blood

Book 42 for 2026: “Paradiso 17”, Hannah Lilith Assadi

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

I decided to try reading some of the finalist books for The National Book Award. This is the first one on my list. I could not stop reading; it’s touching, lyrically written, and timely. Although this is a novel, it is based on the life of Assadi’s father. Like her father, Sufien, the central character, a Palestinian, was driven from his home in the 1948 Nakba. One day the soldiers just show up and tell the whole family they must leave, abandoning the property that has been in their family for hundreds of years and their house with the blue door. This is the story of the rest of his life, first at a tent camp in Syria until his father finds a good job in Kuwait. As the oldest child in the family he and his father decide he should study abroad–he is brilliant at math. He gets a Visa and goes to Italy to study, runs out of money because father loses his job, starts running a rug shop, meets the person who becomes his best friend for life, Bernardo, a very wealthy Jewish guy trying to escape his mandated life in NYC.

Eventually, Bernardo has to go back to NYC and convinces Sufien to do the same. At times homeless, other times living off money Bernardo gives him, and finally finding that his love for driving can help him make a living, he becomes a taxi driver. Then at a club–he tends to drink alcohol too much–he meets the woman who will become his wife, a Jewish woman whose father owns a factory in Brooklyn. Finally, he feels called to the West, to the Arizona desert, where he lives the rest of his life. The two stay together and have a daughter who attends Columbia University, the place Sufien dreamed of attending but could only go there and wander around and visit the library.

This is the story of a man’s life, a man who, driven from his original home, keeps looking for “home”, a place he feels he belongs. It raises the question of what is home, what does home mean, where and what is it. And to quote Dante, the book begins, “You shall leave behind all you most dearly love, and that shall be the arrow first loosened from exile’s bow. You shall learn how salt is the taste of another man’s bread and how hard is the way, going down and then up another man’s stairs.”–Paradiso canto 17.

Book 21 for 2026: “Hurricane Season”, Fernanda Melchor

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

The inside of the front cover informs the potential reader that this is a novel about a world steeped in mythology and violence, set in a small town in rural southeastern Mexico. The violence part is extreme, the kind of violence that only sometimes pervades a lot of small, rural, poverty ridden towns everywhere in the world. Written in a style reminiscent of Faulkner (I read a translation from the Spanish), each chapter tells the main story from a different perspective, the story leading up to and the death of the Witch who is found floating in the water of a canal. She is called the Witch but no one for sure seems to know her gender, where she attained the money to build such a huge house, and how she manages to entertain with lavish abandon. People both avoid her and are drawn to her.

There is the grandmother who thinks her wayward grandson can do no wrong while blaming her daughter ( the child’s mother) for everything and anything, there is his friend whom he both loves and hates, their is the poor girl he aids and loves who has been groomed and impregnated by her stepfather and has run away because of it, the engineer who loves boys and men, the woman who makes her living as a fancy prostitute to support her disabled husband and on and on it goes–people harming each other out of anger and frustration with their dire circumstances. For some of the characters, the writing is first person so the reader learns the interworkings of those mentally harmed by their life’s poverty and environment from which there appears to be no escape.

This is not a novel for the faint of heart.

Book 17 for 2026: “The Silence of the Girls”, Pat Barker

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I read the second and third book of this trilogy first not realizing it was a trilogy until after I started the second one. Pat Barker won the Booker for another set of historical novels and this appears to be her preferred genre. Most stories about Achilles and the Trojan War focus on the viewpoint of the men fighting. This trilogy focuses on the women in and around Troy who have been captured by the Greeks and have become their slaves.

This novel’s voice is that of Briseis, who was once queen of one of Troy’s neighboring kingdoms before Achilles sacked it and murdered her husband and brothers. She is now Achilles’ slave, a battle prize. She realizes she must adapt in order to survive. She gets caught in a dispute between Agamemnon and Achilles’ with the former demanding to take her away from Achilles. Achilles refuses to fight, the Greeks start to lose, something has to be done or the Trojans will win.

Briseis is just one of thousands of women who are now the slaves of the Greeks. This is not only her story but that of all those other women who are now slaves, prostitutes, nurses, women who lay out the dead. This is their story as well as that of Achilles, Patroclus, and various other Greek men but from the viewpoint of Briseis.

Books 12 and 13 for 2026: “The Women of Troy” and “The Voyage Home”, Pat Barker

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

After getting started with the first one, I realized the other was a sequel. Later, I learned this is a trilogy but the library did not have the first book of it. This British author won the Booker Prize for another historical trilogy, “The Regeneration Trilogy.” These two books are obviously about the Trojan War. Although “The Women of Troy” begins with Achilles’ son stuck in the Trojan horse, young (16), scared and concerned about how he will live up to his father’s name, most of the book occurs after the Greeks have won the war, Troy is destroyed, most of the Trojan men and boys, including infants, have been killed and the Greeks have built a village below what is left of Troy because they cannot go home. The constant gale winds make it impossible for their fleet of ships to travel. They have been stuck there for years, have become restive, often violent, bored. The women of Troy, even the princesses and other noble women are now slaves to Greek leaders. Most of the book is told from the viewpoint of several women including, Briseis, who once belonged to Achilles and is pregnant with his child but now married to the leader Acinus. Cassandra, the murdered Trojan king’s daughter, has been forced to live with Agamemnon, She has vowed revenge and has prophesied than both of them will die once they reach his Greek kingdom. This novel centers on what life is like for these Trojan women who are the spoils of war, living as slaves in the Greek camp.

“The Voyage Home” centers on the trip from Troy back to Mycenae and the immediate aftermath of their arrival home. It is mostly told from the viewpoint of Ritsa, a healer who has been assigned to watch over Cassandra even though she belongs as a slave to another person, a doctor. Because of her assignment to Cassandra and healing abilities, she has higher status than many others. Part of the story is also told from the viewpoint of Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, the queen who has been in charge of Mycenae during his ten year absence. For readers who know many of the different myths surrounding her, this novel has a totally different take. It is from the viewpoint of a woman still devastated by the death of her daughter with Agamemnon whom he killed because he was told the gods would give him and his soldiers a good wind to get to Troy if he sacrificed her. He deceived Clytemnestra to achieve this sacrifice and she has never recovered from this loss.

If you enjoy Greek mythes and the different retellings of them and want to experience a different perspective, mostly told from the viewpoint of female characters, you will enjoy these books. I read both in just a few day; I became so interested.

Garden of Delights

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

A garden of delights

my my new goal.

Why do I/we need

such a garden?

Sanity, yours and mine.

Genocide in Gaza, Sudan,

eastern Congo, probably

even in other places where

there’s no news.

Poverty here in the richest

nation on Earth.

Poverty my neighbor seems

shocked when I tell her.

People living in condemned

trailers, no heat, no water–

It’s freezing inside.

People surviving, barely.

Malnourished children, big

hungry eyes, staring.

A garden of delights

my new goal.

Why do I/we need

such a garden?

Masked men and some women

attacking people in the streets,

in their homes,

knocking down doors.

smashing windows.

You’d think I’m describing

Russia, Nazi Germany

but no, I’m describing

happenings in my own

county and

across the US.

A garden of delights

my new goal.

Sanity = Delights

I look out my window

purple mountains loom

in crystalline air.

Recent rains create

emerald hills,

blooming freeway daisies,

roses in my garden,

pink, sunset colors, snow.

Bougainvillea the color of blood

climbs my garden wall.

The turquoise fountain gurgles.

Photo of daughter and grandson

make me smile.

Symbols, sacred corn grace

walls and make me

remember cornfields in summer

when on a hot day

I could hear corn grow.

Three different pine trees whisper,

the Soleri bell rings in wind.

Ah, yes, I live in a garden,

a garden of delights.

And I remain sane

for at least one

more day.


			

	


			
				


	

							
Book 53 for 2025:  “The Historian”, Elizabeth Kostova
						

			 / Juliana Lightle						 / Leave a comment
								

			


		

		



The daughter of a diplomat and historian explores books in her father’s library one evening and discovers an ancient book and a bunch of yellowing letters. These letters are those of one of her father’s advisors in graduate school, a man who suddenly disappeared. The center of the book contains a strange dragon drawing. This discovery leads her on a quest to find out more about her father’s past and the fate of a mother she has never known. 





The letters involve the evil history of Vlad the Impaler who is the person behind the legend of Dracula. Vlad the Impaler was ruler of what is now part of Romania. In his efforts to retain power and fight off the Turks, whom he hated, his cruelty became legend. Often he impaled his enemies alive on stakes driven through their bodies and lined them up by the hundreds along the roadsides. 





Combining reality and the legend of Dracula and vampires, this book’s main character, the daughter of the historian, leads the reader from London to Amsterdam to Istanbul to various parts of Romania and Bulgaria in search of the truth of her father’s past and the supposed death of her mother. Although it is a vampire story (I am not a vampire fan), it is much more; it is a fascinating trek through a part of history few know much about and about which little has been written. 





Note:  I doubted I would finish it by year’s end because this novel is 642 pages long. However, I found the story and history so compelling that I finished it before Christmas. 






			

	


			
				


	

							
Jim Crow Florida and Alligator Alcatraz
						

			 / Juliana Lightle						 / Leave a comment
								

			


		

		



In the late 1800s there is a photo of a group of Black babies lined up with the caption Alligator Bait. This trope goes back to the antebellum South but came into its own later. This photo, created in 1897 and popular with white Floridians, started an entire industry. There were even postcards of alligators chasing terrified Black children. Fishermen could buy lures that looked like a Black baby protruding from an alligator’s mouth. There was even a song called “Mammy’s Little Alligator Bait” and mechanical toys showing alligators swallowing Black babies. Thankfully, there is no evidence of Black babies actually being fed to alligators, but still…





Now we have Alligator Alcatraz and the president and his buddies even make jokes about why they put it in the middle of a swamp–anyone trying to escape will be alligator food. Who are the people there? Not any rich white people. They say it is to make the country safer. Data shows the place is not filled with criminals, even though some are there and maybe deserve to be there, but most are not criminals, just ordinary people who are darker–brown and black. It would seem that the trope of feeding certain sorts of people to the alligators never went away. How “sick” can we become. 






			

	


			
				


	

							
Books 24 and 25 for 2025:  “Song Yet Sung”, James McBride and “The River Is Waiting”, Wally Lamb
						

			 / Juliana Lightle						 / Leave a comment
								

			


		

		








 “Song Yet Sung” is the final book for me for McBride. I have now read all his books. Like most of his novels, this one is historical, taking place when slavery still existed. Here the setting is the coastal/tidal areas of Maryland and Virginia where many of the men make a living on the water harvesting seafood. This includes both whites and blacks, slaves and free. At least one escaped slave lives in the swamps where no one has been able to find him. One of the characters is an attractive, tough, ruthless woman who makes her living hunting down escaped slaves and sometimes even capturing freemen and selling them South as slaves. Another is a retired slave hunter who cannot get over the death of his son. Finally there is a widow who owns several slaves but totally depends on them for her living, one of whom is a major character in the novel. I had no idea how people lived in this area of the country, the codes, both slaves and free persons, used to survive and sometimes escape. There is a lot of violence in this novel but also plenty of hope and redemption.





“The River Is Waiting” has made it to the top ten fiction list for the last couple of weeks. Without doubt it has to be one of the most depressing novels I have ever read. A young man who hides his addictions causes a horrible, tragic accident. Sent to prison where he really does not fit in at all, he experiences many horrific events but also has a cell mate who is a kind and caring person. Add to this the two hideous, sadistic prison guards and their actions and you have a tale of woe relieved occasionally by acts of honor, beauty and kindness. 















Note:  Decades ago when I worked at a DOE facility where everyone had to take a psychological test to get a clearance to work there, a specialist came to give us a presentation on the test and how the results were used. As I read “The River Is Waiting”, I kept remembering something the presenter told us:  when a test was given at a maximum security prison, the guards scored higher on hostility and anger than the inmates. 

			

	


			
				


	

							
Book 22 for 2025:  “The Wind Knows My Name”, Isabel Allende
						

			 / Juliana Lightle						 / Leave a comment
								

			


		

		



This novel details the lives of several immigrants fleeing violence in their own countries. One is a five year old boy in Austria whose father disappeared during the beginning of the Holocaust and whose mother put him on one of the Kindertransport trains from Nazi-occupied Austria to eventually reach England. He never sees her again. All he was allowed to take is one change of clothes and his violin. 





Another is Leticia who is now a US citizen; she was carried on her father’s back across the Rio Grande after they escaped the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, only because they were out of town when when paramilitary men came and killed everyone in their village. 





The third is Anita, a blind, eight year old girl whose mother brought her to the US from El Salvador to escape threats on her life from a former military officer who was dismissed because of his behavior. She is separated from her mother by US officials and taken first to a detention center and then later to various “foster” shelters for such children. 





Other characters include Selena, a woman working for a non-profit that helps such children and Frank, the high powered attorney she convinces to help her with Anita’s case. The novel illustrates how so many lives intersect and inter-relate in ways no one ever expected. 






			

	


			
				


	

							
Book 20 for 2025:  “The Color of Water:  A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother”, James McBride
						

			 / Juliana Lightle						 / Leave a comment
								

			


		

		



I will confess that I read this book before when it first came out decades ago. This past week, I reread it because several women on the street where I live decided to start a book club and this is our first book. McBride’s mother was a remarkable woman who grew up under horrible conditions in the South. Her father, an orthodox rabbi, did not love his crippled wife and made everyone work hard. He was more obsessed with money than religion. Jews were not very welcome where they lived and McBride’s mother found more acceptance and understanding among their Black neighbors. She escapes to NYC, meets and marries a Black, Christian man, converts, and they start a church together. He dies suddenly; she is left with their many children and works hard to make sure her children are successful, sending them off to schools where they are often the only children of color. Then she marries another man and has more children so there are 12 children. This remarkable woman makes sure all of her children go to good schools, go to college, and become successful while she works at what most would consider menial jobs. In this book McBride details not only his own growing up but also the history of his mother and his siblings. It is a remarkable tale of one woman’s determination to keep going, educate her children, and never give up no matter the circumstances.