Author: Marsha

Yellowface

By R.F. Kuang

Published 2023

Read Dec 2024

This reader finished the first third of this book in one setting—apparently it was engaging.  The narrator is a white author in her twenties whose first novel was published, but it didn’t sell many copies. In contrast, a Yale classmate, Athena, achieved the success our narrator craves.  It’s clear in the first few pages that the narrator is jealous of her success.

The two have remained in contact since graduating but the narrator isn’t sure they are actually friends, but rather acquaintances who both ended up living in the Washington DC area.  However, one night after celebrating Athena’s deal with Netflix, they end up at Athena’s apartment (the narrator’s first time there).  On a trip to the bathroom, the narrator sneaks a peak at Athena’s writing room and finds a stack of paper with “the end” on the top page.  Athena suggests she read a bit of it, but they are both pretty drunk and leave the book behind.  They make pancakes and Athena suffocates when a partially baked pancake gets stuck in her throat.  Eventually the narrator is allowed to go home when the EMT’s are leaving.  Amazingly, the narrator takes the draft home with her and starts playing with it, first “as a lark”, and then seriously.  She makes an active decision to submit it to her agent as her own work.  She knows she’s minimally plagiarized and probably stolen but she is very convinced her efforts to refine the book make it ok to hide Athena’s involvement in the project.  The agent puts it out for auction and gets her a deal with a substantial advance.  

The publisher she sold the book to is an indie house where she’s a “big fish in a small pond”.  The author describes the path of the book and its presumed author through the pre-publication process after the publisher decides it’s going to be a major hit.  She has a great relationship with her editor, Daniella.  She is giddy that some of Daniella’s favorite passages are ones the narrator wrote herself—this proving to the narrator that she can really write. 

The book is expected to be a major hit given its topic, so much attention is paid to how to market it.  During the marketing planning, the questions of “cultural authenticity” comes up—can a white author write about this topic—the story of Chinese laborers during World War I (Athena was Chinese American so probably wouldn’t get this question).  An editorial assistant, Candice, suggests a sensitivity reader to provide cultural consulting to ensure there aren’t any “bumps” post-launch.  The narrator believes Candice doesn’t like her and insists this isn’t necessary as she’s done her homework.  The publishing team ends up supporting the narrator and Candice is removed from the project which continues ahead with lots of pre-publication marketing.  To soften the narrator’s whiteness a bit, the book will be published under the name Juniper Song vs June Hayward, her actual last name and the name used when publishing her first book.  Song is her middle name but might be mistaken for a Chinese name.  There is even an article put out about authorial identities and pen names to get ahead of any issues.  She feels fine that they aren’t lying or committing any fraud.  The narrator is head over heels in love with the attention she and the book are getting and that’s she’s “made it” in the publishing world.  She’s getting to taste the various perks saw Athena enjoy.

The book hits the market and climbs the best-seller list.  The narrator is thrilled and revels in all the positive tweets she’s getting on twitter.  But then some negative tweets show up including the question of whether a white author can adequately tell this story, whether the author is trying to pretend to the market she is Asian, and ultimately there are questions about whether she is really the author vs Athena.  Our narrator assures her publisher that she is the legitimate author, and they take her at her word.

As the book progresses, the narrator gets completely consumed with social media which diverts her from starting a new project.  She realizes she doesn’t have any ideas for what to do next.  She takes an idea she gets from a paragraph she finds in some other papers she has from Athena and uses the paragraph verbatim.  Of course, this causes her more problems on social media after this comes to like post-publication.  This reader will leave the plot line at this point. 

This reader had several reactions to this book:

As indicated, the first third was extremely engaging.  This reader was excited to learn about the pre-publication process.  But it also became clear that some books are chosen to be heavily promoted while others aren’t. Questions this drove for the reader include:  What’s the criteria? Was this book so wonderful that it deserved this attention or was the “diversity” topic driving the marketing?  

There have been some authors trashed for writing “outside their lanes” — generally when white authors write about non-white people and situations and generally when the authors are women.  Why are we having this conversation?  Many books have editorial issues and maybe we wish all authors/editors to be more careful and complete.  The “sensitivity reader” may be a very useful editorial tool.  Certainly, many authors already use many readers in addition to their official editorial staff to help them hone their work and those that choose readers that will give them honest feedback are likely the most successful. 

The narrator justifies her actions of stealing from Athena repeatedly and convinces her agent and publisher that she is the author.  This reader was astonished by this but of course it makes for a good story.

Is June Hayward the good writer she thinks she is?  She spends essentially no time writing anything while she’s promoting the book (maybe that’s normal) or after the book tours and talks, etc have ended and can’t get herself away from social media.   She needs to directly steal Athena’s words for her next book and once again thinks this is ok. 

Why does the narrator want to be a writer?  She is very clear that she relished the attention, the money, and the social media reaction to her book and was saddened that it wasn’t going to last.  Of course, we all want some validation that the work we’re doing is valuable to something or someone. Making a living at writing or any other type of art is certainly not for the faint of heart and requires inner strength that transcends the need for constant external accolades.  Frankly, that’s true for most people to get through the rough spots of their jobs.

This reader has noted in several posts that she looks forward to the next book by author X and that she reads books from author Y as soon as she can.  Some of these writers, such as Ann Patchett, have very different story lines/characters/etc for each of her books.  This reader finds this impressive and something that makes this author fresh each time.  One of these writers, Elizabeth Strout, could be accused of recycling her characters, but the stories she weaves about them draw this reader “to that flame” readily to learn what Elizabeth Strout is going to tell us about past and new characters.  Thus, these authors may have something that the narrator of this book doesn’t have that allows them to keep producing works that draw a large audience.  This reader isn’t qualified to say exactly what or why this is—which this reader finds fascinating.    

In the end, this reader found Yellowface to be a book worth discussing with others.  One doesn’t need to like the protagonist to be engaged. 

Clear

By Carys Davies

Published 2024

Read Nov 2024

Although this is the 3^rd book published by this author, Clear is the first one for this reader. 

Davies sets the story in 1843, the year of the Great Disruption in the Scottish Church and a year in which the Clearance of the Scottish Highlands and the Shetland Islands, both of which are important elements of the story. 

Davies’ language is very economical—this reader was reminded of Claire Keegan in this regard.  Her story construction slowly reveals information about the three main characters (John Ferguson, Ivar, and Mary Ferguson).  Using a shifting Point of View, each character tells the reader of their past, their hopes and fears, and their challenges.

We first meet John Ferguson when he is swimming from a boat to a shore.  Eventually we learn that he is a minister in the Scottish State Church who has joined about 450 of his fellow ministers in the Great Disruption of of Scottish Church to break away from the state church to form the Free Church of Scotland.  A significant consequence of this decision is loss of his salary as well as his home and church building for his congregation.  To make ends meet temporarily, he has taken a job to journey to a distant island somewhere between the Shetland Islands and Norway to survey the property of a landowner and move the sole resident off the property (part of the Clearance when landowners displaced tenants on their property to replace them with a sheep farm).  The day after he survives the swim from the boat to the shore, he slips and falls on rocks while still naked after taking a bath in the sea and is struck injured and unconscious.

We meet Ivar, the sole resident on the property.  His father and brothers were lost many years ago in an accident at sea.  His mother and brother’s wife left some years ago to find a better life.  He remained and has eked out an existence with a now blind cow, some chickens, and a garden.  He has paid rent to the landowner from bird feathers he collects, from knitted goods he makes, and from crops he works at growing.  He hasn’t seen the landowner or rent collector for 3 years, which is good as he’s been ill and his ability to produce anything of worth has greatly diminished. 

Ivar finds John Ferguson unconscious and takes him to his small abode where he tends to his wounds and hopes he’ll recover.  John Ferguson does regain consciousness and finds himself in a bit of a pickle.  This kind man is nursing him to health (he has much recovering left to do) and is providing him food and shelter despite clearly having little for himself—how can he tell him what he’s come to do.  An additional and huge complication is that Ivar speaks only Norn, a language that has since essentially died out. 

As part of the fall John Ferguson lost his “papers” including his translation of the gospels into Scottish—a mission he’s been working on for many years.  The paper remains, but the words have disappeared after their bath in the sea.  He uses this paper to write down words of Norn that Ivar is teaching him.  After a few weeks, this dictionary has reached 55 words (actual Norn translations although with Ferguson’s spelling) and the two men have formed a significant bond despite their lack of language.

Meanwhile, Mary Furguson decides she needs to fetch her husband as she becomes increasingly convinced that he’s not fully up to this rude task.  While she’s travelling, we learn about her life, her courtship with John Furguson, and her life with him. 

This reader won’t provide more details about John Ferguson’s stay on the island with Ivar or Mary’s arrival on the island.  In a spare 185 pages Davies packs quite a number of significant events and the various characters’ take on them.  In addition, her descriptions of the island enabled this reader to feel the mist, see the fog, see the fields, feel the cold water through which John Ferguson and later Mary Ferguson travel from the ship to the island.  The environment of the island, both the natural surroundings and Ivar’s home, are vividly presented.

Themes of loneliness, love, perseverance, faith, pursuit of a calling are all part of this slender volume.  The ending has an unexpected twist which this reader won’t reveal.  This reader found it to provide a hopeful ending considering the task John Ferguson has been employed to accomplish.

Davies provided this reader incentive to learn more about the Great Disruption and the Clearance as well as a desire to read her other books and to look forward to future ones.   

Machines Like Me

By Ian McEwan

Published 2019

Read July 2024

This reader has only read one Ian McEwan novel previously: Atonement.  This reader was underwhelmed by that book and irritated at the author for a device he used.  Thus, this reader picked up Machine Like Me with some hesitation but it’s on this reader’s book club’s schedule, and this reader does enjoy speculative fiction and some sci-fi so this reader was ready to be wowed by this apparently highly literary author.

The author sets the book in London in an alternate 1982.  Some reviewers have speculate this year was chosen so that Alan Turing could be an important character if he hadn’t been punished for his sexuality.  Alternate aspects of this 1982: self-driving cars are common, Margaret Thatcher is practically in hiding for losing the war over the Falkland Islands, and other changes.  It seemed to this reader the author may have enjoyed this aspect of the novel more than his characters. 

Charlie Friend is the narrator of the story.  He is unemployed and makes enough money to pay the rent by day-trading stocks.  He invests all his inheritance from his mother, some 86,000 pounds, on one of 12 Adams that Turing and his company have released into the market. (All 13 Eves were purchased ahead of Charlie’s purchase.)  He has a crush on his upstairs neighbor, Miranda, who is ten years younger than Charlie and a doctoral student of social history.  She has different views on what sex does or doesn’t mean compared with Charlie and she carelessly falls into a relationship with Charlie seemingly because there isn’t much reason not to do so.

Charlie has big dreams of using his Adam to build a life with Miranda.  He foists 50% of the responsibility for creating Adam’s personality of Miranda without anticipating how this could possibly go wrong.  But lack of thinking about decisions is par for the course for Charlie—an example being spending the entire inheritance on Adam when he barely makes his rent.

Whether planned or not, Adam is the most interesting character in the book.  He has access to the entire internet in his head.  He uses it to learn how to write haikus, to warn Charlie about Miranda’s past, etc. 

McEwan tries to focus us on some big philosophical questions which are interesting—what makes a human “human”, can a robot love like a human (yes he can have sex but what about the emotional aspects of love) for starters.  Unfortunately for this reader, the plot involving Miranda’s past and the plot involving her desire to rescue a young boy from his terrible parents don’t enable these questions to be explored as much as the author may think they do.  

This reader enjoys speculative fiction and sci-fi, especially when they deal with broader philosophical questions.  The authors of the best of these books don’t try to run away from the genre and say they what they write is literary fiction, not that sci-fi stuff.  That attitude dismisses some great books unnecessarily and unfortunately.  This author has experience an outcome of this trashing—needing to justify why serious book discussions can be had for speculative fiction and science fiction.   This reader replies:    Rubbish!

Reasons that this reader participates in three book discussion groups include being exposed to books that wouldn’t come onto her reading list otherwise altering this reader’s perception of books.  This reader looks forward to discussion of this book; will her views of this book be altered and how?

Heaven and Earth Grocery Store

By James McBride

Published 2023

Read May 2024

McBride’s book starts with the discovery of a body in an old well in 1972 near Pottstown, PA.  Little remains with the skeleton.

But we don’t hear anything about this situation for most of the book.  Instead, McBride takes us back to about 1925 and introduces us to Moshe Ludlow, a Jewish immigrant from Romania, who runs a theatre and dance hall in Pottstown that books musical acts catering to Jewish people.  He meets Chona, the daughter of a Jewish grocer on Chicken Hill, a neighborhood of Pottstown where Blacks and European immigrants dwell.  They fall in love, marry, and live upstairs from the grocery store which Chona inherits from her father.   Mosha expands his business to cater as well to the Black population while Chona runs the grocery store.  Moshe’s decision to expand his business causes some concern in the town.  Chona’s store doesn’t make a profit as she gives credit to the residents of Chicken Hill who need the help, and she rarely receives payment back.  Mosha wants to move down the hill, closer to downtown and closer to many Jews who have moved there but Chona will have nothing of it, so they stay.

As we read further, we are introduced to a whole variety of characters from Pottstown and Chicken Hill—Black, white, and Jewish-all of whom are well developed with strong points and flaws.   Impatient readers may find this frustrating as it’s not clear what these characters have to do with the main story which we might think is about Moshe and Chona.  But we’re told patience is a virtue and it certainly pays off in this book.  The connections between complicated web of multiple stories and their various characters slowly becomes clear when Nate, a Black man who often works for Moshe and whom isn’t originally from the area asks Moshe to hide Dodo, a boy who was hurt in an accident which left him nearly deaf and dumb.  Dodo is being pursued by the state to be taken to an institution for the feeble minded and disabled (it actually existed in the area for 79 years and closed in 1987).   By the end of the book we understand the connections, see some resolution of the various stories and have an answer about the identity of the skeleton and how it came to be there. 

 This is an absolutely delightful book.  Be patient!  Let yourself seep into the world McBride’s characters live. Enjoy the vibrant characters McBride creates.  Experience various prejudices that plague various parts of the community and the distrust each group tends to have for the others.    You will be hooked by this complicated community and likely, like this reader, you won’t quickly leave it.