Two couples, Alex and Christine, Zach and Lydia, made up of four friends in their fifties who have known each other for a lifetime. At the opening of Two couples, Alex and Christine, Zach and Lydia, made up of four friends in their fifties who have known each other for a lifetime. At the opening of the book (so not a spoiler), Zach has a sudden heart attack and is gone, leaving the three remaining friends to sort out life without him. The loss creates, of course, an imbalance in the relationships that exist, and as Tessa Hadley takes us back in time, we find there are layers and layers of complexities that come into play.
This book was marvelously written and endlessly surprising. I felt as if I knew each of these individuals so well by the end–all the emotions and needs that drove them together and apart, the feelings they could not express and the ones they expressed all too often. I sympathized, loved, hated, and pitied them, mostly for the things they might have seen or done and didn’t.
There are three adult children of these four who also figure in the story, and their presence added just the right nuance for me. Their stories were interesting, if secondary, but their relationships with the parents were telling in a way that could not have been supplied otherwise. You can tell a lot about a mother/father by how they relate to their child.
There is no lack of plot or movement in the novel, but in the end it is overwhelmingly a character study, a deep psychological view of what makes us choose a path and what happens when the journey is abruptly interrupted. It is also a commentary on marriage and friendships, how they both sustain and defeat us.
Thanks to Mark Porton for steering me to an author I had never come across before. He made me want to read this immediately, and so I did. ...more
The surface of everything is thinner than we know. A person can fall right through, without any warning at all.
Virgil Wander is not an easy man toThe surface of everything is thinner than we know. A person can fall right through, without any warning at all.
Virgil Wander is not an easy man to describe and this is not an easy book to review. It has a quirky, almost outlandish, element, but each of the oddball characters seem alive and real, so I was able to go with it and find the joy in the reading.
When we meet Virgil, he has just been fished from the water after taking a dive from a cliff in his Pontiac. It is uncanny that he has survived, but he has, with only a bit of brain fog to show for the experience. The brain fog doesn’t keep him from functioning, although it does rob him of adjectives, but he feels, instinctively, that he has become a different person than the one who went into the brink.
Imagine my relief when Dr. Koskinen, wheezing lightly, face patchy with rosacea, said, “For now I think you shouldn’t worry. You are less dizzy, your words are coming back. Don’t fear occasional ghosts. Every day my mind suggests two or three impossible things.”
Virgil lives in a town called Greenstone in Minnesota, a mining town that has gone bust, and one that is small enough that almost all the inhabitants know one another. Virgil is the owner of the Empress theater, a very low-profit venture, and also the town clerk. The town had at least one semi-famous citizen, Alec Sandstrom, a one time ball player who climbed into a plane and disappeared some years earlier.
Immediately following his discharge from the hospital, Virgil meets a man flying a kite by the water, and the man is inquiring about Alec, because he has just discovered that Alec was his son. This man, Rune, along with Virgil, comprises the hub around which the story orbits. The two of them have lives to rebuild and questions to answer and they need one another in order to find the solutions they seek.
I’m still contemplating how well I liked the surprising ending of this one, but I must confess it fits rather well with the overall unorthodox story line. I rooted for both Virgil and Rune, beginning to end, and I laughed more than once trying to imagine this town and these people. I thought of other slightly odd but lovable characters I have encountered, and I think Virgil ranks near the top. He has such a good and open heart, and he surprises himself more than once with his impulses to take care of others.
This is the second book I have rescued from my “short-list” and I am happy to have it solidly ensconced among the “read”. A bit of fun in a spat of rather darker stories, this one was good timing. I believe it landed on the list because I had loved Leif Enger’s novel, Peace Like a River. That one is superior to this one, but they are so different from one another as to lack kinship and defy comparison. I am in awe of Enger’s ability to take his imagination into such diverse places and leave us with characters we feel we truly know.
One other small observation from Virgil: Your tribe is always bigger than you think....more
I waited a long time to get my turn for this book from the library. I was anticipating it with relish, because several of my trusted friends had lovedI waited a long time to get my turn for this book from the library. I was anticipating it with relish, because several of my trusted friends had loved it and said they, like me, had not enjoyed Kingsolver’s last few books. I was all prepared to be swept away, and I was in the beginning, but Demon has a voice that captivates you and then wears on you and then wears you out.
At least Kingsolver wasn’t preaching to me in this book, but she did seem to be in love with the sound of her own voice, because she wrote pages and pages on subjects that could have sufficed with much less, and she repeated herself endlessly regarding both the lousy DSS system, the details of drug addiction, and the hopelessness of anyone who is born in the hills of Appalachia. At some point, for me, that hopelessness became a bit like the prejudice she seemed to be railing against.
The first 200 pages of this book were somewhat enchanting, the middle was a slog, and the ending was not enough to make up for that. It was not a bad read, but not the 5-star read I had hoped for. Perhaps in the end, you cannot tell someone else’s story as well as they do. David Copperfield is 10-star material, Kingsolver transformed it into something just a tad over okay.
I had said to myself once before that Kingsolver and I were done with one another, but this book tempted me back for another try. This time, I think, the breakup is permanent. So many other authors I want to give a fair chance.
If you have the stomach for the endless beating of the opioid drum, this book will be for you. There are meant to be redeeming moments at the end, promises of better lives for a few, but those seem more like dreams, while the sinking and despair that consumed ninety percent of this book seemed all too real....more
My friend, Lucy, came for a visit today. We sat down at the kitchen table, I poured the coffee, we debated about whether we ought to have a muffin to My friend, Lucy, came for a visit today. We sat down at the kitchen table, I poured the coffee, we debated about whether we ought to have a muffin to go with it, then I asked her about her ex-husband, William.
“Oh, William,” she said. And from there she told me about a trip they had recently taken together to Maine…but you can’t start there, you have to know some back story or the trip won’t make sense, so she began to tell me about her life, the one with William and the one without. She is a very good storyteller, my Lucy, she makes you want to sit and listen, and to listen between the lines.
Elizabeth Strout is so good at character creation that this is exactly what I felt as I was reading. I felt I knew Lucy and that she was simply telling me her story because the easiest way to sort yourself sometimes is to lay the feelings before a friend.
I wonder how anyone can read this book and not stumble across feelings that they recognize intimately. It might be different bits for different people, but every kind of humanity is buried in there somewhere. Lucy is so genuine in her efforts to understand herself. She knows her lack of confidence and self-worth come from her sorry childhood, but she cannot help feeling them anyway. Don’t we all carry those kinds of useless images in our heads?
I have always thought that if there was a big corkboard and on that board was a pin for every person who ever lived, there would be no pin for me.
That isn’t self-pity, it is self-awareness.
But when I think Oh William!, don’t I mean Oh Lucy! too? Don’t I mean Oh Everyone, Oh dear Everybody in this whole wide world, we do not know anybody, not even ourselves!
The older I get, the more resonance this statement has for me. We humans are such complicated creatures. We say what we do not mean, we put up fronts, we draw conclusions on only half the story, and we punish ourselves for other people’s faults.
I have no idea how Elizabeth Strout does it so effortlessly, but she seems to hold up a mirror to each of us and dare us to find the reflection there. There is already another Lucy story out there, waiting for me, and I will happily dive into it as soon as the library list whittles itself down to my name, because Lucy Barton is welcomed at my breakfast table any time....more
What a delightful book and marvelous debut. I closed the book hoping this author will continue to write with this kind of quality for a long, long timWhat a delightful book and marvelous debut. I closed the book hoping this author will continue to write with this kind of quality for a long, long time.
Nobody could not love Marcellus, the octopus, and truly also Tova, the industrious cleaning lady, who is so much more. In fact, both of them are so much more than they initially seem to be!
It is a feel-good story that will still leave you in tears. What more can you ask for?...more
I wasn’t sure I wanted to, or maybe not sure that I could, relive the days of the Pandemic lockdown again, even if I could live them with Lucy. There I wasn’t sure I wanted to, or maybe not sure that I could, relive the days of the Pandemic lockdown again, even if I could live them with Lucy. There are parts of this novel that I did not enjoy, which I often find is so for topics that are just too close and current. What I did enjoy, immensely, were the things I always love in Strout’s Lucy Barton novels–the characters and their relationships and interactions with one another.
I love bumping into characters from her other novels; I love how human and flawed her people all are and how they inspire us to root for them; and I especially love how Lucy tries so hard to see the other side of every coin. Because, like it or not, there is another side to every coin, and we human beings bring a lot of baggage with us on the trip and sometimes it crowds our fellow passengers.
Lucy makes some big decisions in this novel, which a lot of us were forced to do when the pandemic took over our lives. She also comes to some unavoidable realizations:
When I thought of the New York apartment, I thought: It is gone, as all things will be gone someday.
They will indeed, and what is left when we are gone is whatever impact we left in the lives of others who remain behind. Smart lady, Lucy Barton. ...more
I made it four chapters in, one of which was a detailed description of the senseless killing of a possum. This is meant to be humor, and initially I tI made it four chapters in, one of which was a detailed description of the senseless killing of a possum. This is meant to be humor, and initially I thought it would be, but by the time I bailed, I was positive I would not find anything humorous about this foray into the dregs of society and human depravity.
It is sad, because the author can write obviously and there were moments in which I connected with both the driver and his fares. The old man he takes home from the hospital and leaves, reluctantly, alone in a trailer without help or food, was touching for me. But, I find it hard to wade through the excessive crude language or the abusive behavior to get to those moments.
Written for someone with a different sense of humor.
The Killing Hills is my first Chris Offutt novel, but definitely not my last. What a genuine student of Southern Gothic he is, bringing the hills of KThe Killing Hills is my first Chris Offutt novel, but definitely not my last. What a genuine student of Southern Gothic he is, bringing the hills of Kentucky alive, with all the things that are endearing, like strong family ties, and scary, like clan revenge. Mick Hardin, our protagonist, has a love/hate relationship with his hometown and by the end of the novel, so did I.
I have been reading a lot of heavy material lately--The Henrys, James and Fielding--and this novel was like a breath of fresh air. It was fast-paced, intriguing, and unpredictable. As exciting as the story was, it was the character development that won me and kept me in for the ride. I closed the book wanting more of Mick Hardin.
I have had Chris Offutt on my TBR for years, one of those authors I could just never seem to make time for. That won’t be a problem in the future, because I am excited for the next installment in this trilogy, which is due out at the beginning of 2022, and it will be on my wishlist. ...more
In this, Maggie O'Farrell's second published novel, our narrator, Lily, meets Marcus and falls immediately, and somewhat foolishly, in love. She knowsIn this, Maggie O'Farrell's second published novel, our narrator, Lily, meets Marcus and falls immediately, and somewhat foolishly, in love. She knows little or nothing of him before she is swept into being his flatmate, replacing his ex-girlfriend, Sinead, by both occupying her room and becoming his lover. She thinks this should be ecstasy, but somehow the girl before her haunts every inch of the flat and her life, and Marcus is more than a little evasive about what happened between them, how long they were together, and what happened to Sinead in the end. The other flatmate, Aiden, is just as silent on the subject, but Lily sees Sinead in every room and Sinead seems to want to tell her something.
She turns away. The flat seems sticky with Sinead’s fingerprints. She doesn’t know what to do.
As the story unfolds, it seems to be Lily’s story, but, the way Rebecca is about the first wife and not the current Mrs. de Winter, this story rapidly becomes Sinead’s story, not Lily’s.
As I read, I kept asking myself what this novel was really about, beneath the plot, where Maggie O’Farrell always hides the gold. This novel might be about infidelity, impulse, compulsion, an inability to see someone else clearly or maybe it is about our need to cling to the image we have created of someone vs. the person they really are. It might also be about the way we can overlook what is good around us by reaching for a perfection that isn’t there or even possible. But I decided this is what this book is really about–the points of collision.
There are always points of collision–moments at which it is possible to say, yes, if I had done that differently or I had been standing slightly to the right or I had left the house two minutes earlier or if I hadn’t crossed the road just then my life would have taken a completely different course.
Each of the characters here, Marcus, Lily, Aiden and Sinead, experience moments that seem careless or unimportant, but which define their lives and influence their futures. If you think about your own life, you will realize it is littered with such points. When I was setting out on my career, I was offered a choice of jobs in San Diego, Dallas, or Washington D.C. I chose D.C., met the man I was to marry, and had a life I could never have expected. The reason I chose D.C. was based on a chance remark a friend made to me the night before I turned in my decision...up until that moment, I had planned to accept the position in Dallas.
This is Maggie O’Farrell’s second novel and the only one of hers I have read that shows a slight need of polish. It is quite good, and held my interest throughout, but I believed the attempt at the ending to project the future and put a bow on was a mistake. It could have been left without the last section, allowed the reader to decide, and profited from the decision. I think the Maggie O’Farrell writing today would have done just that.
I’m glad I read it. It completes my voyage. I have read all of the novels and now have only the memoir left to me. I will be excited every time a new novel is penned from here out. I will be anxious to hold them in my hands and sail off with her again. A rare and wonderful writer.
3.5 stars. This is a perfectly fine, take-a-break, kind of book. Catherine Ryan Hyde writes those emotion-tugging, not quite possible but we wish they3.5 stars. This is a perfectly fine, take-a-break, kind of book. Catherine Ryan Hyde writes those emotion-tugging, not quite possible but we wish they were, books. Most of us are familiar with Pay It Forward, which was the first book of hers that I read, and occasionally I resort to reading her again, the way I sometimes tire of substantive film and go watch The Hallmark Channel. In her defense, she isn’t quite that formulaic.
In this book we meet single mother, Brooke, whose daughter, Etta, is taken from her by a man carjacking the Mercedes she is driving. The car is not her own, it is her mother’s, and she is not in the best of situations following a divorce. The second person central to this novel is a homeless sixteen year old, Molly, who finds Etta, strapped to her car seat and deserted on a street in a seedy part of town. What ensues is a story that could surely never happen, but seems completely plausible during the telling. I won’t give away any of the plot twists, but will say that much of what happens is fairly predictable.
What makes Hyde work well is her grasp of the emotions that are central to every human being, so that we recognize her characters as people we know or even people we are. In this respect, she reminds me very much of Anne Tyler. Molly becomes dear to us as the story progresses, because we begin thinking we don’t have anything in common with a homeless person, and then find that we absolutely do.
Ever felt abandoned? I guess I was thinking it was sad how they were just going on without me like nothing much had changed. Like I was a number in a math problem and they could just subtract me and get a different total and move on.
Wonder how people deal with their circumstances? We deal with everything, because, short of actually deciding not to live anymore, we don’t have any other option. Not one damned option.
Have a moment of insight into perspective? We were both nervous. And we had melded our nervousness into being nervous together. But we were nervous over two entirely different issues. And she could only tell me what was on her mind.
Realized even when it is about others, it is about us? ...because anytime a person gets that upset about somebody else’s situation, it’s a little bit their own situation, too. That’s one of those things that other people don’t always seem to notice, but I think you can pick up on stuff like that if you’re even halfway paying attention.
Read this one again today (March 2022), and thought it was so appropriate at this moment of turmoil and war to remember that we need to be ready to reRead this one again today (March 2022), and thought it was so appropriate at this moment of turmoil and war to remember that we need to be ready to reach out to the unfortunate people caught in this horror.
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My god this is brilliant!
I stumbled across this by listening to a backlisted podcast recommended by my friend, Suzy. The podcast was about Maxwell, but this poem was offered up by one of the guests, and it took my breath how he constructed this gem.
They have no need of our help So do not tell me These haggard faces could belong to you or me Should life have dealt a different hand We need to see them for who they really are Chancers and scroungers Layabouts and loungers With bombs up their sleeves Cut-throats and thieves They are not Welcome here We should make them Go back to where they came from They cannot Share our food Share our homes Share our countries Instead let us Build a wall to keep them out It is not okay to say These are people just like us A place should only belong to those who are born there Do not be so stupid to think that The world can be looked at another way
Offshore is a very short book, only 141 pages, and the story it tells is almost ordinary, if you can consider people living on the Thames in moored boOffshore is a very short book, only 141 pages, and the story it tells is almost ordinary, if you can consider people living on the Thames in moored boats ordinary in any way. The main narrative revolves around Nenna, a mother of two, living separated from her husband, Eddie, who simply refuses to live on the dilapidated barge she has purchased.
There is one character who made this book work for me, and it is Nenna’s 6-year old daughter, Tilda. She isn’t meant to be the main character, but for me the only parts of the book that had life were the ones she was central to. She sparkled, and I conjured a specific mental image of her every time she appeared on the page.
I am a quote marker, and I found that I had read this book and marked only two passages, and neither of them was striking. I compared that with the Elizabeth Taylor novel I had just read, in which I had marked passages on every few pages and had quotes of stunning elegance and wisdom to revisit when I had finished.
Here’s the best one from Offshore. I could relate to the idea that physical distance is irrelevant if emotional distances exist.
After all, she thought, if she did go away, how much difference would it make? In a sense, Halifax was no further away than 42b Milvain Street, Stoke Newington. All distances are the same to those who don’t meet.
There is nothing to dislike about his novel. Fitzgerald tells the story seamlessly, there is flow and character to the writing, but having won the Booker, I expected something more.The boats, vessels that are meant to move, are all moored at Battersea, and all the people in the novel seem to be stuck in their lives, not moving forward nor, of course, able to move backward; caught between the land and the water. Frequently during the course of the novel, characters are literally hanging above the river on precarious little boards that cross from one boat to the next. That theme and image is pervasive, and each of the characters is clearly at a crossroads in life and almost willfully choosing not to make the decisions necessary to begin their next chapter.
I wanted to be in love with this novel, but I could never make the commitment. Perhaps I had that in common with the motley crew who live in the barges and boats on the Battersea Reach. A lack of commitment would be understood by them all.
This is so sick you almost hate to like it. But it is masterfully written and you cannot deny the skill and genius beLester Ballard is one sick puppy.
This is so sick you almost hate to like it. But it is masterfully written and you cannot deny the skill and genius behind it. It is Cormac McCarthy. Don't read it with a full stomach. Enough said....more
“Love is not changed by death and nothing is lost, and all in the end is harvest.” Julian of Norwich
I was prepared for this not to be Maggie O’Far“Love is not changed by death and nothing is lost, and all in the end is harvest.” Julian of Norwich
I was prepared for this not to be Maggie O’Farrell at her best. After all, it is her debut novel and she is bound to have gotten better over the years…right? Nope. She started out her writing career a full-blown amazement and never faltered afterward.
This novel starts off with a bit of a mystery. Alice sees something while visiting her home in Scotland that makes her run back to London, and we do not know what it is she saw. She is plunged into a coma immediately thereafter, so we must wait for the details of her experience to emerge. Just the desire to know what she saw would have been enough to propel me to the end, but there is so much more to this novel than that.
There is romance, but I would not label this a romance novel. There is humor, but it is tempered with foreboding. There is tragedy, particularly of the kind family members inflict upon one another. There is the reminder that our capacity for forgiveness should be equal to our capacity for love and that time is a limited commodity.
Written in flashbacks, while Alice lies in a coma, the details of Alice’s life come with clues that slowly unravel and reveal not only who Alice is but the secrets of those who touch on her life the closest. As the story progressed, my affinity for Alice grew, until I felt like I was living in her skin.
Maggie O’Farrell has rapidly become a favorite author for me, and I am convinced that her understanding of the human condition makes it unlikely she will ever fail to leave me in awe of her writing. I have hopes of reading all her books before I am through. Maybe 2022 will be the year of O’Farrell for me. ...more
I went into this blind and became immediately intrigued by Janina Duszejko, an older lady who is thought of by most of her neighbors as crazy but seemI went into this blind and became immediately intrigued by Janina Duszejko, an older lady who is thought of by most of her neighbors as crazy but seems somehow oddly logical. She is living in a very hostile environment, on the edge of a thick forest, in Poland at the Czech border. While most of the others who own homes here leave for the winter, she remains year round, with only a couple of neighbors (other odd balls, in fact one that she has named Oddball) and a friend, by the name of Dizzy, with whom she is working on a Blake translation.
She’s pretty self aware and doesn’t miss much in others either:
Once we have reached a certain age, it’s hard to be reconciled to the fact that people are always going to be impatient with us. In the past, I was never aware of the existence and meaning of gestures such as rapidly giving assent, avoiding eye contact, and repeating “yes, yes, yes” like clockwork. Or checking the time, or rubbing one’s nose—these days I fully understand this entire performance for expressing the simple phrase: “Give me a break, you old bag.”
The basic story line is a mild murder mystery. People in the town are being murdered, and all of them are hunters. Janina’s theory is that the animals are rebelling against the injustice done to them, and the more people she tries to tell, the crazier everyone decides she is. But I like her. She is, well, humorous and savvy.
But then death is always at our gates, at every hour of the day and Night, I told myself. For the best conversations are with yourself. At least there’s no risk of a misunderstanding.
I couldn’t help thinking that someone who overuses the phrase “in truth” is sure to be a liar
Beneath the murder mystery story, there are serious questions being asked. Who has the right to decide that animals have no souls and are disposable? What is the difference between a hunter killing an animal and an animal killing a hunter? Should we accept the behavior of someone without questioning because they hold an elevated position…the mayor, the school principal, the police chief, the priest…can they not be more prominent and less moral? How does a simple citizen buck the system? Make themselves heard? Seek justice if they are being ignored and demeaned?
Olga Tokarczuk is a Nobel prize winner and an obviously skilled writer. This book is many things, a bit hard to nail down, but mostly it is fun....more
This is a rather strange novel, a bit hard to categorize or explain. It does not have a narrator, it has several. It does not follow a linea3.5-stars.
This is a rather strange novel, a bit hard to categorize or explain. It does not have a narrator, it has several. It does not follow a linear timeline, but it does weave all the events and people together. It feels a little unstructured, but the lack of structure in the novel mirrors the lack of structure in the lives of its characters.
When Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme disaster hit the news, a very young friend of ours commented quite unemotionally that “you have to admire the man for pulling it off for so long.” I cringed. There is nothing admirable about destroying other people’s lives so that you can live in the lap of luxury. There is no excuse that could ever be enough to explain it. There is something almost inhuman about dining in 5-star restaurants and swimming in infinity pools while you risk the homes, the savings, the actual existence of other people.
...you don’t have to be an entirely terrible person, we told ourselves later, to turn a blind eye to certain things–even actively participate in certain other things–when it’s not just you, because who among us is fully alone in the world?
At the same time, there is something so wrong in the way people will risk everything on something that they must know is too good to be true; something they are afraid to look at too closely or indeed question at all.
One of our signature flaws as a species: we will risk almost anything to avoid looking stupid.
Those, indeed, are some of the themes explored in The Glass Hotel, but not the only ones. Most of these characters are lost and searching, most of them are victims of their own poor choices and stifled consciences, but they are also constantly asking why they are who they are. They look at their pasts, hoping to find the key to a different, less misguided, future. They hide from others, but they cannot truly hide from themselves.
There is exquisite lightness in waking each morning with the knowledge that the worst has already happened.
This was a fast, fun read. I became absorbed in several of the characters, particularly Vincent. I was anxious to see how her story would play out in the end. It was nothing like Station Eleven, but it had that same clever, gripping atmosphere. I will gladly read Emily St. John Mandel again. ...more
Fredrik Backman is the new Anne Tyler. I used to read Anne in my younger days and be amazed at how she could take a group of quirky characters and makFredrik Backman is the new Anne Tyler. I used to read Anne in my younger days and be amazed at how she could take a group of quirky characters and make them all real, flesh and blood people. Backman does the same thing. In less skilled hands, these people might seem absurd, but they are not, they are normal, just not cookie-cutter, and Backman makes you love them, laugh at them, and understand them.
This is the story of a bank robbery, uh, no it’s the story of a man jumping off a bridge, nope, it’s the story of a hostage situation that goes berserk. In truth, it is the story of how complete strangers can affect one another, how things can not be what they seem to be, how your preconceived ideas of who and what people are can be upside-down. But that’s just my opinion. Here is what the narrator says, and his assessment is quite true:
This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots. So it needs saying from the outset that it’s always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is.
I could personally relate. I feel like an idiot a lot more now that I am older than I ever did when I was young. In fact, there is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t mutter to myself, “don’t be stupid”. But, that is the state of being in charge, not having parents or anyone older to help guide you...people who were probably just as lost as you, but appeared to have the key to wisdom. You aren’t ever going to be a child again and have someone else just solve your problems, and might be that no one even cares about you enough to ask what the problems are.
Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works.
This quotation seemed to nail how we all feel at times, like everyone else has the key to the door, while we need a sledgehammer if we expect to get inside.
We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents’ meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they’re doing. We’re the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else’s children can swim.
Or, this beautiful and profound description of what it is to lose your mate:
“He was my echo. Everything I do is quieter now,” she said to the other women in the closet.
I could fill pages with quotes from the book that made me nod my head up and down in agreement. I laughed out-loud with these characters, and felt their pains that they all carried and tried to conceal, with varying degrees of success.
This (I promise the last) quotation might be the one that got to the heart of the book for me:
We’re just strangers passing each other, your anxieties briefly brushing against mine as the fibers of our coats touch momentarily on a crowded sidewalk somewhere. We never really know what we do to each other, with each other, for each other.
Because, in the end, we are all just people doing the best we can, making some very bad decisions that we hope won’t catch up to us or, if they do, won’t destroy our lives. We ought to pay attention to those around us, even strangers, who might just need one kind word, one moment of our time, a pat of the hand, to get through that tough day without making the biggest mistake of all...the one that cannot ever be corrected. Perhaps we all hold the solutions to one another’s problems, but fail to notice. Maybe Fredrik Backman is saying look out more than in, for when you open your eyes, you might also open your heart....more
Plenty of boys had talked of the secret graveyard before, but as it had ever been with Nickel, no one believed them until someone else said it.
ThiPlenty of boys had talked of the secret graveyard before, but as it had ever been with Nickel, no one believed them until someone else said it.
This novel is, unfortunately, based on an actual reform school in Florida, the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, that practiced its own brand of torture on boys under eighteen from January 1, 1900, to June 30, 2011. That it continued to operate well into the current century is appalling. There are interviews on youtube with the actual men who lived this horror, and those are heartbreaking, to say the least. Broken lives.
The world had whispered its rules to him for his whole life and he refused to listen, hearing instead a higher order. The world continued to instruct: Do not love for they will disappear, do not trust for you will be betrayed, do not stand up for you will be swatted down.
If you experienced even a tenth of what these boys did, I doubt you could face life with any other philosophy than the one above. To have yourself treated this way at such a young age would almost guarantee a ruined life. To overcome such an experience would be miraculous.
I wish I could say the book was marvelous. I wanted it to be. Parts of it were captivating, but for me it was more because of the details of the history than the deftness of the writing. Since the book was told from the point of view of one of the boys incarcerated there, it seemed I should have felt the events in a more immediate manner; but the truth is, I watched them from a sense of remove. I winced certainly, but what I experienced was more of sympathy than empathy.
Somehow Colson Whitehead is not a writer for my soul. I was not swept away by The Underground Railroad, as most of my friends were, and I had much the same feelings about this novel. I am not sorry to have read it. Did Whitehead’s books not arrive in my hands with such high praise and expectation, I might enjoy them more; I might stop looking for greatness and appreciate that what is there is enough. A solid 3-stars, which isn’t a bad rating, just isn’t Pulitzer Prize level for me. ...more
This is how we play the game: pink means kissing; red means tongue. Green means up your shirt; blue means down his pants. Purple means in your mouth. This is how we play the game: pink means kissing; red means tongue. Green means up your shirt; blue means down his pants. Purple means in your mouth. Black means all the way.
Thus opens Celeste Ng’s short story Girls at Play. A story written in the collective “we”, it is appropriately about the longing for bonding, about what a young person might do in the pursuit of belonging, and about losing something precious and personal in an attempt to be a part of something larger.
What an amazing writer Celeste Ng is. She has captured a whole world, a lifetime sacrificed, and innocence lost in the course of a short story.
(I have removed the link I included and will leave it up to anyone who wants to read it to seek out the story and not feel I pushed them toward it. I am glad to have read it--not because I approve of the life these girls are leading, but because this truth is out there and must be seen to be understood). ...more
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