Booker Prize 2019

Bernardine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood

  Isn't this a much better cover for "Girl, Woman, Other"?  It seems that the cover was changed after the book won the Booker Prize. 
   Actually, "Girl, Woman, Other" was tied with "Testaments" by Margaret Atwood for the Booker Prize.   Both books are a stretch for me to read.
  A black woman has never won the Booker Prize before and Atwood was very encouraging and supportive of Bernadine Evaristo.
  "The Testaments" follows "The Handmaid's Tale".  Once again, it is set in the totalitarian, patriarchal Gilead and is narrated by Aunt Lydia.  These novels seemed like science fiction but have themes that are resonating today.  Both books are selling extremely well.

Girl, Woman, Other

    This book was a struggle for me.  My friend, Terri, had the book recommended to her and she persevered, knowing that it would be a stretch. She ended up feeling that it was a brilliant piece of writing.
   On the other hand,  I struggled through, never seeing the brilliance.
  I had read that it was "a paean to what it means to be black, British and female".  That really appealed to me.  I really never wondered about black women's lives in England today and thought it would be good to get that perspective.
  I also read this advertisement for the book: 'a polyphonic choir of women, singing a song of life in dissonances and harmonies.'  Actually, I liked the write-ups about the book better than the book.
   It is a book about 12 women - a chapter for each one.  Many of the women are rebellious and angry.  As the women are struggling agains the norms of society, the author is struggling against the norms of writing prose: sentence structure, punctuation.
Sample:
************************************************************************************************************
Penelope's parents were dull and dispassionate automatons crawling towards their deaths
   she wrote in her diary at the age of fourteen
   it was unfortunate
   because she herself was brimming with vivacity and racing towards a marvellous life that stretched gloriously ahead of her
   as she also wrote
   in her diary
********************************************************************************
      Well, maybe it is the teacher in me, but I really didn't enjoy this book like others did.  The book won the Booker Prize in 2019 and it also was on Barack Obama's list of favourite books for 2019.  Love Barack Obama!

"Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett

   
   This is an interesting selection for the book club to be doing at this point in time.  Today I am on day 55 of social isolation and it suits the topic of the book: hostage taking.  At times, it seems like we have been taken hostage.
  However, it was a great book to focus on.  It is the most amazing combination of characters, plot, setting and language- the four aspects of a book that I look for.
  Because of the topic of the book, I was not expecting such an intriguing novel.  I wanted to read it slowly and carefully, because every sentence is worded so beautifully!

   
   This cover is simpler, but clearly shows the real theme of the book- the power of music!
  The first cover shows that the hostage-taking occurs at a very elite dinner party.  The vice president of the South American country has invited these guests to celebrate the birthday of a very important Japanese businessman.  And the main ingredient in this dinner party is opera, with the most famous opera singer to entertain.
  And so, she is taken hostage as well as the 200 plus dinner guests.

Ann Patchett- author

  "Bel Canto" refers to a style of operatic singing that began in the late 16th century in Italy.  The author said," I wanted to write a book that would be like an opera in its structure, its grandeur, its musicality, its melodrama." 
   And that is exactly what she did!
  Such an unusual setting, such fabulous writing!  I loved every word!

"The Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad

Book club choice
 This book was chosen before the pandemic and we will be discussing it on zoom next week.
  It was mentioned that this may not be a good book to be reading at this time, but this group of readers is committed and that plan was made before 2020 even started.

   Actually it wasn't really difficult to read this novel although it is 'dark'.  The whole story has an atmosphere of 'darkness'.
   A fictional Marlowe, had always wanted to be a captain on a steamer.  Through connections in London, he was able to accomplish this.
  When Marlowe acquired this job, he was working for a company.  He felt that something was not quite right, but did not understand the whole story.  He just followed his orders.  
   In fact, he was part of an organization that set up stations in the Congo, manipulating the natives, and taking huge shipments of ivory.
  There was not a lot of violent description, but a dark mood as you read about the way the white men treated the natives.  There were coffles of slaves as well as masses of sick and dying natives in the bush.  One station had heads on poles as decoration around their hut.  The white workers were inhumane and often went mad in the atmosphere of the jungle. Meanwhile, the council in Europe, the main organization, was making huge amounts of money.
  The story is simple and sad.  The description is beautifully written. "At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day".

Joseph Conrad

   Although it is a fictional story,

 it is based on Conrad's experiences in the Congo. 

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

    Since the library is closed due to the pandemic, and book clubs are not possible, I delved into a pile of books that I have collected over many years.  I latched onto this novel, because it reminded me of the person who recommended it.  
  I was a teacher-librarian in the 1980's and often got into conversations with staff members about books.  I remember the male teacher that told me that this was his favourite book, so I bought it then.  And it has been stored with many other books that I have bought over the years.

   Milan Kundera is the author of this book and it was extremely popular in the 1980's.  Well, it is certainly dated and would not be popular now.  "The Guardian" (British newspaper) said that Kundera wrote about "the male gaze, fixed on the female body, captivated by it, and spinning an elaborate theory on the basis of what it sees there".
  Tomas, the main character does marry, but made it clear that he believed that love and sexuality had nothing in common.  
   
  Quote: "She seemed like a child to him, a child someone had put in a bulrush basket daubed with pitch and sent downstream to Tomas to fetch at the riverbank of his bed".
  That sentence was interesting the first time, but was repeated often.  Teresa, the child in the bulrush basket was actually his wife and her dreams were described in detail.  Episodes in her life (and her dreams) kept repeating. 
    The narrative of Tomas and Teresa was often interrupted by long philosophical ramblings.  And the presence of the communist party in Czechoslovakia is described in detail, as that is where much of the story takes place.  One more interruption for me was the references to musical compositions. 
  To put it gently, it was an unusual novel.

   Kundera was born in Czechoslovakia in 1929, joined the Communist party, was expelled from the party and joined it again.  Eventually, after trying to reform the party, he gave up and moved to France.
  He rejected Nietzsche's concept of eternal return .  Interestingly, this is just the concept of a book that I read recently: "The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August"- coming back to the same life over and over.
  Kundera believed that Nietzsche had a 'heaviness', whereas Paremenides(a Greek philosopher), had a 'lightness of being'.  Hence, the title.

Hidden Valley Road

   We are isolated because of the world pandemic and when I saw that Oprah had chosen this book for her book club, I was very interested.  I am a sucker for interesting covers.  Who wouldn't want to read this book?
   I immediately bought it on my ipad and began reading.  I was engrossed from the first page.
   Don and Mimi Galvin raised these 10 boys, plus two girls that were not yet born when this picture was taken. 
   They lived on Hidden Valley Road in Colorado and the twelve children were born between 1945 and 1965. The mother was a woman of culture and the father was a man of the military.  It looks like a perfect family, if ever there was one.  And, of course, there is no such thing.  But this family had more challenges than you can ever imagine.  Six of the boys had schizophrenia!
   Interspersed in the family's story, is the scientific investigation of this disease.  Every theory over the years is explained in detail.  There was way too much detail for me.
   What I recognized from this heart-wrenching true story is that the disease devastates the whole family.  Everyone lives in fear of 'being next', as well as being traumatized by violence and abuse.
  Every review that I have read is glowing, but I have two problems with the book.  I have mentioned the detail of the scientific research.  My other problem is with privacy.  I realize that the author got permission from every living member of the family. Can a person with mental illness really give permission?  There were word-for-word conversations with one or another of the boys while in a psychotic episode.  I feel that we can get to the heart of the story without so much personal detail.  I knew that the author did great research for this book- reading family letters, diaries, medical records.  I have always felt that diaries are not to be read by anyone but the owner.  Everyone doesn't share my feelings of privacy.
  This is an important story to tell and the book was well-organized and much of it was extremely well written.  I just felt that the story could be told without so much personal detail.
  The family were used in the on-going search for a genetic marker for schizophrenia as well as better treatment options.
  I was engrossed at the beginning, but emotionally drained by the end.

"The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August" by Claire North

author

    This author is just as fascinating as the books that she writes.
   She was born in London, England in 1986, the daughter of author/ publisher Nick Webb.  She was writing during the school holidays at age 14 and that book, "Mirror Dreams" was published when was 16, followed by 2 more books published the next year.  She has now, at age 33, written many science fiction novels.  Her real name is Catherine Webb, but she writes under  pseudonyms Kate Griffin and Claire North.

   This novel was introduced to me by my grandson, Hunter, who had just graduated from engineering.  I knew that it would not be the type of book that I would choose, but I am always interested in what the grandchildren are reading.  
   We are now in the midst of a pandemic and what is better than a science fiction novel to distract your thoughts from the disturbing news every day?
   So I immersed myself in this novel. 
   I enjoyed the premise: Harry August lives the same life over and over and over. He is born into the same unusual circumstances every time (born in a washroom). 
  In each life, at age 3, he begins to recollect his past lives.  By his third life, Harry had not met anyone else with his experience and wondered if there was some purpose to his journey.
  Eventually, he discovers that there are other people in the world with the same experience. They are called kalachakras or ouroborans. Quote: "They loop perpetually through the same course of historical events, though their lives within may change." 
  And, then he connects with Cronus Club.  And here, I got lost in the history, geography, and technology of the world, as he chases clues left by other members of the Cronus Club and hooks up with a man who is trying to discover the nature of existence itself.
  I would never have believed that this novel was written by a woman in her 20's.  

"Giver of Stars" by Jojo Moyes

   I have just finished reading "The Giver of Stars" by Jojo Moyes.  
   It begins with Alice Van Cleve, who had married Bennett Van Cleve but also got a father-in-law in the bargain who had no sense of boundaries.  He spent their honeymoon with them on a ship from England to Kentucky and then controlled their lives, as they moved into his luxurious house in Kentucky.  He was a widower, running the mines as well as the lives of his son and daughter-in-law.  Alice was extremely unhappy (there was no love in this marriage), but found a sense of purpose in becoming a bookwoman, delivering books to remote homes in the surrounding hills.
   Two of the most important pillars of this book did not hold up for me: first, why did Bennett Van Cleve marry Alice while he was in England, when he refused to have any intimate contact with her after they were married?  He was not being pressured, obviously she was not pregnant, and he had a girlfriend back home in Kentucky, whom he eventually married.  Why did he marry Alice when he seemed to have no affection for her?
  The second pillar that doesn't hold up for me, involves another of the bookwomen- Marjorie.  She is a very unconventional woman who balks at the role of women in Kentucky during this time period, and comes from a family with a reputation of drinking and feuding. But when a mountain man is found dead with a copy of "Little Women" near him,  Marjorie is charged with his murder.  Simply because her relatives had been feuding with the murdered man's family and the dead man was found (a few months after his death) along the path that Marjorie took to deliver books. Did they really think a woman could kill a man with a book?

 "The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek" had deeper issues, based on fact.  Cussy Mary is the main character and her skin is blue-tinged, leaving her open to discrimination and abuse.  This is actually an inherited disorder that was very rare in the hills of Kentucky.
   Cussy Mary applied for the job of 'bookwoman' by mail so that her skin-colour would not be a factor.  She was very serious about the job- hoping to bring comfort and literacy to the isolated people living in the hills of Kentucky.  She rode a mule on her trips, often stopping to read to the sick or illiterate.
  The book also describes the custom of 'courting candles'.
   I enjoyed the writing and structure of "The Book woman of Troublesome Creek" more, but, I would be willing to read any number of books about this fascinating project, since so much of my life involves reading, discussing, and distributing books.

Similar books

  I was waiting to post the final results of Canada Reads 2020, but it has been cancelled because of the coronavirus.
  So I am staying indoors to be safe and looking at books to read while isolated.  I am trying to finish "Late Nights on Air" by Elizabeth Hay, since it would have been our next book club choice.  However, it is slow-going.  It is very much about the city of Yellowknife and backstories on all the people involved in the radio station there.  Not much action to keep me interested.
  But I did find something of interest to booklovers on the internet.  A new book came out October  of 2019 that is very similar to a book that was published in May of 2019.  To some people who have read both, the similarities are suspicious.  However, I cannot believe that plagiarism is involved. Both authors are well-established.

  
  The first book was "The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek" by Kim Michele Richardson.  You can read my blog entry about that book here.  I really loved this book about a woman who delivered library books in the mountains of Kentucky.
   It is fiction and was published in May of 2019.

The other book is "Giver of Stars" by Jojo Moyes and it was published in October of 2019 with the same subject - library pack horses.
  I have not read it yet because there is a waiting list at the library and the library is now closed.
  I am thinking of buying it on my ipad. 

    I do believe that there is room for more than one novel based on this factual, interesting program.  It is called the Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky that operated from 1935 - 1943 and involved 30 librarians, serving 100,000 people in the Appalachian Mountains.
   Let me know if you've read both of them and how you feel about the similarities.

Canada Reads 2010

  

    I have been talking about 'Canada Reads' for over a month because I belong to a book group whose main focus is Canada Reads.  It is a wonderful way to spend February and we have had very interesting discussions.
  On Monday, March 16, the debates will begin in Toronto and will be broadcast on radio, T.V., Facebook, podcasts, YouTube.  There will be four days of discussion, eliminating one book each day.
   I have blogged about each book and perhaps it is very clear how I feel about each book. 

  "From the Ashes" is definitely a book that I would recommend to friends.  Will it bring Canada into focus?  That is the theme: "One book to bring Canada into focus".
   Well, it certainly makes you think about the struggles of some indigenous people, suffering from generational pain. And it is a powerful story of overcoming homelessness and addiction.
  I have said that it is heart-wrenching and heart-warming.  That makes it my choice for the winner of Canada Reads 2020.

   
My second choice would be "Radicalized" because it brings up some excellent topics in the four short stories.  The last story is about building an underground shelter for doomsday events.  Well, we are not that desperate now, but it would not be a bad idea to have a stocked shelter where you could escape the coronavirus by staying away from the rest of the world for a few weeks.  But who would you take with you?
  The other stories are about police violence, the health care system and computerization of everything.
  Science fiction is an interesting way to look at serious situations and I would consider this as a winner for Canada Reads if it had more Canadian content.

  "We Have Always Been Here" is my third choice.  It is a memoir- a search for identity.  Interesting enough.

  "Son of a Trickster" was horrible to read and "Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club" was 'more horrible'!

   These are just my thoughts and our book group had a wonderful time discussing each book in detail.  

"Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club"

Canada Reads 2020

   This is the last book that I read in the list of five books for Canada Reads.  And this was the most difficult for me.  To be blunt, I saw no redeeming feature in this novel.

   Here is the dedication:

"I wrote this for myself.  And the beautiful vicious island that makes and unmakes us.  This might hurt a little.  Be brave."

  The whole novel takes place in a restaurant in St. John's, Newfoundland.  It is stream-of-consciousness writing, taking place in one day - one long, long, long day.

  It did not hurt to read it.  It made me sick, sad and depressed.

  The author is trying to reflect on the exploitation and oppression of women.  Much of the writing is metaphoric and you wonder what is really happening.  In fact, there is very little plot- only sexual predators and violence.

  I have read about the 'Ikea effect' in literature- the idea that people are more engaged with narratives that they've helped assemble themselves".  And it takes the whole, long book to figure out who each of the many characters are and what they are doing.  It is a novel that you have to assemble by yourself.

  And is it worth it?  Not for me!  There are some sentences that are lovely, but what did they mean?  Who are they talking about?

   The only thing that is really clear is the violent scene near the end.  And it was horrible.  I realize that the author wants to focus on the abuse of women, but is this the way to do it?

   There was more abhorrent language in this novel than I have heard in a lifetime.

"From the Ashes"

Canada Reads 2020

   "From the Ashes: My Story of Being Metis, Homeless, and Finding My Way" is a memoir by Jesse Thistle.

   The title really tells it all!  I found the story engrossing, emotional, and inspiring.

   Because of the title, I knew that there would be hope at the end.  So important to me!  But the road that Jesse travelled to 'find his way' was devastating.

   Because of his parents' break-up, he and his two brothers were raised by one parent, then the other, and then in foster care.  Eventually they ended up with their grandparents, who were the parents of their drug-addicted father. The grandfather was very tough on them and eventually there was conflict.  Jesse struck out on his own, and it was a terrible road that he travelled.  At 12, he was taking drugs and he was homeless by 21.  His self-destructive life of drugs, alcohol and crime continued until he was 32 years old!

  This memoir was heart-wrenching.  His inability to find his way out of addiction was unbelievable.  There were a couple of times that I thought he had made it, but he was back to the street and a life of crime.  By then, his body was badly damaged, but he took up running at a detention centre.  With the persistence that he learned there, he began taking courses and eventually ended up with a university degree and a new life.

  The middle part of the book was long and difficult to read, and could have been edited better.  But the beginning was great and the ending was so heart-warming.  Not only did he find a very supportive love, he also found his way back into his family and the Indigenous culture.

   I was reminded of the pure gold found in a secure childhood.  Jesse suffered greatly from the absence of his parents in his life.  You could feel Jesse's heart through the whole story, especially in the poems that are interspersed through the book.

   Jesse is now an assistant professor at York University and is an advocate for the homeless.

  This book is heart-wrenching and heart-warming.  It touched my heart!  I think it is worthy of winning Canada Reads this year.

"Son of a Trickster"

 Canada Reads 2020

   This is the third book that I have read for Canada Reads this year, and I question the choices that Canada Reads has made for 2020.  There are two Indigenous books.  One is fiction, the other is memoir.  There is an overlap in these books. Do we need them both?
  
   "Son of a Trickster" is a coming-of-age story about Jared, who is the son of Wee'git, the trickster from Haisla lore.  

Quote: "Son of a Trickster" is filled with darkness and squalor and obscenity.  (Heather O'Neill, author)

My reactions: "Son of  a Trickster" is a novel of alcohol, drugs, explicit sex and foul language.
  I am not the person to review this novel because it made me sick and sad.  I raced through it as fast as I could in order to return to the normal world.

   You can read many very positive reviews of this book on the internet.  Some people found humour in the novel.  I did not. None of my book club friends found any value in this novel. But on Amazon, the book got a five-star rating from 60 % of those writing a review.
  I disliked the representation of aboriginal teens as being constantly stoned.  There is not one positive character in the novel. I need 'hope' in a novel or it is not worth spending my time.  There may be a glimmer at the end of this novel, but not enough to justify 316 pages of nauseous behaviour.  I did not appreciate this novel as a book that would 'bring Canada into focus' and I would not recommend it to anyone.
  Thankfully, there are many aboriginal authors that I enjoy reading, but there doesn't seem to be a reason to have two indigenous books in the five books for Canada Reads.

"Radicalized" by Cory Doctorow

         Canada Reads 2020   

 I really didn't want to read this book.  The cover 'put me off.'  It said "Danger!  Danger!  Danger!"
   There are four short stories:

1.) Unauthorized Bread- about an immigrant woman who fights against a system meant to keep those in subsidized apartments under control.  She teaches some teens how to outsmart the system. Lots of suspense in this story- my favourite.

2.) Model Minority- about a superhero, American Eagle, who tries unsuccessfully to fight against the corruption of the police and the justice system.

3.) Radicalized - about the American health care system.  Angry people, who are not able to get expensive, life-saving drugs from their insurance plan, join others on a message board and plan acts of terrorism. 

4.) The Masque of Death- about the collapse of society.  A wealthy businessman builds Fort Doom, waiting for the apocalypse.

   Cory Doctorow is a science-fiction writer, who was born in Toronto.  He has lived in London, England, but now resides in California. 
   The cover does represent the contents.  Danger! Danger! Danger!  The stories are science-fiction, but tell much about dangerous trends in the present society.  
  My thought: Canada Reads this year has the theme- "one book to bring Canada into focus".  The content of this book is American, so I question the significance of this book for Canada Reads.

"We Have Always Been Here" by Samra Habib

  Canada Reads 2020

   Canada Reads has always been important to me.  For a few years, I have been fortunate to have a group of friends who gather to discuss each book before the televised discussion.

   The theme this year is:

"One book to bring Canada into focus"

   The author of this book describes the book as "a Queer Muslim memoir".  I am uncomfortable with the word queer used in this context, but there were other vocabulary challenges- tawaif, hijra, qawwlis, shalwar, dupatta, jannat, etc.
   Samra Habib was born in Pakistan where she was persecuted because she was Ahmadi Muslim, which is a group formed in 1887 to reform Islam and follow Muhammad in a non-violent and tolerant manner.  But the ruling power in Pakistan contained extremist Islamists, who believed in whipping, amputation and stoning. They had declared Ahmadi Muslims were not Muslims in 1977.  Samra needed to hide her identity as Ahmadi.
   The role of women that Samri saw in Pakistan was 'pious wife/ attentive mother'.  
Quote: "I've only ever been surrounded by women who didn't have the blueprint for claiming their lives."

  When the family came to Canada, there was less physical danger, but Samra lost her childhood.  She was the only one with a good understanding of the language, so she was involved in 'adult business'.  Soon she discovered that her parents had decided on an arranged marriage for her, where even her complete name was changed.  She felt that her identity was disposable.  
  The stage is set for a very difficult struggle for identity.

Samra Habib

   The author is a very good writer, who specializes in photography and activism for gay Muslims, and speaks out about Islamophobia.
   As a journalist, she writes about fashion trends and Muslim dating apps.  She is very concerned about the rise of Islamophobia in the U.S.A.

"Rising Out of Hatred: the Awakening of a Former White Nationalist

Derek Black

   What a riveting biography!  The research behind this book is amazing!  The author spent hundreds of hours with Derek Black, the young man who was expected to lead the White Nationalist movement.
  Derek was immersed in this movement from his birth, groomed by his father and also mentored by David Duke.  Both of these older men had been involved in the Ku Klux Klan.
   Derek never believed in violence, but did follow the ideology of white superiority.
     The book begins with Obama's inauguration.  There was an increase in white racist activity and Obama was receiving 30 death threats a day!  Gun sales had skyrocketed!  The white supremacists were working non-stop with speeches, literature and a 24-hour online radio network.  Derek was deeply involved.  He had been home-schooled and programmed in white supremacy.  However, at 19, he was away from home for the first time and influenced by the outside world.  He was attending university and made some good friends.  He became very conflicted and felt that he was living two lives.  So he 'outed' himself. When the news of his affiliation spread, many fellow students pulled away, but one Jewish friend invited him to Shabbat dinner each Friday.  An interesting group gathered there- gay, Hispanic, black, Jewish - male and female.  These friends caused Derek to question much of his upbringing.  But how do you distance yourself, when you are the 'leading light of the white nationalist movement'?

Author- Eli Saslow

  This author, Eli Saslow, described Derek's struggle in such intimate detail!  I love the way he gave interesting backstories of each character, helping the reader understand all the issues involved.

"Hillbilly Elegy" by J.D Vance

"Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis"  
Elegy means 'lament' - to praise and express sorrow in a story or a poem.
  I think the title is perfect!  It gets to the core of the story.  This memoir expresses sorrow for the hillbilly culture, but praise for those who do their best with the life they have.  I think the author wishes to educate those who have no connection with such life experiences.
   This memoir begins with the story of the author's grandparents, married at ages 14 and 17, who grew up in the hills of Kentucky, where they learned 'hillbilly justice',  involving guns and violence.  Vance calls himself, as well as his extended family, 'hillbillies'.  
          There was an exodus out of Kentucky when the mines closed and the hillbillies migrated to other states- Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.  But, "you can take the boy out of Kentucky but you can't take Kentucky out of the boy". And so, the violence, yelling and lives of dysfunction continued.
Quote: "Hillbilly culture blended a robust sense of honor, devotion to family, and bizarre sexism into a sometimes explosive mix".

J.D.Vance

   J.D. Vance never forgot the grandparents who helped him through his childhood.  The dedication on this book says: 'For Mamaw and Papaw, my very own terminators".
  This book was written in 2016 and people believe that the book tries to show how Americans could be drawn to Donald Trump, who was running for president.
  The author made an interesting point that we can't judge a person's actions when we have no idea what their life circumstances have been.  The results of domestic violence and drug addiction in a child's life are well documented.  We know that the author was able to 'rise above his raising', but he explains in detail how difficult it is to move from the working class to the professional class.  It means leaving your identity behind.    

"Inheritance" by Dani Shapiro

"A memoir of genealogy, paternity, and love"
    Dani Shapiro grew up in a Jewish Orthodox family.  Her grandparents had been pillars of the Jewish community and Dani loved her Jewish father. 
Quote: "I had a powerful, nearly romantic sense of my family and its past".
     But, at 54, her husband was researching his family history and decided to send away for a DNA kit.  On the spur of the moment, Dani decided to also send her saliva sample.  What she discovered completely devastated her.  Her father was not really her father!  Both of Dani's parents were dead, as well as the

Dani and her Jewish father.

rest of the older generation of her family.  There was no one who could help her figure this out.  
   I was surprised by the devastation that Dani felt at this news. 
Quote:
"I slipped out of bed and walked barefoot into the bathroom.  My mind and body seemed to be disconnected.  My body wasn't the body I had believed it to be for fifty-four years.  My face wasn't my face.  That's what it felt like.  If my body wasn't my body, and my face wasn't my face, who was I?"

I would expect that it could be distressing and difficult to absorb, but Dani was already an adult with a family of her own.  But these are her thoughts:
"What makes a person a person?"
"Is who we are the same as who we believe ourselves to be?"

   She was obsessed as she delved into discovering her real ancestry.  And so she turned to the computer and enlisted the help of a genealogy researcher.

                                 I found this memoir absolutely compelling!

Akin

   I enjoy four things about novels- characters, setting, plot, and language.  What I enjoyed most about this novel are the main characters and the setting.
   Noah Salvaggio was a newly-retired professor in New York, planning to spend his 80th birthday in the place of his birth- Nice, France.  His wife and sister were dead and he had no children.  So he was free to travel. He had found, in his sister's belongings, photographs that had been taken by his mother during the war, and those photos brought up many questions about his mother's life.  He knew that his mother had sent him from Nice to New York when he was four, to live with his father, while she stayed behind for two years.  What happened during those two years?
   Into the story comes an 11-year-old boy, whose father has died of a drug over-dose and his mother is in jail.  Michael is the name of the boy and he is the grandson of Noah's sister.  And he has nowhere to go because his grandmother (his mother's mother) had been caring for him, but she also died.  Could you follow all that?  This boy has been through much turmoil and is the only living relative of Noah- Noah's great nephew!
  As unreal as that may sound, it makes for a great story of an 80-year-old man and an 11-year-old boy.  And the setting to the story is Nice.  Two interesting characters in the French Riviera, who have never met before.  The generation gap is so obvious as these two strangers discover that they are more alike than different.  In fact, they are AKIN.

   Emma Donoghue was inspired to write about Nice after spending two years there with her partner and her children.  She felt that she never became fluent in French, but there are many French terms in the novel, as she felt that she was writing a love-letter to the country that fascinated her so much.
   As Noah searched out the story of his mother's photographs (with the help of computer-game obsessed Michael), there is an interesting look into the art world of twentieth-century France.

Emma Donoghue

Emma Donoghue

   The author, Emma Donaghue came to Cambridge on her recent book tour.  It was the first well-known author event in our  newly-acquired library building, The Old Post Office.
  I had read her novel, "Room", which had been a great success, although it had a very sad premise.
  It is about a woman who is imprisoned by a rapist in a windowless shed, where she gives birth to Jack.  The story is told in the voice of 5-year-old Jack who has never seen the outside world.  I did not find the voice credible- the expressions and vocabulary.  But perhaps it was the darkness of the story that bothered me.  However, I was impressed with the creativity of the mother to structure the boy's life, year after year, in one room.
  The book was made into a movie and even became a stage play with songs.  So it had many covers.

  
   Emma is a very interesting speaker.  She is involved in so many projects.  While raising two children, she takes advantage of every spare moment to write or research.  She has been able to support herself with her writing since she was 23.
   Emma was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1969, and has degrees from Dublin University as well as Cambridge University in England.

   
   She spent years commuting between England, Ireland and Canada, until 1998, when she settled in London, Ontario, where she has been writing youth fiction and non-fiction as well as teaching creative writing.
  She has many projects going at any time - film, T.V., and even radio plays.  You can understand that she would be an interesting speaker



  
  Her visit to Cambridge was part of her book tour for her new novel.  We were very fortunate to have her in our city and I enjoyed her presentation very much.  And so, even though I wasn't thrilled about "Room", I decided to read "Akin".  This novel is a return to a relationship between an adult and a child.  But the premise is much brighter.  I will write about it on my next blog.



Back to the covers for "Room".  How do you like them? I love covers and I quite like the last one- creative like the novel.  That cover would have caught my eye in the bookstore and I might have read it just for that reason.

"Unfollow" by Megan Phelps-Roper

   The subtitle of this book is "A memoir of loving and leaving the Westboro Baptist Church".  And the memoir clearly shows how much the author loved her large family.  She had 10 siblings, many aunts, uncles and cousins, and her grandfather was the founder of the church, which was mostly comprised of family members.
  Her grandfather was angry about the gay activity he believed was happening in their local park in Topeka, Kansas.  So the church began picketing, causing a disturbance with their hateful signs. Megan joined the picket line when she was five. 
   The picketing and the signs grew worse over time. The U.S was involved in wars and the church protested by picketing at the funerals of soldiers.  Her grandfather believed that everyone was going to hell, except his church members. So it was a case of them against the world. They gained world-wide attention and were the subject of a documentary by the BBC called "The most hated family in America".

    The church preached hate, but Megan also experienced love in the family.  What a very difficult combination!
   As Megan grew up, she became aware of the inconsistencies in the church doctrine.  Since she had no social life apart from her family, she learned about the world through her Twitter account, and eventually found strength and support among her Twitter followers.




    Here is Megan as a dutiful church member.  She even joined the picket line when it was at her school.
  This memoir is a reminder of the damage of extremism.  Obviously, Megan had no idea how hurtful her actions were.  She was just an obedient daughter and granddaughter, who thought her family was RIGHT.
   In 2012, at age 26, Megan left the church, left her family, and basically left her life behind.  Her description of this time is heart-breaking!

   
   After great emotional and spiritual turmoil, Megan was able to begin a new family.  She is trying to make up for the harm she caused, by speaking out about extremism in any form.  She is courageous and loving, and her memoir is heart-breaking and insightful!



How I discovered this memoir:
My daughter loves to send me lists of books.  This book was included in a list of "Seven of the Most Inspiring Novels and Memoirs from 2019" from Greater Good magazine: "Science-based insights for a meaningful life".   An excellent memoir!

"This is How it Always Is"

   This novel begins with Rosie Walsh and her husband Penn, who have four boys - Roosevelt, Ben, and twins Rigel and Orion.  Four boys!  But Rosie wanted a daughter, since her only sibling, a sister, Poppy, died at ten.

Quote:
"Was she just trying endlessly to make a daughter to fulfill an ancient dream of her sister's, a ten-year-old's dream at that?  Did she believe this daughter would grow up and be, at ten, the little girl she'd lost, Poppy herself, picking up where Poppy had left off, fulfilling all the promise of that stymied, hacked-off, stubbed-out little life?  As long as she kept her womb full, might Poppy, some version of Poppy - some waiting, watchful, wandering Poppy demon- gather up all her errant atoms and come home again?"
    Well, she did have another child, but it was not a daughter- at first.  Rosie and Penn's last child was born a boy, but he wanted to dress like a girl.  The parents were loving and accepting of his wishes and tried to accommodate the challenges, as their son transitioned to a daughter.
   This novel raises many questions that will be interesting to address at the next book club meeting.
   The author explains her interest in such a story in the notes at the end, where she tells of her transgender child.
   What would the author want us to understand from this novel, that is not biographical although based on her experience?
   "So one of the things that I hope is that people who read this book will read it and forget about the transgender issues and just be in the embrace of this family and realize that this family is like all families: They love and they keep secrets from one another and they protect one another and they struggle with how to do that and they have these challenges.  And it's hard, but it isn't scary and it isn't abnormal at all." (Laurie Frankel)

   I appreciated the opportunity to read such a novel.  I enjoyed the family of five children with such permissive parents.  It was a very creative family and fun to read about their life.  However, I struggled with the author's syntax.  Her sentences were often long and confusing.  Was that on purpose, to reflect the chaos in the home?
  This may say more about me, because I realize that modern authors create their own path and do not follow the grammar of the past.

"Charlotte's Web" by E.B.White

book club choice: "Charlotte's Web"
  I love the fact that that one of my book clubs chooses a children's classic every year, along with several adult classics.  I found this book about that very topic: "The Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult".  It was interesting to remember all those wonderful early novels for children, as well as picture books.

  Garth Williams, who wrote the foreword for "Charlotte's Web", admits to not reading this book as a child because the cover made him feel that the book 'guaranteed misery'.
   I agree that the cover is not great for children.  So I searched for other covers.  I found these:

***********************************************************************************************************

    

   I like this cover, since it features Wilbur, who is the main character in the story.



   
  
   The second cover illustrates the power of friendship, one of the themes in the novel. 




   
   The last cover was published after the movie was made.  It is similar to the original but the expressions on the faces of Fern and the animals are much more serene.


   E.B.White (Elwyn Brooks) was a writer for the New Yorker Magazine, as well as the author of children's novels. He wrote "Stuart Little" and "The Trumpet of the Swans".
   Obviously, he enjoyed animals. He gave them interesting characteristics.  He also enjoyed nature and describes the changing of the seasons in lovely detail.

"All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, 

is that I love the world". 

 (E.B.White 1899 - 1985)