Book Review: The Girl With the Louding Voice

 By Abi Daré

• Pub Date: 2020

• Genre: African Literature

• Where I bought this book: Lores Untold Books & Gifts, North Vernon, Ind. 

• Why I bought this book: I was on a tour of independent bookstores, and this one was in the owner's house, so I had to support it  

• Bookmark used: Ordinary Equality/Advocating for gender equality    

 *********  

    When we first meet Adunni in her small village in Western Africa, she is happy, idealistic, and striving to educate herself so she can realize her dream of becoming a teacher of other young children.

    But then her beloved mother dies, her father sells her as a child bride to a village elder, and she later becomes a house maid to a vicious business woman in the sprawling capital city of Lagos.

    Adunni doesn't like her lot, and while she tries to obey her elders, keep her mouth shut and do as she's told, she cannot help herself. She's determined. She's eager to learn, to listen, to read and write properly, and to speak with her "louding voice" -- one that will be heard.

    This is a daring novel, a devilish debut by a voice who rightfully demands to be heard. It opens up a world beyond our pale, as seen by one who has lived through its beauty and injustices.

    Adunni is our guide and our hope. She shows what's going on in her life and the world beyond as she experiences it. At 14, she's young and innocent, living a happy if hard life. Her mother is her hero and protector, and she learns and plays happily with her friends in her village. But there are signs of despair -- her father is often portrayed as an unhappy alcoholic, and her family life is simple but sometimes desperate. 

    The writing is exquisite. Adunni is a child, with a child's uneasy grasp of English as her second language -- her native tongue is Yoruba. The early chapters show what appears to be a different dialect, and she makes tactical errors that recur. But it's easy to read, and with we see her improvements as she struggle with words, tenses, and the idiosyncrasies of English.

    It's also bursting with emotions, as Adunni seeks to overcome her fears, find friends, and recognize kindred spirits. It's a coming-of-age story set in another country. As it tells Adunni's stories, it also helps us find love, understanding, and acceptance.

Book Review: Mister, Mister

  By Guy Gunaratne

• Pub Date: 2023

• Genre: Literature, Fictional Memoir

• Where I bought this book: Barnes & Nobel, Florence, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: I liked his first novel about growing up in Birmingham  

 ******

 

   When Yahya Bas, British subject, Islamic poet -- and thus suspected terrorist -- awakes in an isolated jail cell, a policeman is there to take his statement. Bas refuses to say anything. Instead, he cuts out his tongue, preferring to write his story. 

    That is this book.

    It's a memoir, a political statement, a tale of growing up poor and out of place -- both culturally and geographically -- in the West Midlands of England.

    It's a wonderful tale from a poet, a suspected terrorist, and a literary phenom. He's tired of being bullied, suspected, and deceived. 

    "I just want you to listen," he says early in the tale. "I have plenty to say."

    So he writes his story, from his birth to a Muslim family that is only partially his own. His mother is around, but she has mental issues and stays alone in her room. So Yahya is mothered by a group of women, all of whom live in the dilapidate building with his uncle, Sisi Gamal, his teacher, mentor, and sometimes tormentor.

    He winds up attending a Muslim school, where he meets up with a group of friends, exploring Britain's treatment of the world, including his Islamic culture. He is profound, literate, angry. He studies all manner of writings, from the poets of ancient Egypt, Syria, and other parts of the Middle East, to the European scribes of the Middle Ages and onward.

    Soon, Yehya starts writing poetry. It is profane and bitter. He takes the name Al-Bayn, a nod to his culture, an ancient Greek or Celtic name for Britain, and the mystic world of William Blake. He becomes famous in his own community, attracting large crowds and disruptions. The authorities, fearful of his writings and his impact, see him as a threat.

     So he flees and wanders, eventually finding himself in the desert world of his ancestors. In his voluntary exile, he find his own heritage lovely if uncomfortable, difficult if welcoming. He find acceptance, but pushes away, and his return to England is not as voluntary as his leaving. 

    Yet no matter where he goes, he finds himself a nomad, an outsider. He has a lot to say, but he struggles with what it means. We struggle along with him.

Book Review: Allow Me to Introduce Myself

 By Onyi Nwabineli

• Pub Date: 2024

• Genre: Black Fiction

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: I have sympathy for the devil. Plus, the cover is beautiful  

 ********

    A tightly written and thought-provoking novel shows how the unwavering emotional support of friends can help one get through a life crisis of internet exploitation, guilt, shame and anger. 

    Nwabineli's debut novel packs a gut punch, and keeps delivering blows to the body and head until one is reeling on the mat. But throughout, she shows her ability to have her character stand up, dust off, and head back to recovery.

    With a cast of characters that include unflinching friends, a loved sister, an antagonist ripe for potential rehabilitation, a gloomy father. and an extended family that defines love, she gives the book her all. The result is a magical experience that questions the internet, social media, online influencers, and the exploitation of others for personal gain.

    As a young Nigerian child living in London, Aṅụrị literally grew up on the internet. Her  first words, her elaborate birthday parties, her puberty, her teenage angst, and so much more, were extensively choreographed and documented by her mother Ophelia, an early "mumfluencer." All the while, Ophelia, spurred by love, then ego, then fame and fortune, becomes more entranced with posting content about her daughter than rearing her.

    Her father, Nkem, who moved the family from Nigeria to London after her birth, has mostly checked out. He is sad and somewhat pathetic, and as the book says, "buried his head for so long he has become one with the sand."

    The book describes the efforts of Aṅụrị, now a young adult, to come to grips with growing up in public. Everyone thinks they know her, own a piece of her, and should have a say in the life of her younger sister, Noelle -- another unwilling child star of Ophelia and the internet. Aṅụrị deals with it by putting her own life on hold, developing an alcohol problem, and trying to protect Noelle.

    Throughout the book, we catch glimpses of Ophelia's rationale (sometimes loving, often self-centered) for her actions, and the sadness and depression that characterizes Nkem's life.

    But mostly it deals with Aṅụrị and her circle of friends, and how unquestioning love,  kindness and acceptance can be a nice way to treat each other.

Book Review: The God of Endings

 By Jacqueline Holland

• Pub Date: 2023

• Genre: Fantasy

• Where I bought this book: Bookmatters, Milford, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: It is a debut novel, and stories of immortality intrigue me   

 ******

         We give immortality to our gods, because they are perfect. We grant immortality to our book characters, because they are not.

    Collette LeSange is far from perfect. And she assuredly does not like her immortality. She did not ask for it, and her years on earth -- full of pain and loss, despair, failed hope, and taunts from the gods -- have not been friendly. She isn't living, she thinks, just existing.

    And as modern society grows around her, she's finding it harder to hide -- and to eat. Because Collette is a vampire, she must feed on blood, which gets more difficult to find as her years mount up.

    Holland's debut novel tells us how Collette gained immortality, her life over the next 150 or so years, and the fears that engulf her and remain constant companions.

    It's an audacious tale, full of adventure and sadness. It's a life writ large, and as much as Colette tries, she find it impossible to ignore the larger world. All too often, we find that her attempts to exude compassion and kindness rarely end well. 

    Collette grew up the daughter of a gravestone carver in the America of the early 19th Century, before her grandfather chose immortality for her -- a sore spot with her. She soon made it to Europe, where she met and was kept by others of her kind. But angry gods and angry mortals decried what they saw as her wickedness, so she was forced to wander alone and live apart from the vremenie -- those who live short lives -- for most of her days.

    Now, in the early 1980s, she is living and working in America as the owner of and only teacher at an elite pre-school. She senses the gods -- Czerobog* and Belobog, the former the god of darkness, destruction, and woe; the latter the god of light, life, and good fortune (the pair also may be just two faces of one god) -- have something planned for her. 

    In successive chapters, Holland alternates between Collette's history and struggles through the years and her current saga, which includes her growing relationship with a young artistic student with a troubled family life.

    The book has a few problems: Parts of it are overwritten, both stylistically and in the telling. Over-description is rampant, and some of the storylines could have been parsed or omitted.

    But it's a wide-ranging epic, and the ageless protagonist allows Holland to tell a tale over centuries of human history through the eyes of a single women, who is caring and strong, if also confused and lonely. It's overall a good read, depressing at times, but with a texture of hope that threads its way through some of the worst actions of humanity.

___________________________________

    *He's also called the God of Endings, hence the title.

Book Review: We Are the Brennans

 By Tracey Lange

• Pub Date: 2021

• Genre: Irish Fiction

• Where I bought obtained this book: A Little Free Library in the Wrigleyville section of Chicago 

• Why I bought  obtained this book: My mother was a Brennan from the drumlins and lakes of County Monaghan 

 ******

 

    Based on the blurbs on the novel's cover and comments from friends who have read it, I was thinking I may not like this book. "It's a lot of family drama and bad choices," said one.

    So I was expecting something overtly dramatic, with a soap-opera vibe.

    But it was none of that. Instead, I got a story with solid writing, well-defined characters, familiar settings, and tales of family love, lore, and longing.

    In short, I liked it. I really liked it.

    Oh, it had some questionable plot twists. When the big secret was reveled, the story just kept going, heading for another big reveal. As one character said, he didn't want to see another potential "emotional mess ... just when they were past the worst of it."

    And neither of those secrets was a surprise; indeed, you wondered why the close-knit Brennans hadn't already figured them out.

    As the novel opens, we find Sunday, the only girl in an Irish-American clan with three brothers, needing help. Five years before, she moved from the family home in Westchester County, N.Y., for Los Angeles. She left behind a devoted fiancé -- considered to already be an honorary Brennan; an elderly, widowed father; and three brothers, including Denny, considered the alpha male. Why she left is the first big mystery.

    But now, she finds herself lost in LA,  with a crappy job, a lousy apartment, and a drunken driving charge.

    She heads back home, and as she gets re-acquainted with the family, we learn their ways. Their stories are told in chapters by a narrator who knows them intimately and can see inside their heads. It's a fine way to tell the tale from all sides

    All of the Brennans have made, and continue to make, bad choices. But they back up each other -- most of the time -- although they keep many secrets. When and how those secrets are revealed are the heart and soul of the story.    

    It's a good family tale, even if, sometimes, you just want to give them a well deserved dope slap.

Book Review: The Wren, The Wren

 By Anne Enright

• Pub Date: 2023

• Genre: Irish Fiction

• Where I bought this book: Barnes & Noble, West Chester, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: Cool title, from an  old children's song from Ireland. 

 ****

    I'm not sure what to make of this book.

    Enright's writing is descriptive with a touch of wit. Her characters are strong women, rising above (mostly) whatever life has thrown at them. Her dialogue is fast-paced. Her scenes are Irish. Her stories are raw and insightful.

    Some that was apparent in this tale of three generations of an Irish family, struggling to live with the legacy of a grandfatherly poet with a(n undeserved) reputation for tradition and brilliance.

    It fact, until the ending, the novel is a bit of a mess. There's a mishmash of metaphors and a riot of remembrances; quagmires of conversations, gatherings of glib asides, and troves of touchy tweets and texts.

    The grandfather is the symbol of privileged, mediocre men. Phil is an acclaimed poet -- but given the representation of his best work printed in the book -- not a very good one. Terry is the long suffering wife who is little heard from. Carmel is the daughter-- ignored, irritable, but accepting. Nell is the granddaughter, a writer and her grandfather in spirit, but without the privilege or his self-confidence.

    Their stories interact, with each one getting to tell parts of the tale, interspersed with snippets from Phil's work and stories from an unidentified narrator. Of the distinct voices, I liked Nell the best. She comes alive in the latter part of the book.

    She's young, introverted but unperturbed. She tells random stories of her relationship with her mother -- a bit different from her mother's tales -- and her love life and travels. She's confident, indiscriminate in using social media, and wants to be an influencer.

    In her afterword, Enright says Nell was also her favorite. Nell is, Enright says, the heir to her grandfather's carelessness. "She exists in a modern space, one which is full of new possibilities for young women. These include the possibility of going wrong, or even gloriously wrong, as poets are want to do. It seems I invented Nell in order to love her."

    I'm glad she did.

Book Review: Walk the Blue Fields

 By Claire Keegan

• Pub Date: 2017

• Genre: Short Stories

• Where I bought this book: The Bookery, Cincinnati 

• Why I bought this book: I've been grabbing everything I find by this author 

 ******

    A strong collection of ordinary stories about ordinary Irish people going about their daily affairs, accepting their fate with its gloom and loneliness, but always hinting at and hoping for more.

    It's full not of happy-go-lucky folks basking in the glory of the green fields of ole Ireland, but of a melancholy people frustrated by their limitations, squinting up at the sky hoping for a bit of the sun, but enduring the muddy fields and the rain soaking in their shoes.

     Whether they are priest or farmer or soldier or mother, shopper or shopkeeper, Keegan gets inside their hearts and heads, exploring desires amidst exhilarated sadness. She shows lives full of abuse, conflict, and desolation. She pulls no punches, writing her stories with a gift for description and an eye for the pedestrian nature of daily life.

    In the opening story, The Parting Gift, she tells a common tale -- a young woman emigrating to American, not with stars in her eyes, but a hope that no matter what happens there, her life will be better -- or at least different. In Keegan's descriptions, nothing is extraordinary in the girl's preparations, as her mother speaks to her from another room.

                    "You'll have a boiled egg?"

                    "No thanks, Ma."

                    "You'll have something?"

                    "Later on, maybe."

                    "I'll put one on for you."

    It's a scene played out in households throughout Ireland over the years, and Keegan, without sentimentality, captures it perfectly.

    She has honed her craft well. In The Forester's Daughter, she tells of a man and his family trying to do well, but failing miserably, with instances of abuse, cruelty, and neglect taken as a matter of course.

    In the title story, she writes about a priest examining his own life while consecrating the wedding of a well-to-do Irish couple. It's summed up by the priest's thinking that "Anytime promises are made in public, people cry."

Book Review: Thirteen Ways of Looking

  By Colum McCann

• Pub Date: 2015

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books, Covington, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: I love me a good collection of Irish short stories. 

 *****

 

  I am sad that I was generally disappointed in this collection of a novella and three short stories. I have liked several of the author's previous works.

    OK. The stories themselves were decent. The last one, Treaty, about a aging Catholic nun who comes face-to-face with her living nightmare, was thoughtful and compelling. But that one suffered from a flaw the others were far more guilty of, and unexpected from such an accomplished writer: A general lack of focus, using too many words, too much excess description, too much meaningless detail and too many strained metaphors  

    But let's start with the good. Treaty involves Sister Beverly, a nun living in a care home in Long Island, concerned about her health and wondering if her religious life has been a waste. She's forgetful, ill at ease, and unable to feel comfortable in her old age. Then on the television, she sees a man who looks very much like an older version of person who raped her a long time ago. 

    The story deals with perception, pain, horror, and regret. She relives her pain, but does not want to dwell on it as the defining point of her life. Would God want her to reveal the monster -- if that is what he is -- or forgive his actions? Her thoughts and behaviors are deeply compelling, and McCann's tale paints a masterful image.

    Contrast that to the main story, about Peter J. Mendelssohn,  an aging white guy, an immigrant, a Jew, a lawyer, and a former judge in Brooklyn. He's retired, and now living -- and dying -- in a fancy apartment on the Upper East Side. He's had a good life, despite an upbringing in anti-Semitic Europe. But now his days are all about his pains, his diminished capacity, his beloved but now dead wife, and his terse relationship with his egotistical son. 

    But unlike Sister Beverly, his story is not about reflection and regret. It's about him, his thoughts, and his dying. And, quite frankly, his life and story are not all that interesting for the amount of effort it takes to read about it.

    The other two stories, Sh'khol, and What Time is it Now, Where are You? also fall flat.

Book Review: Remember Us

 By Jacqueline Woodson

• Pub Date: 2023

• Where I bought this book: Joy and Matt's Bookshop, Cincinnati 

• Why I bought this book: I've read and enjoyed other books by the same author

 ******** 

   I didn't realize this was a Young Adult book when I bought it; I picked it up because I liked some of Woodson's other novels.

    But as I starting reading, I realized this is a wonderful story, powerfully written and told. It features Sage, an African-American girl growing up in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn in the 1970s. It was a daunting time in New York, when houses and apartments across the city were in flames, both literally and figuratively.

    Sage describes living through it, fighting it, surviving it, and eventually thriving. She tells of being a kid, playing basketball, having fun, and dealing with life's myriad problems. She has good friends, acquaintances, and non-friends, staying close and drifting apart, dropping and reforming relationships.

    For Woodson, it's part memoir, if mostly fiction. It's warm and tender, and ultimately kind.

    I laughed; I cried. It became a part of me.

Book Review: Small Things Like These

 By Claire Keegan

• Pub Date: 2021

• Where I bought this book: Scarlett Rose Books, Ludlow, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: I'd heard good things about it, and it won a Booker Prize in 2022

 *********

    This book surprised me. I had expected concise, controlled, and beautiful writing, but a sparse story. What I found was tight, poetic writing -- at a mere 116 pages-- an exquisite use of the language, and a tale that untangled the old torments of Ireland in a new era.

    Just admire this scene of a Catholic Church in small-town, modern Ireland a few days before Christmas.

Some women with headscarves were saying the rosary under their breath, their thumbs worrying through the beads. Members of big farming families and business people passed by in wool and tweed, wafts of soap and perfume, striding up to the front and letting down the hinges of the kneelers. Older men slipped in, taking their caps off and making the sign of the cross, deftly, with a finger. A young, freshly married man walked red-faced to sit with his new wife in the middle of the chapel. Gossipers stayed down on the edge of the aisle to get a good gawk,  watching for a new jacket or haircut, a limp, anything out of the ordinary.

   

    Keegan conveys how the piety and the hypocrisy that pervaded the joining of the Catholic Church and the Irish Free State of Eamon de Valera may have evolved but has never left.

    She presents a story of the Magdalene Laundries, which operated throughout Ireland during this time. Run by the church, they held "fallen women" -- young women who became pregnant, bringing shame to their families and communities, or just troublesome souls who were not "proper ladies" -- ostensibly to help such women give birth or learn a trade. In reality, they were cruel institutions that worked the women for years, giving them little care or love, stealing their infants at birth, or letting them die.

    The communities knew what went on behind closed doors, but bought the excuses because of the power and teachings of the church -- first the Protestant Church of Ireland, and later the Catholic Church.

    Into this steps Furlong, a good man, an orphan raised by a widow, now an adult who is married with five daughters who attend the adjacent Catholic school. He stumbles into a reckoning with the reality, and wrestles with his ability to help or to continue to deny the truth.

    What he considers doing may be a small thing that leads to more trouble, or it may improve lives. Keegan's writing -- the slow setting of the scenes, the intricate but restrained  descriptions, and the expressive dialogue -- compel the story forward and make it a joy to read.

Book Review: Blackberries, Blackberries

 By Crystal Wilkinson

• Pub Date: 2000

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books, Covington, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: For the cover art -- and the title

********

    Short stories comprise many a genre, providing an outlet for stylish writing, whether it be a character study, a self-narrative, a moment in time, or a profile of home.

    The writing may be descriptive or stark. The story may be complete or part of a larger whole. But at their best, short stories allow writers to explore a small slice of life, of time, or of place.

    The best ones are concise, and telling.

    This collection takes all the options, to the benefit of the reader. The tales are brief, most less than 10 pages, some just two or three. But the stories they tell.

    Wilkinson grew up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, poor and Black, surrounded by family and community. She watched and listened. She learned to read people and reflect on their nature. She did it for survival, for the times to come, and for the hereafter. She captured their words and their messages. 

      Writing in the vernacular is hard, and often writers fail miserably. But Wilkinson nails it in ways hard to express. Indeed, the English language has few words to describe dialect that aren't degrading or dismissive, an subtle acknowledgement those who make such linguistic decisions look askance at such speaking or writing.

    But Wilkinson pulls it off, and it adds texture and character to her writing. Take for example, her story, Women's Secrets, in which a grandmother, Big Mama, cautions her daughter, Mama, who is young and looking for love wherever she may find it. Mama's daughter, our narrator, pays attention when Big Mama speaks.

I seen that Adams boy sniffing 'round here at your skirts but he ain't no count. Him nor his brothers. His daddy weren't no count neither. What he gonna give a family, girl? Ain't never gonna be nothing. Ain't got no learning. Ain't gonna never have no land. Gambling and carrying like sin.

    Later, in the same story, Big Mama gets more down home, unleashing her tongue and giving Mama a big heap of learnin.

"Chile, mens these times just ain't like your daddy." Big Mama takes a big loud breath and starts in on Mama again. "Ain't nare one of 'em no more than breath and britches, specially them Adams boys. Watch my words now girl, I'm telling you. Ain't good for not a damn. God in heaven forgive me but ain't good for not a damn. Breath and britches all they are."

      The stories are personal, and depend much on the relationships between women, particularly mothers and daughters. Their stories, literally, are about life and death. One, Waiting on the Reaper shows Wilkinson at her best, telling the tale of an old woman waiting to die, which she could have learned only by listening to a old woman waiting to die. 

    "I'm ready now," she said. "Ain't got too much time. Gonna see Lonnie and my little girlfriend that drowned in a well when I was ten."

Book Review: The Mammy

By Brendan O'Carroll

• Pub Date: 1999 

• Where I bought this book: Last Exit Books, Kent, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: I read The Young Wan, another book in this "not a series" and it was tender and funny

******

    Agnes Browne is a widowed mother of seven children, living in a ghetto of North Dublin in the late 1960s, and eking out a living selling produce in the market on Moore Street.

    Yet this is not a sad story of Irish poverty, nor a heavy-handed outlook on Irish life. Rather, it's an amusing, sometimes laugh-out-loud, yet always loving look at a mother dealing with the realities of raising six young boys and a sole daughter.

    One of the funniest chapters has her handling her eldest boy, Mark, 12 and unknowingly entering puberty, who is petrified when he finds hair growing on what he called his willy. She first wanted to know who willy was. When she realized it was his penis, she put on the kettle.

    She told him it was part of his growing up. When he asked why, she said her modern woman's explanation went out the window. "That's to keep your willy warm when you go swimming." 

    She was done. "Now, out with yeh," 

    So, Agnes can be profane and exasperated, yet warm to her brood. She accepts their traits and quirks, letting them be themselves as much as they can within the confines of their tiny flat. She keeps them in line, but will go to the mat when they're mistreated by the hard nuns at their Catholic School.

    It's a strong woman and mother, who anybody who has lived with or knows an Irish Catholic family is quite familiar with.

    O'Carroll paints her and the family in broad strokes, giving us small vignettes to portray Agnes, her family, her friends, and her neighborhood. At less than 200 pages, it's a quick and funny read.

Book Review: The Gospel of Orla

 By Eoghan Walls

• Pub Date: 2023

• Where I bought this book: The Novel Neighbor, Saint Louis. 

• Why I bought this book: Jesus returns to a young Irish girl living in England.

*******  

    Orla is an unhappy 14-year-old. Her mother is dead. Her father is an alcoholic. School sucks. Her teachers suck. Her friends have deserted her. Her cat dies.

 

   Then, as she's planning to run away from home, she meets Jesus.

    Seriously. Not a pretend Jesus, but the Son of God, back to preach his father's word. But he's unsure how to go about it. 

    He's a little confused, roaming around parts of England, unsure of how he got there. He remembers being in Israel, dying, and lying around under the sea for a while. He knows the message he wants to spread -- peace and love and kindness -- and he thinks people will just follow him intuitively.

    He's unsure when he is. He hasn't heard of the internet, but becomes fascinated when Orla starts to teach him about wifi and Google maps. Cell phones are a mystery: He knows about phones, but thinks they are attached to walls. Personal hygiene is a concern -- he smells pretty rank, Orla says, and he thinks running around wearing only a blanket is an OK thing.

    Orla's a bit dubious about him, until she sees him bring a dead animal back to life. Then she decides she can use him to help her run away, and in return can teach him a thing or two about reaching out to people in modern times and on social media.

    The story ranges from Orla's plans, to her family life, to her days in school, to flashbacks about how her life got to the mess it is. Her tales of her time with Jesus are written in the style of the gospels, but with the voice of a teenage girl.  

 

    Walls is an Irish poet, and the prose often sings with a lyrical lilt. This is his first novel, and it's well done, with a fine story to go along with Orla's unique voice.

Book Review: The Light Pirate

•  Author: Lily Brooks-Dalton

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: My first daughter strongly recommended it. 

*******

   

    The story here is excellent -- futuristic fiction that is a cautionary tale of where society is headed, and in some cases, may already be.

    The characters, particularly the protagonist, Wanda, who we see grow from an infant to old age, are well drawn and realistic. Even the supporting roles, the minor characters who round out and give depth to the story, are whole people, even if we wish we could know more about them.

    But ... but ... but -- it does have some flaws. It gets to be, in certain places, just a wee bit more melodramatic than I care for. And the ominous narrator who appears at the end of some chapters to deliver a foreboding message is unnecessary, and quite frankly, a bit annoying.

    Still. 

    The book is set in a Florida where the effects of climate change are seen daily in the climbing temperatures, rising ocean levels, and raging storms. Indeed, the state is going under, both literally and figuratively. Infrastructure is disintegrating, and government, with no money and few people left, are being shut down. People are getting out. Miami has been abandoned. The small town of Rudder is breaking down as the gulf waters encroach on the land.

    Meanwhile, the Lowe family is also falling apart. Kirby, a lineman who is vainly trying to keep the lights on in and help save his hometown, is not dealing well with his pregnant wife, his two boys, and the oncoming Hurricane Wanda.

    Afterwards, we follow Wanda from her birth during the storm, as she grows up while Florida and the country fall apart around her. She is portrayed as a survivor who adapts to a different lifestyle than the one we know, but one that brings constant challenges and devastating losses. 

    She also has a special glow about her whenever she touches water -- again, both literally and figuratively. Whether it's science or magic -- and after all, isn't science just magic with an explanation -- is yet to be told.

    One of the messages that I -- an aging geezer who is set in his ways and dislikes change --got from the book is that I'm glad I have lived most of my life when I did. And I am sorry my generations really, truly, screwed things up.

Book Review: The Young Wan

•  Author: Brendan O'Carroll

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books, Newport, Ky.

• Why I bought this book: It's not easy finding contemporary Irish fiction. When I do, I buy it.

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    There's a wee bit of magic here on the streets of Dublin, circa 1940. Think Derry Girls, but further south and earlier in time.

    This is a quintessential Irish book: About family and church and schooling and sex, it's laugh-out-loud hysterical, and melancholy. 

    Those familiar with growing up in an Irish Catholic home any time within the past 100 years or so will find themselves recognizing the mothers and fathers and priests and nuns. You'll smile, break into wide grins, or laugh as you read and the tears stream down your cheeks.

    The story about the preparation for one's First Confession, delivered by Sister Concepta Pius of the Blessed Heart Girls National School and punctuated by Marion Delany's questions -- she always has questions -- is worth the price of admission. So is the description of the school's sex education lecture, which served its purpose by leaving the girls "half informed and completely terrified."

    The book explores the childhood and teenage years of Agnes Reddin, who later became Agnes Brown. In other books by O'Carroll, she is a wife, a mammy and a granny, but this it the story of her days before she became all that.

    Agnes and Marion are best of friends, trying to survive in the working-class ghetto of the Jarro when church and state in Ireland were, like a twin Jesus, always watching and judging. It tells about Agnes' family -- her father Basco, a factory worker and trade union man inspired by the real-life James Larkin, her mother Connie, daughter of the factory owner who was disowned and disinherited after marrying a working man, and younger sister Dolly, who lives to break the rules.

    But the heart and of the story is whether Agnes will wear a white dress at her wedding, against all the rules, when everyone in Dublin knows she cannot because she's not a virgin.  

    The writing here is wonderful and like the novel: Short, simple, direct, and funny.  It's tenderhearted and kind. 

    It's well worth your time.

Book Review: Summerland

 

•  Author: Michael Chabon

• Where I bought found this book: Kenton County Public Library giveaway at the Pride Festival, Covington, Ky.

• Why I bought collected this book: Magic. Baseball. A perfect double-play. And it was free.

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    A motley crew of young children, faeries, giants, and assorted folkloric creatures inhabit our four worlds, but a combination of ecological destruction, meanness, and a bored creator who wants to end it all threaten its very existence.

    Enter baseball, a game with a mythology all its own, which could either make things right or cause further destruction.

    Indeed, baseball is already at least partly responsible for the latter. Author Chabon -- obviously a fan of the traditional game --  posits that the introduction of the designated hitter tore a hole in the fabric of the universe, leading to its current downward path. 

    This is a fun, if sometimes unwieldy undertaking. At 500 pages -- precisely the number of lifetime home runs that once ensured enshrinement in Cooperstown -- it's sometimes overwhelming. And its characters -- including a girl who loves the game and plays it well, and a boy who is uncertain about it all, but accedes to his widowed father's wishes that he play -- tends to be, shall we say, tropes of the trade.

    They include a mournful Sasquatch -- don't call her bigfoot! -- a mean giant, a changeling boy who feels lost in our world, and a ferisher scout who may not be immortal but has Seen It All. Also, a Major League star -- a ringer!! -- who defected from Cuba, a car that can fly and runs on moonshine, and a magical bat taken from the tree that feeds the worlds.

    They come together to save the universe in a novel that is themed, inspired, and timed by baseball. It's enjoyable -- the writing is (for the most part) crisp, the characters are wonderful (if a bit predictable), and the story is a magic fable tied together by a love for baseball.

Book Review: Same Sun Here

• Authors: Silas House and Neela Vaswani

• Where I bought this book: The 2021 Kentucky Book Fair, Lexington

• Why I bought this book: Silas House signed it.

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    Two strong writers have put together a pleasant read from the fictional correspondence between dissimilar yet emotionally connected youngsters.

    House's River Justice is a 12-year-old boy, the son of a coal miner in Eastern Kentucky. Meena Joshi is a 12-year-old immigrant from India, living in New York City's Chinatown. As part of a school assignment, Meena randomly selects River to be her pen-pal, and the pair begin to explore each other, their backgrounds, their lives, and their thoughts about their places in the world.

    It's a compelling read that shows the best of today's younger generation -- thoughtful, mindful, and caring. They discover they have many things in common, and while Meena's young childhood in India gives her some insight into River's rural Kentucky life, he is forever asking questions about New York's urban lifestyle and Meena's role in it.

    This is a book written like it is by young adults, for young adults.

    House writes River's letters. His language is remarkable. He uses the Eastern Kentucky dialect subtly, easily capturing the rhythms and tones of his home. He gives River his distinctive Appalachian inflections -- yes, you can hear him speaking.

    Vaswani is House's equal in presenting Meena's outgoing yet thoughtful pre-teen voice. Like any 12-year-old girl, she has to ability to change tone within seconds. One sentence she write as foot-stomping angry, and the next returns as the calm, compassionate friend.

    As they learn about each other, they find their worlds are being threatened. Meena sees her neighborhood changing and casting aside some who have lived in their rent-controled apartments their entire lives. The cause is the landlord's desire to increase their rent or force them out and sell the apartment for a high profit. To make the apartments unliveable for the current residents, they withhold servuves or refuse to perform routine maintenance. 

    Likewise, River sees his beloved mountains and woods being destroyed to bring out more coal. The coal barons are literally stripping away the mountaintops to get to the coal seams, in the process dumping toxic waste wherever they can -- usually in the rivers and streams.

    The difference is the landlords are deliberately being cruel, while the coal barons don't care.

    Both youths explain what is going one and how they and their communities are fighting it as best they can. So at its best it's a hopeful story, one befitting the authors who are telling it in the voices of the youths who are living it.

Book Review

Once There Were Wolves, by Charlotte McConaghy

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio
• Why I bought this book: I loved her first novel, Migrations

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    Inti Flynn is trying to start a new community. It is one that she feels -- in her very bones and in her soul -- to be a part of, but also one she can only watch from afar. 

    Her goal is to reintroduce wolves into rural Scotland. They once lived there, but the shepherds ran them off. As a result, the deer population exploded, and the grasslands and forests are slowing dying, She knows in her heart that returning the  wolves to the area will put its envionment back into balance.

    But the community fears the wolves will kill all their sheep.

    Flynn should be the perfect candidate for the job. She can be hard, but she has a natural empathy toward others. 

    She has a condition called mirror-touch synthesis. Whenever she sees a person feeling pain or pleasure, she experiences the same feeling.  Literally: If she sees two people kissing, her lips experience the act of kissing and being kissed. On the other hand, if she watches two animals fighting, she endures what both animals suffer -- if one is bitten, she can feel the sensation of biting and the painof being bitten. She will see and feel her phantom blood flow. 

    (Yes, it's a real conidtion. I checked. It affects about 2 percent of the population.)

    Flynn -- who is mostly an introvert -- has a symbiotic relationship with her twin sister, Aggie, who has even more introverted tendencies. Aggie has a troubled psyche, having been the viction of domestic abuse and sexual assault. The sisters have a complicated relationship with their divorced parents, who live on two separate continents -- Australia and North America. Flynn also finds a lover and becomes pregnant in the novel, which is paired with the wolves mating and reproducing.

     (Yes, lots of metaphors here, which tie down the book.)

    Anyway. The book focuses on Inti bringing the wolves back, and fighting with the local shepherds -- she both upbraids them and tries to calmly bring them along. Most don't want to listen, although a few here and there are willing to hear her out. Her approach is complicated by her belief that getting too close to some of the residents will simultaneously help her understand them, as well as destroy her ability to view them from afar.

    (Another metaphor. She also takes this approach to the wolves, because if they become too comfortable with humans, they will lose part of their natural instincts for survival.)

    And, at times, the book gets almost into a detective/thriller mode (yes, there is an unsolved murder) that also tends to bog it down.

    Yet, McConaghy is such a good writer she is able to rise above the complicated mess she has gotten herself into. The book moves along with grace and style, and the story is about a community that needs to love and care for all its members, with understanding, and with a heart, and a soul.

Book Review: Not Even Immortality Lasts Forever

Not Even Immortality Lasts Forever: Mostly True Stories, by Ed McClanahan

• Where I bought this book: Kentucky Book Festival, Lexington
• Why I bought this book: McClanahan is Kentucky's best unknown writer

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    I first fell in love with McClanahan's writing soon after I moved to the commonwealth some 40 years ago, and a colleague suggested -- nay, insisted -- that I read The Natural Man, McClanahan's first novel.. 

    I did. I was hooked.

    McClanahan has led an extraorinary 20th Century life. Born in Brooksville, the seat of rural Bracken County, he was a part of the pre-war generation -- too young for World War II, and smart enough and pacifist enough to avoid the Korean War. McClanahan is a contemporary of the legendary Kentucky poet and author, Wendell Berry, along with Pulitzer-prize winner Larry McMurtry and beat/hippie author Ken Kesey. He ran with the Merry Pranksters. He was an author, professor, and lecturer under the moniker, "Captain Kentucky." Along with Mason, Berry, James Baker Hall, and Gurney Norman, McClanahan was part of the group called the "Fab Five" of Kentucky literature.

    In Not Even ..., McClanahan pens a ragtag collection of tales stretching from his boyhood days to his current elderly strolls around Lexington. The result is funny, yet touching, a feeling that you are listening to an old man in the latter years of his life lightheartedly recalling his earlier days of glory. He explores his relationship as the hippie, ne'er-do-well son of an upright, businessman-father who brokers little nonsense and was unusually proud of the cut of his nose.

The nose, my father firmly believed, is composed of certain pliable matter that one can mold and shape over time like a lump of gristly modeing clay, if -- if --one develops the proper habits of life and sticks to them assiduously. Such as: When said olfactory apparatus itches, son, do not scratch same by rubbing it with the heel of your hand as if you want to smear the gaddamn thing all over your counternance. Rather, delicately grasp it between the thumb and forefinger, just below the bridge -- thus; yes; just so -- and gently pull forward and down, thereby addressing the offending itch while simultaneously helping the nose to become all that it can be, which is to say a nose not unlike the paternal beezer itself.

    Some of the stories may be true -- one he claims to have video proof he found on the Internet. Others, like the one above, he admits, might be a teensy bit exagerrated.  There are those he says are true to the best of his recollections. A few, perhaps, might just well be, perhaps, merely allegorical. 

    It's a memoir in the best sense of the term -- self effacing, forgoing sentimentality if he chooses, grumbling about memory loss if it provides a convenient escape hatch.

    It's short, and sweet, and funny as hell. Go read it.

Book Review

Under the Whispering Door, by TJ Klune

• Where I bought this book: The Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, Colo.
• Why I bought this book: I enjoyed his previous novel, The House in the Cerulean Sea

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    The main transfer station in the afterlife is a tea shop. With scones and a baker who enjoys blasting punk music on the radio.

    I can live (or die) happily with that thought. And Klune's novel, while a bit long-winded in parts, truth be told, is an  uplifting story about how we can overcome what life and death may throw at us. 

    Charon's Crossing Tea and Treats is a homey, if unnerving place. You are taken there after death by a reaper to meet people whose stated purpose is to help you cross over. But to where? That they don't say.

     You're upset, scared, and disbelieving. Eventually you meet the proprietor, one Hugo Freeman, who is mellow, soothing, and gentle. He offers you a cuppa tea, and calmly explains what happens next. You may or may not believe it. You may or may not need more time to figure things out.

    For Walter Price -- a meticulous, prideful, and implacable attorney in his life -- Hugo doesn't make a good first impression. Walter demands an end to the nonsense, and insists on leaving. When he does flee, he discovery why he should listen to those who know more..

    So he returns and winds up spending time with Hugo; Nelson, Hugo's wisecracking and wise ghost of a grandfather; Apollo, grandad's ghost dog, and Mei, the reaper who found Walter at his own funeral and brought him to Charon's Crossing. She's also the punk fan and scone-maker at the shop, and the force who holds everything together.

    We learn a lot about them, their lives, their loves, and their fantasies. A potential gay romance. Other characters come in and out, and while they add to the tale, their asppearance could have been shortened and written tighter.

    Walter is in the middle of all this -- sometimes exasperated, sometimes accepting, sometimes questioning. In life, he was a lawyer focused on the prize. In death, he's trying to figure it all out.

    And that's the genius of this novel -- like Walter, you'll yawn and wish you could slip past the parts in the middle. But by the end, you'll be wanting more.