Barbara Kingsolver's UNSHELTERED - Unfettered Cleverness of New Ideas Past and Present

Barbara Kingsolver (b Amer. 1955) writes novels that contain themes concerning social justice, environmental protection, religious zealots and freethought.  UNSHELTERED contends with the adamant, sacrosanct opposition to Darwinism in the US in the years following the Civil War and tackles the current environmental destruction of our planet.  The storylines in late 19th C and 21st C are brought together under one roof.  Thatcher Greenwood is a science professor who is met with bombastic enmity for broaching evolution theories.  He lives with his new bride, Rose, her sister & mother in a small NJ town in a house barely standing alongside his crumbling marriage.  In present day, our world is about to implode due to greed & negligence of the planet.  Willa & her family are currently living in the same location (perhaps, same house) far worse for the wear.  Willa's home has been condemned.  Her last prayer is if she can prove the home has historic significance they might receive grant funding for restoration before its demolition.  The too clever connection & coincidences are too much to withstand.  Thatcher befriends his neighbor Mary Treat (b Amer. 1830-1923) a predominant botanist, entomologist and collaborative correspondent to Charles Darwin.  Thatcher finds a kindred spirit with Mary amidst a brutal, closed minded town that would sooner tar & feather him rather than concede scientific evidence that question religious beliefs in God's almighty creation.  The most intriguing part of Kingsolver's novel is Mary Treat and the dawning curiosities of scientific reasoning amidst overwhelming public vehemence. "Presumptions of a lifetime are perilous things to overturn."  Unfortunately, Kingsolver is overly clever in constructing her novel.  The parallel plots segue from Willa's family dysfunctional drama back in time to Thatcher's life.  Willa's husband is also a professor whose remained untenured and detached from the dire situations within his own hearth.  Willa is caring for her son's newborn & her flailing  racist father-in-law.   Willa's daughter Tig is a dynamo pragmatist who proselytizes til the walls come tumbling down on the crucial need to conserve & protect our environment.  Kingsolver should've taken a lesson from Occam's Razor whose theory she refers & gone with a simpler format. Instead she throws in too many convoluted tangents.  Willa's name was no random choice as Willa Cather is oft quoted, "Unsheltered I live in daylight."  Kingsolver's prose and meaningful issues were undermined by a sodden foundation.  

Melinda's Top Ten Book Picks Since July for 2018

The following are my top ten selections for books read in 2018 in alphabetical order by author.  Surprisingly, all my picks are by American authors.  I'll have to make a stronger effort to read authors outside the US but this year, the following works compile my favorite picks:


1.  LINCOLN at the Bardot by George Saunders (2017 Man Booker Prize)

2.  IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK - James Baldwin

3.  THE NIX - Nathan Hill

4..  WHERE the DEAD SIT TALKING - Brandon Hobson (Nominated for National Book Award)

5.  THE MARS ROOM - Rachel Kushner (Finalist for Man Booker Prize)

6.  THE FRIEND - Sigrid Nunez (2018 National Book Award)

7.  TRAJECTORY - Richard Russo (4 short stories). (Pulitzer Prize winner for EMPIRE FALLS)

8.  CALYPSO - David Sedaris (memoir)

9.  IMPROVEMENT - Joan Silber

10 ALTERNATE SIDE - Anna Quindlen (Pulitzer Prize winner for commentary)

Special commendation to the non-fiction worK:
A SAINT on DEATH ROW by Thomas Cahill - Capital punishment must be abolished NOW

Jodi Picoult's Great Small Things - Racial Injustice, White Supremacy and a Litigious Society

Jodi Picoult is an American novelist whose books frequent the NYTimes Best Selling List.  While her books are fast reads, they are far from frivolous.  They tend to delve into pertinent social issues from varying vantages. Her previous best sellers include "My Sister's Keeper;" a young girl seeks medical emancipation from parents wishing to "harvest" organs and "19 Minutes;" the aftermath of a school shooting.  Both novels dealt with real life scenarios.  Litigation factored into these novels.  Litigation plays a major role in "Great Small Things".  After the ordeal of an infant's death while in the care of a hospital.  The parents of the deceased baby are both militant white supremacists.  The nurse assigned to care for the mother & child is Ruth.  Ruth is a 20 year nursing veteran at the hospital and esteemed colleague.  The reception Ruth receives from the mother and father, Turk is loathsome owing to the fact Ruth is black.  Turk demands the supervisor insure Ruth not interact with their son.  Ruth is upset when she sees a sticker placed on the couple's file informing Ruth not be involved in any further care.  Bedlam occurs at the hospital.  Ruth is left to watch over the infants in neonatal care while the only other nurse on duty is called to an emergency.  Tragically, an emergency happens involving Turk's son.  Ruth followed Dr's orders to assist resuscitation but the infant died.  Not surprisingly, Ruth is the one person charged with murder.  Public Defender Kennedy is arbitrarily assigned Ruth's arraignment and inveigles her way into becoming her permanent public defender.  This will be Kennedy's first murder trial and she's determined to win the case (for both Ruth's sake & her own). The novel is told from these 3 narratives:  Ruth, the black nurse, Turk, the white supremest father determined to seek vengeance against Ruth and Kennedy, the white public defender,  Both Ruth & Kennedy have a child.  Ruth's son Edison is a senior on full scholarship at Dalton in NYC.  Ruth has worked arduously as has her mother so she could have an education.  Ruth is dedicated to providing for Edison's tuitions.  Kennedy's daughter is a pre-schooler allotted privileges her parents can more easily provide having had a rung up inherent & perhaps taken for granted due in part to their white race.  Picoult creates 3 dimensional characters we empathize with or despise as in Turk's case.  "Great Small Things" accomplishes significant things. It calls out social injustice, blind hatred, familial love and dawning epiphanies on underestimating mundane & major inequalities inherent with race.  Picoult also manages to write a driving novel with mounting tension.  Ruth grandstands on the witness stand & Turk takes a turn towards humanity v. hatred that tip the scales towards heavy handedness.  Still, I find in favor of this prescient novel. Picoult argues harrowing injustices from different vantages in a palpable summation so as to reach a larger jury pool.

The NIX by Nathan Hill - Some Priceless Scenes Strewn amongst Today's Isolation and 60s Social Revolution

Nathan Hill's novel "The Nix" is an odd & behooving read that grabs one from the get go and never lets the reader know where it's heading next.  Samuel Anderson is our forlorn hero whom we meet at middle age at a flailing midwestern university teaching literature to a class of students who are nonplussed & non present to whatever is presented to them.  Anderson himself is at loss with himself & spends an inordinate amount of time online in a fantasy world with anonymous gamers.  Anderson was abandoned by his mother at an early & raised by his dad in a laissez faire manner.  Hill's hilarious writing, surprising twists & keen observations place The NIX alongside notable writers & social commentaries such as Russo, Irving, Updike & Upton Sinclair.  THE NIX begins betwixt Anderson's startling adolescence and older adulthood.  Anderson's professional career is mired in his own inertia and dissociated, self-indulgent students.   The scene between Anderson & a female student who pleads innocent against plagiarism by lying, denying & conniving.  This winsome waif finds the means to besmirch Anderson & receive accolades for herself.  Hill has his pulse on the today's generation nurtured in ethical nihilism.  Anderson is culpable of a fledgling work ethic.  He spends wasteful time online and remains bereft of social interaction.  Hill cleverly connects today's corrupt political posturing & today's apathetic opposition to the 60s era of protest and social justice.  He's given an advance to write about his mother whom he barely knew but recently has been outed as a militant protestor.  The novel is strewn with unrequited love, loneliness and nuclear armament among other social indignations.  While solving the mystery of his mother's whereabouts, Anderson uncovers corruption, deceit, and lives filled with drudgery and endless toil. Perhaps this explains why  Anderson is far from being alone in finding solace in front of a computer rather than face one's stagnant life.  However, Hill's storytelling is anything but mundane.  THE NIX is a unique dissection of societal morass that releases adrenaline & wit into a marvel of a brilliant novel.  "Nobody cares about antique ideas like true or false?"  THE NIX is a mirepoix of ideas meshing into a beguiling mix of pessimism and optimism - societal dissolution and rejuvenation.  Anderson comes to realize the compulsive immersion in the gaming world blurs the real world when it's essential to realize the real world is what matters.  One cannot endure this world alone.  You will be constantly delighted if you dig deep "...under the hood of someone's life, you will find something familiar."  THE NIX leaves me wanting to read whatever Nathan Hill writes next.

Michelle Obama's Autobiography BECOMING is Enlightening, Inspiring and Somewhat Self-Indulgent

Michelle Obama's BECOMING reflects back on her life from a young child on the South side of Chicago (which is mentioned umpteenth times) to meeting & marrying Barack, having babies and becoming the First Black Family in the White House.  She writes candidly what this entailed from her personal view point.  "I'm an ordinary person who found her-self on an extraordinary journey."  I believe BECOMING was written without the aid of a ghost writer.  Michelle's direct & eloquent style mirrored her public persona.  BECOMING is a rare & exciting opportunity to understand what life was like for her as First Lady.   She shares her objectives, her triumphs & failures and those of Barack's.  We admire her unflappable attitude that sustained her & her family through the exciting privileges and the oppressive rigors & restrictions that come with her unofficial role in the White House.  Michelle's life is anything but ordinary.  But as she reiterates throughout, given her humble beginnings she would not have imagined "the swerve in the road" her life took when aligning herself with Barack.  Michelle pays homage to the devotion of her loving, hard-working self-sacrificing parents.  I found the story of her childhood & college days quite interesting.  She professes a mantra of hard work, organization & tenacity as her modus operandi.  It's fair to say that there is a fair amount of conceit in Michelle's self-described drive and self-reliance.  However, the hubris is well founded and lends credibility to her storytelling.  Hearing about the unique experiences, meetings with world leaders & perks as the First Family was fascinating.  So too were her missions to accomplish things to benefit children's health, veterans and education for young women.  There is an eye-opening understanding of the double-edged sword that comes with the responsibilities & privileges.  I hadn't realized the anguish that comes with being placed in this unique & perilous position.  Fear for her family's safety & well-being was omnipresent. This is Michelle's story to tell and her sentiments & experiences reflect heavily on race; the disadvantages, obstacles and injustice that are inherent in our nation to people of color.  "We were the 44th First Family & only the 11th family to spend 2 full terms in the White House.  We were, and would always be, the 1st black one."  Michelle stated, "When Barack was 1st elected, various commentators had naively declared that our country was entering a 'post racial' era, in which skin color would no longer matter."  She went on to enumerate numerous tragedies proving the fallacy of this optimistically "naive" position.   Regardless, Michelle recounts her amazing life in a clear, forthright voice that I wish was still as privy to the public as when  First Lady.  Her overriding message of her memoir is noteworthy.  "There's power in allowing yourself to be known and heard...And there's grace in being willing to know and hear others."

James Baldwin's Novel "If Beale Street Could Talk" (1974) Barry Jenkins is Adapting it into a Film ('18)

James Baldwin (b Amer. 1924-1987) is one of the most prominent & brilliant novelists, playwrights and social critic of the 20th C.  His 1974 novel "If  Beale Street Could Talk" addresses racism, poverty, mass incarceration of men of color & blacks subjugation to social injustice.  "If Beale Street Could Talk" confronts the vicious cycle of cruelty, oppression & poverty that are unsurmountable for  people of color in our country.   Baldwin gives us Tish and Fonny, a young & in love couple to expresses his social views, "It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power is the most ferocious enemy that justice can have."  Tish & Fonny grew up together on the same impoverished streets.  Their childhood attachment grows into a love that is wondrous & overwhelming. "Fonny loved me too much, we needed each other too much.  We were part of each other, flesh of each other's flesh."  Their love story and the familial love they maintain humanizes their despair against the brutalities of an unjust & racist society.  Fonny is arrested on trumped up rape charges by a white officer angered at being knocked down a notch in public when a white woman stood up to defend Fonny against a white man.  The lawyer they hire at great expense tells Tish, "It isn't much of a case. If Fonny were white it would be no case at all."  The white officer sought revenge and rounded Fonny up for a line-up where he was falsely identified as the perpetrator & sent to prison to await trial.  Tish & Fonny had heard horrors stories of arrests & incarceration from their friend Daniel also unfairly victimized in the court system and coerced into taking a guilty plea to a felony.  Daniel tells his friends, "They were just playing with me man because they could.  And I'm lucky it was only two years, you dig?  Because they can do with you whatever you want."  Baldwin's indelible prose & memorable characters make "If Beale Street Could Talk" into a compelling plea for social reform.  "Neither love nor terror makes one blind; indifference makes one blind."  Baldwin writes poignantly on love, grief & despair.  This stirring novel also poises dignity & compassion.  "Despair can make one monstrous, but it can also make one noble."  Tish & Fonny were supported by family & by  friends from a local restaurant who saw they never went hungry.  Tish knew she & Fonny had caring support. "Others love him, too, so much that they have set me free to be there.  He is not alone, we are not alone."   I recommend reading this and everything written by James Baldwin.  I'm sure Barry Jenkins("Moonlight") will do a remarkable job turning Baldwin's novel into another award winning film.