Birnam Wood

Eleanor Catton

Set in New Zealand, Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton is a political thriller with an elaborate plot. It opens with what appears to be a natural catastrophe—a landslide in which five people die. The Darvishes, owners of a large farm near the accident site, agree to sell the farm to Robert Lemoine, a billionaire and co-founder of Autonomo, a drone manufacturing company. Robert claims he wants to build an underground bunker in preparation for the impending apocalypse. His real intention, however, is more sinister: to illegally extract rare earth minerals from the nearby Korowai national park. His mining activities actually caused the landslide.

The farm has also attracted the attention of Mira Bunting, the founder of Birnam Wood, an activist collective that illegally grows vegetables on vacant public and private lands as a means to promote social change. Mira meets Robert Lemoine at the farm who offers her a hundred thousand dollars to fund her project. She convinces the Birnam Wood co-op to establish itself on the farm and cultivate produce. The lone dissenting voice comes from Mira’s former boyfriend and aspiring journalist, Tony Gallo. He argues it is a betrayal of their core principles to work with a capitalist billionaire who makes surveillance equipment for the military. He is outvoted, and the Birnam Wood crew head out to the farm to establish themselves. Sensing a scoop that will bring him fame as a journalist, Tony secretly follows them and gathers information exposing Lemoine’s clandestine activities in the park. He is spotted by security guards who chase him.

Meanwhile, Lemoine plays the congenial host to the gullible left-wing radicals on the farm. He is at once charming, duplicitous, manipulative, and calculating. He has surveillance drones and spy cameras at his fingertips, hacks phones, infiltrates emails and computers with the blink of an eye, and hires security guards with military training to keep trespassers away from his clandestine activities. He projects different personas and assumes different identities depending on his audience.

The plot twists and turns with the last section moving at a breathtaking pace. The situation rapidly deteriorates when Owen Darvish makes an unannounced visit to the farm. An accidental death leads to a chain of events that culminate in a bloody crescendo. The early sections, however, lean heavily toward exposition in lengthy sentences of unnecessarily extensive background information on even the minor characters. These feel like fillers, as do the debates about identity and privilege. The characters are portrayed in stereotypical fashion—the ruthless, all-powerful, arrogant billionaire; the young, idealistic, naive environmentalists cultivating vegetables while oblivious to the environmental devastation happening in the vicinity.

Catton positions her characters at major and minor intersections where they have to make a choice. Regardless of how noble or ignoble their intention, once they have made the choice, the consequences spiral out of control, rendering as meaningless all their strutting and fretting, all their dreams and aspirations. Just as Macbeth’s intention to be king is vanquished when the seemingly impossible happens with “Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill/Shall come against him,” Robert Lemoine’s ruthless ambition to multiply his billions many times over is similarly vanquished as a result of the seemingly innocuous activities of Birnam Wood.

Actress

Anne Enright

Actress by Anne Enright unfolds in the first-person voice of Norah, the daughter of a brilliant Irish actress, Katherine O’Dell. Norah is visited by a graduate student who is conducting research on her mother. This prompts Norah to embark on a retrospective of her mother’s life, her own life, and their complex mother-daughter relationship.

Norah explores her mother’s early years, her rocket to fame beginning as a stage actress in Ireland, then as a movie star in Hollywood, followed by her gradual decline into mental illness and death. Weaving in and out of her mother’s story, Norah includes her own story and her relationships as she reflects back on her life at the age of 58. She addresses this extended monologue to her husband.

Partially set against the political troubles in Ireland in the 1970s, the novel also illustrates the vulnerabilities of women in the hands of ruthless men who exploit and undermine them. Norah’s sharp eye recounts the past events through the lens of a perceptive middle-aged woman who recognizes misogyny as well as the games actors and directors play to satisfy their monstrous egos.

The narrative is non-linear as Norah’s anecdotal recollections hop backward and forward in time. There is very little plot to speak of in what is a character-driven novel. The unconditional love and support the mother and daughter have for one another shines through their interactions and through Norah’s monologue. They are impeccably drawn as characters. They are flawed, believable, indulgent of one another’s frailties, and protective of one another. Norah’s voice is engaging, fluent, witty, uninhibited, and forgiving of her mother’s shortcomings. She describes the difficulty of having to share her famous mother with strangers, and of having to assume the role of praising the brilliance of each of her performances. She understands her mother and knows when to prod and when to step back if soliciting information about her mother’s past or about the identity of her absent father.

The seemingly haphazard structure of the novel simulates the experience of remembering. Norah remembers her mother in patchy bits and pieces as a person and as a performer. As Norah observes, sometimes her mother’s roles merge as when she behaves in real life according to the expectations placed on her as a famous star.

A subtle and moving portrait of two generations of women told with unflinching honesty in the flawless, engaging, and seemingly effortless prose of Anne Enright.

What Life was Like on the Banks of the Nile: Egypt 3050 - 30 BC

Eds. Time Life Books; Denise Dersin

What Life was Like on the Banks of the Nile: Egypt: 3050 – 30 BC, edited by Time Life Books and Denise Dersin, offers a comprehensive and intimate portrayal of the daily life of a number of Egyptians from different walks of life. The volume is richly illustrated with paintings, artifacts, reliefs, maps, and diagrams of buildings. The volume provides a valuable glimpse into Egyptian life, belief systems, culture, and history.

Highly recommended for those interested in the history and culture of Ancient Egypt.

About Grace

Anthony Doerr

About Grace by Anthony Doerr tells the story of David Winkler, a trained hydrologist with a gift (or, is it a curse?) for dreaming of things that come true in his waking life. As a young boy, he dreams of a man with a hat box being hit by a bus as he exits from a shop. A few days later, he points the man out to his mother. They watch in horror as the man exits the store only to get hit by a bus. This event just gives us a taste of what is to come.

As an adult, David dreams of the circumstances in which he will meet the woman he falls in love with and later marries. It comes true. He later dreams of a flood in which his infant daughter drowns while he tries to save her. To avoid that fate, he abandons his wife and daughter by escaping to St. Vincent where he spends the next 25 years living in a shed and doing odd jobs. He is befriended by a family of exiles from Chile—Soma, Felix, their two sons, and their daughter, Naaliyah. He dreams of Naaliyah accidentally drowning in the ocean and rescues her when his dream is about to materialize.

Eventually, David returns to the United States to seek his wife and Grace, his daughter. He learns of his wife’s death. He tries to reconcile with Grace and her young son with little success until he manages to save his wife’s first husband after dreaming of his impending heart attack.

Although the novel has some beautifully descriptive passages of ice crystals, rain, and cloud formations grounded in detailed observation of the physical environment, there is a tendency to overdo it. These extensive descriptions detract from the narrative, drag it down in lengthy details, and stunt character development. Nature takes a prominent role with an emphasis on describing it in lyrical prose. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of other elements of the narrative, interrupting flow and coherence.

Four Seasons in Rome: A Memoir

Anthony Doerr

Four Seasons in Rome: A Memoir by Anthony Doerr chronicles the year Doerr spent in Rome as a fellow at the American Academy. He takes along his wife, infant twin sons, and barely a rudimentary knowledge of Italian. The Academy provides him with living quarters, a studio to pursue his writing, and a small stipend. What follows is a delightful memoir/travelogue in which Doerr reflects on the wonders of Rome, its rich history, churches, bakeries, piazzas, coffee shops, museums, fountains, St. Peter’s Square, and the Pantheon; the joys, delights, surprises, and challenges of raising twin baby boys; the struggle to communicate in a foreign language and navigate through foreign streets; and the multitudes of people attending the funeral of Pope John Paul.

What makes this memoir so captivating is Doerr’s amazing eye for detail. He captures the sights, sounds, smells of Rome in immersive detail. One can almost taste the olive oil, feel the intense heat from the sun, hear the booming traffic, and gaze in wonderment at the skill that went into creating each fountain, each architectural structure, and each work of art. Doerr does not limit his discerning eye for detail to the sights and sounds of Rome. As a new father, he is fascinated by his children, as well he should be. He charts the smallest changes in his infants—their facial expressions, their first waddling steps, their first words, their sleep habits, their cries, and their chuckles.

Anthony Doerr’s gift for writing beautifully crafted prose is in full evidence in this highly memorable memoir and travelogue of one of the most unforgettable cities in Europe. The result is at times funny, insightful, touching, inspiring, poignant, breathtaking, and always, always delightful.

My Grandmother's Braid

Alina Bronsky; trans. Tim Mohr

My Grandmother’s Braid by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr, unfolds in the first-person voice of Max, a young boy who lives with his Russian grandparents in Germany in a home for refugees.

Max has been fed all sorts of misinformation by his domineering grandmother. She tells him he is weak, incompetent, unhealthy, and prone to catch germs. She hovers over him continuously, denying him the space to breathe, to eat what he wants, and to live his life as a child. She takes every opportunity to put him down. But as Max gets older, he begins to recognize her exaggerations and lies for what they are. And although he maintains the façade of being a bit of a dolt, he is smart enough to notice his grandfather is having an affair with their neighbor, Nina. When Nina gets pregnant with his child, things come to a head. Much to Max’s surprise, his grandmother embraces her husband’s illegitimate child and acts as a surrogate mother to the newborn and to Nina who is incapable of handling the situation alone.

The dialogue is rich with biting humor. Max tolerates his grandmother and finds ways to thwart her prohibitions without her knowledge. He is intelligent, astute, observant, and knows how to manipulate and distract her. But it is Bronsky’s portrayal of Margarita, the grandmother, that carries the novel. She is simultaneously a tyrant, incorrigible, unlikeable, threatening, and demanding. But she is also compassionate, loving, generous, and capable of great tenderness. In Margarita, Bronsky has created a complex character that generates sympathy in spite of her crazy notions, a grandmother that one can dislike and love at the same time.

A Complicated Kindness

Miriam Toews

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews unfolds in the first-person voice of 16-year-old Nomi growing up in a Mennonite community in Canada. Throughout the course of the novel, Nomi exposes the cruelty and intransigence of the Mennonite community which shuns and excommunicates those unwilling to conform to its very stringent standards.

Nomi’s voice carries a novel in which very little else happens. She is intelligent, funny, irreverent, sarcastic, and highly critical of the abundant restrictions placed on the behavior, words, dress code, and activities of Mennonites. She describes in detail her daily routine, providing background information on her life and family along the way. We learn she lives alone with her father since first her older sister and then her mother are excommunicated and leave the community, their current whereabouts unknown.

Nomi is perceptive and has a heightened sense of the absurd. She is rebellious and confused. In between bouts of drinking, smoking, and doing drugs, she spends her days taking care of her father, defying her teachers, making out with her boyfriend, conducting imaginary conversations with her sister and mother, and talking back at authority figures, including her uncle, known as The Mouth. Nomi also has a compassionate, gentle side. She is devoted to her father and to her best friend hospitalized for illness. And she treats children, the elderly, and the bereaved with tenderness and sympathy.

Because very little happens in the novel, the descriptions of Nomi’s daily activities are repetitive and can get tedious. But her voice, which is engaging, warm, and funny goes a long way to sustaining interest in the novel.

The Road to the Country

Chigozie Obioma

The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma is the story of the 1967 civil war in Nigeria in which the Igbo-dominated region of Biafra sought its independence from Nigeria. The conflict lasted a little over two years, after which time the Biafran forces surrendered. Up to 3 million people, mostly Biafrans, died during the war due to starvation, disease, and violence.

This devastating conflict is seen through the eyes of Adekunle Aromire (Kunle), a quiet, reserved young man. Kunle blames himself for an accident that has permanently confined his brother to a wheelchair. He is preparing for a new term at the university when his parents ask him to come home. The civil war has just started. Kunle learns that his brother has gone to Biafra, so he sets off with the intention of bringing him home. His plan is thwarted when he is captured by Biafran soldiers and is forced to join the conflict.

Kunle’s initial thoughts are to escape and find his brother. But fear of being shot as a deserter prevents him from doing so. Gradually, he befriends some of the fighters and develops a strong sense of loyalty and camaraderie. He gets caught up in the frenzy of fighting for independence until he witnesses the carnage and devastation caused by the war.

The brutality, horror, and violence of war are depicted in graphic and immersive detail: the chaos of trench warfare; the endless trudging in the rain and mud while accosted by mosquitoes; the ubiquitous presence of dismembered bodies; fields littered with corpses; torsos soaked in blood; skeletal remains exposed to the elements; wounded soldiers abandoned to their fate; children dying of starvation; women whose unborn babies have been yanked out of their bodies; evidence of rape, torture; and the slaughter of innocent civilians unwittingly caught in the conflict. Fear is palpable as is the stench of rotting flesh, sweat, filth, vomit, and excrement.

The carnage is relentless; the description, unflinchingly honest. Kunle witnesses it all, including the deaths of some of his comrades. He comes close to death, is wounded several times, blown up, hospitalized, falls in love, and has a vivid hallucination of journeying to the underworld where he encounters the newly dead, including enemy soldiers.

Graphic descriptions of violence are interspersed with an element of magical realism in the form of a seer who predicts the war before it happens and who intermittently observes and narrates Kunle’s progress during the war.

Because of a plethora of scenes of shocking violence and carnage, this book may not be for everyone. But if the goal is to offer a realistic rendition of the brutality and palpable horrors of war, Obioma has accomplished his mission.

Good Night, Irene

Louis Alberto Urrea

Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea is a fictional account based on his mother’s actual service in the ARC Clubmobiles during World War II. Urrea uses the few available historical records coupled with available letters, newspaper accounts, and recorded interviews to build a picture of the experiences of the women who served the troops in and around the combat zones in Europe.

The novel opens with Irene escaping from an abusive fiancée. She has volunteered as a recreation worker with the American Red Cross and is on her way to New York to report for duty. She is joined by an army of women volunteers, one of whom was to become her life-long friend, Dorothy. The two become inseparable as they travel to England and from there all over Europe. Their job is to drive the Clubmobile, affectionately dubbed, the Rapid City, to wherever the army sends them to serve the troops with coffee, donuts, and a slice of home. The Clubmobile is fully equipped with coffee urns, a boiler, burners, water tanks, a donut machine and a Victrola with records.

Urrea immerses the reader in the experiences of these brave women. Irene and Dorothy travel to England, France, Belgium, and Germany. They witness the effects of the war first-hand in the mangled bodies of the dead, in the eyes of the troops they serve, and in the bombed-out land and villages. They experience some narrow escapes from death. They are with the troops who helped to liberate Buchenwald. The women witness scenes that etch themselves indelibly in their memories and haunt them in their sleep. They remember the faces of the young men they served and the loved ones they lost. Urrea describes it all in graphic, unflinching detail.

Interspersed among scenes depicting the horrors of war are scenes of much needed rest and recreation—sleeping in comfortable beds, bathing in bubble baths, swimming in the ocean, and building romantic relationships.

In spite of their trauma, the women continued to serve the troops with smiles and flirtatious banter. They were the mothers and sisters of the young men who desperately needed a friendly female face to remind them of home. Their presence boosted morale. Their smiles and welcoming demeanor offered the troops a good listening ear and a shoulder to cry on whenever needed. Their role was invaluable and their contribution to Allied victory should never be underestimated.

Urrea portrays the horrors of war with honesty. But the novel is weak in its portrayal of characters. Neither Irene nor Dorothy emerges as a fully-fleshed, well-rounded individual. Their dialogue sounds inauthentic and canned. They spout quips at one another that feel rehearsed. Their psychological and emotional lives are treated superficially. As a result, the reader doesn’t become invested in them as characters. This is unfortunate since Urrea based the character of Irene on his mother. But with that caveat aside, the novel is worth reading because it offers a glimpse into the sacrifices and invaluable contributions these women made to the Allied victory—a contribution that is frequently marginalized or overlooked.

North Woods

Daniel Mason

North Woods by Daniel Mason consists of a series of loosely connected vignettes covering a period of three centuries. The thread connecting them is the sequence of characters inhabiting and/or visiting the same yellow house in the woods at one time or another. 

The narrative opens with a pair of young lovers in colonial New England fleeing from their Puritan neighbors. They successfully escape into the north woods and lay the foundation stone that will later serve as the location for the yellow house. One by one, we are introduced to a succession of inhabitants of the house in a sort of relay race. These include a woman captured by Native Americans; Charles Osgood, who loves the woods and who cultivates a delicious variety of apples called Osgood’s Wonder; his two daughters living well into their spinsterhood; an abolitionist; a runaway slave; a famous landscape artist; a manufacturer; his daughter and her schizophrenic son. And, of course, one mustn’t forget to add to the mix a couple of ghosts thrown in for good measure.

The yellow house experiences various transformations and stages of decay and revival, ranging from expansion, abandonment, disrepair, refurbishing, and rebranding. The surrounding woods experience their share of change with the loss of the original flora and fauna and the introduction of disease-bearing insects, invasive fungi, and pathogens.

The narrative is a hodgepodge of styles consisting of exposition, letters, poems, diary entries, song lyrics, medical case notes, documents, a real-estate listing, calendars, a reporter’s true crime detective story, and an address to a historical society. Each vignette is self-contained but drops a seed that is picked up in a vignette further down the line. Botanical illustrations separate each vignette. Peppered throughout are breathtaking descriptions of the natural environment, including a hilarious passage of the coupling of two amorous beetles.

With so many styles, so many characters, and so much going on in this lowly house in the woods, the novel shouldn’t work. But in the hands of a master craftsman like Daniel Mason, it not only works, it works brilliantly. The vignettes are self-contained and compelling with unique, fully-fleshed out, and authentic characters. The ghosts—literal and metaphorical—flit in and out of the narrative. Nature comes alive in soaring, lyrical diction. It is resilient and survives in different manifestations as when, for example, the skeletal remains of a human body shelter an apple seed that takes root, strengthens, and shoots up to catch the sunlight. The same apple trees later meet their demise when swallowed up by oak and chestnut trees. Nothing and no one that is dead is gone forever. All merely transform from life to death to new life in a never-ending cycle. And all is inextricably intertwined. In this hodgepodge of a narrative, Mason is somehow able to imbue the tale with a gentle comedy that pokes fun at human foibles.

In one of the most moving vignettes, Robert, the schizophrenic, believes he can “stitch” and repair the forest with his footsteps. Daniel Mason has performed a magical stitching of his own in a novel that is well-deserving of all the accolades and praise heaped upon it. His content and structure are imaginative; his execution, brilliant. In an astonishing tour de force, he bursts open exhilarating new possibilities for the novel form.

The Pearl That Broke Its Shell

Nadia Hashimi

The Pearl that Broke its Shell by Nadia Hashimi unfolds in parallel narratives of two women in Afghanistan who lived a hundred years apart. The women are Rahima and her great, great grandmother, known as Bibi Shekiba.

The novel opens with Rahima as a young girl living with her parents and sisters. Their aunt begins telling them the story of Bibi Shekiba to inspire them. One side of Bibi Shekiba’s face is severely disfigured as a result of a cooking accident. She assumes the role of a man by fending for herself after her immediate family dies of cholera. She is then taken in by her relatives who cheat her of her birthright and treat her as a servant before trading her away to serve another family. Her story inspires Rahima to become a bacha posh, the cultural practice which allowed any family without sons to dress a daughter as a boy. This was a temporary solution to help the family since a son had freedom of movement to go to school, to shop, and to work—something denied to females.

Bibi Shekiba is eventually traded to work in the king’s palace. Dressed as a male, her job is to guard the women in his harem since men could not be trusted to do so. When one of the king’s wives is discovered to be in an illicit sexual relationship with a man, she is stoned to death. As the guard on duty, Bibi Shekiba is punished for failing in her duties. She is sent off to become the second wife to a close advisor of the king’s son. She gives birth to a son, securing her position in the household.

Along parallel lines, Rahima is married off to pay for her father’s debt. She becomes the fourth wife of a brutal war lord where she is abused by him, his mother, and some of his wives. Because she knows how to read and write, she accompanies his first wife to the Afghani parliament in Kabul to help her navigate the paperwork as a member of the newly formed parliament. When Rahima’s young son dies unexpectedly of illness, she disguises herself as a bacha posh and escapes to a shelter for abused women.

Rahima’s aunt intermittently weaves Shekiba’s narrative to inspire and encourage Rahima to follow in her ancestor’s footsteps. Although they lived a hundred years apart, the similarities between the lives of the two women are readily apparent. The restrictions on women remained unchanged. Sequestered, secluded, and powerless, women were the property of men to be dealt with and disposed of as they saw fit. They were denied voice and deprived of their rights. Bickering and jealousy proliferated as women competed for male attention and privilege. And with few exceptions, women were frequently used as tools to reinforce the patriarchal oppression of their sisters.

The narrative structure worked well with the intermittent weaving of the dual story lines. But more could have been done with the setting by immersing the reader in the sensory experience of life in Afghanistan. The characters felt distant, perhaps because of the nature of the writing which was primarily expository. While we read about and sympathize with Shekiba and Rahima for the abuse and discrimination they experience as a result of the patriarchal tenets of their culture, we are not drawn to them as characters. Their stories end inconclusively: Shekiba hopes her son’s generation will see better days; and Rahima escapes the abuse to end up who knows where.

Sweetland

Michael Crummey

Sweetland by Michael Crummey explores a crusty old man’s attempt to cling to a dying way of life on the abandoned island he calls home.

In the sparsely populated fictional island of Sweetland, located just south of Newfoundland, its handful of villagers agree to accept the government’s resettlement package of $100,000 cash for each inhabitant. The government’s condition is all must agree to leave the island or the deal falls through. Pressure mounts on the lone holdout, 69-year-old Moses Sweetland. Named after his family, the island has been Sweetland’s home for most of his life. He refuses to give up on it, fighting a lone battle for its survival.

Although he is a cantankerous old man, Moses Sweetland plays the role of caretaker for many of the island’s quirky inhabitants. He knows each one’s history, life, loves, and losses. He is generous and can always be counted on to lend a hand, whether it is to deliver a baby calf, share his catch of fish, or help bury their dead. His dialogue is peppered with sarcasm, but his generosity of spirit shines under a curmudgeonly veneer. This is especially apparent in his dealings with his niece’s autistic son, Jesse, with whom he shares a strong bond. When a tragic accident takes Jesse’s life, Moses announces he is ready to accept the government’s offer. But this is all a ruse since he has no intention of leaving the island he loves. He fakes his own death and hides, watching from a distance as the community leaves the island on the last ferry. He leads a Robinson Crusoe existence with only a scraggly dog to keep him company.

Crummey details Sweetland’s daily activities to survive. He raids empty homes and cabins for firewood and food. He sets animal traps. He endures blistering storms. He listens to his radio for company. His mind wanders to the past, flashing back to pivotal events in his life. And he is besieged by ghosts of his past. Slowly but surely, Sweetland begins the inexorable decline in physical strength and mental acuity. He hallucinates. Alone on the island, he questions whether the people he sees and converses with are real, figments of his imagination, or ghosts. The ending, intentionally ambiguous, leaves open to interpretation Sweetland’s ultimate fate.

Crummey’s technique keeps the reader guessing what is real and what is imaginary. Sweetland’s conversations disorient the reader because one is never quite sure if he is having a flashback or hallucinating. Similarly, the border separating the dead from the living is a foggy blur. While he is alive, Jesse never tires of relating conversations he has with Sweetland’s deceased brother, Hollis; and alone on the island, Sweetland witnesses a ghostly parade of deceased villagers.

In this well-crafted novel, Crummey immerses the reader in Sweetland’s experience so that we feel his loneliness, isolation, and bereavement at the loss of community and a way of life. His is a eulogy for the way things used to be. No matter how obstinately or heroically Sweetland clings to the past or tries to relive it, there is no going back. He eventually realizes it is not place that makes a home. It is the community inhabiting it. And in the absence of one’s community, place loses its significance and will never again be home.  

James

Percival Everett

James by Percival Everett, loosely based on Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, flips Twain’s novel by unfolding the narrative in the first-person voice of Jim, the runaway slave. Everett adheres broadly to the outlines of Twain’s novel with Jim and Huck on the run together. Jim runs away when he learns he is to be sold to a man in New Orleans and will be separated from his wife and daughter. Huck fakes his own death to escape from his abusive father. The two overcome obstacles, are separated and reunited on several occasions, barely survive drowning in the mighty Mississippi, and escape hair-raising encounters with white men who are chasing them. But this is more than just a retelling of Huckleberry Finn. Everett weaves the concept of oral and physical performance throughout his novel to interrogate the social construction of race and to show the humanity and intelligence of James and the other slaves.

James is well-read; articulate; engages in imaginary debates with Locke, Rousseau, and Voltaire about the nature of human rights and slavery; and writes notes on his experiences. He is also a consummate performer. He articulates a public diction that makes him sound gullible, foolish, and ignorant to pacify the white people he encounters. He calls it a “slave filter” and he teaches enslaved children to translate their private speech into “slave” talk. This is akin to teaching them a second language. And it is no exercise in futility. As he impresses upon the children, this is a matter of survival. In effect, the slaves are bilingual. They perform in the manner white people expect of slaves in order to mitigate the threat whites would feel if they discover their slaves can articulate their thoughts clearly, can read, write, and think for themselves.

James’ diction operates on two levels: his private voice in which he is articulate, circumspect, and literate. This voice appears only when he speaks to other slaves or records his thoughts. And his public voice which appears when he speaks to white people to reinforce their preconceived notions of slaves. In addition to a private and public language, James engages in private and public performance. In public, he shuffles his feet, hobbles along, keeps his head bowed, and won’t look white people in the eye. In private, he is resourceful, athletic, and can move swiftly in land or water.

The concept of performance is treated with a heavy dose of irony when James is purchased to sing in a minstrel show. With the exception of one man, the performers are all white males. They cover their faces with black boot polish to look black. The one exception is a black man whose skin is light enough to pass as white. James’ face is smothered with black polish to look blacker, but white is painted around his eyes and mouth to make him look like a white man with black face. In effect, a group of mostly white men put on a performance pretending to be slaves by singing and dancing and holding themselves up for ridicule by the white audience. Although the white audience and white minstrels don’t know it, theirs is a performance of a performance that slaves adopt to dupe whites. The irony and absurdity of the situation is not lost on James or the reader.

Percival Everett’s brilliant re-imagining of Twain’s classic novel honors its predecessor while interrogating the social construction of race through the performance and voice of an eloquent and unforgettable James. An impressive achievement.

The Wren, The Wren

Anne Enright

The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright alternates between the first-person voice of Nell, a young woman in Dublin, and the third-person voice of her mother, Carmel. Interspersed throughout the narrative are original poems as well as translations of centuries old Irish poetry by Phil McDaragh, Carmel’s father. Phil is a fictional Irish poet who achieves fame and becomes a source of pride for his community. A short piece in which Phil speaks in first-person voice is included as a brief interlude.

Little happens in the novel. Both the Carmel and Nell sections are non-linear, leaping backwards and forward in time from their respective childhoods to the present. Carmel describes the rocky relationship of her parents, her father’s abandonment of the family when her mother becomes ill, and the fame and new wife he acquires while living in America. She struggles to come to terms with the father she loved, her resentment at his desertion, his death in America and burial in Ireland, and the fact he is hailed by the Irish as a highly successful, home-grown poet. She seeks to understand him and his relationships through his poems.

Nell never knew her grandfather but seems to have inherited his love for words. Like her mother, she tries to connect with him through the language in his poems. Her section primarily focuses on her complicated relationship with her mother and her tangled relationship with her abusive boyfriend, Felim. Her narrative is fragmented; her communication style is stream of consciousness. Being raised by a single mother, Nell feels untethered and is constantly seeking to connect and be understood. She travels to exotic locations, eventually ending up in New Zealand, after which she returns to Ireland with her new boyfriend.

A major theme of the novel is how language and silences can serve to connect us or distance us over time. Carmel and Nell care deeply for each other, but their ability to communicate with one another is fraught with tension. Theirs is a stuttering communication, with one or the other constantly holding something back. One of the most powerful scenes in the novel is when Carmel and her sister, Imelda, come to physical blows over inheritance issues after their mother’s death. They communicate physically by flinging one another against furniture, slapping and punching one another. But the whole debacle takes place in silence.

And then there is the language of Phil’s poetry and the old Irish poetry he translates. The language of the dead poet reaches out to touch his daughter and granddaughter. In some ways, his words are an attempt to show connection with and seek redemption from the family he abandoned. Available on the internet is an old interview with Phil which has both Carmel and Nell scrutinizing his words and observing his movements. Rather than connecting mother and daughter through their interest in the one man they share, they each watch the interview separately and remain silent about its contents.

Enright doesn’t simply describe relationships and patterns of communication and silences. She allows the reader to experience them through her characters. Her women are vividly drawn and authentic, each with a distinctive voice, each silencing her voice at different times, and with each voice capturing shades of loss, longing, and the fragility of connection.

Agent Running in the Field

John Le Carre

Agent Running in the Field by John Le Carré unfolds in the first-person voice of Nat, a forty-seven-year-old veteran of the British secret service and an avid badminton player. Nat is always up for a challenge when it comes to badminton. So when a young and fit Ed Shannon shows up at the Athleticus Club and challenges him to a game of badminton, Nat eagerly embraces the challenge. The two strike up a friendship, playing regularly and enjoying a cordial drink and chat at the end of each game. But all is not as it seems.

Ed wears his political anti-Trump, anti-Brexit views on his sleeve. He finds a sympathetic ear in Nat as he rants about the American president, slams his cozying up to Putin and his anti-Europe stance. But this wouldn’t be a Le Carré novel if things didn’t get complicated. Nat is disenchanted with his current demotion since it virtually consists of glorified baby-sitting a team of colleagues. Before long, he is actively embroiled in clandestine meetings with secret agents, double agents, and, possible triple agents. His long-standing, patient wife, Prudence, has learned through their years of marriage not to ask too many questions about his assignments. But when Nat finds himself in a precarious position with his own intelligence services, Prudence lends her unwavering and practical support.

After a slow beginning, the novel picks up its pace and moves rapidly along through twists and turns, surveillance operations, covert meetings in Europe, obscure codenames, a potpourri of watchers to observe and listen in on secret conversations, coded dialogue, false identities, and interrogations, all of which lead up to the final denouement. But this spy story offers more than thrills and suspense. It also explores the toll the profession of a secret service agent can take on a family.

Le Carre’s prose is brisk and energetic. The narrative is entertaining and holds the reader’s attention. The plot twists, misdirection, questionable loyalties, bureaucratic infighting, world-weary spies, and tight dialogue generate tension and suspense. Add to that the ongoing issues with Brexit, the Trump presidency, and Putin, and what we get is a spy thriller steeped in contemporary politics.

The Thirty-Nine Steps

John Buchan

First published in 1915, The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan is a classic spy thriller. It recounts the harrowing adventures and narrow escapes of Richard Hannay, a former mining engineer recently arrived in London from Rhodesia.

Bored with his uneventful life, Hannay decides to leave England to seek adventure. But adventure comes knocking on his door in the form of his neighbor, Franklin Scudder. Scudder, fearing for his life, seeks temporary refuge in Hannay’s flat. He claims to have uncovered a plot to assassinate the Premier of Greece on his visit to London, an assassination which will start a world war. Hannay’s adventure begins when he discovers Scudder’s corpse with a knife through his heart.

Realizing he will be accused of murder once the body is discovered, Hannay assumes the first of his many disguises. He escapes from London to Scotland. Deciphering Scudder’s notes in his little black book, Hannay learns of the existence of a German spy ring known as the “Black Stone.” Their goal is to steal Britain’s naval defense plans to give Germany the advantage when war breaks out.

Since he has been entrusted to thwart the assassination plot and to prevent the theft of Britain’s naval secrets, Hannay traipses all over the Scottish moors to buy himself time. He assumes multiple disguises, successfully evading police on the one hand and the German spy ring on the other. He makes it to London just in time to uncover a deception by a German spy in the guise of a British naval officer. The spy has obtained Britain’s secret plans and has made arrangements to get them to Germany. Following Scudder’s clues and in a race against time, Hannay figures out the location where the plans are being handed off. He thwarts the plot and saves the day by preventing the British naval plans from leaving the country.

The novel moves at a brisk pace. Hannay frantically evades capture while being pursued by the police and the German spy ring. He interacts with the locals, borrows their clothes to disguise himself, steals cars, sleeps in the outdoors, and takes time to appreciate the bucolic scenery. His plan is far-fetched; his escapes are unlikely; his encounters with well-meaning, helpful strangers is improbable. And his luck never seems to run out.

This is a classic tale of espionage that bounds along at a rollicking pace. If one overlooks the dated feel, the improbabilities, the lucky encounters, and the old-boy network with ne’er a female in sight, one can just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Unlikely Friendships: 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom

Jennifer S. Holland

In Unlikely Friendships: 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom, Jennifer S. Holland compiles a collection of examples in which animals make friends with creatures outside their own species. Examples include a leopard with a cow, a dog with a piglet, an orangutan with a kitten, and a macaque with a dove. Each example comes with a short introduction documenting the location where the friendship took place, and each comes with heartwarming photographs of interspecies cuddling.

A quick, easy, and enjoyable read.

Animal Dreams

Barbara Kingsolver

Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver alternates between the first-person voice of Codi Noline and the third-person voice of her father, Doc Homer. Codi returns to her small home town in Arizona, ostensibly to take care of her father who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer. In reality, she has come home seeking to find herself. Hired to teach at a local high school, she prefers to live in the home of a close school friend rather than with her father. Meanwhile, her younger sister, Hallie, has gone to Nicaragua to work with farmers and their families. Hallie is determined to make a positive difference in their lives even at the cost of putting her own life at risk since Nicaragua is in the throes of violent civil unrest. We hear Hallie’s voice through Codi’s flashbacks and through the letters she sends to Codi.

Codi’s narrative describes her feelings of estrangement. Her mother died shortly after Hallie’s birth and she and her sister were raised by their father. Codi struggles to come to terms with her past. Her relationship with her father is strained; their conversations are at cross purposes. Codi revives a relationship she had with Loyd Peregrina, a high school boyfriend. Loyd shares stories about his culture, his people, and the history of the land. She is embraced by the women of the town when she joins forces with them to combat the devastating environmental pollution caused by a corporation stripping the land of its natural resources. Kingsolver successfully establishes a strong and palpable sense of community among the town’s inhabitants.

Initially, Codi comes across as a self-obsessed whiner with a tendency to interpret everything she sees and hears as reflecting on her or her childhood. Although in her early thirties, she frequently sounds like a teenager suffering from existential angst. She idolizes her sister who rejects any attempt to idolize her. She is directionless and is determined not to form permanent attachments to anyone, including her native American boyfriend. Eventually, however, she comes to recognize she is supported by a community and feels welcomed in its embrace.

The Arizona landscape, the ancestral Puebloan homes carved out of rocks, and the natural springs are vividly evoked. Dotted within the desert are bursts of color in the form of flowers, peacocks, and rocks. The detail is immersive; the changes in weather and its impact on the land is fully realized; the sheer beauty of the southwestern landscape is writ large.

Kingsolver ties the different threads to a satisfactory conclusion. The town compels the corporation to submit to its demands; Codi learns the family secrets her father had kept buried from her and her sister; and she starts a new life for herself in her home town with Loyd. The prose is clear and descriptive. The narrative is compelling. But the characters feel contrived—more character types than real. Codi is the lost soul who ran away from home only to find herself by going home; Loyd stereotypically imparts native wisdom about the land and his culture’s mythology; and Hallie is the idealist who runs off to save the peasants in a war-torn country.

Other than the quibble with characterization, this was an enjoyable and easy read.

The Fawn

Magda Szabo; translated by Kathleen Szasz

The Fawn by Magda Szabo, translated from the Hungarian by Kathleen Szasz, unfolds in the first-person voice of Eszter Encsy, an accomplished stage actress in Soviet-era Budapest. To describe Eszter’s narrative voice as unreliable, intense, blunt, spiteful, and vindictive is to apply a heavy coating of sugar on it. Her monologue consists of an angry and bitter tirade to an unnamed reader who is later revealed to be her lover.

The novel opens with Eszter describing her poverty-stricken childhood. She is an only child, always hungry, shoeless, and consumed with rage at the world. She is virtually ignored by her parents who have eyes only for each other. Her father is a lawyer who is more concerned with nurturing plants and insects than his daughter. Her mother gives piano lessons to help support the family. With hands apparently too delicate for cooking and cleaning, the mother delegates all household chores to her daughter. Eszter has to cook, clean, and shop for the family while attending school. Snubbed by their rich relations, Eszter takes on additional tasks to help make ends meet.

Eszter’s rage at the world coalesces, manifesting itself with a vengeance on the figure of her classmate, Angela. The daughter of a judge, Angela is a beautiful, kind, and gentle young girl from a wealthy family. She is compassionate, sensitive, generous, and eager to share her good fortune with her classmates, especially Eszter. She is everything Eszter is not; she has everything Eszter has been denied. Eszter’s interiority is full of venom and spite toward Angela while externally, she pretends to be her friend. She is consumed with an obsessive and palpable hatred toward her. As a young girl, Eszter steals Angela’s pet fawn and is ultimately responsible for the fawn’s death. As an adult and a successful actress, she projects a façade of being Angela’s friend while conducting an affair with Angela’s husband.

Eszter learns to cultivate an ability to conceal her opinions and emotions at a young age. She fakes an interest in others while her thoughts spew venom at them. She simultaneously avoids and seeks people who care for her. She is hell-bent on a path of self-destruction, suggesting she has internalized feelings of insignificance and thinks herself undeserving of love. Her abrupt shifts in time can be confusing, especially during the first few chapters. Eventually, the narrative begins to make sense. Her monologue takes on the form of an attempt to explain to her lover why she is the way she is by unfolding the story of her life. It constitutes an apology of sorts, but it comes too late.

This is a compelling tour de force by an extraordinarily talented author. In Eszter, Magda Szabo has created a psychologically complex character, tormented by her past, riddled with envy, consumed with rage and regret. Beneath it all, she is full of self-loathing. Through Eszter Encsy, Szabo shows how a traumatic past can haunt us and influence our life’s trajectory for good or, as in the case of Eszter, for ill.

Remembering Laughter

Wallace Stegner

Remembering Laughter by Wallace Stegner is a brief but powerful novella about the tragic consequences of marital infidelity.

Margaret Stuart and her husband, Alec, welcome Margaret’s sister, the exuberant Elspeth, who has come all the way from Scotland to live with them on their farm in Iowa. When Elspeth arrives at the train station, she is greeted warmly by her sister and brother-in-law. Their journey to the farm is filled with laughter as Alec feeds Elspeth one hilariously improbable animal story after another. All seems to be going well until Margaret decides to host a party to introduce Elspeth to some eligible males. But her plan backfires when Elspeth and Alec find themselves attracted to one another and start an affair only to be discovered later by Margaret. The situation is further exacerbated by Elspeth’s pregnancy.

The seed of marital infidelity poisons the relationship between the sisters and between husband and wife. Margaret and Elspeth become solemn and estranged from one another. They raise Elspeth’s son in an atmosphere devoid of joy and laughter. This continues for 18 years with neither sister willing to forgive or forget. Elspeth is plagued with guilt and cannot forgive herself; Margaret, consumed by jealousy, cannot let go of the pain of betrayal. Their unwillingness to let go of the past sucks the joy and spirit out of their lives. They are broken and their rigid, stone-faced appearance reflects just how broken they are.

Although this is Stegner’s first published novel, signs of his greatness as an author are already evident. He has an uncanny ability to convey volumes through his attention to detail. The characters are drawn with sensitivity and tenderness. This is a quiet, beautifully written novel about how foolish lapses in judgment can haunt us for the rest of our lives. It is sad. It is tragic. And as with Stegner’s subsequent novels, it is oh, so very human.