The Return (2016) by Hisham Matar

 100 Best Books of the 21st Century: New York Times

The Return (2016)

by Hisham Matar

#89

  Exploring the non-fiction selections on the New York Times recent 100 Best Books of the 21st Century has been a real pleasure and a good break from fiction.  The fiction portion, on the other hand, fills me with a vague dread mostly because the titles I haven't read on that part of the list represent conscious decisions rather than a lack of familiarity.   It's almost all domestic fiction and there is just only so much of that I can take in a given time period, which is currently filled by the prevalence of the same genre on the 1,001 Novels: A Library fo America list.   It took me awhile to make it to The Return, the non-fiction work by novelist Matar about his decades long quest to obtain closure regarding the whereabouts of his Dad, who was kidnapped out of Egypt by the Quaddaffi regime and held for years at a nightmarish Libyan prison.

  This is the only non-fiction title on the 100 Best Books List to not have an Audiobook edition available via the library app so I read the hard copy on my Kindle.   The Return is both a coming-of-age book about the author, a family biography and a history for a place- Libya- that is poorly documented.  For example, this book was the first I'd heard of the Italo-Turkic war between the Italians and the Ottoman Turks before World War I.  It's important to Libya because it marks the beginning of the Italian colonial period.   Matar keeps the book moving along- 272 pages is sufficient to tell a story that could have been at least three separate books.  Not surprising that it was a Pulitzer Prize winner after it was released.

The Möbius Book (2025) by Catherine Lacey

 Audiobook Review

The Möbius Book (2025)

 by Catherine Lacey

  I loved The Biography of X, Catherine Lacey's 2023 combination of alternate history, downtown New York art scene report and LGBT character study.  I listened to the Audiobook, then had someone track down a hard copy in New York at a time when I couldn't find a copy here in LA, then read the hardcover, then told everyone that I loved it.  It wasn't quite enough to get me into her back catalog, but it was enough for me to check out her new work, The Möbius Book, which is billed as a combination memoir/fiction with a typographical stunt where the nonfiction is written in one direction, and then the fiction is written in the opposite direction.  Honestly, I would have bought a copy on my recent travels, but I couldn't find it anywhere.  Instead, I checked out the Audiobook from library.   Apologies to authorial intent.  

  It occurred to me, as it did to the reviewer in the New York Times, that Lacey might be playing a trick on the reader, as she is wont to do.  The Times wasn't the only review to make that point- a quick internet search revealed a feature from The Observer published in June which named her ex-husband, author Jesse Ball.  The memoir portion calls Ball "The Reason" and depicts a number of behaviors which, objectively speaking, border on the abusive.   I'm not talking in any criminal sense- the worst it gets is Ball/The Reason breaking things near the body of Lacey but it is disturbing stuff.   The fictional portion also deals with a woman, Edie, struggling with the end of a relationship, and her friend also dealing with the end of her lesbian marriage.  It all sounds pretty mundane, but Lacey is bonafide interesting author and I enjoyed the topic in spite of myself because of the wit and insightfulness Lacey brings to the table.  I think it is time to get into the back catalog.

 Also Happy Booker Longlist day!!!

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971) by Ernest J. Gaines

 1,001 Novels:  A Library of America

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971) 

by Ernest J. Gaines 

Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana 

Louisiana: 4/28

  It's true my progress on the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America has stalled out on two fronts- Pennsylvania, where Philly and the suburbs broke my heart with banality, and the deep south, where a lack of Audiobook options has sent me clambering back and forth between Georgia and Louisiana.  Compounding the situation is a general lack of interest in some of editor Susan Straight's favorite genres: sad coming-of-age stories and domestic fiction, generally.  Both genre's make a good fit for the criteria of the project, which seemingly dictates that a specific work be tied to a specific place- neither neglected/abused children in poverty nor housewives facing the same challenges go many places.   By the standards of the 1,001 Novels:  A Library of America, Miss Jane Pittman, the subject and narrator of her Autobiography, is well travelled.  Originally published in 1971, the Audiobook wasn't created for 25 years.  It was also hard not to think about the success of The Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All, which was published in 1989.  Surely Allan Gurganus, the author of The Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All was aware of this book when he wrote his book.

  The idea here is that Miss Jane Pittman lives a life that spans slavery to Civil War, born a slave, ending by marching for her rights in rural Louisiana.  In between, she lives a relatively privileged life, emerging out of the chaos of the Civil War to marry, survive her husband and settle down as a domestic servant who lives in the big house.  Along the way she sees plenty- mostly cruelty with some kindness sprinkled in.  Autobiography takes a hard right turn in the last third of the book to detail a doomed relationship between the white scion of the plantation and an "octoroon" schoolteacher from New Orleans before concluding during the Civil Rights era. 

  It makes for a great Audiobook because of the oral history format- Pittman recounting to an unseen scribe.