Category: What I’m Reading

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey (Rating 5) – Re-Dreaming a Nightmare in Order to Awake. Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir did not initially draw me in. Author Natasha Trethewey employs her skills as a Pulitzer prize-winning poet to circle at a distance rather than directly confront her mother’s death at the hands of Trethewey’s abusive stepfather, three decades ago, when Trethewey was nineteen. As a prose writer (see my Amazon author page) and Goodreads author page), I craved more narrative. Yet, once the story became more personal and engaging, I realized the style of writing mirrored the author’s reluctant journey into the past, finally summoning the courage to face a horror she long avoided. Only by re-dreaming the nightmare can she wake up to her loss. More moving than the facts of the murder itself are Trethewey’s reminiscences of her bond with her mother. Although these held special resonance for me, any reader can relate to the push and pull, longing and guilt, that passed between them. Having seen, Trethewey can never unsee, but she can remain awake.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of American Dirt: A Novel by Jeanine Cummins (Rating 5) – A Flight From Terror Into Horror. As a writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I bristle at the charge of cultural appropriation levied against Jeanine Cummins for American Dirt. Authors have the right to address any topic from any POV they want; it’s called empathy. With that right comes an obligation to research and write an engaging story about believable characters. Applying those criteria, Cummins fully meets this obligation. In her suspenseful story, a mother fleeing el norte with her young son faces dilemmas anyone, anywhere, can recognize: how we feel when someone we thought we knew turns out not to be who we thought; the lengths a parent will go to in order to protect their child; how terror simultaneously clouds and clarifies our thoughts; the sense of community that develops among threatened people; the unspeakable horrors we inflict upon one another; and the unexpected acts of kindness that restore our faith in humanity. Although a disappointingly brief epilogue glosses over what fresh horrors await once migrants arrive in the U.S., the novel vividly details the perils of their journey to get here.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser (Rating 5) – Deft Interweaving. Benjamin Moser’s personal and bibliographic biography of Sontag: Her Life and Work deftly interweaves these two inextricable facets of a literary and cultural icon. I was most engaged reading about Sontag’s life, but also impressed by Moser’s insights into its influence on her work. As a developmental psychologist specializing in how childhood and families shape the people we become, I appreciated Moser’s thorough research, compilation of myriad perspectives, and comprehensive interpretations, even when I occasionally questioned them. As a writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I found his analysis of “metaphor,” the theme Sontag continually returned to, lucid and provocative. Writers strive for the perfect metaphor to illuminate reality and bring a person, object, or event to life. The irony, as Sontag repeatedly cautions, is that metaphor can distance us from reality. It’s an insoluble dilemma, which is why it proved such a rich vein (metaphor alert) for Sontag’s life’s work.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (Rating 5) – Burning Children as Burning Bush? What will become of ten-year-old twins, their mother dead, unwanted by grandparents, and ignored by a rich and politically powerful father, now remarried, who rejected them years ago? In Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here, the girl and boy are further handicapped by a genetic affliction whereby they spontaneously combust. The fire doesn’t harm them, but incinerates whatever else it touches. Enter twenty-eight-year-old Lillian, a poor but smart layabout, called on by the twins’ stepmother to look after them. Despite the children’s fanciful condition, the novel is a realistic examination of what it means to be a parent. What is the metaphor here? Do the burning twins represent the rage within all children, adults too, for the injustices committed by their parents? This book has no good ones. Parents are absent, indifferent, manipulative, or downright cruel. But that interpretation is too facile. A better analogy of something that burns without being consumed is the Burning Bush in Exodus. Moses alone sees it. A reluctant leader, he is nevertheless asked by God to deliver his People from slavery to the Promised Land. Moses accomplishes the impossible because he has faith. Not blind faith; he is full of doubt, especially self-doubt. Yet Moses stumbles along because God chose him and besides, who else will do it? So it is with Lillian. After a lifetime of messing up, she has no reason to believe she can take care of these damaged children. Yet, Lillian has the passion and guts to try, without deluding herself that she’ll do a perfect job. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I was impressed by Wilson’s ability to make the bizarre believable, and the insurmountable attemptable, the very skills that parenthood demands.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (Rating 5) – The Truth, Push, and Hope of Fiction. Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys would have had hit me regardless, but because I was reading it when yet another African American was murdered by the police, it whipped me as thoroughly as the book’s protagonist was beaten at the Florida reform school that gives the novel its title. Elwood Curtis, the impressionable and idealistic black teenager at the story’s center, tries to hold onto the inspiring words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The pain of his inevitable disillusionment must be buried for him to survive, while it simultaneously acts as an irrepressible force that drives him to achieve and prove his white tormentors wrong. Yet only by confronting his past and calling out the abuse, can the truth literally be unearthed and the seeds of change sown. Whitehead’s writing is unsparing, whether he is probing the minds of his characters or the horrors of the scenes he depicts. What he leaves unsaid is perhaps more vivid than what he says; readers don’t have the option of turning away. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I was in awe of both his courage and his craft. In a time that calls for systemic and collective change, one wants to believe that this fictional account of one individual defying the odds can become a reality for multitudes. Yet, nearly six decades after The Nickel Boys is set, racism’s realities remain devastating. Does Whitehead’s story offer a glimmer of hope? The power of fiction is that it can not only moves us within, but also propel us out onto the streets. The Nickel Boys forces us to ask why we haven’t taken that step, and whether we finally will.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel (Rating 3) – All Surface. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel is promoted as a “Bernie Madoff” novel, the story of a Ponzi scheme that robbed investors of their life savings. In fact, only the last third of the book focuses on the crime and its fallout, while even those pages are a missed opportunity to probe the mind of an individual who blithely sustains such a fraud for decades. Other than a few paragraphs in which we hear the lame, and patently untrue, justification concocted by his sleek lawyer, the criminal remains a cipher to us. So do the rest of the characters: the poor but beautiful quasi-trophy wife who remains willfully unaware so she can relish the perks of wealth; the various enablers; and the victims. Mandel is a good observer of details, but her portraits are all surface. This hotel’s glass is a one-way mirror, reflecting outward and denying entry. As a reader and fiction writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I believe it’s that entry into the human mind that makes a book worth checking into.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story by Bess Kalb (Rating 5) – Affectionate and Affecting. Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story by Bess Kalb celebrates the relationship between four generations of women in a Jewish family, beginning when the great-grandmother arrives alone in America as a twelve-year-old, fleeing Russian pogroms. Although all the generations are represented, the book focuses on the bond between the assertive, wise-cracking grandmother Bobby and the worshipful granddaughter Bessie, who wrote this affectionate and affecting memoir. A writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admired Kalb’s uncanny ear for her grandmother’s distinctive voice as she introduces readers to a loving, if flawed character. Bobby simultaneously encourages and dictates, praises and shames, domineers and (less often) caves. I might have wished for a more probing portrait, one that examined Bobby’s shortcomings, especially as a mother, but that wouldn’t have been as much fun. Nor, since the premise is that Kalb is channeling Bobby from the grave, and Bobby is not a self-critical person, would that be plausible. In troubled times, a memoir that is pure love is a welcome respite and a delightful read.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Deacon King Kong: A Novel by James McBride (Rating 3) – More Show Off Than Show. Writers like myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page) are familiar with the advice “Show, Don’t Tell.” I wish the editor of Deacon King Kong by James McBride had give the author the advice “Show, Don’t Show Off.” At first his over-the-top riffs on the marginal people and politics in Brooklyn’s fictitious Cause Houses are mildly entertaining, but I soon skimmed past them to get back to the story. When McBride does return to the intersecting lives of his diverse characters — black, Italian, Irish, and Puerto Rican — the book picks up energy. The title character is actually the least interesting, and the criminal shenanigans are too convoluted to follow, but the emotional and spiritual turns in people’s lives are moving. I understand that many of the details in Deacon King Kong are based on McBride’s own life growing up in Brooklyn’s Projects. Having read his wonderful memoir The Color of Water, I wish he’d chosen memoir instead of fiction for this book too.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Dutch House: A Novel (Rating 5) – As Many Twists and Turns as a Spiral Staircase. Many years ago, I was forced to flee a one-of-a-kind home that I loved. While the circumstances were nothing like the eviction of the brother and sister in Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House, my ouster was also precipitated by an unimaginable act of cruelty. Unlike the protagonists, I wasn’t able to go back to the house, but I’ve often wondered what it would be like to once again step inside. I can only hope the visit would be as gratifying as the tale in this novel. The plot has as many twists and turns as a spiral staircase, each a surprise, yet also as inevitable as a well-drawn blueprint. Vivid characters spill intense emotions: love, hate, longing, guilt. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and my Goodreads author page), I am filled with admiration for Patchett’s memorable storytelling. The Dutch House is ultimately about letting go, but readers won’t want to let go of this book.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History (Rating 4) – More Deaths Per Page Than a War Book. In the battle for the skies, the history of aviation is littered with shattered bodies. All were intrepid souls, none more so than the women in Keith O’Brien’s Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History. Male aviators had to fight physics, mechanics, and weather. Women overcame all those and also the men who, both on and off the field, demeaned and tried to defeat them. Fortunately, the support among the women handily counteracted the discouragement of the men. “Fly Girls,” as the press dubbed them, were competitors but also friends. While some were bent on promoting themselves, all were primarily out to promote women’s full participation in aviation. Despite harrowing accounts of sacrifices and tragedies, this book is ultimately about victory and the amazing women whose dreams and persistence made their success possible. As a writer of historical fiction who often features women overcoming tough odds (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I cheered them to the heavens.