Ghost Season: A Novel
by Fatin Abbas
Seasons of pain and hope (11/29/2022)
Ghost Season manages to focus our attention simultaneously on the horrors of the encroaching civil war in Sudan and on five characters whose lives intimately intersect despite their lack of commonality. Because the characters have diverse backgrounds and reasons for being in Sudan, they offer sharply varying perspectives on the events and circumstances around them as well as on their personal aspirations. The result is a deeply immersive story which draws you in to the poverty, violence and tragedy while also portraying friendship, love and hope. We can feel the heat, the sense of dislocation and the fears of the characters but also their emerging humanity. The universal racism and tribal conflicts were well presented.
I did feel however that in an apparent effort to set up the characters and the events the book devoted too many pages to background before delving into the essence of the story.
The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise
by Colleen Oakley
A fun and quick read (9/30/2022)
This book was what I would consider "light" reading, which genre may have a place in one's library but is not very demanding of the reader. I like stories with strong female characters or ones who strengthen as the story advances, and this book had several such endearing ones. It was entertaining to see them play off against each other, but was almost undone by the somewhat offensive characterization of the very hot young man to whom very little other than his stunning sexiness was attributed. It was a simple mystery, a running from the law story, and certainly a tale of coming of age although at a later age than usual. I read it on a long plane ride and it kept me engaged and guessing all through the story. I liked that clues were planted inconspicuously and then became relevant and important to the conclusion. I may not be the target audience for books like this as I usually go for more atmospheric novels with deeper character development which evokes empathy and a tear or two. I therefore recommend this to people who want to escape into a fun story which will keep them guessing and leads to some laughs.
Dinosaurs: A Novel
by Lydia Millet
The Dinosaurs is both Intimate and Universal (9/4/2022)
Dinosaurs is a slim book, easily entered to be read slowly. It is full of metaphors and the book's unfolding itself becomes one for its protagonist, Gil. It's seemingly telling a simple tale without embellishment which resembles Gil's world view as we meet him at 45, only to subtly and gradually reveal the layers of a man, a community, relationships with other humans and with a newly engaging natural world. Each chapter is titled with the name of a bird whose characteristics are also present in people or events in Gil's life and provide great meaning. Literally walking from his former home in NYC to the one he bought sight unseen in Phoenix is an attempt to immerse himself in what he imagines is "real life",from which his inherited wealth has shielded him. Encumbered by a bad breakup, he has left behind only two friendships with meaning, which add poignancy and reveal that he isn't the only person giving of himself in his "career" of volunteering. His newly arrived neighbors live in a house with the facing wall made of glass. He sees how a family lives, loves and disappoints. To his surprise and delight he becomes part of this family, mentoring- really parenting- the middle school child who has his own socialization issues. Gil's musings about how most dinosaurs became extinct except those who could evolve into birds, and his commitment to the birds he sees around his new desert home become meditations on environment and potential extinction. He becomes their protector when he sees pointless and widescale shooting of those to whom he has become attached. It is perhaps a metaphor too far when he dons a bat costume on Halloween and ventures out to solve the crime. A thread of the story concerns the drunk driver who killed his parents when he was very young, revealing more about Gil and the world, and exploring the concept of closure. I recommend this book to those readers who wish to join Gil in his musings about nature, relationships and the human condition and I hope that is many people.
Dirt Creek: A Novel
by Hayley Scrivenor
Dirt Creek- atmospheric and engaging (3/7/2022)
This was an excellent read, made all the more extraordinary by it being a debut novel. The plot concerns the disappearance of a young school girl in a small country town in Australia and its impact on the people whose lives in some way intersect with hers. The reader knows what has become of the girl from the very beginning minus the motive, culprit or details about her demise. As the story unfolds with chapters told from a variety of points of view, including her friends, family members, a Greek chorus of unnamed children and the detective assigned to the case, we learn about life in a dying town where everyone thinks they know everyone else but the reader discovers there are secrets aplenty to be revealed. The atmosphere of claustrophobia made worse by the intense heat drains the energy of everyone involved and perhaps even the reader as we view the inhabitants struggling to survive without many options resigned to less of a life than they had imagined. The author strikes a perfect balance between moving the story along and creating a pervasively intense atmosphere which is as important as any character.
I have grown weary of what seems to be the compulsory use of different narrators, but this is one of the best books I have read recently able to integrate them in a successful way, after all , each person had a unique relationship with our missing girl and can offer a different perspective. Her depiction of the children who play significant roles seems spot on. The way they speak, the things that seem so major to them that they must be hidden and the impaired judgements seem so believable and add pathos and reality to the story. The twists are definitely of the I didn't see that one coming variety and the ending is quite satisfactory as a result. I greatly appreciated the postscripts of where the characters lives take them well into the future. I do hope that while this tale is told, the detective with a few worries of her own will reappear in a subsequent book and allow us to follow her path into the future as well.
The Family Chao: A Novel
by Lan Samantha Chang
A chilling family drama that will pull you in. (11/21/2021)
After framing the lives of the three brothers and their parents in the first 70 or so pages, the book becomes a mystery with a possible patricide, obsessive, unrequited and first loves and ultimately a murder trial. Standing on its own the book succeeds beautifully in delivering a harrowing but poignant view of Chinese immigrants' struggle to find their part of the American Dream, and the paths and missteps the next generation takes to find out how they fit into this new, culturally different world. The other characters provide differing glimpses of their own aspirations- some large and some quite simple and small. Each character has complexities and evoked different emotions in the reader and led to a fuller picture of what life was like for people who were seen as "other". I would recommend this book to reader's interested in family dynamics, immigrant experiences, small town life and issues of guilt and responsibility. Plenty for a book group to discuss.
A personal perspective is that while the book may have been inspired by Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov it does the author no favor to call it a retelling. Elements of characters and plots may be similar but the Russian novel written over 140 years ago and still read is primarily a meditation on man's relationship with God, morality and the psychological bases for actions. It sets a bar very high for a contemporary author.
Afterlife
by Julia Alvarez
Afterlife by Julia Alverez (2/12/2020)
Afterlife is a thoughtful, nuanced book whose title conveys the great changes in its characters' identities - only some associated with death and mourning and others with longing and an immigrant's sense of being "other". Antonia has relied on words and literature to guide her and her frequent quotes reflect her life before the loss of her husband and her retirement. Her journey away from being the stable rule follower to bold and illegal acts feels credible and powerful. The external challenges and crises which arise stimulate the need to move forward which she ultimately can do successfully. The writing is poignant at times and sharply political at others. I would very much recommend this book which used subtlety and emotional detail to tell a complex multifaceted and often sad story.
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