I recently finished reading ‘Night Boat to Tangier’, a novel by Kevin Barry. I enjoyed it. On the face it’s the story of two aging Irish criminals – Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond – sitting in the ferry terminal in Algeciras waiting for Maurice’s daughter, Dilly, who may be going to or from Tangier.
Maurice and Charlie accost a young man who they think might know Dilly, casually terrorizing him in search of information on the woman’s whereabouts. They strike up a conversation with two other women whose English skills aren’t quite developed. And they drown their sorrows at the station’s bar: “It is a tremendously Hibernian dilemma — a broken family, lost love, all the melancholy rest of it — and a Hibernian easement for it is suggested … we’ll go for an old drink.”
The book is interspersed with flashbacks to their younger years when they were both friends and rivals, running drugs between Morocco, Spain and Ireland. “But the money no longer is in dope. The money now is in people. The Mediterranean is a sea of slaves. The years have turned and left Maurice and Charlie behind. The men are elegiacal, woeful, heavy in the bones. Also they are broke and grieving.”
It does recall a bit another work by an Irish writer – Waiting for Godot – but this one is brightened by Barry’s wonderful gift for dialogue which I admired again and again as I read the book. It’s both grim and compassionate and I felt a bit of compassion for Maurice and Charlie as I read the book despite some of the awful things they had done.
The book is filled with memories of their early days in Cork, in London, in Malaga and more, often in a drug and alcohol-induced haze. They truly are, at the end, broken men.
“Is there any end in sight, Maurice?” Charlie wonders.
“This is the great unfortunate thing,” Maurice reckons. “We might have a length of road to go yet.”
The book was longlisted for the Booker Prize and was a NYT ten best books of the year in 2019 and was one of NPR’s Best Books of the Year. You should read it if only for the wonderful dialogue. Here’s the NYT Review.
I recently finished reading Washington Black, the amazing novel by Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan. In addition to being short-listed for the Booker Prize, it was selected as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, The Economist and a host of other publications.
The novel opens in Barbados in 1830 on a sugar plantation. Our narrator, George Washington Black, Wash for short, is an eleven year old slave who watches his new master arrive on the plantation – a master who is vicious and sadistic. Wash comments, “He owned me, as he owned all those I lived among, not only our lives but also our deaths, and that pleased him too much.”
You might think this is going to be a story of brutalities and failed attempts at escapes, but here Edugyan spins the first twist of the novel. His master ‘lends’ Wash to the master’s brother, Christopher Wilde, known as Titch who turns out to be a naturalist, inventor and abolitionist. Titch has brought along materials to assemble what he calls his ‘Cloud Cutter’ – a hot air balloon attached to a boat-like gondola.
Titch enlists Wash as his assistant, teaching him to read and, in the process, discovering that Wash possesses a skill for executing detailed scientific drawings. Across the color line, the two strike up a kind of friendship. So much so, that when it seems likely that Wash will be killed in wrongful retaliation for the death of a white visitor to the plantation, Titch fires up the gas canister, cuts the ropes that tether the Cloud-cutter to Earth and, together, the two ascend into a tempestuous nighttime sky.
But this is just the beginning of Wash’s adventures, not the end. They crash land onto a ship which takes them to Norfolk where Wash discovers a huge bounty has been placed on his head. Then, in short order to the frozen wastes of the Artic then, Wash alone, to Nova Scotia, London, the bottom of the sea and to Morocco. Wash grows into a man and finds a woman but all the while is searching for himself, wondering why his friend Titch has left him and trying to understand how others see him.
It’s a fun and unconventional novel and I enjoyed it. Give it a try. Edugyan is a gifted story teller. Here’s a link to the NYT review.
I just finished reading ‘Shuggie Bain’, Douglas Stuart’s first novel, winner of the 2020 Booker Prize and finalist for the National Book Award. It’s a great, wonderful book that I enjoyed but not the book to read if you’re looking for an uplifting tale or a happy ending.
Set in the dreary Glasgow of the 1980’s when the shipbuilding and coal industries had been destroyed thanks, in no small part, to Margaret Thatcher and her cronies.
Shuggie Bain is the story of a young boy growing up in a dysfunctional family amid disastrous economic turmoil. Shuggie’s mother, Agnes, is an unrepentant alcoholic, and his father, Shug, is a taxi driver who despises his wife’s addiction to “the drink,” cheats on her whenever the opportunity arises, and ultimately abandons her to a low-income housing development called Pithead, a depressing colliery where residents survive on government handouts.
Shuggie’s half-brother and half-sister soon manage to escape from an environment they recognize as untenable, leaving Shuggie to take care of a mother who, for the most part, is so inebriated that she is unable to attend to herself. At the same time, Shuggie is forced to face his inability to be like the other boys his age and, as he enters his teens, begins to struggle with his own sexual identity.
Early in the book there’s a scene where little Shuggie is playing with empty cans of Tennent’s beer that have pinup beauties on the side. He strokes their tinny hair and makes them talk to each other. His father is proud, thinking the boy is going to be quite the lusty man but his mother looks on realizing what’s really going on.
It’s a desolate existence for the most part. When Agnes spends all her government support money on drink, they pry open the electric meter to get the coins inside. All the while, Shuggie is loyal to her and takes care of her to the end. It’s a story of hope and despair. Some things can be fixed or overcome; others cannot. Most of the people in Shuggie’s life think they don’t count anymore, that they’ve been cast aside. It’s a feeling I believe some in our own country have and it’s not good.
There’s plenty of Scottish working-class dialect in the book and it takes a few pages to get used to it, but the book is very well-written and you’ll get used to it.
It’s a great book, immersive and affecting. You will say ‘wow’ when you finish it.
I recently finished reading ‘Quichotte’, Salman Rushdie’s latest novel. It’s an interesting book and difficult to describe – part picaresque, part fantasy, part magical realism, part science fiction and so forth. It’s a modern-day retelling of Cervantes’ story of Don Quixote as a satiric and humorous portrait of America in the age of Trump. Our hero, a traveling salesman of Indian origin, becomes addled by his obsession with American television (in the original, the Don is addicted to heraldic romances). He begins to believe himself an inhabitant of “that other, brighter world” and resolves to win the heart of a beautiful television host (meet our Femme Fatale), Salma R. (who stands in for Dulcinea del Toboso – the pig raiser). Instead of Don Quixote’s old nag Rocinante, Quichotte drives an old Chevy Cruze across the United States. Where Don Quixote starts off satirizing the 17th-century addiction to chivalric romance, Rushdie’s Quichotte is “deranged by reality television,” including Salma R’s celebrated talk show.
But there is a parallel story about a writer called ‘Brother’ who has been a writer of spy fiction but now decides to write a novel about Quichotte and his travels through contemporary America. This big of metafiction almost takes over the story but Rushdie manages to connect them effectively and bring the plot to a satisfying conclusion.
Instead of Don Quixote’s old nag Rocinante, Quichotte drives an old Chevy Cruze across the United States. Where Don Quixote starts off satirizing the 17th-century addiction to chivalric romance, Rushdie’s Quichotte is “deranged by reality television,” including Salma R’s celebrated talk show.
Quichotte is a pharmaceutical salesman who is laid off near the beginning of the novel. He decides to seek the love of Salma R by journeying to Manhattan, where she lives, across an America suffering from a serious bout of unreality, helped by Fentanyl. In the course of his travels, he encounters a town where its inhabitants are gradually turning into mastodons who run rampant and are impervious to good sense. The mastodons are allegorical representatives of “all the enemies of contemporary reality: the anti-vaxxers, the climate loonies, the news paranoiacs, the UFOlogists, the president.” They are an acknowledged borrowing from Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. In another episode, Sancho gets beaten up by white nationalists wearing collars (unleashed dogs of war).
It’s a fun book to read and an interesting story but it is a bit off the rails at times. I like most of Rushdie’s work and this is good but not his best. Give it a try if you have a chance. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and it is definitely worth a read. HERE’s the NPR review.
Some of you may be looking for last minute gifts or something to read over the holidays or next year. Here, in no particular order, are some books I particularly enjoyed this past year. I’ve tried to include a brief description of each and I’ve added a link to an outside review for those who want to learn more about a particular book.
There There, by Tommy Orange is a wonderful book. It was one of NYT’s best books of the year in 2018. It’s set in Oakland and the title comes from the famous Gertrude Stein quoted about Oakland. It’s a wonderful, picaresque story about being a native american in the city about ‘Indians pretending to be Indians’ and searching for belonging. HERE’s the NYT review.
City of Girls is by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. It’s an odd love story set in the New York City theater world of the 1940s and told from the perspective of an older woman looking back on her youth with pleasure and a bit of regret. There sex and promiscuity and a lot of fun. I found it an enjoyable read. Here’s the NPR review.
In The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead tells the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in the Jim Crow era of Florida. It’s based on the infamous Dozier School where, at the time he was writing the book, archeology students were digging up and trying to identify the remains of students who had been tortured, raped, mutilated and buried in a secret graveyard. It’s a remarkable book that shines a light on a shameful part of American history. Here is the NYT review.
Squeeze Me, by Carl Hiaasen offers, as you might expect, some wild escapism. Be warned though, if you are wearing a MAGA hat you might not like this one. The story takes place mostly in Palm Beach near the ‘Casa Bellicosa’ where the President, whom the secret service has code-named ‘Mastadon’ spends many a day and night. One of his neighbors, a prominent dowager falls drunk into a pond and is swallowed by a python. The entire book is too funny for words. Here is the NYT review.
Erik Larson is an amazing writer of nonfiction events ranging from hurricanes to ship sinkings to crime. In The Splendid and the Vile he writes intelligently and in amazing detail about Winston Churchill and his family during the blitz. On Churchill’s first day as Prime Minister, Germany invaded Belgium and Holland and Dunkirk was just two weeks away. Despite this and a multitude of personal issues, he held the country together under the most trying circumstances and eventually prevailed. The book is very well written. Read the NPR review HERE.
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips was a finalist for the National Book Award and other awards and one of New York Times ten best. One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls—sisters, eight and eleven—go missing. The search continues over a year in Kamchatka – a place with soaring volcanoes, dense forests, open tundra and where people still herd reindeer and are suspicious of outsiders. It’s a great read and full of interesting characters. Read the review at The Columbia Review HERE.
I do read science fiction from time to time and I enjoy it but most don’t make the cut to be in my top twenty of the year. Exhalation by Ted Chiang certainly does. Chiang doesn’t write novels; he sticks to short stories and this collection of nine stories is his best. NYT made it one of the ten best of the year as did many other publications. Chiang proves that science fiction doesn’t have to be dystopian and these original, provocative and often poignant stories will have you questioning what it means to be human along with many other questions. Read the NPR review HERE.
Half of a Yellow Sun is a wonderful book by a gifted writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The title is an allusion to the flag of the short-lived Biafran republic. The book describes the events that led up to the secession of the Igbo-dominated Biafra from the rest of Nigeria and the war and famine that followed. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene. We experience the hope of independence movements everywhere and see that hope dashed. Read the NYT review HERE.
Educated is another one of the NYT ‘Best Books of the Year’ and winner of many awards. It’s the story of Tara Westover who grew up as one of seven children in a survivalist family in Southern Utah. She received almost nothing in the way of schooling and was subject to violence by her father and brother. Her father was so wary of government that four of her siblings didn’t have birth certificates. Despite all of this she decided to get out into the world and was admitted to Brigham Young University and eventually Cambridge University where she earned her doctorate in history. It’s an amazing story. Read the NYT review HERE.
A Burning, Megha Majumdar’s debut novel is tautly written and reads like a thriller. After a terrorist bombing of a train, Jivan, a young woman, writes a careless post on Facebook complaining about the ineffective police. Of course that targets her and three days later she is arrested and beaten into confessing to the bombing. We see other characters, a teacher who sees his political rise tied to Jivan’s fall and Lovely, an outcast who has the alibi to set Jivan free but speaking up would cost her everything. It’s a fast read and something you won’t forget. Here’s the WaPo review.
In ‘The Handmaid’s Tale‘ we learned how The United States became a theocratic totalitarian state where women are treated as nothing but wombs, nonwhites and unbelievers are expelled, resettled or disposed of and race and class are used to divide the people. ‘The Testaments‘, Margaret Atwood’s stunning sequel set fifteen years later we learn that there are spies in Gilead, determined to bring it down. We also delve more deeply into its founding and possible end as the lives of three radically different women converge with explosive results. It’s a great read. Here’s the NYT review.
Bernadine Evaristo was co-winner of the Booker Prize last year (along with Margaret Atwood, above) for her novel Girl, Woman, Other. It’sa magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain. The story begins just hours before the debut of a play at the National Theatre in London, and it ends 450 pages later as the audience spills into the lobby. But during that brief window of time, Evaristo spins out a whole world. Novella-length chapters draw us deep into the lives of 12 women of various backgrounds and experiences. From a nonbinary social media influencer to a 93-year-old woman living on a farm in Northern England, these unforgettable characters also intersect in shared aspects of their identities, from age to race to sexuality to class. It’s witty and emotional and we hear voices that are often sidelined. I strongly recommend it. Here’s the WaPo review.
I recently wrote about The Association of Small Bombs in this blog. I liked it a lot. The book, by Karan Mahajan, was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of many other prizes. When Mahajan was young, Kashmiri extremists set off a bomb in a market hear his home. In this book, separatists set off a bomb in a small market in Delhi killing, among others, two brothers and injuring their friend. We learn about how the survivors go on and we learn about the internal life of those who placed the bomb and why. It’s a fascinating and wonderfully written exploration and story. Here is the WaPo review.
Strangers and Cousins, by Leah Hager Cohen, is an enjoyable story about what happens when a large and chaotic family hosts an even larger and more chaotic wedding. It’s loud and funny and there are, of course, conflicts of all kinds but at the end problems find a way to be resolved and familial love perseveres. It was a WaPo ten best novel and it really is a lot of fun to read. Here is the NYT review.
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste is a wonderful book to read. They language is lyrical and sometimes you want to read a sentence or a paragraph again just because of the feel of the words. It’s set in the first real conflict of World War II; Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia. At its heart is orphaned maid Hirut, who finds herself tumbling into a new world of thefts and violations, of betrayals and overwhelming rage. Hirut is a compelling hero. Fighting the Italian invaders and raging against the continued violation at the hands of her commander she finally, in the middle of a battle, loses her fear of death and runs toward the Italian army tapping her own chest and saying, ‘Boom’. There is no comedy or humor in this book but it is wonderful and you should read it. Here is the NPR review.
American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson is a kind of literary thriller. It certainly starts with a bang. On page 1 the narrator hears a noise in her bedroom and she grabs her handgun just before an armed man enters her room. She ends up with a few bruises, he ends up dead. It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes even though she admires Sankara. In the year that follows, Marie will observe Sankara, seduce him, and ultimately have a hand in the coup that will bring him down. But doing so will change everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, a lover, a sister, and a good American. It’s darkly funny and very good. Here’s the NPR review.
I hope this will give you some ideas. I selected these from many more that I read this past year. Please comment and let me know what you’ve been reading that you really like.
Comments