"Erasure" by Percival Everett

I checked out Erasure after seeing the trailer for the upcoming movie American Fiction, based on the book. I was a little surprised to learn the book was more than twenty years old. The trailer, at least, seemed to situate the story in a post-2020 world of anxious white publishers attempting to "reckon" with their publishing bias and privilege--and, of course, failing miserably, being all the more biased and privileged for their patronizing attempts to recognize "real" Black voices. Though I'm eager to see the film, it came as a happy surprise to find that the film's source material has a far different focus. Everett's book doesn't care about white privilege much, though of course the book's protagonist, "Monk" Ellison, is furious that his books on philosophical classics are labeled as "African American Fiction" and that the only Black books that sell focus relentlessly on a caricature of dire struggle in the "ghetto." And a central feature of the novel is the parody Monk writes in this vein that, not-so-ironically, goes on to be a beloved, award-winning bestseller. But despite all these conflicts, Everett is focused primarily on family--Monk's complicated relationships with his siblings and parents; how his sense of self-identity was formed from those relationships.

Monk is both arrogant and insecure. He was his father's favorite, but his doctor siblings seem far more accomplished. He writes dense, complicated books that no one reads or understands. He has no relationships beyond his family, and even those are considerably cool. He finds pleasure in philosophy and wood-working, but beyond that, he seems adrift. He's forced into action when his sister is murdered and his mother's health takes a significant decline. In other books, such a catalyst might force change or growth, but Monk's path isn't that simple. He's furious at himself for "selling out," but he takes no righteous stand. He's overly-generous, too late, to peripheral people in his life, but he can't rescue the relationships he actually cares about. 

Erasure, like Monk, is a little dense and not always entirely clear. But that just means that Monk is a compelling and complicated character. Similarly, the social satire the film will undoubtedly explore is still there, but more ambiguous. After all, at some point, I started to wonder if Monk's parody was actually good. 

"Small Things Like These" by Claire Keegan

On the one hand, there's nothing altogether shocking about Small Things Like These, which revolves around an Irishman's realization that the convent near his home is abusing young women. Revelations like these about the Magdalene laundries and other abuses perpetrated by the Catholic Church have made the news and been turned into a number of recent movies and books. The increasing visibility of such stories don't reduce their horrors at all, but it does mean a new book on the topic needs to do more than just reveal the atrocities.

Fortunately, Keegan's Small Things Like These does just that, spending little time on describing the abuse--most of it is assumed, unsaid--and instead focusing on her protagonist, Bill Furlong. Bill is a good man; he's a loving father and husband, a respected boss, and a reliable citizen. The only "stain" on his character is his parentage: his mother gave birth young, out of wedlock, and Bill never learned who the father was. Still, he was protected from the worst treatment as a child of an unwed mother because of his mother's employer, who protected and cared for her and Bill.

Bill is a good man, but like most people, his day-to-day is consumed by the mundane of tasks to be done. He tries to find time to think and make sense of the world around him, but the pace of daily life is relentless. When he is forced to confront the convent's abuse directly, he does as most do and falls into politeness and easy escapes.

Bill, his wife, and his daughters are comfortable, but they're not secure. They can buy small indulgences for Christmas, but Bill knows a blown car engine will mean putting off new house windows for several more years. That precariousness--the sense that any good in life can be undone in a moment--shapes most of Bill's thoughts. 

Nevertheless, in the end, Bill makes the "right" choice and rescues one of the girls. Though he repeatedly acknowledges that this isn't an easy victory, as there will be repercussions for his actions, I still was initially disappointed with Keegan's book. After all, she chose to finish on a high note with Bill's heroism, which felt like it overshadowed the enormous coda that there is no pat happy ending.

But then I thought about it a little more. Keegan's Small Things Like These isn't a novel, or really even a novella. It's a short story, which I say not to criticize the publisher's decision to print as a standalone book, but rather to note that its success relies on the short story form. In short stories, nothing is resolved, as they're typically only a snapshot of a character, a setting, a dilemma. It's a moment in time when a decision is made. To that end, Keegan's made a moving portrait of a man trying to do good, not just out of sympathy for his mother (though that plays a role), but because he recognizes the importance of "daily kindnesses" and the value of allowing "the best bit" of oneself to "shin[e] forth, and surfac[e]."

(as an additional note, though any group of stories doesn't tell all stories, it's increasingly hard to believe the Catholic Church has done any good in the world)

"Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay" by Elena Ferrante

I hadn't realized that I read My Brilliant Friend, the first in the Neapolitan quartet, over two years ago. I recently recommended Lying Life of Adults to a friend, and when she liked it, she started the quartet--which of course got me going on the series again. So now I've finished the third book, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, which follows Elena and Lila as they navigate adulthood as wives and mothers while also pursuing careers.

In rereading my initial review, I'm struck by how closely Ferrante has maintained her central themes without producing books that feel repetitive and reductive. Across all three books, the central characteristics are the same: Lila is brilliant; Elena, despite more outward success than Lila, feels forever in Lila's shadow. Both women are still tied to the claustrophobic neighborhood of their childhood--Lila literally, and Elena by her inability to escape the town's ongoing drama and tension, even when she moves away.

What dominates this novel more than the earlier ones is the political tension broiling over class conflict and even a burgeoning feminist movement. Those tensions have always existed, but now that Elena and Lila are older, they find themselves more directly involved: Lila by working at an abusive factory and Elena by reporting on the abuse. These tensions are especially ambiguous for Elena, whose education, success as an author, and marriage into a well-off family seem to rise her above her station. Yet she feels continuously reminded of the poverty of her childhood, and no amount of success allows her to shake the imposter syndrome she's internalized. She never feels confident unless praised by those she assumes are superior, and even then, she views any "brilliance" she reveals as more that of a trained parrot--repeating the "right" phrases through careful study--than any intelligence of her own.

Yet Elena is smarter than she gives herself credit for, especially as she considers her relationship with her husband, Pietro. He appears a "modern" man--one who refuses to get married in a church and praises Elena's education--yet he quickly shows himself as small-minded as any chauvinist of his day. After all, you don't have to hit women to insist they take on a inferior role.

But I think what makes these novels work is that, among all the political considerations, Elena (and Lila too) are also consumed by the pettiest of jealousies and slights. They're brilliant and they're also incredibly human: selfish, judgmental, stubborn. These traits are especially evident in Elena's feelings for Nino, whom she's been infatuated with since childhood. Nino's torrid affair with Lila consumed most of book two, but in book three it's Elena who ends up with her childhood crush. There ought to be some celebration when Elena and Nino get together, but it's clear he's a complete cad--even Elena knows it but can't help herself. We know Elena is ruining her life when she runs away from her husband and children (echoes of one of Ferrante's other books, The Lost Daughter), but it's clear her life before wasn't good either. And perhaps can never be. Ferrante's created a character who can never be satisfied--partially because of her own personality and partially because she's been set up, since birth, to feel that way.

Book one begins with Lila's disappearance, at the age of sixty. I'm eager to get to that moment in book four--to see where Elena ends up after she and Nino (inevitably) dissolve; to see if Elena and Lila can have the real conversation Elena wants; and to see if Elena can shake off the drowning whirlpool of Naples once and for all.

P.S. Get this series a better cover!

"I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home" by Lorrie Moore

I'm feeling rusty. Not a good start for a book that I liked but is sort of hard to define. It's far easier to complain and criticize.

I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home is a book made of two disparate, and drastically unequal, parts. The majority of the book concerns Finn and his relationships with two people: his brother Max, who is dying in hospice; and his former-girlfriend Lily, who has died by suicide... but is now joining Finn on a road trip. The second story is in epistolary form from a late-19th-century hotel owner to her deceased sister. As the New York Times review put it, the novel "braids a historical ghost story with a zombie romance."

Okay. So not surprisingly the book is about grief and loss and all the undefinable messiness that comes with it. The epistolary story is a bit mysterious and then jauntily shocking. The Finn romance is more complicated. I loved the early part of the story with Finn talking at Max's bedside. Moore captures the absurdity of the situation and the brothers' attempts to form meaning and maintain levity at the same time. However, halfway through the story, we shift to the zombie-romance road trip with Finn and the decaying-but-animated body of Lily. Here's where it gets trickier. The emphasis on Finn's conflicting feelings about Lily makes sense--how can you understand a relationship where one person wanted to end her life? What does that mean about her feelings about you? Your feelings for her? All fertile ground, but it's mixed into near-constant descriptions of Lily's decomposing body. Which, sure, emphasizes that Finn isn't talking to a real person, but rather a palimpsest of his ex-girlfriend, but it's still a lot. And I really don't want to read about someone having sex with a zombie. 

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book. Moore has a fantastic way with sentences--they hum with humor and meaning. There's a joke in almost every sentence, yet it doesn't feel overdone or hackneyed. It's the kind of book where you could do a deep-dive into just a single paragraph. Also the kind of book worth re-reading. 

"Queen of Scots" by John Guy

In traveling through Scotland this summer, I was often confronted with the complicated history between England and Scotland, particularly during the tumultuous reign of Mary, Queen of Scots. Despite many well-written plaques at Edinburgh Castle, I left the country mostly confused and set out to find a book that would do justice to the soap-opera tale, the showdown between Catholic Mary and Protestant Queen Elizabeth. Guy's Queen of Scots was well-reviewed, but ultimately I wished I'd just chosen a historical fiction version instead.

I get it--if you're a historical scholar, you do a lot of research. Especially if what you're writing about has already been researched and dissected for hundreds of years. And if you then write a book about that research, you want to include everything. For the fellow historical scholars who are reading the book, that kind of thoroughness is no doubt appreciated and necessary. But for an average reader who wants some insight on an important period in history, that level of thoroughness is simply tedious. There are so many names. There are so many complicated lineages and relationships. And a lot of them aren't that important to understanding the central conflict. A 200-page Reader's Digest condensed version might have been nice, but I found myself increasingly skimming as the book went on. It's a shame, too, because the story really is wild and deserving of a great, fact-based, narrative retelling.

Guy is also very clear in his allegiances. That's not necessarily bad, but it does come across a little oddly in a comprehensive biography. In Guy's view, Mary is a beautiful, charming, crafty strategist who makes only a few minor blunders. Queen Elizabeth also comes across well. But other people are dismissed out of hand as villains. 

I'm going to try the film adaptation and see if it's any better.

"Half-Life of a Stolen Sister" by Rachel Cantor

I've talked to friends about my belief in "literary karma," by which I mean that sometimes get the feeling that literature is coming together, without my knowledge, to say something to me. I know it's nothing more than awareness (eg, once you think about red cars, you see them everywhere), but I still choose to believe in a universe with meaning and intention.

Thus I've come to believe the universe has something to say to me about the Bronte sisters and their works. It began with the movie Emily, a romantic take on Emily Bronte's life, which led to me reading Wuthering Heights, which I hadn't read in years. Then, I did a hiking trip through the moors of Scotland, where I felt like I was living like a Bronte, and now I've read Half-Life of a Stolen Sister, a creative re-imagining of the sisters' (and the one brother's) lives.

What does it all add up to? I'm not sure, except for something about both solace and understanding; about the ferocity of passion even in the most mundane of circumstances. Maybe it says something to me that a quiet, ordinary life doesn't have to mean a quiet, ordinary person.

But back to Half-Life. One of the blurbs I read compares it to George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo. It's an apt description that would probably better prepare readers for the book than my vague description above of it as a "creative re-imagining of the Bronte sisters' lives." Cantor isn't particularly interested in writing historical fiction. Rather, her focus is on considering the interior of the sisters' lives, primarily Emily, Charlotte, and Anne, whose novels are now famous. The family was plagued by death--their mother would die and then all six siblings before the age of 40--and Cantor wonders what such grief would mean to the genius recluses. To probe those emotions, Cantor doesn't write a traditional narrative, but rather tells the story through diary entries and letters, among more unusual styles. In another move that will probably annoy a lot of people, she also doesn't confine herself to the 19th century, but rather weaves in an out of time periods (NPR and email play a role, for example) as suits her needs.

At first, I was a little frustrated with the novel, even though I enjoy post-modern stylistic techniques (I did abandon Lincoln in the Bardo, despite enjoying Saunders' other works immensely!). Still, as I settled down and read the book for longer periods, I appreciated the perspective Cantor's choices provided. There's plenty of Bronte biographies, and of course there are the Brontes' works, so it makes sense to offer something new.

The Brontes are fascinating character studies, even if we can only understand them in retrospect, putting our 21st-century perspective on lives that were very different than ours. Their lives may not actually have much in common with mine, but that doesn't mean I can't glean something about my own from theirs.

"The Constant Rabbit" by Jasper Fforde

I've enjoyed a number of Fforde's books--they're silly but in literary-minded way that still makes you feel smart. I've read most of the Thursday Next books as well as Shades of Grey. It's been awhile since I've read any of Fforde's works (2012, if this blog is correct), so The Constant Rabbit seemed an excellent choice for two long trans-Atlantic flights.

Previously the worst I could say about Fforde's books is that they didn't amount to much--a few goofy jokes without any lasting substance. In The Constant Rabbit, Fforde aims for substance but ends up with a lot of nothing, which may be even worse. The basic premise is that some fifty years ago, several rabbits suddenly became anthropomorphized--human-sized with human awareness to boot. What followed was years of prejudice, discrimination, and abuse couched in euphemistic terms. The book is obviously intended to be a satire of racism and xenophobia, as characters overtly and subtly project their fears on rabbits. 

When best used, satire highlights failings that the reader may be unaware of us, shedding new light on societal ills. The Constant Rabbit, on the other hand, just repeats standard racist lines, but about rabbits! I suppose it's supposed to be funny to hear discriminatory lines about rabbit habits rather than the habits of people from other cultures, but that humor isn't serving any greater good. Fforde acknowledges this in a conversation late in the book, where the rabbit Connie argues, "...maybe it's just satire for comedy's sake and nothing else... or even more useless, satire that provokes a few guffaws but only low to middling outrage--but it coupled with more talk and no action. A sort of... empty cleverness." Kudos to Fforde for being so explicit, but I still think of the Bo Burnham line "Self-awareness absolves you of nothing."

Overall I was disappointed with the novel. Sure, some of the lines have the "empty cleverness" that Fforde is so good at, but I couldn't help feeling he was using racism to further his book, rather than using his book to combat racism.