What I’m Reading: Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser

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.

A deft analysis of a literary and cultural icon
Why writers read: “A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.” – Franz Kafka

What I’m Reading: Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

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.

Turning the bizarre into a believable tale of parenthood
Why writers read: “To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” – Victor Hugo

What I’m Reading: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

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.

Sixty years later, has anything changed?
Why writers read: “Books taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who had ever been alive.” – James Baldwin

What I’m Reading: The Glass Hotel: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel

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.

A one-way mirror with nary a peek inside
Why writers read: “If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or tools) to write. Simple as that.” – Stephen King

What I’m Reading: Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb

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.

An affectionate and affecting memoir
Why writers read: “Don’t sleep with people who don’t read!” – John Waters

What I’m Reading: Deacon King Kong by James McBride

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.

An author sacrifices showing for showing off
Why writers read: “Writing is a difficult trade which must be learned slowly by reading.” – André Maurois

What I’m Reading: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

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.

A story of two siblings and the three-story house that haunts them
“A good book is an education of the heart.” – Susan Sontag

What I’m Reading: Fly Girls by Keith O’Brien

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.

Sisterhood in the air
“If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.” – Roald Dahl

What I’m Reading: Olive, Again

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Olive, Again (Rating 5) – Godfrey. Thank God Olive Kittridge is Back. In Olive, Again, Elizabeth Strout returns us to the coastal town of Crosby, Maine. All I can say is, “Godfrey. Thank God Olive Kittridge is back.” In stories that feature Olive, or bring her on for a cameo, Strout introduces us to residents whose lives are filled with sadness, even tragedy, but who evince a New England determination not to complain and to carry on. Olive delights us with her own small epiphanies, often reached reluctantly but embraced when she accepts that they are inescapable. One of Strout’s most satisfying creations is Jack Kennison, Olive’s late-in-life second husband, who is her match in irascibility and likability. Best about Jack is how much he likes Olive. Olive herself is one hot, leaky mess of contradictions: tactless and kind; humorless and funny; oblivious and self-aware; judgmental and open-minded; exasperating and endearing. I was reluctant to read the last story because I didn’t want the book to end. As a writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I know that my characters never leave me. I hope that is true for writer Elizabeth Strout, because as a reader, all I can say is “Godfrey. Please don’t ever die Olive. I can’t bear the thought of a world without your bulk.”

The prickly but endearing Olive Kittridge is one hot, leaky mess of contradictions
Why writers read: “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” – Oscar Wilde

What I’m Reading: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

My Amazon and Goodreads review of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Rating 5) – The Balm of Words. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by award-winning poet and debut novelist Ocean Vuong is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age and coming out story. The narrator, Little Dog, writes of being a Vietnamese immigrant and a gay man, growing up alien and poor in Hartford, Connecticut. The novel takes the form of a letter to his illiterate mother, traumatized by a childhood napalm attack and often abusive. The odds of her reading, let alone understanding, the letter are slim so Little Dog is writing to himself as much as to her, trying to make sense of the forces that shaped him: his mother and grandmother, his quasi-grandfather, and the older redneck boy who was his first love. The imagery is transporting, invoking not only the five senses, but also hallucinatory states. As a fiction writer, I know how difficult it is to describe the indescribable. (See my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page.) I attribute Vuong’s metaphorical acuity to his gifts as a poet. Some descriptions are overwritten and desensitizing, but then a shattering scene reawakens readers’ nerves. Little Dog, like Vuong, escapes in books and writing. When his mother and grandmother are mocked for their lack of language, he vows never to be without words himself. The novel tells that tale, and is a testament to the phenomenal fruits of his pledge. Words are Little Dog’s balm. Vuong’s family story is horrific and while far removed from the lives of most readers, it remains a common truth for refugees today. Vuong triumphed, but the rare beauty of his writing reminds us that most trauma survivors will not.

Words overcome trauma in Vuong’s semi-autobiographical novel
Why writers read: “A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us. – Franz Kafka