Lisa Eckstein > Recent Status Updates

"In the end Emily Post's 1922 etiquette book turned out to be as acute in its apprehension of this other way of death, and as prescriptive in its treatment of grief, as anything else I read. I will not forget the instinctive wisdom of the friend who, every day for those first few weeks, brought me a quart container of scallion-and-ginger congee from Chinatown. Congee I could eat. Congee was all I could eat."

"I did not know how to explain this stubborn love for my parents that I staggered under, iridescent and gigantic and veined with a terrible grief, grief for the ways their lives had been compost for my own." Great writing and exploration of character.

"At one level I was relieved (Lynn knew how to manage things, Lynn would know what it was that I was supposed to be doing) and at another I was bewildered: how could I deal at this moment with company? What would we do, would we sit in the living room with the syringes and the ECG electrodes and the blood still on the floor, should I rekindle what was left of the fire, would we have a drink, would she have eaten?"

"[I] took refuge in ordering furniture from the Internet. I was tired of living merely with a bed, a table, and a couple of folding chairs, so I overcorrected. This is built into adulthood, like one of those wall-mounted ironing boards in old houses. Somewhere in their twenties, people like me become far too horny for interior design."

Interesting mix of highly futuristic technology and society with exactly the same problems we have today (such as gentrification leading to homelessness).

I knew this story would be in sections set many centuries apart, but it's an interesting surprise that the characters also live for many centuries, so some from the first section also show up 700 years later.

Things are getting tense!

Cool to get some other characters' stories in the second section, and I have no doubt it will all come together nicely by the end.

Everything about this is so original! Enjoying getting to know the characters and finding out what's happening.

Cool how this book has a different structure than the first, and we're shifting fairly quickly between the various exciting things the different characters are doing.

Lots of cool worldbuilding, plus some characters I'm already becoming fond of.

Excited to be rejoining these characters for new adventures, and wow are the adventures exciting!

Lots of interesting ideas, but maybe too many scenes that are simply characters debating ideas.

The story's doing a good job of evoking the fear of the early pandemic.

Such a contrast switching back to find out what Obinze's been up to.

"If I had known what was in store for Becka..." The foreshadowing is making this a much tenser read than the earlier Lucy books!

Interesting how Lucy keeps referring back to details of her life she wrote about before, suggesting that My Name Is Lucy Barton is one of her many published books. But it seems the character is mainly a novelist, so what are her novels like? Is she ostensibly the author of Strout's non-Lucy books?

"It was late autumn, the trees had grown antlers, dried leaves were sometimes trailed into the apartment, and the rent was due. Her roommates' checks were on the kitchen table, one on top of the other, all of them pink and bordered by flowers. She thought it unnecessarily decorative, to have flowered checks in America; it almost took away from the seriousness of a check." Great descriptions and observations!

Quick enough read, and I'm curious about what's going on with William and the things he's learning about his family.

"They expected [her approval], in this shared space of their Africanness, but Ifemelu said nothing and turned a page of her novel. They would, she was sure, talk about her after she left. That Nigerian girl, she feels very important because of Princeton. Look at her food bar, she does not eat real food anymore. They would laugh with derision, but only a mild derision, because she was still their African sister..."

Rereading for book club, and happy to be revisiting the carefully observed narration.

Hoping the major characters get a good resolution before the end of this book!

This has taken a lot of unexpected turns, and I'm very invested in what happens to the characters!

Lots of exciting, tense stuff happening!

"Elliott Spencer" is another entry in the Saunders genre of a person whose mind has been wiped so they can be used for some strange purpose. Interesting story, depressing but with a more hopeful ending than some.

Interesting to see the details of how beings of vastly different sizes and capabilities interact in this universe.

“Deep down, she wished she’d been born an alloy, free to move about the universe, unconstrained by the need for a habitable climate, atmosphere, and magnetic field." Enjoying the fascinating setup of this story world!

Saunders loves to write stories set at weird theme parks, and "Ghoul" is a particularly bleak one. I like the way the story unfolds.

Good opening chapter, establishing a lot of fascinating things going on in this world and with these characters.

This is all very pleasant and low-conflict, which is clearly the point of it.