A Mystery Week! Win!

 

    Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke is the recently released sequel to Bluebird, Bluebird. It is excellent. The situation is critical. A child is missing. This child is the son of an inmate from the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT). The ABT leader begs Darren to find his son, Levi. In the last six months, Darren Matthews has worked to get his life under control--marriage counseling, avoiding alcohol, working a desk--and life is going better, but then (surprise!) events take a turn for the worst. Locke knows how to create a flawed character that I root for and groan in pain when Darren mudslides down into a slough of poor choices. He is not only fighting himself, but also others who want to exploit him. Texas history creates a dilemma for a small Texas town where former Confederates and former slaves live side by side and where Levi is missing.

    As a mystery, this book, and series, is dark, complex, and brooding. It reminds me of the gritty, can't-catch-a-break detectives of the 40s, but with more depth. 

    How many books does Locke have planned? I don't know how much more Darren and I can take!

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    I am rereading Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie for Book Club. So shout out to the Bookies! Agatha Christie wrote sixty-six crime novels plus several romance books under a pseudynm, and the longest ever running play, Mousetrap. This book was originally published in 1934, so Christie books have staying power. 

    I've been researching to sound smart at book club. Can you tell?

    Christie is a genius at crime novels and this is probably the best of the best. I have read it several times, but I'm never bored. It has great characters, if a little stereo-typed in their European nationalities. A fast-paced plot that utilizes its train setting excellently.

    Before we were married, my future husband and I watched the 1974 movie. I had already seen it and been blown away by the ending. I wasn't even close to solving it and wanted to test my future spouse's intelligence. My husband-to-be figured it out! Keeper.

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Moms and Food

 

    I am late to the party with Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal. This book is stellar. It is the fictional story of famous chef Eva Thorvald. Each chapter is narrated by a different person, and each chapter circles a food, specifically a midwestern food like Lutefisk and Venison. Everyone's story contains tragedies and triumphs. Stradal captures the voice of the different narrators by revealing a sliver of their life as it intersects with Eva's. She does narrate one chapter but is seen through others' eyes. It made me curious to know more about her. There is a strong theme of the relationship between mothers and children shown from different angles, giving the book gravitas in the face of foodie culture. 

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Teenagers in Love ❤️💔❣️

 

Spoilers Ahead!

    Of the Simon Snow series by Rainbow Rowell, Anyway the Wind Blows felt the weakest. The two romantic leads are together and working out their relationship without having good tools or models. This is a common theme throughout the series. How do I vampire? How do I adult? How do I be gay? I like how Rowell wrestles with these issues all through the series. As Simon and Baz's relationship levels up, their issue is intimacy expressed through the sexual piece of their relationship. It didn't feel credible. These two isolated, damaged young men who lost their mothers at a young age need more than good sex to heal emotionally and mentally. For a modern novel aimed at young adults, I think it needed more emphasis on self-acceptance, not as a homosexual or vampire or non-magical, but as authentic, worthy of honor and love as a person, not a category. 

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    I was on a plane this week trying to sleep, and that's why I was listening to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Not because it's boring, but because it is so familiar and comforting. The main characters grow up and take responsibility for their actions. Hubba, hubba! Austen has a plot line with insurmountable roadblocks: the guy who is interested in me is secretly engaged, we have no income, and people are silly and selfish. Her storyline isn't Save the Universe, but in Elinor and Marianne (teenagers!), who, even though they're treated less than honorablily by their male love interests, respond with resilience and tenacity. It feels genuine. The snarky observations by Elinor crack me up. A remark over a hundred years old that makes me snort is a witty remark. Elinor is a sharp observer of life around her and navigates adversity in drawing rooms and ballrooms with aplomb. I get caught up in the story and wonder will Marianee grow up? Will Elinor rise above the pettiness of her brother and sister-in-law? I'm captivated till the end once again.

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Time Travel Paradoxes and Rainbow Rowell

 

    I have read several books by Blake Crouch, like Dark Matter and Upgrade. He has solid, semi-scientific sci-fi plots about the multiverse and gene editing. His latest book, Recursion, is about time travel. I especially like time travel as a plot line. One of my favorite authors, Connie Willis writes amazing time travel books: Doomsday, and To Say Nothing of the Dog are two of her best. Crouch deals credibly with several hiccups in time travel. Can you kill Hitler and stop World War II? Can you kill your grandfather or grandmother? Would you cease to exist because your parent was never born? Time travel brings out a person's violent nature, apparently. He also addresses a larger question of who might control time travel and for what purpose? He rocks the ideas, but his characters are like sock puppets and not flesh and blood people. In that way, he reminds me of old school Sci-Fi where the idea is the essential part of the story. I liked it.

Here is a informative website about time travel paradoxes: https://www.astronomytrek.com/5-bizarre-paradoxes-of-time-travel-explained/ 

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   I have been reading another Young Adult book about a magical school with a prophecy of a chosen one who will come and save the supernatural world, and it's been good. It is the Simon Snow trilogy by Rainbow Rowell. I've read Carry On and Wayward Son and am working on the third. A secret vampire at the school--a creature killed by magicians on site--is also gay. Rowell uses Baz's need to keep his vampireness a secret as a metaphor for being in the closet. His roommate Simon Snow suspects, but can't prove it. This gives the story a spellbinding 😉 tension. Simon and Baz have been enemies since they were magically forced to be roommates at age eleven. Simon's best friend, Penelope, and his girlfriend, Agatha, help him in his fight against Baz. They are in their senior year, and the threat to the magical world, the Insidious Humdrum, is about to overwhelm their school and the larger world of magic. The story is complex, suspenseful, and staffed with full-orbed characters. When a character's motives are revealed through magic, they could be red for evil, and blue for good, but most are a shade of purple. That describes most characters and makes the books compelling.

    In the second book, Wayward Son, Penelope, Baz, and Simon go to America to visit Agatha. Rowell's characters mature over the course of the series learning things about others and themselves. There is excellent poking fun at Amercan culture. A Renaissance Fair through British eyes are hilarious. Rowell uses the friends on a journey trope and they encounter wonderful and deadly creatures, fall in and out danger, and acquire a new friend. I like the second book better than the first.

    These books are a spin-off from Rowell's earlier book Fangirl in which the main character writes fanfic about the Simon Snow series. Rowell went to actually write the series.

    Rowell and I share the same birthday, February 24th, but are ten years apart, and she lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where I lived during high school. So I suspect I might be living in a time travel paradox, and she has my writing life! 

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I Didn't Like the Books at First, but then I Did 🙃

 

    The two books I read this week had this in common; I didn't like them at first. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón was an overgrown, claustrophobic garden on a moonless night with the wind whipping dark trees in a frantic, anxious dance above forsaken lovers searching hopelessly for knowledge of what is true and what is an illusion as the hot breath of fate sizzles their necks. Only more so. It helped me understand the book when I read a sentence review from Stephen King.

Stephen King wrote, "If you thought the true gothic novel died with the 19th century, this will change your mind. Shadow is the real deal."

    Oh, a Gothic novel like my least favorite Jane Austen novel, Northanger Abbey. 

    Genre aside, I found the characters good or not so great; only a few middle-of-the-road ones. The Bechdel Test is a test that asks if two named female characters talk to each other about something other than a man. (what-is-the-bechdel-test) I find the women in Shadow of the Wind only exist in relation to men or as a convenient device to move the plot forward. They don't stand on their own merit. And it irked me. Maybe this is how Gothic Novels work?

    I almost abandoned the book, but its twisted plot captured me, and I had to finish. Zaphón skillfully shows the theme of fathers and sons in many different iterations, and it reminded me of all the father/son duos in Hamlet. There were many themes:themes It is a complex book to wade through. Zaphón is a good writer, but not one I enjoyed.

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    The Measure by Nikki Erlick has an intriguing premise. One day everyone in the world over the age of twenty-two found a box outside their front door. In the box is a string that was the measure of their life. Everyone could know how long they would live by opening their box and measuring their string. It throws the world into turmoil. This book passed the Bechdel Test, but its many characters felt flat. However, the plot was braided together with constant surprises. I enjoyed Erlick's sleight of hand in using every character. Everyone has a purpose. I don't want to give anything away, but the ending was hopeful and encouraging. I asked myself if I would open the box to find out how long I would live? The answer is yes. I couldn't stand not knowing! 

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Mucho Mystery

 

    I picked How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America, edited by Lee Child, on a whim at a local Indi bookstore. Then my book club decided to do a year of mystery books, and this was a valuable resource for different genres and exposure to new authors. Hello, Craig Johnson of Longmire fame. It has essays from many big names in the mystery game, like Lee Child, Charlaine Harris,  Deborah Crombie, Jeffery Deaver, etc. I read it straight through because maybe there's something about children's mystery literature I may need to know one day. Surprise, it's more than Encyclopedia Brown. I can't think of a topic it didn't cover--character development, building community, and legal considerations are a few. A debate I enjoyed was the Pantsers versus the Outliners. Some authors write by the seat of their pants and go where the story takes them; others OUTLINE everything. Jeffery Deaver's essay "Always Outline!" is followed by Lee Child's "Never Outline!" Both are insightful and humorous. If you are a reader, and I suspect you are, or a writer, this is a worthwhile book. I read it over several months, an essay at a time. It is a solid resource and also entertaining.

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    This is my second read of Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke. My mystery book club is reading it for Black History Month. Here is the link to my previous review, and not to brag, but I was pretty eloquent: mostly-mysteries.html

I didn't think I would need to reread it because the story was memorable, but so much happens, and there are unexpected connections and family ties that I needed to. There are several murders, and I like that Locke tied them all up at the end. It is annoying when I get to the end of a mystery book, and the killer isn't revealed clearly. 😡

I benefitted from the reread, seeing things I hadn't noticed before. It wrestled with the dichotomy of home and belonging. Home, for Darren Matthews, is East Texas, a place that doesn't value or welcome him, a black man and a Ranger. This creates a continuing churn that gives the novel tension. I find Bluebird, Bluebird to be well-crafted with genuine, gritty characters. If you haven't read it, give it a try. 

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Pregnancy--or Not, Picture Brides, and Gardens

    Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi is a translation from Japanese. Ms. Shibata works in an all-male office and is the grease that keeps the office running. She cleans up after meetings, sorts the mail, and replaces the ink in the copier on top of carrying the same workload as the men. Most nights, she doesn't leave until 7 or 8 PM. One day, faced with missing lunch to clean the conference room, she announces she's pregnant and has morning sickness, only she isn't. This is a fantastic book. Her lie changes her life for the better. She eats better, gets more sleep and exercise, and is treated with deference at work, but how far can she take it? I have been a reader my entire life, and reading books in translation means I encounter ideas, characters, plots, and ideas that jar me in their unpredictability. I didn't know a story could go that way. I recommend this book because it is interesting, readable, and a bit subversive.

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        I've been reading Julie Otsuka lately. This week I read The Buddha in the Attic. This novel tells the story of a specialized category of women. Japanese women who came to America in the early 1900s as brides to immigrant Japanese men. They saw each other pictures, and the women were called picture brides. Otsuka writes in a list format that works well and shows the complexity of the group expressing a wide range of situations and emotions. I know of no one besides Otsuka who writes in this fashion. Each chapter recounts a significant mile marker in the women's lives: Coming, First Night, Whites, Babies, Children, Traitors, A Disappearance. It is skillfully done. Even though the central protagonist is a group of women, the story is powerful and effective.

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    The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden by Karin Yan Glaser is the second in the Vanderbeekers of 141st Street. Yan Glaser is terrific at creating a compelling problem and setting a clock on it. Tick, Tick. The plot moves along, and I can't stop reading. It really is a book for all ages because there are multiple characters--adults, teens, tweens, children, and pets--that are treated with respect and honor. She tackles real-world problems like illness, death, and bad choices, honestly and kindly. I'm working my way through the series, and they brighten the dark winter months for me. 

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Theology, Nihilism, and Self-Help or I'm a Sinner, It's Hopeless, Happiness is Possible

 

    I listened to the audiobook of Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners by Dane C. Ortlund. It is read by Dane C. Ortlund. He has a soothing voice even at 1.75x faster than normal. In Deeper, he addresses sin in the Christian life. For me, it can be a never-ending source of defeat and despair. Ortlund shines the love of Christ into the hopelessness of sin. He manages to comfort, challenge, and instruct. Reading theology stretches me mentally. Deeper increased my understanding of God's love and commitment. 

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    When I start a book, even if it turns out to be one I don't like, I usually finish it. I am a completist. About halfway through The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy, I quit. Here are some reasons why: no plot, no hope, and no point. In a cynical frame of mind, I would say I wasn't smart enough to read this book. If I understood what McCarthy was trying to do, perhaps I would marvel and be amazed. His characters don't have dialogues. Instead, they talk to each other in soliloquies, beautiful soliloquies. Halfway through, the characters' hopelessness became overwhelmingly depressing, and I stopped reading. I realized I need forward movement to stay engaged in a book. 

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    My anecdote to The Passenger was to read the opposite. This morning I finished reading The Happiness Project Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin. It was a surprising book. One surprise was how much I liked it--quite a bit. Another surprise was its genuine hopefulness. I like self-help books or, personal growth, as they're now called when they are practical and applicable. Give me steps, not platitudes; research and reasoning, not guessing and good thoughts. Rubin trained as a lawyer and loves to think about an issue deeply. She wrote the book, not because she was unhappy, but because she wanted to be happier about all she had--think family, health, and necessities and not Mercedes-Benz and billions--and applied herself in a studied, focused way to achieve more happiness. It has the usual platitudes: be yourself, satisfaction starts with you, but how; what does that look like? I found it a worthwhile read. It has prompted self-examination around the area of happiness for myself and others. Rubin is also an aphorism machine. Here are some I liked.

"One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself." 

"What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while." 

"The days are long, but the years are short." 

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Anonymous Swimming Assasins or Odd Books I Read This Week

 This was a week for odd books. 

 

    The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka starts with the thoughts of a community of swimmers. Otsuka leaps from swimmer to swimmer describing their thoughts and pool philosophy. Then, the pool develops a mysterious crack. The swimmers perseverate about how to interpret the crack. Some explain it away, and others say it's a sign of imminent collapse. Finally, the story narrows to a particular swimmer, Alice, who has dementia. Otsuka mirrors well the pain of dawning knowledge that a loved one's mind fissures and its vital functions diminish. The book itself is short, but the story feels entirely told. 

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    Becoming Duchess Goldblatt: A Memoir by Duchess Goldblatt. To fully appreciate this book, you need to be on Twitter. I'm not, but I did enjoy the book. A fictional character--an alter ego--was created on Twitter anonymously. It is a famous 82-year-old author who is sharp, pithy, insightful, creative, and uplifting. The unknown author tells the twin tales of why she created Duchess Goldblatt and what Duchess Goldblatt has accomplished. Also, Lyle Lovett. Because I'm a curious person, I was irritated that the identity of Duchess Goldblatt wasn't revealed, but I enjoyed the isolation of pain turned to into an opportunity to creatively make connections.

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    Here is the premise of Deanna Raybourn's Killers of Certain Age, four women in their late 50s, early 60s are retiring from their forty year job as elite assassins. However, their employers, "The Museum," intends more permanent plans for them. Raybourn has created a globetrotting escapade as the women seek to stay alive and discover how they became targets of their own organization. I found it breezy and fun. A good book for gloomy January. 

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Tigers and Trust

       Maggie O'Farrell's writing is atmospheric and immersive. The way she writes seeps into the cracks in my brain, and I'm experiencing what her characters are living. This is hard because she loves a tortured, disregarded, lonely, prickly main character. The Marriage Portrait presents Lucrezia de Medici, who became Duchess of Ferrara at fifteen and died at sixteen. There is debate about her death. Most believe she died of tuberculosis, and a minority hold her husband killed her. O'Farrell produces a fierce character who struggles like a caged tiger for freedom from her sociopathic husband. The book opens with Lucrezia declaring her husband has brought her to an isolated hunting lodge to kill her. The story moves between her early life and her current situation. It's a tense dance of thinking there is no way she survives, but the more I know about her, the more I want her to. 

    I read a review that condemned the book as being "overwrought." I could see his point, and at times, when reading, I wondered why spend space describing minutia? My conclusion is O'Farrell sees it that way. Her style in The Marriage Portrait reminds me of Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. One's persons lush and verdant is another's overgrown eyesore. 

 Review: maggie-ofarrell-marriage-portrait.html

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    This was a week for historical fiction. Trust, by Hernan Diaz, takes place in America and Europe in the early 29th century and revolves around a wealthy, reclusive couple. Reading Trust was like opening a Russian nesting doll. Each subsequent doll is similar and, yet, unique from the previous doll. The are four narrators, and each one reveals more of the central couple. In the book, themes of money, patriarchy, and media are unpacked in living color. Diaz writes convincingly in several different voices; his plot and characters display a sophisticated talent. As a result, this book is both substantive and surprising. 

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Before Cell Phones, But After Dinosaurs

    I love having goals! My book goal for 2023:

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    Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir of the Power of Friendship by Nina Totenberg was a book gem. For about fifteen years, I didn't have a television, and besides reading, I would listen to the radio. So I remember hearing the voice of Nina Totenberg on NPR. But, of course, this was also before cell phones and podcasts, you know, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. 

    The book is 50% about Ruth Bader Ginsberg and 50% about Nina Totenberg's life. It was eye-opening to hear about life as a reporter in the 1950s and onward. She does talk about the early days of NPR and the coterie of women that supported and encouraged one another. Ruth Bader Ginsberg is one of my heroes--smart, feisty, and persistent--what's not to like? Totenberg has a well-developed talent for storytelling and many fascinating stories to tell, like breaking the Anita Hill story and the story of her father's stolen violin. 

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    The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith is a lovely, captivating book. It takes place in Africa in the country of Botswana. The protagonist is Mma Ramotswe. Her father has died, and she takes her inheritance and buys a house, and starts a business--a detective agency. I have been reading this series since the early 2000s, and McCall's characters evolve for better and worse, but the Mma Ramotswe continues to solve mysteries large and small. She celebrates being a "traditionally built lady" and African. I read a review that described the book as a love letter to Africa. I must mention that the book about Precious Ramotswe, an African woman, is written by a white man who lives in Scotland but was born in Africa and has also lived many years in Botswana. In a time of debate about who gets to tell the story of others, Smith's own love of Africa shines out. He has a comprehensive knowledge of the food and culture. When I read this series, I can almost smell the dessert. 

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The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser is a book in the same category as All of a Kind Family and The Penderwicks. It centers on family and children solving big problems. Even though it is a children's book, it is a well-told story with satisfying, exciting characters. A family with two parents, five children, a dog, a cat, and a rabbit have lived in a brownstone in Harlem, New York, most of their lives, but their mysterious top-floor landlord has refused to renew their lease. So December 31st will be their last day in their beloved home unless they can convince "The Biederman" to let them stay. How will they do it? You can probably guess where the story goes, but Glaser takes a circuitous, charming route to get there. This is a series, and I'm planning on reading them all.

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