Category: Books

Brief reviews of books by contemporary authors I read this month — along with photos of what I ate while reading. The list is ordered by the level of my enjoyment:

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante (Europa, 2013)

“Did I keep my feelings muted because I was frightened by the violence with which, in fact, in my innermost self, I wanted things, people, praise, triumphs?”
*
I loved and could so relate to Elena, the protagonist of this novel, who keeps so much of her feelings and desires hidden from others. Simultaneously I often felt infuriated with her — at her inability to speak up when she was wronged, to ask for what she wanted. The domestic violence — and the women’s expectation and acceptance of it — in Ferrante’s novel is a fascinating and disturbing look at the culture of a small Italian town. It’s beautiful and violent and full of dramatic sweeps of feeling. I loved this book — and it ended in an emotional cliffhanger, so I can’t wait to read the next in the series. Earlier: My microreview of My Brilliant Friend, the first of Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels.

Army of One by Janet Sarbanes (Otis Books, 2008)

“Writing is not a solution, I tell them, writing is the putting into words of a problem.”
*
I especially liked the epistolary stories in Janet Sarbanes’s collection Army of One. There’s an email exchange between a cheery nine year old girl and a rather surly aunt — who reveals obliquely she once slept with the girl’s father. There’s a communal journal where all the petty bickerings of a polyamorous commune come to humorous light. Through the collection the stories touch on art and writing, war and politics, money, freedom, and that pesky and elusive goal of self actualization. Highly recommended — I feel more people should know about this tiny book from a tiny press.

A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Jonestown by Julia Scheeres (Free Press, 2011)

“It was far easier to condemn Jones’s victims than to comprehend them.”
*
A Thousand Lives is a scary and fascinating read — It seeks to answer a compelling question: Why did close to a thousand people follow a religious leader — despite his descent into alcohol and drug abuse and psychosis — to end up committing “revolutionary suicide” in the 70s? What attracted them to what most would call a sadistic cult? Julia Scheeres looks at some of the very positive aspects of Jim Jones’s church: the message and practice of racial equality, the acceptance and care for the many dispossessed ignored and rejected by the rest of society. This book was a serious page turner, all the way to its thrilling and very violent end.

Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones (Bloomsbury, 2015)

“To the suburban kids hooked first on pills, heroin fulfilled the dream of the adventures they’d never had in their quiet towns. Part of heroin’s new appeal was that it kept them at the edge of a hazardous yet alluring dreamland.”
*
This book is a trip to read. Dreamland reveals how changes in medical treatment of pain got huge numbers of people hooked on OxyContin — and how those people ended up turning to black tar heroin en masse when crews from a small Mexican town figured out a business model to deliver the drugs cheaply, quickly and conveniently right to the addict. Dreamland is about America’s opiate epidemic, but also about so much more: the sweeping economic changes that happened in the rust belt as a result of offshoring, the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation of small town businessmen in Mexico, the heavy impact of poorly cited and understood medical studies, the fatal consequences of shame and silence. I read this book for Skylight Books’s current events book club, and loved being part to the passionate discussion at the meeting. Earlier: 6 Book Clubs in Los Angeles to join in 2017.

Ninety-Nine Stories of God by Joy Williams (Tin House, 2016)

“What she wrote was not important. It was the need that was important.”
*
I read this sly, funny, and surprising book by Joy Williams in a day. The 99 short stories run the gamut — some are like parables, others like folklore, and yet others political commentary — on topics ranging from the Unabomber to feminism. It’s great to read in tiny bits — or all in one sitting.

Neon Green= by Margaret Wappler (Unnamed Press, 2016)

“Sometimes I try to talk to people and I fail. I fail to say the things I really mean. Which in the end means I was only moving my lips around a series of sounds.”
*
Neon Green is at first a novel that seems to be about a family of four living in a Chicago suburb in the 90s who win a lottery to have an alien spaceship visit their backyard — but ends up being a family drama about coping with the illness and death of a parent. Along the way there are environmental lessons about the state of our planet — tied in with emotional lessons about love and memory. Overall, a sweet, heartfelt read.

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte (Picador, 2010)

“I loved people, all people, except for the ones with money and free time.”
*
I picked up Sam Lipsyte’s novel because it happened to be in my studio when I arrived for my residency at Vermont Studio Center. It’s follows a guy fired from his fundraising job at a mediocre arts college — who gets rehired to get money out of a rich friend from college. I enjoyed the many moments of humor — but for some reason the plot didn’t quite pull me in. Kevin Sampsell says Lipsyte is one of his top 5 fave authors though, so I’ll be giving another one of Lipsyte’s books a try later this year —

Sparrow by Kim Todd (Reaktion Books, 2012)

“How do we treat the insignificant, the overlooked, outside our windows and within ourselves?”
*
Kim Todd’s Sparrow is a slim book with everything you ever wanted to know about the little bird: the different types, the history — in real life as well as in literature and art — and the environmental issues it faces today. The quote, which is from the introduction to the book, piqued my interest. The book doesn’t quite answer this philosophical question, but I did enjoy seeing how a simple bird could be seen as a microcosm for examining broader sociopolitical and artistic concerns. I picked up this book because Kim and I were residents at The Anderson Center together last summer, and I’ve since wanted to read her work! Earlier: My Writing Residency at the Anderson Center.

The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman (St. Martin’s, 2016)

I picked up The Two-Family House because it was a pick for the West Hollywood Women’s Book Club. It’s about two Jewish families (the fathers are brothers) that start out happily sharing a house in Brooklyn in the late 40s — but are ripped apart by a family secret. The secret? The wives switch their kids at birth, so the one that already has daughters gets a son, the ones with sons a daughter. This “twist” is revealed lateish in the book — but I’m really not giving any spoilers because everyone in the book club figured out the switch after like chapter 1. Which is to say — I found this book predictable, formulaic, and rather bland — but I really enjoyed talking about books and meeting other women at the book club! Earlier: West Hollywood Women’s Book Club: Women connect over books by women

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Brief reviews of books by contemporary authors I read this month — along with photos of what I ate while reading. The list is ordered by the level of my enjoyment:

All at Sea: A Memoir by Decca Aikenhead (Nan A. Talese / Knopf, 2016)

“I am afraid that by writing this story, I will make it untrue.”
*
This memoir is a classic tale of boy meets girl, except the boy is a high functioning crack addicted drug dealer and the girl, Decca, is a rather posh journalist for the Guardian. Somehow the two make it work, leaving their spouses and starting a new life together and having two kids — until the guy suddenly drowns while rescuing one of their sons! In many ways, the first part of the memoir that details how Decca and her guy get together and adapt to each other was what I found most incredible and fascinating. The bulk of the book, however, has to do with Decca dealing with the aftermath of the drowning — which was still interesting, but less unexpected. Reading this book encouraged me to be more open to the possibilities new people bring into my life — though I think I’ll still draw the line somewhat before hooking up with a crack addict outlaw. A compelling read.

I Am No One by Patrick Flanery (Tim Duggan / Crown, 2016)

“I felt both the futility and waste of my hours but also the horror of being watched ….”
*
Patrick Flanery’s novel stars a lonely professor in NYC living a quiet life — who suddenly starts getting little clues that his life is under surveillance. This gets him doubting his own memory and sanity — while also combing through his past in Britain where he might have done some things to set off current troubles. Though the ending was a little disappointing, I found this novel to be an unexpected page turner that grapples with timely issues about government surveillance, private citizenship, and the squishy spaces between them.

Hot Milk= by Deborah Levy (Bloomsbury, 2016)

“I wanted my whole life so far to slip away with the rolling waves, to begin a different kind of life.”
*
Hot Milk tells the story of Sofia, a young woman who goes with her hypochondriac mom to see a specialist in Spain. While there Sofia starts slowly taking more agency in her own life, getting bolder. She steals a fish and makes dinner for a guy she wants to seduce, she frees a neighbor’s abused dog, she starts a relationship with an intriguing woman. It’s a story of quiet daring and self reinvention — a great read near the start of a new year.

Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin (in the US, Vintage, 2011)

“A house takes on the characteristics of its occupant, and, depending on who lives in it, it can become a very good house or a very strange house.”

Please Look After Mom begins when the aging mom of a family gets lost in a subway station — and the family members start a frantic search to find her while remembering all the ways the mom sacrificed to care for them yet was largely taken for granted and ignored herself. The book is a page turner even though its structure depends on quiet reminiscences. The memories are at once universal — all the ways we take the people in our lives for granted until they’re gone — and culture and time specific — the history of war and poverty in Korea alongside the gender expectation that women, especially mothers, be subservient, care taking, self-sacrificing. Overall I enjoyed and learned a lot from this book, even as I found myself getting anxious about the ways the novel in some ways glorifies female sacrifice and suffering.

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown, 2016)

“A nice girl. But a cheat of the deepest dye.”
*
The Wonder tells the story of a “fasting girl” in a small Irish village — a girl so spiritually enlightened she claims not to need food. The novel’s told from the perspective of the nurse who comes to observe the girl to see if she’s cheating. In a way, the book weaves a long-ago sociocultural phenomenon with contemporary knowledge of eating disorders, weaving together everything from the history of the potato famine to the effects of hushed-up sexual abuse to the religious glorification of self-sacrifice and martyrdom, especially for women. A fascinating read.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House, 2005)

“I have always found the times when another person recognizes you to be strangely sad; I suspect the pathos of these moments is their rareness, the way they contrast with most daily encounters. That reminder that it can be different, that you need not go through life unknown but that you probably still will — that is the part that’s almost unbearable.”
*
Prep tells the story of a lower middle class girl from the Midwest who goes to an elite east coast boarding school on scholarship. I picked this up as a comparative read for another high school novel I’m reviewing — and though the book ran a bit long, I really enjoyed many moments — the strangely rigid social codes of high school life, the adolescent uncertainty and confusion. Read it to remind yourself how glad you are to be done with all that high school awkwardness.

I Love Dick by Chris Kraus (Semiotext(e), 1997)

“When you’re living so intensely in your head there isn’t any difference between what you imagine and what actually takes place. Therefore, you’re both omnipotent and powerless.”
*
Chris Kraus, a married filmmaker, develops an obsessive crush on Dick — so of course, Chris and her husband start writing letters addressed to Dick about said crush — and about everything else. The obsessive letters are at turns an experimental artwork, parts of an epistolary novel, diary entries, and actual love letters. Dick’s reaction in many ways is predictable and understandable — but the novel’s a fascinating look at an artistic mind. It’ll introduce you to a lot of books and films and artists to develop your own obsessions about.

Reputations by Juan Gabriel Vasquez (Riverhead, 2016)

“Life turns us into caricatures of ourselves.”
*
Reputations stars a political cartoonist at the pinnacle of his career — who starts questioning his life choices, his professional decisions that may have wrecked people’s lives as well as his own personal relationships. In one long-ago cartoon, he’d implied a politician was a pedophile — leading to the politician’s suicide. Decades later, the cartoonist is confronted with uncertainty about the truth of his accusation — which makes him question his motivations, his integrity, and the meaning of a life of work. Overall, a thought-provoking book.

The Trespasser by Tana French (Viking, 2016)

“Time after time it’s left me gobsmacked, how people will tell you things they should keep locked inside for life; how ferociously they need the story to be out in the air, in the world, to exist somewhere outside their own heads.”
*
A tough, rely-on-no-one-but-yourself female detective in Ireland tries to figure out who killed a beautiful young woman in her home. I liked the finely-drawn personality of the female detective protagonist — her fragile sense of loneliness juxtaposed with her bristly, stay away exterior. That said, it seems the detective novel just isn’t my genre, even if well-written. I found the novel quite long….

Watchlist: 32 Stories by Persons of Interest by Bryan Hurt (Editor) (Catapult, 2016)

“What is a god if not alone?”
*
Watchlist is an interesting anthology of stories about surveillance — some by well known writers like T.C. Boyle and Aimee Bender, others from newer writers, others from international authors…. There are dystopias, strange machines, and parallel worlds — and a strong USC connection among the contributors, where the editor Bryan Hurt and I both went to grad school. The quote comes from Hurt’s own story, “Moonless,” about a guy who creates a mini universe and thereby becomes a god of sorts. It’s the perfect book if, like me, you’ve already watched all 3 seasons of Black Mirror and need more scary stories about the future of tech.

Daughter by Janice Lee (Jaded Ibis, 2012)

“Who is to say I’m not God and I just don’t remember it?”
*
Janice Lee’s slim novel is a very poetic work — full of disruptions, non sequiturs, and fractured dialogue. There’s a vague semblance of a plot involving the daughter, her mother, and an octopus found in the desert. With shoutouts to everyone from Nietzsche to Sesame Street, Janice Lee’s experimental novel is an energetic and enigmatic read.

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