The Fifth Avenue Artists Society by Joy Callaway is set in the Bronx in the 1890’s. It is a story about a family of artists, four sisters and a brother living in genteel poverty after their father dies. Ginny wants desperately to be a published author, yet struggles to find a publisher because she is a woman. When her brother brings her to a salon of artists she seems to find a place where all voices are equal, male or…
Touch by Courtney Maum is a timely and modern novel addressing life in our high tech, digital era where we often touch our iphones more than we touch each other. Sloane is a trend forecaster and anti-breeder. When hired by a huge tech company, she begins to sense that old-fashioned values and physical intimacy might be making a come back, along with the flip phones and postage stamps. I found this book at turns hilarious and terrifying, thinking of the…
The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in Heaven is Sherman Alexie’s first collection of stories, some written when he was only 19. The movie Smoke Signals, which I loved, is based on this collection of stories. Here, Alexie gives us a rather bleak depiction of reservation life near Spokane Washington for modern day Indians. Almost every story features very drunk Indians, often getting in fights. But there is so much more here. His writing is beautiful, poetic, sparse, lyrical, funny….
Hum if You Don’t Know the Words is the excellent debut novel by South African writer Bianca Marais. Set in the 70’s in Johannesburg, it tells the story of a privileged young white girl and Xhosa woman, who under normal circumstances would never have met, but end up changing each others lives forever. Told from alternating perspectives, it is a brilliant portrait of racism set in apartheid-era South Africa, yet sadly still relevant today. A great read.
I’ll Be Your Blue Sky is the new novel by Marisa De Los Santos. Although this isn’t my favorite of hers, I love all her books. Twenty-something Clare is engaged to the seemingly perfect man, but has cold feet on her wedding day, when she meets Edith, an older woman, who with her gentle wisdom shows Clare she doesn’t have to go through with the wedding if it doesn’t feel right. Three weeks later, Edith is dead and has left…
A Man Called Ove is the debut novel by Fredrik Backman. I decided to go back and read this after reading My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry. Although not as good as his later novels, I still found this to be a worthwhile read. Ove is a very grumpy older man whose wife has just died, and with nothing left to live for he’s decided to take his own life. However, things like nosy neighbors keep getting…
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin is a novel about four siblings in NYC who go to a fortune teller her when they are all very young and she tells them each the day of their death. What enfolds is each one’s life story and the creepy end predicted by the fortune teller. Is it fate? Self fulfilling prophecy? This story was so far fetched I had a hard time finishing the book, I found it ridiculous, depressing and pointless. A…
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is the latest book by Swedish author Fredrik Backman. It follows seven year old Elsa on a journey of discovery as she attempts to give letters to all the people her Grandmother wants to apologize to after she dies. Her Grandmother was her very best and only friend, and she was a little bit crazy. They shared a made up world and language, and now Elsa is left on her own…
The Oleander Sisters by Elaine Hussey is a novel set in Biloxi Mississippi on the Gulf Coast in 1969 as hurricane Camille fast approaches. Sis, Sweet Mama, Beulah, and Jim all rally around Emily when she decides to marry a man they all know to be abusive. There is little here that is original and I thought I’d die if I had to read the words Amen Cobbler one more time. This is one to skip.
LaRose by Louise Erdrich is another of her novels about the Ojibwe people of North Dakota. This one opens with Landreaux, a recovered alcoholic, out hunting deer, and mistakenly shooting and killing his neighbors five year old son. As everyone involved is devastated by this accident, Landreaux turns to an old Ojibwe tradition of giving his five year old son LaRose to his neighbors in retribution. What follows is one of the most painful, brilliant and ultimately redeeming novels I’ve…