Laura Nicole Diamond's SHELTER US Goes from Luster to Dust

The award winning novel "Shelter Us," by Laura Nicole Diamond tackles issues of grief and social responsibility but fumbles badly midway into a sophomoric soap opera.  Sarah Shaw is wife to Robert and mother to 3 children, Oliver, Izzy and daughter Ella.  Ella died at 6 weeks. Sarah was instructed in her grief support group to name her daughter & speak of her death when asked about her children  The support group proved futile.  Both Sarah & Robert disband but become isolated in their own sorrow. Despite the insurmountable stupor of pain they still needing to care for their children & themselves.  Diamond evokes our empathy for Sarah who valiantly strives amidst the murkiness of self-doubt, grief & loneliness.  "Shelter Us" also takes a profound look at the homeless who remain invisible to those fortunate to have a roof, food & stability. "There's so much need, it becomes easy to ignore people.  That's terrible, isn't it?"  Sarah is drawn towards a young mother & her small child who are homeless & vulnerable.  Her acts of kindness & generosity towards them confront us with our own behavior.  Sarah questions her own motives.  Is she using them to help heal the hole left by Ella's death?  Regardless her motives, we admire Sarah's heroic efforts to help this family.  Robert prohibits Sarah from becoming  involved.  Sarah's strategy to be of aid twists the focus onto a tattered & unwinding marriage caused by deceit, breakdown in communication & adultry.  The integrity of a novel that addressed coping with grief & commitment to those less fortunate needed protecting from morphing into the angst of a rocky marriage.

Non-F THE OTHER WES MOORE

"The Other Wes Moore" tells the divergent paths of 2 young men of the same age, both from the Baltimore area and both named Wes Moore.  Their lives' outcomes may serve as a cautionary tale. But,   this is much more a contemplative work to reflect upon.  What part does our circumstances play over one's own responsibilities in determining the paths our lives will lead?  The thought provoking author of "The Other Wes Moore" is a successful entrepeneur, Rhodes Scholar, decorated army veteran and married family man.  To clarify, I will refer to the author as Wes1.  The other Wes Moore I will refer to as Wes2.  Wes2 is serving a life sentence in prison for a robbery that resulted in the shooting death of a police officer.  Wes2 had an arrest record early on for drug trafficking and was a teen parent to 4 children.  I am not going to make excuses, or place blame - nor am I going to extol the virtues of either man.  I will suggest as does Wes1, there are factors, opportunities, and influential people who can have a major impact on another person's life.  Decisions are to a great extent based on what we are exposed to in our limited world.  However, the word "limited" is a term in constant flux.  One must take accountability of our own decisions, actions, for expanding our horizons and ultimately, for our own lives.  "The Other Wes Moore" tells a compelling & insightful history of both men.  Wes1 reached out to Wes2 in prison and we learn Wes2's story through their visits and correspondences.   Wes1 credits family & people who provided support, strong mentoring, encouragement & opportunities for his achievements.  Still, Wes1 is ultimately responsible for having committed himself to doing the work required.  Moore's reporting on both lives is a catalysis for the conversation surrounding personal responsibility.  This includes the responsiblity we have to others to provide opporutunities and compassion.  Wes1 informs the reader that everyone's mission "has to be to pull up others behind us." The potent message of these 2 men with shared similarities is painfully clear, "The chilling truth is that Wes's story could have been mine, the tragedy {including the officer's death} is that my story could have been his."

What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi-Not Worth Your Time

The best thing about this novel by Helen Oyeyemi is its clever title.  Nigerian born author, Helen Oyeyemi's novel "Boy Snow Bird" was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in 2014.  I was very taken with this beautifully written, bewitching interwoven tale of myths, familial bonds and reverse discrimination.  In Oyeyemi's new collection of short stories, the author maintains a crafty writing style that is so mysterious I felt left out in the dark.  I'm also at a loss for the signifigance of its taunting title and fail to find the thread that ties the stories together other than they all contain locks & keys.  I understand the metaphors for new pathways but the stories themselves are without spirit or intent.   Reading Oyeyemi's short stories felt to me like passing through the looking glass.  I'd pass on these peculiar and uninspired stories & pick up one of her former novels.

L Lalami's Pulitz Prize Nominated Novel The MOOR'S ACCOUNT

I strongly recommend THE MOOR's ACCOUNT by Laila Lalami  (b. Moroco 1968) which won the Amer Bk Award & was nominated for the Pulitzer ('15.)  This is a historical novel of slavery in its many ugly forms. The novel begins with the slave trade business in Moroco under the Spanish King in the 16th C and then sets off on Spanish expeditions to conquer new lands & riches.  The Castilian explorers set sail for "La Florida" Apalachia & the Aztecs.  This is a brutal tail of the enslavement & destruction of mass populations of Native American Indians & Moors by the Spanish aristocracy.  Esteban, our narrator, is a young Moor from a loving Muslim household with a rebellious nature.  He chooses not to follow his father's guidance.  When his family falls into a financial ruin, Esteban commits the selfless but foolish act of selling himself into slavery to provide his family money. "To go from freedom to slavery was a fate worse than death with its strange customs & unbearable rules."  "Esteban is a masterful storyteller.  He is also resourceful, indomitable, adaptable, affable & an astute observer. These skills enable him to survive in the harsh & life threatening new world.  The master/slave relationship breeds bonds of brotherhood during their years of reliance on each other.  It resorts back once they're reunited with other Spanish colonizers.  As enriching a tale of adventure, this is a reckoning with morality.  We are reminded of the brutal ruination of races, cultures, histories,  traditions and ways of life by white oppressors.  The MOOR's ACCOUNT is a rich novel of 16th C expeditions that changed history through the abuse of power.

Katie Roiphe's Consumption with Death in THE VIOLET HOUR Doesn't Deserve Your Time

I found Katie Roiphe's obsession with confronting death through the lives of 6 famous writers self-indulgent and regrettable.  The 6 people whose lives she dissected under a fractured microscope are:  Sigmund Freud, Dylan Thomas, Susan Sontag, Maurice Sendak, John Updike and James Salter.  Other than Salter, Roiphe (b. Amer 1968) relies on 2nd hand information and doles out tertiary dolts of mundane philosophy.  Her infatuation with death stemmed from her near fatal illness at the age of 12 when she spent a year in & out of the hospital.  There is a disingenuous attempt at drawing parrallels amongst her subjects in regards to their embracing both life & death.  Her summations & insipid observations seem written prior to writing THE VIOLET HOUR.  It reads as a posthumous piece that does not dignify her subjects or provide substantive material to contemplate mortality.  The only person she interviewed was James Salter.  This interview is the most compelling section in the book.  Salter passed last yera at 90.  Roiphe was rewarded with an interesting, intelligent interview.  With regards to death, Salter tells her "Let's not talk too much about this...Don't dwell on it."  Roiphe tells her readers  "Maybe I need to find a way to be less afraid {of death.}"  Take Thomas' poem  "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" to heart and make better use of your time than reading minutia of how these famous people spent their waning days.

Rafael Yglesias' novel A HAPPY MARRIAGE is Scripted from His Married Life & Death of His Wife

Rafael Yglesias (b. Amer 1954) is a novelist & screenwriter.  In his latest novel A HAPPY MARRIAGE, Yglesias writes about a young novelist, Enrique, who meets a beautiful young woman, Margaret, whom he falls madly in love.   The novel mirrors his own life.  Yglesias met his wife Margaret when they were in their 20's, married, had 2 sons and were together until Margaret's death from cancer at 50.  We are voyeurs to the couple's lust, loveless marriage and a rebirth in the grace that comes of a longterm commitment.  There are astute observations of what people bring to a marriage, their expectations and what morphs from coupledom.  "So many illusions dispelled.  So much strength revealed. They had sworn love; they had endured hate." Yglesias best captures Enrique's feelings of inadequacies regarding his writing & his wife.  I liked being a peeping tom in the marriage counselor's office as Enrique's ruse to absolve the marriage for his mistress while knowing their union prevails. The novel deals with the inability to confront mortality.  "No warning of the incredible fact of mortality could adequately prepare the primitive brain nature had given him to comprehend its finality."  And while I was fine being a voyeur to sexual exploits in the bedroom, I was extremely disturbed being in Margaret's hospital room & hospice care.  The sum of a marriage comes from the ability to see the world through the other's eye.  A HAPPY MARRIAGE was more than an eyeful of happiness.  It was also morbid & macabre.