The Souvenir Museum (2021) by Elizabeth McCracken

Book Review

The Souvenir Museum (2021)

by Elizabeth McCracken

  Only two more books left for me on the 2021 National Book Award Fiction longlist.   McCracken, a short story specialist has three longlist nominations starting with her story collection The Giants House in 1994.  I wonder if her failure to progress from the longlist can be explained by her decision to write short stories.   I've tried to grapple with my dislike of the format, particularly as I've tried to introduce more diversity into my reading list;   McCracken is a very New England author, she lives there, and most of her stories are set there, although large chunks of the stories in The Souvenir Museum are set in the UK and one takes place mostly in the Netherlands. 

  McCracken is funny, and her characters ring true, but mostly they sound like well educated, middle class or upper class white New Englanders who have some sort of issues in their interpersonal relationships and/or unresolved issues in their personal history.  Oh, wait did I just describe every collection of short stories published in the United States this year? Maybe not all of them, but most.

Sankofa (2021) by Chibundo Onuzo

Nigerian author Chibundo Onuzo

Book Review

Sankofa (2021)

by Chibundo Onuzo

   Genuinely loved this novel by Nigerian author Chibundo Onuzo, about a mixed race British woman, raised by her white mother, who discovers that her husband is the liberator and "Big Man" (and Dictator) of a fictionalized West African nation that combines elements of many different African experiences.  Anna Graham is the narrator and protagonist, 50ish, separated from her white husband.  Her white daughter is a workaholic who struggles with bulimia.  Anna struggles with her own pain, that of growing up in a London council flat in the 1970's with a Welsh Mother who refuses to acknowledge her race in an attempt to "protect" her.   The mechanics of the plot are set into motion when Graham, cleaning out her Mother's flat after her recent death, discovers the journal kept by Francis Aggery, an African student who stayed as a boarder in her Grandfather's house when he was studying in London.

    Aggrey returns to his fictional home of Bamana when his Mother falls ill and ends up leading the liberation struggle and becoming the dictator of the small, diamond rich country.  Graham's first trip is to the library, where she reads up on her absent dad.  Her reading reveals some good- Aggrey- the liberation struggle, years in prison followed by his post-independence elevation to the Presidency, and an early  Presidency that evokes much of the hope that followed African independence; some bad- Aggrey eventually becomes a dictator for much of his reign before stepping down; and some ugly- the state sponsored murder of five students- the Kinnarko Five.

  After that she becomes determined to travel to Bamana and meet her Dad, an adventure that takes up the rest of the book.  Onuzo writes with style and aplomb, she has a sense of humor for sure, and Onuzo's experiences in Bamana manage to combine the perspective of an African with the impressions of a Londoner.  I highly recommend the Audiobook version so you can hear the accents of the characters.

The Book of Mother (2021) by Violaine Huisman

French author VIolaine Huisman

Book Review

The Book of Mother (2021)

by Violaine Huisman

   The Book of Mother calls itself a novel on the cover, but even if you know nothing at all about the author, French writer Violaine Huisman, after reading The Book of Mother you will be left contemplating the difference between auto-fiction and the novel.  I guess it is not technically auto-fiction in that half the book actually tells the story of mother herself, Maman, and her own mother, in that the personal history involves the circumstances behind her (Maman's) own birth,. 

   In the end, The Book of Mother is a closely observed depiction of the consequences of a life afflicted by mental illness, with Maman following the familiar pattern of a high-achieving mentally ill woman who manages to marry and have children in a somewhat normal fashion only to break down over time from a combination of dependency, bad choices and unresolved emotional trauma.   It's hardly a narrative specific to France, but Maman does self destruct with the kind of elan you only see in the French.