mythos of Mesopotamia. Very highly recommended.

Heat Wave

Penelope Lively

Heat Wave by Penelope Lively is the story of two infidelities a generation apart.

Pauline Carter, in her mid-50s, is a copy editor. She spends her summers in a cottage in rural Oxfordshire. She is joined by her daughter, Teresa; Teresa’s husband, Maurice; and Luke, their 15-month-old baby. Maurice is working on a book about the tourist industry and spending the summer at the cottage to avoid distractions while writing. Pauline lives on one side of the cottage and Teresa and Maurice on the other. Because they share a garden and some living space, Pauline has ample opportunity to observe her daughter. She witnesses Teresa’s overwhelming love for Maurice—how her face lights up when she sees him and how she hangs on his every word. Teresa’s unequivocal devotion to her husband troubles Pauline because she recognizes her younger self in Teresa—how she was once equally passionate about her former husband until she could no longer tolerate his repeated infidelities.

Pauline’s concern for Teresa is compounded when Maurice’s editor and his girlfriend visit them at the cottage. Her suspicions are aroused when she observes Maurice’s interaction with the girlfriend and recognizes the signs of a potential adultery. Maurice’s behavior conjures up painful memories of her former husband’s infidelities. The past bleeds into the present with the two men becoming interchangeable in her mind. Powerless to protect her daughter, Pauline watches, waits, and remembers, all the while achingly aware her daughter will experience the pain of betrayal. She wonders how much—if anything—to reveal to her daughter. When Teresa eventually becomes cognizant of her husband’s adultery, she confides in her mother. The gut-wrenching pain she experiences resonates with Pauline. All comes to a head at the end of the novel with a resounding crash.

The tension builds up slowly and is powerfully executed. Pauline’s flashbacks concerning her husband’s adulterous relationships increase the tension as she observes identical mannerisms and behaviors in her son-in-law. The dual time frames serve to enhance one another and accentuate Pauline’s concern for Teresa as she recalls her own pain. The tension is mitigated by eloquent descriptions of nature. Pauline keeps her windows open and frequently looks out to describe the landscape as it goes through its seasonal changes, blue skies, and sunbaked drought conditions. The descriptions are lyrical and capture the sights, sounds, and smells of the rural environment in the heat of summer.

Characterization is one of the major strengths of the novel. Penelope Lively effectively and efficiently draws her characters, giving each a unique and well-rounded identity. She has an uncanny understanding of human nature and demonstrates an ability to capture the essence of a character through a simple gesture, a look, a raised eyebrow, or a pregnant silence. Even her descriptions of the toddler as he waddles from one place to another effectively enable the reader to see the world through his eyes and experience his sense of wonderment.

A wonderful novel, highly recommended for its eloquent descriptions of nature, its astute characterizations, and its subtle execution of a powerful punch.

The Gathering

Anne Enright

Winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize, The Gathering by Anne Enright opens with Veronica Hegarty receiving news of the suicide of her brother, Liam. In first-person voice, Veronica dips in and out of the past and the present as she struggles to come to terms with her brother’s suicide. She is one of nine surviving siblings.

The setting is Ireland. The technique is stream of consciousness. Veronica is tasked with retrieving her brother’s body from Brighton for burial in Dublin. She reminisces about the past, providing snippets of information about growing up in a noisy Irish household bursting at the seams with children. In order to understand Liam’s suicide, she delves further back into the past, even fabricating an elaborate scenario of her grandmother’s courtship and marriage to the man who was to become her grandfather. In the process, she includes a profile of Lamb Nugent, a man who was in love with her grandmother and who frequently visited her grandparents. Half way into the novel, we are told she witnesses a scene (or thinks she did) between Nugent and Liam at her grandparents’ home. Her memory is foggy because she is eight years old at the time. But she hovers around the scene, wondering if the impact of what may have happened on that day eventually drove Liam to suicide. She feels she owes it to Liam to understand his action and to acknowledge his past struggles.

Liam’s death serves as the catalyst for Veronica to explore her childhood and to articulate the tensions she feels in her role as a wife and a mother. She is unflinchingly honest and can be harsh in describing her relationship with her husband and two young daughters. When her siblings emerge from different corners of the globe to gather in their mother’s home for Liam’s funeral, she scrutinizes them under a microscope. Their communication is stymied by a fierce determination to project the appearance of normalcy and by a desire to shelter their mother from hurt. So much of how Veronica views her siblings is derived from how she saw them as children.

Veronica’s reminiscences illustrate the problems with memory. She recalls an event and then back pedals to suggest it didn’t actually happen that way, or maybe it happened somewhere else or to someone else, or maybe it’s just possible that it did happen the way she recalls. Her struggle to understand the present by examining the past is on shaky grounds, at best. There is too much ambiguity for any definitive answers.

The novel stitches together bits and pieces of memory, imagined histories, reflections on the present, and attempts to deconstruct the past. The writing effectively draws the reader into Veronica’s interiority as she hobbles toward an understanding of what, how, and why the present is the way it is. In the process, Enright provides a powerful portrait of a large Irish family with its bonds and encumbrances that both link and distance family members from one another.

The Year of the Hare

Arto Paasilinna

The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna, an international bestseller, is the story of a middle-aged man who drops out of civilization to romp through rural Finland accompanied by a hare.

Vitanen, a journalist, is on assignment with a photographer. They are traveling down a rural road in Finland when a hare jumps across the street. The photographer slams on the car breaks but it’s too late. The hare is wounded and hobbles in to the woods. Vitanen goes looking for it. He finds the injured hare, cradles it in his arms, looks around the forest, and decides he does not want to return to his unfulfilling life in Helsinki. He walks deeper into the forest. His adventures begin, unfolding in a meandering narrative, episodic in nature.

Spending a year roaming through the rural areas of Finland, Vitanen bounces from one encounter to the next, from one temporary job to the next. All the while, he keeps traveling, mostly on foot. Many of the people he meets befriend him and his hare. They offer him food, shelter, and temporary employment. They behave as if it is the most natural thing in the world to meet a man who has dropped out of society, choosing to traipse around Finland with a hare as his best friend. Many of the adventures land Vitanen in absurd situations. Some of his encounters are designed to poke fun at bureaucracy while others show the hypocrisy of those in positions of authority. Throughout all this, Vitanen emerges as remarkably resilient and adaptable. He is kind, generous, and compassionate. Above all, he is devoted to the well-being of his hare.

Vitanen’s child-like innocence and his meandering through the forests of Finland sets up a contrast between the life-enhancing freedom of choosing one’s own path in life or conforming to society’s life-denying, restrictive precepts. This quirky novel with its quirky protagonist is a refreshing celebration of personal freedom, an unstructured life style, a refusal to submit societal norms, and a connection with nature in all its beauty.

The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett

Annie Lyons

The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons opens with eighty-five-year-old Eudora Honeysett having reached a momentous decision. With no surviving relatives and experiencing the aches and pains that come with an aging body, Eudora decides she wants to die on her own terms. Accordingly, she contacts an agency in Switzerland that specializes in assisted suicides. She has to fill out forms, overcome various hurdles, and pass protocols before the agency agrees to assist her. As Eudora works through meeting their requirements, new neighbors move in next door–a young couple with their ten-year-old daughter, Rose.

Rose is a vibrant, inquisitive, rumbunctious, and chattering ball of energy with a penchant for clothing in loud, mismatched colors. Reluctantly, Eudora finds herself swept up in the whirlwind that is Rose. That the curmudgeonly Eudora can form a wonderful friendship with a precocious ten-year-old is surprising and delightful. Their circle of two expands to a circle of three when Rose invites Stanley, an elderly neighbor, to join in their activities.

Eudora’s anti-social behavior and cynicism are explained in the vivid flashbacks describing her childhood and early adult years, all of which are interspersed throughout the novel. Her father dies in World War II. Left alone with her mother and baby sister, she feels a responsibility beyond her years to nurture her mother and sister and to act as a buffer in their contentious relationship. After her sister’s betrayal, Eudora becomes the sole caretaker of their mother, remaining single all her life and sacrificing own happiness for her mother. She harbors guilt for what happens to her sister. She feels unloved, unloving, and redundant. That is, until Rose explodes into her life.

All the characters have depth and are well rounded. Underneath her crotchety mannerisms, Eudora has a heart of gold. She is drawn with empathy and compassion. Stanley, having recently lost his wife, is sentimental and prone to fits of tears. The rumbunctious Rose, with her exuberance and persistence and unbridled joy, embraces them in her circle of love. Her talent for drawing them into fun activities serves to rejuvenate her elderly friends. The trio’s camaraderie brings out the best in all. The dialogue is witty, vibrant, and full of relatable moments. Rose is especially delightful with her incessant comments and questions and stubborn refusal to take no for an answer.

This tale of intergenerational friendships illustrates the comfort to be derived from meaningful relationships. It is a heart-warming, wonderful celebration of life and shows how love can be found even in the most unexpected places.

The Last Bookshop in London

Madeline Martin

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin tells the story of Grace Bennett who arrives in London with her friend, Viv, just before the outbreak of WWII. The two women live with Mrs. Weatherford, the best friend of Grace’s deceased mother. Viv gets a job as a salesgirl in Harrods, and with the intervention of Mrs. Weatherford, Grace works as an assistant in a London bookshop.

When war breaks out, Viv leaves her job to volunteer for the war effort. Grace continues her work at the bookshop. She dusts and cleans the shop, organizes the books, advertises, and exhibits attractive window displays. Her efforts result in an increase in sales and customers and the appreciation of the bookstore owner.

Grace had never been a reader. But when an attractive male customer visits the bookstore and encourages here to experience the magic of reading, she takes his advice and becomes an avid reader. The two embark on a series of letters after he is called up to serve in the RAF. Grace volunteers as an ARP (Air Raid Precautions) warden when war breaks out, witnessing first-hand the devastation and death caused by the German bombing of London during the Blitz. But through it all, she continues to read, eventually providing solace and comfort by reading aloud to the masses in the London underground station huddled there to escape the bombing. She soon garners a slew of devoted followers who attend her readings in the bookstore and in the London underground. When the bookstore is hit by a bomb, Grace’s loyal followers help her pick up the pieces and re-open the bookstore. Grace inherits the bookstore from its owner after his death and is reunited with her boyfriend at the end of the war.

The strength of the novel lies in its depiction of London during the Blitz. The food rations, blackouts, air raid sirens, crowds rushing for safety in the underground, bombed out businesses and homes, dismembered bodies, grief over the loss of loved ones, and the psychological and emotional impact of war is evoked in detail. But the novel is weak in characterization. Grace Bennett is a cliché. She has no depth. She is depicted as always good, always generous, always compassionate. She doesn’t have a mean-spirited fiber in her body. The people she interacts with, even the curmudgeonly types, eventually become kind spirits because they recognize her goodness. She is just too sugary sweet to be true. The remaining characters are equally flat, showing little growth. And the ending is predictable.

The ability of books to provide solace and comfort and a much-needed respite when times are rough is handled well, as is the description of London during the Blitz. But the characters suffer from an unfortunate lack of depth and nuance, detracting from the overall impact of the novel.

A Summons to Memphis

Peter Taylor

A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor opens when forty-nine-year-old Philip Carver, living in Manhattan, receives phone calls from each of his two-middle-aged, unmarried sisters urgently summoning him home to Memphis. Their eighty-one-year-old father has decided to re-marry and Philip’s presence is required to prevent their father from making what his daughters consider a fatal mistake. Philip decides to fly to Memphis although he is unsure of what to do when he gets there.

The novel unfolds in the first-person voice of Philip, the youngest son of an upper-class Tennessee family. His narrative alternates between flashbacks and the present. The focal point of the flashbacks is Philip’s father, George Carver. A successful lawyer with an admirable sense of style, George uproots his family from Nashville to Memphis after he is almost ruined financially by his friend and business associate. The move traumatizes the family, especially the children. Philip’s brother, George Jr., enlists and is killed in World War II. His mother becomes an invalid, seldom emerging from bed before her death. Betsy and Josephine, his two sisters, never marry thanks to their father’s rejection of all their suitors. And after his father sabotages Philip’s own attempt to wed the love of his life, Philip gets as far away from his family as he can by moving to Manhattan.

Philip’s rotating timelines are his attempt to understand his past and his relationship with his father. Through letters from his sisters and his best friend, he is informed about his father’s current activities. He is summoned to Memphis twice by his sisters—once to prevent their father’s marriage and another time to thwart his reunion with his former friend. Gradually, Philip comes to realize his sisters are stunted in their development and consumed with spite and resentment toward their father. They inflict a fierce vengeance on him. They embarrass him through their behavior and manner of dressing, ridicule him publicly, prevent his marriage, and curtail his movements. This is all done with the pretext of caring for him. Philip observes this, but rather than confronting either his sisters or his father, he abandons them and catches the flight back to Manhattan.

The novel explores familial relationships and the alienation adults may feel from their family and the culture they were raised in but have since outgrown. Now a middle-aged man, Philip struggles to understand the impact their domineering father has had on his life and the lives of his sisters. His feelings toward his father are conflicted, fluctuating between feelings of abandonment, long-buried resentment, hostility, admiration, and respect. Through regular phone calls just before his father’s death, Philip succeeds in forging a reconciliation of sorts.

Ultimately, however, Philip’s versions of what happened and the impact it has had on him and his family is riddled with contradictions and speculation. The irony is that even though he thinks he has distanced himself from his past, he is trapped in it. His process to make sense of the past is not entirely satisfactory. Perhaps that is the point. Perhaps no matter how many times Philip—or we—circle around past events, we can never truly understand our parents, their choices, or the extent of their influence on our choices and lifestyles. Perhaps, like Philip Carver, the most we can hope for is some modicum of acceptance and reconciliation.

The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story

Mark Helprin

The Oceans and the Stars by Mark Helprin tells the exploits of Stephen Rensselaer, a Navy captain nearing the end of his accomplished career. Called upon to speak in front of the president of the United States, Rensselaer annoys the president by brazenly defending a new type of warship. The president humiliates him by assigning him to command this prototype warship, the Athena. Rensselaer recognizes this assignment for what it is—a demotion. But he takes it in stride and embraces the challenge.

His adventures unfold when he is deployed to the Middle East, sinks an Iranian battle ship, and rescues tourists on a French cruise ship who have been captured by Isis-affiliated Somalis. But before any of this transpires, he meets and falls in love with Katy Farrar, a lawyer whose given name is Penelope. Rensselaer’s determination to overcome challenges and to return to his beloved “Penelope” sets up the obvious comparison with Odysseus.

The story line is interesting and can be exciting, at times. But the narrative gets bogged down with excessive technical information about military equipment, Athena’s navigation and structure, and how she differs from other ships in her class. These technical descriptions are tedious and can go on for several pages.

The novel suffers from weak characterization. Although men are more fully developed than the few female characters, their dialogue is unnatural and stiff. This is especially true of Rensselaer who tries too hard to sound erudite, comes across as pompous, and seems intent to baffle his crew with his literary allusions. The few women who are mentioned, including Katy, are described almost exclusively by their ravishing appearance. They are all so beautiful that men can’t help fawning all over them.

And, finally, the existence of rampant stereotyping is troublesome. The navy men suffer from a strong dose of male machismo, and the bad guys are described in such a way as to fuel Arab stereotypes. They are barbaric, undisciplined, savage, uncouth, and smell badly. There is no ambiguity or nuance in their portrayal. The lines of conflict are clearly drawn and depicted as a case of angels versus devils; good versus evil. This is unrealistic because in the real world, conflicts can seldom be so simply and so clearly delineated.

In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing

Elena Ferrante; trans. Ann Goldstein

In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein, is a collection of four essays originally presented as lectures in which Ferrante discusses her views on writing and the various authors who influenced her evolution as a writer. Ferrante describes how she desperately tried to write within the margins as a child. The act of writing in the margins becomes a metaphor for the tension in her own writing between adherence to constraints versus the desire to break free from those restraints.

Ferrante argues that a writer’s choice of genre can act as a restraint. She urges writers not to be limited by the constraints of a genre. Rather, she encourages them to disrupt it since it is through disruption that writing can become powerful and unique. She seeks to disrupt anticipated character development, saying of her characters, “I become passionate about them when they say one thing and do the opposite.” She insists writing should show life as it is in all its settled, unsettled, and conflicting glory.

Ferrante also explores male dominance in writing and how men frequently use language to circumscribe women and prevent them from speaking in their own voices. She describes her personal struggles to find her own voice from under the barrage of male writers she read earlier in her development. Her foray into gendered writing leads her to consider the challenges faced by women writers. She encourages women to write their own version of truth, to share and reflect on their stories with other women, and to become a cultural and political force in their own right.

The essays are not so much a how-to on writing good literature. They are more of an outline of what Ferrante learned about writing. She refers to some of her own novels and how she struggled with and formulated the characters. Insisting that all writing is built on one’s reading of great literature, Ferrante cites the words of several authors and credits them with influencing her approach to writing.

These essays offer insight into Ferrante’s craft and will appeal to fans of her novels.

Devil in a Blue Dress

Walter Mosley

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley takes place in 1948 in Los Angeles. Ezekial (Easy) Rawlins, a black war veteran, has just been fired from his job for defying his white boss. Worried about making his mortgage payments, he agrees to take on a job for a white gangster. His assignment, for which he is handsomely paid, is to find Daphne Monet, a beautiful young blond woman known to frequent black jazz clubs. As a black man, Easy has access to these bars and begins asking questions. He soon discovers he is not the only one trying to locate Daphne. The hunt is on to find her before anyone else does. He is joined by his former partner, Mouse. Along the way, several people are murdered, and Easy is hauled in for questioning by the police. But he and Mouse emerge from the ordeal relatively unscathed and a little richer. Easy announces his intention to embark on a new career path—that of a private investigator.

The crime novel unfolds in the first-person voice of Easy. His voice is fresh, original, and engaging. He takes the reader on jaunts to jazz bars and barber shops, from Watts to Beverly Hills, and from the underworld of Los Angeles to the world of the shady rich and famous. He interacts with black and white gangsters, is fast-talking, knows what to say and what to hold back. Easy comes close to losing his life but manages to survive thanks to a bit of luck and to the quick actions of his gun-carrying side-kick, Mouse.

This fast-paced narrative leads up to the climactic confrontation between Easy and Daphne. The dialogue is authentic. The atmosphere of post-WWII America is realistically infused with racial tensions. The novel is peopled with colorful characters ranging from the femme fatale Daphne, to the bartender Joppy, to the alluring Coretta, to the steely-eyed DeWitt, to the loose cannon Mouse, and to the solid Odell. Weaving them together is Easy, the quick-thinking, smooth-talking reluctant detective who searches for answers by plying his friends with drinks.

This is a quick and enjoyable read that immerses the reader in the gangster world of the late 1940s Los Angeles.

Hum

Helen Phillips

Hum by Helen Phillips is set in a bleak future when climate change has caused irreparable damage to the environment and when technology intrudes into every aspect of lives. The novel focuses on May Webb and her family. Recently unemployed, May and her husband are barely able to make financial ends meet for themselves and for their two elementary school children. In desperation, May agrees to submit to an experimental procedure designed to alter her facial features to avoid detection from the ubiquitous presence of surveillance cameras. In exchange, she will receive the equivalent of ten months’ salary.

The novel opens with May undergoing the procedure performed by a smooth-talking, reassuring humanoid robot called a Hum. Her family are initially startled by the changes in her face. Determined that her sacrifice should be meaningful, May splurges on a three-night stay for her family at the Botanical Gardens, a retreat for the very rich, plush with greenery, free-roaming animals, clean water, and fresh air. The Gardens are shielded by high walls that cut them off from the city’s filth, grime, litter, soot, and poor air quality.

The vacation is off to a good start until the children wander off and get lost. Frantic, May solicits help from a Hum to locate them. She gives the Hum permission to send for an emergency search inquiry. And that’s when the situation spirals out of control. The children are found, but a doctored video goes viral. It shows May fast asleep while her children wander around in the dark, barefoot and in tears. May is bombarded with messages accusing her of being a horrendous mother. The nightmare scenario is exacerbated when the Bureau of Family Aid launches an investigation to determine if the children should be taken into custody for their own protection. The family seems to be on the verge of falling apart until a Hum comes to their rescue.

The atmosphere is immersive and unsettling. Dirt and grime flourish in the city. The air is polluted. Tap water is discolored. Animals and plants struggle to survive. News headlines about the dire state of the world, many of which are factual and referenced at the back of the book, blare out in all public spaces. Surveillance cameras proliferate. Hums have taken over the tasks formerly performed by humans. And humans are addicted to their devices. The children interact with and heavily rely on their wrist “bunnies” that monitor their locations and vital signs. And the whole family spends much of its time crawling inside their separate “wooms”—networked isolation chambers that access memories and streaming services, enable one to converse with confidants, and offer an immersive experience.

Phillips incorporates many of life’s current challenges: online shaming; the frustration of talking to machines; the dependence on technology; the proliferation of surveillance; the constant bombardment of commercials; rampant consumerism; and the invasion of privacy. In the midst of a world spinning out of control, Phillips shows the how the love between family members can serve as an anchor of stability, and how technology can both create and resolve a crisis.

A thoughtful and provocative cautionary tale urging serious consideration of the limits we should place in our reliance on and use of technology.  

The Coin

Yasmin Zaher

The Coin by Yasmin Zaher unfolds in the first-person voice of a wealthy Palestinian woman who remains unnamed. She has inherited millions from her parents but has to rely on her brother to dole out her monthly allowance as dictated by her father’s will. She lives in New York and teaches at a middle school for underprivileged boys.

Obsessed with cleanliness, the narrator describes in minute detail her daily routine for scrubbing her body, including all its orifices. She claims her obsession with cleanliness was probably instilled by Palestinian women who scrubbed and cleaned their homes because they had very little control over other aspects of their lives. She spends a lot of time cleaning her home and even makes the students help her clean the classroom.

She has a long-term boyfriend but doesn’t live with him, valuing her independence. She befriends a man she refers to as “Trenchcoat,” who embroils her in a pyramid scheme of reselling Birkin handbags. She is generous with her students, taking them on field trips, buying them burgers, and dropping $20.00 bills in the classroom for them to find and keep. She is always stylishly dressed, making a point of naming each item of designer clothing she wears. She walks down the streets of New York, proud of her appearance. But underneath this veneer of confidence, she is untethered and spirals out of control.

The story line is non-linear and chaotic. The narrator’s leaps from one event to another lack cohesion. She is adept at lying and fabricating images of herself and her background to others with no explanation as to why she feels the need to do this. Threaded throughout her narrative are flashbacks of her Palestinian home, talks with her grandmother, her grandmother’s once beautiful garden in Palestine, and her grandfather’s broken heart at losing his home in Palestine. All of this leads us to the coin, the title of the novel.

The narrator is convinced that she swallowed a coin when she was a child. The coin never leaves her body and lodges itself in her back. No matter how hard she tries to dislodge it, no matter how hard she scrubs, she can never get rid of it. She is aware of it inside her body, claims she can feel its physical presence, refers to it as “you,” and addresses it in her monologue. The coin comes to manifest the inherited trauma of a dispossessed population. She has ingested the trauma which has become an integral and permanent part of her psyche. It never leaves her, impacting her thoughts, behavior, and self-image. As she says to the coin: “You’ll come with me everywhere I go, I said to you, we have no choice.”

In controlled prose and in series of disparate threads woven together in short vignettes, Zaher takes us inside the mind of a woman who is dispossessed, deprived of a homeland, cut off from her culture and traditions, set adrift and untethered in a foreign land, conscious of her outsider status, culturally estranged, and harboring a deep yearning to belong. The style is hypnotic; the narrative, absorbing; the conclusion, shocking. The trajectory of the narrator’s descent into erratic, disturbing behavior is moving, haunting, and cleverly executed.

Entitlement

Rumaan Alam

Entitlement by Rumaan Alam is the story of Brooke, a 33-year-old black woman who quits her career as a teacher and takes a position as an assistant to 83-year-old Asher Jaffee, a billionaire who wants to distribute his money to support causes that make a difference to people’s lives. The novel investigates the corrupting influence of money and explores the issues of race, identity, class, and white privilege.

Asher tasks Brooke with finding some worthwhile community causes that can benefit from an injection of his funds. Brooke embraces the task with relish. Her research leads her to a community school that teaches dance to inner city school children. Much to her surprise, she has an uphill battle to convince the school to accept Asher’s money. Meanwhile, Asher has taken in interest in Brooke. He calls her his protégé. He exposes her to his exorbitantly affluent lifestyle, taking her all over town in his chauffeur-driven Bentley to eat in expensive restaurants, attend meetings with foundations soliciting his funds, and show off his home away from home New York apartment.

When Asher drops several hundred thousand dollars to purchase a painting for his wife’s birthday on Brooke’s advice, Brooke becomes heady with the seeming power she yields over him. She goes down the precipitous path of feeling she is entitled to some of Asher’s money. She purchases expensive clothes and charges it to the foundation. She sets her heart on an apartment and forges a signature to exaggerate her salary for a mortgage application. She becomes alienated from family and from friends she has known since childhood. She skips a close relative’s memorial service without remorse.

From an idealist who wants to do good into someone who is willing to lie, cheat, and abandon friends and family in pursuit of a life-style she can ill afford, Brooke’s transformation is complete. She feels entitled to Asher’s money, convincing herself that he wouldn’t even feel its absence if he bought her an apartment. Her proposition to Asher at the end of the book shows just how far she has fallen. Her exposure to so much wealth seduces her into believing she is entitled to a share of it, confusing what she wants with what she must have and what she thinks she deserves. As her wealthy billionaire mentor, Asher is partly responsible for her downfall because he is oblivious to the impact exposure to so much wealth can have on an impressionable young woman.

Alam’s style of writing is jarring with choppy sentences, fragments, and unsettling shifts in perspectives. A shortcoming of the book is its portrayal of characters, which are flat and border on caricature. They are not well-rounded and come across as mouthpieces for articulating platitudes. Brooke is in an ideal position to critique the social implications of so much wealth and the motives behind affluent liberalism. But she fails to do so. Instead, she gets sucked into the maelstrom of wanting more for herself. Although her interiority and transformation are not convincing, the novel is to be commended for its exploration of the potentially corrupting influence of excessive wealth.

The Lion Women of Tehran

Marjan Kamali

The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali opens in the 1950s. It tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two young girls growing up in Iran at a time of political turbulence, revolution, war, and civil strife.

The story unfolds primarily in the voice of Ellie who, at the age of seven, meets and befriends Homa. The two become inseparable until Ellie’s mother remarries and relocates to a different part of town. The friends reunite when Homa is admitted to Ellie’s elite high school. Although their friendship rekindles, the two girls are very different, harboring very different aspirations. Ellie falls in love and looks forward to marriage. Homa wants to become a judge and is politically active and outspoken in her opposition to the Shah’s oppressive rule. She is incarcerated, raped, and is six months pregnant before being released from prison.

The friends don’t reconnect until many years later. By this time, Ellie has escaped much of the political turmoil in Iran. She lives in America with her Iranian-born husband who is now a university professor. Homa, whose daughter is now a teenager, is, once again, politically active. This time her opposition is to the Muslim fundamentalist government that seeks to crush women’s freedom. Her commitment to human rights, especially the rights of women, is unwavering.

Moving at a brisk pace, the novel immerses the reader in decades of Iran’s history and culture. Against the backdrop of Ellie’s and Homa’s friendship is the political upheaval in Iran with the fall of the Shah, regime change following the Iranian revolution, the ascendance of Muslim clerics, the Iran-Iraq war, persecution, and civil unrest defying the Fundamentalists restrictions placed on women. Threaded throughout are frequent references to Iranian food, traditions, beliefs, hairstyles, and clothing. The challenges of assimilation that immigrants face is explored through Ellie and, later, through Homa’s daughter, Bahar. The novel ends in 2022 with Ellie and Bahar celebrating a birthday while Homa is back in Iran leading a demonstration in support of women’s rights.

As the narrator, Ellie is probably the least interesting character. She is naïve to a fault, superficial, and seems totally oblivious to the reality of what is happening in the world around her. Her focus during her high school years is on her appearance, clothing, popularity, and marriage. Meanwhile, dissidents to the Shah’s regime are being incarcerated, tortured, and killed. But in spite of her naivete, Ellie is well-meaning and has a good heart. She struggles with the guilt of unwittingly putting her friend’s life in danger. When given the opportunity to make amends with Homa, she does so unhesitatingly.

The novel’s strength lies in its immersion of Iranian culture and recent history. It’s portrayal of the vicissitudes in the lifelong friendship between Ellie and Homa is well-executed. But the novel is weakened by its lackluster point of view. It may have been strengthened by telling it through the point of view of Homa, a far more interesting and vibrant character.

Glorious Exploits

Ferdia Lennon

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon is set in Syracuse, Sicily, in 412 BCE. The Athenians have been thwarted in their attempts to invade the island. Although many Athenians escaped, many thousands were captured as prisoners. Because Syracuse had no structures large enough to house that many Athenian prisoners, it was decided to entrap them in a rock quarry, deprive them of food, and bind them with chains with no hope of escape. The intent was to eventually starve them to death.

Along come two intrepid Syracuse potters, Lampo and Gelon. Their love for Greek theatre, especially Euripides’ Medea, spur them to hatch a seemingly preposterous plan—to put on a performance of the play in the quarry using the Athenian prisoners as their actors. From the emaciated prisoners, they select those who know how to act and who are familiar with the play. Using food and wine as incentives, they convince them to participate in the production. Rehearsals begin. Our plucky directors persuade a wealthy trader to fund the project. They commission elaborate costumes and scenery and solicit a bevy of children to run errands. At the suggestion of one of the Athenian actors, they decide to make it a double billing and include a performance of Euripides’ The Trojan Women. On opening day, the Athenian audience shows up in droves to view the performance. All goes according to plan—until it doesn’t.

The novel unfolds in the first-person voice of Lampo, a delightful and likeable narrator. His narrative voice sparkles with life. His unmistakable Irish vernacular would be quite at home in a contemporary Irish novel. He is funny, poignant, sensitive, compassionate, moving, and profoundly loyal. His friendship with Gelon stems from their childhood and a shared love for Greek literature. But the two could not be more different. Their relationship echoes that of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Gelon is the dreamer. Despondent over the death of his son and missing wife, he wants to escape his sorrows through literature. Lampo is earthy, practical, and willing to ride on the coattails of Gelon’s vision. Their banter is the stuff of comedy.

The novel clips along at a face pace. The setting is immersive; the imagery, effective. The diction is so convincing and immediate that it’s as if the action unfolds before our eyes. Peppered throughout are phrases from Homer and a couple of subplots.

The main theme of the novel is the power of art to potentially heal former enemies. Lampo and Gelon form relationships with the Athenian prisoners, learn their back stories, their pain, their losses, and their suffering. Former enemies connect with one another and recognize their shared humanity through the vehicle of art. Of course, not everyone in Syracuse shares that sentiment or can transcend the anger and hatred felt for those responsible for killing family and friends. But Euripides, whose plays give voice to the oppressed and marginalized, and who attempted to warn of the dangers of cruelty and lack of compassion, may be smiling in his grave to find a 21st century novel using the performance of one of his plays as the vehicle to transcend the hatred felt by former enemies.

Kudos to Ferdia Lennon for this his debut novel. It was engaging, funny, brilliantly imaginative, entertaining, original, well-executed, poignant, and harboring a profoundly important message.

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

Atul Gawande

Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande is a collection of essays exploring the knowns and unknowns of medicine. The collection is divided into three categories: Fallibility, Mystery, and Uncertainty.

Dr. Gawande writes with honesty and compassion about medicine. Especially in the case of surgery, he reveals much of learning takes place by trial and error. The more practice a surgeon has, the better he/she becomes at performing a surgery. Although mistakes can be made in the process of learning, studies show that repetition and practice make perfect. We are reminded doctors are not machines. Just like the rest of us, they are human beings and, therefore, apt to make mistakes. But without hands-on experience, a surgeon cannot be expected to improve.

Included are essays on the following: cases which baffle doctors, for example, a patient suffering from debilitating pain for which there is no identifiable cause; graphic detail of what happens in the operating theatre; the weird sensation of cutting open human flesh; mistakes surgeons have made; and split-second decisions that have to be made by doctors and/or patients. A recurring theme is that not all medical problems can be addressed with text book answers.

In language that is engaging and clear, Dr. Gawande demystifies medicine. He shows it to be based on a combination of science, learned knowledge, practice, experience, educated guess-work, and, sometimes, a good old fashioned gut feeling. His frank account reveals the limits of medicine as a science. Although we are learning more about the human body with each passing day, there is still much that remains a mystery. Gawande is refreshingly honest and humble about medicine and how far it can take us. After all, as his subtitle tells us, it is an imperfect science. Imperfect it may very well be, but for better or worse, that’s all we’ve got to go on.

The Swan's Nest

Laura McNeal

The Swan’s Nest by Laura McNeal is a historical novel based on the clandestine love affair between Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning.

The novel opens in 1845 when Robert Browning sends a letter to Elizabeth declaring his love for her and for her work. Because she is an invalid, Elizabeth seldom receives visitors and is too fragile to leave home, especially during the cold winter months. The two poets begin a frenzied correspondence which lasts several months before they are able to meet face-to-face. Their subsequent meetings and correspondences cement their mutual love, respect, and admiration for one another’s creative output. Robert proposes marriage and offers to take Elizabeth to Pisa where the climate is more suitable for her health. She hesitates because she knows her father will object to her marrying a poet with insufficient means to support her. Eventually, Elizabeth accepts Robert’s proposal and the two marry in secret, after which they escape to France and then to Italy. Elizabeth is subsequently disowned by her father. The novel concludes with the two lovers in Italy on route to their final destination.

To write the novel, McNeal performed extensive research on the two poets, their backgrounds, their correspondences, their love affair, and their journey from England to France and Italy. In prose that is compelling and persuasive, she captures the tender love and mutual admiration the pair feel for one another. Browning emerges as a devoted lover and husband, passionate about his wife, and totally committed to her well-being. Elizabeth emerges as equally devoted to him. But she is also plagued with guilt about losing her father’s trust in her and abandoning her siblings to his autocratic mindset.

McNeal weaves threads of England’s legacy of slavery and exploitation in the novel. The Barretts profited from the indigenous labor on their sugar plantation in Jamaica. Sam, one of Elizabeth’s brothers, fathered a child with Mary Ann Hawthorne, a formerly enslaved Jamaican woman. After Sam’s death of a tropical fever, Mary Ann brings their son to England, requesting his grandfather provide an education for the boy. But her request is rebuffed by the Barrett patriarch and she returns to Jamaica. McNeal also highlights the difficulties encountered by the females in the Barrett and Browning families whose lives, choices, and movements are circumscribed by social and patriarchal precepts that are designed to keep them cloistered, weak, and dependent.

McNeal tells a beautiful love story of two kindred spirits who share an enduring passion for one another and who mutually admire and support one another’s work. Her language is lyrical; her narrative, compelling; her execution, accomplished; and her characters, authentic and drawn with sensitivity. A love story for the ages, lovingly rendered.

They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

Hanif Abdurraqib

In They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, Hanif Abduraqqib tackles American culture through the prism of music. His analysis forms a lens on what it means to be black in modern America. He focuses on the significance, message, band members, and historical and political context of rap music. Weaving in and out of his discussion are personal details of his upbringing, family, friends, and neighborhood. He includes insights about Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, Nina Simone, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Marvin Gaye.

What may seem like a disparate collection of essays about a variety of different topics coalesces around the theme of struggling to survive in a culture that frequently demands silence and invisibility of its black population and perpetrates violence against black bodies. Abdurraqib writes with urgency, sincerity, and passion. There is a breathless quality to his writing, as if he is rushing to get his thoughts on paper. Music is his vessel through which he feels and processes what is happening around him. It serves as a reminder of who he is, where he came from, whom he loved, and whom he lost.

Abdurraqib’s navigates effortlessly from music to life and/or death. Each informs the other in an intertwining dance. In one breath, he describes what it’s like to be the only black audience member in a Bruce Springsteen concert before he transitions to visiting the grave of Michael Brown. His writing is suffused with genuine heartache at the suffering of those caught at the intersection of race, class, and gender. He eulogizes young black lives cut short by racial violence. He speaks of being a Muslim and of prejudice against Muslims, especially after 9/11. Some essays are more poignant than others; some encapsulate moments of joy in an otherwise bleak environment—moments that carry us forward and give us hope to continue. All essays contain nuggets of piercing insight of what it means to be black in America. And all are in diction that is eloquent, lyrical, and moving.

Hanif Abdurraqib is not only a sensitive and astute critic of culture. He is a gifted writer whose prose captures the rhythm, lyricism, and intensity of poetry.