MarshaReads.com

Blue Nights

Blue Nights

By Joan Didion

Published 2011

Read June 2019

A wonderful aspect of being in a book discussion group is reading things you might not otherwise read. One discussion group to which this reader belongs occasionally has its monthly meeting discussion books chosen by the reader based on some sort of assignment. The assignment that brought me to this book was “A book with either “blue” or “blew” in the title.” So this reader put “blue*” into the search engine for the library consortium, to which the sponsoring library is a member, to see what the search would reveal. As expected—A LOT of potential possibilities books. As this reader worked through the descriptions of a variety of books, the title of this book first provided a source of pause. Blue is this reader’s favorite color and is a delightful favorite as the sky provides a whole palette of blues to enjoy. The period of twilight dissolving completely into night provides a specific blue palette that is especially remarkable. The author’s name for this book was Joan Didion, an author this reader read years ago and enjoyed much for her remarkable language although not a single specific book title read could be recalled. No worries. The book was requested and delivered.

Upon opening the book, the first paragraph totally engaged this reader with her description of blue nights—apparent in New York (City) (where she now lives) but not in subtropical California (where she lived for much of the time described in the book). “You pass a window, you walk to Central Park, you find yourself swimming in the color blue: the actual light is blue, and over the course of an hour or so this blue deepens, becomes more intense even as it darkens and fades, approximates finally the blue of the glass on a clear day at Chartres, or that of the Cerenkov radiation thrown off by the fuel rods in the pools of nuclear reactors.” Although this reader has not been to Chartres nor seen radiation thrown off by the fuel rods in the pools of nuclear reactors, this reader knows that blue. She continues “During the blue nights you think the end of day will never come. As the blue nights draw to a close (and they will, and they do) you experience an actual chill, an apprehension of illness, at the moment you first notice: the blue light is going, the days are already shortening, the summer is gone.”

Thus Didion sets the stage for this book. Although some references and critics describe the book as an account of the death of her daughter, at age 39 and only twenty months after the abrupt death of her husband of a heart attack, there frankly isn’t really an account of her daughter’s death. Rather there are short descriptions of aspects of her life with her daughter—getting a call for her adoption, the party celebrating her official adoption, taking her on various work trips, and others. She recounts several times hearing a group of doctors on rounds indicate the vent her daughter is on is no longer able to provide the patient sufficient oxygen There are descriptions of fears she experienced during her daughter’s life (generally the ones all parents fear regarding injuries, losing them in a crowd, etc), fears she now experiences that are much more difficult (why didn’t she understand what her daughter might had been saying at various times, why didn’t she realize that her daughter would have the abandonment fears that adopted children often experience, etc), and the fear that she will lose her memories of her. . As well Didion discusses her concerns about aging which she now realizes is now occurring: the loss of physical capabilities, the increasing neuropathies that hamper her senses and impair her mobility, and especially her cognitive capabilities that are apparent in the act of writing: “What if the absence of style that I welcomed at one point—the directness that I encouraged, even cultivated—what if this absence of style has now taken on a pernicious life of its own? What if my new inability to summon the right word, the apt thought, the connection that enables the words to make sense, the rhythm, the music itself— What if this new inability is systemic? What if I can never again locate the words that work?” “I encouraged the very difficulty I was having laying words on the page. I saw it as evidence of a new directness. I see it differently now. I see it now as frailty. I see it now as the very frailty Quintana feared.”

The book describes Didion’s raw thoughts and fears, some which are newly understood but had always there, some newly exposed and only evident when one reaches that certain point of the blue night. Don’t read this book to learn about Quintana’s death. Read this book to hear a wonderfully articulate author describe what she is experiencing as both a result of losing a daughter and as a result of realizing her summer is ending.

Anna K, Audiobooks, and Discussion

Anna Karenina

By Leo Tolstoy

Published serially 1873-1877

Published in book form 1878

This reader is publishing this essay on a book read several years ago because it was a great example for this reader about the experience of listening to the book vs reading “with your eyes”. Tolstoy’s “first novel” and very great work is a large one—850+ pages or so. Dispersed within the story of two marriages—the crumbling of Anna/Alexey Karenin’s marriage and creation and maturation of Kostya Levin/Kitty Shcherbatsky’s marriage—Tolstoy has long extensive sections on hunting, harvesting grain, serfdom, political discussions at a dinner party, sending soldiers to a war of unclear purpose, and several others. This reader may have struggled through these sections if reading the hardcopy (or Kindle!) version of the novel, but was enriched by them when they were being read by a good reader and the reader was walking, exercising, driving, gardening, cleaning, or many other types of activities that allowed concentration on both the book and the task. I heartily recommend this form of reading to enable immersion in books.

Tolstoy provides an interesting look at Russian society shortly before the freeing of the serfs, with particular emphasis on the arrangement and state of marriage in upper society with respect to the public and personal expectations of marriage. Anna is in an arranged marriage that “saves” her from a situation of no wealth and no obvious family with which to live. However the marriage is not personally fulfilling to her, and perhaps not to her husband. While perfectly acceptable to have discreet affairs to “fill the gap” of an unsatisfying marriage, Anna chooses a different path with her Vronsky. Tolstoy uses this story to develop his thesis that an eternal error men makes is in “imagining that happiness consists in the realization of their desires”. However, the maturation of Kostya Levin and Kitty Shcherbatsky’s marriage may contradict this thesis. However they chose their marriage following a courtship focused on love (as possible within the constraints of society) and live in the country, generally unblemished by the trends and pressures of society.

Obviously there is much Tolstoy covers in 850+ pages which is not discussed here. Listen to the book to find out the rest. One last remark, however, regards the volume of books published while Anna and Vronsky are exiled to his country estate and the volume of books published now. Anna and Vronsky read essentially everything that was being published at the time in French or Russian—history, science, fiction, poetry, etc. It would be impossible to read even a small percentage of everything published now even when a person’s life is devoted to nothing but reading. This reader benefits from book clubs which provide a great selection of books for the discussion season—either by the learned facilitator compiling the list for the season (and one providing “off-season suggestions) or through suggestions from well-read members which is winnowed down to a list for the season. Usually the lists contain books this reader would never otherwise read but are enriching in usually many ways.

Bottom lines: 1) Engage with audiobooks to expand your reading experience (and probably your reading volume) and 2) Seek out and join book discussion groups that can help find books worth your limited time to read and that can provide a great experience in digesting these books in ways you can’t by yourself alone.

David: Warrior and Musician

The Secret Chord

By Geraldine Brooks

Published 2015

Read April 2019

Depending on your religious upbringing, your current spiritual practice, the movies you’ve seen, and the books you’ve read, your awareness of the story of the biblical David may be limited to the story of the young shepherd David slaying the giant Goliath or may be more expansive with various levels of detail about his rise to become the King of Israel, his musical abilities, the poetry ascribed to him, and his relationship with Bathsheba who becomes the mother of David’s successor, Solomon. Geraldine Brooks gives us a fictionalized version of the biblical David story. The term “biblical David” being used as very limited evidence outside of the bible gives details of his life. However, David is a figure discussed extensively in the Old Testament so there are many stories about him available there.

Brooks pulls no punches with the picture she paints of David. He is shown as a man driven to create a united kingdom of Israel, willing to kill and conquer “as much as needed” to accomplish this goal. While out of the favor of King Saul, who he succeeds, he was a maundering bandit who killed to get supplies when needed. She presents the interaction with Bathesba as a rape by David because he could, not a seduction by Bathesba of David. David has her husband killed when he finds out she carries his child and he fails at tricking the husband into sleeping with his wife while on active duty thus preventing a means to cover his “tracks”. He had multiple wives, common at the time, some for political reasons, others to generate heirs, and his treatment of them was sometimes very far from kind. His relationship with Jonathan, son of Saul, is not one that may be expected and one that impacts his marriage with Sauls daughter. Brooks moderates the picture somewhat. David asks Nathan, his sayer/prophet, to write his history, warts and all, and Nathan certainly finds and tells us the warts indicated above. This sets up the structure of Nathan as narrator as scribe of the story. In the last section of the book, after the kingdom is considered “whole”, other aspects of David are told. David writes much music and poetry to the near exclusion of managing the political wrangling between his various sons and lieutenants. During this time Nathan is allowed by David to be a very close mentor to his son and ultimate heir, Solomon, who Nathan prophesizes will build the temple that David won’t be allowed given his past sins.

Brooks’ story of David may or may not align with readers’ views or understanding of David. This reader anticipate it’s not her goal to provide the “truth” about David but rather to present a fictionalized possible picture of him and his time. This reader appreciate that while Brooks does use dialog to present the story at times, she relies on Nathan to be the narrator and doesn’t tell us what David is thinking. We see David through Brooks’ Nathan’s intepretation of David.

Much of the book deals with persistent warring between various tribes and between David’s army and all who stand in his way of creating a unified kingdom. It was interesting that David apparently presumes his reason for conquering the city that will become the City of David justifies his action—it will provide a capital city which was not originally part of either of the two lands he is uniting. The unification is good; a “neutral” capital will seal the unification. Death, destruction, subjugation are all justified for the good of creating this united kingdom which will worship the true single Word. War pursued for religious purposes is clearly nothing new (David’s story occurred ~1000BC) and, unfortunately, humans have continued to battle for religious reasons to this day…..

A Discussable Book

Arabian Nights and Days

By Naguib Mahfouz

Published (in Arabic) 1979

Published (in Engligh) 1995

Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) was a prolific Egyptian author who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature, after which his work began appearing in English. This book is a sort of sequel to the famous 1001 Arabian Nights as it starts with Shahriryar, the sultan, the day after his virgin wife, Shahrzad, has told her 1001th story and Shahriryar tells Dandan, his vizier and Shahrzad’s father, that he has decided to stay married to Shahrzad (not kill her as he has done with his previous virgin wives). Thus commences a series of 17 loosely connected stories including some of the characters from the 1001 Arabian Nights (notably Aladdin and Sindbad). The book is bookended by stories involving Shahriryar in which he is reflecting on his past and how he will proceed into the future. There is a myriad of characters so a summary of characters compiled by Arizona State University English 202 (World Literature from the Renaissance to the present day) is an invaluable resource for the reader: https://arabiannightsanddays.wordpress.com.

The character guide was identified by a member of the book discussion group of which this reader is a member. This group is the reason this reader engaged with the book at all. It’s not one that this reader would have found or, frankly, read otherwise. But reading with the character guide enabled this reader to enjoy the book and prepare for an engaging discussion with the book group. This book is an example of what a book discussion group can do. The book is quite ambiguous often about motivations for the actions of some of the characters. For example—yes a genie was involved to provide the tool or suggestion (or requirement) for some action, but the character had to make a choice to take that action and why did they?

Themes the author explored, without clearly providing a statement about any theme, include: what makes a good man corrupt; are all government officials corrupt; what characters were true to their religion; what role do women play in this society; are women corrupt or corrupting; can a murder be justified; and more. Other questions explored include: Genies play a significant role in the various tales, sometimes prompting actions that could damage or destroy a person’s standing in the community or worse, seemingly for the sport of it. Do such forces actually exist? In what form? Is this type of entity/force common to other religions beyond Islam? The book offers much opportunity for consideration and as an important identity this reader has embraced is of a shared learner, this was a delightful book to read and explore with others. I heartily thank the club member responsible for suggesting the book, the discussion facilitators and discussion participants.

Angels Unbreaking

House of Broken Angels

by Luis Alberto Urrea

Published 2018

Read Feb 2019

This book tells a family saga through the eyes of two Angels in the family — Big Angel and his half-brother Little Angel—over the course of two days. The first day the family has gathered for Big Angel’s mother’s (unexpected) funeral and the second the very next day, a planned celebration of Big Angel’s 70^th birthday, which all know will be his last birthday. Little Angel has returned for the funeral and birthday party from northern California where he now lives.

Big Angel is dying, presumably of cancer, and is primarily bed-ridden needing help to dress and toilet. His daughter and wife tend to him. In the opening section, Big Angel is struggling to get himself and his family to his mother’s funeral on time. He prides himself on not running on “Mexican time”, although his family is less reliable in that regard. Big Angel was born in Mexico as were his brothers and sisters, wife, and her children from a previous marriage. All migrate across the border when that wasn’t terribly difficult and in fact they move across the border fairly frequently while Big Angel is younger. Big Angel has been in love with his wife since he first saw her when a teenager but they were separated for a variety of reasons and only married after he returned home and she has two sons. Big Angel treats her children as his own although they don’t always appreciate him while growing up. Big Angel is proud that he moved from a laborer as a young man to an IT specialist for a local company.

Big Angel is also proud that he was able to buy his family a nice house. His thoughts about it provide a taste of the wonderful language of the book: “All the houses had bars on the windows, which scared outsiders but which nobody from there even saw. None of the grannies on the streets wanted some imagined panuco to break in and steal their Franklin Mint collector plates. John Wayne and angels defining little blond kids with flaming swords hung on kitchen walls all down the street……All the houses had four bedrooms and a living room, two bathrooms and a nice kitchen/dining area by the sliding door to the quarter-acre backyard. And myriad garage kingdoms developed as unemployed children came home to Mama’. “

As Big Angel lies in his bed and recalls his past for us, he is writing a gratitude book filled with sentences, phrases, and single words describing how he is feeling and what he is remembering:

“Changing the world

Poco a poco

A little better

Right here, right now”

Little Angel is Big Angel’s half-brother. Big Angel’s Mexican father left his Mexican mother and large family to be with a white woman in the US. They had a single child, known to the family as Little Angel. Little Angel was raised apart from the rest of the family and outside the Latino culture, although Big Angel would visit occasionally after he had his own family. Little Angel has returned for the family events from his current home in northern California where he teaches. His sections express his feelings of awkwardness being with this family who he doesn’t really know or understand and who he thinks feel he’s not really part of the family. The sections describing his interactions with some of the family members are quite a hoot.

Eventually Big Angel’s bed becomes a place where various family members hang out with him and share in ways we wish we could share with our own family. The big sprawling party going on outside the room contrasts with the intimacy of lying on Big Angel’s bed. Talking with him both parties knowing he is dying provides them a unique environment for sharing. Little Angel tells Big Angel “To be here now, to see what you have made, humbles me. The good parts and the bad. It doesn’t matter. I thought I was going to save the world, and here you were all along, changing things day by day, minute by minute.”

The title includes the term “Broken Angels”. While I am not sure the author had anything to do with the title, it does prompt one to think about the definition of a “broken person”, what a “well-lived life” is, and whether any of the Angels or other characters in the book (or are they all angels?) are broken. This reader concluded that neither Angel was broken although they had suffered disappointments and had at time doubted themselves. A book discussion facilitator suggested we consider whether “their cracks had been filled with gold”. This reader can support that concept.

The story at times feels a little unorganized leading the reader to wonder where things are going. But the narrative does always go somewhere, sometimes in surprising ways. It generates the feel of the big day and its long party for Big Angel very well. The book has much to absorb on every page. While many of the interactions between family members, their hopes, dreams, and disappointments are quite universal, the reader is hearing a Mexican voice speaking about a particular Mexican’s family’s life and we are expanded as a result of listening to it.

Night Tigers, Dreams, and More

The Night Tiger

By Yangsze Choo

Published 2019

Read May 2019

From Choo’s website: “Yangsze Choo is a fourth generation Malaysian of Chinese descent. Due to a childhood spent in various countries, she can eavesdrop (badly) in several languages. After graduating from Harvard University, she worked in various corporate jobs and had a briefcase before writing her first novel. “

Choo has set this novel in 1931 Malaya, the British colony that eventually became Malaysia. Eleven year old Ren is houseboy for Dr MacFarland who dies and commissioned Ren to find his finger, which was lost in the past, so it can be buried with him no more than 49 days after his death. Ren is sent to be a houseboy for Dr William Acton, a friend and colleague of his dead master, and somehow connected to the finger. Ji Lin is a young woman apprenticed to a dress-maker although she had hoped to study medicine. However her step-father suspended his support of her schooling while he is sending his son, her step-brother to study medicine. Ji Lin is trying to pay off her mother’s MahJong debts, before her step-father learns about them, by being a dance-hall girl in the evenings. One of her clients accidentally drops a vial containing a finger and Ji Lin picks it up. The reader eventually learns that the finger Ji Lin has is the one that Ren seeks.

So we have knowledge about the finger than the characters don’t have. But we, like they, don’t know so many other things. Why are so many fingers missing from the surgical specimen archives? Why did Ji Lin’s client have the finger and why did he die? Why was William’s liaison found dead in the jungle? Will his finance ever join him? What do the dreams Ren and Ji Lin mean? Are they somehow linked together beyond the finger? Is Ren’s dead master a weretiger and somehow causing the curious deaths? Will Ren be able to fulfill his master’s wishes? Will Ji Lin marry Robert just to get out of the house? And others!

The reader gladly is pulled into Choo’s many layered story. A narrator describes Ren’s story and reveals to the reader his thoughts; Ji Lin narrates her own story. Choo gives us an interesting glimpse at the multi-cultural environment of 1931 Malaya—British ex-pats in Malaya separated from their families for various unstated and unrevealed reasons; an ambiance of supernatural phenomenon which no one fully believes nor disbelieves; multiple languages from the various immigrants to the region over time and the cultures they’ve brought; the need for young women to find suitable work while seeking husbands in suitable ways; the structured dance-hall on the fringe of a suitable way for men to interact with women in a suitable way. As someone who remembers and thinks about dreams upon waking, this reader found the dream sequences and their impact on the characters quite interesting.

Choo provides the reader with just sufficient resolution to some of the story while leaving other aspects nicely ambiguous. This approach was very satisfying for this reader who wanted some specific answers but simultaneously didn’t want Choo to decide for the characters what would happen next in their lives. This is a great relief as we’ve become attached to these characters as we’ve seen them grow and demonstrate and realize they are capable of moving beyond their current situations. And as well we are nicely left wondering about the fate Dr MacFarland and his finger.

Prize Winning and Tough Read

Sing, Unburied, Sing

By Jesmyn Ward

Published 2017

Read March 2019

This is a very difficult book to read. The family in this book suffers from poverty, racial prejudice, drug addition, loss of a son to a lynching, haunting memories from past that are also racially driven, and impeding death of a loved one to cancer. It’s sometimes tough to stay with this dark text, but in the end, well worth the effort.

Jojo, a mixed-race thirteen year old boy living with his black grandparents in poor rural Mississippi who clearly loves and is loved by his grandfather, is a primary narrator. His mother, Leonie, had Jojo when she was 17 and a daughter when she was 26, is a second narrator. Richie, a boy Jojo’s grandfather knew when he was in Parchman (now Mississippi State Penitentiary) eventually joins as a third narrator.

Jojo’s voice starts us on our journey with this fractured family with “I like to think I know what death is. I like to think that it’s something I could look at straight.” He’s about to join his grandfather in butchering a goat that will become his 13^th birthday dinner. He desperately wants his grandfather, Pop, to “think I’ve earned these thirteen years” and that he’s ready to do the work that needs to be done. We learn that he’s already doing a lot of work as the primary caregiver of his three year old sister, Kayla. Jojo’s grandmother “Mam” is dying of cancer and is now confined to her bed and dealing with searing pain and the gradual loss of her body to her disease so she is no longer able to provide care to her daughter’s children. Jojo’s mother, Leonie, is not around much and Jojo has learned to expect little or nothing from her when she is around.

Through Leonie’s narration we learn of her enduring love for the father of her children, Michael, the son of a white family that has essentially disowned him for taking up with a black girl. Michael is currently at Parchman for an unnamed offense. They apparently lived together with their children in an apartment while he worked on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. After it blew up he lost his job, they lost the apartment when his severance ran out, and they moved in with her parents. Leonie now works at a bar with Misty, a white girl who lives in a MEMA (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency) cottage, courtesy Katrina. Leonie and Misty are heavily into drugs, apparently selling as well as using.

When Leonie receives word that Michael will be released from Parchman, she decides to take the kids with her to pick him up so they can again be a family. Pop and Mam are not excited about this road trip and she eventually decides to have Misty come along too. Much of the alternating narration between Jojo, and Leonie, and eventually Richie, is focused on the road trip which includes some drug dealing, an interaction with the police, essentially no care or feeding of the children, and vivid descriptions of Kayla’s puking all over everything repeatedly which certainly heightens the stress in this heavily loaded car (five people and hidden drugs) driving the back roads of hot and humid Mississippi. (Why does so much of modern TV, film, and literature involve throwing up—starting in the first chapter of this book after the goat is slaughtered?)

Through a supernatural vein, Ward brings forward the horrors of Parchman, the death of Leonie’s brother, Given, by the hands of Michael’s cousin, and countless other atrocities committed against black men and women through the history of the country. Jojo, Leoine, and Kayla are blessed with (?) and burdened by their abilities to interact with those that have met violent deaths. Richie is desperately seeking the land across the water where everything is peaceful and beautiful. It’s not clear to this reader that this approach for highlighting Ward’s theme of continued racial hatred and its consequences in this country is the most engaging. Certainly we hope Richie and future children don’t have to find peaceful and beautiful places to live only after they die and leave this planet. However, Ward lost my attention a bit when Richie’s vision described” yurts and adobe dwellings and teepees and longhouses and villas.” This language wasn’t quite compatible, to this reader’s ears, with the story of the twelve-year-old sent to Parchman for stealing food for his starving siblings.

Fortunately there are some positive moments in the book, although they carry a heavy undertone as well. The descriptions of Kayla clinging to Jojo shows how deeply committed Jojo is to her care and well-being, but this is in stark contrast to Leonie’s inability to care for either child herself. Similarly, Jojo’s relationship with his Pop is beautifully drawn, but the story Pop slowly reels out to Jojo about Richie is a very dark one.

This book was selected as the winner of the 2017 National Book Award for fiction over two other books this reader has recently read: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee and The Leavers by Lisa Ko. It’s interesting they all discuss challenges to family that are at least partially driven by the society in which the family lives because each is part of “the other” = “not us”. The Leavers and this book both use first person narratives of a son and mother. In The Leavers, the son and mother do push through a challenge to their relationship by correcting a misunderstanding about why the mother has left the son, although in the nicely ambiguous ending they continue their separate paths. In Sing, Unburied, Sing, there is no reconciliation between mother and son, partially driven by the son’s age and substantially because the mother isn’t ready to return in any way to her son. All of these books require the reader to face many realities past and present of members of our society which we would otherwise not know. I can only speculate that Sing, Unburied, Sing won over The Leavers partly because Ward’s language is more like that of another revered Mississippi writer, Faulkner, to whom she has been compared, and partly because the racial issues in Ward’s book remain unresolved and violent. The issues raised in The Leavers may seem more modern but have certainly been present throughout the country’s history, just less devastating for earlier immigrants than the racial issues present in Ward’s book. At any rate, all these books deserve reading as each will provoke a reader’s thinking about how we treat “other” and the impact of that treatment. I do remain curious whether any of these books will become “classic” according to this reader’s personal definition— the book is still read 50 years after its publication. The glorious flood of serious literature annually makes this a large challenge but one that this reader hopes can be met.

Classic Speculative Fiction

The Handmaid’s Tale

By Margaret Atwood

Published 1985

Read in 1986 and March 2019

I first read The Handmaid’s Tale shortly after its publication because I had read her previous four novels and looked forward to more. It was sufficiently considered “science fiction” to be considered for the Nebula Award and to win the first Arthur C. Clarke award . However, her “science fiction” has nothing to do with space or aliens. Rather she terms her work “speculative fiction” which is a great description—what could the fairly near future be like if society continues some of its current paths… This particular book, published in 1985, does not specify the specific timing

What I remember most distinctly from reading of the book thirty-three years ago (aside from what the Handmaid was…) is the overnight suspension of Compubank cards for all women. My reaction was so swift and severe that I nearly called a friend, who had cheerfully indicated she paid for her groceries with an ATM card, to warn her of the dangers of relying on such devices. While we haven’t had ATM cards shut off for all women since the book’s publication, some of the lines in the book remain remarkably relevant:

“It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time. ….. That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on. … Things continued in that state of suspended animation for weeks, although some things did happen. Newspapers were censored and some were closed down, for security reasons they said. The roadblocks began to appear, and Identipasses. Everyone approved of that, since it was obvious you couldn’t be too careful.”

During my recent reading of the novel, I was again impressed with Atwood’s ability to engage you in the protagonist’s (Offfred) present day-to-day life while slowly reeling out both her personal past and the state of society as she could was aware of it given her new role. Then Atwood then propels Offred into a new situation that is both destabilizing for and providing some potential hope for Offred and the reader.

The abrupt and wonderfully ambiguous ending is followed by “Historical Notes” that are brilliantly written. Atwood provides “a partial transcript of the proceedings of the Twelfth Symposium on Gileadean Studies in June, 2195.” Professor Maryann Crescent Moon, Department of Caucasian Anthropology, University of Denay, Nunavit introduces Professor James Darcy Pieixoto, Director, Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Archives, Cambridge University, England and the notes then record his talk. The edition I read most recently was published by Penguin Random House as part of their Everyman’s Library of Contemporary Classics. I first encountered Everyman’s Library when I read Cranford. Interestingly, both books are about a woman’s world in a time when women’s place in society was in transition—Cranford about a society that was slowly dying out; Handmaid’s Tale about a society that could never have been imagined by the ladies of Cranford, nor, we hope, us.

Fruit of the Druken Tree

Fruit of the Drunken Tree

By Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Published 2018

Read April 2019

This is a vivid and engaging book set in Columbia in the time of the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar and narrated by two major characters, Chula and Petrona.

The book opens with a brief description by 15 year old Chula of a letter she has just received from Petrona, her family’s former housekeeper in Columbia, which includes a photograph of Petrona holding a newborn. The photograph’s date stamp was 9 months after Chula’s family fled Columbia and arrived in Los Angeles when Chula was about 7. Thus we learn that Chula’s family fled Columbia and we become aware that Petrona didn’t.

The book then shifts back to the when Petrona first started working for Chula’s family. The story progresses by alternating narration between Chula and Petrona. Chula (7) and her sister Cassandra (9) live in a well-heeled gated community in Bogota with their mother and father. The father is usually not at home as he works at a distant oil field. Petrona (15) lives with her family in an invasione (land owned by the government on which poor and displaced people have settled) outside Bogota. Chula’s mother prefers to hire girls in this situation for her housekeeper since she grew up in a similar invasione but since had climbed out of poverty.

Through both narrators we hear about the happenings in the two households and get as well bits and pieces of the political and societal turmoil that is the backdrop to the lives of the narrators. The author does a very credible job on the perspectives of each narrator. Chula is somewhat aware of what’s going on through newscasts but is more interested, as expected for any seven year old, in playing Barbies with her sister and spying on the neighbors with her sister and friends. She is also fascinated by the new and very quiet housekeeper, Petrona. Petrona is living a difficult life as her brothers are being seduced into working with the guerillas and/or taking drugs to escape their reality. At the same time, however, she is experiencing the universal trials and tribulations of attraction to a boy she probably should be avoiding. Chula’s mother is intent on helping Petrona rise above her circumstances and even enrolls her in a First Communion class and throws her a First Communion party after the ceremony.

As the story progresses, the family and Petrona are buffeted by increasingly unstable situations. Chula’s family leaves the city briefly and stays with Chula’s maternal grandmother who has improved the original shack in the invasione substantially over the years. Unfortunately they don’t completely escape the fighting between the government, paramilitary, and guerillas (the definition of each not told by Chula or Petrona). While the family is away, Petrona and her boyfriend take up residence in Chula’s house and Chula becomes aware of this but keeps this secret to herself. Petrona’s love interest involves her in a dangerous plot against her employer which turns out very badly for Petrona. In parallel, Chula’s father joins the ever expanding ranks of the kidnapped. A recording of his kidnappers on the phone becomes an essential ingredient to Chula’s family’s successful “Credible Fear Interview” as they enter the US and are accepted as refugees.

Chula’s entries describing the family’s integration into the US is especially riveting. Chula’s remarks in the opening section become more poignant. “US was the land that saved us; Columbia was the land that saw us emerge.” “We understood how little we were worth, how small our claim in the world.” We learn the family gains US citizenship when Chula turns 15. Meanwhile Petrona’s final entry describes her dream to leave someday with her son (to where is not clear) and that she think often of Chula.

The author introduces the reader to a number of aspects of Columbia as experienced by both girls. Among them: Chula’s mother is insistent Petrona take her First Communion but is equally devoted to various supernatural practices. Petrona’s family is of nearly pure Spanish blood and Chula’s mother is Indian. Petrona’s mother’ prejudice based on bloodline makes her especially angry as Chula’s family is wealthy while Petrona’s family essentially has been thrown to the ashes.

The credibility of the vivid descriptions about what things were like during this period and about Columbian culture is due, in part, to the author’s own experiences as she herself grew up in Columbia during the Pablo Escobar period and came to the US as a refugee.

This reader very much appreciates that the author writes without any clear political stand on any of the situations she describes. Rather she tells a story that provides a believable picture of how people try to live in a country with an unstable and generally corrupt government while a drug lord reigns economically through terror and violence. It was impossible for this reader not to reflect on the current “immigration crisis” and wonder what influences our views of it.

An American Marriage

An American Marriage

By Tayari Jones

Published 2018

Read Jan 2019

I devoured this book. It’s really good.

In the first section of the book Roy and Celeste, through their first person narratives, introduce the reader to them, their views of their spouse, and their recollections of the fateful weekend trip to visit Roy’s parents. Roy was born and raised in Louisiana but attends college, meets and marries Celeste, and makes a home with her in her home town of Atlanta. When they visit Roy’s parents, they choose to stay in a local motel. They are woken by police that night and Roy is arrested for raping another guest in the motel. Although falsely accused, Roy is convicted and sent to prison in Louisiana for 12 years. Celeste returns home to Atlanta. Life disrupted….

The second section of the book is presented through letters Roy and Celeste write to each other while Roy is in prison. Through this approach we have a very intimate view of them and their marriage. We hear exactly and fully what Roy and Celeste say to each other through this medium, their only route of regular communication given the distance between Roy’s prison and Atlanta (which results in few “live” visits). In his first letter, Roy indicates he thinks he last wrote a letter when assigned a French pen-pal in high school and “That whole thing lasted ten minutes.” He knows with certainty it’s the first time he’s written a love letter.

In the meantime, Celeste’s uncle works to free Roy and he is eventually successful. Roy leaves prison after 5 years hoping to “return home”. But home is not as he left it. In the third section, Jones returns to first person narratives by Roy and Celeste. A third voice, Andre, also participates and alternates with the other two. Andre was a college friend who has remained part of Celeste’s life while Roy was imprisoned. It seemed to this reader that Jone’s writing made the pace of the alternation of the three voice-lines hastening dramatically as the three characters reach a point of, potentially, no return.

The title of Jone’s book is “An American Marriage” and it is a story of a marriage– one that has been disrupted. She requires the reader to face this disruption—the immediate terror of police breaking into the motel room, the disbelief that Roy could be found guilty of a crime he didn’t commit, the lost years of his imprisonment. In one of Celeste’s early letters she indicates “Uncle Banks is preparing the first appeal. He reminds me it could be worse. Many people have run-ins with the law and they don’t live to tell the tale. There’s no appealing a cop’s bullet. So at least there’s that but it’s not much.”

Much of the story is universal–disapproving in-laws, a husbands’ wandering-eye, a couple’s first year of marriage when they are trying to figure out how they will live together as a married couple. Many novels are available that deal with these topics written across many centuries by countless authors. But Jones also provides the reader some insights that are different. The characters are black. Roy had a scholarship to Morehouse. Celeste graduated from Spelman but spent her first year at Howard University. They are upwardly mobile and they expect to be “rich black”. The disruption that impacts their marriage is one that traumatized Roy, and his family, through a system that is far from color-blind. This reader got a different view of life in the US through their voices and their reactions to this disruption. Jones provides us distinctly unique characters whose feelings were realistically painted and which certainly impacted this reader. I look forward to discussing this book with others.