The Vanishing Half - A Novel that Should Disappear by Britt Bennett

The novel focuses on identical twins, Desiree & Stella Vignes.  The twins' skin tones were so fair they could pass as white.  Growing up in small town in LA not listed on any map.  The twins are 8 when they witness the horror of their father dragged from their home and lynched.  Their father's murder occurred in the early 50s.  The impact resonates but not as much for its heinous act but for the fact the people of the town, including their family put a high value on lighter complexions.  Their own father had "imagined his children's children's children, lighter still, like a cup of coffee steadily diluted with cream.  A more perfect Negro."  The melodrama is centered on claiming one's identity in the way in which one choses to live their life.  The twins are inseparable growing up. They flee their hometown wanting more than their domesticated, provincial life to find work in New Orleans.  Stella obtains a higher paying job in a law office presenting herself as white.  She ends up marrying her boss and leaves her sister without a clue or a trace; intending to disappear.  Desiree marries an abusive black man leaving him and returns to their mother's home with her daughter, Jude.  Jude has her father's very dark skin which is disdained amongst her classmates & grandmother.  Stella moves to LA and has a daughter, Kennedy, very fair complected and naturally assumed white.  Stella cuts off all ties with her past so as not to traced to her Negro heritage.  Neither twins' life is compelling.  The plodding plot leads to the implausible but probable intersection of Jude and Kennedy when Jude moves to LA.  Jude's love interest, Reese, is female presenting & living as male.  This adds an identical parallel of living outside the expected norms of society owing to one's genetic classification and claiming the identity that coincides with how the person identifies.  The story feels tired and lacks any emotional impact.  The subject matter covered isn't insightful and doesn't seem to matter in Bennett's banal storytelling.  Overlook this tepid novel.

Nat'l Bk Award Winner James McBride's Novel DEACON KING KONG - Long on Characters

James McBride is a man who wears many hats.  McBride received a Nat'l Book Award for his memoir THE COLOR of WATER ('13).  He's also a musician, novelist and hails from a multi-racial, cultural background having been born & raised in Brooklyn.  McBride brings together an army of character, some long in the tooth, deep into booze & drugs, some involved in the church and living on the outskirts of the big city scratching out an existence while balancing a co-existence with neighboring ethnicities.  The central character in this cast of plenty is Sportcoat, a deacon of the Negro congregational church, a boozer bent on an elixir dubbed King Kong. McBride's bi-racial, mixed religious & ethnic heritage plays out in this funny, frustrating and deeply touching reflection on people's interconnection.  The streets of Brooklyn are tough for the Negroes around the flag pole territory.  But, the people here look out for their own while trying not to rub elbows with other dissipating factions of low income Irish, Whites, Jews in an ever changing demographic now being over taken by drug lords, guns & violence.  The deft writing brings in a boat load of people who appear at odds with one another and even their own worst enemy.  Trust me - those who trust are to be trusted. This is driven home by McBride's deft hand for storytelling that cuts in so many differing swaths that when the treasure of this novel is ultimately uncovered, its compassion and wisdom comes in like a wrecking ball constructing a community of unity.  Sportcoat is the central scapegoat. He tries to redeem the young turks he taught to play ball as kids but have turned from the law to dealing in drug and gang mentality.  Sportcoat is an old drunk with a blind son, a dead wife Hettie whom he talks to constantly, and a bottomless thirst for booze.  The mayhem he creates & circumvents is hilarious.  However, Sportcoat is not the sole main event.  He has ole pal Sausage, Deems, his baseball protege turned drug dealer, and a bevy of strong willed women who are the wise, backbone holding everything & everyone together.  Elephant, is runs the family's Italian business from the piers in Brooklyn.  He brings in the goods when no one is lookin.  Elephant and a Centurian black nun serendipitously meet.  Their interlude leads to Elephant's reflection, "We got no block, she said,  The Italians don't own the block.  Nobody owns the block.  Nobody was king of nothing in New York.  It's life.  Survival.  How could he have been so stupid? he thought.  Is this what love does?  It changes you this way?  It allows you to see the past this clearly."  "Deacon King Kong" takes its time laying down its foundation reverberating with rewarding & delightful gems in the end.

Melinda's Top Ten Picks from My 2020 Reading List

2020 - A year to remember.  A year for reading and then more reading.  The following list is in alphabetical order by author and includes novels, non-fiction, short stories and poetry:


1.  Jericho Brown's Pulitzer Prize winning Poetry collection - THE TRADITION

2.  Susan Choi's novel TRUST EXERCISE - Coming of age in a UK school for the arts Nat'l Book
        Award Winner 2019

3.  Louise Erdrich's (Nat'l Bk Award Winner) novel THE NIGHTWATCHMAN

4.  Bernadine Evaristo's novel GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER - Man Booker Prize 2019

5.  Norman Lear's auto-biography EVEN THIS I GET to EXPERIENCE

6.  Andrea Levy's novel (b UK 1956-2019) THE LONG SONG - Whitbread Break of the Year 2004 -
         Slavery History in Jamaica

7.  Beth Macy's Non-Fiction DOPE SICK - The Opioid Epidemic - Shortlisted Andrew Carnegie
         Medal for Excellence

8.  Jenny Offill's novel WEATHER - Quirky philosophical, theological quandaries

9.  Kiley Reid's novel SUCH a FUN AGE - Contemporary take on systemic racism

10. Sally Rooney's (b Ireland 1991) novel CONVERSATIONS with FRIENDS

Honorable Mention:

1.  Karen Russell's Short Story Collection ORANGE WORLD - Sci-fi, Horror

Russian born Amer. Writer Keith Gessen's Novel A TERRIBLE COUNTRY Written with Wit

Keith Gessen (b Moscow, Soviet Union 1975) is an Amer. author, journalist, and Prof. of journalism at Columbia.  Born Konstantin Alexandrovich Gess to Jewish parents, moved with his family to the US in 1981.  Gessen's proficiency in Russian allots him a profession in translation and an accessibility to Russian life, contemporary & historical found entrenched in his novel "A Terrible Country."  Gessen's life is embedded in the main character Andrysushik, (Andrei) an Amer. grad. student who moved to Amer. with his Jewish parents to the States as a young boy leaving behind his maternal grandmother,  He returns to Russia to care for in his elderly, dependent grandma.  Andrei is floundering as an assoc. prof. when his older brother Dima calls him to return to care for their grandmother.  Without a strong anchor, or financial security in the States, he returns to a nostalgic Russia for which he is desperately wants to feel current and relevant.  Gessen's writing is charming, complex, convoluted and enticing.  It lacks an elucidating conviction on Russian politics, the arts and its history.  Andrei quest to gain access into a hockey game, find a social network and comprehend the workings of how things now work in Russia is intriguing.  Andrei's loving attention to his grandma for whom "everyone she knows is dead" and his plight to fit in and find love make him an ingratiating and often irritating character.  Andrei succeeds in finding a comradeship of sorts with fellow hockey players, political activists, and in getting arrested & released.  But despite his warning not to saying anything if arrested, his blabbering leads to the arrest & severe sentencing of his Russian former friends.  Through the long bitter winters and interwoven social commentary & historical background, the reader becomes somewhat wore down much like "The frowns on the the faces of people wore you down.  The lies on the television too, after a while, wore you down."  Andrei is searching for the Soviet Union from his childhood memories and believes his compatriots are nostalgic for the same era.  An ex-pat living in the same complex comments to Andrei "'You seek to know Russian history.'  I did know Russian history, I thought.  And it wasn't good."  His grandmother tells him it's a terrible country and he ought to leave.  The meandering & mired plot is written in with such a beguiling hand had "War & Peace" a similar style, reading would be more palatable.  Gessen's ambitious intent is to paint Russia with a broad stroke for its people, heritage and way of life.  This is oftentimes overwhelming, but in a comforting & congenial manner from which the reader will glean an inkling for being back in the U.S.S.R. and feeling lucky they are.

INDELICACY Amina Cain's Enigmatic Hypnotic Novel Many Will Savor, Some Not

INDELICACY is an unusual, hypnotic, enigmatic novel many will find artful but I'm doubtful it will be favored by the masses.  The heroine with whom I'm inexplicably drawn is herself drawn to the arts.  Her name, Vitoria, eludes the reader for the most part & remains unbeknownst for most of the novel.  Vitoria is a young woman who toils cleaning toilets in an unnamed art museum.  Her eyes linger on the paintings inside and for what may lie waiting should she have the means to pursue her heart's desires.  Vitoria is mesmerized by paintings; ballet and besotted with furtively writing down her observations.  The time period is unclear, and the country baffling.  The novel could be set in a contemporary or Victorian era and located on either American or European shores.  Many specifics are left intriguingly ambiguous.  Her fortuitous encounter with a wealthy young man while working at the museum leads to a hasty marriage in which she's not sure.  The marriage provides financial security & the luxury to pursue or not, her inclinations.   Having gotten her wish to indulge her fancies she pursues dance class, extravagant clothes and liberation from mundane work, happiness somehow eludes her.  Perhaps, she can be compared to "Hamilton" and never be satisfied.  The unnamed husband confronts Vitoria after having an affair with the beautiful housekeeper Solange.  He's unaware his wife had encouraged Solange as a means to release her from her unhappy marriage.  "Who are you, anyway? Just what are you attuned too.  I've only wanted to live a normal life, and with you that's impossible."  Vitoria asks herself, "Who am I if I'm not writing?"  She is more smitten with two female friendships; Dana, a ballet dancer and Antionette, her former co-worker at the museum.  Vitoria displays passion for the arts and has a healthy sexual appetite.  It wains with her husband.   Her behaviors are often puzzling & bizarre.  Vitoria, a writer & bibliophile, attends a reading by 2 authors she admires only to be disillusioned.  After, she proceeds to insult the authors.  At a party attended with her husband she becomes inebriated & turns to a female companion to dance.  Perhaps, independence & freedom are what drives Vitoria.  INDELICACY provides food for thought and challenges the reader to ponder what drives our heroine.  It also calls into question how we perceive the world.  "Life changes and veers and becomes something new."  I found this uncanny novel enticing but the chances for most to embrace it are dicey.

THE LONG SONG Historic Novel of Slavery in Jamaica by UK The Long Road to Change

Andrea Levy (b UK 1956-2019) is a writer of astounding talent.  Her historic novel of slavery in Jamaica embarks around 1834.  The year the King of England decreed slavery illegal.  England outlawed slave trade in 1807 but did not abolish slavery.  Despite ordered emancipation in 1834, the brutal oppression of slavery persisted. Its savagery & inhumanity is sharply felt as is the repugnance of the British plantation owners & white overseers.  Indigenous Jamaicans were forced into slavery and captured natives from the West Coast of Africans were forced into slavery.  Levy was born in the UK to Jamaican parents.  Her eloquence is expressed through the voice of the novel's heroine, July.  July is born a slave on a sugar cane plantation & taken coldheartedly from her mother as a little girl by the mistress to be her servant.  The time sequence fugue is enveloped by July's writing her life story.  Her life and the lives on the plantation are put to paper at the coaxing of her son, an established printer.  July's is an artful raconteur.  Her life unfolds back in time & place.  We feel the pain & indignities of slavery as we build a connection to our storyteller.  July's epic tale begins with a fore- warning "Consider whether my tale is one in which you can find an interest.  If not, then be on your way." Robert Goodwin is the dastardly plantation owner who lords over the slaves.  Goodwin contrives to make July his mistress & mother of his child yet relegates her life insignificant.  Despite the proclamation banning slavery, many Jamaican slaves rightly feared slavery would persist & their lives to remain shackled in servitude.  For who would carry out the labor to keep the whites embedded in luxury & prosperity?  Still, many considering themselves free remain adamant in their resistance to yield to subserviency.  Goodwin's father wrotes his son, "I'm sure as the new master of the plantation called Amity, the injustice of that abominable state of slavery will become just a distance memory...Once burdened like beasts, they will be able to go happily about their tasks under your compassionate guidance." {Not a chance!} The resistance from the emancipated Jamaican slaves wrecks havoc to the sugar cane industry dependent on free labor.  A consensus by plantation owners as a solution was to harvest slaves from India; referred to as coolies. White people's religious convictions serve as a malevolent justification for hierarchal ownership over other races.  Goodwin proselytizes amongst the freed slaves, "Grant us this day the blessing to turn the negroes of Amity back from sin, to the path of righteousness, so that they will labour once more upon this plantation, as is your divine will." A caste system amongst people of color is observed favoring lighter skinned Negroes.  Levy's trenchant epic is profound.  It was shortlisted for the Man Booker in 2010.  July knows the control welded by the lash yet understands "...the power embedded in words that can nevertheless cower the largest man to gibbering tears."

Ali Wong Dear Girls- Comedy Gone Wrong with TMI Meant for her Girls Eyes Only - Only Not

Ali Wong is a stand-up comedian, sitcom writer, and all around stand-up mother married to the man she "trapped."  Wong's auto-bio ALI WONG DEAR GIRLS is 'intended' as a letter to her young daughters, to be read only after she's dead is well intended.  Unfortunately, she bends our ears with her entire life (including the most embarrassing, intimate & gross experiences) one would never really want their children to know.  At least, I thought so.  But no, Wong is overly long in telling us her childhood, rebel years, sexual awakenings, comedic training there's literally no explaining left to do or yearning to be learning more.  Ali's desire to have known her grandfather before he died was denied her.  Heaven forbid her girls should ever yearn to truly know her or receive her wit & wisdom will not happen because she will have left it all in writing for them, and everyone else who reads her book or sees her stand-up routines.  Being candid can make for an enticing tale when there's a fascinating tale to be told.  Ali's open book, 'epistolatory' love memoir to her girls and her steadfast Harvard educated, Asian American husband is somewhat amusing.  Her sexual escapades, projectile diarrhea  or obsession for food (any kind) doesn't crush it.  Wong seems to be the cool friend we'd all like to have.  However, her revelatory exploits erupt with laughter or wonderment.  There are a few good bits.  But her soul searching advice to her girls falls flat, "My last piece advice would be to focus not on the result, but instead, the process and the journey."  She also has advice for aspiring comics too that hardly feels new, "Center on having a tolerance for delayed gratification, a passion for the craft, and a willingness to fail."  Wong's passion for her family, her craft and for life are vibrant throughout but I doubt there's an audience who'll  appreciate DEAR GIRLS, except for her girls.

Kiley Reid's SUCH a FUN AGE-Reaches Across Ages to Broach Racial Connotations

Kiley Reid's racially charged, socioeconomic novel SUCH a FUN AGE takes a novel approach to laying out society's missteps, misunderstandings & cultural appropriation in a fashion that is funny & clever.  It clearly portrays lives & situations where we, as a society need to thoughtfully approach areas in order to advance our society towards a level playing field.  The central character, Emira, is a 25 yr. college graduate.  She is floundering in terms of her career & financial stability.  She's savvy, has a bevy of close girlfriends she hangs with. These women are black.  Emira is super cool but dissatisfied with her career & financial status especially in comparison to her girlfriends.  Her friends are more established in the "adult world with & have health insurance."  Emira is working P/T as a typist and P/T as a babysitter for a white family.  Alix is Emira's employer.  Alix is the mother of 2 girls; Briar almost 3 for whom Emira cares and an infant.  This is a contemporary novel and very prescient.  However, the story of black women caring for white families; especially their children is nothing new.  An appealing aspect of the story is the bond that builds between Emira & her "ward" Briar.  Briar is precocious, curious & very open to the world around her.  Characteristics that Emira & the reader find appealing but her mother Alix "pronounced Aliss" finds irritating while her mini-me infant, Catherine, is perceived as the prodigal, favored daughter by Briar.  The story starts with Emira called by Alix late in the evening while she's out drinking with her friends) to come immediately and  take Briar out of the house while she & husband Peter deal with an emergency.  Alix phoned the police to report vandalism to their home the evening when Peter made an earlier racial/political incorrect comment on his news broadcast.  Emira arrives with her friend in tow with few places to go.  They head to a nearby, upscale mini-market where a white woman reports to the security guard there is a white child who may have been abducted.  The heated exchange between Emira & the white security guard & patron are videotaped by a white male, Kelly.  The incident is ended when Peter rushes to retrieve his daughter and vouches for Emira.  Emira doesn't want the videotape released despite Kelly's advise & the possibility of litigation becoming fiscally advantageous.  The disturbing incident rings true as it reverberates with numerous other scenarios.  Kelly & Emira connect, romantically, as chance brings them together again.  It just so happens Kelly was Alix's boyfriend in high school more than a decade ago.  They're break-up left devastating impacts for Alix.  This incredulous setup is a coverup for clever insight into well intentioned missteps that overstep especially with regard to Alix trying to befriend Emira.  SUCH a FUN AGE is a fun page turner with uncomfortable situations & an intrigue as to who will get their comeuppance.  It's also a far reach into viewing breakdowns in our society as far as racial & economic barriers exist.

Jericho Brown's Pulitzer Prize Poetry Collection THE TRADITION -

Jericho Brown (b Amer. 1976) has garnered many literary prizes for his poetry collections including the National Book Award and this year's Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for "The Tradition."  The themes running through Brown's uniquely crafted poems are heritage, identity, HIV, theology, racism and loving & hating simultaneously.  Brown is an African Amer. gay male who feels reviled & fearful as such living in the US.  His poems are not only prescient but put pressure on the heart forcing blood to our conscience which cry out in pain & beauty.  The poem 'Of My Fury' is a stentorian declaration of the persevering persecution of men of color.  "I love a man I know could die.  And not by way of illness.  And not by his own hand.  But because of the color of that hand all His flawless skin."  Brown doesn't shy away from aids in his poetry which makes the subject palpable if not appealing.  "My man swears his HIV is better than one, that his has in it a little gold, something he can spend if he ever gets old."  Love is really the hinge  that all the poems lean and reach into our souls.  My favorite poem is 'I Know What I Love.'  "I know what I Love it comes from the earth.  It is green with deceit... Some - Times what I love just Doesn't show up at all.  It can hurt me if it Means too...because That's what in love Means."  The plaintive call resonates for all "I wanted what anyone With an ear wants - To be touched and Touched by a presence. That has no hands."  There is a simultaneous counter balance to love & torment - to physical closeness and cruelty.  The harsh & embittered emotions have a reckoning between the poet and a higher spiritual entity and an ephemeral connection of strength to the reader.  Brown breaks conventions and is courageous in unsheathing the unbearable that must be borne and dismantled.  In 'Duplex' Brown writes "My body is a temple in disrepair.  The opposite of rape is understanding.  Riddle. We do not recognize the body Of Emmett Till  We do not know The boy's name nor the sound of his mother wailing. We have Never heard a mother wailing.  We do not know the history Of this nation in ourselves."   THE TRADITION is in keeping with the illustrious echelons of poets who have previously been bestowed the Pulitzer Prize

Norman Learn's Auto-bio "Even This I Get to Experience" Would've Benefited from Editing

Saying Norman Lear is a genius is a gross understatement.  His legacy of TV sitcoms & characters is profound.  Why is it his name is relatively unknown to most born after 1980?  This dumbfounds me.  Lear's contributions to entertainment & TV have resounded with groundbreaking successes for their originality, hilarity & most assuredly for their social relevancy & self-reckoning.  Did I mention his hallmark humorous imprints so monumental in an earlier epoch to have been nascent for today's programmings & filmmaking they've melded into unconsciousness.  "Even This I Get to Experience" is essential reading for everyone.  Not only for its significance of the most ingenious & prolific artistic creators of the 20th C & beyond, but also for the inspirational & educational 1st hand telling of a life rich in social impact & commitment, familial love & tribulations & a network of connections to the elite echelons of entertainers & political leaders.  This is a unique opportunity to glimpse intimately a rare & special person who leaves you in awe and envious of those fortunate family & friends who lives intertwined at some point in Lear's 90+ years.  Norman's name dropping is not conceited flopping but a quotidian commemoration of his ever growing connections to his past & present contemporaries & mentorships of other talented artists, leaders in business & society along with his personal & family history.  Lear's service in WWII as a gunner pilot is astounding.  His heroic service alongside his countrymen is conveyed with his life experiences into the divine comedy of humanity.  Lear makes clear the character with whom he most identifies from the multitudes he developed is Maude, played by the incomparable Bea Arthur.  "Maude.  That's the character who shares my passion, my social concerns, and my politics."  Lear writes, "Maude who dealt best with the foolishness of the human condition because she knew herself to personify it."  He goes onto say "Of all the {countless} moments in all the shows, nothing touched men or to the core while lifting me to the heavens, nothing in some 2,600 1/2 hrs., like a certain scene in Maude....My emotions overflowed at rehearsals because hidden in that fantastic performer was my alter ego."  "Oh, my God, that line out of her mouth!" is a culmination of Lear's legendary career which is merely the tip of the iceberg of a life well lived & whose life impacts us all for the better whether we are aware of it or not.  I highly recommend reading Lear's auto-bio.  It's off-putting on my part to suggest his writing would benefit with an edit & that Norman proffers TMI.  Who am I to criticize this intellect whom I greatly admire and wish fervently to know?  But, his mommy, daddy issues and blow by blow sexual escapades I didn't need to know.  Otherwise, BRAVO Mr. Lear.  Many you live to enrich the common human condition we all share for many years to come and continue to enjoy your loved ones & embrace all the experiences yet to come your way.

Jenny Offil's WEATHER Predictably Unpredictable and Delightful

Jenny Offill's whimsical, profound, elating & depressing new novel WEATHER strikes the reader with thunderbolts of theological wisdom that render the reader the reader elevated or dismayed or both.  Whether or not you respond to Offill's humor, existential & mundane issues or philosophical quandaries with feelings of awe or doldrums, you will be quite smitten with torrential wit and quirkiness.  It can be argued Offill is writing an activistic novel warning about global warming.  The heroine, Lizzie, is both a librarian & ready reference to patrons.  She also serves as a ghost writer for Sylvia's podcast & emails.  Sylvia is a prominent environmentalist advocating changes to mitigate global warming.  Global warming as a key existential crisis in this novel is made crystal clear.  Lizzie's narrative is nebulous and acute.  The novel's loose structure flows from Lizzie's profound & mundane thoughts, her familial bonds and cogitations stemming from her meditation instructor, Margot.  Sylvia's podcast is Hell & High Water.  Sylvia also brings Lizzie along on her book tours to assist her which provide Lizzie a needed respite from the whirlwind of flagrant family matters.  Lizzie's marriage to Ben is teetering on dissension.  They have a young son Eli who provides precocious observations and puts Lizzie in some of the more hilarious situations trying to avoid the other mom's from Eli's class.  Lizzie family includes a drug addicted brother & sister-in-law about to have a baby and an elderly mother passive/aggressively vying to move in with her.  WEATHER is a breezy summer read with a galaxy of sparkling fragments of perceptive veracity.  Offill fills her novel with quotes from numerous mystic, theologians and gurus.  "Sri Ramakrishna said, 'Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond."  Lizzie lilts upon a cornucopia of arcane information.  Margot the mediation guru says to Lizzie & her class, "There was once a race of mythic arctic dwellers called the Hyperboreans. Their weather was mild, their trees bore fruit all year, and no one was ever sick.  But after a thousand years, they grew bored of this life.  They decked themselves in garlands and leaped off the cliffs into the sea.  What is the core delusion?  Margot asks the class, but nobody knows the right answer, and she doesn't bother to tell us."

Liz Moore's Novel LONG BRIGHT RIVER - Beth Macy's NonF "DOPESICK

Hunter College in NYC is offering online talks during this pandemic.  A recent video concerned our country's opioid overuse & overdose problems. The informative talk and Q&A was between Liz Moore, a Hunter alum & novelist & award winning journalist & Non-F writer Beth Macy.  Moore's recent novel LONG BRIGHT RIVER is a crime, mystery with a female protagonist, police officer, Mickey. Mickey is searching for her younger sister Kasey whose life took a downward path to self-destruction through heroin & prostitution to feed her habit.  Macy's DOPESICK examines the origins of the pain killer Oxycontin & traces its havoc of destruction & pain.  Moore draws us into the drama of a "good cop" Mickey, v. "bad cop" drug addicted sister.  Their estrangement turns to frenzy for Mickey to find Kasey amidst a flurry of homicides of prostitutes that "worked" the same beat as Kasey.  Moore develops a mystery of fitting together puzzle pieces to fit in solving Kasey's disappearance.  It's also a story of familial love between sisters & Mickey's love for her young son.  The story does take an unsurprising twist of corrupt cops promulgating drugs & prostitution for profit.  Still, it's a stirring & prescient novel that both entertains & proselytizes the deadly & overpowering opioid addiction.  Macy's DOPESICK cogently explains Oxycontin's billion dollar industry growth while knowingly pushing Drs. to overprescribe.  Both writers reiterate the self-loathing & omnipotent hold wielded by opioid use.  Those who become addicted are most likely to be ruled by the addiction for the rest of their lives and more than likely to die from an overdose.  Side affects include depression, memory loss & the need to fulfill the cravings through illegal, self-destructive behaviors putting themselves & others in harms' way.  Moore & Macy make clear the morphine override in an addicted person's brain is to avoid the psychological pain of withdrawal avoiding dopesickness at any cost.  Macy's tells a David v. Goliath story; taking down the Purdue Drug Co.  The hero is Dr. Van Zee, a local small VA town Dr. who became distressed burying young people whom he cared for & helped to bring into the world. His motivation not being financial gain but punitive measures aimed at Purdue to terminate their criminal behavior that resulted in so many deaths and take away their financial incentives to continue. Interestingly, Giuliani acted as legal counsel for Purdue brokering behind the scenes deals to mitigate fines & rebuff jail sentencing.  Giuliani propagandized he wouldn't take an assignment with a Co. he felt acted improperly {hah!}.  America remains a nation where becoming addicted is far easier than receiving treatment for addiction.  "People with promise, people dependent & depended upon, people loving and beloved, one after another, in a line, in a river...a long bright river of departed souls." (Moore)  Opiod Addiction becomes a lifelong & typically relapse laden disease & the only avenue to achieve remission is through medication-assisted treatment.

Lily King's WRITERS and LOVERS - Is a Novel I Loved

"Writers & Lovers" aptly & cogently titled by award winning author Lily King (b Amer. 1963) is a crafty novel.  Basically her story is about a writer and her relationships with lovers & other writers.  Casey, short for Camilla, is a post graduate literary student, aspiring writer while working as a waitress who totters balancing her anxieties, her lovers and diminishing checking account.  There's little doubt this novel semi-biographical.  King denotes her travels and writer's worries.  Her previous novel "Euphoria" is representative of the life & travels of Margaret Mead.  "Euphoria" was listed a Nat'l Bk Critic's Circle Award Finalist.  "Writers & Lovers" is a delirious delight allowing us to venture into writers' narcissism & neuroses.  Casey's mundane quotidian activities traverse  waitressing in an upscale restaurant on Harvard's campus, writing for the 6th on her great Amer. novel and navigating 2 prospective lovers.  Casey's affections waffle between Oscar, an older, established writer and widow with 2 young sons and Silas, one of Oscar's writing students.  Casey's abode is the potting shed of her landlord.  Her astringent habitat is meant to funnel her writing habits & about all she can afford.  Her observations while waitressing are priceless.  She serves up an amusing assortment of characters; both guests & staff.  It's at the restaurant she meets Oscar under precocious circumstances.  She becomes sidetracked by her electric feelings for Silas, an erratic & charming suitor.  Casey is overwhelmed with mourning for her mother who died recently &  unexpectedly.  While Casey's life seems stagnant, there are subtle changes and an inner strength that keeps the reader glued to the page.  King shows off her bibliophile predilections for certain authors. Casey notes, "You get trained early on as a woman to perceive how others are perceiving you."  She also opines, "nearly every guy I've dated believed they should already be famous, believed that greatness was their destiny...but no woman has ever told me that greatness was her destiny."  King's majestic writing is magical.  It's hard to discern any machinations in her narrative.  You're taken along on a ride without realizing you've arrived.  WRITERS and LOVERS in addition to being about writing and its craft is also about love and its fathomless expanse of emotions.  "All that love.  All that love has to go somewhere."  Casey surfaces from a consortium of cynicism to a future with guarded optimism.  "For a moment, all my bees have turned to honey."   King's storytelling smatters with golden moments.

TRUST EXERCISE by S Choi - Nat'l Bk Award '19

Susan Choi's novel "Trust Exercise" received the 2019 Nat'l Bk Award for fiction.  It's an excellent choice for its skillful & surprising story-telling and its prescient issues.  Choi proffers keen abilities to inhabit the lives of high school adolescents in a profound and unforeseen manner.  The novel is set in a school for the performing arts where students have an edge over other teens in sensing what they want to do in life. But, as with all adolescents, they possess intense emotions & strong capabilities meshed with impetuous behaviors lacking in sound judgement and life experiences.  Still, ardor of youth has fervor, lust and oftentimes misdirected aims to please & seek approval.  Sarah is the main character in the first half of the book; or first Act.  Choi's ingenious construct in a select performing arts high school examines the precociousness of ego & amplified pathos.  Many drama students come with their own heightened drama & desire to stand-out.  Sarah & David meet their first semester during a "trust exercise" for actors.  The students are prone & situated in a darkened space to intensify their tactile senses & feelings.  Mr. Kingsley, the drama teacher adds fuel to a combustible mixture of adolescent hormones & adult bodies.  The torrid sexual & emotional relationship between Sarah & David takes center stage.  Kingsley is a brutish, Svengali drama teacher adapt at coercing students through hurdles of self-flaggelation.  The 2nd half of the book; Act II, takes place a decade later and focuses on a minor character from Act I, Karen, a former "friend" of Sarah's.  The story is now told in flashback to traumatic events in Karen's life that were shrouded in secrecy.  The narrative style makes a mysterious twist and the reader is unsure of whose directing the storylines.  There's also an added play within the "play" of Act II.  "Trust Exercise," in its truest sense  is about power in relationships.  There are power shifts amongst peers and more odious, abusive power plays enacted between inappropriate adults and vulnerable adolescents.  This emotionally penetrating coming of age novel is keenly perceptive.  Choi captures the passions of youth combined with emerging sagaciousness garnered with age.  As an adult Karen contemplates, "Why should another be injured by choices I make for my Self?"  She realizes "You're choosing for another when you make choices.  We overlap.  We get tangled.  You can't help but hurt."   Trust me.  Susan Choi's "Trust Exercise" is exceptional.  Although, "Thoughts are often false.  A feeling's always real.  Not true, just real."

Craig Brown's 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret-Glib Gossip

Craig Brown (b UK 58) is a critic, satirist and journalist.  Brown's " Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret" does not constitute a biography.  The book is laden with tidbits of gossip gathered from numerous "insiders" to the Royal Family.  To call these rambling, remote anecdotes titillating is a droll understatement.  For Anglophiles or the parasocial public obsessed with celebs & the Royal Family, they will likely lap up every ludicrous and seemingly lascivious morsel of immoral or inappropriate behaviors of the Royals.  Perhaps the common folk feed of what the no so simple folk do.  Princess Margaret being #2 as like her nephew Prince Harry @ #2 behind his older brother (and #3 behind Charles whose never gonna get his spot on the throne) they have similar reasons for being naughty and not nice.  But did anyone not already know about her affair with the much older married equerry, Capt. Townsend and then chucked him when it came down to being cut off at the purse strings.  I didn't know of the supposed lust of Picasso after the Princess.  But, who knows since they never met.  At least 5'4" Picasso would have towered over the 5' petite, Princess with a purported 18' waist and bodacious bod.  E-god, why share Picasso "could picture the color of their {Queen Elizabeth & Princess Margaret} pubic hair." The mini-series "The Crown" may have rekindled or captured a new generation of fans who desire a voyeuristic foray into aristocracy and the Royal family.  Anglophiles will lap this mishmash of incoherent references.  Brown's 99 glimpses are self-indulgent insider name droppings.  I critique this critic's work as a rag tag frivolous mixed bag.  "Ninety-Nine Glimpses..." will garner Royal groupies and readers of the NY POST who love its cover (as do I) and page 6.  I command you to 86, 99.

Louise Erdich's THE NIGHT WATCHMAN

Louise Erdich (b Amer. 1954) is an award winning novelist.  Her young adult novel "The Round House" ('12) won the Nat'l Bk Award and "The Place of Doves" ('09) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in literature.  Erdich's beloved & literary novels all contend with Native Americans; their history of brutal annihilation and pervasive oppression by the US govt. intent on eviscerating their livelihoods and culture.  Erdich writes fictitious Native American characters that resonate with their humanity and struggles to survive and maintain their self-sufficiencies & dignities.  The factual events in the novel set in the 1950s in ND pit the Turtle Mt. Band Tribe of Chippewa Indians v. US legislation led by Sen. Watkins (Rep. UT) designed to displace, assimilate or annihilate them entirely.  "The Night Watchman" ('20) is Erdich's most recent novel.  Her novel deviates from her previous works as the protagonist, Thomas is based upon Ms. Erdich's own maternal grandfather.  Erdich is a member of the Turtle Mt. Tribe.  Thomas works as night watchman and is a galvanizing force to defend their tribal lands.  Erdich draws his portrait as deeply humane, intelligent, religious and devoted family man. There are a chorus of characters in the Turtle Mt. tribe.  In addition, there's a cacophony of ghosts, spirits and dreams woven throughout enriching the storytelling with Native language, customs, beliefs and a profound sense of dignity & tenacity.  The Turtle Band is mounting a legal defense to preserve their tribal land already endowed by the US govt. but now facing a Termination Bill orchestrated by Sen. Watkins (Rep. UT).   The members of the Turtle Mt. Tribe are very diverse.  Their lives arduous and their prospects tenuous.  Still, they're bond together with a deep respect & love for one another.  The women are shown as the stealth of their families. Patrice, a.k.a. Pixie, is on a quest to find her sister Verna who went missing in MN.  The coercion of abducted Native Amer. women into sex slaves was prevalent without having any protection or recourse.  The novel is more than a coming of age tale or a shameful history lesson of Native Americans' persecution.  It's ambitious, convoluted and confusing.  Erdich admits the book necessitated a difficult editing transition.  Some of the story's trajectories become overtaken and lost.  "The Night Watchman" is a serious study of man's inherent nature to obliterate any culture, race or religion that fails to conform or deemed indispensable.  Despite overriding, grave issues of importance there's heartwarming affirmations of kinships to behold.  Erdich warns of the demolition powers of legal documents determined to crush lives.  She also conveys inspiration & conviction that people, her people, are not powerless to protect themselves and prosper.

Myla Goldberg's FEAST YOUR EYES Nat'l Bk Critic's Finalist '19

"Feast Your Eyes" is a novel that's a collage of snapshots of a female photographers particularly in the 60s 70s superimposed on Lillian.  Lillian  a single, unwed mother living in Brooklyn in this era.  The story focuses a lens on what it means to be a maverick & creative genius.  Myla Goldberg's fictitious account of Lillian Preston best personifies the struggles of photographer Sally Mann and what she experienced in her groundbreaking controversial & later lionized career as a 21st C photographer.  The framing of the storytelling copies Jane Arbus' daughter's collecting and curating of her mother's works exhibited in the highest echelons of art museums.  The epistolary format is the golden light to Goldberg's storytelling pieced together through Lillian's letters to her daughter Samantha, a.k.a. Jane and to her few close friends who in turn shed light on Lillian's life through their correspondences.  These wide lens perspectives are subliminal to Jane's recount of what was happening in her & her mother's lives referencing Lillian's photographs at the time.  It's worth noting the dire circumstances before abortion was legal in the country.  The exposure into a coven of starving artists is also a bright spot.  Lillian's creative compulsivity elucidates a passion that manifest in a variety of beautiful ways that breaths life into these pages.  Lillian is mostly a loner. Her profound love for her daughter is overshadowed her keen proclivity for capturing images resonating a mote of pure awareness that lingers long after its fleeting moment in time.  Jane's bohemian lifestyle as her mother's daughter leaves an indelible imprint.  Jane's rebellious & unorthodox choices are doubly exposed in Lillian's diary where she express her intense love for her which appears hidden.  Lillian's journal reveals all she felt went unsaid.  Long estranged from her parents since choosing to keep her child out of wedlock, Jane is the catalysis for reuniting Lillian with her parents.  The many years of separation have left a negative space which slowly develops into healing.  Lillian notes in her diary to Jane "you {are} old enough to understand. 'I love you too' is only ever an echo."  Lillian's longest friend Debra is a budding poet and there is a lyricism in much of what Lillian  captures in notes.  Ideas regarding photography as immoral or exploitative are thrashed about and photography's annoying habit of corroding whatever real memories one possess.  Lillian's militant, avant-garde art dealer believes some people are artists whether they chose to be or not.  "Feast Your Eyes" was a Nat'l Book Critic's Pick ('19). I found it clever storytelling but not memorable or something to shutter esteem praise upon.

JoJo Moyes' THE GIVER of STARS - Don't Take It

THE GIVER of STARS stole my precious time. It wasn't worth the read.  Written by JoJo Moyes (b UK 1970) is a popular romance novelist and screenwriter.  Her novel ME before YOU (2012) was made it into a film.  It was a love story but it also examined the topic of euthanasia from various points of views with intelligence & heart.  THE GIVER of STARS is about a fictitious group of misfit women in rural KY during the 1930s.  This motley mix of formidable women band as librarians distributing books via horseback to those who would otherwise not have accessibility. Ironically, our heroine Alice is from the UK.  Alice is swept away quite literally by a handsome American, Bennett.  Alice & Bennet marry shortly after meeting & she returns to the US and the KY home of Bennet & his father George Van Cleve.  This is an ill-fated romance; not the true love stories within this podunk town saddled with stereotyped McCoy & Hatfield characters.  There's the ne'erdowell villain, George Van Cleve, who owns the local mine and has his hand in running the town and the people in it.  There are valiant, steadfast men, courageous female mavericks and a cast of moonshine drinking hillbillies.   Alice won't abide abuse from her father-in-law & neglect from her husband.  She leaves the Van Cleve household and moves in with Margery.  Margery is the strong leader of the ragtag group of women working with the library.   During the Depression Eleanor Roosevelt funded a program known as the Pack Horse Library Project to reach remote rural areas in the Appalachian region.  Historic tales of women who rode out on horseback to promote literacy is an intriguing premise to build upon.  The growing friendship & fortitude of these women is what drove a steadfast story.  Also worth noting was the pillage of the land & hardships for the miners & a subplot of racial segregation.  Unfortunately, THE GIVER of STARS was mired in sledge by sappy love stories, a trumped up trial and detritus of cartoonish or incredulous characters.  The story might work rewritten for young adults minus the sappy romances with a focus on the quotidian of lives & hardships during this epoch.   I don't recommend wasting time on Moyes' novel.  It's a Reese Witherspoon book club selection.  Keep in mind Reese selects with her eye on being given a role in making or starring in the forthcoming film.  Having said this, Reese's pieces are treats for the masses and not enticing for the literary asses.

Jason Reynolds' STAMPED Racism, Antiracism and You-Adapted from Ibram Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning

STAMPED: Racism, Antiracism and You written by Ibram Kendi with its abridged version by Jason Reynolds is NOT a history book.  It's a didactic, approachable conversion that addresses serious racist ideas and their historic impacts which have affected all of us. The perceived notion there's a natural human hierarchy which places Blacks at the bottom and Whites on top is a pernicious falsehood that's persisted like a plague on our nation.  Kendi & Reynolds have written a digestible historic & prescient book of detestable talking points.  These arguments dig in a deep & profound manner where the root of racism sprouted, how it has perseverated and the past & present carnage & oppression it has caused.  STAMPED enlightens without preaching, posturing or proselytizing for young adults and sensible people of any age.  STAMPED is a collaborative learning exercise that expresses the obvious flaws in White mentality driven by greed & and immoral justification of righteousness.   What dynamics contributes to racist hatred and suppression?  What has kept it alive for centuries in the US?  How has the construct of race & racial divides been misconstrued to maintain sovereignty through propaganda and our political & economic systems? When slavery was instituted it dehumanized Blacks endowing slave owners to treat them as chattel; birthing farming machines classified as livestock and not human.  The concept of one human being owning another is anathema yet it was not viewed as such, including many of our founding fathers.  This belief was maintained by Presidents Jefferson & Washington.  Both kept slaves throughout their lives maintaining the belief they were inferior by nature.  Is that taught in our school's history texts?  Propaganda perpetuated this thwarted mentality that relentlessly justified White supremacy and slavery.  The perpetuated myth was dark was synonymous with dumb & evil.  White was synonymous with smart & virtuous.  Laws have constrained black people from access to education, health care, housing, and equanimity in all wakes of society.  The authors clarify 3 distinct racial mind sets: segregationist (a hater) and assimilationist (a coward), or an antiracist (someone who truly loves) and how each group have rationalized racial inequality.  Segregationists argue (wrongfully) that Black people are inherently intellectually inferior & and irresponsible causing their own circumstances & inequities.  The history of racism in this award winning, not history book, is key to understanding how racism impacts individuals & society as a whole today.  Moreover, it's a sounding board for assessing how racism anchors us together and tears us apart.

GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER by Bernandine Evaristo

"Girl, Woman, Other" by British author Bernadine Evaristo received the 2019 Booker Prize in Literature.  Evaristo's novel is a menage of no less than a dozen women characters whose lives intertwine and ebb & flow from one life to the next.  Three central characters for whom you might connect the unending individual threads are Amma, Dominique and Yaz, Amma's daughter.  The plundering plot germinates from Amma & Dominque rebellious youths.  They considered themselves radical, anti-establishment, thespian lesbians.  Traversing decades, continents & multitudinous lovers, these black, bohemian, bumptious women discover themselves in their 50s now ensconced within the establishment.   Evaristo brokers a writing style that steps outside the constrictors of linear timelines, plot development or literary format. The writing is at times poetic & philosophical; free-flowing leading into unpredictable trajectories.  The punctuation is notably absent but the politicizing of feminism, sexism, racism, racial & cultural identities prevails amongst the numerous relationships, friendships & familial bonds.  It's fair to conclude friendships are the omnipotent connections that holds the human family together.  The convoluted, deconstructed storylines meander into various characters that are all so well construed we're willing sojourners in their lives.  Men are sublimated to the sidelines but not altogether dismissed. Men are also perceived as scapegoats.  Patriarchy is condemned as a system that oppresses all women.  There's a prevailing envy & awareness of living in a male dominanted society.  Only men are freely condoned to be polygamous. There's a cadre of those oppressed: women, black men & women, and the LGBTQ communities for starters.  Truth be told, hierarchies of power & privilege will never disappear. Evaristo foresees a future a world where restrictions of a gender-binary will dissolve.  Women will stop defining themselves by having a male partner and view dependance on a man a sign of weakness.  There are cunning observations on religion & evolution. "Christmas should be called Greedymas a time when people over-eat and over indulge in the name of Jesus Christ." It's worth noting despite outward appearances, mankind shares 99.9% identical genetic makeup.   GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER is a unique, imaginative, mind-blowing creation to marvel.
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Ted Chiang's EXHALATION -SciFi Metacognition

EXHALATION is a spectacular collection of sci-fi short fiction that covers.  Ted Chiang's clever & thought provoking stories encompassing theology, sociology, physiology, archeology, humanities and eons of possibilities.   Chiang's captures the reader's imagination & stimulates metacognition.  Chiang's stories gives us cause to marvel at human evolution.  He cracks open our craniums to ponder  the origins of thought and consider the omnipotence & onus of human decision making.  In the titled story "Exhalation" a scientist explores inside his own brain and found it tore "an engine undergoing continuous transformation, indeed modifying itself as a part or its operation."  We're made mindful of the miracle of free will and clarity of thought.  The clever writing leaves us with conflicting views allowing us to derive our own judgements.  Betwixt are some bemusing opines. "The Church as an institution has always been able to derive strength from the evidence when it's useful and ignore it when it's not."  The stories mirror our own tendencies to process in this fashion.  It's suggested there's merit in withholding information as well as disclosing it.  Some stories take opposing views.  The sci-fi intrigue of time traveling is broached in intriguing ways with emphasis on the possibility of changing our past and thus our future.  The cryptic consideration of the past and the future being the same or malleable are profound.  "The future and the past are the same.  We cannot change either, but we can know both more fully."   Repentance and atonement's power to erase the past are shrouded in doubt.  Chiang employs lyricism with wisdom. "Four things that do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity."  Serious & humorous considerations are given with the ability for technology to enable us to revisit our pasts.  Spouses used this technology to prove their points in arguments.  But then what is the point?  And grieving individuals are enabled to revisit loved ones or examine the trajectories their lives might have taken had they chosen the road not taken. These are very thought provoking conceptions.  Artificial intelligence (AI) is another anomaly the collection contemplates philosophically.  EXHALATION also examines the incredulous developments of man's abilities to read, write and process thought.  EXHALATION is a no brainer - it's a masterpiece of creative genius.  

The ILLNESS LESSON - Lecherous Treatments of Young Girls in the 1870 by

Just post Civil War in MA, a renown essayist Samuel Hood, decides to open a school for young girls to broaden their critical thinking & awakenings outside of merely marriage and motherhood.  It was the norm for matrimony & motherhood to suffice & tether women in society.  All Samuel's well intent does not end well.  This is on the heels of his dismal failure of a social experiment constructing a utopian paradigm.  Pearson, a famous writer of this time is highly critical of Samuel's proclamations.  Suffice to say Pearson's daughter, Eliza, joins the 'Trilling Heart School' in its nascent formation.  Eliza is an extraordinary girl and a natural leader of the others.  Clare Beams' novel had the materials to construct an intriguing novel: an interesting epoch, maverick young women and a lovely setting nestled in the New England countryside.  However, the novel crumbles with torrid adulterous affairs taken off the pages of Harlequin romances. There are red herring references to Hitchcock's haunting film THE BIRDS. And, even more egregious is the lecherous examinations Samuel permits Dr. Hawkens to perform on these young girls; not unlike Larry Nassar & the USA gymnastic team.  The ILLNESS LESSON is ill advised to perpetuate the myth that vibrators or clitoral stimulation were accepted treatments for females during the late 18th & early 19th C.  Furthermore, mistreatment of the women is made more heinous with the submissiveness of adult witnesses for whom their care was entrusted.  Samuel, in his most profound argument to enlighten the  presumed vapidness of young women said, "I would argue that it is always right to think."  What's missing was the formidable ability to question and for the adults to sensibly listen to the girls.  "The girls had adapted quickly to their new right to speak, think, question-as if all of it had been ready inside them and waiting only for someone to ask to hear."

Colum McCann's APEIROGON - A Poetic Paradigm for Peace from Pain

Apeirogon: a shape with a countably infinite numbers of sides.  Colum McCann's (b Ireland 19650 elegiac novel is based on the lives Rami, an Israeli and Bassam a Palestinian born as sworn mortal enemies.  Their unlikely friendship grew from a shared grief for their young daughters, both casualties of war.  Rami asks "What could cause someone to be that angry, that mad, that desperate, that hopeless, that stupid, that pathetic, that he is willing to blow himself up alongside a girl, not even 14 years old?"  Together, Rami & Bassam wield their pain as a weapon to diffuse conflict.  Language is the sharpest weapon.  Sadly, words alone do not suffice.  It's disastrous to discover the humanity of your enemy, his nobility, because then he isn't your enemy anymore, he just can't be.  Do not disavow the possibility of living alongside each.  Allow the opportunities to get along.  There is no such thing as a humane occupation.  Everything is built on fear. It requires strength to suppress humanity's most aggressive tendencies.  Violence is weak hatred is weak. The first, easiest and worst response is revenge.  Tolerance, inclusivity, moderation, composure, understanding to end the endless cycle of sorrow takes courage.  Rami & Bassam understand the insanity of both Israelis and Palestinians wanting the same thing - to kill each other in order to attain peace & security.  Is there ever a moral war?  A solution for ending retribution?  A justification for oppression?  Is it possible to understand the history of another people?  McCann's lyrical & profound writing poses a unifying theory allowing rational & irrational reasoning to balance each other into harmonious discord. The helix of history, one moment bound to the next where the past intersects with the future.  Death is a circle with. life cut through it. There is much to admire, learn and mull over in this narrative of sorrow, history, justice & artistry.  Both Bassam & Rami believe anything is possible, even the seemingly impossible.  To shift just one mind would never be enough, but it's worth it anyway.  APEIROGON should receive the Pulitizer and Nobel Prize for literature.

Ann Patchett's "The Dutch House" Not Much Happening Inside

Ann Patchett's "The Dutch House" has an enticing framework that pulls you into the novel. Although, once inside, "The Dutch House" is a hallow shell that leaves the reader unmoored & unmoved.  Danny & Maeve Conroy are extremely close siblings.  Maeve is the older, saintly and stalwart big sister. They grow-up for the most part in a Gatsby like mansion in Philadelphia with a lots of glitz, shimmering glass and sparkle.  Unfortunately, their childhoods are shattered when their mother abandons them. Their father's new wife Andrea is a stand-in for the wicked step-mother in Cinderella.  Andrea moves in with her 2 daughters and quickly moves Maeve to the attic so her daughter can have  the better room.  Danny wants to follow in the footsteps of his father Cyril into owning & managing rental properties.  When their beloved father dies unexpectedly Andrea sends them packing leaving them homeless & penniless.  Within the home there was warmth & kindness coming from the two sisters who worked tirelessly caring for Maeve & Danny & the house.  Maeve takes Danny under her wing.  Maeve's ambitions are set aside to work and ensure Danny's educational expenses are met; the only thing left in trust from their Dad.  Danny submits to sis' insistence to go to med school despite his reluctance to practice medicine.  The years draw on as Maeve's life seems frozen.  Danny completes med school, marries, has a son & daughter and turns to a vocation in NYC real estate.  Danny & Maeve are continually drawn back to the Dutch House.  They stall their car outside, smoking & holding back from putting their lives in drive.  Danny reflects later, "We had made a fetish out of misfortune, fallen in love with it.  I was sickened to realize we'd kept it going for so long."  "The Dutch House" is an adult fairytale that double downs on Hansel & Gretel, Cinderella and A Little Princess.  The novel constructs a facade of interest based on a strong foundation between siblings.  But after completion, the magic dissipates like smoke.  

The Yellow House - Nat'l Book Award Non-F ('19)

Sarah Broom's debut book, "The Yellow House" a memoir of her life before, during and after the deadly Katrina Hurricane which displayed millions of New Orleanians.  The yellow house is the family home which tethers Broom's story and the only thing left.  Broom is the keeper of the family's history starting prior to her birth as the youngest of 12 siblings.  Prior to her memoir, Broom was a journalist published in the "NYT Magazine" and "O, Oprah Magazine".  The book is a historic odyssey of indigenous residents & her relatives flooded into diaspora.  Broom writes as an anthropologist and excavator of what remains.  Unfortunately, outside the house, the families' histories & biographies are awash in details that dilute interest.  Perhaps, there's significance in Broom's formidable accounting of and advocating  for her family.  An intimate reckoning of Katrina's  havoc so many of us choose to ignore makes being indifferent impossible.  It took Sarah's family more than 11 years to settle their claim with the city and in the meantime, most had settled elsewhere without being rooted.   Like Humpty Dumpty, the yellow house couldn't be put back together again nor could the lives of so many residents whose homes were destroyed not to mention the number of fatalities.  Neither of these facts, 1,833 deaths or the millions left homeless are noted in this annotative memoir.   Broom found a spirituality to her quest for answers "as an important inner light."  Her flotsam and jetsam of information is immaterial.  However, the disparity, injustice and displacement of mainly the poorer populous of New Orleans is a torrential downfall.  "The Yellow House" casts a beacon on ongoing corruption, a failing criminal justice and health system, poverty, education and lack of economic possibilities that create for the average local the life-and-death nature of life lived in the city. ..where many children graduate from school without knowing how to spell where neglected communities exist everywhere, sometimes a stone's throw from overabundance."  Noted too is much of what's great and praised about New Orleans comes at the expense of its native black people, underemployed, underpaid and buried beneath the mystique of a magical city that keeps out of sight the city's dysfunction and hopelessness.   The Nat'l Book Award ('19) was awarded "The Yellow House."  Broom's talent for journalistic integrity & insight are prevalent.  The auto-biographic deluge suppresses the story of New Orleanians, which is to say the swamping of the city's lower rung population.

DAISY JONES & the SIX - Not Worth Keeping Up With

Taylor Jenkins Reid's novel "Daisy Jones & the Six" is a Reese Book Club pick.  This is a stamp of approval for a guilty pleasure with little, if any literary measure.  Reese's pick is an indiscernible romance dalliance.  Touted as the sex, drugs & rock & roll era of the 70s but there's no glitter ball  to shed light on the epoch; nothing of note to spin this shaggy-dog story into stuff worth snorting.  Daisy is born with a silver spoon in her mouth and a golden voice.  She's also drop dead gorgeous and everything seems to come her way.  Her looks, confidence & lack of inhibition land her a gig with a rock group called the SIX which shall heretofore be known as Daisy Jones & the Six.  Daisy is endowed with talent for songwriting along with a set of pipes that emote angst, strength & sex.  The storytelling gimmick novel is an interview format by a mystery journalist interviewing Daisy & the other six original bandmates who were unwittingly or unwilling orchestrated by Billy.  Billy is your long haired, denim on denim sex magnet.  Billy is also married to Camilla with 3 young daughters.   Daisy has dynamite chemistry with Billy but Camilla is no wallflower.  The limping pulse to the novel is whether Billy will stay on the wagon or stray from his wife.  Camilla is a straight shooter with plenty to say.  It's for the reader to say whether she's solid as a rock or more of a doormat.  Billy's younger brother Graham is in the band and he's so in love with Karen on the keyboards. Eddie is hassled.  Pete has a life outside the band.  Warren warrants little attention and the people interviewed outside the band don't add much to the mix.  The whole shebang is a sappy, crappy tale of unrequited love.  DAISY JONES & the SIX belongs in Davey Jone's locker.  However, if you're searching for some easy, breezy read for the beach, this might strike the right chord.

ORANGE WORLD - Short Stories: Horror, Sci-Fi, Magical, Magnificent

Karen Russell ORANGE WORLD is a collection of short stories that are outside the realm of reality that really draw you in and get under your skin.  Call her genre horror if you will sci-fi.  Still, you will become immersed into the surreal and sublime world created by this award winning writing.  Russell's ORANGE WORLD won the National Magazine Award for Fiction ('19).  Her debut novel "Swamplandia" ('12) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.  Russell is a writer extraordinaire unafraid to chart new territories, merging the imaginary with reality, the magical & formidable as well as beauty amidst horror.  The 8 short stories are all eerie & exciting in their own shimmery & scintillating way.  They share a common ephemeral thread that lures the reader into a mounting sense of dread.  The stories cross over into a realm that unities the living with the dead.  Russell skillfully endows the inanimate with sentient conscious.  In "The Gondoliers" Russell a not too distant or dis believable apocalyptic future manifests a mystical allure.  "I didn't know who I was, what I was.  The face floating on the water was not mine, not yet.  The silence that let me ripple out of my body, until at last I felt entirely at peace, whole and unfractured. One with the wildest  turnings of the universe."  An ominous foreboding of death morphs into feelings of serenity and a continuity to life.  Russell demonstrates a desire to sync opposing forces into one.  In "Madame Bovary's Greyhound" Russell writes "Moods blew from one mind to the other, delight and melancholy."  ORANGE WORLD is a marvel to read.  It has the mesmerizing quality to spiral into your heart and reorganize your perceptions into something new & astounding.

Pam Houston's DEEP CREEK -Salvation in Acreage

Writer Pam Houston' love for the 120 acres she owns & shares with numerous dogs, horses and farm animals is the home she'd rather not have to roam from - but to stay she must make her way by writing & teaching.  Teaching courses takes her far from the land, dogs & horses she loves; of course.  In her crystal writing we discover  how she lives, learns & loves nature's bounty within her withering fencing that gives DEEP CREEK FINDING HOPE IN THE HIGH COUNTRY its profound majestic prose. I credit Pam for intense attention to the needs for her your animals, all animals & the planet and for her candid reflections of falling protecting the planet.  Her plane rides alone are harming the environment  - but lest I cast stones, she is not alone. Pam's prose shares her awe of nature, animals & wildfire which is infectious & inspiring to be self-reflective & conscientious about protecting our global planet.  Pam has a lot of friends who join her from time to time and I wish I could be included amongst her favored few.  I'd love to endeavor alongside her & journey forth on her ventures.  Pam shares her childhood of trauma and abuse that is difficult to digest.  Her candor takes you into her confidence but makes you wince. The fires that destroyed so much acreage in CO are horrific.  I can identify with fears & grief having endured devastating fires in CA and am at loss for the destruction in Australia.  I wish to find hope in Pam's outlook but it is one of cautious optimism combined with activism to protect our planet.   Houston writes candidly & cogently.  I recommend DEEP CREEK for her clear & compelling writing.  Moreover, this is a woman of resiliency, compassion and strength.  There are many worthwhile life lessons to be gleaned including the beauty of solitude and self-reliance.  Houston instills a calmness & awareness of nature's beauty without preaching.

SANDITON Jane Austen's Unfinished Novel

Jane Austen (b UK 1775-1817) is renown writer for depicting the the strict modicum of social behavior and hierarchy.  Her beloved legacy of novels depict marriage as the only savior for securing their well being lest they be pitied.  The options granted women around the turn of the 19th C proffered few options other than manual servitude or marital servitude.  For the wealthy there's ample leisure time as to cause one distress seeking amusement.  SANDITON was Austen's 7th novel which remained unfinished.  She began writing Jan. '1817. She put it aside in March due to illness & died a few months later. SANDITON consisting of 11 chapters was bequeathed to her niece. It's plot aligns with the others: a young heroine of poor means but plenty of fortitude & common sense who captures the heart of a wealthy gentlemen & is rescued from a life of poverty & spinsterhood.  Still, all Austen's novels are enduring for their captivating heroine and quick-witted banter.  Kate Riordan (b UK) is a contemporary journalist & writer of historic fiction.  Riordan collaborated (nearly 200 years posthumously) with Austen to complete her final & unfinished work SANDITON.  There's no enigma  how the novel's rural heroine Charlotte will fare.  Charlotte has the happy ending with the haughty but beguiling Sidney; a gentleman of wealth, fine countenance, pleasing voice & an abundance of conversation.  Charlotte's traits mirror Austen's previous heroines of fortitude with a penchant for voyeuristic observations used for amusement and her advantage.  Charlotte maintains concern for  propriety while assessing the character beneath the facade of other's.  There's a self-important, persnickety grande Lady whose wealth bestows with self-grandeur & sycophant admirers hoping to gain favors.  Austen fans won't be disappointed.  However, those believing her writing sacrosanct should refrain from putting their snotty noses into SANDITON.  Still, members of the Jane Austen society may share my criticism of Riordan's adaptation.  Riordan's addition of 3 characters convolutes the plot and dilutes its authenticity.  Riordan believes readers of Austen flock "seeking to escape the shady values & cheap garishness of our own age; returning to JA's novels to catch a glimpse of life in what appears to be far more leisured times."  I enjoy the absurdity of such limited activities & bemoan the sole goal of women to marry men of greater means.  Riordan apologizes "for {her} deficiencies in the 7th" which include artistic license with dialogue.  Sidney wouldn't admonish Charlotte "her instinctive guidance of the heart."  I suggest reading SANDITON: Jane Austen's Last Novel Completed."  I urge viewers to watch PBS's SANDITON adapted by BAFTA winning writer Andrew Davies and escape into the lush & antiquated time that is gone with the wind.

Irish Author Sally Rooney's Novel CONVERSATION with FRIENDS

Sally Rooney's (b. Ireland 1991) debut novel CONVERSATIONS with FRIENDS ('17) is a shrewd, psychological assessment of power struggles amongst sophisticated, intellectuals.  The contemporary novel set in Dublin is apprised by Francis, a college co-ed whose passions include poetry, writing and defiant repartee.  Francis' compulsions include her roommate Bobbi, her steadfast friend & former lesbian lover and her attachment to Nick, an older, handsome married man.  Rooney's follow-up novel NORMAL PEOPLE ('18) garnered critical acclaim.  NORMAL PEOPLE was listed for the Man Booker Award and named Ireland's Novel of the Year (18).  The overriding similar meme is control; maintaining the upper hand within a relationship.  Both Francis & Bobbi are intellectuals whose sport is sparring loquaciously & precociously amongst friends.  Francis is from an impoverished home with an alcoholic father.  Bobbi's hales from a posh, wealthy household.  The balance of power often shifts with affluence and shaped by sexual dominance.  Francis, an inspiring poet/writer sells a story whose heroine mirrors both herself & Bobbi. Francis admits "No one who knew us could fail to see Bobbi in the story....It emphasized the domineering aspect of Bobbi's personality and of my own, because the story was about personal domination."  This synopsis by Francis of the story written within the story is essentially the ballistic dynamics between the two women & Francis' oscillating power struggles with others & within herself.  Much of the dialogue & construed relationships are caustic & cryptic.  Other times, Francis leaves no doubt her desire for sovereignty over Nick.  She tells Nick "I would miss dominating you in conversation."  Francis craves the adrenaline of Nick's abject affection, "He really wanted to be kissed, and I felt a rush of my own power over him."  Melissa, Nick's wife, interprets her husband's "pathologically submissive" behaviors.  Melissa confronts Francis about the affair & tells her "He {Nick} told me he thought helplessness was often a way of exercising power."  Nick seems the most submissive & at times appears most sensible.  Francis felt in "complete control" over Nick.  Yet, she admits "He thought it was healthy for us to try and correct the power disparity, though he didn't think we would ever be able to do it completely."  Conversations spiral in spurts with alacrity.  Rooney's clever writing enlivens the credo there's always 1 person in a relationship who loves more, cares more, gets hurt more & forgives more.  Rooney's illuminating work shades relationships with nuance and apoplectic energy.

French Author Pujol's LITTLE CULINARY TRIUMPHS

The debut novel from French author Pascale Pujol LITTLE CULINARY TRIUMPHS is a disaster. It's a fallen soufflé', a burnt beyond recognition duck - basically it sucks, and not in a succulent fashion rather it's déclassé'.  I admit I chose not to finish this pastiche novel of sex, food, irreverence - all essential ingredients - but the execution was a dismal dish that was sorely amiss.  There were too many characters in l'cuisine which made it convoluted especially since none of them were of particular interest.  This would include the resigned Sandrine, ambiguous Antoine, sinewy Toussaint and chef extraordinary Vairam; frankly I couldn't give a damn.  Perhaps Pascale Pujol will prosper after throwing out the top pancake and trying again.  Yet, there's no accounting for taste.  The French believe they have a sophisticated palette.  I am no Francophile.  I'll file this under the French's acquire taste for for Jerry Lewis and Marcel Marceau.  Voila! I find "Little Culinary Triumphs" underwhelming and less than come ci come ca.