FOSTER by Claire Keegan-Forming a Family from Strangers

Claire Keegan affecting novella, FOSTER, builds assured feelings of affection between a young girl and her aunt and and uncle at a leisurely pace that overflow in an emotional climatic ending.  An unnamed young girl is being driven to a relatives home to be left for the summer amount with little warmth by her distracted father.  The girl captures our hears from the beginning by her stoic disposition and keen observations.  "Why did he leave without so much as a good-bye, without ever mentioning that he would come back for me?" she asks herself.  The guardians, the Kinsellas, are reserved but concerned for the girl left in their care whom we learn are her aunt and uncle.  Written in an austere style that suits the quietness of the novella, the bonds of trust emerge.  Her aunt's steady tutelage of household chores and the uncle's gentle attentions fill the hallows of the girl's longing for affection she wasn't aware existed. "I try to remember another time when I felt like this and am sad because I can't remember a time, and happy, too, because I cannot."  The girl learn's of the loss of the only child her aunt and uncle had from a busybody neighbor bent on gaining illicit information from the girl about the couple.  This comic interlude cuts sharply against the kindness and respect she's come to know under her aunt and uncle's care for her and for each another.  The lyrical prose reflect the girl's dawning of the changes she's finding in herself.  She hesitates before glancing at own her reflection in the water.  "For a moment, I am afraid,  I wait until I see myself not as I was when I arrived, looking like a gypsy child, but as I am now, clean, in different cloths, with the woman behind me."  Simple acts of endearment first strike the girl as painful. She considers as her uncle takes her hand, "I realize my father has never once held my hand, and some part of me wants Kinsella to let me go so I won't have to feel this.  It's a hard feeling but as we walk along I begin to settle and the let the difference between my life at home and the one I have here be."  This novella is to be treasured for the beauty of its writing that washes over from mundane activities to an outpouring torrent of love.  "I hold on as though I'll drown if I let go, and listen to the woman who seems in her throat, to be taking it in turns, sobbing and crying, as though she is crying not for one, but for two."  

How Not to Kill Yourself by Clancy Martin

Clancy Martin has survived nearly a dozen suicide attempts, concerned scores more, dealt with addiction, serious depression and shares all in a no holds barred confession on his life.  Martin shines an interesting perspective on the predilection to off one's self.  This penchant should hopefully be mystifying to most although many will have their own lives impacted by the suicide of a family member or friend.  Can this book be helpful?  In many ways, yes.  Nonetheless, for many, myself included, with a desire  curiosity or desire to gain some empathy and understanding for those who lose sight of life, there's an overpowering emotional toll exacted in learning of  Martin's personal history.  I understand Martin's need to shed any barriers pertaining to his biography but this was more than I could bear.  Reader, beware.  Martin is to be commended but "How Not to Kill Yourself" is not recommended reading, for most.  

THIS CLOSE to HAPPINESS a Reckoning with DEPRESSION-Daphne Merkin

Daphne Merkin is a contributing writer for "The New York Times Magazine," an American literary critic and writer of novels and non-fiction.  "This Close to Happiness" is Merkin's autobiography focusing on her lifelong battle with depression for which she was first hospitalized at age eight and again after the birth of her daughter.  Merkin's deft writing lays abundant causes for experiencing depression in a household where parental love was rare and primary care she and her siblings received was from a nanny who did not spare the rod.  Merkin does ponder why, she, and not any of her other siblings shared her penchant for hysteria..  Having been born into wealth and privilege, Merkin concedes she would appears too self-indulgent to be worthy of sympathy or even credibility.  But, the strength of her concise descriptions without apology, lend an authority to her writing that is very convincing.  Other celebrities and famous writers have bared their souls sharing their battles with feelings of overwhelming desolation, making them appear more relatable or noble for sharing.  Merkin's life is undeniably fascinating but unenviable.  The mystery as to why some and not others suffer the pain of debilitating melancholia remain an enigma.  What is made palpable are the unrelenting pangs of suffering. "{"Depression} insinuates itself everywhere in your life, casting a pall not only over the present but the past and the future as well, suggesting nothing but its own inevitability. For the fact is that the quiet terror of sever depression never entirely passes once you've experienced it.  It hovers behind the scenes, placated temporarily by medication and a willed effort at functioning, waiting to slither back in.  It tugs at your awareness keeping you from ever being fully at ease in the present."  

I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS for YOU-Questions Memories Prejudice Privilege and Who Killed Thalia

Rebecca Makkah's mulit-layered mystery I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS for YOU ropes together an inventive and ingenious plot of more than just who done it. But, the soul searching of who really killed the beautiful coed is the unrelenting quest that makes this crafty crime novel hard to put down.  Granby is the posh, boarding school at the crux of the tale narrated by Bodie Kane.  Bodie is taken under the wings of a benefactor family who pay her tuition at the exclusive high school. We feel for Bodie as she recalls the shame she felt by putdowns she received from classmates for the clothes she thought were flattering hand-me-downs. Wanting and not wanting to fit in make this a relatable coming of age story.  Bodie finds her stride and her voice through her impressionable years at Granby.  Spring of her senior year, Bodie's roommate, Thalia Keith is found murdered on campus.  Decades later, Bodie as a successful podcaster and producer returns to teach a seminar.  Two students choose to do a podcast investigating the notorious murder of Thalia on their campus knowing Bodie could provide relevant first hand recollections.  However, how do memories hold up more than 20 years later?  How do individual memories differ looking back on this tragedy?  How do we judge our reasoning in retrospect to our younger selves?  The investigative work by the students and Bodie lead us down diverging and similar suspicions.  Through an ongoing, running dialogue Bodie maintains with her former beloved, teacher, Denny Bloch, we develop a keen connection with her as an adult and for her years as a student.  It seems obvious Bloch was a lech and a probable murderer. What of Thalia's handsome boyfriend at the time?  Did Bodie or others hold onto information that would've been relevant at the time?  The only black teacher at the time, Omar, was accused and found guilty for the murder.  Was he railroaded and imprisoned falsely and imprisoned all these years?  Even Thalia's sister comes to belief in Omar's innocence and wants to find justice.  The perils of social media and its power to blame and punish run rampant in Bodies' personal life and her profession are spotlighted.  There is much to ponder and relish in this provocative novel as we continually question how to discern fact from fiction.  Fact, there's no questioning the power of Makkah's mesmerizing storytelling which grips the reader on this disturbing but fascinating maze of intrigue.