Category: What I’m Reading

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope: My True Story (Rating 5): Surviving on the Strength of Family – For over 40 years, Nazi Holocaust survivor Irene Butter remained silent about the horrors of her childhood. In her mid-50s, she decided she had to speak out. Now in her late 80s, she has engaged for decades in memorial, educational, and peace-building efforts. Shores Beyond Shores is her most recent contribution to guaranteeing that the lessons of the Holocaust are remembered and applied. What makes this story unique is the focus on her family. Through tenacity, abetted by good fortune, Irene, her parents, and older brother stayed together throughout their concentration camp years. Amid the nightmare stories, Butter and her collaborators John Bidwell and Kris Holloway also capture the humor of bantering siblings, the confidences shared by friends, the sacrifices of those who refused to lose their humanity and dignity, even the tenderness of first love. To read and share this book is to help Irene and other survivors carry on their work and spread their message of hope.

 

My Amazon and Goodreads review of The House of Broken Angels (Rating 4): A Multicolor Portrait of a Multi-generational Mexican-American Family – In his vivid multi-generational tale of a Mexican-American family, Luis Alberto Urrea offers up fallen angels (husbands, fathers, sons, brothers) and caregiving saints (wives, mothers, daughters, sisters). At times, I had trouble remembering the identities of third or even second generation characters, a confusion exacerbated by their multiple nicknames. And, even in context, the meaning of some Spanish expressions eluded me. Despite these gaps, I was drawn into the wild ride of life events and complicated relationships among the de la Cruz kin. Some are common to all extended families, others unique to a culture proud of itself yet shamed by a society that regards them as “less than” their white counterparts. Overall, the book has the zest, orneriness, kindness, rage, and spirit of a wild and crowded fiesta.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Asymmetry (Rating 3): A Self-Referential Title for an Uneven Book — I’m baffled by the advanced buzz for Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry, a three-part novel with uneven writing. The first section, about a young woman’s relationship with a famous older writer, said to be based on Philip Roth, no doubt explains the reviewers’ swooning. But while the Roth-like character is thankfully not portrayed as a creep (I’m an avid Roth fan), the woman is a cipher — inert and uninteresting. The power asymmetry in the unconnected second part, which confronts America’s war in Iraq, is more complex and promising, but undeveloped. It needs a book of its own. Part three, a fictitious interview with the writer, has extended riffs on the literary life that are worth perusing. However, the time is better spent reading real interviews with, and books written by, the authors one admires.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Guts (Rating 5): Interweaving Illness, Family, and Friendship — Janet Buttenwieser rewards readers with three connected stories. First, the book is a moving memoir of how she found the confidence to speak up for herself to a medical establishment that claimed to know her body better than she did, and how she trained that body to take physical risks she never thought possible. Second, Guts is an appreciation of family, the body’s extension that sustains us when we’re ready to surrender and magnifies our joy when we’re already past bursting. The book’s third tale, which embodies the other two, is a testimonial to friendship. Buttenwieser honors the late friend who she gained through admiration, lost through inattention, regained through commitment, and lost again to cancer. Guts, guarantees that her friend will live within her, and her readers, forever.

My Amazon review of You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir (Rating 4): An Uneasy Relationship Confronted by an Uneasy Author – I was halfway through Alexie’s memoir when I heard the NPR report about his repeated sexual aggression. It was several days before I could go back to reading the book, incorporating that knowledge. I already knew of Alexie’s anger at the mistreatment of Indians. In his memoir, I learned about his being personally abused too. Neither justifies his abuse toward women. However, I bought and read the book for his insights into his troubled relationship with his mother. My late mother was also a difficult person, so this was an area where I found it easier to empathize with him. Alexie speaks eloquently of his ambivalence toward her, feelings that will never be resolved. However, honest memoirs like his can help fellow travelers on an endless journey toward greater understanding, levels of forgiveness, and letting go while still holding on.

My Amazon review of Midnight’s Children (Rated 3): Jewels Scattered in the Dung Heap – Given that Midnight’s Children (1980) won the “Booker of Bookers,” I should rate Salman Rushdie’s epic story of Indian independence 5 to the 5th stars. Coming to it belatedly, I anticipated both a remedial course in history and a novel of lyrical prose. Alas, I was disappointed on both fronts. Those already familiar with India’s creation may appreciate the inside references, but my enlightenment came from the companion reference books I had to consult, not the text itself. As for the writing, there are jewels, both fantastic and funny, scattered in the dung heap of words, but the reward of finding them was not worth the trek through verbose dreck. I’m glad to have finished this “should read” book, but the experience was more medicinal than magical.

My Amazon review of The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home (Rated 5): A Sprawling Mansion of a Book – In a thoroughly researched history of Biltmore, Denise Kiernan has written a sprawling mansion of a book, as multifaceted as one of the stained glass windows adorning All Souls Cathedral in nearby Asheville, North Carolina. In lively prose, readers get full portraits of the Vanderbilt family, vivid descriptions of architecture and landscaping, the local industries that the estate fostered, and above all, a society that ricochets from the excesses of the Gilded Age, to the headiness of the Jazz Age, and into the despair of the Depression. Throughout, a privileged family’s visions of grandeur are compensated for by their unwavering commitment to charity. In sum, the book portrays a people, a home, and an era whose resonance still echoes today.

My Amazon review of Sing, Unburied, Sing (Rated 4): A Presence in the Hole of Absence – Jesmyn Ward mesmerizes readers with a haunting story about a black boy whose mother’s love for his white father, and for drugs, leaves no room for him. The novel is rich with the details of poverty and race in the Mississippi Delta, yet universal in its pain and compassion. Fortunately for JoJo, his grandparents sustain him through Leonie’s emotional and physical absence. This is the book’s reality. The book also veers into magic realism, as foreshadowed by the title. While I’m not a fan of this device, it works here … until it doesn’t, and the “undead” overwhelm the living heart of the story. Moreover, JoJo’s baby sister, who ultimately unites the two worlds, is too weakly and repetitively drawn to bear the burden. The book is rewarding, but reviews led me to expect more.

My Amazon review of Just Kids (Rated 5): Exhilarating and Heartbreaking – Patti Smith’s dual portrait of the twining and twinning between herself and Robert Maplethorpe is at once exhilarating and heartbreaking. Exhilarating because of its energetic insights into how creative ideas take material form; heartbreaking because one laments the talented artists who remain unsung and, in this story, those whose songs the AIDS epidemic silenced too soon. Smith has written a treatise on art and love, how soul mates spur each other’s creativity and caring. She paints a detailed portrait of an era, late 1960s and 1970s NYC, years of grunge and glitter, and the germination of hybrid art forms. Readers will emerge with an understanding of the importance of belief in oneself and in those we love to develop and share their talent, and to achieve the recognition we and they are worthy of. So shed a tear for Robert’s death, then pick up a brush, pen, or microphone like Patti.