Tag Archives: literary fiction

My Name is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout*****

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mynameislucybartonElizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer winning author of Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys. Her new novel, My Name is Lucy Barton, may be her strongest work yet. I was lucky enough to get my DRC free of charge from Random House and Net Galley in exchange for this honest review. My thanks go to both of them.

Right about here is where I often start examining various aspects of a new novel: setting, plot, character development, as well as its political undertones, if there are any, and there usually are. But this book defies that sort of compartmentalization. If you want a label for it, we could call it a fictional memoir, but that doesn’t really do it justice either. In fact the entire work is a gloriously detailed character sketch. The setting exists only to develop the character. The dialogue exists for the same purpose. Lucy Barton is developed as much by what is not said—or maybe more so—as by what is. The plot, which also exists to develop character, is fluid, apart from the fact that Lucy’s story begins in the hospital following an appendectomy and she is out by the conclusion. But in between, we bounce around to various times in the character’s life; we share her dreams, her memories, her phobias…and because Strout is part author, part magician, we just can’t put it down.

Well, that’s not completely true. I was reading the first half at night, and suddenly realized that this was not a story I wanted impacting my own dreams, so I deliberately put it aside, choosing to reread a celebrity memoir before I turned off my light. I could fall asleep with Tom Petty in my head, but I would surely have nightmares with Lucy Barton.

Lucy is so pathetically lonely that she hangs on the kind words of the doctor in the hospital, almost as if he were a surrogate father. There has been so little affection in her life.

“Lonely was the first flavor I had tasted in my life, and it was always there, hidden inside the crevices of my mouth, reminding me.”

Strout uses repetition as figurative language in a way I haven’t seen done before. I’ve seen it used many times by other writers for emphasis; I’ve seen it used in a house-that-jack-built way by a couple of really strong writers to create suspense. Strout writes in the first person, as should be clear from the title, and in this case, repetition is used to build mood; in a number of places, I get the feeling that repetition is being used to make us believe something that may not be true. She protests too much; she is repeating herself either to convince us, or to convince herself. Hell, maybe it’s both. She repeats the same thing about a character from her past so often that I am half convinced the person she speaks of is imaginary; one has to wonder.

Barton’s back-story is one of stark, terrible white rural poverty. The protagonist and her entire family lived in a rented garage; one room, freezing cold. The children in the family were so badly dressed, so badly groomed that other children would not sit next to them on the school bus, and they were whispered about at school, “equally friendless and equally scorned”.

To some extent this could be called a mother-daughter novel, because almost all of the dialogue and much of the plot consists of the shared memories between Lucy and her mother, there in the hospital. As they echo one another, there is a cadence that shows that no matter what happened while Lucy was growing up, there is closeness between the two of them; Lucy would have more if it were offered. But the conversation is a kind of almost church-like call and response, a sort that is often seen among family members in smaller snippets. Much of the conversation is just neighbor gossip, but so much more is said in the way that Lucy and her mother speak to each other.

Barton is thrilled to have her mother there, nearly cannot believe she has actually come to sit with her, and as they converse, bits and pieces tumble out, and other bits are suppressed, but our protagonist thinks about them, and so we are in on all of it. And the sense of horror builds, builds, and builds some more. Brief snapshots of horrific events blink in and back out again, juxtaposed with that which is common and normal—the terror of being locked in the truck as child, and then we are talking about Lucy’s own children going to a play date, and about Lucy’s appendix. And by giving us the briefest glimpse of the horror, and letting us know in the author’s own brilliant way that this snapshot is not the half of it, there’s oh, so much more—the effect is tremendously chilling, and at the same time, oh so human.

And ultimately, whether her mother visits her or not; whether Lucy is financially well off or stone cold broke; whether she is married or single; Lucy is alone. Her solitude is positively visceral.

This novel won’t be available until January 2016, and that’s a shame, because it’s an amazing October read. But we will take a good case of the shivers along with stellar literary fiction when we can get it, and this novel comes highly recommended. Absolutely brilliant!

City on Fire, by Garth Risk Hallberg*****

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cityonfireLuminous, epic, and brilliantly scribed, City on Fire is the buzz book of the year. I would be hard pressed to find a story of greater genius published this century. Those that love literature have to read this book. It will be available to the public for purchase October 13.

I received my copy early from Knopf Doubleday Publishers and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. In doing so, I feel as if I struck oil.

The story, some 992 pages of it, is a complex story, and like an onion, the reader can decide how many layers of interpretation they wish to uncover. What the reader cannot do, however, is skim, or make the story make sense without reading it in its entirety. It is the thing that makes this story great that makes it complicated, and so those that lack the stamina for a book this length will probably not find it fulfilling. A college-ready literacy level is required in order to understand it.

First, the reader will want to know who committed the act of violence that sets so many things into motion, and how the planned escalation by her friends will unfold. But ultimately, the story is a much broader one, and its genius is in the way each character, even its most peripheral ones, is developed, usually within the same space that the setting is described, and how both of these things drive the plot forward rather than slowing it down. This reviewer came away with hundreds of flagged pages, eloquent quotes, and fifty notes to myself, most of which say exactly that; in fact, eventually I was too engrossed in the story to write a full note anymore, and began using “ch dev, setting” as a shorthand that meant, look! He’s done it again! And by the 80 percent mark, the author had so consistently developed so many characters that I began to ask myself who had not yet been included. Those I watched for were also developed by the conclusion.

In looking for a writer’s purpose, it’s easy to choose one part or another of a storyline and home in on that, and it’s particularly dangerous when the writer touches upon one’s own particular fond subject, or one’s own pet peeve.

In her memoir, Amy Tan remarks upon having stumbled upon a set of Cliff Notes for her own first novel, and discovering that she had intended as metaphor or message passages that actually, she had included for the sake of telling a good story. It’s a cautionary reminder here. If we want to know the author’s purpose and we aren’t sure, we should probably just ask him.

Yet the emphasis on the city, and the development of the characters, seems to point to one thing above all else: “I see you”. For though the author includes the diverse races, genders, ethnicities, and classes that make up a great cosmopolitan city, the story isn’t really about race, and it isn’t really about being gay or straight, and it isn’t really about the entitlement that comes of great wealth and capitalism unfettered, or anarchy and cataclysmic change, or cops, or the disabled, or addiction, or any of the story’s other facets. Rather, each is a foil to show the common humanity of all.

And at a time such as this one, with our social fabric strained and our political ideas polarized, it isn’t such a bad thing, I think, to have an author come forward and say, in a way far more compelling than anyone else has managed to do for decades, that we are all of us just people, after all. All of us will grow old or sick or both, and eventually die. All of us will grieve. Most of us will be injured, and we will forgive it to the extent that we are able. And if any of that sounds trite, it is only my own failing in this review rather than the author’s work, which is breathtaking in its scope and mesmerizing in its capacity to weave so many threads and perspectives into one intricate, flawless story.
If you read one great book this year, let this be it.

The Sunken Cathedral, by Kate Walbert ***

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thesunkencathedralMy three stars here are a compromise. Try as I did, I could not enjoy this novel, but it is marketed more toward New Yorkers than others, and although I like a good urban setting and have enjoyed New York, have friends and family from there, I don’t live there and never have. Also, the plot is oriented toward the art world—Marie and Simone are senior citizens studying art, and there are a lot of references to art that went right past me. So if you are a New Yorker interested in both the history of Manhattan and art history, then this might be your book. And thank you once more to Net Galley and Scribner for permitting me to access a galley in advance for the purposes of review.

Some writers have a taut, urgent writing style that leaves their readers perched, sometimes literally, on the edges of their seats. Some have a sumptuous, painterly style that takes its time, and one should sink back into a soft place by the fire or in summer, perhaps on the beach, and prepare to drink it all in. Walbert uses the latter style, and I wanted to sink back, wanted to drink it all in, but for me, the description was the whole thing. I found myself bogged down with description that did not appear to serve much plot, and it never felt as if it was moving forward. There was a lot of inner dialogue, remembrance, but so very little actually seemed to happen. I have never found myself dissatisfied for this particular reason, and so I thought surely it must be me. I went back and started it over three times, and in the end, I came away frustrated. The over-long footnotes (in fiction?) were a distraction, and the style, in the end, felt pretentious.

But then again, remember that I know almost nothing about art. I know of a couple dozen famous paintings, and I thought I would like this story because I loved The Goldfinch, whose most critical scene is set in an art museum. And maybe that was my own problem as well: trying to follow a Pulitzer winner like The Goldfinch is indeed a heavy burden. I came away from reading that book and Toni Morrison, so perhaps my expectations were a trifle high. But I can’t honestly say I liked this book.

If you are a New Yorker, especially an older one, and if you lean toward the art world, you may enjoy this novel, by an award-winning writer. It has just been released, so if you would like to order it, you can do that now.

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt *****

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thegoldfinchI didn’t want to read this book. I resisted it until it had the Pulitzer; then I caved. And once begun, Tartt’s spellbinding tale owned me until I had turned the final page.

The story begins in an art gallery, which explodes in a manner reminiscent of 9/11. It kills many people, including Theodore Decker’s mother.

I don’t like art galleries. I don’t blow them up; of course not. But they bore me unbearably. I avoid them, and I avoid books that are set there.

Theo hasn’t seen his father in nearly a year; for a long time, it had pretty much been his mother and him against Dad, who came and went at irregular times, drank way too much, and was bad tempered. When he left, they were relieved. He never paid a dime of child support, didn’t even leave a forwarding address. Theo’s short, bad memory of Dad’s parents tells us they would make even worse guardians, and his mother’s folks are dead. With whom, then, will he live?

The teacher in me engaged fully when the process of dealing with Theo’s loss and custody issues commenced. Every counselor, teacher, and government bureaucrat wants him to confide in them about his feelings, his grief. Talking about it is supposed to make him feel better. But it’s a hot-stove topic for Theo, and they go about it all wrong, face to face, brightly lit rooms with fluorescent lights, and in one horrific case, an entire panel of earnest professionals at a big board-meeting table waiting to grill this one, introverted, shy child.

His one hope at first is that the Barbour family will take him in. He’s been skipped a grade in school, and Andy Barbour is his one friend. Together they braved the hazing by resentful older students. The Barbours live quite well, in opulent yet tasteful surroundings. Theo walks on eggshells, avoiding becoming an imposition. It’s awkward; when he needs lunch money or a bandaid, he feels funny asking. But gradually, a consensus seems to emerge; he is good for Andy, and Andy is his mother’s favorite. And just as they are ready to set the lawyers and bureaucratic adoption wheels in motion…Theo’s rotten, irresponsible father turns up to claim him. And there is nothing that Theo or the Barbours can do about it.

By the way, I also don’t read books about affluent people. I like regular folks, people who work hard for shelter, food, and other essentials, and a few simple pleasures. And so this book reminded me that for every rule, there is an exception. I don’t read about art galleries or art, and I don’t read about the rich, but I would be much poorer had I not read this book.

Now, back to Theodore Decker.

Theo has never been out of New York City for more than 8 days, but now he is going to Vegas. He watches horrified as his apartment home, once so secure and comforting, is taken apart, thrown into boxes…and his father takes his girlfriend into his mother’s bedroom, where he hears them rustling through her clothes, the girlfriend giggling over his late mother’s effects. The horror!

Ultimately, Theo’s greatest source of consolation, apart from the Barbours, is a furniture restorer. One of the victims of the bombing asked him to take something there with his last dying breath. And in learning to restore furniture, Theo learns to restore himself. There is a fair amount of philosophical musing toward the end of the book, but by then we care so deeply about Theo that we listen carefully. And whereas some of the somewhat nihilistic ponderings went against my grain, I read every word, because I wanted to know what Theo thought.

My favorite character in this massive, painterly tome is Boris. Boris becomes Theo’s friend in Vegas, where both of them live the lives of feral children, sometimes having to steal food, and taking terrifying risks of all sorts. Boris is fearless, and 99 percent of the time he is loyal. They are nearly killed together multiple times, but Boris pops up again, time time time and again, to stand by his comrade once more.

Those that don’t care for literary fiction won’t like this story. The descriptions were so well done that I sometimes found myself forgetting to breathe. It doesn’t happen a lot, and I read a great deal, but it happened constantly as I read this book. If instead you prefer action, action, action—a book that thinks it’s a video game, perhaps?—then leave The Goldfinch on the shelf for someone else.

I got my copy at the library, but I may buy a nice hardcover copy for my daughter at Christmas. It should be in every library, at least among those that love literature.

To sum up: simply brilliant.

River of Earth, by James Still *****

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riverofearthRiver of Earth, originally published in 1940, is a classic tale of Appalachian coal miners, dirt-poor, ever-proud people living deep in the mountains, crags and hollers, trying to scratch out a living, sometimes from pretty much nothing. How does one grow a crop if one has eaten the seeds to avoid starvation the winter before? And how does one survive as a miner when the days of available work shrink from five, to four, to two, to “Mine’s Closed”?

Initially, I was drawn to this book for two reasons. One is an interest in the early United Mine Workers, a stark, brutal organizing effort that is actually nowhere in this story. I got the book for Christmas upon my own request, and one might expect I’d be disappointed that no union shows up at all here.

And yet I wasn’t. Note that five star rating. My other reason for wanting to read it, is that one of my favorite authors mentions it in the text of one of his novels, and I wrote it down. And as I read this bittersweet tale of rural Caucasian poverty, I found something unexpected. I’ve been finding it more than one might think lately. I found ghosts and echoes of my own ancestors.

My grandfather was a miner; he died of black lung. But when a relative embarked on a genealogical expedition, I found that three of my four grandparents had roots in that same hardscrabble region, the part of Eastern Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia where a body had to more or less guess, back in the 1700’s, which side of the state line he was on.

By 1940, when this book was published, my folks had cleared out of there, but I still heard little speech mannerisms, which cultural geographers call “cultural artifacts”, that had embedded themselves and dropped into the speech of my elders back in the day.

Alpha, usually referred to in the first-person narrative as “Mother”, has married down. She fell in love with Brack many years ago, and although there was at least one wealthy man that set his cap for her, she chose Brack instead. And she doesn’t complain about the family’s state of poverty, not even when there is so little food that she pretends to eat while the children have their supper so that they won’t realize she is making a single mouthful last an entire meal. No, Brack is the one she wanted, and he is what she’s got. She’d do it again, she says.

But oh, how she wants to settle on a little spot of land! At one point they have rented a farm that is humble, yet provides enough food that they can winter over without fear of starvation. It’s on a hilltop with a view, and it has access to woods nearby where in spring, wild salad greens can be picked. It’s all she wants. That, and for Baby Green to survive. He’s been feeling poorly, crying from hunger. Finally, one ugly winter when the food has nearly run out, she apologetically takes a little more food at table. She is ashamed to do it, but she knows the baby needs milk, and it’s the only way she’ll be able to feed him.

She loves that baby so.

Just a plot of land where she can grow things and settle into the house without constantly being required to pick up and move to the next coal town, a mining town which might or might not be hiring, and where the air will clog the children’s lungs and coat the inside of the house with fine black grit, no matter how many used tobacco plugs are stuffed into its cracks. She is sure that if her little family takes care of the earth, it will take care of them. It worked for her mother, and it will work for her family too…if only she can persuade Brack.

And she can’t. Brack is a miner. He believes he was destined to mine coal. And wouldn’t it be nice if his many hanger-on relations, those that come to visit and never leave, felt inclined to do the same? Or to help turn the ground, when they have some to turn? Or to do something other than eat more than anybody else and complain that the food isn’t good enough?

The reader has to admit that this is a wicked-hard dilemma. If one’s relatives are likely to starve if turned out of the house midwinter with nowhere to go, can one send them? But if one’s children are going hungry because the relatives are eating a lot of the food that was supposed to be theirs, can one continue to feed them? It’s a point of contention between Mother and Father. Father says he won’t turn his kin out; Mother says the children are too thin and hungry, and couldn’t his kin do a lick of work for once?

At one point Grandma needs help, but Mother can’t go to her, because the baby is ill. The food supply problem and the Grandma problem are partially solved by sending our narrator and protagonist, still elementary school aged, off to live with her and help her run her farm. Grandma is the embodiment of a work ethic. Rheumatic and 78 years old, she crawls down the rows of crops in order to harvest a few puny potatoes. She reflects on her married life, before her husband died, and her pride in having none of them shot to death, so common in these nail-tough hills:

 “Eight me and Boone brought into this world, and every one a wanted child. Four died    young, and natural. Three boys and one girl we raised. My boys were a mite stubheaded, as growing ones air. But nary a son I had pleasured himself with shooting off guns, a-rim-recking at Hardin Town and in the camps, a-playing at cards and mixing in knife scrapes, traipsing thar and yon, weaving drunk. Nor they never drew blood for doing’s sake, as I’ve got knowing of. Feisty though, and ready to fight fair fist if the other feller wanted it that a way. I allus said, times come when a feller’s got to fight. Come that time let him strike hard where it’ll do most good, a-measuring stick with stone, best battler win. The devil can’t be fit lessen you use fire.”

It occurred to me as I read it, although I could hear Grandma speak in that dialect in my head clear as day, that the dialect would wreck havoc upon the eyes and mind of someone with a mother tongue other than English. I handed it to my husband and pointed to a paragraph. He’s been in the USA for decades and speaks several languages, but he reluctantly told me that although he could understand it if I read it aloud with inflections where they belonged, it was really too much on the printed page.

With that sole caveat, I recommend this slim but magnificent story. The setting is nearly a character unto itself (although I had to get online to figure out what a paw-paw fruit was). The dialogue and its point and counterpoint, Mother advocating for the Earth, and Father advocating for dynamite and despoilment, is bound to resonate in this fragile ecological time.

But you could just read it because it is amazing literary fiction.

The Sunlit Night, by Rebecca Dinerstein *****

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thesunlitnightWhen was the last time I read something this poignant? No, it’s more than poignant. This novel is a real powerhouse, and my heartfelt thanks go to Net Galley and Bloomsbury, USA for letting me read it as a DRC. It affected me to the extent that I needed to let it steep in my mind for a few days after I read it, before I could review it. That’s always a good sign.

You see, Yasha has grown up without his mother, at least for most of his life. He, his father, and his mother all received much sought-after plane tickets to the USA from Russia. Not all were scheduled to depart at the same time, and not all of them did. And so Yasha and his father have lived above the bakery, and now and again they phone to see when Mama might be coming. It isn’t like she is dead or in jail. She just hasn’t come. She puts them off; she makes excuses. So Yasha helps his father run the bakery, rising early every day and jetting home from school promptly when the bell dismisses him. Season follows season,and year follows year;the loss grows deeper and stronger, as does his bond with his father, a flour-speckled, graying eccentric with the world’s kindest heart. His father is his life, and the place where his mother once was is a constant void. “No mother. No mother. No mother.” Unless you are made of brick or cement, you have to feel his pain.

I think the narrative that alternates here, that of Frances, who is destined to meet Yasha, is supposed to be equal in force, but to me she is an also-ran. The book is really about Yasha, and I am fine with that. Frances also hails from a family that is coming unstuck; her parents have given her and her sister notice that they need to get out of the tiny Manhattan apartment in which they grew up, because they are going to separate.

At the same time, Frances’s boyfriend, the man she loves so much that she has turned down a prestigious art fellowship in order to follow him to the ends of the earth, dumps her. Doesn’t even stay with her till she boards; he just leaves her there all by herself, hurt and stunned. He’s gone.

Yasha and Frances will meet at the top of the world, or the nearest possible place. It’s in Norway, not far from where the Sami hunt reindeer. In the summer, the sun never goes down.

Generally I am not a reader of romances. I am perhaps too cynical; I hear the violins starting up and slam the book shut. No schmaltz for me, thank you kindly. But once in awhile an amazing story comes along. Think of The Thornbirds; think of The Prince of Tides. The Sunlit Night is such a story, an exceptional story for which rules were meant to be broken.

It comes out in June, and you just have to read it. Don’t let yourself be left out.

Lost in the City, by Edward P. Jones *****

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lostinthecityEdward P. Jones needs my review like Shakespeare needs my review. He is one of those literary luminaries whose work is timeless. Nobody can teach anyone to write like this. Either you have it, or you don’t. We are fortunate that he does.

This wasn’t a digital galley; it was a Christmas gift. That’s how much I like his writing. So I guess my purpose in reviewing someone this renowned is perhaps to draw attention to him for those that haven’t read his work yet.

I read this over the course of almost a month, short as it is, and I did it that way because it’s so painful. In this respect he is similar to Russell Banks: peerless, brilliant work that is also so sad that you just about have to sit down and cry when you finish. And because of this, I was glad to have a short story collection, because I could read a whole short story, put in the bookmark, then pick something else up for a little while to cheer myself up. Then when I was over it, I could pick it up and read another one a different day.

All the stories are set in Washington, DC, and all have to do with alienation and a sense of loss. I think the story I admire most is “His Mother’s House”, but all of them are strong.

The first book I read by this author was The Known World, which won the Pulitzer. Now I need to get a copy of All Aunt Hager’s Children.