Category Archives: Books

by Hara Person | August 9, 2015 · 12:21 pm

Some Good Books, Summer 2015 Edition

It’s been a great summer of books so far. Here is a roundup of six of my most recent reading adventures. With this edition of Some Good Books, I’m introducing a new feature in my book reviews – a rating system. I don’t want to get too competitive with this. I don’t want to hurt any writer’s feelings (I know how it feels!). And most of all, the books that I review are – with perhaps a rare exception – all good books and all worth reading. So I’m going to use a rating system of three, as follows:

© – Good Book, but I wanted it to be even better

©© – Great Book, deeply satisfying

©©© – Amazing Book, dazzling, blew me away

I suspect that most books will be in the ©© – Great Book category, and that only a rare book will be ©©© – Amazing Book, but we will see.

Early Warning, by Jane Smiley ©©

This second book in Smiley’s trilogy about an American family, following Some Luck, did not disappoint. In fact it was, once again, a distinct pleasure. Like the first book in this series, each chapter is another year in the life of the Langdon family, seen through the experience of one of the extended family members. This volume begins in 1953 with the family now far-flung across the country and only a small handful still left in and around the family farm in Iowa. What was once a nucleus of a family working together to eke out an existence on the land is now a loose collection of related but diverse groups creating their own narratives, including the next generations of the family. Their encounters with the events of the post-war years spin out in a myriad of ways, and yet there are still threads that connect them deeply to each other, often in surprising cross-generational ways. As in Some Luck, Smiley’s writing can at times seem deceptively prosaic, but the powerful beauty of this family tale shines through as the characters move through their encounters with love, loss, deception, desire, vulnerability, and all of that which makes us who we are in a constellation of others.

Mislaid, by Nell Zink ©

I loved the premise of this book, perhaps even more than the book itself. The title is indeed clever. But where it may disappoint (more on that later), it is still worth a read. The plot is a challenge to the easy binaries that make up our collective narrative. Identity and self-representation, sexuality and race, are all thrown into the mix and stirred together into a murky stew. As an adolescent, Peggy aspires to be a man and believes herself to be a thespian, later corrected to lesbian. So she goes to an all-women’s college in rural Virginia, complete with a deeply metaphoric swampy lake of hidden dread. There she meets an instructor, a louche, penniless gay poet from a local wealthy family. They jump into a sexual relationship, get married, and have two children, a son and a daughter. Because what else would one expect from a lesbian college student and her gay professor (get it, Mislaid??)? Jumping ahead a bit, she leaves him and takes just the daughter with her. The daughter is a blond, wan little girl, but somehow Peggy manages to convince everyone that they are black, so that she can successfully hide their real identities and not get found by her husband. The characters are rich and complex, but without totally spoiling things, I’ll just say that the story gets too easily gift-wrapped up with an unbelievably redemptive happy-ever-after conclusion in which everyone gets let off the hook. Still, definitely lots here to discuss and dissect.

The Sunken Cathedral, by Kate Walbert ©
The main character in this novel is anxiety, of the particular New York City kind. The many human beings who inhabit this novel are secondary to the free-floating anxiety that runs through the pages of this book. Anxiety about extreme weather, about a changing city and its changing neighborhoods, about the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots, about growing old and isolated in the city, about finding a way to have a meaningful life in the middle of urban anonymity – all these kinds of anxiety run through this tale. And yes, it made of an anxious reading experience. I wanted more – I wanted the characters to rise up out of the anxiety – but they did not. And yet the idea of a mighty city being at the mercy of forces beyond its control, and thereby being reshaped by forces both within (economics and changing demographics) and without (flooding as a result of climate change) are powerful metaphors for aging. The two main characters, Marie and Simone, are French immigrants who survived the war to come to the United States as young women. Close friends who have both now outlived their husbands and launched their children off into the world, they decide to take a painting class. The others who people this book are their neighbors, their children, and those they meet in the painting class. As New York submits to excess water it cannot control, the lives of these two stalwart survivors too are battered by forces outside of their control.

A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson ©©

This book came highly recommended by someone whose taste in books I respect, and so I dove in. But I admit that I was surprised to like it as much as I did. This story tells the tale of the 20^th century through the character of Teddy, first a beloved young boy in England, an aspiring poet, then a pilot in the war, and later as a husband, father, and grandfather. Surprise is indeed a major element in this tale, as Teddy’s life continues to unfold in unexpected ways. Surviving the war, when so many British pilots did not, is one of the main elements that makes Teddy who he is. Having accepted the idea that he might never have a future, he has to figure out how to live in that future. Again and again, he encounters situations he never expected to have to face, and manages to find a way through. There is nothing remarkable about Teddy, yet his kindness and compassion make him a character worth caring about. And then Atkinson plays with us, taking away what she has just given us readers, and poses the very writerly question: what if? What if indeed. That is the question that the writer wrestles with in the privacy of his or her own head, the very core of writing fiction. Writers do not generally expose this question to the reader. But Atkinson puts the question right out there and asks us to wonder along with her: What if…

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson ©©

This novel came before A God in Ruins, which was written as a companion to it. But I read them the other way around, and so my reading of this one is informed by having read them in this order. The characters in Life After Life are much the same as in A God in Ruins, though with different focus. The novel centers around Ursula, Teddy’s older sister. Teddy himself appears at certain moments, as do other members of their family. But Ursula is the main attraction. Like A God in Ruins, this novel is a tale of the 20^th century told through the story of one person, in this case Ursula. Born in 1910 on a snowy night when the doctor can’t through to the house, she is miraculously saved. Or is she? In fact, she dies before she can draw her first breath. Or does she? Throughout her life, Ursula dies, over and over and over, coming to various experiences and ends, or not. Through the life, or lack thereof, of Ursula, Atkinson explores the ideas of chance and destiny, of the impact that one person has on the world and those around him or her, and the question of what can happen if just the slightest change is made in one’s routine. If “a” happens, does it necessarily lead to a life of “b”? But if one can avoid “a”, then can one avoid “b”? One small act can lead to life of utter misery, or even death, while a different and equally banal act can lead to life of joy. It is the eternal question of the road not taken, and an exploration of how one small choice can cause a life to cascade into a completely different future. Though this kind of device could become kitschy or even annoying in some hands, Atkinson manages it masterfully, and creates a captivating reading experience in which it’s hard to put the book down.

The City of Devi, by Manil Suri ©©©

Looking for a Bollywoodesque post-apocalyptic novel set in India complete with Hindu gods and goddesses as well as superheroes (and if you’re not, why aren’t you?!)? Look no further. Just want a great, absorbing book with compelling characters and an unusual plot? This won’t disappoint. This volume, the third in Suri’s trilogy based on Hindu deities, manages to combine both absurdly, almost comically, exaggerated and deeply universal human elements. Told from the point of view of two very different but (as it turns out) related characters, this moving tale unfolds after havoc has been wrecked on the civilized world. A 9/11-like event has occurred on an international scale, creating worldwide instability. Unfettered capitalism, power grabs, religious-based and political-based terrorism, and the undoing of the technological infrastructure have combined to create a desperate situation in which two strangers, Sarita and Jaz, both set out to search for their missing loved one, becoming entangled along the way. Beyond its over-the-top backdrop and its frenetic pace, at its core this is a story of love, survival, and the universal need to create connections.

Coming Up…

Looking forward, the Man Booker Longlist was recently announced. My next edition of book reviews will focus on titles from that collection. So far, I’ve read 2 and they have been quite good indeed. In the meantime, happy reading.

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Filed under Books, Fiction, Publishing

Tagged as book review, Jane Smiley, Kate Atkinson, Kate Walbert, Manil Suri, Nell ZInk, Novel

by Eva Hirschel | July 20, 2015 · 8:48 pm

His Brother’s Keeper, A Mystery Series – Part 1, Chapter Six

Welcome to His Brother’s Keeper, a fictional mystery series set in 2000, in New York. I’ve decided to periodically lend my blog to a friend, Eva Hirschel. Eva doesn’t have a social media presence but she does have a mystery that she wanted to publish serially on-line, so I’m giving her a hand. (If you’re just tuning in now, I suggest that you start at the beginning). Here is Part I, Chapter 6. Enjoy!

Chapter Six

New York knows how to do libraries. The resources that are available for free, for anyone who wants, are staggering. The Internet, as wonderful as it is, has not yet replaced the role of the libraries in my life. The libraries of New York are my home away from home. There are specialized branch libraries for dance, music, black culture, and business, not to mention libraries where you can find the latest mystery novel. But the main reading room in the New York Public library on Fifth Avenue is one of my favorite places in the world. The big airy room, with its rows of oversized polished wooden tables, green reading lamps, ceiling murals and comfortable chairs is pretty close to heaven on earth. I am still awed each time I enter and look at all the different people sitting earnestly at the tables, reading, writing, and going through the stacks of books in front of them. I always wonder how many books and articles and theses are being written right before my very eyes. Hats off to those 19^th century philanthropists who had the foresight to build these buildings and endow the public library system. And it’s not only Manhattan. In Brooklyn we have our very own network of libraries. I am lucky enough to live right near the awe-inspiring Grand Army Plaza library, the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.

Across the street from Prospect Park, around the corner from the elegant Brooklyn Museum, bordering the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, and facing Brooklyn’s reproduction of Paris’ Arc D’Triumphe, the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library is a grand and majestic building. After ascending the stairs to the entrance, you encounter inlaid marble floors in the oversize lobby. Every time I visit I am reminded of descriptions of ancient temples, and I don’t think the reference is coincidental. Surely the library was built as a temple of knowledge. It was the public libraries, along with the city’s once exemplary public school system and city public university system, which allowed generations of immigrants and the children of immigrants to rise into the middle class. However, as I walked out in the glare of daylight with seven of the books on Chasidism that Rabbi Springer had recommended in my backpack, I had to smile. Because the knowledge being worshipped by the planners of the library was most certainly the classical knowledge of Western civilization, Greek, and Latin, mathematics and Shakespeare, and not the history of groups of Eastern European Jews who dressed in odd clothing, spoke Yiddish, and clung stubbornly to their particularism even as Enlightenment spread across Europe.

Walking down the steps, I stopped to watch a group passing in front of me along Eastern Parkway. There were about eight of them, dressed in modestly long blue plaid skirts, light blue long sleeve shirts, dark tights, and sneakers. Clearly they were wearing a school uniform, but it wasn’t Catholic school. This group of girls was all white, and almost all had dark shoulder length hair with the exception of one red-head and one dirty-blond. Though they talked and laughed with each other, they spoke quietly and acted in a manner that seemed designed to not call attention to themselves, different from the way most young teenagers behaved in public. I watched them as they continued down the street towards the Botanic Gardens. They were almost certainly Chassidic, and probably from Crown Heights, a neighborhood very close to Park Slope in actual distance but otherwise worlds away.

Despite its proximity, I had never actually ventured in to the neighborhood dominated by the Lubavitchers, the followers of the late Chassidic Rebbe Menachem Schneerson. Like me, they were Jews, but in some ways they felt like another species altogether. As an outsider, their Judaism looked foreign, so different than what I was familiar with. Their world seemed insular, closed off from modernity, and limiting, especially for women. But I realized that there was a great deal I didn’t know about who and what they were, what motivated them to make the choice to live by ancient values that the world around them had abandoned. This group of girls looked so different than their non-Chasidic peers, with their chaste long skirts and sleeves and noticeable lack of anything resembling popular culture on their persons.

Then I had to laugh at myself. Here I was pretending to myself that I was a big-time modern woman, with an important career, yet in reality I was under-employed in a non-career job of my own fabrication that I was able to do during the hours that my kids were either in pre-school, with a baby-sitter, or asleep. So much for a brave new world. When I was younger I fantasized about doing something exciting, like being a spy or private eye. I saw myself changing identities, keeping secrets, and working on the side of truth and justice. Instead, I grew up, went to grad school, got married, and started a career that got put on the back burner once I had kids. If I ever wrote a mystery novel, I would make my character childless. It’s very convenient to be a P.I. when your hours are your own. I probably shared as much in common with the women those girls would grow up to be as I did with my college classmates who had delayed having children in favor of their careers.

First I finished up the paperwork and billing for a small job I had done for Bird, another member of The Committee. Bird was a lawyer and often sent work my way. This was an easy job for me, but the results were not going to be easy for Bird’s client. She had asked me to track down a long-lost cousin of the client who was left an inheritance by the client’s late father. On his deathbed the father had made the son promise that he would find the cousin and make sure he received the inheritance. Proud to show off my research skills, I succeeded in tracking down the young man. He was living on an organic garlic farm in California. Only in the end, the client wished I hadn’t done such a good job, since it turned out that the inheritance included an admission of paternity from the late father, along with a great deal of money and stocks. Great way to meet a new brother.

The easiest thing would have been to just call Sarah Gelberman’s grandfather and talk to him. But this was supposed to be a surprise. That meant that there was a great deal of basic information I didn’t have. Sarah had provided me with her grandfather’s date of birth and approximate date of arrival to the United States. According to what she had told me, her grandfather, Jack Gelberman, arrived at the age of 18 in 1947. She said that he had been in a concentration camp, but she didn’t know what happened to him between Liberation and 1947. He didn’t like to talk about it. Sarah had told me that he had lived in New York for many years, but currently resided in Florida. Vu den, as my grandmother would say, where else? He had one son named Nathan, who, if he was really related to the Halizcher Rebbe, would have been named after Nossen Shlomo Gelberman, who married Yosef Yehudah’s daughter, and would therefore have been his father.

I got up from my desk and went to the dry erase board on the wall. It was time to make a tentative family tree, despite all the blanks. Sarah Gelberman (b. 1981), Nathan Gelberman (b. 1955), Jack Gelberman (b.1929). Then I drew a dotted line from Jack to Nossen Shlomo, and put the symbol for woman next to his name, for the wife who was, for the time being, nameless. From her I made a line to Yosef Yehudah, born 1879 according to one of the books I had checked out from the library. Nossen was certainly old enough to be Jack’s father. Was it was possible that Jack’s real name was Yankeleh? Yankeleh was a Yiddish diminutive for Yaakov, the Hebrew version of Jacob. Jack was sometimes short for Jacob. It wasn’t such a stretch. The next time I talked to Sarah Gelberman I would ask. In one of the books recommended by Rabbi Springer I had read that Nossen had a son named Yaakov Chaim. And interestingly enough, the social security information I had requested on-line about Jack Gelberman in Florida had come through, and that had him recorded as Jacob H. Gelberman. The “H” could very well stand for Chaim, since in English Chaim could be just as easily spelled Haim, or even Hayyim. Transliteration was a subjective art. Then again, his middle name could simply be Howard, or Hugh, or Humphrey.

The information led me to another on-line business that allowed me, again for a price, to request credit information on Jacob H. Gelberman. The point of the exercise was to get information about prior employers and residences, which could lead me to information that would be useful in trying to create his family tree. That information had just come in, and was staring at me from my computer screen. The problem was, as opposed to what Sarah had told me, this Jacob H. Gelberman never lived in New York City. Before moving to Florida, he had lived in only one other place in the United States, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he was employed for many years by the Altoona Board of Education. Either there was mistake, or Sarah had been less than straightforward with me. It made no sense to me why she would lie, nor did it make sense why she wouldn’t have told me where her grandfather lived before retiring in Florida. If this Jacob H. Gelberman was the same man, then her father would been born and raised in Altoona. It was time for Sarah Gelberman to resurface and answer some questions.

[To be continued….]

His Brother’s Keeper is entirely fictional. None of the characters or situations described in this series are based on real people or events. Copyright (c) 2015 by Eva Hirschel.

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Filed under Abby Marcus, Books

Tagged as Abby Marcus, Mystery

by Hara Person | July 17, 2015 · 2:07 pm

Some Good (Audio) Books – Summer 2015 Edition

I’ve been doing a lot of long distance driving lately. It’s not my favorite activity, and I’ve been getting bored of the usual music and podcast combo that generally keeps me engaged enough to get where I’m going. So I decided to try a new method and listen to some books I wouldn’t actually take the time to read. Memoirs sounded like the perfect fit.

I would normally argue that there’s no difference between a book you read and a book you listen to, but five audiobooks later I’m changing my tune. Just like ebooks allow for certain capabilities not possible in a printed book (i.e. embedded links or, yes, audio), the same is true for an audiobook. Done well, and in particular when read by the writer, an audiobook can provide a unique experience.

I decided to go with memoirs because I love stories about people – what makes them tick, what made them who they are, what they care about, why they care about it, how they become who they are. There’s always something to learn from hearing someone reflect back on their life. And what a bunch I chose – two actor/comedians, one writer, another actor, and one singer-songwriter. All famous people with public personas. Listening to their stories of self was like being intimately immersed in these five very different people, or at least, the parts of their stories that they chose to share publicly.

So here is a review of my recent reading, or, well, listening, experiences.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

This book has interested me for a while, but truthfully, never enough to make me actually want to take the time to read it. But listening to it while driving to western Pennsylvania and back was definitely a worthwhile experience. We all know Tina Fey is wickedly funny and smart. Bossypants showed off both these part of Fey, and filled in a lot of her background along the way – how she got to be the Tina Fey we know and love. She shares some information about her formative years, and talks about the experiences that have mattered to her. There’s some delicious behind-the-scenes discussion about her time at SNL and 30 Rock. Her descriptions of the ways that sketches got created, and what she and her colleagues found to be funny and why offered great insights into comedy. The best was when she discussed the experience of creating her version of Sarah Palin. Other moments are poignant, like when she talks about being a mother, or passionate like when she talks about being a woman in comedy, or complex, like when she talks about body image issues. Her intelligence and drive to succeed shine strongly through her narrative. The best part though is that she narrates the audiobook herself, and, you know, she’s Tina Fey. When you listen to this audiobook you get 5 hours and 35 solid minutes of Tina Fey talking to you. What could possibly be wrong with that?

Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Naturally, after listening to Tina Fey recount her adventures at Second City and then SNL, the next audiobook choice had to be her friend and colleague, Amy Poehler. Yes Please, thankfully narrated by Poehler herself, was definitely the perfect companion book. Poehler lets loose a little more than Fey does, inviting guest speakers to read and talk as part of the audiobook experience, and being, at times, not entirely diplomatic about her opinions (and that is not criticism – bring it on!). Her parents have a few cameo appearances, as does Seth Meyers and a few others. She really had fun with the concept of doing an audiobook and it was appreciated by this listener. It was fun to hear another perspective on some of the same events that Fey narrated in her book. Again, as in Bossypants, I really enjoyed hear Poehler talk about being a woman in comedy – with lessons easily applicable to other fields – and what got her to where she is today. She talked about her childhood and family, about her marriage and her children, letting us listeners in just enough to make us relate to her and to care. It’s hard to imagine that this loosely stitched together collection of often wonderfully irreverent anecdotes would have held up well as a regular book, but in audio format it was a great way to get across a bunch of highways in upstate NY and back home again.

The Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret

I was sure this one was going to be a home run. Keret is a great writer, and how exciting to get to learn more about Keret the person. And it is indeed a great book qua book – audio or not. Keret’s signature quirky humor is in evidence, and it’s even more powerful when he’s writing about his own life and not just a fictional one. In his typical terse style he shares glimpses of his childhood, his teenage years, his marriage, his son, his parents, and his career. He is the child of Holocaust survivors, a fact which greatly shaped who he is, and a cynical, conflicted Jewish Israeli who both loves his country and struggles with its legacy. The slices of his life that he shares may be framed in short chapters, but they are dense in their complex mix of the mundane and the profound. This memoir seems like a great collection of short stories until you remember that he’s actually talking about his own life. The only disappointment, and it is a significant one in an audiobook, is that Keret did not narrate the book himself. That may be too much to expect given that it’s a translation, but the narrator was not properly prepped in Hebrew pronunciation. Each place name or expression that he mangled was a jarring disruption in an otherwise captivating story. This is a powerful memoir, but given the narration should probably be best experienced as a good old regular read and not as an audiobook.

Not My Father’s Son: A Memoir by Alan Cumming

This gets top marks in this batch of books. It is, first of all, a seriously good memoir. Though it could have used a little editing (sorry, I can’t help it) it is a compelling story and wonderfully told. This isn’t just a “how I became the great and famous me” kind of narrative. Instead, using a construct of “then” and “now” episodes, he contrasts events in his childhood with an ongoing story in his adult life, both of which revolve around his sense of self and identity. The bonus is that Cumming narrates the book himself and oh – that voice! That accent! He’s a fine actor and he knows how to use his voice to great affect to tell his story. And what a story. There are two mysteries at the heart of this book, one about himself in relationship to his abusive father, and one about his elusive and absent grandfather. The two parallel tracks work together beautifully, so that at times it was possible to forget that this was the story of a famous actor and to just experience a compelling tale of love and abuse, acceptance and anger, coming of age, and coming into one’s own.

A Natural Woman: A Memoir by Carole King

I am a huge fan of Carole King. I was raised on her music by my parents who identified with her scrappy Brooklyn, Jewish background. She even went to the same high school as my father. I have all her albums, including “Really Rosie,” and loved the broadway show based on her life story. But the book is disappointing. Her story itself is interesting, as in “nice Jewish girl makes good” and her experience in the music industry, especially in the early years of rock and roll, is fascinating. There are some great details along the way, like the fact that she was a freshman at Queens College with two other Jewish kids who also liked to sing named Artie Garfunkel and Paul Simon. She certainly had admirable amounts of pluck, chutzpah, and self-confidence that got her far. And to be fair, the story she tells isn’t all one of happiness and success – she is open about some of the painful details of her life. But Beautiful is in serious need of a strong editorial hand, or a better ghost writer. It is cliched and way too long, and even the interesting parts are so poorly written that they come out sounding trite. And as much as I love King’s singing voice – and there are some highlight moments throughout where she breaks into song by way of illustration – this is one case where the author does no favor to the listener by narrating her own story.

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Filed under Books, Publishing, Stories, women

Tagged as Alan Cumming, Amy Poehler, audiobooks, Carole King, Etgar Keret, Tina Fey

by Hara Person | June 7, 2015 · 3:17 pm

Good Books: Summer 2015 Edition

Summer is here and it’s time to read. Here’s a round up of some recent good books, mostly fiction and, as an added bonus, one memoir. None are exactly beach novels, but they’re all worth a read. Enjoy!

Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rivka Brunt
This novel is at the top of this list for a reason. It is a coming-of-age story about a fourteen year old, June, who has a very special relationship with her gay uncle. The story takes place in the mid-80’s and her uncle Finn, a famous painter, is dying of AIDS. When Finn dies and she begins to grieve her loss, family secrets begin to shake loose. In the process, she develops secrets of her own, including a growing friendship with Finn’s hidden boyfriend, Toby, who her family labels as a murderer for infecting Finn with AIDS. The many strands to this tale are interwoven beautifully as June deals with the loss of Finn, her strained relationship with her older sister Greta, her feelings of both anger and love for Toby, and all the attendant struggles of growing up. The depiction of how AIDS was viewed in the 80’s rings all too true. There is also an interesting and wonderful Oscar Wilde-like strand of this novel which involves a portrait that Finn has painted of June and Greta. The painting is the linchpin upon which the whole story hangs, as it too develops and changes along with June and Greta. Brunt’s homage to Dorian Gray is an outstanding element in this smart, tender, and moving novel.

The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay

A girl named Moth is at the center of this work of historical fiction. Called Moth by a now-absent father and raised by a Gypsy fortune-telling mother on New York’s Lower East Side during the post-Civil War era, she is born into a life of extreme poverty and want. One day she is sold into servitude by her mother and taken to work uptown for a wealthy but cruel woman. Moth is the kind of plucky heroine that these types of books needs to stay interesting, and she is indeed wily and resourceful. She soon finds herself in training to become a prostitute, at a time when syphilis is ravaging New York City and men of means are on the prowl for young girls who can provide them with the “virgin cure”. Moth grows up quickly as she figures out what she needs to do to survive, and without providing any spoilers, survive she does. McKay has done a good bit of research about this era, and her insights into life on the Lower East Side, women’s lives, women’s healthcare, and some historical figures, especially a female physician committed to women’s health, make this a worthwhile read. The fact that this physician is based on McKay’s actual great-great-grandmother adds a little extra flavor to this dish that, while tasty, could use a little more depth.

After Birth by Elisa Albert

Where to start with this one? For one, if you are a woman and aren’t sure if you want to have a child, don’t read this novel yet. But if you have had a child, or are the partner of someone who has birthed, absolutely read this book. It would be easy to say that this is book is about postpartum depression but it’s so much more than that. The protagonist at the center of this searing depiction of birth and early motherhood is Ari, who is an isolated, lonely, and depressed new mother. She lives in Vermont with her husband, an academic, where she has few acquaintances and essentially no friends. She loves her son, Walker, but feels horribly alone in the post-birthing experience. Albert is brutal in her condemnation of the medicalization of birth, the way in which modern medicine disempowers women and disconnects them from their own bodies, and how Western society has disabled the tradition of women mothering one another through the transitions of birthing, breast-feeding, and child raising. One of Ari’s contentions is that c-sections are a form of rape perpetrated upon women by the medical establishment. As a two-time c-section birther, and even though I know that way more c-sections are performed than are medically necessary, some of this felt uncomfortable and even extreme. But that is part of the power of this difficult novel. Albert has masterfully written a character who is not “nice,” who does not conform to societal expectations, who is angry and grieving and far from the soft-focus stock image of new motherhood. Her body is unfamiliar, her scar throbs, and her breasts have taken on a life of their own. (Those particular depictions are oh so resonant!). Having had the experience of birthing taken out of her power, she feels out of control and can’t find a way back to ownership of her body or of her life. No one understands her and what she’s going through, not even her husband. She is desperately alone and the idea of ending her life is never far from her mind. And then she makes a friend, another new mother, who is surprisingly in worse shape than she is. Through that friendship, and that friend’s new baby, she regains some control and comes back from the edge.

The Gods of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein
Cody Epstein knows how to tell a good story. Her characters are always richly drawn and fully realized, and the situations into which she places them are always well researched and ring true. This novel is no exception. Told from several different perspectives and spanning several generations, this an epic story of the war in the Pacific during World War II. The main character is a young Japanese girl, Yoshi, who life is radically changed when American bombers rain napalm down on her city. The other strands of this story all connect through Yoshi but stand on their own as part of the legacy of destruction and pain caused by war, including Cam, the pilot of one of the American bomber planes, Anton, an architect who is caught up in the war despite himself, and Billy, who is posted in Japan following the war. It is Yoshi who connects all the other characters and perspectives in this compelling tale of war, loss, secrets, and identity. The details of each character’s outer and inner lives are wonderfully drawn and pull you right in – this could definitely one of those books you can’t put down until it’s way, way after lights out.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

This book sat on my reading list for a long time before I finally dove in and read it. I’m so glad I did. This novel takes place in Rome, and involves the private lives of reporters and editors at an English language newspaper on the verge of extinction. Each of the characters, from the editor in chief to the obituary writer, to a stringer in Cairo is a tale unto themselves. They are struggling to keep the paper afloat as the world of publishing changes swiftly around them, and as control of the paper shifts to a new publisher. The details about each person’s life seems just right, with enough provided to bring each one fully to life. There are unexpected twists, a good dose of snark, and great insights into the relationships they have with each other. Humor is mixed in with sadness, cynicism fights with idealism, and despair and anxiety are laced with hope. This novel is robust and vivid, artfully drawn against the romantic backdrop of Rome and full of all the attendant elements related to news paper publishing in the 21st century. This was a deeply satisfying read.

All Who Go Do Not Return by Shulem Deen

There has been a spate of memoirs over the last few years by people who have left the world of Hasidism. I admit to having a mild and inexplicable obsession with these memoirs, and yes, I’m sure there is something voyeuristic to my interest in them. But this memoir by Deen is different. Deen, who had been part of the world of the New Square Skverers, left as an adult in his mid-thirties, not his early twenties as others have done. This is not a vivid expose of sexual misdeeds or brutality (though there are some disturbing depictions of corporal punishment in educational settings). There are depictions of faith-based violence and vigilante behavior, but while Deen comes to oppose this and see it as a very negative form of behavioral control, he also writes honestly of having been part of it at one point. This is all to say that he has not written a black and white, me versus them kind of memoir. He also clearly want to protect certain relationships he has with people in the Hasidic world, and so he stays away, for the most part, from the kind of salacious details which might most interest outsiders already prone to be critical of the Hasidic world. This is not to say that he shows fondness for the world he left – he is very critical of their brand of thought control, the substandard education provided within the community, and the ways in which they subvert the legal system. As an outsider who has read a lot on this topic, it is still shocking for me to learn (or have confirmed) that most adults in the community can barely read or write in English, and have no math skills – this is part of the way in which the community “protects” its members from the outside world, or isolates them and disables them from participating in that world. He is critical too of the ways in which poverty is built into their way of life, again “protecting” them from the outside world. But there is a great deal of nuance and struggle here, along with deep pain. He is not, for the most part, writing about the world which he chose for himself for some period of time, but rather about his very deep struggle to make sense of meaning and faith within a world in which questions were discouraged and the rebbe had ultimate power over every aspect of life. This is a tale of his own rebellion against that power, and his long journey to gain knowledge and free his mind. He writes beautifully about his thirst for education, his dangerous questions about belief, his passion for ideas, and his need to find a supportive community. Though his choices caused him a great deal of pain, especially in regard to his children, this memoir is a testament to the need to fight for one’s own truth in the face of extreme pressure to conform to destructive communal norms.

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Tagged as Ami McKay, Book reviews, Carol Rivka Brunt, Elisa Albert, Jennifer Cody Epstein, memoir, Novel, Shulem Deen, Tom Rachman

by Hara Person | February 15, 2015 · 7:32 pm

More Good Books – Winter 2015 Edition

The readers among us know that any excuse to stay in bed and read will do. So snowpocalypse or just a regular old winter day, here are some thoughts and recommendations from my recent reading encounters. Get (or download) a stack of good books, and go hibernate with them until the snow melts and the crocuses start to poke up.

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin

This gorgeous novel is quietly deceptive. At first it feels small and timid, like Nora Webster herself, but little by little its power becomes apparent. At the beginning, Nora Webster is a new widow in Ireland with two young sons still at home, and two older daughters off at school. She is devastated by the loss of her husband, lost in her grief but determined to figure out a way to get through. Each step she takes in the mourning process moves her farther along toward finding a new sense of self. She finds her voice, literally as well as figuratively, speaking up in ways she never had before, taking up singing once again, and gaining the courage to make decisions on her own. But none of this description captures the pleasure of reading this thoughtful novel, which delights in the everyday mundanity that makes up a life and understands how the little pieces of a life are actually quite significant. This is not a fast-paced book; it is slow, deliberate, and finely crafted.

The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman

As a kid I devoured the Narnia books, along with the books of John Christopher (The White Mountains; City of Gold and Lead etc), and the Lloyd Alexander series The Chronicles of Prydain, to mention only a few of the series that fed my love of fantasy stories. As a parent, I loved reading the Harry Potter books with my kids, anything written by Diana Wynn Jones as well as countless other great fantasy series. So when I discovered that Lev Grossman was writing a series of grown up fantasy books I was intrigued. And yes, I totally fell for the first one, The Magicians, and then again for the second, The Magician Kings. How could I not love a fantasy series that begins in Brooklyn, featuring hyper-articulate nerdy high school kids, and goes to some very dark places while slyly making snarky, smart cultural references? These books are the perfect grownup antidote to the longing for those childhood favorites. They are about magic, yes, and like the Harry Potters books, they are about how magic exists in the real, familiar world and is experienced by real, everyday people. But they also have a secret, magical world, a not-Narnia that had been discovered earlier by a group of British brothers and sisters living without their parents and without much adult supervision in a big house in the English countryside (sound familiar?). And Grossman’s high school students wind up in a magic boarding school (sound familiar?) but they are cynical, not endearingly earnest like some of the other familiar characters; they grow up and deal with drugs, sex, alienation, disillusionment, and failure. With a wink and a nod, Grossman has repurposed different elements from favorite fantasy books into this series. He’s clever and manages to pay homage without being simply derivative. But there is one motif that runs through the trilogy which reveals that there is indeed some earnestness behind the snark, and that is about the importance of books and storytelling. This ongoing theme is charming and sweet, and Grossman smartly finds ways to thread it throughout the narrative. Magician’s Land, the third in the series, is as great as the first two. Though called a trilogy, I hope there will be many more of these. Actually, I need there to be more of these. That’s the way it is with a good fantasy series.

All the Light We Cannot See by Athony Doer

This book has gotten a lot of well-dererved attention, including being named a National Book Award Finalist. Told from different perspectives, this beautifully poetic and yet ever-so slightly precious novel unfolds during and after World War II in Germany and in France. The two main characters seem destined to exist in parallel story lines that will never converge, and yet fate brings them briefly together. One is a blind girl in France whose devoted father, the keeper of keys at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, creates a detailed, miniature city for her so that she can learn her way around and become independent. The other is a German orphan, a mechanical prodigy who gets swept up into the Nazi war machine. Reminiscent of The Book Thief in a number of ways, this story reveals the ways in which the war impacted on and damaged the decent, everyday people, and particularly children, who could not get out of its way.

Some Luck by Jane Smiley

The first of an anticipated trilogy, this wonderful new novel by Smiley focuses on a farm family in Iowa. It is an epic, ambitious narrative that begins in 1920 and moves through three decades of transformation of American life one year at a time. While remaining attached to their land and the farming life, change happens around the Langdon family. The world continually shifts around them as droughts and wars, new economic realities and new technologies test the family’s resilience. Meanwhile the life cycle continues to unfold with new marriages to celebrate, new babies to care for, and new deaths to mourn. Children grow up and face new choices unimagined by their parents. Smiley’s ability to draw each character in this big, sprawling family as a fully developed personality with his or her own hopes, dreams, and challenges is remarkable. She is a master story-teller who takes us through the lives and deaths, successes and failures of the Langdon family as they continue to adapt. I look forward to the next two books with great anticipation.

Neverhome by Laird Hunt
Inspired by real events but entirely fictionalized, this is a compelling tale of Ash Thompson, a bold young woman who goes off to fight in the Civil War in place in of her husband. She goes because, as she puts it, one of them has to go, and she is better suited for the task than he is. This story of a country at war with itself is both achingly beautiful and tragic. In part an odyssey of wandering, Ash leaves herself and all that is familiar behind to become a man and a soldier. She journeys through a bloody country torn up by mistrust and hatred, trying to do her part despite the ever-deepending senselessness of war, so that she can return home. Though the Civil War has birthed a great body of literature, the experiences of the women who fought, disguised as men, have been under-imagined. In this novel, Hunt gives voice to a complex character who must work to keep her identity a secret even as she fights, literally and emotionally, to survive the horrors of the war. And she is truly a survivor, managing to get herself out of tricky situations and when possible, align herself with people who will help her, so that she eventually makes it back home to her husband and her farm, where yet more challenges await her.

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

I have been a fan of Sarah Waters’ for quite a while. Her novel Fingersmith is beautiful and clever, with devious twists and turns that make it impossible to put down. So too with Night Watch, and of course Tipping the Velvet, with its erotic depiction of lesbian identity and brilliant take on gender roles in Victorian England, was the book we all had to read when it first came out. So I have to admit to being very disappointed by her last two books. The Paying Guest had promise, but it never developed into anything interesting. Waters was on familiar ground, telling the story of an unfulfilled woman in post-World War I England who had given up her one great love out of shame and a sense of familial duty. When she and her mother decide to rent out part of their home to a young couple in the wake of her father’s death and their altered economic status, she is drawn to the wife and they quickly develop a rich, complicated relationship. The plot had potential to be rich in surprises and manipulations, but instead what unfolded was a fairly predictable story of love gone wrong. I kept waiting for the surprises, but they never came.

The Henna House by Nomi Eve

In this new novel, Eve offers a fascinating look into the lives of Yemenite Jews of the early to mid-twentieth century. The story centers around Adela Demari, a young girl at the beginning of the book. Though Jewish life was becoming ever-more precarious at that time, Eve does a fine job depicting the longstanding rituals and customs of the Yemenite Jewish community, and particularly the lives of its women. The women’s tradition of henna, which is described in beautiful, lyrical terms, is one of the threads that is woven throughout the book. At times the story feels timeless, almost like a folk tale. On the one hand the community lives as it has for centuries, specializing in the crafts and professions that were allowed to the Jews. It is shocking then to realize that this story is unfolding not in some long-ago historical haze but in the twentieth century, in which the community lives under a cloud of war, modernization, and increasing anti-semitism. With this rich setting, I had high hopes for this book, especially because I loved Eve’s first book, The Family Orchard. But while Henna House tells a good story about interesting characters and offers a view of an intriguing slice of Jewish history, it lacks the complexity and fine writing of The Family Orchard. The florid prose detracts from a powerful story that does not need the level of embellishment that it receives.

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Filed under Books, Fiction, Judaism, Stories, women

Tagged as Anthony Doer, Colm Toibin, Jane Smiley, Laird Hunt, Lev Grossman, Nomi Eve, Sarah Waters

by Hara Person | October 26, 2014 · 2:58 pm

Good Books, Fall 2014 Edition Part 1

In the last few years I’ve tried to read through the Man Booker Shortlist before the winner is announced. This year I managed to read four out of the six of the shortlisted titles – not bad given the timing – and one longlisted title as well. Turns out that one of the four I read was the winner so that worked out well. The titles below are from the Man Booker lists.

Now that the days are getting shorter and the nights are colder, it’s time to get in bed with a good book or better, a bunch of good books. Here are some very worthwhile recommendations.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

This is probably not a book I would have chosen to read, had it not been on the Man Booker shortlist. It would have been a loss to miss this one. The easy way to describe this book is to say that it’s about the experience of an Australian doctor as a POW during World War II, held captive by the Japanese in what was then Siam, forced to work on building a railroad. But the book is much more than that. It is really about a full life of a man, a life shaped in large part by the POW experience but also shaped by the love of a woman he meets as a young man, by a love of books and words, and by a lifelong sense of yearning. It is about how history is both experienced and retold, and about death and loss and the striving for connection, and about what gets remembered and what forgotten after the horror of war is in the past. Though the main focus is on one man, the sweep of this novel is enormous. Flanagan masterfully blends the arc a single man’s life with that of world history. When I heard that this was the title that won this year’s Man Booker Prize, I was not surprised.

The Lives of Others, Neel Mukherjee

The Lives of Others, Neel MukherjeeIt was hard to read this without comparing it to one of last year’s Man Booker shortlist titles, The Lowland by Jumpa Lahiri. Both novels deal with political and social unrest in India and the resultant unraveling of families. The novels are very different otherwise, and yet the ghost of Lowland loomed over my reading of The Lives of Others, which suffered by comparison. That said, this is a rich feast of a novel. One of the wonderful aspects of this novel is the role of the house in which the Ghosh family lives. The house is a full character in this already full (and sometimes confusingly so) tale of a family in a downward spiral of wealth and its accompanying status. Several generations live within the house, though their physical proximity does not mean that they share experiences and outlooks. As the story progresses, the house, once solid, protective, and admired, becomes shabby and perilous. As the world changes around it, the fissures in the Ghosh family are exposed to the light, and the consequences are shattering.

To Rise Again as a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris

Where to begin with this strange book? It was funny, odd, annoying, and in the end, surprisingly satisfying. The protaginist of this Philip Roth-like novel is a somewhat anti-social dentist named Paul O’Rourke who is at odds with the world most of the time. Though devoted to the art of dentistry and seemingly good at what he does professionally, he doesn’t quite get the art of social interaction, especially with women. He has an obsession with Judaism yet always manages to say exactly the wrong thing. The interactions with his office staff are at times amusing, but also annoyingly, even if intentionally so, misogynistic. The story centers around some skillful identity theft in which Paul is stalked by a cleverly weird and oppressed group that tries to convince him that he is one of them – a group based on the idea of being doubters. The texts that are used in developing the history of this group are very well done and sound almost just right as Biblical text, and yet clearly aren’t – that aspect alone made it a worthwhile read, as does the unfolding of the history of this group and Paul’s connection to it.

The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt

Though this was a longlist title and therefore not part of my self-propelled assignment, it sounded too compelling to pass up. Though at times somewhat convoluted, this is an astounding feat of concept and imagination. Hustvedt’s character is an artist whose more famous husband, a gallery owner and art collector with an interesting private life, has died. Feeling that her identity as an artist had not been taken seriously by a world that recognized her as a “wife of” and “mother of,” she buys a building in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and sets out to devote herself to art. Her nurturing instincts cause her to take in some strays even as she tries to intentionally be more selfish and focus on her own art. She comes up with the concept of choosing a series of three male artists who will be her “masks” in the art world, presenting her work as theirs in a grand experiment to see how her work is received if thought of as created by a man. One of the remarkable things about this novel is the creation by Hustvedt of a whole imaginary body of work by the main character – work that feels wholly real and visible, and extremely female. The telling of this tale unfolds in a series of narratives from different perspectives, as well as newspaper articles, journal essays, and interviews. Hustvedt herself plays a cameo role, being mentioned in one of the essays. The gentle lampooning of over-inflated art world egos, theory, and language is employed to wonderful effect. The Blazing World raises many important questions about women, art-making, fame, disappointment, anger, and love that stayed with me long after I finished this powerful novel.

PS: Over the summer, I reviewed a few novels, and among them was another of the Man Booker shortlist titles, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler.

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Tagged as fiction, Joshua Ferris, Man Booker Prize, Man Booker Shortlist, Neel Mukherjee, Novel, Richard Flanagan, Siri Hustvedt

by Hara Person | June 14, 2014 · 6:47 pm

Some Good Books, Summer 2014 Edition

The most recent batch of books I’ve read have been mostly outstanding. One place I regularly turn for recommendations of new books is the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, formerly the Orange Prize. Some of the book below were discoveries on this year’s Baileys longlist. They’re not light beach reading, but they’re worth the time.

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

Let me start with this: This novel is exceptional. If it wasn’t for the fact that this novel was longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction for 2014, I probably would not have bothered with it. I didn’t know much about Gilbert beyond her popular book Eat, Pray, Love, and assumed I wouldn’t like her fiction. Just goes to show that you can’t judge a book by what you think you know about the author. I admit it – I was wrong, and I didn’t know enough about Gilbert. This is an epic tale of the life of a one woman, Alma Whittaker, born in Philadelphia at the start of the 19th century to an English father and a Dutch mother. Born into a world that valued business acumen and scientific knowledge of the natural world, hers is an unusual childhood that leads to an unusual life. She is a quirky, compelling character, as are all of those with whom she interacts as the world shifts and slides its way through the changes of the 19th century. The abolitionist movement plays a role in Alma’s life, as does the debate over Darwinism. This novel brims with delicious, sensuous detail as Alma grows and develops throughout her life, encompassing discoveries as exotic as of flora in far-flung corners of the globe and as close by as her own sexuality, while it also asks the big questions about existence, creation, and the human role in the world. Alma’s curiosity and intellect continue to evolve as the book traces her life to its very end, with detail that might bore in the hands of another author but remain fresh and ever startling in Gilbert’s hands. Never have I cared as much about moss as I did while reading this book.

All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld

This was another one longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly Orange Prize) for 2014. It is an odd book, and a difficult one, but rewardingly so. Wyld quickly thrusts her readers out of the comfort zone of linear narrative, a smart move for a tale that is itself disorienting and unsettling. The main character, Jake Whyte, is a cipher. She is alone, terrified, has a back full of scars, and is living a precarious existence. The reason for all of this unfolds slowly as the book progresses, moving both forward and backward at the same time. That is, her present moves forward one section at time, but the backstory that lead to all of that is revealed bit by bit, going slightly further back each time until the book ends with a jolt at the beginning of Jake’s story. Assumptions about good and bad, villain and hero, right and wrong are upended. Nothing is as expected, not for Jake and not for the reader.

The Flameflowers by Rachel Kushner

This is another one longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction for 2014, as well as a National Book Award finalist and one of the Top Ten Books of 2013 by the New York Times Book Review. Kushner present a compelling female protagonist, Reno, at the center of this work about the New York art world of the 1970’s, political protest, the Italian labor movement, and trust. This novel deals with issues of power, truth, falsehoods, and pretense. All the ingredients for a stunning book are there, as are the accolades. Some of it is in fact quite powerful – the descriptions of Reno’s outsider status and ambition are moving and ring true, and the parts of the book that deal with the salt flats, her motorcycle riding, and her artistic aspirations are compelling. The descriptions of a grittier, scrappier New York were magnificently drawn, with complexity and nuance that brought me to those days. But there wasn’t enough of that to hang on to. Too many of the characters were not developed enough to care deeply about, and many of the relationships felt flat. A worthwhile read but not on my top ten list for the year.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Not a book I would have read on my own but a friend whose taste I trust told me that a) I had to read it, and b) I couldn’t read any reviews of it ahead of time because there’s critically important information that gets revealed only partway through. She was right, and I’ll try my best to be careful here. Though not on the Bailey longlist, this book comes with its own credentials – it was the winner of the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award and was also one of the New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books of 2013. All I’ll say beyond that this is a book that cleverly, and with some welcome humor, challenges our ideas about family, humanity, and belonging, not to mention scientific inquiry. It’s a quick read but heartbreakingly powerful. I won’t say more – just go read it.

Little Failure: A Memoir by Gary Shteyngart

Tragic, funny, heart-rending, insightful. Especially if you know from asthma, the immigrant experience, or going to high school in NYC. In this wonderful memoir, Shteyngart chronicles his early childhood in the Soviet Union, and then his childhood, adolescence and later years in the United States. He is endearingly honest about his pain, his discomfort, and his self-doubt, while still managing to be funny. Partly a coming of age tale, and partly a classic outsider-makes-good story, Shteyngart’s forthright prose is beautifully awkward and raw.

Happy reading!

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Tagged as Baileys Prize for Fiction, Elizabeth Gilbert, Evie Wyld, Gary Shteyngart, Karen Joy Fowler, Rachel Kushner

by Hara Person | February 18, 2014 · 5:45 pm

More Good Books, Part 4

Here are some recommended titles from my recent reading list. As always, it’s a mixed bag of literary novels and more plot-driven stories.

Claire of the Sea Light, by Edwidge Danticat

Of all the books I’ve read recently, this is hands down my favorite of this batch. The writing is luminous, textured, and rich. Though much of the book is dark and tragic, light is woven through it in beautiful and surprising ways that provide ballast to the heavy undercurrents. The Claire of the title is a young girl being raised by her widowed fisherman father; theirs is one of several intermingled stories featuring various characters whose lives hang in the balance between despair and hope. Based in Danticat’s native Haiti, this is a tale in which poverty and violence live side by side with tenderness, splendor, and love.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Where to even begin with this ambitious, enormous wild ride of a book? It’s big, it’s bold, and it’s a great read – no question of that and it’s easy to understand why it was shortlisted for the National Book Award. I’ve heard it described at Catcher in the Rye for the 21^st century, which sort of works, and as a post 9/11 novel, which also makes sense. But it’s much more than either of those descriptions. It’s a coming-of-age story under unusual circumstances in an unfair and uncertain world, a trip through adolescence and the long road out into adulthood on the part of a character who’s had more than his fair share of trials and tribulations. The characters are wonderfully drawn, quirky and compellingly real, as is the plot. There’s heartache and love, drugs and kindness, cruelty and fear, generosity and violence. This book has it all in abundance. Not everything in the plot is completely plausible, but on the other hand much of it is extremely believable, familiar, and masterfully narrated. Whatever its flaws, when this novel ended it was hard to say goodbye to those who peopled its pages.

Someone by Alice McDermott

This spare and elliptical novel is the winner of the National Book Award. The main character is an Irish-American woman growing up in Brooklyn. The segments of narration about this ordinary life go back and forth in time, from early childhood to old age and back again, looping in and out. The writing is compelling but never soft or sentimental. The very averageness of the life described within is what is extraordinary about this book – there are no surprises, no secrets, no out-of-character acts, just the stark elegance of a life lived through one breath to another, through one relationship to another, through one time to another. Some moments in particular stand out in their unadorned clarity as the character grows and develops and circles back in time. Despite the seeming ordinariness of the tale, McDermott makes her character someone indeed, and makes us care about her.

The Position by Meg Wolitzer

This isn’t Wolitzer’s newest novel, but it sounded promising. At the center is the wonderfully and ironically named Mellow. The Mellow parents are the authors of the famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) ground-breaking book Pleasuring: One Couple’s Journey, sort of a fictionalized version of The Joy of Sex, which was explored one fateful afternoon in the 70’s by their four children. The plot revolves around the impact of this book on the family of six, and the ways in which the ripple effects shaped the life of all of them in different ways during the next decades. There are many questions here about what it is to be a parent, how much parents can and should pursue their personal (and physical) passions and at what cost to their children, and how much children’s sense of self is based on what they see modeled by their parents? Like many of Wolitzer’s novels, the writing veers between empathetic and pitiless. She looks honestly at her characters and their flaws, while caring for them deeply and making us care about them.

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

This absorbing tale portrays the struggle of a family over time, centered around the main character of Hattie, the mother of this large clan. Each section tells of a different family member, spanning from the early 1920’s to 1980. Hattie is a product of the Great Migration that brought Southern blacks to the North in the quest for a better life. The various members of her family are beautifully brought to life as complex and nuanced individuals as they struggle with heartbreak, disappointment, and the search for an authentic self.

Stella Bain by Anita Shreve

If you want something fast and engaging that doesn’t ask too much of you as a reader, this is a great choice. Shreve is a great story-teller, able to create intriguing situations and characters we want to know better. This plot-driven book is about a woman who loses her memory on the battlefield during World War I, and her search for both her memory and what is hers. Slowly she becomes empowered and a happy ending is in sight, with all the loose ends nicely tied up.

The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier

This book of historical fiction is another quick but satisfying read. The main character is a young Quaker Englishwoman who comes to Ohio at her sister’s side. Things turn out far from expected, and her Quaker beliefs are put to many tests, in particular regarding slavery and the Underground Railroad. The history of quilting also plays an interesting role in the story.

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Tagged as Alice McDermott, Anita Shreve, Ayana Mathis, Donna Tartt, Edwidge Danticat, novels, Tracy Chevalier

by Hara Person | November 10, 2013 · 12:44 pm

Good Books Part 3: Five Out of Six from the Man Booker Shortlist

Some people run marathons, other people read (almost) the whole Man Booker shortlist in two weeks. I’m in the latter category.

A friend posed a challenge – read the whole Man Booker Shortlist before the winner was announced. It sounded like my kind of challenge, so I immediately signed up and downloaded the books. Well, five out of the six, that is. The sixth book wasn’t available until the day the winner was announced. I raced through the 5 that were available. Here are some thoughts about the five that I did read, in the order I read them. All of these titles are highly recommended, with the exception of one that I readily admit must be a problem with me and not the book.

By the way, the elusive sixth book won the prize. I still haven’t read it, but I’ll write about it once I do.

With thanks to Shoshana Marchand for the inspiration. And let me know if you want to be in on the challenge next year.

Harvest, by Jim Crace

This allegorical novel about the pastoral English countryside on the brink of change felt like a jewel-box – small but exquisitely crafted, self-contained but beautiful. Within an extremely condensed time frame, a community is forced to transition as one economy gives way to another. As a result the community turns on itself and self-destructs. The beauty of this slow-moving but nuanced novel is in the finely drawn detail in which every corner of the landscape is distinctive, every plant tells a story, and every seemingly small turn of events portends major plot developments.

We Need New Names, by NoViolet Bulawayo

Reading this was a bit of a roller coaster at first, disorienting with lots of fast ups and downs. It took a while to get attached, but then I got completely sucked in. The author is from Zimbabwe, where the novel is set. It tells the story of Darling, who is ten years old at the start. She and her friends live in a difficult reality, desperately poor in a war-torn country. Half way through, she manages to achieve her dream of getting out and making to America, where she lives with her aunt and enters teenagehood. While it may be true that Darling and her friends could indeed use new names, what they really need is a new reality. Their safety and stability has been taken away by a reality of powerlessness, violence, and illness. And yet when she arrives in America, she is an outsider, an observer in a world that is not fully hers. This is a novel about that outsider experience of being an immigrant, expressing what it is to be an outsider at home, where your daily life is at risk, and to be at home as an outsider, where the risks are of a different sort. Home and safety are always out of reach, and complete integration is not possible. Not only names, but all of language, is a hybrid that doesn’t properly work and yet is jerry-rigged to fit, because what other choice is there but to try to make it work?

The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri

This novel of deep beauty and grace, also shortlisted for the National Book Award, explores the ripple effects of time, place, and events in the world across lives and generations. Here too, as in Harvest above, there are gorgeous descriptions of place and landscape, both in India and in Rhode Island. This the story of a family, beginning with two brothers in India in the 1960’s. Though closely intertwined as boys, as they become young adults one gets caught up in the politics of protest and change, while the other chooses the life of academia and moves to the United States. The themes of self and other, and of forgiveness and anger, run through this tale of these two brothers, whose lives are inexorably bound together despite their different trajectories and fates.

The Testament of Mary, by Colm Toibin

I wanted to like this one, I really did. I wanted this to be a sort of modern midrash on Mary. I wanted a new perspective on Mary, I wanted to connect to her story and understand it better. That didn’t happen. The writing kept her at a distance; it was as if we were invited to look at her through a screen. Jesus was depicted as a naïve young man, almost like someone on the spectrum who didn’t understand how to really connect with people or what was happening around him. The writing felt strained and flat, and I didn’t gain new insights. I realize it must be me – after all, this book was written by a master novelist and was nominated for the Man Booker Prize. I really wanted to like this one…

A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki

This odd novel veered between a sort of semi-documentary style and a kind of magic realism. Reading it, I often felt off-balance. There are three main characters – Nao, a 16 year old Japanese girl writing in a diary, Ruth, a Japanese American novelist living on a remote Island in the Northwestern United States who finds the diary washed up on a beach in a Hello Kitty lunchbox, and time itself, which zigzags through the tale in sometimes unexpected but always powerful ways. There are other wonderful characters as well, including Nao’s great-grandmother the feminist Buddhist monk, her long dead great uncle the Kamikaze pilot, Ruth’s eccentric husband, and other inhabitants of Ruth’s isolated island. There is a playful quality to this novel as it explores time, and also the relationship between reader and writer, chronicler and audience. Yet many of the other themes in the novel are deadly serious as well – bullying, loss, suicide, faith, war, violence, climate change. It’s a lot to take on, but Ozeki does a masterful job weaving all of this together sumptuously and elegantly.

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Tagged as fiction, Man Booker Shortlist, novels

by Hara Person | June 5, 2013 · 8:29 pm

Fish Forks and Beer Mugs: Choosing the Right Technology for Publishing

The nature of the book has changed dramatically in recent years. From the old standard of signatures of paper, in multiples of 16, 24,or 32, bound between covers and filled with typeset text, we now have ebooks, and PDF’s, and audiobooks, and apps – and that’s just for starters.

There are so many choices about how to produce a book. And yet, the essence of a book in many ways remains unchanged. They remain transmitters of ideas, containers of human experience and expression.

As a publisher, I’m often asked about how we will use technology with any given project. My answer is very simple: In as many ways as possible. For while it’s true that the technology presents us, a publisher using Hebrew text, with real challenges, and while it’s also true that we also have real financial limitations, our goal is always to create as many different versions of a book as we can, taking into account what makes sense for that particular content. For even with all the options we have available today, publishing should not be driven by technology, but rather by content development.

Publishing is no longer focused on the physical manufacturing of objects. But just as has always been true in publishing, content has to be developed carefully, thoughtfully, and creatively. That is our central goal at the CCAR Press. First we need an idea that is right for our core market, an approach that aligns with our mission, and the right team of editors and/or writers. Each project has different specifications and uses, and so allows for different formats. There are technological options we can consider today that weren’t possible last year. Surely that will be the same next year as well, and so on. Some projects, like the Daily Blessing App, are not physical books at all. Some projects, like Mishkan T’filah, exist as a physical book, an App, and in Visual T’filah, and we will continue to develop other versions as technology and finances allow. Mishkan R’fuah: Where Healing Resides, is both a physical book and an ebook. And so on.

There’s a lot of talk in the publishing world about how people are choosing to read today. Publishers carefully study stats about how people are reading, and which demographic is doing what in which medium. But I’m not convinced it’s a competition between formats. Rather, it may be that the more formats, the more we can customize our personal reading experiences.

The other day I was listening to a book on Audible and the voice in my ear said, “In this audiobook you will learn…” which I found rather jarring. For me, the experience wasn’t about listening to an audiobook. I had simply chosen to listen to this specific book, rather than read it. I hadn’t shopped for an audiobook, I had shopped for this particular title. The fact that it was an audiobook was insignificant. The audiobook aspect of the experience was a doorway to step through, on the other side of which was the content of the book. What mattered ultimately was the content, not the format.

Growing up I learned that salad is eaten with one kind of fork, and the main course with another. Dessert might be eaten with yet another. Later I learned that fish has its own kind of fork, and even later was introduced to such specialty items as pickle forks and olive forks. Think too about glasses – this kind for water, this kind for white wine, this kind for red, and a frosted mug for beer. Each was created to best serve the experience of imbibing that particular food or drink, but in the end, the purpose is all the same: to convey the food or the liquid to your mouth.

So too with different book formats in this age of multiple choice. As a reader, I find myself choosing different formats depending on the content and context. I prefer printed books for poetry, for Torah commentaries, and for cookbooks. Yet I read fiction almost entirely on my iPad. I listen to non-fiction business books on my phone. It’s not a competition between the formats, but rather a matter of which one I prefer for the particular content.

The questions about how to best use technology in publishing are challenging and enormous. Publishers of all shapes and sizes are required to constantly keep learning new skills, and consider new options. But the core of publishing is still about content. For publishers, technology is not the goal, it is merely the means.

This blog also appeared on RavBlog, the blog of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

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Filed under Books, Judaism, Poetry, Publishing

Tagged as CCAR, Publishing, Technology

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