This, that, and the other

Nothing more than a conjuring of cheap tricks

How would you live your life if you knew when you were going to die?

That’s the high-concept idea behind Chloe Benjamin’s The Immortalists, which opens in 1969 Brooklyn with the four Gold children, aged 7 to 13, visiting a fortune teller who gives each the exact date of his or her death. Three of the four are upset by their predictions, and each reacts differently in the following years. 

Simon leaves home at 16 and follows his sister to San Francisco where he can finally be himself but devastating his mother and alienating his other siblings in the process. Klara grieves by pouring herself into her lifelong passion of stage magic, eventually landing in Las Vegas for one last shot at stardom. Daniel makes good on his promise to become an army doctor, but as he approaches middle age, his career and mental health begin to falter. Varya, the oldest, goes into anti-aging research in a quest to help people live longer but discovers that longer doesn’t necessarily mean better. Each of the Gold children’s lives is a reaction to the fortune teller’s prediction, but are they doomed to their fates or simply moved by the power of suggestion? 

This book was like a slow-motion train wreck. I enjoyed the section about Simon in late 70’s/early 80’s San Francisco, but I always have a soft spot for an AIDS story. But as we move on to the remaining siblings, their stories grow more and more outlandish, the characters more and more unlikable, their decisions more and more inexplicable. And most of these characters are deeply unlikable — selfish, deceitful, uncommunicative — yet they’re also underdeveloped. Benjamin spends so much time explaining what her characters think that she fails to make them full human beings, so when they make stupid choices — and they all make some really stupid choices — it seems more in service to a pre-determined plot outline than what each character would naturally do in those situations.

One last complaint, and this is a huge pet peeve of mine. Benjamin throws in a couple of “twists”, by which I mean she uses questionable rhetorical misdirection followed later by gotcha! made ya look! The surprises are cheap and unearned and would have been completely unnecessary if she had simply developed vivid characters and told a compelling story. This book had lots of potential, and I know it's made a lot of critics' and readers' best-of-2018 lists, but it just didn't work for me, not as a work of fiction and not as thought experiment.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

I'm sorry. I can't. Don't hate me.

Emily X.R. Pan’s The Astonishing Colour of After begins with Leigh recounting the day her mother died from suicide, leaving a crumpled note in the trash with a crossed out message: “I want you to remember.” Soon after, a mysterious red bird leaves a gift for Leigh: a package filled with mementos of her mother. Leigh convinces her father to take her to Taiwan for the first time to meet her mother’s estranged family, secretly hoping she’ll also be able to find the bird that she believes is her mother’s ghost. Once there, her father leaves for Hong Kong, and Leigh is alone with her grandparents who don’t speak English. Leigh struggles with what little Mandarin she knows, but before long, a young friend of the family begins visiting, a woman who can translate between Leigh and her grandmother. 

Leigh is then visited by a series of memories that reminded me of the Ghosts of Christmas Past from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, where she sees not only her own memories but also her mother’s, father’s, grandmother’s. For the first time, she learns of her family’s history, but instead of drawing comfort, she only grows more frustrated that there’s so much she never knew about her mother. She ignores messages from her father and best friend and lashes out at the helpful family friend, growing more desperate to find and capture the red bird before her time runs out.

I did enjoy all of the parts about the food in Taiwan. For the three years I’ve been with my partner, I’ve heard almost non-stop about how great the food is in Taiwan where his parents were born and where he’s been visiting since he was a child. As much as we’ve traveled in the last few years, I still haven’t gone with him to Taiwan for reasons that I need to just get over. I know I’d love Taipei and the food and the night markets. As much as I disliked this book, it at least convinced me that it’s time to go.

As for the rest of it, I understand that I’m probably going to end up in the minority here, but this book just didn’t work for me. At all. It’s unfocused, trying to be too many things, but I don’t fault Pan as much for that sin. At least she’s ambitious. The result is a mess, though. It’s slow, repetitive, clunky, heavy-handed, too much telling and not enough showing, and she uses one of my most hated devices: super-short chapters that kill any chance for narrative momentum. For a book that should have taken a few days, even for a slow reader like me, it took me a week, and that’s only because I sped through the last half when I realized where it was going. 

Those aren’t even the biggest sins. I can’t really go into detail about my most hated parts, since I don’t want to leave any spoilers, so I’ll just say that I hated the way Pan dealt with the mother’s depression and suicide. I found it cheap and manipulative, more like a prop than an exploration of serious health issue, and it ends up lost in all of the mystical melodrama. Even though Leigh’s emotional response to her mother’s illness and death are genuine and gut-wrenching, I wish Pan had found a way to clear up rather than reinforce the negative stereotypes and misconceptions. 

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

But I don’t care how many times you change your ways, what’s in you is in you, and it’s got to come out

I know why this book sat on my shelf for so long. I read Giovanni’s Room several years ago, and while I loved James Baldwin’s writing, I really did not care for the story, particularly the way it ended. I’ve picked up Go Tell It on the Mountain several times when looking for my next read, and each time, I put it away, never quite in the right mood for this book that felt too heavy with expectation and history, like a book I should read more than a book I wanted to read, much like another recent read from my backlog, Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony.

Being the oldest son, John has long been expected by everyone to become a preacher like his father Gabriel, yet he’s still waiting for a sign that it’s his true calling. He goes to a storefront church Harlem with his family, and he pays attention and tries to be good, unlike his rebellious younger brother, who comes home one Friday night, slashed across the face in a knife fight. The pious, stern Gabriel blames his wife for Roy’s troubles, but she defends herself while Gabriel’s sister reminds him of his own shortcomings. The tension bursts when Gabriel slaps Elizabeth, and shortly after, John heads to church to clean up before the night’s informal prayer service. Over the course of the evening, the three adults think back on their personal and shared histories, while John prays for faith and direction. 

Baldwin’s other-worldly way with words is already on display in this first novel, and I was fully engaged for the first two sections before it all went pear-shaped, the characters swept up suddenly in religious experience that contradicts everything up to that point and descends into a madness of inscrutable narration. Once again, I’d allowed myself to be drawn in by Baldwin’s powerful language only to be let down by ending that I just didn’t buy. 

I’ve had a similar issue with a few other writers. Paul Monette’s fiction writing was stiff and mannered, but his brilliant autobiography practically saved my life when I was coming out after college. I’ve tried and failed multiple times to get through Infinite Jest, but I love David Foster Wallace’s essays, particularly his writings on tennis. And with Baldwin, I get the feeling he doesn’t like any of his fictional characters enough to care about what happens to them, good or bad, so they end up feeling more like props. His nonfiction doesn’t suffer from the same issue and benefits even more from his thunderous writing style. Not all great writers are great fictional storytellers, and that’s ok. I’ll stick with Baldwin’s nonfiction, but I’ll need a bit of a break to recover from this one.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

Their names written on water. Or scorched into the earth. Or atomized into the air. Legion.

Have you ever read a book that you hated to put down but also hated to keep reading because you couldn’t bear the thought of reaching the end? That’s how I felt reading Kate Atkinson’s A God in Ruins, the companion to her brilliant Life After Life. 

Unlike Ursula in Life After Life, her younger brother Teddy only gets one shot at life. He still becomes a bomber pilot during World War II, still gets shot down over Germany, but this time he survives, captured and imprisoned for the last 18 months of the war. When he returns home, he marries childhood sweetheart Nancy and sets out to live a quiet, uncomplaining life as an antidote to his horrific experiences of the war, both on the ground and in the air, which take up a good portion of this book as a counterpoint to Ursula’s accounts of the Blitz of London in the first book. Nothing really turns out the way he might have hoped, but he holds his very best stiff-upper-lip to the very end even as he struggles with not knowing whether he’s done the right thing: during the war, in his marriage, with his daughter and grandchildren. 

Atkinson gives her readers a lot of little Easter eggs from the first book, and many of the characters have returned, though aside from Teddy and Nancy, they’ve been mostly pushed into the background. Thankfully, Ursula makes plenty of appearances, as do his mother Sylvia and aunt Izzie, and we even get to read some of Izzie’s The Adventures of Augustus, her book series based on young Teddy. These books-within-a-book are a running theme throughout as Teddy wonders what the eternally young Augustus would have done with his life had he been allowed to grow up.

As Teddy looks back at his life, there’s a powerful sense of melancholy rather than nostalgia for “the good ole days”. He reflects on the many friends and family members he’s lost, thinking of them fondly and often, but he never falls into the trap of wishing he could go back again. He remembers — the horrors of war, the sudden and tragic loss of life, the maddening sense of futility — and he knows too well that most others do not. While on a visit to a military cemetery with his grandson, Teddy reflects on how the younger generations have no concept of what total war was really like. “They had been brought up without shadows and seemed determined to create their own.” I’ve often had a similar thought over the last few years, with people’s willingness to forego vaccinations for their kids and to embrace openly nationalist political candidates. Is our collective memory so damaged that we’re willing to risk taking such huge steps backwards?

I have no way of knowing how A God in Ruins stands up on its own, but I’m glad I read Life After Life first, if only that it gave me the full, glorious experience. Atkinson has given us a massive gift with this pair of books, taking what could have been an overwrought gimmick and crafting it into a thoughtful, artistic masterpiece.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

Their names written on water. Or scorched into the earth. Or atomized into the air. Legion.

Have you ever read a book that you hated to put down but also hated to keep reading because you couldn’t bear the thought of reaching the end? That’s how I felt reading Kate Atkinson’s A God in Ruins, the companion to her brilliant Life After Life. 

Unlike Ursula in Life After Life, her younger brother Teddy only gets one shot at life. He still becomes a bomber pilot during World War II, still gets shot down over Germany, but this time he survives, captured and imprisoned for the last 18 months of the war. When he returns home, he marries childhood sweetheart Nancy and sets out to live a quiet, uncomplaining life as an antidote to his horrific experiences of the war, both on the ground and in the air, which take up a good portion of this book as a counterpoint to Ursula’s accounts of the Blitz of London in the first book. Nothing really turns out the way he might have hoped, but he holds his very best stiff-upper-lip to the very end even as he struggles with not knowing whether he’s done the right thing: during the war, in his marriage, with his daughter and grandchildren. 

Atkinson gives her readers a lot of little Easter eggs from the first book, and many of the characters have returned, though aside from Teddy and Nancy, they’ve been mostly pushed into the background. Thankfully, Ursula makes plenty of appearances, as do his mother Sylvia and aunt Izzie, and we even get to read some of Izzie’s The Adventures of Augustus, her book series based on young Teddy. These books-within-a-book are a running theme throughout as Teddy wonders what the eternally young Augustus would have done with his life had he been allowed to grow up.

As Teddy looks back at his life, there’s a powerful sense of melancholy rather than nostalgia for “the good ole days”. He reflects on the many friends and family members he’s lost, thinking of them fondly and often, but he never falls into the trap of wishing he could go back again. He remembers — the horrors of war, the sudden and tragic loss of life, the maddening sense of futility — and he knows too well that most others do not. While on a visit to a military cemetery with his grandson, Teddy reflects on how the younger generations have no concept of what total war was really like. “They had been brought up without shadows and seemed determined to create their own.” I’ve often had a similar thought over the last few years, with people’s willingness to forego vaccinations for their kids and to embrace openly nationalist political candidates. Is our collective memory so damaged that we’re willing to risk taking such huge steps backwards?

I have no way of knowing how A God in Ruins stands up on its own, but I’m glad I read Life After Life first, if only that it gave me the full, glorious experience. Atkinson has given us a massive gift with this pair of books, taking what could have been an overwrought gimmick and crafting it into a thoughtful, artistic masterpiece.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

You know your love keeps on lifting me, lifting me higher and higher

Earlier this year, I realized two things: (1) Even though Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon is one of my desert island books, I’ve only read it once, and that was about 15 years ago, and (2) I haven’t even owned a copy for half that time, having lost track of my original through several big moves (I blame my ex). I bought a fresh copy this spring, nervous and excited to give it another read.

The story focuses on Milkman Dead, only son of Macon Dead and expected successor to his father’s empire of property in an unnamed Michigan city. In his early teens, Milkman’s friend Guitar goads him into a forbidden visit to Macon’s sister, Pilate, a free spirit and bootlegger whom Macon long ago disowned, and he begins to learn more about his complicated family history, getting conflicting stories from his aunt, his father, and his mother. But while Guitar is pulled into a secret society of black activists, Milkman goes legit, working for his father to earn money to make himself more attractive to women. He enters into an illicit relationship with his cousin Hagar, Pilate’s granddaughter, but when he grows bored with her and tries to call things off, she wages a nightly campaign to terrorize him.

And that’s just the first third of the book. There’s so much going on in this story that Morrison somehow fits into a brisk 340 pages: race relations, class tensions, family secrets, deception, revenge, and even a multi-state treasure hunt for a long-lost fortune in gold. Along the way, Milkman is forced to reconcile what he thinks the world owes him with what he really owes to his family, his friends, his community, and himself. Morrison covers all this territory across several decades with ease, starting with a bang and soaring through the last breathtaking line.   

I have to confess that, for a book I’ve long considered one of the best I’ve ever read, I quickly found I didn’t remember much detail, at least not right away. My fondness through the years was based more on my memory of how I felt the first time I read it, particularly at the end, and though I still retained that heady elation the second time around, I also found myself able to pay more attention to the characters and story and the crackling rhythms of Morrison’s language. Beloved was my first Morrison read and is more well-known these days, but Song of Solomon is still my favorite. This book is intimate and epic, immediate and mythic, timely and timeless.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

You know your love keeps on lifting me, lifting me higher and higher

Earlier this year, I realized two things: (1) Even though Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon is one of my desert island books, I’ve only read it once, and that was about 15 years ago, and (2) I haven’t even owned a copy for half that time, having lost track of my original through several big moves (I blame my ex). I bought a fresh copy this spring, nervous and excited to give it another read.

The story focuses on Milkman Dead, only son of Macon Dead and expected successor to his father’s empire of property in an unnamed Michigan city. In his early teens, Milkman’s friend Guitar goads him into a forbidden visit to Macon’s sister, Pilate, a free spirit and bootlegger whom Macon long ago disowned, and he begins to learn more about his complicated family history, getting conflicting stories from his aunt, his father, and his mother. But while Guitar is pulled into a secret society of black activists, Milkman goes legit, working for his father to earn money to make himself more attractive to women. He enters into an illicit relationship with his cousin Hagar, Pilate’s granddaughter, but when he grows bored with her and tries to call things off, she wages a nightly campaign to terrorize him.

And that’s just the first third of the book. There’s so much going on in this story that Morrison somehow fits into a brisk 340 pages: race relations, class tensions, family secrets, deception, revenge, and even a multi-state treasure hunt for a long-lost fortune in gold. Along the way, Milkman is forced to reconcile what he thinks the world owes him with what he really owes to his family, his friends, his community, and himself. Morrison covers all this territory across several decades with ease, starting with a bang and soaring through the last breathtaking line.   

I have to confess that, for a book I’ve long considered one of the best I’ve ever read, I quickly found I didn’t remember much detail, at least not right away. My fondness through the years was based more on my memory of how I felt the first time I read it, particularly at the end, and though I still retained that heady elation the second time around, I also found myself able to pay more attention to the characters and story and the crackling rhythms of Morrison’s language. Beloved was my first Morrison read and is more well-known these days, but Song of Solomon is still my favorite. This book is intimate and epic, immediate and mythic, timely and timeless.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

Bad blood carries. Bad blood comes out.

Sue was born in a cramped house of thieves and orphaned when her mother was hanged for murder. Mrs. Sucksby has raised her as her own and tried to keep her out of harm’s way, but now that she’s nearly grown, an acquaintance called Gentleman has suddenly appeared to ask Sue to help him carry out the ultimate grift. He aims to seduce and marry the wealthy young Maud, steal her inheritance, and then get rid of her by committing to a madhouse, but he needs Sue’s help. She’s to be hired as Maud’s lady’s maid, gain her trust, then convince her leave her uncle’s country estate to marry the handsome and charming Gentleman. In return, Sue will be paid enough to make herself and her adopted family rich and comfortable for the rest of their lives. Simple, right?

Of course not!

Sarah Waters has not only written an astounding homage to Charles Dickens, but she may have also surpassed him. She even name-drops him within the first few pages when one of the neighborhood pickpockets — or fingersmiths — takes six-year old Sue to see a staged version of Oliver Twist. Waters sets her story in the same 19th Century England, switching between the seedy labyrinth of London and the genteel yet lonely and often severe countryside, and much like Dickens, she explores the very nature of destiny, asking whether we can escape our fates, whether we have any control over our own lives, especially when we’re born poor and alone. The story itself is sensational and gripping, yet also convincing, in no small part because of her skillful pacing, detailed characterizations, and shrewd use of literary irony to build almost suffocating levels of tension and dread. Fingersmith is a sometimes lovely, sometimes tawdry, always enjoyable read, one of my favorites of the year.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

Bad blood carries. Bad blood comes out.

Sue was born in a cramped house of thieves and orphaned when her mother was hanged for murder. Mrs. Sucksby has raised her as her own and tried to keep her out of harm’s way, but now that she’s nearly grown, an acquaintance called Gentleman has suddenly appeared to ask Sue to help him carry out the ultimate grift. He aims to seduce and marry the wealthy young Maud, steal her inheritance, and then get rid of her by committing to a madhouse, but he needs Sue’s help. She’s to be hired as Maud’s lady’s maid, gain her trust, then convince her leave her uncle’s country estate to marry the handsome and charming Gentleman. In return, Sue will be paid enough to make herself and her adopted family rich and comfortable for the rest of their lives. Simple, right?

Of course not!

Sarah Waters has not only written an astounding homage to Charles Dickens, but she may have also surpassed him. She even name-drops him within the first few pages when one of the neighborhood pickpockets — or fingersmiths — takes six-year old Sue to see a staged version of Oliver Twist. Waters sets her story in the same 19th Century England, switching between the seedy labyrinth of London and the genteel yet lonely and often severe countryside, and much like Dickens, she explores the very nature of destiny, asking whether we can escape our fates, whether we have any control over our own lives, especially when we’re born poor and alone. The story itself is sensational and gripping, yet also convincing, in no small part because of her skillful pacing, detailed characterizations, and shrewd use of literary irony to build almost suffocating levels of tension and dread. Fingersmith is a sometimes lovely, sometimes tawdry, always enjoyable read, one of my favorites of the year.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

Life is just a bowl of (sour) cherries

Finding a book for this CBR10Bingo square was oddly tough for me, as nothing in my TBR list really jumped out at me as being obviously about food. When I started pulling my books off the shelf, one by one, and saw those gorgeous yellow cherries on the cover of Dina Nayeri’s Refuge, I knew this was the one.

Early in the book, Niloo’s father imparts his life’s philosophy to his young daughter: “Life in Ardestoon is a shank of lamb so bursting with marrow, you can suck until your cheeks are full and there’s still more to pry with a pinky or to shake out fist over fist. Niloo joon, never be the one who looks around worrying if her face is greasy.”

But, as Niloo later describes, “there was something he loved more: not poetry or medicine or family, but oblivion.” Her Baba is an opium addict who stayed behind when his wife and children fled Iran, unable and unwilling to leave behind his addictions and comforts. In the 20 years following their exile, he sees his family only four times, each visit increasingly strained. Baba’s life is still driven by addiction and selfishness, and his children and ex-wife grow distant and unfamiliar to him. In return, his children see him as an Old World relic, a waste of a man not worth their time and affection.

I’ve really struggled to write this review. I didn’t hate the book enough to flat-out trash it, but I certainly didn’t like it and found it incredibly frustrating. How could a book with the line “Food is joy. Joy is everything.” be such a drag? The good parts — Nayeri’s evocative language, a new cultural perspective from what I’m used to, several sympathetic minor characters — didn’t come close to outweighing the bad — shallow and unlikable main characters, too much telling and not enough showing, whiplash-inducing swings in mood and attitude. There’s no anchor in character, just lovely yet ultimately hollow narration. It’s like a big bowl of table scraps: some of the morsels are delicious on their own, but mixed together, it’s an unappetizing mess.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

Life is just a bowl of (sour) cherries

Finding a book for this CBR10Bingo square was oddly tough for me, as nothing in my TBR list really jumped out at me as being obviously about food. When I started pulling my books off the shelf, one by one, and saw those gorgeous yellow cherries on the cover of Dina Nayeri’s Refuge, I knew this was the one.

Early in the book, Niloo’s father imparts his life’s philosophy to his young daughter: “Life in Ardestoon is a shank of lamb so bursting with marrow, you can suck until your cheeks are full and there’s still more to pry with a pinky or to shake out fist over fist. Niloo joon, never be the one who looks around worrying if her face is greasy.”

But, as Niloo later describes, “there was something he loved more: not poetry or medicine or family, but oblivion.” Her Baba is an opium addict who stayed behind when his wife and children fled Iran, unable and unwilling to leave behind his addictions and comforts. In the 20 years following their exile, he sees his family only four times, each visit increasingly strained. Baba’s life is still driven by addiction and selfishness, and his children and ex-wife grow distant and unfamiliar to him. In return, his children see him as an Old World relic, a waste of a man not worth their time and affection.

I’ve really struggled to write this review. I didn’t hate the book enough to flat-out trash it, but I certainly didn’t like it and found it incredibly frustrating. How could a book with the line “Food is joy. Joy is everything.” be such a drag? The good parts — Nayeri’s evocative language, a new cultural perspective from what I’m used to, several sympathetic minor characters — didn’t come close to outweighing the bad — shallow and unlikable main characters, too much telling and not enough showing, whiplash-inducing swings in mood and attitude. There’s no anchor in character, just lovely yet ultimately hollow narration. It’s like a big bowl of table scraps: some of the morsels are delicious on their own, but mixed together, it’s an unappetizing mess.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

He could see the story taking form in bone and muscle

After reading a few Sherman Alexie books a few years ago, Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony started popping up in my suggestions, and for some reason, I thought it was poetry rather than a novel. Once I read the description, I put it on my wishlist, where it languished for several months until I finally bought a copy last summer at The Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles on a long lunch break from jury duty. I’ve pulled it off my bookshelf a few times when looking for my next read but never quite pulled the trigger until now.

Half-white Tayo has returned to New Mexico after surviving World War II but without his cousin and best friend, Rocky, whom Tayo carried until he died during the Bataan death march. Haunted by Rocky’s death and the other horrors of war, Tayo suffers from what they then called “shell shock” but what we now call PTSD. His life is kind of a mess, and it’s only getting worse. He can’t sleep, can’t keep anything down, has flashbacks to the war, and like many of his compatriots who went over as heroes and came back as nobodies, he drinks too much and gets himself into trouble, like stabbing another man in the gut with a broken beer bottle during a fight. Tayo’s family tells him he needs help or he’ll have to go back to the army hospital, so he relents and goes to see Old Betonie, who performs a ceremony for him and tells him what he needs to do to get himself well. No small task, since Tayo is burdened not only by his own circumstances and mixed heritage but also the history of his whole people.

Though it is a novel, it does contain a great deal of poetry, both in the form and language of small interludes of Native American legends, and in the prose itself, some of the most beautiful I’ve read, such as:

“. . . he waited to die the way smoke dies, drifting away in currents of air, twisting in thin swirls, fading until it exists no more.”

And:

“It took only one person to tear away the delicate strands of the web, spilling the rays of sun into the sand, and the fragile world would be injured.”

And:

“He wanted to fade until he was as flat as his own hand looked, flat like a drawing in the sand which did not speak or move, waiting for the wind to come swirling along the ground and blow the lines away.”

For a book published in the 1970’s, it’s remarkably (and sadly) relevant today. In a few brilliant paragraphs about three-quarters of the way through, Silko throws down a fireball of a critique of white people and their role in racial injustice that is one of the most insightful and scathing I’ve read. Even beyond that, the whole book just feels very modern. The storyline is non-linear and fluid and dreamlike, reflecting Tayo’s physical and psychological torment. It’s very dense, with thick paragraphs and no defined chapters, only extra line breaks and bits of poetic legend now and then. It’s not the easiest story to follow and took me quite awhile to read, given its relatively short length, but it was very much worth my time.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

He could see the story taking form in bone and muscle

After reading a few Sherman Alexie books a few years ago, Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony started popping up in my suggestions, and for some reason, I thought it was poetry rather than a novel. Once I read the description, I put it on my wishlist, where it languished for several months until I finally bought a copy last summer at The Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles on a long lunch break from jury duty. I’ve pulled it off my bookshelf a few times when looking for my next read but never quite pulled the trigger until now.

Half-white Tayo has returned to New Mexico after surviving World War II but without his cousin and best friend, Rocky, whom Tayo carried until he died during the Bataan death march. Haunted by Rocky’s death and the other horrors of war, Tayo suffers from what they then called “shell shock” but what we now call PTSD. His life is kind of a mess, and it’s only getting worse. He can’t sleep, can’t keep anything down, has flashbacks to the war, and like many of his compatriots who went over as heroes and came back as nobodies, he drinks too much and gets himself into trouble, like stabbing another man in the gut with a broken beer bottle during a fight. Tayo’s family tells him he needs help or he’ll have to go back to the army hospital, so he relents and goes to see Old Betonie, who performs a ceremony for him and tells him what he needs to do to get himself well. No small task, since Tayo is burdened not only by his own circumstances and mixed heritage but also the history of his whole people.

Though it is a novel, it does contain a great deal of poetry, both in the form and language of small interludes of Native American legends, and in the prose itself, some of the most beautiful I’ve read, such as:

“. . . he waited to die the way smoke dies, drifting away in currents of air, twisting in thin swirls, fading until it exists no more.”

And:

“It took only one person to tear away the delicate strands of the web, spilling the rays of sun into the sand, and the fragile world would be injured.”

And:

“He wanted to fade until he was as flat as his own hand looked, flat like a drawing in the sand which did not speak or move, waiting for the wind to come swirling along the ground and blow the lines away.”

For a book published in the 1970’s, it’s remarkably (and sadly) relevant today. In a few brilliant paragraphs about three-quarters of the way through, Silko throws down a fireball of a critique of white people and their role in racial injustice that is one of the most insightful and scathing I’ve read. Even beyond that, the whole book just feels very modern. The storyline is non-linear and fluid and dreamlike, reflecting Tayo’s physical and psychological torment. It’s very dense, with thick paragraphs and no defined chapters, only extra line breaks and bits of poetic legend now and then. It’s not the easiest story to follow and took me quite awhile to read, given its relatively short length, but it was very much worth my time.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth

When I decided to get back into writing 13 years ago, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird was the first of many books on writing that I bought and read, but so far it’s the only one I’ve reread . . . and reread . . . and reread. This is at least the fourth time I’ve read it all the way through, and I’ve gone back dozens more times to glance at certain lines and sections.

Lamott has a very particular point of view in this book, and I periodically need to be reminded of two important things: (1) writing has to be an end in itself; because (2) publishing is not the holy grail.

There’s nothing unique about these positions. Most writing books I’ve read include some variation on both themes, and like the others, Lamott brings her own experiences and biases. She wrote this book mid-career, having already published a half-dozen books, so she already knew that publishing didn’t change her life in the way she expected and knew that the writing itself — especially those rare, breathless moments when everything just works — was the real reason to write. It’s too painful and frustrating and maddening, too unpredictable and mostly non-lucrative. She also knows the only way to keep going is to just keep going, bird by bird, short assignment by short assignment, one-inch picture frame by one-inch picture frame. Sit down every day to write, even when you don’t want to.

It’s just as well that she doesn’t dwell too much on publishing, because this book is already dated to a certain degree. She clearly wrote this pre-Internet, so there’s no mention of email or Google or Craigslist or online writing groups or self-publishing. She chooses to focus on her own frustrations to show that the rest of us are not alone or unique in our failures, chooses to write about her own successes to show that hard work can pay off, even if not for long and not in the way one might expect. She doesn’t try to dampen our enthusiasm so much as temper our expectations and harden us against the stark reality that very few people make a good living writing books. So if we still insist on giving it a go, we’d better learn to love the process. Big dreams are fine, important even, but we might think about keeping them in a box so they don’t distract us from the very real work required to get there.

I’ve been re-energized this week since rereading . I’ve been taking joy in the simple act of sitting down, giving myself short assignments, and finishing them. I have a renewed sense purpose and direction. I feel like a writer again, and that’s all I really needed.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth

When I decided to get back into writing 13 years ago, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird was the first of many books on writing that I bought and read, but so far it’s the only one I’ve reread . . . and reread . . . and reread. This is at least the fourth time I’ve read it all the way through, and I’ve gone back dozens more times to glance at certain lines and sections.

Lamott has a very particular point of view in this book, and I periodically need to be reminded of two important things: (1) writing has to be an end in itself; because (2) publishing is not the holy grail.

There’s nothing unique about these positions. Most writing books I’ve read include some variation on both themes, and like the others, Lamott brings her own experiences and biases. She wrote this book mid-career, having already published a half-dozen books, so she already knew that publishing didn’t change her life in the way she expected and knew that the writing itself — especially those rare, breathless moments when everything just works — was the real reason to write. It’s too painful and frustrating and maddening, too unpredictable and mostly non-lucrative. She also knows the only way to keep going is to just keep going, bird by bird, short assignment by short assignment, one-inch picture frame by one-inch picture frame. Sit down every day to write, even when you don’t want to.

It’s just as well that she doesn’t dwell too much on publishing, because this book is already dated to a certain degree. She clearly wrote this pre-Internet, so there’s no mention of email or Google or Craigslist or online writing groups or self-publishing. She chooses to focus on her own frustrations to show that the rest of us are not alone or unique in our failures, chooses to write about her own successes to show that hard work can pay off, even if not for long and not in the way one might expect. She doesn’t try to dampen our enthusiasm so much as temper our expectations and harden us against the stark reality that very few people make a good living writing books. So if we still insist on giving it a go, we’d better learn to love the process. Big dreams are fine, important even, but we might think about keeping them in a box so they don’t distract us from the very real work required to get there.

I’ve been re-energized this week since rereading . I’ve been taking joy in the simple act of sitting down, giving myself short assignments, and finishing them. I have a renewed sense purpose and direction. I feel like a writer again, and that’s all I really needed.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)

Without music, life would be a mistake

One of my favorite bookstores in the world is Provincetown Books, a tiny space in the center of town, right next to Adams Pharmacy. The owner’s selection is very much my taste, and she always seems to have just what I’m looking for at the moment. This summer, I was on a mission to fill out a few more CBR10Bingo squares, and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven was at the top of my list. Of course she had it in stock.

As soon as I laid the book on the counter, she looked up at me and said, “You’re going to love this.” I laughed and told her I hadn’t even heard of it until this spring, and then all of a sudden, I was seeing it everywhere. Obviously, if I’d joined CBR before this year, I would have seen all of the reviews here, since it’s on the “So Popular” list. I haven’t read any of those reviews yet, since I didn’t want to be influenced by them before I’d written my own, but I suspect I’m not alone in loving this book.

Station Eleven begins in a Toronto theater the night Arthur Leander dies of a heart attack while performing King Lear. Outside, another end is coming: an unstoppable flu pandemic has just begun to eradicate most of the world’s population. From there, the story jumps back and forth in time: the early hours and immediate aftermath of the pandemic through the eyes of Javeed, the EMT who jumped onstage to try to save Arthur; back through Arthur’s childhood, early career, and three failed marriages; ahead twenty years to follow the Traveling Symphony, a group of musicians and actors that includes Kirsten, a child actor in that long ago production of King Lear. The new world is stark, primitive, decaying, dangerous, and yet life still goes on.

No brief summary of this book can do it justice. I suspect that’s why I wasn’t interested the first time I picked up a copy and read the back cover blurb. It sounds like a hodgepodge of quirk, and that’s a big turnoff for me. Luckily, CBR gave me the extra push I needed, because this book is so much more. It’s beautifully written and compulsively readable, ranking right up there with the best speculative fiction. Mandel’s near-future dystopia is entirely plausible, reading like an elegy to our modern world and all we take for granted. For those who remain, life certainly isn’t easy, but the Traveling Symphony and others of kindred spirit refuse to give in to despair. They remember what they had but also treasure what they still have and hope for better days ahead.

Because survival is insufficient.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer, One Book at a Time.)