Review: 'A Golden Fury'

 ©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

A Golden Fury
By Samantha Cohoe
YA Fantasy
Wednesday Books

As the French Revolution looms, Theosebia Hope enjoys talking politics and ideas, philosophy and alchemy. Although only 17, she is the valued assistant of her mother, a renowned alchemist who has had some success. They are close to creating the famed Philosopher's Stone, which would grant limitless power.

But that work comes with a heavy price. Her mother descends into madness pursuing her craft. Thea is sent to her father in Oxford, a professor who does not know she exists. Although Dominic, her father's assistant is kind, she knows she is not wanted. Her only hope is to find Will, the boy who was studying alchemy with her mother, the boy her mother sent away.

Soon they are all at the mercy of another rich man, one who is owed a great debt by Will. All three young people feel compelled to take that last step, that of creating the Philosopher's Stone, even if it makes them insane. They each find themselves wondering if they can take the chance, if they can save other people at the cost of their own reason.

But this is not a YA romance. A Golden Fury is a story about power -- the fabled unlimited power of the stone created through alchemy, power that Thea's mother came close to creating before it drove her mad. There is another powerful thread running through the story -- that of Thea's place in the world. Women in the 18th century were not free to carve out their own future. The ideas of proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, are woven into the choices Thea must make. What power does Thea have? And if she has any, how does she use it? Who does she use it for?

Cohoe has crafted together many elements in a fast-paced novel that melds together fantasy, horror and historical fiction to tell the story of a gifted young woman who wants to live a full, complete life.

Review: 'Piranesi'

 ©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

Piranesi
By Susanna Clarke
Fantasy
Bloomsbury

The flooding waters are rising, and getting closer. A lone person scrambles into a safe niche among the marble statues filling a hall. The water recedes. And that lone person resumes his ongoing task of chronicling the world in which he lives.

That world is one of endless halls filled with marble statues, each one unique, and an ocean enclosed within the house that contains those halls. There are birds and no other humans, save one. The Other, who meets with our lone narrator twice a week, never stays long.

The lone person is called Piranesi by The Other. And in this new novel by Susanna Clarke, who brought the brilliant saga of Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell to life, Piranesi's world is both enchanting and strange. Piranesi is a careful observer and chronicler of his world. It's uncertain how he knows some things and how he came to be. There are 13 others, but they are the skeletal remains of people he never knew in life.

During the regular meetings with The Other, he urges Piranesi for specific kinds of information to aid his own search for some Great and Special Knowledge. Although Piranesi is willing to help out, he begins to question the thesis when new information presents itself, or himself. There may be a 16th, another person. The way that The Other regards this stranger recalls the overbearing, nearly cult-like leaders of Iris Murdoch's books. Soon there are vibes that recall Tartt's The Secret History.

Piranesi also has a deep philosophical reason for not wanting to pursue this search for knowledge. As he puts it, if the House where he lives is merely a riddle to be solved, then solving the riddle will leave the House as nothing more than scenery. The House, as he calls it, is literally his world. Every inch of it means more than scenery to him.

He also likes the idea of abandoning this specific search because it would free him to go wherever his discoveries and accumulation of data may lead. To pursue knowledge of its own sake, as one fact leads to another, is something that obviously inspires Piranesi. 

Indeed, one of the lovely aspects of reading this novel is seeing how Piranesi is fascinated by and in awe of his world. As the story progresses, this is something that does not fade and does not disappoint.

Without saying whether the mysteries set up in the story are solved, it is important to note that the novel holds up and does not disappoint. There is another grand idea that Clarke explores fearlessly, but bringing it up is too close to being a spoiler. But that grand idea is key to this remarkable storytelling. Reading Piranesi is as exciting a discovery as any of the great world-building novels of the past few decades, including not only Clarke's debut, but also The Shadow of the Wind and Erin Morgenstern's novels.

Review: 'The Queen of Tuesday'

 ©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

The Queen of Tuesday: A Lucille Ball Story
By Darin Strass
Literary Fiction
Random House

What if? That's the story of life.

What if I had done this? What if he had done that? What if someone knew this about her? What if no one knew? What if no one cared?

What if a man entering middle age, who wanted to be a writer but went into the family real estate business, had kissed Lucille Ball at a Coney Island party one evening? What if that led to another encounter? What if these things showed that man how his own life had become a series of What if? scenarios in which everything seems hollow, even though that man realizes his good fortune?

That's the story of Isidore Strauss. In Darin Strauss's new novel, The Queen of Tuesday, a character who may or may not be the author's grandfather may or may not have kissed the famous star before she became Lucy and everyone fell in love with her. If it happened, what might have happened next? What turns did his life take?

And what if Isidore, now an old man, had told his grandson about what may have happened? And that there is a chance that he may have written something that may yet be seen in the world? The novel goes meta with this part of the narrative, as the author breaks the fourth wall.

The other side of "What if?" in this novel is "Hold on". That's the nickname Lucille gives Isidore at that party on the beach, one held by Fred Trump. What if someone holds on to what she knows is dear, even if there is heartache? What if someone holds on and gives a second, third and fourth thought to the idea of flinging caution out?

Amidst all the yearning and desires for other things in life throughout The Queen of Tuesday, the sections centered on Lucille Ball are outstanding. Both the difficulties in dealing with an unfaithful husband and with a career that is on the brink of being a Hollywood has-been are clearly conveyed. The success of "I Love Lucy" is both something that no one imagined happening and something that leads to more "What if?" scenarios.

The breakthrough sitcom, which apparently is being shown somewhere in the world every minute, lends another "what if?" layer to the narrative. What if Lucille Ball had not been beloved as Lucy when HUAC came calling? Or would they have come calling at all had she not become famous as Lucy? What if Lucille was more like Lucy and Desi was like Ricky? How would their own marriage have been different? 

What if we viewed "I Love Lucy" as an extended playing out of Lucille not wanting to break into show business, like Lucy, but instead wanting to be close to her husband? What if we viewed Ricky Ricardo not as a bandleader, but as the man Desi turned out to be -- successful at running the business side even while being an unfaithful husband? Is Lucy's attempt to be on Ricky's stage nothing more than Lucille's attempt to have the TV show as a way to keep her marriage to Desi?

The Queen of Tuesday is the kind of book people could chat about with large glasses of a preferred beverage, wondering aloud various "what if?" ideas. 

Review: 'The Butterfly Lampshade'

©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

The Butterfly Lampshade
By Aimee Bender
Literary Fiction
Doubleday

 A young girl knows enough to lock herself into her bedroom at night when her mentally ill mother is having an episode. When her mother is hospitalized, the girl then lives with her aunt, uncle and newly born cousin as a 10-year-old. The now grown young woman seeks to solidify her position in the world through memory.

Aimee Bender's The Butterfly Lampshade is a quiet, calming book in which finding one's place in the world is possible because of love. Remembering how situations came to be makes the love more real, more tangible.

Three episodes in young Francie's life hold particular meaning for her, because they are occasions when things not real became so. A butterfly matching the ones on a lampshade in her babysitter's apartment appears floating in her water glass. A beetle from a drawing on a school worksheet appears in the backpack in which Francie stored the paper. Three roses matching the ones on a friend's curtain appear on the floor, and she takes them home.

There is no question the objects are real. The roses are seen by her friend, and her young cousin keeps one of them as a treasured object. Through the years, Francie's mother struggles with her illness but finds a quiet place to flourish in a group residence. Francie grows up with her loving aunt and uncle, and her adored cousin, who adores her right back. The family's quiet love is a bedrock to Francie's existence, which is most helpful when she doesn't always feel tethered to the world.

Now grown and ready to face her own questions about the three instances of objects becoming real, and what it means to her place in the world, Francie undertakes daily quiet sessions. In a tent that she and her cousin, Vicky, set up on her apartment balcony, Francie lets her mind go where it will, down any memory rabbit hole. 

It's a brilliant way for Bender to chronicle Francie's life growing up, going back and forth to incidents that held strong significance to her, and go focus on incidents more than once as her ability to remember deepens.

In addition to the larger narrative about love and being solidly in the world, the memories also let the reader in on why Francie, even as a grown woman living alone, still feels compelled to be locked in at night. It's something she felt was necessary even after moving in with her aunt and uncle. When the "why" is revealed, it fits in with the larger narrative of why Francie feels unhinged in the world.

The reader also learns why Francie settles into finding objects and reselling them online, sending them along their journey to become objects with new meaning to new owners.

Anyone who has read Bender's earlier work knows her remarkable talent at descriptive passages that feature stirring language and serve her story. That talent is on full display in The Butterfly Lampshade, as here:

We are all locked in rooms in different ways, and part of growing up is finding different kinds of keys, and meeting the people who will help free you.

May you find the people who are your keys.

Review: 'The Night Swim'

 ©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

The Night Swim
By Megan Goldin
Thriller
St. Martin's Press

A small North Carolina beach town is deeply divided about the rape trial of a star swimming athlete, accused by a local high school girl of a brutal attack. A true crime podcaster arrives to cover the trial, bringing her listeners daily updates from the courtroom. In the days before the trial begins, she is drawn to a 25-year-old case of another young woman who died there but who seems to have been forgotten.

The Night Swim is an intense thriller of both the current case and the old one. Podcaster and investigative reporter Rachel Krall discovered facts that freed a wrongly convicted man and, in her second season, solved a cold case murder. Her new season revolves around the case of Scott Blair, a potential Olympic swimmer visiting his parents during college break. He crashes a high school party thrown while parents were gone, gives the victim a ride, gets her pizza and takes her to the beach. The town, and the early evidence, are split between whether he raped her or whether she changed her mind after the fact. People in town who back Blair are quick to blame the victim.

Victim blaming is a big part of the cold case, as well. Hannah, the younger sister of the girl who died all those years ago, leaves notes for Rachel, begging for help. Her sister Jenny was called a drowning victim and a second-generation slut. But Hannah and their late mother insist she was killed. When Rachel begins digging into the case, immediate red flags pop up in basic autopsy protocol.

But the cold case cannot take all of Rachel's attention. She is able to interview the parents of both Blair and the girl he was with that night, as well as defense counsel. Both the high-priced criminal attorney and local district attorney trying the case have local ties, as do generations of the families of the two young people.

The two narratives of past and present cases are balanced so well, especially as the information revealed rachets up the storytelling pace. Issues surrounding rape are presented within the context of what happens to women. Goldin also enriches the novel with attitudes about the differences between prosecutors and defense attorneys, podcasting and reporting, and parenting through a crisis. But most of all, the focus is on what happened in these cases and how people remain affected, even years later.

The Night Swim is a strong work about crime and it affects those involved. For a thriller to be both entertaining and meaningful is the mark of a very good writer.

Review: 'Pew'

©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

Pew

By Catherine Lacey

Literary Fiction

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Imagine wandering without knowing anything about oneself, except that you exist. Where did you come from? Where you going anywhere? Are you even male, female, something else? How old are you? None of these are things that matter. What does matter is finding a place to rest, maybe even sleep.

Churches are good for that. 

And when the protagonist of Pew by Catherine Lacey finds a church in which to sleep, everyone in the strange little town in which it is located is oddly invested in knowing more. They name their newly found person Pew for being found sleeping on one. The family that takes Pew in constantly cajoles, entreats and begs Pew to reveal more. Every time one of them tries to find out more, they show their judgment even as they deny being judgmental. Just existing and resisting only by being practically non-responsive riles up doctors and church folk.

The church folk are the ones who control the small town. It's nearly that time of year, when the annual Forgiveness Festival is held. Emotions are ramping up. The mood is ominous, especially for something that is supposed to be healing. And only the white people take part; the Black side of town stays away. At the same time, the news is filled with people disappearing from a nearby town.

The novel begins with an epigraph of Ursula K Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas, and has overtones of other works, including Kafka, The Giver by Lois Shields and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. The plot and the philosophical questions blend seamlessly. It is tempting both to turn the pages as quickly as possible to see what is happening, and to stop and mull over the existential questions and noticings of a stripped down character that remains a complex being.

Who are we, as just ourselves? As humanity? What are we like? What are the things that make a difference? Are they physical? Mental? A part of our souls? In musings both profound and poetical, Pew and the people in this community open up myriad ways of looking at the world and ourselves. To do this with such a light touch is a remarkable accomplishment. Pew is a book worth reading more than once.

Review: 'When You See Me'

©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

When You See Me

By Lisa Gardner

Thriller

Dutton

Cross-over episodes don't always work but when they do, the results let each character shine in new ways. That's the case when D.D. Warren, Flora Dane and Kimberly Quincy team up in Lisa Gardner's When You See Me. 

Human remains are found in a remote woodsy area of northern Georgia. Quincy calls Warren and Dane in when it appears clear the remains are tied to the serial killer who Warren hunted and who Dane, his former prisoner, killed. The action rachets up as soon as the team gets on site, and more gravesites are found in the area. As team members take on different aspects of the investigation, they make discoveries about the case and about themselves.

Their voices are all those of strong women. But theirs are not the only ones. A young woman at the center of the investigation is mute, but her interior thoughts are at the core of this story of discovery and empowerment. She is an integral part of the story behind the story, and to the action itself. 

Gardner's fast-paced narrative encompasses a wide range, and none of the elements trip up any of the others. The forensic details, the interviews of local people, investigating a network of ATV trails, and the dark web all figure into the story. As the pacing builds to the crescendo, the elements fuse together for an unusual ending that absolutely fits.

When You See Me is entertaining and empowering. 

Review: 'Becoming Duchess Goldblatt'

Becoming Duchess Goldblatt

By Anonymous

Memoir

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

As the cruel people who hate for its own sake take up so much attention, it is a balm to see evidence that not everyone is like that, and that kind-hearted people are still here.

The woman behind the online persona of Duchess Goldblatt is such a kind-hearted person. In her new memoir, Becoming Duchess Goldblatt, the anonymous author recounts when her marriage fell apart, her world did as well. Although it was hard for her to not give up, she looked outward instead of inward, adopted a friend's drag queen name came up while talking with another friend about the possibility of lurking on social media, and ended up creating something of value to many people.

That she didn't do it on purpose makes the evolution of what has happened all the better.

Duchess Goldblatt is a famous and esteemed writer in her early 80s. Born in Texas, she now lives in Crooked Path, which is somewhere in New York state. Her portrait so closely resembles that of a painting from 1633, Portrait of an Elderly Lady by Frans Hals, that they might as well be the same. Her renowned work includes An Axe to Grind, Feasting on the Carcasses of My Enemies: A Love Story and Not If I Kill You First, showing there is spice as well as sugar in the persona.

That Duchess is a persona and not the author is a point that Anonymous makes explicit throughout the memoir, albeit an epiphany in the narrative. The fiction of the life of Duchess, her holidays, the ups and down of Crooked Path, the occasional visits to her daughter, Hacienda, who is in a comfortable Mexican prison for life for reasons not fully spelled out -- it could all be extracted from the Duchess Goldblatt Twitter feed and turned into a fictional narrative. Indeed, it could be quite the epic saga.

But that's not the complete Duchess Goldblatt story. The tweets are part whimsy, part surreal, part wisdom, and the ones quoted in the book fit well with what is happening in the author's ongoing journey. And then there are the admissions, to wit:

People often ask me how a fictional being made of spun sugar and justice can overcome life-threatening paper cuts. Simple: It's magic.

It's the wit and the kindness that have drawn people to the Duchess, as when she tells someone:

The world is broken, but you are not broken. Things may not be okay, but you're okay, and you will be. I promise.

As people began to follow the Twitter feed, they began chatting with each other as well, forming a community. They have sent things to the person behind Duchess as well as to Duchess herself, calling her Your Grace even though she is not a member of typical nobility. Some of her admirers send gifts; the author asks real-life friends to receive the goodies for a few months at a time. Best of all, the community shows the best in others. Like some of her famous friends, especially Lyle Lovett, Benjamin Dreyer and Celeste Ng. 

The memoir ends with the author in a much better place than when she created Duchess, ready and willing to go on in the real world and the virtual one. It's a tale well told.

©2020 Lynne Perednia

Review: 'Riot Baby'

Riot Baby

By Tochi Onyebuchi

Speculative Fiction

Tor.com

A short novel that builds its emotional force like a wave that swirls and soars and crashes, Riot Baby tells the story of a brother and sister in black America.

Tochi Onyebuchi's first novel for adults centers on Kev, born during the Rodney King riots, and his older sister, Ella. She has a Thing, a gift, a curse that puts the novel in the fantasy genre. But the Thing is used as a way to show the scope of how black people have been humiliated, hurt and killed in the last 30 years. 

As a child, Ella could see the future of the people she encounters. In time, she is able to astral project. She grows powerful enough that she can take her brother on journeys. When Kev goes to prison, it's a way for them to remain connected. When Kev is put in solitary, Ella can be there and she can take his spirit out of his cell.

His time there is brutal, and that it doesn't rob Kev of his soul is testimony how perhaps we are not all monsters inside, even though the system is in place to try to do that, one way or another:

The places that made money off you by charging you for tickets and scheduling court dates when they knew you couldn’t make it, then fining you for those missed dates if they don’t jail you first, then they say they’ll graciously set you up with a payment plan, then you get a day or two late one month and they put out a warrant, then when they do get you in jail, you gotta post $2,000 bond or some shit like that that they know you can’t pay, and that’s how it starts. While in jail, you miss your job interview, and when you finally get your day in court, they say you gotta change out of your jumpsuit, but you gotta put on the same funky clothes you spent however long getting arrested in and you gotta stand in that courtroom smelling like rotten poom-poom, handcuffed, and you gotta do all you can to even feel like a person still. If you got family, maybe your mama can borrow against her life insurance policy to post your bond.

It's a system meant to keep black people down.

Maybe they kill you in here. But maybe you make it out. Not out from behind bars, but out of wherever it is they try to put you when they put you behind bars.

Toward the end of the book, as Kev's life changes, this is made even more explicit. His life, Onyebuchi shows, does not belong to him regardless of his legal status. It's too real, too true to be dismissed as speculative fiction. 

Ella is angry because of her Thing, because of her mother's lifelong hurt, because of her brother's imprisonment. But she also is on a quest to see as much of the world and the way people are as possible. The sections in which she passes unseen through throngs of people is both a use of the gift that her author bestowed on her, and commentary on how black people are seen unless they are wanted for something.

"What might the opposite of injustice look like?"

Onyebuchi whirls up an epiphany of what might be at the end. There is the searing desire for a new beginning, and it is as painful as the scenes of new life that are depicted earlier in the story.

Onyebuchi has written several YA novels, and brings so many parts of his wide educational background to inform this novel. This is a man who has earned an undergrad degree from Yale, an MFA in screenwriting, a master's in economic law and a law degree from Columbia Law School. He is a strong advocate for others, being part of the reason social media discussed #PublishingPaidMe to reveal racial disparities in the book world.

Also, through June 24, there is a social media campaign to purchase at least two books by black authors. Whether you love to read literary fiction, YA fantasy, romance, mysteries or nonfiction, there are multitudes of volumes from which to choose.

Some of my favorites include Homegoing, The Turner House, The Water Dancer, everything by Colson Whitehead and Deacon King Kong.

Copyright Lynne Perednia 2020

Review: 'Deacon King Kong'

Deacon King Kong

By James McBride

Literary Fiction

Riverhead Books

The best kind of novel set in the past that shines a light on the era in which it is set also illuminates aspects of today.

That's the kind of novel Deacon King Kong by James McBride is.

The stage is set with the elderly deacon of Five Hands Church in a 1969 New York City housing project walking up to the local young drug dealer and shooting an old gun at him. The deacon, known around the neighborhood as Sportcoat, is usually drunk, has survived numerous physical accidents and is mourning the death of his wife two years ago. He also was baseball coach to the young drug dealer, Deems, when he was a kid.

But if it looks like this is going to be a hardened, dire novel, McBride soon sets the reader right. Sportcoat misses, hitting Deems's ear, and the youngster chokes on the sandwich he has been eating. Sportcoat jumps on top of Deems, who is on all fours, and attempts the Heimlich maneuver. It does not look like an act of mercy to the gossiping neighborhood.

Many of the characters are looking for something. Sportcoat is always on the look-out for more of the homemade hootch, known as King Kong. He's also trying to find the Christmas fund box that his late wife hid somewhere, because the rest of the congregation would like their money. Deems is looking to expand his business. His supplier is looking to do the same. His supplier's hit man, Earl, is looking to rid the neighborhood of some other characters.

Next to the projects is an old boxcar that is the office of the last of the Italian, um, businessmen in the neighborhood. Tommy Elefante, known as The Elephant, is the only son of a made man who spent years in prison. The Elephant does small-scale jobs but stays away from drugs, which are taking over the mob's business model. An elderly Irish mobster visits one day with an odd story of something that he and the Elephant's father hid decades ago, and which will make their fortunes. Potts Mullan is an old-time square cop with only months to go before retirement, so he's looking to stay out of trouble.

Some of the characters don't know it, but they also are looking to fall in love. And those stories are among the sweetest tales that McBride has to tell.

McBride's story gains depth when the characters level with each other about the travails of living while black, whether it's a hardscrabble life they left behind in the South or the unkind streets of New York. Because the reader has come to know and care about these characters, when they turn serious their words carry all the more weight. And so do the author's words:

Sister Gee looked at the people staring at her ... She'd known most of them her whole life. They stared at her with that look that projects look: the sadness, the suspicion, the weariness, the knowledge that came from living a special misery in a world of misery. Four of their members were down ... And there would be more. The drugs, big drugs, heroin, were here. Nothing could stop it. ... Life in the Cause would lurch forward as it always did. You worked, slaved, fought off rats, the mice, the roaches, the ants, the Housing Authority, the cops, the muggers, and now the drug dealers. You lived a life of disappointment and suffering, of too-hot summers and too-cold winters, surviving in apartments with crummy stoves that didn't work and windows that didn't open and toilets that didn't flush and lead paint that flecked off the walls and poisoned your children, living in awful, dreary apartments built to house Italians who came to America to work the docks, which had emptied of boats, ships, tankers, dreams, money and opportunity the moment the colored and the Latinos arrived. And still New York blamed you for all its problems. ... 

But then, she thought, every once in a while there's a glimmer of hope.

That McBride makes that glimmer of hope work in such a city, in such a time, brings a little glimmer to the current darkness as well. This is a novel to enjoy and treasure.

Copyright Lynne Perednia 2020

Review: Rules for Visiting

Rules for Visiting
By Jessica F. Kane
Literary fiction
May 2019
Penguin Press
ISBN: 978-0525559221

Once again, the truth that a book finds you just when you need it was shown to me when I read Jessica F. Kane's Rules for Visiting. A story of friendship, family and reaching out, plus tree lore, what a lovely gift.

May is a 40-year-old who has been content in her job, working on a grounds crew at a university. Not being married and living in her childhood home, while her father lives in a self-contained apartment downstairs, has been the way she gets through her days.

Midway through my fortieth year, I reached a point where the balance of the past and all it contained seemed to outweigh the future, my mind so full of things said and not said, done and undone, I no longer understood how to move forward.

It is not an accident that she works with plants. The putting down of roots is central to this novel, and to this character.

But when I moved back to Anneville, something changed. Suddenly I wanted a whole garden. Years later it was pointed out to me that guardian and garden share a root meaning “safety, enclosure.”

There is something about gardening that May doesn't yet know that she knows. But she realizes it later on:

Why do I like gardening? Because I worry I’ve inherited a certain hopelessness, a potentially fatal lack of interest, that I’m diseased with reserve. Making a garden runs counter to all that. You can’t garden without thinking about the future.

An unexpected award of a month off at work, as a reward, at first throws May. But as someone who loves to investigate the roots of words as much as she understands and cares the roots of plants, May decides to do the unexpected. She will spend time with her far-flung friends, if they will have her. 

Before the odyssey begins, Kane is an assured enough storyteller that we have a few short, yet meandering-seeming, chapters on May's life. As with all assured storytellers, there are good reasons for letting us know what we do. This format also serves the purpose of easing into Kane's calm narrative style. There is the sense throughout the book that our comfort matters.

This is an interesting contrast to the way May feels. She isn't quite prickly, but she has spent so much time by herself that she doesn't want to impose on others. She is not sure how people act around each other. How did the neighbors make friends so easily? How do people get along with each other?

Love stands apart; love lets you come to it. This isn’t wrong, exactly, but I wanted to learn how to stand closer.

This is what leads to her decision to travel to see her friends. After all:

Consider the word visit. It’s from the Old French visiter, which meant “to inspect, examine, or afflict.” You can visit a neighbor or a friend, but so can plagues and pestilence.

What a wonderful idea to explore in these days of staying apart so that we can support a common goal.

The first friend May visits is a super-busy mother who lives on social media and assuredly an acolyte of Martha Stewart and Joanna Gaines. She is stressed and the visit is slightly strained. She remains good-hearted, but there is not the connection that May seeks.

The next friend is even more distant, and the visit is rather short.

The third friend has a lot of adjustments to her own life going on, but it's obvious she and May want to remain friends even if they don't have the luxury of friendship without time constraints. That was something May sought in deciding to make her pilgrimage, thinking of the visits to country estates that Jane Austen characters make, the friends who stay for a fortnight. Indeed, the hashtag #fortnightfriend arises out of a local story about May's reward that embarasses her, and which she does not fall into taking up.

The fourth friend, living in London, brings it all together. This portion of the book was balm and came at a time when May is coming to better understand the wonderful value in visiting old friends, but also how soothing it can be to know that you care about those around you, and that they care for you.

It's not just people that are around us. Kane also writes with great admiration for the trees:

It seems the trees’ plight is to be always underappreciated by humans while working the hardest of any plant on earth for them. We cut them down, we poison them, we introduce disease and destructive pests. But we also plant them when someone is born, we plant them when someone dies. We want them to measure and commemorate our lives, even as the way we live hurts them.

©2020 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews and reprinted by permission

Review: 'The Night Watchman'

The Night Watchman
By Louise Erdrich
Literary Fiction
March 2020
Harper
ISBN: 978-0062671189

Capturing in words someone important to us, memorializing acts, thoughts and feelings, keeping alive that which inspires us about the past and the present -- all of these ideas are essential parts of why people tell stories. Louise Erdrich demonstrates all of these in her new novel, The Night Watchman. It is both a testament to her grandfather, who inspired the night watchman in the story, and a clear call that what her grandfather fought for is something that needs to be fought for today.

Aunishenaubay Patrick Gorneau, Erdrich's grandfather and chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Advisory Committee during the 1950s, is the inspiration for Thomas Wazhushk. He, too, is a tribal chairman and he, too, works as a night watchman at a jewel bearing plant that has created work for many tribal members. It is a factory where jewel bearings are created for watches, and required close eye work and delicate hands.

In between making his rounds, Thomas writes letters and deconstructs the meaning of a congressional bill to terminate his tribe. It will mean everyone will be removed from their homes, the U.S. government will reclaim the land, there will be no tribal services. The tribe will cease to exist, even though the people will be cast adrift.

In between episodes that recount the battle to take on the federal government, the daily lives of several of Thomas's relatives are chronicled. Whether it's Patrice, formerly known as Pixie, searching in the big city for her lost sister, or the white math teacher and boxing coach who clearly adores her, whether it's Thomas's elderly father Bibbon remembering stories from his youth or Wood Mountain training as a boxer and coming into his own as a man, these stories have depth, breadth and a lot of heart.

Even the characters who have made errors or suffered tragedies are good to know and to have a chance to care about. Thomas's childhood friend, Roderick, who has become a ghost, still has discoveries to make. Patrice's co-workers Valentine and Doris make discoveries about themselves while wondering about how well to get to know boys. In an expansion of why a Mormon senator pushed for tribal termination, two young Mormon missionaries have a lot to learn about what they have been taught, including how they were taught to think of Indians and their religion. The senator in the novel, Arthur V. Watkins, is real and his legacy includes both terminating tribes and standing up to Joseph McCarthy.

Any of these stories could have become a full-length novel by themselves. That they are woven together to tell why the termination battle was, and is, so important makes this book even more heartfelt. Or, as Thomas thinks to himself while spending time with his aged father:

It seemed to Thomas, as they sat in the sinking radiancer, shucking bits of shell from the meats, dropping the nuts into a dishpan, that he should hold on this.

Sharing the little that people have with each other, letting go of grudges, marveling at visitations of owls and other creatures, the joy of observing a leaf or creek or sleeping bear in varying seasons -- these are the heart of The Night Watchman. And sharing these stories shows why the fight against the termination of one's tribe is a fight to retain one's deepest sense of self. It is a fight against those who invaded and took the land, who would force Indians to assimilate and forget everything about themselves. It is a fight against breaking agreements, treaties, that were signed to last "as long as the grass grows and the rivers flow".

It is a fight that continues to this day. Just last month, the Trump administration rescinded the tribal status of the Mashpee Wampanoag people. The tribe planned to build a casino on its reservation land that would compete with casinos with ties to Trump, who famously has fought against tribal casinos since the 1990s.

The layers to the title of the novel show how carefully Erdrich built her book. Thomas watches over his people even as he watches over the factory, which helps manufacture watches and gives his people jobs that they don't have to go to the big city to do. They can stay at home, where their ancestors can watch over them, and where they can watch over the land. Or, as Wood Mountain describes it:

"I feel they're with me, those way-back people. I never talk about it. But they're all around us. I could never leave this place."

Thomas is named Wazhushkag, the muskrat. As Erdrich notes:

Although the wazhushkag were numerous and ordinary, they were also crucial. In the beginning, after the great flood, it was a muskrat who had managed to remake the earth. In that way, as it turned out, Thomas was perfectly named.

The Night Watchman also represents how wise it can be to listen to that inner voice. In an afterward, Erdrich confesses that she couldn't get rolling on any new writing projects and feared she would never write again. "Hours later I was jolted awake by some mysterious flow of information: go back to the beginning." And so she read her grandfather's letters and so we all have this beautiful novel that pays tribute to him, to the way he and his people lived every day and to the way they rose to the occasion when life came at them full speed.

©2019 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Conversations with Mark Frost'

Conversations with Mark Frost: Twin Peaks, Hill Street Blues, and the Education of a Writer
By David Bushman
Interviews
March 2020
Fayetteville Mafia Press
ISBN: 978-1949024104

Compassion for human frailties, wisdom to respect souls curious about how the universe works in ways great and small, and a talent for creating narrative that brings clarity to visions are among the things that Mark Frost can do, and do well. In wide-ranging interviews conducted by David Bushman, Frost talks about ideas, visions and getting the work done in the book Conversations with Mark Frost.

Frost is the co-creator, with David Lynch, of Twin Peaks. And his contribution to that landmark series is an important part of this book. But Frost has been involved with other projects, and is currently working on his writing. Those also are covered in this comprehensive compilation of several interviews.

The book is arranged chronologically, starting with Frost's childhood as the son of a theater artistic director and actor -- Warren Frost, who played Dr. Hayward on Twin Peaks. In many ways, Frost's life is tied to television. He was born in New York City while his father was working on the Philco Playhouse. As a child, he appeared on an early episode of Art Linklatter's show interviewing kids. Frost's reaction to the business of being coached and knowing the difference between fake and real, even then, is something seen throughout his career.

Readers mainly interested in the television aspect of Mark Frost's career will be delighted with the conversations about two of the seminal shows he worked on, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and Hill Street Blues. Of his time working on the lightning crew and other production tasks for Fred Rogers, Frost notes:

Fred was a singular man. He’s the kind of figure or role model we need to look to at times like this — somebody with profound decency, honesty and strength of character, his kindness to people. 

While working on the PBS show, Frost met Charles Haid and Steven Bochco, who became important in the next phase of his career. In addition to talking about the studio writing process, Frost describes some of the characters he wrote about most and the development of deepening characterization while writing within the strictures of a network television show. This section provides a good deconstruction of what we watch, and an introduction as to how Frost could work within those confines while laying down a narrative to David Lynch's visions in Twin Peaks.

At Hill Street, Frost wrote often for some of the most memorable characters -- Hill and Renko, Sgt. Esterhaus and his roll call speeches, Lt. Henry Goldblume, and Howard Hunter.

But he didn't stay. Around this time, Frost attended a Hollywood party with big names (one of his roommates was Adam Arkin, son of Alan Arkin). A British film director spoke with him at the party about how they had all sold themselves, and their prices were known to those running the studios. It was an avenue Frost did not want to go down.

As Frost finished his television writing apprenticeship, he realized that one of the strongest aspects to his storytelling is that nothing is as it seems. So, the fit with Lynch to realize the vision that became Twin Peaks makes creative sense.

This part of the book in one in which Frost's talent for collaboration shines. As what basically amounted to being the showrunner, the first and final run-throughs of each week's script went through him, including rewrites he did but did not receive credit for. As he says, in the business, it's the person who writes the first draft who gets the credit. Frost also makes sure the work done by producer and writer Harley Peyton is noted. And, under his showrunning, the various directors who worked on the first two seasons also were able to bring their strengths to the work. That doesn't always happen in episodic television, which can rely on a certain style of storytelling for a series.

In addiiton to his ability to retrofit Lynchian visions into an overall mythology and story arc, Frost notes the influence that Jung has had on his work:

Jung was willing to throw away categorizations and open himself up to the powerful experience of “I have no control about where this is going so I’m going to let it lead me to what I want to know” — not through prescribed procedure, but through open-ended exploration.

That Frost is able to write this way proved beneficial myriad times during the collaboration with Lynch, as he discusses here:

[Bushman:] He was making his contributions on set as he was directing?
[Frost:] He would do that, absolutely. Like the white horse that appeared. That’s a good example of an image Lynch came up with. He didn’t know what it meant, but it was powerful. Then it fell to me to ask, “How do we incorporate this—in a larger, Jungian sense—into what it means in the narrative without becoming too literal?” I wanted things to have a grounding in logic that made sense, even if it’s dream logic. When I talk about finding connective tissue within the mythology, that’s what I’m referring to.

The section of the book in which Frost discusses Joseph Campbell, the hero's journey and Agent Cooper is very well done, and bringing up the concept of the law of unintended consequences shows the complexity of the storytelling within the world of Twin Peaks.

The book also covers the books Frost has written, plus projects that didn't succeed as well as they might have, and some that didn't get off the ground. Those stories are as compelling as the ones about the famous projects, and their inclusion makes this book even more worthwhile. Bushman does a terrific job of providing background and context for this as well as every other chapter in the book.

Conversations with Mark Frost covers a wide range of ideas and experience regarding writing in television, movies, the theater, fiction and nonfiction. The conversations themselves show a generous spirit who can create independently or in collaboration.

The book also includes detailed conversations about Frost's philosophy, including his research into the 19th century religion Theosophy, and the work of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung. Although much of Frost's work centers on the idea that not everything is what is seems, it also is grounded in one of his final statements in this book:

Believe in the good.

©2020 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Dig' by A.S. King

Dig
By A.S. King
YA Contemporary Fiction
March 2019
Dutton Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 978-1101994917

Family secrets and the sins of the preceding generation, unrolled as lives unravel, are the basis of Dig by A.S. King. The novel focuses on the youngest generation to face the repercussions of hatred, both bigotry and self-loathing. It is a fascinating, layered, enthralling tale.

The narrative rotates among a group of teens who turn out to be cousins. One boy finds that carrying a snow shovel everywhere gives him a sense of comfort. One girl, called Can I Help You, makes a killing selling drugs through a fast-food drive-through window. Another girl is a self-named Freak who flickers in and out of places. Loretta trains fleas. Malcolm's father is dying of cancer, and they both have found a measure of solace on the beaches of Jamaica.

But the story opens with Marla and Gottfried, a couple who have been married forever. She's amping up the pressure to get the annual family Easter dinner just right, including hiding plastic eggs for grown grandchildren. He's alternating between bemused irritation at her ritual search for perfection, and sorrow for a destroyed nest of robin's eggs.

They are the grandparents of the teens, and those baby birds who never came to be turn out to be a strong metaphor for the spirits of Marla and Gottfried's progeny.

These are the damaged children of damaged parents who were damaged by their own parents. The sins of the father, or in this case, the grandparents, are shown by the way they have affected the children.

One thing that appears in the stories of most characters is the potato. It is a source of both strength and sorrow to every character. It also serves a purpose not only in the actual circumstances of the characters, but in the characterization of the family:

A potato plant. Leaves up top, potatoes down below. All those stems and roots joining the two -- like veins and arteries. His father always said that families were the same. Everything was connected, everything worked in synchronicity.

Gottfried got to see the sun and he got to flower. His kids were harvested from shallow soil. His grandkids, accidental plants for the most part, would eventually mature and one day they, too, would rise from the dirt, their brittle roots still connected.

For King to be able to wrangle such a large cast, with the characters remaining clear, and to bring that cast together, is a grand achievement. How the darkness has entwined each character, and what the future holds for them, are as worthy of praise as any novel written for adults. It's easy to see why Dig was honored as the Printz winner for YA fiction by the American Library Association's Young Adult Library Services Association this year.

The idea of family and how it shapes and supports individuals is portrayed strongly. The sin that stains every family member is stated plainly, but how and why it gained such a stronghold is the novel's biggest weakness. That this sin would stain a family, affecting generations, is uncontested, however.

For the younger members of the family to reach understandings about the important, not just of the sin, but how the stain affects them and whether it should overwhelm them, is conveyed very well. So is a tragedy hanging over the youngest generation:

Taking things for granted is the privilege of existence. The living don't even think about it, same as boys aren't scared to go missing at the mall. Sam as her white cousins can drive over the speed limit across state lines to New Jersey.

©2020 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews and posted with permission

Review: 'Beating About the Bush'

Beating About the Bush
By M.C. Beaton
Mystery
December 2019
Minotaur Books
ISBN: 978-1250157720

In December 1992, a prickly, fierce woman sold her successful public relations firm and went to the Cotswolds to live a quiet life that never seemed to materialize. That was Quiche of Death, the first Agatha Raisin mystery.

In Beating About the Bush, Agatha's 30th outing, the late M.C. Beaton portrays a character who realizes time has carried on but who usually changes course rather than face hard truths about herself. It's her way of not giving in or giving up. Over the years, there are times it has made her selfish, shallow and irritating. But she has never been boring.

Both traits of not giving in or giving up come in handy during the course of the mystery in this book. Agatha and her private detective agency have been hired to look into a possible case of industrial espionage. But the company, which manufactures batteries, is an odd place. There doesn't seem to be much staff. There doesn't seem to be much actual manufacturing going on. There are unqualified people all over the place.

While leaving the facility, Agatha and her assistant Toni think they see a dead body when a leg is spotted, wearing a brogue like the one the company's receptionist wears. It's a false leg, and the police are not amused. It's pretty obvious this is part of a set-up to attack Agatha's credibility. And that such a set-up is just the kind of attack she will take head on.

Of course, a murder does occur. The purported killer is a cantankerous mule that Agatha previously encountered, and which takes a liking to her. On top of investigating the murder, Agatha inspires a national campaign to save the mule. Things go exactly as those who have read Agatha's books before imagine.

Apparently there will be one more Agatha Raisin book, with Hot to Trot due to be released next fall. But if this was the last book in the series, it would end at an interesting place for Agatha. There are some things she has come to terms with, something that rarely occurs. That the book ends with her in a good spot was a treat to see.


©2020 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'The Watergate Girl'

The Watergate Girl: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President
By Jill Wine-Banks
Memoir
February 2020
Henry Holt and Co.
ISBN: 978-1250244321

A young prosecutor in 1973 prepares for the most important questions she has ever presented in court. The witness is angry at being forced to testify. But her information is essential to the case, to try to make sense of what happened.

It's Rose Mary Woods, Richard Nixon's secretary, on the stand to testify about the infamous 18 1/2-minute gap in a crucial tape recorded by Nixon. Getting ready to question her is Jill Wine-Banks. Woods is even more unhappy when she is caught lying as she demonstrates what supposedly happened to create the gap in the tape.

As Wine-Banks recounts in her memoir, The Watergate Girl, the crowd in the courtroom was stunned. Even more stunning to her, when she proposed that Woods demonstrate how she said the gap was created in her office, because what she said did not happen in the courtroom demonstration, attorneys for Woods and Nixon did not object.

Wine-Banks was one of three trial lawyers, and the only woman, on the Watergate special prosecutor task force for obstruction of justice and cover-ups.

As she recounts how she got to this moment, and how complex her feelings were about dealing with Woods, Wine-Banks also describes what life was like for a professional woman in the early 1970s. She shows how being hard-working and smart could pay off, but also the drawbacks to outshining any man who couldn't handle it. Unfortunately, one of those men was her first husband.

Whether it's personal or professional, Wine-Banks demonstrates that her first love was writing. She went to law school to gain gravitas in what she would be considered as eligible in covering in journalism. When she stayed with the law, journalism lost a powerful voice. But her background does show that she is a natural for what she is doing now as a television commentator.

Although her memoir does touch on these other things, and she gives a quick rundown of what she has been doing in the corporate world since the Watergate era, it is that period that is the focus of this book. The larger-than-life characters in the prosecutor's office and the political world, the suspense in not knowing what was going to happen next -- especially after the Saturday Night Massacre -- the relentless work schedule and the pressure to make sure all i's were dotted and t's crossed are all recounted vividly.

Wine-Banks has written a timely memoir that brings back the Watergate days for those who lived through that time, and provides an elegant primer to those who don't know what all the fuss was about.

©2019 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'The Starless Sea'

The Starless Sea
By Erin Morgenstern
Fantasy
November 2019
Doubleday
ISBN: 978-0385541213

A story about stories, about lovers meeting in different guises and different settings, trying to destroy fate to keep it from away from time, a paradise for every book lover and a sea without stars in the depths of the world -- they are all in Erin Morgenstern's second novel, The Starless Sea.

It has been eight years since Morgenstern's first novel, The Night Circus, was published to acclaim. The new novel is another gift in world-building in which everything is created with grace, beauty and magic. Love of story and of the arts of creating and reading are sprinkled on every page:

Passionate love stories were manipulated into the vacancies between raindrops and vanished with the end of the storm. Tragedies intricately poured from bottles of wine and sipped thoughtfully with melancholy and fine cheeses. Fairy tales shaped from sand and seashells on shorelines slowly swept away by softly lapping waves.

This is what is contained in the world created by Morgenstern that exists in another dimension, another time, or in endless caverns under the ground of the world. There are those who look after the world, who have suffered much for the honor of doing so, and those who are granted access to that world whether by chance or design, who fall through doors or stumble upon them.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins stumbled upon this world. He nearly found it as a child when he came upon a beautiful door that didn't fit its surroundings. But he didn't turn the doorknob and walk through. Now a graduate student, he comes across an uncatalogued book, titled Sweet Sorrows, and that incident is in the book.

He is soon drawn into an adventure by people who seem to know him, although they are strangers to him. Doors that lead to this world of books and stories are involved. So is a storytelling pirate, a woman who fell into that world as a child, a dollhouse and the symbols of a sword, bees and keys. And an owl king. And lovers that search for each other over the years, as Time and Fate search for each other after they are separated forcibly. Tropes and stories circle back to older stories. Or perhaps later stories not yet told, but foreshadowed.

Because in the midst of the derring-do adventures, it is stories, how they are told and what they mean to those who hear or read them that are the heart of The Starless Sea.

Early on, in a gathering of students, the importance of story (in both written and gaming versions) is savored:

"Isn't that what anyone wants, though?" the girl with the cat-eye glasses asks in response. "To be able to make your own choices and decisions but to have it be part of a story? You want that narrative there to trust in, even if you want to maintain your own free will." "You want to decide where to go and what to do and which door to open but you still want to win the game," ponytail guy adds. "Even if winning the game is just ending the story." "Especially if a game allows for multiple possible endings" Zachary says, touching on the subject of a paper he'd written two years previously. "Wanting to co-write the story, not dictate it yourself, so it's collaborative."

And, later:

"Everyone is part of a story, what they want is to be part of something worth recording."

It's the same with stars, according to one tale within this tale about a man who sells stars:

"Everyone wants the stars. Everyone wishes to grasp that which exists out of reach. To hold the extraordinary in their hands and keep the remarkable in their pockets."

Also, when likening a story to an egg:

"You want to be in the story, not observing it from the outside. You want to be under its shell. The only way to do that is to break it. But if it breaks, it is gone."

To have one's life matter, to be cherished, to be known by someone else -- whether reader or lover or both -- these are the things that matter in The Starless Sea.

This novel is a faerie-blessed mythical tale of spun magic. But it also is a serious meditation on how a person matters to oneself and to at least one other person who learns of that person.

This is the stuff of "only connect" and Joan Didion's admonition for us to tell ourselves stories in order to live.

©2020 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Just Watch Me'

Just Watch Me
By Jeff Lindsay
Thriller
December 2019
Dutton
ISBN: 978-1524743949

An impossible heist -- a huge statue anchored in place -- is pulled off with ease as Jeff Lindsay introduces his new protagonist, master thief Riley Wolfe. Nothing is impossible to Riley. The more out-of-reach something appears to be, the more determined he is to grab it. But after a success like this, how can he possibly top it?

Hmmm, perhaps an exhibition of Iranian crown jewels would be fitting. Guarded by an elite company of former U.S. Army Rangers and the Iranian Guard? Plus a new alarm system? It's impossible. So, Wolfe decides it's perfect.

The heist aspect of Lindsay's novel is the best part. There is a blend of bravado, research, misdirecting the marks of the heist and lots of disguises to entertain.

Wolfe also has a backstory. This isn't his real name. But he is being hunted by a dedicated FBI agent who has come close to finding him before. An agent who is determined to hunt him down this time, starting with Wolfe's real story. The real story is tied to Wolfe's targeting of the richest of the rich, but he's no Robin Hood.

The drawback to Wolfe is that he is utterly without empathy. He has no concept that his actions will hurt others. Why should that be a problem for him? Even the disdain his actions cause to the person who is closest to him, an artist who is brilliant a copying any artwork, is nearly meaningless to him. Wolfe can't figure out why she won't go to bed with him after what he does. His reaction? Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

This aspect to the novel is both a strength in Lindsay's writing and a weakness in the concept of the lead character and further books in the series. The pain that Wolfe causes is well-written. It has an impact. That it has an impact on other characters who know what happened is even stronger storytelling.

But where to go next? Wolfe is incapable of feeling, so he isn't about to grow and change. Lindsay has a challenge similar to that of his creation. How to top himself? What to do next?


©2020 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews, and reprinted with permission