Category Archives: literary fiction

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

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“’Do you worry about becoming a cliché? ‘

“’How do you mean?’

“’Another death-obsessed Iranian man?’”

My thanks go to Doubleday and NetGalley for the invitation to read and review this singular debut novel. This book is for sale now.

Our protagonist is Cyrus, an Iranian immigrant who comes to live in the U.S. as an infant. He is raised by his father, Ali; his mother’s plane was shot down shortly after Cyrus was born, an accident on the part of the U.S. military. His father dies suddenly while he is away at college, leaving him rootless. He spends a lot of time anguishing over death, wondering what is worth dying for. He doesn’t want to waste his “one good death.” Later, he points out that “If I died trying to kill a genocidal dictator tomorrow, the news wouldn’t say a leftist American made a measured and principled sacrifice for the good of his species. The news would say an Iranian terrorist attempted a state assassination. “

And you know that he’s right.

The thing that attracted me to this story is its difference from everything else that I have read. Persians almost never show up in American novels, and when they do, the Persian is the other, the bad or weird person, pretty much like the quote above suggests. So I was all in.

However, I have to say that the amount of angsty inner dialogue makes this a slooow read in places. There is also dialogue between Cyrus and friends, but most of it basically the same thing with a different format. I was primed for humor, since that’s how the book is being promoted, but didn’t find much of it.

The story wakes up a bit when Cyrus leaves Indiana for New York, but the writing remains inconsistent, and the transitions are sometimes a bit ragged.

The revelation about his mother, which occurs toward the end of the story, is startling, and I didn’t see it coming, but it also presents a credibility issue; I won’t go into details here, because it would be a spoiler. Still, apart from this one reservation, the ending is nicely rendered.

Akbar is an interesting writer, and I look forward to seeing what he writes next.

North Woods, by Daniel Mason*****

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By now the word is out about this genre-bending novel. North Woods, by Daniel Mason, is nothing short of brilliant. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review; this book is available to the public now.

This book is all about the setting; there are some terrific characters, but don’t get too attached to any of them, because for the most part, they come and then leave. Rather, our story is about a cabin in the woods of upstate New York, and the acreage surrounding it, and how its use changes over the years.

We commence before the American Revolution, and so in the beginning, the narrative has the style of a very old diary, with antiquated spelling and language. This section is the reason I am so dreadfully late reading and reviewing this book. Honestly, the first fifteen percent or so is as dull as watching paint dry. I would begin reading it, but then my eyes would glaze over and I knew I had some other things to read by authors I knew and loved, and so I would switch books. But my Goodreads friends were raving about this book in unusually large numbers. Nobody didn’t like it. And so I summoned my self-discipline and went to it in a determined fashion, fortified by the audio version, which I received from Seattle Bibliocommons. This was very helpful. And once I got past that dry beginning, I began to understand why other readers were raving about it.

The first characters that are noteworthy are twin daughters named Alice and Mary, who are left to run the apple orchards on their own when their father goes off to war. He is a Loyalist, determined to save New England for his king. He doesn’t survive the war, which is just as well, because the locals hate him; he chose the wrong side to fight for. Neither daughter marries, and the property eventually goes to someone else.

The chain of owners is varied and, in many regards, absolutely hilarious. We see one new owner after another explore the house and the grounds, and of course, none of them has a full picture of the previous owner. I love the fact that I know more about this place than its most recent purchaser, and the assumptions that they make range from the merely incorrect to the disastrous. I cannot say too much more, although I particularly enjoy the character of George, whose phlegmatic, unattractive qualities are rendered uproarious in the audio version, and also the medium, a complete charlatan who’s horrified when she inadvertently awakens some actual supernatural beings. I would love to say more, but that would ruin it for you, and that would be a crime because surprise is an important part of the book’s success.

There is a formidable cast of actors that take on the reading for the audio book, and for those readers that are on the fence between audio and print, I recommend the audio version; better still, use both together.

After reading this one clever, memorable book, I will be watching to see what Daniel Mason writes next, because whatever it is, you know it will be good.

Highly recommended to those that enjoy historical fiction, literary fiction, humor, and horror.

Flags on the Bayou, by James Lee Burke****

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James Lee Burke is one of the finest prose stylists the U.S. has to offer. His brilliant, lush descriptions, quirky, resonant characters with interesting names, and his passion for the rights of the working class are the stuff of legends. My thanks go to Net Galley and Simon and Schuster for the invitation to read and review his latest novel, Flags on the Bayou. This book is for sale now.

Our protagonist is Hannah Laveau, a former slave who’s on the run from the law. With her is Florence Milton, an abolitionist from Massachusetts. Hannah is determined not to be caught, but also to retrieve her little boy, Samuel, a preschooler from whom she was separated at the battle of Shiloh. Her determination is singular. Along the way we have officers from both sides of the Civil War, corrupt rich guys, and bushwhackers. The story is complex, as are all of Burke’s novels, and the setting atmospheric.

All of these things being said—and I’ve said them many times before, since I began reading his work about a decade ago—there are some things that I would like to see done differently. Burke has always intertwined social and political messages within his novels, and so it’s the subtext in this book that jars me. In fact, it bothers me enough that I abandoned this story twice before I finally dug in, determined to finish it.

The first category here is the American Civil War, and the fallout we still deal with today. In past novels, Burke has told us that the slaveocracy was wrong, and that the war was indefensible. I feel as if he has retreated from that here. We have some ugly Confederate characters, to be sure, but we also have ugly Union officers, and General Sherman—one of this reviewer’s most beloved heroes—gets run through the mud multiple times. It’s as if Burke wants us to know that actually, both sides were bad, and that war itself is just plain awful. This is weak tea indeed.

The second is one I’ve been eyeing for the last few of Burke’s novels, and I have soft-pedaled it because of my great admiration for the body of his work, and for his ageing dignity, but I do have to say something here. His development of female characters needs work. Lots of it. All of his females are either Madonnas or whores (and sometimes, Madonnas that are forced to be whores, through no real fault of their own.) I would dearly love to see a female character in his books who is not there for her sexuality, and who is not either a victim or a potential victim. With Burke’s Dave Robicheaux detective novels, progress was made with a lesbian cop character, and I was thrilled. But she came and then went, and his experience creating her hasn’t overflowed into his other work.

More than any one thing, I want to see Mr. Burke write a book—just one, seriously—where there is no sexual assault, no threat of sexual assault, and no memory of sexual assault. It’s getting old, sir. You surely have the ability to provide female characters with other motivations. I want to see it.

I was nearly annoyed enough to rate this book three stars, but I liked the ending a lot, and so the fourth star remains.

So that’s my two cents, because as much as I love his work in general, this is getting in the way. There will doubtless be some blowback from his other devoted fans once I publish this review; bring it.

A final note: because I was struggling with this book, I checked out the audio version from Seattle Bibliocommons. The voice actors that perform it are world class. However, because the story is so complex, bouncing back and forth in point of view and setting, it is hard to follow in audio alone. The best way to read this is with both the printed word, whether on paper or digitally, accompanied by the audio.

The Wind Knows My Name, by Isabel Allende****

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Isabel Allende is a living legend, a literary genius and fierce defender of human rights, foremost of women and immigrants. The Wind Knows My Name is a novel that features the struggle of two generations of immigrants, those that came to the U.S. during the Holocaust, and those that are coming here now from Latin America. Allende moves us seamlessly from one set of characters to the next, and then back again.

My thanks go to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

I have been reading Allende’s work for decades. To read her stories is to be transported. In this case, the protagonists include two small people designed to possess the human heart. Samuel is a Jewish violin prodigy, still quite small as this story unfolds; his parents send him to safety when the Nazi occupation of Vienna takes hold, thinking that they will square things away and join him later. Of course, they are never able to do that. Our present-day protagonist is Anita, a Guatemalan immigrant child that is nearly blind. She is separated from her family at the U.S. border, and does her best to stave off loneliness by talking to her sister, Claudia, who is dead.

On the one hand, Allende is, to my way of thinking, on the side of the angels here politically. She always is. But if this feels a bit lecture-like to me, a diehard fan, it seems unlikely that she will reach a lot of newer readers. Usually I bond with her characters and carry them around with me for some time after I have turned the last page, but this time I find I am watching the page numbers go by. The person I feel most affinity for is Samuel, the tiny child clinging to his precious violin, but he disappears quickly and when he returns, he is an old man. Another reviewer commented that too much is told here, and too little shown, and that sounds right to me. And as much as I love Samuel, I also am burned out on historical fiction set during World War II. I hope in her next project, the author will turn in another direction.

To Allende’s many devoted readers, this book is recommended with the above caveats.

Liberation Day, by George Saunders*****

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Liberation Day is a collection of the best short stories you will ever encounter. I had never read George Saunders before, but when I received an invitation from Random House and Net Galley to read and review this book, I remembered him by reputation and jumped at the chance. This book is for sale now.

Sometimes I feel conflicted when I see words like “Booker prize winner” and “exquisite” I feel torn. The book may be brilliant, but it also may be a whole lot of work to read. I am happy to report that is not the case here. Every one of these nine stories could serve as the cornerstone of a collection; the title selection is first, but I suspect that is more about length than anything, as it approaches novella length. It’s science fiction but also vaguely political; a group of people have had their brains scrubbed to near emptiness, and they are mounted on a “speaking wall.” Their sole purpose is to provide entertainment as a sort of scripted Greek chorus. They may only speak upon command; they assume this is a good arrangement, because they have no memories of their prior lives. But then the home (and Speaking Wall) owners are visited by their adult son, who concocts a scheme to liberate the speakers.

Many of these stories have stylized prose and invented words that might be difficult for a reader whose first language isn’t English.  “Mother’s Day,” which is one of my favorites, begins:

“This distinguished-looking gentleman would appear at your door somewhat sloshed and ask, Were your trees slaggard? Were they gublagging behind the other trees? Did they need to be prodderated? And hold up the little device. In this way they had nearly lost the house.”

Happily, for underconfident readers, there is an audio version available. I used it part of the time because I was running behind. There’s a different narrator for each story; actor Tina Fey does one of them! My notes are full of praise for these performers, who make a brilliant book even more so.

I especially enjoyed “The Mom of Bold Action,” which features the ultimate unreliable narrator, and my absolute favorite, “Ghoul”. Imagine, if you will, landing in Hell, or its amusement park equivalent, but there are still rules of etiquette to be observed; in particular, you are expected to be positive, and constantly encourage the other ghouls as they commit the ultimate misdeeds assigned to them. I laughed so hard at this one that it made my family a little cranky, and I had to go off by myself to hear the rest. Worth it.

The stories are a mixed bag in terms of genre, and all are outstanding.

Highly recommended in whatever format makes your heart happy.

Lone Women, by Victor LaValle*****

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“Queer folk, the Henrys.”

Adelaide Henry is “profoundly lonely,” growing up without siblings, with older parents that spurned the world around them. They had their reasons. And yet, in the opening chapter, as I see Adelaide pour kerosene over both of their lifeless forms and burn them, along with their house, I wonder…were they bad enough to deserve this?

But nothing is as it seems, and this is part of the magical spell that Victor LaValle weaves into this kickass novel, Lone Women. By the time I understand the why and the who and the what, I feel an intimate connection to Adelaide, as if I may be the only one trusted with her secrets.

My thanks go to Net Galley and Random House for the review copy. This is one of the finest novels to be published in 2023, and you should get it and read it.

Adelaide flees the California farm where she’s lived all of her life, and buys a homestead in Montana. Almost everything about her life changes; from the warmth of California to the frigid winters of the Northern Rockies, from life with her parents to one lived alone, and from an all-Black community to one that is almost entirely Caucasian. She brings very little with her, only what she can carry, but she is curiously possessive of her extremely heavy trunk, and though I initially assume that she keeps something of great monetary value inside it, I soon realize that isn’t it. My early notes ask the same thing over and again: “What is in that trunk?”

From there, our story unfolds and I can’t stop turning the pages. I’ve never read a novel of any genre that’s like this one, and I’m guessing that you haven’t, either.

Do yourself a favor. Don’t read the synopsis. Go into it blind. It’s a lot more fun if you learn of the characters and events at the times the author intends.

There’s a powerful message in play, but the story is so adroitly delivered that it never feels like a polemic.

I won’t say more, because I don’t want to ruin it for you, but believe me, the next time LaValle publishes a novel, I will be first in line to read it. Highly recommended, especially to feminists.

The Magic Kingdom, by Russell Banks*****

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Some writers may fade as their bodies begin to fail them, publishing books that aren’t quite up to their usual standards; Russell Banks, on the other hand, seems to have saved one of his best for last. The Magic Kingdom tells the epic tale of Harley Mann, a boy that spends most of his boyhood on a Shaker plantation in Florida, and then becomes a real estate mogul later in life. My thanks go to Net Galley and Knopf Doubleday for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Harley’s father dies when he is young, and his mother is forced to take him and his many siblings elsewhere. At first, they land in a religious cult on a plantation that works them like slaves; then Elder John, the head of a Shaker Colony in Florida, rescues them. Harley’s mother and most of his siblings become Shakers and remain with the colony until its eventual demise, but Harley has his doubts.

Nobody can craft character the way that Banks has, and he has melded a fascinating setting, one which begins over a hundred years in the past and follows Mann into his dotage in 1971, and which also incorporates a fair amount of Florida geography and history. Most of the story centers around Harley’s deep and abiding love with Sadie Pratt, a young woman being treated for tuberculosis in a nearby sanitarium. Sadie is not a Shaker, but is friend to them, and visits often when her health permits; Harley, just coming of age, falls for her hard. There’s a good deal of tension between Harley and Elder John, who despite all of his adherence to Shaker beliefs and practices on the surface, is also privately building himself a personal stake that only Harley knows about. By the time the book is over, I find myself wondering whether Harley’s character represents a real historical figure. No indeed; this is just the kind of magic that one finds in Banks’s novels, his capacity to build characters so real that they are nearly corporal.

The little shots off the bow that are fired at the Disney Corporation—by Harley, of course, and his representative after his demise, not by Banks—add a tinge of edgy amusement.

Because I had fallen a bit behind, I procured the audio version of this book from Seattle Bibliocommons, and so I can tell you that the narrator does a fine job, and it’s as easy to get lost in this story listening to it as it is reading it from the text; I did some of each.

This novel is brilliant, and all that love excellent literary fiction or historical fiction should get it and read it.

Kunstlers in Paradise*****

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4.5 stars, rounded upward. My thanks go to Net Galley, Henry Holt Publishers, and Macmillan Audio for the review copies. This magnificently quirky novel is for sale now.

Julian Kunstler is kind of a mess. He’s a twenty-something New Yorker whose girlfriend has just dumped him. He has no job, and he doesn’t want one; at least, not the low-paying, entry-level variety of jobs for which he is qualified. He takes himself home to his parents who have been paying his way, confident that they will understand his plight and increase his allowance. Instead, he hits a wall. What are your plans for the future, Julian? (None.) What do you plan to do for money? (Get it from you.) Just as a dramatic situation has begun to unfold, they hear from his 93 year old grandmother, Mamie, who lives in Los Angeles. She wants him to come to stay with her awhile; she needs assistance. He’s not so sure that he wants to go, but when his parents insist, he gets on that plane. Once there, the pandemic strikes, and he is trapped in lockdown with his grandmother and her elderly companion, Agatha.

Mamie has always been fond of Julian, and although she does need a driver for doctor appointments and the like, what she wants, more than anything, is to tell her life story. Most of it, anyway. It begins in Austria, as Jewish artists like her father, a successful composer, are being pushed out of public life by the Nazis. (Here, I emit a small moan; I am heartily sick of Holocaust stories. Happily, we don’t stay there long, and this story is worth it.) She goes on to describe the shock she experiences in suddenly being transplanted into a completely different climate, language, and culture, and much of Mamie’s story is droll. And Julian, who never would have sat still for these tales had they come from his parents, listens. At first, he listens impatiently, assisted by Mamie’s generous liquor collection. As time goes on, he begins to listen with greater patience and understanding. And by the end of a year’s time, he listens with genuine interest. His own exile from New York is pale, after all, in comparison to the exile his predecessors endured.

The most dynamic character is, of course, Julian, but through Mamie’s stories, we see how life has already changed her. Agatha is enigmatic until the book is nearly over, and I love what Cline does with her, too.

If I were to change one thing, I would edit down the material about the genius composer friend that emigrates from Austria and is close to the family. This reviewer was a music major once upon a time, and if this part of the narrative is a bit much for me, then probably many others will feel the same. Of course, if the reader comes to the book with a deep interest in Schoenberg, then it may prove quite satisfying.

I am fortunate to have access to both the digital print galley and the audio version, and reader Jesse Vilinsky is hands down the funniest, most skillful voice actor I have ever had the pleasure to hear. Cline’s book is very good, but in the hands of Vilinsky, it is infinitely better. Her interpretations of Mamie and Julian are spot on, hilarious at times, moving at others. The way she voices Agatha is absolute comic genius!

For those that love quirky humor and historical fiction, this book is highly recommended.

The Wonders, by Elena Medel***

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Elena Medel is a Spanish award winning poet, and this is her debut novel. My thanks go to Algonquin and Net Galley for the invitation to read and review.

I am initially excited to be asked to read a work of fiction that “brings a half century of the feminist movement to life,” but in most regards, the magic has escaped me. I suspect part of this may be cultural, and/or a matter of translation, because the style is very different from North American and British novels. A single paragraph may last for pages, and there are vast swaths of internal monologue that leave me checking the page count.

And yet, there are some fine moments here. I can’t recall having seen a novel that demonstrates so decisively what happens to a woman that is not given the choice to terminate a pregnancy, or what kind of life the child is likely to have. We begin with Maria, who is completely disinterested in her baby, and almost immediately leaves her with her mother, parenting only by sending money home as she is able. She works the night shift, facing danger and harassment constantly.

Her daughter Alicia is not only disinterested in motherhood, but never develops human attachments. She takes joy in hurting other people, physically and emotionally, from an early age. She makes no true friends, and she doesn’t want any. Her character chills me to the bone.

Although it isn’t an enjoyable read for me, I recommend it to a niche audience, those that have a particular interest in international feminist literature. It will be available to the North American public tomorrow, March 1, 2023.

When the Moon Turns Blue, by Pamela Terry*****

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Once in a while the odd thing happens,

Once in a while the dream comes true,

And the whole pattern of life is altered,

Once in a while the moon turns blue.

The tiny Georgia hamlet of Wesleyan is preparing to bury one of its own, and Mother Nature is preparing to cover the entire town in ice. But nobody—well, almost nobody—knows that a source of local tension is about to go nuclear, as someone is planning to topple and destroy the statue of a Confederate general in the park inside the boundaries of Old Man Griffin’s land. “The fight was just getting going good, and now somebody’s declawed the cat.”

This riveting, curiously charming and sometimes hilarious novel is the second by Pamela Terry, whose outstanding debut novel was The Sweet Taste of Muscadines. This one may be even better. My thanks go to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

With the death of Harry Cline, we find ourselves at his funeral, a massively attended affair. But his wife, Marietta, develops a disabling, blinding migraine, and although they have been on the outs for years, Butter, her (former) best friend, comes to the rescue. By the time they’ve snuck out the side door of the church, we already know at least a little about both women, and now we want to know everything.

With just two novels published, Terry has already proven herself to be among the best authors when it comes to character development. Soon we’ll meet others—Marietta’s obnoxious brother, Macon and his beleaguered wife Glinda, who will have a large part in this story and is one of my favorite characters, as well as a host of others, who have smaller roles but are each so unmistakably established that it’s no work at all to keep track of them. But perhaps her finest achievement here is in creating a masterpiece that is ultimately a feel good book, despite the use of a red hot real world controversy within its pages.

I generally read several books at a time, and this one is the one that I saved for bedtime, because I wanted to be able to read it uninterrupted, and it is the one I wanted in my head when dreams came. It didn’t let me down.

This inspirational work of Southern fiction stands shoulder to shoulder with the finest classics, To Kill a Mockingbird and Fried Green Tomatoes. I wholeheartedly recommend it to you.