Mark Willen's Blog, page 2
May 4, 2021
5 Literary Mysteries Not To Miss
I was doing an interview the other day to promote my new book, my first mystery, when the host asked me what I like to read. I should have expected the question—it’s a standard for authors—but I froze. There is such a huge variety in what I read that I didn’t know where to start.
I knew the correct “marketing” answer was to name several mysteries similar to my own, but I tend to split my time between literary fiction and mysteries, so I compromised and listed a few of each.
I began reading mysteries decades ago when I was in the National Guard, finding myself with long stretches of waiting-around time. I got hooked on Ross MacDonald, who took the handoff in hard-boiled detective fiction from Raymond Chandler and ran with it. MacDonald was the first real influence on my writing, though he’s long been overshadowed by hundreds of other influences, more from the literary fiction column than from the mystery side.
In the past couple of years, however, while I was working on my new book, The Question Is Murder, I read a lot of mysteries, and I want to share some of favorites you might not have heard of. I don’t have to tell you about Michael Connolly, John Sandford, Gillian Flynn, or Donna Leon, all of whom dominate the best seller lists, but here are a few you may have missed—and shouldn’t. Confession up front: All lean toward literary mystery fiction rather than thrillers.
These Women by Ivy Pochoda, a finalist for the Edgar Award for best novel of 2020, is an innovative, important, thought-provoking book, especially in its treatment of relationships between daughters and parents and neighbors.
The plot deals with a serial killer preying on prostitutes in Los Angeles. The crimes stretch over decades, with the victims’ families convinced that the police haven’t made enough of an effort because of who the victims are. The key characters in this book aren’t the victims—they’re the families and other women who make up the ignored, mistreated, and misunderstood underbelly of cities around the county and world.
Pochoda understands these people and presents them in a way that improves a reader’s understanding. It’s not a fun book to read, but it’s an important one. And it wouldn’t matter whether the title characters were sex workers, the homeless, the addicted—anyone who is down and out will do. And with so many Americans falling into that category because of the pandemic, we need to think long and hard about our attitudes toward them. Pochoda will help you do that.
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz is far funnier and lighter than Pochoda’s book, and it’s a must read for any fan of the cozy mystery. Horowitz is incredibly imaginative, whether creating such TV hits as Foyle’s War and Midsomer Murders or writing novels that defy literary conventions. Magpie Murders manages to be both a tribute and a parody of Agatha Christie, who Horowitz clearly admires. The novel uses the book within a book format, which makes it a bit too long. The interior book is a Christie-like cozy that emulates her style, while the surrounding novel is filled with insight into what makes a mystery work, why people read them, and why it doesn’t matter that they have no relationship to reality. Horowitz also wrote a sequel—Moonflower Murders—but it’s too much like the first and not nearly as much fun. If you thirst for another Horowitz novel, try The Word Is Murder, another innovative and fun book.
Scott Turow’s The Last Trial is his best since Presumed Innocent. Sandy Stern, who first appeared in Presumed Innocent is back for one last trial, defending his longtime friend against murder, fraud, and insider trading charges. Stern, after five decades in the courtroom, is in failing health and set to retire after the verdict. The plot has all the twists and turns you'd expect from Turow, but what I most loved about the book is the insights into Stern and what it's like to feel yourself growing older.
An older (if you consider 2017 old) but intriguing literary mystery is Howard Norman’s My Darling Detective, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. The book begins when Jacob Rigolet looks up from his seat at an art auction to see his mother march in and fling blank ink at a famous photograph called “Death on a Leipzig Balcony.” Writing in the New York Times, Janet Maslin says the novel finds Norman as his “provocative...haunting and uncannily moving best.”
Finally, I’ll mention Laura Lippman’s Lady in the Lake, in part because of its wonderful depiction of Baltimore in the 1960s. The protagonist is a middle-aged housewife and aspiring reporter who is intent on finding the murder of a forgotten young woman. “Maddie” Schwartz, recently divorced after twenty years of marriage, wants to make her name while attaching one to a young Black woman who was murdered decades earlier and quickly forgotten, in the way young Black murder victims often are. It’s Lippman at her best.
(Enter the Goodreads Giveaway and win a free copy of The Question Is Murder. Just click on this link to enter.
I knew the correct “marketing” answer was to name several mysteries similar to my own, but I tend to split my time between literary fiction and mysteries, so I compromised and listed a few of each.
I began reading mysteries decades ago when I was in the National Guard, finding myself with long stretches of waiting-around time. I got hooked on Ross MacDonald, who took the handoff in hard-boiled detective fiction from Raymond Chandler and ran with it. MacDonald was the first real influence on my writing, though he’s long been overshadowed by hundreds of other influences, more from the literary fiction column than from the mystery side.
In the past couple of years, however, while I was working on my new book, The Question Is Murder, I read a lot of mysteries, and I want to share some of favorites you might not have heard of. I don’t have to tell you about Michael Connolly, John Sandford, Gillian Flynn, or Donna Leon, all of whom dominate the best seller lists, but here are a few you may have missed—and shouldn’t. Confession up front: All lean toward literary mystery fiction rather than thrillers.
These Women by Ivy Pochoda, a finalist for the Edgar Award for best novel of 2020, is an innovative, important, thought-provoking book, especially in its treatment of relationships between daughters and parents and neighbors.
The plot deals with a serial killer preying on prostitutes in Los Angeles. The crimes stretch over decades, with the victims’ families convinced that the police haven’t made enough of an effort because of who the victims are. The key characters in this book aren’t the victims—they’re the families and other women who make up the ignored, mistreated, and misunderstood underbelly of cities around the county and world.
Pochoda understands these people and presents them in a way that improves a reader’s understanding. It’s not a fun book to read, but it’s an important one. And it wouldn’t matter whether the title characters were sex workers, the homeless, the addicted—anyone who is down and out will do. And with so many Americans falling into that category because of the pandemic, we need to think long and hard about our attitudes toward them. Pochoda will help you do that.
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz is far funnier and lighter than Pochoda’s book, and it’s a must read for any fan of the cozy mystery. Horowitz is incredibly imaginative, whether creating such TV hits as Foyle’s War and Midsomer Murders or writing novels that defy literary conventions. Magpie Murders manages to be both a tribute and a parody of Agatha Christie, who Horowitz clearly admires. The novel uses the book within a book format, which makes it a bit too long. The interior book is a Christie-like cozy that emulates her style, while the surrounding novel is filled with insight into what makes a mystery work, why people read them, and why it doesn’t matter that they have no relationship to reality. Horowitz also wrote a sequel—Moonflower Murders—but it’s too much like the first and not nearly as much fun. If you thirst for another Horowitz novel, try The Word Is Murder, another innovative and fun book.
Scott Turow’s The Last Trial is his best since Presumed Innocent. Sandy Stern, who first appeared in Presumed Innocent is back for one last trial, defending his longtime friend against murder, fraud, and insider trading charges. Stern, after five decades in the courtroom, is in failing health and set to retire after the verdict. The plot has all the twists and turns you'd expect from Turow, but what I most loved about the book is the insights into Stern and what it's like to feel yourself growing older.
An older (if you consider 2017 old) but intriguing literary mystery is Howard Norman’s My Darling Detective, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. The book begins when Jacob Rigolet looks up from his seat at an art auction to see his mother march in and fling blank ink at a famous photograph called “Death on a Leipzig Balcony.” Writing in the New York Times, Janet Maslin says the novel finds Norman as his “provocative...haunting and uncannily moving best.”
Finally, I’ll mention Laura Lippman’s Lady in the Lake, in part because of its wonderful depiction of Baltimore in the 1960s. The protagonist is a middle-aged housewife and aspiring reporter who is intent on finding the murder of a forgotten young woman. “Maddie” Schwartz, recently divorced after twenty years of marriage, wants to make her name while attaching one to a young Black woman who was murdered decades earlier and quickly forgotten, in the way young Black murder victims often are. It’s Lippman at her best.
(Enter the Goodreads Giveaway and win a free copy of The Question Is Murder. Just click on this link to enter.
April 23, 2021
The Question Is Murder
I’m excited to announce that my new novel,
The Question Is Murder,
will be released May 14 by Pen-L Publishing.
It’s a mystery set in the Washington swirl of journalism and government that draws on my decades of experience in that world.
While it has a fast-moving plot and elements of a psychological thriller, it also draws on some of the themes in my earlier three-book Jonas Hawke series—ethical dilemmas, relationship issues, generational conflicts, and the #MeToo movement.
If that sounds interesting, my publisher is running a Goodreads Giveaway (100 ebooks) that you can enter here.
As always, thank you for your time and for following this blog.
Mark
It’s a mystery set in the Washington swirl of journalism and government that draws on my decades of experience in that world.
While it has a fast-moving plot and elements of a psychological thriller, it also draws on some of the themes in my earlier three-book Jonas Hawke series—ethical dilemmas, relationship issues, generational conflicts, and the #MeToo movement.
If that sounds interesting, my publisher is running a Goodreads Giveaway (100 ebooks) that you can enter here.
As always, thank you for your time and for following this blog.
Mark
April 17, 2021
No Better Time To Read The Library Book
Reading The Library Book a year into the pandemic is a bittersweet experience, to say the least. Libraries aren’t at the top of what I most missed this past year—seeing friends and family in person has to take that spot—but losing the hustle and bustle of a fully functioning, stimulating, creative gathering place for book lovers is not far behind.
Susan Orlean’s remarkable ode to libraries is a potent reminder of what we’ve lost and what we hope to get back soon. While Covid restrictions vary by region, many library doors have been shut tight for more than a year. The wonderful staff in my county is doing what it can to keep things going—hosting Zoom sessions in place of in-person programs and allowing books to be borrowed through a pickup system—but it’s hardly the same. The teen writing group I led for many years, an effort by the Maryland Writers’ Association in partnership with the libraries to encourage creative writing, is limping along online, but much of the fun and peer feedback is gone. With kids in virtual school all day, the last thing they want is still another Zoom session at night.
Orlean’s book reminds us that libraries have long been far more than places to borrow books, beginning decades ago with story hours for children and job-hunting help for adults and expanding exponentially in the digital age to provide everything from computers for the disconnected, English conversation practice for immigrants, book discussion groups, author talks, and so much more, including a warm spot for the homeless in winter.
The Library Book, a huge success when it came out in 2018, has a genuine plot—telling the story of the fire that destroyed or damaged more than a million books at the main branch of the Los Angeles Public Library on April 29, 1986. Until Orlean’s book, we didn’t hear that much about the fire here on the East Coast. As she notes, a near apocalypse at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor the same week drove the fire to the back pages of American newspapers. “The books burned,” she writes, “while most of us were waiting to see if we were about to witness the end of the world.”
Orlean recounts the day of the fire in a vivid moment-by-moment account, but that is just the start of the story. In fascinating detail, livened by interviews with staff and city officials, Orlean recounts the painstaking efforts to restore the books that could be saved, to provide services to the city in the interim, and to build a new central library a few blocks away.
Key to the effort were hundreds of volunteers who recognized what the library meant to the city. For weeks after the fire, volunteers drove downtown to help the staff pack up the water-soaked books before mold could set in. Experts advised freezing the books as an interim step, and fish processing plants and other commercial facilities opened their freezers to make space next to shrimp and vegetables, while corporations nearby pitched in with office space so the displaced library staff could keep working.
As word gradually spread, readers and writers throughout the country pitched in with financial help, often enclosing letters explaining what libraries have meant to their lives, usually with personal anecdotes. Who among us doesn’t have a library story to tell?
Orlean’s research and interviews with library staff provide plenty of new anecdotes, and I found it somewhat surprising to learn that even in the age of the internet, people still rely on the library to answer hundreds of questions every day, many routine and many far from it. The library staff often goes to great length to find answers. Consider these entries in the telephone log:
“Patron called. Wanted to know how to say ‘The necktie is in the bathtub’ in Swedish. He was writing a script.”
“Patron inquiring whether Perry Mason’s secretary Della Street is named after a street and/or whether there is a real street named Della Street.”
“Patron is an actor who has to impersonate Hungarian secret police. Wanted words pronounced. Found a Hungarian-speaking librarian who spoke to him.”
There are lots of detail about how a building and the books in it burn and how a damaged book (more were hurt by water than fire) can be nursed back to use. And then there’s the great mystery of whether the fire was an accident or the result of arson, and whether the man suspected was really guilty.
Along the way, Orlean explores the history of libraries in Los Angeles and elsewhere, the changes (some gradual, some sudden) in moving into the digital age and becoming community centers that reflect the heart and soul of their surroundings. Orlean sums it up nicely. “Every problem that society has, the library has, too, because the boundary between society and the library is porous; nothing good is kept out of the library, and nothing bad.”
Susan Orlean’s remarkable ode to libraries is a potent reminder of what we’ve lost and what we hope to get back soon. While Covid restrictions vary by region, many library doors have been shut tight for more than a year. The wonderful staff in my county is doing what it can to keep things going—hosting Zoom sessions in place of in-person programs and allowing books to be borrowed through a pickup system—but it’s hardly the same. The teen writing group I led for many years, an effort by the Maryland Writers’ Association in partnership with the libraries to encourage creative writing, is limping along online, but much of the fun and peer feedback is gone. With kids in virtual school all day, the last thing they want is still another Zoom session at night.
Orlean’s book reminds us that libraries have long been far more than places to borrow books, beginning decades ago with story hours for children and job-hunting help for adults and expanding exponentially in the digital age to provide everything from computers for the disconnected, English conversation practice for immigrants, book discussion groups, author talks, and so much more, including a warm spot for the homeless in winter.
The Library Book, a huge success when it came out in 2018, has a genuine plot—telling the story of the fire that destroyed or damaged more than a million books at the main branch of the Los Angeles Public Library on April 29, 1986. Until Orlean’s book, we didn’t hear that much about the fire here on the East Coast. As she notes, a near apocalypse at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor the same week drove the fire to the back pages of American newspapers. “The books burned,” she writes, “while most of us were waiting to see if we were about to witness the end of the world.”
Orlean recounts the day of the fire in a vivid moment-by-moment account, but that is just the start of the story. In fascinating detail, livened by interviews with staff and city officials, Orlean recounts the painstaking efforts to restore the books that could be saved, to provide services to the city in the interim, and to build a new central library a few blocks away.
Key to the effort were hundreds of volunteers who recognized what the library meant to the city. For weeks after the fire, volunteers drove downtown to help the staff pack up the water-soaked books before mold could set in. Experts advised freezing the books as an interim step, and fish processing plants and other commercial facilities opened their freezers to make space next to shrimp and vegetables, while corporations nearby pitched in with office space so the displaced library staff could keep working.
As word gradually spread, readers and writers throughout the country pitched in with financial help, often enclosing letters explaining what libraries have meant to their lives, usually with personal anecdotes. Who among us doesn’t have a library story to tell?
Orlean’s research and interviews with library staff provide plenty of new anecdotes, and I found it somewhat surprising to learn that even in the age of the internet, people still rely on the library to answer hundreds of questions every day, many routine and many far from it. The library staff often goes to great length to find answers. Consider these entries in the telephone log:
“Patron called. Wanted to know how to say ‘The necktie is in the bathtub’ in Swedish. He was writing a script.”
“Patron inquiring whether Perry Mason’s secretary Della Street is named after a street and/or whether there is a real street named Della Street.”
“Patron is an actor who has to impersonate Hungarian secret police. Wanted words pronounced. Found a Hungarian-speaking librarian who spoke to him.”
There are lots of detail about how a building and the books in it burn and how a damaged book (more were hurt by water than fire) can be nursed back to use. And then there’s the great mystery of whether the fire was an accident or the result of arson, and whether the man suspected was really guilty.
Along the way, Orlean explores the history of libraries in Los Angeles and elsewhere, the changes (some gradual, some sudden) in moving into the digital age and becoming community centers that reflect the heart and soul of their surroundings. Orlean sums it up nicely. “Every problem that society has, the library has, too, because the boundary between society and the library is porous; nothing good is kept out of the library, and nothing bad.”
April 1, 2021
Sigrid Nunez Has a Question for You
Whenever I love a novel, I have mixed feelings about reading that author’s next work. On the one hand, I can’t wait, but on the other, I feel a certain amount of trepidation, fearing there is no way the new work can live up to the older one.
I needn’t have worried, though, about Sigrid Nunez’s What Are You Going Through, a worthy follow-up to her National Book Award Winner, The Friend.
The new novel, her seventh, is a kind of sequel – not in that it follows the same characters, but that it advances many of the same themes: friendship, death, suicide, and most important, how to go on with life’s daily routine in the midst of an endangered future.
The narrator of What Are We Going Through is again unnamed, unmarried, childless, and a writer who talks repeatedly of the challenges of her craft, particularly the difficulty of getting it right and the ethics of exploiting others’ experiences. She is also a keen observer and not shy about quoting from a score or more of other writers, past and present. Nunez, in a fascinating interview late last year, acknowledged the similarities in the two narrators, saying that while they are different characters, they share a voice and outlook and sensibilities.
The narrator’s friend in this novel is an old but not particularly close friend who makes a difficult request. The friend has inoperable cancer, plans to end her life on her own terms, and wants the narrator to be the one person by her side through it all. They grow close again, in ways neither expected.
Another key character is the narrator’s ex-husband, another author, one who has taken to traveling the country to deliver depressing lectures on how mankind has destroyed the planet. His speech offers no hope, insisting it’s too late to do anything about it. His lectures are complete downers—his only advice is not to bring more children into the world—and he won’t even take questions after delivering his diatribe.
In other words, doom is all around us but somehow life goes on—with the need to perform all the usual mundane tasks (house cleaning, grocery shopping, dealing with plumbing repairs), while passing the time in the usual mundane ways (reading cozy mysteries and watching old movies on television)—despite what may seem like the futility of it. Ann E. Clark’s review of the novel in the Los Angeles Review of Books captures the question in this perfectly: “How should we live when the world is ending?”
While the new novel explores many of the same themes as The Friend, it is more somber, more serious, more demanding of a reader’s attention. It’s the kind of book you want to start reading again as soon as you reach the last page, the kind that will keep you thinking for a long time.
The title is worth special attention. It comes from a quote by Simone Weil, who wrote, “The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him, ‘What are you going through?'”
It’s not by accident that Nunez leaves the question mark out in her title. As she explains in the interview cited above, the title is a statement that acknowledges we’re all going through something. It’s less a question than an invitation to share where we are in our lives and where we are heading.
What Are You Going Through
I needn’t have worried, though, about Sigrid Nunez’s What Are You Going Through, a worthy follow-up to her National Book Award Winner, The Friend.
The new novel, her seventh, is a kind of sequel – not in that it follows the same characters, but that it advances many of the same themes: friendship, death, suicide, and most important, how to go on with life’s daily routine in the midst of an endangered future.
The narrator of What Are We Going Through is again unnamed, unmarried, childless, and a writer who talks repeatedly of the challenges of her craft, particularly the difficulty of getting it right and the ethics of exploiting others’ experiences. She is also a keen observer and not shy about quoting from a score or more of other writers, past and present. Nunez, in a fascinating interview late last year, acknowledged the similarities in the two narrators, saying that while they are different characters, they share a voice and outlook and sensibilities.
The narrator’s friend in this novel is an old but not particularly close friend who makes a difficult request. The friend has inoperable cancer, plans to end her life on her own terms, and wants the narrator to be the one person by her side through it all. They grow close again, in ways neither expected.
Another key character is the narrator’s ex-husband, another author, one who has taken to traveling the country to deliver depressing lectures on how mankind has destroyed the planet. His speech offers no hope, insisting it’s too late to do anything about it. His lectures are complete downers—his only advice is not to bring more children into the world—and he won’t even take questions after delivering his diatribe.
In other words, doom is all around us but somehow life goes on—with the need to perform all the usual mundane tasks (house cleaning, grocery shopping, dealing with plumbing repairs), while passing the time in the usual mundane ways (reading cozy mysteries and watching old movies on television)—despite what may seem like the futility of it. Ann E. Clark’s review of the novel in the Los Angeles Review of Books captures the question in this perfectly: “How should we live when the world is ending?”
While the new novel explores many of the same themes as The Friend, it is more somber, more serious, more demanding of a reader’s attention. It’s the kind of book you want to start reading again as soon as you reach the last page, the kind that will keep you thinking for a long time.
The title is worth special attention. It comes from a quote by Simone Weil, who wrote, “The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him, ‘What are you going through?'”
It’s not by accident that Nunez leaves the question mark out in her title. As she explains in the interview cited above, the title is a statement that acknowledges we’re all going through something. It’s less a question than an invitation to share where we are in our lives and where we are heading.
What Are You Going Through
February 14, 2021
A Different Drummer
Book clubs come in many shapes and serve many purposes. Some are purely social, an excuse to get together and catch up on life, and, oh, by the way, what did you think of this month’s book. Others are dead serious, brought together by interest in a specific subject or genre. Sometimes friendships develop, sometimes not. Other clubs are some mix of the above. Women are far more likely to be in book clubs then men, but I know of a few that are men-only. (One high school reader once told me, it’s not that boys don’t read, we just don’t like to talk about it.)
Whatever the type or format, one big advantage is that they often introduce us to books we might never have met otherwise, especially when members of the club are open and willing to break out of their comfort zone, ignore critics, or reach well beyond bestsellers. That’s why I appreciate a club hosted by my local independent bookstore (Politics and Prose). In the five years I’ve been a member, I’ve met new people with a wide range of backgrounds and points of view. And the moderator who selects the books does a wonderful job of picking a wide variety of gems (mostly).
That’s a long introduction to how I came to read A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley. Kelley was only 24 when the book was published in 1962 to instant acclaim. He published four more novels in the next decade, increasingly experimental in style and format, but then fell into obscurity for reasons hard to understand, and he spent the bulk of his life teaching, mostly at Sarah Lawrence, before his death in 2017.
Kelley was born in Staten Island in 1937 and went to Harvard, one of only ten blacks in his class, with the intention of becoming a lawyer to help with the civil rights movement. But he soon discovered his real love was literature and writing. He studied under novelist John Hawkes (who coached him as he began work on A Different Drummer) and poet Archibald MacLeish, and he won the Dana Reed Prize for the best writing by a Harvard undergraduate. But he struggled, he later said, because his reading speed was half that of his prep school white classmates. His years at Harvard were troubled—he changed majors four times, his mother died when he was a sophomore, and his father died when he was senior. He left a few months shy of graduation to take care of his younger siblings.
Kelley is seldom read today because his books deal with uncomfortable subjects, but as Americans become more determined to understand, and hopefully address, racial equality, that ought to change.
A Different Drummer is set in 1957, in a small fictional town in an imaginary southern state wedged between Mississippi and Alabama. Though technically free, the majority Black population remains severely oppressed. One Black man, Tucker Caliban, gets fed up with his job as a chauffeur and buys seven acres of land from his employer—choosing the same land that his forefathers were enslaved on even though better farming land is available. Within a short time and for reasons not explicitly explained, Caliban decides that’s not enough. He salts his fields, slaughters his horse and cow, burns down his house, and departs the state—whereupon its entire Black population follows in a matter of days even though most have no destination in mind other than somewhere else. Caliban’s unspoken message is that Blacks must take action themselves if they are to escape from their bondage. His move stuns and angers the Whites, who despite claiming they’ll be better off, know they can’t survive without the Black workers they depend upon.
The novel is told through the points of view of several characters – all of them White, which means we never get inside the head of the Black characters—we only know them as the Whites see them. It’s a daring approach for a Black novelist, especially one who never lived in the South, but except for an occasional false note, Kelley pulls it off.
There’s nothing preachy or heavy handed about the novel. Several of the Whites have good intentions but are unable to follow through on them, either because they are too weak to resist peer pressure or powerless to change the system. Though the novel deals with events and attitudes that were prevalent six decades ago, it’s depressing to realize how little has changed and how much farther we have to go.
You’ll find a more in-depth look at Kelley’s life and works in an excellent article that appeared in The New Yorker in 2018. But you don’t really need to know Kelley’s life story to appreciate this remarkable novel.
Whatever the type or format, one big advantage is that they often introduce us to books we might never have met otherwise, especially when members of the club are open and willing to break out of their comfort zone, ignore critics, or reach well beyond bestsellers. That’s why I appreciate a club hosted by my local independent bookstore (Politics and Prose). In the five years I’ve been a member, I’ve met new people with a wide range of backgrounds and points of view. And the moderator who selects the books does a wonderful job of picking a wide variety of gems (mostly).
That’s a long introduction to how I came to read A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley. Kelley was only 24 when the book was published in 1962 to instant acclaim. He published four more novels in the next decade, increasingly experimental in style and format, but then fell into obscurity for reasons hard to understand, and he spent the bulk of his life teaching, mostly at Sarah Lawrence, before his death in 2017.
Kelley was born in Staten Island in 1937 and went to Harvard, one of only ten blacks in his class, with the intention of becoming a lawyer to help with the civil rights movement. But he soon discovered his real love was literature and writing. He studied under novelist John Hawkes (who coached him as he began work on A Different Drummer) and poet Archibald MacLeish, and he won the Dana Reed Prize for the best writing by a Harvard undergraduate. But he struggled, he later said, because his reading speed was half that of his prep school white classmates. His years at Harvard were troubled—he changed majors four times, his mother died when he was a sophomore, and his father died when he was senior. He left a few months shy of graduation to take care of his younger siblings.
Kelley is seldom read today because his books deal with uncomfortable subjects, but as Americans become more determined to understand, and hopefully address, racial equality, that ought to change.
A Different Drummer is set in 1957, in a small fictional town in an imaginary southern state wedged between Mississippi and Alabama. Though technically free, the majority Black population remains severely oppressed. One Black man, Tucker Caliban, gets fed up with his job as a chauffeur and buys seven acres of land from his employer—choosing the same land that his forefathers were enslaved on even though better farming land is available. Within a short time and for reasons not explicitly explained, Caliban decides that’s not enough. He salts his fields, slaughters his horse and cow, burns down his house, and departs the state—whereupon its entire Black population follows in a matter of days even though most have no destination in mind other than somewhere else. Caliban’s unspoken message is that Blacks must take action themselves if they are to escape from their bondage. His move stuns and angers the Whites, who despite claiming they’ll be better off, know they can’t survive without the Black workers they depend upon.
The novel is told through the points of view of several characters – all of them White, which means we never get inside the head of the Black characters—we only know them as the Whites see them. It’s a daring approach for a Black novelist, especially one who never lived in the South, but except for an occasional false note, Kelley pulls it off.
There’s nothing preachy or heavy handed about the novel. Several of the Whites have good intentions but are unable to follow through on them, either because they are too weak to resist peer pressure or powerless to change the system. Though the novel deals with events and attitudes that were prevalent six decades ago, it’s depressing to realize how little has changed and how much farther we have to go.
You’ll find a more in-depth look at Kelley’s life and works in an excellent article that appeared in The New Yorker in 2018. But you don’t really need to know Kelley’s life story to appreciate this remarkable novel.
January 28, 2021
These Women by Ivy Pochoda
This is an innovative, important, thought-provoking book, part-thriller and part literary fiction, especially in its treatment of relationship between daughters and parents and neighbors.
The plot deals with a serial killer preying on prostitutes in Los Angeles. The crimes stretch over decades, with the victims’ families convinced that the police haven’t made enough of an effort because of who the victims are. But the key characters in this book aren’t the prostitutes in the title – they’re the families and other women who make up the ignored, mistreated, and misunderstood underbelly of South Los Angeles and, by implication, cities around the county and world.
Pochoda understands these people and present them in a way that improve a reader’s understanding. It’s not a fun book to read, but it’s an important one. And it wouldn’t matter whether the title characters were sex workers, the homeless, the addicted – anyone who is down and out. And with more and more Americans falling into that category every day, we need to think long and hard about our attitudes toward them. Pochda will help you do that.
The plot deals with a serial killer preying on prostitutes in Los Angeles. The crimes stretch over decades, with the victims’ families convinced that the police haven’t made enough of an effort because of who the victims are. But the key characters in this book aren’t the prostitutes in the title – they’re the families and other women who make up the ignored, mistreated, and misunderstood underbelly of South Los Angeles and, by implication, cities around the county and world.
Pochoda understands these people and present them in a way that improve a reader’s understanding. It’s not a fun book to read, but it’s an important one. And it wouldn’t matter whether the title characters were sex workers, the homeless, the addicted – anyone who is down and out. And with more and more Americans falling into that category every day, we need to think long and hard about our attitudes toward them. Pochda will help you do that.
December 29, 2020
Review: Lily King's Writers & Lovers
Lily King’s Writers & Lovers scored a place in many “Best Books of 2020” lists, and deservedly so. It’s funny and witty and real and poignant in ways that will hit home with anyone who picks it up. And it will give you much to think about when you put it down.
The narrator of this multilayered, late coming-of-age novel is Casey Peabody, a 31-year-old writer and waitress struggling with college debt, failed relationships, grief at her mother’s sudden death, and longing for a better future. She’s kind and friendly, has an eye for exacting detail, and a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue. In short, an irresistible and endearing narrator.
Her opening lines set the tone and theme:
Sex and money are hardly original problems or themes, and that’s part of the genius. There is nothing exotic or unusual in the plot of King’s gem; it’s the telling of the story that is so remarkable.
Casey lives a few miles from Harvard Square, in one room over a garage that a friend of her brother’s is renting for a pittance. Her fellow MFA classmates have all given up on writing, preferring jobs with pay and security. But Casey longs to write, and for six years she has labored over her novel, putting up with a lousy job and a solitary, rather barren existence in hopes of getting it finished.
But Casey can’t give up her writing. At one point, her skeptical landlord scoffs, “I just find it extraordinary that you think you have something to say.” Casey has no immediate comeback, but later she admits, “I don’t write because I think I have something to say. I write because if I don’t, everything feels even worse.”
To support herself, she works in a busy upscale restaurant, and I have to confess that the restaurant scenes were my favorite part of the book. Casey describes the ensemble cast of fellow workers and oddball customers with the kind of inside wit and spirit that could only come from personal experience. (King acknowledged the autobiographical elements of the novel in an interview with Grubstreet.)
The novel is particularly valuable for its literary insights, for writers and readers alike. I was struck especially by these comments that Casey delivers when interviewing for a teaching job:
The lovers in the title include a flawed father and a series of here-then-gone boyfriends of her past, as well as two very different men she meets after the novel begins.
Oscar is older, an acclaimed novelist with two young sons—make that two charming, adorable, funny sons—while Silas is a struggling writer, close to Casey’s age and suffering with similar career aspirations. Oscar is a comfortable companion and his boys provide the kind of home life Casey never had, while Silas provides the kind of excitement and physical chemistry Casey can’t resist.
In a way, the two lovers together give Casey everything she needs. But of course, she feels bound to choose between them. And therein lies the rub!
The narrator of this multilayered, late coming-of-age novel is Casey Peabody, a 31-year-old writer and waitress struggling with college debt, failed relationships, grief at her mother’s sudden death, and longing for a better future. She’s kind and friendly, has an eye for exacting detail, and a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue. In short, an irresistible and endearing narrator.
Her opening lines set the tone and theme:
“I have a pact with myself not to think about money in the morning. I’m like a teenager trying not to think about sex. But I’m also trying not to think about sex.”
Sex and money are hardly original problems or themes, and that’s part of the genius. There is nothing exotic or unusual in the plot of King’s gem; it’s the telling of the story that is so remarkable.
Casey lives a few miles from Harvard Square, in one room over a garage that a friend of her brother’s is renting for a pittance. Her fellow MFA classmates have all given up on writing, preferring jobs with pay and security. But Casey longs to write, and for six years she has labored over her novel, putting up with a lousy job and a solitary, rather barren existence in hopes of getting it finished.
But Casey can’t give up her writing. At one point, her skeptical landlord scoffs, “I just find it extraordinary that you think you have something to say.” Casey has no immediate comeback, but later she admits, “I don’t write because I think I have something to say. I write because if I don’t, everything feels even worse.”
To support herself, she works in a busy upscale restaurant, and I have to confess that the restaurant scenes were my favorite part of the book. Casey describes the ensemble cast of fellow workers and oddball customers with the kind of inside wit and spirit that could only come from personal experience. (King acknowledged the autobiographical elements of the novel in an interview with Grubstreet.)
The novel is particularly valuable for its literary insights, for writers and readers alike. I was struck especially by these comments that Casey delivers when interviewing for a teaching job:
“I want kids to talk and write about how the book makes them feel, what it reminded them of, if it changed their thoughts about anything.…What did this make you think about? I think you could get some really original ideas that way, not the old regurgitated ones like man versus nature. Just shoot me if I ever assign anyone an essay about man versus nature. Questions like that are designed to pull you completely out of the story. Why would you want to pull kids out of the story? You want to push them further in, so they can feel everything the author tried so hard to create for them.”
The lovers in the title include a flawed father and a series of here-then-gone boyfriends of her past, as well as two very different men she meets after the novel begins.
Oscar is older, an acclaimed novelist with two young sons—make that two charming, adorable, funny sons—while Silas is a struggling writer, close to Casey’s age and suffering with similar career aspirations. Oscar is a comfortable companion and his boys provide the kind of home life Casey never had, while Silas provides the kind of excitement and physical chemistry Casey can’t resist.
In a way, the two lovers together give Casey everything she needs. But of course, she feels bound to choose between them. And therein lies the rub!
December 20, 2020
Obama's Promised Land
Very mixed feelings after reading this. Obama is a superb writer, able to keep the narrative moving as he artfully mixes the story of his administration with the personal, historical, and social currents of the years covered. Though I was working in journalism and professionally following many of the events described, I never lost interest in reading Obama’s retelling of these years because of the way he explains the problems, deliberations, and decisions reached. What’s impressive is how well he mixes in explanations. Before going into the negotiations that led to the Dodd-Frank banking bill, for example, you get a five-page, perfectly lucid explanation on how the international banking system works. Before a visit to a foreign country, you get two pages on the country’s recent history, plus the personality and problems facing the country’s president. My favorite parts, though, were reading how events affected Obama and his marriage and family.
What left me feeling down was how difficult it all was and the implications for what the U.S. faces going forward. Getting anything done involved Herculean efforts, even when Democrats had 60 votes in the Senate and even though his administration started with a major economic crisis that required the country pulling together. It was a stark reminder of how difficult it will be for Biden to reach across the aisle and how unlikely it is that the next few years will produce the progress we so desperately need.
What left me feeling down was how difficult it all was and the implications for what the U.S. faces going forward. Getting anything done involved Herculean efforts, even when Democrats had 60 votes in the Senate and even though his administration started with a major economic crisis that required the country pulling together. It was a stark reminder of how difficult it will be for Biden to reach across the aisle and how unlikely it is that the next few years will produce the progress we so desperately need.
December 11, 2020
Review: This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry, but most important, it will help you understand.
I enjoyed reading This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel more than any other book this year; it’s that good. Frankel has a perfect ear for dialogue, a great sense of humor, a considerable amount of insight into family dynamics, and all the skills a good storyteller needs. As soon as I put the book down, I ordered her two other novels (Goodbye for Now and The Atlas of Love), which ought to tell you how strongly I felt.
The novel tells the story of Rosie and Penn and their five children. I wish I could tell you this is a typical American family, but they’re anything but (and maybe there is no such thing anyway). Rosie is an emergency room doctor and the family’s breadwinner. Penn is an aspiring writer, making him, in effect, a stay-at-home dad. All five children are born boys, but the youngest decides at a very early age that he’s really a girl. His parents are nervous but accepting, and Claude becomes Poppy, wearing dresses to school. The school’s principal, nurse, and kindergarten teacher and those of Poppy’s young classmates who notice, don’t seem to mind, and her four older brothers are protective and helpful. In time, though, Rosie realizes that Wisconsin might not be the best place for Poppy to hit puberty.
Penn and Rosie uproot the family and move to Seattle, which has a reputation of being more accepting, but they make the mistake of keeping Poppy’s penis a secret. School officials and one set of neighbors know the truth, but Poppy’s friends, especially her soulmate Aggie, have no idea what’s under Poppy’s skirt. Frankel lets the reader know early on that this is an unsustainable and mistaken path, and the tension in the middle section of the book is all about when and how the secret will come out—and what the response will be when it does.
Among the book’s many strengths is the light it shines on the difficult decisions that parents must make about what’s truly important to a vulnerable youngster, especially—but not only—one with more than the usual needs. It becomes a question of balancing what will make the child happy with what society will accept (which has the potential of making life much more difficult and unhappy). And it’s not just Poppy. The four older brothers all feel the burden of the secret they’re carrying, to say nothing of the abrupt move from their friends and school in Wisconsin to a new world in Seattle.
If the book has a fault, it is that the members of this unusual family, as well as many (not all) of those they interact with, are exceptionally good people—open and understanding and willing to help. In short, a bit too perfect. The title of the novel—This Is How It Always Is—isn’t a statement of fact. It’s more a hopeful expression: This is how it always ought to be.
And that’s exactly what so often brought tears to my eyes. Despite all the problems facing Poppy, the novel has an optimistic and hopeful tone. Reading about and living with these good people seemed to be the perfect elixir for the times and the world we live in. What could be more fulfilling than spending a few hours with these good and decent people?
I enjoyed reading This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel more than any other book this year; it’s that good. Frankel has a perfect ear for dialogue, a great sense of humor, a considerable amount of insight into family dynamics, and all the skills a good storyteller needs. As soon as I put the book down, I ordered her two other novels (Goodbye for Now and The Atlas of Love), which ought to tell you how strongly I felt.
The novel tells the story of Rosie and Penn and their five children. I wish I could tell you this is a typical American family, but they’re anything but (and maybe there is no such thing anyway). Rosie is an emergency room doctor and the family’s breadwinner. Penn is an aspiring writer, making him, in effect, a stay-at-home dad. All five children are born boys, but the youngest decides at a very early age that he’s really a girl. His parents are nervous but accepting, and Claude becomes Poppy, wearing dresses to school. The school’s principal, nurse, and kindergarten teacher and those of Poppy’s young classmates who notice, don’t seem to mind, and her four older brothers are protective and helpful. In time, though, Rosie realizes that Wisconsin might not be the best place for Poppy to hit puberty.
Penn and Rosie uproot the family and move to Seattle, which has a reputation of being more accepting, but they make the mistake of keeping Poppy’s penis a secret. School officials and one set of neighbors know the truth, but Poppy’s friends, especially her soulmate Aggie, have no idea what’s under Poppy’s skirt. Frankel lets the reader know early on that this is an unsustainable and mistaken path, and the tension in the middle section of the book is all about when and how the secret will come out—and what the response will be when it does.
Among the book’s many strengths is the light it shines on the difficult decisions that parents must make about what’s truly important to a vulnerable youngster, especially—but not only—one with more than the usual needs. It becomes a question of balancing what will make the child happy with what society will accept (which has the potential of making life much more difficult and unhappy). And it’s not just Poppy. The four older brothers all feel the burden of the secret they’re carrying, to say nothing of the abrupt move from their friends and school in Wisconsin to a new world in Seattle.
If the book has a fault, it is that the members of this unusual family, as well as many (not all) of those they interact with, are exceptionally good people—open and understanding and willing to help. In short, a bit too perfect. The title of the novel—This Is How It Always Is—isn’t a statement of fact. It’s more a hopeful expression: This is how it always ought to be.
And that’s exactly what so often brought tears to my eyes. Despite all the problems facing Poppy, the novel has an optimistic and hopeful tone. Reading about and living with these good people seemed to be the perfect elixir for the times and the world we live in. What could be more fulfilling than spending a few hours with these good and decent people?
November 27, 2020
Warlight, a Review
It impresses me that 75 years after its end, World War II, it continues to inspire great literature — A Woman of No Importance, The Splendid and the Vile, D-Day Girls, to name just a few. Warlight isn’t quite a World War II novel, but it’s pretty close. It begins in 1945 as the war is ending, but the setting is bombed-out London, and Nathan, the young narrator of the novel, is still surrounded by the aftereffects. The first line of the novel sets the scene with an intriguing hook -- “In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals.”
But nothing is quite what it seems. Nathan’s parents say they’re going off to Singapore for a year for his father’s work, and the children are left in the care of a friend, who soon fills the house with cohorts and a substitute father, and yes, they may indeed be criminals. The first half of the novel is richly drawn – you can hear and smell the broken city and the Thames they travel nightly on smuggling runs. It’s mysterious and engrossing and beautiful written.
The second half takes place 14 years later and Nathaniel is now working in a government office – one full of war records that may hold the secret Nathaniel is searching for: exactly what was Nathanial’s mother Rosie doing during and after the war. This section is a little problematic because it’s about Rosie, and we never get close enough to her to understand her. But Ondaatje is a beautiful writer and this is an excellent read.
But nothing is quite what it seems. Nathan’s parents say they’re going off to Singapore for a year for his father’s work, and the children are left in the care of a friend, who soon fills the house with cohorts and a substitute father, and yes, they may indeed be criminals. The first half of the novel is richly drawn – you can hear and smell the broken city and the Thames they travel nightly on smuggling runs. It’s mysterious and engrossing and beautiful written.
The second half takes place 14 years later and Nathaniel is now working in a government office – one full of war records that may hold the secret Nathaniel is searching for: exactly what was Nathanial’s mother Rosie doing during and after the war. This section is a little problematic because it’s about Rosie, and we never get close enough to her to understand her. But Ondaatje is a beautiful writer and this is an excellent read.
