Winter Birds (1994) by Jim Grimsley

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Winter Birds (1994)

by Jim Grimsley

Grifton, North Carolina

North Carolina: 2/20

   Winter Birds is another incredibly dark family drama written from the perspective of the son an extremely dysfunctional family living off a Freeway in rural North Carolina.  Winter Birds is so dark that it was originally published in German translation after no American publisher would take it.  After the German language translation, Grimsley did find a publisher but it was never a hit- Publisher's Weekly straight up panned it, for many of the same reasons I didn't enjoy reading the book.

 Grimsley is primarily a play-wright, and Winter Birds reads like a play- the entire book takes place inside the family home and is told in the second person.   Basically, the entire book is an extended scene of domestic violence, with multiple- multiple lengthy scenes that are basically this guy's one-armed father chasing his poor mom around the house with a knife.  Dad commits all types of atrocities including stabbing the family dog to death while screaming "this is you" to his wife, who is hiding in the woods.  In the culminating scene/waking nightmare, Dad forces the narrator to have sex with his own mother.  Horrific! 

Children of Men (1991) by Jeanne Schinto

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Children of Men (1991)

by Jeanne Schinto

Southeast, Washington DC

Washington DC: 12/12

    That's a wrap for Washington DC!  Children of Men, not to be confused with the PD James dystopian-future novel that was made into a very good movie, this book is about a member of the white economic underclass- the daughter of a father who moved out of the Appalachian region for work after World War II. Cathy "Bird Legs" Ashwell has the deck stacked against her from day one.  She lives in a run-down rental in a bad part of town.  Her dad is a flag-operator on construction sites who drinks himself to sleep every day after work.  Her mom left.  Her younger brother is a drug-addict after returning from Vietnam, her sister is a whore-in-the-making.  Cathy makes one decision for herself in this book- to pursue a young African American guy from her neighborhood, which, of course, works out poorly for her.  She talks her way into joining her paramour and her drug-addict brother on a criminal enterprise that ends with her brother dead, her paramour in jail in Virginia and herself gang raped.   She gets back home, finds out she is pregnant, has the kid, gets another boyfriend, has two more kids before she is 21 under what can only be described as horrific circumstances and spends the rest of the book trying to get her act together.

  Children of Men is so dark it actually warrants comparison to the PD James novel- the presence of any kind of light in this novel is so dim that one wonders why write it at all.   This was the first and only novel by Jeanne Schinto, who was born in Greenwich Connecticut but graduated from George Washington and the Johns Hopkins creative writing program.  Presumably, Cathy Ashwell is based on someone she met while doing some kind of social work in the District.  Kudos to editor Susan Straight for giving some attention to this book, which otherwise has disappeared from the public consciousness. 

Thank You For Smoking (1994) by Christopher Buckley

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Thank You For Smoking (1994)

by Christopher Buckley

Capitol Hill, Washington DC

Washington DC: 11/12

   I read Thank You For Smoking, Christopher Buckley's satire(!?!) of the lobbying industry when it came out- or shortly thereafter, when I was actually living in and attending school in Washington DC.   A comic novel is a rare thing these days.  I didn't re-read it for the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project, but it 's about a tobacco lobbyist who is kidnapped by anti-tobacco activists.  Very 90's plot.

Lincoln in the Bardo (2017) by George Saunders

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Lincoln in the Bardo (2017)

by George Saunders

Georgetown, Washington DC

Washington DC: 10/12

  Of course I read Lincoln in the Bardo the year it came out.  Before it won the Booker Prize, even.  It looks like I listened to the Audiobook back in 2021- that must have been a covid thing. I really enjoyed this book.  Saunders got three books onto the recent New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century, including this book, which is in line with his position as a writer who has established himself as a short story writer who is treated like a novelist and then as a prize winning novelists once he decided to actually write a novel.  It's a close call between this book and All of Aunt Hagar's Children for best DC title in the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.  Here is the post from 2017:

Published 9/18/17
Lincoln in the Bardo (2017)
by George Saunders

  So here I am, more or less caught up with contemporary fiction.  The 1001 Books Project originally ended in 2006, so "the present" means the period between then and 2017.  Reviews of contemporary books will focus on their potential for canonical status, with the understanding that it is unknowable whether I am correct or not.   Unfortunately, the single best indicator would seem to be those books that either win major literary prizes or are nominated for such.  This criterion will take into account the sales record of each title, since simply looking at the best seller for canon candidates (while efficient) is simply too depressing to contemplate.

  Lincoln in the Bardo is the second 2017 book I've read in this category- the first being Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad.  Both books were selected based on their low odds on the Ladbrook's table for Booker Prize shortlist nominees.  Lincoln in the Bardo DID make the short list, The Underground Railroad did not.   Lincoln in the Bardo also has the top odds to win the prize- currently at 2/1.  Author  George Saunders is well known as a short-story writer and an essayist- I actually saw him speak last year in Los Angeles because my girlfriend is a fan and I left saying, "Well, he should write a novel." (He alluded to the fact that he was doing so during his talk.)

   So here is that novel, and yes, he did do an amazing job writing his first novel, with critical plaudits and an appearance at the top of the New York Times best-seller list.   It is a very appealing package: First time novel by a known quantity, combines historical fiction and the supernatural, popular United States President (Abraham Lincoln) appears as a major character (though not the Lincoln of the title.) AND- AND- it's is very, very easy to read, written in a format where each statement is written in citation format, whether or not it takes the form of actual dialogue or a quote from a historic text about the Lincoln administration.

  The Bardo of the title refers to the Tibetan spiritual concept which roughly equates to "purgatory"- neither heaven nor hell but a kind of supernatural waiting room, where unresolved issues may cause spirits to linger in the corporeal world as spirits, their issues reflected in their "physical" demeanor.  The Lincoln of the title is the President's son, William "Willie" Lincoln.  He died at the very beginning of the Civil War, and the story is "based" on two subsequent visits that the President made to Willie's tomb.

  Saunders manages to pack an astonishing number of voices into the 300 pages- over 100 by most accounts.  The other voices are other left behind spirits, and each of them adds some value to Saunders vision of Civil War era America. The grave yard in which Willie is laid to rest stands next to a paupers grave where African-Americans and vagrants were unceremoniously dumped, and thus Saunders is able to inject more social concern into a novel about ghosts and Abraham Lincoln than one might initially consider possible.

  It is this extra level of plot- the white graveyard next to the black graveyard, which I think really pushes Bardo into canonical territory.  Also, the fact that is both clearly a work of "experimental" fiction AND fast/easy to read and understand- that is a rare quality, and a canonical quality.   I think, weighing against it is the fact that it lacks the "weight" that often marks a canonical novel.  The technique of writing an entire book as a series of quotes from other sources detracts from the over-all impact, and may directly alienate less serious readers- a key component of the audience for a newly canonical text.

   Surely, the winning or losing of the Booker Prize will be a huge factor. The prize, like the winnowing of the long list to a short list is notoriously unpredictable, but with 2/1 odds, Lincoln in the Bardo is the odds on favorite.

Henry and Clara (1994) by Thomas Mallon

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Henry and Clara (1994)

by Thomas Mallon

Ford's Theater, Washington DC

Washington DC: 9/12

    I have a vague memory of touring Ford's Theater, perhaps on my Junior High trip to the capital. It couldn't have been during college, when I eschewed all "touristy stuff" in favor of undergraduate ennui.  The 1,001 Novels project has this book mapped at the theater because the couple in the title- He:  A Union Army soldier returned from the just completed Civil War and She: A friend and confident of the largely friendless and confidant-less Mary Lincoln were, in fact, in the box with Lincoln and Mary when John Wikes Booth shot him, Henry also being stabbed by Booth before he(Booth) jumped out of the theater box to the stage below.

   Writing books about actual historical people is Mallon's schtick and Henry and Clara is a good choice for a chapter on books about Washington DC because the protagonist is Clara, wife of Henry, and she describes Civil War Era DC like a character out of Vanity Fair.  The reader really gets a sense of the place circa 1860 onward.   Henry and Clara is chock a block with historical detail but the plot itself: Henry's slow decline into madness after surviving the assassination attempt is hampered because Clara, like most people of that era, doesn't understand much about the process of mental illness.