Tag: See what Ann S. Epstein Writer is reading

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Kantika by Elizabeth Graver (Rating 4) – A Serenade to Sephardic Immigrants. The story of Rebecca in Kantika (“sing” in Ladino) by Elizabeth Graver, is an usual take on the American Jewish experience, that of a Sephardic Jew from Turkey (via Spain) rather than an Ashkenazi Jew from Eastern Europe. The book honors the author’s own immigrant ancestors. In the Torah (Old Testament), Rebecca is a beautiful young woman who has the courage to leave her homeland and venture into unknown territory to marry the equally unknown, but troubled, Isaac. She becomes the “decider,” the leaders of her generation, guaranteeing her people’s future. So too does this early twentieth century Rebecca, a young widow with two boys, David and Alberto, cross an ocean to marry Sam, a widower with a daughter, Luna, whose disabilities — the result of cerebral palsy — are more severe than Rebecca has been led to believe. Arriving in a chaotic household, and determined to succeed, Rebecca takes charge. Her painstaking (painful) yet undeterred efforts to teach her severely physically handicapped, but mentally sharp, stepdaughter Luna are moving. Strong-willed but well matched combatants, both emerge victorious. Luna achieves independence and personhood while Rebecca achieves grudging respect and acceptance as her mother. The early part of the book is occasionally bogged down by the author’s exposition on Sephardic Jewish culture. Later in the book, as Graver introduces other narrative voices and points of view, important information is missing. For example, after much is made of how and when her two boys can join her, the narrative advances three years without readers learning how they got to America and what their reunion with their mother was like. As a writer of historical fiction myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I know the importance of including that information selectively and organically in the narrative. At times, Graver includes either too much or too little. The passages from Luna’s point of view are absorbing, those from David less so. I missed hearing Rebecca’s voice which, when it finally returns, sounds diminished. Graver’s choice to pass the narrative to the next generation mirrors the immigrant experience, but the book loses its force. Those reservations aside, Kantika is a rich and engaging story of multiple and often conflicting identities. The biblical Rebecca and Kantika’s Rebecca each arrive in a new land and earn the mantle of matriarch. Graver persuades us that we are indebted to their creative vision and their no-nonsense strength.

An homage to Graver’s immigrant ancestors

Why writers read: “Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.” – Malorie Blackman

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Heart and Salt by Elaina Battista-Parsons (Rating 5) – Grains and Gifts. Heart and Salt by Elaina Battista-Parsons is a collection of stories about young women growing up and into themselves. They test themselves, and others. They tend toward skepticism, and take life with a grain of salt. Yet they have rare moments of pure heart that deliver epiphanies to them and offer gifts to readers. The tales explore the relationships that those on the cusp of adulthood grapple with: finding the “right” romantic partner, making friends who let you be yourself, navigating parental expectations, marking your “place” in the world, be it the Jersey shore or a small New England town. The recurring and well-named character Feather, literally a self-described lightweight, epitomizes this transitional stage. She’s in the middle, unable to commit, never quite belonging wherever she lands. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I appreciate Battita-Parsons’s ability to make readers believe in the characters more than they believe in themselves. Heart and Salt authentically captures the trying years between late girlhood and early womanhood, planting the hope that these seekers will eventually ground themselves and allow their individual talents to shine.

Growing from girlhood to womanhood

Why writers read: “Books are people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.” – E. B. White

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Ella’s War by Rusty Allen (Rating 5) – A Battle of the Heart. Rusty Allen’s unique perspective in Ella’s War sets it apart from other World War Two novels. The story unfolds on the home front, not the battlefield, and a German soldier is a gentle helpmeet, not a feared enemy. In Allen’s sensitive narrative, passion wrestles with patriotism while love confronts loyalty. Like the best historical fiction, harsh facts are softened with tender moments. The tale alternates among four memorable characters. Ella, mother of a young son, struggles to manage the Delaware farm she inherited following her parents’ sudden death. Lee, her common-law husband and the boy’s father, chafes at being tied down but steps up to tend the farm. Reese, their resourceful child, vows to prove his manhood when his father impetuously overrides his Army deferment to enlist. And Dieter, the industrious first mate of a captured U-boat, strives to make amends for his countrymen’s inhumanity. With evocative metaphor, cinematic detail, and absorbing drama, Allen builds toward the book’s moral dilemma. Dieter, a prisoner of war, is assigned to work on the farm. Ella, initially wary, falls in love with him. Then Lee, changed by the wounds of war, comes home, ready to “do right” by Ella, their son, and the farm. Ella is wrenched by the choice she must make. Readers will be torn too. In addition to the main story line, Allen takes readers down lesser known channels of that era, such as the in-fighting between POWs who are hard-line Nazis versus those who don’t share their rabid antisemitism. He also illuminates the wartime challenges of running a farm, racial prejudice, belittling of women, and coming-of-age battles between boys trying to prove who is tougher. As a historical novelist myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I can affirm Allen’s deftness at balancing fact and fiction to simultaneously inform and maintain the narrative’s momentum. The book will engage your mind, rouse your spirit, and shake your emotions. In a conflict without good guys and bad guys, Ella’s War is ultimately a battle of the heart.

A unique perspective on WWII from the home front

Why writers read: “Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.” – Malorie Blackman

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano (Rating 5) – A Winning Four-Point Shot. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano begins and ends with William Waters, an emotionally blocked basketball player, but the book revolves around the four Padavano sisters, whose family he joins through marriage. The women compare themselves to the March girls in Little Women; they vie for the plum roles and sidestep that of the doomed Beth. One of the many skills in Napolitano’s writing is making readers wonder if, when, and who a Beth equivalent will emerge. The narrative is told from multiple points of view, primarily those of William and the two older sisters (Julia and Sylvia), with later chapters also featuring William and Julia’s daughter Alice. The characters are intricately and distinctively drawn, as is the family solidarity that is greater than the sum of their parts. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire Napolitano’s talent for allowing readers to see events and the choices they make from multiple perspectives, without passing judgment. She renders a panoply of emotions: joy and grief, emptiness and fulfillment, courage and fear, desire and deadness. The novel shines with love. This capacious book houses a large family with room for more members, readers included.

A book that affirms the life-giving power of love

Why writers read: “A key part of writing is to read good writing, to see how others have done it.” – Carl Phillips

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Hope for the Worst by Kate Brandt (Rating 5) – A Courageous Search for the Meaning of Being. Ellie Adkins, the young protagonist of Hope for the Worst by Kate Brandt, is a seeker whose life has fallen apart. She grieves over a parental divorce for which she feels responsible, is abandoned by a noncommittal boyfriend, is fired for being “insufficiently committed,” laments her inadequacy as a friend, and most injurious, is cast aside by her much older Buddhist teacher and lover, Calvin. In short, Ellie is a mess. Is her suffering an opportunity, as her guru propounds, or justification for hopelessness? Unable to move forward, Ellie further endangers herself by trekking to Tibet to retrieve an artifact the guru covets to prove her worthiness. Yet the more she tries to liberate herself from her demons, she more she succumbs to their debilitating power. In notebooks and letters, Ellie vents her tangled emotions, enmeshing readers in the escalating turmoil. Will she find the love she seeks? Will she even survive? As a novelist myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire Brandt’s uncanny ability to channel her character’s obsessive rage and despair. On the surface, Ellie’s life is empty. But her inner life is a huge bundle of astute observations and inventive actions. Brandt’s vivid writing allows readers to accompany Ellie on her courageous search for the meaning of being.

Should we succumb to or surpass our suffering?

Why writers read: “Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” – Annie Proulx

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Bewilderment by Richard Powers (Rating 4) – A Wild Ride Through Earth and Cosmos. Bewilderment by Richard Powers is a novel about loss — the loss of a parent, the feared loss of a child, the loss of earth’s ecosystem, the loss of an opportunity to explore distant realms. The title connotes confusion but is also an old term for returning to the wild. Grieving the death of his wife, an astrophysicist and father of a nine-year-old boy with over-diagnosed mental health problems tries to save his gifted but sensitive son without resorting to chemical treatments. Together they explore the wilds of nature, and the imagined wilds of far-off planets where life assumes many different forms. Powers poses parallel heartbreaking questions: Can a father avert the loss of his beloved child? Can humanity avert the loss of our earth? Mistakes are made. Some involve a brain-altering technology that Powers invents, not always convincingly. Others, wholly believable, evoke a parent’s desperate attempts to keep his unique but fragile child. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), one who prizes character development, I especially admire the authenticity of the father’s roller coaster emotions. Readers too are in for a wild and be-wildered ride through earth and cosmos.

An imaginative yet down-to-earth novel

Why writers read: “To read is to voyage through time.” – Carl Sagan

My Amazon and Goodreads reviews of I’m Never Fine: Scenes and Spasms on Loss by Joseph Lezza (Rating 5) – Tribute and Tirade. Joseph Lezza’s I’m Never Fine: Scenes and Spasms on Loss is a moving tribute to his late father, whose death from pancreatic cancer left his son bereft. It is also a tirade against the unjust and untimely death of a generous man on the cusp of finally enjoying the fruits of a hard-working life. Lezza struggles with his identity as a gay man, raised by devout parents in a Catholic Church that condemned who and what he was. An only child, the beneficiary of his parents’ unstinting love, Lezza was filled with guilt and remorse for having disappointed them. Reading about his journey from self-abasement to self-acceptance is painful, but ultimately redeeming. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I was impressed by Lezza’s agility with language. His lesson on the meaning of “fine” (adjective, verb, and noun), rooted in the Latin “finis” or end, is a masterful discourse on its ambiguity; it can describe a state ranging from superb to barely tolerable, from being done with grief to utterly and finally dead to the world, like his father. Likewise, Lezza’s description of his reawakening is simultaneously surreal and wholly authentic. As an end-of-life doula, I value his unsparing description of dying, a process that can literally and figuratively strip away our humanity — unless we transform it. Lezza and his mother, backed by family, friends, and hospice, never let the ravages of cancer deprive a brave man of the dignity and adoration he deserves. Lezza’s ferocious yet funny memoir restores justice to his father and rewards his own talents as a writer.

My Goodreads and Amazon review of We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman (Rating 5) – A Gift to Dying. We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman is the story of the lifelong friendship between two women, Ash and Edi, the latter now in hospice. As Edi moves towards death, Ash surrounds her with love and assembles a community of other family members, friends, and hospice workers to accompany her on this journey. The finality is painful, but the long days and dwindling hours are also filled with humor and outright joy for life’s gifts. Newman’s novel is a gift to dying. While aspects of the tale are somewhat idealized — the women’s friendship, their respective families, and the residential hospice facility itself — the bodily humiliation and emotional grief of death are portrayed with honesty. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I’m impressed by the authenticity of Newman’s characters, especially the self-absorbed but self-aware Ash. As a certified end-of-life doula, I appreciate the realistic depiction of dying. It’s messy and draining, but also a time to tie up loose ends and magnify love. Edi is faced and graced with it all. Don’t we all deserve the “good death” that Newman portrays?

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Black Licorice by Elaina Battista-Parsons (Rating 5) – The Soundtrack of Friendship. Tune into Black Licorice by Elaina Battista-Parsons and listen to Freddi, whose flute-playing talents are prodigious. She also excels as the creator of the Black Licorice blog. Alas, Freddi’s skills at friendship are zilch. She’s made one friend at ARTS high school — Court, a viola prodigy — but her confidence is shaken when he disappears without reason or further contact. Freddi is at a loss to figure out what she did to drive him away. Reeling from that broken friendship, and sent to an ordinary high school as “punishment” for an angry outburst, Freddi stumbles onto the treacherous path of a potential new relationship. Her parents and peers warn her that this new friend, Lorna, is not suitable given her own (unspecified) “bad girl” behavior. Freddi pursues the friendship anyway, but every (mis)step threatens to sabotage her progress. The book is aimed at a YA audience, but even readers and writers of adult fiction, including myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), will admire Battista-Parsons’s ability to get inside the head of her adolescent protagonist and explore the complexities of friendship at any age with empathy, insight, and humor. Freddi keeps getting knocked down but readers root for her to get up, pick up her flute, and play on.

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Better to Have Gone: Love, Death, and the Quest for Utopia in Auroville by Akash Kapur (Rating 5) – (Un)Holiness and (Dis)Harmony. Better to Have Gone by Akash Kapur is a biography of both a family and a community, Auroville, where the author and his wife grew up. The memoir is at once sympathetic to the visionaries who flocked to build this utopia in 1968, the heyday of intentional communities, and a heartbreaking critique of how idealism can succumb to fanaticism. The sprawling landscape of Auroville, in southern India, was conceived as a “reverse Tower of Babel,” where people from different corners of the world, speaking a multitude of languages, would live together in “concord and harmony.” Their shared tongue would be the yoga of Sri Aurobindo, the commune’s namesake, and the teachings of his anointed disciple, called “The Mother.” Initially, this utopia did not fare any better than the biblical edifice whose demise it proposed to reverse. While Auroville survived, it endured years of chaos, riven my factions that proved tragic for many well-intentioned people. Among them were the parents of the author’s wife, whose deaths Kapur sets out to investigate. It is noteworthy that he and his wife, attracted to modern-day ideals of escaping the American rat race, decided to move back to Auroville with their own children in 2004. While some members of the deceased families are eager to assign blame, Kapur is more motivated by a desire to explain and understand. We hear from people who could rightly be demonized but also from those who tried their best to help, and those who didn’t want to take sides but were nevertheless caught up in the hostilities. A writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I appreciate Kapur’s urge to humanize behavior that readers would otherwise be quick to condemn. As a cautionary tale, Better to Have Gone recognizes the inevitable destructiveness of human nature — in the way that many Bible stories can be read. But it also acknowledges the triumph of faith, a belief that this time, in this (other) way, we can aspire to do better and achieve a higher harmony.