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."