Book Review Lark Ascending

  By Silas House

• Pub Date: 2022

• Where I bought this book: The Taleless Dog Booksellers, Berea, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: House is one of the best of the current crop of Kentucky authors

*******

    As the world literally burns in the future, Lark, a young man of about 20, strives to survive after the fires and the fundamentalists take over his family's hideaway cabins in Maine.

    They take a boat across the Atlantic Ocean to Ireland, which they hear is one of the few places left that is taking in refugees. 

    More a character study than a plot-driven narrative, Lark's story shows us how life's struggle conjures up misery and sadness, yet also provides joy and hope.

    The strength of House's work in this novel is not so much the story as the language. His writing is among the best that Kentucky offers -- and his partial setting in Ireland brings to mind some of that country's finest authors. 

    Just the words he uses to describe the simple things -- such as the time of day -- are a clear example of his talent. The blue hour, for instance, is just before the sun rises, when the light starts taking over from the darkness of night.

    And Helen, one of Lark's fellow Irish travelers, refers to the gloaming of the evening, When Lark asks why she uses that word instead of dusk or twilight, she replies, "the word gloaming is so much lovelier."

Book Review: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

  By Shehan Karunatilake

• Pub Date: 2022

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

• Why I bought this book: The title, and it won the 2022 Booker Prize, which is always a good sign

******

    

 

   Even the dead in Sri Lanka continue to fight its wars, but only the ghosts see the irony in having the same enemies as the living. 

    This is one ghost's story of his country, which he loves, hates, and everything in between. As part of the living, he thought he was trying to change the wrongs, but his involvement failed to make anything better. He's not ever sure what better would have been -- because he sees the factions, parties, and terrorists as equal opportunity killers -- in life and after. 

    Maali is in the afterlife as the story opens, but remembers little about how he died -- or was killed, which he also suspects. He has seven moons to find out, and he spends the time reviewing and justifying his life, and the country's violent ways. 

    It's hard to determine his many roles in the violence, which surrounds him in death as it did in life. Because he is the narrator of this tale -- in both his ghostly self and as the main actors in his flashbacks -- he has a bias to make himself look good and the various sects who are the warmakers look bad.

    He's a photographer and a gambler, a journalist and a "fixer," who brings together outside reporters and members of the various militias, the military, the police, and the government men. 

    He's a gay man in a homophobic country, dating the son of one of its top officials. So his voice is sometimes self-suppressed -- and sometimes loudly outspoken and self-conscious.

    He's also wryly cynical and morbidly funny. He refers to the dead wandering the streets as a combination of the various gods and goddesses from the Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and Christian religions that are part of Sri Lanka. He calls others the Cannibal Uncle, the Atheist Ghoul, the Dead Child Soldier, and the suicides -- and wonders if they could collectively be known as "an overdose of suicides."

Outside in the waiting room, there is wailing. (A police officer) walks outside to console the weeping woman. He does so by pulling out his baton and asking a constable to remove her.

     The switching from Maali's past as a living being, to his current state as a ghostly presence, can sometimes be confusing. And the story also questions whether we are the same person, the same soul, as we move from life to death -- and perhaps, back to life again.

Book Review: Quantum Girl Theory

 

•  Author: Erin Kate Ryan
• Pub Date: 2022

• Where I bought this book: Joseph-Beth, Norwood, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: I liked the title, and the plot of a missing girl who finds other missing girls 

***

   This book tries really hard, but it turns out a muddled mess.

    Oh, it has its strong points. It's a great concept -- a women, who disappeared as a teen-ager, spends her life running and searching for missing girls. But it really doesn't know what it wants to do.

    Is it a tale ripped from the headlines of 1946? Is it a broadside against violence against women and the havoc and ruined lives it reaps? Is it a character study of how women rebel against that violence, and the harm that comes to them and society? Is it a tale of racism and questions about why some missing girls are searched for and others seem to disappear without anyone caring?

    Or is it a woman who has the gift of Sight, who can see and feel and experience the terror of being stalked and assaulted, and lives her life in fear of its  recurring?

    Yes, it's about all of them. Well, it tries to be. But over a short 257 pages, it roams and rambles, introduces new characters every chapter, mixes memory and reality, jumps around in time, and altogether just can't seem to keep a solid narrative for long.

    Indeed, it often reads like a collection of interconnected short stories. And as individual stories, they are quite good. The problem comes when you try to figure out what is happening and follow the overall story.

    It just doesn't seem worth it.

Book Review: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

• Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

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

• Why I bought this book: I really don't remember, but I liked the title

******

    Imagine, if you will, a Hollywood starlet -- talented, smart, and oh, so beautiful. A blonde bombshell, if you will, a combination of Marilyn Monroe and Jean Harlow, but with the wit and cunning of the smartest producer in Hollywood.

    She's a woman who is willing to do just about anything to achieve the fame and fortune she believes she deserves. An actress who knows that the tabloid reporters and the paparazzi use her, but who also knows how to use them. A performer who recognizes that her private life can advance or destroy her career, and takes that into account in every decision she makes.

    Now suppose, just for supposing's sake, that the aging starlet Evelyn Hugo wants to auction some of her famous dresses for charity. And she chooses a certain young journalist at a certain popular celebrity magazine to be the one to write about the upcoming event with a special photo shoot.

    Except -- except -- when said reporter arrives for the appointment, said Hollywood legend says she is not going to talk about the dresses, but about her life. She will speak only to this young but ambitious reporter. She'll reveal all the details, all the secrets, all the reasons. She tells the reporter they can be published in all their meticulous specificity in an authorized biography.

    But only when she is dead.

    That's how this book begins. OK, there may be a few spoilers in the above rendition. But not many. And there's a lot more to story to come.

    The book has two basic characters: Hugo and her writer (and alter-ego? protege?admirer?) Monique Grant. There are others that come and go in the book, but they are they only to say something about Hugo and Grant.

    The story is told as a biography of one of its biggest fictional stars, told in exquisite detail by the legend herself. It's a tale of Hollywood, about how the movie industry really works. It's a believeable yarn, with more glamour and seediness than we think we already know. It's a place where secrets are both open and hidden.

    But interspersed is the growing relationship between Hugo and Grant, and why the older actress chose the young writer to tell the story. Hints throughout that we will learn something awful about their connection are kind of annoying, trying to make us guess what ties them together.

    Both are strong characters. Hugo doesn't apologize for any of her choices. She may have a few regrets, but nothing major. She lived her life the way she wanted -- and needed -- and is satisfied.

    Grant is a bit more conflicted. She likes Hugo's strength and power, and would like to emulate her. But she also fears Hugo's actions were selfish and harmful.

    And therein lies the tale.

Book Review: The Parting Glass

 

• Author: Gina Marie Guadagnino

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

• Why I bought this book: It shares a title with a great old Irish song

******

    Mary Ballard, born Maire O'Farren, left her home and her job in the west of Ireland for reasons unknown -- but eventually explained -- sometime in the early 19th Century.

    Her ensuing life in New York City as an Irish immigrant, a lady's maid, and denizen near the old Five Points neighborhood tells a tale of love and loss, heartbreak, and high living among poverty and destitution.

    Guadagnino's debut novel is a wonderful read.

    It's chock full of Irish history, New York City history, and the history of the Irish in New York. It touches on subjects including LGBT love, the empowerment of women, immigration, and the life of the rich and the poor in the 19th Century. 

    O'Farren -- or Ballard -- caters to her mistress, Charlotte Walden, a wealthy young woman of leisure whose sole goal in life is to find a wealthy husband. Walden, however, would rather love the man who runs the stables at her estate, near Washington Park in old New York City. That man, unknown to the  Charlotte, is Ballard's twin brother, Seanin. Of course, the Waldens are unaware of Charlotte's love for a common man.

    One more thing: Ballard holds in her heart her own unrequited and unspoken love for Miss Walden.

    But that's not all.

    On her nights off, Ballard hits the bars that line the streets of New York's lower east side. She finds a home at the Hibernian, run by Dermot, the man who sponsored and stood for her in New York. There, she meets another lover, a black woman who works as a prostitute and dreams of running her own brothel.

    Meanwhile, Dermot has his own connections with the Tammany Hall Irish who run that part of New York City, along with some ties to the Irish rebels back home. Here's is where Seanin returns to the story.

    Eventually, they all come together in a surprising and intriguing climax. Guadagnino does an impressive jobs with her research, her historical knowledge, and her writing.

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

* * * * * * *

    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. 

Book Review: Days Without End

 Days Without End, by Sebastian Barry

    At one point in reading this painful novel, I was thinking of putting it aside forever. But I ploughed through, and eventually, it was worth it. But beware this is a depressing, violent, and traumatic book. 

    The plot, such as it is, is secondary to the descriptions of the scenes and the settings. And while the writing is evocative, it can be incessant at times. And some of those vivid descriptions deal with long passages about slogging through rain, snow and mud, or with hatred, fear, and slaughter. 

    The voice telling us all this comes from the main character and protagonist, one Thomas McNulty. He is a remarkable person to tell this story of the wild west, the Civil War, and the attempted genocide of the Native population. He is an Irish immigrant whose family died in the Great Hunger, a soldier, and a gay man who is gender fluid. He enjoys dressing as a woman, for a job, in the theater, and in his personal life. His loving relationship with John Cole, another male character, is a constant throughout the book.

    Barry gives McNulty a voice in the style of an uneducated person of the mid-19th Century. He uses language, terms, and expresses ideas that likely were common for the time, although considered offensive, if not derogatory and unacceptable, today. Yet, the gay love and transgender issues are treated in a matter-of-fact manner. While the two men often hide their love from others, they are sometimes accepted as a couple. In a passage late in the book, McNulty describes how he is comfortable with being gender fluid.

I am easy as a woman, taut as a man. All my limbs is broke as a man, and fixed good as a woman. I lie down with the soul of a woman and wake with the same. I don't foresee no time where this ain't true no more. Maybe I was born a man and growing into a woman.

    The story follows Thomas, or Thomasina, from about the time he is 12 when he and his partner, often called Handsome John Cole, run away from their orphanage and set out to explore the country. They get jobs as female dancers in a mining town, which is otherwise without women. It's not a sexual thing, but about companionship, and it is an enjoyable experience for Thomasina.

    The pair then join the cavalry. This is where the book bogs down. Pages and entire chapters are dedicated to their travels and travails though the mountainous west, the intricacies and politics of army life, and the murder and dehumanization that occurs during the Indian Wars.

    Then we read similar tedious descriptions about the battles of the Civil War.

    Eventually, John Cole, Thomas, sometimes as Thomasina, and a Native child they have adopted settle in Tennessee with an old Army buddy and a few others. But even that life does not go smoothly, and there are more long-winded tales of unpleasantness.

    But for the most part, it is a satisfying ending worth getting to.

Book Review: Every Heart a Doorway

Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire

 

   If you are seeking a world to fit into, look for a door. It likely won't be an ordinary door, or you may not recognize it as one. But go to it, and twist what passes for a knob. If it turns, step inside.   

 

   This is your place. It's real, and it should make you happy. 

    Such is a message from Doorway, a strange tale from strange writer. 

    But its message is also acceptance, a plea and a command to welcome  others as they are. Don't judge. What you may think of as others' demons, their quirks, or their differences, may merely be their means of getting by in this world. 

    Doorway is a small, short book -- the first in a series of many, which was first published in 2016. I just discovered it last month.

    It's set in an unusual school in the wilderness somewhere. There, children who have found but returned from the doorways to their worlds -- whether it's a tiny fairy door set into their bedroom wall, or a retangular hole slashed into the air -- are sent to cope and struggle through their desires and the reactions to them. Most want to return, but they cannot find their doors again.

    So they try to make the world they are in their world, and seek to adjust to their differing realities. 

    These children, Nancy, the narrator; Jack and Jill, twin sisters who need each other; Christopher, who came from a world of skeletons; and Kade, a transgendered boy whose parents think should return only as the little girl they wanted; and several others, all go to Eleanor West's school. Miss West, of an undeterminate age, also wants to return to her doorway, and her world. But she cannot find her door -- or perhaps doors are only for children -- so she has created a world of her own, as well as for others.

... her family had owned the countryside for miles around, and now that she was the last, every inch of it belonged to her. She had simply refused to sell or allow developments on any of the lots surrounding her school. ... Some of her greatest detractors said she acted like a woman with something to hide, and they were right, in their way; she was a woman with something to protect.

    So, on this land, with these children, there is an adventure, and a murder mystery, along with sadness and despair. But at times it's light-hearted, warm and fuzzy, and it will leave you with a good feeling. You may not like or enjoy each character's emotions and reactions, but you will come to understand and accept them.

    That's a credit to McGuire's imagination, her kindess, and above all, her outstanding writing.

Book Review: The House in the Cerulean Sea

     

   

    

The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune

   Chock full of metaphors, with a delightful mix of characters and exquisite writing, The House explores life's inequities in a fun, colorful way. 

   This is a gay friendly book, in every new and ancient definition of the word.  

    It takes on, sometimes bluntly, sometimes figuratively, power and control, homophobia and bias, abuse of children, anti-immigration -- but sets a path to right them, with  kindness, love, acceptance, magic. 

    And a cat.

    Linus Baker is a working drone who does what he is told and follows the rules. He leads a lonely life, but he tells himself he is happy. He grows sunflowers -- the only spot of color in his drab life -- and loves listening to early rock 'n' roll on his Victrola. He's a caseworker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, and we first meet him while he is on an assignment checking out one of the orphanages under the department's control.

    He is thorough. He tells himself he cares, and he kinda does. He is methodical. But he is disinterested in what happens after he files his reports -- it's not in his job description. Linus is a good person. But he dares not go outside his comfort zone. It's against the rules.

    That is, until the day Linus is called before Extremely Upper Management and given a unique, classified assignment -- to check out a secret orphange on a distant island and see if the children there are perhaps too magical and too dangerous. Oh yeah, and check out the Master of the House, one Arthur Parnassus, to ensure he is following the rules.

    The metaphors continue as Linus leaves his dreary life in the city on a rainy day -- he again forgets his umbrella -- to take a long train ride to the island on the edge of the ocean. The rain lets up. The clouds disappear. The sun breaks out. The grey sky brightens into a cheery cerulean. He can smell the salt in the air and hear the waves in the ocean. "Then lights began to shine at his feet. ... They were soft and yellow, like a brick road."

   
    There he meets the children. There's Talia, a girl gnome who loves tending her garden and threatening to bury Linus. Phee is a forest sprite with a special relationship to trees and flowers. Theodore is a wyvern, and Sol is a shapeshifter with anxiety problems.

    Chauncey is -- well, no one is quite sure what Chauncey is. He's an airy creature, with his eyes on stalks, kinda like Oblina from Real Monsters, but less dense. He hides under beds because he's been told that's what monsters are supposed to do. But he cannot bring himself to scare anyone. His dream is to become a bellhop.

    Then there is Lucy, short for Lucifer, a six-year-old boy who is literally the son of the devil. Lucy is proud of his heritage, but suffers from nightmares. Lucy is an intriguing, if over-the-top character, treated with wisdom and humor and compassion. 

"Regardless of his parentage, he is a child," Arthur, the house manager, tells Linus. "And I refuse to believe that a person's path is set in stone. A person is more than where they come from. ... Behind the eyes and the demon in his soul, he is charming and witty and terribly smart."

    In addition to Mr. Parnassus, a magical, mystical guy himself, adults include Zoe Chapelwhite, an island sprite who watches her island and sometimes the children. And there's Merle, the grumpy ferryman who delivers people to and from the island.

    Lucy is wonderfully compelling. As the son of the devil, he is always threatening death and destruction, and predicting he will wind up as everyone's overlord. But he is six years old, and pictured as a tousle-haired, rambunctious orphan who craves attention.

    The key to the tale is that as Linus begins to observe the children and Mr. Parnassus, he takes notes and writes reports back home in his usual style. But he soon gets sucked into their lives and individual needs, and must keep telling himself to remain objective. He also becomes enamored with Mr. Parnassus, but can neither explain nor understand the attraction.

    His struggles of understanding are the heart of the story. And the metaphors become clear as we move along and open our hearts and minds to all of the story's characters.    

Book Review: Church of Marvels

 The Church of Marvels, by Leslie Parry

   

    I loved the story, just not the way it was told.

    Set in Lower Manhattan and Coney Island at the tail end of the 19th century, Church of Marvels tells of a family of carnival workers, and then of an abandoned baby recovered by an underground prize fighter, along with an undertaker who regularly visits the city's opium dens. 

    I think.

    It's all very confusing. The novel drifts from one tale to another, abruptly changing characters, locales, and narrators. It's tough to keep up with the stories when you forget who is who. You spend too much effort trying to figure out how each person relates to the others in time and narrations. 

    And whatever you think is happening, or has happened, is probably wrong.

    Ostensibly, the tale circles around Belle and Odile Church, who with their mother, Friendship, perform at and run a carnival sideshow -- the Church of Marvels of the title -- on Coney Island. Alternatively, we are introduced to Sylvan Threadgill, who cleans out privies on the Lower East Side, and somehow finds a baby girl in a dark alley. There is Alphie, a makeup girl and sometimes prostitute -- who turns out to be one of the most intriguing characters in the book -- whom we first meet while she is babbling a confusing, perhaps fantastical, story while trapped in an insane asylum.

    Other characters come in and out, and it takes a while to figure out who everyone is and how they relate to each other. But just as you think you are piercing together the tale, it jumps off into another place with new people we haven't met before.

    Confusing, yes. But it is well written, and it is nicely wrapped up in the end by one of the characters who explains pretty much everything. I just wish more of the book was as expositive.

This Week in Books, 10th Ed.

   An excursion north

     I have written before about the Book Loft in Columbus, Ohio. It's a great place, filled with small rooms full of books that are hard to find elsewhere. That is why I spent Memorial Day adding to my TBR Stack.

    Some of the books bought were recommendations from my fellow book fans who joined me on this trip. A few were ones I have had my eye out for. And a few were spur-of-the-moment decisions.

 

The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin

    She has long been a favorite. She is not only a great writer of science fiction, but is "a literary icon," as the author Stephen King described her.

    

    Anyway, I heard about this novel on a podcast called "Fast Forward," which is about topics that might arise in the future. (It's great. You should listen to it. Its host, Rose Eveleth, has the perfect podcast voice, and I am in love with it.) During a show about space flight and labor law, and what living and working on another planet might entail, the host mentioned this book. So I bought it. It was the least I could do.  

The House in the Cerulean Sea, by T.J. Klune

    Look at that book cover! That should be enought reason to pick it up.

    Not only that, but the title has the word "cerulean." We need to use that colorful word more often. Says Merriam-Webster: "Cerulean comes from the Latin word caeruleus, which means 'dark blue' and is most likely from 'caelum,' the Latin word for 'sky.' An artist rendering a sky of blue in oils or watercolors might choose a tube of cerulean blue pigment. Birdwatchers in the eastern United States might look skyward and see a cerulean warbler." 

    What's it about? Who knows? But it's described as "being wrapped in a big gay blanket."

The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig

    This was recommended by Corina Fay, a teacher and one of my companions on this trip. Listen, when a teacher tells you to read a book, you read it.

    The book's description says that "between life and death there is a library." And this library allows the book's protagonist to change the course of other lives by changing her decisions. Of course, knowing this might make the choices harder. 

    Still, she should make those decisions. 

Girl A, by Abigail Dean

    I have had this one on my to-buy list for quite a while. I found it. So I picked it up.

    Based on a true story, it tells the tale of a girl -- known as Girl A in media accounts -- who grew up in her family's "house of horrors" before managing to flee and save her five siblings. When their mother dies in prison years later, the children must come to grips with their traumatic Despite the raw subject matter, I am told it's a novel one can rip through in a couple of days. A blurb calls it "gripping and beautifully written." What more could one ask for?

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by V.S. Schwab

    Another friend and bibliophile, scientist Melissa Mann, and I were discussing the fluidity of time, and she recommended this novel. She even pointed out the shelf it was sitting on.

    I did not know this, but Schwab is one of the great science fiction writers of our time. In this novel, her protaganist and title character is immortal -- with the catch that every year on her birthday, she jumps into another skin and time. No one remembers her former self.

    Which of course, leads to the awful blurb: "A life no one will remember. A story you will never forget." But an author does not write her own blurbs. So I forgave her and bought the book.

The Kingdoms, by Natasha Pulley

    The book blurb describes it as a "genre-bending feat (that) masterfully combines history, speculative fiction, queer romance, and more." So I have to ask, how could you pass this one up?

    Oh, you want more? It also bends time.

    Actually picking up this novel was a mistake. I was going for another book, but grabbed this one instead. It spoke to me.

The Elephant of Belfast, by S. Kirk Walsh 

    It has an elephant. In Belfast. Industrial, gritty, urban Belfast.

    It also has Loyalist Protestants and Republican Catholics continuing their long feud over a small piece of Ireland. 

    Then World War II happened. And life went on.

Book Review: Witch's Heart

 The Witch's Heart, by Genevieve Gornichec

    Gornichec could do for Norse gods what Madeline Miller and Margaret Atwood did for Greek mythology: Rethink and rewrite them, making them accessible for a new group of readers.

   

    If you're like me, what you know about Norse mythology begins and ends with Thor and his hammer. If that's the case, this well-written and enjoyable novel is an excellent primer into the ancient worlds. An attached appendix, which you will refer to often, is an essential addition.

    Most of the characters here are from the Norse mythology. Gornichec takes their stories, re-imagines them, and tells new tales.

    But even here, gods are needy, violent, and vindictive. The witch is a counterpoint to them, although she has her issues -- which start with her being burned three times, having her heart cut out, but remembering little of who she is.

    So she -- known as Gullveig or Angrboda -- winds up retreating to a cave in Ironwood, a forest in eastern Jotunheim. There she lives her next life -- or, perhaps, a continuation of her previous lives -- as the gods seek to use her talents for their own benefits. This is all laid out in the opening of the book, giving you the background on the characters, their motivations, and their relationships. Pay attention here. It will be worth it.

    Loki, a "blood-brother" of Odin -- he's the top guy -- meets Angrboda and returns her heart. Literally. He hangs around. They have kids -- interesting kids, I might add -- and adventures, together and separately. But this is largely Angrboda's story, told from her perspective, and her loves and interests are the key to the tale.

    Many of the people and events are from the Norse mythology, which like its counterparts in the ancient world, have contradictions, discrepancies, and variations. This is another one.

    The Witch's Heart is about love and longing, about deeds and desirers, about protection and rejection. It a great tale, finely written. Whether Gornichec stays on this path as a writer and novelist is up to her. But I am eager to see more.

Book Review: Later

Later, by Stephen King

    You read Stephen King for the writing, of course. His is elegantly simple, using a working class language of good, useful words and descriptive phrases. It's not a style in which you pause and savor every word, but it gets the job done.

    And you read King's books for the stories, and the plots. Sure, sometimes he repeats anecdotes or plays with different perspectives of the tale, but it's always a story where he pulls you along and has you eager to get to the end. 

    King is typecast as a horror writer, but that has rarely been true. And now that he's often switching genres -- he's really gotten into detective and mystery tales recently -- it's even less true. He is, as one critic wrote, just a guy who puts ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances -- usually with a twist of the supernatural, or tearing a hole in reality to show another dimension.

    But mostly, you read King for the characters. One never tires of, or forgets, King's characters. Sometimes, they come back.

    I won't deny he uses tropes -- the magical Negro, the disabled child with mental superpowers. But he has has a cast of characters that often look like America -- and he is getting better at that. He shows strong people who are good, and evil people who are bad. Mostly, though, you can identify with his characters because you know them. They are based on regular people, with their thoughts and fears and biases

    And sometimes those ordinary people have a mystical or supernatural power. It's a King thing, OK?

    Which gets us to Later. It's about a boy who sees -- and can hear and talk to -- dead people. We first meet Jamie Conklin as a young child, but it is his older self telling the story. He introduces us to his mother, Tia Conklin -- a white woman of privilege and single mother who had fallen on hard times. We also meet her lover, Elizabeth "Liz" Dutton, a police officer with questionable ethics.

    This being King, we can probably tell what is going to happen -- someone will want to exploit Jamie's abilities. But that's something King can tell us, better than I could, and better than most writers.

    It's a short book for King, clocking in at less than 250 pages. 

    So pick it up and enjoy. You know you will.

Book Review: Kissing the Witch

Kissing the Witch, by Emma Donoghue

    The best way to read this book is to forget your previous images of fairy tales, and with the author's help, let your imagination run wild.

    Donoghue's rewritten fairy tales are extraodinary. She ties them together with wee little blurbs at the end of each story and the beginning of the next. She twists them a bit to give them a sense of freshness.

    I suspect many people's knowledge of fairy tales comes not from reading the originals, but from watching Disney movies or other cartoon animations. Such treatment often infantalizes the stories to simple tropes. Donoghue returns then to their truer nature -- part of a mythology that tries to explain the world and why things happen or may go wrong.

    The writing here is superb. The characters are new but familiar, often redrawn to fit Donoghue's feminine perspective. The stories are written in keeping with the old style, She uses her love and understanding of language to invigorate each tale, and weaves them to create a loosely tied longer tale.  

    As someone who is not an expert on fairy tales, I am unsure if these are rewrites of older tales, brand new legends, or both. Some seemed familiar, while others did not.

    All but one were absolutely wonderful.

    I could not get through The Tale of the Cottage, which was written as by one with subpar language skills -- perhaps an animal? -- but in a collection of 13 stories, one miss is allowed.

    To make up for it, there was Tale of the Voice, about an introverted woman the community sees as a witch. She is not. Instead, she observes and advises. She doesn't cause the curses people suffer through as the price they pay for their desires, but rather she understands and informs them what would be the consequences of their actions. It's a subtle but too often ignored distinction.

Book Review: Here Comes the Sun

 Here Comes the Sun, by Nicole Dennis-Benn

    Poverty and despair, combined wth judgmental Christianity, do not bode well for a society.

    Especially when it is comprised of people of color whose ancestors were enslaved by the European colonizers who already had killed off the indigenous population. After a few hundred years of this treatment, they live on a Caribbean island where catering to weathy tourists is their major source of income.

    Thus, we see a society -- at least the one portrayed in this novel, written by a Jamaican woman -- where the exploitation of others seems to be the norm. Striving to be something other than what you are runs a close second.

    It's not a happy novel about reggae music and lolling in the sun smoking weed. Instead, it depicts people struggling against themselves, their families, and their heritage, to achieve what they have been taught they need -- and discovering they have to exploit and betray not ony their loved ones, but their very souls.

    This is Dennis-Benn's first novel, written in 2016, and it's a good one. The writing is superb, rich in language and history. Many characters speak in Jamaican Patois -- except when they need to impress someone richer or whiter than they are -- and while it's sometimes difficult for a reader to disentangle, it adds a sense of realism.

    The main character, Margot, uses power and sex to climb up the corporate ladder of the hotel where she works. She controls the future of her sister, Thandi, by wielding promises to pay for her education. Thandi wants to be an artist, but Margot persuades her she wants to be a doctor. Thandi also participates in her own exploitation by literally trying to be whiter than she is -- using lightening creams provided by a respected elder, Miss Ruby, and wrapping herself in plastic, despite the hot sun -- to erase her blackness.

"Remembah to stay outta the sun like ah tell yuh," Miss Ruby says. "'Cause you and I both know, God nuh like ugly."

    Others in the book routinely manipulate those around them. Miss Ruby encourages the uses of creams to make them paler. Margot's and Thandi's mother, Delores, sells them to older men. Those men rape and assault the woman around them.

    It comes to a head as a new hotel arises on the banks of their small community, the fruition of Margot's dream. But Thandi revolts to an extent, and as their futures play out, we learn the trauma and abuses of their pasts, partly explaining their actions.

Book Review: Concrete Rose

 Concrete Rose, by Angie Thomas

    We already know Maverick Carter is good man. Now we know why he is a good man.

    Angie Thomas' third novel is a prequel of sorts, set 17 years before the time of her debut novel, The Hate U Give. It's a welcome, well-written dive into the backstories of her characters, particularly the father of Starr Carter. This new book shows his growing up amidst the poverty of Garden Heights. 

    It's intriguing to see Thomas focus on the lives of young Black men, such as Maverick Carter. Her previous novels have centered on Black girls and their trials of growing up, and while that's important, it's good to hear her voice focusing on the problems of boys.

    Her story centers on Maverick when he is a senior in high school, a part of his community, and tied up in the King Lords gang. He reluctantly slings drugs -- sometimes behind the backs of the gang leaders -- while his father, a former gang leader, sits in a state prison for life.

    This is Carter's story. He is the protagonist and narrator, and we are privileged to hear his thoughts and feel his frustrations, his fears, and his joys, as he goes about his teen-age life.  

    He's basically a happy kid. He wants to hang out with his friends and cousins and make a little money to help out his hard-working but poor mother. Thomas shows how he navigates the complicated lifestyle in the 'hood. While he is faulted for some of his choices, we see how some in the community recognize his potential and help and encourage him to get there.

    We already know his future, but it is nice to see it evolve.

     The novel is a fine introduction to a part of the Black community. Thomas, a Black woman from Mississippi, is a great tour guide, weaving us through the hard times, the feelings of being trapped, but also the joys and heartbreaks of home, family, and friends.

    

    

Book Review Shuggie Bain

 Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart

    Shuggie leads a sad and depressing life. 

    So does his alcoholic mother, his cheating, abusive father, his sister, and his lost-soul older brother. Indeed, this novel is full of sad and depressing people, words which also describe this ultimately disappointing book.

    None of the characters is a good person. Except for his siblings, who are minor players, you cannot root for any of them -- even Shuggie, a child who is bullied and struggling with the perception that he is not like other boys. But his character has little life of his own; although he appears to be the novel's protagonist, he seems more of a supporting character meant to showcase the fears and faults of others. 

    The child ignores reality and keeps believing his mother will eventually recover from her disease. His love for her is rarely reciprocated -- and when it is, never for very long.

    What also makes this book disappointing is that it is the 2020 winner of the Booker Prize. Usually, even being longlisted for the prize is a good sign that it's a book worthy of your reading list. This is the first time I have found that not to be the case.

    Set in Glasgow, Scotland during the 1980s, the  novel shows the changing economy of the times, as working class jobs dry up, and people fall into poverty and despair. Shuggie is a young boy growing up with the slow realization that he is gay in a paternalistic, macho culture. His mother is a self-absorbed drunk seldom available for him. His abusive father has mostly abandoned the family. Shuggie, bullied at school, alone at home, struggles to survive.

    On a positive note, the book is well written and pulls you in. But it never hits a satisfying point.

    It doesn't follow Shuggie's inner struggles and turmoil. Rather, it emphasizes the bigotry and hatred he is subjected to on a more-or-less daily basis.

    Such bitter neighbors and schoolmates are the novel's focus -- and the downtrodden working class community Shuggis is a part of is not treated with kindness or sympathy. Their poverty and despair may come from a changing economy that considers them castaways -- this is the era of Reagan and Thatcher, after all -- but the author fails to connect them to this larger social decline. 

    Instead, their poverty, malice, and despair are shows as their own fault. From pilfering coins from gas meters, to stealing whatever is nearby, to using others for their own gain, the characters are portrayed as without morals. 

Book Review: Desdemona and the Deep

 Desdemona and the Deep, by C.S.E.Cooney

    This book reads like animation, complete with a comic sidekick and larger-than-life characters.

    Consider, for instance, when we are introduced to Desdemona's guide through the World Beneath the World Beneath. The Gentry Sovereign bellowed for Farklewhit:

"The response was immediate. From the air at Desdemona's left elbow there came a loud popping noise. This was followed by a fizz, a flare, a sizzling dazzle of color so bright in the mother-of-pearl twilight that Desdemona had to squint her eyes against it. And out of this fireworks display stepped a cloved-hoofed creature in a pink lace apron."

    But this short novel is much more than its multi-genre combination of science-fiction, fantasy, and a little romance.

    It's also an allegory, set in an alternate world rife with industrial pollution and its idle-rich overseers They spend their days drinking, dressing up in wild costumes, and holding elaborate fundraisers for the victims of their wealth. We first see the world during a ball for the Phossy Girls, young women who are literally wasting away from the phosphorus poisoning they get from their jobs as match makers.

    The characters can be gender-fluid -- Chaz, who dresses in woman's clothes in the surface world, becomes a woman -- and species-fluid, which involves growing tails, fur and extra eyelids. Mostly, this shocks and then delights the characters.

    The story, which starts slowly but builds to a crescendo, involves a act of conscience from Desdemona, when she overhears her father bargaining for the lives of the workers in his coal mine in return for great seams of minerals. She decides to go underground to save the tithe -- the extra men who will die in payment for the deal.

    What follows is a bizarre tale in a mostly different reality. The characters are strange yet reconizable, with a mix of human emotions and non-human bodies and senses. With its wild descriptions and colorful narrative, it becomes at times like a stoner novel. 

    But ultimately, it deal with life, wealth, and suffering. Sometimes for pleasure, but sometimes for a cause beyond one's self. 

Book Review: Girl, Woman, Other

Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernadine Evaristo

    This book is additional proof that the Booker Prize never leads you astray.

    It also shows the benefits of reading literature.

    The 2019 winner of the British-based prize, by Evaristo, an Anglo-Nigerian writer, was cited for "a gloriously new kind of history for this old country."

    Indeed. These seemingly random, but ultimately interconnected profiles of women -- mostly of color, but young and old, cis and trans, gay, straight, and bi -- are a wonderful collection of tales from groups who seldon are heard from and less often listened to. But these women deserve to be seen and heard, and noticed.

    And they are. And it is good.

    These vignettes tell the stories of women's lives. They demand that people like me -- a white, older male -- listen to their struggles and their success. The show me their cultures -- old, new, and joined. 

    Some show why they left their African or Caribbean homes for a difficult if more prosperous life in England, and how they fought to survive, adapt, yet hold on to their past.

    The descriptions connect mothers and daughters, or grandmothers and granddaughters, or descendants to their ancestors, and show us the lives of several generations. 

    One woman clings to her Nigerian heritage, but has no plans to return to her native home. Despite the racism and the poverty, her home and her life are now in England, and she cherishes being British. Another dreams of returning home, but cannot see a future for her there. Another not only lives her Nigerian culture, but desires to pass it, unchanging, to her daughter. But her daughter prefers her own Britishness, which she has fought hard to accept and be accepted in.

    The book's format allows for a full telling of an individual's prosopography. First, we hear from one woman, giving her background, her experiences, and her views on her life and work. A following chapter will tell the story of another person, until it slowly dawns on us that she is related -- by blood, marriage, or heritage -- to a previous person in the book. Then another individual's profle is told, and that person gives insight into previous -- and perhaps a future -- character.

    It's a compelling collection of tales, full of surprises, evocative yet pointed in its writing, colorful in its descriptions, and sensitive in its narrative.While it may not show the full panoply of women's views and stories, it tells a wide and impressive range.

Book Review: Red at the Bone

Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson packs a lot of story into fewer than 200 pages.

The opening that describes a coming-out party for Melody, a 16-year-old black girl -- wearing the same dress that her grandmother Sabe, then 16, also wore, but that her mother Iris, then 16 and pregnant, could not -- sets the stage for a tale of family in the black community.

But it's much more than a family tale -- it's story about ancestors and descendants, about friendships, and about class and race. It's a story about love and marriage and sexual orientation. It's a story about connections and feelings of isolation, It's a story about hopes and fears, about bigotry and hate, about the past and the future.

We learn that the family survived the 1921 Massacre in Tulsa and began a new history in Brooklyn, but never forgot the past.

"Every day since she was a baby I've told Iris the story," Sabe tells us. "How they came with intention. How the only thing they wanted was to see us gone. Our money gone. Our shops and schools and libraries -- everything -- just good and gone. And even though it happened twenty years before I was even a thought, I carry it. I carry the goneness. Iris carries the goneness. And watching her walk down those stairs, I know my grandbaby carries the goneness too.

Woodson tells these stories through various voices weaving their way through time. Characters come alive as their stories mesh and reveal family history and secrets. Their relationships defy time and space. They come together and sometimes feel left behind.

She uses tight, yet emotional and compelling language. She ties the generations together, allowing each to share with the long ago, but to develop their uniqueness in the now.