Father

Book 35 for 2024: “Woman of Interest: A Memoir”, Tracy O’Neill

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In 2020, the author, Korean, adopted as a child, nearly 30, decides she needs to find her biological mother before her mother dies. Finding few leads, clues, she hires a private detective who disappears. Then she takes the task of investigating on her own. This book details her investigation, her long relationship with a Serbian furniture mover, life with the parents who adopted her, and her career as a writer, plus going to South Korea to meet her biological family.

Her writing style is a bit different and somewhat rambling. However, for those who have experienced the same sort of search, this book provides details on how to go about finding “the lost”.

Book 33 for 2024: “Three Daughters of Eve”, Elif Shafak

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Shafak is a popular Turkish writer. One of my all time favorite books is her novel about the life of Rumi.

“Three Daughters of Eve” takes place one evening in Istanbul in 2016. Peri, one of the daughters from the title, is on her way to a fancy party when a thief snatches her purse out of the back seat of her car which is stalled in traffic. She parks the car and chases him through back alleys. As she fights him for her purse, an old photo falls to the ground. It portrays three young women and their university professor. This photo jars her mind, takes her back to her time at Oxford University when she was a student there in 2000-2002, her childhood in Istanbul in the 1980s and 90s, and her life. She thinks back to her life with her two friends, Shirin, an adventurous Iranian young woman, and Mona, a devout Egyptian Muslim who word a headscarf out of choice. And then there is the famous professor Azur, whose class on God either makes students hate or love him and the scandal that caused Peri to return to Istanbul.

Until her daughter, who was in the car and eventually chases her mother down in the alley, sees the photo, no one, except her husband, seems to have known Peri even went to Oxford. Her daughter mentions it at the party while everyone is arguing about East and West and politics and who has the most money and how they acquired it. Peri tries to deflect questions, changes the subject, and keeps remembering her past: her parents, a father quite irreligious, her mother a devout Muslim, their endless arguments and hostility, her brothers, her childhood and her stint at Oxford.

Through the story of Peri’s life, this novel explores personal identity, East-West history and politics, the meaning of marriage and friendship.

Book 32 for 2024: “The Premonition”, Banana Yoshimoto

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Translated from Japanese, this short novel tells the story of a 19 year old young woman, Yayoi, who lives with a loving family–her mother, father, and brother. Yet she has a premonition that she has missed something from her childhood, forgotten something. She decides to move in with her aunt, Yukino, a gifted eccentric who sometimes awakens Yayoi in the middle of the night to eat and drink, who watches “Friday the 13th” over and over, who just throws unwanted stuff in the back yard and leaves it there among the weeds. While living in the midst of Yukino’s disordered life, Yayoi’s memories begin to resurface. When her aunt disappears, Yayoi and her brother go in search of her and learn mysteries of Yukino’s life. Later, while still searching for Yukino, Yayoi discovers the truth of her own life.

This novel was a best seller in Japan when it was first published there in 1988. It was not translated into English until 2023. Eleven other novels by this author were already available in English.

Book 31 for 2024: “Tender”, Sofia Samatar

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This book contains 20 fantastical and dystopian short stories. I found them fascinating with topics ranging from selkies to ogres to ghouls to jinns to witches (in this case positive ones). The settings range from US to Africa to a settlement in outer space (the story “Fallow”). Divided into two sections, Tender Bodies, Tender Landscapes, these stories address human frailty, anger, greed, extreme religions and how humans treat each other (both good and bad) and what might occur in the future if people do not behave better. “Fallow” is a sort of handmaid’s tale where instead of being on Earth–which has been basically destroyed–a group of extreme religious folks have made a place for themselves on another planet after escaping Earth. If anyone from Earth accidentally shows up, they are in big trouble unless they become just like the people already there. Otherwise, they do not kill them–that is wrong–but just sort of let them slowly die. These stories, both brutal and lovely, display an incredible imagination.

Book 29 for 2024: “The Covenant of Water”, Abraham Verghese

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I waited for more than a year to get this book via the library. It stayed on the best seller lists for months and months and has been translated into more than twenty languages. It is the saga of one family from 1900 to 1977. The setting is the Kerala area of India (I have been to India but not this area). It is unique compared to much of India in that Christians, Muslims, and Hindus live in relative peace with each other. Unlike the more arid parts of India, this is a place dominated by water which is a major theme in the book. Several of the main characters in the book suffer from an inherited Condition, as they refer to it. In every generation, at least one person dies from drowning.

The book begins with a 12 year old girl being married off to a 40 some year old widower. She has to travel far from her family via water. He is kind and patient but unlike her, who loves the water, he will travel many extra miles to avoid even traveling by water. He is terrified of water because he has the Condition. Eventually, she becomes the family matriarch, Big Ammachi. This is her story and the story of her descendants, the Christian community in Kerala, and the fate of one British man who remained in India after independence. It is also the story of the progress of medicine (Big Ammachi’s granddaughter is determined to become a doctor and find what causes the Condition) and how one family experiences many hardships to further future generations.

The author, Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford, details this fictional family’s history for several generations in 715 pages. It sounds daunting but I kept reading because I wanted to know what happens to all the people. At the same time, I found this to be one of the saddest books I have ever read. Due to the Condition and leprosy, for which there was no cure at the time, many people’s lives are horrendously affected. I did learn a lot about medicine and medical advances, how leprosy destroyed lives, Kerala and, much to my amazement, that many Christians in Kerala continued to follow the Hindu caste system.

Book 19 for 2024: “Unearthing”, Kyo Maclear

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Several months after Maclear’s father (who was a famous journalist) dies, she decides to take a DNA test to find out more about her family health and personality history, mainly because of the stories about a particular grandmother. She wonders if certain traits she and her sons have might possibly be inherited. The results of the test are a shock. Her father, the father she adored, who raised her and adored her, is not her biological father. At first, she thinks perhaps it was a sperm donor, but then she discovers this is not the case. Through the DNA test and her detective work, she finds two biological half-brothers (she was an only child before this discovery) who are willing to communicate with her, send her photos, etc. She tries relentlessly to acquire more information from her mother, who is often unforthcoming or tells her contradictory information. Then her mother gets dementia.

This is also a story of plants, of gardening. Both she and her mother are amateur botanists and expert gardeners. When nothing else works in their mother-daughter relationship, their love of plants and gardening holds them together. Even with dementia, her mother knows plants. Their other joint endeavor is ink drawings and love of art.

Additionally, this is the story of family, family secrets, inter-racial marriage, and challenging relationships. Kyo’s mother is Japanese living originally in England and later in Canada who often struggled with her status as a Japanese immigrant. Her “real” father, the one who raised her, was of British and Irish descent; her biological father was a Jewish formula one race car driver.

Nostalgia

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Today is the first day of National Poetry Month. I am committing myself to write a poem a day. Here is the first one for the month.

Easter yesterday made me sad,

remembering children, grandson,

egg dying, egg hunting, family

together, laughter, joy.

Found photos of my family,

I, a child, dressed in Easter finery,

a family tradition. Dad bought us

corsages to wear every Easter,

pretty dresses in spring colors–

my favorite a pink dress trimmed

in scarlet, a unique combination

explained why I liked it so much,

felt special wearing it.

Today I wear pink and orange

together, admire the deep purple

and red bougainvillea, scarlet rosebuds,

snowy freeway daisies,

shining in the sun and wonder

will I live long enough to teach

a great grandchild to color

Easter eggs.

Book 11, 2024: ” Frida’s Fiestas: Recipes and Reminiscences of Life with Frida Kahlo”

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The author of this book, Guadelupe Rivera, is the daughter of Diego Rivera by the woman to whom he was married before he married Frida. Diego went on a trip to Russia and his then wife, the author’s mother, became attached to her previous boyfriend, the poet Jorge Cuesta. She and Diego divorced and then he married Frida. Eventually, the two couples became friendly and at one point they all lived in the same house.

Thirteen years after Diego married Frida, the author moved in with them. This book details her life living with Frida and her father, how Frida learned to cook, how she decorated the Blue House in Coyoacan, the fiestas, the food, the adventures. The book includes photos and recipes of Frida and Diego’s favorite foods, photos of the house, and places the author visited with Frida. It is also a story of many of Mexico’s famous people at the time.

I own several books about Frida but this one is the most revealing and intimate in many ways. If you like Mexican food and find the life and art of Frida and Diego of interest, read this book.

Note: It was also written by the journalist Pierre Marie-Colle with photos by Ignacio Urquiza.

One Book a Week-44: “The Unsettled”, Ayana Mathis

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To say this novel is intense is an understatement. It begins with Toussaint, a 13 year old boy left to survive on his own then switches to Ava, his mother, who grew up on the road following her mother’s singing in Southern clubs until her mother settles down with Caro in a Black country Alabama town where all the Black people own acreage and are not only self sufficient but also sell their goods in many places. The nice life they have in this town changes suddenly when disaster occurs and her mom, Dutchess, goes into a prolonged mourning period. Eventually, Ava goes to college, obtains various jobs, wanders all over the country, and meets Cass, a doctor and Black Panther whose charisma draws people to him. He disappears, she and their son, Toussaint, wander from place to place as she goes from job to job. She marries, Cass reappears, and one bad event after another occurs.

This is a story of mother and son love, women who become ensnared with the wrong men, self sufficiency in spite of many obstacles, angry men, hope, and redemption. It is a story of this country.

One Book a Week-34: “If I Survive You”, Jonathan Escoffery

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After reading about this book and its author in a recent issue of the Sunday “Los Angeles Times”, I saw it while wandering around the local library and checked it out. Although the author’s work has been published in various magazines, this is his first book.

This collection of short stories reads like a novel because the characters in the stories are either identical or related from Trelawny and his brother Delano to their ill-fated cousin, Cukie, all of whom are the descendants of Jamaican immigrants living in or near Miami, Florida. Sometimes excluded because they are Black, they face other challenges, e.g. Trelawny because people cannot figure out what he is ethnically or racially due to his complexion and hair, light and only somewhat curly. All struggle to discover who they are and where they belong, if anywhere.

While many of their experiences remain heart wrenching, Escoffery has the ability to also make their stories funny. I kept think of some works by Sherman Alexie whose stories are both horrifying and hilarious.

Note: The next three books will remain anonymous and no blogs about them because they are for a project and I cannot report about them. I will be blogging poems and essays about other topics.