mothers

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 25 for 2024: “The Spoiled Heart”, Sanjeev Shasta

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The main character, Nayan Olak, is a Sikh whose parents immigrated to England. He has worked decades first on a factory floor and then later risen through the ranks of his union. Encouraged by others, he decides to run for head of the union when suddenly a young woman of the same ethnicity decides to run against him. She will do anything to beat him including using an unfortunate argument between them to accuse him of all sorts of misdeeds.

In the meantime, a woman, Helen, who left town under mysterious circumstances years ago shows up with her young adult son who is recovering from the aftermath of another unfortunate misunderstanding. Helen works for home health but refuses to take care of Nayan’s dementia ridden father. He cannot figure out why since she willingly takes care of others. He becomes obsessed with her, helps her son who becomes a sort of substitute for Nayan’s son who was killed along with Nayan’s mother in a fire many years previously. The police never determined who started the fire even though they knew it was arson.

Tragedies ensue as this story about race, misunderstandings, secrets, and relationships progresses. It also demonstrates the power, for better or worse, of misunderstood words and actions.

A Tribute to My Mother

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Barbie Doll

Barbara Lewis Duke, pretty, petite, blue eyed and blond, my

mother, one fearless, controlling woman. Long after Mom’s

death, Dad said, “Barbara was afraid of absolutely no one

and nothing.” They married late, 34 and 38. He adored her

unconditionally. She filled my life with horses, music, love,

cornfields, hay rides, books, ambition. Whatever she felt she

had missed, my sister and I were going to possess: books,

piano lessons, a college education. Her father, who died long

before I was born, loved fancy, fast horses. So did she. During

my preschool, croupy years, she quieted my hysterical night

coughing with stories of run away horses pulling her in a wagon.

With less than one hundred pounds and lots of determination,

she stopped them, a tiny Barbie Doll flying across the Missouri

River Bottom, strong, willful, free.

Note: This poem about my mother has been published in at least one anthology and my book of poetry. My mother loved roses, had a rose garden. I now grow roses too.

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.

Book 16 for 2024: “Digging to America”, Anne Tyler

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This book details the lives and relationships between two families, one native to the US and the other Iranian immigrants. When the young couple in each family adopt a Korean baby, their lives become intertwined. Every year on the anniversary of the arrival of the babies, they take turns hosting an Arrival Party. Two of the grandparents, one on each side, one male and one female, find their lives linked in unexpected ways. The book explores what it means to be an immigrant, how the native born sometimes view those from another country, and questions to what extent a person’s character is due to culture and what is simply the way that person remains regardless of culture. While a serious exploration of culture, family relationships, friendship, and cultural adaption, the book is also quite funny. I found myself sometimes laughing out loud and at other times feeling sad. I also found myself thinking more about my own personality and its development.

Book 14 for 2024: “The Invisible Hour”, Alice Hoffman

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This is a book for those who believe in the power of books to transform life, who are fans of Alice Hoffman, and who like time travel. It also about how a charismatic man can ruin the lives of many, especially women, by controlling everything around him through fear and coercion. In his Community books and contact with the rest of the world are banned. Mia is a young woman who sneaks into a local library and finds Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”. She realizes the life she is living in the Community is like the lives in the book. Through this book she manages to attain the courage to escape such a man, the man who destroyed her mother, Ivy. She makes her way back in time to the period in the book, has a love affair with Hawthorne, and finally escapes the horrible man who tracks her everywhere she goes.

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.