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Missing Person

By Patrick Modiano

Published 1978 as “Rue des Boutiques Obscures”

English translation by Daniel Weissbort published in the UK 1980

Read Dec 2017

Patrick Modiano was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature “for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation”. (Nobel Prize website).  Only some of his work has been translated from French and published in English, but Missing Person, for which he won France’s premier literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, fortunately is an exception.

Guy Roland, our narrator, has lost his memory.  For the past 8 years he has been employed as an investigator by C. M. Hutte who provided him with identity papers 10 years ago.  As the book opens, we learn that Hutte is closing his business and retiring, although he’s keeping the lease on the office and all the contents—all the society catalogs and directories so useful to his business at that time (no Google search engines available then…).  Roland and Hutte meet one last time as Hutte prepares to leave Paris.  Roland indicates he will now investigate his own past.  We learn, in passing, that Hutte too “had lost track of himself and a whole section of this life had been engulfed without leaving the slightest traces, the slightest connection that could still link him with the past.”  But our attention is directed back to Guy Roland’s investigation of his own past.

The narrator leads us through his investigation as he follows a path of leads as he speaks with people who may have known him or people with which he may have interacted and follows up on reports he receives from a fellow investigator.   Some of the people he speaks with give him physical items they have held for a potentially returning friend but with whom they have lost touch.    Roland uses a few photographs he receives to spark discussion with some of the leads.  Most of the people he meets do not recognize him, but this isn’t surprising as some twenty plus years have passed since they’ve last interacted with the person he once was, or they actually didn’t know the person he once was but rather only someone he once knew.   One person does recognize him and is surprised that Roland neither recognizes him nor recalls their shared experiences.  Roland now begins to recall pieces of the past, or at least thinks he does, and the text turns away from investigative reports to Roland to his recollections which lead to remembering a significant event after which his memory ceases. Clearly the event recalled could be one to trigger significant mental upheaval, but we don’t know if that’s the case or not.

Roland’s narration ends when he’s reached a dead-end with regard to a particular “witness” he’s pursued and as he plans to follow yet another path for information.  We don’t know if he will successfully fully identify himself or fill in his lost memories.  This ending separates the novel from a “standard” mystery.  It’s not solved.  The investigator can’t tell us the story that wraps it all up for his client or for the reader.

The concept of memory Is of much interest to many authors (Kazuo Ishiguro being one in particular) and to psychologists (noted Nobel Prize winner in economics Daniel Kahneman being a prime example).  Kahneman discusses the “remembering self” (what we recall) and the “experiencing self” (what is happening) and notes that “what people want is more closely associated with the remembering self. It’s — they want to have good memories. They want to have good opinions of themselves. They want to have a good story about their life.”   (from an interview by Kristin Tippett :  https://onbeing.org/programs/daniel-kahneman-why-we-contradict-ourselves-and-confound-each-other-oct2017/).

What is Guy Roland looking for?  The book begins with the sentence “I am nothing.”.  Is Roland seeking to know who he was?  To know that he was something?  To know what others thought of him?  To know that others remember him?  That Roland’s client is himself also makes this novel a “nonstandard” mystery.  However, it’s not unusual for the investigator’s client to be unclear about what they are really seeking.    That Roland continues his investigation suggests he hasn’t yet found what he’s seeking.  His final comment “do not our lives dissolve into the evening as quickly as this grief of childhood?” leaves us with no answers and only questions about Roland’s search and also about what we are looking for and what we memories we want ourselves.

Setting Free the Kites

By Alex George

Published 2017

Read Dec 2017

Setting Free the Kites is a wonderfully engaging story of two boys and their families.  This reader experienced a range of emotions as the boys and their families struggle with devastating losses and the turbulence of the teen age years.  The reader is obliquely offered some universal questions to consider although the author provides us no answers.   Perfect.

Robert Carter has lived in this particular coastal Maine town all of his life.  His father took over running the amusement park his father started in 1946 after his father died of a heart attack in 1959 while taking the first roller coaster ride of the day, in the first car, as was his habit.  While his father hadn’t wanted anything to do with the amusement park and got none of the kind of joy from the park that his father did, Robert’s father develops his own passion for the park with respect to keeping everything running and carving new horses for the carousel as old ones needed replacing.

The most important aspect of Robert Carter’s family’s life, however, is that his older brother, Liam, has Duchenne muscular dystrophy which is slowly destroying his muscles and will eventually lead to his premature death.   Robert’s mother was pregnant with him when they learned of Liam’s diagnosis, that the disease is hereditary, and that if the fetus she carried now was a boy there was a 50-50 chance he would have the disease as well.  Fortunately Robert develops normally as his brother continues to decline.  “As she [Robert’s mother] lifted her wreck of a son in and out of the bathtub each night, my mother knew that there was a world of grief to come, but at least the scope of the tragedy was finite now.”

Even at three Robert knew that his parents treated Liam differently than they treated him.  His father painted a dazzling mural across Liam’s wall—a dramatic jungle panorama.  “I knew I should not complain, should not begrudge my brother this one small thing.  But I ardently, secretly wished that my father would paint my bedroom wall, too.”  The family tolerates Liam’s love of current (1976) punk rock played at ear-breaking levels and appreciates that he “threw himself into everything”:  directing the school musical, learning the clarinet, even applying for colleges they knew that likely he would not attend.  His parents treat every annual event including Christmas and his birthday as if it were the last one, which they knew that one would eventually be.  When they finally lose Liam, “we stumbled out into the rest of our lives.” Robert’s father eventually moves into his repair shed, his mother withdraws from life as well for some time, and Robert is left to figure things out on his own.

But we learn all of this about Robert’s family after we meet Nathan Tilly and his father on Robert’s first day of eighth grade.  Robert learns that the bully that tormented him relentlessly the prior year was not promoted to ninth grade and the high school building but rather will be available to continue bullying him again this year.  Nathan, a new kid in town recently moved from Texas to a house outside of town right on the coast, finds Hollis dunking Robert’s head in a toilet in the locker room and rescues him.  Robert, Nathan, Hollis, Robert’s mother and Nathan’s father meet with the principal and, despite Robert’s discomfort, Nathan makes it clear that Hollis was bullying Robert.  Nathan’s father presses the principal to address the bullying problem.   The next day Robert learns that Hollis was belatedly promoted to ninth grade and won’t be available to bully Robert and that Nathan should be thanked for his actions.  Nathan and Robert ride their bikes to Nathan’s house for the promised celebratory ice cream Nathan’s father offered the day before.  When they arrive, Nathan’s father is flying a kite while perched on the roof of their house.  When he waves hello to the boys, he slips and falls to the ground.  He lives long enough to tell Nathan that he flew his kite on the roof so he could watch his wife as she walked on the beach in front of their house.  So by page 29 and the end of chapter 3, an outsider has rescued Robert from bullying and that outsider’s family has suffered a shocking, premature death.

We quickly learn that Nathan’s mother spends most of her time in her study, typing.  Nathan isn’t sure she even puts paper in the typewriter but he certainly hears her typing all of the time while chain smoking.  We also learn that Nathan and his father were very close and went on many interesting exciting adventures.  By the end of chapter 5 and page 48 Nathan and Robert have become good friends and are setting free the kites Nathan’s father made in his workshop.

The rest of the novel follows Nathan and Robert as they progress through the rest of the 1976/77 school year, the 1977 summer, during which Nathan and Robert join the seasonal workforce at Robert’s family’s amusement park and Nathan develops a crush on Faye, a high school girl, the fall of 1977 when Liam passes, the summer of 1978 when the boys have new jobs at the amusement park and Nathan’s crush on Faye continues.  There are a few flashbacks to fill in the story of Robert’s family’s amusement park and the story of Lewis, a handy-man at the park with whom the boys develop a friendship.  I won’t give away more of the story.

Robert is our narrator.  Much of the novel deals with death and loss.  He directly experiences Nathan’s father’s untimely and violent death, how the mother responds at the death scene, and some of how Nathan reacts to the loss.  Robert provides us much more detail about the huge loss of Liam.  He can tell us directly about how he feels about the loss and his reactions to his parents’ grief.  He can also tell us about the feelings he has as he and Nathan experience their adolescent summers.  George’s portrayal of Robert is very convincing.  We hear about Robert’s jealousy of the different treatment he and Liam get from their parents and the simultaneous understanding of why that is so.   Robert also admits to us that he is unhappy about Nathan’s crush on Faye—Nathan’s obsession with Faye means he has less time and energy for Robert.

George is effective in helping us feel the impact of the unexpected death of Nathan’s father and the expected but devastating death of Liam.  Readers who are parents are likely to feel confronted with the realization of how unevenly we treat our children while we likely tell them we love them all equally,   about the secrets we keep from them, and about our incapability to shield them from the pain and suffering we feel when we lose a child.

George’s use of an amusement park as Robert’s family business is very interesting.  The relationships each Robert’s grandfather, father, and Robert have with the business—at least through Robert’s narrator eyes—are very different.  George, through Robert, comments on the role the business plays in the economy of the area.  In addition, the amusement park provides a convenient setting for progressing the Nathan/Faye relationship and the continuing relationship of Hollis with the boys.  This was very skillfully done.

Apparently Robert’s name came from a character naming auction benefitting a charity.  I understand why someone would enjoy having their name associated with a book by this author and I look forward to more of his work.

Human Acts

By Han Kang

Published in Korean as “The Boy is Coming” 2014

Translated from the Korean and introduced by Deborah Smith

Published in English 2016

Read Nov 2017

The translator’s introduction provides useful and necessary background for the novel’s readers.  Park Chung-hee ruled South Korea from his coup in 1961until his assassination in 1979.  Although credited for enabling substantial progress in Koras industrialization, he became an authoritarian who instituted increasingly repressive measures and declared martial law when demonstrations in the southern regions were held.  His successor, Chun Doo-hwan expanded martial law throughout the country.  Student demonstrations in the southern city of Gwangju brought brutal retribution by the military and the violence committed in a particular raid on a small student militia is the focus of this novel.

This novel brings to us the outcomes of the violence committed by the military against the protesters through an interesting use of voices and perspective.  Six chapters, each focused on an individual present at that particular raid, are told from a variety of first, second, and third person perspectives and are set in time periods from the May 15 1980, the day of the violent suppression, through 2010; some chapters involve flashbacks to tell us more about the specifics of that day.  The seventh chapter is an epilogue that shows how a writer comes to learn about the event in 2013 and decides to tell the story of The Boy we meet in chapter 1.

The translator’s introduction also describes the care she took to support the author’s desire that “the translation maintain the moral ambivalence of the original, and avoid sensationalizing the sorrow and shame that her hometown was made to bear.”   The results are stunning and unforgettable.  In addition to two protesters killed during the raid, protesters that survive, and family members of those who didn’t are voices we hear in various chapters. We leave understanding even for those who survive, their lives are forever changed and their grief inescapable.  The author effectively helps us understand that such can be the outcome of human acts.

Wonder

By R.J. Palacio

Published 2012

Read Nov 2017

It’s easy to understand why this book was on the New York Times bestseller list for 80 weeks (36 in #1 position), sold 1 million copies (print and digital) within 18 months of its release, and is now a movie with Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson as Auggie’s parents.  The sad, funny, and uplifting story is about a 10 year old boy with an unusual syndrome causing him to experience 27 surgeries just to get to a face that everyone turns away from when they first see it.  “I won’t describe what I look like.  Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.”  His parents have decided he should move from home schooling to attending a real school now that he’s ready to start 5^th grade, the first year of middle school in their area (“the hippy-stroller capital of Upper Manhattan”).  He’s more than reluctant but a part of him knew he should go so he does.  It’s a very tough school year but he makes it through with grace.  In the words of his principal his “quiet strength has carried up the most hearts”.

Palacio tells the story through very short but compelling chapters in eight sections through the voices of Auggie (August), Via (Auggie’s sister who is starting high school), Summer (Auggie’s new friend who befriends him on her own), Jack (initially Auggie’s buddy at the bequest of the principal but turns into a real friend after a difficult incident), Justin (Via’s new boyfriend), and Miranda (Via’s best friend forever until returning from summer camp just before they start high school).  Palacio does well in giving each of them believable voices that will certainly engage a younger reader but that draws in the adult reader as well.

The picture the children’s voices paint includes Auggie’s committed but imperfect parents seeking to help him make his way in the world in the face of not knowing what  is the right course.  Their willingness to take action despite discomfort is a great model for all.  Mr. Tushman (a nice comedic touch that both the characters and the readers enjoy) is clearly well meaning and committed to Auggie’s success .  He makes some good choices and some not so good choices in finding buddies to support Auggie’s assimilation into the school—again teaching that no adult, thus no human, is perfect but we must do the best we know how to do.  We are privy to confusing and sometimes painful choices and events in each character’s life as they grow as middle and high school students.  We cheer their good choices and wince at some poorer choices and are relieved that they help each other through some really difficult situations.

Palacio uses the device of the 5^th grade graduation event and corresponding speech from Mr Tushman to deliver her most important message:  “If every single person in this room made it a rule that wherever you are, whenever you can, you will try to act a little kinder than is necessary—the world really would be a better place.”    I don’t read many (any?) books that have this message and I’m glad I got to read this one and enjoy the way Palacio did it.

Shelter

By Jung Yun

Published 2016

Read Oct 2017

The Characters:

• A mid-thirties couple with student loans, credit card debt, and their house financially “under-water”. He’s a biology professor who immigrated to the US from Korea with his parents when he was four years old.  She is the daughter of a local Irish cop and is staying home with their four-year son, old until he goes to school, and studying for a master’s degree in the meantime.
• His parents who live nearby in a more exclusive house and are wealthy from his patents. He was born in Korea but received his PhD in the US and is a successful engineering professor at the same college as his son.  She has never worked outside the house but has spent much time and money decorating their home.

The Situation:

• The son and wife decide they must sell their house to begin dealing with their debt. They are considering staying with his parents while they rent it in the interim.
• The son has spent much effort keeping his parents out of his own family’s life but also has chosen to stay in his hometown to be near them.
• His mother is found wandering naked in the green space between their housing development and his parents.
• The parents have suffered a home invasion during which the wife and their housekeeper have been brutally raped and the father has been severely beaten.
• The parents are unable to stay at their home for some time and need to stay with their son and family.

Yun tells a story of personal disappointment, family obligations, racial discrimination, parenting, cross-cultural marriage, domestic abuse, debt, and more using a violent crime to drive the characters to confront these issues.  The reader is privy to the son’s thoughts and feelings and his interpretations of the other characters’ thoughts and actions.  Yun rapidly engages our sympathy for all of these characters and we hope the situation can draw the family together while we simultaneously understand that’s not going to be simple to accomplish.  We cringe at the some of the decisions the son makes which will further complicate his life while we see they aren’t totally surprising, especially considering the horrific event with which he and his family are trying to cope and the family’s past which they have buried.

The author effectively drives the reader, as well as the family members, to confront the issues he raises.  As the novel progresses we begin to recognize that his themes are actually universal that we all must address.  That is the magic of this novel.

The Madd Addam Trilogy

By Margaret Atwood

Oryx and Crake:  Published 2003; Read 2011 and Oct 2017

The Year of the Flood:  Published 2009; Read 2011; partly re-read Oct 2017

Madd Addam:  Published 2013; Read 2013; partly re-read Oct 2017

By Margaret Atwood

Caution:  in discussing my experiences with these book there will be spoilers.

Margaret Atwood is a remarkable writer who wove an interesting tale across this trilogy.  I haven’t been able to find out if she planned to write all three books or even the second book but they work together very well.  Her interest in the impact of technology on society and the planet are prominent themes here.  She describes her work as “speculative fiction” and indicates accurately that much of the technology she includes isn’t made up—it’s already in laboratories.  The question she explores is “where will this technology lead society if we don’t think about how we’re using it or about to use it”.  This isn’t her first (or last!) set of books about the breakdown of society and the rise of secure Compounds where the “haves” live and work (here generally focused on using biological technologies in new ways for profit) and the wild, dangerous Pleeblands where the rest of humanity lives and works.    In this set of books she also explores the theme of the role of spirituality and religious practice in our lives.  As expected from Atwood, she shows the dark side of religion-for-profit.  She also explores the ability of religious practices (note she differentiates this from religious beliefs) to provide a framework for guiding people through crisis.  She also explores if the propensity for developing religious practice is an essential aspect of the human DNA and can’t be eliminated without eliminating humanness itself.

All three books use a structure a mix of action forward in the present and discussion of the history of the characters provided either through action/dialog or story-telling by a character to him/herself or another.

Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood cover similar time periods.  Each book opens in the same “present”–shortly after The Waterless Flood, a world-wide disaster of unknown origin to the reader initially.  In each book, a survivor (Jimmy in Oryx and Crake) or survivors (Toby and Ren in The Year of the Flood) tell the reader how they are dealing with their circumstances following the apocalyptic pandemic.  None of them are certain that there are any other (human) survivors.  Jimmy is fully aware of other survivors—the “Craker children” which were created by Crake and with whom he shares an interesting relationship which is developed over the course of the book. The “present action” aspect of each book progresses the characters in this post-apocalyptic time to the same ending scene, whereby Jimmy, Toby, Ren, and others come together in the same place and time.  Both books end with no clarity of what will happen next in this encounter or thereafter.

In Oryx and Crake, the primary character with whom the reader interacts is Jimmy.  As Jimmy is dealing with the hostility of his current situation, he recalls his childhood and adolescence as son of scientists employed in a Compound.  He meets Glenn while in high school in the Compound and who also is a product of a broken marriage, poor parenting, and the impacts of our current culture if it proceeds to coarsen unchecked.  That is, they spend much of their time taking drugs, getting drunk, watching pornography and playing violent video games.  They also share an interest in complex games and discover a web-based game, Extinctathon, run by MaddAddamm; Glenn takes “Crake” as his game name.   Following graduation, brilliant Glenn goes to the well-funded Watson-Crick Institute and “word-guy” Jimmy goes to the run-down Martha Graham liberal arts school.  Jimmy recalls his days at college and post-college which involve a continued amount of drugs, drinking, pornography, and sexual conquests.     I frankly had some difficulty staying with the book, hearing about Jimmy’s “interests”, his lack of desire to do anything productive with his life, and the general terrible state of society.  However, once Crake contacts Jimmy to join his well-funded project, over which he has sole control, at a company in a Compound, I became much more engaged with the book as it began to reveal what had happened.  Crake’s life work is taking a different path than intended by the for-profit company for which he works.  While the plan of his company and their competition at other Compounds is to take to a whole new level  genetic modification, gene splicing, and development of new species (like the Pigoons)—tailor made babies,  Crake is inventing a new species that will replace the current human species.  Crake also recruited Oryx, a girl Jimmy and Crake had first encountered as a child in a porn show on the web and for whom Jimmy has carried a life-long crush, to teach the Craker Children what they need to know.  My recent re-reading of this book, prompted by an upcoming book discussion of it, was much more positive than my first reading.  Now not naïve of the overall story, I could see the seeds of various aspects of the story I missed initially—when I read it without the benefit of any “blurb” about the book that would have informed me about its plot.

In The Year of the Flood, there are two primary characters that are survivors of The Flood and whose history we learn:  Toby and Ren  They were both previous inhabitants of a Pleeblands complex created by God’s Gardeners did not die during The Waterless Flood.  They now are trying to survive in the aftermath, also possibly as sole survivors on the planet. We learn that Toby’s parents were financially ruined while trying to deal with her mother’s failing health and she eventually loses both parents.  She eventually becomes an employee of a vicious man who likely will kill her soon but she is whisked away from harm by members of the God’s Gardeners, a green sect building a community fed by the gardens they build on roof-tops, and doing other things that aren’t apparent to Toby or the reader until later in the book.  Toby never becomes “a believer” but does begin to practice herb-based homeopathic remedies she learned at the Martha Graham liberal arts school, becomes an Eve in the sect, and continues Gods Gardner member Pilar’s bee keeping and mushroom growing after Pilar passes.  Ren is a pupil of Toby after she comes to the Garden with her mother, Lucerne, who has left her Compound scientist husband, and Zeb, Lucerne’s new lover.  Zeb is also clearly not “a believer” but is clearly associated in some way with Adam One, the sect’s leader.  Zeb teaches a course on survival post-the Waterless Flood that Adam One anticipates.  The flashbacks cover Toby’s time at the Garden as well as the departure of Ren, Zeb, and Toby from the Garden prior to The Waterless Flood.

An important, and in my opinion a delightful, element of The Year of the Flood are the sermons given by Adam One, and the songs the God’s Gardeners  sing after the sermons.  The sermons are given at celebration such as The Festival of Arks, Saint Euell’s Week, Mole Day, April Fish Day, and The Feast of the Serpent Wisdom.  I listened to an audio-version of the book and the songs were set to music.  Not being one to read poetry nor poetry within a novel, I might have otherwise missed Atwood’s wonderful words in these selections from the God’s Gardener Oral Hymn Book.  Nearly every day in The God’s Gardener’s oral calendar is named for a saint (such as Saint Rachel Carsen).  Adam One’s creation of a set of religious practices is fascinating and provides, to Toby’s surprise, grounding for her post The Waterless Flood.

MaddAddam begins immediately after the final scene in The Year of the Flood and  Oryx and Crake.  Atwood provides a several page summary of each of these two books so the reader has the required background to begin this part of the trilogy.  The “present action” story in this book takes the reader forward post The Waterless Flood as a group of survivors from the God’s Garden sect and the MaddAddam group wrestle with building a new community which will now interact somehow with the Craker Children they’ve met through Jimmy.  They are also working to heal the physical and mental wounds of Amanda, Ren’s friend from God’s Garden, who was abducted by the Painballers (men whose de-humanizing punishment when jailed was that of televised gladiator games), as well as protecting their community from the Painballers who still roam the area.  The story also shows us more about the Craker Children.  Atwood develops the character of one of them, Blackbeard, as he matures (very quickly per the species’ design) and describes his role in dealing with the Painballers and the pigoons, a man-made species we’ve learned about in Orxy and Crake and The Year of the Flood.

The historical part of this novel is that of Zeb and Adam One, who we learn are brothers and children of a corrupt for-profit minister who founded the PetrOleum Church and then pilfered great sums of money from its parishioners.   Zeb’s voice tells his story to Toby.  It connects together various strings of the overall history of Crake, God’s Gardeners, and MaddAddam.

Toby tells a few parts of Zeb’s story to the Crakers as she has been propelled into the role of providing them a daily story now that Jimmy is in a delirious state due to infection of a wound he received in Oryx and Crake. (Jimmy had been recruited into this role originally played by Oryx.)

As MaddAddam ends, we see that Crake’s vision has not played out as planned.   In particular, he has not eliminated the propensity of human nature to develop religious practices that are important element of humanity and provide a humane grounding for individual and community growth.  Atwood thus emphasizes her theme that unbridled technology always has unintended outcomes.

This trilogy is an interesting one.  The first two books cover essentially identical time periods but from two perspectives—a boy/man growing up in a safe, privileged, wealthy Compound; a woman living in the unsafe,  desperate Pleeblands.  The third takes up from where each leave off, telling the story of two men dealing with rejection of for-profit religion and fighting against the current progression of society and its horrid results for the planet.

Of the three books, The Year of the Flood was most engaging for me from the very start of the book. Toby is a strong, independent, but not perfect, woman who frankly admits her lack of faith and her limitations, but preserves for survival in the Pleelands and post-The Waterless Flood.   Ren’s story is interesting and provides a different view of Jimmy’s high school period as they were both at the same Compound.  These voices, combined with Adam One’s sermons and the hymns, as well as the cast of interesting supporting characters and sub-plots within the God’s Gardener story make The Year of the Flood my recommendation if only reading one of the first two books and remains my favorite among the three books.  I anticipate that the male perspectives in the other two books and their descriptions of drugs, sex, and pornography as part of their lives made these books harder to read.  However, I do recommend reading the entire series.  Atwood’s writing is tremendous—she creates a believable world that could be quite close in the future; she develops interesting characters, has interesting themes, and uses wonderful language to convey it all.

Mr. Ives’ Christmas

By Oscar Hijuelos

Published 1995

Read Oct 2017

This novel is not about a single Christmas in Mr. Ives’ life but rather many of them and the time in-between.  We learn on the very first page that Christmas time was always special for Mr. Ives. In particular, in that first small chapter we learn that being in a church at Christmas time was an extremely powerful experience for him.  In that section we also learn that he was a foundling but adopted by a man also substantially moved during Mass.  We learn in the very next section, on page 8, that Mr. Ives’ son Robert was murdered a few days before Christmas, just six months before he would have entered the Franciscan order as a young seminarian, and that for the rest of Mr. Ives’ life he has struggled with this loss. “A kid, now a man, whom Ives should have long forgiven but couldn’t, even when he tried to—Lord, that was impossible—so filled was his heart with a bitterness and confusion of spirit that had never gone away.”  So in a few short pages the stage and tone for the novel are set.

Through the course of eights sections comprised of numerous short unlinked chapters with multiple shifts forward and back in time, we learn the story of Mr. Ives:  being in a foundling home; being adopted by someone who was a foundling himself; memories from growing up; studying at the Art Students League where he meets his to-be wife Annie McGuire; their courting and having a family; working at the advertising agency and making enough money to move out of the city to the safer suburbs, which he never does; meeting and becoming lifelong friends with Luis Ramierz, a Cuban who works at the Biltmore, his wife and family; the murder of his son at age 16 by a Puerto Rican boy, aged 14;  subsequent interactions with the murderer’s family and later with him directly; middle-age and retirement life; the Christmas-time encounter with the paroled murderer of his son; and his marriage to Annie.

Through the descriptions of Mr. Ives’ life we also receive many details of life in New York City at the various stages of his life.  We learn a bit about the parallel evolution of New York City over this time with respect to the businesses and customs that fade away while Mr. Ives progresses through his life in a rather trudging way, always burdened by his sorrow following Robert’s death.

Mr. Ives’ life is divided into two parts—before and after Robert’s murder.  After the murder, Mr. Ives does many good works, has a successful career, and remains faithful to his family.  However, his grief never abates.  He and his wife drift apart as a result of his grief, but they remain committed to the marriage and family.  He continues practice of his religion and has a mystical experience which he wishes to understand but can’t.  The book ends in Church at yet another Christmas with Mr. Ives meditating about Christmases past and being once again filled with the promise of a final blessing that would be his when Jesus calls him to join him.

Author Hijuelos chooses to provide the story and some of its interpretations by telling them to us directly versus using a “show-me” approach available with dialogue.  The narrator focuses on telling us about Mr. Ives’ experiences, his thoughts, and his dreams.  There are a few time when he directly tells us about Luis Ramirez’s perspective.  Hijuelos is also direct when connecting Mr. Ives’ story to Charles Dickens and his work.  I personally was not engaged well by this style and had to work harder than I would prefer to stay with the novel to its end.

The novel is unique in that engages directly with the themes of the role of religious practice, the experience of celebrating Christmas, and the struggle of grief following loss a loved one “too early”.   In particular, Hijuelos engages with the theme of grief that never ends nor even fades for a devout person.

Black Water

By Joyce Carol Oates

Published 1992

Read Sept 2017

I chose this book for a book discussion group with the assignment “any book with a food in the title”.  “Water” may be a stretch but I was also interested in reading a Joyce Carol Oates book.

I knew from the book cover that this would be at least somewhat about the Chappaquiddick incident of 1969 in which Senator Ted Kennedy drove into a channel.  He survived, but his passenger, 28 year old Mary Jo Kopechne didn’t.

Oates has indicated to interviewers that the book is not about that incident.  She’s correct.  The incident in Oates’ book occurs in 1989; the actual incident occurred in 1969. The Senator in this book is in his 50’s and about 25 years older than Kelly; Kennedy was 37 at the time of the incident and only 9 years Mary Jo’s senior. The party in this book was off the coast of Maine and The Senator and Kelly were trying to make a ferry to the mainland.   The actual incident occurred on a bridge connecting a small island to the larger island of Martha ’s Vineyard.  The party in this book was hosted by a college friend of Kelly and The Senator stopped by, a welcomed but not fully anticipated guest; Kennedy hosted the party in the actual incident. In this book, Kelly packed to leave the party with The Senator and said goodbye to her hostess.  Mary Jo Kopechne did not pack and even left her hotel key behind.   In this book, Kelly’s prior connection with The Senator was her college senior thesis; Mary Jo Kopechne had worked on Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 presidential election along with the other 5 girls at the party.  In this book, The Senator had been at the 1988 Democratic party convention and had turned down Michael Dukakis’ offer of the vice-presidential candidacy and had overtly decided not to pursue a run at the presidency himself because “he’d understood, as Dukakis had not, that the Democrats’ best efforts in that election year were doomed.”  Kennedy actually did pursue his party’s nomination for presidential candidate in 1980 but lost to Jimmy Carter.  The Senator goes back to the party after the incident in this book to consult the host regarding best next steps; Ted Kennedy did not interact with anyone until the next day.

So it’s not the same incident but Oates was evidentially influenced by it.

She chooses to tell this story primarily from the perspective of Kelly.  Kelly’s backstory is revealed including her feelings of inadequacy following a breakup with her boyfriend and the devastation she felt after Dukakis (for whose campaign she worked) loses the presidential race.  She’s not financially, professionally, or personally where she thought she would be by this age.  She’s trying to break free of expectations of her parents and not live the life they would have preferred but is not consistent with her desire to be a successful, independent, sophisticated woman with substantial and noble views on important topics.  She meets The Senator, an older, very powerful, very successful politician whom she has admired to the point of writing a 90 page paper about him.  She is so compelled by his attention to her  and his physical advances toward her that she accepts his invitation to leave the island and go to the mainland with him. She is aware of what she’s doing, although she continuously fortifies herself that she’s making the right decision to leave with him .

Oates paints The Senator as an older, powerful man, separated from his family and always ready to explore short-term relationships with adoring younger women. We learn some of The Senator’s perspective, in particular after he has escaped the submerged vehicle which involved pushing against Kelly to free himself from the wreckage and move towards the surface.   His most immediate thoughts are focused on the impact of the event on his career and how the press and law will treat him inappropriately.

The story is told quickly in only 154 pages. The 32 chapters vary in length from a mere paragraph to multiple pages.  The scene changes repeatedly between the party, the drive, and spends much time with Kelly’s thoughts and actions while she’s trying to keep herself alive in the submerged car.  There is a sense of a Greek chorus that is chanting the oft repeated phrase:  “As the black water filled her lungs, and she died.”

What does this book accomplish? Why did she write it?  Oates dedicates the book:  “for the Kellys—“.   My take is that Oates has several intentions—1)  keep alive the memory of the actual incident —it occurred almost 50 years ago now and risks fading from general memory; 2) cause us to wonder about the fact that the senator remained a senator despite this incident; 3) cause us to think about the continuing situation of an older, powerful man and his pursuit of a young woman—the fragility of self-perception and the impact of sexual advances of someone with power who knows they have that power.