Category: Modern Fiction

Lucy by the Sea

By Elizabeth Strout

Published 2022

Read March 2023

By now you may be aware that this reader reads everything by Elizabeth Strout.  This essay’s posting date so long after its reading shouldn’t imply any negative connotations about this reader’s opinion of it—merely the usual problem of reading faster than the essays get written.

This novel continues our interaction with Lucy Barton.  She first appeared in My Name is Lucy Barton (2016) then in Anything is Possible (2017) and again in Oh William(2021).  Now we see Lucy Barton about 20 years after her divorce from Wiliam, her first husband of about 20 years, as a fairly newly widowed from her second husband, whom she adored, and at the very beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.  William, divorced from his second wife, is a scientist and sees the writing on the wall regarding this new disease.  He convinces Lucy to go to a house he rented in Maine.  She’s reluctant to leave her beloved New York where her children reside.  She plans to take only her iPad, despite being a writer by occupation.  William packs her laptop as he knows this isn’t going to be as short a stay as Lucy imagines.

They settle into this rented house which is near Crosby, Maine, a town Strout readers have visited in other books.  In fact, their house is pretty near Bob Burgess’s place and Lucy and Bob become walking friends.  Other past characters have cameo appearances but reading any of the previous Strout books is unnecessary to appreciate this novel.

This book is definitely about the Covid-19 pandemic—how people approached it, their fears, their reaction to being cooped up in their homes, their longings for family and friends they aren’t seeing, etc.  But it also is a book like other Strout books—about relationships.  In this one, it’s about Lucy mourning her husband David, finding a new friend in Bob Burgess, worrying about her grown kids, and sharing living quarters with an ex-husband. 

It’s classic Elizabeth Strout and this reader enjoyed every word of it. 

The Dark Forest

By Cixin Lui

Translated by Joel Martinsen

Published 2008 (China); 2015 (US)

Read April 2024

Death’s End

By Cixin Lui

Translated by Ken Lui

Published 2010 (China); 2016 (US)

Read Nov 2024

These two books complete the trilogy known as Remembrance of Earth’s Past by Cixin Lui which began with The 3 Body Problem which this reader has previously discussed.  This reader found each book in the trilogy to be extremely remarkable.  In addition to being great “hard core” science fiction, these books challenge the reader to confront the Fermi paradox and a possible solution to it—the dark forest hypothesis.  The Fermi paradox is essentially the unanswered question “where are they?”  Shouldn’t we expect there to be life elsewhere in the universe?  Then why isn’t there evidence that it exists? 

The 3 Body Problem provides the story of the search for life elsewhere in the universe that, due to somewhat rouge efforts of one scientist, both receives contact from another civilization (Trisolaran) and responds to that contact which sets up a series of events that puts life on earth at peril.  The foreign civilization wants to conquer Earth and use it for its own.

The Dark Forest provides the story of attempts to deal with the Trisolaran threat.  The Trisolaran’s superior technology includes “sophrons” that see and hear everything on Earth and block Earth’s progression of their own understanding of physics.  A “Wallfacer” project is initiated:  4 people are chosen to develop strategies to overcome the threat of Trisolaran.  They are given nearly unlimited resources to accomplish this.  The Trisolarans try to upset this project by selecting “Wallbreakers” that pair to the Wallfacers with the goal of revealing their strategies thus making them useless.  Three of Wallbreakers are successful.  The fourth Wallfacer, Lui Ji, develops the dark forest hypothesis — that there are many civilizations throughout the universe that are silent and hostile; remaining silent protects them from the other hostile civilizations.  After some plot twists and thrilling scenes not described here, Lui Ji is able to convince the Trisolarans to enter a truce to prevent their own civilization from exposure to other hostile civilizations—a Mutually Assured Deterrence approach . 

Death’s End covers a truly remarkable range of time as Earth continues to seek a path of avoiding death of their civilization by a series of approaches.  In an early section of the novel, Cheng Xin is an astrophysicist who works on the Staircase Project that is recounted in the Netflix series of the 3 Body Problem, discussed previously.  When the Lui Ji steps down as the human linchpin that has kept the Mutually Assured Deterrence approach keeping the Trisolarans at bay, that approach falls apart and a new era begins.  This reader won’t detail the numerous things that occur in this new era and beyond but Cheng  Xi  and Thomas Wade, the CIA agent leading the Staircase Project, are involved in most of them enabled by the hibernation technology introduced to us first in The Dark Forest. 

This reader was impressed by the author’s ability to thrill science fiction readers with impressive technical details of technologies that seem plausible while futuristic.  But the author accomplishes far more than that.  The substantial philosophical questions posed by the stories are quite profound and he uses credible characters to bring these questions to life.   Wallfacer Liu Ji’s relationship with his enforced role as a Wallfacer is exquisitely told—his initial rejection, the transition period, developing a useful strategy, the courage to execute it and endure early criticism, and the fortitude to carry out the deterrence mission.  Similarly, the author effectively uses the character of Cheng Xin in a believable way so that the reader experiences her feelings as she progresses through her essentially solitary life, driving potential solutions to enable the survival of Earth, and making decisions that likely impact the fate of it. 

This word “Wow” leapt to this reader’s mind over and over.  Great characters, immense questions, exceptional technical details, and incredible effectiveness in taking the reader literally billions of years into the future.  The relationship this reader has with the universe has been altered as a result of reading this remarkable trilogy.  

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.   

The Women

By Kristin Hannah

Published 2024

Read May 2024

It’s mid-1960’s and before the Coronado Island-San Diego bridge was built.  The book opens during the going-away party for the older brother and only sibling of Francis (Frankie) McGrath.  He’s graduated from Annapolis and is headed to Vietnam on a ship.  Frankie’s parents have made clear to her that their plan for her is to marry well, consistent with their stature in society.  Frankie’s dad never served in the military but has a wall of fame for those in the family who have.  The wall includes wedding pictures for the women.  Frankie has another idea, prompted by a comment by a friend of her brother at this party—women can be heroes too.  She has completed a nursing course and enlists in the army to be a nurse in Vietnam—the only military service that will ship nurses to Vietnam with no military experience.  Her brother is killed just before she leaves for Vietnam and her parents are both devastated by this loss and furious at her for enlisting.

We witness Frankie’s “trial by fire” as she’s dropped into a hospital dealing with all the Vietnam trauma we’ve heard about.  Hannah’s writing engages the reader rapidly and completely and we are quickly cheering for her and her sister nurses.  She’s smart and committed and manages to become a competent nurse that the doctors rely on—and hit on and might abuse if out at night alone.  She deflects potential relationships with married or engaged men even when she is in love with them. Things get even tougher for her when she is transferred to a unit essentially at the front. 

But the toughest challenges Frankie faces happen when her term is complete, and she returns home to a country that is routinely spitting at returning soldiers.  She learns her parents have lied to others, indicating she’s been travelling in Europe, not trying to keep soldiers alive in Vietnam.  The veteran support services don’t recognize that women were in Vietnam at all, so she has no legitimate claim to their services.  Her parents expect her to resume her role in their pre-conceived story for her and don’t even want to hear anything about her time in Vietnam.  Our hearts break as Frankie’s does. It’s not surprising this book became a best seller.  The author’s writing drives you to turn the pages; the protagonist is engaging and suffers mightily and believably state-side. The medical scenes, the relaxation scenes, the state-side scenes are all believable.  We want Frankie to find something to pull her through the transition that allows her to make a new life for herself. As an aside–this reader wondered how Frankie would have fared if she didn’t have parents who financially supported her during her darkest days, but it still worked.  Overall, the story is perfect for a movie or a streaming service series or both!  If the popularity of the book, movie, series, etc help highlight the little credit given women for the critical roles they have played in war throughout history it’s all good. 

Tell Me Everything     

By Elizabeth Strout

Published 2024

Read Oct 2024

Since the publication of Olive Kitteridge, this reader has read all of Elizabeth’s Strout previously published books and now often reads her newest book as soon as her place in line at the library allows.  For this book, an audio version was the first available and this reader devoured it.  The audiobook reader was great, especially when Olive Kitteridge is speaking.

Yes, Olive Kitteridge is in this book along with all of the (still living) major characters from many of the pre-Olive books, Amy and Isabelle and The Burgess Boys, as well as the Lucy Barton books, My Name is Lucy Barton, Anything is Possible, Oh William, and Lucy by the Sea as well as some of the minor ones in those books.  It’s not necessary to have read these previous books as the authors gives us sufficient background for the purposes of this book, but this reader’s experience was likely deepened having read them before this book. 

Much of this book focuses on conversations between various characters as they tell stories to each other, generally about other people and occasionally about themselves.  One such pair is Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge.  Lucy Barton is a successfully published author of memoirs who is now living in the Crosby, ME area with her ex-husband, William.  Lucy by the Sea told of their move there to escape the COVID-19 pandemic.  Lucy and Olive become acquainted when Olive asks Bob Burgess to have Lucy visit her so Olive can tell Lucy a story.  Lucy visits Olive at the senior living facility in which Olive, now 90, resides.  Lucy and Olive meet with some frequency to tell each other stories of “unrecorded lives”.  At one point Lucy is concerned about the purpose of the life of one of her friends who was the topic of Lucy’s story.  Olive was not impressed that Lucy asked about the purpose of a life, and when asked by Lucy for Olive’s view, Olive tells her she and her husband shared the view that the purpose of life was to work hard and help people.  This is one example of how the stories about people, which is a frequent part of most of Strout’s books, sometimes goes beyond just the story in this book into something deeper that the pair finds themselves discussing. 

This book has a focus on Bob Burgess, who was first introduced in The Burgess Boys and who reappears in Lucy by the Sea.   He takes on a murder case that is eventually resolved, he helps his brother, Jim, deal with his son, he helps his ex-wife deal with her alcoholism, he consoles his wife as she deals with her position as minister at a local church, and he walks and talks with Lucy Barton, something they started in Lucy by the Sea. Their regular walks cover a wide variety of topics and sometimes get quite philosophical.  Their walks are very important parts of both Lucy and Bob’s lives.  It becomes evident that Bob Burgess is an extraordinary person although he doesn’t realize it.  He does things for people that truly make a difference in their lives, and he makes hard decisions that impact his own life just because it’s in his nature to do what he knows should be done.

This reader became aware of an article in the Oprah Daily about the book which had this information:  “At the end of Oprah’s 107^th Book Club pick, Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout, a character references an article called “Love Is Love” that helped her understand that “love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love. If it is love, then it is love.”  The article publishes this article, which was originally published by Strout in German.  It’s worth a read. It turns out there are many fine examples of love in Tell Me Everything which is definitely worth a read.