Victorian Psycho (2025) by Virginia Feito

 Book Review

Victorian Psycho (2025)

by Virginia Feito

  I swear the E-book edition I checked out from the library managed to inform me that this book was already set to become "a major motion picture featuring Margaret Qualley" which seems almost impossible considering it just got released in the UK and hasn't yet been published over here, but such is the way of publishing rights- they can be sold before the book is even written- a la the Godfather by Mario Puzo which was under contract for a movie before Puzo ever set pen to paper.  Victorian Psycho is pretty much what the title promises, a Victorian-era riff on American Psycho with the nepo baby Investment Banker replaced by a Victorian governess.  What Victorian Psycho sadly lacks is any sort of narrative ambition, we learn, yes, that the Governess has had a difficult upbringing (who didn't, back then?)  The violent bits aren't particularly memorable.   The supporting cast, aka the wealthy family who hires this lady to work with them, are little more than collections of narrative conventions about the Victorians. In short, I was underwhelmed.  I will be interested to see the film.

The Unworthy(2025) by Agustina Bazterrica

 Book Review

The Unworthy (2025)

by Agustina Bazterrica

    I was excited for his novel by Bazterrica, author of the excellent Tender is the Flesh and a slightly less excellent but still very good collection of short stories.  The description had me drooling- promising a tale that combined dystopic lit and religious obsession.  To be fair, Bazterrica does indeed deliver on the promise, but in extremely minimal fashion, at 192 pages The Unworthy is in line with other recent works of literary fiction- short is in, unless it's an extremely long book, but I really wanted more.  The whole deal here is that this one of those books where the protagonist is keeping a journal a la Anne Frank- which, honestly, came to mind more than once while I was reading The Unworthy,  it's a technique that goes hand-in-hand with the development of the novel as an art form- Pamela, by Samuel Richardson, one of the first novels was an epistolary novel.  In that sense, it works that this book is so short, it's hard to imagine this protagonist getting deep into details when she is writing with ink she makes out of mashed up bugs.  Mashed up bugs, in fact, feature prominently, with the girls in the novel subsisting largely on a diet of crickets.  Not ground up cricket protein powder but actual crickets.   Ultimately, I thought The Unworthy was good but it didn't live up to my perhaps unrealistic expectations. 

The Watermark (2025) by Sam Mills

 Book Review

The Watermark (2025)

by Sam Mills

    I read about this book in the Guardian and it looked interesting so I checked out the E-edition from the library.  Sad to find out at the end that the print version has a "graphic novel" section that is simply translated into prose in the E-book.   Ultimately though I found the mechanics of the plot more interesting than the book itself, about two modern-day star-crossed lovers (a low achieving, well educated hipster and his morose artist girlfriend/soulmate) who are entrapped by a writer of literary fiction by use of a tea to become characters in his, and others, books.   While I won't be thinking about the characters or what happened in the book, the idea of these people being trapped as characters in a series of different novels, written by different authors, was really interesting and I can't remember reading anything along these lines that took it through so many levels- for a literary Inception type impact on the reader.   I wish the characters themselves were more interesting but five stars for the idea.

The Lost Steps (1953) by Alejo Carpentier

 Audiobook Review

The Lost Steps (1953)

by Alejo Carpentier

   I read about The Lost Steps in Stranger Than Fiction by Edwin Frank- a book about the life of the 20th century novel.  The Lost Steps struck me as interesting- a pre/proto-magical realism work of Latin American fiction, about a guy living in an American city (New York?) who is dispatched by a museum to the wilds of Brazil to locate the "oldest instruments" in the western hemisphere.  Fortunately, Penguin just published a new translation (2023) done by Adrian Nathan West, who also translated the excellent book by Benjamin Labatut, When We Cease to Understand the World.  AND Penguin also did an Audiobook version, which is what I checked out from the library.

   I thought there were many memorable passages in The Lost Steps, and I enjoyed this book start to finish.  The protagonist is a frustrated composer working in advertising and he has a very existentialist vibe.  His adventures in Brazil are fun and the author and the protagonist stay away from racist proclamations about the indigenous Brazilians they encounter, which is welcome for a book from 1953.  Particularly memorable were his rhapsodic, Proustian passages about his relationship with music- again, unusual for fiction published in the early 1950's.  The Lost Steps maintained a modern feeling from start to finish and fans of Latin American lit from the first Golden Age should give this book a chance.

Plum Bun (1925) by Jesi Redmon Fauset

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Plum Bun: A Novel Without A Moral (1925)

by Jesi Redmon Fauset

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania: 6/27

   I've dramatically slowed down on the pace of 1,001 Novels: A Library of American because of less job-related driving (Audiobooks) and more job-related work (reading and writing and generally running around more).   Still, I was excited to listen to Plum Bun: A Novel Without A Moral which is a forgotten classic from a key (but largely forgotten) member of the Harlem Renaissance, Jesi Redmon Fauset.  Plum Bun is a novel about the experience of "passing" where (in this context) an African-American, usually a woman, abandons her racial identity in favor of living among white people.   It's a phenomenon that is best demonstrated in Nella Larsen's 1929 novel, Passing and the introduction makes a point of asking why the canon only includes one such tale.  From my perspective, it's understandable.  Larsen's book is centered around a woman who marries a white man who believes her to be white, and the resulting action is memorable and tragic.  

  In Plum Bun, on the on the hand, protagonist Angela Murray carefully avoids such a situation and generally speaking lives more like an existentialist hero- avoiding close attachments while yearning for them at the same time- than a heroine in a novel published in the 1920's in the US.  Plum Bun is also a book that seems somewhat randomly assigned to Philadelphia because Angela Murray grew up there.  Almost the entire book is set in New York City, and New York City is really the only place that the Author puts across to the reader- I didn't get much of a sense of Philadelphia at all beyond her childhood memories of "passing" with her mother, who was also light-skinned. 

Out in the Open (2017) by Jesus Carrasco

 Book Review

Out in the Open (2017)

by Jesus Carrasco

Translated by Margaret Jill Costa

   I found this book via the Libby library app via the "other books like this one" feature, which is especially useful if you are reading a type of book and want to read other books like it but don't know much about that area.  Here, I was reading another book translated from Spanish and Out in the Open popped up.  The story is about a child fleeing an abusive situation in an isolated environment. I had in mind the desert southwest or northern Mexico, though there are no place names or even personal names to help pin down the location or specific environment.  It's bleak, to be sure, but to call it "dystopian" as does the libby editorial copy seems a bit much.  Not every child wandering around in a featureless desert is living in a dystopia. 

The Ways of Wolf(2017) by James Carlos Blake

 Audiobook Review

The Ways of the Wolf (2017)

by James Carlos Blake

   The New York Times obituary for noir/crime writer James Carlos Blake caught by attention by not only comparing him to Cormac McCarthy but also by using this sub-header: "His savage fiction, set in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, demonstrated his belief that “violence is the most elemental truth of life."   The fact that I'd never heard of him despite being a huge fan or McCarthy and decently well-versed in the world of crime fiction through friends & acquaintances is yet another example of how useful the New York Times obituary section can be for picking up new books to read.   Since he was a genre writer I thought I'd look for an Audiobook  but the only library available audiobook was the fifth volume in his Wolf family saga, about an Anglo-Texas cross-border family immersed in "the shade trade"- mostly selling guns to cartels as far as I can tell.

    Anyway, since I heard about Blake from a New York Times obituary, I'm not going to act like I'm on to anything here. I'm surprised there aren't Audiobooks available for all his titles.  I'm def going to look for his actual books when I am bookstores going forward.

Season of the Swamp (2024) by Yuri Herrera

 Book Review

Season of the Swamp (2024)

by Yuri Herrera

Translated by Lisa Dillman

    I checked out the e-book edition of Season of the Swamp by Mexican author Yuri Herrera based on the New York Times description- not necessarily the review, which was mixed, but the description, which promised a book about Mexican nationalist leader Benito Juarez and his time in exile in New Orleans- of all places- a time about which he spoke little and truly is one of those historical episodes which provides a nucleus for a potentially great work of fiction.  I read it a while back but wasn't compared to write this post until I saw this book was named as a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize "best fiction" category, alongside James by Percival Everett, All Fours by Miranda July, Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle and Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capo Crucet. 

     As it turns out, Juarez doesn't get up to much in New Orleans, which is why the LA Times nomination surprised me, surely "something happens" is a prerequisite for a best-book of the year award.  Here, little happens except Juarez experiencing various aspects of life in New Orleans with his buddies.   The character of Juarez is of course sensitive to the vagaries of race in ante-bellum New Orleans.  He was the first indigenous President of a North American country and at several points he or a companion is forced to explain to an on-looker that Juarez is not "just" an Indian (in the parlance of the times).   Despite being set in the mid 19th century, Juarez has all the characteristics of a modernist artist-in-exile character and if you had told me Season of the Swamp had been set in the early 20th century I might not have been able to tell the difference. 

    

  

Gliff (2025) by Ali Smith

 Book Review

Gliff (2025)

by Ali Smith

   I try to keep up with Scottish author Ali Smith.  She is both highly regarded in the literary world, with a slew of Booker shortlisting's (2001, 2005, 2014 and 2016) and shelf full with minor literary awards.  Smith is prolific for a writer of literary fiction, averaging a new book every couple of years.  I skipped her four volume cycle about the seasons- my least favorite literary motif, it slightly clips "the difficulties of young motherhood" in that department.  I did, however, pick-up Gliff, her latest, since it promised a post-apocalyptic milieu (yay!) seen through the eyes of a child (sigh).   The 1,001 Novels: A Library of America has pumped so full of YA lit and adult books written from the perspective of a child that I've developed a cogent body of criticisms regarding these books and their motifs. 

   Specifically, these books (YA books and those adult books written from the perspective of children) feature narrators and protagonists who can't go anywhere and can't do anything, and most every book that fits this description involves a child or "young adult" who is stuck somewhere and can't do anything about it but wants to "get out." The book is then about whether they escape their sad surroundings or fail to do so and why.  

   Gliff fits this description- the characters are a pair of siblings, the protagonist is the elder sibling, a boy, who have been rendered "unverifiable"- the dystopian/novel equivalent of being an illegal alien in this future.. England? Scotland?  Unverifiability has nothing to do with race or immigration status, but seems to have been applied to everyone who broadly disagrees with the current government.  Unlike most YA titles, the language in Gliff is interesting- I found myself looking up words and phrases online, trying to make sense of what Smith was talking about.  At least, in this way, Smith has created a work far different than the usual simple-minded YA dystopian tropes.  However, in another, more important (for this reader anyway) Smith has done nothing unusual in her plotting, which made me wonder whether she is trying for some kind of commercial success with Gliff- a book for the punters, in her mind, perhaps.  

    Having read the book, I don't know. 

Between the World and Me (2015) by Ta-Nehisi Coates

 Audiobook Review

Between the World and Me (2015)

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

100 Best Books of the 21st Century (New York Times): #36

  My tour through the non-fiction picks on the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century by the New York Times continues with #36, Between the World and Me by journalist/author Ta-Nehisi Coates.  It reminded me very much of another book on this list, Citizen by Claudia Rankine (#34).  Both books are first-person works of non-fiction about the experience of being an "African-American body" and the daily threats that such a person faces.  I found value in both books, even though my career as a criminal defense attorney has afforded me many moments of contemplation over the impact of the criminal justice system on the bodies of its subjects.  At the same time, I feel like the adulation of books like this one as well as Citizen have something to do with the fact that Donald Trump won a second term as President.

  If you assume that the New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century represents, broadly, the Democratic perspective on the world, you might also look for ideas as to where they/we went wrong in convincing normal Americans to support "the good guys."   My thought, after reading both Between the World  and Citizen, is that Democrats/the left, spends their time lambasting the grievance/identity based politics of the right, while at the same time elevating voices from the left with the exact same perspective.  What are books like Between the World and Me and Citizen if they are not both based on grievances (justified, sure) and identity. 

  At the same time, personally, outside of the context of national politics, the African American non-fiction section of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list has really given me thought about how hostile an environment the day-to-day experience of living in this country is for any human being with black skin.