Review: MADE FOR LOVE, by Alissa Nutting

Made for Love, by Alissa Nutting. Published 2017 by Ecco. Audiobook narrated by Suzanne Elise Freeman. Literary Fiction. Science Fiction.

A woman runs away from her techonut husband while her elderly father finds companionship in a sex doll and another man becomes attracted to dolphins in Alissa Nutting's funny, twisted and thoroughly delightful new novel.

At the outset, Hazel, a young woman in her thirties, abandons her marriage to Byron Gogol. He is founder of a tech company looking to take over the world, or at least the people in it, through the introduction of more and more intrusive technology. Finally he wants to "meld minds" with his wife, in one-sided arrangement that would give him access to her every thought but give her nothing in return (haha sounds like my last relationship too). His incursions start out with low-level technostalking when they first meet and escalate to monitoring her without her knowledge 24/7. She wants out; what started out as a loveless marriage for money has become something frightening and deeply threatening and now, hiding at her father's house, she believes Byron will eventually kill her rather than let her go.

At the same time her father, who is more ill than he lets on, has taken up with a sex doll named Diane and wants to live out his remaining time in a fantasy world of plastic love. He lets Hazel stay with him for the time being, but only if she agrees to buy him a second doll.

Then there's Jasper, a con artist and gigolo who gets a number done on him after an encounter with a dolphin changes him in a way he struggles to come to terms with, first through employment at an aquarium and later through Gogle-sponsored surgery. Eventually all three characters come together, but not in any way I expected.

Made for Love; what does it mean? Hazel's father's doll was manufactured for sex; Hazel herself becomes an object in the eyes of her husband, there to be used for his experiments; and Jasper has created of himself a character who pretends to love women while he steals from them. But at a metaphorical level, or literal if you're religious, the human soul as made for love is a religious concept that reaches back to the Bible. Pope John Paul II said "A person's rightful due is to be treated as an object of love, not as an object for use." All three main characters, and many of the minor ones, have to learn this lesson over the course of this strange and wonderful book.

I'm calling this book science fiction because it is deeply concerned with the ways technology affects our lives, and portrays a current-day or near-future world in which technology is threatening to become hyper-intrusive, a world in which we have literally no privacy, not even the privacy of our own thoughts. The beating heart of the narrative is Byron Gogle's company, the extension of his self with its wireless tentacles stretching out, trying to enclose everyone in his life just as a start. Byron/Gogol's grasping is desperate and needy and belies Byron's blasé, blank affect; there's more going on with him than we see, but the whole point is that he is the one character whose interior life we will never see, and that's the way he wants it.  As his tentacles get closer and closer to our protagonists I was feeling a real tension and suspense, wondering how this was all going to turn out.

The ending is quick but satisfying; an otherwise throwaway character saves the day, and those that remain move on to uncertain but somehow better futures. I really enjoyed Made for Love; it was quirky, hilarious, edgy and at times outlandish, but it kept me reading and held my attention, which is saying a lot for audio fiction. Suzanne Elise Freeman's expert narration helped a lot too; she is expressive and charismatic and brought the words to life.  If you have a slightly off-kilter sense of humor and are ready for the unexpected, Made for Love is a great choice for you.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary audio listening copy from libro.fm.

Review: THE ROMANOV SISTERS, by Helen Rappaport

The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra. Published 2015 by St. Martin's Griffin. Nonfiction. History.

It might seem like a depressing topic for a book- the doomed lives of the four daughters of Russia's last tsar- and while it does get gloomy towards the end, for the most part I really enjoyed Helen Rappaport's biography of Anastasia, Maria, Tatiana and Olga Romanova, along with the stories of their parents and brother. Rappaport gives the reader an engaging and detailed portrait of a time, a place and seven lives that just weren't what they should have been.

Princess Alix of Hesse, granddaughter of Queen Victoria, married Nicholas of Russia as much for love as for dynastic reasons and together they had five children, all of whom they adored, even as they longed for that crucial son needed to continue the royal line. Rappaport talks about the mixture of joy and disappointment that greeted the birth of each of their four daughters and the subsequent mixture of trepidation and joy when their son Alexei was born with hemophilia. Rappaport portrays the tsar and tsarina as devoted parents and a loving couple and makes it clear that the survival of the line is Alexandra's primary goal. Thus her relief at Alexei's birth coupled with her growing and deepening anxiety around his delicate health. Rappaport also makes it clear that the Russian people never quite took to their German empress and that giving birth to daughter after daughter didn't help matters. Nor did her friendship with Rasputin, a controversial figure to say the least, and Alexandra's dependence on him was in no small way connected to her concern for Alexei, whom Rasputin seemed to be able to help. Meanwhile, she and other Russian royals tried to arrange marriages for the two older girls, and when that ship sailed, everyone did the best they could to protect them and each other. Sadly those efforts failed.

The book gives the reader a detailed and intimate look at the family and only really hints at the political strife swirling around them. We get to know each girl a little- Anastasia the tomboy and jokester, sweet Maria and lovelorn Olga and Tatiana. They love sailing; they love their parents, and they try to be good at the job of being grand duchesses. But they are also ordinary girls trying to make their way in a narrow version of the world. We see their constrained and isolated lives become more and more so as revolution brewed in Russia and some knowledge of the political history of the revolution would aide the reader in getting a deeper appreciation of why their lives changed from those of beloved princesses in a gilded palace to prisoners and finally to murder victims. That said, it is a remarkable and unforgettable story, sad to the end though it is.

Rating: BUY

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

Review: THEFT BY FINDING, by David Sedaris

Theft by Finding, by David Sedaris. Published 2017 by Little, Brown. Nonfiction. Memoir. Humor. Audiobook.

Oh how I love David Sedaris's memoirs. Way back when I remember splurging on a hardcover edition of Holidays on Ice, because I just had a feeling it would speak to me. And it did.

Anyway after reading his books steadily for the past 18-odd years I've decided the best way to enjoy him is on audio- he is a great narrator of his own work and really adds a whole new dimension with his expressions and voice. Thus even though I did run out and buy a hardcover of Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002 as soon as it came out, I also jumped on a free audio version that Libro.fm offered to booksellers. What a treat.

At the very beginning Sedaris informs, or warns, us that this book is a very selective and incomplete edition of his diaries, which are far more voluminous than even this weighty tome would suggest. But what remains is vastly entertaining, bittersweet at times, at times obscene, crazy, or just plain silly and weird. It's also mundane, tender, jumpy, and intimate, and all these contradictory things at once. The narrative feels disconnected at times, since there is no real narrative, just a selection of events over time that give the reader some insight into Sedaris's priorities when it comes to observation, as well as his creative process and eye for detail. Some characters stand out; his relationship with his siblings always sits front and center, as well as his parents and his partner Hugh, who comes on to the scene about midway through this volume. Sedaris is cagey and economical about what he includes about the relationship; they meet, meet again, and the next we hear they are moving in together. It's not a lot but the particulars he chooses are enough to give a sense. I don't know why I'm particularly fascinated with this aspect of his life, but there you go.

Sedaris's voice joined me for a couple of weeks of bus rides and walks and he is a great companion. He says in the introduction that he doesn't expect readers to listen all at once, but "dip in and out" and this is just about what I did, listening for a few minutes here and there as I did errands, traveled around the city or relaxed at home or worked on crafts. I listened to quite a bit of it in the car, as my husband and I drove to and from Washington, D.C., two weekends ago. But for the most part I consumed the book in stolen moments.

And this approach worked well for a diary, written as it is in fits and spurts and crystallizing individual moments in time. Readers will travel with Sedaris all over the United States, to England, France and elsewhere, and from his early days of housecleaning and fruit picking through to his success as a writer. You'll get to know his family, especially his sisters and parents, and of course Hugh. You'll listen to experience his first successes and occasional struggles, like learning French or losing his cat Neil. Poor Neil.

Theft by Finding isn't laugh-out-loud funny like his polished memoir writing but it's so very enjoyable in a more low-key way. I could listen to him all day.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary audio copy from Libro.fm.

Review: THE LITERARY CONFERENCE, by César Aira

The Literary Conference, by César Aira. Published 2010 by New Directions. Translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver.

Argentine author César Aira's 2010 gem of science fiction hilarity is about a wealthy scientist who wants to take over the world by cloning the late Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes. More than this I cannot tell you, because the book is very short and consists mainly of the ruminations of this scientist about his pet project, and the consequences thereof.

What I will say is that if you enjoy your science fiction with a hefty dose of surreal comedy, this is the book for you. Or if you enjoy your surreal comedy with a coating of science fiction. Or if you just like books that make you scratch your head and laugh. Or if you can read.

I am a huge fan of Aira's and his books are my favorite literary treats. Short and perfect and unforgettable, please read The Literary Conference.

Rating: BUY

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

Review: THE END OF EDDY, by Édouard Louis

The End of Eddy, by Édouard Louis. Published 2017 by FSG. Literary Fiction. Translated from the French by Michael Lucey.

The End of Eddy is a tough read. Sitting somewhere between fiction and autobiography, Édouard Louis tells the story of himself as a boy, growing up in a blue collar town in northern France, a perpetual misfit- effeminate, bookish, and gay in a world where everyone had to be rough and tough.

What you get out of this book will depend on where your own focus is. What I related to was Eddy's (and I'm going to talk about this in terms of the character rather than the author, since it is ostensibly fiction) struggle to come of age in a community and a family that just didn't know what to do with him. For me he really nailed what it's like to grow up in a world where your possibilities are so limited, and where you face scorn for grasping at something better. The life offered to Eddy involved getting drunk, having sex with girls and working in the same factory that everyone worked in. And because he was different, his life in particular would involve endless, endless abuse and bullying.

It's the last bit that is the most harrowing- the constant day in, and day out harassment and stalking he endured at the hands of his classmates and the terror that that bred in him. It actually feeds his determination to attend a different high school than the one his parents had marked out, because Eddy doesn't want to encounter those boys ever again. Louis really makes the reader feel that fear. If you've ever experienced anything like it, you'll feel it even more. And there didn't seem to be much respite, even with his own friends or family, because he was always hiding and trying to fit in.

Reading this book I thought about someone I used to know who spent part of his younger years working in a meat packing factory between college and grad school. It was so bad, he actually wouldn't talk about it in any detail so I don't really know how it compares, but I know how even his tone of voice when he talked about it broke my heart.

Eddy does survive (my friend did too), and he does get out, but the book is a testament to the scars left behind. So I guess in conclusion I would say that I recommend the book but it is disturbing if ultimately hopeful. Louis's style is spare and unadorned, direct. It'll stay with you.

Rating: BUY

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

Review: BEAUTIFUL ANIMALS, by Lawrence Osborne

Beautiful Animals, by Lawrence Osborne. Published 2017 by Hogarth/Crown/Random House. Literary Fiction. Crime Fiction.

Beautiful Animals lives in that yummy space between literary fiction and the crime novel. Set on the Greek island of Hydra and among the fashionable rich, author Lawrence Osborne tells the story of Naomi Codrington, a young woman retreating to her parents' world of privilege after a humiliating professional setback, and Faoud, a Syrian refugee who washes up on Naomi's playground.

The reader feels right away that there is something toxic in Naomi's idle boredom, which preys on her and leads her to temptation. Crucial to this alchemy is Naomi's burgeoning friendship with Sam, an altogether ordinary young woman spending time with her parents. The women form a bond that just teeters on sexual but never quite loses its balance; both become infatuated with Faoud, a handsome young man whose origins are murky but seems to come from a privileged background himself.

In Beautiful Animals, Osborne treads familiar ground- what happens when the ultrarich mix with the poor and desperate. Faoud is a man of Naomi's own creation; she creates a narrative for him in which she herself will figure prominently, and soon Naomi writes the chapter she thinks will make for him a happy ending. Naomi lives with her wealthy father and stepmother, whom she disdains, and she concocts a plan to help Faoud at what she is sure will be little cost. Of course these things never go as planned, and soon the costs climb higher than anyone could have imagined.

I would love to see a movie made of this book. Osborne's writing is so atmospheric and evocative; you can feel the heat of the sun, the salt of the water and stain of blood as you read. Later on Osborne introduces a kind of detective character and the book wakes from its delicious paresse and takes on a crime-novel pace, then settles in for a low-key, dark finish. Beautiful Animals would be a wonderful choice for the literary reader's beach bag, a great follow up for fans of Katie Kitamura's A Separation or similar. Lawrence Osborne never disappoints.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review.

Mon Secret, by Niki de Saint Phalle

Mon Secret, by Niki de Saint Phalle. Published 2010, SNELA La Différence. In French. Memoir.

In this brief graphic memoir, late French artist Niki de Sainte Phalle details the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of her father, a banker, and some of the consequences on her including some experiences of treatment.

The book appears to be hand-written and from time to time includes stylized, illustrated lettering at moments of great emotional strain. Snakes are a recurring motif and she often draws her S as a snake. She also places emphasis on the letter P, especially when spelling père, or father, and V, for viol, or rape.

The appeal of the book for me is both its look- de Saint Phalle's use of illustrated script and the casual feel of the handwritten pages- and the power of its deceptively simple text. The narrative starts off slowly; her family, based in New York City, rents a house in New England every summer. They go to a new place every year. It's beautiful there, seductive, but there's a menace just under the surface the year she is 11. The first sign is the snakes but I think we're meant to understand the snakes as a symbol of her father's sexuality.

It's a powerful book, raw and emotional. Mon Secret can be read in one sitting comfortably; it's only 30 or so pages long, and although the book is in a larger format the large scrawl of the writing means each page has little text. The vocabulary is also pretty basic and intermediate students of French could handle it with ease.

Rating: BUY

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

Review: A VERY EXPENSIVE POISON, by Luke Harding

A Very Expensive Poison: The Assassination of Alexander Litvenenko and Putin's War with the West, by Luke Harding. Published 2017 by Vintage. Nonfiction.

If you want to read something that will keep you up at night, A Very Expensive Poison: The Assassination of Alexander Litvenenko and Putin's War with the West is as good as any thriller out there- with the additional zing that this is a very true story about an inept but ultimately successful plot to kill a journalist and the investigation that went all the way to the top of the Russian government.

Alexander Litvenenko was a journalist who became an enemy of the Putin government when he threatened to expose its role in scandals that shook Russia, in particular an apartment bombing that killed several hundred Russians and may have been orchestrated by the Kremlin to promote public support for the war in Chechnya. Litvenenko ended up fleeing Russia with the help of oil oligarch Boris Berezovsky, himself an enemy of the state, and lived for a time in London with his wife and son until two bungling henchmen poisoned him with polonium, a radioactive element that is only produced at a couple of labs within Russia. So while from an official point of view no charges have been pursued against Putin, from another point of view there's really no question who's responsible.

Journalist Luke Harding tells this harrowing and tragic story with verve and enough detail that the reader will feel fully immersed in the details of the killing, the investigative aftermath and the bureaucracy and corruption surrounding the whole affair. It's also incredibly frightening on any number of levels. Litvenenko's is not the only dead body in the story and though I will say it loses some momentum about 2/3 of the way through it picks up again right towards the very end.

I really couldn't put the book down. It probably took me about a week to read it and I wanted to be reading it every waking minute of that time. Last year I read Masha Gessen's scary The Man Without a Face, her story of Vladimir Putin's rise, and the Litvenenko murder was part of that story; this book fleshes it out and gives us a level of detail Gessen could not, but you don't need to have read her book for this one to chill you to the bone. If you're interested in the current head of the government who is so admired by the head of our own, A Very Expensive Poison will make it hard to sleep at night, one way or the other.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher.

Review: DINNER, by César Aira

Dinner, by César Aira. Published 2015 by New Directions. Translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver. Literary Fiction.

So, as regular readers of this blog may know, César Aira is one of my favorite contemporary writers, but he's definitely not for everyone. One way or another, reading him will change your life; if you love his books, he will change your life for the better. Either way, buckle up.

Dinner is going to go down as one of my favorites of his, and certainly one of my favorite reads of 2017. It's short, as per usual- short and sweet. It's about zombies.

Specifically, it's about a zombie invasion of Pringles, Argentina, where all (?) of Aira's novels takes place. The narrator, who is not explicitly named, has dinner with his mother and then after dinner turns on the television to see the zombie invasion take place. Then he has a conversation with a friend about it. That's it.

Dinner is certainly one of Aira's more plot-centric books; after an opening digression on the importance of names to creating a community, he launches into a virtual blow-by-blow of the zombie invasion, from the moment the dead of Pringles rise from their graves to the moment they go back. It's very suspenseful; Aira does a masterful job building tension and leaving you wondering how it will be resolved.

Ultimately the solution is silly, sweet and makes perfect sense. But then there is a wrinkle at the very end which may keep you up at night after all.

Rating: BUY

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

Review: THE MOST DANGEROUS BOOK, by Kevin Birmingham

The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses, by Kevin Birmingham. Published 2015 by Penguin. Nonfiction.

Reading The Most Dangerous Book is probably the closest I'll ever get to reading Ulysses, and that's fine with me.

I've never really been interested in reading Ulysses or Joyce generally, although I have read some shorter works in college. The people I know who've read it seemed to have done it as a kind of dare or means of showing off; I can't think of anyone who's read it just for enjoyment. Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe one of you has? But to me novels are to be enjoyed first and foremost, not studied or pondered over or carried around like an adult-sized merit badge. So.

That said, I'd heard good things about The Most Dangerous Book and it appealed to me because I'm interested in the history of censorship. As it turns out it's a pretty great read.

Because the story of Ulysses isn't just about the story of its publication; that's only the middle of this story.  First it had to be written, and that means Joyce needed the time, space and support to write it, not to mention the prospect of publication. The Most Dangerous Book is about 1/3 Joyce biography, 1/3 social history of early 20th century bohemian culture and 1/3 censorship law and the growth of the First Amendment into what we understand it as being today. These elements combine to tell the story of how one book was published, distributed and sold, and what all that meant to literature, law and society.

So there's a lot to learn and Kevin Birmingham tells the story in prose that's passionate, articulate and gripping; it reads like a thriller sometimes, like an invective at others, and sometimes just entertaining social history. At the beginning of the book, talking about late 19th and early 20th century bohemians and their relationship with the establishment his prose has a kind of prissiness about it; he describes Anthony Comstock and other censors as tight laced villains and Joyce's early publishers as brave and daring ladies-about-town. At other times employs dry wit to describe how a conservative judge came to be one of the architects of modern First Amendment jurisprudence. The changes in tone keep the reader engaged and listening; this could be boring stuff in the hands of a less skilled writer. Throughout he engages in a robust defense of freedom for artists and readers alike.

But it's the characterizations of Joyce and his circle that kept the book interesting to me. Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach and Ernest Hemingway all had crucial roles to play, as well as the magazine publishers, booksellers, publishers, printers and smugglers who worked to get the book written, printed, distributed and brought into the United States. Because before Joyce could publish Ulysses he had to write it, and he was writing it almost till the last minute. We learn about the foes, which included judges, inspectors, and even the post office. It's an amazing drama above all, and Birmingham's prose will have you pinned to the pages. At times it almost seems like Joyce's own role was less significant than that of the varied and diverse team of booklovers who worked tirelessly to see his work come to light.

Along with all this drama Birmingham offers us plentiful excerpts from Ulysses and a mini course on the structure of the book, so readers can get a taste of just what was causing such a fuss. He includes personal papers of Joyce's too, letters and such, and papers from many of the other players in this drama. I learned things about Ezra Pound I never knew, and a lot about the literary scene that supported Joyce even as Joyce sometimes drove his supporters to distraction. And Birmingham tells us about the man himself, his relationship with this wife and children, his impecuniousness and his failing health and eyesight.

I highly recommend The Most Dangerous Book to readers of many stripes. History buffs, bibliophiles, Joyce fans and more will find time spent with this book to be rewarding, fascinating and fun. It's really terrific.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received a galley from the publisher.

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: DISTANT STAR, by Roberto Bolaño

Distant Star, by Roberto Bolaño. Published 2004 by New Directions. Literary Fiction. Crime fiction. Translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews.

Blood all around. That's my primary memory and impression of Distant Star, which I read back in the early spring for a crime fiction reading group I belonged to. Roberto Bolaño's novel, really little more than a novella, is about a man who infiltrates a circle of artists and poets and makes his first big splash by murdering a pair of charismatic sisters. The narrator then follows the career of this man for years until finally there is a confrontation.

Set in the 1970s after the rise of Pinochet in Chile, Bolaño creates a truly chilling picture of life in a dictatorship and how art can be used to track and trap political dissidents.

Alberto-Ruiz Tangle is the young man, a Chilean air force officer also known as Carlos Wieder. The book is an expansion on Bolaño's Nazi Literature in the Americas but it's not just that. The narrator tries to keep track of Tangle/Wieder and document his crimes through zines, books, articles- anything he can get his hands on and at the same time the narrator and by extension the reader learns more and more about atrocities committed during Pinochet's regime.

Then the narrative moves to Europe and we also learn about the ex-patriate community there and the struggles of political refugees to carve out a new life and find community. And what happens when that community is infiltrated by one of the very people folks sought to escape.

When I saw this book on the reading list I wasn't too excited, because I tried to read Bolaño's 2666 when it came out (it was quite the hipster "it" book for a while) and found it unreadably language-driven with not nearly enough plot to keep me interested. This shorter book was a better fit for my plot-driven tastes. It kind of haunts me to this day.

Rating: BUY

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

Review: A MAN OF GOOD HOPE, by Jonny Steinberg

A Man of Good Hope, by Jonny Steinberg. Published 2015 by Knopf. Nonfiction.

South African journalist Jonny Steinberg's deeply wonderful book is a combination of biography, interview and journalism examining the life Asad Abdullahi, a Somali man who moves across Africa and ultimately to the United States in search of the things most of us take for granted- a stable safe life, a family, and a future.

When A Man of Good Hope opens Abdullahi is a young teen whose family has just been destroyed by Somalia's civil war. He sees his mother killed and is charged with the care of an older female relative, which soon proves impossible. At first he goes to live with some relatives, but things don't work out, and he tossed from one makeshift home to the next to the next to the next, to one marriage, to another, to different ways of earning a living and ways of just staying alive, and you'll have to read the book to start to understand the cultural maelstroms he fights his way through, the obstacles and the odds which are never in his favor.

Steinberg tells the story mostly from Abdullahi's shopfront in South Africa, where for a time he runs a convenience store until local residents unhappy with the influx of refugees from across the continent nearly kill him. The South Africa portion of the book was the hardest for me because after everything he went through to get there and to try to settle down, it was awful to see it snatched away.

It's excruciating. What kept me reading was the reassurance, because the book is based on Steinberg's interviews with him and Steinberg makes the interview process part of the story, that Abdullahi is still alive and actually made it through what he went through. I don't know if I could take it if the end was a tragedy.

So it's a tough read but so rewarding and so worth it. It's one of those books where I learned a lot but still feel like I knew less than I did before. And those are really my favorite books- the ones that teach me something and show me how much more I have to learn at the same time. It was without a doubt one of the best books I read in 2015 and I recommend it strongly to readers interested in learning about the forces large and small that impact the lives of people with no country to call their own.

Rating: BUY

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

Review: THE CROSSROADS, by Niccolò Ammaniti

The Crossroads, by Niccolò Ammaniti. Published 2010 by Canongate Books. Translated by Jonathan Hunt. Literary Fiction.

Also published in English as As God Commands and winner of the 2007 Strega Prize, Niccolò Ammaniti's The Crossroads is a heartbreaking and breathtakingly suspenseful coming of age story set far from tourist Italy in a working-class community impacted by drugs, immigration and economic collapse.

Cristiano Zena is thirteen and living with his father Rino in a dilapidated house cluttered with garbage and resentment. Cristiano's mother is gone and the boy idolizes his narcissistic father, on whom he depends and feels he must protect. At the outset Rino orders his son to kill a dog that's making too much noise and even this episode is laced with suspense. Will Cristiano do it?

Of course he does, and when Rino and his buddies Danilo and Corrado aka Quattro Formaggi plan a get-rich-quick robbery scheme, Cristiano doesn't question it. Meanwhile he's navigating his hardscrabble adolescence in the only ways he knows how- through violence and confusion. He has a run-in with a local bully that ends badly, and gets teased by two girls in his class, Fabiana and Esmeralda. Then the night of the robbery comes, and things take place that no one could have planned.

This sequence, "The Night," is a novel in and of itself, a heart-pounding, cinematic sequence that interleaves the perspectives of Rino, Danilo, Quattro Formaggi, Cristiano and Fabiana. By the end of "The Night" all of them will have passed a point of no return. The book is a little slow to start but once you get here you won't be able to stop until the heartbreaking end.

I really loved this book but it was a difficult read at times. Rino is a bitter man whose rancor is passed on to his son even as he says he wants something better for the boy. Cristiano can't see the difference between his father and himself, while Rino's friends drown in their delusions. But it's Fabiana who pays the ultimate price.

Like I said, it's a tough read but I can't recommend it enough if you think you're up to the task. I'm glad I gave it a shot. Uncompromising and impossible to forget, The Crossroads will leave an indelible mark on your heart.


Rating: BUY

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

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: 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.

Review: LEAVING RUSSIA: A JEWISH STORY, by Maxim D. Shrayer

Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story, by Maxim D. Shrayer. Published 2013 by Syracuse University Press. Nonfiction. Memoir.

Leaving Russia is a detailed account of one family's struggle to emigrate from Russia, set in Moscow and elsewhere in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s.

Full disclosure: I interviewed Shrayer in 2008 when I worked for the Association of Jewish Libraries and featured his collection of short stories Yom Kippur in Amsterdam on their blog and mine; I have since kept in touch with him via social media including Facebook and while I have not met him in person, he is someone I know a little bit and I thought you should know that up front.

Anyway, that aside, I finally got around to reading his memoir recently, and it's pretty excellent, especially for readers interested in Soviet refuseniks and Jewish emigration from the former Soviet Union. The book covers Shrayer's life from his teen years through age 20, when he left with his parents David and Emilia. It's quite a searing portrait both of Soviet life as the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse and the very daunting struggles of Jewish refuseniks to carve out a life while they waited to leave. He and his family live at the mercy of a capricious bureaucracy capable of both arbitrary and systemic antisemitism. They find community with other refuseniks but Shrayer lives a double life, a good student and ordinary kid outside the home, and a persecuted rebel at home. And then there are the times when his two lives overlap.

He writes with great affection about his friends and especially his family. The love he has for his parents radiates from the pages. He clearly idolizes his father, a fellow writer and his role model in so many parts of his life. And his admiration for his mother and her sacrifices, including the physical danger she has from time to time put herself in to support their refusenik cause is also quite palpable. He also shares the vivid world of the friendships and adventures that sustained him and have stayed with him. At the same time there is no doubt that the USSR was a hostile place for him and his family.

I enjoyed reading Shrayer's book a lot for both the refusenik story and the details about Soviet life it offers. This is after all a disappeared world, and I would place it alongside the other leaving-the-USSR memoirs I've read, like Elena Gorokhova's Mountain of Crumbs and Tina Grimberg's Out of Line. As a story about Jewish emigration Shrayer's story has more in common with Grimberg's but Grimberg's book was written for a middle-reader audience while Shrayer's book is unambiguously written for an adults. That said, I don't think there's anything inappropriate for a teen reader interested in the subject of the refusenik movement. It's a very moving, detailed and fascinating story about one family's experience of something that happened to so many families, as well as one young man's coming of age.

And on a personal note, as a Cold-War-era kid I will say that until I started working in synagogues I was completely unaware of the extent to which the story of Soviet dissidents was the story of Jewish people who wanted to leave due to antisemitism. For some reason this "detail" was left out of my public-school education, and I would therefore recommend this book very highly to anyone else who doesn't know very much about this subject, regardless of background. It may seem like a "niche" issue but it really isn't, because it's about the big issues of freedom and the power of the imagination to shape the world.

This counts towards the Read My Own Damn Books Challenge.

Rating: BUY

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