What I’m Reading: Fire Exit by Morgan Talty

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Fire Exit by Morgan Talty (Rated 5) – Identity Crises. Fire Exit by Morgan Talty argues that we are all entitled to know our past, even if the truth is disorienting. Learning the whole story may fill in missing parts or provoke unasked questions. In Fire Exit, the issue is especially fraught because it deals with identity, namely the right to claim Native American identity if, lurking unbeknownst to a child raised as a full Indian, is a father’s non-native identity. Charles, the protagonist, was raised on the Penobscot reservation by his non-native mother and Indian stepfather with full knowledge of his story. He feels his daughter, conceived with his high school Penobscot girlfriend and now fully grown, is entitled to hers. The girl’s mother and indigenous husband, who raised the girl as his own, object. Entangled in Charles’s urge to tell his daughter her blood story is that his own mother’s memory is growing porous with Alzheimer’s. Moreover, he’s plagued by guilt that preoccupation with the girls’ birth kept him from preventing his stepfather’s death decades earlier. Fire Exit is replete with grief, remorse, mental illness, alcoholism, and death. Yet, the novel is not wholly bleak and morbid. On the contrary, Talty’s ineradicable faith in filial devotion and commitment to personal history is ultimately uplifting. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire his refusal to shy away from difficult subjects with debatable answers. Fire Exit will make readers question their own stories. Warning: The choice not to know the truth comes at a price.

The benefits and costs of unknown identity

Why writers read: “To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.” – W. Somerset Maugham

Famous Friends (Not): Narrator and Reva

The unnamed narrator and Reva in My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh are simultaneously supportive and destructive of each another. Personally, I found this novel to be an unconvincing snooze, but the portrait of toxic friendship rings true. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Narrator and Reva: A snoozy portrait of toxic friendship

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

Famous Friends: Chris Evert and Martina Navaratilova

Evert and Navaratilova were tennis rivals who, over 16 years, competed against each other in 80 matches. But off the court, they became lasting friends. When the Czech-born Navaratilova began playing U.S. matches as a teen, Evert’s family looked out for her. Left alone together in the locker room after a match, the winner would comfort the loser. Throughout their lives, they continued to support each other during personal wins and losses. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Evert and Navartilova: On-court rivals; off-court friends

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

What I’m Reading: The Anthropologists

My Goodreads and Amazon review of The Anthropologists by Aysegul Savas (Rated 3) – Bumpless. The Anthropologists by Aysegul Savas is a quiet book about the small pleasures of a self-contained couple. Asya and her partner Manu, each from different countries and living in yet a third country, are outsiders content to dwell inside their own relationship. They’ve even invented a tribal name and private language. Although they work — she as a documentary film maker, he at an unspecified nonprofit — there’s no passion behind their labors. Friends are satellites, one of whom orbits closely, but the others are props in the twosome’s routines. A plot, if one can be said to exist, is their search for a new apartment. They struggle to find one they like because they are too comfortable to imagine inhabiting a different space. Like anthropologists, Asya and Manu observe and occasionally join the action, but nothing penetrates their insular cocoon. Savas will convince some readers that a life lived this way, without conflict and drama, but also minus joy and excitement, is enough. It’s a reassuring message in a hectic world. Yet I found myself seeking more. A character-driven novelist myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page) , I nevertheless choose to invest my characters’ lives with significant events and challenges. Savas’s flat plain felt sad and empty. I would have preferred more bumps.

The uneventful life of an insular couple

Why writers read: “If I could always read I should never feel the want of company.” – Lord Byron

Famous Friends: The March Sisters

In Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel Little Women, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy are encouraging allies and jealous rivals, but always close friends. As they grow from girls into women, each pursuing their own destiny, these characters virtually define the meaning of “sisterhood.” Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Little Women: A classic novel about four sisters who are also best friends

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

Famous Friends: Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln

President Lincoln and Douglass, an escaped slave turned abolitionist leader, built an unlikely friendship based on mutual respect and a shared commitment to freedom. Both rose from poverty and were talented orators. Lincoln relied on Douglass for advice during the Civil War. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Lincoln and Douglass, President and former slave, built a friendship on mutual respect and common goals

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

Famous Friends: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson

With Holmes’s flair for unraveling mysteries and Watson’s stoic nature, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s creations are an iconic fictional duo. Proving that “opposites attract,” their differences enable them to solve cases. And after a hard day’s work, they enjoy unwinding together with a drink, a smoke, even a Turkish bath. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Holmes and Watson, an iconic mystery-solving duo

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

What I’m Reading: Wrinkled Rebels

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Wrinkled Rebels by Laura Katz Olson (Rated 5) – Cross-Generational Appeal. Wrinkled Rebels by Laura Katz Olson is a nostalgia trip for those who, like me, were “Children of the 60s.” In fact, in an uncanny match, I’m the exact same age as the novel’s six New York City protagonists, entering college in 1963, becoming immersed in the anti-war and women’s movements, vowing to remain engaged as we graduated into the “adult” world. For readers of later generations, Olson’s book offers an entertaining survey course of that tumultuous era, told through the stories of its diverse cast of characters, three women and three men, who bond as freshmen and stay in sporadic touch during the ensuing decades. As a novelist myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire how Olson achieves a fine balance between detailed historical context and generous character development. The book is driven by the protagonists’ impending 50th reunion, prompting each to recall the past, assess the present, and evaluate how they shaped one another’s lives. Building toward the reunion, readers eagerly turn the pages of this skillfully written narrative with cross-generational appeal to those who reflect on life’s heady mix of predictable and unexpected outcomes.

Children of the 60s meet 50 years later

Why writers read: “Our favorite book is always the book that speaks most directly to us at a particular stage in our lives. And our lives change.” – Lloyd Alexander