Book Review: The Cloisters

 By Katy Hays

• Pub Date: 2022

• Genre: Fantasy

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

• Why I bought this book: I grew up blocks from The Cloisters in New York City  

 ******

 

   It's not often my old neighborhood in New York is highlighted in a novel. Even in maps, Manhattan gets chopped off somewhere uptown from Harlem, like it's not worth the effort to draw the streets of Inwood.

    But The Cloisters are two subway stops from where I grew up on 207th Street. Not that I went there a lot; I think the only time I've been was on a field trip during my elementary school days.

   Still, there's a lot to be said for seeing familiar places and streets in a novel. And it's a decent overall story. Not mind-blowing, but with an array of incongruous yet curiously well matched characters, it's well plotted and well told. 

    Our narrator -- who is either unreliable or unknowing -- is Ann Stilwell from Walla Walla, Wash. She's a smart if unsophisticated art history major, coming to New York for a summer internship at the world renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue in Midtown. But there's a mix up and her job is now unavailable.

    Serendipitously though, she is rescued by Patrick, the dashing curator of the Cloisters, who says he can use her talents at the relatively obscure medieval museum uptown near 190th Street. There, she meets Rachel, a young, cultured, and worldly researcher, and Leo, the gardener with a discerning knowledge of the plants and herbs grown at the museum and a side gig as a punk rock musician.

    In the rarified air of the museum, we discover a lot is going on. Secretive stuff, which involves tarot cards and divination, late night unannounced meetings, and the questionable provenance of artifacts some employees are buying and selling on the side.

    The story centers on the relationships between the main characters, a complicated web of intrigue and personal histories. In between we have Ann's journey of discovering the city's diverse neighborhoods, and her telling the history of the Cloisters, the Renaissance period, and Medieval art. 

    Sometime, it's difficult to follow the rationales of the characters, and several times you find yourself thinking things will not end well. We wonder if they are devious, diabolical, brilliant, or some combination. 

    As a murder mystery (yes, there is one) and police procedural, the story is not very good. As a potential romance, it's mundane. Where it hits its peaks is as an art tutorial, tour guide, and language explainer. Here, the writer finds her niche, with compelling writing and deep insights. 

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: City of Orange

 By David Yoon

• Pub Date: 2022

• Where I bought this book: Irvington Vinyl and Books, Indianapolis 

• Why I bought this book: A blurb describes it as a cross between Station Eleven and The Road

***

    The Unreliable Narrator style, which is used in this book, annoys me.

    It makes me angry and frustrated. I feel deceived and manipulated. It makes the novel seem pointless, like the author didn't understand where they were taking the story, so changed direction. Ultimately, it's a waste of time for the reader.

    Like this book.

    Is it the tale of a man beaten and dumped in a future world, perhaps on another planet? Is it a description of a wasteland after a cataclysmic event? We don't know, and neither does our hero, who can't even remember his own name. It unfolds slowly, as we see what he sees, with vivid descriptions of horror and loss in the world he believes himself to be in.

    Yet, hints abound that all is not as it appears. 

    I'm not going to say more about the plot, such as it is, so as not to reveal any spoilers. Suffice to say it goes in a lot of directions, several of which are predictable, some of which are cliches and tropes, and few of which are original. And yes, I get the extended metaphor, but it's weak.

    Still, it has strong points: A smart, well-drawn main character whom we get to know and can identify with. Sharp writing that drags you in. A setting that is both everywhere and nowhere.

    But deep flaws overcome those positives. A  sense of evil pervades that main character. (At one point in my notes, I write: Did something bad happen to him, or did he do something bad?) Secondary character are mere bit players. The story drags, and the detailed writing can be overdone. It's impossible to tell whether the setting is real or imagined.

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: Stories From the Tenants Downstairs

 

•  Author: Sidik Fofana

• Where I bought this book: A Room of One's Own, Madison, Wisc. 

• Why I bought this book: A collection of tales about apartment living in Harlem seemed like a good bet.

*****

      

     This is not a book of happy, spunky tales.

    Rather, the stories in this collection are tales of life, of sorrow, of making do. Of struggling to get by, of cutting corners, of doing what you must to survive.

     If that means taking something that isn't yours, then it's what you do. If it means taking advantage of someone else -- who may or may not be in a better position than you -- then the choice is yours.

    These are tales of making questionable decisions,  choosing between nothing but bad choices, knowing that you can try to fix things later.

    It's not a book of making excuses, or justifying the actions. It's simple stories, explanations perhaps, laying out a life of poverty, indifference, and toil.

    These are tales from an apartment building in Harlem, not quite rundown yet, but not one that has people clamoring to get in. It's a building where the tenants care more than the unseen landlord, but they don't care about much more than how to pay their rent. It's a building on the edge of gentrification, not that that helps those who live there.

    There is Michelle, who tells her story of struggling to find the money to pay the rent on the first of the month or else be homeless. She tells of how she find the money, in different ways each day, and how much more she needs. It's not a tale of lament or woe. It's her life. 

    There are tales of students and teachers in school, putting up with the daily misery because that's what they do. There are tales of hanging out, looking for something to do, whether it's to avenge a perceived wrong or simply to bring a bit of joy into their lives.  

    There is the sad tale of najee, a 12-year-old boy, who writes why he is leaving a dancing activity called lite feet. Written in the vernacular of a young boy with learning disabilities and a literacy problem, it tells of his inability to adapt and fit in with the other boys. It's a struggle to read, mirroring the struggle of najee's life.

    Then there is Mr. Murray, an old veteran who hangs out on the corner with his chessboard, inviting others to play. A new restaurant orders him from his corner, and he moves down the block. But his fellow tenants take up his cause and demand he get to stay. Police are called. The newspapers come. Things happen.

    But this is Mr. Murray's story, and no one asked him. He doesn't care where he sits. He just wants to play chess.

    You up for a game? He'll be in his new spot.