Category: What I’m Reading

My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls (Rating 5) – Filling the Void with Food, Faith, and Family. Set in a Western Michigan town, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray is the story of the three grown Butler sisters who try to pull together in the face of a family disaster. Although they are African-American, race is a minor factor in this universal narrative. As children, Althea, the eldest, was responsible for raising the two younger girls and their brother after their mother died. Now, she and her husband have been convicted of fraud, leaving behind twin teenage daughters with demons of their own who become the responsibility of her siblings. The women in this book hunger for the love of a dead or distant mother and an absent or cruel father. That craving is expressed most vividly through disordered eating, but also through material greed and, paradoxically, self-denial — vain attempts to fill the void or be the kind of “perfect”child a parent will love. The story is told from the perspective of each of the sisters speaking in a distinctive voice. Althea narrates hers from jail, where readers learn during Bible study that the yearnings of even the scariest prisoners are not so different from hers, or ours. Viola, the bulimic middle sister, alternately gorges and purges not only on food, but also on the love of her wife. Lillian, the youngest, remodels the family home but cannot eradicate the ghosts of the torment inflicted on her by her brother. Gray’s novel has autobiographical elements, but she also proves what I know as a writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page, namely that imagination and empathy allow all authors, regardless of their background, to make diverse characters come to life on the page and take up residence with readers.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of kaddish.com (Rating 5) – Can One Shlemiel Repay the Debts of Thousands? It is said that converts and returnees are the most zealous religious practitioners. If this tenet is true, then Shuli, an erstwhile relapsed Orthodox Jew, is one such fanatic. In the novel kaddish.com, Nathan Englander poses the general question of how we repay a debt to the dead and, more specifically, whether one shlemiel can repay the debts of thousands. A shrewish sister notwithstanding, he is helped by the good people in his community: bright boychiks, wise rabbis, and an understanding wife. Englander is a brilliant and original writer, who plots his book carefully, if sometimes preposterously. Nu, just relax and go along. Even if the Orthodox rituals and Talmudic explications are murky, they are never confusing enough to obscure the book’s intent. Like Shuli’s late father, rebellious pupil, sainted wife, and presumably Hashem, him/her/itself, you want the man to succeed. I have some quibbles — Englander’s cardboard women; a testosterone-fueled scene that evades a difficult but essential cry for insight with an easy and unfulfilling orgasm — but these drawbacks are not sufficient to lower my estimation of the book. Fasten your kippot to your skull and proceed on faith. You won’t be disappointed.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves (Rating 5) – All in the Family. In Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves, primatologist Frans de Waal’s fascinating and accessible book fulfills the title’s promise. Although we generally use “emotion” and “feeling” interchangeably, he begins with a useful distinction. Emotions drive behavior and can thus be observed. Feelings, the internal states that accompany emotions, can only be inferred. Recounting the behaviors he and his colleagues have observed in our fellow primates and other species, Dr. de Waal makes a convincing case that humans are not that different animals, most notably, we are not “superior.” He has documented this claim elsewhere with regard to cognitive capacities; here he extends the comparison to affective behavior. As a developmental psychologist, I was reminded of my own field’s chronic underestimation of the capabilities of young children with regard to such attributes as empathy and morality. Dr. De Waal’s precise delineation of both the similarities and differences between apes and humans is insightful. Similarities abound in everything from laughter and grief, to fair play and revenge (even premeditated murder). One telling difference is the label “alpha male.” Originally the concept, which dates to wolf studies in the 1940s, simply meant the dominant male. However, as the term has been applied to humans, “alphas are not just winners, they beat the hell out of everyone around them.” In the animal world, the alpha male is not the biggest bully. In fact, “this male acts as the healer-in-chief, comforting others, intent on restoring harmony.” Perhaps, in observing our species today, de Waal can be forgiven for occasionally substituting cynicism for science. However, as a fiction writer, I set out to prove that even my most reprehensible characters can change. As a reader, I’m equally inclined to be generous. For optimists like me, de Waal offers hope that people can behave better by citing studies of female primates, who are the primary conciliators of their species. Whereas males physically dominate and intimidate, females stand their ground by exerting a powerful social influence. Females are peacemakers rather than warriors. Thus, de Waal says, it is past time to abandon macho theories of human evolution and embrace feminist ones. Only then we can harness the emotions that facilitate relationships and re-channel the destructive ones.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Lost Children Archive (Rating 3) – Are We There Yet? Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli is a road trip that reads in the disjointed manner in which I imagine it was written. Vignettes, composed at random, are pieced together haphazardly. There is no “aha” moment that eventually reveals the hidden rationale for their order. Although place names mark the journey’s progression from NYC to the Southwest, the chronology of scenes is otherwise interchangeable. The narrative begins with an enticing question: Will a blended family (mother, father, boy, girl) stay together? Alas, the story soon loses its way. While many of the incidents and conversations en route are interesting, they arise from the mind of the author, not the psyches of the characters. The whimsical observations of the five-year-old girl, in particular, are not credible as having originated with her. I soon asked: Are we there yet? After a while, I didn’t care when, or if, we arrived. To its credit, the narrative regains momentum at the end. Nevertheless, as a writer myself, I suspect this book was more engaging to research and write than it was to read.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Women Talking (Rating 5) – A Hymn to Women’s Wisdom. Women Talking, by Miriam Toew’s, is exactly what it’s title proclaims: Women debating how to respond to the drugging and sexual assaults perpetrated on them by the men in their closed Mennonite community. They argue about forgiveness and faith, fealty and friendship, and the very essence of femaleness. As women living in isolation they are understandably inward looking in how they process the horrific events perpetrated on them by men they have been raised to love, trust, and, of necessity, depend on. Yet the questions they ask are universal, and their answers contain wisdom that belies a need for worldly knowledge. Where one might expect an anti-religious diatribe, the prose is instead a virtual hymn to the introspective and intellectual power of the devout. Women Talking is a revelation about the horrific crime committed by powerful men bent on burying it. The book is also a challenge to religious stereotypes about the ability of the oppressed and conventionally raised to think and act for themselves —- simply, eloquently, bawdily, critically, and compassionately, as the wise talking women in Women Talking do.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of A Visit From the Goon Squad (Rating 4) – A Crazy Quilt of Tattered Patches. It’s not a spoiler to say that in Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, time is the “goon” of the title. Her inventive book ranges from several decades in the past to the almost-here future. Although two main protagonists are at the center, readers encounter the relationships and careers of a dozen characters whose lives are potholed by disappointments followed by regrets — or shrugs; lost love; tattered dreams crazily quilted by rare comebacks; and always the sound of encroaching youth eager to trample over their elders. Despite this bleak summary, the book is filled with humor, imagination, spot-on social skewering, and radiant shafts of beauty. Egan has empathy for her characters. They are flawed, some seriously, yet evoke sympathy if not affection. The narrative is alternatively presented as linked stories or a novel, it’s only problem. If, like me, you prefer to read each story in a collection independently, taking breaks between them, you may lose track of the characters, even the two main ones. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for the coherence of a novel, you may be frustrated by the dropped stitches and loose threads. Perhaps the book should be read twice, once each way. Reader’s choice whether the story mode or novel mode comes first. Either way, this complex and masterful book justifies a second reading.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Clock Dance (Rating 3) – Pleasant But Not Memorable. Like Willa née Drake, the protagonist of Anne Tyler’s Clock Dance, the novel meanders through years, relationships, and places. Readers follow along willingly enough, but more from a sense of obligation than anticipation or caring. Although the pace ticks up near the end, like an overwound clock, even that awkward incident proves too inconsequential to justify the uneventful minutes in the book’s preceding pages. The novel is pleasant and well-intentioned, like Willa herself, but ultimately not memorable.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Library Book (Rating 5) – Ablaze With Affection, Awe, and Archives. If you love to crack open a book, you will consume this attempt to crack open the case of the conflagration that consumed the Los Angeles Central Library in 1986. In Susan Orlean’s entertaining and absorbing The Library Book, the story of the fire is interwoven with the library’s history, its diverse patrons and their sprawling city, the impressive past and creative hope of tomorrow’s libraries, a cast of dedicated and endearingly eccentric librarians, the science of book burning and salvage, and the author’s early memories of visiting the library with her beloved mother. Orlean’s usual talent for empathy, imagination, and solid research glows here, luring you inside a subject you never thought you’d be curious about but are delighted to have discovered.