Given the nature of the previous book I read by this author and this novel, I have come to the conclusion that she likes to create seriously disturbed, dysfunctional characters. The setting helps with the “mystery”–a somewhat remote island which really is not an island except when the tide comes in. Only one house with only one inhabitant, a steep wooded slope that ends in a rock outcrop with a long plunge to the sea, the disappearance twenty years before of the philandering husband of the famous artist who lived there, and now a lonely, strange, old woman living there alone add to the atmosphere. The relationships among several other characters reveal the continued class structure of British society, its effects. and add to the unsettling nature of the story. To top it all off, a gruesome discovery is made about an art exhibit of the deceased, famous artist who once lived on the island. Although not classified as a mystery, this really is several bizarre mysteries combined. If you like British stories, art, and mystery novels, you will like this novel.
Last year I read her novel “Gilead” which takes place in fictional, small, Iowa town in which the main character is the father of the main character in this novel, “Jack”. John Ames Boughton, Jack, is the wayward son of a Presbyterian minister. Previously, he has been wrongly imprisoned for a theft he did not commit. He loves literature, especially poetry. He lives off of odd jobs, drinks too much, smokes, and is somewhat of a lost soul who continuously philosophizes about live, religion, and societal rules. One day he sees a woman walking in the rain. When she drops her bundles on the sidewalk, he helps her. She thinks he is a preacher because of the way he is dressed and invites him in for tea. She is Della Miles, a teacher and the daughter of a Black Methodist minister. This is the story of interracial love when it was still illegal in the US, the lengths they go to resist and hide it, and the reactions of her family. Reading this, one realizes how it was not that long ago that most of the US was not only segregated, but sometimes even talking to someone on the sidewalk from another race could get a person into trouble with the police.
Imagine a society where everyone has shelter and love.
My 15th book of the year was “Imagination, A Manifesto”, Ruha Benjamin. After going over the history of racism, poverty, and misogyny in the US, the author, a professor at Princeton, details various ways individuals and groups can imagine and act toward creating a better world for all. She delineates the endless obstacles to attaining this better world but claims through collectively imagining detailed ways the world can be better, people can work together to attain such a world. She admits individuals rarely have the power to do this alone but working with others, we can make dramatic differences, but first we have to imagine what this better world will look like. We now are prisoners of hierarchies, exploitation, and frequent violence, but it does not have to be this way. The Appendix includes Discussion Prompts, Project Based Prompts, and Speculative Prompts to help readers get started imagining differently. She quotes Toni Morrison–“Dream a little before you think.”
This is one of the most heart wrenching books I have ever read. As a child, the main character, David Winkler, discovers he possesses the ability of premonition via dreams that come true. Only his mother understands him; unfortunately she dies while he is still young, leaving him with father who is only physically there. He becomes an hydrologist, specializing in the structure of snowflakes, leading a rather lonely life as a weatherman in Alaska. While at the grocery store, he meets a woman. He knows what she is going to do before she does it. Eventually, they develop a relationship. The remainder of the novel details the consequences of their relationship and their having a child, Grace. David dreams that he will not be able to save Grace from flood waters, his wife thinks he is crazy, and then to avoid what he perceives will be Grace’s fate if he stays, he disappears. Eventually, he arrives hungry and destitute on a Caribbean island where he is taken in by a kind family who have escaped imprisonment in Chili during the military dictatorship there. He agonizes over whether his running away saved Grace and is unable to find out what happened to her. Eventually he saves up enough money to search even though he has no idea where she might be or how she will react of he finds her alive. Will her mother forgive him, will Grace if he finds her? He is driven to find out no matter the consequences.
This novel’s main themes include love, longing, forgiveness, the meaning of friendship, and the human search for grace.
Note: I have now read everything published by Anthony Doerr. His works contain beautiful prose and detailed descriptions. One of the most impressive things about his work is the amount of research required to write in such great detail about so many subjects, e.g. structure of snow flakes, the anatomy of different types of shells, the history of the city now called Istanbul and its ancient neighborhoods.
This Omani author has won prizes for his fiction. Only a few of his books have been translated into English. This one takes the reader into the remote villages and mountain regions of the interior of Oman. Azzan, the main character, had received highest honors as a child and teen for his academic excellence but fails to win a coveted scholarship to travel abroad for college. His father, who is mainly absent during his growing up, berates him, and Azzan turns to alcohol and addiction. Eventually, he saves himself by becoming a beekeeper. He finds solace in the more remote, wild regions rather than the narrow confines of village life which is controlled by gossip and tradition.
In these wild areas he meets two other men. Although they do not keep domestic bees, they go camping together in the far mountain areas hunting for the prized honey from wild bees. One of these men is a Bedouin who trains prized racing camels. Through him and his wife and friends, he learns how much freer Bedouin culture is compared to that of the settled villages. He learns to dance and talk more freely with women. While in one remote area, he meets a woman, Thamna, who too has escaped the traditional village life and roams the wadis and mountains with her herd of goats always looking for better pasture. He becomes obsessed with her, always on the outlook as he keeps his bees and roams the interior of Oman hunting bees.
This story is not only about Azzan, but also his friends, traditional Omani village life, bee culture, and Bedouin life. For those interested in bee keeping, the author provides detailed descriptions of bee keeping. The language is poetic and infinitely descriptive. I could feel the wind, smell the different wild flowers and the taste of the honey created from them, see the Bedouin dancing, and feel Azzan’s heartbreak when disaster hits.
Although this novel describes a culture far different from that of the US and Europe, I found some things not all that dissimilar: the strict rules of small town life, the greater freedom found in nature, how people develop and lose interpersonal relationships. The language used makes the reader feel there in the moment being described. Plus I learned that bee keeping is very labor intensive and wrought with many things that can go wrong. I eat honey daily and now will have a greater appreciation of what goes into its production and harvesting.
Can you call yourself a creative writer if you have not written a word in months? I have a friend who promotes 20 minutes of writing per day, telling people to just write, forget quality, just write. Really?! I care about quality. Perhaps too much? I make sure to read quality writing 99.99% of the time. Is this just words I am writing here or is it quality or garbage? You tell me!
One thing I can do is read. I’m good at reading. And singing. And gardening. I talk to plants; that’s why they grow for me. I truly care. They bring me peace and joy.
In the last two months, I’ve read three collections of short stories, two by Anthony Doerr and one by Gayle Jones. Normally, I am not a short story reader, but here I am reading these. Talk about different. It’s almost like these two famous writers inhabit different planets. Doerr’s stories seem intensely emotional, often a bit fantastical and heart wrenching with a lush, descriptive, poetic style even though Doerr is not a published poet. Jones is a published poet, yet her stories are blunt, conversational, often first person and sometimes short–one page short.
In many, a character is telling his or her (most of the stories are her) story about where they are, some experience, somebody they knew, what they did or said. In one story the narrator says she’s an angel, explains where she’s been, whom she’s known, and ends up by asking readers if they’ve seen her near the Seine. I doubt anyone mistakes me for an angel.
Note: Book 13 for 2025 is “Butter”, Gayle Jones. A collection of short stories.
I was not looking for this, but rather accidentally found it while strolling through the stacks at the local library. What an informative and entertaining book. When it was first published in Lebanon in 2005, it sort of shocked the Arab world causing public debates about the subject matter and story both pro and con. The novel centers on the lives of four upper class Saudi young women who have known each other for years and are friends. Because the book openly discusses the difficulties young educated Saudi women have pursuing education and careers while also trying to find suitable men to marry, the religious conservatives found the novel blasphemous and wanted it banned. Others said it disrespected Saudi women. Black market copies showed up everywhere and the author became an overnight sensation.
The book focuses on the difficulties these women experience as they navigate the modern world while still living in a society founded in very conservative patriarchal cultural conditions. They want to believe in love and hope they will find someone to marry they also love. However, traditions get in the way of this goal more often than not. Some of them find someone they love and who loves them but families forbid it–the person is not high enough status or has been divorced, or…the barriers seem endless, focused on family connections. Love is considered a frivolous, unhealthy distraction.
Contrary to what I believed before reading this, most of these higher class Saudi young women are going to college, often in subjects like medicine and dentistry, and plan to pursue careers in their fields. Many have travelled to Europe where they are freer to roam, not dress conservatively, etc. Yet they return home because of close family ties and love of country. Several of the fathers in this novel are considerably more liberal than the girls’ mothers. Like any society the view of progress and tradition vary greatly by family and individual.
Because as a reader you get to “know” these young women, I found myself reading nonstop because I really wanted to know what was going to happen, whether any of them would be allowed to marry someone they loved or would be heartbroken and forced into unwanted situations. The latter never occurred thankfully. None were forced to marry someone they disliked. It is a great read for those who are curious about other cultures and how women navigate their lives in a place dramatically different from what is more common in Europe and the US.
A tiny book by the author of “Braiding Sweetgrass” envisions a totally different economy than the kind we have now. She uses a plant, the serviceberry, as a symbol for what she calls the “gift” economy. Instead of everything being focused on maximizing profit, it focuses on sharing and exchange and the idea that natural resources are gifts from Earth, from nature, rather than commodities to be exploited for profit.
She notes that capitalist economies hinge on the concept of scarcity and personal accumulation of wealth often at the expense of others. Gift economies, which occur in many indigenous cultures, focus on the mutual benefit of all which encourages gratitude and trust. Later in the book, she discusses how gift economies can be implemented and flourish alongside the current capitalist economy.
There must be considerable appeal for her concepts because this book has been on the non-fiction best seller list for weeks.
If you have ever felt enchanted by a trip to Rome, you will find this memoir delightful and informative. It made me want to return just to stay a while, wander around, visit the more obscure places Doerr describes, people watch, eat, and drink local wine.
In 2007, Anthony Doerr, the 2015 Pulitzer Price Winner, won the Rome Prize to become a fellow at the American Academy in Rome. He and his wife, Shauna, moved to Rome with their newborn twins, Owen and Henry. This memoir memorializes the four seasons they spent living there. They learn to care for babies; wander throughout Rome visiting tourist sites, local restaurants, the butcher, the baker, the toy store; learn enough Italian to acknowledge all the Italians who stop to admire the babies; and attend the vigil for the dying Pope John Paul II.
While there intending to write his later novel (the one that eventually won the Pulitzer) and failing to do so, he does manage to write a short story which I have read in one of his collections and to read everything by Pliny the Elder. His discussions about his readings makes me want to read some of Pliny the Elder myself. As in his short stories and novels, Doerr’s descriptions, language, and observations delight and enchant. This is a wondrous book about one of the world’s oldest and most fascinating cities which he calls, “a Metropolitan Museum of Art the size of Manhattan with no roof, no display cases…
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