Cockroaches

Scholastique Mukasonga; trans. Jordan Stump

Translated from the French by Jordan Stump, Scholastique Mukasonga’s Cockroaches is the author’s first-person account of growing up Tutsi in Hutu-dominated Rwanda.

Mukasonga begins with her childhood in the late 1950s. She was born in her family’s enclosure at Cyanika. She has no memories of her birth place, but she remembers well their home in Nyamata where her family lived in exile. She was raised with a strong sense of community and belonging in a loving home with her parents and siblings eking out a living as best they could with the little they had. A firm, loving bond held the family together in the face of formidable obstacles, with each one willing to risk life and limb to obtain much needed supplies for their survival.

Forced to relocate again, Mukasonga describes how her family lived under the growing threat of violence from soldiers and armed militias who terrorized Tutsis with threats, abuse, rape, torture, mutilation, dismemberment, and death. She is eventually sent to a boarding school where she experiences virulent racism by her Hutu class mates. Ostracized by the majority Hutus, she is constantly reminded of her status as an Inyenzi, a cockroach. She and her few Tutsi classmates escape from the school when Hutus come looking for them. She makes it back to her family only to be told it is no longer safe for her to stay. She escapes to Burundi with her brother, completes her education in social work, and marries a Frenchman. She visits her parents in 1986, after which time she loses contact with them. She later learns they were among nearly 40 of her family members tortured and murdered during the 1994 genocide.

In 2004, Mukasonga visits Rwanda with her husband and two sons. As she passes through familiar landmarks and homes, she names the individuals associated with the locations, providing a personal detail about each person. No one claims to know how her family, friends, and neighbors were killed or where they are buried. To ensure they are not erased, she writes their names in an old notebook to give voice to their existence, to guarantee they will not be forgotten.

I have nothing left of my family and all the others who died in Nyamata but that paper grave.

Using clear, unadorned diction, and written with an unflinching honesty, Mukasonga exposes the horrendous crimes committed against a people. The brutality is hard to stomach. She has understandably been traumatized by the experience and continues to be haunted by the faces of her family. Her very powerful, heart-wrenching memoir serves as a testament to the lives lost during a tragic, shameful, and bleak chapter in human history. It also serves as a painful reminder of how easily human beings can slip into barbarism.

Highly recommended.

A Rising Man

Abir Mukherjee

Abir Mukherjee’s A Rising Man transports us to Calcutta in 1919. The narrative unfolds in the first-person point of view of Captain Sam Wyndham.

Wyndham, recovering from the trauma of World War I and the recent death of his wife, accepts a post to join the Calcutta police force. He barely has time to adjust to his new surroundings when he is tasked with solving the murder of a British senior official. It initially looks like a crime committed by Indian separatists bent on revenge for British occupation of their land. But Wyndham sniffs discrepancies in the theory and decides to conduct a thorough investigation. He is assisted by his trusty Indian police officer, Sergeant ‘Surrender-not’ Banerjee.

Wyndham traverses the labyrinthine streets of Calcutta, piecing together clues that will help him solve the murder. He critiques with humor the palatial buildings of the British authorities and the homes of wealthy British businessmen who have amassed a fortune exploiting Indian resources. He views British declarations of superiority over Indians and their ostensibly moral motives for occupying Indian land with a weary cynicism. His investigation soon has him embroiled in Indian politics, liberation movements, and unseemly characters in the underbelly of the British occupation.

Wyndham is portrayed as a well-rounded character who is not without flaws. He is addicted to opium and occasionally lapses into racist innuendos. He stumbles around, following false leads while investigating the murder. But he desperately tries to adhere to a moral code of justice in spite of formidable obstacles. And he has the foresight to acknowledge the intelligence and invaluable contribution of Sergeant Banerjee in solving the crime. Hopefully, the seeds of their burgeoning friendship will bear fruit in the sequels of the series, especially since Banerjee emerges as one of the most likeable characters. He is astute and a man of moral integrity.

Mukherjee plunges the reader in the palpable atmosphere of an India on the cusp of brewing its revolutionary movements for independence. He weaves historical events and cultural perspectives throughout the narrative with great skill and does not shy away from exposing the hypocrisy, brutality, racism, and exploitative nature of British rule in India. His ability to capture the hustle and bustle of Calcutta, its pungent smells, cacophony of sounds, sweltering heat, and torrential rains is impressive.

Situated in the murky waters of early twentieth-century British colonial rule in India, Mukherjee has written a murder mystery that is compelling, entertaining, and skillfully executed.

Recommended.

The Bird King

G. Willow Wilson

Modeled on the 12th century poem, The Conference of the Birds by the Persian Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar, The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson transports us to the reign of the last sultanate in 1491 just as Grenada is about to fall to Spain. It tells the story of Fatima, a Circassian concubine to the sultan, and her friend Hassan, the palace mapmaker.

The novel starts off strongly with Fatima as a precocious, daring young woman who leads a sheltered life at the palace. She takes risks each time she visits Hassan, putting both their lives in danger. But since it is a well-kept secret in the palace that Hassan is a homosexual, the few people who know about these illicit visits are not concerned. Fatima is aided in her ability to sneak undetected through the palace because of Hassan’s extraordinary gift. He is not only able to make maps of places he has visited; he is also able to draw maps that generate alternative physical structures. He draws tunnels and secret locations that materialize and enable Fatima to visit him without being detected.

When the sultan is forced to surrender to the Spanish forces, he agrees to hand Hassan over to the Inquisition who view him as a sorcerer. Fatima discovers this and she and Hassan escape with the help of the Sultan’s mother and a shape-shifting jinn named Vikram. So far, so good. But then the story loses focus.

What follows in the remaining two-thirds of the novel is a helter-skelter chase where Fatima and Hassan are captured by the forces of the Spanish Inquisition, escape, are captured again, escape, and so on, and so on. They encounter mythical creatures and monsters along the way, witness killings and torture from the Spanish Inquisitors, and experience harrowing escapes. Hassan draws a map to lead the fleeing escapees to Qaf, the mythical land in Farid Ud-Din Attar’s poem, where they hope to find the Bird King.

Unfortunately, this section of the novel drags, is difficult to follow, and tries to do too much. The numerous captures and harrowing escapes become tedious. Confusion abounds. The adventure to find the Bird King gets tangled up in various love interest threads. Jinn appear at pivotal moments to rescue Fatima from near death. So much happens in so many different directions and with so many re-starts that it was difficult to keep track.

The novel promotes a message of tolerance and a celebration of diversity. It illustrates the concept that the manifestations and practices of different faiths should not cause strife among adherents because, ultimately, all faith is rooted in the same belief system. What is needed is tolerance of and respect for others regardless of their particular faith or how they choose to practice it since all faiths are ethnic inflections of a shared origin. It is a pity that such a valuable message got diluted by so many distractions, a seemingly random storyline, and an increasingly and unnecessarily convoluted plot.

Recommended with reservations.

How to Live or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer

Sarah Bakewell

How to Live or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell is a delightful exploration of the life, personality, ideas, and thoughts of Michel Montaigne. Her biography of Montaigne delves in and out of his Essays to extrapolate answers to the nagging question, how should one live?

Bakewell paints a vivid portrait of Montaigne. He emerges as charming, honest-to-a-fault, self-effacing, open-minded, and wise, a man eager to embrace life in all its diversity. His Essays celebrate his uncensored, free-wheeling, and digressive thought patterns. He rebelled against abstract thinking by infusing his writing with intricate detail about apparently nonsensical trivia, as for example, when he pauses to describe how he sees himself through the eyes of his cat or how his dog twitches his ears while asleep. He showed little patience for dogma, eschewed philosophical abstractions, believed in the subjectivity of truth, and advocated for a suspension of judgment and moderation in all aspects of life. No subject was off limits, including bodily functions which he described with unfiltered, concrete detail.

Bakewell traces the reception Montaigne and his work received during his lifetime through to the twentieth-first-century. She aligns various aspects of his thought with those of Classical philosophers while explaining how he deviates from them. By situating him in his historical context, Bakewell is able to demonstrate how Montaigne’s Essays were innovative in style and content. No one had attempted anything like this before. His influence on other writers was prolific. Bakewell argues Montaigne’s writing is so expansive and replete with such ambiguity and after-thought that each generation is able to select what it wants from his work to either celebrate or chastise him.

Each chapter responds differently to the question “how to live” with headings like “Don’t Worry about Death,” “Survive Love and Loss,” “Be Convivial, Live with Others,” “Be Ordinary and Imperfect.” Bakewell’s style is engaging and energetic, sprinkled with funny anecdotes and asides. Her research is extensive and impressive. What so easily could have been a dry biography is, instead, entertaining and informative, covering a broad spectrum of topics: the man, his writings, his influence, his supporters and detractors, and the politically turbulent time in which he lived. The Montaigne who emerges from Bakewell’s biography is a delightful flesh and blood human being with idiosyncrasies and quirks, an innovative thinker, and a man, above all, who celebrates contradictions. To borrow the words of Walt Whitman, Michel Montaigne was a man who contains multitudes.

Highly recommended.

Night Boat to Tangier

Kevin Barry

It takes only a few pages of Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry to begin hearing echoes of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

It is October 2018. Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond are two aging Irish gangsters waiting in a dreary ferry terminal at the Spanish port city of Algeciras. They’re looking for Maurice’s 23-year- old daughter, Dilly. They have heard she will be arriving at the terminal either on a boat from Tangier or heading to Tangier. So they wait. And they wait. They scrutinize the faces of young people at the terminal, hoping to recognize Dilly. They carry flyers of her image, asking people if they have seen her or know of her whereabouts. They descend upon a young man with threatening behaviors and menacing questions. They thwart his every attempt to leave until they doze off and he manages to escape their grasp. Meanwhile, they wait. And they talk. And here lies the beauty of this amazing novel.

The dialogue is remarkable. Maurice and Charlie have been friends—and temporary rivals—for decades. They know each other so well they can virtually complete each other’s thoughts and finish each other’s sentences. Their dialogue snaps and sizzles with shared references and half-formed thoughts. Interspersed throughout their conversations are flashbacks to an earlier time when the men smuggled drugs. Through the flashbacks, we learn of their history of violence, the cause of their rivalry, why Charlie limps, and why Maurice has a bad eye. The vignettes shed light on Maurice’s rocky past and his enterprising but ill-advised attempts to launder money. Above all, what emerges from their conversation is their unshakeable bond of friendship built on decades of shared history and fractured memories.

Kevin Barry can make language soar. He does it through lyrical diction, authentic dialogue, and brilliant metaphors. His prose is peppered with tones of nostalgia and dark humor. This is a riveting tale of two aging men reminiscing about their past loves and lives and many regrets. The toll their criminal past has taken on their lives unfolds with unflinching honesty in poignant, eloquent, and stunning prose. On the one hand, very little happens in this story; on the other hand, everything happens.

It is a testament to Kevin Barry’s remarkable skill as a writer that he is able to transform a lackluster situation—two former gangsters reminiscing on a bench in a ferry terminal—into something breathtaking.

Highly recommended.

The Glass Woman

Caroline Lea

The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea is set in Iceland in 1686 and tells the story of Rósa’s marriage to Jón Eiríksson, the wealthy chief of an isolated settlement. Having lost her father and watching her mother slowly fading away because of illness and starvation, Rósa agrees to marry Jón because he lures her with promises to send food to her mother. She knows his first wife died under mysterious circumstances, but she brushes her suspicions aside and joins her husband in the far-off village of Stykkishólmur.

 Isolated from the people she loves and forbidden by Jón to interact with the locals, Rósa begins to suspect her husband of nefarious deeds. Jón’s refusal to speak of his first wife or the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death serves to fuel her suspicions. And when Rósa hears noises in the locked loft which Jón has forbidden her to enter, her imagination runs amok with thoughts of ghosts, elves, and things that go bump in the night. A supposedly dead first wife, mysterious noises in the loft, the secrecy of Jón’s behavior, his veiled threats toward Rósa, and the ominous warnings the villagers mutter to Rósa about her husband enhance the gothic atmosphere, all of which is reinforced by Rosa’s isolation and virtual imprisonment in the croft.

The novel covers the period from August to December. The narrative unfolds in the third person point of view focusing on Rósa’s thoughts and actions. But about half way through the novel, the third person is intermittently interrupted with Jón’s first-person point of view in which he flashes back to past events. Threaded throughout the narrative are references to Icelandic sagas and superstitions.

One of the most successful qualities of the novel is Lea’s ability to evoke the frigid Iceland winters and life-threatening snow storms. Her descriptions immerse the reader in the hostile, and bone-chilling environment. Life is hard under these conditions, and this hardness is manifested in the villagers. An atmosphere of suspicion, violence, accusations of witchcraft, belief in the power of spells and runes, and a general sense of impending evil permeate village life. With few exceptions, the villagers are far from friendly and neighborly. They are consumed with jealousy, thrive on gossip, vilify those deemed different, and are ready to perpetrate violence at the slightest provocation.

The novel dragged in some parts, and was predictable and repetitive in others—especially in the sections where Rósa bemoans her fate. The shifts in timeline and point of view were jarring and could have been handled with more skill. The switches from one month to the next and back to a previous month were unnecessarily complicated and did little to advance the narrative. But the novel is worth reading primarily because of its ability to generate a rich Icelandic atmosphere.

Recommended with reservations.

Burial Rites

Hannah Kent

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent is based on the true story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last person to be executed for murder in Iceland in 1829. Kent researched the material for many years, pouring over official records, parish archives, census reports, local histories, and publications. Selections from some of these official documents are interspersed between chapters. And while Kent invented some characters or altered their names, others can be found in historical records.

Agnes, found guilty of a brutal double murder, is taken to live in an isolated farm while awaiting execution. The farmer, his wife, and two grown daughters are initially horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer. But as the days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months, they develop an attachment to Agnes. In turn, Agnes learns to trust them and gradually reveals her life story. The family and priest assigned to hear her confession grow increasingly sympathetic toward her until they recognize she is only partially to blame for the murder and does not deserve to be executed.

An illegitimate child born into poverty and abandoned by her mother at a young age, Agnes has had to fend for herself all her life. She is shuffled from one farm to another, first as a foster child and then as a housekeeper. Exploited and unceremoniously tossed out wherever she lives, she eventually agrees to take a position as a housekeeper to Natan Ketilsson, a man she passionately loves. Desperate to believe her feelings are reciprocated, she soon discovers her mistake. Natan is cruel, abusive, manipulative, deceptive, and exploitative. She is accused of murdering him in a jealous rage.

By fleshing out skeletal archival evidence, Kent imaginatively conveys the tragic circumstances surrounding Agnes Magnúsdóttir’s life. The third-person narrative is punctuated with lyrical, haunting passages in which Agnes speaks in the first person. She emerges as an intelligent, literate, sympathetic character, mired in poverty, deprived of affection, and with very limited options available to her as a woman. Her powerful, poignant monologues gush with anger, pain, despair, and loneliness.

The hauntingly beautiful but challenging Iceland landscape serves as the backdrop for Agnes’ story. Kent’s skillful evocation of atmosphere is impressive: Iceland’s bone-chilling winters; the sparse, cramped living conditions; the sights, sounds, and pungent smells of the surroundings; and the arduous manual tasks involved in sustaining a farm. Against this unforgiving climate is a woman awaiting her execution, seething at the injustice of the fate she has been dealt. The tone of impending doom gradually builds up until Agnes’ final days.

Hannah Kent’s treatment of Agnes’ story invites us to ponder the legitimacy of Agnes’ execution. Was justice served in executing her? Or was Agnes a victim of her times? This was a time in which poverty left women with very limited options. Their intelligence and healing skills were viewed with suspicion and fear. Ownership of their sexuality made them vulnerable to slanderous gossip and accusations of moral depravity.

We may never know the complete story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir. But Hannah Kent’s treatment of her invites us to ask the right questions.

Highly recommended.

Salt Houses

Hala Alyan

Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses is the story of three generations of a Palestinian family living in the diaspora. Salma and Hussam Yacoub are forced to leave their home in Jaffa when Israelis occupy their land, hurling burning rags into their orange groves. The family moves to Nablus, and from there the now adult children scatter in different directions—Kuwait City, Amman, Beirut, Paris, and Boston. With each move, they have to rebuild their lives in a foreign city. The narrative progresses in chronological time, spanning several decades. Each chapter advances a few years, signals the new location, and focuses on the perspective of a different family member. Threaded throughout the narrative are flashbacks in time and place.

 The novel opens with Salma on the eve of her youngest daughter’s wedding. The year is 1963 and the city is Nablus. Salma’s husband has already passed away, and her eldest daughter is married and living in Kuwait. As the years unfold, we learn the fate of each of Salma’s children—their evacuation from Nablus; her son killed in an Israeli prison; her youngest daughter, Alia, raising three children with her husband in Kuwait City. We learn the fate of Alia’s three children, each of whom marries. One lives in Amman; the other in Boston; and the third goes to Paris, Boston, and back to Amman after her divorce. The novel ends with Alia suffering from dementia, recalling glimpses of her life in Nablus while she is surrounded by her husband, children, and grandchildren.

 This is primarily a novel about family dynamics—the inter-generational squabbles, tensions, and love that bind a family together, especially in times of crisis. By skillfully weaving in the conflicts in the Middle East from 1963 to 2014, including the 1967 war; the civil war in Lebanon; the Gulf war; and 9/11, Alyan is able to show the disruptive impact these traumatic events have on the lives of ordinary civilians. The political turmoil that triggers each family re-location reinforces the point that children and grandchildren of Palestinian refugees inherit a legacy of homelessness. They are perceived as outsiders wherever they go even while living in an Arab country because they are identified as Palestinians, as not belonging.

 Alyan writes elegant, lyrical prose with language that immerses you in the sights, sounds, and smells of a city. With great poignancy, she portrays the challenges the family faces each time one of them is displaced from a home and has to rebuild in a different country.

 The multiple points of view are handled with great skill. Each character is given a unique perspective and authentic voice. The older generation clings to tradition, culture, and memories, weaving them intricately into their daily lives. These inevitably become diluted as their children scatter all over the globe. Yet, somehow, the grandchildren and great grandchildren retain a sense of their family’s origins.

 Salma yearns for her home in Nablus. Her children inherit that yearning, and her grandchildren and great grandchildren inherit a sense of loss even though they have never been to Nablus. Nostalgia for what has been lost coupled with the trauma of displacement is transmitted through the generations. In 2014, Salma’s great granddaughter, Manar, visits Israel to breathe the air of her family’s homeland and to re-trace her family’s footsteps. The descendants of Salma and Hussam Yacoub are determined to remember.

A compelling narrative, skillfully rendered, and highly recommended.

The Housekeeper and Professor

Yoko Ogawa; trans. Stephen Snyder

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder, is a quiet, charming novel about the unlikely friendship that develops between a housekeeper, her son, and a professor.

 The novel opens with the housekeeper preparing to face her new assignment. She is hired to take care of a brilliant math professor with a short-term memory of only eighty minutes, a disability caused by a traumatic head injury. Each morning as she shows up at his doorstep, she has to remind him who she is and has to begin their relationship anew. But she is an astute housekeeper and gradually learns to accommodate. She assists him with his memory loss by helping him posts notes on his person to help him remember.

 Although his short-term memory spans only eighty minutes, the professor’s brain retains knowledge of mathematics and the passion and exuberance he feels for it. His enthusiasm for the elegance of mathematic equations and his ability to draw connections and discern the beauty in numbers is contagious. Soon the housekeeper and her ten-year-old son are captivated by the professor’s prodigious knowledge and his extraordinary abilities to draw mathematical connections between the mundane and the spiritual. Their friendship is strengthened by a shared love for baseball.

The relationship is mutually beneficial. The professor instils in them an appreciation for numbers and for the ability of math to impose logic and order in an otherwise chaotic world. In turn, they adjust to his quirky mannerisms and disability with sensitivity and affection, taking care to shelter him from the harsh reality of his memory loss. The three form a strong bond that continues for many years until the professor’s death.

The novel is replete with equations, numbers, theorems, baseball, and baseball statistics. These will resonate with aficionados of math and baseball, but you don’t have to know about either to appreciate the beauty and simplicity of the novel since it is primarily a delightfully quiet and charming story about an unlikely friendship that blossoms into love.

The professor is kind and showers the housekeeper’s child with attention and concern. The child who has never known his real father finds in the professor a surrogate father. The housekeeper finds in the professor a gentle soul who shares a love for her child and who ignites her enthusiasm for the world of numbers. And the professor finds in the housekeeper and her son two people who nurture him and shield him from harm. A single mother, her child, plus a mathematics professor unite to form a loving family—a family the professor would no doubt be able to express in an elegant mathematic equation.

Highly recommended.

Kudos

Rachel Cusk

Kudos by Rachel Cusk is the third and concluding book in her trilogy which began with Outline and Transit. As is the case with the first two books in the trilogy, there is very little action. And just as in the previous novels, Faye narrates in the first-person point of view.

Faye is visiting a couple of European countries to participate in writing conferences and festivals. It begins as it did in Outline with the narrator on an airplane where the passenger in the next seat shares his thoughts. In this instance, the passenger discloses his feelings of being an outsider in his own family before launching into the circumstances surrounding the death of his dog. From there the narrator goes to hotels, conference locations, restaurants, etc. where she interacts with other writers, interviewers, agents, publishers, conference organizers, and various personalities in the literary culture.

And, just as she did in previous novels, the narrator engages in self-erasure. She seldom offers a comment or an opinion. Instead, she listens and records, casting her lens on the individuals she encounters, each of whom embarks on a feat of intimate self-revelation and self-analysis. They share their views on a range of topics including Brexit; failure in marriage; raising children; divorce; custody battles; socially-constructed gendered norms and the struggle to transcend them; the relationship between suffering and works of art; and the changes in literature, the reading public, and the publishing industry. Many of the conversations have in common a “then and now” tenor, in which a character expresses his/her understanding of the circumstances as they happened at the time and how that understanding has now changed. These vignettes are tinged with sadness of things that have been lost. They are fascinating and pregnant with reflections that give one pause about one’s own life and views.

The monologues are akin to a relay. A character reveals intimate details about his/her life and opinions and then passes the baton to another character who enters the scene and proceeds to share his/her opinions. Meanwhile, the narrator observes the physical attributes and mannerisms of each speaker, listens, and records while virtually erasing her presence from the scene. She is an astute observer of human behavior and a sympathetic listener, seldom offering an opinion unless she is asked.

With her carefully constructed prose, Cusk’s slowly draws the reader in to overhear the monologues. This is the same technique she used in the first two novels of the trilogy. And because we are now familiar with it, the novelty of this style of writing doesn’t have quite the same punch as it did when first encountered in Outline. But the vignettes continue to reveal fascinating observations of human behavior.

Toward the end of the novel, one of the speakers describes a church ravaged by fire. She expresses her initial anger that the church still holds the scars of the fire. Then she describes this image:

“But then I noticed,” she said, “that in certain places where statues had obviously been, new lights had been installed which illuminated the empty spaces. These lights,” she said, “had the strange effect of making you see more in the empty space than you would have seen had it been filled with a statue. And so I knew,” she said, “that this spectacle was not the result of some monstrous neglect or misunderstanding but was the work of an artist.”

This striking image is a metaphor for Cusk’s consummate skill as a writer. She erases herself to provide an empty space for others to shed their light on human behavior. It is truly the work of an artist.

Highly recommended.

The Water Dancer

Ta-Nehesi Coates

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a first-person narrative of Hiram Walker, a slave in a Virginia tobacco plantation. His father owns the plantation; his mother is sold after she is captured while attempting to escape. Ripped away from his mother at a young age, Hiram is so traumatized by the experience that his memory of her becomes fragmented and fleeting.

 Selected by his father to live in the large house to serve Maynard, his half-brother and heir to the estate, Hiram is exposed to the lifestyle of wealthy Virginia landowners. He refers to them as Quality and learns to distinguish between the different classes of Quality. He understands the fragility of the structure they have established, as well as their total reliance on slaves (the Tasked) to sustain that lifestyle. When Maynard dies in a drowning accident, Hiram experiences a Conduction—the mysterious ability to transport himself magically across land and water. Eventually Hiram makes a daring escape, only to be captured and brutally tortured. He is rescued and his services enlisted in the underground war to free slaves. His taste of freedom in Philadelphia convinces him to return to the plantation to liberate his surrogate family.

 The novel has a strong opening. Hiram has a vision of his mother dancing on the bridge as he struggles to stay afloat in the water. His half-brother drowns, but Hiram survives the ordeal. The novel holds the reader’s attention until about half-way through when it begins to drag. Characters are introduced but not fully developed. They step in and out of Hiram’s life as accessories that are never fully-fleshed out. The narrative flow is frequently interrupted with pages dedicated to Hiram’s thoughts. These interruptions become repetitive, monotonous, and tedious. The use of Conduction as a plot device infused with magical realism gains prominence as the novel progresses. But the description of what occurs during a Conduction is, perhaps, intentionally confused and confusing, so one is never quite sure what has happened.

There is much to admire in the novel. At times, the language rises to the level of poetry. The graphic description of the brutality of slavery, the gut-wrenching forced separations of family members and the trauma such separation creates is extremely moving. Coates’ exploration of the psychology of the enslaved is insightful. And his exploration of the psychology and internal conflicts of the slaveowner in the shape of Hiram’s guilt-ridden, aging father is sensitively drawn. But the novel would have benefited from a tighter focus, fewer and more fully-developed characters, and less tangential side-stories that contribute little to the narrative.

Recommended.

Kintu

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is a complex novel that tells the story of Uganda through several generations of the descendants of Kintu Kidda. It begins in 1750 when Kintu Kidda unintentionally kills his adopted son. In doing so, he unleashes a curse that haunts his family for generations.

Leaping forward to the 21st century, we are introduced to the many descendants in Kintu’s clan. Each character has a personal story whose life has been impacted by the curse in its varied manifestations. Some are plagued with mental illness; some suffer from depression; some are haunted by ghosts; some are victims of violence; some perpetrate violence; some cling to traditional beliefs; some adopt the religion of the colonizers; some are aware of the curse; others have been intentionally kept in ignorance about their ancestral history in the hope that such ignorance will protect them. The political turmoil of Uganda is seen through their eyes, but it acts as a backdrop to the more prominent drama of the events unfolding in their personal lives.

The novel is divided into six sections, only one of which is told from a woman’s point of view. The final section unites the disparate family threads, gathering clan members in a ritual to rid them of the curse that has plagued them for many generations.

Each section of the novel looks back in time, presenting the character’s childhood, immediate family, and connections with extended family. It is challenging to keep track of who is related to whom and how. To add to the confusion is the large number of descendants; the fluid concept of who is considered a parent, a sibling, a twin, and a cousin; the plethora of adopted children; the multiple names by which a single character is identified; the fluidity of marital relations; and characters who have been introduced but whose connection to the family is not revealed until the final section. As it is, characters get jumbled up in a confusing whirlpool of intersections and interpersonal relationships. A family tree outlining how the characters are related to each other and a listing of their offspring would have gone a long way to alleviate the confusion and make it a more pleasurable read.

One of the more salient aspects of the novel lies in seeing the modifications and distortions Kintu Kidda’s original story undergoes as a result of oral transmission through the generations. His story hovers in the background. The basic outline remains the same, but interpretation of events varies and manifests in various superstitions within the family.

This is a challenging read as disentangling the family connections requires patience. The novel is vast in scope, spanning several generations of a family. Its value lies in providing a glimpse of the Ugandan clan system and in illustrating how individuals within the same clan navigate their survival against the backdrop of cultural traditions and a common ancestry.

Recommended with some reservations.

Thames: The Biography

Peter Ackroyd

Thames: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd charts the history, geography, flora and fauna of the Thames, as well its cultural, industrial, and economic impact on London and Londoners. It paints a vivid portrait of those who made their living on the Thames, by the Thames, or near the Thames.

 Ackroyd’s research is extensive and impressive. He explores the Thames under chapter headings ranging from its role as metaphor; its evolution through the centuries; as a site for the performance of rituals, including baptisms and sacrifices; as an instrument of industrialization and trade; as a source of inspiration for art and literature; as a healer; as a depository for human waste; as a site for pleasure; and as a place of life and death. At various times in its long life and in its various locations, the Thames is described as pristine and full of potential; at other times, it is dark, murky, with an overpowering stench that saturates its surroundings.

Although replete with interesting tidbits about authors and artists and where they lived along the Thames, the biography suffers from choppy writing and a lack of coherent unity. At times it’s as if Ackroyd merely parades names, activities, and/or locations, barely linking them with a unifying theme. The lists alternate with little anecdotes about life and activity on the Thames. Overall, the impression is of a series of research notes hurriedly pasted together. The narrative seems to mosey along, jumping from one point to the next, from one location to the next, and from one time frame to the next.

Ackroyd is so profuse in his admiration for the Thames that he seems to endow it with almost mythic qualities, occasionally elevating it beyond reason. The Thames does have a long and interesting history. It has had a profound effect on the growth of a city. And it is a beautiful river. But it is worthwhile to remember, when all is said and done, it is just a river.

Recommended with reservations.

The Greenhouse

Audur Ava Olafsdottir; trans. Brian FitzGibbon

The Greenhouse by Audur Ava Olafsdottir, translated by Brian FitzGibbon, is a slow-moving, quiet novel about a young man’s coming of age.

The narrative unfolds in the first-person point of view of Arnljótur Thórir (Lobbi), a young man in his early twenties who harbors a passion for gardening, especially roses. The passion was instilled in him by his now deceased mother with whom he shared a special bond. Not fully recovered from her unexpected death in a car accident, Lobbi sets off on a journey to restore a famous rose garden in a monastery in a remote village. The village is never identified by name, but we know it is in a foreign country since Lobbi struggles with learning the language. He leaves behind his father, his mentally challenged twin brother, and his baby daughter conceived with a woman he barely knows and with whom he once had a brief sexual encounter in his parent’s greenhouse.

Lobbi is very introspective, awkward, constantly questions himself and his behaviors, and is painfully self-conscious. Arriving at his destination, he immerses himself in restoring the monastery garden. He is at his most comfortable when surrounded by flowers and when his fingers tunnel in the soil. He barely has time to get acclimatized to his new surroundings and to village life when the mother of his child shows up with baby in hand. They move in with him temporarily, causing him to adjust his daily routine and outlook.

This is a very simple story about the healing power of care-giving and nurturing and about the peace that can come from the performance of simple, daily tasks. The once neglected monastery garden begins to flourish as a result of Lobbi’s efforts. The tenderness and care he showers on the garden extend to his daughter and her mother. Lobbi learns how to care for a totally dependent human being, deriving unexpected satisfaction from his new role as a father. He finds his path in life through working with the soil and through the care-giving and loving relationship he forges with his daughter.

The novel’s pace is slow. Some readers may find it too slow. The progression is subtle. Lobbi’s thoughts are somewhat repetitive; his rationalizations and self-doubt constant to the point of almost becoming tedious. But the novel’s charm lies in its depiction of the power of simple, nurturing tasks that effect an individual’s transformation and growth. From learning to cook meals to teaching his young daughter to walk, Lobbi grows into his new role as a father, a role he embraces with total commitment and from which he derives a sense of peace and fulfillment.

Recommended.

Motherless Brooklyn

Jonathan Lethem

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem is a murder mystery with a twist—a first person narrator with Tourette’s Syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This unlikely hero, Lionel Essrog, unravels the mystery of his mentor’s murder while plagued with rapid and uncontrollable explosions of verbal and physical tics consisting of nonsensical babble, barking, touching, tapping, counting, poking, and, basically, rending asunder the English language. As the first-person narrator, Essrog delivers inside access to a life with Tourette’s. He takes the reader for a raucous ride.

The narrative opens with Lionel as an orphan in St. Vincent’s Home for Boys. Along comes the mysterious Frank Minna who offers Lionel and three other orphans a chance to earn money while running various errands for him. It soon becomes obvious to the boys that their mentor is somehow affiliated with gangsters and the tasks he assigns them are legally suspect.  But, no matter. The boys remain loyal to Frank and grow into adulthood under his mentorship.

When Frank is murdered, Lionel sets himself the task of discovering his murderer. Unable to control his Tourettic compulsions, he, nevertheless, approaches the task systematically. He faces a loaded gun on a few occasions but survives relatively unscathed and somehow manages to cobble together the pieces of the puzzle to unravel the mystery.

Lionel has difficulty communicating with others and calming his mind. He delivers a precise play-by-play of his verbal and physical anomalies as if he were observing a separate entity that just happens to reside inside his body. We witness his inner struggles as he tries to suppress his physical and verbal tics from becoming externally manifest. These details generate understanding for his condition and sympathy for the character whose mind we have come to inhabit. We want him to succeed. Meanwhile, against this ricocheting mental backdrop is his determination to find Frank Minna’s killer.  

Motherless Brooklyn is a solid murder mystery. But Lethem’s most impressive achievement is his compelling portrayal of a narrative voice that reveals the inner workings of the Tourettic mind. In creating a narrator with Tourette’s Syndrome, Jonathan Lethem successfully captures the dilemma of an unfiltered mind that runs helter-skelter in all directions. His ability to do so is uncanny. And he does so with compassion, sensitivity, and humor. We come to know Lionel. And some of us come to like him.

Recommended.

An Artist of the Floating World

Kazuo Ishiguro

An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro takes place a few years after the end of World War II. The narrator is an elderly artist, Masuji Ono. As a young man, Ono was praised for his art, receiving accolades and awards. He worked hard and played hard, spending time with colleagues in the “floating world,” a euphemism for the neighborhood pleasure district. But then Ono shifts focus. Rejecting art portraying ephemeral beauty, he paints propaganda art to promote Japanese imperialist ambitions. Now, as an aging grandfather, he struggles to come to terms with his past and his role in promoting the patriotic fervor that led to Japan’s devastation and loss of life as a result of the war.

The novel is divided into unequal four sections: October 1948, April 1949, November 1949, and June 1950. Ono’s first-person narration is replete with digressions, flashbacks, flashforwards, commentary, and analysis. We learn he lost wife and son in the war. He has two daughters, one of whom is married and has a child; the other is on the verge of getting married.

Ono’s recollections of past events reveal him to be an unreliable narrator since his recollections are at odds with the perceptions of his daughters and acquaintances. His assessment of the past is flawed. His recollections are fuzzy. For example, he seems genuinely surprised when a former pupil rebuffs him. It is only later we learn he had once acted as a police informant and was responsible for the beatings and torture of this same pupil.

His childhood flashbacks reveal the emotional and psychological abuse he experienced at the hands of his father who belittled him if he didn’t conform to rigidly high expectations. His father’s treatment contrasts with Ono’s current treatment of his daughters and grandson. He tolerates their objections, is influenced by their words even though he may disagree with them, and allows them to express their opinions—something his father would never have allowed him to do. He makes serious attempts to adjust to changing times, behaviors, and surroundings while expressing concern about a post war Japan falling increasingly under Western influence.

Ono frequently addresses the reader directly with words such as, “You may remember . . .” It is as if he is reminiscing with an old acquaintance. This generates a tone of intimacy with the reader. We watch with compassion as Ono struggles to come to terms with his past and present circumstances. In the process, he reveals more about himself than he may be aware.

In typical Ishiguro style, there is an undercurrent of something festering beneath the surface. Clues, hints, suggestions of something troubling pepper Ono’s narrative. He emerges as a complex character. On the one hand, he tries to justify his past actions by contextualizing them; on the other hand, he harbors guilt about his involvement in the propaganda machine. He does what most of us do as we age: he looks back on his life with a nostalgic fondness for things that have passed while simultaneously harboring remorse for some of his earlier decisions.

A sensitive portrayal of an elderly man reflecting on his life.

Recommended.

Flights

Olga Tokarczuk; trans. Jennifer Croft

Winner of the 2018 Man Booker International Prize, Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft, can very loosely be considered a novel. It consists of the unnamed narrator’s observations, social commentary, and philosophical reflections on a broad spectrum of topics sandwiched between a series of short, self-contained stories.

The narrator is constantly on the move, changing locations and modes of transportation, all the while observing people and places as she travels. Her interest in human anatomy takes her to museums and other locales where internal organs and external body parts are preserved in jars for all prosperity. She describes at length the various methods of embalming and holds a somewhat morbid fascination with scrutinizing dissected pieces of the human body. Her map of the human body is somehow analogous to the geographical maps appearing periodically throughout the novel, as if suggesting it is only through a detailed mapping of our bodies and our lands can we begin to grasp their meaning.

Her observations are interrupted with seemingly disconnected short stories. In one form or another, the stories deal with people taking flight. A mother and son mysteriously disappear for three days while on vacation. A woman answers a summons by a former lover she hasn’t seen in years to administer the injection to end his suffering. A seventeenth-century anatomist dissects his own severed limb before lapsing into his own private world. A mother spends several nights sleeping on the streets and in trains to avoid going home to her severely disabled son and her non-communicative husband. Chopin’s sister absconds with his heart to give it a proper burial in Poland.

The stories are fascinating, self-contained units. They capture fleeting and fragmentary moments in a life, a small part of a much larger whole. They give the impression of being frozen in time, dissected, and preserved—as if these bits and pieces of lives correspond to the bits and pieces of dissected body parts frozen in jars. The stories are punctuated with the narrator’s ongoing movements as she navigates from one hotel to the next, from one airport to the next, from one train station to the next. Movement and stasis feed off each other. The ephemeral and the permanent form two sides of the same coin.

The structure is complex, much like a patchwork quilt that loosely stitches together disparate pieces to form a whole. Tokarczuk pulls it off brilliantly. She keeps the reader guessing with a narrative alternating between fleeting images of a life frozen in time and the narrator’s constant mobility within which she pauses to observe and comment on body parts preserved in stasis. She leaves it up to the reader to tie the pieces together and to draw conclusions—if any are to be drawn.

A remarkable feat, innovative, original, thought-provoking, and highly recommended.

Transit

Rachel Cusk

Transit by Rachel Cusk, a sequel to her novel, Outline, consists of a series of encounters with various characters who share their personal experiences and stories with the narrator, Faye.

The setting is uncomplicated. Faye, who has moved back to London with her two sons, purchases a council flat in dire need of renovation, and employs builders to fix it up. One by one, she introduces us to a motley crew of characters, each of whom engages in self-revelation. Among those we encounter are the estate agent, the construction workers, her belligerent neighbors, her former boyfriend, her hairdresser, fellow authors at a reading, a couple of her students, a male friend, and her cousin, Lawrence.

Just as she did in Outline (see my review of April 10, 2019), the narrator engages in self-abnegation. All her chapters begin with a different character, as if to minimize her role in the narrative. Each speaker reveals intimate details of his/her life. Faye listens and observes, reporting what she sees and hears without judgment or commentary while absorbing every detail. She intentionally tries to render herself invisible, gradually receding into the background.

Faye employs the Socratic method by drawing people out through a series of questions that frequently begin with the words, “And then I asked . . .” Each seemingly simple question prompts the speaker to probe deeper and deeper into his/her own psyche in search of answers until the words gush out in torrents, unaided and unfiltered. Her form of interrogation allows for nuggets of truth to emerge from their experiences.

The stories have in common the struggle to transition from one relationship to another in an effort to connect. A divorced friend tells her:

There has been a great harvest, he said, of language and information from life, and it may have become the case that the faux-human was growing more substantial and more relational than the original, that there was more tenderness to be had from a machine than from one’s fellow man.

A student reveals his fascination with Saluki dogs who are total in sync with one another:

This idea, of the two dogs sharing the work of reading the hawk, was one he found very appealing. It suggested that the ultimate fulfillment of a conscious being lay not in solitude but in a shared state so intricate and cooperative it might almost be said to represent the entwining of two selves. This notion, of a unitary self being broken down, of consciousness not as an imprisonment in one’s own perceptions but rather as something more intimate and less divided, a universality that could come from shared experience at the highest level . . .

For her part, Faye listens. As she tells her cousin, “I had found out more, I said, by listening than I had ever thought possible.” She allows us a glimpse of her thoughts on those rare occasions when she articulates her views, but she does so in passing—as if they are an aside to the real drama. Her anonymity is deliberate; her self-erasure carefully constructed. She doesn’t even reveal her name until we are almost at the end of the novel.

The technique is fascinating. It positions the narrator as a conduit, a vehicle for transmitting another’s thoughts. And it positions the reader almost as a bystander overhearing a conversation between two people—one of whom coaxes revelations through a series of questions in the manner of a psychiatrist, while the other reveals intimate details of his/her life.

At one point in the novel, Faye says, “. . . it must be interesting to be able to see people without them seeing you.” Her technique allows her to achieve a level of invisibility that is both impressive and fascinating to observe.

This is a brilliant novel, brilliantly executed, innovative, and very highly recommended.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque; trans. A.W. Wheen

Little can be said about All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque that hasn’t already been said. This is understandably considered one of the greatest war novels ever written. Told through the first person point of you of the twenty-year old German soldier, Paul Bäumer, the novel immerses us in the graphic sights, sounds, and stench of World War I as it is fought trench by muddy trench.

Bäumer is an everyman as his experience mirrors the experience of soldiers on all sides of the conflict. We witness the horrors of war through his eyes as he aches with hunger, exhaustion, and fear. We trudge alongside him through the mud and the rain, the sweltering heat and sweat. We hear the cacophonous sounds of exploding shells, guns, and bombs. We watch him struggle to put on his gas mask before he inhales the killer gas. We taste the fear and anxiety in his mouth as he sees severed limbs strewn on the battlefield and witnesses the death of comrades. We feel his alienation as he goes home on leave only to recognize that home and his former life will never be the same again. And we sympathize with his gradual realization of the futility and waste of human life and potential that is war. In the midst of the horror, we experience with him the touching moments of intimacy with comrades and prisoners of war—an intimacy based on a recognition that they are all mere pawns fighting to the death in a war they don’t believe in or understand.

The imagery is vivid, the description is stark, and the view is unflinchingly honest. By describing the experience of war through the eyes of a young recruit, Remarque shines a light on the horrors of war at all times and in all places. This novel is as relevant today as it was when first published in 1929.

Very powerful and highly recommended.

The Other Americans

Laila Lalami

The central event in The Other Americans by Laila Lalami is the fatal hit-and-run of a Moroccan restaurant owner in California. The narrative unfolds through a series of several first-person points of view, including the point of view the dead man, Driss Guerraoui. He is survived by his wife and two daughters. The novel focuses on Nora, his youngest daughter, as she struggles to make sense of her father’s death and of the secret she unearths about his life.

Lalami sustains suspense by a piecemeal revelation of the central event and the characters through their various narrative threads as they shift backward and forward in time and rotate from one voice to another. In the process, the speakers disclose their struggles and challenges. They provide details of their background, their relationships, their connections with each other, their shattered hopes and dreams, and the unrelenting memories of the past that continue to haunt. Gradually, a picture emerges of each speaker and of the events leading up to and including Guerraoui’s death. Sometimes the same event is seen through multiple perspectives, with each perspective providing additional detail, a new piece to the puzzle.

 In addition to the multiple speakers, Lalami addresses multiple themes in the novel—racism, xenophobia, othering, sibling rivalry, family dynamics and secrets, cross-cultural relationships, Iraqi war veterans, PTSD, the precarious position of documented and undocumented immigrants, post 9/11 life for Muslim Americans, adultery, love, drug and alcohol addiction, and alienation—all of which are set within the vicissitudes of small town life.

A panoply of voices illustrates different manifestations of fractured lives. Whether it is the African American female detective who is having to adjust to life in a small town, or an Iraqi war veteran with anger issues, or an immigrant who feels a stranger in a strange world, or a business owner whose business is failing, all the characters experience alienation in one way or another.

Lalami’s strategy of gradually unfolding the various mysteries and secrets piecemeal makes this a compelling read in many ways. But her choice to to cover such a wide range of subjects precludes the possibility of fully developing any one subject. She barely skims the surface before shifting gears. And while the use of multiple voices allows for different points of view, some of the voices sound disconcertingly similar. A few of the backstories proved to be distracting since they weren’t relevant to the main narrative and did little to contribute to its development.

The slow unraveling of layers of truth sustains reader interest. The story, itself, is engaging. But Lalami’s range of issues is, perhaps, too broad, resulting in a diluted focus and weakened narrative threads. Although a worthwhile read, the novel was somewhat disappointing. That may be due, however, to expectations being too high for the author of The Moor’s Account.

Recommended.