Tag Archives: hubris

Returns and Exchanges, by Kayla Rae Whitaker*****

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Kayla Rae Whitaker is the author of The Animators, her 2017 debut which remains one of my favorites after 13 years and over a thousand reviews. Now she has returned with Returns and Exchanges, a more complex, ambitious novel, yet written with the same mastery of the language and the heart. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy; this book is for sale now.

Our story is set in Kentucky and begins on Christmas Eve in 1979. We have a hardworking family that owns and runs a good-sized store; think of something like a mom-and-pop version of Target. The Baker-Taylor store is hopping on Christmas Eve. The owners, Fred Taylor and Fran Taylor, nee Baker, are frazzled but satisfied. The two older sons are working registers; the two little kids are playing in the stockroom. They close up, clean up, and leave to celebrate the holiday.

During the recession of the 1980s they do well; theirs is an unpretentious business that bargain hunters love. As they succeed, they expand, and soon Fred is full of himself, trying to fit in with the local movers and shakers. He joins a rightwing fraternal organization and lives to impress. Fran, on the other hand, is doing most of the work. She knows what money is coming in, what’s going out; which stores are doing well, which are struggling. She is not trying to impress anyone, but falls hard for an employee named Wendy.

Nobody expected this!

And so the beginning of the book focuses primarily on Fran, and I begin to see her as the protagonist, but this is one of those epic family tales, and so as time moves forward, we begin to see different points of view. The elder sons begin to hate the business. It prevents the children from having social lives, and Fred is hard to please. Josiah, the eldest, decides to leave for college, and Baker-Taylor stores don’t loom large in his future plans. Sam, the second youngest, is an artist, and he suffers from mental health issues that Fred cannot accept. Fred thinks Sam is weak, and he doesn’t make the family or the business look good in the public eye. The two young children, Benny and Birdie, grow up largely cared for by others, because their parents are always working (or with Wendy.)

In many ways, it’s like watching a traffic accident in slow motion. I’m leaning forward, as if I might climb into the book itself and shout warnings.

The nearest thing we have to an objective observer is Fran’s brother-in-law, Jack. Jack is gay, but he keeps it quiet and hidden, and so does his loving, understanding wife. He catches onto the changes occurring within the family, including between Fran and Wendy. He tells Josiah privately,

Were your father to find out, God help us, it might break him. But it also might do something else…he’s running with a different crowd now. It’s made him a little rougher. But that’s not my big concern. It’s the board. It’s the shareholders. People who see all the fun family commercials. Do I have to elaborate on what could happen to her if folks caught wind of this?

Truer words were never spoken.

But the most critical aspect of this story, with all of its moving parts, is the way the characters are built. I feel as if I know them all deeply. Fred is the least developed character here, but I know that’s because not that much inward development happens when you’re shallow and not as smart as the rest of the family. And hopefully, that statement reveals how effective the alchemy is here: I’m not thinking about what Whitaker does with the characters. I’m thinking of the characters themselves, as if I might walk around the corner and bump into one of them.

Of course I won’t tell you how it ends, but it feels right to me, strangely satisfying.

For those that love epic family stories with deep, layered characters, this book is highly recommended. It’s one of the year’s best.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8028043777

Falling Onto Cotton, by Matthew E. Wheeler*****

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“This is the most famous thing to happen in Milwaukee since Laverne and Shirley got cancelled.”

Chance McQueen is a musician and restauranteur, an honest man doing his level best to tiptoe around the morass of organized crime that exists around him without getting his toes wet. It isn’t easy. His ancient Uncle Vinny is the local don, and he’s dying. Chance has told him many times that he would prefer to avoid this part of the family business, but he’s been dreaming. Uncle Vinny has stage four lung cancer, and he summons his nephew to share some hard truths:  “It’s simple. Either you take over the family before I’m dead, or Frank will have you killed before my body’s cold…Charles, when did you ever get what you want?”

This oddly charming debut came to me free and early, and my thanks for the review copy go to Net Galley and M.D.R. Publishing. This book is for sale now.

Wheeler’s debut reads as if scribed by a seasoned novelist, and he introduces a lively collection of memorable characters. He serves as mentor and father figure to Winnie, a dapper young man that has it bad for a sweet young thing named Alex; Geoff, his best buddy, who is Black and gay, and endlessly loyal; a homeless veteran living behind the restaurant, who is never a caricature; and Chance’s nemesis, Frank Bartallatas: “Frank Bartallatas was pure evil in a massive frame. More than one little fish had disappeared after swimming too close to Mr. Bartallatas.”

The story is set in 1990, and each of the agreeably brief chapters is headed with the title of a rock song from the 1970s and 80s, which is a portent of what the chapter brings. I like this guy’s playlist, and I stopped reading more than once to add his songs to my own collection.

Here are the things I like most, apart from the playlist: I like the strong, resonant characters, which are well enough developed that they are easy to keep straight; the setting, which hasn’t been overused by other writers, and is a credible choice; the selective use of violence, which cannot be left out of a story like this, but never feels excessive, sickening, or prurient; and the pacing, which never flags. In addition, I like the mobster aspect of this story, an angle that we aren’t seeing much in new fiction.

I have no serious complaints, but if I could change anything here, there are two things I’d tweak: First, Geoff practically can’t have a conversation with Chance without making awkward race jokes, and Caucasians that spend time with African-American people will tell you that never happens, no matter how close you are; and second, the alcoholic protagonist is becoming trite, so I’d either let Chance kick his habit without a protracted, detail-laden struggle, or I’d just let the guy drink. Chance’s dead fiancée is enough hubris all by herself. But clearly these are minor concerns, or this wouldn’t be a five star review.

This rock solid debut signifies great things to come from this author, and a little birdie tells me that there may be future novels featuring Chance McQueen. My advice to you is to get in on the ground floor of this series-to-be, because it’s going to be unmissable. Highly recommended.

Number One Chinese Restaurant, by Lillian Li*****

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NumberOneChineseLillian Li’s debut novel , a tale of intra-family rivalry, intrigue, and torn loyalties is a barn burner; it captured my attention at the beginning, made me laugh out loud in the first chapter, and it never flagged. Many thanks go to Net Galley and Henry Holt Company, from whom I received a review copy in exchange for this honest review.  Don’t let yourself miss this one. This book will be available to the public Tuesday, June 19, 2018.

The book opens with bitter scheming on the part of Jimmy, one of two brothers that fall heir to the family restaurant after their father passes away.  Jimmy has waited for the old man to die so that he could run the restaurant his own way. The Duck House serves greasy, cheap Chinese food, and he is sure he can do better. He craves elegance, a superior menu with superior ingredients. He wants renown, and he doesn’t want his brother Johnny to have one thing to do with it.

Johnny’s in China. Johnny runs the business end of the restaurant, and he takes care of the front of the house. He’ll come back to Maryland in a heartbeat, though, when the Duck House burns down.

Li does a masterful job of introducing a large cast of characters and developing several of them; although at the outset the story appears to be primarily about the brothers, the camera pans out and we meet a host of others involved in one way or another with the restaurant. There are the Honduran workers that are referred to by the Chinese restaurant owners and their children as ‘the amigos’, and we see the way they are dismissed by those higher up, even when it is they that pull Jimmy from a burning building. There’s a bittersweet love triangle involving Nan and Ah-Jack, who work in the restaurant, and Michelle, Ah-Jack’s estranged wife, but it’s handled deftly and with such swift pacing and sterling character development that it never becomes a soap opera. Meanwhile Nan’s unhappy teenage son, Pat, pulls at her loyalties, and she is torn between him and Ah-Jack in a way that has to look familiar to almost every mother that sees it in one way or another. But the most fascinating character by far, hidden in the recesses of her home, is the sons’ widowed mother, Feng Fui, who serves as a powerful reminder not to underestimate senior citizens.

Li is one of the most exciting, entertaining new voices in fiction since the Y2K, and I can’t wait to see what she writes next. Gan bei!

Smoke City, by Keith Rosson*****

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SmokeCityNerds, geeks, and bibliophiles be ready. Marvin Dietz, who in an earlier life was the executioner of Joan of Arc, is leaving Portland, and he’s collected some unlikely traveling companions. Why not join him?  I read this story free and early thanks to Meerkat Press, but it’s worth your nickel to seek it out, because there is nothing else like it. This book is available to the public Tuesday, January 23, 2018.

Mike Vale was once a great painter, and now he has been forced out of his record store by a shifty, corrupt landlord, so he heads south to Los Angeles to attend the funeral of his ex-wife. En route he picks up Dietz, who is hitchhiking, and further along the way Casper stows away in the back. The voice with which their story is told is resonant and the word-smithery makes me shake my head in some places—who writes like this?—and in others I laugh out loud. Here’s a sample from the passage where we meet Casper:

 

‘I want my money,’ Casper said. “My money or my gear. You pick.’
‘Jesus wept,’ the last counterman said before wheeling around on his stool. Then Gary, our mechanic, walked past me and threaded his way through the tables. He laid his hand on the end of the bat… Casper turned and looked at him. What little fight there was deflated out of him like a balloon. Almost lovingly, Gary put him in a headlock.

‘Casper, Duncan sold your meter for a bag of crank days ago. Give it a break. Getting money from him is like getting Thousand Island from a basset hound’s tits, man. You can squeeze all you want, but it ain’t happening.’

 

As the journey continues, somewhere in California, the Smokes appear. They’re the undead, and they appear as if they are made of smoke. They can’t hear live people or see them, but their personal dramas and torments play out for people in the here and now, and they don’t observe the laws and conventions regarding private safety and property, either.  They show up at random times and in random places, causing traffic accidents and other complications. And so we have to wonder if there’s a connection between Marvin, whose many incarnations are recounted to us in his confidential narrative, and these apparitions. The government and the military are at a total loss; the press is enjoying itself, but even the most ambitious journalist recognizes that things have spun out of control.

The plot is complex, and readers must bring their literary skills along for the ride or there’s no point in coming.  It’s a story that takes awhile to develop, but it’s more than worth the slow build. The playful use of language and quixotic spirit of the prose are reminiscent of Michael Chabon at his finest hour.

Highly recommended; get it in hardcover.