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.

TWIB: 13th Ed.

     So, I visited the Book Loft in Columbus today -- and while the two-hour drive took closer to four hours because of a massive delay on Interstate 71 (I have no idea why; traffic just stopped for an hour) -- it was an enjoyable experience. A late lunch with my daughter at Fourth & State, a vegan cafe downtown, and then on to add to The TBR Stack.

The latest haul, ready to be read

    

        The Light Pirate, by Lily Brooks-Dalton: I have no idea what it's about, but my first daughter told me to "but it and read it next." Also, the title is fantastic, and the author's first book, Good Morning, Midnight, was a good read (and another compelling title).

    Babel, by R.F. Kuang: I have seen this title all over the place. So I grabbed it in the store, and after reading the description -- about languages, learning, and imperialism -- I could not put it back.

    How It Went, by Wendell Berry: When Kentucky's greatest living author -- and perhaps its finest living person -- puts out a new volume of stories about Port William, Ky., you just have to give it a go. Berry, after all, taught this Kentucky immigrant everything I've learned about the state.

    The Other Black Girl, by Zakiya Dalila Harris: What it's like when two Black woman work in the same office, as told by a Black woman. I think I'll learn something from this.

    Tread of Angels, by Rebecca Roanhorse: Read this description from the book flap: "High in the remote mountains, the town of Goetia is booming as prospectors from near and far come to mine the powerful new element Divinity. Divinity  is the remains of the body of the rebel Abaddon, who fell to Earth during Heaven's War, and it powers the world's most inventive and innovative technologies, ushering in a new age of progress. However, only the descendants of those who rebelled, called the Fallen, possess the ability to see the rich lodes of the precious element. That makes them a necessary evil among the good and righteous people called the Elect, and Goetia a town segregated by ancestry and class."  Yep, me too.

    Galatea, by Madeline Miller: It's short, but it's the first book in a while from Miller, the goddess of reinterpreting the perspectives of the Greek legends.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Sandra Cisneros

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books.

Today is the story of Dec. 20th

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    It is the 354th day of the year, leaving 11 days remaining in 2022. 

    

    On this date in 1954, the poet and novelist Sandra Cisneros was born.

    She tells her stories about the struggles and triumphs of Chicanas, often from a personal perspective. While she write mostly in English, she never hesitates to incorporate Spanish into her stories, as a sense of place, or to heighten her descriptions. 

    Her poems, short stories, and novels often mirror her life as a woman between two cultures but never feeling comfortable in either. Yet, she and they survive, and girls and women overcame the hinderances of living a dual life that rarely appreciates their contributions.

    Cisneros was born into a Mexican family in Chicago, the only daughter in a family that included six sons. The family moved between Chicago and Mexico City, leaving Cisneros with the feeling of being part of neither culture. She took to writing, and mostly wrote poetry in her teenage years. After college, she attended the writers' workshop at the University of Iowa, where she found her voice.  

  

    Her first novel, The House on Mango Street, was published in 1983. It was semi-autobiographical, telling the story of a Mexican girl growing up in Chicago. It won several awards, and has become a classic coming-of-age story often taught in schools.

    Her awards have included a MacArthur Genius Grant. Her short story collections, Women Hollering Creek and Other Stories, came out in 1991 and won a PEN Award.

    She has written numerous books of poetry, from Bad Boys, published in 1980, to Loose Women, in 1994. Her latest collection, published in 2022,  is Women Without Shame: Poems. 

Almanac of Story Tellers: Steven Spielberg

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books 

Today is the story of Dec. 18th

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    It is the 352nd day of the year, leaving 13 days remaining in 2022.

 

   On this date in 1946, the director and screenwriter Steve Spielberg was born.

    He told his stories on the movie screen, in blockbuster films that he wrote, produced and directed. He told family stories; he told stories about extra-terrestrials. He told stories about heroes  and stories about villains. He told action-packed adventure stories, and he told stories about the human race.

    He has won three Academy Awards and numerous other honors. 

    He made his first movie when he was 12; it was a home movie about a train wreck involving his toy trains. At 13, he wrote Escape to Nowhere and filmed it with a cast of his schoolmates; it won first place in a statewide competition.

    After graduating from California State University at Long Beach, he directed several television episodes, and in 1974, directed his first feature film, The Sugarland Express. The next year, he helped create the summer blockbuster with Jaws, about a killer shark terrorizing vacationers at a New England beach town. Some of the then-young director's actions were praised as being akin to Alfred Hitchcock.

    His later films covered a variety of themes, including a hero of the Holocaust, Schindler's List; visits from extra-terrestrials, E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind; period dramas, Lincoln, The Color Purple, and Empire of the Sun; and the Raiders of the Lost Ark series.

    Spielberg's latest movie was 2022's The Fabelmans, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama he wrote with Tony Kushner.

Almanac of Story Tellers: John Kennedy Toole

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books 

Today is the story of Dec. 17th

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    It is the 351st day of the year, leaving 14 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1937, the American author John Kennedy Toole was born.

    Toole had one story to tell, and he told it remarkably well, with wit and verve. It is a picaresque novel with a spot-on character, Ignatius J. Reilly, who epitomized the appealing rogue. 

    But Toole never got to see his book, A Confederacy of Dunces, get published and  win the Pulitzer Prize. How it did is just as much of a picaresque tale, with a realistic, if ultimately sad, touch.

    Toole was born and reared in New Orleans, the son of a domineering and overprotective mother. She thought her son was a genius who should not play with the children in his neighborhood.

    He became a teacher and writer, and was drafted into the Army, where he had enough much free time he was able to write his book. It was based in the city he lived in, and filled with characters similar to those he had met in life. He sent the manuscript to a publisher in New York, who ultimately rejected it. 

 

    Depressed, Toole began drinking heavily. He started dressing and acting oddly, ranting at his students. He disappeared in January 1969. Two months later, his body was found in his car, dead of carbon monoxide poisoning from a tube that he had connected from his exhaust pipe though a closed window of his car.

    He left a suicide note, but his mother, Thelma Toole, destroyed it. She also found a copy of his completed book, was convinced it was a masterpiece by her brilliant son, and spent a decade trying to get it published. She eventually persuaded Walker Percy, a professor and writer, to read it. He did, also thought it was wonderful, and found a publisher.

    It hit the shelves in 1980. It won the Pulitzer in 1981. Critics have praised its writing and its structure. It has been called a "brilliant, weird, and surreal tale." Percy said the Reilly character was "a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one, who is in a violent revolt against the entire modern age."

    (Toole did author another book, The Neon Bible, when he was a teenager. He thought it was junk juvenilia. It was published posthumously. It was little remarked on.)