2022: Year in Review

Another year where I'm pleased with my reading! I completed 36 books, though I didn't write about most of them. In the fall, I began a self-directed "independent study" on Kentucky writers. I've taught in the state for over a a decade, and yet I know little about the area's literature or history. Since my students live close to Cincinnati, they're in many ways Cincinnati suburbanites, but there are still many historically "Kentucky" elements that shape their identities, whether its the preponderance of fishermen and hunters or a rural conservatism. I suppose my entre into Kentucky writing is meant to probe the area and my students' lives, coming to some sort of better understanding of both. I'm also hoping, eventually, to translate my readings into some sort of unit for my students. 

Fortunately I began my Kentucky exploration with Wendall Berry's fantastic The World-Ending Fire, much of which I listened to via Nick Offerman's appropriately plainspoken audiobook narration. I followed with novels, short stories, essays, and poems. Some day I'll put it all together. I did mark the Kentucky authors below (eight altogether). 

I found Cloud Cuckoo Land immensely enjoyable. I also really liked Nightbitch, which captures a mother's identity after the birth of a child (though I could empathize with the narrator, I was also able to feel a bit smug now that I'm past the intensity of the baby/toddler years). Other good contenders: The Right to Sex (I need to read more essay collections), Groundskeeping (another KY writer!), Lost Daughter (love the film).

1. Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So
2. Problems by Jade Sharma
3. The Natural Man by Ed McClanahan [KY]
4. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
5. The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan
6. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
7. Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
8. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
9. Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
10. Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson
11. Passing by Nella Larsen
12. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
13. Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward
14. The Life of the Mind by Christine Smallwood
15. Groundskeeping by Lee Cole [KY]
16. The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
17. The Idiot by Elif Batuman
18. In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders
19. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
20. Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante
21. The Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
22. All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir
23. The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen
24. Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
25. Matrix by Lauren Groff
26. World-Ending Fire by Wendell Berry [KY]
27. Midnight Magic by Bobbie Ann Mason [KY]
28. Think Like a Freak by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
29. The Birds of Opulence by Crystal Wilkinson [KY]
30. Kentucky Straight by Chris Offut [KY]
31. Liberation Day by George Saunders
32. The Hurting Kind by Ada Limon [KY]
33. The Truth about White Lies by Olivia A. Cole [KY]
34. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
35. Constructing a Nervous System by Margo Jefferson
36. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

Other stats: fifteen male writers, twenty-one female; ten books by writers of color. Five short story collections, five nonfiction. Six books published before 2000. Welcome 2023.

"Oh William!" by Elizabeth Strout

I was recently sick--far more than I usually get--and I had to take about a week and a half off from my normal physical routines (rock climbing and a twice-a-week weight-lifting class). When I finally resumed, I was surprised (even though I shouldn't have been) at how sore I was. In just a short period of time, my body somehow lost its conditioning.

I've written about this many times before, but it's funny how my mind does the same with writing. When I take even a little time off (and usually it's a lot of time, not a little), I feel like I lose all skill and eloquence. I fear I've become dull and unable to write. So here's me attempting to resist the pull of inaction. 

Oh William! marked a break in my "unit" on Kentucky writers. It's also my third Elizabeth Strout book, though I only recalled Olive Kitteridge (which makes sense given that I gave a withering review to The Burgess Boys). What I remember most about Olive Kitteridge is the voice Strout gave to her characters--one that was unique and clearly defined.

The same is true--and is, in fact, the hallmark--of Oh William!, in which the voice given to the protagonist and narrator, Lucy Barton, is what makes the novel. On its own, the story isn't particularly interesting. Lucy's second husband has recently passed, and she has a complicated but amicable relationship with her first husband, William, with whom she has two adult daughters. William is in disarray after his third wife leaves him, and he unexpectedly learns that his late mother had a child (unbeknownst to William) with her first husband. Lucy joins William on a trip to Maine to learn about this half-sister.

Again, none of this should be particularly interesting, but somehow Lucy, with all her faults and insecurities, is a fascinating character. Oh William! is a sequel of sorts to My Name is Lucy Barton, which details Lucy's upbringing in an abusive home. Lucy references that book and her traumatic upbringing a number of times throughout Oh William!. I think it would be easier to long for the first novel (which I haven't read) and its more sordid tale, but somehow I didn't. Instead, I was engaged with Lucy's attempts to understand her ex-husband, and her attempts to understand her strengths and faults. As she notes, she's a rare success story as a woman who escaped an awful childhood and became a famous novelist, but Lucy hasn't shed the fear and anxiety of her childhood. She still feels invisible and often becomes unreasonably frightened. She realizes that a large part of why she married William was because he exuded the strength and confidence that she lacked. She admires William, but in doing so, she also makes excuses for him (notably from his many affairs). Part of the novel's trajectory is Lucy coming to terms more honestly with William's strengths and weaknesses.

Late in the novel, William tells Lucy that what drew him to her was her joy--a particularly unexpected joy given where she came from. Despite Lucy's fears and anxieties, her joy also permeates the book: her adoration for her children; her care for William and her second husband; her appreciation for the small details in her life. 

Though I wish I'd read My Name is Lucy Barton first, I'm not entirely sure I want to go back and read it now. I prefer to see Lucy not as a battered youth but as an adult woman who has managed to get through--not unscathed, but not destroyed.