LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE by Celeste Ng - Scorching Sequestered Secrets and Social Dilemmas

Celeste Ng (b Amer 1980) won the Amazon Book of the Year Award for EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU (2014).  LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE shares story arcs based on maintaining secrets  which lead to false conclusions and calamitous repercussion.  LITTLE FIRES begins with a destructive house fire whose culprit is assumed.  The story sizzles along to its combustive outcomes.  This novel draws on numerous characters & broaches hot topics.  There are two main families, the Richardsons who live in wealthy, pristine Shaker Heights, CL.  The mother is a reporter (with her own repressed story) the father, an atty. and 4 robust, high school kids, 2 girls Lexi & Izzy (a volatile & much maligned daughter) 2 boys, handsome, athletic Trip and Moody, pensive & sincere.  Moody befriends Pearl, the new girl, Mia's daughter.  Mia is an enigmatic single parent and prodigious photographer.  Pearl (name derived from SCARLETT LETTER) and Mia have been living an itinerant lifestyle according to Mia's whims.  Moody & Pearl became fast & furious friends; both share a sensitive nature.  Moody brings Pearl into the Richardsons household where she becomes affixed to the family.  Mrs. Richardson sees things in terms of black/white, right or wrong.  She is self-righteous & manipulative.  She believes passion, like fire is a dangerous thing & too easily burns out of control.  Mia, is a mysterious observer who navigates in a gray area where things are neither quite right or quite wrong.  Mia may view issues from multiple perspectives but she intervenes when she perceives an injustice.  The novel makes nuanced observations, reveals unexplored convictions and & closely examines compelling social issues.  It appears many parents are unable to appreciate their offspring as well as those outside the family.  Photography becomes a metaphor for seeing things from opposing perspectives like comparing a photograph to its negative image.  Pearl melds into the Richardson's family & as Izzy & Lexi become deeply attached to Mia; positions blurred.  Mia is a subsidized tenant of Mrs. Richardson who rents to those deemed worthy of her generosity.  However, Mrs. Richardson is unable to see the bigger picture or outside a set frame of thinking.  There is a heart wrenching custody case involving an infant left at a firehouse which ignites heated debate.  The court must decide whether the birth mother or foster parents are entitled to custody.  The battle pits Mia surreptitiously v. the couple vying for adoption who retain counsel from Mr. Richardson.  Teenage drama sparks the storyline with lust, secrets and turmoils.  "The young are the same always & everywhere."    LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE ignites fiery emotional responses to this thought provoking and enthralling novel.  

Nicole Krauss' FOREST DARK - A Melange of Mysticism, Memoir and Existentialism

Nicole Krauss (b Amer 1974) is a gifted novelist (A HISTORY of LOVE) whose novel THE GREAT HOUSE was a Nat'l Bk Award finalist.  FOREST DARK is a novel that loosely connects two characters with their ties to the Hilton hotel in Tel Aviv.  Nicole is the female protagonist, an acclaimed Amer. novelist with 2 young sons & a marriage hanging by a thread.  The male protagonist, Jules Eisman, is a wealthy Amer. atty., father of 3 young adults, recently divorced from a long & seemingly copacetic marriage.  Krauss discreetly intertwines different people from different walks of life.  Nicole & Jules are both of the Jewish faith with indeterminate religious convictions .  Still both maintain a cohesive connection to their Jewish heritage and to Israel.  Jules is the vociferous character used to being in charge & doling out commands.  Not to say Jules is a tyrant, but there is an irony to him playing the role of King David in a film towards the end of the novel.  Jules is going through an existential transformation purging himself of most of his valuable possessions.  He sojourns on a journey to Tel Aviv at the happenstance urging of a Rabbi.  Nicole who shares the same name as the author bears other similarities with the writer; such as 2 sons and a dissolution of a 10 year marriage.  The foundation is laid to make assumptions the fictional Nicole represents Krauss herself.  Nicole is experience the same nagging rootless & restless feelings experienced by Jules.  She imagines herself both in the future and in a future that is tied to the present.  She too leaves her home in the US to awaken her creativity & a sense of herself.  She believes it's only with distance & her eventual return to the home that shelters her can she discover her true self.  Both character's feckless behaviors make them both seem too easily lead.  But, their contemplative, inward reflections draw them out as both surreal & complex people.  "Some of us are touched too much, and some too little; it is the balance that seems impossible to get right."  Both Nicole & Jules ponder spirituality, heritage and the legacy they will leave.  The climatic deja vu entendu ending is both calming & horrific.  It speaks to the never ending search for or believing in meaning.  Krauss continues to expand her craft as a writer of great intelligence.  She creates in a diaphanous style that bridges mysticism & exceptional storytelling.

Yaa Gyasi's Novel "Homegoing" - Slave Trade Stemming from 18th C Ghana

Yaa Gyasi (b Ghana 1989) marks her debut novel with an epic an intimate look at slavery from within the African nation of Ghana & its war faring tribes and the far-flung tragedies of slavery.  The novel is broken down into separate families that broke off at 2 unbeknownst sisters and their family lineage & legacies.  The chapters break off the story-telling into many fractions that became too much of a distraction.  I kept putting down the novel with its truly devastating historic travesties and kept finding it harder to go back to Gyasi's "Homegoing" novel.  Although there is much to commend Gyasi's novel for including its courageous content and dazzling writing I made it half-way through this arduous journey and decided not to return.  "Homegoing" is an inspirational as well as purposefully shameful retelling of history's notorious practice of slavery.  I don't want to discourage readers from this well-worth reading tale, but truth be told, having gone on a journey half-way round the world and half-way through this dense book, I will not be returning.

"Miss Jane" A Novel by Brad Watson based on His Aunt Born with a Debilitating Congenital Disorder

"Miss Jane" is an old fashioned novel, set in MS in the early 20th C written in a languorous style.  Our heroine Miss Jane is born into a stoic farming family in a rural MS town.  Jane's birth, which was not a heralded event by the Chisholm household.  She was born to an embittered mother and stoic father.  Complicating the unwelcome child into this household which had its share of death, is the child's rare congenital disorder.  Brad Watson's unhurried storytelling slowly reveal the specific birth defect that mars Jane's future chances at finding love and forming her own family.  Watson (b Amer 1955) is a distinguished novelist.  "The Heaven of Mercury" was a Nat'l Book Finalist and "Aliens at the Prime of Their Lives" won the Pen/Faulkner Award.  Watson's languid writing allows the reader to assume the girl is a hermaphrodite; having birth female & male genitalia.  The local country Dr. Thompson who delivers Jane will remain a major companion in her life.  Dr. Thompson instructs the embittered mother to raise their newborn as a girl.  The parents have buried two children & their 2 oldest sons have already left to raise their own families.  The only sibling living at home is Jane's much older sister Grace who assumes the key role in raising her while devising her own nefarious escape from this desolate place.   Jane is mystified with a sense that she herself is some kind of curious creature; unlike other females.  Jane's congenital disorder is persistent cloaca  revealed later in the story.  Persistent cloaca is when the body develops only one orifice for the anus, urethra and vagina.  In small towns, there are no secrets, plenty of gossip & resentments.  People's cruel ignorance abounds within & outside of the Chisholm home.  Moreover, the novel is a thoughtful examination of the melancholy borne of being alone in the world.  Knowing of Jane's palpable isolation we still see her as an impenetrable force in the world.  Dr. Thompson, a steadfast confidant answers all Jane's inquiries candidly to the best of his ability.  He assures her the highest form of love transcends physical love and that the love of one person for another defies classification.  "Miss Jane' is a character driven story underscored by human nature that defies the need for physical perfection.  Sadly, human nature also has the tendency to dissipate over time.  "Beauty is truth, truth beauty that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." (J. Keats)

Literary Legend E.B. White's "Here is New York" Speaks Eloquently to NYC's Past, Present & Future

E. B. White (b Amer 1899-1985) is one of America's most distinguished writers of the 20th C.  White's writing has earned every prestigious literary award.  These awards include a Pulitzer Prize, an Amer. Acad. of Arts & Letters Honor and the National Medal for Literature.  President John Kennedy bestowed White the Meal of Freedom in 1963.  White's writing is astutely observational & companionably, conversational.  Needless to say, I regard his brilliant writing with the utmost esteem.  "Here is New York" is an astute essay that paints New York's past; its people, places & pervading tones with an undulating patina. His clever candor in dissecting the metropolis' population into 3 groups is humorous & haughty.  I concur with White's assessment that the heart & pulse of the city comes from those who chose the city as their home with a passion to succeed in their aspirations,  and aim to make the city their home.  Those born here are seen as fortunate by the luck of their birth.  The   upper east siders alluded to as jaded & shrouded behind their inherited wealth.  The milieu of commuters are scorned for taking what the city provides them in income only to retreat to their strewn suburbia.  These commuters enter & exist the city without taking in all the allure & mystique  waiting around every corner in the multitudes of uniquely defined neighborhood.  Not everything is portrayed from behind rosy glasses.  In fact, the grunge, poverty and olfactory offenses are dutifully noted.  So too are glimpses of budding romances & ubiquitous parades that pummel the city relentlessly.  Nonetheless, there is an unmitigated, self-congratulatory pride for all who chose to reside in the most remarkable & indomitable city in the world.  White believes it essential for NYC to solidify.  "In New York smolders every race problem there is, but the noticeable thing is not the problem but the inviolate truce. The city has to be tolerant, otherwise it would explode in a radioactive cloud of hate and rancor and bigotry."  E.B. White's profound essay written in 1948 is disturbingly prophetic.  "The city at last perfectly illustrates both the universal dilemma and the general solution, this riddle in steel and stone is at once the perfect target and the perfect demonstration of nonviolence, of racial brotherhood, the lofty target scraping the skies and meeting the destroying planes halfway, home of all people and all nations, capital of everything, housing the deliberations by which the planes are to be stayed and their errand forestalled."

Margaret Atwood's "The Heart Stops Lasts" Dystopian Affairs of the Heart

Margaret Atwood is one of Canada's most prominent novelists.  Born in 1939, Atwood is highly acclaimed for her sci-fi futuristic dystopian novels (The Handmaid's Tale & Oryx and Crake).  She's also writes essays & political commentary seeking social reform & environmental conservation.  "The Heart Stops Lasts" fits the dystopian genre yet it generates more heat entwining sexual mores & prison reform.  Stan (the man) and Charmaine (charming & gentle) are newly married. They're full of hopes & dreams that come crashing down soon after their vows & are now living in a survivalist "road warrior" world as the economics comes crashing down.  They live in their car in constant fear & long for normalcy.  The US is now a dystopian nightmare & the reality of their dire circumstances leads them to an experimental, self-contained community; plenty to eat, clean living conditions, safe & secure behind a citadel.  This haven is known as Consilience & Positron.  It has a few catches.  First, you have to be selected.  Then, you must sign away your right to ever leave.  One more thing, while you get to live to in clean safe surroundings, proffered plenty to eat, every other month you must live within the confines of a benign prison.  The sexes are separated & the prison requires you to share a cell & do assigned work.  The alternating month outside the prison also comes with work assignments but it feels like heaven to Charmaine compared to the barbaric conditions outside the compound.  Atwood is at her best constructing a society that credibly & chillingly starts to constrain any pretense of liberation.  Humans are hardwired for survival & for disavowing responsibility for one's own actions.  What may have started as a misguided plan for a utopian society by politicians to create jobs, save taxpayers money & avoid anarchy is too easily corruptible by oligarchs.  The new society model misappropriates people's bodies & eliminates all human rights.   Added intrigue is produced by sexual oppression & animalistic libidos (hints of Huxley's 1984).  The infinite suggestibility of the human mind is also examined.  Atwood cuts into both Stan & Charmaine's minds; an increasingly twisted & troubling place to dwell.  The title "The Heart Stops Lasts" refers to a procedure never referred to as murder but undesirables or bodies desired for their parts are drugged causing the heart to stop.  Poor Charmaine, they Positron big wigs "expected her to use her head & discard her heart, but it wasn't so easy because the heart goes last and hers was still clinging on inside her all the time."  Don't deceive yourself.  Looks are deceiving.  Poor Charmaine may not be as pure as perceived.  There are boundaries & then there are boundaries.

"The Boy Who Loved too Much" Williams Syndrome

Williams syndrome is a genetic disorder resulting from missing chromosomes of an individual's DNA genome.  The disorder presents itself with physical traits of short stature, pear shaped body types tending to being overweight and "dwarf" like facial features of enlarged foreheads, pointy chins, gapped spaced teeth and flat fingernails.  The common disabilities stem from low I.Q.s, enlarged aortas & heart issues, persevating on objects (vacuums in particular), anxiety & phobias and a propensity for a rapacious need for physical & social contact.  People with Williams syndrome have little impulse control and a compulsion for physical contact with everyone; hugging everyone, inlcluding complete strangers.  Youngsters with Williams are unflappable, happy & guileless which renders them vulnerable to being abused. As adults, those with Williams need ongoing support & supervision.    Reporter & author of "The Boy Wh Loved Too Much" Jennifer Larson,  ponders life in a constant state of euphoria and its ripple affect on humanity.  They love & trust everyone unconditionally.  Would this be a lifestyle to aspire?     follows Gayle, the mother of Eli who has Williams & shares Gayle's hopes, heartaches & struggles.  First, the ideal of an irrepressible spirit of joy appears to have its appeal.  The reality of caring for Eli as a child, adolescent & planning for his future is all consuming, exhausting, frustrating, heartbreaking and relentless worry.  A parent with a child with a disorder that limits their indepence & abilities must relent their hopes for what parents of healthy, mentally capable children take for granted.  Gayle's life & Eli's became irrevocably entwined and she realized that this was harmful to both in the long run.  The social impulse for unconditional love for humankind is not a gift.  The social drive lacking the cognitive ability to use it effectively is a major obstacle to fitting into society that is so earnestly craved.  The author did an exceptional job evoking empathy & understanding the stresses, obstacles and of living with Williams and living with a person with Williams.  The various responses from those who interacted with Eli ranged from derision & disgust to compassion & empathy.  The salient achievement of "The Boy Who Loved Too Much" was  empathy for others and a scientific understanding of the Williams disorder.  I recommend this intelligent & poignant book for everyone.  The one failing was the unnecessary & religious proletyzing Larson included in her final chapters.  "Christians make an effort to embrace the same openness, trust, and wonder found in Williams syndrome following Jesus' admonition...". The quote Larson chose in the beginning best outlines the humanity found in this ephiphanous work.  "We got a future.  We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us...Because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you." (J Steinbeck)