Moved to words
My subject line is clearly a take on the phrase “moved to tears.” I’m sorry it wasn’t more clever.
In light of the recent post I wrote, then revised, then revised, then revised, then took down, then put back up, here’s the list that used to be at the end. I wrote it because I wanted to say more about the work that I’ve recently read and enjoyed. More than, “Yeah, I liked that” or “It was all right.”
I may also write a list of books I didn’t finish reading (of which there were only a few) and/or books I was told I would like, then turned around and hated. If I do so, I promise to extrapolate on what I found lacking in the works in question.
So—
The year is half over. I’ve read less than I would’ve liked (isn’t that always the way?) but, of what I’ve read, the things I’ve liked? I’ve loved.
What follows is a short list of what I loved most and why.
First, the long of it—the books:
A Million Heavens by John Brandon
The book is told from seven or eight perspectives, one of which is a wolf. It straddles the divide between life and death (one of the characters is dead), responsibility and guilt, nostalgia and grief. It’s funny in a dry way and sad in a beautiful way. The best part is that once you think you’ve got the plot figured out, Brandon pulls an ace so subtly to remind you that what you think you know about people is not always what’s true.
A standout sentence: These humans were stranded in the desert and above them hung a moon that was also a desert.
Zazen by Vanessa Veselka
I gave a lecture on writing dialogue a couple months ago and wound up pulling examples from contemporary literature with strong, compelling voices. Among them, I used the opening paragraph of this smart dystopian novel. Veselka’s narrator is both unsentimental and vulnerable, a mixture we so rarely encounter in literature. Best of all, her images are so clear, you can see them. Also, it has one of the finest last lines I’ve read in contemporary fiction.
A standout sentence: Because the search for authenticity is a well without a bottom.
The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu
Some of the funniest novels are about war. Catch-22. Slaughterhouse Five. And now, The People of Forever Are Not Afraid. In spare, direct language, the novel follows three friends from high school through their mandatory military service in the Israeli Defense Forces and the few years that follow. Starting from the established, very unfunny topic that is war, this book has every reason to not be as funny as it is. But during its serious moments, of which there are many, an inversion takes place. What Boianjiu has made funny is again turned on its ear to become very serious indeed.
A standout sentence: I did not see who fired it, or where it hit; I only heard it; growing bigger as it passed through the sand and the line and the cement barricade where I was still trying to almost break a fall I was not having.
Second, the short of it—stories:
“City/Body: Fragments” by Susan McCarty
I love Susan McCarty’s writing so much. I read this very recently and was struck by the pacing, how tightly everything fits together, but how loose the narrative feels. Her word choice is always spot-on. Her imagery hauntingly lovely. And just when she’s broken my heart, she makes me laugh.
A standout sentence: You are running unsteadily now, really more of a lope than a run; certainly this lead-assed shamble will not save your life.
Faith Gardner is the queen of lush language. She can take a story about two poor little girls—two poverty-stricken orphans—and make it read like a fairy tale. But we’re reminded that the original fairy tales never ended well. Her concision, what she decides to tell from the girls’ perspectives vs. what comes out in third-person is a dream and a nightmare and I can’t shake either.
A standout sentence: The sisters with the sunset hair and grapefruit lips sipped their sodas and watched the clouds swallow the world out the window.
