Review: Unprotected, by Billy Porter

 

Unprotected, by Billy Porter. Memoir. Abrams Press, 2021. Audiobook narrated by Billy Porter.

It's hard to know where to begin with this amazing book. Billy Porter is the star of the hit TV show Pose and a Tony-winning Broadway performer best known for "Kinky Boots," a musical about a shoe factory based on the 2005 movie of the same name. And he's a good writer, too.

The book is a life's-story style memoir detailing his life from childhood through his historic Emmy win for the role of Pray Tell in Pose. It's mostly about his evolution as an artist and a person living his truth in the world. He grew up in the Philadelphia area, went to Carnegie Mellon and then made the move to New York and Broadway. The memoir details his family, both biological and chosen, and the way both have shaped him over the years.

If When you read Unprotected, I strongly recommend the audiobook version narrated by Porter himself. His voice certainly comes through in the print version but there is nothing like hearing the story in his literal voice. A gifted performer, he brings so much passion and feeling to his story and listening to him tell it is unforgettable.

The message: Love wins. His love for performing won; his love for his husband won; his love for his family won; and his love for himself won, too. And by the end, you'll be convinced that you can win, too.

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

Review: Milk Fed, by Melissa Broder

 

Milk Fed, by Melissa Broder. Published 2021 by Scribner. Fiction.

I'm a big fan of Melissa Broder and her books tend to be of a type, so if you like one you will like the others. The others are The Pisces, a 2019 novel about a woman who falls in love with a merman, and So Sad Today, her 2016 collection of essays.

Milk Fed is about a young woman living in Los Angeles, Rachel, who is hungry. She is hungry for food; she counts every calorie, obsesses over every bite, every morsel of food. She is hungry for love as well, and for a time she can satisfy both hungers with Miriam, a young woman who works in a frozen yogurt shop. Rachel becomes passionately attached to Miriam who is both very religious and possibly very straight. Or maybe not. But anyway things don't really go well here.

Milk Fed is a lot messier than The Pisces, emotionally and viscerally messy in a way that might be a little much for some readers. Rachel is not totally likeable in the sense of being virtuous but I do think she is very real and relatable if exaggerated maybe. She projects her own desires onto Miriam the zaftig gourmand, but she is expelled from her paradise eventually and must deal with her own issues sooner or later.

I loved this book like I do all of Broder's books, for that mess, that realness, that raw portrayal of female passion. The book has a lot of graphic sexual content that may not be for all readers.  I read this a while back, not long after it came out, during the period of time when I wasn't blogging and it was one of the books that made me want to return so I could talk to you about it. (I got a galley somewhere, maybe at work.) I recommend it to readers of Lisa Taddeo, Kristin Arnett, Ottessa Moshfegh and Alissa Nutting especially. Worth a look if you're up for something different.

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

Jewish Book Month: LGBTQ Rep

 

Milk Fed, by Melissa Broder. 2021, Scribner.

Milk Fed is the second novel by Melissa Broder, late of The Pisces and the essay collection So Sad Today. It is about a young woman named Rachel, a lesbian with eating disorders and a bad relationship with her mother, who falls for Miriam, a young Orthodox woman who relishes her food but can't quite return Rachel's sexual appetites.

I loved this book the way I loved Broder's other books, for its extreme candor when it comes to women and bodies and sex and this time, food. Rachel meets Miriam at a frozen yogurt bar and is immediately smitten both with Miriam's creativity and relaxed attitude towards food and with her sensual body. Being with Miriam is feast for Rachel, but Miriam hesitates when it comes to fully engaging with Rachel sexually.

The book is raw and explicit when it comes to both Rachel's emotions and her physical and sexual hungers. If you've read Melissa Broder before you know what to expect. I found it to be a moving and intense love story, about the two women and about Rachel's struggle to find balance and acceptance in all areas of her life.

Review: Happy-Go-Lucky, by David Sedaris

Happy-Go-Lucky (2022), by David Sedaris. Little, Brown. Audiobook narrated by David Sedaris.

You can find this and other favorites for sale in my Bookshop.org shop. I receive a small commission on sales.

David Sedaris's latest memoir/collection, Happy-Go-Lucky, is often anything but. The funniest essays are at the beginning and the collection slowly darkens from there, from a wry graduation speech given at Oberlin College to an essay on guns and school shootings and several pieces meditating on the death and complicated legacy of his father Lou, this collection covers a lot of ground, different moods and even some family secrets. 

If you have been following Sedaris's work through the years as I have you have probably noticed this trajectory as he's (as all of us have) been getting older. There is something I've enjoyed about growing up with him. He's about a decade older than I am and I read his books sometimes as glimpses into the future; his preoccupations aren't quite mine but they will be someday. In this book he wrestles over and over with his father's death and I can see why he may have waited for his father to die to publish some of these pieces. They are complicated, layered and incredibly moving. They must have been very difficult to write.

Sedaris also spends time on the Covid-19 pandemic and its various impacts on his life, from the ups and downs of living in New York City during its height (I can relate from my perch in north Jersey) to his frustrations with Covid culture and experiences in different parts of the country. It's often illuminating seeing things from his point of view, with his humor and irony. I don't agree with him on everything but I like how he makes his points.

This definitely isn't the laugh-out-loud Sedaris of Me Talk Pretty One Day; he deals with a lot of serious stuff but there are still chuckles to be had here and there. His now 30+ year relationship with his partner Hugh still provides fuel and there are smiles tucked into the corners, maybe not the darkest corners, but most of them. I do audio for Sedaris exclusively now because I so enjoy listening to him tell his stories but I pick up the print editions too, for completeness, and because he often does signed preorders which is nice and I do like my signed editions.

He never disappoints and I loved Happy-Go-Lucky as much as any of his books. I'm not sure it's the best first Sedaris and if you are already a fan you don't need my recommendation to read it, so if you're wondering, what I'll say is, check out one of his earlier books and get a feel for his story and his style, and see if that's something you want to pursue into later volumes. I don't think you'll regret getting on board.

I did not receive this book for review.

Review: Summer of the Cicadas, by Chelsea Catherine

 

Summer of the Cicadas, by Chelsea Catherine.Red Hen Press, 2021.

Jessica is a former police officer who is asked to assist her West Virginian town navigate an explosion of cicadas that are destroying crops and property and terrifying the people. Natasha is a town councilwoman and the woman Jessica loves, who may or may not have feelings for her. They have a history and so does Jessica; her family was killed in a car crash two years before the story starts and Jessica is struggling with grief and frustration with her relationships and her career.

I really enjoyed this book for its character building and setting. The plot was enough to keep me going but the hook for me was these people. Jessica is a believable and relatable woman; the towns' inhabitants, its politics and factions are vivid and the setting is immersive. I wanted to see how her relationship with Natasha would turn out; Catherine creates real chemistry and complicated frustration between the two women.

I don't have tons to say about this book but it's a fine little gem from a great small press and I recommend it to readers looking for a shortish read that will nonetheless make an impression.

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: LESS, by Andrew Sean Greer

Less, by Andrew Sean Greer. Published 2017 by Little, Brown. Literary Fiction.

Arthur Less is a mess. About to turn fifty, struggling with growing older and just found out that his younger ex Freddy is about to get married, Less decides to travel his feelings away. A successful B-list writer of literary novels, Less has been invited to teach here, attend a conference there, go to a party in another place and take a writer's retreat in yet another locale. So he packs his suitcase with clothes appropriate for Mexico, Morocco, India and Italy, and off he goes.

Along the way we learn about Less's history- his first love, a Pulitzer-Prize-winner who mentored him the ways of love and life, his friend Carlos, who's seen him through a lot, and Freddy, the aforementioned younger ex, whose relationship with Less is a little like a reversal of Less's first relationship. Less is insecure, he's anxious and he's careful. But he can't hide from himself, from the onset of the years or from his destiny.

This is the first novel of Andrew Sean Greer's I've read, though now I want to read more. Less is charming and sweet, and yet all is not quite as it seems. Greer's narrator is playing some gentle tricks on us; he's not unreliable, exactly, but he is a personage of note in the book and he has an agenda, peeled back and revealed slowly until the tears of happiness come at the end of this light yet moving and emotional book. Bring a pack of tissues when you take this book to the garden or the hammock or the beach this summer. You will need them.

Rating: BEACH

FTC Disclosure: I received 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: SELECTION DAY, by Aravind Adiga

Selection Day, by Aravind Adiga. Published 2017 by Scribner. Literary Fiction.

As a big fan of Aravind Adiga's 2008 Booker Prize winning novel The White Tiger, I was really excited to get a hold of an early copy of his latest, Selection Day, and I didn't hesitate to read it. While I didn't think Selection Day has the same bite as Tiger, it's a worthy entry and well worth the time to read.

Set in contemporary India in the world, which I don't understand at all, of cricket, the book concerns two brothers and their ambitious father. Radha Kumar is the older brother, passionate for cricket and supremely gifted; Manju, the younger brother, is an up-and-comer who is good but not quite as good. And he idolizes his brother. Their father pushes them hard to become cricket stars and both boys resent him. Then Javed Ansari arrives on the scene- talented, Muslim, and handsome, he shakes Manju in ways he never expects and forces him to figure out who he wants to be, and who he is. As "selection day" nears, it becomes clear that only one brother will have the shot at stardom they are both told to want. The fallout from selection day will change the lives of not just the boys and their father, but the scouts, investors and friends who surround them.

I don't really know the first thing about cricket and I'm sure I missed a lot of fine points but I got the general gist of a sports-obsessed parent pushing his children, and ultimately pushing them away. For me certain swathes of the book moved slowly and while I'm glad I stuck with it, I almost didn't. That said, the book picks up momentum about 2/3 of the way through and from there until the end it doesn't let up. The action is all in the relationships between the three cricket players and how each one chooses a path.

Like I said for me it didn't have the kick of The White Tiger but I think Selection Day is a very strong novel, very well-written with great characters and a vivid setting which is immersive even if I didn't get every detail. I'd definitely recommend it to literary fiction readers and I think its emphasis on character growth would make it a great brainy book club pick. Check it out.

Rating: BACKLIST

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

Review: THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY by Patricia Highsmith

The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith. Originally published 1955. This edition 2008 by Norton. Literary Fiction. Crime Fiction. Required Reading.

An aimless young man heads to Europe to bring home a wealthy prodigal son from the Amalfi coast, only to find his true calling in murder and deception.

The Talented Mr. Ripley is a classic everyone should read. I don't know what took me so long, honestly. Never mind the stupid 1999 film adaptation starring Matt Damon (!) as Ripley; read the book, it will take you just as long because you won't be able to put it down.

It's the late 1950s in New York City, and Tom Ripley is a young man living from one day to the next on the fruits of labor both honest and dishonest when Herbert Greenleaf approaches him a bar and asks him to go to Italy to bring home his layabout son Dickie. Tom knows the Greenleafs slightly through the New York party circuit and he takes the job, figuring he can parlay it into other opportunities once his errand is complete. But he has no idea what lay ahead, either for himself or the Greenleafs.

Tom becomes obsessed with Dickie and Dickie's lifestyle and wants no less than to have it- all of it- for himself. And if can't have Dickie and Dickie's money, then... Tom is a mesmerizing character, not only because he's so evil but because we get to watch his transformation from front-row seats. The signs are there from the beginning if you look for them, the instability and the temper, but also the intelligence and cunning. The best part for me though was the fact that his greatest successes come from his greatest mistakes. His success depends on others' ignorance as much as his own smarts.

This is book is required reading for sure. So much of modern crime fiction depends on Tom Ripley. Even a character like Amy Dunne of Gone Girl is a child of Tom Ripley. By the way the only film adaptation worth bothering with is René Clement's 1960 adapation Purple Noon (Plein Soleil) starring the beautiful Alain Delon as Tom, although that movie wimps out at the end. But you have to read The Talented Mr. Ripley. You just have to.

This was part of the Read My Own Damn Books Challenge.

Rating: BUY

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

LGBT Pride Month Book List

Just at the tail end of June and in honor of the recent Supreme Court decision to legalize marriage for all Americans regardless of sexual orientation, here's a book list of some of my favorite titles focusing on the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Reinaldo Arenas's autobiography Before Night Falls is an amazing testament of life under Castro and required reading as far as I'm concerned. Powerful, vivid and graphic, it depicts repression and rebellion in an unforgettable real-life narrative.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is another memoir, by writer
Jeanette Winterson, about growing up lesbian in a fundamentalist family in England. It's also about the power of literature to save and change lifes. If you don't read any other LGBT book, you should pick either Winterson's or Arenas's memoir.

Scott Pomfret's memoir Since My Last Confession is about being gay in liberal Boston, and the fight for marriage equality in Massachusetts. Massachusetts was one of the first states to legalize marriage for gay Americans and his book gives a lot of insight into the early days of the struggle. And it's really funny too.

David Sedaris and Alison Bechdel have both written a lot about their gay lives. My favorite Sedaris title is Me Talk Pretty One Day, which mostly focuses on the time in his life when he met his partner Hugh and moved to France. Bechdel was a prolific comics artist and writer of the multi-volume series Dykes to Watch Out For before she became a star with her book (now a Broadway play) Fun Home.

Alan Holinghurst's The Line of Beauty is a really wonderful novel set in Thatcherite England about a gay man trying to make a life among people who only tolerate him as long as they choose to.

Another memoir I love is John Waters' recent Carsick, a combination of fact
and fiction about his trip hitchhiking across America. Waters is a well-known filmmaker and author who mixes his real-life trip with made-up stories about what could have happened, or maybe should have, depending on your point of view. He's hilarious.

Those are just a few of my favorites. I hope you find something to read!

Europa Challenge- Playing Catch-Up

Taking the NYC subway has given me a lot of time to read and most days you can find me with my nose stuck in a book, usually a Europa. But I haven't been blogging a lot, for various reasons, and once again I'm behind on reviews. So I'm going to do a big post with lots of little reviews to catch up.

Of Beasts and Beings, by Ian Holding. This book is comprised of two intertwined stories, one set in modern day Zimbabwe as a white teacher named Ian is getting ready to pull up stakes for South Africa. He's disassembling his home, selling possessions, saying goodbye to friends and his longtime servant. He's also reassessing his life and himself. The second story is set in a nameless place and indefinite time, about a man who becomes literally shackled to an itinerant group who use him as a human mule. One story is terrifying, the other thought-provoking, and then they intersect in a most unexpected way. I loved this book but it was a tough read in places. Buy.

Arctic Summer, by Damon Galgut, is a fictionalized biography of E.M.Forster. I'd recommend it to readers of memoir and biography, because it is so heavily character-driven. It covers the period of his life leading up to the creation of his masterpiece A Passage to India and features his failed attempts at relationships. Galgut depicts his character has self-absorbed, misogynistic and insecure, and yet still makes the narrative compelling. I enjoyed reading Arctic Summer but it was slow at times. LGBT. Backlist.

The Island of Last Truth, by Flavia Company, is a quick read about a man trapped on a desert island after the boat he is sailing is overrun by pirates. This is a modern-day story and the pirates are terrorists of the sea, engaging in any number of crimes. The man finds out he's not alone, and what comes next is breathtakingly suspenseful and ends with a shocking twist. I liked this one a lot but it was too short. Translated from the Italian. Backlist.

My Berlin Child, by Anne Wiazemsky, is a World War 2 story about a privileged young woman named Claire who becomes an ambulance driver and falls in love with an impoverished Russian prince. Based on the life of Claire Mauriac and written by her daughter, it's romantic but probably only of interest to fans of the author, a famous French actress, or her mother, the daughter of writer Francois Mauriac. It would make a good movie probably but I found it self-absorbed and dull. Translated from the French. Borrow.

Gourmet Rhapsody, by Muriel Barbery. Since Europa just announced they'll be publishing her third book, I thought I should catch up and make sure I've read the first two. This book takes a minor character from The Elegance of the Hedgehog and put him front and center as he's dying.  Pierre Arthens, famous food critic, is dying and reminiscing about his favorite foods. Rhapsodic food writing alternates with bitter remembrances by those who knew him, and you can read between the lines in his chapters to get his take on the relationships in his life. I enjoyed this book but didn't love it. It felt a little disjointed to me. Translated from the French. Backlist.

I have a few more to review so stay tuned over the next week or so.

Review: NOT MY FATHER'S SON, by Alan Cumming

Not My Father's Son, by Alan Cumming. Published 2014 by Dey St./William Morrow. Memoir.

I don't read a ton of celebrity memoirs- usually I have to be a fan of the author, and even then let's just say I manage my expectations. I can't say I'm a particular fan of Alan Cumming (I did see "Circle of Friends" on a flight to Ireland in 1995) but the buzz on his book was just so intriguing that I had to check it out, and I'm so glad I did.

Cumming's book tells two stories. First, he tells us about his father, Alex, who was monstrously abusive, both emotionally and physically, towards Alan, his brother Tom and their mother Mary. Alex tormented his children even into adulthood, first by telling Alan that Alan was not his biological child and then by playing a cruel trick designed to come to light after his death. Cumming tells Alex's story in alternating chapters with the present-tense search for the truth about his maternal grandfather. Tom Darling was a World War 2 soldier with the Cameron Highlanders, a Scottish unit that served in Europe. He died under shaded circumstances in Malaysia; Cumming sets out to find out what happened to him, with the help of a British television show called "Who Do You Think You Are". This reality show helps celebrities find out things about their families and documents the search.

Cumming's writing is very good and I found the narrative compelling and emotionally affecting. I was sorry to see it end, and I really enjoyed following his journey to find out more about Darling- a journey with two endings, one bitter and one very, very sweet. The story of coming to terms with Alex Cumming's sad legacy is also very emotional, but I loved the way Cumming finds of turning his father's last betrayal into something beautiful for Mary Darling. He also turned out a beautiful book full of love and forgiveness and acceptance. In the end that's all we can ask. I would certainly recommend the book to memoir readers and to people who enjoy reading about families. Ultimately it's a very happy story.

P.S., if you're interested in the story of Tom Darling, you can find the entire episode of "Who Do You Think You Are" on YouTube.

Rating: BUY

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

Review: THE LINE OF BEAUTY, by Alan Hollinghurst

The Line of Beauty, by Alan Hollinghurst. Originally published 2005 by Bloomsbury USA. 2004 winner of the Man Booker Prize. Literary Fiction.

Reading a book like Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty really spoils you for other books, and no matter when you read it, you wonder what took you so long to get around to this luminous, sad and melancholy treasure.

Set in the 1980s among the political and social elite of London, it's basically a coming of age story about a character named Nick Guest, a gay man living in the home of his Oxford friend Toby Fedden. The Feddens are the epitome of political and social elite; father Gerald is a Tory MP whose star is on the rise, and it's the heyday of the Thatcher era. Toby and his friends are rich and carefree; they party, do drugs, have sex. Nick's background is more modest but he seems to fit right in. He's closeted, which in this time and place goes without saying, and coming out during the first flush of the AIDS crisis. But he's also anxious to be part of the gay life of London and begins a relationship with a man whom he meets through a personal ad. Later he and a member of the Feddens' set have a relationship too.

Nick is at the Feddens' because during college he was enamored of Toby and the two were friends, though nowadays it's Toby's sister Catherine to whom Nick is closest, and she's the only one who knows he's gay. She is also unstable and will cause the avalanche that brings everything down in the end.

Reading other reviews, the biggest problem other readers seem to have with the book is how unlikeable the characters are, and this is not a book to read if you're looking to meet your next literary best friend. But that consideration is as shallow as some of the characters in the book. This is a book in which the characters are just who they are, flawed and imperfect, just trying to make the best of things. Nick's boyfriends are the most sympathetic characters, to the extent anyone is. The Feddens are pretty much terrible people, with paper-thin loyalty and wholly beholden to public opinion, not the least because Gerald's career is that of an elected official. Nick is alienated from himself, trying to keep up a front while also trying to figure out who he is in the world.

What makes the book is Hollinghurst's incredibly beautiful writing, his detailed characterizations and his command of psychological nuances. It's like a Victorian novel set among 80s party kids. I can't pull out individual quotes because it's such a whole, every sentence flowing into the next. Reading it I just felt like, why can't every book be this good? It's definitely going to be among my favorites for the year and it's one of my favorites among the Booker winners, too. The story is tragic and sad, a love letter to an era that had its share of joy and pain, but it's that writing that will get you hooked and move you and make you feel for these deluded and difficult characters. It's so worth your time to 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: THE DAYLIGHT GATE, by Jeanette Winterson

The Daylight Gate, by Jeanette Winterson. Published 2013 by Hammer. Literary Fiction.

The Daylight Gate is a book made for Halloween but guaranteed to give you a chill on the hottest day of the year. British author Jeanette Winterson delivers a quick, powerful punch blending historical fiction, horror, sex and suspense in the tale of Alice Nutter, a wealthy woman being persecuted for witchcraft in 17th century Lancashire. And the thing is, it's not entirely clear she's innocent.

Winterson based her novel on real people and events and the book includes an introduction to clarify how she blended fact and fiction. But it doesn't really matter. What matters is the story that follows, about Reformation politics and anti-Catholicism, ("Popery, witchery, witchery popery"), powerful women, powerful men, and men and women who wish to be powerful when economics and social stratification has rendered them powerless. It's also about sexual relations and how some kinds of sex act as currency while others are vilified as devilry. And it's about the power of passion and the power of love.

The Daylight Gate is a quick read, intense and incredibly suspenseful even as the end is already written. Pick it up when you have some time to yourself. Winterson's writing is more clipped and plot-centered than I think is typical for her but she puts her powers to good use and the result is unforgettable.

Rating: BUY

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

Review: THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA, by Hanif Kureishi

The Buddha of Suburbia, by Hanif Kureishi. Published 1991 by Penguin.

Hanif Kureishi's novel about a British-Indian teen finding his way in 1970s London has become a kind of iconic portrait of the city at that time, and a sort of counterculture classic. I picked it up for both reasons, and it was well worth my time.

Karim is one of two sons of a white British mother and her Indian husband, Haroon. As the novel opens in the London suburb of Beckenham, Haroon is making a name for himself as a guru, making the rounds of suburban houseparties as "the Buddha of Suburbia." But before long he gets involved with Eva, an arty woman with her sights on high society, and Haroon leaves his wife to start a new life- a life filled with sophisticates, better parties, and glamour, or so he hopes. Karim and his brother Allie are devastated; Karim chooses to live with his father, whom he adores, and though he is torn between the life his father represents and his mother's love, he finds himself more and more enmeshed in Eva's glitzy pretensions, as well as the drugs, sex and excitement that go with them.

The Buddha of Suburbia often struck me as a London version of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but with better writing and more interesting characters and situations. Please don't bother telling me I didn't like Perks because I'm O-L-D. I didn't like it because it's not a very good book. Buddha manages to communicate the pains of growing up, growing apart from your family and falling in and out of love for the first time, without the vulgarity of that other book, and with a lot more intelligence. It covers issues like economic and racial tensions in 70s London and teenage sexual ambivalence without angsting over it so. I like this about some British books; people have their issues, and their struggles, but they manage to not be so gosh-darn melodramatic about it. I don't know about you, but I have enough melodrama in my day to day life without having to live someone else's, too, so I appreciate that.

The Buddha very plot-oriented; you get to know characters through their actions and the character you will know best is Karim, who narrates in a matter-of-fact style. His adventures take him from his mother's house to his father's, to the world of the theater, to America, to and from various friends, relatives and lovers, and back again, to himself at last. His brother Allie joins cousin Jamilla, her unforgettable husband Changez and a varied mix of characters for a ride you'll enjoy. London is a character in the book, its neighborhoods and streets, its social mores and conflicts. I'd recommend The Buddha to readers of edgy, eccentric fiction who like unusual characters and a strong sense of place.

Rating: BACKLIST

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

Review: SWIMMING TO ELBA, by Silvia Avallone

Swimming to Elba, by Silvia Avallone. Published 2013 by Penguin.

When I was in school, I had an inseparable best friend. Like a lot of young girls do, we had some kind of a fight- I have no idea now what it was about- and she dumped me. I've missed her ever since. We got back in touch in our late 20s but then she dumped me again, and now and then when I see Facebook pictures of her with other friends of mine I feel a little hollow and sad, like a part of me is missing that can never be replaced. That's sort of what Silvia Avallone's European bestseller is about, an adolescent friendship that hits the skids and seems like it might never recover.

Set in a working-class Italy that tourists never see, Swimming to Elba tells the story of Anna and Francesca, two beautiful almost-14-year-olds on the cusp of everything- adulthood, sex, love and their forever-lives. They live in the same run-down building in Piombino, a Tuscan town that faces the resort island of Elba, where wealthy tourists frolic and play, but their town is no showpiece. Life in Piombino centers on the Lucchino steel mill and the via Stalingrado, where everyone in the town works and lives, including the girls' brothers, friends and boyfriends.

Anna and Francesca have been inseparable since they were little kids; each cannot imagine her life without the other, but as they enter this fraught period in their lives things change. They are maturing physically, attracting the attention of boys and men, and their minds turn to escape from their limited prospects. Anna's father Arturo is a wanna-be criminal who periodically abandons the family. Francesca's father is a miserable monster who beats her and her mother. And one of them has a secret, too. The shame each girl feels isolates her and drives each to bad relationships and self-destructive behavior. They try out other people like clothes but always reach for each other.

I really loved this book for its honesty and frankness when describing the difficult lives of these girls. I have seldom read a truer picture of teenage female friendship with all its complexities and games and mixed-up feelings. No light beach read, this book goes to some very dark places very quickly, and only barely recovers by the end. Although peppered with the joys of adolescence, it feels hopeless and grim most of the time. Slowly it becomes apparent that things aren't quite as bleak as they seem, and that escape might just be possible. I highly recommend this book with the caution that it contains pretty graphic material on domestic violence, drugs and sex. It would be an edgy book club choice and would doubtless prompt some great conversations. It's lead by compelling characters you'll care about and root for, and may even surprise you by the end.

Rating: BUY

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

Review: ROLE MODELS, by John Waters

Role Models, by John Waters. Published 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Nonfiction. Essays.

I've never seen a John Waters film so I guess you'd say I'm a fan of the idea of John Waters' films rather than of his work itself.  That's okay. I don't plan to see his films. But he is a cultural icon, not only a notorious purveyor of filth but an advocate for the marginalized, the outcast, the people who don't quite fit in. And that's what I find so appealing.

His book Role Models is an appreciation of the people he admires for all kinds of reasons. He starts off with Johnny Mathis, the reclusive legend who keeps a low Hollywood profile and a very private personal life. From there he moves on to some figures famous, notorious and obscure, from a Manson family killer still in prison to fashion designer Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons to high society artist Cy Twombly and marginalized pornographers who captured Waters' imagination with their depictions of gay male sexuality at a formative time in Waters' life.

Overall I enjoyed the book a lot, mostly owing to Waters' charming and engaging voice. Reading the book is like listening to him talk, enthusiastically and at length, about the people and things he loves and appreciates. He shows the same love and respect for the everyday people he talks about as for the celebrities, and while I don't always share his admiration for some of his subjects, he comes across like a genuinely nice and caring person. He's also funny, raw, obscene and everything else you'd think, so if you do read this don't go in expecting him to be someone else. There were some parts of the book that I found I could not really read, either because they crossed a line with me in terms of being very explicit or because they were just over my head. I love his appreciation, for example, of artist Twombly but knowing nothing about modern art, much less graffiti painting, I'm not in much of a position to share it. But I do love his sense of humor.

On the subject of celebrity perfumes:

Or better yet, maybe you could be the first on your block to sell a perfume I'm planning on marketing with my attached...Whenever I say my name in Paris, the French laugh because to them it means "toilet waters." So my perfume would have to smell like, what? The humorous absence of God mixed with the odor of a piece of 16 mm film getting caught in the projector gate and burning?

 Elsewhere, on the subject of moral dilemmas:

If someone was racist and really cute, could you still have sex with him? I had to admit the answer is yes. I have. You just change the subject or shout, "La la la la la la la," covering your ears when he speaks his nonsense. If all else fails, stick something in his mouth to shut him up.

As someone with a number of friends who, though I love them dearly, have political views that make me want to duck and run for cover, I can say the "la la la" approach works well. And these are but two examples of his philosophy of life. In one chapter he discusses a number of books that he loves or that influenced him; several are books that I've either wanted to read or tried to read, but I was sad to find that we had no favorites in common. The chapter "Baltimore Heroes" talks about the ordinary people in his life whom he admires and the final chapter, "Cult Leader" is about his own legacy.

But who's this book for? Film buffs, Waters fans, and anyone who's ever felt like mainstream American life passes them by. Ultimately what I got from this book was his love and loyalty to people who don't live at the center of celebrity, wealth or fame but who live honestly, try to be kind and to create some kind of meaning with their lives. And that's a pretty good standard to live by, I think.

Rating: BACKLIST

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

REVIEW: Singing From the Well, by Reinaldo Arenas

Singing From the Well, by Reinaldo Arenas. Published 1988 by Penguin.

Singing From the Well is the first book in Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas's "secret history of Cuba," a series he called the Pentagonía. It's the story of a young boy growing up in rural Cuba, with his mother and brother and other relatives. I read it after reading his searing autobiography, Before Night Falls, and I intend to finish the series eventually. Singing from the Well, and most of Arenas's fiction from what I understand, is very different in style from his matter-of-fact autobiography. It's surreal, dream-like and fantastical; you can't quite tell what's real and what's not, what the character is imagining and what's actually happening. You get lost in the poetic beauty of the writing itself, the lyricism and music of it.

The book opens with a scene of the narrator's mother falling down the well:

There went my mother, she just went running out the door. She was screaming like a crazy woman that she was going to jump down the well. I see my mother at the bottom of the well. I see her floating in the greenish water choked with leaves. So I run for the yard, out to where the well is, that's fenced around with a wellhead of naked-boy saplings so rickety it's almost falling in.

I run up and peek over. But just like always- the only one down there is me. Me being reflected from way down there up to me above. Me- and I disappear if you so much as spit into the oozy green water.

So she didn't really fall down the well, she just threatened to, but that was enough to send her son off in a panic, to check, just in case. But the reader can see right away some of the themes that the book will explore- the terror of childhood, the beauty of the natural world, and the fear of annihilation. As the book continues we learn more about his world- his family and especially his cousin Celestino, a writer mocked by the rest of the family. But is Celestino real? Is he a figment of the narrator's imagination, or is he the narrator himself, older and wiser, looking in on his younger self:

Celestino came up to me and put his hand on my head. I was so sad. It was the first time anybody had ever cursed at me. I was so sad I started crying. Celestino lifted me up in the air, and he said to me, "What foolishness, but you might as well get used to it." I looked at Celestino, and I realized that he was crying too, but he was trying not to show it. So that made me realize that he stil hadn't got used to it either. I stopped crying a second. And the two of us went out into the yard. It was still daylight.

The book goes on in this vein, with the narrator's naive style and flights of fancy glancing over the horrors of his day to day life- the violence in his family, death, the violence of a country in transition. The family faces shame and mockery as word of Celestino's writing spreads; times are difficult and tension builds. I can't claim to understand everything that happened in the book, but reading it was a beautiful experience. I want to read it again and to continue with the series. The books aren't all that easy to find but I think it will be worth seeking them out.

Rating: BACKLIST

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