Melinda's Top Ten Literary Picks A Mix of Fiction/Non-Fiction/Short Stories and Poetry for 2024

                     The Top 10 Are Listed in Alphabetical Order by Author's Name: 

1.    Taffy Brodesser-Akner's LONG ISLAND COMPROMISE - Patriarch's kidnapping takes collateral damage on all family members.

2.    Nonfiction Sloane Crowley GRIEF IS for PEOPLE - Beautiful reflection on the life of a friend who took his own life unexpectedly.

3.    Louise Erdrich - THE SENTENCE continues to prove her prowess as a literary writer of multi-genres in this novel: Native American Renaissance, social reform and philosophy.

4.    Percival Everett JAMES - revisionist take on Twain's Huckleberry Finn. 

5.    Nonfiction Matt Haig shares his history of depression and offers practical suggestions. 

6.    Henry Hoke's OPEN THROAT - The narrator is a savvy mountain lion living under the HOLLYWOOD sign

7.    Miranda July's ALL FOURS - Mid-40s female's road trip takes a detour and explores her sexual drive.

8.    Alice Monroe - RUNAWAY The runway queen of short stories struts her stuff in this collection.

9.    Paul Murray's The BEE STING - Irish family drama that cuts deep with a touch of magic and blarney.

10.   George Saunders - PASTORALIA  Short story collection that will resonate long after being read.

BONUS

11.   Jesse Nathan Poetry - EGG TOOTH - Try a sampling of poetry that has some bite.

    

M July's ALL FOURS-Outside the Box Marital Perimeters

Miranda July's audacious novel ALL FOURS is a liberating manuscript meant for peri-menopausal women on the precipice of losing their libido. It can also be described as a solo female road trip that takes a salacious journey into sexual yearnings. This innovative novel covers a lot of territory spanning sexual obsessions, marital strictures, friendships, celebrity, conformity and feeling free to yourself. It's driven forward by its 45 female, unnamed narrator married to Harris, with a young child, Sam. Our narrator is a semi-famous artist whose artistry remains a mystery as does the gender of Sam whom they both take great pains to not gender label. She tells one woman who refers to her child as her son. "How dare you sex label our child." Our semi-famous heroine was en route to NYC when just outside of LA she waylaid her lust for Davy, the handsome young man who cleaned her car's windshield. No one would guess that instead of going to New York for two and a half weeks I had hidden out 30 minutes away with a boy who worked at Hertz. That would be an absurd conclusion to jump to." That isn't the only preposterous thing she does. She spends $20K on redecorating the motel room she's staying in with the wife of her boy toy obsession. And, when alone, "I just luxuriated in my beautiful room, sleeping late and anointing myself and having orgasms and listening to music and eating only the foods that appealed to me: hot dogs and puddings and orange Popsicles.. "I didn't feel guilty. I didn't tiptoe or walk on eggshells...I was happy." But, then sometimes she thought to herself, "What are you doing? You're betraying your husband. You miss your child." Part farce, part fantasy and part a stirring rumination about commitments and fulfilling one's desire. While lying in Davy's arms she tells herself, " I saw us lying like this for the rest of our lives, profoundly married to other people but always knowing we could return to our shared world. This was what I had always wanted; he was real enough to love and love me back but not so real that I couldn't desire him." ALL FOURS opens news doors, explores new marital structures and encourages self-discovery and heralds solipsism. ALL FOURS is a ferocious and manic work of fiction that embraces aging women and encourages them to be uninhibited, unencumbered and fearless. Yes, I'm being judgmental and sexist in calling ALL FOURS a tour-de-force read especially geared towards women's book groups.  

I HEARD HER CALL MY NAME-Lucy Sante's Transition Memoir

Lucy Sante was an established and highly regarded author of nonfiction books and essays when she chose to  transition in her 60's. The journey to gender transitioning or body dysphoria is difficult to understand. It's best understood when explained by someone who has transitioned what it feels to be born into a body that doesn't conform with one's self-perception. Sante's writing is powerful when describing her mindset of hesitation and determination to transition. "Gender dysphoria had permeated my life...there seemed to be no domain unaffected by it...There was not a second of my life when I wasn't pinned under the klieg lights of self-consciousness. Even when I was alone I was being watched." Sante felt too ladened with unnecessary information from decades past, overburdening and underwhelming the reader.  She is most eloquent and poignant when emoting. "Once my egg finally cracked" and "the dam has burst. The weight of my secret could not be underestimated. I could fully measure its effects as they left me. I no longer felt timid; I didn't give a hoot about being judged. I felt like I owned my body, maybe for the first time." Unfortunately, she belabors the impact of her turmoil and detracts from empathizing with her emotional welfare before and after. As a critic, an award winning writer of nonfiction, contributing writer to "NY Review of Books" and editor, Sante's should have realized her writing required critical editing. Too much dwelling in her doldrums and detailing her either errant or non-existent social life makes the memoir excruciatingly arid. Her self-described Bohemian years spent among a few artistic celebrities felt forced and tedious. The memoir breakthroughs when she is expressing her heartfelt longing. "I wanted with every particle of my being to be a woman, and thought it was pasted to my windshield, and yet, I looked through it, having trained myself to do so." Sante has stated in recent interviews her concern for having come out now, it may be perceived as a ploy for publicity or as weakness on her part for waiting until public opinion to be more accepting. Her lifelong, obsessive worry of how she felt perceived overshadows her six decades, quelling her resolve. The photos depicting how she would have appeared had she transitioned over the decades were intriguing. Though I felt surprised, but relieved, her regret for years lost did not outweigh her current happiness ."It was what I should have been able to do long before, and at every point in between, but couldn't. Now that the world had shifted slightly, I was on the moving sidewalk at last. All the objections and hesitations-I was on the moving sidewalk at last; that I was too old; that I was dooming myself to loneliness;...that perhaps I didn't deserve to be a woman-faded away in the light of my resolve." I suggest reading Lucy's current interviews as they are more concise and enlightening than her over indulgent memoir. 

The SONG of ACHILLES-Old Drawn Out Greek Heroic Tale

Madeline Miller's novel The SONG of ACHILLES (SAC), deals with similar territory as in her follow-up best selling novel, CIRCE. Both are about an assorted cast of Greek Goddesses, Gods, demigods and their boy toy mortals.  Credit ACHILLES and CIRCE for appealing to readers who aspire to learn the circuitous connections and classifications mired in myths and Ancient Greek history. Both are a lot more interesting than the dry classics that many a teen has battled with such as the Iliad, Odyssey or tales of the Trojan War. Furthermore, Miller spins ACHILLES' saga from the narration of Patroclus, an-exiled prince who became Achilles' lifelong love into infinity and beyond. Still, Miller's epic tale suffers from insufficient editing and wagers on too long trolling through numerous infamous names and relationships. So too, the Ancient Greek War, assured to be a quick victory, morphs into a decade long running battle. Patroclus, a reserved loner in a new kingdom, is favored by the King's son Achilles. Achilles is a young adonis, and revered by all the other boys. The two form a bond from a young age that continues throughout their lives. Achilles chooses Patroclus to receive training for battle alongside him under the guidance of a benevolent centaur Chiron. The years spent in a secluded forest under Chiron's tutelage were the most interesting as they learn to adapt in nature's habitat and flourish into adulthood.  Here the two first consummate their blossoming attraction. At its core, this is a love story between Achilles and Patroclus despite its many epic challenges. Achilles' mother, the sea-nymph Thetis loathes Patroclus as he threatens to diminish Achilles' legacy of greatness. She poses various obstacles to their relationship. There's also the war against Troy which calls both Achilles and Patroclus to fight in the war with the Greeks against the Trojans. The war broke out after the abduction of Helen who was married to the King of Sparta and considered the most beautiful woman in the world. The sieges are bloody. Achilles proves his prowess  on the battlefields although the prophecy of his death looms overhead. Patroclus' skills tending the wounded are revered. Amidst the anguish of war, treachery and the wrath of various Gods against mortals, the devotion  between Achilles and Patroclus endures and makes the mounting miseries and myriad of players palpable. Patroclus' voice from beyond the grave bestowed a poignancy towards the ends that otherwise was missing. Reading SAC is more rewarding than reading cliff notes on the Trojan War and more of a lark than memorizing surmountable mythical and historical names. But, not nearly as tantalizing as consuming nectar or ambrosia.  

Alice Munro RUNAWAY-Munroe is By Far and Away Masters the Short Story Form

Alice Munro (b. Canada  1931-2024) is one of the most honored and revered writers of our time. Among her many accolades ar the Nobel Prize in Literature (2013) and the Man Booker International Prize (2009). She is considered one of the finest writer of short stories and her collection RUNAWAY received the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize (2004).  The stories in RUNAWAY all share her skill for investing the reader into her characters and their world. Her clear, descriptive prose create female heroines that feel real and self-reliant, although in the lead story "Runaway" a wife's brief sojourn to leave an unhappy marriage ends abruptly with a change of heart. It is the elder woman who is the central character and retains a steely resolve when confronted with the brutish husband. The experiences in both women's lives are felt by the reader which is one of Munroe's writing gifts. Another pleasure from her reading is the surprising whimsy that propels many of her female characters. There's a sense of adventure and thrill to what will happen next and a calming sense that everything will turn out as intended. You can argue that men are delegated to the women in her stories but they too are fully drawn characters whom we get to know and understand. The setting of the stories in RUNAWAY stretches from the present to earlier in the 20th C and she navigates the landscapes of the eras in her stories which can traverses decades within a story. The final story "Powers" differs from her other stories in what may be her swan song. The narrator  is disjointed and interrupted by a "decisive person" who may be a caretaker or spouse. It may also indicate her backing away from her writing which has brought so much pleasure to this reader. Monro did stop writing after RUNAWAY was published.  As with all her elegant stories and novels, Munro has runaway with my imagination and awe for everything she has ever written. 

SHRED SISTERS Beautiful Troubled Sis Takes and Little Sis is Left Amiss

Betsy Lerner's debut novel, SHRED SISTERS is about a Jewish middle-class family set in the 1970s-80s with two daughters: Ollie the captivating bi-polar older sis whose mental instability and antics dominate the household and Amy, the younger, petite, daughter whose diligent behavior is overlooked. Amy serves as our observant and level headed narrator. She's aware of being delegated to the back burner in the household in lieu of Ollie's charisma and increasingly troubling mental illness. We're drawn to Amy's stoicism and root for her to enjoy a rich and rewarding life. This is not always the case for Amy whose overachieving academics and work in a science lab shuts her off from others at school and at work. Amy's first sexual relations are emotionless and detached. But, Amy is unflappable in her love for her sister and her parents despite continually being consistently being shafted by both. SHRED SISTERS is both a novel about mental illness' exhausting impact on a family and about a young woman, Amy. who navigates her way in the world  as someone who is used to selflessly, if not unwisely, giving more of herself to others. Amy realizes, "No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister." When Amy's life seems to be on track with a promising career in editing and a good marriage, she sabotages her happiness with an old lover who struggles with drug addiction. We are driven through the lens of Amy's eyes which are neither  rose colored or despondent. Amy contains a sense of hope for the future with an enduirng patience for the present and the understanding her sister was not the cause of all her troubles. "For a long time, I was convinced that Ollie was responsible for everything that went wrong in our family."  At its core, this is a story of the relationship between two sisters. Ollie's whose erratic life weaves in and out of Amy's and their steadfast love for each other. Amy felt that "The emotional current was overpowering, and for a moment all the joy and sadness in life pooled inside and I longed for everyone I'd ever loved." I was captivated following Amy and her family's tribulations coping with the added havoc of having a loved one with mental illness while sustaining unwavering support for one another.