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The Sixteenth of June
Leopold Portman dreams of settling down in Philadelphia's bucolic suburbs and starting a family with his fiancée, Nora. A talented singer in mourning for her mother, Nora has abandoned a promising opera career and wonders what her destiny holds. Her best friend, Stephen, Leopold's brother, dithers in his seventh year of graduate school and privately questions Leo and Nora's relationship. On June 16, 2004, the three are brought together – first for a funeral, then for the Portmans' annual Bloomsday party. As the long-simmering tensions between them rise, they must confront their pasts and their hopes for the future.
The Sixteenth of June delves into the frictions and allegiances of friendships, the murky uncertainty of early adulthood, and the yearning to belong. Offering a nod to James Joyce's Ulysses, this novel explores the secrets we keep and the lengths we go to for acceptance and love.
The Sixteenth of June delves into the frictions and allegiances of friendships, the murky uncertainty of early adulthood, and the yearning to belong. Offering a nod to James Joyce's Ulysses, this novel explores the secrets we keep and the lengths we go to for acceptance and love.
256 pages, Paperback
First published June 3, 2014
25 people are currently reading
2035 people want to read
About the author
Maya Shanbhag Lang
4 books236 followersMaya Shanbhag Lang is the author of What We Carry: A Memoir, (Random House, April 2020), a New York Times Editor's Pick and one Amazon's Best Books of 2020. She is also the author of The Sixteenth of June (Scribner), long listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and a Finalist for the Audie Awards for Best Audio Book. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, In Style, and others.
Winner the 2017 Neil Shepard Prize in Fiction and the 2012 Rona Jaffe Foundation-Bread Loaf Scholarship in Fiction, she was a Finalist for Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers.
The daughter of Indian immigrants, she lives outside of New York City with her daughter. Visit her website at www.mayalang.com
Winner the 2017 Neil Shepard Prize in Fiction and the 2012 Rona Jaffe Foundation-Bread Loaf Scholarship in Fiction, she was a Finalist for Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers.
The daughter of Indian immigrants, she lives outside of New York City with her daughter. Visit her website at www.mayalang.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
June 27, 2020
Reread in time for Bloomsday 2020. This time I was captivated more by the portraits of grief than by the subtle intellectual and class differences. I appreciated the characterization and the Joycean peekaboo, and the dialogue and shifts between perspectives still felt fresh and effortless. I could relate to Stephen and Nora’s feelings of being stuck and unsure how to move on in life. And the ending, which I’d completely forgotten, was perfect. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much the second time around, but it’s still a treasured signed copy on my shelf.
Original review from 2014:
Maya Lang’s playful and exquisitely accomplished debut novel, set on the centenary of the original Bloomsday*, transplants many of Ulysses’s characters and set pieces to near-contemporary Philadelphia. Don’t fret, though – even if, like me, you haven’t yet read Ulysses, you’ll have absolutely no trouble following the thread of Lang’s novel. (Though if you wish to follow along and spot the parallels, just pull up any online summary of Ulysses, and have open this page on Lang’s website listing her direct quotations from Joyce.)
The strategy of literary homage here is similar to that in Francesca Segal’s The Innocents (= Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence) and Zadie Smith’s On Beauty (= E.M. Forster’s Howards End): it’s another sophisticated intertextual tribute that still stands alone as its own current work of art. In fact, Lang dedicates the book to “all the readers who never made it through Ulysses (or haven’t wanted to try).” So think of her Bloomsday celebration as a Joycean Festivus for the rest of us.
On June 16th, 2004, brothers Leopold and Stephen Portman have two major commitments: their grandmother Hannah’s funeral is happening at the local synagogue in the morning; and their parents’ annual Bloomsday party will take place at their opulent Delancey Street home in the evening. Around those two thematic poles – the genuine emotions of grief and regret on the one hand, and the realm of superficial entertainment on the other – the novel expands outward to provide a nuanced picture of three ambivalent twenty-something lives.
The third side of this atypical love triangle is Nora, Stephen’s best friend from Yale – and Leo’s fiancée. Nora, a trained opera singer (thus making her the stand-in for Molly Bloom), is still reeling from her mother’s death from cancer one year ago. She’s been engaging in self-harming behavior, and Leo – a literal-minded IT consultant whose SUV is his prized possession – just wants to fix her. Nora and Stephen, by contrast, are sensitive, artistic souls. Stephen, too, is struggling to find a meaning in death, but also to finish his languishing Penn dissertation (on a theory of subjectivity in Virginia Woolf) after some seven years.
The dynamic between the three central characters is certainly reminiscent of that in The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, as others have noted. But I found Lang’s characters much more compelling than Eugenides’s. Even in the only case where you think Lang might be resorting to stereotypes – with June, the Portman brothers’ catty socialite of a mother – the author redeems her in the end, through a wonderfully out-of-character episode in the afterword.
In her careful portrayal of race and class realities, Lang again rivals Zadie Smith’s talent. Literature is almost as potent a marker of upper-class status as money here: some of the Portmans might not have even read Joyce’s masterpiece, but that doesn’t stop them name-dropping and maintaining the pretense of being well-read. “There’s something calculated about what my parents do,” Stephen admits uneasily, as if “they’re more interested in what Ulysses says about them than what it actually says.”
While Lang might not mimic the extremes of Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness style, she does prioritize interiority over external action by using a close third-person voice that shifts between her main characters’ points of view. Their histories and thoughts are revealed mostly through interior monologues, though also via conversations. I especially love Nora’s confession to her therapist, and Stephen’s thought process while taking a shower in his parents’ luxurious new bathroom (“the showerhead...a bright round disk with a thousand black holes like a decapitated sunflower”).
Stephen is probably my favorite character; I can relate to his melancholy and to his nostalgia for “that happy, malleable phase of postcollege life before everything set in the gray cement of adulthood.” His late declaration of (platonic) love is an absolutely beautiful passage, better than many marriage proposals. He and Nora share a sense of being stuck – of having talked themselves out of options and into bad habits; “It’s like life comes preprogrammed,” Stephen thinks. “Like we go with the defaults, even if it means being miserable.” But ultimately I found this book very hopeful, even (that cringe-worthy word!) life-affirming, as the characters summon up the courage to imagine how life could be different. “It’s starting to dawn on me that this is what I’ve got, and I need to get used to it,” Nora declares, but from that realist starting point the possibilities are endless.
This is also a very funny book, an aspect of it that I might not have made clear yet. Lang’s writing is full of mordant shards of humor; one of my favorite lines was “No one in a eulogy ever said, ‘She watched TV with the volume on too loud. Wheel of Fortune was her favorite.’” Her metaphorical language is also striking and intense, as in these two examples: “[Nora] and her mom had been stranded on an island, the tropic of cancer with its thickets of growth” and “There was Hannah Portman’s name, the serifed font skeletal and scythe-wielding.”
The Sixteenth of June is definitely my favorite novel of 2014 so far: a pure delight to read, I only wish it could have been 100 pages longer. I can’t wait for Lang’s second novel, Phinney and Maude, which she says is about “women in science, gender expectations, grief, and how we don't really understand our parents as individuals—as people—until we are adults.”
“And so today we celebrate Bloomsday. We celebrate a book’s ability to move us.” Whether it’s Ulysses or The Sixteenth of June that has moved you, the power of literature is something to celebrate every day. Thank you to Maya Lang for that reminder.
_________________________________
*On June 16th, 1904, James Joyce had his first date with Nora Barnacle, an occasion he commemorated by choosing it as the one-day setting for his magnum opus, Ulysses; main character Leopold Bloom gives his name to the annual Joyce commemoration that takes place around the world on June 16th.
_________________________________
I enjoyed a couple of interviews Maya Lang has done recently, one here on Goodreads, and another with the Washington Post’s Ron Charles.
_________________________________
Just for fun...
“CUSTOMER (holding up a copy of Ulysses): Why is this book so long? Isn’t it supposed to be set in one day only? How can this many pages of things happen to one person in one day? I mean, I get up, have breakfast, go to work, come home...sometimes I might go out for a drink, and that’s it! And, I mean, that doesn’t fill a book, does it?” (from Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell)
__________________________________
A shortened version of my review also appears at The Bookbag.
Original review from 2014:
Maya Lang’s playful and exquisitely accomplished debut novel, set on the centenary of the original Bloomsday*, transplants many of Ulysses’s characters and set pieces to near-contemporary Philadelphia. Don’t fret, though – even if, like me, you haven’t yet read Ulysses, you’ll have absolutely no trouble following the thread of Lang’s novel. (Though if you wish to follow along and spot the parallels, just pull up any online summary of Ulysses, and have open this page on Lang’s website listing her direct quotations from Joyce.)
The strategy of literary homage here is similar to that in Francesca Segal’s The Innocents (= Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence) and Zadie Smith’s On Beauty (= E.M. Forster’s Howards End): it’s another sophisticated intertextual tribute that still stands alone as its own current work of art. In fact, Lang dedicates the book to “all the readers who never made it through Ulysses (or haven’t wanted to try).” So think of her Bloomsday celebration as a Joycean Festivus for the rest of us.
On June 16th, 2004, brothers Leopold and Stephen Portman have two major commitments: their grandmother Hannah’s funeral is happening at the local synagogue in the morning; and their parents’ annual Bloomsday party will take place at their opulent Delancey Street home in the evening. Around those two thematic poles – the genuine emotions of grief and regret on the one hand, and the realm of superficial entertainment on the other – the novel expands outward to provide a nuanced picture of three ambivalent twenty-something lives.
The third side of this atypical love triangle is Nora, Stephen’s best friend from Yale – and Leo’s fiancée. Nora, a trained opera singer (thus making her the stand-in for Molly Bloom), is still reeling from her mother’s death from cancer one year ago. She’s been engaging in self-harming behavior, and Leo – a literal-minded IT consultant whose SUV is his prized possession – just wants to fix her. Nora and Stephen, by contrast, are sensitive, artistic souls. Stephen, too, is struggling to find a meaning in death, but also to finish his languishing Penn dissertation (on a theory of subjectivity in Virginia Woolf) after some seven years.
The dynamic between the three central characters is certainly reminiscent of that in The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, as others have noted. But I found Lang’s characters much more compelling than Eugenides’s. Even in the only case where you think Lang might be resorting to stereotypes – with June, the Portman brothers’ catty socialite of a mother – the author redeems her in the end, through a wonderfully out-of-character episode in the afterword.
In her careful portrayal of race and class realities, Lang again rivals Zadie Smith’s talent. Literature is almost as potent a marker of upper-class status as money here: some of the Portmans might not have even read Joyce’s masterpiece, but that doesn’t stop them name-dropping and maintaining the pretense of being well-read. “There’s something calculated about what my parents do,” Stephen admits uneasily, as if “they’re more interested in what Ulysses says about them than what it actually says.”
While Lang might not mimic the extremes of Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness style, she does prioritize interiority over external action by using a close third-person voice that shifts between her main characters’ points of view. Their histories and thoughts are revealed mostly through interior monologues, though also via conversations. I especially love Nora’s confession to her therapist, and Stephen’s thought process while taking a shower in his parents’ luxurious new bathroom (“the showerhead...a bright round disk with a thousand black holes like a decapitated sunflower”).
Stephen is probably my favorite character; I can relate to his melancholy and to his nostalgia for “that happy, malleable phase of postcollege life before everything set in the gray cement of adulthood.” His late declaration of (platonic) love is an absolutely beautiful passage, better than many marriage proposals. He and Nora share a sense of being stuck – of having talked themselves out of options and into bad habits; “It’s like life comes preprogrammed,” Stephen thinks. “Like we go with the defaults, even if it means being miserable.” But ultimately I found this book very hopeful, even (that cringe-worthy word!) life-affirming, as the characters summon up the courage to imagine how life could be different. “It’s starting to dawn on me that this is what I’ve got, and I need to get used to it,” Nora declares, but from that realist starting point the possibilities are endless.
This is also a very funny book, an aspect of it that I might not have made clear yet. Lang’s writing is full of mordant shards of humor; one of my favorite lines was “No one in a eulogy ever said, ‘She watched TV with the volume on too loud. Wheel of Fortune was her favorite.’” Her metaphorical language is also striking and intense, as in these two examples: “[Nora] and her mom had been stranded on an island, the tropic of cancer with its thickets of growth” and “There was Hannah Portman’s name, the serifed font skeletal and scythe-wielding.”
The Sixteenth of June is definitely my favorite novel of 2014 so far: a pure delight to read, I only wish it could have been 100 pages longer. I can’t wait for Lang’s second novel, Phinney and Maude, which she says is about “women in science, gender expectations, grief, and how we don't really understand our parents as individuals—as people—until we are adults.”
“And so today we celebrate Bloomsday. We celebrate a book’s ability to move us.” Whether it’s Ulysses or The Sixteenth of June that has moved you, the power of literature is something to celebrate every day. Thank you to Maya Lang for that reminder.
_________________________________
*On June 16th, 1904, James Joyce had his first date with Nora Barnacle, an occasion he commemorated by choosing it as the one-day setting for his magnum opus, Ulysses; main character Leopold Bloom gives his name to the annual Joyce commemoration that takes place around the world on June 16th.
_________________________________
I enjoyed a couple of interviews Maya Lang has done recently, one here on Goodreads, and another with the Washington Post’s Ron Charles.
_________________________________
Just for fun...
“CUSTOMER (holding up a copy of Ulysses): Why is this book so long? Isn’t it supposed to be set in one day only? How can this many pages of things happen to one person in one day? I mean, I get up, have breakfast, go to work, come home...sometimes I might go out for a drink, and that’s it! And, I mean, that doesn’t fill a book, does it?” (from Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell)
__________________________________
A shortened version of my review also appears at The Bookbag.
August 23, 2014
The Portman family is a well to do family, a family that in the words of their son Stephen likes to sweep things under the rug, not having to deal with things that do not fit into the view of their lifestyle. June 16th, 2004 is big day for this family, it is the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday, and it is the funeral of the Portman grandmother. Every year Michael has a Bloomsday party and has no intention of cancelling this years.
It is a story of a love triangle between Stephen and Leopold the Portman sons, and Nora, Stephens best friend and Leopold fiancé. She is dealing with a grief she cannot overcome, the death of her mother from cancer. They are all floundering in their own separate ways. Leopold wants nothing more than to marry Nora and have a house and normal family. He is also obsessed with food. Stephen is trying to complete his education, to complete his thesis which has been six years in the making. All seem stuck in place, just treading water, not making waves. All that will change on this day.
Modeled on the story Ulysses, this book too has 18 chapters, familiar names, internal monologues but is stilt very much its own story. I have never read Ulysses but as fate would have it I will be doing a buddy read in a group on this site. I still very much enjoyed this story on its on merits, wanted to see how each of these characters ended their stalemate, where they would end up and who with. The prose is wonderfully smooth, the story flows well.
A very good story abut the internal feelings of a family taught to hide much.
It is a story of a love triangle between Stephen and Leopold the Portman sons, and Nora, Stephens best friend and Leopold fiancé. She is dealing with a grief she cannot overcome, the death of her mother from cancer. They are all floundering in their own separate ways. Leopold wants nothing more than to marry Nora and have a house and normal family. He is also obsessed with food. Stephen is trying to complete his education, to complete his thesis which has been six years in the making. All seem stuck in place, just treading water, not making waves. All that will change on this day.
Modeled on the story Ulysses, this book too has 18 chapters, familiar names, internal monologues but is stilt very much its own story. I have never read Ulysses but as fate would have it I will be doing a buddy read in a group on this site. I still very much enjoyed this story on its on merits, wanted to see how each of these characters ended their stalemate, where they would end up and who with. The prose is wonderfully smooth, the story flows well.
A very good story abut the internal feelings of a family taught to hide much.
February 19, 2014
Spoiler-free summary:
Taking place in a single day, Maya Lang's debut novel, The Sixteenth of June explores the relationship between the members of a wealthy family in Philadelphia. Leo is the simplistic, humble son who yearns for "normalcy," which, to him is a life away from the gilt and glamour of his mother's world. Stephen, an academic lost inside literary theory and his own theories about himself, loves Leo's fiance Nora, a talented opera singer, with a fierce platonic urgency and met her long before Leo came into the picture. These characters and their strange undulating bonds are first introduced to us on the morning of June 16th due to the death of Leo and Stephen's grandmother, and leave us again that evening at a showy, pretentious family party dedicated to James Joyce's Ulysses. Billed as a social satire, The Sixteenth of June is an amusing, thoughtful look inside the dynamics of family and the dynamics of the mind of the individual.
.....
I'm going to begin this review by stating that, like many characters in the novel, I haven't actually read Ulysses. Sure, I mean to. I will even go as far as to say, in my best girl scout voice, "I fully intend to read Ulysses." But so does everyone else. Despite not ever having read Ulysses (or any Joyce other than Dubliners) I did not have a hard time understand this novel and picking up the references to Ulysses. In fact, I think not reading Joyce's most challenging work made reading a novel directly inspired by and descended from it an interesting experience. You will find solidarity with the characters in the novel who haven't read the book, but are celebrating it anyway. You will have to confront yourself with the question, "Why do I want to read that giant thing?"
What I am trying to say is: The plot of Maya Lang's novel stands on its own, but is enriched by references and allusions to Ulysses (and these references can be picked up and understood with a quick skim of the Wikipedia page on Ulysses before reading).
I read The Sixteenth of June while I was reading The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. They were disturbingly similar. Both involve a love triangle, a best friend figure who is struggling with their religious and sexual identities, pretension in the literary world, mental illness and the way it affects our relationships, wealthy and self-righteous parental figures. They were so similar that I'd continually get confused between the two of them. They even end with pretty much the same conclusion and dynamic between the characters. I decided that the universe was trying to tell me something by bringing both of these books to me at exactly the same time (though I'm not sure what the universe was trying to tell me; Don't go to grad school, maybe? Stay away from the East Coast?) While I am a fan of Eugenides (Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides), I think Maya Lang did it better. Her characters felt more authentic and were genuinely likable where Eugenides's characters were cold and felt like personifications of themes and theories instead of real people. This is impressive considering Lang's story takes place all in one day whereas Eugenides had unlimited time to convince us that his characters were worth reading about.
I thought Maya Lang's description of trichotillomania (compulsive hair pulling) was accurate and added a nice layer to Nora, who would have been boring and flat otherwise. I also really enjoyed the dichotomy set up between Nora's parents and Leo and Stephen's.
The Sixteenth of June is a sweet, inventive read. I look forward to seeing what else Maya Lang will offer us.
Buy The Sixteenth of June, available June 3rd, 2014 in hardcover and e-book format from Amazon.
www.bookpuke.com
Taking place in a single day, Maya Lang's debut novel, The Sixteenth of June explores the relationship between the members of a wealthy family in Philadelphia. Leo is the simplistic, humble son who yearns for "normalcy," which, to him is a life away from the gilt and glamour of his mother's world. Stephen, an academic lost inside literary theory and his own theories about himself, loves Leo's fiance Nora, a talented opera singer, with a fierce platonic urgency and met her long before Leo came into the picture. These characters and their strange undulating bonds are first introduced to us on the morning of June 16th due to the death of Leo and Stephen's grandmother, and leave us again that evening at a showy, pretentious family party dedicated to James Joyce's Ulysses. Billed as a social satire, The Sixteenth of June is an amusing, thoughtful look inside the dynamics of family and the dynamics of the mind of the individual.
.....
I'm going to begin this review by stating that, like many characters in the novel, I haven't actually read Ulysses. Sure, I mean to. I will even go as far as to say, in my best girl scout voice, "I fully intend to read Ulysses." But so does everyone else. Despite not ever having read Ulysses (or any Joyce other than Dubliners) I did not have a hard time understand this novel and picking up the references to Ulysses. In fact, I think not reading Joyce's most challenging work made reading a novel directly inspired by and descended from it an interesting experience. You will find solidarity with the characters in the novel who haven't read the book, but are celebrating it anyway. You will have to confront yourself with the question, "Why do I want to read that giant thing?"
What I am trying to say is: The plot of Maya Lang's novel stands on its own, but is enriched by references and allusions to Ulysses (and these references can be picked up and understood with a quick skim of the Wikipedia page on Ulysses before reading).
I read The Sixteenth of June while I was reading The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. They were disturbingly similar. Both involve a love triangle, a best friend figure who is struggling with their religious and sexual identities, pretension in the literary world, mental illness and the way it affects our relationships, wealthy and self-righteous parental figures. They were so similar that I'd continually get confused between the two of them. They even end with pretty much the same conclusion and dynamic between the characters. I decided that the universe was trying to tell me something by bringing both of these books to me at exactly the same time (though I'm not sure what the universe was trying to tell me; Don't go to grad school, maybe? Stay away from the East Coast?) While I am a fan of Eugenides (Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides), I think Maya Lang did it better. Her characters felt more authentic and were genuinely likable where Eugenides's characters were cold and felt like personifications of themes and theories instead of real people. This is impressive considering Lang's story takes place all in one day whereas Eugenides had unlimited time to convince us that his characters were worth reading about.
I thought Maya Lang's description of trichotillomania (compulsive hair pulling) was accurate and added a nice layer to Nora, who would have been boring and flat otherwise. I also really enjoyed the dichotomy set up between Nora's parents and Leo and Stephen's.
The Sixteenth of June is a sweet, inventive read. I look forward to seeing what else Maya Lang will offer us.
Buy The Sixteenth of June, available June 3rd, 2014 in hardcover and e-book format from Amazon.
www.bookpuke.com
September 10, 2016
I was able to read an advance copy of this novel, and I gave it a blurb. Here is what I said:
“The Sixteenth of June celebrates people who don’t easily fit our culture’s definitions of happiness and success, who have to fight their way to a sense of self they can live with. Combining the narrative sensibility of a nineteenth-century novel with a contemporary snap and verve, Maya Lang’s debut asks probing questions about friendship and love. The final scene is one of the most lovely I’ve read in recent fiction.”
“The Sixteenth of June celebrates people who don’t easily fit our culture’s definitions of happiness and success, who have to fight their way to a sense of self they can live with. Combining the narrative sensibility of a nineteenth-century novel with a contemporary snap and verve, Maya Lang’s debut asks probing questions about friendship and love. The final scene is one of the most lovely I’ve read in recent fiction.”
July 4, 2014
I had the privilege of seeing Maya Lang’s reading at Elliot Bay Bookstore, and in speaking about the book I remember her mentioning that the three central characters—Nora, Leo, and Stephen—were struggling to find a way to navigate through the expectations put upon their lives by their families and friends (as well as culture, class, and society etc.). They were trying to not just heed what they felt they should do, but what they truly wanted to do.
It’s an interesting (and difficult) time of life to explore, the early thirties…and while I think you could sustain a full novel with just one character’s exploration, when you mix up three vivid characters it gets wonderfully dense and complex. Especially when the three characters have very different personalities and are in knotted relationships both with each other and each other’s parents (living and deceased). Oh yes. It gets messy. It gets ironic. It gets subtexty and complex. Contradictory. And when it resolves, it does so in ways that you weren’t expecting but nonetheless make sense. These are all things I want in literary fiction, because all of these things together create something both illuminating and mysterious and alive.
It's the kind of book that's in conversation with itself. Yeah. The Sixteenth of June is still talking even though I’ve finished it. Well done.
It’s an interesting (and difficult) time of life to explore, the early thirties…and while I think you could sustain a full novel with just one character’s exploration, when you mix up three vivid characters it gets wonderfully dense and complex. Especially when the three characters have very different personalities and are in knotted relationships both with each other and each other’s parents (living and deceased). Oh yes. It gets messy. It gets ironic. It gets subtexty and complex. Contradictory. And when it resolves, it does so in ways that you weren’t expecting but nonetheless make sense. These are all things I want in literary fiction, because all of these things together create something both illuminating and mysterious and alive.
It's the kind of book that's in conversation with itself. Yeah. The Sixteenth of June is still talking even though I’ve finished it. Well done.
September 27, 2014
What an accomplished first novel. I’ll be looking for new work by Maya Lang.
I am one of the readers to whom she dedicates her book—have not yet moved beyond the first chapter of Ulysses—so her “re-Joyce” allusions will have escaped me, except for Stephen shaving in the opening scene, which I recognized with delight.
The novel moves too slowly for me in the first half—so much ruminating—but picks up in the second. It’s as if Lang is a reticent gardener who doesn’t want her characters to mature too quickly. She holds them back, lets only a little emerge at a time, and then in the last few pages pours on the fertilizer. Nora, Stephen, Michael, even June: they finally blossom and show us who they are. I was unhappily conscious of this withholding.
There is a lovely portrait of Nora seen through her fiancé’s eyes on page 172 that made me finally like her, and regard her as special enough to merit her relationships. I was wishing that scene, or one like it, had appeared earlier.
I enjoyed Lang’s metaphors, such as Nora’s pots and pans scrubbed to a mirrored finish, and Leo’s unsightly, barnacled cast iron skillet, which hangs unseen in a cupboard.
Ultimately a terrific read about friendship and the slipperiness of authenticity.
Disclaimer: the publisher provided this book to me free of charge.
I am one of the readers to whom she dedicates her book—have not yet moved beyond the first chapter of Ulysses—so her “re-Joyce” allusions will have escaped me, except for Stephen shaving in the opening scene, which I recognized with delight.
The novel moves too slowly for me in the first half—so much ruminating—but picks up in the second. It’s as if Lang is a reticent gardener who doesn’t want her characters to mature too quickly. She holds them back, lets only a little emerge at a time, and then in the last few pages pours on the fertilizer. Nora, Stephen, Michael, even June: they finally blossom and show us who they are. I was unhappily conscious of this withholding.
There is a lovely portrait of Nora seen through her fiancé’s eyes on page 172 that made me finally like her, and regard her as special enough to merit her relationships. I was wishing that scene, or one like it, had appeared earlier.
I enjoyed Lang’s metaphors, such as Nora’s pots and pans scrubbed to a mirrored finish, and Leo’s unsightly, barnacled cast iron skillet, which hangs unseen in a cupboard.
Ultimately a terrific read about friendship and the slipperiness of authenticity.
Disclaimer: the publisher provided this book to me free of charge.
July 28, 2014
The Sixteenth of June builds quietly, beautifully, and then—-as moving as any Joycean epiphany—-astonishes you. When I reached the last page, I felt deeply stirred, because although it pays tribute to Joyce's masterwork, Ulysses, it refuses to become simply a contemporary shadow of it. It's the author's brilliant insights into her characters' individual struggles that makes it compelling, not just its skillful allusiveness. Yes, it serves as a sort of conversation with Joyce's work, but a conversation in which not all sides always agree. One of the epigraphs to the book is a quotation from Virginia Woolf's diary where she gives a fabulously scathing critique of Ulysses. As this novel comes to a close, like Woolf's Mrs.Dalloway, we enter a long, exquisitely conceived party montage (calling it a scene, doesn't do it justice). As epiphanies spark in the characters' minds, I sensed the novel was as much a tribute to Woolf as to Joyce. Woolf's voice, I think, is a significant part, perhaps an essential part, of this conversation too. By the end, that voice, in the final pages, gets heard, and for me, it was truly magical.
I highly recommend this book, if you have an affection for the Modernists and like to explore the quiet depths of human experience.
I highly recommend this book, if you have an affection for the Modernists and like to explore the quiet depths of human experience.
June 16, 2014
Moving and assured, intimate, reverent and inventive. Who would ever imagine this is a first novel? Brava, Maya. Brava. Blog review is finally up, just in time for the end of Bloomsday: http://bit.ly/SOo5Kf.
August 18, 2014
I have read a number of books by young(ish) American female authors lately and generally been a bit disappointed. Somehow I have felt a distance towards the content, the books have felt a bit inauthentic; my willing suspension of disbelief has been unwilling, I haven’t been able to rid myself of the feeling that I’m reading a construed novel and the characters have not stood forward as people of flesh and blood and all that. (or it may just be the fact that I’m a middle-age(ish) European male, and the books are not meant for me ... I don’t know).
Anyhow I approached Maya Lang’s novel The Sixteenth of June with some scepticism. I got the book from the publisher to write a (this) review.
The novel is very loosely based on James Joyce’s Ulysses but please don’t let that get in the way. You don’t need to have read Ulysses, as the book stands quite good on it’s own (and thankfully, without form experiments as in Joyce’s book).
The novel is about three people in their late twenties, the brothers Leopold and Stephen (named after characters in Ulysses) and Leopold’s fiancée Nora (from Ibsen?). The plot is simple: on the sixteenth of June, we follow these three during the funereal of the brothers’ grandmother followed by a Bloomfest in the evening, put on by their socialite parents to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the action in Ulysses.
This book is all about character, about who we are and what forms our appreciation of ourselves. This is a book of the mind, not of action. This is a slow book, a book the savour, a book of reflection and thought.
There are a lot of different themes in the book, intertwined with the characters' internal dialogue.
This is a book about time. “There is no longer any downtime, bubeleh, ... Everyone is much too busy for it.” It is a book about loss, about remembrance and coping with it.
It is a book about growing up, from the (more-or-less) carefree student period into adulthood. It is book about being in-between. It is not about getting old, but about getting stuck. It is novel about how we are stuck in our preconceptions, not only our preconception about others, but even more about ourselves. The book delves into what it means to be authentic, about how forces within and without pressure us into being in a certain way, into saying or doing the “right” thing. It is about dislocated subjects, about half-communication, about the difficulty to get across. It is about introverts vs extroverts, about radical different approaches to understanding ourselves and our place in the world. In such, it has much in common with what I believe was Joyce’s mission, to tell thing the way they are, in truth and honesty. Life, as it is.
As Nora reflects on the rabbi’s speech in the funeral: “... maybe the rabbi is getting it all wrong, each word a wound.”
The characters in the book seem to “get it all wrong”, not out of lack of concern, nor from bad will but simply because that’s the way it goes. And in this the novel has more in common with Virginia Woolf (Stephen, the academic brother has been working 7 years on a paper on subjectivity in Woolf).
But this is not a bleak novel, this is not Lear, nor Hamlet. Again it is more Woolf in its insistence on the power of imagination. It is a story of becoming – through imagination and, I suppose, love. It is a book that, in spite of it all, reaffirms a belief in life and the fascination of it all. It is a novel that insists on believing in the last sentence of Ulysses: “Yes I said yes I will Yes.”
I take back everything I have thought and said about female young American authors. The sixteenth of June is a rich, intelligent and immersive experience. It’s beautiful prose paints the characters, “our faulty selves”, with great precision and believability. It revels in the mystery of the other and comes highly recommended.
Anyhow I approached Maya Lang’s novel The Sixteenth of June with some scepticism. I got the book from the publisher to write a (this) review.
The novel is very loosely based on James Joyce’s Ulysses but please don’t let that get in the way. You don’t need to have read Ulysses, as the book stands quite good on it’s own (and thankfully, without form experiments as in Joyce’s book).
The novel is about three people in their late twenties, the brothers Leopold and Stephen (named after characters in Ulysses) and Leopold’s fiancée Nora (from Ibsen?). The plot is simple: on the sixteenth of June, we follow these three during the funereal of the brothers’ grandmother followed by a Bloomfest in the evening, put on by their socialite parents to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the action in Ulysses.
This book is all about character, about who we are and what forms our appreciation of ourselves. This is a book of the mind, not of action. This is a slow book, a book the savour, a book of reflection and thought.
There are a lot of different themes in the book, intertwined with the characters' internal dialogue.
This is a book about time. “There is no longer any downtime, bubeleh, ... Everyone is much too busy for it.” It is a book about loss, about remembrance and coping with it.
It is a book about growing up, from the (more-or-less) carefree student period into adulthood. It is book about being in-between. It is not about getting old, but about getting stuck. It is novel about how we are stuck in our preconceptions, not only our preconception about others, but even more about ourselves. The book delves into what it means to be authentic, about how forces within and without pressure us into being in a certain way, into saying or doing the “right” thing. It is about dislocated subjects, about half-communication, about the difficulty to get across. It is about introverts vs extroverts, about radical different approaches to understanding ourselves and our place in the world. In such, it has much in common with what I believe was Joyce’s mission, to tell thing the way they are, in truth and honesty. Life, as it is.
As Nora reflects on the rabbi’s speech in the funeral: “... maybe the rabbi is getting it all wrong, each word a wound.”
The characters in the book seem to “get it all wrong”, not out of lack of concern, nor from bad will but simply because that’s the way it goes. And in this the novel has more in common with Virginia Woolf (Stephen, the academic brother has been working 7 years on a paper on subjectivity in Woolf).
But this is not a bleak novel, this is not Lear, nor Hamlet. Again it is more Woolf in its insistence on the power of imagination. It is a story of becoming – through imagination and, I suppose, love. It is a book that, in spite of it all, reaffirms a belief in life and the fascination of it all. It is a novel that insists on believing in the last sentence of Ulysses: “Yes I said yes I will Yes.”
I take back everything I have thought and said about female young American authors. The sixteenth of June is a rich, intelligent and immersive experience. It’s beautiful prose paints the characters, “our faulty selves”, with great precision and believability. It revels in the mystery of the other and comes highly recommended.
October 8, 2014
This was rather a wonderful novel. It begins with a dedication to all of those readers (including me) who never made it through Ulysses, and that immediately drew me in rather than deterring me for fear of not getting any allusions to that most iconic of novels (which incidentally has been staring at me from its position on my bookshelf, these past 15 years, ahem).
It is an intertextual novel of sorts, kind of like Michael Cunningham’s The Hours and its deliberate references to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. The Sixteenth of June is the date on which Leopold Bloom in Ulysses roams the streets of Dublin, and in Lang’s novel we follow the three main characters, Leo, Stephen and Nora on that same date in Philadelphia when Leo’s and Stephen’s parents are hosting a Bloomsday party (hence their sons’ names, Leopold and Stephen, the latter being the name of another character in Ulysses and indeed the name of the main character in Joyce’s more autobiographical work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man).
This may possibly sound too intellectual or nerdy, but it is far from that. It is in fact a very readable, enjoyable and warm novel, in which Lang partly emulates that stream-of-consciousness style that also Woolf is famous for, but which is here much easier to read because she intersperses it with modern phrases, ideas, frustrations and humor. Since everything takes place in just one day, it isn’t an action-filled book but rather an introspective view of these three characters’ different lives, how their stories weave into each other’s, what struggles and dreams they have.
On the one hand, this makes it very relatable and may even sound dull and mundane. It is anything but. Through lively, often humorous conversations, descriptions of complicated but all too human inner lives and not least some absolutely exquisite prose, the characters’ everyday problems, in Lang’s capable hands, are raised to another level.
It took me a little while to be drawn in, and unlike many other readers, I didn’t consider the final chapter the best. As unfair as it sounds, I would actually have preferred it if the book had been a bit longer, but presumably that is only because I felt the three main characters (especially Stephen, whom I much preferred) were so interesting, but also because I could have just gone on reading Lang’s words. There are, by the way, also a number of other characters who are interestingly drawn, not least the parents of both Nora and the two men in her life.
I have found that I tend to award books five stars only when they really hit home with me, and they are obviously rare because that aspect of reading is always a question of timing. I can therefore highly recommend this debut novel to readers who like listening in on other people’s conversations and hear about their flaws and fears, with literature as a backdrop, and who can appreciate beautiful prose. Somewhere between 4 and 4,5 stars.
I was given this book from Scribner for a fair review – and thanks to Rebecca, whose own wonderful review first made me aware of the book. See it here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
It is an intertextual novel of sorts, kind of like Michael Cunningham’s The Hours and its deliberate references to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. The Sixteenth of June is the date on which Leopold Bloom in Ulysses roams the streets of Dublin, and in Lang’s novel we follow the three main characters, Leo, Stephen and Nora on that same date in Philadelphia when Leo’s and Stephen’s parents are hosting a Bloomsday party (hence their sons’ names, Leopold and Stephen, the latter being the name of another character in Ulysses and indeed the name of the main character in Joyce’s more autobiographical work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man).
This may possibly sound too intellectual or nerdy, but it is far from that. It is in fact a very readable, enjoyable and warm novel, in which Lang partly emulates that stream-of-consciousness style that also Woolf is famous for, but which is here much easier to read because she intersperses it with modern phrases, ideas, frustrations and humor. Since everything takes place in just one day, it isn’t an action-filled book but rather an introspective view of these three characters’ different lives, how their stories weave into each other’s, what struggles and dreams they have.
On the one hand, this makes it very relatable and may even sound dull and mundane. It is anything but. Through lively, often humorous conversations, descriptions of complicated but all too human inner lives and not least some absolutely exquisite prose, the characters’ everyday problems, in Lang’s capable hands, are raised to another level.
It took me a little while to be drawn in, and unlike many other readers, I didn’t consider the final chapter the best. As unfair as it sounds, I would actually have preferred it if the book had been a bit longer, but presumably that is only because I felt the three main characters (especially Stephen, whom I much preferred) were so interesting, but also because I could have just gone on reading Lang’s words. There are, by the way, also a number of other characters who are interestingly drawn, not least the parents of both Nora and the two men in her life.
I have found that I tend to award books five stars only when they really hit home with me, and they are obviously rare because that aspect of reading is always a question of timing. I can therefore highly recommend this debut novel to readers who like listening in on other people’s conversations and hear about their flaws and fears, with literature as a backdrop, and who can appreciate beautiful prose. Somewhere between 4 and 4,5 stars.
I was given this book from Scribner for a fair review – and thanks to Rebecca, whose own wonderful review first made me aware of the book. See it here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
July 11, 2014
Really enjoyed this novel, and not just because I know the author. It's that very rare thing--both a successful satire (the narrator is irreverent & witty) and a book that in the end is tender (as most satires are not) towards most all of its characters, loving their flaws as well as their strengths.
The heart of the book is the ever-shifting, fascinating relationship between 2 brothers, Leo and Stephen, and a young woman named Nora. This triangle is somewhat similar to that of another novel, Jeffrey Eugenides' _The Marriage Plot_, but though Eugenides is a novelist I really admire (_Middlesex_ is a work of genius) his _Marriage Plot_ felt to me contrived and heavy-handed, with the 2 male characters becoming really tiresome in their dominance. In Maya Lang's novel, the triangle is much better balanced--and her moving and beautiful twist of an ending gives a much more potent reworking/reinterpreting of the 'marriage plot' conclusion of conventional fiction than did Eugenides.
I'll add that the pacing is crisp and smart, the sentences beautifully honed and balanced. Throughout are delightful allusions to Joyce's _Ulysses_: Leo's and Stephen's parents enjoy throwing a Bloomsday party of June 16th every year, for the boost it gives their social status in Philadelphia, for instance, and both Leo and Stephen are witty reimaginings of Leopold Bloom's everydayness and Stephen's artsy pretensions. But you don't need to be a _Ulysses_ devotee to relish this read. Bravo!
The heart of the book is the ever-shifting, fascinating relationship between 2 brothers, Leo and Stephen, and a young woman named Nora. This triangle is somewhat similar to that of another novel, Jeffrey Eugenides' _The Marriage Plot_, but though Eugenides is a novelist I really admire (_Middlesex_ is a work of genius) his _Marriage Plot_ felt to me contrived and heavy-handed, with the 2 male characters becoming really tiresome in their dominance. In Maya Lang's novel, the triangle is much better balanced--and her moving and beautiful twist of an ending gives a much more potent reworking/reinterpreting of the 'marriage plot' conclusion of conventional fiction than did Eugenides.
I'll add that the pacing is crisp and smart, the sentences beautifully honed and balanced. Throughout are delightful allusions to Joyce's _Ulysses_: Leo's and Stephen's parents enjoy throwing a Bloomsday party of June 16th every year, for the boost it gives their social status in Philadelphia, for instance, and both Leo and Stephen are witty reimaginings of Leopold Bloom's everydayness and Stephen's artsy pretensions. But you don't need to be a _Ulysses_ devotee to relish this read. Bravo!
August 17, 2014
This is one of those rare books that I finished and immediately started again. Initially, I found it slow and wasn't sure how much I cared about the three main characters -- Nora, Leo and Stephen. But, as the story progressed I became hugely invested in their lives and was so enthralled by them that I had to reread the book to absorb every nuance of their interactions.
Brilliantly evoked compelling lives that we come to know during the course of just one day -- June 16th, 2004. First there is a funeral and then there is a Bloomsday celebration -- the centennial. I'm astounded by the rich depth the main characters reveal in the course of the story that examines what it means to be family, friends and lovers. An amazing accomplishment.
The novel's dedication "For all the readers who never made it through Ulysses" suited me well, because it is one of two books that have defeated me. (The other is Norman Mailer's Ancient Evenings.) After reading The Sixteenth of June twice, I am considering attempting Ulysses again, so I can understand all the references.
In the afterword, Lang reveals a new side to the stylish June. It made me want the story to continue.
Brilliantly evoked compelling lives that we come to know during the course of just one day -- June 16th, 2004. First there is a funeral and then there is a Bloomsday celebration -- the centennial. I'm astounded by the rich depth the main characters reveal in the course of the story that examines what it means to be family, friends and lovers. An amazing accomplishment.
The novel's dedication "For all the readers who never made it through Ulysses" suited me well, because it is one of two books that have defeated me. (The other is Norman Mailer's Ancient Evenings.) After reading The Sixteenth of June twice, I am considering attempting Ulysses again, so I can understand all the references.
In the afterword, Lang reveals a new side to the stylish June. It made me want the story to continue.
September 9, 2014
When it comes to modern fiction, I always enjoy books that have strong character development and explore interpersonal relationships. Maya Lang's "The Sixteenth of June" has both in spades and being a lover of literature, I couldn't help but be intrigued by her integrating aspects of Joyce's Ulysses into the work. It had to be extremely challenging to weave such a complex story into the span of one day's time, but Lang does it beautifully without making the narrative seemed forced or constrained at all. At the end of the book I found myself feeling satisfied, that the story had come to its natural end and that is so rare in works of contemporary fiction. I look forward to reading more of what Lang writes in the future.
August 31, 2016
What a book. Poignant and evocative, and at the end really tender and wonderful. There's not many authors I've encountered who can bring their characters to full and complete life, virtues and vices in balance with the story, but Maya Lang has done so. It was so very odd to find myself and family in bits and pieces of these characters. Their tribulations especially so after having been through a funeral of my own somewhat recently. Highly recommended.
March 15, 2016
This had moments of greatness, and I have a feeling I'm being a bit too hard on it, but for me it just wasn't darkly funny enough, insightful enough, consuming enough to elevate it to the same level as many of the other dysfunctional family novels that I've enjoyed over the years. To me, the characters felt under-developed and cliche for most of the story, yet it built up to a surprisingly satisfying ending that was better than I expected.
July 28, 2015
This book really kept my attention. I would give it a 3.5 (if I was allowed) and definitely recommend it. By the end of the book, I felt like I personally knew the characters.
June 17, 2022
65 • “Maybe our choices are too complicated to dissect. We choose without knowing why. We choose because, we choose despite. The heart does not make it easy.”
THE SIXTEENTH OF JUNE is a debut set in Philadelphia over the course of one day. Leopold, his fiancée, and his brother come together for a funeral and then their family’s annual Bloomsday party, forcing them to face their past decisions and future plans. The book is a nod to James Joyce’s classic ULYSSES, which celebrates its centennial this year. I read and loved @mayaslang’s memoir, so I wanted to go back and read this! A beautifully written novel on love and belonging and the complexities of our choices.
#bloomsday #jamesjoyce #mayashanbhaglang @scribnerbooks #bookstagram #bookstagrammer
THE SIXTEENTH OF JUNE is a debut set in Philadelphia over the course of one day. Leopold, his fiancée, and his brother come together for a funeral and then their family’s annual Bloomsday party, forcing them to face their past decisions and future plans. The book is a nod to James Joyce’s classic ULYSSES, which celebrates its centennial this year. I read and loved @mayaslang’s memoir, so I wanted to go back and read this! A beautifully written novel on love and belonging and the complexities of our choices.
#bloomsday #jamesjoyce #mayashanbhaglang @scribnerbooks #bookstagram #bookstagrammer
March 27, 2021
One of my new favorite authors! She deeply explores her characters and reveals their thoughts, feelings and personalities with beautiful language. I just read her memoir, What We Carry, which shows Ms. Shanbhag Lang’s writing talent in non fiction as well. A gifted and moving writer, I want to read more from her.
July 24, 2023
lovely book, but in all honesty it didn’t really move me as much as I had hoped. having Philly as the setting felt super tacked-on, like the city didn’t really participate in the story except for when Lang wanted to name-drop Primo’s or Rittenhouse. all in all I’d say it was fine.
August 12, 2015
4.5 stars
The Sixteenth of June relates to James Joyce’s Ulysses and reflects parts of the plot and also characters’ names. I have no idea how the story pertains to Joyce’s novel, not having read it, so the implications passed me by but that fact didn’t affect my following the story or my enjoyment of the audio. Maya Lang’s dedication prior to the beginning of the story is ‘For all the readers who never made it through Ulysses (or haven’t wanted to try)’
Just as an aside (thanks to Google!)…James Joyce met Nora Barnacle in 1904 and their first date was on the 16th June that year, inspiring him to write Ulysses. The main character was Leopold Bloom. Hence the annual remembrance being named Bloomsday.
The Sixteenth of June is set in 2004 celebrating the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday with the dysfunctional Portman family. The story is told from three perspectives; Stephen Portman, his brother Leopold and Leopold’s fiancé, Nora, a trained opera singer. June and Michael Portman, the brothers’ parents, are adamant about hosting their annual Bloomsday party, regardless of Michael’s mother’s funeral being held that very morning. They give the appearance of being quite superficial and unfeeling, Michael trying to expunge his Jewish roots and June concerned mostly with her social standing.
Nora is still shaken and dealing with her grief since her own mother’s death from cancer the previous year, and attending another funeral only serves to remind her. Leo and Stephen have different reactions to the death of their grandmother.
Stephen and Nora have been the best and closest of friends throughout their college years and Stephen can’t understand what Nora sees in Leo. There’s a slightly uncomfortable love triangle going on, both brothers loving Nora in different ways. Nora’s singing career lost momentum during her mother’s illness and subsequent death and she drifted into a relationship and engagement with Leo. All Leo wants is to please everyone, marry Nora and settle into married life but Nora is beginning to feel unsure and trapped.
Stephen, on the other hand, is cultured and into his seventh year of his PhD dissertation and feeling in a rut, unsure of the direction his life should take. He’s been visiting Hannah, his grandmother, at the retirement home Stephen feels she was forced into by his parents, irrespective of her wishes. Stephen and Hannah have grown close, she accepted Stephen for himself with no demands or assumptions and he enjoyed, and was relaxed in, her company. Hannah’s death has hit him hard.
This is a contemplative observation of the characters’ emotional relationships, their inner feelings, conflicts and aspirations, very cleverly laid out through the thoughts, conversations and flashbacks of the three main protagonists. The narrative unfolds quite slowly at first, this is not an action novel, more a study on the psychology and qualities of the individual. Nevertheless I was soon drawn into the story and the compelling dynamics between the Portman family and Nora.
The Sixteenth of June is quite an ambitious debut, poignant, witty, skilfully written and self-assured, weaving together past and present smoothly. At it’s core are the personas and complicated relationships of each of the characters. It delves into their struggles with love, friendship, coming to terms with the past and what the future might hold. Their efforts at trying to make sense of their lives and moving on in the right direction for each individual, bringing everything to a satisfying conclusion.
I’ve never been a real fan of dual/multiple narrations, probably because there would always be one narrator I wasn’t keen on. That doesn’t apply here, this audio has three of my favourites and works beautifully. A fabulous narration.
The Sixteenth of June relates to James Joyce’s Ulysses and reflects parts of the plot and also characters’ names. I have no idea how the story pertains to Joyce’s novel, not having read it, so the implications passed me by but that fact didn’t affect my following the story or my enjoyment of the audio. Maya Lang’s dedication prior to the beginning of the story is ‘For all the readers who never made it through Ulysses (or haven’t wanted to try)’
Just as an aside (thanks to Google!)…James Joyce met Nora Barnacle in 1904 and their first date was on the 16th June that year, inspiring him to write Ulysses. The main character was Leopold Bloom. Hence the annual remembrance being named Bloomsday.
The Sixteenth of June is set in 2004 celebrating the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday with the dysfunctional Portman family. The story is told from three perspectives; Stephen Portman, his brother Leopold and Leopold’s fiancé, Nora, a trained opera singer. June and Michael Portman, the brothers’ parents, are adamant about hosting their annual Bloomsday party, regardless of Michael’s mother’s funeral being held that very morning. They give the appearance of being quite superficial and unfeeling, Michael trying to expunge his Jewish roots and June concerned mostly with her social standing.
Nora is still shaken and dealing with her grief since her own mother’s death from cancer the previous year, and attending another funeral only serves to remind her. Leo and Stephen have different reactions to the death of their grandmother.
Stephen and Nora have been the best and closest of friends throughout their college years and Stephen can’t understand what Nora sees in Leo. There’s a slightly uncomfortable love triangle going on, both brothers loving Nora in different ways. Nora’s singing career lost momentum during her mother’s illness and subsequent death and she drifted into a relationship and engagement with Leo. All Leo wants is to please everyone, marry Nora and settle into married life but Nora is beginning to feel unsure and trapped.
Stephen, on the other hand, is cultured and into his seventh year of his PhD dissertation and feeling in a rut, unsure of the direction his life should take. He’s been visiting Hannah, his grandmother, at the retirement home Stephen feels she was forced into by his parents, irrespective of her wishes. Stephen and Hannah have grown close, she accepted Stephen for himself with no demands or assumptions and he enjoyed, and was relaxed in, her company. Hannah’s death has hit him hard.
This is a contemplative observation of the characters’ emotional relationships, their inner feelings, conflicts and aspirations, very cleverly laid out through the thoughts, conversations and flashbacks of the three main protagonists. The narrative unfolds quite slowly at first, this is not an action novel, more a study on the psychology and qualities of the individual. Nevertheless I was soon drawn into the story and the compelling dynamics between the Portman family and Nora.
The Sixteenth of June is quite an ambitious debut, poignant, witty, skilfully written and self-assured, weaving together past and present smoothly. At it’s core are the personas and complicated relationships of each of the characters. It delves into their struggles with love, friendship, coming to terms with the past and what the future might hold. Their efforts at trying to make sense of their lives and moving on in the right direction for each individual, bringing everything to a satisfying conclusion.
I’ve never been a real fan of dual/multiple narrations, probably because there would always be one narrator I wasn’t keen on. That doesn’t apply here, this audio has three of my favourites and works beautifully. A fabulous narration.
September 17, 2014
The association with Ulysses almost turned me away from Maya Lang’s debut novel The Sixteenth of June. I feared it would be one of those unbearably pretentious books that tries too hard to be clever and literary, like The Marriage Plot. Instead it’s a thoughtful, straightforward exploration of love, friendship, and family. I’m delighted that I received a copy to review.
Like Ulysses, the events in The Sixteenth of June unfold over the course of one day. We follow the main characters, a trio in their late 20s, from a funeral in the morning to a Bloomsday party in the evening. Stephen, the eldest son in the wealthy Portman family, is a brooding intellectual questioning his plan to earn a Ph.D. in literature and worrying about his ambivalence in love. His brother, Leopold, is his opposite, a straightforward businessman who wants nothing more than to settle down with a house and family in the suburbs and be “normal.” The third character, Nora, is Leopold’s fiancée and Stephen’s best friend. Grief over her mother’s death leaves her unable to move forward with her career as an opera singer or plan her wedding. Yes, they are privileged Yale graduates whose success seems predetermined, but most people can relate to the their uncertainty as they leave “that happy malleable phase of postcollege life before everything sets in the gray cement of adulthood.”
While the events occur on a single day, Lang seamlessly weaves in the past and future through the thoughts of the three characters (each chapter alternates point of view). This feat reminds me of the quote attributed to Einstein: “The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Throughout the day, the characters confront their issues and consider their next steps while struggling against the expectations of family and society. There are no grand epiphanies, but by the end of the evening they have come to new understandings about themselves and each other.
While I thoroughly enjoyed The Sixteenth of June, I question Lang’s decision to include numerous allusions to Ulysses. While seeing the parallels isn’t necessary to follow the story, they also don’t enhance it. Instead they feel like inside jokes for those cool enough to be in the know, and as such, they exclude the very people she cites in her dedication: “For all the readers who never made it through Ulysses (or haven’t wanted to try).”
The similarities also open the door to criticism that Lang failed in creating a contemporary, accessible version of Ulysses. While that wasn’t her goal (she says on her website that she added the parallels only because it was fun), she may have missed an opportunity to contribute significantly to the conversation about why a book written to confound is considered one of the greatest novels of all time. That being said, I wouldn’t want Lang’s smooth prose to become as convoluted as Joyce’s. But if a writer is going to channel a book as revered as Ulysses, she should delve deeper than surface similarities. Like Stephen’s advisor says, “Novelists should have ambition! They should reach for the fences.”
I would definitely recommend The Sixteenth of June to those looking for an entertaining read. Lang has a talent for capturing stream-of-consciousness thoughts and her metaphors are delightful. Those who have read Ulysses will have fun finding the quotes and parallels, but readers hoping to gain a better understanding of Ulysses will come away disappointed.
Like Ulysses, the events in The Sixteenth of June unfold over the course of one day. We follow the main characters, a trio in their late 20s, from a funeral in the morning to a Bloomsday party in the evening. Stephen, the eldest son in the wealthy Portman family, is a brooding intellectual questioning his plan to earn a Ph.D. in literature and worrying about his ambivalence in love. His brother, Leopold, is his opposite, a straightforward businessman who wants nothing more than to settle down with a house and family in the suburbs and be “normal.” The third character, Nora, is Leopold’s fiancée and Stephen’s best friend. Grief over her mother’s death leaves her unable to move forward with her career as an opera singer or plan her wedding. Yes, they are privileged Yale graduates whose success seems predetermined, but most people can relate to the their uncertainty as they leave “that happy malleable phase of postcollege life before everything sets in the gray cement of adulthood.”
While the events occur on a single day, Lang seamlessly weaves in the past and future through the thoughts of the three characters (each chapter alternates point of view). This feat reminds me of the quote attributed to Einstein: “The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Throughout the day, the characters confront their issues and consider their next steps while struggling against the expectations of family and society. There are no grand epiphanies, but by the end of the evening they have come to new understandings about themselves and each other.
While I thoroughly enjoyed The Sixteenth of June, I question Lang’s decision to include numerous allusions to Ulysses. While seeing the parallels isn’t necessary to follow the story, they also don’t enhance it. Instead they feel like inside jokes for those cool enough to be in the know, and as such, they exclude the very people she cites in her dedication: “For all the readers who never made it through Ulysses (or haven’t wanted to try).”
The similarities also open the door to criticism that Lang failed in creating a contemporary, accessible version of Ulysses. While that wasn’t her goal (she says on her website that she added the parallels only because it was fun), she may have missed an opportunity to contribute significantly to the conversation about why a book written to confound is considered one of the greatest novels of all time. That being said, I wouldn’t want Lang’s smooth prose to become as convoluted as Joyce’s. But if a writer is going to channel a book as revered as Ulysses, she should delve deeper than surface similarities. Like Stephen’s advisor says, “Novelists should have ambition! They should reach for the fences.”
I would definitely recommend The Sixteenth of June to those looking for an entertaining read. Lang has a talent for capturing stream-of-consciousness thoughts and her metaphors are delightful. Those who have read Ulysses will have fun finding the quotes and parallels, but readers hoping to gain a better understanding of Ulysses will come away disappointed.
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June 6, 2014Source: I received this ARC from the author in exchange for my honest review.
Today is the last day of school for me - as a teacher, that is. June is well on its way...the sun is shining, our pool is open, the grill has been firing, and I have already snuggled a book on the porch swing. The Sixteenth of June, by Maya Lang to be exact.
I love books tied to other famous stories. The dedication of The Sixteenth of June reads, "For all the readers who never made it through Ulysses (or haven't wanted to try)." I have to say that any parallels between Lang's story and Joyce's are totally lost on me. I have never wanted to read anything Joyce and I can't promise I will. However, missing that connection doesn't ruin Lang's book in the least. Lang's story focuses around a wealthy family with two sons, Stephen and Leopold. Leopold craves his family's love and attention, working to earn it, but never feeling satisfied he is loved in return. Stephen, stuck in the seventh year of his PhD dissertation, cannot move forward with life, instead debating ways to run from the rut he finds himself in. Nora, who was first Stephen's best friend and then Leo's fiancée, is struggling to feel alive, or even fake it, as she continues to mourn her mother's death a year after the fact.
I admit I started slowly, but it was my fault for the busy week I had when I started reading. By the second chapter, I started connecting with the characters. Nora had me with one thought about her mother's battle with cancer: "The truth is that it was hard to be around her. She used to joke that cancer was like a mistress. I didn't know what she meant, but maybe now I do. I guess I felt pushed out. She couldn't be with her kid with the mistress in town." Having experienced a close relative's battle with cancer, I understood Nora instantly. It's not that the person is pushing anyone out - in fact, they need family support more than ever - but cancer has a way of taking over life in more ways than you can assume or imagine. It takes out more than the physical body if one's not careful.
Once I made that connection with Nora, I was set to see what the other characters had to offer. I've never been in Stephen's situation. My life went straight to college, a career, grad school, and continued with my teaching career. I've always felt I am where I should be. However, that didn't stop me from feeling sympathy for Stephen. He's sincere and insightful about those around him. He knows the meaning of life lies beyond his parents' ridiculous wealth, yet, at the same time, he struggles with knowing who he is and where he is headed. Unlike Stephen, Leo has a secure job, but Leo often speaks about his relationship status with his family members, which I can also relate to. You have visions of how relationships will work out in the future and they don't always come to fruition, for whatever reason. I imagine Leo's struggle is very real for many people.
Everything the story builds comes to a head in the end with a great statement, "We all spin stories. That's what we do. We want people to see certain things about us and not others. What matters is whether you let others in to the truest story, the one that is the scariest to tell." Of course, this requires a trusted confidant on the listening side.
So, even without my understanding of the Ulysses parallels, I found myself liking The Sixteenth of June through these character connections. Their real thoughts and both founded and unfounded fears made them human. I enjoyed this story.
Today is the last day of school for me - as a teacher, that is. June is well on its way...the sun is shining, our pool is open, the grill has been firing, and I have already snuggled a book on the porch swing. The Sixteenth of June, by Maya Lang to be exact.
I love books tied to other famous stories. The dedication of The Sixteenth of June reads, "For all the readers who never made it through Ulysses (or haven't wanted to try)." I have to say that any parallels between Lang's story and Joyce's are totally lost on me. I have never wanted to read anything Joyce and I can't promise I will. However, missing that connection doesn't ruin Lang's book in the least. Lang's story focuses around a wealthy family with two sons, Stephen and Leopold. Leopold craves his family's love and attention, working to earn it, but never feeling satisfied he is loved in return. Stephen, stuck in the seventh year of his PhD dissertation, cannot move forward with life, instead debating ways to run from the rut he finds himself in. Nora, who was first Stephen's best friend and then Leo's fiancée, is struggling to feel alive, or even fake it, as she continues to mourn her mother's death a year after the fact.
I admit I started slowly, but it was my fault for the busy week I had when I started reading. By the second chapter, I started connecting with the characters. Nora had me with one thought about her mother's battle with cancer: "The truth is that it was hard to be around her. She used to joke that cancer was like a mistress. I didn't know what she meant, but maybe now I do. I guess I felt pushed out. She couldn't be with her kid with the mistress in town." Having experienced a close relative's battle with cancer, I understood Nora instantly. It's not that the person is pushing anyone out - in fact, they need family support more than ever - but cancer has a way of taking over life in more ways than you can assume or imagine. It takes out more than the physical body if one's not careful.
Once I made that connection with Nora, I was set to see what the other characters had to offer. I've never been in Stephen's situation. My life went straight to college, a career, grad school, and continued with my teaching career. I've always felt I am where I should be. However, that didn't stop me from feeling sympathy for Stephen. He's sincere and insightful about those around him. He knows the meaning of life lies beyond his parents' ridiculous wealth, yet, at the same time, he struggles with knowing who he is and where he is headed. Unlike Stephen, Leo has a secure job, but Leo often speaks about his relationship status with his family members, which I can also relate to. You have visions of how relationships will work out in the future and they don't always come to fruition, for whatever reason. I imagine Leo's struggle is very real for many people.
Everything the story builds comes to a head in the end with a great statement, "We all spin stories. That's what we do. We want people to see certain things about us and not others. What matters is whether you let others in to the truest story, the one that is the scariest to tell." Of course, this requires a trusted confidant on the listening side.
So, even without my understanding of the Ulysses parallels, I found myself liking The Sixteenth of June through these character connections. Their real thoughts and both founded and unfounded fears made them human. I enjoyed this story.
October 1, 2015
What a moody book! Not sure if I liked this. The whole time I was reading I felt like I was forcing myself to move forward. One more chapter, I'd tell myself. And not in that good way when one normally says, "just one more page. One more chapter." It wasn't bad but I really didn't care about the characters one way or the other. The storyline was weak, in my opinion, and each of the three charcaters did so much thinking between the pages. It actually became tedious. Did I have to know each and every thought? And when a secret was revealed to be a secret I wondered why it was such a big deal. Really? Rich people and their perceived problems. Everyone in this book was boring and it all felt a bit ho hum. Too ying/yang for my taste.
A young woman and two brothers in Philly. Nora is engaged to one and BFF's with the other. Nora was raised without money and the brothers family is wealthy. Nora has dreamed of a different lifestyle but finds it difficult to fit in. She's anxious to please. Her boyfriend, Leopold, wants a good old fashioned life of normal. Stephen, the studious BFF, isn't sure what he wants. He doesn't believe that his brother is right for Nora and Stephen feels like he's going to lose her forever. Leo is doing his best to get Nora to commit to a wedding date but trauma in Nora's life is preventing her from happiness. Not one single person is saying what they mean. Everyone just seems to be coasting on neutral, quietly dealing with their own selfish thoughts. The book mostly takes place on one day, June Sixteenth, and what a busy day it is. First, a funeral. Next, a party to celebrate the centennial of Ulysses. Stephen and Leopold Portman's parents throw a Bloomsday party every year. Lang never truly explains why the Portman's are so obsessed with Ulysses, other than it's pretentiousness. A funeral can't stop the party. The show must go on. Geez. How I wish it hadn't!
*Won a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
A young woman and two brothers in Philly. Nora is engaged to one and BFF's with the other. Nora was raised without money and the brothers family is wealthy. Nora has dreamed of a different lifestyle but finds it difficult to fit in. She's anxious to please. Her boyfriend, Leopold, wants a good old fashioned life of normal. Stephen, the studious BFF, isn't sure what he wants. He doesn't believe that his brother is right for Nora and Stephen feels like he's going to lose her forever. Leo is doing his best to get Nora to commit to a wedding date but trauma in Nora's life is preventing her from happiness. Not one single person is saying what they mean. Everyone just seems to be coasting on neutral, quietly dealing with their own selfish thoughts. The book mostly takes place on one day, June Sixteenth, and what a busy day it is. First, a funeral. Next, a party to celebrate the centennial of Ulysses. Stephen and Leopold Portman's parents throw a Bloomsday party every year. Lang never truly explains why the Portman's are so obsessed with Ulysses, other than it's pretentiousness. A funeral can't stop the party. The show must go on. Geez. How I wish it hadn't!
*Won a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
October 12, 2014
4.5 Stars
This is a book that needs to be savored. It took me weeks to read, not simply because school and work got in the way but because sitting down and reading a few pages at a time, seemed sacrilegious. Maya Lang writes so well and creates such an emotive atmosphere that you need to immerse yourself in each chapter to fully engage with it.
Apparently it is based in part on 'Ulysses'; having never read the book and knowing very little of what it is about, I can't comment how similar it was or if this was a fitting homage to Joyce's novel - perhaps there is even more to gain from it if you have heard read that mammoth tome. Regardless, the book centers on three main characters and the connection between them. It follows a day in the lives of Leo and Stephen who are brothers and Nora, Leo's girlfriend and Stephen's best friend as they attend first a funeral and then a party to celebrate the publication of Ulysses at their parents home. Death and grief feature heavily, how different people cope with it, how it can transform not just those who die but those around them. Nora in particular is still in limbo a year after her mother's death yet made to feel as though this is something that should be fixed. Stephen mourns his Grandmother who accepted him just as he was with no expectations or questions about his aims or orientations. Leo is trying to keep everyone happy while desperate for the ideal family and home in the suburbs. It was easy to feel empathy towards all these characters, all confused, all lost in their own ways, even the sure footed June, Leo and Stephen's Mother has a moment of vulnerability at the end of the novel.
Maybe having read Ulysses would add another layer to a reading of the book but as it stands, this is a lovely book and I have to thank Rebecca Foster for recommending it to me and Maya for sending me a copy.
This is a book that needs to be savored. It took me weeks to read, not simply because school and work got in the way but because sitting down and reading a few pages at a time, seemed sacrilegious. Maya Lang writes so well and creates such an emotive atmosphere that you need to immerse yourself in each chapter to fully engage with it.
Apparently it is based in part on 'Ulysses'; having never read the book and knowing very little of what it is about, I can't comment how similar it was or if this was a fitting homage to Joyce's novel - perhaps there is even more to gain from it if you have heard read that mammoth tome. Regardless, the book centers on three main characters and the connection between them. It follows a day in the lives of Leo and Stephen who are brothers and Nora, Leo's girlfriend and Stephen's best friend as they attend first a funeral and then a party to celebrate the publication of Ulysses at their parents home. Death and grief feature heavily, how different people cope with it, how it can transform not just those who die but those around them. Nora in particular is still in limbo a year after her mother's death yet made to feel as though this is something that should be fixed. Stephen mourns his Grandmother who accepted him just as he was with no expectations or questions about his aims or orientations. Leo is trying to keep everyone happy while desperate for the ideal family and home in the suburbs. It was easy to feel empathy towards all these characters, all confused, all lost in their own ways, even the sure footed June, Leo and Stephen's Mother has a moment of vulnerability at the end of the novel.
Maybe having read Ulysses would add another layer to a reading of the book but as it stands, this is a lovely book and I have to thank Rebecca Foster for recommending it to me and Maya for sending me a copy.
May 2, 2014
I am so thrilled to give the highest recommendation to this beautiful, compact novel and to its skillful author, Maya Lang. The novel takes place in a single day, which means that the plot moves slowly and deliberately. That said, I never found myself wanting to skip ahead because I was engrossed with the characters in the novel. It is rare to read a book that includes so many well-formed and fully-realized characters. Nora, Stephen, and Leo compete for your affection, sympathy, and understanding. They remind you of friends you know, and you find yourself wanting to stay awhile and learn more about them. Ultimately, the day must end and we have to leave these players. Here Maya Lang provides a believable ending that truly satisfies and respects the characters she has so carefully created.
A word about Maya Lang's prose: she writes with tremendous confidence and deep skill. It is hard to believe this is a debut novel. Maya Lang is witty, and at times I laughed out loud, in spite of the darkness of the plot. Every word carries meaning and serves a purpose. Her descriptions are fully-realized without being flowery or obvious. She writes like we all wish we could: clearly, cleverly, and beautifully.
Ulysses. I managed to get through two paragraphs without mentioning Ulysses. Like a lot of people I read James Joyce (or skimmed, as Stephen would say) when I was in college. Plodding through "Portrait" and "Ulysses" before giving up and firmly entrenching myself in the haters club. Perhaps this is Maya Lang's greatest skill. She clearly loves Joyce and reveres the modern novel, and yet she writes a book that it so intelligent and accessible. Authenticity, this novel suggests, is the highest goal. Here Maya Lang succeeds, and we, as readers, are rewarded.
A word about Maya Lang's prose: she writes with tremendous confidence and deep skill. It is hard to believe this is a debut novel. Maya Lang is witty, and at times I laughed out loud, in spite of the darkness of the plot. Every word carries meaning and serves a purpose. Her descriptions are fully-realized without being flowery or obvious. She writes like we all wish we could: clearly, cleverly, and beautifully.
Ulysses. I managed to get through two paragraphs without mentioning Ulysses. Like a lot of people I read James Joyce (or skimmed, as Stephen would say) when I was in college. Plodding through "Portrait" and "Ulysses" before giving up and firmly entrenching myself in the haters club. Perhaps this is Maya Lang's greatest skill. She clearly loves Joyce and reveres the modern novel, and yet she writes a book that it so intelligent and accessible. Authenticity, this novel suggests, is the highest goal. Here Maya Lang succeeds, and we, as readers, are rewarded.
August 28, 2014
This book is an enjoyable drift through a single day that also presents a revealing cross-section of life for each of the characters within. The quality of the writing is good and the characters are well drawn.
It was definitely an enjoyable read but it hit too close to home for me on a few issues; I have also lost a parent and suffered from a similar condition to Nora's trichotillomania so some of Nora's motivations seemed questionable. Nora's worry about blending into the upper-crust world of Leo's parents simply baffled me (why would this seem so important after the loss of a parent?) and other relationship concerns just seemed a little too inconsequential. Her decision to only pretend to see a therapist also annoyed me. But the issues I take with the book are, clearly, incredibly subjective and not a reflection on the quality of the book itself.
I should also add, as other reviewers have, that I have not read Ulysses either. I made it through about 20% of it earlier in the year but will probably have to start again when I renew my attempt! But, as others have mentioned, you definitely do not need to have any knowledge of Joyce's classic in order to read this book.
It was definitely an enjoyable read but it hit too close to home for me on a few issues; I have also lost a parent and suffered from a similar condition to Nora's trichotillomania so some of Nora's motivations seemed questionable. Nora's worry about blending into the upper-crust world of Leo's parents simply baffled me (why would this seem so important after the loss of a parent?) and other relationship concerns just seemed a little too inconsequential. Her decision to only pretend to see a therapist also annoyed me. But the issues I take with the book are, clearly, incredibly subjective and not a reflection on the quality of the book itself.
I should also add, as other reviewers have, that I have not read Ulysses either. I made it through about 20% of it earlier in the year but will probably have to start again when I renew my attempt! But, as others have mentioned, you definitely do not need to have any knowledge of Joyce's classic in order to read this book.
February 8, 2014
This book is amazing! I was fortunate to read an advance copy of this book. My interest was piqued because the story is set in the Philadelphia area. I loved everything about it and had to force myself to slow down and not read it all in one day. This is the kind of story that sinks into your subconscious and makes you want to rush home to read more. The characters were so real and believable that it was almost uncomfortable to read at times. It's always fun to read about people who you recognize but are glad you don't actually have to live with. The end of the novel was handled particularly well - resolution achieved without wrapping everything up in a neat convenient bow. Lang is obviously extremely talented and I can't wait to see what else she will write. This novel is definitely on my Best of 2014 list. Read it!
June 12, 2014
This story revolves around two wealthy brothers, Leo and Stephen and Leo's girlfriend Nora. The book dwells mainly on the Sixteenth of June, Bloomsday, where the family is having the funeral of the men's grandmother and their annual party to celebrate Bloomsday. The family is very dysfunctional and Nora picks this day to decide if she really wants to marry Leo. They all have there problems and the parents seem to be the root of the tension. I liked the characters and the Philadelphia setting.
June 22, 2014
A decent read but I'd say more for fans of Ulysses. There is some clever writing as the author changes styles and the focus of each chapter in the same way that Joyce does in Ulysses. Two brothers named Leo and Stephen, a mother named June, and Leo's fiance and Stephen's best friend, named Nora. What's not to like for the Ulysses fan? It is a bit light, but still entertaining.
May 31, 2014
Took a while to get into. I wouldn't normally have picked this type of book up if I hadn't received it from the publisher. Although the plot was slow, the characterization was able to be portrayed throughout the book very nicely.
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