Review: The Night Flowers, by Sara Herchenroether

 

The Night Flowers, by Sara Herchenroether. Fiction, Crime Fiction. Tin House, 2023.

Tin House is one of my favorite small presses; I almost always love anything of theirs I read. They are one of my go-tos for thoughtful, interesting fiction and The Night Flowers did not disappoint.

Laura MacDonald is a breast cancer survivor and librarian who is also an amateur genealogist; she uses her skills to help her patrons, and to further her own interest in true crime.  As the book opens she's just endured a grueling surgery and health crisis. She's also come upon a murder based in New Mexico; a young woman found dead with two children. In New Mexico, Detective Jean Martinez is working the cold case desk and trying to find the identity of the three dead people after more than twenty years. Laura travels to New Mexico and approaches Jean with what she's found. After a period of hesitation, the two women work together to identify the killer and bring him to justice.

As volume-ones in crime series go, The Night Flowers is a fun, interesting, well-structured read. It's character driven, which makes sense, because we're just getting to know these people- it's like their origin story, or the origin story of their partnership. The setting of New Mexico is vivid and immediate; I could feel the hot sand in my hair. Herchenroether also develops the victims' personalities through intermittent chapters that deepen the suspense and give them a voice. In other words crime fiction is littered with dead women, and while this book is no exception to that trope, it's nice that the author gives them some depth.

The book sort of reminded me of A Bad Day for Sorry, a crime novel I read a long time ago about women seeking justice for other women. I liked how Herchenroether mixed Laura's cancer story, Jean's marriage dynamic, the DNA pieces, and the backstory of the community where all this takes place alongside the victim's detailed story. I found the chapters in the victim's voice to be an interesting break from the traditional narrative. And I hope to see more books with Jean and Laura solving cold cases in the desert.

FTC Disclosure: I received an advance copy from Tin House though no review was promised.

Review: THE LONG ROOM, by Francesca Kay

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rating: BACKLIST

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

REVIEW: Glaciers, by Alexis M. Smith

Glaciers, by Alexis M. Smith. Published 2012 by Tin House Books. Literary Fiction.

Glaciers is a quiet, lovely little book from writer Alexis M. Smith and Tin House Books, a small publisher of off-the-beaten path novels. This book tells the story of Isabel, a 20-something archivist who likes vintage clothes and a quiet boy named Spoke, who works down the hall from her. The book follows a single day in her life, a day in which she goes to work, buys a beautiful dress and dreams of wearing it at a party for the boy she likes.

Set in Portland, Oregon, the book traverses the backwaters of Isabel's memories of growing up in Alaska, her parents, and her present-day life going between a quiet office, a low-key apartment and the store with the old clothes she loves so much. She's a dreamer; she collects postcards and ephemera and has a postcard picture of Amsterdam she found in a junk store:

Walking home, she thinks Amsterdam must be a lot like Portland. A slick fog of a city in the winter, drenched in itself. In the spring and summer: leafy, undulating green, humming with bicycles, breeze-borne seeds whirling by like tiny white galaxies. And in the early glorious days of fall, she thinks, looking around her, chill mist in the mornings, bright sunshine and halos of gold and amber for every tree.

Smith gives us a very atmospheric book drenched in itself, in its poetic imagery and memory-rich musings. The plot isn't anything much; a girl goes to work, buys a dress, pines for a boy. But it's a gem of a book anyway, beautifully written and unforgettable in its own way. It's the perfect book for a quiet afternoon, an indulgence with a cup of tea, a little marvel like an old ring that catches the light and makes rainbows on the ceiling.

Rating: BUY

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

REVIEW: Asta in the Wings, by Jan Elizabeth Watson

Asta in the Wings, by Jan Elizabeth Watson. Published 2009 by Tin House Books. Literary Fiction.

Asta in the Wings is one of the best books I've read in a while.

Jan Elizabeth Watson's novel is about a little girl, seven year old Asta Hewitt, who lives with her mother and her older brother Orion in a house in Maine. She's never been to school- she's barely even been outside the house, believing her mother's stories about plagues and holocaust. Then one day her mother doesn't come home from work, and she and Orion venture outside to find her. What follows blends Asta's wonder at the outside world with her fear (and ignorance) of it. It's not long until the adult world intervenes in Asta and Orion's fate, as the details of their life with their mother unfold alongside their new lives. The children eventually find the beginnings of a new life, with the hope that they won't have to leave the old one behind entirely.

To love Asta in the Wings you have to love Asta, and I did. Watson evokes affection for Asta that never lapses into pity, because the girl, with her intelligence, resilience and loyalty, carries an optimism that makes the reader believe in her and share her faith in herself and her future, if not exactly that of her family. She's not angry at her mother- she's too innocent for that, and Watson leaves that to the reader anyway. But even the reader's anger is held off because Watson keeps Asta's mother at a distance. Loretta Hewitt is a faded beauty obsessed with old movies; she keeps the children isolated and she says it's for their own good but we never really learn why. Since we don't really know whether she is driven by cruelty or delusion we don't know whether or not to pity her.

She writes the book in the first person, from the adult Asta's point of view but her more worldly voice rarely breaks in; instead we have to see the world through her child's eyes and what we see is a wonder. I read Asta in the Wings in a couple of days; I found it difficult to put down and was sad to see it end. I'd suggest it to literary fiction readers and all readers of coming-of-age stories; it's beautifully crafted and compelling, though not particularly light. It's also very optimistic and ends on a bittersweet note of hope. I loved this book. Loved, loved, loved. You will too!

Rating: BUY

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