The Last Confession of Slyvia P. (2022) by Lee Kravertz

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Last Confession of Sylvia P. (2022)

by Lee Kravertz

Belmont, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 6/30

      I'm well into Massachusetts in the Audiobook portion of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project- the Audiobooks run ahead of the e-books and actual books because fewer than half of the titles are available as Audiobooks.  The Last Confession of Sylvia P. is an interesting novel by a debut author about- yes- you guessed it, poet-novelist-all-around-icon Sylvia Plath. Kravertz weaves historical fact and fiction together to tell the story of a hand written manuscript of The Bell Jar which is discovered during a house flip in the Boston area in 2019.  Kravertz travels backwards and forwards in time and invents several interesting characters- some real some fictional.  There's Robert Lowell, the real life poet, Boston Rhodes, a fictional antagonist who writes a similar style of poetry and Ruth Barnhouse, a pioneering psychiatrist (by pioneering I mean she is a woman psychiatrist in the 1950's, who treats Plath during her tempestuous teen years.

      And although The Last Confessions does of course go deeply into issues related to being a young woman and grappling with mental illness, it does so within the context of world-renowned poets, instead of being about another sad working class mom abandoned by the alcoholic father of her children- which is seriously the plot of about 20 percent of the books in the 1,001 Novels project up to this point. 

Zone One (2011) by Colson Whitehead

 Book Review

Zone One (2011)

by Colson Whitehead

  I think if you had to look at the top two authors to combine genre writing with literary fiction it would be 1) Kazuo Ishiguro because he won the Nobel Prize- not known for their embrace of genre-fiction embracing literary fiction and 2) Colson Whitehead- because he won the National Book Award AND the Pulitzer for Underground Railroad- a bold take on the alternate-history genre of science fiction.  His success with Underground Railroad was presaged by The Intuitionist, his debut novel and this book Zone One, his 2011 foray into Zombie-bit.  

  I read Zone One when it came out- bought the hardback first edition- but never wrote about it for this blog.  After listening to his latest book on Libby, I saw the Audiobook for Zone One and thought, "Hey, that looks fun!"  And it is, intermittently- the key difference between this book and his award winners is that this book is less concerned with telling an actual story and reads more like a work of literary fiction/experimental fiction set in a genre world than an actual attempt to fuse the two things- which his books after this point have accomplished as witnessed by their price winning status and universal acclaim. 

  What the reader gets in Zone One is basically a series of flashbacks where the protagonist muses about the lost world, spelled with episodes set in a post-zombie reconstruction lower Manhattan, where civilian-military personnel are mopping up, building by building after the Marines accomplished the heavy lifting.  Mark Spitz, the narrator, wasn't much in the world before, in the world after, he like, everybody else, is a survivor par excellence. If you take out the flashbacks, the story can be summarized in a sentence, but that also functions as a spoiler, so.  

She's Come Undone (1992) by Wally Lamb

1001 Novels: A Library of America

She's Come Undone (1992)

by Wally Lamb

Newport, Rhode Island

Rhode Island: 7/9

   The end is in sight for Rhode Island- another downer of a northeastern state without much joy to be found in it's selections from the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America.  I remember the sensation when She's Come Undone was released back in 1992.  I remember seeing it being carted around ad nauseum at my Bay Area high school by my female classmates and seeing it years afterward at college and in cafe's in various cities.  It was the fourth book in Oprah's Book Club and Lamb was the only man not Bill Cosby to be selected for years.  Importantly for its cultural longevity,  She's Come Undone was released in 1992 but Oprah didn't pick it till 1996 (the club didn't start until 1996).

 

  I never read it back then- I knew a 400 plus page book about a mentally disturbed young woman was not something I needed to take on when I was literally surrounded by them.  I remember, at the time, thinking that it was best to steer clear of women I saw carrying this book.   I can confirm, now having read She's Come Undone that I was right to be wary.  In 2023 what struck me most is that this a bildungroman/coming-of-age story written about a mentally ill, morbidly obese (she overcomes both hurdles) young woman, written by a middle aged man.  I went back and looked at the New York Times review- which didn't even mention it as an issue.  Obviously, Oprah well knew what she was doing when she picked it for her book club.  Critics at the time didn't see an issue and audiences obviously didn't care, maybe because Price is such a rich fictional creation. 

  At the same time it's hard to see a book written by a white middle age man about a woman who gets raped at 13, has major mental illness and spends her adolescence as a morbidly obese teen qualifies under whatever constitutes the authenticity threshold in 2023.  For example, if this book was about a non-white protagonist it's hard to imagine Lamb would have gotten the same pass, now or then.  

   

Venomous Lumpsucker (2022) by Ned Beauman

 Book Review

Venomous Lumpsucker (2022)

by Ned Beauman

   There are a couple ways I keep track of what books I want to read- the first tier is the New York Times book section, the reviews that appear in the Guardian and the publications I have in my feedly- Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, etc.  Second tier is the nominees and winners for a host of literary prizes- The Booker Prize is my number one, then the National Book Award then the secondary awards- usually just the winners.  The Arthur C. Clarke award, which was established in 1987 for the "best science fiction" book published first in the UK in the preceding year.   If you look at the past winners you've got a pretty good guide to the important stopping points in the continuing intersection of science fiction/genre and literary fiction.  Previous winners include trailblazers like Margaret Atwood- The Handmaidens Tale was the original winner in 1987, Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson, Emily St. John Mandel, Colson Whitehead and Namwali Serpell- all authors who are widely read by the general reading audience for literary fiction.

   Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman was the Arthur C. Clarke prize winner this year.  I checked it out from the library in an e-book when I read the announcement, only to learn that I'd checked it out when it was originally released and didn't actually read it. Beauman is another science fiction/literary fiction cross-over author.  His 2011 book, The Teleportation Accident made the then Man Booker Prize longlist. 

    Like many succesful works of cross-over literary/science fiction, Venomous Lumpsucker dwells in a future that is close enough to be described with the vocabulary of the present, but different enough to evoke interest.  The world of Venomous Lumpsucker is recognizably a variation on "the not so distant future," global warming/climate change continues unabated, but the United Nations has somehow managed to set up a binding system of extinction credits to manage the competing needs of economic growth and environmental protection but you probably don't need me to tell you how that is going at the beginning of the book.

   The two major characters are Karen Resaint, a hired gun who helps companies manage the extinction process and Mark Halyard, the employee of an Indian mining conglomerate charged with their end of what Resaint calls, "the extinction industry."  The plot is set in motion by a surprise attack on a "bio-bank" used by governments and corporations to store the genetic data of now extinct species.  The bio bank is wiped out.  The value of extinction credits goes up by a factor of 10 (50,000 to 500,000) over-night, which leads to complications for Halyard, who is now caught in a semi-illicit act of arbitrage which centers on the work done by Resaint.  My feeling is that the sophistication of the set-up- which involves an university level of contemporary economics- should be enough to intrigue a potential reader if the pedigree of the Arthur C. Clarke.

  The action that follows the set up isn't particularly inventive, but the reader is carried along by the richness of the world Beauman described- down to his coy use of the term The Hermit Kingdom to describe what has happened in the United Kingdom- a transition that mostly remains off stage until the exciting conclusion of the book. 

The Ice Storm (1994) by Rick Moody

 1001 Novels: A Library of America

The Ice Storm (1994)

by Rick Moody

New Canaan, Connecticut

Connecticut: 5/9

    I think most people, to the extent they remember Ice Storm, remember the movie version by Ang Lee which was a flop but generally well received by critics because of the combination of cast and director.  Upon finally reading the book, the clear missing ingredient in the translation from page to screen was humor.  Ang Lee has never been a dude who makes funny feature films.   The book, on the other hand, is very funny- this is actually the first book by Rick Moody I've read.

   The portions written from the perspective of Elena- the bored housewife of one of the two families that comprise the core of the plot- are virtuoso discussions of the arcane field of 70's self-help movements, and finely observed details all around elevate the bored, cheating suburbanites of the Ice Storm in roughly the same way Patrick Bateman elevated homicidal trust fund stock 1980's stock traders- it's roughly the same kind of situation.  There is a glossy, writerly sheen on absolutely everything.  It makes Ice Storm highly enjoyable, but twenty years later the chapters written from the perspective of creepy Wendy Hood borderline cringe inducing.  IDK, certainly in 1994 there was no issue.

  Man, Connecticut though, not a particularly exciting state to be in.  Five of the nine books are concentrated in the suburban square closest to New York City, one is set around Yale and the other three are in and around Hartford. Not the most exciting venues for literature and fiction.

Unravelling (1997) by Elizabeth Graver

 1001 Novels: A Library of America

Unravelling (1997)

by Elizabeth Graver

Lowell, Massachusetts

Massachusetts: 5/30

    If you've ever wanted to read a book about what it's like to a knocked-up millhand in 1840's Lowell, Massachusetts, Unravelling is the book for you.  Back in 1997 when Unravelling was released it got a decent New York Times review and an excerpt in the paper.   Anyway- it's told from the locked in perspective of  Aimee- an outcast of her New Hampshire farm village at 31, as she reminisces on the sequence of events that led her to her independent-but-shunned status.

  It is a tale as old as the city itself: child lured to the city for work, corrupted by said city and ruined. Those seeking uplift won't find it here- Aimee is forced to give up her twins for adoption and never sees them again, or even has the opportunity to seriously look for them, her being an outcast surviving in a shack in the woods.  Grim stuff.  Very New England.  Thankfully brief.  I loved the depictions of factory life in Lowell- I've been trying to visit the factory museum there for a decade without success.