Review: THE GUN, by Fuminori Nakamura

The Gun, by Fuminori Nakamura. Published 2016 by Soho Crime. Translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell.

The Gun is definitely not your usual crime novel. It's not a whodunit; it's barely a procedural, and the murder doesn't occur until the book is almost over. It reads more like an after-the-fact confession; the narrator, who is not named, recounts the slow burn of circumstance that leads to the killing. Out for a walk one night he finds a gun next to a body; he takes the gun and becomes obsessed with it. He's a student and when we meet him he's juggling two women, but nothing else in his life compares to the feelings he has for his new best friend.

Over time he begins to feel that he must fire the gun. Then he starts to plan a murder.

The Gun is Nakamura's first novel and the latest to be translated into English; first to come stateside was The Thief, which Soho published in 2002. Nakamura has a won several prizes for his writing including the 2002 Shincho Prize for New Writers for The Gun and the 2012 David Goodis Award, an American crime writing prize.

I can see why. Nakamura keeps the tone so even and so low-key even as the narrator descends more and more into madness and obsession. Even as he commits his crime, which comes and goes by so quickly I had to re-read the passage.

You have to be up for something a little different to get into The Gun, but I strongly recommend it for crime readers up for an adventure. I'll be reading more Nakamura sooner rather than later. (In fact I just entered a galley giveaway for his latest, The Boy in the Earth. I hope to win!)

Rating: BACKLIST

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: BORN A CRIME, by Trevor Noah

Born A Crime, by Trevor Noah. Published 2016 by Spiegl & Grau. Nonfiction, memoir.

I'm a fan of Trevor Noah, host of "The Daily Show," but I would have read this book in any case. Born A Crime is a memoir of his childhood in South Africa and a very particular story it is. His mother is African and Xhosa, and his father is European and Swiss; he was raised by his mother and later a stepfather and has straddled three worlds racially and culturally- the black South African world, the white one, and the "colored" one, which is the world of mixed-race people. And he was "born a crime" because sexual relations between races was illegal and his mother did in fact go to jail for a time.

Overall the book is a delight. You can hear Noah's voice as you read and that voice is frank, intelligent and no-nonsense. He's also very funny and tells stories both dark and humorous with a light touch. I really enjoyed it cover to cover.

So that said, Born A Crime can be choppy and somewhat difficult to follow in terms of a clear timeline but what is very clear is his sense of joy, confusion, his struggle to find a place for himself, and above all his love for his mother Patricia, an independent and nonconformist woman who taught Noah that anything is possible. But you do have to read between the lines to get a full sense of what it was like to grow up Trevor Noah; we only learn about his stepfather towards the end of the book but the experience of living with a man who was constantly trying to push him out and dominate the family must have colored his entire childhood. He doesn't tell us that, but if you look for it I bet you can find it.

He recounts stories from school, from outside of school with his friends and "entrepreneurial associates" (my term) one might say- the people with whom he established quasi-criminal off-the-books businesses pirating music and doing DJ gigs. He tells us about the time he was arrested and the truly terrifying prospects of landing in a South African prison. He tells us about his relationship with his father, a distant but loving man who accepted Noah without question but played his cards close to the vest. To this day Noah says he hasn't been to Switzerland or met his Swiss extended family, although I wonder with the publication of this book if that's still the case.

The best parts of the book, both the easiest and the most difficult to read, are those about his relationship with Patricia, who brought him up hard and awash in love and support. He couldn't, and didn't, get away with anything, even when he thought he did. Finally we meet his abusive stepfather Abel, who alternately charmed and terrorized the two of them as well as Noah's young half-brother. This abuse climaxes when Abel shoots Patricia in the head; she survives, but something died that day, even if it wasn't she herself.

Like I said I would have read Born A Crime whether or not I was a fan of Noah's, just to read a first-hand memoir of growing up in South Africa at the tail end of apartheid and the beginning of the democratic era. There's a lot of information here; I learned a lot but like other books I've read about South Africa I'm left with plenty more questions and the realization that there is still so much I don't know. So that makes Born A Crime a terrific read on several levels. It's funny and entertaining; it's heartbreaking; it's educative, and it leaves you wanting more.

Rating; BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received a galley copy from the bookstore where I work.

Review: THE LONG ROOM, by Francesca Kay

The Long Room, by Francesca Kay. Published 2016 by Tin House Books. Literary Fiction.

Francesca Kay won the Orange Award for New Writers for her The Translation of the Bones; now she's back with a sad and suspenseful story of a empty man manipulated by his delusional love for a woman he doesn't know into the betrayal of a lifetime.

It's 1981 and we're in London; IRA bombings and the Cold War are what's for dinner in British intelligence and Stephen Donaldson is in his late 20s, a "listener" whose job it is to monitor and transcribe surveillance recordings of subjects of various kinds. Stephen lives alone and is the only surviving child of a controlling single mother. His workplace, the "long room" of the title, is the center of his life when a woman named Helen comes across the wires, wife of a subject known only as "Phoenix." Stephen is besotted with this woman and her voice, and constructs a fantasy life which takes root gradually and ultimately leads to his downfall.

I was hoping for a white-hot thriller when I picked up The Long Room but what Kay delivers is more on the order of a slow-burn tragedy. It is impossible to put down but not in a heart-racing way. It's just that once you get enmeshed in Stephen's growing delusions you'll want to see it through and into what lies beyond.

He starts breaking little rules, like visiting an out-of-bounds pub, and not so little rules, like finding out who "Phoenix" really is. Then things escalate before he even knows it. A man named Alberic befriends Stephen and the association seems harmless enough- just a guy to talk to at the pub. Is there something more? Christmas is coming and with it parties and of course his mother depends on him. His infatuation effects how Stephen handles all of his obligations, and profoundly distorts his judgement until little by little there is no going back.

I enjoyed The Long Room and I'd recommend it for literary fiction readers who maybe want to dip a toe in the spy genre. Not having read a lot of spy thrillers I don't know how it compares to others but I like it as a character study of a sad, lonely man and the bad choices he makes even though he knows better. It's a sharp study of what happens in the grips of a delusion.

Rating: BACKLIST

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from Tin House Books as part of their Galley Club program.

Review: BABA DUNJA'S LAST LOVE, by Alina Bronsky

Baba Dunja's Last Love, by Alina Bronsky. Published 2016 by Europa Editions. Translated from the German by Tim Mohr. Literary Fiction.

Alina Bronsky is one of my favorite contemporary writers; she's had four books translated into English and I've enjoyed them all, starting with the searing Broken Glass Park and continuing through her bittersweet and sad latest, Baba Dunja's Last Love. Set in modern day Eastern Europe in an area damaged by the Chernobyl disaster, she's part of a community of people who try to eke out a life despite the radiation and ongoing danger. Into this world come a father and daughter; Baba Dunja takes a liking to the little girl, for whom she fears, but soon something happens to the father and it's the fallout from that which determines the fate of the town and Baba Dunja herself.

Baba Dunja meanwhile is mother to two children who've left to make lives for themselves elsewhere; her daughter is in Germany and her son in America. She's fairly close to her daughter, who sends packages of food and other necessities. But it's news of her granddaughter Laura that keeps Baba Dunja afloat, and lately there hasn't been much of that. Baba Dunja does have a single letter from Laura, which she is unable to read and the search for a translator is always on her mind.

Baba Dunja's Last Love is a short book that will leave a deep mark on your heart. She's not really a crotchety-loner-with-a-heart-of-gold like Ove or Major Pettigrew; she's pretty golden right on the surface, suffused with love for her family and community even as they hurt her or drive her a little bit crazy. And she sticks up for them when it counts.

This is probably my favorite book of Bronsky's since Broken Glass Park and I urge readers to check out this moving and ultimately very sweet story about family and learning when to step up and when to step aside. I love this book a little more every time I think about it.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: THE CITY OF MIRRORS, by Justin Cronin

The City of Mirrors, by Justin Cronin. Published 2016 by Random House. Literary Fiction, Science Fiction.

So, I finally ate the whole thing. Late Friday night I finished the last few pages of The City of Mirrors and with it Justin Cronin's Passage trilogy comes to a close. Wow.

To catch you up, humankind has been laid waste by a deadly virus that originated in the jungles of South America and came to the United States as an experiment by a Harvard scientist working for the US government. Timothy Fanning is Patient Zero, the first infected in the jungle and the leader of the general contagion. The government scientists infect twelve men on death row and a little girl named Amy in furtherance of a project which hopes to produce a race of supersoldiers but instead creates a race of monsters ("virals" or infected persons) from ordinary people. In The Passage (volume 1) and The Twelve (#2) we see the origin of the virus and its devastating, immediate effects, and then move forward and see how humanity is faring about 100 years in the future. In short, the news isn't all that great.

All three books concern a core group of survivors- Peter, Alicia, Michael, Sara, Hollis, Theo, Mausami and Amy- and the original 13 infected men. Cronin introduces new characters along the way too as people have children, or move, or supporting characters from one section move to the center of the stage elsewhere. The City of Mirrors is long like the first two, and mostly weighted towards action with sizable chunks of exposition and backstory. In particular we learn about Timothy Fanning in great detail through an extended soliloquy near the beginning of The City and get to know a new character that Cronin introduces at the very end.

Plot-wise, The City of Mirrors recounts the end of the viral period and the beginning of a new world. There are several endings as the characters branch off to different destinies, and then there is a final ending, poetic and emotional, that loops us right back to the beginning. Have your tissues ready.

Did I like it? Yes. Cronin does a masterful job tying up the loose ends and giving his characters appropriate and satisfying endings. There was a little bit of bloat and I will admit to some skimming when it came to the backstories, especially the final bit when the book was about to end. At that point I was impatient for the plot to move and wasn't interested in the life story of someone who I was going to stop reading about in ten pages. But never let it be said that Cronin doesn't create richly drawn characters; that's what kept me reading, these people I'd come to care about so much.

If you are new to the Passage trilogy you should start with book one, The Passage, because these books depend on being read together and that's the best one anyway. But once you read The Passage be ready to be hooked. And when you get to The City of Mirrors you'll be too busy crying to worry about anything else. If you've already read the first two you will want to read this no matter what I say, and you should.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: THE CORE OF THE SUN, by Johanna Sinisalo

The Core of the Sun, by Johanna Sinisalo. Published 2016 by Grove Atlantic, Black Cat. Translated from the Finnish by Lola Rogers. Science fiction.

James Tiptree Jr. Award-winner Johanna Sinisalo takes us on a trip through a reimagined modern day Finland in The Core of the Sun (translated by Lola Rogers), as a young woman at odds with the rigid gendering laws of her society searches for her missing sister all the while battling her growing despondency through an addiction to capsaicin and black-market chili peppers.

Vanna, or Vera as she was born, has come of age in a culturally isolated Finland in which women are divided into two female genders- ultra-girly elois who are allowed to marry and have children, and sterilized morlocks destined for a life of sexless squalor and manual labor. Vanna herself is a morlock by temperament but tries to pass as an eloi because everything about her culture teaches her that to be an eloi is to be accepted, loved and celebrated while morlocks are scorned and rejected. Her beautiful sister Manna doesn't have to pretend though and accepts the life of an eloi without question. The sisters' relationship as seen through Vanna's memoirs form the emotional core of this immersive and fast-paced tale that uses multiple points of view to tell the story of how Vanna tries to escape both physically and psychologically, aided by her friend and confidante Jare, who has his own reasons for helping her.

The Core of the Sun reads like a Finnish Handmaid's Tale crossed with Brave New World, with more voices, and more hope. Sinisalo mixes Vanna and Jare's first-person perspectives with primary source documentation from this version of her country and some real history too, like the story of the silver foxes and the early days of eugenics. In this version, Finland has evolved into a "eusistocracy," in which everyone, male and female, is slotted into rigid gender roles supposedly for the betterment of the whole country. Of course this betterment comes at the price of freedom and Sinisalo makes sure we think about both the benefits and the costs associated with this vision of Scandinavian life.

This review also appears on SFinTranslation.com.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: SWEET LAMB OF HEAVEN, by Lydia Millet

Sweet Lamb of Heaven, by Lydia Millet. Published 2016 by WW Norton. Literary Fiction.

A young mother with a secret and her toddler daughter escape a controlling husband for a dingy Maine motel in the latest novel by acclaimed author Lydia Millet.

I've been a fan of Lydia Millet's for a while now, starting when I read her wonderful novel Magnificence. That was the third in a trilogy, and reading the first two novels in that series really locked her in for me as a new favorite writer. Here was someone who reminded me of a pre-dystopia Margaret Atwood, who wrote about peoples' lives with devastating insight and clarity and mixed the political into her very personal stories about growing up, marriage and everyday life, pushing past the domestic and into the sublime.

In her latest novel, she tells the story of a married woman named Anna who has taken her young daughter Lena and run away from her husband, a budding and controlling politician. They are hiding out at a motel in Maine as Anna tells their story through journal entries and flashbacks.  But Anna and Lena have a secret; when Lena was a baby, Anna (and maybe her husband too) heard voices. These weren't voices in their head; these were like radio broadcasts or transmissions and included music, recognizable passages from literature, and more. The voices always seemed tied to whatever Lena was doing and once she started to talk the voices stopped. But in a way they have continued to haunt Anna in their new life at the motel.

What starts as a quiet narrative picks up steam when Anna's husband catches up with them and kidnaps Lena. From here the book takes a turn into thriller territory but we never quite leave the supernatural behind.

I welcomed the change of pace since the book did start off slow for me. I hung in because I trust Millet to deliver, and she did. That said, Sweet Lamb of Heaven isn't going to be for every reader. It reminds me a lot of Curtis Sittenfeld's 2013 novel Sisterland (read my review here), about two sisters, adultery, sibling rivalry and psychic phenomena. That one was a rewarding read that was also a tough sell and I'd save recommending Sweet Lamb for the reader who isn't afraid of domestic fiction with an edge. I liked it a lot; I always admire Millet's work for the way she portrays the quiet of everyday life as well as the undercurrent of our inner lives.

Rating: Backlist

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: CHARLOTTE BRONTE: A FIERY HEART, by Claire Harman

Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart, by Claire Harman. Published 2016 by Knopf. Nonfiction. Biography.

Award-winning critic and writer Claire Harman portrays the author of Jane Eyre as an introverted genius devoted to her craft and her family in this novelistic and deeply satisfying biography.

I don't read a lot of biographies, but when I do it's usually because I'm already a fan of the person being written about, so you'd have to get up pretty early in the morning to leave me dissatisfied. In other words, the chances of me not liking a book about the author of one of my favorite novels are pretty slim. That said, I did love Harman's new Brontë biography, which covers her entire, short life, from birth to the start of her life after death.


Harman portrays Brontë's family as close and inwardly-focused, dominated by the paterfamilias Patrick, a minister with a temper and a tight rein on his five children Maria, Branwell, Emily, Anne and Charlotte. Charlotte was very close to all of her siblings and a biography of her is in large part a biography of this family. Maria died too young to be a part of the creative hive that the remaining four developed later, which continued until Anne and Emily passed within months of each other. Branwell's story is also tragic, his life lost to alcohol and addiction and a hopeless and scandalous love affair. Charlotte's career was bumpier than I realized, even after the success of Jane Eyre, and she remained haunted by a failed love of her own, until she married and briefly settled down until her premature death in her mid-30s, possibly, Harman tells us, due to complications related to pregnancy.

Charlotte Brontë is absorbing read that held my attention completely; I read it at the gym so it was competing with a lot of ambient noise and I could only read it 45 minutes at a time, but I actually started working out more so I'd have more time for it. It's a treat to hear Brontë's voice through her letters and early writing and to learn about Brontë family, especially her father and sisters. Emily in particular seemed like someone with a rich interior life. Brontë's relationship with Elizabeth Gaskell, also an important Brontë biographer, is a big part of Brontë's adult and professional life. I'd recommend the book strongly to fans of any or all of the Brontës, or for anyone who likes a good character-driven novel. It would make a great brainy summer read.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from Knopf.

Review: THE PIRATE, by Jón Gnarr

The Pirate, by Jón Gnarr. Published 2016 by Deep Vellum. Translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith.

In the followup to Gnarr's The Indian and the second in a trilogy of fiction/memoir about 1970s Iceland, a young teen with learning and social difficulties finds himself attracted to punk rock and all it represents as he tries to find his way through school and family life.

Jón is a middle school kid stuck in the middle. At school his fellow students mercilessly bully him while his teachers barely register his presence, and at home his parents struggle in vain to control a child who's experimenting with drugs and drinking. Jón has an especially difficult relationship with his father, a police officer. He finds consolation in music and becomes drawn to punk rock with its heady mix of freedom, rebellion and camaraderie. Instead of going to school he hangs out with other disaffected kids- runaways, dropouts and misfits- where he starts to find community and a purpose.

Gnarr the writer does an incredible job of telling the story from a kid's perspective, showing Jón's naivete and idealism, along with poor judgement, tortured kid-logic and blasé cynicism and emotional detachment. When his grandmother dies, Jón takes it in stride: "She was from another world, a shadowy, ancient world where it was always cold and everyone was wet and either hungry or very ill the whole time. So they tended to die sooner or later." His relationship with his mother is summed up in the opening paragraphs: "She had a downcast expression. 'Come have a chat with me, Jón.' She wasn't angry. I hadn't done anything. I'd even been unusually quiet. But whenever I heard that tone in her voice it meant she blamed me for something, like the time she found cigarettes in my pocket." And his father is just "weird."

Gnarr goes on to describe the intolerable abuse he suffered at the hands of his schoolmates who stalk and beat him daily. He doesn't know what to say to his parents. It's as though the world is split in two, between what goes on inside and outside his home. He makes friends with a bus driver and finds a group of kids to hang out with with issues similar to his own. Little by little he finds some purpose, some things to believe in, rooted in the belief that he's different somehow:

My brain was like a nuclear power plant producing endless ideas and words. The words were three-dimensional, and under each word were sentences, new meanings, possibilities. The words swapped, merged, formed new sentences. the words played on the emotions like harp...But others didn't see me with my eyes. They wouldn't. They just saw me with their eyes. The lived in prison. but I was outside. I was free, but they were closed off...They were blind because they did not see.

Ah, yes, that wonderful child's belief that they know things adults don't, like the adults had never been kids or had utterly forgotten what it was like and are incapable of empathy. It takes a child's narcissism to believe that you know more about what someone else is thinking than they do, and I love how Gnarr replicates this state of mind so perfectly. It stands alone well but would probably be rewarding to read as part of the series too. The Pirate is brilliant, heartbreaking and so true to a kid's brain it's painful sometimes, great for adult readers of adult or YA fiction.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.