The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter

Hazel Gaynor

The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter by Hazel Gaynor, inspired by true events, intertwines two narrative threads one hundred years apart.

The first thread takes place in 1838 in Northumberland, England. It is loosely based on the historical figure of Grace Darling, the daughter of the keeper of Longstone Lighthouse. She courageously sets out on a small boat with her father to rescue survivors of a shipwreck during a fierce storm. Celebrated for her heroism in newspaper articles and portraits, Grace was never comfortable with her new-found fame. She was happiest while living in the cocoon of the isolated lighthouse with her mother and father.

The second thread takes place in 1938. Matilda Emerson from Ireland arrives in Newport, Rhode Island, to stay with Harriet Flaherty, a lighthouse keeper and family relative. Sent there to be far from wagging tongues while she has her baby, she can barely remember the British soldier who fathered her child, the result of a one-night fling. Matilda is descended from Sarah Emmerson, the sole female survivor rescued by Grace and her father after the 1838 shipwreck. She carries with her mementos from Grace and Sarah that have been handed down through the generations of women.

The narrative threads alternate throughout the novel, gradually unfolding in a tapestry that weaves Grace and Matilda in surprising ways. It is a story of unrequited love. It is also a story of the strength, resilience, and courage shown by generations of women who put their lives at risk to save others. The characters are compelling and authentic. Grace, Matilda, and Harriet speak in first person point of view, which establishes a more intimate connection with the reader; the rest of the novel unfolds in third person.

The true strength of the novel lies in Gaynor’s ability to evoke a vivid atmosphere of the sea and its surroundings. The sea comes alive in all its thundering ferocity during storms, with waves pounding on rocks and seashore. The wild winds can be heard; the dampness can be felt as it seeps into the bones of the Darling family huddling together for warmth in the lighthouse; the salty sea air can be tasted as Grace or Matilda walk along the shore collecting shells. The descriptions immerse the reader in the sights, sounds, and smells of life near an ocean. Even the lighthouse comes alive with its creaky floorboards, its winding staircase, its lights, its spectacular view, and its presence as a beacon of hope and security.

The novel was marred somewhat by a far-fetched ending that borders on mushy sentimentality. Otherwise, this is a well-written and engaging historical novel.

Recommended.

Lab Girl

Hope Jahren

The year is 1977. You are a Sitka willow being brutally ravaged by a ferocious attack from tent caterpillars. You frantically load your leaves with caterpillar poison to ward off the attack. You trigger the release of an airborne chemical known as a volatile organic compound (VOC). But you’re overrun with caterpillars and cannot save yourself. Perhaps, just perhaps, you can warn other Sitka willows. But how? Nearby trees are already infested and dying at an alarming rate. You can’t signal distant trees through your roots because they’re too far away. Maybe the VOCs you’ve release into the air can warn other Sitka willows to arm themselves with caterpillar poison. Hurry, before it’s too late! You continue to release VOCs in the hope others can survive. The Sitka willows, too far removed for soil talk, receive the airborne VOCs and arm themselves. By the time the caterpillars get there and nibble on the fresh crop of leaves, their fate is sealed. They eat the poison. They shrivel up and die. The Sitka Willow wins this battle.

The year is 2004. Scientists are able to prove the theory plants and trees communicate with one another through airborne VOCs. Who knew trees not only talk to each other but also have a strong sense of community?

This is just one of the fascinating facts about the natural environment that the award winning geobiologist Hope Jahren describes in Lab Girl. She alternates chapters about the challenges she faced as a female scientist with chapters in which she presents intriguing facts about the natural environment. The chapters are thematically connected. For example, the chapter on plant reproduction is followed by the chapter on meeting her future husband. The chapter on the sacrifice plants make to reproduce (they decrease in mass to repurpose their nutrients toward a new generation of flowers and seeds) is followed by the chapter on her experience with pregnancy. The parallels are intriguing.

Jahren does not shy away from describing intimate details of her life—her childhood in Minnesota; her struggle with mental health; her long-term, deep friendship with Bill Hagopian, her brilliant lab partner; her passion for science to the exclusion of all else in her life; her continuous search for funding; the challenges she faced in launching a science lab at every institution where she was employed; and her love for her husband and son. Her knowledge of the natural environment is educational, compelling, inspiring, and absolutely fascinating. Her writing style is engaging, honest, humorous, and exhibits a refreshing ability to describe complicated natural processes in ways that are accessible and relatable.

In spite of the countless hours, the hard work, and the tremendous sacrifices she makes, what emerges from this wonderful book is the pure joy Jahren experiences at doing what she loves best.

This engaging and delightful book is highly recommended for all who live on planet earth.

The Bookseller of Kabul

Åsne Seierstad, translated by Ingrid Christopher

The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad, translated by Ingrid Christophersen, recounts the four months Seierstad lived with a bookseller and his family in Kabul in 2002 after the fall of the Taliban.

Seierstad is a Norwegian journalist who reported on Afghanistan. In the Forward to the book, she describes her meeting with Sultan Khan, the bookseller, a man passionate about art and literature. He discloses the measures he took to safeguard books from those who sought to destroy them. Seierstad is so taken by him that she asks to be a guest in his home to write a book about his family. He agrees. And so Seierstad settles in for four months in Sultan’s home with his mother, his two wives, and his children.

As a guest in the Sultan family household, Seierstad observes the life of a middle-class Afghan family. Afghanistan’s gender segregation and gendered codes of behavior did not apply to her as a Westerner. Garnering a unique perspective, she is privy to the cloistered lives of Afghan women and attends their women only gatherings while also being able to circulate freely among men.

Seierstad delivers a fascinating glimpse into the daily routines of Afghan women. The chapter Billowing, Fluttering, Winding describes the experience of women in their burkas as they weave through the marketplace, purchasing goods. And the chapter The Smell of Dust vividly describes the relaxed atmosphere in the women-only hammam where women of all ages, shapes, and sizes scrub away Afghanistan’s dirt and dust from one another’s naked bodies. Mostly, though, women’s lives are consumed with the daily grind of fetching water, cooking, cleaning, sweeping, doing laundry, mending clothes, and catering to the needs of male relatives.

Poverty, starvation, bribery, and cruelty are woven into the fabric of life. People resort to tragic and desperate measures to provide food for their starving families. Beggars with broken limbs are ubiquitous. The children go to school in tattered, hand-me-down clothes. Severe beatings are meted out by authority figures, including the male heads of families. And women have exclusive responsibility as standard bearers for family morality. Burdened with maintaining family honor, they suffer brutal repercussions should there be even a hint the honor has been breached. Meanwhile, males are allowed free rein.

Evidence of Afghanistan’s patriarchal structure is on full display. As the male head of the family, Sultan Khan requires and receives unequivocal obedience from family members, including sons. He controls all aspects of their lives and decisions. Women, restricted in movement and opportunity, are treated as commodities to be exploited, bartered, and exchanged.

Seierstad paints a compelling portrait of life in an Afghan family. She aims to erase herself from the picture by reporting on what she sees and hears. But her objectivity occasionally lapses. Instead of reporting, she mediates and interprets. This begs the question of authenticity. How much of what she infers is authentic, and how much is due to her Western lens projecting itself on the situation? Why did she presume to speak for Afghan women? Why not provide them with a platform to speak for themselves?

As an outsider looking in, Seierstad’s perspective diminishes the complex social, economic, and cultural context of a situation. At times her approach is superficial, condescending, patronizing, and judgmental. It occasionally smacks of a critique from a position of privilege. This is unfortunate since it detracts from what would otherwise have been a compelling book.

Recommended with reservations.

The Pagan Lord

Bernard Cornwell

The Pagan Lord, Book 7 of Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Series, continues the adventures of the intrepid warrior, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, as he becomes embroiled in the conflicting factions fighting for control of England during the Middle Ages. This action-packed historical fiction doesn’t disappoint.

In the opening, Uhtred accidentally kills an abbot, disowns his eldest son for becoming a priest, and returns home only to find his hall has been burned down. This sets him on a series of adventures involving sea skirmishes, political intrigue, subterfuge, shifting alliances, harrowing escapes, family feuds, and gory battle scenes. His adventures culminate in a battle of epic proportions.

The novel unfolds in the gritty, coarse, first-person narrative of the aging Uhtred. He emerges as a complex character. A warrior who relishes violent confrontations and unabashedly looks death in the eye, he has no qualms about slashing his enemies and dismembering their body parts. His dream is to regain control of his beloved home in Bebbanburg and live in peace. But he puts his dream on hold. In spite of his rough exterior of grunts, foul language, and the metaphorical chest-thumping and display of male bravado, he operates with his own code of ethics: he will not kill women and children and is a man of his word, committed to doing the honorable thing. It is a testament to Cornwell’s skill as a writer that he is able to portray this hulking hero, an aging and cranky warrior with blood on his hands, with compassion and sympathy.

But where Cornwell excels is in his immersive depiction of battles. The climactic battle explodes with thrilling detail. Armies line up in formation as the battle lines are drawn. Men hurl taunts and insults across the shield walls as they prepare to advance. The deafening sound of pounding metals can be heard as swords and shields clash. Dismembered body parts litter the battle field. The smell of sweat, blood, and fear mingle with the stench of filthy, mud-splattered bodies. Cornwell’s very effective use of descriptive details and vigorous verbs thrust the reader into the chaos of battle.

A well-researched and immersive historical fiction that successfully recreates a turbulent period in the history of England. Highly recommended.

The Forty Rules of Love

Elif Shafak

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak weaves two interlocking narrative threads. The first thread involves Ella Rubenstein, a bored, married housewife and mother of three children, living in a Massachusetts suburb. The year is 2008. Ella, who has recently taken on a position at a literary agency, has been assigned to read and report on a novel by Aziz Zahara. His novel, Sweet Blasphemy, introduces the second thread which takes place in the thirteenth-century and is based on the relationship between the Sufi mystic, Shams of Tabriz, and the famous Persian poet, Rumi. The novel alternates between these two threads.

The Ella sections reveal Ella’s state of mind. She is forty years old, has been married for twenty years, and is unhappy. She is aware of her husband’s infidelities and for reasons that are never made clear, she chooses to ignore them and go on with her life as if nothing is wrong. Somehow, her reading of Sweet Blasphemy awakens in her feelings of frustration with her life. She longs for connection and begins an email correspondence with Aziz, the author of the novel.

The second thread includes the voices of multiple characters, all of whom speak in the first-person. They include Shams, Rumi, Rumi’s wife, his two sons, and several outcasts from society, including a prostitute, a drunk, a zealot, a killer, and a leper. Shams’ interaction with various characters allows him the opportunity to articulate the rules of love associated with Sufi mysticism. It is a result of his influence on Rumi that the latter begins writing the poetry that has made him famous.

The two threads run along parallel lines. Ella is so captivated by Shams’ rules of love that she becomes increasingly disenchanted with her life, eventually deciding to abandon it altogether and follow her heart by being with Aziz. And Rumi is so captivated by Shams’ teaching that he abandons his former life as a well-respected cleric to become a Sufi mystic and an advocate of love without boundaries, all of which find expression in his timeless poetry.

Unfortunately, the novel fails on many levels. The characters are flat and unbelievable. Ella’s story smacks of a soap opera—a bored, unhappy housewife finds love with a globe-trotting man representing all things associated with the exoticism of the East, and, uncharacteristically, she dashes off into the sunset to be with him. The characters speak in clichés and American slang--even those set in the 13th Century. They all sound alike. The language is pedestrian; the dialogue flat. Sufi mysticism is reduced to the appearance of parlor tricks and a pre-packaged, lackluster, and superficial spouting of its basic tenets.

Disappointing.

How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

Bart Ehrman

In How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee, Bart Ehrman traces how Jesus, a humble preacher from Nazareth, came to be worshipped as God.

Ehrman argues that Jesus came to be recontextualized at different times and in different places by different followers, all of whom promoted a different theological agenda. He places the historical Jesus in the context of his time and conducts textual analysis of relevant documents, including the Old and New Testament. His aim is to show how a belief in the divinity of Jesus evolved through the manipulation of texts during the early history of the church.

Beginning with what he labels Exaltation Christologies, Ehrman argues it was a belief in the resurrection of Jesus—based on visionary experiences—that initially led followers to believe Jesus had risen to heaven to sit at the right hand of God as his Son. This transitions to the Incarnation Christologies, the view that Jesus was not a human who was raised to the level of divinity but was a preexistent divine being with God before he came to earth as a human. Ehrman then traces the development of these various Christologies, their offshoots, their arguments and conclusions, their leading proponents and opponents. Aspects of some Christologies later evolved into what is now considered the orthodox (“right”) line while others were deemed “heresies” (false). Ehrman shows how inconsistencies and contradictions in the Gospels and in the writings of Paul are addressed by later theologians who selectively focused on different sections of a text in an attempt to reconcile inconsistencies, support their theology, and arrive at what they deemed to be a more coherent doctrine.

Ehrman provides ample textual evidence for his argument. His extensive research and knowledge of the material is impressive. He examines each assumption by placing it in its historical, cultural, and textual context to determine the likelihood of its actual occurrence. By doing so, he calls into question many of the basic tenets of today’s Christianity. He eschews theological debates and is careful to state at the outset that he is not taking a position on the question of Jesus’ divinity. As he says, “I do not take a stand on the theological question of Jesus’ divine status. I am instead interested in the historical development that led to the affirmation that he is God.”

This is a fascinating, well-researched, and thoroughly documented study. The language is engaging and accessible with touches of humor throughout. It is highly recommended for those interested in biblical research and in the historical development of Christianity.

Will and Testament

Vigdis Hjorth; translated by Charlotte Barslund

Will and Testament by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund, is the first-person narrative of Bergljot, a woman in her fifties who has been estranged from her family for over two decades. An inheritance dispute and the death of her father forces Bergljot to interact with her family. Every interaction with them dredges up memories of the past as Bergljot struggles to understand her family’s choice of denying the truth of her childhood trauma. The nature of the trauma is alluded to but not explicitly stated until Bergljot confronts her family in an open letter after her father’s death.

Bergljot was sexually assaulted by her father when she was a child. The assault started when she was five years old and continued for two years. Although she suppressed the memory for many years, it continued to surface in fragments. She was eventually able to piece it together when she was in her twenties and revealed the assault to her family. They reacted to the accusation with virulent hostility. They doubted her, accused her of ingratitude, of having a wild imagination, of behaving aggressively to get attention. They did everything they could to deny her the satisfaction of believing her, effectively pushing her away to silence her. Their denial is a continual source of Bergljot’s frustration.

The narrative unfolds in a series of flashbacks and vignettes. Threaded throughout is Bergljot’s raw anger toward her family and her desperate attempts to understand why they denied her truth. She sends angry emails to her sister and then apologizes for them. She shares her frustrations with her husband, children, and friends. Each email or phone call from her mother or sister sends her plummeting into a vortex of anxiety and self-analysis. She narrates her dreams. She cites the words of Freud, Jung, her therapist, various artists, and friends in an effort to understand how childhood trauma has impacted her and why its revelation impacted her family in the way it did. The movement is circular, always rotating around the same issues—why did it happen and why are they denying my truth?

Whether it is based on the author’s real life as some have suggested, or whether it is a work of fiction as the author claims it to be, this is a powerful novel illustrating the devastating impact of childhood sexual assault on a victim whose truth has been denied. Unfortunately, it suffers from poor editing and punctuation. It is littered with fused sentences, comma splices, and repetitive sentences. This may be a fault of the translation. Or it may be an effort to reflect the narrator’s trauma as she circles around events, fuses sentences, or repeats them. Either way, it detracts from an otherwise powerful story.

In spite of this, the novel is recommended for its exploration of sibling rivalry, parental favoritism, the impact of childhood trauma, and the sacrifices and choices victims and their families make when egregious wrongdoing cannot be proved.

Strange Weather in Tokyo

Hiromi Kawakami; trans. Allison Markin Powell

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Allison Markin Powell, is a touching love story between a thirty-something Tsukiko and her seventy-something former Japanese high school teacher.

Tsukiko is a loner. She lives a secluded life, going to work, coming home to her apartment, and minimizing her social interactions. She is at a bar one evening when she bumps into her former high school teacher, Harutsuna Matsumoto, whom she addresses as “Sensei.” They strike up a conversation which eventually develops into a friendship. They go on outings together, meet in bars and restaurants to drink and eat together.

Gradually, Tsukiko grows dependent on Sensei and looks forward to their meetings. Her feelings toward him intensify. Love creeps up on her quietly and without fanfare until she realizes one day she has fallen in love with him. Their relationship fluctuates. She tries to put distance between them but without success. She finds herself missing him, thinking about him, and imagining things he would say to her. Sensei eventually admits to reciprocating her feelings, but they seem to retain their separate identities while forging a stronger bond. Their relationship from start to finish lasts around five years.

The story is told from Tsukiko’s first-person point of view, providing access to her thoughts as she struggles with her burgeoning relationship. Every little detail about Sensei fascinates her from the way he dresses, to his briefcase, to his tendency to horde old batteries, to the way he corrects her when she strays from ‘ladylike’ language and behavior. Her passion for Sensei is so intense she continues to conduct imaginary conversations with him and hears his voice even after his death.

This is a very tender love story where very little happens. Two different people with a wide discrepancy in terms of age and temperament gradually fall in love. The writing is simple, unadorned, and devoid of the histrionics that frequently plague love stories. The dialogue is deceptively simple and stilted, reflecting the awkwardness each feels at the situation and their reluctance to reveal the depth of emotions. Parallel lines of loneliness and a tense but growing intimacy thread their way throughout the narrative.

Like the love that develops between Tsukiko and Sensei, the novel is quiet, moving, and creeps up on you unaware of its impact until the end.

Highly recommended for those who like quiet, bittersweet novels about relationships.

Nineveh

Henrietta Rose-Innes

Nineveh by Henrietta Rose-Innes is an unusual story that can function as an allegory.

Katya Grubbs is a young woman who has taken over her estranged father’s pest control business in Cape Town. Unlike her father who has no qualms about squashing or otherwise obliterating pests, Katya believes in the more humane form of pest elimination. She captures the unwanted pests and relocates them to agreeable surroundings. More comfortable with insects than people, Katya is a loner, socially adrift, and lives in a crumbling hovel. Her skin, dotted with insect bites and scars, is a tell-tale sign of her profession. Her internal scars are tell-tale signs of growing up with an alcoholic, dishonest, and abusive father who denied his family a permanent home; a mother who mysteriously disappeared when Katya was a small child; and a sister who ran away.

Katya is hired by a property developer to rid his luxury gated community, euphemistically named Nineveh, of elusive insects—a type of beetle whose periodic emergence coincides with the rains. The infestation is severe enough to bring construction to a screeching halt. Katya spends a few nights on the property but can find no trace of these insects. And then the rains come. Thousands of beetles mysteriously emerge, invading the property overnight. They crawl up and down walls, into buildings, in and out of gutters, through cracks, and up trouser legs. Every nook and cranny harbors a multitude of creepy crawlers. Katya recognizes their overwhelming numbers render futile any attempt to control them. Her father re-enters her life to help but proves more of a hindrance than a help.

The novel can be read as an allegory that sets up parallels between humans and insects overstepping their boundaries. Nineveh initially exudes a fortress-like security, surrounded by walls, gates, two guards, and a dog. Access to parts of the compound is restricted to those with fingerprint clearance. But Katya soon discovers the security is illusory. Bathroom tiles, copper pipes, furniture, and other odds and ends are routinely smuggled out of the compound through a network of underground tunnels to be sold in the nearby shanty town. Katya’s father is the culprit. He wades through swamp-like underground areas, teeming with insect and amphibian life, to climb up walls, pass through cracks, and enter through windows. He sells what he steals.

Katya concludes although walls and gates may act as a temporary deterrence, they cannot permanently keep out those determined to enter. Similarly, tame landscapes, manicured lawns, and pest control companies cannot indefinitely deter insects and pests. Attempts to relocate or restrict any life form to its designated space is futile. Boundaries of separation are fluid. Movement and flux are inevitable. Something or someone will find a way to burrow into a vacant space so that no space is vacant for long.

Rose-Innes’ prose is lush, rich in detail, and highly effective in evoking an atmosphere of the tumult lurking beneath the surface. Whether it is insects or pests, details of a traumatic childhood, outsiders denied access, or even political movements fermenting underground, sooner or later all will surface in the prohibited space to make their presence felt.

An original story, brilliantly executed, and highly recommended.

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.