Tag: See what Ann S. Epstein Writer is reading

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.