Review: SEE WHAT I HAVE DONE, by Sarah Schmidt

See What I Have Done, by Sarah Schmidt. Published 2017 by Atlantic Monthly Press. Literary Fiction. Crime Fiction.

In 1892 Andrew Borden and his wife, Abby Durfee Gray Borden, were murdered in their Fall River home. Andrew's daughter Lizzie was tried and acquitted, but there was never really another serious suspect, and Lizzie was ostracized from her community following the trial. The Borden family was wealthy and both Lizzie and her sister Emma were able to live comfortably for the rest of their life.

Sarah Schmidt has written an absorbing and truly creepy book about the murders, oscillating in time and in point of view; we see the day of the murder, the build-up, the aftermath and the Borden family life from the point of view of Lizzie, Emma, their maid Bridget and an additional, fictional character, a professional killer named Benjamin with an agenda all his own. What emerges doesn't really shed any new light on the murders or offer any alternative theory of the crime, but it will make you want to keep the lights on just a little longer at night.

Schmidt brings the three women to life; Emma, the older sister, is devoted to the high-maintenance Lizzie but this devotion has come at a high cost to Emma and as the years wear on, she finds herself resentful and yearning for freedom. Bridget hates the Borden family more and more and also longs to escape. She has saved some money and hopes to leave as soon as she can arrange it. Then Abby Borden discovers her secret and her plans may come to naught. But the real star is Lizzie- of course- and Schmidt's Lizzie is a dazzling, hypnotic monster, a needy succubus who drains the life out of those around her, while herself locked in half lucidity, half madness. It is cliche to say Schmidt takes us inside the mind of a killer but this she does; Lizzie's chapters are manic chaos. She is a menace and a destroyer.

See What I Have Done is haunting and scary, a book to keep you up at night. You don't have to know a lot about the case to enjoy it but I would recommend perusing the timeline at the end of the book, or having a Wikipedia-level knowledge of it anyway. A great book for the beach bag, I have a feeling I'll be revisiting it at Halloween too.

Rating: BEACH

FTC Disclosure: I received 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: LET THE GAMES BEGIN, by Niccolò Ammaniti

Let the Games Begin, by Niccolò Ammaniti. Published 2009 by Black Cat/Grove Atlantic. Translated from the Italian by Kylee Doust. Literary Fiction.

In Ammaniti's 2009 satire on celebrity culture, a washed-up writer and a group of half-assed Satanists attend an over-the-top bacchanalia thrown by a mafioso. Toss in a pop singer with a heart of gold, a group of feral Russian Olympians and a zoo's worth of wild animals and buckle up.

Fabrizio Ciba is a one-time literary success now resting on his aging laurels but yearning for real literary respectability. Saviero Moneta, aka Mantos, is the leader of a Satanist society called the Wild Beasts of Abbadon, frustrated with his life and yearning for another kind of "I'll show them" notoriety. Ciba gets an invitation to an elaborate soiree and decides it's just the thing to help him relaunch himself; Moneta sees the opportunity of a lifetime too, for mayhem and fame, and he targets a pop singer for assassination.

Pretty much all of the characters in this black comedy are unlikable jerks; you need to know going in that you are not going to like anyone here, except maybe the sweet singer Larita. But Ammaniti's most recent book to be translated into English is still a really good time. Raucous. A little raunchy. Definitely politically incorrect. And not everyone gets the ending they deserve.

I couldn't put this book down once it got going. There are parts of it that are sort of ridiculous. Especially towards the end. But it's really fun, if you can suspend your moral center for a little while, and overlook the horror of what goes on at times. The suspense towards the end is actually pretty suffocating. It is definitely not as serious as Ammaniti's other books and probably not as serious as most things I read. There was a little sadness at the end, but I laughed a lot. You might too.

Rating: BEACH

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: THE MARRYING OF CHANI KAUFMAN, by Eve Harris

The Marrying of Chani Kaufman, by Eve Harris. Published by Black Cat Press 2014. Literary Fiction.

The Marrying of Chani Kaufman came out in Great Britain last year and was longlisted for last year's Booker Prize. Don't worry though- this is no stuffy "literary" book, although it is well-written, delightful and addictive reading.

Set in the present-day London neighborhood of Golders Green amid its Orthodox Jewish community, the story centers on a 19-year-old young woman named Chani who is about to get married to Baruch, a 20-year-old she barely knows.  As the book opens she's preparing for the nuptials- getting dressed, getting nervous, and he's doing the same. The opening pages capture their anxiety as they shoulder tradition, the expectations of their families and their own innocence, and author Eve Harris conjures this mood so beautifully that these first few pages are what stay most in my mind.

From here Harris shifts perspective to the Rebbetzin, whose husband is the lead rabbi of this particular community. By extension she herself is an important community leader; women come to her for advice and it falls to her to take young Chani to the mikvah, or ritual bath, before her wedding day because Chani's mother is busy with her large brood (Chani is one of eleven children). But the Rebbetzin is deeply conflicted, having grown up secular and then come to Orthodoxy as a young woman when her then-boyfriend committed to a traditional Jewish life. The Rebbetzin has played her role well, admirably even, but now, in midlife and after suffering a traumatic miscarriage, she isn't so sure anymore. Harris takes us through her life's story and into her future.

We get to know Chani and Baruch's families, and see how they interact. Baruch spies Chani at a party and asks to meet her; his mother, a wealthy social-climber, isn't happy that a poor girl has attracted her precious son's attention and schemes to undermine the blossoming relationship. Chani, for her part, isn't sure she even likes Baruch but she knows she has to get married and he seems nice enough so she goes along with it. Ironically it's Baruch's mother's resistance that gets Chani to dig in her heels.

I'm telling you a lot about what happens, so I'll stop. The book isn't perfect; some of the conversations struck me as unrealistic but overall I think The Marrying of Chani Kaufman is a charming and absorbing novel with great characters and a winning couple at its center. I don't think it comes down as very negative about Orthodox life though there are characters who find frustration as their lot. There are also those who will find a way to make it work. The key to happiness, Harris seems to say, is rational balance and finding a partner with whom you are on the same page. Conflict only brings alienation. The book is very heavy on the details of Orthodox ritual and is clear and accessible enough to be a good read for someone interested in learning about that. If you're new to the subject I hope you won't be put off and miss out on this great read.

Rating: BUY

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

Review: WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU COULD BE NORMAL? by Jeanette Winterson

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson. Nonfiction. Memoir. Published 2012 by Grove Atlantic.

So it seems to be Jeanette Winterson Week here on Boston Bibliophile. Could be worse. I mean, Winterson is one of the best living writers in English. I bought this book, her memoir, when it came out but it took me until late last year to read it. After I read The Daylight Gate I knew I couldn't wait any longer, and I'm sorry I waited as long as I did.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is really the story of Winterson's three mothers- Constance Winterson, who raised her and who is referred to throughout as "Mrs. Winterson," Winterson's biological mother, and her third mother which is literature, which first saved her life and then gave her a living.

Winterson is adopted as a baby by a working-class Manchester couple who are religious fundamentalists and abuse her horribly. Mrs. Winterson locks her out of the house repeatedly, beats her, instructs her husband to beat her and torments her psychologically. Young Jeanette takes refuge in books and reading, forbidden in her house as all she's allowed to read is the Bible. She has a relationship with a female friend and soon realizes what she's always known, that she has to leave home. As a teenager Jeanette runs away and with the help of teachers gets accepted to Oxford. From there she begins to develop as a writer and as a person. Not surprisingly she has a lot of anger to deal with.

As adult Winterson decides to take on the task of finding her biological mother, and this process occupies the final third of the book. The narrative structure is more or less chronological but not strictly so, and the tone and style of the book feels similar to much of her fiction, at times highly descriptive and impressionistic and at others more focused and forward-moving. Winterson's painful relationship with Mrs. Winterson is hard to read sometimes; my heart broke repeatedly for the little girl looking for love from a mother incapable of giving it.

The book has obvious appeal for adoptees but I think Winterson's search, which is for home in many senses of the word, is something almost everyone can relate to in some ways. The depth of alienation she feels from her parents is profound, and she does not find much solace in her biological family, but I got the impression that she has found a home and a family in her adult relationships and the book ends on notes of hard-earned peace and contentment. I was very moved and affected by her story, and I would recommend it to her fans and those of memoir but also to any reader looking for a beautifully written, if sometimes dark, family story.

Rating: BUY

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

REVIEW: Witches on the Road Tonight, by Sheri Holman

Witches on the Road Tonight, by Sheri Holman. Published 2011 by Grove Atlantic. Literary fiction.

Winner of the 2011 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel, Witches on the Road Tonight is a great Halloweeny read. The book follows the fortunes of three members of an Appalachian family- matriarch Cora Alley, her son Eddie, and his daughter Wallis. The narrative bounces back and forth through time and shifts perspectives as well, but the story is clear and easy to follow nonetheless.  The book opens in 1940., Photographer Sonia and mapmaker Tucker are documenting an area known as Panther Gap, for the WPA. Sonia is a documentarian who has traveled the world and Tucker is about to be drafted into World War 2. They hit young Eddie with their car and take him back to his house, remote in the woods. They are alone, but not for long; Cora comes home and invites them to stay the night. Neither traveler is ever heard from again.

In the present-day, Eddie, now older and retired from a career hosting the horror movie of the week, is sick with cancer and about to commit suicide. His sections are long, rambling letters to his daughter, a successful but very troubled television star herself. For her part, Wallis recounts the story of her family and particularly the story of Jasper, her foster brother, an orphan who idolized Eddie. His death is another mystery, another enigma that may or may not be solved.

My favorite parts of the book were those taking place in the past, in the thick woods of Panther Gap, dense and rich with atmosphere and the supernatural. Gruesome, strange rumors abound in the backwoods town after Tucker and Sonia disappear, and their disappearance continues to haunt Eddie and his wife, the patrician Ann. As Jasper comes into their lives, Wallis grows in resentment and jealousy, and begins to feel her grandmother's influence on her grow stronger.

Holman has crafted an engrossing novel of love, death and suspense; she's able to convey a lot of information through inference and suggestion, leaving lots of room for her vivid descriptions to stretch their lovely legs. I really enjoyed her writing above all else in this thicket of a novel. She creates as much out of a grimy New York backlot on a cold night as she does with the woods of Appalachia, and she colors her characters' emotional lives just as richly. I would recommend Witches on the Road Tonight for people who are not habitual horror readers but who would nonetheless like something enjoyable, suspenseful and just a little bit creepy.

Rating: BACKLIST

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

REVIEW: Me and You, by Niccolo Ammaniti

Me and You, by Niccolo Ammaniti. Published 2012 by Black Cat Press. Literary Fiction. Translated from Italian.

Me and You is a slender story you can probably read in an evening, but it has a quiet, insistent emotional intensity that means that however quickly you read it, it will stay with you forever.

Set in modern day Italy, it's the story of two teens, the time they spend together in the basement of an apartment building and the imprint that time leaves on both of their lives. Lorenzo Cumi is 14 and doesn't fit in. He is a loner whose parents value social success; Lorenzo wants his parents to think he's popular at school, so he invents friendships, anecdotes, parties. He goes so far as to fabricate a story about having been invited on a ski trip, but he wasn't, so when he's supposed to be away he's actually hiding out in the basement which he's prepared with food, music, things to keep him busy. But what he doesn't expect is the arrival of his beautiful, troubled older stepsister Olivia with problems all her own. Suddenly the difficulty of maintaining the lie of the trip is coupled with keeping Olivia at bay, covering her presence and getting along with her moment to moment.

The first time he meets Olivia, who is his estranged father's daughter with his new wife, he is drawn to her:

I had expected Olivia to be ugly and with an unpleasant face like Cinderella's stepsisters. Instead she was incredibly beautiful, one of those girls that as soon as you look at them your face burns red and everybody knows you think she is beautiful, and if she talks to you, you don't know what to do with your hands, you don't even know how to sit down. She had lots of curly blonde hair that fell all the way down her back and grey eyes, and she was sprinkled with freckles, just like me. She was tall and had big, wide breasts. She could have been the queen of a medieval kingdom.

But she's in trouble, and so is Lorenzo if his parents find out he's not on the trip. So the idyll he had planned for himself turns into a nightmare.

Me and You is an incredibly beautiful book. The ending is sad and probably predictable, but if you happen to see this little book in the bookstore I would urge you to pick it up if you like coming of age stories. I've already added Ammaniti's As God Commands to my to-be-read pile, and I'll be on the lookout for anything else from this wonderful writer.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review.

REVIEW: Second Person Singular, by Sayed Kashua

Second Person Singular, by Sayed Kashua. Published 2012 by Grove Atlantic. Literary fiction. Translated from the Hebrew.

I picked up Second Person Singular after reading a notice about in on the website of the Jewish Book Council; author Sayed Kashua has written two other books that have done well and he himself is a Palestinian who writes in Hebrew and in this book, takes as his subjects two Palestinian men who are each stuck between cultures. First we meet the lawyer (we never learn his name), an upper class Arab-Israeli with a perfect life- beautiful wife, great kids, friends, and an enviable position. Juxtaposed is the story of a lower-echelon Palestinian social worker who becomes entangled in the lives of a troubled Jewish family.

The center of the book is a mystery, a note the lawyer finds in a book, written in his wife's handwriting to another man. The lawyer goes into a tailspin; he imagines and believes the worst, running through elaborate scenario after elaborate scenario to convince himself that his wife is having an affair. The possibility of adultery unhinges him, makes him question everything he thought he believed about women, about sexual politics, about his religion, about the world. While working to uncover the truth, he ventures into some very dark and frightening territory and it's not clear that he'll ever come out.

Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, we read the social worker's story. Living in a cramped apartment with two Arab roommates, he becomes bored and disenchanted with the hopelessness of trying to help recovering addicts and he becomes the caretaker of a comatose young Jewish man. Over time, he learns more about the man, Yonatan, once a promising student, now a vegetable. And he too goes down a path he never imagined. And in the middle is the story of the note- who wrote it, why, and what it means now.

I really loved Second Person Singular. Kashua takes on some very difficult issues about living in a divided society. He explores stereotypes of Arabs and Jews, how the two groups see each other and how they interact. Both men speak perfect Hebrew and Arabic, allowing them to pass in and out of Jewish and Arab society, hear what everybody says, and what you hear when you're a fly on the wall isn't always pretty. In the end, it's an open question whether anything has changed; both men are trying to live up to somebody else's idea of what they should be, what they should value; neither is secure. Everyone wears a disguise, hiding from others or from him or herself. One man explicitly takes on another's identity; another takes on the form he thinks society demands only to have his ideas about himself shattered. But only one character seems completely untroubled by his or her identity, and it's this person whose true character is the most in question. Kashua also asks us what it matters, this idea of identity. Maybe identity is what you can get away with. Second Person Singular is an impressive and challenging book, and one that I would recommend to just about any reader.

Rating: BUY

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

REVIEW: The Translator, by Leila Aboulela

The Translator, by Leila Aboulela. Published 2006 by Grove Atlantic. Literary Fiction.

The Translator is a short book that can take a long time to read- but I mean that in a good way. It's a love story. Sammar is a Sudanese Muslim widow living in Scotland, working as a translator for a secular Scottish academic named Rae. Their relationship, convincing and sweet, develops slowly, but Sammar struggles because as a religious Muslim she can't marry a non-Muslim, and she won't have a relationship with him outside of marriage, so either Rae must convert or they must part.

The novel, told entirely from Sammar's point of view, covers a lot of ground. We learn about her marriage, her child, her extended family. We also learn a good deal about Muslim religious practice through Sammar's daily life and thoughts. Sammar is foreign in Britain and misunderstood in Sudan; author Aboulela draws a convincing, touching portrait of immigrant life and its complications. Supporting characters lend depth and alternate points of view. After a falling-out with Rae, Sammar returns to Sudan for a time, to reconnect with her family and to see if Rae will join her; this section of the novel is particularly emotional and poignant.

The Translator is beautifully written in a slow, literary style- it's definitely character-driven and not heavy at all on plot or action. But a few things happen nonetheless. But what? Does Rae convert? Do they get back together? I won't tell. You'll have to read this little gem of a novel to find out. For me, The Translator was a very satisfying, very enjoyable read.

Rating: BUY


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