All-Bright Court (1987) by Connie Porter

 1001 Novels: A Library of America

All-Bright Court (1987)

by Connie Porter

New York: 3/105

Buffalo, New York

Upstate New York: 3/23

  

  Buffalo's sole representative in the 1001 Novels project is All-Bright Court is Connie Porter's 1987 debut novel about a community of African American steelworkers living in the eponymous housing block.  It's another collection of interlinked short stories spread over decades.  All-Bright Court accomplishes exactly what books in the 1001 Novels project are supposed to accomplish- giving the reader an idea about a community of American with whom they may be unfamiliar.  It's not fair to say I've never thought about Buffalo- I have two friends who are from there and I've talked about their experiences growing up in Buffalo dozens of times.  However, they are both Jewish-American professionals who left after high school, i.e. nothing like this community of African American steelworkers. 

Yellowface(2023) by R.F. Kuang

Author R.F. Kuang

 Book Review

Yellowface (2023)

by R.F. Kuang

   I love fiction about the writing of fiction, particularly the business side of writing fiction.  The ideology of the romantic artist-creator is so entrenched in the western culture of creativity that finding fiction that talks about the publishing process is rare, the major exception being roman a clef type books written by young women who have worked in said industry.  Yellowface, then, is a rare treat- a wickedly funny satire(?) about the writing and publishing of literary fiction.

    At the start of the book we are introduced to June Hayward, a recent Yale graduate struggling to make it as a writer.  She's put out one book of YA fiction and... it wasn't a hit.  Her only tie to literary success is her university classmate and frenemy Athena Liu, an R.F. Kuang type (both author and character wrote their first novels while undergraduates) and the opening chapters recounts their troubled "friendship."  Everything take a turn when Athena, giddy about the recent optioning of her first novel for a prestige television/film adaptation, chokes to death on pancakes inside her apartment, with June as the only witness.  June doesn't struggle that hard with her decision to swipe Liu's just completed manuscript, a work of historical fiction about the Chinese Labor Corps during World War I.   

   June submits the manuscript as her own, and we are off from there, as the book is picked up  and June is left to deal with the consequences of her actions.  Kuang is often wickedly funny- I found myself laughing out loud, but I also found myself cognizant of the fact that Kuang's publishing material feels more like what her audience expects than what actually occurs.  But the book is a huge hit, and it's good, so that's really all one needs to observe.

Eastbound (2023) by Maylis de Kerangel

 Book Review

Eastbound (2023)

by Maylis de Kerangel

Translated by Jessica Moore

  I checked out this new book by French author Maylis de Kerangel because of the positive reviews I read online in some end of the year book round-ups.   It's a short book about an encounter between a French woman fleeing a failed romance and a Russian conscript heading east on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The prose as translated by Jessica Moore is sharp and Kerangel accomplishes much with few brushstrokes, drawing the reader in to the mini drama that takes place entirely on a train.

Personal Observations on the Conduct of the Modoc War(1874?) by William Henry Boyle

 Book Review

Personal Observations on the Conduct of the Modoc War (1874?)

by William Henry Boyle

Edited by Richard H. Dillon from the original manuscript in the Bancroft Library

300 Copies Printed by the Westernlore Press, Los Angeles, CA.

  It's true I don't write fiction, but I think about the writing of fiction plenty.  I think about what I would write IF I wrote fiction.  One conclusion is that any fiction I write would not proceed from the start point of a bildungsroman/roman a clef/family saga perspective.  I'm a cis white Jewish guy from an upper middle class family in the Bay Area and I can tell you that no one in the publishing world needs another book like that.   I would say the other path is a work of historical fiction with literary fiction ambitions.  That's an approach that allows the author to write characters of different race, class and economic background without touching on the authenticity concerns that dog any attempt at a bildungsroman/roman a clef type book, where the identity of the author is assumed to match the characteristics of the protagonist. 

   I think the idea with historical/literary fiction is to identify an episode- a set of historical facts that can be laid down.  Second would be to develop your characters, including a solid understanding of their background- these are like, things I would write down before I actually write any prose.  Finally I'd want to have the idea of the physical locations involved- like separately written down.   With those three pieces in hand, I would then attempt the first draft, revise, etc.   I'd want to write a very short story first but the idea is always towards the working of a novel of about 200-300 pages (250-300 words a page). 

  Anyway- I've always been interested in the Indian Wars from far Northern California because 1) they aren't well understood 2) they happened near the end of the Indian War period and near the geographic end of the North American continent and 3) the indians won some big battles.

   I think the Modoc War is the best bet for a couple reasons.  Captain Jack, leader of the rebellious Modoc band of 300 odd people, managed to kill about 100 US soldiers with something like 30 fighting men.  I think there is an interesting backstory- that the Modoc were already fighting to preserve their way of life from other indians before the arrival of the whites and an interesting afterstory, the surviving Modocs were relocated from the California/Oregon border to Oklahoma after their leaders were hung.   I think the idea would be to take a slightly anachronistic approach and include a journalist or scholar character who fully empathizes  with the Modocs while serving with the whites.  Also I think including a chapter showing inter-Native conflict before the arrival of the whites would be useful and interesting.   

  I'm interested in Native characters who are not passive victims of fate- the idea of a Captain Jack figure as the ultimate American anti-hero: murdering and mutilating the agents of the American government and any of its citizens.  Playing up, rather than running away from, the torture and mutilation of the dead, America, after all, loves torture porn and mutilation. 

   The one scene that left me thinking in this particular account is the murder of about thirty American soldiers who were waiting to set up a Howitzer gun with which to attack Captain Jack and his band.  Boyle describes finding thirty dead men in an area less than one hundred square feet- the victims of a surprise attack by Captain Jack.   They were essentially shot like fish in a barrel.   Haunting. 

The English Understand Wool (2022) by Helen DeWitt

 Book Review

The English Understand Wool (2022)

by Helen DeWitt

   The English Understand Wool is a novella published in 2022 by New Directions as part of their Storybooks project- which is designed to feature shorter novellas that are written with the idea that they can be read in a single sitting.   Success! This short book about a stunning 17 year old girl is, indeed, as the promotional materials claim: a heist story, an ethica; treatise, a send-up of media culture, a defense of education and an indelibly memorable character portrait.  I agree with all of that language.  I simply could not put The English Understand Wool  down and I did read it at one go.  It is one of those books that will lose power if you know the plot going in, so it's best just to say, read it- it shouldn't take you more than an hour back to front...

Living on the Borderline (2019) by Melissa Michal

1001 Novels: A Library of America

Living on the Borderlines (2019)

by Melissa Michal

New York 2/105

Upstate: 2/23

Nedrow, New York

  Living on the Borderlines is an impressively deep cut in the 1001 Novels: A Library of America New York chapter.   Living on the Borderlines is representing the Onodaga Nation- one of the five original nations of the Iroquois Confederacy.  This collection of interwoven short stories is interesting but very conventional Native American lit- talking about the intergenerational trauma and troubled family relationships in a way that will be familiar to even a casual dabbler in Native American literary fiction.  Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the read- I'd rather read a million books like this one than another single YA book, but I know from history that the Iroquois Confederacy were both victim's and collaborators with the British and American authorities.  For example, the Iroquois seized the lands of another Native tribes and then sold it to the British in the 17th and 18th centuries. 

There was nothing within these pages that struck me as particularly Iroquois, but maybe that's because most of these protagonists are women with little or no formal education and limited life experience, giving their stories a similar tone. It's something I've noticed about fiction written from the POV of the non-literary classes- an author telling the story of a human being with a fifth grade education, is, to a certain extent, writing about a fifth grader.  That's not a criticism, simply an observation.   When, on the other hand, your character has a graduate degree in English literature or some other professional qualification, they are free to sound like the likely highly educated author.

   Michal's stories aren't exclusive to Onodaga country- one story is about a Haida (Pacific Northwest) carver of totem pools and his struggles to carry on the tradition to the next generation.  Another story centers on a character who was given away for adoption by an Iroquois woman to a non-Native family.  Some of the stories have elements of magical realism.   The stand out story was The Long Goodbye- about the matriarch of a family descending into Alzheimer's, haunted by her experience at the dehumanizing Indian Schools of the early 20th century.