Out in the Open (2017) by Jesus Carrasco

 Book Review

Out in the Open (2017)

by Jesus Carrasco

Translated by Margaret Jill Costa

   I found this book via the Libby library app via the "other books like this one" feature, which is especially useful if you are reading a type of book and want to read other books like it but don't know much about that area.  Here, I was reading another book translated from Spanish and Out in the Open popped up.  The story is about a child fleeing an abusive situation in an isolated environment. I had in mind the desert southwest or northern Mexico, though there are no place names or even personal names to help pin down the location or specific environment.  It's bleak, to be sure, but to call it "dystopian" as does the libby editorial copy seems a bit much.  Not every child wandering around in a featureless desert is living in a dystopia. 

The Ways of Wolf(2017) by James Carlos Blake

 Audiobook Review

The Ways of the Wolf (2017)

by James Carlos Blake

   The New York Times obituary for noir/crime writer James Carlos Blake caught by attention by not only comparing him to Cormac McCarthy but also by using this sub-header: "His savage fiction, set in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, demonstrated his belief that “violence is the most elemental truth of life."   The fact that I'd never heard of him despite being a huge fan or McCarthy and decently well-versed in the world of crime fiction through friends & acquaintances is yet another example of how useful the New York Times obituary section can be for picking up new books to read.   Since he was a genre writer I thought I'd look for an Audiobook  but the only library available audiobook was the fifth volume in his Wolf family saga, about an Anglo-Texas cross-border family immersed in "the shade trade"- mostly selling guns to cartels as far as I can tell.

    Anyway, since I heard about Blake from a New York Times obituary, I'm not going to act like I'm on to anything here. I'm surprised there aren't Audiobooks available for all his titles.  I'm def going to look for his actual books when I am bookstores going forward.

Season of the Swamp (2024) by Yuri Herrera

 Book Review

Season of the Swamp (2024)

by Yuri Herrera

Translated by Lisa Dillman

    I checked out the e-book edition of Season of the Swamp by Mexican author Yuri Herrera based on the New York Times description- not necessarily the review, which was mixed, but the description, which promised a book about Mexican nationalist leader Benito Juarez and his time in exile in New Orleans- of all places- a time about which he spoke little and truly is one of those historical episodes which provides a nucleus for a potentially great work of fiction.  I read it a while back but wasn't compared to write this post until I saw this book was named as a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize "best fiction" category, alongside James by Percival Everett, All Fours by Miranda July, Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle and Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capo Crucet. 

     As it turns out, Juarez doesn't get up to much in New Orleans, which is why the LA Times nomination surprised me, surely "something happens" is a prerequisite for a best-book of the year award.  Here, little happens except Juarez experiencing various aspects of life in New Orleans with his buddies.   The character of Juarez is of course sensitive to the vagaries of race in ante-bellum New Orleans.  He was the first indigenous President of a North American country and at several points he or a companion is forced to explain to an on-looker that Juarez is not "just" an Indian (in the parlance of the times).   Despite being set in the mid 19th century, Juarez has all the characteristics of a modernist artist-in-exile character and if you had told me Season of the Swamp had been set in the early 20th century I might not have been able to tell the difference. 

    

  

Gliff (2025) by Ali Smith

 Book Review

Gliff (2025)

by Ali Smith

   I try to keep up with Scottish author Ali Smith.  She is both highly regarded in the literary world, with a slew of Booker shortlisting's (2001, 2005, 2014 and 2016) and shelf full with minor literary awards.  Smith is prolific for a writer of literary fiction, averaging a new book every couple of years.  I skipped her four volume cycle about the seasons- my least favorite literary motif, it slightly clips "the difficulties of young motherhood" in that department.  I did, however, pick-up Gliff, her latest, since it promised a post-apocalyptic milieu (yay!) seen through the eyes of a child (sigh).   The 1,001 Novels: A Library of America has pumped so full of YA lit and adult books written from the perspective of a child that I've developed a cogent body of criticisms regarding these books and their motifs. 

   Specifically, these books (YA books and those adult books written from the perspective of children) feature narrators and protagonists who can't go anywhere and can't do anything, and most every book that fits this description involves a child or "young adult" who is stuck somewhere and can't do anything about it but wants to "get out." The book is then about whether they escape their sad surroundings or fail to do so and why.  

   Gliff fits this description- the characters are a pair of siblings, the protagonist is the elder sibling, a boy, who have been rendered "unverifiable"- the dystopian/novel equivalent of being an illegal alien in this future.. England? Scotland?  Unverifiability has nothing to do with race or immigration status, but seems to have been applied to everyone who broadly disagrees with the current government.  Unlike most YA titles, the language in Gliff is interesting- I found myself looking up words and phrases online, trying to make sense of what Smith was talking about.  At least, in this way, Smith has created a work far different than the usual simple-minded YA dystopian tropes.  However, in another, more important (for this reader anyway) Smith has done nothing unusual in her plotting, which made me wonder whether she is trying for some kind of commercial success with Gliff- a book for the punters, in her mind, perhaps.  

    Having read the book, I don't know.