Not so much an explanation of what causes people to enter homelessness, or a policy briefer on what we should do about, but more a personal journey alNot so much an explanation of what causes people to enter homelessness, or a policy briefer on what we should do about, but more a personal journey alongside one determined, charismatic man and a group of others helping to treat the medical needs of people living chronically unhoused. This is a paradigm shifting book, that presents the “rough sleepers” of the title as human beings with wit, histories, and problems rather than as scary public nuisances. It’s a very sad book but also a book about people struggling always to do better and achiever better things. And the back matter includes a lot of policy and context if you want to know more. ...more
A very precise, careful, attentively written book about state violence and how it is and isn’t personalized through our systems of blame and prosecutiA very precise, careful, attentively written book about state violence and how it is and isn’t personalized through our systems of blame and prosecution. The protagonist is an interpreter at The Hague, translating the testimonies and arguments of the trials of war criminals. She’s also somewhat adrift in the city, dating a married man with more power and a more established place in Dutch society. There are hints throughout of her precarity and of the potential for violence, administrative or otherwise, to affect her everyday life. A sense of deep unease pervades the whole book. And by the end, the story isn’t so much about what happens plot wise as it is about the exactitude of Kitamura’s observations and shadings of power, abuse, blame, guilt, hope, and justice. ...more
Informative, if not particularly strong on narrative. I felt like I could see the artist’s furrowed brow, trying to take the pretty standard politicalInformative, if not particularly strong on narrative. I felt like I could see the artist’s furrowed brow, trying to take the pretty standard political science wonk content and make it visually compelling. But I did learn stuff, and it did feel relevant. Yikes, what a situation we have in Russia. ...more
A lovely graphic novel about love and couplehood, and about how different people meet and love each other. Strangely, this GR listing is for the audioA lovely graphic novel about love and couplehood, and about how different people meet and love each other. Strangely, this GR listing is for the audiobook?...more
I read the Time-Life edition, which is a bit weird because apparently Time-Life published literary fiction for a little while? Or maybe they just meanI read the Time-Life edition, which is a bit weird because apparently Time-Life published literary fiction for a little while? Or maybe they just meant to publish nautical or survival tales, and Hughes slipped in.
This book has echoes of A High Wind in Jamaica—the interest in the ocean, in hurricanes and their apocalyptic destruction as well as their godlike capriciousness, the strangeness and eeriness of life’s little details. It delves a bit into geopolitical issues and history, turning over the life of a Chinese crewman as well as that of an English junior deckhand. Its characters debate God and the afterlife in ways that are both symbolic and also believable, given their four-day near-death experience in the mouth of a terrible storm.
The descriptions of life at sea and the details of how a steamship might be kept floating when practically everything possible has been done to sink it, kept me wrapped up. And that wonderful Hughes weirdness is threaded throughout, a kind of sober humor that I really enjoy. ...more
A novel about existential dread, more or less. A vacationing family is surprised to open the door of their Airbnb to its owners—who have driven out toA novel about existential dread, more or less. A vacationing family is surprised to open the door of their Airbnb to its owners—who have driven out to the Long Island house from NYC hoping to hole up. Something is happening in the city. The power’s out, the Internet is down. And as the book proceeds, more and more strange and then terrible things start to come clear.
This isn’t a book about a specific event. It’s not about the actions that anyone can or can’t take to survive a catastrophe. It’s not even about how these characters learn and grow, or who they are as individuals. It seems to mostly be a meditation on the dread and incomprehensibility of something so huge and awful happening, interrupting our blithe or miserable lives in a definitive way. The pot of water finally coming to a boil, with us in it.
As a side note, Alam has mastered the art of the sinister omniscient aside. For example, after one character says she’d just feel better if she knew what was going on, the narrative voice comments: This statement wasn’t true, but she didn’t know it.
I enjoy Chambers’s work overall—she has a humane optimism that’s rare in any genre, but especially sci-fi. This one felt slight on the storytelling, tI enjoy Chambers’s work overall—she has a humane optimism that’s rare in any genre, but especially sci-fi. This one felt slight on the storytelling, to me. Not much actually happens, and most of the (very short) book is spent exploring ideas related to personhood, morality, identity, etc. Still, it’s a pleasure to spend time in Chambers’s worlds, where humanity has overcome so many of its self-destructive tendencies and where monks and robots can devote themselves to questions of what makes them who they are. ...more
A quiet but absorbing, deeply imagined story of two young children orphaned in an isolated cove in northern Newfoundland in the 18th century. Based onA quiet but absorbing, deeply imagined story of two young children orphaned in an isolated cove in northern Newfoundland in the 18th century. Based on a true story, or at least a tiny mention of a true story that Crummey came across in print. The Newfoundland vocabulary, the sense of time passing as the children age, and the psychological nuance are all great. This is a survival tale, that only gets more complicated when the children get to be teenagers and don’t just have to struggle against the natural world but also against themselves and human mores. For me the weakest part was the ending, which was both deeply distressing and abrupt. Without spoilers, events occur which make it hard to imagine how they’ll survive from here—and I felt the book needed to give that more space and time. Still, there’s a wonderful cyclical feel to even the finale, and the whole book, while brutal, is beautiful and compelling to read. ...more
I picked this book up expecting a page-turner about a very unusual family. The Galvin family of Colorado was twelve kids strong—ten sons, two daughterI picked this book up expecting a page-turner about a very unusual family. The Galvin family of Colorado was twelve kids strong—ten sons, two daughters. That’s already pretty unusual in the middle 20th century. But the family’s real story lies in the fact that six of those ten sons all developed schizophrenia.
The story of the Galvins is definitely a page-turner, but it’s also very sad and moving. Terrible things happened in this family. Many of the Galvin sons did awful things, and suffered awful things. Some of these things can be clearly tied to their mental illness, or to the mental health industry’s attempts to treat their illness. Others are just awful.
By the end of the book I felt so sad for these lost boys, and for their well but suffering family members. We know now that schizophrenia is mainly a genetic disease—although the exact details still elude us. We’re still baffled by all the different ways it presents, but reading about it from the perspective of family members makes it wrenching. So much lost potential, so many lost lives.
The two Galvin daughter emerge as true survivors, the main bearers of the family mantle and mythos. Reading this book felt at times a bit like reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks—a family story, a story about generations, a story about those who are lost and those who live on to tell the tale. ...more
The title is the summary. Hough was raised (“raised”?) in the Children of God cult, AKA The Family. In this collection of essays she writes about whatThe title is the summary. Hough was raised (“raised”?) in the Children of God cult, AKA The Family. In this collection of essays she writes about what her life has looked like since leaving as a teenager—a lesbian teenager with a jerk stepdad, a father still in the cult, a mother who seems to have tried her best, and all of 1990s-2020s America breathing down her neck. It hasn’t made for an easy life. You might remember Hough’s essay about working as a cable guy, in Huffington Post, a few years ago. I do. It was a great piece that combined interesting personal and insider professional details with broader observations about this moment we’re living through and the society we’re choosing to create. What is it like to be a tall butch lesbian fixing cable boxes and splitters in the DC area for a barely-living wage, going into houses where dudes sexually harass and assault you, or houses where housewives with haunted eyes plead with you to get Fox News working again so their husbands will have somewhere else to direct their anger? Hough can tell you, and she can also tell you what it’s like to live in a narcissistic, delusional cult obsessed with conformity and obedience. And it turns out those two things aren’t that different. I’m very glad Hough wrote this book, and I hope she’ll get paid a lot to write the next ones. ...more
Nobody’s likable in this one, but it’s a page-turner. Mother and daughter torment each other in a cycle of psychological illness, and by the end I wasNobody’s likable in this one, but it’s a page-turner. Mother and daughter torment each other in a cycle of psychological illness, and by the end I wasn’t sure if I was really rooting for...anyone?...more
This is the summer of the thriller, apparently. Another Moriarty title, again focused on the domestic lives of women in trying circumstances. MoriartyThis is the summer of the thriller, apparently. Another Moriarty title, again focused on the domestic lives of women in trying circumstances. Moriarty is so good at creating real-feeling characters with complex lives and problems, whom I tend to like even if I have nothing in common with them. And then comes the wringer. Secrets, shared guilt, bad luck, and missed chances are served up for everyone in a wonderfully interconnected story with an epilogue that twists things around even further. ...more
Filling in my Russian gap, 542 pages at a time. I read the Constance Garnett translation, which I only learned halfway through is maybe not consideredFilling in my Russian gap, 542 pages at a time. I read the Constance Garnett translation, which I only learned halfway through is maybe not considered the best and most tonally accurate. One does not stop reading Dostoevsky halfway through, though, so I’ll be interested to peek into other translations here and there to see if I can tell more about his style.
**spoiler alert** Edie Middlestein is a big, big woman. In her sixties, she’s eating herself past ill health and into serious territory, the territory**spoiler alert** Edie Middlestein is a big, big woman. In her sixties, she’s eating herself past ill health and into serious territory, the territory of diabetes, surgery, and even death. Her husband Richard has reached the end of his abilities, and he leaves her. Their adult children are horrified—with Edie’s inability to change course, with Richard’s apparent callousness and faithlessness. Of course, it’s all a little more complicated than that.
This is a book about imperfect people in an imperfect family, set against the backdrop of Jewish suburban Chicago. It’s of course got some funny moments—the b’nai mitzvah of the Middlestein twin grandchildren as observed by the friends of their grandparents is pretty great—and it’s got some surprises. I would have liked to go deeper into Edie and Richard’s crumbling marriage, to understand more about why he says it was killing him and why Edie was so hard to live with, exactly. But I thought the book did a pretty good job of seeing someone who struggled mortally with food and her weight as a complete person, who was loved and celebrated as well as misunderstood and despaired of. And this was definitely a book about a woman, a family, and only secondarily (tertiarily?) about men, which was refreshing and welcome. ...more
I’ve never read Rendell before, and I think this might have been her last book, which was maybe a dubious place to start. But it was absorbing, in a fI’ve never read Rendell before, and I think this might have been her last book, which was maybe a dubious place to start. But it was absorbing, in a fast-paced way. Less of a mystery and more of a thriller, interested in how guilt and anxiety about wrongdoing are their own punishment. There are some tangential storylines here that don’t really fully tie together, but it all feels forgivable in the big picture. Landlords, beware. This is a bit of a nightmare tale. ...more
Horrifying and also wonderful, intensely readable and also super-disturbing. Short stories set in Enriquez’s native Argentina, all of them scary and uHorrifying and also wonderful, intensely readable and also super-disturbing. Short stories set in Enriquez’s native Argentina, all of them scary and upsetting in some way but also so interesting. The translator also did Samanta Schweblin’s two books in English, FEVER DREAM and MOUTHFUL OF BIRDS, and she does an amazing job and provides a brief note at the end, commenting on the political context among other things. Argentine Gothic is a thing. ...more
I loved Fifteen Dogs, and I loved the blurbs for this, but for some reason it just didn’t come together for me. Even the physical book is gorgeous—incI loved Fifteen Dogs, and I loved the blurbs for this, but for some reason it just didn’t come together for me. Even the physical book is gorgeous—incredible cover design, heavy paper, a terrific job. And yet the story just seemed to wander without making any of the memorable stops I was hoping for.
I was prepared for a peripatetic, picaresque tale of a journey through the underworld. Alexis’s prose and his mind are still elegant and persuasive, as they were in Fifteen Dogs. And I still like to see him spin a sugar-candy tale, full of subtle humor and gentle satirical pokes, out of philosophy and epistemology. But this one just didn’t come together.
If you’re from southern Ontario, this might entice you more. It’s a bit of a love letter, Alexis style, to that landscape and culture, which escapes my West Coast psyche. ...more
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